Speaker 1jolt what's up how's it going man living the dream buddy so what's roofing like
Speaker 2i can see it in your face it's awful in this heat a little tanned yeah but you're so you're currently roofing your sober house for people that aren't aware i follow you on instagram and assisting yeah i mean dude listen you're on the roof replacing shingles and it's uh i i look forward to those instagram stories yeah but that's like pretty common right it's like you live you know in a house with other sober guys and you've been there for a while and you give back to the community and one of the things you do is like you help around the house right with the guy that
Speaker 1that owns it you would hope people would yeah it's not that common that you know you'll find the most eager people and sober living to
Speaker 2do things yeah unfortunately but what um so let's do this first tell tell me about your last 30 days of drinking and using what was that like paint a picture for us uh the last 30 days or so
Speaker 1it was like more like the last summer it was just like a consistent bender i had gotten laid off from uh i was working construction doing framing and i got laid off and i went into town because i lived up in wiscoka uh to rib fest of all things and i uh met some girl and i ended up in like this trap house and i was just on a weekend bender i i knew i had like a couple weeks off we were supposed to return it was like the first week of july and i think we were supposed to be back in by august and uh my boss ended up over extending himself so he uh just kind of kept pushing it back and i was like all right i got a summer off i'm okay with this like this is awesome and uh i met this guy that just got this um his dad passed away and left him his house and he just got like all the money for the house sale and everything in wiscoka yeah so he was like gee you have a car can you like drive me around i want to go sell drugs i'm like okay great summer job yeah this is this will be fun and uh he ended up getting arrested and i met these two other guys and we uh we just kind of started hanging out i started hanging out of these trap houses and selling drugs and running around and just complete chaos and then i eventually ended up getting a dui i had uh been running around all night and i went back to this house and was like trying to sleep i was waiting for my drug dealer to come up and from the city and uh to re-up and i at some point traded cocaine for diazepam and prednisone which i didn't know what were at the time i found out later in rehab when i got my disclosure what they were from one of the counselors uh and i guess i took some at some point and these people were annoying me so i was like i'm gonna i'm just gonna go sleep in the driveway of this guy bob and this is one of the houses i sold drugs out of i was like i'm gonna go sleep in the driveway of you guys are driving me insane so i got my car this house was on like the over uh the off ramp of highway 11 and i only made it like up over the highway overpass and to the other side of the highway there was a road that ran parallel with the highway and i made it like just across the highway and i fell asleep i almost hit a 14 year old boy he was standing at the end of the driveway waiting to uh get on the bus because this was like mid-september and i hit a fence fence went over my shield windshield i put my uh my friend joe in the back seat to bed because when i got back i guess he was super drunk and i was like here you just lay in here so he woke up to the fence coming over the car and tried to like pull the keys out and then we went across this lawn hit a rock it threw the car in the air flipped it around twice and i landed right next to this deck and it turns out that's where my other friend cody lived with his family so like if i was 10 feet to the right i would have went right through probably his son's bedroom and then their kitchen and their bedroom so by the grace of god i didn't kill all these people and very sarcastically i got extracted from the vehicle and they're like were you driving the vehicle and i was like no he was driving and i thought that's some other stupid shit which didn't read well in a disclosure at all so and then uh a couple weeks later i got uh driving under suspension i got uh i waved the same cop that arrested me for my dui through a four-way stop thinking like okay just go ahead i was bringing my friends to the methadone clinic and uh they were drinking in the back seat and she recognized me immediately so she came pulled me over she was like joe why are you driving your life's suspended it's like um isn't that in not until like the court thing like trying to play it off dumb and she's like no it's suspended as fuck like you what's wrong with you so i uh i gotta drive him as a suspension and then i got into another car accident like a couple weeks later i hit a tree and then i ditched the car and just kind of ran around and then i was a missing person for i don't know 10 to 12 days and around day 11 joe who was in the back seat was sitting next to me and he looks over and he's like hey you're a missing person it shows me a facebook post that was shared like 1200 times or something who put like that uh my mom and my aunt and uh turns out they were at home they're like they were usually down in the city i i lived up north for the most part alone yeah so people that don't know muskoka
Speaker 2is uh up north north of toronto it's a cottage type area on the lake um on um a majority of lakes but uh is it on no it's just like lake country like thousands of them up there but um yeah they
Speaker 1they had been like wondering where i was i was not privy to this information because i wasn't paying attention and i uh ended up freaking everybody out and they were looking for me everywhere because i kind of had this habit of like just going somewhere sometimes like i just leave so i had people out in bc looking for me i had people down in brampton and toronto looking around like places i would frequent and eventually they descended on muskoka and followed the breadcrumb through my summer of chaos through trap houses ex-girlfriends fucking all the the wreckage of the past per se and uh eventually like one of my friends ended up like popping her head through the door of this house and was like it's joe here and he's like he's on my couch so you guys have just been living what and then they're like you're missing just before that the same cop that arrested me like earlier that day i was going to the beer store and she pulled up beside me she's like joe you're missing person and i was like that's a real thing like i thought it was a facebook thing she's like no i need to do a wellness check on you and i was like okay meet me at the beer store i did a wellness check drinking twisted teas in the parking lot of the beer store in gravenhurst yeah so it was a bit chaotic but like i i was so removed from reality that i didn't think of myself as an addict or like had a problem i was like just have a summer off like i'm having a good time what was it?
