Dealing with Loss and Navigating Emotions: A Conversation over Coffee at 'Howl at the Moon Cafe'

#013 - Discussion on experiences with loss and approaches to cope with it, touching on personal anecdotes and revelations. As they discuss previous addictions, the two recognize the importance of healthy outlets and efforts to support the process of grieving. They highlight the significance of reaching out to professional help through grief and loss seminars, and the possible introduction of such a program at 'Howl at the Moon Cafe', their regular meeting spot in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. The pair also discuss the new introduction of food at the Cafe and their excitement for the upcoming changes.

Transcript

 He got out doing extremely well and then his dad dies. Boom, and then he's back at the bottle. Yeah. He's calling the strippers and the escorts and it's that toxic cycle that he's again drawing his wife and his kids and his mom away. That's right. 

And this is some really good good coffee. It's like good coffee this morning. Yeah, it's good. It's 

something I look forward to. One of the things I look forward to every Sunday when we do sit down and record, it's the coffee at this cafe in Thunder Bay called Howl at the Moon Cafe. It's a sober space, it's a safe space, and of course, coming here to see you and talk to you.

And that's, those are the two things I look forward to 

Sunday mornings, Jody. On Izzy. Yeah. We got some good, strong dark roast coffee here and and I love it and I'm glad you love it too. And it's a real good to be sitting down with you again today 

yeah,  and you have some changes here to the menu here at Howl at the Moon. Maybe do you want to 

share a little bit about that?  Yeah, I've been talking about adding a few things to  the menu here at Howl at the Moon for a while.

Some people have been asking for some food. And we  aim to please, so we are about to deliver. And we're going to be doing jumbo hot dogs, sausage on a bun. Nachos with that real good liquid cheese, we're going to have popcorn chicken, spicy wedges, a chili cheese dogs. 

There's some real busy nights here and really grateful for that. And then people are happy to support, but I keep having people say, Jody, like we'd buy more from you, but we can only drink so much coffee. And I get it, and, we've had people asking for snacks and yep we're going to deliver.

I'm hoping that we'll have that food up and running  probably by the time this podcast airs, we'll be selling that food.  

 That sounds amazing. 

 What are some things that you have in mind for this year? Some short term goals and then some long term goals within the year?  

My number one focus right now is making sure that we can ensure sustainability here for the Health and Moon Project.

I just want to make sure that we have that staying power, that we're able to continue to to have this place for people to come.  There's a lot of people who really enjoy coming here, a lot of people in the community benefiting from the space. And my primary focus and my goal is to make sure that we can have this place around for all 2004 and beyond.

Just looking at creative ways to try and make that happen and that includes the new launch of the food there to generate a little bit of extra revenue. I'd like to also secure some more speaking gigs this year in 2024. Maybe travel to some communities and share my story about my own addiction, my recovery, and my journey to opening up Howl at the Moon here in Thunder Bay. 

I also want to get some more resources into the house here. We've got some great programming that happens already. A lot of you guys know that we have healing circles every Sunday night, that we have bridie meetings every Tuesday night and then of course the live entertainment and some culture, language socials with Ojibwe language speakers, drum socials.

But I'm, I'm always looking for new things to add  to the roster here at Health Moon. And I know soon we're going to have a women's self defense course for beginners  for women who want to learn a little bit about  self defense, which I'm really excited about.

We've got a couple of black belts. My friends were going to come in here and share that Thunder Bay is a dangerous city and I think that's going to be something really cool to offer out of this space. Also we're going to have a support group for people who love people who are still addicted.

I think there's a real demand for that. So we're going to be introducing that service here soon as well. For people who, yeah, love someone who's still out there in active addiction, or maybe some people who have lost somebody to addiction, we want to have that support group here at Health Moon.

So we're going to offer that out of the space as well. And then there's some talk about a grief and loss program as well here at Health Moon. So just Some things that we're looking at doing in the upcoming days, weeks, and months.  Wow. That's a lot. And, 

I've always wondered what other things we can use the space for.

