The “Book Cover” of Addiction with Tony Shimkin

Composer and producer Tony Shimkin grew up surrounded by songwriting and record production, and built his own path through studio sessions and high-level creative work. But the part that almost took him out wasn’t a bad deal – it was addiction, secrecy, and the slow drift away from truth.

We talk with Tony about the “book cover” problem: the outside looks successful, the inside is falling apart. He walks us through his early sobriety followed by the intense relapse later in life. The turning point hits hard – his son discovers what’s been hidden, and the family draws a line. Tony then goes into what surrender actually looks like day to day.

Then the story widens into purpose. Tony becomes a certified recovery peer advocate, a responder to non-fatal overdoses with the NYC Department of Health, and even goes back to school for social work. We also dig into the neuroscience of addiction and why a simple mantra like “you are worthy of love and respect” can start rewiring a life.

Transcript

Welcome And Tony’s Big Picture

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome back to Out of the Blue of the Podcast, where we explore those unexpected moments, the ones that arrive without warning and somehow redirect our lives toward purpose, service, and connection. I'm Vernon West, and I'm here with my co-host Vernon West III, the creative force behind our logo, our theme music, and so much of the soul of this show. Today's guest is someone whose life sits at that rare intersection of creativity, legacy, recovery, and service. A reminder that art doesn't just move us, sometimes it saves us. Tony Shinkin grew up surrounded by storytelling and music in a world where creativity wasn't a hobby, it was a way of life. And over the years, his work has quietly shaped the soundtrack of our culture, songs, productions, and collaborations that reached the highest stages of music and entertainment, heard by millions, often without them even knowing his name. But as we say here in Out of the Blue, success doesn't always tell the whole story because somewhere along the way, Tony's life took a turn, one that shifted the focus from external achievement to internal transformation, a turn that led him not just deeper into creativity, but into recovery, compassion, and service. Today, Tony stands on the front lines of healing, working with people struggling with addiction, walking alongside them with empathy, lived experience, and hope. He's chosen a path where creativity and care aren't separate chapters but part of the same story. At its heart, Tony Shimpkin's journey is about evolution, how legacy becomes responsibility, how recovery becomes purpose, and how the most meaningful work often begins when we stop chasing applause and start answering the call to give back. So take a breath, lean in and join us for a conversation about music, meaning, service, and what happens when life gently or violently calls you out of the blue. Tony Shimkin, welcome to Out of the Blue the Podcast. How are you doing, Tony?

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Thank you so much for inviting me to do this.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Oh, you're welcome. I'm so happy to have you.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Both of us, it's really awesome to meet the two of you uh together now. I mean, I talk to you, Vernon, but meet your son. I have a we have my own son also, so your son does.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

We have fun.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

We have fun working together.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

I think your son's about the same age as Vernon. Vernon's 33.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

My son is just turned 27.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Oh, he's a bit older, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Yeah, he he'd be in my ilk, especially if he's uh uh follows in your footsteps and does cool stuff with music, which I am definitely intrigued by. That intro definitely left me wanting more.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

That's what it's about. That was I hit the nail on the head. Good job, intro man.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

I definitely tried to dissuade him from getting into the music business, but uh oh yeah. He didn't listen. He didn't listen.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

You know, I guess my dad warned me as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

You know, you have to have a thick skin, you have to be ready to deal with a lot of you know shit. But um Tony, let's start. Let's let's start. Let's hear your your tell us about your journey, uh, where it all began, how it started, and you know, where it led and where you are today. And so in 30 words or less. No, no, I'm kidding.

