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 neck and my dog, Marla on Instagram at DJ Marla dot Jean. 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. Alcoholics anonymous or AA will also be mentioned multiple times. During this episode, the expressed views and opinions by the interviewee do not reflect AA as a whole. Please enjoy
Speaker 1 00:01:37 <inaudible>.
Speaker 0 00:02:14 Well,
Speaker 0 00:02:20 My name is Nicholas Thomas Fitzsimmons. Vanden Hable, but most people just call me Nick. And this is my show authentic instead of authentic, it's authentic. I put Nick in the place of tech. Okay. That Michael over somebody said anyway with me as always is my dog Marla. I'm nerdy crap. I'm not a career up. Okay. That's enough Marlo. Why don't you go back to watching the departed anyway, here on authentic, where we get 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 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 have bipolar disorder. Really? The list could go on and on and on and on and on. Luckily for you, the show is not about me. It is about two people. First is my guest. TM. Second is the one person whose life Tim is most certainly going to save here tonight. We are here to let you know that you are not alone. We are here to smash stigma and we are here to provide solutions. We've made it. We've made it to part three of the Tim G saga. The segment you are about to hear is my favorite segment of the show. It is H O P E.
Speaker 1 00:04:09 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 00:04:23 Mark. Hi Tim. Hi. Hi Tim. How
Speaker 2 00:04:26 Are you? I'm feeling pressured now. Oh
Speaker 0 00:04:28 Man, this has been, this has been quite the journey we've been on. I hope
Speaker 2 00:04:32 One person gets some benefit out of it. You nailed
Speaker 0 00:04:35 It. We're in our last trimester. We're in our last trimester. Can you feel it? And you feel the baby.
Speaker 2 00:04:40 And let me say, this is one of the things that I always, whenever somebody says, Hey, I got 30 days. I got three days. I got 10 years. I got 50 years, whatever. I always stop and say, you know what we gotta do now get one more day. And that's what it really comes down to
Speaker 0 00:04:57 For me. What I say is grateful to be here, grateful to be sober. And thank you all for helping me stay that way for the first 20 hours and 11 minutes of today. Yeah. Hey, it's only three hours and 49 minutes left and then I get to start all over.
Speaker 2 00:05:15 Yeah. And especially when somebody like, especially if somebody comes back from, from, uh, using again and says, Hey, I blah, blah, blah. And I'm back. I always go up and say, you know, congratulations and thanks for reminding me why I need to keep coming. Sure.
Speaker 0 00:05:26 Ruth, I want to take a magical trip back to your childhood. Oh boy. I want to know what you would say to little Timothy, little Timothy that feels alone and scared and confused in a few sentences. And in your case, a few sentences about 20 paragraphs, what would you want to say to little Timothy?
Speaker 2 00:05:50 You okay. You don't gotta be perfect. You're okay. The way you are, your parents seem pretty wacky and unknowable, but hang on. You'll figure it out at some point. You'll understand later. And you don't, it's not about you.
Speaker 0 00:06:02 What do you want to say to that compassionate priest who is now near death suffering from ALS.
Speaker 2 00:06:10 Thanks for being supportive of me and reaching out so many times, even though I was at a monoecious brat sometimes to you. That's real. Saintliness if you ask me that's real love, that's love. What would you like to say to your mom? I love you, mom. I want you to be happy. Yup. I want you to not have to struggle with all that crazy stuff from the past. What do you want to say to your dad, Tim? I love you, dad. We got to, I wish I would have spent more time trying to hang out with you instead of thinking I was too cool. I know you wanted nothing but the best for me. Thanks. I love you too.
Speaker 0 00:07:00 You have been, and these are just a few of the ones I've written down. You've been a child support officer. You've been a warehouse worker, a doctor, a lawyer. Well, you weren't a doctor, but you were being a doctor, child support, officer warehouse, worker, doctor, lawyer, waiter, counselor, paralegal, temp salesman. Out of all those, what was your favorite? Oh, Lordy.
Speaker 2 00:07:24 They all had their moments before I, when I worked in the warehouse, this was back in the days when they were putting up cubes and offices because zillions and zillions of cubes, and one of the high points of, I mean, there were great moments in all of those types of work, but one of the great moments there was, we were in a setup and I was lying on the floor underneath the work surface, as we called them in a cube and I was bolting the keyboard holder up on the bottom of it. I was laying on that back onto this thing, screwing it in, in these three women were coming back from lunch and they were walking by and one of them, as they walked by and said, I want one of those under my desk. And I jumped up to try to see them and bang my head on the thing and they got away.
