In this episode of Recovery Check Ins, Demetri talks about drug addiction and how recovery works.
If you're looking for information about drug addiction and how to recovery, then you need to check out this episode of Recovery Check Ins! Demetri shares his experience with drug addiction and how he recovered from it. He discusses the different stages of drug addiction and how to overcome them. If you're looking for information on drug addiction and how to recover, then this is the episode for you!
#thelifeofaddictionrecovery #addictionrecovery #soberlife #myaddictionstoryandrecoveryjourney #inthelifeofaddictionrecovery #howtostopdrinkingalcohol #stopdrinkingexpert #quitalcohol #addictionstories #quittingalcohol #isalcoholismadisease #isalcoholismadiseaseorachoice #alcoholismrecovery #alcoholaddiction #howtostopdrinkingalcohol
https://recoverywithsam.com
To watch go to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN2HkhKyzBkNzgtrmH95HqQ or go to https://www.recoverycheckins.com for more info.
In this episode of Recovery Check Ins, Demetri talks about drug addiction and how recovery works.
If you're looking for information about drug addiction and how to recovery, then you need to check out this episode of Recovery Check Ins! Demetri shares his experience with drug addiction and how he recovered from it. He discusses the different stages of drug addiction and how to overcome them. If you're looking for information on drug addiction and how to recover, then this is the episode for you!
#thelifeofaddictionrecovery #addictionrecovery #soberlife #myaddictionstoryandrecoveryjourney #inthelifeofaddictionrecovery #howtostopdrinkingalcohol #stopdrinkingexpert #quitalcohol #addictionstories #quittingalcohol #isalcoholismadisease #isalcoholismadiseaseorachoice #alcoholismrecovery #alcoholaddiction #howtostopdrinkingalcohol
https://recoverywithsam.com
To watch go to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN2HkhKyzBkNzgtrmH95HqQ or go to https://www.recoverycheckins.com for more info.
00:00:05:13 - 00:00:07:04
Speaker 1
Oh, Dmitri. What's up, man?
00:00:07:05 - 00:00:31:05
Speaker 2
What's up, my guy? What are you doing? I'm doing good, man. Uh, what I'm doing. I've just been working a lot. Honestly, put in a lot more effort towards music. Hopefully having some songs drop within the next couple of months. Trying to pick a studio to get into for that. I'm working on a short film with my buddy out in Orange County, so those are like my passions I'm working on right now.
00:00:31:05 - 00:00:54:05
Speaker 2
Just as like, um, basically the theme of the project is like, what? What brings like a group of friends together, you know? And I feel like for men, like, especially like kids that come from broken homes, like you always tend to have like this click right. And of course you look at like the reason you're there, right? Because like, there's stuff going on at home that these friends are fixing for you, you know?
00:00:54:05 - 00:00:54:08
Speaker 2
I mean.
00:00:54:08 - 00:01:10:01
Speaker 3
No, definitely. Yeah. For you, some kind of a comfort thing. You go to where you're comfortable and that's usually because people are either escaping the same thing or we're just have similar upbringings. You know, sometimes it's location to you. You never know.
00:01:10:04 - 00:01:13:09
Speaker 2
Bakersfield. A lot of times it is location. Right, Right. Yeah.
A
00:01:14:07 - 00:01:20:16
Speaker 1
Yeah. Kind of secluded to the Central Valley when you're in Bakersfield. But, um, how many days you have to, you know.
00:01:21:01 - 00:01:23:20
Speaker 2
My clean dated July 1st, 2016.
00:01:24:14 - 00:01:26:12
Speaker 3
Congratulations. 2016?
00:01:26:16 - 00:01:28:00
Speaker 2
Yeah, 2016.
00:01:28:00 - 00:01:28:22
Speaker 3
That's what's up, bro.
00:01:29:05 - 00:01:30:07
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's crazy.
00:01:30:07 - 00:01:31:02
Speaker 2
That's pretty sense.
00:01:31:02 - 00:01:39:04
Speaker 1
And then that's pretty awesome that you're able to sustain sobriety that long. You know, I just hit a year on Friday.
00:01:39:13 - 00:01:41:05
Speaker 2
There be no birthday.
00:01:41:08 - 00:01:42:01
Speaker 3
Big stars.
00:01:42:02 - 00:01:44:19
Speaker 2
Big stars broke out in the song, right? Yeah.
00:01:45:09 - 00:01:48:04
Speaker 3
That's right. I got to they got to wait for the album to drop to that.
00:01:48:05 - 00:01:51:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, wait for that. How many days you have?
00:01:51:17 - 00:01:59:16
Speaker 3
Um, I guess my date would be August 17th, just 2022. So I think that's a 222.
00:01:59:16 - 00:02:00:23
Speaker 1
Days in their voice.
00:02:01:00 - 00:02:08:13
Speaker 3
Those triple deuces, man. Every. Every day. You know what I mean? I just run my program and watch that number. Keep going up. You know what I mean?
00:02:08:20 - 00:02:14:03
Speaker 2
You know, a little less than a Bill Bell days left and you almost have that big birthday.
00:02:14:07 - 00:02:29:03
Speaker 3
Something like that. Yeah. I'm planning on throwing a little, uh, I'm going to do something for mine. People always say it comes and goes and like, it's not a big deal. They think it's going to be a big deal. Then it's not a big deal. And I was like, Well, it be a big deal if I make it a big deal, you know what I mean?
00:02:29:03 - 00:02:46:09
Speaker 2
I think fuck that. Like for me, in my sobriety, my first year was the best year I ever had. So like I would say go out. Like I would say you should plan something like still, like, not like it's still a sober party. My first year, I feel like that is the best year. That's the year you celebrate the hardest.
00:02:46:09 - 00:03:02:00
Speaker 2
Like for me, in my sobriety, my year meant everything to me. And like every year after that, like coming up on now, like, I don't even celebrate it now. I used to have a thing where, like, I celebrated it and like, my friends would get me like a drug cake. Like one year I had to get the next bar or another.
00:03:02:00 - 00:03:12:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'd like, you know, a cake that was, like, served me on tinfoil. That was just a chocolate cake. And like, it's a play on, like, my sobriety and like, ha, have fun. Like, here's another year sober.
00:03:12:21 - 00:03:14:01
Speaker 1
The candles are straw.
00:03:14:05 - 00:03:43:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, I would have been a good idea. That's how you knew they were. No, you're right. Right, right. It was no straw. Uh, but that first year, to me, like, that's the biggest year to celebrate. Like, I remember my first cake given to me like it was yesterday. And I remember, like, um, because back then we still did the traditions, at least like, this was more than creative, like a when you had a, when someone had a birthday and you were there while someone took a cake, like you knew them, like they're supposed to hand out their birthday candles right now.
00:03:44:03 - 00:03:49:06
Speaker 2
Good luck. They're supposed to use it when that person gets a year and it's good luck when they get a year and you have to give it.
00:03:49:09 - 00:03:50:11
Speaker 3
It's dope. Yeah, I.
00:03:50:11 - 00:04:00:06
Speaker 2
Do. So I had one candle and I actually saved it. And I got to use that candle and so it actually meant a lot to me. Like, um, so I always lived by like that first year. That's the golden year.
00:04:00:15 - 00:04:23:05
Speaker 3
I understand that because, like, Sam, you know, you just finished your first year. So with this next year coming up, everything that happens, every holiday that happens, every birthday, everything you've now done, it's soberly. Yeah. You know, And I mean, so like, I'm still in that first year, too, where when things are coming up and I'm still like, man, there's going to be my first time celebrating this sober.
00:04:23:05 - 00:04:40:04
Speaker 3
The first time that this happens and I'm sober, you know what I mean? So I can see how that first year can really just be special. You know, every every day is special. Yeah. I don't care if you got ten years. 20 years, because those people also tell you they wake up some days and they're not sure if they're going to make it that day, you know?
00:04:40:04 - 00:04:47:17
Speaker 3
So every day is special. I want to take anything away from that. But the first time you go through things, you know, those are just big landmarks, right?
00:04:48:00 - 00:05:20:11
Speaker 2
There's something about like overcoming adversity that's enthralling to the humankind. And I think, like that first year is like that's you dig in through the mud, you know, I mean, that's it's harder. And like your first year is blood, sweat and tears, literally, you know, you know, like, yeah, that's where you're getting cravings, like every day, multiple times, you know, in the first 30 to 60 days, like then like six months, you're having those sneak cravings or like now you've gone a couple of weeks when Happy's life is like and then it hits you like out of.
00:05:20:11 - 00:05:21:11
Speaker 3
Nowhere, out of nowhere.
00:05:21:20 - 00:05:48:22
Speaker 2
On on your way home from work. When you see the liquor store and like, you're really stressed out, right? And it's been two weeks. So now it's like a lot different of can I utilize my coping skills when I've taken a break from from two weeks? Right. And that's the only thing I would say I like about later years of recovery is like it becomes less of like everything becomes less of an event and everything really becomes I don't want to say baseline, but like if I have a trigger now, like I react with a coping skill without thinking.
00:05:48:22 - 00:05:50:01
Speaker 3
Without thinking about it.
00:05:50:01 - 00:05:51:02
Speaker 1
Like, yeah, you train for.
00:05:51:02 - 00:05:56:21
Speaker 2
It. Yeah. Like my body knows what to do because now it's a habit of doing it just like it is for me. Vaping right.
00:05:56:22 - 00:05:57:05
Speaker 3
Now.
00:05:57:05 - 00:06:15:21
Speaker 2
Definitely. Was it for me using like getting loaded. It's just now like now it's immediately. Okay, I'm ahead. Serve this one. Okay. I'm around ground this one like, and it becomes a more natural versus like that first year you're having to like if I have that craving 30 days in, I'm having to think, well, what if my counselor telling me what to me, what didn't?
00:06:15:23 - 00:06:31:19
Speaker 2
What did my big homie tell me from the rooms? Right. Like, and I'm living off that suggestion and having to like the act of doing that suggestion because right there you're practicing humility, right? Because you're listening to someone else and like you're realizing you can't do this shit alone. You have to take someone else.
00:06:31:19 - 00:06:33:15
Speaker 3
You have to take someone else's hands.
00:06:34:06 - 00:06:54:13
Speaker 2
And then so like the act of having to do that and it having to be like kind of an ego death to say like, Hey, I'ma do this and make yourself do it because I don't want to be this sick anymore. That's where like the effort, the mud, like the grind comes from, like later on in recovery, it will be like timeline.
00:06:54:13 - 00:07:02:21
Speaker 2
It's like, when is your next crisis like then it's right time to that crisis. But unless it's a crisis, I mean, every day tends to be a blessing, you know, as long as I'm clean.
00:07:03:12 - 00:07:34:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, I noticed that. The biggest thing I've noticed within the last few weeks and the first year that I have is that my, my, my good days are every day. I have good days every day when bad things happen. They're just moments and they're far and few in between. You know, there's but gradually I have good days and even if I have a bad moment in that day, it's just for a moment.
00:07:34:17 - 00:07:41:14
Speaker 1
It's not that I know what to do to get me right back to having a good day. You know.
00:07:42:01 - 00:07:46:19
Speaker 3
You can have a bad moment in your day, but at the end of the day, it was still a good day.
00:07:46:19 - 00:08:00:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, at the end of the day, it's still, you know, is is a good day, you know, plus well, I was gonna say to your point, you know, that first year you're also coming off the worst.
00:08:00:18 - 00:08:02:22
Speaker 2
Year in.
00:08:02:22 - 00:08:30:23
Speaker 1
Your life. You know, the moments, you know, worst month, worst couple of last weeks that you had right before you got sober or got you to get sober. You know, I know that that it was like that for me. What was your first few days? Can you recall a time back when you were well, how did you get started into so alcohol and drugs.
00:08:31:06 - 00:08:34:14
Speaker 1
So because you were more of an of a of a drug?
00:08:34:19 - 00:09:00:06
Speaker 2
Yes, it was more of an addict. A drug addict. Yeah. Than I was. Um, alcohol came into my story later and kind of wrapped up my story. But how I got started, actually, even though it was I was with alcohol, that was the first drug I took in my body was ethanol. And it really just started. I feel like at least like I'm born and raised in Bakersfield, so like, I don't have a different story with like I was with the homies.
00:09:00:06 - 00:09:19:20
Speaker 2
And we, you know, had watched his parents drink all our lives and kind of party. And then like I had watched all my friends already doing drugs. And at that point I it was weird because I had the motto like, I don't need substances to enjoy my life. And then like, along the lines somewhere switched and like, I decided, like, you know what I want to drink.
00:09:20:06 - 00:09:25:03
Speaker 2
And so we went and we paid a homeless person, whatever. And God, whatever.
00:09:25:04 - 00:09:25:19
Speaker 1
Hey, mister.
00:09:26:00 - 00:09:44:08
Speaker 2
Yeah, we just hey, mister day. And like, I didn't drink normally, like my friends, like we all obviously it was like our first time drinking, so we got ridiculously, you know, loaded. Yeah, I didn't take much. I was the last one to start drinking. And then from my first time, like, I had to watch, we got two bottles.
00:09:44:08 - 00:09:58:13
Speaker 2
I had to watch the second one and had to, even though I didn't like it, I'd I like the feeling and I didn't really get as under the influence. I was a lot bigger kid than them though. So like, all of them were kind of over it. But I noticed right then, like, why? Why do I have to finish it?
00:09:59:03 - 00:10:13:22
Speaker 2
And then I didn't care and it was like a weekend thing, but it was more of when like that, like, like we talk about right? When we talk about addiction or substance abuse, like, it's kind of like a list of lines, right, that you say you won't do. And one you can pull off.
00:10:14:03 - 00:10:15:15
Speaker 3
Yeah, you cross them, you know.
00:10:15:19 - 00:10:37:04
Speaker 2
And so then it was like, all right, well, like I'd always loved underground hip hop music and I was huge into like the music scene and like going to hardcore shows with my friends. So, like, I started just kind of paying more attention to the scene. And then it was more of like, I kind of I don't know if I fell out or like I was just interested in cannabis and seeing what it did.
00:10:37:04 - 00:10:55:04
Speaker 2
And like, um, I started smoking. And the thing about me, like when I tell my stories, like, like the way I was with my anxiety at that time because like, I had a weird childhood, but at the same time, like, it wasn't as bad as I feel like most kids childhood are, if that makes sense.
00:10:55:12 - 00:10:56:06
Speaker 3
Yeah, but.
00:10:56:11 - 00:11:01:09
Speaker 1
Childhood is as bad as you know it. So it was however bad it was, it was. Yeah, it was bad.
00:11:01:09 - 00:11:23:00
Speaker 2
So like for me, I had a big thing about like anxiety. And my anxiety thing was like, I would talk to someone and there would be like basically my head would run the conversation ahead of time or even though like we were talking here. So three different outcomes. And now I'm guiding this conversation and trying to manipulate the situation to get the outcome I think is good, Right?