Speaker 2what was the moment where you started to really question it and and question your drinking and
Speaker 1drugging uh it took about three weeks in rehab yeah okay so tell me then about like getting to
Speaker 2rehab how does how does one go from the the summer of hell or party probably in your mind yeah to
Speaker 1getting into rehab uh well they were all looking for a bunch of people were looking for me so when they found me like my parents were not far behind the two girls that found me and uh they're like are you ready to come home? i was like i didn't know anyone was waiting for me like yeah i could come home no problem so i went home like my sister my mom my dad and i think my nephew was there he's just little he's just around uh and i think it visibly looked like i had aged my mother like 10 years in 10 days so she was like uh like would you be open to like doing something and my dad may have this very like brunt business style i i've worked for him several companies so he's like you have a problem you need help with it like what what's gonna what's gonna happen here i'm like okay um it probably doesn't
Speaker 2take long for someone to realize the way we drink and use that you have a problem too yeah
Speaker 1well his dad was uh an alcoholic for his entire life for the most part he just passed away a couple months ago and like he had dementia and didn't remember who we were for the most part but he did remember that he didn't like near beers he liked real beers interesting yeah he had a little phone card and there's like six pictures and then on the back of it it said tuesdays and thursday beer deliveries for him to remember so like he was he was pretty prevalent or like privy to privy to uh like the addiction in various forms so they just kind of like were like are you ready to go and i was like i could go yeah like this will help you no problem and about like three weeks into it i was like hey i'm really relating to all these people around here like i think i might be an addict and my counselor was like give me a hug i didn't think you really get it like i was losing hope but i remember i got there and he was like his last day before the weekend and i sat with him and he was like hey so do you think you're an addict it was like i think i'm addicted to having fun and i have poor self-control and i just ran with that for like three weeks and yeah it was just what was your plan originally
Speaker 2like kind of i'm gonna do these 30 days to get the heat off get my parents off my back and then
Speaker 1go back to partying or basically i guess like there wasn't much of a plan at all it was just like if this would give you peace of mind like yeah sure but you had to be feeling some sort of
Speaker 2disease and discomfort in the way you were living i would imagine no i was always pretty functional
Speaker 1but like growing up in muskoka i kind of was like the one person that was there all the time i lived on a little lake and uh for the most part everyone who was coming up was at like a cottage or right right right basically a retirement age there wasn't a lot of families that lived up on my people were coming to you to party all the time i i had like a rotating group of people that were always in vacation mode yeah so if i was kind of a mess on wednesday i had a new group of people on friday so you know i could keep the party going and it was like none the wiser to everyone else for a very long time and i i was always pretty good about like keeping things rolling like i regularly had work i maintained the house like you cut the grass or like blow the snow if i can make sure the fire was going clean up after myself feed myself i didn't look disheveled all the time it's just it's just kind of if you do you know honestly it all came uh like came to a head when i got that tui but like for years it was just kind of like i was just living the lake life like i feel like everyone in muskoka is on island time by like 2 p.m they're like ah let's let's go fishing so i was kind of used to that lifestyle for a long time and it just kind of like blew up when i dove headfirst into it i had too much free time
Speaker 2yeah the consequences start piling up yeah you mentioned the uh the was it a woman cop that had kind of known your name and seen you around a bunch of times yeah did how did she
Speaker 1help you through all this she was really nice like she she was always like kind of uh what's it called i don't know how to put it she she was like super friendly for you know all the interactions we had were never really good i was kind of delusional in the aspect that like i used to flirt with her and think i had a lot of fun with her and i was like i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't had a chance even though every time she saw me she arrested me and the last time i saw her i went back uh last summer and i was just like walking through town waiting for a ride and she pulled up beside me she's like when did you get back into town i was like i've been here for 15 minutes like i'm just passing through yeah she's like stay away from that house yes ma'am but you're sober at this time yeah yeah it was like a year and a half sober at this point so just threw me for a loop i was like i just got here how did you know she's a tracker on you yeah yeah wow so you're in rehab
Speaker 2for three weeks and do you remember what started to click like what clicked specifically or was
Speaker 1it just kind of over time uh well there's these like two instances on like saturdays this other guy named joe would come in he was a native american i don't know what his part in the tribe or whatever you would call it it was but uh he would come in and do like a little bit of like a spiritual study and i it just didn't gel with me it was the only class i really just didn't like and he passed like an eagle feather around and you'd say your name and everything i just i always pass it because i was like he's gonna be like oh your name's joe my name's joe this is a spiritual connection we're having here we were destined to meet like we're not star cross lovers settle down so i just tried to avoid him at all costs every saturday he would come in and then on like wednesdays and sundays we had like a guest speaker and this one wednesday this other guy named joe came in and he had like the carbon copy same story as me and i was like well this is weird i'm not as like terminally unique as i thought i was a year i thought i i thought i was like the most special person ever when i told my counselor uh i was like um addicted to having fun i had poor self-control he's like oh well you're gonna be really interesting to work with and in my mind i was like he he's gonna write like a thesis on me like yeah i'm a special case that's gonna like speed addiction or something yeah i'm like oh man he's probably gonna publish a paper on me this is cool oh self-centered yeah it turns out i'm just garden variety idiot addict so yeah i just kind of threw me for a loop when i i heard this guy's story and like we did all the exact same things at art like he was doing paint by numbers and he was reading like aggressively and like actively avoiding talking to people outside of treatment and i was like wow like carbon copy of me this is crazy and then uh i walked up to him i was like i don't know what just happened but like it feels like something has changed like there was a shift and he's like you just had a spiritual experience i was like what does that mean he's like you had a shift in perspective he's like okay i don't know how to take that but i'm i'm gonna run with it lee all right then yeah after that i stayed for like 50 days and then i had like a dui case they were asking two years in jail this is also like right after i had that meeting that week i got my disclosure for my dui and it did not read well at all and uh i immediately wanted to like leave i was like i want to just like start gathering information and figure out what i need to do and i went to uh the counseling office and i was like could someone explain this to me because uh i was asking everyone about their duis because pretty common i had a rehab for people that have duis and they're like mine was like eight pages