Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey you. Yeah, you, if you or someone you know, is struggling with anything mentioned on today's program, please, please, please, please, please. Please email
[email protected]. That's a U T H E N I C K. The
[email protected]. I am available 24 seven three 65 to help in any way that I can. I have resources. I have open ears and open 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 before we get started today, I would like to tell you that suicide is mentioned multiple times. In this episode, if you or someone you know is going to be triggered by that, or you're struggling with suicidal ideation or you have a plan to commit suicide, please reach out, speak with a counselor today at the national suicide prevention lifeline, their number is +1 800-273-8255. That's +1 800-273-8255. Mama mama, mama, mama, mama, mama. <inaudible> welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to the show. This is authen.
Speaker 1 00:01:53 Where are we going at all?
Speaker 0 00:01:58 My name is Nicholas Thomas Fitzsimmons Vander table, but most people just call me Nick and with me as always is my dog Marla.
Speaker 1 00:02:12 My mind is telling me no, but my body, my body is telling me. Yeah, I don't want to hurt. No, but there is something I must confess.
Speaker 0 00:02:34 Alright. Alright. That's enough. Marlette go back to bumping and grinding anyway, here on author, Nick, we talk about all things recovery. Well, 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. I'm an alcoholic
Speaker 3 00:03:00 <inaudible>
Speaker 2 00:03:11 But still have great lung capacity. I'm also a drug addict. I'm a compulsive gambler. I have an eating disorder. I have bipolar disorder. Really? The list could go on and on and on. Luckily for you, the show 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 his recovery from porn addiction, alcoholism and drug addiction. Second is the one person whose life Chris is most certainly going to save by giving his testimony today. Chris, are you, are you gonna, are you gonna save a life today? I mean, I am a medical professional, so I'm trained in the art of, of lying. Oh, fantastic. Welcome to the show. That was an interesting way of coming in. Would you like to introduce yourself, sir? My name is Chris and I'm an addict alcoholic. Welcome, Chris. Is this where we clap? I think so.
Speaker 2 00:04:12 That was a good clap. Let's get right into it, Chris. So you said you're an addict and an alcoholic. What was your childhood like? I like to dive in and see what preempted this drug and alcohol abuse. I think the thing that I always look back on is I was introduced to porn at the age of six, saw my best friend use these, uh, these old magazines as like a playbook and watched him have sex with somebody at a really young age without like knowing that any of that was wrong. Cause I was so young when my parents found out about these, these new, new mags that my brothers had kind of hid away in this Fort. They made us go to a Bishop cause uh, I'm more or was Mormon. And so that's kind of like going to a priest and, you know, confessing your sins.
Speaker 2 00:05:07 And at the age of six, not grasping why there was anything wrong with seeing these things because I had, I just didn't understand them. What sort of feelings did you have after you went to the Bishop to confess your sins? It started the path of the getting away with something feeling, kind of figuring out that they don't understand. And so therefore I need to hide it. So the seeking this thing that I know I'm not supposed to be doing and then getting away with it, that rush, I think started like the addictive pattern in my life. So you sense that perhaps your first addiction was lying or sealing? For sure. I'm in the same boat, man. That was my first. This is excellent. I want to feel this all the time. Yeah. So you said you're an addict and an alcoholic. When did substances come into the picture for you?
Speaker 2 00:06:01 First sip of beer? I think I was 10 and I thought someone had played a trick on me. It had like pissed and I can cause I just thought it was revolting. Um, and then my brothers forced me to get drunk when I was 13. Forced you to get drunk. What did that look like? They were literally punching me and making me take shots. And how did you react to that? Did you just take it? Uh, well, I didn't really have any choice with the situation that I was in. Not, not that they had like held me captive, but my parents had, let me stay the night with them and their friends. So they wanted to get you drunk right after a couple of shots that like warm feeling where, you know, like the feeling when you feel like you're about to break a sweat, that sensation.
Speaker 2 00:06:48 I remember that I felt like I, I could handle it. And so I wanted to take shots with other people and they were taking shots. I avoided it after that for a couple of years in a big way where I went like anti on everything. Like I didn't even swear for two or three years. Very Mormon have you? Yeah, I would record songs on a, on a tape. I knew how to kind of skip over swear words. So I knew the song enough. And then that way I could listen to the whole tape without any swear words. Like that's how far on the other end of the spectrum I went up until I was 13. We lived in Oregon and had a ton of friends and then we moved to Minnesota and I had like, no friends. How old were you when that happened? When you moved 12.