00:11:23:00 - 00:11:47:14
Speaker 2
Right. And like, just to impress people and people please people. Because I was self-conscious about my weight and other things. And so I think like that really played a role into what I'm getting into is when I smoked is right when I knew like, Oh, this is what I want for the rest of my life. Like, I remember I first day smoking and I don't talk about like I don't talk about euphoria, but the one thing I can say is like, I knew right then and there there was a piece, right?
00:11:47:18 - 00:12:06:03
Speaker 2
Like my brain had never been quiet and like, that's what I got addicted to was like the piece inside my brain, right? Um, and so after that, like, that was when it changed. Like next day I started dabbing, which is just a concentrate. And then by that weekend I had my own set up and was kind of going about business.
00:12:06:17 - 00:12:29:21
Speaker 2
And for then, like for me I had. So I guess to go in the background, right, Like I'm adopted by my dad. And then my dad was a lot younger than my mom. So, um, my mom had a first relationship where she, she moved out to Russia and married this guy in Russia. And he would, he'd beat her pretty much to death multiple times.
00:12:29:21 - 00:12:46:15
Speaker 2
And then, uh, eventually they divorced. And when she got pregnant for me, but she got artificially inseminated because she always wanted to have a kid. And so when she got pregnant with me, she got the courage to leave and come back to the U.S. and revoked his green card. And so then she met my dad in like, the apartments.
00:12:47:03 - 00:13:07:09
Speaker 2
And so, like, um, for me, like growing up, I had, like, my mom, my dad, and like, his grandma had suffered from severe *beeep* which I'm *beeep* too, but suffered from severe mental illnesses. And he didn't have the best childhood. And so for me, my mom raised me very well. But my mom's very codependent and my mom had taken care of me, kind of gave my dad his life.
00:13:07:09 - 00:13:32:06
Speaker 2
That was what he had. And so my dad was still kind of due to his trauma, was still a child while raising me. So like, for me, like a normal thing, like I was really into video games, like that was my dad's main thing. I knew all of wrestling and WWE in the eighties and nineties pop culture by the time I was ten, but he didn't really give me social skills or like tell me how to be a man or do stuff like that.
00:13:32:06 - 00:13:59:06
Speaker 2
So leading into drugs, it was kind of like once I got around, like my friends are like my big, my big homie is like, that was the people that were telling me how to live life on a scales, like how to survive, you know? And so I think like that's where like it turned. And then in Bakersfield for me, it was like we had our group we started using and then like one of us started selling and then all of us kind of started selling and like we would kind of just have a run of the school.
00:13:59:06 - 00:14:15:17
Speaker 2
And like once we had tried, once I tried like I think it was like three days actually after I'd smoked. So in that week before, I'd gotten like fully started a routine use. My friend, my best friend had came over and and Cam might as well put his name in the story because I'll use it in the end.
00:14:15:17 - 00:14:36:11
Speaker 2
But yeah, my helmet cam, it came over and he had offered me some Klonopin because I take my friend and had me take some Xanax that my mom had had the day before, saying like, it'll get me high and I like it and I kind of just passed out or whatever. And he gave me some Klonopin and that was like right there, that same feeling of like instant love, like that.
00:14:36:11 - 00:14:42:22
Speaker 2
You know, I it happened again, you know, like, Right. And I feel like every person that falls in love with substances knows that feeling.
00:14:42:22 - 00:14:44:11
Speaker 3
Oh, most. Most definitely.
00:14:44:11 - 00:14:49:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like, definitely where that movie slows down and you're like, Oh, like, this is where I'm meant to be.
00:14:49:22 - 00:15:04:13
Speaker 3
Because like you were saying earlier, our minds go so fast and all that pre thinking conversations and kind of like looking into the future, future tripping on things and just trying to manipulate things, all that goes away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you mean.
00:15:04:13 - 00:15:32:10
Speaker 1
And like I would even liken it to, I remember the first time I don't remember the first time I got drunk, but I remember having moments when I was drinking early on before it became an issue of being like, of, of having somewhat of a state to what I feel today. Right now, like, I feel good. I feel, you know, I feel okay.
00:15:32:10 - 00:15:43:21
Speaker 1
A, uh, not worried about talking to anybody, you know? And it, I just, I could see that when I was drinking to when I drank and you get to that sweet spot.
00:15:44:02 - 00:15:44:16
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah.
00:15:44:17 - 00:15:50:03
Speaker 1
You know what I mean? And then you would you feel good, You know, you don't feel drunk, you don't feel it. You just.
00:15:50:08 - 00:15:51:02
Speaker 3
You just feel good.
00:15:51:02 - 00:15:51:15
Speaker 1
You just feel.
00:15:51:15 - 00:15:52:10
Speaker 2
Good. Yeah.
00:15:52:10 - 00:15:54:12
Speaker 1
And that's how I feel now. But all the time.
00:15:54:17 - 00:16:05:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's. It's actually funny that you bring that up because it's funny how, like, we use those we use substances to self-medicate, but then recovery gives us exactly what we were self-medicating, right? You know?
00:16:05:17 - 00:16:22:04
Speaker 3
Oh, exactly. Yeah. Because we were always medicating for That's huge. The symptoms. You know what I mean? Like, we were just trying to take care of the byproducts. Yeah. You know, I mean, we weren't self-medicating and using substances to get to the core problem. Yeah, you know what I mean?
00:16:22:04 - 00:16:36:22
Speaker 1
And we're chasing that feeling every time. Sorry to cut you off, but we're chasing that feeling all the time. You know, that same feeling of of the way you know how I feel today in recovery, where we. I was chasing that could never get it again, right?
00:16:37:00 - 00:16:38:00
Speaker 2
Eventually, yeah.
00:16:38:00 - 00:16:50:14
Speaker 3
After a while, it's. It's harder and harder to get. Yeah, you know what I mean? So and that's usually what leads us into being thirstier and just wanting stronger and stronger stuff, you know, just to get back to that.
00:16:50:14 - 00:17:31:22
Speaker 2
Baseline, crossing those lines. I get it. It's funny because, like, it has so many. It has so many, It has so much stuff that goes into like what makes substance abuse the way it is, right? Like trauma is like what you experienced from like the ages 1 to 5, right? Like, how much have you isolated yourself, like while in your youth, you know, like you find to see that it's actually a very like, um, society based disease or I mean, I give if you look at each of us at one point, like when you hit your, your rock bottom, it's normally like that's your last source of like, you know, you don't belong in humanity
00:17:31:22 - 00:17:46:18
Speaker 2
as it is right now. Meaning like when those kind of set in that freedom and realize like, Oh, the country owns me now. Yeah, right. Like you get into an institution and you're being served those meds to calm you down, you realize like, oh, like I don't own myself or I have.
00:17:46:18 - 00:17:49:01
Speaker 3
No control over my life whatsoever anymore.
00:17:49:01 - 00:18:08:09
Speaker 2
You know? And that's just the good endings, you know, around like is the last ending. You don't get to say anything. And like, when we look at that, you look at and see like, has this person cut off? Like all the people around him that are going to tell them what's right and wrong. Right? Or have they are they surround like, who do we surround ourselves with?
00:18:08:10 - 00:18:30:22
Speaker 2
Because as much as like as some as being a teen. Right. Who like his family were his friends. Right. Because like besides my mom and my dad. And then when I was 14, my dad left. Like, then it was just like I was taking care of my mom. So for someone who didn't really have anyone or a role model like my friends or everything, but at the same time, like my friends were just as my friends kept me going back to the same me that was stuck with it.
00:18:30:23 - 00:18:53:09
Speaker 2
Right, right, right, right. And then that's where, like I look at my story, like my first time in the room. So, like, so after I had started taking Xanax, I went through the whole selling drug dealing and then trying every pill. But my drug of choice at that time was Xanax. And I was taking about 5 to 10 bars so that the mg dl milligrams, so 10 to 20 milligrams a day.
00:18:54:12 - 00:19:14:04
Speaker 2
And then about I was doing that for about a year straight and I had gotten I'd gotten expelled from school for just for using the varsity baseball fields. ANNOUNCER Announcers head for like my little drug lab and.
00:19:14:04 - 00:19:21:01
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah, man, you're not allowed to do that. Yeah, you said it kind of nonchalantly, like, you know, like they should have been okay with it now.
00:19:22:12 - 00:19:38:17
Speaker 2
But I feel I still kind of feel bad for it because, like, my dean was looking at, like, it's funny how you can look like back then. It feels like everyone's against you. But then you look back and you see how many people really tried to help rooting for you. Even like the ones you didn't like that were helping you, Right?
00:19:39:01 - 00:19:56:13
Speaker 2
And so, like, I got expelled from there and like, my dean, like and I feel so bad all the time when I think about my story because no one like this Dean, like she always had a bad rap. And like, so going in, I was like, Man, I don't even want to deal with her. And like, she really knew, like, she could see what was going on in my life.
00:19:56:13 - 00:20:03:15
Speaker 2
And she really was like, Where? Where do I place you in? Like, how do I give you the benefit of the doubt? Because everyone else is looking at you like your you're and.
00:20:03:15 - 00:20:04:14
Speaker 3
She's really trying.
00:20:04:14 - 00:20:21:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. You know, and she she looked at me. You can tell when someone looks at you with like humility. And I feel like that's the difference in life, right? Like, and I guess this is just something I want to touch is like, if you can look at someone without judgment and love that person and meet them where you at, like that's the love we need back in this universe.
00:20:21:10 - 00:20:38:10
Speaker 2
You know, I mean, I agree with every person that's helped me has it's like I've known they're going to help me by the time they look at me, because in their eyes there's like a look of freedom. There's a look of like, it's okay to that. You're not going, you're not doing good right now. But like, what can we do to bring you what?
00:20:38:13 - 00:21:02:01
Speaker 3
I feel like you can recognize that look more because when you come from a past of addiction, no matter what your substance of choice is, we went for years seeing the other look, the look of disgust, the look of non trust, the look of disappointment. We rarely see that look of love. Like real love. Like, what can I do to help this person?
00:21:02:08 - 00:21:17:10
Speaker 3
I'm looking through all the bad stuff that he's doing. I'm looking through his crazy haircut and his tattoos and his apparel, and I'm just really trying to help that person. So I felt like you could recognize that better than like, say, ignoring me or somebody could, you know?
00:21:17:11 - 00:21:38:08
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I really find that like that that moment right there will be, I guess, very important in my story, but I find very important inhumanity. So I wanted to highlight it. But so she, I kind of I got expelled and she was trying to work with me to figure out what school to send me to. And my mom came and picked me up and she tried to calm me down before I left, and that's how I knew she cared.
00:21:38:09 - 00:21:55:10
Speaker 2
She tried to calm me down cause stuff just wasn't going good at home. My mom was extremely codependent, like my mom's. That number one. Most amazing mom, you know? But with the relationship you have where it's just like a son and a mom, you know? And then the dad leaves and her kind of needing to be on my shoulder sometimes.
00:21:55:10 - 00:22:27:10
Speaker 2
Like that's where my self-medicating started to pick up, right? It's like, um, and it it's where I became a people pleaser, right? Because, like, we look at psychodrama studies nowaday and like, where psychology is going and it looks like when you're home environments chaotic or like I told you guys this, like when a kid, like subconsciously, like the parents are being toxic or giving off like toxic traits, like subconsciously the kid will pick up their effort because they realize we need these parents in order to survive.
00:22:27:10 - 00:22:31:16
Speaker 2
Like whether or not we like our parents. We know them because they provide this house, they provide this.
00:22:31:22 - 00:22:32:09
Speaker 1
There's there's.
00:22:32:10 - 00:22:51:12
Speaker 3
Rules. Yeah, there's rules. And in every household that have to be filled, I can't remember exactly where they are right now, but there's like three or four roles that people fall into those. And when somebody is not necessarily taking care of their role, the family dynamic will shift and other people will try to fill in spaces in those roles for sure.
00:22:51:12 - 00:22:51:21
Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:22:52:06 - 00:23:20:01
Speaker 2
And so, um, so this was like about the time, like my dad had told us we were leaving, like when I got expelled. I'm kind of, I guess, speeding up my story, but, um, so he had told me like, that he was leaving. And then like a couple weeks later, I got expelled because, like, I had my youth picked up, I guess where I'm from and my words, my use picked up because he even though he said he was going to leave, like he was making no effort to leave the house.
00:23:20:01 - 00:23:36:11
Speaker 2
And it was kind of just like, yo, I'm I'm done with the relationship. I'll still be your dad. But and, but not trying to find an apartment anywhere else, just kind of being like, Yo, I'm done with your mom's. Yeah. And so, like, I knew that from that moment, I had to be the man of the house. And, like, so then fast forward back to this.
00:23:36:11 - 00:23:54:08
Speaker 2
Like, it's just, I think, a day where everything hit me and so I was wildin out, so my mom picks me up and she tells me like she's going to take me to like a treatment facility. And so I'm immediately think an inpatient. So I'm like, Yeah, you're high. Yeah, I'm I know. And yeah, I go, like, you don't understand that.
00:23:54:15 - 00:23:56:13
Speaker 3
You're how old right now who doesn't happen in.
00:23:57:17 - 00:23:58:17
Speaker 2
15 or six.
00:23:58:18 - 00:23:59:18
Speaker 3
15 or 16.
00:24:00:00 - 00:24:18:00
Speaker 2
60. Okay so I want to say 15 actually. Yeah. Because my first time. So basically I hop out of her car in the middle of the driveway, in the middle of the highway. Right. Because she's not going that fast, like five or ten stumble out. And then I call up my home and I steal some stuff to get me picked up.
00:24:18:00 - 00:24:47:23
Speaker 2
And like, by this time, like, I'm already on. Well, it doesn't matter. I'm. I'm very messed up, you know, like, I'm on a concoction of pills, alcohol and whatever. And so then we get taken to the actually right down the street, you know, to have part. Um, and that's where we meet up. And like, I just kind of go haywire, like I have, you know, how it is like, for me, like being so lonely, like, with not having any brothers or sisters or, like, any outside family, because my mom's family lives in Michigan.
00:24:47:23 - 00:25:06:12
Speaker 2
So it really is like every holiday just been me and my mom. Um, I've had to be outgoing, otherwise I'm gonna be alone all my life. So, like, I had made all these friends, like in my drug community, their respect to me, so people would come up and give me stuff, you know? So at that time, I was, I was already on, like, Xanax, alcohol, weed.
00:25:07:01 - 00:25:21:11
Speaker 2
Um, someone offered me cocaine. I started doing it. Someone offered me an oxy. I took it. And the only reason I guess I say the substances this day is because it's one day that's made me believe in God. Because I look back and I honestly don't know how I lived through how much substances I into.
00:25:21:15 - 00:25:24:18
Speaker 3
Especially with all the different ones and the different adverse effects.
00:25:24:23 - 00:25:42:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, because it's I'm a I'm a I'm a garbage can addict, you know. I mean, like I at at this point, like I said, those lines, like the only lines I had left at this point was heroin and meth. And I say that because it will come back into my story and it's it's important that I say, like, I was like, hey, I'll never be a heroin addict or a meth addict.
