Welcome to the two seventeen Recovery podcast.
If you don't make mistakes, you won't learn.
With your host Corey Winfield.
This whole new life thing is working out pretty well. This life in recovery is it's going great.
And co host Marley Winningfield.
I guess in my job, I've interacted with like the police and fire department.
And not been on the end the receiving end of their services.
Oh, it is the eleventh of November twenty twenty four. It's eleven eleven, Happy Veterans Day. My name is Corey Winfield.
My name is Marty Winfield.
Welcome to seventeen Recovery Podcasts from the Home studio. Is that will recall this one?
Yep?
How are you, Marty?
I'm great.
Nice, we're up early doing a podcast.
Yeah, what's going on?
Something up?
Enjoying our enjoying our Veterans Day, celebrating veterans.
Yeah, I remembering the the people that sacrifice for our country. Yeah, and even the ones that maybe didn't sacrifice. I guess if you sign up, in my opinion, you're sacrificing, You're giving something up, you.
Know, absolutely serving our country. I mean absolutely, they deserve a day more than a day.
Yeah, so big, big thanks and hopefully you continue to enjoy these days for many more. Yeah to come. It's early. I'm struggling for words here, but we have to explain our setup though, because we're down in the Home studio and in the Windfield Plex, which is right next to the Home studio. We have our son, Yeah, and on there is like a Christmas movie about cows or something. That's the first thing I could you picked it. I
clicked on it had snow and I thought cool. And our son is it's there for him right if he chooses that method of entertainment this morning. But he also has other entertainment called kiddies.
The kiddies.
So we have our two cats, which we've talked about before on the podcast, and there the one is very kind of chill Luna, kind of like a grown up cat, and then the other one, Hudson, is still a terror. Yeah, and so he's a he's a troublemaker, destroyer of all things.
So my interesting more of importance.
He gets. I cuss at him a lot, like Parker is going to think his name starts with F.
Yeah, the cat's name, Yeah, it.
Does not starts with h but he has the kiddies and he's sitting up. Seeing eleven days, Parker will be six months old since he exited your body. You did the math, I mean it's pretty easy. Twenty second and today's eleventh easy math I'm good at. But so he's sitting up now. But he's sitting up pretty good because he started kind of sitting up like a week or
two ago, and it was just like, oh we bill wobble. Yeah, but now he has got some control, some control to it, and when he starts to kind of lean, he can kind of correct himself.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think he chooses the face plant.
Do you think so?
Yeah? I think he's like, all right, I've had enough of this. How do I get down there? Oh? This is how I do it.
It is kind of a controlled face plant. Yeah too, it's like shoulder first.
Yeah.
So that's that's what our scene is today, Martie. You said he had a clear view of the back.
I have a clear view of the back of his head, and he actually, I mean I haven't actually timed it, but he'll he'll sit up. He'll be on his own and sit up for a good half hour, like on his own yeah, and and be just fine, which has made it a lot easier on me, I mean, and you for him because now he's playing with things, so like he's entertained by like you know, tags of things and different parts. He'll pick up one toy and mess
with it and put it down, pick up another. So where you run into issues is when stuff is out of his reach and he goes for it, and then he's like, I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to topple yet. And then he can't obviously get himself. He doesn't have that kind of you know, strength to be able to get himself back up.
So if you're new to the podcast this morning, this is our first child, you know, this is something very new to us. We're in recovery. We're living this life that we once thought was not possible, and we thought we were going to die just miserable and alone, and here we are, married, doing pretty well, we have a child. I mean, God's good. Yeah, God's been really good to us. And yeah we had to go through the hard times, but we appreciate the good times even more now.
Absolutely, you know, from where we were at.
So that's where we're at, and that's why we're, you know, kind of talking about our son and Parker, and if you have a child, maybe you can understand what we're talking about. You're like, oh, I remember when little Billy would face plant. You know that was so cute. There's any warnings you want to give us, cause I'm sure you're gonna be like, oh, well, wait till they start peeing everywhere or body train it, or I don't know, there's I'm sure there's tips out there and we will
gladly take them. M You know, Marnie, you like the fact that he peas everywhere.
