For thirty five years, Cindy Stumpo has been a female home builder with a passion for design, a mastery of detail, and a commitment to her crack. With daughter Samantha Stumpo by her side.
I don't need my whole family on a date with me.
That's a good note. It's godemn weird.
See.
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Every time I think I know what you want, you'd switch it out. But that's what makes your houses all your day.
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She can yell at chickens screen, but when you get her alone, she's the best person on the planet. Cindy Stumpo is tough as nails.
And welcome to Cindy Stubbochub's Nails on WBC News Radio ten thirty and I'm here with.
Smith Apparently I can't say see.
I mean, I have to say, Sammy Stumbo, there you go. Who else is in this to you? Mark Joseph and you're the man of the hour. Maganham, okay, tell everybody who you are.
My name is Maganim. I'm CEO of after Math Adiction Treatment Center, after Math Behavioral Health and Redemption Addiction Treatment Center. I'm a man in recovery and clean coming up on eighteen years and of two yeah, eighteen years.
So you're you're like my weakness, right. This has been my thing for thirty six years, his addiction thirty three years. Especially lost a brother at eighteen. I'm not sorry, I'm okay's my brain's gonna go off at twenty eight to one line of coke in nineteen ninety, which was unheard of last year of law and one line quldn't called an ovadose. It was just Timy, Timy. Cause of death unknown.
So I know and understand the spending. Anybody, you try to keep your kids away from it, you know, you whatever, It's just I get very angry with people, so I understand who I am. I've been trying to raise money for the Maverick. I don't know if you know what that is, and he's fostered with it. It was not Maverick. It was called the Meridian House House. Yeah.
I used to go in there and do spoken more poetry.
Okay, so now you know what the Meridian House looks like now compared to what it was like eighteen years ago?
Right, it was like eighteen years ago.
But three family, Yeah, that's what it was eighteen years ago, with three family. I don't think I'm dating myself thirteen fourteen fifties. Yeah, like eighteen years ago, it was just a three family. That's all it was, you know, with bedrooms upstairs, and it ran the phone, calling the produce what do you get left over for food? But getting
my friends to try to raise money from them. Like I'd give my friends money for their causes, but they wouldn't give me money for my causes, which was drug addiction, battered women and children. Now things have changed in eighteen years, right, because now.
People talk about it nowadays it's.
Not about so much of the talking about it. Middle class and upper class are losing their children to it, right, so now it's something they'll talk about absolutely. I don't know if you follow every eleven minutes. I'm sure you do know, every eleven minutes, some children between the age of twelve, thirteen, twenty, twenty twenty nine are dieing from the fetanyl, right, so they take up add medication as fetanyl and they.
Press pause whatever it is and everything right now.
So it's every eleven minutes, that could be my kid. You're a kid, anybody's kid that's listening right now, your grandchildren, your brother, your sister, anybody. So now, because people understand it in the richer communities, they're giving them money. But eighteen years ago, no.
They were, they were weren't They thought it was an inner city problem.
Well, yeah, you're a drug you know, Well they decide to be drug X. No, no one grows up and decides they want to be a drug X.
So it doesn't almo with somebody that they know. That's when you know, everybody wants to be up and arms. I totally change over that time.
Look, you can prove me wrong. You know more about this than I do, and we'll get into your bio. But I believe a lot of this is genetic too, right, Like there are kids that could party through high school and college and never look back again and then it's that one time they do something in there.
There, that's why you have you know. For me, well, my son, I have open lines of communication about it, like he's more likely to fall into drug addiction just by partying or experimenting, you know what I mean, because of his genetics, because his father is a drug addict, you know, because we have family history of alcoholism and drug addiction, you.
Know, and scare him.
No, I mean one of the cool things like being in recovery for as long as I've been in and being like an advocate for the community. He knows my whole story. He's known it for a long time, Like he's seen some pretty cool things that I've been able to do over my time. So I've always had like that open line of communication with how he's fifteen now about to be sixteen.
Well he's the impress severs right.
So yeah, yeah, But even even early on, it wasn't necessarily like hey, you're gonna do you know, you party with your friends, you're going to do drugs. A lot of it's like you hang out with the wrong people at a young age, you're gonna do the wrong thing, and that kind of follow suit, you know, that like unspoken peer pressure for me when I was growing up, Like I wanted to be a part of so whoever I was hanging out with, whatever they were doing, I
kind of follow suit with. So trying to educate my son on being a leader not a follower, and then having the courage to say no, because that's like one of the biggest things. Like when I was presented some you know, presented a cigarette, presented a beer, a joint, I didn't have the courage to like speak up for myself and be like, no, I don't want to do this. I just did it because it's what everybody else around me was doing. That unspoken peer pressure.
