A Recovery Journey - Let's Get to Know EA (part 3)

Erick Allen, also known as EA, is the visionary founder of Affirmations for Recovery and a dynamic motivational speaker. His journey from adversity to advocacy began in the challenging streets of Portland, Oregon, and led him through the trials of the prison system. Today, he leverages his experiences to inspire and guide others in their recovery journeys, emphasizing the power of positive affirmations and resilience.

In this final part of a three-part series, EA reflects on the turning points in his life that led to positive change. He discusses the impact of becoming a father, his commitment to personal growth, and his dedication to helping others through his work as a drug and alcohol counselor. EA also shares insights into his upcoming projects, including new books and the continued evolution of his Affirmations for Recovery initiative.

Listeners interested in personal growth, overcoming adversity, and recovery will find this episode particularly enlightening. Key topics such as resilience, the power of journaling, mental health, and community support are thoroughly explored. If concepts like "personal growth," "overcoming adversity," "recovery," "mental health," and "community support" strike a chord with you, this is a perfect episode to check out!

**Potential Listener Questions:**
1. How can journaling aid in the recovery process and personal growth?
2. What are effective strategies for maintaining mental health and resilience during challenging times?
3. How can the support of a community influence success in overcoming adversity?

Connect with Erick Allen - HERE

Find the Affirmations for Recovery Journal HERE

Contact OceanTree Creative HERE

LIE Foundation: HERE

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If you are recovering from anything, this recovery podcast is a daily dose of positivity. I speak on mindfulness, and share thought processes and affirmations to help with your recovery journey. Recovery is not just about substances, recovery is needed for all kinds of addictions and thoughts and ideas that you may be addicted to. This podcast is for you!

