Breaking the Chains: Real Talk on Addiction and Recovery

In the very first episode of SafeTalk, the crew at the Face to Face SafeZone sit down for an honest, no-judgment conversation about addiction and recovery among youth and young adults. Meet the youth as they share their backgrounds, passions, and personal stories—opening up about how substance use impacts their lives and communities.

From early experiences with alcohol and the influence of family, to the dangers of fentanyl, vaping, and peer pressure, this episode dives deep into the realities that many young people face today. The group talks openly about the ties between mental health and addiction, the challenges of recovery, and the importance of support systems—reminding listeners that everyone’s journey is unique and that seeking help is a sign of strength.

Whether you’re supporting someone through recovery or navigating your own path, this episode offers a raw, relatable look at what it means to break the cycle and build a healthier future. If you or someone you know is struggling, remember: help is available, and you’re not alone.

This work is funded in part by MHC with money from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund that was created with the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

Created by Youth Advocate and Recording Arts Specialist Tek Burch, the Face to Face SafeTalk Podcast opener blends music and spoken word to spotlight youth truth, justice, and hope. It sets the stage for honest conversations, celebrating strength, breaking barriers, and amplifying youth voices in a space where every story matters.

Transcript

2:39

Welcome to Safe Talk, where we dive deep into the challenges faced by today's youth, a podcast here at SafeZone that we'll be doing. In this first episode, we want to explore the complex and often misunderstood topic of addiction, and addiction among young adults and teens specifically. Right now, I'm sitting with a group of guys here at SafeZone. If you guys want to go around, introduce yourselves by letting us know your name, where you're from, and maybe a little bit about yourself. We'll start right here. Hi, my name is Peter. I'm from ATL originally, and I was raised here in Minnesota. I actually really love to dance. It's something that gives me such a high vibrational energy. So, I think that's something that I enjoy, love to do. It just fuels my day. And I love orange juice. Okay, a little OJ. All right. So, my name is Danetta. I'm from Springfield, Ohio, 937. I am an author. I'm a self-published author. I love writing. I love journaling. I love to be outdoors. You're a writer. Do you have anything that we can read? I do, I do. You can check out my book, 21 Day Affirmation for Self-Love. It's on Amazon. Or if you know me in person, you can come check me out and ask me more about it. That is awesome. Okay. Hi, I'm Damani. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri, really in the SafeZone. My name is Ana. I'm from Chicago, raised in Minnesota. I do music. I do modeling and stuff. I have a new song coming out next Friday, and I got a music video coming up soon. Okay. So, check that out on my YouTube. Hey, I need you to not forget about me when you become famous, please. I'm not. I'm not. Why would I forget about you? All right. Hi, my name is Lamont. I'm from Madison, Wisconsin. I'm a former athlete, into political activism, political information. I like to bring perspective into communities, being that I'm from multiple of them myself that might not be exposed to. That's great to hear. And I was going to ask, you being into the social justice, what are some of the issues that you're really passionate about? I think that there's a lot of targeting. I think there is a massive influx of pro-segregation movements on both the Democratic left and the Republican right. It's becoming incredibly pro-segregation. It scares me. And I think there is a rise of race tensions that is not natural. Absolutely. Well, I'm glad that you're passionate about that. It's not often you find young brothers that are passionate, which kind of brings us to our topic. We'll be talking about addiction and substance abuse among our peers, our young adults and our teens out here. I feel like in this sector that I work in here at SafeZone, as a youth advocate, I've noticed, and I'm also very worried about the population that is dealing with the rise of drugs like fentanyl and of course, things like methamphetamine. It does seem like now it's targeting our younger community. And we have guys from all the way from the ages of 13 and 14 here that are dealing with substance abuse issues. And I just want to know what you guys understand about this issue. I just want to kind of examine some of the common substances and the abuse among the young people here around you guys and what you might know or not know about addiction amongst your peers. I kind of want you guys' perspective on it. What I've seen in my life is like when somebody is going through something like they lost somebody or they're going through hard times, they most likely they go towards, you know, alcohol or drugs and stuff like that, or they stop doing certain things. And, you know, they push a lot of people away. Like I know people in my life that have got addicted to alcohol and everything like that because of stuff they were going through in their life. I've seen how they push family and friends and how they stopped doing their regular daily things in their life and everything like that. I mean, I'm pretty sure everyone in here knows at least one person that they