long it's really simple and then i got this 45 page long document i was like oh no there's a lot in here and i went and asked one of the counselors i was like can you kind of like just like describe this to me like what what's going on here and i got torn apart for like two hours straight which i very much appreciate i ended up uh working with the gentleman that did that and i was like you don't know how much that helped because i i really needed to hear it like i was so lucky to not have devastated half a dozen families in that with that brief moment so i just needed to be you know sat down and told the hard truth of how much of a fucking idiot that was so it did uh it helped a lot to hear that and once i kind of heard the truth of the matter i kind of shifted how i was looking at things i just wanted to i think it like changed my perspective in the like i i thought i had all these things going for me and i realized that like i just kept walking away from things in life because i i was determined to have fun like that was the constant theme of my life was like oh i started a landscaping business but like i hate chasing people on the weekends for money it's cutting into my time out on the lake having fun with my friends i think
Speaker 2next idea next event yeah yeah basically we're good starters but we we struggle with finishing things right yeah interesting and so um when you again it's it's it's what you're talking about to me it sounds like it's it's sort of this idea of like it's actually a lot worse than you think it is out there and you're in a good place in rehab but i think one of the jobs that i have when i work with new guys and people that come in and this was taught to me is like to convince them that it's actually their situation with drugs and alcohol without recovery is a lot worse than you think it is yeah like it because like you said we're very good at i'm you know it's not that bad you know it's i'm gonna figure it out i'm gonna i'm whatever it's sweep it under the rug it's tomorrow joe's problem right so i think it's interesting that you had that multiple shifts in perspective perspective i can relate to that 100 having those moments where you just see things completely differently you're kind of taken out of the your your eyes almost for a moment and looking at it through somebody else's yeah so how did you get
Speaker 3through that after that ultra running shoes are all about space the space to go further to feel better to do something you never thought possible and this space starts with ultra fit unlike traditional running shoes ultra fit gives toes more room to move naturally so every step is strong balanced and comfortable whatever you're lacing up for stay out there with ultra shop now at ultra running.com that's altra running.com this episode is brought to you by txu
Speaker 4energy for the first time ever texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings it's called free nights and cool summer you get free nights every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use all summer it's a first of its kind plan created for how texans actually use energy discover how much more you could save with free nights and cool summer txu energy energy for everything visit txu.com for more information rep number one zero zero zero four
Speaker 1um well i felt like really like a rudderless ship after that point so i i kind of just surrendered to like the suggestions coming my way because i knew i wasn't built for jail and uh the last piece of advice that uh this guy who tore me apart was was like you're going to war man like you better start stacking arrows for your quiver and he walked out of the office i was like well fuck okay like i guess so so i just started doing everything i could and like everyone i worked with i was like is there any chance you would write me a letter for court and i show up to court with like 20 letters of character references from the director of the rehab i was in the director of both sober livings i lived in all the counselors i worked with psychotherapist i worked with everybody from a to z that i could get to uh write me some sort of character reference of how i was doing in recovery what i was doing and uh it it gave like they gave me credit in court but they said that i uh i didn't have enough ties to the community and i was like oh god like we'll reduce your sentence but you still have to go to jail i was like well what the hell does that mean to my lawyer and he's like you need a job like if you don't have a job there's no reason to like keep you on the streets and uh i had to agree with him and i was like well i'm not going to go to jail i'm not going to go to jail and i was like well what the hell does that mean to my lawyer and he's like you need a job like if you chat with the guys i lived with at sober living and i was like it doesn't look good guys like tomorrow i either i plead and they sentenced me so like i don't know what i'm gonna do but and uh my friend hasham uh wrote me a less than honest letter of employment that i had been working at his yard as a laborer for his family's trucking business and that kept me out of jail they gave me house arrest and if you didn't know counseling is one of the necessities of life that you can get and meetings count as a form of counseling so i wasn't allowed to leave the house other than like four hours a day or a week on sundays but i could go to meetings every night so i was going to like every meeting i could just to have some semblance of life and i was really like anxious about the whole thing leading up to it and i finished the steps in like seven weeks and that was with me loafing on step four for i don't know two or three weeks and uh i immediately started sponsoring guys that were in sober living and at one point i think i had eight or nine sponsees that like lived at sober living so i was just freaking out in my mind about what was gonna happen with court like it was just so unsure up until like the very day before i was sentenced and once i did get sentenced i was like well now i have all this free time like i can't go anywhere do anything so for like the next i think six or seven months i uh just like aggressively booked people and i don't know just like at some point everything started to click more and more i did the steps with like no inclination of what was going on i know i had a spiritual experience or a change in perspective back in rehab but like i still didn't really get the steps while i worked through them i did them to like the best of my ability and like i was talking to people about it and i was never one to like you know stay mute about how i felt about how things were going if i didn't understand something i didn't understand something or if i didn't agree with something i didn't agree with something and i think that's kind of why my sponsor ended up approaching me because i remember a reading at the meeting i went to the first week i was out of treatment was like the ninth step promise the part in the book about it and i was like i didn't really get why like the problem's been removed but i haven't been cured like someone took out a tumor i'd be cured the brain cancer i had so this feels like a double entendre what's going on and i i think it it's to my benefit that i was vocal about the things i didn't understand because then i could get the information on how i could you know wrap my head around it if i could but yeah i just kind of kept taking suggestions and going i didn't have any direction in my life that's all i knew was like every good idea i ever had never gave me good results so it's like maybe maybe someone else knows better than me like i could go with that for you know a summer because i don't have anything else better to do right now like i could go to jail or i could just listen to these people and that's what i did