Growing Up In Music And Montauk

SPEAKER_02 4:05

So I was um I was born in and in New York City. I'm not gonna say I was raised in New York City because I like to say I was raised in the in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Um but I was I was born in New York City on May 9th of 1968, New York Hospital. Uh my mother, uh Bonnie, decided I'm Jewish. My mother, for some reason, decided to name me Anthony Mark Nikolai Shimkin. Don't ask why. She even wrote a song about it. Um, something like Anthony Mark Nikolai Shimkin, what a heck of a name for a kid, something like that. Anyway, my father, uh Arthur, um 20 years her senior. It was his second marriage um a marriage prior that lasted 20 years. Uh he has two sons, my half-brothers, David and Johnny. Um you know, my mother's a songwriter and a cabaret singer. My father is uh was a record producer and um a children's record producer uh and creator. Um he's a Grammy winner. He's uh he won the Grammy, I believe it was I want to say 1960. It was like the fourth Grammy Award or something like that. So 1962 or 1964 for uh it was Leonard Bernstein and the Philharmonic doing Peter and the Wolf.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Okay. I you know, I'm I I can re actually remember like a TV show when I was a kid with Lennon Bernstein playing Peter.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Yeah, so and he created um Golden Books and he created Golden Records, which went along with the little golden books that Simon and Schuster published.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Um, and he created Sesame Street Records. So I grew up around music. Um my parents had the most eclectic of record collections. I have a younger brother, two years my junior, Carl, um, and he uh he was um I don't know, we were very different, and yet uh we're very close uh to still. I mean, even more so today than we used than we were throughout the years growing up because we're both in recovery. Um and he and he had a big transformation. He became a nurse, you know, uh at 48 years old, something like that. He became a registered nurse.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

And I moved into this profession from the music business. So, you know, I played music. I had two passions. I had um a passion for uh the ocean and marine biology and marine science, which I pursued as a youth, uh you know, living in New York, but I spent all my summers in Montauk, Long Island, which is you know the easternmost tip of New York.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Beautiful area.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

They call Montauk a uh fish uh a drinking town with a fishing problem. It was like known for it was known for surfing and fishing, and and it was not the Hamptons, and my father fell in love with it during, you know, like right after World War II. Before there was a Long Island Expressway, he found his way out to Montauk, fell in love with it, and from birth until uh up until I was two years old, we rented a place in there in the summers, and then when I was two, he purchased a home, uh, which became our sort of summer place. And I we went in the winter sometimes, but in the summers, I grew up my spending my summers there and my rest of the time in New York City, and then I wound up working every summer from a very young age. Like they're child labor laws that would prohibit this now.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

But my best friend, his father owned a marina, and I spent every summer living with my best friend most of the time at his father's marina, and he put us to work from like the age of six.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Oh, like yeah, that's a law. There's a law there somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

There's a law there, you know, like a quarter an hour, I think, was our first uh pay scale, and then it went up from there gradually.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

But still, it wasn't it, it must have been a wicked cool adventure.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

I loved it. I loved everything about being around the water and fishing and boating.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

And then in New York, uh, you know, I I went to school and I and I got involved in and found music in my, you know, throughout the years, but pursued it and started becoming interested in playing music and recording and all of that in my high school years. Um and and I was around music all the time. My parents had New Year's Eve parties, and Steve Allen would be playing piano, and like all of these people, these the most eclectic collection of wacky and uh eccentric people would be at their New Year's Eve parties.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

And just I I I've got to say, I have a similar uh upbringing, but it was in Massachusetts, and my uncles were my one of my uncles was uh an MC and uh at the Frolics, and uh that was very popular, had like Barbara Streisand, had a lot of big name people there, and every Thanksgiving or holidays, there would be a comedian like uh Jackie Mason once came. Frank Fontaine came. There was like these incredibly great comedians, and I remember as a child just laughing. I couldn't even eat. They just couldn't help but crack me up. Every word out of their mouths would make me die. And then I remember that also there were a lot of highballs laying around. It was all these and they were drinking highballs, and I don't know, you know, I I still don't even really know what a highball is, but it is a drink that my parents and their friends drank a lot, and it was like a normal thing, just get you know, get drunk at Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah, and um, that's all you can continue now.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Yeah, no, no, no. I did it sounds very similar.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

I yeah, I can I can almost feel it's the same resonance of that same vibe, you know. But you had Steve Allen, that was that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

There was just like, yeah, wild parties, a lot of alcohol, people smoking, I mean, just a lot of music and laughter and life and all of that. And um, you know, I I went to public school um until high school for some re

