It's the two seventeen Recovery podcast with Corey Winfield. Stuff went numb. That
shouldn't go numb. You know what I'm saying. And I was like,
what is he? No? I don't, No, you don't and Cole
holds Marnie Winfield. It was kind of an awkward thing. He's like,
would you guys want come along? Can you get away to come to the
island. I'm like, yeah, you just got back from there. It
is the twenty second of October twenty twenty three. My name's Corey Winfield.
My name is Marnie Winfield, and welcome to the two seventeen Recovery Podcasts.
Marnie Winfield, you're back. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm
doing well. It's been a minute. I know people who listen to this
podcast, they are excited that you're back today for the Voice of Reason.
Ah to my crazy doctor, crazy man brain. Yes, yes, yes,
how have we been. I've been good. I'm still married, everything
going good, still married, over, still sober. Yeah, no,
everything is pretty amazing. My new job is kind of really taking form,
so that's been an adjustment for sure, but I love it and you know,
I'm really putting my degree to use, that's for sure. So and
I get to do what I love. You know, I'm working with people
in recovery. So it's it's really amazing. That's really good. And you
have one and fourteen consecutive days sober. So oh wow, I getting congrats
on that, you know. Did you just do that in your head?
Yeah? Yeah, but yeah, you're doing You're doing great things and staying
busy. Do you miss school? Not at all, not one little tiny
bit. So there was there was a piece of me that it felt like,
you know, right after I was done with the papers and the projects
and the journaling and the you know, all that stuff. When I didn't
have it, I felt like I was missing not that I was missing something,
but that I was forgetting to do something that I was like, you
know, like when you're like I'm supposed to be somewhere but I don't know
where, or the kind of thing like where you're like, I need to
be reminded of what it is that I'm where I'm supposed to be at,
or what I'm supposed to be doing or have done. And there wasn't anything
like we went downstate to see your family and every time we would go out
of town, I always brought my school like work with me, my briefcase
with my you know, fold and I kept out everything in there all the
time, so my laptops in there, what I've been working on for school
slash work. And it was just a thing in case I had, you
know, moments in the morning before we head out someplace, or I'm at
night before I go to bed to get things caught up on. It was
just the thing I did. So we go down there and I'm unloading all
our bags and things in the hotel room. I'm like, why did I
bring my briefcase with me? Like why did I pack this? And it
totally was just automatic. It was an automatic thing that I just did because
I always had those responsibilities sitting in the back of my head. Well,
if there's time, then I'm going to get ahead of get ahead of things,
and I'm going to do some extra work while i'm you know, it's
a weekend quote unquote, And I'm like, that thing is just I don't
need it. I don't need to I don't even need to get into it.
I don't even need to look up anything, Like there's nothing I can
need it for so that kind of made me chuckle. Yeah, that's that's
weird when you're used to doing so much and so much and so much,
and then of a sudden you start taking some of those things off and you're
like, what am I supposed to be doing now? Yeah, And I
mean, don't get me wrong, it's kind of just it's a different kind
of busy now. You know, my schedules different, you know. And
then obviously there's other stuff, you know, family stuff that that you know,
you still keep at the top of things that you prioritize on, and
you know, and then to seventeen stuff that we're planning, which I'm sure
you'll talk more about that. Yeah, we can get it now that Yeah,
so nightmare last night we did. Yeah, And we have an event
coming up on Thursday in Traverse City at the Grand Travers Event Center and it's
a speaking engagement and it's called Recovery Stories Message of Whole Part one and me
Adam Stevens from two seventeen Recovery and then Lenny and Kendra we were all in
treatment together and we were all at this Recovery Stories training, which a few
podcasts ago. I told the story that I was doing there, and so
we were all at this training and I figured, well, heck, if
we're having a you know, speaker thing, like, let's all four of
us get up there and do our stories and kind of kick it off and
then let Mary and David do the like longer message of hope. So it'll
be it'll be fun to be interesting. But last night I had a nightmare
that like we were planning it, but yet we were like setting it up
for the next two and the speakers I was trying to get like weren't there,
weren't available, and I was trying to piece it all together. And
it's really not a hard thing. You know, we're going to serve dinner
there, which you know piece some people are like, oh, I forgot
mom, But it's spaghetti. That's not hard. It's a some would consider
comfort food. And it's something that we can deliver on a budget that we
have, you know, which is zero. So we rented the space,
and you know what else do we really need? You know, we're going
to make some programs so people, hey, here's who's talking, here's you
know whatever. But that's something we can do in house. And you know,
I think Coca Cola came through with donating some drinks a little bit and
we'll see what we can get, you know from that. And yeah,
it's it's pretty simple. And I've been trying to convince myself, like,
don't overthink it, don't stress yourself out, cause at the end of the
day, you know, we're not trying to sell tickets to it. It's
free everybody who wants to come. Yeah, the thing that I think I'm
freaking out about the most is I want to record it and I'm gonna use
three different cameras to do that, and I can't just hit record and go,
you know, We're gonna have to stop it after each person, and
I just want to make sure I have people manning the camera. So that's
kind of the thing I'm freaking out a box. I don't want to screw
it up. But again, even if I do, oh, well,
you know, like we're not I don't know, I don't know. I
want. I want it to be like a cool event. But at the
same time, there's only so much I can do, you know, as
long as people show up that are going to speak, you know, And
yeah, it's not like we need one hundred people to make our money back.