And I think the opportunities are endless, Jody. It's just a matter of just continuing to reach out and putting the message out there and seeing who's interested in utilizing the space for whatever they want to. That's just my thought process around it. 

Yeah, I totally agree with you, Izzy.

Like we've got the space and I want to use it for all things related to recovery and healing. We've got the space. And it's here, and it's a beautiful little spot, and we're set up to, to do all kinds of different things. And so any programming that's related to addictions, recovery healing, helping people who love people who are addicted, any of that stuff I'm interested in doing inside the space.

So I'd encourage people to, who may have ideas of programming or things that they want to have happen here at Health Minute just to reach out, I'm super approachable and I know you are too. And we can talk about different things that we can do in this space to help people. 

Absolutely. 

One of the things I want to talk about today is  when we lose something, when we lose something in society, when it's stripped away from us and  I'll go back to an example.  of mine at an early age.  I remember going to kindergarten. I must have been like four or five years old and I brought a bracelet into that school.

It was a snap bracelet and I was excited about it because my parents didn't buy me much but when they did buy me something, other than like clothing and food and  The needs to survive that was all in place when I got something a little extra, I was super excited about it and I was ready to take that out and bring it out for show and tell at kindergarten.

And I remember a kid named Sean.  Never   was able to prove it, but I remember a kid named Sean took my bracelet. And the reason why I'm bringing that up is, I went through I remember going through a very emotional down turn. Even as a kid and not being able to lean on someone to talk to and  I remember even at home I would just I would probably excessively eat just to overcome  that loss even though that loss was so miniscule I look at it today  and  I just remember  Overeating to overcome what I just lost  and that's one example of a loss and when I look at losses I look at people places and things, that was one example of one thing that I lost Another one was probably in my teens now.

Yes. Someone stole my bicycle. It was parked outside  a lot of it is for me to blame. I went inside a convenience store just to grab a few things and I had a lock. I could have locked it, and so I got back out and it was gone. And I beat myself down because I was like, okay, how am I going to get around now?

And  again, I defaulted to being very silent, not really socializing and eating a lot. Just having high carb, feel good meals to overcome that emotion of loss, which was, I look back at it now, completely unhealthy.  If I knew what other things other alternatives other than eating would be, I would maybe migrate to those at that age.

For example any sort of medication that made me feel better, or it could have been alcohol that made me feel better, or it could have been some sort of narcotic that made me feel better. I just didn't know the effects of alcohol and drugs at that point in my life. Yeah. But I knew food. Yeah.

And I knew food. I'm curious to know if you have anything that you can relate to there when we look at loss, especially with things, losing things. 

What I'd say is just for our listeners A lot of times when AZ and I talk, like none of this is rehearsed. And a lot of times I have no idea what the the topic is going to be.

I had no idea that this is what we were going to be talking about today. But when AZ started to talk about his  early loss, immediately I started to think about something that happened to me when I was a child that seemed absolutely devastating at the time. And in hindsight, it's quite, quite a small loss but it absolutely ruined my life in the moment.

When I was a kid, I. So I remember I, I had this  small rubber duck that  was given to me, and I took that duck all over the place and I just really liked it. It fit in the palm of my hand and it was really important to me and it was a gift and tragically one day I had that rubber duck in the bathroom and it got flushed it down the toilet somehow.

And Like I was crushed, bro, like I was crushed, and it's amazing, we talk about loss, like even early in, in life, just the effect that, that loss can have on us as people. I just remember feeling completely devastated when I lost that rubber duck. I remember my mom was like trying to comfort me and now looking back there's no way you're ever getting that duck back, bro.

Like it went down the toilet, but she was like, trying to try to comfort me and, let me know that maybe somehow we find a duck someday, just trying to calm me down. I was really young when that happened, but that's what I thought about immediately when you were talking about loss.

Cause that's the first memory I have of losing something that meant something to me. And it's amazing cause as we get older, like we experienced like real legitimate losses in our life. And of course as a five or six year old kid, when I lost my duck, I didn't know about drugs and alcohol either.