Family Upheaval And Early Drinking Normalized

SPEAKER_02 10:40

I well, not for some reason. My father lost his voice to um to uh cancer of the larynx in when I was about thirteen, twelve or thirteen years old. Um he had a laryngectomy, and so he had the stoma, the hole in his neck.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yep, yep. It happened to my uncle.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Everything sort of changed from that, you know, when that happened. There were, you know, all of a sudden there was uh financial difficulties, economic insecurity, uh, job, and like he, you know, like he was no longer present in the Sesame Street Records. Um, and and he struggled to try to maintain what we all had, you know, whatever my mother wanted, the house and mantra, all of these things. And throughout the years, it just it was challenging. And my and my brother remained sort of in the public school system. He had he had uh and he went to Stuyvesant High School, his high school English teacher. I was very jealous of this in retrospect. His high school English teacher was Frank McCourt, the author of Angela's Ashes.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Oh, right, Angela's ashes, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yeah, and he was two years younger than me, but it felt like he was older than me in his, you know, from a from an education standpoint.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Right. Did he get recur into recovery before you or after you?

First Sobriety And The 1996 Bottom

SPEAKER_02 12:00

That's a great question. So he he got sober for the first time in early of uh 1996, and about six months after he got sober, I got sober for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Well, that's exactly what happened to me and my brother. Really, and he's younger too.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Yeah, I remember uh just the the chaos that went on around that time before he uh when he went into rehab and the chaos that came about, you know, when he had a major sort of relapse uh many years later. And then and then conversely when I when I did the same, you know, I got sober in the first time was December 7th of 1996. Um it was a very much a physical bottom that I hit. Uh I uh was I was newly married, I went through some sort of uh difficulties in early married life and then very early married life, and we're talking like six months into being married because we got married in June of 96. Um and I went to I when I hit that bottom, I drove uh I won't say the scene of the crime because I really had fond memories of Montauk, but I drove out to Montauk Long Island in the middle of a blizzard, December of 96. Um it took me seven hours to drive out there, which normally would take two or three.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

That's a long ride.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

I consumed I don't know how much of you know drugs and alcohol on my way out there. And um, and I can remember I called my brother up about a day later, um frightened to death, and I said, uh Yeah, I need yeah, I think I don't know if I said I need help, but he knew. He knew and he told me to stop by and see him on my way back to the city, which I did.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Well, that's what brothers are for, right? They can really be there for you, you know. Yeah. But it was a beautiful kind of out of the blue situation that he got the sobriety and you needed it next, you know. They kind of fold into it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Um I think I just remember I think we were probably both struggling to some degree, but his his was so much uh worse in the sense that you could point at him and go, you know, he's floundering, he's suffering, he's having problems, his life is a mess. And as long as that was possible, there was no spotlight on me. You know, I had a terrific career and a wonderful, you know, I already had a thriving career. Um, I was doing well by every measure. So my substance use and my alcoholism was just not apparent.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Um, whereas the book cover, it's like the book cover. Yeah, I I think I I thought I shared about that once about that I felt like I had a book cover that nobody could really knew how screwed up I was inside the book. It was getting the right way to put it, it was getting worse and worse. But people were like, you know, he's doing all right. I mean, he's on there, you know, he's he's succeeding, making money, whatever it is that they measured that by. And I was thinking, yeah, that I'm gonna fool, I'm gonna pull this off. But when I finally did find my myself in in surrender and get recovery, nobody stood up and said, you know, I never thought you had a problem. No, they were all very much, hey, good thing you got that, you know, because I wasn't kidding anybody.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Yeah, we're the last to find out, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, right. But I thought I was the book cover seems really intact.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Yeah, I remember when he, you know, once he uh then went to rehab, um, you know, the spotlight, I think you know, was redirected onto me.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Um you were doing you were really going really well with successful. What were you doing

Learning The Studio And Building A Career

SPEAKER_01 15:50

at that time when this was going on?

SPEAKER_02 15:51

When I was 18, I uh not 18, sorry, when I was about 16 or 17 and in high school, I started working in a recording studio. My father introduced me to the son of his friend uh who owned a recording studio in Manhattan called Soundworks. Um it's a studio where they did Steely Dan, like they recorded Steely Dance, Gaucho, and Donald Fagan's The Nightfly, and and some amazing albums were recorded there. But primarily when I was working there as an intern, it was a remix, dance, remixed sort of um clientele. And um and I worked, you know, for a a year or two as a as an intern when I was in high school, and then as a as an assistant editor and uh assistant engineer and then an editor, and then a record producer I was working with, who was a client there at the time, hired me to be his personal assistant. But we started writing music together, and before I knew it, I I was working on you know some of the biggest projects and the most major artists, and and uh because I had a musical background and I played bass and I was in bands, and I was technically savvy enough to run you know the digital gear that made it possible for us to produce and write uh it within the home.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Vernon Vernon also is a very experienced uh recording artist. Um uh I would say you got a lot of teaching

