Latest / Finding New Waters / Finding Joy in Sobriety: Dylan Starrs on Purpose, Relapse, and Building a Life That Lasts

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Finding Joy in Sobriety: Dylan Starrs on Purpose, Relapse, and Building a Life That Lasts · Finding New Waters

0:00
Sobriety is not an an action in and of itself, right?
0:03
It's an inaction. It's not doing something.
0:07
So you know, and it's the same thing with any any passion,
0:11
right? And you know, that it's really
0:14
our hope at Mountain House is that while guys are here and
0:16
they're typically here with us for minimum length of stay, six
0:20
months, some guys are with us now approaching 18 months,
0:24
right? Because we've got kind of like
0:25
a, a fraternity style thing going here where guys just don't
0:29
want to leave and like, you know, they're able to kind of
0:31
throw the elevator back down to the next guy, which has been
0:34
really cool. All right.
0:35
Welcome back, everybody. My name is Bea Reeves.
0:38
I'm the Director of Business Development at New Waters
0:40
Recovery. Sitting here with our CEO,
0:42
Justin McClendon. And our special guest today is
0:45
Dylan Stars, who is the program Director of Mountain House out
0:51
in Flagstaff, AZ. Welcome, Dylan.
0:54
Hey guys. How are you?
0:55
Doing well. Thank you for joining.
0:56
Us, Dylan. Yeah, man, Thank you for being.
0:57
Here. Honored to be here.
0:59
So yeah, I met Dylan about a year ago out in Carbondale, Co
1:05
at the Jay Walker Serenity Scramble.
1:07
And event they do. It's a fundraiser that involves
1:10
some golf stuff and Dylan and I got to talk in about I think the
1:14
first thing we really talked about was the band Ween, you
1:17
know, don't don't mean meet many people who who like ween out
1:21
there. So that was a plus.
1:23
But but go ahead. And so you're saying Dino?
1:29
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Gener and Diner.
1:31
Exactly. And so then we've seen each
1:34
other a couple times since, and, you know, we realized that we
1:37
had overlapped, lived in New York City at the same time, but
1:40
didn't know each other. And we had a few other mutual
1:44
interests. And he's just a good guy.
1:46
And he's also does some podcasting work himself.
1:49
And so, you know, we generally just like to get a little bit of
1:52
an idea of kind of, you know, here we are talking from we were
1:55
in North Carolina, you're in Arizona, I met you in Colorado.
1:58
Kind of how did you end up where you're sitting right now?
2:04
We might need a longer podcast, but so I, I first first got
2:11
sober in 2011 and at Cedar Hospital in Denver, Co, I was
2:18
coming off of a pretty gnarly DUI.
2:21
Luckily no one was hurt, thank God.
2:24
But my alcohol level was late stage alcohol like .4 like not
2:31
a, not just a, a few glasses of wine.
2:34
And it was an indicator that I needed help, right?
2:37
And so I, you know, my parents were able luckily, to send me to
2:43
Colorado to a place my brother had been.
2:46
And actually the recommendation when I left there at 30 days was
2:52
we think you should go to this place called Jay Walker Lodge
2:54
about 3 hours away in Carbondale, Co.
2:57
And I was like, I hear what you're saying.
3:00
But like, I was a musician. I went to music school, studied,
3:04
you know, audio production, songwriting.
3:06
And I was like, I hear what you're saying, but like, I feel
3:08
really good. I think I should go try and make
3:10
it as a rock star in LA like so I'm going to do that.
3:15
So I maneuvered my family into like this is the cheaper option
3:19
for me to pursue my passions and got kind of lost in the West LA
3:25
sober living shuffle for a while.
3:27
Was sober for a bit and you know, was not in some not so
3:30
great places and, you know, on a relapse train music career kind
3:36
of did take off though. So I was, you know, getting
3:38
gigs, playing bigger venues, was caddying at Bel Air Country
3:41
Club, hanging out with celebrities and rock stars and
3:45
like then going home to like a sober living and, you know, just
3:51
constantly in this state of ego and self right.
3:54
And, you know, that went on for a few years, you know, had, you
4:00
know, medium levels of success, put out a few records.
4:04
And then I just burned my life to the ground, you know, unable
4:06
to stay sober, right? And you know, my family, I've
4:11
been to a few treatments. Post that my dad came and
4:15
rescued me. I disappeared into a motel in
4:17
Torrance, CA on my 27th birthday, 27th, 28th birthday.
4:24
And he got me out to New York to a another place my brother,
4:30
who's now 13 years sober, had gone, called Saint Christopher's
4:34
Inn. And that place changed my life.
4:37
It was a monastery in Greymoor, New York, outside of West Point.
4:43
200 guys, all pretty harsh backgrounds, a lot of them
4:49
coming in and out of jail, right?
4:51
Like it was, you know, partially state funded.
