096 17 Years on Meth, I Discovered the Truth About Healing

A single line of meth made the world go quiet for Jason—and for years he chased that silence through dealing, manufacturing, and a life that looked powerful on the outside while hollowing him out within. He tells us how constant moves as a kid shaped a deep need to be chosen, and how that unmet need made the first high feel like belonging. The spiral accelerated: selling to fund the feeling, inventing rules to feel “safe,” and convincing himself that politeness and profit weren’t in conflict with harm. Even a “geographic” reset couldn’t outrun the pattern; drugs found him again, an apartment was stripped clean, and the streets of Vegas became home.

Then came the sentence that changed everything: “I’m pregnant.” Jason quit cold turkey and went home to a grandmother who held him without judgment. But the story didn’t end at sobriety. He overcorrected into promotions, degrees, and corporate prestige—until open bars, status, and cocaine replayed the old melody in a sharper key. A 0.38 DUI, crushing grief, and a near-suicidal drive toward a tree became the second bottom that forced him into rehab and an honest inventory of the self he kept dragging from city to city.

The breakthrough arrived in therapy: look your younger self in the eyes and tell him what you’ve done with his life. That moment reframed his mission. Jason now believes the opposite of addiction is being seen—by others and by the parts of ourselves we’ve abandoned. He lays out practical recovery principles: radical willingness to change people and places, building a safe bubble when needed, daily gratitude, refusing negativity, and verbalizing what you enjoy so your mind learns to follow it. Today he counsels others through his “Madness Method,” turning hard-won lessons into guidance that’s equal parts streetwise and compassionate.

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Transcript

Roots, Restlessness, And Early Wounds

SPEAKER_01 0:04

I went to a different school almost every year from about the third grade until I got to college. Meth fires you up into the stratosphere. It literally takes what you consider to be the best feeling you've ever had and puts it in a place that's almost unattainable ever again. I also used to do drug deals in the parking lot at the police department because they're not going to look for me there. Our addiction was doing a lot more than our sales. And we wound up homeless, sleeping on the street in Vegas. I don't have any money for food. I haven't eaten in a week. I would steal pickles from the gas station at the condiment station for the hamburgers and hot dogs. One day she tells me she's pregnant. And that was the last day I did though. I was not going to bring a child into this world with an addict father.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Why don't we begin from the very beginning, Jason?

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Um, I was born and raised in California, sort of everywhere. Um there I spent the uh the younger years, I think up until about the age of seven or eight in the LA basin. From there, we moved up north, uh, Central Valley, uh, Modesto, Stockton, Sacramento, uh, Mantica is where I went to high school. My childhood, I I was surrounded by love. Um, but the perception of this little boy, it it seemed all that little Jason noticed what was what wasn't around. And I noticed, like, hey, I why why don't I have a dad around? You know, and and and I'm sure that there were other kids I was around. I just didn't I didn't know their situation. I only knew mine. And and my mom was young when she had me and was, you know, doing the best that she could. And when life did what life did, I went and I lived with my grandmother for a while. And for a point of time, my mother was with me during that until she tried to get things going. My perception of that was, hey, why doesn't my mom want me? And then when it's time to go live back with mom, grandma sends me back. Wait, why doesn't grandma want me? It wasn't until I started trying to figure out what led me to become an addict that I dug back far enough to realize that this was the perspective of a little boy that ultimately led to decisions later in life because what came of it, and and I I make sure to emphasize that that I was surrounded by love. I had people that were willing to care for me while my mom worked out her life, but the perception from this little boy was that he wasn't wanted. It leading to fixing adult Jason was okay, first this was the perception of this little boy. Why was that the perception? How why did my mind allow me to negate what was beautiful out of this and only absorb what was negative out of it? But what wasn't helpful for a little boy that that perceived life this way was we moved a lot, you know, and it wasn't like in a military style. My mother was very young, figuring out her life, sort of an an aloof person herself, but we moved a lot. And and I went to a lot of different schools growing up. I think I went to a different school almost every year from about the third grade until I got to college. So every year I was reinventing myself of who I needed to be. Every year I'd be in a different school. So I I would hurry up and observe, like, hey, what is what is this class lacking? Oh, it's lacking the class clown I'm in. That's my spot. Oh, it's it's missing the obnoxious kid, I'd be that. Or I would I would assimilate and and through all of that. And I mean, you start talking about you're getting into the teenage years from 12 to 15, 16, as a as a young man, you know, full of testosterone and attitude and figuring out life and having no idea who I was. I just knew what what face I needed to put on. Towards the end there, I kind of settled in with the same group of friends, regardless of what high school I went to. And we had a buddy call up one day, and and we were kind of the party guys, you know. We we had our own house. So we we were all 18, four of us in a house, you know, we all worked, and and we had a buddy call us up one day, and we were a bunch of weed smoking, beer drinking, country boys at that point, you would I would say. The buddy calls and says, Hey, you guys gotta come check this out. All right. And we go over there and he shows us this stuff, and and we each do a line of this stuff, and it was it was meth. Actually, at the time it was crank, which is like some old antiquated form. It's just a dirtier version of meth, essentially. So we do the lines of this stuff, and it was like all of a sudden, my brain was quiet, and I felt amazing, and I was like, all of a sudden, I was comfortable in my skin, and I I was I was heightened and and everybody was like getting along and and having a great time, and it was like the best party I had ever been to, elevated to a degree that I I wasn't even really able to comprehend. I just knew I felt fantastic for the first time in my life. And that night I was the first drug dealer I ever met because I didn't buy it for my buddy that had it and called us and told us to come over and do it. I told him, because I had a job and I had money in my pocket, hey, I need a bunch of this right now. Because my head automatically was if I love this and everybody in this house loves this, everybody's gonna love this. So let's get a bunch of it and let's get the party going. And whoa, did we? It was out of control from there on out.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