Speaker 2 00:08:04 So there was that, and there are great moments in all of it. I had, uh, had a divorce client one time, Mary, and were mostly through her divorce. And part of the deal was, and she was a great person. She put up with amazing amount of crap. Her husband was really a jerk, but part of the deal was Mary was going to get the house, uh, out of the divorce. And so before it was over, she called me up, said, Hey, I got a buyer for the house. And I said, great. And she said, but if I close before the divorce is final, my Xs to sign off on it. Right. And I said, yeah, definitely. And he'll try to screw it up. She goes, yeah, I will. And I said, cause he's a jerk. He goes, yeah. And she said, well, can we get it done quick?
Speaker 2 00:08:39 And I said, well, you know, we can, because the one part that's left, we can wait for, you know, we can get them the actual divorce done first and the other pension stuff or whatever it was we can, we can do later. And I said, but if I call the other lawyer, he's going to want to know why when I do it, she goes, well, what's a good reason. I said, well, most common one is that you want to get remarried right away. She goes, hell no, unless you're available to him. And I said, well, Mary, there's two problems with that. The first one is I'm already married. And the second one is it's illegal for lawyers to have sex with her clients. And she said, who said anything about sex? So it hasn't moments from time to time and they were all good. And there were times, you know, great triumphs and all of those and failures and, and, and struggles in all of them. I'm guessing kind of the underlying theme was, you know, just basic self doubt, not good enough, not smart enough, not fast enough kind of thing.
Speaker 0 00:09:32 And what would you say to a youngster that said those same things you do?
Speaker 2 00:09:38 Well, one of the things I got to do, my, my older son, who's now 32, when he was in like sixth, seventh grade, gotten all kinds of stupid trouble with his buddy. So things like riding on the carts in the, uh, dining room that they weren't supposed to ride on and stuff like that. So the school said, you gotta come and you and his mom, and he have to come and meet with a counselor every Friday morning for an hour, until we decide he's back in good stead. And I heard about a place called Treehouse youth outreach with a, which I'm sure is still around. And it is a faith based Christian based organization where they have not licensed therapists, but people who are kind of lay practitioners who support teenagers and their families and their parents, which probably is a big need for all that.
Speaker 2 00:10:19 I got involved with a parent support group there. And so with a bunch of other parents, and we met every week and talked about stuff with our kids and how things were going on. And one of the guys who led that group, somebody was talking about your kid gets good grades and say, you know, congratulations. And he said, here's, here's what I think makes the most sense. And this is what I try to think about. Whether it's with clients in the treatment center or my kids or anybody else is doing encouragement rather than praise. So instead of you got an annual test while congratulations good for you. You're so goddamn smart, blah, blah, blah. Instead of doing that saying you must've worked your ass off to get that being encouraging and supporting that. And if they go, I got a C on my test and I go, I know you wanted to do better, but I know you did your best.
Speaker 2 00:11:06 I know you've tried hard. You worked hard. And that's what matters to me. That's what I care about. When I went to law school, I'd never gotten anything lower than it being in my life. And my first semester I got a practice test and I went in and he gave me a C you know, we got through the whole thing. And I said, well, geez. And he goes, well, let me guess what grade I gave you. I go, I bet I gave you a, B. I said, you gave me a C. And he goes, eh, big deal.
Speaker 0 00:11:26 And I was like, Oh my God, I'm going to die.
Speaker 2 00:11:29 I'm going to die. That I think is a huge one. So that's what I would want to do with anybody I'm working with is being encouraging. I think that's what we all need all the time.
Speaker 0 00:11:40 Tim, you got kids. How many kids? You have
Speaker 2 00:11:42 Two, two sons that are 32 and 29,
Speaker 0 00:11:45 Two and 29 are either of them addicts or alcoholics
Speaker 2 00:11:49 That I know of. And I really don't think so. Why do you think that you
Speaker 0 00:11:54 Came from a household with an alcoholic mother and an alcoholic father and you're an alcoholic. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:12:02 I don't know. I don't know. I, boy, you know it lucky and I I'm, I'm sure they're aware. And they think about it. My oldest son got caught with a bottle of, one of his buddies. His mom called me one night and said, uh, the cops got 'em and if you want to go pick them up right there right now, you can, are they going to take them downtown and inside? So I go pick them up. So I went and picked them up as I was driving there, I was like, what am I going to say to him? What do I say? The thing I came up with is at this point in your life, and from now on, whenever you're with your friends, somebody is going to have weeds. Somebody is going to have alcohol. Somebody is going to have some other drugs, easy for me to say, don't ever do any of them.
