Speaker 1thanks so much for coming down jesse i really appreciate it um i was you know i was looking through your instagram the other day and we're gonna get into into this and i as we were talking before i started shooting and filming all this is that it's very easy to go on social media or to talk about your friends and tell them how good you're doing in life in recovery and sobriety is amazing and it can be in a lot of moments but there's also times where it's like this is the worst freaking thing ever and i don't know what i'm gonna do i don't know how i'm gonna get through this and i just you know your vulnerability and ability to share what you and that you stayed sober through it i need to talk i need to have more conversations like this one because let's face it life is going to happen to everyone to all of us and life doesn't care whether you're sober or not right the it's going to happen and it's up to us what we what we do with it so um i just wanted to say that and i appreciate you coming down and sharing about this really sensitive tough topic you're welcome so why don't let's start off with this i start off with with everybody we'll we'll start with you and then we'll start with you and we'll start with what did your last 30 days of drinking and you you were doing drugs as well using so drinking and using what did your last 30 days look like and and then tell us what your last
Speaker 2day okay addiction looked like uh my last 30 days so i was trying to stop so it was i would get one week and then i would relapse i would get two weeks and then i would relapse um i work in hospitality which is the perfect ground for that um and i knew at that point that i would have to leave that space um because i just kept trying and i just kept relapsing and for me i was always drinking and using after work or at work um a lot of people like toward the end they do it alone for me it was never the case um and i just kept trying and i just kept relapsing and i just kept it was after work i don't know how i was able to maintain that separation uh maybe to protect my kids um but toward the end it was kind of starting to blend a little bit and my husband at some point said if you ever drink in front of the kids i'm taking them and away he said like you can no longer drink in front of them and i appreciate his strength for that because i'm sure it was not easy um so the last time i drank it was after work and it was just a regular work night and i i used at work um can we say the yeah so my drug of choice was cocaine and toward the end it it was alcohol at first but toward the end it was definitely cocaine uh i didn't need to drink to use uh i would use before drinking which is at first it was not like that it was always after a few drink then i would use um so i went out and the bar closed and i live in uh burlington and i was not done so i took my car and i drove downtown went to an after hours by myself um very embarrassing uh yeah and i just kept partying and that's what i did at some point my husband got hold of me he said just leave and i'm like i can't he's like just take your leg and leave the building and i'm like i can and i party i think until 12 and then i i guess had enough and i drove home and during that car ride thing got extremely dark to the point that i was thinking about crashing my car and it was extremely scary so i called my sister who is in recovery too um and she she told me you need to go to an emergency right now she said drive your ass to the emergency she said i'm gonna call calum my husband and um and i think at that point i realized that i i really could not stop but i also i was destroying everything around me i was hurting my husband my kids um and i was hurting myself also and so i went to the emergency and for some reason i started to pray and at that point god was not really a big thing like i guess i was like a little bit spiritual but it was not really deep um and when i was waiting to see the doctor i started praying and i said please help me i don't know what to do i'm i'm gonna die i know that and i think at that point i realized if i didn't stop i was eventually going to die like it became kind of like a certainty um either i was going to take my own life um or i was going to get a bad batch at some point with fentanyl like something like that um so i went to the hospital uh they took me in my husband ended up coming to the emergency and then they refer me to a clinic in hamilton uh to seek treatment um they prescribed me suboxone i still don't know why um we can get into that that's something that i still i i'm still confused about it um because opioid was never my my thing yeah so that was uh i guess i can say my rock bottom uh so that happened early december 2022 and after that i used one time december 28th and that was it um i think that's that's where my i i really decided to change my life and that's where thing got better uh it took time uh but that's when i really decided to change everything i left hospitality for i went back to it and we can go into it a little bit later but um and i was able to maintain a longer sobriety then so that time that you used again after is that what you're
Speaker 1talking about is where you had that moment or it was in the hospital that you had that moment
Speaker 2at all and then i went to the clinic um and they start treatment after that i only used one time and it was a very small amount because obviously i was on suboxone and i i just stopped right away so it was i guess the suboxone was working in some way um yeah that's strange because i mean
Speaker 1i'm not a doctor but they usually only prescribe it for opiate abuse but my first thought when you're talking is maybe i wonder if fentanyl came up in your your no not even not even i that's still something that um i i dig
