Welcome to the two seventeen Recovery Broadcast. If you don't make mistakes, you won't learn. With your host Corey Winfield, you know how you know fish as bad as you can't put it on pizza and special guest Justin Burke.
I said something about that to our master radio broadcaster and he said that he didn't hear nothing. Got your ass.
It is October twenty fourth, twenty twenty four. My name's Corey Winfield, and that this is the two seventeen Recovery podcast, which is actually taken today from a recovery Dance podcast, which we'll get into a little bit more. But Justin Burke with me today. How you doing, Justin?
I'm doing fabulous, bro.
Yeah, how's life? Man?
Life's been a struggle lately. But I think it's a lot to do within myself, you know, realizing how to rate raise teenagers. You know, everyone knows that my daughter recently came to live with me, like about two months ago.
Had good job with that.
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate all the support I got from everyone I know. But I have to realize where her standard used to be at and where my standards at it when she ain't like trying to get there. It really infuriates me. Mmm, you know, because it's like, I know what you're capable of, and you just choose not.
To a lot of it might be too And this is just me just chiming in here. I know you didn't ask for any advice, but I noticed this when I came to work today. And Marnie does this at the house sometimes, and she does it here all the time. She doesn't reset the microwave. It's a I think it's a woman thing. Like there's a clock on the microwave which I like to use use to see what time it is. Oh, I'm going places, and so if there's something in the microwave here at work, and I'll come
in and it'll say twenty three seconds. Yeah, this morning sixteen seconds, I'm like, Marnie wasn't even here. And then it hit me, Oh, Corey Smoker uses the microwave. She's a woman. Maybe it's a woman like that. There's clearly a little cancel button, like after you get your stuff out, you can hit cancel. Yeah, bring it back to zeros, you know, Like nah, So it could be a little bit just that she's a girl and some of the stuff is just naturally built into her brain to well,
why would I hit the cancel button? Yeah, you know, start leaving the toilet seat up, you know, like I don't know, like and so be like that bugs me.
Dad. I'm like, well, okay, I said it in a bowl full of water last night.
Let's talk about compromise. I'll put the seat down and you start doing things, you know, it hit the clear on them. And to be fair, Marti doesn't really do that much at home anymore, but back in the day, man, she would do it a lot. And she think she still does it here when she does come to work here and she's in the office, you know, I'll see some twenty three seconds or thirty six seconds on there, and I'm.
Like, I re microwave at work. I mean it's a good microwave, but I don't know how to use it. I mean I just hit the little play button on it.
Yeah.
But I mean besides that, like I don't know what those there's side buttons on it in a dial and I'm like, huh.
Yeah, it's not built for like functional functionality. Yeah, it's built for looks. Yeah, aesthetics, because it's like a green, and we got it from best Buy seventy eight bucks or something that it's like mint green, and it goes with the retro refrigerator that's mint green that we have. Yeah, it's not like, hey, let me hit the cook button. There's no cook button. There's just a bunch of like play and pause and like four. It's almost like it's
a like an iPod or something, you know. But yeah, and we only have that really because Marty likes to heat up her coffee.
Yes, scalding hot.
Yeah, so that's the only reason we have a microwave here. You know, Miss Smoker thinks it's to actually microwave food. I think Mitch does too. Yeah, it's like, oh guys, that's really not for food. That's just for coffee. But okay, I think that was our thinking behind getting it too. It's like, hey, then people won't think they can cook in here, because you know, I mean, if you ever had an office or somewhere and somebody's making some food, nine times out of ten it smells gross. Yeah.
The only thing that ever smells good coming out of a microwave in a workplace studying is popcorn.
Yeah, unless you burn it. Yeah, unless you burn it, then you kissed people off and you're like, dude, what the fuck you didn't set a time around that. You know, he couldn't stand there next to it.
Yeah, for the two and a half minutes it takes to pop.
A bay, it clearly was done. Yeah, but that that is the only good thing that really comes out of it. And unless you're eating it, I guess it can smell okay, but man, most of the time, it's.
Just, yeah, it smells gross, and I think hot dogs are the worst smell.
Yeah, Mitch, we had a George Foreman little Foreman thing here, yeah, that I bought when we were doing the the mobile unit with ATS, and I brought that. I'm like, hey man, we can coax some hot dogs for people or something, you know, and then it it just brought it back here to the office when we stopped doing that, and then Mitch decided it was going to be his personal hot dog maker. Yeah, right next to it, Like, stop making hot dogs in that at least clean the mfort. Nope,
we started making hot dogs again. So I was like, here, I'm throwing it away, and I think Kim took it. I don't know what she did with it. But I was like, get this out of the office now. Yeah, I know, miss isn't gonna buy a new one. No, plce, I forbid it.
There's so many forbidden things around the office.