Speaker 2 00:07:32 And how did that affect you? Massive depression for sure. What did that massive depression actually look like? It looked like we were alone, but at the same time I come from a pretty big family. I'm one of five boys and we were in an apartment, so we were crammed, but it felt like we were alone at the same time, surrounded by people. But that feeling of complete solitude. Yeah. Loneliness, isolated. How do you think that contributed to drinking and drugging? What did drinking and drugging do for your depression? It will at first because I was doing it with friends. It kind of goes back to that whole feeling like you're getting away with something. And so that, that concept of not only am I getting away with a thing, but it feels like a sense of accomplishment too. Looking back on things like looking back on, getting drunk with friends and being like, remember how we, how we did that.
Speaker 2 00:08:30 It's really like, I think my brain was, we got away with a thing and we got to enjoy it. So we enjoyed it in its totality by got away with the crime and we got to get fucked up in the process. I had your cake and you ate it too. Yeah. Good for you. You swore off swearing. I like that drugs. Alcohol. When did that abstinence stop? Did you grow up in Minnesota? No, actually I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Okay. I can't remember if it was a, a nationwide thing, but if you've heard of target market target market, it was an anti tobacco thing back in the day. I think it's what truth is now. Those truth commercials, but it was a big movement because the government had granted a bunch of money because it was proven that big tobacco was targeting kids. Um, so there was all this money floating around to these anti-smoking campaigns.
Speaker 2 00:09:23 That was right up my alley at that time. And so I got to be a part of this like three day retreat where all these teenagers were at this hotel and there were these, um, seminars and things that you could go to learn how to combat it and shit like that. So it was awesome. It was very cool. But at one point I was like super sweaty from running around with other kids. And I went outside and one of the counselors was outside smoking a cigarette. And I was like, what, why, why are you doing that? He took a drag of his cigarette and he goes, Oh, I'm just against them targeting kids and kept smoking. I was like, Oh, the world is a horrible place. That's quite the realization to come to at that age. And so from then I was like, well the fuck.
Speaker 2 00:10:05 So it's not, we just recognize that their end game is really messed up, trying to get people addicted at a super young age. But then once you realize that it kind of feels like your free will says I'm not doing it because they're telling me to I'm doing it now because I have like a nihilistic view of the world from there. I started to like, when I allowed myself to start swearing, I also realized that I was penting up a bunch of anger. And when I swore it was like a release and it was like, Oh man. So I kind of chilled out when I was able to kind of stop putting so many restrictions on myself. But then along with that started drinking with friends just on the weekends. My thing was, I was always at, I was the one always asking when we were going to get to do it again.
Speaker 2 00:10:50 And then when we started smoking weed, it was the same thing. And when we got to a point to where we were able to have like a lot of access to weed, I was smoking every single day before school, after school just nonstop. And when you're in high school, you're able to label that as like, you're a stoner, it's not, Oh, you have a problem. You just consume a lot of weed. Therefore you are a stoner. Did anybody around you address? You did. They did around you? Yeah. Did anybody around you address it as a problem? Chris, you might want to slow down on your drinking. Like why do you always want to drink? Why do you always want to get fucking high? So in high school it was getting high for sure. Nobody ever addressed it in that way. What about your parents? One time my dad had this really like sincere moment where he looked at me and was like, if you ever, ever smoked weed and it just seemed like he was genuinely wanted to know.
Speaker 2 00:11:42 And I was like, yeah, I have. And he was like, why, why would you do that instead of freaking out? And I was like, Whoa. So I lied. It was like the one time, man. It's not that big a deal. You know, not every day or anything like that. My, myself and my friend, because we had become friends with our dealer. People more looked at us as like the source. So it was never an issue because we were able to get, get it whenever we needed to. So people would, if they wanted to get high and they didn't want to deal with a drug dealer, they would just come with us and either match bowls or just smoke in exchange for random shit. How did your using progress from smoking weed every day and being the guy, being the dealer, did that continue on? And then you started drinking.
