Latest / SCARS AND ALL / Nine Overdoses. Now She’s the First Call at Rehab. | Danielle Benjamins | Ep. 2

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Nine Overdoses. Now She’s the First Call at Rehab. | Danielle Benjamins | Ep. 2 · SCARS AND ALL

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, back again.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is Frank Wills with the Scars in All Podcast, bringing you another episode.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have a good friend of mine joining us today.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Danielle Benjamin.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I have the privilege of knowing Danielle for quite some time.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: We also have the opportunity now to work together.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to welcome you to the podcast.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you for having me.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_05: Hello, everyone.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we're still pretty new at this, so I know it's a little strange talking in front of a microphone.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Danielle and I speak in recovery all over the place.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So speaking in front of hundreds of people is kind of second nature for us, but talking into a microphone and into a camera is very unorthodox.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Very odd.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Very odd.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But you look great.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming out.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what brings you here today?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, so um um, I don't know.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_05: I guess uh I've had a great childhood.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, I didn't really struggle with too much in my early years.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_05: Um I came from a family full of love and you know, and somehow I lost my way, you know, and I decided to find alcohol and drugs as a solution, you know, and um So when you say you came from a great childhood, what does that mean?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was What does a great childhood look like to you?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_05: I was a happy kid.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um I had a family that loved me very much.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_05: I was raised with good morals, good values.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um we did plenty of family things.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, I just never came short of love, basically.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_05: And um, yeah, I was really close with my family.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um I always had a wild imagination.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_05: I just I used to have just fond memories of growing up, you know.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: What was the dynamic in the house?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have both parents around?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: No, my parents split when I was young, about four or five, and I was raised by my grandparents.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_05: And um, but we were always with my cousins, so I had other kids to play with all the time, and you know, um, yeah, but you know, and I'd see my parents every once in a while, but they had their own struggles.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_05: Which I came to peace with later on in life.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of when you say struggles, what do you mean?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um, well, my dad was just out trying to get, you know, go to school and get a job and build a career for himself, and he got remarried and built a new family and was doing his thing, and you know, my mom struggled with her own her own demons, you know.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_05: She had her own um I don't want to label her, but you know, she had her own struggles.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you were a happy kid.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I see that.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're a you're a happy, happy girl, sober person.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh so school, what was school like for you?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_05: I did pretty well in school.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_05: I was actually a really good kid, like, which is crazy how I turned out the way I did.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because you were crazy, yeah.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_05: It was like the total opposite.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_05: I was very obedient, you know, I never wanted to get in trouble.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_05: I was afraid to get in trouble.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_05: I played a lot of sports.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um I excelled in school.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_05: I was a scholar athlete.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I was on homecoming court.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_05: Like I just You were homecoming court?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but I fell off the stage and uh I didn't get picked.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Of course you did.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh were you were you inebriated in any way?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit, a little bit.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_05: And it was just partying, you know.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, right.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was the experimental phase.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, yeah.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_05: Normal.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_05: Normal.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone falls off the stage at homecoming.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_05: It's more like a trip, but yeah.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's memorable.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Was it your first time wearing heels?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the dress?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: What was it?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_05: No, I think it was just being an eBay.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_05: Just okay, so you're drunk.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're tripping over your own feet.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, awesome.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you grew up, a lot of love, grandparents, cousins.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so you felt good.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right, okay.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's important to note because you know, not everyone who's an alcoholic or an addict or who grows up with trauma comes from a broken home.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's and I think you were alluding to that in some of your answers to the questionnaire before coming on the podcast is you know, not not everything is there's no like systematic thing to it.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: We come from all walks of life, people from broken homes, free from people from two two parents in the household, lots of love, lots of compassion, lots of empathy, lots of support, and yet we still end up the way.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when did it when did it start taking a turn for you?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: How old were you?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_05: So I started partying in high school, you know, but it just seemed like because that's what all the other kids are doing, you know, you know, like um I did it to fit in, I wanted to be popular, it made me seem like I have more fun at parties and people liked me more, you know, and and quickly it became a tool to where it helped me with my self-confidence, it helped me escape emotions that I was feeling and unsure about, so unsure about myself, comparing myself to other people and comparing other people's outsides to my insights, you know, and um Where do you think where do you think that comes from?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: You especially s coming from um you know, as you said, uh a happy home.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um I still think that um addiction is genetic.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um you know, like I said, my mom struggled with things, and so I don't know.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_05: I think I had the ism in me already from birth.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um but uh yeah, I don't know.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_05: I d um it was quickly it I quickly found out that when I started I couldn't stop immediately.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_05: Like, you know.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_05: Interesting.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_05: Did you did you notice that?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't know that at the time, but looking back, I thought it was actually like a badge of honor.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, yeah, I can keep partying and stay above like everybody else, and I'm the last one to fall, you know, still trying to keep it going, and everyone else has crashed out.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Little did you know that that was the recipe for alcoholism.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was that guy too.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I would be the one that took down the whole bottle in one shot.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_04: Beer bombs, beat all the guys.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Then no one would wonder why I disappeared somewhere.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I'm throwing up in a bush.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Someone's lawn just show up three hours later, just hey, what's that on your shirt?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, vomit, you know.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I've even vomit all over myself and then posed for pictures and had no clue.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so high school.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Did you graduate high school?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I did.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Good for you.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Kudos.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not an alcoholic.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you should go try it.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you should go try.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the one defining factor is because graduation.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_05: Don't tell me that.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_05: My mind will run with that.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you graduated high school, and at this point in your life, are you just drinking, smoking, partying?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_05: I'm just drinking and just um and then I went into like a community college, played some soccer there.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, wow.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, for a semester.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_05: Then once the soccer was over, I was over it.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_05: But um, I started, you know, all my friends started going to college.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_05: I was supposed to go to Cal State San Marcos, but I ended up not going, couldn't afford it.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_05: And um so I ended up just staying back with kind of the people that were hanging back and not going to college, you know, and changed my friend group and just started, you know.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, I'll just take a break from school for a year.