Soft Cults & the Empathy Buzz: An Autopsy

This week, I have a very special guest from all the way down in Phoenix, Arizona—David Riu! He talks about his childhood in a Christian cult, struggling with opiate dependency and homelessness, recovering from substance abuse disorder, getting trapped in the "soft cult" of AA, and leaving the program. He teaches me about harm reduction, Recovery Dharma, SMART recovery, and treatments to overcome drug dependency. He also reflects on witnessing and experiencing 13 steppers, religious coercion, and how the empathy buzz is something powerful.

If you haven't listened to any episodes, I highly encourage you to start here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

All right, guys. My talk with David was great. And I will be having him back, which I'm excited about. I want to invite people to go to my show notes for this episode, which is patreon.com slash C slash in recovery, because David mentioned something called the Pi Pigeon Coupe in Phoenix. And it's like an AA temple, if you will. And its site is misleading. It's low locks you into the 12 steps and how this the how this group runs. I've never seen anything like this besides specific group, but it has gourd members and you can get a coop membership. There's different types of memberships like the Raven. And the pigeon is like the top tier, and it's $25 per month or $225 per year. And you get a Coupe membership journal talking about an exclusive apparel. And these are supposed to be a group of 12-step folk who have meetings at this place called the Pigeon Coupe. Why the fuck are they members? It's it's they're saying it's helping the board provide and maintain the space for all of the meat and continue to pursue a journey of recovery. Doesn't every AA meeting start out with there are no dues and fees, as far as I can remember? I wonder if they read this out loud. But this is exploiting people's trust. Well, people who are in the greater Phoenix areas, please be cautious if you attend meetings at the pigeon coop, especially since a great amount of 13-stepping occurs there, but they're also trying to uh take your money, and it's not necessary. You can get a coffee mug elsewhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

All right, this episode of In Recovery from Alcoholics Anonymous Arts Now.

SPEAKER_05 1:51

This is what keeps you happy. Um well, besides this guy.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

Welcome to In Recovery from Alcoholics Anonymous, where Crosstalk is welcome. I am here with David today. And David is many things a business owner, an animal lover, a cat lover, a bodybuilder on the punk right rock side of things, not the get your gains influencer type of things. He's a fashionista and a million other things. He's been through hell and back. And while he's living in hell right now, I'm just kidding, Arizona isn't exactly hell for everyone. It's just fucking hot. Um, he's got it going on. Proof that there are good people everywhere. And he found his community in the red hills of the desert. Thank you for joining, David. How are you?

SPEAKER_04 2:40

I'm okay. Thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Yeah, no, I'm honored that you're here. I uh you're very informed and smart, and you will have a lot of input that will help a lot of listeners.

SPEAKER_05 2:52

I hope so. Hope so. Important message.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Um, and uh the thing is, David's been through every worst case scenario you would think of. So I think if he is able to see, he did not take in this kind of programming and conditioning. He he like looked into himself and saw what he needed and what was bullshit around him. So really anyone can, is my point. Um, it doesn't matter what kind of background. You don't have to be dependent on anything. Um, feel free to share regarding your addiction and how you ended up in 12-step meetings or your your journey.

SPEAKER_05 3:32

Yeah. Um, well, I grew up in a uh alter-conservative, basically a cult, a Christian cult. So there's a lot of similarities between those two. But how I got my first I'll start with my addiction. I guess I'll do it chronologically. It started out uh on painkillers. Actually, I got my wisdom teeth taken out, and my dentist or oral maxalfacial surgeon at the time, she prescribed me like 30, 10 milligram per cassettes with a refill, which is an excessive excessive amount of uh painkillers for uh uh getting your wisdom teeth started.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Were you like 15, 14, 15?

SPEAKER_05 4:18

No, I was uh 18 actually. Okay, a little later.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 4:22

Were you in Arizona? Yes, I was. I mean, after high school, I would experiment with things like soma and drink.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

Oh my god, this is so funny. Journey so far is very linear. So go ahead. What the It's like, oh my god, what is this? They're hooking it up. Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 4:40

Well, yeah. Parting in high school, like I think a lot of kids did, but you know, growing every freshman year, I was like super anti-drug. Like my older siblings smoke meth, and I was like, uh I thought if you smoked weed, you know, the whole devil's lettuce 1950s commercials, you're gonna kill people. I'm thinking. I even won the Dare uh Ether award, I'm saying, for the best, and I just lied in the whole the the whole thing I wrote that I didn't realize how bad drugs were for you, but after Dare I realized how bad they are. And uh I I mean I knew that drugs weren't necessarily the best thing to be taking, but I won the essay and then I couldn't go to the camp because it was too worldly, which I was really looking forward to.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

But um Oh, because you were in a Christian cult? Uh huh. Yeah, so that was too progressive for the cult. And you were you like even scared of cussing when you were young? Did you not cuss and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_05 5:50

No, definitely not. Okay, definitely not. I mean, if if you cussed, uh the fear of God was metaphorically beaten into you, not physically beaten into me, thankfully. It was like, you know, you sin, you're gonna feel guilty. You know. I don't know what they call that in psychology. I forgot the term, but um there was a lot of that. So, you know, it was conditioning, it was programming.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

All the wrath.

SPEAKER_05 6:22

Yeah, you feel the wrath of God, and then you feel super guilty, and then you'd have to go to find someone else that's in good standing, and then you'd have to ask them, you know, you'd have to confess your sins to them and then ask them for forgiveness. And you know, that's the 12-step tie right there, basically.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Um so sad for a little kid. Okay. Yeah, it is emotional child abuse.

SPEAKER_05 6:53

But I started out with uh it really started with the painkillers. And um, you know, that was back in the early 2000s when you could go to an urgent care and they didn't keep records of your prescriptions from place to place. You know, you could just go to a doctor, doctor shop, go to an urgent care, get five milligram per cassette, and then they came out with that, I forget what what the name of the law was, but they started tracking all the narcotic medications so a doctor could pull up your prescription history. And I remember once I went into a urgent care, and I I don't know, some of us should excuse as to why I needed pain killers, why I was hurt. And he came in there and he had a full list of all my narcotics. Oh, and I was like, oh fuck, I'm I'm caught. Um, and he was asking me about the last time I had but been like a month prior, I had seen the surgeon for something. I actually rubbed my gums that they got red and went in there and said, She said, Oh, it's just the nerves from shooting from the top to the bottom of your teeth or something like that. And she gave me a bunch of percocets, which is fucking insane. Like, yeah, it was a different time. It was a different time. Now people who are in pain are being denied pain relief because yeah, they go under all of the yeah, it's fuck.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

There was like that show the pit where this woman actually needed painkillers and they denied her, and they were like, No, she has this actual disease where you need to have opiates to survive.

