0:00
From Financial Ruin to Early Substance Use
After that point I ended up investing in like 1 healthcare deal went well made money second one made more, third one lost everything.
I got scammed out of close to two and a half million dollars.
Jesus it wasn't just my own money.
0:16
I had friends, my dad, first time he ever wanted after he saw the 1st 2:00 he said oh OK I'll make money on this.
Sure.
It's the first time my dad who's talk shit about me and business and everything I've done investing in something and the whole board is wiped out.
0:32
The guilt, shame, remorse.
You're a fuck, you're an idiot.
Why would you do this?
Everything was real until it wasn't.
There was lawyers, everything didn't matter.
It was a business and distributor that took everything.
The guilt of I had nothing, had less than nothing, lost all everything that I had built for years and everyone think I can though I have no nothing, no money.
1:00
Negative.
I went into treatment November 19th.
1:05
Speaker 2
Hi there, welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud Podcast, the show where we get real about mental health and addiction.
I'm so glad you're here.
If you or someone you love is struggling with drugs or alcohol, please reach out for help.
Send me a message on all social media platforms at Recovering Out Loud Pod or by e-mail at
[email protected].
1:31
You are no longer alone.
1:48
I'm I want to know.
Thanks for coming down, brother.
I appreciate it.
I want to know the fucking cocaine on the table story.
You've been in this studio before, not in recovery.
1:58
Speaker 1
Yeah, so I've been in here before.
I was another random scenario.
A lot of my life has been just random popping up scenarios.
I think it was, yeah, because it was around the first time that I started actually, you know, I'll just go back to the beginning.
2:15
I was in like a in the industry for ink.
So I did artist liaison stuff.
I was doing that on the weekends so that I could basically just build my business during the week.
And I met a lot of people in the industry.
2:31
So a lot of like either DJs or music producers or people who were just into that scene.
After I think around 2018, yeah, 2018-2019, I ended up building the payments business.
2:49
It took off and then my business partner cut me out of it.
And from that point, I started just watching this one podcast, which was my escape.
Like in the car at home.
It was Flagrance with Andrew Scholes and Akash and Mark and Alex Media.
3:09
So the guys there and I, I literally had it on more than I would have on anything else in the shower with the speaker at any point driving at the house.
Just when I was trying to like rebuild things in my life.
That was a a first real spiral where I was doing, I was using daily, but it gave me a chance to like kind of escape in a way that wasn't as detrimental as using.
3:37
But with that I joined, I think I just joined their Patreon because I wanted an extra episode of the week and they had a segment on there which was like a Patreon like questions.
And so they had anyone who could ask a question and then you could send in a video.
One time I sent in a video just just for fun.
3:53
I didn't think I would get picked.
They have a lot of people on their on their Patreon, but I got picked and then I just making fun of someone else.
Just I played a character just being a little shithead and then it just snowballed into something and it went back and forth week after week as like a Patreon, like beef between us.
4:13
Speaker 2
Between two fans of the show.
4:14
Speaker 1
Correct.
So and then they someone else made a song like a completely different fan made a song rapping against me.
And then I I'm like, I messaged one of my buddies.
I'm like, hey, I got to make something.
And then I ended up coming here, by the way, in the height of my addiction, which was, there's different points, but this was one of the heights where, yeah, definitely did cocaine on that table, did a bunch of Percocets.
4:41
And it started like, I've been an addict, alcoholic before even doing drugs.
Like my life has always been a progression where I have to get to a certain point to be OK, but that OK is only just for a little bit.
4:57
So I had a lot of willpower to get to certain places and once I got there I'm like OK now, OK I'll be good now.
But that feeling is very short lived.
Just like anything that's instant gratification.
5:13
Even though I worked hard in years of doing it, my ego and and defects of character built up to a certain point where it helped me get through a lot of things in my life.
But it then stopped me from the time we just turned that off.
5:35
It stopped me from, I guess getting the help or coming to people when I need the help.
Yeah.
So it went from, OK, I'm, I work for my family business for a little bit when I was younger from actually a little bit from 11 to like 19.
5:55
When you have a family business, you start working whenever you can talk exactly.
And then at around like first year university, I met my business partner where we started trying to do like fintech business, which was currency exchange.
6:12
And that's where like a lot of my identity came from is I would could only be someone if I had something to show for it.
So I'm only enough if I have something to show for it because my dad has something.
Every family conversation went the same way where it's you're not doing anything, you don't have anything.
6:32
If you're not listening to me and working with the family business, then you are nothing.
But then I tried that where I fully went to family business and that also didn't work.
But when I had the business and those things again, it was a lot of OK, now I have things, I am enough.
6:50
There's a dollar value to how much I am enough.
And then like now all my relationships are are financial where yeah, OK, I'm going to do all these nice things for everyone, but I expect things in return.
Doesn't matter how nice I was for situation.
7:05
I always had an expectation that something would be coming back if you went left and and I need you to go right.
I'm uncomfortable now if you go any any other way.
I also don't know how to communicate so I would never be able to just have an honest conversation because it made my skin itch.
7:24
I could never just sit down and tell my friend how I felt or tell a girl I was seeing how I felt.
Really it was just kind of going in circles.
Substance for me came at different points, but in university, drinking was just going out.
7:44
I went to Brock.
So I just literally just to party the first year until I dropped out.
And then I dropped out just to try and build the business.
And for the next like four or five years, nothing, not a dollar that came from the business.
8:02
Put time, money, blood, sweat and tears into it each year friends go back to school.
My dad's like you're not going to do shit with this Another year went by you're not making any money When it finally came that I started making money from the business.
8:18
It came so fast that at a young age or broke my brain but also told validated me that OK you guys don't know what the.
8:27
Speaker 2
Fuck, you're talking about correct?
8:30
Speaker 1
As long as I just continue forward and just go as fast as possible, I don't have to look back at any of the things.
So same thing in my family household.
Like if I related to how I grew up, there would be a massive fight on the weekend.
8:48
Yelling, screaming, plates breaking, mom running out of the house with the divorce.
This that and the other Tuesday.
Oh, we're happy family.
Yeah, but what happened on the weekend?
I still.
I still remember.
Oh, we're not going to talk about it.
OK, cool.
So from a young age, I learned as long as I keep moving forward.
9:06
Don't look back, you're good.
Sometimes you.
