Speaker 1: Welcome to the two seventeen Recovery Podcast.
Speaker 2: If you don't make mistakes, you won't learn. With your
Speaker 2: host Corey Winfield, you know, there was a reason why
Speaker 2: that didn't work out, and you can look back at
Speaker 2: it and go, yep, I'm glad that didn't work out
Speaker 2: how I wanted it, because I would have been got
Speaker 2: your ass. It is the first of September twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: My name's Corey Winfield, and this is the two seventeen
Speaker 2: Recovery Podcast. A very special guest in the studio with
Speaker 2: me today, Kents and Gore. Corey, how you doing. You're
Speaker 2: doing well?
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I always have to say people's names like that, Kits
Speaker 2: and Gore. No, dude, you're back in Traverse City. What look,
Speaker 2: you're in studio, like you're at the office studio. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what the hell? You don't live here? You're not from here?
Speaker 2: What are you doing on vacation? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: I was like, man, whenever I got out of recovery,
Speaker 3: out of rehab in recovery, I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: I have to come back up here. You know, ever,
Speaker 3: you know, at least.
Speaker 2: Once, if not more than more than that. Yeah, just
Speaker 2: because it was a place where you found help and
Speaker 2: good things happen here for you, like you'll always love
Speaker 2: the city.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, I love it. I mean it's it's been
Speaker 3: amazing for me.
Speaker 2: Amazing. Now let's talk about how you got to Traverse City.
Speaker 2: So I tell my story first. So I was sitting
Speaker 2: at home and I got a text from my sister
Speaker 2: in law. Hey, it might have been a call, I
Speaker 2: can't remember, but yeah, So my sister in law, she's
Speaker 2: married to my brother Travis, and it's your sister Kendra,
Speaker 2: who love her and you And this is kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this morning. You benefited from me
Speaker 2: being drunk, do you know that? Because all the shit
Speaker 2: that I had to go through, like, and your sister
Speaker 2: saw it, you know, she saw me struggle and just
Speaker 2: kind of I don't know what she thought about or
Speaker 2: what was going on in her head then, but then
Speaker 2: to have you all of a sudden maybe had a
Speaker 2: little problem or something. You get into it now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I honestly did not think I had a
Speaker 3: drinking problem at all.
Speaker 2: Most people don't, not at all.
Speaker 3: But whenever my sister Kendra had told me, you know,
Speaker 3: you don't look good. You need you need to get
Speaker 3: you need to get serious help. And some people knew
Speaker 3: that I was starting to look differently, and I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, and that's the crazy thing with alcohol is
Speaker 3: that it doesn't it doesn't tell you what you take,
Speaker 3: what takes, what it's taken away from you. And it's
Speaker 3: taken a lot away from me. I mean it started
Speaker 3: with you know, I lost my dad back in twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: and you know, that day it was just like, you know,
Speaker 3: I didn't I didn't care about life, I didn't care
Speaker 3: about about nothing at all, and I just just assumed.
Speaker 3: That same night I got home from the hospital after
Speaker 3: he passed, I just I went into my room, shut
Speaker 3: the door, and I just I cranked out the bottle
Speaker 3: and it just it was to the point where it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, I just kept going and going, and it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, one wasn't enough. I was like, well, let's
Speaker 3: open up another one. Let's open up another one. And
Speaker 3: then before you know, it was like maybe I want
Speaker 3: to say, four or five am that next morning, and
Speaker 3: I was passed out downstairs in the basement, and in
Speaker 3: the basement and.
Speaker 2: I was looking up. I was like, what in the
Speaker 2: world am I doing? Down here. I thought I was upstairs.
Speaker 2: No I was.
Speaker 3: I was literally on the floor in the basement, and
Speaker 3: I you know, went back upstairs and I looked in
Speaker 3: my room and there was like alcohol cans galore, and
Speaker 3: I was like, man, I was like I had it
Speaker 3: was a rough time.
Speaker 2: And you were a beer drinker, right, like you didn't
Speaker 2: really mess with hard liquor or oh I it.
Speaker 3: So I never really really drank alive. I never drank
Speaker 3: beer like the like bud Light, Budweiser. I was never
Speaker 3: any of you know, never drinking those. I might had
Speaker 3: once once, uh maybe one or two every once a
Speaker 3: bloom mom, but it was like more of the uh,
Speaker 3: the sugary Mike's hard alcohol. And then it was always uh,
Speaker 3: always hard liquor too yeah.
Speaker 2: And I zeemas you might be too young for that.
Speaker 2: But there was a drink back in the day where
Speaker 2: it was it almost tasted like I don't want to
Speaker 2: say it sprite, but but it was it was something
Speaker 2: that did not taste like beer. And so like I
Speaker 2: kind of when I was your age, kind of went
Speaker 2: through that phase. And I always thought that if I
Speaker 2: was drinking just beer or just those other little coop
Speaker 2: wine cooler or whatever you want to call them drinks.
Speaker 2: I couldn't an alcoholic. And because everybody knows that liquor
Speaker 2: will do some damage to you. Everybody knows that, like
Speaker 2: the hard liquor, like ooh, the one hundred and one
Speaker 2: prove too. Like so when someone says to you, oh, well,
Speaker 2: just stay off the liquor and you'll be fine, you think, oh, well,
Speaker 2: that does make sense because I won't get as drunk
Speaker 2: as quick now you and I, it doesn't matter, because
Speaker 2: the end result is we are going to drink it
Speaker 2: all as we can until we pass out, until we
Speaker 2: fall asleep past it whatever, like that's end results. So
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter if we start at six eight, we're
Speaker 2: stopping at the same time. When we pass out, we
Speaker 2: will cram much much as we can in there. So
Speaker 2: like we're gonna drink the same amount, whether we drink
Speaker 2: a pint or a half gallon or whatever before that,
Speaker 2: Like your mission is getting blackout drunk. And you brought
Speaker 2: up a good point that your father had passed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that hurt and that pain. How do you make it
Speaker 2: go away? How do you make it just be numb?
Speaker 2: Because you can't make a goal away. You can make
Speaker 2: it numb, or at least attempt to. And alcohol seem
Speaker 2: to be your friend with that, at least what you thought.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I thought, and uh, that's what I had
Speaker 3: always thought this, you know, the entire time during my
Speaker 3: addiction with alcohol, it was like alcohol is my best friend.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: It was a coping mechanism for me to get get through.
Speaker 2: The hard days.
Speaker 3: I mean, even after months and you know, years of
Speaker 3: my dad passing, it was still I always had to,
Speaker 3: you know, go go drink, and I know, and then
Speaker 3: a couple of months so in a couple of months
Speaker 3: after I had my dad had passed, I commended a
Speaker 3: h an incident where I was drinking driving and I
Speaker 3: crashed into a sideswipe into someone's mailbox. Da'mon didn't even
Speaker 3: know the person, and they had, uh had immediately called
Speaker 3: the police. And I actually had took the meal off.
Speaker 3: And this actually happened in my dad in the in
Speaker 3: my dad's car, like it was. I was driving down
Speaker 3: the road and I actually turned back around to go
Speaker 3: pick up the mirror that fell off the car.
Speaker 4: And and and I stopped and I picked up and
Speaker 4: this guy was like wail in his hands He's like, hey, man,
Speaker 4: you took out my mailbox. And he's like, I already
Speaker 4: called the police and so and I had so I
Speaker 4: knew I was going to be in trouble, but I
Speaker 4: didn't know the extent of it because I was under
Speaker 4: I was under the influence, of course. And so whenever
Speaker 4: the police had shown up, they you know, they immediately knew.
Speaker 2: Right off the bat.
Speaker 3: Whenever I walked up to them and I was starting
Speaker 3: to talk to him, giving them my my side of
Speaker 3: the story, they had said, sir, you're drunk.
Speaker 2: You' I can already tell you right now, you're drunk.
Speaker 2: How much have you been drinking?
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't know, and that's that, and
Speaker 3: that's the exact way I responded, I don't know. I
Speaker 3: just know I had some drinks, you know, before I
Speaker 3: started driving. So they did, you know, the standards field
Speaker 3: sobriety tests, they did all that, and they did the
Speaker 3: break the laser and I blew. I want to say
Speaker 3: it was too I want to say it was more
Speaker 3: than twice the legal limit in the state of Michigan.
Speaker 3: And they immediately slapped the cuffs on me, said you
Speaker 3: know you're you're under arrest. And they took me to
Speaker 3: the jail. And I went to the jail and they
Speaker 3: got me booked in the in the police officer that
Speaker 3: had actually arrested me knew a little bit about my family,
Speaker 3: and he even told the officers at whenever at the
Speaker 3: jail said, you know, he's in a rough spot right.
Speaker 2: Now with losing his dad and just.
Speaker 3: He's a good kid. Just take care of you know,
Speaker 3: make sure that he's taking care of it in here.
Speaker 3: And whenever I was sitting in the hold holding tank there,
Speaker 3: I was like, I I never knew that this could happen.
Speaker 3: I never knew it could happen. And I remember two people,
Speaker 3: there's two other guys in the holding tank with me,
Speaker 3: and they had said asked me what I was in
Speaker 3: there for. I was like, I was drinking driving, and they,
Speaker 3: you know, started to ask me, well, what did you Well,
Speaker 3: I was like it was probably about well over two
Speaker 3: times the legal limit in the state of Michigan. And
Speaker 3: they just like were just shocked at that. And I
Speaker 3: had h whenever I had went, uh, you know, got discharged,
Speaker 3: I had went home that same night and I did
Speaker 3: I got on a shoot. I did go back and
Speaker 3: have a drink. But the next day I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I got to take a little hiatus from it.
Speaker 3: And I had found a I found a bottle of
Speaker 3: some whatever liquor I had at the time, and drop
Speaker 3: and opened it up and I just immediately poured it
Speaker 3: out because I knew that I was having to go
Speaker 3: under some kind of probation or alcohol substance abuse classes,
Speaker 3: and which in fact, thankfully I didn't have to have
Speaker 3: any probation, but I did indeed have to go through
Speaker 3: alcohol substance abuse classes and it was and it was
Speaker 3: during COVID, so I didn't have to go to the
Speaker 3: facility to go to do any of the classes. That
Speaker 3: was just either over zoom or over the phone. And
Speaker 3: that made it like to me, that made it like
Speaker 3: almost was like defeating the purpose of even going through it,
Speaker 3: because it's like, well, I could be, you know, be
Speaker 3: on the phone talking to talking to the counselor, and
Speaker 3: he doesn't even know what I'm doing. I can I
Speaker 3: could be drinking, you know, while we're talking about you know,
Speaker 3: talking about the absence of staying away from alcohol and
Speaker 3: drug use. And so I had underwent that for I
Speaker 3: want to say, I think it was like three months
Speaker 3: I was in and that and that was back in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty and they had uh or no, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: I should say, and they had discharged me, and I
Speaker 3: immediately went back to drinking. I was like, well, I
Speaker 3: finished this. I can't believe I didn't, you know, to me,
Speaker 3: it was almost like a reward that I completed. It,
Speaker 3: completed something that was supposed to do because it was
Speaker 3: either but I didn't complete it. I was gonna be
Speaker 3: back in jail, and I completed it. And as soon
Speaker 3: as I got discharged, I immediately just went back into
Speaker 3: into drinking and that and I did not know how bad,
Speaker 3: how bad I was, you know, an alcoholic, until I
Speaker 3: get you know, started getting into recovery, which was you know,
Speaker 3: back in November, whenever I was hospitalized for alcohol cirrhosis.