Transcript

0:30

So my job, my goal is to add value to the recovery space while I'm here on earth. And for me, journaling saved my life. Welcome back to part three, EA, the man behind the affirmations. Take my, roll my sleeves up for this. So just a little bit of a replay on what part two was. We talked about time in prison and drug dealing and the things that led up to where we are today in part three, where we talk about how things start going in the right direction and things that EA is doing to improve his life, improve himself and help others. So welcome back, EA. It's good to see you. I had to take a break. I needed that break. You got me open. You got me wide open right now. Okay. So yes. Thank you for having me though. I appreciate it. I'm so excited for this part. So EA has a book called Affirmations for Recovery, and I can say firsthand, it's so easy to get into. And did I hear also that you are going to be writing a book? I have two books. Two books coming. Yep. I have an actual, I'm doing a guide for Affirmations for Recovery because what I learned in the first year, we did cohorts where we talked to the people that purchased it. And a lot of the feedback was like, man, can you just be more intentional with the words of the day? So I was like, hmm, let me just write it out. So I'm putting together an actual guide that we'll step hand in hand for day one, all the way to day 30. So you'll read the guide and then you'll come over here and do the work in the manual. So I'm super excited. That's going to be coming in the next 30 days. So yeah. And then I have another book that I'm writing that kind of talks about my life story. And this three-part series kind of just reminded me of my purpose and the direction I want to go with that. It's titled King of the Bums. Okay. And Bums is an acronym for broken, underserved, marginalized species. It's a species, right? And I feel like I've been king of them throughout my whole life, which is some of the interactions that I've had to do, some of the mishaps, some of the just everything, my life is modeled. So it's going to be a lot of my life story and I'm going to definitely add a little bit of fiction to it just to protect the innocent and the guilty, right? But it's going to be, it's going to definitely be a bestseller. Just trust, trust and believe that. I love it. So we left off, you just had your son and you're out of prison and your charges have been dropped. It's not a federal thing anymore. Having your son was a big step in your recovery. Yes, ma'am. Just, you know, seeing him and just, you know, watching God's work, you know, people say God works in mysterious ways, and I'm telling you, I could not testify more to that because I went from no children, facing 188 months in prison to a free man. My wife is, you know, at that time, you know, she wasn't my wife, my girlfriend, she got pregnant with my first child and then just things just started lifting up, you know, money. And it was funny because I wasn't getting paid a lot of money, but my happiness, you know, my happiness was there because happiness for me is the family nucleus, it's the things that's surrounding me. You know what I'm saying? I get my energy from the things around me happy, you know what I'm saying? Seeing a smile on my son, my wife's face, that's all I need to get my energy, you know? So, yeah. What did life look like, you know, we'll go to your son being born, what changes did you start making in your life to get you to where you are today? God always has been working on me, right? Because the fact that I grew up in the, you know, the way I grew up, you know, underprivileged in a drug-affected home, I've always had the knack to want to see the community win. I always had a knack to want to change things. I just want things to be different. I don't want to live the rest of my life the way I was. So, even through prison, I actually took up going to school before prison. Actually, you know, God has been working with me since high school because in high school, I took college courses. And, you know, even after high school, after I went to prison, I was able to use those courses still when I went back to school. So, I went back to school, went back to school after prison, got my certification for drug and alcohol counseling, and later got a certification for the mental health as well. Because for me, I believe they go hand in hand. Anybody that's suffering from an addiction, like a substance abuse addiction, they have some mental health challenges, I'm sure. So, in order to work with them, I needed to learn both modalities. So, I'm definitely trained in both modalities. And that's just what, you know, life is like for me today. That's what perseverance looks like for me. It's like taking everything that I've been through, all the bullshit, all the crying, all the tears, everything. And then we put it together, and we put a plan together to help others, you know, not have to go through some of the things that we've done. And that's just life for me today. And I'm all over the country with it. I'm talking about recovery, because recovery is a big deal. It's the world's oldest pandemic. It's going to be here way after us. It was here before us, and it's going to be way after us, right? So, my job, my goal is to add value to the recovery space while I'm here on earth. And for me, journaling saved my life. I know you finna ask me, so I just beat you to the question. I know. Well, I was. But I was going to ask you, would you say that your interactions in your past, like dealing with drugs and, you know, you mentioned being in the drug houses, you know what people look like when they're high. You know what I mean? You know the struggles that go with that. Would you say that that has helped you be a better drug counselor? And, you know, you know the mental health side of it. You've got the education part of it, but you've also seen it firsthand. Would you say did that make you more passionate