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Just One More Hit with Austin Rampt · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So five, four, three, two, and one. All right, folks,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: my guest today, Austin Ramp.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Austin, welcome. Man, Guy, thank you so much for having me, buddy.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I'm really glad to be here with you.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: All right. So Austin is the author of One Last Hit,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a memoir of addiction, loss, and finding purpose. It's a
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: candid account of his journey from addiction to recovery. He
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: began struggling with substance abuse at age 12, a battle
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: that eventually led him to flee to Mexico and lose
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: nearly everything before finding redemption. Through his memoir, he shares
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the lessons he learned about addiction, recovery, and purpose, offering
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: hope to others facing similar challenges. All right, Austin, just
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit about you, obviously, but before we get going,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: share with our listeners where you're from originally and where
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: you are currently. Yeah.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: So I was born originally in Dallas, Texas, spent some
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: years of my childhood in Tokyo, Japan, and I currently
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: live in Orlando, Florida.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Okay. So how does it start? Yeah.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Well, interestingly enough, so when I was a child, I
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: had these incredible neurological ticks that a lot of kids
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: have ticks. You know, mine were not just physical, but
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: they were vocal. So if you could picture this, this
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: overweight nine, 10 year old kid in the back of
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: the classroom going like a dolphin. And I'll tell you
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the two feelings I can remember identifying as a child,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: anxiety and shame, even though I didn't have the words
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: to name them, I just knew there was something wrong
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: with me. And So by the time I picked up
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: my first drink, it was like, it solved a problem
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: for me that I didn't know existed because I had
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: been living in it for so long. But once the,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: once the madness shut off, the way that it felt,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: it felt like, you know, I'd been driving through a
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: rainstorm my entire life and finally went under an overpass.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: It just, the quiet, you know, the magic happened and
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I fell in love from that point. And, and, you know,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: this started a rapid fire descent into addiction. I was
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: addicted to pills by age 15. I was addicted to
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: crack cocaine by age 17 and in my first rehab
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: by age 22. I mean, and all sorts of various
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: things happened in between.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: All right. I know there's so much to get into
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and too much to get into, but let me just
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: go back for a second. So you said at age nine,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: you remember this happening. So obviously a super early age
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: stuff was going on. Were there other things going on?
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: In addition to that, at that age?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: You know, my parents both drank in the evening. We
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: didn't have a very high EQ in my family, I'll say.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I think we had the emotions of anger and excitement.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Those were the two we could probably name. And if
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: anger was happening, we would talk about it at dinner
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: and then kind of bury it. I do want to
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: say that earlier on in my life, and this was
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: outside of my conscious memory, but I learned this when
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: I was writing the book. My uncle, my mom's brother,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: when I was two and three years old, he was
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: married to a woman that I became very close to.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: And he was dealing drugs. And apparently he dealt what
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: the customers thought was a bad batch of drugs to them.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: And these fine folks broke into his home, tied up
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: his wife and killed her. And the trial was going
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: on when I was two, three and four years old. Pictures, everything.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: My parents were involved. And My parents never, and this
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: is the early 80s, you know, they never decided to
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: get help for this type of trauma that they were
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: going through. They simply drank at it and kept it moving.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: And so that was the kind of energy that was
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: really in my home as a young child.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: So you talked about that situation in school at nine.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: When did you take your first drink?
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I didn't take my first drink. I held out as
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: long as I could at age 12, age 13.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Okay. In addition to that, how were you managing or
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: coping with what was going on?
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: So I played a lot of sports. I was really
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: good at baseball. Baseball was kind of my saving grace
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: up until that point. I was bigger than the other kids.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And so I always knew, you know, I could step
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: onto the field and hit home runs. I was the
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: home run leader. And I also noticed during this time
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: that when I would hit those home runs, I'd see
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: my dad high-fiving the other dads going, that's my boy.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: And somehow I got the message that I think a
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: lot of people get, but it really landed hard on me,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: that if I achieve, I'm somehow worthy of love. And
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: the opposite also being true. If I don't achieve in
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: some exceptional way, I'm therefore not worthy. And that was
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: something that carried with me even into my 30s, a
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: long time.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: So what were the first, when did the substance abuse start?
