From Addiction to Artistry: Jack Raymond's Journey of Healing

J Raymond shares his story of overcoming addiction and trauma. Raised in a household with alcoholics, J found solace in reading and writing, leading to a career in literature. 

His father's death at 53 spurred him to quit his insurance job and pursue writing full-time. J's recovery journey involved confronting his past, finding community, and writing "The Kindred Project," a collection of stories from others in recovery. 

He emphasizes the importance of solitude, self-compassion, and discovering one's passion. 

About J 

J. Raymond is the best-selling author of six published works: Spades (2015) Let Her Run (2016) Concrete Music (2016) Yellow #5 (2018) Lush (2021) The Kindred Project (2023) The Kindred Project: Vol. II (2024) As well as the Hardcover Special Edition of Spades/Let Her Run (2022) 

Since sharing his work via social media in 2015, J. Raymond has enthralled and captivated his readers with cutting authenticity and wholehearted expression of the raw, human experience. Delving into the complexities of love, heartbreak, death, grief, addiction, wanderlust, and all of our commonalities. It's no wonder why millions of people around the world continue to connect with his guttural prose and poetry. 

You can explore J Raymond's work by visiting his website, www.jraymondwriting.com or connect with him on Instagram. 

About Mari Williams 

Mari Williams, The Mind Architect, is a Leadership Coach/Therapist, and Mediator. She specialises in leadership and executive therapy and coaching for business leaders. She also offers business coaching and conflict resolution. Her approach blends coaching, therapy, and mediation to create fast, practical solutions for those seeking clarity, confidence, and success in all areas of life. 

Alone and Rising is the title of her latest book and, she hopes to inspire you to become alone and rising.   

Take my alone questionnaire: https://aloneandrisingquestionnaire.scoreapp.com 

Website: www.mari-williams.com 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariwilliams/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aloneandrising 

You can help Mari with her research by taking the Alone and Rising questionnaire here