So this was literally the first time you'd ever tried it.

unknown 5:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

I just hooked you in that very first time. Is that common among people who've taken meth? Is it is it one of those drugs where it's instantaneously addicted?

First Hit, First Hustle

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Well, the well it depends on how you so the mental addiction, I don't know that it was necessarily addictive in that moment. Even heroin takes four uses for your body to become dependent on it. Um the effects of meth as far as what it does to your psychology, what it does to your body, it's it's drastically stronger than the effects of what heroin is. Heroin's a depressant. Meth fires you up into the stratosphere. It literally takes what you consider to be the best feeling you've ever had and puts it in a place that's almost unattainable ever again. There were times in the coming months from that day where we'd go spans of time and we we still had to work, we still had things we had to do, you know. So it it wasn't that we immediately were addicted per se, as opposed to like when most people would run out and grab like a 20-pack of beer for the for the group of guys and I'll sit around it like we would go get a bag of dope and do some lines and party all night. And it didn't help that if you were doing meth while drinking, you could what appeared or felt like drink endlessly without ever getting to that slurry, stumbly like as soon as we figured that out, we had a big old problem on our hands. We were already drinkers and we'd smoke much weed, but if you did meth and alcohol together, you didn't ever have to stop doing either. It is what how it felt. So, as a bunch of 18-year-old, 19-year-old knucklehead boys, like we just throttled down. And then as we started selling it, we almost couldn't keep it in stock. It got to the point where we were paying for the house. We were buying cars, we were like it it really became a thing fast. We thought we were it, but we were just a bunch of uh of goofy boys that never intended on becoming drug dealers ever. And now this drug is financing our entire life, and like we're keeping ridiculous jobs. The amount of money that we were spending and the amount of things we were buying was not explainable by my Pizza Hut job. But we convinced ourselves that, oh, hey, I'm keeping a job, so so it's all on the up and up. Nobody's gonna ask any questions. You know, come on, dude. You you work 25, 26 hours at Pizza Hut. You have a house, you have car, all you guys got brand new cars, like what's going on? And we were just like, no, nothing. It's totally normal.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Reflecting back on it, from the outside looking in, what were some of the things and mannerisms of behaviors? I know you mentioned the money, and that was kind of questionable for a lot of people looking in, being like, hey, where is this coming from? Um but other than the financing aspect, what do you think people looking at you guys could see? What were the changes happening in terms of your behavior that people could notice?

SPEAKER_01 8:42

The personality piece of it. I was already the look at me guy. I was I was like begging for acceptance and love, right? So I was the the loud, flashy guy with the night, the clothes and my watch had to match my pen and my earrings or whatever the case may be. And this just amplified that in a way that I could actually sit back. I let my car do the talking, I let my clothes do the talking. So it's all it took me and just elevated what I was, right? But when when it started becoming more consuming for us, um we had to have a meeting together. Like, guys, if this is really gonna be a thing, you gotta be sleeping, okay? And yeah, and and meth kind of takes that off the table, you know. You gotta be eating, you gotta stay working out. Like from the inside, and even looking back now, I don't I don't know if we were any different than just the party guys in town. I mean, there were people our our situation in that town rolled out of control so fast that people were coming from the Bay Area to try to stop what we were doing. Meaning, like they used to sell drugs in our town, and now we became a problem for them and we ran them out. There were people coming from Fresno to stop us from what they were doing, and we ran them out. And the whole time we're just like, and and and I say this now because here's like looking back, and and we were just these goofy kids. Like, I mean, half of my buddies that were running around doing all this came from the the golf team in high school, you know, like it's not like we were like thugs and and and all that. We were just really good at what we did, and we we were respectful to the cops in town. We tried to be respectful, and you know, we were still hold the doors for people, please, thank you, yes, ma'am, no ma'am. You know, uh when if we got pulled over, we were very polite to the cops. Like we we just that's who we were. We just made our money different.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

