Latest / The Chris and Mike Show / #110 - Scott Brearley - Journey of Trauma, Addiction, & Redemption

Transcript

#110 - Scott Brearley - Journey of Trauma, Addiction, & Redemption · The Chris and Mike Show

• 0:24
  Everybody, you're listening to me.
• 0:30
  I'm going to tell you that was supposed to be.
• 0:37
  What's up the boys and girls listen to Chris and Mike show.
• 0:39
  I'm Chris, he's Mike. And with a special guest today,
• 0:41
  Scott barely from Canada A and he's going to chime in here and
• 0:45
  tell us what he's all about and what we're going to talk about.
• 0:47
  We're going to have a nice little fun episode for you.
• 0:49
  So Scott, welcome to the show. Please entertain us.
• 0:53
  Welcome, Scott. Thanks for coming.
• 0:55
  I'm from Canada, I've lived from, I grew up close to Toronto
• 0:59
  and now I live just outside of Vancouver.
• 1:02
  Cool. I've spent my life.
• 1:06
  It started out with a start. I almost got killed at 7 by a
• 1:09
  car. I got dragged 40 yards, OK.
• 1:12
  And from there, it kind of went downhill for years and.
• 1:18
  How did that happen? Yeah, How'd that happen?
• 1:20
  Well, I was one street over from where I lived and I stole the
• 1:26
  girl skip and rope and she went to tell her mom and I dropped
• 1:30
  the skip and rope and ran into the car.
• 1:32
  Apparently that's how the and then I got hung up on the car
• 1:35
  somehow and drag and two broken legs, broken arm, fractured
• 1:40
  skull, my lung collapsed and a lot of head damage.
• 1:44
  And you know, I spent years of my life riddled with addiction
• 1:50
  and anger and I could never figure out what was wrong with
• 1:54
  me. And I always stemmed it back to
• 1:56
  the accident and thought maybe it's just head damage and I'll
• 2:01
  never get over it. And right, his anger was pretty
• 2:04
  prominent. And I know a lot of people with
• 2:06
  head injuries. Anger becomes a problem and.
• 2:10
  Right. So I was around 12 step programs
• 2:13
  for the better part of 40 years and I I've currently got 23
• 2:18
  years in this year clean and so. I just, I just passed 20
• 2:22
  February. Yeah, nice.
• 2:24
  Yeah. And and Mike, we decided was
• 2:26
  about 15 or so. Yeah, yeah, probably closer to
• 2:29
  17 now, yeah. Nice so about I was at 11 years
• 2:38
  again and not again should say it.
• 2:40
  I was 11 years and I got divorced from my wife, which was
• 2:43
  pretty. Traumatic and sorry of course
• 2:46
  now was was was that kind of stemmed from the trauma you
• 2:49
  experienced as a child because obviously a little.
• 2:52
  Bit yeah, a little bit of both, right?
• 2:53
  A little bit of her because she was in recovery and she stuck
• 2:57
  from her own stuff and I and then together we just were
• 3:00
  toxic. OK, let's let's go back a little
• 3:02
  bit with with your your incident that happened when you're 7, how
• 3:05
  long did it take to recover from that?
• 3:09
  I'm going to say probably a year.
• 3:11
  Like I remember I even had to at 7.
• 3:14
  I had to or eight. I think I was by then.
• 3:17
  I had the humiliation of going from a 2 Wheeler back to a trike
• 3:21
  hanging out with kids were younger than me because they.
• 3:23
  Wouldn't me the other? Yeah, OK.
• 3:27
  And then I got you're in OK, so with that with with that post
• 3:32
  accident trauma and stuff did how does how does that turn into
• 3:37
  you becoming an addict? Was there something that you
• 3:38
  started at a young age start experience with painkillers or
• 3:41
  what? Get a pain or picture so people
• 3:43
  can understand bud. I think what happened was, of
• 3:46
  course, in the hospital they had me wired on some sort of drug to
• 3:50
  keep the pain wrong. Sure.
• 3:52
  And then by the time I was 11, OK, I had made my first
• 3:57
  geographical cure, not knowing it was a geographical cure, in
• 4:00
  grade five, I was having so much trouble in the school I was in.
• 4:04
  I came up with this idea. Oh, it might be better at a
• 4:06
  different school. So I got my parents to transfer
• 4:09
  me to a different school, and their age limit went up a little
• 4:14
  higher than what they went from. Instead of grade 6, it went to
• 4:18
  grade 8. OK, well I went over there in
• 4:21
  grade 6 and of course that's where I've Grade 6 is where I
• 4:25
  found marijuana. OK, that's what I that's why I
• 4:27
  was leading to this, because you went from from 7 year olds
• 4:30
  accident and all of a sudden I'm 23 years sober.
• 4:32
  We had, yeah, we we had the job, buddy.
• 4:35
  Good point. Were you?
• 4:36
  Diagnosed with like any kind of traumatic brain injury because I
• 4:40
  know that's pretty recent. Back then, they didn't know
• 4:42
  about. That back then they didn't do
• 4:43
  anything. They just let you wild.
• 4:45
  And so anyways, the last day of grade 6 in this new school, it
• 4:51
  had lots of problems. I was the kid that the teacher
• 4:55
  would go write lines or go to the office.
• 4:59
  I would stand up and go to the office and refuse to write the
• 5:01
  lines. Oh, OK.
• 5:05
  So you definitely. Had a neighbor neighbor, like
• 5:07
  actually next door neighbor where I grew up.
• 5:09
  He was the science teacher and all my life I called him Bruce
• 5:15
  and all he called me Scotty. So I get to his class and I
• 5:19
  didn't like being called Scotty in front of my friends because
• 5:22
  back then it was kind of gay or whatever.
• 5:24
  My brother used me or I don't even know what doesn't even make
• 5:27
  sense today because I think body sounds cool, right?
• 5:30
  Yeah. But so I get in his class and
• 5:33
  he's calling me Scotty. So I kept calling him Bruce.
• 5:35
  And he goes, you've got up here. And he wouldn't, he wouldn't
• 5:39
  stop calling me Scotty. So anyways, I was kicked out of
• 5:42
  the class. That's how they dealt with stuff
• 5:44
  back then. And this is in Canada.
• 5:47
  In in Canada anyways. OK, Yeah.
• 5:49
  So Fast forward to the day before sports day.
• 5:52
  I don't know if they have sports day and public school and.
• 5:55
  Explain what sports day is, because we know this is a
• 5:57
  worldwide thing. Here we're in 19 countries.
• 5:59
  So you got to, you got to when you, when you drop some, when
• 6:02
  you drop. Yeah, usually 1/2 day to a three
• 6:05
  quarter game school and all you do is go to school and have fun.
• 6:09
  Like there's a little bit of track, there's balloons rolling,
• 6:12
  there's what, like tug of war? I think we, yeah, we had that in
• 6:16
  Arizona when I was in grade school.
• 6:18
  We called it field day. Yeah, yeah.
• 6:21
  So they might have. Called it.
• 6:22
  I'm just, I just remembered his sports day.
• 6:24
  It was a long time ago. Very.
• 6:25
  Similar. Yeah, it's OK.
• 6:27
  Now we got to we understand what that is cool.
• 6:29
  So anyways the day before that me and a friend were down at
• 6:32
  this little Creek and we had to hold each other by the shoulders
• 6:34
  like this and we were spinning each other around trying to get
• 6:38
  each other wet so we'd get trapped when we went to school.
• 6:43
  Well no, it was pretty tragic. He fell down and landed on
• 6:46
  either a sharp rock glass and they ended up having to bring
• 6:50
  stuff like tenons and stuff from here to get his hand working
• 6:54
  again. Oh wow.
• 6:56
  Well, that started one of the big catastrophic another
• 6:59
  catastrophic. I was expelled from school.
• 7:04
  So even though. So you were you're.
• 7:07
  So you're playing with your buddy.
• 7:09
  Yeah. And it was a pure accident.
• 7:11
  Yep. And then they blame you and
• 7:13
  expel you. Yes, wow.
• 7:15
  So then they sent me. Here starts the story of the
• 7:18
  shrinks and all this who was getting me too.
• 7:22
  And of course, I was a rebellious kid, so I went in and
• 7:25
  tried to shove the square peg into the.
• 7:27
  Round bowl and. Was disobedient because I
• 7:30
  thought it was all BS. Yeah.
• 7:34
  So the next year they let me back in school and in Canada
• 7:39
  grade 7 is the first year you get to go in shop class.
• 7:43
  Oh, right on. However, I didn't get to go, so
• 7:48
  they put me in special Ed. I was the only kid in the
• 7:51
  classroom with one teacher and I, I don't recollection, I don't
• 7:57
  really know how long I was in this class for eventually got up
• 8:03
  and walked to the door. And as I've said before, I'm
• 8:06
  rebellious and I've been smoking lots of dope.
• 8:08
  And right from the gate I, I think the first week I was
• 8:13
  smoking marijuana, I was stealing money out of my mom's
• 8:17
  purse. That's how desperate I was for
• 8:19
  it. Oh.
• 8:20
  OK. So I get up and walk to the door
• 8:24
  and Miss Fraser, I don't even know how I remember her name
• 8:27
  because she's the only teacher's name I remember.
• 8:30
  And she gets up and stands in my way and she goes, where are you
• 8:33
  going? I'm like, I'm going home.
• 8:37
  She's like, no, you're not. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going
• 8:40
  home. I go, you can call my dad.
• 8:43
  Just call him. And so I left.
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  He called my, she called my dad and my dad just calls the house.
• 8:50
  15 I was at home for 5 minutes because he knew how long it took
• 8:54
  to walk there and he, I guess you're going to work tomorrow,
• 8:59
  get your work boots. So he took me to work and it was
• 9:02
  great. I need to actually backtrack a
• 9:04
  little bit on the story. The day the accident happened,
• 9:07
  OK, with Steve, I remember going home and I was terrified.
• 9:15
  Like I went right to my room, laid in my bed and they called
• 9:20
  my dad. And my dad came home from work
• 9:22
  early and he came in and talked to me and asked me what
• 9:24
  happened. So I told him and this is new
• 9:27
  for me because my dad would usually just lash out and.
• 9:31
  Beat your ass. Bank me or beat me or whatever
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  the term was back then and. Right.
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  So he didn't, he would just be a father back then, because you
• 9:40
  could be a father without any repercussions as long as you
• 9:42
  didn't. Well, no limit, right?
• 9:45
  I would say he was a little bit further than a father.
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  It stemmed up abuse so. Well, that's what, yeah.
• 9:50
  OK, good. That's why I wanted to go with
• 9:51
  that. So, OK, so he crossed that line.
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  So he took it too far. Me, it was a little, I'm the
• 9:55
  youngest of 5 S With me. He was a little less than the
• 9:58
  rest, OK. And by then he was kind of
• 10:00
  relinquishing control. OK, so I'm laying, he leaves.
• 10:05
  I'm laying in bed terrified because I'm going to get an ass
• 10:08
  whipper, right? And so he comes back later and
• 10:12
  goes, what are you doing? And I'm like, well, aren't I in
• 10:15
  trouble? And he goes, it was an accident,
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  right? And I'm like, yeah, so and that
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  was the end of it. So I went to work.
