S5: E5: The 33: Methamphetamine: Part 2. "D" shares his story of addiction and recovery

Anybody that's going to tell me that addiction is a choice doesn't understand it at all. We have a very medicated society, period, and I've seen the damage that even legal drugs are doing to people psyche, what they're doing to their health, you know, the story never gets old in terms of when you step outside of your own box and you share that story with other people. That is part of your own recovery. I've never, yeah, I've had doors shut my face over it, but I've had a lot more open because of it. And that's just a few excerpts from our interview with Dee, and this is part number two of our interview with him. And this is the 33 methamphetamine, a love story, a book authored by Dr. Rashi Shukla, and she continues her interview with Dee. So at the height of your involvement or your immersion in this lifestyle, like, what are you using? How are you using it? If you don't want to share it, you can be like, I don't want to talk about that. But I just want, like, in terms of someone's listening to this, like when we're talking about drugs, what are we talking about? You mentioned cocaine, you mentioned heroin, alcohol, marijuana, but like at the height, what are you using? How much are you using? And what does your life look like? Well, you know, again, it, well, I was using a lot of stuff, you know, a lot of it for me, you know, I had my flavor, like I really did like heroin, but at the same time, it wasn't always available. So if it wasn't available, like, I mean, here in Oklahoma, like there were a lot of drugstore cowboys around here out in the outer reaches, you know, on some of these small towns. And I'm telling you, like when you get into that kind of action, like that's some really dangerous stuff, you know, I mean, these are the people that are ripping off pharmacies and, you know, ripping off trucks. I mean, you know, it's, it gets, and you see that firsthand. But you know, to your point, like you were so immersed in that culture, you know, and there is a certain amount of risk taking that, you know, John Kelly would call central nervous system stimulation, right? Yeah, like you're using drugs and you're like, you know, blanketing or soothing something. But, you know, a lot of people that I was around were, they were just big fiends for action, you know, and the drugs fueled that, you know, for high risk behavior, you know, lots of excessive drug use, like, and so to your point, like it really just depended on what was available, you know, when I was back here, when I moved back here as a kid, you know, heroin wasn't as big. You could find it here, like in cocaine was kind of out of reach a lot of times because of the price tag, you know, so, you know, you can always fall back on alcohol because it's everywhere and it's dirt cheap, you know, I mean, yeah, there was, I mean, you know, I look at, you know, like the Paseo district, right, which is really cool place here in Oklahoma City, like, you know, really cool arts area. And it was even cool back, you know, 30 years ago when I was running around here, but at same time, like all those cool, like condos and apartments that are around there, those were used to be total drug dens. I mean, if you wanted, whatever you wanted to find, you could find in places like that, it wasn't hard, you know, and they were, I wouldn't call them open air drug markets, but if you were plugged into that culture, like you could absolutely, like if you wanted pharmaceuticals, you could go find them there, you wanted bathtub, brewed up math, you could find it there, you know, it just wasn't hard. Would you be comfortable sharing what all you've tried in terms of more than just like once, like what all you've tried. Yeah, kind of name it, right? Like, you know, I kind of grew up in that area where it was a free for all. I mean, like you said, I, you know, certainly alcohol, heroin, you know, like I like to mix heroin with, with endphetamine, whatever kind it was, it didn't really matter, but, you know, when you are, you know, book ending an opiate with that gnarly of a central nervous system stimulant, it's like you're getting that float from the opiate, but you're not like in the nod phase of it. Like, you kind of keeping you up. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, but you're numb. You know, that's what was so great about it. And, you know, like I was never really into taking a nap, like my brains too wired, like I was always doing stuff. I'm running around town. I'm, you know, and I had a job too. I mean, I actually had a couple jobs. I mean, and then eventually, you know, got into the tattoo thing. But yeah, I mean, you know, hallucinans, hallucinogens were never really my thing. I mean, you know, like a lot of kids back in the eighties, I tried them, but it didn't really stick with me. I didn't really like, and the sounds kind of weird, but like I really didn't like dealing with dealers that distributed hallucinogens that much. I don't know why it just there, I had a couple of weird experiences with those folks. And it just never set well with me. So I never, that wasn't really something that I really got into as