Speaker 1And I don't need people telling me what to do Because I'm bad at listening to that right I mean I do need it
Speaker 2Yes but it's a suggestion And have the patience with their journey
Speaker 1Yeah
Speaker 2And there's lots of journeys right
Speaker 1But you learn the hard way There's so many things with this It's driving me nuts The podcasting but I love it I'm learning every day about how to do this And how to do that and you know watching a lot of videos Taking a lot of direction because This isn't like something that I've Grew up doing or you know But I thought First I started this podcast I always say this But I started this podcast to stay sober myself Right and I have to remember that That was goal number one
Speaker 2Because
Speaker 1Sure I can sit here and tell you Till the cows come home that I'm doing this for Everybody else and but if I Like that's a bonus of this And it is it's another reason why I started doing this podcast was to get the message Out to people but I have to If I'm not sober and I'm sure I can't do any of that right I can't carry no man I don't have a message
Speaker 2To carry and you know what I'm seeing In that what you just said right there I'm seeing someone who's staying humble And not needing other people's Validation yeah Right whether one person watches 20 people watch or a thousand people Watch you're you're concentrating On your recovery that's why you're doing
Speaker 1Yeah that's amazing bro I have to Thank you I have to remind myself though like Constantly because you chase those followers The likes the fucking I can monetize this now like Oh my god you know like maybe I can quit my job one day right all These things start to come into your head and Sure it's possible but a thousand percent
Speaker 2It's possible it's a law of attraction It's a law of the universe if it's I teach a lot of this with my Clients if you can see it in your mind you can hold it in Your hand it's just like a relapse when we see It in our minds all of a sudden we got in our Hands so why not the dream life I love it's not it's not Feasible of course it's feasible that's why you see it
Speaker 1Relapse was never feasible in my mind
Speaker 2Yeah but if you're Higher power put something in your mind and you could See it practice that every day don't practice It like it's in the future practice like It's now you're already monetized It just hasn't come into Fluition yet yeah it's law of Attraction brother yeah I love that
Speaker 1I love that Joe thanks so much for coming Down brother I got it man I appreciate you Man I you know I fell in love with you already But you know it's funny This recovery thing we become you know It says in the literature that we become fast Friends right we have a Common problem and And now we have a common solution Right and that's it you know this this Alcoholism addiction thing does not discriminate I've met lawyers I've met Homeless people in recovery I've met Fucking people that live under the Bridge homeless I've met people that are Doctors right and it's you know skin Colors all over creeds religions That's the beautiful thing about this It's like a group we would normally not Mix you know but we found a Common solution where it's like You know these are all suggestions like we were Talking about before but my I had A sponsor that would always say to me You know these are all suggestions that I'm Telling you kind of like you know I suggest You taking a parachute when you're jumping out of a Helicopter or airplane I love that man Why don't you tell us tell us a little bit about Your story you Know how you ended up into in recovery And and what that sort of looked like Before and after for you
Speaker 2Before I'm just Going to do a quick recap of growing up You know telling background Telling culture we Started our journey Christy Pitts ended up At Janus Shepard My dad really didn't want me on the Streets a lot very very young age He had me in hockey I flourished There soccer flourished There you know home Life was okay but you know you come from An Italian Background you're always gonna like what I've noticed in my journey is there's a lot Of narcissism in One parent I'm not saying all of them but What I've seen on my journey and You know at a young age it was always Good wasn't good enough Perfect was good enough and even Perfect had its flaws so at a very Young age if I wasn't perfect I wasn't trying So I had to be perfect at everything Right and even when I did great It just was never good enough so You know and and along That journey I was I was introduced To a neighbor where We had a quick connection At the at a certain point Sexual abuse started at that And And it Was just it was It was a very very very Scary for me And Just the way he had Taken advantage of me this gentleman and then Going home and then going back There and I Remember at a very young age I must have been eight years old Our fathers the Man who was sexually abusing me He was younger as well They were all watching a soccer game and he Goes come here come here and he gives me this glass Of wine And I sucked it but he goes just Drink it back and man oh man Like within like a minute or so I was so numb That I wasn't afraid anymore He didn't scare me no more And So every time I had to go there I'd go in my dad's Cantina and I'd grab a glass of wine And it was almost like I knew But I didn't know because I was young but I just knew It made me feel good what it was I don't know I just Don't make me feel good right and With some work that I've been doing with people Because what ended up happening Was he He just cut me off and I felt like Abandoned and stuff and it's the weirdest thing Right and doing some work with With this lady That is working with me up at the center Through the nervous system Regulation and stuff which I didn't know right She says it was rejection For you and it followed Rejection followed me for a long Period of time which turned into people pleasing Turned into everybody had to like me and If you didn't like me like ten people could like Me if the one person didn't like me that's the One I had to sell my story to right And You know my Mom salt of the earth like Just you know just Taught us about God and about Christ and about how much he loves us and All that stuff but you know In our culture it's always Do bad go to hell Do bad go to hell at a young age I was terrified of God Man I love Jesus but I hated God And I was trying to distinguish the both at a young age Right so Yeah and You know what I got into organized crime At a young age I had enough of my dad In and around my draft Year when my friends are getting drafted to go to the O and the NHL and stuff I Quit but I'm done I'm done and I just started an organized crime lifestyle And it's Spiraled for many years after that Wow
Speaker 1Thanks for sharing that yeah Appreciate it yeah This trauma theme comes up a lot with Addicts and alcoholics right but you Mentioned something that was interesting there is like You carried that rejection thing Your whole life right what how does That show up today and how do you work on it
