Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey you. Yeah, you,
Speaker 1 00:00:02 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 heart 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. Follow me on Twitter, using the handle at authentic and my dog Marla on Instagram at DJ Marla dot Jean. During today's episode, you will hear AA or alcoholics anonymous mentioned multiple times. The individual expressing their thoughts and opinions on AA. Do not reflect a as a whole. Don't worry. I checked with the local GSR enjoy
Speaker 0 00:01:10 <inaudible>. Well,
Speaker 1 00:01:47 Welcome to authen.
Speaker 0 00:01:49 <inaudible>.
Speaker 1 00:01:57 My name is Nicholas Thomas Fitzsimmons Vanden Heuvel but most people just call me Nick and with me as always is my dog. Marla.
Speaker 0 00:02:12 I love it. When you call me big paws in the air, if you's a true player, I love it. When you call me a pig to the bunnies, getting money, playing squirrels, like dummies. I love it. When you call me back, you got a bone up in your waist, please don't chew up the place. Cause I see some fellows tonight that should be feeding me, right?
Speaker 1 00:02:38 That's that's enough. Marlin, go back to licking biggies smalls here on authentic. We talk about 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. As for myself, I am in recovery from alcoholism, an alcoholic. I'm also a drug addict. I'm a compulsive gambler. I have an eating disorder. I bipolar disorder. Really the list could go on and on and on. Lucky for you. The show today is not about me. It is about two people. First is my guest. Chris, who will share his experience, strength and hope as it pertains to what he is in recovery from second is the one person whose life Chris is most certainly going to save by giving his testimony today. And without Fitbit, Chris, please, until this set of in any way you see fit,
Speaker 2 00:03:34 Hey, I'm Chris. Thanks for having me on the show. First of all, I'm really excited to be here and it's really excited to have this conversation. No new for awhile. It's been really cool. So thanks for having me. I grew up in Minneapolis. I'm 35 years old, trying to get better and trying to recover.
Speaker 1 00:03:48 Chris, let us get right down to it. Why are you here? Aye.
Speaker 2 00:03:54 I was really nervous about being recorded or going on a show. And I think what you said in your introduction was the most important reason to, uh, show up is maybe someone else would listen and get some benefit out of it or learn something or at least hear someone else's experience. I just heard in a meeting right before I was invited that if you're asked to go on a rocket ship, you don't get to choose what seat you take or whatever you just say yes and do it. And I was like, okay, I'll say yes and do it. I'm really honored to get the invitation and be here.
Speaker 1 00:04:20 The feeling is mutual. Chris, thank you so much for being on the show today. What an honor, what an honor. So thank you, Chris. You are here to talk about your recovery from alcoholism. However, there's usually some stuff, some things, some lifelike life, things that lead up to using alcohol as a soother for what has happened previous to finding that false solution to our problems. What was your childhood like in relation to what was leading up to you? Starting drinking.
Speaker 2 00:04:53 I grew up in a middle class family that was broke is the best way to describe it. I had the upbringing of you should, you should go to college and do well in school. And that those things were around me, but my family was broke all the time. So it was a little strange. We went through foreclosure, a bunch of other issues, moved around a ton. My earliest memory of my mom at home was her being sick with cancer. Six years old. I am at Fairview Southdale hospital wearing a teenage mutant Ninja turtles, Halloween outfit. I liked Donna tallow the most at the time, he was pretty cool visiting my mom who was going into chemotherapy. Anyway, my memories of her are real, but she was sick and struggling and really unhappy. She got better for a little while and then it came back with a vengeance and she ended up passing away from it.
Speaker 2 00:05:36 Through that process. She, I mean, it was really scary. She didn't behave well. And in some ways didn't die. Well there's no, there's no good way to die. She was resentful and angry and paranoid. It was really bad. And so I had this sort of experience being at home with her, not doing well, being sick. My dad being there, our health insurance did not cover the experimental treatments that she wanted at the time. It was part of this HMO. So my dad paid out of pocket when broke, when he ended up in foreclosure, barely making ends meet and stuff like that. Anyway. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. If at any time you see me,
Speaker 1 00:06:08 Like I'm about to speak. You just keep speaking because sometimes I get caught up in self and I'm just like, Oh, I should say something funny here. It's just like, no, you just go ahead and say what you need to say.
Speaker 2 00:06:21 Okay, I'm going to stop tapping this table. Obviously I did want to ask
Speaker 1 00:06:24 Q a question. How were you dealing with your mom's cancer with that abnormal childhood situation? What did that look like for you? Did you have any sort of understanding of what was actually going on?
Speaker 2 00:06:38 He was sick that it would probably kill her. I don't think I had an appreciation at the time. I didn't understand that meant she had a right to be afraid and to be angry at what was happening. She was 43 when she first got sick. So it's not, not that old to be pissed to not know what to do. And I don't think I really understood that. And I still have a hard time understanding that and letting her have the space to deal with things the way she dealt with it. How did you feel about that? I was so mad at her. I don't have the best memories of all of it. I remember her, she would pick me up from school and she was so sick that she shouldn't have been driving because the medication she was on, but she insisted on driving anyway. And she had lost a ton of weight. She was wearing a wig because chemotherapy, you know, whatever. And I remember being so embarrassed when she would pick me up from school. God, this sucks. Why do I have to be sort of attached to this person who's not doing well? I was so angry and frustrated and wanted to, I wanted out, I didn't want to have to deal with that. So I was just so mad at her.
Speaker 1 00:07:34 Did you have any outlets for your anger?
Speaker 2 00:07:37 No. Maybe I should back up. I did, but I didn't know how to use them. What I did was mimicked my dad and what my dad did was not talk about the fact he was going through a lot or that we, it might be difficult for he and I to be doing this. He just sort of tried to keep a semblance of normalcy around what was a pretty out of control situation. And so he was just stoic. He would cook breakfast every day. I was in little league and we would just sort of power through as if everything was okay. And it wasn't, I don't think he knew how to. And I definitely didn't know how to open up the space to actually talk about what was going on and what we were going through. I take that with me to this day in times of crisis or when things are out of control or I feel imbalanced, I pack it all inside and try to put on a strong face. And I'm way more confident cooking someone a meal than I am having a conversation about my feelings or how we're doing that came from that period. For sure.
Speaker 1 00:08:25 Chris, you're not the only one. So many people that go through traumatic situations such as your mom having cancer. I'm sorry. That is a traumatic experience, especially for a small child who can't process that and understand that your brain was still growing and you didn't necessarily have the skills to deal with that. There's a common thread with what I hear people talk about with trauma as a young child, especially people that are chemically dependent or in, from chemical dependency. And that's the thread is that we don't talk about stuff. Nope. We're not going to talk about it. We're going to pretend like everything's normal. Like you said, we're going to stuff it deep inside. We're going to find a place for it. Not go there. We're just going to completely ignore it. We're just going to power through your words. We were just going to power through. How do you wish that was different? What do you think would've been helpful to you? What were you craving at that time
Speaker 2 00:09:22 From your mom, your dad? So my sister has kids. I watch how she raises her children. It's really good. And they talk through everything and it's really cool. And I wished I had that some sort of a place to have a real conversation about what was going on or what I was going through, what mom was going through. Like, it was just kind of an unspoken, dumpster fire disaster going on endlessly. You know, they're just no one really talked about and you just sort of worked around. Um, and I wish I had that and I didn't, I didn't know how to form it. I didn't know how to talk about it with my friends. My dad did make efforts at one time was talking to therapist when I was in middle school, which is cool, but I didn't really know how to use that space. I think, you know, like my family, I just didn't grow up in a family where we talked about those things. I'm sure went through the motions, but I didn't really know how to express myself or my feelings. I wish I did. I wish I was able to have a conversation with my mom and a more real basis than what I was going through.
Speaker 1 00:10:14 It's interesting. That generational thing that so many of us experience, especially are you included in the millennials where where's that cutoff I'm like
Speaker 2 00:10:23 Millennium. That's my understanding of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:10:27 I always think, and I, I just see this, this sweeping generalization that I'm going to make the baby boomer generation. That seems to be kind of the baseline. You don't hear too often having a childhood where we work through things. We talk about things. We use these special set of skills and you see that in your sister and how that is completely different from what you experienced as a child. The beautiful thing, especially with folks that are in recovery, right? They're used to talking about their feelings in order to recover and maintain recovery. We got to talk about our shit. Otherwise it eats us alive and it makes me want to drink. If I'm not dealing with my shit, I'm going to stay stuck there and it's going to continue to cause pain. How would you break that cycle? Do you want kids?
Speaker 2 00:11:18 I don't know. Actually, I haven't had them yet. And haven't, I don't think about that. You know of that. I know of. That's true. Let's play a little hypothetical here. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:11:26 I am your six year old son and mom has cancer and she's in the hospital. How would you explain to me what's going on and how would you talk to me
Speaker 2 00:11:38 For me? How would I talk to you? I would say mom's really scared of what's going on. And it's something she can't has no control over she's around doctors and taking medication during treatment. You can't get, but that's not making her better. And what she's trying doesn't seem to be working for her. That must be really scary for you. I bet you're trying to think through a lot of feelings or anger or frustration and that's okay, what are you going through? And let's talk about it. And that door just wasn't really open when it was opened. I just didn't know how to use it. Cause I didn't have that. I didn't have that skillset to be able to have that dialogue. So I would just ask and not assume that someone bringing up their own frustrations or resentment, you have a right to be mad, angry, upset. And let's talk about that now, because otherwise you're going to draw broader conclusions from that about how the world works, what people are like or what problems are like and how to deal with them. And that's really unhealthy. I think I watched my sister and I watched other people, raised their kids and just asking them where they're at, giving them a lot of space to be at a place that might not be where they want to be at forever and then help them through changing it. Chris,
Speaker 1 00:12:38 It's your life moved along? What was your age when your mom passed?