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_05: That year turned into like twenty.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever go back to school?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_05: No, I dipped in and in and out of like community colleges for like random subject subjects.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_05: Like didn't last long.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that one year break turned into forever.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, so you're drinking, you're hanging out with lower companionship, or maybe you're the lower companion.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was always the lower companion.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um so when did things really start taking a turn for the worse?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_05: Well, for a long time, to me, I felt like, you know, I felt like I had a right to get loaded and and party the way I wanted to.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_05: It was my life.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_05: I felt like I wasn't hurting anybody.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I thought, you know.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_05: And um, I just was living my life, living a spontaneous life, and doing what I wanted to do and hanging out with my friends and not even realizing how much time was passing, you know, and and I lived my way, like I said, for quite some time without feeling any repercussions from it, you know.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_05: Um of course, some like arrests here and there, but you know, just I mean, no repercussions.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, get back to the case.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing normal people say, by the way.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's so funny.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no consequences whatsoever.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a few arrests, but I mean, that's not really a consequence.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_05: And so every time I would just downplay every consequence and just be like, oh, it's alright though.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_05: Like, it's okay.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Again, probably comparing yourself to your peers who were probably getting the UI.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Who were doing worse things.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing worse.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_05: And so I'm like, well, at least I'm not as bad as them.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not committing robberies and all this stuff.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So at this point you're still drinking?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I'm I after high school I did upgrade to some higher substances, things that would make me stay up longer.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like what?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: What in particular?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, methamphetme.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: What year is this?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is this back in the early 2000s?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_05: This was about 18, 19 years old.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_05: So I graduated high school in 2003.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_05: So right after I graduated, I started switching.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_05: Because the alcohol, you know, I would drink till I blacked out and I would just do embarrassing stuff.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_05: And when I switched to that, I wasn't blacking out and I was able to function.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_05: I was on a solution.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_05: And like I would have jobs that I'd be able to show up to, maybe not on time, but I'd go.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_05: And um I felt like it actually helped me, you know, and I felt like it made me productive, that helped me clean my house.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: The delusion.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_05: The delusion, yes.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: So this is actually beneficial for my life.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_05: I think I'm I feel better.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like I'm a little bit more.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_05: I feel amazing.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm losing all this weight.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Saving so much money on food.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember the night, maybe too much, and uh and for me it worked, it worked for a while.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know you have a son.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when did he come into the picture?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_05: He was born in 2013.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you pretty much lived this way from 2003 till 2013, more or less.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Odd jobs, meth, alcohol.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Still living in my grandma's house.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Zero consequences, a few arrests here and there.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_05: I always had the comfort of my grandmother's house because she's always had me a had I had a safe place to go, so that kind of enabled me a little bit.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Any um any domestic violence or anything like that?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Any toxic relationships?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone was toxic.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_05: I don't think I had one normal relationship while while I was out there.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it was a lot of uh expectations on how I felt a person should be or a relationship should be, because I'm just used to those storybook pictures.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_05: My grandparents were together their whole lives.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_05: I was raised by them.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's such an unfair example, too.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_05: And like the first people they've ever been with was each other.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Never happens.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_05: And so I had that example, so I always compared that to how relationships should be.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_05: But always expecting things from other people and not really looking at myself and seeing what I'm doing wrong as well.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Sun comes in the picture in 2013.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Game changer.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a proud father.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know my kids were a game changer for me.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what did life look like after he was born?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I was excited.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I've always wanted to be a mom, you know.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of people have dreams about their dream career, and I never really had any dreams about what I wanted to be.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_05: I just wanted to be a mom and a wife.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, I loved your grandparents.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_05: Just like my grandma.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_05: She was a stay-at-home mom, and you know, my grandpa worked, and and she was amazing.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_05: She was like the best friend I could ever have and loved me dearly and played games with me and provided for me, and I just wanted to be like that.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_05: And um, so when I was pregnant with him, I was all excited about that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_05: But um, you know, I was in a relationship where we both deal with um addiction, and you know, that storybook picture wasn't falling out the way I was hoping it would, and you know, and um it just ripped me up, it just ripped those dreams a little bit, you know, and um it made it um a little difficult for me to be there as a mom.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I had him and and my all my intentions was to stay sober and and be the mom he deserved.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_05: But I had that uh addiction, you know, I had no solution because uh alcohol and drugs was my solution.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_05: And so quickly after I had him, I went back to it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_05: And um my grandma helped me with him, thank God.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_05: And so I've never had any situation where he was taken because I'm I've had a safe place for him always.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_05: But thank God for that.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I was very fortunate with that, but that was what I why I justified why it was okay for me to leave all the time because he was in a safe spot.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_05: But it just made me not present, you know.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_05: And um it wasn't fair for either of them, you know.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So he's coming up on 13 years old.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_05: He just turned 13 in July.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I met him, he's a great kid.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Great kid.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um your grandma did a great job.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she did.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, so let's fast forward here a little bit.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know at some point we need to get into what brought you to your knees, because of what brought me to my knees.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: When did the cruel mistress of heroin or opiates come into the picture?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, so um let me rewind a little bit.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so I was brought into the rooms on a court card.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_05: Didn't want to be sober.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_05: I was just there because I didn't want to go to jail.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_05: So I was introduced to the rooms, not trying to On a light consequence?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_05: And um just loitering, you know, not trying to do any work, just chasing boys and just doing all the fellowship.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Does that happen?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Does that happen?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Chasing boys?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: I guess, yeah.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_05: And um, and I decided, you know, that I didn't want to give up my solution yet, and I thought I things weren't that bad out there, and I went back out there one last time, and the next five years was the absolute worst five years of my life.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_05: That's when I started upgrading to um heroin and fentanyl.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_05: Um my life got really dark really quickly, you know.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um as it does.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um I don't know if you want me to get into all the Yeah, let's talk about it, man.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_05: Let's talk about it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_05: All right, here goes.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_05: So um, yeah, I ended up getting like breast cancer out there as well.