4:54
But you know, I was there for five months and there was, you
4:59
know, 200 guys revolving. And if you broke some rules, you
5:01
were, you're out, right? You didn't have your bed made at
5:04
six O clock. We've slept in like, barrack
5:06
style living. And yeah, I gave me a new
5:11
perspective on gratitude and, like, how lucky I was to have
5:15
the family I had and, you know, the support that I had.
5:18
And, you know, that propelled me to some sobriety time in New
5:22
York Post that. And I got back into, you know,
5:26
chasing the brass ring, if you will, with, you know, a music
5:29
career and, you know, had some success again, you know, put
5:33
some years together in the program thanks to Alcoholics
5:36
Anonymous in New York, which is, you know, a thriving community
5:41
there. I had a lot of fun, met a lot of
5:43
great people. But I was still kind of centered
5:46
in this sense of, you know, chasing things for my own end,
5:50
right? Like, like, I needed people to
5:53
like me. I needed applause.
5:56
I need the people to show up. I need people to listen to my
5:58
music, right, for me to be OK. And, you know, that translated
6:03
into, you know, relationships as well.
6:05
And one didn't go the way I wanted it to.
6:08
And, you know, a relapse happened and I kind of bottomed
6:12
out again. And luckily my brother had, you
6:17
know, he kind of macheted the way through the jungle for me of
6:22
sobriety. And it put together a
6:24
significant amount of time. And he was living a happy,
6:27
joyous, free life out in Hawaii. And I went and visited and was
6:30
like, why don't I just stay out here?
6:33
And then, you know, my second or third meeting out there, I go to
6:38
this meeting in Hanalei and a guy raises his hand and says my
6:43
name is Bobby F and I'm visiting from Carbondale, Co.
6:46
And my brother had actually been to Jay Walker Lodge and Bobby F
6:50
is Bobby Ferguson. He'd been to Jay Walker for like
6:55
3 weeks at the beginning of his addiction and drank his way out,
7:00
went to sopress liquor or something.
7:02
And you know, Brendan went up to him.
7:06
My brother after the meeting was like, hey, I heard you from
7:08
Carbondale Co. I, I went to a treatment center
7:13
there and Bobby in full form. Carbondale's a town of 6000
7:18
people with one treatment center, right?
7:21
Bobby in full form goes, Oh, yeah, which one?
7:27
And Brendan is like Jay Walker, have you heard of it?
7:30
And he's like, yeah, I own it. And so Bobby, as you all know,
7:34
is a, is a golf nut. And I got a job working as an
7:38
assistant golf pro. I grew up playing golf
7:40
competitively and just kind of like was like, oh, I'll try this
7:42
out. And so we, we bonded over golf
7:46
and he was a, you know, a mentor to me and sobriety then.
7:50
And then COVID hit. We've been friends.
7:53
I took a job at a course in Nashville.
7:56
It's going to restart my music career again.
8:01
And, you know, off the plane, you know, I have no program and
8:05
I'm chasing my dreams for my end and I'm drunk again.
8:09
And then six weeks later, I, you know, Bobby and another guy in
8:15
Nashville kind of scooped me up and got me out to Jay Walker
8:18
Lodge. And I stayed there in care for
8:22
about 10-11 months, got a, you know, worked at a grocery store,
8:26
got a job at, you know, did whatever.
8:28
I, I finally surrendered, right And found a community there,
8:33
started a A6, A 6:45 AM meeting there.
8:36
I like really took ownership over my recovery, put action,
8:41
some action behind it. I went from like kind of taking
8:44
what I could from a a in treatment centers to like, you
8:47
know, this was a, you know, I was scholarship to Jay Walker.
8:51
So, and it's not a cheap place. So this was something that was
8:54
so clearly graced upon me that whether it's Irish guilt or just
9:01
an awakening, I felt I had to give back.
9:04
And one of the things I did was I started the Jay Walker podcast
9:07
while I was in the solutions program and like put like a
9:10
proposal together. And so podcasting and sobriety
9:13
was, you know, it was a big part of my sobriety.
9:17
And then I worked in, I left the golf world after my dad passed
9:23
away. It was a winter season.
9:26
And a friend of mine, John Lencioni, he offered me a job
9:31
doing sober companion and, you know, turned into some case
9:35
management and coaching and some intervention stuff and did that
9:42
for about a year and a half. And then Bobby asked me to run
9:45
the alumni program at Jay Walker.
9:47
And it was a, you know, an offer I couldn't refuse.
9:52
It was, it was an honor to, to be asked.
9:54
And I did that for almost 2 years, I think.
9:56
And then a friend of mine had started this program called
10:01
Mountain House Recovery, which started about four years ago
10:04
pretty much as a sober living. And he asked me to come down and
10:08
help him kind of grow it into something in the model of, you
10:12
know, we're not very discreet about it.
10:14
You know, Jay Walker informs my recovery quite a bit and try and
10:19
you know, spread that kind of community outdoor experiential
10:24
recovery to to long term treatment.
