Recovery Unfiltered
Taking recovery discussion to a different level. Bringing comedy and the lighter side of sober living along with educating non-alcoholics and alcoholics. Hear real stories unfiltered.
Recovery Unfiltered
When Your Past Shapes Your Present: A Story of Fatherhood, Loss, and Healing
Mike S pulls no punches as he shares the story of his turbulent childhood with an alcoholic, abusive father in Oakdale, California. Born into chaos, Mike describes how he'd be locked in his room until his father came home, only to receive brutal beatings that went far beyond normal discipline. "I grew up getting beat like that," he explains, "and I always joke I think I started to like it because I was stubborn."
When Mike was just 12, his life took another devastating turn—coming home from school to find the house emptied out, his mother and sisters gone. Left with only his 17-year-old brother as a parental figure, they survived out of a Coleman cooler until they found housing. These early experiences shaped Mike profoundly, instilling in him a fierce determination to be everything his father wasn't.
At 17, Mike joined the Marine Corps, escaping his chaotic upbringing and excelling in the structured environment. Despite being surrounded by Marines who drank heavily, Mike initially avoided alcohol, haunted by the memories of his father's behavior. It wasn't until his first marriage collapsed—after his son Joseph was born—that Mike began drinking regularly and experimenting with cocaine.
The story takes a heart-wrenching turn when Joseph, after coming to live with Mike and his new wife Kim, is struck by a car in a crosswalk, suffering a traumatic brain injury that left him in a coma. As Mike recounts the agonizing hospital vigil and uncertain prognosis, we see the seeds of the profound connection that would later form between Mike and Jason, whose son Tyler would experience similar trauma.
This raw conversation doesn't just chronicle a series of tragedies—it reveals how our deepest wounds can become unexpected bridges to others. Mike's unflinching honesty about his struggles with addiction, fatherhood, and breaking generational cycles offers a powerful reminder that sometimes the people who understand us best are those who've walked through similar fires.
Have you experienced trauma that still affects your relationships today? We'd love to hear your story at recoveryunfilteredpodcast@gmail.com.
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jason's old hat. He's been here the most. Yeah, I have he's old hat. He's the old hat at this, but he's like you're right, this is he's.
Speaker 3:I feel like I'm sitting across from joe rogan but if, when he gets to hear the other ones that we did, it ties this whole story. Yes, it does, it's a, it's the it's that's the point.
Speaker 1:That's what we want epic.
Speaker 3:It's. It's what we want, it's epic but that's.
Speaker 1:I'm glad he. You haven't listened to jason's. No, I'm glad he didn't. Until this is good, and then go back and I have.
Speaker 2:I just cry I didn't even tell my wife about this till yesterday. I kept thinking about it since the day you asked to tell her and and jason just nailed it too, he goes. You were just stuffing that shit down because in my mind I wasn't going to do it.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to do it, so I didn't. So why tell her about it when it ain't happening, right?
Speaker 3:He walked up to me this morning. He goes, bro, we're not doing this. I said, jim, we need to do it. And he's like I'm not doing it.
Speaker 4:Well, guess what? You're here, hey, I'm going to pray us in real fast and then we're going to get going. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this moment. Father, we ask that you sit with each one of us. Father, open our hearts, open our minds, give us peace, knowing that we're working, working together as men to get through toughest things that we can get through. Father, I thank you for Jason and Mike. Father, I ask that you lay hands on them and give them peace as they work through this trauma in their lives. Father, that everything we learn today, everything we speak of today, saves another soul. Everything we do is to save. Father, we look to educate and to get other people to come to you. Father, we pray this in your name, amen.
Speaker 3:Amen.
Speaker 4:Let's go to work, boys. Give us a minute, we'll bring you in. You sit on the toilet. Don't you use that as your meditation?
Speaker 1:my wife not your wife, nor anybody listening to this podcast has eaten a shit sandwich we didn't have a hand in making welcome to recovery.
Speaker 4:I'm phil dirt I'm larry.
Speaker 1:I'm an alcoholic. I am rob. I am also an alcoholic. We are not professionals. There are no letters after our names. We know very little. However, you will hear the word god and a four-letter word in the same sentence. You will also be offended. So if you are easily offended, just pass us by. This podcast is not for you.
Speaker 4:Our opinions are just that. If you don't agree with what we're saying, that's okay. We're going to love you anyways. We are not in any way affiliated with AA.
Speaker 1:So sit back, grab a beverage of your choice and get ready, let's go. Hello, rob, what, what's up? Larry, how are you? I'm excellent buddy. Thank you for the sounds. I'm gonna drink right now. I'm swallowing, motherfucker, hey, not already the f-bombs you prick, I didn't do it.
Speaker 4:You said it because you caused me to do it. Do I sound all right?
Speaker 1:he's got my, he's got my mic turned down I do not oh yeah, I do sorry, such an ass.
Speaker 4:Welcome back, welcome back hey, you can reach out to us at recovery unfiltered podcast at gmailcom. That's recovery unfiltered podcast at gmailcom. Guess what happened yesterday? Fucker, you turned three years old, still shitting green. Hey, we're gonna do another whole podcast later down because there's something. There's some stuff I want to talk about going up to the birthday celebrations katie brought that up that says know, I still go through such a tremendous period of reflection during those last few weeks Lead up to your birthday, yeah, and I want to go through those, I want to use those to maybe share that, get that out a little bit.
Speaker 4:So we're going to do that a little bit down the road. But guess what we got today, boy.
Speaker 1:What do we have today? Boy, boy we got a good one today, boys he must have saw me when the water was cold.
Speaker 4:That's bullshit jason, what's up? What's up, my brother what's up, brothers? Damn, it's good to see you yeah, good to see you. Love you guys, man who do you got sitting across from you?
Speaker 3:uh mike stillman, my uh, my brother mikey.
Speaker 4:Yes, yep, welcome brother. Thanks, how you feeling?
Speaker 2:fine. How does mine feel?