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  That's cool. So I worked for the rest of what
• 10:24
  the semester is, and I'm sure in the States and other countries
• 10:27
  they have different terms in school.
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  And so the school decided to take me from grade 6, partly
• 10:34
  grade like just that smidge of grade 7 in the special Ed.
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  Well, at Christmas time I was in grade 9.
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  Oh wow. In a special school where there
• 10:44
  was only 12 students, here I am 13 years old in grade 9.
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  Right. I the closest person of my age
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  was 16. Then there was a 17 year old and
• 10:56
  18 year old. I think there was only 13 of us.
• 10:59
  OK, question. So from from a from a
• 11:01
  development standpoint, are you the same height as these kids?
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  No, I'm smaller. OK, you're smaller, small,
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  chronic kid or what? No, I was fairly chunky, OK.
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  But significant but significant height difference.
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  And then obviously the intellectual part was off a
• 11:15
  couple years. OK.
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  Yeah, absolutely. And I think we're all street
• 11:19
  smart because they've been doing what I've been doing for another
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  six years or three years, right? OK, OK.
• 11:25
  So I was there for that semester and then the following year they
• 11:30
  put me in regular high school in the shit disturber school in
• 11:33
  grade 10. Wow.
• 11:34
  Wow. So that's crazy.
• 11:37
  I know. So how do you fit in?
• 11:39
  You don't. And how do you learn how to make
• 11:42
  friends? And you don't and don't.
• 11:44
  Yeah. I was picked on severely that
• 11:47
  first year in grade 10. And I remember there was this
• 11:50
  guy, Phil Henry. He was the key tormentor.
• 11:53
  Well, it's funny how you remember the the bullies, right?
• 11:56
  Oh yeah, and now do we know what Phil's doing now?
• 11:59
  No, no clue. I have no action with really
• 12:01
  anybody in the past anymore. My wife has, my wife had one
• 12:05
  that used to always kind of like looks down on her and shit and
• 12:07
  then so she found her on Facebook and this chick legit
• 12:09
  looks like a horse now and it's just just really hit every
• 12:12
  branch down the ugly tree in her life just kind of seem to be all
• 12:15
  chaotic. Where isn't karma great?
• 12:18
  It's just fucking fantastic. You know, it's like she used to
• 12:21
  just tease the hell out of my wife and know my wife's like 10
• 12:24
  times more, probably 100 times more beautiful than this chick
• 12:26
  ever will be or was. And it's more successful.
• 12:29
  Yeah. It's just, it's it's that's
• 12:31
  that's why I ask because you always, you always want to know,
• 12:33
  like did you, you know, randomly just.
• 12:36
  Oh yeah, I ran into him and he's, you know, he's working in
• 12:39
  an Ace Hardware shoveling, you know, screams and shit.
• 12:43
  Well, I spent, I did spend a lot of my life being a bully.
• 12:47
  OK, well that's because you were bullied, right?
• 12:49
  That's the whole. Thing I didn't know any better.
• 12:50
  Yeah, yeah. And.
• 12:52
  I did what I was taught so. That's it.
• 12:54
  You emulate your environment, right?
• 12:57
  Fast forward a little bit, like I bounced around from schools at
• 13:01
  15. My older brother used to beat me
• 13:04
  a lot and I'll get into that a little later.
• 13:06
  How much older? He's five years older than me.
• 13:09
  Is that your only? Is that your only brother?
• 13:11
  My only sibling. No, I got three other brothers
• 13:13
  or yeah, 3 three brothers and one sister.
• 13:16
  So five of us all together. And where do you fall on that in
• 13:19
  the? I'm the baby.
• 13:21
  Oh wow, you got sorry I'm the. Youngest, sorry.
• 13:26
  Four older siblings I was. Voted in my family, the most
• 13:33
  likely to spend the rest of my life in prison.
• 13:36
  Oh no. No.
• 13:39
  Anyways, at 15 the brother that beat me I'm having a party at
• 13:43
  the house and my sister comes over and threatens to call the
• 13:47
  cops if the underage people don't stop drinking in the
• 13:50
  house. Well I lost my shit.
• 13:51
  Me and my brother get into a fight and OK like a fist fight
• 13:55
  brought out and. He's like a fist, like a fist
• 13:58
  fight, drop down. Barney is a fist fight and then
• 14:01
  wound to weapons. OK, why?
• 14:02
  He was like, this guy has never beaten me again and that's cool.
• 14:06
  So I ended up in juvie hall. So I'm the first kid he's ever
• 14:09
  kicked me out of the house. Now I'm in juvie hall for
• 14:13
  getting even right and my brain still can't function.
• 14:17
  It's still. I know I went overboard but it
• 14:20
  still can't. You're not, you're not
• 14:24
  rationalizing the fact that you went overboard, like your brain
• 14:26
  recognize the fact that, OK, I went too far, even though you
• 14:29
  know, you went too far. Yeah, you didn't realize you
• 14:32
  went too far, so there was no empathy afterwards.
• 14:35
  Yeah, even today I still have a hard time with it because it's
• 14:38
  like and then. This and this is all stemming
• 14:40
  back to your the trauma you've experienced when you were 7.
• 14:42
  Yep. Yeah, that's crazy, man.
• 14:45
  And, well, there's a bit more than the trauma, because, I
• 14:48
  mean, trauma is even a new thing too.
• 14:50
  Sure. I mean, it's not a new thing,
• 14:54
  but they're actually. People pay attention to it now,
• 14:58
  right? Where before they didn't.
• 15:00
  Right. So as we go forward, I'm a drunk
• 15:04
  like it. And then when I mean a drunk, I
• 15:08
  would the guy at the party that you might have seen that sat in
• 15:11
  the corner with one guy on beer cases and shared dope and shared
• 15:15
  booze and just got yeah, yeah. And then I found acid.
• 15:22
  So you could actually do more, because of course more is always
• 15:26
  better. Oh yeah, Mr. Brownstone, I got
• 15:29
  to do a little condended little and a little ACMO.
• 15:31
  Wow. Yeah.
• 15:32
  So at 15, at 15, I was court ordered to go to a A and of
• 15:37
  course I went to one meeting and went because yeah.
• 15:40
  Because court ordering to a A works every single time of.
• 15:44
  Course it does. Especially at 15 when you go
• 15:46
  there and the first meeting you go to, it's a father speaking
• 15:51
  like a pastor, father of Britain.
• 15:53
  It's like, Oh yeah, that's you want to send me to church?
• 15:56
  Nope. Well, by the time I was 17, I
• 16:01
  was in for the first time for myself.
• 16:03
  OK. Didn't I stuck around for about
• 16:06
  3 months at 21? Oh actually I'll backtrack.
• 16:11
  Just after that little stint, I ended up in jail for the first
• 16:14
  time for Robin, 11. So how long are you and juvie
• 16:18
  for? On juvie I was in and out within
• 16:21
  a month or so. OK.
• 16:22
  So that was in year 15. Yeah.
• 16:23
  And I lived in a group home for a bit and then after I got sick,
• 16:28
  like I told you, I did what I wanted then, right, Right when I
• 16:31
  got tired of the group home. Actually, I shouldn't say when I
• 16:34
  got tired of the group home. When weed caught up with me
• 16:39
  again, I knew I couldn't drink, but I could smoke weed, right?
• 16:42
  When you finally caught up with me, I told the group home to jam
• 16:45
  it because I was at legal age by then.
• 16:47
  I was 16. I could do what I wanted.
• 16:49
  So in Canada, the legal age of 16.
• 16:51
  Yes. I don't know about today, but
• 16:54
  back then it was. Yeah.
• 16:55
  See, in America it's 18's legal age.
• 16:56
  It's always been legal age. Now as far as.
• 16:58
  Drinking what goes Not to drink, not to drink.
• 17:00
  Right. No, I know.
• 17:01
  Decision where you're living. Right, right.
• 17:03
  Listen, I'm saying in America it's 18.
• 17:05
  You're legally an adult, not 16. So there's that gap, 2 year gap
• 17:08
  there, right? That's why I asked that because
• 17:11
  again, you know, we're 16, but OK, gotcha.
• 17:16
  So then I ended up back at home, OK, and back to normal.
• 17:20
  And then by then I was drinking and we all know where that goes
• 17:25
  when you're like. And that was my drug of choice
• 17:27
  was booze. OK.
• 17:30
  So beer, just beer or hard liquor, everything.
• 17:33
  You put it in front of me, I drink it.
• 17:35
  I remember I went over to a friend's house one night.
• 17:37
  I was hammered when I got there, and she had this stuff she had
• 17:40
  made-up. OK.
• 17:41
  I don't even know what it was, but yeah.
• 17:43
  And I loved it. So I went back over one time and
• 17:46
  I'm like, you made that stuff again.
• 17:48
  So she told me what to get. I got it and it was like, Oh my
• 17:51
  God, this stuff's gross. Kind of like a jungle juice.
• 17:56
  No, it was. It might have been called a
• 18:00
  Black Russian because it was black and she had it on the
• 18:02
  stove and he drank it warm. I'm not weird.
• 18:05
  I don't really remember. It was a long time.
• 18:08
  It was just tasty. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:10
  So 19 I ended up in prison for robbing a 711.
• 18:15
  OK, so back up. Tell let's, let's, let's what?
• 18:17
  What got you the point of robbing a 711?
• 18:20
  Desperate, out of work, nowhere to really live.
• 18:24
  OK, I wasn't quite on the street.
• 18:25
  I was My parents had split up. My mom wasn't living in downtown
• 18:29
  Hamilton and I was staying at her place.
• 18:31
  OK. We've always had a volatile
• 18:34
  relationship and. So even your even even the
• 18:38
  relationship with your mom was fractured like it was your dad.
• 18:41
  Oh yeah, no, my dad's. No, we weren't.
• 18:43
  It was never really fractured. For some reason I could accept
• 18:47
  the violence. From him, OK.
• 18:49
  It kind of stopped from, I think it was grade 10.
• 18:54
  I got drunk in school and I got caught for drinking and he
• 18:59
  showed up and he backhanded me and I think that was the last
• 19:02
  time he hit me. OK.
• 19:04
  Yeah, he backhanded me and I told.
• 19:07
  Him to fuck off yeah OK so fuck off I walked the.
• 19:11
  Other. Direction so so pain is a
• 19:13
  picture of your dad and and so a big man short man, you know
• 19:17
  what? He's a bit taller than me.
• 19:20
  I'd say he's probably was 6 foot.
• 19:22
  He was a guy that his he had a, he had short legs and longer
• 19:29
  arms. So he was kind of, he had a good
• 19:32
  reach when he back. And how tall are you?
• 19:37
  Just 5-9. OK, OK.
• 19:39
  He worked in a welding shop, so he worked hard all his life and
• 19:44
  OK, he came from a rough background, like growing up.
