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From Pain to Purpose - Russ Blaylock Part 2. · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

0:04
Welcome to the Propane to Purpose radio show.
0:07
I'm your host Viva Fulton. In this show we explore the
0:11
incredible journeys of resilience, healing, and
0:13
transformation. In each episode, we will sit
0:17
down with individuals good face unimaginable struggles and turn
0:21
their pain into power, heartbreak into hope, and their
0:25
challenges into meaningful change and finding new purpose
0:28
in life. Through candid conversations and
0:31
inspiring stories, we will uncover how pain, whether
0:35
emotional, physical, mental, or spiritual, can be the catalyst
0:40
for profound growth and a deeper sense of purpose.
0:43
So if you are looking for motivation, insight, and real
0:46
stories of triumph over adversity, you're in the right
0:50
place. Let's get started on this
0:52
journey from pain to purpose. Let's give veterans a voice
0:55
through military broadcast talk. Hello everybody, how are you
1:01
happy Saturday, August 29th, the year of our Lord twenty 26th.
1:09
I'm going to I'm going to say all right, the Satan's having
1:13
some fun today because man I got on and my guest couldn't hear me
1:20
talk this my microphone was not working.
1:25
I had to reboot the computer and now I have like this little
1:29
password thing that I'm seeing on the screen.
1:32
I don't know the gremlins today. You know, this is where I like,
1:35
OK, I know I'm doing God's work because the gremlins come out
1:39
and I really, I just kind of laugh.
1:42
OK, whatever, whatever. So I got to do something a
1:47
little fun today besides working on my RV.
1:51
I'll get to that in a minute. You know, for those of you don't
1:55
know, my daughter is engaged and we went on our first personal
2:01
bridal shopping adventure together.
2:04
Didn't get anything for her, but I got a couple of things for the
2:08
house. So it's kind of funny how that
2:10
works, but I did, I did get something from Amazon that came
2:14
in while ago, so I can't wait to share that with her.
2:18
She knows it's coming. I got her approval on it before
2:22
I purchased it, but she'll she'll look like a doll when we
2:26
go out and do our, you know, bridal shopping thing with her.
2:30
So anyhow, RV is coming along making a lot of great progress,
2:38
have extra supplies to take back, which is good.
2:41
And now I'm getting to kind of work on some of the finishes.
2:45
What did the finishes look like? Because you know that the hard
2:50
work really on some of these projects is the demo, right?
2:55
Just figuring out how to demo work.
2:59
And it's so funny how that parallels with life and trying
3:04
to figure out, all right, if I take this out, this, this
3:08
thing's kind of rotten. We got to get rid of this out of
3:10
our life. We got to get this out of our
3:12
life. And then you got to start
3:14
figuring out, well, how do I rebuild my life, right?
3:19
So for those of you don't know, you know, my guest is Russ
3:24
Blaylock, and he's coming back for a Part 2 today.
3:28
And, you know, one of the things that I have not really talked
3:32
much about it was that, you know, I was the wife of an
3:36
alcoholic. And I give enough of the back
3:40
story in my book. Welcome to my People Garden.
3:44
The newer version is I need a poster, need to create a poster,
3:49
but of the new have the new cover.
3:53
But I was the wife of of an alcoholic and it took me a while
3:58
to figure that out. And, you know, there were some
4:01
incidences that happened physically that, you know, you
4:07
don't often know how to handle some of this stuff.
4:13
And it doesn't really hit you in the face, right?
4:15
We don't really grasp the the issues about things until you
4:24
get smacked in the face. And, you know, from a legal
4:27
perspective and, and you know, when I talked with the, you
4:34
know, attorneys in Tarrant County at the time, they're
4:39
like, you know, you could file a restraining order.
4:44
This actually qualifies you for victim witness, you know, kind
4:49
of protections and stuff like that.
4:53
So you have to have to know how to navigate some of these trials
4:57
in life and understanding whether you were a veteran or
5:03
not, right? Alcohol effects many of our
5:06
lives. I think one of the things that I
5:09
want to talk to Russ about today is the difference between
5:14
Alcoholics who are binge drinkers versus those who do the
5:19
sneaking around versus though who's who.
5:23
You know, they, they blatantly do the drinking and there is,
5:28
you know, the, the bottles it endless, endless, what is it?
5:32
The bottomless bottle, I think is one of those phrases.
5:35
And but a lot of it has to do with the culture that we allow
5:41
ourselves to be in our people garden, right?
5:44
I always talk about the people garden side of things.
5:47
We are a reflection of the people garden that we are
5:50
participating in. And I, I want to hear Russ's
5:56
input. Maybe you guys, you know, will
5:59
understand that too. Coming from the military side of
6:03
things, we're often a reflection of the culture that we're in,
6:08
whether it's work, whether it's the military, whether it's
6:11
family and lifestyle, and how do we navigate some of those
6:15
things. I think there was something that
6:19
he had, I was going to go back to, I can't see it right now,
6:25
but part of his story, Russ's story has to do with, you know,
6:32
the journey, right, going from doing very well.
6:39
But how, how does, how does alcohol in life bring us to this
6:44
cliffhanger and life and we have this wake up call.
6:48
I got to do something different 'cause this isn't working, all
6:50
right? It's insanity.
6:51
So anyways, so I'm going to bring on Bruce Blaylock.
6:56
Hi, I'm beaker with military broadcast radio TV.
7:00
We're your virtual MWR bringing veteran.
7:12
The interview of the week is brought to you by Jersey Mike's,
7:16
a sub above. I know you've been having some
7:20
technical difficulties today. Can you hear me now?
7:24
Yes, I can I hit the wrong the wrong video that was the the
7:30
first one was the actually he was.
7:31
Really not impressed before I even got started.
7:33
I mean just boot me out that quickly.
7:35
Wow. So.
7:39
That's the difference between looking at things with my
7:42
computer glasses versus not, right?
7:46
No, I know you're paying so. How are you doing today?
7:51
You're doing pretty great. How are you other than the
7:54
technical difficulties? Glad, glad you got.
7:56
That right, We're doing God's work, right?