about doing that to help people? I know you mentioned that success is everybody around you being successful, so that also kind of feeds into it, right? Yes, absolutely. I believe, you know, just watching others and what they go through and been through is definitely helping me with my practice. It helps me, because I know firsthand that there's, you know, recovery is possible. You have to believe, it starts with your belief. If you have doubts, for me, that's where I start. I start working with you on the doubts, because the mind, again, is the most powerful thing we have, all of us, we have. We have control over, right? So if you start in your mind and you're telling your mind, oh man, I don't think I can do it. Oh my God, what's this? That's the problem right there, you know, for me. I like dealing and working with confident people. I like to build confident people. You don't know what that looks like? I know how to make you look confident, okay? It all starts in our words, right? There's no trying. We don't try, we do. Even if we fail, we did it. Doer's Club of America. Doer's Club of the world. We're going to take this international, okay? Doer's Club of the world, okay? We only do here. That's my only requirement is that you develop the mindset that you're willing to do something, not try anything. You don't want to try, because trying is the first step to failure. If you really think about it, when people fail, they're like, you know what? I tried. It's interesting that you say that, because in all the work that I've done, or just things that I've done for myself to improve my mental health and things like that, I never realized how much of a negative connotation I have attached to the word try. Yes. And then you said something when I was editing Affirmations for Recovery podcast about, you know, try is such a terrible, I mean, it's not a terrible word, but there's so much negativity connected to it, and it's amazing the difference that it makes when you take it out of your vocabulary. And I do it. I do it in real time. I do a lot of groups. I work with people publicly, silently, whatever. And when we're conversing, if I see people using the word try, I will quite politely stop you in mid-sentence. I've done it. And I'll reconstruct the sentence for you, so we can say it. And it sounds a lot better. And I would say 90% of the times that I do that, even when a person says the new sentence, man, it sounds so much better. You're right. And that's what this is about. It's about learning, unlearning and relearning. And it's a process. It's not overnight. It took us all time to be damaged, right? But if you're willing to do the work, I'm willing to go on a journey with you. So how did you get to the point to, I mean, you didn't just get out of prison and say, hey, I think I'm going to write this journal. How did you get to the point? Were you doing it yourself through getting your schooling? Yes, absolutely. Journaling, it's been my whole life. And I started it in prison because in prison, you don't have a lot of people you can talk to. There are probably people that can relate, especially when you think about complaining about things that you've gone through, like your worries and, oh my God, I'm going through this. I got this much time left. You can't talk like that in prison because, you know, people are in prison. They got their own problems. Okay. So I started talking to the paper or talking to an actual, you know, I had bought a notebook and I just started, I started with day one in my mind, like here's today. This is how I feel. Um, this is some of the challenges that I'm having today. And from there it birthed into a tool that I used because what happened was after I did it, maybe three months had went by and I went back and I looked at how I was feeling in that moment. And it took me back to that moment. I was like, damn, I was really feeling like that. And sheesh, man, I was going through the most. And then I had to remind myself how I got through it. Right. From where the journal was to where I am now, what happened? And when I, and then when I found out the light bulb kicked in, I was like, this is journaling. This is what journaling looks like. This is what it is. And, you know, prayed about it. Cause I'm a prayer. I'm a definitely, I'm a, I'm a spiritual person. I don't really follow the religious themes anymore, but I'm definitely heavy, heavy, heavy into spirituality. I believe everything starts with prayer and it has to believe you don't believe the chances of you achieving are less likely. I think too. Let me just touch on that. I believe that that's true of anything. If you don't believe in something, it's not going to work. It's not even necessarily just in God or whatever you believe. If you don't wholeheartedly believe it, it's not going to work. If you don't wholeheartedly believe that journaling is going to help you feel better, it's not going to help you feel better. I couldn't say that better. She said that she took the words out of my mouth. I'm telling you, that's anything you do in life for love, change, recovery, whatever you want to attach to it. You got to first, first and foremost, you got to, you got to get, you got to have the understanding. You got to believe in it. You got to know that you can do it. You can do it right. And you got to be accountable for the times that you're not identify those emotions like, okay, I don't feel like it today. That's okay. That is okay. You are human. We all go through that. That's, that's the, that's the life. But the secret sauce is learning how to persevere when you have those feelings. Okay. I don't feel like doing it, but I do it anyway. How do you, how do you do it anyway? How'd you do it? Share that with somebody. I'm telling you, man, you don't know how, how, how powerful just when, you know, when you learn that, you know, listen to people that, that's, that's overcome the challenge. That's, that to me is that, that's how I, you