Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Recovered With Purpose

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Recovered With Purpose · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

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This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
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and with chronic pain and trauma, getting to the heart of how to heal.
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I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan
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on discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, ballistic practitioners, loved ones,
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and anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and
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trauma world that we live in. So here in the United States of Good
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USA America, we are unfortunately used to school shootings. By Sweetie has been
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in broadcasting. If you listen to the show, you know he's been in
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broadcasting for over thirty years now. And that doesn't age me. It only
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ages him. But he has to report on mountain of horrific things that happen
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in our country and around the world. And one of those topics that's terrible
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for him to report and for me to listen to and to get used to.
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Are all of these school shootings right and they're starting to become a norm
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here in the United States of America. And I hate that that's the case.
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I'm not going to go down my whole gun speak right now and get
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on the soapbox because that's for a different day. But many of us do
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remember Columbine. It's kind of a nasty term here in the United States because
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it was kind of the first one that really shook us, you know,
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like shook us to our core. It was April thirtieth, nineteen ninety nine,
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and it seems like it was just yesterday, but it seems like a
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long time ago and not much has changed. And it was a school shooting.
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If you are unfamiliar with it, it was a school shooting and attempted
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bombing occurred at Columbine High School in Colorado, and the shooters killed twelve students
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and another teacher, and over twenty additional people were injured trying to escape.
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My guest today lived through and around what happened at Columbine and also has lived
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through Jeez, Louise, guys get ready massive amounts of tragedy, perhaps forming
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his initial inclination to start using and becoming a drug addict. I don't know,
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just guessing. There are always reasons for all of the things that we
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get into, all of our shenanigans, right from friends dying in car accidents,
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suicide, drug overdoses. He is not a stranger to death and how
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that has affected him and in his life and the trajectory of where he is
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today. Drugs kind of became his life, his answer and his solution,
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his solution to pain and trauma. So, without further ado, I'd like
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to introduce you to my handsome AF guests today, Adam Vibe, best middle
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name ever, Gunton Brady. How are you. I'm doing excellent, doing
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excellent, A lot better than I was in drug addiction, no kidding.
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Adam is the author of the book From Chains to Save. He's also the
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founder of the company Recovered on Purpose and the host of the podcast The Recovered
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on Purpose Show. And I love the word purpose because, as my listeners
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know, I have changed. I have decided to use pain as my purpose.
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And he has done the same thing in his world. And after overcoming
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homelessness and I the drug addiction, he has set out on a mission to
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help as many addicts fine recovery as possible. His company equips addicts in recovery
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to share their stories powerfully with the world to send a message of hope.
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So I am rolling out the red carpet for you, baby. And I
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know we kind of talked about a little bit about bringing in Columbine, because
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everybody knows that I wanted to pull on some heartstrings with that. But I
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know that's not your whole entire story. But I'd like to start with your
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experience as a young junior high kid in Columbine and what happen, it's initial
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effect on you, and then what led up to obviously November sixth of twenty
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seventeen, your self professed darkest hour of your life. Let's take it from
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there. Yeah, you know, I I loved where I grew up,
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you know, And I want to make it clear that, like you know,
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with Columbine, Columbine was an incredibly powerful place for me to come from.
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I want to I want to make that clear because not only did I
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experienced something that was extremely, extremely painful for the entire country, but I
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also was part of a community that came together and healed together through one of
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the biggest tragedies of our time. And I remember I was in fourth grade
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at Columbine Hills Elementary, you know, and up to this point, everything
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was everything was great, there was no fear, There's nothing wrong with the
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world. You know. I got some great parents. I'm on the wrestling
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team, and the football team and the baseball team, and I'm at school
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at Columbine Hills at Recess, and all of a sudden, you know,
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I feel this different energy that I've never felt before. As teachers are running
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around and they're they're rounding us up, and they're lighting us up to go
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back into classrooms, and they have to lock us in the classroom. I
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don't I don't understand what's going on. And my teacher is like listening to
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a radio behind her desk, and you know, I didn't understand at the
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time what was going on. But my mom was like a superman. She
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she was one of the first parents to come and pick my sister and I
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up. And I remember, you know, very clearly on the way home
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that you know, they were talking about it on the radio, but they
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didn't even know how to report this thing, you know. And I remember
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my mom saying, you know, they think they're gods. Like that's a
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memory that's drilled into my head. And I don't under I don't even understand
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death really at this time, you know. And then we're at home and
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you know, it's going on on the news, and I'm like, oh,
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you know, my sister goes there for for basketball practice. And fast
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forward. You know, I a kid that used to jump us up and
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down on the trampoline at my best friend's house. His neighbor he was killed
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in the shooting. And my sister's camp basketball coach was Dave Sanders. You
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know, he was the teacher that was that was killed. And I don't
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I don't talk about it anymore as something that was damaging to me. I
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remember there was a shift to where I got a quick reality that everything isn't
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always gravy. But I went to Columbine after that, and we were a
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really strong community. We came together with like a chant we had. Coach
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Moore would come out and the whole community would be there. He'd be like,
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we are Columbine because it was like this, we needed to come together.
