Loss, Fentanyl & Recovery | Judy Wilson

In this episode of Never Alone Live, Judy Wilson shares her powerful journey through addiction, grief, recovery, and purpose.

After losing multiple family members to addiction and witnessing the devastating impact of fentanyl, Judy opens up about pain, healing, faith, and what recovery truly means. This conversation is a raw and honest reminder that no one is beyond hope.

Never Alone Recovery provides support, connection, and recovery resources for individuals and families affected by addiction.

Free & Confidential Addiction Helpline: 855-831-9996

#Recovery #AddictionRecovery #MentalHealth #Sobriety #FentanylCrisis #Healing #NeverAloneRecovery #RecoveryJourney

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone to Never Alone Live. Um, thank you for watching, first and foremost. Uh, as usual, I'm joined by Krista the Sober Barbie, and today we have a very, very special guest, uh, Miss Judy Wilson. Judy Wilson, who does uh business development at Seagrove Recovery down in Charleston, South Carolina, where we just had Freedom Fest, and Judy was a uh was on a panel at Freedom Fest, and and the CEO of Freedom Fest talked on Friday night. So we're a big, big fan of Seagrove Recovery, but you are under the umbrella of Foundation's Recovery Network, has which has 15 different um institutions throughout the United States. Um and Judy has been around the pro been around recovery and in recovery for 37 years, and you're celebrating 10 years coming up. Uh, so it's very exciting. So, you know, Judy, I'm gonna stop rambling and stop introducing, even though I'm the greatest introducer of all time. Um and uh and uh just uh who is Judy Wilson? Tell us about Judy.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Well, Judy Wilson is a person who's really, really, really blessed richly to be able to experience and be involved in recovery on so many different levels all throughout my life. I got sober at 33 years old, unbeknownst to me. I never ever ever ever tried to stop drinking. I had quit cocaine a few years before. I had overdosed on cocaine before that and different things like that. I am one of those. If for any of you who are older, which you're probably not, I'm gonna ask you to watch that movie, Private Benjamin, because Goldie Hahn, in the midst of her celebrating with her husband, he has a heart attack in the middle of their uh tryst, and she ends up drinking up a storm, and through the course of being invited to join the army, she didn't realize that the barracks she thought was condos that she'd be in boot camp. And that's pretty much what happened to me. I had no clue that I had a problem with alcohol. I had um truly drank because I thoroughly enjoyed drinking, never considered not. I worked on Wall Street, and then later on, as I was just getting into the mortgage business, I was now married, and um, it was not a good marriage, it was a stupid marriage. It was one of those where I didn't think anything of my, I thought there was something wrong with me that I didn't love him because all of the right things were there, right? And so I got into a marriage, and about a year and a half later, this man, I had never been touched in my whole life, but he beat me to a pulp, fracturing my skull, bruising my inner and outer. I was in other words, I was in the hospital for two and a half weeks. But this was critical because um I was one of those girls that really something like that wouldn't have happened to. You know what I mean? Even though I had through the course of my drinking and drugging career, um I guess I should back up a little bit. Maybe that'll help. Um I was raised in a family. We were not alcoholic home. It was one of those, you know, dad went out and provided and protected the family. Mom raised the four kids. I'm one of four, from the eldest to the youngest, is three and a half years. So when I was 16 or 18 years old, and my dad lit my cigarette and gave me a glass of champagne, he explained to me that he and mom found something they were good at. So he had a, so they had four kids in three and a half years. We never had any trouble at all, really, living in Weerton, West Virginia, until we moved to California. And when we moved to California, I was like in the fourth grade. By the seventh grade, seventh grade, I was so exposed to drugs, it was unbelievable. My eighth-grade friend ended up pregnant. You know, there was so much going on. It was the end of the Haight Ashbearer era. It was right outside of San Francisco and San Mateo. And in that exposure, I honestly feel like the four of us caught this illness, whatever it is. And I do believe that alcoholism itself is an illness, and it can also be a huge blessing because once you get what it is, it's tragic up until then. But uh, once you get what it is, there's really solutions and there's real hope, real help, real recovery, and the life that truly, you know, I hear beyond your wildest imagination. I never had dreams or anything like that of what I wanted to do, but I can tell you that recovery is connection in so many ways to self, God, and others that there's absolutely nothing like it. But up until then, it's tragic, it's scary, it's awful. I've lost both of my brothers to this disease, recently lost a niece and a grandnephew. I mean, just so much, so much, so much. And I'm going around a lot, but I didn't even um I tried drugs in seventh grade, they moved us back to West Virginia. I wasn't happy about that. Ended up finding those spots through high school, you know, even like um, you know, drinking and driving and drinking and driving and drinking and drinking and things like that, and just partying. But um, and I would try this drug or I would try that, like a little mesculine, your orange, whatever it was, um, I forgot what it was, orange something.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Whatever. Fear and loathing.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Huh?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Like fear and loathing.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

