Podcast Transcript
hi my name is Jeff with SH jacket podcast and I am Kay Lauren a guest host today and we have Zach with us here
today hi Zach how are you I’m good how are you we’re doing great um tell us a little bit about
yourself yeah so my name is Zach I grew up in Huntington Beach California um I live in Long Beach now
I’ve been sober for three and a half years uh June 12th 2021 is my sobriety
date that’s right mhm and um yeah that’s that’s kind of me tell us about take us
back to the beginning tell us about young Zach oh God the beginning all right so when I was
younger it was an interesting upbringing to say the least
um my parents separated for a period of time
when I was about nine um oh my God I’m so angry
hi that’s okay it’s perfectly fine um it was hard it was hard being a
little gay kid honestly is what it was um I got sent to Christian private
school cuz I think they could tell you know what I mean okay um so that was I think part of their way of coping with
me being who I was um was rejecting it yeah for sure I mean I came out at a
ridiculously young age I think I was like nine okay okay maybe younger I remember my baby sister who’s 16 now was
on the changing table and still in a crib when I told my mom you know what I mean and it was hard she took it
horribly you know she was it’s not true it’s not real this is a phase so by the
time my dad got home from work that day I just remember like crying and falling into his arms and he’s like it’s fine it
doesn’t matter you know and that’s kind of how that’s always been is like back and forth between the
two of them um so you got the love and acceptance from one and then the
complete utter rejection from the other a little bit of both you know my mom is super loving in her own way and at times
we were a lot closer than I was with my dad but my mom was definitely the one who had more substance abuse problems I
would say so that was complicated right you know she
she drank a lot especially after they got back together and that kind of just
changed the whole dynamic in the house right you know before that it was fun and we would go on trips to the river
and do all this stuff and then the economy tanked and our family kind of
fell apart and came back together in a really broken way um and then it kind of just got harder
from there you know where my mom started started taking more prescription pills
and my dad just got more and more emotionally abusive towards her um meanwhile I’m just a kid you know
right and I’m trying to move through all these emotions I’m watching everything that’s happening in my home and I didn’t
really know what to do with all of that so I had this best friend and her name was Sandy and I would go stay at their
house on the weekends and I would just kind of run from what was happening at home to over there well her mom drank
her mom drank a lot um and I was probably like 10 years old and I
remember it was spiced Cider on like somewhere around the
holidays and that was like one of the first times I really remember being allowed to drink not that I hadn’t tried
beer before but that was like the first time like I got a big mug and I got to drink it and I love the way that that
felt and then how old were you at that time probably like 11 10 or 11 something
like that so young yeah pretty young and she wasn’t letting me drink every weekend or anything like that it was
like special special occasions you know uh strawberries and champagne on New
Year’s but not a lot but that changed pretty quickly over there to by the time
I was in seventh grade I was getting drunk at their house every weekend yeah you know um by 8th
grade we were taking my Aderall and doing arts and crafts at their house which was honestly a great way to live
at that age you know um things with my family had gotten worse on the other end
you know my I remember I was in like the 7th grade
and my mom had like ODed cuz she had tried to kill herself but no one took
her to the hospital and I had to call my best
friend’s mom who went to a different school by the way and just be like hey I
need a ride to school in the morning cuz my mom hasn’t gotten out of bed since Saturday morning you know and it was
like that for like two weeks and I was terrified did you find her no no I just
came home and she was still in bed and then it was just like that for days you know I don’t know exactly what happened
how bad it was because it was kind of a common thing in my house where my mom would swallow a bottle of pills and then
whichever kid was around would be like hey you should really throw that up yeah you know oh my God yeah yeah it was hard
um and it’s funny because my family to this day is in like total denial of any of this happening right so it was like
maybe a year ago and I’m talking to my sister about it and I’m like yo that [ __ ] was so wild and she’s like that
happened maybe once I’m like my mom probably tried to kill herself at least once a month during the off seon maybe a
little less during the on season probably every two weeks you know and it was always a bottle of Xanax you know
Down the Hatch and yeah it was rough and if it weren’t for my best friend um not Sandy my best
friend Sydney who was also there through all of this for me um telling me like no that definitely
happened I was there your sister’s gaslighting you right now yeah I think I were crazy yeah you know because it’s a