Speaker 2 00:12:33 What did that look like? As it continued on through high school and then into your twenties, what did that look like? I got married when I was 19. Good Lord. Yeah. I'm actually still married. Special lady. What's her name? Oh, no, you don't have to say it if you don't know. Yeah. It's Kim because she's a cohost of our stuff, so God bless ya. Yeah. Got it. Beautiful attitude on that. But so we, I'm still young and so drinking. It's weird. Cause it, it slowed down. Everything slowed down for a little while after you got married. Yeah. Like I drank, but not, I wasn't seeking it. Like it was just when we were at a party and stuff like that. So the urge like went away for awhile and then you were talking about releases, right? Getting away with things, swearing, smoking, weed, drinking. What was your release then if you didn't have drinking?
Speaker 2 00:13:25 Sure. Porn for sure. Okay. So I did develop like an, a genuine like addiction and especially looking back on it now, like I worked at this paper mill and it was a recyclable stuff. So there would be these massive bales of cardboard and every now and then old Nudie bags would pop out. And it got to the point to where I was busting those things open and rifling through looking for it. Porn is, is what it is for certain people. But for me it turned into like the hunt for it was just as it felt just as needed as the source. Does that make sense? Absolutely. What I've noticed in myself and other people that I talk to that are in recovery. It's almost this crazy cycle where it starts with one thing and then it goes dormant. And then I do this thing and then that goes Dharma.
Speaker 2 00:14:15 And I do this thing. And you went from porn to drinking, to weed, to drinking porn. After you got married, what did your wife have to say about that? Did she know about it? Eventually this was early, early. It wasn't even a smartphone. It was just a random flip phone that could access the internet. I don't even remember how it worked, but she had figured out that I was looking at it on my phone. She had dealt with a lot of, um, self image issues growing up. So her having to find out that I was doing that it was a reflection on her. So it really hurt her, even though it had nothing to do with her. What was your reaction when she addressed you? She actually had said, she had said that we were going to get a divorce and that our son who was, I mean, they're like one and a half at the time, um, that they were gonna go away.
Speaker 2 00:15:06 Did they? No, because, uh, that night it was a really weird thing. I had just kind of accepted the fact that I, now I have to commit suicide. Like it wasn't, it didn't, I feel like very, you know, like manic or anything, but it felt like I had gone through the drive through at McDonald's and I asked for a cheeseburger and they were like, ah, we don't have any cheese. It's a hamburger. Okay. And I just went, yeah, hamburgers, fine. That's like how simple of a choice it felt. And I had gone through all of these motions to, to actually go through this attempt. I bought all of this gear and things to like wrap around this exhaust pipe and then had this, you were going for carbon monoxide poisoning. I want to know, growing up, even through elementary years, middle school years. Did you ever have self-harm thoughts, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, no attempts.
Speaker 2 00:16:04 But my thing was like, I always felt anguish to the point of where if my life could just end than it, I would have led it, but I have a low pain tolerance or at least then I had a low pain tolerance. And so I, I always thought the pain that came from ha what you would have to do in order to commit suicide. And, and so it never went that way. You were afraid. Yeah, for sure. Yes. It, that didn't last very long though. So when you go through the follow through motions, you mess up your fight or flight response that makes the next attempt that much easier. So there were two attempts after that, the first one was isn't really like a full blown attempt. Like it lasted five minutes and then it was over a cop saw me parked. And I guess it was, I wasn't sure supposed to be parked there.
Speaker 2 00:16:52 It was like after hours or something, he somehow didn't notice any of the shit that was, is in my car, piped into the windows and everything. And it was like, Hey man, you can't park here. Okay. Yeah. And I was like, I just pretended that I was tired. And he was like, yep, sorry, I got it. Gotta have it go. And I just went home and then I had to drive that car into work the next day. And like with each attempt, there was always like some odd sense of like, I survive to attempt again, like it laid dormant. And the only reason I say that is because when my brother found out the next day, he was like, so this is never going to happen again. Right. And I was like, I have no idea. I have no idea what it happened in the future. That would make me feel, feel this way again. So my wife and I had a discussion, which was, and I didn't, I didn't mean to like put all of his weight on her, but it was just like, if, if our goal is to stay married, then we can't throw divorce at each other like that. Like, I can't do that to you. You can't do that to me. Um, and so we, we did our best to not throw that at each other anymore. Uh, from that point
Speaker 0 00:17:57 You sat down and had an adult conversation at the age of,
Speaker 2 00:18:01 Uh, 25. Wow. I would have been 23.