Speaker 2 00:12:42 So I was 10. I remember her funeral. I remember her dying. I was there. I remember going to the hospital. She had jaundice and was yellow because your liver stops working. So she went from home to the hospital. I remember thinking, you know, this is worse than the other time stuff. Like this had happened where we had sort of Carter out of the house in the middle of the night sometimes because something was going really wrong. So I was there when she died. And I remember, and I was there at the funeral. I remember being really, really resentful that my school friends showed up, which was insane. I just have that memory. So vividly of like, why are you guys here? You shouldn't be here. They should have been there. I just didn't know how to, I didn't know how to use them in a real way support structure. So I saw them as sort of intruding. I remember being so relieved that she was gone and I still struggle with that. It feels terrible. I felt a sense of relief. It was like finally over. Um, and I remember thinking that at the funeral,
Speaker 1 00:13:36 Chris, I'm so honored that you shared that with me. That childhood sounds terrifying. Sounds unstable, scary. Trying to find words to express what you, can't, this anger that resides. I'm sorry. You had to go through that. That's something that a young child should never have to go through, but it's a fact of life. Yeah. These things happen. Yeah. And I'm so glad that you're still sitting here across from me.
Speaker 2 00:14:04 I am too. Now when I think back about it, it happens all the time. People go through horrible things. They shouldn't have to go through at age as they shouldn't have to do that kind of stuff. And I think the biggest, well you said, right, it happens. It's the way it is diseases, disease, or it's so easy to be gaslit by reality. I didn't have any control over what was going on. I felt like how I felt and what I did was not valid. That's not good at all. You have to kind of work through that and realize that like you have a right to be mad at something you can't control and something that's really terrible. Do you remember
Speaker 1 00:14:32 Member the last thing you said to your mom before she passed? I don't. What do you wish you would have said where you're at in your life? The work that you've done, living in this sober body, living in this, this nourished soul, what do you wish you would have said to her?
Speaker 2 00:14:49 I wished I forgave her. I never made it clear to her that, I mean, I wish I just said like it's it's okay. What she went through is scary, terrible people shouldn't have to do that. I would have forgiven her. I treated her poorly sometimes and I yelled at her and I kept her out of my life too. I fought back when I was a kid and I think I would have forgiven her for that. Yeah. She had no control over that. She didn't want that to happen to her. She wanted to be my mom, she couldn't. And that I treated her poorly. That's how people respond to things like this too. And it's okay. And I never had that clarity. I remember just sort of watching her die. I don't know what I said, but I wish I said something better. I'm sure she was really scared. I mean, undoubtedly,
Speaker 1 00:15:26 This prayer that runs through my head when people talk about forgiveness. Yeah. Part of that prayer align in that prayer is to forgive is to be forgiven. If I put that forgiveness out into the world, it comes around back to me and allows me to be forgiven. I can allow myself to forgive myself for my actions, for my words, or lack there up. That's the beautiful thing that is really encouraged in sober living someone that's working a program of spirituality, someone that isn't necessarily working any program, someone that's just trying to stay sober and be a better person trying to show up in a different way. That is, what's so beautiful. It's that work on self that selflessness can be found that forgiveness for others can be found, comes back to me and I can be forgiven.
Speaker 2 00:16:21 Yeah. Where I took that at the time was to forget is to be forgotten. And that was sort of my approach. I didn't, I, what I understood is getting past that was not what you're talking about. It was just move on. That was bad. I absolutely agree. And I see it's still a danger. It's still so easy for me to do that. That exact thing of just like, wow, just forget about it. That was unpleasant plow forward.
Speaker 1 00:16:42 Were there any other traumas that were occurring in your life at that time? Part of it
Speaker 2 00:16:47 Using a loan and doing hard drugs and staying up all night and stuff. Things like how I explored my sexuality or those types of questions were like solved by the internet, which I think is really scary. You know, at the time it was like America online was a thing. There was, I am in chats. And although, you know, that, that was sort of the culture it's worse now. But anyway, I ended up in a really abusive, abusive situation because of that, where someone took advantage of that, of me just not knowing how to in a healthy way, explore those parts of my life. So yeah, I was sexually abused. I blame myself for that. It was sort of through this internet format. I now have a better understanding that this like happens to lots of people and that there's real dangers with teenagers, not having healthy outlet to explore this stuff. And that this is common. And like, what that was, was that was, that was crime. That was this person taking advantage of me. But at the time I kind of blamed myself. That was bad. Do you still blame yourself? No. And I don't, I didn't wrap my mind around that until the second, the second rodeo of recovery for me that like, actually, this was like, I was exploited. There's no such as consent when you're 12, but I honestly, it took me a long time to come to that.
Speaker 3 00:17:56 Chris, thank you so much for sharing that with me. I'm honored. I feel privileged to see into you. My heart is more full because of your testimony today, getting to know you on that level is indescribable. I can't really find the words. So all I'm going to say is thank you.
Speaker 2 00:18:35 Some point Chris started drinking. Yeah. Yeah. So first I spiraled pretty bad. There was a period between my mom dying and me finding drugs and alcohol. Your mom passed when you were 10 years old. Yeah. Yeah. When did you start using substances? I got drunk at my cousin's wedding and I can't remember how old I was, but I was probably 12 or 13. And then beyond that, I really started it and I didn't use a gun until I was 15. What was that experience like that first drunk. Yeah, totally. So I it's so funny too. Cause like I can't tell you the first time I ate chocolate cake. I can't tell you the first time I've done any, you know, I had pizza or anything else like that, but I can, I can tell you about the first time I had tequila at a wedding.
Speaker 2 00:19:16 So from movies and culture, I knew drinking and being profound was something that people did. I guess I remember being at the wedding and crawling behind the bar and stealing probably the cheapest bottle, the worst tequila ever. But I didn't know the difference. I didn't, I don't think I knew what tequila was. I didn't make a choice. I just grabbed the bottle that my hand could get. And I grabbed a friend and this is like a, it's a good cautionary tale for what was coming because I grabbed a friend and went down. We went down to a place next to a Lake to hide and get drunk. And within a few minutes my friend was not into it. And I think felt sick and it was nasty. Tequila's nasty. It's gross. I kept going, why do you think that is when I drank? I got the feeling like I got this, I got this under control.
Speaker 2 00:19:58 I know what to do with life. Things were clear to me it was delusional, but I felt like not confused. Like I knew what to do next. And I remember thinking that way, sitting with my 12 year old friend, trying to drink tequila by like, I remember having clarity, like, Oh, I got this, I got this under control. And that was the first time I felt that way for awhile. I was spinning out in all sorts of ways. At that time in life, basically failing every class. I wasn't doing any homework. I was constantly in trouble stealing things from store. I don't know. I was just, I was just a wreck of a person.
Speaker 3 00:20:29 Do you think that spin-out was a direct result of your mind?
Speaker 2 00:20:34 Mom's passing? I don't know. I wonder what I still be an alcoholic. If my mom hadn't been sick. I don't know. I definitely, I lashed out. I had the conclusion. I remember when my mom died and probably earlier than that, and this comes back to like some of upgrade bringing, like it was like a middle class house that was broke, but I still had with me, the idea is that if you work hard, you get what you deserve. That there's justice and good things happen to good people and bad people haven't, you know, whatever. And it totally didn't match with what was going on. And so I kind of rejected the whole thing. Nothing matters. That's not true. And there's some truth to that. Some of those ideas, aren't real to see that in our world today, that bad things happen to good people all the time where I ran with that initially was nothing matters. Totally be out of control, total isolation. I dumped all of my friends at the time I was on a course to that. I think that was part of it. Some of it was me just acting out, being a teenager, you think? Yeah. Yeah. Being a kid
Speaker 1 00:21:28 Going through changes, puberty those middle school years. Just so fucking awkward.
Speaker 2 00:21:34 Yeah. For me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:21:36 What does your continued use look like? You got drunk for the first time at your cousin's wedding at 12 or 13. What did your continued use look like with drugs and all?
Speaker 2 00:21:46 I liked it. I liked the experience when I was at my, at that wedding. I didn't really know how to get it. Did you get sick by the way? I did. Yeah. My aunt she's Australian, her and her sister made me some terrible baking soda and water, weird English thing that they had learned somewhere that they would like somehow help you remember drinking that, soak up the alcohol. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. That's what they made me that and send me to bed. Did anybody address you about no being intoxicated at the wedding? No. Not your dad. Why do you think that is? So I think they rationalized a bunch of my bad behavior too. And were just like, yeah. Chris is just freaking out being a kid, being a kid. Yeah. They didn't know about the fact that I felt for the first time.
Speaker 2 00:22:25 Like I had things under control for most people to have a beer or get drunk at a wedding as a kid. That's like, they don't find a way to approach life out of that experience, you know, but I did, I was sort of on a hunt to feel better before I found drugs and alcohol. I remember being really excited to get a job because that could get me out of the house in a way I sort of, I did build a social network around my first job. I worked at subway. There's a shocking amount of alcoholics and addicts who started working at subway has been my experience. There's something about it. I had these conclusions about how life should work. I was sort of counter-cultural and rebellious. When I started working at subway, I found people who shared those ideas in a totally unaccountable way.