Speaker 2i i did some research and it's not fda approved it's not kind of health approved um i asked my doctor she said they use it for cocaine yeah um but i talked with other doctor that work in rehab and they said we have started to see that coming from doctor from ontario and alberta she said there's no study that confirmed that um but i mean did it work did it not work i quit my job in the same time that was probably a big part of the problem um but i mean i was put on it for a year and a half because the thing is after that i got pregnant and i had to stay on it because if i would have stopped i could have miscarriage and the pregnancy was a surprise pregnancy um that was jacob uh and that that i i carried a lot of shame about that uh about being on uh suboxone during the pregnancy uh lucky enough jacob was perfect i had to stay a little bit longer in the hospital um but jacob was put i i always say it's god miracle because he was i got pregnant maybe four months after i stopped and i think god put him there to save my life because it did give me a head start because i knew like pregnant i would not use and i didn't use and after that i didn't either i just kept going so but the suboxone was i i i carried a lot of shame about that and i was like oh my god i don't have shame about that and it took me a while to get over it and i to the point that i was parenting even like differently with him um because I felt a lot of guilt about it so but yeah I was able to come off Suboxone it was absolutely awful yeah I've heard it's it's the worst thing I ever experienced like cocaine coming off cocaine is nothing compared to that and it and it was about a month and a half long and I thought I was losing my mind and thank god like I didn't relapse because I it was like I remember like several days I was like I need to call 9-1-1 like I'm not okay I'm not
Speaker 1normal what were you feeling like depression and anxiety or yeah anxiety depression dark
Speaker 2thought like like I mean I had dark thoughts but like it was like you're a piece of shit because obviously like it like I could not get out of the bed so I like and you know I'm a mom like I got stuff to do and I felt so guilty about it and then it was just like this constant like you're a piece of shit like like what the hell is wrong with you and it kind of brought me back to when I was in active addiction because that that was the constant talk in my head like you're like what what is wrong with you like why can you not stop and and it really brought back that narrative in my head and it was very scary because obviously I was not using um and it was a month and a half and a literally after a month and a half I was totally fine it was like I was back to myself so the doctor again told me that was not it that was postpartum depression and I was like I had postpartum depression and this is not yeah I've been here before yeah yeah um so yeah
Speaker 1that's that's amazing well first of all congratulations for coming off suboxone because I know how hard that is I've been to to treatment with people that I've been spending their whole life trying to get off of it and it's the the you nailed it on the head the thoughts are so triggering because it brings you back to you know and this is just my interpretation of it like I'm a bad mom I I'm not showing up I'm not how can you be doing this and it's that same voice over and over again that we all know all too well all right um you know when I was laughing there when you were talking about going to the after hours by yourself because it's been a while since I've had someone sit here and tell that story like that was me I I'm like I did that over and over again for me it was like I I wanted to spend time with people but it just came to a point where I would take so many stimulants that I'd be on my couch and I would promise myself that I was going to be a good person like I was going to be good and stay in and not spend money not go to the club not do this and that I live downtown so it's a lot easier for me to but I can relate to that like I'm not going to do it and then I'm there I am right there I am the music is bumping and I'm like I'm not going to do it and then I'm there I am right there and there's something for me about being in a loud club a dark loud club after hours by yourself I don't know what that what that's feeling like I'm just trying to process it now but it's like it's another drug in and of itself is like being in that environment where I can do whatever I want and dance however I want and be stupid and you know if I want to talk to people on those patios which are wild did you ever have any conversations with people those are some of the yeah you may you make friend some of the most wild I remember there was a guy one time I was at a comfort zone and uh I was telling him how you know I shouldn't be here like I had already had sobriety before and I would be at these places and I'd be like like I'm not supposed to be here I'm supposed to be sober like this is not and I remember he just looked at me he was like he just called me on my bullshit he's like dude get the get your ass home what are you doing here you're a piece of and he's like it was at that moment I walked home at 10 in the morning that I noticed like oh man this is a new low for me I'm being judged now by the people the people at the after hours and not even the doorman like the people at the after hours that I was partying with yeah and so that was a moment where I was like oh my god what am I doing I shouldn't be here right um you mentioned the uh so four months you're sober four months you get an unexpected pregnancy uh first of all let's do this first tell me how did you stay sober through those intrusive thoughts first of all like how did
