Addiction Medicine Made Easy | Fighting back against addiction
Addiction is killing us. Over 100,000 Americans died of drug overdose in the last year, and over 100,000 Americans died from alcohol use in the last year. We need to include addiction medicine as a part of everyone's practice! We take topics in addiction medicine and break them down into digestible nuggets and clinical pearls that you can use at the bedside. We are trying to create an army of health care providers all over the world who want to fight back against addiction - and we hope you will join us. *This podcast was previously the Addiction in Emergency Medicine and Acute Care podcast*
Addiction Medicine Made Easy | Fighting back against addiction
Sober Living Explained
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Walking out of treatment can feel like being dropped right back into the fire: the bills are higher, relationships are still strained, triggers are everywhere, and the old “solution” of numbing out is suddenly right there again. We wanted a clearer answer to a common question from patients, families, and clinicians: what is sober living, and how does it actually help?
I sit down with Gerald Lott, host of the Seeds of Recovery podcast, author, and executive director of Sauk Valley Voices of Recovery in Illinois. Gerald breaks down sober living as real-life practice with guardrails: peer-led structure, house rules, curfews, chores, and meeting requirements that taper over time. We also talk about the differences between a recovery home (treatment without walls), sober living, Oxford House style models, and why it’s essential to vet programmes carefully because predatory sober homes do exist.
A huge thread running through our conversation is connection. Gerald explains why recovery built only on shared trauma can fade as you stabilise, and how “tribe” and affinity groups like sports, music, fishing, running, art, and service can keep connection growing in long-term recovery. We get practical about life skills too: budgeting, work routines, repairing relationships, and how recovery coaching turns big goals into weekly steps.
If you care about addiction recovery, relapse prevention, sober living programmes, or how peer recovery specialists support lasting change, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with someone who needs a next step after treatment, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
* Note * - there is some adult language in this episode
To contact Dr. Grover: ammadeeasy@fastmail.com
Why This Podcast Exists
SPEAKER_01Hi, I'm Dr. Casey Grover. I spent years practicing emergency medicine before shifting my focus to addiction medicine. This podcast grew out of caring for patients, hearing their stories, and wanting to do better. Here we talk about recovery, medicine, and compassion. This is Addiction Medicine Made Easy. I am really excited to share this episode with you. It is a joint episode with my podcast and the Seeds of Recovery podcast. In this episode, I interview Gerald Lott, who is in recovery and is the host of the Seeds of Recovery podcast. He's also an author, and in this episode, we talk about his book. But most importantly, for this conversation, he's the executive director of Stock Valley Voices of Recovery in Illinois. And one of the hats that he wears in that role is to run sober living programs for both men and women. And so today, we are going to talk about sober living. How does sober living work? What can you learn when you're there? How can it fit into a person's journey to recovery? And more. We had a fantastic conversation, and I learned a ton about sober living programs. And I am very glad to be able to share what I learned with all of you. Here we go.
Gerald’s Recovery And Tribe Idea
SPEAKER_01All right, Gerald. Happy Friday. I'm so honored to have you join me today. Let's just start with who you are and what you do.
SPEAKER_00My name is Gerald Lott. I am a certified peer recovery specialist. I am a person in long-term recovery, meaning I haven't had illicit drugs or alcohol since April 17th of 2008. I am the executive director and founder of Salt Valley Voices of Recovery. I am uh author of a book called Tribe Finding: Building Relationships as a Path to Recovery. I am a podcast host. You can catch me on Seeds of Recovery. I am a father of six people that some of them are good and some of them are driving me nuts. I am busy, is what I am. I can relate to that.
