This it's the two seventeen Recovery Podcast with Corey Winfield. Hello, please listen
to this important message. Your student loan has been flat for forgiveness. We
are able to remove your payments today. It is the twenty fifth of April
twenty twenty three. My name is Cory Winfield, and this is the two
seventeen Recovery Podcast from the North Studio today and joining me in studio, special
guest is Adam. Adam. How are you doing? Man? I'm doing
good. How's going well? It's going good? And then I realized that
I didn't have you situated with a microphone yet here, So now that's better.
Is this the proper distance? Probably? Okay, but if you're uncomfortable,
we can move things. Well, we'll try this. I'm okay,
I'm doing good. Yeah, so you're doing well. That's good. And
you're a part of two seventeen Recovery now, yes, sir, and you're
going to start a meeting yep here at the Recovery Center. I think that's
awesome. And you were kind of playing with some names which I like,
yeah, up and at him, but just which is great? Right?
And we were talking quite a bit earlier today about how I had a name
when Ryan Beckman was on and in part of two seventeen Recovery, he was
around and he lost a bet to me, and then he had to name
his meeting what I told him to. And if you go back to the
archives of our podcast, you can go back and listen to that bet being
made. I can't remember what he what he lost, but his meeting was
called to get Hard Meeting, right, and not a lot of people in
Point City appreciated that when we put flyers up almost almost daily because people would
take them down because it'd be like, get hard this Tuesday at seven,
you know, calm, get hard. It was. It was great,
like we had such a good time with it. And no, it was
a normal NA meeting that he that he hosted, and at the beginning of
it, he would say, welcome to the Tuesday and I get Hard meeting,
and that was it. You know, it was a normal meeting.
But we just had so much fun with them. And I think sometimes people
forget that we're in recovery, man, like we're allowed to have fun,
all right. Some of the people will say, but you're you're making a
mockery of it. Winfield you're having too much fun. You're disrespecting people because
you're name and stuff because you think it's funny. And I go, you
should talk to your therapists about that. And you made a point earlier when
we were kind of talking about this is like change the game up, you
know, like what's wrong with having fun? Yeah, And that's the thing.
I mean when we're when I was an active addiction, I mean,
everything was negative and dark, and you know, we have to change our
thinking. And I mean that's part of it. Like I was gonna say,
if I would have heard that meeting, that would have been the first
meeting I would have wanted to go to. I mean, and you know
it, like you said, it's a name and it say it gets you
in the door. It's the message you receive when you get there. It
is important, you know, so why not get people in the door however
you can, you know what I'm saying, Like, make it fun.
I mean it's not like we're gonna be playing games and whatnot, but it
you know, let's have a smile on your face. Let's be happy when
we leave the meeting. You know, let's be in a better spirit.
That's what it's all about man. When you leave that meeting, do you
feel better? And your brain is taking notes when you do, And then
when a situation comes up you're not prepared for it catches you sideways. The
first thing that hits you is I need to go to a meeting because your
brain has already been taking notes, and hey, I feel better after I
go to a meeting, after I get something off my chest. If you
wanted to call it just the hey, the couple awesome fun guys, and
a need to call it that, you know, like it's a name.
And here at two seventeen Recovery, we like to have fun, and sometimes
we forget about it even in our day to day. You know, it
could be monotonous, it could be boring, it could be too stressful,
like our days are like roller coasters and we never know what the next one's
gonna bring, or who's gonna call and say, hey, we need this,
or hey, can you help us with this? I have no idea
and I like that, but also at the same time, it's it's scary
some days, you know, Like I remember when it was just me and
I'd have a ride every single day, and it was it was almost too
much and then I'd have a week with no rides whatsoever, and I'm like,
oh, I kind of liked it, but I kind of didn't because
I'm like, oh, man, like we really need to be helping people.
And you know, you can't just ride up to the block like hey
man, you don't go treat man, right, jump in, buddy.
I guess that Florida before, but I think a lot of people got in
trouble. But I got to be able to jump on it when you have
that opportunity, and you gotta be um, you gotta be flexible. You
never know when that's gonna come up. No you don't, and just be
as prepared as you can be when when the time comes to help out fellow
person and recovery. And that's that's something that I really found that helped me
when I was taking people to treatment, is just understanding that people are at
different levels and I have a chance to talk to somebody the entire time that
they're going to treatment, and I found it very rewarding for me. And
you know, they were asking questions like what about this, what about that?