Speaker 2 00:12:38 You're probably going to try them out. You know, which I think is normal. But the things I would say is you need to take, make a decision. First of all, are you in or you're out make it a clear decision. And I, then I said, when they were getting to the age where they were going to be drinking, I would just say, look, here's the deal. If you drink, that's fine. But do not get in a car as a driver or a passenger after you've been drinking, you know, call me anytime day or night, I will come and give you a ride. I don't know if that ever happened, but that was, you know, be realistic about it. You're going to try it for Pete's sake. Let's bring it out in the open and see what you think and like that. And I don't, you know, I'd like to think that help, but I have no idea. Yeah. But they're really cool guys. I am truly blessed,
Speaker 0 00:13:21 Tim, what is hope?
Speaker 2 00:13:24 Well, I think believing that things can be better or at least that they can and they can continue being good if they're already good, you know, that forces beyond our control as whether the, as well as the, the things we can do to arrange events and how things happen. Kind of believing that between the work I can do and the reality of the universe I live in, things are going to be okay. And I can have a life that I like. That's I guess that's what it comes down to.
Speaker 0 00:13:50 What do you want your legacy as a human being to be Tim? Um, take your time.
Speaker 2 00:14:00 I suppose that, that I was loving to people. People like being around me, people feel like they benefited from knowing me.
Speaker 0 00:14:06 Would you say that you are addicted or were addicted to your hypomania? I interesting question. Do you miss?
Speaker 2 00:14:14 No, because it's never, it never ends up fun. Well, one of the things that really helped me the most with that I believe is I was involved in a support group for people with bipolar disorder and it was under an organization. And I think it's got a new name now, but it was the Minnesota depressive and manic depressive association. And it was really valuable because I got to be in a room with people who were struggling with depression and mania. And a lot of things went on. We talked about meds and we talked about all kinds of stuff like that. One of the most helpful things, again, for me, that helped inform my thinking about how to deal with mental health as well as drugs and alcohol and other kinds of behaviors is the idea of catching my behavior. So one of the guys talked about, he said, you know, my family's from rural Minnesota.
Speaker 2 00:14:57 I talk about bipolar disorder and their eyes glaze over. And so he said, what I, what I, the way I explain it is we're all going along. Like here's dead normal. We all have ups and downs. To some extent, some days you're perkier than other days. Some days you didn't get a good night's sleep. You're a little slower, little grumpier, whatever, but we all have normal ups and downs. So what, what happens for me is I get going way up too high. Sometimes what I need to do is be able to pay attention to if I'm going, you know, 50 is the middle and I'm going 40, but you know, that's okay. If I'm going from crashing down into 10, I gotta do something. I gotta call somebody, call my doctor, do something. If I'm getting myself up to 70, 80, I got to do something.
Speaker 2 00:15:33 I need to eat something. I need to sleep more. I need to take a break. I need to intervene in that process of getting into mania or getting into depression before it gets out of control. I remember there was a woman in the group one time who was Kate had been gone for a while and she came back and she said, I just got out of the psych ward. Again. It really sucked, but I've made progress in that. I caught myself and got to my doctor before it got to the point where I was going to have to move to a different city and start another career, which she'd done. One of the ones I met, somebody else said, I just started this new job two months ago. I'm the number one sales person, kicking ass. They love me. How do I tell them I'm going to crash in April?
Speaker 2 00:16:10 Like I always do and not show up for a month. But again, those are things that can be managed. Do you, do you cure your addiction? I don't think so. Do you cure your mental illness? I don't think so. You'll learn how to manage it and to manage my addiction. I need to not drink alcohol, but I also need to have a life being involved with people who support, I guess, the values I want to live by of being honest and reliable and helpful and supportive. And I need to get enough of that good stuff coming to me so that I can feel good about enough about myself, you know, so I can be aware enough to catch myself before I start getting into the depressive stuff. Before I start launching into the hypomania stuff.
Speaker 0 00:16:50 You mentioned earlier that you had been taking antidepressants, have you been taking other mood stabilizing medications or is it just antidepressants for you?