• 19:48
  Gotcha. OK, so you're 19, your world's
• 19:51
  kind of just there chaotic. You're you're an alcoholic,
• 19:54
  you're kind of bouncing around and you decide it's a good idea
• 19:57
  to go rob a 711. Yeah, so I added reasonable.
• 20:02
  I keep based on my motorcycle and of course.
• 20:07
  When I got in Ontario, they I think it's the toughest province
• 20:11
  for jail sentences. They gave me that like a deuce
• 20:14
  less and that provincial here where you got federal and
• 20:18
  provincial, I'm not sure what it's like in the states.
• 20:21
  We kind of know we had it because we've had a couple.
• 20:23
  Canadians like before, Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:27
  So I did most of that and then I got paroled at, I think I was
• 20:32
  inside for 13 months and I got paroled and.
• 20:38
  What was president like in Canada?
• 20:39
  Yeah. What was president like in
• 20:40
  Canada? You got to paint.
• 20:43
  You got to paint the picture, Scott.
• 20:44
  That's why you're here, man. You leave us hanging.
• 20:46
  Stop leaving us hanging. Man, at first it was really
• 20:52
  scary. Yeah.
• 20:53
  And then of course, after you adapt and the new habit becomes,
• 20:59
  it's not really scary. It's like habits even today.
• 21:02
  They're all messy at the beginning, and by the end
• 21:05
  they're normal. So was anybody, anybody try to
• 21:08
  intimidate your stuff, being that you were what, 19 years old
• 21:11
  or were you? Not so much there because it was
• 21:14
  pretty, it was medium security, it wasn't maximum.
• 21:19
  I got into a few fights and. Did you go find the biggest guy
• 21:24
  and try to beat him up? So you said everybody would
• 21:26
  leave with so everybody would leave you alone?
• 21:29
  No, no. But I will backtrack to the Phil
• 21:33
  Henry because I kind of got off track with him.
• 21:35
  Right, right squirrel. We're in a Body Shop in school
• 21:39
  because it was a trade school and yeah, yeah, my, I'm working
• 21:42
  on a door and I put it on the bench.
• 21:45
  He comes over and takes my door off the bench and puts his door
• 21:48
  on the bench because of course he's my bully, right?
• 21:50
  Right. So I take his door off the bench
• 21:52
  and put mine back up because I'm done with this bullshit.
• 21:56
  Yeah, we end up in a fight in auto body.
• 21:58
  Yeah. The first thing he does because
• 22:00
  I'm winning is he sticks a finger in my eye.
• 22:04
  So it's like, oh, you want to stick your finger in my eye?
• 22:06
  So I jam mine it. Like don't even, not even gently
• 22:09
  jam it. So anyways, after that, of
• 22:15
  course it gets broke up because we're and.
• 22:17
  Then is it your fault you get blamed again?
• 22:21
  Nope, no I didn't get you're just.
• 22:23
  I mean I did get blamed a lot for fights because I fought and
• 22:26
  I'm sure I can't remember his name.
• 22:29
  The auto body teacher was a pretty cool dude.
• 22:32
  Right. On SO anyways, for the next
• 22:36
  week, Phil's going you're dead, Berly, you're dead.
• 22:39
  And of course I got this fear in me because he's bullied me and I
• 22:42
  haven't. Then all of a sudden Monday I'm
• 22:44
  in the cafeteria, I think it was Friday and there's Thursday and
• 22:48
  I'm dead on Friday, right? And he's got his tray of food on
• 22:53
  him and I'm just walking over and he's being mouthy and I
• 22:55
  walked over to him and I just I # the tray out of his hands and
• 23:00
  go. If I'm dead on Friday, let's do
• 23:03
  it right now, you coward. Nice or?
• 23:06
  Whatever I said. So we ended up in a fight.
• 23:08
  But what happened is all the friends are his right?
• 23:10
  I got I'm the youngest, he's grown up with these guys.
• 23:13
  So we end up wrestling around outside and all of a sudden his
• 23:18
  friends are stepping on my feet. So I can't do what I needed to
• 23:22
  do. But I still he never bothered me
• 23:25
  after. That is the point.
• 23:26
  That's good. And I learned a valuable lesson.
• 23:28
  It's like nobody's going to fuck with me again.
• 23:32
  And that's how I lived my life and.
• 23:34
  That's the that's the truth. If nobody's going to fuck with
• 23:37
  you. Yeah.
• 23:39
  You have no freedom. Right, And and that's one thing
• 23:42
  that that I think I I wasn't super bully.
• 23:44
  There was a couple moments I went like, but nothing to your
• 23:46
  extreme. I don't know about Mike, but I
• 23:48
  think that. Oh yeah.
• 23:50
  I think on a whole, I think on a whole, once you stand up to the
• 23:53
  bully and and they realize that you're not going to be their
• 23:56
  little pawn anymore, that's that shift in life, right?
• 23:59
  Because now you got that ownership of it.
• 24:01
  You got a little more self-confidence because you
• 24:02
  stood up somebody that was fucking with you for so long.
• 24:05
  I did the opposite of what you said.
• 24:07
  Obviously I was never in prison, but I always made friends with
• 24:10
  the biggest guys I could find. And if you're friends with the
• 24:14
  biggest guy, nobody in between is going to mess with you,
• 24:17
  right? Oh, that's a good idea.
• 24:20
  Like, hey, that dude's my, I know I can't kick your ass, but
• 24:23
  he can. And he's rather fond of me, you
• 24:28
  know? That's how I dealt with shit in
• 24:30
  life. That's fantastic.
• 24:31
  I don't know how old I was but I remember this guy was bullying
• 24:34
  me and my brother. My family would do nothing to
• 24:37
  protect you. And my buddy Lenny's brother
• 24:42
  seen this guy bully me and already stops it and actually
• 24:47
  let me told the guy to stand there while I punched him in the
• 24:51
  face a few times. And I remember thinking, yeah,
• 24:56
  somebody's protecting me because I didn't get that other than
• 24:59
  from him. So yeah.
• 25:03
  So Fast forward to jail. Yeah, I got into a few fights
• 25:06
  and it wasn't very traumatic. And by the time I ended up back
• 25:13
  again the second time, right when I was getting ready to
• 25:18
  leave, you kind of acquire stuff in jail that makes you stay a
• 25:23
  little bit comfortable. OK.
• 25:25
  Like, and this is the intimidity of my thinking, I'm actually
• 25:30
  looking at spots there that I can stash all my stuff.
• 25:34
  OK. So when I go back, I'll have all
• 25:39
  my stuff ready to go. All I got to do is get it.
• 25:42
  Yeah. So previous to this though, I'd
• 25:48
  been working before I went in. The second time I'd been working
• 25:51
  for these family, they were kind of the top of the food chain of
• 25:55
  the drug, drug, drug people in Hamilton, ON.
• 25:59
  And I won't mention any names, but I was just framing houses
• 26:04
  for him and I end up in with the oldest brother.
• 26:09
  So he was really experienced in prison and he had brought in
• 26:15
  lots of goodies for us to kind of spread out and make some
• 26:19
  money on and. Like what kind of goodies?
• 26:21
  What kind of drugs? Just smokeables like pie and a
• 26:25
  few pills and stuff. OK, Nothing.
• 26:26
  OK. And he just before he got out,
• 26:32
  he got out before me. He's like Scotty, I want you to
• 26:34
  call me when you get out and come work for me.
• 26:36
  And I'm like, well, I was working for you before I came
• 26:38
  in. He goes, no, no work for me.
• 26:40
  Not doing that flunky stuff. And this lady, I was going to a
• 26:46
  meetings to look good so I could get out easier.
• 26:50
  And. Right, this lady I'd remembered
• 26:53
  from one of my stints in AAI remembered her.
• 26:56
  She was batshit crazy. And she came in to put a meeting
• 27:02
  on. And all of a sudden she's like
• 27:04
  in a a meeting. And this lady's not bat shit
• 27:08
  crazy anymore. She making sense.
• 27:11
  Yeah. And whatever she did or whatever
• 27:19
  she said, I don't know what it was, but it inspired that maybe
• 27:21
  there's a chance for different for me.
• 27:24
  OK. And how old were you when this
• 27:25
  happened? I was 19 ish.
• 27:29
  OK, and this is and This is why you're in prison still?
• 27:31
  Yeah, well, for formatory, it's in Ontario.
• 27:33
  OK, OK, OK. Not existence anymore.
• 27:36
  But so when I got out, she was from Hamilton too.
• 27:41
  So when I got out, I'm in Hamilton and I started going to
• 27:44
  meetings and OK, you know, but there was things I didn't know.
• 27:49
  Like I didn't know you weren't supposed to sell dope.
• 27:51
  Nobody. Nobody told me that was illegal.
• 27:55
  Told me that I missed that memo. Well, that happened life up to
• 27:59
  that point. So here I am.
• 28:03
  That's the greatest light ever. Nobody told me.
• 28:06
  I'm framing houses for my buddy, and he wanted me to be his
• 28:09
  foreman. And I go to him more like if I'm
• 28:11
  going to be your foreman, I got to have a car.
• 28:13
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 28:14
  So he bought me a car, but he wouldn't put insurance on it.
• 28:16
  So I went and stole a license plate so I could drive.
• 28:20
  So here I am on parole, selling dope.
• 28:24
  And it gets funnier. There was a meeting in Buffalo,
• 28:26
  NY in a, a meeting. He's on the reserve.
• 28:30
  And it was a wicked meeting and I'm taking car loads of people
• 28:35
  in this car with no insurance from Hamilton, ON to Buffalo,
• 28:39
  NY. It was probably an hour drive,
• 28:42
  OK. Going to a a mind you listener.
• 28:44
  So he's he's, he's doing a positive thing in his life in a,
• 28:47
  in a very creative, illegal way. Baby stuff, baby stuff.
• 28:53
  I don't. I didn't.
• 28:54
  Grow up with. I just did what I wanted.
• 28:57
  So anyways, Long story short, I got drunk again.
• 29:01
  Yeah, yeah, a couple months into this.
• 29:04
  Maybe three months. As long as it wasn't when you
• 29:07
  were driving to a a meeting crossing, you know, borders,
• 29:09
  that's a. Good.
• 29:09
  No, no, no, no. OK, just going.
• 29:12
  To clarify. So I got drunk again, just one
• 29:15
  day, and sheree, this girl that I'd met, that she was really
• 29:19
  cute, but she was quite a bit older than me.
• 29:21
  And I was at a level of backtrack before I got drunk.
• 29:27
  This is where my brain was. It's like I was dropping her and
• 29:31
  a friend of mine, Marlene, off at Sheree's apartment in the car
• 29:34
  with no insurance and no plates. And, and Sheree goes, you want
• 29:39
  to come up for a tea? And I remember thinking, you
• 29:42
  want somebody as ugly as me to come up for coffee?
• 29:47
  Here's this cute girl, right? Like my brain was OK.
• 29:51
  So anyways, I'll Fast forward to the day of getting drunk.
• 29:56
  Well, Sheree was out on a bend or two, OK.