Speaker 2those moments of when I um when you were coming off this this boxing I think putting myself not in situation like obviously I think if I would have been working in space where it was accessible that would have been dangerous um for me my safe space was home if I and the first year to be honest I did not do anything I was just at home all the time I didn't go um even like family dinner um you know that there was alcohol alcohol there I would say like I'm sorry today I'm not going or sometime I would just go have food and come back home um I think staying home was a big thing for me um honestly I I don't even know how I I think I I pray um and I at that point I think I was going to a AAR and I I was going to meeting and my sister's in recovery and obviously we were like really close so she's part of my support system I guess um so I I would say I pray I pray that I think I cannot see any other thing that did the work for me because I feel like just on my own I would have relapsed 100% like that like everything was against me
Speaker 1truly so yeah and then so so four months you you get four months and you get this unexpected pregnancy what's going through your mind at that moment and then you know tell me a little bit about
Speaker 2that after what happens after that um I always wanted to have a third one I have uh three kids um one is almost 15 the other one is 11 uh but my husband was always I think two is good like it's a good number and uh but it happened and I was happy and to be honest obviously I was happy because I always wanted to have a third one but I was like I don't know I don't know I don't know to me I I saw it as an opportunity also to keep me clean and sober interesting um and I don't like saying that because it made me feel like oh my two first kids were not worthy of me getting clean and sober I think because they were a little bit older maybe um you know a baby is more dependent on you um and so we had Jacob and he was definitely the addition that we knew like we didn't know we needed it but he was like the addition that we needed it in our family um and his brother like they loved him and my husband even though it was a surprise he was obviously super happy and and do you want me to yeah um so this September Jacob went into our backyard uh we still don't know how that happened um but he managed to open the door which is we never saw him even trying but and he ended up going in the pool and it took a few minutes before we realized and unfortunately um we my husband did CPR the ambulance came in they brought him back um but after that uh four days after he ended up passing at a hospital because his brain was too damaged uh the swelling because of the lack of oxygen so we ended up losing him um it was it was um I mean as you can imagine terrible and it's still terrible it's the worst parents nightmare um and um I mean against all odd uh I was able to remain sober um which is crazy um but the way I tried to approach it I always say Jacob was my miracle baby because he came in when he was unexpected and he came almost like a miracle in our life and termed that he saved my life and I always have that narrative now that if I would drink or use again it would be kind of dishonoring all the work and the reason why he was on earth um so yeah so I I mean I'm still sober uh and obviously I think it's another God's miracle because speak of having all the against you while this is this is one um and surprisingly i haven't want like i i i think i just know that if i pick up i'm literally gonna die because things are gonna get so dark and i mean the pain is like so great that it's just gonna obviously make it even greater fuel yeah and and i i mean toward my the end of my addiction it was really dark now i i can't even imagine like how dark it would be it would be really hard to comprehend um and you
Speaker 1know you post some really beautiful videos of him on your social media and i think it's important to see one of the posts i really like that you that you posted was and i never thought about it this way but this is why perspective is so important right because i've never you experienced this right so it's like you posted a video and it's like instead of asking me what happened to him right because that's everyone's probably first thought is like how did he you know ask me how he lived and i i thought that was so beautiful you know so tell me a little bit tell us a little bit about how he lived
Speaker 2oh jacob was a light and i think i think it was an old soul and i don't know like sometimes people don't believe in it but i i really think he was a old soul and i and i i like to believe that he came here and he had a job to do um and and he he did it uh he he was everyone that met him always great like was pulled toward him um he has he had like those chunky hand and he was going to be a solid boy you can tell um um and i think that's really important to me and i think that's really important to me and i think and he was just a happy guy and he loved eating i love cooking so he just loved eating so much um and his brother big brother were like he absolutely adored him like he and and so did they um and having jacob show us such a beautiful perspective on my two oldest one um like a gen like a protector and like a mentor and caring uh which is sometimes you don't really see that in boy like they're like more and but you could really see that with like them practicing that with jacob and it was it was
Speaker 1very beautiful um yeah it's beautiful um i i think for me at least i i my question is about this is like what were what were things that people did from the outside that you appreciated like how does somebody help someone going through grief what what can