00:25:42:23 - 00:25:48:13
Speaker 2
Right? Right. I only do all these pills and all this. Right. Uh, and go. You got.
00:25:48:13 - 00:25:49:08
Speaker 1
Boundaries?
00:25:49:08 - 00:25:50:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. How about you?
00:25:50:15 - 00:25:51:19
Speaker 3
I got self respect.
00:25:51:19 - 00:26:13:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'm not one of them, but I want them. And so, uh, and so long story short, is like, I don't know what got into me, but I end up taking my mom's car and totaling it. And, um, and so then, like, a course I get my mom has to charge me with the Grand Theft Auto charge and otherwise her insurance.
00:26:13:20 - 00:26:29:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, the insurance won't cover it. And so, like, the officers were pretty happy to pick me up because my mom would call the police regularly on me when we get into arguments just because she didn't know what else to do. Not that I was like ever aggressive, but just we'd get into these yelling and then I'd want to leave.
00:26:29:13 - 00:26:45:03
Speaker 2
She know what I was going to do if I leave. And she found out through her best friend who rest in peace, Christie on my ribs. You know, that was the person that got me clean if I had to say a person. So she comes in pretty much right now. It's like I get it sent to juvenile hall for like the fourth time.
00:26:45:15 - 00:27:00:00
Speaker 2
Um, and I was cool with the fingerprint lady, so she would always do a thing where she called my mom and say, You have to come take me up by four. Yeah. And so, like, I'm doing my little manipulation moves, getting her to, like, think I'm, you know, going through the roughest time of my life.
00:27:00:00 - 00:27:02:03
Speaker 3
The woe is me is manipulation.
00:27:02:03 - 00:27:17:03
Speaker 2
We do. And so she comes and picks me up and then it's not the important part is two days later is like I stopped my Xanax used for the first time in a couple of days, and then two days later I was just smoking and like my mom had come home and asked me help her with the groceries.
00:27:17:03 - 00:27:36:11
Speaker 2
So I went up and I went to go help her with the groceries. And I was I was carrying some groceries in my doorways like, say, right here. I'm coming in the morning like five feet in my doorway. And I wake up on the ground to my mom, like screaming and crying. Oh, wow. And, um, and I beg, I just start begging her, not to call the cops.
00:27:36:11 - 00:27:56:17
Speaker 2
You know, I have stuff. I'm on probation. I have stuff in my closet now at this point. So I like I'm begging her not to call the police. And so, like, I'm just like, you know what? I'm tired. I don't know what's going on. Like, let me get up and, like, just go to bed. So I get up and I'm walking now turn left down my hallway, and then, like, on my hallway, we have our laundry room and we keep the door open.
00:27:56:17 - 00:28:15:05
Speaker 2
So I basically fall again, but I fall horizontal. I hit my head on the washer and then my mom has to come get me and I'm bleeding from my head, you know? And I. I feel bad. It's it's the day like it's my biggest amendment. Like I live every day to my mom because I just know she has it will never be unseen.
00:28:15:05 - 00:28:30:20
Speaker 2
But I even still then somehow, like we're so close talked her into not calling the police and then kind of she made me stay up and then made sure I didn't have a concussion. Then I went to sleep and then it was like then, like right after that, it was like a couple of days I was like smoking.
00:28:30:20 - 00:28:40:14
Speaker 2
And she was like, I would call her to make sure when she got home. So like, I put everything away and like I'm expecting to come in and she comes in all weird and doesn't say, What's up to me. I'm like, okay.
00:28:41:06 - 00:28:42:18
Speaker 3
I'm sorry, something's going on.
00:28:42:18 - 00:29:03:21
Speaker 2
Is weird because I know her. She's going to have to come in and check to see if I'm high or whatever. Yeah. And so then to two bigger dudes come in through the door behind her and like, they're wearing black just black shirts and, like, normal pants. And I'm thinking, like, at first, immediately I'm like, Oh, like she and she's been out of someone tell me like they're undercover.
00:29:03:21 - 00:29:04:18
Speaker 2
Like, this is where.
00:29:05:03 - 00:29:06:15
Speaker 3
Is your process?
00:29:06:18 - 00:29:09:10
Speaker 2
We doesn't play to your favor. Not overly.
00:29:09:10 - 00:29:11:07
Speaker 3
Paranoid. Yeah, you're overly paranoid.
00:29:11:12 - 00:29:12:02
Speaker 2
So I'm like.
00:29:12:02 - 00:29:13:06
Speaker 3
He's got a tail on me.
00:29:13:06 - 00:29:30:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'm like, Oh, she's got the feds on me. I'm not. Even. So, I think they're like, undercover cops. So I go with them into their car and then, like, they take me away and then they say they're just going to drug test me. And so then that's where I start to, like, put two and two together. I'm like, You guys aren't cops, are you?
00:29:30:09 - 00:29:49:19
Speaker 2
And and I'm like, So what's stopping me from getting out of this car and going that way right now while you're driving it can't get out. He's like, I would just suggest you don't do that. And I was like, I don't think you know me that way. It means nothing to me. And then he lock the door and that was the end of that.
00:29:49:20 - 00:29:52:02
Speaker 2
So yeah, so like.
00:29:52:10 - 00:29:52:13
Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:29:52:20 - 00:30:07:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it was an old Crown Vic two, so it wasn't like one where I could, like, really, like, mess with it and kind of fumble it open. But I think like something inside of me kind of knew, like I wasn't ever like, even though I was it. So for me, like my mom had raised me very polite.
00:30:07:11 - 00:30:30:11
Speaker 2
I was still very polite to anyone around me except for like people my age. I think due to like, I didn't think I had low self esteem, low confidence. So like, if I didn't think you liked me, I'd rather have you fear me and not like me. Because at least that means I got power over you. So but to everyone else, I was really respectful because my mom is just raised me that way.
00:30:30:11 - 00:30:50:00
Speaker 2
My mom's told me she's a pacifist since I was young. I've seen my mom drink once and it was a champagne toast. Right? And like, so I was really polite. So something kind of just I didn't want to make their days bad. Um, and so they told me they're just going to take me for a drug test. And so by the time we hit the grapevine, I was like, Man, I am.
00:30:50:12 - 00:30:51:23
Speaker 3
A little great, right?
00:30:52:00 - 00:31:07:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's the hills. And I was like, Yeah, I'm going somewhere. And so that was where they it was ended up. You can pay people to come pick up your youth if they're under the age of 18 and have them taken. And so what they would have done is they would have zip tied me and taken me in either way.
00:31:07:22 - 00:31:35:06
Speaker 2
So I ended up going and I remember walking in and they had every staff that they could have on scene there because just waiting for it. And yeah, yeah, at this time, like I was, I was a lot bigger even than I am now. I want to say I weighed more than I am now, so I'm probably like six foot 200 at 16, you know, So like, I'm, I'm pretty beefy, big enough to even juvenile hall put me in 200 B just because.
00:31:35:10 - 00:31:36:15
Speaker 3
Because of your size.
00:31:36:15 - 00:31:38:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. Not even because of my crime.
00:31:38:23 - 00:31:41:08
Speaker 1
So I wasn't that was it still to be?
00:31:41:08 - 00:31:52:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. Do you want to leave the unit. I was actually talking about that, that unit today I actually I like to be I don't know. I think I went in there with good people, but I look back at juvenile hall.
00:31:52:11 - 00:31:54:05
Speaker 3
And you've got fond memories.
00:31:54:11 - 00:32:13:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, I actually do, except for like, one. There's always that one, but yeah, um, so I get up there and like, I and that kind of, like that's where the only reason I say that is because I feel like that's not a good technique, you know, like because right then it felt like, Oh, you're looking at me just like everyone else looks like me, right?
00:32:13:16 - 00:32:34:16
Speaker 2
I mean, like, right. And so, like, I remember she offered me a Snickers and that's what calm me down. And then like, after that it was cake. And the only reason I'd gone this far in this story is like that night was also my first narcotics Anonymous meeting. And so, like, um, they told me like, Oh, well, cut that part out, because I did, you.
00:32:35:00 - 00:32:35:13
Speaker 1
Know, you got.
00:32:35:23 - 00:32:51:05
Speaker 2
Um, so break. So they take me, they take me to a 12 cent meeting and, um, you know, they explain me the process of it and, and how to go about it. And I kind of like, don't understand or have no concept of.
00:32:51:05 - 00:32:52:01
Speaker 3
What is like.
00:32:52:06 - 00:33:16:15
Speaker 2
I've only been in Bakersfield streets or my home. And so, uh, so they take me and, I mean, I sit there and it was like I didn't feel weird or out of place. It was like I felt like that piece. But in, in an uncomfortable sense, if that makes sense. Like I put that piece at the Met that self-medicating gave me, but it was like uncommon able.
00:33:16:16 - 00:33:43:15
Speaker 2
Yeah, Yeah. So, like, that's kind of like that sign of ambivalence. Ambivalence means like pulling for both ends. Like, yeah, I want to get clean, but I don't want to get clean because, like, I can't handle the thinking about my friend's death anniversary like that, right? And so, um, and so, like, I don't really have any specific memories from that one, but except for the people that were at those meetings played a larger role in my sobriety, like those people I met at that.
00:33:44:00 - 00:33:54:08
Speaker 2
It's funny, actually. Now I think about that. Those people I met at that fellowship that day were in my sobriety up until like maybe two years ago, all.
00:33:54:08 - 00:33:57:10
Speaker 3
The way from MIT. So you're talking five something?
00:33:57:11 - 00:34:19:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, Or more. More like, yeah, like six years, you know, because they were with me through my relapses, too. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so it was crazy how like, that rehab worked, but, uh, I mean, I was angry and upset for a little bit, and then slowly, really, like, the seeds were planted, and it wasn't like I knew I wasn't going to get clean.
00:34:19:09 - 00:34:30:11
Speaker 2
Like, I had already kind of had that in my head. You know, I remind you, this is my first inpatient, um, 16 years old. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And I'm from Bakersfield, California.
00:34:31:01 - 00:34:31:08
Speaker 3
That is.
00:34:31:08 - 00:34:43:12
Speaker 2
And I, you know, my best. Yeah. My best friend, like. Yeah just like our situations, like, where we've been surrounded. Even when we got into drugs, we then realized we were surrounded by drugs even before we knew, you.
00:34:43:12 - 00:34:44:11
Speaker 3
Know, no. Yeah.
00:34:44:11 - 00:35:03:17
Speaker 2
So, um, and so, like, realistically, I just didn't see a way, but like, I had kind of wanted to. This is where, like, the spark kind of one or two. But then I had someone else come there for Bakersfield, and that's where, like, that part of treatment didn't go so well. Right? But that person was, you know, with a different set of peoples right.
00:35:03:17 - 00:35:22:19
Speaker 2
And so then I started getting more and more involved in like different set of peoples and politics. And I would a then I was normally in, right? So like that's when once he came in then it was like that was the first time like I thought about doing heroin and that showed like the progress of my youth, right?
00:35:22:19 - 00:35:36:16
Speaker 2
Because like I said, I was die hard. Like I would not be a heroin, I would not be a meth addict. But if you put someone who needs substances in a room for long enough, you know, I mean, our mind, I'd start to be coming down to do anything.
00:35:36:16 - 00:35:43:01
Speaker 3
You're going to enter. You're going to entertain the thought of that, giving you that feeling that you're looking for, you know?
00:35:43:02 - 00:35:59:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, like I was just like that. I knew I was an addict because when they were explaining like, meth and heroin to me, I was like, Damn, why haven't I tried this shit yet? You know, instead of thinking of, like, the consequences? Like what it looks like, I was thinking like, Oh, there's a euphoria that's better than what I was thinking.
00:35:59:12 - 00:36:14:03
Speaker 2
Or maybe I was just judging these, you know that? Yeah. And that's where I knew. Like, my addict. Mine was my addict. Thinking was, like, full blown, you know? And so when he I'm deathly afraid of needles, it's it's one of it's a fear that I feel like saved my life.
00:36:14:03 - 00:36:15:21
Speaker 3
But I agree with you 100%.
00:36:15:21 - 00:36:23:10
Speaker 2
People say because of my tattoos it is completely different. Like I'm scared of any needle that goes more than like three layers of skin.
00:36:23:10 - 00:36:28:01
Speaker 3
It's getting tattoos and getting shots are two totally different things.
00:36:28:01 - 00:37:00:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, completely separate ball games. So like that saved my life right there. But I say this to paint the picture of the desperation. We're willing to go to, the lengths we're willing to go to to get high. Right. And like I remember pacing this rehab room, which is about a room the size of this exact plane with just two dressers and two beds, you know, and I'm pacing back and forth and I have a roommate and I'm talking to him and I'm telling him I'm going to do it, you know, like and me just sitting there thinking about what that you for you could be in that I might feel euphoria again while like there's
00:37:00:19 - 00:37:20:13
Speaker 2
nothing me and I'm not practicing coping skills it was only digging me deeper Yeah so then I was down and by my higher power or whatever, the next day when we were going, he was going to go, Give me the shot like someone had stolen it. Oh man, we couldn't find it. And it was like completely gone. And so like, he ended up sneaking other substance in there.
00:37:20:13 - 00:37:43:11
Speaker 2
Like we ended up relapsing a couple of times while in the program, um, at least that treatment facility. But we came out and we pretty much told told we were going to link after. And so for a while right after that, when I got put into another program. But Aspire wasn't a thing yet, right? This was the only one in town and it was an outpatient treatment program.
00:37:43:18 - 00:38:12:22
Speaker 2
Um, and so like, I got put in there, I was the only adolescent in there. Like, so when I showed up for group, it was just me and the counselor. Right? Right. Um, and that's where I met, like, some people that are still in my life today. Um, but I wasn't living clean, like, when I went there. Like, as soon as I got back, um, as soon, like, I stayed clean for a couple of weeks because I didn't want to be, I think I didn't want to leave.
00:38:12:23 - 00:38:32:19
Speaker 2
I didn't want to. A thing for me was like, I never wanted to disappoint my mom, you know, because that's the only person I have left, of course. But at the same time, like, I think the pain of what I was going through and then not really having anyone to actually, like tell or describe like kept pushing me to be like, Well, these people understand more than I mean.
00:38:33:04 - 00:38:53:03
Speaker 2
And so, uh, I don't remember when, but I remember I'll say this, I remember. So this is where, like I said, this day is where the biggest barrier is broken, right? Like the last barriers broken. So, like, now I'm coming back. I have the seeds planted from Narcotics Anonymous. Right. But I'm not letting you do that again. My bad.
00:38:53:16 - 00:39:04:14
Speaker 2
So I have the seeds planting, but I'm not living them, right? I'm not practicing any spiritual principles. I'm not calling anyone. I do not have a sponsor. I do not have sober support.
00:39:04:14 - 00:39:06:05
Speaker 3
Yeah, right. In a bad place.
