October 7, 2024 • 53 mins
Send us a text In this episode, Sam D. shares his experience, strength, and hope. Podcast Recovery is a forerunner in digitally accessible addiction recovery support. We provide ease and convenience to any and all seeking a message of recovery and hope. By broadcasting the stories of recovering addicts, we act as a complement to all other recovery services. We exist to create a global foundation platform, so that any addict may hear a message of strength and hope. We contribute education and...
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Welcome back to Podcast Recovery, everyone.
We're your hosts, David O and. Carla S.
And as always, fucks me up everything.
It fucks me up too. Yeah, man, the S you.
Got to interrupt me really. It was the S It fucked me up.
It fucked me up. But yeah, I.
Can't wait, you know, I can't wait until you're in a separate
room. I can't.
Just just so I can just shit on you, OK?
(00:24):
Horribly. OK.
We'll see. Not feel bad about it.
No, I'll feel terrible. We'll see.
Today we're joined by our very special guest, Sam.
How are you doing, man? Pretty good.
How are you? Doing well, man.
Doing well, Everybody good. How are you, Carly?
I'm all right. OK.
How are you, Eric? I'm good.
Good. I don't care.
Rude, rude, rude. Where are you from, Sam?
I'm from Ellicott City. What high school did you go to?
(00:46):
I went to Hebron, OH. You went to Hebron.
Where did you graduate? 22,000 and seven OK.
So we same age, yeah. Yeah.
You're roughly. Six, I'm a 605 I'm a.
Five. Yeah, I'm the old one here.
What, 2010? She's a four. 09.
Or 909. OK, I was close.
I was giving you younger than you are.
You're welcome. OK.
(01:07):
Where are you from? God.
You asked that question completely.
Blanking, I know. When were you first introduced
to recovery? I was 2010 in in March.
Yeah, it was it was sort of fortuitous.
My, my sort of closest using buddy and I were hanging out one
night and he's, we were sort of like out of drugs and out of
(01:28):
money. And he's like, you want to go to
a meeting? I was like, what?
Yes, yeah. And I got to that meeting and it
was immediately like, oh, this is what I was looking.
For OK wow, that's interesting. How long have you been clean?
It's been 3 1/2 years now. I had a stretch of 10 years in
there and I went and did a little bit of experimentation,
(01:50):
some research, some research. It was as bad as it was before,
if not worse. Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I can get to that a little later if I tell my story
a little bit. But yeah, it's, it's it's kind
of cool though. It, I, I found that just the
relapse didn't cancel out all the growth and learning.
It just put me in a place where I had to like dig it back up or
(02:11):
like it like pulled a lot of stuff over I.
Love my. Head.
Hell yeah. Yeah, it was.
It was, you know, it was an ordeal, but I'm sure I am where
I am now. It's a pretty good spot.
Yeah, man. All right.
Well, with all that out of the way, turn it over to you.
Share your story with us. Take it away.
Yeah, all right. I am, Sam.
I'm an addict. Hi.
(02:31):
Sam. Oh, I yeah, I used a lot of
drugs and it. I used to use a lot of I I,
you've always reminded me of Mitch had always just your tone.
I used to use a lot of drugs. I mean, I still do, but I used
to. Too.
(02:53):
No, I I was pretty hopeless as an adolescent.
I remember being like a kid eveninto like middle school and we
did the anti drug thing in school and it was yeah, drugs
are bad. Like I'm never going to do
drugs. And I'd had like a grandfather
die from alcoholism and to to like a grandfather and a
grandmother die from from tobacco use.
(03:17):
And the other one lived till shewas like 100 did.
They have the DARE program in Catholic school.
Yeah, OK. Yeah, we, we didn't get that.
I don't think we had the DARE program.
We just had regular. No, we or else I was like out on
that day or something. I don't, I don't know.
We didn't have it, but the, you know, I was very like anti drug,
but then I, I was, I got really sick when I was 11 years old and
(03:38):
nobody knew what it was. It was, and I wound up being
very isolated and very hopeless.And by the time I was 15, I was
just like, just Get Me Out of here.
Like I need, I need an escape. And I didn't want to.
I didn't want to do anything drastic.
What was it? It was turn to be Lyme disease,
chronic Lyme, and it you know, Ifinally was diagnosed when I was
(03:59):
16, but it. Took five years to.
Diagnose and they diagnosed me based on a test that was taken
in 2001, but that was read usingthe wrong standards.
Oh geez. Yeah.
So it was like 5 years of my life.
Plus at that point it was so entrenched that it took such a
long time to treat it. Yeah.
You know so. Yeah, 'cause that's a, that's a
time sensitive. Yeah, it really is.
(04:20):
It's a it's pretty, it's, it's apretty nasty one at that.
Yeah, I, but I, I mean, I didn'thave any hope and I, I had the
opportunity to start, to start getting high and I thought,
well, this is my way out. Like this is what I'm going to
do. You know I'm not going to.
What'd you start with? So start with pot, which was my
sort of great love with the drugs.
(04:41):
I I never got that into any likelike dope or I didn't.
I mean, I messed around with cocaine and, and a little bit of
opiates and stuff, but, but it never, that never took on like a
life of its own the way that like for me, like smoking pot
was enough of an addiction. And like pile on top of that the
alcohol and the psychedelics andit was like, you know, I, you
(05:02):
know, I, I always look at my, the, the gravity of my addiction
in terms not of what I was doing, but in what the
consequences were that I was willing to tolerate with what I
was doing. Like I, you know, for me, like
drinking would be a three or four day hangover for a lot of
the time that I was drinking, but I did it anyways.
(05:23):
Yeah, it was just because I would get really.
Lyme disease. Yeah, that was a lie.
I would get really sick and I would, you know, but I would do
it anyways. And every time I'd be like,
what's not going to happen this time?
Yeah, until I knew it was going to happen and I just didn't
care. Yeah, you just didn't give fuck.
I just didn't care. So I had this dynamic going on.
Like I got diagnosed and there was a lot of hope and it was a
great. But by that time, I was sort of
(05:44):
in love with the idea of intoxication.
It was just like, this is going to this and I I bought into all
of the sort of like propaganda that it like makes you more
creative and Oh yeah, that kind of stuff.
You have the hippie vibe. A little bit, yeah, a little
bit. But I and and I mean I, I still
like I I learned some things from doing drugs, but but the
(06:06):
price of those lessons was way higher than I'm.
I would be willing to pay if youasked me to do it again.
Yeah. So like, you know, I, I did this
dance for a while where I would like be on treatment and I would
get better and then I would use most of my better to to drink
and use. And then I would be sick again.
(06:26):
And I did that several times. And then when I was when I was
20, I had this, this big, like, you know, I felt like the world
was shifting under my feet. You know, my, my best friend,
another guy that was sort of like #3 in our little group, my
brother, my girlfriend, and my therapist all moved at least
(06:47):
four or five hours away and likewithin a week of each other.
And I was just like, I didn't know what to do.
And at that very time, very suspiciously, synchronistically,
my a using buddy came back into my life.
I wasn't looking for him. He just showed up.
Yeah, he just like. That's generally how they
happen. They just sort of pop out of the
ground. When the student is ready, the
(07:08):
teacher appears right and we were like such that.
That could be a title, Eric. I'm not sure that we were.
It's not like he was a bad influence on me or I was a bad
influence on him. It was both.
So like if, if I was going to get like level 8 wrecked with
him, I'll get a level 14, right?So we're both at a level 8, but
(07:29):
together we combine our forces and get we just make.
You were the wonderful twins. Yeah, we were the Wonder Twins,
you know? Wait, were you the bad
influence? Really, Eric?
Were you the bad influence? What do you think?
Yes, 100%. You were the, you were the
instigator. And I think we can both guess.
You can both guess. You were an instigator.
Absolutely, absolutely there wasa problem.