10:27
Man, that's great, great summing up of of an amazing story and a
10:34
few things stood out to me. You know, you kept kind of seems
10:38
like it there was this theme of get a little, you get sobriety
10:42
and get get the the goods from it.
10:44
But then we're still searching for that looking horizontally
10:48
instead of vertically and wanting to make money and be
10:52
basically rich and famous. You know, I want to put words in
10:55
your mouth, but I, I know what that's like.
10:56
I mean, I just wanted that to happen to me and be plucked out
10:58
of obscurity. I wouldn't even do the work you
11:00
did to do to, to get there. But but the you mentioned the
11:05
ego and the self when and you mentioned it around the time
11:08
you're talking about being a caddy at Bel Air and hanging out
11:11
with rock stars. And, but going back and living
11:14
at a sober living. And I can't really think of a
11:16
more extreme example of that. Wanting to be at the top of the,
11:22
the pile or the bottom of the heap or always feeling like the,
11:25
the, the, the better than or, or, or the worst of like, you
11:29
know, living in a sober living, which is, you know, by default
11:33
humbling. But then you're at you're,
11:35
you're at, at Bel Air Country Club, but you're, you're not a
11:38
member, you're a caddy, but you're, but you're a good golfer
11:40
and you're, and you're hanging out all these rock stars.
11:42
So you get that, that taste of it.
11:47
So you get to like, you know, hobnob rub shoulders, but then
11:49
you're back. So it would be to me that would
11:51
just be like a mind scramble of of the ego, like just constant
11:55
back and forth, but never that just, you know, kind of that
12:00
kind of 456, you know, instead of being, you know, just kind of
12:03
right Size, I guess is the word I was looking for.
12:06
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I would, it was a I've
12:09
got stories galore and it was a great experience.
12:12
And I, you know, I had good times and bad times and I, I
12:14
wouldn't, I wouldn't trade any part of my story because I like
12:18
the person I am today, right. But in hindsight, yeah, the,
12:21
that type of and I think everyone experiences that and
12:24
the, the men I work with, the young men I work with today,
12:27
everyone experiences that on some level, right?
12:29
We've got this idea of, and we all have our intentions and who
12:34
we think we are, right, and what we want to be.
12:37
And you know, we judge ourselves based on this like kind of
12:40
perfect ideation of, of self, right?
12:42
This like person that exists in another universe that's thrown a
12:45
perfect game of life, right? And you know, our actions don't
12:50
line up against that. Mine certainly didn't, right?
12:52
But I'm constantly comparing myself to this person that
12:55
doesn't exist, that's at the top of the heap.
12:58
And, you know, for, for someone like me who's an alcoholic, you
13:02
know, genetically, behaviorally, right, like I got it right, you
13:06
know, Irish and Ukrainian and Polish and Russian, mainly
13:11
Irish. And it, you know, it's on both
13:14
sides of my family. And, you know, two of us, two of
13:17
my four siblings have it. And, you know, I just happen to
13:24
be the one that has it right. And, you know, so for me it's,
13:28
you know, recovery is about, you know, kind of like to the four
13:32
agreements, it's where my intentions meet my actions,
13:34
right and being right sized about what those are right.
13:37
And knowing that like the intentions, you know, I, I can't
13:41
have them too big, right. I can.
13:42
I can only Do you know what I can do in the 16 or so hours I
13:46
have in a given day? Not the truth.
13:50
Isn't that the truth? So go ahead.
13:53
I was going to ask about not to derail the conversation, but
13:56
Mountain House, can you tell us a little bit about, you know,
13:58
what's the level of care? So we're.
14:02
We're an aftercare facility, right?
14:04
So we take guys who've typically, you know, at least
14:07
been through about 28 days depending on, you know, what
14:10
insurance takes of residential treatment.
14:14
And currently we're private pay. But our programming is PHP level
14:19
for the first phase and then kind of shuffles down to IOP
14:23
level. And we're right in the heart of
14:26
Flagstaff, AZ, right off historic Route 66.
14:29
We are, you know, a gap wedge from the Northern Arizona
14:35
University campus, you know, quarter mile from downtown
14:39
Flagstaff. We have 17 beds spread across 4
14:44
houses. And we take guys who are, you
14:48
know, kind of resemble my story and Aaron, our owner's story of,
14:54
you know, an ability to kind of do treatment, but an inability
15:00
to do life right. And, you know, so we, we take
15:05
guys who've, you know, typically, you know, they're
15:07
trying to get back into college. They're trying to, you know,
15:10
find a career, find a path where this is a trade school or
15:13
whatnot. And, you know, we try and give
15:15
them a community and add some, you know, outdoor adventures.
15:20
We do a big trip every 5-6 weeks.
15:23
We do 2 to 3 experientials during the week.