How do you do this? How do you do that? And you
know, to give them honest advice, and they don't owe me anything.
I don't owe them anything. You know, there's no reason for me to
lie to them, and they can lie to me about oh no, I'm
never doing it again, and okay whatever. Man, you know, it's
not about not doing it again. It's about learning something and building on that
right. And that's the thing. And we you know, just given somebody
a right, it gives us that opportunity to you know, I know when
I was going through it, there's I could hear something a million times and
then there was just one time that someone said it the right way and it
actually resonated with me, and it's stuck, you know, And you just
never know in a three and a half hour conversation, one thing you might
say might help them take another step, you know. And I know things
that people have said to me on the rides. I mean, you know,
I'll take those things with me as well. I mean, like you
said, it helps me as much as it helps them. And those conversations
are the building black I think of the recovery community. I mean, it
takes each other, you know what I mean. You can't just not just
anybody, I think, can you know, help in the way that a
fellow in recovery can, you know, And yeah, it's it's awesome going
to be able to do that every week, you know, it is you
know, and sometimes you're driving then you know, sometimes you don't feel like
driving, but other other times it's just beautiful, you know, you're like,
it's a beautiful day. Turn the radio up, you know. And
I used to think a lot when I would be driving. I would just
be thinking, like, how do I do this? And what do we
need to do that, we need to do this, and and sometimes it
wasn't about work. Sometimes it was about my marriage, or sometimes it was
about you know, if I was beefing with my mom or you know,
like what's my sister up to? And what about my brother? You know,
like how could I be how can I be a better big brother to
him? And and just just little things like that, you know, when
you're alone in the car and just in your own space and people call me
and I would not answer it. This is my time right now, man
call him when I get home. I don't have a signal right now.
Yeah, And especially like if you take somebody to say, if we leave
with them, we have to drive them like in the morning, like three
and a half hours away, and you're talking the whole time, you know,
pretty much because this is a conversation and it's a real natural conversation that
you have with someone. So then you drop them off and you kind of
want that piece and quiet because you just just talk for three and a half
hours and it's just like holy kind of ruminate on it too, you know,
and you know, yeah, and you just kind of think, man,
I hope that person makes it right. And sometimes we're taking people and
they're not ready and you can kind of get that vibe from them when they
say, well, I'm just not gonna drive anymore. I'm just not gonna
get a driver's license. That's what I'm gonna do, right, Like,
well, the trouble's not you getting pulled over drunk. I mean that there
is some trouble, yes, yet some stuffy yeah, the drunk driving thing,
but like you understand, one is doing to your body, like it's
it's not healthy, right. Oh no, I've only been drink on the
weekends. Okay. I don't know. Like if if drinking ever did anything
good in my life, then it would I'd be like, well, you
might not want to do that because you've done so much awesome stuff when you
were drunk, right, But how many people say that? Yeah, And
that's the thing. If that was our experience, you know, if I
had any of that left, you know, I could understand maybe still,
you know, but that's the thing. For me. I had to.
I had to work out every possibility of every way that maybe I could drink
or maybe I could do it this way, you know, because I basically
would think about that way until I did it, you know what I mean.
And so today I don't have any ways left, you know what I
mean. And I don't know like you you hope that that's not what everybody
has to do, you know, But for me, that's what I had
to do, you know. So anytime I if there was anything, I
said that, oh maybe I can do this, and I can't. You
know, there's nothing. There's no drinking that works for me. And to
look at it a different way too, is to think like, I've drink
enough for probably eighty people in my lifetime, and yeah, still it was
never good for me, and I've never never did anything good for me.
The best thing that happened to me when I was drinking was the last time
when I got arrested, you know, like that that's really what saved my
ass. And you kind of had this same aggre as you when you can
get do you hire or anything like that. But there was some consequences that
happened to you. And I think by having those consequences, it makes you
more I do want to say accountable, but more I mean maybe accountable,
more accountable to the situation and to changing, you know more. It's not
accountable. I don't know what the word I'm looking for is. To me,
it made it made it all, especially in my situation. It made
it all feel real more real, um, because the going to jail thing
was always one of my yets, you know ahead and yet you know,
and I knew that. You know, you keep going, you keep doing
what you're doing. It's it's inevitable, you know. Um. And so
for me, that's kind of what it was. Um. It was more,
it was more the realistic of all that stuff can happen. You know.