Speaker 2what are things that you actually appreciated i talk a little bit in about that in my post that a lot of people ask you let me know if you need anything and and i know people mean really well when they do that but when you're in the depth of it you can't even think straight yeah and uh and i i wrote about it in one of my books and i wrote about it in one of my books and my neighbor who's also my friend um she didn't witness what happened but she came out when the ambulance were there and everything and she she was the one who held me when i was obviously on the ground uh crying and what she did it was i'll be right like we we went to the hospital and she said i'll be right behind you guys like she didn't ask me like do you want me to go to the hospital she said i'll be right behind you guys and she said i'll be right behind you guys and then we ended up being transferred to mcmaster um and she messaged me she's like okay i'm putting a bag together for you and callum because obviously we didn't grab anything and she's like i'm gonna drop it off she came and drop it off and then this the day after she said i'm bringing like um we're bringing food for you guys she didn't ask me what i want she she just did it showed up and i think when when thing like that happen you cannot even think so when you have someone that just literally take the lead and do it instead of asking i think that's that's what i i for for us that's what was helpful because we didn't think about eating we didn't like she just did it and i think people sometimes like don't do the action and they don't do the action and they don't do the action just just do it and worst case like the person will just say you know what i don't need it yeah
Speaker 1right so just like take get sort of take i actually heard about that one time when i was uh you know i because a lot of people don't it's the first go-to it's like you want to help but you don't know what to do somebody i i read where i saw a social media post where the guy was like any idea that comes into your mind of oh maybe i'll do this just do it yeah that's exactly what he said is like well maybe i'll do i don't want to don't let that sort of narrative in your head say well they don't they're not going to appreciate this like you don't know right and to your point i couldn't even you you couldn't even think about what you need you didn't even know what you needed right because you're not you're not focusing on yourself and your needs and and sometimes just
Speaker 2i love that i'll be right behind you yeah and like this family i i mean i they will be dear to us forever because they they really did what we needed it actually yeah not not uh speaking
Speaker 1not questions just showing up yeah um can you talk to me a little bit about what for some before i was you know when i was preparing for this i was thinking about you hear a lot of people in recovery say i wouldn't trade my worst day sober for my best day drinking i would hazard a guess that you would disagree with that and i i know people that would disagree with that but tell me your perspective on that your worst day drinking for your best day or sorry your your best day sober worst day sober for best day drinking um
Speaker 2i mean if i had to pick but i mean you don't get to pick like it's i mean if i would have to pick and decide okay this didn't happen with jacob like it kind of like remove what happened with him i think i would probably pick my best day using but life is not like that um and i think even if i would use it's not going to bring back jacob so yeah this one i don't know cut me off it's okay i mean because i hear it all the time and i've
Speaker 1i've it's the the beautiful thing about being in recovery for you know as long as i have been going to recovery meetings is i get to hear stories like this or you know i've heard multiple people stand from podiums and say i got diagnosed with cancer i was supposed to die and i stayed sober through it all when i hear that stuff i'm like oh man like if they could do it i'm like how and that means i can do anything so like i don't need to pick up or or or drink when life gets tough because there's here's clear examples of people getting through it yeah and so i've heard a lot of people disagree with that where they say like no i've had a lot of bad days sober right but it's it doesn't negate the fact that a drink or a drug will will solve the problem it's like if i have one problem and i pick up now i have two problems and then i'll have subsequently many more problems after that right just multiply
Speaker 2yeah and also god damn it i lost my thought that's what grief and pregnancy do your brain it's like
Speaker 1that how do you see grief today like what is what's your relationship with grief
Speaker 2i think obviously i'm still very early on um i think the relationship the relationship that i have with grief has been mulled by my recovery and and i i said that in one of my posts like i think recovery was preparing for me was preparing me to face that because well there's always doing life and life term yeah yeah and And before, like, in the fraternity or AA and NA, they always teach you your craving is temporary. It's a little bit the same thing with pain. I mean, it's very painful and it's going to be painful for the rest of my life. Like, there's no doubt with that. However, there's moments that they are extremely painful where I can not function, but I remember that these are temporary because most of the time they pass and I can get back up and go on with my day and recovery taught me that like the one like one day at a time it's the same thing with grief because like grief if you start thinking about oh my god it's going to be his birthday it's going to be Christmas like you just spiral and then you just get deeper and deeper and deeper and but if you tell yourself I'm just going to go through today and then tomorrow we'll deal with it tomorrow and grief is very similar and that like process and I think recovery taught me that and just also dealing with pain like you will have pain in your life that's just life and and again like you the more you stuff it in or you don't let it be or you don't talk about it or you try to numb it it's just gonna stay inside and it's gonna grow grow grow and then it's gonna come out way darker and grief is the same thing if you don't talk about it and if you try to just stuff it it's gonna come back out way bigger way stronger and way uglier so I actually see a lot of similarity and I don't know if like you could compare the the level of pain but the way to deal with it it's actually very similar