SPEAKER_01100%. I'm only a dad of one, so respect. But let's come back and just unpack one thing you said: peer recovery specialist or peer support specialist. We love them in our practice. We hire six. And congratulations on your long-term recovery and the journey that you've been on.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thank you. Tell me about your book. The book is the culmination of some findings I had. It's my story kind of interwoven. I believe that according to 12 step, my problem is that I'm selfish and self-centered. So of course I want there to be a book about Gerald. Who wouldn't? Have you seen the movie? But I couldn't do that. So how do I write this book? Tell my story, but make it make sense. And I started looking at what I found to be some of the weaknesses in the recovery system, right? I love AA. AA saved my life many times. AA would pull me out of the fire, I would jump right back in. So I have no ill will against AA, but I do recognize that there is some limitations. One of the limitations is you've got so many people making up things, right, that aren't AA, right? And to an intellectually lazy person like myself, I walk into the rooms of AA and they're like, hey, you can read this book, or you can let Lester tell you his version of the book and then do what he's saying, because that's a lot easier. And I start doing what Lester's doing. And next thing I know, I can't figure out why I'm drunk, right? Or and for me, I'll be honest with you, Doctor. I don't know if I'm an alcoholic, man. I've never let it get that far because I start drinking, and within a very short period, the idea comes to me, let's get some cocaine. And then I'm gone, right? So I go to AA, I call myself an alcoholic, I treat alcohol as though I can't have it, with my motto being cocaine is a tiger and alcohol is the cage. And if I don't mess with the cage, I don't have to deal with the tiger, if that makes sense, right? Perfect sense. But yeah, but I get into AA and I start learning. And here's the crux of the book. I could go on with my issues with AA ad nauseum, but the issue of the book or the crux of the book is in AA, I'm connected across the table with people that I don't really have a whole lot in common with based on my yuck, right? I've got a yuck in me, they've got a yuck in them, and we're connected at our yuck, right? My I don't want to drink. But that's getting smaller in me. And if my yuck is getting smaller, then naturally my connection to that person is getting smaller. And so by five, six years down the road, I really don't need to talk to these people. We got nothing much to say. When I see them at Walmart, I'm just like kind of, hey, if I remember them, I'm just giving them the nod and walking by. Versus if we can connect through affinity grouping. And now you understand, yes, you have to go to some kind of path to recovery to get initially sober. But once you are there, then you start looking at Johan Hari's concept of the opposite of addiction being connection, right? If the opposite of addiction is connection, let's build connection. And I want to build connection based on things I love. So you're in recovery, I'm in recovery, and we're trying to both learn how to play the guitar, right? And that's something I'm trying to grow in my life. I want, as that grows, so does my connection to you. Now we both know that if I walk into the room and I'm like, hey, Casey, I gotta talk to you about something. You being in recovery and me being in recovery, we can have that conversation. But if there's no trauma, if there's no issue, if there's no problem, then let's try to learn how to play stairway to heaven, right? And we do that. My organization does that. We have all sorts of groups. Every Saturday, I got about a dozen guys to get together and play basketball. We've got fishing, we've got running, we've got art classes, all those things, because everybody doesn't respond to let's go put our junk on the table. So what we're trying to do is build relationships before we ask for vulnerability.
SPEAKER_01I love Johan Hari. I'm so glad you made that reference. And I love the way he says the opposite of addiction is connection. But I'd never thought about the fact that addiction is what brings people in 12-step meetings together. But as they get further into recovery, it doesn't always keep them together. Do I have that right?