7:59
Satan's trying to steal, kill and destroy the happiness and
8:03
joy, and we're going to say Nope, we're going to overcome.
8:07
We are going to overcome, yeah. Great to be here.
8:14
Thanks for. Yeah, I did.
8:16
Thanks for having me back. I had a good week so just
8:20
staying busy again just what we spoke about before.
8:23
Life just lifing and right. Few challenges here and there
8:27
but made it so anyway, glad to be here.
8:30
Good, good. Well, we, I think when we
8:34
finished talking last week, we're like, hey, I think that
8:37
there was more to say. I don't think that we finished
8:41
getting through really your story and you know, some of
8:47
these decision crossroads that you had to make.
8:50
Do you want do you want to cut? Yeah.
8:54
Where do you want to start? Well, OK, Yeah.
8:59
I mean, just kind of as a recap from the last time we spoke, I
9:02
think we, we were speaking kind of more about the question of
9:07
whether or not you have an addiction problem.
9:09
In my case, I, I know what I know which it's alcoholism.
9:13
So I'll use that term, you know, kind of broadly, but addictions,
9:16
addiction vices or vices. But we kind of went over to some
9:21
of the things to identify and look for and, and just seeing,
9:24
you know, kind of what's happened in your life.
9:27
That's great for people to self identify, but it, it's one of
9:31
those things too, that I know what worked for me to really
9:35
grasp where I was, was I had to walk in and hear other people's
9:39
stories too. And, and to hear just how bad it
9:43
got for some people. And so, you know, my story,
9:47
there's always someone out there who's this story is crazier than
9:51
mine. And for other people, they need
9:54
to kind of hear those stories. So I guess I can just kind of
9:57
back up and try to broadly go over, you know, how I got where
10:00
I am today, if that's OK with you.
10:03
And yeah, so I mean, just as a recap, I, I really had a great
10:08
life as a kid. I kind of grew up on a farm
10:11
slash nursery and I had a father that was an alcoholic.
10:13
And, you know, I always knew that there was something wrong
10:19
with the association of alcohol as it pertained to him and
10:23
growing older. I, I abstained from alcohol
10:26
until I was 21 and I got involved.
10:29
You were talking about just the culture and things like that.
10:32
I got involved in the restaurant industry and it was evident in
10:36
that environment. It was downhill from from there.
10:40
And every time the bottle touched my lips, there was
10:45
always an incident. And you know, normal drinkers,
10:48
or as we call them normies, they can go through life and enjoy
10:52
alcohol responsibly if you like that term.
10:56
And they don't have the incidents, I know that I did.
11:00
I had a series of incidents that other people would consider
11:04
their rock bottom. But kind of like your tolerance
11:08
for the drink itself, as your tolerance for the drink goes up,
11:14
in my case, and I hear this a lot with other people too, so
11:16
does your tolerance for rock bottom.
11:19
And it gets harder and harder to really be shaken up by the
11:24
things that happened to you because this.
11:27
Is slippery slope right? It's a slippery slope.
11:31
Absolutely. So you know, my slippery slope
11:34
it was, it was always kind of going from the life of the party
11:38
to the fool of the party really quickly later on the first DWI.
11:44
And for most people that's a wake up call enough in itself.
11:48
Not for me. I had to go back out and do some
11:51
more market research and to someone like myself who had ego
11:57
involved and not being able to kind of supplant the ego and
12:02
really ask for help. I was trying to figure out how I
12:05
could drink my way around the law.
12:08
So there were more DW is to come and that's really tough to to
12:12
deal with. You know, we, we live in a we
12:16
live in a community right now. Sorry, my dogs are deciding to
12:19
go off as they, there's somebody at the door.
12:22
But so you know, the second DWI, you would think that that would
12:27
wake you up, the third, etcetera.
12:30
But in the state of Texas, they take the third DWI very
12:33
seriously. And I was facing a possible
12:37
prison sentence. I was trying my best to see if I
12:39
could get out of it again and get yet some more grace.
12:44
As if the first two, you know, graceful probations weren't
12:47
enough. But no, I ended up doing one
12:50
year on a 2 year prison sentence.
12:52
That was back in 2014. My family was estranged, broke
12:58
my mother's heart of course. And I remember my dad and I
13:01
eating breakfast at a little Cafe and he said you're going to
13:06
get through this. And that was the last time I saw
13:08
him when he dropped me off to get signed for my time.
13:11
And so, you know, anyone who goes into a scenario where they
13:17
find out they're going to go to prison, if they say that they're
13:19
not scared, they're lying. And, you know, I had a lot to
13:25
think about there in county for a couple of months before I
13:29
caught a chain to the Texas State Penitentiary.
13:33
And as I was going in, I kept thinking to myself, the crazier
13:39
I act in here, maybe nobody's going to want this.
13:42
I had all these ideas in my head of what it was going to be like.
13:45
A lot of that was kind of silly things that never came to
13:48
fruition. But what I was surprised by was
13:51
my lack of fraternity growing up, not being in the military.
13:56
I hadn't played football since the 9th grade.
13:59
When I got into the system, I actually kind of enjoyed the
14:04
camaraderie of it all. So again, life lessons were not
14:07
being absorbed in the way in my head, the way I think it was
14:12
intended to. And the last six months that I
14:16
was in prison, I actually became a peer support counselor in the
14:19
unit where I was teaching some LCDC classes.
14:23
And that was the con in me that got myself into that position.
14:28
So ergo, when I got out at the end of the year, it wasn't three
14:34
months later that I violated parole again and was in trouble
14:37
again with the drink. You know, I talk about in my
14:44
book, I talk about the lies, the lies that we tell ourselves are
14:51
more damaging and worse than the lies that other people tell us.
14:57
Because it's like what you said, we, we con ourselves, you know,
15:00
oh, I can just have this cookie and it's OK.
15:03
I can have this drink and it's OK.
15:05
We tell ourselves these lies. Oh, I can buy this thing and you
15:10
know, I can have another cigarette.
15:12
I can have another drink. I can't.
15:14
We tell the the the worst liars and the worst effect are the the
15:20
very lies that we tell ourselves.