Speaker 2Hmm Well you know what I'm learning a lot through nervous system Regulation I work with a psychotherapist Personally myself The rejection part of It it's it's it's ongoing it's Gotten better it's Gotten better With the spiritual journey of understanding That we're all God's children We're all not meant to be on each other's Paths forever Today I don't set my boundaries like Before where it had to be take Me take me take me take me put me against A wall and then react And protect myself right Because I don't want to be rejected now It's more of you know We're just not clicking and you're Not understanding my boundaries right now And you have to be put Aside I love you but I'm gonna love you from A distance we don't all get along we Don't all have the same path right like my path Towards uh my higher power And what what he has in store for me Has allowed me to understand That when I'm rejected It's themselves rejecting themselves It's almost that one points The finger out when there's three pointing back And I've always been caught in that right So rejection is still something I work On but I've gotten so much better and a lot Has to do with understanding the nervous System regulation so our fight Our flight our freeze our Fawn those are all character Character defects and characteristics That we use to protect ourselves At very young ages when the events Happen to I would have to Say if not all most People in recovery
Speaker 1Yeah you mentioned um a fawn At the end there that's something I learned recently To my therapist is really good too and She taught me the fawn uh you know With regards to the nervous system Regulation um to Me the way I understand it and correct Me if I'm wrong but the the fawn Is like you attach To to said thing so If I have you know drugs are in my life and They're causing me a lot of problems and I can't Stop doing cocaine um I sort of attach myself to it And it becomes like my love almost And I love it is that am I understanding
Speaker 2That right yeah we're people pleasing one Character is so fawning is people pleasing right
Speaker 1Yeah yeah so look kind of Latching on to that person so
Speaker 2That they'll they'll the person the drug We're trying to please to get pleased.
Speaker 1codependent too right you know if you love me i need you joe to love me so that i can feel okay yeah you know in my own skin i love that yeah that was the way it was described to me and i really related with that um i want to talk about spirituality faith god higher power there's so many ways we can go with this one but um i think people in my experience hear the word god and they run the other way right because of whatever their upbringing or oh this is a religion like i don't want to be a part of a cult all this bullshit right um and you know there's a huge difference i've learned between spirituality and religion right so what is what does faith mean to
Speaker 2you today well i like what you said how the difference between religion and spirituality right so for me religion is a man-made thing it's a business uh christ like christ is my higher power and christ said it you don't need to go to a temple to worship me you know a lot of people go to church on sundays and as soon as they leave they just go to church and they go to church and as soon as they leave they judge the world yeah uh you know there's a message at the churches as well i'm not i'm not gonna disrespect it in any way that's their belief system and and great for you uh but i do use a lot of the church and analogies to understand make people understand what we've been through because what i believe is addiction is and it is in every single human being put on this earth because uh higher power god universe gave us free will right um for me i believe that out of all the addictions the alcoholic and the drug addict believe this or not i believe that the chosen ones i believe we were the ones sent here and at a very young age that evil entity that evil entity that you know almost like you're watching a cartoon and there's the good guy the bad guy right and where do we go we always go with the bad guy right so at the beginning of any cartoon you do that bad thing uh your stomach's telling you not to do not to do and this guy's there saying just do it just do it you get away with it and then every time you watch some something like that as a young age you notice at the end they ended up being honest about what they've done you know and and and they make good on what they've done and then the angel comes and says you know good for you for me it's that simple a spiritual journey um you know feel what's coming in you feel what's coming in you i am not here to uh to fix the world i'm here to fix myself so the world can relate to what i'm doing what i'm doing is what i've been told by faith be a good person unconditional love understand that just because i don't know you doesn't mean i don't love you one thing about recovery for me is in the rooms of recovery is i share this a lot when i do a lot of speaking engagements i don't even know you and i love you and you're still out there using drugs and alcohol and i know you i don't know you but i love you because me and you are the same and i'm going to go back to what i mean by the chosen ones a lot of people let's we're going to use catholic religion right christ christ saved uh the disciples the disciples were alcoholics one was a matthew was a in layman's terms on on our nowadays he was a collector he collected money right then you had mary magdalene she was a hooker prostitute you had thieves you had people that were so broken from society they were just shunned and what did christ do he took them and showed them the way now i'm just talking christ because it's my higher power but spirituality in general is like that i don't judge a drug addict whether you're on the street as as a homeless person or you're in an office as a lawyer i i don't judge those people because i am those people and that pain that we live with is there's not many people that don't suffer with alcohol and drug addiction that would ever understand because it's our pain but then i pick up the phone and i'm like oh my god i'm going to pick up on your pain and how do i help you release that pain by working on my pain and then we connect right and in the rooms of recovery it's instant family we don't all get along but we're instant family like anybody could call me in recovery we might not got along we might have skipped and fallen out of our journeys but if they call me saying i'm suffering i'm i'm gonna be there yeah because that's a human being and that's a child of the universe child of the universe and of god child of light whatever it is that you want to connect to and that's one thing um i think that separates religion from spirituality i i believe i my personal experience i'm judged the most by people in religion when i've fallen along my journey like you know what it's easy to to to support someone on a journey of recovery that's getting to the gym that's reading that's doing great podcasts like yourself uh it's easy to support that person but the true testament of unconditional love is when that person falls down and instead of saying you should you know you're not supposed to do that well thank you of course i know i'm not supposed to do that that's where that's where the the love comes how do i support someone that i can't agree with what they're doing and not understanding that they have no power to stop once they're in like it's easy to support somebody that's going to recovery i love that you said a lot of good
