Service, Surviving & Thriving

Some people come home from war and never fully come down from the adrenaline. Cody Knox knows that feeling from the inside. He joined the military at 17, became a combat medic, deployed to Iraq as a teenager, then chased the same intensity in EMS and nursing, all while trying to outrun what he had seen and what he felt. Along the way, alcohol became the most reliable switch in the room, until it stopped being a choice and started being survival.

We talk about what reintegration really looks like when nobody teaches coping skills, when there are no debriefings after the worst calls, and when trauma follows you through a small town you cannot avoid. Cody opens up about a bipolar diagnosis, self-medicating, and the moments that pushed his drinking into freefall. He also shares what actually helped: treatment, veteran community, relapse lessons, and a sober mindset built on boundaries like sleep, food, and slowing down. If you care about veteran mental health, PTSD, EMS burnout, nurse addiction recovery, and trauma-informed care, this conversation puts language to what often stays hidden.

We also get into meaning: choosing happiness over pleasure, rebuilding identity when people miss the “fun” version of you, and how to support first responders with specific, human gestures that land. Cody explains why peer support matters, including nurse-focused recovery spaces, and why checking on veterans hits differently during heavy news cycles.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with someone in healthcare or the military community, and leave a review so more people find it. What is one boundary you could set this week to protect your mind?

0:00 Welcome And Hard-Won Perspective

0:35 A Song That Holds A Memory

1:45 Why He Joined At Seventeen

6:54 Recon Life And Iraq Deployment

11:22 Coming Home Without Coping Skills

12:35 Bipolar Diagnosis And Self-Medicating

14:25 EMS As Purpose And Belonging

17:23 The Calls That Never Leave You

21:50 How Drinking Took Over

28:59 Malibu Rehab And Choosing Nursing

35:50 Relapse And Healing With Veterans

37:58 Happiness Over Pleasure Plus Boundaries

46:30 Nursing Trauma And Facing Death

54:40 How To Support First Responders

56:36 War News And Social Media Overload

1:01:53 Overstimulation And Losing Yourself

1:07:21 North Star And Daily Persistence

1:11:12 Faith And Why We Are Here

1:12:33 The Words Others See In Him

1:17:52 Veteran Suicide Ruck And Nurse Support

1:22:43 Hopes For His Future Grandkids

Transcript

Welcome And Hard-Won Perspective

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I mean, I swear, like some of the hardest times in my life were so heartbreaking and miserable. And then you look back and you're like, I did it. I totally got through that. And it was okay.

A Song That Holds A Memory

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome to Supernaut, where we explore the inner and outer dimensions of the self. Today my guest is Cody Knox. Cody served in the military, worked as an EMT, and built a career in nursing. Three worlds that ask you to give everything and rarely ask how you're doing in return. He knows what it is to live fast, carry heavy things, and find his way back to himself. I asked you to pick a song for us to listen to before we started. What song did you pick?

SPEAKER_00 0:39

MGMT. Forgot the name. Electric Feel. Yeah, so that one. Yeah, MGMT Electric Feel. Yeah. Yeah. I love that song. So, like funny story about that one. I remember me and Alana when we first met, that was like around that time. Um, we went out to Chinese food with uh like a couple of my friends and uh in the military, my friends in the military, and my friend Samantha, her boyfriend, started having an anaphylactic reaction to the food. And she was like, You always ruin everything. Yeah, I don't know. It's funny, it sticks in my head, but he didn't ruin everything, but it was still uh memorable.

SPEAKER_05 1:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Little giggles. I miss that time. That was what, like 2011 when that came out. It's like the best time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

No responsibilities.

Why He Joined At Seventeen

SPEAKER_00 1:38

No responsibilities. Like life was cool. You could just kind of get away with anything, right? I miss that.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

And you're in the military. What made you join? And what branch did you join?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, so um, I actually joined the military when I was 17. So right out of high school, I graduated when I was 17.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Um, how long did you know you were going to do that for?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Gosh. Um, I mean, so kind of like long story short, um my childhood was super rocky. A lot of different levels of things that were going on in my life. Um, you know, right around the age of 10, um, my mom started drinking heavily. And so she kind of like abandoned me. Um, and uh that happened multiple times until one time she just didn't come home. And so um were you an only child? Yes, kind of. Yeah, kind of. So my mom was married about six times during like that age, like quite a few different times. Maybe not six, maybe like four. I don't know. It's all a blur. Um, but yeah, you know, like that happened, and then I went to live with my biological dad for a while, and that didn't really go super well. So I kind of just bounced around a lot. And then by the time I graduated high school, I didn't really have very many options for me. You know, for a lot of people, they say like the military is a calling. Yeah, like I had that in my family, you know. I've had um like my grandpa was in the Air Force and um my great-grandparents, and like so, I mean, yes, it's in my family. Would I say it was a calling? Not necessarily, you know. I knew that I wanted to be in the medical field. Um, that was always, you know, like in my heart, obviously. I wanted to take care of people and I wanted to help people. Um, and kind of where I was at in my life at 17, I was kind of a party animal. You know, my focus was partying. You know, I was that 17-year-old that slipped out every night and went to a party, and kind of I'd say that that's a lot of where my drinking and stuff started. Um, and uh yeah, so I kind of needed that. I kind of needed that um, I don't know, like structure. Structure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Did you realize all that at the time? Like, oh military will give me structure.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

I definitely like knew that that was gonna be a part of it for sure. Like I I went into the military, which is interesting to me. I went into the military and I had I had signed up um because you kind of you take a test and then they tell you what kind of jobs you qualify for, right? Um, and so I did pretty good on my tests and I could kind of choose. Originally I was gonna go into the Marines, but they wanted me to build bombs. And I thought, you know, like where am I gonna take that? Like what's gonna what's that gonna do for me in the future, right? So um, you know, and uh yeah, in the military you can be uh combat medic. And so that's where I kind of shifted my um what I wanted to do in the military was be a combat medic. Um so I joined and um at 17 and went um to Oklahoma. I did my um basic training in Oklahoma and I did my uh AIT, like my medical training um in Texas. And then my first uh duty station was in Fort Lewis, Washington. So it's beautiful. Have you you've been to Washington? What?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Um I've been to Seattle, okay, but just in the city.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Okay, girl. Yeah, you gotta go. I know. I want to. We have ant hills that are like as tall as me, and that sounds weird, but it's really how big are the ants? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

I never really are they bigger than normal ants?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

I don't remember. I just remember the ant hills, they were huge.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Well, Katie Joel has forbid me from going to like Portland and Oregon until I go with her because I think that's reasonable.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah, that needs to be a girl trip. Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

So where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_00 6:13

I grew up in Southern California for like part of my life and then uh Northern California for like the later part of my life, uh kind of up near Tahoe.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Um and you've been in Mora for how long?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

God, when did we come here? Uh like January 2012. Yeah, I got out of the military in 2011. Um, and uh we lived in California for a little bit, me and Alana. Um, Lyndon was born pretty much right away, and then um we decided to move here. Yeah.

