It's the two seventeen Recovery Podcast with Corey Winfield. If you kind of look
deeper at the situation, you know, which I'm sure you will, because
everything that we go through is an experience that we learned from. And Justin
Burke, I come right in. I am very sneaky about it. You'll
be talking to someone and I'll just come in and set up my desk and
just bust one out real quick. It is the twentieth of May, twenty
twenty four, Monday, Fory Winfield and this is the two seventeen Recovery Podcast.
Justin Burke. He in the studio. Fabulous, Yeah, how you
doing? Fabulous? All right, wonderful. It is a fabulous state too.
It is a little rainy, but it's still good. Yeah. And
I know tomorrow I'm gonna be a little busier with other things in my life.
Yeah, for a long time. Oh, next eighteen, I think
for the next ever. Yeah, unless I know, I'm not going to
be a dad who just walks away. No, I'm going to be there
for my son. Yeah, my son, Parker. Were going tomorrow morning
and we're gonna have a baby. And it's something that I've wanted for quite
some time, and I'm glad that I didn't have a child when I was
in active addiction. There was a time in my life, justin where I
used to tell people, well, I'm going to stop drinking when I get
married and have kids. Yeah, that don't work. I've had two during
active addiction, the only two I got, and my son ended up signing
off rights too, so that when I have to pitch child support, so
I keep using and whatnot. And his mom ended up getting remarried and wanted
their own little, perfect family. So I gave her what she wanted and
was my daughter on the other hand, wasn't the case. I kept my
rights for her and just continue to do for a lot of years and seeinger
that some pieces over life and like it's hard on them. Yeah, And
what you just said there is the fact and the truth that I didn't want
to see at the time. You know, I just figured, oh,
well, once I have them, I'll stop using. It doesn't work that
way. No, it doesn't make you a bad person. And you said
you had to. You didn't have to, but you did. You know
you signed off the rights. Is that something you would do today? Probably
not? No, But when you're in active addiction. That's the only thing
that matters to you. And that's how addiction works. And that's why you
hear stories of people putting their children in harms way because they're they're doing drugs
or making drugs. And it's not because at one time they were just born
bad people. It's because the addiction takes over the brain and it makes the
brain or the brain makes you want to do what the brain wants to do,
and that is get more drugs. That is not sleep, it's not
food, it's not protecting your family. It's more drugs, more drugs,
more drugs, more drugs. And you know, thank god you did snap
out of it. You know, thank god that you did get busted and
go to jail, you know, because that did save your life. You'd
still be out there using today. You'd be dead probably day I had no
teeth, and you just it wouldn't matter. And that's a lot of people
will say, I'll I would never do that drug anyway. Well you say
never, Yeah, you will try them all, and especially with my drug
of choice was alcohol, and alcohols is a funny one because you're younger and
you can get buzz off a couple of beers. Then you like pride yourself,
like I can drink a whole six pack, and then I can drink
a whole Okay, you start priding yourself and it becomes a badge of honor,
and then it flips immediately because you do something stupid. Oh well,
it's because he's always drunk. Well it was before it was like, oh
well look at Cory. He can drink a whole eighteen pack, and then
it becomes, oh, Corey, he's a drunk. I don't want to
be around him, you know. And being someone who drinks, you're inhibitions
are lowered, your standards are lowered, The things you do are lowered.
You know. That's that's why you can't drive a vehicle. You know.
You make bad decisions, you you, yeah, you used to make bad
decisions. So if someone comes along and they have a different drug and you're
like, well, I'm already drunk, like let me try that. That's
how I tried every other drug ever. I was never just sober thought hey
let's do some coke today. You know. I was like sitting around going
all right, yeah, let's try let's try smoking meth. I wasn't was
sitting around doing that. You already had a good buzz going and already mine
altered, and well, it's worst that could happen, probably nothing, Yeah
whatever, I almost killed myself drinking, So what is this? It's heroin?
Sure, let's try it, you know, like that's the dangerous part
of it. And like ice or meth whatever, like that is something you
should never play with, you know, and being told early like, oh,
marijuana is so bad. And then I started to distrust people when they
would tell me, how, oh, don't ever try coke. That's that's
horrible. And you know I didn't die. I didn't have a heart attack
from it, you know, like what are they talking about? So I
just assume that they lie about every other drug, But you know, meth
is one that I've never even heard someone say don't ever try that. But
that's me saying don't ever try that. I tell people all the time,
you know, don't even mess with it. Like, you'll try it,
you'll probably enjoy it, but give yourself a week or two actually on it,
and it'll eat your soul. Yeah, like it'll take everything away from
you. And just try it once you're gonna want more and you're gonna be
willing to do things that you never thought you would do to get more.