Speaker 4:insecure, neurotic and emotional there you go yeah, we're gonna be good man, we're gonna be good, so we're gonna dig in for a little bit talk, talk to Mike, a little bit talk about his. You know we we preference this podcast last week, so our listeners are a little aware of the situation. We know that. You know Jason and Mike's sons were in a in an accident together. We're going to get to that a little bit later, but we're going to get to know Mike first because we all know Jason, right, we if you don't, if you. You remember Jason is three and four and number 20. Right, three and four was a story. Number 20 is his life after, with his wife Jenny, who's got an amazing podcast going. What's her name of her podcast? I got you bitch, it's alright, my wife don't remember mine, brother and I've been doing this shit almost a year.
Speaker 1:I thought it was Jenny from the Block because Bonnie watches it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is Jenny from the Block. Sobriety is the shit show. So it's because Bonnie goes.
Speaker 1:Hey, I listened to Jenny from the Block today and she kind of said this I was just assuming that was the name of the podcast.
Speaker 4:I knew I was going to get you on that one.
Speaker 2:So, mike, tell us about yourself. Man, give us a little bit of your background, like starting where. Where did you grow up? How did you grow up? Oh, okay, I was born in Fort Worth, texas. Wow. Moved over here when I was probably two. Okay, we lived in the Bay for a little bit but then moved to Oakdale when I was three. So I've been there ever since.
Speaker 4:Wow.
Speaker 2:And let's see. I guess they always talk about the parents. My dad was an alcoholic. If it wasn't for that, he would have been a professional golfer. Wow, Because he golfed pro-am and all that stuff. But he's too busy, according to my mom's words, chasing women and drinking. Oh shit.
Speaker 2:Well, one comes with the other, doesn't it? Yeah, put a damper on being a pro, but he golfed with like Lee Trevino and all the old-timers, wow, like that. So he was pretty good. Good, he didn't have me. I learned what I know about golf watching him. But what I learned? I became the beer bitch. Beer bitch, you know. Go get me a beer bitch. And then I remember being little I love it when his friend don his best friend they'd need a beer and I get to go get two. So I get swigs out of each of them, right, hell yeah, and it tasted like shit, but I still. It was coors regular, right. And so, yeah, I grew up with that, seeing my dad knock the crap out of my mom, throw her through windows and stuff like that. It was just the way it was. Cops bringing him home drunk Back in the day, like 3,500 people in Oakdale, they just threw him on the couch and said don't let them leave, right, you know. So, yeah, that was it, it was just normal to me. But then they divorced.
Speaker 1:How old were you then, Mike?
Speaker 2:I was probably 11. But you had an older brother yeah, my brother Woody's five years older. We moved in, came home from school one day First, I'll just say this real quick my mom took me. She was in the bathroom doing her hair like getting all primped before dad came home. It was like back in those days, dinner on the table that's the way my dad was. And she called me in the bathroom and she says hey, if mommy and daddy weren't together anymore, who would you want to live with? And just a kid like that. I'm going like my mind just started going. Well, if I stay with my dad, it would just be me and him and I'm not dealing with my three sisters anymore, and maybe he would take me to a ball game. I still remember that thought and so I said I guess, dad, I had no clue I was coming up. Then who knows how much longer I'm coming home from school Cloverland, cutting through the park we lived up on East C Street. I got up on that street, gilbert Park, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember when they were building it.
Speaker 2:When they were building it I thought that sand area, they were doing that cement wall. I was like, sweet, this is going to be a swimming pool right down the street. It ended up being a sand park, but anyways, I come up through there and there was a car in front of our house. We lived down towards the end of East C, right there and my mom I could see my mom and my sisters bailing in and all of a sudden taillights and my face turned like red. I could feel the blood go, because I think I realized what was happening and I remember running down the street and it went around the corner and I walked in the house and it was empty, like flat empty. There was nothing left and me and my brother and my dad were living out of a Coleman ice chest until we got. We were the second family to move into Wrangler Apartments right down the street yeah, I know where they are Because they had furnished and then my dad splits, moves in with his girlfriend, just leaves me and my brother there.
Speaker 2:How old were you then? 12. Wow, and my brother was 17. He was like a junior. So he became dad Right, and so he basically had to raise meat, whatever, cooked Thanksgiving. Some drunk dude my dad's friend stumbles up to our place drunk and he eats Thanksgiving with us and we're like, okay, whatever. But that was pretty much childhood.
Speaker 2:Then it went living with dad, living with mom, trying it out wherever, and stepdads of the month and boyfriend Some of them. I didn't know if she was married to or not, and they were all. I have nothing against bikers, but they were all like biker trash Beards, no shirt, come home, there's a Harley sitting in the dining room. You're like what the hell? And so that was my first fight with an adult was this dude? I think at that time I was in about eighth or ninth grade and I had been wrestling since seventh grade. So the way this guy wanted to jack me up was challenge me to wrestle so that way he could do it like legal. Now I'd always ignore him and then finally I told my stepbrother next time he does that we're going out in the backyard.
Speaker 2:And so it happened again. I said all right. So I threw a move on him and I nailed him with a head and arm, flipped him, spun around behind him and he was screaming bloody murder. And I'm thinking this dude wants me to let up and he's gonna be full-grown man's gonna beat the crap out of me, right? So I just was working him on the ground. I was behind him and I was trying to work something, you know, and all of a sudden I felt something sticking out of his back and he was screaming. And sudden I felt something sticking out of his back and he was screaming and I felt this thing sticking out of his back and it was that chicken wing, you know, your shoulder blade or whatever and it just popped out the back. I grabbed this thing and I'm like Mom, you better take this dude to the hospital. And I went and he was only had that much that they didn't cut. They had to rebuild, reconstruct his whole stuff.
Speaker 1:Do you think you learned from his mistake?
Speaker 2:We got along after that I bet you did. He didn't want to rest. I went and apologized to him. I said I'm sorry I ruined your golf game because he used to golf and we got along fine. But that's how I grew up, with those type of people moving in the house and thinking they were my dad and nobody like I told you at a breakfast that when people tell me to do something, it ain't happening. If you ask me, I'll do anything. And then that's when one of the guys said Mike, will you please do your steps.
Speaker 2:Versus your steps.
Speaker 1:That was yeah, mike was not one of my biggest fans. No, he tells a story. He says it in the room too. He don't give a fuck. He says it right in the whole room to everybody. He tolerates me now ruined everybody.