https://aloneandrisingquestionnaire.scoreapp.com/

Transcript

0:10

Welcome to the Alone and Rising Podcast. I'm Mari Williams, the mind architect, founder of the Alternative Leader Academy and author of It Begins With You. I'm currently writing my new book Alone and Rising. I've spent my entire life on a journey to being able to be happy alone. Finding that place has been so transformational for me that I want to inspire you to do the same. Alone does not have to be isolated or even being single. It's about creating a strong internal sense of self worth, so that your life decisions and your relationships come from a place of strength rather than need. My guests and I will share our personal stories of being lonely and the journey that we have taken to becoming happy alone and rising. Welcome to the Alone and Rising Podcast. My name is Mari Williams, and I'm your host. I found today's guest through watching Instagram posts, being absolutely caught and having my heart turned by the prose that I was reading. J Raymond is a best selling author of six published works, Spades, Let her Run, Concrete Music, Yellow, Lush and The Kindred Project, both volumes one and two. Since sharing his work via social media, since 2015 J Raymond has enthralled and captivated his readers with cutting authenticity and wholehearted expression of the raw human experience. He delves into the complexities of love, heartbreak, death, grief, addiction and wonder, lust, all human commonalities. It is no wonder that millions of people around the world have continued to connect with his gutteral or prose and poetry. I find his work absolutely beautiful, and I was so fascinated to understand what is the life journey of the man behind the words. So first of all, I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming on my podcast and talking about, you know, your life experiences. It's a very intimate thing to do. So I'm I just wanted to say, thank you. Awesome, thank you, Mari. And so I came across you, Jack on Instagram. I think you were doing a lot of promotion of this book, which is one of how many? Because you've got a lot of books, haven't you seven now, seven in 10 years, which seems impossible. Well, I have to say, so I'm starting with this one, and then I'm going to slowly read through all the others, but I just wanted to read a couple of bits from from one of these. Is it poems or is it prose? poetry or prose? I think the technical term is prose, but whatever floats your boat. So this one, I'm just going to read a couple of snippets, and I suggest that everybody buy the book and read the rest of it. But this one for me, really stuck out. It's called I'm Learning and obviously goes very much with the topic of the podcast. Being alone requires bravery. Only in solitude do you discover parts of yourself that you might not be proud of. Thought that was just a fantastic line. How can I expect the love that I'm deserving of while I'm unwilling to even show myself enough. And that just really rang out for me, because I think that's so true of people who have struggled with being lonely and being alone and then a bit lower down. But solitude also unearths inner strength, and I learned how to grow quietly. I loved that image. I think just stunning image. And then just finally again, lower down. It's not easy to give yourself credit when you've always accepted the blame. Powerful, like so powerful and I mean, just everything I read of yours, I'm just kind of going, Oh, you know it's kind of hit me at the chest, kind of thing. So can you tell me, kind of what's, what's the life story behind the way that you write, and that sort of sense of alone and loneliness, I guess let's start all the way back. I grew up in a household with two alcoholics, and from an early age, I think I just felt different. I have some pretty disturbing core memories that still stay with me, and I just knew from an early age how to retreat into the depths of oneself. Not to sound too dramatic. I turned to reading and art and any sports I could play alone by myself, just to be away from what felt unsafe from an early age. So maybe it started from there. I knew growing up that I wanted to be nothing at all like my parents, so I thought, they were the worst things to ever happen. And then I became an adult and learned that they were pretty they're okay, they're just like everyone else, struggling, trying to find their way and working their own demons. And I got a job after graduating high school, selling insurance, just because that was the opposite of what I thought my father did. I hated it. Did that for about eight years, and then my father passed away. I'm named after my father. I look just like the man. He is my hero through and through. So his death really rocked me to my core. And that was the first time in my life, I think I was 27, 26, 27 young where I had that kind of proverbial looking in the mirror, not recognizing my own reflection. I was unhappy with my my life. All these materialistic things I had surrounded myself with no longer made me happy, or possibly never made me happy. And I remember asking myself, what, what do you want to do with your life? What would make him proud and you proud? And it certainly wasn't selling insurance. No offense to those who do that. It just wasn't my bag. And I had always loved writing. I think again, going back to childhood and doing things alone that would take my, that were almost like an escape. Writing was one of those things. I remember I did an interview a while back, and they're like, were there any signs early on that you love to write poetry? And I said no, but now that you ask, I remember I would take my favourite books and I would rewrite them long hand and change the the plots. And I was like, I don't know if that. And they looked at me like I was insane. They're like, yeah, that's crazy. No one does like, no one does that. What you would rewrite them by hand? I'm like, Yeah, I guess. And so anyway, maybe there were signs. And so I had always loved to write. I had always loved reading. I had always loved this art form. And I remember after my father passed away, I spent two it felt like two straight days manically writing to him everything I wish I'd ever told him, how much he meant to me and all the the man I hope to be and make him proud and it was like a love letter, and just everything I wish I had told him that I was too proud to actually tell him while he was alive. And I knew it, it sounds, sounds wild to think about it, but I knew it as I was writing this letter, this is what I'm meant to do. And I ended up quitting that insurance job that week and started to pursue writing professionally from that point on. And that was about 12 years ago. I've been doing it full time now for about about 10 years. But you know, the act of writing, and, you know, I would say a lot of artists are probably in some way more comfortable in their own company, being alone, even when it's kind of hellish and tormental. It's helped me tremendously. It's interesting how you managed to reconcile kind of, you know, the behaviour of your parents that you grew up around, but, but as you said, still find so much love and affection. I know, you know I'm similar, the same but difficult background with my mother, but my mother died five years ago. I just feel nothing but love for her. I understand her as a woman. I understand her with her troubles, and I'm just, I guess I'm interested to know, how did you reconcile that, and at what age did you reconcile it? I criticized and judged my my parents and the way they raised me for a very long time, and when my father passed away, it's so weird how life, fate, destiny, whatever you believe in, it's almost like it's going to find you no matter what. Yeah. It makes its own way to you, and you could try and avoid it, whatever you but it's going to find you. And I spent so much time