Speaker 0 00:18:06 That's young, still, even 25, 23. Yeah. To have a conversation like that sounds like in my head, I just envisioned that's like a conversation that a couple would have in their forties. It's like all of a sudden the wife finds out that the husband is addicted to porn and then it's like, well, we've been together for this long. We gotta figure out how to fix this. You guys had only been married for four years at that point. Yeah. What do you think kept that relationship going? Was it the honesty? Was it the compassion from her end? Well,
Speaker 2 00:18:42 We had almost, we'd been, we'd separated after a year for about three months and we're insanely lucky that we got back together. Like the odds are stacked against you. The younger you get married, separation odds are even worse. So yeah, we're super lucky. So what I learned was I started to accept, I started saying I was a piece of shit when I realized that and started to own up to it. It allowed for more honesty and it allowed us to open up to other people. And so there was this kind of, when we made friends, they were like deep connections. It wasn't just like surface level of friends and
Speaker 0 00:19:19 Continue that as an inner dialogue. I'm a piece of shit. Yeah. For sure. What did that do for you? What did that do for your message?
Speaker 2 00:19:27 Well, it was at the time it, it served a purpose in order to, to me, it was like accepting that like I have to wear glasses owning. It meant that I was able to be better for it. Does that make sense? So it wasn't that I was calling myself a piece of shit in a degrading manner that I'm not worth anything. It was looking back on past events and going that guy was a piece of shit. And the fact that I'm still married and have a family, I'm unbelievably lucky to have those things. So all of a sudden you changed. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:20:01 Did that sort of, I'm a piece of shit and now I'm going to do my utmost. I'm going to be the ideal man. I'm going to be the ideal husband, the ideal father, the ideal friend
Speaker 2 00:20:13 That lasted a while. When we got our first home, I was still working at that, that paper mill. And so I was doing like the nine to five. Well, I mean, for a year I was doing shift work, which is grueling fucking nightmare. Um, and then I was doing an office job at that same facility. I would do that, buy beer, come home, drink a beer. Cause like that, that whole, like, it felt like the stereotypical middle-class kind of thing to do. And so we would almost laugh about it. And then once I started doing photography, I had always wanted to do film. But when I started doing photography and started doing these band interviews and things, I didn't want to be a desk job person anymore. And so there was contention in that area. So it's not like we had like a perfect run after that. There was all kinds of gnarly shit, mostly because I had these dreams of aspiration while thinking that I could maintain like a healthy father figure role. It's impossible. I either had to dedicate myself to one thing and my like add ADHD or whatever is pretty intense. So I'd be super dedicated to one thing. And then it kind of start to fall off. Once I felt like I had learned enough to make it by right.
Speaker 0 00:21:26 A common theme that I hear in alcoholics and addicts is this all or nothing thinking where everything is black and white, I am going to give 110% into this one thing. And then like, once I think I got it, I'm just going to push that aside. Yeah. Either I'm afraid that I'm going to be, be committed to this for the rest of my life, or maybe I chose the wrong thing or that's enough of that. I'm going to go completely abandoned this and do something radically different. Sure. What was your transition like? What did that
Speaker 2 00:21:59 Look like? I ended up getting fired from that job because I was focusing so much on these interviews and photography where I was making no money. So I lost my job. And then I was like, you know what? I am going to go head on with this photography stuff. So I became a wedding photographer. I was good at that, but it's the same shit over and over again. So it was amazing at first, but then it was like, I'm still hours and hours behind a desk with all of these photos. And it just started to kind of wane
Speaker 0 00:22:29 Redundant, stale. And your eyes are bleeding out of your face.
Speaker 2 00:22:33 Yeah. On a wedding. Like you catch people either on their best day or their worst day. Never seems to be in between. I've had back issues for the better part of fuck. I forget how old I am. You're 33 for the better part of 10 years. For sure. When I turned 30 this back issue, I didn't realize that like my disc was like just slowly kind of creeping out more and more each year I was skating, snowboarding, doing all these things that didn't help the manner. I would injure myself being out for two weeks and then it would, everything would be back to normal. I injured myself after my 30th birthday and things were not getting better. It's a long story. But like the long story short would be, I did seven injections, two ablations on my nerve endings and still nothing was helping. I was getting worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 2 00:23:21 People are having to do everything for me. I was a burden when you don't have anything to do, you're just going to drink more and more. So I just drank more and more. There was one stint, sorry to backpedal. But like there was one stint when I like the whole craft beer sensation kind of took off where I drank and injured myself. And so I took three months off and then went back to it from drinking. Yeah. Because I had injured my leg and I was a, so it was obviously like a half. I can't let this shit happen. So anyways, back to the back injury thing, I was at an appointment with physical therapist and it was like a substitute physical therapist. And I had heard about this other surgery where they shave off part of the desk to relieve that pressure. And she was very dismissive.
