October 22, 2025 • 57 mins
Episode 23 | Tyson Clizer – Marine, Railroader, and Recovery
Tyson Clizer’s story is one of grit, struggle, and redemption. A U.S. Marine veteran and long-time railroader, Tyson opens up about his battle with addiction and how hitting rock bottom forced him to make the hardest call of his life. With the help of the railroad, he was sent to treatment in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he began the long process of rebuilding his life.
From losing custody of his kids, to the fear of turning himself in, to months of inpatient and outpatient programs supported by both the railroad and the VA, Tyson shares how the industry—and his own willingness to finally surrender—saved his life. This is a raw conversation about pain, resilience, and what it takes to truly start over.
#FourthStreetLive #TysonClizer #RecoveryJourney #MarineVeteran #RailroadLife #SobrietyStory #AddictionRecovery #VeteranRecovery #Railroaders #LifeAfterAddiction #SoberLife #PTSDRecovery #FromRockBottom #RecoveryPodcast #MentalHealthAwareness #SobrietyWins
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Fourth Street Live is hosted by Jacob Green, a Reno-based author, musician, biker, and storyteller, bringing raw conversations about recovery, motorcycles, and local culture.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:54):
None. I did Norfolk I bought no.
And that's because you're going to pay out with that shit.
I was. I was eyeballing it too.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did that.
I did that just before, you know, like, you know, I knew it
was happening. So.
But yeah. How long you worked for the
(01:14):
railroad? Bro started in 2011. 2011,
that's what year I graduated high school, bro.
Yeah, dude, yeah. It's been a minute.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool.
Yeah, near on 15 years be 15 years.
What was your first job? In the railroad, first one I
marked up on was actually a rockhauler out of a little place
(01:35):
just South of Mojave Pearblossomthat hauled to Santa Clarita
every night and. Back so it's short line.
No, it was. It was just a rock train.
They loaded at Pearblossom and he took it to Santa Clarita.
With UP. With UP dumped it and came back.
Crazy. Yeah, it was a, it was a high
end job, like a high paying job at one point and they cut all
the miles on it and I ended up, I was the lowest seniority guy
(01:58):
working at the time and that's where I got forced.
That's a short line anywhere else bro.
Like they'd have a short line inthere.
Now they're that that's, I thinklooks like that's how they're
ending it going. Well, I heard that's what
they're going to do with USA Parkway.
Is that true? No.
Yeah, I heard. I heard USA Parkways like at
some point getting it just oh, it's already a short line.
Yeah, our short line. Well, yeah, I mean, it's it's
(02:22):
well, it's better, right? Because don't you guys just want
to be able to fucking pick up and go?
It would be jobs. The loss of the jobs would be
the big thing. Yeah, not my favorite jobs.
Work. I like work in the pool.
I like going to Elko and coming back.
That's the big route, right? Yeah, that's the big route.
Is going here to Elko right but isn't the sub start Sacramento?
(02:45):
The Roseville sub starts over the hill and ends here, and then
it's about a Elko. Got it, got it, got it.
So it's it's OK. I, I don't know why I thought it
was like Sacramento to Wendover was all yours was all.
Oh, in terms of seniority district, yes, My seniority
district goes from Klamath Falls, S to Mojave all the way
(03:06):
to the coast and then out to Winnemucca.
Damn, that's a minute. So how do you deal with that
with not having much days off? Oh, and so I don't protect that
now. When I was new, brand new, I
chased most of that. I didn't work out of the Bay
Area at all. I worked to the Bay Area.
But now it's, yeah, just go homeand manage my rest.
(03:28):
It's one thing I had to learn ismanaging rest.
Yeah. That's real.
Go. Home, go to bed.
Yeah. So how'd you get into recovery?
Because I know, because I were, I'm a railroader, that that's
what you fucking do when you getoff of work, man.
(03:49):
So interesting enough, I was trying to get Rule Jade for a
while, like I didn't have the courage to end it myself to make
the phone call. The the railroads are very
gracious, the class ones, and they will see if we make the
phone call, they'll send us to rehab, pay for it.
So it's a really good deal. But I didn't have the courage to
turn myself in. You felt like a quitter.
Kind of. Well, yeah, I don't even know
(04:09):
fear. I would say a lot of fear of it
and kind of a funny story goes with I got called for an extra
in the middle of the night in March and I showed up to work
wearing a compression shirt and that's it with my yellow thing
and put folded the train together 3:00 AM and it's like
freezing, like literally freezing out 2829° and I'm
drenched in sweat and one of ourmanagers is there and I'm like,
(04:34):
oh thank God it's over. He's going to know.
It's whacked out of my mind. There's no way I got to be
pouring sweat without this, you know, dressed like I am in the
middle of the night. And I hopped into the truck with
him thinking it's all over. And he goes, oh, great job,
buddy. Let's get you to the head in and
get you out of town. And I'm like, roll my eyes and
I'm like, I'm going to have to do this myself.
I mean, I came to that like on that trip and I came back and
(04:59):
party for five days and made thephone call like just it had
enough at that point. I had had enough like.
So there was no real like burning Bush moment.
It was just a profound, like fucking educational.
Well, I when I got to the very end of that party and like, I
was already like I was out of time off.
I was going to get fired for calling out, laying off and
(05:24):
smoke so much meth that I passedout.
Fuck. Yeah, dude, that's hard to do.
Yeah, it's hard to get. And it's hard.
It's. Hard to smoke enough that you're
tired bro. I was, I was feeling sorry for
myself. All the all the ladies that I
was partying with left me. Damn, dude.
So I smoked all a whole bunch ofmeth passed out and I I woke up
and I'm like, what the fuck am Idoing?
(05:45):
Yeah, what am I doing? This is not the life I want to
live. Yeah, reached out to my parents
by text message, you know, and, and gave them all the contact
information. I was like, I'm going to come
back and turn myself in Saturday.
I think it was Saturday by noon.If I don't contact these people,
these are my bosses, you know, Iwon't be able to go to work
(06:06):
unless I get cleaned up. So I knew at that point in time
that like they had enough of me and that they would do that for
me. And so it showed up called, you
know, and that was that. I mean, but I was at that point,
I was ready. I'd lost my kids.
I mean, there's a lot of things that that went to it.
I just my divorce finally finalized about six weeks before
(06:26):
that. And bless my ex wife's heart
that she went after sole custodyand she got primary with
supervised visitation. And that was one of the coup de
(06:48):
I'm super grateful that she was able to get that like a really
like, yeah, anybody can say whatthey will about her, but she is
a big part of my recovery, whether she knows it or not.
That was that was devastating tome.
Those kids were everything to me.
And then not having them. The best lessons are the ones
you get your ass kicked. I would agree.
(07:09):
Like without suffering, without pain, there's no reason to
change. And that's that's my story.
That's a lot of my story. So I made the call went, you
know, like the lady I called, she's like, where do you want to
go? I go send me as far away as I
can so nobody will come pick me up.
They sent me to Knoxville, TN a facility called Cornerstone.
(07:31):
Wonderful place saved my life. Railroad saved my life by
sending me and started with a 30day hitch.
And when I've been there about two weeks, I'm like, I don't
think I'm ready to go back and the railroad will pay for to
stay paid for me to stay in sober living for as long as I
needed to. So I stayed for 90 days total
(07:54):
and then after in house or what do they call it intensive in
whatever intensive outpatient treatment afterwards for another
60 days and came home and still wasn't.
I didn't feel like I was ready to go back to work like the
railroad industry For me personally with the lifestyle
and schedule, I needed more timelike I could just, that's where
(08:17):
I was at with that. And so I called the VA and the
VA, if there's anybody there is out there that doesn't know that
it's struggling with any substance abuse programs and
you're a veteran, they're wonderful.
Called them. They set me up with an intake
appointment like within a day ortwo.
You know, they didn't end doc with like a psychiatrist or
(08:37):
whatever. They are case manager and they
actually had me in another intensive outpatient program
within a week. And so I did another man.
It was like 3 months of the first level and then two months
of the second level, Yeah, before the railroad let me come
back to work. So I mean, overall, I was gone a
little over seven months before they let me come back, and I
(08:58):
needed every minute of it, yeah.Yeah.
Did you ever swing a sledgehammer with the railroad?
No, never. I'm lazy, Yeah, yeah.
Get on trains. Yeah, maybe not lazy, but yeah.
My first week of learning was fucking brutal, man.
Yeah, yeah, I was. I was 2027 when I started on the
railroad and it was fucking. All this is trying to get on
(09:21):
with maintenance. He wants to do MOW.
He, he really, he sees the valueof having a career with the
benefits and the railroad. They are what they are, but the
bills or the checks don't bounce.
And they've been really good to me and my family, I mean.
Recession proof. Yeah.
And then once, once we have seniority, the recession is not,
(09:44):
I mean, we're slow right now andit's not an issue to me.
And my heart goes out to the newer people who don't have
seniority yet. But it's we've all been there
and we've. All been there, man.
Yeah. Like there's a guy complaining
about he's on the edge of not being able to work sparks
anymore. And I was like, you know, boohoo
cry. Like it took me 7 years to be
able to work here. The good jobs here, like, yeah,
(10:06):
yeah, falling on deaf ears of that.
Yeah, it is a little bit of that.
So is has your son ever considered working for one of
the contractors around here? Because there's mountain states.
It's one of I work a lot directly with the mountain
states. I don't know if you know
mountain states. They do, they do a lot of the
track maintenance for your UP from from.
I mean, I was just saying all the tracks over there by Empire,
(10:32):
Nevada, Nevada Gold, all that they, they do a lot of the the
maintenance for some of the Subs.
I don't know any of those and. Because that's a great way to
get on and get your foot in the door.
Too right, That would be wonderful for him like he's he's
a super proud of him, like for the adversity that he's been
through, like he is a hard working.
How old is he? He's 18.
Man doing perfect time. Doing concrete full time swing
(10:53):
and sledgehammer, brother. Yeah, he's yeah.
He's. So he he's taller than me and he
got like excellent genetics. He's like 6, 46 foot 5.
There's a few men that I look upto.
He's one of them. Right.
Gotcha. He's about.
Yeah. I think he's like 80 lbs lighter
than me. He's super muscular.
Yeah. He's like me when I was in the
Marine Corps, you know, 30 yearsago.
(11:15):
Muscular. Tall.
Norwegian somewhere? Yeah, just.
Yeah, I love it, dude. That's cool.
Yeah. So.
Yeah, he lives with me and I love living with him.
It's been so awesome to be able to have him back in my life and
live with him and build a relationship with him, but at
the same time, really ready for him to go and build his own
life. Yeah, fuck.
(11:36):
Out bro. That's stable.
Go ahead, do do what you need todo and and come back if you need
to. But I hope you don't.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We talk about it all the time,
like he's not going to hear anything.
But yeah, them boys. Yeah, well, let me ask you this.
You know you're a Marine. Did the drinking start there
before there? Way before.
Where are you from? Omak, Washington.
(11:58):
Omak Little town, eastern side by Kennewick.
No NN OK. Like probably 45 minutes from
the Canadian border. Like, OK, yeah, way.
So I work at a short line in, doyou know Kettle Falls?
Yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah, I work in a short line at Kettle Falls.
Really. Yep.
Really. That's awesome.
Yeah, we, I used to drive through there to go to my
(12:19):
grandparents. That's one.
Of the prettiest railroads I work at is it's cool but it's
also the scariest because of thefucking bears.
Bro, that's the only. One up there, Big grizzly.
Fuck yeah I've seen one and it'slike I walked track in when did
when did they start hibernate? In the fall and I've walked
track in the middle of fucking like hibernating time and
(12:42):
they're like, hey bro, you picked the worst time to come
walk track with us in DesolationWilderness in northern
Washington. Yeah, so.
But yeah, that's one of my. Favorites.
You can totally see that. Yeah, yeah, that's one of my
favorite. So that's a beautiful area to
grow up, bro. Really.
Yeah. I had an idyllic childhood.
My parents are awesome. Like middle class upbringing.
I discovered alcohol. I think I was in 7th grade.
(13:07):
Yeah, yeah, me too. Curious about it.
And, and you know, I'd, I'd steal a beer from my dad here
and there. And then I discovered, was it
vanilla? It's like 35% alcohol, like
cooking vanilla. And my mom would buy pints of it
to cook with. We'd go to Costco in Spokane and
she'd buy pints of it because she baked a lot.