Yeah, window pain, you know, it while you're working, you know, stuff like that. But I wouldn't do um drugs all the time, it would be periodic, and I didn't drink all the time, it would be periodic. But even my very first drinking episode um happened when I was about 15, working in a restaurant, got in the back of a car with um uh the I was the butter girl, we know went around and gave the butter to the tables, and he was whatever. And we started drinking this tequila and shots, and it was a nightmare, it was a mess. I fell into the black mud and in Weirton, West Virginia, but I got home. But, anyways, long story is periodically I would drink, and when I did, I did it to excess. Um, and then in college, I went to school at 17, went to Florida State, and my first year there, I was 18 now. I was with a guy that was um, you know, in minimum security prison, you know, he would get out early and take me to school, and he just really fell in love with me and all these wonderful things. And he was about a week away from getting out of prison. We went to go see his mom and dad, and we shared a room, caught a fire, he died in the fire. And it was one of those things where I heard this man die. It was awful, it was tragic. I got the other couple out, which was his brother and girlfriend, and it was the most horrific thing. But um I ended up going back to Pittsburgh where my family was, being in my sister's wedding the following week, and really back to school, never dealing with that at all. And it was within a couple of years of being in school, I was working five jobs going to school, and decided that I would just go move to California with a friend. And when I was successful, I'd call my parents and let them know where I was. But that's how naive I was. I was probably 20 years old, 19, 20 years old, and um really thought it took about 30 days to get successful. So I get out there exposed to even more stuff, ended up trying to take my life, got into the hospital, and they let me go. That's how good of a bullshitter I am, Johnny and Krista, because they understood why I did it. It's like so they let me go. And this loser that was sleeping on the couch watching cartoons while his family paid for his life, uh, found my parents and they came out and brought me back to Pittsburgh. Long story, I go see a shrink. In about an hour and 15 minutes, I tell my life story. The shrink gets up, and he says, You know, you could really help a lot of people. I was like, okay, that was that. And then I ended up shortly thereafter moving to New York City by myself. Um, absolutely just went up there to check it out, fell in love with it, turned around, came back. I had four job offers in four different industries, and took one in an advertising industry. And I loved New York City. Here I am in my young 20s. Now, uh Studio 54 is soon to be the thing. I was very much a part of the Studio 54 scene, met a lot of different celebrities, a lot of different people. Cocaine was everywhere, and there wasn't a day that went by that we didn't go to happy hour. And early on, if being in New York, you couldn't afford to really eat. Who cared? Because you go all these free happy hours because they would feed the girls because they knew how that all worked, you know, and the modeling agencies and different places, all of them would have these older men to take care of these girls, you know, and so that was always available to do those things. Um, but anyways, I ended up working on Wall Street. Um, I overdosed at the age, I think, of 27 on cocaine uh Stanhope Hotel, you know, too much. Um Stanhope Hotel is across from the Metropolitan Museum. And what was fun about that is I was down in my little red teddy and panties, you know, because I had it was hot and everybody was gone. And the shot I had just gotten, I knew it was too much. I go flying into the elevator, and it's one of those the guys got the top hat, the white gloves, and the elevator that they manually do. And I am like jumping up in the elevator going, it's too much, it's too much. And when I got to the ground floor, Fifth Avenue is never empty, but I flew, I was a tiny, tiny thing, wisp flew through that hotel room. There were all these people in gowns and everything else, and went out and was into the street, and there was one vehicle, it was an ambulance, and that's where I died. And you can't tell me there's no God. You cannot tell me that. And from there, I was um what strapped down, I guess. I was out for a couple of days. And back then you didn't have cell phones. I surely didn't have any connection with where my parents were, but somehow when I woke up, my mom was sitting next to me as I was strapped down with my tiny little left titty showing. I remember that I was embarrassed. And um, my mom was just sitting there reading a book, you know. So um I love that story because I just think of the tiny little wisp running through that, through that hotel room, I mean through the hotel lobby with all of the glamour and the glitz all around. And here I am. I don't even know what hospital I was in. I was probably in Bellevue. Shortly thereafter, I decided to quit Coke. By now, I had an older man taking care of me, still working on Wall Street, into Freebase, all that good stuff, good stories around that. Met some incredible people, and they were all looking for cute little wispy blondes or dark hair or girls to just be part of the party. And so I was a part of that scene. So those three years of Studio 54, Nell's Palladium, all of those places. But the difference with me was I would literally go out and party all night, come home, shower and change, and go to work. And when I worked on Wall Street, I'd read four papers by seven, eight o'clock in the morning and start the day, you know. So, anyways, at one point after the OD and things like that, I took a couple of years sabbatical. I thought I was retiring. And what I really had was an older man that had a lot of money that was taking great care of me. And, you know, he was he was a lot of fun. We had a good, good relationship and we never fought. And then one day I decided, hey, you know what? I don't want to be 30 years old and dating a married man, and that's it. I would like to get married and have children. My mother's like, what you do, really? So anyway, I um uh just made a fight with him. Um, I had to look away because he just made me laugh so hard. Oh, and he was being looked at by the feds, by uh Mafia, let's see, the Rico's where he ended up uh, they followed us for several years as we just traveled and did all the things that we did because he was doing payoffs to city housing. He was a big construction guy there, and that's kind of how you did business in New York. There were payoffs. So, anyway, from there, I get married to a loser, but he had came from the right side of the tracks, and honestly, he was a beautiful man, but he really didn't have anything inside. And um, when I say that, he saw me, I was 30 years old, it was a giggle situation more than anything, I think. Um, so anyway, what you find out, and I learned this many, many years later, was that you don't marry somebody because you think there's something wrong with you that you don't love them, because that person will kill you. Uh, he's got to take everything. So, anyway, that's what happened one night in 1989 in May. Um, we ended up in a thing, and the next thing you know, he was 6'4, 200 pounds, and I was trying to get out, and he threw me on the ground in the kitchen and slammed my head in the door so into the floor so many times. I still have a scar here from where my wiry little self was able to go back in and pull that hair and get him off of me. And by the time I got up and out the door and to the elevators, there was an M the EMTs and the police coming off of those. That's how long the beating took place, to give you an example. From there, now when your brain is healing, it's extraordinarily painful. There's not enough alcohol to handle that kind of pain. I was on some psychiatric meds at that point, um, just trying to deal with all that pain. And then my mother came up and asked me if I needed some help one day. And I was raised in a family, you don't ask for help, you just take care of it. So raised very, very independent. And from there, um, she whisked me away here to Charleston, South Carolina, where she put me in a little plantation, much like what Goldie Hahn had. I saw the pictures with the pool. It was a beautiful manor house. It was like Terra, you know, all of that. And then they had these different buildings, and one of them was a um the detox building, and that's where they had like eight females, eight males for detox. Outside of it was a couple of trees and a couple benches. And over to the left was this building for psychotics. That's people out of touch with reality. I wanted in that. I had no idea I was going to treatment. So when they say you have to have a desire to stop drinking, not true. I had no desire to stop drinking. And if I'd known I was going, I don't know that I would have gone. A, B, I would have drank a hell of a lot more on the plane. There would have been no more. No, no, I never had so little on a plane in my life as I was unknowingly going to treatment, you know, up until then. I mean, I was flying planes, I was doing all kinds of shit. I was traveling, I was really limoing it up and things like that. So, I mean, I really had quite the life for a while there. But um, anyways, lots of great stories. And I'm telling you, I met some amazing people.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