00:39:06:05 - 00:39:23:23
Speaker 2
So the only thing I have is I go back to Santa Clarita for meetings, right? Like because they made me feel so comfortable. So, like, I would my mom would go and pick my homie up. Like, sometimes I'd chill over there with him and said whatever. And then, um, like we would pick him up. So this time we picked him up.
00:39:23:23 - 00:39:42:13
Speaker 2
We went over to his side and, uh, met at the college Junior. And when I picked him up, he just kind of had this smile on me, you know? And I knew right then and there I was like, Oh, like everything. We had talked about being roommates in our rehab. Like, true right now, in this moment. And, and I've had a couple of moments like that.
00:39:42:13 - 00:40:13:16
Speaker 2
And so we go out to Santa Clarita and I tell this story, right, because we have to be real. The thing called a, you know, incomprehensible demoralization. Right. Which is like the stripping of our morals while using. But to a point of like, we don't even register how far we gon or how much we don't want to accept we're doing, you know, So we go to this me is probably my biggest regret in recovery.
00:40:13:16 - 00:40:39:23
Speaker 2
Um, but we go to this meeting and like outside, see our other homie Tanner from inpatient and, you know, we're like, Hey, we're going to go on a walk. And like, so he comes with us and like, that's where, you know, he breaks everything out. And I try heroin for the first time and then I smoke a gram of spice and then I go into the meeting, you know, like I'm living now the complete opposite of every suggestion everyone has told me already, you know?
00:40:40:00 - 00:40:54:23
Speaker 2
But I went in there as a 16 year old that didn't care about the program. And so now I'm reaping the what I sowed, right, is definitely attention. If if I don't care, like, I'm not going I'm not going to care about myself. They'll still care about they'll.
00:40:54:23 - 00:40:55:13
Speaker 3
Still care about.
00:40:55:13 - 00:41:15:06
Speaker 2
You. Let me in the meeting, they didn't say one thing to me. It was still all love afterwards, you know? Um, and like, I went home and, like, I. But that guilt set me, you know, like that guilt side of me. Like you. You did that, bro. Like, because it was like I had lied about my time, you know, already.
00:41:15:06 - 00:41:34:10
Speaker 2
Even what happened is, like, the first time I met Jess, right? Like, cause there's some people that are in my story that I might. I probably. She wouldn't care. So, like her, I met because I went at that same time I went to this first facility. I went to this outside group at a school near here, just for teens.
00:41:34:10 - 00:41:50:05
Speaker 2
I mean, so it wasn't under any fellowship. It was just for at risk teen. So I went there and like, this is where we talk about like ego comes into play and the disease, right, is like I went there and pretty much self snitched on myself because I was like, Oh, you know, I'm on this on that. I'm right over here, right?
00:41:50:05 - 00:41:51:05
Speaker 3
I'm big in bad.
00:41:51:09 - 00:42:11:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. And like, for some reason, like at this point I was so delusional. Like, I basically flex like that. I tried heroin. So then I go to group one day and no one's there. Like, all the lights are turned off, like all the papers are gone. Like, I go to check one of the counselors, snack drawers, even the snacks are gone out of the snack drawer.
00:42:12:00 - 00:42:34:01
Speaker 2
And I'm like, Yo, what's going on? She comes out and she's like, There's not really. And the counselor comes down. She's like, There's not really anything for us to do. There's been a huge change here at the at the facility and I'm like, We're going to have to take some time to get used to it. So then I come back next week and I see Jess and I'm like, Oh fuck, what is she doing here?
00:42:34:02 - 00:42:34:20
Speaker 2
Right?
00:42:34:20 - 00:42:37:03
Speaker 3
And then drop that flex in front of her.
00:42:37:04 - 00:42:57:16
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I'm doing, I'm doing all, I'm doing heroin on off days because I know I'm getting tested one day a week. So I'm living my life very in clean in this like, methodical system to make sure because that's where we talk about our use becomes like the more we put in more work to keep our after use than anything else.
00:42:57:16 - 00:42:58:16
Speaker 2
And oh yeah, you.
00:42:58:16 - 00:42:59:19
Speaker 3
Know, oh yeah, it's exhausting.
00:43:00:11 - 00:43:12:07
Speaker 2
And so then like I see her and she's like, Oh no, that's our new program director. Oh, she, she runs this place now. And I'm like, I'm going to be fantastic.
00:43:12:11 - 00:43:14:06
Speaker 3
Let's see you like about that time now?
00:43:14:06 - 00:43:28:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. So long story short, yeah, she got. She calls me out on it right away. You know, if you know Jess, like Jess lives recovery. So, like, we don't. You need to call people out, you know, so she'll know right away. And I try to do the whole play, and I was not a good teen at this time.
00:43:28:22 - 00:43:48:15
Speaker 2
You know, I was very angry about different stuff. So there's like, one counselor I. I still owe a man two. I want to say I might have made them because I did did see them one time, but I still need to act upon it. But, um, yeah, like they had me test and I was, you know, like, once again, incomprehensible demoralization.
00:43:48:15 - 00:44:03:17
Speaker 2
Like I would never talk down to someone the way I am now, especially a counselor or, or disregard or say the accusations I was saying about this man. Yeah. I mean, but like, I was letting him have it, like, oh, we, if we want to go in the bathroom and, you know.
00:44:05:00 - 00:44:06:03
Speaker 3
You tried to light them up.
00:44:06:11 - 00:44:22:17
Speaker 2
Just lighting them up. I was mad. I was that teen. That's why I like working with teens because I was the hardest teen to work with. So, like, there's no teen that's that's harder to work with than me. So, yeah, so long story short is I ended up getting kicked out of there because I got into an argument with my original counselor.
00:44:22:17 - 00:44:44:18
Speaker 2
Um, and Jess just kind of kicked why I graduated, and then I started smoking again immediately after someone had went back and told them. So My mom brought back and then I got kicked out. So just for the full factual story, I guess. And then I go and then pretty much like right after that is like, so on that fight night, right?
00:44:44:18 - 00:44:59:21
Speaker 2
I fight with this counselor. My mom picks me up. We're now into an argument right in the car all day, you know, because it's just me and my mom's now. My dad and my mom went and got my dad an apartment. So he's finally living separate, right? She and she had to go get it for him. Yeah, my my mom had to.
00:44:59:21 - 00:45:03:19
Speaker 2
She didn't pay for it. I don't think. But she had to go and actually get the listing.
00:45:03:23 - 00:45:04:22
Speaker 3
To do the leg work.
00:45:04:22 - 00:45:24:02
Speaker 2
Hey, go, go show up at this time and get saying because, like, this isn't fair that you're living here and you don't want to be with this. And so yeah, but that was kind of the story throughout. Now, now, I mean, my dad tried and the only thing I'll say that that sucks is in any divorce, I feel like no matter what a parent will try to use.
00:45:24:09 - 00:45:40:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, like you, you feel like you need to pick a parent's side, right? And like, in any case you don't need to. And that was the only thing I would say, going back, looking back on that now, or if anyone sees this that's going through, that is like you don't have to pick any side. You can live both and spread love both equally.
00:45:40:06 - 00:45:49:07
Speaker 2
And it's not your job to be the parent for both of them in this situation. Um, but like, my mom handled it beautifully, Like my mom's a champ, you know?
00:45:49:07 - 00:46:07:07
Speaker 1
So, um, it says a lot about her to, to, to even do that, you know, to to say, you know what? You know, I'll go get you the apartment. You know, you don't want to be with me. But yeah, she's willing to go that route, you know, instead of hit send first. Say no, you just can't be here anymore.
00:46:07:10 - 00:46:26:14
Speaker 1
Just don't want them on the street. Yeah. Which she had every right to. She, you know, so it says a lot about you know I think if, if some if your mom were to hear all this it is a good testament to you know, you get a real sense of how good her character is.
00:46:26:14 - 00:46:51:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like my mom is hands down the most innocent person I know in this world. Like, genuinely right. She's still, like I would say up until four years ago would have, like, thought like the world is like, all rainbows and like, and like, fuzzies. You know, like my mom is just she's short. Like you would not expect. She's five feet tall, like, very short, like, like I said, said she's been a pacifist since I was young.
00:46:51:23 - 00:47:10:07
Speaker 2
Like, my mom's worked as a special ed teacher for over 40 years, now, retired as a special and teacher McFarlane So and like we always liked going out and doing like we were always we had always been a, uh, a type of family that rooted for the bottom person, you know? I know, like we knew what it was like to be at the bottom.
00:47:10:07 - 00:47:48:19
Speaker 2
My mom was, didn't like high school, was voted class, passed in her high school and like had a lot of, like, trauma with her family. Her family was not good. And like, that's one thing that since we're on the subject my mom like baffles me about my mom is I do not know one person that can go through so much as like an abusive, you know, taking hits, you know, taking hits for her mom, being abusive childhood, helping your sister's abusive first, you know, first husband, um, like fleeing back from Russia, having to deal with cops, not really helping them in another unit, you know, and not holding any resentment or anger towards any of
00:47:48:19 - 00:48:06:20
Speaker 2
that. Like, she really she really doesn't like even even to this day, like my my girlfriend we do terror readings. And like, even so to this day, she asks about like her first husband and more so just to see if he's still alive. Right. Mind you, I would, you know, like I don't like this person. Yeah, yeah, right, right.
00:48:06:20 - 00:48:17:09
Speaker 2
Like, um, but yeah, my mom is just always been the sweetest kind of person. And so that's really rubbed off on me. And it's like a core foundation of our, our, our household that.
00:48:17:09 - 00:48:41:02
Speaker 1
Comes through, especially, you know, when we have you and we have you in group that that does come, that does come through, you know, the way that you the way that you talk and and and how you try to ask the right questions to draw whatever is really happening on the underlying. Yeah.
00:48:41:02 - 00:49:00:15
Speaker 3
It's kind of a throwback to what you were saying way earlier about that. Look you get from somebody that really cares because you know, sometimes you'll run some of the groups and things like that and you know, we give you a little bit of shit here and there about you, our time running long and us being there a little, but nobody really cares.
00:49:00:15 - 00:49:18:18
Speaker 3
We're just a bunch of guys talking shit. But like, you pry, you want to not just let things brush over. You want to actually make them better. At the time, it's been the time. So that's what I think. That's what Sam saying, where you can kind of see those attributes. Your mom had that kind of rubbed off on you in a good way.
00:49:18:18 - 00:49:40:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Like, I take a lot of inspiration from my mom and everything I do in the fact of she really taught me how to love, you know what I mean? And I don't think many people know how to love, like the way my mom knows how to love in this world, as in, like, love everyone. It doesn't what anyone wants to do, what anyone believes in, anything about anyone, like everyone is the same.
00:49:40:22 - 00:49:59:16
Speaker 2
And the world would change if we all just loved each other in other. That same way with like that genuine love. Like, let me pick you up when you're knocked down. Like if you see someone on the straight street side of the street, knock down, pick em up, pick them up like I've lived all my life chasing dogs down with my mom just to rescue a dog like him and, you know.
00:49:59:17 - 00:50:24:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Like my mom has always taught me, like, the moment you judge someone, you are no different than anyone else in this. Yeah, right. So for me, it's like all love all the time. Um, and like, another big inspiration would be, like, her best friend. That and she taught me more of, like, what we talked about in recovery, which is like the, the straight up stuff we need to hear, right?
00:50:24:11 - 00:50:28:04
Speaker 2
Like the, the cutting, the bullshit. Because my mom, like I said, she's so sweet.
00:50:28:09 - 00:50:29:18
Speaker 3
The sugar coated stuff that.
00:50:29:18 - 00:50:45:00
Speaker 2
I can I can play I can play her game all year long. You mean. And it wasn't until her best friend came and saw what was happening and was like, No, you need to do this. Like, you know, she's doing this like showed her tough love because she didn't know tough love. And then in the dynamics she was in, she couldn't really give it.
00:50:45:00 - 00:51:04:15
Speaker 2
So that's when she was actually the first person to talk to one of the seniors at the church that got me into the rehab that I was in. And she stayed there throughout. Like they they had multiple interventions, like, um, they had to pull out all my clothes and everything from my room and like my bed and everything.
00:51:04:15 - 00:51:29:17
Speaker 2
And that was like the one week I stayed with my dad and like, yeah, but it, but it was, it was all out of like showing you that everything's a privilege, you know? I mean, like, I didn't realize, like, everything was a privilege. Like, I didn't realize what a privilege was until I got locked up. You know, once the freedom was gone, I was like, Oh, okay, now can you come out and you see the world a lot shinier and you see what privileges?
00:51:29:17 - 00:51:52:11
Speaker 2
And so I look back at like the stuff she did, like taking my clothes or like, um, like she would come over and always have like some comments to say about, like me being lazy or whatever. And I look back at them now because she's passed now, she passed along this year and I think like, you know, all she wanted, like she was being the dad, I didn't have, you know, I mean, I had like you think about like your dad is normally the one that pushes you a little tougher.
00:51:52:14 - 00:52:19:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Without that, I mean, like a lot of the stuff I was doing in the household, like, like we talked about roles, like I was handling, like, the protection and the stuff like that, but I was, like, negating the cleaning up after myself, like the cleaning the bathroom. And she would come in there and keep me up on that because when you're basically, you know, your own parent, because my mom works a lot still, you know, you neglect a lot of the stuff that you don't learn or you think you can get away with stuff.
00:52:19:19 - 00:52:23:05
Speaker 2
And she would be the rock and be like, no, this is how it needs to be in order.
00:52:24:02 - 00:52:26:13
Speaker 3
And you respected her enough to listen?
00:52:26:18 - 00:52:30:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, Yeah. Eventually I didn't like her. Honestly, I'm beyond.
00:52:30:12 - 00:52:33:06
Speaker 3
Yeah, because he's just. He is. He's going to straighten you out.
00:52:33:10 - 00:53:05:18
Speaker 2
Yeah, she was my. She was my mom's friend I never liked because she always had, like, opinions about something. She was always like that. That was. She's also the first lady to take me to, like, Social Security five times to get my name changed. You know, when my mom was at work, took me to try to get my license three times because that took me like eight tries, you know, like she was the first person that when I get to like, the end or like when we wrap this up or like when we talk about it like when I was at my lowest in sobriety, she was the only person to realize, like, Oh, I'm
00:53:05:18 - 00:53:23:18
Speaker 2
worried about him. Like, I need help like that look, you know, and I'd never gotten that look from her like I gotten loving look. But it was like a love, like, shut up and do this because it's good for you, right? I mean, like, stop being your own mess. Like, this look was like, Oh, like I need to be worried.
00:53:23:18 - 00:53:38:21
Speaker 2
And so then I knew right then and there, like, it was like, weird how? Like, cause it was one of the last days I saw her, too. It's weird how, like, you go through someone's life, and you might not like someone at first, but then you go back. And as soon as she was worried about me, I realized everything she had done in the past was all out of love.
00:53:39:02 - 00:53:45:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, It was like my assumption had made it so negative in my mind. You know, a lot of the negative things we have come from ourselves.