mostly, like, you know, opiates and stimulants and alcohol. Okay. And did you, did you have like a preferred way that you use drugs? Like, we know people smoke drugs. They've eaten them or put them in their coffee. They've used intravenously smoked. Yeah. Did you, did you have like a preference or did you kind of try different things? Yeah, I tried different things. I mean, obviously, you know, if you have the ability to smoke something, that's going to be like one of the fastest like roots of admission, right? And, but so, so was injecting drugs. Like in that's one thing that, you know, as you move through recovery and you talk to other people that have been there, done that, that's one of the things that is so hard to give up about that because nothing takes that, nothing takes that place. There's nothing that hits your system harder than that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, I've heard, you know, like when crack really hit the streets, you know, I, that was never my thing, but I knew a lot of people that used it and they would kind of give me that was their version of intravenous drug use, although I never smoked crack. I never really wasn't around it that much and knew people that used it, but yeah, like you get into like IV drug use and you're like, you know, if you have like a tendency for iris taking central nervous system stimulation needs, that's going to do it for you pretty, pretty fast. And, but it's also the thing, you know, as I moved away from that life and, you know, started to become, started to heal myself and, you know, and a lot of that was through the work that I was doing. A lot of it too was, you know, in a tattoo shop, especially especially back then because it was such an outlaw culture listening to people talk about their stories, like hearing that stuff externally as somebody who sober is a little enlightening, you know, it's, it's not as interactive like as a therapy session, but that's, that's, that's good too, you know, I was never much of a group therapy guy, but there's a lot of value in that because it's free, you know, there's meetings everywhere for anything that you need in any town, you know, like you wouldn't have to worry about traveling from like Oklahoma City to like wherever in the heck Michigan, right? Like it doesn't matter what town you're in. There's, there's a meeting somewhere where you've got people, you know, you've got a space that you can access. And that was one of the things about tattooing that was so helpful, helpful for me in my recovery was like externally viewing like the decline and watching clients die, you know, and deteriorate over time and you're like, oh my God. Clients that you were tattooing. Yeah. Yeah, you know, when you see people, you know, every six months or, you know, on a regular basis over the course of many years, and you really see like how their, you know, their, their childhood trauma has manifested into a completely runaway train of addiction to where, you know, they're not feeding their kids. They're, they've stopped working, you know, they've lost their house. Now they're selling themselves on the street because that's the only like currency that they've got left. I mean, that is, that is shocking. You know, it's one thing to read about it. It's another thing to have, like literally be sitting on top of somebody or right next to somebody, you know, where you've got your hands on them and you can feel how unhealthy they are. You can hear the story. Like you, you see the scars, you know, not just from the drug use, but from their own, you know, these people have been oftentimes abused horribly, especially if you've been on the street or any length of time. It's, it's heartbreaking, you know, but it's also, you know, tattooing was such a great trade to be in at that time because that was oftentimes the one place that those people could be and not use. Right. Right. Did you have a rock bottom? Like, is there, is there a thing is rock bottom? Or I would say what was like one of the lowest points that you had? Yeah. I mean, I think anybody that has ever experienced this, whether it's directly or indirectly or, you know, whatever, I mean, there are, there are sometimes many rock bottoms, depending on how long your addiction stretches and what you really are going to call out as, I mean, we all have, you know, we grew up kind of in the same era. So, you know, when we look back at like all the rock stars and people that we loved and yeah, sure, they had these amazing like stratospheric trajectories, but if you really dig into it, they had a lot of, they did a lot of damage along the way too, not just to themselves. And they just happen to have unlike a lot of, you know, nine to five people or people with regular jobs or what, you know, like not everybody makes like, you know, Rolling Stones type of money, right? Which isn't the fix, but it allows for a certain level of disconnect and rehab, you know, and abilities and access to things to heal that a lot of people don't, you know, like if you've got, you know, that was kind of the nice thing about tattooing for me. It got me out of the house. It got me plugged in with guys who weren't using. I mean, they, they