care about that's dealing with that as a coping mechanism. It's easy to turn to the bottle or it's easy to turn to drugs to kind of numb your senses from the things that you have to deal with in life, especially when you're dealing with trauma. What do you feel like is the dangerous part of turning to this substance as a coping mechanism? So, honestly, it can actually bring down your level of vibration. So you attracting good things to you will actually be even harder due to the things that you've put onto your physical vessel. Like it's very difficult to acquire new things and new energies and new life for yourself. You're doing things to numb the pain and numb the things that you're going through with an addiction, especially since you're at such a young age, because we're right now talking about like the youth population and the teen population doing drug use and stuff like that. It's very difficult to actually think about and talk with your peers and stuff like that, because someone might not be on the addictions that that person is doing, but there might be, you know, a similar injury and stuff like that. Addiction isn't always something that you can establish easily. I was an alcoholic 8 to 22. I started drinking at 8. I didn't know this until recently. I drank the same stuff my mom did. It's sometimes you are dealt a hard card in life. And at 8 years old, I had two shots and didn't feel anything. And I just kept drinking after that. Whether it be Red Apple Ale, whether it be Angry Orchard, whether it be some Smirnoff, I just drank because I made it to the U.S. selection team for my sport. I was an athlete. I can still drink and be fine. I did it for over 10 years. It did impact my life. It made my life worse. It made injuries more prevalent. And when I was injured, I just kept drinking more because I wasn't in that sport. Addiction not only can start early. Your addiction predilection might not be your fault, but it's your responsibility. I can't drink, period. And it's not because I was an alcoholic at 8. It's because I was already able to be an alcoholic at 8. My mother was an alcoholic, so I shouldn't drink. So sometimes your addiction and your predilection to having substance abuse is not a fault of your own. It sucks, but that's how life dealt your cause. You said 8 years old, you were drinking. How do you feel as an 8-year-old, if you can go back to your 8-year-old self, how do you feel as an 8-year-old where you almost feel like it's normal for you to drink? Is it your environment? Yeah. Well, yes and no. I was incredibly observant being from foster care. And I noticed that the man, to this day, I respect the most responsible drinker. If he had a horrible day at work, he'd have one shot and leave it at that. And one day I had a really bad day. So I'm like, he has that every time I know he's mad. So I'll try that. There was no inherently bad thought about it. Normally an 8-year-old would try vodka and run away crying. It just so happened my mom loved vodka. Do you feel like it was a generational thing that you inherited? It is generational cultural. If I wasn't in Wisconsin, I don't think I would have had that thought. Likewise, if my mother wasn't an alcoholic, I wouldn't be able to handle that shot. I see that connection. Now we've been talking about alcohol and personally, I've dealt with alcohol issues, not only myself, but with family members that were really addicted, strong alcoholics that needed to find something of importance in their life to be able to become sober. It just so happened that my relative found the Lord to be able to overcome addiction. And alcohol is a very, very strong substance to get yourself clean. What are some of these other drugs that you guys are noticing that are just going through our community and ravishing our community? And I know one right now that comes to mind instantly when I think about it. I just want you guys' ideas because one is really, really devastating right now and just became the number one killer of Americans over car accidents and auto accidents. And I want to know you guys' opinion on some of these new drugs or other drugs that are in substances or addictions that people are dealing with that you guys are aware of that are going on in the community. So yeah, fentanyl is extremely difficult to even acquire because you have to get, you have to go to a dealer to get it. You can't, it's made out of a lot of dark substances. The way that I've seen the youth around my community use that substance for their own numbing, maybe. It's just very difficult to actually talk about because my friend was on fentanyl and I had seen him go down the worst path because he could not cope with the things that he'd been through. So he turned to those, you know, really hard, difficult drugs. And so once that happened, it was no longer that person that he once was. And that's one of the most heartbreaking things, in my opinion, is to see someone go from that person that you know and recognize and love to somebody that you completely don't recognize and aren't familiar with, just like that, over being addicted to this substance that they can't control. And fentanyl was the one I was going to mention is kind of taking the community by storm and there's no real answer as to what we can do about this drug that's tearing the community apart. What other, and even if it is fentanyl, what other things are you noticing? I have a controversial one. Um, heroin and coke. Heroin and coke for sure. A lot of the biggest ones. And it's like, it's tearing the cities down. Like I see them like sitting on the