SPEAKER_05 8:37

But yeah, um, yeah, it was it was crazy. And he walked in there with the list, and I'm like, I don't know. I just can't I didn't know what to do, so I just said I don't remember, and I don't I don't remember getting it. And he obviously knew, but he actually gave me Vicitin, which you know when you have a tolerance isn't gonna do anything. Exactly. Overdosing on Tylenol, I took like 14 and my pinky toenail grew like an inch for some reason. I don't know if that's if it was related, but um I thought I was gonna die, but I didn't care.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

You just hadn't finished growing, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:11

Uh it was weird. My big ass pinky toe toenail sticking out after that. Probably had nothing to do with it, has some some other reason. But once they came out with that law, I couldn't doctor shop anymore, so I started buying like the blue 30s off the street. Okay, yeah. And that's expensive, you know. It's like paying $30 a pill, and you hold you you get a tolerance of like two to three pills to get high. I mean, you're gonna blow your paycheck just like that. I was working for my family's roofing company at the time, and I'd be broke. And then my little brother got black high heroin. And at first I was h hesitant, I was like, nah, I I got the perk sets, but one time I didn't have money, and that was available and I tried that, and that's where it really, really started, you know, for me was um two to three hits of black tar heroin was the equivalent of sixty dollars worth of um per cassettes. So I was like, oh wow, this this is where I'm supposed to be. This is it. Like, I'm not wasting my money on these pills anymore when I can just do this. And it and it continued to get progressively worse. I was living with my family at the time. Um, of course, not necessarily being the best person, you know, stealing from my family and all that kind of bad stuff. Uh they love me now. Um, but eventually I got kicked out. My brother got kicked out, and we would go and stay in those like um weekly hotels, but uh lost we lost our jobs, and so we would have to pay and handle to try to you know make the money to stay in the hotel. But all our money, at least all the money I was making was going to pay for the rent, and there was no drugs, so I was like coming down all the time. I was like, this makes zero fucking sense. I might as well just live outside. Okay, yeah, that's where it got that money and on drugs because you know, if you're high enough, fucked up enough, you can sleep anywhere, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 11:40

So yeah. So you're still in Arizona and you're you're living outside. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 11:47

The resilience, but continue it's uh well generally during the summer I would uh I would clean up, you know, for the hottest months, go back home until it started to cool down a little aga a bit, and then I would just go right back out, or I would just fucking suffer the heat, just find a bridge or go under the highway, the 101. There's a lot of tunnels under there where it's like 20 degrees cooler underneath, so you just go lay lay down there and I did that for like four years, and and in that time I went from smoking to uh uh uh shooting up heroin, um, which was a really big that was really big because I had a huge fear of needles. Um, like when I would get my vaccines as a child, I would basically cry. I'd be petrified. But um I got let's just say I got over my fear of needles real quick.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:53

Yeah. That's uh once you discover the instant instantaneous effects of injecting whatever narcotic it is, uh that in itself is an injection.

SPEAKER_03 13:04

So Yeah, it the payoff is way better.

SPEAKER_05 13:07

So I I injected uh that and then just kept on the streets for about four years, and then you know, every once in a while I would dabble with stimulants, throw stimulants in there. And in between all of that, there was many, many detox cycles. Like I would couldn't get heroin, so I would go to I would go to detox. Um I went there so many times they begin to know me by name. And I'd go to the ones where you could smoke cigarettes, so I knew all the best detoxes. Uh in the greater for me, that's right. Yeah. So if you ever come to Phoenix and you're trying to kick fentanyl or something and you want to smoke cigarettes, I I know where to send.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

You're like pointing it in the right direction. Yeah, I was and you were a baby still. Yeah. I mean, you still are a baby, so it's like, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:59

I was in my uh early 20s. Uh actually it was an advantage for me because you know, like I panhandled, and um everyone just felt moms felt sorry for me. It was always moms that would give me money because they would imagine that I was their kid. Yeah. And I love that shit. I'm like, yeah, give me all the money.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

You're like milking it, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:23

Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes I would have like moms would pull up, they'd be with their husbands, and the the the the woman would be trying to hand me money, and the man would be like trying to stop her from handing me the money. Like, don't fucking give it to them.

SPEAKER_03 14:39

So different here where we're like everyone just like, here you go.

SPEAKER_05 14:42

We could yeah, yeah. I mean, but and to this day, like, you know, drugs are a coping mechanism. I didn't start drugs because I mean, I like the way they make made me feel, but there was other reasons for me using drugs, and it was coping with a lot of my trauma. And um, so drugs were a coping mechanism. Unfortunately, they're extremely excellent at helping you drown out all of your emotions instead of feeling them.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

But yeah, it's blocking all of it. And also, I think ending up on a street or living in those type of motels, that's gonna add to the trauma. And then so you need to you need to ignore this kind of noise around you. So we're like, well, I gotta get high. Oh, yeah. Even survive this circumstance. It's all just tenfold.

SPEAKER_05 15:30

Yep. Yeah, no, I had to stay high to stay on the streets. I couldn't imagine doing it sober, like that would be absolutely miserable. But I can't, you know, I kept it up for like four years, but in the back of my head, I always knew that I was either gonna die or I was gonna quit.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

Right.

SPEAKER_05 15:52

And for the most part, I didn't want to die. Sometimes I did, but oh thankfully I was never brave enough to actually go through with it.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:03

And towards the end there, I started like 12, 2012, 2013. I started um doing speedballs. Oh, okay. I got introduced to the delights of uh balushies.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

Um yeah and balushies to um this listener. A speedball is pretty much any kind of opiate mixed with cocaine.

SPEAKER_05 16:33

So like a lot like I think Chris Farley, John Belushi, I think they were using River Phoenix, even. Yeah, River Phoenix. They were mostly using um morphine and cocaine. So as long as it's any kind of uh opiate and cocaine, but it has to be injected, otherwise it is not a speed ball. I mean, people do like you can mix uh mess and heroin or an opiate, but they call that like a screwball. It's a different that's different, it's even more miserable.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

But that's these are also like the surefire ways to overdose. It's like the yes, such a fucking quick way to die.