SPEAKER_00Correct. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I in my book, I talk about in the movie, there's the really hot lady and there's the guy, and then dinosaurs come running down the street. And for the next 24 hours, they're together in trauma, trying to get through the dinosaurs. And by the end of the movie, they're in love, right? How long do you think that relationship actually lasts? Let's see the sequel where they're fighting and hate each other, right? Because trauma bonding is only going to hold me together for a while. Right? It's only going to hold us there for a short time. And so if that is our connection, honestly, for me, man, I still go to meetings, but when I was getting sober, I went like two meetings a day, seven days a week. Now I go maybe once a month, every couple of weeks. Now, granted, I work in the industries, but I don't feel the need to be at the tables in the same way. I don't want to be at the tables in the same way. I was sober 14 years and then I relapsed, and then now I'm sober again another 18 years. So just the way it works out in timing, my six months that I was using, I haven't really had a 4th of July where I was drinking or drugging for about 35 years, right? So it really stresses me out to be sitting at a meeting and a newcomer is there just crying and moaning because his family has a 4th of July party and he doesn't know how he's gonna go because they drink and man, they're all there and I can't go. And he's all into it, and it means something to him. And to me, I'm just like, don't go, man. Just do something else, go to the movies, right? But when I say that, I diminish the reality to him and maybe even make the room unsafe. And what he's doing to me is making me like, I don't want to come to this. So, how do I keep my connections with people in recovery alive if I know that connection is what keeps me right? I have to do it based on things I want to do, things I like to
Moving Beyond Trauma Bonding
SPEAKER_00do. Thus, the fact that you use the term tribe in your title. Absolutely. I cannot do this thing alone. In fact, I go into some concepts in the book about agreement, where I will break agreements with myself because I know that I can manipulate the consequence, right? I I often talk about in my wallet, I have two sides to my wallet, and I have all of my business cards on one side and all of my personal cards on the other. And I keep my business cards meticulously, never mess it up. But the one with my wife's joint account, I screw that up every week, right? Why? Because the business, they'll put me in jail. I can get her to say it's okay, right? I break those agreements, and the closer that agreement gets to me, the easier it is to break. So the agreement with myself, I'm not gonna drink again, I'll never do this again. Those agreements, how many times have I broken? But if I have an agreement with Casey, my friend, I'm more likely to hold it. And so I need to be in relationship with people to create positive agreements, such as we're gonna meet every Saturday and play basketball. We're not gonna be drunken idiots, we're going to try to do these positive things. We're going to bring our kids together and be good family men. All of those are agreements I make with my tribe. And then my tribe, as a value supporter, helped me to stand that up.
Agreements And Accountability With Others
SPEAKER_00Which is what sober living is, if you think about it.
SPEAKER_01It's amazing you would make up that segue because, yeah, we were going to talk about sober living today.
What Sober Living Actually Is
SPEAKER_01So, Gerald, my audience is a varied group. There are family members of people with addiction, there are people in recovery, there's nurses, doctors, pharmacists. My audience is probably a higher percentage of healthcare providers. And as it often goes in healthcare, we know our lane, but we don't know the next lane over. So I refer a patient to physical therapy, but I don't necessarily know what physical therapy looks like. I just hear the result back from the patient. So let's just start like, I don't know anything. What is sober living? What does it look like day to day?
SPEAKER_00I love that you took me where I always go, which is physical therapy, right? I talked about some of the misnomers or the misstatements in this world. When people say, I've been sober since April 18th of 2008, I'm lying to you, right? Because I wasn't even close to sober on April 18th, 2008, or April 31st, 2008. It took a while before I was truly sober. I was dry, but I wasn't sober, if that makes sense to you, right? Sober is a a healthy state of mind and body, and I was doing all the good things. I was full of shit. Excuse me. But the same thing here. A lot of times people think that when you go away to treatment, you get fixed. Like at the muffler shop, right? I took the car in, they put the muffler on, came out, the car was quiet, it was fixed. That is not what we're doing, right? And so I often refer people to treatment is like getting a hip replacement, right? It takes place on a day. It may take seven hours, they cut you open, but when you come out, you're not ready to go jogging. You need physical therapy, you need a repetitive stressing of that joint so that it becomes stronger, less painful through repetition, right? Sober living is the exact same thing. It is me living in an environment under real life stress and trying to strengthen that recovery in me. And so when I move into that house, no, I'm not moving into the mansion at the corner with the butler, right? I'm moving into a place with a bunch of other guys who are probably going through the same thing. There are certain things that I can only call planned recovery, such as you have to go to six meetings a week at first, you have to be home by 10 o'clock, you have to do household chores. These are the disciplines that most people in recovery don't have. And so we're creating an agreement with the house. The agreement is your staying there is contingent upon you staying within the lines of this agreement. And you generally, most sober livings that I know of have some kind of a level system where they're six meetings a week for a month, and then five meetings, and then four meetings, and then one meeting are required with the hope that by the time you get down to one meeting, you like meetings that you're going to more anyway. By the time you get to that point, you realize that you shouldn't stay out till four o'clock in the morning every night on and chase women. In fact, in our house, when guys, and we have women too, want an overnight, they can't ask for the overnight that day. Right? Because I'm supposed to know that I'm going over to see my kids and spend the night, not be at Applebee's and meet some lady, and all of a sudden tonight's going to be an overnight. That's not what we're doing. So it's just building people into a sustainable, responsible lifestyle.