00:53:46:03 - 00:53:49:03
Speaker 3
Oh, no. Yeah. They're a reflection back into ourselves.
00:53:49:15 - 00:53:57:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. And so, uh, where where I was at with the story. So basically, um.
00:53:58:04 - 00:54:03:22
Speaker 1
You come out or you go to that, you get kicked out of your, your, your last group.
00:54:04:02 - 00:54:20:15
Speaker 2
Okay. Yeah. So, so on the ride home, me and my mom are, you know, I remember this specifically. This is the one thing I was worried about having specific memories for this episode, but, um, we're driving back towards, like, this side of town, and we stop at that target over there and, like, she's like. I'm gonna get a frozen pizza.
00:54:20:15 - 00:54:28:08
Speaker 2
So what do I do? I leave it at the car while she's going to get the frozen pizza, because what better time And I'm a teen and we're arguing and I'm like, Oh, I'm a walk.
00:54:28:08 - 00:54:29:18
Speaker 3
I'm going to. I'm going to escape this.
00:54:29:18 - 00:54:50:06
Speaker 2
I'ma be dramatic. Right? Right. And on my walk home. But I knew what I was doing, you know? I mean, because we talk about like you guys have heard me when we talk about relapse, the relapse happens way before you pick that I mean, so for a good example of that. Right. Have a video example would be like my relapse started the moment I started that argument and heard them say, you're out of here.
00:54:50:07 - 00:55:07:09
Speaker 2
Right. Right. My relapse started there because I knew you're not going to be accountable for me no more. Yeah, you got no way to keep me lock Perfect, right? So my relapse started there. So everything the argument with my mom, the egg and her on more than not just being calm and like saying I'm sorry and being respectful.
00:55:07:15 - 00:55:24:03
Speaker 2
Everything there was to lead me back to getting high again. Definitely. And so when I left the car, then I walked to a park where I see like it's like now like 10:00 because groups from 6 to 9, it's like 10:00 I see someone with a flashlight looking at like rocks and like a plastic bin. I'm like, Yeah, there's no way you're over.
00:55:24:05 - 00:55:24:20
Speaker 3
There is no.
00:55:25:13 - 00:55:37:13
Speaker 2
This is a type of addict. I was at the time as I literally walk up and I'm like, Do you have any drugs on you? Like anything to get? I will do anything. And I hear. Dimitri Oh.
00:55:37:13 - 00:55:38:12
Speaker 3
No, I'm your name.
00:55:38:12 - 00:55:56:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. And and it's my homegirl that I had in like eighth grade that what was had a substance abuse problem back then. But we never knew. But we were just play pool together and swim and like, hang out. And now I knew when I saw her and I was like, Oh, so, so what's up? And I was like, So do you.
00:55:56:19 - 00:56:14:08
Speaker 2
And you know, she gave me half a Xanax. And then right, right from there, like I said, like it's for me, it's like the moment it touches my tongue, I'm a different person, right? You know? So I had it. And then like, it was like, okay, I know what I'm doing. Like, I've already given up. I'm back on the wheel bus, so let's see how far we can go this time.
00:56:14:08 - 00:56:37:14
Speaker 2
And so, like, I go home normal thing, and then this is how like, like when I tell my story, I like to paint a picture of what what it's like, right? Like the good, bad and ugly I'm not here to look perfect. I wasn't perfect during this time, you know? So what I did right to pain, like how delusional I was is I was like, okay, basically, I want to do drugs again.
00:56:37:14 - 00:56:58:18
Speaker 2
If I get my mom convinced that these people are people that are keeping me sober, she ain't going to ask me about them. So that's what I did right. And like that, that speaks on like the manipulation here because my I'm only 17 at this. I'm only like, I think still 16 at this time. Yeah. Like my disease is making me think on manipulation on levels I really shouldn't be thinking on.
00:56:58:18 - 00:56:59:18
Speaker 2
All right. No, of course not.
00:57:00:10 - 00:57:15:01
Speaker 1
So, like, I didn't wanna interrupt you, but I was going to say that the one thing it also did was you picked up right where you left off. Yep. You know, you started right back to the manipulation. You and the get you where you wanted to go.
00:57:15:01 - 00:57:34:18
Speaker 2
Yep Right there. Like it every time I had gotten sober and then went back to using, it wasn't like I had to, like, regain my progress. It was like, no, I picked up, like you said, right from where I left off. And I went ten times harder, faster, faster. Right? Yeah. So once again, like, I'm already a heroin addict now at this time, right?
00:57:34:18 - 00:57:49:14
Speaker 2
I had my little heroin stage and then I got cut off from it because it just And so then. Right, like her drug of choice was meth. Right. And so now it's a lot different because I'm still like, yo, I don't I don't.
00:57:49:19 - 00:57:52:10
Speaker 3
Still have that line. Right? You still have that line. You know, I.
00:57:52:10 - 00:58:29:06
Speaker 2
Will not mess with meth. And so, um, uh, I'll tell her later, but so with, like, so eventually I'm chilling with her every day. Right? And I'm just doing Xanax, right? I'm just doing Xanax and smoking and doing Xanax to drinking. And she'd whip. It's like whatever. Right. And so the thing about, like pills and stuff like that or alcohol, too, is when you black out or the more you get closer to that stage, the more you make decisions that aren't you, you know, first, you know, I remember I don't remember doing.
00:58:29:12 - 00:58:50:13
Speaker 2
That's the sad part. I don't remember doing meth for the first time, but I remember right before I was about to do it is like we were all in the car and I was like, You know what? Write me up one too, because I was just that gone already. And then, like, I don't remember anything. But the next day I remember waking up with them in my wallet and going to school and starting in the bathroom at school, you know?
00:58:50:13 - 00:58:57:00
Speaker 2
I mean, cause for me, it wasn't like I ever built up to using a drug, you know, like, okay, like once I want to do it.
00:58:57:00 - 00:58:57:10
Speaker 3
You're in.
00:58:57:10 - 00:59:01:20
Speaker 2
There? Yeah, I'm starting in the morning. I'm doing it in the bathroom at school. Like, I won't.
00:59:01:22 - 00:59:09:12
Speaker 3
Yeah, that's how it always was for you, too. Because you said you smoked in by like three days later, you had your own dab kit set up ready to go.
00:59:09:17 - 00:59:29:19
Speaker 2
So for me, it was like I always just super rocketed or I fixated on anything. Like any drugs were like skateboarding. It was like an obsession. I had to know every trick. Like I would know the milligrams that a doctor would give to, like the milligrams get you messed up. Like that's how obsessive this disease is. It's like I obsess over every aspect of this now.
00:59:29:19 - 00:59:44:00
Speaker 2
I obsess over getting it. I obsess over what the quality of and obsess over, like the ritual of doing in obsess over like the time I have while I am under the influence. Right? And then I obsess about how to get some more when I'm broke again because I'm not doing anything but that.
00:59:44:13 - 00:59:45:00
Speaker 3
Constant.
00:59:45:00 - 01:00:03:05
Speaker 2
Loop. And it's just this loop. Yeah. And so then, right, like I remember seeing this documentary in high school about Chris Herren who's in recovery and the nice ball player that played for the Boston Celtics. And I remember in class in high school I was under the influence of and said, Oh, that was when I'd made that boundary.
01:00:03:05 - 01:00:24:00
Speaker 2
I would never be a meth addict or tweaker, right? So this goes in the pain of pain now, right? It's like eventually my mom catches me up on on like my lie, right? Like I left, like something over there. And she went and talked to her mom. And her mom was basically like, Yeah, your son should not be with, like, hanging out with my daughter like, 100%.
01:00:24:00 - 01:00:45:10
Speaker 2
Like, I promise you, whatever they're up to is not, not, not what he's saying. Yeah. And so in my first treatment facility, like I said, this look, that look that we kind of talk about this, the theme of this episode, like I have a second mom named Jessie and she was a counselor at that facility. And like, she was just like a super mom, Like she has seven kids.
01:00:45:10 - 01:01:04:09
Speaker 2
Like whenever she came in, she was the best counselor. Like she loved each one of us, like her own kids. And she would make the best food. And she still we still cook together because she makes the best enchiladas I've ever made, like 100%, like, right. And Navajo tacos. And so, um, I have like, as a joke was like, Yo, what are you getting me for my birthday when I get out of here?
01:01:04:15 - 01:01:10:12
Speaker 2
And she was like a puppy because she had a bunch of these puppies that she was trying to get rid of them. Yeah. And so, like, I held on that.
01:01:10:12 - 01:01:12:03
Speaker 3
I called her, like, Where's my puppy?
01:01:12:03 - 01:01:27:18
Speaker 2
Yeah, I called the rehab. Like months later. It was like, Yo, where's my puppy? So we stayed in contact, like, and that's where like talking on about aspects of sobriety. That's my first sober support, you know? I mean, even a real first, like, real first one and still like rock, rock solid to the day, like partner in life.
01:01:28:04 - 01:01:48:13
Speaker 2
Um, and so like when I, she had called my second mom, right? Because no matter so I if I got too messed up right. There's some stories I left out like me and my dad got into a physical altercation because the cops were called and the cops get in, arrest me. So they told my dad, You know, you might as well lay the hands on him.
01:01:48:15 - 01:02:09:18
Speaker 2
Do what you do. Bigger than my dad. So, like, stuff got out of hand? Not in a good way. Um, and it really, like, I guess, like, in short. Yeah, like, it just wasn't good, you know? And I had hurt my dad, and I had kind of done some very off the wall and threatened some very, like, terrible things that I would never wish upon anyone, you know.
01:02:10:07 - 01:02:37:14
Speaker 2
Um, and so, like, when I was in that stage of anger, you know, I don't know what it was from. No one could get me out but her like she we all blacked out, and like, my second mom could call. I could not be mean to her, even if I wasn't there, like, physically in my body. And. And so, um, so I had got a call and I was out in, like, the riverbeds, like on a sick one, you know, like someone was getting their heads buzzed, like it was like, you know, like twigs.
01:02:37:15 - 01:03:00:06
Speaker 2
And this, and I get a call and my probation officer had stopped caring about me, and he stopped caring if I checked. And he basically told my mom, like, if you want him drug tested, bring him. Then I'll drug test tomorrow and we're not going to chase you around anymore. Yeah. So, uh, she basically had my second mom call and say, like, your mom's either going to take you to probation officer and have you drug tested, or you can.
01:03:00:06 - 01:03:27:23
Speaker 2
I'll come pick you up. I'll come from Palmdale. She's lived in Palmdale. I'll come from Palmdale and bring you back to your rehab in Santa Clarita. And I was like, Well, obviously I don't want to go back to juvenile hall, so back to the rehab, right? So long story short, I go back to rehab and, uh, my second mom breaks down crying at this place called Chronic Tacos, which is my favorite place to eat in Santa Clarita, because, like, I'm a big boy, so, like, my normal meal there would be like a burrito and four tacos.
01:03:27:23 - 01:03:40:23
Speaker 2
I smacked like half a taco because I was so on dope. I did that like it. It broke her heart. And it was the first time I had kind of seen like someone else besides my mom, like the heartbreak in them. So how much.
01:03:41:00 - 01:03:42:02
Speaker 3
It actually hurt her?
01:03:42:06 - 01:03:56:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. That pain, like, sobered me up a little bit. Like it stuck with me and, like, I went in there knowing, like, I didn't believe you could get clean. Like, that was my mindset going to this. This is a I'm happy while I'm here. I get help while I'm here, but I still go back to the same shithole where nothing changed.
01:03:57:06 - 01:04:20:15
Speaker 2
And like, that's where like, I wasn't taking responsibility for my program, you know? I mean, I was seeing the fruits of the program and like what it could offer but was not thinking it was attainable for myself. Right. And so I go back to this facility and like, really the only thing special about this time, because I know I'm taking a while, is, um, like, there's this one counselor that comes in and he's about 20, kind of like me.
01:04:21:01 - 01:04:36:05
Speaker 2
And he, he's younger and he's clean and like, we have pretty the same exact story in, like, I go out and like, I'm talking to, like one of the other people that was in there at the time. Like, you know what? I think I actually want to be clean. Like, I know I've been saying I haven't, but I think I do.
01:04:36:10 - 01:04:37:00
Speaker 3
You meant it.
01:04:37:03 - 01:04:54:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, I did. You know, like I had felt like something kind of wash over me, but I had I generally meant that when I when I said it. And so every time that we started doing group, I listen, you know, every meeting I went to, that's when I started partaking. I started making myself known, you know, like I'd, I'd met people in there.
01:04:54:11 - 01:05:12:11
Speaker 2
I started nourishing those friendships. I started, you know, I got a commitment while I was in there. Right. Like, you know, like there's things in place that lessons I needed to learn that were being offered, but I wasn't willing to put in the work to get them. And so I started to put in the work. Now I was still live in my program.
01:05:12:11 - 01:05:31:01
Speaker 2
I'll say that. Yeah, the fellowship or another program or how I was supposed to, and the key where I'm at in my stories now, I want to get help, but I want to do it my way. Yeah, right. And so then I get out and I'm taught I'm going to this new program. In the program we are, you know, go to today and it's a new one.
01:05:31:10 - 01:05:52:07
Speaker 2
And so I go there. I'm one of the first three teens there. Um, and you know, I do the they start working with me and, you know, it's I have the same counselor I had originally before you left. Okay. Yeah, same people. And so we all start working together. It's a great time. There's like three, three people in there.
01:05:52:07 - 01:06:10:10
Speaker 2
One of them was my friends, kindergarten. So, like, we we had a made it was a good group. And then I graduated and same thing like day I graduated like had had that reservation, had that like reservation to get a drug. Yeah. Did anymore. And like, I want to smoke and I think I can smoke, you know.
01:06:10:14 - 01:06:12:04
Speaker 3
The lack of accountability, man.
01:06:12:05 - 01:06:22:12
Speaker 2
It was lack of accountability. And then like I said, I was working my own program, so I thought I could still handle things on my own. No. Yeah. So I left being like, Oh, I can handle this. I've learned my lesson with this, this and this.
01:06:23:00 - 01:06:31:06
Speaker 3
And do you see that in terms of like cross addiction? Like, you weren't like you could handle certain situations and you could handle certain substances.
01:06:31:06 - 01:06:52:04
Speaker 2
So like, I knew so at that time I knew if drugs enter my system, besides what I thought back then, weed and alcohol, I, I, I cannot do those drugs and not want to do them every single day. Like I knew that right myself. Like, like that's why I love about one is like we talk about an allergy, right?
01:06:52:04 - 01:07:09:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. Like cause I can feel that allergy. It's like I legit have one taste of the substance, and it's like my allergic reaction is, I want that shit every day, all day fucking long, you know? So, like, and so I knew at this point if I with drugs, if I do them, I can't stop like it takes me going somewhere.
01:07:10:17 - 01:07:12:14
Speaker 1
Okay. Yeah. And alcohols.
