Jungle of Triggers with Sean MC

#023 - They share stories of managing their day-to-day, the struggle with triggers, and the importance of a supportive environment. Touching on their interests and mundane activities, like bike repairs and spring cleaning, emphasizing how these activities impact their journey. The dialogue captures the complexity of navigating being off the booze amidst life's chaos, interspersed with moments of humor and insights on creating a conducive living space for an ideal environment.

Transcript

  Listening to rat race stories of addiction and recovery with your host, Jody and AC. 

Yeah, but not fighting, just like educational  or a little, yeah. We're a little sarcastic.  That's fine. It's just a normal phone call. Okay. Yeah.  Game two Edmonton, just this one. Hey, I missed the goal.  Yeah. Cause you're playing around with your software for, I don't know, an hour trying to hear me.  Anyway.  Yeah.

At least we can hear each other. Now, one, one day I'll have technical, we  can, one, one day I'll have technical support.  I'll, I'll have a guy like Declan, his name will be Declan. I'll be like, he will take care of all the, everything's gonna be set up when I walk in and, and you'll be sitting there before I arrive.

And that's how it works. Well, no, I'll be booking Declan  and yeah, I'll tell you when you gotta be there.  All right. Okay. And you show up.  We'll see who gets in that situation first. All right. I would put my money on you.  Life works in mysterious ways, man. You never know. Yeah, it does, man. Oh, wow. What a day. 

Yeah. Tell me about your day. Oh, it was long. We,  yeah, we're catching up pretty late again. Actually later than before, I think.  What does it seem like to be the right time to do this? I don't know.  It is a Friday night and I technically don't have to be up early.  Yeah, it's my first Friday night, like, out of sober, out of detox, you know, I feel a little less, yeah, relapse.

Yeah, it feels weird, man. Lots of triggers out there.  And, like, I picked up a couple of my boys from AFM,  that's the treatment center that I'm going to on the 21st, so I picked them up.  And I already, uh, picked up my bro. Actually, he came back over here  and looked at some of our Edgewood stuff. Yeah. And, uh, frustrating day or was that the day before with the bike?

Yeah, I stripped some threads on my bike.  I'm trying to put on a part and  anyway, I just accept how it is.  Where's your bike now? Uh, just on the balcony and pieces. Okay. I thought maybe it was the side of the road. Yeah, but the leaves are all cleaned off the balcony. The balcony is looking really tight.

Yeah.  So your next visit, we'll have coffee out there again, and a little cappuccino.  Yeah, man, I only break those out for you, man. Those are made in Portugal. I should have told my buddy. Yeah.  You made me think of a time when you were, you're doing,  you came in for coffee, but before that you were doing some sort of investigation on the street.

I think you were with your bike as well, but you were trying to analyze like a, Oh yeah. Someone was driving there  or doing burnouts on the, uh,  like on the bike trail, obviously in the middle of the night, but yeah, I was messed up there. I was doing some forensics. I picked up samples of tire rubber  and you told me to tell me what car I get twisted.

I get twisted  to buy an alcohol and yeah, like ADD medication. It's not a good time.  It gets weird. I guess we're telling me about, yeah, pretty intense. Yeah. You've had several seats. I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of it at all, but. Yeah, I remember that time. It was a nice, it was a nice day out.  It was, yeah.

I think you were with your bike as well. I can't remember. Yeah, and I saw one of my neighbors, like, she's just shaking her head. She was walking on the path. Yeah, I totally forgot about that. Thanks for, yeah, bringing that up.  Yeah, that's great. Memories. Frustrating. Yeah, that was Like, what else? No, not frustrating.

No, that was yesterday that happened with my bike. But I was up early.  Okay. Yeah, 7 o'clock. Yeah. Yeah. And just Yeah, I got the day going, the condos, yeah, looking a lot better, man, slowly, but yeah, surely organizing. Nope. Yeah. You know, all my clutter. It's a good, it's a good indication. Like things are like hectic in there and cluttered up and all the exits are blocked.

It's like a direct link to like where you're at with your sobriety. You know what I think about a lot? Yeah. This isn't pumping your tires again, but like, like how you set yourself up  is honestly, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like I think about.  Yeah. How you set up like your, your house and your environment. So yeah, I'm trying to copy that.