Speaker 3: And that was and my sister has been my saving grace.
Speaker 3: She knew that something was wrong and it was a couple, uh,
Speaker 3: it was a couple of days prior to that. I
Speaker 3: started noticing my body, you know, my demeanor and life
Speaker 3: started changing a lot. And I noticed that my you know,
Speaker 3: every my whole body was you know, not looking like
Speaker 3: it should you know, and my sister. As a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, I was actually going to the grocery store
Speaker 3: for my for my mother, and my aunt Sheila had
Speaker 3: called me and had told me, you know, asked me,
Speaker 3: you know, how are you doing? You're holding up, and
Speaker 3: he told me that you don't ask, you know, saying that,
Speaker 3: you know, telling me that my mom had noticed that
Speaker 3: I wasn't looking good and she had called my aunt
Speaker 3: Sheila or had texted her pictures of how badly swollen
Speaker 3: my legs and feet were from the fluid that I
Speaker 3: was retaining, and so I told her. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I know I need I'm I'm gonna go get checked out,
Speaker 3: which I wasn't really thinking about getting checked out. I
Speaker 3: almost wanted to put it back on the backshelf. And
Speaker 3: because it was like I didn't know what.
Speaker 2: Was going to happen. And how old are you? I
Speaker 2: am thirty, just turned thirty one, and yeah, so you're
Speaker 2: way too young to have a problem, right, Yeah, did
Speaker 2: you still think that like, oh, like, oh I drunk,
Speaker 2: I drove drunk, so oops, that wasn't and that was
Speaker 2: a mistake. So like your punishment was like don't drive drunk,
Speaker 2: like or that was your they wanted to get out
Speaker 2: of your punishment for you to realize, don't drive drunk. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: when we're drunk, a lot of times we don't remember
Speaker 2: and we don't think clearly. Yeah, so that's the whole
Speaker 2: problem with it. But so like I could see where
Speaker 2: you would have went through that and be like, all right, cool,
Speaker 2: I am never getting behind the if I'm drinking, I'm
Speaker 2: not drying, like I'm putting my foot down, like I
Speaker 2: could see myself doing some kind of like thing like that, Like, no,
Speaker 2: drinking is the problem, but I'm not gonna mess with that.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna not drink and drive because that's the problem.
Speaker 2: That it's not the alcohol is the problem, that's what.
Speaker 2: And you said it earlier too, like you didn't even
Speaker 2: know you had a problem. And that's what is so
Speaker 2: hard about alcohol because it tricks you. And when it
Speaker 2: starts taking things away from your life, friends, family, jobs, money, whatever,
Speaker 2: that's fine. I didn't need it anyway. I don't even
Speaker 2: like that guy. I don't even like her. You start
Speaker 2: going up because you got your bottle right here, as
Speaker 2: long as you got some zeros or some not zeros,
Speaker 2: but you got some numbers in your bank account, you
Speaker 2: go get some more of them, and so it's fine.
Speaker 2: I don't need the girlfriend. I don't I don't even
Speaker 2: need cable, I don't need lights, I don't need anything like.
Speaker 2: I can live without it. And you start to adapt
Speaker 2: to it. And it's the weirdest, craziest thing where if
Speaker 2: you would have asked me if I was when I
Speaker 2: was sixteen seventeen, hey, do you want to live in
Speaker 2: your car? Then that sounds fun? I say no, Hey,
Speaker 2: do you want to like alienate your whole family and
Speaker 2: have people hate you? No, well, that's what's gonna happen
Speaker 2: because you like alcohol. You know, if it would have
Speaker 2: been in I guess explain to me. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't think I would have listened to it. Alcohol
Speaker 2: is so powerful, it really is, like really is what
Speaker 2: other hand you a brownie right now and say if
Speaker 2: you eat this, it's gonna kill you. You probably wouldn't eat it,
Speaker 2: oh god, But I can hand you a bottle and go, hey, drink,
Speaker 2: that's gonna kill you? What like you my ass? Well,
Speaker 2: just give me a couple more or two. But that's yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't kill you today. Well, alkohol can kill you today.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: And even the doctors had even telling me whenever I
Speaker 3: got hospitalized with the cirosis back in November, see that
Speaker 3: day that I had, you know, finally threw in the towel,
Speaker 3: I was, you know, I went to the to the
Speaker 3: walk and clink and they actually referred me over to
Speaker 3: the emergency room and they ran blood test and they
Speaker 3: ran you know, an ultrasound and and they did a
Speaker 3: couple other couple of other tests just to make you know,
Speaker 3: see what was what was the problem. And you know,
Speaker 3: they told me that you're is there's something wrong with
Speaker 3: your liver and it's not function and like it should.
Speaker 2: So when they told you that, I'm gonna stop it here.
Speaker 2: When they told you that, did you believe them or
Speaker 2: did you think they were trying to ruin your fun?
Speaker 2: Or were you just like, oh shit.
Speaker 3: I was thinking like whenever they told me that, at first,
Speaker 3: I didn't want to believe them, Yeah, because it was
Speaker 3: like I never thought that, you know, it.
Speaker 2: Could ever happen to me, not even forty yet yet.
Speaker 2: I mean maybe now I would think maybe if I
Speaker 2: got was older and I was experiencing these symptoms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I most likely would believe them. But you know,
Speaker 3: like everyone says, you're too young to be going through
Speaker 3: all this. You're only thirty one and you and knew,
Speaker 3: now how have sorrhosis. And whenever they told me that,
Speaker 3: I was like almost didn't really want to believe them.
Speaker 3: And then they start asking me questions about the alcohol
Speaker 3: and how much you drank, and I was like, well,
Speaker 3: if I had to be honest, there's there. I don't
Speaker 3: have an exact number, and they're like, well, just give
Speaker 3: us one. I was like, well, maybe maybe three or four,
Speaker 3: five six tall boys and maybe a fifth fit the vodka,
Speaker 3: maybe maybe even a half gollon.
Speaker 2: So you're honest with them, Yeah, I was. I was
Speaker 2: brutally honest with them.
Speaker 3: And they said and so they had to admit me
Speaker 3: to another hospital to undergo all these you know, to
Speaker 3: undergo everything else with my health. And they said, you know,
Speaker 3: told me that if you take one more sip of alcohol,
Speaker 3: even like a drink sip, doesn't even matter how much
Speaker 3: you have, it's your five years tops of you survival.
Speaker 3: And I was in the hospital and I was and
Speaker 3: that absolutely scared me, terrified me. Whenever they were telling
Speaker 3: me that you're gonna you will die if you do
Speaker 3: not stop drinking. And I just you know, stay, you know,
Speaker 3: laid there. It's like, you know, do I keep going
Speaker 3: with what I with what I've been accustomed to and
Speaker 3: with everything for you know, for the rest of my life,
Speaker 3: or do I take that step forward and and cry,
Speaker 3: you know, say I need help?
Speaker 2: And I I do. And I still remember to this
Speaker 2: to this day.
Speaker 3: In the hospital that you know, my sister Kender actually
Speaker 3: had reached out to you and we started talking about
Speaker 3: about it, and uh, you know, that's whenever I said
Speaker 3: I wanted to get help, I really wanted to get help.
Speaker 2: And for me, it was important for you to get
Speaker 2: the hell out of south West Michigan. Not that there's
Speaker 2: places that aren't good in southw Michigan, but my path
Speaker 2: was through the south Southwest Michigan. And going to a
Speaker 2: treatment center is like a class reunion, you know, and
Speaker 2: there's people there that I can't open up and be
Speaker 2: honest because that guy knows me, These people know me
Speaker 2: that there's just too many people that know me. I
Speaker 2: had to go to a kind of like you. And
Speaker 2: then that's why I was like, you got to get
Speaker 2: him out of there, like get him up here where
Speaker 2: you can walk into a place where you know nobody.
Speaker 2: You don't have to sell anything to this guy, to
Speaker 2: that guy. You're just there being you, trying to get help,
Speaker 2: you know, And I think that really makes a difference,
Speaker 2: you know, just to know that nobody in there is
Speaker 2: going to come in and know you, and by the
Speaker 2: time you're in there uncomfortable, you probably welcome somebody and hey,
Speaker 2: come on in. I hope somebody does come from Southwest Michigan,
Speaker 2: because that's great. Yeah, at first, it can be scary.
Speaker 2: Who's going to know me, Who's going to tell this
Speaker 2: Who's going to be saying I was here?
Speaker 3: You know, like yeah, And that's the other other thing too,
Speaker 3: is like at first I was like kind of going
Speaker 3: back and forth, like well, do I need to shit?
Speaker 2: Do I say?
Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to get help, but I didn't
Speaker 3: know how to get the help because I was always
Speaker 3: so close to Southwest Michigan, and to be honest, I did,
Speaker 3: you know, I looked around and see if there was
Speaker 3: even anything down Southwest Michigan.
Speaker 2: And there there was.
Speaker 3: But I also wanted to put it, you know, take
Speaker 3: what you had said to Kendra, and wanted to go
Speaker 3: somewhere far away, somewhere, you know where, Like you said,
Speaker 3: people don't know me. And whenever I got up here
Speaker 3: and got into the in the rehab, people did not
Speaker 3: know me. They asked they asked, me, well, where are
Speaker 3: you from? And you came all the way up here?
Speaker 3: And I was I was like, yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 3: and I and I remember in rehabit and whenever I
Speaker 3: was and rehab back in uh was it December? Actually
Speaker 3: I was in. I was in there for Christmas and
Speaker 3: there for.
Speaker 2: The New Year. Just got got out just a few
Speaker 2: days after the New Year. And there was a guy.
Speaker 3: There was a a guy in there, and I, you know, I,
Speaker 3: you know, I I wanted to wanted to make an
Speaker 3: impact on people in there and let them know that
Speaker 3: they're not alone, and you know, kind of you know,
Speaker 3: try and ease my way into talking to them about well,
Speaker 3: what where are you going through?
Speaker 1: Wait?
Speaker 3: Where are you from? I had there was a guy
Speaker 3: that was there and he came all the way from
Speaker 3: South Carolina and I was like, you came all the
Speaker 3: way from South Carolina. And I can't I can't hardly
Speaker 3: remember the the extent of how of the conversation or
Speaker 3: how far the conversation.
Speaker 2: She went, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was he told me he came from South Carolina.
Speaker 3: And even I was even in shocked by some of
Speaker 3: the peep some of the people in there. Like whenever
Speaker 3: I first got up into into the facility, I was
Speaker 3: probably I was thirty. Whenever got up there and I
Speaker 3: had I looked around and it was all of these
Speaker 3: old people.
Speaker 2: I was like, wow. I was like, I was like,
Speaker 2: I hope I'm not. I hope I'm not the I'm not.
Speaker 2: I hope I'm not the only you know, I guess
Speaker 2: I would say, young stud in there, what's old to you? Well,
Speaker 2: but now it's he's thirty one, you know, everybody's old.
Speaker 3: Well I'm like, I said, you know, just turned thirty one.