So yeah, I think comes an early age. I think that does come from an early age. When my father said to me, you decide, do you want to be a chief for an Indian you want to be a follower leader? You get one choice, you don't get two. I'm not following. I'm definitely not a follower. So I'm not a follower. So I never had a drink of alcohol in my life. It's awesome, But I did pick up cigarettes right now because somebody gave me a cigarette. The truth is I took it from my father that
was a smoker. Yeah, and I went and smoked on the corner. Right, that was my choice period in a story, I made that choice and I did and follow you. No, would you drink? I don't drink barely, okay, but in your twenties you were, you would, you were having a good time. Yeah.
But like even when I saw people like in high school doing drugs or whatnot, no one ever said, ever pushed me if I said no.
Ever.
That's true, But that's it's not always about saying no, you know what I mean, like pushing you to do it after you say no. Sometimes people are scared to say no.
They never actually asked.
Yeah, different generations, but I hear, I hear what you're saying.
I told you not to put your business. Yeah, I'm thirty eight to thirty nine.
But watched people like take pills and then drink a beer in the ads roll behind their head. I'm like, oh, yeah, that doesn't I'm good.
Well that's a blessing that he looked at that like.
But some people and it didn't start.
Yeah, So it didn't start as like I look at somebody with the as rolling back like it started with cigarettes. My buddy stole a pack of smokes from his mother, and then one by one he handed it to each kid we walked to school with and we sat on the corner, you know, coughing up along thinking you know what I mean, and then excuse me, yeah, excuse me. We were working. I thought I was the coolest we were.
Don't be mistaken that we were. We were, okay, But the kids that were nerdy and getting more educated, they were actually the cool kids, right.
But no, I mean looking at it now, Yeah.
I have a friend that once said to me from Revent. It was the best remark ever. He said, you know, Cindy, you have as much drug problems over the bridge as we have over here. You guys just hide it in your fancy homes and your fancy cars and behind your money. But where they come to get the drugs? And you know what, he was right, We had a bigger problem. And we were the kids getting the pills from their parents' cabinets. Where the kids getting the pot from We
were the kids getting all the purpose from their parents. Okay, So I laughed because he's right with that. See, we're just drug x over here because we're poor, but the rich people. They're not drug xs well yes they are, but they just hide it really really well, well because they have the fancy homes and cars. At the end of the day, it's all the same. It's all the same. So give you a bio, please, Matthew.
Yeah, I mean, I'm a personal long term recovery I got clean April twenty first, two thousand and six. Very blessed. You know, I'm a spoken word out is. I've been writing poetry my whole life. I put a book out in twenty eleven called The Shadow of an Attict. I've been in the recovery field a most slow.
So you put a book out, The Shadow of a twenty eleven.
A collection of poetry. I sold I think five thousand copies out of my car. So before that, I had a book deal that I like signed and thought I was going to be some New York Times bestseller.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, Uh that did not happen. And I'm very stubborn and I like to prove people wrong because I was supposed to be nothing, and uh, you know this, this company just kept pushing me off, pushing me off. We need the right editor, we need this. And then finally I was you know I was ready to you know, I just gave up on waiting for them, ended up putting a book together and published it and acting publishing in Childs Town. All my first.
Boss is not getting you the places you want to get you.
It's got me pretty filright, says it. Yeah, it actually has. So you know I'm be easy.
Yeah, I don't know really.
Yeah, not stumbing at all. No, I swig, I.
Mean coming by Paul. Okay, hold that thought. We're gonna take the coming, going out to break? What's that becoming? Becoming? You think I'm buy pola? Okay, over there, I can't throw a pen at you. I'm sitting stumple. You listen to Tough His Nails at w BZ News Radio ten thirty and we will be right.
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Pad An Angel of the Mersey Semen and welcome back to Toughest Nails on w BZ News Radio ten thirty. And I'm Siddy Stumpo and you're with I'm with Sammy and.
Mark Joseph and Maganam you have.
That song amazing Barssmith so one of my favorites, So yeah, I want to shooting this song. Was it a blinking value? Family? See the light? What was your blink of an eye that you finally saw the light?
In my moment of clarity, I hit rock bottom. I was on trial for Class A distribution, but I was a monkey oft sold bananas. I sold drugs to support my habit.
What is that called monkey of What I call it.
Being a monkey of sould bananas? Which means I sold heroin as a heroin addict, So I would sell drugs just to do all the profits. And that's how I maintained for a little while when it stealing, which eventually after I got arrested, led to more crimes and a further spiral down I was.