trains, like trying to get on the trains, like they're like falling off and can't even. And how does, and that affects you as a, in the community because you have to be around it and do you feel safe around it? Not really. And then they do it on the train as well. They're smoking fentanyl on the trains and it's like everybody on the train is inhaling it. Yeah. So you're subjected to almost getting high with them because it's just so prevalent in the community and it's everywhere. Have anyone heard the saying bad company corrupts good character? I've heard that. Yep. That's actually a really strong saying to you. Yeah. So while I was here, I say I had a story on cocaine. This is my first time opening up about this. It was a few years ago. I was hanging out with friends and I was always wondering why are they keep going to the restroom? Like, why are they keep going to the bathroom? You know? Together. Yeah. The shots is out here on the table and stuff. They're not inviting me. On one particular trip, my friend, she, I guess she didn't shut the bathroom door all the way. So I was peeking in there and I saw them like with the dollar bill and another dollar bill rolled up doing that. I'm like, damn, like she didn't even, you know what I mean? Like why is she just fell back and tell me I'm not going to judge her or anything, but it's like, dang, like, you know what I mean? And so throughout time I was still hanging out with her because I had a good heart and I'm like, I'm not going to judge her. That particular led me to do that. And so at that time, that's when I started doing it. And I didn't like the way it made me feel because I would turn into a different person. I'll get more violent and angry. And my family, they could tell, but they never just said anything. And so like, they would just pray for me. And I knew, I remember one time I was home. I got home from like drinking and doing that. And I just pray to God because I'm like, this ain't even my life. You know what I mean? Like doing coke, like I, and drinking and partying and stuff. This just ain't even me. And so I just pray like he will deliver me from that. And so a few years later he did. So I'm living a sober life now. That's beautiful. And you know, before I even had a chance to ask you how you overcame that, you said your prayers and your prayers were answered, which is beautiful. I feel like not a lot of people have that strength to do that, will themselves out of that addiction, have that belief or that faith in whatever it is that you could believe in, have faith in to help you with that. And so they struggle on their own a lot of times. I was going to ask a follow-up to your story. Did you eventually approach your friend about what they were doing or when you approached them, was it to participate or did you approach them with concern? I never approached them about that, like what I saw, but I did approach them later to like, I wanted to try it and stuff like that because I, at that time I was observing them and I'm like, well, they're still alive and functioning and everything. So I can trust, you know, like they're, they're getting it from a good person, whatever. And so that became our form of trauma, like our bond. I found out it was trauma bonding, but I, I felt like at that time, they looked to me as a bougie friend. Like she don't really do nothing. She just drank and stuff. And so you did it to kind of fit in and make them know that you're comfortable around them and vice versa. And that's the easy, one of the easiest ways to slip into a pattern of addiction is being influenced by the people that you're around and you want to hang out with and impress. What was your mind like when you were dealing with this at the time? Did you notice patterns of how you were thinking, changing? Were you not feeling yourself? Like how, how was your mental? I was more paranoid than usual. Cause I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like, I felt like when I was extremely high, I felt like people were judging me, like people in my family, especially when they're talking to me, I felt like they were staring at my eyes and it pissed me off so bad. So I started snapping off and just overreacted to things. It caused my overthinking to go. Oh, it was just my race. Yeah, most definitely. So I think there's a strong connection between mental health and addiction. What's a good, what's the link between that and substance abuse that you guys can recognize? I feel like it has to do with the dopamine release. Explain dopamine release real quick, in case there's someone that might not know what that means. And dopamine and dopamine are the two chemicals in your brain that says you did a good job. The chemicals that say good job, good to you that releases when back in the day, when you found berries or something. Now we being intelligent beings have found drugs that increase your endorphin to dopamine. One of them being methamphetamine. I don't know if you've heard this. The love drug Molly is mainly meth. Meth is a massive dopamine. There's psilocybin, there's shrooms, one of these massive amounts of dopamine. And someone who doesn't like themselves has a hard time being okay with their position in life. Whether it is, I feel like I should do more as a man, because I see a man with a car when he's 16 and I can't afford one. Whether it's, I see this girl who's prettier than me, or I see this girl who has nicer clothes than me. I see this dude who has nicer clothes than me. You feel bad. And a good way to make yourself feel nice real quick is that dopamine hit. And a lot of drugs