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And I think that that's that's the message that America needs to understand,
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is that we need to come together as a community now around this, around
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all of the different things, not just you know, school of violence,
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but there's a lot of different kinds of violence going on, and to vision
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and polarity on things that we don't even have to fight about because there's so
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many things we can agree on and come together on as as a nation,
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as a community, as a as a human race, you know. And
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I learned that very quickly from the column mine incident. And you know,
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the principle is a good friend of mine, you know, the principle that
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was the principle at that time. It was my principle. And isn't it
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interesting that very few people I actually don't know if any teachers that left after
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that, you know, I had a lot of teachers that were there during
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that. Why is it that they would stay? It's because two people,
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two evil people with an evil plan and something evil in them, did a
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very evil act. And that didn't say anything about who we were. And
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people will have their own I mean, it was the first thing that they
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reported on. So of course there's this story over here, and this story
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over here. Hey, why don't you blame this parent or this kid over
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here that was bullying someone, as if bullying isn't going around every single school,
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right, you know? And I think that if we would, if
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we would come together to solve things with love instead of solve things with fighting,
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we would get a lot further with all the issues that we're dealing with
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honey. I want to say so many things about that, like you've not
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I mean, it is completely true, and we watched I mean, unfortunately
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and fortunately because I'm in the relationship by man with my sweetie, my spouse
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is on air all the time, and all we have to do is watch
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the news and all we have to do is to find all of this in
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our living room. We put in some like rules and regulations between the both
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of us, not just like like this is what you're going to do my
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store. No, it was just like we need to keep our living room
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like a happy and healthy place that doesn't only just talk about the negativity that's
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going on in this world, because it does. There's a lot of really
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good stuff that's going on. Men, and you guys are going to hear
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Amen a lot from this man on this show because it's his favorite word,
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and I love that it is. So let's move on from Columbine, though,
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because let's get into where you ended up in your darkest hour in your
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life and how you kind of got there, because there's a lot in there
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that we cannot cover. And I read his book and it's a lot.
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But let's let's shitch out about a little bit of that and then how you
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ended up slinging your arm full of jugs. Yeah, I mean, well
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let's go there. You know me, I'm not going to just sugarcoat this.
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Yeah there, I mean there is a lot in there, you know,
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There's there's a lot that you could definitely point to and blame my addictionar
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Right, I could definitely. I could definitely point to the Columbine shooting if
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I wanted to blame that, I could point to, you know, the
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shooting that happened at a at a party when I was in high school and
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blame that for causing me to do things. What I've come to realize is
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that I am the cause of the things that I do. I am the
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cause, and I think that I've chosen in my life. I've chosen to
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not let trauma continue to traumatize me. I've made that choice for a reason,
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because, as you've said, I've been through a lot of stuff,
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and I went through a time period where I blamed this person for something.
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You know, I blamed the person that introduced me to cocaine at twelve years
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old for ruining my life when that wasn't the case. You know, I
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continued doing all of these choices. I continued going down the path. I
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continued partying and everything until September twenty eight, two thousand and eight, when
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I had been out drinking and partying like most nights in my freshman year of
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college, when I woke up to my phone ringing and vibrating down by my
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leg, and I swam through the soft sheets with the hard phone with the
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bright screen, and it read four forty seven AM. And my best friend
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Chucker was calling me, and I remember having the conscious choice that I gived
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their answer the phone like I always do with Hey, what's up, Chuck?
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Or I could answer with the way I was feeling with Hello, And
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in my still drunken state, I chose the ladder twitch A soft voice replied,
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Hey, what's up? Why are you calling me this late? I
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was just calling to say Hi, don't call me this late again, and
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I hung up on him and he shot himself. And for nearly a decade
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after that event, I was unable to share that phone call with anyone,
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as I bottled it down deeper and deeper and deeper with drugs and alcohol.
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I was no longer using drugs and alcohol to party and have fun. At
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that moment, I consciously started using them to cope with the way that I
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felt, to cope with you know, life and events as they come at
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me and everything. I didn't have another coping mechanism, And that's what I
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can say, But in reality, I've got to take responsibility in that moment.
