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 Chief to Rock Bottom: A Firefighter's Battle with Alcoholism and PTSD
What happens when the weight of trauma becomes too heavy to bear? In this raw and deeply moving episode, we sit down with Jim, a retired Assistant Fire Chief with 33 years of service, who takes us through his harrowing journey with alcoholism, PTSD, and ultimately, a suicide attempt that changed everything.
Jim's story begins in a large Irish Catholic family where drinking was normalized from an early age. By 13, he was already developing a relationship with alcohol that would follow him through high school, college, and into his career as a firefighter. Rising through the ranks to Assistant Chief, Jim appeared successful on the outside while internally battling demons that grew stronger with each traumatic call.
The conversation takes a powerful turn as Jim recounts responding to three SIDS deaths in a single day, spending hours with decapitation victims, and witnessing families burned alive in mistaken arson attacks. Without proper mental health support, he turned to alcohol to numb the pain, leading to failed marriages and increasingly self-destructive behavior.
The most gripping moment comes when Jim describes his suicide attempt in vivid detail – from the crushing despair that led him to put an AR-15 under his chin, to the miraculous misfire that gave him a second chance, to his brother somehow finding him on a remote mountain road. You'll feel every emotion as he describes his journey through rehabilitation specifically designed for first responders, where he finally began addressing both his alcoholism and severe PTSD.
Now 17 months sober, Jim shares how he's rebuilding relationships with his sons, enjoying his role as a grandfather, and finding peace in a simpler life. His story serves as both warning and inspiration for anyone struggling with addiction or mental health issues, especially first responders carrying the weight of traumatic experiences.
If you or someone you know is battling addiction or having thoughts of suicide, this episode offers hope that recovery is possible, even from the darkest places. As Jim reminds us, sometimes our greatest purpose comes from sharing our hardest struggles with others who need to hear them.
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
For anything that's orange. Well, these are all different.
Speaker 2:now we got to get relaxed.
Speaker 1:I ain't touching this shit baby, I'm looking for anything that's orange. I don't want to touch it.
Speaker 3:I told him I got to do you know what we're going to do here in a second? We're going to pray and cleanse this place, you fools.
Speaker 1:You know what I like. I like that you got that up there now.
Speaker 3:My daughter, my niece, made the hardest time remembering that. For some reason I had a hard time remembering that third step prayer and I finally prayed one morning. I'm just like you know what? God, I can't, Whatever. Very next morning, verbatim Bam, bam, bam, bam bam. Just released it, Surrender. I just surrendered. I said I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1:I got lucky. A group I was going to for my first, 90 and 90 every morning, that's. We'd start with that. Yeah, and when I did my 120 and 90 or whatever the heck I did, all right hold on one thing, all right.
Speaker 4:What other podcasts do you listen to?
Speaker 1:you know, I did listen to. I've listened to joe rogan. There was a one by uh, I think he's a ex-cop, maybe a first responder, his name it was yeah, they're gonna tell you how do you not remember? Yeah, they tell you right away what they are.
Speaker 2:How's the weather today? Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Things we all carry and I don't know what happened to that guy. We were talking about me going to talk to him, because it was a lot of PTSD and stuff, and then he disappeared. He's back on Instagram now, but I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. So, joe Rogan, theo Vaughn, and then when I found these guys, I pretty much.
Speaker 2:just how the fuck did you find this?
Speaker 1:I Googled. I was out there driving them more and I Googled sobriety and recovery and sobriety had a bunch and then when I hit recovery, this one came up and I saw the little symbol and I was like unfiltered. I said that ought to be good. Good, you know that for me, I said which one was your?
Speaker 3:my daughter, with mckenna, was your first one.
Speaker 1:Mckenna was the first one, and what a hell of a one to start on I'm driving the lawnmower and I said, thank god nobody can hear me or see me. I'm bawling man, I'm just teared because it was just like with my sons who were the same age about, and so it tore me up. And then I said, okay, I'm gonna listen to another one. And I actually it was your, yeah, because you hadn't had her on yet no.
Speaker 1:I hadn't. You'd had McKenna, but you had not had Miranda yet. So that's when I started bouncing back and I would go back one and then I'd move up, and so I bounced all over the place, but that one was rough. Oh yeah, 1 o'clock.
Speaker 3:Jim, you know a good meeting that starts on time on time. Yeah, let's go to the lord helly. Father, we thank you for bringing us together, father, we thank you for james, father, we thank you for the flight that he brought here, that it was a safe flight. We, father, father, we ask that you sit with him, give him the peace, knowing that he's getting this out of him. Father, continue to work with him, lay hands on him and help him get through this with sane mind. Father, we ask that you sit with all of us. We thank you for this time together and we pray in your name. Let's go to work. I wonder why. Hello, robert, whatever. I wonder why. Well, fuck, that's a hell of a way to start the show. Producer Mary.
Speaker 2:Nice prayer though.
Speaker 3:Producer Mary, she's not going to talk to us. Hi, robert, what's?
Speaker 2:up buddy.
Speaker 3:You know who we got today, kind of excited.
Speaker 2:No, I don't. Let me take a drink real quick.
Speaker 3:Look at you. So Jim, our boy from Denver, brought Rob and I a couple of mugs, and I'm sure Mary will. First I'm going to do this. I got to start with this. So if you listen to Sean and Mary a while back, was it two weeks ago now? Yeah, about two weeks, two weeks ago. Unmute her mic, god damn it.
Speaker 3:She said she wasn't going to talk. So two weeks ago or three weeks ago, whenever Mary and Sean was on here, I happened to mention that what you need, huh, oh, your drink that I happen to mention that. You know, I really wanted somebody to run my social media. Sean the next day sent me our new logo, right, and then I said something now I just need a social media. Is Mary willing to do it? And Sean said, well, she didn't really want to say anything, but yes, she does. So, me and Mary, mary and I, mary and I, mary and I. You, motherfucker, that's what you were making fun of me, weren't you, you prick.
Speaker 2:No, well, you said you needed someone to run your social media.
Speaker 3:Our social media. Couldn't you have corrected me? No, it's all good. No, it's not. I really try hard, I do so. Miss Mary has been running my our social media see, fucker, our social media for the last uh, two weeks and she has lifted our subscribers and our listeners to almost 100 already. And she just getting going. We try to go. So what happened yesterday? Miss mary sent me something, says hey, you need to go get verified on instagram, which I did, and now we can't go live. So I don't know yet. So we will continue to try that, because I wanted to go live just to show everybody these amazing mugs that our friend from Denver brought us. I'm going to let him bring himself in first, because we don't normally say names. Introduce yourself.
Speaker 1:Hey, buddy, I'm Jim. I'm from Denver. Welcome, brother. Are you from Denver? I'm born and raised in Denver. I actually live in the house next door to where I was born and raised. That's pretty cool. I haven't moved far I'm closer than this guy is. I mean, I don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:That is pretty cool and you know I don't want to give away too much. Jim got here Friday and we went to Maynard's together because I spoke Friday night in Maynard, so I drove up, we drove up there together, I picked him up, we had a great meal that Miss Marla that you guys have heard me talk about, miss Marla Cook and I give her a big old hug and I wouldn't let go of her until she said that she was going to come on the podcast. I don't know if she did it under duress because I was squeezing her so tight, or that she finally decided to come on to the podcast, but she's coming and then Sean's coming as well, so they're going to do it together. And we got SoCal Cat Catherine and I spoke to her and I got her locked in to September 13th. That we're going to record with her. So I'm getting excited. We got some great stuff coming. I got some good, good stuff coming.
Speaker 3:But what we have today, boys, we have today, boys, we have big jim I wouldn't say greatness boys and girls sorry, let me go there.
Speaker 1:It's big, oh I like that.
Speaker 3:I I've you know what. I've gotten some glimpses. Miss mary called and got your bio and, you know, talk to you a little bit and she's giving me a little bit of some stuff. And then you um, you know, I've gotten to spend some time together so I've gotten glimpses of it, so I'm excited well, good so I'm gonna turn you over and let you go.
Speaker 1:We'll see, uh um yeah, um, if you don't mind, before I say anything, I always like to say this, like when I speak at a, because you know I bring up childhood, bring up family, bring up stuff on the job. I want to. I always like to throw the disclaimer out that wasn't my parents, wasn't my brothers and sisters, wasn't my friends growing up, wasn't the fire department, the ptsd or ptsd. It wasn't all that that made me an alcoholic. I, I made that decision. When I hit it, I said I'm gonna keep going. This is awesome, this is what I want, and I took myself there. It wasn't anybody else and I just know. Obviously I was affected by growing up and stuff, but I I don't blame any of them for how how far into your sobriety did you come to that conclusion, though?
Speaker 1:Right away.
Speaker 3:It was right away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I knew I was an alcoholic. I would admit it to myself. I knew I was, but I didn't admit it out loud because I was afraid somebody would make me stop the realization that, at the top of the 64 that you were the problem and how you and the way you reacted to everything else was the problem.
Speaker 1:I can't say when that hit me, but I it was tough because the explosion of when it hit me there was so many things I think probably before my suicide attempt it hit me that I was the problem.
Speaker 3:Maybe that day so there's a little disclaimer to the story to come.
Speaker 2:So yeah, they call that a preview.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and on this episode.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so let's go.
Speaker 1:Well, let's see, I'm the youngest of 12. We're Irish Catholic from Northern Denver.
Speaker 2:Dude, they breed like rabbits.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, mom and dad didn't have a TV, so that's right. And dad said he only wanted six kids, so apparently it was the bottom six. So, the first six. He didn't want.
Speaker 3:We got into that conversation last night. Yeah so they discovered condoms later.
Speaker 1:You know I had seven brothers, four sisters, and by the time I was born I had six nieces and nephews. So grew up in an Irish Catholic family. My mom worked full-time taking care of us and dad worked full-time or another job, taking, you know, paying the bills and whatnot. And I think you know there was always drinking around the house. It was. It was no big deal. I mean, in Colorado you could drink if you were 18. So all my older brothers were still living there and they had a case of beer here, a case of beer there. So there was beer all the time and I never had met either of my grandfathers, but both my parents told me that they drank quite a bit, you know. They said oh, you know your grandpa drank too much because they had both passed away by the time I was born.
Speaker 1:My parents were born back in the 20s. My dad fought in World War II but my dad was not. He was not a heavy drinker, like. He went to work, came home, went to sleep, that was it. He just worked and worked and worked. The only time I would see him drink was holidays. He loved his St Patrick's Day, he loved his Easter, he loved Christmas and I had older brother-in-laws that were, you know, they already had kids my age. So I think I saw all those guys, serious men, and they worked all the time. But then on holidays, boom, it was this lighthearted atmosphere and I just thought you didn't realize they were normal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my dad was. I don't want to say he was a grumpy man, but he was serious when I was young. And then on holidays he would just be this jovial, happy guy and I guess I thought maybe it's because he's drinking right. But he didn't drink that much. He only had, you know, drink here and there and he'd sing and just let himself go. So I think as I got older I started thinking that and then, you know, I drank, who knows. Everybody said you'd set your mug down and I'd grab it and take a swig of it. Hated that shit, couldn't stand the taste of it whiskey or beer, both really yeah I didn't like either of them.
Speaker 1:And then we had this old guy behind us. That was that's what I thought an alcoholic was. So in our yard you could climb up the back fence and there was an old guy behind us that would drink and stumble out of the house and fall down sleep in his yard, or his wife would kick him out or whatever, and so I thought that was an alcoholic. To me that was an alcoholic. The visual, the visualization.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is, but it's that visualization of the alcoholic right. It's not that internal alcoholic. It's what you saw.