Speaker 1stuff there um i found that very interesting and i think that's a really good point and i think that to be especially true you know in my last relapse with my with my wife right everybody you know she was there in the worst moments you know and i put that woman through hell right and uh it was a true testament of her character and also you know it helped that she was able to see what i looked like in recovery and working on myself and that this was just like a you know another road a bump in the road right albeit at the time it seemed like a mountain right because you know people through the mud as i always say um i i also really liked what you said about changing ourselves and not changing the world i spent a lot of time being and i still do today i can be this guy this i've heard this before the sheriff of the universe right you know the director yeah the director you're not doing it you know that's not how you drive you're not doing it right this is the way blah blah blah blah blah right and it's like dude you know i i can simply put it as simple as this i heard this recently is like that person if someone pisses me off someone does something i don't like or somebody can't stop using drugs or alcohol in my life it's like you know right now that person is simply not living in the way i would prefer you know they're simply not living in the way i would prefer right whenever i have an opinion on something you know because i have a lot of opinions on things you should be doing it this way you should be doing it that way right so um i have to change myself and you said i i need to like get other people to kind of see what i'm doing and relate to me right i i really like that you know um what was early recovery like for you and how did you navigate that how did you get through that because i know that you know the first bit for anybody
Speaker 2can be really tough the early bits of recovery was me it was it was just some time where i knew that something was just completely wrong because it was fun at the very beginning man it was fun like escaping reality not a care in the world um going to the clubs vacations you know you know living a certain lifestyle money is just no object type of thing and something started happening where at night sorry not at night the next morning when i wake up i'm like please god please like just i want to stop like i want to stop i can't do this every day and my you know my mom being hurt by it and i'm like i swear to god you know i'm done i'm done i'm done and then two three days later right back to the cycle and it's like i'm here again right and i was angry at god at those times too man so when i would hear him i'd be like just leave me alone man like you didn't you didn't save me i'm gonna save myself and um so as as time kept going i was like i'm gonna save myself i'm gonna save myself i found it where it was like every time i was waking up it was like please just help me please if you're out there just help me please and you know what like now when god when my higher power communicates to me because he don't talk to me but he communicates to me like he'll put a stop sign with flashing lights in front of it and nothing happens in god's world by mistake so if i'm feeling a certain way and i've seen a freaking stop sign with flashing on it i'm i'm i'm listening to my heart pings go in the other direction right so in early recovery i went to the the rooms of uh recovery because they're just i didn't want to use every day anymore just get me to friday yeah just get me to friday that's what my sick mind
Speaker 1i want that old lifestyle back yeah i was able to control i want the fun back right fun yeah
Speaker 2and like far from it because once that evil entity was just had all the power you know the world i guess understands is that as the devil i i just understand it as the deep deep rooted just pain and shame and guilt remorse and all that stuff that every time i was sober he was telling me that's why you need this that's why you need this so when i went to the first time in the rooms of recovery that's what i was doing i was doing it for that and um you know fast forward a couple years after 2012 13 when i first got in the rooms i ended up in treatment 2016 you know broken marriage i tried to leave the marriage uh two or three times not because i was she was a bad person or I was a bad person, I decided to stop living a life and both of us just couldn't you know we couldn't we weren't compatible right and um you know then i just i finally just you know certain things happen i'm not going to get into her business but um i fell hard and hard like probably the worst i've ever felt ever and then i ended up in treatment and for the first i think it was seven or eight days bro i couldn't get a word out man it was just tears and tears and tears and i had this one counselor he came up to me one day he goes come come i love how like when god communicated just something happened so he brought me on the side and there's this beautiful field and he's like listen man you're a good guy but if you're gonna cry every day for 30 days you're gonna leave here and go right back to using yeah whatever that pain is start using it as a strength it's friday today by the by the time i get back here on monday just tell me you've even spoke to two people just show me you've read a couple pages i don't know what the i don't know what happened bro all i well i do know what happened he gave me the power and and i took it and i went with it and man oh man like i was talking to people reading writing like within three days i i went to the gym two three times a day there was a huge shift mind shift mindset shift yeah wow i love that um
