Speaker 0 00:00 Hey you. Yeah, you. If you or someone you know is struggling with anything mentioned on today's program, please, please, please, please, please, please email
[email protected] that's a U T H E N I C K the
[email protected]. I am available 24 seven three 65 to help in any way that I can. I have resources, I have open ears and open hearts and tons of hope. I've been freely given all these things and would love to give them to you. Be good to yourselves and each other.
Speaker 1 00:40 My mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, mum <inaudible>.
Speaker 0 01:08 Welcome. Welcome. One and Oh two of thenar. What is hot? What is happening? My name is Nicholas Thomas Fitzsimmons Vanden Hayville but most people just call me Nick and with me as always is my dog. Marla,
Speaker 2 01:24 Marla, come here baby. Say hello to the listeners.
Speaker 3 01:30 That first dose scandalous. You know another doc couldn't handle this moose dude. Oh, let me see your booty go dah, duh, duh. Let me see your booty. <inaudible>
Speaker 0 01:44 Alright. Alright. That's, that's, that's enough. Marlowe, go back to licking Cisco's six pack, Marla, and I welcome you to all thin, Nick. Get it. Cool. Well, on this show we get authentic and we explore all things recovery. What do I mean by that? All things recovery. Well, what I mean by that is if you are still living and breathing on this earth, you yes, you are in recovery from something. For me, I'm in recovery from alcoholism. I'm an alcoholic. You're goddamn right. I am. I am a drug addict. I'm a compulsive gambler. I have an eating disorder. I suffer from depression, anxiety. Really the list could go on and on and on. However, this particular show is not about me. It is about my guests. Sarah. Sarah is here to share her experience, strength and hope as it pertains to her chemical dependency. If we help one person on today's show, then we have done our job. Sarah, are you ready to do the job? So ready? Oh my God, she's so around. Could you introduce yourself please? My dear. Well, yeah,
Speaker 4 03:08 I am Sarah. I am from, well, the Minneapolis area. I'm 29 years old. I've been in recovery for 15 years.
Speaker 0 03:17 Hot. Damn. Yeah. Let me do the math there. You're 29 and you've been in recovery for 15 years, so you were 14 when you quit. That's right. That does not make sense to me. Second round of treatment. Wow. Someone really young. Wow. I was born in a car too, on the way to the hospital's sexy waste. Anytime. Damn. No girl. Didn't even cry. Wow. Sarah, why are you here? Why do you qualify to be talking about chemical dependency? When you got sober when you were 14 it's like, what the fuck could you possibly know? It's not funny. I'm being dead serious. What could you fucking possibly know? Like I drank. I drank forever. I drank for like 16 years. I'm nervous.
Speaker 4 04:09 It's a claim that I know anything. I will say that the longer I've been in recovery, the less I know that. I know
Speaker 0 04:16 I just got mind fucked. Yeah. Can you explain that?
Speaker 4 04:21 I, I'm in recovery. The more opportunities I have to realize I don't actually fucking know what I'm doing and I don't actually have all the answers and I still belong in recovery. There is still a reasons for me to not use.
Speaker 0 04:36 You say you belong in this group of people, these recovery folk. Yes. What did your usage history look like? Let's start with why you started. My experiences unique in that
Speaker 4 04:51 Both of my parents are also recovering alcoholics, but they didn't recover until I was like seven, six or seven years old. My early childhood was pretty interesting growing up with parents who drank a lot and all the things that come along with that. When they did get sober, they started taking me to programs for family members, friends, spouses of people who are also in recovery. I learned about what the disease, uh, what chemical dependency, substance use disorder. I learned what that stuff was and then my parents also started telling me from a really early age, this is something that you might possibly have. You just have not used yet. I resented that but also in a lot of ways believed them because before I ever used or drank I, I displayed compulsive behaviors as I also do that now while I'm in recovery, I behave a lot like somebody who is an addict might behave.
Speaker 0 05:46 What were those compulsive behaviors that you were engaging in at that young age?
Speaker 4 05:51 Overeating, like eating sugar and lots of it. Not knowing when to stop lying to get what I want. Those are all very good things. Those are great qualities. Why do you want to get rid of those? Well, they worked well for me. They still do sometimes, but yeah. Where do they take you back to? Um, when is too many, you know, thousands. Never enough. That sounds very familiar. I feel like I've heard that in some of my recovery rooms. Sure. Substances. What were you using? Anything I could get, I was 13 so I couldn't get a whole lot of really anything. I preferred marijuana and when I couldn't find marijuana I just go into that old medicine cabinet. There wasn't a whole lot there because my parents are also in recovery. So things like cough syrup, you know, and then mix in some Oh muscle relaxers or you know, one time I took 17 ibuprofen, I called the poison control line cause I got nervous on the bottle and they were like, just sleep it off.
Speaker 4 06:48 You're going to be fine. Caffeine pills. I drank when I could like, but you know, I had to have friends who had parents who drank and that was my probably my least preferable. Hi. When you used substances, where did they take you? Mentally? So because my parents were in recovery, I kind of swore off of it in a lot of ways. It was like, you know, I'm high on life. I using is not something I ever have to do to feel good about myself. And then I like turned 13 and my hormones were like, guess what? You're fucking sad. Who are so upset about life? You're empty. Existence in the suburbs. I really quickly, everything just shifted. Started like dyed my hair black, started listening to dark music, had a bunch of friends who were also dark like me. Then I started to consider the idea that maybe using substances would would be a way for me to kind of get closer into this group of people that I wanted.
Speaker 4 07:45 This group of outcasts that I wanted to fit in with it. You know, it started to look attractive to me. It was something I wanted to try it. The first time I they did it, it was like Whoa, where's the spin? All my life I finally feel a part of in some ways it was a way for me to self harm as a part of my story too throughout my use and recovery using compulsive behaviors over eating, not eating. All those things have been away from me to sort of kind of punish myself too for not being good enough. Is eating too much or not eating enough what you consider self harm or is there more to it than that? No, I would cut to and burn. I don't, I don't want to be in claim to be an expert on self harm. I think the important component, when I say self harm is that whatever behavior I was doing there was also the self-talk of you deserve this. You know, you deserve this because you are not good enough to go along with that. Whatever reckless, harmful behavior it seems with people that turn to substances turn to harm,
Speaker 0 08:55 To take them somewhere else, to feel something other than what they are feeling at the current moment. What was that voice saying to you? Other than you're not good enough. There's these negative core beliefs about yourself. Is that the only one that you heard? You're not good enough. You're not good enough. What else were you hearing?