You're welcome, thanks. Yeah, sometimes you gotta lay it down like that. But nah, So back to the daughter. Maybe it's just one of those things, you know, like have you read books? Have you like looked at videos online? Like how do I deal with a teenage daughter? Do you want to make a video?
Like? No, no, actually I did it. I really talked to Miss Smoker who's had a teenage daughter, and you know, and it's tried navigating through life with a daughter, you know, and because boys are different than girls when raising them, they just are Our brain chemistry is not the same. Some people are smarter. Some people say boys' brains are
mush because there's so much testosterone pumping through their body. So, you know, so I talked to her quite a bit the other day about it, and you know, that's where she told me, you know, you know, just in her bar was so low as long as she went to school and was out of their hair, they didn't care.
How about your daughter and how it used to be yeah.
To where I am at now, you know, where I do actually care. At home, I check her grades all the time, and it's like, well, you're capable of doing this, just do it and just get it done, you know. And she's like, but you have to meet somewhere in the middle, because you just can't go from someone not totally not giving a shit about somebody to someone that does actually care about you. How well do you think that's gonna work? You know when we see that a
lot in recovery too. You know, when someone dives head first into something because they start getting attention or whatever. Then it's just like, well, the other person's standard wasn't where you thought it was at, and it's a letdown, a huge letdown, like crush somebody. Yeah, And you know, in some aspect, I did feel crushed by my own daughter, you know, because she wasn't before being the way I wanted her to. And I just have to realize the shithole that she came from.
Yeah, and you know, and not to like bash excess or anything. You know, maybe the situation it was different for the mother too, you know, maybe I don't know, we don't know what they were going through either. You know, so we can't really put ourselves in their shoes because we don't really know. But all we know is he here's the attitude, and here's the expectations that she has, and they're very low. And that's not how daddy plays the game, you know, Like that's not how we do it.
That's not how I was raised. Like my bar was set. Here's the bar. You do this where you go above it, you go blow it. You're getting your ass probably whooped. We're doing some hard work around the house something. You know, you're gonna lose your dirt bike, your snowmobile, You're gonna lose all your fun lit toys that you have. And some people think may think I was spoiled, but you know,
it's not like my dirt bike was brand new. It was something from the seventies, so it was like thirty forty years old when I got it, you know, same day with my snowmobile. It's not like I mean, they were good running machines when my mom bottom, but it's not like they were brand new like Stay of the Arc where I could take them out on the trails
and go ride them. I just lived in an area where we could ride them and not have to worry about stickering them because we didn't have registrations to none of them. You know. The dirt bikes were bought from some dude down in Scottville, Michigan. He had a full barn full of like old dirt bikes and motorcycles he would sell parts off of. And my mom went to him and said, well, I need two dirt bikes for my boys. He goes, well, I got titles for these,
but they run really good. And we bought them, you know, and they ask no questions. We took up home and drove them until they puked.
Yeah, and got them taken away if you did bad shit, right, But I wish we could go back to the school with our children. Is there like a day where you can do.
That, Oh, like going to the class with your child?
Yeah, because they say, you know, you want to walk a mile in her shoes, you know, put yourself on her shoes. Because you remember back in the day it was so much pressure when the teachers would start talking about well, once you get out there in the real world, once you get a job, you know, boss is going to let you come in three minutes late. Blah blah, blah blah blah and what are you gonna do? And it was so much focus on what are you going
to do next? And I didn't have a clue. Man, I wanted to go home and play Nintendo, right, you know, but the people were making us make portfolios. And then as we got closer to graduating graduating, it was like, oh, what are you going to go to do college? I'm like, I don't know if I want to go to college, you know. And then the school I went to we had a tool and die program machine shop and there were a lot of toolande places in the area, so he could be a mold maker, even a die maker
or whatever. But that's what they kind of pushed you to, you know, and you can make you know, sixty grand a year or something. You know, they're oh, wow, that's a lot. And look at all these new trucks these guys are driving, and you're like, wow, that's pretty cool. I didn't really want to do it, and it wasn't until I was fired from my BS high school job.