Speaker 3: And I always tell the people ask me, well how
Speaker 3: old are you? I'm thirty one, but my back feels
Speaker 3: like it's seventy five. My But now, whenever I first
Speaker 3: got up in the rehabit was like I looked around
Speaker 3: and it was like these older people were were looked
Speaker 3: crazy to me. They obviously yeah, they they look like
Speaker 3: and it's like, well, I looked like I was the
Speaker 3: only normal one in there, And I was like, man, oh, man,
Speaker 3: I was like, this is gonna be this, this is
Speaker 3: gonna be interesting. But and all honestly, whenever I first
Speaker 3: got there, I was like, I don't know how well
Speaker 3: I'm going to do in here.
Speaker 2: I remember Kendres said something like that, and I was like, no,
Speaker 2: he'll be fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And but it it took it took me a
Speaker 3: couple of days to realize where I was at and
Speaker 3: what I was doing.
Speaker 2: And the first time you went to treatment, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: like an impatient fay, you know. And it can be
Speaker 2: scary because it's when I first I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: what am I going to expect in the same thing man?
Speaker 2: And then it was a guy that had it was crazy.
Speaker 2: I had to leave. And I use that as an
Speaker 2: excuse because I'm like, Nope, can't deal with that. He
Speaker 2: was doing that with puppies and dogs. Don't want that. Nope,
Speaker 2: don't even want around that, dude. I'm going home back
Speaker 2: to Michigan because I was in California, so ickon. So
Speaker 2: I know I know what you're talking about. And yeah,
Speaker 2: people look crazy because they are, ah, but they're they're
Speaker 2: good dudes. So I'm sure you found out by the
Speaker 2: end of it you're like, oh crazy, times crazy, but
Speaker 2: I love them. That's my guy, you know, like it's
Speaker 2: a beautiful, beautiful thing. And when you let that guard
Speaker 2: down and see people for who they are. And but
Speaker 2: at first, it's scary when you go into a place
Speaker 2: and at least you didn't have to have that like, oh,
Speaker 2: someone's going to see me and tell people I'm here.
Speaker 2: You were in a new place, which is scary and
Speaker 2: a whole different light, but going in it and going
Speaker 2: through it and seeing that, hey, this is all right.
Speaker 2: So you're settling in everything's going on, and you start
Speaker 2: to learn, like are you starting put things together when
Speaker 2: you're in the treatment center? Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 3: So whenever I first started, uh in rehab, I didn't
Speaker 3: know nothing about recovery. I didn't know like what recovery was.
Speaker 3: I didn't know. And honestly, I found out things in
Speaker 3: recovery and rehab that I didn't even know about myself.
Speaker 3: And it was, you know, through through the therapy and
Speaker 3: through talking to other people in there. And that's the
Speaker 3: crazy thing about whenever you whenever you're so addicted to
Speaker 3: alcohol for so long, it's like alcohol knew who you were.
Speaker 3: It knew who you were because it knew what it
Speaker 3: what it could take from you. But and then I
Speaker 3: and I remember one of the uh, one of the navigaters,
Speaker 3: and there he'd always told he would always say, whenever
Speaker 3: you leave here, no matter, no matter, like as soon
Speaker 3: as you walk out those walk out those doors to
Speaker 3: lead to go home, or to go into sobriety living
Speaker 3: or what whatever you plan on doing after you know,
Speaker 3: rehab your addiction or what was trying to kill you,
Speaker 3: is going to be out there doing the put doing
Speaker 3: those push ups, doing doing those push ups, trying to strengthen,
Speaker 3: to get you.
Speaker 2: To to use them again. And I took that.
Speaker 3: I took that, and I thought of it, and no
Speaker 3: matter and everywhere I go now like even whenever.
Speaker 2: I walk out walk out of.
Speaker 3: Here, it's I it's gonna be out there because there's
Speaker 3: you know, there's liquor stores around. It's like, what that's
Speaker 3: gonna what what is gonna The only thing, like, nothing's
Speaker 3: going to stop me from from going to a liquor
Speaker 3: store a gas station and buying buying a case of
Speaker 3: beer or or a bottle of liquor. But with being
Speaker 3: in recovery, it's I think of those think of those uh.
Speaker 2: Coping mechanisms I've learned in there, and one of my
Speaker 2: favorite ones is think about how far you've came in recovery.
Speaker 2: And they've always said that I can't remember it now.
Speaker 3: That's part about getting old, you forget stuff, obviously, but yeah,
Speaker 3: recovery has been amazing, and I think what it was
Speaker 3: is my favorite coping mechanism is you know, just you know,
Speaker 3: thinking about how you how far you've made made it
Speaker 3: into recovery, it'll.
Speaker 2: Pop in your head that you can drink this weekend
Speaker 2: and no one will know it will Now I feel
Speaker 2: I have so much power over alcohol because I have
Speaker 2: a choice. Today. I could go next door to the
Speaker 2: store and get a case of beer and get drunk.
Speaker 2: I'd get a fit whatever. I could do that today,
Speaker 2: but I'm not going to ye I don't. I have
Speaker 2: shit to do. I got a movie to make, I
Speaker 2: got booked to write. I got so much stuff I
Speaker 2: want to do. I don't have time for that. I
Speaker 2: wasted enough time on the couch getting blitzed every single
Speaker 2: night for fifteen twenty. I don't even remember how many
Speaker 2: years it was. Stupid. The goals I have today, I
Speaker 2: can show you that I have this big uh it's
Speaker 2: what do they call them? Sound proofing boards? And I
Speaker 2: don't even know what they're going. I ordered them, but
Speaker 2: I made it a picture of my son and it
Speaker 2: hangs over my desk. It's huge, it's big. I like that.
Speaker 2: That's something that means something to me, you know, like
Speaker 2: like that. I want to do something good for him.
Speaker 2: I want him to look back after I'm dead and
Speaker 2: gone and be like, my dad was a good dude
Speaker 2: and he did something, you know, like I want to
Speaker 2: make him proud, you know. That's that's what I live for.
Speaker 2: And I want to make a movie. And I'm so
Speaker 2: close to finishing writing it. And I was listening to
Speaker 2: this podcast That's This Morning, and this guy hit it
Speaker 2: right on the head. I'll start to write it and
Speaker 2: I'll get it. But A, I don't have a deadline
Speaker 2: set for myself. I need deadlines, and B even if
Speaker 2: I get it finished, it's never gonna be good enough.
Speaker 2: There's always something I'm gonna want to add to it.
Speaker 2: So I don't think i'll ever get it done unless
Speaker 2: I set that deadline and then just go, Nope, that's
Speaker 2: the deadline. It's done. It's done. If you want to
Speaker 2: add something to it, make another movie, you know, like
Speaker 2: I don't know, but everything has to be so perfect
Speaker 2: for me, and so it actually stalls me down. But
Speaker 2: learning about yourself and knowing where you want to go
Speaker 2: and what you want to do is huge for you.
Speaker 2: I was going to bring this up because, well, there's
Speaker 2: two things. First, I remember the trip home. I remember
Speaker 2: saying to you, Look, you're not somebody with a drink problem.
Speaker 2: You're not an alcoholic. You're in recovery. You know, like
Speaker 2: when you say that, because when I say I'm in recovery,
Speaker 2: it means something different. Oh and I even told you
Speaker 2: when I go to AA meetings. So I'm like, hey,
Speaker 2: what's up on Corey M person recovery because alcoholic was
Speaker 2: a bad term. It was bad. You're a bad person.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm doing the finger wave at chet, you know,
Speaker 2: like you're bad, you bad alcoholic. No, I'm in recovery.
Speaker 2: I've changed my life. That person you're waving your finger
Speaker 2: at that's not me. It is it was me, but
Speaker 2: I changed, I got my shit together. I changed. Now
Speaker 2: this is me. And so the people that want to
Speaker 2: knock you down for the stuff that you did in
Speaker 2: the past, that you can't change. I mean you can
Speaker 2: say I'm sorry about that. Yeah, here's how I'm living
Speaker 2: now to prove that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of like what you're what you're saying
Speaker 3: about that. It's it's it's really amazing, like what you know,
Speaker 3: how alcohol can you know, can personally affect you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this doesn't make you a bad person. I
Speaker 2: mean it can make you do bad things drink, driving, drunk,
Speaker 2: or you know, maybe yelling at people. Violence. It can,
Speaker 2: it can cause and it does lead. If you call
Speaker 2: the police station right now and say, hey, how many
Speaker 2: of your calls did you go on because of alcohol,
Speaker 2: they would probably say eighty eighty maybe even more. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I mean it's ridiculous, And yet there it
Speaker 2: is out there at the store. You can walk up
Speaker 2: to the gas station, steal your little bottle from the counter.
Speaker 2: Like the last time I was in the gas station,
Speaker 2: they had them at the counter. Now you couldn't get
Speaker 2: a cigarette, you couldn't get vape juice. But alcohol is
Speaker 2: sitting right there. You can snag it put in your pocket.
Speaker 2: No one even know. Twelve year old, ten year old,
Speaker 2: eight year old, They don't care. It's right up there
Speaker 2: by the candy, it's all fruity looking the other band
Speaker 2: and all the stuff. Because they're like, oh no, they're
Speaker 2: targeting kids. But yet alcohol out there straight up targeting kids,
Speaker 2: targeting everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's targeting young people's, young people's lives.
Speaker 2: But in America, that's how they want it. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: it makes some money and they throw it out there.
Speaker 2: Drink responsibly, that's your fault. You didn't drink responsibly. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and look what it did to you if you just
Speaker 2: will listen to us. Unfortunately, our brains don't work that way.
Speaker 2: Our brains, Like when you lost your father, you wanted
Speaker 2: to numb that. Everybody. If you don't understand that, I'm
Speaker 2: sorry you don't. What are they call that where people
Speaker 2: don't have any feelings? I can't remember, but it's bad
Speaker 2: and you should probably get some help. It was called
Speaker 2: cold hearted. Yeah, but that would make you lose your shit.
Speaker 2: And I've already like started prepping myself. I'm fortunate I
Speaker 2: still have my parents, and I'm mentally telling myself Corey
Speaker 2: drinking not going to bring him back. No, And what
Speaker 2: would they Yeah, sorry, I'm gonna get teared up here.
Speaker 2: You know, what would they think about me if I
Speaker 2: did drink at that moment, you know, like, yeah, this
Speaker 2: is not worth it. So it's gonna be a sad day.
Speaker 2: I'm already getting choked up over it. But like so
Speaker 2: I could imagine, dude, Like I can't imagine, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to and I but I will. But and
Speaker 2: this is something that you can help people with, because
Speaker 2: there are people that come to me and they're like, man,
Speaker 2: I just had to relax. I lost my parents, you know,
Speaker 2: and I don't have I don't know what to say
Speaker 2: except oh my god. That sucks, you know. And actually,
Speaker 2: I there are other people that I know and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 2: talk to this person. They kind of went through some
Speaker 2: of the same stuff. And but you will help somebody.
Speaker 2: I can guarantee you there. It will be somebody that
Speaker 2: comes into your life that will lose a parent or
Speaker 2: loved one and you will be like hey man and
Speaker 2: give them a hug or whatever. I mean, you'll help them.
Speaker 2: You will, I guarantee it. Yeah, absolutely. I Mean.