judging and criticizing their addictions and their their demons that they were battling, and why didn't they? Why didn't they just get help and get better? And my father ended up passing away very young, in part because of his lifestyle choices. He was only 53 years old. And I saw my mother after he passed, dive deeper and further into her own addiction, and I judged and criticized that just the same. And I remember after he passed, going to a bar and ordering a Jack and Coke, because that was what he drank. And I almost romanticized his death with a drink. And I would say out loud, man, if my father was alive still, I would have just loved to have a drink with him, like that's what he would have wanted, which is total nonsense, but it sounded romantic in my head, and that led to a 10 year battle of my own addiction, where I became addicted to drugs and alcohol, and I was in a line of work, writing, where it was almost romanticized. Oh, he's the drunken artist, the tortured poet. Yeah. And, and as I'm growing more and more sick and dependent on substances um, my health was declining, but my career was growing, and I just associated the two. I thought, well, things are going okay I think so I'll just keep doing this. And it wasn't until July of 2022 when I hit my final rock bottom, I guess, where I started to peel back the layers of, you know, just the childhood traumas and all the things that I had suppressed from childhood, all the pains that I was avoiding, where I started to understand that, you know, we're all humans, and all that. I know, I said in the notes that I had sent you for the for this, this podcast, how you know, if one of the things that I love to hear people tell me about my work is that it's just honest, you know? And I think all art should be, but I people say, Oh, you shouldn't feel this way, or you shouldn't feel that way, or or don't, don't say that about yourself, or don't even think that, which is crazy to me, because that's what led to my addiction in the first place. It was this suppression and shoving down of emotions because I was told don't feel that that's negative, that's bad and I needed to feel all those things. But once I allowed myself to start to feel those things, I could see my parents and the other people in my life, partners, friends, people who had hurt me in a more human light, and it also allowed me to see some of the ways I've hurt people and the decisions that I've made that have hurt people and had a negative impact on them. I'm just like them. So I started to see, you know, my mother and my father, though addicts and you know, my father never getting help, my mother still trying to figure it out, are just like me, but older. So I wouldn't want to be judged the way that I'm judging them and so that helped, yeah and I so agree with you, and I think my mother so my mother wrote a lot of poems and and she drew pictures and composed music. And when she died, my sister and I went through it, and she, she had a she was a hoarder, so it what you couldn't automatically see it all so, of course, we're just, you know, shoving these things in boxes. And, you know, three years later, there's 11 boxes of poetry to sort through. And for me, I think that was when the shift started to come. I started to read her poetry and and, you know, she talked about struggling with her mental health, and she's talked about, I remember one that really helped me, actually, she said, I take pills to get up in the morning, pills to keep me calm in the day, and pills to put me back to sleep so that I won't hit my kids, like she literally said that. And I remember kind of going, Oh, okay, like you were, you were aware of it, and you were trying to do something about it. And she talked about having, like, dual personalities. And she, you know, I we found a tape where she left a letter to somebody, you know, she obviously loved them, and they left her and, and it was just this woman crying because she was sad at being left. And I think it was through, it's interesting, through the poetry and the words I started to understand there is a woman here struggling with mental health at a time when mental health really wasn't, you know, it wasn't okay. She was grew up in the 40s, and, you know, and she's she struggled forever, but she was continually trying. And that, and that's who I am, as you said, it's seeing ourselves, isn't it? I'm always trying to improve myself, for my kids, you know, for myself. And so I think it is, isn't it? It's that, it's that change. I always say to clients, it's okay to look back at your parenting and say, you know, that wasn't okay and that parenting wasn't good enough. But I also see the story of my parents, their parents, great grandparents, you know, there's a historic story here. So it is interesting, isn't it? How you can humanize, humanize your parents, really. once I once I got clean and sober, and I remember like working the 12 steps and doing all this inner work and assessing your life and doing inventory, and it was just a real pain in the ass. And I remember thinking at some point, and I had never had this thought while in while, while using, was how, how grateful I was that they were my parents, because I had published five books, and each book subsequently was getting worse. It was hard for me to read the last book. It just sounded like somebody unwell and and it was, you know, I'm proud of what it led to. It's a part of my story that ultimately led to me getting sober and clean. So it's very important and necessary, but it's still sad to read. It's not something that I don't think unless you're in the throes of addiction. I don't know if that book is even going to be helpful to many people. But I remember thinking my career was over once I got so I had this other narrative in my head was that I could only create while drunk or high or using, right like that's the only because that's whatever I convinced myself of, which is just in it's ridiculous. It's not true at all. I'm way more productive now. I have a much more mental clarity and acuity now and it's just infinitely better, easier, in every way. I'm more creative. I'm more positive. It's more the world's more open and colourful, and every the whole part of writing and creating is easier when you're clear of mind so. Anyway, I remember thinking to myself, if I don't know if anyone's ever going to be interested in this, but a big part of me getting sober and clean was this community, finding a community. And so I don't as you you showed my earlier book, or you showed my book earlier, volume one, that's volume two. Volume One was the first book that I had written since getting clean and sober. I had this idea of what if I asked or found 100 to 120 people if they would share their story with me and allow me to turn it into poetry. I didn't think I would. I didn't think anyone would want to do that. So I and 115 people signed up in like, two days, and I was like, oh shit, I don't actually know what I'm doing. I'm I'm, like, two months sober, I don't know, like, I was just hanging on, and it became such a cool part of of my own, my own journey, my own, you know, path to getting clean, sober and staying that way and connecting with others. But you just, I heard so many stories of people who struggled in maybe not the same exact way, but, you know, with tough childhoods and, you know, upbringings that led to them being dependent or or drove them into isolating, which is what I did, as well, and being alone to a point where it affected them negatively. I think being alone can be super helpful, and it was super necessary to my own healing. But you know, it's also something that can be detrimental as well And I think that's interesting, isn't it, because, you know, I remember that you wrote about that, that you know, you are, you kind of isolated yourself more and more and more. But then there, you