Speaker 1yeah I love that um I you know I hear some people talk about grief on online and I'm sure you've heard this but it's like you know try to celebrate the fact that you were able to love someone so much to is that helpful when you kind of yeah yeah and
Speaker 2some people go down like the the darkness and they stay there and it's hard to stay in there and some people decide to get out of the hole my husband and I call it the hole when we're like upset and and it's hard to get out of it both options are really hard but there's only one that led to light and it's hard to get out of it but there's only one that led to light and and I always say like I'm not I'm not gonna I I always say now like I have to live for two and even though like someday trust me I don't want to do it like I for me it actually lit a fire like to live even more bolder and to just do whatever we want to do for our family and to just really take action because you never know what's gonna happen like you can be dead tomorrow so like everyone is different obviously and I think like I said I'm still very early but we are like we always wanted to leave Canada uh go somewhere warm well now we have decided that we are doing it nice yeah and and I and I think without losing Jacob we're gonna be able to live we would never done that but Jacob give us the courage I like to think and and I mean people say there's nothing good that ever come out by losing a child I it's painful but there is some good that are coming out and those action are good and I think just staying in the dark and not doing what you want to do it's not going to bring it back and and that's that's what I try to
Speaker 1hold doesn't make sense yeah yeah I love that um we were talking a bit about faith before we started recording and and spirituality and I guess my my question is like you mentioned a little bit about how that helped you in you know praying and asking for help in the moments when you don't feel like calling someone or you don't feel like doing something or it's just kind of because I do that too it's like a go-to and it's almost like a reflux and then it's it gets easier to ask other people too I find when you do it more it's like practice it's practice exactly and I can do it 10 times a day 30 times a day and then it's it takes my mind off of it too but what does your faith look like and spirituality look like uh today and and through that time um
Speaker 2so while I told you I pray at the hospital and that was the first time I think I really pray really hard and I think pray like really and I and I surrender pretty much I said like I don't know what to do anymore like please help me and and it worked and I think after that I started to um I guess read the bible a little bit and thinking about going back to church um and just before Jacob maybe four months before Jacob passed I actually started to go to church and being a little bit more vocal and open about my my faith and talking about it um and I swear like again it was preparing me so I had something to hold on obviously I didn't know at the time but it was like just putting all those blocks in place so I would not crumble when it would happen and obviously like the whole time that Jacob was in the hospital we pray at we had pastor priest uh father coming um to pray with us and the outcome was not what we wanted even though we pray and we had a lot of people praying for him um but God God doesn't do like whatever you want that's not how it work um and I was angry very angry for about two weeks after Jacob passed away to the point that at the funeral I didn't want to see any cross nothing um and one night I remember I was in my bed curl up crying and I think I just didn't know what to do and I was like I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I don't know what to do so I started praying again and I woke up the day after and I actually felt better like just a little bit of relief and I and I I didn't pray for like oh remove all my pain like that's not how it worked and I said please just remove a tiny bit so I can take my breath a little bit and I woke up the day after and it worked and and that happened on New Year's Eve because you know crossing a year without him it's kind of like the last year he was alive and I was again curled up in my bed and every time I pray just for a tiny bit of relief it does work so I mean it must be something yeah I mean you wouldn't be the first person I've heard
Speaker 1that so many times before where it's like it's not gonna I'm not gonna get what I want right but I'm moving toward a goal and I'm not gonna get what I want and I'm not gonna get what I want and I in my it's my belief that God doesn't want us to suffer right like it's there's no good that comes when I'm in my head all day thinking about myself and suffering and and you know I I'm supposed to be of service in my opinion and I mean yeah that's what you're doing by doing this like I hope you see that right it's like by posting about it by I I was reading through some of the comments that were on your video and like there's so many people that need to hear your story and I'm like I'm not gonna get what I want and I'm not gonna get what I want and I'm not gonna get what I want and I'm not gonna get what I want and I'm not gonna get what I want and your message and and then you add a whole other layer of that a whole other niche market of markets wrong word a whole other niche of people in recovery that have lost a child or lost somebody like that's unfathomable right and you you did it you're sitting here today you got through it and it's an ongoing thing of course yeah it will always be right but I mean I'm curious to to know did you think about picking up or relapsing through that time what did that look like