Recon Life And Iraq Deployment

SPEAKER_01 6:51

So overall, was the military a good experience for you?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah, I would say that the military was a pretty good experience. Yeah, it definitely gave me the structure that I needed. Um, you know, I don't know why I had in my head that the military was gonna be more of like working in a hospital or something like that, kind of like a nine to five job, which for some people it is. Um, I was in a ranger reconnaissance unit, and so that was not it wasn't a job. It was like these guys is a lifestyle, right? Um, and I didn't really fit into that so much because it's not who I was at 17 years old, you know. Um I'd say a lot, a lot of uh, you know, like they teach you your military stuff, but they teach you how to drink too. And so I think that that is another big thing, um, you know, that I really kind of added to my struggle with drinking is is just everybody drinks in the military. Like that's what you do, you know. We would we would uh work all day, drive to Seattle and party until like three in the morning, drive back and then go run 10 miles in the morning. So it was just crazy. Like that was like our lifestyle, you know. And I deployed to Iraq in 2008, right? 2009, when I was right around 18. So pretty much right after I did my training, I went to Iraq. And that was like sucky, right? You know, um, definitely not like a great experience, you know. It's I think that that is such a heavy load for such a young man, you know. Um, the way that our unit functioned is we had a group of infantry and I would be there one medic. So I had about 15 guys that I was the medic for. Um, and our unit, we would travel pretty much in the middle of the night or by helicopter and get dropped off somewhere, walk 10 miles, hide and watch people. Like that was kind of pretty much what we did. Um, and so very scary, very um, you know, that's just it's a young age to have that much rush responsibility. So it really stuck with me. And then, you know, I think when I got home from Iraq that all of this stuff came out, you know, like you're you're living up here thinking that you're gonna die every single day, that when you come back, you're just like chasing that.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

How do you get back to homeostasis? How do you get back to just level? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah, it took me 15 years to figure that out, you know, and still it's something that I'm learning. It's not easy, right? But yeah, I mean, that's a that was a really big struggle. I feel, I feel like um, yeah, I learned I learned a lot from that deployment. And I I I never would take it back for sure. Like I feel like the benefits and um the time in the military and the friends that I've gotten, it's all been a great thing. Um, I think it's helped me in nursing, you know, and um on the ambulance as well. I I don't think that uh it was a bad decision, but it's definitely was uh an experience.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, I don't think there's ever enough preparation for things like that. But if they could have prepared you more in a certain area, what do you think they could have done?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Like, what do you mean exactly?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Like in what area could have they prepared you more mentally, physically, your medical training part?

SPEAKER_00 10:48

You know, I I just feel like my struggle was just being so young. You know, I I feel like you learn a lot as you get older. The things that matter to you when you're 17 are not the things that matter to you when you're 35. I just um yeah, I mean you you just don't have life skills yet. You don't have a good basis of really anything, you know. I yeah, I guess I just kind of struggled with that.

Coming Home Without Coping Skills

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah, that totally makes sense. So, and then when you got out, what was the hardest adjustment?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yeah. Um I think that you're constantly just like I said, chasing that high energy. You know, it's like you feel you feel like if you're not doing something, you're doing something wrong. Like it's hard to allow yourself to actually just have a moment to relax. Um, and I think too, just like emotionally you learn to keep things like tucked away because there's not really anywhere to share it.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Nobody taught you any coping skills or anything.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

There's not really, you don't really talk about stuff, you know, like um in the military. Like you don't have debriefings, you don't talk about what happened. It kind of is just like you live it and it gets pushed in your back pocket, you know, and then you get back from deployment and there's not really much help for you. You know?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

So you continue to drink, yeah, for sure.

Bipolar Diagnosis And Self-Medicating

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Definitely. And right around that time, I think in 2012, I got diagnosed with bipolar. And so I think that that maybe was a big part of like my, you know, like drugs and alcohol is just kind of like self-medicating plus trauma, you know, it was just kind of like a lot to deal with and those ups and downs. You know, I had a a therapist one time tell me with bipolar that people who drink really heavily on bipolar, like you're you're self-medicating, but you're also trying to like just feel normal, right? So like most people are kind of even keeled, right? But people who are bipolar are these highs and these lows. And so when you're constantly riding low, you drink or you use drugs to get yourself to feel high because you're never up there. It's like riding a roller coaster that just stays going like this, you know? So you take substances to make your brain feel better.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Because that's probably the one constant feeling that can make you feel a certain way no matter what. So you're like, I just I just want to feel something that I know I'm gonna feel. If I if I drink, I know what that's gonna make me feel, instead of like, I don't know today if I'm gonna feel up or down.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Totally.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

It's kind of like that.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Did anything happen to prompt the diagnosis?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Um, not really. I just kind of at that period of when you're transitioning out of the military, you start meeting with a lot of providers and kind of talking about your story and what's going on with you. Um, and that was one of the things that kind of came out of it is um kind of just learning a little bit more about my mental health and kind of what I was dealing with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

So then you decide to go into emergency medical services, EMS. What made you decide to do that?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yeah. You know, like one thing that I really missed when I got out of the military is I missed showing up and having a uniform and having a purpose. I felt like you really kind of lose who you are. You know, you you lose kind of who you are as a person. Um, yeah, that was a really big struggle. And I was just so excited to be able to like belong to something again, you know, like um, and when I started working here um at the hospital in town, it was such a great feeling. It was small town, you know, we could put Christmas wreaths on the ambulance for Christmas, and it just uh it felt like a family, right? When it was smaller. Um so yeah, that was kind of one of the I just I kind of missed belonging, and I felt like that gave me something to belong to. And um I'm a firm believer that when you have a skill set that it's easy to just continue that skill set than it is to shift and go somewhere else. So I knew that medical field was what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Um you said you had known since you were younger what what kind of made you want that as a younger person?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Question, man. I don't really know.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Did you have anybody in your life that was doing that work that you looked up to?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

I remember when my I was little that my grandma used to tell me that the medical field was always a safe choice.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

You know, like there's always going to be sick people that need help. Um and yeah, I don't like other than that, I just I guess I felt a calling, you know, for it.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Um Yeah, you could clearly have a calling to help people.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

In your teenage years or younger, was that part of it? Was like helping people. Do you know why you wanted to help people?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

I feel like I had such little help growing up that I wanted to be that person.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

You knew how it felt to not be able to do that. I knew how it felt. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely a rough childhood. I had a lot of people that loved me and took good care of me, but there was a lot of sadness in there too. You know, like there was a lot of sadness in there. So yeah, I just feel like what I do now brings me purpose and I enjoy being that person to make somebody's day, you know. Alana talks about like she always talks about day makers and stuff like that. And that's what I feel like I get to be, you know, with whatever I'm doing in the medical field.

The Calls That Never Leave You

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah. But EMS workers see things that don't leave your brain. Uh, so what does it actually do to a person where there's nowhere to put what you witness?