• 29:59
  And so I ended up over at her house later and we were drinking
• 30:03
  together. And here's a girl that, and
• 30:07
  don't get me wrong, I'm not putting her down, but she was
• 30:11
  just a street girl. Like she did what you do on the
• 30:13
  street, women do on the street. Like she sold her.
• 30:16
  Life she was in, she was in survival mode.
• 30:18
  Yeah, OK, survival mode and yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:21
  We've had we had a guy on, we had a guy on that that has kind
• 30:24
  of a similar story and and he actually evolved into being a
• 30:28
  male escort for a while. So yeah, it's believe me, we've
• 30:32
  heard the stories, man. We understand, right.
• 30:34
  Yeah, Mike and I are both again they.
• 30:35
  Covered. Yeah, because she was.
• 30:37
  No, no, no, no, she was a great lady.
• 30:40
  So anyways, yeah, it's just we're just call us so she can do
• 30:43
  her thing. And so I leave and I'm going to
• 30:46
  my buddy Lenny's house in Burlington.
• 30:49
  Well, I get pulled over for an apparent.
• 30:51
  OK. And you got to remember, I'm on
• 30:53
  parole again still, right? So this is this is now an error
• 30:56
  in America. If you get pulled over on
• 30:58
  parole, you're just you're smacked up going back to jail.
• 31:00
  Well. I was supposed to be.
• 31:01
  Somehow the system didn't line up and I think it was all the
• 31:04
  computer system wasn't as good as it is today.
• 31:07
  Technicality, yeah. Yeah, so they let me out.
• 31:10
  OK. I take a cab back to Cherie's
• 31:12
  house and she's got a John there, which is a guy paying.
• 31:16
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it.
• 31:17
  So I make him pay for the calf, and then she goes.
• 31:24
  Scott, you got to go, though. So I leave and I go back to my
• 31:28
  mom's house where I was staying, and next thing I know, my
• 31:31
  sponsor's kicking me off. And a sponsor in a A is somebody
• 31:34
  that kind of helps you along, right?
• 31:37
  Yeah. And guides you.
• 31:38
  Yep. Understood.
• 31:39
  Oh, I wake up to him kicking me on the kitchen floor and
• 31:43
  dragging me up and throwing me in the shower.
• 31:45
  Nice. That's a good sponsor.
• 31:46
  Yep, and. Then I come out of the shower
• 31:50
  and go to bed and he's like soaking wet in my clothes still.
• 31:53
  And he drags me back and throws me in the shower.
• 31:55
  And he wouldn't let me go to sleep and drags me to the noon
• 31:59
  meeting and then drags me to a night meeting.
• 32:01
  And I remember even the night meeting I was, I spent most of
• 32:05
  it in the bathroom throwing up. And really, I think I had
• 32:08
  alcohol poisoning. So we end up at the coffee shop
• 32:13
  later where everybody goes. Post meeting, yeah.
• 32:18
  Cherie had OD that night. That's too bad.
• 32:22
  Sorry with. This first experience of death
• 32:25
  around the program. Oh, so she died.
• 32:27
  Oh, died. Yeah.
• 32:28
  Oh, died. Oh, yeah.
• 32:29
  Because. Because we know people can OD
• 32:31
  without dying. So she actually just died.
• 32:33
  Yeah. That sucks.
• 32:34
  I'm sorry. And it was pretty traumatic back
• 32:39
  then and my determination to stay clean and sober.
• 32:44
  And I was going to work and I would decide I'm getting drunk
• 32:49
  and I would come home from work. And my friend Derek or Warren,
• 32:55
  one of them were on the steps of my house where my mom at my
• 32:59
  mom's house or still running on the couch waiting for me to come
• 33:02
  home from work. Or I'd come home from work and
• 33:04
  get in the shower and it's like I'm getting drunk tonight.
• 33:06
  And I would go downstairs and one of them would be on the
• 33:08
  couch. You do a meeting it.
• 33:10
  We were all about the same and same recovery time.
• 33:14
  And so I managed to get a year in.
• 33:19
  And then my older brother that I'd worked for in the past, he
• 33:22
  ran a framing business. He lived in British Columbia and
• 33:25
  one that beat me and. Yeah, yeah.
• 33:26
  I was going to ask that. And he asked me if I wanted to
• 33:32
  come to work for him in BC. So I kind of dropped everything.
• 33:35
  And because I was working in a grocery store, playing with
• 33:38
  fruits and vegetables, making minimum wage.
• 33:41
  Right. And you know, looking back at
• 33:43
  it, it was one of the best jobs I had ever had.
• 33:45
  I wish I had a stayed in that industry because the people like
• 33:49
  the people are more positive than on a construction site.
• 33:53
  Oh, absolutely. Yeah, most.
• 33:55
  Definitely, and I believe you're a lot about what your
• 33:58
  environment is today. Agreed.
• 34:00
  Yep. So I get into the working for my
• 34:03
  brother again. Of course I'm still angry and
• 34:06
  the working for him is toxic like it's always been like our
• 34:11
  relationship and it only lasted a short time and.
• 34:14
  So he never changed. No, and I hadn't changed much
• 34:18
  either. I hadn't done the steps.
• 34:19
  They didn't push the steps back then like they do today.
• 34:23
  Yeah, see, when I when I when I, when I, yeah, when I went, they
• 34:26
  had the steps and stuff on the wall.
• 34:27
  I wasn't. I never read the book.
• 34:29
  Like, you know, everybody really got to read the book, read the
• 34:31
  book. And I just, and you, you've just
• 34:33
  met us, but I've, I've preached every time we've talked about my
• 34:36
  sobriety, as, you know, God didn't make me drink.
• 34:38
  So God didn't make me stop. And, and everybody in my a, a
• 34:41
  meeting at some way when they would introduce themselves, you
• 34:44
  know, Hey, I'm Scott, by the grace of God, I've been sober
• 34:46
  for, you know, 10 years and I just kind of like, well, you
• 34:49
  know, and I believe, you know, and everybody has their own
• 34:52
  version of higher power and stuff, but I just never was the
• 34:56
  mindset of I, I'm the one that made myself drink.
• 34:59
  So I'm the one that needs to make myself stop.
• 35:02
  Yeah. Do they really believe that or
• 35:03
  are they just saying those words?
• 35:05
  You, you and I can't be people who just say words, right?
• 35:08
  They have. We have to mean what we say.
• 35:10
  Exactly. I struggled with that for years,
• 35:14
  for years and decades. So but when I by now I've got a
• 35:20
  little bit of self esteem, I think, and I'm not even sure if
• 35:24
  it was self esteem now or if it was just growing up.
• 35:29
  So I'm in Maple Ridge, BC and I, I'm at this one way club.
• 35:36
  It's kind of like an Orlando club.
• 35:38
  It's a sober club. And OK, there's this girl
• 35:41
  working behind the counter and she's freaking smoking.
• 35:44
  Oh yeah. So for the first time in my
• 35:48
  life, I decide I want her. OK.
• 35:51
  And of course, she's the sickest one in the room.
• 35:53
  But so by the time we were together, maybe three or four
• 35:59
  months, and by the time it split up, I was devastated when it
• 36:03
  split up because it was so good. And the 6th grade and yadda,
• 36:06
  yadda, yadda. And so I got drunk for a day
• 36:11
  after a year and a half sober, and ended up in a recovery
• 36:15
  house, which was insane. Like I look back at it and it's
• 36:18
  like I didn't really belong there.
• 36:19
  I don't function well in that kind of environment.
• 36:22
  I don't think anybody does, man. No, I mean, I believe a good
• 36:29
  safe house, but I think people need to kind of have a leash a
• 36:32
  little bit so they can screw up or excel or.
• 36:36
  You need to have a little bit of a boundary, a little bit of a
• 36:38
  structure for it to be successful.
• 36:41
  Absolutely. So I managed to get 2 1/2 years
• 36:46
  clean after that. OK.
• 36:47
  Before I got loaded and once again it was at the end of a
• 36:50
  relationship. Right.
• 36:51
  So now you've been sober and clean three times.
• 36:54
  Yes, OK. So you're so typical, typical
• 36:57
  alcoholic. Yeah, Yeah.
• 37:00
  So this time I, instead of just going right back, it's like,
• 37:06
  fuck, I'm taking this to the end.
• 37:09
  And in that journey, there was another couple that were out on
• 37:15
  a Bender and of course, I ended up sleeping with her.
• 37:19
  And the buddy catches me and some, I don't remember really
• 37:24
  much of it, but I remember when they caught us.
• 37:27
  I went to a friend. I only hit him four times.
• 37:29
  And my buddy's like what you were doing.
• 37:31
  Nice masses on his face on the concrete.
• 37:34
  Oh no. Like I busted him bad.
• 37:38
  So anyways. And this was a friend.
• 37:40
  Apparently I don't remember any of it, but like I remember this
• 37:46
  well, the reason that he backhanded her.
• 37:50
  OK. Me off.
• 37:52
  Yeah, OK. So I got clean and sober again,
• 37:58
  OK and. 4th time. 4th time I get 6 half years yet.
• 38:02
  Oh, that's, yeah, you're making progress.
• 38:05
  Yeah, you make. Every time you do it, you're
• 38:06
  making progress. So like was one half, two or
• 38:08
  half? Yeah.
• 38:09
  Good, good. So and once again at the end of
• 38:12
  a relationship. Yeah.
• 38:14
  Got loaded. No.
• 38:16
  OK, go. Ahead.
• 38:17
  OK, go ahead. No, I was, I was going to ask
• 38:19
  about your you had mentioned you were divorced, but I I'm sure
• 38:22
  you'll. Bring it up later, I haven't got
• 38:23
  to her yet. Baby steps.
• 38:27
  I have no track record with women at all, apparently, until
• 38:32
  they'd be like 2 years was Max. OK.
• 38:37
  And I feel like 6 1/2 years clean.
• 38:43
  I got loaded and I stayed out for a bit and I just, it was
• 38:45
  smoking weed and that's all it was.
• 38:47
  Yeah. And but I couldn't go back to
• 38:51
  meetings. So I went a year and a bit
• 38:53
  without going to meetings. OK.
• 38:55
  And then I fell off some scaffolding at work and the girl
• 38:58
  I was dating drank a little bit and smoked some weed.
• 39:00
  And so you know where this story's going.
• 39:04
  Yeah, you went back to. Smoking pain.
• 39:05
  And I'm standing there, she's smoking dope with her 18 year
• 39:09
  old daughter. And today, in today's world is
• 39:12
  kind of acceptable. But back then it was kind.
• 39:14
  Of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, oh, that'll fix
• 39:18
  the pain up running again, right?
• 39:21
  But it fixed it. But it did fix the pain.
• 39:23
  Oh, it did 100% absolutely right in a way.
• 39:28
  And this was what year? What year was this?
• 39:33
  Well, it would have been 24 years ago.
• 39:39
  OK. So 2020 or 2000, 2002.
• 39:42
  Yeah, 2000 ish Somewhere in there.
• 39:44
  Yeah, yeah, 'cause Mike and I, we're, we're, we're big
• 39:46
  proponents on how the, the, the use of marijuana nowadays
• 39:51
  because of all the things that's good for depression and anxiety
• 39:54
  and pain and all that kind of jazz.