know, certainly, I feel like that at the moment, that I kind of, I'm sort of enjoying my sort of space being alone. And I think that's maybe sometimes hard to weigh up where you are. Like, I know I have to keep checking in with myself to just say, is this a healthy alone, or is this a, you know, a fearful alone, or a kind of, you know, negative alone, like, what is it? And doing that check in. But we do need both types of it, you know, don't we? We need to sometimes we need that loneliness to show us, actually, I need to go out make some more friends, or, as you said, to create a network of people. And sometimes we need to just stop and actually, you know, like, I think your words in there, you know, that kind of we need solitude to actually be able to hear what's going on in our head. Yeah, I was so dependent on other people. I was dependent on everything. I hated whatever I would find out about myself if left to my own devices. I was so afraid of that that that was when I would drink and use. I didn't. I couldn't stand that quietness. And I loved creating is a solitary act so I was able to do both of them at the same time. I was able to create while escaping through substances. So it was like even while I was creating and writing, I wasn't ever at the core of myself. I was at the depressed bottom level of myself, but not the truth, a very small amount of truth, but I was so dependent on others that I I could have never found out who I really was. I was too afraid. And I you're right, you're totally right. It depends on where you are. Some people have never been alone. They don't even know what that's like. Some people have only ever been alone so. And and I would joke about it. I would, you know, when I would see people who are alone, I'd be like, Oh, whatever they that's, they have no options. And they would joke too, oh, well, I don't have any kids. I get to do whatever I want. We would just mask all of it with junk. And it's like, you know, it took, I remember when I when I had gotten my, my, my bottom point, I had lost everything. The person that I was with at the time. I had been with them for for five years. I believe they may have been battling their own addictions too. We kind of enabled each other, and I had lied for all the time about my drinking and my drugs. And so by the time she was over it, she was over it. It wasn't like and of course, that was when I would say, okay, no, I'll change, now I'll change, you know, that old bit, yeah, and by then it was too late. So she um, so I had, you know, nothing to show all that, I had a couple best selling books and$0 in my account. I had no driver's license, no car. My cars had been repossessed. I had nowhere to live, even I didn't have enough money for to get an apartment I and so I was starting over with nothing, and I thought, I just didn't think I didn't see the way out. I remember that that day I tell this story, and it's not one that I'm proud of. I'm sure my daughter, when she's older and she hears this story, she's gonna be like, Jesus, you're so embarrassing. But the my, my breaking point she's gonna think that anyway, there's nothing. There's no cool left in me. Anyway, no, there's not so I had liquor hidden all around the house and drugs and I remember it was like three o'clock in the morning, and I was writing a custom poem for somebody who had ordered it, and I didn't want to do it and I was in a shitty mood anyway, I I had drinking all the alcohol in the house that I had hidden, I had done all the drugs, and I remember being really pissed off about that, like, annoyed at someone else because I had drank on of it, like, just aggravated. And I remembered in the far back recess of my brain, I had bought some red wine to cook with. I had used it all to cook, cook with, but I had also poured it in a in a glass. I had read that if you have flies in your house, fruit flies, if you put a cup of red wine out, the flies will swim in it, drink it die. It'll attract the flies and kill them. So I was so low at this point, I remember walking upstairs, going to the kitchen, seeing that cup that had been sitting on the windowsill for a couple weeks now, filled with bugs and dust and gross, and I didn't care at all. I drank it, no problem. And I remember I didn't think anything of it in the moment I was unwell, but I remember waking up and feeling incredible shame, just so embarrassed. And the woman I was with knew that I had lied and drank again, and that was it. So as a last ditch effort, I remember going to I told her I was going to alright I'm going to go find a treatment centre. And I remember walking to this treatment centre hoping that this just gets her off my back. I don't I don't need help. I'm fine. I just drank a couple bugs. You know, that's not a big deal. Everybody does that. And I remember walking into that meeting, into that recovery centre, and hearing people talk about their experiences with addiction and thinking to myself, I've done all of these things like I am exactly like these people, and here I am thinking like I'm not one of these people, and I was exactly like them. And so that was the first time I had ever felt hope in a long time. And it took a couple weeks, detoxing and everything to find some clarity, but I remember being alone for the first time in this apartment that had no furniture in it. I had an air mattress, a little bit of money to eat. I really had nothing, and I had hope. But it was in that aloneness I remember sitting there thinking to myself, before I got sober, that day, that day I got sober, thinking to myself, I don't want to live like this anymore. Yeah, and I could have never had that conversation with myself if I wasn't alone. I needed the I needed that space to sit down and think, really assess who I was and to have that conversation. What is it that I'm what am I ashamed of? I'm ashamed of the envy that I feel for people who are more successful than me, if you, if you are a better artist or writer than me, I despise you. I don't like that about myself. I don't like the friend that I've been I don't like the the older brother I've been to my younger brother. I don't like that I haven't helped my mother work through her own sobriety, and I've used it as an excuse to enable my own addictions. Like to really, really sit down and take this inventory. I think you have to be alone, like it's if you're alone and it's just you and a journal or your thoughts, or just in a quiet corner, you're sitting there and you're still lying to yourself. You might be a sociopath. I think at that point you need help, like because it's just you. At that point, it's just you. And I think I needed that desperately. I needed to, not that I'm encouraging anyone to push everyone away. But I was alone, alone, and it took that for me to really get honest, that's incredibly fascinating. I love the fact that you kind of just, well, I guess, because you were hiding behind the drink and drugs all the time, you were never alone in your own thoughts or really honest with yourself. And so I love the fact that you were able to sit in that meeting and kind of go, this is me, you know. It is a shock, isn't it? You know when you see that, I remember, I remember telling, first of all, my ego was out of control. I remember going to that meeting and thinking, I'm going to tell them my story, and it's going to devastate them. They're just all going to be crowded around me, crying, Jack, we're all here for you. We're so glad you finally arrived. Like that's what I thought. I remember telling this story that I just last night, I drank a couple bugs, and a couple guys came up to me after the meeting, and they were like, I've done that a couple times. One guy was like, yeah, you know, like, when you throw your cigarette into like, a can of beer, I used to drink those. They they thought it was funny. One guy was like, that's extra protein. They