From Success to Streets: When Your Best Friend Becomes Your Master-with Guest Wasi Syed

"I'm the guy who sat across the room from you in a trap house with no running water and electricity, with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a shot of dope in the other."

These powerful opening words from Wasi Syed set the stage for one of the most compelling addiction-to-recovery stories you'll want to hear. From a very comfortable middle-class upbringing to corporate success with a six-figure income, beautiful family, and luxury cars, Wasi's life appeared to exemplify the American Dream. But beneath the surface, addiction was quietly taking control.

Wasi takes us through his gradual descent - from teenage drinking to college experimentation, from hidden vodka bottles during his marriage to the complete abandonment of his family and career. His brutal honesty about working at a liquor store while battling alcoholism, discovering methamphetamine, and eventually crossing the devastating threshold into IV drug use illuminates how addiction doesn't discriminate and can destroy even the most seemingly stable lives.

What makes this episode particularly powerful is Wasi's description of adaptation - how someone with a bachelor's degree and professional background gradually accepted living in a trap house with no utilities, surrounded by strangers. His candid account of stealing from his employer, losing his car, home, and dignity paints a vivid picture of addiction's destructive power. At 59 years old, completely beaten down, a message from a former dealer who had gotten sober became his unlikely salvation.

Now with over five years of sobriety, Wasi shares the transformation that Alcoholics Anonymous and finding spiritual connection brought to his life. His message of hope resonates with anyone who has hit rock bottom: "You deserve a good life," he insists, speaking directly to those still suffering. This episode proves that no matter how far you've fallen, recovery is possible with connection, community, and willingness to change.

Listen now to this raw, unfiltered journey through addiction's darkest depths and the miraculous climb back to dignity, purpose, and freedom. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear that redemption is always possible, regardless of how hopeless things may seem.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Wasey's Story
• 13:44 College Years and Early Addiction
• 25:21 Marriage and Hidden Alcoholism
• 39:22 Losing Family and Career
• 52:59 Descent into IV Drug Use
• 1:07:34 Rock Bottom in the Trap House
• 1:19:15 Finding Recovery and New Purpose

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:12

Good morning and welcome to Breakfast of Choices life stories of transformation from rock bottom to rock solid. I am here with my guest this morning, wasi Syed and I met Wasi. I think we think we've met at AA a while back, a time or two. I know I have seen his face before. I just had a gentleman on the show, adrian Dole, and Wasey is a friend of Adrian's, but also his sponsor, spiritual mentor and what else. Wasey?

Speaker 2: 1:45

And his advisor.

Speaker 1: 1:46

His advisor. So I am super excited for you to be on today and share your story because I know you've had a good amount of time sober and I know that you are very involved in AA and very involved with helping others and that's super exciting. That, where you've taken this, where you've taken your recovery, is super exciting for listeners to hear and to know the possibilities. So how are you doing today?

Speaker 2: 2:15

I'm doing great. Thank you for inviting me, Joe. I'm thrilled to be here today.

Speaker 1: 2:19

Thank you, ossie. I'm super thrilled to have you. I know you're going to share your story with us and kind of how it started and how it progressed and ended up, and then, of course, at the end we always are going to wrap it around conversation and the solution right. It around around conversation and the solution right. And so I know you share your story quite a bit in AA and now various other locations as well. I know that you are super well-versed and know how to do this, so I'll let you just go ahead and do it.

Speaker 2: 2:47

Yeah, well, great. Thank you, Jo, you bet. Typically, the way I introduce myself in the rooms of recovery is to begin by qualifying myself. My name is Wasey and I am an alcoholic and a drug addict. I'm the guy who sat across the room from you in a trap house with no running water and electricity, with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a shot of dope in the other.

Speaker 2: 3:12

And how I got there, versus the way I was raised and the family that I ended up in at an early age, you know I had a normal childhood, like a lot of people. You know, in school I probably was the ADHD kid. I was the kid that could not quite hold my tongue. I was the one that said what you were thinking out loud in class and usually got ended up in the principal's office. Of course, everyone laughed because what I said was funny, it was just inappropriate. So I was that kid, I was the class clown, so on and so forth. And so, you know, I found myself craving the attention, and that's probably the very first indicator that maybe there was a part of my personal self-esteem that was missing something. And so you know I was your average C student because I was busy talking to the girl next to me in class and getting in trouble, even all the way through high school. Now, it was in high school that I began to discover that the thing that everyone did on Friday and Saturday nights was to go riding around in our cars and if we could get a hold of some beer or some liquor of some kind, that was all part of what we did. And so I'd say probably my freshman year in high school was when I began drinking alcohol, and then occasionally we would have somebody that would come along that had some marijuana and of course it was very, very illegal. Back then we were more interested in driving, driving around on Friday and Saturday nights and drinking beer and doing what what we thought was normal high schoolers did. Sure. So my parents caught me a couple of times drinking and obviously they didn't drink, so they were like disappointed and so on and so forth.

Speaker 2: 5:48

But I think a lot of us know that the consequences, that when we're young we will listen if we're reprimanded and we'll pretend to go along with it, but we pretty much decide what we want to do as young adolescents. We never really got in trouble in high school as a matter of fact, here's what's really strange. I graduated from high school in 1978, so that's a long time ago. I don't remember any of my friends dying in a drinking and driving accident in high school and yeah, which I know, a few of them got in trouble for drinking and driving, but I don't really remember any of my close friends. None of my close friends ever had paid those kinds of consequences.

Speaker 2: 6:39

So you know, we graduated from high school and then, you know like, my parents wanted me to go to college, and so I got into college and I went off to go to school at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, texas, and a lot of my friends from high school ended up going there, but the ones really the ones that I ran around with on a Friday and Saturday night, they went to other schools. They went to University of Texas, they went to Texas A&M, they went to Southern Methodist University and I ended up at Texas Tech only because my older sister was already there and my dad wanted her to keep an eye on me. And so here I am at Texas Tech.

Speaker 2: 7:19

I'm 17 years old, the legal drinking age is 18. And I was five foot three inches tall and I looked like I was 12 years old, so I could not go out and drink. I didn't look anywhere near old enough to sneak into bars or anything like that, and I was miserable my first year when I was at school. And then I have an older sister who was a math major, straight A student, so on and so forth, and so I'm under her thumb and I'm no longer enjoying myself. Well, I turned 18 and the first thing I did was I went running out to the bars because I had no social life my first year at school.

Speaker 1: 8:01

And your friends were gone. Right, you split up.

Speaker 2: 8:02

Well, pretty much all my friends. There were a couple of them that I knew from high school and when you go to a big university 25,000 students and you're from a small town and you run into somebody you went to high school with, you immediately have something in common. Well, so anyway. So I started running around with a friend of mine who happened to have been the valedictorian of my senior class. He was a math major like my older sister, but I was the straight C student, but he smoked weed and he got me smoking weed and he also liked to experiment with psychedelics. So I had my first introduction to LSD through a friend from high school that I didn't run around with in high school. But now I'm running around with in school.

Speaker 2: 8:51

At college I get a job in a bar as a DJ. I lied to get that job, told them I knew what I was doing, I didn't, but I picked up on it so quickly that I ended up becoming at one point, about a year or so later, one of the top DJs club DJs in Lubbock, to black mollies and all kinds of other things. And I'm going to school full time at the same time, but I'm also working at a bar till 2 am in the morning. So the two don't always, unless you're a really good student, the two don't necessarily mix, and so my grades began to really suffer and I began to fall behind on schoolwork and on timing of when I should be getting my degree, because I was more interested in what was going on in the bar scene At that point.

Speaker 2: 9:44

There was a lot of cocaine, a lot of cocaine and a lot of alcohol. When you are working in a bar, you get well. In Texas we were getting our liquor for free, and so I never was paying for drinks, and so it was a party literally every night after the club closed at 2 am. So my school began. I got kicked out of school, my dad was furious and I got back in on scholastic probation and my dad told me he said I'm going to give you one chance you get your grades up and stay in school, and I'll keep paying for it, or you're on your own. So I was at least smart enough to realize that I needed to at least do the very bare minimum.

Speaker 1: 10:27

And I did that.

