¶ Intro / Opening
Hi , I'm Daniela . Welcome to my podcast , because Everyone has a Story , the place to give ordinary people's stories the chance to be shared and preserved . Our stories become the language of connections . Let's enjoy it , connect and relate , because everyone has a story . Welcome . My guest is Ryan Gray . Ryan is a literature graduate and peer support specialist .
He shares his inspiring journey through addiction , recovery and resilience , From battling homelessness and mental health struggles to finding hope and healing . His story shows the power of hitting rock bottom and the importance of family support .
I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunities this podcast brings to meet people who courageously open up about their personal struggles and triumphs . Conversations not only enrich us with insights into the challenges others face , but also encourage us to be more compassionate and less judgmental about situations we may not fully understand .
Ignorance and lack of curiosity affects the world deeply . Before meeting Ryan , I knew very little about his world . I still don't know very much , but I am now more aware of how others suffer and I have become a little more compassionate because of it . I hope you enjoyed his story . So welcome , ryan to the show . Hello , how are you ?
I'm good , thank you , and thank you for being here . I know you have a story to share and I would like to know why you want to share your story .
Well , there are two reasons . One , I wrote a book last November . It's a memoir , and I'm trying to promote the book . But , more importantly , I want to talk about addiction and drug addiction . I've come a long way , a very long way , through mental health and through having an addiction , and I just want to be able to reach out to people .
Hopefully , people will see my success story and be inspired to reach out themselves for help .
All right , wonderful . That's good and it's true . Sharing stories is how people get to learn other things right From others as well . So , ryan , when does your story start ?
I would probably say when I was in college I started drinking drinking not , you know , not drinking all the time , but my sophomore year of college I started smoking weed . That would be where it really started the marijuana . It was sort of a catalyst for mental health problems too . I developed schizophrenia After I started smoking weed .
I had a psychotic break and I was pulled out of school for a couple of weeks .
Wow , and how was the psychotic experience I ?
thought I was possessed .
Wow , did you hurt yourself ?
Yeah , yeah , I had a cracked rib .
Were you alone .
I wasn't alone , I was family downstairs . I didn't seem normal , and so my parents tried to have me go back to bed . I kind of laid in bed for a while and then at that point , when they figured out what happened , I was put in a mental ward for a week or two , pulled out of school . When I went back to school and I kept smoking weed .
My behaviors didn't change .
It didn't face you the fact that you were there . Right right and why do you think that happened ?
Jumping ahead a little bit . One of the biggest things about addiction is that it's tragic , but most addicts have to hit bottom to have any change happen . So I wasn't ready at that point to admit to myself that I had a problem .
I thought I wanted to go back to school and I wanted to kind of resume where I left off there , kind of doing the same behavior , same things .
How were your classmates behaving with you after they knew what happened ?
I don't think I told anybody about the psychotic incident . My friends were curious . You know where I went ? I might have said I was , you know , sick , couldn't go to class , something like that .
And not jumping ahead . But I want to ask you you know they do say that if you take marijuana before your brain is developed at age 24 , that it could happen . Some people will have psychotic episodes . But do you think that there is a way that young people could listen to the story and say , yes , I'm not going to do it . I think it's impossible , right ?
Everybody wants to have their own experience .
Yeah , that's kind of what I was saying about hitting bottom . Unfortunately , it makes the decision of getting clean or getting sober , makes it much simpler when we're faced with bottom . My bottom moment was basically I was living in somebody's basement on a you know air mattress and you know I was homeless basically , and all my friends , they were being evicted .
So I was , you know , hitting bottom . I was faced with well , I can , you know , I can either go get help , I can either go to rehab , or I can be just completely homeless with nowhere to go . So when we hit bottom , it makes it much simpler , much easier to do , to ask for help and do the right thing .
You said your friends were evicted .
Yeah , I had some friends that let me stay with them , one in their basement , the other one on their couch and those friends also dealt with substance abuse .
And when you say you hit bottom , what is it the feeling ? How is it that you described that ? How can you know that you were there ?
Just the idea , that , feeling that it really couldn't get any worse , despite all the struggle and all the suffering of addiction . I wouldn't just admit , I needed to admit , admit powerlessness and unmanageability . Yeah , it's just like the feeling that it's this destitute , feeling like things can't get any worse . I guess is the best way I would describe it .
Do you think that any of your friends had the same situation where they felt that they hit a button , or were you the only one from all the friends that were doing drugs ? I think I was the only one .