Sometimes, No, it doesn't bother the game.
It doesn't bother me like it bothers him like he's you would think this it was like this toxic fluid because he goes he goes to change his diaper, and he's like, puts another diaper on top of him in case he does pee, And I'm like, if he does pee, then that's wasting a whole entire diaper.
I do not do that, obviously. What I do is I take a wipey and I put it over this little action cannon and then so that way I'm not gonna get sprayed, And I have another diaper underneath him ready to go. So like when I woop scoop his little booty in the poop and I wipe it and then start threat there and it takes time. Yeah, Like I can't just hey, let's just change his diaper and you can do it in ten seconds. It'll take me
a minimum, like two and a half three minutes. Yeah, And there's the whole process of like me getting it set up mentally, you know, for him and for me.
He gets in his little sing song.
Yeah, I starts something, singing some songs about cleaning the booty, you know, and the poopy booty, and you got to you gotta get into this mental state, and then you got to get the diype underneath, and you got to get like four or five wipe. He's out probablynogly four or five. But you know what, you got him just in case.
And I've watched this when he hasn't known. I've been watching him do this whole process. And he will actually pause in all of these stuffs that he's that he's describing very very well, but he'll stop and actually like have a whole conversation with Parker in between, so that I'm coming I'm.
Like, it's been he's been there like eight or nine minutes. What are they doing? And he's in there.
He's not changing any mood, nothing, no hands or moving, He's just talking to him. And it's it's very endearing and adorable and there's nothing wrong with it. It's just everybody's got his own, his own thing, and that's your time, you know that you set aside.
And I think it's great.
And I don't know if this is good or bad. But sometimes I'll get him like when I used to change him on the changing table, which I haven't done in a while, but I would get him in there and then I would change diaper and then he would poop immediately after. Because I think these talks that we're having are really kind of inspiring him a little bit. Oh okay, it's his little mind going next thing, you know.
He's just like, So what I've tried to do is kind of get the conversation going so that way he can get his bowels going, so that way we don't have to do the back to back diaper change, which I don't mind. I'll do, okay, but it's like, hey.
Man, so there is a method to the madness.
Yeah, and so if he knows we're going in there for the diaper change and I'm talking about poop like he knows, because he'll start grunting sometimes. And just yesterday I was asking him about the poopy booty and he kind of smiled at me. And then I put him down in the thing and as I'm getting ready to get out of the action cannon and all that, and then I hear him, I'm like, oh, okay, and the big smiled at me, like Daddy is clearing the clearing
the deck for you. It's like, okay, son, I appreciate that. But yeah, So I don't know if he thinks that that's like, hey, now it's poopy time. Yeah, that's what I'd be careful.
And in all of these all of these like these these little things, all of these these things that we're talking about completely just I owe all of it to being sober. Yeah, like none of this would be possible, you know. And sometimes I just come back to that moment and that realization and it comes at different times, you know, different random times when I'm just like I am just so grateful. I'm just so grateful, and you know, despite everything that I went through in my life that
was seemed awful and you know, terrible and unlivable. It something like that at the moment. But you know, for whatever reason, here I am now. So that's what I'm grateful for.
Yeah, and there's that time again where we thought none of this was possible. Like I just remember in my apartment in Buchanda, laying there just thinking, God, why can't this be over? Why did I have to wake up this time? Yeah, you know, and to be and I'd never even lived life, yeah, you know, to think like, oh I was on the radio, I did some cool things. I didn't do anything cool. I didn't know love, and I don't know if I've ever been in love. I
definitely don't know the love of a child. You know, Like I didn't live life. I was never married, right, you know. It was very selfish and now it's just kind of the opposite. But I'm having troubles with that too, because I am selfish.