I think today in twenty four you'd be arrested for that with everything's going on in the country.
No, I wouldn't be treated the same way I was treated like I was some big time drug dealer. When I was sitting in court, I had detectives and I cop showing up and I got caught with like not a lot of heroin at the time, but they wanted to paint me out as this big bad guy because I was selling death to kids, that's how it was looked at. But I was a lost nineteen year old.
But now being a dad and think a nineteen year old kid might sell to your son. Yeah, yeah, awful.
Oh I know, I believe me. The perspective I have now compared to what I was when I was a kid, is completely different. I wanted to be this cool kid, tough guy like I used to try to emulate something that I wasn't. And when I was, you know, I started with Oxy Corton in high school, and I thought I could fight Mike Tyson, I could hit on the heart girl. It gave me all the confidence in the world, and then it progressively got worse to ivy, heroine, homelessness, crack program.
Two, addiction, any mental disorders that you can think of.
Yeah, suffer. I suffer from depression, anxiety, I struggle with you know, just trying to fit in, just trying to be a part of I've severely obsessive personality.
Like so you had to stand Stull diagnosis for a reason, right, better than anybody. And if maybe somebody saw these things as a child, Yeah, taken you down a whole different path.
Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. About that because unfortunately, when I was a kid, though they looked at all his behavioral problems and that I was struggling with mental health, I wasn't extreaming all for help. Yeah, exactly. So I went through four different high schools and two states.
Like, but that's weird, you're how oled again?
Thirty eight bout to be thirty nine.
We knew that. I mean, my daughter studied six. We knew that. Not my age.
They didn't know that, fortunately not for me.
So mom and dad never picked up on it.
No, not really. I mean I just was constantly getting in.
Trouble, you know, driving them crazy.
Yes, I drove my parents completely insane. And now my father's my best friend. I share every bit of good news that I ever get with him first, you know, and like there was many years that I didn't talk to him. My mother threw me out when I was sixteen years old because you just couldn't deal with me. So now I bought I bought my mother at Klondo.
Now you bought your years ago. Yeah, things change.
Yeah, they've been pretty good now.
And me, I'm the type of mom that I will chase my kids, so I can't chase them anything so there's two schools with thoughts.
So yeah, there was definitely different back then. You couldn't talk my mother and father couldn't talk to the next parent because they would be like, what did you embarrassed? You know what I mean? When it had nothing to do with them. I'm like, yeah, there's some home struggles and everything, but I mean I went down the path that wasn't because of the way that they raised me. You know.
So as we're talking about drugs, so for me, I was so afraid that history would repeat itself. So you're already you're already have PTSD, right like you have children. Now now you see what your parents went through. You see what you've been through. You don't want that history to repeat itself.
No, we're trying to break that cycle.
In two thousand and six, how old were you.
I was twenty years old, twenty one years old when I got clean.
So you know it's like we're just I think if you haven't lived it, you don't understand it.
Right.
You have to live that. You have to lose somebody that you love to know that feeling, to have that empathy, and unless you've been there, you're never going to understand an edict. You're never going to understand whether they start off as a social user. My brother was definitely social, right, you silly nineteen eighty leaving Newton's South going three thousand miles like yeah, across the world. You know, Hey, no, mom and dad watching me sex, drugs, rock and roll
nineteen eighty like la kidding me? Like who's banging? Who's not banging? Who? Who's not doing coke? Who's not doing this that? And probably was blowing eight balls and quote ounces back in those days, right, doesn't die then later off ten years later or whatever, you know. It's like. But when the police got there, there was nothing there by the way, so we knew somebody was there. They took off. They left him there.
That's awful.
Probably somebody from Harvard one of the schools and said I don't want to go down for this and and could have saved his life, but they didn't. They chose to run out and not save his life. Right, so we know that he suffered. We can tell by his pants trying to get up the stairs, you know, crawling all the nine yards. But it happened, and you live with that for the rest the rest of your life. So you can't make a normal family understand unless that
family has been there through the pain. So then you know. Then you have a kid, that's okay, my kid's drinking here now it's every night through COVID. I'm going, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on here? Right? And now you get start getting scared because here it comes right, here comes the who knows? So I know me as a mom, I will tackle you, I will chase you, I will annihilate you out there. Bodyguards on you. I didn't need it, okay, but I did put it. I did put a I
put a bodyguard on you at times. I put a PI on you at times. Yeah, that bought me drinks. And he was an idiot, wasn't he? Only I could hire a PI that buys a drinks, Like who does that? But I wanted to make sure she was safe. Plus we had a TV show, plus we had a lot going on too. But again, yeah, that's that's yeah, I'll do that type of crap. Like I don't care.