What about in terms of like school? The teachers were not able to tell that, hey, these guys have changed.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

None of us were in school by this point. So each of us were graduated from high school. We all dipped our toe into college and let that go pretty quick. I didn't return back to school or did or even attempt schooling until I was 29. I got clouded. I was trying to fill a need that was being filled in like the kind of the worst way that you could think of. I was consuming the amount of drugs that I would do, I would never stop. Like everybody else would be like, oh, I'm high. I'm like, all right, and I would just keep going and going and going and I just wouldn't stop. I almost completely agree with the fact that if you're gonna allow yourself to fall down the kind of hole I fell down, you're not operating on all cylinders. There's some trauma in there, or there's some PTSD, or there's some behavioral or emotional issues. Very few people become addicted to that without something driving it. Addiction's ugly for everyone, anyone and everyone, but uh I was filling a void. So I went full bore into this. There was no hiding how high I was. I didn't care. I really didn't care because again, I'm being respectful, I'm polite, I'm I'm nice to everybody, I'm paying my bills, I'm not bothering you. As a matter of fact, if they're gonna bother you, give me a call, I'll take care of it for you. So the first night we tried it, and I told the guy to call, give me a bunch. The guy he called, he and I got in business together. But then when when he and I had a parting of ways, we'll say, because he got to the point where he was, I'm the one that's in charge of this. I was like, Cool, you want to be the face of this whole thing? You go right on ahead, buddy. But ultimately I wound up having to go around him to his person, which he had already introduced me to. If you go above your dealer to his dealer, you have a problem on your hands. You don't do that. Exactly. You know, he had already handed me off to him, and he now he and I are having problems, so I don't need you anymore, and I'm going to his person now. He didn't take that very well. And he showed up to my job at Pizza Hut one day, and I'm back there high as hell, like making my cutting my pizzas and doing my thing and being the good boy. And he showed up and wanted a fight, and my buddy was outside and started whooping him, and then I hopped over the the counter with the rocker knife that cuts the pizzas, but the my manager grabbed me because my manager knew what I was doing, but as long as I didn't bring it there, it wasn't a problem. And I actually wound up cutting him real bad with the with the blade because the way he grabbed me, I dropped it and it cut him, and and so I didn't I didn't work there the next day, needless to say. But this these are the kind of things that started snowballing.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Just about to ask you about like aggression, because I know that aggression is a big part of of meth.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

I wouldn't run from conflict, but I wasn't ever looking for it. Never. Never at and at any point in my my meth use, my my alcohol abuse, my cocaine use, my none at no point was I that guy that like we had that buddy in the group. He already filled that niche. Like everywhere we took him, we had to like put a leash on him because he was trying to fight everybody. But again, like it seemed like the group of guys I grew up with were just good kids making terrible decisions. But if it comes down to needing to protect someone that's close to me and it's required, I'm not gonna turn away from it. But no, you're right. It is a drug that will turn people into very violent people uh in violent situations. I guess you could argue that if you remove the meth, were they still violent? I think the people that I ran into may have just had that in them anyway. And then if you add in back the the thought of, well, if they were using because of whatever trauma or PTSD or emotional voids they're trying to fill, that violent side of them would have maybe come out regardless.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Exacerbated.

High Life And Escalation

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Right. That meth is the catalyst to violence as opposed to the emotional dysregulation that somebody might be experiencing that's that that would cause that anyway.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

What about paranoia? How does that work in this? Maybe it might not lead to violence, but the feeling like you're being watched or being followed.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I've known plenty of people that the paranoia kicks in. I never I never had that. I never experienced it. This I I I almost welcomed the attention, whether it was from the cops or from people. I wanted all of it. Like I wanted to experience all of it. I used to call myself the gingerbread. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man. Like I used to say this out loud to people, but I also used to do drug deals in the parking lot at the police department because they're not gonna look for me there. So that's where I would do it. I would park in the parking lot at the cop station and I would do drug deals at there, because that's not where they're looking for me. I just I don't know what what broke. I d I don't know what what what what fixed, but the peeking out the windows and the looking through peepholes. I I I remember partying with this girl once and and there were several of us uh in a hotel room, but she would roll up toilet paper and stick it in the peephole because she was like, they put machines there that can see reverse through it. I just didn't want to live my life that way, so I didn't. But you're right. Yeah, a lot of people do get paranoid. If you stay up too many days, you know, you're depleting your body of everything you need to function properly. All of your synapses, they start the your connections, they start breaking, you know, and things that used to fire and touch, they're not touching anymore because your brain is shrinking, because you're dehydrating it, because you're not drinking water, you're not sleeping, you're not eating, and you're creating a a euphoria that that is working in reverse now. I I never let go of the rules that we sat down together. You gotta eat, you gotta drink, you you gotta sleep. These are musts. It was how I kept moving. And so I didn't get paranoid.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Can you walk me through a specific moment that really stands out to you that you always remember a low point?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

