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. Follow me on Twitter, using the handle at authen, Nick and my dog, Marla on Instagram at DJ Marla dot Jean. During today's program, you will hear a mentioned multiple times, the individual expressing their thoughts and opinions do not reflect AA as a whole. Please enjoy this week's episode is very near and dear to my heart. It is with a heavy heart that I released this episode for the longest time, I thought this episode was lost.
Speaker 0 00:01:14 However, thank you to the production manager here at KFH community radio. It has been found Tim C, who shared with me his experience, strength and hope in August of 2019, passed away on Thanksgiving of this year, 2020. I'm sure Tim would be happy to tell you that he died sober, clean, and serene. This is for you, Tim. And this is for the one person whose life you are going to save. After hearing your episode while editing, I cried a lot and I laughed a lot and I hope you do the same. Thank you, Tim. Thank you for being a friend. Thank you for being you.
Speaker 1 00:02:05 My mama, mama, mama, my mama, my mama man, man, man, I can't get these men started. <inaudible> welcome
Speaker 2 00:03:00 To <inaudible>. You are listening to author where we get up. Then <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:03:16 Year on authentic, where we get authentic. 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 am 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. Luckily for you, today's show is not about me. It is however about two people. First is my guest, Tim C second is the one person whose life Tim is most certainly going to save by sharing his experience, strength and hope with you here today. Because if we help one person, then we've done our job. We want you to know that you are not alone. We are here to smash stigma. We are here to get vulnerable and we are here to share hope without fear. Uh, ju Tim, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 00:04:22 Oh, thank you. And Nick, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself, Tim?
Speaker 0 00:04:27 You're sitting in a chair across from me in this crazy studio on a Sunday night.
Speaker 3 00:04:32 First of all, I don't like to think of myself as being in recovery so much as having recovered. I want to feel like I've recovered. Not like I'm in the act of recovery. And what are you recovered from being an asshole, terminally stupid, a drug addict and an alcoholic beer been pretty foolish. So my, um, my whole life I'm, you know, I'm 69 years old, soon to be 70. I feel like I finally maybe have my shit together at this point in my life. I don't know that I really had, uh, have ever had it completely together before. And some people might challenge whether I have it together or not right now. That's why I say, that's what I like to say. I'm a recovered as opposed to recovering, maybe that's vain of me to say that I'm recovered as opposed to recovering. I don't like the word weak.
Speaker 3 00:05:33 I don't like it. When people talk about being in recovery, you know, I want to say like recover already recover. Definitely. Don't take your time with it. Now. There's a whole thing that I remember when I was like, Oh boy, years ago, years ago. Um, now when they didn't know, like 45 years ago or more. So I think that, you know, when I don't, when I, with the first I was in, I was in treatment at close, by here at a place called farmhouse. We used to say, train is lying. So, you know, are you getting what I'm saying? When I'm saying trine is lying, I'm on that trine. I'm done trying downline. I didn't know that. Maybe that's arrogant of me to say that I'm a recovered, but I feel like I'm recovered. One of that's one of the things that talk about and Hey, excuse me, I go, I go to AA. I can divulge that about myself. Uh, they refer to themselves as the first hundred people who had recovered and the people who've recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body or whatever. I go with that. I go with that. Excuse me.
Speaker 0 00:06:48 You identified yourself as an alcoholic and a drug addict. Yeah. When did you start using those substances
Speaker 3 00:06:55 So long ago? I can't even remember. Um, you know, uh, I started, you know, I had, I think I had a problem drinking from the time I was like 12, 14. That's when you started. Oh, sure. I started even before that I was my mother's. My mother drank, played a bit and I was my mother's bartender. That's how I started, you know, my first strengths were gin and Coke. Can you believe it? Yeah. Horrible. And I remember I used to get my father used to, we, we we'd have, uh, corn beef sandwiches at a house about once, once a month on a Sunday and he'd always let us have a beer. And so that was a big, big treat for me having a beer. We drank ham spear and ponies load ponies, and I liked it right away. I liked the whole idea, but I saw people having fun. My parents had, my parents were party people and they'd always have parties. I can remember that. I, I used to like hang out around their parties and I'd see people drinking. And there was a, there was some conviviality and, um, I associated that with, uh, drinking. So I, I was hooked at a real, uh, at an early age,
Speaker 0 00:08:13 You discovered that you had a problem with alcohol. You had a problem right from the beginning. Right. But you realize that you had a problem right around 12 or 14, you said, how did you know that you had a problem? I mean, fucking 12 years old. You're in middle school.
Speaker 3 00:08:30 I mean, let me tell you something about it. I, uh, I still scotch from my father drink at, and you know, like it wasn't sophisticated at all. I was like, slugging it down and stuff like that. You weren't using a snifter. No, no. My body will lose all control and I don't want to get into it beyond that, to say that my body would lose control.