Father Son Creativity And Collaboration

SPEAKER_01 17:20

recorded with me.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

We did a whole album together, but not to turn the tables as an interviewer, but I'm really curious what was the experience between you as a father and son working together? Because I have my own experience now in working with my son on music. Like we have worked together. Oh, I could answer that.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Oh, you do, you go ahead. Okay, I mean I'll take a turn. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

Well, because from my perspective, it was different, I think. Because I was I was learning about music through him, and I knew I like I would see his band practices and see his live shows, and I was always like blown away. It seemed really fun too. I remember the the music room would always smell like dude, it would always smell like kind of like gross men sweat, and I would and I was like intrigued, like they're working up with sweat in there. That's weird. That's fun though. Um, and so basically it was like I started taking a liking to guitar or drums first, but oh yeah, it was it was so it was drums, and then I had like a sort of band in middle school, and it was really just um my dad sitting down with a laptop, and I guess his interface, which I'm not even really, I don't really even remember, it was like an inbox maybe. And he would he would it was just like live in the room, um looking back now, pretty rough, pretty rough quality.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

I remember for you I said I had to set the console up outside the door of the little pro of the room and shut it so I could have some separation to hear what the hell was being recorded. But later on, that room, that room we developed into an actual studio where we put a windowed control room that was soundproofed. That made it a lot better. We put a nice soundboard there. But I'm gonna say, or to chime in, Vernon, the first time we actually worked together, Vernon had come back from Principia. He went to school in mid uh Illinois, uh, right? St. Louis area, Elsa, Illinois.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

Yeah. Oh, you're talking about you're talking about the album the album in college.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

No, I'm talking about when we came home, the first time we did something together, we did Can't Stop Dreaming.

SPEAKER_03 19:29

That's that is far from the first time we started doing stuff. Correct me. Oh yeah. When I was in when I was very young in summer camp, me and my friend Peter Wilde, who's an incredible, incredible like jazz fusion guitarist. Look him up, anyone who's listening. Um, we we would write songs together at camp, and then we came back and I just recorded like I think maybe one or two mics. My dad was really big into the drumagogue from like as far as I can remember. So I would have these like really like crappy drum sounds and the most pristine kick sound you could even imagine. And then, you know, the my buddy on guitar was actually really good for being, you know, fift 13, I think, at the time. So that was really the first time. It was a lot of him overseeing projects, but then later on, I began like writing with him and his songs, and I think that's what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah, yeah. When when we I think the the culmination of all that growth was when we did the song I can't stop dreaming, and that still exists on YouTube. And when I put that out, just put it out of the lock. We filmed it, videoed it. A friend of ours that still worked with us. As a matter of fact, the guy that's the producer of this show, Joe Gallo, hey Joe, he was the guy that filmed us down in my little basement room, and we did Can't Stop Dreaming. It was just bass and drums and vocal, and that was it. And I said, let's just do it live because I felt like I was so sick of like perfect recordings and everybody's overdubing, everyone's lip-syncing. I figured like I'd rather have people see something like walk in a tightrope. We might fall, you know. I thought that made it exciting. So, and you know what? I was I was right. We put that out without any push at all. Almost like in in a two weeks it got 10,000 views all over the world. And I was getting like messages from people in Africa saying, Vernon, what do you mean? Do we can we still keep dreaming? It was it was a wonderful experience. I used to tell people that he reminded me of Keith Moon, you know, because told me about it because he was so like feeling, it was all about feeling literally zero chops, all feeling.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

That was no, you had some chops, you had some chops. No, no, not really. But I will say, I will say, um, just to you know, to wrap this up, before that, there was so much, there was like a lot building up to. That moment, which wasn't to me in my mind, as big of a moment because I had recorded so much in that basement with you. So big so it was a long relationship of me sort of like learning from him, wanting to record, not knowing how to record, asking him to record, not being satisfied with his recordings, learning how to r record it myself, and then eventually I eventually I moved on to recording my friend's album in my basement. So so it was like a a long process.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

