Coming Home Well
EP: 217 Chris Ellis ~ Managing Recovery
This month, John’s guest is Chris Ellis. Chris holds an MBA from Duke University, spent a career as a business consultant and is a person in long term recovery.
Chris grew up with a military father and spent much of his career traveling around the country. He shares openly his experiences with recovery and shares insights on how others can benefit from recovery.
Tune into our CHW Streaming Radio and the full lineup at cominghomewell.com
Download on Apple Play and Google Play
Online-Therapy.com ~ Life Changing Therapy Click here for a 20% discount on your first month.
Thank you for listening! Be sure to SHARE, LIKE and leave us a REVIEW!
This month, John’s guest is Chris Ellis. Chris holds an MBA from Duke University, spent a career as a business consultant and is a person in long term recovery.
Chris grew up with a military father and spent much of his career traveling around the country. He shares openly his experiences with recovery and shares insights on how others can benefit from recovery.
Tune into our CHW Streaming Radio and the full lineup at cominghomewell.com
Download on Apple Play and Google Play
Online-Therapy.com ~ Life Changing Therapy Click here for a 20% discount on your first month.
Thank you for listening! Be sure to SHARE, LIKE and leave us a REVIEW!
You're listening to Veterans for Recovery, a podcast that unpacks all things recovery within our extended military family. Join your host, retired Major John Donovan, a noted author, lecturer and person in long-term recovery from substance use disorder, as he and his guests will break down current trending topics and research, along with all things recovery related to increasing recovery resilience and recovery capital within our veteran and service member communities. Now here's your host, major John Donovan.
Speaker 2:Good day everyone, and welcome to another episode of Veterans for Recovery. This is a podcast that looks at all things pertaining to our veterans, service members and their family members who are in recovery or seeking recovery. I'm John Donovan, a retired Major of the US Army, and I'm a person in long-term recovery. With me today is my guest, chris. Today, chris and I will explore what recovery means and how it impacts our lives. Chris, welcome to the show and thank you for being with us today.
Speaker 3:John, thanks. It's really great to be here. It's a real privilege and I appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and we are honored that you have given us your time, made yourself available to share some information with our veteran and service member audience. First of all, chris, let's go back to the beginning. Tell us a little bit about yourself your background, education, profession.
Speaker 3:Sure well, I grew up in Minnesota in Red Wing where Red Wing shoes are made, and spent my first 18 years in Southeastern Minnesota, ended up living and working all around the country but enjoyed growing up in Minnesota. I am the son of a military veteran. My father actually spent time in the Navy and also the Marine Corps as a reservist in providing medical support. I think he retired as a Lieutenant Commander. We had some good military discipline growing up and that was part of my experience. Another part of my experience was substance use and addiction and alcoholism and recovery.
Speaker 2:So tell us, did you attend school then in Southern Minnesota, the Winona, red Wing area?
Speaker 3:I left Minnesota to go to school in Chicago. I did my undergraduate at Northwestern in Chicago where I got a degree in industrial engineering, and then went right into graduate school at the same time that I got a full-time job in Chicago, and that was kind of a mistake. I spent a year at the University of Chicago in a graduate program and decided that I'd had enough of school. So I ended that and stayed with the firm that I joined out of school in Chicago, which was a management consulting firm. I spent 20 years with that firm and lived and worked around the country and traveled the world because I served global corporations, international corporations and companies doing management consulting work for 20 years and ended up in Los Angeles at the tail end of that stint. Along the way, I went to school again at Duke University to get my MBA.
Speaker 2:So I'm curious and, chris, I know you outside of this podcast. You're a friend, a colleague. But you got an MBA, you have an engineering background and yet you've been working a lot with mental health practitioners and the recovery community. Is that because of your own personal recovery journey or did you see some crossover from the business field to the mental health field? Or perhaps that you felt that some of the mental health practitioners might benefit from some business acumen?