I get it.
And then she called me on the phone. She's like, I think Dad just drove by me. I'm like, what what we're talking about?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Ahama just drove by on what were you in Austin? Yeah, that's not your dad, I said, that's somebody else. Sammy, what when it did happen? It wasn't at it was Awesomehama driving down. Okay, so go ahead. I'm making a point that people unless they understand this.
Definitely, and I mean when you're talking about parents, and I mean, there's definitely different ways of doing it. You know. I try to equip Christian with enough knowledge that when he's in these situations that he makes the right decision. Unfortunately, up until now, he's never drug. He's never smoked. I never had a cigarette, never smoked weeds.
So I have to say that I don't know for you remember this, but you also told me if I ever wanted to do a drug, come home and tell you, and like like you kind of said you'd do it with me, and I never asked because you kind of leave it this.
It's a weird thing about it. I said, listen, you guys want to have to try something. We try to feel me together my father so that to me kept me straight so I can get high with you. That doesn't seem too fun. So I get high. Yeah, so he took the he took the ooh out of it. You know what I mean. It's like Italian kids that grew up with wine on the table every night. They grew up with wine on the table, right, it's kind of culture going to get drunk cause it's like, you know,
they can win, exactly. So if you take that excitement out of it, like okay, dude, you if they haven't called me up on it and said, hey, ready to do a line, I'd be like, Okay, it comes to hot attack, it comes to pig attack, I think I'm dying, But go ahead. I'm sorry, I keep going.
No, that's all I got for that one.
No, you got more than that?
Oh I do? I do?
But okay, So we all know that you can be cleaned for eighteen years, twenty eight years, and you can fall right back and it's like those eighteen years never even survive. So what do you do to really keep your head in the game. And honestly, and.
One of the biggest things that I've found is the support network, the recovery network that I have. I mean, everybody just about in my life is in recovery. So when you have something like that, anything that you go through you can lean on them through all your struggles. You know you have somebody that you can talk to, open lones of communication and being relently honest with people. I went through like a really tough period about four and a half years ago where like my entire life
came crumbling down and recovery. I was running a business. I had a bad split with a partner and he basically like took the rugout from under me. And in that period I had some really really low lows. Over time that, like you know, I was able to reach out to my support network and they were able to pick me up and support me through it. A lot of what I've done is advocacy work. Poetry writing is like one of the biggest therapeutic tools that has helped
me stay clean. I went through the Hamilton House and eighteen in two thousand and six, and it was nope, chaurus.
Go ahead.
I always try to pick some I get it, well, you know exactly what time you're born.
I don't know exactly what time time fifteen Maybe I think possibly you can look that up. But I was in a halfway house with twenty six guys and it was either their last stop to president or their first, like, oh you are parole to this program. So like getting clean early on, I was a twenty one year old kid that like, you removed the drugs for me, all that big, bad, tough guy stuff that I tried to
like play on the street. That illusion the tough guy disappeared and I couldn't go to the next person who's six or five just to five years in prison, being like, hey, you know, I'm having a bad day. Can we talk about it? So what I would do is out write down my thoughts, feelings and any prisons. Yeah, six months, which is like nothing, I'll blip on the radar.
And that didn't freak out enough. No, No, that doesn't scare you.
I mean, prison time definitely scared me. The six months in County and bill Ricket didn't scare me. But when I got arrested, I was facing state time and that definitely was a whole different ball game that I didn't want to do. I didn't want to go upstate, and that's what helped I.
Went to upstate.
You don't you don't want to, you know.
Prison ten years?
Yeah, you don't want Buddy Dougie was up there, all that thought, hold that thought, I'm going to break. This is Sydney stumbling with some toughest nails on WBZ News Radio.
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And Welcome Back to Tap his Nails on WBZ News Radio ten thirty And I'm here with Sam, I'm here with Mark Days, I'm here with our guests. Matthew, I guess I don't have a voice name No, No, and Sam, because I can't waste any time. I got you, okay, Matthew. Question, Yeah, what keeps you straight every day? Is it a struggle every day?
No?
No, I wouldn't say it's a struggle every day. I also, uh, one of the things that keeps me straight is gratitude. I don't ever want to be homeless again. I don't want to sleep on a park bench. I don't want to be in and out of programs and detoxes. I don't want somebody that has control over my freedom.
So you got sick of you got tired of being sick.
And yeah it was miserable. Cindy, I'm gonna jump in one day. We want a corner.