Yep, and that's just the first time, so don't do it. But
sometimes people get tricked into it. Sometimes people hey, you know, try
this whatever, and that had no intention on it, but they were drunk.
Like I said, people make bad decisions when they're drunk, off to
the races. And they never went to that party thinking they were gonna smoke
math and be addicted to math. But that's what happens, you know.
But alcohol, you know, that's what they started. Oh yeah, that's
safe and legal, isn't it. It's not safe. It's the number one
killer. Really yeah, well there's a lot of safe and legal things,
but it doesn't make it okay. You know, are we just still living
in the alcohol epidemic? Like like, sure, what's going on with that?
You know? And you know the opioid epidemic. Okay, it is
what it is. And I think people should, you know, get help
for all all the stuff that they do. But you know the fact that
alcohol is treated such in such a different manner. And some people say,
well, yeah, because some people can have some beers and go home,
sure, you know, and that's like saying, like, I don't think
that people can just smoke some ice and go home and be fine. No,
maybe they can, maybe they can't. I don't know what I did
in the beginning, but it didn't take long for me to be like,
well that was fun. I want more. And it just evolved itself so
rapidly, like I thought I had it under control, but looking back on
it, there is no control over it. Yeah, And it's so acceptable
to drink your problems. The way. We were watching the show the other
day and the guy was like, oh, sit down there at this reading
of the will, and the guy was telling the lady who lost her husband,
you need to sit down here or have a drink a little early for
that, and and he's like, you're gonna need You're gonna need it a
couple of these. You get through this today, It's like okay. So
that's like saying, hey, man, sit down, you're gonna hear need
to smoke this here here, here, just pop this pill real quick.
And people do that all the time too, And that's kind of another one
that can kind of get away from you as well. I mean, they
all can get away from you before you know it. But alcohol is one
that you know, you're you're told that it's okay to you know, have
a few drinks and that yeah, people can't do it. But like my
little brother, he doesn't do it all the time. You know, he
can have beers. I step back and have beers. I didn't drink that
way, no, you know, it was like, well, let's numb
something, let's get messed up, and it was it was me trying to
hide my pain and my suffering. But part of that was, well,
I'll get married and have kids one day, you know, and then I'll
then I'll stop the drinking, which is a lie because a no woman is
going to stick with me for that. No, nobody wants to be around
someone who's just drinking all the time in a drunk if you want to say
those words. Not that I like beat him up or anything like that,
I'm sure I wasn't very pleasant, but it is one of those things.
And so to think that someone is gonna stick with me long enough to get
married to me, that's stupid. And then okay, so even if I
did trick someone into it and they married me and then I had children,
well, now I'm just gonna be a drunk father. I'm gonna be hiding
it. I'm not going to be I'm not going to quit, you know,
because addiction doesn't work that way. And some people will say, well,
he's just a really bad dad, and that's not the case, you
know. I mean, there are just really bad dads out there. Probably
you don't even drink or use drugs. You know, they're just bad people.
But to say that every dad out there whoever had a problem with the
substance as a bad person is incorrect. It doesn't mean that you don't love
your child, even the one that you signed off the paper. This doesn't
mean you don't love them, you know, I do. It was a
huge part of your life, and was it something that you wish you could
redo. I don't know, but you know I both know you can't go
back and change time. There's nothing you can you can undo. You can
be sober today so that maybe one day he wants to reach out to you
and go dad, like what happened? You know, Maybe he just calls
you justin whatever, you know, to have some kind of relationship with you,
because I'm sure you'd be open to it. And just I'm quite a
bit here and there, yeah, and just to be like I'm up and
up and and I'm sure she'll she tells him that, you know that,
hey, yeah, your dad's doing better, you know, because I'm sure
that they knew that no dad was. That's pretty messed up, you know,
and you was messed up. And he signed overwrites to you, and
that will make him feel some kind of way, and you know, maybe
one day he hopefully he does, he'll want to reconnect with you and just
be like, you know, tell me what happened, tell me you're side
of the story. I know, emotions get involved and things can get kind
of heated sometimes, but he'll be older, he'll be older, you know.
I had that conversation with my dad pretty much too. It's like,
well, what happened? Man, Like, I'm too old to be blaming
people for stuff that happened. We can't change the past. But to kind
of get their side of the story from it, you know, is something
that kind of makes you think. And it'll have to be at a certain
maturity level. And maybe he already is where he can handle that kind of
conversation. But it took me a while, and it took me a while
to be sober to even have that conversation. Yeah, but he's still going
through growing pains. But so I mean, like I said, I talked
to his moms maybe once a week, if not every two weeks. We
text each other, you know, here and there and with other day.