I knew that things were going bad when the guy that I was running with and dealing with, like I watched him beat these guys over$80. I was so caught off guard because this is not who I am. I don't beat people over$80. Instead of pulling the plug, we just kept going because I can told myself, hey, that these are the rules, you know, you don't steal from drug dealers. And I I justified it to myself that this is acceptable and this is okay. But my heart and my soul told me this is not okay because they wanted to leave them out like we were way out in the middle of nowhere and they wanted to leave them there. I made them drive them to the hospital once the addiction took hold. And I mean, I I started manufacturing it for myself. How do I increase my profits? Okay, I start manufacturing it myself. So I I got linked up, I got taught how to cook it. Once I know how to cook it, all right, how do I get my my ingredients cheaper? And I started finding ways to get my ingredients by cut getting rid of going around people and finding my own uh sources. And now we've got bountiful amounts of it. By this point, it was it was kind of over for me. There was no stopping. And I had made attempts in a they call it geographicals. I moved to Arizona to try to get away. And I get a job at Coca-Cola, we have an apartment, like living life nice, and and without fail, I meet this guy and we're outside. And and if we didn't wind up on a conversation about meth and he had some, I mean it couldn't have taken 10 minutes for that conversation to come up. So guess where I went after work? And now I'm back on it. And I started trying to sell it, and that didn't go too well because I wasn't from there. But then I my girlfriend and I take a trip home for Christmas and we come back and our apartment is completely robbed clean. And it had the only it had everything we had since we were kids, all of our love letters we ever exchanged, and and all of our furniture and all our clothes and our baby toys. We had everything. Like our life was going to start, and we lost everything. And this just sent us back down the rabbit hole, you know. So guess where I went? I went back home to California and was like, hey, you got to put me back up. Like I kind of handed off everything that I had going on to my buddy that also had things going on, and I was like, here, you can take all my people, I'm out. And I came back, I was like, hey, I need them back, dude. You know what I mean? Like, I need I need you to put me back up. That that trauma that you just pile that on top of whatever damage the meth is doing to my head and whatever things have gone on, you add trying to stop and change your life and ultimately lose everything, and I mean everything. You start to believe that this okay, well, this is life now, you know. So I guess we'll go back to what we know works. And it's right back to Cali, selling drugs, doing drugs. And it just got I mean out of control by this point. All of my original friends are deep in this as well. And and now we all have problems together because they don't like that I came home and all the people that liked dealing with me came back to me. And I mean, we're living out of our car. We got, you know, bags of clothes and touquettes, and we're homeless living in a car and running around and selling dope and doing drugs and getting clicked up with the element just keeps getting less desirable. But but again, even in the worst space, this is why I feel so inclined to be doing what I'm doing now, is because the one thing that was prevalent is how when I would sit, and I mean I've sat with some gangsters, some scary, scary people, and I've had the most beautiful conversations about such real life things, and I got to have these conversations and see who they were and realize that they are just a series of horrible decisions, and they are doing, and again, if you're in this life, there's rules. You have to follow the rules. And if you can't find your way out of this life, you have to follow the rules, or you're dead. There is no like middle ground here. But they were my they were my friends because I didn't know them as those people. We had these conversations and I started realizing that they're just like me. That good human, that good person, that beautiful soul is still in there. It just exists in a very negative space. I felt welcomed and I was very safe because at this point, if I'm sitting in a room with these type of people, these are my friends. They protect me, they became my community. So now I feel obligated to be more of who I am in that moment for them. And that's when it just this is it's like the the next level. Like it just I never seemed to be going down. The perception was it was always up because most people don't get to where I was, you know, as far as the being in a room with these kind of people, being in a in in a house where all the money is kept in in legal boxes, and it it was it never seemed to take the drop that maybe would have required for me to snap out of it and go, hey dude, you you gotta you gotta do something better with your life.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

So what what then did finally become that turning point for you to decide? Like, I don't want to do this anymore. Like, how did it finally turn for you?