I had already had the lost the job, I had forever, lost
a house, lost a car, broke up family, you know, I
did all that, and uh, but the one thing I kept saying I
haven't gone to jail yet, you know, and so and so I had
to do it. I had to try it out, you know. Um
no, but it uh, it's all, it's all, it's all part
of the big bag that got me here, you know, it's all pieces.
And you know, to me, that was, Um, it wasn't
my last straw because you know, I lived in my car for a little
while afterwards. I tried maintaining different ways for a little bit, you know.
Um, and then when that didn't work, you know, I went
back with what works. I called Corey, and I went back to treatment,
and um, you know, since then, it's been good. And
um, you know, I don't think the jail thing was my final straw.
I think the night I had before I went to treatment was my final
straw. And U but um, yeah, the reality caught up to me
more when I went to jail, because that was something that I just I
think, you know, some of us think at different times, so maybe
I'm not like them in this way or you know, And that was the
one thing that I thought, you know, that I couldn't relate to and
I couldn't this or that, you know, Um, you know, and
and I guess, you know, you know what, I went to jail
four I it was kind of a weird way that it happened and everything.
Um, but you know, some people say, oh, I can't believe
you went to jail for that or something, you know, And I was
like, man, all the things I could have went to jail for,
right, you know, that's the reality, you know, That's what I
That's what I thought about three days on the floor is you know, this
could have been this could have been me just waiting for myself because I killed
somebody. I mean, it happened so much, and it's you know,
and it's again that would have been a yet for me, you know what
I mean. Like luckily I didn't get to that point. And you know,
but yeah, yeah, somebody told me, I can't remember if I
was a lawyer or what. But they were saying that you could have killed
somebody and not even remember doing it, right, like straight up, blacked
out drunk, Like you could have done that and you could have been in
here for twenty five thirty years and you didn't even remember doing it, like
you have no memory whatsoever. And I used to think that people would were
lying when they're like, man, I've blacked out. I'm like, man,
you just cheating on your wife? Man, like that's this man up,
bro, Yeah, bloked out. But then when I stopped drinking and
started trying to be sober, and I would have pieced together a couple months
at a time, and that I would go back drinking again. That's when
the blackouts would happen, when I started having that time in between. Because
when we go back out and use again, it's just as hard, if
not harder, than we did before, right, And a lot of people
with other substances they do the same thing. You know. That's why another
reason why you know, heroin and stuff is so dangerous because people think,
oh, I go back using the same amount, right, but your tolerance
is different now. And we see a half gallon, we go that should
work for tonight, you know, Like I wouldn't. If I'm gonna go
back out, I'm not gonna get a beer. I'm not gonna get a
pint. You know, that's not gonna that's not gonna work. And I
need to get destroyed, and the half gallon would work, and that's what
I would do, And so those blackouts would come and at the end,
it was really bad, and you know that's why I kind of came to
in the car and I just was like, wait what, I was in
my parking spot. So I really didn't think I drove. I thought the
cops would frame me and they were just out to get me and even smash
my headlight in my car. I was like, man, they did a
really good job. They even put a green like strip paint down the side
of it, like I you know, made it look like I hit a
dumpster or something. Cops, Man, you go far with their stuff.
They don't have anything better to do, right. But then when it was
after that, I got out of jail, and I'm still like, not
sure I even drove. And then I drink again, and I remember seeing
the Brady Bunch and they would always ask us, you know, are you
hallucinating? You every hallucinated? I'm like, how would I know? Well,
I could see the Brady Bunch in my house. I remember thinking like,
oh, this is what they're talking about. If you were lousened.
I was like, this is pretty cool. Though I'm not even a Brady
Bunch guy. I don't know, man, like they could have been so
much cooler. Got Baywatch women running from my house. Now I got a
Brady bunch, Like, when the hell's up with that? Can you even
have cool hallucinations like Corey's got alis issues? Or it could have been worse,
you know, people on meth they're like, oh my god, Freddy
Krueger, you know, like, ah, so it wasn't that bad,
but yeah it was. It was crazy and I remember thinking that, and
that's the last thing I remember. And I wake up to a text from
my mom ask him when I was gonna pay my rent. I was like,
I'll pay it on Monday. I started drinking I think on a Friday.