Speaker 2yeah it's so simple but so difficult too sometimes to just kind of turn off your brain and follow that direction in the beginning because everything in your mind is telling you to solve the dui problem right at least that's the way my mind works is like yeah i can relate to we need to fix this right now like and even though it's it's unfixable right now right but you have all this free time and yeah idle hands are the devil's playground for addicts especially like i'm i'm going through that now i have a lot of free time that i would rather not have and my brain starts just talking about useless things right that don't really benefit me or how to solve problems or i'm starting to simulate all the outcomes in my life of this is going to go this way this is going to go that way and this and it's all bullshit it's all wrong so i think i love that you just kept busy in the in the beginning and you didn't really know what you were doing but you were just somebody the direction was coming from someone doing better than you right it was it was really that simple someone that wasn't in jail yeah exactly you know um what if you know looking back now can you what what do you think drugs and alcohol did
Speaker 1for you before it started to do to you it was definitely like a social lubricant like it was just kind of the crux around like the the people i hung out with it was just people were coming up and they're like oh we're gonna have drinks around the fire and uh i started smoking weed at a very like i think i was like 12 or 13 when i moved up to moscow i started smoking weed that summer so for a long time like i was always smoking weed and eventually like people were coming up and they're like hey do you know where we could get xyz up here like you know our weekend had shifted in priorities so so i was also the person that like you could call and i could probably get you something on the lake and eventually just it was always just like kind of i was that like call call to a friend to have fun kind of person like i wasn't getting invited over for sunday dinners or anything with your family but you know saturday night i'd probably catch a call from you so it was just always a constant i didn't really like view it in any specific way i've always been a relatively confident person so i didn't feel like i needed to escape myself but you know at a certain point like i think it became a crutch on like how angry i was so i only had like two emotions i was either like elated or i was just angry or numb mostly numb because i was drinking and using most of the time but yeah i i don't really relate to the way people are like i was trying to escape myself i didn't like the way i felt i didn't like i never really experienced those problems so i got to rehab and they gave me that feelings wheel and i was like i know all these words but like these are not all different emotions these are like sononyms uh so i was like what does this mean i don't know no these are ways you feel these emotions like they're all different i was like what is it what are you talking about i think you're emotionally literate joe so i had to carry a feelings journal around with me for like 45 days and that that was like the biggest change in perspective i think i had in um what's it called in uh recovery was i didn't have any emotional intelligence like whatsoever yeah and i really needed to like learn what like the physical symptoms of how i felt things and like um like my first reactions were really like playing off on other emotions and i for the life of me did not think i was afraid of anything i did my first fear inventory i wrote down horses because like i just don't trust horses saw someone get kicked by they'll kick you yeah i was like that guy's dead the stable girls were like oh that's so funny i'm like no look at him like he's dead we're looking at a dead body right now like you're such a city boy i'm okay cowboys are crazy i i'm fucking wholeheartedly believe that they're the craziest people on the face of the earth but uh yeah i did i uh did this fear inventory and then my counselor was like i don't think you get the point of this i was like what do you mean like i'm not i'm not like really scared of very much and it took me like a while i think it was like the very end of my stay it was like i i realized i'm just reckless like i'm not fearless i'm like riddled with fear but i don't really have like cause and cause of fear i'm like i'm not fearless i'm like riddled with fear but i don't concern for my own well-being so i'm just a reckless individual i'm not a fearless one so it was like learning the ways these emotions were like affecting my life was the biggest perspective change i had and still today like i still have to like work on it because i i feel that like emotional numbness coming back sometimes especially working in this field like there's like a healthy spot where you're not too invested but you're not too working with clients and people in this program so i don't know trying to find that sweet spot can be difficult because it's overwhelming and it's frustrating to see people not do well when you're yeah you're doing more than they are for their recovery like what am i doing it becomes disheartening so trying to find like empathy but also like guarding your own sanity it's it's a balancing act don't let don't
Speaker 2let them kind of take you down with them right i always think of the when you talk about that i think about the metaphor because that that is one of the most frustrating things in professionally working with people but also like in the recovery space of mentoring and sponsoring it's it's sort of like you have all the answers to the test but they're not your answers right like you've just you have the answers and you're just like sliding them across the table but the guy is just like like you just can't see down on the paper and he's like no no i've got the answers i know the answers don't like don't worry but you've been given the answers to the test and it's like we just can't pick it up and i've been there i'm sure you've been there too where it's like you're socializing with people and you're like i don't know what to do and you're so stubborn in your way and i'm right and this ego comes up and tells me i don't need help i'm good it can happen in sobriety too right for sure so um what does uh like you mentioned service and i love that you that's what got you through it sounds like that's what got you through your first year pretty much for sure what does service do for you back then but like i mean in general
Speaker 1what does it do for you um well it keeps you sober that's for sure uh it gets me out of self especially and it gives me new perspectives on like was sponsoring people i i regularly learn things from the people that i i work with that i i just never had that perspective so it definitely helps it the way people say like the literature in the big book and stuff like that it reads differently when you're like working with someone is a holy true testament to me like i i think every time i've taken someone through the book with their experience is as like a lens for what i'm reading it it comes off differently every single time and it kind of works as a mirror it reflects back at me and i'm like oh my god like i didn't realize i was xyz too so it's definitely interesting in that respect um i i do a lot of service for like my home group and with uh sober living we have like various things that we help out with i've done h and i meetings like when i was capable it was working with my schedule i like to go to michael garen like once a week and go down there which is a detox yeah it's a detox and like standing with the people that are like i just can't stop and i don't have the resources you're like okay like this is a refreshing perspective because you'll find a lot of people in like uh in rehabs and in sober livings are kind of playing to the powers in their life whether they're there on a court order or their their parents are like hey you have a problem like we'll pay for you to get better they're not really there with like the gift of desperation and the desire for change and sometimes they develop that in the the space that was my experience as well but it's not frequent that like somebody comes there and it's like i just can't stop and everything has fallen to pieces so when you go to like a detox and you do a meeting with these people they're like i just i can't stop like i i want help but like i don't know where to get it and i don't know how to get it and it's like well this is nice like this reminds me of when i was like this but i didn't have this perspective like i i needed help but i didn't want it right i didn't think i needed it and it just gives you these like new perspectives on life and it gets you out of self like you're constantly living in your head if you're just constantly you know taking inventory of 14 times a day wow i'm a piece of shit but like look i've made all the amends i need to today it's like well you need to make 52 amends today like you're not a deck of cards you need to maybe make some changes tomorrow it's not just about identifying why you're an asshole it's about changing why you're an asshole i don't know if i'm allowed to swear no you are yeah okay