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the substance abuse started quite quickly. Right after
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I took my first drink, I started smoking pot. I
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: found pills. I found LSD. I was, you know, the
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: way that it felt looking back is it was kind
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: of all anti-Austin medication. I was trying to find that
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: perfect substance that would allow me to operate in the
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: world and feel what I thought was going to be normal,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: but wouldn't get me in trouble in the process. And,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: you know... I thought that was painkillers at age 15
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: until I became addicted and until eventually, you know, before
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I had even graduated high school, I was so severely addicted, um,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: that I had stopped caring. Like it had gotten to
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: that point. But, and, and in fact, I'm sorry, go
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: ahead guy.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Or as you say, and what does that look like
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: as a 15 year old kid addicted? How are you operating? Yeah.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: So it looks like, you know, I decided I was
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: going to sell pot in high school, um, just basically
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: to fund my habit. It looked like, uh, I had
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: a mom who was, you know, she, she allowed me
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: to smoke pot and drink. And so as a result
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: of that red eyes looking a certain way was kind
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: of okay. And so because of that, I could slide
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: other things in there, um, and just say it was,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: it was one of the two approved substances. And, um,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: During the summer between my junior and senior year of
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: high school, I was growing pot in my bedroom, and
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: my mom hung up some clothes over one of my
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: grow lights, and I burnt the entire family house down
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: to the ground. Accidentally, at 7 p.m., I flicked the
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: light on.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: By 8.30 p.m., gone. Whoa.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: This was just another bunch of crap and the big
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: old crap that was Austin, right? That's what it felt
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: like as a kid. I was internally defective and I
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: was trying to solve a big old hole in my
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: soul that I was hoping drugs and alcohol would be
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: the solution to.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: So how do things unfold?
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so by the age of 22, I'm in my
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: first rehab, and I had had overdoses prior to this.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: My mom and my poor mom and dad, I just
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: ran them through the wringer. And I actually got sober
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: at 22 and stayed that way until I was 31
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: in 12-step recovery and got all the benefits of a
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: life of sobriety. I got married, had a couple kids,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: started a very successful business, and inevitably... the beautiful things
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: that sobriety had given me started to take me away
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: from the thing that gave me sobriety, which was accountability, honesty,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: connection with my recovery community. And when I relapsed at 31,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: it was way more intense than it was at 22
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: because now I had resources. And so I go on
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: a run that ends up with me in a hotel
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: room in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, about to shoot heroin. And
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: the cops bust in and arrest me. for something in Florida,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: which is called a Marchman Act, which is essentially where
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: if you can prove to the courts that you're drinking
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: or using to the point that you're going to kill yourself,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: they can get the judges involved and a judge will
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: sign an order for the cops to come pick you up.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: And that's what happened. And I got probated to treatment,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: but I wasn't done. My head was just in such
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: an addicted state that after five days, I grabbed my
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: suitcase and Ran out the door and hopped on a
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: plane to Mexico. And this starts a journey of me
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: living there for two years.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Jeez. While you were in rehab and after rehab and
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: during that prolonged period of time, what was your mental
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: state like, your psychological state like? How did you feel
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: about yourself?