• 39:56
  But back then, like, oh, taboo, taboo, taboo.
• 39:58
  Which is why I asked the question.
• 39:59
  It did take the pain away. Yeah, the only people that knew
• 40:02
  that it worked back then were. The however though for.
• 40:04
  Me, right. Only the people.
• 40:06
  Yeah. Only people that used it.
• 40:07
  What Mike said. Yeah, yeah.
• 40:08
  Well, no, for me smoking it. You know what that goes to in my
• 40:14
  brain? Yeehaw, let's fucking party.
• 40:18
  Because his brain. Broke brain goes.
• 40:20
  Right, because your brain's broken.
• 40:22
  Yeah, well, no, my brain's not broken.
• 40:25
  I disagree with that statement today.
• 40:26
  I used to think I was broken for years, just misaligned.
• 40:30
  And it's. Like, oh, that's a better way to
• 40:31
  look at it, OK. Because I think if we keep
• 40:34
  telling ourselves negative stuff, we're only believing
• 40:36
  negativity and we're only going to go down that rabbit hole.
• 40:39
  I agree with you, Yeah, I don't mean broken the.
• 40:41
  Years going down the negativity of rabbit hole.
• 40:44
  Yeah. So Fast forward a year or no, I
• 40:52
  get loaded after being a years clean again.
• 40:56
  And I think it was about 3 months.
• 40:58
  And within three months I went from smoking that one joint to
• 41:00
  smoke and 1/4 ounce a day. And so then I, I go get my
• 41:08
  haircut by this girl that's in recovery and she's like, and
• 41:12
  she, she, she's, it's, I watched her walk in and she's six years
• 41:16
  clean now, right? And she's smoking hot too.
• 41:20
  But she goes, how's it going? I'm like, yeah, she goes, well,
• 41:25
  maybe you should get a sponsee. And I start laughing and I'm
• 41:27
  like, maybe I should get some clean time first.
• 41:30
  Well, of course she's cute and smoking hot.
• 41:32
  She's talking to going to a meeting that night.
• 41:34
  Sure. So I went to the meeting and I
• 41:38
  decided I was going to try and stay clean again.
• 41:40
  This is Narcotics Anonymous now, and I'm going to stay clean.
• 41:44
  And I made it a week and I had a big yell and match with somebody
• 41:49
  on the phone and I hadn't cleaned the paraphernalia out.
• 41:52
  I had a pipe sitting on my desk. And I get stoned and then I go
• 41:59
  to the meeting and I see Leslie. And I haven't seen her since the
• 42:04
  night of the hair, like the meeting after the haircut.
• 42:07
  And she's. Oh.
• 42:08
  So how long you been clean now? So I'm sarcastically look at my
• 42:11
  watch and I went 45 minutes. Aren't you embarrassed?
• 42:17
  You should like. And I'm like, no, because I
• 42:19
  don't know if I want to be here or don't want to be here.
• 42:23
  Yeah, that was the last time I used Wow 2003.
• 42:28
  So what was what was the what was the epiphany there?
• 42:33
  Desperation. OK Pitiful demoralization.
• 42:39
  I had bought and lost my first house and she kept it.
• 42:43
  And right, everything, like I had lost everything.
• 42:47
  And so I went to meetings and when I would ask to get Cher
• 42:54
  asked to share, I wouldn't go. I don't even know what I'm doing
• 42:58
  or this shit just won't work for me.
• 42:59
  Yeah, I've been here, done that. And I just kept coming.
• 43:05
  And the area I lived in had a couple of recovery houses that
• 43:08
  I've been through. So I was already banished from
• 43:11
  them, right? And, and because if you don't do
• 43:14
  it their way, Oh yeah, not welcome.
• 43:17
  Yeah. So I go to this ball tournament.
• 43:22
  It's a clean and sober ball tournament in Penticton, BC.
• 43:27
  And I think I was a year and a half clean, not really wanting
• 43:31
  to be clean, really going to get loaded.
• 43:33
  And sure, fact that trip I did make.
• 43:37
  I went for a ride on the bike and was going to get loaded and
• 43:43
  somehow decided to go back to the event and I drive up to my
• 43:48
  buddy's big RV and there's this hot chick there that works.
• 43:51
  There is. My suit to be wife and you know,
• 43:59
  we spent 11 long years together and at first it was fantastic
• 44:05
  and from her trauma background and my trauma background, we our
• 44:11
  friends could set their calendar Yep, they'll get along for these
• 44:14
  three months and they'll be fighting for these three months
• 44:16
  and that's how pretty much our relationship went and.
• 44:20
  For the whole 11 years. Pretty much.
• 44:23
  Wow. And even when we got married, it
• 44:26
  was like, by the time we got married, I knew we were making a
• 44:29
  mistake, but I still went forward with it.
• 44:34
  You know, we had bought a house together with her mom and it
• 44:37
  went S pretty fast with her mom, her mom's boyfriend, because he
• 44:40
  was a drinker. And we ended up buying them out.
• 44:47
  And my wife became, ironically enough, she had was the
• 44:52
  program's manager and the Mission Federal Institution.
• 44:57
  Wow. So, you know, we kept attempting
• 45:03
  to do all the right things and we went to counselors and we
• 45:06
  went to coaches and made a few side trips.
• 45:11
  Like I went to Mexico once for a month and a half because I
• 45:13
  didn't want to be in the relationship anymore.
• 45:16
  And. But the but the whole time
• 45:18
  you're not drinking, which is good, which is good.
• 45:22
  As we know from your story so far, you like hot chicks and
• 45:25
  when the relationship gets fractured then you start
• 45:28
  drinking. So the fact that you haven't,
• 45:30
  when it ends, yeah, I look back and I had no multiple stability.
• 45:36
  Right, right. Whoever.
• 45:39
  When I first got clean again, yeah, I had this sponsor and I
• 45:43
  started dating first day and usually I would wait two years
• 45:47
  or a year and living in that pain of the last relationship
• 45:50
  before I would even step out. Yeah, and a big thing with a, A
• 45:54
  and a, I'm sure both are the same, is your sponsors don't
• 45:58
  want you in a relationship for at least a year of being sober
• 46:01
  and clean. Which doesn't make sense.
• 46:03
  Well, it doesn't, but think about it, though, it does,
• 46:06
  because every time your relationships ended, you went
• 46:09
  back to drinking, you relapsed. So if you have a full solid year
• 46:13
  of sobriety underneath your belt, which is now your mind's
• 46:16
  clear your your thinking property, you have new habits in
• 46:18
  place right then. But then you then you can
• 46:23
  venture into that because you should be strong enough and
• 46:25
  grounded enough to pursue a relationship.
• 46:26
  However, though, when you've done that cycle right or five
• 46:30
  times, you need to work a different like the same lock
• 46:34
  doesn't open, or an old key doesn't open up a new lock.
• 46:38
  True. SO and the friends that had
• 46:41
  known me for years supported what I was doing.
• 46:43
  I started dating right away and I made a decision.
• 46:47
  Every lady that I dated I was going to treat better and learn
• 46:51
  from my previous. Which, yeah, which is how you
• 46:54
  should do it, I agree. With that, so Fast forward with
• 46:57
  Shannon and it was pretty toxic and it was actually at a point
• 47:01
  towards the end she was like, I want a baby.
• 47:05
  And we're seeing this counsellor coach and daddy gets up to go to
• 47:10
  the bathroom and the counsellor goes, don't get her pregnant.
• 47:18
  And I'm like, I'm not. So eventually seeing this lady
• 47:24
  Shannon brings up I want a separation and I'm like by the
• 47:29
  now we're both 11 years clean and so I'm angry, been angry for
• 47:35
  a long time and I'm like we'll get the fuck out of my house
• 47:38
  then. Yeah.
• 47:40
  And Shannon's like, and looks at the coach or Diane and Dan's
• 47:45
  like, well, you want the relationship over, so yeah,
• 47:47
  leave. So Shannon leaves and the house,
• 47:53
  we didn't really have much into the houses and like value wise,
• 47:58
  right? So we couldn't sell it.
• 48:00
  So I ended up with the house and I'm a stone Mason and I've been
• 48:04
  a stone Mason for years. I ran my own business and
• 48:09
  traffic was getting really bad. So I decided to get out of it
• 48:12
  and get a, get the Band-Aid ticket like an EMR, emergency
• 48:16
  medical responder and go to work in the oil fields.
• 48:19
  And that lasted for a little while.
• 48:22
  But of course, Scott showed up right.
• 48:24
  And when Scott shows up, chaos shows up, right.
• 48:28
  And so I ended up coming back and I get a phone call from a
• 48:31
  buddy of mine and he's a Teamster in the movie 155 movie
• 48:35
  division. And I ended up in the movie
• 48:39
  division and it was pretty cool. I was making better money than
• 48:43
  I've ever made. Like one year I made freaking
• 48:45
  $234,000. Nice.
• 48:48
  What? I'm pretty much a high school
• 48:50
  dropout. I have my, yeah, grade 12.
• 48:52
  But so somewhere in there during COVID, I had finally got myself
• 49:00
  out of debt and I wasn't struggling.
• 49:01
  And then COVID hit. And by the time COVID was over,
• 49:07
  actually, I'll backtrack A smidge.
• 49:10
  I'm in the movie business and I decide I'm going to stretch my
• 49:14
  comfort zone and I want to go to, it's called GF Strong.
• 49:18
  It's a hospital in Vancouver. It's they're back, back and
• 49:21
  spine and head injury stuff. Because now new stuff's coming
• 49:25
  out about head injuries, right? Right.
• 49:29
  But I need a family doctor to refer me.
• 49:31
  So I get this family doctor and I go to the family doctor and
• 49:35
  the first thing he says is I start every patient off with a
• 49:38
  physical so I know where we stand.
• 49:39
  That makes sense. So he calls me up and goes, you
• 49:50
  need to come in. I think you got prostate cancer.
• 49:53
  Oh, Oh my. God.
• 49:56
  So I'm 50 years old out of a relationship for a couple years
• 49:59
  and I go see him and he does the check and he goes and he refer
• 50:07
  you to a specialist and I go to the specialist and she's a
• 50:11
  female and it's like great, at least she's got small fingers.
• 50:18
  And so she does another test and I go.
• 50:24
  So what do you think? And she goes well from looking
• 50:26
  at the results from your doctor, I'm pretty sure you got cancer.
• 50:31
  So she does it next test and I'm at work, it's a Friday night and
• 50:36
  she calls me and she goes, Yep, you got prostate cancer.
• 50:43
  So within, I'm going to say three months, I had the
• 50:46
  operation of a radical prostatectomy where they cut the
• 50:49
  prostate rate out. Ouch.
• 50:52
  And of course it affects every fiber of your manhood.
• 51:00
  I was wearing diapers and and of course I'm in debt.
• 51:04
  So I got to go to work no matter what and I'm angry and I'm.
• 51:09
  But still. But still clean and sober.
• 51:11
  Still clean and sober. What year was this?