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yeah, man, you are correct. It is definitely a lot of trauma that you see. You know, I can tell you that I feel like, and I bet you could talk to some of my friends. I swear that every single call that I got on was like the worst call that you could get. It just yeah, I don't know. I've had people literally disintegrate in my arms while I'm carrying them out to the ambulance. I've had motorcycle accidents where people's legs are twisted behind their head, or I've had snowmobilers decapitated, literally frozen in the snow that they're found two days later. It's a lot that you see. And it is not super common to have any debriefings. I can tell you the only time that I ever had a debriefing after deaths, babies dying, just so many things. The only time that I ever had a debriefing was when somebody pulled a knife on me in the ER. That's it. That's the only time any management ever really sat down and said, like, are you okay? You know.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Why do you think it's not taken more seriously?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

No, I don't know. I think it's so interesting to me. It's because like you think of the military, right? So you get diagnosed with PTSD, right? They literally pay you for the rest of your life because that's a disability that was caused from the military. Like, why don't they do this for EMS? You know, like the you are constantly bombarded with just the worst, somebody's worst day every single day, multiple times a day.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

You're at war every day but going home every night.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Yeah. Yeah. And people don't, you know, like, what's the saying? Like being oblivious is better than not. What's that saying?

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Ignorance is bliss.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah, right. Ignorance is bliss. You just don't realize how much crap is going on around you. Yeah. You know, and I felt like that that was one thing that really changed me as a person, is you just see so much darkness around you when you're working on the ambulance. You know, like, okay, I went to that house and that person shot themselves. So then you take a different way to get to the store. You know, that house, somebody was kidnapped and duct tied duct taped. You know, this house was a meth house that somebody was rotting on the floor. Like, you know, it's just it small town makes that worse, I suppose. Dude, yeah, like you can't get away from it. I mean, there was times that I would literally like months of my life that I had to take other ways just to get to the grocery store because it was like that traumatic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

So I suppose at that time you're still drinking. Yeah, that's how you're coping.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

Mm-hmm. 100%. We'll get into that. Yeah, the drinking is uh is a pretty consistent thing in my life. Um, very heavy drinking. I know my drinking when it got bad, um was kind of right around the time I had two pediatric deaths like right in a row. It was there was one uh drowning and then another one was a fall. And that was really, really stressful. It was really stressful.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

And when you pick up a bottle, you know exactly what you're gonna feel, and it's safe and it's there for you, and it will get your brain to go exactly where it wants to go.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Totally shut off. Yeah, totally shut off, yeah. And I was just chasing that, you know, with my drinking, um, wanting to just not feel anything, you know, or just wanting to feel good. You know, you get to a point too with your drinking where it's not even really a choice anymore. Like you just don't want to feel sick, you know, like you just you don't really have a choice.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

How do you open up to the people you love about these things, even knowing that they might not be able to hold space for this? Like And what happens if you don't open up about it?

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah. Well, I think that um that's a that's a hard lesson to learn. I mean, honestly, I still struggle with that today. Because like I don't know, I think about my wife, right? I don't want to be the person that makes her feel jaded about people. You know, because like that was a big a big problem is that you just stop seeing the good in people because you're just seeing so much bad. Um that it's really hard to share that with your partner because you don't want them to feel that way too.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

But you can't hold it all in.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

And you want to talk to your partner about everything.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Yeah. So I guess just kind of um keeping it simple and focusing more on how you feel rather than the situation. You know, that's always been pretty good is to talk about a little bit about what happened, but still, how is this making me feel and how can they help?

SPEAKER_04 23:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

You know, I feel like everybody in situations, like they say, like, how can I help you? I'll help you however I can. But when you're in that moment, like give somebody a job. Tell them I need you to do this for me. I feel like there's not enough of that. There's a lot of the I will help you, or I can help you, or tell me how to help you. But sometimes it's good to just say, This is what I need. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Yeah, we have such a hard time doing that, especially in the Midwest. I think um I've when people have come to the Midwest who haven't been here before, they're like, You guys are overly nice and don't know how to ask for what you want. Like it's ridiculous and boring. Like, just say what you want.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

But we're so bad at it.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

It's so hard. It's not easy because even one of them.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Did you see that? Um, or have you like just turned into that so much already? Because I think that's kind of you already. Yeah. Like with your childhood growing up that way, you probably didn't know how to ask for what you wanted.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah. I don't.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

So you're like, yeah, I'm I'm a Midwester.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I feel like I came here so young. I I mean, I came here, I think I was 21 when I moved here. So, you know, I feel like you're still a baby at 21, you know, like honestly.

SPEAKER_04 24:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Like 21, God. You know, the things that you care about then are so much different than the things that you care about now. It's wild how much you change. So, yeah, I mean, asking for help is really difficult. Um, one thing that I learned uh when I was in rehab um is to have yourself a set of advisors in your life or people that you can confide in on certain things. Um, and so I have, you know, a good group of EMS friends that I talk to. Um some people that were in the military that I can talk to. Um, and do I as often as I should? No. Um, but they're there, right? And sometimes that is just uh that's important in itself is just knowing that you have the ability to talk about things if you need to. Just knowing it does help a lot, you know, and life is a learning game, like nobody's perfect, nobody, I guess just kind of giving yourself a little grace, you know, and and knowing that um your healing is your own journey and not comparing yourself to other people because your trauma affects you differently than what I go through might affect you totally differently if you went through the same thing. Um, so just kind of like knowing that it's okay to be seated in the seat that you're in dealing with what you're dealing in, you know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Well, and I loved how you said you can say how you feel without telling the whole story. I mean, we can all get better about that. Like getting home from work, we don't have to like complain about the person sitting next to us at work, but we can say, like, I'm annoyed. You know, can we do something? Or I just want you to know that I'm annoyed. Like, so if I act towards you, annoyed towards you tonight, you know, that's just because of something that happened at work. But then you're not like complaining and putting that other energy out there, making them dislike the person because then you see them at the company Christmas party and you're like, oh, but really it was just, you know, I mean, let's not spread that negativity about each other, but we can do that, we can talk about our feelings without spreading that negativity. Like, that's just something I really want to ponder on because I like that you said that.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Yeah. Yeah. I think one thing that's really hard for me is staying positive. I'm definitely, I'd say over the years, become a pretty negative person. Like I said, like you just, yeah, you see so much crap that you just it makes you a little jaded. And it's I'm also kind of a perfectionist, so I really struggle with that. Um, but just knowing that that is one thing that I deal with, I feel like kind of makes you better just knowing that about yourself. Kind of gives you a little insight into your own brain that, like, hey, Cody, calm down, or hey, this isn't that big of a deal. Um yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Well, well, I have to remind myself daily to not take life so seriously.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

God, that's hard. It is so hard. I know. I think about that too. You like look at a tree and you're like, this thing has been here for a hundred years and it it's just fine.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Yeah, a tree doesn't get worked out.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Time's still past, it's still here. You know, time is gonna pass for us too, and a lot of the things that we're dealing with now, like, we won't even remember. I mean, I swear, like, some of the hardest times in my life were so heartbreaking and miserable and sad and difficult. And then you look back and you're like, I did it. I totally got through that, and it was okay, you know, but in the moment you just feel like you're dying or drowning or just not in a good place, but it gets better.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Yeah, if we could remember in every moment, like in a year is this gonna matter, and then you'll laugh at yourself and be like, no, I know in a year this isn't gonna matter, five years, yeah, or 10 years. But when you for years instead of deal with it and feel it and you drink instead, yeah, then it all comes out.