(07:50):
I was making it. Yeah, man.
We should have used together, Carly.
Shaking her head yeah, right. So we, I like proceeded to and I
was like on disability at the time from from the line I was on
disability. So I had a little bit of money,
(08:11):
just enough to like, you know, keep myself, keep myself stoned,
keep myself drunk. And it was just this tear that
lasted for about 6 months. And by the end of it, like I was
thoroughly convinced, like the first step was a reality for me.
I'd never heard it before, but Iwas just like, OK, I'm obviously
I didn't have the word powerless, but I'm obviously not
in control of this. I can't, I can't stop.
(08:32):
I can't like stop once I start, I can't not start if I try not
to start. And I just felt like there
wasn't any hope for me. And it was, I was just sort of
resigned to being stuck in this trap of the addiction.
And the consequences are gettingbad.
And I was really worried that the line was going to come back
even worse because it was starting to.
Yeah. And then this is about the time
(08:55):
when you know, out of drugs, outof money, nowhere to go, 11:30
on a Friday night, you know, my,my buddy's like, hey, you know,
our friend from Main Street. There's like this whole Main
Street crew, just a weird peoplelike collected around and on
like a city. And he's like.
You went to Bart, you went to bars and all.
That yeah, I did. I went with Eric actually a
couple of times. Used to do the like open mics
(09:17):
and stuff and like yeah. You guys started at the opposite
end of the hill. You guys honestly did it smart
and I was fucking dumb. You guys started at the top of
the hill and went down. No, started at the bottom there.
Oh, you started at the bottom ofthe hill?
Started well, Coco. Coco was huge.
That was the best, yeah. Coco was like Lane was awesome
the. Vibe was great.
(09:37):
It was like fancy, but not too fancy.
Yeah, you're like. There's a balcony here.
There's 4 balconies? What?
Why is there? 4 decks, great for smokers.
Yeah, I mean, I smoked like a chimney back then, so yeah,
same. Where were you?
You were at. You were up here in Catonsville
at those bars, weren't you? She's at Morse Burgers.
(09:57):
Morse limelight in. Morse Burgers is rough.
Morse Burgers just has a sign that says bar.
That's my. Favorite part about Morse
burgers? It doesn't say Morse.
Burgers and it delivers. It does it does it.
Does like it's. Because their grandmother did
not want their last name on a bar.
On a bar. It's good to see you know that I
didn't know that. Because I'm friends with them
(10:19):
like the family. Yeah.
My friend Casey, who was in my wedding, is a Morse burger.
Oh yeah? Shit, yeah.
They also own shacks too, right?No talking about little bars in
Catonsville. No, I was there all the time,
but that's a different. Person.
Yeah, yeah, OK. Anyway.
So back to old Ellicott. City, yeah, so your your your
(10:40):
Main Street crew in it up. Yeah, we'll, well, I mean.
The Main Street crew was weird, by the way, like looking back on
like, like those types because, I mean, we hung out with
homeless people, too. Yeah, multiple suicides like.
Yeah, Ed. For Ed, yeah, that was and and
Teddy. Like and yeah, couple.
Years before that it was. Was that a suicide?
Like, yeah, that one was. Yeah, it was.
(11:01):
I know it like it was like kind of back and forth because it was
a fall, but. Yeah, but he knew those hills.
Yeah, he knew those hills. Yeah.
He jumped off seven hills. One of the seven hills.
Oh my God. Yeah, yeah.
OK. All right, Yeah, continue.
Sad It's. Really depressing.
(11:21):
Really. Yeah.
Jesus Christ. OK, let me try to pull it out.
Let's get some happy user. So I, I mean, it was, this was
like one of the most important nights of my whole life was
when, I mean, this dude came to pick us up and took us to the
midnight meeting at the SerenityCenter.
And was it his condition? Him, Carl, He he came around for
a little while and stopped. But but he, he was there long
(11:45):
enough to have an impact on me. Yeah, right.
You never know who's going to impact you.
And like, I don't think I even saw him once after that first
time. He gave me a ride there.
And it was just like, you know. Yeah.
But we went to that meeting. I sat down and read who is an
addict? It was just like, you know,
everything about it was exactly what my life was and I had a
(12:05):
transformational moment and I like saw some light in people's
eyes and it was just like stepped 1-2 and three of like I
knew I was powerless. That wasn't that wasn't news,
but like coming to believe I believe something about NA was
going to work. And then I made a decision to
turn myself over to it. All of it happening very much
sort of kind of unconsciously orlike or like like instinctively.
(12:29):
It was I didn't I didn't even hadn't read the steps.
I mean, I guess I'd heard them read without works, but like I
hadn't I didn't have any, I didn't have any like
intellectual knowledge about it.It was just something that
happened. And of course you got to go back
around and actually work them and actually learn to apply
them. But the, the principle was there
and I started going to a lot of meetings and I from that date
(12:51):
on, I didn't use for been used for 10 1/2 years.
And it was a good time. I mean, it was a hard 10 1/2
years, a lot of points. But like, I, I can't imagine
what my life would be like if I had not been clean for that
time. Oh yeah.
Like I, well, I can't imagine and it's not good.
It's like it would have been because things were getting dark
and they were getting worse and I was starting to screw around
(13:11):
with like, heavier club drugs and starting to, you know, mess
a dope a little bit. And like, that would have taken
me out. Like, I didn't have the physical
capacity to withstand a dope habit.
Like, it probably would have just killed me.
Yeah. So yeah, I, I, I was in
fantasyland for the first few months of my recovery, though.
Like, I, I mean, I got some mental health problems that I've
(13:32):
dealt with. They're very much under control
at this point. But like I.
What's your diagnosis? Bipolar.
Bipolar Which type one or type 2?
It's like a moderate form of type one.
OK, so it gets back you. Get you get some mania.
You get some pretty insane mania, pretty intense, but it's
I've only had one manic episode that was like full blown.
(13:53):
And I wasn't like talking to walls and stuff like that.
I didn't get that bad. Yeah.
And I was, I was like together enough that I could convince
someone. I was fine for about 15 minutes
and you're talking. Way too fast, yeah.
Yeah, and just the stuff like the, I thought I was filtering
out all the stuff that was really obvious.
And maybe it was like the most obvious insanity, but like what
(14:13):
I was saying, like I told a doctor that I thought I could
make space weapons. Why not?
What? Well, here's why you watched.
OK, I want to hear this argument.
This is going to be good. If you hand a Glock to a
chimpanzee and shoot him into space.
OK. That's a space weapon.
It is. It's a technically space weapon.
Yeah. That wasn't right.
(14:34):
I was arguing. I was mentioning the fact that a
friend of mine and I were talking about doing that when we
were middle school. It's a stupid little, you know,
Yeah. So would the bullet move in
space? Oh yeah, yeah, for sure.
Like the physics slowly. Why?
It probably moved fast faster. Yeah, yeah.
There's no resistance. There's no resistance.
Yeah. And I mean, if it depends on if
you're in a space shuttle or not, if you're in the space
(14:54):
shuttle, there's still oxygen inthere.
So you might move the same. I don't know what direction, I
don't know anyway. Yeah, well, anyway.
Carly is like what the fuck am Igetting into?
Yeah, right. We took it there.
But no, I mean, yeah, so it's been, it was enough that it was
pretty bad. Like it was pretty bad, but for
(15:16):
my first six months of recovery,I was going to meetings, but I
was still hanging out with people that were smoking weed
and like I like passed the blunt.
Like don't do that. Like like I didn't, I didn't hit
it, but I passed. You were still in the relation
and you were just like, oh. Yeah, I do.
You ever? Remember you being around and
not getting high with everybody and he's like, what the fuck is
going on? Yeah, I've never seen that my
(15:37):
friend. Terrace goes wow man, you got
self-control. Like I have 0 self-control.