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_05: You know, more domestic violent situations.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_05: I've had my jaw broken, you know.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of domestic violence.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um I had fallen asleep behind the wheel and crashed into a tree and broke my tibia, my fibia.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_05: They um were gonna cut my leg off.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um and so I had all these uh it was a compound fracture, so the bones were sticking out of my skin, my foot was dangling.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_05: I had to have all this external metal holding my leg together while they skin graph healed and you know, and um And you knotted out at the wheel.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I nodded out at the wheel.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_05: And um Was anybody else in the car?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_05: No, it was just me.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_05: Thank God.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_05: Thank God, yeah.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_05: And um that poor tree.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I've did the tree recover?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_05: Dude, the tree didn't even have a mark on it.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_05: My car was folded in and oh yeah, and my leg was destroyed.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_05: You know, um I uh after I got out of the hospital on my crutches, you know, I I went back to doing what I do best, you know, because that's my solution.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_05: And I was coming out of a garage on my crutches, and I was looking down and I ran right into this pole, which is like one of those dry line poles, you know, where you dry your clothes on the T-bar.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_05: I ran right into the edge of the pole and almost gouged my eye out.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_05: Nice.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so I had a peg like an eye patch.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_05: I almost pirate Danielle.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I didn't know.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know that would have been your nickname from then on out forever.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_05: And it didn't slow me down.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_05: It didn't slow me down.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_05: Of course not, you know.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I um, you know, after a few years, my grandma finally got smart and kicked me out.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_05: And so the last two years of my using, I was on the streets.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_05: I was absolutely homeless.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_05: I wasn't allowed to see my son.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and um I just reached uh the depths of despair that I can't even describe because it was just so dark and so lonely to where I felt like I sold my soul almost because I'd had nine overdoses at that point, you know, and um I kept waking up from these overdoses and and wishing I wasn't alive.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Totally, I totally relate.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and um I also upset, like angry.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly, and not knowing I I thought I was just a goddess joke, you know.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_05: Like I was like, why is he keeping me here to watch me just be in torture?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I don't have no purpose.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm hopeless.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_05: And it was easier just to stay down because then people didn't expect anything out of me, you know.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_05: I couldn't disappoint anybody anymore because I was already at the bottom of the barrels, you know.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_05: It was just easier to be that way because I don't want to get anybody's hopes up because I just felt like I was a failure as a mom, a failure as a human being, you know, and um I just kind of gave up.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um I also was in the hospital um and um I overdosed and uh I was induced in a coma and I started seizuring and um they intubated me.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_05: And um, when they intubated me, it paralyzed my vocal cords.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_05: So that's why I breathe the way I do.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's her her new nickname is Darth Vader.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I sound the way I do.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_05: They were gonna give me a Drake too, and so my nickname was gonna be Danny Traco.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's good.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who came up with that?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Me.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you did?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_05: So if that ever happens, Danny Trajo, hit me up.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_05: We'll do TikToks together.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we'll do TikToks.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_05: So good.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_05: But yeah, thank God that hasn't had you know, I've had three surgeries since I've been sober.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_05: But um, yeah, I I struggle with my breathing now.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_05: It's like I breathe through a straw, and this is pretty much as good as it's gonna get.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: But it's gotten a lot better than the last time.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_05: It's a lot better than what it was, yeah.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_05: But it's um permanent damage.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you're in the depths of hell, despair, turmoil.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, any negative word you can think of is where you're at.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I love the story of how you got sober, how you got here again.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: So please tell how this happened for you because it's it's it's hilarious.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, and it wasn't my doing at all.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like I said, I I still did not want to be sober, you know, and um well, you because you didn't feel like you deserved it.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's exactly how I felt too.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I already accepted the fact that I was just gonna die in an overdose, and that's just how it was gonna be.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't even remotely think about trying.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_05: It was more, it wouldn't, and it wasn't scary for me to die from die, it was more frightening for me to live, you know, to be held accountable for things.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, it was just scary for me to be a normal member of society.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_05: Because I've never been, you know.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And at this stage, no one wants you around.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_05: I wasn't allowed at anybody's house.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_05: I kept dying in everybody's house.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_05: You gotta quit dying here, Daniel.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_05: You're not allowed to come over here anymore, Danielle.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because you keep dying.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you're cut off, and you know, that's so good.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_05: Especially when your dealers are telling you that.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_05: Like not like I was buying too much lately.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, no, no.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know what's bad when the dealer that's supplying you the drugs doesn't want you at their house because you keep doing too much of them that you die at their house.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's good.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_05: And so um, yeah, so I called a friend hoping to get a ride to go, you know, pick up.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_05: And um, little did I know she was sober, and um, she took me to detox instead.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm just looking around, I'm like, this doesn't look like the Niconnex house, you know?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_05: Why are all these nurses here and what the heck, you know?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_05: And um, yeah.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank God for her to be crafty enough to be like, oh yeah, yeah, I got you.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out Rosalind.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go, we'll go, we'll go pick that up for you right now.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh didn't tell you she was sober.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I had an idea, but I figured I could maybe talk her into it.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because you guys were thickest thieves.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've known her for years, you know.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um I gotta let something as her being sober stand in your way.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I just thought I could manipulate like I always do, you know, and um poor me, victim me, like, oh, I'm in pain, I'm hurting, and you know how I always did.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, to get what I needed.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_05: And what shape was your body in at this time?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_05: So I was at about 113 pounds.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_05: Like I said, I was homeless.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_05: So I had this like rat's ness hairdo that I hadn't brushed in weeks.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_05: Don't even know what was floating in there.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_05: And uh I had this limp from the broken leg.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_05: Right, that's what I was trying to get at.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have an eye patch still?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_05: I do have a little scar and some little metal stuck in there, but and um, and then I had the breathing.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_05: The breathing was a lot worse than what it is now.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_05: It was like a constant.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you were like a comic villain.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_04: I looked like Smeagol from Lord of the Rings.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_05: I have pictures.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: We may be able to post that on the website, so stay tuned.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_05: And it was not a vision for you.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, definitely not.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have the for I didn't have the opportunity to see you when you got back because I was sober in a different area, but I can imagine.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can imagine.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been verified through other people that she looked just like that.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_05: A creature, a creature of the club.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: A creature, a creature of the night.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_05: And I had no idea.