know, that's how I built my whole, um, recovery strategies. And, you know, as a clinician, I work in a space and that's really, I get a lot of my tools from the people that I work with. So you started journaling in prison and you still journal up to this day. What is the time? What's the timeframe for that for anybody listening? How long has that been? Well, it's been over 10 years. It's been over 10 years. I mean, I don't journal now every single day. I don't grab it every single day, but I journal mentally now. It's had a point where, you know, you build a tolerance just like how you do when you have a substance issue. You know, the first day you smoke something, you know, you didn't, you didn't have the same feeling as you have now, you know, it's called building a tolerance. So same thing with journaling. I'm at the point now I can just be, I can just be driving or something and I'll start journaling in my mind. I have a, I have a, I have a forever journal pad in my mind. So, and that's the tool I use to every, anytime I need to reflect on something, journaling is the answer for sure. Would you feel like, you know, we're in a pretty techie age now? I mean, even in the 10, even in 10 years, we've come so far with our cell phones and things like that. Do you think it will be just as beneficial for somebody who's maybe struggling to just do a voice memo on their phone? Like you said, you're driving. Driving is generally where a lot of, if you're driving alone, a lot of my thinking happens during that time. And I would assume it would be, do you think it would be just as beneficial to do a voice memo that you can go back and listen to? I mean, do you go back and listen to, or do you go back and look at your journaling from 10 years ago and see where you are today? Absolutely. Because what it does is it actually helps us learn how to process information better. Okay. So even, even if we was to do it, like you, like you said, using your phone, just writing it out, doing a voice memo, really it's about learning how to see how you feel right now in this moment. And then once you come out of that feeling, how'd you get out of that feeling? You know, document pretty much everything from the feeling to the perseverance. And when you learn how to do that successfully, that's where recovery lives. That's a great, healthy runway for recovery. So yes, I still, I still journal in when times get tougher, you know, cause times ain't tough to me now. I actually, I learned how to put life in a box, right? It's, it's, it's not always kisses, hugs, and beautiful words. It's not going to be, no matter how much I smile, there's still shit happening. Okay. So the goal for me is to just keep smiling and to remain faithful that it's all going to get better. It's all gonna, you know, I'm gonna put in the work to make the necessary changes for whatever that is. And then for things that I can't control, man, I'm definitely not spending more than a minute thinking about it. Okay. Cause once you spend more time thinking about things that you can't control, it just weighs you down. Then you be like, all of a sudden, you just like, man, I'm, you know, you pissed off at something. You don't even know why. You have no control. You can't control it. So the thing, the secret sauce is you got to learn how to separate the things that you can control and the things that you can't and the things that you can't don't even entertain it. Don't give it no intention, man. Pray about it, you know, ask for strength to get through it. Believe, believe that the strength is gonna, gonna come and just, and then, and then just let the car drive the way it drives. That's, that's my daily routine. Let me ask you this too, because I think that most people hear the word recovery and they automatically assume that it's a substance abuse of some sort. When I listen to your affirmations for recovery podcast while I'm editing it and you know, other times when I feel tired and need some motivation, I feel like you have a more all encompassing definition of recovery. How would you, it's not just substances. How would you describe the recovery that you talk about in your podcast? Well, great question. I think, you know, recovery in is great because I do a lot of speaking across the country. I talk recovery pretty much on the front line all the time. Right. And the biggest discrepancy with people, when I think recovery, think about substances. Oh my God, I don't got a problem. I ain't got no problem. I don't just, recovery is a mindset. Okay. It starts in the mind. It starts with how you process your feelings, how you process your emotions and what you say to yourself and what you say, how you speak to yourself. That's recovery for me. And that's, that's the kind of recovery that I speak on. And, and I'm, you know, helping people learn and, you know, unlearn and relearn about because people just really are, you know, waking up on the wrong side of the bed. You know, they're waking up grumpy, they're waking up mad at the world, looking to blame something for you know, something that nobody controls. You just want to blame somebody. And we all could use recovery from that type of mindset. I agree. And I think too, just from personal experience that words have extreme power. And you say that often words have so much power. And one of the things that you talk about also in your podcast is if you wake up with a smile, it really changes your whole day, whole day. And it, it certainly does. It's interesting. I mean, even doing voice over work, like I have in the past, if I read something and I'm not smiling, and then I read it with a smile on my face, it sounds 100% different. Oh my God. Oh my God. And in reverse is the exact same. Just imagine, you know, I don't do this anymore, but when you wake up, when the first thing you're doing is frowning or finding the discrepancy in life, trust me, your whole, the whole day you chase that train, you know, even, even when something