Speaker 4 09:13 You're unlovable. You're too fat. You're not pretty enough. You're stupid.
Speaker 0 09:19 Uh, where do you ever, were you ever told that by your parents? Oh no. Anybody around you? Definitely not. Well, there was some
Speaker 4 09:27 Bullying when I was a kid. Yeah, there was, there was a song that kids saying about my weight
Speaker 0 09:35 <inaudible> your face. All right.
Speaker 4 09:39 It went like this. Sarah Swanson, Sarah Swanson. Sarah Swanson. She is fat like the Sarah respond to song only with my name. So you can't use that because it's my name. Sorry. Actually it's not my name anymore.
Speaker 0 09:50 It's not her name anymore. She found some poor bastard to marry her and breed with her. That's right. Pump. She has a child and I stole his last name. Yeah, that's right. Give it here boy. Yeah. Negative core beliefs for many people in recovery are what they say. Started them on this path. It was this building, building, building. I can't handle it anymore. And like you said, I found this. Where's this been all my life? Finally some relief. When you think about the relief, what kind of physical relief did you get physiologically? What was it giving you? What did you notice when you put substances into your body?
Speaker 4 10:33 I noticed the self-talk, the negative self-talk completely disappeared and I also kind of just couldn't hear anything external either. I just didn't, I no longer cared what people might have been saying about me physically light, just light. I felt every day like I was walking around, just weighted down, you know? And I think that even comes into like posture and how we carry ourselves, and I would wear my hair in front of my eyes because I didn't, you know, I wanted to like protect myself from the outside role. I didn't want to see the world to see in, but it was also kind of a cry for help. Kind of like a, can't you see like physically that I'm hurting and you're just not doing anything. Took that to a dark place. Sorry.
Speaker 0 11:16 No, I love it. I love it when people get darkish shit on the show. Like, alright, we're going to take it. Pause right there and just let that one fucking sink. Yeah. Yeah. Hit me right to the core with that one. Baxter. I feel your pain. Seriously. I'm hurting right now. My, my body hurts. I think it's because I lifted too much today at work. You don't take credit for it. That's fine. Thank you. I appreciate it. When you started using substances, what did that look like as far as how much you were using daily, weekly. It all started with a cigarette.
Speaker 5 11:54 Don't you blame cigarettes for your fucking addictions? Cigarettes are getting a bad rap man.
Speaker 4 12:05 And you know the thing about cigarettes was that my parents were smokers so they were around. But funny thing about it is is I was always like, smoking's disgusting. I'll never smoke. It gives you cancer. It's so bad for you, blah blah blah. But then it was like the easiest thing to try and sneak into mom's pack and grab one didn't go outside and we'll all three of us are going to share one and Wu, you know, we were buzzing super hard and that felt great. What kind of cigarettes did your mom smoke? Some Marlboro light. Yeah. Classy babe. Your mom is a real classy, super classy. Yeah. You feel this buzz for the first time off of a cigarette? I remember like it was yesterday. I got on to the ground and started pretending like I was swimming because that's how it felt. It felt like I was like swimming through the air. Did you get ill? No. I remember my first cigarette I got very ill. Really? People were laughing at me. Oh my face turned
Speaker 5 12:58 White and I was just like sweating profusely. I don't want to feel like this anymore. And I know I'm an addict because I felt I felt like that. Like I basically, I think I puked. I'm pretty sure. And then you were like, right. That's how I know I'm a fucking addict. I know I belong. That's right. Nikki from the very beginning.
Speaker 4 13:29 Um, so correct.
Speaker 5 13:31 <inaudible> I thought,
Speaker 4 13:34 Gosh, if a cigarette can make you feel that way, you know, what can other things make you feel? Okay. So what was the next thing that you tried? Gosh, it must have been marijuana. It took me a few times smoking marijuana before I actually got high. Like I remember the first time it got me high and again, it was a similar moment where if there wasn't snow on the ground, I would have got down on my belly and pretended like I was swimming. It was, there was this property right off the junior high school that was like abandoned. I know. Yeah, it was like this abandoned house. And so we like, you know, went right off the property before school and smoked it and we're smoking before school. You naughty, naughty me dude. I just just went zero to 60 on that. I can't tell you why.
Speaker 4 14:15 Well because I wanted to revisit what you said about that feeling that a lot of people describe and recovery of like I can't handle it anymore because that was part of when I turned 13 I was in the newspaper, I was on the yearbook, I was in student leadership, I had been put in like gifted talented classes. The majority of my life I had this reputation as this nerdy good kid. I think combined with like the hormones of turning 13 it just felt all of a sudden and going to a new school, a junior high where I was in the youngest grade and there were these older kids and there was this kind of pressure to be cool now and like girls were giving blow
Speaker 6 14:52 Jobs and like there's just like this other league of stuff that I did not feel prepared for and that was part of it just kind of all smashed out. When I started embodying that punk goth, dark outcast type attitude, it just like naturally went along with that. Like, I no longer give a crap what people think about me because you all probably just judge me anyway. Y'all probably just think I'm a terrible dirty, gross person, so I'm just going to be that person. You're such a tortured soul. I know. It was really safe for me to be a tortured soul. It was safer than being like a vulnerable person that people would just reject because of my own merit. I just rejected myself for them. How much marijuana
Speaker 5 15:31 <inaudible> it's like, damn, how much are you fucking smoking? My use
Speaker 6 15:45 Was so not that cute. The majority of my use, and sometimes it was pot by the end, I would smoke multiple times every day if I could, if I could get it, if I couldn't what it, what it would look like is me rating the house to try to get high. At one time it was, this was like the beginning of the internet, but we looked up how to get high on like nutmeg and honey. You know when you make these like nutmeg, honey bricks and then you're supposed to smoke them or something, you'd like bake it and then you try to smoke didn't work. I did a lot of stuff like that to try to get high. What it looked like was I had this black comforter that I would hang over the window in my room to make it true, dark and just lay in my bed and just like listen to sad music and be high and a lot of times there wasn't even people there with me. It was just me and whatever I could find to alter my state of mind. When did you find the alcohol that alcohol was like? It was just mixed up in there. Actually, the weird thing about it is I never really craved alcohol. I think about alcohol more fondly now than I ever did and now 15 years into recovery when I do have moments where I think about using, I think about alcohol and I think about wanting that, you know that burn, that really didn't happen until I got sober.