Why did you do that? Mark? Since you're sitting in the studio, we haven't heard from here. Okay, buddy, how do you know each other?
Like?
I know you, but.
I know Mock since I was what five years old and we used to play basketball on the mini hoops in leagues.
And you know, no, I know we talked. We talked to you like my swimming pool come out and I pull in the drive ring. Go okay, gets your Jorgian pool. Okay, see what I'm going to go back to work.
No, there was one time me and Matt were talking by Central Square and he was and I asked him, like, you know, because when we were kids we played basketball. I know him one way, but his high school years I didn't know him. So throughout the years I would just you know, see like I didn't know him at that point, but I saw what he recovered from and I'm like, bro, like.
This was high school you kind of yeah directions.
When we were kids, we used to go to the Boys and Girls club every day.
Did you see his fall? Did you see him a way?
Because all happened like started seventh eighth grade.
Yeah, and at that time we was, you know, just different towns. But we were always like cool.
My first friend like any drugs.
No, no, no, no, I was too scared of my mom.
You did say may first?
Correct first?
Yeah, I believe it's.
Yeah, he's virgo. MO thank you. Oh Jesus, okay, there is that means it means I was right. So Sam and I play that game like I try to call who you are and I put virgo and you are what she said. You can check that out. So cancer makes you emotional, Virgo makes you crazy, yea, and the bull just as the bull. So there was no way out of you like being anybody controlling you. Nope, at all, not at all, not at all. But the cancer gives you empathy.
Good.
Do you ever notice that your EmPATH Sometimes you see things that you don't know what you see, you know it's coming.
No, not that necessarily, No, but I am like, I am in touch with people's patterns and can you read people well? Yeah, I read people really well.
That comes from your cancer.
That's that's one of the reasons why I've been successful running A couple of times, I say the same thing, helping people turn their lives around you.
You can read people and the virgo by the way has got the big heart and is loyal but good.
No, the reason why I want to jump in. And when we were on the corner, we talked about what made him transition, like what made him stuff? He said, you know, one day he looked himself in the mirror, right and had a conversation with himself, right. But then I said, like, when it gets hard, what do you do? He's like, there's some streets I can't even go by, right because if I go by that, it might just
bring me flashbacks. And he's just sharing like the like the intimate details of like you know, you could tell he's recovered because he like put boundaries on himself. But what he can't do to go back to that, to that moment, I was just fascinated. But he's talking to me like I knew him when I was a kid. And I've seen like other friends who've gone through drug issues and you can see it on their face and their body, you know, you know, and they just struggle
in life. And Matt was just like, hey, hey, what's uping Mark? Like how I knew him?
Man, let me ask this question. You think people still look down on DRUGX and reform drug X? Yeah, you still think the stigma still continues. Yeah, so you think the stigma still continues that people like Christians, plumbers, h tracy guys with the dumb guys with dumb guys.
That's like a uh, you know, a more complicated answer than just a yes or no. I think there's definitely still a stigma there. I think that people are more open to the fact that people struggle and whatever profest. Can I treat people that make a half a million dollars a year?
Do you think that you're lucky at thirty eight that your generations finally talking about this. Yeah, well, previous generations were too afraid to say absolutely. Yeah. That's when I know my parents were embarrassed to say.
That's. One of the reasons why I like took a path of advocacy is because nobody talked about it. So when I was getting high, I thought I was going to die or go to jail, Like those are the only two options. Nobody was like walking around talking about recovery or you can turn your life around. There was never anybody that that discussed stuff like that.
And how it happened to you. How'd you turn your life around?
Oh? Well, you know, hitting the rock bottom where I'm dope sick and my buddy I was staying with a buddy of mine.
When I mean, you really decided like this a few times? Try straight.
You gotta let me share it.
I'm talking about you. Yes, you went.
So I was sleeping head and so with a buddy of mine. He ended up getting into a program. So at the end of my run, I was trying to kill myself because I didn't want to live anymore. I was on traffic I say distribution that I I was terrified I was going to go upstate. My mother didn't talk to me, My father didn't talk to me, my sister didn't I had no friends. The only person that
I really had was my dope dealer. And then I was staying with my buddy's mother, and I would give her dope as my way of paying rent and her allowing me to put my head on her futon. My buddy ends up getting into a program. He's begging me to come to this because he knows like I'm on the verge of like just trying to pass peacefully in my sleep, and I wake up I'm dope sick, and his mom's getting high in front of me, and she turns to me and she goes, you have enoughing problem.