Speaker 1:That was what I saw. I had some uncles that were that way on my mom's side and they didn't come around. I mean, we had big family parties and they weren't there because mom didn't really get along with them because they were alcoholics of that type. So I never thought that I could be an alcoholic of that type and so I just kept going.
Speaker 1:And then I can remember distinctly the day that I decided it was for me was so my parents had been married 40 years, on July 9th 1984. So I was 13 years old, and they were going to do a renewal of vows and everything at my brother's house. He had a pretty good size house. So I was over at my brother's the night before with his son, who's about my age, and we were palling around and my older brother and his friend lived about three blocks away, or were staying about three blocks away, and they had a kegger. They were having a high school party excuse me with everybody, and so we walked over there, went down to the party and I walk in and, man, there's all these gorgeous high school girls and, you know, big high school guys and everybody, you were getting ready to step into junior high at this age.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm 13.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so not quite 14 yet. And I remember well my nickname was Little Heart. For one I was the smallest one. My last name, and secondly, is because I was little. I was really little compared to most of them, so I walked in Smaller than Rob. Well, I was about in seventh grade.
Speaker 3:I was about that size, and you grew an inch since then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've grown a whole inch and lost 10 pounds.
Speaker 3:You know what? We didn't even say anything about that. Hold that thought. Cross your fingers, jim, we'll come back to you. Jim brought us some cups Rob and I some cups because we always say we don't have any letters after our name. So Jim brought us some mugs that have mine, says Larry S PBD on it. We couldn't figure out what it meant and then he told us pretty big deal.
Speaker 1:So now we have letters after our names. Now you have letters after your name. You can say you're no PhDs, no MIAs, no, nothing, but you are PBDs.
Speaker 3:We are PBDs.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 3:Nice Anyways you can uncross your fingers now.
Speaker 1:So you walk into the kegger, so I walk into the kegger and I'm looking around, 13 years old on top of the world.
Speaker 1:No, I was scared to death. Okay, and then I went over myself a beer and started just realized, if I had the little handle, everybody come up. Hey little heart, give me a beer. Boom. And so I was feeling everybody's beer. All of a sudden I became popular, I was cool and man. I got lit that night and went home and was miserable. So when we woke up the next day I had to do a reading at this mass in my brother's living room. I'm sweating.
Speaker 1:I got the sweats. I'm feeling terrible. As soon as I done, I went outside and threw up. Well, I think my parents, if they didn't know, they thought well, he's real nervous. And one of my older siblings says come here, let's go in the basement. He says drink a beer. No, there ain't no way I'm drinking another beer. And he's like no, go ahead and drink it. See how you feel and all, All of a sudden, I was like wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, boy, let's go. Yeah, so I realized the cure.
Speaker 1:it made me cool I got drunk it made me cool and I knew how to fix it.
Speaker 2:Came on.
Speaker 1:I was off.
Speaker 2:And I had all three ounces of alcohol, right, right.
Speaker 1:Boom, boom, boom.
Speaker 2:I was off and running, let's go.
Speaker 1:And I kind of just decided there that I was good, and you know I, I was no athlete None of us really were, but I was deaf. My brother, just older than me, was an athlete and I was not. So I decided, well, I can keep up with them this way. So I just started drinking, you know, and it was. It was easy to steal a beer. I mean, you had three or four brothers living at your house that could drink. They always would come on with a case of beer, throw it in the fridge. So if you went in there and stole a six pack or a 12 pack, nobody knew They'd be like oh, he drank it.
Speaker 1:Well, he drank it, he drank it.
Speaker 3:Well, there was 12 of you to argue with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then when dad had a big party, I mean, everybody would show up with a case or two of beer, so it was easy to just sneak them and go away. And so I started drinking and I drank. I started drinking pretty good and like I good and like I thought of this story the other day, my sister was pregnant and she had moved back in with us temporarily and this is 19 my nephew will be 40 here next week so she was pregnant with him. So I was again. I was 14 years old and I remember she'll tell you the story.
Speaker 1:we came home drunk after something and we're watching the baby move in her stomach and I was you know, I'm drunk like, oh my gosh, I can see a foot, but at the time we didn't think anything of it. You know, and I'm 14 years old, hammered watching this baby roll around. So cool shit. Yeah, and I think it was mom and dad were over. I don't blame them at all, but they were overwhelmed.
Speaker 3:I mean it's hard to raise 12, and how old were they when you were 14, though? Um so let's see, they had their 40th wedding anniversary with my dad, so my dad would have, were they when you were 14, though?
Speaker 1:um?
Speaker 2:so let's see, they had their 40th wedding anniversary with my dad so my dad would have been 63 when I was 14.
Speaker 3:Okay, mom would have been 61 they were sick of you kids by yeah they probably were, and they were.
Speaker 1:You know, my older siblings always tell a story. I think I told you this that when they would come home after curfew, the top six, the ones he didn't- want when they'd come, when they'd come home after curfew or whatever, dad would be sitting they called it his orange pajamas and he'd be sitting at the end of the table ready to rip their ass shoot. By the time I came around, all I had to do was sneak in the door and say I'm home. Boom, and he was off.
Speaker 1:He didn't I don't give a shit I don't know if he had orange pajamas or not. I think he was just so exhausted. He was catching up from 50 years of no sleep so it made it a little easier for me to get away with shit and I got straight A's in school all the time, from first grade and through high school I never got anything but A's, so it was kind of like that was my out.
Speaker 3:It gave you that latitude, it did.
Speaker 1:So when I got to high school, I already started drinking and I was. School was easy. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but it was easy. I don't know why I didn't struggle with it this came easy so I never had to study uh the night before you couldn't run, so you had to do your homework.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was no athlete so I had to do.
Speaker 1:no, I didn't do any homework, I just would look at my notes and that was it, and then I'd pass the test. So when I got in high school and we had football games and volleyball, I was at every one of them. Well, once I discovered drinking like I cut a hole in my letter jacket so I could slide beers around my waist and walk in a game with the six pack around my waist.
Speaker 3:Good luck trying to do that now.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:You got to go through metal detectors now, yeah, it's shit we got away with in high school.
Speaker 1:It helped that I was 105 pounds and everything hung off me like a, like a curtain anyway, so nobody could tell I was sneaking beers in. But uh, you know, I, like I said, I took off junior high I started drinking. I would say by college or by high school I was going, I was trying to go all state. You know all state. Yeah, I was trying to go all state.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, I was trying to go all state and drinking and drinking, um, and I I don't know if I told you this the other day. So when I got divorced from my ex, we were packing up my stuff and she pulled out my junior year yearbook and I'd never really went back and read it and she read all the signatures in there and there was about 20 of them and in in there there was two or three of them that said, hey, this summer cut back, or we're gonna put you on a no drinking clause this summer, things like that and then the rest of them were like I can't wait to party with you again.
Speaker 1:You throw the best parties and to me that didn't. It didn't register until now. Looking at it like, wow, I already had a problem right, my junior, you had people recognizing it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, was only women, though, so it didn't matter.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:They don't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's not your I'll get some hate mail for that one.
Speaker 1:Your buddies. It's not your buddies who were drunk with you. That's funny. So then I went away to college and instead of going all state, I went all pro. School was not easy to me. I had a full academic ride to a university of Colorado, ah okay, and I almost drank that away. In the first semester. I got put on academic probation because I think I had like a 1.6 was my GPA, so much for your A's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so much for A's. They disappeared real quickly because I discovered, you know, that booze and everything I loved was right there.
Speaker 1:Booze and women, frat party they were everywhere and so I was not part of a frat, but you would think I was Wow, and I kept finding people like in high school I'd find people that drank like me. In college I found guys that drank like me. I tried to talk to those guys today and they've actually quit drinking and gone on and been successful, believe it or not. Yeah it, they retired. Yeah, they retired early. Yeah, so I did about two years of college and just it wasn't for me.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I realized I don't know ADHD. I got to have something different and that's why I gravitated towards the fire department, because my grandpa was a firefighter, my dad was a firefighter. At that time, three of my brothers were on the Denver Fire Department. Wow, and so, and my brother Dave my brother Dave was testing for it. So we got on together, started testing and I just decided I couldn't sit in four walls, I needed to do something different. So we started working to get on the fire department and I got hired when I was 21. So I was really young.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:I think the youngest guy in the class.
Speaker 3:Fresh out of the academy, then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the academy. I think the youngest guy in the class Fresh out of the academy then yeah, like in the academy I was. I think there was one guy younger than me, maybe two, so I was pretty young. But you know, and no insult to the job or the people that I worked with, but in the nineties it was a lot more lax a days.
Speaker 3:For sure, and you know.
Speaker 1:So we worked 24 hours and we're off 48. So if I was all state now I could go all American because I had 48 hours off. We'd get off in the morning, call it choir practice, we'd go straight from the firehouse to a bar and that was it and we'd be gone. You know, I'd go for the next 48 hours.
Speaker 3:And at that point you weren't married.
Speaker 1:No, I wasn't married at that time my brother and I lived together, married at that time um my brother and I lived together.
Speaker 2:We had a kegerator in the house and we actually got kegerator. That's a do your date yourself right.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's awesome, there was a guy that went around cleaning all the taps for all the bars that worked for coors. Somehow we befriended him and he put us on his route because we had a kegerator. He'd come by every friday, clean our pipes and whatnot and then sit and have beers with us so you just hold on.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna interrupt you just for a minute. Cross your fingers for a minute. Uh, you weren't too far from the cores, no, where it was actually made from no, where I'm golden colorado right, yeah golden, I can ride a bike there.
Speaker 1:It's seven miles, eight miles, wow it's not very. You had the fresh cores oh, the best banquet the best, and it was there was back then. There was banquet and light.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I remember the old ones where my brothers would peel the tab Right and you put it in the beer Remember those, yeah, and they'd swish around in there. So, yeah, we drank a lot, we had a good party going. My brother and I were on the fire department, were you know? We were all in that 20 to 25 range and we had money, we had a job. So it was, you know, honestly for being guys that age it was kind of expected.
Speaker 2:But no problems, I mean, no, yeah, nobody got. Almost dangerous though it was yeah nobody got.
Speaker 1:None of us had experienced any of the yets and so it was dangerous and I, I just kept going and as a group of guys would grow up, get married, go off with their kids, I'd just find a new group, I'd just go on. I said this yesterday in a meeting. Like it was easy as I got older, on the fire department they were always hiring young pups, so you always had a fresh group of 24, 25-year-old kids coming on that I could revert back to and start hanging out with. So, yeah, on the fire department I could always find somebody to drink with. And then, you know, I got married.
Speaker 1:I met my first wife, marla, and we got married in 95. So I'd only been on about four years and I actually was believe it or not, I was pretty decent to begin with. I was a good, I was a good husband to her and I tried to take care of things and we got along great. And she, she liked to party with me when we were dating. But, like normal people do, she got married and wanted to settle down and and mellow out and I didn't. I just insisted in my mind well, I got married at 24. I, I missed out on my 20s even though I was you didn't, I didn't.
Speaker 1:I was drinking and partying more than anybody out there. And then we started having kids. We had two boys, 98 and 99. They were born there 15 months apart, so they were real close together. And again, I didn't settle down. I remember I don't know how old they were, two or three, and I went out with the guys we were union meeting, you know hey, honey, we got to go to a union meeting. All that meant is we're going to the bar. You know we went to a meeting.
Speaker 3:Did she ever pick up on that?
Speaker 1:Oh, she knew. Oh, okay, well, we would go to a meeting. I would pregame for five or six beers, then go to the meeting for 45 minutes and we'd go straight to the bar. And one night I don't know what happened, obviously, but my buddies carried me in the house at about 3 30 and set me on the edge of the bed and she's like oh you, son of a bitch, you know, and they, they haul ass out of the house because they didn't want to get the bastard by her.