Speaker 2shortly after Jacob passed away we went to Mexico for like maybe three weeks after he passed away to just take time for us and we thought it could be helpful and I remember when I came out of the airport the smell and you know in Mexico they always sell beer like right that time I was like oh that would be nice and for the first I would say two days there it was not like I was thinking about it all the time but it was that'd be nice yeah that'd be nice and I think the fact that I was with my kids really would save me to be honest um because they were like super aware like I don't drink they know um and but lucky enough it just passed and I and I had situation where the day after Jacob uh passed away we had people coming over and I went downstairs in the refrigerator some food i was in my room and i found some remaining in a bill roll up um and i my first angst was not oh i'm gonna do it i just like i was very angry and um and i caused a scene uh i i was not sure who it was but i had a pretty good idea um
Speaker 1oh it wasn't yours it was not mine oh i thought it was yours from before no no no no no yeah
Speaker 2so speaking of like continue don't don't don't do that yeah so what not to do when yeah oh my god yeah um and as you can imagine i lost my shit i was very upset uh and i mean um these people i think have their own issue with it obviously obviously if they're doing that and i'm trying to be forgiving and you know it could have been me like when i was an act of addiction um but it was really hard because i was like it was to me it was on like not acceptable so and that could have been extremely dangerous for me like and lucky enough i was angry about the whole thing and i i didn't i didn't do oh that would be nice but that would have been really easy that's interesting to me
Speaker 1that you're for like the anger saved you in that moment right because i i get most of us first thought but obviously your emotions were all over the place yeah most of us would have the first thought is like oh how do i get away with this or you said it perfectly that would be nice yeah that's that's what that's what i say too is like oh that would be nice right and i'm like oh that's right or if i see someone having a good time and controlling their alcohol or their drugs must be nice yeah he gets to do that and that's my first thought so i mean that's wild to me that the anger actually saved you in that moment because i i don't yeah who knows what would
Speaker 2have happened yeah and and i mean the worst part is i don't think anyone would blame me for it no in that situation i think everyone would have been very understandable and i would have been a easy way to get away with it but i don't think anyone would have blamed me for it easy door to take and to use it at my advantage um but i again i maybe god was there again like i i i think i think maybe that was him and i i like to think also jacob is protecting me from that um so yeah yeah um you mentioned your husband a little bit but i want to talk about
Speaker 1you know your relationship and how that's helped you because for me my wife has been a rock in my recovery and she much like your situation she watched me go through my relapse and my addiction and so she saw the jekyll and hyde if you will the bottom of addiction and then the top of recovery i've i showed her both how how is your husband and your maybe your kids too like how have they helped you through this whole process
Speaker 2my husband has been my rock um and i i get really emotional because i put him through a lot and the fact that he didn't leave it's it's show the level of commitment that he have for his family and our marriage um and surprisingly like he's a very introvert guy um but he did all the right thing during my active addiction um and i think that's what i'm trying to do and i think that's what i'm trying to do and i think that's what i'm trying to do and i think that's what i'm trying to do which is at the like when i was in it i didn't really realize but like looking back when i was reading when i got really interesting uh interested in like treatment and how to help uh another person and he was actually doing all the thing all the right thing and and i was like did you read about it he's like yeah and i was like really he's like yeah he's like i was like for example like he he he did a lot he did put very strong boundary like for example if you if you drink again on front of the kids i am going to take them but also he was like when i was the last year let's say like before i hit my rock bottom it was getting bad he would always do activities with the family with the boys and even though like sometime i'm sure he didn't want to but a lot of um book or website recommend to keep doing those type of activities so it kind of keep the person that is an active addiction grounded with their family and what's important instead of cutting them off and pretty much you know like you're not part of our family anymore so he was kind of trying to lure me back in without putting pressure but also putting some boundary so it was um it was very clever of him and obviously i think i was really close for him to walk away like i think it was coming really really close um but he has been my biggest supporter like for my two-year um two-year anniversary uh not anniversary uh birthday yeah sober day sober date uh like he did a speech at the at na and and like i said he's very introvert and i know doing that coming from him it was it was big because he doesn't like talking in front of people um and yeah and even toward the end also like he said like i'm not gonna i'm not lying to the boys anymore he's like if you're not coming home you need to tell them why he's like i'm not protecting you anymore that's a good one like that that was another boundary that he