SPEAKER_01What does it look like day to day? I realize from your website, you run a men's sober living and a women's sober living. Is there a recommended wake-up time? Are there communal meals? You mentioned responsibilities. Is there programming in the sober living? Or is it more I'm getting sober, I don't know what a bank account is, I don't know how to get a utility bill, I don't know how to do anything. How much is it learn on your own versus specific programmed activities?
SPEAKER_00I was listening to some of your episodes recently, and I think I heard one where you said before sending somebody to a treatment center, do your investigation of what that treatment center is
Recovery Home Versus Sober Living
SPEAKER_00about. Same thing with sober living. First of all, there's some really crummy, predatory, sober living situations out there. Be careful. Let's not forget the people that are in recovery used to be the people that wasn't in recovery. And sometimes we do some less than recovered things. You really want to check a place out and make sure that they're on the level. But you also want to consider are you going into a recovery home? Are you going into a sober living, or are you going into an Oxford house? Right. And then there's halfway houses, which is a whole different animal. But recovery home, as we define them here in Illinois, you're talking about a place where the people living there have a treatment plan. They have counselors on site. It is basically treatment without walls, right? You live in this house in a neighborhood, and you have an 85-hour or 75-hour treatment plan. You may be going to MRT, you may be going to some of those kind of therapy things. You have the counselor is there 24 hours a day, or at least throughout the day. Maybe there's security at night. So you're almost in treatment. You just can go down the street to the store.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's like residential light.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay. Our house, in our community, we had one of those, and there was always wait. And we'd help our police department and our emergency rooms in our four counties find placements for people when they come in. And so we were always trying to get people into the recovery home, and we were finding there was a wait. And the reason there was wait was because the people who had been there for a year and a half, two years, didn't have anywhere to go. So we opened our house to be the next step. So our sober living house is the resident has more responsibility. The provider has less responsibility than the recovery home. So we have a house manager or a house leader who is somebody who has been in the program for a while. So it is all peer-led. They have rules, they have to go to a certain amount of meetings, they have levels, they have all the things. They just don't have a counselor living there. It's a little more honor system on them. We do have recovery coaching, and that was the difference I created versus Oxford House style, which was to be in our house, you have to have a recovery plan with a peer coach who is a CPRS, and you have to meet with that person weekly. Our house, you should be planning to get out a year from now or less. So what are you doing to make you getting out and going have a successful life more likely? There are some programs. I keep saying Oxford House. Oxford House is both a proper and a regular noun, right? There is a company called Oxford House, but there is also a concept called Oxford House. The Oxford House concept is they basically
Oxford House And Time Limits
SPEAKER_00set it up as a business, and somebody in the house is the president, and they all are contributing to pay the rent of that house. And as long as you stay sober and you kind of do the bare minimum of house things and you vote every week on things, you can stay. And when I explored it about coming to our community to create that opening so that we could move the people off the top of that other program, I asked them how long can somebody stay. And they said, Stay forever. Stay seven, eight years if they want. And that just really got the hair on the back of my neck standing up. Because to me, that's like putting a cast on a broken arm and just leaving it there forever. Right? I'm like, no, I don't believe in that. The goal is to get you back to independent life. So we did not go with Oxford House. We created our own. It's called Legacy. It's a system we created. And it starts with when you move in day one, we're gonna ask you, hey, what are you trying to accomplish? Where do you want your life to be a year from now? Oh, I want to be with my kids. I want to move to Montana. I want to have a good job in the oil industry. All right. Now, every week you're meeting with your coach. What steps are we taking? How are we bite-sizing that to get closer? And when you come to me and you're like, hey, I just bought this new transam, how does that relate? Was that moving us closer or further from that goal you set? So that's Gerald.