lot and it’s like all right maybe I did make some of it up maybe how did that affect your mental health as a young kid
Jesus yeah yeah um I disassociate it a lot okay they had
me on Aderall in like the first grade so it kind of started okay maybe like the
second grade but it it started pretty young so I was kind of
predisposed Beyond just being surrounded by it also
to follow that path um and so that was like the eighth grade
and that was pretty rough I remember just being so inconsolable on the inside
but on the outside trying to smile making people laugh I remember remember I would get picked up to go to my friend
sy’s house on the weekend and I would always have like a full list of on liners written out in my head so I could
like rattle them off make everyone laugh all right we’re happy we’re moving we’re getting a case of beer it’s all
happening and I feel alive again yeah you know and then the stark contrast
between that and going home where my dad’s calling me stupid I mean we got kicked out of parent teacher night in
the eighth grade cuz he drew a picture on the a whiteboard of me and then just wrote that I was stupid and like yeah
what the hell yeah just narcissistic Tendencies you know um and and that’s
just kind of how it was not to say that it wasn’t fun and we didn’t have a happy family some of the time cuz we did you
know we would go on vation Happily dysfunctional you know it was all great
until mom had one too many and then we’re having knife fights in the kitchen well it was mainly Wooden Spoons knives
only came out on special occasions take me through that take me through one of those incidences
um oh my God I haven’t thought about all of that in a little bit um yeah it was a
bottle of Patron my mom’s doing her thing out on the sidey you know smoking
cigarettes having her moment talking on the phone to whoever’s on the phone very Diet Coke mom but with alcohol right
um and and then I would you know go out and try and drink some of over tequila
in front of her MH which 5050 sometimes it went over well and sometimes it didn’t and
um yeah it would just escalate quickly you know it would go from we’re laughing
and we’re having fun to you know she’s backhanding me with
her wedding ring yeah and uh what brings me some Solace today is
that she doesn’t really remember doing a lot of that and sometimes that feels shitty but a lot of the time it’s kind of nice just
because she doesn’t have to carry that guilt and she remembers the good things that happened during that time period
because the good things are the only things that happened when she wasn’t taking pills yeah it’s hard to remember
when you’re completely zonked out of your gills I mean it’s the Xanax alcohol combo it’s a great Mind Eraser I got
there myself at one point you know and God did it work um so so that’s kind of
the eighth grade I’m starting to dabble I remember that was the year I brought weed to school for the first time
because I had a crush on this guy and uh it’s always a guy oh my God it’s always a guy no it was like around Easter
because I took a golden Easter Egg and I was like here I got you something and it
was weird it was like a nug I don’t know where the hell I got it from either but I know that I had it I was probably like
15 um fast forward to like the end of that school year I tried ecstasy for the
first time um possibly the last time too I think that’s the only time I did Ecstasy
but um and then that summer came around and um things at home were the same as
they had been and we went on a camping trip because we would do that periodically and
it my mom just did what she does yeah you know she got drunk and we were
having fun and my Dad decided he wanted to go to bed early which he does and then she swallowed a bottle of
pills again you know um and I helped her throw up and
put her in bed and then I’m just laying there in my tent and I’m like I don’t know what the [ __ ] I’m supposed to do
with my life like so I did what I had done several times in the past I don’t
know how long I had been seeking out companionship from older men at that point but
um I went on uh undisclosed app for gay hookups yeah and I was just trying to
get stoned you know what I mean I ran out it was a really hard night I was pretty drunk and um I got raped for the
first time and that’s the first time I really really remember
disassociating yeah um because before that I’m sure it happened but like in
that moment I just remember looking up at the
sky and like making shapes out of the clouds cuz we’re on the beach
and and then eventually I know that I got up and I didn’t say anything to him
and I just walked away like before anything was done or anything like that I just got up and walked away I think I
like dished a beach blanket or some [ __ ] too and I just I couldn’t after that it
was everything kind of got worse yeah you know um
and it it was a really heavy time period all of it was every time period was kind
of heavy for its own reasons is that when your addiction kind of took hold it had already kind of gotten it start
before that you know what I mean where it was like I was drinking every weekend if not more at that point but moving
forward it definitely got worse I wanted to dabble in more things I wanted to disassociate more you know I wanted
to isolate with the people I was comfortable with so freshman year it’s kind of a blur but
I I just remember trying my best to get good grades and stay in class and figure