Speaker 2 00:24:04 It was like, you know, you shouldn't even be thinking about that. And I was like, look, this has been six months of trying everything possible. It's putting a strain on my family and my mental state. And she said, you need to just get used to this. You don't understand what this is my kids saying, I can't wait until you can pull us on a sled again. I can't wait until you can pick me up again. Just constantly being reminded that I have, I am of no value. And I'm just more and more of a burden. That was the second suicide attempt, which that one sucks because, so my brother found me after an hour of being in, in my garage and I had been drinking too. When I got to the hospital the next morning, the very first doctor said, uh, what type of a neuropathy medication are you on?
Speaker 2 00:24:51 I was like, I'm not on any neuropathic medication. She was like, okay, well that's the first thing we gotta do. It's like, God damn it. What? This one extra piece of information that for some reason, 10 doctors didn't want to tell me about is so frustrating. So that one, it sucked. So I was on a adult mental health unit for five days because it had landed on a holiday too. So I had to stay extra. But when I got back, they had asked if they thought my drinking was an issue when I was in the hospital. And at that point it didn't seem like it was just as time went on. It was like going golfing, looking for craft beers and stuff like that. Different IPS and all of these. There's so many things you could try out there and it was an adult thing to do. It just didn't seem like it was a problem. It was acceptable. Yeah. Especially now that it's getting integrated into more things, movie theaters, art classes, anywhere that beer can be included. It's been heading in that direction more and more and more everywhere you turn,
Speaker 0 00:25:49 Which is great for 90% of the population over 21. But that 10% of the population that are addicts are alcoholics. I can't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 00:26:03 Well, that's just what we know of. Right. People are able to drink so much and still maintain a normal lifestyle. So it's never questioned until you get fucking pancreatitis at the age of 45. And then people are like, Oh wow. He just has been, kept it together for so long that we didn't realize that, that this could have any physical. Anyway,
Speaker 0 00:26:24 When did you make the recognition that your drinking was a problem?
Speaker 2 00:26:27 It wasn't, I didn't want to admit it. I thought that the
Speaker 0 00:26:31 No, the moment or the actual moment that had happened, the moment that you were shit, it's that concession to myself. It's that maybe it's just a fleeting thought for. It was, I was 20. I was 20 when I had that. Oh, damn. I don't want to stop drinking. I can't stop drinking. And I still continued to drink and drug for nine more years. When did you have that moment?
Speaker 2 00:27:00 My third suicide attempt had been hiding. The fact my wife had tried to get me to stop drinking. I had been hiding liquor bottles around the house, like a good alcoholic, like a good alcoholic. But even then it still felt like something that I should handle on my own. Cause my uncles, my dad's side of the family, everyone was an alcoholic. Most of them practicing alcoholics. Yeah. Most of them had been in some form of treatment before they were 21.
Speaker 0 00:27:25 Bye. Handle it on your own. What do you, what do you mean by that? I was going to handle it on my own
Speaker 2 00:27:30 Cold Turkey and not good. So this was the first time that like stopping drinking, like insomnia, super agitated and angry and just not satisfied with anything. Everything was at a 10 all the time. I would walk around my living room. I walked around my living room for three hours, just in a circle, hoping that I would get tired and I never got tired the first time that I finally like accepted that I had a problem. I was in the hospital, uh, after my suicide attempts and the chemical dependency counselor that they had there, she was so sweet. I wish I could remember her name. She handled me in a way that hadn't happened yet, which was, she just sat there and listened and would smile. And if I wanted advice on something, she would give it. But if not, she would just be there to sit.
Speaker 2 00:28:25 And, and there's this, like, it was probably like a 32nd window of just nothing. And I was like, I think, I think I've had a problem for a while. I just don't know what that actually looks like. And she's like, okay, we can, there's some things that we can do from here. If you want to. It took eight days in the hospital. I tried to hang myself because, but that's, what's weird is even then, I didn't want to admit that I was an alcoholic. I just felt like I couldn't escape it. I dunno. I had this weird rational thought in my head as to why, like, I wasn't an alcoholic, but I can't get away from it.