Speaker 2: 10:29

And I got to the point to where it was nothing for me to drink 10 to 15 Crown and Cokes a night because I was doing cocaine and the cocaine was keeping me sober enough to maintain my ability to do what they were asking me to do. And then the next day when I had to go to class, I had enough cocaine to keep me awake, even if I'd been up all night long to keep me awake during class. Or there were all kinds of speed pills running around, dexedrine and black mollies and all these things. So I made it through school. I got my degree. It took me five and a half years to get a four-year degree.

Speaker 1: 11:08

You got it.

Speaker 2: 11:10

I did it because I was basically living on chemicals. So once I got that degree, the owner of the club that I was working for did not want me to leave. He wanted me to stay there, and so he kept offering me more and more money. But what I realized was is that the life I was living, if I didn't have school to balance my life, it was all going to be party, party, party, party. And by the fifth year of college any friends I had made at school had graduated, most of them had gotten married and they were off working in their careers. And I'm still DJing in a nightclub now with a whole new set of friends that I just met that I don't really know, that I really don't like. And I realized. I realized finish the degree and get the hell out of there. And that's exactly what I did.

Speaker 2: 12:05

My older sister was stationed at Tinker Air Force Base at that time in Oklahoma City. She was an AWACS pilot and she said why don't you come up to Oklahoma City and you can stay with me? You could put your resume out and you can find a job. So I did that and I found a job and for a little while I found kind of the I'd go. I didn't have any friends at all at Oklahoma City, so I'd go out to the bars but I felt like I had graduated from even that. And I found a few people that did the same kind of things that we did in college, but it wasn't fun anymore. I didn't want to go do cocaine with someone in someone's strange apartment in Oklahoma City that I don't even know, and I did a few times and I thought you know, this is really really empty. Maybe I need to change some things in my life.

Speaker 2: 12:55

And so I didn't. I didn't like suddenly go to AA. I didn't suddenly say, oh, I'm an alcoholic or I'm a drug addict. I just changed my, what I was doing. And I got a job, a decent job that was in accordance with my, with my bachelor's degree, and I buckled down and I started doing what I was supposed to be doing. I've graduated now from the college life and the party scene and all that stuff, and now I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

Speaker 2: 13:22

And so I made this change and all I did was I shoved aside what I used to do and just chalked it up to my college experience. Ok, I did that when I was in college. I don't do that anymore. And so I rock along and I begin to have some success and I decided, you know, probably wouldn't be a bad idea if I went to church. So I go to church, I meet a girl at church. I now have a professional job, I have a nice car, and it was time for me to do the next step in life, like all the rest of my friends had done. I have. I've got my bachelor's degree, I've got a good job. I now have a new girlfriend. I might as well settle down, get married and start a family.

Speaker 1: 14:07

Can I ask you something? Wasey, Were you, were you looking at it like that in your head, Like I have to check the boxes? Do you know what I'm saying? Like this is what the American dream is. This is what I'm told I'm supposed to do. Right, I'm supposed to graduate, go to college, get my degree, find a girl, get married, have like the you know what I mean the steps. Is that really where you were in your heart, or were you checking off the boxes?

Speaker 2: 14:33

Okay, that's a great question, and the answer is that's exactly what I was doing. I was doing what I was told was the procedure for how we were to live our lives. This is what we did. This is what men and women of my generation did.

Speaker 1: 14:53

I think I am your generation, Wasey. I think we're probably about the same age.

Speaker 2: 14:58

We look a lot younger, but I think we're close.

Speaker 2: 15:01

Yeah, so I did that. Yeah, I mean, that's really what I was doing was I was I was doing what I thought was what I was supposed to be doing, and so I don't even think at that point there was there was something floating around in my head saying, but I really don't want to do this. This is just what I felt like I needed to be doing and so far it was working. I was able to get to the box, I was able to hold on to it, look at it and say, okay, I can check this now because I'm doing this. And so I did that. And I was at a point in my life to where I was beginning to realize that, okay, so the next step is that you okay, so you have the new wife, you buy a house, you get pregnant and you have your first on the way. So in order to secure that, you have to now work on your professional life. You have to now secure your professional life to make sure that what you're making is going to be enough to provide for everything. And I did that. I not only did that, I succeeded at that and I overachieved at that, and I was able to buy a house, and I'm able to buy new cars, and my son comes along, and everything is going great and my career is going great. And at this point I wasn't drinking, I wasn't doing any drugs, because that was college days. I don't do that anymore. And so I'm rocking along with this success now and I'm achieving and I'm being rewarded and recognized at work and I have a beautiful wife, I have a nice home, I have nice cars, I have a beautiful new son and everything is going good and I'm, we're involved in church, and everything is going good.

Speaker 2: 17:00

And I asked myself one day. I said is this? It Is this? So what is the rest of my life really supposed to look like? And I became very content in what I was doing, and and then, and then what happens is sometimes in our contentment.

Speaker 2: 17:18

It's the same thing year after year. Then the second baby is coming along. Okay, a little more pressure. Okay, now the second baby is coming along, the second baby is born, and and I'm, of course, thrilled with this but the pressure is now all on me. And now I'm feeling the pressure because now I'm buying a bigger home and I'm having to tweak the career a little bit harder for a little bit more money and I'm discovering that I'm not really all that great of a money manager. And so if we wanted a new car, we bought a new car and I didn't sit down and think about, can I really, really afford this? And what began to happen is that we began to spend what we made. Okay. So this is the same story typical. Everyone in America comes, has that, pursues the American dream, and you get to a point to where what's going out versus what is coming in begins to challenge your character.

Speaker 1: 18:27

That's a good way to put it, yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:29

And what started happening with me was I started to think to myself is this it? I'm working my ass off here to maintain what I have, but I'm not getting anywhere. And then sometimes things change professionally and things change professionally and I got handed a brand new territory, and in this new territory, the commission that I was used to making the year before in the territory that I had built was no longer there. So now my income drops drastically, but my expenses remained the same. Now I'm starting to go into debt. So, okay, once again, this is the same thing that happens to a lot of people chasing the American dream. What began to happen with me was that there was something inside that was beginning to fester, and what it was is I began to become. There was, I think I was a little bit that they were going to change my territory, and now I'm losing money every month, and my wife, who was a stay-at-home mom, did not have to work outside the home. We raised our children. She's now becoming my third child.

Speaker 2: 19:51

I'm now beginning to view her in a negative. I used to view her. Everything was wonderful about her. She was funny, she was beautiful, she was a great partner. We laughed all the time she was a good mother and now I'm starting to see the negative things in her, because when I come home and I find out that she bought something that we couldn't afford and put it on a credit card and it's another $500 to $1,000 in debt and we already owe that credit card $5,000 or $10,000. But she's still spending like everything is okay and I'm not saying anything to her, I'm not communicating with her, I'm not saying to her hey, listen, we need to sit down, we are not doing well financially and we need to pull in some things. And, honestly, what I'm thinking of doing, I'm thinking we need to sell the home we're in because I can't afford the house payment anymore and we need to sell one of the cars you know the car you're driving because I have a company car and we need to buy a used car for you to drive.

Speaker 2: 20:56

By the time I started saying those things, I was already viewing her in such a negative, in such a negative way, that I was inside. I blamed her for it, yeah, and she didn't even know, she had no idea. And so an old friend knocked on the door and that friend was alcohol and I had gone. My children were, I'd want to say two or three, two and three. At the time they were 18 months apart my two oldest and I decided that I went off to a company meeting and I never drank at any of our.

Speaker 2: 21:31

Whenever we had company meetings out of town or whatever, I never drank at any of these and they had open bar for all of town or whatever. I never drank at any of these. And I decided to go and they had open bar, you know, for all of the salespeople. I decided to go ahead and drink and I remember one of my friends who knew me, who knew I was, quote unquote a Christian said to me I thought you didn't drink and I said well, I haven't drank in years, but I just wanted to have a couple of cocktails. Everyone else says why not? You know, but I was under a lot of pressure at home, most of which I'd put on myself, not knowing that at the time, but just thinking it was somebody else's fault, and I began to drink at these meetings. So I come home and I'm wanting to drink at home now, and so Big surprise for her right.