It's it's no, I I asked because I'm I was just yeah, I was curious when my son uh I used to have for for many years after the sort of record business stuff, you know, working with artists, remixing, producing, I I had about a 15-year career doing uh music for advertising, which was a whole nother animal because which was awesome because I was I was exploring multiple genres. I had to do everything from jazz to to some classical to to rock to RB to hip-hop to dance music, like electronic, everything. Right, and and then pro like just weird creations, and and all throughout all of those years, my son, I would often have him in the studio, like babysitting him essentially, would be him being in the studio with me. And maybe he'd be playing a game while I was working the gear and doing my job. But I think he was around it. He got the music bug later on, his mother manages music artists. We always had music artists in the house, almost emulating sort of my childhood, right? We had odd people always around the house, these artists we were working with. My son was around it. He probably equal parts hated it and was fascinated by it. And so he got interested in music. And just for context, he now manages an artist. But there have been over the last couple of years, um, not to the last three years, about three years ago, he expressed an interest in exploring sort of writing music and recording music, kind of not as an artist per se, but he wanted, yeah, he wanted to be the artist. He wanted to express himself as a way to um process and and deal with I don't know, difficult emotions and feelings.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

So he would totally, yeah, that's what drew me to it, too.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Yeah, he wanted to do it. And the first time we worked together, it was her, it was I hated it. I because, first of all, he wouldn't listen to a thing I had to say. I was very much like that. Like, I know what I'm doing. How dare like you need to listen to me? And he wanted to just have fun and explore, and we it didn't go like it. Nothing that we did at that point was anything I was very happy with. And then maybe he was or wasn't, I don't know. But after a while, we came back to try it again, and all of a sudden, he allowed me to do what I do, I allowed him to do what he did, and it became like we were pumping things out, like anytime we wanted to. We went to my studio and we we popped out a we popped out one or two or even three songs in a matter of hours. But for both of us, it was sort of for him, it was a uh an exploration and a and an emerging love of music, and for me, it was a return to my past love and enjoyment in producing and writing music again and creating these songs, not 30-second bits of a yeah, like a full circle is like write a song and make it 30 seconds long, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Right. But it's full circle for your for your creative creation. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

It was I was having fun again, and I've nothing, there was no I did not rely on it for my career, right? My I had a new career, I didn't need to do it. Now I got to do it. I got I got to have fun doing it again, which was really cool.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

So, what what led you to your new career exactly and out

The Long Relapse And Getting Caught

SPEAKER_03 26:15

of music?

SPEAKER_02 26:16

From about 2009, 2010, somewhere around there, maybe even 2008, somewhere in the close to 2010, began a long uh relapse. I had I had gotten sober in 96. I stayed sober for five years, I had a brief relapse, I stayed sober another two, three years, I had another sort of brief relapse and stayed sober for another two years, and it but the periods of sobriety started becoming shorter, the periods of relapse started becoming longer, and then around 2010 until 2017 was one long relapse that got progressively worse, worse and worse. And in and if you ask about an out-of-the-bloom moment, the out-of-the-blue moment for me was in 2017, um, somewhere around I want to say March, maybe for the first time, somewhere in February or March of probably March of 2017, I got found out. Not that there weren't signs, but I had excuses for all of the reasons, explanations for all of the bad things or the the things that were may have been concerning. And in and in around that time in 2017, my son discovered the secret that I had been hiding, which was a which was a very bad addiction to opiates, to uh to um uh prescription, heavy duty prescription opiates, not prescribed. Maybe they were briefly 10 years earlier, but he discovered that. So I got busted. He alerted my wife. There was a con there was an intervention, if you will, by them. Um my son desperately wanted me to go to rehab. My wife said, you know, he'll call his sponsor. I had been in AA throughout this time as well, just by the way, going to meetings under the influence, going to meetings in and out of sobriety, um, struggling and and for about a month, a month and a half, I made promises, uh, broke promises, and in the out-of-the-blue moment for me, as best I can describe, was um in April of 2017. I took my son after you know being found out, promising, putting together, you know, a couple of weeks, maybe a month, close to a month, relapsing, making the promise again. And so for the third time he caught me in a lie. Um, I was I was asked to take him to Syracuse University, where he had been accepted to go to school for sort of a welcome to the new students, incoming students. And I was not trusted to hold the cash, I was trusted to drive us up there, and I drove him up and I did bring these pills with me. And uh while we were up there, um he busted me again. This is like the third time he had now caught me, and um just uh you know, just to paint a picture, the time right before that he caught me and he was crying and he was emotional and he was he was hitting me, he was angry and he was screaming at me like, Why are you lying to me? Because I was denying what was going on. And uh and I you know, I tried to my best to to put him at bay and get away with it just a little bit longer. So I'm up at Syracuse with him, he he found me out again and he was he went to see uh to hang out with a friend of his from high school who was also up there for that event at Syracuse. And um, you know, I was on the phone with my wife and she said, Well, he's gonna drive back with his friend. He doesn't trust getting in the car with you, he's worried, he said he saw a text or and I think I had about enough money in my pocket to pay for gas, not even cigarettes. Um and I, you know, I cried on that night uh to my wife on the phone, and I think I I gave up and I said, uh, you know, I'll do whatever you guys want me. I'll go to detox and I'll go to rehab. You know, that's what he wanted from the