• 51:15
  I was 50, I'm 57 now, so that would be. 2018, yeah.
• 51:21
  Yeah, something like that. So I'm still clean and sober and
• 51:27
  really I want to just kill myself every day.
• 51:29
  I could see that. And I have no desire to live so
• 51:34
  of course I'm toxic and every show I was on I was toxic and
• 51:40
  getting a really bad name and. Now, what were you doing in the
• 51:43
  movie business? What was your dig?
• 51:45
  Transportation. I was driving big trucks.
• 51:47
  I was looking after the * wagons of worked with Charlize Thorns.
• 51:54
  All the behind the scenes stuff basically.
• 51:56
  Yeah, all behind the scenes stuff.
• 51:57
  It was pretty cool. Good money.
• 52:00
  It's a pretty toxic environment because you got a whole bunch of
• 52:03
  Neanderthals like me that have basically a high school
• 52:06
  graduation and a truck driving license.
• 52:10
  And that's where they come from is the driving world.
• 52:13
  And so everybody, you go from the driving world and you're
• 52:16
  making 200 grand a year, everybody's cutthroat and rotten
• 52:20
  on you. And one day I'll go back to work
• 52:24
  there. But I want to make to get this
• 52:25
  still a little bit more clearer and less reactive than it is.
• 52:29
  Sure. So I'm dealing with the pissing
• 52:33
  myself. And two years into this, I
• 52:37
  finally get to the point I call the doctor and the I go, I need
• 52:41
  to talk to the doctor. And in Canada, when you're
• 52:44
  referred to a specialist, all they do is your call goes right
• 52:50
  to an answering machine. So I just kept calling back and
• 52:54
  call him back and call him back and call him back and call him
• 52:56
  back. They finally answered the phone
• 52:58
  and I said I wanted to talk to the doctor and well, the doctor
• 53:02
  doesn't do that. And they hung up.
• 53:04
  So I called back, called back and I just so I insisted on
• 53:07
  talking to the doctor and I lost it on the doctor about the
• 53:11
  condition because she told me I might have some incontinence.
• 53:16
  OK. And for those people like me
• 53:17
  that didn't really know what incontinence was when she said
• 53:20
  some incontinence, it's holding your urine and or picking
• 53:25
  yourself. Yeah.
• 53:26
  So she goes, well if I had of told you the truth, you wouldn't
• 53:31
  have done the operation and it's so now doctors are lying to me.
• 53:36
  Wow. So my trust factor in this world
• 53:39
  is like almost those people. And so then she goes, at that
• 53:47
  point she goes, this, there's a surgery week, surgery we can do,
• 53:51
  they can correct it. And I'm like, well, I'm not
• 53:54
  quite ready for that yet because I don't trust you.
• 53:58
  So it took about six months or seven months to be able to
• 54:02
  become OK with the surgery they were going to do.
• 54:05
  But in the meantime, I got diagnosed with diabetes.
• 54:09
  Oh wow. Because of course, you know what
• 54:12
  they preach in a A if you have the obsession, eat junk food,
• 54:18
  eat sugar, eat this. And we promote not unhealthy
• 54:21
  stuff because that's unhealthy. Yeah, see, mine wasn't so much
• 54:27
  that they weren't, we weren't when the ones I went to.
• 54:29
  And the way I go is it wasn't like, hey, let's let's shift the
• 54:32
  addiction. It's just I found my addiction
• 54:34
  from from drinking to working out and exercise and things like
• 54:37
  that, but it was never anything. You know, they didn't come out.
• 54:40
  I don't, you know, it's could be different in Canada, but here
• 54:44
  there was no talk about how to replace your addiction.
• 54:46
  It was more just this is like minded people were going to help
• 54:49
  you walk, you know, they baby step through your addiction
• 54:52
  recovery, things like that and more.
• 54:54
  Of an accountability. More of an accountability, Yeah,
• 54:56
  yeah, it wasn't like, hey, let's replace the addiction with
• 54:59
  another addiction because that's not healthy either.
• 55:01
  No, although, although I can see.
• 55:02
  Healthy that says that not quite so much any but right, so I end
• 55:09
  up having the operate well, actually when I had the radical
• 55:12
  prostatectomy, I'm so terrified of getting loaded because I know
• 55:18
  I'm close right. I did it with no medication good
• 55:23
  and my opinion on that's changed a little bit today, however, so
• 55:30
  Fast forward, I get this new contraption that helps me to
• 55:33
  stop peeing and even in there just before the operation.
• 55:40
  I'm so desperate. I finally go to this three day
• 55:43
  self development class OK and you got to remember I want to go
• 55:48
  home and put a gun on my mouth every night right now Canada's
• 55:51
  actually even given me the right to own a gun.
• 55:54
  So I have a gun in my closet. So I do this course and Sunday
• 56:03
  rolls around and I didn't really get much out of it.
• 56:05
  They kind of just teach similar stuff as the 12 step teaches,
• 56:09
  right? And how dare they try and upsell
• 56:15
  me to the next course. So I belligerently walk out
• 56:20
  angry, which was my normal state.
• 56:23
  And I go to put my leg over my motorcycle and I got a 2015
• 56:27
  Harley and I think this was in 2016 and 2017 maybe.
• 56:34
  And this light bulb goes on. You want to go home and kill
• 56:39
  yourself? If your bike mechanic Chuck told
• 56:43
  you you needed to put $5000 into your motorcycle tomorrow, your
• 56:48
  credit card would be out in a heartbeat.
• 56:50
  So you would have your therapy. What is wrong with you investing
• 56:57
  in you? This is where the story starts
• 57:00
  to get pretty cool. So I walk back in and I pay for,
• 57:05
  begrudgingly pay for the course. Yeah.
• 57:10
  And for the next few weeks or months, it was like, what did
• 57:16
  you do? But the cool part, I work in the
• 57:20
  movie business, so I can have any time off that I want.
• 57:25
  The courses in San Francisco. I have a waiver now, though, so
• 57:29
  I can legally go to the states. OK, the course is in San
• 57:34
  Francisco, so it's like I'll go for a week after or a week
• 57:39
  before, a week after, make a good holiday of it and have
• 57:42
  three weeks to do this one week course and COVID comes along
• 57:47
  that all up, I can't go. I was scheduled to go just as
• 57:50
  COVID yet. That sucks.
• 57:52
  Did they zoom it? Did they go online?
• 57:55
  Nope. No online stuff.
• 57:57
  Wow, Fast forward into COVID, they shut the movie business
• 58:02
  down. I got another truckers or job
• 58:05
  and that's when I got the diabetes.
• 58:09
  So Fast forward again. They actually bring the course,
• 58:13
  they open up the borders a little bit and coaches can get
• 58:16
  or the facilitators can come to Canada.
• 58:19
  That's cool. So they come to Canada and it's
• 58:24
  in Alberta and this ranch, it's way out in the Bush and not
• 58:30
  there's Bush and. We get what you mean, yeah.
• 58:33
  So I go and by then it was kind of begrudgingly because I'm
• 58:39
  leaving a job where I'm making almost $3000 a week to go do
• 58:42
  this course and I'm taking weeks off work.
• 58:44
  So I'm losing 6 grand and I go to the course and the day going
• 58:52
  there COVID restrictions are still there.
• 58:56
  I'm driving from my buddy's house to the course which is
• 58:59
  like 4 hours. And you got to remember, I'm
• 59:01
  still really angry and. But you're sober and you're
• 59:04
  clean. I'm sober and I'm clean and by
• 59:06
  now I think I was 16 years clean, 17 years.
• 59:12
  Which is, which is good. Pretty sustainable and I know I
• 59:16
  just can't I can do anything else, but I just can't use.
• 59:18
  I know that that track wreck beaten and right, so I got to go
• 59:25
  to the bathroom and not just stand on the road and pee.
• 59:30
  I got to go, yeah. I got to go.
• 59:33
  Nowhere will let you in to use their bathrooms.
• 59:37
  So by the time I get to this rendezvous where they were going
• 59:40
  to follow everybody into where the ranch is, sure I'm
• 59:43
  belligerent. And so I, we end up at the
• 59:51
  course and for some reason after this belligerency of the first
• 59:56
  day, I freaking show up and we do this one exercise and we're
• 1:00:04
  put on the silent treatment and we're supposed to go back and
• 1:00:07
  write our hopes, dreams and goals and another one of these
• 1:00:11
  big epiphanies. And I wrote this limp Dick stuff
• 1:00:15
  down like the PAT stuff that I always written down.
• 1:00:18
  And I. I just had the operation so I
• 1:00:25
  wasn't peeing my pants anymore. And I go to bed night, we're on
• 1:00:33
  silence so we can't talk to anybody.
• 1:00:34
  And I wake up in the morning and I'm like, you fucking ripped
• 1:00:38
  yourself off again. Put some shit on that paper that
• 1:00:44
  you really want. And the first thing I want and
• 1:00:48
  for my generation, and I don't know about you guys, but when
• 1:00:51
  you call your wife a partner, it goes back to the days of only
• 1:00:58
  gay people called their partners, Right?
• 1:01:00
  Right. Nothing.
• 1:01:01
  And today I've changed that. Like, I don't.
• 1:01:03
  I could give a rat's ass what you do or who you are or what
• 1:01:07
  we're all. But anyway, Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
• 1:01:09
  So that morning I get up and we're doing these high ropes
• 1:01:12
  exercises this day. And there's this guy Felipe.
• 1:01:16
  Changed my life forever. He's at the bottom.
• 1:01:20
  And he asked me a question. He goes, what's your top hope
• 1:01:22
  and dream? And I said I want a partner.
• 1:01:26
  And he goes to me. What are you going to say to her
• 1:01:30
  when you wake up in the morning? I said, I'll roll over and say,
• 1:01:32
  hey, babe, I love you. Yeah.
• 1:01:34
  And he goes, well, why don't you one up it?
• 1:01:36
  And in my brain I'm thinking, are you a fucking moron?
• 1:01:41
  How do you one up? I love.
• 1:01:43
  Yeah. And he goes, Why don't you roll
• 1:01:45
  over and go, hey babe, how can I love you today?
• 1:01:50
  Oh, that's nice. That's awesome.
• 1:01:52
  It's coming from where I come from.
• 1:01:54
  What the hell? What do I know about love?
• 1:01:56
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:01:57
  A lot about hurt and pain. Sure.
• 1:01:59
  A lot about love. That's cool.
• 1:02:03
  Then I get up to the top of the ladder and there's this girl
• 1:02:08
  there that had been serving us food when we eat.
• 1:02:11
  And she goes, can I say something to you?
• 1:02:15
  And I'm like, OK, sure, she goes.
• 1:02:20
  She remind me of the elephant in Ice Age 2, the father.
• 1:02:23
  And I'm like, I've never seen it.
• 1:02:25
  I don't have kids so I've never seen ice.
• 1:02:26
  Oh, the Mastodon. Yeah, OK.
• 1:02:29
  He. Goes well.
• 1:02:30
  There's this part in the movie where the lava fields blowing up
• 1:02:34
  and his family's over there needing help and he's just
• 1:02:38
  barreling through all the lava field to get to his family and
• 1:02:42
  all his friends are going go left, go left and he's going
• 1:02:45
  right. Right.