Speaker 2:He tolerates me now. Well, actually god gave me the tolerance because I hate. When I I've met him before and I'd hear him talking to me, it was like somebody telling me what to do, or other people what to do. And after his first book study, when I showed up with my brother-in-law, I said oh, fuck, you're talking about his thursday nights.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I forgot that thing was thursday.
Speaker 2:I don't even want to be here to listen to this guy and we walked out of it and I, my brother-in-law, was right by me and I go well, that sucked. And as I was walking to my truck, I go okay, you're getting an attitude where what takes me out all the time is not going back to a meeting you recognized it and I said well, next week maybe it'll be a little better.
Speaker 2:I told Bruce, and so we come back and I remember saying that to myself walking in and it was a way better. I was more open, I guess, and listening, willing, willing all that because I never was before and that's one thing I've been learning this time around was what they teach Open-minded, willing and learning how to listen, and that principle before personality thing, right, because I would look at a dude and say you know, I don't like this dude and I don't even know him, right, you know, at work or anywhere, but I started practicing that principle. It sounds weird saying these AA terms, it's like you know.
Speaker 4:Welcome to your life, it's, it's true. They come out of me now without even thinking about it.
Speaker 2:Right, and it's the truth, it's true. And the second book study walk out with bruce again, because I take him to all the meetings because he don't have a license and and I go well, that one was better. And then on the way to my truck, I can vividly remember I'm thinking about it, thinking about why I'm thinking the way I'm thinking. And that's when this part Rob likes. And when I said you know what I go, it just hit me, it was God. He said. Well, the first thing he said you probably don't like him because he's a lot like you, which is true. And the next thing was I said you know what I told Bruce, he's just zealous for the program. And he looked at me I go, he just wants people to get it Right, and so he's zealous for it and I can get on board with that, I can dig that Right. And so then I told him I love him. There you go, but at first I still want to buy him the plain language book to screw him up.
Speaker 1:Burn that book to the ground.
Speaker 2:Because he quotes the other one Right and I'm like'm gonna screw this guy up and buy him one of these.
Speaker 4:Oh, there, it goes, sorry that. Uh, so after, after that, what age did you put that guy in the hospital?
Speaker 2:he was in junior high junior high I was like 11 or 12, something like that so what?
Speaker 4:when did you move on with your life like? Did you go through high school living with mom?
Speaker 2:I'm glad you asked some questions. I bounced, I ended up living with did you go to oklahoma?
Speaker 2:you graduated oklahoma no, I went to tracy high, okay, because that's where we found out where my mom moved, because we didn't know. And so, uh, I went to a little bit of junior high in Tracy and I went up to a junior at Tracy High and I was wrestling there and stuff. And then my career year there. We used to go to the Tracy High, me and my stepbrother, and break in the main gym so we could play basketball on the hardwood. And one day we were going and we're climbing over this big fence on a rolling gate, big 10 foot tall chain link fence, and I was up at the top and it fell off the rails and so I'm walking backwards trying to keep it from crunching me and the top rails cracked my melon open. So that ended my undefeated career in 11th grade, couldn't wrestle no more and I was on a mission to go all the way.
Speaker 2:I had made a what do you call it goal in my head that I was gonna go undefeated and I was until that and I couldn't wrestle no more. So then I was living with, uh, girlfriends, grandparents, things like that. They were getting welfare for me, and so from probably 14, I was just living wherever, wow. And then I didn't know what I was going to do with my life because it was just total chaos. I mean, our fun as kids was we'd get locked out of the house, door would get locked and you couldn't come home until the door was open. So whenever they got done smoking their weed or whatever they were doing you'd go up and go take back off. So me and my stepbrother, we were just crazy kids, nothing to do. We'd just go. What do you want to do? Let's go get the cops to chase us. So we would just run amok and get cops to chase us and it was fun.
Speaker 2:And then my mom called me in for juvenile, uncontrollable, and the cops were trying to arrest me and they were chasing me all over Tracy for about three days and they couldn't catch me. And I'd be right at the house hiding in the alley while the cops were talking to my mom and she thought she was all excited. Oh, you got him when they pulled up and I still remember the cop going no, we've seen the little bastard all over town, but he's too goddamn fast, we can't catch him. And and I'd be back there laughing. And then my sister ratted me out and they ambushed me in the alley and I jumped the fence and went through these people's back down their driveway and there was cops waiting there. So I'm like gigs up, brother, yeah and and uh.
Speaker 2:But I conned them when we got in the house because I was in gym shorts when they were chasing me red shorts and I had been in that stuff for like three days running around town and I conned the cop. True story. I said hey, since you guys are taking me, can I at least put clothes on? And they're standing there in the hallway. And he goes which room is yours? And I said the first door on the right. So they're standing there watching. Well, the first door on the right was into the garage and so I went out that door, out the other door right across from it, and I was on. That was part of the three days, because they lost me right there and they never got me again. But my Were you drinking?
Speaker 4:Was any alcohol, drugs, anything going on at that time?
Speaker 2:Nope, I hated people that drank. Okay, because that's what-?
Speaker 1:Because that's who you were raised in.
Speaker 2:Right Raised was-, my dad would come home. This is crazy, but my mom would lock me in my room. I remember it was third grade at that time.
Speaker 1:At.
Speaker 2:Cloverland, my school Lock me in the room until my dad came home. He would come home, walk through the door, beat the fuck out of me and then go close the door, beat the fuck out of me and then go close the door and so and I'm talking like people get hit with a belt and all that that would have been cool, but my dad hit with fists, knees, all that stuff and I'd be curled up in the corner and the bed. And then I learned if I squirted tears he'd quit, and so I'd squirt tears, he'd. He'd close the door and I'd give him the finger to the door and I'd jump out my window and take off. And that was third grade.
Speaker 2:So I grew up getting beat like that and I always joke. I think I started to like it, you know, because I was stubborn. It didn't bother me, I could take a beating. It was like I was prepared Every day. I was locked in the room so I'm going okay, he's home, get ready. Then he'd leave, I'd flip him off, jump out the window and uh, so that was. And then the stepdads tried that shit, but like the one I tore his whole stuff up. Didn't work, it didn't happen. No more, you know you get that age, yeah, when you're my dad.
