Speaker 1: This is the audio from Recovery Stories Message of Hope,
Speaker 1: Part four, recorded on October seventeenth, twenty twenty four the
Speaker 1: Travels City Mission. Here's Chris Goss with this Message of Hope.
Speaker 2: Good evening, How are you doing?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: Real, real quick question?
Speaker 3: Who in here is a drug addict or alcoholic or
Speaker 3: in recovery or person in recovery whatever you like to
Speaker 3: fucking call it? Okay, cool, glad you're here. Thanks for
Speaker 3: coming real quick. My name is Chris, and a real
Speaker 3: quick backstory. I used to love to shoot drugs and drink.
Speaker 3: So now you know who I am. Now I'm gonna
Speaker 3: say it like i'd say in my home group. You know,
Speaker 3: you know my name is Chris, and you know who
Speaker 3: I am because I know you you know me. We
Speaker 3: got the same kind of story, just a different ship
Speaker 3: in the same same motion. You know.
Speaker 2: It was Oh, real.
Speaker 3: Quick, there's gonna be some swearing, all right, and it's
Speaker 3: like you're seeing the movie over the top when Hawk
Speaker 3: turns his hat around and it turns it on.
Speaker 2: And things are gonna get fun and serious.
Speaker 3: Well the hat just got turned around, so here we go,
Speaker 3: all right, so check it out. Like I said, I'm
Speaker 3: forty four years old. I could claim I'm twenty three.
Speaker 3: Most people confuse me for a young guy. But the
Speaker 3: best you know what it is is it's like, so
Speaker 3: I'm the third child. I'm an entitled kid. I guess
Speaker 3: you could say live. So I was born in Detroit
Speaker 3: and my parents my dad got moved to the air
Speaker 3: base in Battle Creek. He's an air aircraft mechanic. So again,
Speaker 3: the third child. My brother's a cop in cold Water.
Speaker 3: My sister's a mother of a child I had. I
Speaker 3: was the youngest. I had two sons, my sister has
Speaker 3: a son, my brother has two sons. And there's you know,
Speaker 3: so I was the funkal turns out I was the drunkel.
Speaker 3: But you know what it happens. So I'd only have
Speaker 3: I think a half hour. I couldn't milk it a
Speaker 3: little bit. I'm not a very good public speaker, but
Speaker 3: a guy can I fucking speak in public? So, you know,
Speaker 3: it starts off like the age of thirteen, you know,
Speaker 3: you start taking pharmaceutic, you start drinking the party to
Speaker 3: be cool. So from the age of thirteen to probably
Speaker 3: thirty five, my middle name was xanax uh, So you know,
Speaker 3: and then you know, oh, I'll never do acid. I
Speaker 3: did that when you all never and I'll never shoot heroin. Well,
Speaker 3: I became pretty good. There's a commercial back in the
Speaker 3: eighties nobody wants to be a junkie when you grow up.
Speaker 3: I became very good and I succeeded at that one.
Speaker 3: So then you know, in the meetings, we got jail's institutions,
Speaker 3: and death got the T shirt, been there, and I'll
Speaker 3: be damned if I didn't die a few times too.
Speaker 3: So it's just like, you know, the whole gamut of
Speaker 3: things that you go through, the things that I went through,
Speaker 3: the things that we all went through. Excuse me, you
Speaker 3: get a little parched up here, water boy? Can I
Speaker 3: get one? You know? So basically how things work out,
Speaker 3: as you know, you start off party and you want
Speaker 3: to be the cool guy. Uh, and so I'm the youngest,
Speaker 3: and the way it works out for me is my
Speaker 3: mom could never tell me no, So you know, it's
Speaker 3: you know, it all just starts off with.
Speaker 2: You know, the youngest.
Speaker 3: And now I was a heavy set kid, and it
Speaker 3: turns out when you quit shooting hair and you get
Speaker 3: a little fatter again too, but you become comfortable you
Speaker 3: use humor, you start to fucking defend yourself. So I
Speaker 3: mean I could sit here for hours and tell you
Speaker 3: what not to do. I think we all could see
Speaker 3: what what what can I get after? You know that's
Speaker 3: really gonna grab you by the booble and let you
Speaker 3: know what happened to me the worst? Well, they say
Speaker 3: rock bottom is a spot where you hit your lowest point.
Speaker 3: Well I went to rock bottom quite a few times.
Speaker 3: One particular time I had TNT and blew right through
Speaker 3: the fucking bottom and kept fucking going.
Speaker 2: Uh So, where do I want to start?