9:11
The Painful Reality of Opiate Withdrawal and Addiction
For myself at least, I would slow down at times and burn out.
And then when I burn out, I'm feeling OK.
The voices are loud in my head.
I can never sit at home alone on any night to be honest, I towards towards the time that I had everything that I thought I wanted, I couldn't just sit at home and relax.
9:38
The times that I was at home, I was at home for a month.
I had more money than I knew what to do with it.
House, car, a girl that I thought I would be with all the things arranged.
And I was on the couch depressed for a month, pretty much a week or two away from just trying to kill myself because I'm like, oh, man, another, another couple of dollars in my account won't make me feel any better.
10:02
Yeah, this is I'm exhausted.
I thought this was freedom.
I thought this was the point where I would get to where I would finally be OK.
Things are things are good.
Things will turn around again.
My ego, my expectations, all the things that helped me get to a certain point, but we're just dragging me down day by day.
10:23
Percocets and cocaine, those were things that I used because I didn't know what the problem was with me and I didn't know any other way to deal with it.
And for me, at least in that situation, I would.
10:39
Yeah.
But at least I'm not doing heroin.
At least I'm not doing, I'm not doing heavy opiates, Percocet.
Yeah, I'm doing 50 a day by the end, might as well have been doing heroin.
Probably would have been better on my liver had I been doing it.
10:54
Again, another God blessing because my liver is not completely shot.
But that's again, justification.
OK, I'm, I'm not doing that at least.
So it's not that bad.
I had a year of sobriety, not because I wanted to, but I went to Turkey with my girlfriend at one point and I travelled with 300 in my bag for the three weeks that I thought I was gone for.
11:27
Yeah, they were gone before we went to the next country to travel.
I ended up having to even go to a hospital there to get like extra and ran out of those while I was in Turkey and went cold Turkey because I'm funny like that.
11:44
It's just like, yeah.
So I at that point I just, I was off of them enough for the physical side to be and it was so I got so aggressive at that point where it was I extended to the trip because I couldn't fly back.
12:04
I was trying to figure out or Googling how do I how do I get some type of relief from all the withdrawals eating Imodium like it was scheduled?
12:13
Speaker 2
Can you describe to people what what fucking opiate withdrawal is like?
12:19
Speaker 1
Opiate withdrawal is basically if you're taking the amount continuously daily and to be honest, if you're taking a daily for extended periods of time, the withdrawal will come as an immediate flu.
12:36
Your nose is running, you feel sick phantom pains like the lower back pain that comes from the intestines because opiate receptors are in your intestine, which is the largest muscle in your body.
And with that comes all the other things.
12:54
So with the cramps comes all the the I went to the bathroom probably 100 times because I not even that I needed to go.
I just you feel like you it's constant.
You just the opposite side to it is when you're on opiates, you can't go to the everything is slowed down your body.
13:13
You might think especially for me after the surgeries, I had two back-to-back.
I got over prescribed way too many.
But in that situation I I had someone drop a 45 LB weight on my toe at the gym.
13:32
Freaked out of that.
But it I just thought it was a bruise.
Like my toe looked black for a day or two.
It was a little sore.
I'm like OK whatever it it'll grow back and we'll be fine in a year.
Eight months later my nails started coming up and I went to the doctor because it kept getting infected.
13:50
Turns out the bone snapped and then started regrowing up so I had to get a surgery on that.
13:56
Speaker 2
The bone started regrowing up through your toes.
13:58
Speaker 1
Yeah, Wolverine style started growing up.
So that was a surgery I had and I thought, OK, that was the most painful of the time.
And I took the medication as prescribed at that time.
At that time I was in so much pain that I wasn't even thinking that, OK, I didn't have a thought that all these pills feel good or I feel some type of like relief or effect from it.
14:24
It was just the pain was so severe on my toe from kind of the shaving on the bone in that situation that it wasn't the issue.
What happened was very shortly after I had a pile and a cyst on my tailbone and it was getting inflamed and needed to be drained constantly.
14:44
So it happened once, got it drained.
Obviously I did prescribe it Percocets again.
So I was on Percocets at that point and it was painful because I couldn't really sit down properly and I had to go to the nurse to get packed each day.
Then I go see a surgeon, he is same surgeon that did my dad's surgery because he had a cancer and it was lower intestines and he was fantastic.
15:09
And I said hey, if I'm going to go to anyone, I trust you.
If you can do this, fantastic.
He did the surgery, but he's like, hey, 20% of people, the stitches RIP out.
Well, I'm an overachiever, so I was in the 20% and with the stitches popping out.
15:24
What that meant was three months from that point, I would have a nurse come to the house and pack and unpack.
Like literally my tailbone.
There was a hole this big and it wasn't short.
Lovely nurse who's a lady who's been in nursing for years.
15:41
It was my friend who was 6 foot 2 from Jamaica and it was his first nursing job and I'm his story now to other people saying hey, I've I've seen it all, I've seen it all.
I've seen a six foot bore man band in front of me and I pack and repack his second asshole.
16:00
So that's alone.
Just it was bad, but again, not the reason why I did a bunch of Percocets, not the reason why I did cocaine, not the reason why I drank, not the reason why I did any of the substances.
They were like any of the traumas in my life are not the reason why I use for whatever reason when I consume something that makes me feel better in a certain result, I will continue to do it.
16:30
Whether that's 7 Red Bulls in the day, whether that's eating too much, whether that's a person that gave me too much feeling, I would go be with that person and be around them and do the most for that person.
Because if you're happy, then I'm happy, then life is good.
If you're not good that I'm not good, then fuck, how do I change this?
16:49
That's how my life has been for the longest period of time and it wasn't till it wasn't till the three years ago where I had been at that point.
I was sober for a year.
After I came back from Turkey, the business took off.
17:05
So again, if I really wind it back, my real drug of choice was money.
Because if I had money then I OK, I don't need to go out and do anything because I'm good.
Like my dad calls me and says hey, you're shit this and that.
17:22
I don't know, it's OK, I got it.
I'm good.
Don't need you don't need anyone else.
I have this.
I can do whatever I want.
So gave me a, a, an armor for anything that would get to me, would chip away at my ego, would make me fearful of not being good enough or the fear that I had of not having a father's love or whatever.
17:44
Respect didn't matter at that point because I'm good because everyone sees me as some type of success.
What did that really matter?