We don't know. It's nothing like that. So it's that pressure is
not on. But are you feeling pressure about that? I think it's more
like one of those like you can't where it's going to be held is going
to be we don't have access to right, we don't have It's not like
we can go check it out and like figure out and bring stuff there ahead
of time. And you know, like I would love to be able to
set up and get things organized and ready to go. And so all we
know is this is what we need to do when this we don't know anything
about, Like that kitchen, we don't know. I mean, we have
to come in pretty much armed with everything that we're going to need for the
most part. So that piece is a little bit you know, nerve wracking.
But the I I love calming myself down when I'm think about the fact
that the whole purpose of this is for to hear people talk about their recovery
and giving that message of hope and and their success story and that what has
gotten them to where they are at right now. That's the purpose of it
all. And if the food is like I mean, it'll happen, It'll
get made. It'll be fine. You know, we're not claiming to be
any sort of like super chefs or anything. It's just going to be simple,
easy, you know. But I'm sure everybody's had worse food. Who's
going to eat it. I'm sure that they've had better. But it's going
to be you know, I think it's gonna be pretty simple, but it's
gonna be great. Yeah, And it's about camaraderie. It's about you know,
being around each other and you know, people who have like like minded
people who have the same goals. Because if you think about it, like
I know that there's a treatments that aer coming and put yourself in the place
of those people. You know, we've been to treatment many times, so
like for us to go like, if you're in treatment, you're going to
event like that, what would you expect and what would you want to hear?
You know, And it depends depending on what treatment, what time I
went, you know, personally, like where my brain was at and what
I was thinking. It was good to hear from people who didn't just bullshit
people and the people that were having speak nobody's bullshitting anybody that there's no this
is what I do now and I'm so awesome, you know. Really,
it's it's like, hey, this is this is where I'm at now,
and because I'm in recovery and no, our life's not perfect, but it's
a lot better than what it used to be. You know. I had
a friend mine on Facebook the other day put on there sober for what you
know, why am I sober? You know? And she was like bitching
about just life was so hard for her still and she hasn't been sober long
I'm talking weeks, you know, and that's one of the things you go
through in that moment because your brain's still wanting that drug. And then like
somebody, one of her friends put on there, Oh, just smoke some
weed, You'll be fine, and I'm like, oh my god, Like
that's again, people smoke weed, do your thing. But if you have
a problem with drugs, there's a good chance. And it was for me
or marijuana will make me want to do more. And that's just me.
I'm just speaking for myself, but for someone who's struggling like she is,
and I'm pretty sure it would send her right back into the same like Okay,
well I want some more meth now, you know, because weed's not
going to cut it for it because it might sound cool. Oh yeah,
smoke some weed and just chill out. Yeah, okay, Well some people
can't do that. Some people smoke some weed and now they want to do
some math because guess what, the weed wasn't enough, and now they're under
the influence of a drug, you know, which changes how you think and
how you feel. So I just was like, I didn't say anything,
but I just just shaking my head, like, no, that's probably do
the opposite of that, you know, talk to somebody, call your mom,
like do something, give it some time, like, you know,
we didn't become addicts overnight. You know, you can't undo your addiction.