You need to go and get help. And that's when I went, wait, the mother said, she's shutting up. She turned to me, which, in my opinion, but she doesn't need help. In my opinion, it wasn't her speaking. My higher power is my best friend James Slattery. He killed himself in September first, two thousand and four, and I really believe that he came down he was speaking through her as a way to talk to me, like you have a problem, you need to go and get help.
And I remember I ended up going into the bathroom right after she's getting high as the one thing that I need to write. That was the one thing that I woke up to. I fell asleep too. I chased after all day and I didn't have it, and I didn't like take care of myself. I didn't shower, I didn't like brush my teeth, like I was the guy that you saw walking down the street and you woul across the street because you want to know part of me.
And I ended up looking in the mirror and I saw like a skeleton looking back, like I saw death staring back at me like I couldn't even tell you who was in the reflection. And from there it was like that was the moment of cloudy, like for that brief moment, I wanted to live more than I wanted to die. So now I felt like my boy spoke through my buddy's mother. I end up getting to a detox. I end up getting to the next step and into
a halfway house, which usually didn't happen. I get into a detox, it'd be nothing after the hand you a list of shelters and they send you on your way. Right after three days of detos three day, seventy two hours of detox, i'd be back on the street with a script of subs that I would sell for my first back adobe. That's the first I ended up. Everything fell in line that wasn't supposed to fall in line.
The house that I get to. I I stayed at the Pine Street in and then I end up at the Hamilton House with a stopping shot bag full of everything that I have to my name, And the guy who ran the program walks in and he goes, who brought their f and bag here? This isn't a hotel. YadA YadA, YadA, so in my mind, I was already
checked out. I'm gonna go to Field's corner copper bag of dope, and then just turned myself in because I was I missed some court dates, had some wants out for me, and I showed up at that house at ten o'clock. He never took the.
Halfway house to help you with all that. Once you get in there.
Once you get in there, yeah, but I was only in there for an interview. And the guy used to be a very hard ass, very by the book, one strike, you're done. If you showed up late for a curfew, your stuff was packed on the porch.
You know, your eyes smile now, Yeah, first came in, they weren't, but they now, Oh we're talking now, so your eyes are smiling right now.
So he tells me to sit at this.
Came in with like a glare in your face. I'm gonna I'm gonna break this guy down.
That's okay, now even did him feel bad to do that.
But so I'm sitting at this table. Guy never tells me to leave, so I'm not leaving. They feed me again. I showed up at I think it was like nine ten in the morning, so at seven eight o'clock at night. He came out with a pillow on a blank He goes, you clearly want this and gave me the opportunity to have a bed. Then not only did that happen, a week later, he shows up in court with me because
I turned myself in. And now this guy's a former DEA agent that went to jail for ten years, got his PhD. Like big massive man, tons of connections, and he's like Matt's been in the court system since he was like fifteen years old, and everything's been drug related, Like you should give this kid a chance, like let him go through this program. And they washed away my
my warrants and stipulated me to the program. They were still trying to give me jail time when I got out of there, but like the program director went to bat for me, and then it ended up being like one of the biggest blessings. It was the structure that I needed. It like laid the groundwork for where I'm at now in life, you know, and I needed that structure. It also gave me some things not to do while running treatments on us, because I don't think that no
stuff necessarily works for everybody. Even for me.
So now you have kids out there and we've got so much fatanyl and another cut that just came into it, that are killing kids every eleven minutes. Like I said, somebody dies between the ages of twelve and twenty nine doing drugs out there. You would think today, doing a bump of coke would scare the heck out of you, doing a percoset, doing an adderable non prescription. You think these kids would be so scared that they can lose their life.
But I don't think people educate on like the press pills and the stuff that's tainted and drugs. So I spoke at Wakefield.
We talk about parents not educating, the kids not listening.
Sometimes people don't think it's happening. I still think it's not in my town and not in my neighborhood at times. So I was having a conversation after a resource night in Wakeful.
That thought, and don't forget it. I got to go to break. I'm sending stumbling listening to snails on WBUS news video.
Then ten thirty would be sponsored by new Brook Realty Group Boston, would smaller Insurance World Auto Body and Tosca Drive Auto Body.
Yeah, it's me again, wouldn't you know it?
And I did my best, the perfect guest.
Welcome back to Toughest Nails on w BBC News Radio ten thirty And I'm Cindy Stump and I'm here with Sammy and the guy that just left his big Oh there.
You go, and Miley, Yes, Miley.
Like I'm changing names. Smelly.
Yeah. Going back to that resource night, that resource officer was trying to argue with me about adderall press pills, that it contained a fetanyl trying to say that it wasn't in Wakefield when it just happened in Lint, like there was a big bust with a bunt, like.