Speaker 2: 22:13

Well, yeah, so I'm a manipulator, I'm a salesperson. So I brought a bottle of wine home one night. I said we've got something to celebrate, let's have a glass of wine, kind of thing. And at first she was like no, no, no. And I said Gayla, it's okay, we can have wine, there's no problem with having wine. Okay, so, fast forward, I convinced her that we could have a glass of wine. So what would happen is she would have a half a glass of wine. That would be about it. I'd finish, I'd end up finishing. Well, I wouldn't. At first I'd have a glass of wine and then we'd, the next night we'd finish, maybe finish off the bottle, or she'd have one glass and I'd knock out the rest of the bottle.

Speaker 2: 23:00

What ended up happening was it was wine was coming home every night. I was bringing a bottle home every night, She'd have one glass and I'd knock out the rest of the bottle. Okay, and then I always said what my excuse was. Well, I've got an hour or two worth of computer work for my job, so I want to have a glass of wine while I'm doing my computer work, because I hate doing that. You know, I hate doing computer work. She said okay, and so she didn't say anything. Okay.

Speaker 2: 23:24

So then what happened started happening was that one bottle of wine wasn't enough, because she may or may not have a glass of wine, but it was okay to bring it home. I'd finish the whole bottle of wine or whatever. She didn't really say anything because I was home, I was there, Okay, so she would start. Then she started kind of I'd encourage her to drink with me, because then I was becoming guilty I'm bringing home wine but you're not drinking, and so she would have a glass of wine with me. The problem was it was is that one bottle was never enough, so it went to the bigger bottle, little bit bigger bottle, and then that was okay for a little while.

Speaker 2: 23:59

And then, and then the bigger bottle wasn't enough, even though she'd have a couple of glasses and she'd go to bed early, put the kids to bed and go to bed early, and I'd knock out the rest of the bottle. It wasn't enough for me. So I swung by the liquor store one day and I got a pint of vodka. What was happening was that we were drinking at home. Now it was okay to drink at home, and we'd be watching a movie or whatever the kids would want me to read them a book or something. And I started making excuses as to why I couldn't do that, this and that and the other. She'd have her one or two glasses of wine. I'd have one or two glasses of wine, but instead of finishing the bottle I'm smart I'd run into my closet and in my suit pocket is a pint of vodka and I'd take and I'd take she had no idea and I'd take two or three shots of vodka. I'd come back and I'd finish my glass of wine and I'd have the buzz that I wanted. Okay.

Speaker 2: 24:50

So this went on for quite some time and and things at work began to they. They got steady, I got back on top and things are going great. We buy a bigger house. We're still in debt, but I'm making more money now, way more money. So I can manage the debt now because I'm now. Whatever was lacking inside is now being appeased. The beast in me is being fed and it goes from a.

Speaker 2: 25:21

It went from a half a pint the little, the little bitty bottles to the pints of vodka. Okay. So now I'm at a pint of vodka and sometimes I'd buy two, one for each inner sleeve in my jacket, of my suit, you know. And then I'd hang my suit up in the closet. And so it got to the point to where, uh, to where you know, I would knock out a, a, a pint of vodka and a bottle of wine. That wasn't quite enough.

Speaker 2: 25:51

And then one of my friends, uh, offered me a cigar one day and I said sure, and I smoked a cigar with him and he said you know, I go to the cigar shop over here, you know, like some afternoons, you know why don't you meet us over there. So I'm supposed to be working. So I'd go, I went to the cigar shop and sit down at four o'clock when I should be working till six. And I'm sitting down. My wife doesn't know where I'm at. She thinks I'm still working and the guys at the cigar shop are smoking a cigar and drinking scotch. So now. So now I'm doing vodka, I'm doing scotch and I'm coming home. I'm driving home drunk from the cigar shop smelling like a cigar. Another, another case of okay, honey, don't worry about it, it's I'm just having a cigar. Blah, blah, blah. And so it got to the point to where I brought home a bottle of a fifth of vodka one day Just like in plain sight and I put it in the freezer.

Speaker 2: 26:52

Bang, just stuck it right in front of her, just got the bottle of vodka out and stuck it in the freezer with her standing there, and she didn't say anything. She didn't say anything. And so now I'm, I'm getting to the point to where, to where it's an everyday thing. I'm drinking every night and I'm staying up past when she's going to bed. So now our relationship, our personal, intimate relationship, is now completely suffering because I'm not going to bed when she's going to bed, because I'm still drinking and she's not.

Speaker 1: 27:19

Yep, you're not finished yet.

Speaker 2: 27:20

And she never said anything. She just let it be. I come home one day and she had found all my empties in our closet. She laid them all out on our master bed and there were 25 pints of vodka. So she knew I had vodka in the freezer now, but she didn't know anything that I had been sneaking it. So she laid them all out on our bed and my very first thought was wow, I didn't realize I had so many suits.

Speaker 2: 27:51

Oh, my goodness Now you would think at this point that my wife would be concerned enough to say something to confront me, Like what the hell is going on?

Speaker 1: 28:01

Yeah, what are you doing? Yeah, what are you doing yeah?

Speaker 2: 28:05

And we've been divorced several years now. She and I have had this conversation post after our divorce. I asked her one time. I said why didn't you say something? Why didn't you demand that I go get help? You knew my drinking was out of control. Why didn't you demand I go get help? And her answer to me was because you would have manipulated me anyway. Now, after the fact, looking back, this is years after a divorce for her to say that to me. I was able to hear it. Yeah, she was right. Yeah, I would have come up with some sort of lame brain excuse anyway. So that was the beginning of the end of our marriage. We threw all those bottles away. She didn't really say anything, I just kind of joked it off and we went about our business, and the divide was clear at that point. It was-.

Speaker 1: 29:00

That really was her saying something, though.

Speaker 2: 29:02

It was.

Speaker 1: 29:03

You can't really manipulate 25 bottles laying on the bed, right, you can't really say well, I stopped at a cigar shop, I did this there. They are in your-.

Speaker 2: 29:15

I never got rid of the evidence of me sneaking around. Yeah, I was so arrogant in what I was doing Either that or I was so drunk that I didn't remember that I needed to get rid of the evidence. You know, the first couple of times I brought a half a pint home with me in a soup pocket and I had my ceremonial one glass of wine. But I had my half a pint of vodka and the one glass of wine was enough and I could sit through a movie with my wife and then go to bed with her, you know, and then go to bed when it was time to go to bed, you know, live a normal life with her. I got rid of that evidence, like immediately the next day With her. I got rid of that evidence like immediately the next day. It's gone. I made sure to take it out of the house. But when she placed all those pints of vodka on the bed, obviously at some point I stopped hiding, I stopped getting rid of the evidence.

Speaker 1: 30:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:10

Yeah, because I now had it in the freezer.

Speaker 1: 30:12

Yeah, now you're just gonna do it. Now you're just this is what I'm doing, this is me and this is what I'm doing this period correct correct, but yet.

Speaker 2: 30:23

But yet we were still living a a life where we took our kids to church, we were involved in church, I was involved with ministry, and and so we had this family secret that was beginning and and that was that dad drank. And so, you know, after that time frame, it was easy, I mean, she just didn't fight me and I think, you know, like I said, we've talked after the fact and we've been able to have a conversation after the emotions have had a few years to subside, to subside, and and I asked her questions like why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you demand I go get help, you know, so on and so forth, and what we, both of us came to realize was that we were done with each other.

Speaker 1: 31:10

Well, that's real, that's real right.

Speaker 2: 31:12

We didn't know it, we didn't. She didn't want to fight me because I was not, she was not going to win, she, she was not going to win. And it wasn't that I lorded over her and that I and that I, you know, was was, you know, verbal. I was never verbally abusive to her. I was never. I was never so demanding of her that that she was, that she was, you know, emotionally wrecked as a as a result of it. We just we lost our friendship and she closed off. Yeah, and I, I had my escape and her escape was the children, the house and the children, and my escape was alcohol and my career.

Speaker 2: 31:51

Yeah, in my state of not being not thinking clearly, I had an opportunity come up. I had a physician approach me about a startup company that he was just starting. I was a secure, tenured rep with tenure with the company I'd been with for 17 years and I took a huge risk at the wrong at a wrong time and I left this company with my pension and everything, and I went to work for a startup company and even took a pay cut to take the position with the startup company because the guy stroked my ego and offered, told me that when we go public I'll give you 120,000 shares of the company, so on and so forth. And 11 months later they went bankrupt. Ouch. And now I am unemployed and our third child had come along, and our third child was born with Down syndrome and our medical bills were astronomical. And now I am unemployed with no money coming in, no medical insurance for my children, and my alcoholism is full blown and I unraveled. I didn't do anything. I didn't fight for anything.