15:27
We've got a clinical staff, guys are meeting with me as a life
15:32
coach. We brought on two more life
15:34
coaches, some some men with some serious time in the in the
15:39
program and in recovery. And then we run clinical groups
15:43
twice a week, a community group and then each guy meets with a a
15:50
therapist. So.
15:52
That's awesome. Well, we talk, you know, about
15:56
recovery and you know, the treatment center, the insurance
15:59
and outs and what people do. But I wanted to back up a little
16:01
bit and I do want to hear, we've talked about a little bit.
16:04
But will you just give us like the 30,000 foot view of like
16:08
your musical career and like where it started, the highs, the
16:13
lows. You don't have to get into too
16:14
many war stories, but you know, and then kind of are you able to
16:18
implement it today in your recovery and it at Mountain
16:20
House? Yeah, I mean, it's not much of A
16:23
career, right? I, I, I, I played some of the
16:26
bigger, you know, I would regularly play some of the
16:28
bigger. I was a local musician, right?
16:30
And then I had a little luck with some Spotify playlists and
16:33
some licensing for some music and TV shows.
16:36
But I, I grew up. This might show my narcissism,
16:40
but I bought a Bob Dylan CD when I was three or thirteen years
16:45
old and I was just cause like, hey, that guy's got my name and
16:49
I'd heard of him. And then I just became obsessed,
16:51
right. And that, you know, that led
16:52
into more of the jammier stuff with the dad and ween and fish
16:57
and yeah, I, you know, I, I went to a music school in Chicago
17:03
called Columbia College. Had a great time there, probably
17:06
too good of a time in hindsight. And, you know, was in Austin for
17:13
a while and then LAII really like to started taking it
17:17
seriously. But yeah, my music's out there
17:21
on the web. People want to check it out as
17:24
far as like where it is now, You know, I still write actively,
17:29
not as much as I'd like, but and I perform since I've moved down
17:33
here to run this program that's kind of been all consuming.
17:36
But you know, I'm doing an open mic with one of our clients next
17:39
week. He's cool trying to audition for
17:41
a play. So we're going to do a warm up
17:43
and I'm going to play, you know, guitar for him and he's going to
17:46
sing in an open mic and then really cool.
17:50
Next week at the Lone Star Collective, I'll be the musician
17:54
opening up the the event at an Alpha Behavioral Health party.
17:59
So I find little like gigs here and there.
18:03
You know, hopefully when things settle down with the growth
18:06
here, I can, you know, find a few weeks to go somewhere and,
18:10
you know, record a another record.
18:12
And yeah, now it's more for, you know, I think with anything is,
18:19
you know, in life and what recovery.
18:21
And you said it perfectly before, B is, you know, right,
18:24
being right sized right. And I I tell it to my guys as
18:29
like, you know, what's the surface versus the essence here,
18:33
right? And for me, for the longest
18:35
time, music was the surface, right?
18:37
It was like the way I got people to like me because I didn't like
18:41
myself, right? And you know, now, like, you
18:45
know, Thursday night I'm going, I'm driving to Vegas to meet my
18:48
sober brother. He's going to the dead and coast
18:52
show at the sphere. And then afterwards we're going
18:54
to a late night J Rad concert with Branford Marsalis right
18:59
now. I like seek out music for the
19:02
joy, right, the essence of it. And I think, you know, I don't
19:07
I, I dreamed of being a professional golfer and a
19:10
professional musician when I was growing up and I've gotten paid
19:13
to do both. So like, you did it.
19:16
They, they weren't, they weren't, they weren't the, the
19:18
levels I wanted, like when I was 12.
19:21
But, you know, I've achieved, you know, goals that, you know,
19:25
a lot of people don't. So.
19:28
Yeah. That's cool.
19:29
So from what from what I'm hearing and what I've seen,
19:32
you're able to really, you know, you've, you've technically
19:35
achieved both of those goals, but you also get to use both of
19:38
those, implement both of those passions in your recovery and in
19:42
your job too. 100%, yeah. I think, yeah, I think, you
19:47
know, being able to we're all, you know, if you're working in
19:51
this field, whether you're, you know, doing what I'm doing,
19:54
working with families and guys on the front or on the back end
19:57
of programming, you know, you're a teacher, right?
20:02
And I'm like, I'm trying to teach from my experience, right.
20:04
And you know where I've gone wrong and hopefully shorten the.
20:09
You know, the period of time people have to go through this
20:11
cycle of, of addiction, right? Because it is, it is terminal,
20:15
right? And, and it will, you will
20:17
relapse. You know, I, I tell it to my
20:19
guys, it's like, you know, we've got a simple equation here.
20:23
It's A + B = C, right? And the constant is A and that's
20:27
you, right? B are your actions, your
20:30
priorities, your you know what you do right?
20:33
And C is whether or not you're sober or drunk, right?
20:36
The only thing we can change is what you do, right?