Speaker 2:I went to stay with him once in work for a summer and I was walking out the door of this apartment he lived in Modesto and he was coming after me and I turned around and squared up on him and he just looked at me and stopped and turned around and went back to the kitchen Because my mind had just said you, you're not gonna hit me, no more, right, it's not gonna be the same. So I hated people that drank, and just because grew up in it, right? So I don't know when I um, oh, let's just get back to I quit high school in the middle of 11th grade because I hated school.
Speaker 1:I just and you couldn't wrestle anymore. Yeah, so why?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I had grades, whatever. I had okay grades. I got A's in shop and PE. I got A's in whatever. I wanted to get an A in Right. And then I just decided you know, I'm like in Sacramento living with an ex-stepdad and my stepbrother and I was supposed to sign up for school. I went and signed up and never went and I'm like what am I to do with myself? And all I was thinking about was how am I going to get my next burger? You know how am I going to live? And I, you know no skills. I used to think if I knew how to read a tape measure, I'll be fine, because I got a job in a cabinet shop when I was still in school doing that work experience, right, so I could build things and figured I was probably going to be a cabinet maker or something. So I went in the Marine Corps 17. And we had to drive down to find my mom in Stockton and have her sign and then I was off and gone and my brother was an ex-Marine your older brother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he went in when he was 17. Same thing, same reason. He grew up in the same ship but he wasn't the chosen one to get beat. He was old enough to bounce and go stay with somebody and I was still too small. But I still remember my mom was signing the papers and my brother goes Mom, they're going to kill him. Because he knew how I was. Like, fuck you, do it yourself. He knew what Marine Corps boot camp was like and I knew I knew what I was doing, that I was choosing this, so I excelled in that. I got a meritorious promotion in boot camp, became a squad leader and didn't get fired. They usually fire them and throw another one in. So I got a meritorious out of that. I went to school. I was top Marine in my school. I got another meritorious, so I was like a year ahead of everybody that went in at the same time as me as far as money.
Speaker 1:Because, because, to me, it's all about money right. More money, higher the rate, more money, more money and I can move off base and whatever.
Speaker 2:So then did you start drinking any drinking here, any partying or just just just I used to laugh at all the jar heads because they'd get paid and we'd go to memphis where our school was in millington, tennessee, and they would go just get hammered. Their check would be gone in a couple days, right right, because the chow hall would be empty and I'd be like sweet, I'd just walk right in I never got that either.
Speaker 1:I would always get his eyes with the navy. That's where I was going. You could have missed the boat.
Speaker 4:You could have been loaning money charging points. I know my mind went straight to business.
Speaker 2:Some jar heads like when I was in yuma, arizona. This dude had his own beater, uh rental car fleet and he would rent them to the jar heads so they could go to mexico and and all that and or they'd catch snakes and get the venom and make money. There's always trying to make money, that's funny. And then they're broke their chow hall lines around the building right and um, but so I didn't drink. They even sold it in like soda machines. Oh yeah, beer was in the.
Speaker 1:Really what years were you in the marines?
Speaker 2:I went in at 80 to 84 and then two years on call or whatever. Okay, so it was back. The only thing that was going on when I went in that we they were praying that they could watch us get killed in Iran when the hostages. A lot of people don't remember that, but we had a pussy. President Reagan went and got them.
Speaker 2:The day he was inaugurated, they sent them home they were prepping us to go there and praying that they could watch. They couldn't wait to see us get killed, shit like that. They're all non. Couldn't wait to see us get killed, shit like that. Our, our, our, sergeant, they're all non-vets. So they were psycho. But um, it was cool. That was the best thing that kept me out of prison because I I was crazy when I was young. We'd break into school to the play basketball and then we got to dropping into the upper windows, into the offices finding the coffee, money, stone cold sober yeah.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. So what did you do after the Marines?
Speaker 2:Well, I left out the part that leads up to my son, joseph. When I went in the Marines, I was with this gal and she was pregnant. I found out she was pregnant while I was in boot camp or something, and so Joe was born in January of 81. Right, I was still in Tennessee and so all that happened and I don't know where I was going with that, just bringing Joe into the story, and he, because he was born and were you married to his mom or?
Speaker 2:you know, I think we were by, you know, just going to the court thing, right. I don't really remember, but yeah, she had my name, okay. So I really don't even remember that because I was like a really you don't realize how young you are. But I see my boot camp pictures and stuff and I look and I go, man, you're just a kid. Right, I was still wet behind the ears, because I look at 17-year-olds today and I cannot even imagine them being where I was when I was 17. That is a true fact.
Speaker 1:I mean I can't. Even They'd crawl up a ball and cry in a corner. They would know what handled them.
Speaker 2:I can't imagine it and I'm like, but it's the way you were raised. I mean, we were raised wrong and my whole life.
Speaker 4:Well, I don raised wrong. And my whole life, well, I don't know. Hold on a second. You say that certain things about that was wrong, but they're. My childhood made me who I am, and it was a motherfucker too, yeah, so it made me who I am. I don't like there was nothing.
Speaker 1:We were all together. There was nothing right about. We were in those canals and our parents, our brothers beat our ass right yeah it wasn't like it is now no
Speaker 2:no oh you can't offend nobody no go, kick the shit out of him right hold his head under the water right that does it a little bit.
Speaker 4:When he stops moving, let him up, yeah yeah, my, my brother.
Speaker 2:He just to say one thing when he was my dad I called it um, so he was raising me right, and so I was running a muck in oakdale and shooting, going to alleys with bb guns and shooting, having bb gun wars, you know, straight out trying to shoot each other, and um shooting people's, dogs and cats in the alley. And, as my brother finds out and he was still I could still picture me he'd have me in the headlock, just knuckling my head all the way home, uh, dragging me up them stairs, screaming like a bitch. And then the cops come knocking on the door and I'm like, yes, and they're questioning my brother, and the whole time I'm in the bathroom, straight across from the door, like this, ready to lock it because he's gonna kill me, right. And the cop says we got a phone call. You're beating on your brother.