I was working at a store in Coloma called the Hilltop, but I was in radio shack department, which whatever we sold radio shack batteries, but they also rented videos, and I didn't even like, normally you would have to get hired in as a bagger because it's a gcery store. It's called Hartings now. But they I knew somebody and they're like, hey, I'm looking for a job. They're like, okay, cool. So I kind of got hired into the video department
and that pissed a lot of people off. My friends who had been working there for months as baggers, were waiting to get transferred to the radio shack department. Here I just come inop you know, all Corey style free pass a Corey might as well. And it was pretty cool job, you know, brinting movies to people on the weekends. It was fun. Friend of mine, Jamie Riley, he lived in the next city over in Watervliet, and he was like their class clown and I was the class clown
of Global. So put us together. It was trouble. We did so much fun stuff and oh my god, it was it was too much. And then we had a contest of who can rent the most free videos. Sounded like genius to us. It's called embezzlement to the company, and so they fired us and I'm like wow, because when they call us in because we were playing football, like with we had a tape ball and then we had like a roll of paper towels that were unopened and he would go down Aisle four and I would
chuck it up. He would catch it, you know, or right hear it hit some stuff, you know. I'm like, oh, damn, well, this one lady. We were playing tape ball, but it was kind of a fastball and we were going through the movie aisles and we maybe had hit this woman with the tap ball in their head, and we thought that's what we're getting fired for. So we were kind of surprised and it kind of relieved. And they're like, no, this is embezzlement and I'm like huh. They're like, but
we're not going to press charges, but you're fired. I was like, oh, okay, because I thought this was about the tape ball incident, because I thought they were going to show me the tape, which I was kind of interested to watch. But nah, So they got fired from that, and then I didn't know what I was going to do. My mom was like, look, you got three months left, pore you graduate. How about you just focused on that make sure you graduate and think about what you really
want to do in life. What do you want to do? Corey and I really thought about it. And it was before spring break, I remember, because I was going to Arizona to see my dad, and I thought, you know, I want to be an entertainment I want to be on TV. I want to be on radio. And there's a radio station Ben Harbor. So I remember I called up the radio station and I talked to this guy.
He was on the air. His name was Chad West, and he answered, you know, and I was like, hey, man, I'm in high school right now, but I really I really want to work in radio. You know, could you give me some advice? And he was like yeah. He's like, first, you know, you have to call the program director. His name's Mike Thomas. You know, call two six nine nine,
two five eleven eleven. Asked for Mike, and you know, see if there's anything opening like board op, because you can start out as a board op and kind of work your way up, but that that's how you get in. And Chad was really cool with me on the phone. So I was like, all right, great, So I called and I think I talked to Mike Thomas, like right away, and he told me call back in a couple of weeks.
He might have something coming open. There's a lot of remotes going on in the summer where people go out and broadcast and someone needs to be at the station run the board. And that's how it worked back in the nineteen ninety six, and I was like, all right, cool.
So I went out of vacation or whatever, I went to spring break, came back and I was all kind of pumped about it, and I called him back and went to voicemail, called him back the next day, went to voicemail, called him for like two weeks straight, went to voicemail, and I remember getting so pissed, like is this guy gonna freaking call me back? But I'm like, hey, Mike,
it's Cory again. Just just call him check in. And then he finally calls me back and I get it home and there's a message on my answering machine, so I have online in my room.
Really now, that's being spoiled, girl.
Call my mind and yeah, because that back in the day, man he had to like wait for someone to go off the phone, and I wasn't trying to do none of that.
I bet not no.
So I'm like he had to take the phone with the cord and you'd be in the kitchen because that usually had the longest one, and you'd been trying to like I had nobody to hear you, and you go sit on the steps and nah. I just was like, can I just get my own phone? I'll pay for it.
Things, But it was h.
It was then, you know, when I finally called him, he was like, hey, seems like you really want a job pretty bad once you come in. So I did. I came in and in school made me make this portfolio and a stupid picture on the front. Here's my achievements, which I don't even know what was in there. And I handed to him like here's my portfolio. He just looks at it, throws it to the side. It's like, all right, so here's the deal, you know, like la
da da da da. It seems like you really want a job here, And I was like I do, and he's like, well, board op consists of this and you can come in Sunday mornings at six am to run boot scoot and Boogie nights or days or I think Bootgooting Nights is on Saturday Nights or something anyway. I was like, whatever, yep, I'll do it. I ain't care. I hated country music, but here I am playing like Bob Kinksley's Top forty Country Countdown. But it got me
in the door man. And then doing the two Way, I'm like, hey, Mike, he got thirty seconds and he'd be like, okay, you know you let him know, Hey, thirty cents should be talking. And he's like, hey man, you got a real good voice on the two Way? Do you want to do you ever think about being on the air. I'm like, of course, dude. He's like, all right, won't you come in and do overnights on
the weekend. You can start talking at two am. I'm like, oh my god, okay, so I going at like eleven or midnight and then at two am for like that first weekend, like I went live and oh my god, I was so scared. It sounded similar to this irak on O seven best rocking Hits Corey White. So that's why I called myself at first, and they only lasted that one day, and I'm like, nah, just use your real name, like too many people are going to know you and using a fake last name, and just it
didn't feel right. It felt like I was trying to be somebody else. And yeah, if I want to talk about my mom or my dad or my brother or my sister, I want it to be real. I don't want it to be like, oh yeah, I got this fake name and I'm this fake person. I'm just like now I'm telling real life stories here. And that helped me establish like my personality on the radio. But back to the whole setup of this is and tell my mom really asked me that question and let me think
about it. You know, I didn't have teachers tell me what I should do, schools pushing their agenda on you. Hey, be a tool and die maker, you know, like all these other things, Like when I could just sit back and real, like what do I want to do? Well? I want I love entertaining people, I love making people laugh. Let let me do that. And what resources are around? You know, It's like, well, there's a radio station ten miles away, Like, let me pick up the phone and
call and Chad us was cool. He ended up getting fired right away after I started, but I hope he's doing well. But it was cool that he answered the phone. If I would call another one, there's two or three. If I would have called, they just want to hung up by me. You don't want to do this, dude, There's no money in it, and they would have hung up, right.
