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
From Street Drunk to Hospital Executive
What happens when a homeless alcoholic who had resigned himself to "drinking and drugging to death" finds recovery and transforms his life completely? Paul story answers this question with raw honesty and profound hope.
Paul takes us through his journey from a childhood of constant relocations to his early drinking at age 13, through failed suicide attempts, living in his car, and abandoning his family—to eventually finding recovery in 1988. With unflinching candor, he describes the moment he experienced clinical death during a suicide attempt while in the Navy, floating above his body as medical personnel performed CPR, declaring "he's not breathing and his heart's not beating."
The transformation that followed his surrender to recovery is nothing short of remarkable. Never having graduated high school, Paul returned to education, eventually earning advanced degrees in nursing with a specialization in psychiatric and mental health care. Today, with 37 years of continuous sobriety, he serves as a Senior Vice President for Behavioral Health for a major healthcare system with over 150 hospitals.
What makes Paul's perspective particularly valuable is his unique combination of lived experience, professional education, and administrative expertise. As he works to improve mental health and addiction treatment systems at state and national levels, he carries with him the powerful awareness that "I almost got thrown away." This drives his compassion for those still suffering, particularly people experiencing homelessness and mental illness.
Throughout the conversation, Paul reminds us that recovery isn't just about stopping drinking—it's about building a life of purpose and service. His story demonstrates that no matter how far someone has fallen, recovery remains possible when that moment of clarity finally arrives and we're ready to accept help.
Whether you're struggling yourself or love someone caught in addiction, this episode offers both practical wisdom and the gift of hope. Listen, share, and remember: your past doesn't determine your potential.
Thank You for Joining Us.. Please share with friends. If you or anyone you know is struggling with alcoholism please reach out to us. We can get you help. recoveryunfilteredpodcast@gmail.com
hello robert okay, buddy, it's so nice that after we hear a nice prayer, right, you don't have to hear about someone talking about being on a toilet using that as your meditation.
Speaker 1:Oh, man, you know I I went through several trying to get something different.
Speaker 2:The more things change, the more they change yeah they are.
Speaker 1:It's good. You know the buddy down the street that had the podcast. He actually has a band called Harbor Drive. We're going to work together and get something up, something running, but you know what? I'm going to keep it simple anyways, you know, when we first started this podcast, I was all about making something fancy and pretty in the very beginning and and uh, you know what it is.
Speaker 2:What it is, it's about the podcast now how are you? I'm doing good, buddy. How you doing I'm well, buddy. Hey, can I borrow that when I leave? I want to. I'm going to go through that for the international, paul. I'm sorry, our guest bring your man. Come on in our guest. What is your name?
Speaker 1:paul range okay, well, he even went with the last name how many have you been to any international?
Speaker 2:I've not yet been to an international convention.
Speaker 1:No, I have not seen some yeah, so that was, uh, that was. That was quite the experience, in fact. You know what I want you guys to hear this real fast. Hold on a second oh yeah, that was experience, that, that, oh my gosh this right here is by far one of the my favorite things that I heard hold on a second. That was 40 000 people saying the serenity prayer.
Speaker 1:Sounds like an airplane above you guys too, you know what, but that's the way it sounded inside that stadium. Yeah, it was just. You know, there were several things that were done inside the stadium. I mean, they said the serenity prayer was one, and a guy sang hallelujah inside there, which I have it recorded too. But my buddy, doug, was sitting next to me and he had recorded the serenity prayer and all you could hear on his was him saying it. You couldn't really hear everything else and then I go.
Speaker 2:Was that the guy with Down syndrome? I thought that was an inside joke.
Speaker 1:The WP that traveled with me, my travel partner. Yeah, I warned him before we travel. I'm a high maintenance traveler man. Between my snacks at bedtime.
Speaker 2:My favorite part of every meeting is the end, when we all get up hold hands and we do the Lord's. Prayer I mean because I just get to watch all the similarities but all the differences.
Speaker 1:That right there. They didn't close that one with the Lord's Prayer.
Speaker 2:And you guys didn't do a sobriety countdown, which usually happens at every whatever they didn't, they may have done it at the old-timers meeting.
Speaker 1:I didn't go to that one. Jason was supposed to go to that one and you know he lost his dog while we were there and that was just so horrific, tell me about it, you tell me about it.
Speaker 1:You picked him up off the side of the road Two of them, paul and you, yeah, yeah, I mean, we were there on, it was fourth of july and you know I have a black lab too and they, I mean he'll, you can shoot guns around him all you want, but fireworks drive him nuts, right, it just drives him crazy. And it was, uh, we were. We get a phone call from jason says, hey, he's running late, he, his dog, got got out and got killed. And I'm like, oh shit and uh, so we get there and him and kim finally show up and they, they were pretty distraught, right. Oh yeah, I find out that you're going to pick the dog up on the side of the road and I'm like I had to call you. I'm like, dude, you, what a friend you are. I mean what a friend you are to go and do that. I mean just just at the call and then come to find out you didn't even pick up the right dog no, he called me back at four o'clock.
Speaker 2:Paul, someone had found the real because it was a black. It was a black lab, you know, and his son had went out and saw the scars at the same scars on the nose. But this dog was not not in good shape, but yeah, and then four o'clock in the afternoon, that was in the seven in the morning, four in the afternoon, jason calls you back. Rob, we got the wrong dog. Uh, rooster was over on warnerville and so I went, made another trip.
Speaker 1:Poor Jason had to go through that twice, twice. Right had to go through that twice. And then, oh, rooster, rest in peace, brother. But yeah, he had him cremated. And man, that's the worst part to when you lose a dog, it's just horrible, especially one like that and that's a sobriety dog and he got right, you know.
Speaker 2:oh, really, yeah, I did not hear that part of it because he took wayne over to aaron's house when aaron still had dolly the chocolate and bread so he could get one of wayne's offspring, which was rooster about four years ago amazing dog. Jason put a lot of love into that, like he does everything else a lot of love into that animal.
Speaker 1:So okay, anyway, so we're going to talk some more about um, about the international convention, on the next episode. But we are going to talk some more about um, about the international convention on the next episode. But we are going to get to Paul. We're going to hear some stuff about Paul. I've gotten to hear a little bits and pieces of your story and the amounts that I've heard I'm like I want to get him in here.
Speaker 1:I want to hear the whole story Well we got to talk a little bit before you showed up, so there's some parts of it I'm excited to get to about what he's doing now, so tell us about yourself, paul.
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, thank you for asking me to come and do this Our pleasure. I feel like it's an honor to be able to share and certainly anytime we can share where somebody might hear this and it might make a difference. Absolutely, that's the whole premise of what we do. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And we get people reaching in. Well, the guy that's I'm going to ask you the question, he's from Denver. We got it's. It's waving at what God does with this stuff. He just takes it and yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's, that's exactly what. You know what happened to me? It's funny because I family members of mine were praying for me in my worst and my you know and and I I didn't know it. I mean, I didn't, I didn't know it, and uh, one one brother actually came after me when I was hiding out in the backwoods of uh North Carolina.