Speaker 0 00:08:51 I appreciate you not going into details. Now, looking at you as an 70 year old, I don't think I'm ready for any sort of
Speaker 3 00:08:58 Visual. So that was, that was a problem when I was 15 years old, you know, but, but you know, I was, I w I was hooked on the whole lifestyle, uh, from being, being a kid, you know, I wanted to be, I wanted to be, uh, an adult cause they had fun. They could smoke and drink and stuff like that. I had a really sort of unpleasant childhood for some reason. And I don't know why. And I always thought that I would finally get past it and things would be okay as it turned out, they never were problems is I'm a teenager. You know, I got thrown out of school and it all had to do with like a bunch of it had to do with drinking and sneaking around and being a sneak and a bit of a thief. I was, I was a mess. You know, I was, I was, uh, I was total mess as a kid. By the time I was 23, my father was taking me aside and taking me to, uh, a consular. Some, I think you got a problem with drinking. Could I have a good, I have a beer before we go off to treatment? That's what my response was. My, you know, right away. I thought, you know, I was sort of like relieved finally at, at, in some ways
Speaker 0 00:10:19 You weren't alone with the thoughts that you were out of control or that you couldn't control your drinking
Speaker 3 00:10:24 Or might get some help now
Speaker 0 00:10:26 Because you were already tired.
Speaker 3 00:10:28 Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Speaker 0 00:10:31 By that time you had already been drinking. So we're talking about the age of 23. You probably started drinking. Let me just throw out a number six, seven
Speaker 3 00:10:42 <inaudible> six, eight, seven. Yeah, no, you kidding me. I'm not, may I did. I did because I, because I tasted my mother's drinks.
Speaker 0 00:10:53 Right. So that's when you started drinking. Oh
Speaker 3 00:10:55 Yeah, I suppose so. Right. I suppose so. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:10:59 That's when alcohol first touched your lips. So at the age of 23, you had already been consuming alcohol for 17 years.
Speaker 3 00:11:07 Oh yeah. And, and, and I, I had is turned when I turned about 17. And you got a lot of Stan. I was born in 1949. So in 17, that was me always in 1966, 67. I started smoking grass and was into the, the drug culture. And by the time I was 23, I had graduated to cocaine.
Speaker 0 00:11:35 Okay. Let's back up for a second. So when you were introduced to drugs, what age were you at all? When's the first time you smoked weed?
Speaker 3 00:11:43 Probably when I was about 17, 16 or 17, it was fun. We had fun is forbidden fruit. You know, it was cool. Was that more appealing because alcohol
Speaker 0 00:11:54 Was more readily available to you since a very young age. Was it just one of those things that, Hey, let's take this to the next level. Yeah. I, you know. Yeah. So you were mixing alcohol, drugs and all that. Yeah. And then you found it.
Speaker 3 00:12:06 Okay. And then I found, okay, what age were you at? Probably 21. Do you remember the first time you used cocaine? No, I don't. Frankly. I don't, but I know by the time I was 23, I already had a serious, serious addiction.
Speaker 0 00:12:22 In hindsight, you can call it a serious addiction, but at the time, what did you think was going on? Is that what you thought was going on? You're like, Hey, I'm really addicted to cocaine or was it like, Oh, shit, I can't stop. Take me through what was going through your head at the time.
Speaker 3 00:12:36 And when I was 23. Oh yeah. I can't stop. I'm addicted. It's already become a problem for me. This wasn't casually used, said at that point in time, what did you like about cocaine? You know, I kept, I, I, you know, I kept thinking that I thought it would give me confidence, confidence for what? Mostly in sex that it would be easier for me to interact socially with women. I was definitely, I, you know, I had three sisters and I was deathly afraid of where my, you know, I wasn't afraid of them, but, um, um, you know, of girls, I wanted to have a girlfriend, but I was absolutely scared to death. The thought of asking someone, now I talk about going to have coffee, but then anything, you know, it scared down a lot.
Speaker 0 00:13:30 Did that STEM from like, can you remember, did that STEM from any poor experience of rejection or anything like that at a young age that fear had to come from somewhere is really what I'm getting at.
Speaker 3 00:13:41 Hm. If they weren't related to me, I had a problem talking to him. Right. Where did that come from? I don't know. You don't know? I don't know. I thought any number of drugs, drugs in any number of combinations would make it easier for me to get along, did it? No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. So the experiment
Speaker 0 00:14:06 Was a complete and utter failure.
Speaker 3 00:14:08 It still is. It still is. I still have problems. I'm afraid of, I wanted to have sex, but I was afraid of the sex act.
Speaker 0 00:14:24 Once the first time you had sex. Oh boy.
Speaker 3 00:14:26 Actually, you know, it was, I, I was, I guess it was, I was a late bloomer. How old? Probably when I was 20 or so 20. And I was in, you know, I w I was in college and, well, when I was in college and I was in my freshman year was the first real girlfriend I had. What was it? They had sex. Her name was Marshall, Marshall, Marshall. And she, uh, she was like, penny Marshall. No, not penny. Her name was Martha. Marshall was her first name. M a R S H a L L. And she had a twin sister named Sarah. And they were from Williamsburg, Virginia. And I was, I was smitten, but I was scared to death. I was still scared to death.
Speaker 0 00:15:14 And though you were in a relationship with Marshall, you were still terrified of her.
Speaker 3 00:15:19 I always felt like I was having, going to have a problem performing sexual.