Speaker 1yeah i i agree 100 the you know my higher power my god i choose to call it god because it's easier you know plain and simple right it's not this bearded guy in the sky and and that's me it's it's this force this inner teacher um a lot of people get scared about it right but it's it doesn't have to be what i say it's whatever you know it's just not me today right it's not me um he communicates to other people and that was a perfect example there where you know the universe this force is coming to you and it's saying joe you got to change something here right something's got to give something's got to change and it just came in the form of a counselor at that time right i can oh i love that yeah i can name i can give you a book of times where people have showed up in my life and at the time you don't see it like that right you're just like oh this fucking guy is just you know wants his job to be easier but you know it's it's a message from the universe it's a sign whatever you said the red flashing lights like yeah if you keep going in this direction you're going to end up right back where and and that scared the shit out of me because every time i've relapsed it's always gotten worse without a doubt no matter what i've always picked up where i left off you know i was doing new drugs uh i introduced new things into my into my uh arsenal uh i hung out with new people you know i got closer to the fentanyl than i needed to be right that you know closer to death than i needed to be why do you think to you today you touched on it a little bit but why is why is faith so important why is spirituality so important in recovery
Speaker 2because it's the thing we feared the most when we were in active addiction you you said something before and i really liked what you said how you know everybody's as soon as they hear the word god they run because the evil has so much power over you our souls really know that's the answer and as active addiction and even sometimes having a hard time in recovery we run from god because he's got more power over us call it your will call it an evil entity call it the devil call the devil of addiction addict brain it's common yeah so wherever there's light you know they've done they've done a great job to say as soon as you hear the word god and and and i empathize with people who hear the word god especially like in the roman catholic thing where it's gotten such a bad name of certain little things that have happened which are very bad things but you know the roman catholic church has done what it's done again it's a religion man-made none of my business
Speaker 1but yeah uh you know what i forgot the question that's okay i i uh um i i like you know i i should have given you time to respond to what i was saying but don't worry i mean um at the end of the day um why is it like i came into recovery and every single person had a higher power that was had clean time and had a lot of time right uh and was happy you know like why are you so happy right because they had this this higher power in their life why is it so important that we get spirituality get a higher power thank you very much um because
Speaker 2it's the trueness of us it's uh it's it's us trying to recover the child the child that i love that yeah a child is free before it's programmed by society yeah right i mean like i'm 49 years old i'm probably one of the biggest kids you'll ever meet and because i do my best to enjoy my life i do my best to not get caught up in the whole like you said it before don't don't tell me what to do all the time because i'm gonna go the different direction like i just met you and i could tell one thing about you you have a pure heart your soul is beautiful and real and that's where that that's where that entity doesn't want us to be so that's for me that's where spirituality spirituality is being open free loving kind understanding towards anyone of god's universe's creatures because we're all here we're all here we're all spiritual beings having a human experience and we're all doing our very best now like you were saying i could i could right away tell everybody how to write their scripts you know i think a lot of people including myself because i still have to do that work every day if i'm judging someone then i'm lacking something in me that i haven't worked on yet and as the journey continues i get caught up in that whole stuff too i was having a conversation with someone this morning and i was like and my piece is my piece and if you're going to keep these people in your life and i don't want nothing to do with that because my piece is important to me and my piece no one's allowed to come and take pieces of it anymore but i'm putting this on someone else yeah this has nothing to do with them because they're close to me my fear of losing them rejection is is almost like selling a story because i want what i want that's not spirituality joe spirituality is saying this is why i choose to live this way and i hope that you come on the journey with me and if you don't i'm still gonna love you and if you need me i'm still gonna be here when you need yeah it's simplified right it's not always easy but like the program says the program is simple it's not easy yeah choose your heart right like staying in active addiction is hard so staying in recovery yeah we have to choose our heart going to the gym is hard staying home and eating donuts all day is hard choose your heart staying in an unhealthy relationship is hard staying in a healthy relationship is hard too yeah it's work they're both work we just get to as people that become more spiritually um fit we start to understand that spiritual journeys are not the rainbows spiritual journeys are the storms we just learn how to navigate ourselves through the storm instead of sitting in it like we would in our lives and pretending like everything was okay because you know what it's not raining on me so give me another hit give me another beer give me another vodka right it's like or it'll get how am i getting out of here well there's light the lights over there so that's where the the gift of the spiritual journey is right but a man said this so beautiful one time he goes celebrate the top of the mountain when you get there but remember one thing as soon as you turn around you're at the bottom of the next yeah it's like a mountain you're at the bottom of the next yeah it's like a mountain you're at the bottom of the next yeah it's like a mountain you're at the bottom of the next yeah it's like a mountain
Speaker 1it's life it's a journey it's beautiful everything has an end right yeah every day has an end yes sir you know this too shall pass is another one that i love that i i think of when i you know and and it goes for the good stuff too when things are going really well like this is eventually gonna pass buddy you know enjoy it exactly be grateful that it even showed up in the first place yeah um yeah i i think about too i talked with somebody on this podcast about you know he had lost um he had lost his husband and uh he had a lot of grief about it and he he brought up something that you know they they teach in grief training and i'm sure you've maybe dealt with with this before because grief is everywhere right but it's like you know you lost something and you're very emotional about it and you're very it's really affecting your life every day you can't stop thinking about it this grief is sort of surrounding you at all everywhere you go you're being reminded of this person he he taught me that i should be grateful that i even had that relationship in the first place right the reason i'm feeling this way and so upset and hurt and sad about this is because i had so many good memories with this person not everybody gets that right and i should be grateful that i even had the experience in the first place right so it's a little bit of a mind shift right how grief right