It's it's learning how to cope with thoughts and feelings and emotions around the whys
of why you feel like you need to drink or drug and then figuring out
different ways to get through those moments and realize that there are other things in
life, like there always has been, and we tapped into those so much
before we were introduced to drugs and alcohol, and then we just normalize those
that those that addiction to where we felt like we needed it when we don't.
That's just something else that we did that we became reliant on. And
whether it's because we were trying to forget about stuff or get through stuff or
you know of social lubricant or whatever you want to call it, it's you
know, you have your you have yourself in you. You just need to
like tap back into it and love yourself again. I was trying to explain
like the beginning part of that, the whole recovery process to people at detox
the other day, and talking at like a detox is way different than like
talking at a treatment center, you know, because like these people, like
some of them are just like force themselves to be there just to you know,
not like forcing themselves, but like to get out of bed because they
feel so bad. But the you know, the way the brain serotonin all
that works and how the levels work, and I was trying to explain to
them that like you're going to hit the wall part, you know, and
nothing will make you happy, like as like say if ice cream, Like
you eat ice cream and you're like this is great. It won't be great.
You'll eat ice cream any like this sucks because your brain won't enjoy it.
It'll be I'm most damn near impossible to enjoy anything that you used to
enjoy that wouldn't normally make you happy because the levels are so down, you
know, and your brain's not making it and it's just it's hard. And
they're just looking at me like thanks for the bright future outlooks, you know,
and it's like, well, I'm just saying, you know, but
I was kind of talking about, you know, doctors, and there are
certain medications that help with that, you know, like some depression medication.
But talk to your doctor. Work with your doctor if you don't want to
take something. You know, they try to put me on prozac or something
like that, something that told me I had to take the rest of my
life, and I'm like, I don't want to do that, and you
can voice your concerns for certain drugs, ask about the Okay, what are
the side effects for that? How long do I have to be on it?
Can I take a small dose first? You know, like really talk
to your doctor about some of those options and things, because some of that
really does help. And I know, like I was on zolof and that
kind of helps balance you out a little bit, but there's some side effects
with it, you know, and you just got to know, Okay,
well how much do I need to take to not have those side effects and
see if that helps? But yeah, just talking with your doctor and work
with that doctor. But I was at a point where it was like,
Nope, I'm not taking any medicine and everybody's out to make money off me,
and blah blah blah. And you know, but that goes back to
me going to California and them telling me I had to be on some kind
of medication so that they could build the insurance for it. And I'm like
what They're like, yeah, we need to build the insurance for some stuff
like that. I'm not kidding on stuff, just so you can build the
insurance, right, you know, Like I don't know why the lady even
told me that, but that really that whole California trip, the first went
to a treatment that really put that in my head that people were just out
to make money even when I was on Medicaid. Nobody's making money off me,
man, you know, but I was still like, they're out for
my money. Okay, first of all, it's not my money, and
no, and again some but some treatment centers are like that. I'm not
saying that they're all hunky dory, but some are like that. Some only
care about money and it really shows. But if you can find a really
good one and go to a good place, you know, they're they're out
there, you know. So not everybody's out to take your money or to
get you get your medicaid. And sometimes they put you in programs and you
might think, well, they're only doing this because they want to charge well
that and because that helps you, you know, And there are times where
the treatment centers or counseling centers, whatever you want to call them, there's
a time where they need to make money, you know. And let me
just tell you a little fact about Michigan and how they build medicaid. You
know, they they give you the little penny to it it should be a
dollar. They flip a little penny. Here you go, here's your here's
your money. For example, you're a therapist, Martie, like if you
were to break off and do your own private practice and work for whatever,
and you you know, took people with Priority Health, which is insurance that
we have a two seventeen recovery and you could charge one hundred and fifty bucks
for an hour. Sure, Okay, that's pretty good. You went to
school, you worked your ass off, you did a lot of work,
and you should be paid for that. So you do the hour. Now,
Medicaid would pay thirty eight dollars, right, Which one are you going
to do? You know? So that's why it's hard for these places to
keep therapists. Like, why you do it isn't because you want to be
rich. You want to do it so you help people, sure, and
that in turn makes us rich inside. You know, that feeds our soul
and that's beautiful. And if that keeps us sober and you get paid for
it, what the hell? Why not? You know? Plus you love
the people and the company you work for, so it's all good. But
it's hard for other people who maybe don't have an addiction, don't have a
problem, or aren't in recovery, and they're out about that scrilla, you
know, so they want to go out there and make that match better,
that paper get them coins. I think that there needs to be some sort
because what you're talking, what you're talking about is completely one hundred percent true,
which is why there are so few mental health places, agencies, private
practices, what have you. That what it's called is it's called paneled.