drink beer, but they weren't excessive about it and they wouldn't let me do it. You know, they're like, this is what we do, but if you're working here, like that's not happening. And so, yeah, there were, there were a couple of rock bottoms and some of them even came after I was sober. You know, so that's a tricky thing to manage too, because, you know, as somebody in recovery, like, it's really easy to, especially as an adult, right? Like I think some of those are the worst rock bottoms than a young, but you know, because young people are more malleable. They have typically have more support than they don't own houses and shit, you know, like, but as an adult, you do, you could lose a business, you could lose everything that you've worked for. And I saw that multiple times in the tattoo shop, you know, people that literally were, had these amazing careers that were just, just fading away, man. I mean, they went some of these folks from living really good lives, you know, to losing it all. And as, so I would say, like, my rock bottoms as an adult were, you know, one of them would certainly be, you know, like breakups can be pretty hard on people, like losing people that you've had connections with that maybe you came up with in the life or came up with on the streets or the party crew seeing those people die off. You know, especially as you are kind of continuing to elevate yourself. And that doesn't just happen organically. It takes a lot of work, you know, it takes a lot of sacrifice and it takes a lot of reflection and it takes continual work. That's like, you just don't get sober. And like, Shazam, that's it, you know, it's, it's work. It takes time. It takes diligence because especially as an adult, we know that things change, you know, people come in and out of your lives in a different way, you know, those, those connections are deeper, especially as you like have a husband or a wife or a partner, whatever, right? Like connections are just connections, regardless of your gender or your sexual preference. It doesn't matter. Like love is just love, right? Like, because I have family members in that community and in reality, like, you know, that community also helped built my tattoo business because when I struck out on my own, you know, those were people that I work that I was close to as clients. And when I went out on my own, they really helped get me on the map, you know, but again, like you listen to those stories and you, you see some of these people that are really good people, you know, I had a lot of good friends that died from HIV back then when it was just dropping people like flies and it was just, it was just terrific. You know, so I would say some of my rock bottoms were just those moments more as an adult, whereas like, where I had a lot to lose, but that temptation is also there because you're like in this kind of dark space and, you know, you tend to isolate and the thing that I think that really always pulled me back was my crew, my staff, because I had to be there for them every day. And I really enjoyed that, you know, and without them. I mean, this, this wasn't a singular piece of success, right? Like, we did this as a group. We did this as a team. So I had to make sure, you know, even when I wasn't feeling it, if I could get in there and, you know, I had all this, I mean, we were kind of, you know, we were a bunch of misfits, kids running this really successful business, but we kept each other held up and help someone understand how dark it got for you. Yeah, the best way to describe it would be, it is like isolation, you know, and when you're in that space and you've stopped talking to people, isolation with drugs. Yeah, because that's all you've got, like you've got yourself, you've got this addiction, you know, it's killing you. You know that is, it is removed everybody that you ever gave a crap about from your life. Because of course, they don't want to hang around you. You're a total liability. Like, you know, they don't want to get caught up in that stuff and they don't want to watch you kill yourself either. And you realize that all the people you really cared about, like just told you to go kick rocks. That's what it looks like. I'm alone. I've got this, you know, crappy lifestyle, you know, I'm killing myself. I know it and I still am having trouble stopping. Like, intellectually, you're processing it, but anybody that's going to tell me that, like, addiction is a choice, doesn't understand it at all. Yeah, there's part of it that is, but it is a disease. It is a mental health issue and it is brought on by abuse and trauma. It just is. We know that for a fact, you know, and those things can be from different angles as we talked about, but it's, it's the isolation. It's like, you don't know how you're going to pay your rent. You don't know how you're going to feed yourself today. You don't know if you're going to lose your apartment or your house or your car. Like, because, you know, that's how addiction right, you know, it erodes. It's in it. It's like the Grand Canyon at Hamilton's, like, generally over so many years, by the time you get to the bottom, you don't even realize you're there until it's gone. Your people