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I should have talked better to him a b. I should have reached
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out to somebody and told them what happened and worked through that. And my
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trauma started to circle my choices more and more and more and more, because
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at one time, you know, I had to have drugs to live because
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it was my solution to the way that I felt. But then it switches
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from you know, I'm choosing to consciously use them to be my solution to
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a shift later on where they're no longer working and they're the actual problem that
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I no longer have a solution for. So a lot of the stuff that
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that you read in my book, I mean it was a direct result of
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my addiction. And something that I have made a very conscious decision about is
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to release blame on anybody else and myself, but to accept responsibility for everything
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that has happened in my life that has brought me to where I am now
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and accept responsibility for everything I do now into the future for where I'm going
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to go. And again I still experience things come up like when the when
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the shooting just happened, you know, at the at the Christian Elementary School
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right when I hear about them still and I don't know why, but I
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have to go watch it. I have to go watch what's going on and
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hear the story and try to figure out, you know, why did why
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was this person hurting so bad that they had to go commit this, you
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know? And then I'm thinking, and then I start remembering all the you
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know, the crying and the stuff from when Columbine happened, and my heart
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just goes out to every community that is affected by this. And that's what
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it really is. I think it's just I want to love everybody that's hurting,
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and I think we should all have that heart, you know, yeah,
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no kidding, do you when those when these events that have continuously heard
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obviously since Columbine and over the past couple of weeks, we've had many of
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them, many of the months, and I mean, it's just it's just
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like what we do here in America. How big of a trigger is that
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for you? And does it bring you back into a state of like maybe
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a triggering a moment, maybe feeling like, oh my gosh, this could
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relapse me in any way, shape or form. How do they make you
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feel besides what you just mentioned. So, in reality, the word trigger
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didn't even exist in recovery until treatment came around. That was a monetized program
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that wants you to relapse and come back. The entire message about recovery at
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the beginning was about how you can recover once and for all, and you
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as long as you live by a certain set of principles and you are constantly
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focused on helping others, there is nothing that could trigger you. We literally
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used to talk about, you know, at the founding of recovery, how
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we can go anywhere any other man goes without the fear of drinking alcohol or
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without the fear of what's going to happen in there. As long as we
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have a purpose to go somewhere, we're good. And that's how I feel.
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There's nothing. I don't get triggered to use drugs, I don't get
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triggered to drink alcohol. I get triggered to you know, go down a
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path of that collected hurting. I want to hurt with them, just to
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send my heart out to them. I don't know why it is, whenever
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I hear about a shooting, I spend time studying because if I only look
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at the victims of any of these shootings, right, I look at them
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and my heart goes out to them because I know what their families are going
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through. I know, I know that community feeling right, But what about
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the person that committed it? What needs to happen for that person? Because
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that's the person that's actually missing the love for this to happen. There's something
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that needs to happen for the people that are committing these things. We need
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something that stops these things by loving people, you know, and protecting Like
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there is no doubt that with the way the America is now, schools should
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have a very good guard system, is the way I'll put it. Well,
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yeah, and I mean, and that's really really sad. But I
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mean, and earlier you were talking about the fact, like you know,
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in our schools, like we weren't used to any of this. I mean,
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we're approximately same age, like we had, like I had earthquake drills.
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You know, all of my nieces and nephews, all they know from
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four years old to seventeen years old is know how to deal with a shooter
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coming into their school and what they need to do for a response to that.
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That's what they're learning. And so there's such a huge disconnect for me
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to even rationalize what that would be like for a teacher, for a school,
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for the students, for the families, and all of that. But
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you brought up a very good point that the victims are not just the people
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that have been killed or harmed or the family members that are around it.
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Now you're talking about the person who did the actual act, and their family,
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by the way, is really affected by that kind of being. If
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you can you imagine, like that's my son that killed eighteen children, like
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and where did that come from? The stuff that they have to go through
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in order to process that part of it. But I don't want to go
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I don't want us to go down on this whole slippery slope of all the
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shootings and all that. I would like to circle back to your addiction and
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stuff, because that's where you are now. You're in recovery from some pretty
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gnarly shit. Yeah, So can we talk a little bit about some of
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your darkest hours and some of your finest hours? Because I know that like
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using didn't just like happen overnight. It typically doesn't with people like, oh
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my god, I'm an addict. Great, well that was done. It
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started on Friday and now it's Saturday. It doesn't happen that way, guys,
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But have you talked to us a little bit about your addiction and probably
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some of your darkest places, because out of the darkness came a lot of
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light for you. And the reason why I talked so much about love is
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because it's what solves everything for me. It just solves it when I when
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I look at it from a from a place of love, and like I
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was saying after that, after my friend's suicide, you know, it just
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kept getting dark and dark and darker. And what I didn't share earlier is
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that at ten years old, I gave my life to Jesus, you know,
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and this whole time through my addiction, I'm making all these bad choices,
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I'm doing all these things. I'm super ashamed and all this stuff,
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but I never lost my faith in it, you know, I just didn't
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even understand what it really was. And this whole time, I feel like
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I love God, but how could he possibly love me? You know?
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And I remember this this time, I was, you know, and I
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was able to like make good money in my addiction. I was breaking door
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to door records with a needle in my arm. And I got to a
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point where like companies would give me an apartment, pay my rent, pay
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my bills, and then you know, pay me every week for sales that
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I was doing, and I would get bonuses and all kinds of stuff.