15:23
Right. And we have to stop.
15:25
We have to stop believing our own lies.
15:29
Or as I call it, you know, I was always the quickest person to
15:34
purchase my own BS. And you know, I had, I had been
15:39
in sales my entire life, you know, in and out of sales as
15:42
well as the, the restaurant industry.
15:45
Those two industries, both were pressure cookers, ego driven,
15:51
money driven, driving yourself to exhaustion, all of the
15:57
perfect kind of culminations for an addict's brain to lead to.
16:02
Nowhere good. But moreover, too, I could sell
16:05
myself and what my choices were that it was going to be OK, that
16:12
we would maybe just have another slap on the wrist.
16:15
And yeah, I I totally understand what you're saying.
16:18
I buy my own BS. I'm the first person that I sell
16:22
it to before I go push it on anybody else.
16:26
Yeah. So how do you, how do you, how
16:29
did you learn how to change those mechanics 'cause that's to
16:34
me and somewhat it is a mechanical thing you got to re
16:37
bring. So using a change management
16:40
model like the wheel turn around, how do you, you know,
16:43
you just imagine, how do you change those iterative steps,
16:47
the mechanics to retrain your thinking and say, OK, I, I can't
16:54
BS myself anymore. Well, and you know The thing is,
16:58
is there you, you mentioned that there can be training and that
17:02
there can be some mechanical absorption so to speak and how
17:07
we retrain our brain. And you see a lot of that in
17:13
some of the same LCDC classes that I was kind of participating
17:17
in and administering while I was there in the unit in that
17:21
community. You know, cognitive behavioral
17:24
therapy works to a point, but I think that cognitive behavioral
17:30
therapy is something that you can implement after God really
17:36
clips your wings. And he hadn't clipped mine yet
17:41
because I didn't have the ability to identify the grace
17:46
that had been given me multiple times before, and because I had
17:51
my own spiritual sickness as an agnostic, God knew that I needed
17:56
a few more Hard Knocks after I got out of there.
18:00
And so a few years went by and the drinking got progressively
18:05
worse. I was able to stay out of
18:09
trouble for for several years. But that's just with the law.
18:13
I was still in trouble with myself.
18:16
I was still in trouble with my family.
18:20
It was it was all falling apart, job after job after job.
18:24
All the signs were there that a normal person would say, hey,
18:27
this is rock bottom, you know, get up and you know, in about
18:32
four years ago, I had basically run off everybody that cared
18:37
about me, everybody that loved me.
18:39
And I was sitting in the house by myself.
18:43
I know that I was my liver was failing.
18:46
If you could have seen what I looked like.
18:48
I didn't even want, you know, want to look at myself in the
18:50
mirror. I was almost £300.
18:53
I'm all of five, seven on a good tall shoe day and.
18:57
I can't imagine you at close to £300.
19:01
Yeah, well, please. Try not, I mean, I have not met
19:04
you in person so but just looking at you on the screen, I
19:08
can't imagine you at that. You know, Mark was 511 1/2.
19:13
He wanted, he wanted to make sure he had that extra half
19:17
inch, but he was. He.
19:19
Was yeah, he was probably close to 250.
19:24
Mark was a big man 'cause he was like Mr. Clean Gas Carry.
19:28
She'll tell you, You know, he looked like Mr. Clean had the
19:33
bald head and everything. But he, yeah, he died of stage 4
19:38
liver disease. You know, he'd and it didn't
19:41
have to be that way. I mean, it was a choice every
19:44
time, every time he took the glass.
19:47
And he remember the Cryptosporidium thing back in
19:52
about 2006 or 7. Do you remember crypto being in
19:57
the news? So our son Cody got crypto at
20:01
Keller Point. Mark and I got the cousins of
20:05
Crypto from Keller Point at the same.
20:08
And Mark. Mark didn't get, Mark got sick,
20:12
not as sick as Cody did at the time.
20:15
Cody was practically ready for the hospital, but we were able
20:18
to get a control. But Mark got sick too, and he
20:22
didn't ever really quite get over it 'cause he took all the
20:26
extra testing and figured out that he had stage 4 liver
20:31
disease and he had, he had some impotence problems that also
20:41
affected our marriage because then he wanted to watch porn.
20:45
I had a moral issue with that. I'm, I'm Catholic, I had a moral
20:51
issue with, you know, that being brought into our marriage.
20:58
That was very difficult for me. You know, I think it's important
21:04
for having these kinds of conversations for folks to
21:08
understand the impact that I, I was the spouse of an alcoholic
21:13
who, who was his, the alcoholism was not just about him.
21:19
It was affecting me, it was affecting us, it was affecting
21:23
our family and we ended up losing him.
21:26
So thank God, Russ, that you've had, you know, an appointment
21:32
with God to say, hey, you got to do something different and
21:36
you're finding your purpose through your story.
21:41
Thank you. Yeah, yeah.
21:42
I mean, I feel, I feel very blessed that it's happened even
21:47
the way that it that it had to happen.
21:49
And you know, like you said, it's, it's not only if there's
21:55
one alcoholic in a family, it's still a family disease.
21:59
I mean, the tornado, the destruction, it goes, it goes
22:05
every, the debris field is huge, I'll put it that way.
22:08
And in my, in my situation too, that was, that was difficult.
22:15
Even more so is that we were a dual alcoholic family.
22:20
You know, the my spouse and I both we're drinkers and it's
22:25
unfortunately whenever you're trying to get sober on your own
22:29
without a program or without a higher power centered in your
22:33
life. So when people, let's say we get
22:36
the flu or you're talking about a disease, sometimes if you get
22:40
it the same time, you both recover at the same time.
22:42
But in a dual addict household, it's not like that.
22:47
Somebody can get sober for a few weeks or a few months and then
22:50
about that time that they do, someone comes back in.
22:53
It's like giving the flu back and forth to one another.
22:55
It can never happen at the same time because it's an individual
22:59
fight, just like your relationship with God is an
23:04
individual fight. And I have told.
23:06
You the the visual I'm getting my head is you're both on the
23:10
roller coaster ride, but you're what if he's at the front
23:15
hitting a different hump than the person is at the back of the
23:19
train hitting a different hump? All the time.