Malibu Rehab And Choosing Nursing

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

So when did you decide to switch over to nursing?

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Yeah, so um kind of after I went to rehab that first time, um, I went to California for for rehab, and that was an awesome experience. I went to Passages Malibu. Um, and that's like the VIP.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Yeah, it sounds fancy.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Dude, yeah, it was it was very fancy.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Did the military pay for that?

SPEAKER_00 29:25

No, but the insurance I had at that time did.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah, yeah. That was uh, that was uh that was like$130,000 to go there. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Wow, absolutely crazy.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

But, dude, so they're on Malibu, Lionel Richie's old house. So it's like overlooking the ocean, super pretty. It's literally like the place that you want to go to heal. It was just so nice. They had like personal counseling, family counseling. Um they did hypnosis and massages, and like it was just a whole holistic type of rehab where they focus on your mental health and your spiritual health and just kind of like re-centering you as a person. They teach you meditation and just like all of these different ways to take care of yourself. Um, and that really sunk into me kind of at that time. And uh, when I got uh done with that, I came home and I just knew that it was time for me to do something different because I was just so burnt out, you know. Um that EMS is a career that people just leave fast because you don't get paid good. The work is extremely challenging, it's hard on your body, it's hard on your mind.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Um and you're not being debriefed.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

And you're not being debriefed. You have nowhere to put that that um those thoughts, that that energy. Um, and so I thought, you know, if I get into nursing, at least that typically is more of a controlled environment. You have choices, right? Like if you want to go work in a clinic, you can go be a clinic nurse. If you want to take care of the elderly, you can work in a nursing home. There's just so much variety that you can have as a nurse compared to EMS. Um, so I was really hoping to kind of dip my toes into something that could give my spirit some rest.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Do you want to talk at all about what led up to going to treatment?

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Yeah. So that that period, it was just bad call after bad call after bad call. And that was when I had those two deaths, those pediatric deaths. Okay. Yep. So that was kind of like the tipping point of my drinking. Um, you know, I was drinking two big bottles of tequila and three bottles, three bottles of wine and probably 30 beers a day, literally just doing that every single day. Like, you know, I had to get FMLA at the hospital so that I it's like medical protected leave. Um, because of my mental health, I talked to my provider, which is something good for people to know about is that if you're really struggling, um and you have a professional job that you can't show up to work drunk for, you know, if you're struggling, it's okay to ask for help. Because that was one thing that I was very committed to during my struggles is never to show up drinking. You know, like that was a big no for me. So there were times that, you know, I just couldn't do it and I needed to call in. And so that's something that you can talk to your doctor about and they can actually kind of like um like like what's the word? You're kind of like m legally covered, you know, so that if you miss work, you have a medical reason as to why, and addiction is a medical reason.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

So you were calling in a bit and then oh yeah, a lot. Did you out of your own will decide to go to treatment?

SPEAKER_00 33:28

I did, yeah, I did. I knew that the time it was kind of like the perfect timing, you know. Alana had been pushing me to go um and get some help for quite some time. Um, and one day she was just like, Are you ready? And I was ready. So I literally she got me a plane, I went there the next day, um, and I stayed there for I think 45 days. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

That was nice. It was nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

So you got home, decided to get into nursing, quit drinking.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Yes, yep, momentarily, yeah, momentarily, you know. Um it's so funny. It's like I can have two years of sobriety and then still think the same way about drinking, just thinking that, you know, but it was fun, you know. I had a good time drinking. Um, people will say, you know, like, God, you used to be so much more fun when you drank. You know, I hear that all the time. It's like you lose so much too when you stop drinking that you have to be okay with that as well. It's like you have to have your own mini funeral for your drinking because you're gonna lose friends, you're gonna lose sometimes people like your relationship, you know, you can lose so much.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Your own sense of identity, yeah, too. Because like, yeah, who am I? Yeah, I was fun.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

I was fun, yeah. You know, we used to have parties and we used to do all of this stuff, and honestly, sometimes it's just hard to want to do those things because you know you can't drink, you know, it's so weird, and then our brains betray us and try and convince us that we want to.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Yeah, like you said, then people tell you, people still tell me you were way more fun when you drank. And it's like cool.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Might have been, but yeah, you know, I was also like depressed and suicidal when I was drinking too. You know, people never saw that side of things, you know. So yeah, I don't know. Drinking is uh it's a pretty shitty thing once you can't stop.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah. So how many uh times did you uh relapse?

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Um, I would say that I've had like three big relapses. Yeah, probably about three. I ended up going to rehab again. Um, I went through a program at the VA here um in St. Cloud, and that really stuck with me. You know, I think um I think being around veterans too was really helpful. Um kind of like listening to their stories, doing counseling on PTSD.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Um, I feel that tribe feeling, I think.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Yeah, for sure. Like it's easier to heal around people than know what you're going through. You know, like a lot of people don't know what it's like to go to Iraq, right? Um so I feel like that was really beneficial and that's really stuck for me. You know, I feel like at too at this point in my life, like I know where I want to go. I know what I want in life, and I'm willing to put in the work to get there. You know, like I want to feel good. I don't wanna be dry heaving every morning trying to just get my shit together so I can go take care of the day, right? You know, like I want to feel good. I want to be like at a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

And maybe it just takes life experience to know what you actually want and maturity to be like, okay, now I know what I want my life to be. But for so long, for so many years, when you're younger, it's like I don't know what I want my life to be. Yeah, but it's like yeah, now you just want it to be fun.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Well, I can tell you, like that 17, 18, 19, 20, 21-year-old Cody, I didn't think that I would even live to 35. You know, like I like I said, I feel like you are just living up here, like thinking that your life is just gonna be done. So you just give it your all, like you go all out. And that's what I did for years is I just went all out. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Yeah, it was really fun.

Happiness Over Pleasure Plus Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Yeah, it was. There were periods, man, but there was a lot of periods that weren't too.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

My biggest mantra for a couple years now has been happiness over pleasure because they're so different. And I got that from the book Jane Eyre, when he says, Um, happiness has been denied me, so I seek pleasure instead. That's where it hit me of like, oh, those are very different things, and I can control which one I go after.

SPEAKER_05 38:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Pleasure in the moment versus happiness lasts a lot longer if you don't overeat, over-drink, over-smoke, gamble away, do the all the things.

SPEAKER_05 38:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

So happiness over pleasure.