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And it was in twenty sixteen. I was in a corporate housing apartner apartment
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and I was sitting at my desk and I had this syringe that I had
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loaded up, and I was looking at it and I didn't want to use
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it. Like my addiction had gotten to a point where I was using drugs
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against my will. They used to solve the problems that were going on inside
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of me. And now I'm looking at this thing and I don't want to
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use it, but I know I'm about to because I have to. And
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I start crying and I'm looking at it, and I remember, like really
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distinctly, how this syringe was magnified through the tears in my eyes, and
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it was like this blurry object that I was allowing to take everything from my
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life. And I set it down on the desk and put my hands in
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my face and I started crying and crying, and I heard a voice from
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behind me say pray. And there's other parts in my story where like I
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hear God's voice in my heart, but there was an actual voice outside of
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me that said pray. And I turned around me and there was there was
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nobody there. And I just put my face back in my hands and I
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started crying harder and harder and harder, and said pray again. And I
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got up from that chair and I started limping over to my bed, and
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not from physical pain, but just this emotional pain from all the things that
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I had been through. And I dropped down on my knees and I put
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my hands up and all I could get out was God. And in that
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moment, in my darkest moment, I felt arms wrap up from behind me
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as if to hug me and say I love you right now, the same
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as I ever have and the same as I ever will. I felt it.
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I was relieved of all that, all that stuff that was going on
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in me. And then I got up from that prayer and I walked over
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to the chair and I shot up. And now if that's if that's the
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case right, that this love is infinite, that you know, God is
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giving me right. That's a moment that has helped with my philosophy of how
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other people should be treated wherever they're at. You know, I don't look
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at somebody due to anything about them or anything that they've done, thinking that
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they don't deserve the same love that I deserve. And I got right.
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I don't deserve this love and I got it. So if somebody else doesn't
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deserve it, I need to give it to them because I got it right.
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And that's you know, that's a dark point where I was able to
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bring that into the light, right, but I still suffered. After that.
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I ended up calling my boss, you know, getting ready to kill
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myself, and I told him, dude, I can't do this anymore,
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like I can't work anymore because I'm just I'm making all this money and I'm
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just putting it in my arm. I'm going to kill myself. This is
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how it's gonna happen. I'm gonna die, you know, making all this
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money alone in an apartment somewhere. So I quit the job and I go
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up to Montana and I become homeless because at the time, I can't even
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find treatment. There's no treatment that'll accept me in. I can't get health
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insurance because I've overdosed before and the hospital makes a report of this, so
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I can't even get private insurance. I make too much money for Medicaid and
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I don't make enough money to pay for thirty five thousand dollars a month of
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treatment. So I'm in this weird place where I can't get help. And
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you know's it was difficult talk about fucking limbo dude, Yeah, it's and
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it's really it's really crappy how that's set up too. And I was just
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going over this yesterday with somebody that's that is in my course, Like she
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makes perfectly like eight hundred dollars less than what she's allowed to make to get
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to get medicaid. If she makes nine hundred dollars more in order to have
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insurance, she has to spend half of her salary. Yeah, how does
21:48
that make sense? None of it makes sense, None of it makes sense
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at all. But man, Okay, So I mean between because I know
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that in your book you talk about suicide. Obviously, you also talked about
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an interesting part and it was more in the beginning of it where you were
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like crazy about child molesters, and I haven't talked about that in a long
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time. Well, you had me read the book, so I read it
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maybe like this isn't in his questionnaire, so I'm gonna go after it because
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it's not. And the reason I bring it up is because I have been
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through a similar situation, not in regards to child lesters, but I have
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been in a situation that I was so obsessed with figuring out how I was
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going to end somebody's life. And I know it sounds scary and to listeners
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that I would even have that in my heart and my soul, especially who
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I am, But something that happened to me that was so off the charts.
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I was like weaving and formulating, and it was keeping me up at
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night, like trying to figure out how it was going to end this person's
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existence and probably anybody that was involved in that person's life as well. And
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the fact that I was capable of having those thoughts was really, really scary,
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and a lot of that came in drug and alcohol induced state. So
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but when I was reading your book about how you were like formulating ideas on
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how you were going to go out and fill in the blank of what I'm
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going to say, I thought my purpose was to be a child molesterous serial
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killer, Like I was gonna right have a Like I was planning on using
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all the money that I'm making to get the tools and things and find some
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kind of place where I can. At the time, I mean, I'm
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a drug addict. I'm hanging out with drug addicts, and I love people,
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so I'm like asking them questions about their life and stuff like that,
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and it starts getting to a point where, like I started asking them about,
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you know, what they've been through, and then I start hearing about
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their traumas from when they were a kid, you know, horrible, horrible
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things. And then they let me know, yeah, he's you know,
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nobody knows he's never been in trouble. Hearing that over and over and over,
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and my heart was in like I want to put quotes in in the
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right place. Mine was not. Mine was not in the right place.