Speaker 2 00:23:00 Most of them are older and a lot of them had their own issues. At that time you could smoke in the back of the store, in the manager's office. And people regularly did that. I remember stealing Durrell cigarettes out of the ashtray. Yeah. The vest hunt. And I don't know how I lit them, but I wanted to start smoking. That was something adults did when they were stressed out. They smoked. And so I wanted that probably rode my bike home and smoked Durrell's out of the ashtray of the subway for awhile. I don't remember my first drink with them, but it was pretty quick. I remember trying marijuana for the first time at work. I'm sure I got drunk going to parties and going to people's houses after work. I would show up at parties because I couldn't go home after work. Right. Cause if I, if I went home, my dad would know that I should stay at home like a normal 15 year old should do.
Speaker 2 00:23:45 And so I would stay out, make up some weird excuse like, Oh, something terrible happened. I have to stay at the store and use that as an excuse to go out with the people after work got drunk. I remember getting drunk and throwing up on someone's wall. Being really embarrassed about that. Most of the sort of drugs that I did at that time were in the manager's office in the back of the subway, on the clock is not the best setting. And I, and I had these ideas, like I don't want to go too far with this. You know, I think I like weed, but I don't know about the other stuff. I think I tripped at work. Oh, now I like that. I remember doing my first line of cocaine within six months. That's where I was in the back of a subway. And I, I do remember that thinking, this is a really bad idea.
Speaker 1 00:24:24 Yeah. Why did you do it anyway? If you had that thought, this is nothing
Speaker 2 00:24:28 Too smart, but I'm going to do it anyway. Drugs, alcohol using in my mind brought me clarity. Like I had clarity and answers that I didn't have before. And that's the opposite of most people when they do that. But like, it was the more I did, the more clarity I had, I now know that was totally delusional. I didn't at the time. So that became my sort of circuit bounced around from fast food restaurants. I stayed out of the house as much as I could crashed at people's houses and did whatever I could find. It was pretty bad. It got pretty bad. What sort of consequences were you experiencing? My dad ignored it. He didn't know how to deal with it. Yeah. He just, he didn't know what to do. I can remember things like, so there was legal consequences and there was other consequences as well.
Speaker 2 00:25:05 I was pretty sloppy with my drugs and stuff. Like I didn't, I wasn't very good at stashing things or anything. So he would find things like I started doing speed. He would find speed pipes in the house and sort of confront me and I would have some sort of a really bad answer and then just get out of the situation as fast as I could. And I don't think he really knew how to pursue. I'm sure he was really worried. It was just thinking maybe this is like a phase. There were those types of consequences or I'd stay out too late, sneaking in and out of the house. I have vivid memories. I mean probably the most vivid memory of the house we were living in was the route. I could take up the street to get back into the house, into my bedroom, which was in a lower level.
Speaker 2 00:25:43 So I could sort of finagle the window without going through the front door. And that was like a pretty regular routine at like five in the morning, you know, or whatever, trying to like creep up this road. And I knew the windows where my dad would get ready if he looked out then where he would see me. So I had this sort of windy path to get there behind people's shrubs and stuff like that to sneak back into the house. But I think he, I mean, obviously he knew what was going. I just didn't know what to do about it. I ended up with some legal troubles. I got a DWI when I was 16, maybe eight months after I got a driver's license. That was the first real consequence I couldn't get around. I remember that pretty well. I ended up in the Carver County jail, got out the next day and just went right back at it.
Speaker 2 00:26:18 It didn't even phase me. I don't even know how I got the car out of the impound lot. I'm not sure what the legal status of what I was doing, but I started driving again and I got another DWI, maybe four months later, that was worse between the two I had been court ordered to go to treatment. I was exposed to alcoholics anonymous. I flunked out of treatment by some magic. Grace of bureaucracy, me flunking out of treatment. Never got back to my probation officer. And so I somehow got out of probation without violating it. I can't remember if the first DWI they gave me something six months probation failed the treatment, but they didn't tell the PO. And so I got out of it without them knowing that I had failed treatment. So I was off the hook and just went right back at, it went to three treatment centers in between the two.
Speaker 2 00:27:00 Yeah. It was pretty bad. What were your thoughts or your reaction to your exposure to alcoholics anonymous? I thought it was like a networking place for me to be, so I liked it because I met people who were like me. What do you mean people that were like you? I think I knew I was not like normal people that I didn't do drugs and drink like normal people do. I would joke about it like, Oh yeah, I'm an alcoholic. I'm an addict. You know, it was almost like a point of pride or something. It was like an identity almost for me when I was 15 or 16 years old. So I think meeting people who said that was cool. It was mainly people my age. It's a lot of younger people around AA. I don't think I really paid attention to what was, what people were talking about in the rooms are grappled with it.
Speaker 2 00:27:41 And I just sort of saw it as like a networking space, you know, like lots of young people, some of the people around were trying, but they would relapse. And then I would hang out with them would just develop a wider network. I wasn't there for recovery, I think. But I remember feeling like this is cool. I'm around people who are like me. I just didn't use that to get sober. Would it be fair to say you just weren't ready yet? Yeah. Yeah. I think just quit. You weren't ready to stop doing what you were doing. Yeah. So many people that drink and use drugs like we do, which is abnormal. We are abnormal drinkers and drug users. It's not for recreation. We can't take it or leave it alone. We take it and we don't leave it alone. Yeah. What other consequences were you facing physically or emotionally as it got worse?
Speaker 2 00:28:27 I liked to use alone more and more. So that was a thing. There was this bathroom in the near my bedroom and that bathroom was the spot for me. Totally delusional at this point. But that's what I would, I would do so isolated myself more and more. I had friends who would confront me. I would show up at school drunk, get in trouble, kind of get caught with drugs at school, get in trouble. And I had friends that could, would confront me. I would just push them away. I didn't want to think about what they were raising at all. It get out of my way. You don't understand. So I dumped a bunch of my friends doubled down on finding friends that were like, behave like me. That would do the same things. I felt like I was part of a community that understood that sense of normalcy.
Speaker 2 00:29:06 Yeah. Yeah. I finally had kind of a tribe. It was just really destructive. You said emotionally and stuff too. I mean, some of the folks I was around were terrible, terrible people who were bullies kind of con you know, different sort of, you know, it's like not a very honest community. If you're around a bunch of addicts, I guess always. Or do you think they were quote unquote terrible people or do you think they were terrible people because they were using the second? For sure. Absolutely. How do you look back and view yourself? Do you think you were a quote unquote, terrible person back then? I was, but I understand why I was ridiculous what I was doing and trying to do. And of course I started stealing from work, lying about that. Getting in trouble, getting fired, find another terrible, you know, fast food job.
Speaker 2 00:29:51 I don't know, bounce around trying to find these places I get caught. I forged some checks that my dad had that didn't go over very well for me. Luckily that didn't lead to legal consequences. I just did not have a sense that my actions were impacting people in a very clear way. How did your life move along? I got caught again. I got three DWS. Uh, this time I was after 18, I was 19. There was three years between starting and getting in trouble and sort of the final, the final getting in trouble for me that time, I was just turned 19 years old. God IDW. That was, that was like the end. I went downtown to the jail. Did my two days. I remember thinking there's no way to get out of this one. I can't get bailed out tomorrow that there's going to be like jail time this time.
Speaker 2 00:30:33 And it's not just going to be like go to rehab and hopefully you'll figure it out, which is what the other ones were. I had a spiritual experience. Like I was like, alright, I'm done. I don't know what I'm doing. I was a wreck. Didn't have any friends really? I just was done. I remember sort of realizing it in a jail cell thinking I just had to, I had to try something new. What I did was I actually surrendered. I didn't have a plan to get out of this. So I just went with the plan that was other people came up with, which was mainly the court system went to court. They gave me a year in jail. I only had to do 60 days. I did it straight through. I didn't ask my dad to bail me out. I just went for it. So I was at the downtown jail for awhile.
Speaker 2 00:31:13 Then I got through court. I got time served, ended up at the workhouse. After the workhouse, I went to treatment up in a NOCCA. That was cool. And then they said go to a halfway house. So I went to a halfway house in Minneapolis. It was kind of an old world halfway house where they were like, get a job. Do your dishes be accountable? Which was really important for me to be a person. Cause I was terrible when I was a teenager. Just didn't I didn't do any of that. You know, I, I was not a participant in our household in any way whatsoever. And so those things were really amazing. I got a job at a grocery store. I finally saw alcoholics anonymous as a way to become a person. And that was really important. Cause I really didn't know how to do that.
Speaker 2 00:31:48 Do you think that your emotional and mental growth was stunted there? Absolutely. Yeah, for me, I would say even before that I would put it at my mom's death. Like I think I turned 11 when I turned 20 and a halfway house in South Minneapolis. You know what I mean? That was when I actually sort of started feeling and being accountable and being responsible, forming real friendships. It was a real blossoming for me. Absolutely like that. Also with drugs and alcohol, when I was a teenager, stunted it more or depressed that even further, I guess, pushing down things even further, we will be right back. We are going to talk about how Chris got some help. Yeah. Let's get Chris some help. We will be right back.
Speaker 4 00:32:33 <inaudible> <inaudible> we're here in studio three.