Speaker 3: And there was that one, and then there was that one,
Speaker 3: and then there was that one. Uh So you know
Speaker 3: when when people are using drugs and you're around somebody
Speaker 3: and you're doing drugs with them, and they've done too
Speaker 3: many drugs and.
Speaker 2: They don't make it.
Speaker 3: Uh, what is a normal person's first reaction, call nine
Speaker 3: one one, trying to save this person. Well I was
Speaker 3: more occupied by still getting high. So what had happened
Speaker 3: was this guy had died and I didn't do a
Speaker 3: fucking thing about it, and I ended up going to jail.
Speaker 2: And uh, this is another part of the story, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean?
Speaker 3: This this is the depth it took me to These
Speaker 3: drugs and alcohol had me by such a stronghold that
Speaker 3: this other person that you know, I only knew him
Speaker 3: for a few days. I rationalized it forever, but then
Speaker 3: I found out that it's you know, that's his story,
Speaker 3: and his story ended. And so why I'm standing here
Speaker 3: today is because my story continued. It's not the best
Speaker 3: thing that happened in my life, but life keeps moving on.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's when you meet people in rehabs.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: First of all, I'd like to thank my friends in
Speaker 3: the back that came to visit and came to support me.
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 3: My home group. I have a guy that I knew
Speaker 3: in home, you know, in the county jail. And then
Speaker 3: there's a special woman who's in the audience who we
Speaker 3: share a home together.
Speaker 2: So I mean, these are all and you.
Speaker 3: You get to know these people, and these are the
Speaker 3: people that want to see me succeed. They don't care
Speaker 3: that I just caught some dope or I got some booze.
Speaker 3: They don't want to see me do that. They want
Speaker 3: to see you do better. So they're they're to support
Speaker 3: for they're sort to help. And then you know, life
Speaker 3: today for me is good. I wake up at five
Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning, I take my daughter, my son's
Speaker 3: uh twenty one and eighteen are my oldest, and then
Speaker 3: my youngest kid.
Speaker 2: Is three, so it's to be huge gap, huge gap.
Speaker 3: So I'm in and all in that time. You know, life,
Speaker 3: life kept life in me. And you know what I
Speaker 3: learned to do best was to get high and drink.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I gotta try and keep it.
Speaker 2: They say, it's a message of hope.
Speaker 3: So I don't want to relive on too much or
Speaker 3: the old fucking you know, copping dopes, going and getting
Speaker 3: high and all the things that you used to fucking do,
Speaker 3: because we've all done it.
Speaker 2: We've all been there.
Speaker 3: And like I said, it's just we're in different ships,
Speaker 3: some bigger, some smaller, with the same rocky, crazy ocean.
Speaker 3: And uh you know, at some point somebody threw me
Speaker 3: a life ring. And you know, this is where I
Speaker 3: met a lot of people. And you know, some people
Speaker 3: that I met in treatment I used with. So you
Speaker 3: have to kind of pick and choose who you want
Speaker 3: to be around. And uh so I met this Cory Wintfield,
Speaker 3: a guy, and he's like I'm gonna start a podcast.
Speaker 3: The room woman is two seventeen, and so I've seen
Speaker 3: this guy actually do his thing, and he was out
Speaker 3: and he always kept trying. You know, you got it,
Speaker 3: and he's like, well, you'll do it on you know,
Speaker 3: you'll figure it out.
Speaker 2: You'll figure it out.
Speaker 3: And uh, let's say, nine hundred and fifty eight days
Speaker 3: ago was the last time I picked.
Speaker 2: Up a drink or drugs. So that's like years, seven months.
Speaker 3: I used to be that guys that I don't count days,
Speaker 3: so we'll make them fucking count. So for the past
Speaker 3: nine and fifty eight days, I've made every fucking day
Speaker 3: that I have count.
Speaker 2: Ain't that the truth? Uh?
Speaker 3: So you know, then, when when when I finally moved
Speaker 3: into a sober house that wasn't in Battle Creek if
Speaker 3: you if you knew about Battle Creek, you heard war
Speaker 3: stories about Battle Creek. Wonderful town if you know the
Speaker 3: right people. Terrible place if you're a guy like me.
Speaker 3: So I moved up to Boyne's City, Okay, I called
Speaker 3: it a piece of shit town for the first I
Speaker 3: couldn't tell you how long it was because I didn't.
Speaker 3: I wasn't ready then because then when I moved, moved
Speaker 3: into a sober house. We're gonna do what everything that
Speaker 3: you called the next step, I called it the next stumble.
Speaker 3: August first, I'm closing the place. In the thirty days.