Speaker 3:And he found me and I don't know how he found we were. You know, it was a Saturday afternoon, we were down by a little lagoon or Creek or whatever and, and you know, just drinking raisin hell and jumping off of a rope, swing into the water, all that stuff, you know, and I mean back in, first of all, where I lived was back in the middle of nowhere, but this was really back in the middle of nowhere beyond that. And he found me, he came down there and all of a sudden I turn around, there's my brother from Wisconsin and I'm like Joe, what are you doing here? And he says you know, I came to talk to you and how old were you at this time?
Speaker 3:I was 29, somewhere around there, and you know, and we talked for about five or 10 minutes and I, you know, I was like well, you know, thank you for wasting your time, but I'm not going anywhere, I'm not doing anything.
Speaker 3:This is me now and, and you know, I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I, that I, uh, I was of no use to anybody my wife, my kids, um, and, and really what I was doing was running away to die and I had every intention of drinking and drugging myself to death and it just wasn't happening fast enough.
Speaker 3:You know, um and and I I tell this story I worked with another guy. We were building fences, farm fence, I mean stuff like that out in the country, and Virgil Virgil was like probably in his mid-60s and he was still working, right. I mean, this guy would get up at the crack of dawn, he'd go out and work and every night I would hear him screaming bloody murder, because he would wake up in DTs. Oh, wow. And when he got his bottle he was fine, wow. I mean he lived in a little tiny, little one of those little tiny camp trailer things and a number of us lived right on site at the fence company. It was out in the country, so the guy had a little building off to the side and he let Virgil park his camper back there. But it dawned on me that I might not die that next that I could end up going, you might be Virgil.
Speaker 3:I might be Virgil, I might be going on and on and on and on, like that, you know, and that, really, that gave me pause to stop and think. You know, well, I came up here I was thinking you know, my uncle, my mother's brother, was a street drunk in Denver, colorado, and this guy had eight kids and I remember my dad taking groceries over to their house because he was just so irresponsible and this guy ended up in a state institution there in Colorado. Wet brain is what they called him. Right, he was just totally. I mean, the only time I ever really saw him after many years was we brought him to a family reunion and he was just out. He was just totally out of it. He didn't know anybody. You couldn't. Were you sober at that time or no? No, no, no, I was a teenager, okay, around there. What did you grow up, paul? Well, I, I was born in wichita, kansas, okay, I. I, as I mentioned, my dad worked for one of the greatest songs in the world.
Speaker 3:which is all lying Glenn Campbell for, uh, yeah, um for for Phillips petroleum. Uh, he moved to. He moved us to Memphis, tennessee. Uh, we lived there for a few years and then and then got transferred to Milwaukee, wisconsin, there for about five years and then got trans. He had a. He had the option to go to Saudi Arabia or Charlotte, north Carolina.
Speaker 2:Whoa buddy.
Speaker 3:What year was that? This was 1971. Oh yeah, he'd been better off to stay here, yeah yeah. So we moved to Charlotte and that's pretty much where the family ended up at. I'm the sixth of seven kids and I didn't really have a bad childhood growing up, other than the fact that I had a hard time adjusting. Everywhere I went I was north to south, south to North and I always had an accident wherever I went and always got made fun of, but it was. It was also hard to fit in because you know kids that grow up around one another their whole life and everything they.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm coming in and the, you know, nine, 10, 12, 13 years old, you know, and, and, and, and trying to fit in, and I never did Um. When I got to Charlotte, one of the things that I had um, the, the uh became clear is that I could put on a persona of a bad, a bad kid, you know, and that was how I got my attention and that's, and that's pretty much where a lot of the trouble really started, when I was about 13 years old and it was in, it was in Charlotte, and I was, you know, um, what normal kids do? I mean it's, it's not abnormal for kids to to, to experiment with, with, like marijuana and alcohol. It's what happens to us when we have that disposition to to, to get addicted to this stuff. And I I I clearly remember started drinking um intentionally at about 13.
Speaker 2:It's funny how you say that though Intentionally, yeah, I just I don't.
Speaker 1:I've heard people say that before and I'm like, and you know, and it took me a little bit to realize what that means and I, I, I exactly know what it means now.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we do. We're wired that way.
Speaker 3:Cause? I cause I I drunk. I mean I had sips of beer and stuff from my parents and my parents were not big drinkers. I mean, every once in a while I'd see my dad come home from work and him and my mom would split a can of beer. Wow.
Speaker 1:I've heard you say that before Wow.
Speaker 3:And to me that was like I look back on that. But then later on in life my mother pretty much after she retired, she was just a classic story out of the big book where she just you know carpet slippers came out she started drinking and I watched her drink herself to death, I mean literally, and she ended up having a stroke and ended up the last couple of years of her life just in really bad shape. But going back to the, you know, starting off, I started drinking intentionally at 13, any chance I could possibly get, mostly on the weekends, but then it became like every weekend. I mean, it was the mission of the weekend for somebody to get drunk.
Speaker 1:So you didn't have any problem getting it. Oh no, it was a wet county.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, was there dry counties there too? Well, in North Carolina they have what they call ABC stores. They're state-regulated liquor stores. But you can buy beer and wine in a 7-Eleven or something like that. So you know, obviously I got sick off of Boone's Farm more than once.
Speaker 2:So now do you know Dawson? We've had Dawson on the show From.
Speaker 1:Primary Purpose From.
Speaker 2:Primary Purpose and my wife loves him because Dawson's dad was the inventor of Boone's.
Speaker 3:Farm. Oh, really, damn him. That's funny. No it, but no it was, and it things were taken going in a bad direction again. I mean, you know, I came from a what I I think society would consider a functional family. My oldest brother fought in Vietnam, came back just totally messed up in the head. And and I brother fought in Vietnam, came back just totally messed up in the head, Um, and and I watched him, he that that man drank from the time he woke up in the morning, the time he went to bed, and you would have never known that he was drinking because he was always just Kind of remind you when my wife said she's never saw me drunk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, I mean when you, when you drink that much and you know, and I used to look at other people and think, oh, they've got a drinking problem. I never looked at myself, we don't, hell, no. But my drinking, accelerated by other things, really took off. And I mean by the time I was 25 years old. I was at the point where I was quitting jobs because I was afraid I was going to get fired. Oh Okay, you were ahead of the curve. I was an assistant manager at McDonald's in Rock Hill, south Carolina, and I remember finding those speakeasies that stayed open all night illegally in South Carolina, and there were times when I had to open the store at 5 o'clock in the morning and I wasn't done drinking until 3.30. And so I'd go open the store and I'd crash in one of the booths and that's where staff would find me when they came in.