And damn, what? So the first time I got drunk
(13:31):
was off of vanilla. Yeah, no, dude, that was
terrible, terrible, terrible. But also fell fell kind of in
love with it. And, and so growing up, my
earliest memories, memories werealways a feeling different and,
and a lack of social skills and being introverted.
Like I'm, I'm quite introverted at this point in my life and I
(13:54):
was not OK with it when I was younger and alcohol allowed me
to be something I wasn't wantingme to open up.
And that's whole kind of like since I started so early, my
whole social development based off of alcohol.
I mean, I started then my it wasn't that they didn't
(14:15):
supervise me. I was just that kind of kid that
was just an asshole kid really, really was like did my own thing
most of the time. And they're also on my dad more
old school. Like I had a job take care of
business, then I got to do pretty much whatever I want.
I did whatever I wanted most forthe most part.
So you partied pretty much your whole job?
Yeah, not, not super outwardly until I got in high school, but
(14:38):
yes, yeah, I had to be like my mom when I got caught with my
mom a couple times, came home high, marijuana high one time.
And they were more, they were super upset about that.
Like it was a big deal in Eastern Washington state in the
mid 90s. Yeah, he's back on the vanilla.
Yeah. Yeah, and I could.
The people I worked with would buy me hard liquors.
(15:00):
So I drank lots of hard liquor and play PlayStation.
Not PlayStation, Genesis, Genesis back then.
So when did you get into the Marines?
Was this a way to kind of clean you up a little bit?
So the college really wasn't going to be an option for me at
that time because I could not. I could barely get myself to
school and I needed something todo.
(15:21):
My parents had moved from Omak down to Clear Lake, California.
Got. It.
And had looked at the Air Force and the Air Force wanted me to
be, I don't know, like 198 lbs. And I would think it was 265
football. Wyman, pretty good.
I'm pretty OK at that. And yeah, and the Marines were
(15:41):
like, oh, we'll take you as you are.
There you. Go and once a Marine always when
they sold me out they saw me coming away right and yeah ate
it up. Marines, hardcore drinkers,
partiers. And that I really, really did
until I got, I did get in trouble when I was like 20 years
old, went to a Halloween party dressed in drag, a bunch of my
(16:03):
friends, right? And.
I got duty. Active duty.
Oh yeah, it's down to Hume, Arizona, where station.
We went to a party out on the river.
Hell yeah. All this dress we went to
Goodwill bought, you know, they're all three, three other
guys my size. And we went and partied and I
drank a ton of Soco to the pointthat I blacked out and I fought
(16:24):
with them when they wanted me togo back to the barracks.
They kicked my ass, tied me up with my shoelaces and threw me
in the back of the truck. We came in and they're driving
back. I hopped out, rolled down the
rolled out on the highway and ran into a Circle K and told the
cashier they're trying to kill me.
(16:45):
Oh shit. Yeah.
And so he locked them out. They stopped and tried to come
get me and they called the base.Base on duty officer came down,
made me go to the hospital and they sent me, they made me go to
rehab At that point. I actually got sober at that
point for about a decade was in that range.
I don't know exactly how long itwas, but I was white knuckling
(17:09):
it. I was not drinking or using
anything, but I was absolutely miserable.
And now I can look back and I can see it, but I couldn't
figure it out what was going on at that point in my life for a
frustrated the hell out of me. And then even even my own
behaviors like through my marriage and the things I was
doing, destroying my family, stuff like that.
(17:31):
I could I remember just sitting there going why?
Why am I like this? Why can't I stop doing this?
Why over and over? Why do I keep repeating these
stupid behaviors that I do not want to do over and over and
over again? Yeah.
And it ended up costing me literally everything I had at
one point. I had the American dream plus,
like, everything, the house, thecars, you know, dirt bikes, all
(17:52):
that stuff. And it doesn't mean anything if
we can't appreciate it. I didn't appreciate it at all at
all. Right.
Yeah, no, yeah, I think, I thinkthat's a big factor in in
spiritual deficiency is not realizing what you got.
So I totally understand that, you know.
Yeah, I mean, so I think about you.
(18:13):
Don't. You're missing a God sized hole,
right? Huge empty hole.
Yeah. I quote a lot of of movies and I
think about Tombstone when they're talking about when Doc
Holiday is talking about Johnny Ringo and this big empty hole
inside. And I felt that way for a really
long time. There's just something missing.
I I don't have a piece of me. I love that movie.
Love it too. We quote it in my house.
(18:33):
We quote it all the time. We quote a lot of movies.
There's a Have you ever been to White Herb's house?
I have not. That's right in outside of
Parker, Arizona. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, but yeah, I that's that's fucking, that's it.
That's like, I couldn't say it, say it any better than myself.
Yeah, It's, it's my disease. I never nothing's enough, bro.
(18:54):
Nothing's enough. And and I'll fill it with
whatever I can to escape that feeling that nothing's enough.
And that's drugs, alcohol, money, women, gambling, whatever
it is, dude. And I finally just had to do the
same thing you did and make a decision to fill it with
somebody else's will that's not my own, you know?
And that fucking that, sure, that sure helps me have a
(19:16):
reprieve every day, you know, so.
Yeah, I was. I wasn't sure if I was going to
mention God or not, but God has done what I could not do.
We have done and God has done. God has done it.
And that was that was kind of myfirst purpose in life after I
got clean. And I use clean a lot instead of
sober. I use them synonymously.
But me too, they're the same. And and so part of what I always
(19:40):
say with that is it's a symptom,right?
And it's a symptom of the problem.
The problem is me, right? I qualify for every fucking
broker, right? You know what I'm saying?
Right? Right.
Well, yeah. Interesting.
So, like, my first purpose was to live for the greater, goalier
God at that point, like I got clean against all odds.
Now I have a responsibility to stay clean.
Exactly. And yeah, like you talked about
(20:01):
everything's. A problem for me, like I'm the
problem because I can't manage myself with money, women, drugs,
you name it. I mean, it can be.
It's as ridiculous as like goingto work too much, like losing
the balance of going to work. Working out is a huge thing for
me. I will overdo it with working
out, eating, going over the top on diet and then alienating
(20:24):
everybody because now I got to stay on a strict diet and now I
can't do any fellowship because fellowship or eating is a big
part of fellowship, at least forthe.
People going out afterwards, Yeah, you're right, you're
right. It is kind of the meeting after
the meeting. And even with my my peer group,
like no I can't have pizza. So now I'm isolating myself over
(20:45):
something I could die over, justbe in vain at that point.
Like if I'm going to be thick, I'm going to be thick and I'm
going to have a good life at this point.
So you work out a lot now I do work out a lot, that stuff.
That's one of the things I, I mean, I always loved working
out, but I really, really got into it in.
Recovery and you fucking. You're not MOW bro.
Come on, you know you'd be greatat swinging sledgehammers with.
(21:07):
This. I don't know about all that.
Yeah, I thought I'd probably show up, be like, Nah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll just go ahead.
I'll let me go back up in that cab and I'll wait for you guys.
You. Can take a nap and the high rail
dude and Yep, Yep, no, I hear you bro.
That's cool. So how long are you in the
service for? I just did my 4:00 and I was 9.
(21:29):
Got it, Cool. And then right to the railroad,
huh? Actually, no.
I got out and kind of looked at going to nursing school and
using my GI Bill, but again I was just like not ready to do
school and school isn't for me at this point in my life.
Like a four year or even 2 year program is not going to probably
be for me in this life. So I got into, I started at a
(21:52):
carpet warehouse here in town and one of the husbands of one
of the people that worked there was looking for framers.
And I called and talked to him and he hired me as a laborer
like 3 weeks after I started thecarpet warehouse.
So I framed for seven years, worked myself up from being a
(22:13):
laborer to a foreman by the timethat company closed like almost
traumatic and the Great Recession, like just literally
closed overnight. Oh.
One second positive. Pretty good.
What happened? It's trying.
To focus on your face hitting his jaw.
Supposed to his focus. Focus on my face.
No, like it's like it's wigging out.
(22:35):
They're leaving. Yeah, it's wigging.
Like, is it is that the AI thingon?
Maybe I just turned it off and did it fix it.
OK, All right. Anyway, sorry, bro.
Oh. No, it's all good.
It's all good. It's like man, right We.
Were with it. Yeah, we do bro.
The yes. So I did framing.
I actually loved framing, loved framing.
And then after that went about, we went down really good friend
(22:58):
of mine, Brian, we went in business together and we're
doing contracting kind of mini general contract, doing anything
we could get at that point in time, slowly starving to death.
And I was super frustrated with it.
And I called another friend of mine and I'd forgotten I'd
applied for the railroad in like05.
(23:18):
He's like, well, why not try applying for the railroad again?
And I did. That was at the end of 2010,
very end interviewed I think January 25th of 2011 and got
hired. I mean the rest of history.
Where'd you you get hired here? Yeah, I got here.
So you moved. Oh well, when I got out of the
Marine Corps, I moved up here because my parents were here.
(23:39):
Got it, got it. Got it, Got it, got it, Got it.
Yeah. So they moved from Clear Lake
back over to yeah. I like Clear Lake.
When I was deployed, I didn't like Clear.
You didn't like it? Yeah, they didn't like it
either. It was a culture shock coming
from Eastern Washington state. Yeah, any, anything from
Washington to California it. Was a.
It was a big change. And the further South you go
and, you know, that's funny. Yeah.
(24:00):
I get Reno's. Reno's Reno reminds me a lot of
Spokane, believe it or not. Like Spokane and Reno to me,
have a lot of similarities, a lot of tweakers, college towns.
But I I that's one of my favorite places to visit.
It's one that Spokane, I like. I like Coeur d'alane.
Coeur d'alane's probably my favorite.
Yeah, I've. Been Spokane 16 years.
(24:22):
Bro they got a big short line there.
Cath Kids, Cooley and. Yeah, Washington Eastern, it's a
Cooley that whole line. It's I think it stops at the dam
in cool. I think that's where the end of
their line is and it gets pickedup by the end.
(24:42):
But yeah, that's that's one of my big customers.
Washington Eastern is the name of the railroad, and there's
also, they also have the Oregon Eastern as well.
But yeah, I mean, I just, I don't know.
I love it up there. I love wandering around that
part of Washington. I do not like the other part of
Washington, except for Olympia. That's cool.
But yeah, I stay out of Seattle if I can.
(25:04):
You know, I have, I have, I havethe transit systems there, but
some of those. But Seattle's rough, bro.
This is Jacob, the host of the 4th St.
Live podcast and my new book, The Rail Runner, inspired by my
life on the railroad and being arailroad contractor, is now for
sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Please go check out my new storyif you're looking to escape
(25:26):
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Support a local Reno author. Thanks so much.
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(26:31):
I haven't been to Seattle since probably 97.
Since you were a kid, huh? Yeah, since I was.
A kid. You're not missing anything,
bro, in my opinion, you know what I mean?
Some people probably love it, you know?
I got a cousin that lives up there in like, Port Orchard or
Bethlehem. What is it?
Beth Bellingham. Bellingham, yeah.
North way north of Seattle, right?
Yeah, he's up there. He works at the shipyards up
there. That ass.
Yeah, that's a good job. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(26:53):
That's cool, man. So you started on the railroad
and you didn't stop partying, I'm guessing?
So actually I had stopped, got married and it started on the
railroad and I made it about a year, year and a half on the
railroad before I started drinking again and get out to
Elko and out there. And you smoked meth yet?
(27:16):
No, no, great. All right, here we go.
Just just drinks. It was like 20-12 ish that I
picked up alcohol again in that time frame.
And it was just one or two at first right with the guys.
Oh come on, you can, you can have a drink.
And I, I avoided it for about a year and one night I finally
just like, Nah, fuck it, I'm going to have a drink.
And it went from one or two to asix pack within probably 3 weeks
(27:39):
to a month. And then after that it was a 12
pack every time I'd go out to Elko.
And then I got one of those little portable breathalyzer
things and I figured out that like depending on I worked.
Just for fun. No, to make sure that I could
blow clean when I was going to work the next day.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can only go one of two
(28:02):
ways, right? You can only go forward it
backwards. How he fucked that up.
Yeah, I get you. So that's yeah.
And I'm just speaking for myselfthat I did.