Didn't but after that point I ended up investing in like 1 healthcare deal went well, made money, second one made more, third one lost everything.
18:07
I got scammed out of close to two and a half million dollars.
Jesus.
And it wasn't just my own money.
I had friends.
My dad, first time he ever wanted, after he saw the 1st 2:00, he said, oh, OK, I'll make money on this.
Sure.
So the first time my dad who's talk shit about me and business and everything I've done investing in something and the whole board is wiped out.
18:30
Yeah.
So it was the guilt, shame, remorse.
You're a fuck.
You're an idiot.
Why would you do this?
Everything was real until it wasn't.
There was lawyers, everything didn't matter.
It was a business and distributor that took everything.
18:47
I found out later selfishly made me feel better that the same person scammed other people in New Yorkville who are smarter and richer than me.
So I was like, not so bad, not so bad.
OK, I I'll fuck, I'll, I'll take that at least.
But the guilt of I had nothing, had less than nothing, lost all everything that I had built for years and everyone think I scammed them.
19:14
I have no nothing, no money negative.
19:18
Embracing the 12-Step Program and Spiritual Growth
I went into treatment November 19th, so I of 20.
19:23
Speaker 2
4.
19:24
Speaker 1
2022 of 22 OK, so this year will be 3 years.
19:28
Speaker 2
Nice dude.
Awesome.
19:29
Speaker 1
And I started taking suboxone on November 11th.
So to go with the treatment, my sobriety day not touching product drink or cocaine is on November 11th, 2022 where the kind of stuff toughest part that I never really looked into I came out of I came out of treatment where I went to art.
19:57
So addiction rehab Toronto, it was 12 minutes from my house in Etobicoke joining the 12 step recovery program.
All these, a lot of coincidence have happened, but I came out of treatment close to $1.5 million in debt.
20:12
So if my stupid that I'm asking do it or come out and just follow instructions which the first time it's ever happened in my life where I actually just listened and I didn't try and find different loophole or different way to try and do it my way.
20:30
I would have definitely been in and out of treatment centres.
I would have struggled a lot more.
I had a the times that I went there, the best thing that I did was go to treatment for myself.
Other people can just go to recovery or, or meetings or they could find a meeting that suits them.
20:51
But for me, I had to be removed from the situation.
I have to be plucked away.
My phone's gone.
No outside stress as much as I still try to game the system where I'm like, oh, I have my business and this and I need, I need an hour on my laptop for just I need to be fully removed.
21:08
Nothing was important in that 30 days, 33 days or I could have gone for three months for all I cared.
Looking back at it now, I could have done 90 days and it would have been even better.
I wouldn't have come out and I guess been more in my head over situations.
21:24
It didn't matter if I was gone for 90 days.
I could easily go on a vacation for 90 days.
But when it comes to actually looking inwards, actually trying to fix the the life that I had previously, that seemed like so scary to me.
21:41
I can easily struggle for five years.
Tell my dad, friends, go fuck yourself.
This business is going to make it.
But that belief in myself, Nope, Nope, not going to, not going to say that in that way.
That belief to like, 'cause it, it's a love in yourself.
21:59
That's a belief because I believed in myself and my abilities to do something or get to a goal or get to an achievement.
The love for myself.
22:07
Speaker 2
I'm OK.
22:08
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm fine.
I'll I've sacrificed myself for everyone else for so long because again, the the ego is a lot of people think it's like, oh, I'm the best, I'm the biggest.
No, it's also like I've done this for other people or I'm less than or it, it fluctuates.
22:25
And it's not like one set thing that I, I can point out to other than it's me thinking about myself all the time.
In any situation.
I, you could have not been here today.
And I thought, oh, why he didn't want to be there, 'cause I'm coming and speaking.
22:41
No, something to do it.
Maybe you were late, maybe you got that thing.
There's so many other aspects and perspectives in the situation and coming out of treatment.
I guess the biggest thing that I would tell anyone else is just find someone who's been there before you, who is at a point where they have something you want, not the stuff who cares about any of that.
23:10
Coming from somebody like myself who has had all the things, have travelled to Turkey, Dubai on my own self, none of that matters.
The other fun experiences, the things that I bought or things that I've done, what actually has mattered to me was getting to a place where I could just stay at home on a weekend and not worry about it, not care, not be in my head, not beat myself up or have a circus in my mind thinking about all the bullshit that happened in my past.
23:41
Constantly going over and over.
Why did I, why did I do that?
Why did you do this?
Why is that your failure, your shit?
And it's, it's loud and it gets louder and louder and also the future.
Why aren't you doing this?
You didn't do this.
You got to do this.
Well, look at you now, you're 28, you have nothing.
23:59
You lost all this money.
It, it kept going round and round a solution that was going to the 12 sub program and doing the steps of each of them.
And then I did them and it helped me get to a point where I wasn't obsessing over drugs and alcohol.
24:19
Now here's the other side to it.
The other side to it is after the year of doing the work and having that, I have to continue to actually grow my spiritual life.
Because at 2 years, I told you, I'm a hard worker, right?
So I'm doing enough.
24:35
I'm doing meetings, working with people, doing the things that I should be doing.
But at two years, my family's not there celebrating with me.
I have all these expectations.
Hey, God, where's my, where's my things back?
Hey, look, I've been sober for two years.
24:52
Where's my, where's my reward?
Again, I'm doing this now for an end result and for that it's not how spirituality or any type of program works.
I couldn't have a conversation with you or anyone else about God or higher power and whatever that looks like to anyone else.
25:14
For me, I say God but I have no clue what it is.
I pray every day now in situations to just give me any type of strength to to help another person.
I'm not perfect.
25:30
I screw up more times than anyone else I see around me.
And that's OK because I'm trying my best just to make it through the day because I only have today.
If I if I remind myself every day, every moment that I'm starting to plan everything.
25:48
That doesn't mean I'm, I'm lazy and I just, yeah, have no goals and just OK, hey, God, show me.
No, it's a lot of the things that I've seen and a lot of people have told me before.
Faith without works is dead.
So I've had all the prayers When I'm doing a bunch of drugs and I'm in my bed, my heart's racing.
26:09
I'm like, hey, I'll never do this again.
Please.
I'm praying my heart out.
There's no, no work behind it.
I have all the faith in the world at those points and I had faith as a younger kid because I grew up Muslim.
So I fasted, prayed for a brother.