SPEAKER_01So if I could just clarify, and the reason I ask it this way is my first career in medicine was in the emergency department. And you got to know a ton of stuff. So I try to keep things simple. So now that I'm in addiction medicine, my brain still works the same way. So let me see if this analogy makes sense. So you and I both know there are loads of modalities, cognitive behavioral therapy, 12-step, whatever it's gonna be. When you're in a residential treatment program, your counselor takes your hand, takes you to the resources, and takes you through them. The model you set of a recovery house, you've got a counselor there. They'll take your hand and take you to the resources, but you got to learn some stuff on your own. What you're saying is your model of sober living is you've got a coach that says the resources are over there, go get them. Does that sound roughly right?
SPEAKER_00I love it. Yes, you're you've made you've put me out of business, man, because I got a whole presentation I go around the country telling you just told it in 30 seconds. Thanks. Appreciate you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's my ER dog brain. I've got to keep it simple. And then just want to clarify one acronym. CPRS is certified peer recovery specialist, correct?
SPEAKER_00Correct, correct. And every every state uses different terms for that. There's CRSS, CPRS, PRRS, or there's just a bunch of them. It means I'm a uh I have been certified or educated in how to provide support to somebody in recovery.
Individual Plans And Life Skills
SPEAKER_01I was taught that basically the age at which a person starts using or drinking, roughly that's the age of their social and emotional development that's stopped. And is preserved in their active addiction. And when they emerge from that addiction, they're still socially and emotionally at that age. And that's obviously an oversimplification. But if someone starts using cannabis at 13 and then at 27 they get sober, they still have the social and emotional skills of a 13-year-old. And that's why I like bringing up investing, is a lot of my folks think I'm sober, I go to meetings, I got a job. What else is there? And I'm like, okay, how's your car insurance? Do you know how to set a budget? Do you know how to open a checking account? So, how much in that sober living model where the coach is saying, those are the resources, go get them? Do you have a specific program that everybody goes through, like financial literacy, repairing relationships, how to buy a house? Or is it more like it's really individualized? The coach and the client sit down and hey, what are your goals? How do we get you, Bob, there specifically?
SPEAKER_00We like improv, yes, and right? We have those classes and such, but you are not necessarily required to go get them. And your coach can work with you and say, hey, you probably should. I'm seeing you have no idea what to do. We have a woman at one of our houses who has a job, has children, but they don't live with her. And in our model, you pay your own way. You don't have insurance, right? Some places, in fact, the recovery home I was telling you about, the reason people stay there is because insurance is paying for them to be there. So to them, it feels like they're living free. Our place, they will pay house dues every week. But this particular woman, house dues are like a hundred bucks a week, but she'll pay $13 today, $11 tomorrow, $9. And we're like, wait a second, why? And she's like, this is just how I can do it. And so we have recommended, hey, we want to get you into a budgeting situation so you start living like a grown-up and start. So yes, we do offer all that, but it is individualized because we cannot tell somebody how they should live. All we can do is provide the opportunity for them to learn. What I'm willing to accept from myself versus what somebody else is willing to accept from themselves is vastly different. And I don't want to put my worldview on somebody. I I we meet people all the time and they want to go work at the local factory and they want to turn the screw, and then another screw comes and they turn the screw and another. Man, that would drive me nuts. I would literally throw myself out a window if that was my job. And to them, they love it. It's what they feel like they were meant to do. So I have to be real careful that I don't start trying to make mini knees.