But Chav is really really cool. And Phil Becker, who like own some radio stations now, I guess in Indiana, and he was one of the guys that taught me a lot of stuff too. And I would come in when I wasn't working and he would let me. I would go in the production room and make fake tapes and I would go give him to him and he'd be like, Nope, that sucks. Do this. Don't say it like that. Do like this. This is how you structure
your brakes. This is what you need to do. And he phil Becker really helped me a lot, just with the very simple basic stuff right and the rest, you know, I just kind of worked on. But it was cool. I phil Becker told me how to wrap a chord. You know, She's like, no, don't do it like that, man, you gotta do like this like this. I'm like, oh, okay, But just like those little things, man, And it does take help along the way where you need to go. But you know, maybe sit down with your daughter and
be like, what do you really want to do? And she might not have a freaking clue.
She's fourteen, she has no clue what she wants to do yet, you know.
But in the meantime, while she's trying to figure it out, you know, tell her what kind of stuff interest you, you know, find out what those interests are, and then just explain to her like, Okay, you want to be a dentist, all right, Well, you probably don't need to know a lot of math. Maybe you do from when people owe you money, is right, but yeah, but what classes do you need to pass? Okay? Well you might not use math a lot, but you do have to past this because you do have to go to college
for it and get into college. You're going to have to do this and this, so this is a stepping stone to get where you want to go. Maybe that will kind of help her take math serious. And I don't know if math is one of the classes that there is a problem. Probably not, but it's still that's hey, history, you think it sucks? Okay? Cool wasn't my favorite either? Which I like history now.
Yeah, I loved history even in school. I loved it.
Yeah, but at least you know, set it up that way, like, look, but you still have to pass this class, and you still have to take this, and then when you get into college, you know, they'll get to give you other classes that you have to take that don't even make sense that you're taking them, but you still have to take them if you want to graduate and get that degree.
Like I looked at just recently because I asked you for my background check, so I knew when I was arrested for my felonies.
Sometimes we forget, Yeah, sometimes we do forget.
Obviously, you know, what date were you actually convicted, What day were you arrested? What day were you convicted on, you know, asset when you go back to school when you got felonies. And one thing I realized because I wanted to go for like a degree in the audio, you know, like for podcasting, like what we do now, and so that way I understand more of it, because
I don't really understand it. And I mean, I just don't want to watch some YouTube video where someone claims that they might know what they're doing when you really don't know, you know, I'd actually rather go to school and learn it the right way. And one class that really struck me odd is they make you take a piano class and I was like, what then piano two? Like like why do I need to learn how to play the piano?
Yeah? Some that is. I think what more you would need to go to is the interlock in the School of Arts or whatever it's called.
But they do have certificates that they offer at NMC too.
When they have that interlack in because it's like like when I took that film class, I took filmmaking, script writing, and film production. I don't care like do I have a certificate Probably, I haven't even downloaded it doesn't That means nothing to me. It's just learning those skills. That's all I care about. Like I'm not going to go into somebody and be like, here's my certificate, let me
make a movie, right, you know. I might put on there like yeah, I've taken this class or whatever, but like to me, at being forty six years old whatever, like your piece of paper doesn't care. I want the knowledge. I want to learn what you're teaching me. Yeah, you know, And that's what was so cool about taking those classes there. But and just the one on one time with the
instructor who's made movies. He's done it before. You know, like if you could sit down with somebody who's done radio or who it's done audio, you know, like this is how you do it, man, you know, like that's that's more important. And is the college you're going to have somebody like that. No, probably not. They're going to have somebody who teaches you music, teaches you, Oh, here's how you do audio, and that's why they do piano. I took a class. Where was it It might have
been a Potasky North Central Michigan. I don't know. There's so many Central North It's it's so it's such a weird name. I don't remember it. But I thought, oh, this will be easy when music. So I go in there and the dude's trying to teach me rhythm and all this other stuff. I'm like, I thought we were just doing like who sung this song or something like that for me, you know, being the radio background, I know all this music. And then it was like no,
it was like i'd beat. I'm like, yeah, I get that, but I'm not trying to learn that. So I dropped it whatever because it wasn't what I thought it was going to be right.
But I'm just checking out different things, you know, and exploring my options because I mean, if we do end up actually doing movies here or short films.
You said the word that, I'm very confused.
What we know if Oh yeah, we can talk about for a long time.
So okay, so when we long time justin Burg, Well, we've you've.