Speaker 2: 33:05

I walked in one night I looked my ex-wife in the eye and I blindsided her. I said I want a divorce. She didn't see it coming. We weren't even fighting. I said I want a divorce, I want out. And she said why? And I said because you don't love me. And I said and you don't support me, and I've been supporting you. I was angry. I've been supporting you all these years and you've done nothing to lift a finger. We've been broke for years and you've done nothing to lift a finger to help. And I said and all the pressure has been on me and I'm done. And I walked away. Joe, goodness, I walked away from them. I gave her the house and the equity in it in the divorce and I walked, and because I was more interested at that point in feeling sorry for myself.

Speaker 1: 33:50

You're angry at yourself, you're angry at the situation, just angry. I had a friend.

Speaker 2: 33:55

And that friend was alcohol.

Speaker 1: 33:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:57

And that friend friend said. You know what that friend said to me come here, it's okay, I'll take care of you, don't worry about it, you're broke anyway. You filed bankruptcy. Whatever's left over you gave to them. Come here, I've got you, I'll take care of you. You know, I just I just honestly, I never saw myself, at 45 years old, by myself, separated from my family, deliberately and literally drinking on a daily basis now. And so what's the? What's the best thing to do when you're an alcoholic? Where's the best place to work?

Speaker 1: 34:33

Liquor store or bar? Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2: 34:35

Or a liquor store.

Speaker 1: 34:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:37

I got a job in the liquor store Good With an owner that was a drunk.

Speaker 1: 34:41

Perfect. So your new friend, a new friend and a new job, and all the liquor that you can drink and you're thinking this is just so great.

Speaker 2: 34:52

So I met some people through the liquor store and I was. They wanted me to go out and party with them and I said they wanted me to go out and party with them and I said okay. And they said come over to our apartment. We live right behind the liquor store. Come over to our apartment. And that's when another old friend knocked on the door and that was speed and I. Well, in college it was dexedrine, like black moly, ephedrine, these things. And now I did do crystal meth in college a couple of times, but it was so intense that it made me real cagey. This is when I was reintroduced to crystal meth, amphetamine, and this was, I want to say, 2005. And this was when crystal meth was really crystal meth. And these people said, here, smoke this and we're going to go out to the bars. And I smoked it. I brought a bottle of liquor over from the liquor store. We ended up never going out to the bar and I discovered that I could drink 10 times the amount of liquor on methamphetamine than I could just normally.

Speaker 1: 36:00

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 36:01

And so I liked it. Yeah, yeah, I liked it, superman. I mean you're Superman, that's right. It made me feel like Superman and I forgot that I was a husband, a father, a provider. I'd walked away from them. I was guilty, but I completely forgot them. I don't think I decided to do what was offered me because I was sitting there thinking to myself inside out miserable. But I never did it with them in mind. I did it literally as if they didn't exist. Yeah, I get that.

Speaker 2: 36:35

I get that. Okay, looking back on that now you know step two in Alcoholics Anonymous said came to believe that a power greater than us can restore us to sanity. You were the one who was not right in the head. As I'm sitting in your apartment. I've got a bachelor's degree. I had a house with a beautiful wife and three beautiful children, with a Lexus and Mercedes in the driveway. I made a six-figure income. But you're the one who's a loser. But I'm in your apartment now working at a liquor store, smoking your methamphetamine, but I'm still considering you the one who's the loser Right and I'm not viewing myself in the same way. And I'm not viewing myself in the same way and, looking back on it, what it was was that is that I. How do you forget that? You have children across town and you haven't talked to them in weeks and even asked them and even said I love you, are you okay? How are you doing? You haven't even talked to them in weeks. You haven't even thought about them.

Speaker 1: 37:38

You know you can look back on that now, I'm sure, and see the immense pressure that you were under. Right, it's a lot of pressure that you were under, that you kept to yourself Like you didn't share that pressure that you were under with your wife. You wanted to be. I'm the strong man. This is my job. I got this right. I'm going to do this because that's how we're taught right.

Speaker 2: 38:01

So I had nobody. Yeah. Looking back on it now yeah, the reason, okay, the reason that I didn't seek any kind of counseling or help on my own, even though my wife didn't say anything about the 25 pints of vodka, it never dawned on me that maybe I need to rethink what's going on here. Hey, you've got a family. Hey, you've got a career. Hey, you've got responsibilities. It never dawned on me. And so this is where the insanity part of our disease begins to take hold. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that I was a father. I not only forgot, I was a father, I forgot even. The pictures of my kids didn't even come into my mind, joe.

Speaker 1: 38:45

How long do you think that was before that happened?

Speaker 2: 38:53

So when your wife asks you to leave the house and you've told her you want a divorce, and now you're really in, in, in, in turmoil there and you go someplace else, okay, the reality of all of that sets in. So the alcohol helped to to numb the reality of oh my God, what have I just done? I have no money. I mean, I had a little bit of money, but I have no money. I have no job, I'm unemployed, I have no place to live and I just divorced my family, I just walked away from my family. So the alcohol kept me numb enough until I it's almost like muscle memory I got to get a job you know, I can't be drunk all the time because I got to get a job, because I got to be able to pay for this or that or whatever. I had lived a professional life long enough that I knew I'm going to need gas for my car, I'm going to need insurance, I'm going to need to pay for my insurance, I need someplace to live, you know. So there was muscle memory that said, okay, you need to go get a job, you need to find a job. So I got the job. But when I went to that apartment and they handed me a pipe and I brought the liquor and the party began and I fell in love with a new friend.

Speaker 2: 40:12

I was now living in a completely different world. Looking back on it now, the insanity, the full insanity of my addiction was beginning to take hold of me. I no longer. I didn't go home and whatever sleep I got, I didn't think about what I had done to my family. I was thinking about hey, I got to get some more of that. What am I going to do next? That was great. That was great. That was great and that made me feel better. Yeah, that was great. I got it. Okay, so I got to go to work. So I got to go to work at 10 o'clock in the morning. Okay, okay, get some sleep. You got to get a little sleep. I got to go to work at 10 o'clock in the liquor store because because I know exactly what I'm going to say to them hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, dude, can I get some more of that?

Speaker 1: 41:04

Yeah, and I forgot who I was. You did you know how, when you were back in high school and then you went to college and when you were done with college, you were able to say that was my college life. I'm going to move that over now and I'm going to move into my next chapter. It's almost like you were able to compartmentalize and say I'm on to my next chapter now. What's going to make me not have to feel what the hell I just did? This works. This works for me. This makes me not feel I can stuff it, mask it, do all the things that we do. I don't have to feel about what I just did and it's a new chapter again. I'm okay, it's going to be okay.

Speaker 2: 41:45

The problem that we have with our lives as drug addicts and alcoholics is we become very undisciplined people. Okay. So discipline requires effort. Okay. So whatever comes along with that effort, if it's effort that is undergirding responsibilities in our lives, that I'm responsible for my children even though I'm not living with them anymore, I still am their father and I'm responsible for their mental well-being. To let them know it's dad, I love you and I'm going to see you.

Speaker 2: 42:14

This weekend I had visitation, but I don't have any place to live, so visitation was kind of off here and so I began to forget until I muscle memory on getting stable, a little stable financially, because now I have a new friend and that new friend cost money and I need more money for the new friend. I stabilized myself a little bit. And then you know, I mean ex-wife is still calling me, still talking to me. I mean you know your children want to say hi to you and I said I'd say hi to him and all that stuff and and keep it short. Now I have my own place and it's like I'm thinking I'm supposed to, like I'm thinking I'm supposed to court ordered, I'm supposed to take them. Okay, well, I did, but my two oldest kids now were 14, 15 years old. They don't want anything to do with dad. But the youngest handicapped, who I love dearly and I knew she, you know, you know there was. There was nothing there that I that I wasn't willing to give her when she was with me, because she needed me, she was handicapped, she needed me to change her diapers, she needed me to give you know, and I did all of those things and so I would have the youngest on the weekends for a day or so. You know Gaila was and I were in close contact because Emma is got needs, you know. I mean we, we, we were at least in agreement that you know. Okay, emma can come over, maybe for for um, I'm not working in liquor store on Sundays because they're closed on Sundays. So Emma can come over every other Sunday and she'll stay all day longer, a few hours, with you, and then she'd say, then I'll come get her and I'd say, ok, that's fine, you know, and I'd spend that time and I would occasionally talk to my other two children.