Most of my friends actually passed away from overdose . They were heroin addicts . I wasn't a heroin addict but they were . And it really is interesting that you brought that up because you know I had my closest friend at the time when I was on the street . We pretty much went our separate ways . We kind of veered .
I veered one way and he veered the other way and you know he ended up losing custody of his kids . I don't know how that panned out because I haven't talked to him since then . Yeah , there's sort of a choice , and I think I was out of my friends . I think I was the only person who chose recovery .
Out of your friends . You also were the only one who had psychotic episodes .
Yes , yeah , I was the only one .
How is having schizophrenia and doing drugs ? It's different from not having it , but can you explain ?
that , yeah , one affects the other , my substance abuse , which might have been partly from the mental health side , that wanting to kind of not feel this numbness , you know , want to feel more of a high feeling than a numb feeling from the mental health . But there's a term , dual diagnosis , which is somebody who suffers with both mental health and substance abuse .
I was on a downward spiral when I was on the street and this is all by the way in my book my book is it's a memoir called Twilight in York . My downward spiral was much more rapid .
I mean , everybody's different but in my case my mental health really exasperated , or I would say the drug use exasperated my mental health really exasperated , or the drug , I would say the drug use exasperated my mental health and vice versa , and I just had no stability . I just , I just I lost complete control of my life in a very short time .
Probably , you know you take your average addict and compare them to me . I just , I spiraled down downward very quickly
¶ Family Support and Overcoming Addiction
.
You left your parents . Your parents didn't know what was happening to you .
They were very supportive . They had cut me off . I wasn't allowed at home so I was cut off in that sense . So there was a lot of distance . You know , my mom would come and visit me every week or two , driving up from Baltimore to York , pennsylvania , which was an hour and a half drive . They were , yeah , they were supportive .
They helped me find halfway houses , they made sure I found treatment later on . So they were there . But you know , in a sense there was a lot of distance because I wasn't allowed back home and I wasn't in a good state of mind to be close with anybody . My relationship with my family that's something that I got back Blessings .
One of the miracles of recovery is that I have gotten my family back .
Yes , I heard that from other guests that what helped them was the parents being supportive . Oh yeah , which is not easy , right ? It's hard on the parents to see their child going through these and not understanding it . It is whatever is in your head is very complicated for everyone to understand .
Yeah , no , I put them through the wringer , I put them through the ringer , I put them through an awful lot .
And Ryan tell me something .
When we're going in the streets and we see people doing drugs , like other people are passing by that are not drug addicts , do you see us in a different way , just people that have their stuff together and I don't know , maybe privileged or almost wishing that some of those people would notice us ? And like I remember I had an experience .
It was nighttime and I was with my friends and kind of we passed a fancy restaurant . I looked through the glass of the restaurant , you know like I could see them , they couldn't see us . The restaurant , you know like I could see them , they couldn't see us . I sort of just saw the people drinking , you know , expensive , expensive wine and stuff and cold .
I was hungry , didn't really have my own place to live . I just sort of a almost like an envy , like envious , like one bottle of wine probably could have fed my friends and I for a couple of days .
Now , when you walk on the street , do you do things differently ?
I think when I see an addict on the street I think I have a better understanding . Before I was on the street I probably looked at , you know , homeless people and addicts like asking for change .
It used to be kind of arrogant , like I think a lot of people have this arrogance that if that person wanted to get better , they could just fit you know a hundred hundred dollars or something and they'd get a hotel and clean up and get a job and do all this stuff .
That's easy for us , but when you're on the street it's hard to piece things together like dates and times , and it's harder to make things happen . For example , riding the bus . I have to get on the right bus at the right time . I have to have a dollar in my pocket . I have to ask for the transfer ticket .
I've got to ride the bus , get off at the right stop , find the next bus , transfer onto that bus , get off where I need to be Things we take for granted . When you're on the street it's a little bit more confusing .
So when you see addicts on the street , do you do anything ?
Yeah , sometimes I'll give them a few dollars or $5 . I'm not the richest person right now .
But is money what you need to share ? Or do you sit with them and tell them your story , or you walk away , you avoid them .
Yeah , that's a good point Talk to them and give them my story . I probably wouldn't normally do that .
But since you've been in both sides , do you think that they will be receptive to somebody telling them a story or asking them questions ?
It seems like not everybody wants to get recovery , according to what you said , yeah , or even help them to have a drug problem and even help them find a rehab .