That was my tactic and I knew how much I could drink with the
hours time to when I went to work and that was regular
scheduled local. I went to Elko and went back to
(28:23):
Winamam, started Winamaka, stayed the night and Elko came
back the next day back to Winamaka and worked that for
about 2 1/2 years. It's kind of a cool route.
And it actually really was. It's gone now like how it's set
up was then. Business now it's Reno there to
Elko isn't. It no they still they want to
run one from Winnemucca ish likeBiawawi and then one from Elko I
(28:46):
think the battle mountain or something like that.
Got it, Got it. Something like that.
And so it's not like it used to be was awesome job.
Awesome job at the time. Yeah.
Yeah, not a not a ton of work. Got to get away.
I really like getting away from.It's beautiful, Yeah.
God, it's beautiful. That's a beautiful.
That's a beautiful drive, even to me.
I love the desert so. And then we, then my family, we
(29:08):
moved from Sparks to Winnemucca,Alive Kids bought a house out
there and I worked every day at 6:00 in the morning and I would
get home and start drinking, youknow, drink as much as I knew I
could. And she was really unaware of
how much I was drinking. It's really hit it pretty well
from her. It just went downhill from
(29:28):
there. Downhill from there.
And how about meth was in? In Winnemucca.
In Winnemucca derailed a train in 2018 all right so when we all
on the ground let's. Break this down.
Was it gauge or what was it? What's that?
Why did you derail it? Because we were 13 over.
(29:51):
Oh fuck. Yeah, it's caused a problem.
Anyways, we didn't, we didn't know we were 13.
We thought we were 60 mile an hour train that it got up to 63.
We were actually 50. That's another story there.
And so and so with that, there'sbeing pulled out of service for
that. Part of that is a match class
(30:11):
which is in Roseville. So I knew I was going to go to
Roseville. I knew I had a date and time.
I was going to go to Roseville. So I got online, got on a dating
site and was going to find some fun while I was in Roseville.
I mean this is what I did. Got you.
Yeah, Yeah. I was writing proper alcoholic
and mind you, I was married at times.
So yeah, just a lowlife, just a little life.
(30:34):
And so I met a girl over there and she came over in a hotel
room. We drank, talk bullshitted, I
didn't do anything else, but I fell in love like that.
You know how addicts fall in love, right?
Instantaneous fell in love and ended up wrecking everything for
this girl and found out later that after I wrecked everything
(31:00):
that she smoked meth regularly and I didn't do it right away
but the divorce was going on like I didn't get my kids name
with me anymore and that was a huge part of my life.
My kids were one of the things that kept me going for years and
years and years. As bad as it was for them
they'll talk about it wasn't good for them either.
(31:20):
They kept me going. And when I had lost them, I was
like, fuck it, I want to try that.
Like, looks like you got your life together, right.
Like, not at all. I can't keep a job living with
me. Yeah.
And it was one hit. I was up for three days.
And I've been depressed most of my adult life.
(31:44):
And even as a kid, I remember just kind of feeling depressed
and down. Instantaneous relief of that.
And I literally like I, I will say that meth instantaneously
delivered me for my alcoholism because alcohol just became a
second thought after one hit. It was that psychologically
addictive for me. And at that point, this was
(32:05):
early 2019 that I did that. I thought right away I had to
call and turn myself in because I cannot give this up.
I could not give it up. I had to do 2 more years of it
before I was ready to give it up.
In which lost everything but thejob with UP like we were we were
down to that. That's where I was at that level
that yeah. You're lucky you got that bro.
(32:28):
Really, really fortunate to havethat.
Really fortunate. Yeah, cuz there's yeah.
That I would I would not shy about doing it at work.
I was trying to get caught and just wasn't working out for me
and like I said, I ended up having to just turn myself in.
And you did? I did.
And then just went down to Knoxville.
Wow, bro. And so was it instant after
(32:49):
that? Was it clicked?
Were you able, were you able to admit that you had a problem and
that your life was unmanageable?That I had a problem with
alcohol and I knew I had a problem with meth.
I was resolved to the fact that I was going to be an addict for
the rest of my life and I wasn'tgoing to be able to quit.
(33:11):
I read stuff on. I tried for two years to quit.
Like as soon as I got hooked on I was trying to quit.
I mean trying to quit. It's that cool.
And I read on Reddit and I was reading online like the we all
know the odds of quitting are are not good.
I read online that was defeatistfor me and people saying you
never really get over it, there's no hope.
(33:31):
So I was reading all the wrong stuff.
I do remember at one point, about six months before I got
clean, a former Co worker of mine, I saw he picked up a year
of clean time and he lives out in Winnemucca.
And I'm asking him on Facebook and I'm like, bro, how the fuck
did you do it? You were as big a junkie as I
am. You were and you were like, how
(33:52):
the fuck did you do it? He's like, oh, well, I'm your
temporary sponsor. You're going to go to 90
meetings in 90 days. You know what?
My response was right. Yeah, I'm not going to do that.
I'm not ready to do that. He was working on the railroad
when he got a one year. No, no, he'd, he'd quit.
He, he'd been gone from the railroad for probably five years
at that point. Got it.
(34:12):
And that's what cost him his joblike.
Damn, see, that's that's how it could.
Have he got it together? Like I thought he was hopeless.
Yeah, bro. Like I was hopeless.
Like we've all been hopeless. Well, I'll speak only for me
like, but looking at him, like when he was going through it, I
thought he was hopeless. And I'm like, I'm not an addict
like that at least, right? Except.
Oh man, I am. We'll talk about that too.
(34:32):
Yeah, that's we talk about that.The the the theft is the
comparison of joy. It's like, what did I say?
Did I say theft is the comparison of joy?
No, I meant comparison is the theft of joy is what I meant to
say. Comparison is the theft of.
Joy. That's when you start.
When I start comparing myself, yeah, is when I I lose track of
(34:55):
like, what am I? Absolutely.
That's exactly it bro, as I my bottom is not going to be the
same as the guy behind me's bottom and I think that's why we
share our experience, strength and hope.
I think that is at the simplest I can make it is why we talk and
tell our fucking nut shot nut job crazy stories is so that you
(35:18):
can identify with it and go that's not too far and say I
don't know if I need to do that.I get that fucking bad and I
don't know if I need to smoke meth and blow my life away and
not you have my kids taken away from me, but like I hear what
you're saying and that wasn't far away from where I was at and
(35:38):
that was that was a couple bad days of being right fucking
there with you, dude. That's all it would have taken.
So it's I think that's what we do is we say this is my bottom.
You don't got to get this bad and you can stop right where
you're at and and and do it there, you know, So no, I
totally hear you. So he you said 90 meetings in 90
days, you didn't go do that? No, no, fuck that.
(35:59):
I was still partying it up. I was miserable my life before.
So you got out. Did you keep partying?
What's that when you got out? No, no, no.
This is before rehab. Before I got it.
Yeah, yeah. So I was like, no, fuck yeah.
I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it at all.
Yeah. And it I was able about a month
after that, I got myself 60 dayswhite knuckle in it.
And then we had my divorce trialand yeah, that night, that was
(36:24):
it. And I, that was the worst three
months of my life following that.
So that was early November 2020 and I went till March 17th, 2021
is my clean date. So I went hardcore balls to the
wall from that date to that. Didn't even try to quit, like I
was not reserved, but relegated to the fact that I was going to
(36:46):
die from addiction and let's just get it over with.
Like I was trying to seeking my death or any kind of help and it
was not working out for me. I'm not at all.
So God stepped in when I smoked all that meth so much that I
passed out. Yeah, that's like that moment of
clarity when I woke up like that.
Definitely fine intervention to say what the fuck are you doing?
(37:09):
Doesn't have to be this way it. Doesn't.
Bro doesn't have to be this way.That's crazy.
That's one that's hard to get off too bro.
Did you have any symptoms comingoff?
Did you get any withdrawals anything like that or were you
doing pretty good? To me the withdrawals
withdrawals were this, it was this, it was the fixate, it was
the oral fixation. It was the is the.
Is the is the things that came with it my church in the parking
(37:32):
lot. As well.
Right, right before, right before.
Yeah, right before, right beforegetting going to the airport,
get on the plane. Yeah.
You know, met my parents and my pastor there and we're going to
do communion for me before I went and.
And yeah, so I smoked the rest of what I had, I mean, got high,
high, high, high. So I.
Want you guys to picture this? He got fucking high in the
(37:52):
parking lot to go inside to takecommunion with his mom in the
pastor dude in. Santa, right?
Were you just were you just was your jaw just crook bro, you
know? I know I did.
I don't really. Yeah.
Remember fucking, you know? Yeah, that's my favorite too,
you know? So I got to the rehab facility
like 8 hours later, right? I'm fucked out of my mind still
(38:13):
just whacked. Yeah, my blood pressure shoes
are rough and they're like, well, you got to take a Klonopin
to bring you down, right? And I told him no.
And one of. The great let me ride this
bitch. Bro, one of the great things
about going to rehab on the railroads diamonds that if you
tell them no or refuse to comply, you lose your job.
(38:34):
You can sit home, you lose your job, right?
They don't. They don't mess around.
That's what they told me. You know we don't mess.
So if you run away, yeah, If youleave any of that, yeah, you're
out, you're out. So you're you got a lot to lose.
Got a lot to lose. So I'm like they they reminded
me, well, you have to do this. You're going to lose your job
fine. And I never was into Downers
other than alcohol and and it wiped the floor with me.
(38:57):
The next whole next day is just a blur And they put me in
general population because there's not really any detox for
meth. It's just get it out of your
system. So it's hard, hard for me to
sleep over 9 months to sleep more than about an hour and a
half, two hours a night for me personally, I don't know if this
is there everybody, but this is me personally.
Hour and a half, two hours a night at a time was the Max I
(39:21):
could sleep for a long time. Pain, like latent pain like I've
heard people say, the opioids are a great painkiller and I
never messed with opioids much. The meth was an awesome
painkiller for me. So when I got off of it, all
this latent pain came screaming back.
I was really miserable for a couple weeks with that, and then
(39:46):
emotional. Everything made me cry.
Just everything made me cry. Yeah, wouldn't want to go
through it again sober stands for Son of a Bitch.
Everything is real, Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I remember doing so. I did a rehab, rehab steps and
my first one. You know, talking about all the
things I didn't have control of and things I did.
(40:07):
And the one that really, really,really like got me to the core
was I. My son had left his Xbox at my
house and I sold it so I could buy drugs, right?
Oh, I got some cool stories likethat too, yeah.
Yeah, I don't know if that's a cool story.
No, I know. I was saying now that we can
talk. About it, we can own it, but
yeah, it was not. Oh, it just tore me up.
(40:27):
I mean, just of all of all the low stuff I'd done in my life,
all the fucked up low shit like this is the thing that really,
really fucking killed me at thatpoint in time.
And it just blubbering and I wasreally.
That's exactly how you were supposed to feel, I.
Was really resistant to rehab for about 7 days and one night
like I was just over it, didn't want to be there anymore.
(40:49):
It was hurting, miserable comingoff of it, emotional.
And I, I got down on my knees and prayed to God and asked him
to take it from me. And if this is your will, then
I'll, I'll do what I need to do.And the next morning I woke up
and it was a, a bright new startfor me, like a, like a complete
switch and flip. I wrote the prayer down when I
(41:11):
was there and it's, I have it hanging up on my wall at this
point. It's hung up on the wall like
it's a big deal for me, a reallybig deal.
Like totally divine intervention.
And I know people say, well, whatever God this, God that
God's real God saved my life. Yeah.
Yeah, and if that, and if you'relistening here and that word
(41:32):
freaks you out, call it whateveryou want.
It's just got to be bigger than you and you can call it whatever
the fuck you want. I use that term as well because
it's just the easiest one. But the to me, believing in
something bigger, bigger than you is the only way to truly
(41:52):
live in not your own will. I guess I could say, you know,
so I agree with you. And to that effect, too, they
used an example because God, higher power is difficult for a
lot of us. It was not difficult for me, but
it's the one a lot of us get hung up on.
One of the examples they used atCornerstone was a young man who
used a fire extinguisher as a higher power, something outside
(42:15):
of him and more powerful than heis.
And it worked for him and he progressed and and grew from
there. I use Eric Clapton did did you?
I did 'cause they said, 'cause there was a thing on the
graffiti thing. Innocent Clapton is God.
And I remember watching a movie,I was like, I'll make Clapton my
God so I can, you know. But then now it's it's not that
anymore. I love Clapton, but it's not
(42:37):
that anymore. But now it's just God.