Speaker 3:Where's?
Speaker 2:the boss.
Speaker 3:I'm drunk, passed out, you know, and I mean that's one of the jobs I had to quit before I got fired. But I worked in the food service industry for a number of years, and certainly in the food they say this about a lot of different industries, food service, construction, you know a lot of drunks and stuff in that. But I did that until I couldn't do it anymore, until I just could not manage to keep a job, and that's when things started going downhill. That's when I ran away from home and went around Greensboro and decided, just, it was it, I was just. You know, that was my fate and there was nothing I could do about it.
Speaker 1:So when you say that, you consciously remember just saying fuck it, yep, really.
Speaker 2:That's after you were married with children.
Speaker 3:And there was a 19-year-old female involved as well. Okay, there it is there it is. Yeah, so I you know, but I, you know I wasn't. My marriage to my first wife was just I don't know how to explain it, it was not, I don't know how to explain it, it was not a marriage. I mean we did nothing but fight Nothing, but I mean it was, was she?
Speaker 1:a drinker too.
Speaker 3:No, oh really, no, no, but her dad was a drunk and he had serious mental health issues and things like that and she grew up in a really abusive household. So it kind of it was no wonder she put up with me. Any normal woman would have left me or shot me.
Speaker 1:It was normal for her For her.
Speaker 3:It was normal. So you know, but for me it was like you know, I just I was just a restless, irritable, discontent drunk and I, you know, I could never find my place, I could never find contentment. But one of the things I did come to realize is that my life wasn't going anywhere. You know I had tried to commit suicide twice by the time I was 25 or so. How I joined the Navy when I was I just turned 17.
Speaker 3:Navy man To try and get my life turned around. I got in there and I didn't realize it at the time, but I suffer from depression and I got in there and I was starting to have trouble. I was starting to have these severe pains in my chest where I couldn't even breathe, and I went to the doctor and he said it was anxiety, anxiety, yeah, and it was intercostal. The muscles between my ribs were inflamed and he prescribed me Valium. Well, I'm going to an A school learning how to, as an aviation boat's mate, learning how to work on catapults and arresting gear on an aircraft carrier, and I'm thinking and this is their answer they're giving me Valium. I don't think this is safe, right? Anyway?
Speaker 2:So this is mid to late 70s.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mid 70s, 73, 74. And the one thing I loved about the service is at 17 years old I could walk into any club on base, I could drink as much as I want and my heroes were the lifers that drank their beer out of pitchers. But this particular night I was really this was the weird thing. I was at peace with leaving this earth. I was convinced that this was the weird thing is I was at peace with leaving this earth. I was convinced that this was the answer. It was not a state of depression or anything. It was a state of acceptance and I had accepted the fact that this was just not my time here and I needed to go.
Speaker 3:And I took that and I had not taken that volume. I took that whole bottle of volume and I took it all at one time. It was 35 milligram volumes and of Valium, and I took it all at one time. It was 35 milligram Valiums. And I went out and I started drinking and I started drinking hard and I don't remember what happened next. What I but I do, what I do remember happened next is I was laying on my on the top of my bunk. I was floating away from my body. I could see Navy corpsman over me doing CPR and I could hear them clearly say he's not breathing in, his heart's not beating.
Speaker 2:That's an OBE out of body experience, yep.
Speaker 3:Yep, and I and I kept floating and, floating and floating and it was in darkness and you know, and I was looking down at my body and I was hearing and seeing what was going on and all of a sudden a fear of panic came over me and I thought I realized I'm dead. Here's the other thing, as I also realized, I still had thought and I still could feel emotion. Wow, and it was weird. It was like, okay, I want it out of this. It doesn't look like I'm getting out of it it looks like I'm taking it with me.
Speaker 3:And in an instant I was back in my body. Wow, but my body was like a piece of clay. I couldn't move a muscle, I couldn't say anything, I couldn't talk, I couldn't do anything. They took me to the infirmary and the two corpsmen that were there they had to wake up a doctor at four o'clock in the morning and he came in and this was really funny. They smelled marijuana on my breath. I didn't smoke pot. I was never a pot smoker. I didn't like it. I never sought it out.
Speaker 2:Same with me. We got a lot in common. I've known Paul for 14 years now. I love this.
Speaker 3:Somewhere along the way that night I stopped and smoked a cup with somebody. I didn't remember, but the point being is I laid there and I couldn't move a muscle. But I knew what had happened to me. I was conscious of that and I could hear these guys talking about let's throw him out in the snow. He's just trying to get discharged from the Navy. And if I could have moved I would have jumped up and I would have tried to kick their ass. I probably would have done it, but it made me. I remember it made me very angry to hear that because it was like if you guys knew what had just happened to me.
Speaker 3:But anyway, the things I ended up getting sent to. Actually, I ended up going AWOL because I didn't want to be on the ship when it took off. I got onto the Kennedy on the aircraft carrier and it was getting ready to go over to the Mediterranean and I was like I don't know if I can do this, because I was already starting to butt heads with my superiors. I mean, the guy that I was working for, his nickname was Cats because he worked on the catapults and he was an asshole. And I was like I don't, I can't do this man. I just took off one day and I came. I came back to Charlotte and I was there for about three months until I got into some trouble with some drugs and overdosed and wound up in the hospital and they find out who I was and where I was supposed to be.
Speaker 2:He was a wall or you. We called it the Navy. It was UA. Unauthorized Absence.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I purposely left everything that they issued me on the ship, which is technically a deserter. Okay, oh yeah, yeah, and it was during the Vietnam conflict. It was not yet over.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I was thinking, oh, I think I'm going to put me in front of a firing squad. I was very fortunate I got court-martialed and I got a general under honorable conditions, which actually kind of blew me away. That blew me away.
Speaker 1:Explain that.
Speaker 3:Well, they decided that I was imagine immature.
Speaker 3:They called me immature and realized that I had probably some serious psychological issues and difficulties. This is where this is funny, because when I was in the, when I first came back and they put me in a hospital I think this was my first AA meeting is that they asked me to sit in with this group of guys and I remember we were sitting in a circle and I remember we were talking about stuff around drugs and alcohol and now that I look back on it, it was probably a recovery meeting that I was sitting in at 17 years old and I didn't even realize it. If there was coffee, it was an AA meeting, it was coffee. But I got out, I came home, I decided I was going to do something with my life.
Speaker 3:I went back to a community college, I started getting into, I know I wanted a degree in music and I started doing theater and so that's what I did for five years, absolutely loved it, never got a degree in anything not a two-year degree in anything and, you know, just screwed around. But by that time the drinking, you know, I figured if I put the drugs down, you know, then it was okay to drink, right, but the drinking just kept getting worse and worse and worse and it started becoming. You know, it was daily. It was drinking to get drunk daily.