release that in massive quantities. At the same time, there's something called serotonin deficiency. And that is the crash you get from drugs. And it can be terrible, especially if you've done psychedelic. You can spend days not having any emotional change because you basically fry the receptors that release your emotional availability. And a lot of people might be depressed, like chemically depressed. You want to get away to get dopamine real quick. Do some drugs. Yeah. And that can lead to a dependency. That dependency leads to addiction and addiction leads to the death of your life. Just working here at Safe Zone and having to deal with a lot of our youth that are trying to deal with their substance abuse and deal with their addiction. I would say mental health is an extremely huge barrier with helping them find the help that they need because there's that part of the addiction where you're not yourself when you're off the substance. But there's also that mental health aspect where your mind already is at a curve where it's hard for you to get some of the basic help anyway that others may get that aren't dealing with mental health issues. What are some of the barriers or some of the obstacles that someone that might be dealing with mental health issues before becoming addicted to substances that are now dealing with addiction and mental health issues? What are some of the barriers? Honestly, I think that maybe not reaching out to family, but reaching out to an organization that would actually benefit them to take care of some of the things that they're going through. Because at that point, honestly, there's really no family or type of person that can help you. It's only up to you. You have to take it to the initiative that it's gotten this bad. My mental health is too terrible and I'm doing an extremely addictive substance that is also having my mental health problems as well. You need to get professional help. Seek something that is actually going to bring out the best in you once again. Once you fall like that, it's hard to come out of that type of place because you also might be dealing with a lot of financial problems as well. That can be a really, really difficult problem when you're in that type of situation, including mental health and drug use. Very good. Sometimes it's hard to help someone that's not coherent or agreeing to the things that you are suggesting for them to do to get that help. Kind of in a similar situation, but I haven't resorted to doing drugs because I knew it would just make my situation worse. It would just attract more dark things into my presence. I feel like a lot of the youth nowadays struggle with financial issues and stuff, and that can also lead to a lot of abuse when it comes to drugs and stuff like that. I was going to say another thing about that is someone who had mental health issues. I am clinically, chemically depressed. I don't feel happiness like you did. I didn't understand the happiness people were talking about until the first time I did Molly and was driving over a hill and saw the city lights. First time I genuinely was happy about something humanity did. I was 19. I hated everything we were creating. I was just upset because I didn't understand how people could act the way they did. If I wasn't in a large amount of high level therapy, I don't think I would have noticed that was the drug allowing me to feel that way. I would have been like, oh, I'm trying to be happy now. There are people who don't experience gratitude. What do you do now to find the happiness now that you're not dealing with the same? I just accept that some people are happier than others. That's fine. Does that comfort you? Because I understand it now. What upset me was the distance. I didn't know why people acted the way they did. It is horrible that drugs is the way that got me that way. Obviously, there is a more healthy way to go about that. But imagine all the people who don't know that. They finally for the first time get to feel genuinely good the way you do when you look at a puppy. That kind of dissonance between what is considered a normal operation of the human brain and what we consider clinically upset or clinically abnormal is, I think, not discussed enough. There are people when the first time they do these drugs, they get dopamine like you do every day. And it makes them want to go back to it every single day. So is it not dangerous to think that the only way someone can achieve that happiness is through that substance? And is there a safe way to do that? Or is it always going to be that burden to use that drug in order to achieve that? I don't think the drug is necessary. My first experience was through that drug. Maybe it was catching a trout for you. And that was the thing that broke the gap for your dopamine release. Okay. I just do want to say this because at that time when I did, I also was going through something very depressing in my life. I lost my house at that time when I reverted to that at that particular point. And so I was extremely depressed. I'm like, how am I supposed to survive? And it's in the wintertime. And it was just a lot going on. I just needed something to get me out of that depression. So it was like a quick, I feel like oftentimes, yeah, when people revert to drugs, it's just a quick way to get out their depression or whatever they're going through in that season. I had learned the hard way throughout time. And thank God for willpower and strength. A lot of people revert to drugs because it's a quick fix. It's a temporary happiness. And I don't judge people because I