Speaker 1he put so the good thing about that one too is he actually held his end of the the bar like it's like a boundary is good but it's nothing until you take action and actually do it because i talk to people all day every day trying to get them in treatment i can't tell you how many wives i talked to where they're like yeah you know i told them let's say and if and if this he's gonna and i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna leave it well have you done it yet no you know i can't do that i'm like well then it's never gonna if you if you set a boundary you have to uphold the bound they have to have a consequence to it right so if they drink if he drinks in front of the kids your husband drinks in front of the kids and you told him i'm gone when you drink and then you don't leave what's the nothing's gonna get solved right nothing's gonna get amended fixed there's gonna be no consequences i like that what he you said about that too is um um he so he uh the activities piece is huge because it's like i'm showing her the joy that she used to yeah the purpose your purpose in life little hints and windows and you're almost i like that i've never heard that before that's a good one it's it's almost like you're you're sort of like separating the addict uh onion or layer that you've formed right like the the old you are and he's just kind of like separating it and peeking into your soul a little bit and like hey remember yeah remember this how life is about fulfilling that's a good one i never thought about that yeah it was it it was
Speaker 2very clever i thought like after when i was reading about it and i'm like that's totally what he was doing and then i asked him he's like yeah he's like what do you think because also too you were
Speaker 1probably i don't know i'm again i'm assuming i would be feeling so guilty in those moments like all the kids are having so much fun and i'm thinking about drinking over here shame is actually it's kind of a good thing when you need to hit a newer bottom because you need it a little bit to to stop yeah yeah the the more i always say this to people too is like we actually want bad things to happen to them in their addiction because then they'll start to really suffer and and
Speaker 2hopefully want to change yeah i i needed to suffer otherwise it that's the way i think human is made unfortunately it's when the what is it what's when the pain is the pain of staying the same becomes the pain of changing yeah that's when change happens yeah so that's that's exactly what it is i hadn't thought about
Speaker 1this for a while but you just reminded me my wife uh my wife was doing very similar things did there's not a lot of things you can control as a loved one watching someone go through it right and so she would do the same thing she would look for things to do to pull me out or to sort of peek into that that the real me and pull it out that's that's how i picture it anyways it's like
Speaker 2you're pulling out the real person the person within the you're separating the disease the
Speaker 1addiction from the person yeah she used to send me um photos of of us sober and clean and sober we have so many of them because she loves photos but she would send so many photos of the good times we had when i was sober in the seven and a half years and then she would put a paragraph about how she would literally spark a memory in my brain and i can't the amount of shame and guilt i would feel seeing that but it was so powerful it was so powerful and just repeated over and over again of that and it's like fuck i need to get back there like i need to i that that
Speaker 2was happiness this isn't happiness and it bring back the way you were like feeling right at that moment like peace or like pure joy without all this stuff without the chemically the the real
Speaker 1peace natural peace and joy not chemically produced yeah um i spent a lot of time trying to chemically produce my joy and happiness and i went to a lot of places doing that um the other thing she did too was like she made me an affirmations jar and i mean we talk about it now um and it might sound silly to people listening like what's the point i'm not gonna my husband's about to die he's drinking every day and like what's that gonna do but she'd make a jar and she would just write a bunch of good things about me on these little pieces of paper and scramble them up and she said pull one of these out every single day and i did and and like if i'm being honest sitting here it didn't radically change my life and push me into sobriety and say i need to figure it out because that's not how addiction works it's not that simple but it was one layer little layers of pieces chinks in the armor of just like chopping away at that addiction yeah eventually you crack it yeah i mean um yeah so that's that's a beautiful thing i mean in in the moments today so you mentioned you're not you know it's it's still fresh you're going through it what made you decide to be vocal about it that's that's what i'm i'm wondering because i and i appreciate that you are but what made you decide to tell people about it the sobriety or the grief or both well i mean the grief but then both yeah