Speaker 2:He goes, yeah, but he tells him what I'm doing. He goes, okay, okay, but you wait till your dad gets home. Let your dad beat the shit out of him, yeah. And so they shut the door and I'm standing there, my brothers, and I'm like he's got to go to work, right, because he worked at birchall's nursery and brawley's and slept in school. Oh, wow, okay, wow, okay, right, and um, coach Wingo tried to get my brother to come and live with him GW.
Speaker 4:Yeah, good man, good man Legend.
Speaker 2:My brother was a great wrestler and track and Wingo wanted him to come live so he could have a life, have a high school, and um, he, you know he didn't. He was taking care of me but I stood there with that door locked thinking he's got to go to work, right, and I was scared to death and so I was probably in there two, three hours thinking he's just waiting and finally I go. He had to leave by now and I opened the door and he's probably been gone since the minute the cops left. But that was my dad and my brother.
Speaker 1:So how old are you now, Mike?
Speaker 2:62.
Speaker 1:brother, but uh so how old are you now, mike? 62, so you're okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, I knew you were older than us, but I didn't know much jason and my wife were about the same age, I think, because I don't know if she knew you that was oakdale in a different time.
Speaker 3:Man, yeah, that was a whole different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah so, all right, let's go back to joseph. Yeah, he was born and things didn't work out with me and his mom. She left me for an ovary. I still didn't drink At that time. I started treating myself like on Fridays because I was all about taking care of family. Right, I'd get a six-pack of Moosehead, if you guys remember that. Oh yeah, and that's how I'd treat myself on payday I'd get a six-pack of Moosehead, flop on the living room floor where I lived on California Street and drink that six-pack or part of it or whatever, listening to my tower stereo thing. You know that's how I drank. You know that was it Because the rest of the money had to go To the family. Yeah, so it was no big deal. And then she ends up splitting with a dude that got a million-dollar law settlement and I come home one day and same thing Shit's gone. Just like when I was a kid, and that was it. She was just a materialistic person, and your mom, no, this is joseph's mom.
Speaker 3:Okay, did she take joseph?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, and they, she moved in with him in an apartment because they were gonna. You know, he just got his million bucks, so the mansion and the cars were coming soon and uh, so that ended that and that's probably where I started drinking a little more at that time, and not all day, every day, but after work I'd go with some buddies over.
Speaker 1:What are you doing for?
Speaker 2:work uh hogan manufacturing there in eskalon when that happened. And then some buddies from eskalon, you know, they'd go to pierre's it was called this little I don't know what it was. It was a restaurant, but they had a bar and my buddy was a regular there because he could pick the hors d'oeuvres for happy hour. So so I started partying more on the weekends, got into a little coke. You know I was just going amok because, okay, I'll flash back real quick bro no how I grew up, though, how screwed up it was.
Speaker 2:what little bit you heard.
Speaker 2:My whole life I told myself that is never gonna happen to me and I'm never gonna treat my wife like that.
Speaker 2:I'm never gonna beat my kids, and to this day I think I I remember spanking on the butt Michael, my only son, with my second wife one time, because I could look at him and make him cry Right or my voice would do it and I grew up saying I'm never going to get a divorce, never going to beat my kids, never going to do everything that I grew up in. That was my goal in life. So when that happened, when she split I think that was just now I can think about like, okay, everything I thought my whole life was going to be just left happened to me and no part of me. I wasn't an abuser. I wasn't an abuser, I wasn't a drinker. I just brought home the money and took care of my family and did everything like I said, the way it's supposed to be you go to work, take care of your family. And then I think now I can think about that and say, yeah, that was the beginning of the you know, not being able to live on life's terms.
Speaker 3:I got you not being of your life on life's terms right, I got you the beginning of your life yeah.
Speaker 2:So I got a DUI. I was on a motorcycle because I used to just go run amok. Like right after that happened, I was just like out there, how old were you right here? Let's say 24, something like that. Right after that happened, I was just like out there, how old were you right here, let's say 24. Okay, something like that 24, 25. So I kicked into drinking after work.
Speaker 1:Start touching on some cocaine, come on.
Speaker 2:Yep and drinking.
Speaker 1:What was your drink? Beer or whiskey Beer?
Speaker 2:Okay, mostly Moosehead, probably Coors Light. I didn't go to hard stuff till this last run. I got you this. Last time I went it was all straight. Coors light, just 30 packs after 30 packs that's.
Speaker 4:I could drink a lot of jam right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, until it stops working I was yeah and uh, where was I going with that? Oh, yeah, so I started, just, I guess, not knowing what the hell. Everything happened that I had planned or thought was not going to happen. So my life was over, you know, fuck it at that point right, yeah, fuck it.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I didn't care. I was driving around drunk on a motorcycle all the time and didn't care. Drunk on a motorcycle all the time and didn't care, I'd end up at the series drive-in. Just all of a sudden they're cruising around down the highway, everything just gone, you know, and I got the cops. Insanity, the cops got me. I was going down f street in oakdale, right by the 7-eleven on the riverbank side of town, I call it and I seen two cop cars in the parking lot and I had my blinker on to turn because I lived right by there and I thought, okay, just keep going straight, but no, your blinker's on.
Speaker 1:You start thinking too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're going to, if you didn't, you know. So I turn and I go, get by a block and hang a quick right, and then there they are with the lights. And so they field tested me and I pissed them off because they told me to say my ABCs and I sang them like a kindergartner. And he goes okay, now say them backwards. And I said you couldn't give me two weeks and I wouldn't be able to say them backwards. Then he did stand on one leg, put your back and touch your nose, and I just fell into the people's front yard and then into the back of the cop car. That was the one and only dui I ever had I got. I paid him back, though, because I puked all over the back of his car on the way and it was a cop everybody loved in town barth yep yeah, knowing, wow, that's crazy, and I was laughing because it was winter time and that one he was.
Speaker 2:It happened right when he's pulling up to the jail and I thought to myself yeah, when you get in your car with your heater on, you're gonna love that did you have rob?
Speaker 3:do you have any interactions with Barth?
Speaker 1:Nothing like that. No, she banged at him. For sure He'd pull you over and run dig through the car.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just a dick.