But not everybody wants to be helped . It's true , coming back to you , you were on the streets and then you decided that you wanted to get help . So how was that ? What did you do to get help ?
So my mom and my brother , they drove up on my birthday my birth date birthday is December 26th and my sobriety birthday is December 26th so they came up from Baltimore , took me out to eat for my birthday .
We were talking about going to rehab and the situation I was in that I described earlier about my friends being evicted and I had nowhere else to go it didn't seem like too much to just go to rehab and just try that way of life , not even accepting it all at once . I'm real big about that .
I'm big about not trying to make , you know , dramatic overnight changes , but gradual changes that transpire and take place over time . So I had , you know , I had the willingness to say , okay , let's go to rehab , I'll do , I'll , I'll , I'll just , I'll just try this .
I'm not , like I said , not committed to anything right away , but you know I had nowhere else to go , so it's kind of a easy , easy choice .
Okay , that's great . That's great , and it was your first time going to rehab .
No , I've been to rehab three times . Okay , the first time I left early , I didn't want to be there . I left out for a week . The second time I left , I left the rehab grounds to get drugs and then came back onto the grounds and I was caught . They kicked me out . And then the third time , I was only there for two weeks .
I didn't want to stay , pretty much just bailed , and that was how I ended up going to York .
¶ Recovery, Writing, and Mental Health
I was going to ask you if it would be okay to read two paragraphs from my book .
Okay , that's great .
This is chapter , the end of chapter one . When I went to bed , I lay there feeling alive .
The sounds on the street carried in through the open windows , though it had died , down into the late hours of the night , silent but for an occasional car driving past , a drinker yelling down the street corridors , shrill voices lamenting , undulating , penetrating through every open window for blocks , coloring dreams .
As the city slept Outside , the world was alight in an eerie , bright orange glow from the street lamps . The old , dirtied windows blurred and refracted the light , accentuating , accentuated it , making the whole world orange . A breeze came in through the open windows and it felt cool and good . The sounds of locusts were serene and in harmony .
The balmy air had cleansed that funky indoor stuff in his smell , created by the three of us in a tight space , and cleared away the musty smell sealed in the old house and as the air filled the room . I fell asleep on a soft cloud of tranquility .
You wrote all that Mm-hmm . Wow , that's beautiful . How did you develop to such a beautiful writing style ?
I think it's practice Also . That's what I studied and that's from my book , the book I was talking about . I also studied it in college . I went back to school . One of my successes in my success story was I went back to school .
It was one of the one of my successes in my success story was I went back to school and got my bachelor's in literature , creative writing .
So how long were you in rehab the last time ?
The last time I was there , 28 days , 28 days was the standard , I think . I think nowadays it's supposed to be 90 days . Okay , 28 days and in 28 days you got clean .
Okay , 28 days , and in 28 days you got clean .
I've been clean since 2007 . So I have 16 years clean and sober .
Wonderful Congratulations , and , ryan , why this time work ?
Kind of reiterating . The choice being easier , I had to hit bottom . Like a lot of other addicts and alcoholics , I had to hit bottom for any kind of change to be made .
Okay , and so then you finished 28 days . And what happened ? Where did you go ?
From there I went to a dual diagnosis facility for two and a half months . It's kind of like a award , but it's for dual diagnosis patients . So everybody there was struggling with a combination of mental health problems and addiction problems . But I actually recovered from addiction pretty quickly Rehab and a dual diagnosis facility . I was pretty much recovered .
But it did take about two years of treatment for mental health inpatient . It was a long time and then from there I was put in a group home for another four and a half years .
And yes , because we're talking about the addiction , but the psychosis , that's a difficult one too .
Yeah , those several years were all to treat the . I mean they accommodated me , they gave me rides to 12-step groups and stuff like that , but for the most part those you know that two years and then four and a half years , that was all to address the mental health side of things , the best I can describe it .
You know , you take somebody who doesn't have mental health problems , have them use drugs and they're on a downward spiral and then you take me with who has mental health problems , on a similar downward spiral but much worse and much faster , much , much more more quickly .
Usually people go to rehab and then they go to where you want , or people just go to rehab .
I would say , just rehab Okay .
And so you were two years . It took you two years , but then you said you were four years group home for four years .
Yeah , and that the group home was . I always compare it to a nursing home . Only nursing homes for the elderly group home is for the mentally ill . So yeah , I was in a group home for a while .
That was very helpful . You saw that as very helpful , okay .