So I didn't numb out that, that pain and that loss at that point in my life. As we get older, like we experienced like real legitimate losses, like not rubber duck type losses, but maybe we lose a a job or maybe we lose a family member or somebody that we care about, or maybe we lose something else that's important to us in our life.

And a lot of times we end up overcompensating for that loss with with unhealthy coping mechanisms and techniques, and that can certainly be drugs and alcohol. And looking forward in my life and going on to an adult and some of the losses that I experienced when I was still living in my active alcohol addiction.

I was definitely using alcohol as a crutch to get through some of those more more recent losses. There were times I've lost jobs in my life, that, that were really important to me for different reasons, or I've had to walk away from jobs. So they just weren't working out the way that I thought they were going to work out.

And  I've turned alcohol as a crutch in those situations. And certainly a lot of you guys know, if you listened to an earlier episode, when I lost my mom in 2004, alcohol became a coping mechanism for me.  It just helped to, or it seemed like it helped to, to numb the pain in the moment, Now, in hindsight, looking back from a sober, clear standpoint, now, I was using unhealthy ways to cope with that loss by, by using alcohol and drugs.

But I think a lot of people fall into that trap, eh? And I'm sure that you probably share that that sentiment that it's just an easy, quick fix. It's easy to. to run to the bottle or run to those drugs or pick up a pack of cigarettes. Just use unhealthy coping mechanisms when we lose something, 

I know exactly what you mean, Jody. And and I think That's a big test. And some people lose loved ones or people close to them at an early age. And then some people don't lose someone close to them until later in life.  And some people go through it and they're losing people at every stage of their life, and so I,

I've lost grandparents I haven't lost any immediate family to date. And.  But life doesn't guarantee tomorrow for me or anyone. That's the way I look at it. I try to get the most out of my loved ones every day. Even though I'm not physically in the same space as my mom and dad and my three sisters, I pick up the phone and I call or I'll text and to the best of my ability today, and I'm a lot better at it today in now that I've been off the booze for almost nine years versus when I was drinking and it was the opposite.

Back when I was drinking, I was drawing them further away and thinking that they're the problem, not me.  And so I, I look at people I went to treatment with back in  2015 and I would say there's a few in there that I still keep in touch with that became close buddies of mine. And one gentleman, he  went through the treatment facility.

It was like a 50, 48 day program.  He got out doing extremely well  and then his dad dies.  Boom, dad dies and then  he's back at the bottle. Yeah. He's calling the strippers and the escorts and it's that toxic cycle that he's again drawing his wife and his kids and his mom away. That's right.

used to coping in that way it's easy just to go back to that. Even if we recognize and know that it's not a healthy way of dealing with that scenario, and your friend there was doing real well, went to treatment, got himself sober and, but just that knee jerk reaction, right?

Like with that loss of his dad it just, he went back to what was familiar and what he thought would help and numb the pain. But you and I both know that's that's temporary relief. And like you were alluding to, there just leads to way bigger problems. It doesn't bring his dad back.

And of course now he's got the issue of being addicted again and, pushing his family away. Like you were saying there, Izzy.  Yeah. A hundred percent. 

And this gentleman here he went back through treatment. Even though he wasn't able to. Control the emotions of loss or he coped with it in toxic ways or previous behaviors that he had.

He did find the avenue to get his butt back to treatment, go through the 48 days again. And today it's, he has amazing ways to cope with it. And one of the things he does is he actually has side businesses, but he works at that treatment facility today. He actually relocated his family to that community on Vancouver Island, a community called Nanaimo, British Columbia.

And he lives there and he, he has a side hustles that are doing well, but then he. He works at the facility and he knows that's the best thing for him, is to surround himself with like minded people that are also striving to stay to deal with their emotions in a similar way, or  in the heat of the moment,  we may not know how to deal with those emotions, but if we can hash them through with someone that we trust or talk about them in a group setting, that's We're that much better.