Speaker 2 00:17:01 I was first diagnosed with depression in late 1990. And I think within a few years after that, it evolved into bipolar. And I worked with various psychiatrists over time. I think I started out with other mood stabilizers besides I think, you know, I remember trying lithium and had bad side effects. I was like shaking and stuff. Didn't take that. And so for the last, probably 20 years, I've just taken antidepressants. And again, I think learning what I learned in the bipolar support group is what really helped me manage the media. One of the things that clues, you know, um, hypersexuality is a big, common symptom of hypomania. When I'm thinking about asking the 16 year old cashier at target on a date, that's a clue. I, you know, I need to chill. That's extreme, let's say, but, but you know, that's, that's where my brain goes. When I started getting, when I started getting wound up, when I started thinking, you know, crazy, exciting stuff like that.
Speaker 0 00:17:56 Well, and that's the wild thing about being sober and dealing with addiction and dealing with mental health. There isn't a panacea.
Speaker 2 00:18:04 No, you got to keep on. Rolling, rolling, and rolling. And rolling with it. Staying in touch with people who I get, you know, tacit or spoken out loud feedback from about my behavior, which I don't like hearing. If it's not exactly the way I think it is, I need that.
Speaker 0 00:18:21 I need. And maybe a sense of accountability.
Speaker 2 00:18:23 Yeah. Sense of accountability. Definitely. One of the common things in, in treatment would be running into people who say, I don't trust my own judgment. I feel like I've made so many stupid decisions. I don't trust myself. And I go, I would say the solution for that. Who do you trust? Who do you think is trustworthy? Who can you count on to support you? Check your ideas out with them. Find somebody whose judgment you trust, check your ideas out with them before you act on them, get some gal, get some input or people would say, I don't trust anybody. And I go, well, first of all, who you've been hanging out with, you've been hanging out with drug addicts and criminals, probably not been acting very trustworthy. Chances are you. Haven't been acting very trustworthy. How would you know how to do that? And so for trust, my story was, if you walk into a car dealership and wander around for a little while, somebody will come up and say, Hey, Nick, I bet you'd look really good in that new truck.
Speaker 2 00:19:07 And they will talk to you about it. You might stay 10 minutes. You might stay two hours. You might buy a truck, but what's going to make that happen is how does that trust develop? It has to happen through a series of interactions, who is somebody you trust. That's not a family member. How long did it take from the time you first met them until you got to the point where you trust them, to the extent you trust them. Now we trust people that to various degrees, there's people who they, if they said, Hey, can you lend me 20 bucks till pay day B? No problem. There's other people who are like, no, I don't think so. But it's an ongoing process of, again, looking at DOE their actions match their words. That's really what it's about.
Speaker 0 00:19:41 You've kind of touched on it a little bit, a few times, or at least from my perspective you have, do you view alcoholism and drug addiction and compulsive gambling and eating. Do do you view those as a disease?
Speaker 2 00:19:56 I had a guy in treatment one time and we're going on and I don't think it's a disease. I said, that's fine. Just don't drink. You just can't drink. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:20:04 Exactly what my sponsor said. It doesn't matter what you fucking think. That's right. It could be a disease that could not be disease. That's not the fucking point. The fucking point is that you don't pick up and you don't kill yourself. There you go. Because if you think you want to kill yourself, think twice, because you have no idea who the fuck you are killing.
Speaker 2 00:20:23 The best things I learned about that was two things. One, I went to a talk on suicide years ago, the woman said, you know, whenever anybody attempts or complete suicide, everybody who knows them says, Oh my God, what happened? His girlfriend dumped him. His car broke down and he lost his job, you know? But you said those kinds of things happen to thousands of people every day. Very few of them think about suicide. People who think about suicide and act on it, have other mental health problems going on that haven't been addressed. So there's that. And another one was, I heard a thing on the radio about, uh, people in San Francisco banding together to try to get people to not jump off golden gate bridge among those were, they had interviewed two people who jumped off the golden gate bridge and survived. And the coast guard guy who patrolled under the bridge and pulled a lot of bodies out.
