They Promised They’d Stop. They Meant It.

Yes, this is about the metal trades. But this episode goes somewhere our industry rarely goes. How can someone swear they are finished in the morning, then return to the same substance that night, while meaning it both times? I take you inside the craving, fear, deception, withdrawal, and shame that turn relief into a prison. Before we judge the person behind the welding hood, we need to understand the fight nobody else can see. 

Metal Fabrication Nation with Greg Sheldon. Real talk for welders, fabricators, shop owners, and the next generation of tradespeople. Built on the belief that AI won’t replace real tradespeople, and the trades aren’t a backup plan; they’re the backbone. 

Greg reminds welders, fabricators, foremen, shop owners, and tradespeople that they are not behind the times — they are building the future. Follow the show, share it with someone in the trade, and keep pushing the industry forward. Want to see what bad quoting may be costing your shop? Get the free calculator and Baseline Efficiency Report here: https://gregsheldon.github.io/metalfabexcel/calculator.html

Transcript

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Addiction is not somebody having too much fun. At its worst, the fun is gone. The person wakes up sick, afraid, ashamed, and thinking about the one thing they swore they would never touch again. They hate what is doing to them and fear what their body and mind will do without it. They promise the stop to everybody that they love and care about, meaning every single word. And by night, they return to it. The pressure rises, the cravings take over. Relief becomes more urgent than everything they stand to lose. That is the prison of addiction. The substance that they choose. Whether it's alcohol, cocaine, speed, methamphetamines, heroin, whatever it is, it becomes their relief. And then it sells itself back to them as the medicine, the solution, the relief. So before we call that person weak, selfish, or hopeless, we need to understand the fight inside them. Welcome to Metal Fabrication Nation. This is Greg Sheldon. Today I'm talking about something real serious. I'm talking about addiction. Addiction in the metal trades and what a person inside addiction actually goes through. So here's some stats for you. National data groups put metal trades and construction into there's the numbers are brutal, is what I'm saying here. The United States Federal Survey found that 14.3% of full-time construction workers had a substance use disorder. And across the rest of the workers in the world, different industries, different occupations, it's 9.5%. That's about 50% higher. That's crazy. Heavy alcohol use was 16.5% in construction compared to 8.7% across the rest of the workers in the world. That's almost double. In 2020, our workers recorded the highest drug overdose death rate of any major occupation group in the United States. That rate was 162.6 deaths per 100,000 workers. Across the rest of the occupations, it's 42.1, nearly four times higher. A Health Canada report says that about three out of four opioid toxic deaths have since 2016 have been mentioned. Among those employed were 30, uh, which was 30 to 50 percent uh workers in the trades. These numbers describe the people we work with every day: welders, fitters, ironworkers, machinists, millwrights, our bloody coworkers. We need to understand what's happening. It's inside our shops, it's on our job sites, and ultimately it affects our the families and the communities that we live in. So it does not ever start with a plan to destroy your life. It starts with something that works. Childhood trauma, anxiety, back pain, sleep that never comes, pressure that you don't know how to deal with, relationship problems that you don't know how to deal with. So the substance puts takes the pressure off, and the fear backs off. And for a short time that person feels normal. And a lot of times this can start at a really young age when there wasn't something that they needed and they found a substance. It made them feel better. Made them feel normal. The substance doesn't arrive looking like destruction, it arrives looking like a relief. It does not heal the pain, it just covers it. But when the effect wears off, the pain returns. But now the brain knows there is a fast exit that doesn't take any work, and it remembers it. It grows addiction grows through small permissions. Only tonight. Only after this time of the day, only after work. Only because I cannot sleep. And they believe they're in control because they're still making the rules, so they think. Routine becomes requirement. The substance occupies the mind before it enters the body. Before they know it, addiction has stolen their inner freedom. Craving becomes an emergency. While you are talking to this person in their head is screaming a conversation about, do not do it. You promised just once, I will stop, I won't ever do it again. Even when they know the future says you will lose everything. The craving says, just survive the next ten minutes. I'll make you feel better. When the person uses nothing is fixed. The alarm simply goes quiet. The brain learns that this is the exit from the unbearable pain, pressure, trauma, whatever it is. Then the relief gets weaker and shorter. So they have to use more. It takes more to reach the same place. Eventually, the person is not chasing pleasure anymore. They're chasing normal. Without it, they feel sick and restless. The addiction now creates the pain that keeps it alive. It starts the fire, then sells the extinguisher. Fear arrives before their eyes are fully open in the morning. And they don't know what happened. Then the question begins of things like, what did I say last night? Who did I call? Who did I text? What did I put on social media? Who knows? Every phone notification feels like a consequence that finally