But I hear you. It really just has to be
something to be a fucking dormer.
And, and I will like especially in a, in more formalized
recovery setting, I definitely use higher power over God.
And it's not not to offend people, it's 'cause I want don't
want people to lose that in the message.
Yeah, but in private or one-on-one, I am very God
(42:58):
centric. Me too.
And yeah, and I that's exactly what I do as well.
And it's also, it was also the biggest.
It was a turn off for me. It was like, this is fucking a
religious program or this is fucking like, it was taboo.
It was like fucking listening tosomebody trying to sell me a
Jehovah's Witness pamphlet at mydoor.
I was like, and then guess what happened?
(43:20):
I got sober and the promises didn't come true in my life and
my life didn't get better. I just cuz I was sober nothing
got better you know? Nothing got nothing improved
nothing felt better. The hole in my chest was there
and I didn't have alcohol to numb it anymore, so it was worse
(43:42):
just being sober and it's miserable.
It's a miserable. Existence it is and.
And when I finally figured out the rest, God damn, it sure sure
got better. You know, it sure didn't feel
like that anymore. And I found a higher power and
find something to believe in. It was bigger than myself and
try to make a conscious contact with him and turn my will in my
life over to that is like now when it's not that it feels like
(44:07):
driving a car without power steering.
And it's crazy because I live that way.
You driving a car without power steering for the most of my
life, you know, and now it feelsit.
You can, you can tell. So I mean, yeah, you hit it
right on the head. So how long did it take for you
to get in this into recovery, you know, after that?
Was it right into the book? Was it right into the steps?
(44:29):
Was it? I did full by him like that was
my commitment to myself. There was full by him like I'm
done with this this bullshit. Like I did not believe when I
got to rehab, just like I didn'tbelieve my friend that I called
it a year that a person could get any time clean time.
And when we had counselors and people coming in and saying, and
they had 2-3, five years of clean time, I was like, fuck
(44:50):
you. That's impossible.
And then I, I saw these people living like, well, they explain
having, living excellent lives and being happy, like genuinely
happy, like being able to see a smile on their face and they're
happy and they're happy to see us and we're miserable, right?
And I'd like, maybe there's something to this.
(45:11):
And so I did the buy in. I did the buy in.
And not to lie to anybody out there, it's fucking hard.
It's not easy. And I was reading a passage here
just in the last week about a lot of people think it's hard to
get clean, but there the passagewas like, it's harder to stay
clean. Yeah.
(45:31):
I'm laughing because I'm like, thinking back to when I was new,
like now fuck you. It's pretty fucking hard to get
cleaned. Like, it took everything I had
to get clean, and I still wouldn't have been able to do it
without God, without my family, without rehab, without a
program, with all, without my community and all the people I
can talk to. And like, really, all I did was
(45:52):
show up. The credit that I can take is
having at least enough tenacity to keep showing up.
Even when I didn't want to, evenwhen it hurt, even when I was
miserable, I kept showing up. Yeah.
That's it. That's it.
And it's as simple as running out of a burning building, bro.
Yeah. It's like, it's so funny in
retrospect. It's like, of course you stop,
you know? But it's like, man, it was not
(46:12):
easy. And I hear you.
It's not. To me, the hardest part is the
the first one is I had no problem admitting I had a
problem. I had a problem admitting my
life was unmanageable, though. That's that second part of that
first step. That was the difficult part for
me because I, I could have made it a fuck load more
unmanageable. There was a lot of things I
(46:33):
could have fucked and there's a lot more I could have made
unmanageable before I decided tostop, you know?
But it was like, this is unmanageable fucking enough, you
know? This is unmanageable enough for
me to stop, you know, remember. You see that?
So I didn't have any problems until I got to making amends.
And there's a lot of women. I was like Nah, fuck.
That I know it's a nightmare. Yeah, it's a nightmare.
(46:54):
It's a nightmare. And.
Yeah, I my my problem was the accountability steps.
The four and fives and six and seven.
That was the hard 1 for me. A lot of people say that that's
really hard. Scared for me, I was.
Let's get it over with. Yeah, mine, it was.
It was. Let's see.
(47:18):
It's comfortable being a victim.It is.
And so living your life is a victim.
Which is what or eliminates basically is you're fucking not
that. There might be one or two things
in your past that you were a victim of, but you're not a
victim. So you have to take massive
(47:38):
bouts of accountability in four and you realize you are
responsible for most of the resentments you've ever had.
And then you that sure made ninea lot easier for me, But it was
like, no, I don't want I don't, I want that person to be wrong.
I don't want to be wrong in thatsituation that I've harbored
resentment for for the last yearand then come to find out, damn,
(47:59):
I'm wrong. I had a or I at least I had a
part, you know, so that that waswhat was difficult for me.
To me, that was you sound like an integral person and I will I
just had lacked integrity. I lacked, I was a child.
I was, I, I, I became a man the day I learned to what
accountability was. And some people are born with
that. Some people have that natural
(48:20):
instinct, but fuck not me, bro. You know, So that's really, you
know, So that's it dude. So you got into the, you got out
of the rooms, you got in the program, you got, you bought in
and did you start working with other guys?
So I was I did online. After I got out of rehab, I did
(48:40):
online stuff. That was COVID.
It was, it was a tail end of COVID that started up in person
meetings again and I was just doing online stuff.
I really didn't want to want to go down and do it.
I had a counselor from Cornerstone challenge me to go
to three in person meetings in aweek.
Yeah, and it did. Like I I take challenges pretty
(49:03):
seriously. Pulled the man card.
There you go. I like that.
I like that. It's like a challenge.
Yeah, I really take challenges on and.
That's a Marine thing, I bet. Yeah.
And then yeah, some of it's thatand then I think some of it's
nurture versus nature, some of it's my nature like always been
a challenge focused person. So I did that and I kind of
(49:24):
just, I kept showing up. That's what it boiled down to.
I didn't like it. It was a lot of people.
It was overwhelming for me to goto large meetings.
That's. It.
And then I remember sitting herethinking, these people aren't
like me. And this is even after 90 days
of being in facility, like thesepeople aren't like me.
Except they aren't. They're just like me, just like
them. But I kept going and I kept
(49:46):
going. I got a service position and I
didn't like doing that either, but I kept doing it and got
phone numbers and and learned a new skill, which was calling
people instead of texting people.
So my current girlfriend says I spend more time on the phone
than anybody she's ever met in her entire life.
(50:07):
And I spend like on a day off, Ispend hours gabbing.
I'm in Elko and it's not in the middle of night.
I gab on the phone with somebodylike it is really soothe the
loneliness that I felt for a long time.
It's a it's a skill. Anybody out there for me, I'm
learning how to make phone calls, just calling whoever it
needs to be and then learning toself soothe when it's the middle
(50:30):
of the night and can't do it. And that's where for me, like
physical fitness, lifting in particular has come in or even
going for a walk, like somethingto keep my mind off meditation.
Like I got a whole bunch of tools in that tool kit that I'll
just reach in and start using two.
And the great thing is, is afterseveral years of doing this now
like I'm not miserable very long.
(50:51):
Like I recognize it quickly and I'm I make adjustments very
quickly so I don't have to feel any extra.
It's as simple as just saying OK, it's not my will when I
start feeling like that. It's like usually when I'm
trying to take take and I'm trying to do it my way.
That's a really good observation.
I'd not put it in the words likethat, yeah, but I have noticed
that for myself. Yeah, and we all do it, man.
(51:12):
Some days it's just unavoidable.Yeah, the only thing I've done
perfect is not drink or do drugs.
That's right. I would want anybody to think
I'm anywhere close to perfect. I'm still pretty fucked up.
Individual. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Capable. Capable of.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But but identifying it as a it's
a major, major feat, you know, So yeah, absolutely.
(51:33):
And now, man, you know what we, what we're doing here is being
able to help that next guy. That's right.
That's the important thing. And there's going to be somebody
that listens to what you have tosay today.
I hope so. That was a big driving force
when John asked me to do this. So I'll say it on here.
He asked me, you want to be on TV and I'm like, no, but but
absolutely I have a responsibility, obligation to
(51:56):
spread the message and spread the best of my ability.
What what I I've been through all my experience and you can do
it. Yeah, because because I the only
reason I knew about the rooms isbecause I have family members in
the rooms. If I didn't have family members
in the rooms, I would have neverknown.
And so we do this so people can hear it in a different platform
(52:17):
and we can talk about recovery in a general way and people can
go, well, how are they doing it?And we're planting a seed here.
So if there's a guy out there that's working on the railroad
or smoking meth or both, this isthe one to listen to because you
know, there's there's somebody that's going to hear and go.
That's exactly my story, man. You know, and I'm struggling the
same way and I don't want to admit defeat or I don't want to
(52:40):
fucking surrender and I don't want to do this or another one
that I have a lot is guys that are Marines.
They those guys, you guys will not fucking.
That's just not surrender is nota is not a word that is
synonymous with marine. We got a class about that in
rehab that was all vets about surrender.
(53:01):
And why is it so difficult for vets Because we're taught
numbers surrender as long and I could totally identify with
that. And that first they use the
example, the one Japanese soldier that stayed on an island
for we'll say till the early 80s, post World War 2, maybe
late mid 70s, I don't remember exactly.
And they had to get his old commanding officer to relieve
(53:22):
him of his duty. He was still attacking Islanders
or wherever he was at, like he was still conducting the war.
Philippines. Yeah, somewhere like that.
Yeah. You're familiar with it and how
successful he was afterwards like so he got relieved and he
went on to be work with his brother as a cattle rancher.
I believe in Brazil successful individual live went on to live
(53:44):
a great life and and maybe I'll boohoo at the time too.
Still new really motivational story for me and like you can
rebuild, you can do I can if he can do it, I can do it.
And then looking at like other people like us talking where I
was at 4 1/2 years ago, it's he can do it, I can do it.
(54:05):
And it's, and it's also you're, you're surrendering to to win.
A surrender to win. Yeah, and that's that's a
concept that's more palatable. The guys that I work with that
are like, no, you're you're losing right now, but you have
to surrender this. Is the battle you can't win,
right? But you can give it up and let
God fight it for you or your higher power.
(54:26):
You can let your higher power fight that battle for you.
Yeah, and he'll win. Yeah, man, That's it.
That's it. Is there a, is there anything
that you'd like to say to maybe a guy that's struggling, maybe
something unique to your story? You know, there's a guy that's
listening to you. What's something you'd tell him
if he was struggling with? Maybe some of the same vices
(54:47):
that you did? To not give up.
It doesn't have to be that way. I hope you hear this and realize
that it does not have to be thisway or the way it is for you.
It can be so much different. Life can be just absolutely
wonderful. I've had my family restored to
me and my life restored to me. If you can surrender and give it
(55:12):
up to God, it's there. It really is.
It doesn't take nothing and justdo it.
Yeah, yeah. I hope your life fucking sucks.
I hope you're miserable, you know?
So yeah, I got to tell you, I wrote a book, it's called the
The Rail Runner, and it's about,it's about me and starting my
(55:37):
starting working with my wife's grandfather when he gave gave me
his position. And it's about railroading.
But it's like also about what ifwe weren't just railroaders?
What if railroad was the cover for an underground criminal
organization of hitmen? And so part of the main part of
(56:01):
the book is about me burying bodies under railroad ties in
the Elko subdivision yard, because that's one of the only
yards that's here that I know real well.
So it's like it's it's I think it's milepost 3O2 is the name of
one of my chapters. Is that Elko?
I'm pretty sure it's Elko. It's three O 2 or it might be
even closer to Wendover, but I know it's out there somewhere.
(56:24):
But anyway, but that's, I just thought you'd think that's
funny. So I got a book for you that
I'll I'll give to you so you canlisten to that and watch that
on. Yeah.
But I really appreciate being here, my friend.
Oh man, thank you for having me.Yeah, and that was?
Absolutely. Absolutely profound and great,
and there's somebody you're going.
To it didn't go any which way I thought it would go.
I didn't have any any expectations.
(56:46):
One thing I've learned to do is manage the expectation.
I find that if I'm having an expectation, I'm trying to take
my will. So if I have 0 expectation, I'm
truly giving it. It's like I'm truly giving it to
my higher power to say this is how this is going to go.
And if I do that, it's never notworked.
I've never had one where I've done it.