Speaker 0 00:15:24 You thought that drugs and alcohol would get better and it didn't at all? No,
Speaker 3 00:15:30 No, no, no, no, no, no. I really didn't. I always felt sort of I've I've I've uh, this is, you know, this is, this is good for, to be revealing. Uh, I've always, really felt sort of inadequate, even, even, you know, even when I, you know, I've been married a couple of times, and even when I was married, I, I felt like inadequate sexually. I'm hoping to change this.
Speaker 4 00:15:56 No, I'm going to let you go, man. I'm going to let this plane crash and burn,
Speaker 0 00:16:04 Change the subject for you. Okay. Let's go back to 23. When your dad first took you to see that counselor. Yeah. What did that look like? He said, son, I think you have a problem.
Speaker 3 00:16:14 I, he did say that to me. No, he said, I want you to meet this guy. I'm on. I don't remember him saying that to me. My father, wasn't a person to confront me pretty much about anything. He was a mild mannered. I thought he wasn't about to confront me. He'd have somebody else do it. He introduced me to somebody who would say you got a problem.
Speaker 0 00:16:40 Okay. So what did that first interaction look like with the counselor
Speaker 3 00:16:44 And asked me a bunch of questions and became obviously apparent that I had a problem with the drinking. It came apparent in your own mind. Well, I, I knew it was right out in the open. Yeah. It came, it came out in the open it and you know, they didn't know how bad. I don't think my, my parents knew how bad it was, but it was bad to de <inaudible> in a year. And couldn't seem to get my act together at all to going get a job. I found myself living with some people and it was just a sort of an unwelcomed kid just at that point in their house that I could find the place. You know, I couldn't find a place to live. I couldn't take care of myself.
Speaker 0 00:17:30 So you went to go see this counselor? What, what came of that? I went to dream, man. You went to treatment.
Speaker 3 00:17:36 I went to treatment right here at St. Mary's hospital.
Speaker 0 00:17:39 Did you ask to go, was it suggested of you?
Speaker 3 00:17:42 It was suggested that I needed. Needed. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:17:45 Yeah. And you agreed. Did you put up a fight? At least was compliant,
Speaker 4 00:17:50 Compliant. I complied. I complied with other people's belief that I needed to help. I sort of thought I'll give this a try. Maybe they'll teach me how to drink. Maybe I'll learn confidence and now, Hey, it's worth a try, right? Yeah. But Hey, we're going to take a little break and we'll be right back with some help and what that looked like for you. But first we're going to send you to a padded white
Speaker 5 00:18:16 <inaudible>. Wow.
Speaker 4 00:20:08 Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back, Tim. Welcome back. Thank you. You told me that you wanted to listen to some creams, so I thought I'd hit you with that. Good. How do you feel about it? I liked it. It's good. You know, I don't, I don't listen to it loud music anymore. When I was younger, I listened to a lot of music, but I don't listen to a lot of music anymore. You just listened to the music inside your own head, right? I'd go. I don't know. I don't know about that. I, uh, it's, it's, it's pretty chaotic. Before we went into the music break, you were talking about how you went into treatment for drugs, alcohol for the very
Speaker 0 00:20:48 First time in that you were compliant, you were talked to by a counselor and it was suggested of you to go to treatment for drugs and alcohol. And you were compliant. Why?
Speaker 3 00:21:00 I realized that my, my father thought it was a good idea. And I wanted to please him as much as anything
Speaker 0 00:21:08 Did that father pleasing come from, was it just regular old father's son? I want my dad to be proud of me thing. Or was there something deeper than that?
Speaker 3 00:21:17 Oh, my father, my father intervened in my life before I'd seen psychiatrists when I was a, before you went and saw the counselor. Yeah. Well, when I was 14, 15 years old, the whole, the whole recovery thing, wasn't really new to me. Even, even at age 23, it was the first time they talked about alcohol or that I said how much I drank or, or how much drugs I'd use. I don't even think my father knew at that point, I went to treatment at St. Mary's hospital close by here. It was on Riverside Avenue. It was like one of the earliest. Well, not the earliest. Yeah. I think the earliest treatment center was probably haze of them. But this one in the earliest urban ones, they had sort of a way of doing it. It was kind of confrontational. Did it piss you off? No, I know
Speaker 0 00:22:15 Intentional can be almost sounded the way that you said it. Like it had a negative connotation to it confrontational. It sounds like an argument or a fight.
Speaker 3 00:22:24 I ended up, I ended up subsequently, you know, at St. Mary's was actually less confrontational than what I came in, came in, came to later. I went to a place here in the West bank where we close, uh, you know, a few blasts from where we are right now, a place called farmhouse outpatient treatment.
Speaker 0 00:22:45 What were you learning in this outpatient treatment? A lot
Speaker 3 00:22:48 Better was a piece of shit. That's kind of the, you're a piece of shit till you do well, you know? And, uh, it's, it's time that you, uh, cut into that and you know, that's what the, you know, that's how I thought, you know, messed up. I went to a therapy groups, you know, all kinds of stuff, you know. Did you find that helpful? I don't know if it really helped me. I think, you know, like my father, for instance, ended up thinking it was just screwing me up. Um, the stuff that I did with, uh, the farmhouse and, and then the therapy that I did, I said, I was just got really confused. He was confused. I was, and uh, you know, all this crap, my father ended up, had a good friend, ended up. My father lived in Florida and he had a good friend there who was an alcoholic.