You've been clean eighteen years though. Yes we had fantanel eighteen years ago.
No, no, no, we didn't. I'm talking about now now.
Okay.
I was speaking at a resource night in Wakefield.
Got a resource that my bad, no, my bed, I'm tired.
And I speak a little faster at times. So the cop was trying to say that thrust adderall wasn't something that's.
Huh, how do you say mother? How do you say mother?
How do I say mother?
He just said it, Okay, so it's called mother in the real world.
We go, mother, my bad.
I thought, you say, man, Yeah, I go, I'm not allowed to call her mother. She says, that's disrespectful.
Mother, that's like mother.
Like. So there was a big arrest in Land and there was like one hundred something thousand pills of Adderall that were pressed that have fatanol in it. So now you get a prescription of adderall, you're taking it and you run out, or you give it to your friends, and now you're grabbing it for somebody else. You don't know.
I just don't know.
So I when I got high and when I first started using her experimenting with drugs, we had a good time. And that's what like I've told my son that I've told Christian. It was a good time. And now you don't have that.
You don't have to time.
No I did. I did, Yeah, absolutely, because what are we gonna am I going to try to put the fear of guard in him because he doesn't listen anyway. He's a teenager, you know, so you sign he's a cancer.
No he will, but he will.
The DARE program didn't work. The fear you know, the fair based stuff didn't work. No, it was a good time. That's what let me down. It is because it was it went from a good time to an everyday obsession. You know, like when he was fourteen, I showed him
Basketball Diaries. It's like one of my favorite movies, and it's a movie that very very closely mirrors what I went through, where in the beginning they're having a good time partying, and then one guy continues on the path of success and then the others turn into you know, drunks called Basketball Diaries with Leonardo DiCaprio.
And oh, I have to send that to ring.
But it starts off having having a good time. And sometimes when you see like you know, parts of his family, they drink at everything, and somebody who might be a miserable man, you get a couple of drinks, and you know what I mean, the personalities change. You know, sometimes you think that that is something that could happen.
I watch it, watch your chat.
The basis of it was I got to I got to have a little bit of a good time before things hit the fan. Christian doesn't even have the ability to experiment right now because of everything that's getting put into weed, into ecstasy. I know that, but that's you know, those are some of the conversations I have with him to prepare if he's at a party, if he starts going down that because I have no control over what
he does. He's gonna, you know, I try to equip them with the tools, and he's off in the world. He's gonna have to figure that out on his own.
Body watches every eleven minutes right on Instagram.
It's right on the driven stuff has been proven that it doesn't always work.
Really, yeah, how about a punch in the heat?
I mean I think it only works if through somebody else's how about.
Through Yeah, I mean that's you know, a couple of.
You know, just setting to hang up my mom.
He'll be fine.
He listen to me, please, I'm begging you. Your can's son's a beast to habit, but you know it or not a very good He likes the same restaurants, yeah, his parents, He likes home, doesn't like change. He ain't going to become a drug act.
I hope he doesn't.
He is a leader, not a follower.
I'm praying for just watch you know.
So that's been your whole crazy life, right.
And now no, no, Well, there's a whole bunch there's a whole bunch more in there.
Well, let me say this, Matt has done things from going through what he went through that my friends who've had great lives as teenagers, kids, you know, young adults, they still haven't accomplished with MAT's accomplished.
Now his accomplishments.
Now talk about accomplishments, I mean, because I hope that all the insecurities went away with your accomplishments.
Yeah, no, they have, you know, And I've grown into a leader instead of that kid following that I that I was growing up. I have I don't know, forty something employees. I run three three different treatments center. I got one in Delaware to in Wakefield. One that's a substance abuse facility, and one that's a mental health behavioral
health facility. I opened up another program, which was one of the first php IOPs in Massachusetts in twenty sixteen, and then I ended up branching out and doing something on my own. I was the Spoken Word Artist of the Year in twenty thirteen. I had the mail the Male Poetry or a Male Spoken Word Poetry Book of twenty thirteen for the mass Poetry Awards. There's a question advocate of the Year in twenty fifteen at all over the place a little bit here.
Do you realize that?
Yeah, no, that's why I'm extremely grateful. Yeah.
Absolutely, I never do good for you. I'm glad you do.