Speaker 2 00:21:07 And he said, most of the people who, the bodies, he pulled out, it was clear. They hadn't died on impact. They'd flopped around, been busted up and flopped around and drowned. And the two guys who survived were busted up badly. Both of them said, the second they let go of the railing. They went, what the hell am I doing? My problems? Aren't that bad. And again, it's that thing where it's not a rational decision about, Hey, I'm having a bad day. I think I'll kill myself. It's a twisted state of mind where you can't make a good decision for yourself. You know? And again, in my mind, it's typically about depression, obviously other mental health things that are often tied in with depression, but it's the kind of thing where if you have a chance to recognize it before you act on it, that's where you got to put in those safeguards and catch yourself. As soon as you start going down that road. One of the clues for me about depression is if I miss my antidepressants for a few days first, I just get this vague sense of impending doom. And then after a little while after that, then the negative self-talk starts coming in. That's where I go with, uh, you know, the thing about suicide and I totally forgot what got us going on that we were
Speaker 3 00:22:08 Talking about whether or not it's a disease. Okay. Well,
Speaker 2 00:22:11 Here, here you go. So the scientific version here I am on my whiteboard bio-psycho-social disorder and it's not even called chemical dependency anymore. It's substance use disorders.
Speaker 3 00:22:21 So, uh, so sad. I know bio-psychosocial disorders. Yeah. So the
Speaker 2 00:22:29 Part is genetics. Okay. Now I haven't heard that anybody's found the attic gene or the alcoholic gene at the same time. It's obvious that it runs in families. So there's clearly a genetic component. There's nothing you can do about that. Psychological. I've heard that described as sort of temperament. And so I heard somebody describe that as if you go into the hospital where they have all the babies in the, in the maternity ward, in the little baskets, and there's 10 of them, six or seven of them are going to be sleeping or cooling or playing with their toes. And two or three, I'm going to be freaking out and screaming and going nuts. And that's temperament. Some people are more mellow. Some people are more high, strong that's, that's certainly part of it again for better or worse. Who knows. And then social, if you grew up in Saudi Arabia, even though you had all of the genetic predisposition toward alcoholism, you probably wouldn't get in trouble with alcohol because it's illegal and it's not part of the culture and it's not okay.
Speaker 2 00:23:18 Probably not available for the most part. That's it? Are you around people who drank shortly before I left my job at the treatment center, I worked with a kid who was probably 19. And I'm guessing he had no fetal alcohol effects. If not fetal alcohol syndrome. He didn't know anybody. And I'd never known anybody who wasn't an active user, if not an addict, his, his mom was a big meth addict. And I talked to her several times and she was, you know, wanted to help him. But she still drinks thinks under control the people. He worked with one of them back at his job, but they all smoke weed and drink regularly. The people that referred him to our treatment center had put them in outpatient and put them in a sober house. And he had his friends come over and bring them booze and drugs like the first day.
Speaker 2 00:24:00 And it just struck. And I suggested how about going to this halfway house or something? And he was like, I think it was in comprehensible for him to consider being in a world where everybody didn't use. That was as far as he could imagine. So, you know, that's, that's the social part. If it's normal, you know, what's, what's normal in your world. You know, that's obviously a big part of it. Those are the, those are the factors that are involved. You can't say that any combination of them is going to make somebody an addict, you know, or look at any family. One or two may be addicts and others might not be at all. Who knows?
Speaker 0 00:24:31 I'm the lucky one. Well, there you go. There you go, Tim. When I was, Oh, geez. I don't recall how long I'd been cleaning silver. Let's just say I'd been clean and sober nine months. Okay. And I had a breakdown in my vehicle. My vehicle didn't break down. I broke down. I was going to ask and I was, I was on the phone with my mother, the topic of going to see a psychiatrist, going to get some help, getting on some meds is a possibility for me. Sure. And you know, she kind of knew it. She was like, get on some fucking meds already. Like they're going to help you. I was so reluctant. I was, I think I was scared, embarrassed blah-blah-blah or I don't want to be one of those people. Are they even going to work? Am I going to be groggy? And what would you say to someone like me that is reluctant to start or try taking mental health medication?
Speaker 2 00:25:27 So thought if there's somebody who's in recovery, maybe bring up at a meeting and say, here's something I'm struggling with. As part of my recovery, I feel like I've got some mental health symptoms. In fact, I'm pretty sure I do. At the same time. I'm really reluctant to use psychiatric meds. And I don't need anybody to say anything right now, but if there's anybody here who has experience with that and could share that with me and give me their thoughts on how and why they got into it, and if it's been helpful and so on, I'd appreciate hearing from them, something like that, you know, how do you, where do you, where do you get that? And again, you know, when I look back, you know, as I went through various things, especially failures and, you know, quitting practicing law. And I was like, what the hell?