Got to look up to people with some time.  Hey, what is it? Nine days now?  Yeah. That's nine days that you have. No, you. Oh, where?  I would say more like nine years, but you know what, man? Oh, really? Oh, wow. Congratulations. Wow. That's  sarcastic. Of course. Yeah.  Oh, that's so awesome.  So awesome, buddy. Yeah.  You're the one that brought it up, not me.

Right. Yeah, I was just saying, you must be doing something, eh?  It's funny how you say that, because I think we all know what to do. Like, when we go through the treatment program. Yeah. Whether it was like nine years ago, or whether it was like last week, or Eight times out of the last nine years, we have the tools.

It's just, it's weird, man. When we get out back into like society, I call it the jungle. Yeah. Right. You, you said something about triggers. Oh, dude. Yeah. I drive. Okay. Sorry. Go on. No, go ahead, man. I tend, I, I tend to interrupt people. Yeah. Especially you. Yeah, you hate that. Yeah, I was driving home from driving these guys off.

And it's just, I don't know if it's check day or like something. It was just like chaos. I have to drive through like the chaos. And I try not to run over people that are just like walking across the street. And stumbling across the street with their like pants, like around their ankles.  And I thought, yeah, when he's, yeah, I think I named you that first, I don't know.

Yeah, but your sisters always call you bro. Yeah, obviously. Anyway, yeah, sorry. Wait, can we just go back first? Yeah, but I said, You said running people over? No, trying not to run people over, cause they're just darting across the street, cause they're all, I hear ya, I hear ya. Fucked up, right? Just wanted to clear that up.

Yeah, so I immediately thought of you, and I'm like, I'm bringing him down here.  He's got to see this jungle. Oh, dude.  So we were talking about, yeah, we got that technical thing figured out. And it's the, uh, you said you were downtown. I said, you're down by Prodigy and then the audio.  Yeah, it's not Prodigy.

Okay. Called Portage. Portage, eh? Yeah. For the.  Yeah, 200 times. What's the history around that street again? I know you told me a couple times, the Portage Way. Portage Way? No, Portage Avenue. Portage, okay. Yeah, Portage and Main is where the fort is. Oh, right. Aspeny River.  No, the Red River. And Aspeny, isn't it? 

No. Aspeny?  Yeah, almost.  Almost.  Almost. Asinaboyan. Asinaboyan, okay. Yeah, Asinaboyan River. It's almost like It's the intersection. And so downtown, right? Sorry, I interrupted. No, no, keep going. It sounds like a dessert. A cinnabon. I just think of a muddy river. Anyway. Yeah. Didn't a lot of bloodshed take place there?

Oh, yeah.  Yeah, I lost the history at that intersection. Yeah, that's where the fort is. Yeah, you, you went down there, right? Yeah, you took me down there. Yeah, did we go there? Yeah, we went. Yeah. Did we walk on the path? Or was the water pretty high? We walked, no, we walked, we went to the railway there and then also the, the old spaghetti factory's right down there too.

Oh, okay. Now it's coming back. Yeah, it comes back. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good meal, eh? Yeah. Thanks, man. Thanks for paying for all my stuff when you come out. There's like seriously no other option when you only got what is it  345 in the bank more like 10 cents Oh, I got a couple bars and I got some change.

Yeah, so how do you get by day to day then? What are you doing for cash flow? Your parents are in Wimpeg as well. Okay, uh,  You know I go over there  Hey mom, you got any chicken?  Frozen chicken? Yeah, frozen chicken breasts.  They tossed me like a box of frozen chicken breasts.  Your mom still delivering the groceries or? 

No, that's, no, that's done a long time ago. I remember when I was there, like three weeks passed by, your mom calls me like, how are you living? Cause they cut you off. How are you like alive? Cause they were, they started, they cut you off for a bit, but you know.  Yeah, but yeah, I guess. Like, you're out here.

Were you out here for three weeks? No, before Chicago. That was back in November, 2022. As as I left around there. Was it November? I was there for the summer, but I left in September. Like November, sorry, 22. You're, yeah. You're here September, I think. Yeah. For a good like three to no, 20, 22. I came to visit 'cause I'm in Thunder Bay.

Like I, I drove to see you. That was last year, but then before that I was there for three to six weeks. Like a good chunk of time.  Yeah. So you're a hero. Yeah, it was good. I showed you. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't explore really.  Yeah. A lot. I took you to the popular places. Yeah. Where the,  I don't know where people have fun,  you know, the patios.