Yeah, you have to. You have to appreciate what you have because I literally come from nothing to be able to sit in a very beautiful home that I have. I own eight different rental properties, I own treatment centers, a couple of businesses. I've been able to help elevate like my friends and put them in a position to succeed and do some successful things on their own. Like you know, I've been able to travel the world, speak to schools, colleges, I've performed at someone like some world
famous poetry spots. So yeah, no, I'm it's crazy when you look when I take the moments to like reflect on everything at how far I come from when I was couch hopping or sleeping on pot bench. Yeah, and I still got a long way to go.
You've got a long way to come. So you've got big dreams, yeah, yeah, And when when life's hitting in the head and coming at you, you just handled differently.
Now, Yeah, I mean, when you can overcome something as difficult as a heroin addiction. You feel like any obstacle that it's thrown in your way, You're able to run through, run around. I'm gonna figure it out, and I'm going to be better off on the other side for it.
I would agree one thousand percent on that one. Yeah, thousand percent on that one.
With the success that you have now in the businesses that you started and run. Now, has anyone treated differently because you're a heroinetic or you were.
Not now they used to coming up and then when you have dreams that are completely outrageous, people look at you funny. I remember when I told people I was going to chase poetry. They laughed at me because I don't come from a place where, you know, people think poetry is cool. You know, Rose of Red viol to blue stuff screw. Oh, I agree, and I took it, and, you know, completely shattered any idea of what I was able to accomplish. I started telling people I was going
to open up a treatment center. In the early stages of people thought I had ten heads, like, what's this. You know, I don't have an education, I didn't go to college.
You can buy brains.
Yeah, exactly, I have doctors that work for them.
Exactly the question. Yep, here's the question that came to me. Are you treating any of your centers with mushrooms academy?
No?
No, do you believe in.
That or I mean micro micro doosing? I don't know enough about it to have an opinion on it. I don't do that at our center, not for since abuse. I've definitely heard that there's benefits towards mental health from from the people that I know that I've taken it and the discussions that we've had together.
To doing this right.
Yeah, there's like a lot of people, there's a lot of people, you know, in the public light who've had different experiences, whether it's micro doos and some other things that they have. That's not something that I that I necessarily have a background in or any experience with.
The twelve step program.
I started with that, Yeah, and then I ended up going away from it a little bit more into advocacy. I like fighting for people, So I was at the state House classroom politicians and like fighting for change and started some nonprofits.
Over the years helping I believe it did.
Yeah, and now yeah, No, I think things are a lot different now than they wear back when I was getting helped. There's a lot more treatment centers. I mean, but if we want to pinpoint one one area and overlook the amount of people, you know, all the people that are out there that have turned their lives around, because there is a lot more, I feel like now than there was back then.
We know the percentage of people that get clean and stay clean as what.
Yeah, I don't go into negative stuff like that. I'm not trying to beat people down when they're trying to turn their life around and say, oh, only X amount of percent get clean. If you put the work in, if you hold yourself accountable and surround yourself with good people, you're going to get the return on what you put in. And that's on an individual basis. If you look at everybody, you're gonna get everybody's results where it really falls on your shoulders if you get better or not.
What's the best advice you can give? Because the saying is I'll be the nigga and nearly hear that you don't put the time in. If you don't chase your sobriety the way you chase your high, you're never going to stay straight.
Yeah, I mean, you're right with that.
And there's a problem. It's so much easier.
It's easy to get hide and stay clean and to chase sobriety. It's hot as hell. It is a very difficult path, but I promise you where I'm at today is a complete blessing from where I was at as a twenty year old dope fiend, homeless, strung eye, isolated and burn. Every bridge around me.
Is name ever, stity the prouty. Okay, me too. I'm proud to give me a pism. I'm Sidney Stumple going to break. This is w BZ News Radio ten thirty. Dudes, Right down, amoy.
The candle back, Jim the right down, and let the wrong.
And I'm Sidney Stumble And you listen to w BZ News Radio ten thirty. Go ahead, honey.
If anybody out there is struggling and looking for help, you can reach out to Aftermath Addiction Treatment Center at seven eight one five eight seven three six three six and we are located in Wakefield, mass about twenty minutes north of Boston. A great, amazing staff that everybody has personal experience in recovery. We've built a great culture to help people turn that life around. We also have a mental health facility located in Wakefield after Math Behavioral Health
on fifty D Autobahn Road in Wakefield. And again, if anybody is out there struggling or I think they need help, I mean, give yourself a chance, believe in yourself, like you deserve to live a better life than the one that's struggling with addiction and drugs or alcoholism. Like you definitely deserve a better life. And thank you for having me on.
Here, Matthew, thank you for coming. Give me a fist punt, buddy. Okay, everybody, have a great, safe weekend. This is Cindy Stumpo Toughest Nails on WBZ News Radio ten thirty