Hey everybody, let me pause here for just a second.
I want to talk to you about today's sponsor, Wired for Addiction.
I've had Dr. Evelyn Higgins on the show before, and her work really stays with me.
It's changed how I understand what recovery actually asks of us.
Here's what I mean.
So much of the work we do is behavioral, and that matters.
That's important.
But underneath the behavior, there's biology.
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And when that biology is out of balance, no amount of willpower fully closes that gap.
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That's theaddictimine.com/Wired.
All right.
Thanks for listening.
Let's get back into this interview.
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Addictimined podcast.
I'm your host, Dwayne Osterland, and I'm so glad you're here.
Two weeks before, I was sleeping with my rifle next to me, and now the sudden I'm sleeping
in my car, trying to get back to Alaska, and looking at people as if they're potential
terrorists.
Today, we have an incredible guest, Robert Stark.
Robert is a husband, father, author, and farmer living off the grid in rural Alaska.
At just 17, he joined the army and parachuted into Iraq during the 2003 invasion.
He's the first in his family to earn a batch of arts degree, and has been sober for 11
years.
Robert is also the author of two books, Warflower, and just like a soldier.
In this episode, we'll dive into his powerful story, his journey through the military, his
path to healing, and how he's found purpose and connection through farming, writing, and
fatherhood.
We'll explore themes like the healing power of nature, writing as therapy, and what it means
to become the father we always wanted to have.
This conversation is truly inspiring, and I think you're going to get so much out of it.
So let's dive in.
All right, everyone.
Welcome to the Addicted Mind podcast.
I have Robert Stark with me today, and Robert, I think you have a great story.
You reached out to me and just told me a little bit about it, and I just said, "I want
to meet this person and interview them and have them on the podcast."
And I know we attempted once, and then we had a scheduling mix up and everything.
So here we are again, you know, that persistence to figure it out and to get this conversation
going.
So I'm just going to have you jump in and introduce yourself.
My name is Robert Stark.
My friends call me Bob, and from Alaska, I was born in Caldwell, Idaho, but moved to
Nome, Alaska when I was only a few months old.
I've always been an Alaskan, I'm moved up there with my mother and a brother, and my father
was dealing with addiction issues that weren't resolved, so she left them.
And I grew up there with two other step-dads, and I got into all kinds of sports and skateboarding
and playing outdoors and fishing, and basically any kind of rabble rousing that a young Alaskan
boy can get into, you know, from childhood until I was about 12 or 13.
They were my golden years, if you will, from three to 12 or 13.
I mean, then around 12 or 13 I started dabbling in alcohol, and that light into me dabbling
in pot, and tobacco, and really that trifecta with little things here and there.
You know, I do this substance or that substance, but those three were the ones that really
kept me imprisoned, if you will, for, well, the next 18 or so years, I joined the military,
I graduated from high school, and I served four and a half years in the army.
I'm going to Iraq during the invasion, and I got out of the military, and I was still
dealing with these issues that I hadn't faced, and more on top of it.
So basically from the time of 22 until now, I'm 41, I feel like I'm 27, you know, on that
journey to find that peace and that purpose, that community that I really wanted ever
since my golden years ended, and so now I'm 41, like I said, I've got a wife, I've got
four children, I've got a little farm up in Alaska, where we still live off grid, I've
got 11 years of clean and sober living, my wife is all over the place, and that's my
bio.
And that's your bio, I love it, and you forgot to mention, you're the author of two books,
Your Flower, and just like a soldier, and you talk about your experiences.
One of the things that was interesting to me is that you, you know, to try and kind of
get out of this, you didn't know what to do, you joined the military, and all of a sudden
you were going to go to Italy, and you had all these thoughts about that, and then now
you're in Iraq.
So can you talk a little bit about that, and what pulled you there?
Yeah, I think like so many other folks who joined the military, we have these big dreams
and fantasies from this long list of impressions that have been laid upon us through our lives,
and then all of a sudden when you're basically government property and they're going to do
whatever they want with you, going to war, well, I didn't realize that 9/11 was actually
going to lead us going and invading Iraq, and just so happened that I was one of the thousand
pair troopers who parachuted in, and I did get to Italy, but I was only in Italy for
maybe four months before we were sent to Iraq, and yeah, it was, godly, I learned more than
I could have ever imagined, I'm so grateful for that experience going over there, but it
definitely wasn't the romantic, gondolas, and beautiful black-haired beauties in love
with the American GI that I thought it was me being black-out drunk, feeling super guilty
about the things I'd done, and preparing for war before that, and so yeah, that was
kind of a- it was a real eye-opener going over there, and then getting out at the age of 22,
still with these mental health struggles that I had never addressed, man, I was just, I
was a wrecking ball, just going from town to town.