Been talking about doing a movie now for like two years, three years. I've only been somewhere for five almost six almost. We've had this place for what year in some months?
Yeah, okay, So I'm just saying we're getting there. Doesn't happen overnight, man, No, But am I taking the steps to get me there?
Yep?
Yeah? I thought, because like I wrote a script already and I'm totally going to rewrite the beginning of it. And I was thinking about it last night or slash this morning, like four. I'm like, now, that's how we need to do, and I'm there's a lot of changes to it, but there's reasons for the changes. And I'm thinking, how am I going to get this into a five minute film? That's what I'm thinking now, Like, how am I going to get this into a five minute film.
It's gonna be hard, but we'll make it work. It'll be good. Yeah, it will be And you know, like Darren was telling me, he's like, look, if you can make this five minute film like awesome and you can make people feel with it, you'll have no problem getting your full length movie funded. That's awesome, no problem whatsoever. He's like, people will come out in woodworks. He's like them emotions, they open wallets, and he's like, you got
a good thing going. He's like, especially with the short that you're telling me, He's like that that could actually be a set up to your actual movie. Yeah. I was like, yeah, it could be, you know, but I really want to be known for making movies that portray the real side of addiction. You know, there's good people, there's bad people. You know, same thing with recovery. There's good people, there's bad people. Just in life, there's good
people and bad people. But I really want to open that door to that real Like, if someone watches it, they'll say that that dude's been to treatment. Whoever wrote this movie knows what's going on. They understand addiction, they understand recovery.
Yeah, they're just not portraying well, this is what happens. And yeah, like butterflies and roses, you know, they don't show the big rain cloud that's hanging over your head right the whole time you're in treatment, until about your last few days where it finally starts to lift away, you know, and some sunshine comes into your life.
Yeah, but I want to show I want to show the stuff that kind of happens with, you know, people that are on meth and you know, I think they start doing it now, but in this probably varies all over the country. But if you're on Medicaid like a year or so ago, maybe longer, but they wouldn't let you go to detox because you technically couldn't die and withdrawing from meth, so they wouldn't put you into detox
insuring someone pay for it. So they just put you right into treatment and they would give you like a week maybe two. And there was somebody I know went through that and they put them in there and it's first week slept, and then the second week he kind of started coming around and he asked for an extension and they said, no, you didn't even go to your groups the first week.
Yeah.
Well, what's the fu Like, what do you think he was doing? Man? Like the phone was talking to him, he was hearing voices, the walls were calling. What what are you talking about?
Like?
You set him up to fail? Yeah, you know, I want to show some of that, you know, like this is what happens, and then to show that what happens, and then he goes right back out and he starts using again, and you just wasted money. You wasted money because you didn't want to pay a little extra. Same thing.
What do we do with transportation? Yeah, you know, you put somebody in a treatment center for two weeks, thirty days, sixty days, ninety whatever it is, and then you don't have a plan to get them home safely to their door, and you let them call their drug dealer or come pick them up because you don't want to pay the eighty to one hundred dollars or whatever it is to
get them home safe. Yet you'll you'll pay two three hundred bucks a day to house them in this place, but oh no, the sixty bucks to take him homes there's too much. Wait what Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. And he doesn't even get home safe, so he feels like a failure, and you put him on a bus. Oh, he might have some money in his pocket somebody else. Send him twenty bucks. Hey, that's for some smokes to get you home. But I'm not coming to get you.
It's a four hour trip, which is really a twelve hour bus ride sometimes with the layovers and this and that. You send there with twenty bucks, and you look across the street. This happened to me when I was in Lancing. You know, I look across the street and there's a freaking liquor store.
And who hangs outside of liquor stores?
Yeah, drug dealers, right, all the good people in society usually. And he's like, wait a minute. Of course I didn't have twenty dollars, but like, it's just all those things that I was thinking, Like, man, if I did have twenty dollars, if I had three dollars, what I have went and bought something? I don't think so, because I'm on probation and I was trying to I was geared,
like I gotta get stuff done. But for somebody who's not And then they go home and they're drunk, They get off the bus and their family member pick them up from the bus station or whatever.
They're already wasted, they're already drunk.
And here we go again, and now they probably get kicked out or they were told they could go home, but now they can't.
And where are they get left at the bus stop?
Yep? And then you called to try to go back to treatment and they tell you that you just got out of treatment and that you obviously didn't learn anything, so they're not going to pay for you to go back to treatment for another sixty days. Yeah, then what do you do? Right? You're not you're not gonna start hitting meetings, no, because you're already like, oh, I'm a failure.
And you already had on the corner with the sign that says please help and so that we can keep drinking until you can get back into treatment.
Yeah, and people don't see all that. No, you know, they don't understand. And it's not even that person's fault, but he should have been stronger. You don't understand addiction, and they're saying that you don't understand how that works. Try not to eat for next two weeks. Yeah, and just don't eat.