We're that much more equipped in our toolbox to maybe deal with them in a healthy way. 

Exactly. Exactly. I think you just nailed it by saying, surrounding ourselves with happy and healthy people when we're having, experiencing these losses, right? Because the same is true too.

In the opposite direction, when we surround ourselves with. People and negative coping mechanisms for example if we run back to a bar and, we're telling somebody at a bar about how we just lost our friend, what's their immediate reaction? Their immediate reaction is Herman, let me buy you a couple of shots.

You know what I mean? So they're not helping you to cope or to work through it. They're just they're just enabling you and encouraging your addiction. You know what I mean? Like I, I've seen that so many times, somebody shows up when I've been working behind the bar, if somebody shows up and they're having a hard time and what's the knee jerk reaction of the people in the bar they buy them drinks.

They think they're helping by buying them drinks. They're not helping. You know what I mean? That's it.  That's that cycle. And it's so hard to get out of that. But your friend there he was lucky enough to recognize that wasn't  a good way to deal with loss and with grief, and now it sounds like he's dealing with things in a way more positive way, which is great because we can heal from losses, even really traumatic losses, if we use the right tools and we surround ourselves with the right people, and, uh, it's through that real legitimate healing from a loss.

That's where you're able to move on, when you're just numbing out and you're just pushing that pain and that grief down with drugs and alcohol, there's no real healing and you're not working through that loss. You're not processing that loss in a healthy way and it's just going to resurface over and over again.

So 

definitely.  You raised a really interesting point. And when sitting at that bar setting, because you and I have both been there, whether you're serving or whether you're sitting at the bar waiting for a drink. And I am yet to meet someone to this day that's not, if they're sitting there on a Tuesday afternoon or a Wednesday afternoon, it's not even a busy environment and they're pounding back drinks.

I'm yet to meet someone that's been able to control some sort of emotion of loss. Usually in my experience, and in fact, a hundred percent of my experience,  when we get to talking, wherever this conversation is going between the person next to me or the person, people next to me, when you start peeling back the onion, they start talking about problems.

And sometimes these problems, oftentimes these problems lead to  giving me an example of some sort of loss they're going through. Whether it's their house they lost, their wife they lost, their kids don't talk to them, or someone passed away and they never got over it. It's usually one of those five things, and sometimes even gambling.

And so when I'm sitting there and they're coping with this thing that they've lost, whether it's people, places, or things, it could even be a job,  they haven't really figured out how to control that emotional loss. 

And the alcohol just amplifies that, right? Like when they're sitting at a bar and I've seen it so many times when I've been working behind the bar, I've got the bird's eye view, the perfect perspective.

People come in and they're struggling, and they start to drink and they start to talk. And. The more drinks they get in them the more emotional they get, but in a bad way, like they don't have clarity to work through those emotions in a good, healthy way, they just get, all of a sudden we start to see like anger surface.

We start to see, like real frustration. We start to see like confusion because they're just like all these emotions are coming to the surface, but now they've amplified. these emotions with, a dozen Ryan Cokes, and all of a sudden it's just they're just a mess, and we all know where that can lead to when we're drinking, when we're in a mindset like that, it can lead to real bad places.

And I've seen that happen so many times, AZ. Yeah. 

And so  loss can take us down to a very toxic tragic catastrophic avenue. I've known people that have never been able to recover from loss. Let's say even losing their home,  actually a pharmaceutical friend of mine, just pretty much getting high on your own supply because it's his business. 

And then, him, he's not alive today, without going into names and specific locations,  he never got out of it, and it was sad to see him be alive for so many years. Even when with him. In it. Yeah. In that. Yeah. That state.  What can people do today  

because  our thought processes can clearly be clouded during this process, if I'm going through something like this, what can people do today to  control or take steps towards controlling their emotions of loss? And I did a search a research search and I wrote down 10 points.

And. And I'm going to just say them out one by one and I want your intake on each of them. One of the things that,  came to my  search is  accept your feelings. The other one is allow yourself to grieve. The other one I wrote down here is join a support group.