was there at that particular point. I don't judge people. I don't look down on people because they do this or that, because those tables can easily turn. I can be it. I'm looking at that person, all they're crashing out on the train. But five years later, I might be doing that too. Or you might have been coming from that. Yeah. I was there once. I can't judge a person because I know how hard it was for me to overcome that. On my way here, there was a person, you can tell they were under the influence and they had some type of drug in their system. I did not judge them one bit. And it bothers me a lot that people, it's like holier than thou, looking beneath someone making fun of them, posting them on Facebook, online, or saying, oh, look at that, they're doing drugs. Those tables can easily turn, baby. And what I know for sure, life humbles me a lot. And life will humble you too. So I just had to say that. Back to what Peter had said earlier about like, you have to want certain drugs nowadays. It's hard for people to stop because certain people, like certain drugs you want, if you stop, it can kill them. It can get you sick. So I feel like they should go to, like Peter said earlier, like they should go to professional people to help them because if they stop on their own, it's hard to stop on your own because then you start feeling sick and stuff. And then you want the drugs even more. I've seen it and stuff. And it is sad. Like, I've been seeing it on a train where there are people and stuff, they be doing blues and everything in front of kids. And I'd be like, that's sad. But at the end of the day though, like you can only control your actions. You can't control the actions. They have to want it for themselves. You can't do it for nobody else. You've got to want it for yourself. If you've got kids, you've got to do it for your kids and stuff like that. Because you don't want your kids thinking that that's normal and stuff. Because I've been seeing a lot of people nowadays, they have their kids around that and their kids like think it's normal. And their kids start doing that. You understand? Like a lot of kids, they look at what we do. Little kids look at what we do and they follow after that. And that's what I make sure, like when I'm around little kids, I change up how what I do and stuff. Because I know at the end of the day, my baby nephew or something like that, even though he's younger and I feel like he's not going to understand, and then he's going to understand. He's going to pick that up and think it's normal. And you'd be surprised how young these guys pick these habits and stuff up from what they observe. I'm hearing a lot about this train and how unsafe it is for everyone else around. Who's experiencing this daily, having to navigate through these trains and the public transportation and stay away from this drug? Yeah, so I feel like no, because this is getting on my nerves. I can't hear you. Because you're not going to sit up there and smoke right up in my face when I'm about to come out. It's triggering, right? Yeah, it's very irritating. And on top of that, if you're going to sit up there and do drugs, at least do it where somewhere you can filter it out instead of having it sucked up in the train. And so I'm sitting here like- They're worried about transferring. Yeah, they're worried about getting that money and stuff like that. And you ain't got time to even be talking to them. So like, oh, you know, this person is doing some fetty right up in my face up on the train and stuff like that. I'm ready to bust his neck right open. Because you can't sit up there and do that stuff in front of me and then expect me to be okay. You know what I'm saying? That's an invasion of privacy, okay? Are you serious? Are you serious right now? I would personally say that since I've started my job, it is quite traumatizing. It's scary a little bit because I have to take the train. So I kind of wanted to dive into dealing with what might sound cliche, but peer pressure. Because how many of you guys know somebody personally dealing with substance abuse that you have either tried to tell them they need help, or you wish that they would seek help, or you had to just distance yourself from them completely? Well, I can't give a story since like my sober journey, my sobriety journey, and just me like getting closer to God and connecting, reading my Bible, praying every day. My past do creep up. Like people message me, hey, do you want to come out for a drink and stuff? They don't know that I'm on my sobriety journey. Because I just cut off all- Because I'm trying to, I'm locked in on myself, you know what I mean? It's personal development, you know what I mean? And so that is triggering because it's a reason why I had to distance myself from you. Because you're, once again, bad character corrupts good character. You just can't be around certain people no more, you know what I mean? It's a recent season. Like people that are not trying to grow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just couldn't be around that no more. And so I had to find a way to say, like, to not come off like I'm holier or better than you, but just also validate my feelings and try to validate them. I don't even know if I'm answering your question, but I can relate to it. No. Sorry. That's exactly what I was asking. That's you dealing with someone close or people close to you and having to distance yourself from that. Is you not falling for that pressure? I would say, like, a lot of my friends around me, they vape. I know that's not like, you know, a bad drug. But