SPEAKER_05 17:14

Yes, yes, and and I was lucky that like I never overdosed. And I think the only reason is because I didn't have the money.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

You didn't have the luxury. Hi you're poor to dumb okay. I know that's the goddamn truth for all of us. I'm like, oh my god, these glamorous people dying because they had money too.

SPEAKER_05 17:36

Yeah. And then I'm I absolutely would have died if if I had access to that money, I have no doubt.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

But Pelushi was cocaine and morphine as well, right? I think you remember that it's been a minute since I And I I think uh Chris Farley was too. Yeah, it was heroin and cocaine, right?

SPEAKER_05 17:53

Oh yeah, I don't know. I know one of them, but I think Pelushi's like I mean, he's like the OG of this He's the OG of the small masters.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

Yeah, and so like so fabulous because he got the diet Chateau Marmand. But yeah, I I guess I'm getting my speed balls all confused. To put it simply, it's gonna get you it's gonna get your ass in a hospital really fast, if not in a coffin.

SPEAKER_05 18:20

Yeah, 100%. And it's it's exceptionally addictive because they like complement each other when you add the two drugs together, like they I don't know, it's like the most toxic, positive relationship ever, because they like bring the best parts of the drugs and they amplify them, which I firmly believe no human being is meant to feel that way. Like your body is not meant to be rushed with that many endorphins, like thinking about it now will makes my body shiver.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Like, yeah, and like I mean, I was definitely I liked opiates much more than speed, but there was the magical way of like being able to function and then in the barely function in the day, but like moving along and having this like bliss.

SPEAKER_05 19:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

With a yeah, I guess we don't have to go too far into it, but yeah, no, it was it's there's a reason why people are highly addicted to it. What is the I'm going off topic. Uh what is the what was Xanax and Adderall? There's a term for that one as well, because it's not speedballing.

SPEAKER_05 19:31

Um can't remember what it's called. Yeah, it's I don't know, pharmaceutical speedball.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

Okay. Well, I gave up. I give up.

SPEAKER_05 19:40

Yeah. Well, that sounds like a shooting combination.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Um it's like peck world combination. They love that.

SPEAKER_05 19:49

They all know how to use real drugs.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

No, of course not. They're they're fucking pussies, but severely a evil. Elon Musk is a pussy.

SPEAKER_05 19:58

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, oh yeah. They they all are, they got their compounds and they hide from the outside world.

SPEAKER_03 20:05

Panic rooms are very like beautiful, nice, uh, built-in panic rooms they all have now because they're so scared.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

They they should be.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

They should be.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

That's the only reward. I'm sorry, I go off topic. So yeah, you are suffering, you're living on the streets, you are like probably Irish descent. Uh, and so that's hard in Arizona. And you have um have this this habit that wants to kill you. So where are you at now? You've been doing detoxes.

SPEAKER_05 20:39

I've been doing detoxes. I'm I'm starting to use the speedballs, and um that in itself took me to my knees faster than the heroin used it. I probably could have kept going and going if I just had used heroin. Um and I wind up I wind up in detox for the last time. And I the last time I went in I actually smuggled a needle in and was sh uh uh uh shooting up my subutex, which for the viewers that don't know, subutex is uh it's buprenorphine, it's the same thing as suboxing without the naloxalone, but it's what they it's what they give you to to taper you off of opiates. So you start out at a start uh a dose and it's usually within a seven-day period at a detox, seven days to maybe a week, depending on how high your tolerance is, and they just give you gradually lower your dose until you're you're off. Like it's it's still pretty bad. You're gonna feel miserable for the next month or so, but it's you're not going through the acute withdrawals of just quitting cold turkey, which I've also done many times, but uh I sm smuggled my needle in, which You know, it just shows how bad I was. That like I'm in a detox in a lockdown facility and I'm cheeking my meds and then I'm sneaking into my room and finding my needle and you know, sh shooting up my detox meds. But I get I get out of that detox and I go into the Salvation Army. There we have. And and if the viewers aren't familiar with the Salvation Army, um, I'm I'm sure they've heard of the stores, but the uh the wh how how this works, it's fucking slave labor is what it is, is um they have a six-month program and uh uh a lot of the proceeds from the donate benefits and the donations from the store, like people donating the the store go to pay for the rehab. Um or so they say, but I mean they provide you with the barest of minimum, like their uh and it it's Christian based too. So you have to go to chapel like twice a week on Sundays, um and their like version of recovery is giving you a pamphlet uh meeting with a a Christian counselor maybe once a month or depending on however often you need them. And sending you to 12-step meetings. That's the gold standard of the treatment industry as a fucking in uh in in general is to send them to 12-step meetings. Yeah, charge the insurance 40 grand, have them stay in some house in some random neighborhood, and then just take them to 12-step meetings and call that recovery. Uh thankfully that is becoming less and less uh popular. Um but uh that's how I got introduced. I mean, I had like gone to rehab before and gone to 12-step meetings and uh and I never really continued. I I mean I might have gone just because there would have been like a a cute girl, a cute guy that I went to rehab with that went to the meeting, so then I would go to the meetings to see them there. Um but when I went into the Salvation Army, I I I uh I mean I do thankful that they did give me a safe place to uh you know get off of it, but I I gave I was like, you know, I'm gonna give this 12-step thing a shot. And I did. I I I got a sponsor, I worked all the steps, and I like I was doing it like hardcore. Like I I was all in, uh you know.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:57

I don't remember what's the step where you confess your sins. Which one is that again?

SPEAKER_03 25:01

It is uh well it's kinda it's step four, kind of, like you mean resentments?

SPEAKER_05 25:07

Oh, where you no, not amends when you sit down and you tell them all the bad shit you've done in your life. Oh my god, I've been removed long enough that oh step six. It is uh that's step and I and I you know I had I have we all have our secrets, and some some of us have secrets that we never thought you know we're never gonna fucking tell anyone these secrets. And I was so I was so bought into it that like you know I I told my sponsor everything. That'd be these were things that I was never gonna tell any anyone. So I was fully invested, you uh you could say it like hook, line, and fucking sinker. I was bought into that shit.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

And it's kind of it was familiar, right? Because that's all you were raised in anyway, and you're like, well, this is what I know. And I remember being really good at dare.