23:24
Right. And you so you're on the same
23:26
ride, but you're in different stages.
23:29
That's hard to. Manage.
23:30
You know if and if any of your if any of your listeners are
23:34
identifying to any part of my story at all.
23:39
There's a lot of codependency with addicts and you put 2
23:43
addicts in the same house, the codependency is its own
23:47
different thing. And you know, so at one point
23:52
where I told you before, I had been sober for a couple of
23:55
years, but it wasn't in a 12 step program.
23:58
There was no spiritual identification.
24:00
My health was just as bad. My blood pressure was through
24:05
the roof. COVID visited us and that was
24:08
all the excuse I needed to drink again and it was off to the
24:11
races. These are sprees we're always
24:14
looking for an excuse to have a spree.
24:17
And at that point, between COVID and me really drinking like on
24:22
steroids, so to speak, that's when my health went into total
24:25
decline. My wife had had enough.
24:28
She moved out with the kids. And I was sitting here by myself
24:33
in the house and I I was watching something probably on
24:36
like the Jaya channel or something, and I watched someone
24:39
talking about spirituality. And I knew that I wanted to
24:43
believe in a God, but because of my own resentments of the
24:47
church, I couldn't do it. And something popped up on the
24:51
channel that spoke to me in a way that I could identify with
24:55
that spiritual concept. And I got overjoyed.
25:00
But I didn't know where I could go to a church, an organization,
25:04
any place to find a way to worship what I'd just seen on
25:09
TV, sitting there drunk in my own stink.
25:13
The dogs didn't leave me. They were, they were the only
25:15
ones on the couch that could they could stand me.
25:18
And I did ask God to show me a way to access that.
25:22
And it was 2 weeks later I was arrested for another felony,
25:26
DWI. And this time I was going to be
25:30
facing serious time. Serious time.
25:35
And I kind of thought to myself, this was not the answer I was
25:38
looking for in that final prayer that call out to any God that
25:44
would help me. That was not what I was betting
25:47
on. Right.
25:50
But it turned out that it was because, again, I think you have
25:55
to have your wings totally clipped before you can really
25:59
grasp what your higher power, your relationship with God is
26:03
going to be. And so just to kind of continue
26:07
with the story, I knew I was facing probably eight years.
26:14
I'm sitting in there and I had a plan.
26:17
My plan was a control plan if I could get on the phone with my
26:22
wife and control her from inside a jail cell and get her to take
26:28
the tax return and bond me out. My plan was was to hop on a
26:32
cruise ship that would take some kind of stop down around Cozumel
26:37
someplace that I could get off and run away to Mexico.
26:40
Now what could have gone wrong with that plan as a drunk
26:44
running from the law in another country, right?
26:46
But in my sick head, it sounded great and she refused, which
26:53
incensed me more and more and more.
26:56
But then the DA came to me with an offer of a program called
27:01
faith. And it was felony alcohol
27:03
intervention program. And I knew a little bit about
27:06
it. And I knew that it was a it was
27:08
a last chance for people that were facing real time.
27:12
And it was going to force me to jump through all sorts of hoops
27:15
that I knew I didn't have the support group to stand behind me
27:19
and, and, and help me through. And when they took me down in
27:25
front of the DA, I had decided already that I was going to tell
27:29
them to take the offer and tell them where to go stick it.
27:35
And I walked into the courtroom and I sat down at a desk and I
27:40
saw this man in front of me. And immediately I could not
27:43
stand everything about him. His hair was perfect.
27:46
His suit was perfect and I knew he was going to offer me this
27:50
program and I was going to tell him that I didn't want it.
27:53
And the words that came out of his mouth was, he said, Mr.
27:56
Blalock, tell me why you want this program.
28:00
I never asked for it. They came to me with it first
28:03
thing. And I think the first experience
28:05
with God was that the words that came out of my mouth were not my
28:08
own. I said I want to try to be a
28:11
father to my voice and he continued to listen and I said I
28:16
want help. I need help and I'm sick and
28:19
tired of being sick and tired. And he's writing everything down
28:23
and I can't believe these words are coming out of my mouth
28:26
because I know what I'm committing myself to.
28:29
And at the end of it, he said, we'll get back to you.
28:32
And I walked back to my jail cell, and I couldn't believe
28:35
what I had just done because I knew that if they did take, they
28:40
want to sign me up for something that I would have to rely on
28:43
other people's help for. Because you can't drive on your
28:47
own. You have to have a curfew.
28:49
You have to have someone in the household that's going to
28:51
sponsor you, who's sober, All of these criteria that I knew that
28:55
I didn't meet. And I got the answer back.
28:58
And they said, congratulations, you got the program.
29:01
But I almost turned Grace down. For folks, so for folks who are
29:12
tuning in, I have posted what the program is that Russ is
29:18
talking about. This is for Tarrant County in
29:21
Texas. You may have one of your own
29:23
programs in your local jurisdiction, but it is the fate
29:28
program that he is talking about, the felony alcohol intake
29:33
program. So sorry, I didn't mean to
29:35
interrupt you, but I wanted to make sure that we pointed out
29:39
for folks that you know, there are some websites out there.
29:43
Just look it up. Right.
29:46
And I mean, if you look it up, you can look it up to see kind
29:49
of what the hoops are that you have to jump into.
29:52
But as you're as you're kind of looking at your own situation,
29:56
remember this in the county that I was arrested in, for example,
30:00
there's 6000 convictions a year. They only take 100 people in
30:05
this program. Wow, is it like a still in a
30:08
study stage or something like that?
30:11
Are they studying the effects of it for a stricter?
30:15
Intervention. I believe so because what
30:20
happens is, is in phase one of that program, I have to report
30:24
to court every single week. I have to wake up at 5:00 in the
30:28
morning and call a hotline and see if I have to go do a drug
30:31
test. Have to have an ankle monitor
30:34
that actually takes a sample of your sweat to see if there's
30:37
alcohol in your system. You can't take a bath or go into
30:42
the pool or go to the ocean with it.