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, I thought I still had a cut.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's the worst part.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: We always think we still look good.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_04: Why are people stare at the cloud?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I shower and my clothes are clean, it doesn't matter if I'm 110 pounds.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Guys have it so much easier.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like we just I just shave my head and like if I have a razor and clean pair of clothes, my underwear may not be clean, but no one sees that.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: No one knows what's going on down there.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_05: Definitely plays an effect on women a lot.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you go into detox.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then what?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_05: And um so I was in there.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: And I wasn't gonna stay sober.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_05: I was just gonna do the few days to try and gain some weight.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_05: Hopefully people forgot that I died in their house and baby welcome me back.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_05: And I was already plotting to put another girl in there that we were gonna go out and do, go back to doing what we do.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_05: And there was someone that worked in there that I knew from when I was in the rooms eight years prior from um when I was on the court card.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_05: And he saw me and he looked up my name and to make sure it was me.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, oh god, he pulled me in the office.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, mind you, at this point I stopped looking people in the eye.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_05: Because when I feel you look people in the eye, you see their soul, and um you don't feel like you have one.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I felt like I just did I didn't want to see the look of pity and judgment from people after a while, you know, and so he sat me down and he looked me in the eyes, and um and it wasn't a look of judgment, it was a look of just genuine concern, you know, and um he just told me he's like Danielle, you were you're a shell of what I used to know.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_05: And that broke me, you know, someone's just like brutally honest with me, but like and um in that moment I just started crying, you know, because I felt up into that point I kept fighting for my right to get loaded for so long, you know, justifying why it was still okay to keep going, doing what I'm doing.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_05: Because the alcohol and the drugs was my solution, you know.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_05: It was the one thing I felt never turned its back on me.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_05: So one thing that gave me comfort, you know, it became my higher power.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_05: I would do anything for it, you know.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_05: So it was really hard for me to let it go.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_05: And so I'd fight every time to just continue to do what I was doing.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_05: And in that moment I really felt like I genuinely asked for help, and I was just like broken.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_05: I just broke down crying and I was like, I can't do this anymore.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_05: I'm killing myself.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_05: And if I go back out there, I'm gonna die.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_05: And um, so he helped me get into sober living.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out Covina.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_05: Shout out Charles.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you go into sober living and still not a vision for you.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_05: Nope.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: But you have a little bit of willingness.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just a shred.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just a shred.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just a shred.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all it takes.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when I went to treatment, man, I was fighting it.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was fighting it.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it was literally like I was at the jumping off place, right?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: I had nowhere else to go.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was either I was gonna go back to prison or back to Skid Row.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, and I too was up there in overdoses by this point.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in treatment and I was like, I don't know, something switched like two weeks in.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: After I threw a couple temper tantrums, you know, give me my stuff.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm leaving.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like it here, you know.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh literally to go where, like, literally nowhere.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh, because you know, no one wanted me around.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was a problem.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was a problem, I brought problems, you know.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and something switched.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was like there was so many so for so many years, I don't know if you can relate to this, but it was like, because I know you came here on a core card, and but I the difference between you and me is like I got sober and was had some sobriety before, you know, and built a life and then trashed it, destroyed it, and destroyed it for eight fucking years.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so f my mentality was how could this possibly work for me again?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's no fucking way.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I get that lucky twice.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it kept me out there for a long time.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then I stopped start stopped saying why me instead of and instead of saying why me, I started saying why not me.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and that was all this which I needed, and that was a little bit of willingness that maybe it could happen again.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about what it's like for you today.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: You just celebrated four years.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_05: I did, yes.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_05: So um, yeah, when I got sober, you know, I just dove in, you know, and um I was doing like 18 meetings a week, you know, commitments and doing the program, and you know, and it was rough, you know.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and uh because I've never succeeded, I've never had long sense of sobriety, so like I really was just all fear based for me because I it was the unknown, you know.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_05: I've never been in that.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_05: I've never done well in my life, you know, besides when I was a kid, but um, so everything was just um brand new for me, you know, and um but we're taught to walk through fear today.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_05: And um, you know, uh as I started to go through things sober, it started to f empower me to wonder what else I could go through sober.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_05: You know?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_05: And um finding a job and then building a finding a person that made me believe in love again, you know, those storybooks.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna cry at.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead, let him rip.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's a great he's a great guy.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, um, I just stopped believing in that kind of love because, you know, I didn't think that my grandparents' love was ever attainable.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_05: And little did I know to getting sober and working on myself and finding my true worth helped me to find someone that I knew loved me.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_05: Love showed up.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and made me believe in love again, you know, and um has been my rock.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Nick.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_05: Nick, yeah.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: I love that guy.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and then I've been able to build a career, you know.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_05: I uh I had a job, my first sober job was uh cleaning toilets at a RV park.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_05: Fire.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know those toilets were shot out too.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_05: Dude, but I love that job riding in a golf cart next to the lake.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_05: I thought I had it made.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, this is the best sober toilet.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have a bucket with like plungers and squeeze and stuff?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_05: I'd scrubbed it on those things, you know?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_05: And um, after a week they looked up my record and I got fired, you know, and um that was um disappointing for me.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_05: And then um, yeah, shared about in a meeting, and then you were there.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was there, yeah.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_05: You were there, and you gave me an opportunity to um work in treatment.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_05: And um, it's been a blessing, you know.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_05: It pushes me and helps me to go places that I didn't think I could, you know, be pe be a person that I didn't think I was at all, you know.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um, because I was just so trapped by my fear, I was so paralyzed by it because, you know, I didn't even have any desire to be anything when I was older, you know, like I said, and so all these things are just being presented to me, and I'm just trying to face them head on, you know, and just walk through that fear and not let me let myself get the best of me, you know, because I'm my worst critic, you know.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_05: I'm very hard on myself.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_05: Even today, you know, it's but um I don't know, I'm just going day by day and just learning as I go, you know, and and now that um I've been sober, I've been able to get a house, and um I got to move my grandmother and my son in with me in January.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's amazing.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_05: The family's back together.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And now you can give back to that woman that gave so freely to you for years and years.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I get to help take care of her and and and make her, you know, try to build memories with her, you know, sober memories, and um have experiences with her and you know, just trying to make life easier for her because she's always like She's held it down.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_05: She's been my number one fan from day one, you know, is love me unconditionally, and um even when no other nobody else would.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my grandma was like that.