Speaker 2 00:34:53 He's drinking too. Welcome back to authentic. We are here with Chris. Chris let's get into some help. When did you first get help that you wanted for your alcoholism? When did you actually want help and receive it? It was after I got in a bunch of trouble, three DWI is 19 years old. I'm in the Hennepin County workhouse for 60 days with a year hanging over my head. I was around people who were in there I could relate to like was sort of party dogs or people, you know? Oh yeah. You know, talk about that kind of stuff. But they were twice my age in their longer and had a whole bunch of wreckage and their, like I remember, I remember thinking don't want to, I don't want that. I don't want that. I keep getting in trouble. I don't know how to stop getting in trouble.
Speaker 2 00:35:42 I remember realizing that it was my fault, which was a big deal when I got in trouble in the past, it was cause I got caught. I did something wrong. The third time around, I had a plausible excuse, like I was going to be okay. The problem wasn't that I was driving around high on cocaine and drunk. That problem was, I ran out of gas. And so they got me on the side of the road and I remember that melting away. And me being like, you know, if I hadn't been passed up, I went and got in trouble. He just ran out of gas. You get gas, put it in your car. And that was kind of crashing. And so I actually surrendered to the best of my ability. I'm going to do whatever they say. I have no idea how to get out of this. I have no plan. Did the workhouse got out immediately got trucked up to NOCCA truck back down to halfway house. After that, then sober houses. After that in South Minneapolis, I was open. Like I look back now and there were, I think there were some weaknesses at the time I was a blank slate, whatever you guys want to do. I'll do.
Speaker 1 00:36:35 That's such an interesting perspective for someone that has gone through that to not resist, to not accept that help, to not believe in that situation that Whoa, my life is super fucked up. I don't want any help though. I can do this by myself. All I need to do is stop drinking and using drugs. That's that's it. That's what the crux of the problem is, is that I'm drinking and using drugs. So if I stop that, I don't need anybody else's help. I can do this. And it's so amazing that you had a complete opposite reaction to your situation. You said you surrendered, you said that I will do what you want me to do. What sort of support were you getting from your dad when all of this was happening?
Speaker 2 00:37:22 So he was really excited and I think he knew that this time around was different. I had been, I had gone through treatments, failed out. I had gone through probation, failed out. You know, I had done that. He had seen that happen, gotten in trouble. And I think he had a sense that this was new and exciting that I wasn't resisting the plans that were being put in front of me, which at that time were not very elaborate. You're going to go to this treatment center to NOCCA, be there, do that. And I, and I was okay. I'll go.
Speaker 1 00:37:48 You think that your dad's perception of you was influenced more by your actions or by the words you spoke
Speaker 2 00:37:57 By my actions? For sure. I didn't have a contingency or an amendment to the process. Okay. Yeah, I'll do this. And I think that was convincing to him quickly. Actually he was supportive
Speaker 1 00:38:08 Quickly. You said you went to a halfway house after you left the workhouse. What was helpful about living in this sober house and what did, what did that situation look like?
Speaker 2 00:38:20 So this, it was like a Renaissance of me becoming, uh, a person that I didn't really figure out. I think when most people in their teenage years sort of learn that they learn that through struggle and making mistakes. I liked to just didn't get it until a little later. Yeah. I got to the halfway house. So the treatment center actually was unique because the treatment center didn't have a communal kitchen. So they would send us down to all the, with like 50 bucks and we'd have to cook at home and then do this stuff. And that was cool. I kind of liked cooking. I learned how to cook. I still like cooking a lot. The halfway house was more of that. You know, it was a 12 step program, but it was a, it was kind of old world in a way where they, they said, you know, if I remember right, it was within 48 hours, you had to have a job interview. This is 2000
Speaker 1 00:38:59 For within two days of being at the sober house, you had to have an interview or you had to have,
Speaker 2 00:39:05 You had to have a long list of applications that didn't turn you down. I mean, you had to, you had to hit the ground running, go get work, find a 40 hour a week job. I remember that being a big deal
Speaker 1 00:39:14 You think would have happened if the approach was softer, where they gave you more time were more passive. I desperately needed some structure
Speaker 2 00:39:25 Thrived in it. And I don't know if I would have had that if I would've had more time just to, I mean, I had a lot to talk about and a lot to say, but if people would have just let me stay there. I sort of knew the ropes of how to talk about AA a little, because I had been in meetings in the past, I've been through treatments and I could sort of put on a show about, in a group session enough to get account enough for me to think I got a counselor off my back, which wasn't actually true. So for them to confront me with like, okay, welcome, go to your job applications. And you're going to take whatever you can get. That's 40 hours a week. I remember it. That was pretty shocking. You know like, Oh, I have to do it.
Speaker 2 00:39:58 Or I don't. And I did. I, I got a job at a grocery store. I made the sandwiches that they no longer make in the stores. They bring them in. But at the, at the time they made them in the story. So I, my job every day was to get to work at six in the morning and make like four or 500 Turkey, tuna roast beef sandwiches and put them out onto that thing. And I remember just pleading with the manager to hire me on, cause I didn't want this. I thought he was harsh man at the halfway house, he was running it to be mad at me. And so I remember sort of negotiating I'll do whatever it takes. I just think I got to get a job. This guy's going to this. Guy's going to get me. I have a criminal record. I'm in a halfway house, full disclosure. I'm trying to get sober at that time. Maybe I had three or
Speaker 1 00:40:38 Four months. The beautiful thing in the amazing thing. The Ron is the, the impressive thing about folks in early sobriety. I was so raw and so honest. It's Hey, I've been sober. I don't even know this person. And they might think I'm a crazy fucking drunk drug addict, but I'm going to tell this person everything. And maybe just maybe if they hear the honesty that's pouring out of me, they'll give me a job. Here's this guy. That's going to be an honest worker. He's had a troubled past. Everybody likes a rebound. Everybody likes a second chance story.
Speaker 2 00:41:17 You brought that up. And it's funny. I think I called my dad when I was first in the halfway house. Me like, man, they want me to, how am I going to do this? They're going to kick me out of here. And then I'm going to go back to jail. Cause I'm on probation. And I got to do whatever they say. And so he told me how to get a job in a real way, which was like, you have to go bother the manager, make that, make it clear you want anyway. So that's what I did. I was sort of hounding down this manager. I got, I found her name from somebody else that worked there and it's sort of like, I remember going back probably three times a day, the first day trying to catch her shift or something. I had to do this personality test where they asked you, I don't think they do them anymore.
Speaker 2 00:41:48 Maybe they still do, but I failed it. I don't remember what I did, but I remember she said, we can't, you know, Chris, you sound like a nice note guy. We want to hire you, but you need to, you need to go do this personality test again. And by the way, they're not looking. They're not, don't, don't be totally honest. Like they ask some question like, is it ever ethical to steal food or something? And I said, yes. And that booted me off the list. And there was sort of database that they have, you know, so rejected me. So I had to go do it again. I remember I remember her saying, you got to try again. So anyway, that's, that's how raw I was that I bombed their test and had to have to tell me to go get the job.
Speaker 1 00:42:21 I love those subtle nuances of people's journeys and recovery, those little stories, ignite something, put a fire under my ass because you've been bucked by this Bronco called addiction. You've been to a few rodeos. How were you helping these guys in your sober house? How were you helping them? Because you had a history because you had surrendered because you had these seeds planted, these skills laying in front of you. How were you helping these other guys that you were living?
Speaker 2 00:42:53 Not as much as I should have. I mean, we had a really strong sense of community and it was cool. Like we would go as a pack to the AA meeting and come home and you could hang out outside of the house and smoke cigarettes. I remember making really good friends with when I was there. I regret not playing more of an active role beyond that with people's recovery.
Speaker 1 00:43:11 What kind of role do you wish you at played?
Speaker 2 00:43:14 I think when you're around a lot of people trying to get sober, you start to see the signs of someone drifting away or having trouble and intervening can be really good and intervening doesn't need to be, don't do this. I've noticed this change in behavior. And I don't think I really knew how to do that. And so I would just watch people drift away sometimes. And then they'd go back out. The halfway house was like, you're gone. They would boot you. And I remember thinking like, man, I kind of saw that coming. And I wonder if I could have done anything about it. And I didn't really know how I think that's like, this is part of the childhood stuff is I didn't really know how to intervene when you see warning signs or patterns and behavior that are different, which are really apparent to other people, not to yourself. Always. And I saw those and I didn't, I didn't dig in and fight for people. I think as much as I should have. And of course it's their life. They make their own choices, you know,
Speaker 1 00:43:57 Watched it what you said right there just saved a life. Someone listening to your episode, that's in a halfway house that doesn't reach out to. People sees the same things that you have seen where somebody is struggling and they don't have the courage. They don't find the opportunity to reach out to this person and say, Hey, your demeanor has changed. You seem more distant. You've been isolating. Like, do you want to go do something? Or is everything okay? You just saved a life by saying that because it gives somebody that just that little push in the right direction. That's what didn't do and wishes he had done. Yeah. So maybe just maybe I'll do that.
Speaker 2 00:44:36 I hope so. And, and I know, so I was afraid that because I didn't fully understand what was going on with somebody else. It was like their business and I wasn't courageous enough. Hey, I've just noticed these things. You tell me what's going on. I didn't know how to do that. So I thought it was imposing.