Detox Rehab Sober Living And Surrender

SPEAKER_02 30:40

get-go. And I and I came home and I went to detox, five days in detox in Manhattan at Mount Sinai West. And then I went, I requested a rehab, a long-term residential program that I sent my brother to about three years earlier when he had a relapse. And his relapse was pretty bad too. I sent him there after he had already done 28 days. I sent him to a place called St. Christopher's Inn up in Garrison, New York. He stayed there for three months, and then he went to a sober house. I followed the same path. So uh my sobriety date is April 25th of 2017. Um that's when I went into detox. Um and then uh after four or five days in detox, I went to I had a couple of days at home waiting for the bed to open up. I went up to St. Christopher's Inn on May 4th, I think it was, um, or 5th. And then I spent my 40, I was 48 years old. I spent my 49th birthday on May 9th at um St. Christopher's Inn. And I was there for four months. Um and then I went to a sober house and I stayed there for 11 months. Uh I could have gone home, and but they recommended that I go to uh a sober house, and I followed their recommendation, not willingly right away. I mean it took a it took a little while for me to completely sort of give up the idea that I knew anything about recovery or sobriety.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

It is a real unbelievable testament, though, to make that kind of commit surrender, to surrender really.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

And that's where I that's that is the place that I not only sort of gave up uh knowing anything, but when I did that, I opened myself up to learning a lot. And I was introduced to you know the neuroscience and the and the science of addiction behind.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

There's a lot to it, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

Yeah, and I, you know, so now I had AA 12-step program, and I had all this other knowledge I was being given, and it just it just made me want to learn everything about it. And you know, I went back to like driving Uber or whatever when I got out of rehab, but about uh close to two years later, almost two years after that, getting sober, um, I met the guy who ran that rehab, had gone to work where I work now at St. Vincent's Hospital in Harrison, New York. He was he had moved from that rehab to this hospital. And um I was told to talk to him that suggested that I talk to him, that he was going to be hiring and training people called he called them peers, uh, certified recovery peer advocates. Oh, really? What it was. Yeah. So I went, I met with him. He put me through some training. I started working here as a peer. I then pursued uh becoming a credentialed substance abuse counselor, and now I'm in school full-time. I work two jobs: this job and a job responding to non-fatal overdoses for the New York City Department of Health. Um, I'm basically on call for like 12-hour shifts, three or four nights a week. I'm here five days a week, and I'm in school full-time for my uh bachelor's, master's in social work. So you're gonna get your LSC uh I will get my LSW or my uh well, yeah, licensed clinical social workers.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

LCSW. Yeah. It is and it's amazing, amazing, Tony. That's that's amazing. Well, you're taking and plus you're taking with that, with to that, your own personal experience.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

I mean yeah, absolutely. I love that's what I love. I love the the con the the uh the coming together of you know my past life experience, my lived experience in addiction and recovery. You know, so you take the music that all of that just bring and and the connection to so many like people like you, Vernon, and everybody we know, you know, in recovery. And it's this connection with people that foster like and and it just a general sort of gregarious open uh kind of nature I have of an interest. I'm I'm curious about people. So I get to know people, and that all just serves me really well in this in this field, um, to you know, to do everything from see somebody who had an overdose who's homeless and in the hospital and and get them to trust me and maybe uh take some suggestions or allow me to help them uh to people who you know who are 18 and 19 years old. I've worked with adolescents in the program here, but you know, from 15, 16-year-old kids to 20 somethings and 30 somethings and 40, 50, like for some reason I'm able to identify and um on whatever level uh connect with them. Yeah, I can identify with them and I can connect with them no matter what their age, background, race, uh orientation like socioeconomic status, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

It's all about connection, it really is.