Speaker 2grief's a process grief like for me i'm a strong believer the as the 12 steps not it's not just for alcohol and drug addicts it's such a beautiful journey to take those 12 steps because it's all inner work it's all inner work and i love what the man said and and you know like growing up in a catholic home death was final it was final it was like oh my god what do we do now what do we do now what i'm really loving to see and respecting so much what people are doing is this celebration of life yeah i love it so much it's a lot better than italian funerals you know what i mean like it's like if you don't suffer that means you didn't love them yeah no because the truth like i don't know that's just
Speaker 1my no i i agree you know i i've been to both i've been to the celebration of life and i've been to the funeral and it's like there was a lot of good here you know let's let's talk about the good times and the memories that don't you dare person yeah no you show some respect yeah yeah oh man it's it's true though i mean it's you know i should be happy that i i had that in the first place yeah um what sort of daily habit like what is what is a a good day in recovery look like for you and i don't mean external things but like joe wakes up in the morning and i've had a good
Speaker 2what are your dailies i love that question brother that's awesome uh my daily thing is my daily routine is and i'm not 100 at this but close enough i wake up say my prayers so i hit my knees i say my prayers i do a little meditation i write three things i'm grateful for and i get right to the gym
Speaker 3i get right to the gym i get it out um majority of the week i take my dog for a nice nature walk
Speaker 2um get home make sure uh whoever's at home uh like with my partner now as well we've started where every morning we give ourselves three things we're grateful for in a text message that's great and she came up with and i freaking love it because i'm like i get to write my grateful and now i got more things to be grateful for and people need to understand that shift is a mind shift and i'm grateful for it and i'm grateful for it and i'm grateful for it and i'm grateful so i'm just gonna go along and then um so i don't really um i do a lot of uh fruit fruit fasting stuff stuff nowadays so i don't really eat till like the afternoon probably around like five or six um i go i go to work i love what i do i love what i do it doesn't always work out the way i want it but you know what man when i see the aha moment man you know i don't hold back my tears you know a lot of a lot of uh you know in the certain industry they always say you know you never show your emotions i can't say i can't what do you want like i'm gonna give the guy a hug i'm gonna give the person a hug and say how proud i am gratitude cry proud of yourself because this is not the easiest journey but it's very rewarding um just to clarify you're in the
Speaker 1recovery space you're working with new addicts yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and that yeah that's
Speaker 2about it i get i get to as many meetings as possible um and i i just i connect with a lot of people in recovery throughout the day maybe three or four people throughout the day um send my home group a couple messages whenever i can and yeah make sure to have a small little conversation with my kids when they're with me and when i get to see them it's it's uh it's nice being present for for the kids and i get to see my mom and my mom she's so happy to see the journey i'm on and you know old school italians you know if you're happy i'm happy yeah
Speaker 1yeah yeah that's beautiful man um i heard a lot of connection in there you know and uh i didn't hear anything about your phone so that was good i'm working on that you know that's that's one of those things where it's like such an easy quick connection dopamine connection right and uh it's tough but you you know getting outside is another good form of meditation for me too um for a while i was doing a zoom meeting that was a meditation for me and i was like oh my god i'm gonna do this that was a meditation meeting and it was great you know uh i gotta get back into that but before i start my day i think that morning time is so important right where we're kind of connecting with god like you said i i definitely the one thing that hasn't changed for me is the prayers right and for me um i'm not reciting any specific prayers it's it's mainly along the lines of like help me do the next right thing today help guide me through the day um help me get out of my own way help me get out of myself help me practice humility like just whatever's coming up in my life and you know be honest that's another one too that i struggle with is like help me be authentic and honest you know because if i'm authentic and honest today everything's gonna be okay right things are gonna happen life's gonna fuck me over and shit's gonna happen but you know like you said when you're sober and you have the toolkit that you have you can get through anything in life you know and i've seen that i've seen there's people that have been a testament to that getting through cancer and you know all sorts of terrible terrible things grief and loss and all sorts of grief and loss and doing it sober so it is possible absolutely it's possible um what is the what does your support circle look like with your loved ones and uh what do you see a successful support circle looking like with the people that you work with too and you know because i'm sure you see a lot of that like really supportive families and not supportive families i mean that's been my experience in treatment centers
Speaker 2i'm gonna be very honest here okay please uh and i'm being complete like i always try to be as honest as possible without hurting people but honesty and truth usually ends up hurting some people i don't see including myself which my family absolutely loves me i know that they will go to bat for me in a second but i didn't know how to stop i didn't know how to stop using drugs and alcohol because drugs and alcohol were my solution to my addiction right so i went to the 12 steps i took a spiritual journey i i went the self-discovery that i follow along the journey yes where was most of the judgment from the support people that i had in my life shame shame shame are they doing it purposely absolutely they don't they their minds are programmed where if i do this he'll stop not understanding that i'll keep going so i don't find many again there are there are good supports out there i find that when you're when your community whether it's a family but the community does individual work on themselves and stops uh like you know support the beautiful recovery journey until they fall when they fall let's prounce because we didn't work on our stuff but we don't have nothing to