Speaker 3 00:23:49 And he was, he, he was one of like one of the first people in Hazlen, which, you know, was a long time ago. He believed in alcoholics anonymous and the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous and what I was doing at farmhouse, wasn't the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous. What were you doing? I was the therapy crap. It was therapy. It was crap. It was therapy stuff. And it was like Naval gazing. You know, it was like, um, it wasn't a is totally different than that. And, uh, although he's, do you do a certain amount of Naval gazing in AA, but it's, it's different. It has a program of 12 steps that you follow and it's really structured and orderly. I didn't know. I crave that. I didn't know that I, I wanted something to have my, my life makes sense. My life just, no, it was just, I was a mess. I was a total mess
Speaker 4 00:25:00 At this point. Were you still consuming drugs and alcohol or were you completely abstained?
Speaker 3 00:25:04 I quit. I quit. So in 1973, I, that was the first time I quit and I was sober for about three years and three years, three years I was miserable. I, I just, I wasn't happy.
Speaker 4 00:25:21 Were you lost? Did you miss drugs in Oklahoma? I was too young to quit. Ah, there it is know the truth exposes itself. You were too young to quit. 26 rolls around. You decide that sobriety is not for you.
Speaker 3 00:25:36 Well, he's in therapy and I got really weird at one point. And I thought to myself, I'm either going to jump out of the row, jump out the window or I'll get drunk. And you decided to go. I decided to get drunk. How's a good choice, but, but of course you get drunk, then there's a price to pay. It felt crap afterwards. I failed and I didn't stay drunk for long, just a few days. And then I went to, uh, went to detox,
Speaker 4 00:26:12 Go to detox the first time around. No. Okay. So this is your first time in detox. My first time of deep time. Okay. So you get through detox and then what happens? I called my father.
Speaker 3 00:26:23 I called my father and my father came and picked me up at the townhouse. You know, I thought I was gonna like, just go back to what I'd been doing at farmhouse and in therapy and stuff like that. And my father who had this friend who was in a, in Florida, had coached my father about how to talk to me about it and stuff like that. And my father said to me, you need my help. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, you get me outta, outta detox. I, yeah, I need your help. He says this the help I'm going to give you, he said, what is that? He says, you're going to get on a plane and you're going to go to Sioux falls, South Dakota,
Speaker 6 00:27:08 Fuck that. You gotta go
Speaker 3 00:27:12 To a treatment center there called Keystone. And I thought, I thought you got to be kidding me.
Speaker 6 00:27:21 Who goes to Sioux falls, South Dakota,
Speaker 3 00:27:23 Are you kidding me? I want to stay here. My father said, this is the help I'm willing to give you. And it's the only helper I'm willing to give you.
Speaker 4 00:27:33 Did you take that help or
Speaker 3 00:27:36 I, you know, I was afraid he was, you know, we were in this car and I was afraid he was upset. And my father wasn't, uh, a person to get angry. He didn't get angry, but it was, he was so angry. I was sad. I was so moved. I was afraid he was going to break the steering wheel. He was pounding on it so hard. And I, I said, okay,
Speaker 6 00:27:59 Yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. Stop holding up the steering wheel down. Absolutely I'll do it. But if you done with my father, yes. So, uh,
Speaker 3 00:28:08 Oh, so then I, I ended up going to Sioux falls, South Dakota, put me on a plane. And you know, I went off in the, into this adventure.
Speaker 4 00:28:18 How was that different than farmhouse?
Speaker 3 00:28:20 Oh, it's totally different. It was a treatment center. And what they believed in was alcoholics anonymous and the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous and all the consulars, there were recovering alcoholics and they weren't, they weren't psychiatrists. So they weren't psychologists or anything like that. They just believed in a, the other thing was, they didn't confront me. They said, you don't need to be beat up. You beat yourself up. I know. And life already. And you need to be taken care of. And some generalists, they turned to me very gently. They introduced me, really gave me an introduction to alcoholics anonymous. I had gone to alcoholics anonymous before and nominally St. Mary's hospital believed in alcoholics anonymous, but you know, they had, they had encounter groups and crap like that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 00:29:19 So you went to Keystone, right? Yeah. How long were you there for 20 days? What'd you do? After that? I came back here and I broke up
Speaker 6 00:29:26 With my girlfriend. Um, Marshall, no, this is a different,
Speaker 4 00:29:31 See you, you said that you got problems with whim, but you're just listing all.
Speaker 3 00:29:36 Yeah, I, I, you know, they liked me. What could I say? They liked, I was scared to death of all, but then like
Speaker 0 00:29:43 Another one of those beautiful paradoxes in life, back from Keystone,
Speaker 3 00:29:49 I went back and just went into my apartment. I lived in my apartment and started going to a, I started going to actually, I started going to a place called the 20 foot 2,400 club, which was 2,400 and Blazedale and they had a club there. I started going there and they, they were just good old time. A the other thing that I did is, um, I started dabbling again in the religion that I was raised in that helped a little bit, that helped them a little bit.