20:39
That's that's it. And we're going to give you a
20:42
community here of, you know, some like minded guys to help
20:45
you find that. And over time, you know the
20:49
result is sobriety, right? Sobriety is not an an action in
20:55
and of itself, right? It's an inaction.
20:57
It's not doing something. So, you know, and it's the same
21:02
thing with any, any passion, right?
21:05
And you know that that's really our hope at Mountain House is
21:07
that while guys are here and they're typically here with us
21:09
for minimum length of stay six months.
21:13
Some guys are with us now approaching 18 months, right,
21:16
'cause we've got kind of like a, a fraternity style thing going
21:19
here where guys just don't want to leave and like, you know,
21:22
they're able to kind of throw the elevator back down to the
21:25
next guy, which has been really cool.
21:28
That's cool. That's awesome.
21:30
And being able to show these young guys how to live and more
21:34
importantly, you know, enjoy life clean and sober is there's
21:38
such a difference of being just wagging a finger and telling
21:41
people do this and I promise it'll be better to really show,
21:45
you know. You know, and and you know,
21:48
Bobby is a is a big mentor of mine and he's him and Emma Gary
21:53
Fisher say this thing that's it always resonates with me, right,
21:55
which is I'm going to mess it up.
21:58
So if they're listening, hopefully they forgive me.
22:00
But you know you can't pretend to show up.
22:05
Right. You can pretend to care.
22:06
Yeah. Yep.
22:07
You can't, you can't pretend to show up, right?
22:09
And, you know, that that is, to me kind of like what we're, you
22:14
know, we're trying to instill with our guys, right?
22:17
And our families too, right? Like, you know, we want the
22:19
families, you know, we're starting a, a, a family program
22:22
this week. I'm really excited about that.
22:24
Ray Barlow is going to run for us.
22:27
You know, he's got, you know, decades of experience in the
22:30
field. And, you know, the families, you
22:33
know, need to, you know, do some of their work too, right, 'cause
22:39
you know it, the disease of addiction, you know, affects us
22:44
all. And I, I know some of Bee's
22:46
story and Justin, I don't know really any of yours, but I, I
22:49
guarantee, you know, it's, it's, it's the same as mine.
22:52
We're like my mom, my dad, my siblings, they were all affected
22:54
by my use, right? And they, you know, luckily
22:57
we're to, we're in a place now with our family where, you know,
22:59
there's been a lot of recovery for, you know, years now to
23:03
where we're all not healed, but like still healing, right?
23:08
And, you know, that's, that's really our hope for for our guys
23:12
and our families at Mountain House.
23:13
Yeah, we were actually, I was engaged in a conversation
23:17
earlier about this. You know, I mean, time and time
23:20
again, you hear people say this in our in our industry and
23:23
that's, you know, addiction is a family disease.
23:26
I think we know that very well. But man, it's so true time and
23:29
time again, like you got it. The family has to be willing to
23:32
do some of the work, right? And and I'm sure, you know,
23:35
Dylan, I'm sure you guys see it just like anybody else does.
23:37
But a lot of times you get those families where it's just like,
23:40
you know, it's it's, you know, the child, the spouse, whoever
23:43
it is, it's their problem. They need to do their stuff.
23:45
We're cool. We're over here just kind of
23:47
hanging out. But it's not until we can get
23:49
the family to get on board with, you know, how what's their role
23:52
in this and what is their role in the kind of healing process
23:55
look like that anybody really stands a chance of having some
23:58
peace and happiness at any point, you know?
24:00
Yeah. And the big key is helping them
24:03
understand that. That's because a lot of times
24:05
they feel like I'm being, why am I being punished?
24:08
Because my son is acting like this, you know, and this is
24:13
leaving aside the fact that, you know, you're probably a big part
24:16
of the reason that he's acting like this.
24:18
But either way, even if that's not the case, helping them
24:22
understand that their recovery is a gift and not not a
24:27
punishment, that they get to find their own serenity without
24:30
having to go through, you know, the depths of alcoholism or
24:33
addiction. Total and I think it's, it's a,
24:38
it's a mindset, right? And the what I've experienced
24:44
in, in my own journey, my family's journey, right?
24:46
And working with other families is right.
24:48
We have this idea of treatment as kind of a like a medical type
24:55
system, right, where you go and you receive a treatment and you
24:58
are healed, right? And in my experience, that's
25:02
just not the case, right? It's far more like a collegiate
25:05
experience, right? You're paying a, you're paying
25:08
to go learn and do the work, right?
25:11
And, you know, once we can get the families and the guys are
25:16
there, you know, the hope is to get their, their minds wrapped
25:19
around that, that this is not something you don't, you don't
25:21
receive sobriety. No one got me sober or, you
25:27
know, a, a didn't even get me sober, right.
25:29
Like, like I had a variety of experiences that set the table
25:37
for me to do the work where the result was sobriety, right?
25:42
And I'm, I'm grateful for that. I don't know why I deserved it,
25:45
but but yeah, I think you know, it.