The other one,  take care of yourself, be patient,  create positive memories, or I'd like to say, remember or bring back positive memories, reach out for help and stay connected.  And so those are the things that I've. Dug out based on my research on what people can do, but oftentimes when someone's going through something. 

It's hard for them to see any of this. 

I think that those are all really good things to do when we're dealing with a loss. Those are positive coping mechanisms for loss in my opinion, so that list is really good. And I understand that in, in the heat of the moment, in the immediate aftermath of a loss it can be maybe hard to  have that clarity and understand exactly what we should do, but maybe it's important for people to review some of the things that they should do.

After a loss, even before a loss happens, so they at least have that mindset and that firm footing of, for example, I guess what I'm getting at, right? Like you said, you haven't lost a really close relative yet. 

You know what I mean? That's going to happen.  But what I'm saying is if we have, if we understand what we need to do when we.

When we experience a loss in the future, if we've researched that and we have some healthy coping mechanisms in the back of our mind, we've done some preemptive work and we're prepared for when those losses show up in our life, so it's not just like the loss happens and you're just like deer in the headlights.

What do I do? And then that knee jerk reaction run to the bottle or run to putting lines up my nose or whatever advice is that's helpful or you think is helpful for you, which obviously truly isn't. Yeah. If we've done some preemptive research as to how to work on that, because I don't think that's taught in a lot of scenarios, I know, like when I lost my mom I didn't know how to grieve.

Nobody had really explained that to me. I didn't really know how to deal with what I was going through in my mind and the feelings that I was experiencing. But the truth is like many people had lost their moms before me, and lots of other people had experienced that kind of a loss.

So maybe what we need to do is we need to teach our kids and we need to take it upon ourselves to teach ourselves a little bit, to do a bit of preemptive research because those ideas that you had there that you brought to lighter are great suggestions for healthy ways to cope with loss. But if you don't know that, like knowledge is power.

If you don't know that it's really easy to run to things. That'll just numb that pain out, but that's not a solution. Like we, we know that and we hammer that point home all the time that, when we numb out from these problems and these losses, we're just burying them and they're going to resurface and cause more problems.

Yeah, that's what I think about that is I think that the best solution is to learn a little bit and understand that there are healthy ways to cope with loss. Loss happens to all of us. It's inevitable. It's part of life and it's unfortunate. But we need to not let those losses like drag us down and sink our own ships.

We need to work through those losses in a healthy way. We need to grieve loved ones or a job loss or a home loss. We need to grieve that loss in a healthy way. And find a way to work through that and come out standing on two feet on the other side, right? Because when we numb out again, going back to that example of me losing my mom I just started to drink a lot more, right?

It didn't bring my mom back,  it didn't do anything. All it did was, like, it made my life even worse. Now all of a sudden, I don't have my mom and I'm dealing with all the other bullshit problems that were starting to arise because I was drinking more, and, So those negative ways of dealing with things, they just they don't help and they oftentimes just create a whole new slew of problems in our lives.  Whereas if we use true and tried techniques that other people have used or that have been developed healthy coping mechanisms to work through those losses, we can work through those losses.

And again, same thing. It's not going to bring my mom back, but at least I'm not on a self destructive path as a result of that loss, I'm going to, I'm going to grieve, I'm going to work through that loss in a healthy way, and I'm going to be able to carry on with my life in a positive way, and I think that's what we need to look at. 

I like that. I like 

what a lot of what you just said. And they're almost like, no matter how small the loss, how big the loss at an early age, it can be from a bracelet to a bicycle to rubber duck, man, rubber duck to a loved one close to us passing away. I've lost my grandparents on my dad's side, and I remember what my mom and dad, what my dad was going through at the time and I was young and but it's almost like to me,  just like what Alluded to Jodi,  it's like their test in life.

We get tested the first time, no matter how small the loss, then we get tested again. And because we're able to overcome those challenges and be aware  it's okay to deal with them in a toxic way, but it's not okay to continue dealing with every loss in a toxic way. And that's where growth happens.