Speaker 0 00:30:23 You are enjoying your time in AA, or at least as much as you possibly can after going to treatment for the second time. Yeah. How long did that last?
Speaker 1 00:30:32 Oh, wait, you got, how long, how long were you showing up in a,
Speaker 3 00:30:36 For everybody I've heard that about another three years, I had this sort of things where, you know, I went on like three year cycles. Think I went out and got drunk.
Speaker 0 00:30:45 You hit your three years cycle. Once again.
Speaker 3 00:30:48 Yeah. The other thing that was going on is I had some mental health issues, supposedly somewhere along the line there. And in 1980 after I got from it again, and they said, well, maybe you should go to the treatment again. That's what you did is you just went, you went to treatment because it was easier in facing, facing wife was let's go to treatment and buys you some,
Speaker 0 00:31:15 What were these mental health issues that were presented?
Speaker 3 00:31:17 I was, at that point, I was diagnosed as being bipolar. They didn't call it bipolar. Well, maybe they did it. That was manic-depressive doctors said, well, I th I think you might have a problem with manic depression or bipolar. So we suggest that you take lithium carbonate and take that as a medicine. So I did.
Speaker 0 00:31:41 How long did this second drunk, last show, short
Speaker 1 00:31:45 You like those short little spurts? It's like, I gotta make sure though.
Speaker 3 00:31:49 It's just a good day and I just, yeah, just get through about two hangovers and then I'm ready for treatment
Speaker 0 00:31:55 Treatment again. And then how long did this next stint of sobriety last
Speaker 3 00:31:59 Then? I, I got involved with a, uh, another, a new woman.
Speaker 0 00:32:04 You are just painting a picture of two Tim's, right.
Speaker 3 00:32:07 A new woman who, uh, actually was a, um, uh, she was a bartender, but she didn't drink. She was sort of, uh, she had been a stone alcoholic, but she put on her own tough. She was tough. So I started hanging out with her subsequently we married at some point in time. I didn't drink for about eight years or something like that. Eight years in change. Then I started smoking grass. Again. I had a, I had a friend of his, actually a friend of hers and my, I had a friend and I started going to the movies with him once a week, started smoking grass. Again. Were you drinking at this time? No. Then I, I got divorced and then, you know, Katie bar, the door bubbler, they say where they say, I know all bets were off, off to the races off to the races.
Speaker 3 00:32:56 I sort of, you know, I had been taking this lithium for a while with this doctor and then the same, same doctor out that. And he says to me, you know, I wasn't on a very high dose of it. And he says, well, maybe you don't need it after all. And this was the guy who had diagnosed me in 1980. And I said, what do you mean? You're the one who diagnosed me as being bipolar. Now you're telling me that I'm not. And then he said, well, you know, maybe you don't need to take it. And so I, I quit taking it. Then I started just cycling off into never, never land it somewhere. Some point in there I was getting on in age and I was getting up to be of up 40. And I thought, I thought, you know, this is the, how, how, uh, someone who's bipolar starts thinking, starts thinking, like, I got to see Paris before I die. Like I'm gonna die right away you here. So I decide that I'm going to go to Paris. I had some money, I gotten some money. I, you know, I had inherited some money. So I, I, so I went off to Paris in the process. And about that time I started drinking again. That was like, I went on, I essentially a 25 year long, uh, relapse or binge didn't get straight. And until I was almost 65, 65, a 25
Speaker 5 00:34:26 Year.
Speaker 3 00:34:27 Yeah. Yeah. If that isn't a binge, well, I just, you know, I just, I just sort of gave up and said, you know, I'll do this. So I started drinking.
Speaker 5 00:34:39 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:36:47 Welcome. Welcome. Welcome back. One last time to authen Nang, sitting here with Tim, talking about his eventual rise to being a recovered alcoholic, Tim, we've gone over how you started, why you started, what that looked like. And then you came to a place where you were starting to get help for this thing, this thing that you couldn't control. So you'd get a period of sobriety and then you'd drink for a couple of days, and then you get another period of sobriety and then you drink for a couple of days. And then you decide to go to Paris because you are going to die soon. And you go on a prodigious 25, your bender, give me the abridged version of that twenty-five year bender.
Speaker 3 00:37:31 It was the first time I, um, started experienced homelessness. I went to Paris. I thought it was so great that I moved there. So I came back and gave away everything I owned and decided to move there. Of course I only had, I only had nine months worth of money. Then I had to come back. Then I started to experience homelessness for the first time.
Speaker 0 00:37:55 What did homelessness look like for you? What did it feel like?
Speaker 3 00:37:58 You know, I was just, you know, I was out of control. I was just drinking all the time. And, um,
Speaker 0 00:38:07 Give me a day, a typical day in the life of homeless temp.
Speaker 3 00:38:11 Oh, it was, it was, you know, when I came back in a town from France, I went and a guy said I could stay at his warehouse space and I sleep on his couch and I'd sleep on his couch and that I didn't have any, any play that real place to live. It was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. I started working in a, uh, in a restaurant that I thought was really hip and cool and everything like that. I didn't have a place to live. And I was working in this restaurant and then hanging around there until two o'clock in the morning when it was closing time. And then I remember that I, one night I, I stumbled upstairs in this place and found a couch and laid down on the couch. I went to sleep and nobody's said anything to me about the fact that I slept in the bar overnight. So I stayed there for a year around my couch.