• 1:02:47
  He reminds me of you. And now this lady had.
• 1:02:51
  No, She wasn't in any of the classes we had.
• 1:02:58
  She wasn't in any of that. She just served me food.
• 1:03:01
  Right. That's it.
• 1:03:02
  Yeah. So I tell a few people what
• 1:03:05
  happened that night and I start looking around and it dawns on
• 1:03:10
  me this is a religious resort. Oh.
• 1:03:14
  Which and people are like when I start telling them, I just
• 1:03:17
  realized it was they go, you didn't notice the stuff on the
• 1:03:19
  walls. And it's like, I don't notice
• 1:03:21
  stuff like that. I don't, I don't pay attention
• 1:03:23
  enough. So the, the course was
• 1:03:29
  absolutely amazing and transforming and I stood up and
• 1:03:32
  when the coach ripped my shit, I I took it.
• 1:03:36
  And yeah, ironically enough, it was kind of funny that there was
• 1:03:40
  39 of us. I think part of the thing was we
• 1:03:47
  they wanted us to all line up and how much we made the year
• 1:03:50
  before. OK.
• 1:03:53
  I was the second person to the top.
• 1:03:57
  Nice. And I don't say that arrogantly.
• 1:04:00
  Not much self esteem because I would look at you and go, oh,
• 1:04:05
  you're a lawyer, you must make way more than me.
• 1:04:11
  And it wasn't about humiliation, but it was about so people could
• 1:04:14
  change. And so on the last day, this
• 1:04:20
  lady that had been kind of, we'd had a few dinners together, but
• 1:04:26
  because I'm in the program, it's like this sort of varies.
• 1:04:29
  You don't touch, you don't go anywhere, you don't.
• 1:04:33
  So she goes to me. I thought this, no, I went to
• 1:04:38
  her. I said, I thought this went till
• 1:04:39
  Sunday. And she goes, so did I.
• 1:04:42
  And she goes, I don't have to go be back to Calgary till Sunday
• 1:04:46
  night. And this is Saturday.
• 1:04:48
  And I said, so I guess we're going out for dinner today.
• 1:04:53
  So we went out for dinner that night and we've been together
• 1:04:56
  ever since. And that was, we've been married
• 1:04:59
  for three years this year, married 11 months from the day
• 1:05:04
  we walked out of this course. And we did a few other self
• 1:05:10
  development classes with the company.
• 1:05:11
  And once again, it's like Scott doesn't mesh well with people
• 1:05:19
  that aren't quite straight up. And the coaches and the
• 1:05:22
  facilitators were great, but their office politics were
• 1:05:26
  shady. And sure, so I don't have a
• 1:05:28
  whole lot to do with them anymore, but I also don't have
• 1:05:31
  to bash them, which is a cool part.
• 1:05:32
  Yeah, I would have been naming their company and I would have
• 1:05:35
  been bashing them because. But I guarantee anybody could go
• 1:05:38
  do the first two courses and gain huge knowledge about
• 1:05:43
  themselves. So on the last course we did
• 1:05:48
  with them, it was a goal setting course.
• 1:05:54
  We ended up, I set a goal to go to Thailand for six months and I
• 1:06:03
  just had some friends that go there and it was kind of on the
• 1:06:05
  whim, and I'll backtrack just to smidge during this course.
• 1:06:10
  It was a crazy course and it was held in Alberta and it was three
• 1:06:13
  months long. I made the decision not to go
• 1:06:17
  back to work and focus on this course for the three months.
• 1:06:22
  And by the end of the course, I decided I wasn't going back to
• 1:06:27
  work. And because of the house that I
• 1:06:34
  own close to Vancouver, I sold it and I moved up north where I
• 1:06:38
  live now. And now I own three properties
• 1:06:40
  and that's kind of how I live is off rental income.
• 1:06:42
  OK, So Lisa and I are getting along great and we are
• 1:06:50
  implementing every morning. How can I love you today?
• 1:06:53
  That's cool, I like that. And at first it was
• 1:06:56
  uncomfortable and bashy. And half about four months into
• 1:07:02
  this, it's like, you know what? I don't know if I lived up to my
• 1:07:05
  expectations. So I kind of asked.
• 1:07:08
  We started the thing every night.
• 1:07:09
  Did we live up to our commitment today?
• 1:07:11
  Oh. That's cool.
• 1:07:12
  That's cool too. I have one of the my, I can't, I
• 1:07:17
  won't even say one of the best relationships, right?
• 1:07:21
  I have a partnership with somebody that I never knew could
• 1:07:24
  ever exist. That's awesome.
• 1:07:27
  And so now we live together in Ashcroft, BC.
• 1:07:35
  And the first trip to Thailand, Lisa decided she was going to
• 1:07:42
  write a book. Nice.
• 1:07:44
  And somehow she's inspired me to write a book.
• 1:07:47
  Right on. And I wrote my book.
• 1:07:49
  It's called The perfect My Perfect storm.
• 1:07:51
  Congratulations, that's awesome. Man, and it is an Amazon
• 1:07:55
  bestseller. However, somehow through emails,
• 1:07:57
  I kind of not screwed up the Amazon bestseller part, but I
• 1:08:01
  got kicked off Amazon. We haven't been able to correct
• 1:08:04
  it yet. That's Amazon, Yeah.
• 1:08:07
  So where can people find your book?
• 1:08:09
  At Scott, Oh well, she changed Scott at Forward Walking Choices
• 1:08:15
  and we can e-mail him a book today.
• 1:08:18
  I'm a life coach, crisis recovery coach.
• 1:08:22
  I help people to inspire their lives because I look back at my
• 1:08:26
  track record and AA and I struggled for so many years till
• 1:08:31
  I started finding actual some footing and direction.
• 1:08:35
  And since I wrote my book, I'm doing some of the courses I went
• 1:08:41
  down. Have you guys ever heard of
• 1:08:42
  Doctor Amon? No, no, I haven't.
• 1:08:45
  He's one of the leading ADHD experts in the world.
• 1:08:50
  OK. He actually does brain scans
• 1:08:53
  brain and then diagnose you from your brain and he's done so many
• 1:08:57
  that he can diagnose pretty well.
• 1:08:59
  And OK, and I skipped actually a good portion of dealing with
• 1:09:06
  this. Is all.
• 1:09:07
  Is all this in the book? Yes.
• 1:09:09
  OK. So don't share all.
• 1:09:10
  The stuff, Oh no, the ADHD stuff isn't in the book.
• 1:09:13
  That's going to be in the next. Book.
• 1:09:15
  Yeah. Because we want, we want people
• 1:09:16
  to read your book. That's it.
• 1:09:18
  Yeah. So don't give us all the details
• 1:09:20
  because then there's no reason to buy it.
• 1:09:21
  Yeah. I dealt with my trauma before
• 1:09:24
  that and then now I stepped it up and went and diagnosed with
• 1:09:28
  ADHD and you know, that was the one of the clinchers that
• 1:09:34
  changed my life as well. Getting put on some medication
• 1:09:37
  and supplements. I used magic mushrooms for my
• 1:09:42
  trauma therapy. We just had a guy on that did
• 1:09:46
  the same thing he he used magic mushrooms that got him to stop
• 1:09:50
  drinking and kind of kept him on the sober path.
• 1:09:53
  Yeah, I know a few people like that.
• 1:09:55
  I'm an advocate for the new medicines that are out there.
• 1:10:03
  As am I. I don't believe in, I believe in
• 1:10:06
  complete abstinence for use if you're using it to just to dull
• 1:10:12
  this down, if you're using it for pain, if you're using it to
• 1:10:15
  help your trauma or your depression.
• 1:10:18
  I. Don't know, I'm in the middle of
• 1:10:22
  writing a different book. This book is fantastic.
• 1:10:25
  However, I want to get more of my healing journey.
• 1:10:30
  This is a little bit of the some of it I look back because of the
• 1:10:35
  ADHD stuff and what I've learned about it.
• 1:10:38
  Some of it's still the blame game, Sure, of course.
• 1:10:42
  And. When you're telling, when you're
• 1:10:44
  telling your story, I mean, every time you broke up with
• 1:10:46
  somebody, that was your excuse to start drinking.
• 1:10:48
  Yeah. So right there you you have you
• 1:10:50
  had to have a reason to drink and your reason to drink was,
• 1:10:52
  well, that didn't work out. So fucking I'm going to drink.
• 1:10:54
  Yep. Right.
• 1:10:55
  So there was there was those any windows of blaming going on,
• 1:11:00
  right. And today, my life, I can't even
• 1:11:06
  believe I have the life I have today.
• 1:11:08
  That's good. That's awesome.
• 1:11:10
  It's like. I feel the same way.
• 1:11:11
  I think Chris does, too. When you're an addict, you don't
• 1:11:14
  realize that there's this life on the other side.
• 1:11:19
  You just can't imagine it. Well, and sometimes it's not
• 1:11:22
  even just drugs or alcohol. We're addicted to the anger and
• 1:11:25
  the chaos and, and not knowing what to do.
• 1:11:28
  Like I spent years, I don't know what to do.
• 1:11:30
  It's just do the steps again, right?
• 1:11:32
  Just haven't done the steps right, right.
• 1:11:34
  And that's kind of why I'm an advocate for this, because it's
• 1:11:37
  like if you got to tell somebody they haven't done the steps
• 1:11:41
  right, there's something wrong with that.
• 1:11:43
  Well, and see, that's that's why I go back to that too.
• 1:11:45
  Like I never read the big book and did I do the steps?
• 1:11:48
  Yes, but I don't I didn't. I didn't, I didn't wrap my
• 1:11:51
  entire life around that process. Cause to me when I got my chip,
• 1:11:55
  that was the thing that got me through it because I realized,
• 1:11:58
  OK, I got 24 hour chip and I got a 30 day chip.
• 1:12:00
  But if I can't get the 30 days I have to give them back with 24
• 1:12:02
  chip. Well, one thing. 60 Yeah, Go
• 1:12:05
  ahead, Mike. No, sorry, man.
• 1:12:06
  One thing you and I agree on, and I think you're saying it
• 1:12:09
  right now, is you have to be the one to want to change.
• 1:12:14
  Somebody can't tell you you're an addict.
• 1:12:17
  No, it's kind of like your court ordered a A when you're 15.
• 1:12:20
  Yeah, that's going to work. Yeah, nobody has somebody
• 1:12:23
  standing in front of them going, you're fucking your life up.
• 1:12:26
  And they go, oh, yeah, you know what?
• 1:12:27
  You're right. That rarely happens.
• 1:12:29
  It may be one out of a million people go, OK, you're right.
• 1:12:32
  Most people say, what business is it of yours?
• 1:12:35
  You know, I'm fine. I'm doing OK.
• 1:12:38
  Yeah, and see, I'm I'm kind of an exception because I was told
• 1:12:40
  I had a problem, but I never tried to stop because just
• 1:12:43
  because I was told I had a problem, it took my moment of of
• 1:12:45
  like, oh boy, something's got to change for me to change that
• 1:12:49
  then. But then when?