• 29:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: So before recovery, what do you think it was that you were searching for?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_05: Love, um, I don't know, adventure.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_05: I was like just like a free spirit.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_05: I just kind of just had no direction.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_05: Like I said, I had no direction.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_05: I really didn't know what I wanted to do.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_05: It kind of gave me anxiety when I would think about that kind of stuff.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_05: So I was just like, I'll just live it day by day and just see where it takes me.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that's where the the alcohol and the drugs and that kind of lifestyle was like beneficial to me because it's like there was no direction, and you just live on a whim, you know.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_05: And so um, yeah, like I said, only dreams I really had was to be a mom and a and a wife.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, other than that, like So you think you were searching for something that felt similar to that connection?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I wanted to have, you know, I wanted to find love.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_05: I just wanted to have a family.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_05: I wanted to have a family and have that, you know, home and have vacations together and eat dinner tonight at n a night together and just all those pot roasts and shit.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Typical meatloaf storybook, you know.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all that shit you see on like maybe the beaver.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what did addiction promise you in the beginning, do you think?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it made me feel more open, you know, because sometimes I struggle with like conversations with people.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_05: You?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_05: Surprisingly.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's good for the first few minutes, and then I'm like, all right, I don't know what to say anymore.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna go.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_05: But um, yeah, it made me more open.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_05: It made me more like more confidence, you know, and and made me more outgoing and not care so much about what everybody else thinks, you know, because I'm always comparing myself, always wondering why things aren't the way I feel they should be.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um It's the ultimate remover of fear.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_05: And it made me um, you know, do things that I would never do before, but then in also in the bad sense, it made me do things I would never do before.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, it it was uh not good.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, what scars, visible or invisible, do you carry with you today?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know you got a lot of visible scars.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_05: I got a lot of visible, as I already said, but um yeah, the the internal emotional scars, you know.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um the the scars that caused my family, you know, like a lot of those, um I was really close with my family.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_05: And um I feel like I had a big part in why there's a big separation in our family.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And um in what in what sense?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_05: Just because of me wanting to live selfishly and not care about anybody else, and so many people so many people from my family were trying to help me and went above and beyond and try to help my son and and and I was unappreciative of that and um was very um so did you kind of create a divide a little bit?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_05: It caused friction in between my family, you know, between you know, and uh kind of mean a separation to where that's still not mended 100%.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_05: And so and maybe it's not all my fault, but I I feel like if I didn't behave the way I did, it probably wouldn't have happened.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, regardless of whether it's all your fault or not, you feel like it's all your fault.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I do, because we were very tight.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's definitely a scar.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_05: Because I know it hurts the ones that it afflicted, you know, very very much.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what about your son?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_05: And my son, yeah.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um, the fact that, you know, I would leave in the middle of the night and he'd wake up wondering where I was and get nightmares.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I always thought I could just shower him with gifts to like and take him like fun places when I was able to, and hopefully he wouldn't realize the times that I wasn't there or justify that my grandma's always there with him, my grandparents that he wouldn't come short of anything, but he just wanted to be with me.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_05: Like every time I leave he'd cry.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and um and so when I finally got sober, it was a lot harder to reconnect with him because it's like I felt like I didn't even know him anymore because I'd been away from him for so long.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_05: And having to learn my son all over again, because he's grown into this little young boy, almost a man now.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_05: And um he hasn't he hasn't a personality of his own.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: He has his own His own opinions and likes and dislikes.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and it was hard because, you know, I have to, you know, I have this idea of how I want my son to be or how I feel he should be, because that's how I was when I was a kid, and and he's just not the same since a lot of aspects.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_05: And so I have to learn that it's okay, you know, and not be so controlling over it and just encourage him to just be the best him, you know.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a tough one.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: As parents, we want we have this image in our head of what we think we want our kids to be and how we want them to act.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: And God man, if if I had written it all down on paper, like my daughters would have failed.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, exactly.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like totally gone in separate directions.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_05: But and times are so different now, too.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_05: Like, you know, we were outside all the time.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, our imaginations just ran wild and made up games and playing with all the kids in the street, and that just doesn't happen anymore.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: We could not leave the house without a quarter.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_05: We weren't allowed back in the house.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: My mom would always make sure I had a quarter.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: For the payphone.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I could call and check in.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_05: In before the street lights come on, yeah.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: All that stuff.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, those were fun times, you know, and it's just crazy because you know electronics and all that stuff just kind of is taken over.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_05: You know, but it is what it is.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Have you forgiven yourself?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, or if not, what does have what does that process look like for you?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it's still a work in progress progress, you know.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_05: Um some days I feel a lot better about myself and and I can do great, and then uh I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, you know, and but then some days it's hard.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_05: It's hard to keep myself in the moment without drifting too far in the future or dwelling in the past or putting too much expectations on how I feel I sh where I should be at it life or something like that.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_05: And and um I just have to remember to be gentle with myself because I like I said I'm my worst critic.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um I always feel like I'm not doing enough.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_05: And um, I just put myself in this mental warfare a lot because um I don't know, I just have never been, I've never done this well, and I've never had the life I had, which I'm my life is very full today.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_05: And now I get to a point where I'm afraid of losing it.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, what am I gonna do now?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I'm not just responsible for me now.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_05: I have a family, I have bills, I have a place that I need to be there for and have responsibilities that I need to keep up, and like it it it worries me sometimes.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_05: Like, what if something happens?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know what to do.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_05: But whatever happens, we'll figure it out, you know.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_05: Just come across those um um struggles when they come, you know.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_05: But um, yeah.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, what relationship was most impacted by your struggles and how has it evolved?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I would say my relationship with my grandmother, um with my son as well, you know, um, but he was little for the most part of it.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um But with my grandmother, just because she's always believed in me, she's always like had my back a hundred percent, you know, and um, you know, it went through a point where I was just so selfish and just didn't treat her right and and didn't give her the respect she deserved for all the things that she's done for me.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_05: And I was just very not kind to her and um took advantage of, you know, she took care of me and I would just take advantage of that.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_05: And then when she came to a point in my life where my grandpa passed away and she just needed me, I couldn't be there and I was just out running around.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_05: And she went through her own pain, you know, losing the one love of her life.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_05: My grandfather and um I wasn't there.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_05: She had to sell her house and move in with my dad, and you know, but she doesn't talk about it a lot, you know.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_05: She keeps it in and she's just a soldier, you know.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_05: She she's a very strong woman, and she knows she always like you know, she can deal with it, but you know, and so now that she's back with me our relationship just has done a total 180, and um we're super close now, you know, and I really try to talk to her more, and it's like I was a I'm a kid again, you know, because she's just happy to see me when I come home, and when I tell her I'm going somewhere, she knows I'm gonna be coming back at a certain time because I do my word is good now, and I'm dependable now with her.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_05: And so, like, you know that's probably one of the best gifts you can give her.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_05: Honestly.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_05: And it just, you know, and even when we take her on vacations and she just gets to like hang out and just be a part of it, you know, it's she enjoys it.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_05: And I think it feels good to know that my son's in a safe spot now.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_05: That she doesn't have to worry about him, because that's what she worried about a lot.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_05: Is making sure that he had a safe place before she goes, you know, and so that's been really important for her to know.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: What's your favorite part of your guys' relationship now?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_05: I love that we can just laugh again, you know, like cause it's been me, her, and my son forever, you know.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_05: I've lived with my grandma, like I said, forever, and nothing was funny for a while.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_05: Nothing was funny for a while.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it was not good conversations, it was very um resentful, and and I knew she resented me for a lot of things, and and um so now it's just like there's no conflict, you know, and if there's an issue, we talk about it, you know, there's no screaming and yelling like there was before, and and now it's like we just talk about things and then we just get over them, and then on with the day, you know, and it's it's just so productive and it's um very peaceful life at home.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Was there any part of yourself that you had to grieve?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like that you're losing when you started healing?