Speaker 3:I never took a day off from drinking, even when I was sick and and, and there were times when you know, when I was between jobs or something like that and money was hard to come by, I, I tell this story funny. That was a commercial on tv about there's something about an aqua velvet man. I drank that shit. I drank it, you know, for the alcohol content. It was nasty, I mean, but I forced it down. And then I drank cooking Sherry, which was also very nasty. It was my, my parents' refrigerator, but this is an example. I would go to any lengths to get alcohol in my body. It didn't, it didn't seem to matter. And and that's when I, you know, I, I got to do you. Here's the funny thing is I, I clearly remember one night getting on my knees and praying and saying God, if, if, if, if I've got a problem, show it to me. And and and please help me. Right, I was, I was unemployed, I was being like a stay at home dad. We had three kids at the time.
Speaker 1:That's what the 19 year old.
Speaker 2:No, no, you got married after that, the 19 year old, is where he ran with.
Speaker 3:Okay, no, I never that. That ended like okay, sorry, sorry, but no, we were living because we could never afford anything. We were either living with her parents or my parents. At this point, we were living with my parents and I got on my knees and prayed, and probably within a week I went out to a bar with a friend of mine to see a band that we liked and I got a DUI and you know, praying to God for a sign. No, that wasn't good enough. I didn't recognize that. So, but things, things just started progressively getting worse and worse and worse and finally it came to that point where I ran away from home and did all that stuff and came back, came back to Charlotte after a huge fight with this girl, this 19 year old girl. She slashed my tires and broke my windshield and and I was like that's it, I'm done.
Speaker 3:I didn't necessarily want to come back home to Charlotte, but I did and I called my parents and I said look, I think I need help. They tried to get me into a treatment center. The beds were full. They got me into a psychiatric ward of a local hospital, which you know. Okay, you qualified. Yeah, most definitely, and I was there for about three or four days I started detoxing and really I mean the devil was coming out of me and all this other stuff, you know, and I was like I don't, you know, I don't want to be here. And I tell the psychiatrist you know, when are you going to let me out of here? And he said I want you to talk to somebody. And he brought somebody from AA in and that person sat down with me on a Sunday afternoon and she was showing me the progression of the disease the jails, institutions and death. I'd been to jail a couple of times.
Speaker 3:By this time I was sitting in an institution and, as my story before I had already died and I and I sat there and honestly looked this and convinced to in my mind. I looked at this person and I said that's not me, that's not me. Denial oh, it was a step below denial, it was delusion. But I came out of there thinking, okay, something's got to change. I went home and I told my wife that I'm going to stop drinking. That lasted about two days, and then I said, well, I'm going to stop drinking. And that lasted about two days. And then I said, well, I'm just going to get a 12-pack and I'm going to make this 12-pack last. Well, by about the third day it was a 12-pack a day at least, and things just kept getting progressively worse. I don't know when I'd gotten the DUI.
Speaker 3:It was court order to go to AA meetings and I remembered. I guess I remembered where some of them were and I don't remember recalling exactly how I recalled this particular meeting, but I walked into it. It was a Monday night meeting, it was a speaker meeting and there was a man up there talking and he was telling stories about how he was an engineer and he had gone from having a reputable place in this company to working in the basement washing rags and on his way home he used to walk past this bar before he got really problematic and he would look in and he would see these people in this bar and these guys down at the end of the bar cavorting with women and stuff like that, and he'd pass judgment on them. He said in the end he was sitting in that that bar and he had lost some of his teeth and so he used to use those plastic truth true cigarette filters and stuff.
Speaker 3:So he looked like he had teeth and that made me laugh like hell, and the other people in the meeting were laughing too, you know, and I was like Holy crap, you know, and and I, I didn't, I still didn't associate with me being you weren't that bad, bad Right, and but anyway, I, I really related to this guy. And they pass out chips at these meetings, at every meeting, and the white chip is a surrender chip and like the 24 hour chip.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I remember walking up and I just started crying like a baby and I couldn't, I couldn't figure out me tough guy, you know, mr, tough guy, I, you know, it's like I'm standing there crying in front of all these people, you know, and, and I couldn't stop and and and it was like. It was like the like the stories about vietnam vets talking about getting their feelings out and how they were afraid they'd be afraid that they couldn't stop the, the emotion of crying. But it that started the long journey of my um resistance to recovery. Okay, I call it that because I did, I did I did not, I did not.
Speaker 2:I came kicking and screaming it was like I, I didn't, I didn't. We haven't got to live in the car yet no, well, I it was.
Speaker 3:It was right along that time that I was yeah, it was around that time that I was living in my car, because no, it was actually right before that Because I had gotten to the point after I came home, that period of time, about six months in there, my wife and I couldn't get along and I couldn't quite stop drinking. And that's when I started. I just packed everything I owned, which took about five minutes, and I threw it in my car and I was just going from park to park around Charlotte and I was doing day jobs. I was doing day labor jobs to get enough money to drink, and that was pretty much my life for a while. And I'd always get afraid that the cops were going to come and you know, and arrest me for, you know, for vagrancy and stuff like that. But it didn't. And that's kind of what led up to that me getting to that meeting and where I'd gotten to the point where this just can't go on like this.
Speaker 3:But this guy was very open-minded. He was about 15 years, sober, he had been diagnosed with cancer he was supposed to be, you know, he had been given six months to a year to live and we formed a relationship. This man taught me things that my own parents never taught me, you know, and he would hit me between the eyes with stuff, you know, and he called out We'd be driving to a meeting and I'd be looking out the window, you know, and he looked up one day. I was looking at the, we were passing by a bar or something and he looked at me and said you know what he said you're just as addicted to excitement as you are anything else. And I was like, okay, what does that mean? I finally realized what it meant, because it always had to be drama in my life. I was having difficulty, I was trying to re-engage with my wife and you know things like that.
Speaker 3:I was going back to church and actually was a Sunday school teacher for a while. Wow, really weird. I taught, I sang in a choir and you know, I did all this stuff to try and be a good re-entry into society and all this stuff. But at the same time, I realized that I had to do something more productive with my life. So first of all, I started a business. I had a landscape and lawn service business with a buddy of mine who grew up with, and we were growing this business and it was going well, it was going okay and we had actually hired somebody and we had equipment. You know, we were getting jobs. And it got to the point where we couldn't continue to grow the company and draw salaries out of it. So I decided I was going to get a job. A friend of mine in the program suggested that I go to work at this treatment center, which was a very well-known treatment center there in Charlotte, and that's where I started in health care.
Speaker 2:Wow, what's your sobriety date?
Speaker 3:August 25, 1988. Okay.
Speaker 1:Right before I graduated high school. Yeah, no, right after I graduated high school.