Taking all those experiences, your own childhood, because you grew up without a father, right?
You didn't have any of that kind of role model, you're going into war, you're struggling
with all of the stuff that goes on there, and you get out, and what started to happen,
I mean, where did you find yourself in that moment, and how did you start to say, okay,
wait, this isn't working for me, I got to do something different here.
Yeah, it was, you know, when I first got out, I was in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
I got out with the 101st Airborne Division, and two weeks before, I was sleeping with
my rifle next to me, and now the sudden I'm sleeping in my car, trying to get back to Alaska,
and looking at people as if they're potential terrorists, if you will, always on edge,
always on guard, never talking to people.
And you know, I was like that for about six months, I made it back to Alaska, and then
I had family and friends convince me to take a trip to Hawaii that then led to me going
on a trip to Central America, and in my trip to Central America, I decided not to drink,
and I didn't know where to find any pot, and I started kind of going back to those like
golden years of, oh wait, people are beautiful, people are created by God in my belief, they're
not all here to try to hurt me, and then I started opening up slowly with people.
In that course of events, I got into yoga in this yoga house, I started practicing yoga
six days a week, and through that, more prayer meditation, and from 22 until my sobriety
day, which I was 29, you know, I would have a few weeks of clean silver living, I'd have
a few months, I even had a couple of years at one point, but I was really just isolating
and trying to focus on my spirituality, spirituality and writing, and eventually I would
I just need people to be around.
So I'd hang around my friends that I used to party with
and they didn't care if I drank or not,
but I started wanting to join the party.
And so it took years, and I imagine not to keep gambling,
but if someone were to look at me in my 20s, 25 through 30,
they probably would have judged me.
Forgive me, I'm not trying.
Many of them would have judged me.
I was like, why doesn't this veteran get his boot straps tightened up,
get moving forward?
Come on, get moving.
I just couldn't get it together.
So talk a little bit about that,
because going into war and the military,
there's a certain mindset, you know,
and then going through all of those intense situations I would imagine.
I mean, you're parachuting and I'm sure,
you know, getting shot at and trying to stay alive and doing all that.
And that kind of mentality,
and then to this other mentality of, you know,
it sounds like it's almost opposite of that, right?
But how those collide together and just talk a little bit about that part.
I still am dealing with all of that.
You know, I recently had a friend who said to me,
he was before my first child.
It was about six years ago and he said, you know, Bob,
you're the hardest person I know.
And he was giving me a compliment, you know?
And gosh, I work every day at trying to be softer,
trying to be more gentle, you know,
trying to be more light-hearted,
but because I was really searching for the image of masculinity,
and I found it in war,
and I found it in prisoners,
because my mother married a guy who was in prison for life.
Brother was in prison, so I was around these prison men and military men.
I created this habit, if you will,
of viewing all problems as something
that I can just power through.
And I don't need anybody to help me.
And if you're trying to stop me, get out of my way.
And so it didn't help me when it came time to try to,
okay, I'm not going to say it didn't help me.
It has helped me when the days have gotten rough
and I've thought about potentially using something
or killing myself, you know, because I've had those thoughts.
But what has helped me more was the ability to take a deep breath,
go get a counselor, get another one,
because that one retired, open up with my emotions,
which I never learned to do with friends
through recovery that I've met,
and slowly begin to try to find a balance
between that fire and water within me.
Right. And I mean, you're talking about that kind of male socialization
where you're supposed to be stoic at all times, independent.
You don't get help, you don't get support, you do it on your own.
You're supposed to just be strong.
Yet that's so, that leads so many men just to be alone.
And lost and left, because you can't share yourself,
you can talk about the feelings that you're having.
And I mean, it's like, so there's a journey,
like you started to realize, like I got to be different.
Exactly. And like I was mentioning, I still have those thoughts,
and I'm not trying to offend anyone, but even today,
like if I meet a man who I feel like is instantly
being kind of gentle talking with me,
and really into the conversation we're having,
and just seems like soft spoken, maybe higher pitched,
and I think they're gay.
And I'm like, no, it's not the case.
It's like, as a man has those traits,
doesn't mean that that's their sexuality.
I mean, and I'm really trying to be around more people
to influence me, to be more gentle and soft,
because I'm a father, as you met my children.
Like I have four children, and they do a gentle dad, and they do.