Speaker 0 16:51 You're giving everyone so much hope.
Speaker 5 16:53 <inaudible> alcoholic.
Speaker 6 16:58 I got sober. Well, I don't know. I don't know why that, I mean everyone I think gets crazy. I get cravings every once in a while, not every day. That definitely actually hasn't been a long time since I've had a gravy.
Speaker 0 17:08 I find that very interesting though that alcohol was a part of your story and it was kind of mixed in there with marijuana and with cigarettes and with self harm. It was never really rampant or did it turn rampant? No. Alcohol was the hardest thing for me to get. Get my little grubby 13 year old hands on. Right, because your parents didn't have it in the house. You didn't have friends who would bring it up
Speaker 6 17:34 One and we watered down all his parents' bottles and then there was that. There was nothing left. There was one 21 year old we knew who had an ID. There was like a whole other process and things we needed to do to get him to go to the liquor store to get us liquor. It was just, it was challenging.
Speaker 0 17:48 Sarah, your use chemically
Speaker 4 17:50 Sounds fairly basic and very, that's just the kid being a kid. I don't, I'm not really hearing any consequences coming from this or something that just got so serious and people talk about everything got so bad. I hit rock bottom and I'm just not hearing that out of your story and I'm just blown away that at such a young age you got sober. It seems like people have to go. I know from my own personal experience, I had my ass kicked over and over and over again by alcohol. The only reason I decided to ask for help and get sober was because I legit thought I was going to die if I kept drinking and using drugs. Did it ever get to that point for you? We'll share it. Tell me about the progression. Like I said, it was pretty zero to 60 I mean and yeah, you have to look at it in the context of like I am a 14 year old girl going to a public junior high school in the suburb of st Paul, Minnesota with two parents who are in recovery at this point.
Speaker 4 18:55 They knew, I mean when I started wearing black eyeliner tears every day they knew something was up and it was kind of a cat and mouse game where they would, you know, we think of that you're using and I would be like, no, this is just who I am. Get out of my life. They would be like, okay, you know a lot of times where they would take me for a drug test and I would take a bunch of stuff to foil that drug test right before and somehow by some miracle pass the drug test and get away with it. It happened like three or four times. What actually happened was I was very depressed and took some kind of cocktail. I mean, it was like a medicine cabinet, whatever I could find you. I was like, there was like a whole bottle of Robitussin in there, some muscle relaxers, some whatever else.
Speaker 4 19:36 And I'd like dumped it all into like a big plastic tumbler and I just drank it. This is sick. I like laid down in my bed cause I was like, I might die, like I'm going to get ready to die. And that I was like, wait, maybe I don't want to die. I went out to the living room, this was like 6:00 PM my mom was like taking a nap on the couch and I like sugar. It was like Bob, Bob, I gotta tell you something. And she like rolled over. She was like, Oh, we'll talk later. And I was like, well guess I'll be looking at a dye that, so I went back to my room, close the lights up and I was smoking a cigarette in my room, the CD player. I was listening to this terrible email ban. Actually, I still love them. It's across the room. Right. And at this point I start like nodding out. Like I no longer have control over. Like the cigarette is like I'm passing out and it's burning me and then I'm waking up over and over again and then the CD player starts skipping. It was like, I'm on the roof, I'm on the roof, I'm on the route and I like can't, I can't get up.
Speaker 0 20:29 Certainly the CD flare off
Speaker 4 20:32 And that was all I remembered. And then the next morning I had these two neighbor girls who would, I take the bus with everyday to school and I wasn't at the bus stop so they like came into the house to wake me up and get me ready for school and mace. They saw like these empty pill bottles, stuff like laying all over my room and they told, they must've told their parents because the next day my parents pulled me out of school for a chemical evaluation. Essentially. I try kind of tried to kill it. I mean I definitely knew that I might die. I don't know. It's kind of a suicide attempt, kind of like a hand Mary one. Maybe this'll do it. Yeah. Then I like lucked out and just lived through it.
Speaker 0 21:11 Was that your thought process going in to mixing all these things together? Had you had enough? Was was that it? Was that the end all be all or was it kind of an accident kind of not an accident or was that like straight up premeditated?
Speaker 4 21:27 I wanted to disappear. It wasn't like deliberately I want to end my life, but it was like I want to disappear and I don't really care what happens.
Speaker 0 21:34 You were okay going to bed and not waking up. Would that be a more accurate statement? Yeah, totally. Your parents pull you out of school for a chemical evaluation. Did you ever use substances after that?
Speaker 4 21:48 Yes. The chemical health specialist told me and my parents that right now kind of just kid stuff, but if you use again, you're probably somebody in need of help of treatment, so I was like, okay, great. I told my parents I just won't use again. It'll be fine. Right back to the same friends. The same environment changed? Absolutely nothing. Oh. I think at that point I started seeing a therapist and got prescribed some antidepressants, but that didn't really do much because of all the other chemical imbalances of my brain continued use when I could. It was sporadic, although I was getting better at hiding it as I was going and a lot of Axe body spray, just everywhere. That covers up anything. Yeah, the late nineties I know Phoenix.
Speaker 0 22:40 Do you ever do the ax bonds where we would take a screwdriver, stab the can of ax in the process of ax bombing somebody you ax bomb yourself. So it was like a suicide mission
Speaker 4 22:55 When I was using just completely stupid reckless. I mean, yeah, you know, maybe not endangering the lives of other people, but just being very reckless with my own.