didn't care. They were just like. They're like, look, this is a shared human experience. Our paths are only our own, but the checkpoints along the way are shared experience. The grief, the recovery, the heartbreak, the loss, all of it, it's all the uncertainty, the all of it, the angst, the anxiety, the mental health issues, they're crowded places, but we, you know, we it's hard to ask for help. And so I had been alone that whole time, I thought, or I would drive people away to reinforce the beliefs that I had, that I deserved to be alone, and then I would try to escape myself once I was alone, and then the thing that saved me was a community. So I needed the aloneness to find the humility to ask the community, to go back to the community and ask for help. And then it was from that community that and so I this is a really long winded, round about way of saying, I remember thinking, once I got sober and clean, how grateful I was that my parents were addicts, because now it's over two and a half years of being sober and clean, I talk to more people who are in recovery than anyone else, and I could have never, ever helped any of these people or connected with them, if not for my parents being that way, if not for me being the way that growing up the way that I did. So it's like, I know this sounds really cheesy to quote yourself, but I'm going to quote myself. I wrote one time, how much could someone untested be entrusted. And I needed that, I needed to be tested in that way so that I could people could trust me, and it's the coolest thing to me now. I tell my mom, you know how grateful I am for her. I don't think she likes it, because she knows that I mean, I'm so grateful you were an alcoholic but, but in a way, I am. She was perfect for me and what I needed and and I now I can, I feel like I can help more people. And that's what led to the Kindred Project, you know, is giving other people a platform, which I could have never done if I wasn't sober and clean. It is interesting, isn't it? I sometimes look at my life and think, where would I reset back to? And I think I, you know, well, obviously I want to keep all my kids, you know. So okay, we're kind of, let's, you know, let's say that, you know, I can keep all my kids where would I reset back to? And it's really hard, because I absolutely know if I'd not gone through the experiences I've gone through, I wouldn't be running the business that I am. And as like you, you know, I know that I help an awful lot of people, and I help them because I'm kind of a bit unique in in the way that I help them and my life experience. So it's, it is hard, isn't it? And I think I've just come to the conclusion that life is hard, you know, like we think everybody out there is having this normal life that we're not part of. You know, it's like, well, I'm not normal. I don't I'm not like everyone else. And I always laugh and say to people, I can tell you, you know, with everybody I work with, they could look like the most perfect couple, the perfect family, some shit going on there somewhere, like there's definitely something going on. And because we're human, and we're really complex, and, you know, we're living a very complicated life, we're brain, our brain isn't designed to be living yet. And I agree with you that I think you have to have kind of, you know, walk the path of fire, almost, to be able to give real value back, because however much you want to try, or you understand theory, if you haven't had, you know, something go on for you, then you know, you just don't understand. I mean, I can't understand what it's like to be alcohol and drug addicted. That's not my thing. But I can understand what it's like to struggle with sugar. I have a real big addiction to sugar, yeah. Know, and so, you know, it's, everybody has their understanding of a situation. And I love that those guys are coming out going, oh, only one glass more protein. That's great. It's like, that's the coolest part of life, is, and I love, you know, the internet is just overflowing with advice and, you know, some of it's great, some of it's, you know, useless. And sometimes I read the advice and it's almost always unsolicited, and I think, Oh, you think you're supposed to ace life. No, you're not. The whole point. Not the whole point. But for me, the whole point was to screw it up the and I needed to make a mess of it. That was the only way. I had to I had to hurt in such a way that I had to change. There's a that old, there's like the old fable, or the little story, where a guy is walking past a man and his dog on the porch, and the dog is howling in pain right next to his owner sitting in his chair, and the dog's screaming in pain, and the guy walking by says, friend, your dog seems to be hurting, he seems to be in a great deal of pain, why, is he okay? And the owner says, Oh, he's just sitting on a nail. And the guy says, Well, why doesn't he move? And he says, I guess it doesn't hurt bad enough. And that's kind of how it was for me. Everyone else was like, Jesus, why don't you get help? And I'm like, it just doesn't hurt bad enough yet, and I don't, you know, not to say that people who don't have experience still can't offer advice, but it's always fascinating to me when when I hear people just they're trying so hard to perfect it, and even in relationships, I'm the furthest thing from a relationship expert, but I do know this, with the exception of one they're all temporary. They all fail, right? So what did you think like, imagine if every time we scratched a lottery ticket we lost and we're devastated? Well, that's kind of like dating is it's very rare to find everlasting, faithful, happy love forever, one like it's a lottery ticket. And you know, I learned after a lot of loss that you know now where I am. So I lost. When I tell you, I lost everything. I gave a son up for adoption. I was like the day I walked into that treatment centre I'll never forget, I picked up my phone to Google, where the closest treatment centre was. And the first thing you know when, when you open Google, it shows you your like search history. My search history, the first thing that popped up was, how much alcohol do you have to drink to kill yourself? That was my last Google search the night before, when I drank the bugs. So that's how low I was. I lost everything I thought I would, you know, of course, when you're in the bottom, you think your life's over. You'll never recover from this. This is the end. But I never thought, you know, I would want to get married. I was so I I was the first time that I was happy alone, so I really didn't want to commit to someone now, because all my worst memories are at the hands of someone else so I'll just stay alone. I'm happy, I'm sober. I didn't you know if I'm alone, I'm never going to be a father again. Two and a half years later, I'm married to the person I I was meant to be with. I have a three month old baby girl. She's the love of my life. I couldn't even be more happy. So whatever my our plans are half the time, are nonsense, we don't know. It's it's we can go out with the best intentions, but you know, life finds its way, and what's meant for us can't be stopped, and what isn't meant for us, we can't cling to it. So I it's almost like, I wonder if sometimes now I'm becoming too ambivalent, because I'm always just like, yeah, whatever, that's what's meant to happen I guess. Whereas before, I would just agonize over everything, you know, I'm like, yeah, it was meant to be, you know, it is what it is, yeah. I mean, I think I have that kind of, you know? Yeah, you can't, you can't stop the things that are going to happen to you, that are going to happen, you know, people go, Oh, I wish that hadn't happened. Well, it has. I think my view of it is, then what are you going to do with it? You know, that's your choice. What are you going to do with it? And about just