work on it's a lot of it is put onto the alcoholic and the drug addict because we're the front page of the newspaper right so it's very hard to find unconditional support like you said about your wife like going through hell with you it's not easy to find humans that that will self-discover themselves instead of just sitting there pointing the finger at us so i find a lot of people um in in alcoholic and drug addiction recovery have a hard time finding true unconditional support when it's getting hard when they're trying to set healthy boundaries that were only taught from our sponsors and people in the community because for so long our communities we lived in our environments our families we're so used to the almost like how we're programmed like i'm going to fix everybody else everybody's trying to fix everybody else right so one prayer that i i never stopped doing is god show the ones that are trying to support us the light like you showed us because they deserve it just as much as us right so i just try to teach people to set healthy boundaries i try to teach families to set healthy boundaries if you if you're having a hard time understanding that there's alan on there's narrowing on there's psychotherapists there's i don't know church gatherings there there's a solution everywhere but you know the opposite of addiction is connection we crave a connection that's why we connect to that because we couldn't survive in the environments in not because the people were evil people we grew up we're great people because of the people that that gave us life absolutely they have great hearts they were programmed in a different generation than the one we're breaking today where we're we're we're doing our best to wear our hearts on our sleeve where so many times it was told don't do this don't do this don't do that so to find good good supports in family dynamics and this is just my opinion it's it's not easy a lot of people leave treatment go back home and they relapse they're going to the same environment people think people coming home from a from a an addiction center are cured yet they're going right back to the place that and again it's not just in it's just everybody you know you keep five drug addicts around you you're going to be the six you keep five spiritual around spiritual people around you're going to be the six so it's set your healthy boundaries and lead by example it's hard for us to to change and and learn the trueness of what we really know is to be true when we're when we go to these addiction centers and the 12 steps which is be your true authentic self it's hard when i'm trying to survive yeah i'm trying to survive so support systems definitely my own opinion opinion on it is support systems uh don't do the work for the addict or the alcoholic or the drug addict or the alcohol do the work for yourself and our journeys are not quick fixes like doctors give us medications or drugs give us instant gratification our journeys are one step at a time understanding i just made a mistake owning my mistake and slowly going through it there's a process in our journey yeah it doesn't happen overnight yeah and us as drug addicts alcoholics it's not even today today's already too late i wanted it yesterday and i get angry if you could relate to that i hope i answered your question no you did that
Speaker 1was beautiful um and i appreciate you being honest about it because my you know my therapist she's in recovery as well she says without a doubt every day every time i talk to her not every day i don't talk to her every day but that'd be expensive she uh she would pick up though if i called her because she's a good woman but um she says the the biggest struggle she has is getting families to go to al-anon that is the biggest she she preaches it on everybody because just like you said there's an answer for us and there's also an answer for them too right and yeah i it's tough because how you know i i don't hold a lot of credibility coming out of treatment you know i i don't i don't you know i don't i can't start telling people what i still today today i try to tell people i try not to tell people what to do but you know i i it's hard to come from treatment or you know relapse or whatever and be like you know you should go to al-anon right or you should work on yourself mom like that doesn't go over very well the fuck are you talking about yeah do you know what you put me through i'm reminded often by my wife of what i put her through and i and it you know it's they're on their own healing healing journey so to your point all i can do is change myself right a spiritual awakening one of my favorite definitions in the literature is um my pro you know spiritual awakening is a profound alteration in my reaction to life you know i wake up in the morning and i'm in addiction this guy fucked me over this guy did this don't you know i'd be successful if this wasn't happening right and when i get sober in recovery it's like i'm just the world's not changing like you said the world is not changing anthony's changing joe's changing oh maybe this is happening to me so that i can grow or maybe this is happening for me and not to me right these little mind shifts mindset shifts where i'm just like maybe the glass is half full instead of half full i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't empty you know it's it's that's that's all recovery is and that when i first started this podcast another thing i i originally wanted to call it some sort of variation of uh altered perception right because i and but that sounds like too much like using drugs but we come we come into recovery and we get a shift in perception right it's a perception a disease of perception we get this this shift in the way we look at the world and that's what i try to do every day is you know you have a loved one because i do i we get a lot of i get a lot of moms and i talk to a lot of loved ones in recovery right and i did an episode with a dad that's uh has two daughters in in one in recovery and one in addiction and he's a great i'm gonna have him back on here and he's raw he's great um i got a lot of messages from that one where people were like man that you you know you made me think of something differently right and that's all i'm trying to do here is like huh maybe i should try that right and to your point it's like huh i'm gonna work on myself a little bit instead of trying to change my loved one because you can't fucking change them no can anyone change you right i'm sure they tried not even god has
Speaker 2the power to change me unless i go to him yeah yeah but you have to do the groundwork yeah like
Speaker 3you said absolutely yeah um how do you carry the message of recovery today jill treat others as you want to be treated just treat the world as you did when you were a child and your life will always be beautiful