Speaker 0 23:03 It's so funny to hear you say those things because in the interviews that I've done, it's never really made me think about that and maybe it's because of our similar age I've never really thought about or it's never really been brought up during an interview. These reckless things that people do when they're under the influence, especially at that age. You think you're going to live forever? I'm invincible and if I die, man, whatever. I'm kind of indifferent about living right now anyways. Right. How much further did this go on and actually went on
Speaker 4 23:35 Probably another six months. I ended up getting caught. It's a stupid story. Would you like to hear it? Yes. My brother was in the reserve officer training Corps in school. He's a couple of years older than me. He was a complete nerd, very smart, had a gaggle of noodling friends, just didn't ever drink or do drugs or anything. He was a fan of rush though. And my dad took him to a rush concert and that's where my brother learned what marijuana smells like. My dad was like, you smell that, that's marijuana. So one day I was smoking weed in my room and he called my dad and he was dad at work and he was like, dad, it smells like the rush concert in Sarah's bedroom.
Speaker 5 24:13 <inaudible>
Speaker 4 24:16 The day is Tom Sawyer. And uh, my dad came home from work early and caught me and then they put me in treatment. So that was new
Speaker 5 24:26 <inaudible> so they put me in treatment
Speaker 4 24:32 For 30 days. I got let out. Uh, they told me, if you ever use again, you're going to be put away for like nine months. And when I was, I was 13, so that sounds like a complete an eternity. So I was like, no, you can't, that I can't ever use again. So I got back to the same school. I told my two, like friends I had, I was like, I'm sorry I can't be your friend anymore. We got in a fight, you know, it was really dramatic. And they were like, Oh, you're too good for us now. And I was like, well actually, like I just can't get high. And they didn't really understand what that was all about. So I was kind of this weird loner. Now all the kids who didn't use were terrified of me because of what they had already known about me.
Speaker 4 25:08 And all the kids who did use didn't like me because they felt like I had kind of betrayed them or was now too good for them. So I was kind of completely alone. I went to like a meeting and I found a mentor that I didn't really use because she was like 50, it's like 13 and I just wasn't about it. I just didn't really feel like any of those solutions that those programs were offering just weren't going to work for my problems. So I just kept kind of doing what I was doing and eventually I got sick of being alone. So I just like said F it and started hanging out with my old using friends cause they wouldn't accept me. Um, they're the only ones who probably would've did that for as long as I could. Actually, I was able to do that to the point where I had hit kind of a bottom and I remember it was like I was using every day, numerous times a day.
Speaker 4 25:57 I can't get enough like and remember feeling, I remember sitting out on the front step smoking a cigarette like four in the morning. I couldn't find any drugs anywhere. All my friends were tapped out or whatever. And I remember like saying I possibly out loud, at least in my head, you know, if there was a God I wouldn't feel like this right now and I shit you not. The next day I got caught. That was the end of it. My parents, you know, they caught me, they put me in another 28 day treatment center program. Treatment program.
Speaker 5 26:27 Okay. I'm going to hold you right there. Hold on to your seats. We will be right back.
Speaker 7 26:46 No, but I would say yeah. Yeah. Thank you both. Thank you. Please. So cool. So you tough. Really rough. Just can't get enough. I'm not bad at this. Your dad? Um, no. Okay. Okay. When you take control, you know to play the role
Speaker 4 27:58 You are listening to author and with me today is Sarah. Sarah, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you so much for having me. Oh God, that was really heartfelt. I liked it. Thanks. We're locking eyes right now. I know you can't see us doing it as you're listening, but it's pretty heavy right now. Sure is. Oh yeah. Anyway, you were just getting into how you got some, how we are now entering the strength portion
Speaker 5 28:32 <inaudible>
Speaker 4 28:35 That was really good. Thank you. That was hot, sir. How'd you get some help? I went to a really great treatment also, FYI, that's where I met my husband while I was in that program. I was 14 and he was 20 so we didn't reconnect until years later. I went to a 28 day treatment or treatment center and as my aftercare recommendation I went to a sober high school. I was called sobriety high, clever cleverness. I know they were like, you can either go to the sober high school or you can go to this halfway house for like six months with a bunch of other women, and I was like new super high school. Thank you. So I did that and it was far away from where I was living at the time. So it's close to my grandparents' house. So moved in with my grandmas, went to a sober high school as part of being a student there.
Speaker 4 29:18 They recommended that I go to a 12 step meetings and get a sponsor. Took me a while to get on board with that. I was like, but I'm just going to a sober high school. Isn't that enough? Can we just back up for sure. A few ticks here. When you went to treatment, whose idea was that? Oh, that actually the second time was collaborative between my parents and I. I mean I realized this has become, I mean I could see, I couldn't really see it getting better from where I was. I mean I had kind of exhausted everything and was to the point where my use, like I didn't lose a house. I didn't lose a job. I didn't lose a partner, but I was no longer like I could not take enough to feel better anymore. Like that feeling of relief that I used to feel when I would get high, it didn't come.
Speaker 4 30:06 It just never came. Like I kept using and I just like still felt the same. Did you take that to your parents? Oh yeah. After I got caught, I mean I did. I had to get caught. They found so we had a puppy, this really cute puppy who like when I was gone, found my stash and like ate most of the weed out of it and then left the empty bag on my bedroom floor and my parents found it. They were like, yeah, we found this and I was like, yeah, like I think I need to go to treatment, and they were like, yeah, you do.
Speaker 5 30:35 The extent of the conversation. My parents, if they ever listened to this, they'll be like, damn, I wish he had bought a Batman out, easy to get into treatment and only took them like, I don't know, 17 years and lots of heartbreak and pain and all these people he heard, Oh it turns out folks, all you have to do is have your puppy eat your pie. I
Speaker 4 31:02 Have two parents in recovery and just say, yep, you got me. I was going to say, I think that was a huge part of it. Like I had seen them, not only they had, they been successful in recovery, but we had had all those talks about what use is like and what compulsive behavior is like and I already knew those things about myself, so it was kind of like there were just less things that I was able to bullshit. If I had had more bullshit room, I probably would have used longer. But the inpatient treatment that you went to, what did that entail? How long was it? What did you learn? What were some of the things? I think the most important part of the treatment was that it was 28 days out of my environment that I was living in away from all the contacts that I had.