01:07:12:14 - 01:07:29:00
Speaker 2
But weed and alcohol is okay, right. Because even though I'm going to group and I'm going to these meetings, I'm still going back to my same set of friends, right? I'm hidden lake sometimes I'm still like because now I'm live in kind of get in my high through the streets and really more of just like the street activity, right You know.
01:07:29:06 - 01:07:45:18
Speaker 2
And so I'm still committing crimes like doing stuff with the homies I like, but staying sober through it. But every time I do that, it's still causing me to live in that life and lose morals and watch them all get high, which like I thought I was cool with, you know, everyone thinks you're cool with, but, you know, you're fighting that trigger.
01:07:45:19 - 01:08:05:13
Speaker 2
I didn't know I would just fight triggers and fight triggers, and then eventually, like, it would fall over fire. Yeah, it become normal. That's the biggest thing about shooting with people that use it is it becomes normal, right? Because they talk about it. Normally they talk, Oh, hey, Friday night, you want to go drink right? Like it becomes like a normal thing to where you don't realize how bad it is.
01:08:05:13 - 01:08:11:00
Speaker 2
Right. To them, It's not bad, but to me it's it's deathly you know and yeah different.
01:08:11:00 - 01:08:35:13
Speaker 1
And I was just say that in regards to weed you know weed I'm sure during that period of time I don't know exactly when it started becoming mainstream scene. I don't I don't know. I just don't remember the days or the years. But at some point in this weed is probably if it wasn't already, it is becoming mainstream.
01:08:35:13 - 01:08:36:21
Speaker 1
Yeah. Like alcohol.
01:08:36:21 - 01:08:37:11
Speaker 2
Is. Yeah.
01:08:38:01 - 01:08:40:23
Speaker 3
It's not dope anymore. It's just it's Yeah.
01:08:41:01 - 01:08:42:07
Speaker 2
What's funny is I.
01:08:43:05 - 01:08:58:06
Speaker 1
And you got a bunch of people talking about how we cover it. You know, that's one thing that because I, I get on to, I search these things all the time. I always see Well weed is what's helped me get clean.
01:08:58:12 - 01:09:00:04
Speaker 3
You know? We see that. Oh, yeah.
01:09:00:12 - 01:09:21:07
Speaker 1
I see that a lot. I see. You know. Well, I have a drink here and there, but I don't, you know, I can't do this drug or whatever, you know, So it, it, it people try to normalize it and society really has let it go mainstream to where, you know, I mean, everybody does it. I mean, Grandma is do it.
01:09:21:07 - 01:09:33:18
Speaker 1
Yeah. Actors, you know, baseball players, you know, it's not just the couple of basketball players that do it. It's not just the couple of you know what I mean?
01:09:33:18 - 01:09:34:03
Speaker 2
Like, it's it's.
01:09:34:03 - 01:09:37:20
Speaker 3
Definitely not a niece and niece drug like we were talking about. Yeah.
01:09:37:21 - 01:09:56:20
Speaker 2
It's a global thing now. And I think so I kind of have well, so like with alcohol, right? Like for me, like when I think of alcohol, like alcohol, like one glass wine is apparently healthy by a doctor. Right. One glass of wine inherently isn't healthy for me because I can't do that one glass.
01:09:56:22 - 01:09:59:05
Speaker 3
That's the thing, you know. Yeah, that's the only problem. Yeah, that.
01:09:59:05 - 01:10:11:05
Speaker 2
That's moral of it, right? It's like those people can do it and it's fine to be mainstream for them. Does it make it hard for me? Yeah, but like, for them, it's not deathly for me, Deathly and I, and it's no.
01:10:11:06 - 01:10:13:06
Speaker 1
That's where the allergy comes in for us.
01:10:13:06 - 01:10:41:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it's knowing. It's knowing like because I used to get resentful honestly, like I used to really want to drink regularly or, or do things regularly and I had my scope now and my recovery has changed like before. I used to think like it has to be dead sad across the board. Like all the time. I've ran into some circumstances where I can say like a harm reduction model to say, like a facility where people can smoke or whatever I like.
01:10:41:04 - 01:11:06:14
Speaker 2
There are some of those where I believe, sure, there's positive work going on. Do I feel like it would have been beneficial for me? No, because like, I feel like it. It keeps me on the same wavelength, right? Like you need you need a period of abstinence to get your head clear and I, I've seen people that have had that period of abstinence and been able to go back to using regularly and they've been fine.
01:11:06:23 - 01:11:12:13
Speaker 2
I'm just not willing to test it. Yeah. You know, I mean, so like my my view I tested.
01:11:12:20 - 01:11:13:17
Speaker 1
It doesn't work.
01:11:13:20 - 01:11:37:08
Speaker 2
Yeah I mean yeah for me where I'm testing it like younger with my relapses but I've seen people it just I don't think it's statistically the normal thing. Right. But my view of things now is so wide because I see all over the world, I definitely see where some people benefit from certain things and some people don't like people.
01:11:37:08 - 01:11:59:21
Speaker 2
For instance, like people that want to be on like a holistic approach. Like I've heard that, but like some of those people do smoke. Like if that if that's beneficial for them and it's not tearing away, it's like if there's no outside consequences, if you're not seeing consequences, then continuing to do things despite consequences. If it's not affecting interpersonal relationship and like it's like but.
01:11:59:23 - 01:12:00:23
Speaker 1
Just assume you.
01:12:00:23 - 01:12:05:19
Speaker 2
As a medicine, you know, I mean, like, you know, not morning, middle night.
01:12:05:19 - 01:12:07:09
Speaker 3
Just recreation, just.
01:12:07:10 - 01:12:15:04
Speaker 2
Like a medicine or CBD. I could see then because I don't like harming anyone that might help someone's. Trump Right. Sure.
01:12:15:05 - 01:12:16:09
Speaker 3
Because I get that a lot.
01:12:16:09 - 01:12:39:16
Speaker 2
Of people use it for mental and that's completely separate from substance. And substance abuse is one thing that's different because it incorporates mental health, right? Like we're normally what we call dual diagnosis, which means like we have mental health issues and we have substance health. Exactly. Normally they intertwine. And so there are some people that have like and we would still consider those normies, you know, I mean, that can do that.
01:12:39:16 - 01:12:48:15
Speaker 2
Maybe it is beneficial for my mental health. Drinking in the mainstream stuff isn't beneficial for me because I obsess over.
01:12:48:15 - 01:13:08:21
Speaker 3
I have the same thing that you have, Dimitri, which a lot of addicts have, and that's that manipulation. King of it, You know what I mean? Lived my life doing it every single day for about 20 years, just trying to work every single angle. And I got so good at it that I will manipulate myself. You know, it's a bad machine up here.
01:13:08:21 - 01:13:21:15
Speaker 3
You know what I mean? So that's the that's one of the things that I think to myself, Oh, yeah, I can go back to just smoking a little weed here and there. You know what I mean? You never had a problem that when you were younger, it wasn't until you started drinking heavy and then the cocaine showed up.
01:13:21:15 - 01:13:37:09
Speaker 3
And then the fizzles, which is just garbage can, pills, You know what I mean? A little bit of everything in those. You can kind of gauge them off the color, you know what I mean? And what they did, I remember, you know, So, yeah, swallowing like I was six or seven of those. And I, you know, and just staying up for a few days.
01:13:37:09 - 01:14:00:08
Speaker 3
But that's what I can't do. That old cliche of weed being a gateway drug. I don't believe that's true for everybody, but for me, because of the way my mind works, I will talk myself into your smoking, bro, and everything's fucking cool. Everything is normal, everything's chill. There's no problems whatsoever. So you know what? You can have a drink.
01:14:00:15 - 01:14:10:09
Speaker 3
You know what I mean? Yeah. And I know the road that that leads to, You know what I mean? So that's why a slippery slope for me. Not for everyone, but that's why I can't do it for me.
01:14:10:09 - 01:14:25:06
Speaker 1
Same thing. And that is that once I once I do it, as soon as I do it, I'm thinking, okay, what am I going to get the next one? Yeah. And that's that mental switch that turns on for me, you.
01:14:25:06 - 01:14:25:22
Speaker 2
Know that.
01:14:26:00 - 01:14:37:09
Speaker 1
That because you constantly chasing, okay, I got to get another bowl. Well if I'm smoking weed that's, you know, or I got to get another blunt I don't have another paper whatever. You know what I mean. Like it's, it's, it's on you.
01:14:37:09 - 01:15:04:18
Speaker 2
Know, it's, it's, it's the obsessiveness. Yeah. Like, it's, it's really like it. It would be nice to have only work where it's like, you know, on an average basis, we're like, one time in the morning, you know, whatever. Like someone we consider responsible dosage is it'd be nice for that to be like a normal thing for us. But it's more of like, for me, it's like I learned through my relapses because I engage in slippery slope.
01:15:04:18 - 01:15:11:03
Speaker 2
It was more for me like I did Russian roulette with it. I tried to smoke it. Just see what happens if a couple.
01:15:11:06 - 01:15:12:12
Speaker 3
Let's see what happens.
01:15:12:17 - 01:15:29:18
Speaker 2
Death and heroin. Yeah and oh, what are you doing? Once I had once I had got to alcohol because I was like, you know, then that's pretty much the end of my story is like I had just I, I had started drinking because I had got sent back to my high school and I saw it, which means I'm right back to my all my.
01:15:29:22 - 01:15:31:04
Speaker 3
Right where it all started.
01:15:31:04 - 01:15:48:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. So like, they're saying, like, oh, you can drink and it'll be fine. I'm like, you know what adults drink like we're talking about right now, it will be fine. And so I start drinking and like, like I said, like, I hate alcohol, like, and when I mean this, like, I did not enjoy drinking alcohol. Yeah, that's why it was always my last go to.
01:15:48:10 - 01:16:04:07
Speaker 2
I hated the taste of it. It was not fun. I got a weak stomach, so I always throw up and then I have that more. So I drink despite just having thrown up. Right. And so, like, that's where I knew, like it didn't matter what it was because once I started drinking every day, I knew I hated this.
01:16:04:07 - 01:16:05:21
Speaker 2
Like I didn't enjoy it. But I'm still.
01:16:05:21 - 01:16:08:08
Speaker 3
Willing to still willing to do it every single day.
01:16:08:08 - 01:16:28:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, despite not liking it. Just because I don't want to feel myself right when I feel that pain. I don't want to feel that isolation, that feeling or feeling like I'm not enough for people like that. Feeling like that. I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. Like All these kind of fears that we build up and then we we build all these fears up in our youth, right?
01:16:29:01 - 01:16:52:03
Speaker 2
And then, like, when we're sober, we feel all of those ten times harder for that 10 minutes we're sober. And like, that's what got me clean is like that 10 minutes of like going to go get more dope or that 10 minutes of like when I first woke up in the morning on my walk to go do something like that, guilt, pain and like trauma and hurt that I felt in that 10 minutes because everything just stacks up and the feeling when you're so bright.
01:16:52:07 - 01:16:53:22
Speaker 2
That's what got me sober. But that's that.
01:16:53:22 - 01:17:12:10
Speaker 3
Window. That window where I look at it as my higher power. That's that's some super small window where he can actually get at me. You know what I mean? Where he can actually be like, Hey, finally got your attention for it. It's literally 10 minutes, you know what I mean? And he has your attention for that small amount of time.
01:17:12:10 - 01:17:19:21
Speaker 3
And if he can get something in there and get it to stick, like it's crucial because after that 10 minutes is gone, you know, you can load it. Yeah.
01:17:19:21 - 01:17:44:11
Speaker 1
And I think that's why it's. So like, you need a combination of those things happening, you're finally clear. You finally are not on it, but you have this. So it brings on a desperation like, Fuck, I got to do something, you know, I got to make a change. I got to it. So it's it's what's going to get to you faster.
01:17:44:11 - 01:17:52:07
Speaker 1
That drink, in my case, the drink or, you know, am I going to go get help? Yeah. And it's like they're, like right there next to each other.
01:17:52:13 - 01:18:13:12
Speaker 2
Right. Because it's like eventually, like the pain gets so bad to where the drugs can't numb it. Yeah, You know, like, the alcohol can. No, not like that. 10 minutes, like, becomes more unbearable, more unbearable. And like you said, then your higher power finally speaks is like you finally eventually hear like, is my pain. Just going to go on this forever, or am I going to end?
01:18:13:12 - 01:18:38:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, I mean, and like, you realize, like, I can end this like and that's how it was, is like I her like really the unmet unnecessary part of my short story to get to like the important part the sobriety is like long story short, like I started drinking like my, uh, I had gotten 60 days and then, um, my best friend had taken a shotgun to his chest and blew my.
01:18:38:07 - 01:18:56:07
Speaker 2
My friend at school, taken a shotgun to his chest and blown his chest cavity out in a relapse in my, my mom woke me up on the side of the house. I was asleep in the dirt and I called my monsignor and I asked him, you know, like, do people that hurt kill themselves, go to heaven, you know?
01:18:56:07 - 01:19:12:12
Speaker 2
And he gave me his answer. Um, and, you know, I felt better, but like, I was I was messed up, man, you know? And so like that. Then I remember going to my counselor, and this is where I get the phrase I always tell you guys, like, um, and he told me, you know, like you had gotten clean time.
01:19:12:12 - 01:19:31:02
Speaker 2
This time he's like, you had learned a lot of stuff. This time you got clean. You didn't just unlearn all of that, right? You lapsed. Your time may start over, right? But you you still have all that sober knowledge. It's just you need to apply it now. Definitely. So then I was like, Dang. So the long story short is like, I'm supposed to go to group.
01:19:31:02 - 01:19:47:03
Speaker 2
I end up getting relapse again. I get toasted like I can't even make it a group by three. I'm asleep and like, it gets so bad and my mom has to pick me up. I come out in like just my underwear, you know, and like I'm belligerent. She calls my second mom. I calm down, talk my second mom again.
01:19:47:09 - 01:20:09:18
Speaker 2
Next day I find out like, um, like some stuff went missing from on me, and I was like, Oh, that ain't going to happen. So I go out and basically, like, like engage in normal stuff, like trying to check my ego and think I'm this big, bad, whatever, right? And like, get hurt. I get jumped and I get put in the hospital.
01:20:10:02 - 01:20:22:11
Speaker 2
Um, and then I get out right away because they don't want to help me. Or so then it was like right there in that night, like my mom was like, Do you want to go back to rehab? And it was like the first time I had ever not put up a struggle. I was like, Yeah, I'm fine with that.
01:20:22:11 - 01:20:43:19
Speaker 2
Like, let's go. Like, yeah. I was like, I don't really care. Like, I was so, so broken. Yeah, I was just so done. It was it was boring. You know what? It had become the same thing over and over again, except, like, pain, you know, in my whole, like, the only reason I did that was, like, I felt like my whole life was pain, you know?
01:20:43:19 - 01:20:49:04
Speaker 2
So, like, and then it was like, why am I going to keep introducing pain when I feel like my whole life is pain?