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so um, you know, I grieved old friends, you know.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um I grieved the lifestyle that I because I was just so used to living it.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I felt like um I was giving up all the fun, you know, and then little did I know, sobriety has brought me so much more fun, you know.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_05: I've I've and things that I'm actually present for that I actually can remember and experience, not be locked in the bathroom or you know, not present-minded or always just worrying about being somewhere else.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_05: It's like I get to actually have full-hearted experiences today that I'm present and um get to feel the emotions, you know.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's I don't know, I don't want to speak for everyone, but for myself that was a big part of it too, is that lifestyle.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know what was normal.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, venturing into something new.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, so scary.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: And grieving yourself like okay, I'm literally retiring this mask.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: This person I've been for however long.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so comfortable, even as chaotic and crazy and tragic and painful as it is, I I know that pain.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: I know that tragedy.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know that system, you know.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, get up, get well, repeat, you know, or go to prison.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's so systematic and it's so normal, and then coming into a new way of life, I remember like missing it.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: Missing it.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was so f afraid of like step four.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's and that's how great it's like, you know what?
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna go put a needle in my arm because I don't want to fucking share my inventory.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't want to tell anybody anything.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody needs to know.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's gonna know this stuff, you know?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, you know what?
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Fuck it.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna go do what I need to do.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's the easier way.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I don't have to start over eventually, but I make it back.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and especially the persona I'm I created out there wasn't even really me.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_05: Like I was so I wasn't even I I became a person that I didn't even know anymore.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I had all these false beliefs and ideas that I thought were my own and and they weren't, you know.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_05: And yeah, but you know, I did meet I did meet some good people out there, you know, that are also struggling with their own disease, and I would love to see those people come in these rooms as well because I have love for those people, and so it was really hard to cut people off.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_05: That I actually care a lot about still to this day.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_05: But um, I had to.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_05: Had to.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_05: You had to, and you know, and I'm here for them when they're ready too, and hopefully that happens.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um what part of yourself did you rediscover in recovery?
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is always a good question.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_05: Laughter.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Laughter.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um humor.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_05: I forgot how much I love to laugh.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_05: And how healing it was because I wasn't laughing anymore.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_05: You are funny.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_05: You're a pretty funny person.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_05: I'm alright.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_05: You're pretty funny.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_05: You're pretty funny.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_05: And I because I wasn't doing that, you know, it was all pain.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_05: At the end of it, it was just all pain.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_05: I was so pathetic out there.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_05: I was just crying all the time.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I couldn't even fake a smile because I was just in the depths of that dispression.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_05: And um when I started to laugh again and actually have those genuine laughs, like it just rejuvenated me.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_05: And like just having fun and smiling, I forgot how it felt like to be happy.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Genuinely happy.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Not like the kind of happy where the connect answered the phone.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or different kind of you know, they they pulled us over and we all got let go.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, those are more like relief, yeah.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_05: And actually enjoying the company I'm with because you know, a lot of times I wasn't enjoying the company I'm with, I was just settling.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_05: Stuck with these people.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_05: Because this is where I ended up.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_05: And um just needing to get what I need to get, you know, and and so being surrounded.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: By people that genuinely I cared about and they cared about me and had no ulterior motives.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_05: Everyone just wants to see each other succeed.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_05: It's just amazing.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Have there ever been any moments in recovery that felt lonelier than your addiction?
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, let's talk about that.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_05: So I've always been very codependent in relationships, you know.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_05: Um I've always felt like I needed to be in a relationship to feel validated.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_05: Like, you know, I really seek men's approval a lot.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_05: And um so I had been in a relationship nonstop since I was like a sophomore in high school, like in and out of a relationship, you know, and um never gave myself a chance to actually be single and work on myself.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_05: And um in early recovery, um I was with somebody that ended up passing away, you know, and um and it really made me have to focus on me and from an overdose, correct?
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_05: From an overdose, yes.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_05: And it's also because you know, I was in that relationship three days sober, because I was in the same routine I got into a relationship, not for the right reasons, it's just because I felt like I needed to be in a relationship.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_05: But luckily he was a great guy, amazing guy, and so it was just heartbreaking to lose him, you know, and um because we had ended that relationship before that, and uh he ended up back.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't it pretty soon before that?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it was a few days and he ended up um going back out there, you know, and he passed away.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_05: What made you end the relationship?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_05: I really wanted to focus on myself, you know.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_05: I was back in in being trying to be a mom for my son, and and I really just, you know, because I've always had a focus, I've always like been so drenched in relationship and concerned about a a a man.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_05: I really wanted to give my son a chance to have his mom and dedicate my weekends to him.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_05: And and I didn't feel that was fair to I don't know, just always be spending him time with my son and and not, I don't know, I just I just felt like it'd be better if I just focus on me.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Your energy needed to be directed elsewhere.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_05: And um not be distracted and um so yeah, when that relationship um well when he passed, I realized that like you know, it's really important that even though my my recovery is very sensitive and I gotta be careful what I do the decisions I make, I have to also be aware of how I can affect other people's sobriety.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_05: I feel like I have affected that as a sobriety, you know.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_05: Even though it's not my fault.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no one's it's no one's fault.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_05: But I did blame myself.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_05: And um so after that I I really spent like a year trying to just stay out of relationships and just focus on me.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_05: And that was hard.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_05: It was really lonely because I'd never been on my own like that.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_05: It was almost harder than staying sober.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and um having to just depend on my own validation, you know.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because relationships then it's in in and of itself can be an addiction.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because when I don't have the other solution, then I I I go to a person.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, much like we're drinking and using for the effect, why are we getting into you know, yeah, relationships after relationship after relationship?