And in my opinion, it's prepping us for bigger things to lose

I think  use the losses that we have in our lives to be keys to deal with the losses yet to come in a healthy way. And that's the way I kind of process things. And we need to they're all little tests in life to something maybe 

bigger.  Yeah, for sure. We're always going to lose things.

That's going to happen right up until the day we ourselves die. It's it's part of of how life is there's going to be ups and downs and bumps in the road. But I think that the most important thing that we need to be mindful of is how we deal with those losses when they come our way, and again, going back to what I alluded to earlier, if we have that, that that knowledge and that preemptive understanding of good, healthy ways to deal with things, then we can put those action plans into place instead of just going to our knee jerk reactions, which might've in the past been, our addictions whether it's.

Food, alcohol, cocaine, whatever it is. So I think that's important to, to know and understand and something else I'd add to that, like I know like there, there are some really amazing grief programs out there and I was lucky enough to to attend a grief and loss seminar actually last year in 2023 and Man, there are people who really can be helpful, so like I'd encourage people who have lost something or who are experiencing loss, reach out and check out some of these programs because there are people out there who can teach you things that you probably don't know.

Like when I went to that grief and loss seminar in 2023, it's been over 20 years since I lost my mom, but I learned things that  I had no idea how helpful they were and going to that seminar, even after all that time was really helpful for me. I just want people to know that don't feel alone.

Reach out. There, there are services and there are people available who have expertise in the area of grief and loss, who, Are going to be able to help you, they can't bring your loss back, but they can help you to work through it in a healthy way. So I think it's important to note that too.

I 

like that. And and just seeking out safe, sober spaces, healthy spaces, like how let the moon cafe and thunder Bay coming down here.  Grabbing a beverage and some soon to come nachos, yeah, for sure. Yeah. 

Yeah. And we're actually It's interesting because we were sitting at the healing circle last week there and Ron is just such an amazing Contributor to this project and he runs that circle on Sunday nights there And he was talking about a grief and loss seminar that  we could run here at Health of Moon.

And I think it's a great idea. And there was immediate interest, like people were like, wow, yeah, like I could really use that. I'd come to that because I think like we're all carrying some grief, And I think a lot of us don't know how to just work through that in a healthy way. So yeah Ron was talking about maybe offering or helping to bring that service here.

And I'd be happy to have that happen here at health and then it's just another tool that we can have in our toolbox  to help people live healthy lifestyles, 

I love that Jody, anything else that you'd like to add to this discussion of controlling the emotions of loss? 

We just need to be mindful that, um, we're really our minds are really powerful and we can we have the ability to make good choices in our lives, and sometimes what seems like the easy way out,  isn't the easy way out. And I see that from experience, like I, I've used alcohol to numb out from problems and losses.

And it,  It just created more problems like, and I just want people to understand that, that, like  we have the ability to make  good choices in our lives. We have the ability to live a good life, and you guys all deserve that and I deserve that. And I just, I want people to be healthy and happy and make good choices and  use the resources and just because something is easy doesn't mean that it's going to be effective,  picking up that bottle is not going to solve your problems. It's going to make things worse. And I know a lot of you guys already know that, but maybe you need to hear it again.

And it's true, it's, a really unhealthy way to cope with  trauma and loss and, healing is possible. And I've seen it. I've seen some people rebound and heal from some really dark places. And if you guys are still out there struggling, you can too, and I'll encourage you and I'll support you on that journey.

And we'll help you to meet other people who can help you on that journey too. Because.  You don't have to suffer. You don't have to suffer but you gotta, you gotta want to make those healthy changes in your life. You have to want to make those good choices in your life.

And if you're ready to do those things, like I, I'm going to be right here cheering for you. So it's amazing. 

 And always a pleasure sitting down with you on a Sunday morning to record some audio. And so thank, thanks again for joining me today. Yeah, likewise.

Thanks AC. All right.