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You was, because at the time I wanted to express my love for the
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victims as much as possible. Yeah, you know, because it was because
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it just angered me so much. And it got to a point where I
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was consumed by it, consumed by the hatred, to where I overshadowed the
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love of what I wanted to do for them. And then it was just
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like I got to this point. I was driving, you know, out
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to South Carolina, like, and I was driving alone and just making these
24:41
plans and everything, and I'm like driving with my knee so I can sit
24:45
like this, like with my hand on my chin and ponder how I was
24:48
going to make this happen. And then it was as if in a moment,
24:52
the spirit of God left me to let me know where I'm headed,
24:59
and it was like I just felt, I just felt, whoa, Like
25:03
this is not right, this is not right. Right. I should not
25:07
be a serial child, molastic killer. Yeah. Yes, they're not going
25:12
to be selling T shirts on the side of the road for me. So
25:18
so it leaves and I feel this emptiness that I that I haven't experienced since
25:22
I was ten years old, right, and I haven't experienced it since.
25:25
But when it left, then all of a sudden it was like it flooded
25:27
back in, right, It flooded back in in a moment to show me
25:33
that is not where you're headed. The way that you show love is to
25:37
love the victims. Do everything you can to to love them and help them,
25:41
support them, you know, help them with whatever it is that they
25:45
need, and forgive, forgive, which that was the last group of people
25:53
because I did work around around um mass shooters. I forgave them before I
25:59
was able to forgive child molesters. And as a group of people, it's
26:04
a really powerful place to come from when you can forgive people and look at
26:10
them as a flawed human that is suffering. Also because if we look at
26:15
everybody where we need to get revenge, if we look at people where they're
26:18
wrong so we need to let them know they're wrong, then we're never going
26:22
to solve things together. But if we look at everybody as a flawed human
26:26
being and we try to understand where people are coming from, what their worldview
26:32
is, what they perceive as, what's making them think this way, then
26:36
we can come from a place of oh, I understand you. You know
26:40
what it's like to ask somebody questions that completely disagrees with everything you believe until
26:48
you get to a point where they really feel understood and heard, like you
26:53
really care about what they're saying because you do. And you guys can come
26:59
into an understanding like, hey, that's why we disagree on this thing,
27:03
this thing. Yeah, we're talking about the thing here? What about this
27:07
thing here? Because it's almost it's a way of agreeing with each other.
27:11
It is. And I think again, and I think that the message of
27:15
love is a huge one and it's one that I've always spoken about. I've
27:19
had my moments where I have not shouted love off the top of the rooftops,
27:23
but I totally agree. And especially in our space with politics, we
27:27
and we can we're not going to even go down that road right now because
27:30
that's that place where it's very very hard to be loving, in that gross
27:37
like space that we've created here in the United States, where it's like you,
27:41
everybody's against each other, and it just should not be that way.
27:45
It should be a place of love. It shouldn't be a place of divide.
27:49
But when it comes to and I'm thank you for not becoming a chum
27:55
Lester serial killer, I appreciate that. I don't know if I'd be here
27:57
right now. There might be some people that are like, damn it,
28:00
Adam, I wish you would have done it. Go dare that No?
28:04
But I think that even though it's really hard to take the step aside and
28:10
look at the other person's side of it, there is an element of them
28:15
being a victim too, because we never know what's happened to somebody else.
28:18
We've never we don't know what trauma has happened to them. And I we
28:22
talk about trauma and trauma informed approach to Karen everything on this show, and
28:26
we talk about every episode and I will continue to do so. But I
28:30
don't want trauma to be a crutch either, because we can't blame traumas that
28:37
have happened to us on all of our actions, on everything that we do.
28:41
And oh, oh that's because that happened to me when I was a
28:42
little girl. Oh, come on, give me a fucking break, Like
28:45
there are there is a time and a place where trauma has come into my
28:49
world and has come into my life and things that I've had to persevere through.
28:52
Some of it has been addictions, some of it has been sexualated,
28:56
and now it's turned into my bod with my pain, it's crept into different
29:00
places. Am I blaming anybody? Not? Actually am not. I have
29:03
twenty five people i'd like to However, that's not helping me out at all.
29:10
It's not helping me out at all. And So when I came to
29:12
a place where and it happened over the past couple of gears, where I
29:15
had to shift my mindset on how I was going to approach my approach to
29:21
care, how I was going to approach myself, and how I was going
29:22
to manage my pain, my trauma, my sadness, my depression, my
29:26
anxiety. How was I going to do it for myself? I chose to
29:29
let all of that stuff go. And some of that was very hard,
29:33
and I know that you've experienced it as well. As we had to get
29:37
rid of people in our lives. We had to say goodbye to some people.