26:25
Surprisingly after fasting all of Ramadan when I was 10, the last day my mom tells me oh I'm pregnant and I got a brother.
Like wild things that have happened in my life in different ways but I was built and forget her when it comes to being an addict.
I can only remember the short term of either gratification or the long term of all the pain stacked up.
26:50
But after second, after the second year, I had to really, I lose like a turning point where I'm like, and we're going to stay in this like almost kind of like tense feeling of like same kind of roller coaster that I grew up with my family, but sober, which is miserable.
27:09
Or am I going to just dive in again, redo the the steps and get to a point where I have always wanted to where that I have that peace where days aren't bad days anymore, they're just loud where I'm in my head a little bit more.
27:29
But why am I in my head?
Did I pray in the morning when I woke up?
Or did I turn to my phone and look at emails, start my day fast in that way.
Now I know, OK, these are the things I do.
I wake up in the morning, I pray, then I meditate because for never in my life that I sit still for even 5 minutes to just like reset my nervous system.
27:53
Speaker 2
And be with yourself, right?
27:55
Speaker 1
Never.
Never.
Not once.
I couldn't do it.
There would be no point where I would just fuck.
I could.
I could barely sit down for 3 or 4 minutes before I need to get up and go do something.
This podcast wouldn't be a thing.
28:11
I would need to, even if I was sober at that point in that year that I had of sobriety, I'd be going up, I had to go to the bathroom, I'd make a call.
I got something important to think about or talk to.
Like I couldn't just sit here.
28:27
And even now I'm still like animated.
And that's like a a thing a lot of my friends like what are we for still?
Because they know I speak a lot in like movement or whatever.
And that's gross From where I would just get up and go do something else.
28:46
The other thing is with doing it again, perspective change.
So the things that used to bug me or used to really get to me no longer do that.
And what I mean by that is my dad could call me, RIP me apart and right then and there I'm like, oh, I'm going to go drink and grab a bag of cocaine.
29:09
But it was like immediate, it wasn't a it's a you hurt me.
Oh, no, I hurt me better.
I mean, talking about my parents, it's, it's not that they're bad people or I'm saying anything.
Again, every family has their issues.
Every family has their dynamic.
29:24
Every I'm not unique when I say this there there's nothing unique about the situation other than different people and different stories.
But the, the feeling is all the same.
So I can say this and it can sound familiar to other people, even though there's different countries, different places, different languages, it's the same feeling like why do I feel this way?
29:52
Cultivating Peace Through Prayer, Meditation, and Service
Where I started to I guess connect with people is how how did they get to a certain point where they were just like me, where they didn't know how to stop.
And where it got for me was I had no clue how to stop.
30:09
I wanted so desperately to stop.
I couldn't like for the life of me because every day was OK.
I lost the money.
I'm a failure.
There's there's no way out of this.
30:25
You think it's a such an astronomical number.
Whether it's 50,000 whatever, or 100,000 or 5000 depends on it doesn't matter.
In that moment, you feel like your life is completely over.
There's nothing that's going to happen that's better and you're trapped.
30:42
And let's say I got through a like one day so far, a day and night sober because of the time the girl I was seeing, we had a good day out and she's happy.
So I'm, I can make it this day.
30:57
I'm in bed.
The wheels start turning before I, I, I could probably go to bed at 12 and I wouldn't be able to sleep till 3:00.
And then I get a text.
Oh, I have some new things.
Yeah, yeah, I'm in bed.
I'm in my boxers.
31:13
And but a friend, a dealer friend, a dealer said, hey, I have something new.
I blink.
I'm in the car fully dressed, driving with tears in my eyes.
I do not want to go because I know what that causes.
31:30
The next day's gone.
The day after that, by the grace of God, my body would shut down on a day and 1/2 or I would keep going.
I would, I would need a reset a lot sooner than some of my friends would.
I was like that too.
Some of my friends would go for days.
31:47
I'm like, how do you do that?
Because my body would shut down completely.
And that's a blessing because if it didn't, I would have killed myself for sure.
Like there was.
There's no doubt in my mind that I would have not been here because there wasn't an off switch.
32:05
There was never an off switch.
My friends could go out, enjoy a night and cap it there.
I was coming back and still drink it.
I would smear off ice myself.
Oh, look, you found another bottle behind there.
The Hassan.
We didn't put that there.
Yeah.
32:19
Speaker 2
You guys.
32:20
Speaker 1
Silly guys, I would do it to myself to pass out or something and it would be a lot of that situation where I was, I could sense that I was different, but I'm like, I'm just a bigger guy.
Like I just takes more for me to get to a certain point.
32:37
Like, oh, I'm in university.
I'm blacking out before I even go out.
I'm blacking out at the pre party and then don't remember that other people found me blacked out at a pizza pizza in Saint Calvin.
So like random stories.
I'm like, Chuck it up, university justify.
32:54
Speaker 2
Justifying everything, yeah.
32:56
Speaker 1
Yeah, so I jumped around a lot.
So I really in the story where things for me that are important today are prayer, meditation, and then working with somebody else who knows your same struggle.
33:14
I have friends who are in different aspects in life and at no point do I tell them whether they're and the military or their cops or their teachers, do I tell them how I know their their story or their experience.
33:29
Same way as if I'm sitting down with another addict or alcoholic, I can I know that their story right away.
When someone else says why don't you just go work out or why don't you just stay more disciplined?
Lost the power to choose for me.
Like I have all the willpower and every other aspect of my life, but when it came to drugs and alcohol and just anything that made me feel better gone.
33:54
I had no more choice over it because my ability could only bring me so far that I was bound to to to go back to it.
And it wasn't even a choice I had because it would be not only a physical craving for it, we have mental obsessions.
34:11
Or when I didn't have it, I was always thinking about when the next time I could get it.
I mean, I wouldn't.
I was in the ER hospital for 8-9 hours.
Oh, my tailbone still hurts.
I I would do anything at that point just to not feel the same way.
34:30
And here's how I know how much of an obsession or mental twist it puts on you.
I wouldn't even need to take it.
If I got a new script or whatever I could get my hands on there, I would feel instantly relieved.
Oh yeah.
So what is that?
34:45
If it's not something that's in my brain that's different?
Just having more made me relieved.
I there's some points where I still had it and I was taking it and I was going into withdrawals because I had a little bit left.
So you get my body's already prepping me like you already need more.