But anyway, I have some questions. Hang on, we I gotta stop you for a second. First off, I've got a buddy so good. I'm telling you, I I am so engaged, and you know, there's there's you know, you hear leads all the time, right? And we're told don't compare, don't compare yourself to someone else's story. We're supposed to relate. But uh, I've got my uh Mark Lemus is in the comments right now, he's a dear friend of mine, and he has already sent me a text with a picture of him in a red teddy and red panties. I'll send that to you. And so he he definitely related to your story so far.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

Um Bergdorf Goodman, that's what I want to know.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

And he he's in here talking, he's in the comments talking trash about me right now. You'll love him. Uh and he says, wait, wait, it's me, a woman version. You're gonna love Mark. I'm gonna introduce you to him one of these days. But we've got all sorts of people in the comments. I want to shout out real quick. Um, Vincent DiCarlo is a good friend of ours from Kansas City, and Danny Dodd. And um, and where is she? Um, Karina Marie. Karina Marie said, I'm 51 days sober from cocaine. Just received custody of my son back, trying to get my grandchildren back, trying to regain my life and go hard on my recovery. Karina, we're so proud of you, and we love you, and you're never alone, never again. And Hiraman, Hiramon, H-I-R-A-M-A-N. Uh, today, uh 400 days sober. Hiramon is here listening to your story with 400 days story. We've got Erica Davenport. We love Erica, and we've got uh, and Jolene's in here. You know Jolene. Uh Jolene says, I love Judy. Um, okay, now back to the story. My first I have one big question. Now we've got to talk about Studio 54 for a second. Because yeah, who was the most famous person you did cocaine with?

SPEAKER_03 17:58

Oh this is a great question.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

Krista, who's I have one, but I can't say it out loud.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

What do you mean? Why not?

SPEAKER_04 18:10

I can't.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

We won't tell nobody. Are you guys gonna tell anybody in the comments? Can you keep a secret? No, no, no, no, no. We're only as sick as our secrets.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

So uh uh there's a few.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

There's a few.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

There's a few. Uh uh.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Why look at why are you blushing? This we talked about.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

Because I'm getting memories all of a sudden. Um what's funny is I remember I was sitting, Richard Dworkin was his name. He was the rag business back then was a big deal. And his best buddy, Mark, he owned Harold Square, his family did in New York, and Richard Dworkin was a big um um in in the rag trade, you know, the garment industry. And they had such a rivalry about which girls they were gonna have in their parties and stuff like that. So Richard Dworkin had a whole like three levels in New York City where his apartment or home was from one side to the other. I mean, it was huge, and I think it had 16 balconies to it and and a pool. He had more celebrity parties there. But there was one time I was sitting on the couch and um I didn't recognize the guy behind me. And it was um, what's his name? The guy who was sunny and um James Conn. James Conn, right? What's terrible is I turned around, I said something awful. I did the slide too, um, was I said, what did I say to him? I was like, oh, I didn't recognize you. You look so much better in the movies or something. But when I was at Studio 54, I was walking around and my friend Sharon Alberti, I should probably shouldn't say her name. Sorry, Sharon, if you're watching.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Too late. Hi, Sharon.

SPEAKER_03 20:05

Yeah, too too late. Um, but anyways, we were at Studio 54, and apparently what happened, we were with this guy, Brian, and Sly Stallone was standing there, and he was talking to Brian. He goes, I want her and I want her, like this. And it turns out we were with Brian, and so when it we came around to meeting him, I'd come back. I remember them saying him him saying something about and and and who were you, you know, this is Judy or something like that. And I looked at Sly and I said, And and you are and that did that. He was not happy with that. You just you're supposed to know. But another time I I know there was so much coke. There was at studio so much, the after parties so much. We had dinners with heads of state, like Menachem Bagan from Israel. Um, he didn't do coke, but you know, he liked to see all kinds of people. This guy Vince used to go out and try to put together all these beautiful parties for him, you know, and stuff like that. So I remember having dinner with him.

SPEAKER_05 21:09

And had the party favors out there.

SPEAKER_03 21:11

Yeah, and yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I got one for you. Oh, hang on, here we go.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

There's a lot of O's before that.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

I got one for you. Okay. Literally platters of cocaine on silver platters at this party. I don't remember whose it was, but there was a lot of coke. And that's there was everywhere. We would do cocaine on the bars and stuff, everything. It was everywhere. We all had it in our drawers at work, you know, all of them. So, anyways, um, I was this friend of mine was with Brian, it was his girlfriend, and this one guy was trying to talk to me, and I was trying to figure out who he was, and she's going like this. And I'm like, What? It was John Holmes. Oh. That was a good story. I'm like, what is this?