This is not self-control. This is like some kind of grace
or something like, so I was in agrace bubble and I, I wouldn't
recommend and anybody doing that.
And I'm, I'm really stunned thatI did it, but I was just so
relieved not to have to get highanymore that I just didn't want
to. I could not have done.
That like the desire to use leftme immediately upon coming to NA
(16:00):
yeah, and but I had all these other problems, the underlying
conditions and everything to deal with and.
And I finally, what happened is,I mean, I got AI got a sponsor
who had actually been like a teacher of mine before.
And yeah, it was interesting. And but I wasn't being that
honest with him because I wasn'tbeing that honest with myself.
(16:22):
And finally it broke. And like, I had this idea I was
going to get back together with my ex.
And and like, it finally came tolike, just, that's not
happening. And I just like everything
crashed around me. And I was like, there was a guy
that had been been just listening to me for a while.
Like we would go out to dinner and he would just listen like
we'd go out to dinner as a groupafter the meeting, after my Home
(16:44):
group and I realized, Oh, this is the person that I need to
sponsor me for real. Like the other guys like was
doing pH DS like I can't really sponsor you anymore.
So like the good, the timing wasperfect.
Yes. And I asked, I asked the next
guy and it really like was was alife changing thing.
I got in a relationship at a 10 months clean, which I again, it
(17:06):
was a bad idea and it like didn't work and I like broke it
off because I realized it wasn'tgoing to work and it was long
distance and stuff. It wasn't good.
And but I felt so bad about myself for doing that.
Like I just felt like, I'm just like, it was just grandiose.
Like, oh, I just keep hurting people and I can't stop it.
And I, I fell into a black hole.And then I decided I wanted to
(17:28):
come out of it. And somebody asked me to chair a
meeting like immediately after Istarted like coming up for air a
little bit. And it was another one of these
things were like over overnight practically.
There was this dramatic reorientation and I discovered
this book. It's a little trite now, but at
the time it was important to me.It was the power of now you read
(17:48):
that book. Yeah.
Yeah, I think. Eric's actually read it I know
of. It yeah, it's just a primer in
like you wrote. The power of habit, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Well, the power now is just
like, you know, kind of a stripped down non dual
spirituality thing where but thewhole point of it is pay
attention to what's going on right now, right now.
(18:10):
And so that became my my focus. And around the time I worked the
third step and I had this just transformation just in these few
months and everything was put meon a footing to have a different
life for the next, you know, number of years.
Yeah. Yeah, So what happened with the
(18:31):
relapse? Well, I I had I had a what had
What had happened was. But me and my ex used to say
that all the time. The one from the relapse
actually, but is. That a Maryland saying.
What I think it's from ATV show.I think it's from ATV show like
some, somebody said that. But so I, I had about, from the
(18:56):
time that I got that second sponsor until when I was like,
you know, nine years clean, I didn't have any mental health
problems at all. I was never really, I was a
little bit down occasionally, but I was never really up and I
was mostly in the middle and pretty stable.
I started having like, I got really, really burnt out doing
this music therapy internship, which is dumb.
(19:16):
I was doing it like 50 hours a week and driving to and fro and
I was still like on heavy treatment for Lyme.
It was just really stupid to tryto do it at that level.
And my recovery fell by the wayside because I didn't have
any energy. So I wasn't putting my energy
into the thing that I need to keep me OK.
And by the time I got some energy back, I was already sort
of off on, you know, my own trip.
And I didn't, I didn't know thatI was sick.
(19:38):
Like, that's, that's the insidious part about it is just
like when I'm dry, I, I won't notice it.
I think I'm just like doing somereally interesting things.
And but anyways, eventually after an up period that wasn't
like insanely up, it wasn't likenobody really noticed.
But after the fact they were like, yeah, I guess that was
kind of weird. You were like, you know, doing
doing a few weird things. And but I got I was in a really,
(20:01):
really low spot for a while. 2020.
I was living at this this house with, with one of my best
friends and, you know, a friend of ours who owned the house who
was like, you know. Letting us letting me live there
for a while for free in exchangefor like some yard work.
And and then I was, I got a job and things were stable and
things were good. But then the mania started
(20:24):
coaching in and I was like, I took a couple months off to do a
bunch of work around the house for him, like do some drywall,
do some painting. And I was by myself in this
crazy house for, for like a month and I just ramped up.
And by the time I, I was at thispoint moving back to
Pennsylvania to, to finish an internship.
And by the time I got there, I was full blown like, I had this
(20:47):
crazy idea. I was going to make this like
workshop thing and like help like disadvantaged youth or
something. And this is like, not a terrible
sounding idea, but it's just like, it's not what I it's just.
Grandiose. It's just grandiose.
It's not what I was supposed to be focusing on.
You know, it's not what I was supposed to be focusing on.
And I, you know, the relapse, you know, happened long before I
picked up. But when I picked up I I was on
(21:09):
Facebook marketplace just looking for random crap as you
do in your manic and and. That's what Eric does just on
the. Usual.
Yeah, some people, that's just, that's just some people's back.
But I, I found this, this familywas giving away a bunch of a
bunch of country records. And I have a cousin who's really
into country records, like old vinyls.
(21:30):
And I was just like, well, I might like some of them, He
might like some of them. I'm going to go over there and
get those. And they were also getting rid
of a whole bunch of random stuff.
And I took a bunch of like, justrandom trash, like just crap I
didn't need. And at the time, I rented a
truck I'd rented a truck from. I've done that many times.
I'd rent, especially with vinyl.Yeah, I, I'd rented this truck
from from Home Depot, so I had the capacity.
(21:53):
It was like a big like F-250 with this huge like modified
bed. And but one of the things we're
getting rid of was about 6 or 7 gallons of top shelf liquor.
And I was like, well, I suppose this is a side if there ever was
1. And I started drinking and you
what happened when I took a drink?
Nothing. Yeah, nothing.
And I was like, I guess it's. Possible.
Yeah, but I immediately was drinking and driving.
(22:15):
That should have been a. Communication.
Yeah, Within a few weeks, I was,I had like come back down from.
I was. I was.
What do you wait? What was it?
What did you start? With it was like a commemorative
whiskey from the the World Cup in like Dubai or something.
That's awesome. That's.
Pretty awesome. That's a good relax if ever
there was a good relax. High class you're like very.
(22:35):
High. There you go.
Yeah, it was. It was like a little soccer ball
shaped container. That was pretty awesome.
That's why I picked it. I had like a whole bag full of
MO. Like this is the one.
Yeah. I don't care about soccer, but
like, yeah. It looks cool.
That's fair. Yeah, yeah, man.
So it proceeded to spiral out ofcontrol.
But the thing about this whole time was that the mania was so
(22:58):
bad that the drinking was almostlike, and this I was smoking
too, as much as I could. It was almost like a footnote.
It was just like, because, I mean, it was bad, right?
And if it didn't stop, it would have gotten worse.
And I got engaged in this periodof time.
Like I got reconnected with thisgirl I dated in middle school
and we. Had the middle.
School, yeah, this whole like, oh, we were supposed to be
(23:20):
together and we weren't and it'sjust like, you know, so.
Man, that would be no, that would be bad for me.
Yeah, if one of my exes from like middle school came back
around and be like, Oh, no, unrequited love, but like, it's
the universe talking to me. Yeah, it was.
We had that going on and and so she asked me to marry her and I
was just like, OK, she asked. You.
(23:42):
She asked you. She asked me.
She's very progressive. She was.
She was supposed to be. More women, Any women out there
listening to this? More women need to and to start
proposing. To men.
She did it sarcastically, though.
It was kind of funny. She's like, marry me.
And I was like, wait, are you serious?
She was like, yeah, I was like, OK, you know, And this had been
(24:03):
after, like, a couple weeks of being back together and like,
she was in Florida, so we didn'teven see each other until, like,
she came up for a couple weeks and I think she grounded me.
