You're listening to the two seventeen Recovery podcast.
To seventeen Finding Purpose, Helping Others, Trusting the Path Forward, Real stories of recovery from Northern Michigan and beyond book.
This is episode nine hundred and forty. The title that's seven years son.
That's right, seven years son, it's my seven years today. Congratulations seven years. I'm not drinking Aki, hal my god, let me tell you my life's gotten a little better. I know you're gonna ask next, how'd you do it?
Corey? Well, we don't have enough time in the world. I'm sorry. This is just one episode.
But no, I'll answer any questions if you guys have any. And of course you got like fifteen years on, you know, you got like ten. But no, it's still it's it's pretty cool, mart you have six So you're right behind me, nipping up my tails.
Yeah, always chasing me.
I'll always be chasing you, hope.
So.
But now it's so crazy though, because I was thinking the other day about how in early years and even before, you know, like when I was handcuffed to the bed at the hospital, you.
Know, like.
Your handcuff, what what the bed?
Where?
What's the story?
When was this hospital bed? Okay seven years ago?
Okay, Well, for anybody who this is their first time tuning in, that might have sounded a little bit off putting.
Yeah, I'm Corey Winfield, by the way, the host of this podcast.
You're Marnie, Marnie Winfield, that's my wife.
And then Corey Corey Smoker, he's a co host friend whatever, play of two seventeen Recovery, person recovery just whatever. Okay, So that's us. So that's a reset. So now we want me to reset it again.
No, Corey Winfield, who's the ultimate person who like reason to reads between the lines and like, so back when I was handcuffed to the bed, like, no story, no nothing surrounding that statement, it just might sounded a little bit sorry.
So we were just calling one of yours out there.
Yeah, due to us, Yeah, all the time.
So I still have writer brain.
You would have gotten like this weird devilish like smirk on his face and like I was going to say something, but I'm.
Not going to say anything now.
My life now is in writer brain. It's in script.
So if that part of the script is already back there, I already look at it as already read.
Well we're we're now editing in it.
Yeah yeah, So anyway, yeah, back seven years ago, I was taken to jail, or not to jail, I was.
He tried taking me.
To jail, and he realized I was too drunk because zero point four or five some is insane, and well not really insane for me. I was like, all right, cool, that was actually what it took to make me stop shaking, because I went, I had to go buy half a fit had to buy a fifth. Jesus, I'm horrible at this telling story thing, so.
I know that was funny.
So I had to buy a half gallon and I drank half of it, which would equal a fifth to get my shakes down. So he gave me a breathalyzer because I wasn't suposed to be drinking because I was out of jail and waiting for my court date and all that. And the judge said, don't you be drinking, son? And I said, yeah, whatever, okay, got home, half gallon, sitting on the counter, start drinking.
I don't remember much anyway.
Can I ask, when the cop is giving you the sobriety test, are you in recollection of what's going on.
Oh.
Absolutely. I was sitting on my bed and he gave me the breathalyzer.
Caul.
See what happened was when I was sentenced for my drunk driving. I was in jail for like a week, and then they did my arrangement in there and they told me, hey, we're gon let you out whatever, but like, don't drink or anything.
Okay.
Sure, I walked back into my apartment. There's a half gallen sitting there. Of course I start drinking it. I don't remember much after that, but no, I woke up the next morning or not that next morning. It was days later, but I was shaken so bad that I know I needed to go get more. And my mom had called me and she's like, don't get more, and I'm like, no, I have to. So I went and got more and it was a half gallon and I
drank half of that, which is roughly a fifth. So that's what it took for me to just kind of calm down. So when he came in to give me the breath of liveser, it was like zero point four, five six whatever, and he was just kind of like whoa and I was like, no, dude, Like this is like now I feel normal, like and then that's crazy to think that it takes that much to just make you feel normal, you know, like that's that's nuts.
Why did he come in to give me the breath liser?
Because when my mom was like, oh, you're drinking. You're not supposed to be drinking because you're liver because she was like very concerned about that, which you know I should have been too, because I had liver failure when I was thirty six, back in twenty fifteen, and so she called the ambulamps. The ambulances people word it, it's your first time listening the podcast welcome. So the cops heard it and it was like, mister Winfield, not supposed
to be drinking. We're going to go over there too, because well the ambulance is called, so we got to go show up anyway. And then they were just like not going there and I wouldn't let him in, and my mom at one point was like, I don't want your cat to eat you when you drink yourself to death, so give me a key. So I was like okay, and the two that, you know, I was depending on her, you know, so like if I didn't give her the key when my lights were going to get shut off.