25:49
It's a, it's a common thing I've got to work through families
25:52
with. And, and once they get it, then
25:54
it's, you know, it's lift off, right?
25:56
It's like, oh, OK, yeah, I I'm not a passive observer in this
26:01
experience. I just want you made me think
26:04
about something, so I'm going to share it.
26:05
So I actually stole this from a client, you know, number of
26:08
years ago, this particular person referred to treatment or
26:13
this person's experience and treatment as emotional Graduate
26:17
School. And that's always stuck with me.
26:18
Very similar to what you just said.
26:20
No, absolutely it is, right. I mean, it's yeah, I love the
26:23
way that you put that. It's not the sobriety is not
26:25
something that you're going to receive, right?
26:26
I it's, it's, it takes a lot of work and it's not all pretty and
26:30
sunshine and roses, right? You know, that's what makes it
26:34
worth it. If you could receive it, it
26:35
wouldn't. Be worth it?
26:36
Exactly. You know, I, I've got sweat
26:40
equity in my recovery now, right?
26:43
And when, when you get that, then you value it, right?
26:45
The problem I had before, right? You know, my 8 1/2 nine years of
26:52
auditing recovery was that like, I didn't value it, right?
26:57
Because it was just given to me. It was like, you know, so I like
27:02
that, though. I'm going to steal that from
27:03
your client. Your client too emotional Grad
27:05
school. Yeah.
27:07
I mean, I just this morning I was talking to a client who was
27:10
leaving, you know, 30 minutes after I talked to him to go to
27:15
residential treatment center and just basically talking about
27:19
what we're all talking about here, but that, you know, you're
27:22
going to go for another 30 days and then you may go to more
27:25
treatment after that. But we can't be in treatment
27:27
forever. This is important for, I can't
27:31
speak for you buddy, but for me, I needed to be away from the
27:34
substances in a treatment Center for a little while.
27:36
That was important for me. I know not everybody needs that
27:38
I did, but, but at some point, whether it's just a week or a
27:44
full month or, you know, 18 months, like some of your guys,
27:47
at some point we're going to be, you know, out or the, the
27:50
training wheels come off. And then that's where the real
27:52
work starts. Because, you know, we could do a
27:54
lot of work in treatment, but eventually it's going to be up
27:57
to us to, to, you know, every day to have nobody's going to
28:00
drive me to a meeting. Nobody's going to make me call
28:03
my sponsor and do all the things that, you know, I've done now
28:06
for a while. And, and so, and it's a lifelong
28:09
thing. And another thing that another
28:11
conversation we have all the time too is a parent, especially
28:16
if the kids never been to treatment before and they come
28:19
in and they, I mean, this happened the other day.
28:20
Literally the kid was crying and said, I need help, I'll do
28:24
anything. And I'm like, I want you to
28:26
remember what you're saying. You might not, but I'm still
28:28
going to remind you of what you said.
28:29
And then talking to the family, Hey, in three days you're going
28:33
to talk to him and he's going to look different.
28:35
He's going to look better. He's going to sound better.
28:37
He's going to have a new language.
28:39
He's going to be a lot better than he was when he got here.
28:41
But he's not better. He's never going to be all the
28:43
way better. I'm never going to be all the
28:44
way better. But like you just said, healing,
28:47
the constantly healing and constantly getting better
28:49
because it can be if we're not careful and we don't get that
28:54
false. If we, if we get a false sense
28:56
of security, then we start thinking we got this and we just
29:01
don't, we don't got this yet. Especially in those first, you
29:03
know, that first part of treatment when nobody's been
29:05
before, especially. There's nothing to get.
29:09
Right, right, right. Exactly.
29:11
It's like, you know, it's like a dog chasing the car.
29:15
What are you going to do with you?
29:18
You know what I tell, I tell all you guys is like, hey, you don't
29:21
got this, but we do right? Like and.
29:25
Listening and fine, you know, and you know what they told me
29:28
when I got to treatment and they're you know, I remember
29:31
actually more than I can. I'm surprised I remember as much
29:34
as I do. But one thing was my bet.
29:35
They said your best way of thinking got you half a room
29:39
here, half a room here. And they're right.
29:42
Because I was always just doing things my way.
29:45
Yeah. I didn't always think it was
29:47
better or I was outsmarting. I just was, you know, like I got
29:50
it. I got this.
29:51
And I just finally was like, I don't, I don't got this help,
29:55
you know? And, and, but, you know, I think
29:59
that's got to remain, you know, we're for us who work in the
30:03
field, right? And you know, there's, I've had,
30:06
I've lost some friends that work in the field over these last few
30:09
years, right? Like that's still got to be my,
30:12
you know, I, I've got a job here where I'm working with families
30:15
and guys, but that's not my recovery, right?
30:18
And, you know, my sponsor, you know, used to work in the field
30:21
and he reminds me of that constantly, right?