everything out my parents pushed for me to go into honors classes um which I did
I had about a b average and that went down the hole really fast was there
anybody that you were able to go to like therapy wise or anything like that to
deal with or anybody I guess really yeah my best friend sy’s Aunt Holly um she
was like my therapist at the time in a way where it was like that’s where I would
go on the weekends and she was the person who taught me radical acceptance of myself which I didn’t really figure
out at that time but it is what she was saying you know she was always telling me how I couldn’t listen to what other
people were saying and how I just had to be myself authentically and just do what I needed to do to survive and that it
was going to be okay and I’m super grateful for her because she taught me in a lot of ways how to love myself and
I remember um this one specific conversation that didn’t really ring true for me until
like years later but I was an atheist at the time and I was like I don’t believe
in anything like that’s makes no sense to me why would I believe in something if it doesn’t believe in me and she said
something really simple but she was like that’s sad like that’s sad that you have nothing to turn
to and at the time I didn’t think it was I was like no I am steadfast in this like I am okay without anything I don’t
need a higher power or God or any of that [ __ ] but looking back I can like really see
what she meant where it’s like oh I have something today I’ve had a spiritual experience since that that time period
And I get it I get why she wanted me to have something to hold on to yeah
because now I do and I it’s not perfect all the time but but I have something I can fall back on thanks to AA and thans
to program and I didn’t have that my whole life so back
to let’s say like sophomore year um I’m ditching class all day long I’ve met
a new friend her name’s Molly God should I be saying everyone’s names he’s first
you’re only using first yeah yeah I could use last name no why not it’s not
necessary we don’t know them anymore yeah no we do I’m friends with all these people are you yeah that is one thing
I’ve been really blessed with is like the majority of the people in my story I still have in my life and they know you
yeah um not all of them not my friend S’s but like Molly that’s my best friend
that’s my girl I was like on the phone with her yesterday you know Sydney that is my girl over the weekend I like hung
a lamp in her house that I went and bought from the thrift store you know like these are these are the people
monuments in your life yeah and they always have been yeah um and hopefully they always will be but who knows so
sophomore year me and Molly become friends and she has her own trauma going
on in life which she would be a great guest on your podcast it was her story to tell right
yeah she’d be a great guest on your podcast but um she needed a lot of support and a lot of that support for me
came from I don’t know how to help you but I know this bottle that does you know what I mean um and we would ditch
school and we would go sing songs in like the rain tunnels or under the city
streets because that was the one place we couldn’t be found and we did that for
like two years probably um by junior year I was in continuation school I had
tried meth loved it didn’t keep doing it but how did you keep from keeping doing
it I tried it once loved it loved it so much it was the best thing I ever tried
and I said okay that was fun we’re not going to do that again you are so very
lucky yeah so I had done in that regard I had done Aderall before that so it was
similar and Coke never really did it for me because I had done the ater all and
at that time period I was also sneaking out on the weekends and doing coke with other people you know I had I had a
little fix everywhere all the time by then you know I seldom had to be
alone but I always felt like I was anyways do you feel like you followed in
your mom’s footsteps with the type of substances that you chose not really there’s a lot of things
that she won’t do um there’s a lot of things for her personally where it’s like she weed makes her paranoid so she
won’t smoke weed I was a huge Stoner until weed made me paranoid yep yep mhm
um I didn’t really like ders until I did okay yeah maybe I did follow her in her
footsteps a little bit we’re just leading you there all of these things are lining up just to tinge
um yeah so by junior year I’m in continuation school I’ve had had several
failed boyfriend relationships and I’m sleeping with older men I got raped for
the second time um I want to say sophomore year um the first guy I was
like 15 he was like 19 this time I was like 16 and I think he was 21 okay um
and that time was a lot more brutal because I said no the whole time and I’d
never I’d never given anyone like back their access and and he took that when I
was telling him no um the first one was gory in a different
way um and at the time I didn’t really
understand what it meant to be raped all I knew is that I had found this guy on the internet um I wanted him to smoke me
out I knew that I was taking advantage of my sex appeal [Music]
and I I thought it was my fault you thought you deserved it yeah for all of
those reasons that I was intentionally leading him on so wasn’t I asking for that because I thought I cheated on him
I had a boyfriend at the time and I thought I cheated on him and