Speaker 2too late get out yeah it's uh man that's a good point though i it is refreshing to see the gift of desperation and hopelessness in people because it's not common i agree it's it's really not common and also too it's such a fleeting thing a lot of the time like i talk to so many people that today is the gift of desperation tomorrow's i can control it again and i was certainly in that place too but i i think you're right i think everybody has to come to that hopelessness you know my mentor always says um it's not necessarily a gift of desperation and he always gives me a new perspective on things because he's been doing this for a long time but a lot of people have the gift a lot in our lives when we weren't ready to get help it's the hopelessness that is sort of the next frontier where it's like you really cannot see any way forward with drugs and without drugs either like there's just like no hope whatsoever yeah and so i think that that's kind of the that's the way that i see it and and he taught me that is like there has to be a hopelessness of i'm screwed like i'm screwed with drugs i'm screwed without drugs i can't live with them i can't live without it's like such a refreshing perspective when someone says i just don't know where to go and you're like oh fuck like dude let me just it's spiritual bottom yeah um speaking of spirituality i like to talk about spirituality on here what does that mean to you how does it
Speaker 3what does it look like in your program today um ultra running shoes are all about space the space to go further to feel better to do something you never thought possible and this space starts with unlike traditional running shoes ultra fit gives toes more room to move naturally so every step is strong balanced and comfortable whatever you're lacing up for stay out there with ultra shop now at ultra running.com that's a-l-t-r-a running.com this episode is brought to you by txu energy for
Speaker 4the first time ever texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings it's called free nights and cool summer you get free nights every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use all summer it's a first of its kind plan created for how texans actually use energy discover how much more you could save with free nights and cool summer txu energy energy for everything visit txu.com for more information
Speaker 1rep number one zero zero zero four honestly that's like one of the hardest questions to answer because i can't describe it with any sense i have i can't touch it taste it feel it see it smell it i couldn't drive for you it's hard to describe i used to pray to a plastic chair so i i didn't understand what was going on in these rooms but i was like there's no way 42 people gathered here today just to lie to me i know i'm important but i'm not that important it's so true so i was like
Speaker 2i'm right and everybody else is wrong yeah i know you're all lying so
Speaker 1ha jokes on you didn't pull it over on me so like i used to pray to this plastic chair because i just imagined like my place in the fellowship was a power greater than me like their collective experiences were probably a power greater than myself and that is definitely true and fellowship is a great part of uh anyone's program it's usually the crutch people first stand on but uh today i i don't know and i don't have like an idea of what it is i know it's like some sort of inner resource that i've tapped into that allows me to have good orderly direction in my life and that's just easy to spell because it's god what that is i don't know i i think it's like some sort of cosmic pendulum that like kind of when i go too far right it'll swing me back left kind of thing i don't think it has anything other than opportunities for me uh whether that's an opportunity to succeed or an opportunity to fail it's probably a lesson either way but uh it's it's i don't know like i don't blame people or like hate them for having these like direct entities they're like no it's the buddha it's the jesus christ it's the whatever uh i'm all the power to you if you have like this direct connection with something that's bigger than yourself but mine kind of feels ethereal like i don't know what it is maybe it's air maybe it's water i don't know but it's it's something that my life today needs for it to continue on track and how i connect with it changes on like a day-to-day basis some days great at meditation can just sit there some days it's like a two-minute ordeal that like feels like it's an eternity in the morning sometimes when i say a prayer in the morning i'm like wow i think i nailed that one sometimes i'm like you are so full of shit like what are you doing here i remember like everything felt so inauthentic when i first started it like i used to put my cigarettes under my bed so i would get down on my knees and i'd be like what are you doing here and i'd be like what are you doing here and i'd be like like everything had to have like a caveat to it like i needed to like do affirmations in the mirror but i had to turn around and be like yeah that was fucking horseshit like you're still you're still a scumbag but but i did it anyway but i i did it anyways and like now i love doing affirmations i i have an app on my phone that like sends me 10 or 12 a day and i say them out loud all the time and then when i'm with clients i'm like you gotta say it too like it will change It only, it just, it takes repetition. And I think that's why a lot of people stay in the program for so long is they just need that repetition. Like, they need to hear that 88 pages or 162 pages or whatever, like, your group likes to do. They need that kind of repetition in their life. Like, hey, you are powerless. Hey, you need to be open-minded. Hey, you're about to go to war. Get some arrows in your quiver. A friend of mine always said that, like, you're going into a title fight and the guy you're fighting watches tape on you all day long. And whoever wins is the world champion of your world. So, like, get ready. Get ready for your title fight. That's great. He looks just like you. Yeah. He knows everything about you. He knows how you throw that right hook and that left jab. Like, you need to be prepared to do something new that he doesn't know about. And I think that comes off as true. Like, whether he's doing push-ups in the parking lot, or whatever people want to say, I'm pretty sure my shadow wants to consume me in darkness. And I'm not trying to live in darkness. So, I got to do something different every day. I got to keep this recovery fresh. Stagnation seems to be the biggest cause of concern I've noticed around me. People just get tired of the repetition. They don't do anything new. They're like, I go to the same place every Friday night at 7.30. I talk to the same people. We go to the same coffee shop. And then eventually, they're like, well, I've done this for eight, nine months. I don't need to continue doing this. Like, I've basically drank my entire body weight in coffee. And I've read this book 13 times over the course of these last nine months. I'm cured. I'm on a good path now that, like, I don't see me going back. And I don't know about other people, but every good laid plan I've ever had in this, this life has never gone to plan. There's always some sort of, like, adjustment that needs to be made. So, if my plan is I'm good now, I'm clearly not going to be good because that's my plan. And God, life just doesn't want me to have things 100% the way I plan them. So, I don't know.