SPEAKER_02 22:11

But it was just, you know, Judy, you you've officially made uh Krista blush.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

But I've not smiled this much in one of these lives. We've been doing this like a year. Okay. This is awesome. Judy, I love you. Like you are a vibe.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Well, did you ever remember Brooke Shields was dating the son of the guy that owned Africa or whatever it was? Adnan Khashoggi? Does anybody remember that name?

SPEAKER_05 22:38

No, but she used to vacation down here all the time. I think she has a house on Hilton Head.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Well, Adnan Khashoggi was so one of the world's richest men. He was this short guy with these real teddy bear eye uh lashes. I remember that. And he just had a real teddy bear face. And he had all of us come to his place um for dinner, and it was literally served in gold bowls, and it was like the chicken soup. It had a gold bowl of broth, a gold bowl of noodles, and a gold bowl of chicken. And then the guys that were serving were in the white gloves and all of the stuff. And it was just fascinating how much money flowed. I mean, you know, and and what we just did. And it was just kind of just a cute blonde from Weirton, West Virginia is up there meeting all these people. And a lot of people are being shipped back to the states they came from because what they did is too much drugs, you know, and the partying was ridiculous. I thought that partying had stopped. I thought people grew out of that and people were better. And when I learn more and more and more about all the stuff that still goes on, it makes me sick. Because I thought we were better than that, you know. So when people talk about some of the men that were back at that time and, you know, all of that stuff, that was just kind of the way it was. I just thought we were better than that now. But apparently not.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

You know, it hasn't changed, nothing's changed.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

No, it shocks me.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

If anything, it's gotten worse because I mean the the drugs have gotten a little more exotic and they're they're doing a lot more stuff. People haven't changed, you know, mental health issues haven't changed. People still have low self-esteem and depression and anxiety, and you know, now we all have PTSD and and everything, everything correlates to go do drugs, go drink alcohol, because that's gonna fix your problem. And that has been that's why what we do, what we're trying to do by by you know, ending the stigma of uh, you know, people that are lesser than, and you're not lesser than everybody is in the same boat, we're all needing some sort of surrender, so that's why this is important. And and the fact that we can come on here and tell some asinine stories and actually laugh at ourselves. Vincent in the in the comments said, Yo, Adrian, and you know, and I like Sly, by the way, he's a really good guy, and this, you know, and and in a in a normal people situation, you'd say, Oh, well, I was in Studio 54 and doing cocaine, and so that's just fun. And they'd be like, Oh my god, oh my god, you know, but we not us, not us. We're gonna laugh about it because we're all in the same boat. And uh let me jump over to the comments real quick. Uh Johnny Mac, good afternoon, and Marisol Beatty has day one clean today. Day one day one.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

And this is uh this is uh this is the reason that we're doing this. Uh you know, the normalization of recovery, you know. Um, you know, there's I'm telling you, in the next 15 years, there's gonna be more people in recovery and more people recovering from mental health issues than normies. And that's uh that's you know, the the more we can get let people say they're not alone and that that they don't have to feel bad because they have issues, that's uh that's the beauty of this.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