30:45
You're chained to their system. You have to check in with a
30:49
curfew on an app at night proving that you are at your
30:52
house. You're supposed to be, there are
30:55
so many different classes that you're having to take all of
30:58
that. And part of that is you report
31:00
to court in phase one every single week so that the judge
31:02
and the DA can ask how you're doing and make sure that you're
31:06
following up on all the right criteria.
31:09
And you have people on the defense side and the prosecuting
31:12
side over there taking notes. And it's because the state of
31:16
Texas took a great risk on this program and they are trying to
31:18
monitor and see what the success rate is so that they can expand
31:22
it and broaden it. And so, yeah, when you look at
31:25
the numbers, myself being one of 100 people out of 6000
31:29
convictions a year, my sponsor at my 12 step program told me
31:34
one time when I was complaining that I had to walk to an, a, a
31:37
meeting. He said, brother, he said you
31:39
get to walk to an, a a meeting, you should be in jail.
31:43
And he said you need to learn what Grace looks like because
31:45
you got it. Yeah, yeah.
31:50
Just so you know, as you were telling the other part of your
31:54
story about the words that you were, you know, that you were
31:59
saying to that counselor at Goosebumps, God gave you those
32:04
words to say now is the time you were going to receive it.
32:11
And so, yeah, that that also means that there is a certain
32:15
amount of paying it forward to help somebody else navigate this
32:21
is so is that what you've been doing now?
32:23
And this part of the reason why I think you're on the show
32:25
today, right, is the paying it forward that there is some hope
32:32
that addiction doesn't have to rule your life.
32:37
That's true. And I mean, again, you know,
32:40
last time we kind of talked briefly on just some of the
32:42
different, some of the different resources out there for people,
32:48
you know, who we, we're trying to address here.
32:50
If you think you have a problem, you probably do.
32:54
And again, in the 12 step program I attend and I kind of
32:58
have to thread this needle loosely because there's a lot of
33:01
ways that you can get help in recovery.
33:04
And I have my opinion on on the ones that work and the ones that
33:07
don't or what I see more success rates in.
33:11
I can't express enough how grateful I am that part of that
33:15
fate program is that of all the hoops they make you jump
33:18
through, all the classes that they make you take.
33:22
And you know, there were punitive actions taken against
33:25
you and sanctions against you if you missed a class.
33:28
But the one thing that they were hell bent on was that you will
33:32
attend a certain amount of meetings a week because they
33:35
know that the community of people who identify with one
33:40
another as the programs, the 12 step programs were created.
33:44
Nothing ensures safety against the drink greater than working
33:49
with another alcoholic. We have to realize where so many
33:53
of us thought that we didn't belong and that's why we drank.
33:57
Embrace your superpower of your addiction and identifying as an
34:01
alcoholic because then you'll find your community of people
34:05
who think and feel like you. And you know you can do your
34:10
research and see which brand of that looks right for you.
34:13
But on your own is not the way to attempt this.
34:19
It has to be in a community of people that identify with the
34:24
way you think and feel and obsess and try to escape.
34:29
End of. Story, but I but I think that
34:31
that's even applicable, like even in the veteran community
34:34
and you know, folks feeling disconnected because they think
34:39
that, hey, they don't the civilians don't understand me
34:43
and then so they self retreat and they don't get out there and
34:48
to the veteran community and find like minded people.
34:51
You know, it's we have to get over ourselves.
34:55
I learned that as a phrase a long time ago.
34:58
Get over yourself and and be a friend to yourself and get and
35:03
find the community that you belong to.
35:05
And I don't care whether it's maybe you want to identify as a
35:09
bowling community. You know, get out there and and
35:13
golfers. Those are communities that
35:16
you're going to get out there and find your find your tribe.
35:21
Yeah. And you know, if you spend
35:23
enough time in, for example, a 12 step program, you kind of
35:27
learn some little key things about identifying other people
35:31
who, you know, share your condition.
35:34
And you realize that whether you're out golfing, bowling,
35:38
hiking, whatever the case is, you'll pick up on a different
35:41
type of language that the normies don't pick up on.
35:45
You will pick up on language used by someone who has gotten
35:49
through the program and is utilizing that that program as a
35:54
means of recovery. And there's a beauty in that.
35:57
It's kind of our own fraternity. You know, it's kind of our own,
36:01
our own club. But getting there is the hard
36:04
part. And you mentioned kind of the
36:06
sense of self or feeling alone. My fraternity is that of other
36:15
Alcoholics wherever I find myself in the world.
36:20
And you know, that's something that a normal drinker can't
36:23
identify with. But once I have that, I have to
36:27
always remember that no matter how strong I am in the community
36:31
or through the program or my attendance meetings, all of
36:35
those things, that it all comes back down to identifying a God
36:40
of my understanding that was a caring, loving God that accepted
36:44
me and that I had to rely on. And the first step of that is
36:49
when you, if you're struggling with that concept, if you're
36:53
agnostic, if you're atheistic, all you have to do is just pray
36:57
for the willingness to believe. Just pray for the willingness to
37:01
be willing some times and that's when it will reveal itself to
37:06
you. And you know, the first step in
37:09
in trying to find a relationship with God is to understand you're
37:12
not it and. Right, right.
37:15
You're not your own God. And if you thought you were to
37:20
look at your life and right. How's that working for you
37:23
lately? Yeah.
37:27
And you know, you look at the path of the destruction behind
37:29
you and you can't always see it. Everybody else can.
37:32
But it's until you actually realize that you're not God.
37:36
That's when you find one. You know, I was when I first
37:41
started podcasting last year, I was on one of our fellow radio
37:47
shows. Jake Kelton has his Kent's
37:51
Roundtable. Red's roundtable is what he
37:54
called it, and he so he talked about Celebrate Recovery a lot.
38:00
That was the program that he belonged to, he said.
38:03
But did you know that they they have special alcoholic sessions
38:10
on cruise ships? And I was like, what?
38:14
He goes, yeah. And I forget what it's called,
38:17
but I remembered what he, you know, I remembered seeing the,
38:22
the, I remember seeing it on the itinerary, you know, when they
38:25
have different events that are happening on a cruise.