Speaker 4:You know what? He bailed me out one night. No shit, yes, he did. He bailed me and another friend and Shane you out. Yeah, he bailed us out. We got in some trouble. Trouble, uh, his cousin. We ended up in the front lawn of a friend. We ended up in the front yard of some people right around the corner from I can't even remember. Anyways, we were hiding inside of her house. She was protecting us and he figured out real fast where we were at and he shined the light and I'm sitting there looking out the window like this shepherd I see you. So I came out there and he read me and me and shane, the riot act, and he made us walk around the corner and talk to the homeowners and told them we'd rebuild the fence, so, and then he says, okay, you get your asses home.
Speaker 3:So we did he had a lot of that story before, bro, from someone else. Yeah, oh yeah, I have, I don't know how we didn't die yeah yeah, it was.
Speaker 4:It was insane. I could not believe that he did that for us. You know, I ran into I don't know how we went down. I ran into him at a um, at a dinner one night and he was doing secure. After he retired he was doing security for, uh uh, one of the the bank companies that get banks brinks, brinks. He was doing backyard security but but he wasn't near the prick that everybody thought he was. He did do a lot for the kids.
Speaker 3:He let us go a few times, but he booked us a few times, a bunch of times.
Speaker 2:They had no choice with me.
Speaker 4:I had to go down.
Speaker 2:Anyway. So when did?
Speaker 1:you meet your current wife.
Speaker 2:Oh oh yeah, that's what. I was sitting here just thinking where's this go from there? Well, she split and it's right around christmas. I remember that because there ain't gonna be no christmas. Um, I wasn't gonna do a tree and all this stuff, and then I ended up. That's a crazy story. He he kicked this gal out that he had been with for years, the millionaire guy that my wife went and eventually married and had a couple kids, and they're divorced now too. But karma, I guess they call it. But um. So she he kicks her out of the upstairs apartment. She moves in with a friend in the bottom third apartment. Well, she thought when the split up happened that we were just going to like, swap, like she's going to come live with me the gal.
Speaker 2:He just kicked out the gal he just kicked out like he took my marriage, my wife, and the one he's gonna marry when he gets his million. Apparently he wasn't, and in my opinion she was way better looking and hotter than my ex, and so I couldn't figure out what was wrong with this dude. And it turned out he wanted what I had, he had a thing on me and so whatever he could do to, I mean seriously, yeah, wow, because I'm like going why, you know why you kicking that out for this and a marriage, and blah, blah, blah, right. So anyways, she's trying to get her hooks in me. I remember she came a couple of days after we found out about the affair, or whatever she. She comes and puts a lip lock on me in my kitchen, right, and I'm like like Forrest Gump. I'm like she tastes like cigarettes because she smoked and I was like going what the hell? I wasn't having none of it, right? My mind wasn't like, yeah, this would be cool.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking I'm splitting to Nevada where my dad lived.
Speaker 2:I'm getting out of Dodge, I got to get out of here, and so she got off me and I said, hey, I don't know what you're going to do, barbara, but I'm going to Nevada, but she was still trying angling. And so this girl drops her off at my house one day because she had a car and no license. Barbara and this girl who I didn't know who she was yet, had a license and no car. So she drives her over to my house and drops comes in for a minute and I'm all about this girl. She drives her over to my house and drops comes in for a minute and I'm all about this girl that drove her over here and ends up being my wife now, kimberly. And so we're sitting there talking and I meet her again and we're talking and we're just hitting it off. We're talking about God, all kinds of cool things. I was into right and not being material, I could just see she grew up like me, and I found out way more later, as we stayed together, that she grew up worse than me.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's saying something, brother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beaten with batons, you know those things kids used to play with until they peed, you know. And her side was alcoholic drug addicts. She's the only one in that clan that didn't go off on none of that, my wife. So I can't get this girl out of my mind. She loves telling this story and I'm like it's so mushy.
Speaker 1:Let's hear it. Let's hear it I love mushy.
Speaker 2:I couldn't get her out of my mind. Seriously, I was thinking about her all day at work. And so I finally get the courage of because I don't have to ask nobody for a date, or because I used to have the attitude like, you know, you're chicken to go ask a girl to dance or let alone go out with you. Then I got to where, well, all they can do is say no, right, you know, if you don't, you never get a. Get a yes, if you don't get some no's or get something right. So I decided to go call her. She worked at the nutcracker. Oh boy, my favorite.
Speaker 1:She went yeah, yeah, and she's fondue, oh yeah, it's shrimp scampi I love.
Speaker 2:Well, they were grooming her there to manage the place and she was 20, I was 25, so this before cell phones. And so barbara, the other gal's trying to get her hooks with me, is at my house. So I leave to a pay phone and to call the nutcracker and try and get to talk to kim. Right, and this, this is the part that that kills me. Like this, this took my ego to like nothing. I go, can I speak to Kim? And she gets on the phone and goes hello, and I go hi, this is Mike. And she goes Mike, who Apparently I wasn't in her mind as much as she was in yours.
Speaker 2:She says Mike who, and then I explain she says Mike who, and then I explained she goes oh hey, then it changed. I go, I'd just like to know if you'd like to get to know me better. And she said well, sure. So we made a date. I picked her up from work and we went and cruised out around the reservoir, the old trestle bridge, and kicked back there talking. Then I'd take her back to work. It was just her break and then it just evolved from there. We ended up getting married. Where was Joseph at? During this? Joseph was living with his mom and the abusive stepdad.
Speaker 3:In the upstairs apartment or in their mansion.
Speaker 2:In the upstairs apartment at that time? Yeah, upstairs apartment. Or in their mansion In the upstairs apartment at that time, yeah. And then it was just really weird because my wife I left that part out she lived in the downstairs apartment where that gal moved in, okay, so that's how they came over together. So Barbara still thought she had a chance, I guess, and I was already dead set on kim.
Speaker 2:So I go driving over to apartments one evening and I knock on the door and I'm just gonna try and get kim. There's no phones back in landlines. So the door opens and barbara sees me and she jumps up, gets a big smile. She says I can still picture. She says, hey, what, what's going on? And kim's sitting there on the couch just like pretending she ain't there. And I go, uh, I came to see her and she looks. She's like oh my god, this couldn't be any worse, you know. And she's sitting there not knowing what to do and barbara's standing at the door looking like what, what the hell? And I'm staring at Kim and she's looking at me like what.