It means you're able to accept certain insurances. And the truth of the matter
is is that you're that The especially private practice is that you're not reimbursed.
You're only reimbursed for what the insurance company says that they'll reimburse you for right
for that amount. So you can say I charge one hundred and fifty dollars
self pay out of pocket per session, right, which is pretty standard at
least for this area. Well, if a person says I'll pay out of
pocket, I would that's what I'll pay. Great. But if you say,
if they say I have insurance, and whether it's blue cross Bow shield
or priority, they're at each insurance company, it only will pay X amount
of money out for that particular thing for that client to be met with.
And so that's when certain that's why certain places decide if they're going to take
it or not. Right. I think what they need to do is they
need to somehow the government or whatever needs to step up and say if you
panel for medicaid, if your agency panels for medicaid, like accepts medicaid,
we will compensate. I'm not saying all of it right because thirty eight dollars
is different than one hundred and fifty. And I'm not saying all insurance as
will reimburse for one hundred and fifty. Usually they don't. Usually it's like
one hundred and twenty or something like that, one hundred and thirty five at
the most maybe, But like that means that, you know, if they
was somehow compensated the fact, like we'll give you this, we'll give you
this much percentage if you panel these people because they need it, you know,
because there's no place, there's nobody, no one that serves that around
here, very few agencies. There's waiting lists out the frickin door for people
to see mental health professionals that have Medicaid. So and then it in not
saying anything wrong with this, but it opens the door for people who so
people who are like still in college and still earning their degree will go and
they'll interurn or sometimes get paid I guess as they get certified or whatever,
and like they have to use those people. And again that that that's bad,
but these people haven't graduated all the time. That it was like that
at a few places I was at, they do that with with Donald hygienis.
They do that with doctors. People that are not don't have their actual
MD whatever, but they can see patients and they just get all their big
signatures or whoever the physician is that they're working underneath. They do the doctor
work, but they are overseen by So it happens in all professions. So
when I'm governor and Ron Robinson's running with me, Winfield Robinson, co Governor
of Michigan, we're going to change some things. That's gonna be one of
them. We're going to get people that are in there that are We're actually
gonna pay more out of medicaid because you know what, the money's out there.
Let me tell you everybody, the money's out there, and we're gonna
put it to use, just saying because it is. You know, there's
so much money. And it was said the other day by quite a few
people to me about how the government, the federal government is pending money to
help Ukraine, to help everybody else and help Israel. And does Israel need
money? I don't know, but what's happening over there is this horrific I
was watching a thing about the terrorists and how they came into the music festival,
and it was just it was horrible and I just I just couldn't imagine,
you know, like it was just horrible. And you know, the
innocent on the other side had nothing to do with it. You know,
they just want to go to work. You know, they're they're probably not
even about this war stuff. They're like, no, I just just want
to truck, go to work and see my family and walk come home,
you know. But they're feeling the run of it too. And you know,
I feel bad for all the innocent people involved. But does it mean
we need to give them a billion dollars or three of how much it was?
Like what you know, and yeah, if we give people college educations,
well because I had to pay for mine. Okay, shut up.
Think about future generations, you know, think about your kids kids, and
if you want to just break it down to like I can use Benton Harbor
for an example, Bnent Harbor, Michigan. You know, it is ninety
nine percent African American. And the way that the society in Benton Harbor,
the culture of Bent and Harbors, it's different than here in Traverse City,
way different, you know, and it's because of a lot of different things.
But we would bring it back to Reagan when Reagan was like war on
drugs. You know, let's people who smoke crack, will go ahead and
give them, you know, twenty years. If you get caught with cocaine,
Eh, give me probation. It's the same effing drug. You know.