Speaker 4 31:46 It was a residential, so I was living there with, you know, there was a girl's side and a boy's side. Obviously it was just with the girls, although there was some fraternization when possible we had to go through, we had daily meetings every day talking about like what our highs and lows were and setting goals and then I think I did even some kind of kind of step work, you know, some introspective what in your life wasn't working, what, what in your life is unmanageable? Kind of making a lot of lists and just really looking at what's, how damaging has your use been? I think there was an even even an activity where we had to add up how much our use ended up costing and you add up the money, that treatment, you know the amount of treatment twice and then you know all the money you stole and everything you broke and all that stuff. Well the people you robbed and then you'd like look at that number and it's a huge number and you're like, Whoa. Beyond the separation, like the geographical separation between
Speaker 0 32:40 You and your substances. What do you think was the most beneficial thing you got out of treatment or what helped you the most I guess is a better way of putting that?
Speaker 6 32:49 Honestly, I think the separation was what helped me the most at that point. Like at the point I left treatment, I still didn't see, I didn't know what my life and recovery was going to look like. I didn't leave thinking like, Oh my life is going to be sunshine and rainbows now I left thinking, Holy shit, I don't know who I am. I don't, I really don't know who I am without using Sarah. Cause that had been my entire identity and security blanket. That's what kept me safe from the rest of the world, right as my, I used it to make myself an outsider and now like I'm being asked to kind of strip that away and you're asking me to like start making new friends and letting people in, which is terrifying. That's all really scary. I have to go to a brand new school where I don't know anybody at that point. Pretty much my only friends were my parents because I wasn't going to be able to be talking to any of my old friends anymore. What it did, it was the most beneficial was kind of getting away from it and like, Nope, this just isn't yours anymore. You just have to figure out a different way.
Speaker 0 33:45 You mentioned that upon leaving treatment, that's when it sounded to me like that's when the real life shit started to hit you. That's when the rubber met the road. What did that look like the day you left treatment? What happened?
Speaker 6 34:02 I think probably one of the first conversations I had, so I went to a treatment center. Even if you were under 18 you were allowed to smoke if your parents like signed off this little waiver saying, yeah, it's okay that our kid smokes. My fucking parents didn't sign that waiver, so there's a picture of this face out in the smoking lounge, like don't let this girl out here. So as soon as I got out of treatment I was like, look guys, that was fine in there cause I get you're trying to help me quit and whatever, but you're going to need to let me smoke. And so that was a fight that we had and eventually they caved and I got to smoke a cigarette, which felt better a little bit.
Speaker 0 34:34 Would you say that at the beginning you were black lung listed?
Speaker 5 34:40 I bought it one night. I couldn't avoid for you to shut up so I can say it. I can see it just bubbling.
Speaker 6 34:54 Oh yeah. I would say that I was just super bitter about it because people come in and smell like smoke all the time, dammit. Anyway, desperately trying to find a vice. I, you know what like say what you want about nicotine. But it has kept me sober so many times. Then I had to go back home and I had to go into my room and the chaos, that was my, my using environment, that was my layer. I had to go back into it and like pull out all the weird stashes of things that I had, like my brother's wallet that I had stolen while I was using and be like, Oh yeah, here's her wallet. I had to like clean up all these things that I left behind. It was hard. It was really hard. Then I had to pack my bags, move her to my grandmas. There's
Speaker 0 35:38 So many people that go into treatment, come out and then relapse. So many people going into treatment are not going to treatment for the first time. Why were you a quote unquote one and done well two and done
Speaker 5 35:53 Semantics
Speaker 0 35:55 At the point that I left treatment there was, there was a part of me that was willing, okay, I'm going to give this a shot. I didn't know what it was going to look like, but I was like, I'm going to try. So I had a little bit of willingness and that was a result of, well, it being my second time at 14 and just having a little bit of a spiritual awakening and
Speaker 6 36:12 With respect to the fact that what I was doing really wasn't working for me anymore. And I was able to see that and I had people in my life who were able to help me see that. Also, I had my parents breathing down my neck and they had done, when I was in treatment, they did the family program. Not only did they have personal experience, they read up and they figured out how they were going to parent me as this new addict, right. They weren't gonna tolerate any excuse making, but they were always reasonable and they basically held my hand through it. They helped me clean out my stuff. They didn't curse me when I pulled out my brother's wallet and they were like, okay, you know, like that was before and this is now and we're going to move on from this. And so they gave me grace, but they also were there. No, you're doing this. You moved to your grandma and grandpa's house? Grandma and grandma's house. But yes. What did I say? You said grandma and grandpa? My grandma's are gay.
Speaker 5 37:00 Oh, I was just like the grandma. I was like nice sight, grandma and grandma and grandma. Grandma. You're being redundant. Lots of grandmas. Yeah. Anyway. Do you have different names for them? Grandma and grandma. Grandma, mom and grandma. So it is, yeah, that is awesome. Yeah. So you go to your grandma's place, you get there. And these two as being white haired people like coming down, coming down the driveway to greet their little addict. <inaudible> come inside, we have cupcakes. Yeah. That's actually what it sounded like. I am just, I can, I can do. I now, I can now
Speaker 0 37:55 Pretty sweet living at my grandma's. All joking aside, what was helpful about living with your grandmas as opposed to living with your parents, I guess would be the better question. Well, it was,
Speaker 6 38:06 It was hard being away from them, but kind of nice to be in this sort of neutral space where like my grandmas didn't really see how bad it got for me. And so they were kind of this neutral party, sort of this like neutral forest. Well we love you like where are your grandmas? We always just love you. We always just think you're great. We'd sit around the kitchen table and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes together and I'd be like, what's up grandma's? And they'd be like, what's up Sarah? You know, like it was just like, um, it was kind of a continuation of treatment in that way and like you still don't have to go back there. Not that like my parents' house was this horrible, miserable place, but I had kind of made it that way. And so it was nice to continue to have a little bit of a break away from that.
Speaker 6 38:45 Gave me opportunities to reach out, build new friendships and new relationships at my new school because all, all the people who went to that school lived close by it. So I would get rides to meetings from them and hang out with them after school. So there was some structure and some definitely like love and warmth, but it wasn't where I was before. Do you think that if you would have stayed in your home with your parents instead of going to live with your grandma's, do you think you would have stayed sober? Yes, as long as I had continued to go to the sober school, I definitely would have. The sober school was really the big one. Yeah. That was a huge, because it gave me new people to latch onto and I was able to step aside from like the reputation that I had created for myself at my old school and I was able to completely divorce myself away from all those connections that I had.