She sort of stabilized me for a while.
It seems like all. Your girlfriends live in other
places. So wait, from what?
It's just these two I've mentioned just these two.
OK, How? Did you?
How did you propose to MC? I didn't say it, I just held out
the ring. Where?
(24:24):
On top of Dan's Rock in Frostburg.
Oh, OK. Yeah, cool.
And I was taking pictures of herand then I was like, oh, turn
around and I just had the ring. I didn't ask though.
OK, what do I how did Garrett? Propose to you.
I don't remember what he said. Where was I think I blacked out
National Harbor? OK, you blacked out.
(24:45):
I think I did. Aw, that's kind of adorable.
About the day before the world shut down.
Oh, this is 2020. Yeah.
Yeah, March. 15th, yeah. 2020 mine was in Yosemite.
Same. I didn't say anything.
I just, yeah, I tried to do it in a selfie like an idiot.
But anyway. He said a lot.
I have no idea what he said, so wait, now I remember did.
(25:05):
You get married, you know Sam, No.
We didn't. I probably would have done the
courthouse thing, but she was, she was a little more grounded
than I was at that point in time.
She's like, wait until she's like, I got some stuff I'm
trying to get ready and get in place.
Let's like, wait for that. She was, I mean, she's a sweet
girl, very sensitive and very, you know, just just very kind.
(25:28):
We weren't a good match. But but I, you know, nothing.
But I don't just love, but like,I have gratitude for her being
there. Yeah.
You know, and she, she tried herbest to, to help get me in a
good place because I really, I really wasn't in a good place at
that point in time. So, but, but my last, I don't
(25:51):
know when the last day I I used was.
And so that was. During 2020. 2020 Who called it
off? Who called the engagement off?
Yeah, OK. And this was so this.
Was during the pandemic. This was during the pandemic, it
was during lockdown. OK during lockdown.
Yeah, OK, that makes a. Lot of sense.
Yeah, and I, I, I don't know. I know what the last thing I
used was. I did ketamine.
(26:13):
Oh, yeah, Academy. It wasn't a whole lot.
It was like somebody came over in the middle of the night and
they were like, I have a little bit left and I was like, all
right, I'll do whatever you have.
And it's enough to fuck up your day.
Thanks. Yeah.
So I mean, that was, but I don'teven know when that was.
That was a resounding yuck by all.
(26:34):
Yeah, it was actually pretty amazing.
Though I do I do see positive like studies.
In a therapeutic. In a yes.
In a. Therapeutic.
Setting is. I don't wanna.
Shit on it, but in a recreational setting.
Yeah, I did it twice and it was fucking horrendous.
Twice. Yeah, I've done it a few times,
but one time I just got a reallybad Nosebleed, but I'm gonna K
(26:54):
hole and my face is bleeding, which is like not a good
combination. Oh God.
That's kind of funny, yeah. How is it fun?
That's why it was kind of funny.God damn, You're dude, that's
kind of funny, yeah. In a dark sort of, I see.
The humor in that? Fuck you, Eric.
I I just see you trying to like like trying, you know, I.
(27:14):
Can see you just drowning on your own.
Blood I've been in like situations where like everyone's
on K except for me and I'm like the clean one in the room and
like just watching everyone on ketamine.
It's like watching people on salvia.
It's like kind of hilarious, right?
Like it's just like, man, if youguys want to say I'm.
So glad I never used with you. You seem like a piece of shit.
Everybody in the room. This guy's a deck.
(27:37):
I I I remember when I stopped smoking salvia and started just
watching people smoke salvia it was way better.
Such a. Terrible drug.
Yeah. Every time I did salvia, I was
like, this time it's gonna be good.
I was just for good. I always just felt like I was
some sort of a blue collar worker, like I was laying bricks
or doing plumbing or like fucking Mario or something like
that. I.
Would get trapped in like rooms and stuff.
(27:58):
It was so weird. It tasted like fish food too.
It's like so gross. The weirdest thing Did you ever
smoke Salivia? No good.
You're lucky. Yeah, atypical psychedelic.
Yeah, the weirdest atypical thing.
I I think the weirdest experience you could have is
probably Salivia. It's.
As far as weird, it's like just straight up weird.
Bizarre. There's no sense, There's no
(28:19):
right. It's a terrible fucking drug
anyway. You're doing they.
All are terrible. Guy, they are.
They all are terrible. That is correct.
See, Guy comes over with ketamine, you do ketamine.
Yeah, and that was the last timeI, that was the last time I
used, but I I don't know when that was.
So my my clean date is actually.Academy will do that, yeah.
(28:39):
You have a good clean date as far as like.
Yeah, it's the first day of spring.
Yeah, I like it. What is it?
It's 3/21/21. Yeah.
Oh, nice. Yeah, it's great.
Sweet. And it's it's three days before
my clean date was in 2010. So yeah.
And there's three. I love it.
Yeah, so and I still celebrate that original clean date, I
think. Not like in a meeting, like I've
got 14 years, but like, you know, I celebrated because it
(29:01):
saved my life. Yeah.
It's like, it's like a big thing.
So I get to celebrate them both at the same time, you know, But
I, yeah. So I don't know when my last day
was, but, but so my, my clean day is the first day that I
called my sponsor. And it was the day after I broke
up with, with the girl because that it was just like that was
(29:22):
the very end of the whole being off on my own trip thing that
had been going on for about 6 months.
And it was and it was just finally, you know, you know,
come to Jesus kind of thing. Yeah.
Back to reality, back to reality, back to my.
And that sponsor was, I mean, hewas great for me, but I'm not,
I'm not with him anymore. He was, he was a very generous
person, very insightful. There was some conflicts that we
(29:43):
have, but just never, never really got resolved.
I still talk to him. Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, for the time that after I came back, he was,
he was crucial. Like I had a period of about
four months where I didn't really talk to anybody,
including him. I didn't go to meetings.
I just went to work. I was working at Sprouts.
Awesome. Yeah, it was a decent job to
have. I'm almost finished my time
(30:05):
there but I I just went to work and.
Those birds are so. Fucking came home.
They're being mean to each other.
I know they're being Dicks. They're over here.
There is enough food for all of them.
For everybody, Yeah, you should be communists, you fucking
birds. Capitalist turds.
Oh. Man, the yeah, I, I didn't
(30:30):
participate in my recovery for afew months and I was as
miserable as I thought I could get.
And finally it was like I had this realization.
I just kept going to therapy, though.
I don't know why. It's just like I wasn't, I was
like, I'm checked out. I don't care about anything, but
I'll show up to therapy. Right.
Yeah. So it was like something in
there was still trying to get better.
And I was like doing quality like trauma work and therapy
too. It was just got.
Good. You know you have a finger on
the ledge of you know something good.
(30:51):
Yeah, and I had this realizationand I I said to my I said to my
therapist, I was like, there is no alternative to facing life
either. You face life as a, you know,
man, woman, you know, adult person.
The. Other one's better.
Fuck you. Or you just get chewed up by
something that you're not willing to have the courage to,
(31:14):
to show up for in a, in a, you know, adult way.
Yeah. And you know, I'd gotten, I'd
gotten the shit knocked out of me.
And when I, I came back to the street, I was like, I was
knocked out. I was kicked out of school.
They gave me a sort of BS degreethat was good enough to get me
into grad school, but I got kicked out of my program.
I couldn't be a music therapist.I had all of this debt from
(31:36):
about a week of manic spending. And like, I, I bought a bunch of
instruments. I bought a bunch of furniture, a
bunch of power tools. Sweet.
That's fun, right? Like instruments.
I'm like, OK, hear me as a guy. Furniture.
Yeah. You need a place to set power
tools. Very weird.
OK, no, he was fixing up the house.
I was doing work, I was doing that kind of work at the time,
(31:59):
so it was like it was a smashed.As a functional spending.