35:06
So that's a physical side.
Once I remove that and I don't have that, then I have the two others, which is spiritual malady, which I don't have anything to turn to.
I have no solution.
I have a hole in my in my chest that's big and I have no clue why I feel empty.
35:26
But then I have, OK, well, I've, I've been home sober for three years now, Anthony.
So like, I'm good.
I can go out for a weekend.
Like there's been many times I've been out this summer with friends at this restaurant, this I've seen other people do cocaine here and there.
35:42
I haven't reached for it once, haven't thought about a drink or anything.
So it must be I'm good now, right?
No.
Once an alcoholic addict, always an alcoholic addict.
So for myself, I still stick around.
35:58
People in recovery have to live it, listen to it, read it.
I I have just revolve myself around it doesn't mean I have to only be there all the time because again, I can overdo that.
36:14
Speaker 2
Where?
36:14
Speaker 1
I miss your recovery and I'd have this.
No, I'm just one person who has a disease who is just trying to live a better peaceful life.
And this has given me the ability to live a peaceful life where I can go anywhere now as long as I'm in a fit condition, like if I'm spiritually fit.
36:34
And what that means is praying, meditating and I'm involved and working and being of service.
What that means is I just I if somebody calls me and they need help and they're struggling in that situation, instead of looking at the call and be like, I'm tired, I had a long day.
36:50
I don't want to be here or even coming to talk with you today.
Last night I told you my sister wanted to go to a concert and they went late.
I'm like me before a concert.
Let's go all night until the morning.
Let's go to the next party.
It went half an hour later and I'm like, I'm tired, man.
37:09
I want to, I want to go to bed.
But even now today, I'm like, I'm tired and I'm like, why am I due?
What?
Oh Oh yeah that's right.
I don't care if 99% of people watch this and like who's this dickhead?
37:24
Good.
There's one person at least that is like I I feel the same way.
I feel the how he's felt.
I felt out of place, not comfortable with my skin when I'm sober it is unbearable.
Why is that?
I don't know any other solution or thing to go to.
37:43
There is hope because I'm listening to him right now sounds pretty dumb.
So if he can do it, I know I can't.
So I want if that's the only thing that happens here, God bless because that's the only thing that I could hope for outside of that.
Not my control.
37:58
I show up, I do the things that I should do.
If I make a mistake, make sure you promptly fix it right away.
That I can't just sit on things and let things build up because when I went to treatment, the first thing my counselor said who I got paired with him like it was kind of like a divine intervention where he told me shit like the you wouldn't believe He's like, you're a self-centered prick with an ego problem.
38:27
And I I like I just told you about all the nice things I did for my girlfriend, this and that and my friend.
The end of the session, I'm like, oh, man, I'm pacing my room for two days.
Like who?
Who the fuck are you telling me this?
38:42
I'm thinking about all the things I'm going to say back to him when I see him the next session.
Yeah, Yeah.
I get into the session with him again.
He's smiling.
I'm like, you fucking that?
You're smiling.
OK, Sounds good.
And as soon as I go in about to sit down, he's like, oh man, we ran out of time last time.
39:00
By the way, I'm also a self-centered prick with a ego problem.
And I just, he just right then and there cut the tension from whatever I thought I knew.
And I'm like, oh, I'm a, I'm a fucking crazy person because I just, I just paced my room for two days.
39:14
Speaker 2
Thinking about how I was going to kill.
39:15
Speaker 1
You thinking about like, no, not even, yeah, how how am I going to kill you in treatment center and nobody find out?
There's cameras everywhere.
But I was just pacing back and forth thinking about scenarios of what I was going to say to you, what you were going to say to me, how I was going to tell you you're a piece of all this.
Is that a family or a bee or something?
39:32
Speaker 2
Been fucking bothering me all day.
39:35
Speaker 1
Hey, buddy.
39:35
Speaker 2
Get out of here.
There's magic happening here.
Do.
39:38
Speaker 1
You like vapes?
Why?
Listen, I've done cocaine and burger sets in this room.
Vaping is the.
39:45
Speaker 2
Least you could do.
You could do if I did.
39:47
Speaker 1
You catch that?
39:48
Speaker 2
No, I.
39:48
Speaker 1
Didn't, but if I did that would have been fantastic.
Sick.
Oh, they ate it like Ozzy Osbourne.
Respect.
It wasn't a bat but close enough.
I'll take what I can get at this point but even that situation just made me realize and I can look back at it because I didn't know at the time.
40:06
I'm not some fucking spiritual.
I'm so for interest inter perspective now.
40:11
Speaker 2
Inter Intra.
40:13
Speaker 1
Something something about being perspective about.
40:15
Speaker 2
Intra perspective.
40:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm not.
I didn't know what that moment, what he was doing or what that meant.
But today I can look back at it and see, OK, he's chipping away at my ego.
He's chipping away at my perspective of what I think I know about by myself and it for me, I needed someone like that because I was ready to go to like SMART Recovery.
40:37
I'm like, how can I use safely on weekends and just not doing it?
It's not safely at any point.
I cannot use a mind altering substance in my life today at all.
That's not like it seems so extreme, but it isn't because there are so many people who've never picked up a drink, drug or drink in their life and they're living lives just fine.
41:04
There's no like crisis of, of identity.
There's no crazy moves with there's, there's none of that.
They're just living fine.
Life still happens.
Life still rolls on, good or bad, and all the things that I thought were the worst things that happened in my life have been blessings and all the blessings in my life sometimes have been cursed.
41:26
I don't I don't know where or what that looks like.
When I start to think I know that's when I get a couple slaps.
And for me those slaps have been like, oh shit, I'm doing this wrong.
I especially in recovery when those things have come to pass where after the two year, I got a call from a dear friend who's also in the meetings like, Hey, you, you come in.
41:54
We haven't seen you in the mornings.
I was I was started going to the just the night meeting instead of going to the morning one because I thought I wasn't making the money that I needed.
I need to go to this meeting and that meeting and miss business meetings and then the recovery meetings in the morning that I used to go to all the time.
42:09
That actually were very insightful.
Where there's a lot of people with long term sobriety, where there's a lot of people who actually have like a light that they they, they shine with, like they don't need to say much with them living a peaceful life.
Other people around in the community, seeing them where they used to, almost to the point where you cannot picture that person drinking or using ever.