Yeah, yeah. And there's there's such a transformation from what was into what becomes, and that journey is not to be missed. Um what's out there now, it's killing more people than anything. And now a relapse can very easily be a death. Um, there's so much stuff in things before, back then. I mean, when we free based, we we cooked into pure coke, right? So the crack had all the stuff in it. You didn't do crack, you did freebase. There is a difference, you know. Um, but it was also a lot more expensive. Now it's like you don't know what's in the crack. There's your fentanyl, which now people there's not even heroin anymore. Well, we are, it's now fentanyl, and the fentanyl now is this the xylosine, you know, and it's horrible what's out there now. So, you know, somebody can take a hit on pot. I know the whole Wake Up Carolina Foundation was founded on that, is the young man was 18 years old, Creighton, a young, beautiful man, had struggled all of a sudden in high school, and the next thing you know, uh he's sober, he's going through some stuff and is seemingly okay, decides to take a hit of pot, there's fentanyl, and he died. And there's a whole foundation in his name. And because of his mom taking all of that pain and suffering and developing a program, wake up care, she has woken up Carolina to addiction and helped with crossing over with the police, with EMTs, with the treatment centers, with employers, with all of the different things, so that we can all begin to understand. People don't know what a substance use disorder is or addiction and things like that. People don't understand it. And I'll tell you honestly, those of us who have it get it. And somebody else who doesn't, just like my mom was diabetic with the fourth child, adult onset juvenile diabetic one, I never knew diabetes was an illness because she took care of her recovery, even though she had to explore all the different things to be able to count every carb and the exercise and all the stuff. And that's what I feel about recovery is I got that opportunity to be invited into a plane ride to Charleston, into a place they didn't serve alcohol and drugs, into a place where people had blue books running around and I wanted nothing to do with them. I knew nothing about them. But I know this much, they would, you know, I love this part of the story of you just don't know what it's gonna look like. So I think one of the things that I struggle with now when somebody's trying to get help is like my niece. I just lost her. She's 40 years old. I just lost her in December. Um, and it would be like she would want help. And as soon as you'd get into help and offer options or something like that, she'd want to control it or say, I'm not gonna do this or that. And I'm gonna just tell you, it can be the ugliest thing. You have no idea. You can be in the worst place possible and get sober, you could be in the best place possible and not. So, so one of the things we get to do is there's so many resources now. What I invite anyone to do is just open up and ask God to give you a teachable spirit and just be open-minded. Be, you know, that what happened to me, it's not like we just become open-minded. What happened to me or for me was I believe that deep in those nights when I would write on my marble floors and the letters and just all pouring out all those tears and the pain and the heartache and the things, some of it because life happened, some of it because of what I was doing, I allowed myself to be in a position of being raped, you know, things, things being hurt or losing the love of my life, you know, just different things. So as a result of using and using alcohol and drugs is my solution to things. That's what I did. I mean, just I didn't know it at the time. I didn't know any of those things. But from that, there's traumas created. There's things that happen, and and there's a lot of shame and things like that too, which I didn't feel at first. It didn't feel it at all. As a matter of fact, all this stuff that you guys just heard, I didn't see anything wrong with my life. I didn't see anything wrong with what I was doing. And then my mom said, You need some help. I just things weren't working. These brain things, these every time a bruise heals in your brain, it is excruciating pain. And, you know, I couldn't handle alcohol anymore. Plus, I couldn't tell the truth of having been beaten up the way I was. I couldn't fathom it. Something happened inside of me that went so deep that it took me years to even be able to look at the curb. I was below a curb liquor inside, but people didn't see that about me because I have a strong exterior. People think I have my shit together until they get to know me. Anyways, um, but but what happened to me was I'm in treatment and they didn't serve it and they didn't give those things. And and I got to go and sit out and smoke cigarettes and laugh with some people while the nurses lied to me, saying, hey, you know, you got your crime victim's bus will be along shortly. There was no bus ever coming. I'm so the reason I say is don't judge what's around you because those those nurses knew to lie to me to tell me about a bus that was never coming. They would say, Oh, blue attire, would you mind going to this class? It would be a group. Ah, well, you know, it's you just missed it, you know. So I would, why don't you just follow these people to this? It'd be education. Why don't you follow these people to this? I still avoided people with blue books. I didn't know anything about Alcoholics Anonymous or any of that stuff. All I knew is inherently I wanted to know nothing about it. But they kept me there. I stayed there and I would laugh. And there's a thing that I learned later, many months later, it was the final thing for me in the exploration of what does alcohol and drugs do for me and what is it that I what is my relationship with those things? I didn't understand any of that. All I know is that the third day I was sitting in a room with this guy, Philip Rowland, who was teaching it, and we were there as a group, and they had the steps on the wall, and it was the conscious contact with God, that conscious contact. I had been trying to get high enough to get to God without knowing that. I was trying to get to that nirvana, that spiritual awakening. And that moment, my mind opened up and I became teachable. And that was, I was sober August 22nd, 1989, is when I got sober. And I mean, that was a long time ago. And I was got to be, and you ask about treatment, why do you go? Because now I'm in an environment. Once my mind opened up, and by the way, something else that was so important happened. I still didn't see anything wrong with my life. And the therapists were having me write stuff out my life, when did you first drink? It was real hard to sit down and think about that and to write about it and remember, you know. But I did some of it. And so I wrote my life, and I came and I read it to the therapist, and I still didn't see anything wrong, nothing, nothing at all. And they said, the therapist said, Hey, you know, I'd like you to go to your group and get a guy and a girl, and I'd like you to go find a spot and I want you to read what you just wrote. I said, Okay. So I go and I asked this guy. He was a he was uh he was a heroin addict. See, I was a higher class drug addict, right? Coke was up here, heron was down here, you know. That's that's kind of so you know, I just had a little bit of superiority, right? He probably had five days more than me or less than me. I don't know. But when I went and they we went into this parlor at this, remember, I was at Tara, right? And we're in the parlor, and I read it, and I'm just reading it like it's nothing, and I look up, and this guy's like this. He was shocked. It was the first time that I the chink inside of me of nothing pierced me. And I remember experiencing shame and and fear, and oh my god, what's wow, like certainly nobody in this world's gonna. I I remember how deep that cut. And this heroin addict who's got a is in detox residential for 30 days with me, who I never knew before, told me to go to this mirror and stand in front of it and say, and I'm gonna cuss. I hope you don't mind. Is that all right?

SPEAKER_06 34:52

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:53

He said, I want you to stand in front of that mirror, and I went to it, and I remember seeing myself like a pinprick, barely looking out of my eyes. I don't know if you guys have ever experienced that. And I remember standing there, in other words, I didn't see me, I was here somewhere, and he made me say, I I love you, Judy, even though you fucked up. You fucked up, but I love you, Judy. I love you, Judy, but even though you fucked up. And he made me say it. And what I experienced was this pinprick of a person way over here to where I was fully able to see me, all of me present. And that's the other thing about recovery, it's present. Open your presence all day long in the present. We get the gift of the present, and then in his presence, I'm I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, and that was a journey to get to. I was not at all when I first got sober, and we all find our own journeys, and God led me. I believe in my heart of hearts that maybe a few months before I ended up in treatment, when I was crying my soul out and writing to my aunt, I just was bawling and bawling, and I believe in my heart, I said, Help me, God. And he heard and he put me in treatment, and he put me in a place where I got off the world for 30 days. The world did fine without me. I didn't need to be a part of anything. I'll never forget the third day. It was that uh moment of okay, it was yield, it was I could hear, I could understand, I wanted to know more, and I have never lost that. And I've been to a million meetings, I've been through therapy, and by the way, I got out of treatment the day of Hurricane Hugo. We we are so, and what I got out of that was a beautiful aftercare plan that see through that course of 30 days they had learned about me, they could see some things in me that I could use help with, and they created an aftercare plan that included reintegration into life. Well, like one subject, one week would be, you know, you're going back to work. Another one is how to get along with your parents, another one is, you know, how to do whatever. It's just different. Oh, I remember uh sex relations. I was like, well, no, you said you couldn't have relationships. I was about to have sex that night for the first time. What are you kidding me? But they're like, uh, no, it's sex related. And I saw no difference. Or, you know, in other words, to me, there was a difference. A relationship and sex relationship were very different. So, anyways, but what I got was that, and I was also recommended to go to IOP, which is intensive outpatient, have a therapist, and work on some of these issues that had come up in treatment. And that was in writing. And I got that, and I remember a three and a half by five index card, which was five things on it. Don't drink, go to a meeting, call your sponsor, read the big book, ask and thank God every day for your recovery. Those five things are inexhaustible. Always look at that.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