SPEAKER_05 25:58

Yeah. Yeah, the transition was seamless because it had like the similar structures of my childhood church.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 26:06

So I just like floated. You've been to matings, you hear people stru they say how they struggled to get into the rooms. Not me. I just fucking softly landed in a chair and I was like, you don't know. To another fucking cult.

SPEAKER_03 26:22

Yeah, see much a little transition, integration.

SPEAKER_05 26:27

I would say probably like four years, I was all about it. Like it was a religion to me. I I remember like hanging out with my friends that I met through the 12 steps and being like, I gotta go to a meeting. Like that that sense of empathy, I need it now. Yeah, I gotta go. Or if I don't go, I'm gonna Yeah. If I don't go, I'm gonna die. But I did the steps that first time when I was in rehab, but then when I got out. You know, you're supposed to continue to to do them. I never really fully did them again after that. Um but it just over time I started thinking about my childhood church, and I started drawing parallels between the two. And once that entered my mind, it was game over. There was only one way it was gonna go, and that was me getting the fuck out of there. I left. And for the the last year or two, I I kept going, but I didn't believe in anything. It was just for the community, which I think maybe some of the steps are some beneficial parts, but like I think largely the benefit that people get from 12 steps is just the community itself.

SPEAKER_03 27:52

It's it's the sense of belonging to something, you know, and people knowing what it's like to be in those positions and not like quite around yeah, being around sim similar people, and I guess you could say having something larger than yourself, something that takes you out of yourself.

SPEAKER_05 28:13

Um and I do recover dharma, and it's kind of the same thing. I don't necessarily believe a lot of the stuff that they talk about. I mean, I think some of it's cool, but but I started to notice the parallels, and then once you realize that you're in a cult, even if it may be a soft cult, you're kind of like, ah, there's no such thing as a good cult.

SPEAKER_03 28:38

Agreed. I hate when they say that in AA too. Well, if I'm in this cult, then it's a good cult to be in. I'm like, no, I guess you're writing the wave and enjoying it more than me, but it is yeah, you're probably an abuser. The people who say that are the ones who are abusing. Okay, we're going on a break. Be right back.

SPEAKER_04 28:57

Okay, sorry, go ahead. Well, uh no, yeah, you go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

Uh you were starting to question it. And uh, how long were you questioning it before you were like, peace out? Did people try to pull you in? Did you ever vocalize? What the fuck is this? Or did you see the orange papers online, or what kind of other things were going on while you're like, I need to get the hell out of this?

SPEAKER_05 29:22

Honestly, a lot of it started with the God thing because the whole concept of higher power just magically removing all these problems from you. I'm I'm an atheist, so it just didn't sit well with me. I don't understand. I got myself into this mess. I I I think maybe other people can help me get out, but it falls on me to do the work and actually put the work into recovering from my addiction, which you know, my view of recovery is any positive change. You know, I don't I don't believe recovery is 100% abstinence-based. I mean it's it's it's it's it's a spectrum, but period.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

Exactly. Also, against your will, put in a situation as a kid where you had to worship a god that wasn't sitting right with you, and then it didn't work where you ended up on the street, you ended up with the worst case scenarios as a very, very young person. God didn't do that for you, and then they're doing the same thing to you in 12-step meetings. So of course you're gonna be like, What the hell?

SPEAKER_05 30:36

Yeah, and um I remember one time it's my second sponsor. I told him I don't believe in God. Yeah, and he was like, Well, then maybe 12-steps aren't for you, but I was still indoctrinated, and I was like, No, fuck you.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

Don't tell David what to do.

SPEAKER_05 30:57

Yeah, just because I don't believe in God doesn't mean that I have to leave. That I was resentful over that.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

Yeah, there's a community that did embrace you, yeah, and you never felt like you belonged.

SPEAKER_05 31:10

So yeah, towards the end there, I exclusively went to in Phoenix we have uh a clubhouse called the Lambda, and it's LGBTQIA uh clubhouse. That was a lot more welcoming than the standard, but then towards the end I realized it was actually worse than your regular 12-step haul. Because maybe I I can dress that down a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

I want to hear about it more because me being in San Francisco, I had good experiences in LGBTQ because I am a cis street woman, so no one was not being but if I was anything but that it the people I've talked to about it, it's been horrible. So it's bad.

SPEAKER_05 31:55

It's really bad. Because you get the toxicity of gay culture. Yes, in America can be incredibly fucking shallow.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

It's really harsh, and a lot of gay people who don't fit into the format are bullied.

SPEAKER_05 32:11

There's racism, sexism, homophobia. There's even a lot of homophobia in that community. So I mean transphobia. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, lots of transphobics, a lot of that. You mix that with basically a a Christian-based cult, and you're gonna get a bad fucking combination. Really bad. But in the beginning, I found it very welcoming.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

Obviously, we're not talking about the entire community, but there are areas that are gonna be bad.

SPEAKER_05 32:39

Yeah, yeah. Is that is that air conditioning too loud?

SPEAKER_03 32:42

I can't hear it at all. Blast it, take care of your hell and all right. Uh oh, it's like probably 120 right there over there.

SPEAKER_05 32:52

But I I just I kept going because it was a lot of great people, and I I do think there is there's still a lot of great people, and just yeah, they're a little bit brainwashed. And I left, but when I left, I would say I was still on good terms. I have ex-friends that left but left with a bang.

SPEAKER_03 33:15

Oh can you have can you share an example if you're comfortable? Of what do you have an example of them leaving with a bing if you're comfortable with sharing?

SPEAKER_05 33:26

Yeah, um, absolutely. I mean, they just started anti-12-step pages, which I'm there for. I'm all I'm all I'm all there for. But like, you know how like all the 12-steppers are just gonna gossip about that shit. And the rumor mill and the gossip mill just once they see someone criticizing it. I mean, leaving what is one thing, you're gonna get criticized, and they're gonna have their stupid platitudes of we'll save a seat for you, and um you're gonna shoot our wounded kind of bullshit. Like, actually, no, you do shoot your wounded.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

The most.