38:28
And I was like, oh, so that's what that was.
38:32
You can go on a cruise and if you're don't worry, you can have
38:36
a meeting on a cruise and you can still do normal life.
38:42
Don't buy the package, you know, Don't buy the alcohol package
38:46
and think you're going. To get a different result.
38:48
But you can go on a cruise and because there's all that
38:52
temptation out there, go to a meeting.
38:58
Yeah. And in part of I think is it
39:01
part of the challenge, not whether it's just your spouse or
39:06
going to events that there is alcohol there and you have to
39:11
relearn how to identify how do you handle the temptation that
39:16
everybody else is drinking, but you're having to choose not to.
39:22
Sure. How did you navigate that?
39:25
So everyone, everyone has to approach that differently.
39:28
I know that for people that I'm very close with, they would
39:32
change their driving route if they used to stop at this gas
39:36
station over here on the way home or on the way to go pick up
39:39
the kids, they would change their driving route entirely.
39:43
And it's, it's, it's different for everyone.
39:46
I was, I was a little bit different.
39:48
I for me to avoid something and this works for me personally.
39:54
If I'm told I have to avoid something, it's going to call to
39:57
me. More so when I walked into the
39:59
grocery store. There are other people that
40:01
would avoid the wine aisle to get back there and go buy the
40:04
lunch meat. I walked down the wine aisle and
40:06
intentionally I had to, I had to face it and I had to do that
40:12
through repetition and I had to get comfortable with the fact
40:15
that it's just another aisle. It was not my sanctuary anymore.
40:21
So, you know, there are a lot of people that I would not
40:23
encourage you to do that. You know, you kind of know your
40:27
innermost self and you need to stick to your guns on that.
40:31
In recovery, that is your time to be self-centered, even around
40:35
your family. I, I truly believe that that in
40:38
recovery that is your time to be self-centered.
40:42
In a 12 step program, you're taught that once you get through
40:44
it, through those 12 steps, your entire goal is to no longer be
40:48
self-centered. And you go out and you try to
40:50
help others based on your life story.
40:53
But in that period of the hard days, the the days that you're
40:57
barely hanging on, be self-centered and create
41:00
whatever structure works best for you.
41:03
I think in some ways my, my, you know, hundred 100 yard aspect
41:11
about looking at recovery is in some ways a grief process
41:16
because you are grieving activities or feelings or, you
41:22
know, habits of a life that you can't do anymore.
41:27
So you have to learn how to move forward in a different way.
41:29
It's but, but what could take one year for you?
41:34
Well, or maybe 10 years, 15 years could, could be, you know,
41:39
50 years for somebody else could be one year for somebody else.
41:42
It's, you know, how do you overcome those things?
41:45
I mean, I'm an ex smoker, believe it or not.
41:47
I, I used to smoke a pack a day and in 2010 I quit it cold
41:52
Turkey. Now I and I, I keep flossers.
41:58
That's my oral addiction thing, right?
42:00
I mean, but hey, I, I get to go to the dentist and I have no
42:04
cavities, but I got flossers here at my desk in the truck and
42:09
because I can, you know, if I'm nervous or whatever about
42:13
something, I floss. Non smoked, Yeah.
42:17
And you know, The thing is, as addicts, we're, I've said this
42:21
before, we tend to be people that do everything to the
42:23
extreme. Smokers goes hand in hand.
42:29
Oftentimes overeaters put ourselves at risk.
42:32
Extreme sports, all of those things kind of come with the
42:35
attic mindset. And what I have discovered is
42:40
that you it, it's just like someone who's trying to lose
42:44
weight, you'll see them become addicts at the gym.
42:48
I there are times that you have to replace something with
42:51
something positive. And you know that.
42:55
That works for so many people with me.
42:58
I I did go through the grieving period briefly, but I discovered
43:03
in my 12 step program, as God centered as it was, it wasn't as
43:09
hard as I thought it was going to be because I became kind of
43:12
addicted to trying to help out another alcoholic.
43:16
If you have one day of sobriety and someone walks in the room
43:20
still shaking, you have something that you can give
43:23
them. Wherever you are in your stage
43:25
of development of overcoming an an addiction, you can still
43:30
offer everything that you know up to that point.
43:32
Now don't start go talking about how the program goes beyond
43:36
whatever step you're on. But if you have the ability to
43:40
do nothing else, if you're broke, if if your rock bottom is
43:44
stripped everything away from you, you can always help
43:47
someone. And the amount of what you
43:50
receive in return is unfathomable.
43:54
When you do that and how much, the obsession goes away very
43:58
quickly if you're actually helping someone else that you
44:01
identify as an addict like yourself.
44:04
Because it kind of turns into a different kind of you, you're
44:08
getting addiction to joy to replace the feeling that you
44:14
were getting from the alcohol. The I want to say the an
44:20
artificial joy, right? I mean, alcohol does kind of
44:24
present an artificial joy. I, I know when I was at my
44:29
lowest after my, or during my divorce and I talk about it in
44:34
my book that, you know, I had to go and serve.
44:38
It was part of his class. And I was like, man, I need, I'm
44:43
going through all of this stuff. I need somebody to serve me.
44:46
I feel like, you know, I'm the victim.
44:48
I need to be served, but God put me on this mission.
44:51
No, Eva, you need to go out there and serve somebody else
44:55
who has it less than you. And that guy was actually then
45:01
serving me. I was, you know, actually went
45:04
to go serve him. OK, God, I'm doing this.
45:07
And and that man, you know, he ended up serving me.
45:11
It was just kind of this neat experience.
45:13
We were it. We were feeding homeless people
45:17
in Dallas. And as a part of this
45:20
assignment, it was just one of the neatest experiences I've
45:23
ever had in my entire life. But when you think that you're
45:27
at your worst going and serving somebody else, there's there's
45:32
something, there's something that switches in the brain and
45:36
in your soul that says, oh, This is why you had me do this guy.
45:41
OK, Yeah, OK. I got it.