29:40
We had to clean up some of our kitchen, We had to go
29:42
through our spaces that were like so deep and darky and spiderwebs everywhere, and
29:45
we had to clean it out and do all of that. And we've done
29:48
that, and we've worked very hard to do that, and we've worked to
29:51
go to a place of love and I love that about you because you're going
29:56
just feel the love out of this guy, like all the time is awesome.
30:00
But what i'd like to talk about really quick, because I know that
30:02
we're going to start keeping on time. But what I'd love to talk about,
30:04
and I know it's an ikey space, but people like to hear this
30:07
because they want to hear that hope story where your darkest hours were in some
30:12
of these places that you were at, because in your book you talk about
30:15
driving across the country and you were like, I have enough dope to get
30:22
me this far, and then I know where I can find it when I
30:26
get there, and then I know where I can find it from there,
30:27
and all of that darkness and despair and all of that navigation of a manipulation
30:34
of your day and your life and all of this to get your next hit,
30:37
to get your next drink. And I understand it not from a drug
30:40
perspective. Well, I kind of do from a cocaine perspective that was many,
30:41
many years ago. But yeah, I was like, oh God,
30:44
I just spent one hundred bucks today because I'm going to blow through that again,
30:47
you know, and figuring out how I was going to manipulate my life
30:51
around how I was going to get my next hit, how I was going
30:53
to get my next strenk what have you? So I understand that, but
30:56
can you tell us, just like I don't know, give us one or
30:59
two stories of some dark shit because we're sick and twisted in this world.
31:03
But also, and I like to hear that because you're so positive and you're
31:07
soap cliffing. You've been through so many things, but I like to show
31:10
that through that darkness you have come into such light and that is one of
31:14
the reasons that you're here. And I love that about you. Thank you,
31:18
thank you, Amen? Well amen, yeah, well, yeah,
31:22
there was there was a time in my addiction where for a long time I
31:25
thought I could have had it from everybody. But then, you know,
31:27
as I'm losing weight, my eyes are rolling back in my head when I'm
31:30
sitting on my friend's couch and they asked me if I'm high, and I
31:32
say, no, not at all, nothing, I'm good. I'm just
31:36
a little low and blood sugar. Yeah, you know, it got to
31:38
a point where I can't lie to people anymore. And then I was I
31:42
was working door of our sales doing well, I was in Montana. I
31:45
had a girlfriend at the time and all this stuff, and I was hiding
31:48
from her that I was still using. I went over to her aunt's place
31:53
where she was staying, and I was with her for a little bit and
31:56
then let her know I have to work in the morning, so I'm going
31:57
to go back to my hotel and I drive around the corner and what I
32:02
didn't tell her is that I'm going to shoot up first. And I made
32:05
a shot and I put in my arm and at first I was upset because
32:08
I thought it was bunk, you know, I didn't feel anything. But
32:12
then and I start, you know, driving off. Next thing I know,
32:15
I'm waking up on the asphalts in a pile of glass, with blue
32:20
and red lights around me and cops and paramedics. And I ended up getting
32:27
a couple felony charges because I had a little amount of drugs on me and
32:30
I was in a car, and in the courtroom four and a half months
32:35
later, I had to watch a video of the bodycam footage of my own
32:40
dead body being pulled out of a car without breath or pulse. And you
32:45
would think that having that vision in front of you you would think that that
32:51
would be enough to make you stop, But I suffered for two more years
32:53
after that, exactly two more years after that, And that goes to show
32:58
you know, people that are suffering an addiction, they need to know not
33:01
only that it's possible, but they need to know that there is this life
33:06
on the other side of addiction that is beautiful and worth working for. Like
33:12
for so long, I didn't think it was possible for me to find freedom.
33:15
I literally did not think that I was ever going to get clean.
33:16
I thought I was going to die and add it. And now that I've
33:20
found it, I had this click at twenty six days sober where everything changed.
33:27
I no longer desired drugs and alcohol, first time since I was twelve
33:30
years old. And when that switched for me, it became my mission to
33:35
help other people find that freedom. With everything I have in me, my
33:38
purpose is to in as many ways as possible, show people as possible and
33:44
help people achieve it. By doing that, what I found is it keeps
33:47
me in this state of you know, I'm not getting triggered by stuff.
33:52
I can literally in my recovery. I can't tell you how many times I've
33:54
gone down to where I used to pick up dope. Talk to my dope
33:58
dealer who is super proud to talk to his customers and let them know my
34:02
story, talk to them and love on them and stuff, same place I
34:07
used to pick up dope. Now, I'm not suggesting people in their first
34:09
year of recovery that haven't done the work and like really know themselves, go
34:14
do this. But when you have a purpose inside of you to get out
34:17
there in help addicts and you you don't allow that garbage saying if you just
34:22
help one, it'll be good. That is crap. Help as many as
34:27
you possibly can for the rest of your life. Yeah. Amen. And
34:31
there's this there's this this thing that I that I coach everybody in my courses.