Speaker 3: You got to find somewhere to go. So, you know,
Speaker 3: just like I had a recovery coach who called me
Speaker 3: said he was gonna kill himself, I had another person
Speaker 3: offer me drugs as a sponsor in Battle Creek, and
Speaker 3: uh so, you know, I moved to Boyne City.
Speaker 2: We move into this sober house.
Speaker 3: And if you go back to the very beginning of
Speaker 3: the two seventeen Recovery podcast, you'll probably hear about sexual
Speaker 3: relations or you'll hear any of these other things. You know,
Speaker 3: because I was on part of that podcast. It was
Speaker 3: a very point in time in my life. But then
Speaker 3: once I got you know, left the sober house, I
Speaker 3: was Northern Michigan, sober, smoking, reefer and drinking because by god,
Speaker 3: you can buy it in a store.
Speaker 2: I think there's one down the road. I'm not from
Speaker 2: this town, but you.
Speaker 3: Know, it's uh, this is the craziest part about life today,
Speaker 3: you know, is all these things. And I always told myself,
Speaker 3: if I I'll just smoke weed. I'll just smoke weed.
Speaker 2: Now, you know what. This weed wasn't good enough.
Speaker 3: So then this to the time that I'm living Northern
Speaker 3: Michigan sober. I have my own apartment, I have my
Speaker 3: own car, things that I haven't had in quite a while.
Speaker 3: Iss to you know, Uh, I get news that my
Speaker 3: father passed away, and so I'm not allowed to smoke
Speaker 3: in here, am I Okay, I'll just wait.
Speaker 2: So, you know.
Speaker 3: So the only way I could actually deal with my
Speaker 3: dad's death at the time, no matter how much, no
Speaker 3: matter how much I put in that needle, no matter
Speaker 3: how much I drank, my father was still in Fort
Speaker 3: Custard National Cemetery.
Speaker 2: So that didn't work.
Speaker 3: And I promised myself, if I got to feel the pot,
Speaker 3: you know, I'll just smoke pot. Bullshit because I did
Speaker 3: that one thing that made me feel really really good
Speaker 3: and drown out the emotions and the things that I
Speaker 3: never wanted to feel. So I just knew that one
Speaker 3: thing that was always gonna make everything better, and it
Speaker 3: turned out it didn't do well for me. So after
Speaker 3: this relapse began, they found me on the side of
Speaker 3: the road and my boss's van unresponsive. After I had
Speaker 3: been driving back from wherever I was because I just
Speaker 3: got my giddy up to get my ducks in a
Speaker 3: row and I couldn't wait to get home to do
Speaker 3: it because I needed and I need it now.
Speaker 2: JG Wentworth, thank you.
Speaker 3: So you know, all the times that I've been in
Speaker 3: trouble before, all the you know times that I was
Speaker 3: forced into treatment, all the times that I had to
Speaker 3: go do it, I never did it for myself. So
Speaker 3: I uh after, you know, so you get put on bond, well,
Speaker 3: I guess that they give you PBTs and you know,
Speaker 3: are you drug screens when you're on bond? So they
Speaker 3: don't like it when you drop dirty or blow hot
Speaker 3: and you know, so here I am, I get it.
Speaker 2: They let me out.
Speaker 3: It's four o'clock in the morning in Antrim County, and
Speaker 3: I'm from Battle Creek, where you can just get out
Speaker 3: of jail, go across the street and go to the
Speaker 3: liquor store and cop some dope. I'm in the middle
Speaker 3: of fucking nowhere, four o'clock in the morning, with no shoelaces,
Speaker 3: a tank top, a pair of shorts, and my sunglasses
Speaker 3: and everything else was in the van. So I called
Speaker 3: somebody that I knew, and she came and picked me
Speaker 3: up four point thirty in the morning in Antrim County.
Speaker 2: She lived in Boyne. So this time the judge is like,
Speaker 2: you need to do.
Speaker 3: Some things, and you know, so here I am the
Speaker 3: you know, blowing at eight o'clock in the morning, grabbing
Speaker 3: my juice.
Speaker 2: Didn't go to work, and then I got to drink.
Speaker 3: Until seven o'clock because I got to get it all
Speaker 3: in before I got to stop and figure out when
Speaker 3: I you know, I've not been enough time to.
Speaker 2: Get in the next one.
Speaker 3: So finally I bumped into somebody i'd met in rehab before.
Speaker 3: Well you know, oh, the the the world Wide Web,
Speaker 3: the Internet. You know, you come across somebody you meet
Speaker 3: that you knew, and well she was on parole because
Speaker 3: she just got out of prison.
Speaker 2: So this is gonna be great, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And uh, the funny part is, so far everything has
Speaker 3: been great because people can change, and you know, unfortunately
Speaker 3: we lost her father and it was because of alcohol.