Speaker 2: 44:02

But as my disease progressed and as things progressed, my use of methamphetamine became that my appetite for it became insatiable. I could literally not get enough of it and then I found myself staying up for days at a time. And you know, when you stay up for days at a time and you begin to lose a lot of weight because you're not really eating, and then there are indicators that something is not quite right. But I'm working for a drunk. I'm working for a lady who's drunk in the liquor store all the time, so she's not really noticing these changes in me, right, and and I'm taking advantage of basically of her.

Speaker 2: 44:45

At that point, you know, as it relates to my scheduling and when I wanted off and you know I was okay because I I always had enough. I always had enough methamphetamine to keep me awake during the days for my shift, and then we're done by nine o'clock at night, we're closed, and then I go to my apartment and it's game on. I've got people coming over and I've got my social life. And then I got introduced to the needle. I had a friend come over one night and I said what the hell is wrong with you? He was all kind of fidgety and all that stuff and I had a pipe full of methamphetamine and I handed it to him because he was over there, because I had money and I had drugs and he didn't Right. So he came over to my house, usually because I'd let him. I'd, you know, I'd give him drugs, you know, because he was there.

Speaker 2: 45:34

He's so company. You know I gave him mine drugs, you know, because he was there. He's so company, you know, I get him high. And he didn't want it. And I said what do you mean? You don't want it. This is the best dope I've ever gotten. This is amazing. You need to do that, you need to smoke this. And he says I really I'm already high enough. And he never turned it down.

Speaker 2: 45:52

And that's when I just the investigative person in me, the sales person in me started asking questions and he finally admitted that well, I don't smoke it anymore, I don't do it that way. And I said, okay, what do you mean? And he was ashamed. He didn't want to tell me. He did not want to tell me. Let me tell you something, anyone who's listening if you ended up an IV drug user at some point, there was someone along the way before you ever put that first needle in your arm. You know, what I'm about to say is absolutely the truth. There was somebody there who was a drug addict that warned you oh dude, oh girl, oh no, you don't need to do this. And usually the people that warned you were the ones that were doing it.

Speaker 1: 46:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:44

Yeah, that had already crossed a line that could not be undone. There was a couple of people I knew about, iv drug users, and I looked down on them. They were like the alcoholic that was under the bridge, my impression Right. And then I started to meet IV drug users that were very functional people, yeah, and they looked normal, yeah, and they acted fairly normal, and they had cars and they had jobs.

Speaker 2: 47:09

But so there's always been that one person, before you ever put a needle in your arm and I know if you're listening to me, I know you know exactly what I'm talking about they said no, you don't need to do this, please don't do this, you don't want to do this. And then some of those people in the same breath would say but it's the best way, it's unbelievable. You would not believe. You won't believe me, even if I told you and I questioned this friend long enough for him after his shame fell away yeah, I'm using a needle now. I don't really want to smoke it anymore because smoking does not do anything for me. And I said but you don't understand, of all the drugs you've ever done in my house, this is the best I have ever found. It's unbelievable. And he said no, you're the one that doesn't understand. You're the one that doesn't understand Doing it that way versus the way I'm doing it is day and night. They're not even the same. And I said Now you're real curious, right? I said show me, and he said no. And I said show me. He said no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to do it. And I got up and I walked across the room and I grabbed him by his shirt collar and I shoved him against the back of my couch and I said show me, and he said okay, all right. He said I warned you. I'm 46 years old.

Speaker 2: 48:37

At this point, and about to put a needle in my arm and don't really like needles, something inside me said please, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. I know now that was God trying to very gently say please don't do this, don't do this, no, don't do this. But at that point, you see, I went from being ashamed and hiding my alcohol and then being defiant and manipulative when I was caught and then bringing it into the house, and then being caught with all these bottles and just blowing it off and making excuses for it and laughing it off, to going through a divorce, walking away from my family, getting sort of back on my feet, drinking, getting a job in an environment where I could get away with it, finding a new friend, cultivating that new friendship, developing a method and technique on my own, in my own world. I have my own dope now. I have my own pipe in my own apartment. I can do what I want.

Speaker 2: 49:42

And now people come to me, you know, because I've got money I can buy dope and I've got dope that I can sell them now. And they come, they all want to come to my place. I'm now the center of attention. You like that? No, and my world was now me and my children and my old world was outside of my day-to-day living and it was there and it was inconvenient, but I mean so the shame of that should have remained, not when dope is concerned.

Speaker 1: 50:14

I got a little emotional when you were getting him to say yes, you know he was like, okay, I will, I will do this with you. I got a little emotional because I know what happens next. I know, I know where that takes you and he was trying to not share that with you.

Speaker 2: 50:31

He knew. He knew what it would he okay, he knew what it would do to me.

Speaker 1: 50:36

And he knew what it would do to me?

Speaker 2: 50:38

Yeah, and he knew what it would do to him yeah, to see you do that. Okay. So it did exactly. I had no clue what I was about to experience. I had no concept when I found my new friend at the apartment complex behind the liquor store and I was so excited because I could do what I wanted. I could stay up during the day at work and function. I could drink all night and function and get up and do it all again the next day and function, and I had found my new best friend and I was literally like this is the way I'm going to live. I remember telling my teenage kids one time look, this is the way I'm going to live. I remember telling my teenage kids one time look, your dad gets high, get used to it, get used to it. Okay, so that first experience. He had to give me the shot because I was just, you know, too nervous to do it myself. He didn't want to do it. I talked him into it. He finally did it and I, you know it was a spiritual awakening, but of the wrong kind. Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2: 51:47

I entered a world that I did not even know existed, and anybody who has ever? Who has ever done drugs for a period of time? I'm not talking about a week or a month, I'm talking about a couple of years of experimenting with drugs and then crossed that line into IV drug use. There is no going back. There is no looking back. There is no desire to go back, and I had an awakening. It was so powerful. It was so powerful that I knew exactly what he said. I don't smoke it anymore because it doesn't do anything for me and I'm thinking to myself you're lying. I knew exactly what he meant at that moment and I was never a thief. I never, I never. I mean I took a piece of candy from the store here and there, but I mean I was never a thief by and large.

Speaker 2: 52:44

Within a matter of weeks of starting to shoot up, I go into the liquor store where I'm working with an owner who's drunk every day and I robbed her blind. I robbed her blind Four, five hundred dollars at a time, sometimes four or five times a week, and she had absolutely no idea she she would get. She'd get so drunk that she'd collect the money that had come in the liquor store, which was massive, and she would $20 bills. She'd paperclip them with the big paperclips $500. So if there was a paperclip on $20 bills, that was $500. And she'd walk with this box of money back into her storeroom. And she had a room that she didn't let any of the other storeroom and she had a room that she didn't let any of the other employees go into and she was a hoarder. She would take the trash home at night. We always laughed about it, leanne's nuts, why would she take the trash home? But she was a hoarder. So there was half of the stockroom was just literally floor to ceiling boxes of all kinds of stuff and she had storage units full of liquor. She'd been buying liquor over the years. She didn't even know where half those storage units were anymore, my goodness.

Speaker 2: 54:07

And she would get checks from customers and not cash them. For five months I'd have customers come in and say I wrote you a check last month. When are you guys going to deposit that check? And I'd look at Leanne. I'd say, leanne, when are we going to deposit that check? She goes, oh okay, I'll get to it. The reason she wouldn't deposit the check is that the reason she hoarded the money is because if she deposited too much money she owed taxes on it. So she was a smart businesswoman. She was cheating the government out of taxes. She was putting it in boxes in the storeroom. I found a box with $10,000 in cash in it one day. That was at the bottom of a stack of boxes about 10 boxes that had so much dust on it. It had been there for years. She had no idea that money was there.