um yeah that guilt of that happening I couldn’t tell him about it but then I
started cheating on him with other guys which I hadn’t in my mind been doing at that time cuz I wasn’t sleeping with
anyone I was using older men for drugs you know um you know I always say I was
the cheapest hooker I ever knew because I never did it for money just a little weed right just a
little bit of weed oh no the real kicker was the two for seven bottles of white wine at 7-Eleven I there was an exchange
sucked a lot of dick for that okay we listen and we don’t judge
exactly um yeah so that’s it all kind of just spiraled from there like that was
the real real breaking point where I had had all of that buildup where I was
dabbling everywhere but from like that point forward it was me and that guy broke up and I would
get a bottle ride my skateboard four miles to the wetlands get as drunk as I could with
whatever means possible and then I did this really stupid cute thing where I wouldn’t leave the bottle on his front
lawn but I would leave it somewhere in his neighborhood just hoping he would kind of understand you know which is so
delusional but kind of cute it’s like maybe he’ll think I’m the alcoholic on
the street I don’t know um sex and love addiction right
mhm um fos forward it’s junior year and I been
doing acid since like the eth grade but I I had a really gnarly Acid
Trip um with some people that were pretty unsafe M and essentially they
were just [ __ ] with my head the whole time and that sounds horrible yeah yeah it was not a safe
space I remember having to call my sister to get picked up but like I went
to psychosis like hardcore tell me about that have you ever seen The Truman Show I have seen The Truman
Show yeah so I kind of got a touch of that for sure so everybody was actors in
your life yeah just a bit so the cameras are fun um at least I’m consenting this
time um so it it was a lot of that it was just everyone’s [ __ ] with me or
God I don’t know my lines you know what I mean everyone seems to know their lines around me and I don’t know my lines
and I was scared like all the time how long did that
last so it affected the way marijuana worked on my brain okay and I was a
hardcore Stoner so the way it didn’t go away until I quit
smoking weed okay and I didn’t quit smoking weed until 2019 okay so that was
probably two years of continual just brain rot
um just a mild level of psychosis or were you hospitalized for it I wasn’t
hospitalized for anything my parents don’t really didn’t really believe in that um you know there was God I don’t
even know when this happened but at one point there was like a suicide attempt um which was like a very mild suicide
attempt and I don’t say that to be factious in anyway I put like a bunch of benad dril in a Sprite and then I
started sipping it and I like fell asleep before I could finish it you know um and I’m like well I’m awake now and I
don’t think I wanted to die that bad I think I was just really drunk and lonely um cuz the the Sprite was still there
you know right um yeah so I was in like a really
hardcore sosis I had this boyfriend who he was a
really good guy but he was a really big ener um and he was the first guy in my
mind that I had bid with who I hadn’t cheated on okay um which like looking back that is still true but you know
there’s reasons behind that I didn’t cheat on him until he left for college and when he left for college all hell
kind of broke loose and it was kind of the repeat of my cycle
where whoever he is is gone and now I feel alone I’m going to tear everything up
I’m going to to ruin my life again so I’d save like $3,000 cuz I was trying to buy a car and move forward in life and I
spent it all I spent it all on alcohol alcohol weed anything that was cheap that I
could get my hands on that would get you out of your mind yeah that’s when I started doing
Xanax um Xanax was never my preferred drug of choice but my best friend well
she was kind I could call her my best friend at that time period She was my best friend she’s awesome she’s not
program sober today but she got out of the life and she’s doing great she lives
in Florida uh and she’s pregnant which is really cool to see that she moved
forward herself um but she was selling Xanax at the time and she would just
have mason jars full of like pressed pills I had no clue where they were coming from but I would take Mexico no
probably yeah I know no we know that you know i’ I’ve I’ve
you know dabbled yeah I mean who hasn’t
um however it goes down right right um so yeah and it was fun we would like mix
them up drink zantas you know which the Xanax and the font it was zanta yeah
yeah that’s the first time I’ve heard that well I think she coined it so she might have coined it Sant ladies and
gentlemen uhhuh get one today Fanta we don’t need to be giving these kids ideas
they have enough of their own honey they don’t need our help right uh yeah and it
just got bad it just got worse and kept getting worse and progressively I remember I was in such a deep psychosis
that there was a day I didn’t drink I didn’t smoke I didn’t do anything that day and somehow it was still a good idea
to ride the stolen bike that I had from someone else who was well he was more
weaker than I was but all the way I was trying to get to
Cal State Channel Islands from Huntington Beach trying to get to an island on a bike not an
island but but it is north of Malibu okay you know um and I rode my bike like