Speaker 3: And I looked at her one day and I said,
Speaker 3: I don't want to fucking be like that. She said,
Speaker 3: well then quick drinking motherfucker. I kind of hurt a
Speaker 3: little bit, and you know it's so here's the message part,
Speaker 3: all the past, all the bullshit. She drugged me to
Speaker 3: meetings as I'm drunk, got to get my sheet signed,
Speaker 3: and then you meet people. No buddy Rob was the
Speaker 3: first one I met, and he, you know, he's these
Speaker 3: positive people in your life. So I keep going back
Speaker 3: to these meetings because they say, keep coming back.
Speaker 2: Battle Creek told me to get the fuck out these meetings.
Speaker 2: They tell you keep coming back, we want to see
Speaker 2: you do better.
Speaker 3: Keep coming back. So then finally I went and bought
Speaker 3: a pill. They didn't do anything but keep me, you know,
Speaker 3: from getting deadly sick while drinking.
Speaker 2: Because I'm not a huge matt.
Speaker 3: I think they call him medically his sister treatment person
Speaker 3: because I can find a way to fucking abuse anything.
Speaker 3: But at this time, I took this an abuse pill
Speaker 3: so I wouldn't drink. And you know, here's where the
Speaker 3: road to recovery starts. Because everything that I had tried
Speaker 3: before it didn't work. Because you know why, it's what
Speaker 3: I wanted to do. It's how I chose to live
Speaker 3: my life. It's how it was gonna. I was gonna
Speaker 3: fix my problem. I was, well, it turns out that
Speaker 3: I fucked ship up. So I keep going to these meetings.
Speaker 3: They keep telling me to come back meet these positive
Speaker 3: people that come here, that that supports you. You got
Speaker 3: positive people inviting you to come to produce me. I've
Speaker 3: been sober for two years and nobody's ever asked me
Speaker 3: to talk in front of people. I think it's either
Speaker 3: number one, because I'm gonna sit there and tell you
Speaker 3: how bad it was, to the point where you just
Speaker 3: might go, ah, but how bad? Sorry, rough crowd, Okay, uh,
Speaker 3: but I mean how bad, dude? How bad did I
Speaker 3: want to get high in the past? Really fucking bad?
Speaker 3: But how bad do I want to be sober today?
Speaker 3: Even more so I get to wake up in the morning,
Speaker 3: I get to go. I'm unofficial official number two on
Speaker 3: the glass line at Wodron Window and Door Corporation, means
Speaker 3: that I'm number two in charge. I like to make
Speaker 3: things sound better because it sounds better when you're sober.
Speaker 2: All the things that I did, all.
Speaker 3: The pot that I smoked, all the drugs that I did,
Speaker 3: all this stuff that I did that led me to
Speaker 3: where I am today. You know, you go to you
Speaker 3: get arrested, then you know you didn't die. Oh thank god.
Speaker 3: I always said that a lot, but I never really
Speaker 3: believed in a higher power. And then tell I went
Speaker 3: into a church one day and I was like, all right, man,
Speaker 3: show me something. And all these coincidences that were happened
Speaker 3: in my life, there weren't coincidences. There was my higher
Speaker 3: power that kept me alive to understand that I had
Speaker 3: something to do. I always to pray men, Hey, I
Speaker 3: don't know all my purposes, but fucking hurry up and
Speaker 3: tell me. I found out that it's in his time.
Speaker 3: Everything that I did up until that point. He kept
Speaker 3: me around to uh maybe talk to you guys, maybe
Speaker 3: to give a message of hope, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: being able to come up here and kind of uh
Speaker 3: ramble on for a little bit with a fucking dry mouth,
Speaker 3: cotton mouth. Want to smoke a cigarette? You know, that's
Speaker 3: the one advice I have, because Philip Morris likes me
Speaker 3: more than I'll keep going.
Speaker 2: But it's just gonna go over your heads.
Speaker 3: You know. I was sponsored by Marlboro when I was
Speaker 3: on the podcast, but they never gave me any cigarettes.
Speaker 3: You knows all the things that I did in my
Speaker 3: therapist that I used to go to. I called her
Speaker 3: doctor angel face until I got a seven hundred dollar bill.