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I love getting into this. So what had happened was
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: when I came into 12-step recovery, I noticed that I
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: could start getting the type of tension I had always craved,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: but for sobriety. And so in the back of my head,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I said, okay, I'm going to just do sobriety better
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: than anyone. And that's not really the point, right? The
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: point is to find some form of a spiritual experience,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: which will, you know, in effect, relieve the alcoholism or
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: addiction that's underlying it. And so I was still running
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: from the beast, so to speak. I was, you know,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: I was doing all of the things and there were
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: times of like real peace and contentment within that. But
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: addiction recovery is not a one-time thing. It's something you
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: wake up every day and you focus on to stay
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: away from a drink or a drug. And over time,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: I had started to think that my long-term sobriety or
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: my ability to speak in front of crowds about sobriety
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: or my external successes had somehow qualified me to stop
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: doing many of the things that I had done originally.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: And inevitably, anytime you talk to somebody who was sober
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: for a while and they relapsed, they stopped. They just
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: stopped something. And that was definitely my case as well.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: And in my case, I had stopped being honest and
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: I had stopped taking inventory, stopped being accountable. And so
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: looking back, I can see that I never really healed.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I had played the role and I had stayed abstinent,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: but the healing, the understanding that I as a human
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: being have value simply because I exist on this planet
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: had never really taken root. And so the healing from
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: the original healing You know, the original wound that for
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: some reason I developed had never taken hold. And so
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: my mental state was not great.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Okay. So I'm sure, I mean, there's so many details
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: which we possibly can't get into. But the book, again,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: is one last hit, a memoir of addiction, loss, and
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: finding purpose. So I interrupted you when you were on
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: your way to Mexico. Yeah.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I hop on a plane.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And hold on, hold on. Were you involved in a
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: relationship at this point?
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was on wife number two. I had
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: divorced my first wife at the prompting of a therapist
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: because she said, you guys are toxic for each other.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: And she was right. And gotten remarried to an employee
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: of a rehab that I went to, which, you know,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: match made in heaven there. And we both kind of
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: absconded to Mexico. And when I landed there, So Cancun
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: is an interesting place in that it's completely run by
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: the Sinaloa cartel, top to bottom. And as soon as
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: I got there and started buying cocaine and the quantities
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: that I was buying it in the United States, they quickly,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: you know, identified me. Um, and, and they ensured that
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: I was able to destroy my life in the way
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: that I had always dreamed of doing it. Uh, that's
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: a little tongue in cheek, but that's, that's what they did. And, uh,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: you know, blew through a million dollars while I was
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: down there, um, all sorts of various traumas took place.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, there was a morning I woke up with
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: my throat cut right, right here. And, uh, I still
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: have the scar. Somehow I survived that there was a,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: you know, a near, near kidnapping. There were many different
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: things that happened, but here's, here's the moral of, of
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: that story guy at the end of my time in Mexico,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I'm living in, in Mexico city. And, uh, I had
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: gone there to party and I had gotten my Mexican
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: credentials stolen because I had bribed a Mexican official to
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: make me a Mexican citizen. And because of that, I
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: had reached out to a girl that I had met
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: a few months earlier. And she said, oh, you come
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: live with me and my mom. And so it's in
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: this little city called Cualcalco on the outskirts of Mexico
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: City that nobody has ever heard of. And when we
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: get out there, I start noticing this is like an
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: extremely impoverished area. And she lives in what we would
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: refer to here in the United States as projects. And
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: what I proceeded to experience there was two of the happiest, kindest,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: most connected people I had ever met in my life.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: And they had none of the things that I was
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: constantly pursuing to try and fill that hole in my soul.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: And in fact, on day two, I asked if I
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: could take a shower and she had to go boil
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: water on the stove because they shower out of she
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: had no hot running water. I was showering out of
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: a bucket. And and that's how she had done it
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: for years. And it was a remarkable example to me of.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Of two people who were living the life I had
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: actually dreamed of, which was not about material possessions, it
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: wasn't about any of that stuff, it was about connectedness.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: to other human beings. And I didn't realize it at
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: the time. It was only in retrospect that I saw
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: what an important example they had given me.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: So how do things unfold? Yeah.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: So I do end up making my way back to
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: the States. And this is in 2016. Barely made it.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: I ended up homeless for a little while in Mexico
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: City and then living with my drug dealer, et cetera.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: And I get back to the States. And I don't
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: get sober right away. I do relapse and overdose again.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: And I make my way into treatment. And my therapist
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: in treatment, she kind of had me pegged from day one.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: I was one of those guys that would, you know,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: and I'm sure you've met them or seen them, displaying
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: narcissistic traits, always wearing a mask, showing you the person
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I think you want me to be because I'm deathly
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: afraid that if you actually see me, you're going to
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: reject me. That's where I was. And she walks into
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: the group room one day and she puts this picture