Speaker 0 00:39:08 You know, couldn't get any better than
Speaker 3 00:39:10 That. Now couldn't get it. Yeah. You know, how's, you know, and I was just a stone alcoholic. I get up in the morning and drink and drink all night. And you know, it's just a nightmare.
Speaker 0 00:39:23 Sure. That year of sleeping on the couch in the bar,
Speaker 1 00:39:27 I found another woman, another woman, you know what I said earlier about like a pattern developing here. I found another woman, another woman.
Speaker 3 00:39:40 Yeah. Yeah. Her name was Beth. She was, she was a beautiful, she was a beautiful one. I'm still sort of in love with her, you know, but you know, I, I betrayed her so badly that I, we married subsequently we married, but I betrayed her so badly. What was the betrayal? Oh, nevermind. Nevermind. By that point. Yeah. She never really liked my drinking and it was always, it was objectionable, but then it got even worse because I, I started smoking crack. And how did you find crack cocaine? Well, I'd found crack cocaine long before that. How did you rediscover it? I didn't know. You know, I, you know, some, some guy named, um, you know, some, some guy turned me onto it and so I started doing that. And then next thing you know, I was keyboarding with, uh, carousing, with cavorting, with prostitutes. And essentially by hung around press does is because they knew where you could get crack. And that's, you know, and that's how I betrayed my wife. There's, there's, there's a thing in the big book about alcoholics anonymous and, um, bill story, where he talks about how he essentially couldn't, um, be unfaithful to his wife because he could perform that. That was the only thing that saved him from being unfaithful. He started to become unfaithful after he got sober strangely now. And, but that's enough about bill. I was hanging out with prostitutes, but it wasn't to have sex. It was to get access to car.
Speaker 0 00:41:19 How long were you smoking crack for this last time?
Speaker 3 00:41:24 Ultimately, I went to treatment again, you know,
Speaker 1 00:41:27 Here we are, again, here we go.
Speaker 3 00:41:29 Finally again in the year, 2000 and pretty much quit drinking, but by then I'd started smoking crack and I, couldn't not smoke crack. I'd come home from AA meetings and I would, my sponsor would let me, let me out of the dark. And then next thing you know, I'd be down on Nicolette Avenue trying to score crack. And, um, not that Nicholas Avenue was the best place to score it, but whatever, I'd be down there, I became a crack addict. What did crack do for you? It didn't do much for me at all. So I went through a lot of money. I don't know what it did for me. I don't think it was really very, it was just a, it was a total compulsion. It was an incredible addiction. How, what did it do for
Speaker 4 00:42:14 Me? Yeah. It must've done something for you.
Speaker 3 00:42:16 I don't know. I know. I don't know.
Speaker 4 00:42:19 Was it the feeling that you got from it? Was it the danger aspect of it?
Speaker 3 00:42:23 It was a feeding. I got, you know, it was, it was like, it was like, it was like better than sex. It was, it was like sex or something. It was like, it was like euphoria. Yeah. And then I just became an addict and that's all I did. That's all. That's all that I did. Nick was, I did crack for 14 or 15 years. I lived in a one room place, downtown Minneapolis, and I scurry out, I call my dealer, I'd scurry out, score the drugs, come back in my place and smoke crack. And did that for about 14, 15 years. That was, that was it. Finally, it brought me to, uh, a total, uh, despair. Uh, and I, I been, I started then I started to have some real recovery I'd gotten divorced and I was sort of like, it felt so bad about that. I, and I w that was the biggest loss at that point in my life. And I could just smoke crack regret and have remorse for that
Speaker 4 00:43:28 In a way, crack was your solution to your guilt. You know,
Speaker 3 00:43:34 Whenever I hear someone say the other day, it was, uh, it was there, you know, the, the drug or the alcohol was solution to all my problems. And it was the root of all my problems. That's what it was. I'd gone back to see another, uh, new psychometrist, you know, um, one that, that was, uh, pointed to me, you know, it was, uh, from the County E L M O w in the eyes. I used to joke that he was one step above a flag ban on the, on the working on the County roads. He was probably better than that. And if I didn't give him so much credit for it, but he used to sit in there and look at me and he said, we got to get
Speaker 4 00:44:19 Off back that crack. This is fast to young man,
Speaker 3 00:44:22 A drug. That's not an old man's dragon. By this time I'm starting to become an old man. He would shake his head and say, we got to get you off drug, but he never confronted me. He never and saying that he never, you know, he never said years ago, going in the Treemont or whatever or anything like that, he just let me go. And, you know, I, I come and see him every three months and he'd give me prescription for a medicine. And then one day I had a problem and I, uh, I couldn't see them for some reason. And I became totally amazingly despondent despairing. I thought, Oh my God, I got to wait another three months to see this guy. And I became, just told this fare finally at about five o'clock that's, this started in the morning, about five o'clock in the afternoon. I said, I really need help. And I called nine one ma, and I said, I need help. I said, well, what did he me in detail? I said, well, I need help. And they said, are you going to kill yourself? They said, no. I said, no, I'm not that stupid. You eat it. I'm not going to kill myself.