Speaker 3:Great question. It's probably some of all of the above. So for the 20 years that I was out and about traveling 48 weeks a year, four to five days a week I already had a proclivity genetically for addiction and alcoholism. And the lifestyle that I formed and the habits that I formed over those 20 years took me down a path where, by about 2009, 2010, I was full-fledged alcoholic and I guess you could say sort of kind of functional, but things were starting to go south. I had had a very good career, had done work in health services and with health care systems, but not yet at all in behavioral health. For the next three or four years I kind of flailed around. I left the firm, thought that I could kind of get my arms around this beast that we call addiction and was able to stop using drugs, but I did not stop using alcohol and finally found myself coming back to the nest here in Minnesota where I grew up, and going to Hazeldon in 2014. So that started the next chapter of my life and a whole new life for me.
Speaker 3:It's been about 10 years since then and it's been amazing, and over that time I've been admitted to long-term recovery.
Speaker 3:I haven't been continuously sober.
Speaker 3:I've had relapses, but I remain committed to my recovery and my sobriety and practice a whole different lifestyle than what I once did. Along the way, in these past 10 years I started to become active in the recovery community, met a lot of people, a lot of great people like yourself and others lived in a sober home and started to build my own consulting practice here in the Twin Cities and naturally gravitated to behavioral health, not just because of my own interest excuse me, my own experience in the community, but also because of it becoming clear that behavioral health was really taking off. And this is obviously, as some people call it, the land of 10,000 treatment centers, and so there's a lot going on here. There's so many organizations doing so many cool things that it was just a nice and sort of logical step for me to start to focus my own consulting work while in recovery in behavioral health, and so over the last 10 years I've built my practice and more and more of my work is done in this area across the whole continuum of care.
Speaker 2:Well, that is incredible and what an incredible recovery journey. There's a few parallels that might resonate with our listening audience, especially our veterans and our service members who are in recovery. But you grew up in a military family and so many of our recruits come from military families. Their moms, their dads serve and they get used to or accustomed to the military lifestyle and say, hey, you know, that might be for me and that didn't happen for you, but I think you incorporated at least some of the military qualities of growing up with a lieutenant commander. I imagine it was kind of a strict household. You had duties, you had chores, there was the need for discipline, order. Did you have to refer to your father as sir?
Speaker 3:All of that is true, except for the last part. I did not have to call him sir, but it was so interesting about you just nailed it in terms of the kind of household. There was a lot of love too and a lot of support. It was a very I absolutely do not come from a broken family, but I do come from a long line of people who had wonderful careers and wonderful families but also struggled with substance use, and I think that's fair to say of a lot of us. But back to your point. You did describe our household. It was and you think it's normal. I thought my upbringing was sort of normal with that kind of strict organization, hygiene. Everything was in its place.
Speaker 3:One of my favorite stories about my dad is there was a little message in the garage about when to take out the recycling and he posted on the wall and it had special tape on it. It was stapled, it was nailed and I think there was like one other way that he had. So I mean this was not coming off right and that he folded his dirty clothes. Okay, so I would go open up the closet and there'd be a basket of dirty clothes. His clothes were folded in the dirty clothes before they got clean. So that was the kind of household we had. But all he had to do was look at me once and I was in line. I mean it was. But he also gave me. They gave me leeway. They were like we trust you to be responsible. You know what the rules are.
Speaker 2:I didn't always follow them. I get that on so many levels and, along with the discipline, along with the order, a great amount of love and affection.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely, and we have a great relationship today. And you know, my dad smoked and drank for 60 years and 10 years ago he gave it up. Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 2:So that is incredible. Yeah, so the other parallel that I wanted to touch on just briefly is your lifestyle. You said that you worked all over the world, and so I'm hunching. There were a lot of moves, there were going to community, there were instances where you would go to communities and you would work there and not a lot of time, not a lot of ability or opportunity to lay some roots, to make some relationships, and then you would get upended and moved to another community. Is this somewhat accurate? Is that describing what your work life looked like To some?
Speaker 3:extent, yeah, I mean. So over the course of about 25 years I lived in Chicago, raleigh, new York, los Angeles and then the Twin Cities no-transcript and then also during that time I had clients all over North America, europe and Japan. So I was constantly on the road. And what's interesting about all of that, when you kind of combine all of that, the lack of roots I was always with people but never really connected with people, and one of the reasons that I drank in the first place, besides sort of the genetic predisposition, is my social anxiety and having trouble connecting at sort of a deep level with people.