42:35
That's the type of like you tell me these stories, but come on, did you really do that?
Do you really burn that cop car?
It was just some of the stories are wild and they're funny and and a lot more sense of humor.
Because for me, at least my entire life, humor has been the thing either either times deflection or either times like dampen the shitty situations that I have gone through in my life.
43:03
But it's just humor has solved and fixed a lot of situation even in recovery where I'm like, I'm bored.
I there's a moment where you're like, oh, I'm I'm uncomfortable when things aren't on fire.
Like this is what is this feeling where the everything's not burning right now and I want to burn it.
43:25
That's nuts.
But again, you just learn to just today I can.
Yeah, today was a little boring.
Whatever, get by that day.
Another day is boring.
OK, cool day goes by soon.
43:41
You get to a point where it's like, oh, I enjoy this.
Nobody's disturbing my peace.
I don't need to go out to see those people to be there, to be like to.
I don't.
It's exhausting.
A lot of it is exhausting.
All the expectations that I had previously had just I guess cut into my happiness and serenity.
44:06
If I had any expectations of of a lot of things in this year would have been shit.
But last year and this year, there's no difference other than I'm looking at things differently.
And that's really it.
And I mean, I did the steps over again.
I did, I worked on clearing away a lot of my past and this time it was more, it was more thorough where I wasn't doing it for an end result.
44:33
I was doing it just to do it in the, in the meeting where I was like, I want a better deal in life.
I didn't get sober to still be uncomfortable.
I, I hear everyone feeling this feeling.
What, what is that feeling?
44:49
And after a while of doing it and now actually, honestly doing it, I feel that feeling and whether it gets better or stays right here, I'm, I'm good, I'm good.
When it starts to feel a little bit off, then I got to look at, OK, what am I not doing?
45:06
I'm not praying properly.
I might like, I want to be my do I wake up in the morning and give thanks and at the end of the day, I'm grateful.
It could be as simple as that.
Hey, God, just remove I'm feeling hangry, the situation guy remove this feeling of anger from me.
45:22
It's just it could be as simple as that.
If somebody cuts me off and like, Hey, thy will not mind be done.
I don't I'm not the controller of this road.
So why do I think that you cutting me off is is always my Rd.
45:39
You're cutting some Sometimes it happens sometimes it's annoying.
Sometimes life happens that way, but as long as I don't get into an altercation or yell out the window or do that, then I'm I'm OK.
And I got to just nightly look back at my day and be like, OK, you were good at these points.
46:00
This point you're a little off edge.
What did you do at that point?
Did you pray?
Did you call one of your friends and talk about this situation and get it off your chest?
Because I don't know about you or your situation, but if you've ever held on to something, then it's like, OK, then the next thing happens.
46:18
Speaker 2
That's how I relapse, yeah.
46:20
Speaker 1
Yeah.
46:20
Understanding Relapse and the Unending Journey of Recovery
So how did in that situation for you or I?
I've heard a little bit about it from the podcast clips that I've seen, but even the funniest part of getting searched at the airport, we'll talk about that.
But how did you in that situation start out even just coming to?
46:40
Speaker 2
So first of all, I want to say that was incredible.
Everything you just said.
I can relate.
We are a lot alike.
I can relate to a lot of that feeling, especially with the money.
And once I get this, I'll be happy.
Once I get that, I'll be happy and it doesn't matter.
Nothing matters, right?
As long as I have this.
And then it comes and you're like, huh, This doesn't feel like anything like I thought it would, right?
47:02
Also, one more thing I want to comment on too, I really, really like, I hadn't thought about it this way in a, in a bit.
The idea of spirituality being intertwined with service, right?
It's praying, it's meditating, it's asking for direction, turning over the outcomes.
Yes, yes, yes.
47:18
But it's also helping others when you're fucking inconvenienced, right?
It says in the literature, your phone may jangle at all hours of the night.
Are you gonna answer it?
And you made me really reflect a lot of what you said I needed to hear today because you made me really reflect.
47:33
I'm helping a lot of people in my life right now.
Sorry.
I'm helping a lot of people in my professional life right now with the job that I have.
I work at a rehab doing some coaching stuff, helping a lot of people.
I have two friends that I can think of right now that have reached out to me and I haven't called them back yet because of schedules and this and that and I'm tired.
47:51
I'm busy.
So thank you for that.
I wanna say that, but that's that's recovery, man.
You fucking answer your phone when you don't want to, right?
And there's times when I don't wanna do recovery.
I don't wanna go work with a sponsee.
I don't wanna do that shit a lot of the time, right, Because whatever I'm busy, that's recovery is doing things that you don't wanna do essentially.
48:09
So I appreciate that man.
Thank you for saying.
48:11
Speaker 1
You know, is it even in that situation?
I've had to be reminded of it too because you get bogged down, you get busy, life starts getting louder.
And again, another thing that I again, none of these are my own fun idea.
48:26
These are these are what I've heard from other people before me who have said it and has resonated with me because it's been people that I've seen how the how are you so peaceful right now?
How are you not annoyed by that person right now talking that way?
I'm fucking bugged by them.
48:42
I don't want to hear.
And they're just calm sitting there like, I don't know, it doesn't bug me.
I'm like, OK, OK, how?
I want the how.
Yeah, how, how, how are you doing that?
Because never done that.
I think that that person's annoying and that person's shitty and that person what I'm judging all and and they're just calm.
48:59
Just that's a great day today.
I'm like, OK, that's fucking.
You're annoying.
You're annoying.
You're annoying me so much that I want to figure out what it is.
And I hope it's the same person that I, I told this to in my meetings in Burlington.
49:15
I, I told her you annoying me so much that I finally understand what, what recovery and all this stuff was because I wanted to find out.
I'm like, OK, yeah, I'm here for for drugs and alcohol.
Initially, that's what I thought I was here.
49:32
That's how you get in the door to understand, OK, that I need to do this work so that I'm relieved from that.
Then you continue to grow my spiritual life, which means when life happens I have to answer or I have to do this or instead of like I don't always have to now do 30 meetings or things a day because the meetings now don't keep me sober.
50:02
I go now because I have time at points to go.
But working with others or going through the literature will remind me of who I am.
And what I am is a not a alcoholic.
And I say grateful because if I did not have this disease, I wouldn't be living the life that I Live Today.
50:23
I don't know if you feel that too, but I would have, let's say, let's say I wasn't an attic alcoholic.