• 1:12:50
  That's my point exactly. Right.
• 1:12:51
  So it was so significant of a moment for me that the next day,
• 1:12:54
  literally, I woke up. Something's got to.
• 1:12:56
  Change and then I was going to die.
• 1:12:58
  Right. And so never look back, but
• 1:13:00
  there are, like we talked earlier, you're kind of the
• 1:13:03
  stereotypical alcoholic where you can, you're constantly
• 1:13:06
  trying to get stay sober, stay sober, stay sober, fall back 1-2
• 1:13:09
  steps forward, one step back two.
• 1:13:10
  You know, so the fact that now you're over 16 years clean and
• 1:13:14
  you have a beautiful life and a beautiful wife and you have
• 1:13:17
  targets and things you're going after, like writing another
• 1:13:19
  book, that's fantastic, man. That's, that's a great turn
• 1:13:22
  around in your life, especially because you were suicidal and
• 1:13:26
  you didn't want to be here. So that's another thing as well,
• 1:13:29
  that you, you didn't succumb to that depression because then you
• 1:13:32
  wouldn't be sitting here talking to us, man.
• 1:13:35
  I've attempted a few times over. There OK, most people you know
• 1:13:39
  in that state of depression at some point time do for sure.
• 1:13:41
  Yeah, we also, my wife and I do a podcast.
• 1:13:45
  It's called Soul Mates and Suitcases.
• 1:13:47
  It can be found on Spotify and YouTube.
• 1:13:49
  I think on YouTube it's called the Brewer Leaf.
• 1:13:52
  OK. And we have a coaching business.
• 1:13:59
  Cool. And we travel the world and have
• 1:14:01
  fun. That's awesome, man.
• 1:14:04
  Yeah, that is awesome. So we have all your links.
• 1:14:06
  I shared them with Mike, and from when we drop the episode,
• 1:14:09
  we'll put all that stuff on there as well so people can find
• 1:14:11
  you and then we'll go cross, like, subscribe, things like
• 1:14:15
  that and you'll do the same for us.
• 1:14:17
  Now, do you have stuff on Facebook, Instagram as well?
• 1:14:21
  Yeah, mostly Facebook, I deal with that.
• 1:14:23
  I got accounts on Instagram and stuff.
• 1:14:25
  I haven't quite ventured into that.
• 1:14:28
  It's a good gap, but. Yeah, we have one on Facebook.
• 1:14:31
  We we're found Facebook, Instagram, YouTube obviously and
• 1:14:34
  all the podcast platforms we're working on putting together
• 1:14:36
  websites so. We'll have, yeah, we got a
• 1:14:39
  website, forwardwalkingchoices.com.
• 1:14:42
  Cool. Yeah.
• 1:14:43
  Did you send me all that I thought you sent?
• 1:14:45
  Oh, I haven't. You know what?
• 1:14:46
  I'm gonna get my. Wife to send you all the stuff
• 1:14:48
  because she's got it all put together and perfect.
• 1:14:50
  Send me your e-mail though. I don't think you sent it.
• 1:14:53
  I will. Yeah.
• 1:14:54
  I'll send. Yeah, I'll send you the e-mail.
• 1:14:56
  This has been fantastic guys. Thank you very much for having
• 1:14:58
  me up. Thank you for let us.
• 1:15:00
  Thank you for sharing your story man.
• 1:15:02
  Yeah, so since we're still live on YouTube, share again how
• 1:15:04
  people can find your book. The My Perfect Storm is what
• 1:15:06
  it's called the author Scott. Rayerjesus.com, Say again.
• 1:15:11
  Forward Walking choices.com. Forwardwalkingchoices.com where
• 1:15:15
  you can find his book right on. Man, and invest in yourself,
• 1:15:19
  because nobody else is going to. Great.
• 1:15:22
  Absolutely, absolutely. And one thing that that you'll
• 1:15:25
  you'll probably like this one of the things that we do every time
• 1:15:28
  we wrap up a show, because Mike and I both been affected by
• 1:15:31
  someone who's taking their own life and you tried it several
• 1:15:33
  times, is don't let the bad days win, right?
• 1:15:36
  Somebody's going to miss you. Somebody Loves You.
• 1:15:38
  You don't create that hole in somebody's heart tomorrow
• 1:15:40
  morning because they found out you're gone and they could have
• 1:15:43
  helped, you know, talk you through the chaos you're going
• 1:15:46
  through. Well, and I don't think we've
• 1:15:47
  had a better example on this podcast than Scott right here.
• 1:15:51
  He just said I'm living my best life.
• 1:15:53
  Had he taken his own life, he would have never known this was
• 1:15:56
  a possibility, right? So kudos to you for being happy
• 1:16:00
  again. I've been on both sides of life
• 1:16:02
  too, where I was miserable and I wake up every day and I'm
• 1:16:05
  grateful I'm still here so. Yeah, and the way you wake up in
• 1:16:09
  the morning and the way you go to bed at night.
• 1:16:11
  I love those two things. I do, too.
• 1:16:13
  That those are powerful, dude. Powerful.
• 1:16:15
  And that's why we do this, we, we both do this cold model way
• 1:16:18
  today. Fill probably 3 mornings a week.
• 1:16:20
  We do it and. Yeah, but still.
• 1:16:22
  Some nights, sometimes we just go, did we?
• 1:16:24
  Did I fulfill? Did I fulfill my commitment to
• 1:16:27
  you today? Yeah, no, that's cool, dude.
• 1:16:29
  That's really cool. Because how do you, how do you
• 1:16:31
  keep a relationship like you look in this world today at the
• 1:16:34
  track record of relationships now, unless you cherish the
• 1:16:39
  relationship to me, it's going to go away.
• 1:16:42
  Yeah, well, people don't want to put the work in.
• 1:16:43
  Like I, I'm, we're my wife and I have been together 30 years and
• 1:16:46
  there's, there's little caveats. There's little caveats I dropped
• 1:16:49
  #1 you got to have separate comforters because and you're
• 1:16:52
  not dealing with other Jimmy Lakes.
• 1:16:55
  And then you just know your roles.
• 1:16:56
  Like I load the dishwasher and then load it usually.
• 1:16:59
  And she does the laundry. I do all the outside maintenance
• 1:17:01
  stuff. She takes care of the inside
• 1:17:03
  stuff. So there's the dynamic that you
• 1:17:05
  find with, with your, your partner, spouse, whatever you
• 1:17:08
  want to call it. And then obviously you
• 1:17:10
  communicate and you're open and honest with everything you do.
• 1:17:13
  That's. The big one right there.
• 1:17:14
  That's the talk 1. Right.
• 1:17:16
  Talking because you know, and then you tell them you know.
• 1:17:18
  Here's how I'm feeling. Right.
• 1:17:20
  And then you obviously you, I, hey, I love you.
• 1:17:23
  It's not just a random thing. You don't like, we just don't
• 1:17:26
  give flowers on, on Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.
• 1:17:29
  In fact, we don't do shit on Valentine's Day because we don't
• 1:17:31
  feel like we have to because every, I mean, there's flowers
• 1:17:34
  randomly showing up. I came home yesterday.
• 1:17:35
  There's flowers on the island, you know.
• 1:17:37
  And. But that's just how we are, and
• 1:17:39
  that's how I think more and more people need to understand
• 1:17:42
  relationships are work, and if you're not willing to put in the
• 1:17:45
  time, then you know what do you? Is it work?
• 1:17:51
  Well, you know what I mean. It's like.
• 1:17:53
  I'll use this for an example. The week we had a friend over,
• 1:17:57
  Yeah, and I, we got an espresso machine and a lot of people
• 1:18:00
  don't know how to use it. So I make them a coffee with the
• 1:18:03
  espresso machine. Sure.
• 1:18:04
  Lisa's in having a shower and I know she wants a coffee, but
• 1:18:08
  I've already made 32 coffees in a row and I just want to sit
• 1:18:11
  down and enjoy my first coffee. So really, I kind of
• 1:18:15
  begrudgingly made her a coffee, right?
• 1:18:18
  Because I didn't want to do it. But obviously I must have wanted
• 1:18:22
  to do it. My brain was just telling me I
• 1:18:25
  didn't want to do it and I wanted lazy, right?
• 1:18:28
  But I took her the coffee and snuck it into the bathroom, put
• 1:18:31
  it on the couch, not stuck it in.
• 1:18:32
  But. Yeah.
• 1:18:34
  I think that's an example of what Chris just said.
• 1:18:36
  It's making the extra effort that you normally wouldn't have
• 1:18:40
  done unless it was that person, right?
• 1:18:43
  And I'm not doing that for anybody else except this person.
• 1:18:45
  Yeah, so so the word work may not have been the right choice
• 1:18:48
  of words. Yeah, I know, but.
• 1:18:49
  It's but it's just engaging in the other person's life, knowing
• 1:18:52
  those little nuances that will make their day because you took
• 1:18:55
  the effort to do. So 100% yeah.
• 1:18:57
  But changing it to how you said at that time makes to me makes
• 1:19:02
  it sound so positive, yeah. Yeah, OK, well, I'll make that
• 1:19:06
  middle note too, man, engaging with the other one.
• 1:19:09
  Yeah, yeah, I got. Anyways, gentlemen, I got to get
• 1:19:12
  to work cool that I'm doing in the basement.
• 1:19:15
  Right on that. Thank.
• 1:19:16
  You very much and. Yeah, thanks a lot.
• 1:19:19
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:19:20
  When you when you get ready to drop your your next book, reach
• 1:19:23
  out and we'll get you back on. Awesome.
• 1:19:25
  Absolutely. OK Lisa to send you the stuff.
• 1:19:28
  You can probably get her on for a OK podcast too.
• 1:19:32
  Cool. We would like to do that as
• 1:19:33
  well. Yeah, awesome.
• 1:19:35
  All right. You guys have a great day man.
• 1:19:37
  All right, have a great day. Thanks, Scott.
• 1:19:38
  See you. The you will go beyond the tail
• 1:20:04
  behind your eyes yourself and meet yourself.
• 1:20:10
  Take a moment, look until you see it.
• 1:20:14
  Fight the battle that you must wear.
• 1:20:19
  Fight the battle, but you must wear who is your baby to your.
• 1:21:43
  Now you're turning. Come down here.
• 1:21:45
  We haven't found the salad in the exam from fighting.
• 1:21:53
  Wait for the day when it's closer out there.
• 1:21:57
  You put it away. You ain't no quizzes.
• 1:22:01
  We'll play a smile. You should.
• 1:22:04
  You quit on the almighty man. You got a dream.
• 1:22:10
  Who in your life? The people.
• 1:22:13
  Soul in every man. Take the trail behind your eyes.
• 1:22:21
  Feel the soul evolution now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:22:32
  yeah. Take a moment.
• 1:22:35
  You see, you see him fight your family.
• 1:22:38
  To you more clear. You
• 1:23:06
  gotta, you gotta. You gotta.
• 1:23:09
  You gotta. You gotta.