Speaker 3:There's a little bit of maybe some spectrum stuff here and not feeling like I was on a wavelength with others. What's so interesting about moving all the time and traveling all the time is that you're with and around people but you don't have to develop relationships, and so that actually was almost like a plus for me, and I had my friend with me which was, you know, my drinking, and that's how I was able to, you know, you know, feel comfortable but also kind of navigate the stress and the pressure of being in that kind of job and spending your life in airports and airplanes. I mean, I joke, I say for me there's a tail end and airport was basically a bar with planes. A plane was a bar with wings and a hotel was a bar with bets, and so you know, that was kind of the way it was for me until until it wasn't.
Speaker 2:Well, I think there's a really strong parallel with that. What you're describing. That lifestyle and the lifestyle of our service members, you know, moved from community to community, from a combat environment to a stateside environment, and then an overseas deployment, back to conus, back to the United States, so on and so forth, and there's not a lot of the ability to make relationships that are grounded in time. Friendships tend to be of the 24 to 36 month duration, because then you're moving to your next location and you might carry some of those friendships forward, but it's not like the ability to go over to their place and barbecue because they're in Korea and now you're back at Fort Drum, new York. And so in talking with people like that and this is also very true of people who are in the airline industry there's a higher percentage of alcoholism, of substance use disorder. Alcohol use disorder because of that constant traveling and inability to really establish connection. And we often say in the substance use disorder field that alcoholism flourishes in isolation and the antidote to that is connection.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if I may, john, please, you know, to that point, I've heard that the opposite of addiction is connection.
Speaker 3:You know, and and I'd like to just reinforce what you're saying, I have a hypothesis, because I, I, I had, I did have exposure to a military lifestyle to some extent, um, uh, the overlap with my experiences when you're, when you're traveling like that and you're moving around and you're kind of singularly focused on, on, you know, something that takes up so much of your life and your mind share, when you do develop camaraderie, it's kind of um, it's kind of it's very sort of oversimplified.
Speaker 3:In other words, I can imagine folks in the material military like me, you kind of, you kind of are in either two modes You're doing your job as a military, you know professional, or you're out, you know sort of you know having fun at night and and and and you kind of toggle back and forth between. It's like there's two mode, you know, because that's the lifestyle and that was the lifestyle for me too when I was on the road, um, and so there isn't a whole lot of opportunity or energy for, or maybe time for, kind of a more robust way of engaging with people and more meaningful relationships. You certainly can seek it out and you can find it. But you know, again, because of some of my proclivities, I you know, for a long time I was perfectly happy not having deeper relationships, because that's what gave me anxiety in the first place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get that, I get that on so many levels, and so then the lifestyle almost enables the lack of connection Of deeper relationships, and then, when I don't want that after all, then that lifestyle serves that purpose very well.
Speaker 3:When we go ahead. Yeah well, no, I was just going to say that, and maybe this is where you're going with your next question. I mean, one of the gifts of recovery and sobriety is I've actually learned how to have real relationships.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly where I was going. So you know, we take a look at the journey into the addiction, the self loading, the suicidal ideation, the feeling of worthlessness, and then we get recovery. You went to Hazeldon in Minnesota, which is, many of our listeners will know, one of the premier treatment centers in the world and, incidentally, today, just today, they unveiled a stamp featuring Betty Ford. Okay, and now Hazeldon is known as the Hazeldon Betty Ford Foundation. But when the first lady, betty Ford, came out and talked about her alcoholism, the shame and stigma that was broken as a result of that, this woman that had a huge level of recognition throughout the world, not to mention the responsibilities as a first lady or former first lady, and then she comes out and tells the world that she is a recovered alcoholic. It did wonders for the treatment field and really helping people to get into and address their own substance use disorder issues. But looking at that recovery journey now, you mentioned, chris, that in your recovery journey that you've had some reuse incidents. What was that like for you?
Speaker 3:It's a great question what was it? What's what has it been? Like it's been? You know, it's just been my journey. You know, as I was listening to you, a lot of those consequences that you described have been like, like maybe all of us. That absolutely explains my path to today. I mean, there have been real, significant, serious consequences for me. I wish I could say that, you know, those were enough. But this is such an insidious disease One of the things I've learned because I'm just going to read something I wrote on a note card here that I have on my desk.