34:36
And you know, in our addiction, we create these neuro highways.
34:40
Right when we wake up in the morning, we have this thought like I
34:43
need dope first thought, boom, and then our brain is consistently working on
34:47
going to get dope until we have dope and we put it in our arm.
34:51
We have this big dopamine release, right, and that's what the addiction
34:53
is. We have to keep chasing that dope and we have to eat chasing
34:55
that and chasing that. I do something called a Y statement, a personal
35:00
why statement with everybody in my course, and they say it morning afternoon,
35:02
evening. I tell him keep a card and read as much as possible,
35:06
because on our second call, you have to be able to say it from
35:07
memory, you know. And if that's the thought instead of any drugs,
35:12
the first time that you really help someone find recovery, you will experience a
35:20
euphoric feeling that you cannot find through any artificial needs. You cannot find the
35:27
feeling you get of helping someone else anywhere else. You can get to a
35:31
place where you just want to do it over and over and over and over.
35:36
And it's not like for me, it's not like it's not a dope,
35:37
mean hit, you know. I help people all the time because I
35:40
know it's what I'm supposed to do. I love doing it. I love
35:43
seeing when somebody's eyes literally just like flicker as something changes in their mind,
35:49
you know, and they're like, oh my gosh, I had never thought
35:52
of it like that, And then their life and their action and all these
35:54
things change for them, you know. And it's just something I don't want
35:59
people in recovery to miss out on. Because they're they're told that they need
36:01
to work on their triggers, they need to work on avoiding here and avoiding
36:06
here, when in reality, if you focused on all the beautiful things you
36:09
can do in your recovery, all the things that you get to, you'd
36:13
get to work on again that you lost. You know, maybe you used
36:15
to play basketball, maybe you maybe you had started playing the guitar and you
36:20
never really got good at it because you had to pawn your guitar. But
36:22
I think it's an interesting work way that you talk about triggering, because I
36:25
know that it's kind of turned into like a phrase now that everybody uses,
36:30
like, oh my gosh, that's such a trigger. I can't go over
36:32
there. I'm like, really, we're going to brunch, Like what could
36:37
trigger you here today? Like, okay, if there is something that quote
36:40
unquote would trigger you, how do we approach that, Like how do we
36:46
go about quote unquote the triggers and how do we maybe change our focus and
36:52
shift on how our viewpoint is on what a trigger might actually be, because
36:57
it might actually be something beneficial to us instead of something that would harm us.
37:01
And I say that just from personal experience, because there's some stuff that
37:06
I've had to face that I would say would have been a trigger prior to
37:10
some childhood trauma that instead of looking at it that way, I decided,
37:14
I'm writing a book about it. Instead of it having it be this like
37:19
gross space, I'm turning that pain into purpose, right, which is what
37:22
you've done, and I think that's great. And another thing that I want
37:25
to talk about before we head out is you talked about working with people,
37:30
right and your courses and all that, So can we talk a little bit
37:35
about that part of you and what you're doing to help people in recovery.
37:39
Well. Number one, you know, when we're talking about triggers, usually
37:44
it's some kind of trauma, right, And your trauma can be your superpower
37:49
or your kryptonite. If your trauma from the past is able to trigger you
37:52
to act out of character, to act in a way that you actually are
37:57
not, then that means that you need to focus on the work that is
38:00
going to make that thing not a trigger anymore. I'm not I'm not ignorant
38:02
to the fact that there is a lot of work to do around childhood trauma.
38:07
I'm not ignorant to the fact that I had to do a lot of
38:08
work around Chuck's suicide and around all of the things that I've been through.
38:13
But I'm not going to go into something going to trauma work expecting to do
38:17
it the rest of my life. I'm going to go into it with a
38:22
healing mindset. How am I going? What do I what work do I
38:23
need to do to heal this part so this doesn't continue to show up in
38:29
my life. And this is the really sad reality about trauma. If trauma
38:34
is still triggering you and it's still able to damage you, that exact same
38:38
trauma will continue to show up. It will show up again in your life.
38:43
You will see it more in front of you, You will hear stories
38:45
of it more in front of you. If you're not doing the work on
38:49
it and getting it out of that kind of thinking, there's and it's I
38:52
mean, it's I hate to use the term, but positive thinking, you
38:57
know, but it's real. The thoughts become things and the affirmations and stuff.
39:02
And I had to do a lot of work to make it so I'm
39:05
not thinking about killing myself because my best friend killed himself and that started a
39:09
whole thing where I wanted to kill myself for years and years and years and
39:14
years. I don't want to kill myself. I have no desire to kill
39:16
myself. I had to do work around them, and it took me a
39:19
while. So if there's if you have a trigger that is that is really
39:22
just causing you to act in a way that you're not do the work you
39:27
deserve it. You deserve to do the work for yourself to get past that
39:31
and you know, find freedom from it. And that's kind of what we're
39:35
covering on Purpose does and the way that we do it is we we do
39:40
work together in the community, right we share our stories with each other.