But who was using crack and who was using cocaine? Okay, well
black people. So if you say, okay, so someone in Benton Harbor,
you know who's guy maybe wasn't even selling crack, but he was selling
it so we could smoke kids for free. There's a lot of people that
do that. And so then he gets arrested and gets sent to prison for
twenty years. Well who picks up selling to those people? Those people are
still coming over. Oh okay, well someone in the family. And then
I gets sussed, then someone in the family. So it just becomes this
whole thing of people not even getting a chance at an education. And then
when the White Flight happened to be at Harvard, you know, like all
the businesses went with, you know, the grocery stores, the drug stores,
you know pretty much all those went and all the jobs, you know,
and so what are people supposed to do? You know, it's like
a whole generational thing that Reagan screwed up by doing this war on drugs.
And it's like, Okay, now we have a chance to give people college.
They see a light at the end of the tunnel, there's hope there.
And now we can't do that because I had to pay for Mark college
and market shut up, it's new. It's just move forward with it.
Think about generations down the line that can be helped by this. And we're
sending billions of dollars away. And we got homeless people everywhere. Build a
house, but put them in an apartment complex. They're getting that for free.
Okay, what are we sending this money? You know, Like,
why can't we use that to help our own people? Yeah, and when
we do, we get met with resistance because people don't want to help people.
Like it's so stupid. I just don't understand it. Man. Yeah,
I was one of those people said that. He said, what I'm
like, why, I mean, it's not that I don't get helping humanity
right wherever they are, like helping people that need it, right, regardless
of just because they're not American. But there's things that Americans need that we
don't have I mean, people are barely being able to live, you know,
and have good jobs and can't be you know, are only barely making
a buy. So it's you know, one of those things where it just
it's kind of hard, hard to swallow that. It's like, and the
federal government makes it at least obvious. Hey, we're doing this where the
state they'll do sneaky stuff, you know, like with the money they get
from like lottery and stuff like that, and we'll just that and then they
do it, and it's so it sounds so good. We're going to put
that to cover the unemployment insurance or what is it, the workman's comp or
I think it's unemployment insurance for emergency workers and think, oh that's great,
Well, emergency workers don't pay that. It's the company. And guess who
owns the state? You know, it's like wait, it's wait, you're
back doors and you're only putting two million into this and you're only giving away,
you know, five hundred million of you know, probably six seven billion
dollars that you're getting and wait, what where's the rest of it going?
Man? I really would like to set the treasure down and be like,
so how did you learn to move money in numbers around like you do?
Like what did you go to the school of scam artists or something like?
I really want to know. So that's why I say, like, there's
money to do this, you know, to pay therapists well where I'm medicaid,
like pay them higher than they would if they went on on their own.
Let's keep the good ones in the house. Let's let's help the people
who really need it. You know, maybe that would clear up a lot
of trouble out there that's going on right now. And you think about it,
is the population that's on medicaid right is the low income population who need
better mental health situations to better themselves, right to work with somebody, to
be able to find self love and self confidence and be able to be better
performers at work and in school and in relationships, and you know, get
out of their depression or whatever, to be able to function in this freaking
world. So it's like not saying that people that are middle class and upper
class don't have those problems and don't need their be abbs of freaking lutely,
but it's like that's a population that's not getting the mental health that they you
know, that they need the support and the attention that they need. And
it starts young too. There's a woman I know who her. She has
three kids, and the oldest one just had incident where I guess the bad
whatever, something bad happen and then it wasn't because the dad's a bad person,
but just you know, wrong place, wrong time, but probably something
that could change his life. So it's not like the worst thing in the
world could have been though. Well, now the child is feeling some kind
of way and it's like somebody needs to talk to him, you know,
like that. And then not just the mom, because the mom is not
a therapist, she doesn't know, but somebody that the kid can trust and
can talk to, you know, before he goes back to school or before
you know, anything else triggers him and just becomes a major life trauma.
You know what you're probably is going to be. Yeah, you know,
it's like if we can catch that early. But I know the mom she
has all right job, but she doesn't have enough, you know, to
pay the fifty dollars co payment or whatever it is for him to see a
therapist. And that's where it gets tricky, and you can't rely on the
school therapist. There's how many three hundred kids in the school or something,
you know, like it's crazy, So how does that kid get seen?