I was thinking maybe a Saturday or Sunday or whatever. And she's like,
Holley, it's Wednesday. And I'm like what all right? And I
look around there's all these empty half gallons, which I don't remember buying.
I'm not big walker, right, you know, like did I walked a
liquor story? It was pretty close, but I don't know, right.
No, that's scary. And that's when it all kind of hit me,
like, no, I probably did drive and I just don't remember it right.
And thank god, you know that my story didn't turn out like I
could have, and you know, thank God that I did have some consequences
and I had to do probation for a year, and that's when I just
decided, Okay, we got to have a different approach here. The whole
I hate where my life's at thing has to end at some point, and
I have the power to do that. And I think going to treatment,
being sentenced to go into whatever river would have been a harbor told me to
do, which I need to go treatment long term ninety days to a year.
And by having to do that ninety days, which only did sixty,
it gave me a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do
in my life and how it could change things and what needed to be done.
Because when you're into place the same place, like say, oh I'm
just gonna quit drinking. You stay in your house, there's memories there,
you know, and they will haunt you. But if you leave those go
to a different place, it really gives you a chance to be free and
to clear your mind a little bit. At least that's how I felt about
it. So I was it was refreshing to go to a treatment center I
had never been that was not a classroom union for me, right, and
to just chill out and then to start again up here in northern Michigan where
I could go. Nobody knows who I am, and this is great,
not that I was that bad of a person, but nobody was asking about
the radio station or what happened here, what happened there? Hey, you
want to go get a drink. Yeah, that's a good point, none
of that. And I wasn't running away from it, but it was it
was refreshing and I noticed that immediately when and so we're living it's like,
Okay, I'm living with a bunch of dudes, but you know what,
that's okay people hang out with Oh yeah, and that's it's you know,
um to go off of what you were saying too, is that routine?
You know, like when he's um, you know, I'm I've kind of
got the family side of it going on where I'm trying to keep the keep
the family together, then get it back together, that type thing, you
know. And so for me, I put off the sober living for a
couple of times, you know, um, because it was like, oh,
we're you know, we're doing good. I'm gonna go back home and
put this together. You know, and you know that was That's the stuff
that I didn't realize is I needed to build a new routine because I went
back home and I had the stuff in my head of what I should do
and everything, but I hadn't put it in motion yet, you know.
And um, going back home, I just got right back in the same
whole routine and all that. So when I went to Sober Living, that's
what I used it for, is you know, I got to find a
routine for Adam that when he goes home. You know, these are the
this is the things that UM have been helped These are the things that have
been helping me stay sober. Um. This is what I have to implement
in my life. And it wasn't anything crazy, you know what I'm saying,
like um no, Um. Obviously with probation, I had to go
to a meeting every day and that wasn't that wasn't an issue or anything and
UM, but the stuff for myself was like we were talking to driving,
driving and music is my meditation. You know, That's what I say,
you know, just like you were talking about. UM, that's where I
sort everything out in my head. If you give me an hour a half
hour of music in my car, I can straighten myself right back out,
you know. And it's a little thing, but it's huge for me.
And I've actually, you know, I hear it from other people that it's
common, you know that that's you know, but that's the opportunities we have.
That's also I like mowing my lawn. I like snow blowing, you
know what I mean. Like I like putting on the headphones, get in
my own head and I can't you know. I'm still working on meditation because
I love meditation. I like it, but um, it is it's a
practice thing and I don't do it enough. It's that's you know, sitting
in the silence is harder for me than they listening to music and you know,
just going through my thoughts that way. But yeah, and so yeah,
with sober living, it was I had to change routine and um that
was huge, a big deal. And you don't have to live there forever.
Some people think that that's what they're gonna do. They're gonna go to
a place and live there forever. Some places won't let you live there forever.
Someplace as well, I know Nathan's house, right, I want you
can say there forever. As long as you're paying your sober living expenses or
whatever, you're sober, it's not called the rent, and he calls it
sober living. It's rent. Yeah, he rent a lot. As you're
paying rent um and hitting your meetings and doing the things you're supposed to do,
you could say there forever. Man, I would just say clean.