How about you put your phone down for two weeks? Go back to an old flip phone, an old school flip phone, and see how well you're like, where's my Facebook? Like I have nothing to click the like button or the heart button while I'm sitting here taking a deuce, Like I have nothing to do now, you know, because no one has magazines in their bathroom like everyone used to when I was growing up as a kid. You know, it's you know, you could take addiction in multiple different areas.
Our smartphones are addictive as shit.
Yeah, when your brain is honed in on that, Like I said, you know, don't eat, you know, because that's the closest thing I can compare to, because that's one of the survival instincts that we have, you know, food, shelter, water, like that's number one. Well, when you become addicted, that takes over, that change because your brain chemistry changes. So the most important thing to me at one time in life was alcohol. Sure, I pay my rent, but only when I got my check. I pay that first because
I could drink at my house. If I couldn't drink at my house, I wouldn't have paid my rent, No, I tell you that. But alcohol was number one. That was number one for me. And when it becomes number one for you, and you go to a bus station. I don't care if it's been sixty days, ninety days. It's going to take time for your brain to change,
and you're gonna have to set goals. You have to do all this other stuff, and a lot of times in these streatment centers, depending which one you go, and depending what mind frame you have when you go there. You know, are you like, oh, okay, I just need to make some money. Once I get some money, I could pay my bills. The reason why I drink is because my bills piling up. It's not why I drank. It was an excuse I can't pay my bills, right,
It wasn't the reason I drink. I drink because it's too I wasn't gonna like I'm gonna move to Seattle, damn it, Son's here too. I wasn't, you know, like, I wasn't looking for the solution. I was just looking for more excuses. And so I think it's very important for people to to understand someone like we're talking earlier.
You know, put yourself in that person's shoes. Imagine having that urge so bad that you know it'll screw up your whole life, the last sixty days down the drain if you go across there and buy that, but yet nine times out of ten the person would do that. That is a little bit of what it's like to be addicted to something.
Yeah, and you know, and there's an alright movie. It's very corny to watch it. The first time I watched it, I laughed. I was like, oh, I just pointed out, like, look how stupid this is. You know. But when I went to work at a treatment center the same when you worked at. The movie was called Pleasures Unwoven. You know, it really broke it down scientifically about how addiction does work. And you know, the like I said, the first time watched it, I was like, oh, look look how corny
and cheap and cheesy this is. But like the second or third time I watched it, when I started doing that group, I was like, holy Kyle, there's actually a lot of information in here. You know that it really tells you about how addiction does work and how it fits the disease model because there is really no cure for it, so it's a disease. You know, it's no different than diabetes, is the way they kind of put it, you know, I mean, we will eventually die from it
if we don't try to change our ways. And it's very hard to change our ways when we don't produce dopamine anymore, or our serotonin levels when they drop and we just don't know how to do it anymore, and it takes a while for those to kick back in naturally because our drug of choices robbed us from our natural levels. Because when we use, our dopamine spikes through the roof like this is a great time bubbo, and it tells your brain that we need more and more
and more of this. And that's the problem that goes that happens with addiction, is our dopamine levels just spike.
Through the roof. Then they call it the pink cloud. And that's when we stop using. You know, for that first two weeks to month, maybe could go longer, but your brain starts kicking into gear because it's like, hold on, we got to make more of that because we're not getting that. So your brain goes over the over the top, making it to like hey, here you go, here you go. And then your brain's like, well hold on, that's way
too much. Let's back and then it drops down and a lot of people call that hitting the wall, you know, and that's when nothing, nothing thing normally in life that makes you happy will make you happy. Whether it's seeing your kid, your puppy, your dog, whatever it's it's not going to make you happy. And that's when people get frustrated and they're like, nothing, I'm doing the right things
and everything sucks and da da da da da. And through my journey, you know, I would put months together, and I used to frust me, frustrate me because I would go to like the IOP groups and I'd be like, look, yeah, I might have relapsed, but but I had four months in there, you know, isn't my brain starting to heal? And they'd be like, no, you got to have, you know, to at least two to five years is what they
say for your brain to totally heal. But my brain is starting to heal, you know, just because I had a relapse for a week or a WEEKND or whatever, Like, can I count that time? Does my brain healing? I don't want to count that as cleaning toime, you know, is my sober date. But like, but that that stuff
does add up, and it does. And I found out the hard way with drinking, because you will black out when you go to drink what you thought you would drink before, right and or thought you can drink what you did before, and you realize you can't because you black out, and then who knows, you know, and then just pray that God's there to save you and to look after you like it was for me. But it's
it's at least something. You know, I wouldn't knock somebody for having three months and then you know, going back out and relapse in. And it's as long as they're learning along the way.
You know.