If and the ones the episodes I've done where I'm like I have
(57:08):
an agenda or there I'm there's something I'm supposed to, they
fucking suck. But the ones that I'm just like
fucking let's just bullshit for an hour.
Those ones go great. I hope this one does well and
reaches out to somebody. It will.
It absolutely will. There's somebody that's going to
hear this, otherwise God wouldn't have put you here on
the stage, you know, so. When I sat down and prayed
before we did this, I asked for His will so.
(57:30):
My God, you did great. Thank you so much for being
here. We appreciate your time, my
friend. Thank you.
We'll see you next time.
None. I did Norfolk I bought no.
And that's because you're going to pay out with that shit.
I was. I was eyeballing it too.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I did that.
I did that just before, you know, like, you know, I knew it
was happening. So.
But yeah. How long you worked for the
(01:14):
railroad? Bro started in 2011. 2011,
that's what year I graduated high school, bro.
Yeah, dude, yeah. It's been a minute.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool.
Yeah, near on 15 years be 15 years.
What was your first job? In the railroad, first one I
marked up on was actually a rockhauler out of a little place
(01:35):
just South of Mojave Pearblossomthat hauled to Santa Clarita
every night and. Back so it's short line.
No, it was. It was just a rock train.
They loaded at Pearblossom and he took it to Santa Clarita.
With UP. With UP dumped it and came back.
Crazy. Yeah, it was a, it was a high
end job, like a high paying job at one point and they cut all
the miles on it and I ended up, I was the lowest seniority guy
(01:58):
working at the time and that's where I got forced.
That's a short line anywhere else bro.
Like they'd have a short line inthere.
Now they're that that's, I thinklooks like that's how they're
ending it going. Well, I heard that's what
they're going to do with USA Parkway.
Is that true? No.
Yeah, I heard. I heard USA Parkways like at
some point getting it just oh, it's already a short line.
Yeah, our short line. Well, yeah, I mean, it's it's
(02:22):
well, it's better, right? Because don't you guys just want
to be able to fucking pick up and go?
It would be jobs. The loss of the jobs would be
the big thing. Yeah, not my favorite jobs.
Work. I like work in the pool.
I like going to Elko and coming back.
That's the big route, right? Yeah, that's the big route.
Is going here to Elko right but isn't the sub start Sacramento?
(02:45):
The Roseville sub starts over the hill and ends here, and then
it's about a Elko. Got it, got it, got it.
So it's it's OK. I, I don't know why I thought it
was like Sacramento to Wendover was all yours was all.
Oh, in terms of seniority district, yes, My seniority
district goes from Klamath Falls, S to Mojave all the way
(03:06):
to the coast and then out to Winnemucca.
Damn, that's a minute. So how do you deal with that
with not having much days off? Oh, and so I don't protect that
now. When I was new, brand new, I
chased most of that. I didn't work out of the Bay
Area at all. I worked to the Bay Area.
But now it's, yeah, just go homeand manage my rest.
(03:28):
It's one thing I had to learn ismanaging rest.
Yeah. That's real.
Go. Home, go to bed.
Yeah. So how'd you get into recovery?
Because I know, because I were, I'm a railroader, that that's
what you fucking do when you getoff of work, man.
(03:49):
So interesting enough, I was trying to get Rule Jade for a
while, like I didn't have the courage to end it myself to make
the phone call. The the railroads are very
gracious, the class ones, and they will see if we make the
phone call, they'll send us to rehab, pay for it.
So it's a really good deal. But I didn't have the courage to
turn myself in. You felt like a quitter.
Kind of. Well, yeah, I don't even know
(04:09):
fear. I would say a lot of fear of it
and kind of a funny story goes with I got called for an extra
in the middle of the night in March and I showed up to work
wearing a compression shirt and that's it with my yellow thing
and put folded the train together 3:00 AM and it's like
freezing, like literally freezing out 2829° and I'm
drenched in sweat and one of ourmanagers is there and I'm like,
(04:34):
oh thank God it's over. He's going to know.
It's whacked out of my mind. There's no way I got to be
pouring sweat without this, you know, dressed like I am in the
middle of the night. And I hopped into the truck with
him thinking it's all over. And he goes, oh, great job,
buddy. Let's get you to the head in and
get you out of town. And I'm like, roll my eyes and
I'm like, I'm going to have to do this myself.
I mean, I came to that like on that trip and I came back and
(04:59):
party for five days and made thephone call like just it had
enough at that point. I had had enough like.
So there was no real like burning Bush moment.
It was just a profound, like fucking educational.
Well, I when I got to the very end of that party and like, I
was already like I was out of time off.
I was going to get fired for calling out, laying off and
(05:24):
smoke so much meth that I passedout.
Fuck. Yeah, dude, that's hard to do.
Yeah, it's hard to get. And it's hard.
It's. Hard to smoke enough that you're
tired bro. I was, I was feeling sorry for
myself. All the all the ladies that I
was partying with left me. Damn, dude.
So I smoked all a whole bunch ofmeth passed out and I I woke up
and I'm like, what the fuck am Idoing?
(05:45):
Yeah, what am I doing? This is not the life I want to
live. Yeah, reached out to my parents
by text message, you know, and, and gave them all the contact
information. I was like, I'm going to come
back and turn myself in Saturday.
I think it was Saturday by noon.If I don't contact these people,
these are my bosses, you know, Iwon't be able to go to work
(06:06):
unless I get cleaned up. So I knew at that point in time
that like they had enough of me and that they would do that for
me. And so it showed up called, you
know, and that was that. I mean, but I was at that point,
I was ready. I'd lost my kids.
I mean, there's a lot of things that that went to it.
I just my divorce finally finalized about six weeks before
(06:26):
that. And bless my ex wife's heart
that she went after sole custodyand she got primary with
supervised visitation. And that was one of the coup de
(06:48):
I'm super grateful that she was able to get that like a really
like, yeah, anybody can say whatthey will about her, but she is
a big part of my recovery, whether she knows it or not.
That was that was devastating tome.
Those kids were everything to me.
And then not having them. The best lessons are the ones
you get your ass kicked. I would agree.
(07:09):
Like without suffering, without pain, there's no reason to
change. And that's that's my story.
That's a lot of my story. So I made the call went, you
know, like the lady I called, she's like, where do you want to
go? I go send me as far away as I
can so nobody will come pick me up.
They sent me to Knoxville, TN a facility called Cornerstone.
(07:31):
Wonderful place saved my life. Railroad saved my life by
sending me and started with a 30day hitch.
And when I've been there about two weeks, I'm like, I don't
think I'm ready to go back and the railroad will pay for to
stay paid for me to stay in sober living for as long as I
needed to. So I stayed for 90 days total
(07:54):
and then after in house or what do they call it intensive in
whatever intensive outpatient treatment afterwards for another
60 days and came home and still wasn't.
I didn't feel like I was ready to go back to work like the
railroad industry For me personally with the lifestyle
and schedule, I needed more timelike I could just, that's where
(08:17):
I was at with that. And so I called the VA and the
VA, if there's anybody there is out there that doesn't know that
it's struggling with any substance abuse programs and
you're a veteran, they're wonderful.
Called them. They set me up with an intake
appointment like within a day ortwo.
You know, they didn't end doc with like a psychiatrist or
(08:37):
whatever. They are case manager and they
actually had me in another intensive outpatient program
within a week. And so I did another man.
It was like 3 months of the first level and then two months
of the second level, Yeah, before the railroad let me come
back to work. So I mean, overall, I was gone a
little over seven months before they let me come back, and I
(08:58):
needed every minute of it, yeah.Yeah.
Did you ever swing a sledgehammer with the railroad?
No, never. I'm lazy, Yeah, yeah.
Get on trains. Yeah, maybe not lazy, but yeah.
My first week of learning was fucking brutal, man.
Yeah, yeah, I was. I was 2027 when I started on the
railroad and it was fucking. All this is trying to get on
(09:21):
with maintenance. He wants to do MOW.
He, he really, he sees the valueof having a career with the
benefits and the railroad. They are what they are, but the
bills or the checks don't bounce.
And they've been really good to me and my family, I mean.
Recession proof. Yeah.
And then once, once we have seniority, the recession is not,
(09:44):
I mean, we're slow right now andit's not an issue to me.
And my heart goes out to the newer people who don't have
seniority yet. But it's we've all been there
and we've. All been there, man.
Yeah. Like there's a guy complaining
about he's on the edge of not being able to work sparks
anymore. And I was like, you know, boohoo
cry. Like it took me 7 years to be
able to work here. The good jobs here, like, yeah,
(10:06):
yeah, falling on deaf ears of that.
Yeah, it is a little bit of that.
So is has your son ever considered working for one of
the contractors around here? Because there's mountain states.
It's one of I work a lot directly with the mountain
states. I don't know if you know
mountain states. They do, they do a lot of the
track maintenance for your UP from from.
I mean, I was just saying all the tracks over there by Empire,
(10:32):
Nevada, Nevada Gold, all that they, they do a lot of the the
maintenance for some of the Subs.
I don't know any of those and. Because that's a great way to
get on and get your foot in the door.
Too right, That would be wonderful for him like he's he's
a super proud of him, like for the adversity that he's been
through, like he is a hard working.
How old is he? He's 18.
Man doing perfect time. Doing concrete full time swing
(10:53):
and sledgehammer, brother. Yeah, he's yeah.
He's. So he he's taller than me and he
got like excellent genetics. He's like 6, 46 foot 5.
There's a few men that I look upto.
He's one of them. Right.
Gotcha. He's about.
Yeah. I think he's like 80 lbs lighter
than me. He's super muscular.
Yeah. He's like me when I was in the
Marine Corps, you know, 30 yearsago.
(11:15):
Muscular. Tall.
Norwegian somewhere? Yeah, just.
Yeah, I love it, dude. That's cool.
Yeah. So.
Yeah, he lives with me and I love living with him.
It's been so awesome to be able to have him back in my life and
live with him and build a relationship with him, but at
the same time, really ready for him to go and build his own
life. Yeah, fuck.
(11:36):
Out bro. That's stable.
Go ahead, do do what you need todo and and come back if you need
to. But I hope you don't.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We talk about it all the time,
like he's not going to hear anything.
But yeah, them boys. Yeah, well, let me ask you this.
You know you're a Marine. Did the drinking start there
before there? Way before.
Where are you from? Omak, Washington.
(11:58):
Omak Little town, eastern side by Kennewick.
No NN OK. Like probably 45 minutes from
the Canadian border. Like, OK, yeah, way.
So I work at a short line in, doyou know Kettle Falls?
Yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah, I work in a short line at Kettle Falls.
Really. Yep.
Really. That's awesome.
Yeah, we, I used to drive through there to go to my
(12:19):
grandparents. That's one.
Of the prettiest railroads I work at is it's cool but it's
also the scariest because of thefucking bears.
Bro, that's the only. One up there, Big grizzly.
Fuck yeah I've seen one and it'slike I walked track in when did
when did they start hibernate? In the fall and I've walked
track in the middle of fucking like hibernating time and
(12:42):
they're like, hey bro, you picked the worst time to come
walk track with us in DesolationWilderness in northern
Washington. Yeah, so.
But yeah, that's one of my. Favorites.
You can totally see that. Yeah, yeah, that's one of my
favorite. So that's a beautiful area to
grow up, bro. Really.
Yeah. I had an idyllic childhood.
My parents are awesome. Like middle class upbringing.
I discovered alcohol. I think I was in 7th grade.
(13:07):
Yeah, yeah, me too. Curious about it.
And, and you know, I'd, I'd steal a beer from my dad here
and there. And then I discovered, was it
vanilla? It's like 35% alcohol, like
cooking vanilla. And my mom would buy pints of it
to cook with. We'd go to Costco in Spokane and
she'd buy pints of it because she baked a lot.
And damn, what? So the first time I got drunk
(13:31):
was off of vanilla. Yeah, no, dude, that was
terrible, terrible, terrible. But also fell fell kind of in
love with it. And, and so growing up, my
earliest memories, memories werealways a feeling different and,
and a lack of social skills and being introverted.
Like I'm, I'm quite introverted at this point in my life and I
(13:54):
was not OK with it when I was younger and alcohol allowed me
to be something I wasn't wantingme to open up.
And that's whole kind of like since I started so early, my
whole social development based off of alcohol.