Hey Judy, I want to back up for a second because I think there you you you touched on a subject, and uh, you know, I think it's something that a lot of people can relate to, and it's the the premise that uh alcoholism and drug addiction is the only disease, because it's what it is, it's a disease that will lie to you and tell you that you're doing okay. And uh, like if you get cancer, you know, most likely you're having some sort of physical ailments that you know make you feel bad, that makes you go to the doctor that says you have cancer. If you have uh you know any other disease, you know, there's a there's usually something that says I feel bad. Whereas alcoholism and drug addiction, it tells me, I mean, I I had gotten my car repoed, I was living in my mom's basement, I had lost a good job, I had nothing going on. The only job I could hold was at a kitchen, and I smelled like a deep fryer all day, every day. And I thought I was doing great. I had a pocket full of dope and and people to buy me booze when I needed it, and that was all I needed. What I, you know, and and and you know, pocket full of dope, all of a sudden you're ladies' man. Hey, you know, it was uh I thought everything was great when you know looking back and hindsight being 2020 and seeing it through different eyes, like, man, I did not like who I was. And that uh that that that low self-esteem, that that that those feelings of uselessness, um, because I knew I was useless, uh, but I still thought I was doing great. And I I wonder who else, who else in the comments actually thought that they were doing great, even though they were down on their the in their worst. Krista, go ahead. You know, I know you know what I'm talking about here.

SPEAKER_05 39:59

First off, I can I feel like Judy and I are the same person. Like I was that person in treatment. Like I was just, I thought I was I didn't I wasn't like them. I was, you know, and I was just literally just trying to be like everybody else. Everyone else wasn't in rehab, but they sent me there. Um, but I just I um I I I was just trying to keep up with everyone else. It just it did something different to me. It was literally an allergy. And I would break out in bad choices and burn bridges and felonies. But um I just I always thought I was doing the next like I I just thought I was normal. And people tried to tell me I had a problem, like no. I'm doing what you're doing, why aren't you being told that you have a problem? You know? So it was really just trying to be like everyone else.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

I'm not that and I'm not. And that's that thing, like what John was saying is like you have this thing that'll tell you you don't have some, you know, it's like, but if you had diabetes, you'd you'd you'd know it, depending though, on what level of diabetes. When do you know you're an alcoholic? To me, it's you won't know while you're drinking or drugging, and I do believe alcoholism encompasses drugs and alcohol for me. Um, that's my experience. And you know, I won't know that until I explore it sober. I've got to not have it in me. Now I can start to understand and learn and create places where or follow, you know, meet people and listen and learn and grow up and and all the things. It wasn't until about seven or eight months in that in my bones I knew I was an alcoholic. But you see, by then I was fine with it. It's okay. And the other thing, the last thing when you said about laughing, John, earlier, it was like I remember sitting in a meeting and somebody was telling a harrowing story. Most, and I remember almost like an out-of-body experience where it was like, you know, that's really tragic. And here we're rolling on our asses, laughing. And it's like that was the final thing that said, you are alcoholic. And then I rejected the idea that we think differently for many, many years, you know, and that there's some glorified thing about being a normie, whatever all that means, I have a physical allergy. If I have, if I take alcohol, my body does not process it the way a person who doesn't have alcoholism. So what happened? I don't know if it's acetone. I used to know the answer to this, but it's like physically craving that will require more alcohol to get that. It's got I don't even have any say in it, right? And then mentally, I mean, like that's I I didn't go to any places where alcohol wasn't served.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

I mean, why would I go? Why would I go there? That doesn't see, it doesn't make sense. I want to jump into the comments because I asked the questions and people gave some answers. Uh Kelly Cordell, everyone I was hanging with was doing the same stuff, so I felt like it was normal uh until the legal stuff. That, you know, livers, lawyers, and lovers. That's uh those are the game changers, right? Uh, our friend Holly. Holly is one of the greats. Judy, you would love Holly so much. She is unhinged all the time. She says, I thought I was untouchable, but learned the hard way. All that matters now is I'm on the recovery road. And she just had uh uh nine months sober two days ago, or seven months, seven months sober two days ago. We love Holly. And then uh Jamie White. I thought that if I did all the man things, I was or the mom things. I'm sorry, my eyes are bad. If I did all the mom things, I was fine. I was almost a case of beer a day at one point because I was an antidepressant. I had conversations, I never Remember having, then I knew I had a real problem. Look at there's just so many stories, so much so many people can relate to what we're talking about because and and this is the part that needs to be normalized, and we've all gone through it, and it is a disease. And but the the the there is a solution, and that's the key. Uh I want to switch gears, switch subjects altogether because we've been on here for a while, and I want to talk about how you got into working in the recovery field. You've you are a jack of all trades, Judy Wilson, and now you do business development for Seagrove Recovery, and you brought Krista and I there, and we toured the facility, and it is beautiful. If I uh if I'm ever uh I think I might go now, even with 22 years sober, because it looked like a fancy place. Um, but uh tell us what's what I said.