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for the effect.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm reliant or dependent upon this other human being for my self-worth.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: For my self-esteem, for how I see myself.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm measuring myself based on my interaction and relationship with you.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that was probably one of the best things you ever did.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_05: It was, it was it was the most beneficial thing, and then after a while, like it took a while for me to finally be okay with it.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_05: I would just like force myself to go to bed early, just do my meetings, you know, and just turn your phone off, no apps.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_05: Delete that number, delete that number, you know.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's just you know, so you weren't sending any hey text messages in the middle of the night?
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_05: Not saying that it didn't happen, but stayed out, you know, maybe.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: You up, you up, question mark, question mark.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_05: All intentions were clear and everything, you know, and um, you know, uh just try to focus on me.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_05: And um, I was able to do that and actually start to know my worth again.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_05: And then I it showed up finally after like a year or so and working it showed up when I would at least wasn't looking for it.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_05: Actually, finally happy being sober.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, uh finally happy being single.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you were like, ew, no.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, no, I don't want this.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, maybe one time.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe one time.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you couldn't have.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_05: But it actually helped because I actually had time to observe this person.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_05: Because before I would just jump into relationships, I just meet someone, I'm like, oh, he's cute.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_05: And then we're together and don't even know the person.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_05: What's your middle name again?
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_05: Let's just move in together because I don't even know your last name, you know?
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_05: And um, so this time I was able to observe.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: Six months in, like, wait, you have a brother?
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: No idea.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have we done that?
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, too.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: So many.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love this question.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is one this one's always good.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: What has been harder than getting sober?
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_05: Learning to be a normal member of society.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_05: Like having a lot of people.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, really?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_05: Every time I feel like there's more and more I need to learn, there's more and more bills I gotta pay, there's more and more things, like just stepping outside and just having to have like confidence in myself, like, you know, like talking to people, like especially when it comes to work, that's been very challenging for me because Yeah, because you gotta talk to people.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I, you know, I started out as a tech and then I started doing admissions.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_05: I'm an admissions director now, and and I do business development, so like it's forcing me to have to talk to people and go to luncheons.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and actually presentable.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like used to just being a curb creature and I talk the way I talk and learn how to like, you know, present myself more professionally, and and I'm always like thinking, I mean, I'm like, I'm not doing a good job, and but I don't know.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're always trying to reassure you.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's you are doing a great job.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um I d I for me, I don't know if anything was harder than getting sober.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was so hard.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not the first time.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: The first time was pretty easy, it c it came kind of organically.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I got sober once upon a time twenty one years ago in 2005.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: This time was probably the hardest thing I ever did.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: One of the hardest things I ever did.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I was so stuck.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was so stuck.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I I mean I g I gotta agree agree with you.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's hard to be normal, whatever the hell that looks like, and also whatever that is.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_05: Also finding that balance though, like you know, because it's like I obviously can't still do the 18 meetings a week I was doing in early recovery, otherwise I have no life.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_05: You know, so like I gotta find a balance of my recovery life, make sure I'm still always plugged in with that, because that's super important, and anything I put in front of that, I'll lose.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_05: And then also balance my family life, make sure my family's doing well and I've got the support and security there for them and myself, and making sure my health's okay and everything.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_05: But then also my business life, I have to make sure I'm on top of things and making sure things are getting done.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_05: So finding that healthy balance and not dwelling too much too sorry, too much on too much on one aspect, you know, and just trying to find the balance for that to keep me sane.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever have um I I suffer from this sometimes, imposter syndrome?
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my goodness.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_05: All the time.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_05: It's usually when I'm talking to like clinicians or like therapists that have all these lawyers words that I don't even know.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, can I Google that real fast?
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh hold on.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: What was that?
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: How do you spell that?
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna look that up later.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_05: You're serious.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and um, you know, I just like because I was homeless before I came in here.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_05: So I wake up with that every day.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_05: I'm just wake up in the house that I pay for, and I have a family that actually loves having me home, you know, and then I have cats that depend on me that are alive still, you know.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: What are your cats' names?
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_04: Fetty and Jet.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: You have a cat named Fetty?
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, you don't.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_04: I found her behind a dumpster.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're not all cured all the time.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Fettuccine.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's better.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's better.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you should just call her Fetticini.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh Fetty is I know Fetty has something else.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: Fentanyl.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is she white?
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: She's white, of course.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not any better.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: I got a cat named Odin.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just doesn't fall.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what does scars and all mean to you personally?
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, they're just reminders of where I came from.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_05: It's a reminder where my alcoholism takes me and um where how far more it can take me if I decide to go back out there.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_05: Because I already know it will only get worse.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_05: It never gets better, it always gets significantly worse, and I was already knocking on death's door on numerous occasions.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you were a pirate for a little while.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't I don't know anybody that became a pirate.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was yeah.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're the only one.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: I won't be a pirate for Halloween ever again.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe in ten years you can have a good sense of humor about it.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_04: I'll do it.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, matter of fact, Halloween's right around the corner.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can dress Nick up in a poly costume.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: He can be your he can be your parrot.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: What has recovery given you that addiction never could?