Speaker 2so when jacob passed uh i didn't think i'm gonna talk more about the grief and then i can go to sobriety after so when that happened to jacob um we didn't know anyone that went through that at all and instagram i know there's a lot of bad side but there's also a lot of good side instagram actually became our source of information and to be honest almost like hope because you could see other family that had gone through similar thing and you could see the after um and it would give us a glimpse of hope that okay this is really hard uh this is this feel impossible right now but there's some people that are doing it and i was reading a lot of book instagram and talking with mom and some mom and it was so helpful for me to just get something to cling and i there's one mom like she wrote i'm gonna i'm gonna try to quote it but she said like you don't know yet but you will be happy you will feel joy joy will never be the same it will always be different than what you experienced before but she said you will feel it again and she said you don't know yet but you're in the midst of like the biggest unraveling and you're in the midst of of your life and and she said there's going to be good coming out of that and these words like really just give me hope like just something to hold on just a tiny bit so i can keep going for one more day and one more day and one more day and i think i was like okay i i need to share my story and maybe i can be that little glimpse of light for those mother that like literally lost their their boy or girl yesterday and and i think also like obviously going through recovery and and grief i think our society has a very difficult um pain is not talked enough about and how pain is part of our life and people are afraid of it and obviously it's painful but it's just part of life and i think people need to share a little bit more about it because it's going to happen it's going to happen to anyone everyone like everyone go through some painful thing um there's different level but your most painful thing is your most painful thing and and when when you're in the midst of it you don't see any outcome it's just painful and you don't see any light but very often every painful thing that you experience in your life there's always something somehow good that come out of it and i think this need to be share more yeah yeah i love
Speaker 1it no i couldn't agree more in that moment you were looking for something and here's proof that people have done gone through something and you're looking for something and you're looking for something gone through it and can experience joy and um it's proof right it's like it kept you having the faith for one more day which is all you needed at that time and now you can do that for somebody else yeah i couldn't agree more i think sharing about it is so important and then uh ignoring some of the negative comments that would that would be another positive oh i screenshot there's oh do you there's a lot of hurt people in the world right some was like
Speaker 2i i i was like wow uh somewhere you should kill yourself uh you didn't watch your kids uh yeah somewhere like really really hurtful now i just delete and block it and i really try to bypass it but i i always screenshot it because i think one day i'm going to do a montage with
Speaker 1like to show how like insane people are sick how sick people are yeah yeah no and that's the best way to do it it's just like this is i like to treat comments as like as like not a person saying it whenever it's a negative thing i don't know that helps me i'm just like this is like a a robot yeah just to just to spark debate on the internet like that's sort of what helps me and it's like i don't picture it as a human yeah because a human for a human to say something like that i don't want to think i don't want to believe that you know what i mean like i don't i don't want to
Speaker 2i don't want to subscribe to that yeah but even um like people would come in my dm and just say how did he die i'm like wow like hi like would you and my my general like rule is if you would not say that to someone that you just met maybe you refrain how is this different yeah wow oh man
Speaker 1okay um let's end with this because uh this has been amazing amazing insightful conversation and i appreciate you getting so honest and vulnerable about it but if you you know if you could say something to another mother or father or someone struggling right now through active addiction or through grief like what what was the biggest piece that that sort of helped you what would you say to that person
Speaker 2i have a motto and it i would i used to use it in sobriety but i think it's also very valid in grief like just never stop trying um and i think for sobriety obviously or recovery um like i all my 30th i tried to stop and i think i got sober i was like 37 38 but i never stopped trying uh and one day it's gonna stick that's what i like to say like one day it's gonna happen and you're gonna get it and it's gonna it's gonna stay and then your life will be i get really emotional because on mother's day um calum and i were talking and people we had some guests and they were drinking and at some point i was kind of over it like i was like okay i'm done like they're they're like past the point of like being fun and i and i said like you know like people think i'm missing out and i'm missing out and i'm um people think i'm missing that and i started crying and i'm like i am so at peace right now because and i get super emotional because now i can look in the mirror and say i'm a good mother i'm a good wife i'm not a fucking liar i i'm a good person and i do what i am when i say something i actually do it and i actually mean it before i could not do that ever and this is like not worth like a drink or a line or anything because the peace that i have now is unreal yeah so i think i would end up with that love it thank you so much jesse i
Speaker 1appreciate it
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