Lines Crossed And A Failing Compass

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Well, we we pulled another geographical. I always had this thing in my head that I want to go back and I want to live in Vegas, and I was like, you know what? So my girlfriend and I were like, let's go try this somewhere else. So we went to Vegas and we stayed, and we got jobs and we got to work and everything was great, and and lo and behold, it found us again. Somebody offered, hey, you can come stay with us instead of paying in that pay-by-week hotel you're in. Okay, great. And then she did meth. And not being too far into sobriety, it was like seamless to go right back to what we were doing, except a immediately resorted back to the more treacherous version of me, not that not the beginning version of me, right? The version of me that left Cali that was hanging out with these very scary people. Like I was now a very scary person. I was very quickly selling ounce after ounce after quarter pound after kilo. Like it was quick. Bang, bang, bang. I'm really good at this. We were there for a few years, but a year and a half of that, once we decided we have to stop. We have we we what are we doing again? We're here again and we're back at the So we started stepping back and stepping away because our addiction was doing a lot more than our sales. And we wound up homeless, sleeping on the street in Vegas because we were like almost intentionally backing ourselves away. But it got to the point out there where we were homeless, and you know, we had to take turns sleeping because it's illegal to be homeless in Las Vegas. If you're found sleeping in a public space, you go to jail. So she my girlfriend and I would take turns sleeping. Um and and you know, then I noticed that she wasn't using with me anymore, and I still was. I was doing enough to keep me high to keep us moving, and she was like, no, no, no. And I was like, Adgirl, you're really giving this a shot. I'm so proud of you, keep going. Like, and I was supportive of it because this is what we were trying to do until one day she tells me she's pregnant. And I was like, Oh, oh, that's why. And that was the last day I did though. I was not gonna bring a child into this world with an addict father. There was no way. I've seen too many people that I've partied with break down because they don't have their kids because they can't stop using. And and I remember the days in Vegas accepting that I'm gonna die an addict, like this, I can't stop. I'm just gonna die this way. And I've I've accepted it. So now, and I mean, if I I tried to send my girlfriend, now wife, she and I are still together. Um, I tried to send her home because I was like, this is where I told her, this is where I die. Like, you can't be here. Like, because I'm I and I'll be honest, I like I think there was somebody that owed me some money, and I was probably gonna go kill him that day. I had given up. I had given up because of how it felt to be that level of an addict. I can't function without it. And I sleep on the ground and people look at me like trash. They step over me. I don't have any money for food. I haven't eaten in a week. Not because I don't want to, I I can't. You know, I would steal pickles from the gas station at the condiment station for the hamburgers and hot dogs. I was hungry and and I was tired, but you can't sleep. You know, nobody would let me stay at their house. They called themselves my friends because I had no dope for 'em. I would keep myself just high enough to keep us moving. Or to be able to stay awake so she could sleep. I needed to send her away because I accepted death. But when she said that she was pregnant, there's no way. No way I was going to allow a child to come into this world without a father. And if he's gonna get one, it's not gonna be an an addict father. And so we came home. I called my grandma, I got a bus ticket home, and came home.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Did you just stop cold turkey?

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

I mean, that's not easy.

Geographics, Loss, And Despair

SPEAKER_01 28:05

No, it was brutal. It was brutal. I think we slept. The understanding lived in me that everything about this was because of my perception of not being wanted. I understood that then. I always understood that. I saw it because I I needed validation from everybody. Everything about my addiction I completely understood was because of validation. But the the physical piece of it, I think, was easier because I wasn't gonna bring a child into this world to be made to feel what led me to where I was. And luckily, my whole family was sick of my shit, and rightfully so. I had stolen and and I was the quintessential tweaker, right? Like I was that problematic person. But grandma never gave up and she let us come be there. And I was I had this connection with my grandmother that was undeniable, you know, and she was my whatever, she was the person, and we came home, and I know that she knows what I was doing, but she never made me feel less than because of it. And I think that's what got me through it, because she let us come there when nobody wanted us at that point. I honestly I think I slept for a month. It was like I think it was a couple weeks, but I mean I hit the ground running. I went and got a job. I made sure that my my girlfriend getting exercise, let's go for walks, let's keep it moving. And she and I were just eating like crazy. I mean, we I think we both put on like 80 pounds, 90 pounds. Like we got big. We we hadn't we hadn't had food to do our access and you know, in our access for so long. Like we just got massive. And but there was see the per the problem, and the reason why I we were talking about how my podcast is actually seasons, not separate podcasts, is because yeah, I stopped using, but none of the trauma from during use, none of the trauma as the child, none of none of that was dealt with. I just didn't use. Okay. So now I'm I'm I'm over consumed with work. I'm working, working, working, working, promotion, work, promotion, work, promotion, work, and then I go to school and I'm killing that. And I I graduated with a 399 and five theta kappa, dean's list, president's list, like I killed that, right? Like I just overdid everything because I had to. Like I in my mind, I had to make up for the last 11 years that I was doing nothing. And so I've overconsumed that. And then without fail, I meet a girl at at work. Um, and and that sounds like the start of a cute story. It's awful. Like, she I shared my whole story with her because we worked nights together, and then one day I was hurting from being at the gym, and she just she just started feeding me Vikadin. And but she wasn't happy because I showed up and they they they hired me for the job she was going after. It's not her fault I chose to take them. I'm not I'm not mad at anybody. She presented me with an opportunity, I'm the one that took it. Okay. So that sort of like re-triggered something for me. Uh but then as the promotions kept continuing and I'm starting to go to corporate events, and now I'm kind of climbing this ladder and I'm going to these corporate events, and the drinking is so prevalent, right? In the corporate world, you go on a you go to a you go to a uh a conference or whatever, everybody when the conference is done, they go to the bar, right? That's what that's what gets done, you know. And then you open up with the company credit card and bang, there you go. And my company that I work for love to throw money around to let everybody know that we're the big dogs, you know? And uh I it was always the the the most senior traveling employee pays the bill. Well, in several instances, that was me. And so I was opening up the bar and I was told to open it up to every company that was there. And so guess what? Guess who's getting validation? Guess who's getting guess who's the man, right? And oh Nam, nobody can out drink Jay. Nobody, nobody. Yep, you're right, nobody can. So I would just pow, pow, pow. And it got to the point where to be able to function the next day, I would have to get the guy that I just tipped four or five hundred bucks the night before to open the bar early so I could start taking shots, so I could get right, because the rule was at the company, we want you to have a good time, but you better be in your seat in the morning. Fine, done. I could live in those parameters. You didn't say how I had to manage to get to you know, manage those parameters, but I will live in the rules. That's what I do. I follow the rules. You gave me a set of rules. I'm I'm here, I'm drunk, but I'm here, you know, while everybody else is feeling like crap for the rest of the day. I'm good, you know? And and this snowballed, I mean, you're talking uh, you know, uh a DUI, ultimately a a DUI wound up coming in a company vehicle, um, because unfortunately, I wound up hooking up with a a guy that was part of the corporation, but he was also a coke dealer, so my coke was real cheap. And my the coke would help me be able to manage my my hangovers, and now I'm drinking every day and I'm doing coke and I'm I'm you know, I'm doing the the the the corporate lifestyle now, but this is acceptable, right? This is I'm I'm paying my bills, right? See how the the whole thing repeated itself in a completely different way, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