are gone. Everything you've worked for might be gone, but a lot of it's just the people. The opportunities are gone, you know, you don't have anything. And when I book in that against, like a lot of my tattoo clients who really didn't think, I mean, I was lucky enough to have places to fall occasionally, but it didn't, you know, that was a fine line between those moments. And the next step is you're like, actually outwork in the street. Like selling your body. That or not you, but body drugs, like, yeah, you know, because now that is the only commodity that you're going to have. If you don't take action and do something about it, you know, you talked about the generational aspect of your addiction and then your recovery and your digging deep as far as, you know, why you chose or why, you know, you were in this situation. You mentioned your mother and you understood why she chose alcohol and did a lot of drinking is because of her past. Did you go any further back generationally to see whether or not your grandparents were also heavy drinkers or was that just, you know, I don't know if you went back that far. Well, sort of. Yeah. You know, I was never really super close with either side of my parents family. I mean, there's a few of people in there that I really genuinely care about. But, you know, when I look at my mom's side of this family, especially, you know, like one of our favorite, one of my favorite uncles, you know, he was a, you know, he was a Navy SEAL. He was a, you know, search and rescue guy. Like, there's a really kind hearted dude. And, you know, he like, he completely drink himself the death. I mean, wow. I mean, literally, I mean, he was financially set. He was an amazing, you know, he was a Vietnam veteran and the stuff that he saw there by the time he got back. And of course, we all know how our veterans were treated back then, which was absolutely horrific and just blows my mind that anybody would have the sack to treat another human being like that, especially ones that are fighting for the freedom of this country. And that's, that was the introduction point, I think, to his addiction. I never sat down with him, but you can kind of do the math. You know, you would see how his behavior and how his physical state changed from like, you know, each Christmas to each Christmas to that thing. And he's been dead a while. But I mean, he made it pretty far down the line, but it got to the point where he was just, you know, basically living at the bar and his body just stopped. I mean, that was decades of brutal alcohol abuse. You know, I don't know if he was using other stuff. I didn't talk to him a lot because I'm not real plugged into my family. But, but he was a great guy, like, you know, and he was really black ball. And from my perspective, I'm not trying to put any words in anybody's mouth here, but from my perspective, because he didn't follow, you know, he didn't go the family route. You know, he enlisted. He went to Vietnam. You know, was very successful as a military man. And then came out and did something completely different. And I think that that he never had the recognition that he deserved from our culture or from our society when he returned from Vietnam. And then from his family, like, I don't think they really acknowledged it. And I know that was really hurtful to him. So that's the only one that I really know about. But, you know, then, and of course, my dad was an alcoholic most of his life. So I mean, certainly since the time I grew up, and I know it started way before then, like, I mean, I know he was, you know, back in his college days, hell, he was bootleg and booze up from Mexico and all kinds of stuff. I mean, that's that was his side hustle. Yeah. Yeah, I remember my dad bringing moonshine back from a bootlegger in Georgia. And I was 10 years old, and I went into the cabinet and took a drink at 10 years old and it burned my mouth. And I ran to the faucet and just kept on chugging it. But both my parents were pretty, I would say they were probably heavy drinkers. I would describe them as heavy drinkers. But then when I saw my grandparents, and this is a reason I asked you questions, well, anytime we were at my grandparents, you know, they also had cocktails and a lot of drinking and a lot of celebration. And I've always wondered whether or not that generation that were born in the late 20s and 30s, whether alcohol was just, you know, after prohibition became just part of their life, you know, and then they passed it on to your father, my father, your mother, my mother, because I'm going to guess, you know, they were probably born around the same time in the mid 40s, late 40s in that area or early 40s. Yeah. So I was curious, like, you know, how far generationally we can go back and see, oh, yeah, drinking was, oh, yeah, here we got another four generations back, drinking, drinking, drinking. Yeah. And again, like you said, alcohol was so easy to and accessible that it becomes the choice of your addiction where maybe you don't choose the illicit drugs. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And you know, and there's such a, to your point, there's such a cultural connection with alcohol, right? Good point. Yeah. You know, and I don't, I've never dug back far enough in my own, it's just my immediate families, all I really know about. But yeah, absolutely. Like, I mean, it doesn't take much to go back and, you know, even just reading, go to the library here at UCO and start reading some of the cool history books that we've got, you know, like bootleggers and, you know, I mean, that was a thing here. It was very much tied to our cultural fabric. So for, I, you know, like anything else, I think that, and well, I know that, you know, there was a lot of hard drink and going on back in the day, for sure. And people just didn't really recognize it for what it was. Yeah. Wouldn't any awareness around it. Yeah. I think it's fascinating that that you both are kind of taking it all the way back to prohibition, you know, and, and tying it to something historical like that. And then it just starts because even one of the former meth cooks that I interviewed, you know, basically said, you know, my father was involved with moonshine. And what I'm doing is really no different than that. It's just a different drug in a different way. So I mean, I think there is this cultural tie back to like prohibition and the bootlegging and all of that absolutely with drugs. And it's the generational component too. To your point, yeah, it's absolutely true. You know, you mentioned the word illusion. And we've had at least one individual who was open enough to contact us through Spotify and said, I wish you guys were talking more about those who take meth daily, but are functional. Pay their mortgage, pay their car payment, have wife, have kids, because I think there is a place to use meth or to use a drug to be functional, but use the word illusion twice. And I wonder if you would say this guy's living in illusion and it's just an illissory life that he's living. Yeah, that's that's a tough one, right? Because we as are and I'm not making a case either way. I mean, I have an opinion about that certainly, but you know, I don't, you know, nowadays, it's sometimes hard for me with my background to discriminate between because we have a very medicated society period. And I've seen the damage that even legal drugs are doing to people psyche, what they're doing to their health. I mean, I'm not a scientist. I'm just, you know, especially through the tattoo business. And then you get into the whole argument of harm reduction, right? Where to your point, which is exactly what this person is, you know, alluding to, I mean, I don't, I just don't have the data on that. I mean, my anecdotal experience says, I think, you know, there are substances that you can tell yourself all day long, what you want. But good luck, buddy. Yeah. I mean, I get it. I mean, I've been around tons. I've been around people that make seven figures that use heroin every day. I mean, yeah, but you got to understand like, there are exceptions to every rule and the minutia, like the small, extremely small of percentage of people that get away with that are exactly that. They're extremely small. But like, look at where a drug, the drug action is today. Like, okay, like, you know, I have a lot of friends and law enforcement, you know, and if they even suspect that you've got fentanyl in the car, if they, if they see it, if they even suspect it, if you've got a warrant or a past history, like, they will literally like, they'll detain you and they'll call a hazmat team. Like, if you think that using meth every day as a maintenance drug is working, I'd say, I don't know what to tell you because I know how the drug drink works and it's not, that's not a maintainable mode of balancing your life. If you're having to, I mean, I'll tell you, Dr. Shuklow, I mean, you know, I'll destructive that stuff is. I mean, you know, if you're having, I'm not saying that there's not a place for medication. I'm not saying that there's not a place for any of that, because especially, you know, older people that are in recovery, like a lot of people that I've worked on in the music business, for instance, yeah, they're clean and they're sober and they, they have good maintenance regimens, but they also have the ability to have really good medical care and treatments to help them, you know, not just, not just mental health stuff, but physical stuff too. So they have good medications, they have good therapy, like it's a multi-pronged approach. You know, not all that stuff has to cost a ton of money, but what I'm saying is, you know, sometimes your wiring gets so off the grid that you're not going to maybe pull it back all the way and there might be a place for harm reduction. I do believe there is, I'm just not, I'm not educated enough in that subject to say what somebody should or shouldn't be doing. And I think a lot of people would probably argue with me about that as whether that's a modality that should be used or not, but I, you know, I know too many people that are on maintenance types of things like that and they do really well, but they're also medically managed. Yeah, right. Yeah. So that's the difference versus like self-medication, right? Yeah, yeah, self-medicating. Yeah, you're, that's, there's an illusion. I mean, and that's a good point