I think this all comes back to, like like you talk about, well, you used to talk a lot about like your purpose, right, like what it is that you do or what keeps you going, what keeps you motivated? And you know, so much of what I have now, being married and you know, loving work and you know, completing my education and having this beautiful child in my world. It's it's like I have so many things to live
for today. You know, before I that question, I mean granted, we you know, blow things out of proportion when we're under the influence and when we're in deep in our addiction because everything seems awful and unsolvable, and you know, we're their depths of despair, and so we're like, what's the point, right, Like, I hate my life. I don't
like living it. I'm not happy with I wake up in the morning and I just dread the day because I'm not with who I want to be with, or I'm alone, you know, I'm not doing what I want to be doing, or I don't even know what that is. I'm just existing. I don't feel love by anyone. I don't feel like I'm giving love to anyone. You know, I'm not productive, I don't like what I look like. I'm not taking care of myself, I'm not taking care of anyone else. So I mean, add all those things up,
and that is a very empty life to live. And so now today it's the complete opposite, total point eighty complete opposite. I love my life, I love what I do. I love the people in my life. I love my family. My family loves me, you know. And not that my family ever stopped loving me. It's just I didn't let them love me. I wasn't in a space mentally or emotionally or spiritually where I could even accept or be you know, in a place where I could have them
show me that love, you know. And so now totally totally flipped, and it's amazing.
I took a guy the other day to treatment and then I was talking about we had a five month old.
Okay, yeah, it's hot in here, it's hot, and get emotional.
I was cutting onions this morning. Sorry, But I took this guy and you know, I was talking about, yeah, I have five month old and he's like, wait what huh? And I told him, yeah, you know, I met my wife and we've been married and coming up on forty years. And he's like, you know, that gives me a lot of hope. And he was like thirty two maybe, you know, like so he's way younger than I am, but it
gave him hope. He said that he could actually find somebody, and he was talking about this relationship that he's in and out of and how you know, it's not my job to tell people what to do, but I can tell him that my past experience of trying to like put things together that weren't meant to be, you know, I'll make it fit, you know, like it's it's best just to let it go, you know. And so giving
him hope was was awesome. You know that we did that through our misery that we had to go through to finally come to the realization of shit's got to change and I'm the one who has to change it and to create a new life and create Parker. You know, by doing that, we inspired him. Yeah, you know, like I'm not saying like he's gonna be the greatest thing
since like spread out there in the recovery world. But I'm just saying, like those little moments and when you can inspire just one person sometimes you know that that's all it takes. And will that be the dude's last time going to treatment, I don't know, Yeah, but he'll remember that he does have a little inspiration there that
he can turn his shit around. And there are some people and I would probably was like this too, like, oh, and he's forty six, so I got shit, I got fourteen years of dicking around still, you know, like he could look at it like that, like oh and then I'll just change my shit when I'm forty and I'll just keep doing that. You know, I wouldn't recommend that.
No, right, No, I'm thinking he's gonna spend it like man, this cool old dude.
He took me to treatment.
He just had a he just had a baby just like five months ago. So like, yeah, I mean, and this is when my like my world started, you know, is when I got sober, Like that's when my life really started. And I'm not discounting like my childhood or you know, the good experience that I have had in my life, because there's been a lot of them. But I mean, and I think people who are in active addiction or been through active addiction who you have conversations with, can identify with this piece.
It's just like.
Time in active addiction feels like eternity. It feels like eternity that there's no like there's no out, you know, you're just stuck and it's ever forever long. But at the same time, in looking back, it's like years would go by, and I'm like, I don't even know where those years went, like, But when you're in them, it's just misery is just it seems like it takes it's forever, you know.
So yeah, it's hard to even imagine a way out. And when I'm coming up on my ten year anniversary of the liver failure and all that, and so I had like little over half a month to complete before I was on vacation, and that December of twenty fourteen, I just tore it up. But before that, like I knew, I started, I got the shakes and so much that I couldn't even go to the drive through liquor store because i have to hand my stuff through the window and I'm shaking so bad. And the guy asked me
one time, I asked me, what's wrong. He knew what was wrong. He's seen it every day he worked at the liquor store. So I knew there was something wrong, but I didn't know what to do or how to reach out for help. I didn't think I needed help. I thought I could just slow it down on my own,
which I couldn't. And when I went balls to the wall, there in that month and then tried to come back to work, you know, and it was just it was bad and I'd done the damage that needed to be done to send me to the hospital, but I still
didn't know how to ask for help. And I thought I was just like this horrible person who was an alcoholic, who you know, he couldn't handle his liquor, he didn't know how to drink responsible and like all the stuff that society tells you that you're a bad person, and it really I wasn't a bad person.