Well, kind of. I mean, not really.
You can always justify a good tool.
Here's a thing that shows it wasn't justified.
OK, I bought all this stuff fromthis music store.
I just opened a line of credit there and maxed it out
instantly. Yep.
Just like. Yeah, why not?
And. Fucking burn it down.
(32:20):
I bought something like 9 guitarslides.
Why why why? I don't know.
Some of them weren't even the right size.
Like I wound up giving some of them away to a Co worker of
mine. I was like here you go.
Like I don't have any other use for these.
I don't even play slide guitar. Like, yeah, maybe I'm like, I'm
like a finger style guy. I don't do slide.
(32:41):
No, that's weird. So it was, it was nonsense.
But but I just had to spend the next, you know, period of time
just working my way out of that hole that I've gotten myself in.
And, you know, I worked out OK, you know.
And that's where you're at at today.
(33:01):
Pretty much, yeah. I've gone back to school.
I'm doing well. I My musicianship has sort of
really kicked off to another level.
I've been writing those songs like crazy.
I'm in a band I'm trying to record.
So, yeah, yeah. Awesome, dude.
All right, Well, we got some questions for you, Carly.
(33:22):
What do you got? The first time you got clean you
said you ran out of money, you ran out of drugs and was like
why the fuck not let's go to NA.But what really happened like
the second time like after that relapse, like what your come to
Jesus moment? What were you thinking feeling
like? OK, So what happened was I
(33:44):
started to realize that like, I was in this, this denial that
my, I was like, I'm not an addict, I'm not an alcoholic,
you know, this is just, I was just doing my thing.
And I started to realize that wasn't true.
It was like the mania had finally worn all the way off.
Like I've been in the hospital and like, I got better in the
hospital, but it wasn't all the way there.
(34:06):
And it really started to like finally I was back on the ground
and I was just broken. And I, I realized I needed
something like I, I was like, oh, that was a relapse.
Like this isn't, this isn't me being OK, that's a relapse.
So I called my first sponsor, the first one that I worked
through the steps with, and he challenged me on whether it was
(34:26):
healthy for recovering or at least potentially recovering
addict to be in a relationship with somebody that was using as
heavily as the bigger I was with.
And when he said that, I finallyrealized I couldn't keep up the
illusion anymore. And when I realized I couldn't
keep up the illusion, I had a breakdown.
(34:49):
I, I like, I just fell apart andmy I called out of work and I,
my dad took me out to this battlefield in Western Maryland
and we just. Which battlefield?
Antietam nice, great Battlefield.
Yeah, it's beautiful. And we just I was in just sort
of cycling through my head like trying to trying to like, what
am I going to do? Like all day?
(35:11):
And and that night I think I called her and I wasn't great
about the breakup, but it did what I had to do, I guess.
And then it was that next day I realized I needed to call my
sponsor and really get honest and start start over again.
All right. What you got, Eric?
You're going to ask some weird ass fucking esoteric question.
(35:33):
No, no, no, I'm just going to ask about Lyme disease, how
you're doing today with it. And 'cause I, I can definitely
relate to like chronic disease, but not anything like Lyme.
And like, my wife has RA and that's just, I see how that
completely fucks her system up and like her immune system's
just completely fried. And she'll get other shit too,
(35:57):
like shingles or like tuberculosis.
Oh, she's got shingles. She's gotten shingles twice in
her eye. Oh.
God. And she got tuberculosis when
she was pregnant. Jesus.
But I didn't know that like how how are you doing?
Because I know like it's the same type of immune like
deficiencies and like. Yeah, it, well, I was pretty
(36:21):
solid from about 2020 to like 2023.
I wasn't on any medication for it.
And then in early the early partof this year, I had started to
like sort of get like really tired all the time.
Yeah, the fatigue. And then I just overdid it one
(36:42):
day and had to work 8 hours the next morning and it was just
like it put me in a hole. So I've had to go back and see
treatment again. I I'm better than I was, but I'm
still I'm still like on antibiotics and still like
fighting through it do. You have to take steroids and
stuff for. That no, I don't have steroids.
(37:02):
I have in the past taking like corticosteroids because my, my
cortisol levels really low, but this time I'm just doing, just
doing a combination of like someherbs and some, some like
conventional antibiotics. And I've been like for a while I
was only working like 16 hours aweek at my job and that was sort
of all I can handle. And I'm back full time now.
(37:24):
So, but I did, I still am not, I'm not 100%, but I'm, I'm
getting in the direction. Yeah.
You know, So we're, you know, and I feel confident that I can
probably get to a point with this where it's once again, it's
not an issue and I'm maybe even better than I was before.
So we'll see. What's good?
Yeah. Oh yeah.
It's hard. From what you were saying, like
(37:48):
a batch of relapse, like it was,it was just one of the most like
health, like healthy refreshing takes about it, like how you
were like I didn't throw the time away.
It like it just is what it is. So I mean, what do you think is
the process of kind of like changing the stigma of round
relapse? Because some people when they
(38:08):
feel that like guilt and shame about like, oh, I threw all my
time away. It'll just keep them out longer.
It could kill him. Yeah, and it can kill him.
But no, like your, your take on it is just like, you know, it,
it, it, you didn't throw away all that growth.
You just, you know, had to dig it back.
Up which I love doing sideways. Yeah.
I mean, I would say maybe part of the part of overturning the
(38:31):
stigma is to take away some of the glamour of a clean time.
Yeah. You know, I think, I mean, I've
heard people share at meetings and they've got like 40 years
and they sound like trash. Yeah, right.
And I've heard people that have a few months and it's just like,
man, this guy's got something I want, right?
Yeah. So I think like focusing more on
(38:51):
focusing more on the quality of the present moment and, you
know, and sobriety and recovery is like, that's what I, I would
say. Like that's where my focus is.
That's a great point. Dude that just fucked.
That hit me so fucking hard. Because there's people, there's
people who are taking away new. Taking away the glamour of clean
(39:12):
time. Holy shit.
And because what you just said is like, instead of the
quantity, it's about the fuckingquality, right?
And. Because that's like we talk
about with Celebrate Recovery and their slips and like, yeah,
how like slips work and like, it's like they don't forfeit
their recovery. Yeah.
Right. But in NA or AA, you have to
like, forfeit your recovery, butyou're not forfeiting what
(39:32):
you've learned. Yeah.
It's very an all or nothing kindof thing, yeah.
Yeah, and I was a little, a little.
I'm not. We're not telling anybody to go
fucking relapse. That's no, no, no, no, no, no,
no but but it's just something not to.
It doesn't. It's not be a fucking disaster.
It's like a boogeyman right now.Yeah, I, I very conceivably
(39:53):
could have had like 5560 years if I had stayed clean from when
I got clean. Yeah.
But now it's just like, yeah. But like, is that really, you
know, do I think God is countingtime, right?
Do I think like that? Like I.
Think I like that title, you know.
It's just like you. It is about that present moment
orientation. And you just fucking blow my
(40:16):
fucking mind. What do you got, Carly?
You got nothing. I'm.
Just here all. Right, that's fantastic.
Just here today that's. Fantastic.
Here now, right? Yep.
I have a manifestations. Go for it.
OK, Emoji. I'm just here.
OK, Eric. OK.
How has your addiction manifested itself today in your
(40:38):
recovery? Today I was.
Like. I zoned out on Facebook a little
while after getting up. Oh, hell yeah.
I I think something that like anaddiction for me is like, I woke
up and I wasn't tired anymore and I didn't get out of bed.
Yeah, you know where like that one, that one don't get me
because like I really like the feeling of getting out of bed
(41:01):
early in the morning, you know, brewing a pot of coffee, getting
going the day. How early you waking up?
When I have work I get up like 7, no.
Or like tomorrow I have to get up at 5.
Jesus. What?
On Sunday? Yeah, I get.
Up today I get up at like. Four.