because even if there are exceptions of people that can use a drug in a controlled manner for most people, it's not that. And I mean, this is going to sound terrible what I'm about to say, but it's too bad that we can't talk to the people who have died. I know. You know, because there's a lot of people whose voice you never hear that didn't make it. And there's no way to capture it. So we only have the stories of the people that are still here, which are either the sick success stories or the people that are still in addiction or that maybe that few that might be functionally using, but that's not a, yeah, not a norm or drugs like methamphetamine or I mean, heavy alcohol, even, you know, eventually. Whether it's you or the people that you've encountered in your work that have been in addiction, is there anything that anyone can say or do to either make someone who's in addiction, whether it was you and your experience or someone else stop? There's not necessarily, you know, a single thing that someone could say. I mean, I think that all you can really do is, you know, I mean, first off, like, you know, an addict has to want it. Right. I mean, because if they don't want it, yes, it's hard. Yeah, like when you're digging yourself out of that trench, it's the, it's the worst. But you have to want to get out of it too. Right. I mean, that's, that's such a huge component the recovery rate. Like, it is work. It's not just changing your lifestyle. It's not just abstinence. Like, yes, anybody can just abstain. Like, eventually or get there with abstinence. But that's not the big picture. Again, like, the drugs are at the back end. Right. Of why you're here. It's the stuff on the front end that you really got to deal with. But I mean, conversations that I would have with people that I knew through my tattoo business was I would just try to encourage them, you know, if, but I, if they brought it, I would never tell them what they needed to do or not do. But if they asked me, I would say, well, I have some resources I can turn you on to. And if you want to, like, get your foot in the door with those resources, I will help you get the doors open so that you can access them, but you're going to have to do the work. Like, it's going to be tough. But you can do it. I'm, should I do it? You know, I mean, it's not impossible. Hard. Yeah. But there are a lot of success stories out there. There are a lot of people that you would never guess that are that have that in their background. So, yeah, there's not one thing. But I think that if you know or have contacts of people like that is I just kind of have always, you know, it's not the thing I've said. It's just I try to treat people with respect. You know, I don't judge them for where they are in their space in life. I mean, provided they're not trying to harm me. You know, I mean, that's a different story. But yeah, you just got to, you know, be able to, is somebody in recovery, I think, you know, provide the tools. And that's all you can do. Like, you can support them, but they have to do the work. And I can tell you that at the very beginning of this podcast, like in year one or two, I had a mother who emailed me and said, you know, my son is in methamphetamine. How do I get him out? And I didn't have an answer. Because at the end of the day, there was nothing that I could tell her or that she as a mother could do that would get her son out of his addiction from meth. It did come down to what you said is you can provide tools. But at the end of the day, the person has to want it. Yeah. And with younger kids or younger adults, you know, like therapy is a way that you can go, you know, and then, and again, too, like, there's free meetings. Right. I mean, I think that I think people tend to underestimate the power of the group sometimes, even though I'm not like geared that way. But one nice thing about that is you hear the stories from other people. It you're hearing your own story. But when you hear your own story from somebody else and how gnarly it is, it takes on a different context. Right. It takes on different meeting. And a lot of times, you know, when you are working a group program, now you've got some real accountability, which is kind of the key, like again, kind of going back to that, like the isolationist, you know, and hitting rock bottom, like when you don't have any context and you're not accountable, and you're battling addiction. I mean, what of course, what are you going to do? Like, you're going to use. So will you speak directly to the listeners that we have, you know, why is even worth pursuing sobriety or trying to escape my addiction? And so I wanted to know if you would talk directly to anybody who might be listening, who is currently either struggling with addiction or in the early stages of recovery. Yeah. I think this is a great topic to discourse on because there's a lot of shame that comes along with addiction and there's a lot of like negative context, you know, socially and culturally, like we've talked is there is everybody loves an underdog. You would be surprised. And I'm not saying that you've got to run out and tell your story or be hyper visible, but I'm telling you, like when you