Speaker 3: You know, she said, make sure you emphasize the fact
Speaker 3: that even smoking pot, I can't do it. I can't
Speaker 3: drink a little bit because if I drink a little bit,
Speaker 3: I drink too much. If I shoot a little bit,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna shoot too much. I can't even smoke a
Speaker 3: little bit of reefer today. I'm alright with that. I
Speaker 3: accepted the fact that I cannot put anything into my
Speaker 3: body to change the way that I am. Anything that
Speaker 3: changes this mindset. Even a little caffeine gets me jacked
Speaker 3: up a little too much. If I have an energy drink,
Speaker 3: I get cut off halfway through because she takes the
Speaker 3: can from me. So it's like, I'm grateful to be
Speaker 3: alive because I finally found a higher power. My higher
Speaker 3: power kept me alive to tell this story. And uh,
Speaker 3: you know, life's good today. No, no, it's not fucking perfect.
Speaker 3: Sometimes my shoelace comes undone in a public restroom.
Speaker 2: That sucks. That sucks.
Speaker 3: You know what you gotta do is just tie and
Speaker 3: wash your hands. So, like, you know, I'm grateful to
Speaker 3: be alive. I'm grateful to come up here and talk
Speaker 3: to you guys. Didn't win anything, but you know what,
Speaker 3: I got to enjoy a nice, complimentary meal. I was
Speaker 3: invited to here and offered a free meal and the
Speaker 3: opportunity to spread a.
Speaker 2: Message of hope. And uh, I hope what I said.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like, I'm sure it's sunk in because you
Speaker 3: guys wouldn't be here if you didn't want to hear
Speaker 3: what the fuck I had to say. And there's other
Speaker 3: people here too. It's not just about me. Imagine that.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like I got good people.
Speaker 3: In my my, my mom. Actually, you know, call, we call,
Speaker 3: we talked.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: This is the woman who once told me she's like,
Speaker 3: I love you, but I'm not gonna love you to death.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna hold your hand into the grave. Don't worry, mom,
Speaker 3: I just gotta move back. And got kicked out of
Speaker 3: a sober house. I'll be out in a couple of days.
Speaker 3: Six months later, you know, I'm overdosed. Six months later,
Speaker 3: I'm stealing two thousand dollars. I have to just bond
Speaker 3: me out of jail. I became a very good criminal,
Speaker 3: but today I'm not just like you know, my name
Speaker 3: is Chris, I'm a drugadtic, alcoholic. But I'm not that
Speaker 3: guy today because I have a higher power, because I
Speaker 3: choose to talk to people, and I, you know, I
Speaker 3: get that I don't I don't have to talk to people.
Speaker 3: I get to do the things I do. It's all
Speaker 3: about perceptions, all about how you see things. It's all
Speaker 3: about how you see your life. I did see myself
Speaker 3: as a worthless piece of shit.
Speaker 2: Now I'm now. Now I'm a pretty decent.
Speaker 3: Guy, good enough to where people will fucking come watch
Speaker 3: me and drive, you know, a few hours, an hour
Speaker 3: and a half. Charlav Waite is my new hometown, my
Speaker 3: place where I live. It's uh, it's pretty classy.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: There's there's people that come up during the summertime. They
Speaker 3: call them budgies, but they get They drive all the
Speaker 3: way up to fucking visit the place that I live.
Speaker 3: I get to drive to the you know, drive to
Speaker 3: the store and I see a glorious, majestic lake. I
Speaker 3: get to see wonderful sunsets.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I used to, uh, I used to, you know, I
Speaker 3: used to fucking not care. I'd get pissed when the
Speaker 3: sun was coming up. It's damn it.
Speaker 2: I didn't go to sleep again.
Speaker 3: So the message of hope that I have for you
Speaker 3: guys is, you know, there's a there's a higher power
Speaker 3: that he loves you, if you know, if you want
Speaker 3: to find him, whatever it may be.
Speaker 2: It could be a chair in that room.
Speaker 3: But if the chair in that room keeps you coming back,
Speaker 3: like they told me to, keep coming back, keep fucking
Speaker 3: going back, keep fucking making the better effort to be
Speaker 3: a better person than you were the day before. I
Speaker 3: don't know how much time I burned up. I didn't
Speaker 3: say burn it up. Uh you know, I'm just thinking
Speaker 3: about smoking. So I mean it's uh it scot. Always
Speaker 3: good to see old friends, new friends, friends in recovery.
Speaker 3: These cameras that are looking at me facial recognition, hope
Speaker 3: you don't have any warrants. Well, I hope you guys
Speaker 3: enjoyed it. I hope you learned something, because you know
Speaker 3: I fucking did. Thanks for coming out.
Speaker 1: Guys, Thanks for listening to the two seventeen Recovery podcast.
Speaker 1: Listen to over nine hundred episodes on the two seventeen
Speaker 1: Recovery app that's free in your app store or online
Speaker 1: at two seventeen recovery dot com,