01:20:49:05 - 01:20:54:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, You just replicating it over and over again to keep feeling that same pain.
01:20:54:18 - 01:21:14:06
Speaker 2
And sometimes it was a lot like I felt I deserved it, you know, like I got comfortable in that pain, in that depression. So I would force myself to be that depressed and that in that pain because, like, that's what I felt like I deserved. And I found that I was like when I went to rehab, like someone at the end of my story, why that look is so important is like the reason I'm clean today.
01:21:14:06 - 01:21:34:12
Speaker 2
Like, I remember, like, he is my pop's like, I don't care. Ricky, if you see this, you're my pops. Um, but like, a counselor there that I call my pops and his closest thing I have to it. Dad, besides my mom, Senior, I talk about, um, uh, he the way he and another counselor looked at me. Her name's Rebecca.
01:21:34:12 - 01:21:44:22
Speaker 2
The way they looked me the first day I woke up in that rehab because I went to that rehab. And this one was, like, way out in San Diego. It looked like a youth authority prison when I was where my.
01:21:45:00 - 01:21:46:04
Speaker 3
You send me this to.
01:21:46:17 - 01:22:10:16
Speaker 2
Like, Oh, we're not accepting from this one. Like, and like the first day I woke up, I had, mind you, this big, ginormous black eye, like my my eyes tenderized, like, very nicely protruding from my face. So I sit down and he's just shown there and he's just like, he just reminds you of kind of like a powerful kind of like a nineties, nineties hip hop rapper.
01:22:10:16 - 01:22:14:14
Speaker 2
If he was a nerd to Yeah. Do rag he had the backpack.
01:22:15:11 - 01:22:15:13
Speaker 3
And.
01:22:16:06 - 01:22:36:04
Speaker 2
In like a bright green like a michelangelo Ninja and he designed the one silver to throw it was like and he looked at me and like I, I did not like I had shaved in the shower for a long time, you know, I mean, I had I had gotten brush my teeth in the shower for a long time.
01:22:36:04 - 01:22:41:20
Speaker 2
I gotten ready in the shower and like I saw Chris hair and talk about like how he did the same thing because he couldn't look at himself. No, no.
01:22:41:20 - 01:22:44:00
Speaker 3
I mean, and you do that subconsciously sometimes, too.
01:22:44:04 - 01:23:07:17
Speaker 2
I did that subconsciously because I couldn't I was subconscious about my weight. I was subconscious about, like, everything people had told me all my life had a subconscious about being a drug addict. So, like, I my when I viewed myself like my words, my mom, me and my mom were talking about my friend passing the other day, like when she found me drunk and my words to her, like when she woke me up where it should have been me, um, you know, so.
01:23:07:17 - 01:23:24:23
Speaker 2
And that right there painted about exactly how I felt about myself. Like I had a lot of homies die. Rest in peace. Tide Torres and Nick, Sterling and Sofia. Um, and, like, my grandparents had died throughout that time that I was trying to. I watched my whole family die in front of me and go to funerals since 12.
01:23:24:23 - 01:23:36:18
Speaker 2
So like that, that survivor's guilt had built up so much so like when I looked at myself, I saw a piece of trash, you know, I mean, like, I saw the worst kind of human you could be, even though, like, I wasn't the worst, I still saw it.
01:23:36:18 - 01:23:44:06
Speaker 1
So when you saw it, because you you see these people take from from us, and then here you are wasting it away.
01:23:44:06 - 01:24:00:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, pretty much. You know, I mean, pretty much like when he when he had did that to himself, you know, like he this was actually it to give you guys, like, sobriety. The thing that helped me stay sober would be Yeah. Like this conversation like I, I tell I told you guys like when we were talking about men's emotions, right?
01:24:00:17 - 01:24:10:15
Speaker 2
Like, I had a counselor sit me inside a room and say, you know, you're going to drop this big boy tough act, and you're going to tell me about how each one of your friends that passed away made you feel.
01:24:10:21 - 01:24:11:06
Speaker 1
No.
01:24:11:08 - 01:24:27:17
Speaker 2
You know, and and I remember sitting on a beanbag and saying that exact same thing. You know, like my first thing was like he he would have had a football scholarship. He would have had this he would would have been afford to go to college. He would have, you know, all these things that I feel like you're right.
01:24:27:17 - 01:24:58:15
Speaker 2
Like I was wasting my life. So why do I why am I still here? I was I started doing drugs to try to kill myself. Just the easy route. But I can my body could handle drugs to where I can never kill myself, you know? And so, like, yeah, I feel extreme survivor's guilt. And when I let that go, when I finally told someone about all that, like when I had finally told someone, like, how much I had missed my friends and how like, I felt like I had no place on this earth, like, and they were better off here without me like that.
01:24:58:17 - 01:25:09:14
Speaker 2
There was a weight lifted off me. I cried, like, so hard, you know, I imagine. And I had never cried really like that much before that unless like, for manipulation or something, you know, like when I bust.
01:25:09:14 - 01:25:10:18
Speaker 1
The terror out. Oh, yeah.
01:25:11:10 - 01:25:42:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, get myself out of you, but like, I really genuinely cried. And there's something about crying like that heals you, you know? And like, I think it was more of, like, people making me feel like I had a place in this world again. Yeah. No. And like, when I looked at them, they like, when I looked at Ricky or Rebecca that first day in rehab, like the person they saw in their eyes was someone like I saw like they saw someone completely different than who was in front of them, you know?
01:25:43:00 - 01:25:55:05
Speaker 2
And like, I took that and ran with it like, like I did, I just knew I wanted to be clean. Like, it wasn't a it wasn't like the previous times I knew, hey, I've tried Dimitri's way every single.
01:25:55:05 - 01:25:56:00
Speaker 3
Way and every single.
01:25:56:04 - 01:26:15:07
Speaker 2
I tried everything like everyone talks about, like the stereotype. I've literally tried to cut change my youth, try one thing at a time. And it's always led to a still worse relapse. Right So the only way I can get clean or get sober now is just by doing whatever the fuck anyone else who's clean has to tell me to do.
01:26:15:07 - 01:26:16:14
Speaker 2
Yeah, and that's what I did.
01:26:16:14 - 01:26:17:04
Speaker 1
Is Justin's.
01:26:17:10 - 01:26:34:21
Speaker 2
Is like it was a completely different ballgame, as is any suggestion was a word of fact for me. You know, I mean, any piece of wisdom someone could offer me was like a gift, like, put into my lap. And I took it and I cherished it. And so, like, between, like, um, you know, him installing in me like, a good routine, right?
01:26:34:22 - 01:27:02:03
Speaker 2
Like how big a routine? Like, he's the first person to make me do physical, like, fitness because I had quit football for a long time, but put me back into the gym there, you know, I mean, like the the first people to show me, like kind of a you know, what a healthy, like dual parent life would kind of be like, you know, like when stuff happened at the facility they would take care of me, you know, like I slowly worked on like, every single void that I had that had weighed on me.
01:27:02:03 - 01:27:17:16
Speaker 2
Right? Like the pressure of like, you know, trying to be emotionally there for my mom and help her with all of her emotions because she doesn't really have anyone else to reach out to. You know, like all my homies and like, trying to take care of all of my homies because, like, I love them so much, you know?
01:27:17:16 - 01:27:38:21
Speaker 2
And I see I'm I was young so I could see how the broken homes were already, you know, you know, I could see like, that's why I needed to be around my friends is like, I need them to be safe, too. I had to work on like, people pleasing. I had to work on setting boundaries, you know, I had to work on really like reinventing myself and like respecting myself, which is something I never thought I would do.
01:27:38:21 - 01:27:39:17
Speaker 3
That's a lot of work.
01:27:39:17 - 01:28:18:15
Speaker 1
That's that. That is, I think in the first 365 days, if there's anything I think you said it the best, and that is that you get to reinvent yourself. You get to really, really start shining light on things that you never wanted to face and really start working on it. Um, what are the thing that you had mentioned that I wanted to touch on because I just had this conversation with somebody that is going through it right now and she, she's going into rehab tomorrow.
01:28:19:12 - 01:28:45:03
Speaker 1
But, um, she, you know, I was trying to encourage her today, and one of the things that I had told her was, look, you when you when you if you she said, because if I do this again or if this is like my last shot, she said, because she says if this doesn't work, I don't know what will.
01:28:45:12 - 01:29:10:02
Speaker 1
And I said, Look, I said, alluding to what you said was that now you had it like your counselor told you you had tools. Now that you didn't just unlearn that stuff. And that's what I was trying to get across her was, look, you do this and if you relapse is it's just a relapse. Yeah, it's not. It have to end.
01:29:11:03 - 01:29:33:05
Speaker 1
It's not the end all be all. Now you know a little bit more about how to get sober and how to stay sober. And no matter how many times it takes you, you can you learn a little bit more each time and then eventually, you know, you know, things will play out the way you know, the way you can sustain sobriety.
01:29:33:05 - 01:29:51:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's one one motto I like from obviously the place we go to is like planting seeds, saving lives because, like, that's the one way recovery is literally how it is, right? It's like through my story. I can tell you this first rehab, I learned how important like community was. I learned that I'm not alone in this, Right.
01:29:51:16 - 01:29:58:06
Speaker 2
Because no matter what, even if I don't want to get clean, you take me to a meeting or a room, you can really see a room full of myself.
01:29:58:06 - 01:30:00:02
Speaker 3
Yes, you are. No. Yes, you are.
01:30:00:02 - 01:30:02:07
Speaker 2
Leave that room knowing that there is still a room.
01:30:02:16 - 01:30:03:15
Speaker 3
Full of people like.
01:30:03:15 - 01:30:25:08
Speaker 2
You. Like me. I mean, that will sit there and love me until I learn to love myself. Because when I hated myself, those big people to small people, to all kinds of people that the world looked at differently came up. And each one of them hugged me when I hated myself. That's right. Each one of them hugged me and let me talk about how I wanted to kill myself on a mic in front of 30 people.
01:30:25:08 - 01:30:46:18
Speaker 2
And they came up to me, hugged me and fixed what I was going through afterwards. What we have is it's beautiful because it's a love that needs to be spread. But then you can go is like, I still didn't really learn anything, but I just learned the community right? And second day I learned like how important sober support is because I actually built a sober support and I got my sponsor for the first time, right?
01:30:46:19 - 01:31:08:13
Speaker 2
I learned how the process works and I learned how the committee works. So I learned how the fellowship works, right? So then by the time when I actually got sober, all that had really happened is those seeds grew and I took advantage of it. Yeah, right. Like when I got out, I knew I had already known that statistically, if you make 90 meetings in 90, you are more likely to stay sober.
01:31:08:13 - 01:31:25:06
Speaker 2
So when I got out of rehab, I knew I was going to make 90 meetings in 90 days. And that's right. I had I knew from the first two times that statistically, if you don't go to a meeting when you get out of an inpatient facility, the day you get out, odds are you're not going to have a routine of going to a meeting every day because you have already started off wishing a routine.
01:31:25:14 - 01:31:46:07
Speaker 2
So I went to a meeting the first day I got out right. Like it really. I had picked up a commitment. The first week I was out, I was going out of town to, you know, try new tried a different fellowship aimed towards younger people. Right? So like, I had learned all these things beforehand through trying to get sober.
01:31:46:07 - 01:32:01:19
Speaker 2
I had just yet to apply them fully without hesitation or doubt, like 100%. Right. How the fellowship says it right, how it says it, like all of these done without with without a doubt done, like living by spiritual principles, living by the program.
01:32:01:19 - 01:32:03:21
Speaker 1
Why you rigorous honesty, all those.
01:32:04:00 - 01:32:28:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. You Will get clean you know but it's applying that every single day. And like a person that helped me get clean a lot said it best is like getting sober is a lifestyle, right? Meaning like when we talk about character defects, it goes to the root is root of the character defects. You know, when I got sober, I haven't stolen anything since July 1st, 2016 months.
01:32:28:12 - 01:32:45:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, I, I would like to say I have well, I have not committed like any so like I have not committed any violent crimes. Right. You know. Right, right, right. I have not done anything as a that's not Demitri as I am today. Right. I mean like and that's.
01:32:45:11 - 01:32:59:04
Speaker 3
Where that's, that's really wild. I didn't think about it like that because I was. Yeah, my I couldn't I couldn't keep my sticky hands to myself for 30 some years, and I haven't stolen anything since August 17th for sure.
01:32:59:12 - 01:33:23:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. And she explained it to me like that, you know, I mean it's, it's a lifestyle choice. It goes deeper than not just using drugs. It's in your everyday choices as who you are as a person. That's what sobriety means, you know, like, so it's in like, that's how I'm so absurd. It's like she's the reason I'm so absurd is because if it can be done, you know, I mean, if you can be of service, like you should always take into account someone else's or what you can do for someone else.
01:33:23:07 - 01:33:39:19
Speaker 2
And she showed me that like do the full extent, like gave me all my knowledge and is why I'm so hungry on like being of service to people when I know, you know, because she showed me the power and that really comes with like you can do so much to change someone's day you know it's very simple right?
01:33:40:06 - 01:34:03:15
Speaker 2
Someone's day completely around you know like you can go as far as like say she was where she would let newcomers live at her apartment as long as they were willing to go to meetings seven days a week. She had like three beds in a one bedroom apartment, you know, like and just trying to get people clean. And like, that dynamic also showed me, like when you're working with people as vulnerable as we are, like there's a lot of compassion that needs to go into right?
01:34:03:16 - 01:34:29:16
Speaker 2
Meaning like kind of like, why why are you so touchy with that gateway subject, Right? Is like, there's so many different people in this world don't want to offend someone that may have some trauma to work, that works for their trauma, you know? Exactly. That's like this story about the same is like I wish people like throughout the world or with topics, you know, we're just nicer to each other and more understanding that we can have a difference of opinion or just more understanding of like where someone come from.
01:34:29:16 - 01:34:29:22
Speaker 2
Like.
01:34:30:11 - 01:34:41:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, for I was just going to say that, you know, here we are, not the three of us probably would have never hung out outside of, outside of recovery.
01:34:41:16 - 01:34:49:00
Speaker 3
No. Even though we're all addicts, we were doing our own type of addiction things. We probably wouldn't have came into the same circles.
01:34:49:00 - 01:35:13:06
Speaker 1
So, I mean, it just and here we are, you know, we're having we're able to have a conversation, you know, and it and and learn stuff from each other. And it's just it, you know, we have a common interest and we have a common theme. I do. Before we go and before we wrap up, I always ask two questions.
01:35:13:17 - 01:35:24:10
Speaker 1
And my first question is, what would you tell your 15 year old self?
01:35:24:10 - 01:35:37:20
Speaker 2
So that's funny because it actually gives me we might have to do a part two because I'm a righty. But that's a that's a perfect question because let me touch on basically what I want to get to in the true Believer telling me.
01:35:37:20 - 01:35:39:18
Speaker 1
We don't have to stop any time soon.