At some point, I knew that.
Was, you know, like something was going to happen like that, and I'm gonna need her on my side. So I didn't really want to poke the bear, you know, just okay, whatever, you know, And that is kind of very some codependent behavior, you know, obviously. But when I was in tream of the last time, I read a book about it and I sort of figuring it out. But but yeah, so
I remember that. And then the cop driving me over as he filled out some report which I was assuming would be fake, and he just made me sit in the back for I don't know, maybe hour hour and a half, which felt like eighteen days, and it was hot and it was just horrible.
It wasn't fun, like it's just the I hurt.
You just had to stay in the back of a cop car for that long.
Yeah, And then he took me to the hospital because they couldn't take me to the jail with such a high blood alcohol And that's when they you know, brought me in there and they handcuffed me to the bed, and then this other woman cop came in and she sat with it for a while and then the doctor came in and it was just like, well, what are you what are you waiting here for?
You know.
She's like, well, we got to take him to jail. And she's like, well what happened And she's like, oh, he was out and he was a fleu drinking and so she's like, okay, well it's going to be a long time before the alcohol is out of the system enough for you to take him to jail, you know. So the officer was like, all right, he's got to coordinate coming up.
They'll see him soon. So what is this? Cut them loose? So that's kind of where or that went.
I don't remember why we started talking about me being handcuffed to a bed, but that's where I was. Life's gotten better, I guess. Is that where I'm about?
Yeah, because your seven years sober today?
Yeah, who would have thought? But yeah, back thinking back to the very beginning, like I never would have thought this was possible, you know, like it's it's crazy and it's scary, and that's probably one of the hardest things about being in recovery. And I'm using air quotes there is because it's about change. You have to change your life, you have to change the things that you're doing and
the people that you're around. And I was writing some stuff earlier about that and about change and how people in your life do change, and that necessarily isn't a bad thing, and it doesn't mean that they're bad people. And I was thinking about examples, for like, there are good people that I know from my past that were really good examples for him that I just don't talk to anymore. And it's not because I don't like them, or,
like I said, because they're bad people. Or I think it's just because my life has taken me here, my sobriety, my life, me choosing my life and moving forward in my life has me here today, you know. Or I have new friends and new people, so I don't have to always look back at those people in those times and think, oh, man, I don't talk to them anymore. It must be because I'm sober. No, it's just because it's life. Life changes. You know, when you have kids,
you change. You know, when you have grandkids, you change, and your life changes and things you do changes, and when you stop drinking, your life changes and the people change. And if you still want to keep hanging out with those people, you can. But I'm telling you, it's just
different the things you want in life. You start wanting things in life, you start achieving things in life again or maybe for the first time ever, and it's just it's amazing thing though, it really is to be on the side of it, and to think that that was a time where I thought it was impossible. It will happen for you. Corey Smoker, it will happen for you, Martie Winfield, listen. At that time, it would happen for everybody but me. It's not gonna happen for me. I
will never win the lottery. I'll never fall in love and get married and have a kid. I'll never I'll never, It'll never happen. It's the same thinking of oh, I'll never be an alcoholic, that'll never happen to me, and then like flips but in the like a really tragic, sad way.
So when did it start feeling like things could be different, like it was possible for things to be different, those things that you thought never ever could happen. When was it like these potentially could be part of my world.
I don't know.
I just I just started with one goal and just kind of kept that going and just kept adding to it. And I like pushing myself. I like to achieve things, so like to say that, yeah, I'm gonna start a podcast and then do that and then and just like man, we talked about the treatment thing and the man everybody does need to ride, and I don't know, we started kind of moving in that direction with you know, first we were thinking we would take people to meetings and
stuff like that. And then with COVID and everything shutting down, in which I was never a huge fan of just putting someone on a bus anyway to get to treatment. I mean, just think about that. That's horrible. Well is it horrible, Corey, go to a bus stop. Why don't you go on the just a little bus trips? Next time you're going to go somewhere, just take the bus. You'll see what I'm talking about. That's all I gotta say.
Just trust me. Okay, it's not a good idea. So we started taking people to them from treatment, and that was another thing, you know, and then it's like okay, cool, Well now what's next. And you know, we have this place, you know, the two seventeen Recovery Center, and it's like, oh, I want to run a movie, so.
Like pushing myself forward.
But yeah, I don't know exactly when I thought it was all possible because I'm still if we're looking at like a hill. You know how they say, hey, over the hill when you're fifty years old, which I think that it's now eighty, right, Yeah, something like that, because I'm forty seven, and then.