SPEAKER_05 44:54

You took my words.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

No, no, no, I did nothing of the sort. I've never stolen a joke in my life, and deny it all. Um, but uh but uh what got you into the recovery field, and what exactly does the business developer at Seagrove do?

SPEAKER_03 45:12

Okay, business development, when I look back at my whole life, in a way that's what I've always been doing. So to me, it's a natural thing. To me, business development is learning things, sharing that information, understanding what somebody's seeking, and never selling a damn thing. Okay, ever. Okay, I never will sell something like because I need to make a number or a dollar or any of those things. Even when I worked on Wall Street, I would never write a ticket for a commission. That was buying stock or bonds. Uh, I got into mortgage lending, developed 25 years there. And then I had um I was 20 years sober, 20 and a half, when I picked up a drink. I had tremendous success and was on the verge of even more so. And um long story short, first thing I lost was my judgment. And this does lead to the answer, okay, of what you asked. Judgment was the first thing. And then in in in a year and nine months, I lost my not my job, my career. Okay, and Charleston's a small town. I'm now living here, right? I was told also I could never have kids. I've got a 33-year-old son, you know. So there's a lot of great gifts that recovery gave me in those 25 years. But once I got away from the connection in recovery and started, you know, we're we're fixed now and all of that stuff. Um, and I had a great relationship with God, I moved away from what I call the thorn in the side, is is like Paul in the Bible. For me, it's alcoholism. But that's the thing that connects me to people. I can get you, you can get me, because in that thorn, we get it. And then from there, we get to explore this relationship with a power greater than ourselves, you know, and to develop this life and be given all these gifts and wonder and just true joy that that never existed before. So what happened was after that, that I literally ended up with a heart ablation. I finally had a DUI. I found out I couldn't stop drinking. Remember, I didn't know that. I didn't, I never tried to quit, so I didn't know that I couldn't. So all the little things that I thought were cute. Oh, and also too, those mini bottles. Oh, come on. Really? Uh okay. I like, you know, turn your head and pour. But anyway, um, I I could never have gotten through. I don't think I don't know that I there's too much glass. I don't get it. And it's too measured. I don't understand.

SPEAKER_05 47:43

It's a whole South Carolina thing. They only had mini bottles. Yeah, it's like that.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Yeah, it's like for real. So, what happens now is I'm trying to figure out what do I want to do with the rest of my life. I don't want to be in mortgage lending anymore. I've got to do something. I got a heart ablation, I've got different things happening. I'm back in recovery, I've got a sponsor, I'm working. I'm so I started learning new things. My I even got into cars, I got into different things, tried things, and then one day in 2019, I go to work at the Charleston Center downtown, which by the way, one of the things that's so beautiful about Charleston and what I love about Seagrove being there is there weren't a lot of options for those of us seeking help. We had to go elsewhere. Um, so there wasn't a lot of recovery. That's changed. The Alcoholics Anonymous and all of the recovery here, C A, NA, all of them. There is so much recovery here in the recovery community that people can have vibrant, lively, really gifted, and I'm talking about all professions, from homeless to pilots to everything in between, judges, all of it in recovery. And we see us coming and going everywhere we go. And that's what's happening in communities around the country, around the world that you were talking about, John. That's happening. There's recovery communities, we get it, and then we get to move on from it because it's not about the drug and the alcohol. It that's that's a long gone, right? That's over here. It's there if we don't take care of our recovery, just like my mother would end up in a diabetic coma if she didn't take care of her diabetes, you know. So um, so what happened was I go and this job was $13 an hour. Charleston Center is state um county, big deal, 39 services. I got to be a certified peer support specialist. And by the way, 9% of that income had to go to the state retirement system for 2.4% return on investment, numbers guy, right? And I was never so happy in a job. It was like I got to be in admissions, we got to go to the fourth floor detox people when they were freaking out. Uh, Susan and I, Susan's no longer with us, she was a former heroin addict. We had the MAT going on. So we got to go talk to the people that just wanted to do the meds and get involved with them and try to help them come into the recovery community. Then we got involved with Wake Up Carolina and the police and uh Department of Mental Health that had like a war room going on of resources. So I got to go and ride alongs after the OD and talk to the person and see if I can. I got to do so much for $13 an hour. I mean, it was the most beautiful thing. I absolutely loved it. And from there, I mean, I'm telling you, I got to do everything. I got to go before city council, I got to do things that mattered to me, that mattered, that I got, that I understood, and where I was able to connect with people in ways and to develop those things inside of me that just were bursting forth. They really were. So after a year, that was in 19, I was invited to become uh admissions counselor for Lion Rock Recovery, which was one of the most fabulous treatment programs in the United States. It was in all 50 states, it was virtual IOP, intensive outpatient. And so you'd have your three, three-hour groups, individual sessions, and then the step downs. So many, they had 75 groups a week, uh able to be all time zones. I had international clients. So, what happened one week after I sat down at my desk March 16th, 2020? COVID, the world shut down. I have a different experience about COVID when people talk about how bad it was. I got to be there when the guy was front of line in Minnesota, one of the SWAT guys had to go home because he had been a former um, what do you call it, sniper in the military, and he was so used to being front lines and he was diagnosed with COVID and had to go home and sit this one out. And what happened was I started to learn about the fake numbers too, because every week he had to get tested. Every week they called it a new case. Okay, and then his wife was a probable, so now whatever. What do you think he was doing? He wasn't allowed to work, he's sitting it out, all this world's burning down, he's drinking like a crazy. I got to answer the call and talk and listen and connect. Somebody wants to kill themselves. I got to answer the call. Somebody is afraid, they've been drinking now, they had been sober before, they can't find a meeting, they can't do the Zoom yet. Uh, somebody else has never been sober. How do I get to a Zoom? What do I do? I'm down here in this neighborhood. That meeting's no longer there. What do I do? All the people that I got to talk to and answer calls to, and we had all 50 states, including international. It was the most spectacular position to be in. And I could not get enough of it. There was a team, and also too, the way they treated the employees internally, the guys Peter Loeb and Ian Crab started that with their daughter, who was a heroin addict, and just losing a sister. You know, all the things of creating a virtual treatment program that really affected people's, it changed lives. Stay-at-home moms, pilots, people, you know, longshoremen, they were able to get that help because there were no barriers anymore, right? There was no walls.