Speaker 1:She was a feisty little thing and I went to say something. She gave me one of those like right to the middle of the forehead just lay down, and I just fell back on the floor and slept. So she got up in the morning, went to work and I was so hung over and I didn't think of this until recently I had to call my brother to come over and watch my boys because I could not, couldn't function I couldn't function, couldn't get off the floor.
Speaker 1:But I didn't see that as a problem. I just saw it as I just drank too much last night right you know.
Speaker 1:So I did all those dumb things and we were married in 95, separated a couple times when I'd go out partying. I was not good, I was not a good husband, I should not have been married to a great woman and cheated on her like I did. And she caught me a couple times and you know, we'd split and I'd decide to make a difference and change. And one time she caught me and I said that's it, I'm giving up drinking. But it was kind of like well, I'm giving it up till I study for this captain's exam or I'm giving it up till this. It wasn't really that I wanted to quit, Right, I didn't want to. And so I had a sponsor. We went to a couple of meetings and he went out.
Speaker 3:So as soon as he went out oh, hold on a second. So you did go into AA early on.
Speaker 1:This was 2000, 2005.
Speaker 3:Okay so.
Speaker 1:I went in, and this is as much. As I went in, I got a sponsor. We went to three meetings or something like that. You know it was smoke was hanging low, everybody's cussing you out, I'm making coffee and my sponsor went back out. So as soon as he went back out I started telling my wife I'm going to a meeting, but there was a liquor store in a bar within a few hundred yards of that, so I would just you know I could drink for an hour and a half. She thought I was at a meeting and I wouldn't come home too tuned up, but enough that you know.
Speaker 1:It felt good to me, but she didn't really know it and I tried my best to stay. I would make it three months, or I'd make it two months here and there, and then in 2008, I just gave up, said I'm going back to it, and I was off and I just kept going, and then Marla and I got divorced. In 2012 is when we got divorced, and that was a bad year for me. In 2012,. In in may, my sister died of cancer and then in january 2013, my mom died. Now I was around my mom cancer too, or?
Speaker 1:no, she was. I mean, she was 89, she had parkinson's and some other things, but I was around her. I I wasn't around my sister and I, but I just, you know, I'm an, I'm an alcoholic, so I was selfish well, hey do you guys realize? I'm going through a divorce? I, oh boy, what about me?
Speaker 3:yeah, poor me why?
Speaker 1:is nobody poor me. Yeah, another drink I understand my sister's sick and got cancer, but I'm going through a divorce. You know where's, where's the poor me and I'm not getting it. So I just kept drinking. And then, um, when I got divorced from her, I moved into an apartment and I don't even know if you could call it all or all universe the way I was drinking, like it was out of control, all day, every day.
Speaker 3:But you were making it to work the office okay and so you know they were shorter days, so I was off by three o'clock in the afternoon. It was nothing for me. Five days a week, for that.
Speaker 1:Four days a week yeah, okay, it was nothing for me to drink from three in the afternoon until midnight and then I was able to sleep for seven, eight hours, or whatever and go back to work, go back to work and then weekends. I got a three-day weekend every weekend, so it was guaranteed three days and then perfect.
Speaker 1:That's good to say that's good drinking schedule I had a great drinks and even in the firehouse you work 24, you're off 48, and then every three weeks you get five days. So boom, I'd have. I'd start on that first day. So I was drunk for five days.
Speaker 2:I picked the wrong fucking profession all of us did.
Speaker 3:Hey, I had a lot of buddies that were firefighters and they this it sounds about the same yeah, no, yeah it was.
Speaker 1:It was definitely a a frat boys kind of attitude when I was really young.
Speaker 3:That's what you were saying the other day, they were coming in the front doors, they were going out the back door that was.
Speaker 1:Uh, there was only at the time that now there was five of us that were firefighters and plus my brother-in-law was a firefighter. My dad, my grandpa had retired and they were gone. My other brother we always teased him because he was a cop, because he just couldn't, he couldn't pass the fireman test, you know but there you go, yeah, those two professions well, we're irish, what else do we do?
Speaker 1:we had no idea what else you could do. We didn't know you could actually work for a living. My dad did. He had like three or four jobs.
Speaker 3:What did he do as a second job? Just curious oh for a while.
Speaker 1:Well, he delivered. I wasn't around for this, but he delivered for liquor stores Okay, he delivered booze. He worked at a mortuary, oh wow Okay, Delivering other stuff, I guess, delivering people he worked. Him and my brother-in-law had a business where they sold rock and concrete and landscape stuff and he worked for him all the time.
Speaker 3:Just a hustler, then. Yeah, anything he can do, just a hustler, right? Well, hell, he had a B-12 of you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean he was a tough old bird man. He'd been through that's that age.
Speaker 3:Yeah, world War II, I remember one.
Speaker 1:He backs out of the driveway and he's got his hand wrapped in this towel. So, hey, go play at the neighbors, I'll be back in an hour or so. I said where are you going? I gotta go to the hospital. Well, he cut his three fingers off with the hedge clipper and so he's. He just wraps him in a towel and drives himself to the hospital to sew his fingers back on. That's just that, that.
Speaker 3:That generation right yeah it's just, it's insane, the shit. My grandpa, down fishing down in the bottom of a big old Canyon broke his wrist and instead of going he fell, he just popped it back into place and just kept fishing for the rest of the day Till as long as I he was alive. His, his whole wrist was just cocked sideways, Never went and got a settled.
Speaker 1:They didn't no no, mom didn't take us to the hospital for much. I mean she'd be like, yeah, I brought up some dirt on it. They couldn't afford to take you to a fucking hospital. Hell, no, so you know it was, it was a good time and the fire department was good. But when marla and I got divorced, I just I took it to another level and and thought it was fine and and I didn't realize that all the people I was really hanging with were kind of disappearing and.
Speaker 1:And I just kept going, cause I found new people. I called myself the chameleon, cause I could fit in anywhere. What I didn't realize is I could pick the degenerates to hang out, so I always had the good people.
Speaker 3:That's why we're friends, right. No, you're damn right Outstanding. Jim that was a good one. Let me Mark that one out called me a degenerate.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, you win well, it didn't hurt your feeling no, that you can't. Still haven't found the one that I got no, I've been trying for a couple days now.
Speaker 3:I haven't found it either, but I did you know, you know, I know, you know the one words that you could say prick oh yeah, okay, yeah yeah, okay, so you're single so i'm'm single 05, 08.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was single from 12. I got single in 2012. And I just went partying, partying, partying. And my mom had passed away, my sister passed away. We were around my dad. I moved back into the neighborhood so I could be closer to my dad because he was getting older and you know, we had a lot of siblings to help take care of him. But he wanted to stay at home and he did really good. He stayed at home till he passed away. Finally, in 2016, at 92.
Speaker 4:But he lived at home the whole time.
Speaker 1:He really wasn't sick. He'd go out to dinner with us and I lived real close to him but I was still single and I remember saying to him one time the way I'm living, I feel terrible because mom's watching this and he says, no, she's not son, he goes, she's in heaven. And if she saw what the way you're behaving that wouldn't be heaven to her. Wow, she can't see what you're doing, Right, Because I knew it was getting bad, but I still couldn't put two and two together. I had to hurt it. Actually it should have. It should have hurt, but it, it actually it should have.
Speaker 1:It should have hurt, but it didn't. It made me feel good, like, oh, now I got to get out of jail free.
Speaker 2:Mom can't see me, wow, okay, I took it the other way because I was a bad. I was a bad alcoholic Justify rationalizing.
Speaker 1:There you go, yeah. So instead of taking it that I should clean up my living, if I cause, I was embarrassed at what she was seeing I took it the other way. So my dad passed away in 16 and was selling his house and the house next door was for sale and a gal moved in there and I got to meet her. This ended up being my second wife. So we got married and I lived in the neighborhood. We sold my dad's house, we lived in her house, remodeled my house, boom, boom.
Speaker 1:We're all over the place but, we're never out of the neighborhood, right? So again, she was younger than me. I was, this was 40. Let's see, we got married in 19. So I was almost 49 and she was 15 years younger than me, so she was 34. Well, when we met, she was 30 years old and she's partying and going out with her friends, so I blended right in. You know like, ah, this guy still hangs with us you know, this old prick's hanging around, yeah again.
Speaker 1:This old prick is still drinking. Well, turns out, she fucking grew up too. I don't know where all these people growing up, damn it I know maturity's a motherfucker yeah, so she wanted to have a job and and grow, and I just kept going.
Speaker 3:Was there any kids involved in that one? No, In that one we did not have kids Me and my ex did not have kids.
Speaker 1:Just I had the two boys, matthew and Joshua, with Marla. Okay, and I had already said no more kids and I did tell her early on probably our second date, like, hey, I will never have another kid, I'm done having kids. And I think a lot of that was. I knew how tired my dad was, gotcha, and he wasn't doing half the immoral crap I was doing, right, and he was still exhausted so I wasn't going to have kids Right. So we got married and she was an active person, I mean, she loved skiing and hiking and she worked her ass off, so she didn't really have time for children anyway, even if she wanted them. So we stayed married. We got married in 19. And I was drinking pretty heavy and kept drinking pretty heavy and found a new group of people that wanted to party just as much as me New group of degenerates.
Speaker 4:Degenerates, yeah.
Speaker 1:And started hanging with them and she I would say about halfway through our marriage she realized that I wasn't turning it off, I wasn't backing down at all, and she wasn't, and she was giving me a little grief, but just like, hey, you, you should watch what you're doing. You need to cut back. And instead of it making me realize that we should bond, right, I pulled the other way. Like you can't tell me what the hell to do, I'll do what I was drinking when I met you.
Speaker 3:I'll continue to drink, god damn it. I can't tell you how many times I said that Like this you knew who you married. This is who you married, lady.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you made the choice.
Speaker 3:Right. So, what does Rob call that Rational?
Speaker 1:Rational. I told my ex. I said this is the way I'm going to be. Well, you need to quit. Well, I'll quit when I'm dead. And I, I fought her on it all the time and um, life just got out of control for me. I'd started getting really, really bad and now I was in the firehouse. So I was working a day, and earlier in my career I would never call in sick. I mean, you would have had to cut my leg off to get me sick. But now, if I woke up and had a little brown bottle flu, I was calling in sick because I wasn't going to go there like that.
Speaker 3:Lowered your bar.
Speaker 1:And I also told myself you know how could I be an alcoholic? I'm sobering up every third day. Right, you know, alcoholics can't quit drinking. I was sober every third day, so there's no way Say it. Just if every third day. So there's no way justify right? Yeah, I can tell by the way he was looking.
Speaker 2:You could just keep checking that. It just means we're lying to ourselves right, that's all it means once you start doing that in sobriety or not in sobriety doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:You're lying to yourself and you're getting ready to lie to other people and I knew I would admit I was an alcoholic, I'd make a joke out of it, say, hey, the first step's admitting it. I know I'm an alcoholic, you know. And then I'd move on then fuck you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, pretty much I'm an alcoholic. I was the same way my wife would say you know you're not. Yeah, I know I'm an alcoholic and I'd walk outside and get another beer and I call myself a functioning alcoholic.
Speaker 1:I don't know what. What did I tell you?
Speaker 3:yesterday whatever that means yeah well, you know what we've got into this. Conversations pretty deep. During my alcoholism I was running a pretty big company flawlessly.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Even when I got sober, I knew that I'd ran it flawlessly. So when I say high-functioning alcoholic, I was an extremely high-functioning alcoholic. Now, come around 8 o'clock at night, I probably couldn't have done that. Come around eight o'clock at night, I probably couldn't have done that, but I maintained a level of blood, you know, of alcohol in my system all day long until he was right one more and all right non-stop until from about six o'clock until 8 30, because then I was trying to put myself to sleep yeah right.