I want to be up there.
So if I was on that hill on my path of things I want to accomplish in life, I'm like a third of the way of it, not coming back down but heading up.
Like that's where I feel like, so like people are I was like, oh, you're doing good. I'm like, okaye, cool, But.
I don't know, see, but that's where you're I mean, And I'm not saying it's not good to keep coming up with more goals and that's amazing. That's good. We all should do that in a way. But also too is being present and appreciative and recognizing things that you have done and just being able to live in that moment and not being like with the butt like look at what I've done, but you know, because then it's always like you're not really taking in and giving yourself credit.
And actually like memorializing your accomplishments. You're always planning for what's next, and it is it's this gray area. There's this weird it's not like being one or the other, you know, and it is essentially in what I'm hearing too is the same thing that I experienced at least and probably the same for you, Corey, is like, you know, it's not like.
These like.
Monumental spots in our lives. I mean, sometimes it can be that where we actually reflect on how far we've come, but it's like this daily one foot in front of the other, and you know, and obviously there's detours and shit happens to us, and you know, we have disappointments, and we have let downs, and we have you know, pain and suffering and all that stuff in between, but none of it is related to alcohol or drug use.
At least we can say that that's amazing. And so you know that being said is we are actually able to handle those moments. I think at least for me, because I'm clean and sober, and the clarity that you have on what is the next thing that I can do, or what is the next goal that I can achieve, or what is something else that I want to be part of my life. All of those are have become possibilities because once again we're living clean and solver.
But how do you tell somebody who may have admitted to another person whoever, Hey, I know I have a problem, but I'm.
Just gonna control it, you know.
But then you have people reaching out for you because that question was kind of asked to me, and it's just like, that's how has.
That worked out for you in the past, same thing that the same questions.
That were ask how are they asking for help? Like I don't understand because if they're asking for money, are you a bank? You know, like it's their house, it's their living situation. You know, if you know, if they're still drinking on the weekend but still need money for rent, you still need help out with the electric bill or you know, stuff like that, then I think you're being taken advantage of, you know, if I'm not saying you need to manage these people's money or stuff like that.
But you got to.
Kind of step back and go, Okay, is this really helping this person? But I don't want to see him throwing on the streets and this and that and I don't know where that comes. And I guess that's where the question is, you know, is that when it's time to call the intervention team, I think there's one in town.
Just kind of kidding.
I don't know, I wouldn't. I guess I would just say, for you know, can we set a goal of how you could achieve to maybe get some extra income to pay your rent? Have you communicated with your landlord?
You know?
Can you do you have some money you can go and pay them? And then you know, with the plan of like in two weeks, I can give you this. In another two weeks, I can do this. Or I just can't be quick to like enable them as I want to do, you know, in a situation or I want to be I want to put on my cape and save everybody. It's hard, but I have to find a different way of a solution of how I can still maybe help them, but not I can't push them into the recovery part.
And I can't push.
Them in to wear back them into a corner of an intervention either, because sometimes I think, what's that you do an intervention on someone?
What's the ending all of that?
They hate you?
It was not you you know.
Well, it's interesting because I had my mom inquired about that a while ago. No, not for her. So she said that her therapist, her own therapist. Well, I'm not going to obviously name any names.
But Sarah, no, Sarah has been No.
Yeah, so she my mom meets with a mental health professional, and she her obviously knows about what you know, her all of all the parts of my mom and her family and so on, and so like, she knew that I was her daughter who struggled with substantuse disorder and am now in this position of being a clinical therapist and I work, you know, with this amazing nonprofit so on and so forth. Well, she has another client who wanted an intervention, so she yes, my mom, does your
daughter's company or organization do they do? Do they do interventions? There's air quotes? Do they do interventions?
Right?
So I said, And my response was first as like, there's a lot of things, a lot of questions that I had about this client, but in general is that I mean, I personally feel.
And this is where I said, this is like, do.
You want my clinical opinion or do you want like my personal slash clinical opinion? Because those are like two little bit different things. Oh, because I personally feel that interventions a are outdated.
Just the whole philosophy of what they are is just.
It seems because but if you really break down what an invention is, Okay, so if you how you present this intervention, right, what does that entail?
If you look it up like the like what the old definition.
Was, It's basically a group of people coming together to address to an individual who's struggling with some sort of addiction, to put it in front of them, to let them know how much they care about them. Right, So the foundation of it is great, like it lives in a
very positive place. But the problem is is that you also realize that when you're addressing with someone who's an active addiction, whether it's they're active and they're gambling, they're active in their drug use, are active in their alcoholism, whatever it is, like.