it is though. But it is because everybody- I think it's a serious one too because it's in schools and they're dealing with it in the school. Trying to get the kids in the schools to stop vaping. So yeah, because it was so crazy because when I realized a lot of my friends do it, I don't mind my friends doing it, but it gets to a point where they start getting laced and then they're going in and out the hospital every single time. I had one of my friends, she would be in and out the hospital. She'll text me every week being like, I'm in the hospital, mouth bleeding. She's bleeding out her nose and stuff. And I'm like, Tana, I'm like, you really got to stop because that's something serious. You should not be bleeding out your mouth and everything. You're getting laced. And at the same time too, I used to think that I was like the black sheep in my friend group because everybody around would be doing vapes. And they'd be like, no, it's actually good that you're not doing vapes because vapes are very addicting. And that's actually a good thing that you don't vape at all. And I used to think that that was a bad thing that I didn't vape. So I was like, dang, I'm trying to y'all all doing it. I'm trying to fit in with y'all too. See, I'm so glad you said that because that's part of the pressure. That's the scariest part of peer pressure. It is nowadays. People don't even have to hand you the drug and tell you to try it. Like the commercials, Hey man, want to get high? That's not always how peer pressure works. You could be curious, curiosity because of a loved one doing it. Also seeing it happen so often where it's, it's normalized where you're like, that's literally, um, what my story was about earlier. If y'all remember really knowing me, that's not what I do. That wasn't what I do, but I was just around bad company and I just wanted to fit in. And so I'm noticing as I'm drinking, I'm noticing, why is everyone disappearing? Why are you running to the bathroom? What was going on in the bathroom? You know what I mean? And why y'all coming back extra happy? You know, like, you know what I mean? Just what y'all doing in that bathroom? Curiosity. When you guys are noticing your friends might start doing some, what are some signs that they might be leading themselves and down the road of addiction? Like, what do you notice about somebody when you start to see it? What changes? Like what are the signs? Their skin color. They stopped coming around. Yeah. They disappeared. They started vaping. I stand on this. Nicotine is the true gateway drug. I will help me with this in post. I have friends who are entrepreneurs. I've seen every person when the mall break and they start doing actual drugs, they start smoking. Cause we've all been raised in the post smoking era. Cigarettes died with our generation. No one wants to smoke cigarettes anymore. And I've seen it over and over and over again. The moment someone starts smoking, vapes, starts doing, especially cigarettes. It's very easy for them to be. Okay. It sounds stupid. Cause the gateway, the gateway is that moral breakdown. That moral breakdown starts with negative. And I will stand on this. Like I said, I had an alcohol addiction at eight to 22. So it's not been an 11. It's still can't quit. That is the most addictive substance. I have touched, seen, or witnessed. I've seen people walk away from meth, cold turkey. I've seen people walk away from cocaine, cold turkey. I've seen people walk away from drinking. I walk away from drinking cold turkey. Put me in the hospital, but I did it cold turkey. You know what I got in the hospital though? Because I needed that. Everybody's path to recovery is going to be different and it absolutely has to be wanted. I've never seen somebody, and this is just me. I've never seen somebody recover from substance abuse addiction without actively wanting to do it themselves. Even the guys that I know that had to become clean because they were incarcerated. Do you know what they were talking about? Getting out and getting high for the first time. And that's what they couldn't wait to do because they weren't ready to be sober. They were forced to be sober. We have to meet you where you're at. We can't force these things on anyone. We can't force somebody to want to go to treatment. We can't force them to want to be sober. We have to meet them where they're at. And the saddest part about substance abuse addiction is a lot of the guys, we know the help they need. We know how they can get the help. We just can't help them unless they want to be helped. But I've seen somebody recover off of alcohol. They have a really bad alcohol problem. They could literally drink a whole box of beer, like a 24 pack in one day. And their whole mood will change to a point where they spaz out on their family and everything like that. And I've seen them like recently, a couple months ago, they've been doing fine. They took baby steps. So they would just do like one drink a day. And after that, they just, you know, yeah. And so they started taking baby steps to the point where that person does not drink anymore. That person don't even look at a drink anymore. No alcohol, nothing. That person don't even smoke either. So it's possible. It's a mindset thing. That person wanted to do that. That person wanted to do that. And they found a way that was easy for them to do it. I think it was also a thing though, too, like everybody around that person was like letting that person know, like, this is how I feel. This is how it's affecting me. And it's affecting you. And that person didn't listen. It