Speaker 2:And then you'd wake up at two in the morning thinking, fuck, I should with what I drank. I should have been asleep all night, yeah, but you're awake and I and drink some more to put me back to sleep. I wouldn't do that. I would have to stay awake because no I would, I would.
Speaker 3:That's why I kept my whiskey outside. I'd go out there and do a job yeah, I, I, because I want enough to put me back to sleep until 5 30, because that's when I'd the liquor store had opened.
Speaker 1:I'd do that on the way, so anyways mine was a little different just because I wouldn't drink that third day right when I went to work and and maybe that's why the high functioning, because I never was missing work and none of the yets hadn't got a dui I had lost a marriage but I didn't consider that my fault. That obviously had to be marla's fault obviously it was not my fault.
Speaker 1:It had to be she was such a great woman and but I'm blaming everything on her. Well, she was mean. She wanted me to quit drinking.
Speaker 2:She wanted me to quit doing this how I couldn't stay married to her there's no way, you know, I'm just, I'm justified in doing all this shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I'm keeping a job and you're the crazy one yeah, and I was a. I mean when my boys were little. I was good, I coached them. I was the athletic director at their school. I was involved. We'd have games every Saturday for basketball. I'd have a six-pack of beer in the back of the car for when it was over that I could celebrate the victory on my way home or the loss, or the loss. Drown it out.
Speaker 2:Do whatever. I did drown it out, do whatever I did, but I I was actually there are. There are. There are no triggers, no it's an inside job.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't say it was triggered. I know, you know, yeah, I uh. I just had reasons that I justified everything right and um, you know, we'd lose somebody in the family, I'd get hammered drunk. Somebody passed away. My nephew passed away of addiction.
Speaker 2:He passed away of uh and jim would celebrate it with yeah more alcohol he did.
Speaker 1:He passed away of addiction, he passed away of heroin and Jim would celebrate it with yeah, more alcohol.
Speaker 2:He did.
Speaker 1:He passed away from a heroin addiction and I kept thinking what? You know, he just got a bad. You know he got a bad load. He hadn't been doing it that long, but he did it. He got hooked on opioids and when he passed away I thought, gosh, he really had a problem instead of seeing that I had a problem. You know it was terrible because it was, I mean, you know, with 140 irish catholics, there's a lot of us do some drinking in there oh yeah buddy there's a lot.
Speaker 3:You could keep a liquor store and yeah, in business yeah, we could and uh, so I blamed everything else.
Speaker 1:You know that when I lost him, I blamed something else so how long did number two last?
Speaker 2:Your marriage at number two.
Speaker 1:So number two we got married in 19. And then, like I said, I started pulling away and doing all the things. So this is when the downfall comes is in October of 23. And the only reason I use this I don't, I don't blame my brother Mark. Brother mark passed away and so I had I'd fallen out of favor, I should say with a lot of my siblings, and I think most of it was my behavior. You know the way I was behaving. But there also was some inner family conflict, which you always get with in-laws and whatnot. So I had fallen away with two of the guys, or a couple of the guys.
Speaker 1:I was super close you guys had a community of a family, though you're so big we were so big like people picked that's what I'm saying you walk in a grocery store and people are like, oh, you're a heart, yeah, yeah, I mean it's not like.
Speaker 3:It's like a small town. The, the people across town said something you didn't like, so you got pissed off at them.
Speaker 1:That was your family, right, you had that many people and extended right there's so many people yeah yeah, like my wedding when I got married to uh x, to number two, we could only have I mean, we only had room for 95 people. If I would have invited all my family, just down to nieces and nephews, I was at 130, so you know, a lot of people got excluded and things got rubbed the wrong way. So we were already kind of on the outs. But I had lost favor with a couple of brothers too and that really hurt me emotionally yeah.
Speaker 1:And then my brother, mark, that I was still close with, died in 2013. I mean 2023, 2023, october 23. And my sister-in-law called me. I was on vacation with my son and I'll never forget that phone call. I saw the phone ring at like 1030 at night and I said this is not going to be a good call. I don't know what this is, but I was already drinking. Of course I'm on vacation. So I already got a whiskey in hand and she said he's gone. And I said what do you mean he's gone?
Speaker 2:Where'd he go and my sister-in-law was crying. She said, no, jim.
Speaker 1:Mark's gone. How old was Mark at the time he was?
Speaker 2:60. Okay.
Speaker 1:And he didn't know he had heart problems and he just had a massive coronary. And I just fell and it took me to the ground, like he was, because I was still close to him, and it took me out and I felt like I'd lost not only him, but I'd lost a lot of my siblings because I was so close to him, and not the other ones. So I, like I said I don't want to use that as an excuse, but man, I went batshit crazy. I don't and I'll be honest with you. I don't remember october until march, not much of it.
Speaker 1:Now I was going to work and I had nine companies underneath me, 36 people under me every day, and on fire I'd have 50 people. I would be running. I had been promoted to assistant chief and I did a damn good job. I'm not bragging, but I was good. I was good at what I did. So I felt I was functioning. That's where my rationalization came. Well, I go to work and I don't nobody, I don't get people hurt, I protect people. I do these things and I didn't realize how much the job was affecting me as well, how much all the crap I'd seen, which I'll get into. So in March, start of March I I got. I went to a guy's retirement party and just got so drunk it started. We were going to go have lunch.
Speaker 2:This is March of 24.
Speaker 1:This is March of 24. We're going to go have lunch and lunch started at 9am and I don't remember much of the day. And when I came home, at whatever time I came home, my wife knew, my ex knew I had stopped at a girl's house that I used to go to high school with and she had sent me a text saying, hey, what are you doing at so-and-so's house? And I didn't, I didn't even know it, you know. I didn't know she'd sent me never responded to I never responded, never anything.
Speaker 1:Then I came home and she called me out on it and she had my phone and I'm lying my way through it. I didn't want her to know where I was. Um, you know it was in an. It wasn't. Uh, it was an affair of sorts. You know, it was an affair of emotional and talking. We weren't, we didn't have anything physical going, but I always, I always sought people that would give me. Was she drinking with you?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, she was drinking with me and that was why, because I could go there and she'd drink as much as I drank and I always I wanted anybody in it and I was not just talking to her, I was talking to a lot of women because I wanted to feel better about me. Like my ex didn't like the way I was behaving. So these other ones, they put up with my bullshit and I could tell them whatever lie right about my ex, like hey, my ex said this, oh, I'd never tell you that, or whatever you know, made me feel like I wasn't the problem. So she caught me there and we were talking about separating and I went to the firehouse that next day and I'm working and I'm driving to station 18. And I hear the officer. I'm about two blocks away.
Speaker 1:The officer comes over the radio and this guy never panics and he's like send me an ambulance, send me police. And they said what's going on? And he said meet me on channel four. So as he clicked over, I had already turned the lights on. I was going hot, I knew something was going wrong. And he says we just had a. We just had a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the firehouse. Well, I'm thinking firefighter right away. And I get there.
Speaker 1:They were up in the training tower and they had watched this guy pull up in front of the firehouse and shoot himself on the front apron. Oh damn. So as I rolled up, they weren't even down the stairs yet and here's this guy laying here, dying. You know, and I'll, I can remember the look on his face, I can remember exactly what he looks like. But he's laying there and he's an older guy and I'm watching him and just watching him die. There's nothing, nothing I could do, and we got the gun out of his hand and I'm just staring at him. Well, as time goes on, we pulled the note from around his chest and he had been sick. He was an older guy living in an apartment by himself. He didn't want to die in that apartment alone and have nobody find him.
Speaker 1:So, that's why he went to the firehouse and did it Understandably. But I remember looking at him thinking that's going to be me because I just chased my next wife away. I'm going to be an old guy all alone in my apartment and and that's how I'm going to die. And I started thinking suicidal thoughts right then. Wow, um, and I knew it was a struggle because I was crying for every every day off I was crying. I couldn't go back to that firehouse. I went back there twice and as soon as I in I'd have to sit in my car because I was crying, picturing where that guy had died over there. So I called for help from our mental health counseling. We didn't get a lot of support, I'll be honest. The city gave us no support.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you mentioned that yesterday.
Speaker 1:They didn't say hey, let's put you guys out of service. Let, hey, let's put you guys out of service. Let's do this. I said you guys are out of service. We're getting some counselors in here and I brought a man, but I didn't feel our department did anything. And so we're in this meeting and we're doing a debriefing and, um, the guys are talking, we got this therapist there and the guys are breaking down. You know that because we've all seen a hundred suicides, but they don't come to our house hold on a second and I'm sorry you, you've seen that many suicides like literally watched them.
Speaker 1:No, no, no no, I mean, oh, you come on these guys actually watched it.
Speaker 3:They actually watched, okay, they watched it, but we've all been on.
Speaker 1:I should say correct, you've been on the call a hundred suicides, but this one came to our house right, this was different right, and so all the guys are talking and they're breaking down lonely, he just was sick sad, lonely god.
Speaker 3:That just breaks my freaking heart yeah, damn it.
Speaker 1:And the guys are all talking to this therapist and they're crying and I wanted to. So bad, I hurt, so bad. But I I was like I'm the chief if I break down. This guy's got two years on the job. What's he gonna think?
Speaker 2:I gotta keep, I to keep.
Speaker 1:I got to stay strong.
Speaker 1:And I tried and tried, but I reached out to the counselor afterwards. I says I got to come talk to you. I got to come and in the meantime I'd gone to lunch with my kid one day and thought about ramming into a center post of a bridge. I wanted to die. Yeah, I knew that if I was driving and I just took my seat belt off and center punched a bridge at 90, I'd be dead and I could have beer in the car. People would be like, oh, he was just drinking and driving. We understand that right, because I didn't want anybody to know I was thinking of suicide. So fast forward about three weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah oh yeah, oh yeah, you'll get to that episode. It's been in a couple he's jim has listened to all 58 episodes.
Speaker 3:I've listened to all 58. It's been in a couple.
Speaker 1:He's jim has listened to all 58 episodes I've listened to all 58 hard to remember everything.
Speaker 1:But yeah, we I mean we've talked about a lot of this past few days so about three weeks later I go to the firehouse and I just been to see the counselor the night day before and I fell apart. I mean it was felt like I threw up. But I threw up all over myself. Everything I told her was all over me. I just felt sick. And so I go to work and in the morning I don't know why, but it runs through my head and I send a text, an inappropriate text, to some gal I was talking to and I didn't know that the night I had passed out drunk. My wife had taken my phone and linked it to her computer so she could see everything I was texting and saying and I was. It was just damn it.
Speaker 3:Well it's on me stupid phones well, it's on me.
Speaker 1:You know, if I wasn't stupid ass, it never happened. So so she calls me and she's distraught and I can hear it in her voice and I know something's going on. So I go home and I see her and she's as white as those blinds and her face is just crushed. And I never thought it would. I didn't think it would break her. I thought she was too tough and it broke her.
Speaker 1:And so I went back to the firehouse and I called out sick and I was getting ready to leave and one of the guys followed me out and he's like what's wrong? And I said it's bad? And he said man, don't go, don't go, you're going to do something. I says I'm going to, I'm going to, I got to end this. I can't be like this.
Speaker 1:Well, it dawned on me that I had, I always carried a gun in my truck around the city of Denver at the time when I went to work or whatever. But I, I knew I had it and I said, hey, take this gun out of my backseat, cause I, I was going to kill myself. I knew it and I thought about doing it right there before he came out. And then I I thought well, if I give him the gun I'll be okay, right? So by the time I got home now for the shift, she's packing her bags and she's just crying, just broken. And I said I'm out.