Speaker 1 00:44:50 You got sober in 2004. Yeah. How long did you
Speaker 2 00:44:55 Stay sober? So I was sober over nine years and a lot of good things happened in my life. I, I, I was in the 12 steps. I did AA. I did the steps. I prayed with a guy holding hands. He was like really old school world. So I was like, you did the third step prayer where you ask your higher power to take over. I did it in his basement, holding hands with him. It was wild. And then you're like read the book. You know, here it is go. I kept that job for a long time, which was a huge victory. I solved a lot of problems.
Speaker 1 00:45:22 What was that such a big victory to keep that job
Speaker 2 00:45:26 Well, just be committed to something and be consistent. Follow through with things, show up every day, show up at six 30. I remember walking to work. It was, I got a coffee at the SuperAmerica on Lake and Bryant. There used to be a gas station there. Now to condo, I get a coffee, then I'd walk to work. I was sort of late. I'd burned my hand every day. Get in there. I mean, it was that type of structure was crucial for me. Those little things were essential. I stayed there. I stayed the neighborhood. Eventually got tired of working at the grocery store and went to school. Did really well for the, I did a homework assignment for the first time in a decade. I made it out of high school, but it barely counted. Honestly. I think I just got a diploma for them just to like, let me go.
Speaker 2 00:46:05 So I went to MCTC, I had tons of remedial classes that was embarrassing. Like I was, I wasn't even in algebra, like I was in like basic L you know, like was so bad, you know, that I, you know, and I had to pay for it. I paid cash solve for X one X equals two. No idea. I had no idea. And I wrote the, I mean, it was so cool. I learned a ton being, and it was because I was sober and because I was making an effort and I just didn't learn how to do things. I couldn't learn how to write a paper and learned what a period. Where do you use a comma? I didn't get any of that.
Speaker 1 00:46:38 Did you develop a community, a support system while you were in school with your classmates?
Speaker 2 00:46:44 It's not as much as I should have. I developed a community, but I wish it was deeper. And, and I regret that I'm not in touch with my classmates who are there, even though I loved them at the time. And it was so fun and MCTC is such a beautiful place. It was like the first time I had really in a, in a meaningful way being exposed to, I was just infatuated with the place like this is the coolest place I've ever been. You know, that there's, there's different people with different backgrounds. We're all trying to get through this English class or whatever it was. Anyway, I didn't develop the best community I should have. And I regret that still. There's a pattern with you, Chris, you should have a lot. I know now I would do it differently.
Speaker 1 00:47:19 Someone once told me don't should on yourself.
Speaker 2 00:47:22 Yeah. That's real because
Speaker 1 00:47:24 Was shitting on yourself in my experience, shames it's self shaming. And the way that I've repackaged that is by sharing my experience saying, I didn't have those skills back then, but this, this I can help you with because I now have this clear knowledge of myself and how I wanted to show up. Here's how I wanted to show up. Here's some suggestions. And that's why you went through that. That's why you went through that. That's why you're shooting on yourself because you're meant to help someone. So someone doesn't have to go that same way. Someone doesn't have to follow the same path that you followed, which you wish was different. You would have. I wish I would've done this differently. And instead of that negativity, that negative connotation to that statement, we can flip it on its ass and say, I've been through that, try this. I really wish I would have tried this. And I didn't maybe
Speaker 2 00:48:23 That'll work for you. That reframing has been so helpful for me. I stayed sober for nine years. Did and became a person. I, I remember when I was nine days, I don't remember when I was nine, nine hours sober. I was shit faced in detox. Yeah. It's another story for another day when I had nine days of sobriety,
Speaker 1 00:48:45 If I looked at you and you said, I have nine years of sobriety, I would have been terrified. How the hell did he do that? By the same token, I would look at you. And if you shared what you've shared with me today, about how you've done it, how you've stayed sober, what has transpired these promises of a program that tell you, if you do this thing, if you take action, your life will get better. Especially when one alcoholic, one addict shares that with another one, because we can resonate with each other because we share the same story, right? We, we share that common peril when you share that. That gives me the hope that if he can do it, I can do it too. I'm someone that's nine days sober. And I want to know how you've done it. How have you stayed nine years? So
Speaker 2 00:49:40 I want to do that too. I did whatever people said. I surrendered. You have a suggestion from people who are around AA or people who've gotten better. I had my experience and we're doing better things. Just like, do it, just do it through the steps. I read the book and the promises worked. The big advice I would give is that I didn't know how to be of service to other alcoholics in a, in a real way. And I had some, I got, I made it through the steps and tried to sponsor people. And I think I over, I made it too formal. I think, you know, like, Oh, this person didn't want to go through the book with me. And I tried it like three or four times and sort of gave up on the whole idea of it. And I didn't realize that there's so many small things you can do, even when you have nine days, like when you have nine days even sharing your story, keeps people sober.
Speaker 2 00:50:20 When that happens in the rooms, I'm in that's, those are the best shares, you know? Cause it's like, Oh yeah, I remember that. And it's not just what people say. It's how they are when they first in. And I remember being that way. I just remember being shaky and feeling weird and awkward. And even, even just that is a contribution to the meeting for me. So I don't know that that'd be my advice, you know, to, I over-thought that. And just thought like sponsorship was like kind of therapy, you know, like I had to be some sort of Jedi master and have really insightful things and people rejected it. What is sponsorship? Well now I think I have a broader definition of it. To me. It's about, we all have this shared experience, even though we all have really different lives, but there's like a, there's an essence of the experience. That's really similar that we can relate to each other, that that's the key to helping other people stay sober and also helping yourself stay sober. The other side of it is like, it's not just sharing experience like, like you were saying earlier, thankfully, that experience has been generalized out into a set of steps and a book or multiple books. You don't need to just bang your head against the wall on every strange corner because other people have gone through that and they have some tools you can use.
Speaker 1 00:51:24 Speaking of tools, beyond the 12 steps. So many people that are in recovery or are thinking about getting sober or clean mental health issues need to be addressed in order for this to be an all encompassing, honest sort of submission. This recovery process requires me to be honest about everything. And that includes my mental health. For me. It was my bipolar have these manic episodes followed by extreme depression. How did you address your mental health in sobriety?
Speaker 2 00:52:00 I'm still trying to address that. I have a fear of sort of, it's not that I don't believe in it or don't see. What do you mean? Don't, don't believe in what I am hesitant about doctors and medicine. Why do you think that is? It's from my child? I just like don't I don't like hospitals and I don't like pills. I remember I have a memory of my mother is the Monday through Friday pill box thing. She had an extra large one because of the amount of stuff that she was trying to do to keep her body going. You know that I don't like any of it.
Speaker 1 00:52:30 Do you think that maybe if you go to a hospital, if you visit with nurses and doctors, you could somehow transform your relationship with medicine. Yeah. Going in, and instead of having that resentment, that fear of that past experience, maybe something else needs to happen where you just have an honest, heartfelt conversation with a nurse, get to know them and change that perspective. Pull the trigger and go to the doctor, go talk to a psychiatrist. And just be honest about where you're at. I don't like being here. I don't like hospitals because of my childhood and my mom having cancer and my relationship with hospitals. Can you help me?
Speaker 2 00:53:19 That is, that's what I need to do.
Speaker 1 00:53:21 I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just suggesting, because that's happened for me. I was terrified going to the dentist, going to the hospital because I always thought not only was there something wrong with me mentally, emotionally, physically, but I didn't want anybody to verify that. That's what I was so afraid of. My worst fears coming to fruition, which rarely happened sometimes it did, but it usually didn't catastrophizing in my head. When I developed relationships with nurses that changed my whole perspective on the whole medical community, whether it's dentists, medical, doctor, psychiatrist, anything like that. And it's all really due to two people. First is my former girlfriend who saved my life. She could have broken up with me so many times and she said, Nick, this is after I got sober. She said, Nick, I wanted to break up with you so many times, but I knew if I did, you were going to die.
Speaker 1 00:54:20 The last couple years of our relationship, she was going to nursing school and I was drinking myself to death, using drugs, using alcohol to end it, it was that slow suicide. And she stayed with me and I attribute so much of that support from her so much love for me. So much compassion for me, even though it wasn't overtly expressed, that was directly related to her advocating for patients, her work as a nurse, her personality, thriving in that realm. Nurses saved my life on multiple occasions. My first sponsor, who I've gotten back in contact with, and now he's my sponsor. Again, he's a PACU nurse. Every time I go to the doctor, I develop relationships with the nurses. That's my, that's my purpose. One of my purposes, one of my per pie, if you will, in life, is to develop those relationships. Long story short, maybe something that you could do to, yeah, I agree. You stayed sober for nine years and then you relapsed. I went back out, you went back out. Why after nine years, what happened? What transpired, what led up to that relapse?
Speaker 2 00:55:37 Part of the nine years was me making really big gains about my understanding of life, about my understanding of the world, about what I wanted to do in it kind of deeply held belief that like the only constant in history has changed. That's the only thing you can count on, you know, as things change and evolve and, and that people can be a part of that. It's not just change for change's sake. It's changed in a direction and we can, we can have a role there. And I developed, you know, I still believe that where I took that at the time was to apply that to my own alcoholism. I can't be the same person I was when I was hiding in my downstairs bathroom, doing drugs. You know, I'm a different, I'm different, everything's different that didn't lead me to using that idea crept in and was real.