SPEAKER_01That goes back to your point about AA at the beginning. Lester does recovery this way. But Janet does it this way. I'm actually going to do a podcast in a few weeks about the dark side, if you will, of lived experience. Is that sometimes as healthcare providers, yourself, myself, we overly rely on our lived experience and we miss the forest for the trees, if you will. That this is my tree. This always worked for me. And realize there's a forest of recovery methodologies and approaches out there. So I like the fact that you're being individualized, but also you follow a general algorithm. It makes perfect sense to me.
SPEAKER_00I was in the car business for a lot of years, man. And so I always tell people your mileage may vary. You don't want what my life is, man. When I was sober for 14 years, I was in the music business, I was in the nightclub business. I was running, man. I was running and gunning. Now eventually it fell apart. But I cannot say that if I had your life, I wouldn't be drunk. And I can't say that if you tried to do what I'm doing, you would it just doesn't work for everybody. Everybody is individual. And the problem as I see it when I talk about the guy Lester, I'm not using humility and I'm not saying, hey, I'm kind of living on the edge here, but I like it on the edge. I'm telling this guy who comes in as a newcomer, oh, this will work for you. And if he takes my my advice and it doesn't work, he might die. That's a lot of that's a lot to wager on whether my bullshit works, right? There's a book. AA really is just the world's oldest book club, right? So there's a book. Route people back to the book, keep my way of doing it to me because it worked for me, not necessarily for everybody. I'll give you a great one. In the the world of AA, there's like, oh, don't date anybody for the first year, right? Come on, man. If Halle Berry calls and says she's willing to go out with me, I'm going. And so would you, right? So please don't tell me that. Tell me the reality. Don't date anybody in the first year if you're not really ready to commit and be honest. Don't date people in the same meeting because if you all break up, one of you all probably can't come back to the meeting. And if you all both need the meeting, one of you all could die. That's not the clever little saying, though.
SPEAKER_01So, Gerald, I'm gonna put on my simple oversimplified ER doc brain again, and I'm gonna see if I can make the sober living idea make sense in my mind. So the general idea is that you've completed some sort of treatment and you need a place where you can be safe in your recovery and learn the skills that you need to progress in your recovery. Independent living, independent finances, caring for others, being a good citizen in society. So it's almost if sober livings are cars, they all roughly do the same thing. They all drive, right? They all help people progress. But there are different makes and models, right? Your sober living has a particular general approach, and the one down the road might do things
A Typical Day In The House
SPEAKER_01slightly differently, like the Oxford model. But within each car, you can also individualize the settings to each client. Bob wants the seat really far back, Jane wants the seat really far front, Bob wants the automatic backup brake on, Janet wants it off. So it seems like the general model is consistent across sober livings. Each has their individual approach, but also allows each person to do what they want for what they need within the framework of that particular program. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00It should. It should. And this is where you run into some of the issues because you could get involved with a place that mandates that you have to go to a specific church. Got it. Or there everybody has to work for us, and we're all we're making sweaters. And so you're, you know, if that works for you, great. As soon as I say this is a horrible system and it's predatory and it's terrible, some guy will type in, I was there and I've been sober a million years since. I can't speak, but I know for me, I wouldn't want to go someplace where they made me go to church with everybody and do their thing. Sometimes the purpose is to learn those skills. But really, if you think about what happens when somebody goes to treatment, there nobody goes to treatment because the day before was a good day, right? Their wife was mad at them, the kids wouldn't talk to them, the bills were stacking up, they were about to lose their job, all those things, right? And then I take them and I pluck them out for 30 days, and I say, you don't have to worry about that stuff. Let's focus on this thing that's causing you problems. And then, oh, I love it. Okay, great. Day 31, guess who's still mad? Right? Guess who still doesn't want to talk to him? Now she's even madder because the bills have gotten higher because he ain't been to work. Right? And so if I take a guy whose defense against these problems was to numb out and use drugs, and I throw him right back into a more severe version of those problems, he's going to do the same things. Yeah. So, how about I take him someplace else down the road and I say, instead of rushing back into that, let's you maintain some support and let's ease in. Don't spend seven nights a week at the house arguing with her. Spend one night a week. And then after a month, two nights, right? Start paying those bills back, pay them down a little bit, right? Get back in the habit of going to work and coming home, not staying out all night. So it really is a transition back into life.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for that clarification. That was spot on. So, in terms of just what it looks like day to day, just give me an average day for one of the men or women in your sober living.