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: of her 18-month-old baby girl up on the wall. And
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: she says, what does this little girl have to do
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: to deserve love? And of course the answer was nothing.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: That's a baby. We all knew that answer. And she
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: made the very strong argument that the only difference between
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: me and that baby was an idea. And that I
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: was the only one that had that idea. And that
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: that belief in my own, we'll call it unworthiness, was
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: the very thing that was going to prevent me from
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: finding happiness and sobriety. And I don't know if it
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: was that lesson, or if it was the fact that
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: I had no resources left at all, but I decided
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I was going to at least attempt to have the
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: courage to present an authentic and genuine person in my,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: in my life and see what happens. And I was
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: frightened of that because I'd never done it in my
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: entire life. I'd always had the old idea, the belief
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: that I would be rejected if people saw me. And
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: what started to happen was by just giving of myself,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: I started to have more connected, more intimate, more real
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: relationships with the people in my world than I had
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: ever experienced in my life.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: What did that mean, Austin, for you to give more
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: of yourself or to be yourself?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: What did that look like? Happy to elaborate on that.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: So prior to this. remember that early life lesson is
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I'm not enough. So I've got to bring something to
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: the party basically. So when it was drugs, I decided
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: to become a drug dealer because that would get me
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: through the door when it was, uh, later on in
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: life and sobriety, it couldn't be drugs anymore. So it
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: became money. So I would use money as a way
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: of saying, Oh, okay, this is my thing that you're
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: going to.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Let me play.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: But when, but I had no money, I had no
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: drugs at this point. And so all I had was
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: me and I had to like step out on that
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: ledge and say, okay, Am I enough? Like, am I
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: going to be enough? And so if, and what that
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: looked like was if I was sad, say I was sad,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: say I was hurting. Uh, if I was scared, be
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: scared and, and be honest about those reasons that those
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: are happening. Tell the truth and everything that you do.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Don't manipulate the relationships that you're in and see what happens.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: And it turns out what I actually got were real relationships.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: That's an incredible story. It's, it's, Was it hard for you?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, you talked about the context in which you
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: did that. Was it hard for you to do that?
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Was it scary for you to do that?
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Totally. It continues to be scary for me to do that.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I wax and wane within that constantly. And I think
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: a lot of it sometimes boils down to I'm going
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: to make a decision to be this way. and just
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: kind of see what happens. And I I've yet to
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: be let down because I've realized something about human beings. We,
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: we have something within us and I don't know what
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: it is, but we can sniff out when someone's being
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: genuine and authentic and when they're not, all of.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Us can do that. You feel it.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a real thing.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, okay. That sounds very inspiring. What happened between
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: that point and when you decided to write this book.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So obviously in the 12-step recovery process, there's a
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: whole ton of work that happens. But when I got
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: back from Mexico and I started telling the story in detail,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: and of course, a lot of which is outside of
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: the scope of this podcast, people started saying, man, that
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: is insane. You should write a book. And I thought, oh,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: that's cute and all. I don't know how to write
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: a book. And I heard that for years and years,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: but I started to get that intuition, that intuitive, like, like, Hey,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: you're gonna, you really need to go do this, bud. Um,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: and so I didn't know how to write a book.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I only know how to tell stories. So I connected
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: with an, with a guy who is a professional writer,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: a very talented guy. And it took four years from,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: from the first words written until publishing. And he and
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: I met every single week. I mean, he probably knows
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: me as well or better than anyone in my life
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: at this point. And, you know, something unexpected started happening
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: in this process is that it, I was meeting with
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: my author on, let's say, Tuesdays and then going to
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: therapy on Wednesdays. And it helped me to defragment my life.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: It really put things into context. I started to realize
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: that I was misremembering things based upon the narrative I
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: wanted to be true, not the reality of what had happened. And,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: you know, we as addicts and alcoholics, and I'm sure
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: normal people too, but addicts especially, we can live in
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: a world of delusion almost perpetually if not gone back
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: and corrected. And I realized I had a lot of that.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: And towards the end of it, I started to realize
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: that it was one of the most amazing things I've
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: ever done for my own sobriety, just simply putting it
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: on paper. And, and so, yeah, that's how the book
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: came about. And, and so far it's been great.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: The, the, the book, your story, I mean, it sounds,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to say it sounds like a movie.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to sensationalize it in that way or
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: trivialize it in that way. Because, you know, you sound
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: like you've been through hell to get to where you are.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, to be able to say, you know what,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I just want to be myself. I mean, I think
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: that's the journey for all of us. And it's so
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: frigging hard for so many of us. When you sat
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: down to write this book, I mean, aside from it
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: being like, you know, crazy and fantastic, What did you
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: want to say in the book? What did you want
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: to communicate?