Speaker 3: The thing with with being you know, an alcoholic is
Speaker 3: you are I should say alcoholic and recovery. See that's
Speaker 3: the other thing too, is like people whenever people tell
Speaker 3: me they're like, you know, like you're an alcoholic. I was,
Speaker 3: like I once was, I'm a alcoholic and recovery. Now
Speaker 3: there's two different meanings there. And it's it's amazing how
Speaker 3: how whenever you get into recovery, it gives you something
Speaker 3: something to be proud of. And I know, my dad
Speaker 3: he's he's looking down, he's watching me, watching, you know,
Speaker 3: and even even my sister would always tell me, you know,
Speaker 3: your dad, Dad's so proud of you right now for
Speaker 3: taking this step.
Speaker 2: Forward and going back to what you had said.
Speaker 3: About about someone coming into my life, about you know,
Speaker 3: losing a parent and stuff. And it's like the the
Speaker 3: the hurt is still there, but the way you grieve
Speaker 3: about it gets to me gets better and better as
Speaker 3: the days go on. I mean, though it's though it's
Speaker 3: still sad, it's still sad, but you find better ways
Speaker 3: to get over it. Like I mean, you'll never get
Speaker 3: over losing to parents, just the way that you cope
Speaker 3: and you grieve with that. And what I always say is,
Speaker 3: you know, the reason why I put my story out
Speaker 3: there is it because I want everyone to know or
Speaker 3: even someone or that knows of somebody that's you know,
Speaker 3: having a problem, whether if it's an alcohol addiction, drug addiction,
Speaker 3: or if they're across addicted, that.
Speaker 2: You're not alone. You were, You were not alone.
Speaker 3: I thought I was alone whenever I was an alcoholic,
Speaker 3: but it was you just have to take that step,
Speaker 3: that one step forward and say I have a problem
Speaker 3: that I need help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for you too to get out to go
Speaker 2: back home to like all I'm going to do this
Speaker 2: and sober living? Oh is he going to do sober living?
Speaker 2: Is he going to stay here? And that was that
Speaker 2: was the thing too that probably had you freaked out,
Speaker 2: like where am I gonna stay? Where am I gonna live?
Speaker 2: What I'm gonna do? But you didn't a drink. You
Speaker 2: stayed the course and you figured it out, and all right,
Speaker 2: pay yourself on the back for that. You know how
Speaker 2: easy easy would have been for you just to turn
Speaker 2: right back to drinking, because well, this happened to me
Speaker 2: and I don't know where I'm going home, stay poor me,
Speaker 2: put me another drink, you know, But you didn't. So
Speaker 2: I'm proud of you for that because I was. I
Speaker 2: was nervous. I was like, oh, like man, because it's
Speaker 2: it's it's a very yeah, I don't even especially understand
Speaker 2: what face I just made, but it's like it's very tense.
Speaker 2: It's it's because everybody wants you to make it, man,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's just like when your son, when
Speaker 2: your son starts walking for the first time and he's
Speaker 2: stumbling over and you see the table and you're like,
Speaker 2: oh shit, and then he just sits down. You're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: he didn't bust his head. That's that's the relief that
Speaker 2: you have that I have with you anyway, you know,
Speaker 2: it's that same like okay, good. And then to see
Speaker 2: your Facebook you are into photography. Yes, thank you. You're
Speaker 2: doing something with that energy that used to sit on
Speaker 2: the couch and drink and get drunk and wasted. Now
Speaker 2: you're going out and you're taking beautiful pictures. You're having
Speaker 2: And I would be honest too, like I would even
Speaker 2: like I was still doing the photography, doing pictures even
Speaker 2: back whenever you know, I was, you know, an alcoholic.
Speaker 3: I mean even like I might you know, have a
Speaker 3: what they say road beer and have you know, have
Speaker 3: one of those, and uh though it would though I
Speaker 3: wouldn't have it, you know, as I'm driving, I would
Speaker 3: wait till I'm until I'm part I. I I kind
Speaker 3: of I pretty much guzzle the thing down and then
Speaker 3: I go out and take these pictures. But whenever I
Speaker 3: take the pictures, I see something more different. I see things.
Speaker 3: And it's hard to explain that how you look at
Speaker 3: a picture differently now that you for me anyway that
Speaker 3: I that I take, you know, with you know, going
Speaker 3: out to like the beach and uh the beach jour
Speaker 3: no matter where I'm at. And my sister, as a
Speaker 3: matter of fact, had sent me a this link on
Speaker 3: Facebook over a messenger and I don't know what state
Speaker 3: it was in, but this photographer had had a true
Speaker 3: inspiration or a or was a photographer and had a
Speaker 3: was inspired to help recovering addicts with sobriety photos and
Speaker 3: where they take a mugs where they take a mug
Speaker 3: shot of them whenever they were arrested or if or
Speaker 3: even if and I say, if you never got arrested,
Speaker 3: but you were still had a problem, take a photo
Speaker 3: of whenever you were in you know, whenever you were
Speaker 3: in an active addiction frame it, and take pictures with
Speaker 3: who you are in recovery now. And I looked at
Speaker 3: and and I'll be brutally honest. I didn't think nothing
Speaker 3: about it. And here I am taking all these twenty
Speaker 3: you know, all these all these photos of you know,
Speaker 3: of the beach and the sunset and even coming up
Speaker 3: to Traverse City. No matter where I go up it's
Speaker 3: I got to take the camera with me. Gotta take
Speaker 3: the camera with me. And even before I had, even
Speaker 3: before I had left to come up here, I've had
Speaker 3: you know, my sister tell me. I even had a
Speaker 3: best friend of mine that told me, make sure you
Speaker 3: fill up that SD card or empty that SD card
Speaker 3: out before you before you head up there. I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I plan on it. As a matter of fact, I
Speaker 3: brought to just in case if one wasn't enough.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: And I know the first day I came up here,
Speaker 3: I I think, yeah, it was the first day I
Speaker 3: came up here, or on the way up here, I
Speaker 3: probably took about God, I want to say, like two
Speaker 3: three hundred photos, wow, And even and then yesterday I
Speaker 3: took I mean I took maybe like sixty or seventy
Speaker 3: rough estimate. But but it's just you know, you look
Speaker 3: at those photos that you take and it's you know,
Speaker 3: I'm capturing something that God created for me to see
Speaker 3: and like I say, I look at those pictures now
Speaker 3: being in recovery, and I see him so much differently.
Speaker 2: Because life is so different, like you're actually you're actually
Speaker 2: living life now. Yeah, And to see that play out
Speaker 2: and on social media and Facebook, it's great. Man, Like
Speaker 2: I don't get on Facebook that often, but I'll see
Speaker 2: your stuff every once in a while and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I like it, or put a big heart on it,
Speaker 2: or tell you a good job, or I don't know
Speaker 2: what I do.
Speaker 3: But and sometimes and it doesn't. It used to bother me,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't anymore.
Speaker 2: But some people.
Speaker 3: Will will I ask me, well, you know you post
Speaker 3: too much, you you post too much about It's like, well,
Speaker 3: it's not for you, it's for me.
Speaker 2: It's it's for me because I want to it.
Speaker 3: It gives me the accountability that I need. And and
Speaker 3: plus people will ask me, well, how are you doing,
Speaker 3: how's you know, how's your sobriety doing? And nine months it's,
Speaker 3: you know, nine months of being sober. It's it's amazing,
Speaker 3: really amazing.
Speaker 2: Get that year that year hopefully, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: fingers cross, you gotta make it today. We all know
Speaker 2: that but yeaheah, I mean it's just right around the corner.
Speaker 2: And I don't know that year was something for me.
Speaker 2: And you're still getting your coins every month, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: And but that was something that you know, I think
Speaker 2: I shared with you. I gave those coins to my
Speaker 2: mom and I still mailer a coin every year. But
Speaker 2: when I hit that year, everything seemed to speed up,
Speaker 2: Like I don't know if it was because every month
Speaker 2: I was looking for that coin, so like every month
Speaker 2: I was tracking it, Whereas when I hit the year,
Speaker 2: it was just like all right, boom, you're sign cruise control.
Speaker 2: And then I think I got an NA tag at
Speaker 2: year and a half, but then I had to wait
Speaker 2: the whole year for that second year, you know, so
Speaker 2: it seemed like it flew by the second year and
Speaker 2: I was like, whoa, I got two years now, Like
Speaker 2: that's crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. And seeing when you whenever you're
Speaker 3: in recovery, because it starts out as like as seconds
Speaker 3: and then it turns into minutes.
Speaker 2: Hours, days, weeks, months, and then years, you know, and
Speaker 2: then your kids won and you're like, how did he
Speaker 2: turn one already? And he was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it's flying by but yeah, man, I remember leaning in
Speaker 2: the Hi hospital bed and thinking hours had went by
Speaker 2: and it had only been a minute. And I was
Speaker 2: like what, like no, like this can't be like it was. Hell,
Speaker 2: we felt every minute of that, man, Like people know
Speaker 2: what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: Like it's yeah, you just said it, you know, so
Speaker 2: to see you turn it around, man, it is. This
Speaker 2: is a beautiful thing, man, And not everybody can do it. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't happen. It took me fifteen times man.
Speaker 3: And and I think, and now that you say that,
Speaker 3: I look back and you know, at myself, and it's like,
Speaker 3: I'm surprised how well I'm doing so far in recovery
Speaker 3: and with not even not even one relapse. I have
Speaker 3: not re relapsed once. And whenever I was in rehab,
Speaker 3: there was there was there was a gentleman and I
Speaker 3: stayed there with and he had asked me, well, how
Speaker 3: many times have you been into rehab? I was like,
Speaker 3: this is my first time and he he was like,
Speaker 3: this is your first time? And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is this is my first time. He's like, well,
Speaker 3: what made you come? What made you get into rehab?
Speaker 3: I was like alcohol did alcohol and alcohol.
Speaker 2: Really you know, put a strain on my life.
Speaker 3: And whenever I was in uh, now I'm thinking about
Speaker 3: all these things that I did in rehab. I my
Speaker 3: therapist I had in there, he had us do a
Speaker 3: write a thank you and goodbye letter to our drug
Speaker 3: or choice, which mine was mine was alcohol. Yeah, I might,
Speaker 3: you know, I smoked weed and everything. But that wasn't
Speaker 3: like that wasn't my go to.
Speaker 2: It wasn't ruining your life. It wasn't ruining my killing.
Speaker 2: It wasn't ruining my life.
Speaker 3: I mean it could yeah, it could have, but you know,
Speaker 3: but but they he added me to a thank you
Speaker 3: goodbye letter, and I can't remember like and I whenever
Speaker 3: I was in rehab, I was always writing. I was
Speaker 3: always writing my thoughts, collecting my thoughts, and I had
Speaker 3: uh talked about in my thank you goodbye letter, like
Speaker 3: you know, thank you for giving me the what I
Speaker 3: thought was a good time back then, and but now.
Speaker 2: It's I guess I have to say goodbye. You.
Speaker 3: You were you were never a best friend to me.
Speaker 3: You were never you were nothing. You were you were
Speaker 3: nothing for me. You were you're something that was holding
Speaker 3: me back. Stabbing me in the back, taking things away
Speaker 3: out of my life that I ye, were slowly coming
Speaker 3: out of my life, like he even said earlier, it
Speaker 3: was you know, friends, family, job, money, and.
Speaker 2: It was you know.