was hard headed. But after years and years went by, that person started to realize like, okay, their health, their physical, their mental, like everything, how they acted and stuff like that, they started realizing how it's out there affecting other people too, that they love, that they woke up one day and they was like, okay, like, let me really like think about this. And they took those baby steps. Because I feel like just saying that you're going to quit alcohol or quit like doing drugs, that's somebody, a person can't just do that. You know, especially if it's like a drug or alcohol that you do every day, you can't just one day be like, oh, I'm gonna stop. You got to take baby steps and be like, okay, I'm gonna just do one drink or maybe just, you know, do this and stuff like that. And I've seen some people like that my friend that, you know, is addicted to nicotine. What I did, I don't smoke nicotine, but I like, no, I'm like, you know, how about you go outside and like, do like a fun activity, everything, find something to do to like, you not think about that. If you don't do nothing, and you said a lot of stuff, you're going to be thinking about that and be paranoid and everything. Well, what are some paths to recovery? Even if that instance sounds like it's going to be hard, and it's going to be really challenging for someone in dealing with mental health issues and substance abuse, but for all people dealing with substance abuse, what are some paths to recovery? What can they explore to become sober? Support systems, treatment options, like what are some of these things that someone can do? It helps a lot when I want to not drink no more. It helped me a lot to have someone, my aunt, she was delivered from drinking 30 some years. That's a person that's strong. When I'm feeling tempted to go back drinking, that's a woman I can be easily like vulnerable with and say, like, I'm having those thoughts again, I'm having those thoughts, and she will just bring me the reinsurance I need. It's best to have someone that in your corner, that's where you want to be, you know what I mean? Like a mentor or a sponsor, somebody that you can be guided by. Yeah, don't sit there. If you're trying to be sober, I wouldn't want to look into someone that's been sober one or two months, because nine times out of ten, you guys are in the same boat too, you know what I mean? But someone that's 30 years of being sober, that's someone that's strong into it, you know? So have someone. Challenge yourself. I would say, you know, write down like how you feel every day. I know that this year for me, I've like a lot of shit that I had in my life last year. I've kind of like, I'm different this year. Like I'm more at peace. I'm not fully healed yet with a lot of things, but it's baby steps still. I feel like my communication and everything that I do now in life, like all the negative people and the being around the wrong crowds, I surround myself this year with people that are trying to go and be at peace and everything like that. And it is, it's so much peaceful and everything. I feel like, you know, I know some people don't believe in God or anything like that, but even if you don't, like write a letter, like write a letter to yourself, to your future self, how you want to be in like five years, right? Every day, like, oh, this is how I feel. And then in the next like five years, you're going to look back at that and be like, damn, like I really like, I am like, I'm manifesting. I'm sorry, Ana. I literally did that when I wanted to be delivered from drinking and smoking cigarettes. I, I keep my journals. I was like, dang, I literally wrote to God and I, you know, or you can do like your passion, your passion. I was going to say too, I don't know what's going on in 2025, but it seemed like a lot of people is like letting go of things that no longer serve them. 2025 is a powerful year. I don't know. I think I would pay more attention to that. Any other thoughts you guys want to express in the stories you guys want to share about what we've been talking about or just any advice you might have for anybody out there that's struggling and doesn't have the answers and is seeking help right now? I think the one advice that I would give to take baby steps with just write like goals down that you want to do. Write small goals. Don't write big goals because big goals, you're going to like do it for a couple of days and then you're going to stop and go back to the same thing you was doing. And I had to learn that myself because I started writing big old goals. I would do it for a couple of days and I'm like, eh, that's too much. So I started doing little goals. And this year when I started realizing I'm achieving those little goals, it motivated me even more to keep on going and doing even more things. So I feel like doing that. Surround yourself by good people like this. That's great advice. Baby steps, one at a time. Well, this was first podcast. You guys did a beautiful job. I feel like anyone out there listening got some great advice and some great stories about dealing with substance abuse or dealing and living with someone dealing with substance abuse. I want to thank everybody out there that's listening to us today. Thank you for joining safe talk here at safe zone. If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, remember that help is available together. We can foster a healthier future for our youth. And if you need to come down to safe zone or face to face, reach out and look us up on Google. Thank you guys again for this discussion and we will be back.