Right. But it's like, you know,
what is some people call like that the man box, right?
You get stuck in this man box of all these kind of traits
that you're supposed to be, and yet they don't really work.
It's not really who we want to be.
And it robs you of like, like you said,
if you're in this man box, right,
you can't really connect with your children,
because you can't show emotion, you can't be weak,
you can't be feminine in any way,
which is, you know, some kind of emotion.
And then you're robbed of your relationship with your children.
So, yeah.
Yeah, and I definitely don't want that
as a boy who grew up without father there,
and so many, unfortunately, children are raised
by fatherless, you know, and fatherless families.
And yeah, I imagine a lot of it has to do with that fear of like being gentle,
crying, you know, just not being the guy
who's got it all figured out all the time.
Absolutely. So how did you writing play into this as part of this journey?
Because you've got two books out there,
War, Flower, and just like a soldier
that are in a way these stories of this transformation.
Yeah, if it wasn't for writing, you know,
I say it often that I'm not as honest with any counselor,
my wife, anyone, as much as when I put pen to paper.
And so, you know, both of those books, the first one,
I wrote over the course of basically two months at a retreat I was at in Costa Rica.
And then I went to northern India to do a meditation retreat,
and I kept that book going.
And that was really cathartic for me,
because so much of it was about my war experience.
And then getting out of the military and trying to get back into civilian life,
but just not knowing how to do it.
And then the next one was, you know, five years, ten years later,
still not having it together, still trying to stop drinking
and get on a straight and narrow path.
And so, you know, those books have given me the purpose
that I needed in the times when I was desperately seeking purpose.
And today, I mean, I'm still like, I've always been a writer,
but now my wife will always pat me on the shoulder and say,
you're not a writer, you're an author, you're an author,
and it's like, okay, thanks for the reminder,
because yeah, I'm trying to make it a priority to write,
as frequently as I can.
However, that man box in my mind says,
well, how much money is that making?
You got to go do this, do that, do all these things
that make money for your family.
And that man box is getting me.
Man, I've never heard that phrase.
I'm glad you brought it up.
Glad, I'm glad, I'm glad that's helpful.
I'm glad that's part of it.
Can you share a little bit of your story
of going through that experience?
Because you're of being in the military
and assessing all that happened there.
And I would think, and maybe I'm off-spoken,
maybe I'm not been in the military.
So, but there's a lot of hypermasculinity and strength.
I mean, I guess part of that is if you're going into war,
you've got to have some of that piece too, right?
But balancing that, because here you are in a meditation retreat.
Right? They're just so counter each other.
And it's like, what got you from one to the other?
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, I just know that inside,
I always sought God, if you will call it that.
I sought some, the mystery.
You know, I've always been into the mysteries
that are unexplainable and the supernatural forces of life.
And so, one thing led to the next,
I can't say exactly why I ended up at a yoga house
or I got an opportunity for this retreat center
or I went to India other than maybe it was just meant
for me to go to those places.
But I know that while I was in that silence
and while I was writing those stories,
I was actually reliving and fully reflecting
and experiencing the emotions again
from the experiences that I had just been running from.
And so, you know, I'd buried them, I'd ran from them,
I'd done everything I could to not think about them,
but they would come in my dreams
and have recurring nightmares.
And so that would lead to more substances,
which I've met many people who used substances before bed
to help them not dream.
You know, and I was there.
And after writing those stories,
it really helped me to be able to not have nightmares.
You know, not feel like I needed to run.
I can talk to people about stuff I went through
and it's not just war, you know,
and war flower, there's stuff from childhood molestation.
I mean, stuff that people aren't comfortable talking about,
but I've been able to,
because I've been able to process them through the writing.
And so, yeah, I think, again, I'm theorizing
that most of us have that masculine feminine fire water.
I don't know what it's called,
but I know that for me, on a daily basis,
I need that quiet,
writing or music, I play some music,
or working on the farm time with that like,
running the chainsaw, splitting the wood,
that loud, powerful time.
And so, yeah.
- You know what you're talking,
I'm thinking about how for you,
the writing kind of just created some openness
for you to be able to start to process that
and start to let this other side of you in,
out of the trauma that post-traumatic stress,
all of that, it just sounds like it gave you that window,
so you could embrace these other parts of yourself.
- Yeah, I agree 100%.
And my counselor who's read both my books,
he's been my counselor for six years,
he says that what I was doing in both of the books,
especially war flowers,
like reframing entire experience,
first drafts, second drafts of both books,
way more angry and finger pointing,
and you did this and you did that and blaming everyone,
whereas the actual books turned out to be
just a person going through this.