I went to rehab, I stopped, came out of rehab.
I didn't have to go to meetings.
I was fine.
I just would never pick it up again.
Cured, angry, resentful, judgmental, jealous.
50:41
In my head my perspective is shit, controlling, manipulative, I liar.
I still have all those things.
All those things would still be there.
I'm not saying I'm perfect today.
I'm not saying I don't lie.
I or have points where I have still like for 27 years of my life before I got into the pro 31 now yeah, 27 1/2 is when I went to why I'm even counting 27 1/2 and add old now every year man, I'm a child still OK.
51:11
I am 2 1/2 or about to be 3 years sober.
I'm three years old.
I just got my fucking training holes.
But in this situation, I have to now think I would have had all those things that I'm dealing with and I would have miserable would have fucking jumped off my balcony because all these things that I, I wanted to live a better life.
51:37
And now I can communicate better.
I can show up to our relationships better.
I can be better with my friends, a partner, my brother, my sister, things that would annoy or bug me and like I deserve this or hey, why is this happening?
51:58
I have expectations of you to do this and do that.
And now I am more relaxed, calm.
I can't control I especially I have friends come to me about relationships.
Oh why she she does this or that she cheats on who cares again at the end of the day, all the things that I used to worry about my exes when I was going through like height of addiction, paranoid about them doing this and then doing that.
52:27
Oh for for what?
Not with them now none of it really mattered for me to wastes all the time and and stress and what none of it mattered.
And I bring that up because a lot of the time when we get sober off drugs and alcohol, we look for a person to try and be that person for us or heal us.
52:51
Or that's why in recovery the first year, don't do a relationship.
Don't just yourself.
The only person you need to worry about is yourself.
It's a selfless program, but it's selfish in the beginning.
53:06
Like right at the beginning, you be as selfish as possible for your recovery because if you put it on anything else or anyone else or that situation doesn't go the way you are at risk.
Like there's a lot of situations where because I came out of treatment and I was still kind of in a relationship or whatever that is, I still like because that person at the time for me just told me, hey, drugs and alcohol are your problem, your problem's something else, go to treatment.
53:35
And that clicked for me.
I'm like, OK, I could just do another Turkey detox and and take another 2-3 weeks off and then I'll be fine again.
Thank God I went to treatment.
Thank God I went to treatment.
Thank God I went to kind of undercover 12 step side where they don't force you to go, but it's most of the counselors and people around that resonated with me are 12 stop and I was going to go to SMART Recovery because I'm a smart guy.
54:06
So I was going to go do that and luckily I would.
My counselor saw me.
I'm glad he was smoking cigarettes outside.
You know who you are buddy.
And he like grabbed me and said, I know who you are.
54:22
I know you are cuz I'm the same way.
I see myself in there.
Go go do this.
Because if you continue to go to if you even walk through the doors for SMART Recovery, I'm gonna see you back here month after month until you can't even afford to pay a single dollar anywhere and you have to go to somewhere else where you're also not gonna understand it.
54:44
Cuz for me I needed the steps for structure in my life that helped me get closer to a higher power again.
What that is today I they say of my own understanding I don't understand.
55:00
I pray I go do the next right thing and things just happen in my life and I never really understood or believed it.
Even coming to the door I thought the door was on the outside.
The address is 777 and then if you see the mailbox outside there.
55:18
I was just talking to my buddy earlier on today.
I'm like, I keep seeing this.
55:21
Speaker 2
It says 777 on his.
55:23
Speaker 1
Yeah, so it's like it just it constantly comes up.
There's weird stories where I was very analytical with, OK, this has to happen because of this or I go see like a a magician.
I'm like, I'm already trying to figure out OK, he did this that way.
55:39
He put a nail through his nose.
OK, I've been to the ENT.
So I've had a metal like scope go straight through.
I figured you out.
I figured out the magic, but I have not been able to have an answer for situations that I've deemed odd in my life to not just be God or a higher power or something that's out there that has guided my life in certain ways.
56:06
One should be dead right now.
My liver should be shot.
I was doing 50 Percocets a day, so that's 325 milligrams of Tylenol times fifty, 16,000 milligrams of Tylenol a day for consistent 8 months.
56:21
So that's four times the lethal dosage of Tylenol just on its own.
Then also add in cocaine, Xanax, alcohol that night to probably fall asleep and then more cocaine to wake me up.
I watched the 1st 30 minutes of Wolf of Wall Street.
56:38
Never watched the ending till later on.
Went downhill after there but it was a very very fast lifestyle.
And the other option to that is I don't know about you but once thank you.
56:55
Once the substances were gone, it was I missed the the light, the fast pace.
It's like you have to slow everything down and dumb it down.
Yeah.
Can't be smart, Yeah.
57:06
Speaker 2
That's what exactly, exactly what I was going to say is I was told when I came in, you cannot, There's no one too stupid in this world for recovery.
But there's a lot of people that are way too smart for it.
And I, I've fallen into that trap too.
I want to close back on this, the relapse question because I think it's important for a lot of people to hear.
57:23
I always know someone's working a good program when they ask me about how I relapsed.
I'm telling you, man, the the people that ask me about my relapse, I'm always like, this motherfucker is working a good program, right?
Because you don't want to go back out there.
I I can tell.
And you're like, what do I not do?
Recovery is about what do I do, but it's also about what do I not do, right?
57:39
And that's why meetings are great.
But to your point, it's it's not going to keep me sober to just going to meetings all the time, right?
I got to work it in my life.
I had a thought in my mind.
I've relapsed twice and two main ones.
I've relapsed a lot, but I I had two main ones, one after eight years, the one after eight years started with steroids.
57:54
They both the the the thing that they shared this, the common theme before with both of them is I had a secret and I was going to, I was doing all my recovery.
I was going to meetings, I was going to, I was talking to, you know, my sponsor mentors, but I was telling you 90% of the truth.
58:10
And I had that 10% that was just back here.
And I'm not this, I'm too, I've got this.
I'm going to figure it out.
I'm going to figure it out.
Don't worry, I'll tell you about, you know, the 90% and I'm taking TRT.
That was my story, right?
And it was true.
I was taking TRT, but I wasn't telling you about the fucking, you know, I can't think.
58:30
Speaker 1
Of a trend.
58:31
Speaker 2
Trend.
Trend balloon.