Speaker 3: And as soon as alcohol or your addiction takes all
Speaker 3: that away from you, what else, what else does it
Speaker 3: have to take.
Speaker 2: Away from you? Your life? And they'll get that too, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it does. And then you know, I don't know if
Speaker 2: they classify it as an alcohol related death. Probably not,
Speaker 2: But like if your liver fails and you die, do
Speaker 2: they just go liver failure or do they chalk it
Speaker 2: up to it's alcohol death. I don't know they should
Speaker 2: be because if you want to go back and just
Speaker 2: go how crazy alcohol is, let's just take this story
Speaker 2: I'm gonna set up for you, right, all right, you
Speaker 2: got Jack and Jill. They're at a party. Now, it's
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, twenty twenty. They're at a party before COVID
Speaker 2: or I guess twenty twenty was all COVID. So let's
Speaker 2: go back to twenty eighteen. All right, let's go, let's
Speaker 2: go back pre COVID. So Jack and Jill at a party,
Speaker 2: Jack and Jill drinking and yeah, they're twenty one, let's say,
Speaker 2: you know, and they're in college. They're having a good
Speaker 2: time and Jack falls on Jill peepee goes in oop
Speaker 2: to have baby or if you want to do it.
Speaker 2: They start making out, have some sex, have baby. That
Speaker 2: a little better, Okay. So she comes to him and like, hey, Jack,
Speaker 2: I don't even know you, dude, but I'm in college
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna be this lawyer thing, so I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go ahead and have an abortion. Oh well. Jack's like, well,
Speaker 2: but you're you're hot, and I thought I just landed
Speaker 2: you for eighteen years, Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: You know? Oh no. So since Jack down a spy
Speaker 2: roll because he's thinking, oh my god, like what I
Speaker 2: can't have no, say, I can't do that, like what,
Speaker 2: it's my son, She's gonna kill him, like this is crazy.
Speaker 2: And then she gets it done and he goes on
Speaker 2: his wippit. He starts turning into alcohol because it helps
Speaker 2: him numb the pain, and then her I'm sure having
Speaker 2: an abortion's got to mess people up. I'm obviously a guy,
Speaker 2: but still are I've never had this in my life,
Speaker 2: so again I'm speaking of stuff I don't know. But
Speaker 2: again this is just a story. So then she starts
Speaker 2: struggling because she's having these thoughts of oh what if.
Speaker 2: And then a year goes by, Oh, he would have
Speaker 2: been in one today, two, three, four, Every birthday. The
Speaker 2: drinks come a little bit more, a little bit more,
Speaker 2: and now the cope with her pain of having that abortion.
Speaker 2: She's drinking. Jack's drinking too. They're on there, they're not
Speaker 2: they don't even know each other anymore. They're on an
Speaker 2: alcohol destructive path. And then Jack gets into an accident
Speaker 2: that kills people. Oh that drunk, alcoholic, he's so bad.
Speaker 2: But it all stems back to when they didn't have
Speaker 2: a problem. Is when it started, and it all had
Speaker 2: to do with alcohol. If they wouldn't have been drinking
Speaker 2: and drunk, maybe Jack wouldn't have filled on Jill. Maybe
Speaker 2: the wouldn't have had sex. Yeah, you know, but they
Speaker 2: did because alcohol makes it lowers your ambitions and you
Speaker 2: do things you normally would not do, and all because
Speaker 2: of alcohol. But that this death or that death, or
Speaker 2: maybe the accident death would be attributed to alcohol because
Speaker 2: it was related. But you know, maybe Jill takes her life,
Speaker 2: Maybe she takes her own life. Oh, that's just Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's suicide, but that's not even related to alcohol, you know,
Speaker 2: And it's like, no, it needs to. But there's so
Speaker 2: many stories like that that are interwoven. But it all
Speaker 2: go back to alcohol. And I'm not saying pan alcohol.
Speaker 2: That's not gonna happen. They tried that. And there are
Speaker 2: people my brother he can have a beer. I can't.
Speaker 2: I cannot. Why would you have a beer that's stupid?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: How big is it?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Is it a whole keg? Like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it would have to one beer could be one beer,
Speaker 3: could be could mean ninetyeen like it could be just
Speaker 3: like a little old tiny bottle, or it could be
Speaker 3: like you just said, a whole keg.
Speaker 2: It would have to be for me to have one beer,
Speaker 2: Like are you talking about a keg of beer?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: I will have one keg? Like if I have one
Speaker 2: beer for me as pointless? Like why would we have
Speaker 2: one beer? That's stupid? You need at least fifteen twenty
Speaker 2: let's get three cases, let's go. It would not be
Speaker 2: just but but Travis he can have a beer with
Speaker 2: his dinner. He probably might even finish it. Come for
Speaker 2: the rest, who does that? Yeah, because they are different,
Speaker 2: I can go into a casino. I don't know why
Speaker 2: I would want to lose twenty dollars, but whatever, I
Speaker 2: could do that. And you know, then when they say
Speaker 2: gamble responsively. Martie and I were talking about this yesterday
Speaker 2: and she's like, yeah, but there's responsible gambling. I said,
Speaker 2: not for an addict, you know, because they do the
Speaker 2: whole harm reduction thing, which okay, cool, do whatever you
Speaker 2: need to do. Whatever works for you, is what I say.
Speaker 2: But for me that that wouldn't been important. Nah and
Speaker 2: one bit. And I see it different in the light
Speaker 2: of you take what you're telling the normal people, Hey,
Speaker 2: drink responsibly, gamble, don't don't gamble what you can't afford
Speaker 2: to lose like that. That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard.
Speaker 2: Gamble response possibly, What will you tell my brain that?
Speaker 2: Because when that serotonin fires after I just won that
Speaker 2: ten grand, you come and tell me gabled responsibly, and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be doing dancing ten throwing money at you.
Speaker 2: You know, like, can you get on my face because
Speaker 2: your brain so you can say all the stuff. Don't
Speaker 2: drink and drive. We've been saying that for hundreds of years, right,
Speaker 2: probably not that long because you know I was being sarcastic,
Speaker 2: but forever yet people still do it. So I click,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work. Take it off your lottery ticket, take
Speaker 2: it off whatever. Like putting it on there is just
Speaker 2: a waste of ink. You can make that a little
Speaker 2: cheaper if you just use less ink. Yeah, because it
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense because like I cannot drink responsibly, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, however, they say I can't have another drink.
Speaker 2: And I know that. I know that because I've seen
Speaker 2: people go through that treatment center that you went to,
Speaker 2: that had twenty years and when COVID hit, it took
Speaker 2: away their meeting that they only went once a week
Speaker 2: to their Saturday meeting. Well o, their meeting closed down,
Speaker 2: and guess what, started drinking again. And he said he
Speaker 2: lost it quicker than he could have ever imagined. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was like, yep, I believe you dude. History does
Speaker 2: repeat itself, and I will listen to what you're saying.
Speaker 2: And I've heard too many stories like that, So I
Speaker 2: know that in ten years, twenty years, one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty years, if I'm I'm a life in fifty years,
Speaker 2: what's I won't be. I know that I cannot have
Speaker 2: a drink. Yeah, and at least I know the result
Speaker 2: of it. But I will have that option always the
Speaker 2: rest of my life. I could go to the store
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah I can. I mean absolutely, like whenever I got
Speaker 3: up here, got up here, I mean I I've done
Speaker 3: so many things up here, like walking downtown and seeing
Speaker 3: like you know, these bars and people walking in and
Speaker 3: out of it. They're either walking in there, you know,
Speaker 3: walk in they're sober, but they're not going to walk out.
Speaker 3: They're not going to walk out of that place sober.
Speaker 3: And I uh, I can't remember which, which, which grill
Speaker 3: and bar it was, but it was it was. It
Speaker 3: was downtown and I was just taking you know, taking.
Speaker 2: Up and I do a lot of walking.
Speaker 3: Now, do a lot of walking and go hit up
Speaker 3: the gym whenever I can. And I remember I was walking.
Speaker 3: It was, uh the thing. It was the first night
Speaker 3: I uh, I got here and I had walked downtown
Speaker 3: and I walked in front of this this bar and
Speaker 3: these people were just walking out of it one of
Speaker 3: and I don't know if if it must have been
Speaker 3: like a wedding party or something, I don't, I don't know,
Speaker 3: and they were just they were you know, hootl and hollering.
Speaker 3: One of them ended up falling out and front of
Speaker 3: the on the sidewalk, and I was like that and
Speaker 3: that was me, Like, oh, that was pretty much me
Speaker 3: back then. Whenever, you know, if I went to the
Speaker 3: bar after work, and I I never I drank more
Speaker 3: at home by myself than I did going to the bar.
Speaker 3: I mean I still went. I still went to the bar.
Speaker 3: I mean I went to a h went to the
Speaker 3: bar with a couple of friends, you know, after work
Speaker 3: and going and we have you know, just like maybe
Speaker 3: like two or three drinks and then but and then
Speaker 3: we went our separate ways. But I stayed there. I
Speaker 3: paid my tab and I was like, eh, I'll just
Speaker 3: stay here.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean I'm only I'm only like maybe
Speaker 2: like a couple of blocks away from from the bar.
Speaker 2: So I was like, I'll be fine to drive home. Well.
Speaker 3: And I always remember, now, before going to the bar,
Speaker 3: there was a liquor store apart across from from the bar,
Speaker 3: and I would always go in there before going inside
Speaker 3: the bar, because I.
Speaker 2: Knew whenever I got home from the bar I was
Speaker 2: going to I was was that's where the real drinking happened.
Speaker 3: That's that's where it's like all bets are off. You
Speaker 3: can there's there there's no limit on how much how
Speaker 3: much you can drink. So I, you know, went to
Speaker 3: the liquor store.
Speaker 2: But whatever I whatever.
Speaker 3: I thought I could could have and whatever I thought,
Speaker 3: you know, I could finish in the night. And you know,
Speaker 3: I take out to my car, and there might have
Speaker 3: been a time or two it's like, you know, I
Speaker 3: can't wait till I get inside the bar.
Speaker 2: I'll take this, I'll take the stuff out to my car.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe crack when open, have a little sip,
Speaker 3: you know, a couple of SIPs and put it back,
Speaker 3: you know, put in my car, walking side the bar,
Speaker 3: you know, do what you know, have have my drinks
Speaker 3: in there, and you know, meet up with my friends.
Speaker 3: And whenever they left, I still stayed there. And after
Speaker 3: that I went back out to my car, finished that,
Speaker 3: finished the one that I opened up before, go walking
Speaker 3: inside the bar, and then drove home. And there's been
Speaker 3: a numerous amount of nights where I get home and
Speaker 3: I'd either be watching TV, playing video games, just do
Speaker 3: stuff that I can drink with. So and if I
Speaker 3: ran out of alcohol, I was like, well, I'm still
Speaker 3: going to be up. I was like, I gotta go
Speaker 3: back to the gas station, get more did like the
Speaker 3: adult things like going to you know, going to the store,
Speaker 3: going you know, doing stuff, doing boring stuff around the house,
Speaker 3: like laundry. It's like, well, what man does laundry?