I mean, I started then my it wasn't that they didn't
(14:15):
supervise me. I was just that kind of kid that
was just an asshole kid really, really was like did my own thing
most of the time. And they're also on my dad more
old school. Like I had a job take care of
business, then I got to do pretty much whatever I want.
I did whatever I wanted most forthe most part.
So you partied pretty much your whole job?
Yeah, not, not super outwardly until I got in high school, but
(14:38):
yes, yeah, I had to be like my mom when I got caught with my
mom a couple times, came home high, marijuana high one time.
And they were more, they were super upset about that.
Like it was a big deal in Eastern Washington state in the
mid 90s. Yeah, he's back on the vanilla.
Yeah. Yeah, and I could.
The people I worked with would buy me hard liquors.
(15:00):
So I drank lots of hard liquor and play PlayStation.
Not PlayStation, Genesis, Genesis back then.
So when did you get into the Marines?
Was this a way to kind of clean you up a little bit?
So the college really wasn't going to be an option for me at
that time because I could not. I could barely get myself to
school and I needed something todo.
(15:21):
My parents had moved from Omak down to Clear Lake, California.
Got. It.
And had looked at the Air Force and the Air Force wanted me to
be, I don't know, like 198 lbs. And I would think it was 265
football. Wyman, pretty good.
I'm pretty OK at that. And yeah, and the Marines were
(15:41):
like, oh, we'll take you as you are.
There you. Go and once a Marine always when
they sold me out they saw me coming away right and yeah ate
it up. Marines, hardcore drinkers,
partiers. And that I really, really did
until I got, I did get in trouble when I was like 20 years
old, went to a Halloween party dressed in drag, a bunch of my
(16:03):
friends, right? And.
I got duty. Active duty.
Oh yeah, it's down to Hume, Arizona, where station.
We went to a party out on the river.
Hell yeah. All this dress we went to
Goodwill bought, you know, they're all three, three other
guys my size. And we went and partied and I
drank a ton of Soco to the pointthat I blacked out and I fought
(16:24):
with them when they wanted me togo back to the barracks.
They kicked my ass, tied me up with my shoelaces and threw me
in the back of the truck. We came in and they're driving
back. I hopped out, rolled down the
rolled out on the highway and ran into a Circle K and told the
cashier they're trying to kill me.
(16:45):
Oh shit. Yeah.
And so he locked them out. They stopped and tried to come
get me and they called the base.Base on duty officer came down,
made me go to the hospital and they sent me, they made me go to
rehab At that point. I actually got sober at that
point for about a decade was in that range.
I don't know exactly how long itwas, but I was white knuckling
(17:09):
it. I was not drinking or using
anything, but I was absolutely miserable.
And now I can look back and I can see it, but I couldn't
figure it out what was going on at that point in my life for a
frustrated the hell out of me. And then even even my own
behaviors like through my marriage and the things I was
doing, destroying my family, stuff like that.
(17:31):
I could I remember just sitting there going why?
Why am I like this? Why can't I stop doing this?
Why over and over? Why do I keep repeating these
stupid behaviors that I do not want to do over and over and
over again? Yeah.
And it ended up costing me literally everything I had at
one point. I had the American dream plus,
like, everything, the house, thecars, you know, dirt bikes, all
(17:52):
that stuff. And it doesn't mean anything if
we can't appreciate it. I didn't appreciate it at all at
all. Right.
Yeah, no, yeah, I think, I thinkthat's a big factor in in
spiritual deficiency is not realizing what you got.
So I totally understand that, you know.
Yeah, I mean, so I think about you.
(18:13):
Don't. You're missing a God sized hole,
right? Huge empty hole.
Yeah. I quote a lot of of movies and I
think about Tombstone when they're talking about when Doc
Holiday is talking about Johnny Ringo and this big empty hole
inside. And I felt that way for a really
long time. There's just something missing.
I I don't have a piece of me. I love that movie.
Love it too. We quote it in my house.
(18:33):
We quote it all the time. We quote a lot of movies.
There's a Have you ever been to White Herb's house?
I have not. That's right in outside of
Parker, Arizona. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, but yeah, I that's that's fucking, that's it.
That's like, I couldn't say it, say it any better than myself.
Yeah, It's, it's my disease. I never nothing's enough, bro.
(18:54):
Nothing's enough. And and I'll fill it with
whatever I can to escape that feeling that nothing's enough.
And that's drugs, alcohol, money, women, gambling, whatever
it is, dude. And I finally just had to do the
same thing you did and make a decision to fill it with
somebody else's will that's not my own, you know?
And that fucking that, sure, that sure helps me have a
(19:16):
reprieve every day, you know, so.
Yeah, I was. I wasn't sure if I was going to
mention God or not, but God has done what I could not do.
We have done and God has done. God has done it.
And that was that was kind of myfirst purpose in life after I
got clean. And I use clean a lot instead of
sober. I use them synonymously.
But me too, they're the same. And and so part of what I always
(19:40):
say with that is it's a symptom,right?
And it's a symptom of the problem.
The problem is me, right? I qualify for every fucking
broker, right? You know what I'm saying?
Right? Right.
Well, yeah. Interesting.
So, like, my first purpose was to live for the greater, goalier
God at that point, like I got clean against all odds.
Now I have a responsibility to stay clean.
Exactly. And yeah, like you talked about
(20:01):
everything's. A problem for me, like I'm the
problem because I can't manage myself with money, women, drugs,
you name it. I mean, it can be.
It's as ridiculous as like goingto work too much, like losing
the balance of going to work. Working out is a huge thing for
me. I will overdo it with working
out, eating, going over the top on diet and then alienating
(20:24):
everybody because now I got to stay on a strict diet and now I
can't do any fellowship because fellowship or eating is a big
part of fellowship, at least forthe.
People going out afterwards, Yeah, you're right, you're
right. It is kind of the meeting after
the meeting. And even with my my peer group,
like no I can't have pizza. So now I'm isolating myself over
(20:45):
something I could die over, justbe in vain at that point.
Like if I'm going to be thick, I'm going to be thick and I'm
going to have a good life at this point.
So you work out a lot now I do work out a lot, that stuff.
That's one of the things I, I mean, I always loved working
out, but I really, really got into it in.
Recovery and you fucking. You're not MOW bro.
Come on, you know you'd be greatat swinging sledgehammers with.
(21:07):
This. I don't know about all that.
Yeah, I thought I'd probably show up, be like, Nah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll just go ahead.
I'll let me go back up in that cab and I'll wait for you guys.
You. Can take a nap and the high rail
dude and Yep, Yep, no, I hear you bro.
That's cool. So how long are you in the
service for? I just did my 4:00 and I was 9.
(21:29):
Got it, Cool. And then right to the railroad,
huh? Actually, no.
I got out and kind of looked at going to nursing school and
using my GI Bill, but again I was just like not ready to do
school and school isn't for me at this point in my life.
Like a four year or even 2 year program is not going to probably
be for me in this life. So I got into, I started at a
(21:52):
carpet warehouse here in town and one of the husbands of one
of the people that worked there was looking for framers.
And I called and talked to him and he hired me as a laborer
like 3 weeks after I started thecarpet warehouse.
So I framed for seven years, worked myself up from being a
(22:13):
laborer to a foreman by the timethat company closed like almost
traumatic and the Great Recession, like just literally
closed overnight. Oh.
One second positive. Pretty good.
What happened? It's trying.
To focus on your face hitting his jaw.
Supposed to his focus. Focus on my face.
No, like it's like it's wigging out.
(22:35):
They're leaving. Yeah, it's wigging.
Like, is it is that the AI thingon?
Maybe I just turned it off and did it fix it.
OK, All right. Anyway, sorry, bro.
Oh. No, it's all good.
It's all good. It's like man, right We.
Were with it. Yeah, we do bro.
The yes. So I did framing.
I actually loved framing, loved framing.
And then after that went about, we went down really good friend
(22:58):
of mine, Brian, we went in business together and we're
doing contracting kind of mini general contract, doing anything
we could get at that point in time, slowly starving to death.
And I was super frustrated with it.
And I called another friend of mine and I'd forgotten I'd
applied for the railroad in like05.
(23:18):
He's like, well, why not try applying for the railroad again?
And I did. That was at the end of 2010,
very end interviewed I think January 25th of 2011 and got
hired. I mean the rest of history.
Where'd you you get hired here? Yeah, I got here.
So you moved. Oh well, when I got out of the
Marine Corps, I moved up here because my parents were here.
(23:39):
Got it, got it. Got it, Got it, got it, Got it.
Yeah. So they moved from Clear Lake
back over to yeah. I like Clear Lake.
When I was deployed, I didn't like Clear.
You didn't like it? Yeah, they didn't like it
either. It was a culture shock coming
from Eastern Washington state. Yeah, any, anything from
Washington to California it. Was a.
It was a big change. And the further South you go
and, you know, that's funny. Yeah.
(24:00):
I get Reno's. Reno's Reno reminds me a lot of
Spokane, believe it or not. Like Spokane and Reno to me,
have a lot of similarities, a lot of tweakers, college towns.
But I I that's one of my favorite places to visit.
It's one that Spokane, I like. I like Coeur d'alane.
Coeur d'alane's probably my favorite.
Yeah, I've. Been Spokane 16 years.
(24:22):
Bro they got a big short line there.
Cath Kids, Cooley and. Yeah, Washington Eastern, it's a
Cooley that whole line. It's I think it stops at the dam
in cool. I think that's where the end of
their line is and it gets pickedup by the end.
(24:42):
But yeah, that's that's one of my big customers.
Washington Eastern is the name of the railroad, and there's
also, they also have the Oregon Eastern as well.
But yeah, I mean, I just, I don't know.
I love it up there. I love wandering around that
part of Washington. I do not like the other part of
Washington, except for Olympia. That's cool.
But yeah, I stay out of Seattle if I can.
(25:04):
You know, I have, I have, I havethe transit systems there, but
some of those. But Seattle's rough, bro.
This is Jacob, the host of the 4th St.
Live podcast and my new book, The Rail Runner, inspired by my
life on the railroad and being arailroad contractor, is now for
sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Please go check out my new storyif you're looking to escape
(25:26):
reality for a few hours. It's a great read.
Support a local Reno author. Thanks so much.
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(26:09):
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(26:31):
I haven't been to Seattle since probably 97.
Since you were a kid, huh? Yeah, since I was.
A kid. You're not missing anything,
bro, in my opinion, you know what I mean?
Some people probably love it, you know?
I got a cousin that lives up there in like, Port Orchard or
Bethlehem. What is it?
Beth Bellingham. Bellingham, yeah.
North way north of Seattle, right?
Yeah, he's up there. He works at the shipyards up
there. That ass.
Yeah, that's a good job. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(26:53):
That's cool, man. So you started on the railroad
and you didn't stop partying, I'm guessing?
So actually I had stopped, got married and it started on the
railroad and I made it about a year, year and a half on the
railroad before I started drinking again and get out to
Elko and out there. And you smoked meth yet?
(27:16):
No, no, great. All right, here we go.
Just just drinks. It was like 20-12 ish that I
picked up alcohol again in that time frame.
And it was just one or two at first right with the guys.
Oh come on, you can, you can have a drink.
And I, I avoided it for about a year and one night I finally
just like, Nah, fuck it, I'm going to have a drink.
And it went from one or two to asix pack within probably 3 weeks
(27:39):
to a month. And then after that it was a 12
pack every time I'd go out to Elko.
And then I got one of those little portable breathalyzer
things and I figured out that like depending on I worked.
Just for fun. No, to make sure that I could
blow clean when I was going to work the next day.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can only go one of two
(28:02):
ways, right? You can only go forward it
backwards. How he fucked that up.
Yeah, I get you. So that's yeah.
And I'm just speaking for myselfthat I did.
That was my tactic and I knew how much I could drink with the
hours time to when I went to work and that was regular
scheduled local. I went to Elko and went back to
(28:23):
Winamam, started Winamaka, stayed the night and Elko came
back the next day back to Winamaka and worked that for
about 2 1/2 years. It's kind of a cool route.
And it actually really was. It's gone now like how it's set
up was then. Business now it's Reno there to
Elko isn't. It no they still they want to
run one from Winnemucca ish likeBiawawi and then one from Elko I
(28:46):
think the battle mountain or something like that.
Got it, Got it. Something like that.
And so it's not like it used to be was awesome job.
Awesome job at the time. Yeah.
Yeah, not a not a ton of work. Got to get away.