01:35:39:18 - 01:35:46:10
Speaker 2
I You're good. Yeah. Oh, no, you're good. Um, actually, can you ask me the question one more time cause I was so hyped over the questionnaire.
01:35:46:10 - 01:35:51:07
Speaker 1
Okay, What would you tell your 15 year old self?
01:35:51:07 - 01:36:22:04
Speaker 2
Okay, there you go. So I remember what I was going to say now. So the reason this question is so special to me, right, is like when I when I get to my story, obviously, like and from what I've told you guys about my trauma I've experienced in sobriety, right. Is like, would that 20, 20 year right. Where like I had you know, I had had a client pass away and my best friend's brother overdose and then my best friend that year, like it completely changed the way like I counsel and view people, right.
01:36:22:04 - 01:36:44:00
Speaker 2
I became way more like into myself and how how do I make myself genuinely happy, you know, for them for the first time? Because there's there's things like that. Obviously, we will know everyone will and no one will get their perfect recovery in their first year year, the third year. I mean, there's always something to work on or there's always a character defect that might arise from something else, right?
01:36:44:01 - 01:37:06:04
Speaker 2
And so what I would tell myself is you need to be more compassionate to yourself like 100%. You need to learn to love yourself and be unapologetically you. You know, I mean to yourself. Yeah, I would I would tell myself, Find out who you are. Write all the things you love in life. All the things that give you tingles when you do it.
01:37:06:04 - 01:37:25:02
Speaker 2
Like the the hobby that makes you feel like you're on top of the world or you're the coolest person ever. Follow that and don't write that to the wheels fall off. That's right. Go for dreams because everything's attainable. But be compassionate like the like for me, when I work with my teens, I meet them where they're at. Like when I work with teens.
01:37:25:10 - 01:37:44:16
Speaker 2
How feel like I excel well is like I ask the questions that were asked to me when I was a teen, right? Which is like, why? Why do you hurt so much? You know? I mean, because, like, that was a question I don't think we asked people a lot like and I ask you guys that I try to ask you guys, stuff like that.
01:37:44:16 - 01:37:53:15
Speaker 2
And that's where you guys see them. I try to get and ask the questions that I wish someone asked me while I was using. And that's really my basis of it is like.
01:37:53:17 - 01:37:55:00
Speaker 1
That's where that comes from.
01:37:55:00 - 01:38:18:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, it comes from like that hurt little kid that that didn't have no family, didn't have anyone that just wish someone really asked like, why are you doing all this? Right? I mean, right. And and and it's not like anyone's responsibility because it's like I was responsible and I caused all the pain in my life, you know from my use, but had someone stop or I had.
01:38:18:11 - 01:38:34:03
Speaker 2
And like, of course you do. What sort of like had someone all I would have All I can say is from that all I wanted at that point of view was was someone probably to hug me and sit there and say that. So because I didn't want to feel responsible for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. So that's one.
01:38:34:03 - 01:38:54:03
Speaker 1
And then the second question I have is what would you tell what would you tell somebody that realizes they have a problem and is thinking about getting help? What would you tell that person?
01:38:55:06 - 01:39:13:19
Speaker 2
What I would tell them is everything's going to be okay. Like the way the way you're hurting right now. All three of us in this room have heard the same way. And it will be different because trauma is different in each and every way, but like, it can be healed. And we're here to help you, you know, like this community.
01:39:13:19 - 01:39:31:06
Speaker 2
One one thing I tell you is, is don't be afraid to go into a community that's going to sit there and love you until you love yourself. Right. And what I mean by that is like five it's like around like five or 10% of people stay sober, like and that's that's not a statistic, I say to scare you.
01:39:31:06 - 01:39:56:00
Speaker 2
But like, if you look at that 5%, like including this, like we take care of each other, right? Meaning like if you're worried and want to get clean right now and you can look me in my eyes and see me like that means if you come to somewhere I'm at, I'm going to take care of you. Meaning Wherever your local area is, they will take care of you if you let them know like it's 100% up to you, it's 100% doable.
01:39:56:13 - 01:40:17:07
Speaker 2
But you have to open up your heart and like want to come in and come in with open arms and listen. And I guess the last thing I would say like, don't be so hard on yourself and and don't hurt forever. Like, come over to the love side. Like, we'd love to see you over here. Like, in in world.
01:40:17:10 - 01:40:20:11
Speaker 2
If anything, just make it one more day for me. Really? Please.
01:40:20:19 - 01:40:23:14
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, like my kids say.
01:40:23:21 - 01:40:27:18
Speaker 2
Let's go.
01:40:27:18 - 01:40:29:14
Speaker 3
Say, Dimitri, man, we appreciate.
01:40:29:14 - 01:40:31:05
Speaker 2
You coming in, man. That was.
01:40:31:06 - 01:40:37:10
Speaker 3
Cool. Cool. Kicking back. You know what I'm saying? In a different in a different theme and where we usually kick back at you. And I mean.
01:40:37:10 - 01:40:55:08
Speaker 2
It's nice to take that counselor badge off and be first. Yeah, You know what I mean? For real? I don't get to do it that often. And I the only reason I do it is I love I love being with people in recovery. So I like doing stuff like this. It it allows you guys get to see the real me versus Right, right, right.
01:40:55:08 - 01:41:06:11
Speaker 2
Like I have. I'm not disingenuous, but I'm a lot more like, I'll tell you about myself. My pain is like, if I'm out there, I'm going to be trying.
01:41:06:11 - 01:41:06:23
Speaker 1
I don't know.
01:41:07:12 - 01:41:25:10
Speaker 2
Like if I'm out counseling, like I'm focused on everyone else. You know what I mean? Because that's my job. If I'm at a meeting, I'll do a little bit of both. When even me, I'm trying to be the people pleaser. So I'm more of service. Right? Exactly. You guys get to see me, like, while I'm here. Be a little bit selfish, I guess, and talk about myself, too, you know?
01:41:25:10 - 01:41:27:00
Speaker 3
That's good. Good point.
01:41:27:05 - 01:41:50:06
Speaker 1
You know, it is someone you know, it's crazy how you talk about the community. I posted that. I took a picture of little Chip and I put it out there that I on Twitter and I don't have very many followers on Twitter. I'm not very good at it, but there's like 20 followers, you know? So I put it out there and I don't take nothing of it.
01:41:50:06 - 01:42:16:17
Speaker 1
I just did it. I came back like a day later. This was on Sunday. On Saturday, I did it because that's when I got my chip. Sunday. I looked at it the the the, the thread or whatever, and it was like 1500 people seen and my seven people retweeted 800 and something. People have comedy club.
01:42:17:01 - 01:42:19:10
Speaker 3
Lonely, lonely, so much love.
01:42:19:20 - 01:42:22:22
Speaker 1
I know if I'm on Facebook or Instagram, those are people that I.
01:42:22:22 - 01:42:23:21
Speaker 2
Know wrote on.
01:42:23:21 - 01:42:47:06
Speaker 1
Twitter. I don't know any of these people. Yeah, except for Lindsey, who was on the podcast. But that's it. You know, I don't know anybody, you know. So to to that that community that you talk talk about is is huge and you hear you know even to go back to like the guys you were saying you know you learn something new every year or every every day.
01:42:47:06 - 01:43:08:14
Speaker 1
And I see those guys like it when I see guys in the 30 years, they have 30 years and the struggling and you're like, wow, So then it's there. There is something more to learn. They're learning something, you know? So it's, yeah, I don't know what that's going to be. I can't fathom what that looks like even for me.
01:43:09:07 - 01:43:16:01
Speaker 1
But man, I want to if this is how good I feel all the time, I'm all gay men.
01:43:16:03 - 01:43:37:19
Speaker 2
I'm for that, Right? It's it's a blessing. And I think for me, like I I'd spend or the reason I say that is I spent a long time neglecting like my my inner feelings about myself. Right. My self-confidence was still wavering. I still had issues in my head about my way and and different opinions people had of me and like, Yeah.
01:43:37:20 - 01:43:59:00
Speaker 2
And so I think like, as you go, like really like I was happy my first three years and then like, obviously 2020 happened and yeah, you know like it it's for me it was more of a new ball game dealing with all the deaths that I had because like for me, like just be honest I guess with everyone is like I had it in my head.
01:43:59:00 - 01:44:14:00
Speaker 2
Of course, like the justification of like I could use right now. No one would blame me. Yeah. I mean, I'm going, I've gone through so much like out right now I could end it right now, you know because and this was like the love I had between my friend like, before he died. Like, there's blood promises that I would.
01:44:14:01 - 01:44:34:00
Speaker 2
I would do something to myself if he passed, you know, And what I mean by community and love and and especially for people struggling out here, like my best friend's last words to me before he passed, he called me. This is another joke on my on my body back in the day, even though it doesn't look like it now is like they call me for divorce body saying I got the body of a divorced dad.
01:44:34:00 - 01:44:52:15
Speaker 2
Yeah, I but he said he's like D.B. and this is a day before. This is the last words he ever said to me. He said, D.B., I love life. I love life. I love life. I love life. I wish you loved life like I love life. Like I love life. I love life because I was way more of a negative person than you guys see now.
01:44:52:15 - 01:45:15:05
Speaker 2
Like, I was like I was more of a realist, you know? And, um, and then that was the last time saw him. You know, I came back, I got shaken up the next day and my mom was on the phone. I just heard something, Cam and I didn't know shirt, no shoes, threw on pants and ran over to his house and came over and saw the the tinfoil and and the straw.
01:45:15:05 - 01:45:35:21
Speaker 2
The last, you know, really the last thing I had in my home at that point. You know what, I mean, because they had taken the body already. And so it was more of like, how do I learn to love life again? You know, because like when he passed, like I had a lot of people passed and I went to a lot of funerals sober and it sucked.
01:45:35:21 - 01:45:56:02
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, it's hard and and it took like coping skills. It took me seeing my therapist. It took me calling sober support every hour of every day. Like I would call Lisa every day I would call her friend. I was my sponsor every day. And I would call Jim about every day, you know, like I would have three separate people I would call every day at different times of the day.
01:45:56:11 - 01:46:20:16
Speaker 2
And they would answer every time they, you know, I mean, and, um, and so it was hard when like he passed, like finding and because I had realized I had started to realize the symbolism of life and for me, like, I think like, as sad as it sounds, I had originally got on this path of like being a counselor and wanting to help people, all for the simple fact of like, I wanted to help my homies.
01:46:20:19 - 01:46:41:00
Speaker 2
Right? Right. And one by one, I watched each of my homies died. And then like when he died, because he's my best friend, like my best friend lived across the street from me since I was four years old. Um, and so I never had a death where, like, killed me inside. Like, I am a completely different person as I am today than I was before he passed.
01:46:41:00 - 01:46:57:12
Speaker 2
So what I would like, what I would definitely say is, like, I wish you loved life. I hope you learn to love life like I did and like live by the the saying cherish the day, you know? I mean, every day is beautiful and there's something to cherish in it, like something to learn, something to be happy about.
01:46:57:12 - 01:47:17:22
Speaker 2
Sometimes you have to kill your old life in order for like a new beautiful one to grow. Or that the truth, you know, 100% like I don't like Tik tok, but I did see a Tik tok where she was like, you know, because I've always been a suicidal person and decided as a part of my story, like I've had attempts.
01:47:18:07 - 01:47:41:08
Speaker 2
And so like when she and she I take talks like all mental health, of course, obviously she was like, you know, a lot of people and I've been suicidal and a lot of I understand how I was. But I see now like I was willing to end my life before even just not accepting it, starting over, trying a new one, like quickly like a like think of it like a video game.
01:47:41:15 - 01:47:42:23
Speaker 2
Like, you know, like Call of.
01:47:42:23 - 01:47:44:00
Speaker 3
Duty reset and.
01:47:44:08 - 01:47:45:16
Speaker 2
Go try World of Warcraft.
01:47:45:23 - 01:47:46:14
Speaker 3
Or try something.
01:47:46:14 - 01:48:13:07
Speaker 2
Different. Yeah. Like I was willing to kill myself on World of Warcraft or I feel I was stuck as Dmitri, the drug addict, The kid with no dad when I could have just tried being Dimitri, the the, you know, parent Dimitri, the the responsible son. Right. Dimitri The the counselor. Dimitri The musician. That's right. Like, whatever. Whatever I want to be, you know, like, you got to invent your life for you.
01:48:13:07 - 01:48:33:15
Speaker 2
And that's one thing, is like, I didn't I didn't feel like life was just hitting me with stuff anymore. I'm like, I was planning on where I want to go and what I want, like my goals. Like, they weren't just recovery. Like I want to be genuinely anxiety free. I want to I want to not I want to work on trauma.
01:48:33:15 - 01:48:50:00
Speaker 2
I want to work on PTSD. I want to, you know, not have as many bipolar freak outs, you know, like stuff like that. So but my last words, yeah, since I went away, long winded as in my fashion, um, I would think of yeah.
01:48:50:23 - 01:48:52:16
Speaker 1
It wouldn't be a good episode.
01:48:52:16 - 01:48:53:12
Speaker 2
If it didn't.
01:48:53:12 - 01:48:59:12
Speaker 3
Go. It wouldn't be Dimitri's see me tres episode. We can go a little bit longer than usual.
01:48:59:12 - 01:49:01:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, but yeah, we'll do a part two.
01:49:01:06 - 01:49:03:21
Speaker 2
But yeah, we can do a part two. Honestly.
01:49:03:21 - 01:49:10:22
Speaker 3
Or we can just start in the morning on all of our day off and we'll just, we'll just switch locations and we'll just talk for 8 hours all day long.
01:49:10:22 - 01:49:12:10
Speaker 2
I'll bring two sets of clothes and.
01:49:12:10 - 01:49:15:00
Speaker 3
We day and we're talking now we're talking.
01:49:15:00 - 01:49:19:12
Speaker 2
And I've learned, I've learned some tips and tricks. And I you can you can get three episodes.
01:49:19:18 - 01:49:24:00
Speaker 3
I did just change some clothes through it. Not. All right.
01:49:24:00 - 01:49:28:01
Speaker 1
All right. I got to bring my different hats because I wear the same thing all the time.
01:49:29:00 - 01:49:31:10
Speaker 3
Just just watch your hat. You think it's a different day?
01:49:31:15 - 01:49:50:11
Speaker 2
Ah, a little clothing rack will be my my three different outfits of, like, something really flashy and some really flashy. And then Sam's wardrobe is going to be three black t shirts, pretty much black. I'm assuming Levi's or Dickies Baby Blue, and then three Black Moccasins.
01:49:50:11 - 01:49:53:20
Speaker 3
Yeah, there we go. One pair of crocs, au pair crocs. Just in case.
01:49:53:20 - 01:49:55:19
Speaker 1
There's a case I want to fill in fresh.
01:49:55:19 - 01:49:59:06
Speaker 3
You want to put them in sport mode? Now take off.
01:49:59:06 - 01:50:00:15
Speaker 1
I guys appreciate it.
01:50:00:15 - 01:50:01:20
Speaker 2
Thank you. All right, fellas.