Speaker 2: I used to do laundry at five am on Sunday, man,
Speaker 2: because I have to drink. Like you said, with the
Speaker 2: video games, like you you like morph your whole world
Speaker 2: into things that you necessarily don't like. But as long
Speaker 2: as you're drinking while you're doing it, it's fine and
Speaker 2: you're accepted and it's cool. It's good. Hey, I'll do
Speaker 2: I've got to clean the house. You gotta do laundry.
Speaker 2: I mean I gotta do it on Sunday at five am.
Speaker 2: Now every other day of the week, I'm rolling out
Speaker 2: of bed nine, get to the radio season like ten,
Speaker 2: barely make it. But on Saturday and Sundays four or five,
Speaker 2: as soon as I wake up, it's it's on and
Speaker 2: popping to the freezer to get the half gallon and
Speaker 2: let's go and then we'll start the laundry.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it was like passed out by ten.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and yeah, I still remember, like I didn't
Speaker 3: wait until after work to get to get tanked up.
Speaker 3: It was it was if I need to go to
Speaker 3: the store for something, or and I and I would
Speaker 3: go to the store or make some excuse to go
Speaker 3: till lead the house to be like, well, I gotta
Speaker 3: go fill up my car. I need to get gas
Speaker 3: from my car because if not, I'm gonna forget. Well,
Speaker 3: little did people, little did people that you know, my mom,
Speaker 3: I should say, not really on speaking terms with her situation,
Speaker 3: but not going to get into that, but she would
Speaker 3: ask me, well, we're you off to well, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go fill up my car before, you know, before I
Speaker 3: go to work, because if not, I'm gonna forget. But
Speaker 3: little did she know that my car was either let's
Speaker 3: just say my car didn't need to have gas, did
Speaker 3: not need to have gas. And it's like, well it was,
Speaker 3: you know, go to the liquor store, you know, sit
Speaker 3: out in the parking lot and drink there and then
Speaker 3: go back home. And she and then there was even
Speaker 3: times where she would me, too, well, will you go
Speaker 3: to the store for me? Will you will you by
Speaker 3: get me? Will you buy go and get me stuff?
Speaker 3: So you know, so I can make dinner. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: I will.
Speaker 2: You got excited when you heard that. Yeah, I was like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, well you go yeah yeah, yeah. Don't don't
Speaker 2: tell me you twice. I'll go right, get right in
Speaker 2: my car and go go on ahead. Yeah. It's it's
Speaker 2: the same thing, like if you like. But I just
Speaker 2: said about getting up on the Monday, Tuesday wednesay. Oh
Speaker 2: oh wait, was there drinking of Oh yeah, am I
Speaker 2: gonna drink yeah? Yeah, And it's the same. And I
Speaker 2: wonder how because gambling it works the same way with
Speaker 2: the serotonin and dope mean and all that. I wonder
Speaker 2: how tolerance because alcohol obviously if you because if you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I just drink two beers every night. I had a
Speaker 2: lady say that she drinks two glasses of wine every
Speaker 2: single night. I said, that's impossible. Your glasses have to
Speaker 2: get bigger because your body is gonna go. I just
Speaker 2: I need more, a little bit more, a little bit more.
Speaker 2: That's why I like, you could never say I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna drink half a pint every night, because then it's
Speaker 2: gonna be well, I'm gonna need it a little bit more.
Speaker 2: And maybe I'll just do a pint and a half
Speaker 2: and or half pine. It's gonna grow because of the tolerance.
Speaker 2: And I remember, you know, back in the day, one
Speaker 2: beer he gets you whoa he tore up from one
Speaker 2: to two beers, Oh my god. And then he can
Speaker 2: handle a whole six fact cool. And then it becomes
Speaker 2: a badge of honor like, oh he can drink a
Speaker 2: whole case bohmself yep.
Speaker 3: And I remember talking to A to a good friend
Speaker 3: of mine. I pretty much call uh, pretty much call
Speaker 3: him you know or pretty much you know, brothers since
Speaker 3: I've known him for I would want to say the
Speaker 3: past fifteen years. And I remember UH having conversations with
Speaker 3: him about you know, about you know, me being an
Speaker 3: alcoholic and everyone and and not just and it wasn't
Speaker 3: just him, but everyone else didn't even think I had
Speaker 3: a had a drinking problem.
Speaker 2: Well am I opinion as a professional radio broadcaster, it's
Speaker 2: it is Okay, it is the alcohol. Yeah, okay, that's
Speaker 2: because it's poison and that's what we turn to. But
Speaker 2: it's the underlying issue, Like this is what I think
Speaker 2: keeps people afraid because they don't want to be labeled alcoholic.
Speaker 2: But everybody has problems some people deal with them in
Speaker 2: different ways. Some people have unhealthy ways but it's not alcohol,
Speaker 2: but it's still unhealthy. You know. They have other different
Speaker 2: outlets that they use. We chose alcohol again for us,
Speaker 2: it made sense easy right down the road. Just need
Speaker 2: some money to buy it. Okay, good, makes it go
Speaker 2: away for now. Okay cool? And I see commercials and
Speaker 2: its accepted. But when you realized that you had a problem,
Speaker 2: was like, oh, going to the hospital. And it's kind
Speaker 2: of like it shouldn't have to get to that level.
Speaker 2: But I think it's we fight so hard against that
Speaker 2: label of being called an alcoholic and being that person
Speaker 2: that has a problem. You know, there's a person in
Speaker 2: my life right now and I wish this person would
Speaker 2: would just listen to me and those chance. About three
Speaker 2: weeks ago, I thought I was going to talk to
Speaker 2: this person. I was going to have this one on
Speaker 2: one where I was going to say, look like, I
Speaker 2: can tell you what's going on, and I'm not, no Tredymus,
Speaker 2: I'm not. I cannot predict the future, but I can
Speaker 2: predict yours. That's what I want to say. You know,
Speaker 2: but it's not because the person's bad person. It's not,
Speaker 2: but I think this person is afraid to like drop
Speaker 2: their guard to go, okay, help me because they don't
Speaker 2: want to be labeled that bad person and they don't
Speaker 2: want people to think bad about them. And it's not
Speaker 2: about that, it's I don't know. It's so frustrating, and
Speaker 2: I can see where my mom was probably like wanting
Speaker 2: to lose her shit. Everybody in my life was probably
Speaker 2: wanting to lose their shit. Is so frustrating, and what
Speaker 2: comes around goes around, you know, Like here I am
Speaker 2: with someone who I love dearly that I just can't
Speaker 2: I don't and I don't know. Just because I helped
Speaker 2: myself and changed my life doesn't mean that I can
Speaker 2: help you or help anybody else. You know, I can
Speaker 2: tell you what worked for me. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 2: so like when family members will look at me and go, well, hey,
Speaker 2: how can you not helping this person, It's like, well,
Speaker 2: he the person never asked me for it. And you know,
Speaker 2: they say that only a person like they saw this
Speaker 2: in AA anyway, like and maybe they say in other
Speaker 2: areas or different avenues too. But I'm the only one
Speaker 2: that can say that I'm an alcoholic. Yeah, now you
Speaker 2: throw a huge question mark up there. I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: what do you mean because your mom obviously knew an
Speaker 2: alcoholic kid. But they say A but as far as
Speaker 2: you getting help, like that's step one. You have to
Speaker 2: admit you have the problem. Yeah, but I think step
Speaker 2: one should be admit that I have trauma that I
Speaker 2: haven't dealt with, and I and to understand that I
Speaker 2: am using the alcohol to help me through it. That's tough,
Speaker 2: especially if you're talking to someone who's currently drinking. That
Speaker 2: is impossible because they're gonna They're gonna do the same
Speaker 2: thing that I did. Probably you did too. Throw the
Speaker 2: double birds up. Don't need you anyway, Go live your life.
Speaker 2: F you see, I got my bottle.
Speaker 3: I always whenever someone told me that I was you know,
Speaker 3: like even like family members told me, you know, yeah
Speaker 3: I was drinking too much, and it was like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm no, I know what my limit is.
Speaker 2: But that was the alcohol that was telling me. Tell
Speaker 2: me that I knew my limit. I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't have a limit, nor did I even know
Speaker 3: I had. You know, there was you know I had
Speaker 3: a limit.
Speaker 2: He was having fun. You having fun? Man, Get off
Speaker 2: my back. Yeah, I was in.
Speaker 3: Going back to talking with a good friend of mine,
Speaker 3: I was u whenever I was talking to him about
Speaker 3: you know, like recovery. Like every once in a while
Speaker 3: he'll talk and say, you know, well, you know how
Speaker 3: you doing, how you're holding up, you know, and he
Speaker 3: and I remember telling him one night, you know, talking
Speaker 3: about my uh time in act in an alcohol addiction.
Speaker 3: I had, uh, I had pretty much didn't really care
Speaker 3: about what people thought of me, because I mean it
Speaker 3: was just like, I mean, oh well, it's it's another day,
Speaker 3: It's another day.
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 3: And I remember telling, telling my telling a good friend
Speaker 3: of mine that I remember back whenever I didn't even know.
Speaker 3: This is before my dad even passed away. So I
Speaker 3: I was, you know, didn't think, you know, didn't think
Speaker 3: nothing about it until un though after I'm getting into
Speaker 3: you know, into recovery. That I would save. There was
Speaker 3: a time where I saved like all my hard liquor bottles,
Speaker 3: whether if it was a pint or a fifth, and
Speaker 3: I put those on a shelf as almost like a like.
Speaker 2: A trophy, like a trophy.
Speaker 3: And I remember telling him, you know, saying that it's
Speaker 3: like before then, I was like, well, I don't know
Speaker 3: if I thought it was like now I now, I
Speaker 3: think that's number one, plain and stupid. It's it's it's
Speaker 3: dumb for someone to do that. But back then it
Speaker 3: was like, you know, I was proud of that, and
Speaker 3: but now it's like, I'm not proud of that at all.
Speaker 3: I mean, and thinking about and I always say it,
Speaker 3: but thinking back, whenever I'm thinking, you know, how far
Speaker 3: in recovery and my sobriety, I look back and think
Speaker 3: about all the times I was I was an alcoholic
Speaker 3: and these situations I put myself in at the time,
Speaker 3: whether if it was you know, I didn't know where
Speaker 3: I was at or I blacked out.
Speaker 2: I think of those times and I use it as
Speaker 2: as fuel to my to my fire to keep going.
Speaker 2: And whenever.
Speaker 3: I think about those, it doesn't it doesn't trigger me.
Speaker 3: It doesn't, it doesn't trigger me at all. It in fact,
Speaker 3: it helps me because it helps me become the newer,
Speaker 3: the better you know, a new person. It gives gives
Speaker 3: me something to well, what like people ask me, what
Speaker 3: could you have done differently with being an alcoholic?
Speaker 2: I mean, God on.
Speaker 3: A street and I just and I talked to my
Speaker 3: therapists about this a couple of weeks ago and he
Speaker 3: asked me a question. I can't remember how he had
Speaker 3: worded it, but he asked me, would you have changed
Speaker 3: anything in your recovery or your sobriety. Would you have
Speaker 3: changed like even back whenever you're an alcoholic, would you
Speaker 3: have changed anything?
Speaker 2: I said absolutely not, And he was.
Speaker 3: Like, like what you even even you still want? I
Speaker 3: was like, well, number one, I didn't know. I mean
Speaker 3: I didn't know I had a drinking problem, that's one thing.