I really like getting away from.It's beautiful, Yeah.
God, it's beautiful. That's a beautiful.
That's a beautiful drive, even to me.
I love the desert so. And then we, then my family, we
(29:08):
moved from Sparks to Winnemucca,Alive Kids bought a house out
there and I worked every day at 6:00 in the morning and I would
get home and start drinking, youknow, drink as much as I knew I
could. And she was really unaware of
how much I was drinking. It's really hit it pretty well
from her. It just went downhill from
(29:28):
there. Downhill from there.
And how about meth was in? In Winnemucca.
In Winnemucca derailed a train in 2018 all right so when we all
on the ground let's. Break this down.
Was it gauge or what was it? What's that?
Why did you derail it? Because we were 13 over.
(29:51):
Oh fuck. Yeah, it's caused a problem.
Anyways, we didn't, we didn't know we were 13.
We thought we were 60 mile an hour train that it got up to 63.
We were actually 50. That's another story there.
And so and so with that, there'sbeing pulled out of service for
that. Part of that is a match class
(30:11):
which is in Roseville. So I knew I was going to go to
Roseville. I knew I had a date and time.
I was going to go to Roseville. So I got online, got on a dating
site and was going to find some fun while I was in Roseville.
I mean this is what I did. Got you.
Yeah, Yeah. I was writing proper alcoholic
and mind you, I was married at times.
So yeah, just a lowlife, just a little life.
(30:34):
And so I met a girl over there and she came over in a hotel
room. We drank, talk bullshitted, I
didn't do anything else, but I fell in love like that.
You know how addicts fall in love, right?
Instantaneous fell in love and ended up wrecking everything for
this girl and found out later that after I wrecked everything
(31:00):
that she smoked meth regularly and I didn't do it right away
but the divorce was going on like I didn't get my kids name
with me anymore and that was a huge part of my life.
My kids were one of the things that kept me going for years and
years and years. As bad as it was for them
they'll talk about it wasn't good for them either.
(31:20):
They kept me going. And when I had lost them, I was
like, fuck it, I want to try that.
Like, looks like you got your life together, right.
Like, not at all. I can't keep a job living with
me. Yeah.
And it was one hit. I was up for three days.
And I've been depressed most of my adult life.
(31:44):
And even as a kid, I remember just kind of feeling depressed
and down. Instantaneous relief of that.
And I literally like I, I will say that meth instantaneously
delivered me for my alcoholism because alcohol just became a
second thought after one hit. It was that psychologically
addictive for me. And at that point, this was
(32:05):
early 2019 that I did that. I thought right away I had to
call and turn myself in because I cannot give this up.
I could not give it up. I had to do 2 more years of it
before I was ready to give it up.
In which lost everything but thejob with UP like we were we were
down to that. That's where I was at that level
that yeah. You're lucky you got that bro.
(32:28):
Really, really fortunate to havethat.
Really fortunate. Yeah, cuz there's yeah.
That I would I would not shy about doing it at work.
I was trying to get caught and just wasn't working out for me
and like I said, I ended up having to just turn myself in.
And you did? I did.
And then just went down to Knoxville.
Wow, bro. And so was it instant after
(32:49):
that? Was it clicked?
Were you able, were you able to admit that you had a problem and
that your life was unmanageable?That I had a problem with
alcohol and I knew I had a problem with meth.
I was resolved to the fact that I was going to be an addict for
the rest of my life and I wasn'tgoing to be able to quit.
(33:11):
I read stuff on. I tried for two years to quit.
Like as soon as I got hooked on I was trying to quit.
I mean trying to quit. It's that cool.
And I read on Reddit and I was reading online like the we all
know the odds of quitting are are not good.
I read online that was defeatistfor me and people saying you
never really get over it, there's no hope.
(33:31):
So I was reading all the wrong stuff.
I do remember at one point, about six months before I got
clean, a former Co worker of mine, I saw he picked up a year
of clean time and he lives out in Winnemucca.
And I'm asking him on Facebook and I'm like, bro, how the fuck
did you do it? You were as big a junkie as I
am. You were and you were like, how
(33:52):
the fuck did you do it? He's like, oh, well, I'm your
temporary sponsor. You're going to go to 90
meetings in 90 days. You know what?
My response was right. Yeah, I'm not going to do that.
I'm not ready to do that. He was working on the railroad
when he got a one year. No, no, he'd, he'd quit.
He, he'd been gone from the railroad for probably five years
at that point. Got it.
(34:12):
And that's what cost him his joblike.
Damn, see, that's that's how it could.
Have he got it together? Like I thought he was hopeless.
Yeah, bro. Like I was hopeless.
Like we've all been hopeless. Well, I'll speak only for me
like, but looking at him, like when he was going through it, I
thought he was hopeless. And I'm like, I'm not an addict
like that at least, right? Except.
Oh man, I am. We'll talk about that too.
(34:32):
Yeah, that's we talk about that.The the the theft is the
comparison of joy. It's like, what did I say?
Did I say theft is the comparison of joy?
No, I meant comparison is the theft of joy is what I meant to
say. Comparison is the theft of.
Joy. That's when you start.
When I start comparing myself, yeah, is when I I lose track of
(34:55):
like, what am I? Absolutely.
That's exactly it bro, as I my bottom is not going to be the
same as the guy behind me's bottom and I think that's why we
share our experience, strength and hope.
I think that is at the simplest I can make it is why we talk and
tell our fucking nut shot nut job crazy stories is so that you
(35:18):
can identify with it and go that's not too far and say I
don't know if I need to do that.I get that fucking bad and I
don't know if I need to smoke meth and blow my life away and
not you have my kids taken away from me, but like I hear what
you're saying and that wasn't far away from where I was at and
(35:38):
that was that was a couple bad days of being right fucking
there with you, dude. That's all it would have taken.
So it's I think that's what we do is we say this is my bottom.
You don't got to get this bad and you can stop right where
you're at and and and do it there, you know, So no, I
totally hear you. So he you said 90 meetings in 90
days, you didn't go do that? No, no, fuck that.
(35:59):
I was still partying it up. I was miserable my life before.
So you got out. Did you keep partying?
What's that when you got out? No, no, no.
This is before rehab. Before I got it.
Yeah, yeah. So I was like, no, fuck yeah.
I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it at all.
Yeah. And it I was able about a month
after that, I got myself 60 dayswhite knuckle in it.
And then we had my divorce trialand yeah, that night, that was
(36:24):
it. And I, that was the worst three
months of my life following that.
So that was early November 2020 and I went till March 17th, 2021
is my clean date. So I went hardcore balls to the
wall from that date to that. Didn't even try to quit, like I
was not reserved, but relegated to the fact that I was going to
(36:46):
die from addiction and let's just get it over with.
Like I was trying to seeking my death or any kind of help and it
was not working out for me. I'm not at all.
So God stepped in when I smoked all that meth so much that I
passed out. Yeah, that's like that moment of
clarity when I woke up like that.
Definitely fine intervention to say what the fuck are you doing?
(37:09):
Doesn't have to be this way it. Doesn't.
Bro doesn't have to be this way.That's crazy.
That's one that's hard to get off too bro.
Did you have any symptoms comingoff?
Did you get any withdrawals anything like that or were you
doing pretty good? To me the withdrawals
withdrawals were this, it was this, it was the fixate, it was
the oral fixation. It was the is the.
Is the is the things that came with it my church in the parking
(37:32):
lot. As well.
Right, right before, right before.
Yeah, right before, right beforegetting going to the airport,
get on the plane. Yeah.
You know, met my parents and my pastor there and we're going to
do communion for me before I went and.
And yeah, so I smoked the rest of what I had, I mean, got high,
high, high, high. So I.
Want you guys to picture this? He got fucking high in the
(37:52):
parking lot to go inside to takecommunion with his mom in the
pastor dude in. Santa, right?
Were you just were you just was your jaw just crook bro, you
know? I know I did.
I don't really. Yeah.
Remember fucking, you know? Yeah, that's my favorite too,
you know? So I got to the rehab facility
like 8 hours later, right? I'm fucked out of my mind still
(38:13):
just whacked. Yeah, my blood pressure shoes
are rough and they're like, well, you got to take a Klonopin
to bring you down, right? And I told him no.
And one of. The great let me ride this
bitch. Bro, one of the great things
about going to rehab on the railroads diamonds that if you
tell them no or refuse to comply, you lose your job.
(38:34):
You can sit home, you lose your job, right?
They don't. They don't mess around.
That's what they told me. You know we don't mess.
So if you run away, yeah, If youleave any of that, yeah, you're
out, you're out. So you're you got a lot to lose.
Got a lot to lose. So I'm like they they reminded
me, well, you have to do this. You're going to lose your job
fine. And I never was into Downers
other than alcohol and and it wiped the floor with me.
(38:57):
The next whole next day is just a blur And they put me in
general population because there's not really any detox for
meth. It's just get it out of your
system. So it's hard, hard for me to
sleep over 9 months to sleep more than about an hour and a
half, two hours a night for me personally, I don't know if this
is there everybody, but this is me personally.
Hour and a half, two hours a night at a time was the Max I
(39:21):
could sleep for a long time. Pain, like latent pain like I've
heard people say, the opioids are a great painkiller and I
never messed with opioids much. The meth was an awesome
painkiller for me. So when I got off of it, all
this latent pain came screaming back.
I was really miserable for a couple weeks with that, and then
(39:46):
emotional. Everything made me cry.
Just everything made me cry. Yeah, wouldn't want to go
through it again sober stands for Son of a Bitch.
Everything is real, Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I remember doing so. I did a rehab, rehab steps and
my first one. You know, talking about all the
things I didn't have control of and things I did.
(40:07):
And the one that really, really,really like got me to the core
was I. My son had left his Xbox at my
house and I sold it so I could buy drugs, right?
Oh, I got some cool stories likethat too, yeah.
Yeah, I don't know if that's a cool story.
No, I know. I was saying now that we can
talk. About it, we can own it, but
yeah, it was not. Oh, it just tore me up.
(40:27):
I mean, just of all of all the low stuff I'd done in my life,
all the fucked up low shit like this is the thing that really,
really fucking killed me at thatpoint in time.
And it just blubbering and I wasreally.
That's exactly how you were supposed to feel, I.
Was really resistant to rehab for about 7 days and one night
like I was just over it, didn't want to be there anymore.
(40:49):
It was hurting, miserable comingoff of it, emotional.
And I, I got down on my knees and prayed to God and asked him
to take it from me. And if this is your will, then
I'll, I'll do what I need to do.And the next morning I woke up
and it was a, a bright new startfor me, like a, like a complete
switch and flip. I wrote the prayer down when I
(41:11):
was there and it's, I have it hanging up on my wall at this
point. It's hung up on the wall like
it's a big deal for me, a reallybig deal.
Like totally divine intervention.
And I know people say, well, whatever God this, God that
God's real God saved my life. Yeah.
Yeah, and if that, and if you'relistening here and that word
(41:32):
freaks you out, call it whateveryou want.
It's just got to be bigger than you and you can call it whatever
the fuck you want. I use that term as well because
it's just the easiest one. But the to me, believing in
something bigger, bigger than you is the only way to truly
(41:52):
live in not your own will. I guess I could say, you know,
so I agree with you. And to that effect, too, they
used an example because God, higher power is difficult for a
lot of us. It was not difficult for me, but
it's the one a lot of us get hung up on.
One of the examples they used atCornerstone was a young man who
used a fire extinguisher as a higher power, something outside
(42:15):
of him and more powerful than heis.
And it worked for him and he progressed and and grew from
there. I use Eric Clapton did did you?
I did 'cause they said, 'cause there was a thing on the
graffiti thing. Innocent Clapton is God.
And I remember watching a movie,I was like, I'll make Clapton my
God so I can, you know. But then now it's it's not that
anymore. I love Clapton, but it's not
(42:37):
that anymore. But now it's just God.
But I hear you. It really just has to be
something to be a fucking dormer.
And, and I will like especially in a, in more formalized
recovery setting, I definitely use higher power over God.
And it's not not to offend people, it's 'cause I want don't
want people to lose that in the message.
Yeah, but in private or one-on-one, I am very God
(42:58):
centric. Me too.
And yeah, and I that's exactly what I do as well.
And it's also, it was also the biggest.
It was a turn off for me. It was like, this is fucking a
religious program or this is fucking like, it was taboo.