You know? And it would be a lot easier if it was more accessible,
I guess. But Ron and I will go over that. Ron Robinson,
Cory Winfield, the governor of Michigan and whatever year. Next year,
it's gonna be a great race. I can't wait. I need sixty thousand
signatures. Oh no, no, it was not on purpose. I promise.
I got a lot of bot friends on Facebook, so I'll see if
they'll sign for me. But no, I mean, it's just things need
to change, you know. And I'm not Republican. I'm not a Democrat.
I don't like either one of them. So it's just just the common
sense party is when I would like to start, But I don't know,
just some common sense and just do what's right and stop with the whatever they're
doing with the money and saying they don't have it. That just really irritates
me. It really does. Like our grant thing I was talking about and
somebody asked, told you guys, get it, No we didn't. Don't
fill out the papers waited, did all that, and then they're like,
oh, well, you weren't established before January first of twenty nineteen. It's
like no, we were established in a April of that year, so we
couldn't get any So I'm like, okay, so any nonprofit that was established
after that small nonprofit, which was hard because of COVID, we don't get
any We get zero dollars of the COVID relief stuff that they put out.
Yeah, zero, you know, and it's just like, what the hell,
man, that's all right, just keep moving forward. I know it's
comical, but it's not. I know, it's very fast. I know
you were really upset about that. Yeah. So I reached out to Betsy
Coffee and she didn't really write me back anything. And then I wrote her
about the gambling thing, you know about, hey, they need to change
their stuff, and then she just sent me back, oh, here's a
recovery community organization grant. I'm like, what, it's not even what I'm
talking about. And I wrote her the little laugh out loud. I was
like, that's cute, but what I'm talking about. Come out with the
gambling, like I wrote, I broke it down. I know, you're
like, Cory, just move on. I know. Yes, that's what
this is a recovery podcast. It is, it's a recovery podcast. But
I think that just speaks to how passionate you are about wanting to be able
to find ways to help other people. I get that. And so when
there's barriers that are out of your control and feel frustration because it's not outlined
well by the people that are offering, it makes you even more upset.
Yeah, because when you and seriously, because not a lot of people just
read, like just go in and read, like what's really going on?
Because when you do, it just pisses you off, and you're like,
wait, they've been doing this the whole time. So they count on people
not to read things. So what you do is moving forward is things you
can read. Ye read things and use this as a learning experience, right
that you do sometimes need to read the small print and do some research on
ones that we do fit the criteria for and you can get sixty thousand signatures
and you run for governor Govnat of Michigan Winfield Robinson, twenty twenty four.
It's the last time I'm doing that. It's a promise, Okay, but
yeah no. And but as part of that though, that actually does keep
me sober is helping other people and seeing like little things in the system and
it's like wait, no, no, no, not getting away with that,
like mid state, Okay, do you want to just get off this
subjective yep. And I know if you want any more information and want to
chat with Corey about any of those things that he was talking about, you
can definitely email him and maybe he could do a discord with you signed to
be one of the signatures or something. Yeah, but for the rest of
you, we'll save you that. Cory c r e Y at two seventeen
Recovery dot Com. I look forward to your email. So we're gonna do
football and probably pizza today. We kind of found a new pizza place that
we like. It's delicious and I think it's I think it's I mean,
it's different then what we're the normal Dominoes, which is was our go to
for forever. Yeah. So yeah, and hopefully if you're you know,
watching football today, Lions people all about the Lions now and shout out to
the Lions. Thanks for giving us tickets last year. That was that was
sweet. Appreciate that so they support people in recovery, so we support them
and that's why they're doing good karma. Yeah, totally see how that works.
Yeah, but a little hard to get tickets now, I can't imagine,
but we do appreciate it. Last year and them hooking us up,
that was really fun. Yeah. Yeah. But we have lovely family in
town this weekend too, so we get to spend some quality time with them.
And yeah, everything's going good. Just enjoying the Sunday. Yeah,
so enjoy your Sunday. If you don't want to get worked up, don't
read anything we stay or something like that. Don't be looking for stuff.
But no, I have a good day. And Martie, thank you for
being on the podcast today. You're missed absolutely. Thanks for listening to the
two seventeen Recovery Podcast. We hope you come back for our next episode.