Speaker 1:And I went outside and all my handguns were gone out of the house. I noticed every drawer where I had a handgun was missing. But as I walked in the garage my AR-15 was sitting there in a case. So I threw it in my truck and closed the garage door and as I started backing away, my brother somebody from the firehouse had called my brother, my older brother, and said hey, jim's not doing good, something's bad, this is bad. And my brother pulled up and tried to block me in the driveway and I just kind of did that.
Speaker 1:Austin Powers went around him and drove over my rock and took off and by the time he got back in his car to find me I was gone. You know I'd hit a couple of stop signs and got through and he called me. He says pull that fucking truck over now. I said no, it's over, man, this is it, I can't live like this anymore. And hung up and I just took off and all I could picture it was the weirdest thing like tunnel vision, the size of this microphone. It's all I could see is a drinker, a womanizer, a user, a liar, you know, alcoholic. No matter what it was. That's all I could see, you know. It dawned on me then that I lost the first marriage because I lived this way and I swear I'd never do it again. Now I'm losing marriage number two because of this is the guy I am. I can't stop drinking. I can't stop any of this shit. They're going to be better off without me. And people were calling me saying picture your kids and I couldn't At that moment.
Speaker 1:You can't picture anything. I couldn't picture anything.
Speaker 2:You can't see past the pain, you just can't.
Speaker 1:All I could see was my ex's face. That look on her face was all I could see. And I told them. I shut my find my friends off on my phone and I said when it comes back on I'll be dead. That's when you'll find me.
Speaker 1:And I drove to this park and this park trying to find. And I went in one park. I jump out of the truck and I reach in the back seat to load my gun and I look around and there's families and I thought I'm not doing to them. What, what happened to me? So I just loaded everything back up and I went up in the mountains and I found this randomly. I picked Golden Gate Canyon and you know Colorado, there's canyons everywhere. So I picked this random canyon. I go up there.
Speaker 1:I had a bottle of whiskey in the truck and that was a coincidence because it was leftover from St Patrick's Day. So of course I'm going to drink it, right, but that did nothing. I mean, I didn't even have time to get drunk to do anything. So I I drive up. Finally I get secluded, my cell goes out. I have no cell service and it was quiet.
Speaker 1:I was following this propane truck that was filling houses up the hill and I couldn't hear a thing. I had the windows open, I couldn't hear anything. It was just dark. And so I pull off the side of the road and I'm up against this hillside and I just reached over, grabbed the gun and thought I got to do it quick. And I put it under my chin and I pulled the trigger and I heard a click. The gun clicked and I thought I shouldn't hear. What the fuck? I shouldn't be hearing anything. And so I thought, well, I must have screwed something up. So I look at the gun and it's on fire, it's not on safety. So I pull the slide and eject that round out of my AR into my truck and I step out and fire a round into the hillside. So I had it working for something.
Speaker 1:It that one didn't go. So I got back in the truck and I'm gonna do it. And I, okay, I okay, I'm going to turn my find my friends on. And cause the first time was just impulse, you know. And this one, I look at it and I it says SOS. So I said, well, I'm not doing it here, cause there's snow still around. They're not going to find me. You know, I've.
Speaker 1:I kind of went into the same mode that poor guy at the was in. I don't want to lay here and be dead for a week. So I start driving down this random canyon and, um, I see this white car of a head and as I drive by, it's my brother. He's still looking for me. You know, it's been like two and a half hours. He's looking for me and he's crying. I got, I got my ex's face in my head and then now his and he's the same same look. So I pulled over and I just gave up and it was so heavy, man, that the weight it was it was 10,000 pounds, if it was anything, man. It was so heavy and I just couldn't see. I hated myself so bad because I was a cheater and a boozer and a liar and I just didn't see any way out of that. I had no way out. I didn think I was I was without hope right and um.
Speaker 1:So I laid there and the guns. My brother, luckily, had said a smart thing to the cop. They said is he getting a suicide by cop? And my brother said I don't know, I've never seen him like this. Maybe I mean he's. He's an angry man so he could. So they were ready. They came up and they had guns drawn and two denver SWAT officers this is up in golden now. They drove. They drove around um the other cops and they said we got him because they knew me, because we'd worked together, and they put the cuffs on me and they picked me up and one of them just hugged me and said man, let's get you some help. And I couldn't say anything. I sat in their car. I don't remember what I told them, but they took me to Denver General and they put me on a mental health hold which was supposed to be 72 hours and I was just in this. I remember waking up at some point and thinking man, what have I?
Speaker 1:done. I went from being a guy in charge of 36 firefighters, millions of dollars of equipment, people's lives, to sleeping in this bed in a mental health ward. How far have I fallen in my life? You know, I didn't get a DUI, didn't lose my job, didn't lose my house, but I had lost my mind and I was okay with losing my life. You know, I didn't get a DUI, didn't lose my job, didn't lose my house, but I had lost my mind and I was okay with losing my mind. I was not okay with admitting why, because I thought so. That's when I kind of admitted I was drinking too much. But that wasn't the reason. And that's what really got me is it wasn't the booze. I didn't go out and try to kill myself that day because I was drunk. I did it because of me, who I was.
Speaker 1:So they put me in a mental health hold for 72 hours and the doctor came to me. Now it was over Easter, so it was good. It was Holy Thursday that I went in there and Good Friday Saturday. And on Easter Sunday my son and his wife came to see me and nobody I mean you're talking the mental health hole that Denver health nobody's coming to see people. You know they're just there and I got a visitor and my son and his wife came in and she was pregnant and I remember thinking what I'd done to them, not only the way I've been living, but my cram baby was there with her mom, in her mom and I tried to take myself out. You know, it just felt so unfair but I couldn't see anything good out of it.
Speaker 1:So they kept me in there and they said you can get out on Tuesday. And I told the doctor. I said you can get out on Tuesday. And I told the doctor. I said no, you said 72 hours. He said, well, you can sign this paper right here and appeal to the judge. I said give me that fucking paper. And he says, okay, well, you signed it. He says, well, the judge will be back in Tuesday because tomorrow's Easter Monday or I can let you go Tuesday.
Speaker 1:And my ex and one of my best friends had arranged a place for me to go while I was in there. The only way I could get out is if I was willing to go to this place called Shatterproof for rehab, which was down in Florida, and it's a rehab for first responders and military vets mostly only. There's another part of it for civilian. But this aspect of Shatterproof was just for us, and so they flew me. So I got out. Tuesday my buddy picked me up. He wouldn't let me out of the. They were waiting for me as I walked out the door because he was afraid I'd go right to a liquor store. What?
Speaker 1:would you have, maybe, if he wasn't there yeah, I I think, I think I would have done it I think now, because now I had a good feeling, that I mean I knew the wife. My life exploded. She had my, my access to my phone, everything.
Speaker 1:I guess I kind of feel everything you ever lied about like you take a circular bomb and you throw your lie in there and you throw your PTSD in there and you throw your cheating in there and your infidelity and your bad person. You throw everything in that bomb. When I got caught that day it was like that fuse lit and I knew it was blowing up. I just was hoping it was taking me with it so I didn't have to live through the damage, you know. But I did. I lived through it and so they sent me to shatterproof. My buddy took me from there. We stopped and talked to my ex in a parking lot so she could give me clothes and and kick me on my way.
Speaker 3:How did that. How did that go?
Speaker 1:man I it was emotional, I mean obviously was she emotional?
Speaker 4:or was she done?
Speaker 1:no, she, she wasn't done. She was a cross between done and heartbroken. I mean angry and heartbroken. She was so broken of what I'd done to her and and now it was just piling on all this stuff. So I went away to shatterproof and my buddy here's a good guy for you he got on the plane with me. He was not letting me get on the plane because he knew I'd drink in the airport, knew I'd drink on the plane, and he flew down there with me and we landed at like 10 o'clock at night. They put me in the rehab and I was bawling and he just hugged me goodbye, and he said it was. He said it was like dropping a puppy off at the pound. He said it was. He said yeah, and then little welled up puppy dog eyes and we dropped you off. And he says and I had to go away and it broke him.
Speaker 1:He was really sad, I bet but I went into shatterproof and and I was like I said, I was willing to admit I was crazy. I did not want to admit I was an alcoholic because you know when did, when did you finally come to that?
Speaker 1:I think part of the way through there I kind of I knew I mean we had a lot of AA when we were in there and they did a lot of things. They did brain mapping, we did PTSD testing and I tried blaming it on that, but all of it circled around. I was covering everything I was struggling with, like I won't deny my PTSD score, everything I was struggling with, like I won't deny my PTSD score. They tell you anything from a 1 to a 38 on this test is considered mild or moderate. Above a 38 is considered severe. So I like to win. So I scored a 58 to make sure I scored way above that 38.
Speaker 3:Can you describe that a little bit?
Speaker 1:Some of our first responders may understand that, but I had developed it over the years and I don't know. You know you should deal with it, you should talk to people and now that's kind of my thing. I got a young kid that I talk to all the time. That's on a fire department. I tell him, talk about it. Talk about it, because when I came out in the 90s we did not talk about it. One call I had that really jacked me up was right after my son was born in 98. There was a guy that died in a rollover and decapitated himself and I spent eight hours with him. We couldn't get him out from under this thing and I got to know personally. His wife showed up. He had a son the same age as my son and we were celebrating our first Christmas. It was about to be Christmas. We were celebrating our first Christmas. It was about to be Christmas and it broke me that day.
Speaker 2:I started my wife you should just stuff that shit and drink it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just, I say I'll drink over it and you know everybody would ask what's the worst thing you ever saw. Well, I don't like that question anyway, because why do you want to know?
Speaker 1:But I would say, rob, I'm too tough, you don't need to know, this is to deal with, not you, and I wouldn't tell anybody. And so for that one, I started crawling around on the floor. I started like having nightmares. My wife would wake up and I threw her off the bed one time because I was imagining she was trying to stop me from saving my son just the craziest things going on and I drank it away. I spent six months. No you didn't.
Speaker 2:You drank at it, but it didn't go away.
Speaker 3:Right, that's a good point, rob eventually you learn to swim it did, and so I did that with all the cults.
Speaker 1:You know, I, I had one. Uh, a couple years before there was one I put in my bio to him that we talked about was uh, I had three sid's deaths. Now, this was when I was really young. I didn't even know I had a problem with this one. It came up later in counseling. But we had three sid's deaths in one day, like we went from one dead baby in a crib to one dead baby in a crib, to one dead baby in a crib that caused me to run the other direction.
Speaker 1:We were we were out of uh oxygen by the third one. So I had to give the baby mouth the mouth, you know, and and you know with sid's you're not really going to bring them back. But you can't let the parents, you can't just stand there, you know you have to do something. So we were trying, but it was, you know. You just know what year was that. That was probably 95, 94, it was before my kids.
Speaker 3:My wife katie lost a very, very close friend of hers. They took to sids about the same brown. There sid's is not something you hear of anymore.
Speaker 2:Sudden infidelity not much they've done a lot with the way babies are positioned they change that every few years, because when we had our first child, there's only just over two years difference. What you're supposed to position the baby in the crib is one way. Then, when my son was born two year and two and a half years later, oh no, no, no, on their back, not on their side. You know that's so. It's always changing.
Speaker 4:To try to marry they don't really know what causes hits either. So it's a lot of assumptions and a lot of yeah, sleeping positions, but now we have a lot of um, co-sleeping and a lot of things like that that are hit or miss on how you look at the crunchy mom era.