SPEAKER_00You wake up, you take your ass to work, you come back from work, and then whatever. If you have some chores to do, you do them. We at our women's home on Thursdays. So yesterday, three o'clock, there is a guy that comes and teaches yoga. And if you want to go teach yoga, you go do the yoga class. If not, that's not a mandatory. And then at 6 o'clock, there is a mandatory AA meeting that all the women go to. And then after that, you're free to do your life until curfew. I think the latest curfew is 11. So everybody should be home by 11. Can't take men back to the room or can't take guests back to your room. In our place, every apartment has their own kitchen. And it's not even really apartments. They share a common hall. It's just two women in each place. The biggest part of sober living is the social aspect. They have to be in community with one another. Isolation is a huge driver of addiction. So I don't want to create situations where somebody can just sit in their room. Where's Casey? Oh, we ain't seen him in three weeks. We've come to find out. Casey's been up there dead and stinking and nobody knew. We can't do that. So in our place, we almost force socialization and connection. If they are in their rooms, unless they're sleeping, they need to have their door open so you can walk by and say hi or whatever. But yes, they cook for themselves, do their own laundry. It's regular life if you just are living in a place where there's a little bit of structure and such. Once a week, you would have to meet with your coach. Most likely your coach is walking through the building anyway, so you're going to bump into them and they're going to ask you, hey, what happened with the job interview, or is your boyfriend still crazy or whatever?
SPEAKER_01But so it seems like it's a really nice mix of accountability, responsibility, and community.
SPEAKER_00Basically. Yeah. Beautiful. That's it.
SPEAKER_01Gerald, as we get to the end of our time together, what last thoughts or nuggets of wisdom do you want to share with us about sober living?
No Shame And Always Welcome Home
SPEAKER_00Um I want to tell you a story. 1994, I went into a sober living program in Chicago, and I lived there for about four or five months, and it was great, and it helped me get started, and life went on, and I got sober for 14 years. And I eventually relapsed. And I called, and I did it in this order. I asked God for help, and then I called the number of the place I had lived 15 years ago. And a guy who had lived in the house with me answered the phone. He was now the manager. And I said, Is this Warren? He said, Yeah. And I said, Warren, I need to come home. And he said, Okay, I got you. And they brought me back in, and I was back in the house within a day, and it started this period of sobriety. And so I want people to know that there's no shame in going to a sober living home. It's not forever. It's restrictive a little bit, but it is way less restrictive than my addiction was. It's way less restrictive than jail. And at least for us, whenever somebody checks into our house, we don't say welcome to the house. We say welcome home. Because we want them to know that as long as they are positive to the herd, that doesn't mean they have to be sober, but as long as they're not negative to the herd, this will always be home for them. But you can always come back. If you go out there and life starts kicking your ass, please come sit on our front porch till one of us gets to work. I would rather you do that than go the other way.
SPEAKER_01I have to say, Gerald, I've been admiring your shirt the whole time of recover loudly.
SPEAKER_00It says, Recover loudly to keep others from dying quietly.
SPEAKER_01I have to say, Gerald, thank you for joining me today on the podcast and recovering loudly to help others.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thank you for doing what you do.
Review Request And Closing Message
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for listening to Addiction Medicine Made Easy. If you found this helpful, please leave a review. It really helps others find the show. And a huge thank you to Central Coast Overdose Prevention for supporting this podcast. And always remember treating addiction saves lives.