Speaker 3 00:45:36 But yeah, sure. Wish I was dead. That's what I, that's what I felt like I wanted to be dead. I just couldn't think of a good way to get there a painless way to get there. You know, I, I didn't want to shoot myself. I didn't want to jump off a bridge. If I jump off a bridge, the next thing you know, I'd break two legs and I'd be a mess. The rest of my life flipping around and stuff like that. That's real despair. Yeah. You know, so I couldn't find a good way to kill myself. And so, uh, I was just, as soon as I started telling him, you need help like that. They get real serious. And they dispatch dispatch people. And the next thing you know, I got two cops on my doorstep. We aren't screwing around here anymore. They saved my life by coming.
Speaker 3 00:46:22 They got me, they got me in the back of a car. They said to me, well, you got two choices. And I said, you know, I thought this is going to be good. What are they? I said, you've got AC, I am C are you go to Fairview hospital? And I'd already been through Fairview 15 years before. And I thought it would be easier. It's going to Fairview. So I said, take me to Fairview. And that started my recovery. That's how it started. And I got the fair, I got the Fairview and I am in their, in their waiting area. They're doing all sorts of stuff. And I finally said to him, I said, okay, you have some fucking pills that will make me feel good. Now will help me. And they gave me, I think they gave, give me a shot or something like that.
Speaker 3 00:47:09 Got me through that tough spot. And then next thing you know, you've turned your, your will and your life over the care of God. That essentially is what happened. As I turned my womb, my life over to these people and they took, they said, here's what you're going to hear. Here's what you do. They put me in a psychiatric ward because they didn't know the hell to do with me. And then they got me ready to go to treatment. But I had gotten to the point in my life where I could hardly even walk, I could not even walk. I just was taking baby steps. And so literally and figuratively, literally. And yeah, and I was in, I think I was in the psychiatric ward for 15 days or something like that. And once you got out, I went to treatment. I went across the street to alcohol and drug free another 28 days, another 28 days. You got,
Speaker 0 00:48:04 So you get out of there then what the hell are you going to do now?
Speaker 3 00:48:07 And when you're in treatment, you saying, you know what, they, you gotta, you gotta go to an outside, Amy and you gotta get a sponsor. And I was afraid that if I didn't get a sponsor, I couldn't come back to their meetings. So I asked sponsor and that person helped me, took me through a 12 steps, took me through the 164 pages of the, what they called the big book. I started to, I started to take some advice at, at this point in time in my life. And I don't know, I don't know what the hell happened, man, but you know, my life is nothing like what it's ever been before. And I am, I'm in now a whole new dimension. I'm so happy. I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I still take medicine that the psychiatry Skift man, and I'll probably keep taking it. You know, some people in AA, don't like you to take that stuff. I say the hell with them. They're my doctor. Fuck him. Excuse my language. Fuck them. They don't know. They don't know what I've been through. And they don't, they don't know. You know, they sit there. Some of those people don't believe in the whole diagnosis of bipolar, you know, whatever. Well, I can tell them that it is a real thing. I know exactly. It is a real thing. I've experienced it my off and on my whole life since I was in my twenties. And so, but ever, so
Speaker 0 00:49:59 Looked around a little bit about that. You couldn't figure out a way to kill yourself. So you didn't. And there was this pattern. I noticed multiple patterns throughout this story of your eventual, finding the thing that would nourish you and continue to save your life on a daily basis. And that's a power greater than yourself, but that didn't necessarily exist. At least not to this degree, when you were an active views, it just blows my mind that someone that has gone through that many treatments has gone to those lengths has gone to a crack. Addiction, goes out for 25 years after having six years of sobriety, you know, three years, a couple of days, three years, and you go out for twenty-five years and then you find crack. You don't really hear too much about people that drink themselves to death. What you hear is, Oh, this person overdosed. That's like the big story that you hear. You never really hear about the alcoholic that dies of cirrhosis of the liver, even though it happens every day. The big news story is how drugs are running rampant when people's lives end in a multitude of ways when they're using drugs and alcohol could be an accident, could be suicide, could be anything really could just be an accident. You get hit by a car because you weren't paying attention. Why wasn't that? You just
Speaker 3 00:51:21 Blind fucking luck? You know, that I've, uh, survive this lock it's it's, um, just luck the luck of the draw. I, you know, you know, and a certain, maybe a certain resilience. Um, but you know, I, I can't explain that. Uh, obviously I've done everything I can to screw myself up and
Speaker 0 00:51:51 You know, and yet, and yet you're still kicking. Why you, why you
Speaker 3 00:51:56 By my, I don't know, there's he's got, uh, he's got a better, better thing for me in the future or something like that. You know, I'm starting, you know, next month I'm going to the Holy land. I've never been, I never thought I'd want to go and I'm going, and I want to go and I want to go, I've, poo-pooed burned against people. And then I'm born again. I don't make a big deal by that. I don't wear it on my sleeve, but I'm pretty much if a Christian I've been dabbling in it all my life off and mine, I was raised to care of my cradle Catholic. And I've come back in my age in the last five years back into my religion that I grew up with.