You know. Oh that's good. Yeah, And I'm glad that I don't
have to be a drunk dad. Yeah, I don't have to be somebody
who's addicted. And it all is coming at the right time in my life,
in Marnie's life. It's it's just one of those things, man,
that God is good. Yes, it's great. Great. Some people will
say, you know, and I would be one of those people because when
I decided to change the way I lived and to change my life, like
I used to be all about well I still I am a little bit about
me. And I used to be about my career and you know, being
in radio and wanting to do this and wanting to do that. It was
all about what I wanted and then me going after it so hard and you
know, trying to make more money at it and trying to do this and
trying to do that. And it's funny because all that all that I did
was make money, so like a drink and wash it down the drain,
you know, it just flushed it right down the toilet. And now I
do something that I love, which is this podcast. It really helps me
kind of get things off my chest. I get that fun and I don't
make a dime off of it. But the other stuff that I'm doing behind
the scenes, you know, like helping people and you know, creating this
two seventeen recovery I don't know what you want to call it organization, nonprofit
recovery, community organization. I mean, we do so many different things,
you know, Creating that is really kind of made things okay in my life.
And it wasn't like that all the time. It was hard at first,
and I mean it's still hard now, but things didn't come easy,
and I had to trust and have faith in God that it was all going
to work out how it was supposed to. And you know, doing something
for a couple of years without getting paid anything at all, you know,
is tough. And to stick through it and to just be like God,
I'm just I'm doing this because I know there's something that's coming. I remember
those days and it's like you have to stick with it, and it was
the very end, you know, when there's times like well I got to
not help people anymore and I have to go get a real job, and
things kind of just fell right into place like they were supposed to, like
God wanted it, you know. And I say quite a bit that just
like we want to see something from God, he wants to see something from
us. You know. He wants to see that we do have faith in
them. We're not just out here talking to talk about Oh God, it's
great. Look at all the stuff I got. And it's not even about
what I got, you know, it's not material stuff that I talk about.
It's it's the real relationships. It's the love. It's just being present
in the day. You know that that is something that is just so magical,
and the fact that we can achieve things that we once thought were impossible.
People laughed at us. Oh we've told them, Yeah, our dreams
and our ambitions. They laugh at us, and yeah, here we are.
It's funny how people used to laugh at us, be like, you
guys are smoking crack. Ain't no way that it's ever going to happen.
I don't think they ever said we were smoking crack but a little cigarette speech,
yeah, but you know, but it's yeah, it was funny,
you know to watch people laugh and then turn around and actually do it years
later, you know, because you been at this now for three years doing
the rides, probably nineteen twenty twenty, yeah, twenty twenty, so almost
coming up on four years. Yeah, And so like the first two years
were just me, you know, like not making a dime. You know,
the company was making a little bit back in gas money. But then
we'd you know, get run into treatment centers who wouldn't turn in the bill,
and then we'd be left five grand in the hole, you know,
And so that wasn't very cool, but it is what it is. And
it wasn't about the treatment centers. It was about helping the people get to
they needed to go, you know. And I had to be mad enough
to realize that, Like I can be beefing with all these people who didn't
do their paperwork and who rightfully owed us five grand because they screwed it up,
and then they act like, oh no, it's not torpor, and
these are treatment centers that are you know, making tons of money, and
here I am, this dude doing the stuff just because I want to help
people and because I think God wants me to and well, it all works
out how it's supposed to. You know, I could have been mad and
bitter. I'm not doing one more ride. I'm not doing anymore you know.
But that's not my attitude today. Jarge things. So it's it's good
to change, and people are afraid to change. And there's a guy that
reached out to me the day told me I need to be his sponsor.
Really, I was like, well, I don't work the Steps of AA
and I don't consider myself in that program, so I don't know how much
to be your sponsor. But we do do recovery coaching here, so that's
something we can look into. But you know, you have to have the
desire to change, and sometimes you have the desire, but somehow the will
is still not there, right or does bit? Yeah, the desire to
still go out and drink or use is much higher, and you don't want
to change anything, and sometimes you'll be blinded by I don't even know,
maybe the addiction to where you can't see yourself as the problem. Right,
And when my stepdad or whoever would tell me, well, just don't drink
anymore, just have two you know, Like that doesn't register with me.
Just don't drink anymore. That's like saying don't eat anymore, don't breathe anymore.