Yeah.  Pizza place. Yeah. What was it called again? That was a good place, man. That was a good place. That was funny. Yeah. That was just last year and it was during that burger week or burger month. Remember? Yeah. Burger week. Burger week. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah, that was a good time.  I rode on that, uh, patio. Yeah, patio at peasant, what's it called?

Peasant Cookery. Yeah, right downtown there. Yeah. That was a good place. I had the calamari. I remember that. Yeah. You had the burger. Yeah. I took a little video of you.  A little crispy. Yeah. It's funny. It's funny 'cause I have all those videos, but like every so often, like I know you've like, you've had a little bit of a relapse and you just start sending them back to me.

Again. Yeah. They pop, I go through my pictures and yeah. Somehow my iPhone puts like together the pictures with a song. Okay. Like that AI stuff, so I could just like send Yeah. So I could just send it to you. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like I made it, but it didn't, you know, it, it doesn't fool the, the younger generation, but I'm sure like you send it to like your grandparents, they like, wow, look at all the work Sean's doing. 

Yeah. . Wow. You, well, you take nice pictures, like have to find. Yeah. They have to find like something that I'm doing okay. Like  for one time I posted a picture of me, like, or my buddy took a picture of me just resting while I was biking. Yeah.  Like one of my aunties, like answers for his post, just like, Oh, it's, Oh, it's nice to see you doing activities. 

It's  where it's, Oh, nice to see you're outside. Cool. So I don't Facebook. I don't know. I thought it was pretty funny. I'm like, Oh, it's funny. Wow. Am I known for, am I that  my, yeah, of course I was drinking at the time in the picture, but yeah.  Yeah. It didn't show me drinking, but  now it's just going to be healthy stuff.

Obviously trying to get one of my bikes fixed. Yeah. So what's going on? Yeah. Yeah. Canucks are up. Hey, wow. Games. Yeah. There are two.  Yeah, they're up. Is it 2 0? No, Sean, I think it's 1 1 now. Edmonton just won in overtime.  Yeah. Oh, Edmonton did? Yeah, dude. Sorry, man. No, no worries, no worries. I'm so tired. No worries.

Yeah, no, but we, yeah, we talked about it before. Yeah, you know what? I want to talk more about, like, your, your, like, you got your bike thing going on, but what other healthy activities do you have going on, like, in the days to come, weeks to come?  Oh, I'm just, uh, I cut out bread, uh, yeah, just eating rice, broccoli, chicken breast, ground beef, protein shakes  and stuff like that.

Yeah. I lift a little bit of weights here  and I'm just getting my strengths back. Really?  That's important for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I think I was like  probably laying around for close to a couple of months and not really  I would go outside.  Or, yeah, go for a drive with someone, like someone else was driving, obviously.

But, yeah, my body just withered away, just not, yeah, not being healthy, and I wasn't eating, yeah, I wasn't eating a lot. Yeah, just trying to get, yeah, I think in housework, spring cleaning is really helping a lot, getting me back in shape where yeah, building muscle back. So yeah, things are going good, but yeah, it was a long day and I think we were talking about triggers, right?

So just, yeah, everyone's out and then all the cars are out, all the girls are out. Yeah, driving down on protage, yeah, portage,  portage man, but yeah, yeah. Driving by all the oldest.  It's not old. Oh, sorry. All good. Yeah, driving by a couple of the old like hangouts, say maybe five or six or seven or eight. And that's just on one street.

Yeah. That's not even cordon or I don't know. It's everywhere. It's a big, it's a big city like area wise. Yeah.  Yeah. A couple. Yeah, it's a whole bunch of little French settlements scattered around. And  yeah, then just all put together. Yeah, over the years. Yeah, it's an interesting, interesting place. Man, I just wanted to check in with you, man.

I know it's late. It's almost 2am my time here and it's getting close to 1. But we'll definitely, I'll let you, I appreciate you. Checking in and having this conversation and we'll, uh, we'll chit chat some more tomorrow. All right? Yeah, just a little technical help, please. You know what? It's the second time using software.

I think we've been doing this for a few hours, like trying to connect and you try to listen  anyway. Yeah, like I love the podcast. I listen to it all the time. Appreciate you, man. And uh, shout out.  Whatever. Alright, man. Yeah, no worries, man. We'll, uh, Sean out. Sean out. Okay. We'll, we'll chit chat some more tomorrow, or later this weekend.

And, uh, you know what? Uh, you have a good rest of your night, man. I'll talk to you later. Yeah, I'm gonna fall asleep right now. Alright, guys. Bye, everyone. 

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