caught up. The day becomes hiding, damage control, relief, lies. They still show up. They still weld. They still solve problems. That proves nothing. Except their ability to keep two lives apart. One is the person everyone knows, the other is the cycle they are protecting. Addiction survives through deception. It was not that much. I'm only stressed. At least I still have a job, I'm still working. They deceive themselves first. Then the lie spreads outwards. They hide how much, how often, and how sick they are. They use anger to create distance because distance protects the secret. After the collapse, they apologize and promise their family, God, and everything they hold sacred and themselves that this is over. They mean it. They absolutely mean it every time. But a sincere promise is not a treatment. Medical care support or accountability or a change daily life. The promise is an emotion. Addiction is a train cycle that outlasts it. Every broken promise destroys more trust. Eventually the person stops saying, I did something terrible. They start saying, I am terrible. Guilt says something must change. Shame says nothing is worth saving. Shame and guilt feed the addiction. So let's talk about physical dependence. This is what happens eventually. So it means the body has adapted to the substance. When the substance disappears, the nervous system rebounds. The person shakes, their heart races, and sleep disappears. Fear floods the body without a clear thought attached to it. Reason says the room is safe. The nervous system sounds an alarm anyway. I mean different substances produce different withdrawals. Alcohol and benzos are the worst. Severe alcohol and sedative withdrawal include agitation, confusion, seizures, delirium, hallucinations, auditory and visual. It becomes a medical emergency. A physical dependent person needs a qualified medical assessment before stopping. They have to go to the hospital. It's not a toughness test. And as men in the trades, we're tough. We think we can do it, but it is serious, life-threatening. Opioid withdrawal brings deep aches, restlessness, sweating, chills, stomach illness, and sleeplessness. The person is often desperate to feel normal for at least one hour. Stimulant withdrawal drains energy, focus, and pleasure. Food tastes empty, music feels flat, getting out of bed feels heavy, your equilibrium is off. This is the physiology. I mean, it's not a lack of character or backbone. It's just what happens after people use too much for too long. So detox. Detox stabilizes the body. It can. It does not rebuild the person. The substance leaves, but the anxiety, grief, damage, relief, relationships that are damaged, debt and shame remain. They also lost the answer. For every hard feeling, the anger and they just want to use the loneliness, they want to use the pain, and they want to use. The answer is gone, but the feelings remain. The old circuit remains. The end of the shift payday, an argument, or an empty room triggers the escape route. This is why someone survives detox, wants recovery, and still returns to the substance because they haven't solved the underlying problem. The sickness ended, because the substance is gone, but the learned pattern did not. Recovery means learning how to finish a hard day and go home. How to feel anger without escaping. How to tell the truth before the crisis. How to do the right thing while nobody trusts you anyway. Integrity. Trust does not return because somebody says, believe me, I mean it this time. It returns when their actions become believable, and that takes time. So I want to say this to leadership, ownership, management that may be listening to this about the people suffering in this industry. Compassion does not mean lowering the safety standards. If someone is impaired on the job, obviously stop the task. Protect the crew. Get them away from the dangers of equipment. But speak privately. State what you observed and follow the policy, but arrange safe transportation for this person. Connect them to treatment. Do not gossip about them. Do not talk about them to other people. Do not share what they're going through. Do not turn a human crisis into shop entertainment. Every company needs a clear process before and when this crisis happens. Workers need to know who to call. What stays confidential, what benefits cover, and how a structured return to work operates. Supervisors need training to recognize impairment and respond without humiliation. Leadership must protect the crew and give the workers a route toward recovery. Accountability and compassion, compassion, compassion, and tolerance are very important. They belong in a leader. And if you're running a business and leading in management, you have to have some compassion. That's the point of this episode. That's what leadership is. Addiction is not a character flaw. It is not proof that somebody is weak or they're not a man. It also doesn't erase the responsibility of the person and the damage they may have caused. The person is trapped inside a brutal contradiction. This is the prison. The thing destroying them feels like the thing keeping them alive. Recovery means breaking that cycle, one honest decision at a time. So before you call them weak, before you call them a pussy, before you call them not a man or unreliable, and they may have become unreliable. But there's so much more going on than just they're having a party. Understand the fight. Talk to these people. Get to know your people. And if they're struggling, maybe they'll come to you before they put other people's safety in jeopardy. Demand honesty and leave the door open for recovery. This is metal fabrication nation. And one last thing is just everybody take care of your people. And uh God bless. We can change these stats and make manufacturing in North America a major success again. God bless you all, and we'll talk to you next time.