You know, like a lot of people that I'll meet and you're going with
me tonight to the treatments and are here to talk. I'll meet some people
in there and they'll they'll say how bad they want it, And then you
say, well, you know these other so we're living homes are full.
But I know I wanted to Point City, but they don't play and you're
not gonna be sneaky and do Oh no, man, well I think I'm
just gonna go live with my girl again. You know, like they changed
their tune real quick, and it's like, I thought you really wanted this.
You were just feeding me this line to BS and and then that's fine.
I've fed enough people the BS line too, you know. But I
because because I wanted to do what I wanted to do, and if something
seemed hard or if I was in danger of getting kicked out of a place,
and well, I wouldn't want to go there, and if, especially
if I knew I wasn't done, you know, And I still thought,
well, I'm gonna do it my way once I get out of here.
I'm gonna give it a couple of months and then I'll I'll start drinking on
Saturdays again, which never worked. I don't need this level of whatever.
No In You said something earlier too about and I'm sure it was the very
early stages with you as well, when you first went to treatment, and
you know, you were a drinker as am I or was. I thought
I was better than the other people, Like it was a real thing.
I really thought, like all these you know, junkie people. And I
don't know if that's from the movies that I picked that up. I don't
know if rust of society kind of feels that way sometimes too. But I
had that attitude until I really started getting to know these people, and then
I realized that I was just an opportunity away from being hooked on with they're
hooked on. Oh yeah, and when you're drunk, you're like, sure,
I'll try it. At least I was sure it was that cocaine.
Sure, let's try it. Oh meth, Sure, let's try it,
you know, heroin, Sure, let's let's try it. Right, I
did it all and every time I was drunk, right, So, but
yeah, but early on though, I really thought like, oh okay,
And I remember a fam I remember saying to you like, oh, at
least you're not as bad as them, And I was like, you know,
I am, I might be a little worse, right, you know,
but it's it's a funny, funny thing. You remember, Jamie,
he was in treatment with us, you know, Adam and I went to
treatment together. I was your mentor and mentor. And then they gave me
another guy, which was crazy and that you were like, I'm number one.
So Adam went by number one, and the other guy he's hit me
up a month ago for some reason. They wanted Corey mentoring a bunch of
people. I don't get it. Yeah, it's crazy, right, And
then they're telling me that they're making me leave before my ninety days because I'm
not taking it serious? Am I having too much fun? That was an
interesting collum my probation officer. Sound was like the best thing about that place.
Yeah, and it was great because my Privas officer, it was just
like okay, She's like, wait, you're supposed to be their ninety days.
I said, yeah, they'll let me go out you sixty. She's
like why, It's because I'm doing so good. She's like, okay,
well you're out on Monday. You need to be here Tuesday nine am.
I okay. And I was ready at that time too. And everything happens
for a reason. My pride was hurt, sure, because I was like,
I was really offended because I was taking it serious, you know,
but yes, I was having fun. It was a nice mixture of the
two. But um, and I don't remember when I was saying, oh
Jamie, yeah, Jamie when he came into treatment, and it was my
kind of my first as I got on like a Friday night into that treatment
center and Saturday morning they had like a group that everybody meets together. And
I went in there and the guy that's my roommate at that time was Jamie
and I didn't really get a chance to meet him yet. But he stands
up and he says, oh, you m f first bringing your drugs up
here. You need to go back downstates. See he thought that all the
drugs in Potoski and Traverse City in northern Michigan were brought by people from Battle
Creek, and like everybody was like, who's this old dude? And it
was but it just showed you, like his mentality. And then he figured
out that he was, you know, like hooked on he was getting from
the VA. He's like, oh wait, that's opioid. And it's like,
wait, so you're drawing from alcohol am opioids, buddy? Like right.
It was. It was crazy though, and then like his tune change
and he's got a couple of years clean now, and he went through some
hard, hard times and you know, I think he's still having his you
know, issues just with life like everybody else, but he's doing a sober
and he realizes that that's a better way to go. And I saw him.
I think it's Easter. He posted a picture on Facebook of him and
his family, you know, his daughter, his boys, and he's just
like smiling, you know, and it's like, man, I haven't seen
a picture like that of Jamie like forever, you know. But yeah,
he's enjoying what life is really about. But you get lost in that addiction
sometimes and it's hard to pull yourself out. And that's that's why it's addiction.