We had a guy come here the other day, I guess, and you know, talking about something happened, and it's like all right, cool, like well, what are you doing now? You know, like let's go that that didn't work out, And you know we're not going to chastise him and say he's an idiot or stupid. We've been there, We've done that. You know. It's like it is a process. It takes time, but it's it's always there at the back of your mind, you know, saying hey, come on,
you can do it one more time. It gets easier, you know, as you have time under your belt. I know, for if I have twenty years, if I have forty years, if I take a drink, I'm done. I know that I've seen it. I've seen people with twenty years and they're like, COVID came along and I missed my one meeting a week that I went to it, closed it down and thought I could drink again.
Yeah, I thought I'd manage it.
Yep.
Yeah, I deserve one with with my dinner tonight.
Yeah it's been it's been twenty years. I can have one tonight with the game or whatever. Nope, can't. I can't have one, and I'm cool with it, and I'm good with it. And now saying that, knowing that, does that mean I'm not going to make a bad decision along the way. I freaking hope not right. But you never know what's going to happen or what could have
happened or whatever. But I'm not using that as an excuse either, as as I used to use when people would say, oh, relapse is part of recovery, which is not part of the addiction. I would use that as a well, I can drink tonight because well, relapse is part of recovery. So here we go. You know, let's get that excuse. But I'm just saying just to not be like, hey, I'm never never gonna I don't care what happened. I can't say that. I cannot sit here
honestly and tell you that. But I hope and pray that I do never drink again.
Yeah, And that's one thing I really like hanging out with what people call the old timers that have twenty thirty years because they've lived life and have to navigate through life turtles, whether if it's death, loss of a job, whatever, like, they've had to live through that experience and gain that personal experience, you know. And I really take value in those people because those are the people that's going to show you how to navigate your life when something like
that happens. You know, you hang around a meeting where you feel more comfortable because everyone's new to recovery. Those people don't know how to navigate life when it comes down to your mom dying. Compared to an older, an old timer, a gentleman who just lost his wife, you know, and stayed sober because he knew how to manage that. Those newcomers ain't gonna know how to manage that. It
is not speaking ill of a newcomer. It's you don't have the experience and the longevity of recovery to be able to know, Okay, well I need to do this. I need to hang up with these people. I don't need to isolate because when I sit in my house and dwell on it, I'm gonna relapse.
Yeah. I was talking to my dad about that yesterday, about how people will, you know, be in early recovery and then a death will happen and then we see him again and they're like, yeah, sorry, man, I started drinking, and lad they started like apologizing to me, like they did something wrong. And it's like, look, man, you don't need to apologize to me, but like, a death will hit you and it throws people off, and I don't
know how I'm going to react. But I told my dad it's like, I'm not planning for your death or anything, but I know that me drinking is not going to honor you in any way. No, you know, they would honor you for me not to drink and for me to remember the times we did have together. And yeah, I'm going to be sad. You know, I'll stab when my cat died, But drinking is not going to bring
her back. You know, Drinking is not going to bring my mother, stepfather, dad, or grandma's And drinking doesn't bring anything back, and they would be pissed. Say there is a heaven and say that you can wander this earth as a spirit. They would be so disappointed. Come check on me, and here I am just drunk off my ass doing nothing. You know, they would be they would be very dishonored. Yep.
And you know I kind of went through that when my uncle passed away.
I was.
Just over my two year mark and he ended up dying, and Dude, the emotions I felt like, I've never felt those emotions before because I was always so under the influence of something, whether if it was marijuana, a couple of beers, or maybe some harder drugs. You know, I'd never had to experience that sober and it about wrecked me.
But at the same time, I knew he wouldn't want me to go back out to go cope in an unhealthy manner, you know, and to actually build a cope and be like, well, I'm gonna stay sober for you, no matter how long it takes for us to meet again. I'm going to remain sober and it was hard.
Yeah, but I can at least prepare myself a little bit because I know it's going to happen, you know, unless I die first. But whatever, those are things that I can set into place to go. Look, Corey, prepare you know, like you there's some things that hit you sideways and you didn't see coming. You're like, oh my god, How'm I gonna do with that?
Right?
I don't know. Hopefully I deal with that wisely. But it's addiction, man, It's always going to be there. And thankfully I do know. Smoking weeds not the way that leads me back to alcohol every time. You know, acids, not away, eating shrooms isn't isn't going to help me, you know, like staying away from that first drink and not taking that first drink because is the only way
I can do it. You know, some people, I'm on some box and I'm on this and the okay whatever, And if you like to pay the drug companies money, then go ahead. But there's natural ways to do things, there really is. You know a lot of people meditate. I used to meditate a lot, and it just calmed me down and it really helped me kind of hone in and focus on what was going on in the moment. Yeah, you know, and dealing with things in the moment. Now, I had pancreatic pain and I tried to meditate on
that and that didn't work. And I was seeing billboards at the time like don't take pain killers, meditate. I'm like shit, Like okay, they say that's someone who loses their leg, Like, oh, don't worry about that pain. It's just meditating, right.