Speaker 3:I just I wanted to get her, her, her thought on it, only because she's got one, that's just two, and just came through that. So when you told me that it brought cause, I know that hit Katie extremely hard and it was just her friend, right, it happened to I'm. I still have that baby's picture on my mirror in my bathroom because it it just destroyed me. I couldn't even imagine going on to three of those in one day. Like I said when you told me that I was like I told katie about it and we both just it was.
Speaker 1:I mean, you just learned to deal with the death. You thought. You thought, yeah, right. And I mean I hate to say this, but's every day I'd go to work and I'd think I've seen everything, and then I'd see something more severe and it was incredible.
Speaker 1:But that call I had an officer that was on the rig that day that ended up being fired a few years later from the fire department. He lost his mind. They found him crawling around in the fire department. He lost his mind. They found him crawling around in the firehouse had a loaded gun in his locker, but at the time you know nothing not that the city does much more for mental health counseling other than get ready anyway anymore, but cheaper. They fired him and it didn't dawn on me till this all came out that he was my officer that day and so, and he had twin boys, brand new twins. So it's no wonder he you know it tore him up like it did so stuff like that over the years.
Speaker 1:But that guy that got decapitated. I started crawling around doing weird stuff, doing things and you know, as the calls went on, it started adding up. I had one, few years before this all happened, where there was a family of five that was burned alive. Some people intentionally lit their house on fire wrong house. They meant to get a drug dealer, but they got this family and all five of them died two babies and three adults and you know the view of looking in and seeing mom holding that baby trying to get to a window good grief.
Speaker 1:So things like that. I would just go home in the morning, boom, I'm going to drink this away and I my wife was gone at work, the ex was at work, so I would just sit there and drink and cry all day and then I tried to get better by the time she got home.
Speaker 3:How was your boys during stuff like that I mean?
Speaker 1:the first one, the guy with the. My son was six months, his son was six months, so it was and it bounced. Kids were tough. Kids were always tough. Whether I had kids or not, they were Right. Everything was tough, right. You know, just seeing. And I think towards the end it really I didn't realize this, but it started getting to me that I was just sick of seeing. I was tired of seeing loss and like, and when you're younger, on the rig you go on the minor car wreck and you help people that are in a minor car wreck and they come out good and you know, as you go on, as you progress. Well, once you get to the level I was at as a chief officer, I didn't go on as many calls a day but I didn't go on those minor car wrecks, I didn't go on the guy that had just fallen over.
Speaker 1:I went on car wrecks where people we had to cut them out of the cars and there might not be a lot of them left. I went on the fires where people were dying or their houses were gone or you know, there was major stuff empty buildings that were being burned and you were frustrated with that, Like, why are? Why are we just letting this stuff burn? Why is this? You know Right.
Speaker 2:And I was getting more and more frustrated, and I didn't realize that because I was only seeing the death, I was only if, because I was only seeing the death, I was only and if you don't do anything about it I mean it's not paying rent, so you got in between, it's not benefiting. You kick it, you got to kick it out and you weren't kicking anything, you weren't. No counseling, drinking is not a solution. Obviously was our problem, you know, but that's what we thought was yeah, so, but eventually it's going to come out, you know and you know. And if we don't do it in a positive way, like oh yeah, it's going to come out like the bomb you described perfectly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so when I got to rehab, they they dealt with a lot of that. They gave me. I mean, they did brain mapping, they did a neuro stem treatment, so they wire your head up and shock you. Like you're going to find this hard to believe, Rob, but I had zero impulse control, so they were shocking my head.
Speaker 1:you know doing different things and that really helped and then they had emdr treatments and we had breathworks treatments and I took ketamine down. There it was awesome because my sister that had passed away. I had a 45 minute episode where I talked to that sister the entire time under ketamine and apologized for the way I behaved when she was passing away. And it was like me and you talking right now Therapeutic, and my brother Mark that had passed away. I kept seeing him in all these dreams, these ketamine treatments, but I didn't talk to him because I don't think I had anything to settle with him because him and I were good, you know, but her was, you know, was rough and there was four buddies I saw in there that since then have all washed their hands and walked away because they were just sick of the way I was living. Right, they were done, done, putting up with that guy real, real quick.
Speaker 3:The ptsd test that you took. What kind of test is that?
Speaker 1:to be honest with you, I can't remember okay we did so much writing and okay in the first couple days you're just filling stuff out.
Speaker 2:I can find out later.
Speaker 3:I'm not right now I'm just curious on that, how that?
Speaker 1:is the soldiers that I sponsor, okay and there was a lot of guys, a lot of vets in there that had, you know, there was a good buddy of mine that had been injured severely, you know, been in a car with an ied blown up, ied and you know my good friend, mine's, back when he went back to rehab.
Speaker 2:You know, the young man that was supposed to come to our meeting came once the right dinner, right went back out, well, but he came in, we did this and then life got good and then he got away from this and then he went nuts again, you know, but on his four-step. And I can say this one major thing on his four-step he didn't want to take another life. That was the biggest fear. I don't want to ever kill anybody again, rob wow yeah, we've talked about you know it's yeah, but we don't.
Speaker 3:By no means am I discounting first responders in this, but we as people. I still think I struggle from a lot of PTSD on the major accidents that I was in. I still see it going through my brain sometimes.
Speaker 1:And you've probably been through more because you've had those accidents. And you've probably been through more because you've had those accidents. They say the normal the average person will experience three to four traumatic events in their life. And they say the average first responder will witness 200 in a 20-year career. Yeah, and I did a 33-year career, wow.
Speaker 3:That's incredible.
Speaker 1:You know and there's a lot of things with first responders that people don't look at Like firefighters we're 18% more likely to get cancer because of all the carcinogens and everything burning.
Speaker 2:Then they're done that.
Speaker 1:Suicide, suicide. I want to say that we're 14% higher first responders to commit suicide than the general population. Our divorce rate is 60% to 70%, whereas the general population is 50. So there's a lot of things that go into it, and I think it's because of everything you see.
Speaker 1:But it's also the time away and you start to rely on somebody as your brother or your best friend that if your wife calls and says, hey, you got to come home, you say, no, joe, blow over here, needs me to lay sod at his house. I'm not coming home right, I'm going to his house right. And you take time away and you do a lot of dumb shit and a lot of it for me and guys like me older school guys drank.
Speaker 2:That's what we did too so now, do you, do you have a sponsor? Have you worked the steps where you at? Do you do with any of this?
Speaker 1:yes, and so I think you have a big book. As soon as I got out of Shatterproof I went home and I started going to meetings. I got home May 10th.
Speaker 3:Yeah, same yeah, two years after you.
Speaker 1:May 10th 2024,. I got home and I was at a meeting by May 11th 2024 in the morning and I started doing 90 and 90 and went and it took me I didn't have a sponsor. It was 44 days before I got out of the mental health hold and the rehab, so I had 44 days sober and I had. It probably took me another two weeks, three weeks, to find the guy that I asked to sponsor me and then we worked the steps and went through it and that was that was life changing. That was that was when a lot of this started coming out. You know, and he, I know you push, you know you go quick, and he I don't think he did with me and I think he realized that I was in a hard case. There was a lot to deal with in there. There was a lot of.
Speaker 3:Your fourth and fifth had to take a while.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of fucked up shit in my head and so he did a great job. The guy's amazing, one of my best friends. You know like I would consider him. The way you guys get along is the way we get along. We can.
Speaker 3:We fucking hate each other, exactly. I can't stand.
Speaker 2:He's a pain in the ass If your sponsor doesn't piss you off at a certain point in time.
Speaker 3:he did another sponsor. He was doing his fucking job.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and I got a sponsor. Now a guy I'm working with and it's Run, motherfucker run. You did. You already cussed me out. I actually sent you a text because you said if you got a sponsor that makes you write anything for the first, for step one or two, that's your fault. You chose that cocksucker.
Speaker 2:When I said that, I said don't bitch at me about it you chose the motherfucker. I'm just saying because this doesn't say to do that.
Speaker 1:I know it doesn't. But again, I actually did have him write something and the reason I did because I Good, that's great. You know what I say is we have alcoholics. You hear everybody's drunk-a-logs. Nobody ever really tells you the drunk-a-logs where they were face down sleeping under a bush in a pile of cat shit they tell you about. Oh, me and my buddies jumped off this roof and we did this crazy fun shit. So I wanted my sponsor to remember. Hey, it wasn't the time with your bros, right? I want to know why you're powerless. And he, you know, he told me some things and I said write down.
Speaker 2:That's what I want you to look back and remember. December 8th, I woke up and somebody had shit in my pants and put them back on me A cat came in and shit in my mouth.
Speaker 3:That's funny, Do you and maybe you're going to go into this, but do you go back and work with some of these firefighters? Have you really started thinking about that?
Speaker 1:I mean, what you've got is valuable.
Speaker 2:In time.
Speaker 1:In time. I've offered to do it. They actually. I think next month I might go talk to some people.
Speaker 1:So, now, how long have you been sober? I've been sober since March 29th, 2024. So almost 17 months, almost 17 months. God bless you. So I want to go back and do do some things now. The reason I haven't is when I got home from rehab like I had a job. When I came home, my wife was working on stuff. She was man, she was amazing, she was willing to try, you know, after all the cheating she'd found out and all the everything she was willing to try. And I had a job. I had, you know, living back at home and everything was good. We actually went to Europe together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you told me that yesterday, I'm like my ex and I went to Europe together in September and it was kind of a make or break deal. We wanted to see if we could make it and we were the best of friends on that trip. We had so much fun, didn't fight, didn't argue, didn't drink. But she I think she realized it was over. She had a hard time getting feelings back for me because of all the damage I done and God bless her. She put up with a lot and so we tried. But you know, I had a job. I got fired.
Speaker 1:The Denver fire department fired me for conduct, basically for conduct unbecoming, the day that I tried to commit suicide, saying well, you, you know you had a gun in a park or you were drinking and driving and I. My theory, without going too much into it, is that's like a bank robber pulling up saying I'm going to rob this bank, but, son of a bitch, all there is is handicapped spots. I don't want to take a handicapped spot, so I'm going to go home. You know, that was that day. I couldn't think of the handicapped spot. I didn't think of the handicap spot. I didn't think of what, of getting in trouble on the fire department because I was going to be dead.
Speaker 1:So I ended up getting fired in my first year um we got divorced in your first full year, but that my first full year of sobriety, I got divorced, lost the job, moved out of the house and um applied for unemployment and the city denied me unemployment even after I got fired. So I had no money and I couldn't get my pension yet because I had filed an appeal to try to get back on. So I had to wait till that appeal was over, which they drug out for six months. So by the time that six months was over I was out of money, out of everything. And that's when God showed up and my buddy got me a job, working at that golf course, and I started working. And then the appeal loss and I got pension and started, you know, rebuilding, rebuilding, rebuilding life and and living life.
Speaker 3:That's pretty good. You went through a ringer your first six months.
Speaker 1:I blame and that I would think Rob asked me earlier when did I start blaming myself and knowing that it was because of me? That's when. Because I hadn't got a DUI, I hadn't done all these things. But I looked back but through the step work you'd taken real inventory Right.
Speaker 2:Did you do your?
Speaker 3:steps in that first six months. Yes, did you really yeah?
Speaker 1:That's quicker than most people do. So, right, I don't. I don't want to say the first six months, but probably in the first eight months home. So already too, it almost took me a year to get all the way through them all.
Speaker 3:Before I started was willing to sponsor somebody good that, uh, but so during that six months though, so when you got home, until your the till divorce was final, or divorce lost job, all that bad shit before the good shit started to happen what kind of timeframe was in there?
Speaker 1:You know I will say and this is I got from a buddy we'd go golfing, even when I first got home and he'd say how are you doing? I said great and I feel great. And then the next time he'd be like how you doing? I said better than I was last time. He says you tell me that every time and I said that's because it's getting better, because the sobriety is progressive, just like alcoholism, is it started making me feel so much better and that obsession to drink was gone and I think when that went away I started feeling better.