Speaker 2 00:56:17 I relapsed, I didn't see it coming. And I relapsed at like a high moment. I was on vacation in another country. It was the first time, the second time I'd ever left the country citing cool place. Part of where I was, was at like this festival. And I was pretty infatuated with the whole thing. What is everyone else doing at the festival? And how do I participate in this festivals? I should have some beer. So I did. And it was not like the first time I drank, I ended up in a jail in Belgium that night. You know what I mean? It wasn't like, bam, here I am. You know, right back to where, I mean, the truth is, it was, it was different than when I was 19. The form of my addiction was different, but the essence of it ended up being the same, but it wasn't, it was different.
Speaker 2 00:57:00 I didn't, I didn't just go straight back to hard drugs hiding in a bathroom, but I had a great time got that feeling back of, I got this, I know what to do. I have control that this is, this is making me better, stronger, more thoughtful, sharper of a person. I had a relatively fun night, my original justification and my partner who knew I had been sober nine years and didn't understand how dangerous it was for me to drink. And it was like, Oh yeah, this is just a one off thing. I had a great night. I wanted to make it better. And the original thing was, this is like once every five years, I'm when I'm in a really special situation, I'll do it. And I peeled those rules back as I just started using more and more and more. And so it became, I only drink at parties that didn't work because to be social at a party and drink the way I wanted to drink, there's a contradiction there.
Speaker 2 00:57:48 So I started doing things like I would go to a party where there was social drinking, like a kegger where there's a nice cab and it wasn't like a kegger. When I was 19, it was a kegger like adult kegger, where there is a keg of beer and people are actually being people around the beer. I had some pressure to be a part of that. So I would do things like I would fill up a glass of beer or two for a fake person who I was going to give a beer to across the yard and slammed down the one and then responsibly drank the other one that was in my hand and do ridiculous things like that. And slowly, I just peeled away all those rules until I was back in a place of drinking alone, terrified in a lot of trouble. And so, yeah, I, I, it was a slow March.
Speaker 2 00:58:25 I took it. Yeah. A couple of years for me to fully get back to a similar place than where I was the first time around. And thank God, it wasn't the same legally as the first time. I didn't, it could have been a lot worse. Where were you at when you came back to recovery? Why'd you come back? Where were you? Okay, so there's kind of two parts of it. One was, I was probably drinking heavily every other day at that time was very good at hiding beer. So, so every other night I went to bed near blackout drunk and I woke up feeling terrible. And then there were these terrible, anyway, I had, it's like almost as haunting, like the Raven and the heart in the floor type thing for me, I started my face would get all puffy, puffy eyes. I remember hating that, but that was, I just vividly remember that amongst other things that were starting to happen.
Speaker 2 00:59:10 And so I was blackout drunk every other night. I would use the other day to recover. I sort of have a half day of recovering and then sort of try to do some work and then go to bed early. Then there would be these windows where I would go all out. And that was really scary. And then there were these instances of full blackout doing something really dangerous. But, but I, but it wasn't a consistent thing. It's like a weekly thing, which I could accept. You know, there were some really big warning signs. Like I went on a trip and
Speaker 1 00:59:39 No longer think that you were an alcohol.
Speaker 2 00:59:42 No, I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew at a certain point along that road, I was wrong. I hadn't changed.
Speaker 1 00:59:49 No, I know. I know. I knew. I knew. I knew yet you did it anyway.
Speaker 2 00:59:55 Wow. I didn't know how to stop. And I was back to the place where I knew on one level I had nine years and nine days was I couldn't conceive it anymore. It's like, I'm gonna drink again.
Speaker 1 01:00:05 There's that idea there. That it's possible though.
Speaker 2 01:00:09 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:00:12 Do you think in part that that knowledge about yourself played a role in saving your life? Absolutely. That knowledge that there's a community. There there's people that understand me. There's people that will welcome me back with open arms, no matter what I've done. As long as I have the desire to be a sober person, I am welcomed back with open arms. We don't shoot our wounded. We have that spiritual, mental, physical, emotional sickness, a disease. It doesn't matter what I call it. It's a thing. And it's a real thing. It exists. It's a fact. Addiction is real.
Speaker 2 01:00:49 It's real. And it's not just about you. As everyone says this, you know, it's not, it's not just about, it's not just about using, right? Like part of why it was so hard was as I made these concessions, I'm not going to drink alone. And then I'm drunk alone. I'm not going to do this. And then I did this as, as that happened, the way I responded to it was to peel away all of the sort of pressures that were on me that were keeping me sober or keeping me in check to some, I would just peel them away, appeal them away. I mean, I think that's part of the addiction is it's like, it's not just you, but you create your own environment for that addiction to flourish. And I was really good at that. You know, I was flaky if people wanted to meet me somewhere, I would never commit to that.
Speaker 2 01:01:29 I couldn't, I didn't want to sign up for something because I didn't know if that would be the night where I would have an opportunity to get full bore, blackout, crazy drunk, you know, or whatever. I started not hanging out with friends. If I did, it was sort of spontaneous. I would, I was pre-gaming before and afterwards my partner and I were fighting, I wasn't honest with my anyone around me. And so I pushed them away when people did call me out, that was, I cut them off. And I created a little environment for me.
Speaker 1 01:01:57 You were right back where you were. I mean, the essence justice, the in a different location. Yeah. Just in a different geographical location. You were right back where you were 10, 12 years before.
Speaker 2 01:02:10 There's that saying of like, you end up where you started, but no, the place for the, for the first time, you know, and that was kind of it like, it was like it different, right? Like
Speaker 5 01:02:20 I, I was there and it was different at the same time, but it was also the parts of it that were really the same. My dad, who's a substance abuse, professional, a therapist, and saves lives on a daily basis doing what he does. He always tells his patients and he tells me, he says, Nick sobriety, working a program, finding your spirituality, staying sober, doing the work. It's the hardest work you will ever do. It's simple, but it's not easy. It's the hardest work you're ever going to have to do. And it's the most rewarding thing you will ever do. The best thing that you will ever do is getting sober, staying sober and finding a purpose. We're going to take a little break. When we come back, we are going to talk about my favorite four letter word. <inaudible> hope we'll be right back. <inaudible> welcome.
Speaker 2 01:05:40 Hey, Chris is still here. We haven't scared them away. Yay, Chris. Thank you so much, Chris, for sharing today, your honesty. Transparency is invaluable to me, to everyone. That's going to hear this truly beautiful. So thank you. Let's talk about my favorite four letter word. Hope Chris, what are you doing to further and nourish your sobriety? After the relapse I wandered in, I knew where to go save my life made things it reduced harm. For sure to know that I could just go find an AA meeting. I know, I know where to, I know where to wander in. I, I did that. I remember being really annoyed that there, I had missed the morning meetings on the Saturday and, uh, had to wait until five. So I wandered into a meeting in Northeast, Minneapolis had five, but had a way to hold six hours or something to be able to do that first time coming back after nine years and then going back out, I viewed AA and the program of alcoholics anonymous as a tool for me to get what I wanted.
Speaker 2 01:06:40 I think that's kind of what, how I was approaching it. Like I can finally win, you know, I'm losing, I'm unhappy. Everyone's mad at me. What did you really want? I think I wanted to stop getting in trouble. I wanted to stop being in pain. I wanted to stop feeling terrible. I wanted to stop being regretful of what I was, what I had done. Like I thought I had helped me with that and I didn't want to go much further than that. So I thought AA was like a tool to finally get my way. What would you suggest to someone that doesn't feel AAS for them? Because that's not the only way to stay sober, to be happy to help others to maintain a good life. Yeah. A fulfilling life. What would you say to someone that AA is not for me? What do I do?
Speaker 2 01:07:24 I think that the point of AA is to, is to be searching and working towards getting better and being of service. I, that, to me, that's the idea of it. And I think whatever path people choose to do that, the important thing is how you're doing that. And if you try something and it doesn't work, try something else just don't stop trying something to me is the key thing. And I think that's real. I have moments to arrive. I have doubts about parts of the program. I have doubts, you know, and I, I have that. And what I, what I hope is that if I find something better, that I'm courageous enough to do that then, and do it as energetically and actively as I need to. And don't just use it as an excuse to go back to my plan, because I really don't have a great idea of how to get out of the hole that I dig. So that's what I would say and energetic and active try new things. Chris, you are in recovery from a great many things, just like every
Speaker 3 01:08:16 One else, because you are still living and breathing, which means to some degree in all your experiences, all your traumas, you are in recovery, whether you like it or not. What does your recovery look like now in regard to losing your mom?
Speaker 2 01:08:32 From that experience? I have a deep feeling. I have a fear that commitment to other people is bad because they'll fail you. That it's vivid in the way that I interact with people or the way that I try and have a hard time forming friendships or forming a meaningful relationship with my partner, my family, I carry that with me. And so for me, it is recovering from that is being present for people showing up at a friend's birthday party and actually engaging with them for trying to not just talk to my friends or talk to my partner, talk to my family, but, uh, consciously open up the space to form a real relationship with them and be present in that. That's a terrifying thing. I really don't like it, but I know I need to,
Speaker 3 01:09:15 Do you want to say to your mom right now, what do you want to tell her?
Speaker 2 01:09:22 I don't know. I've never thought about that. I guess I would tell her that what happened is okay, that I'm still a member of a family and that I'm still loved. That's what she wanted and couldn't do it or couldn't do it very well, but she tried her best. And I think telling her that like, like it's all good. I have that. That'd be a big thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 01:09:39 For her to hear. Do you mind if we try an exercise?