gets fixed in your mind, then you're off to the next thing. Oh man, shit. I gotta, man, the sun ain't out today. Fuck man. You know, versus when you're waking up smiling, like, man, I'm happy. I woke up. I got, you know, I got eyesight. I got vision. I got, I can use my voice. I can, I can smell. Those are three things to be happy about. Right. And your blessings, man, not only do more blessings come, but then you actually learn how to identify blessings when they happen. And, and then that that's where smiles live. Okay. Cause if you can't be happy about being blessed, we got a deeper problem. You got a deeper issue. Okay. I'm always finding my way to my happy place from, from the first time my eyes wake up. So when I go to sleep at night, I want all my, I want everything to be happy. I want it to be. And of course, as a counselor, that's wishful thinking, good luck. It doesn't happen. You know what I'm saying? But at the same, at the same junction, I'm always fighting for it. And in any conversation, even if, even when the person is talking to me and they're not in that kind of mindset, I'm still pushing for that. I'm pushing to put a smile on that person's face. Okay. That's the goal every single day. It's the same way I wake up and go to sleep with the same and that's recovery. That's, that's real deep, serious recovery. Really ready to put the work in. That's what will happen. You'll wake up and you'll be looking for those places. Hold on. Where's my happy place at? I need to know where my happy place is. And for me, it's prayer. That's where it starts. My prayer. First thing I open my eyes. Oh, thank you, God. I'm serious. Thank you, God. You woke me up. I'm good. I got my memories. I got, you know, I got a beautiful woman next to me. I got my son. I got my daughter. I'm just counting all the blessings, man. By the time I get done counting blessings, man, I'm smiling. My energy's great. I'm smiling. I'm popping it. I'm dancing. I got the music playing. And then, and then, and then from there, you just can't, you know, you can't derail that from a, you know, from a person that's really found it and know how to fight. You know what I'm saying? So that's, that's, you know, even just talking to you about it got me pumped up. I'm ready to, I'm ready to go take on the world. I'm ready to go say some lies. Okay. Yes. Would you attribute your recognizing your addiction to women and working through that? Would you attribute that to your journaling and, you know, going back and being able to recognize, you know, different patterns that you've had? Would you say that that's helped you change that process as well? Yep. Yep. Journaling has helped me in a lot of ways. You know, the main, the main thing I would definitely encourage people that's new to journey is, you know, give it time. Okay. It takes 21 to 30 days to formulate new habits that goes for anything that's using drugs. That's not using drugs. If you, you know, you ready for the recovery dance, be patient with yourself. Cause I see a lot of people struggle with that part of like, man, I don't feel nothing. I don't know. It's not happening for me. Yes, it is. Every moment that you take the conscious effort to do recovery, it's working, it's working for you. So I want to definitely encourage everybody under the sound of our voice today, you can do it. Recovery might not feel as good as it, as you want it to today, but trust me, do the work. There's no replacement for doing the work. I wish I could send you an invoice and just, you can buy recovery from me, but we can't do that. That's just not how it works. You got to work for this smile that I have on my face. I had to work for it. So you do too. And if there's anybody out there that found a shortcut to get into a smile without putting in the work, please let me know. I would love to share that with my community. Cause we, man, we looking for ways to smile. And I'm telling you that the way I found the smile, I had to put the work in. So if you, I'm going to say it again, for the people in the back, if you found a way to learn how to smile without putting in this work, drop it in the channel, man. Sharing is caring. Okay. I would love to hear from you. I want to know more and more and more and more. How'd you do it? So if people are interested in working with you, do you do individual coaching or anything like that with. Currently I do. I just, I just stepped out on faith and I just started a new practice. I'm currently working on my S F B T certification, which is, it stands for solution focused therapy. Okay. And that's, that actually ties into what my practice is like solution focused therapy. Um, it's new, it's a new world. It's been actually out since the early two thousands that it actually formulated two thousands. And just recently, 2019, they just, they just came up with something where you can be accredited for using this modality. So I'm actually currently training in that area right now. I'm studying, I'm, you know, it takes about 40 hours to 40 hour training once you already a clinician. So I'm already a clinician, already certified state of Oregon, all that good stuff. So now I'm just looking to enhance my abilities in this solution. Uh, let's call it solution focused brief therapy. Some of the best therapy you can ever, you can imagine it really focuses on solutions as, um, a form of therapy, like conversation is a form of therapy. Um, it's just, it's just an amazing thing. So that's what I'm working on today. Awesome. And how can people find you if they're interested in working with you? Okay. First of all, I got a multitude of ways you can find me. Okay. First and foremost, Google me, Google. Okay. Add that value to the Google system. Okay. Google EA or Eric Allen, either one, right? Second ocean tree creative. That's the production team. There are great people. I know you see them all in the social media streets, wherever you see them LinkedIn, wherever there's a way that you can