SPEAKER_05 53:24

And addiction was addiction was at its height too during COVID. My husband had relapsed, right, during COVID. And you that would wow, that's powerful.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

Yeah, yeah. And then it got got bought by a corporation and they sucked the life out of it. And that's what I mean about what do they do at treatment centers wrong. They don't that's all you could do is virtual, virtual outpatient remote. You know, but the idea people would think that virtual was almost treatment, it was real treatment. It was in your home where you were using, and now you had created a place of recovery. It was phenomenal. Then it got bought out by what? A large mental health corporation that's about money, but big pharma. There I go. And what it is is let's get a diagnosis and a pill and bam. And that is my resentment. Okay. That is what I think we miss. I think, yes, we have mental health, we have all that. Substance use is messy. You can't put your finger on it. There's too many things, there's tentacles and things like that. The only thing that I can do about my recovery is learn about it, understand it, spend time in it, give, listen, talk, share, work, write, pray, all those things. And you still can't in a nutshell. Sure, it's a physical allergy and mental obsession. I believe some of us are born with it. I do believe in family, whatever. I don't know, I think that there's different things, just like diabetes. Sometimes somebody can eat enough cupcakes to get themselves into a sugar problem. Sometimes that they don't produce glucose, like or whatever level. Same thing with alcoholism. Not everybody that goes into a program is an alcoholic. Okay. Um, but they get to explore it. The stigma makes me sick.

unknown 55:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:11

Well, recovery for everyone. Everyone can benefit from recovery, you know. We're gonna need a part two with Judy.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

We really are. I was just thinking that.

SPEAKER_05 55:21

And this is probably the I see this every week, but this is the most interesting one we've had.

SPEAKER_03 55:28

When I found out Foundations Recovery was opening up their 15th facility because they have Talbot's, they have Michael's house, they have um Black Bear Lodge, they've got Skywood in Michigan. They even have a um sex offender tract. I mean, there's so many different things, great clinical, things like that. They were opened their 15th facility, and that big company that bought out my favorite job, you know, I had two favorites. That was what brought me here. It's 10 minutes from my home, it's 41 beds, detox residential. But the key thing too is they do heavy DBT, which is, you know, gives you some real good tools so that as you're working through things, you don't spin out, you know, you get a chance to go to and figure things out. But then the biggest thing to me was what's next? Are you going to give somebody an aftercare plan? And we do that. Matt Gallagher is phenomenal. He does, he works with a clinical, he works with the clients, he does alumni coordination. We all work together, actually. We're all in it with admissions. They're in Tennessee. They they oversee all 15 facilities. So, like let's say the insurance doesn't work at ours, does it work at a different one? Or is it another place around here that somebody belongs in? I mean, I literally went to a hospital room recently where they would have literally done so much with this person, and I was able to see and listen. And you guys would be able to do this because you're in recovery. And once you start to understand things and ask those questions, I could see that this woman literally, her problem was she was in acute kratom withdrawal and also psych meds withdrawal. And she was not suicidal, she was coherent, she was on the other side, and the thing that really throws people is in a few days we're we look pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

You know, I love I love this, and I love your passion for recovery, your enthusiasm for helping others. That's the you know, the because we work with a lot of people in the you know, the mental health or uh rehabilitation of addiction. We work with a lot of people, and you know, there's a lot of people that it's a hard business to stay enthusiastic because there's so many relapses and so many people that go back out, and you just gotta keep fighting that good fight, and we see that in you, and it's so awesome. I gotta run over to the comments real quick. Danielle McCollum, she's uh she was here last week and struggling today. She says, good to be back this week, 17 days today. So we love you and we're proud of you. Um, I don't know if she's still on here, but uh it's uh the irrelevant. We are proud no matter what. And uh and Judy, I just I want to thank you so much for coming on here. There's more questions, but the conversation was so engaging. Um we're doing a part two. We're gonna have to Judy part two, and uh we'll have Sylvester Stallone, see if he remembers you.

SPEAKER_05 58:23

And uh we'll need a slideshow, we'll need a slideshow too of photos.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

Oh, no, no, no, no. We don't need there's no photographic proof. That's the best thing about you know, because I got sober in 2004 before all the crazy social medias and and camera phones and all that other stuff. There were a few out there, but not like today. So I am grateful. Uh, but Judy, thank you so much. We're so grateful for you coming on here and sharing with us today. This has been uh this has been really, really awesome from our end. And uh uh we love you and thank everybody for uh watching and listening and uh and being here, and uh we'll see you again next week.

SPEAKER_03 59:07

And enjoy your day of recovery today. What's that?

SPEAKER_05 59:11

Yes, I love you so much. I'm so I'm so grateful. She's only an hour and a half away from me.

SPEAKER_03 59:17

Yeah, and you're gonna be up next month.

SPEAKER_05 59:19

I'm coming, I'm coming. Wherever Judy is, I'm coming. There's you guys have a great day.

SPEAKER_03 59:25

Thank you so much, Judy. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 59:28

Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 59:30

Everything you guys are doing. I really appreciate love what you're doing. Love it.