It was like fucking listening tosomebody trying to sell me a
Jehovah's Witness pamphlet at mydoor.
I was like, and then guess what happened?
(43:20):
I got sober and the promises didn't come true in my life and
my life didn't get better. I just cuz I was sober nothing
got better you know? Nothing got nothing improved
nothing felt better. The hole in my chest was there
and I didn't have alcohol to numb it anymore, so it was worse
(43:42):
just being sober and it's miserable.
It's a miserable. Existence it is and.
And when I finally figured out the rest, God damn, it sure sure
got better. You know, it sure didn't feel
like that anymore. And I found a higher power and
find something to believe in. It was bigger than myself and
try to make a conscious contact with him and turn my will in my
life over to that is like now when it's not that it feels like
(44:07):
driving a car without power steering.
And it's crazy because I live that way.
You driving a car without power steering for the most of my
life, you know, and now it feelsit.
You can, you can tell. So I mean, yeah, you hit it
right on the head. So how long did it take for you
to get in this into recovery, you know, after that?
Was it right into the book? Was it right into the steps?
(44:29):
Was it? I did full by him like that was
my commitment to myself. There was full by him like I'm
done with this this bullshit. Like I did not believe when I
got to rehab, just like I didn'tbelieve my friend that I called
it a year that a person could get any time clean time.
And when we had counselors and people coming in and saying, and
they had 2-3, five years of clean time, I was like, fuck
(44:50):
you. That's impossible.
And then I, I saw these people living like, well, they explain
having, living excellent lives and being happy, like genuinely
happy, like being able to see a smile on their face and they're
happy and they're happy to see us and we're miserable, right?
And I'd like, maybe there's something to this.
(45:11):
And so I did the buy in. I did the buy in.
And not to lie to anybody out there, it's fucking hard.
It's not easy. And I was reading a passage here
just in the last week about a lot of people think it's hard to
get clean, but there the passagewas like, it's harder to stay
clean. Yeah.
(45:31):
I'm laughing because I'm like, thinking back to when I was new,
like now fuck you. It's pretty fucking hard to get
cleaned. Like, it took everything I had
to get clean, and I still wouldn't have been able to do it
without God, without my family, without rehab, without a
program, with all, without my community and all the people I
can talk to. And like, really, all I did was
(45:52):
show up. The credit that I can take is
having at least enough tenacity to keep showing up.
Even when I didn't want to, evenwhen it hurt, even when I was
miserable, I kept showing up. Yeah.
That's it. That's it.
And it's as simple as running out of a burning building, bro.
Yeah. It's like, it's so funny in
retrospect. It's like, of course you stop,
you know? But it's like, man, it was not
(46:12):
easy. And I hear you.
It's not. To me, the hardest part is the
the first one is I had no problem admitting I had a
problem. I had a problem admitting my
life was unmanageable, though. That's that second part of that
first step. That was the difficult part for
me because I, I could have made it a fuck load more
unmanageable. There was a lot of things I
(46:33):
could have fucked and there's a lot more I could have made
unmanageable before I decided tostop, you know?
But it was like, this is unmanageable fucking enough, you
know? This is unmanageable enough for
me to stop, you know, remember. You see that?
So I didn't have any problems until I got to making amends.
And there's a lot of women. I was like Nah, fuck.
That I know it's a nightmare. Yeah, it's a nightmare.
(46:54):
It's a nightmare. And.
Yeah, I my my problem was the accountability steps.
The four and fives and six and seven.
That was the hard 1 for me. A lot of people say that that's
really hard. Scared for me, I was.
Let's get it over with. Yeah, mine, it was.
It was. Let's see.
(47:18):
It's comfortable being a victim.It is.
And so living your life is a victim.
Which is what or eliminates basically is you're fucking not
that. There might be one or two things
in your past that you were a victim of, but you're not a
victim. So you have to take massive
(47:38):
bouts of accountability in four and you realize you are
responsible for most of the resentments you've ever had.
And then you that sure made ninea lot easier for me, But it was
like, no, I don't want I don't, I want that person to be wrong.
I don't want to be wrong in thatsituation that I've harbored
resentment for for the last yearand then come to find out, damn,
(47:59):
I'm wrong. I had a or I at least I had a
part, you know, so that that waswhat was difficult for me.
To me, that was you sound like an integral person and I will I
just had lacked integrity. I lacked, I was a child.
I was, I, I, I became a man the day I learned to what
accountability was. And some people are born with
that. Some people have that natural
(48:20):
instinct, but fuck not me, bro. You know, So that's really, you
know, So that's it dude. So you got into the, you got out
of the rooms, you got in the program, you got, you bought in
and did you start working with other guys?
So I was I did online. After I got out of rehab, I did
(48:40):
online stuff. That was COVID.
It was, it was a tail end of COVID that started up in person
meetings again and I was just doing online stuff.
I really didn't want to want to go down and do it.
I had a counselor from Cornerstone challenge me to go
to three in person meetings in aweek.
Yeah, and it did. Like I I take challenges pretty
(49:03):
seriously. Pulled the man card.
There you go. I like that.
I like that. It's like a challenge.
Yeah, I really take challenges on and.
That's a Marine thing, I bet. Yeah.
And then yeah, some of it's thatand then I think some of it's
nurture versus nature, some of it's my nature like always been
a challenge focused person. So I did that and I kind of
(49:24):
just, I kept showing up. That's what it boiled down to.
I didn't like it. It was a lot of people.
It was overwhelming for me to goto large meetings.
That's. It.
And then I remember sitting herethinking, these people aren't
like me. And this is even after 90 days
of being in facility, like thesepeople aren't like me.
Except they aren't. They're just like me, just like
them. But I kept going and I kept
(49:46):
going. I got a service position and I
didn't like doing that either, but I kept doing it and got
phone numbers and and learned a new skill, which was calling
people instead of texting people.
So my current girlfriend says I spend more time on the phone
than anybody she's ever met in her entire life.
(50:07):
And I spend like on a day off, Ispend hours gabbing.
I'm in Elko and it's not in the middle of night.
I gab on the phone with somebodylike it is really soothe the
loneliness that I felt for a long time.
It's a it's a skill. Anybody out there for me, I'm
learning how to make phone calls, just calling whoever it
needs to be and then learning toself soothe when it's the middle
(50:30):
of the night and can't do it. And that's where for me, like
physical fitness, lifting in particular has come in or even
going for a walk, like somethingto keep my mind off meditation.
Like I got a whole bunch of tools in that tool kit that I'll
just reach in and start using two.
And the great thing is, is afterseveral years of doing this now
like I'm not miserable very long.
(50:51):
Like I recognize it quickly and I'm I make adjustments very
quickly so I don't have to feel any extra.
It's as simple as just saying OK, it's not my will when I
start feeling like that. It's like usually when I'm
trying to take take and I'm trying to do it my way.
That's a really good observation.
I'd not put it in the words likethat, yeah, but I have noticed
that for myself. Yeah, and we all do it, man.
(51:12):
Some days it's just unavoidable.Yeah, the only thing I've done
perfect is not drink or do drugs.
That's right. I would want anybody to think
I'm anywhere close to perfect. I'm still pretty fucked up.
Individual. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Capable. Capable of.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But but identifying it as a it's
a major, major feat, you know, So yeah, absolutely.
(51:33):
And now, man, you know what we, what we're doing here is being
able to help that next guy. That's right.
That's the important thing. And there's going to be somebody
that listens to what you have tosay today.
I hope so. That was a big driving force
when John asked me to do this. So I'll say it on here.
He asked me, you want to be on TV and I'm like, no, but but
absolutely I have a responsibility, obligation to
(51:56):
spread the message and spread the best of my ability.
What what I I've been through all my experience and you can do
it. Yeah, because because I the only
reason I knew about the rooms isbecause I have family members in
the rooms. If I didn't have family members
in the rooms, I would have neverknown.
And so we do this so people can hear it in a different platform
(52:17):
and we can talk about recovery in a general way and people can
go, well, how are they doing it?And we're planting a seed here.
So if there's a guy out there that's working on the railroad
or smoking meth or both, this isthe one to listen to because you
know, there's there's somebody that's going to hear and go.
That's exactly my story, man. You know, and I'm struggling the
same way and I don't want to admit defeat or I don't want to
(52:40):
fucking surrender and I don't want to do this or another one
that I have a lot is guys that are Marines.
They those guys, you guys will not fucking.
That's just not surrender is nota is not a word that is
synonymous with marine. We got a class about that in
rehab that was all vets about surrender.
(53:01):
And why is it so difficult for vets Because we're taught
numbers surrender as long and I could totally identify with
that. And that first they use the
example, the one Japanese soldier that stayed on an island
for we'll say till the early 80s, post World War 2, maybe
late mid 70s, I don't remember exactly.
And they had to get his old commanding officer to relieve
(53:22):
him of his duty. He was still attacking Islanders
or wherever he was at, like he was still conducting the war.
Philippines. Yeah, somewhere like that.
Yeah. You're familiar with it and how
successful he was afterwards like so he got relieved and he
went on to be work with his brother as a cattle rancher.
I believe in Brazil successful individual live went on to live
(53:44):
a great life and and maybe I'll boohoo at the time too.
Still new really motivational story for me and like you can
rebuild, you can do I can if he can do it, I can do it.
And then looking at like other people like us talking where I
was at 4 1/2 years ago, it's he can do it, I can do it.
(54:05):
And it's, and it's also you're, you're surrendering to to win.
A surrender to win. Yeah, and that's that's a
concept that's more palatable. The guys that I work with that
are like, no, you're you're losing right now, but you have
to surrender this. Is the battle you can't win,
right? But you can give it up and let
God fight it for you or your higher power.
(54:26):
You can let your higher power fight that battle for you.
Yeah, and he'll win. Yeah, man, That's it.
That's it. Is there a, is there anything
that you'd like to say to maybe a guy that's struggling, maybe
something unique to your story? You know, there's a guy that's
listening to you. What's something you'd tell him
if he was struggling with? Maybe some of the same vices
(54:47):
that you did? To not give up.
It doesn't have to be that way. I hope you hear this and realize
that it does not have to be thisway or the way it is for you.
It can be so much different. Life can be just absolutely
wonderful. I've had my family restored to
me and my life restored to me. If you can surrender and give it
(55:12):
up to God, it's there. It really is.
It doesn't take nothing and justdo it.
Yeah, yeah. I hope your life fucking sucks.
I hope you're miserable, you know?
So yeah, I got to tell you, I wrote a book, it's called the
The Rail Runner, and it's about,it's about me and starting my
(55:37):
starting working with my wife's grandfather when he gave gave me
his position. And it's about railroading.
But it's like also about what ifwe weren't just railroaders?
What if railroad was the cover for an underground criminal
organization of hitmen? And so part of the main part of
(56:01):
the book is about me burying bodies under railroad ties in
the Elko subdivision yard, because that's one of the only
yards that's here that I know real well.
So it's like it's it's I think it's milepost 3O2 is the name of
one of my chapters. Is that Elko?
I'm pretty sure it's Elko. It's three O 2 or it might be
even closer to Wendover, but I know it's out there somewhere.
(56:24):
But anyway, but that's, I just thought you'd think that's
funny. So I got a book for you that
I'll I'll give to you so you canlisten to that and watch that
on. Yeah.
But I really appreciate being here, my friend.
Oh man, thank you for having me.Yeah, and that was?
Absolutely. Absolutely profound and great,
and there's somebody you're going.
To it didn't go any which way I thought it would go.
I didn't have any any expectations.
(56:46):
One thing I've learned to do is manage the expectation.
I find that if I'm having an expectation, I'm trying to take
my will. So if I have 0 expectation, I'm
truly giving it. It's like I'm truly giving it to
my higher power to say this is how this is going to go.
And if I do that, it's never notworked.
I've never had one where I've done it.
If and the ones the episodes I've done where I'm like I have
(57:08):
an agenda or there I'm there's something I'm supposed to, they
fucking suck. But the ones that I'm just like
fucking let's just bullshit for an hour.
Those ones go great. I hope this one does well and
reaches out to somebody. It will.
It absolutely will. There's somebody that's going to
hear this, otherwise God wouldn't have put you here on
the stage, you know, so. When I sat down and prayed
before we did this, I asked for His will so.
(57:30):
My God, you did great. Thank you so much for being
here. We appreciate your time, my
friend. Thank you.
We'll see you next time.
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