get to me through them. Cause they, they, they, they do that. I've actually, it's working. And then thirdly, I'm on all social media platforms. You know, I'm actually there. Um, I got a team of people that's with me, helping me with this. So guys bear with me. If you, if, if I don't engage with you instantly, trust me, I'm on a frontline doing work. I'm getting band-aids. I'm getting water and food for people on a frontline. I don't really have all the time that I should to engage. That's why we have this beautiful team. Okay. So social media is a great way to connect with me. I have a digital business card, CEO, EA.com. Say it again, CEO, EA.com. All my digital information is there connect. And we live in a social media world guide. So reviews are so, so, so important. This is how that's like the currency for me. Okay. If you want to support EA, leaving a review is the best way you can do it. If you can't purchase products from EricAllenRecovery.shop, I totally get it. You live in a world, money is funny. I get it. But reviews, it don't cost a thing. It don't cost, it don't cost you not one penny if you leave a review. Okay. So do me a favor, do me a solid today. Make it a point, share, share this beautiful message with somebody in need of recovery and drop me a review. Tell me how this, you know, tell me if this worked for you. If it didn't work for you, I'm okay with that too. Okay. Also, if you need just a quick pick me up, I believe there is an app you're promoting the shirt right now on your... Oh my God. Oh my God. I cannot leave this stage. I cannot leave here without telling you all about this great app right here. Okay. Oh, WWLL guys is for today's working entrepreneur. You got to go to the app store today. Get it. It's a free download. Okay. And it's really the OWL community. I promise you, man, you on Facebook, you on all those other social media platforms. There's no family like the OWL family. And I'm going to say that again and again, every time you see me, I'm going to make you all understand. Oh, WWLL in the app store, use my referral code EA, get yourself $10 to use. Okay. So you can start your party with $10 for free on me. Okay. Yes. And I want to make sure I got everything. Shout out to the whole OWL family. I love you guys. You're on OWL too. I am on OWL. And I love that if you're having a rough day, I mean, I get to do your stuff every day or I'm working on it once a week. So I get a pick me up there, but I love that if you're just having a shitty day and you just need a minute, you are on a lot. You're online a lot. There's the ability to request him to go online. If you just, I mean, you need 10 minutes to just get a, get a pick me up or you're really struggling with something. I promise you spending 10 minutes with EA will brighten your day. Oh, just made me feel warm and fuzzy. I love you. I do appreciate you in the work efforts that you guys bring to the table. I could not be here without you. Y'all the wind beneath my wings. I say that all the time. So look guys, make sure you guys are following Ocean Tree Creative. It's a production team. If you see them in any of the social media streets, click that link, follow them. Okay. And last but not least affirmations for recovery. It's the podcast. It's just really about kicking you in the ass first thing in the morning with some, with some good love and some positive energy. Cause sometimes we, we, we feel like nobody cares. Nobody's listening, but I am, I care and I'm listening. So affirmationsforrecovery.com that's the landing page, man. Make sure y'all pick, pick a place where the podcast is being streamed and just listen. That's all you gotta do. It don't cost you nothing. Now on that note of the podcast, these are, you're switching that up a little bit. If I remember correctly, you're going to be doing Instagram lives. So there's I think eight months of the podcast or eight, eight months of everyday episodes, uh, that you can go back and cycle through. They're fantastic. But now you're doing Instagram lives. Yes. So if, if people want to find the affirmations that like the five minute snippets or whatever, just to get you motivated during the day, they can find you on Instagram. EA the genius, right? At EA the genius starting next month to start the first of the month. I'm one of my best platforms where people engage with me the most. So, but not only that we have LinkedIn, we have Facebook, we have X, we have tick tock. So wherever you see EA at, do me a favor and support that. Okay. Support is an action word. Okay. So I love you guys. The affirmations for recovery podcast is now going to be you talking to other people about their recovery journey and people who want to offer feedback on what you're offering for recovery, things like that. So it's going to be you interviewing other people on how their recovery journey is going, things like that. Is that correct? That is correct. And it's called, we, we titled that segment Fridays, Fridays with EA. So that episode usually will drop on Friday. And it's definitely, again, it's about adding value. We're going to be talking to professionals, people in recovery, and just, you know, our community, people that make this world go around and, and, and that's you people in recovery. We make the world go around. Okay. So I love that. I love that. You're trying to break the stigma attached to the word recovery. Recovery is not a negative thing. We'll try it. We'll try it. No, try it. We break. Catching that fucking word. I hear the word tried. I'm jumping. I'm, I'm man. I'm ready. I'm choking that word out. We do not do try and look at you changing the way recovery is viewed. I love it. Thank you for spending some time with me and letting me get to know you better. I hope everyone enjoyed learning more about EA and what he's doing to make the world a better place. Thank you so much. I appreciate being here. Thank you. Post-production for the podcast is done with care by Ocean Tree Creative.