Speaker 2 01:09:42 Yeah. Or I don't mind. Sorry. I,
Speaker 3 01:09:44 They have somehow been transformed into your mom in this human body. I'm no longer Nick. I am your mom. What's your mom's name? Gracie. Gracie. Gracie's here looking into your eyes, Chris, what do you want to say to me?
Speaker 2 01:10:03 I would say that, what do I want to say? I've looked right into your eyes and do it. Um, yeah, you gotta look at me. Yeah. You're kind of out of control, said some stuff and did some stuff that I I think was bad and I understand why, but I think it was bad. And I responded poorly to. I want you to know that I do have people around me who can support me. And I found that I have been able to find that community, find that family and find, feel loved and valued, which I believe you were trying to do. Even though you were sick.
Speaker 3 01:10:34 Thank you, Chris. Yeah. What does your recovery look like in regards to your sexual assault?
Speaker 2 01:10:42 I don't know yet. Uh, that's been new. It was part of working the steps of alcoholics anonymous. That one of the steps is you make a list of resentments and things that happened the wreckage of the past. The first time around, I didn't bring that up cause they can. I blame myself. I did blame myself. So the second time around it did,
Speaker 3 01:11:00 Would you say to someone that has been sexually assaulted that is afraid to bring it up, that hasn't brought it up because they are fearful, embarrassed, shamed. What would you say to that person
Speaker 2 01:11:11 That you didn't do anything wrong? You're not alone. Unfortunately this happens way, way too often. And it's, it's really horrible and terrible that it's important to be able to share that and connect with other people. And I think that would be part of recovering, but it's still pretty new and pretty fresh and raw. And just to get to the idea that that was a wrong, I didn't do. I didn't do anything wrong. A really terrible thing that happened that that took years. And it took a program, some variety to get there for me. Like, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do with it. I remembered and I had a sense that it wasn't great, but I didn't know where to put that or how to even approach it on my own.
Speaker 3 01:11:47 Who do you suggest that person talk to about their trauma? What do you think would've been helpful for you? Who do you think would have been helpful for you to trust? To tell?
Speaker 2 01:11:59 I mean, I should have told my dad that was the deficit GoTo point at that time. I didn't know what I was doing. I was young just like telling my dad that this happened and I think he could have helped a ton. And I just didn't. So he didn't know how to help just telling anyone can be the first step I think is really key. Someone you're comfortable with and then figuring out what you want to do with it, which I still don't have the best answer for that part of it. But I'm trying,
Speaker 3 01:12:23 Do you feel now that you're talking about that trip?
Speaker 2 01:12:28 Yeah. So even on this podcast, I'm on the show. I didn't think I was going to bring it up when I first showed up. Cause it's it's, I haven't even been fully clear with folks who are close to me about it. I think every time you are willing to share your experience, it stops being a weakness and can become a strength. Then you feel just more comfortable, more comfortable and clear, you know, it's like the world doesn't stop turning everything. Doesn't fall apart. I think that's what I think about sometimes when I think about, if I talk to people about it, like my world we're literally collapsed or I'll light on fire or something, you know, I have these ridiculous fears about it. And so just uttering the words or saying it, or just being honest takes that away because the world doesn't stop turning. I don't light it on fire and it's okay. And it is okay. Why did you tell me, I don't think I'm part of the solution to something like that. If I don't tell that story and I think I have a hard time figuring out how and where to tell it, and that's still really difficult for me. It doesn't seem to be helpful to not either. So I'll do it in a clumsy way, you know, but that's okay.
Speaker 3 01:13:30 That is okay. Yeah. I want to say thank you again for sharing that with me. Whether or not that makes it to the release version of this podcast episode. Just you sharing that with me. Thank you.
Speaker 2 01:13:47 What I can say, what I can you're welcome. And thanks for creating the space to do that. Cause if it had I not been consciously trying to get better and had I not been around people who are also trying to get better, I don't have the room to take a risk or to do something like that. Certainly when I was drinking, I didn't create any space for that. It made things worse. I remember just the first time I told someone about it, I was, I was doing my fourth step and I said, be and honest. So I did it and I wrote it down and I almost, it was like a apostrophe on the rest of it. Oh, by the way, this happened too. You know, I think that the time the person I was working on that with of like doing a real inventory of what had happened in my life was like, that sounds really important. I was like, yeah, it's probably really important, but like that's, as far as I want to go, that was a big step. Just being like this occurred was terrifying. And then how to think about it and how to talk about it and how to get better from it is you can't get to that. If you don't just say it and no one knows what's going on with you.
Speaker 3 01:14:40 Hmm. There are so many people that find their only way out, their only way to relieve their pain from traumas, active addiction, loss, grief, those people unfortunately think that the only way to end that pain to solve that is to end their life. Why didn't you,
Speaker 2 01:15:05 There's this part in the AA big book where they talk about people, people committing suicide and that the person being not brave enough or something to follow that route. And they went to get drunk. I think some of it was that I did not value my life when I was using. And I did a lot of stupid things and bad things happened to me and I did bad things. And if it was sort of part of the circumstances of actively using, I could sort of write it off as like, wow, that's just a sort of by chance. So I did many things that were put my life in danger and I justified those things by saying like, this just kind of comes with the territory of being blackout drunk and almost falling asleep on a railroad tracks or doing things like that. I don't know. And how I never thank God that that didn't happen. And I had friends sometimes who, even though I was drinking with them, pull me up and bring me home or do that type of, I mean, I was a mess. I think, I don't know. Yeah. I guess that's what I have as a man
Speaker 3 01:16:01 Amber's of alcoholics anonymous, which I would like to reiterate that the only requirement to be a member of alcoholics anonymous is an honest desire to stop drinking. Part of a large part, a core part of 12 step programs is developing spirituality and that seeking, seeking spirituality. And in the book, they talk about this thing called a higher power that they choose to call God, you can call it whatever you want, but they also mentioned the term higher power. What does your spirituality consist of? What does your higher power look like? Does it have a name? What is your spirituality look like?
Speaker 2 01:16:46 That was the biggest barrier for me coming back, I have to confront this or think about it. And more importantly, not think about it, figure out how this is going to help me stay sober. Your higher power can be one thing. The other thing, just different things to all sorts of people, they call it different things, but it has to sort of, it has to sort of function a certain way. It has to be a tool to help you be of service, to get better, to clear away the bad stuff that happened in the past and to stopped creating bad things. So you can Tony to clear it away. As often, you know, I was really, really resistant to it. Some of it was my mom, uh, and religion and I, it wasn't like I was mad at religion itself. As much as I was mad at the way she grasped for something that I thought wasn't real.
Speaker 2 01:17:26 This is crap. You know, like she, my mom was a Catholic and she, she, she had vials of Holy water and shrouds of cloth that came from someone's Tunica, you know, all this stuff that was going to help her. I just thought it was crap. There's nothing that's going to help you. Some of it's lumping it in with that. Like that's a weakness. And some of it is, I just have a hard time with it. There's this part in the book where they talk about like having ever looked up at a sparkling night sky and wondered who made this? I mean, of course I wonder who made this, but I also wonder like, isn't twinkling, night's die. Nice enough. You know, like, do you need, do you need more? Does it need, does it need to be created? And does the thing that created it, think about me on a daily basis and worry about whether or not I'm being a good person. Those are real barriers for me. I still am not sure about that. Part of it is my higher power, like a conscious thing.
Speaker 3 01:18:13 Do you have a chosen name for your higher power?
Speaker 2 01:18:16 I don't, sometimes it's a joke I have is I called the committee, which is like, yeah, I can run it by the committee. You know, like I'm thinking about doing something really. Usually I have some plan that's not very good to deal with something or to get myself out of some scrape that I'm in and my plan is not that great. And I kind of know it's not that great, like not a great plan, so I can run it by the committee and run this by the committee. Talk to someone in a, or I'll talk to eight people who I trust and my sister or something like that through some sort of a process of me accepting that I don't have a great plan for this thing that's happening or my life generally
Speaker 3 01:18:52 Acceptance of the plan that you run by the committee and see what they, what they recommend. What are their official recommendations for your scrapes? Oh man. Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:19:04 Yeah. Usually it's like, I should, I should be honest. I should not act out of a place of fear that the world's not about me.
Speaker 3 01:19:13 Right. Well now, now that you're in that place where you have that, you've, you're seeking that and you're beginning to nourish that feed that committee so that they can be strong to help you. So you have something to rely on something to lean on this ambiguous thing that cannot be explained or tries to be explained, but can never know because you have developed that spirituality. Do you still believe, do you still think that your mom is weak because of her reliance upon her Catholicism? No. Why not?
Speaker 2 01:20:06 I mean, I know what it's like to be in such a desperate place that I had no idea what to do. And, and I, I was, I was gonna try anything to get better and that's still sort of how I operate. Like I'm willing to try something cause I don't really have a great idea of how to do stuff, how to, how to get better, how to make things okay. Or how to feel. Okay. And for her to, if, when I think about it that way, that it wasn't like sort of snake oil, you know, like this Holy water that she had or something. When I think of it as like this was a, this was a form of her looking for help. And you know, I'm not to criticize the, that form of it. You know, that much, even though if I have my doubts, whether or not the Holy water helped her, um, for her, it was part of reaching out and it was part of trying to get better and nothing was working and like bless her soul for trying every tool. Like what's the alternative, right? That I feel like she shouldn't have tried that tool, um, that doesn't work or it doesn't sit right with me. So good. Um, good for her for doing it. I don't think it was weak. Chris, are you afraid to die? No. Why?