Speaker 4:I have a couple questions. Yeah sorry, no, no, no, no, come on, stop me.
Speaker 1:I talk too much.
Speaker 4:Almost like Larry. You said that your wife took out the guns out of your house. Were you threatening suicide or were you? Was she just like, hey, this might be coming down the pipeline.
Speaker 1:No, you know that that's a good point. So the buddy that ran into me in the parking lot, I had him take that gun because originally I was going to shoot myself right there. And then I said no, I'm not doing it here at the firehouse. And then I had him take it. So I kind of felt safe and he goes don't go home, just stay here, just stay here. And I said no, I'm going home.
Speaker 1:He picked up the phone and called my wife and said and get out of the house, because he didn't know if I was homicidal or suicidal or what. But he said get the guns. And she got them all, cause I had a bunch of handguns, you know little. I had a hunting shotgun and stuff. But the AR-15, I think, was just out of sight, out of mind for her and it was for me, until I saw the case sitting there. And then I was like all right, and when I walked in she was packing and all the guns were gone. So and I was like all right, and when I walked in she was packing and all the guns were gone. So I thought man, not only is she leaving me and her heart's broken, but she's actually taking guns because she thinks I might hurt her.
Speaker 4:So I am the biggest piece of shit. I just added to it. Did you contemplate hurting her? No, no, no.
Speaker 1:I had already. I might as well have put her down and stopped her. I'd done so much to her, so no, I never thought about hurting her.
Speaker 4:You said that you were the chief, right. Yeah, I was an assistant chief. Yeah, how did you guys debrief? I come from a little bit of background his law enforcement and stuff, so we deal with things parallel, but still batshit crazy. Great question how do you handle, like, the SIDS case? You had three in a day, like, and I know you weren't probably the assistant chief back then, but when you're coming back, what does that look like for the guys that were on the call? Is it cool?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and back then, like when I had the SIDS, we didn't do anything. We did nothing. We went in um the guy that really got me the decapitated. It was about the same timeframe as the SIDS. The captain comes down in the morning he goes hey, that was a rough call. Is everybody good? Anybody need anything? Well, you know, I'm sitting next to some guy that's been on for 30 years. He's smoking a cigarette, drinking his coffee. He says I'm good. What am I going to say?
Speaker 3:It's just a Tuesday. Yeah, I'm good, just a Tuesday.
Speaker 1:I'm good. I thought it was making the papers. So I kind of took the reins and I immediately called all my stations and said everybody call your spouses right now and let them know that you're okay, Because what I was afraid was going to hit the media was suicide at a firehouse and then every spouse out there was going to panic because it was in that area.
Speaker 1:So I made everybody call their spouse to do that. I put the rig out of service so the guys could just they didn't have to worry about going on another call. And then we called in the peer support team. I called the peer support team, they came over and a couple of guys talked. Then the next day called dispatch and I said send me as a chief on every call with 18s, any call they get. That isn't you know, it isn't a fall or isn't an alarm system. If it sounds like it's traumatic, send me with them.
Speaker 1:And so we went on a stabbing that night and actually my officer got bit by a dog while we were there. He was trying to get to the lady and the dog bit him. And again I took him to the hospital and he was getting the wound stitched up. We heard nothing from the administration, nothing. But I was trying to be there. And then I called our peer support, brought in the counselor and then so we went out of service the next shift in the morning everybody sat around and we talked to this counselor in the morning and she's actually still my therapist to this day. She is an amazing lady.
Speaker 4:Do you guys think that your peer support was well-equipped? No, no, it was just. We checked the box. It was a box check. We have peer support.
Speaker 1:As a matter of fact, it just came out in the paper. I don't know when it was. It's been since I've been gone. The city of Denver actually cut the mental health budget for the Department of. Safety by 60%. Of course they did. Yeah, they wanted Not six, no 60. Six, zero. And the state of Colorado cut it even more because they, you know.
Speaker 3:Tell them why.
Speaker 1:Well, we got to pay for the homeless, we got to pay for the mayor of Denver. I mean not to get into politics, I don't want to get into politics? Yeah, that's probably going down a different road. Yeah, that's a rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:I have an obscure question to jump in. Here's my obscure question. Okay, the round that you ejected from the AR that went in try around or was it was this like self-loaded ammo, or was it something? No, it was, it was purchased do you see god's hand in that at all?
Speaker 3:oh yeah you know it'd be stupid.
Speaker 1:Not to well, hey, I gotta ask I know here's you want to hear god's hand. So my, my brother that was looking for me, his wife is very I mean, she prays. She's stout, she prays all the time, she believes in everything and she's a wonderful woman. He called her. He says Jim's out, he's trying to kill himself, start praying. And she went up to her prayer room and she didn't pray to God. She prayed. She prayed to God to make my guardian angel save me and all she prayed is that the gun wouldn't work. That's all she prayed for is that the gun wouldn't work.
Speaker 1:So I want to say I was spoiled not seeing that as a God shot because I was a. I was a spoiled bitch. I mean I'd gone into buildings. I didn't even realize how many times he had saved me in in a building or you know something falling on my head or or not getting killed in a DUI accident, whatever it was. I never realized all these things that he'd done. So I was spoiled. I didn't really chalk it up to that. I chalked it up to I don't know why for a while. And then it it hit me that you know you're here for something.
Speaker 4:What was your sister-in-law's response? Like knowing that she, she, she knew exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. As soon as she heard, she said that's all I prayed for she, didn't have a doubt she has no doubt in her mind that her praying for that is what caused that and that's why I'm here. And her husband my brother, was. He was really, really. I feel so much guilt. I mean, I know, you know everything causes guilt, but I put him through hell. That poor guy looked and that was the other thing. Why did he go up that canyon? Why?
Speaker 3:in the fuck you said in the beginning it was very out of the way place it was, and he didn't know I ever went up there.
Speaker 1:So why did Joe turn up that canyon and say this is the one I'm going to look for him at? He'd looked for me in parks, he'd looked for me all over. He went to my parents' gravesite looking for me and he said I'm going to just turn up this canyon and see if he's up here. And there I was.
Speaker 3:How far off the main road were you?
Speaker 1:Oh, that was three miles up. I had driven up till it turns from asphalt into dirt and then I was coming back. Wow, so well, there was a I mean God was, god was all over it, you know he, but I didn't see it. I was so lost in everything else and just I felt like the devil, like there. There was no way I could put anything together. I just felt so bad and it took a long time for me to quit feeling I still feel the guilt. I'm never going to not feel the guilt.
Speaker 3:So one of the things that you know that, as you were talking about that heaviness, you know it's. It's hard for me, even this far removed from that deep depression that I was in, to listen to another human being talk about it, because it takes me to that spot, to that moment, and for anybody that's never felt what you and I once again, not the PTSD, none of that, but how you describe that heaviness and how deep and dark you were, it's brutal, it's a brutal place to be and to hear another human being describe it the same way it feels to me, it just it literally grips me and takes me to that spot for a moment, but I'm able to grab myself and get back out of it. Now do you, when you hear other people talking about this, that kind of stuff, do you find yourself still feeling that, seeing it?
Speaker 1:I think when I hear people like in the meetings talk about, I just want to hug them. Oh yeah, thank you, I want to do with that.
Speaker 4:What that?
Speaker 1:cop did for me. I want to pick them up and I want to hug them and tell them you can be all right, man. Oh yeah, and that cop here's a great story. Uh, the next January I was at the stock show rodeo in in Denver and he was working. I saw him and I picked him out Now I can't remember anything from that day and I picked that guy's face out and I went up and said face out, and I went up, said do you remember me? And he says, oh my god, yes, I do. Wow. And man, I thanked him so much because he knew I was a mess and I, you know everything was just a wreck, but he'd never he's like people in a. He didn't judge?
Speaker 3:he didn't judge.
Speaker 1:He just was so glad that he got me before I was dead. That's a guy that that does his job for the right reasons. Right, and there's so many of them that do. We don't want people to get hurt, but it tears us apart.
Speaker 3:Do you see anybody from your old houses?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a core group of guys that I still talk to, quite a few of them from my house. The latest one A lot of guys I've fallen off, and it happens when guys retire you disappear.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'd been around 33 years. I mean there was guys coming on the job that I couldn't. I had no idea who they were, so they'd never met me. So when they hear you know chief Hart's gone, they're like who in the hell is that?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:I don't even know that guy, right. You know they never worked with me. So there's still a few guys that I keep in contact with and you know my family, all you know. They're a bunch of retired firemen too, right. I try to keep in contact and I'm trying to work on some of the relationships there. There's still a few that are gone, but you know there's still some we're working on.
Speaker 3:Any family in the houses, any of the firehouses, any of your family in your old firehouses.
Speaker 1:My nephew is at one of my old firehouses my brother's son he's but you know, it wasn't the one I was at when I went down. Right when I went downhill I was at uh station 15 and they watched it. They, we were so close, they knew something was going on those last five, six months. They didn't know what. Yeah, and that was, that was the bomb, that was the things I was hiding bomb, that was the things I was hiding. I was hiding from them and you know, oh, I came in late. I had I was cold or my ex is out of town for work. I have to call in sick. Well, well, yeah, I did have to call in sick because I've been out drunk for four days and supposed to come back to work drunk. So it was hard to put a finger on, I think you know, I'm still, I'm, I'm.
Speaker 3:I've never been shut up. I know where this is going. I'm lost for words.
Speaker 3:Really, I'm trying to bring you know because that, honestly, jim, I've spent the last two days with you, we've spoken a lot about and I honestly didn't see that story going, going that direction. I didn't I don't know why, I just didn't see that story going that way and and I told you this the other day when we were going up there sometimes it's better not to know the whole story, that's why, jim, I don't, I don't like any, I, I don't, I like to just come in cold, yeah, and hear him.
Speaker 2:It's always better than to try to for me it is.
Speaker 3:I don't because I'd like to be prepared for some of that, because I mean for me, emotionally, I think, is the thing for me right? Because I mean and I honestly the like I said a little loss for words that that's probably the most heartfelt story that we've had here so far and because it's it's still very fresh for you. I mean, kim, and mike stillmans was a very that was a rough one to listen to and to go through what part of that?
Speaker 2:because I thought about that part, that story, when we listened to you. What part of mike's story is identical to his?
Speaker 3:the friend that got on the plane yeah right, I was thinking the same thing when he was what about that friend, you still?
Speaker 1:oh yeah. And actually when I got to uh shatterproof, my ex called and she said look, I need 30 days, I need you to be there. I don't want to have phone calls, I don't want to be there, I don't want to have phone calls.
Speaker 3:I don't want to hear from you I don't want nothing.
Speaker 1:So I listed that guy as my emergency contact, Okay, and he was getting calls from the psychologist. Now my ex said that but she was still checking in.
Speaker 1:She didn't want me to know she was checking in because she didn't want me to think she gave a shit. She really did. So you know she was checking in and but that buddy was man, he was there and he was going to fly back to florida to fly me home, because he was scared of the same thing and I told him. That's when. I told him all right, hold on, man, I'm coming home. There's a liquor store on every corner.
Speaker 3:If I decide, I want to drink.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go drink you. You are not stopping me just by getting on it. Why would you spend six hundred dollars round trip to stop me for two hours if?
Speaker 3:I want.
Speaker 1:I'm not doing that and I can't say forever, but I will tell you it's not happening today. Right, it's not happening tomorrow, and so he stayed home and he picked me up at the airport. But he's an awesome guy, awesome.