SPEAKER_05 38:33

Like it's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

I'm even in the book I'm reading right now, too, uh, The Art of Happiness with the Dalai Lama, he's talking about um every decision you make, whether it's a job, like, oh, do I take this job in Santa Fe or stay in Dallas? Like, you know, the Dallas job is gonna give me more pleasure because I'm gonna get to be around people that I know and um there's more food options or whatever. But in Santa Fe, I'm doing what I love, which is working with children or, you know, whatever it is. Like he says, make the decision based off of what's gonna make you happiness. And I think that can be really tough, especially if like money is involved. Is money fall under happiness or pleasure? Yeah, but it's different for everybody. Yeah. And so I think analyzing that and deciding, making your own decisions based around that has helped me so much.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

That's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

And it sounds like it does for you too.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I feel like I've finally grown up enough now to know that I just like I want to be a good dad, I wanna be a good husband, I wanna be a good nurse, you know, I want to thrive instead of just survive. You know, I feel like there's so much of uh I don't know. Yeah, I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot, and I've also learned that um, you know, your actions have consequences, you know. I feel like you don't know that until you know it, you know, and it you fuck up and it it is a lot of hard work to get you back to square one. It is not easy, you know, and um just yeah, I don't know to really think about how you want to handle situations and who you wanna be as a person. And if you see that you're who you are as a person is slipping away, to like grab it quick and hold firm in like who you want to be because um I think I really during my darkest moments really let myself slip away of who I was as a person. And it's kind of sad, you know, because um yeah, you know, I've made a lot of mistakes, but I have worked fucking hard to get myself on track.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

So how long has it been now since you had a drink?

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Gosh, um, I have an app. Oh, it's over there. Almost almost two years now, again. Yeah, I think about two years.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Would you would you tell Lyndon about drinking?

SPEAKER_00 41:16

You know, Lyndon kind of lucked out and um didn't really remember too much about my drinking. You know, I when I went to rehab the first time, I had a gentleman there tell me, he said, you are really at a good point in your life to get healthy because your son is at an age where he's just gonna remember you from now on. You know, and I wish that I would have held on to that, but I still kind of lucked out because I don't feel like Lyndon really he didn't really witness me dry heaving every single morning. He didn't really witness me in my full blown destruction, right? So um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Yeah, James said that um a bunch of people since this podcast has come out have been asking him, like, well, is your childhood super bad since your mom drank so much when you were a kid? But he was like, so he's like, So I've been thinking about it, and like, no, the worst part about my childhood was when you'd have parties and make me go to sleep and I'd have FOMO. I love that is the worst thing about your childhood. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Yeah, Lyndon makes comments sometimes, like, I miss how we used to have parties, or I miss how fun the things used to be. And you know, like that is definitely one thing I need to keep in my mind is that like as a sober person, you can still do things that are fun, you know, but life is busy.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

And also you're just like so careful for so long that you don't screw up because you know, relapsing three times, you know how easy it is, and then like if we if our thoughts are going too fast, if we don't keep them slow and and chill, then like we're gonna make our own turn, we're gonna make the wrong decision and all of a sudden spiral again. So, yeah, you're just going slow, you're being careful. It's it's hard to think about doing things that you used to do.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

It is for sure. Yeah. And I like one thing that I believe about recovery is that everybody has their own idea of sober, right? Like, I don't think that sobriety needs to be cookie-cutter because it's just like a lot of things. What works for me might not work for somebody else. And do I feel like everybody who's trying to live a sober lifestyle needs to be completely not having something? I don't I don't agree with that. But I know for me that alcohol is like a no because it is a slippery slope for me. It is not something that I want to put. In my life because it just makes me not me.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

Yeah. I spent years like, okay, it's been a couple months, I can have one. And like, oh my god, I'm so good at this now, I can have one again. But no, it's always so slippery.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

It ends back at the same freaking thing. You're two, three bottles in, and you're like, God, this is my life now again.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

But some people aren't like that. Some people are really good at exactly being casual about it.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Totally. Or California sober, or I mean, there's a lot of options. And I just don't feel like sobriety needs to be so cookie-cutter, but I definitely feel like for certain people, abstinence is like the way to go. And that's me.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

So yeah. Just gotta figure it out about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

You gotta figure it out. And it's a lot of uh introspection and getting to know you, you know, and just I guess what what you want, what you want in your life. Like, yeah. I can't give my energy to help people and heal people if I can't even have enough energy to make myself feel good. Like you can't take care of people that need you when you can't even take care of yourself. So I don't know, setting some boundaries, you know, like me. I know I need my sleep. Like I'm going to bed. Like setting your boundaries is so important to your health. Um, you know, I need to eat by eight. Sticking to that, like, you know, we're gonna have food by eight. Um, just all little things that you can learn about yourself that make you function better. Um I guess just kind of hold on to those little things.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Is there anything you still grieve about your drinking days?

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Yeah, you know, I feel like um just decisions-wise, you know, like it you it takes a piece of you and makes you not who you are, right? I feel like that was a lot of my drinking is is living in a way that doesn't represent who I truly am as a person. Um, and so I I wish that I could have given my loved ones more of me for longer, you know. Yeah, for sure.

Nursing Trauma And Facing Death

SPEAKER_01 46:28

And so back to nursing. So you said there was some trauma. There's been trauma in nursing. Are you still in it right now?

SPEAKER_00 46:36

For sure, yeah. I mean, I would say, you know, like anything, you get kind of used to it, right? You know, you get kind of used to it. I um long-term care has been pretty much my main focus, um, nursing management. Um, but I also work ER and then med surge. And so with that, I mean, you still see a lot of death, right? I mean, I think that death is something that you can't escape when you're in the healthcare field. It's just kind of part of part of the gig, right? Um but I feel like I'm in a at a point in my life now, too, uh, where uh I understand what's going on and I'm able to give good energy and help and bring light and goodness to what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Um you can disassociate from it a little bit, almost like in a good way.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yes. Yep. I feel like I've finally gotten to that point. Um being able to understand what what death is, and being able to understand that as a healthcare professional, that my goal is to help and bring good energy. And I always think to myself, not that the reason why I'm doing it, but I always think to myself that hopefully someday how I act to my patients, how I treat my patients, that someday if I'm ever in a nursing home or if I'm ever in a hospital or my family is, that they get somebody that treats them like I do. I really wholeheartedly believe that.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

Do you define death differently now than you used to? Something you said made me wonder.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

You know, it's super death is so uncomfortable. Right? It's like it's it's something that you never really get used to, you know, and from myself personally, I haven't really experienced much like personal death, like family members of mine. I'm kind of like at that age now where family are starting to decline a little bit and grandparents aren't doing as good. And so I know that's on the horizon. Um so I'll have to get back to you on that because yeah, um I feel like death is less scary and that I typically feel I don't know. Yeah, that's a hard question to answer.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

My dog is having some health issues, and I think she's gonna be fine. But I was talking to Todd, a friend at work, about it, and he said when he had to decide if he was putting his dog down or not, um, he heard a voice in his head that he knows was not from his own thoughts. You know, it was God speaking to him and said, you know, let her go. I have a party ready for her. And that like crushed me. And I was like, okay, I mean, not that it's time yet, but when it is, yeah, um, I'm definitely gonna go back to that moment and think on that. Remember that. And we could think that with people.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