Speaker 2because i'll see children look at a kid and say why are you fat an adult will look at that like what the hell are you doing but the child means nothing from that nothing at all so true a child will push somebody they'll push them back three minutes later they'll be best friends like nothing happened because they have such light in them because the programming hasn't not gotten them yet just be your true authentic self always if you deep down inside know you're about to react to something that's going to hurt somebody just don't do it practicing i'm sorry preaching not always practicing that's why i love our step 10 you know make that daily inventory because we are not perfect beings never will be we are broke we are human beings having a spiritual sorry spiritual beings having a human experience just be your true authentic self be the child that that you crave that you create like be the child you wish you could be again just be that man be that it's so fun screw being an adult yeah like be responsible do what you gotta do like go to work i'm not single play all the time but find the time to go out and play get off of your devices don't worry about the candy crush and the social media that'll be thereafter preaching not always practicing because i get caught up in why didn't that person like myself yeah yeah right just search for the child because that's i think that's the journey of life is searching for that child in us yeah just be the child in you yeah i've heard that before and it's
Speaker 1it's so true it's like you know you just take any time even in the elevator ride on the way down from my condo on the way here today i i always
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Speaker 1because yeah they fascinate me right it's like and i was this kid just no worries in the world right he's just thinking about the next he's present he's fully present and if i could be a tenth of that in my day where it's just like you know he what's the highest floor in the elevator like that's what he was worried about right he was worried about like how many floors were in the building and it's like yes like but i don't i don't notice those things unless i notice them right and i notice it today because i'm working on myself and you know that's that's the kind of man i want to be right is somebody that's always improving you mentioned the the daily inventory because i don't know what i'm doing wrong sometimes you know but if i take a you know an hour out of my day to look back and reflect and say huh did i lie to anyone did i cheat did i steal you know did i manipulate um did i cause harm right oh yeah you know you started to and like you said progress you know you practice progress not perfection i'm never going to be perfect but the more i practice it it's progress towards perfection and it's like you know i'm never going to achieve perfection and that's okay because we're human and no one will achieve perfection you know um but if i can just work on it every day i'm going to start to change those behaviors because i don't like they're not serving me you know i'm pissing people off when i'm doing this stuff and people don't want to hang out with me and i'm just there's a lot of negativity happening when i when i'm doing those things right so it's a beautiful thing that you know i'm not going to be perfect but the more i practice it the more i'm going to progress and we have the ability to do better tomorrow you know
Speaker 6what's something joe that you're most proud of since getting sober
Speaker 3one thing that's coming to mind right now which i've been working on the ability the ability to choose my peace over anything else
Speaker 2whether it be my children whether it be my partner whether it be my family whether it be friends if you're coming to take pieces of my peace i'm going to talk to you about it but you're not stealing it anymore life for me through that hell that i've had to live
Speaker 3through for many many years where i'm at today you
Speaker 2peace is so important and to acquire peace you must go through storms i believe but there's peace in the storm as well it's the perception of it right is it easy i'm sitting here and i'm in a great time with a with a with a beautiful guy in recovery that i love to death and it's the first time i met him but our souls have connected somewhere along this journey for sure um peace to acquire peace everybody wants to be happy but you cannot be happy all the time you can only be happy because you felt sadness and vice versa but to acquire peace doesn't make life always a joyous and free and happy occasion it just it gives me the opportunity to say sit back don't overreact choose yourself separate with love and kindness do not ever say never say never because things happen people go they come they go they come but i choose today to not lose joe anymore because i'm too important to myself today i'm the most important thing in my life today there's nothing more important than joe today my children are my world are my world my mom my family they're my world but they i they don't have nothing if joe's not number one to joe yeah i call it selfish call it selfish it is selfish to be honest with it is but it's a healthy selfish because if i choose joe today i can only be the healthiest version of myself and then everybody wins right yeah If I could just finish, I was speaking to you before about the law of attraction, right? And I, and, and, and I think I was saying it to you. If you could hold it in your, if you could see it in your mind, you could hold it in your hand. If I give up a vibe all the time, a vibe, a vibe, that vibe's coming to me. So if I could give love, love, love, even when it's hard, love, love will come. Am I doing it for that reason? No, I'm not today. I don't, I got caught up in life doing things and saying that he didn't give me back what I am. Why wouldn't he not do that? Everything I didn't know today. If I do something, I do something because it makes me feel good knowing that I, I brought some joy to someone else. Yeah. Right. So I hope that, yeah, no,
Speaker 1it's true. And you know, you made me think about a moment. Yeah. So I live downtown Toronto and this has been happening actually a lot more lately. I'm happy you brought this up. Cause I hadn't thought about this in a while. I've been reacting a lot to people and I'll give you an example. One of my pet peeves is people that honk way too much in the city, right? Like hold their horn, you know, it's, it's there for a hazard, right? And I don't, hopefully I don't start ranting because it drives me nuts. Right. When you live in the city enough, you know, you can hear it in your, in your building. Right. But so I, there's this guy the other day where just had a beautiful dinner for my, my wife's birthday. My parents came downtown and we're walking down the street where we got ice cream. Everything's good, golden. I'm happy. You know, I got a new job. We're at a treatment center. So that's like good things are happening in my life. And, uh, the, the, it's just, it's, it's beautiful. And I want to mention too, is like for a long time in, in recovery, things weren't really adding up for me