Man.
It's alcohol, That's what it does.
It's a disease.
It doesn't say on the bottle you keep drinking this, you're gonna need two bottles, you're gonna need four bottles, you're gonnamore, You're gonna sweach. It doesn't tell you that, you know, to get that same level of ah, like I want to escape, and a lot of us that's why we drink it, whether it's fun escape or whether it's escape misery. Crying now, he I think he fell over. I picked him up earlier and put him back on his little booty. Yeah, and I think he's he's wanting
to readjust so you'll readjust him. I'll keep talking about this story that I've talked about million times, But it is important though to know that if someone's going through that in that same stage that I was, they're not going to see the clear view. They're not going to see Hey, in five years you could be married and have a child, and own a home and start a
nonprofit and help people in recovery. That all that was impossible, Like I don't even think I thought about making it through a day without a drink, Like how would I do that? That to me seemed impossible. So to to like add it up to like this is what your life could be, it would actually kind of make me more depressed sometimes. You know, my mom was showing these videos look at this guy, or watch this and this
guy's doing great. Look at him and you know he was an addict, real bad and he turned it around. And I'm like, yeah, that's that's not me. I can't do that, you know, So don't compare people and their stories to other things, but just know that it does happen. But if you can just sit back and maybe talk with the person. If you know someone who's struggling or going through it, maybe talk with them, like what would you want to do, Like, if you could do anything
in the world, what would you want to do? You know, because I think setting goals and having those dreams. Without those, I wouldn't be here, you know, if I wasn't like I'm going to start a nonprofit and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to start a podcast.
But and the thing is, too is it's okay if you don't have an answer, yeah, because I don't think lots of times, I mean, I wasn't in that space where I could even wrap my head around like stopping let alone, it would just make me mad because I'm like I can't even comprehend what I could be, what I'm capable of right now, Like I don't even want to. I don't even want to evaluate like what I can do or what are possibilities for me because I'm so sick,
you know. But to get on the other side of it, it does help to have that conversation about like, you know, it doesn't have to be like this, Like you know, it doesn't have to be like this because every person who's stuck in their addiction has been sober at one time. Granted it might have been when they were thirteen years old, right, But they found joy at some point in something, you know,
and they can find it again. I mean, it's just it's about it's about figuring out how to let go of that obsession and putting down the bottle and figuring out that there's more.
And in my case too, like I had some issues that I had suppressed deep down that I didn't want to deal with. You know that I'm a guy. I'm cool, not depressed. That didn't happened to me. Nothing to see here, you know, those kind of things, and until like it all came together, you know, and it came together in a treatment facility, which was good for me because it gave me that time to work on myself.
Yeah.
You know a lot of people, I don't have sixty days. I don't have ninety days. I can't go that long my job at this by that, I don't have any
of that. And eventually people do lose it all. So if you can take that time to get away and it's a safe place away from your drug of choice, you know, and a safe place for you to work on yourself, and that's when, you know, if you got a couple of weeks you know, just go day at a time at first, but then when you start to get feeling better, and you will, you'll start feeling better and you'll start being able to think of goals and that obsession will go away and you can kind of
replace the drinking or the drug use for with the goals, you know. And that's kind of what I did, Like I must start a podcast, but we'll podcast, but the podcast turned into the nonprofit, which now you know, turned to the two seventeen Recovery Center and the things that we do now and hopefully we have more things that we're going to do soon. But it started had to start somewhere, yeah, you know. Yeah, but anyway, I think lo Man is needing attention to hear him crying over there.
But we'll just do little podcasts, short podcasts. Now, that's what we do. The hour long days are gone.
I know, parents, now, I know.
Now, But thanks for tuning in. And there's nine hundred plus episodes. You can get two seventeen Recovery app, which is free Google Store and Playstore, so all right, Google play Store and the Apple Store. It's early, all right, until next time I have to go on.
All right, thanks, had a great day.
Thanks for listening to the two seventeen Recovery podcast. Listen to over nine hundred episodes. It's on the two seventeen Recovery app that's free in your app store or online at two seventeen recovery dot com