Speaker 2 00:26:06 What a loser am I? And you know, on the one hand, like while I had bipolar disorder, I couldn't help it and go, well, duh, the thing, you know, looking back, I couldn't, there were things I could've done. I could've asked for help. I'd been in therapy. I could've called, you know, when I finally did call her and he goes, why didn't you call me two years ago? You know? And I could've, and I didn't, and that's something I would hope that I think would be really valuable. Anybody who's trying to move forward in recovery because there was always going to be the next thing that's going to be hard to overcome. Having the willingness to ask for help is huge. It's I mean, that's how it, that's how, you know, it has to start. That's how it has to start. I'd like to think it doesn't have to, you know, again, like the whole hitting thing, it doesn't come because you got enough pain. It came because you had enough insight to say I'm sick of this. I'm going to do something different. I would hope there would, there would be some way for people to get that. Who do you know, these people are out there, you know? And how many times when things were really fucked up and people go, Oh geez, why didn't you tell me I could have helped you? And we've all done. It. That's probably the biggest barrier to all those kinds of recovery. I don't remember.
Speaker 0 00:27:04 Well then how would, how would you approach or teach or inform kids or adults, how to reach out and how to be aware of these things. Do you think that there should be something in place? Like, I don't know, like a fucking training for kids that are in middle school, these are the signs and symptoms reach out to your friends, reach out. What do you think would fucking work?
Speaker 2 00:27:27 Maybe it would be part of, I don't know what they call a classes, but things about people, different kinds of people and people with different kinds of issues and different kinds of problems. And it might be people in another country who are dealing with, they still have polio there. It might be somebody who's struggling with, uh, you know, the caste system in India and talking about different people, have different kinds of experiences and different kinds of problems. It's not all about, you got to do this and you got to do that. Different people have different kinds of problems and they can deal with them and they do deal with them and sources. And let's see how let's see how they do that. And not that you need to know this because you're going to have to deal with this plant. The idea that there's a way of dealing with this stuff.
Speaker 0 00:28:09 And that's how I got sober. There was a seed planted. There was a seed planted when I was, Oh God, probably 19. My dad was dropping me off at one of the many houses that I lived in, in Milwaukee. And he gave me the 20 question test. My dad's also a psychologist, counselor therapist. He's a drug and alcohol guy. Wow. Not an alcoholic. Um, but yeah, he's a drug and alcohol guy, you know, go figure, you know, that's another reason why I'm still alive is because that seed was planted when I was 19 years old and I just broke down and started sobbing because I answered yes to all. Do you drink, do you think about drinking in the morning? <inaudible>, there's these 20 questions that if you answer yes to, I don't know, seven or more of these questions, you might have a problem with alcohol or drugs, something to that effect.
Speaker 0 00:29:02 And I answered yes to all of them. And then that seed was planted. And my dad handed me a when and where wow. The, the hard copy, little paper pocket, when and where and a when and where, for those of you that don't know what it is. It is a when the time and the, where a place where you can go to get help, you can go to get help for AA meetings and AA meetings, any sort of 12 step meetings you can find in this one and where, and also I would like to express that there are websites up the ass of course, or support. And we live in an age where you can literally Google, how do I get help for? And you can find, I think that's a fascinating
Speaker 2 00:29:42 Thing about the internet in general is on the one hand it, and there's a movie called a social network. Well, there's a social network, but this one is the social dilemma or something. And it's about the problems. And they have the guys who invented all this stuff, Google and Facebook and all this stuff. And they're talking about, as we did this, we were thinking, this is a really cool way for people to get together in positive ways and all this stuff. And then it turns into all this horrible stuff. Another story in any event, you know, with all the options that are out there, needless to say, you know, like you said, you can Google anything. I think what happens too often is we're all just stuck in our own little land, looking at the same crap we always looked at, you know, and the idea of looking at something new or trying something new that might be helpful is often scary.