And also the other the other aspect of it is just like alcohol is so much more socially acceptable. You know, it's not illegal, you can go anywhere and access it.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Right. There's definitely a a status to alcohol and cocaine in a corporate world as opposed to, hey, you want to do some meth? Like, no, bro, I got things to do, you know. Like it's it's been my experience, and I'm sure that that's not the case always, but you can drink yourself to sleep when you're doing coke. You're not drinking yourself to sleep when you're doing meth. But then the unfortunate happened. Um, my my grandmother passed, and I had come out to New Jersey as a part of because so I took a job out here in New Jersey with the same company I was with, and I was out here on assignment for a few years, and then they offered me to stay permanently, and I couldn't take the job because I couldn't fathom having to take an airplane ride home, knowing that my grandmother had passed on the other side of that plane ride. I I could not have taken that plane ride. So instead, we moved home. We moved back to California. Uh I mean, I was already holding on by a thread by this point. The amount of consumption. Because see, here's the thing is when when the the promotions stopped and when the praise stopped and life just leveled out, right? Like, look, dude, you've been getting crazy promotions and all of this stuff. Like, you got your goal, you got your own facility, do it right. But but then they stopped, and I was like, Oh, what's wrong with me? Like, I internalized like, like, oh, you don't you don't love me anymore, nobody, you know, and and like this crazy, this crazy need. But anyway, um, so after grandma's passing, that thread that I was holding on by broke, and I I was drinking three to five pints of vodka a day, and I was I knew that it was this bad again, and I was I would drive home the same way, and I would always see this tree, and I'm like, huh. And I would always eyeball this tree. Every time I passed it, I'm like, that seems like a speed that would kill me hitting that tree, and like, you know, like these intrusive thoughts, and I just keep it moving. But this day, I heard it in my head, her voice. I heard my grandmother's voice, baby. I just want you to be happy, and I broke because I I felt like I was never gonna be able to, and I was I was not the father I needed to be, I was not the husband I needed to be, I was not the employee I needed to be, I was failing at everything I was trying to do. So I decided, come on, buddy, we're gonna go hit this tree. And so I turned my truck around and I headed to the tree. And I I woke up the next morning in the drunk tank in Sacramento, California. I was done. I wasn't gonna be a failure anymore, and I wasn't gonna damage everybody's life around me because I was I was at it again. I was telling myself, you're worthless, you you have no value, like just go end this. I don't remember anything after making that decision. The cops did come in the next day and on their off day, they came in together, they were off that day, and they said, We just wanted to come chuck on you. And I was like, why? And they were like, You were the nicest person we've ever arrested. And I was like, What? They were like, Hey, do you remember smacking my partner on the ass and telling him good game? And I was like, Oh god, no, not at all. They just laughed and they were like, Look, dude, like they said, if we didn't see the bottle on the seat and smell it on you, you'd have gotten away with it. They were like, You passed the field sobriety test, and I blew up 0.38. 0.4 is is enough to kill you. Like, you should be dead. And they said, I passed the field sobriety test. So, you know, my wife took me, uh, I got no get out of jail free card straight to rehab. There was just it was just too much. There was just too much in Cali. But in Jersey, we Jersey kind of felt like the way it felt, the way we grew up in like the 80s, the community, the neighbors, the so we came back out here and and I got back into the same industry and promotions and all this. Bang! Started drinking again.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