45:44
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
45:46
And you know, one of the in the, in the 12 step program, in the
45:52
11th step, we will often say something that's the 11th step
45:55
prayer. And it, it's really some of the
45:59
word, some of the phrases in the 11th step prayer are that it is
46:03
better to understand than to be understood.
46:07
Where there is darkness, may I bring light?
46:10
These are things that are all self forgetting because it's
46:15
self centeredness that's the core to our addiction.
46:18
Now we can think that we're drinking because we were such
46:22
victims and all of that. We play a part in every single
46:27
scenario almost 98% of the time that we feel that we're the
46:31
victims then. So it's a very self-centered
46:34
disease and that's why I always tell people in the actual 12
46:39
step program, while you're trying to go through the
46:42
prospect of recovery, it's still OK to be self-centered in
46:46
creating what you need around you to empower that.
46:50
But ultimately, once you go through that 12 step, then your
46:55
true freedom comes from going forward and helping other
46:57
people. The self-centered aspects of
47:01
this are why we insulate ourselves to true experiences
47:05
with being buzzed, drunk, wasted, whatever your flavor of
47:11
how inebriated you wanted to get, you were missing so much in
47:15
that. Or at least I discovered I was
47:17
missing so much in that. The in sobriety, it's almost
47:21
like being a kid again. It's taking my kids for the
47:25
first time to Mount Bunnell down in Austin.
47:28
And I climbed up to the top of the steps and I wasn't winded
47:32
and I, I wasn't sweating. And before every time I had done
47:36
it from whatever age they were, I was drunk when I was doing it.
47:42
And I didn't ever enjoy the view.
47:44
And this last time that we went, I enjoyed the view and I could,
47:47
I could breathe in the air and there was joy that I had
47:51
insulated myself against all that time.
47:55
So yeah, it's it's an opportunity to experience life.
48:01
I will say this right now at age 50, I've been sober for almost 4
48:05
years. I started drinking at 21.
48:08
I feel like I stopped maturing at 21 and I'm just not doing it
48:12
again 25 years late. That makes sense.
48:18
I, I mean, I get it, you know, and, and for here in Texas, it
48:23
was the what is it? When I was turned 18 is when
48:27
they changed it to 21, you know, But when I was 18, actually when
48:32
I was 16, I was buying beer. It's kind of funny time back
48:35
then and you know, there the things were pretty loose on
48:42
understanding what alcohol was really doing in our culture.
48:47
You know that that there was a temptation to go buy the beer
48:53
early. I mean, that was it was
48:56
pressured on us to that peer pressure was there to go get
49:00
drunk. Some people, you know, did the
49:02
marijuana and stuff. I was not ever into any of that.
49:06
I mean, I was pretty happy with life, but I but I think I
49:11
mentioned that been drinking because I know that that is that
49:14
is a thing too. You can still be an alcoholic
49:17
who binge drinks and not be considered the daily alcoholic,
49:23
but that's the one that ends up getting you in the trouble too,
49:26
especially if you're drinking and driving.
49:29
Sure, absolutely. And you know, The thing is, I
49:32
think all of us the the college age, you see a lot of just rite
49:36
of passage binge drinking that takes place.
49:40
It usually doesn't lead to anything good, but it doesn't
49:43
necessarily mean that someone's going to be an alcoholic.
49:46
What I will tell people though, regarding binge drinking is we
49:51
see people a lot of the times in the room that will say, am I
49:54
truly an alcoholic? Well, if it's a genetic disease,
49:57
my grandfather wasn't my grandmother, well, OK, uncle, so
50:01
and so was If you're trying to identify your problem that way,
50:05
you're going to just be spinning your tires out and you're not
50:08
focusing on the reality of is your life falling apart right
50:11
now? Is it unmanageable right now?
50:13
Because you can be born with type 1 diabetes or you can eat
50:20
your way to type 2 diabetes. Either way, you come to a point
50:24
that you got to put down the cake.
50:26
So, you know, binge drinkers can drink their way and you can
50:30
damage the brain and the alcoholism as much as it just
50:34
being a genetic trait. Either way, it affects roughly
50:38
one in 10 people in the United States.
50:41
It's still a choice, still a choice.
50:46
You know, I was, I know Darrell and I on the revivalist radio
50:51
show. We've talked about Noah and
50:54
alcohol and I think we talked a little bit about it last week.
50:57
But I was thinking about it when I was working on the RV this
51:01
morning. I said, you know, I mean, it's
51:04
just my dialogue in my head. Noah had done all of that with
51:11
the ark, saw the destruction of everything and and the land and
51:17
he's got his family and growing his grape, you know, grapes and
51:24
making his own wine. He gets drunk.
51:28
And it got me to thinking like he said, he he, you know, sees
51:33
the destruction of the world. And then what?
51:37
He hit this, he hit this bottom, right?
51:41
I mean, he saw the destruction of the world.
51:46
And I, I was thinking, you know, we have veterans who have gone
51:51
and saw, you know, they've seen lots of destruction in Iraq and
51:54
Afghanistan, maybe even Saudi Arabia or I was, you see all
51:58
this destruction. You see all this stuff.
52:00
Could be somebody who's a firefighter policeman, right?
52:03
We have first, you know, first responders who are experienced a
52:07
lot of stuff and they get to this point in their life.
52:10
And then what? Right, because how do you know,
52:17
how do you unstuck yourself and say there's more to life than
52:22
getting drunk and just lying there?
52:25
So how do you how do you turn on that purpose?
52:30
I don't know if that's something that you can identify.
52:32
How do you turn on that purpose and and have that aha moment and
52:36
say, OK, I got, you know, it's not about just hitting the
52:41
bottom, but just flipping the switch and saying I got to do
52:45
something different. Yeah.
52:49
And I mean, The thing is when you, let's say veterans, for
52:53
example, Noah, for example, what I've been through just as a
53:01
average run-of-the-mill drunk who's, you know, been chased by
53:04
the law and, and, and everything, whatever extreme
53:08
we've been through numbs us from the little beauties that are all
53:15
around every single day. What happens when the drama goes
53:19
away, right? There's still right, there's
53:21
still people in need. I mean, it's not going to be a
53:25
mass casualty event every time. Sometimes the kid just needs to
53:31
hear your words of wisdom and they can't do that when you're
53:35
drunk. And you know, I talked a little
53:38
bit last time about how that the problem is always you.