Speaker 1:Motherfucker, you just put me in a bag. Yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I go well, are you going to get up, or what? Just like exact words. And she still quotes it and she goes I should have known then to run. Yeah, I should have ran. And so, anyways, joe was living with them and he was mentally abusing Joe and, I would say, treating him like he was me, because he's the one that broke up the family. And then he's treating him I would find out Joe's starting to act up at school.
Speaker 2:And Joe's is four or five. At that time he's like probably, yeah, somewhere around there, five, six. He was at Magnolia and he was starting to act out at school and weird things, you know, and I knew what was going on. And then he told me and I found out some things. So I went over there and had a little powwow with the stepdad and, uh, that didn't go good for him, or you? No, the powwow didn't go good because he didn't learn.
Speaker 2:Basically, I'd right, I threatened him, if he ever did something like that or laid a hand on him, he'd regret the day he ever met the galleys with and I'd be in the middle of their living room with my toilet and pickup, right in the middle of their dining table. And that kind of scenario almost happened once. But my ex-father and I got me out of there before the cops came, because when I found out what he was doing I went over there and I went to talk to the mom Joe's mom, my ex about just me and her Talked for a second on the porch about Joe. He came out and said get off my property, you get in the house, you get off my property. So I, right, hooked him in his melon and he ran in the garage and grabbed a bat and it was like a hockey fight. And when I heard the bat I had him shirt comes over his head and then the whole neighborhood came out and rat-packed me and so my shirt was going over my head and so I grew up playing some hockey in Jersey when we were kids.
Speaker 2:My dad's got a transfer there so I knew I had to rip that shirt off real quick. I pulled it off myself and then I was surrounded but I got out of there before the cops came. Everything just stayed bad with that until I got custody of him because she his own mom got tired of him abusing Joe. So she calls me up one day and goes, hey, would you want Joe to come live with you? And I'm like, yeah, so I've been trying to make happen. How old was Joe at this time? Oh gosh, probably seven or eight.
Speaker 1:And you and Kim were together, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Okay and doing good yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean just playing their games, playing their games. We were just doing our thing. And so she went into the frying pan. My wife I mean she's I'm not doing none of this and she's involved with this dude that's got all these problems on the side, but she dealt with it fine. She's just a mom, and you know, doing her thing, working and taking care of me and joe. And then, um, let's see, wasn't long, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, joe comes to live with me somewhere after, where we just were, because me and my wife moved to nevada for a little bit. Things didn't work out there, no money to be made, so we, and then she was pregnant and I remember coming home she says I want to go home. She didn't want to be in Reno, no more. So we moved back to Oakdale and then, somewhere or so, we got Joe and so he had baseball practice and so we were both working. So he was going to go from practice over to her sister's house after practice to watch him until we got off work. Well, when he was going from baseball practice home, I mean, to the babysitter, which was my sister-in-law not at the time, she wasn't a sister oh yeah, she was, anyways, my wife's sister. She was.
Speaker 2:Anyways, my wife's sister, um joe, was crossing in a crosswalk on the highway by gilman's, right by the high school, and a lady ran him over in the crosswalk. And, um, I got a call at work that joe got hit by a car and he's at memorial. And you can imagine that you, you know I'm just flipping out Right and they don't want me to drive, and so a friend of mine's mom shows up there and she's driving putting up with me because I'm wanting her to go in the dirt and pass all these cars and to get to Memorial. And we got there to the hospital and all kinds of people there already, and I'm going ape shit. We got there to the hospital and all kinds of people there already, and I'm going ape shit.
Speaker 2:And the pastor of the church we went to at that time, right across from the general store it was called Word of Truth back then the Buies, pastor Buies, I'm going off on these people that won't give me any information. In the ER and all of a sudden I felt Pastor Buies' big bear paw on my shoulder, pull me back, have me sit down and calm down. While he found out some something. They were metafighting him to Fresno because he had a severe brain injury. Fresno's hospital, yeah, and so they metafighted him. So we're driving and they didn't know if he was going to live or die. Because he was.
Speaker 1:How was that drive? Becausery's talking about his drive with with miranda, you know I don't even drive, I can't. I don't really remember the drive, I don't really even remember who drove but you got there yeah, I, I don't.
Speaker 2:I just try to think for a second that, because that's so psychotic, you know, because you're just a drink. I'm the type when I guess it's when trauma happens, like I remember when Joe was little. He tripped and fell and landed perfectly center, punched his forehead on the corner of the stereo thing and I'd run over and pick him up almost as fast as he hit and I'm pissed. So my reaction is like anger, yeah, anger. Like I'm not mad at him, but I'm like why is that intense of taking care and getting to the hospital? But I'm so you wouldn't want to be around me because you're thinking, man, why is he pissed off at? Because his kid got hurt? That's just the way the fear came out, or whatever. I kicked into a whole other person and so I don't. I think a good friend of mine, brian Pritchard, drove me down there. I think you know Brian.
Speaker 4:No, just that chair squeaking. Oh no, it's not you. I got to fix that. I was rubbing on the wall.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's what it was the back of the wall right, um.
Speaker 2:So you make it to fresno yeah, and talk to an er nurse and I didn't find out a lot till later right there, because they were already had the neurologist in there and everything before we even got there right, and so we're just there and he's in a room thing.
Speaker 3:He's got tubes everywhere and he's in a coma yeah, he's in a coma.
Speaker 2:They had to drill his head to let pressure out and put a bolt in. They called it and he's just on a ventilator and all these things and he's like swelled up. His whole face is black and blue. Where the car hit, like his eye almost popped out a socket from the pressure in his head because the car basically she hit him with a hard top part of her car, that rail that comes up from your hood along the window. She hit him and he went over and that thinged him and he landed up on the other side of the street in the entryway of that Mexican market. Now Right.
Speaker 2:It used to be a video store. He flew from that crosswalk all the way to that store entryway and the first fireman that was there I knew was named Craig Davis.
Speaker 1:We love our boy. We've mentioned Craig on the podcast a few times. We love our boy.
Speaker 4:He've been pitching Craig on the podcast a few times.
Speaker 1:We love our boy.
Speaker 4:He listens to the podcast a lot. He was the first one there.
Speaker 2:And let's see, it's a Waterford boy right there, buddy.