SPEAKER_03 36:01

It's all about connection, and that's not uh that's not for everyone, too. That is like a specific type of mentor that can reach someone at their level. I think so.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

I

Connection Self Worth And Changing Beliefs

SPEAKER_01 36:15

just this you know this is the this is so much right at the heart of Out of the Blue. This is exactly what this what I started the podcast for. I mean, I I I it came about as an inspiration to somehow gather people and tell their stories and connect with other people, but it was all about connection and people sharing stories of resilience and how they turned their adversity, whatever it was. I wanted to have the you know cast a wide net. Could be drugs, alcohol, could be getting a cancer diagnosis, it could be getting hit by a truck. I mean, uh like it didn't matter. I think I think that's what's beautiful about this because this is this is the heart and soul of out of the blue is connection. We want to connect people. Can you I think that that's a solution to if you want my humble opinion, um be trying to be humble, the world's problems is is the solving the world's problems is gonna be done in this way. I really feel it. I feel that the only way we're gonna solve this this this crazy stuff going on is by connection, you know. You know, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

The other thing I I I should I absolutely mention is the encouragement I've received from my wife and my son throughout all of this, like is beyond anything I could ever uh like I never thought of myself as a good student. It was my wife who throughout all of these years was like, you should go back and get your bachelor's, you should finish college. And I was like, I'm stupid, I'm not a good student, I couldn't do that until like they believed in me until I could believe in myself.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

Then and then it just took actually studying a subject, which I find fascinating, to realize that I'm an amazing student when I love the subject.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

You know, it's it's it's funny, it's funny you say you think you're stupid because I would not get that impression from you.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

It's so you know, but it's self-esteem issues, I think it's what it comes down to. And then, you know, my wife and son have been so supportive and encouraging throughout it. And then I in turn am a better person and I can be there for them. Um, the woman who worked at the rehab when I was there, this woman named Janet sort of instilled in me this idea of uh being able to not only recover and get sober, but uh that that I could be the father and the husband and the brother and the son that I always was meant to be. And made me believe that they made me they drilled this message into our heads at St. Christopher's Inn that um their mantra was you are a good man worthy of love and respect. And they repeated it that they they repeated that phrase on a daily basis so often that at first you were like, Shut up, I'm not, to gradually believing it to wholeheartedly buying into that, yeah, and then passing that message along to the new guys who arrived there.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Exactly. And there's another there's another element that I will I you just made me remember alignment. It's like connection and alignment. I think those two things are the factors or the uh things that uh precipitate real change because when you have alignment uh and again and you connect, then people get on the same course, same track, and then say the track starts to turn left, or they start going with you because it's the election is good, you know. The the the uh the connection is there and they trust you, and then you can precipitate actual change in their lives, which is so wonderful it really is.

SPEAKER_03 39:47

Yeah, the the constant reminder of the simple thing, like that you are worthy of love. Yeah, why is that so difficult to just accept? And it's like we what is what is with this like incessant self-doubt that it seems like so many of us have, and it manifests in so many different ways. And how why is it that the solution is so damn simple? Just repeating it.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

No, you're right. It it's I think it comes down to core beliefs, whatever however we develop these core beliefs of you know, my core beliefs that I'm not a good student, and I'm you know, like all of these that that were so ingrained we just tell ourselves without realizing it. I think it comes down to like, and we've talked about this in our uh our uh 12-step meeting, but neuroplasticity that you know, long over a long enough period of time, you have these these pathways in your brain, and they are so well established, so they're just so comfortable. Whether it's I'm not good enough, uh, I'm stupid, um, or the conversely, you know, I'm awesome, like ego, that you have these, they're so well established that if you believe I'm not good enough, it's so deep. But if you if you repeat, I'm a good man of worthy, like a mantra of love and respect, often enough and for long enough, that becomes the new path. That becomes and the other one gets filled in. I always love the the um the example of sort of tracks in the snow. You get like deep tracks in the snow or the mud. And if you start driving down another path, those become the deep tracks. The other ones get filled in by weather and time and so over.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Oh wow, that's heavy stuff, man.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