Speaker 2It's so true, man. Whether my plan is, you know, whether it's my plan today or 10 years from now, it's still my plan and my brain hasn't changed. I'm sure there's, you know, there's still pathways and stuff that are kind of rewiring and reshifting and stuff like that. But, yeah, it's like the Shakespeare quote in the book about being the actor, the director, the lights guy, you know, the minute someone doesn't, you know, steps out of line of your script, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you, just follow the script, man. I wrote this. Don't you know how good it is? And then you talk about outgrowing God, essentially, outgrowing recovery. Like, that's my biggest fear. And that's kind of what happened to me when I relapsed is, like, my life got so good. And so big that it, it started to be like, well, what's next? Like there's, and you stop connecting and you stop praying and you stop working with other people. That's the other one too, is like, you stop sponsoring and working, you know, the, with other people. That's the one that kind of really starts to, to bother you because then you really start to, I'm right. I'm right. I'm right. You're wrong. I'm right. And then it's like my plan, my plan, my plan. I don't need this anymore. I always say this, but whatever you choose to do, in recovery, whatever anyone chooses, whatever I choose to do in recovery today, if I don't do, let's say this thing that I used to do, I'm telling myself that I don't need to do it anymore. It's really that simple, right? Like if I don't go to that meeting or go for coffee with that guy that I used to, I'm saying to myself, I don't need it anymore. And that's a dangerous thing. Or, or it's just, it could, maybe you have outgrown it, but either way, I don't need this anymore is like a dangerous game to start flirting with. Yeah, a hundred percent. So what, uh, what are your, this is always a tough one, but I like talking about it because I think a lot of people can relate. What are your like today unmanageabilities in your life? What, what is Joe struggling with today?
Speaker 1Oh God. So many things. I'm still a far from perfect canvas. Um, drugs and alcohol have kind of like not left the conversation, but like they're, they're, uh, not, uh, the biggest facets on, on my, my to do to battle list kind of thing. Um, emotional, like intelligence continuing to grow that like I still kind of lean into the first reaction sometimes. And like, sometimes it takes me like quite a while to see the other side of the street or like just kind of where I, I immediately like went with the knee jerk reaction and then doubling back and being like, okay, I, sorry, uh, I owe you an amend. Um, patients intolerance with all sorts of people, like, uh, understanding how I speak to people. Um, these are all like really big challenges because I never had a filter and I never really cared what people thought about me. I didn't have confidence that like, I, I can take it or leave it if you liked me. And if you didn't like me, I probably had a good story to tell why you didn't like me. Joe walked through my screen door. Three times. It's like, yeah, but there was like three good weekends in a row. Why do you have a screen door? Yeah. Honestly, after the second time you think you would know there's no screen needed there, but I, I have a hard time like just kind of recognizing the patterns in my life. And I have a hard time like letting people in still. I have a core group of friends that like, I try to be as honest as humanly possible with. But like, even then, like, sometimes I'm, I'm kind of hesitant with the people I work with. Like, I'm not, I don't know if this guy's going to really want this. So do I, do I give him the full truth? Do I give him a half truth? I don't know where he's going to go with this information. I have difficulty like finding just blind trust in people, which, you know, you shouldn't just have that. But like when you're, you're in these environments where you're supposed to be emotionally intimate with them, it, it should be kind of causing concern when you're like, I don't know if you've earned, you know, if you've earned that yet, it's just kind of a, a bit of a chip on my own shoulder that I'm aware of. But like, it's just my instant reaction. Like love and tolerance is not my default setting. I want to gossip. I want to talk. I want to, I want to do all those things. And I think gossip has its place in the, in the program because manipulation is like our bread and butter as addicts and alcoholics. So if we can't talk about each other, how, how do we know like when we need to help people? Like if Debbie is calling everybody in the home group and asking for like $40 for gas money this week, it's probably a good chance Debbie shouldn't be getting money and maybe needs a home call. And like maybe a, you know, a need or a wake up call. Like, Hey, like we're, we're concerned about you. What's going on? So I think spiritual gossip is an important part of the program. It doesn't need to be malicious intent, but I think accountability is one of the biggest parts of recovery. And, you know, I don't want to co-sign people's fucking bad decisions. So finding the balancing act in that is difficult in itself too.
Speaker 2That's an interesting perspective. I've never heard that before, but I agree with you. I think there may be a time and place where gossip. Is a beneficial thing to somebody, right? Am I, now there's a huge difference between me going around and talking literal shit about someone when they're not there. Did you hear what thing did? But I could also see how that might turn into a positive. And I'm not sitting here telling people to go gossip about other people, but yeah, I mean, it's how many times have you seen, you've seen this so many times where people start to fall by the wayside and we just kind of like, Oh, well, they're not willing. Right. I mean, at least I've done that. I haven't seen so-and-so for a while. They pop into my head instead of calling to check on them. I'll just be like, well, they just don't want it. Or maybe they're just on vacation or maybe they're just fine.
Speaker 5Right.
Speaker 2And so there's a balance between that too, because I don't know about you, but I can't stand when, when I go away or something and I haven't been somewhere, you know, in my recovery group for a while and somebody at, Oh, I haven't seen you in a while. Like everything. Okay. What a gift, man. Like what a gift, somebody checking in on, and they don't mean anything bad by it, but there's just, I love that. It's a good perspective.