Speaker 3:It says the disease tells me it is not a disease. The disease tells me that I don't have it, and then it tells me that I should be ashamed about it. So you know, that's the progression, right? You know I don't have it. Oh well, maybe I. Oh, it's not a disease. Okay, well then, maybe it is. And then I don't have it. It's a disease, but I don't have it. Well, actually I probably do. And then, well, if I do, I should be ashamed about it and keep it to myself.
Speaker 3:And, of course, all of those are our illusions, and I think my experience in terms of reuse goes back to it's not because my program is weak or breaks down, necessarily.
Speaker 3:I do have in flow a little bit with with the, my concentration in the community and the program, but but I do try to do things every day.
Speaker 3:But but my experience is that it's that thought, it's that thought on a Friday afternoon, with the sun shining, that I can have a beer, that either I'm entitled to it or that I can just have one or two, or that you know my work is done and despite the sorted history of my use, it's okay for me to have that one because I can stop at one or two or three.
Speaker 3:And that's not what happens Now. I'm fortunate enough that you know it's been a while now, but the last time that this happened I'm getting to my age now where, physically, alcohol is like a poison to me. So you know I don't, I don't go, I wouldn't go on a two or three or four day bender. It lasts for a few hours and it's ugly and, and then I'm, I feel, I feel physically bad, and then I feel shame and I feel guilt and I, you know, I read, I recommit to my sobriety and and that's kind of the way the story unfolds. But I remain committed to recovery and I remain optimistic that you know, as time goes on, I can put more and more time, continuous time, together, and I feel like you know that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Well, that's an incredible, incredible insight. And what I would like to highlight there is the recommitment to recovery. I just recently got over about COVID and when COVID first hit I got every vaccination. I isolated, I did everything that we were supposed to do and I never got it. I never got it and I got the most recent vaccination and, lo and behold, I came down with COVID. I was going through this shame thing, like you know, there's something wrong with me, my body is failing me and I was like you know, silly, it's a disease. Okay, you got the disease. Now you know you just gotta isolate. You know, do the five day isolation thing and drink fluids and do the deal. But to recommit, because that self-blaming and that shaming, it's doing nothing for me personally, certainly not helping the disease and if anything, it helps the disease foster. And so to recommit to the recovery journey.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting, even in SAMHSA's definition of recovery they don't talk about sobriety, but what they do mention is the quality of life. Has my quality of life increased because I'm on this recovery journey? Are my personal relationships better? Are my finances better? Is my household better? Do I have a loving relationship with my family, my immediate family, my extended family. Is my work going well? These become the measures, the metrics of recovery, and if those things aren't going well, then I might wanna take a look at you know, what role does drugs and alcohol play in this? Oh, I showed up drunk at Thanksgiving again and that really was a bummer and my family didn't like it. The answer seems real simple right, don't go to Thanksgiving drunk.
Speaker 3:That's right yeah.
Speaker 2:What are your thoughts in?
Speaker 3:that I just love what you said there because it's so true and I really appreciate that perspective and it helps me keep perspective in the midst of all this, because there is no question that recovery and sobriety has made my life infinitely better, even with reuses or relapses or slips, whatever you wanna call them, and this idea of recommitting maybe not even the right term it's you know, I don't lose my commitment to this lifestyle because it is a design for a living and it is a lifestyle and it doesn't go away just because, you know.
Speaker 3:I pick up because I am fully committed to this lifestyle because it's so much better, it's so different. You know, that's for sure. I mean, you know, we, most of us, know how different our life is than what it was, but it's so much better. I never envisioned my life to be like this. I never planned for it to be like this, but I'm very content with this life that I have in sobriety, in the recovery community, doing work and behavioral health, spending time with wonderful people like you and you know, again, people in the community. And it wasn't a vision, but I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Well, chris, that is a great note to wrap up today's program and I want to thank you so much for being with us and sharing with us today. It was a fascinating conversation To our listeners. Thank you for spending a little time with us to learn more about Veterans for Recovery. This has been a podcast of the Coming Home Well Network. Until next time, be well, think well and do well. This is Major John Donovan signing off.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Veterans for Recovery a Coming Home Well podcast. We value your feedback. Please be sure to leave a review, share and download this episode. We thank our Veterans and service members for your service to our country. We thank our friends and families for their support and thank you for listening to Veterans for Recovery.