53:42
And I had mentioned that I'd never really had a burning Bush
53:45
moment, but it I, I look back on it now and I know kind of when I
53:49
did you like camping, right? I mean, you do a lot of hiking
53:54
and and things of that nature, so.
53:56
I'm adventurous, yes. Yeah.
53:59
And so we've been trying to get the kids out over the past few
54:01
years. And we did Palo Duro Canyon, Cap
54:05
Rock Canyon last year was wonderful.
54:08
Well, this year we went to Copper Breaks.
54:10
I'd never been before. My mom grew up in that area.
54:13
And I kept hearing that it was like listed as the second
54:16
darkest dark sky zone area in the United States.
54:20
And I don't know what that meant.
54:23
They were like, oh, you come out, you know, we all the lights
54:25
are out. You're going to be able to see
54:26
the Milky Way. And I, I've been camping several
54:29
times, but I've never seen what the the majesty of the whole
54:33
Milky Way was going to be. And so we're walking down the
54:35
trail to go where all these astronomers are going to be at
54:38
sunset, and it's getting darker and darker.
54:42
And they've got telescopes set up.
54:43
And I flipped on my cell phone just to kind of like check a
54:47
text message. Do you want to see nerds get
54:50
violent? When I turned on my cell phone,
54:53
this astronomer starts screaming, turn it off.
54:56
And then he says, don't look at him, don't look at him.
54:59
Everyone close their eyes. Well, I apologize for my faux
55:03
pas, right? But I realized that as I was
55:06
seeing some of the stars kind of coming into view as the sun was
55:09
going down, I looked at my light, I looked back up.
55:11
I couldn't see them again. Took a while for my eyes to
55:14
adjust. And you know, the darker it got,
55:18
all of the sudden the whole Milky Way came into view.
55:22
And I, I walked away from that after seeing the majesty of
55:26
that. And I thought to myself, the
55:29
problem is, is that we need to dim ourselves.
55:34
If you want to know will, the will of God and how you can help
55:38
other people, you have to dim yourself to see the beauty of
55:44
all of that. It's our light pollution of our
55:48
will. And when we try to take that
55:50
back, that's when everything goes awry.
55:54
Wow. You know, it's, it's, it's as
55:58
you're talking about seeing the sky, you know, I've had some of
56:02
those instances where I'm scuba diving and you see, man, that's
56:05
the rest of the world under the, the ocean that God created.
56:09
And you have those moments and it's like, wow, what peace, what
56:14
peace it, you know, this, this is that feeling you want to
56:18
carry with around you every single day, that kind of peace.
56:22
And it's, and it's fleeting sometimes, but, you know, you
56:27
have to work towards getting those and those moments and
56:32
appreciating them when they happen.
56:35
And yeah, turning, turning off the lights.
56:40
All right. Any last words before we close?
56:46
Yeah, you know, again, there's, there's a ton of different 12
56:50
step programs out there and, and rehabs, do your kind of own
56:54
research a little bit on it. But the main thing is, is plug
56:57
in and don't be afraid to ask for help.
56:59
And regardless of what you've been through, the key component
57:04
to, you know, being able to cope with an addiction is to dim your
57:10
own light and find your higher power.
57:12
And if that's something that scares some people, I will tell
57:15
you this. One of the wisest things that
57:17
helped me get over my fear of trying to turn my will and my
57:21
life over to the care of a loving God, as I understood him,
57:24
is someone told me one time in the room, he said, God is the
57:29
name that we embroidery on the blanket that we throw over the
57:33
mystery to give it shape. That's it.
57:36
And so when I was afraid to say God, I can say that now again.
57:40
And you'll figure that relationship out once you
57:44
realize that you're not in charge of your own life.
57:47
Well, I think that that has been something that's, you know, been
57:51
part of this whole moral injury discussion that Darrell and I've
57:55
been having on the Revivalist radio show is that they want
57:59
everything to be about science minus God, right?
58:03
Let's take God out of the schools, take God out of life in
58:08
general. But culture is suffering because
58:12
they're God's not he's not the true north of the moral compass.
58:17
Well, if you don't have God as a part of your moral compass, then
58:20
who's leading your moral compass?
58:23
If it's ourselves as a lower G God, how's that working for you,
58:29
right? Absolutely.
58:30
Yeah, not too. Thank you so much, Russ.
58:33
I'd love to meet you and your wife sometime to have lunch or
58:38
something. You know, I think y'all aren't
58:41
very far away, so it's not like, you know, I can meet y'all if
58:46
y'all want. Absolutely.
58:47
Well, thank you for having me again.
58:49
And yeah, we need to make that happen, definitely.
58:52
But thanks for having me back. Yeah, appreciate it.
58:55
And as things progress, you want to come back on.
58:58
You're welcome back anytime. Sure, I'd look forward to it.
59:03
OK. Thank you.
59:05
All right, folks, let's see I'm going to be on the road next
59:10
weekend. So headed back me and going
59:16
across country, right. So you know, I've been working
59:19
on the RV. It will be travel ready fixing
59:22
to head back to my favorite hardware store here shortly, but
59:28
I am going to be on the road. So I haven't quite decided if
59:32
I'm going to be able to have a show next Saturday night.
59:36
May you know, Saturday, Saturday afternoon, I may stop somewhere
59:40
at a road stop and do the show for my truck or the RV.
59:45
I'm it's not like I haven't done that before.
59:48
So what will be any different? Just I'll just be a different
59:51
location and then the following Saturday, the whole reason why
59:56
I'm heading across country oops time.
1:00:00
I'm going to be at rally for vets.
1:00:02
So make sure you join us at Dominion Raceway on the what is
1:00:07
that the 12th right? September 12th at Dominion
1:00:10
Raceway in Virginia. Y'all have a great week.
1:00:13
Thank you for joining the military broadcast radio on the
1:00:16
from Pain to Purpose radio show. Talk to you soon.
1:00:20
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