Speaker 1It's a good concern for your wellbeing. Like it's a good thing to have. It's a good thing to have like a safety net where people are like, Hey, you know.
Speaker 2When you're so used to seeing people go out to like, I mean, it's fuck. Yeah. I bet you probably couldn't even tell me how many times you've seen. Let me ask you this. How many times do you think in your life, have you started to work with someone and then never seen them again?
Speaker 1On a percentage basis? I think it's like 80% of the people I've worked with. Yeah, me too. So it's just like a majority of people. I think there's like four or five of us from like the group of 60 I went to treatment with over the course of 50 days, like I was in between two groups basically. So I watched like 45 people leave and then over Christmas, it was significantly less. I think there was only 20, 25 of us in there. And I think there's like four or five of us that are still, you know, continuously sober, maybe like 10 of us that are still around. around. And then, yeah, sober living is just what it is. People come, maybe they don't like the environment, maybe they don't really want things right now. They just want to do things on their own schedule and it's kind of a community-based program. If one isn't operating with the rest, they're going to fall off pretty quickly. They're going to feel isolated. It's just going to be a resentment to stay. But I don't know. I truly believe you don't know who's going to get it because there's people I've worked with that were the most eager. They were calling me like, hey, can we book today? Hey, I know you're not doing it. You're on house arrest right now. Can I come over and book? I'm like, yeah, you can come over. I'd love to talk to another human being right now. You literally had no excuse. What a great experience. And then all of a sudden the next week it's like, oh, he's bastard on the floor. I'm like, oh, no. And I try and keep it. I keep in contact with everyone I've worked with. But some of them I've had to cut off because I've become a crutch in their life. So I want people to find that spiritual bottom before it's an actual bottom with a pine box because that's a real possibility for a lot of people. So yeah, I don't know what the magic sauce is that some people are batting 100 for 100 with their life. I don't know what the response is. That is not my experience, but good for them. I don't know. I don't know what really clicks in people's brains. I try to learn something from everyone. So I can't say every person I've booked has gotten the same experience. Yeah.
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Speaker 2Here's what I know for sure is you and I both have zero control over whether anybody stays sober, right? And I think everyone has to kind of learn that from themselves. I talk about it on here a lot, but especially loved ones, that's the hardest one, is like you have zero control over whether somebody stays sober. Yeah. Always. And that also means that you can't make anyone relapse either, right? So I always tell people too, and they're, I'm not ready to start working with others. I'm not, like you'll never be ready. I was never ready, right? You just do it and you become ready as you do it. You're not going to make them relapse and you're not going to keep them sober. So might as well keep yourself sober through it and try to help them. But, yeah.
Speaker 1There's no way to do it wrong. You can do it bad, but there's no way to do it wrong. So I say, just jump into it.
Speaker 2I always get nervous with the people that are like, this is the way to do it. I have the way to do it. There's like, this is the way it works.
Speaker 1I love the people that are like, I have the guide map right here. I didn't realize you were the reincarnation of Bill W himself. That's crazy. Can I have your autograph?
Speaker 2Even that guy was flawed to shit.
Speaker 1He was insane. I love that. I love that guy so much. He's like, I went to war. I'm going to be the CEO on wall street now. Like it's predestined. I'm manifesting this right now. And he's like, Oh, you know what? Actually, I'm also going to be a golf pro. Well, I'm at it. I think I'm going to just change the world. And I think psychedelics might be the key to this. Like there's, there's no perfect human being in that book anywhere. And that's what I appreciate about it is like, they come with their faults hot in hand. Well, it's look, I was a terrible, terrible nuisance on my family. I've changed since changed, but like they don't pull any punches about themselves. And that's how I try to like come with an authentic case of like, I, I was completely disconnected from reality. I, I didn't know what was going on. My life, other people could see that before I could see it. And I just kind of like felt bad about how I was. They were reacting to my actions. Like I wasn't a terrible person. I was just doing terrible things. So I had the sympathy to be like, okay, I'll go to rehab for you. It was never a for me endeavor until it was, but that's what the change in perspective is. And I think that's mostly what exists in rehabs is it's like, aha, you wreak a moment where like someone finally holds up a mirror to you and you can see yourself for the first time. I don't think there's like any specific solution to anybody's problems there, but I think it's a really great way to like remove yourself from the substance or behavior that's been detrimental to your growth as a human being. And, you know, it has a lot of resources around it and community around it where people are growing and trying to fight, fight the evil. These demons together. So, you know, the isolation and all the other things that like kind of keep you from getting to those resources while you're in active addiction or whatever it may be. That's where you can kind of like connect with these people and you can, you can get these resources and begin your journey on whatever it looks like for you. There's like 180 12 step fellowships in Toronto. You can be addicted to Weight Watchers. You count those points are just so addictive. Guess what? There's 12 step fellowship for you. Sex anonymous, gambling, anonymous, all the anonymous is.
Speaker 2Not to mention all the ones that are not spiritually based or there's, there's so many different options out there, right?
Speaker 1It's like recovery, smart recovery.
Speaker 2You just pick one and do it like they're not all bad. There's gotta be one that works for you.
Speaker 1This is just about like taking character inventory. Where are your assets? Where are your levels? Where are your liabilities? What is the equity of your life? Like we balance books for businesses. We balance books for all sorts of things in this world. Why? Why can't you have a balanced book? That's how I look at it. It is a fact finding and fact facing mission about yourself. I think anybody can grow from any one of these fellowships or any one of these programs. Like if you just learn more about yourself, where character defects are coming up in your life, what they're coming out as it's shortcomings and how you can directly manage them, identify them and begin to, you know, counter them. That's a positive for anybody and nobody's perfect. So somebody, everybody's got some form of defective character, whether that's, you know, you'd like to buy sports cars behind your wife's back, or you like to sneak out and do lines in the garage at night, or, you know, you can't stop drinking your parents liquor from their liquor. I mean, everybody's got a habit that could use a little working on. I think some are more detrimental than others. Like drug use and alcohol use are very prevalent in people's lives because of the health toll they take. I think gambling is a really prevalent one because of the financial devastation that it can take on people's livelihoods.