Speaker 3:So this was long in mid-1989 or so, I think early, maybe spring, spring-summer of 1989. I went to work in this treatment center and I realized that I picked up a copy of the New England journal of medicine and it was talking about how the field of recovery did not have enough people with lived experience and education. There we go there were plenty of people in there with lived experience and the and the, and the field was being taken over by people with education. Okay, and and so you know those, the mix of those two things. It was not as prevalent as it probably needed to be and it was.
Speaker 3:At that point I decided I was going to go back to school and I decided I was going to be a substance use counselor, until I realized how much money they made because I was paying child support. At that time my wife and I separated and I was paying child support. So along in there somewhere, one of the instructors said have you ever considered going to nursing school? Me, no, I never. Me a nurse? No, never, you know. But at some point I said, okay, I'll do this.
Speaker 3:I had never graduated high school, I had gone through the 11th grade three times, I have a GED and I thought I don't know if I've got the smarts and the brain power to do this, and certainly the stick to it it was to do it because I was just. You know, I was all over the map. I thought it was ADD or something, I don't know. But I went back to school and I started taking the courses and I realized very quickly that I had not I had not circumvented anything from high school. I had to end up taking all those courses that I missed. So my first year at that community college was High school.
Speaker 1:Your senior year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I did that and I was going to get a two-year degree in nursing. Somebody from one of the local colleges came out and was giving a talk and I thought, hmm, it does sound like a better deal to get a four-year degree in a BSN rather than just an RN. And they were talking about all the doors that would open and all that stuff. And again, you know, and they were talking about all the doors that would open and all that stuff, and and again, once again, I thought, I don't think I, I've got, and you had, you had to qualify. I mean you, you, you applied and and you know, they had hundreds and hundreds of applications and they only accepted like a hundred of those a year.
Speaker 3:And I got in and I got into this and I and I and I did this and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I mean, there were times when I just wanted to give up. I wanted to run away screaming Because at the same time I was still having to work and do the child support thing. So I was working two jobs and going to school.
Speaker 2:You had a full life?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was working construction. How much AA were you?
Speaker 1:Oh, very very very much. So there was a full job AA and going to school, recovery, all of that yeah, and there for a while.
Speaker 3:I mean, I was one of those people that I thought you know meeting every day kind of a thing, or at least you know minimum four or five times a week, right. But when I got into all that doing the school and working and all that stuff, my meetings were you meetings were two or three weeks. Fortunately I still worked at that treatment center, so I got to take the patients out to meetings and get to drive the van.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Stuff like that. So that worked out really well. Along the way I ended up getting divorced, stayed out of relationships for about 12 years. During that time I was again still working trying to about 12 years. During that time I was again still working trying to. You know, my career was moving along and decided I sat there for about an application for graduate school, sat on my kitchen table for about a year. I had never lived by myself before ever and I was living by myself and things were going well. I was, you know, I was getting more. I was getting comfortable with myself. I was getting comfortable with not being in sick relationships with women. So you had about four years sobriety right here.
Speaker 1:It was.
Speaker 3:No, it was. It was about At the time before I went to graduate school. I was about seven years, seven years. It took me longer to get through school than most people. It took me five years to get that four year degree. And then I took a year off and was just working and I was still working in the in the treatment, in the treatment field. So I was working at the treatment center. I finally went back to school and went to graduate school and I'm so glad I did, cause it was so much easier.
Speaker 3:I mean, I tell people, you know, I always thought it was, oh, graduate school, you know it, it was fun. The hard part was over, it was fun. It was fun because you were taking things that you know, that really allowed you to develop thinking and you know and process and things like that. So I enjoyed that and I had really great instructors and I ended up with what's called a clinical nurse, specialist in psychiatric, mental health, nursing.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, right out of school I was offered two different jobs. One was an academic it was teaching and the other was a director of nursing position. I thought, wow, they're offering me this big management position. Come to realize that centers for Medicare and Medicaid require that if you're going to be a director, that if you have a program, a mental health or a substance use program, they require that person to have a master's degree in psych, mental health or an equivalent of five years of experience and management experience. So I mean, those people, I guess, were hard to come by and that's probably why you know that position was offered and I took it and from there, man, the trajectory of my career just skyrocketed and I can't tell you, more than once people were like man, you're in over your head, you don't know what you're doing, and I was like the door opens, I'm going to walk through it.
Speaker 3:There's a reason for this happening. I worked with child and adolescent long-term care for a number of years. I worked as a prison nurse for a while. I mean, don't ask me why. I mean these things just presented themselves and I was like sure, why not? You know, I'll do it. One of the things interesting things I found out about working in adolescent long-term adolescent and then in prison nursing is that a lot of these guys in prison with the same adolescent temperament that I had worked with.
Speaker 2:I've heard you share that before.
Speaker 3:They had just never. They'd never grown up, they'd never learned how to cope with life, and so their their coping skills were very much, and I started relating to some of the stuff I was learning along the way in school about. You know, we talk about where we were comfortable, but through the experience of education and in the workplace there was just so much I was learning about all this stuff, you know.
Speaker 2:Um.
Speaker 3:And again the door started opening and I had an opportunity to take over a program in eastern Tennessee and it was for the same company. And I got up there Beautiful, I'm a mountains kind of guy, I love the mountains, I love to go hiking. I mean to me that's where I'm close to God, just being in that area. And we got up there and I was telling Larry earlier that my wife know, my wife and I started getting about a year and a half, two years. He started getting cabin fever. We had a beautiful house on almost five acres. Second wife, second wife, second wife, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mostly because I thought that would please my mother because she didn't talk to me for five years after I got divorced my first wife but you know that's here but but my second wife and and we're still married today um, how far sober were you when you got married.
Speaker 3:Oh, gosh um. We got married in 20 2001, so 88, so you had 12, 13 years yeah.
Speaker 1:Did she know that you were in the program, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:It was so funny. We started dating and we were going out to places and I was running into people. How do you know all these people?
Speaker 2:I'm not going to get into it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she finally. Well, she finally, you know, she knew. One of the things I told her from the very start is that my program is going to come first. Amen, brother, absolutely. I mean, I'm going to go to meetings. If you don't like it, tell me now, because you know that's not going to change. And she was very accepting of that. I mean, she didn't seem to have a problem and still doesn't have a problem with that.
Speaker 2:So you were in the Hills of Tennessee in the Hills of Tennessee.
Speaker 3:uh got cabin fever, decided she started sending my resume out.
Speaker 2:Mama started getting out of here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she sent it to a place she thought was in Colorado and my mother had been born in Colorado. I love Colorado. It was a beautiful, beautiful state and I was like, yeah, I could live in Cal in Colorado.
Speaker 3:It was a management. Recruiters of Colorado was the company she sent it to and it turns out that the job was here in California. I didn't know that. I didn't know that until I got on the phone for my first phone interview and started talking to these people. But I was so impressed by what I was hearing from this leadership team in Modesto at the Stanislaus County Behavioral Health Department that I thought, oh, yeah, we might be able to do that, and we did.