Speaker 2: 54:50

So now I'm shooting up and I have access to all the money I would want Alcohol money and dope and no. And what that did with for me was that it gave me. It put me in a position of power, and that position of power was now I can buy a quantity of drugs. So I did, and what comes with the quantity of drugs is a quantity of friends, fair weather friends. I've got dozens of friends and the fun never ends. That is as long as I'm buying. That's right. And I became the life. I became the one people came to. If they wanted something, if they needed a little money, I could give them a little money and this and that and the other. And I'm shooting up and I'm becoming more and more delusional and I'm having this grandiose impression of who I am and what I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 55:48

In your mind were you being a businessman.

Speaker 2: 55:50

Absolutely. I think, with me having access to all this money, that I would pay my bills.

Speaker 1: 55:55

No.

Speaker 2: 55:56

I got evicted yeah, you're shooting. I got evicted out of my apartment yeah, because I couldn't bring myself yeah, I couldn't bring myself to pay my rent yeah, I get it and I started letting people stay at my apartment that were beginning to steal from me and I was becoming more and more paranoid. With money, with quantity of drugs, quantity of money, quantity of drugs and excessive drug use brings people into your life that are evil. The evil people will find you and once again, I'll say this Anybody who's listening. You know what I'm saying is the truth. You know that at some point, as your drug use progressed, if you went the route of, well, I can get my drugs for free if I sell dope, yeah, okay, I'm promising you people that listen to this that they'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Oh yeah, I did that too. Okay, my dope will be free if I get a quantity of dope and then I can sell it and I can make money, and I can pay for my phone bill, I can pay for my, my car insurance, I can pay my rent and I can do all of this, and I and I and my dope is free, okay, so what happens when you begin to sell dope and people begin to come in that you don't know, because somebody brought somebody else and you told them don't bring anybody. I don't know, just you, you're the only one that's allowed to come over. That didn't last very long. That didn't last very long and all of a sudden I've got people sitting on my living room couch, sitting on my broil couch, in my living room, in my apartment. That is nice, looking around at my stuff. That is nice with 100% intent of robbing me because they don't know me.

Speaker 2: 57:44

And by the time I realized that I was in danger, not only was my security of my castle in danger, but my very life was in danger. The minute I realized it, it was too late and it was okay that I got evicted. It was okay that I no longer lived there, because and when I had the maintenance man tell me we have got this is a gated community, secured entry, you have people hopping the fence in the middle of the night, walking across this property and knocking on your door and, buddy, I'm telling you right now you are about to go to prison. So I'm going to give you, I'm just going to give you one warning you are about to go to prison. And if I see one more person hop this fence in the middle of the night and come to your door, I'm going to be the reason you go to prison because I'm calling the cops.

Speaker 2: 58:43

And then he said to me and you're three months behind on your rent. He said and this is what he said to me. I mean, he said are you stupid? Dude? I know what you're doing in there. You're three months behind on your rent. You've got traffic coming in and leaving every single night. You must be stupid.

Speaker 1: 59:04

It's hard to let go of the cash.

Speaker 2: 59:05

Oh my God, so fast forward. You would think that I would have learned something at this point. Years of a slow slide on my ass down from having the super nice apartment with the best drugs, with the prettiest girls, with people coming in hey, how you doing so, it's good to see you and all that stuff to literally sliding down a little bit lower and a little bit lower, and a little bit lower. And the lady at the liquor store finally had had enough with me and I had had enough with her and she decided just out of the blue to fire me. She didn't say, well, you know, you're robbing me blind or whatever. She just just, just, she was just being herself and she, just she and I got sideways and she fired me and I was glad I was like you know what, screw you, I don't need you. Well, when you are used to getting an extra 500 to a thousand on a weekly basis, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:10

Now you no longer have that money, you no longer have someplace to live, yeah, and your car gets repossessed. Both your car gets repossessed. So now I find myself in a situation to where I know what I need to do. I need to discipline myself. I need to go get another job, I need to find another apartment, I need to catch up on these car payments. I don't need to lose my car, because if I don't have a car, I can't go to a job, and if I can't go to a job, I can't pay for a place to live. So all of these things are rolling through my head and I know what I need to be doing, but my addiction is now in full force and I am unable to literally move. I'm literally stuck.

Speaker 1: 1:00:54

Your brain knows what you need to do, but you're not in that mode anymore. You lost the mode. Now you're in survival.

Speaker 2: 1:01:01

You are stuck in fight or flight and survival at this point Now what I still am not recognizing the insanity of the situation that I put myself in at this point. It has not. It's now that it's evidence. There's evidence of the way I had been living and so case or us raw, and the way I had been just exploring all of the passions that I had had. I'm going to try this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and there was a lot of things that were very pleasurable along the way. Well, you wouldn't keep doing it. Think about that Exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:01:35

And now I'm in a situation. I'm in a position of weakness, literally in a position of weakness, and there were a few people along the way that I had met that knew what they were. I'm a drug addict, I'm on, I'm on state disability. You know I this is. You know I've already lost everything. I've lost everything. It's never coming back. I'm never going to get any of this back. I've accepted where I am in life. Okay, they watched me fall, and a couple of them were there when I hit bottom. Okay, dude, come on, come on.

Speaker 2: 1:02:11

So, and they basically took me in and I began to learn how to live like a homeless. Well, like a drug addict that doesn't have anything and it's crazy, it's absolutely insane. And you know what's crazy about that. Okay, so I go from having everything nice drugs, money, girlfriends, all this stuff. I go to now to where I'm literally wondering what I'm going to eat tonight, and let alone.

Speaker 2: 1:02:36

I know I don't have enough. I don't damn sure don't have enough money for drugs. And I'm going to eat tonight, and let alone. I know I don't have enough. I don't damn sure don't have enough money for drugs. And I'm learning how to live that way and I begin to accept that. I begin to accept how to live my life with nothing, literally nothing to my name, no car, and I'm beginning to understand how to live that way and instead of saying, okay, enough is enough, my God, I lost my marriage, I lost my house, I lost my career, I lost the trust and love of my family and my children, and then I got back on my feet and I started doing this and that and the other and I lost all of that. And now I'm living literally in a trap house with no running water, no electricity, at the good graces of somebody else.

Speaker 1: 1:03:28

And now you just described in a nutshell the beast of addiction.

Speaker 2: 1:03:32

And I'm okay with it. Had you told me in 1984, 1983, when I graduated with a bachelor's degree and I moved to Oklahoma City, had you told me when I had got my first professional job, company car, salary, full benefits, everything. Had you told me that 15 years from now, 20 years from now, you're going to be living in a house with no running water, no electricity and you're going to be okay with that, I would have laughed at you and said what the hell is wrong with you? There's no way in hell. I'm going to accept that as this is how things are. And that's exactly where I was. I still could not see the insanity. I could not see that my addiction had taken me there.

Speaker 1: 1:04:21

Your people, places, things. Your playground had changed so incredibly over the years. It just kept changing, changing. Changing right, Right, kind of doing this stair step down right, yeah, to where you know how birds of a feather flock together, right, and so your birds, it's your flock right, and you're seeing, now they're living that way, right, and you put yourself around different people, places and things and you're like, okay, this is my people, places and things. Now, right, you just kind of learn to go with it, accept it.

Speaker 2: 1:04:57

Some people just accept and after a period of time living like that, I was thinking to myself. One day I was thinking you know, I've got a bachelor's degree and I used to never think when I go to the gas station, I never thought twice about filling my car up.

Speaker 1: 1:05:14

Right, or how much it was going to cost you to fill your gas tanker. You just did it. You just went and did it.

Speaker 2: 1:05:18

I just did. I just filled it up and I hadn't had medical insurance in years and I knew that I had some issues going on and that needed attention. And I'm thinking to myself I am never going to get out of this. And then I realized, wait a minute, wait a minute. I have to get out of this. This is not who I am. And while there were people in that world that I fell in love with that were good, genuine people, they had nobody that was there to help them 100%. And I realized one day I can't keep living like this.

Speaker 1: 1:05:56

I can't like this. One thing you haven't mentioned during this is not your immediate family, not your wife and children, or ex-wife and children your side of the family.

Speaker 2: 1:06:10

Where are they in this? Okay, so my mother's been gone probably 30 years. She died of pancreatic cancer while I was still married and my children were very young, and so she didn't know. I mean, she was not there. My dad was still alive and he was from India. My mother was a redhead for Boston and my dad was a little guy from India and he had retired and moved back home to India and he came in to visit right after I'd gotten a divorce and I'll never forget.