I feel like in I mean, most of my time is spent in long-term care. And I feel like when, you know, you have somebody in their 80s or their 90s and they've really lived a full life, a lot of the people kind of want to go. You know, they've kind of come to terms with what's going on and they're kind of ready, you know. Um and when it comes to nursing and helping people that are on that route to death or in hospice, our goal kind of shifts from keeping them alive, which is such a weird thought in nursing. Like you're trained to keep people alive, but hospice is a little different. You're uh keeping them comfortable, you're giving them the best quality of life as possible, you're giving them medication in a way that just helps them. Um, you don't have to jump through so many hoops. And so I feel like um when you see that it's a lot easier to understand what's going on um and accept it because you know that you're just helping them and that you're uh really bringing goodness to the little bit of time that they have left. Um when it comes to like children, when it comes to accidents and stuff like that, that's a lot different, you know. Like sometimes you just can't explain that stuff, you know, there's no rhyme or reason or or why did it happen. But when you when you get somebody who's older, you're like, they've lived a long life, you know, they're happy. This is part of life. We all know. So I don't think that there's really a way to ever wrap your head around why things like that happen. Like I don't think that ever gets better. You know.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

So you've consistently chosen these high-intensity environments. Do you think that was about purpose? I think you've ex you've said so already, but um, were you running towards something, running away from something?

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Yeah. What a good question. Um probably all of it, right? I mean I feel like as a child that all I wanted was recognition. All I wanted was to be loved and do a good job and feel like every kid wants to feel, right? And I didn't really have that opportunity so much. Um and so I've always been super driven and always wanted to succeed. Um so I've always pushed myself really hard. Um but now I feel like I have that drive, but I actually have that like thought in my head of where I need to go that I'm able to put that into action and like not be blinded by dumb shit. Does that kind of answer it?

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Yeah. It's so heartbreaking how the things that hurt us end up being the things that we want to help other people with. I can relate to that.

How To Support First Responders

SPEAKER_00 54:05

I think that we owe a lot of love and thank yous to our EMS and nurses and providers and police because they don't get enough of it. They just see shit after shit after shit. And uh they put themselves out there in a career that that doesn't pay good. Um and just they deserve so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

What can we do to support them more?

SPEAKER_00 54:45

You know, I'd say just check on your friends. Check on your friends and family. Um you know, like I said, I feel like we're always there saying, like, I'll help you, like let me know what you need. Well, a lot of the times, like we we don't even know what we need. Right? Like, I mean, how many times has somebody told you, hey, you know, I'm here for you, or let's talk if you want to talk? Like, you don't you don't know what you want when you're in a moment, right? You just kind of sometimes just need to show up. You know, just show up and hope that it's it does something. Because those little, those little bits of like I love you, like a little message, like hey, thinking of you, or a little card, or you know, those little bits of thank yous like go such a long way and can really impact somebody more than you ever even think it could.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

Showing up with our favorite candy. It doesn't have to be like a grand gesture, like smaller things. Yeah, just a thought.

SPEAKER_00 55:53

Like, I'm thinking of you because we know I feel like we all know how busy life is. Like, but life is crazy. Like, I mean, God, I swear. Um, yeah, the world is nuts, life is crazy. There's so little time, and it's like as you get older, God, our parents were right. I know, weren't they right?

SPEAKER_01 56:16

But they didn't tell us it was gonna be this chaotic. Probably wasn't for them. They didn't have as many things going on. I feel like life is we don't know how to sit still because like social media and everything is this like just go, go, go.

SPEAKER_00 56:30

So yeah, I know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

Uh for veterans, especially, there's a heaviness right now around what's going on in the news and what's being said about the service um and sacrifice. How do you think that's landing for people who gave everything?

SPEAKER_00 56:50

Yeah, I have a I have a story about this. So the other day, um, and actually one of my very good friends, um, I really enjoy her, but she made a comment to me because I wrote on Facebook and I said, um, just like all of the warshit, all of it. And it just gets super heavy and overwhelming. And like she had made a comment because I said that I was gonna be off Facebook for a while. I was gonna take a little break, right? We know how Facebook is, it's super addicting. Like, you know, like it it is like you get sucked into that, and when you don't have it, you're like addicted to it. So she made a comment after I said that I was gonna take a break because I think a day later I went back on it, right? Whatever. But she was like, um kind of in a roundabout way that like I I look silly because I was saying that, you know, and I was thinking in my head, like after I left, I was like, who is she to tell me that? Like I'm the one out of anything that should be able to say I need to take a break. Like that was just me saying to my friends, hey, I'm overwhelmed with everything that's going on right now on Facebook, and there's a lot of war shit, and I need to take a minute, right? If I pop back on there, that's like my own thing, right? I don't know. I just thought that that was really weird. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

I don't understand why people call people out for that. Like obviously I'm either feeling shame about it or I changed my mind about it. So let me deal with it how I want to. Yeah, I just thought, you know, it's just like not a kind thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Who are you to tell me how I should feel?

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Yeah. I think people think that they're doing justice to people by telling them what they think. But is it kind? Yeah. And don't we need kindness above everything else?

SPEAKER_00 58:51

I feel like it. Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 58:54

So maybe she could have sent you a little message and been like, hey, are you doing okay? Because you weren't going to come back on, but I see that you did. You fell into your addiction. I fell into my addiction with cupcakes today, or whatever. Like, so are you gonna sit there and say that you every time you've said you're not gonna do something, you didn't fucking do it?

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Yeah, yeah. Where'd you go with that question?

SPEAKER_01 59:20

Well, back to military in in general. Do you are your military friends feeling a little um slight-handed right now?

SPEAKER_00 59:30

Or you know what? I think that a lot of the people that I went went to Iraq with, they probably probably are all excited to go back. You know, like I don't I I feel like they were like in it. Yeah, they were in it, yeah. So I don't know. I mean, I feel like it is very overwhelming. Um, it's stressful, and I don't think that like 99% of people even understand what war is.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:01

Yeah, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

You know, like you know, they don't get it, they don't understand like what could happen because they just don't know. So I don't know. I guess just talk to your friends, talk to your family, um know that this time can be heavy for people and maybe give people a little grace, you know. Um it never hurts to just put yourself out there for somebody else.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

Yeah, I try every time somebody pops in my head, it's like that's a sign that I should reach out to them. 95% of the time I don't because I'm like, this is a weird time. You know, like they're why why would I reach out to them or I'm busy or whatever? But I think they come into our heads for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

100%. Because how many times have you written somebody and they're like, I was just thinking about you two?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:56

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

All the time. So yeah, if it pops in your head, think you know, take take the time to reach out.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

I haven't thought for a long time. Maybe we could bring this back. Do you remember in high school? Maybe you didn't have it in the school you grew up in, and maybe they didn't have any anymore. But what was it when you sent grams? You sent like Valentine's grams, oh yeah. Whatever. Do you remember how good that would feel?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

Like, I know we need something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

That we just send something cheap and uh even if it's an email, but it's like uh a letter. Yeah, you know, doesn't it just feel like it hits different, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:38

Yeah, but like let's make an app that just automatically sends out the letter because I mean we really don't have time to handwrite.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

True dat. But true dat, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:48

Okay, yeah, we'll think on this.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

Let's think on this, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

Exciting.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

Yeah.