His experience is out blame without anger about them.
And he says that that helped me to find the peace
that I have today.
I don't know if he can actually say I have peace,
but I'm trying.
- Right, well, you know, life still shows up
and life is hard regardless of where we are, we're at.
But then there's, you know, that openness, like you said,
I mean, I think with that openness, as we do that,
that's where we can transform these experiences
into meaningful lessons that give purpose to us.
You know, we turn our suffering into something more
and into something meaningful.
I mean, it takes time to do that journey
and it can be really, really challenging and hard
and sad and painful, all that kind of stuff,
but then it leads to some kind of transformation.
- Yeah, that may be part of why
if a person goes to any BFWs or American legions
around the country, it's very often you don't see
veterans my age.
You see the Vietnam guys, some of them,
or you see non-combat guys,
because I think a lot of guys my age
haven't really been able to process those experiences
and it's been 20 years, but it takes time.
- Yeah, it takes time, it takes self-compassion,
and it takes that openness to be able to do that.
- And some clarity.
- Yeah, and some clarity.
Yeah, I mean, if you're using your mind
can't sort through that stuff and kind of reframe it,
like you said.
So tell me a little bit about the other part of your life,
'cause this also really fascinated me,
is living off grid up in Alaska and having this space
to really just be very disconnected from the world in a way
and very connected to the world in a way.
Tell me about that and all that part of it.
I'm so glad you asked, 'cause I love it.
You know, my life is so wonderful
and I wouldn't trade the way I live now for anything.
And so I bought this property up in,
well, on the Keynet Peninsula in 2012,
an off-grid cabin on 20 acres
with the dream of having a family farm
and ended up that it was me and my brother who bought it.
It didn't work out for different issues.
I stuck to it and I lived there by myself
for about three years, summer and winter,
before I went and went to college
and continued pursuing a degree and things like that.
But the whole plan was to have that family farm in the summer
that I could make a little bit of money,
do some hard labor, growing food,
and then I could write in the winter.
And I always dreamed that I would meet a woman
who would accompany me in that journey.
But there weren't many women in the area
where I was living for me to meet.
And so I was kind of getting,
well, hopeless is the right word for that.
And right when I was just thinking,
not thinking, I started pursuing master's programs
on the East Coast and these other places at that.
Oh, maybe I'll learn writing and meet the woman of my dreams.
I met my wife, Savannah.
And very quickly, she was my age.
We were both in our 30s, early to mid 30s.
We were ready, tired of the dating game.
And so yeah, now, those years I was living by myself,
it was basically, there was no refrigerator,
the lights were all candles and oil lanterns
and a headlamp on its very basic outhouse, wood stove,
no other heat source, and just working the land
and in the winter being inside to write and play music.
And then going out every day,
snowshoeing or cross-country skiing with my dogs.
But now it's different.
You'd go to my house now and you'd think I live on grid.
I've got the solar panels and the batteries and the
grid raider and toilet, you know, she brought out the good.
She brought out the good.
But it sounds like you really were able to connect to that
and really make this dream manifest itself.
I did. And I'm grateful.
You know, I got to pay myself on the back a little bit for that one.
But you know, I have vision boards.
I still have them on the wall, like family farm books.
And I look at them every day and like all those things
they've happened. We're making some money from the farm.
We just, we had 20 acres.
We just bought two neighbor lots next to us.
So now we have 40 acres.
And I mean, we don't want to live anywhere else.
That's like, but you know, I think you're showing something
that's really important because you're saying
you opened yourself up to these different possibilities.
You were willing to take chances in your life.
Like, you know, just start by writing the book
or start by going to that retreat over here
or willing to look at this over there.
And then, you know, you say I had vision boards.
You know, like you, I think it's important part
to be able to recognize like that's you leading the vision.
I don't know how else to say it.
But so you can manifest it.
If we don't dream and we don't think of possibilities,
we, I think we kind of just shrink.
Yeah, I agree.
You know, I have friends and family who,
it seems like they just kind of live this life
that life happens to them.
And I can respect each person's life what they want.
But I am definitely, anybody who knows me,
knows I'm the guy who I've got to do lists on top of to do lists.
I stay focused on the things that need to get done.
And I do manifest all the goodness that is in my life.
I really do.
And so, but it also goes a lot.
I pray, I'm not going to say I pray a lot,
but I do my best to pray throughout the day.
And not to pat myself on the back too much.
But I do meet people especially in early recovery
who they don't have, and not even recovery.