keeping, keeping trying to move forward and move into a better space. But it's funny what you say about, you know, you've just got to a point when you're being alone and you're like, you definitely don't want to ever, you know, get married or be in a relationship again. I was sort of saying that to a friend the other day. I said, do you know, it's so much calmer not having a partner in my life. And I said, I, you know, partly think, you know, I quite like having the whole bed. I quite like just having no one else's stuff around the house. You know, it's just my space. Um, but, you know, of course, I'm human, and there's that part of me that says, Well, you know, if that person drifts across in front of me, great. But I think you know so much of what this whole project, for me is about is if you get to a point where you were in a good space, and you choose to, kind of, say, enter the dodgy dating world again, you know that you do it from such a different space where you are enough. And I think that's the power, isn't it? You know, for me, it's about getting going through that lonely space, to get to being alone, and alone is a nice space, and it's a comfortable space. And, yeah, you mind the odd cry because you miss a partner one day or something like that. You know, I know I had a kind of hospital visit recently, and I was a bit like, oh, this is a bit weird. I kind of don't have that person with me, but, but then l kinda went, I'm okay, you know, it was kind of like this reflection of, and that's actually okay. So I but I think, you know, people, and definitely that was my journey of, you know, and not without even knowing it was I need to be with someone all the time. And, yeah, it just led me into terrible relationships. And I just think now feels calmer and quieter. And so that's, you know, the whole message of this is like you said, you have to go through that solitude. You have to be alone to hear your thoughts. Because I do think I agree with you when you said, you know, we've got to confront those bits of us that are, you know, really depressive and upsetting. And you know, I do this, and it's not actually that great. And I think sometimes, when we have people around us in that stage, they will try and sort of buoy us up and reframe it, or make it feel better. And actually, we need to hear our voice and our thoughts and our feelings about that to decide, well, you know, I do that shitty thing, do I want to stop doing that? Or, you know, I'm not feeling great, and do I want to stop doing that? And it, you know, that kind of air bed in a in an empty flat is, is the kind of visual for that, isn't it actually just going back to basics of it's just me here. I'm going to have to live with me or not, and it's very powerful. And obviously, you know, to just move to the writing a bit as well. That obviously comes out so much in so much of what you write is even when you're not talking about being alone, that that sort of journeying, isn't it into a different self? Yeah, that getting that apartment, and I it was a Yeah, I 100% agree and I think filthy, little, disgusting apartment in New Orleans, and I loved it. I loved it so much. I had nothing but, but maybe it was the hope that came with me that was, that was a little bit of faith. I knew it wasn't going to be like this forever, but I would come home and do my I'd go for my little walk. When you're broke, walking is like your favourite thing. So, like, I loved walking because I was all I could do. And I would go walk, and then I would come home from my walk, and I would light a candle, and I would like read a book, and all I had, I remember the first, my first adult purchase, at 37 years old, was a recliner. And I remember sitting in that recliner, and my one of my favourite things to do in life was was put on some jazz music, light a candle and read. That's it. I could do it all day. That's like my little happy it is only being alone that you space. And I remember sitting there, I had been in this apartment for only a couple weeks, and I thankfully was over the detoxing. So I was I had a little bit of energy, and I was sitting there reading, and I kept having to reread the same page and the same paragraph, like I was just so distracted. I would start reading. I'd think, did I clean the shower? Do I need to clean the shower? Oh, I gotta sweep the the patio too, and, oh, the laundry and too. What is it? What's it gonna, is it raining on? I need to, I want to go for another walk and like, so I'm just like all this, not just just noise. And I realized I stopped in that moment, that I wasn't even giving my permission, giving myself permission to do the things that I liked anymore, because I had spent so much time in other people's in a relationship, it was constantly in the relationship with them. What are we doing? What can I do for you? And how can I win their affection and all this shit. But find that. I remember years ago, I didn't even know what I liked, and I remember stripping it way down when I was writing that first volume of the Kindred Project and talking about, you know, the journey back to yourself. And it's so cliche, you know that finding a home in yourself? I heard that so many one of my therapists was quite times I didn't even understand it, like, that's, that's a cliche at this point. But really being happy with yourself. It seems so simple. But for me, it was just, it took a lot of work and therapy and honesty, and, you know, it's all made a lot easier when you're not doing drugs and alcohol. But it was, it was an important thing being alone and all these revelations, right? It took being alone for me to say, I don't want to live like this anymore. It took being alone for me to realize I wasn't even giving myself permission to do the things I like, I like, to do them. I make time for them, and still I'm not allowing myself to enjoy, why. I could blunt, she said to me, you know, have never done that if someone Mari, whenever you're upset, you was there. So it's, it's again, if I was on the on the scale of codependency, I was way, way that end, other people are on the way opposite, and you just gotta kind of assess where you always immediately call 10 are but being alone is such a beautiful thing, if you can learn to enjoy your own company and and use it like. It came natural a little more natural for me, because I am an artist, and I love to write, and I think it would be weird if I was trying to write, and someone was next to me the whole time out of here. But for other people, maybe it takes more work. Maybe you gotta find, I talk to people in recovery, and they're 40, 50, 60 years old, and they're discovering for the first time ever, what they like, they they're and it's I've seen people who went from being heroin users to avid crocheters, and they macrame all day and I'm like, what you used to shoot up on the street now you're just needling doing needlework. And they're like, I know it's crazy. One guy, you know there, went from being obese to like, now they're avid rock climbers and hikers, and these things are impossible. If you were to tell them, like, hey, one day you're going to really love bowling. They're like, what? no. But that's what we got to do. And I think the easiest way to find our passion and what we're what we're specifically designed to do, what makes our hearts sing sometimes, is being alone. We got to find it out through that. friends, find out what their you know, what their thoughts are. And she just said, could you just sit with it for five minutes? I mean, like now I laugh at five minutes, but five minutes felt like a really long time, when I was in that stress state. She said, can you just sit for five minutes, then you can call and she said, then when you got to five minutes, it's comfortable. Make it 10. Make it 15. And now I look back and I kind of think, God, like, really did do that. I just couldn't