SPEAKER_05 34:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

The orange paper kind of credits. I have never I've never read the orange paper. Actually, me neither, because uh it takes a lot, it'll it's work. Oh I've seen the web page and like, oh, I can't. Then my my brain doesn't process this for a supply show.

SPEAKER_05 34:18

Maybe if I took some fucking Adderall, I'd be able to sit down and focus, but I'm not uh yeah, I'm not a scholar.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

I don't have time for this.

SPEAKER_05 34:28

Who who wrote the orange paper?

SPEAKER_03 34:31

I actually think it's uh like it was Ancient Ancient Orange, or I said ancient Agent Orange, orange, Agent Orange, that's really hard for me to say, even though it's like an incredible band, but Agent Orange, uh, but I think he has a kind of name, like d Mark B or something like that.

SPEAKER_05 34:54

Oh, he was like an ex-member.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

Yeah, some 90s dude. I'm gonna have to check that out. Yeah. Maybe you can find Spark notes for us.

SPEAKER_05 35:04

Yeah. I'm I'm sure I can find an annotated fucking version on on YouTube that I can listen to.

SPEAKER_03 35:09

Oh, yeah, listen to it like a podcast. That's not a good idea. This is how we cope.

SPEAKER_05 35:14

Yes. I I I I used to love reading good. I don't have the intense stand for it. Yeah, I could say but I left on good terms. I myself support recovery in any form how it looks for someone. I'll never ever fucking recommend 12 steps to anybody. But if 12 steps are working for someone, you know, at the end of the day, I can't say shit. I I know you're in a cult. I know you're being brainwashed, and I know you're actively being harmed, but fuck.

SPEAKER_03 35:50

Yeah, I never actually shared this or maybe to some close friends, but I left about four or five years ago, right? And then at the same time, I had a really good homie who was suffering, and I didn't know any other I should have researched over things, but he was like, help me. I said, let's go to a meeting, and then I did see him, he could relate to another guy there, and that was amazing. Don't like I I was so nervous about him finding a sponsor, especially one of those tough, I'm a hope dealer, no, like those really tough, gritty guys, because he was super into that. But I'm like, but you are a very sensitive bisexual man who's very like I was so nervous for him, and his life has also been just horrible. And then he came out of it saying, Yeah, no, I am an asshole, I'm a piece of shit. And I'm like, No, you're not. So he is sober and seems happy. He's riding his motorcycle everywhere now. So I felt like a responsibility for him because I I get it.

SPEAKER_05 36:52

I get it. Because he'll I mean, now now hindsight, you you can look back and you're like, oh wow, I shouldn't have done that. I did that too. Like, I mean, many times when people would leave and they would hit me up for help, you know. I I was still programmed to send them to a meeting.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

Yeah. Well, I didn't know about recovery dharmas off. Yeah, I don't even like or smart recovery.

SPEAKER_05 37:16

It wasn't even a thing then. But they also have I like smart recovery if we've ever heard of that.

SPEAKER_03 37:22

Yeah, I've been trying to find I didn't know you did spart smart recovery, so I know you didn't get into that for me right now.

SPEAKER_05 37:28

Uh it's great, but I'm gonna be honest, it's dry as fuck. There's no zest to it, it's all evidence-based. And the meetings, one or two in Phoenix, and they're far, some eagle drive. So I would do online meetings, and I'm gonna be honest. It attracts the weirdest fucking people. Oh shit, those meetings are full of some strange, strange motherfuckers. Um but maybe it's different in person.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

I did try to find people because I want to hear more about harm reduction and air that on podcast. I want there's things I just I'm not an expert in, so I'm just wanting guests who have this knowledge, and I think you'll be able to provide information on harm reduction because your whole Instagram but bread and butter. Yeah, it's your bread and butter. So smart recovery was one of them I went uh to find, and they are so rigid. And yeah, and then there was one guy who's like, I don't I'll talk to you about it, I don't care. Uh and of course, we do love chaos and disorderliness. And the good thing is that smart recovery probably was providing more stability.

SPEAKER_05 38:41

Yeah, what I do like about Smart Recover is AA nobody's trained, nobody has any kind of like no training whatsoever. You just lead a meeting and you're out there giving people life advice and you have no qualifications to give these people ransom runs. But smart recovery, the people that do run the meetings, they do have to go through a uh a training. Oh, that's so nice though. Yeah, yeah. So it's not just some random guy that has X amount of years basically deciding how people are gonna live their lives. Yeah, that they do go to a training, and it's all evidence-based, which when I did those attracted me the most was the fact that it was evidence-based.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

Yeah, I think someone like you who's only been given these m fictional stories of what science is gonna probably be an evidence seeker.

SPEAKER_05 39:41

Yes, very much so. Very much so. Uh and I I do recovery dharma mostly because there is a meeting every single day in the week.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

Oh, it grew up so fast. I just looked up, it was only started in 2019.

SPEAKER_05 40:00

Yeah. Well, it's split from a different group.

SPEAKER_03 40:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 40:05

It was Recovery Dharma, and then uh the original was I don't know, Rebel Recovery or something like that, but the founder, it was named as Noah Levine, had some sexual it's Noah Levine?

SPEAKER_03 40:19

Yeah, oh it's Noah Levine. Okay, I remember like 2011 the book came out, or 2010, Noah Levine. Okay. Refuge recovery, that's what it was. Refuge recovery.

SPEAKER_05 40:29

Yeah, and then they had they had like a schism, and refuge recovery is still a thing, and then recovery dharma also became a thing.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

And are they similar teachings like Buddhists?

SPEAKER_05 40:42

Identical, pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Okay, and Noah Levine is is he off the grid now? What's up?

SPEAKER_05 40:48

Yeah, I don't think he has anything to do with it anymore after all the allegations drop.

SPEAKER_03 40:52

You know what's nice though? People did vocalize it, and there were consequences for the shit.

SPEAKER_05 40:58

Yeah. Versions of the 12th century meeting, you can go 30 years of assaulting women, and no one's ever gonna say anything because not my kettle, not my problem.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

It's not my business, and you know, I just have to pray and my folks on my program.

SPEAKER_05 41:12

Yeah, I can't take his inventory.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Let go and let God. They have a perfect little slogans to keep you as to why scotch free. Yeah. And it's always the best AA members who take over the meanings who are doing these pedo things, and the ones that are popular.