30:23
Like I've got a, you know, when I say my name's Dylan and I'm an
30:26
alcoholic, it can't be my name's Dylan, I'm an alcoholic and I
30:30
know some shit, right? It's got to be my name's Dylan,
30:33
I'm an alcoholic and I still need help, right?
30:36
And you know, you know what we, what I try and do, what I hope
30:41
we do with our guys is that like, you know, every person
30:44
that works in our program that's in recovery, you know, is an
30:47
active member of the recovery community, right?
30:49
And they see it through example, like we said earlier, right?
30:52
It's not just guys kind of postulating on a soapbox about,
30:56
you know, whatever. It's like, oh, they see him
30:58
setting up chairs, making coffee, you know, taking guys to
31:01
a meeting. That type of stuff goes far
31:04
along, you know, far further than any sort of spiel I can
31:09
give them and wax poetic on recovery.
31:11
Well, that goes back to you. You know, we can pretend to
31:13
care, but we can't pretend to show up.
31:15
And part of showing up in this example is, you know, putting up
31:18
chairs after a meeting. And I'm so glad you said what
31:21
you just said, too, is, and I don't know who told me this
31:25
first, but I heard it a few times when right when I started
31:28
working in this field. And the advice was, do not let
31:31
this be your recovery. And you know, I haven't and I
31:36
hope I never will. And you know, there are
31:39
hopefully they can complement each other and that they can
31:42
sort of intersect when appropriate.
31:44
But I definitely do my best to just keep them separate and, and
31:48
make sure that I recovery first, sobriety first and then
31:51
everything else kind of falls into place because we we've all
31:55
seen it where people and you know, the guy who got me into
31:58
the field was a victim of that advice too.
32:01
I mean, he just kind of like all of a sudden I didn't see him at
32:04
meetings and I was like, hey, man, what's up?
32:06
I haven't seen you at this meeting called Gateway back in,
32:09
you know, the years ago. And he said, well, you know, I
32:12
mean, I've, you know, it's up until 11 helping people get into
32:14
treatment, you know, and I wasn't, I wasn't going to say,
32:18
Hey, that's your job. But that's really what the
32:21
answer was. That's your job.
32:22
Like my job is to do what I do for work, and my recovery is my
32:24
recovery and that. And it's a slippery slope.
32:27
And then it then it takes people not only out of the program, but
32:30
but, you know, out of its life as we know it.
32:34
Yeah. It, it is a slippery slope and
32:36
I'm, I'm not going to go on a tear here taking other people's
32:39
inventory. But I think you, you see a lot
32:42
of that, especially like people that are kind of maybe newer to
32:46
the field, they're just kind of starting to do some of this
32:48
work, especially in the kind of like, you know, business
32:50
development kind of realm. You see a lot of that, you know,
32:54
where they just don't understand what those boundaries look like,
32:57
right? And they're, you know, they're
32:58
answering the phone 24/7. If somebody needs help, I'm
33:00
there. And like, that's what you're
33:02
supposed to do. And I'm like, so yes, maybe
33:05
right. We also need to learn how to
33:06
take care of ourself. And the the very important point
33:08
that like that is not our recovery, right?
33:10
Yep, yeah, totally. And it goes back to the same,
33:13
you know, metaphor. I talked to potential clients,
33:18
current clients, their families all the time, especially, you
33:20
know, the people who are and they, pretty much everybody has
33:22
the same thing, some version of it.
33:24
But you know, my job, I can't be away from my job or, you know,
33:27
my, I got to feed my dog, whatever it is.
33:30
But I just always go back to that analogy of the flight
33:33
attendant showing us how to put the oxygen mask on ourself
33:36
before we help the person next to us.
33:38
And it's the same thing with working in this field too.
33:40
Like I've got to take care of myself or I'm no good to.
33:43
Just because I work in a in, in the field of treatment doesn't
33:49
mean that I don't need to take care of myself just as much as
33:51
everybody else, you know, And it's easy to lose sight of it
33:54
and I need to be reminded of it. So again, thank you for
33:57
reminding me of that right now, today.
33:59
Yeah, I. Mean I I don't want AI don't
34:01
want a therapist that doesn't have a therapist I don't want
34:05
like. Well, exactly.
34:07
And I have a. Sponsor that doesn't have a
34:08
sponsor like. It took me a year, three years
34:11
probably, to understand why the people said that when they were
34:13
speaking at a meeting. And they would say, you know, I
34:15
have a sponsor. My sponsor has a sponsor.
34:17
I remember the first three years of hearing that, like, what is
34:20
that? Who cares?
34:21
And then I was like, we don't want some, you know, masterless
34:26
samurai. I think those are called Ronan,
34:29
right? That's right.
34:32
Yeah. Teaching us some kind of made-up
34:34
hodgepodge, you know, so I get you're but great.