Speaker 3:We ended up packing up everything we had in a U-Haul truck and I had my kids from my first marriage. Three of the four of them actually came with us and helped us move. My wife and I had two little ones. They were like one a year and two years. They were born about a year apart, so a year and two years. They were born about a year apart, so a year and two years. And we drove all the way across the country, ended up in Riverbank, california, and started working for Stanislaus Behavioral Health. I was telling Larry, I came to work to be, I was hired to take over as a director of nursing at the facility there, but the administrator position was open and one of the people from HR said you want to apply for that? I was like I'm not qualified for that. You know, I don't have the experience. And there were like 11 other people that had applied. All of them had more years of experience running facilities and half of them had PhDs and I thought you know, there's no way.
Speaker 3:And besides, the person that I was coming to replace, the director of nursing, was supposedly a shoo-in for this position. Right, I got the job and all of a sudden I was her boss. Right, she didn't like that very much, but again.
Speaker 2:Oh well, god's got a plan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, it's through the things that I've learned in this program that I've learned how to deal with those types of situations. You know, and I mean just, the.
Speaker 2:Have you found that where God wants you, he's going to put you?
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely as a matter of fact. This is funny because I worked for Stanislaus Behavioral Health about a year and a half. They had an arrangement with Tenant Corporation to work under their license and accreditation and Tenant wanted out of that and they and they eventually got out of it and I was not going to work for a for-profit mental health and I did not want to work for tenant corporation. I didn't, I just didn't. I mean I, I I'd sat in their board meetings and things because we were, you know, we were part of them technically and I sat in their board meetings and I just didn't, I just didn't like that, that corporate mindset, you know and the things.
Speaker 1:That big difference. I've worked for big corporations and I've worked for private on it's.
Speaker 3:It's big, big difference. So I made the decision I was not going to and they didn't. And once that change happened, they didn't have, really the County, really didn't have a place for me anymore. Um, so I started looking for a job and and a job, and a recruiter actually called me and asked if I'd be interested in this facility up in Stockton it was Catholic Healthcare West at the time and it was a much smaller facility and the position had been open about a year. And I put two and two together and said I don't know if this is a good career move or not, you know, but I wasn't really. I mean, I was traveling the state looking for, you know, looking for another job and nothing was really coming along. So I was like, okay, I'll do it.
Speaker 3:I went to work there and the person that I was reporting to was the CEO of the bigger hospital, st Joe's Medical Center, and I clearly remember, about two months in it was like I felt like I was a department of their hospital and I wasn't being. I mean, I was a president of the hospital, right, and I thought, you know, there came along with that, there came some respect and not so. And I was sitting there in his office one day and I said, don, when do I get to be a real hospital president? And he said well, when you make a significant contribution, either monetary you know financial or or otherwise to the system. And then he looked at me and says you know, your ticket's not punched yet.
Speaker 3:And I, and immediately the thought was dude, you don't have my ticket. You know, to your point. It's like you don't have my ticket, trust me, because all these, all these doors that have opened that I've walked through, they were there and it was nothing that I did to really deserve or bring this stuff on. And it was funny because he retired about a year ago. But about three years ago I actually told him that story. I did. I said, dodd, I didn't tell you this at the time, but I wanted to let you know that you didn't have my ticket. The man upstairs has my ticket and that's the way it's been. And over the years I've been there 18, almost 19 years now- California Avenue.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's where.
Speaker 2:I had my surgeries.
Speaker 3:And I've been given a lot of autonomy to do a lot of things and I've really gotten involved, very involved, advocacy-wise, at the state level and even at the national level. I've been on the American Hospital Association Regional Policy Board They've got nine regions across the country and I was the mental health delegate on that for a number of years. I'm on their National Behavioral Health Committee now and also sit on the state's task force, the Behavioral Task Force of the state of California. So every opportunity I have and I won't keep my big mouth shut about something if I feel like it's like you guys don't understand- how this works.
Speaker 2:That's why you're there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's largely the problems that we run into in our society. It's all about money. It's all about money, it's all about who your payer is. And behavioral health is the redhead stepchild of health care. And you know, and I've always equated behavioral health and substance use disorders as one area, because they're inextricably linked you can't have a substance use disorder and it not be some relative to a mental health condition of some sort, depression, whatever, and vice versa. So anyway, I mean, over the years my career has really been taking off.
Speaker 3:Catholic Health Care West became Dignity Health and now it's a much larger organization called Common Spirit Health, which is a house of brands, organization called Common Spirit Health, which is a house of brands of dignity, health, catholic health initiatives in the Midwest, virginia, mason Franciscan in the Northwest, and we've all come together, centura in Colorado. We've all come together to form this big company called Common Spirit. It's 150, some odd hospitals, and somehow I talked my way into being the senior vice president for behavioral health for the whole system. So, again, doors that have opened and, and, and right now I'm being given the opportunity to develop strategy for the entire system, develop a behavioral health service line, which is a, you know, I mean can I ask you a question?
Speaker 2:How much does this impact your thing?
Speaker 1:I mean, I know that when you say this he's talking about. I'm pointing at my favorite, but you're scattered pages.
Speaker 2:It's awesome.
Speaker 3:Every single day, every single day, I run into things that I'm just emotionally up and down about, because I run into resistance from people that don't understand behavioral health. I'm in one of those situations right now where we have five regions. I'm in one of those situations right now where we have five regions. The region president is not convinced that what we're trying to put forth is worthy of putting forth, and I've been able to get commitment for funding, like $4.5 million of funding to be able to stand up this call center model in California which centralizes the whole process so that emergency departments, wherever a patient walks in, that they'll have access to a behavioral health professional that will do the right thing, that will get them assessed appropriately and pointed in the right direction and do it much more quickly and more efficiently than we currently do it, because right now, average length to stay in an ED for a mental health patient regardless is 12 hours plus. That's ridiculous. I don't know about you. I go into an emergency room. I can't stand.
Speaker 3:Stay in an ED for a mental health patient regardless is 12 hours plus. That's ridiculous. I don't know about you. I go into an emergency room.
Speaker 1:I can't stand being in a room for two or three hours.
Speaker 3:Five minutes I want to run. Imagine if your first entry into exposure into a mental health system is you're in crisis, you end up in an ED. You get thrown in a corner, ignored and then maybe locked up like you're almost going to jail.
Speaker 1:Explain.
Speaker 3:ED Am I missing it.
Speaker 1:Emergency department. Emergency department Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mean, if that's your first exposure, no wonder we can't, people can't.
Speaker 2:And they go back out. It's easier to survive out there.
Speaker 3:It's good you know either that or they get discharged and it's good luck to you. You know that's why our streets?
Speaker 2:are full, well, if you're an alcoholic, my type.