Speaker 6 39:35 In addition to the regular Scholastic curriculum. What sort of sober curriculum were they providing you every day? We had an hour of group peer support group, pretty much where we had check in with the counselor lady and each other basically, and we would do sort of different formats. We would do like positive groups where we just go around and say something nice about everybody, so community building. Also checking in about where we were at in our own lives and it was nice to have that time of the school day where it was like, this is just about where you're at and talking about recovery and life. Also, there was an elective, it was the school band and it was a rock band and my S my history teacher taught it, so I learned how to play the bass guitar. I'd always wanted to be in a band but never had my shit together or enough talented friends to be in a band and now I could be in one. I really put a lot of time and energy into that. We would practice during school. After school, we played gigs on the weekends. We'd practice on the weekends, so it was something, you know, like a new hobby. A lot of people who become into recovery, you have to figure out how to use a ball this extra time you have now that you're not using it to get drunk and high, and that's what I did. I made music man, a slap, the bass,
Speaker 5 40:49 Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap. I got big time. How much time did you spend at your silver school? All four years. So I started four years,
Speaker 6 41:10 October of my freshman year, and I graduated early. When you graduated from silver school, what did you do next? So while I was in sober school, I realized, I mean I was able to see, I had enough time and recovery under my belt and was able to see how much that school had helped me, not just stay in recovery, but become the person who I became who I was so proud of and a lot of ways that's what I wanted to do. I to be a teacher at a recovery, sober high school. I actually was far enough ahead of my credits that I started taking college classes while I was in high school at the U. So I was like kind of already had my foot in the door at college and I knew like I'm going to go, I'm going to major in English, and then I'm going to get my teaching license and I'm going to be an English teacher. Hopefully in a sober high school. The only rub was that there aren't very many sober high school
Speaker 5 41:58 And there are even less today than there were 15 years ago. 10 years ago was going to college. Did you live on campus, by the way? Stupidly, yes. Okay. Well, I'm glad that you said stupidly. Yes, because I wanted to know what being a sober person on a college campus being 18 years old now, having been sober for four years. That sounds terrible.
Speaker 6 42:24 Yeah. I did have a little bit of a community of sober young, sober people around me and I lived with them. My closest friends in recovery, we all went to school close by and so we rented a house and then I learned what it was like to have roommates, which was a journey we lived on campus. I never, I regret kind of regret this today, but like I never went to like a frat party. You're not missing anything. I know. I always hear that, but it just would have, you know, just just once. I think I would have liked, you know what I really miss about frat parties is the smells. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 42:56 I just want to like smells like acts. By the way, <inaudible> parties all smell like Axe. You know what? Don't worry about it. I get enough of that teaching at a high school. Oh God. We had a lot of like sober house parties for Halloween. We, we used to have an annual February sucks party
Speaker 6 43:16 Ex party because February is a terrible month and so we would just invite everyone over. We knew and play loud music and drink red bull and be stupid. The majority of my recovery is just
Speaker 5 43:26 Pushing around vacuum cleaners while drinking everything out of straws or having sex. <inaudible> college is all about vacuuming straws and blow jobs. Certainly there was that. Everything has a time and a place. My reckless behavior in recovery is how I know that if I were to drink today it would go terribly wrong because even with years and years and years
Speaker 6 43:53 Covered under my belt, I know that I can be that reckless and crazy and compulsive. I would probably pick up right where I left off just from like how I act when I walk into a casino. Money has no value. It's all about more. It's all about, I just need to be the biggest winner or anything else I have ever tried that's made me feel remotely good. You know what I want to tell you right now what?
Speaker 5 44:14 You are filled to the brim with perfect segues. You're a segway machine and you're going to ride a segway home and tell me the segue queen. Oh, okay. Segway queen.
Speaker 0 44:32 We are going to take a break. We will be right.
Speaker 9 44:35 <inaudible>
Speaker 10 45:21 Perfect situation. OLED love down the train. <inaudible>
Speaker 9 45:56 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 46:06 Hello. Hi there. It's me again. It's Nick and you are listening to authentic where we're here with Sarah in the studio today, sir. Hi. Hi. Hi there. How are you? Oh, just fine. How are you? I think we, I'm fine. I think I already did this at the beginning of the show, but we didn't use this tone. No, this feels good. This is different. This feels right. This feels a little more intimate. Yeah, and once again, Sarah and I are staring into each other,
Speaker 5 46:36 So let's break. I'm getting a boner. Okay. Without looking at each other. Why don't you tell me about your hope. Okay.
Speaker 0 46:46 In all honesty, this is my favorite part of the program where we get to hope because as I mentioned in the beginning, during my intro, if we can help one person today listening to your story, then we've done our job. That's really all that this is about is helping one person providing hope to that one person that feels completely alone because both you and I have felt that loneliness have felt that isolation have gone there. Have lived it. Yeah. What I want to do in this section is really drive home. There are solutions that is not the way it has to be and you can it, you can
Speaker 4 47:30 Do it. If I can do it, you most certainly can fucking do it. Right? Do, do you ever find yourself saying that? It's like if a fucking idiot like me, if a fucking drunk like me do it, then you can do it. Yeah. Right? Yeah, and it is. It really is so true. Anybody can do it. You just have to want it. I know this never would have worked if I didn't want it and I think that's a very common misconception around recovery is that outsiders think that maybe you were forced into this like, Oh, you had to go to 28 day treatment and you have to say sober and you have to not drink. No, I get to not drink my life sober is unbelievable. I really could not have imagined something this wonderful and it's all due to the solutions that I got in recovery.
Speaker 4 48:24 Sarah, what do you do to nourish, to feed, to fuel your own sobriety? It's looked different at different times. It started out in my early recovery, pretty structured and what I know now, you know, having studied education and having, now I am a teacher of teenage brains. I know that your prefrontal cortex, your funnel, your longterm decision-making, the part of your brain doesn't exist when you're 1415 when you're 20 years old, it's not fully developed and if your views, you've delayed that even longer. That structure was really, really helpful. At that time in my recovery, there were people who said, you need to do this. Go to this many meetings a week and then I had a sponsor who said, call me this many times a week, do this assignment, read this. That was really the only context in which she ever told me what to do, but she would do this assignment and these assignments were opportunities for me to look at what I was currently doing or what I was doing in my use.