50 miles that’s C because I’m [ __ ] crazy you know I was on drugs but in
that moment I wasn’t on any drugs I was just cooked yeah thoroughly um um I
didn’t make it all the way by the way oh yeah I made it like halfway I got like past Redondo um and then I was like okay
tired I’m kind of tired this is starting to feel like a bad idea was there a
reason you were going to Channel Island yeah my ex-boyfriend was going to school up there and I’m crazy yeah Che and I’m
like well this is such an act of love if I can just get from here to there he’ll
know I love him and I didn’t mean it and nothing else matters right but I didn’t make it so we’ll
never know we’ll never know no boom box in the rain I mean we kind of know I know that he went to rehab at some point
and after we broke up he got like a hardcore meth addiction from Whispers on the street so okay the birdies yeah
right the birdies are my phone but yeah tweet tweet right literally
um so yeah it just it just kept getting worse from there you know I was
spiraling cu consistently a lot of it I don’t really remember it’s like bits and pieces of that time period it I dropped
out of high school um I was just deeply paranoid and in fear
and and then one day in October of 2019 I got a phone call or not a phone
call I got like an Instagram DM and for about 6 months every day I
would hang out with my best friend Molly and I would be like hey let’s not smoke weed today right like let’s let let’s
not do it let’s be productive let’s go running I can’t leave the house alone but when you’re with me I feel safe
let’s let’s please go be productive cuz I was in so much fear yeah and um I
would leave the house at night by the way like I would ride my skateboard do laps around all of Huntington Beach um
so part of your psychosis was not even it was kind of agoraphobic as well oh for sure I just didn’t want to be around
people okay it was Terri everybody was the enemy yeah for sure because I couldn’t handle it I couldn’t handle
anyone else’s company and I couldn’t handle my own right
um so it was like six months before I actually was able to get sober of just
calling my best friend and being like I don’t want to do anything I just want to go hang out and be normal yeah like I
want to feel normal um meanwhile she’s like yeah we don’t have to do that and
then something would happen at her house and she’s like yo we got to pick up and I’m like well you’re not okay I’m an
enabler I’m a classic allanon let’s get you what you need well I can’t let you do it alone I’m your best friend and
then I’d smoke a little bit and be like why are you [ __ ] with me such a [ __ ] um and that and that relationship
escalated to such a point that like I thought she was playing mind games with me so I would try and [ __ ]
with her head um and we just got into a screaming match where we both ended up
crying one day and she’s like why are you acting like this and I’m like I’m so scared yeah all the time all the time I
am terrified of the world um and I think that’s the first time she really knew
that I had a problem you know through everything she kind of looked at me differently after that in in a loving
way but in a like oh yeah um
so my mom right around that same time period her best friend has cancer um and
this has been her best friend since high school and my mom gets really drunk at a cancer
benefit show for her best friend gets in a fist fight with her best friend’s
daughter cops get called um it’s a whole
big ordeal my sister has to drive out there to get the car when my sister
pulls back into our neighbor Hood she almost gets arrested cuz they think she’s my
mom um and my mom has to go hide out for two
weeks at my grandma’s house until the police can get the footage from that night and say that no it didn’t happen
the way they say it happened none of that went down they were trying to say that my mom dragged this girl by her
hair and put her under the tire of a car while my dad was trying to run her over didn’t happen okay great story though
great farce right literally um and my mom quit
drinking just like that just like that and it had been years since I saw my mom
without alcohol since I saw my mom in my mind that was my mom without anything I
the pills were take them or leave them but like without alcohol I’m like whoa and then the pressure fell onto me
of like well are you going to get a job or you going to build your life what are you going to do I’m like whoa I was kind
of enjoying a little bit of a free pass for a while yeah I’m going crazy I’m in
psychosis I don’t want to leave my bedroom but I really don’t want to start living a life that’s
terrifying um and it was about 6 months after
everything cooled down from that situation I’d been telling my best friend I don’t want to smoke anymore and
I like got my first job as a Christmas decorator and then I got a text or a DM
from this guy that I used to like drink with whatever um and he’s like hey I
have a problem and I think I need help um and I don’t know what to do so I call
up my neighbor Darlene and I’m like hey girl this guy over here he is in such
bad shape he’s doing awful he is doing everything uppers downers candy corns
he’s got it all you know what I mean and um we go to pick him up from somewhere
in yal Anda take him back to Huntington Beach shower him off in the beach bathroom showers because we both knew