SPEAKER_05 41:30

Uh there's a guy here in Phoenix, his name is Owen. I I don't care, I'll drop his name. Uh he is notorious. He started a big AA hall. It's called the Pigeon Coop, but it's like the high school of uh uh AA clubs because that's where all the young people go, so that's where all the drama is. Yeah, and he started that, so he's super popular, but he's also a super predator. Like his reputation, I mean, it's got goes back 10 years. If not longer, of this one fucking man constantly farming young women, emotional women that are trying to come into the rooms looking for safety, and they meet the complete fucking opposite.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

And no one ever speaks up for her, like I guess whispers around it. That's hard.

SPEAKER_05 42:23

No, yep, it's just gossip, and everybody knows good, nobody says anything, but he's still in good standing, and he's still the cool guy.

SPEAKER_03 42:31

Um that's so sad because you know they're talking to their sponsors, and they're like, No, Owen, Owen's a great guy, you need to do a fourth step for him.

SPEAKER_05 42:40

Look what he's done for the community.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:43

Uh but what has he done for the community? Fucking lots of damage. Lots and lots of damage if you're able to deprogram yourself and look at it from a rational perspective.

SPEAKER_03 42:55

Is course in uh course of miracles or the landmark forum? Are a lot of people also subscribing to that in AA?

SPEAKER_05 43:03

I've never heard of that.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

Okay, I feel like both of them are more Bay Area California centered or Boston, but the Course in Miracles one I just always hear. And the landmark forum is a San Francisco. Anyway, I was curious.

SPEAKER_05 43:15

Is it like um the Christian-based 12-step uh Oxford group? No, not Oxford Group, it's newer. They do chips and they have like 12-step Jesus meetings. What's it called? That sounds horrible. Tell you it, it is fucking horrible. Uh celebrate recovery.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

Oh, these poor people. Maybe if they already know it's a Christian-based one, they'll at least have a choice of what spirituality they're going through. But god damn it. Yeah, just never ending. But yeah, the Course of Miracles are like the kind the the Owens of the world love Course of Miracles because they are saying, No, you're just having a catnap in the clouds right now. None of this really exists, which is a perfect place for people to just manipulate and take advantage of people even. More.

SPEAKER_05 44:00

And and be bad, bad, shitty people, and escape all consequences.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Yeah, exactly. It's all very much the same, but a different uh programming. Okay. Have you heard about like the sins? I'm going off topic and I didn't even prepare these in. There's two specific behavioral sins. Uh the program's literature often highlights two specific behavioral sins or moral failings, interfering with the growth of another human being, and interfering with one's own growth. So everyone is constantly sinning in 12-step, like say Owen, because he's interfering with the growth of another human being. He's focusing on his growth. Exactly. Perfect. Ollie oop. It's just you made me think of that. Um you think AA is a cult?

SPEAKER_05 45:02

I do.

SPEAKER_03 45:03

Without a doubt.

SPEAKER_05 45:05

I think it teeters on the verge of being a full-on cult on a soft cult. But a cult is a cult, whether it's soft or not. Yeah. Very cult. It meets the bike model. I don't remember all of the things off the top of my head, but it meets every single standard of the bite model, you know, that classifies as a cult. Do you follow Daniela, the knitting lady, on Instagram?

SPEAKER_03 45:30

Yeah, I love her. I think that's how I saw your account I was looking at.

SPEAKER_05 45:34

Yeah. Yeah, she's great. And I like her because she does a great job of explaining it.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

I like the intolerance. She's like, I don't need to fucking read the big book to know that you're a cult. Like, she just doesn't have any tolerance for the people, which I quiver when I deal with it. I have to take a break, but like she just doesn't care, and I love that.

SPEAKER_05 45:55

Yeah, she's very um, she's so poignant.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

Unless you're just so illogical, you can't counter her. Okay, so we were talking about the cult. This is the thing that really bothers me, especially when people are going at me. And this is where the knitting lady would be like, absolutely fuck off. You mentioned it earlier. If you leave, you die.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

They're saying you can leave at any time, but that is a huge underlying threat.

SPEAKER_05 46:25

Yeah. Obviously, you don't. That's bullshit. That's just another a scare tactic to to keep you in line. No, you you you will die, so you have to keep coming back. And that's like my childhood. It was pounded into my head that if I died with the sin on my conscience, I was going to hell. So that's the same structure of threatening you with hell or death, you know. That's classic child abuse. Yeah. And that's what they do in the top steps, is they fucking I mean, that is abuse, dude. They're trying to put the literally put the fear of death into you that if you leave, you're gonna die. And that's fucking bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

I still have a hard time with trusting my gut, even though I'm aware of it. I just don't have confidence in my decisions because of how they so I don't know, a lifetime for you. That must have been. It was very uh acute of you to know this, despite everything that they tried to do to you. Um, have you been called a people pleaser in AA? Oops.

SPEAKER_05 47:37

I don't ever recall being called I mean I might have been, but I don't ever recall anyone saying that to me directly. No.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

No, okay. Were you called selfish and self-centered?

SPEAKER_05 47:54

No, but I would call myself so selfish and self-centered.

SPEAKER_03 47:58

Because he read the big book and grew up in a Christian cult.

SPEAKER_05 48:03

Yeah, and I thought that I'm selfish and self-centered because I'm putting my recovery first before everyone else. That kind of selfish and self-centered.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

Could you tell me about harm reduction?

SPEAKER_05 48:17

Yes. So harm reduction at its core is basically what it sounds. It it's reducing the impact of harm. We know the harm is going to be done, and we want people that are still using drugs to be as safe as possible because they deserve health care. They deserve safety just like anyone else. Um exactly. And our main goal is to stop the spread of disease um like hepatitis and uh um and just to keep uh people generally safer. So that that's the core tenants, but harm but harm reduction itself, uh sorry, someone's trying to call me. Um the concept is it's it's vast and it can be used in so many different uh areas. It is such a big thing, is sometimes it's hard for me to quantify or get into words, but uh it's about keeping people safe. It's often used in the rave scene and stuff too, you know, dancing organization and about testing your drug supplies and uh knowing what you're consuming, being an educated consumer. For me, it's mostly about people on the streets and uh trying to help them stay as safe as possible because I got hepatitis. Thankfully I was cured, but um I got hepatitis through sharing needles. Had I known that I could have access to Klein syringes, I would uh have uh I wouldn't have got it. And like statistically speaking, uh I I I did a uh uh presentation in one of my classes about and I had to choose a subject and I chose uh exchange, the the benefits of change exchange. I guess there's a financial side to it too, right? If you're trying to explain it to to more conservative folks as to why it's necessary because people might share needles and they get hepatitis and their liver gets shot after so many years, and they're gonna be on Medicaid and then our tax dollars are going to be going towards paying for that liver transplant which is expensive. This are fucking insanely expensive.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:06

So it's easier just to give them clean needles, yeah, and then that situation is completely avoided.