even sit with my well, it I didn't trust myself. I didn't trust my own answers. So it was like, well, there's pointless sitting with me, because I clearly don't trust my own answers because I'm, you know, not normal. And so therefore, if I ask people I think are normal, what they're, you know, what they think, and if enough of them agree on a decision, then that I'll go with that decision. And now I just think I hardly ever ask anyone anything, not anything, because I trust myself. And it just to come back to what you were saying earlier about that, you know, being, I can't remember the exact line of the poem, but about being entrusted, I think there's something isn't there, about learning to trust yourself, that you can find when you're alone, yeah, sure, especially if you're in the middle of a bottoming out point, you know, like. How many times have I already thought my life was over, right? Like, how many, how many times have I said, this is it, I'll never get through this, only to get through. I think about like, I've been so over the last 50, no more 10 years or so, since writing full time, I've basically been nomadic. I've just moved all across the country, slept on couches wherever I could, until I was in a relationship. And I remember every time I would move, I had to make this decision of what was coming with me. And like, how can I leave this book, this record, this typewriter, this jacket. I was caught, and I would, I would just go crazy over how am I going to I can't fit it, and is it worth shipping it there? I don't know if I need it. I can't today. I can't even tell you what those things were, but in the moment, I was like, where am I how am I going to live without it? And that's, it all serves as evidence. So how much could someone untested be entrusted, my goodness, if you've got if, unless, you've been sheltered your entire life, you've already survived, probably traumatic things. You've already dealt with probably a narcissist, bunch of rude people. You probably had a job you hated. You probably dealt with parents that were not easy, had an upbringing that was challenging. You probably already dealt with and survived all these things. Imagine not giving yourself the benefit of the doubt. Of course you should yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. I love that. I'm actually just gonna not reply to that, because I just think that's completely right, absolutely and I definitely, I think again, there was a line, was it? Oh, I'm gonna put my glasses back on. I don't know if it was the same poem, but I think it was, where was it? Oh, yes, here we go. And since I've I've gone through hell already. That doesn't intimidate me. I love that line. I've gone through hell already. And I kind of, you know, have a bit like that. And like, you know what? Nothing scares me really now. Do you know, you know, not even people. That's what I say, say all the time. Nothing scares me now, not even people. Because you know they're, they're wild, you know they're, 100% other other than me nothing the worst thing that's ever happened to me besides me has been everyone else. So it's, it's just one of those things where it's like, the more comfortable, like you said, being alone, I think it also sets this cool, like standard, or you start to I wrote something else about these boarders, the parameters that you set for yourself, or the boundaries you set for yourself, become less about what I expect from you and more about what I allow in. So it's it's like these boundaries are, for me, I don't give a shit what you did. You're you. You could be an animal. You could be psychotic. You could have ulterior motives. I have no idea. I can't even really control that, but I know my own boundaries and my own boundaries with me in it alone are pretty cool. I like this space, it's nice, and I don't have to let you in it, and there's no hard feelings. So it's, it's, that's been a big help, too. And you can only learn those boundaries by being alone. Mm, hmm. Oh, I agree. And I think I saw something. I think it was just one of these, you know, quick quotes on Instagram, but it said something like, if you're having a bad day, just remember that at least you're not texting an ex partner trying to convince them how to love you. dude it's so true. It's so true. Yeah, I remember sending so many of those texts, you know, could you treat me like this and be like this, ah, yeah. And like you said, I miss you. Not gonna do it. Are you thinking of me like, embarrassing? What a shame. Now, I look back at the younger versions of me, and I do love her, because I think I know what you, like you said you were going through your stuff, but I do look back and think, what were you doing, why were you putting up with that stuff? Just that person should have been out instantly, you know, not with you for 10 years. It's crazy how long, it stretches too, isn't it? It's like, I don't think I should have been with them after, like, the third week. How'd that turn into three years? Jesus, what was going on in my head at that point? Anyway, I genuinely think I could talk to you about this for ages. But to my three questions I ask everybody. So when you reflect on all of all of the challenges that you've been through, what do you think is the thing that's kind of been the most positive impact for you from that obviously, getting sober and clean has been the big, the best, biggest gift of my life. I was I wanted to die. Literally, I was researching the best methods of suicide the day before I got clean and sober. So it's very easy for me. It breaks my heart to think about how close I was to taking my own life. I have known so many I've known a lot of people who are either still out there or who did not make it. And I think about how close I was to being that, and now, with a wife and a child and. My wife, I had a car, I had I was driving drunk with an expired driver's license for 10 years, how I never got pulled over or hurt someone is a miracle in and of itself. And in just two and a half years, my wife and I were looking at buying a Tesla today, like, I'm sitting there looking at Teslas, like, who are you? This is amazing. What a gift. It seems so silly, but like, if you knew where I was two and a half years ago. So that's the best gift. I know without my without if I can't put anything above my sobriety, if I do, it's going to be taken away. And that means my relationship. That means if I put my daughter above my sobriety, I'll lose that relationship. My job. All of it goes away if I don't stay sober and clean. So that's been the coolest gift and and then also learning compassion. I think I could've only found that through learning how to be compassionate to myself, forgiving myself, which, again, sounded so hokey and cliche, forgive yourself, love yourself. I was like, what is that even? but it's it's super important, especially like, like the other poem that you read, it's hard to give yourself credit when you've always only accepted the blame. It's really hard. It was hard for me to do that. It felt like, it felt narcissistic or egotistical to tell myself you're doing great. You should be proud of yourself. That felt uncomfortable, but learning how to do it was super healthy. Yeah, yeah. That's really, really lovely. That's really lovely. And was there a book film or movie that helped a book film, a piece of music, sorry, that helped you in those times, that kind of lifted you a bit? Oh, gosh, I don't know if there, I'll say that. It sounds really, really corny, but my father, when he passed away, after I wrote that love letter to him, I remember growing up and him watching Seinfeld, and I was so depressed that I remember this was when they had DVDs. So we lost half the audience. But I remember, I went, there are these circular discs, and you anyway. So I remember going to Barnes and Noble, also a bookstore, and I spent like $200 on every season of Seinfeld. And I just, I was so heartbroken I just sat there and watched it, and it felt like I was reconnected with my dad, and for whatever reason I still brings me joy. And I remember watching Seinfeld. I didn't have a TV, so I was watching it on my phone, and that buoyed my spirits, just enough, but mostly it was and this, I think the thing I'm maybe the biggest advocate for more than just like, of course, if you, if you're battling addiction, finding treatment, of course. But maybe more than that, even or on par with it, is to find your passion. Again, it sounds cliche, but find. People will talk about, oh, my kids are my passion or my job? And, I mean, I don't know, maybe. But like, what's the thing that's selfishly for you that you were put on earth? You that you would do for free. You don't need to be talking doing it. If I never made another cent from writing, I would do it every day. I love it. It saved my life. And so I think writing the Kindred Project, the first volume, and now the second one, the first two books I've written, clean and sober, that was so important because it gave me purpose every day. So getting lost in those two books, writing them was important as anything I've read or watched. I love that I always say to people that I think we have, it doesn't matter kind of if you're terrible at lots of things, but we all have one thing, we're amazing at and it's about trying to work out the thing that we're amazing at and if you can work that out go try something, right? And someone will say, like, well, I tried cycling and I didn't like it. It might take you 300 things. I don't just like, throw crap against the wall Yeah, you have to keep trying yes, you because you won't even believe what it might be. For me, it was easy. I always knew it. Some people just know it, but you might not have any idea. You might have given so much of yourself. I interviewed all these people and they're in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and they're like, I feel like I'm just trying to figure out now who I am. Yeah, and it's like, great, try everything. Maybe it's crocheting, maybe it's bowling, maybe it's needle point stitching. Who knows, but just try it. Just try it. And, and I agree like, I feel like I'm in that I had children at 17, you know, I'm 51, my youngest has just left home, and I'm kind of going, so who, who am I when I don't have to look after other people and, and, you know, there's a lot of parents like that. Who've had kids, you know, cost huge amount of decades, and they're just saying, well, who who was I? You know, especially if you had children young, you never got to find out who you were. So, yeah, I agree it is, and I think of like that. Just try it once. You might not like it. Just go try it once. Just see what you think. Absolutely, if somebody is listening and they're struggling just generally in their lives, what's your tip for them, something they could just do straight away? write, writing, I I think it's the easiest way to be honest, and I know I hope it doesn't feel torturous to people, but I think having it's it's less intimidating than going to confessional, and it's a lot more free spirited, you know. No one's listening. You could burn the pages, but get it out, like, I had to part of of this 12 step program is doing this inventory and going back to childhood, I hadn't thought about it in 30 years probably. My first drink I was six years old, and it made me violently ill. I took a drink. I saw a bottle of Jack Daniels, and I it had my name on it, and I thought that was cool, because I was six years old, and I drank it and I was really sick and just little weird things like that, these idiosyncrasies that somehow weirdly add up to the whole of us. We push down or forget. Some of them are funny little anecdotes. Some of them are really traumatic. But I think the more time we can spend alone, quiet, giving us, giving ourselves, that permission, maybe it's not every day. I do it every day. Maybe it's once a week for an hour or something to just sit there and write and just tell the truth. What hurts you man? what is breaking you? What's What's weighing on you? What do you what are you tired of? What's exhausting you? Who hurt like, any of these pains man, it makes such a huge difference, and maybe it never turns into art that other people relate to. For me, it did, um, and that's why I can see it. I can see the value in it. But again, if no one ever read it, it would still have saved me. And that's, you know, that's good enough. So I would say, write. Therapy is always a good thing. But man, it took me a long time to get to that. Yeah, and I think you're right. Actually, sometimes the first step is just writing it out and acknowledging it to yourself, there's a problem here, you know, and that that is the first step, 100% you need to sit down and just write everything's fine everything's fine. And maybe if you do, that's a problem. That is your problem. Have you ever heard of The Artist's Way? Yes, yes. I actually have it on my bookshelf. Yeah, but I haven't done it yet in the morning, just for like, three paper for an hour, however long, three pages, 1000 words, I forget how ever many, but just write, even if the first thing you think of when you wake up and you go to write is, I hate this. I effing hate this. Just keep writing that something will come out. And that's been true for me, yeah, yeah. No, I think I absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. Thank you so much for your time, and it's really lovely to meet the man behind all of the beautiful poems and books. So if people kind of haven't heard of you, how do they find you on social media of course, if anyone out there knows how to use Tiktok, please reach out to me so I can find more people on Tiktok, but mostly Instagram, mostly Facebook. All my books are available. My website is Jay Raymond writing like with a pen.com. Or on social media. You'll see all the links. They're in some bookstores, some Barnes and Nobles, of course, on Amazon, but always through me as well. So they'll they're out there. If you Google Jay Raymond, it's I'm all of the good things that come up and none of the bad things. That's fantastic. And I'll obviously, put all of the links to all of those things in the show notes as well, so people can find you there too. But I like that. That's a nice point to end on all of the good things. I love that Well, thank you so much. It's awesome to just chat with you, and thank you for just allowing me to share my story. I'm always honoured when I have that chance. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to my Alone and Rising Podcast. I would really like to ask you a favour. I'm currently researching this topic for a book, and it would be great if you would be happy to share your story of being alone. I have a simple questionnaire that takes just a few minutes to fill in and is completely confidential. I'd be incredibly grateful, and you might even find that you'd like to offer to come on the podcast and talk about your story. Either go to www.aloneandrisingquestionnaire.scoreapp.com or you can find the link in the show notes or on my profile on LinkedIn. If you have enjoyed this episode, please do subscribe, review it and share it with anyone that you feel would benefit from understanding that alone does not have to be lonely. You can also sign up to my mailing list and you'll receive blogs and updates on how the book is coming along. I hope our exploration into the power of being able to be alone with yourself has given you some valuable insights. And if you aren't there yet, take heart. It is just a first step. Remember to take time to connect with yourself. It is the best way to create a future that you love. Again, thank you for listening and until next time, take care of yourself so that you too can be alone and rising you.