Yeah, you know, but until you realize like that actually is the
solution. But there's a lot of stuff I need to do in between all
that. You know, obviously I don't drink anymore, you know, So
there was some truth in that just don't drink anymore, okay, But there
was the stuff I had to go through personally, and a lot of failures,
a lot of trial and error and trying to figure out how I could
still do it. Maybe just something we and maybe just here, maybe just
there. But when you look in the mirror and you realize, like nothing
good comes from this, Like when you make a list of ten great things
that happen in your life because of alcohol, because you're a drug, you
can't get to ten. No. Now, if you want to make a
list all the stupid stuff, all the things that you regret embarrassed about that
list, you'll be going forever. Two days you're still writing, I'll be
like, all right, stop, it'll be a long ass list, you
know, And just that simple math that simple look at it on a piece
of paper. It should tell some people like why am I fighting this hard?
Why am I going against the grain when I know I've seen people in
recovery who have stopped and their lives have gotten better, not overnight. You
know, it takes time to change, and it takes time to build those
new relationships and to go after what you want to go after in life.
But anybody can do that. And they told me never say that, Never
say that anybody can do this because some people can't. Well no, it's
now that they can't do it. They don't want to do it. Yeah,
it's a want thing, like you have to want recovery to achieve recovery
and sobriety. Yeah, everyone could do it, but how many of them
actually want it? The ones that actually want it keep it and cherish it
and value their new life. But I used to think too early on,
like, well I'm sober, I've been sober for three months. How come
good things aren't happening? How Come I don't have a job where I'm making
you know, tons of money, and I want a house again, I
want to how come I don't have that yet? But see, I didn't
didn't know that. Well I didn't know that, but I didn't want that.
I wanted it now like nothing's getting betteration and I'm still I was still
living at my mom's house. I'm like, come on, man, like
I need to get out of here. I need to need to do things,
and I need to do what I want to do. The whole gratification
is still an addictive personality trait. Yeah it is, It really is,
and it's hard to get over it. Like I want a new vehicle,
like, yeah, I really do want a new vehicle for the price I
pay for mine. Yeah, I mean I could afford probably two new vehicles.
M h like. But at the end of the day, you know,
I got stuck in a contract and I need to honor it because there
ain't no way I can get a buyout from that. Yeah, and you
know, it's just it is what it is. So I got two more
years counting down the payments credit Carder told me I got twenty one on time
payments. Well, I need to get forty nine, almost halfway there.
Yeah, good luck with that. Parker will be like four Yeah, he
won't be it. But yeah, so that's what we kind of want to
do the podcast us down real quick, and then we kind of get off
into recovery talk, which is which is good for change. Usually it's a
lit way around. Yeah. Usually weve go off on some tangent and then
it'll just be wait, wet you talk anything, right, But at least
we got that all the way first. Yeah, and I know you got
a meeting the host and I have to go home and get ready for hospital
in the morning, so I really want to see pictures of you shedding little
happy tears tomorrow. Tears of joy, Yeah, tears of joy. Yeah,
It's it's going to happen, and I'm cool with it, Like I'm
going to cry my eyes out, like just with with happy tears and just
this to be alive for this moment that I thought it was impossible. It's
kind of like my wedding, which if you want to see the wedding two
seventeen recovery dot Com slash wedding, it's a hidden page in our sight.
Oh yeah, and you know I cried during that, you know, because
it was again one of those moments I thought I'd never see. I thought
I would die alone and from drinking myself to death. M hmm. And
many times I wish for that, but to think that how dumb that was,
and to still be on the end of it when not a lot of
people well, I mean a lot of people do get to but a lot
of people do die on the way before they can reach this point. So
I feel blessed. And it's it's all God doing everything, man, And
I give all the credit to God. So this office isn't get awful lonely
over the next couple of months. He has to be pooping everywhere. No,
nobody's gonna shit shame you here at the office. I'll still go next
door. You know, you'd be shit shame with other people. Oh for
sure, nobody's gonna be in here using the toilet. And the problem with
this office there's I mean, it's a great office, yea. Like the
bathroom is right up front, man, it's straight in the middle of the
office. And then we found out once we put this scent thing in here
that blows through the vents, which it smells good, but it goes from
there somehow picks up the every cent in the bathroom and brings it right into
my office. I think it's because the doors are real close together, so
when it starts sucking in air, like it draws the air from that room,
and the doors almost like connect like there's only like it's horrible, like
they butt right up against each other, and so it just sucks the air
like it all through. I'm not asking for too much here, but just
a new office. And I love Jill. We love this office. We'll
just have a different office. But I can go to want Lord GE's name.
Amen, all right, we'll be done. Yes, I have to
have a baby tomorrow. In the next podcast that I'll ever do in my
life, I will probably be talking about my son and how I'm posting pictures
soon. It's all. It'll be good. We's just luck. We'll talk
to you again at the time of my chooser later. Thanks for listening to
the two seventeen Recovery podcast. We hope you come back for our next episode.