They're not in a good headspace.
And so I don't, no matter how much you love them or care about them, getting everybody together to basically blindside right because they don't know that these things are happening nine times out of ten, and we just want to because they feel like there's no other way to get the person in the room to give them this information. They probably already know how much they're loved. They probably do, but they're just not ready to address their addiction.
And before you go in here further, I mean, we should probably address this because again, if you're listening for the first time, you probably don't understand. But this isn't just somebody we grabbed off the street. This is a l M s W license.
Uh, master's social Okay, yeah, so a DC guys, Yeah.
Well so big congratulations two of them.
Thank you. Yes, it's it's she can't take a while.
It's been a journey on my myself, my own self improvement. Yes it's continued, but I mean, credentials are great, and I do what I do because I've been through it, right, So I mean, I think that's true for all of us. But no, I mean I don't know, I don't know
what your guys' experiences with interventions. I mean I had my own that my parents, my mom set up for me, and there was like ten people there at my aunt's house and they told me that I was that my grandma wanted to give me some artwork she had done, so would I come and meet them?
At my aunt's.
Cottage so she could give me these this artwork that she has had. And I got there and like, all my siblings were there, and like.
All of them when was this then? Oh man, like they had to fly home for it or was it just like Christmas?
Yeah, I guess they flew I guess they flew home. Well, my sister wasn't there. My sister, my half sister, was pretty young. And then my sister I wasn't didn't make it. But it was like my aunt and my grandma, and my brother and his wife and my cousins were there, which was odd because they don't really know me. They didn't really, I mean, they're older than me, you know, so they're like adults, but they kind of didn't really
know what to say. And then my grandma, who was like, you know, has had her my father, her son, who was an active alcoholic for basically his whole adulthood, which means really my young adult on my childhood and young adulthood, and so she had a lot to say, you know, but she's a very blunt lady. It was it inasmuch as love air quotes love that I was supposed to feel, you still feel attacked.
Well, yeah, you feel attacked and you feel.
You're blindsided, right, and now everyone is here and it's like putting the spotlight on you, like come on, like I'm not already feeling some sort of way low self esteem, ashamed, guilt, and now it's just putting it on blast.
And well the other part too is maybe maybe there is a way it can be done in a more professional way. People are like, we really do need to get we want to relay this messaging to our loved one, but we don't know how to do it. There there possibly could be a way to plan an intervention, but they need to be invited to it. In my opinion, they would need to be invited to it and know that it's happening and that and show up on their own free will. Like that is the only way I
think it would be effective. And if you created an intervention strategy where it was like this is what we're going to talk about, like it's not scripted, but like these are the things and you can't come up with ultimatums like this is not the place where it's like the orl situation, because lots of times the messaging of loved ones can sound aft up as much as they like are doing it with love, it's it sounds a like an attack, b Like it's like, you know, the
only way that we will ever be part of our life again is if you fill in the blank. And that they come up with stuff that they're not even qualified to even like talk about. They don't know about treatment, they don't know about detax they don't know about why you're drinking as much as you're drinking all of those pieces.
And so I'm not like you're they're amateurs, but it's like they're not familiar with like addiction in general and so and plus our frontal lobes aren't functioning properly because we're under the influence probably at that moment, and all we're thinking right there is oh my god, I want to get so messed up after this.
Yeah, I mean to me, an intervention is just it's like setting up the family too for like these false.
Pretenses I'll be here to help you, what they call you, and you're like, I don't know what to do, or.
You're setting up expectations that aren't you can't even meet clearly, like now you need to go to treatment today, Well guess what now you're the type of insurance you have. You know, like there's all these factors of these things that can play in too, and it's instead of it gets skewed to, you're now expecting this person to do something to make it better for you.
Yeah, and anyway, and then depending on the person is, you might be putting them in a room that they already feel some kind of way about the person who's struggling because of whatever actions they've done or not done or you know, behaviors that they've presented, So they're not coming in with one hundred percent wrapping their arms around them. There's some anger there already, there's some distrust, there's some you know, all of those pieces and those are going
to surface no matter what right they're human beings. So I mean, ultimately, like I said, I'm sure that there are still interventions specialists that you can find on the internet that you can contact and say, will you please help our family schedule an intervention with our whatever. But I mean, you know, to each their own, it's just that's my that's my take on this.
Hop If someone though, if someone has the characteristics or personality or whatever you want to call it, of being shamed in two things, then that could probably work, right, Like, I'm sure there's some people who just get shamed right into it and that works for them.