Speaker 2 00:30:24 It's scary. And it's uncomfortable. Yeah. It's missed, it's missed couple of things. I want to talk about to an a started going to an, a, a woman friend of mine and a as narcotics anonymous, another 12 step group kind of pattern on, uh, alcoholics anonymous. I think it was started in California in the fifties. It's, uh, again, pretty much everywhere in all the time, like a is. And whenever anybody would tell me, uh, you know, I don't like AA. And you know, you know, I don't know if it's really that good or whatever. I would always say, Hey, you know what, for whatever it's worth, it's everywhere. It's all the time. And it's free. Likewise, with N a the thing, one of the things I love about a, I've been to AA meetings in the suburbs where the message was, if you're not middle class white person and you, if you identify as having a problem with drugs, not even necessarily primarily as opposed to drinking, we really don't want you at this meeting. And, you know, nobody said it exactly like that, but that was the imp implication. I think that's wrong. I think it violates this. The only requirement for membership in AA is a desire to stop drinking. If I have a desire to quit shooting heroin or quit, uh, gambling, my savings away, those are other issues. If I want to quit drinking, I get to be in AA.
Speaker 4 00:31:33 And that's a perfect example of humans being humans. Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 00:31:38 And I mean, you know, in the parochial thing, it's like every group of people on the planet are parochial. You know, we do it right. And everybody else doesn't do it as good as we do. So there's that. So w within a thing I love about Anais is in there, you know, preamble or opening statement or whatever they read at the meetings, it says we do not have a problem with a substance. We have a problem with a disease called addiction. And then they specifically talk about some people see alcohol differently. And I get that, you know, people say, well, why is alcohol being illegal? And who's legal and pot isn't I go, cause it's a big part of Northern European culture, which is most the dominant culture in the United States. It's always been part of the culture and we've accommodated it, fascinating stuff. Another one, another thing, a resource I've run into.
Speaker 2 00:32:17 And I mostly know it by the one, this guy named Tommy Rosen, and he's involved in this thing called recovery 2.0, and I think you pay money and you get to be involved in seminars and stuff like that. But he has tons of free talks on YouTube, their recovery, 2.0 goes into their anti yoga and nutrition and lots of other stuff you may or may not be interested in, but he's very well grounded in the 12 steps. And I love some of his is got one talk in particular. I would recommend to anybody who's working on recovery is navigating early recovery and relapse. It's about an hour long. I think it's a wonderful talk in there. He talks about, you know, we know the primary addictions, alcohol, drugs, money people, you know, sex and co-dependence and stuff like that. Tech money with regard to gambling or debting or overspending know, I forgot what the other Oh, food and you know, whatever the other ones are.
Speaker 2 00:33:04 And then he said, my definition of addiction is any behavior you keep doing, even though it brings negative consequences into your life. So then he goes, then there are the four aggravators negative thinking. Self-doubt procrastination and resentment. And people will say, well, those aren't addictions. And he goes, well, my definitely, if my definition is anything you keep doing, that brings negative consequences into your life. Those things certainly apply. We've all done them. You know, again, it's something to look at and the same kind of tools that work with addiction to everything else. I think work with those to catch myself getting caught up in that negative thinking or, you know, self doubt, what good does it to you? But we, for whatever reason, we put a lot of time and energy into putting ourselves down second, guessing ourselves, talking ourselves out of being who we want to be. And, uh, we don't need to. And so again, that's another tool that I think can be valuable in helping people who are working on recovery to just have a life they like. Cause that's what it's about. That's exactly what it's about. You don't like your life. Why be sober.
Speaker 0 00:34:02 Yeah, exactly. And you touched on a lot of points that I love to drive home with people that inquire about being sober, being clean, or just being in recovery from something because we all go through shit. Yeah. And what I love about what you've said is what I tell other people. I'm an Allah cart recovery guy, not just a, it's not just an AA. It's not just 12 step programs. It's every thing it's all encompassing. And that's what makes me happy. That's what I feel my life is worth living for. It's doing this podcast, you know, doing nice things for other people, even though I'm angry, you know, it's just little shit like that.
Speaker 2 00:34:44 I recently saw a thing on the internet and it's about how to, how to, how to manage your drinking. You don't have to go to those embarrassing meetings and stuff like that. And I remember looking at my first one, and then I went, you know, what, if that gets somebody moving in the right direction, I'm all for it. You know, if that gets somebody to looking at you, like the whole idea about like harm reduction, you know? And on the one hand it's like, Oh my God, you know, that's dangerous. But at the same time, I'll go talk to these all, join this outpatient group. If they don't, aren't going to tell me I have to stop drinking the first day I got there. And that brings somebody in to start talking better than not where it goes from there. Who knows, you know, I think all of those things have, have some value.