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: So there were multiple times when writing this book and,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: and for anyone that's, you know, most people haven't read it.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: If you do read it, you'll know, I don't come
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: out of it smelling like a rose because addiction is
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: just quite frankly, ugly. And, um, all I really wanted
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: to communicate initially was the story. But I noticed many
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: checkpoints along the way where I had to ask myself,
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: are you really going to put this on paper? Like,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: are you really going to tell this story in the
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: way that it happened? Because once it's out there, it's
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: out there. And eventually the answer always became yes. Like,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: I've just got to put it down in the God's
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: honest way that I recall it happening. And something started
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: to shift for me in that, you know, I had
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: mentioned I carried a lot of shame early on. And that,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: of course, compounded through a lot of my own actions.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: And the thing that that defined me just sort of
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: became my story. It was no longer like the story
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: of who I was. It was my story. I own
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: this now. It's out there. It's public. It can be read.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: But in the midst of it, my hope is that
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: somebody can look at that and say, God, that guy
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: was He was worse than I was. If he can
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: do it, maybe I can too. And a lot of
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: my journey, and I know we don't have much time
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: to get into this, but a lot of my journey
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: has really accelerated. You know, I have five kids now, Guy.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: And a lot of my journey has accelerated in learning
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: to be a father. It was almost like the next
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: level of what it means to be a whole human
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: being is learning how to be a dad has just
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: been everything.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've talked so much about your own upbringing
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: and how your parents were and how they viewed you.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: What did that mean to you when you had that
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: first kid? What are you thinking? What are you doing?
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: It's so intense.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: So two of my children were alive when I went
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: to Mexico, which is heartbreaking. They were three and one.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: And I never thought I was going to ever get
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: to see them again. And, you know, when I came back, uh,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: through doing the work, I ended up getting full custody
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: of both of them. And then my wife and I
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: have been married for eight years. We'll have been together
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: nine years. So I met her right after I came
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: back from Mexico about 10 years ago. And, uh, and
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: she's a tremendous mother. Like, and so originally you've got me,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: this guy who's done all these terrible things, just trying
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: to be a sober member of a community. And, you know,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: we get these two little kids custody and they're like
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: six and three at the time. And I think it's
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: iPads and chicken nuggets, man. I'm like, Hey, that's what
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: parenting is. You know, it's better than Mexico was. And
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: she said, no, that's, that's not at all what parenting is.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: And she started to teach me what it meant to
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: regulate your nervous system so they can regulate theirs, what
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: it meant to start getting eye to eye, what it's
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: like to be a three-year-old boy and who just learned
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: he can disagree with you and screams because the color
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: of his cup is not the one that he wanted
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: and all these different things. And, and I, I had
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: some guilt as a parent, you know, anyone that's heard
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: the story, you could probably understand. And, and I started
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: guilt parenting, which is not for me, it was not
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: a great way of parenting. It meant that I was
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: letting things slide. I wasn't holding boundaries. I wasn't, you know,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: and my wife said something to me once and she said,
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: you know, It's the kid's job to bust the boundaries
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: and it's our job to hold the boundaries. And if
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: we can be consistent, then the kids will trust that
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: we as their parents are going to meet their needs.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: And if their needs are met, then they're free to
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: be children. And that free to be children line, I
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: never felt like I was free to be a child
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: as a kid. I was always trying to overcome some