Speaker 3:And you guys stay pretty close now yeah we're still really close. You have probably one of the most serene jobs a human being could have. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how you can have a bad day on doing what you do. Explain to everybody what you do for a living in your retired life.
Speaker 1:I wake up. No, I get up early and go to the golf course and I mow the rough. So it's really, it's really nice, cause I, I just drive around there. I mean there's acreage, I can drive all day and not get it all mowed, so I just drive from one place to the other mowing the lawn and I get to see man. I've seen elk out there, I've seen coyotes, I've seen I've seen owls, eagles, everything, and I just watch the sun. I send you guys pictures all the time.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Sun coming up, sun going down, depending on the time of day on there, and it's just peaceful and we go until it starts getting hot about one in the afternoon and then we're out of there.
Speaker 3:Well, hot in Denver is 80.
Speaker 1:No, no, we'll be over 100.
Speaker 3:Can you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, this month has been 100. So tell me what your life looks like right now. Jim, it's good I got that job. You know I'm thinking I'm going to. That'll only go till October and then I think I'll enjoy my pension and the retirement for wintertime and try to go back and work with these guys in the summer. It's great Little half and half. You know, the house that I told you my ex bought is. We used it as a rental the whole time, so I moved into that, okay, and she's got the house that we remodeled and it's good for her. She didn't have to pack her shit and go.
Speaker 3:So you guys are going to live closely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we live about six blocks away. We share dogs. We got two dogs, custody.
Speaker 2:Go ahead See.
Speaker 1:You said he crossed fingers. Did you see what? Did you see what he just did? Yeah, but we share. We share custodies of the dog and you know, and that's like I'm here, so she's got them and we're still. We were better friends, I think, when we were living together, obviously because she had to, and I think she just needs a break. I mean, I I don't blame her, I can't believe she even talks to me at all, let let alone cordial.
Speaker 3:Have you guys had a chance to talk about?
Speaker 1:like sit and talk about those last six, seven, eight months, yeah, we did when I was home, because I got home from rehab in May and I didn't move out of the house until January-ish. So we were home, we talked a lot, okay, and that's when we realized that it just wasn't going to come back.
Speaker 2:And have you ever thought of it? You got a long ways to go and I can see where God's going. But, given back to first responders being, I mean starting something for the, for the young ones that are coming in, so they don't have to. If they don't, they don't want to. I mean they can choose to get help, but they can choose to. What was the word you used?
Speaker 1:uh, when you like, debrief, you know and I think we we touched on that, but I didn't get back to it. Right, there's supposed to be a topic when I go home no, no, we brought it up already no, it was.
Speaker 1:Somebody asked me, but I didn't finish. It was in september, when I go back, I'm supposed to go speak at um for denver, for anybody that wants to come here to talk to some of those guys. However, that's where the rub is with the city of Denver. They would never invite me back. The union is inviting me back because they can do it they're a union but the city of Denver would never invite me back because they let me go. And then the same thing with other departments. If they would ask me, I'd come speak because we can't bury this shit. You have got to not bury this shit. It, and burying it with booze is just a mess have you worked through the union for that?
Speaker 3:the union is probably would be strong for that no, well, they're trying to get me to come right, talk to their guys but they, when I disappeared no, that was.
Speaker 1:They knew their hands were tied.
Speaker 3:There was nothing no, no, what I? I don't care about any of that. What I mean is gonna come? The union ought to be wanting you to come in and talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure they do they're the people that have asked me, yeah, and I'd like to go talk and let people know that, apparently, burying ptsd and emotional trauma with booze is not the way to go god bless it now. I just found that out who would have guessed. Guessed it, yeah, who'd have known, damn it.
Speaker 3:You raised your hand a minute ago. Did you ask your question?
Speaker 2:It wasn't a question. I'll say it off air is what I'm going to say.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, it's going to be on air.
Speaker 2:Oh Well, jim, and it's not a question.
Speaker 4:It's yeah what?
Speaker 1:how's your relationship with your children's mom and your children at now? Oh, I'm glad you brought that up. So when I was in rehab I asked my sons you know, my spouse, my ex, wrote me an impact letter and it was man brutal it you know of all the shit I've done. So I asked my sons to do it. Now one of them I mean the younger one, we're so tight, he's like dad, I never saw a problem, I never said well bullshit. But he just doesn't want to admit it. I try to talk to him about the older One of them. I mean the younger one, we're so tight, he's like dad, I never saw a problem, I never saw well bullshit. But he just doesn't want to admit it. And I tried to talk to him about it. The older one said all right, and he wrote a letter and it was rough. It was really rough because I thought all the years my alcoholism was only affecting me.
Speaker 2:We only hurt ourselves. Come on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was only hurt myself it. Why did and man, the damage I did to that poor kid? That's why we were talking about college. That's why when he went away, he was gone. I wanted to be away from you because the way it was. But now they're like. I asked them if I could use their names coming on here. They're so happy, they're like dad, you're doing great, we're proud of you. So it's really better. And my granddaughter's been born. Since I've been home and I got to babysit her on new year's Eve and then, like I said, these guys are pitcher. Two weeks ago I got a babysitter for like three hours. We were playing and it's just it's different. You know it's.
Speaker 3:It's making me value one drink away one drink away from blues and all that, or one bullet away in your case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one bullet away. I gave a buddy of mine six rounds from the same ammunition and he's a reloader and stuff. I said, shoot all these and make sure they all work. And he did. And then he rebuilt me one that's dimpled, that looks like the round, and I have that. It's in with my AA chips. Good, but just to remind me. I mean, that's like these tattoos on my arm. They're all reminders. I'm like him. I don't want to. I need to remember that.
Speaker 2:I just need to calm down sometimes and I need. I don't have enough arm. I don't have enough, I'm sure, so I don't have long enough arms to get the tattoos I want, so I got my tattoos on something else oh good, god, well, you can go around your. No, you can't go around your bicep but yeah, my relationship is sorry about that, sorry about that I've been told to shut up about that. I keep telling everybody we have a lady in here.
Speaker 3:You guys behave, this is recovery unfiltered podcast.
Speaker 2:But what she has done from her what she has done with. You know law enforcement, she's seen in her. Oh yeah, she's amazing, and there's a great story too. Yeah, yeah, it's and dad never.
Speaker 1:They're still having a great story too. Yeah, yeah it's, and Dad never talked about it. My dad came home, he never talked about it that was that generation?
Speaker 2:You don't talk about it?
Speaker 1:No, and so. Your generation was the same he never told me anything about World War II, so I just thought that's what we did. We just buried shit and I'm not blaming who has time to sit around and cry about the shit that went wrong you don't Fuck.
Speaker 3:I had two and I didn't have time to do shit. Yeah, of course they were girls, but Well, that's triple. He had four girls. Hey, you did so. He did say would he about taking the booze and the condoms to your sons?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that was bad. Now his mom's going to know, Marla's going to know, but was gonna know.
Speaker 3:But I uh, I could cut it if you don't want it, but it was freaking funny, it was a long time ago, so it'll be all right.
Speaker 1:When my son moved into college, uh, I went out there and moved him in, and so you know he's a freshman in college. What are you gonna do? You're gonna drink and you're gonna sleep around. So I took him a 12 pack or a case of beer and a box of condoms to his dorm room the day I moved him in and he looked at me like I was be all's above himself. He's like get that shit out of my room and go. And I said but what if dad go? He kicked me out of his room so I had to drive back from kansas city how much of that booze did you drink on the way back?
Speaker 1:it didn't make it home. It didn't make it home that's funny and I have balloons all over the back seat well, jim, I I appreciate you coming man.
Speaker 3:That that's powerful, that's some powerful stuff and I'm so glad you reached out to rob and I see, I didn't say me, I did not say me. I'm getting better as a podcast I'm just surprised.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you reached out to me on my podcast at my house and came over and saw me I am so.
Speaker 3:So we're. We are very blessed that you reached out to us.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it but think of it. He reached out to the you know through the podcast, and now he's here right podcast right telling a story god stuff, because I love the way God moves. I love watching God move.
Speaker 1:Right, this whole AA is. I mean, what are the odds of me connecting with you guys halfway across the country? Right, it's all because of the program and God. Yeah, you know what God and the program.
Speaker 3:And a vision this dipshit had, and you know what, and that's the thing right Start this and started with me having a vision because a friend of mine's son died of a fentanyl overdose to that knucklehead over there agreeing to do this with me, to you know, nonstop, constant hammering after these podcasts, some of them good, some of them just Rob and I just and as the grow, and as I've listened to the growth, as we've grown, you know, yeah, not so many f-bombs, which, but I don't know if I've said one I don't think I've said I might have said one or two.
Speaker 3:I mean not fuck I had to get one out you know there's, yeah, but there's, there's been right but the direction it's god's got it going finally yeah, and it's just and all, and god's just in control of this thing and, honestly, I've turned it over. You know I did, I grabbed onto it for a long time going this, this, this, this, and I'm like whatever. But you know, and I had to do that, when I brought my daughters on, right, that was tough, that was tough. And look what it's done, right, my daughter's coming on and Katie, you know, and Katie was the tough one because she didn't want to, and I said, baby, it's not for us, it's for other people, right, it's for other souls, right, sean and Mary reached out because of it, jim's reached out because of it.
Speaker 3:I've spoken to other people that have heard Katie's and you know, and it's just, and thank God, thank God, we made it as far as we did. So, because of the amount of souls we're starting, that is starting to pile up, is amazing to me, just amazing. And and you, jim, are a huge part of this and I appreciate you coming- Well, you talked about the vision, and that's why I crossed my fingers.
Speaker 1:I told you my mom says somebody's talking, you don't want to interrupt them, you just think of whatever it is and you click it right in between there and it'll stay there fuck it, I interrupt so that's why I crossed my fingers well, I got the impulse problem that you do.
Speaker 1:I just so, uh, he talked about the vision and you know, god coming to him and I, when I was in rehab, I felt like somebody was saying tell your story, tell your story, and I would share it in group and things, but not not like I did here, you know, and I denied it. I kept thinking why is my story different than anybody else's? I don't know that it is, it is. So I got called and finally I said, okay, I this over Whatever, wherever you need me to speak, whatever. Well, since then I've been back to Shatterproof and I've spoke there, came on here with you guys. I got invited to do an hour long AA meeting out of Arizona on a group that I did online. I shared my story for my one year anniversary at Primary Purpose, shared it there. So I've shared my story a lot since then and I did another podcast and I did a blog and I feel like, all right, I turned it over. So if you want me to go speak somewhere, I'll go speak, because if it it's that important, yeah.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 1:If it helps, one, just one.
Speaker 3:Right, that's what I prayed for this morning at church.
Speaker 1:Just give me one person that reaches out to you guys or to me that needs help.
Speaker 3:And you can reach out to us. Get a hold of Jim at recoveryunfilteredpodcast at gmailcom. Recoveryunfilteredpodcast at gmailcom. Jim, you want to give your email, or do you want to just reach out that way? You can, if you want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no sure they can reach out to me. It's Jim Hart 1-9-7-0. They can, yeah, you can reach out to me, it's uh jimhart1970 all one word j-i-m-h-a-r-t-1-9-7-0 at gmailcom. Right. What year were you born? I was born in 80. Yeah, no well, I'm a little bit older than you, just just a touch just a touch, I'm not old like Larry.
Speaker 2:Jesus Christ, he's 55 right now. Let's get the hell out of here.
Speaker 3:We're going to come back and do another one with Jim. Next one's going to be a bit lighter, though. Maybe. Maybe, motherfuckers, it's going to be lighter. I can't do another one like that one. I can't. That was good. That was a good one it. Thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2: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 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 3:We probably won't change nothing, but do it anyway, something will be different and something will sink in. Take care, this has been Recovery Unfiltered.