Speaker 2 01:21:26 I mean, I don't want to die. I'm not afraid to die. I don't believe in the afterlife. I believe that death is death. That's like, you're, I'm not gonna worry about it afterwards. It's just what it is. I have my time here and when I die that that time's over and I kind of understand them one level, like I, I have energy and I made up of atoms and they go places and I get that. But like the, the collection of particles and energy that is functioning right now, which I call Chris, you know, um, that doesn't exist anymore. And I'm okay with that. Or I'm more maybe, maybe the right way to say it is. I'm more okay with that than the idea that like that goes on forever. You know, it is a bit unsettling to think that it's going to be forever. Yeah. Forever is a terrifying word forever, forever.
Speaker 6 01:22:24 Hmm.
Speaker 2 01:22:27 But I, I, I don't know. I mean, it, it, to me, the benefit of the, what I get out of that though, and not being afraid or worrying about it that much, it's like, then it's, it's, it's all in the now you just have to do the best you can with every single thing. There's no second chance. There's no, it's true. You can get you walk out the door and get hit by a bus, you know? And so you just have to squeeze everything out of what's here now. And what's, what's what, what who's in front of you and the people who are around you and your, your mission and purpose. And, and that is the, I mean, I know other, I know people have both too, you know, and that, and that they, they believe in both, but for me it sort of puts an urgency on it. Um,
Speaker 3 01:23:10 So what you're trying to say is, do you suggest that people should be more like Garth from Wayne's world?
Speaker 2 01:23:21 Yeah. Yeah. And if there is a higher power, that's what I, that's what I imagine it wants you to do. What else would I want you to do? You know, not do that. And I, I just, I, you know, and I, and I, and it's a big part of a, to, to the higher power has a big part. And I'm, uh, I can, I can say, like, I, you know, for me the process of finding something that worked because I was on the spectrum of religious beliefs, I would, or ideas of spirituality on the spectrum of ideas of spirituality. I would put myself closer to kind of like the atheist camp. Like it's like, I don't know, you know, I don't, I don't see it. I, one of the, one of the big tools I used, which I want to raise here, just cause it's like, I think a lot of people use it to, to avoid the question of a higher power. It's like, God, either is all powerful and all knowing where God is all good, but they can't. But, but it can't be both. And I took that to disprove all notions of higher power. Like, yeah. That's, that's a, that's a big contradiction more recently I've become, okay. I've, I've, I've understood the idea that contradictions are actually the essence of life and that that's okay. You know, that that's not an actual contradiction. Like that's just, that is just both things are true equally.
Speaker 3 01:24:44 Life's a fucking paradox, man. Yeah.
Speaker 2 01:24:47 Yeah. And I leaned into that and it gets me out of yeah.
Speaker 3 01:24:50 Is that you lean into it. Acceptance helps. Keep me sober today. Helps keep me in recovery helps keep me alive as a human being today. Doesn't matter if you're an alcoholic or drug addict or you've been through sexual, uh, sexual assault or any sort of trauma you're going through life and you're in recovery and that's what matters. You are not alone. Yeah. Chris, what do you want your legacy as a human being to be? I know you don't believe in this afterlife idea that things go on forever. You have more of a scientific view of the end of life when you are gone. What do you want your legacy as a human being, to be with the people that are still alive in recovery on earth?
Speaker 2 01:25:51 Yeah. I mean, I want that, I want people to feel like I did my part and I want to be able to feel like that too. What's your part? So that, that's a great question. Um, I don't know fully, I have a sense of it though. And I can use my higher power for that. I don't, I don't know the grand vision. I have a hard time with ideas like good and evil
Speaker 3 01:26:12 Or like my part is to be good against you. I don't know,
Speaker 2 01:26:15 Like that's, I have a hard time with it, you know, but I have a sense of what it means to do my job, to, to play my role in life in a way that doesn't cause more problems that doesn't make things worse. And I try to walk the opposite direction from that. And like what, what does it look like for me to be a good family member or to
Speaker 3 01:26:35 Be a good coworker,
Speaker 2 01:26:37 Which I don't know how to do often I have to ask for help. And it, the, the, the, this, the, for me, the more specific I can make my higher power and the smaller I can make it the better. Like I am of the sort of person where I have to like ask, I have to ask my higher power for help to be present in a conversation after I go to the grocery store. And I know I'm going to walk in my house and I have to literally be like, Oh my God, you know, have me not be self centered and like wrapped up in my own thing when I get in. Cause there's going to be a person there who wants to have a relationship with me and I have to do my job there. And it's it's for me. I have to ask for help for that little tiny things.
Speaker 3 01:27:18 And I try to, I try to put them
Speaker 2 01:27:20 Purpose of life or the legacy of life into sometimes the smallest place I can. How are you going to
Speaker 3 01:27:27 Contribute to that purpose today as in today? June 20th. Yeah. What are you going to do today? Yep.
Speaker 2 01:27:38 So doing this show with some of it, uh, I've never, I've never actually done like a present, like a presentation or an interview on my
Speaker 3 01:27:45 Sobriety. I,
Speaker 2 01:27:48 Um, I am backed up on work and I can't procrastinate anymore. I need to do some things this afternoon. Um, and I think that'll help my coworkers not wandering what I'm doing, what I'm doing, what I've been doing for the last few days I got to catch up and I want to be part of a team, um, have them not resentful and wondering what's going on. There's a, there's a meeting later today that, um, is on zoom. And I, I help pull that together and that's sort of my way of making coffee right now for the, for the room or whatever. And it's great. I have to be there at five and I have to get ready and listen and be a part of it. And then when I go, it's not just about like, well, was that a good meeting for me or not? Or did it get something out of that or not? It's like, what did I, did I play my part in that? And that thing that happened, like, was I an alcoholic amongst alcoholic in a real way with me, was I present helpful? Somebody asked for help? Did I just leave? Or did I say like, Hey, you said something, do you want to talk about that more? Um, and if I can do those things, it's hard right now with COVID and zoom to do that fully. But if I show up that way
Speaker 3 01:28:59 Away, it's great. I feel
Speaker 2 01:29:02 Good. And I feel like I've left a little piece of that legacy that I want to leave, even though I can't like describe the whole thing. So that's the rest of my day. And then I got to spend some time with my partner tonight. It's been a busy few weeks here and spend good time. Not like watching Netflix time. There's fine watching Netflix, but I there's, you can do more. And, uh, I need to do that and all that stuff. I'm going to have to ask for help for the committee. You know, I it's, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 01:29:31 Talk to your people. We'll get back to you.
Speaker 2 01:29:33 And if I just put, you know, if I just focus on that, like, what is the next thing? What's the next thing. What's the next thing. It strings together in a direction next right
Speaker 3 01:29:43 Thing. Yeah. Leads to the next right thing.
Speaker 2 01:29:46 Yeah. And if I don't go much further than that, it's okay. And, and what I, what I can say with certainty is that it, the next right thing leads to the next right thing. And that points in a totally different direction of where I was going. And that's fine with me right now. You know, like going, I was going West, I'm going East that's. Okay. Um, but I, I have a hard time with much more than that. So that's my day. Beautiful. Sounds like a wonderful fulfilling day. It can be, it sounds like a day of service. Day of service. Yeah.
Speaker 3 01:30:18 Chris, thank you so much for being on orphan egg today. You most certainly have been authentic. Your honesty, your purity, your selflessness, your loving, kindness, compassion, your message of hope is going to prove invaluable. You have most certainly saved a life today. Thank you.
Speaker 2 01:30:46 Yeah. Thanks for having me again. This is great. You're very welcome. Um,
Speaker 3 01:30:54 All right. That is the end of the show today. I know, but guess what? There will be another show next week. So don't be sad. Chris, would you like to try a sign offline with me? Absolutely. I think I have the best one, but that is also a selfish thought,
Speaker 2 01:31:15 But I think it's pretty damn good. I can't wait to hear it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 01:31:18 Have you listened to my show before?
Speaker 2 01:31:20 I didn't listen to the very, I have a terrible habit. I, gosh, darn it. I know jerk. Well, we'll practice it once and then we'll do it. Okay.
Speaker 3 01:31:28 Well, I want to know what you got and then I'll say mine.
Speaker 2 01:31:32 Oh no, I didn't play on a sign. I didn't plan.
Speaker 3 01:31:35 That's the point is you have to be authentic and authentic.
Speaker 2 01:31:40 Oh man, what is the sign off line? I, you know, you know the term, you know, the, the thing I liked the most, I don't, I don't use it as much as I should, but I feel like it was, this is a great morning and it was really special. And so I was like that. I like Godspeed.
Speaker 3 01:31:52 Okay. So you have to, you have to say it seriously. Like you're actually signing off.
Speaker 2 01:31:56 So God speed. Say one more time. Godspeed.
Speaker 3 01:32:01 That one was good. That was the one. That was the one. It's a good, it's a good combination. It is a great combination. You need both. I dug it. All right. That is the show for today. Thank you so much for joining us here on authentic, where Chris has gotten authentic ways here on authentic in keeping authentic, we have to pay credit where credit is due, the musical stylings you heard on today's show to open it up as always. You heard mama, mama, mama, mama by muse. And then we got into <inaudible> Oh three picks by the coup first you heard. Oh yeah. Then you heard months soon. And to take us off level it
Speaker 4 01:32:55 <inaudible>.