I'll get up at like 8. Really.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, pretty much every
day I get up at like 4:00 to 5:00.
Yeah, yeah. So I'm I don't.
(41:21):
I don't accomplish anything withthe fucking extra time, I'm just
saying I do. Just do it.
Yeah. That's something I would like to
work towards this more like, youknow, but I also have insomnia,
so she kind of like, well, if I sleep in a little bit, just you
got to make it up somewhere, yeah.
So anyway, you like the feeling of getting up early?
But I don't do it. Yeah.
(41:42):
But I think that, and that's definitely a, a manifestation of
addiction, if it's just like, you know, like knowing what's
good for you and even like experiencing the benefits of it
and still doing what isn't good for you.
Yeah, still doing what doesn't work.
God damn. Anything else?
Any other crazy spending? No, actually I track every cent
(42:07):
that goes out of my wallet. Wow, yeah, I'm I, I hate not
knowing. I have like a little spreadsheet
that I update on my phone. I just don't, I don't like it
being all like, you know, scattered and probably just
because of that, having to pay all that debt off.
I, I became more fastidious about money.
But but it's I've had, I haven'thad any crazy spending.
(42:30):
I had to save up to make sure I was good for the school year.
So I did. Oh yeah, yeah, I did.
Nice. What about you, Eric?
What you. Got All right, so you're bipolar
type 1, which means you should be medicated, right?
And you are. You've gotten back on meds,
right? Because I mean, you weren't on
(42:51):
meds when you were in mania or were you?
Well, were the meds not working anymore?
I had been I've been on. I stopped taking my meds after I
was manic. Well, yeah, yeah.
Not before I was manic. So it was just like I was on a
little bit of Seroquel. And a little bit of Seroquel is
not gonna stop the juggernaut oflike a full blown man.
Yeah. But you were still drinking like
you were using at that time, right?
(43:13):
The using happened after. Oh, OK.
Yeah, the using it, it was like the lid was already blown off
and then I started. The opening a line of credit and
then maxing it sounds like the most manic thing.
Yeah. Like like like.
It's I just, I did it like threetimes.
Yeah, I did it like three times.Yeah.
It's because it's like. What do you think I issue?
Spending. I, I wrote, AI wrote a song
(43:33):
about the experience. And the one line is I've got the
sun burning a hole in my pocket because that's what it feels
like. It's like, you know, you're just
like, you just got like all the power in the universe, like.
But there's consequences to that.
Oh my. God, it's not worth it.
It feels pretty great, but it's not worth it.
Plus, like, you know, I, I was trying to be all creative when I
(43:56):
was mannequin and I, I did some things that were interesting,
but the thing about creativity is it requires a whole lot of
organization and discipline to, to really pull it off.
So like, whatever crazy ideas I had that might have been kind of
interesting, and most of them weren't that good.
It's probably the problem with mania is that you don't have a
filter. And like they've confirmed this.
This is Carl Jung's idea that the psyche loses its capacity to
(44:17):
differentiate between any valuesthat it has in its instrument of
consciousness. And they've confirmed this
neurologically, that the part ofyour brain that says that's a
bad idea is turned off. So I was just.
Everything's a good. Idea So I just have like all
these terrible songs. I wrote a few good ones, but
like mostly just terrible songs and there's just dumb stuff and
(44:39):
I did some interesting art, but I'm, I'd almost like, yeah, it.
So I'm on medication. Yeah, I'm on medication.
I, I don't, I don't want to do that again.
And, and my, you know, my psych is like, you know, if you keep
doing what you're doing and you know, you're going to be fine.
(45:00):
And he's like, it was also told me, you know, he's like, NAA,
save your life, right. Just like, no doubt about that.
Like, in multiple ways, because that's for me, like the, like,
my biggest temptation for a relapse is like psilocybin or
LSD. Yeah, but I, like, would be
rolling the dice as to whether that's going to hot wire a manic
episode. So it's just like even beyond
just the like cost of a relapse.Yeah, your brain is wired a
(45:22):
little bit differently for that sort of shit.
I can't. And I just like also like I've
done enough of them already to get whatever benefits I was
going to get. Like it's not going to get any
better. You know, I'm not going to you
know, I, I just don't, I just whatever, whatever usefulness it
has for people in like terminal illness or what not that I'm.
Well, there is there is. I agree with like the terminal
(45:43):
illness ones like that's amazing.
Those studies and with depression I've seen like really
impressive things with. Depression almost.
It's in phase three clinical trials.
Like it's probably going to be legalized for medical use within
like a year or 18 months or something.
Like that. Yeah.
And the micro dosing thing is fascinating too, I'm not gonna
lie. But for me?
But yeah, for you. Like I can't brain.
(46:04):
Isn't Why? Yeah, isn't worth the gamble.
It's not, it's not worth the gamble.
It's like even if I was at the end of my life, it's like, do I
want to spend the last three months of my life?
Going to be Huxley. And yeah, right.
I was listening to one of our podcasts where we were talking
about Huxley. Huxley taking the 100, the 100,
what was 100 Ucgs, Yeah. So it was.
It was Huxley, JFK and CS Lewis who.
(46:26):
All died on the scene. Died on the same day.
On the same day, yeah, which is pretty fucking amazing.
All died and JFK stole all the headlines.
All of them. What a Dick head headless fuck
he got. Shot.
He. Wasn't even on that.
He got shot. You wouldn't even know Andy.
He's got a shot. That's fucked up.
I'm sorry, JFK. That was rude.
I apologize. Your wife was lovely.
(46:50):
Fuck, I don't know what I was just going to.
Ask OH. OK, yes, I do.
All right. So you you really have kind of
like a three pronged recovery inyour life.
You kind of have you know, your physical with your Lyme's
disease and you know, tracking that for however many years and
you have your mental health recovery working on that.
(47:12):
And then I guess, you know, you're spiritual, I guess
recovery in Narcotics Anonymous,I guess like just sort of mind,
body, spirit, what, what kind oflike, what are some parallels
between like all three of those recoveries that like you use to,
you know, balance them off each other?
(47:34):
I mean, I would say the biggest part about it is just not
thinking of them as separate things.
Nice. Like I can understand the
distinction, right? I mean, I'm, and I'm not going
to, like I've made the mistake before of thinking if I just got
the spiritual lined up and it says this in the big book in a
very specific context, you get the spiritual sorted out, the
mental and physical workout too.We're talking about the physical
problem of like being drunk all the time and all this stuff.
(47:54):
That's just your body. I don't, it's not like if you
have, you know, rheumatoid arthritis or Lyme disease, it's
going to work itself out becauseyou found Jesus, right?
Yeah. But I yeah, I.
That's why that book needs an update.
I've sort of had that. I've had that problem of
thinking before. No, I'm cool with him, but if I
(48:15):
just thought like, if only I'm spiritual enough, it's going to
call it solve all my other problems.
And it's like, no, it's, it's like, it's more of the
spirituality is an invitation toface all of your problems with a
certain kind of dignity and, andresolve.
And so I, you know, there's a guy named Ram Dass who's a Ram
Dass says he wrote a book calledGrist for the Mill.
(48:36):
And the grist is the part that'slike, it's like it's breaking up
the, the seeds and getting it out of the hall.
And so the difficult experienceswe have in our life are actually
part of the process for us to break down the stuff that we're
trying to work through. And so I, I've been with it all
comes back to being present for me.
(48:57):
Like when I am dealing with physical symptoms, especially at
work, if I'm like feeling like shit and just trying to get
through a, you know, 8 hours on my feet, it's always a matter of
OK, well, right now I'm making tuna salad, but I'm not even
making tuna salad right now. I'm cutting open a pack of
mayonnaise right now. I'm not even cutting open a pack
(49:19):
of mayonnaise. I'm picking up a pair of
scissors. Like it's like breaking things
down and it, and it think there is a neurotic way to do that.