Speaker 2: 1:06:42

I said to him we're in my apartment and there's no furniture and I had a bed and I had some pots and pans, and he was, of course, very upset that I'd gone through a divorce. But he was very concerned about me and he said I'm going to give you some money. And I said no, that's not a good idea. And he said why? And I said because I told him. I said because I'm a drug addict and it's probably not a good idea. I said I could use some money, but it's probably not a good idea. And he wrote me a check and he said to me he said, son, you're going to have to figure out how you want to live your life, and that was.

Speaker 2: 1:07:19

I went years after that before I finally came to a point to where I realized one day, sitting in that house with no running water, no electricity, and I had watched that house go downhill over the years, we used to stay up all night long, throw darts, order pizza and the people that came over we knew and we'd all get high and we'd laugh and we'd have fun. And now this house that I had stayed in before and I was friends with the guy that owned it, is now no running water, no electricity, and the people that are there some of them we don't even really know. And I remember saying to my friend, andy I said how long are we going to live like this? I said, andy, these people aren't even our friends. And I said how long are we going to keep living like this? And Andy just kind of looked at me. He was lost. He's still lost. He just looked at me not knowing what to say. And I remember when I said that to him it was like an awakening for me. Yeah, my God, how long. He didn't know. He didn't know.

Speaker 2: 1:08:19

I'm not going to keep doing this. Not only am I not happy now, but the shame is coming back for how I've lived my life, and I'm at the end of the rope. Amphetamine is no longer my friend, it is my master completely, and I can't and it's not that I can't stop, I no longer wanted to even do it but you can't stop. But you can't stop. And the only way you stop is you don't have any money for it. And then, if you don't have any money for it, you find a way. So the question you have to ask yourself at some point is how far are you willing to go? Well, the problem with that question is you don't really know that answer until you're there.

Speaker 1: 1:08:59

You don't, because if somebody would have asked you that question in the beginning, you would have said.

Speaker 2: 1:09:04

What I would have said is what I would have said is is that I would have taken that question in context. I would have said that's a great question, how far am I willing to go? Well, I'm obviously not willing to go any further than I am right now, but I didn't have anyone there to ask me that question. Along the way, no one, ever, no one, ever, never, stopped me in the midst of my said to me, in the midst of my drug use don't you think you've had enough? Do you know why? Because I surrounded myself with people who were just like me and I put myself in a position of authority by how I did things until I was no longer in a position of authority. You know, it says when the student's ready, the teacher will appear.

Speaker 1: 1:09:47

When you lost, what you felt like was your position of authority is that when you feel like the shame entered the guilt and the shame got real.

Speaker 2: 1:09:56

So it became very once. I became dependent on other people for day-to-day things. I'm now dependent on other people who are just as bad off as I am. They're just as bad off as I am Sharing their cigarette out of their pack with three cigarettes left and they give me one when they've got three left and I'm now, in some ways, I'm now grateful to them and obligated to reciprocate. But I'm trapped with them.

Speaker 2: 1:10:23

When I realized I was, I mean, the thrill had already gone. You know, as I went down the scale, okay, and I sought out more and more sordid places so I can continue to feed the beast within me. So I can continue to feed the beast within me. But the beast was starving within me because the further you go down the scale, the less you can feed. Yeah, there you are starving. Your addiction is starving with you and it changes. It changes on you. It begins to work. It begins to destroy you like a cancer from the inside out. You are no good. You're a piece of shit. Look what you have done and look at how much you have lost. And my God, you had a beautiful home and Alexis and Mercedes in the driveway and now you're living in a trap house with strangers, with no running water, no electricity, and you don't even have any dope. But you've got me now and I am going to torture the hell out of you.

Speaker 1: 1:11:33

Yeah, and now all you have is yourself. All you have right now is your own thoughts and your own mind at the bottom, which is not where anybody wants to be when you have the money and you have the dope. You don't see it that way. You're like frigging Scarface out there, right?

Speaker 2: 1:11:49

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:11:50

But it spirals, it spirals.

Speaker 2: 1:11:52

Right. So usually the program of recovery is not geared for people who don't see that they have a problem, not geared for people who are doing fine in life. Not geared for people that maybe they get a little too drunk when they drink and maybe they tie one on a little too often or they get called into the office at work because they smell alcohol in their breath and maybe they've gotten fired from a job but they find another one immediately. So you know, the program of recovery makes no sense to them, right?

Speaker 1: 1:12:26

Right, well, you were there. You were at that point at one time, right.

Speaker 2: 1:12:29

Oh, absolutely oh. If someone had come to me and said you need to start going to AA, you need to get sober.

Speaker 1: 1:12:37

I'd have laughed at him.

Speaker 2: 1:12:38

So when I finally got to a point, to where I was talking to my friends and saying what the hell are we still doing? Why are we still doing this? Our friends are dying. They're getting cancer, they're getting hepatitis C. Our friends are dying. This shit is killing us. Why are we still doing this? None of those people sitting in your living room are our friends. Why the hell are they even here? That was while it didn't reach him. That was something outside of me that was pleading to him. That was also pleading to me.

Speaker 1: 1:13:15

Yeah, you were saying exactly what you needed to hear to someone else.

Speaker 2: 1:13:18

That's scary. Why didn't I do that earlier, you know? Why didn't my ex-wife, why didn't my wife at the time demand I go get help when she found 25 bottles pints of vodka in my closet and why didn't she yell at me and say what the hell is wrong with you?

Speaker 1: 1:13:36

Do you think you would have?

Speaker 2: 1:13:39

Absolutely not Right Looking back on it now, knowing what I know now. Yeah, by the way, for anyone who's listening, I reached out for help on March 12th of 2020. That's been a little over almost five and a half years ago. I've been clean and sober ever since, but I had to get to a point in my life that was so miserable that I was absolutely willing to listen to what somebody else had to say. And when they said, they said I know how you're living, I know where you live, I know how you're living. You can't possibly be happy. Let me help you. Don't let it get that bad. Don't. If it's bad enough, already take it. Take the hand of help that comes your way. Please, don't wait until it's so miserable, but most of you will. Most of you will.

Speaker 1: 1:14:22

That's the unfortunate side of it. What's so interesting, Wasee, is your upbringing, your potential, everything that you grew up with, the way that you grew up, your family, all of it did not lead you down this path. You said so yourself. Normally, trauma is 90% of addiction. That's correct.

Speaker 2: 1:14:42

And I saw a lot of it out there. Oh, my goodness, the things that I have seen out on the streets. I've literally slept on the streets of Oklahoma City. The things that I have seen I don't even repeat to other people in recovery.

Speaker 1: 1:14:58

They're so bad don't even repeat to other people in recovery. They're so bad, right, and you can look at somebody sometimes and say I get it, I see how they got here. And when you got to that part and you got to that rock bottom and you looked at yourself, the only question you could possibly have for yourself is how the F did I get here? What did I do that got me here? Because it all happened so very fast. Even though it's a progression, right, it does take years sometimes when you look back on it. It happened very fast, didn't it?

Speaker 2: 1:15:30

So let me ask you a question, as it relates to what we've been talking about for the last few minutes. Everything I've said so far about me has all been about me. This last few minutes has been about me. But would you agree that the story that I have told you is a story of a person who's extremely self-absorbed and it's all okay, so it was all about me. At the end of every turn and twist in my life, it was about self, it was about me, it was okay. So maybe someone didn't do what I needed for them to do. I was going to find a way, and everything I've ever had ever done, up to the point of pure addiction, had been to satisfy me.

Speaker 1: 1:16:15

And power was important to you.

Speaker 2: 1:16:16

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:16:17

Power was important to you and even in your drug usage you still had power for a while, and that's very addictive in itself. Power in itself is addictive. What really that is is you didn't have what society would say is the norm of trauma. You still had some self-esteem stuff when you were younger and power is the way that you fed that. So you still had the feed for some. I wouldn't say trauma, I would say issues that you were trying to feed, and power did that for you and you kept searching for that power and you kept finding it. You kept finding it in everything that you did. So while you're saying, yeah, I was being very selfish, power is selfish.

Speaker 2: 1:17:08

Right.

Speaker 1: 1:17:08

Right, so how did?