Overstimulation And Losing Yourself

SPEAKER_01 1:01:52

Okay. Um when you've given way too much at work and it's easy to forget what matters most. Is there anything important that in your life that working in these intense roles has almost made you lose?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

Hmm. One more time. Say that one more time.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

When you've given way too much at work and it's easy to forget what matters most, is there anything important in your life that working in these intense roles has almost made you lose?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

I think it just goes back to that same like who are you as a person? Like, who do you want to be? What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

You almost lose yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Um I don't know. Have you ever watched the show The Pit?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Mm-mm. But it's what that guy from the ER, Shaw Wright.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

It is super good.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

I absolutely love it. I feel like Is it realistic to I do feel like it's realistic. Um, I mean, not everybody is working in Pittsburgh downtown trauma center, but you know, what they see is what a lot of us see in nursing um and have to deal with. And it is very high anxiety, it is very loud, it is very overstimulating. I think nursing, one way to think of it is it is a day full of interruptions. That's literally what nursing is. I have my plan, I have this that I need to take care of. Well, you go to start this, and now you have six other things that are given to you. This person needs water, this one needs food, this one needs their blood sugar check, now you have to start an IV, then you gotta draw blood, then this person needs a UA. Now the family's here asking questions, the doctor has new orders. You're literally just swinging around trying to keep up for your 12-hour shift. And um it's very, very overstimulating.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

But I imagine you have to still have a plan. You do get way.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:08

You totally have to have a plan. Yeah, you totally have to plan. And a lot of it's just kind of like learning what you need to do and prioritizing, but it is very challenging. Um, and I think one thing that is hard to explain to your loved ones is just how over-stimulating that is. And I am a very um, I don't know, we don't need to add this, but I am definitely on the spectrum, 100%. Textures and lights and noises and all of that stuff affect me tremendously that at the end of the day, when I have been so overwhelmed, the last thing that I want to do is even talk. Like, I just don't want to even like if I could just sit and look at a wall, I would. It's just so overstimulating. And I think that like I would love for families to understand. There's a funny I did that for Alana one time. There's a uh YouTube video that has what it sounds like in a hospital, like with the call lights ringing and the codes and the families and the talking, and it literally is like so perfect. I just play it and I'm like, you imagine what this is like for 12 hours. Like, can't imagine people just don't get it. It's just so overwhelming.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

So well, I'm so glad that now you aren't using alcohol to cope with that because that's just gonna build up and make it so much worse.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

100%. Yeah, I don't I don't want to live my life sick. You know, I feel like I'm finally at that period, you know, like yeah, I didn't think that I was gonna make it to 35. I I really didn't. I did not think that that was gonna be a thing, and then here I am, and I don't. Want that to be a thing when I'm 45 or 55 because uh my body hurts, you know, and I feel like I could probably have taken care of myself a lot better than I did.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

And um and you might have to live forever now because I just listened to a podcast about anti-aging on Diary of a CEO, and it's like very likely that kids born today are gonna have the option to live forever. I don't really understand how that's gonna work, but they're like giving mice medicine right now that is reversing their age.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

This sounds like an apocalyptic movie ready to happen, right? Like you know they're gonna shut down New York City because they're like zombies attacking everybody. Yeah, scary.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

I mean, I just don't know where everybody's gonna go. They're for like living forever.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

Have you seen that movie that they um shrunk people?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

Honey, I shrunk the kids.

North Star And Daily Persistence

SPEAKER_00 1:06:57

No, no, no, no. It's like they make they come up with this medical procedure that turns people into like an inch, and then they start this whole huge community of these tiny people. Yeah. It's crazy. Is it good? I don't remember watching it. It is good, and I don't remember what it was called. Um, we'll have to look it up at the end. Anyways, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:21

And so you did say you wanted to talk about not giving up, and when so when have you wanted to give up the most?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:28

You know, I feel like I want to give up every day. Like when you're at work, like to be honest, no, just period. Like, I mean, I don't wake up feeling motivated. I mean, I I don't know. I think some people are like that where they're like, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:51

Like So for you, it's waking up in the morning when you're like, like there is I don't have motivation.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:56

I just make myself to get out of here. Sometimes you just have to be consistent. Um and you need to know where your north star is. Like I know where my north star is, and I am willing to work for it. Um, and I'm not willing to give up anymore. I feel like I did a lot of like just kind of giving up.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:22

Yeah, you said sometimes we're going strong and we give up momentum. Like, what stops that momentum? Do you know for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:31

I guess really the desire to keep going, right? Um I don't know, you have to give yourself your reasons. Like, what are your reasons? Like, I want to be a good husband, I want to be a good dad, I want to give back to my community, I want to someday have people think about me, you know? Like I want to be a light to somebody's day and and go, God, if Cody could do it, other people can do it. You know, like that is so important to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:08

When you think about how big the universe is and how complex our bodies are, it's natural that we want to be observed and we want to have made a difference while we're here. Otherwise, like, what was this all for?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:19

Yeah. You know, totally.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:21

What's something you used to believe about yourself that now you know isn't true?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:26

Hmm. Girl, that's a deep one.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:37

You know, I have a lot of imposter syndrome. I have really bad imposter syndrome, and I think to myself all the time that I can't do this, or I'm not worth that, or even just like getting a job interview, and just not feeling like why would I get it? You know, and I feel I've I've reached a point in my life where I know like I'm a badass. I know my worth. I know that I show up and give good energy and that I try, and I feel like I'm finally getting to that point in my life with little Alana in my ear telling me all the good things about me. I feel like I'm starting to get better at believing in myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

I'm so glad to hear that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:26

Um, what do you think life wants out of you?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:29

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:37

I think that life can have what it gets. Right? You know, I'm just gonna keep trying. And I know that there's gonna be a lot of fails, but I am not gonna give up. You know, not everything is perfect. There's no rule book, there's no way to do things that's laid out for us. But we can certainly learn from the things that happen to us and that happened to our friends and our family, and push ourselves to be better the next time.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:12

Why do you believe we're here on this planet? What do you believe in spiritually?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

Gosh, that is a hard one. I don't really know. You know, I push around a lot of different ideas. Um I would definitely say that I believe in God because I don't I don't think that things could be the way that they are without a God. Um, even just down to how the body works and how creatures can fly and just all of these things are just so interesting and majestic and unreal that I just don't think that things could happen on their own. Um spiritually, I I think that as a human that we just need to work together and help each other. And uh life is hard. I don't think that life is easy, and I think that um just uh appreci appreciating everybody and uh giving your best energy and showing up for other people and just uh uh participating is like so important.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:30

Serve us.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:33

Okay, now we are on to the segment where I reveal to you how people see you. So last week, yeah. Last week I asked you to give me names and numbers of people I could reach out to that know you well, and I asked them to describe you in six or seven adjectives, and I put those in the themes, and we do this because I think we're just really bad at seeing ourselves, how others see us. So, how did you pick who you picked?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:59