start to own that part of your life and you're not afraid to share it, I have not met anybody. And I'm not a therapist, but I've never met anybody that didn't have doors start to open because there's a honesty component to that, you know, like when you can get real about yourself and trust yourself, other people can trust you. And it doesn't happen overnight, but owning your actions, taking like when you are being proactive to do whatever is in your life that you need to do to recover, you will find support. It's there. And you would probably be surprised, you know, because like we talk like, you know, as especially as addiction gets worse and you become more isolated, when you start to free yourself from that, it's amazing how many people come out of the woodwork and start to share their stories with you. And you realize like, man, I'm not alone. There's a whole tribe of people out there that are exactly in my position that are working through it the same way. And you would be surprised how many successful people have to. I mean, it's maybe not something you want to put on a job resume, of course, but you would be surprised that just at a microcosmic level, how much support actually is there. And you can do it. I mean. So you today are in college. You came back to college as an adult. You've had a successful tattoo company. You've retired from that. And now you're pursuing your education and working as a private detective. What does your life feel like today versus in the past? And then we'll kind of just wrap around to the end, which would be, you know, what anything else you want to say about what people should understand about any of this that we're talking today, drugs, addiction, life after it, recovery, whatever. Yeah, the college thing was really interesting because, you know, when I retired from tattooing, like that had been my life since I was a teenager. And, you know, there was a real sense of loss of identity. There was certainly a loss of connection to my community, for sure, because I wasn't seeing these people every day. You know, I wasn't interacting the same way. Like, I mean, you in the tattoo business or any business, you build social capital, you build social connections. You have an internal and external community that you can access. I'm going to use this hilarious, you know, story about like building a fence once and, you know, like I was having trouble with this, like really hard baller inspector. And, you know, I'm complaining about I do a client one day. And they're like, oh, hey, like, well, my mom's like runs that department. We'll just fix that right up for, you know, I mean, it's, it's funny. But like, you know, when that stuff's gone, you're like, what in the world do I do? Now I'm this middle-aged guy. And, you know, we talked earlier about like, you know, setbacks or triggers or things that could easily send it. It could, it could take somebody who's not an addict and put them into a use behavior, right? But as anybody that's been in recovery, like that can be a really tough nut to manage. And so there were a few years that were like I did kind of re-spool a little bit and it was able to get my feet under my ground, you know, feet under me, but that wasn't what I was looking for. And like I didn't want to just be like working some job. Like I had this successful career, but I couldn't get hired anywhere because I've been self-employed since I was a teenager. So, you know, I started to like ask myself some hard questions like, dude, what are you going to do? I mean, you know, and I kind of fell into this you know, friendship and mentorship with with John. And that started to that just over the years started to grow. And as that started to materialize, which was kind of just a side thing, you know, it was an interaction that was kind of happening peripheral in my daily life. It was an important part for sure, but it wasn't every day. But, you know, there came a time where, you know, he because he was such an inspiration to me because he'd been there and he talks about that. All he's written books on it. He's an amazing guy if anybody wants to look into that. Got a great, great book called Discovering Lazarus. And I don't mind, you know, throwing that out there because it's an amazing book about recovery and his success story. And, you know, he started to encourage me like, look, dude, you know, you've got all this street knowledge. You like, you know, all this air moves around in this kind of culture. You know, you might want to think if you want to continue doing this like to like get some credentials. And that's what kind of spurred the PI thing, you know, which opened up a lot of doors for me. And then, you know, that allowed me to work with him at a deeper level also. But then I needed to kind of ratchet that up. And that's where I started, I'm just going to apply to UCL and see what happens and get into the criminal justice angle because I wanted to take that somewhere too. And I wanted to start to understand that like at an academic level because I knew I had a lot of deficiencies because I didn't have like a great education. And, you know, I mean, the 70s schools a little like, whoa, you know, but at the same