39:44
We get out the darkest parts of our stories, we get out the you
39:46
know, the best parts of our stories, and we learn how to tell
39:49
them and everything. And we do it in a way we're releasing the power
39:52
it has over us to be our kryptonite, and then we're turning it into
39:57
a superpower to use the digital age now to reach addicts out there with our
40:01
stories that are suffering. Because right now, if you're sitting in an AA
40:06
or NA or c A room, and just to make it very clear,
40:08
I love my fellowships, and I love every single person in the fellowship,
40:12
but if you're someone that is sitting in there waiting for people to walk in
40:16
in order to help them with addiction, you are missing so much opportunity to
40:22
help people. We have videos that are reaching One of my video of my
40:27
of my overdose has been seen by millions of people I know and people as
40:36
I want the hell is happening right here right But if that's the case,
40:42
I mean, and there's there's all kinds of different ways to reach people.
40:45
I mean, we have no idea who this podcast is going to reach.
40:46
Yeah, and if someone, if someone listening to this right now is struggling
40:49
with addiction, email me at Adam at Recovered on Purpose dot org and I
40:52
would love to help me. You know. That's that's the way it works.
40:55
And Lindsay at the Paying Game podcast dot com Lindsay at the Paying Game
41:01
Podcast dot com. Yeah, because this is what we're here for. I
41:05
mean, we were not like just like, oh, let's just spitball and
41:08
hang out with Adam and Lindsay today. No, there is a reason that
41:12
we are here. There is a purpose that we are here. They might
41:15
be a little different in nature, but we still align in ninety percent of
41:20
the reasons that we're here. We're here to help, We're here to give
41:22
hope. We're here to spread our stories of sadness, of hatred, of
41:27
scariness where we want to go kill people like you are not crazy. Okay,
41:34
there are two loving people that are here that are here for you and
41:37
will be for you whatever, like reach out. And I know that a
41:43
message that we've had together is to you know, to not be afraid to
41:49
share your story too, because our stories in so many cases, we all
41:54
share so many stories. And if we don't share the same story with each
41:58
other, you know somebody that does. You know another person that knows somebody
42:01
is the six degrees of separation. You know, we are here to help
42:05
each other. We should not be here to hurt each other. Granted,
42:07
we all make our mistakes, but we can fix so many of them.
42:12
And I mean, like, even if it's here with me and you on
42:15
this show, if there's one person that we've touched, if there's twenty people
42:16
we've touched, hopefully we're we're groping a million of you right now. Okay,
42:23
Yes, yes, there is freedom. You know, there are other
42:28
places to find it outside of addiction and self loathing and shame. And guilt.
42:31
You know, we can let go of these chains. And I've found
42:38
the most freedom that I've found is not when I experience the freedom myself,
42:43
but the real freedom happened when I started helping others find the freedom. If
42:47
you have found the freedom from addiction and alcoholism, you don't know the freedom
42:52
yet until you've helped others find that freedom. You know, like each one
42:55
teach one when you when you know something, when you've actually learned something,
43:00
is when you can actually teach someone else that. So I encourage anybody,
43:04
and that's not just for addicts. Anybody listening right now, This is my
43:07
message for everybody. If you have been through something that you thought was going
43:13
to break you and that you would never get through, and you made it
43:15
through, there is somebody right now counting on you that is going through that
43:22
thing right now and they need your message. From Chains to Save Adam Vibe
43:29
Counter go buy his book on Amazon from Chains to Save. You can find
43:32
him at from Chains to Save dot com. He's on social all over the
43:36
place. I'm recovered on purpose. You can find him all over the place.
43:39
I will put him in show notes and in social media. Thank you
43:44
so much for a being here with me today, and a for saying amen
43:49
as much as you do. Amen. Thank you. I tried not to
43:53
say it, but oh my god, you said it plenty of times than
43:57
I did too. No, I love it. Thank you so much.
44:00
Adam has been a pleasure. Thanks for not dying on us, all right,
44:02
buddy? Amen? Amen. Sorry I've apologizing for saying amen. You
44:10
are exclusively invited to share this chains to save the freedom finding VIP pain journey
44:15
together. Let's get to the heart of how to heal with you by my
44:19
side. Do you know someone who is living in and with chronic pain or
44:23
addiction? If you do, send them our way here to the Pin Game
44:28
Podcast and to Adam. We are here for you. I would love to
44:32
connect with you and hear your heartfelt stories of strength and wisdom and awesomeness and
44:37
perhaps some sadness as well. We're here. Please follow the Pain Game Podcast
44:42
wherever you digest your podcast content, we will be there. Visit us on
44:45
the Pain Game podcast dot com, and follow us on all the socials.
44:50
Can I get an amen? Hey? Thanks for listening my little VIPs.
44:55
Catch you on the other side. Peoples,