Speaker 3: And maybe this is the path that God wanted me
Speaker 3: to take, because it was either it was either he
Speaker 3: uh puts me through the storm and that or it's
Speaker 3: just it's it was life or death. And I, you know,
Speaker 3: think about how far I've went, and it's just it's
Speaker 3: amazing how far, how far I've came. And they say
Speaker 3: that you know, taking you know, it's just taking that
Speaker 3: first step into recovery.
Speaker 2: It's the greatest feeling in it. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2: God's great And that's the way to handle that man,
Speaker 2: that question, would you change anything? No, because he wouldn't
Speaker 2: be exactly You're right here today, this is exactly where
Speaker 2: you're supposed to be. This where God wanted you today.
Speaker 2: He wanted me here too. And if you change any
Speaker 2: little thing, I'm not going to be married. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna have a kid. You know, like, no, no I will.
Speaker 2: I had to go through that pain to learn at all,
Speaker 2: and I was stubborn. But when we go through those
Speaker 2: things and we learn, yeah, now we know. Now you
Speaker 2: know you have a problem. Now you know the danger
Speaker 2: of alcohol. It's not just oh, go have a beer
Speaker 2: like the commercials on TV. Hey go good down the
Speaker 2: boat and have some fun. No, it's not like that
Speaker 2: for you. For some people. Sure, Travis, he can go out,
Speaker 2: my little brother, he can go out and have a beer.
Speaker 2: He can have two or three. He can go get
Speaker 2: drunk if he wants. But guess what that next morning,
Speaker 2: he's not going to the freezer getting his half gallon out,
Speaker 2: you know, like he'd be like, no, I got shit
Speaker 2: to do, you know. And maybe that's his addiction. I
Speaker 2: think hunting is Travis's addiction. Actually, oh oh, talk to
Speaker 2: him about that one. But I don't think it's addiction.
Speaker 2: I think it's a it's a hobby. I think it's
Speaker 2: anything can become unhealthy. You know, people work out, people
Speaker 2: go to church too much, people do all that. You know,
Speaker 2: there's so many things that people can do too much of.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 2: You just have to kind of know yourself, know your role,
Speaker 2: and just know God's good, yeah, you know, and to
Speaker 2: look at the blessings of life today and the things
Speaker 2: that we have. When when I first brought you, or
Speaker 2: actually justin brought you up here, but when when I
Speaker 2: took you home, you know, like, I mean that was
Speaker 2: probably you were feeling way different when you I really
Speaker 2: was the oling way different. It was like.
Speaker 3: It was whenever I hit like on the way up here,
Speaker 3: it was like I didn't know what to expect.
Speaker 2: Going to rehab, did not expect you know what.
Speaker 3: I was like the holding tank, you know, is it
Speaker 3: is it gonna be? Is it gonna be like prison?
Speaker 2: Is it gonna be?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Is it gonna be? Are they? Are these people going
Speaker 2: to be like like a prison? Like a selling made Yeah,
Speaker 2: And some people in there do have that prison mentality,
Speaker 2: and you have to I mean I don't check them,
Speaker 2: but I'll be like, hey man, you have to live
Speaker 2: that way no more. Yeah, that's a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Will you'll hear that you don't have to live that
Speaker 2: way no more? You know, And that means a lot
Speaker 2: of different things, but that prison mentality sometimes is in there,
Speaker 2: you know, because people do get locked up for drugs,
Speaker 2: and we take people from from jail to treatment a lot,
Speaker 2: and we love it because as a person who was
Speaker 2: locked up, going this is the help I need for
Speaker 2: my mental problem, Like I I need help. And I
Speaker 2: think that's a good thing to get people who are
Speaker 2: locked up for drug charges would be alcohol, meth, whatever,
Speaker 2: and to get them in a place where they can
Speaker 2: help them. I think that's huge for society. For your kid, Yeah,
Speaker 2: your kid, I said, your kid. You're listening right now.
Speaker 2: Your kid, your husband, your wife, your grandma, everybody. We've
Speaker 2: taken eighty I took an eighty five year old over
Speaker 2: to Detroit one time woman then had to go pick
Speaker 2: her up a week later because she had COVID drove
Speaker 2: the wreck as she had COVID in the back seat.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, that's I mean. We've taken many people
Speaker 2: that have full blown COVID right on in the start
Speaker 2: of COVID, you know, and it's just like, oh damn, okay,
Speaker 2: we'll get them there. But I don't even know what
Speaker 2: I was talking about now. That get the old thing yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Life is great though, it's beautiful. And
Speaker 2: I did remember something I was talking about earlier that
Speaker 2: I didn't want to mention before we in the podcast,
Speaker 2: and I was talking about the gamblers and if there's dope,
Speaker 2: you know, the tolerance, and I do remember hearing that
Speaker 2: for them, steaks have to get higher. Yeah you know where,
Speaker 2: Oh this black giant, it's not it's just not good enough.
Speaker 2: I got to go to the other tables where the
Speaker 2: stakes may be higher. Or yeah, this thing. I was
Speaker 2: watching a movie on this stuff. But anyway, it was
Speaker 2: crazy and that they were talking to this one guy
Speaker 2: who was gambling addict and he had he was just
Speaker 2: want nuts and almost blew his whole retirement family all that.
Speaker 2: It's so similar to the to the alcohol person. But
Speaker 2: then he got his stuff together and become an alcoholic.
Speaker 2: That's what he said. Just like that. He was like,
Speaker 2: got my stuff together. I wasn't gambling no more, but
Speaker 2: I substituted. He turned to drinking, and then he went
Speaker 2: back to gambling, and now he was gambling and drinking,
Speaker 2: and so he's like that was even worse, you know,
Speaker 2: but he ended up he had when he did the
Speaker 2: movie or whatever. He had five years cleaned from everything,
Speaker 2: so that was good. But like, you gotta be careful
Speaker 2: of the substitutions. And oh, I'll just do this, so
Speaker 2: I'll just smoke pot. People have said that, and it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: well I can't smoke pott it because I tried that
Speaker 2: method too. I'll just smoke pot and let me right
Speaker 2: back to alcohol. Oh yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: And that's another that was another thing too, And I'm
Speaker 3: glad you brought that up because I had someone had
Speaker 3: asked me to even whenever I got out of the hospital,
Speaker 3: because you know, I smoked weed too. I mean I
Speaker 3: whenever I first started. I was a straight up pothead, really,
Speaker 3: I mean and whenever, and I still was a pothead,
Speaker 3: but not like I wasn't like, you know, oh, let
Speaker 3: me go, you know, smoke, smoke four or five bunths
Speaker 3: or how or however I chose to do it. And
Speaker 3: I remember getting out of the hospital and whenever I said,
Speaker 3: you know, I can't. I can't drink no more, No,
Speaker 3: absolutely not. And someone had asked me, well, are you
Speaker 3: still going to smoke weed?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Why would I? And I always and I said, because
Speaker 3: it's like and I think about it back whenever I
Speaker 3: was an alcoholic, that whenever I would smoke weed and drink,
Speaker 3: smoking weed actually made me want to drink more.
Speaker 2: So It's like, well, would.
Speaker 3: I if I, you know, take a hit off of
Speaker 3: a half of a joint after being sober for nine months?
Speaker 3: Is it going to trigger me into going to the
Speaker 3: liquor store while I'm up in Traverse City to go to.
Speaker 2: Go get a bottle? Nobody will know? Yeah, yeah, nobody, Yeah,
Speaker 2: nobody will know.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: One doesn't know me up here. And that was enough.
Speaker 3: I thought that I was sinking on the way up here,
Speaker 3: was like, well, I mean, yeah, I'm I'm up here.
Speaker 3: I can you know. I could drink if I wanted to,
Speaker 3: But I'm not going to because why would I go
Speaker 3: back to the to to this same broken cycle that
Speaker 3: I've already been in. And I already know what's going
Speaker 3: to happen if I keep drinking. Because there, like I said,
Speaker 3: there was there was no there was no limit for me,
Speaker 3: and they always and I've learned that. And I've seen
Speaker 3: a quote on Facebook, because I follow all these recovery
Speaker 3: addiction groups, and I've seen one on there, a quote
Speaker 3: on there. It says, the man takes the drink, their
Speaker 3: drink takes the drink, and then the drinks take the man.
Speaker 3: And I think about that, and it was, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: I take one drink, and then that first drink could
Speaker 3: make me want to take, you know, another drink, and
Speaker 3: then before you know it, the drinks have already taken me,
Speaker 3: taken my life, taken, taken every bit of everything I have.
Speaker 3: And for what recovery has given me back, it's given
Speaker 3: me back weight, so much more than what alcohol was
Speaker 3: giving me giving me. And it was, you know, it's
Speaker 3: a bit, it's it's man, it's such a good feeling
Speaker 3: because you can't it's like you know how you think
Speaker 3: of uh, you know how you think of like many
Speaker 3: feel so good but you don't know like why, But
Speaker 3: I mean, with being in recovery, it's like I feel
Speaker 3: so good. It's just I don't know if it's just
Speaker 3: because I've been in recovery for so long, or if
Speaker 3: it's like you know, I know, I know, I don't
Speaker 3: have that urge to drink anymore. And a couple of months,
Speaker 3: it was a couple it was, I want to say,
Speaker 3: maybe a couple of weeks ago, I went to the
Speaker 3: store after going to the gym, just you know, to
Speaker 3: UH to get groceries, and I was going by the
Speaker 3: UH by the alcohol liquor section, and I looked and
Speaker 3: it was like, you know, the more that I get
Speaker 3: further into recovery and think about my sobriety and how
Speaker 3: far I came, the less appealing that alcohol section is
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 2: I used to get sick. I like, I almost vomit
Speaker 2: when I would see it just a thought because it
Speaker 2: was that very bottom shelf vodka that I just think,
Speaker 2: I don't even to think about it because it makes
Speaker 2: me want to puke. Yeah. So yeah, like just seeing that,
Speaker 2: you know, it's not fun and that brings back bad times.
Speaker 2: And the reason why I think we appreciate life so
Speaker 2: much is because we we went through the dark, and
Speaker 2: you have to go through the dark to appreciate that light,
Speaker 2: you know, like people that didn't go through the struggles
Speaker 2: we went through. And there are people that went through
Speaker 2: million times as the struggles that we went through and
Speaker 2: that see the light even brighter than we do. So
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that, hey, we're the greatest people ever
Speaker 2: because we used to be alcoholics. I'm not saying that,
Speaker 2: But I'm saying we went through very dark times in
Speaker 2: our lives, times that we thought we probably would never
Speaker 2: get out of, and we did. And now we got
Speaker 2: out and we have changed our lives and we are
Speaker 2: living better and life is happening to like real life
Speaker 2: is happening to us now and we appreciate it. And
Speaker 2: it scares me. There's a lot of things that scared
Speaker 2: me about it because I know how much I have
Speaker 2: to lose now, you know. And yeah, but it's a
Speaker 2: great feeling, like we could go to the bar right
Speaker 2: now and go in there and just get people help,
Speaker 2: Like wouldn't that be fun? Oh yeah, Like I mean,
Speaker 2: I want to help everybody, anybody. Like there's people I
Speaker 2: see walking on the street sometimes I'm like, man, I
Speaker 2: should stop and get that guy some help, because I
Speaker 2: want everybody to feel this, and especially when it comes
Speaker 2: to people that I know, and people from water vel
Speaker 2: Eat and Coloma and Hartford will reach out to you
Speaker 2: because you're posting that stuff. And there was a guy,
Speaker 2: Jason Voter. I saw him and I remember I was
Speaker 2: driving home from Grand rap As after I took someone
Speaker 2: to treatment that it had nothing to do with too
Speaker 2: seven I mean that was in my active addiction back then,
Speaker 2: and I saw him post on Facebook. I was driving
Speaker 2: and I'm looking at my phone and he had posted
Speaker 2: that he had so many days sober, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: lucky bastard. I remember thinking of that. But we ended
Speaker 2: up talking and he's been on the podcast a few times,
Speaker 2: but I think he's got it like nine years now. Wow.