Speaker 1:It's not only that, it's the mental health. Here's the thing and, Paul, you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but there's a lot of people on the street that don't have abuse problems right, yeah right, they're just mentally sick.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people that have mental health issues that were brought about by our drug and alcohol issues.
Speaker 1:So you've got all that to decipher and they're out there.
Speaker 2:A lot of veterans which I'm kind of partial to.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, it is the prevalence of serious mental illness. I'm talking about bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, things like that. It's less than it's about 2% to 3% of the population in general. Okay, they cost our health system about 80. They contribute about 80% of the cost of our health system about 80 per day.
Speaker 3:They, they, they contribute about 80% of the cost of our system, and and and, and those are the people that are out on the street, homeless, that are like you say. They may or may not have a substance use disorder. They do. They're trying to self-medicate, right, right, and, and I have worked, worked with that, and I've been, you know, I've worked in an acute, as an acute psychiatric nurse for a lot of years and started programs here and there and this, and that I mean talk about this program giving you the ability to have compassion for other people and for me it's like, you know, I remember where I was 30 some odd years ago and I think about you know I almost got thrown away and I think about you know who?
Speaker 3:who else are we throwing away out there and and it is. And and you know I always tell my colleagues is if this was your brother, brother, sister, you know, a family member, would you? And sometimes their answer is yes, because they were. You know they were such a drain on their life that you know it's hard and it's yeah, I mean, didn't you said, paul, what I was?
Speaker 1:You went from living on the streets. I mean you have, in your position right now, you have two different experiences. You have the experience of the people you're helping and you have the educational experience and the admin experience. I mean what you have is a trifold.
Speaker 2:He has everything Trifold. That's what I got from him.
Speaker 1:And you said it just perfectly. I almost got thrown away.
Speaker 2:But I can't tell you how many people were telling me the right things Right, you know, or they had the right answers, but you haven't lived what I lived. And when I finally sat down with Jay, you know yeah, but, Paul, it took something for you.
Speaker 1:It took your moment of clarity for you not to be allowed to be thrown away too. I mean, when you sat in that AA meeting and you heard that guy speaking with the filters stuck in his teeth, you had that moment of clarity to go. Yes, I got to go this other direction.
Speaker 2:You know, I think the issue was I was in so much pain, I was in so much mental pain, I believe, on Saturday morning there was a young man who shared that alcoholics and humans in general, we move with the speed of pain and I believe I've said that on this podcast many times he actually said it. I said it, you dork yeah.
Speaker 1:I was getting to that point, you dork, I know.
Speaker 2:That's why I got a lot of Rob-isms.
Speaker 3:Paul's been around me for 14 years now. He knows about a lot of Rob-isms and you're another person that I've gotten inspiration from. I clearly remember you walking into that meeting when the Saturday morning was over next to the insurance place and telling me that you had cancer and I was just like. I was devastated. I was like is he going to be around a year or two from now? I'm glad, is he going to be around a year or two from now? And then when I saw you come back and I heard what you had gone through and the fact, the one thing I clearly remember you telling me is that I'm going to take this experience and I'm going to use it to help other people, and you didn't say if. You said when I come through it, and I was like that's faith, brother. I mean that is just absolute.
Speaker 2:And I get calls from my for my, uh, my radiation dr gy, when you know, hey, rob, I gotta okay. He always gives my phone number out to people who want to yeah I want to know so, paul, on your and your recovery.
Speaker 3:So you never went through a rehab, you never went through anything like that you walked right in walked right in, yeah, and, and I and I probably should have because, knowing what I know now, um, it was probably medically dangerous because I I was when, at my finest, I was drinking a fifth of liquor and a case of beer every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's a lot of alcohol yeah, yeah, that's when I finished, that's where I was at, yeah, so so going forward, what I mean? If there's somebody on the streets and you're living in that street, looking, looking at that, give some advice to somebody.
Speaker 3:I can't give advice. I can share my experience and one of the things I've learned over the years is that I know for me and many people I've worked with is that you're not ready until you're ready. You're not ready until you're ready Right, and to try and convince somebody, I mean the big book and I really love the stories about how the whole program started, about one alcoholic helping another and Bill Wilson coming to realize the spiritual component of this thing and all that. But you stop and think about all the people that they tried to help that didn't make it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't hear about those as much right. You don't, and it's a sad truth, right.
Speaker 2:What is it? Something that we always talk about? We joke kind of because it's so frustrating. But Paul many times on this podcast because we try to find out what started this whole thing was his friend whose son committed suicide.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, he overdosed he overdosed and Larry's trying to.
Speaker 2:the father's just kicking himself and Larry's trying to break down the addict, the alcoholic, and help them understand. But I'm trying to come up with which. You know, there's not a certain word when you see someone who really needs this and they're almost there. I mean, if there spray we could develop, they could. It's called incomprehensible to more.
Speaker 3:you know, you know you can cure it, and that would give them that, that a final kick before they had to go.
Speaker 2:You know, just to get, but you can't until they're in enough pain.
Speaker 1:Right, and when I think that's, when I hear people say well, and I say it all the time too they're not going to be right. What's sad is how people will go all the way to the, to the, to the end, and never be ready right they'll just die.
Speaker 2:But they were never ready. But then there are some people that come in and the bottom came up and hit them. They didn't have the experiences that we did. They didn't get to where your body's not processing.
Speaker 1:But it goes right back to what you said. You know, it took one click for me, right for my moment of clarity to come in it. It took, it took some guy with I mean, do you I could be wrong, but it took a guy with filters in his teeth to to for you to kind of go, oh shit, I don't, you know. Or the old man screaming out of the trailer going am I going to be there, right, these these little things, and it's you know, and that's where seeds that got planted get watered.
Speaker 1:And I want to know. I asked more about that and somebody said here just a while back, you know, somebody came in, they went back out drinking. I want to know why, right, why? What were you thinking?
Speaker 2:Well, it's usually if they had some. Let's ask Paul this, because he's been. What are you 35 years now?
Speaker 3:37. So.
Speaker 2:Kim and Scott are right at the same. For me, at 14, every time I heard someone who's had okay, they did the work. They've had a spiritual, recognize results and steps. Life got good. Usually they quit doing the big three, they quit talking to their higher power, coming to meetings, fellowshipping, working with others. You quit, you start doing those things and then eventually this sounds good what do you? What have you?
Speaker 3:seen. You know this. That's the thing that really scared me when COVID came along and I heard all these people I'm not doing a Zoom meeting and I'm like, what happened to going to any lengths? Right, what happened to being willing to go to any lengths? I get it.