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_05: I'm happy to be alive.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_05: I'm happy to have the experiences I have today.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_05: Getting to see my son grow, being present-minded with him, you know, and just all the things that I look forward to and learning and experiencing that I have never experienced, you know, because I just never had goals to do that, and now I just want to do everything, you know.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_05: I just want to live life because I felt like I was just in the darkness for so long and I just want to stay in the light.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_05: And um I just felt good with me.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_05: Like I can actually sit and be with myself and not feel like I'm crawling out of my skin c constantly.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_05: Having to always feel like I need to stuff, the emotions, and hide them and run away from them.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I I get to experience them today, and it's a feel-good process.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_05: It it sucks, you know.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_05: Pain is mandatory, but suffering's optional.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_05: I love that.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_05: And um, and sometimes it's easier than other times, but you know, I really try not to sulk and sit in my misery.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I I feel for too long.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_05: For too long.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_05: Sometimes I throw a pity party.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, it's so easy.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_05: I'm so good at victim victimes.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: My my beautiful fiance the other day, I was I was I was having a little bit of a party.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Are you having a party right now?
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all, yeah.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not invited, you're not invited.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like good, because I wasn't coming before.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_05: Sometimes it's good.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_05: It feels good to just sulk in it for a minute and you're just like, uh, poor me.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, yeah.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then we get out of it.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Go to a meeting and shut the fuck up and man up and suit up and show up and do what we're taught to do.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes, you know, I think it's part of the process sometimes.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's that emotion.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think everyone feels sorry for themselves a little bit.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's like, wait a minute, you gotta snap out of it.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_05: Well, those emotions seem so never-ending in the moment.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're for it's infinity, it's forever.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sad now, I'm gonna be sad forever.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_05: And then I go through a lot of those things now, and like the things I would get loaded over in the past, and then I get through and I'm like, that didn't even last that long.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_05: It was like 30 minutes.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_05: And it wasn't even that bad.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I can't believe I almost destroyed my whole life over that.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I got over in 10 minutes.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 10 minutes, literally.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: Literally.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_05: I don't even remember the things I was upset about last week.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know, it's so funny because uh every time I relapse, it would be something like that.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: It would be like uh a devastating emotion, right?
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, whatever.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't call me back.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: Something like that.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I would be so pissed or upset and depressed, and then I'd be like, fuck it.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and once you say fuck it, yeah.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and then it's go time.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like that emotion that you were sad about isn't even there anymore.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: It turns to anger.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: It turns to anger.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not even now, it's about getting it.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like if we could just sit through it for just a little while, you know, it passes.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: This two show passes.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_05: And and the thoughts you just make up in your mind about stuff, of course.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_05: I can make fantasy novels.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you did say you were very um I had a great imagination and that came very handy.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_05: Well, not handy, but it could be detrimental.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_05: Because I'm already thinking what you're thinking and then what that person's thinking, and then how how that's gonna happen.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: Remind readers.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it has to be that way.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's no other possibility.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: Crystal ball.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have crystal balls at my house, in my car, in my office.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_05: So I get mad about things that never even happen.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: Have conversations with people that oh, I know you're doing this, but what crazy lady.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like that person that says, you know, my disease wakes up like an hour before I do.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, for sure.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: Brushing my teeth in the shower.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm already having conversations at work, you know, playing out exactly how it's gonna go, my response, their rebuttal, you know what I mean?
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: Talking myself out of things before I can.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get to work and you're resentful towards Jim about a conversation that never took place.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if Jim's like, hey, good morning, Frank.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, go fuck yourself, dude.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know what you're gonna say when I say this.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_05: They didn't say hi to me the right way.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, right.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: The tone.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: The tone.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, what what did I do?
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_05: What happened?
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_05: What did you do?
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, I'd do that.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: If I say good morning and they say hey, you're like, I didn't like that.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_04: Hey, no.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_00: I said good morning.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: It should be reciprocated.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_04: I want you to be like, hi! Hey, good morning.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_04: You're here.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God you're here.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're so sick, it's crazy.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all right, last little bit.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if someone listening is struggling in silence, what would you want them to know?
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_05: Well, um, the only way you're gonna get help is if you say something, because we can't, like we said, we're not mind readers, you know, and um your recovery is your responsibility.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_05: And if you're gonna sit around and wait for someone to save you, it's not gonna happen.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_05: You know?
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_05: So you've got to walk through that fear and uh open your mouth and say something to somebody and ask somebody go to a meeting and just speak on it or just say talk to somebody about it.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_05: And then by by asking somebody for help, they can point you in the right direction and help you figure something out.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_05: But if you keep it to yourself, that's when your mind goes and builds on that, and think that like I can do this on my own.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_05: I've done it so many times myself and think like I don't need anybody else's help, I can figure this all out.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_05: I've always had to depend on myself, I can figure it out.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_05: But that's what got me to the depths of the insanity because I refuse to ask for help.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_05: Because I didn't want to seem weak, I didn't want to seem helpless, I wanted to be able to take care of myself, and that's what destroyed me because I wouldn't ask for help.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great point.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_00: And also, too, if anyone out there is feeling like this isn't for me, or like I was feeling like this isn't gonna work for me again, um, you know, our scars are just as valuable as our triumphs.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um if anything, our scars and our triumphs are almost, you know, um parallel with each other.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's I know for me, I'm not gonna speak for Danielle, but my scars drive me today, and they're some of my greatest assets, you know what I mean?
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because of how poorly I was as a father to my daughters, you know, it motivates me to be an exceptional father to my daughters today.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_00: Danielle, I want to thank you for coming on the podcast.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't too bad, was it?
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't that bad.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that bad.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: Once we get going, there's some back and forth, and and uh, you know, it's a little little it's it's fun.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's fun, it's really good.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope uh our intention is to kind of alleviate some of the stigmatism that's associated with alcoholism and addiction and um sharing our stories and our personal experiences to those of you out there that may be struggling or know somebody that's struggling, um, that you know, there's hope out there.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, recovery is absolutely possible.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how many times you've fallen, doesn't how matter how many times you've been knocked down.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, look at this great example here.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Danielle came from the depths of insanity and and tragedy and turmoil, and her life is absolutely and infinitely better because she chose to get back up one more time and and she chose recovery and she chose a new path, and and she didn't do it by herself.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_00: She asked for help, and and that's I think the one of the best components that we can take away from today is you know, you gotta ask for help and you gotta be willing to accept the help and then you gotta be willing to follow through with the help, otherwise it's all just irrelevant.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_05: Only way you fail is by giving up.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: So again, uh stay tuned for next week's episode.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: We got a great guest coming on.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've known her for twenty something years.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um she's an OG from Norwalk, and she's got an amazing story.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's all.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us on the Scars and All podcast.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.