And and how long did this drinking thing go on for?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

So I mean, alcohol's always been around, but it I I mean I drank heavy, but it was like sparse when I was younger. But this this heavy, damaging drinking went on for 10, 12 years. I realized that looking at my surroundings, if I'm really gonna get sober, the industry in it in and of itself is a trigger for me. I can't control myself appropriately because in this atmosphere, this is what I'm conditioned to do. I believe this to be true. I believe in this in this atmosphere on corporate events, you drink. Like I've conditioned myself to this. Nobody's making me do this, but I can't seem to turn that off. And so I have to remove myself from all of these because I'm not doing this again. I found I I found my niche into an industry that's related to the one I'm from, but not the one, you know, and I got to work from home and I created a bubble for myself. And I said, Okay, buddy, you're gonna stay here until you're safe because you can't handle yourself and you don't even know who you are. What was interesting during these last two, three, four years is is I I started seeking therapy and started really doing the work, you know, and I started digging and I started being honest with me. And I had a wonderful therapist, and and in one of our sessions, we'd do them over Zoom. He had me set pictures of myself up when I was younger, and he goes, All right, uh, look that kid in the eyes and tell him what you've done with his life. No. No, I don't want to do that at all. I don't want to do that at all. But it was in this this exchange with myself that I realized that that little boy is still in here. It's it's little Jason that's been protecting me this whole time. So I started accepting that little Jason is still real. 10-year-old Jason's still real, 15-year-old Jason's still real. Like there like every version of me still exists. This is just an accumulation of every version I've ever been. So if there isn't a version that's real, it's the one right now because I'm not done making this one. Yeah. You know? And and so now because of what Vince kicked to me that day, I I spend every day just trying to think if little Jason was to materialize today, I want him to be proud of what I've done. I used to go to this group therapy session that I went to. Angela, she was my my facilitator. Now she's my mentor. I realized, like, oh, I've got something here. Like this, this is what it is. And so I walked away from that old industry altogether. This this established, I mean, albeit that I kind of destroyed any credibility that I had in this industry, to be perfectly honest, but I walked away from it. A very lucrative lifestyle, as a matter of fact, to and now I'm I'm a counselor. Like I this is what I do. I I try to go connect with people that that are struggling the way I did, because uh I can't have lived for nothing. This whole crazy adventure, it can't be for nothing.

Vegas Spiral And A Pregnancy Turning Point

SPEAKER_00 40:50

I was just gonna ask that do you think that in order for a person to be able to get over an addiction that they have to remove themselves from that environment permanently or remove certain people from their lives that have triggered them?

SPEAKER_01 41:03

If an addict doesn't remove the version of them that is the addict, it doesn't matter where you're at. Everywhere you everywhere you go, there you are. Right? Yeah. So if you don't address the drive to be the like I I tell folks now, if you're not willing To change everything. And I leave nothing off. If you're not willing to leave your partner, never talk to your family again. Move to a different country. If you I mean, whatever it is, if never talk to your kids again. If you if it is not all on the table to change, then you you might you might not make it. Okay. Maybe you will. But I'm not saying you have to give all this up. I'm saying if you're not willing to, if you're not willing to put you above everything, you're gonna struggle here. I'm not telling anybody that you have to leave your person or whatever it is. You don't have to. You have to be willing to. Because the world is trying to show you. I do I do two things habitually every day. I sit out on my back porch with my coffee and my cigarette, and I say, thank you for another beautiful day. Let's do something amazing. And then I start managing the expectation of what amazing is because it's not fireworks. It can be very it can be this conversation you and I are having right now because at what other point will you and I connect? I have to believe that to be true. And if you don't believe in a higher power, that's great because I'm also huge on on positive self-speak. So if you don't have a higher power, you can just be saying that to yourself and the outcome is the same. And the other thing I do on a regular basis when I'm ready for something big is I stand in my front driveway and I look at the same point in the sky and I say, Show me the way and I'll take care of it. Just show me. I don't need anything, just show me. Because if the higher power thing, which I believe in, I I had my God, my whole thing, like I couldn't have lived for nothing. Just show me the way, I'll take care of it. Like, oh, I I got you, buddy. Like you took care of me, let me go take care of some things, you know, because I have been presented a second life. I gotta know I gotta know that this was for a reason. And I I have to help. So I went and lived this so that when we have a conversation and when I talk to people and we cry together and we get angry together, some of us need to be guided out by people that made it.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

And so how did you sort of like come to terms with this part of you that felt abandoned as a child, that validation aspect of things?