Speaker 0 00:29:00 Perhaps. It's this idea that I know I am at my very core. I know it it's down deep in my guts. Like I know I am, but I'm not ready to actually say it or actually address it. So it's just that little devil on my shoulder. That's saying, yeah, you're an alcoholic. Yeah. You're an alcoholic. And you're saying, I'll push that away. I'll push that away. It's not that bad yet. Or it's, it's not this. It's not that explain it away. And I think
Speaker 2 00:29:28 Suicide was a way to not have to own up to it at the end of the day. I'll never have to say that I'm an alcoholic. If I'm not here. I think it was another thought that I had. It's weird. Like all of these thoughts, I didn't realize how fucked up my memory was too, until I had 30 days of sobriety. It was like, you just, it's crazy how much shit you forget. And you don't even realize that you're missing these things until later on. And your, you know, your brain starts to function in a way that it's trying to recant unravel the mystery that is addiction. I wasn't just smoking weed. Like I was looking for anything would Huff duster, I would sniff markers or glue. I would do random little shit and would just chalk it up to being just random. Right? It's not that you need to do anything, but for some reason, like I could, why not life is always better altered.
Speaker 2 00:30:23 Yes, for sure. I say that sobriety is a curse. Especially once you realize that sobriety is life or death, you remember those euphoric aspects of using those really incredible times, these amazing things that happened and knowing that you can alter your, you can never alter your state of mind again, but you have the curse of knowing what it feels like. Does that make sense? I'm going to challenge that. Have you investigated anything in sobriety that could get you to that altered state such as meditation? Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, I, is that, I mean, would you categorize that as an altered state, if you're capable of getting to that? Absolutely. I just am not able to access that. I think all addicts, you know, that calling feeling like it's calling to you and you can't answer it. Maybe I misspoke because I don't, I don't say that sobriety is a curse in the sense that I hate being sober.
Speaker 2 00:31:21 It's more of like the curse of knowledge type of thing. It sucks knowing all of that stuff. And not that that's going to ruin my life and that I'm not going to continue to be sober from here on out. Like how long do you have sober? By the way? 116 days. No, as longer than that. Yeah. 118 days. I think I'm gonna check that out. Fuck it. I want to look and see. Yeah. All right. I have it on my phone. I say, I said happy. Yeah. One happy, happy. One 12 on Monday. Okay. So 13, Tuesday, 14, Wednesday, 15, Thursday, 16. Oh, okay. So yeah, one 16. Yeah. I thought it was longer than that. I know it's, it's a weird thing. Cause sometimes it feels like it hasn't been long at all. And other times it feels like it's been a long time.
Speaker 2 00:32:10 It's not something that's gonna make me jaded to being sober. I don't regret being sober. I'm glad that I'm because I thought that I was a present person before. It's nowhere near how present I am now. I genuinely surprise my wife who has a master's degree in science and mental health. I'm able to genuinely like surprise her, catch her off guard with things that I now know and the way that I'm able to assess situations and, and read things. I, yeah, I thought I was really in tune with shit when I was, when I was drunk or when I was high. But it's, it's not even comparable how much I am. Now. I'd like to,
Speaker 0 00:32:48 Let's go back to your final suicide attempt. I want to know what your thoughts were of your family leading up to that, or did you not think of them at all? I,
Speaker 2 00:32:58 You just thought that they would be better off without somebody who just continually seems to be letting them down is what it felt like. I'm not able to do all of these things physically. I'm not able to,
Speaker 0 00:33:12 Since you were giving them relief. Yeah. As well as yourself by doing this deed, almost a selfless act. I'm going to give you this gift of not being a burden to you anymore.
Speaker 2 00:33:23 I have this analogy where, um, a lot of people have been asked or confronted with the thought experiment of if you had to kill somebody, could you do it? Oh right. Everybody's either been asked that or had to have a fleeting thought of like, could I, I don't know if I could do that. And almost everybody responds with, if I'm protecting myself or a family member, then it's not a question. So suicide, once you get to that point, you become the defender and the assailant, you have fucked up your fight or flight and that survival instinct, you've rewired your brain to think that in order to survive, you have to kill yourself.