Speaker 4 49:19 Thinking about how could I do that differently or how can I grow and change as a person so that I can be better so that I can grow and change. You were talking about wanting recovery or you know you have to want it. I was thinking about this podcast that I listened to not too long ago. I'll quote it directly. The title of it is a Ted talk. Actually it was everything you know about addiction is wrong. The short little, little eight minute podcast he says in there, and I don't necessarily just from my own personal experience agree with everything he says, but he does say that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. I've been thinking about that a lot lately as I think through my entire story. I think, yeah, you're totally right. When I was wanting to just use, I was completely disconnecting, you know, does that comforter that I put over my window. It was like get out outside world. Stay as far away from me as you can and there are times in my recovery when I've done that too and I've slowly started disconnecting from my peers and from the people in my life who help encourage me to be the good, strong person that I am. And sometimes I just want to wallow in my shit. I want to just not care about being a good person. I want just take and
Speaker 6 50:28 Throughout my recovery what I love about life so much is it's taught me how to like give back and in the process of giving back and helping other people, looking at what, looking around and saying, what can I do to make this better than it was when I got here. That's what recovery looks like for me is I am contributing, I am adding, I'm adding value. Right? Addiction looks completely different. It's like, what's in it for me? What's for lunch? Where's mine? What can I take out of this situation to fill a void that's not going to ever be filled anyway,
Speaker 0 50:56 That was a really beautiful answer. Thank you. You're very welcome. And do you want to know what the most beautiful thing about it was? Yeah,
Speaker 5 51:05 You talked about another fucking podcast on my podcast. Great. Thanks a lot. <inaudible> you can cut that part out. No, I'm going to leave it in. I didn't want to. Okay. I'm an English person. We cite you cite and then add. You take what someone else said and then you add to it. Yeah, right, right.
Speaker 0 51:25 You still talked about another podcast on my podcast and it sounded like you were given a pretty good review.
Speaker 5 51:32 <inaudible> over here. Yeah, but you made it sound pretty damn good.
Speaker 0 51:38 Well shit. Yeah. I'm just giving you shit honestly though, that I'm smelling what you're stepping in. Yeah. Picking up what I'm putting down. Yeah. Yeah. Hope you got a big trunk cause I'm going to put my bike in it.
Speaker 5 51:58 Nobody told you to bring your bike into this. You said you were so fond of the Wicker basket? I have on the hand
Speaker 0 52:07 The buyers and the bone. Yeah. And my streamers. I really, I really needed to get a kickstand. It's starting to get a little worn.
Speaker 5 52:21 You ready? Yeah, I'm ready. Just like I need to take like a fucking moment after like it's like, cause I'm asking like actually like hard hitting like legit questions and then we just start talking about
Speaker 0 52:35 Like a fucking bicycle with streamers and a basket. My next step was fart noises, so I stopped. Okay. Okay. Do you want to, do you want to do one? Oh, that was a good one. I always do this one where I cut, I cut my hand into my shirt and it actually sounds like a real farm. Do it.
Speaker 5 53:00 It sounds like a little Poot. Alright. Isn't it great new things to teach her something again? Do it one more time. Okay. Ready? I'm ready to talk about real shit. Okay.
Speaker 0 53:22 Fart noises aside. Let's say I ask Sarah, you really only used for two years, three years, what could you possibly know about addiction? What could you possibly know about the road? I've been down? What could you possibly know about blowing lines of cocaine up my nose for years? What could you know about drinking four liters of vodka a day around the clock? What? What do you know? Why are you qualified to even be talking about this
Speaker 6 53:54 Pain that, I mean, all of those behaviors, all that we use and you're using chemicals, you're using substances, you're using people, you're using fucking money or whatever and it's not taking away that pain. And I've always been very close with that pain. I think that it's common when you're, when you are using to think about how it could be worse, it could be worse. And I hear story after story after story of, I always said I wouldn't do that. And then I did it and I had my things that I wouldn't do and some of them that I did and some that thankfully I never did, but I always knew that pain. I've felt that pain, even in recovery, even being free of substances from a very long time, have gotten to emotional bottoms that are fucking heart wrenching. And that is a direct result of me not doing the things I need to do to stay in recovery.
Speaker 6 54:46 They say a relapse happens over a long period of time. I imagine like walking around the room with my scissors, cutting off my connection with things, right. And I'm slowly disconnecting from all you know, I'm gonna not do that one thing commitment that I had this week. I'm not going to not call that person very much anymore because that person is calling me out on something that I don't want to look at yet or, and have gotten all the way to a spot where I am. My first year teaching, I was 10 years, at least 10 years clean, sober, was driving home from work every day thinking I want to fucking drink. That's how hard I was craving every day I was driving home from work like that, cause I was disconnecting from my solution. It's looked better
Speaker 0 55:27 Depending on what's what I'm putting into it. Honestly, abs and flows. Let's look at the flip side of that instead of what could you possibly know. Let's say I am someone that's newly sober and I see something in you that I want. How did you do it? What can you offer me? How did you do it? I think that the reason why I've lost people to this disease actually lost them. Like they've passed away and lost them. Like we can no longer have a relationship that's healthy and have seen so many more people come and go and some come back and some don't. I think what has helped me stay and why I'm still in these rooms is because I have, Oh well I have a very strong network of people, including both of my parents supporting me. And it's about connection, right? And I have strong connections with people and I know that the universe is working in my life. When somebody who
Speaker 4 56:23 I was connected with, it's like kind of a weak connection, you know? Like, Oh, I know that person from this thing I did 10 years ago. Whatever shows up. Oh you, Oh Hey. And I'm like, Oh shit. You know. But the thing about it is, is I recognize that as part of my path and I see it like it's not necessarily like God saying this is, you know what, you need to dishes my will for you now because my God is Yoda. Clearly it's my <inaudible>. I have always latched onto the idea of I know what not recovery looks like. I don't know what, what if I were to take this sort of scary step into the unknown. I don't know what that looks like. It's exciting. It's actually more exciting than smoking endless amounts of marijuana and not feeling anything from it. There's that positive self-talk that, you know, I've had to replace that you're a piece of shit.