Um, so Dave, he uh it was one of my EMS managers. Um, he's a soldier. Um he I've known him for a long time, and we kind of check in on each other a lot. Um, June, I worked um with on the ambulance for a long time, and she also um was a manager that I had, and I've known her through a lot of my struggles. Um, she's gotten a good uh backstage pass to a lot of the things that I've gone through. Um, Amy, uh I've known her since I moved here. Same thing with June, same thing with Dave. Um, but Amy, she's a really good friend of mine too. Um, I feel like we've really gotten to know each other like on a good friendship level and professional level. Um and then I think I did Samantha and Adam. Um, both of those were my military buddies. So I just like a good a good group of people that I really love.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:18

You said it's scary.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:20

No, I don't think it's scary, but I feel like um I'm excited to hear what people say. Yeah, because I I feel like I that imposter syndrome is very true. Like I feel like you don't really always think the best about yourself. So it is kind of nice to hear that. I'm ex- So I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:49

Okay, your first word is undaunted, which means someone who is not discouraged, intimidated, or frightened by danger, difficulty, or failure. And I picked that word because they described you as honorable, tireless, unabashed, confident, admirable, and three people said resilient.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:08

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:10

Your second word is luminous because two people said kind, two said gentle, compassionate, expressive, grateful, humorous, fun, amazing, and magnetic. And your third word is constant, because two said loyal, two said devoted, trustworthy, responsible, honest, and true friend. Fourth word is grounded, calm in crisis, strategic, intelligent, leader, goal-driven, and optimistic. And your fifth word is renewed, because you got described as transformed, redeemed, restored, reclaimed, and revitalized. And your synopsis is you have walked through fire and you didn't just survive it, you were remade by it. What broke you open also set you free. You show up for others the way you once forgot to show up for yourself. Tireless, transformed, and somehow still tender. This is what it looks like when a man becomes, this is what it looks like when a man comes home to himself. And everybody that gave their words also kind of gave sentences. So I kind of put all those together as a synopsis that everybody kind of wrote together. So these are real lines from everybody. He's basically one of the best humans I know, full of life, love for the earth, tonal hippie and wild child, artist of life, the kind of kind that will take the shirt off his back and give it to you if you need one. Loyal and trustworthy. He'll take a bullet for you, humorous, even when it's inappropriate, but someone has to break the stress of the moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:55

It's me.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:57

So please remember you are not these words. You are not your thoughts. You are the space between the words, the space between the thoughts. You're the one who knows you have thoughts. Observe them, reflect on them, but know you are not them.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:12

I love that. That's super special.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:15

Yeah. Was there any words that really stood out and made you feel the most?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:21

I like loyal. Yeah, that means a lot to me because I I definitely am a loyal person.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:28

Um, so it's nice that people can see that when you know that about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:33

Yeah. I definitely, as I've grown older, realize the importance of of uh being strong and grounded and wanting to take care of people in your family. Yeah.

Veteran Suicide Ruck And Nurse Support

SPEAKER_01 1:17:51

Beautiful. Okay, so this 50-mile march in May that I saw you post on Facebook, what's that about?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:58

Yeah. Um, so it's basically doing a ruck uh ruck march uh for a bunch of miles uh to support veteran suicide risk. Um, and so yeah, I plan on doing that. I, you know, I've signed up for a bunch of these things and never really followed through, but I'm gonna follow through on this one. So I'm really excited. Um, we have that. That'll be for this next upcoming month.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:26

Um because the suicide rate and uh military is so high. How many people a day?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:32

Yeah, I think it's like 17 to 22 a day, which is just mind-boggling to me. And I think uh they say statistically that a lot of the people or soldiers that uh commit suicide are ones that are not receiving care at the VA. Um, and so that's one thing to really talk to your family veterans um is about seeking medical help um and having those visits with the mental health provider. Um, and so really, really important.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:08

And I've also seen you post about NPS Network, it's a nurses peer support group.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:16

Yep. So um one thing with my drinking is I um joined a group called the NPSN. Um and so what they do is they uh have meetings that nurses can attend. Um, they're not in person, but they're on Zoom or on a platform called In the Rooms. And so you can log in, join the meeting, and kind of just talk about what you have going on in your life. Um ultimately it's for nurses dealing with some form of addiction. Um, and so I feel like a lot of the times when you're seeking a group to go to, whether it's like AA or NA, that personally I found it difficult to resonate with people that were in the groups just because we have different lifestyles.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:16

Um, I've heard that in this town specifically.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:20

Yeah, you know, and I don't mean that in any bad way, it just is a reality, you know, like we might have different lifestyles. And so it was really difficult to kind of open up when there's just so much different stuff going on in our life compared to other people. So it gives you some form of familiarity knowing that everybody who's talking is a nurse is dealing with the same types of um lifestyle, the same type of career, the same type of personality, typically. Um, so I just have found that to be really helpful. Um, so a couple months ago I joined as a convener. And so um every few Tuesdays I'll be hosting that meeting on in the rooms. Um, so if you're a nurse and you want to join, or you're having um the desire to quit or postpone or just not drink for the day or use alcohol or use drugs or whatever that looks like, um, that's what we're there for to support our fellow nurses.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:29

And I think a lot about how once once you get to like your 30s and your career is kind of stable, like we really only kind of relate to people in the same career as us. So I think this platform should be used in for every job. There should be a group of people, you know, project managers. Like they need their own platform to talk to each other about struggles because I mean, of course, you still have friends that you know you have in Gulf League or from high school or whatever, but I see people really only outside of work hanging out with the people that they work with because that's who you can relate to. So it really makes sense to have a group to talk about your struggles with. And you might not want it to be somebody that sits next to your desk but somebody online or sits next to your desk, but somebody online that is doing the same thing. Well, and understand those specific struggles.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:22

It's nice because there's autonomy to it too. Like you don't have to have your camera on if you don't want to. People don't need to know who you are. Um, and so it allows you to speak your mind in a way that's safe with people who understand you. Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:43

So uh when your grandkids are the age that you are right now, what do you do that you hope that they do?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:53

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:00

I hope they're happy. You know? I hope they're happy, and that looks different for everybody. But I hope that um I hope that they're able to find their North Star sooner than it took me. I hope that they're able to really like love themselves and love this journey of life um and appreciate what they have. Um that would mean a lot to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:40

And what do you do right now that you hope they don't do when they're your age?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:46

I'd say stress too much about shit that doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:49

Take life too seriously.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:51

Take life too seriously. Boy, that's a big lesson I can learn every single day. Because life is just so stressful, and I swear if it's not one thing, it's another, right? I mean yeah, it's just it it is very overwhelming, but god I hope that you know that they can just let things slide a little bit more than I do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:22

Is there anything that we didn't get to that you were thinking we'd talk about or hoping we'd talk about?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:29

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:30

This was so perfect. Thanks so much for coming on.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:33

Yeah, thank you.