Speaker 2And how easy you can hide it too. That's the other one,
Speaker 1man. It's so easy to hide. Especially now that you can bet on everything like people are doing parlay, is on like the coin flip or the super bowl. I'm like, this isn't even a part of the game. What are you talking about? Like I'm watching Chinese ping pong. This is crazy. You song is going to win me two grand. Like you've never even seen a ping pong battle in real life. Why are you betting on Chinese ping pong? You're an expert. All of a sudden.
Speaker 2Yeah. Do you see a lot of people in, I guess we can end with this, but I'm interested in, cause you hang around a lot of different people in the recovery community. Do you see a lot? A lot of young people too. Do you see a lot of people getting into gambling?
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. Because of the online online casinos that have just become prevalent in like online, like a lot of like in the zeitgeist itself online, a lot of people are really into like online gambling and like these online casinos where you can, you can do a blackjack hand in like 10 seconds. It'll take your bank information and you can do a direct deposit from your bank and be at a table with a live deal. And you can get a dealer within the minute while you're walking down the street. But like on top of that are anti-gambling laws in Ontario where like you could go to OLG or whatever it is and get like a lifetime ban as a gambling addict, self-imposed from like casinos and stuff. They won't pay out to you or give you chips. And these online casinos don't follow those like you, there's no way to register unless you go to all of them and there's more of them every day. So I think it is becoming much, much more, um, like popular, especially with younger people because of all these weird kind of like influencers that are like, yeah, you know what? Stake.com. The streamers, man. Yeah. And I'm like, they're not playing with real money. I know. They, they got like a, a fake promotion account and they're like, yeah, here's a million bucks on this hand. There's a million fake dollars. They never put that money in. They never took that money out. They got paid to do that. So I think it, it is quite wild. I remember when I was using one night, uh, like the height of the crypto thing. I watched my friend, he was playing like a, it was like a slot game. And I was like, what are you doing? Like, is that like an app or something? He's like, I'm gambling right now. Like I just lost like four grand. I was like, you pulled your phone out like four minutes ago. He's like, yeah, I'm gambling with like Ethereum or something like that. I was like, what does that even mean? I was like, put that down. What's wrong with you? It's, it's, it's just so easily and rarely accessible now. It's, it's definitely going to become a bigger problem. I think before it becomes more, I think regulation is coming to the online gambling community, but I don't know when I think it's going to become a really big problem. Yeah.
Speaker 2Especially for people in recovery too. Cause it's not mood or mind altering Joe. And right. And it's so dangerous.
Speaker 1I think the high that people get from it is, this is much harder to like counteract than most like physical substances from what people tell me. I never got the gambling bug, but it sounds like it, like, it's like the observation that like, now that you've lost, you're definitely going to win. And you're chasing that like high of like, now I'm in the spot. It's not even like the big win is the big payoff. Right. Right. It's like going to the dealer and like the excitement. You have on the way there is better than the actual first hit. Like, oh my God, my mouth's watering. Like, I feel like I'm, I'm fucking vibrating. It's like, I'm still 20 minutes away from this guy's door.
Speaker 2The anticipation was always greater than the actual high. Yeah.
Speaker 1By the end. Yeah. I think that's what like the crux of the gambling bug is. It's, it's the, the journey to the win than it is the actual win itself. Yeah. I would agree.
Speaker 2Thanks so much for coming down, Joe. I really appreciate you, man. You do a lot of good work in the recovery community and thanks for being so open and honest. And, uh, let's end with this. Uh, what's one thing you, what's your favorite piece of advice that you got in recovery?
Speaker 1Um, Hmm. My favorite piece of advice, I would say remain open to information coming from anywhere. Like, I think a lot of people think time and experience. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of people think time and experience are like the hallmarks of like where you're going to get good advice or good perspectives. And I, I, I've learned things from people that were outside smoking crack in the parking lot. Like they came in with a, a really great, uh, perspective on like the actual low of how you feel and like how desperate you can get without a result. Like I've gotten perspectives from people that have 20 years in relapsed. I, I remained open. I've been open to information coming from everywhere because that's what I was told to do, like remain open-minded and have the humility to accept information coming from anywhere. And I think that's a big cause for why I've stuck around so long is I just, I don't know everything. I can do a lot, but it's never enough. So why, why would I stop trying to learn now that I've, you know, had some level of success in my life again? It doesn't mean the first set of stairs was like me reaching the top of the fucking rooftop. So yeah, I, I, I think you should just remain open to like all forms of information. Even some of those pamphlets that like nobody ever picks up might have something that you're like, wow, I never even thought of it that way. That's crazy. So yeah, when you hear someone come into a meeting or like on a podcast and it feels like they're just like a constant war story, but like played out as if it was like a Quentin Tarantino movie. Like it's this epic ballad of Jake, the crackhead and like, you don't know, maybe in the middle of that, you're like, wow, this guy actually has like a really great grasp on how like trauma was influencing his life and how he, he didn't recognize that until like this very moment when he heard, you know, Betty in the corner. Shakes her coffee was talking about her domestic violence. Like you don't know where this information can come from at any point in time. So remain open to it always. And don't write someone off just from like, don't judge a book by its cover basically. Yeah. Other than that, I don't know. There's been so many pieces of advice at this point that I'm just like, I'm one of those people that had to write everything down because I don't have the same memory. I once did too many concussions, too many whatevers, but yeah, thanks for having me, buddy.
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