Speaker 3:There were some people that also and I'm one of those we were gathering at Jimmy's house in person, outdoors, you know, yeah, and having worked in health care, I have a lot of respect for. You know, I saw a lot of my colleagues, nurses, that had to work and be traumatized by going to work and dealing with death every single day, Massive death. It's like combat zone death and people being so hard-headed that it was like, you know, they listen to and they're influenced by just garbage that's coming across the television telling them what to believe and what to think. And you know, and I'm working, I'm sitting there talking to these doctors are going well, I, you know, like the vaccine is, I haven't seen anybody grow two heads yet data through, facts that the people that are dying, that are coming to the hospital, are people that absolutely, just absolutely refuse to accept the fact that, yes, this is a killer disease that is killing people left and right and no, I'm not going to get that back. Those were the people that were dying in our hospitals for the longest time.
Speaker 2:And at this time, I'm going through cancer at the same time, you know which was?
Speaker 1:And you're having to go into those hospitals.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's and it was just. I mean, to me it was like the world got turned upside down. But I understand that that's mass hysteria, that's you know all this other stuff that plays into this, but to me it was, and this is the thing. Like to your point, no matter what's going on, anytime, anywhere, that was the thing that my sponsor kept. Are you willing to go to any lengths to get this? Is the pain bad enough? Likes to get this. Is the pain bad enough? The difference between me and somebody that doesn't make it is I made a decision that I didn't want to be in that pain and, largely because I'm just a wuss, I don't like pain, I hate it and having to think that I'm just going to go on living like that, over and over, day after day after day, like Groundhog Day.
Speaker 2:But you've never left. You've came into the rooms and like I heard you share Saturday morning because Scott was sitting across from you guys came in at 88, but you've never like because you shared with the gentleman that was chairing the meeting. A good friend of mine sponsored me for a little bit because he had six more months. He was six months ahead of me but he went a different route and he just left the meetings and went to church, got drunk got drunk After 20 years. After 14 years or 13 years.
Speaker 3:I don't get that To me to me.
Speaker 2:But Paul shared he never left.
Speaker 3:Well the thing is that what was drilled in my head in the very beginning was that I was an alcoholic and I had to accept that fact, and the whole thing about powerlessness was that I could never understand why I couldn't stop. It was like what's going on with me? The people around me, you guys, have figured it out and you've stopped drinking For some reason. I can't, I don't. I can't explain it. I don't know what it I. This was explained to me by a nurse that I worked with along the way. She used to describe this this is an obsession of the mind and an allergy of the body to repeat the experience of intoxication until we're dead and that was the best explanation I've ever heard.
Speaker 2:She took the doctor's opinion and just came. Yeah, Beautiful.
Speaker 3:And that was it. It was an obsession of the mind and an allergy of the body to do just that and I couldn't break it. And somehow, you know, when I'd come to meetings, it was like well, the answer's here. I just can't figure out how to get it. But but that's why that's one of the reasons why I kept coming back was was it I? I was listening, I heard enough of of okay, I know this can happen, will it happen? I clearly remember sitting in a meeting at about six months sober, coming to the realization that obsession had been lifted. Wow, took you that long, it took me that long. You fought.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I don't know if it's a character I don't want to say character, but just, all of us have so many different experiences, the way that we're raised. The only things that I know for a fact are the things that I have experienced myself. Other than that, it's a belief, it's an opinion. If I'm hearing it from you, I'm trusting that what you're telling me is the truth. I never trusted anybody to tell me the truth about anything, but when I came to meetings and I started listening, I knew you were telling me the truth, because you were telling my story. Right when I came to meetings and I started listening, I knew you were telling me the truth, because you were telling my story Right right.
Speaker 2:You know Again, why would you hear that guy across the room he might share about his chicken?
Speaker 1:if it wasn't, you ain't got to share that.
Speaker 2:That shit went to the grave for some of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny. I went on a call yesterday I was telling you this guy was, he was saying some stuff, and then I went right back to Edward saying some stuff. He's like, yeah, yeah, that's about right. Yeah, well, we've all been there, right? You know, I hear people say this now the final final. You know, I had a final final before I went up to the room, you know, before all the conference or something, I ain't even had a final final, motherfucker my final, final went on all night long.
Speaker 3:It went on for about 12 years. My final, final day, yeah, final final. Yeah, paul, I go ahead. I was gonna say you know people talk about the first drink, I, I, I laugh and say I couldn't figure out how to take the last drink rest for sure.
Speaker 1:No, I could not. I had to be forced to take that last drink. Right, I had to do on the librium. I had to be forced to take it. I, I, I, yeah, I would have went on drinking. I would have went on, I would be dead. I could, because I would have been dead by now.
Speaker 2:I couldn't, because my body stopped processing liquor. So I was at a crossroads.
Speaker 1:I was fighting through it, I was just going to continue until I was dead, until my moment of clarity hit me, you know, in the kitchen down here, and I was like nope, nope, I'm done.
Speaker 2:And then the second one. My second one about 28 days later In Chris's office.
Speaker 1:Yeah, about 20 days later is when, 28 days, my obsession got lifted about day 20 of my In Maynard's. I literally felt it leave my body. I literally was sitting in Chris's office.
Speaker 2:And mine was on my ass in my hallway crying when I told my sister I got an alcoholic. However, I still had to deal with the isms Right.
Speaker 1:Those came a little later.
Speaker 3:I'm still dealing with those.
Speaker 2:I don't think they leave Step 10 helps us with that one.
Speaker 3:Alright, paul. Anything else you want to add? No, man, I really appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1:I love your story.
Speaker 2:Because the young lady who's almost a doctor.
Speaker 1:Dr Berry. We talked about that. I'm calling her Dr Berry, as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's Dr Berry, but her having her because she's got what knowledge like Paul does.
Speaker 1:I'd love to have the two of them back together. I was thinking the whole time, wouldn't that be something? Yeah, I'd love to have you. We had her on once, paul, right before she was in the zoo. I so, yeah, I spoke to her about six weeks ago and she was six weeks from getting her graduation, her doctorate, so I think she's done. Now I'm going to reach out to her. Yeah, I'd love to get that back in. We got some great shows getting ready to start coming here. We're going to talk about it next week. You guys will hear a little bit about what's getting ready to come on. Paul's going to come back and we're going to work through a topic together. Uh, we got a listener, uh, mr heart, and from denver he's anonymity that shit, I didn't I said, mr heart, I dropped his name last time.
Speaker 2:Anyway, it doesn't matter, it's all right. Sorry jim scurried you.
Speaker 1:He, uh, he's been sending us some emails. He's actually going to come down. He's excited. We're going to talk about this next week, anyways, I need you uh thanks for joining us. We'll be back, we'll be back. We'll be back. There we go.
Speaker 2:No closing.
Speaker 1:It's there. 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.
Speaker 2:If you like what 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. We probably won't change nothing, but do it anyway.
Speaker 1:Thanks, rob. Come back next week and hopefully something will be different and something will sink in. Take care, this has been Recovery Unfiltered. Thank you.