Speaker 4 57:16 No one's ever going to love you with see what's on the other side of that door. Why not look? And then also really relying on, you know, knowing that I have this super strong community of people to fall back on if shit goes wrong. Cause it does sometimes. You referred to your addiction, your chemical dependency as a disease. Why do you, why do you think it's a disease? Why do you call it a disease? For me, I've experienced it with so many different things, physical and nonphysical things, validation from others, the feeling of stealing, whatever it is. I've experienced it with so many different things that what I recognize it not as a relationship with one of those things specifically, but sort of a phenomenon that happens when I am in a certain emotional mental state that I have this pain that I need to relieve typically emotional pain that I need to relieve and I'm going to use this thing to make it go away.
Speaker 4 58:15 It sets off a cycle of me continuously using this thing and the pain only really getting worse and me continuing to use it and then compromising other things in my life too to try and use more of it and it's still not working and that is the disease. You could take away the alcohol, you could take away the drugs, you could take it all away that that part of my will always be there. It's always something that I have to respond to even when I'm not using. Sir. There's undoubtedly a stigma attached to addiction. Perhaps this is due to lack of knowledge and education about it. Do you think that information should come from the home or from the schools? And that's actually kind of a loaded question because you did go to sober school, sober high school <inaudible> where do you think that should come from and when do you think those conversations should be starting?
Speaker 4 59:09 Oh, that's really hard. I think that, well, I really think it needs to be both. I'm also a teacher in a public school and I have seen a fair share of students who have struggled, seem to have struggled in similar ways that I have. I also teach at a recovery school, so I'm really close to that. And I think that the schools are, we're all first responders in some ways. We tend to be sort of the first unbiased observers of something that might be happening with a student and affecting them in ways that's inhibiting them from learning. So we definitely have a role to play, uh, the schools do. What's hard about recovery is that, you know, the think about it is, is you just can't tell someone what to do. If it were as easy as me saying, Hey, stop drinking, great, then you would just stop.
Speaker 4 00:00 Or you'd be like, yeah, no, I know I need to, but I don't want to right now and then I haven't helped you at all. And so that's pretty much what I believe the schools are capable of doing. I think that a lot of that connection that you have is at home too. It needs to be at home. And I think that the students who are not connected are not positively connected outside of school are the ones who, who are most at risk because they're the ones who are they? Whatever connection they do have, they're clinging to the schools. Can't I could, as a teacher, I mean, I had to walk away from teaching for years because I, I felt in my heart that I knew what these kids needed and I couldn't give it to them. I knew what they needed in order to succeed and I could not provide it. And it was heartbreaking. That's, sorry. Probably a whole nother podcast. Probably a whole nother thing. I think at home what we need more than anything is the ability to to be there and that's hard to with families where everyone has to work and to get by.
Speaker 0 01:01 They're going to answer your question. Oh yeah. Okay. You nailed it. Great. Nailed the dismount. There are countless numbers of people suffering from addiction that die prematurely, whether it's due to suicide, overdose, really any other multitude of ways people are dying, literally dying. Why weren't you one of those statistics? Because I had people in my life who saw it
Speaker 4 01:29 Coming and were brave enough to intervene as early as they did because I am lucky enough to have had more than just supporting parents who are willing to let me live with them, drive me places, and I had health insurance that allowed me to go to treatment twice. Also because I was able to be aware enough that what I was doing wasn't working. That's a not everybody gets that
Speaker 0 01:59 Gift. I'm glad that you called it that a gift because that is exactly how I feel about my sobriety. This life that I get to live. This is an ode to me. This isn't something that, yes, he gets that. Yup. Yup. He deserves it. He's, he's done good. No, it's, it's a gift. It truly is. Sarah, since you aren't one of those statistics, since you are still living and breathing on this earth and you are in recovery, what do you want your legacy as a human being to be?
Speaker 4 02:33 And this is something that came out of being in recovery that's definitely been, it's a critical part of who I now just consider. It's who I am now is the concept of leaning in. And that's kind of what I was touching on earlier when I was saying, you know, see what's behind that door. You know, what's down that other dark road. Try something else, try something different and see what happens. What goes along with that concept of leaning in is being vulnerable enough with people that they trust you. I have told a lot of really scary things to strangers. Um, I tell my students, this sounds weird, but things about my life that probably make me look stupid, probably make me look like somebody they don't want to listen to in a classroom, but it ends up allowing us to have a stronger connection. So just really being vulnerable with people to show that you can be that human with me.
Speaker 4 03:26 It's okay to fail. It's okay that you've been places you're not proud of. And then one day you'll be able to talk about being on the other side of those problems because you've talked about them out loud and you leaned in. I really want people to think of me in that I was a person they felt they could connect with to the point where they could be vulnerable at the risk of me looking stupid, which is totally fun. Something that I wasn't able to feel good about until I was in recovery. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on authentic today and getting authentic. You certainly have. Thank you for having me. It's been great. That's it. Just great. Fantastic. What other adjectives? Slap your mama. Good. Hmm. All right. Well, we'll end up
Speaker 5 04:10 Because I don't slap your mama. Good, cause that sounds like a full record.
Speaker 0 04:18 Okay.
Speaker 4 04:19 The only way this ends is us continuing to do movie impressions until we run out of tape. So
Speaker 0 04:25 Yeah. So I just need to pay credit where credit is due. Sarah, thank you so much again for coming on the program today. It really has helped one person. I know it has
Speaker 4 04:37 Because it's helped me. Oh, thank you for having me. It's been joy.
Speaker 0 04:40 If you need help, if you know of someone that needs help, please reach out. Please ask questions. If you feel comfortable, please email me with those questions. With those concerns. The address is authentic,
[email protected] a. U. T, H, E, N, I. C. K, the
[email protected]
Speaker 11 05:08 <inaudible>
Speaker 5 05:11 Always here on authentic, we have to pay credit where credit is due. The musical stylings you heard today, Ceros perks. Billie Eilish, bad guy. Weezer perfect situation. And to send us off blink one 82 feeling this, be good to yourselves. It is ever so important.
Speaker 9 05:42 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 06:05 <inaudible>.