Speaker 2: 1:17:09

you finally. So it was a person that I used to buy drugs from that disappeared and then six months reappeared on my Facebook messenger and said I know how you're living, I know where you live. Well, I said you can't possibly be happy living like that. Let me help you. And my response to him was where the hell have you been and what the hell are you talking about? And he said I went. He said dude. He said dude, I went and got sober. I went to rehab. I'm in California.

Speaker 2: 1:17:44

And he started sending me pictures of him in California. And he said he said I thought about you the other day. And he said the last time I saw you, you were over at that house, andy's house. He said please tell me, you're not still there, are you? I said I am. He said please tell me you're not still there, are you? I said I am. He said oh my God. He said dude, come on, dude, let me help you out. And I was 59 years old and done. I was done. I was beat. I was so beaten down I didn't think I was ever going to get on my feet again and I just wasn't sure what was going to happen. I just knew that I didn't want to live that way anymore, and I was starting to say it out loud to other people how long are we going to keep doing this, my God? But so he reached out at the right time. It was God, and it was someone that I knew and someone I trusted.

Speaker 1: 1:18:37

And that's a friend, and that was a real friend who turned around and gave a hand up.

Speaker 2: 1:18:43

Got his life straight and turned around, reached out to me Now. Had he reached out to me five years earlier, I wouldn't have been ready. No, no, no. But he was the only one that I've ever had reach out to me. I never had a single person along the way on the slide down over years of drug use. I never had one person that said hey, dude, don't you think you've had enough? Come on, man, let's get it together. Never, not one person. It only happened at my rock bottom, at the absolute bottom, when I'd had enough. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I look back on it now. It's funny. I look back on the journey that I've been through and it had to happen exactly the way it happened for me to have the understanding today and the relationship I have today with a power greater than myself. I call God. It had to happen exactly that way.

Speaker 2: 1:19:28

I had to go through everything exactly the way it happened in order for me to have the understanding that I have today, and that is that I have one day at a time. Yesterday is gone. I remember yesterday, most of it, not all of it, but I remember it. Tomorrow is no guarantee. I don't have a guarantee that tomorrow I'm going to be here tomorrow. I only have today, and I have learned how to live my life and break it down into one day at a time, and I have found a community of people that have been through the same things, very much the same things that I've been through. That I can get with, that are my friends, that I can sit down and I can say I'm not doing good today and they'd say what's going on, wasey, and I can actually open up and share and tell them exactly what's going on, and they laugh and they go. I know, I know how that feels. I've been there and I found a community of people that have literally gotten so beat down that the only thing that could restore them to sanity was power. See, it was power that I've been seeking the whole time and that power I'm telling you that power is God. Yeah, 100%. My life is so amazing.

Speaker 2: 1:20:34

Today, you know, the people go to AA and they hear things in AA and they don't quite understand everything that they hear, but they seem to like the community. They seem to like the people. They look around the room and they see people with tattoos and they've got tattoos and then they hear them talk about shit they did when they were out there and they laugh and they go yeah, I've done that too and then they hear them talk about how God has turned their lives around and how their lives are so much better and it's so much, so much nicer to live sober and not look over the shoulder and all their legal problems have been literally wiped clean. Miracles have happened.

Speaker 2: 1:21:10

I've seen miracles happen with people that have literally felonies longer than your arm and had seen their records wiped clean, because they gave God a chance and they turned their lives around and they embraced a community of people that understand everything that goes through their head and have been where they've been and that's what I've done. South Coast Behavioral Rehab in Huntington Beach, california, and Newport Beach, california, was amazing. The program of recovery that I was handed and shown and taught was amazing. But what has kept me sober is I found, is I jumped right in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I found a group of people that are like-minded, that have been where I've been, that understand what it feels like to be so low that you can't even look up.

Speaker 1: 1:22:02

Yeah, connection, you found real connection and you allowed yourself, probably the first time in your life, is what it sounds like to be vulnerable, to actually be vulnerable and talk about things and realize that you can move the ego over a little bit and everybody goes through some shit and sometimes we have to talk about it.

Speaker 2: 1:22:23

Do you know what a relief it is to not have to feel like you need to be the center of attention, that I can walk into a room and I can just sit and I can listen and not have feel like I have to be the one that has all the answers for everyone else. That is an amazing feeling to just be able to sit and take a deep breath and to know that I don't have to be the one that does it, because I have a God that will do things for me. All I have to do is just say I tell you what you drive. You're a lot better driver than I am.

Speaker 1: 1:22:53

Yeah, you just have to be.

Speaker 2: 1:22:56

And that's what I've done is that I've embraced a community and I've allowed myself, I've allowed God to come into my life and I've realized that he doesn't hate me for the things that I did. He forgives me, but I asked for that forgiveness because I'm truly sorry for the way things went and some of the things that I did. I really am, but I found redemption and I found forgiveness and I found a community. Like I said, I found a community that accepts me, no matter what.

Speaker 1: 1:23:25

And makes you realize that you're not alone and that guilt and shame that we spiraled in for so long, when you really realize that you're not alone in that at all, like you thought you were, it's a whole nother level Connection community Fosse. I appreciate you were. It's a whole nother level Connection, community Fosse. I appreciate you sharing your story so open and raw and vulnerable, and it truly is. It lets people know that addiction does not discriminate. It's not. It does not. It doesn't pick and choose. It doesn't say oh you know that guy over there that didn't have it so good in life, that's he's next.

Speaker 2: 1:23:59

That's not how it works. It doesn't say that you have to be the only. Drug addicts are people that were born into drug addict families, and it's not about how much money you grew up with. It does not discriminate.

Speaker 1: 1:24:13

It does not. It does not. I did not come from a family of addiction at all and I went down that road at 10 years old. So sometimes things just happen in our lives. Things happen in people's lives that take us different directions, take us a certain way, and addiction is going to be there, waiting to hold your hand, like you called it a friend many times, and sometimes that's how you feel. You feel like that's your only friend. It's the only thing that understands you, and people don't really get that. People don't understand that. They have never been in addiction. It is a beast. It is difficult, it is. It will make you lose everything. So it's, it's pretty amazing. I am super proud of you, that you, you, you really killed it. You conquered it, and it's not easy to conquer, it's not. You went from a trap house back where you needed to be. You got your life back, you got yourself back, you got your mental health back Kids, back Everything.

Speaker 2: 1:25:07

My life is different than it was when I was working in a professional world. It is different, but I don't have any everything. All my bills are paid every month, I have money in my pocket and I have a life that I'm grateful for on a daily basis. Now I really am grateful that I'm still here.

Speaker 1: 1:25:30

Yeah, yeah, you were. You know, by law of average, you were a little older when you really got into your full-blown addiction.

Speaker 2: 1:25:38

I was an adult.

Speaker 1: 1:25:40

Yeah, I should have known better. You were adulting, but the fact that you still have your health I don't know where your health is right now, but the fact that you are still alive, with your health, looking as great as you look, that's freaking amazing. That's amazing in itself. He's been an addict his entire life. You don't have that right, and so when you share your story, I'm sure as such as it is mine people get amazed sometimes, like what you did? What now? And that is amazing that you're able to share that.

Speaker 2: 1:26:11

Yeah, like I said at the beginning, my purpose today is to be there to relate to the young person that may come in. That was an IV drug user, and as soon as the old guy opens his mouth and starts to talk, they know. I know exactly what I'm talking about and they listen. And so I want to be there to encourage them and tell them. Look them right in the eyes and tell them you deserve a good life, you deserve a good life. Look them right in the eyes and tell them you deserve a good life. You deserve a good life. Look them right in the eye and tell them but the way you're going to have to have a good life is that you have to be good to yourself.

Speaker 1: 1:26:47

You have to love yourself first.

Speaker 2: 1:26:48

You have to love yourself. You have to know that there's nothing you have done that we haven't done. And look what God is doing for us, and God will do for you what he's done for us. Just be patient doing for us, and God will do for you what he's done for us. Just be patient and just we say in the rooms keep coming back Just keep coming back.

Speaker 1: 1:27:04

Works if you work it Well gosh. Thank you so much and I hope to see you face to face soon. I hope you're a hugger, because I'm going to give you a big hug.

Speaker 2: 1:27:12

Absolutely, Joe. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Speaker 1: 1:27:15

Thank you, wasee. I appreciate you and I've taken enough of your time today, and it's.