All that pain your experiences, it's called phantom pain. Is the reason why you got pain in your foot that's no longer there. Yeah.
And when I did have my gallbladder removes, you know, they put me on oxy cotone and I quickly and I did podcasts about this. You know, I found myself just popping them every four hours. I think it was supposed to be every four to six, but every four. Man. I was over there and my doctor I told her I was in recovery, and she's like, okay, well i'll give you a week at a time, right, you know,
I'm like okay, cool. And then sometimes the pain would increase, which was weird, And that's how it supposed to be happening. I'm like, oh, well, it's because I had my operation here in Travers City. That's why it's happening, because it's not done right. If we go to Grand Rapid and so like, she would up it and but then she knew,
like to wean me off of it. But then when I found myself popping them all the time, I went to her and I was like, look, I'm I'm noticing I'm taking these things whether I'm in pain or not. And if I don't have them, I feel a little sick, you know. And I know what that little sick is, and that's withdrawal. So let's let's get out a plan to really like kind of get me off of these.
And I'm going to start writing down exactly when I take them, you know, And that way I can report that to you, not that you need it, but it's for me, you know. And she was like, oh, okay, cool, Yeah, we'll do that. And so I would write down every time I took them, and I would send it to her like here, here's here's when I took them. Here's when I was feeling the most pain. And I started thinking, do I need them right now? And you know, than the weaning off, and I was able to get off
of them. But it's it's plains like that. And like I said before on I guess not this podcast, but on the two seventeen Recovery podcast, which I guess this could be that podcast too, is it really wasn't the problem with the opioids. It's the problem with taking them away. And like the doctors did back then, they just took them all away from people. And then people started seeking how other other methods and other avenues of war can I get this? Oh, here's some heroin. Oh, here's some
of this. Here's somethentanol. Oh, here's this and that does the same thing, but it's better. Oh my god, cool, I'll take that instead. I don't have to go to the doctor and get treated like a drug addict anymore when I'm just trying not to be sick. And a lot of times when people are getting out those drugs, it's they're just trying not to be sick, and the doctor's like, well, have you've been on long enough? We're just going to cut you off. We're pump the brakes man,
wean people off. Yeah, exactly, you know, like that's the education people should be teaching you.
Well, otherwise they're going to go see the street pharmacists. Yeah, who, you don't know if you're actually getting the real pill. We're a fake pill and that fake pill will kill you.
It will and you don't know. Oh, no, I got this from Johnny.
Yeah, well where Johnny get him from?
The cartel was a guy. No, his people are straight. No, Johnny doesn't know where the fuck he got his pills from. No, he got him from Carlos. Where Carlos get him from? Well, he got him from Skeeter. Skeeter, and where Skeeter get him from? He got him from little Dick what. Yeah,
good luck luck tracking that down, I know. And it's kind of funny how I having the conversation with Kim the other day about this, because when I was in treatment last time, there was a guy that was in the military and he was overseas in Afghanistan, and I was like, oh, it must have been tough, like going through door to door and I didn't do another that.
He's like, I was protecting the poppy fields. Yeah, he's like what He's like, Yeah, Pfizer actually has a big ass poppy field over there that I guess the government had seized and then like, hey, Pfizer, you want this, And I'm like sure. And then Pfizer was paying the military to protect their opium fields so that they can make their drugs and had some here. And meanwhile, meanwhile, when you watch on the news and all the election ads, you know, it's like, oh, they're gonna do the border.
All the drugs are coming through the border. Not all of them, No, some of them are military protecting.
You know. Maybe we're in Vietnam for the same reason. I mean, it just so happens to be a coincidence there. Guys came back too on heroine. I don't know, you know, from Vietnam or you know, you could look at Panama, you know, when we're down there in the eighties and it got flooded with cocaine in the America. I mean, that's just coincidential. You know, the crack to the.
Getos and yeah, yeah, here you go.
You know, it's all for entertainment purposes.
Yeah, let's give them guns and crack there you go. Yeah, they'll kill each other and let's sick tupacs.
That Have you ever seen that movie that TV show the FX did called Snowfall no, dude, it'll blow your mind.
It probably piss me off.
Because it really shows you how just one ambitious kid can make so much money. Why the government helps him make all this money and then takes it all away from him. Yeah, and then he becomes what he despises the most about life at the end of it, and it was really sad.
Yeah, well, we're not going to do chickens because I think I'm going to make this Recovery Dads and the two seventeen Recovery podcast.
Yeah that's pretty good either way, a little.
Two for one today or maybe we'll just in the two seventeen Recovery podcast. Now I'm into our chickens. And then if people are like, what are the chickens? Where you can go listen to a recovery dance dot com.
But we did use the recovery dance open for us.
Oh oh oh oh, I can fix that. Thanks for listening to the two seventeen Recovery podcast. Listen to over nine hundred episodes on the two seventeen Recovery app that's free in your app store or online at two seventeen recovery dot com.