Speaker 3:Water dogs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he used to play ball with them. Oh yeah, the wrestling. You guys all know him. Anyways, my wife was in school with him. She's five years younger, so she was in school with some of the old studs from Oakdale. You know he's one of them. Yes, he was.
Speaker 4:No, let's make something very fucking clear.
Speaker 2:What he wasn't from.
Speaker 4:Oakdale.
Speaker 1:Waterford. That's a Waterford man. Where did he go to high school at? Where did he go to?
Speaker 3:high school at. Where did he go to high school? Fuck you, you Oakdale motherfuckers. Where did he go to high school at?
Speaker 1:Waterford fucking supported that school for fucking years. I have a trophy with his name on it. Yeah, the first name on it.
Speaker 4:And it's fucking Tim and Craig from Waterford.
Speaker 1:No, it was Oakdale High.
Speaker 4:School, it says.
Speaker 1:Bullshit.
Speaker 2:See how much I love Rob. I'll say Tim and Craig were both from Oakdale, that's right, god damn it.
Speaker 1:Love you, baby Jason. They're still from Waterford.
Speaker 2:They're Waterford boys, bud, yeah, and Tim was the little one, right, right, yeah. But anyways, where were we?
Speaker 1:You were at the hospital. You're getting ready to get the note what happened?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:To Joseph what was, oh yeah, what was the diagnosis?
Speaker 2:we went and finally, sitting there, the neurologist meets us. I don't know if it's the next morning or that night or what. The guy that was making the call was Terry Hutchinson. Yep, yeah, I forgot about seeing. He just triggered another thing right there. It goes back to a crazy connection. Um, he talked to us and told us you know what he could at that time with the brain injury there's they can't tell you, they, they know nothing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they say hopefully he wakes up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, at that point they were if he doesn't die, if he survives, more than likely he's going to be a vegetable. You know, yeah, drooling and fed with a tube and probably not be able to. You know just nothing. Function yeah, can't move, just nothing. Function, yeah, can't move. Like Tyler was I described as from here up, perfect, yeah, because he could think he just couldn't do nothing about the thought he couldn't talk.
Speaker 2:That's Jason's boy, yeah, yeah, and. But he understood everything I would be saying. And then he learned to text with his toes on, like a little kid's board thing ABC board. Yeah, and he would. But I had like telepathy with him. He would just grunt at me a certain way and I'd have to go get ice cream Cause that was our thing If I walked in their house without I'm getting off track.
Speaker 2:We're fine, we're going where I want to go, if I walked into the room where Tyler was on the couch and the entryway is down the way and I could see as I come to the door and he's eye fucking me. I'm just going to say it.
Speaker 2:You're good, he's eye fucking me from the minute I walk in. And I'm walking in and I'm getting this look and I'm just going to say it, you're good. He's eye-fucking me from the minute I walk in. And I'm walking in and I'm getting this look and I'm like what. And he's just glaring at me and I'm like you want some dibs, huh, and he's like Ice cream, yep.
Speaker 2:That's what he'd bring him all the time, I figured, because he could actually get them do it himself and they wouldn't melt on him, you know, because he'd chaw down a bar or two. But these things were perfect for him because he could do that. So I'd get the look and I'd go okay, I'll be right back. And then I learned not to come without dibs because I got them strung out on dibs.
Speaker 3:Not to jump forward, we're jumping forward. But I just want to say that mike had a connection with tyler. That where what mike had went through and what tyler was going through, because tyler was in a coma just like joseph, and mike already went through what I was going through. Because tyler was in a coma just like joseph, and mike already went through what I was going through and with what mike was going through, he latched on to tyler because his boy was gone and he latched on to tyler and he was there through the whole coma, the hospitals, the come home, the rehabilitation. Mike was there every day and I don't know if you realize it, mike, but you latched on to Tyler with like your boy was gone, so you latched on to Tyler what you had left.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you saying that, because I blocked how much and how much time I spent with tyler. I haven't blocked that out, but the blur ever since then.
Speaker 2:yeah, it's like I can remember some highlights and I remember going over there. I couldn't even find that house, probably if I tried, but I probably could. But um, yeah, I'm glad you you brought that up because we were talking about it and I probably didn't make that connection. But that's exactly probably what it was. It is Because, going back to Joe, he was, you know, just done, he was just there and we were on the waiting game.
Speaker 3:We did that same game with Tyler yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you remember, we did the same and they don't tell you that they how many times they tried to take them off support and they still ain't breathing on their own.
Speaker 2:So they got to put it back in and I found all this out from. They're smart not to tell you because they're you'll be even worse than you are. And I met. We lived down there basically for six months I did. I went down there Thursday night after work, talked him into Friday off and stayed till Sunday night till his mom showed up, if she showed up, and then I'd go home, go to work, try and keep insurance going, all that shit and but no drinking and no part just doing the deal.
Speaker 2:I was clean down there. There was a point that's where I broke. What do you mean? I had been not drinking at all. Hold on.
Speaker 1:Let's take a break, yeah.
Speaker 4:Let's do this. Let's do this, guys, because I want to turn this into episode 42. So we got to learn about Mike, right, we got to learn about Mike. When we come back next week, we're going to get into Mike and Jason's story. Next week's going to be tough, but we're going to pick up where he breaks.
Speaker 1:Yes, we're going to pick up where Mike is starting to pick back up his drinking Because Kim's pregnant with Mikey at this time.
Speaker 3:He's a baby, right.
Speaker 4:So let's go ahead and take a break. Let's come back and we're going to dig into that part, this, okay. So let's go ahead and take a break. Let's come back and we're going to dig into that part. This has been recovery unfiltered. You can reach us at recovery unfiltered podcast at gmailcom. Come back next week, guys. You're going to want to hear the rest of this, thank you. Thank you for joining us today. We hope you learned something today that will help you If you did not come back next week, and we'll try again If you like. What?
Speaker 1:we heard, give us a five-star review. If you don't like what you heard, kiss my ass. I can't say that, can you? Anyway, if you don't like what you heard, go ahead and tell us that too. We'll see what we can improve.
Speaker 4:We probably won't change nothing, but do it anyway, it makes Rob Come back next week and hopefully something will be different and something will sink in. Take care you.