You know, I'm visiting a family right now,
a family in Missouri and my sister-in-law, she's depressed.
You know, and I've been there.
And she's like, I can't even remember when I wasn't depressed.
Okay, well, what do you want to do?
Like, what are you doing to not be depressed?
She's like, I don't know what I want to do.
I'm not doing anything.
And it's like, I've been there too.
But there comes that point where you've got to make the decision.
Try things, just keep trying and trying and trying.
And eventually, if you keep trying,
I think something will stick.
I'm glad that you say that because I've seen,
you know, working in the field of addiction,
working in the field of recovery,
and seeing that it's like the people that thrive
are the ones who just keep trying stuff, right?
It's like, maybe they try one kind of therapy
and it doesn't work, but then they just go to the next one.
And then eventually, yeah, you know, you're right.
You find what works, you find what's helpful.
But if you don't do anything, you don't take any action.
Once again, you're kind of stuck.
Just keep going.
Just get on the horse and just do something.
And I'm glad that you say that.
Yeah, I mean, as we all know,
I mean, we're business owners.
And we'll try something for a few months, a year.
And if it doesn't bring us any income,
like, maybe we shouldn't be planting egg plants
or in Alaska, let's plant more potatoes.
Even though people want egg plant,
people are going to buy potatoes.
And so, you know, I've had that with my books
before I was actually published and sober.
I had, you know, I was going to be a New York Times best seller.
I was going to be an international renowned author
with biggest agents.
And I self-published because nobody would publish
memoirs from, you know, Joe Blow here, you know.
And so it's like, I'm not a failure in more any more, though.
I think if I would have self-published,
like, you're an absolute failure.
No, I'm not.
I'm successful just in a different way.
And so. And once again, I think it's that openness
and that flexibility.
You know, the ability to be flexible about that
and about our dreams and goals and adapt them
as we move through life.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
ideas of what might work, and we kind of find, oh, well, maybe it doesn't work that way,
but I can still do it this way, and that's still just as meaningful.
And I can let go of all these predispositions of what it should be or supposed to be, and
just enjoy what's there happening in this moment, right?
And you know, I'm not a professional, you're the professional, but I meet many people
like this person I'm speaking of in particular, who, you know, they only drink certain type
of drink.
They only eat the specific type of cheese.
They only, I mean, there's all these particulars.
People, myself included with some things, are so particular about things, that it makes
them seek perfection in themselves, in their journey in others, and then everybody lets
them down.
And then the isolate, where it's like, you know, I let people down, I let my kids down
today.
Like, we're going to be let down, we're going to let down others, we're going to fail.
We got to get up and keep trying.
Keep trying.
I love it.
Wow.
Robert.
Okay, so we're coming up on our time here.
I love talking to you.
I think we get to talk for a long time, but like before I wrap it up, I was like to ask
if we guess the same question, maybe someone's out there and they're feeling lost, they're
feeling stuck, and you could tell them one thing, what would you want them to know?
Look at their lifestyle, routine and habit.
And if they don't have good sleep pattern, good diet, good bathing practices, those little
things that we often look over, you got to start there.
That's my opinion, just start with the littlest things like that.
Go to bed on time, like your mom used to make you go to bed at nine and wake up at six.
I mean, start with, start with the small things.
That's awesome.
All right.
So where can people, because you have a website for your farm to let us know where people
can go for that and then also your books, where do they go?
Where do they find you?
Yeah, so my books are sold on our website at secretgardenalaska.org, our business is secret
garden Alaska, not the pot shop, different shop.
So my books are on there as well as other products.
We have a YouTube channel, secret garden Alaska, there's probably like 12 subscribers.
We do have a blog on there and then basically any Amazon online store person can find my
books.
And then if you come to Alaska, send us an email and you can come find us in person, maybe
for a little sweat equity.
Oh, I love it.
I love it.
Awesome.
Robert, and I will put all the links in the show notes at
[email protected].
Robert, just thank you for coming on and sharing your joy, your hopefulness, your positive
energy.
I love it.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm sorry for the mishaps before with the previous schedule appointment.
Hey, we got it.
We did it, right?
We're here.
So thanks.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the @dictimine podcast.
I hope you found my conversation with Robert as inspiring and thought provoking as I did.
His story is a testament to resilience, healing, and the power of purpose.
If you're enjoying the @dictimine podcast, please take a moment to rate and review us on
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And don't forget to share this episode with someone who might find it meaningful.
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So thanks again for tuning in, take care, and I'll see you on the next episode of the @dictimine podcast.
Have a wonderful day.
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