Am I right?
Isn't that kind of what the whole judicial system is doing? Yeah, Like, you have to do this and this and this and this and this and not do this and this and this and this and this, and then then you'll make it and you'll be in our good graces.
I don't know, man, you'll.
Get less jail time.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't even get me started on that stuff. I'm trying to have a good day.
Well, but there are people that will go through drug court or whatever, and the people that actually stay sober after that if you ask them, you know, and maybe they'll say it's because I was in drug court, But I think it's because they were given this the time, they were required to take the time to actually look into why it is that I drink like I drink, or why it is that I drug like I drug, and they actually like address that and actually decided to
take take it on themselves and say, I recognize this is a problem and I do want to change, and they actually have the opportunity to take to stay sober and clear minded enough to actually wade through.
All of that.
Do you have an intervention, Corey? No, No, obviously.
I just I woke up in jail. Well I came to in jail.
Well I had interventions before, because I mean, we didn't stop on our intervention.
We just through that.
We just laughed and see you later. We know he's on my side, you know, but like mine. It was kind of at the end, but it was like my brother's sister and all them, and it was just like, yeah, I know, and they're just like, you know, it hurts us when you drink. And I'm like, you're not going to come see your your nephews if you drink. Didn't they didn't buy me alcohol, so I don't really care, you know, Like I don't know.
My grandma would just tell me when she picked me up, she's like, you know, I don't like this. Or when I come in the house and it's she goes like, oh, in that whiskey, and she just say but she wasn't like.
Mean about it.
That's going to be a drop.
She wasn't mean about it.
She was just like, you know, you're you're such a pretty girl, and you work hard. You don't need to be doing that. Doesn't look smell good on you.
Sound so like a grandma. Response that was.
Hit her back with, well maybe if you had to raise your kids better grams.
Hey, you know what I call my grandma. It didn't matter what time of night, time of day, whatever, she answered, She showed up when she said she was going to show up, and she helped however she could best way possible because.
She felt bad.
I don't know, because she loved me.
She loved her obviously, And that is one thing that I'm glad I got that my grandma and even my grandpa he passed away when I was ten months sober, that I got to show them that I was doing this thing.
That's great.
And my grandpa used to that stupid blow machine. They don't need to send you home with that dumb thing.
But of course I took it to extreme level. So you know it's in that case. And I named him Patrick, and I put one huge, big old googly eye on the front of his case.
And help Patrick's calling my name.
So what happens if you missed one of those?
They suggest that you go to the testing center and you take an.
E K E ETG, ETG, the p test.
If it's in the morning or anytime that you can't get to the testing center right away, they suggest that you call to go to the nearest police department and blow and have them document it and then.
Yeah, you'll have to deal with the probation officer later.
Okay, just wondering.
Somebody somebody asked me the other day about it, and I was like, yeah, I was like, I'm pretty sure they're not going to use our blow machine that we have in a closet somewhere like as an official.
Yeah, a record of that'll be good.
Most likely they make you do the ETG test because I will detect the alcohol and.
Probably at a place that does that.
Yeah, not just new direction here at.
Two seventeen recovery. I mean, we are cool people, but okay, just just wonder the.
Blowing at the police department.
I had to do that, Yeah, like go get a PBT machine or PBT done at the police apartment. That was more for the Secretary of State, and that would piss me off even more because I did eight rolling tests from Lake and.
Or Traverse City in blue clean, you know.
But.
Never again. Nope, never again.
And you have that's a driving factor of why I choose not to drink today.
Well, good job, Well thanks for being around. And I wanted to show you guys.
I don't know if I see this every morning, but now that the snow out our window here at the office, like there, it was like a animal murder out there last night. There's some like vermin out there, but you'll see. I want you guys, as we finished the podcast, to get up look out there and see the tracks.
There was a murder scene out there.
Yep.
There's like a little hole too. You can see where they buried his little body or something.
I don't know.
I don't know what's out there here in Shriver's City. Man, that's the real problem now, unhoused, nah, gas prices, no, whatever this creature is, I think it's following me from Boyne City. You want to go back in the app and listen to that podcast.
That was a good one.
Don't remember what it's called, but go search board anyway, Marty's not impressed, so we are out. Thanks for listening to the two seventeen recovery podcasts. There are more episodes, like I said on our app and we'll talk soon.
Congratulations on seven years.
Thanks, Congratulations on passing your test, Thank you, Happy seven years.
Congratulations to Corey