SPEAKER_03 51:15

Again, called harm reduction, and it's and it's saving lives.

SPEAKER_05 51:19

Like even now in our cannon, and we've had multiple orgs and phoenix that's like shot in the dark, and we have cell press recovery reliance, and the one of them they're an actual 501c3, so they receive funding, and they keep track of the amount of overdose reversed, and it was like a hundred thousand or something like that. So that so that means one hundred thousand lives have been saved by harm reduction, and that's just in air wounds that were recorded.

SPEAKER_03 51:58

That's insane, and I properly recorded and have actual yakking statistics, unlike Alcoholics Anonymous, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:07

No, none no statistics whatsoever. And I saw that harm reduction is genuinely making a change by saving people's lives, and I and I I got into it, it wasn't necessarily out of all pure altruism, it was slightly selfish too, because I remember the first times I volunteered and I would come back and I call it the empathy buzz, but I feel so fucking good. I felt like I was higher as fuck.

SPEAKER_03 52:41

Yeah, because you're providing something I kind of now want to volunteer at harm reduction place.

SPEAKER_05 52:46

It's that's great. It is great, it feels pretty good. Uh I I haven't done it in a couple of years, but I uh signed up and not now I have to do like the new volunteer orientation because it's changed a little bit. Now they're getting the group that I'm going through is uh used to be underground because it used to be a felony in Arizona to oh it's like Arizona, okay. Right. It used to be a felony to hand out syringes, so like people would you call a number and someone would show up in a van or they'd meet you at the bus stop with the backpack and you just pull out the needles and slyly hand them to then.

SPEAKER_03 53:25

Okay, it really was underground. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_05 53:27

Yeah, and um now thankfully it's not a felony, but we just did have some fucked up law passed where you can't provide like any assistance to homeless people. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 53:48

Conservative people hate unhoused people. Oh they want them dead. 100% they want them dead. We I accidentally did not hit record again and stuff, so we're in this part that like, no, just now we're fine. But we were talking about how people are not seen when they don't have a home and they're struggling with drugs. And so that's his literally a full-on example of that. Like people love to blame Unhouse for everything. They're treated like second-class citizens when really they came from the same places as we did, but had a worse luck than we did. Well, David had that bad luck as well, so he has that empathy card through lived experience and probably just being empathetic in general. So that's horrible. I fucking I I I know there's so many good people in Arizona have, but like I fucking hate the conservative people in Arizona. They're hateful judgmental people. And AA.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 54:47

I went to my first AA meeting ever was in Wickenburg, Arizona, so you can probably yeah. And yeah, they were so damn judgmental and horny. And yeah, harm reduction is AA's worth nightmare. This is in San Francisco where harm reduction tents are all over the place. And when that started growing, they were just like, this is a persecution against 12 steps. This is never gonna work for them. They're crazy. Yeah, I think my algorithm on Instagram, there's clearly so many harm reduction places in Arizona, because all of them, they're like, Do you want to polo this harm reduction place? And then every time I look into it, it's Arizona, which isn't amazing. Yeah, it's definitely growing.

SPEAKER_05 55:32

Yeah, pretty much you can get access to almost harm reduction supplies in any I wouldn't because there's like one major metropolitan area, but like any decently sized city. A lot of the groups in in Phoenix were commute to like Globe and Miami and those small towns out there and do dots drop off supplies to someone else who will then you know give it out amongst the community and stuff. So it's it's statewide now, which is pretty cool. It used to be just in Phoenix. Um yeah. Now it's statewide, but a lot of those groups they were receiving state funding and and federal funding. And when the pedophile decided that he was going to cut all that funding, you know, some of these groups are now operating on just the essentials, like it was back in the day.

SPEAKER_03 56:31

Yeah. And the funny thing is, the more these like that pedophile tries to push back and stuff, the stronger these kind of groups become. So that's always the silver lining, but it's fucked up because again, this government wants to kill their citizens.

SPEAKER_05 56:50

They do. I mean, you probably have seen it how they pass, they're trying to challenge the Olmstead Act, which was about giving d disabled people the right to receive care at home. So now they're challenging it. And if a disabled person has more than $2,000 in savings, they're at risk of losing their at-home care. Yeah, and uh they also made it so states can institutionalize disabled people.

SPEAKER_03 57:22

Oh, that's why they're doing that.

SPEAKER_05 57:24

Yeah, well, and horrible. And also, there's it's a money trap for private corporations. Exactly. They can be forced into these private institutions that these billionaires can control, and then they're gonna receive the money from the government, and it's bad, but that's fucking Nazi eugenics, is what it is.

SPEAKER_03 57:49

Oh my god, it's so heartbreaking. It really is. Could you I I'd actually kind of cut you off on the park stuff, so uh yet approach them in the park.

SPEAKER_05 57:59

That's a new thing now, like where you're not supposed to give them like water or food. And that's where we get a lot of our harm reduction places was the parks because that's where they live, yeah. Unhouse people would be. And um now we can't do that. So we'll just go do it on a street corner and hope that no one calls the cops.

SPEAKER_03 58:24

So they're doing everything they can to kill people because the Arizona's so damn hot, and we don't have water there. Like I grew a water addiction from living there. I don't even know if it's addiction. I'm just fear of not being hydrated because of Arizona is so hot. It won't kill you. Yeah, and people do die there all the time. Yep, every summer. From the damn heat. Oh my god, these poor people. But this is to me a real reminder how important harm reduction is and how 12-step is really more of a conservative Christian base, no matter where you are, because they don't really care if you're sober, they're they care about if you're sober in their terms.