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: deficiency in my life. And man, that really landed on me.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Your wife sounds pretty incredible. She is.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: She's a therapist as well.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I was going to say. And it's hard not to
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: look at it as though finding her was meeting her
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and being with her is such an incredible piece to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: your puzzle. Massive.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Massive. And part of it was So I met her
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: when I had like nine months sober. I was about
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: nine months, 10 months, 11 months past Mexico. And I
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: had been, I was in a place where I had
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: only been working on me. I had been presenting that genuine,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: authentic person, right? So I had all these relationships and, and, uh,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: her and I actually, we met on Bumble because on
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: the bottom of my Bumble profile, I wrote, I don't drink.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: And she's like me either. Let's see where this goes.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: And I'll tell you without her, I don't know. I
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: would probably have a vastly different story. She has been
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: absolutely my best friend and biggest cheerleader throughout all of
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: this because she had a lot of healing that I
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: had yet to do. But I didn't know that I
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: needed that healing until it was brought out of me
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: and I did the work.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: If someone were to come up to you and kind
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of like squeeze the essence out of you, what would
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: fall on the table in a sense? Wow.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: What a question. What would fall? Well, I can tell
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: you the things I think would fall like, like, you know,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: the essence of, of being a father or, or the
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: essence of being of service in my recovery community. But
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: I'm unsure really where, I would want to answer that
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: question except to say I'm grateful. I'm really, really grateful
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: to be alive. And as a result of that, I
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: try and show my gratitude through my actions because I
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: didn't think I was going to be here.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: What are some of the things that helped you get here?
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, how does... Help me understand how someone... who
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: went through, who lived your life gets to this point. Sure.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: I'm happy to. So much of the credit goes to
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: 12-step recovery, which is, you know, it's designed for folks
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: like us. And essentially what it's designed to do is
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: take us through a process that It's not a process
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: of addition. It's a process of subtraction. It's essentially taking
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: the things from us that are essentially not us. So
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: we can get down to the reality of what's going on.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: And so the things that are a part of 12
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: step recovery are spirituality, inventory. Um, the religious term would
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: be confession. What we would call it as a fifth step.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: It's where you read your inventory to your sponsor. Um,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: making amends in the ninth step. So we get eye
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: to eye with the people we've harmed and set those rights.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: So I've had a lot of bills to pay back,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: which I've done. I've had a lot of people that
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: I had harmed that I got eye to eye with.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: But the main thing, the biggest thing is being of
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: service to the next new addict that walks through the door.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Because what I've learned along the way is anytime I'm
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: in depression or anxiety or whatever, it's always characterized by
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: an obsessive focus on me. And the more I can
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: take the focus off of me, the more life just
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: sort of seems to unfold how it's supposed to. And I, boy, I'm,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: you know, I'll get caught up in the minutia of
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the day all the time, but inevitably when I zoom
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: out and look at the wholeness of my life, it's,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: to me, it's remarkable. It really is.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: The book is called One Last Hit, A Memoir of Addiction, Loss,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and Finding Purpose. Austin, how do people learn more about
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: you and the book? What's the best way? Sure.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: So you can go to onelasthitbook.com. I am more than
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: happy to chat with anyone. All of my contact information
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: is there. You can buy the books. It's also on Amazon, Audible,
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: anywhere you can buy a book.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: It's there. Okay. We'll have all that linked up here
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: at the show notes page of the trauma therapist podcast.com. Austin, um,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: appreciate you. Just appreciate your, uh, openness and vulnerability. And yeah,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you can feel it. Love it. Thank you for being here.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Guy. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: All right, man. Take care.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: You too, buddy.