Speaker 2: But but it's crazy because I reached out to him later.
Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't for help, but but it was
Speaker 2: to tell him that his message that I saw that
Speaker 2: day didn't it did impact me, you know, so all
Speaker 2: those people that whatever, dude like I'm following me then
Speaker 2: like I don't care, Like that's what and yeah, and
Speaker 2: it was whenever people say that, and you never know
Speaker 2: who's going to see it. Yeah, you never know who's
Speaker 2: going to see it. And it's like it might be someone.
Speaker 3: That has that has a problem that sees it and
Speaker 3: they're like, I'm out alone.
Speaker 2: I'm not alone.
Speaker 3: And I might have and I've had might have had
Speaker 3: one per I've had some people asked me, well, where'd
Speaker 3: you go to rehab at? And I I tell him,
Speaker 3: I went up to Traverse City and I I and
Speaker 3: they said, well, what made you go up there? And
Speaker 3: it's like, because I wanted to you know, I needed
Speaker 3: first and foremost I wanted I didn't want no one
Speaker 3: to know me.
Speaker 2: Pretty much like you said.
Speaker 3: And then it was like I needed to break from
Speaker 3: Southwest Michigan. And they in they had told me, you know,
Speaker 3: asked me like you know, then people and then there's
Speaker 3: other people ask me, well, what made you want to
Speaker 3: get sober? Because I wanted to have a life. I
Speaker 3: didn't have a life whenever I was whenever I was drinking,
Speaker 3: and I thought, I mean, and that's the crazy thing
Speaker 3: with alcohol is that you know, it makes you think
Speaker 3: all these things, but it's not it's not, you know,
Speaker 3: not necessarily true. Like it makes you think, oh, well,
Speaker 3: you're capable of doing that and anything and everything, and
Speaker 3: you can do this or you can have a good life. No,
Speaker 3: you can't have a good life, especially whenever you don't
Speaker 3: know that you don't know your limit. And I and
Speaker 3: I've said this to people, and it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: there are some people out there that need help and recovery,
Speaker 3: need the help and the recovery like like like how
Speaker 3: I needed it, And it's not for those that need it.
Speaker 3: It's for those that want it. Yeah, Like I can
Speaker 3: tell someone you know off the streets like, hey, you
Speaker 3: you need help. You need you have a serious struck
Speaker 3: problem or a serious alcohol problem. You need to go
Speaker 3: get help. I can't make that person go get help.
Speaker 3: They have to want it first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he may not even know he has a problem. Yes,
Speaker 2: that you know. And if you don't want it, if
Speaker 2: you don't think it's a problem in your life and
Speaker 2: it's telling you it's not, then who are you to
Speaker 2: tell somebody? And that's that's what makes it so hard,
Speaker 2: you know, when you're when people do reach out, then
Speaker 2: it makes it easier because heyt listay're asking for help,
Speaker 2: But that those other ones you don't know who's going
Speaker 2: to see it, and you don't know it could be
Speaker 2: ten thousand people. I think it's wasted time and it's stupid.
Speaker 2: But that one person that sees it, you know, that's
Speaker 2: what it's for. And yeah, you're you're just showing off
Speaker 2: what you're you're living life, man, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: life's been and life's been Like like I've always said,
Speaker 2: life's been been beautiful.
Speaker 3: It's it's more I appreciate it more now than I
Speaker 3: did back then, because I I easily could have not
Speaker 3: have went to the hospital. I mean I could have
Speaker 3: easily not went to the hospital and gotten the help
Speaker 3: and found out you know, oh, well you have alcohol.
Speaker 3: You have thorrosis of the liver from heavy alcohol usage.
Speaker 3: And then I remember, I remember a couple couple months
Speaker 3: after getting out of the hospital or not hospitals to
Speaker 3: say I rehab I had uh hadn't had an inset.
Speaker 3: And this is what scared you know, scares me, you know,
Speaker 3: scares me makes me want to do more, do more
Speaker 3: as far as getting staying sober, is you know, because
Speaker 3: of my health, Like my health has been one of
Speaker 3: the number one things that gives me. The anxiety, the
Speaker 3: depression that I've been been you know, fighting and going through.
Speaker 3: And a couple of months, you know, back in April,
Speaker 3: I had an incidant where I just you know started
Speaker 3: you know, not to get you know, too descriptive, but
Speaker 3: you know I started getting you know, start throwing thrown
Speaker 3: up blood and went to the hospital and they and
Speaker 3: they said that you know, my with having I guess
Speaker 3: they said that with uh, with having the uh, the cirrhosis.
Speaker 3: It leads to like the esophageal verses like in u esophagus.
Speaker 3: And I was at grade two and they said that
Speaker 3: if I and one of them was pretty much about
Speaker 3: the rupture and meaning that it was, you know, I
Speaker 3: could have I could have bled out in my sleep.
Speaker 2: Family could have bled out in my sleep. And they
Speaker 2: had said, you know, you know, you probably would have
Speaker 2: bled out your sleep and most likely could have died.
Speaker 2: That's that was one thing that scared me. And then
Speaker 2: as a matter of fact, and then just.
Speaker 3: Before that March, I went to seeing a liver transplant
Speaker 3: clinic up in Grand Rapids just to talk a little
Speaker 3: bit more about my liver. And they said, had you have,
Speaker 3: you know, not stopped, you would you would have needed
Speaker 3: a liver transplant to have any chance of survival. And
Speaker 3: they talked about the scoring chart with liver disease and
Speaker 3: they and with being you know, six being the lowest,
Speaker 3: forty being the highest, you know, and then between fifteen
Speaker 3: and forty would put you on the list for a transplant.
Speaker 3: I was out of twenty five back then, and they
Speaker 3: said that you most likely wouldn't need to have a
Speaker 3: transplant back then. But then they said, well, you know,
Speaker 3: with your with staying sobers, you know, staying active, keeping
Speaker 3: your body healthy. You're now back down two and eleven.
Speaker 3: And that was and that was like one of the
Speaker 3: a good feeling, but it also still scared me because
Speaker 3: it's like a transplant and I've looked, you know, I honestly,
Speaker 3: I honestly looked up on YouTube about a transplant. I
Speaker 3: was like, oh shoot, I was like, I yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: And then just a couple of weeks ago, I went
Speaker 3: to go see a cardiologist and they and they're just
Speaker 3: you know, talking about my heart and they they I
Speaker 3: can't remember the exact name of what it is, but
Speaker 3: they asked me, well, when did you start having these
Speaker 3: symptoms or when did you start going to the hospital
Speaker 3: for your cirrhosis as I went back in November, and
Speaker 3: they said, had you not went, then you most likely
Speaker 3: would have been in heart failure right now and you
Speaker 3: potentially could have been dead or be dying. And I
Speaker 3: and that's still, like I said, the health, My health
Speaker 3: has been the number one thing that scares me to
Speaker 3: death almost every single day because it's like I don't
Speaker 3: know if I'm going to you know, if I'm going
Speaker 3: to survive That's why I'm so more passionate every day
Speaker 3: about you know, staying sober and making all the you know,
Speaker 3: all the posts I make about you know, recovery is possible,
Speaker 3: and I want people to know that it's possible. It's
Speaker 3: just all about changing your whole perspective on life and
Speaker 3: taking that first step forward, because I'd much rather have
Speaker 3: the worst sober day than the best drunk night.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, or worst sober day is way better. Yes.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you, man, it's great to see again
Speaker 2: you've lost a lot of way you're you're doing things.
Speaker 2: And that's the other thing too.
Speaker 3: Like everyone's like it's funny because I, uh just the
Speaker 3: day before I came up here, I uh went to
Speaker 3: uh went to the gas station to get fill my
Speaker 3: fill the car up before heading up here. And it
Speaker 3: was a gas station where I always I say my
Speaker 3: go to gas station because that's where I went to
Speaker 3: go get my alcohol. And the gentleman was.
Speaker 2: Like, is that you. I was like, yeah, that yeah,
Speaker 2: it's me. He's like, you look good. You lost the way.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, man, I had to quit drinking.
Speaker 2: It's either I quit drinking or I was gonna die. Yeah.
Speaker 2: People don't. People don't. I guess some people realize, but
Speaker 2: it really swells your face up. Oh, it does big time.
Speaker 3: And I mean even posting like like before and after
Speaker 3: photos of like before photos of whenever I was and
Speaker 3: you know, an alcoholic to me now, it's like people
Speaker 3: they're like, I can hardly recognize you. And as a
Speaker 3: matter of fact, the whenever I went up and visited
Speaker 3: the uh the facility I was in, I actually stopped
Speaker 3: there yesterday and I'm gonna stop back over there again
Speaker 3: later today. And uh, yesterday I stopped there, talked to
Speaker 3: one of the navigators and he didn't He hardly recognized
Speaker 3: me until I started, you know, I started talking to
Speaker 3: and he's like, I thought that was you. You look
Speaker 3: amazing you. You look so much healthier. And he even
Speaker 3: said that you look way better now and you did
Speaker 3: whenever you first were in treatment. Yeah, And it was
Speaker 3: like it was like, yeah, man, I'm just taking care
Speaker 3: of myself, taking care of you know what's most important
Speaker 3: to me now and that's life.
Speaker 2: Well, you keep on doing that, and I don't know,
Speaker 2: next time when you come up you have to pop
Speaker 2: in do another podcast. Okay, this on your goals and
Speaker 2: your dreams and your visions and we'll do all that
Speaker 2: stuff next time, but do this good scene. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: glad that you came back. And yeah, it's fun. I
Speaker 2: love it when people get it and you can have
Speaker 2: that same feeling of like.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's always amazing to talk to somebody who had
Speaker 3: the same struggles as you, because it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: you could have been you could benefit from something that
Speaker 3: I say, or I can benefit something from what you said,
Speaker 3: and it's just it's you know, it's just amazing talking to,
Speaker 3: you know, to other recovering alcoholics, because it's like you
Speaker 3: never know what you say might be their survival guide.
Speaker 3: And that's how I always say, is that, you know,
Speaker 3: first year of sobriety and recovery is all about survival.
Speaker 2: Man, Yeah it is. You got too. But I'm proud
Speaker 2: of you, man, and I appreciate you coming to see
Speaker 2: me and there showing on the podcast. Yeah, thanks, it
Speaker 2: is awesome. Appreciate you well. Thanks and be in touch
Speaker 2: and we'll do part two next time. Oh yeah, it's
Speaker 2: part two.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the two seventeen Recovery podcast. Listen
Speaker 1: to over nine hundred episodes on the two seventeen recovery
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Speaker 1: two seventeen recovery dot com.