from looking at him that neither of our families would let him in the house right um and we took him to a meeting
and I’d never been to a meeting I’m like hey dude I heard of this place called AA it’s for people like you um you know
yeah and and I stood in the back of that meeting and I’m so anal and [ __ ] out
of my gourd that when Darlene starts clapping I’m like what are you doing stop you’re going to get us in trouble
um if you haven’t been to AA we clap a lot and obene mouth it’s kind of our
thing yeah um so don’t stop your friends um and I’m just like listening to this
guy share I’m for the first time
I knew that I could stop I knew that there was another way than what I had been doing my whole life
to live um so of course I left that meeting and
I got drunk um but that was my last drink and that was 2019 and that was in
October um and then my best friend calls me the next day Molly Molly calls me and
she goes hey I just just went to an AA meeting I think we should really start doing this
I’m like what in the [ __ ] is happening right now I’m like yeah girl I just went to one too let’s do it you know let’s so
we started going to the Tuesday night meeting and that’s where we sat for I
think she stayed sober for like six months um but I haven’t had to drink
since um and there are details to her story and all of that that I would love
to tell but she’s not sitting here right now that’s story and so yeah fast
forward uh I get a year under my belt or maybe 18 months um I have an awesome
sponsor at that point her name was Beth I loved working with her and I think we
were in Co on zoom and I went over to my friend Sydney’s house and I’m doing my
zoom meeting in her bedroom and I’m like there’s a gallon bag full of chocolate
chip cookies they were Edibles they were I’ve
done it the reason I count that as a relapse for me is because I had the foresight to
sniff the bag I’m like she is a hardcore Stoner I taught this girl how to smoke weed I’m like I sniff the bag and I’m
like doesn’t smell like anything I think I’m good she wasn’t texting me back I
yell at her mom I’m like Trisha are these normal cookies she’s like you should be fine I’m like perfect we’re in
munching on my little cookie and I get like halfway through it I’m like no and I’m like oh [ __ ] um and I
start laughing my ass off and it was the first time in years that I had had a weed high that didn’t
make me like vastly paranoid okay which is kind of crazy because it didn’t make me want to do it again I was
like all right this happened it is what it is I was definitely stoned I’m like
let’s watch Fantasia my sponsor at the time she was like turn your camera off you were
smiling way too much you were laughing your ass off like stop it um and that
was a relapse for me you know I didn’t have the foresight to stop myself and to wait another 15 minutes before my best
friend got home right um and after
that I don’t know if that’s when I stopped working with Beth or if it was
the last one but in 2021 I had probably sponsor shopped for
a while never really found anyone that stuck like my first sponsor because I don’t I don’t know if you ever do if you
have a good first sponsor it’s that’s it you know what I mean um and she was a good sponsor I
didn’t know she had like maybe a year and a half maybe two years at that time but in my mind I’m like whoa you have all the answers right um but we stopped
working together I worked with her boyfriend for a while and through all of this I’m just like
kind of coasting not doing a lot of Step work really getting programmed through osmosis you know which is not great but
it happens I got through a fourth step did a fifth step you know and then that
happened and I was all right I got to find new sponsor she doesn’t feel like she can help me so
so I looked for a while and I really didn’t find anyone for a couple years um or like at least a year of like
just jumping around in 2021 I don’t think I was working with
any specific sponsor I had a really rough situation with a
friend who was high on meth where she was just berating me over a situation
yelling at me telling over the phone telling me like I’m going to have my ex roll up on your house like you’re in for
it like are you trying to cuz I had taken her son for ice cream and she’s like you stole his phone I’m like girl I
got a job I got a life like no I don’t need his phone Joe’s Italian ice might
have his phone but not me um and I went over to my best friend’s
house again Sydney and her friends with benefits was there
and like we had kind of a system where I’m like you can smoke if you want to you just got to blow it out the window right but I was like fuming pissed and I
wasn’t like in any mind state to protect my sobriety and I sat in the hot box for
like an hour I didn’t smoke anything but I got stoned yeah you know and to me
that counted yeah and you know to me I’m like all right I’m feeling it it’s
happening that’s a relapse when was that 2021 and that was your sobriety date
yeah June that was like June 11th 2021 if you had to if somebody who was
struggling with addiction was sitting right in front of you today what would you say to them to offer them some hope
oh my gosh it’s going to be okay either way you know no matter what road you
choose to go down whether you want to do this on your own or find Community you can be okay you just have to want it
yeah and then do something about it you got to want it and do it yeah it’s both it’s not just one you know I can want