financially. Right. And this is one thing I really want to preach to people and preach is the wrong word, but I really want to get out there that sometimes you just have to wait a little longer, you know, before the miracle. Yeah, exactly. Only before the miracle happens. Sometimes you, you just gotta, it's coming right. The, the, the gifts are coming. And it's not like my life has changed completely, but I wanted to get a job at a treatment center, right? This is something that I really want to do. I'm going back to school for it too. Right. So these things are starting to unfold and it's because I stuck the, the difficult path. I, I, I stretched it out and you know, sure. It's only been six months again. Only I shouldn't say only it's six months is a good, you know, especially when I couldn't get six fucking minutes together, you know, I couldn't. Right. Um, so anyway, so I'm walking down the street, things are going really well. And, uh, this guy's holding his horn, the whole street's vibrating through the street, driving me insane. I literally walk away from my, and this isn't me. I don't normally do this. Right. And I start getting into it. The guy he's got his window down. So I'm like, I'm going to tell this guy how he's doing. Right. And how he's pissing me off. And I just lose my mind. Right. And we get into it and then whatever, he's embarrassed. He drives away. I'm embarrassed. And I'm, you know, people in the street are now looking at me. Right. And it's funny how it just, it kind of happens like that. Right. It comes out of nowhere. But, um, I'm not proud of those moments. You know what I mean? Like those are things that I want to work on. That's not who I am. And, and you know, my wife is embarrassed. My family's embarrassed. And, uh, but this is something that keeps coming up and something that I need to work on. So, you know, talking and doing this stuff and talking to people like you, it makes me realize that like, I have an opportunity to work on these things today. I never would have even thought that was a problem, you know, six months ago, 10 years ago, when I first came into recovery, um, or when I was in my active addiction, but it's a beautiful thing. And it really is that I can, uh, put out good into the world. And so I look at that experience now and I try to do this on it. When somebody pisses me off, this is where I was going with this. Sorry. When somebody pisses me off and it happens a lot in Toronto, you know, there's a lot of tourists and stuff like that. If I just react with a smile or you mentioned putting out good energy into the world, there's a little part of me. That's like, I'm going to get that back someday in some way or another, but also, I just exact to your point, I've never got into an altercation with someone ever in my life, physical or, or mental, uh, you know, verbal where I felt better after never, never, even if I've been right, justified, you know, people are applauding me, whatever, then that's not happened before, but I've never felt better after that. Right. Never. It's never happened where I've made my point, embarrass the person because that's usually what I want to do is embarrass the person I've never felt better. So, you know, it's, it's always ended up worse is what I'm saying. Why do you think that? Yeah, that's a great question. I love that question. And we, you know, we, we talked about this in my treatment center last time because we had a counselor there that would always come in and complain about Tim Hortons. And this guy was like, he would, he's, he would complain that the, uh, and this guy was very in tune with his self. He was a therapist and he, you know, he was, but he was honest. He'd go to the same Tim Hortons every morning and the guy wouldn't cut his bagel all the way through. And he was driving him nuts.
Speaker 7Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1Every single day. He's like, you have one fucking job, right? Just cut the bagel all the way through. It would drive him nuts. And he would always Vince, he would always talk to me. That's exactly what he said too. Right. And, uh, we, and he, and I asked him one day because I'm, I'm so interested in that too. It's like, why does that bother us so much when we, cause he embarrassed the guy or something, did something about it. Right. Why, why? And so to answer your question, because I, I don't think it's what we were meant to do right in our DNA. It's, it, it never feels good because I don't think we were meant to put other people down. The outcome is never what we thought it would be.
Speaker 2Because God's in you. Yeah. I've heard people. And because of certain lifestyle I lived, I couldn't show, Oh my God, did I, did I really hurt him that much? No, but I went home, you know, 25 years old home crying, crying to God, please God, please help them. I could dare. I could not show that out there. I was so scared to show God out there. I show you evil because he had the power over me. So you feel bad because it's not you. It's not you. It's not you. And it just, something rang through to me when you said that you attacked that guy honking, which, Oh my God, man, when they just like, it just, just, once or twice. Right. Um, if, if I, if I may, um, what I found from that was your wife's birthday, your parents come down, right? Uh, you're early on in recovery again. So you're holding onto some things. Absolutely. And then how do I protect them? If he's bothering me, he's bothering me. I got to protect them. You went to protect your loved ones, but it's so beautiful when I could actually see it because I've, I've done the same things, the same thing. I will overreact. Even more when my loved ones are around because I have to protect them.
Speaker 1Yeah. Right. I hadn't thought about it like that. Sorry. I might be wrong. There's always a reason. I mean, it's, it's, it's in there for sure. There's something. And watch when I leave today, I'm going to, I'm going to reflect more on that and be like, yeah, you know, there's a part of, I think there's truth in every, every bit of, you know, I just, we subconsciously do things because we think it just pisses us off period. Right. But it's, you're right. There's more. There's more to, I believe that too. And that's, you know, where therapy has brought me. I want to end with this. And I usually end with this on this podcast.
Speaker 6If you could say something to a struggling addict or alcoholic right now, what would you say?
Speaker 3You are not your pain. You are your purpose. I know if you're struggling right now, it's hard to see that, but you're struggling so much. I think because you're afraid to let God out, higher power out, let them out, keep letting them back in because you're worth it.
Speaker 1Beautiful. Well said Joe. Thanks so much for coming down, brother. I had a great time and I'm happy. We're friends now.
Speaker 2Thanks brother. For real. Next time it's an espresso. Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent.
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