Speaker 0 00:35:19 I like to talk to people about their, what I like to call spam fitness and spam is just an acronym for spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental. What's one thing you've done today to work on your spiritual fitness. One thing coming here. What about your physical? Um,
Speaker 2 00:35:39 Let's see. What did I do to help my physical health? Nothing? Not much. Did you
Speaker 0 00:35:45 Walk up any stairs? Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 00:35:47 I walked up some stuff. I carried some furniture up and down stairs. Yeah. Emotional
Speaker 0 00:35:52 Fitness. What have you done? One thing today,
Speaker 2 00:35:55 I got to work with some guys who are in recovery today. Spend some time with them, talk about how things are going and how they're doing. And what's good. And what's needs work. That's what helps me stay on track for me. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:36:07 And what did you do for your mental health today? One thing that you did,
Speaker 2 00:36:12 I took my medication. I took a nap in the afternoon because I was feeling really dragon. That helps me feel, feel better. Yeah, Tim, thank you. Thank you. This is cool.
Speaker 0 00:36:24 So much for being on the show.
Speaker 2 00:36:27 You're most welcome. I mean, I got three parter I could blabber forever. As you can tell. I love talking about this stuff. It helps me. I mean, coming here has helped me, you know, really, you know, it reinforces when I say this stuff, sometimes I hear it and it helps me remind me while it's why it's important to pay attention to this and keep doing it. Cause I'm prone to chickening out. You know, it's like, I don't want to tell people I have mental illness and I don't want to be an addict and all that kind of crap or, you know, I want to admit that my family wasn't perfect. You know, how can I trash my, what are you going? What are you doing? Going on that podcast and trashing your parents. What the hell kind of asshole are you? That's not what I did that. What I did was try to tell the truth and point out some of the reality of what they were going through. And like everybody else, they were people that were doing the best they could with what they had. They sure did. Right by me in so many ways, you know, at the same time they had some problems. Those are facts of me too.
Speaker 0 00:37:22 Tim, you told your story tonight. Yeah. That's what you did. Yeah. You told your story as someone that's still living and breathing, therefore you are in recovery. Now comes my second. Yeah. My second favorite time in the program where you get to choose, you get to say your own sign-off line. I have this little competition with people because my sign offline, I think best in the business. None, you know, we were talking about that black and white thinking. I am at the absolute peak. Cool. I am at the apex. That's seen if I'm way up
Speaker 2 00:38:02 There. I'm really happy for you. Thanks.
Speaker 0 00:38:04 Thanks Tim. Thanks for stroking. The old ego.
Speaker 2 00:38:07 There's a wonderful, well, we were talking about the 20 questions. If you ever heard of the movie, Stuart saves his family. No, who's the guy who was a Senator Al Franken. He made the, remember his character on Saturday night live was a Stuart Smalley. Yes. So it's about Stuart Smalley and he's saving his family. Long story short, his brother and his dad are out hunting. His dad shoots his brother. His brother goes, gets more beer and he's coming back through the woods and dad shoots him. And so he's in the hospital and he's, he's recovering. And so the, uh, alcohol counselor, so storied flies into town to rescue the family. And he gets the alcohol counselor and alcohol counselor is talking to mom. Who's like Ms. Ms. A codependent. And they call the counselor says, you know, does he ever miss work because of drinking? She goes, well, you know, once in awhile, you know, does he ever drink in the morning? Whoa. You know, sometimes Stuart pipes and he goes, has he ever shot a family member while drinking a sign off line, sign off line, hit me with it.
Speaker 0 00:39:02 You got to sell me on it. Mr. Salesmen, doctor, lawyer.
Speaker 2 00:39:05 Wow. If you don't do anything else this week, that's good for yourself. Listen to this podcast as many times as you can, because the wisdom that's stored in here, this is really bullshit. I shouldn't say this is really disrespectful of our listeners. I'm really glad I got and came to talk. And I'm sure I talked way too much. And if anybody got one little piece of help from this and hope and support for their recovery, I'm a happy man. Thank you so much for listening. And
Speaker 0 00:39:34 Remember as always be good to yourselves. It's important. <inaudible> 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 my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my ma is madness by muse, uh, to take a so, and to the, uh, night sky Tim's tune pots on FEO, AKA filet gumbo by Dr. John the night tripper off the sun, moon and herbs album. And as always be good to yourselves, it is ever so important.
Speaker 1 00:40:45 It out <inaudible>.