Yeah , I had a lot of therapy , vocational rehab . I went back to school , like I was saying . Oh wonderful Started . You know , really writing and just getting my strength back .
So while you were living there , you went to school .
Yeah , yeah . I started out at the community college . Gradual change , baby steps . I didn't go all the way to full-time student . I went with , started with one class , you know , got an A . I was able to do it . So the next semester I took two classes , then I took three classes .
When I got to three classes I kind of said , okay , this is my , this is my love , this is my , you know , comfortable workload . So from that point forward I always took three classes all the way up until graduation .
Oh , wonderful . And how do you know that you wanted to study literature or writing ?
You know I was already into writing , but I thought , maybe if I studied literature it would make me a better writer .
Ryan , you graduated and then you went to live on your own . You manage your schizophrenia with medications , or how does it work ?
The psychosis turned into schizophrenia , which is pretty common , I think . Usually the progression is psychosis and then schizoaffective and then schizophrenia . My parents they helped me with rent and , yeah , I went back to school . My parents they helped me with rent and , yeah , I went back to school , finished out school , got a car .
I had an ACT team which was like a doctor , vocational rehab and some other counselors Kind of coached me , helped me kind of set goals and try to reach those goals . You know one of the goals was to finish school , so I did that , to start working , hold a steady job .
And you have a job .
Yes to be working at a grocery store stocking shelves just to have a little income on the side . My main job is the writing .
Okay , good , and so let's talk about your book . How did you come with the idea ? Oh , I need to write a book .
It actually happened when I was in school in 2015 or 2016 . I wrote a short story for a class . My fellow students said oh , this is really good . You should tell the whole story frame by frame rather than just a short story . You should write a book about this . I'll never forget the phrase frame by frame , just taking the reader through it .
And that was in like 2015 , 2016 . And I was surprised . As a comic for writers , you spend more time revising than actually writing . Probably took me a year or something to write the book and then several years of revision .
Oh really , wow . And you didn't get any help , you did it on your own .
I had an initial publisher , a small local publisher or pretty much a lady who was running her own publishing company . So I worked with her for a few years . We would just kind of sit down together and go through it page by page . I wouldn't say anybody helped compose the book .
I had help with revision , support networks , like the support of my family in my efforts .
Okay , great , going out of your home or dealing with people in general , you can deal with that normally , or is it difficult for you sometimes ?
Oh , it can be difficult for sure . I deal with a lot of anxiety . I was recently diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder . A lot of my plate as it is and I don't need more mental illness right now . It's a constant battle .
And if you go back and you see the young Ryan , would you say something to that Ryan ?
Kind of a warning . Where do you think the drug use is going to lead you to ? You're going to be on the street and you're not going to have anything . I would just say to ask for help .
Okay , well , I am very happy that you are now a writer and that things are better for you . You feel good . You have other goals . What is it that you would like to do that is different , that you would like to have ?
with what I have and not to be overly concerned about book sales . But one of my friends said success is in the work , not in the number of books sold .
Yes , and all the things that you have accomplished so far . This is your path . I think you are successful and you keep going .
Like maybe write some more , write some more books .
Yes , different ones , maybe . So , ryan , is there anything else that I can help you with or that you want to share ?
Yeah , I just like to tell people to just look , sort of observe how far I've come in mental health treatment for many years and that nobody is outside of the reach of being helped help . There's the national what is it ? The SAMHSA national helpline , which is like a hotline for substance abuse mental health services .
Yes , and then also that is important the family doesn't abandon anyone . Yes , right Cause , I think that's the success Exactly , exactly . That you , you keep having people wanting to help you .
Thanks for having me .
Well , wonderful . Ryan . Thank you so much for sharing your story . I really appreciate it that you were so vulnerable . I love your writing style and I wish all success . I want people to follow you on Facebook and get to buy your book . You want to mention again what is your website as well and the name of your book .
The name of my book is Twilight in York . Name of the website is twilightinyorkcom .
Perfect . Thank you so much , Ryan .
Thank you , appreciate it , you're welcome .
I hope you enjoyed today's episode . I am Daniela and you are listening to , because Everyone has a Story . Please take five seconds right now and think of somebody in your life that may enjoy what you just heard , or someone that has a story to be shared and preserved . When you think of that person , shoot them a text with the link of this podcast .
This will allow the ordinary magic to go further . Join me next time for another story conversation . Thank you for listening . Hasta pronto .