SPEAKER_01 43:27

It's not that it's gone completely because we all hope to be validated in some way, shape, or form, right? There's that that innate and in and small need we all have, right? But the big piece. One I I realized now as a parent and an adult. I realized my mom did the best she could. And I was surrounded by love. My perception wasn't right because there was no father around. But these things, I I needed to reason them in my own head, and at the end of the day, I fell in love with myself. I love me. So so the things that have happened to me are beautiful. They're awful, but they're beautiful because it's who I am. It's what made me. If that means that I can instill in somebody the feeling that somebody loves them, because I'm gonna tell you right now, there's enough love in this heart for anybody that needs it. I just need to make sure that I share this with people because I I did make it out and because I did the work and because now I I do reflect back and go, look, my family did the best they could. And I appreciate that. I I see where my perception was incorrect. And and I appreciate the fact I did have people that loved me and still love me after some of the horrible shit that I've done in my life. So I'm I'm appreciative now for the things I do have because there's a lot more I could not. If you look for negative, it's all you're gonna find. And I don't look for it anymore. I I reject negativity, you're not getting me with it. Like if you want to hit me with it, and I work in a recovery center now, I get a lot of it. And I I I understand that you're in a place, I reject your negativity, but I have some love for you. You know, you want that? I got I got it in spades right now. I got all you need. I've I choose to reject the negativity. I just don't want it in my life. And here's the thing it's here, it's somewhere. All of us have it. I just choose not to see it. I'm a firm believer if you you're gonna find what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Just like how you mentioned earlier with the meth as well, like it just kept finding you until you were ready to let let it go.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

And the you know, all those narratives as well. I love that. I feel like that in and of itself is a great message for our listeners. But just to just to wrap up this episode, any other messages you would like to give away to our listeners today and talk to us about your your work as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

I I provided a great analogy the other day that I've really been kind of honing in and working with. I was I was talking with one of my clients, he's experiencing these emotions, and then I realized, you know, like when you get a crush on somebody when you were younger and you you want to force your way through it, like, oh, where's this going? Where's this going? Like, how about you just sit with this? You know? How about you just sit with it and enjoy it? Because as this emotion evolves and a crush becomes romance, and the romance becomes love, and whatever it becomes, that's lifelong. But when that relationship gets rough, it it's gonna be reliant on how it began. Like you're gonna remember how beautiful it was when it began, and that's why it's still worth fighting for. So if you hurry the beginning, you might hurry the end too. This is also relevant, but in reverse, with our addiction, like it started so beautiful and now it's so terrible, but you keep remembering how beautiful it was. You have to end it because it's it got ugly, you know. But but but as addicts, we were like, nah, but it was so beautiful in the beginning. This was fantastic, and now it's time to break up. And and breaking up is hard because you're in love. So I mean, I guess really that's kind of the last thing I I want to tail onto this. That was a good conversation. I enjoyed this very much. I guess the other thing uh I'd like to add, if I have a could like two more minutes, is um we verbalize frequently what we don't like. Oh, I hate this song, I hate traffic, I hate this, I hate that. We verbalize it, we condition ourselves to find it. Okay, so I I I implore people to start verbalizing the things you enjoy. You know, because a lot of times you're enjoying a moment. I'm enjoying this conversation, okay? But it's a lot of times you just sit with it like, you know, and you keep it going, or hey, I like this song, or you just start bopping and turn the radio up. Like condition yourself to verbalize the things you like, because only one person is listening to everything you say and think, and it's you. Condition yourself to find what you like, not what you don't.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

I really like that. I think I'm gonna take that advice as well, because like I know that there are so many little beautiful moments in the day that I don't say out loud enough. I just kind of let those moments pass. Like those are the moments that are are going to pass, but the negative ones are the ones that I don't let go of sometimes. Right. And I hold on to that and I don't accept that that too is going to pass. So yeah, I I agree a hundred percent to just simply start verbalizing it. So when you hear your own words, you st your body starts to also accept it. The universe starts to move in that direction too for you.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Right. That's it. Manifestation is so real. So, but yeah, verbalize the things you like and you start finding more of it. As far as my work, I I'm I, you know, my madness method, everybody, please, please go listen. There's a lot of value in it. It's not just a war story, it's what I've learned.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Thanks, Jason. Thanks so much for today and for sharing your story and and everything that you do today as well. Really, really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help support the show, please follow and subscribe. You can rate and review your feedback on any of our platforms listed in the description. I'd like to recognize our guests who are vulnerable and open to share their life experiences with us. Thank you for showing us we're human. Also, a thank you to our team who worked so hard behind the scenes to make it happen.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Stefan Menzel.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Lucas Piri. The show would be nothing without you. I'm Jenica, host and writer of the show, and you're listening to Multispective.