34:37
That's that's exactly right. And you know, we've, we've
34:40
talked a lot about the, the work, the quote UN quote work of
34:45
recovery right. And I, I think, you know, part
34:49
of, you know, my recovery, right, is also, you know, I
34:54
think a lot of people were talking about or, you know, and
34:56
I've experiences, I definitely like recently went through it
34:59
where I was giving too much of myself to too many people,
35:01
right? Where it's like you have, it's
35:03
the right intention, right? It's like this, like I need to
35:07
fix everything, right? But it's, you know, it's
35:10
antithetical to, you know what I view recovery as, which is it
35:14
like I'm part of a bigger hole, right?
35:17
And you know, that's spirituality to me is like I am
35:20
part of a bigger hole. I'm not the end, all right?
35:22
So if I start acting like I am right, and I'm trying to fix
35:26
every family's problem or I'm like bending over, you know, to
35:29
backwards for a guy who doesn't want it and trying to fix him,
35:33
right? I'm going to take away from my
35:35
ability to participate my own recovery, right?
35:38
And my own recoveries, going to Vegas to shows with my sober
35:41
brother, right? It's going on hikes and, you
35:44
know, having, having pursuits of my own that, you know, I, I'm,
35:49
you know, I spend my day helping other people find their
35:51
pursuits. But I've got a, you know, I've
35:53
got, it's my responsibility to find my joy in life.
35:57
And that's what I'm trying to impart for these guys too,
35:59
right? Is it like, no one's going to
36:01
give you purpose, right? No one's just going to like tap
36:04
you on the shoulder and be like, here's your purpose, right?
36:07
You've got to dig, right? And you know, when you find it,
36:10
it's precious and you hold on to it and you value it.
36:14
But but yeah, like, you know, and that's why I love, you know,
36:18
the bee that we've, we've met in these golf things, right?
36:23
Where we're out there having fun right Sober, right 'cause if if
36:27
you're not having fun sober, I don't know.
36:29
I don't know about y'all, but I'm probably not going to stay
36:31
sober, no. Way, I mean, that's, that's the
36:34
thing that's so hard, you know, and I try to just, I, I mean,
36:37
outright ask people this all the time, especially people who are
36:40
in our care. And I'm, and you know, I'm, I'm
36:42
not, I'm not in there as much as I'd like to be because I'm
36:45
travelling so much. But when I'm there, I, I try to
36:47
sit down with some people and I just, you know, I don't come
36:49
force this on them, but just say, do you think I enjoy being
36:52
sober? Does it seem like it?
36:54
And they always say yes. And then like, exactly.
36:57
I would not be sober if it sucked.
37:00
I wouldn't. There's just no way.
37:02
No. And I was actually at a meeting
37:05
in Phoenix when I last saw you when I right when I got off the
37:07
plane and I heard a guy share. Never heard anybody say this.
37:10
You know, we don't, we don't get, we get sober.
37:12
We don't get somber, you know, and that's the thing.
37:16
It's you know, we're not a glum lot.
37:18
We get we don't, we don't get sober to be boring and rigid.
37:22
And you know, it's, it's supposed to be fun, you know,
37:25
And it is. Like the cap, the capstone to my
37:28
story, right, is that like in July, I'm flying to Vancouver
37:32
with Bobby to go to the a, a world conference and just that's
37:37
around Vancouver with, you know, the guy who got me sober, right,
37:41
like. That's awesome.
37:42
I can't, you know, I get chills thinking about it, right.
37:46
The, you know, we're we're lucky, right, and like to have
37:50
all this fun and, you know, do podcasts and, you know, get to
37:54
get to do all the things we get to do.
37:56
You know, hopefully, you know, you know, we should just impart
38:00
that on the next guy. Absolutely.
38:02
Absolutely. Well, I think that's a great
38:03
place to to wind it down. What Dylan, tell us how we find
38:08
you and how do we find Mountain House?
38:11
Mountainhouserecovery.com I'm sure y'all post our socials on
38:17
this, but it's at MTN House recovery on the Instagram.
38:24
And then me, I'm just I'm I'm anonymous.
38:28
Actually, I'm not very anonymous at all now, I guess not for this
38:31
podcast, but just my name Dylan stars.
38:35
It is my real name. My parents are art and Mary Beth
38:38
stars. People thought it was a, you
38:41
know, people used to think I made it up as a stage name, but
38:44
no, I just have a Rockstar sounding name, but I'm not a
38:48
Rockstar. Yes, you are.
38:50
I'm all I'm all over the the interwebs of Spotify and Apple
38:54
Music and all that. Very cool.
38:56
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, man.
38:58
It's it's good to see you and I can't wait to see you soon.
39:00
I'll be in Austin, so hopefully I'll see you perform.
39:03
I'll see you Wednesday. I'll I'll be send send me some
39:05
tunes. All right, buddy, if you liked
39:08
what you heard today or just want to know more, give us a
39:11
call on 9196708119 or visit us at newwatersrecovery.com.
39:17
Thank you.