Speaker 0 00:52:45 You've come back into this religion. And you say that it's blind luck, luck of the draw that you are sitting here with me having this conversation and not six feet under right. Blind luck. Well
Speaker 3 00:52:58 To ARA earth. It's
Speaker 0 00:53:00 Because you weren't one of those statistics, Tim, that must mean in some way, because of the faith that you now have, that there's something there for you. Like you just said, like, there's a plan for you. What do you want your legacy as a human being to be now that you are where you are and you've gone through what you've gone through. What do you want your legacy as a human being to be
Speaker 3 00:53:22 Well, yeah, I have, you know, I guess I, I guess when, you know, I want to offer hope to people that there is a solution that there is a salvation. Yeah. I don't know. I don't got it. I don't know, Nick. I don't know. I have no idea.
Speaker 0 00:53:43 Well, how do you offer that solution on a daily basis? If you want to help somebody, what does that look like for you? How do you help people? How does
Speaker 3 00:53:51 I help people? One of the ways I do right now is, uh, I S I started volunteering. Volunteers to me were suckers, who the hell is going to volunteer, pay me. Are you kidding me? And now I give countless hours volunteering and working with working with them. People who are like on the margins of a society, homeless and not alcoholics. And I know I, I work at, um, I work at, uh, a program in the church that I go to that has an outreach to people who are in poverty or in homelessness or whatever we minister to them. That's what I want to do.
Speaker 0 00:54:35 Well, Tim, what I'd like to say to you is thank you not, and I'm not saying thank you for coming down to the station and talking for an hour and change. That's not really what I'm thanking you for, because this is something that you were meant to do. This is, this is part of the plan. That's what I feel in my bones. But I want to thank you for helping me, because that's what you said, that your purpose now is, is to help people. And I want you to know that you've helped me.
Speaker 3 00:55:06 Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:55:09 And you've been a part of saving my life. That's that's. What I talk about in recovery or being recovered is that I couldn't do it by myself. I had to figure out what a power greater than myself wants for me and what that power greater than myself, who I choose to call God, wants for me, is to listen, listen to other people and not to myself. And by listening to other people, God speaks to me. And I truly believe that God speaks to me through you.
Speaker 3 00:55:38 Well, usually he speaks to me through you too. I tell you, I've enjoyed getting to know you. I dunno. I'm how I am known you. Now. I've, since you know, you work at, um, in your regular job, you work where I volunteer. So I've gotten to know you there. And somehow or another, we started spending a little bit of our time on Sunday mornings together talking to each other. And I got to tell you how much I look forward. Now I go to my seven 30 mass and I do my stuff there. And I'm buying that. And I always look forward to coming downstairs with the coffee and the donuts and Nick are, and we have a chance to talk. And, um, it's, it's been really great for me. Let's, you know, I met your mother and your father, and we've gone to a baseball game together and I've become friends with real. And I didn't, I wasn't feeling good to having, I wasn't good with friends. I had, I guess I always had friends, but I became good friends with you. And I've, I've appreciated. I've been appreciated being here with you. I hope it's. I hope it. I hope it.
Speaker 3 00:57:11 I hope it was rewarding for you and then, and any of your listeners. Thank you, Tim. Thank you. You know, I'm grateful
Speaker 0 00:57:24 For you. I'm grateful to be sober. God willing. I will remain that way for the next five hours. Six minutes and 15 seconds of today. Oh,
Speaker 3 00:57:33 Is that how much is that? That's all we got.
Speaker 1 00:57:37 The countdown has been going on. No shit.
Speaker 3 00:57:43 Yeah. I don't think I'm going to get through
Speaker 0 00:57:45 Tonight. Yeah. Well, I'm going to try not to Tim. Thank you for being you for being authentic for getting vulnerable and helping one person out there because that's, that's why we're sitting in these chairs. It's not Nick and Tim time. It's
Speaker 3 00:58:00 Right? Yeah. Eagle mania, right? Right.
Speaker 0 00:58:03 I mean, Nick and Tim were talking physically, but that's not what happened here. What happened here is hope. That's what happened here. I hope so.
Speaker 3 00:58:11 Is hope. Yeah. That, that's what you're trying to do now. Right?
Speaker 0 00:58:14 That's what we're doing here. That's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 3 00:58:17 Hope I can contribute to it. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:58:20 You most certainly have. So thank you again, Tim. Okay. Well that is all the time we have for today in this episode. Thank you so much for joining me today on authentic, where we get authentic don't ever, ever forget to be good to yourselves.
Speaker 1 00:58:40 It's important. It's always here on authentic and keeping authentic. We have to pay credit where credit is due. The musical stylings you add on today program to kick us off. You always hear <inaudible> by muse. And then we totally got into Tim's packs. At the first break. You heard white room by cream. Then at the second break you heard when the levee breaks by the one and only led Zepplin to take us. <inaudible> the <inaudible> Casey Jones by the grateful dead. Love you, Tim.
Speaker 7 00:59:40 That train better show speed. And know that Nosha <inaudible> that <inaudible> cocaine Jones. You bet.