But it's more like if you just pay attention to what's
happening, the idea of the wholepicture is like an idea that we
need to have. Like if I don't have an idea of
what I'm doing, then I'm not going to be able to do it.
But stepping out of the idea a little bit and just getting into
where am I right now and just staying where I am right now and
(49:41):
feeling in the body. This is helpful for the mind and
the body feeling sensations of like, am, am I overdoing it?
Do I need to take a walk? And you know, something obvious
like, am I, am I hungry or thirsty?
And then that translates over into the mental stuff of like,
am IA little off, like do something.
Because when I'm a little off, it's like my mind isn't sitting
on my body properly. And I can like get by getting
(50:05):
into the body and feeling deeplyand just sort of moving with
that and moving with the breath.The mind settles usually.
And I know that if it won't settle and I need extra help, I
can get extra help. But all of this works together
and, and I don't, I don't resentor regret any of it.
I don't know that it was a good thing, but I, I know that
(50:26):
because because I was given the possibility of responding to it
from a place of recovery and a place of growth, yeah.
That there are good things that can come out of it.
And I like the person I am now. And I wouldn't be that person if
I if things had gone differentlyfor me.
Yeah. You're going to be a really good
therapist. Oh, thanks.
(50:48):
Yeah. I think that's my my questions
issue today. I think I've just been drawn in
about everything that you've hadto say, yeah.
God damn. Appreciate that.
Do you have any other questions,Eric?
No, I think that. I think I'm out.
Yeah, dude, I like, I you like, I have more written down, but
I'm like, I think you answered all of it.
Like especially with that last answer, it was just fantastic.
(51:13):
But we want to give you one lastquick minute to talk to anybody
out there struggling, needs to hear a message of hope.
What do you have to say directlyto them?
Doesn't matter what the weight of your past is, It doesn't
matter what's coming down the Pike tomorrow.
We don't even know that. But right today their meetings
open all around the city, there's meetings open all around
(51:35):
the country, there's phone lines, there's people you can
call and there there is always hope.
And you don't have to, you don'thave to use today.
I mean, I, you can't say that, you know, everybody I know
that's had serious problems withaddiction has had a lot of other
stuff going on in their life too.
That's there. But none of that is powerful
(51:56):
enough to A prevent you from getting getting clean, getting
sober, or B prevent you from finding a peace and happiness in
your life. So don't lose hope.
Don't worry about the past, don't worry about the future.
Think about what you can do today, and there's plenty of
places to go for help with that.Perfect.
All right, Well, we would like to thank our guest Sam for
(52:18):
joining us today. Fantastic job, dude.
All right, everybody, thanks forjoining us once again.
Go to all our social media outlets, Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, go to our Patreon, you know, 'cause we need help
keeping the mics on. So, you know, throw us a few
shekels. Click all our links.
(52:39):
Click all the links and go to our merch and.
Yeah, we. Got merch, pick up some cool
shit, but yeah, like share, subscribe, most importantly,
everybody out there. Stay safe, stay safe and stay
clean there. You go.
Welcome back to Podcast Recovery, everyone.
We're your hosts, David O and. Carla S.
And as always, fucks me up everything.
It fucks me up too. Yeah, man, the S you.
Got to interrupt me really. It was the S It fucked me up.
It fucked me up. But yeah, I.
Can't wait, you know, I can't wait until you're in a separate
room. I can't.
Just just so I can just shit on you, OK?
(00:24):
Horribly. OK.
We'll see. Not feel bad about it.
No, I'll feel terrible. We'll see.
Today we're joined by our very special guest, Sam.
How are you doing, man? Pretty good.
How are you? Doing well, man.
Doing well, Everybody good. How are you, Carly?
I'm all right. OK.
How are you, Eric? I'm good.
Good. I don't care.
Rude, rude, rude. Where are you from, Sam?
I'm from Ellicott City. What high school did you go to?
(00:46):
I went to Hebron, OH. You went to Hebron.
Where did you graduate? 22,000 and seven OK.
So we same age, yeah. Yeah.
You're roughly. Six, I'm a 605 I'm a.
Five. Yeah, I'm the old one here.
What, 2010? She's a four. 09.
Or 909. OK, I was close.
I was giving you younger than you are.
You're welcome. OK.
(01:07):
Where are you from? God.
You asked that question completely.
Blanking, I know. When were you first introduced
to recovery? I was 2010 in in March.
Yeah, it was it was sort of fortuitous.
My, my sort of closest using buddy and I were hanging out one
night and he's, we were sort of like out of drugs and out of
(01:28):
money. And he's like, you want to go to
a meeting? I was like, what?
Yes, yeah. And I got to that meeting and it
was immediately like, oh, this is what I was looking.
For OK wow, that's interesting. How long have you been clean?
It's been 3 1/2 years now. I had a stretch of 10 years in
there and I went and did a little bit of experimentation,
(01:50):
some research, some research. It was as bad as it was before,
if not worse. Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I can get to that a little later if I tell my story
a little bit. But yeah, it's, it's it's kind
of cool though. It, I, I found that just the
relapse didn't cancel out all the growth and learning.
It just put me in a place where I had to like dig it back up or
(02:11):
like it like pulled a lot of stuff over I.
Love my. Head.
Hell yeah. Yeah, it was.
It was, you know, it was an ordeal, but I'm sure I am where
I am now. It's a pretty good spot.
Yeah, man. All right.
Well, with all that out of the way, turn it over to you.
Share your story with us. Take it away.
Yeah, all right. I am, Sam.
I'm an addict. Hi.
(02:31):
Sam. Oh, I yeah, I used a lot of
drugs and it. I used to use a lot of I I,
you've always reminded me of Mitch had always just your tone.
I used to use a lot of drugs. I mean, I still do, but I used
to. Too.
(02:53):
No, I I was pretty hopeless as an adolescent.
I remember being like a kid eveninto like middle school and we
did the anti drug thing in school and it was yeah, drugs
are bad. Like I'm never going to do
drugs. And I'd had like a grandfather
die from alcoholism and to to like a grandfather and a
grandmother die from from tobacco use.
(03:17):
And the other one lived till shewas like 100 did.
They have the DARE program in Catholic school.
Yeah, OK. Yeah, we, we didn't get that.
I don't think we had the DARE program.
We just had regular. No, we or else I was like out on
that day or something. I don't, I don't know.
We didn't have it, but the, you know, I was very like anti drug,
but then I, I was, I got really sick when I was 11 years old and
(03:38):
nobody knew what it was. It was, and I wound up being
very isolated and very hopeless.And by the time I was 15, I was
just like, just Get Me Out of here.
Like I need, I need an escape. And I didn't want to.
I didn't want to do anything drastic.
What was it? It was turn to be Lyme disease,
chronic Lyme, and it you know, Ifinally was diagnosed when I was
(03:59):
16, but it. Took five years to.
Diagnose and they diagnosed me based on a test that was taken
in 2001, but that was read usingthe wrong standards.
Oh geez. Yeah.
So it was like 5 years of my life.
Plus at that point it was so entrenched that it took such a
long time to treat it. Yeah.
You know so. Yeah, 'cause that's a, that's a
time sensitive. Yeah, it really is.
(04:20):
It's a it's pretty, it's, it's apretty nasty one at that.
Yeah, I, but I, I mean, I didn'thave any hope and I, I had the
opportunity to start, to start getting high and I thought,
well, this is my way out. Like this is what I'm going to
do. You know I'm not going to.
What'd you start with? So start with pot, which was my
sort of great love with the drugs.
(04:41):
I I never got that into any likelike dope or I didn't.