SPEAKER_05 59:07

Yes. If you're believing in their God and one God specific, or I mean the whole 12-step says it in the book, our goal is to get you to believe in God. It does. It'd like to chat we agnostics. I remember being part when I was in it thinking like, fuck yeah, they wrote a chapter just for me, but then you actually read it and they're like, No, we're actually just trying to get you to believe in God.

SPEAKER_03 59:33

No, like being agnostic is not a real thing. That's cute of you to think, but we're gonna get you later.

SPEAKER_05 59:38

Yeah, yeah. You're gonna you're gonna believe.

SPEAKER_03 59:40

Yeah. Well, oh, don't worry, we got you. Yeah. All right, so we're uh closer to the end. So uh how are you doing now? Like, how are you?

SPEAKER_05 59:53

I'm I'm good. I'm good. Um I I I might have a little bump in the road here or there, but I'm doing great. Nice. I'm doing great. My life is exponentially better. Ultimately, for me, I function best and and obviously recovery is a spectrum. Um for me, abstinence is like my ultimate goal because my life's easier that way when I'm abstinence. I'm working on achieving complete abstinence. Uh but I'm not really worried. Uh I take uh you probably heard of Saboxin, right? Yes. Well, I even though I haven't touched opiates in like a long, long time, uh I take this shot called Brixati. It's a once a month epinephrine shot. Uh and that it helps with that because I uh I did have a little major uh I would say it was actually major run in with 70H. Oh, okay, yeah. That shit is bad. Um yeah. I'm a supporter of Kratom because it is a harm reduction tool, and a lot of people use Kratom, just the regular loose leaf Kratom to for pain, or they use it to not use harder drugs. So I think it's a great tool. Um, they're constantly trying to outlaw, and I don't want that outlawed, but I think stuff like 70H is like you're kind of pushing a line because that stuff is exceptionally addictive.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:37

Yeah, I know a guy who's really suffering from it, and he's like, How do I even get off it? I want abstinence and stuff. Yeah, and I think Suboxen gets a bad rap. I know people can abuse it, but um and then Suboxin is a tool, just like another tool, like it's misused.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:55

Like if you use it properly, it's fucking amazing. Yeah, it's just like methadone. Thankfully, I think the gold standard now for treatment is becoming MAT because they're seeing that like just sending someone from detox to a rehab to 12 steps, it's not very successful. But if you put these people on medicated assisted treatment and you slowly allow them to adjust their life, if they're seeking that, if they want, they can they can slowly stabilize on their terms at their speed.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:31

Yeah, because you are trying to adjust your life and remove a habit, but it doesn't happen overnight. Instead, if you go to AA, you're just being obsessed with whatever addiction you have and thinking about it around the clock, but then NAT and stuff, you're not thinking about it all the time, you're just re-pro readjusting.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:49

Yes, and and it and it's a slower process, and that's becoming the gold standard which I'm happy. Um, even like rehabs and stuff are more understanding because for the longest time, most rehabs wouldn't let you come in with being on Suboxan or anything like that. But slowly but surely, rehabs are allowing people on medicated assisted treatment to come into them. Although I'm not a big fan of the the whole rehab industrial complex to begin with.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:26

But I mean, that might have to be another episode we do, but Jesus fucking Christ. I'm guessing you know which rehab I went to in Wickenberg, but uh the PMelody, all that shit is so it's I mean, they're making us so much money. Yeah, I know fucking uh what's it called? I'm already it's you mean PMLD shit?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:51

Oh I know. I was thinking about one in uh a different town that it's like super big. I forgot the name revealed, but my first sponsor's wife worked there.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:03

I'm looking it up now. It's old, it's been there for a while. It's uh I'm laughing. It says best luxury rehab centers in Arizona. That's a whole web page.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:14

Um uh it's in not Cotton Road, I can't remember the name of the town. It's not Globe. It's like if you keep going through Globe. No, it's it's up north. Uh Sim Payson. Oh whispering pines or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:30

Eventually you're you're gonna know a few people from there if you live in Arizona. Arizona is just booming with rehabs. It's bad. It's so bad. Also, they loved when like the clinics were the Wild West because they're that's when they all opened. They're like, oh yeah, keep don't keep the medical history going. This is all part of our like. Uh okay, well, uh, what do you want listeners to know?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:56

I want listeners to know that if you want abstinence, or if you want recovery, that it's not a one-size-fits-all solution like 12 steps. But there's many other options out there. Um there's smart recovery, there's recovery diamond, some people just go to church and get their recovery. I have an older brother who went to the Salvation Army and he doesn't do any work, any kind of program. And uh statistically, most people who recover from some kind of drug addiction don't attend any kind of recovery program.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:42

Yeah. And long-term recovery too.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:45

Yeah, and and and yeah, long-term recovery. I mean, I talked 20-30 years, they don't attend any any recovery program. Um, so there's options out, but not just stuck with one fucking Bill W's bullshit meeting where if you're a woman, you gotta be careful.

unknown 1:06:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:08

And if you do decide to go to 12-step meetings, if you're a woman, go to women-only meetings.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:15

Which also can be very abusive, unfortunately.

unknown 1:06:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:18

Although it's kind of hard to win in those uh situations.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:22

Yeah. I mean, I generally don't recommend 12 steps, but if if the listeners are bound to determine True.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:31

Just fucking be careful. Don't buy into the Ku road. And if if you are going to go, take what works and just completely discard the rest and don't give in to peer pressure. But if you don't if you're not trying to go to 12-step meetings, I'm happy. I think that's the best thing you can do is not go to a 12-step meeting. And you want to find something, check out Recovery Dharma. There's some overlap because of the people that go to the meetings, you know. Like I just bought a book and it like just hearing the word steps triggers me.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:11

They were reading from a book called The Eight Steps of like basically Buddhist-based recovery. And I saw that eight step, and I was like, Oh, punch the gut. We actually read the book in the recovery dharma meeting. I was like, Oh, wait, this is actually really good. So I bought the so I bought the book, but um, it was options.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:34

Yeah, there are options, and I that was perfect. Uh that's the best advice I've heard. So yeah. All right. Well, thank you, David. That was amazing, and I want you to come back.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:46

I will absolutely come back.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

Thank you. Prashana. Check out patreon.com slash the slash in recovery. That's patreon.com slash the slash in recovery. Have a question or story you want to address on the podcast? Send it to recovery from aapod at pm.me. That's recovery from aapod at pm.me. And I may read and respond to it in an upcoming episode.