58:32
Speaker 1
Tell you I don't care who you you ask.
Trend is a mind altering.
58:37
Speaker 2
Dude that shit fucked me up.
I lost sleep over it.
I was seeing shit my 10 years.
58:42
Speaker 1
Ago I never did trend, but ten years ago I definitely did tests in Anavar and that helped during the time of like I wanted to be a competitor but continue tell me.
58:52
Speaker 2
That yeah, the so the, the, the common theme was that little secret.
And to your exact point, you brought this up already.
It starts with something seemingly insignificant every single time.
Yeah, Yeah.
But it's OK.
It's not that bad, right?
59:08
Next thing I know, I'm while I'm looking for my steroids, I start seeing Adderall.
I'm seeing it and I remember vividly saying to myself, I will never do that because I'm in recovery and that would be a relapse.
Meanwhile, I'm already lying and doing cheating and stealing and doing all these other things.
I'll never do that.
59:24
One day the mental blinds, mental blank spot happens.
I'm on the Internet and I'm like, I need that.
My ADHD, that was the that was a justification.
I'm going to fix my ADHD and it's not going to be relapse.
It's going to be for reports at work because I need to focus more.
Dude, cunning, baffling, powerful and patient man.
59:42
My disease was just like.
59:44
Speaker 1
I thought I was limitless taking Percocets for my job and like I can do all these spreadsheets now I can, I can reconcile all the money that's coming in for the payment processing business and all the fintechs.
I, I, this is the first time that the loudness of my brain is like, OK, now focus.
1:00:00
That was that was Adderall for me.
I didn't fall asleep.
I didn't get, I didn't get this like high feel.
I got a euphoric feeling like things are OK, but it gave me the ability to just focus.
So.
I think that's how people describe Adderall.
It doesn't really matter.
Whatever it, whatever it is now, there are some things that I know people who still like, I guess have anti anxiety and all these things that does come into play because I've had a nine months when I was sober, I went to get blood test done.
1:00:36
My cortisol was spiking to the roof.
Like she looked at me and she's like, how has your week been?
I'm like pretty cool, pretty chilled, sunny out.
Your cortisol has spiked to somebody who's on a crashing plane, like a mild fight or flight constantly.
And then right then and there in my mind, I'm like, Oh, I'm self medicating.
1:00:54
I'm not an addict like that.
That was the first thought I had.
I'm like, oh, I was doing a bunch of drugs because I have this feeling that I had.
I ended up she gave me cortisol blockers and I was on that for I think four months and then my like, I think mood stabilize where I didn't have the ups and downs after that.
1:01:15
What was that?
So a year and a half from the year and a half after that.
Now I'm just there's no fight or flight feeling, but there's still there.
I'm an addict alcohol through and through where I have been.
I think even scared straight is I'm all or nothing.
1:01:34
I don't I'm if I relapse, I'm dying straight up.
There's no, there's no, I'm just kind of a slip weekend or not.
I'm going to do a line the size from that end to that end, because I'm going to make up the three years that I have missed.
I know that fact about myself today.
1:01:50
I don't like I started off on vacation.
I went to Turkey with my family.
I had one Red Bull a day, 2 Red Bull.
I was fucking having sold 4 Red Bulls a day at one point.
I'm like how I it's like it's a small little thing and it sounds funny to me and you, but it sounds funny that probably other people, but to me and you can understand a lot better where it's like, oh shit, yeah, yeah, no, it's immediate where it's like, oh, I've now I've missed out on three years and I can justify this and I'll justify that and then done.
1:02:24
But it's, it's the most rewarding, beautiful life that I could have ever seen or imagine or things are happening in my life that I don't know.
It's not for the first time, I'm not talking about monetarily.
I'm not talking about success or, or any of that.
1:02:41
It's just a piece that I've never had before, genuine people and relationships that I've never been able to form as well.
And then it's it's to, to even your point, doing the things that I just need to do.
1:02:58
It's been.
1:02:59
Speaker 2
And the ability, I love what you said about the ability to just sit with yourself that I couldn't do that for so long.
I could not do that for so long.
That is such a gift, man.
To be able to enjoy a Friday night on the couch with me, myself, and I and not hate every moment of it.
1:03:17
Not worry about tomorrow, not worry about who I fucked over yesterday or what I did yesterday.
Peace of Mind.
1:03:22
Speaker 1
I think the only sign off that I'll say is addicts, Alcoholics.
I'll I'll look I'll look into the camera for this one.
Addicts Alcoholics aren't someone you see under a bridge.
They aren't somebody who's who's lost all their their money have nothing.
1:03:39
I mean, I think it's kind of I did lose.
I did lose, but they are anyone you see who could either have a business is drinking too much.
And slowly things are starting to slip by the wayside.
They're not showing up to their their.
I don't have a kid, but their kids games or they're they're just things are dying.
1:03:58
There's other people who are just quietly dying inside and cannot stop.
And then it's happened slowly where they're missing the work, they're missing events with family.
They're there with family, but it's miserable where they cannot be around you unless they have a substance inside of them.
1:04:15
And anytime they're they're off the substance, it's just you're, you're looking at your watch.
They'll OK, well back on again.
And it doesn't matter where you're from, what religion, what economic background, rich, poor, any religion, colour, creed does not discriminate.
1:04:33
You know, where there might be a outlook of people who have a certain stigma.
But for right now and, and where we live and how many different places and, and meetings and, and people I've seen, it's the most diverse, multi cultured disease that I've ever seen.
1:04:52
Everyone can get it and that doesn't go to say that if somebody does do drugs or does drink that they're an addict alcoholic.
But it gets to a point where if you are one, there's no other solution that I've been able to find other than doing the steps and honestly, openly doing it.
1:05:15
That's just what is work for me and I'm going to be forever grateful for that.
And listen, if there was an end result to this program, me and you both celebrate with a drink and a lot.
So I'm I'm grateful that there's no ending.
This is what I just need to do to stay peaceful and to live a better life.
1:05:33
Speaker 2
So true man.
Thanks so much Asan for coming down brother.
I appreciate you.
1:05:38
Speaker 1
Thanks for listening.
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The discussions and stories shared on this podcast are for informational and motivational purposes only.
This content is not a substitute for professional medical advice.
Addiction treatment or therapy If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please consult A licensed physician, addiction specialist, or mental health professional.
1:06:02
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