sobriety all day long but when I don’t go to any meetings I’m still going to yell at people I’m still going to get
pissed off on the freeway but it doesn’t have to be meetings for everyone you know you can
learn to meditate learn to take care of yourself you can find Jesus whatever you need if it works for you it works for
youh you know I’m working with several guys right now on a job and they’ve both
been to AA they both don’t drink anymore but they both smoke weed good for you if
if that’s what works for you good for you that would kill me right but that’s just me and that’s important knowing you
know what your line is MHM you know you know the only time I ever knew what my line was before was when I was bending
over to snort it you know these days I I know how far I can push it where it’s
like I can sit with all my friends in the music studio [ __ ] I can’t play guitar
but like [ __ ] around on that thing until 1: in the morning while they’re doing coke in the bathroom
I’m hitting my vape and I can still have a good time and stay sober with my sober homie right next to me and feel safe
because I have my program but when I don’t have my program and when I’m not carrying my higher power with me
everywhere I go which is a conscious choice I can slip like that you know and
it’s just one of those things where it’s like you have to know yourself do you have any other uh 12ep
EXP experience besides AA yeah so um
because of all of the guys I’ve been with um the number is really high you guys
um I found myself needing slaa which is sex and love addict Anonymous um so oh God I don’t go
anymore but I can give kind of the low down of what that looks like um why’ you
stop going I wanted to be a [ __ ] again again oh yeah okay I did I got bored
what initially brought you there I was miserable again I was miserable in sobriety um I kept chasing after these
random [ __ ] guys who didn’t really want much to do with me any guys who did want something to do with me suddenly
weren’t good enough um because I have this magic magnifying mind where if you
want me there’s probably something wrong with you but if you don’t want me you probably have a good head on your shoulders you know what I mean it’s a
good uh prognosis yeah great good assessment well see it for what it
[Laughter] is and and it got really hard dealing with that um with all the insecurities
that I’d always felt so in slaa it kind of breaks down pretty simply where you
have one parent who might smother you and another one who might be really withdrawn and your parents can alternate
between doing that but when that happens to you as a child which is much more prone to happen when you grow up in a in
addiction based household that becomes ingrained into you in your romantic relationship so you
always the push pull so you always seek out either someone who will neglect you
or someone who will run from you and if you’re not seeking that out and someone’s chasing you you’re going to
run from them because that’s all you’ve ever seen it’s all you understand because that’s all you felt as a child
and that’s what I was acting out in my personal life you know um so it kind of just got to a point
where I was sick and tired of pining after someone who didn’t want me um and
that someone could be anyone you know it’s not a specific person that person changes all the time but it’s what I’ve
done my whole life um this last time when I left
SLA I don’t know if I’m really proud of this but it is what happened
the guy that I had stopped talking to wanted to be friends again and I was like all right well I’m either
gonna give up my program or you can’t be in my life and he wanted to be in my
life and you know what I wanted him there too yeah uhhuh and I was like well that’s that um we make our choices we do
and then like a month into that decision he cut me off for the first time which had never
happened and it just kind of didn’t go back I was like okay I think I think I’m
okay and I have been relatively okay I don’t have a current qualifier I’m not really pining after anyone specific I
mean there’s three guys in this room but give me time I haven’t really looked
that hard um what that one
no we’re all friends here for now honey
oh my goodness yeah so it was a conscious choice for sure though where it was like I I wanted him in my life
and then when he left my life I’m like o I want me in my life and I’ve kind of
just been focusing on that where I’m like when I want to go want me in my life right when I want to go out and
have scandalous behavior I’m going to do it and when I don’t want that and I want
to be at home taking care of myself I want to do that too um I’m not really
focused too much on dating um except for every time I open those apps on my phone right except when you are yeah except
when I am um hasn’t really gone anywhere though still waiting well any closing
words for the person who’s on the other side of the screen God I hope you’re
okay oh same I hope you are too uh good
luck and I’m okay you’ll probably be okay too that’s the are right that’s
engaging that’s the gug like we’re okay we’re okay we’re all right it’s not up here it’s not down here we’re we’re
riding the Baseline though you know what okay is okay yeah it’s okay to be okay it is yeah well thank you so very you so
much for having me of course yeah thank you so much for being here and um thanks
everybody for listening watching have a good night