Speaker 0 00:34:00 It sounds in an odd way. Empowering.
Speaker 2 00:34:03 Right? And so that's why when people say that they, they feel that they're doing this for somebody else, they also are acknowledging that they're doing it as a good deed. And that kind of brings them comfort too.
Speaker 0 00:34:16 I'd like to go back to what we were talking about before we backpedaled, I backpedaled this time. So catchy a bitch. We were talking about this idea that I can't know how great it was using this romanticizing of these wonderful times, because in all honesty, I had some fucking wonderful times when I was using, I also had some really shitty times. I can't unknow that feeling. Yeah. I also can't unknow sobriety once my head is cleared. Once I've gotten to the spot where, like you said, surprising your wife with things that, you know, you never would have been able to show up like that if you were still using.
Speaker 2 00:34:58 Yeah. Well, it's like your day in court and you look at all of the evidence that's been placed out in front of you. And you're like, Oh wow. I had, I had no idea. There was all of this. All of these things that I didn't recognize is as being bad, like, especially when it comes to people say that they have never drank and drove, but they've driven buzzed. And that's the same thing, same damn thing. And I kept telling myself this lie that I never, I was always sober by the time I drove, my tolerance had just gone up so much that just because I was able to do it doesn't mean that I was sober while I was doing it. And so I drank and drove a shit ton of times looking back on it. Now there's certain things that I, I can't say legally, but suffice it to say that the way with which I would drink, put myself and other people on the road in danger for a month straight.
Speaker 2 00:35:55 When I felt like the only place that I could drink was not at home. And I had to figure out a way to the fucked up thing. My wife can never tell if I'm drunk. I S I sound exactly the same. Like my speech doesn't slur, my eyes don't droop or anything like that. And if I had my wits about me, I'm not, I, you can't smell it either. And I are over articulate. And so it almost sounds like I'm looking, it's almost like snobbish. Like I'm, I'm just on my high horse. It doesn't, it doesn't seem like I'm drunk though. Like child protective services had come to do like a check because I had done attempted suicide at home. They just have to do that. The counselor asked my wife, like, you know, what are some things that we can do in case, you know, dad does relapse. Um, what are, what are some signs? What are some things that we can do? And my wife was like, I don't know. You could never tell he hit it so well, nobody had any idea. Like they thought that I had been sober for a month, had no idea that I had been drinking. They thought that I had just gotten over that hump of like agitation and withdrawal and all that shit. When in fact I had just still been drinking the whole time.
Speaker 0 00:37:05 Right. And that's a skill that just about every addict and alcoholic has to maintain that sense of normalcy until you can't, because it always comes to this place where I can't do this anymore. So you have these periods of sobriety where you quit cold Turkey. People are thinking that you're sober. Where did that come to a head?
Speaker 2 00:37:28 So I was drinking. I forget what it amounts to, but at least something like, um, depending on the day. So anywhere from eight to 16 shots a day on a normal day. And then if my wife worked her overnight shift, then I have no idea. Then I would just let loose and then I could fall asleep and we wouldn't have to interact until I was sober in the morning. It was a lot, I only paid attention to those 16 shots, but then eventually I just stopped paying attention. And then I snorted Adderall randomly. It got to the point where like the only reason that I wasn't snorting cocaine was cause there was no cocaine around, basically, if there was anything. Yeah. And I had hit smoking weed a few times throughout the years as well. Like randomly. It's so weird to think back on, like, you thought that you had your shit under control. And then, like I said, there's all this evidence that proves otherwise your brain just starts to be able to retain memories better and start selling, look back on all this other stuff. And it's, it's sucks. So like when I went into treatment at first for the first five days, I said that
Speaker 0 00:38:36 I was just an alcoholic. Sorry. Great segue, Chris. We are going to take a little break. When we come back from the music break, Chris is going to talk about <inaudible> and how he got some help. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for joining us today on authon magic part, one complete park to strength and Oh Nope. Coming at you next week. As always here on authentic and keeping authentic, we have to pay credit where credit is due, the musical stylings. You heard on today's program to open the show as always you ed mama, mama, mama, mama, ma ma nurse by muse. And Chris's pick to take us off ghost by Paris. Be good to yourselves it's ever so important.
Speaker 4 00:39:39 <inaudible> if you can help <inaudible>.