I think, I think, yeah, you're a great example of um like kind of like the book thing. Your life can be looking a certain way, you can maintain a presentation, but it is not too late. It's never too late. The and it also it's okay if it happen if there's a relapse or it happens again. You never know what you're kind of being prepared for. It's the kind of thing where you look back and it seems like, oh, that made sense that those steps led you now to this like incredible career, this like you know, multi-level career of service. It seems like you've dedicated yourself to service and giving your experiences and your learned knowledge to other people, especially young people, like that's huge. But like it's never too late, and you don't be hard on yourself because you could you could end up, you know, in a in a hospital helping someone who had no hope left.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Yeah, there's um you know you're so right that uh you know you could you could agonize over you know relapsing. But had I never relapsed, I wouldn't be worried, like doing what I'm doing now. Like that took uh not only, you know, any relapse, multiple relapses, but it took like it took what it took. But I had these relapses that led me to eventually going through a long like everything led to the next thing. And and um and and I and like you said, uh my wife asked me um not long after uh I was in that long-term residential treatment. Um, you know, she mentioned how scary it was to go through that, you know, the the the lies and not knowing what was going on for 10 years and all of this. And she said, Promise me it'll never happen again. And the most honest thing I ever said in my life to this day was I can't, I can't promise you that it'll never happen again.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

It's one day or two.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Yeah, right. I mean, chances are it probably will happen again. Like, you know, if you look at the numbers, but but by saying that I can't promise it, I've just relieved myself of of uh a tremendous amount of pressure and weight that I would have to carry around.

SPEAKER_03 43:55

That that's a beautiful testament to your relationship as well. It is to to love someone throughout their their rough patches and changes and not expect them to need to be perfect in order to be enough.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Yeah, I mean to be married 30 years is an accomplishment. Through given it, man, you said it. Yeah, to everything I've put them through, to everything they've been through and put me through, like to weather all of that.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

It speaks to your integrity, it speaks to something about your soul, you know, and the family itself, too, strong family.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

Yeah, I mean, my mother and father stayed married until my father when he passed, and he passed with 10 years. My father got sober at 75 years old. That was the other part.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Oh amazing.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

I followed my brother into sobriety, uh, and my father followed us into sobriety. So, six months after I got sober for the first time in 1996, my father got sober in 1997, and he stayed sober until he died in 2007.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

So that's a that's just a beautiful miracle. I don't care what anybody says. I'm saying it. That's a beautiful miracle, an example of love on the highest level,

Gratitude Part Two Tease And Closing

SPEAKER_01 45:05

of the kind of love that really transcends everything. But Tony, you really I really can't tell you how grateful I am. It's a wonderful, wonderful interview, and you have so much good shit to tell us about, you know what I mean. I gotta tell you a few things that popped in my head, but I can't I don't want to waste more time on this episode. We can talk about it, it'll be part of the next episode. But um we definitely will. Um, I love you, man. Thank you so much for being here today. Uh and out of the blue with my son and I. And uh man, there's yet more to come with Tony.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

So much for oh, uh, just let me do this and get to talk to you and get to learn a little bit about both of you.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Yeah, thanks for being here. Thanks for asking a little bit about us. That's that was fun to revisit. But thank you for thank you for you know.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

You are, yeah. And I I have to tell you, now it's official. You have been adopted, you're part of the out of the blue family, and that's forever.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Thank you, everybody, for joining us on Out of the Blue, the podcast. This has been a special one with Tony Shimpkin. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and I know you'll be coming back to see when we do part two with Tony, because it's gonna come. Anyway, have a good day, and thank you again. Push that like button, smash that follow, whatever you're gonna do to spread the word. Thanks a lot for joining us. Out of the blue, the podcast. Hosted by me, Vernon West. Co-hosted by Vernon West the Thorough, edited by Joe Gallo. Music and logo by Vernon West the Thorough. Have an out of the blue story of your own you'd like to share? Reach us at info at out of the blue hyphen the podcast.org. Subscribe to out of the blue on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And on our website, out of the blue hyphen the podcast.org.