And that's why it's so hard, is it. It jumps on your
brain and it just tells you this is what we need to live, right.
And if I went up to somebody and said you can't eat anymore,
they would say what the hell, Like, what do you mean you can't
eat anymore? Man? That's the same as telling me I can't drink anymore.
That's crazy. And I might go, oh, okay, yeah,
well if you eat it again, I'm gonna throw you in jail. Okay,
okay, he's gone, let's eat no. And you could become that
way. You become that sneaky because you just figured, well, that's stupid.
My brain is telling me I have to And it's not. The brain's
not in there telling you you have to drink now, but it is,
and in different little ways, it's your voice saying it's all right, man,
like you deserve this, buddy. It's almost like the the good angel
and the bad or the devil, you know that's on your shoulder and he's
just like, hey, man, you can do it this time. And
ninety nine times out of one hundred the angel wins. But it's just that
one time that devil or whatever gets in your head and you start putting it
together and you start making it even a better idea. Well, hell,
we might get two of them. And that's a thing like you know,
you know, I always just looked at it. I mean, I used
to think the devil and angel type thing too, but you know, I
just kind of think of it now too as my addiction talking to me,
like it finds, it knows what buttons to push with me, you know,
And I have to like think of it as something separate like that too,
because um, it is. I mean, if you know, it's
like, oh, my shoulders really hurting, you know, you know,
Oh I got a toothache that I can't really fix a toothache. Maybe some
whiskey, you know. Yeah, and that's and then uh the obvious stuff,
Oh I got kicked out, Oh I lost my job. Oh,
this person's mad at me. You know, my dog got run over.
I mean, and that's a thing like it'll find if you if you give
it, um, you know, give it an inch. I mean,
it'll it knows, it knows where to go, you know what I'm saying.
And that's it's it's you. So there's no escaping it, and so
um yeah to me, so training yeah, you know, it's like no
excuses. It's so hard to come back, and because you can't stop,
at least with ours and other people probably the same. It's just it's not
as easy to stop as you thought it was. And there's what your brain
told you. Oh you'll just do just drink Saturday, brunnie. It's fine,
but we can't and you can't turn it off, and then we wrecked
everything else again and the shame and guilt you know, that stuff kicks in
real quick too, and then you feel like just a liar and you're a
fake and just let everybody down again. Just keep drinking, yeah, because
then you don't care because you get the efforts and then you can be like
if it, if you know they don't like it, then they don't need
to be around me, because this is who I Yeah, yeah, this
is this is me, man, this is the best me they're ever going
to f them all, which is not us. It's not it's not who
we are. It's and that's the thing. We needed it. But it's
like we needed to give ourselves the time to see it though too, you
know what I mean, Like I had to prove it to myself again,
you know, and I couldn't do it in a couple of months or you
know, six months, like you know, it's it's it took some time
and it was worth every minute of it. But it took some time and
it takes. Everybody's got a different different length, different way, different path.
It's all worth it, though it was a somebody here told you.
We're in the North Studio. It's Adam. Hey, Adam Nuth. How
are you hello? Adam Nuth is at the North Studio. How's it going,
buddy, welcomes, what are you doing? I'm talking about some business?
But I wait, well, we're gonna talk some business now, Adam
Nuth. You're gonna say hi to the people in the world on the earth.
Hello, people of the earth. Thank you. Adam will be on
soon. We talked about that today, but he's gonna be gone for a
minute. But Tuesday, week from today, week from today. Nice,
yes, sir, thank you Adam Nuth on the program. Do you get
back with the other we're wrapping it up, man, Where are you going?
Adam? Okay, thanks for listening. Now we're gonna do my inaugural
one anyways, just gonna have to erase it anyway. It takes time to
edit it. I don't feel like it. No. Thanks for listening though,
and if you don't have the app, and we'll continue our serious talk
about all that serious stuff we're talking about at another dating time. But yeah,
get the app. There's gonna be meetings on there that you can join
us, and you can join Adams meeting through the app or a website,
so do get that. It's freeds and the Apple play Store, the Apple
Store, the Google play Store works, so check it out and sign up
for a free shirt as well. To seventeen recovery dot com, thanks for
listening to the two seventeen Recovery podcast. We hope you come back for our
next episode.