time, like, and then getting into like actually even getting accepted to a college, like, are you kidding me? Like, I passed high school, but, you know, I wasn't like light in the world on fire. That's for sure. But I did it. You know, I think, you know, a big part of my journey, you know, has just been goal setting. And being okay, like, hey, if it doesn't open up, well, you know, I had criminals tell me all the time and this was kind of funny. But it's like, yeah, we just walked around and checked front doors. If they were locked, we just walk around in the back one or our window. And it's like a great metaphor for your life, you know, because one thing is an open end. It just means you might be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's it. Doesn't mean you're not worthy. It doesn't mean you're not skilled. It doesn't mean that you don't have the chops. It means you might just be like on the wrong door handle. You know, and that certainly was true in my life. So when I got accepted, I was like, oh man, this is going to be something really cool. And of course, you know, like you're the first class that I had, you know, like my first day of college. And I was like, one of my best students in the history of my 21.5 career career. I mean, you set the, you know, like as a business owner and, you know, coming into a class like my experience with education was pretty like, you know, at the moment, like, I didn't really know what to expect. I'd been removed from school for over 40 years. So coming into a class like yours where I was like, getting challenged weekly on multiple different levels and the bar was set so high. And even though I didn't know what I was doing, like because all of this academic stuff was new to me, it gave me another goal. Like, you know, and you set those goals high for everybody, not just me, which we are so lacking these days at our culture. I mean, we tend to treat goals like some sort of taboo now. And I just don't buy that at all. I mean, it doesn't mean succeed at all costs. And, you know, well, and I think one of the things your trajectory has, well, we'll show for somebody is that you have to fill the time. Yeah, you know, and so my last last question is, um, why were you willing to meet us today? Well, you know, the story never gets old in terms of when you step outside of your own box and you share that story with other people. Just at the most core level, right? And I've never, yeah, I've had doors shut my face over it, but I've had a lot more open because of it. And as you always say about your students, and I think this is, I totally believe this tune is how we ran the tattoo shop. I mean, we strove to make everybody a world-class artist. Most of them we did. Yeah, there was a few that dropped out, but it's kind of like, I remember the last day for class, and I love this one. The students were like sharing like a saying or, you know, something that they got from the class because there was some pretty profound stuff for some kids that were like completely silent the whole time, you know, that were just like hiding behind their laptops. And then they come out with like those bombshell like, you know, statement or something was like, wow, you know, if you're not sharing your story, and that can simply just be within your group, a group of recovery, it could be with your therapist, it could be with a family member, somebody that you trust, sharing your story. It's the initiating, like, it's the spark that lights the fire and never stop shooting high, right? And I remember what I wrote on your back because I say this all the time, like better to aim for the stars and miss than to aim for the gutter and hit it. Because even if you don't, you know, yeah, you're not going to become, you know, maybe a world class guitar player, whatever your thing is, I guarantee you, if you aim that high, you're going to do, you're going to do a lot better than you expect. There's a lot of surprises that are awaiting you. The universe has a way of kind of taking care of its own, I think, you know, there's a, I don't know what you would want to call it, but when you are putting in work and you are taking the steps to initiate positive, you know, not just like pulling positive stuff into your life, but giving it back, stuff comes your way. Like in the process, you heal. So, thank you, D for being a success story in sharing your story. Yeah, thanks Dr. Shuklu, and thanks for being such a badass professor. Like, I mean, I can't underscore to people that how much that one class put me on the road, like the things that I learned there. Yeah, it took me a while to, like, digest them and to work with them. But as I did, I mean, I can't even list the amount of important things that benchmark opened up for me. And, I mean, my gosh, thank you. That's a gift that you can't buy. Thank you. Of course. Thank you for listening to the 33 method of fetamine, a love story. That was our part two interview with D. Again, if you need somebody to talk to whether you're in recovery or in an addiction, the number is 988. That number is 988. Again, thank you for listening to the podcast. And until our next podcast have a blessed and wonderful day. Thank you again.