I mean, I messed around with cocaine and, and a little bit of
opiates and stuff, but, but it never, that never took on like a
life of its own the way that like for me, like smoking pot
was enough of an addiction. And like pile on top of that the
alcohol and the psychedelics andit was like, you know, I, you
(05:02):
know, I, I always look at my, the, the gravity of my addiction
in terms not of what I was doing, but in what the
consequences were that I was willing to tolerate with what I
was doing. Like I, you know, for me, like
drinking would be a three or four day hangover for a lot of
the time that I was drinking, but I did it anyways.
(05:23):
Yeah, it was just because I would get really.
Lyme disease. Yeah, that was a lie.
I would get really sick and I would, you know, but I would do
it anyways. And every time I'd be like,
what's not going to happen this time?
Yeah, until I knew it was going to happen and I just didn't
care. Yeah, you just didn't give fuck.
I just didn't care. So I had this dynamic going on.
Like I got diagnosed and there was a lot of hope and it was a
great. But by that time, I was sort of
(05:44):
in love with the idea of intoxication.
It was just like, this is going to this and I I bought into all
of the sort of like propaganda that it like makes you more
creative and Oh yeah, that kind of stuff.
You have the hippie vibe. A little bit, yeah, a little
bit. But I and and I mean I, I still
like I I learned some things from doing drugs, but but the
(06:06):
price of those lessons was way higher than I'm.
I would be willing to pay if youasked me to do it again.
Yeah. So like, you know, I, I did this
dance for a while where I would like be on treatment and I would
get better and then I would use most of my better to to drink
and use. And then I would be sick again.
(06:26):
And I did that several times. And then when I was when I was
20, I had this, this big, like, you know, I felt like the world
was shifting under my feet. You know, my, my best friend,
another guy that was sort of like #3 in our little group, my
brother, my girlfriend, and my therapist all moved at least
(06:47):
four or five hours away and likewithin a week of each other.
And I was just like, I didn't know what to do.
And at that very time, very suspiciously, synchronistically,
my a using buddy came back into my life.
I wasn't looking for him. He just showed up.
Yeah, he just like. That's generally how they
happen. They just sort of pop out of the
ground. When the student is ready, the
(07:08):
teacher appears right and we were like such that.
That could be a title, Eric. I'm not sure that we were.
It's not like he was a bad influence on me or I was a bad
influence on him. It was both.
So like if, if I was going to get like level 8 wrecked with
him, I'll get a level 14, right?So we're both at a level 8, but
(07:29):
together we combine our forces and get we just make.
You were the wonderful twins. Yeah, we were the Wonder Twins,
you know? Wait, were you the bad
influence? Really, Eric?
Were you the bad influence? What do you think?
Yes, 100%. You were the, you were the
instigator. And I think we can both guess.
You can both guess. You were an instigator.
Absolutely, absolutely there wasa problem.
(07:50):
I was making it. Yeah, man.
We should have used together, Carly.
Shaking her head yeah, right. So we, I like proceeded to and I
was like on disability at the time from from the line I was on
disability. So I had a little bit of money,
(08:11):
just enough to like, you know, keep myself, keep myself stoned,
keep myself drunk. And it was just this tear that
lasted for about 6 months. And by the end of it, like I was
thoroughly convinced, like the first step was a reality for me.
I'd never heard it before, but Iwas just like, OK, I'm obviously
I didn't have the word powerless, but I'm obviously not
in control of this. I can't, I can't stop.
(08:32):
I can't like stop once I start, I can't not start if I try not
to start. And I just felt like there
wasn't any hope for me. And it was, I was just sort of
resigned to being stuck in this trap of the addiction.
And the consequences are gettingbad.
And I was really worried that the line was going to come back
even worse because it was starting to.
Yeah. And then this is about the time
(08:55):
when you know, out of drugs, outof money, nowhere to go, 11:30
on a Friday night, you know, my,my buddy's like, hey, you know,
our friend from Main Street. There's like this whole Main
Street crew, just a weird peoplelike collected around and on
like a city. And he's like.
You went to Bart, you went to bars and all.
That yeah, I did. I went with Eric actually a
couple of times. Used to do the like open mics
(09:17):
and stuff and like yeah. You guys started at the opposite
end of the hill. You guys honestly did it smart
and I was fucking dumb. You guys started at the top of
the hill and went down. No, started at the bottom there.
Oh, you started at the bottom ofthe hill?
Started well, Coco. Coco was huge.
That was the best, yeah. Coco was like Lane was awesome
the. Vibe was great.
(09:37):
It was like fancy, but not too fancy.
Yeah, you're like. There's a balcony here.
There's 4 balconies? What?
Why is there? 4 decks, great for smokers.
Yeah, I mean, I smoked like a chimney back then, so yeah,
same. Where were you?
You were at. You were up here in Catonsville
at those bars, weren't you? She's at Morse Burgers.
(09:57):
Morse limelight in. Morse Burgers is rough.
Morse Burgers just has a sign that says bar.
That's my. Favorite part about Morse
burgers? It doesn't say Morse.
Burgers and it delivers. It does it does it.
Does like it's. Because their grandmother did
not want their last name on a bar.
On a bar. It's good to see you know that I
didn't know that. Because I'm friends with them
(10:19):
like the family. Yeah.
My friend Casey, who was in my wedding, is a Morse burger.
Oh yeah? Shit, yeah.
They also own shacks too, right?No talking about little bars in
Catonsville. No, I was there all the time,
but that's a different. Person.
Yeah, yeah, OK. Anyway.
So back to old Ellicott. City, yeah, so your your your
(10:40):
Main Street crew in it up. Yeah, we'll, well, I mean.
The Main Street crew was weird, by the way, like looking back on
like, like those types because, I mean, we hung out with
homeless people, too. Yeah, multiple suicides like.
Yeah, Ed. For Ed, yeah, that was and and
Teddy. Like and yeah, couple.
Years before that it was. Was that a suicide?
Like, yeah, that one was. Yeah, it was.
(11:01):
I know it like it was like kind of back and forth because it was
a fall, but. Yeah, but he knew those hills.
Yeah, he knew those hills. Yeah.
He jumped off seven hills. One of the seven hills.
Oh my God. Yeah, yeah.
OK. All right, Yeah, continue.
Sad It's. Really depressing.
(11:21):
Really. Yeah.
Jesus Christ. OK, let me try to pull it out.
Let's get some happy user. So I, I mean, it was, this was
like one of the most important nights of my whole life was
when, I mean, this dude came to pick us up and took us to the
midnight meeting at the SerenityCenter.
And was it his condition? Him, Carl, He he came around for
a little while and stopped. But but he, he was there long
(11:45):
enough to have an impact on me. Yeah, right.
You never know who's going to impact you.
And like, I don't think I even saw him once after that first
time. He gave me a ride there.
And it was just like, you know. Yeah.
But we went to that meeting. I sat down and read who is an
addict? It was just like, you know,
everything about it was exactly what my life was and I had a
(12:05):
transformational moment and I like saw some light in people's
eyes and it was just like stepped 1-2 and three of like I
knew I was powerless. That wasn't that wasn't news,
but like coming to believe I believe something about NA was
going to work. And then I made a decision to
turn myself over to it. All of it happening very much
sort of kind of unconsciously orlike or like like instinctively.
(12:29):
It was I didn't I didn't even hadn't read the steps.
I mean, I guess I'd heard them read without works, but like I
hadn't I didn't have any, I didn't have any like
intellectual knowledge about it.It was just something that
happened. And of course you got to go back
around and actually work them and actually learn to apply
them. But the, the principle was there
and I started going to a lot of meetings and I from that date
(12:51):
on, I didn't use for been used for 10 1/2 years.
And it was a good time. I mean, it was a hard 10 1/2
years, a lot of points. But like, I, I can't imagine
what my life would be like if I had not been clean for that
time. Oh yeah.
Like I, well, I can't imagine and it's not good.
It's like it would have been because things were getting dark
and they were getting worse and I was starting to screw around
(13:11):
with like, heavier club drugs and starting to, you know, mess
a dope a little bit. And like, that would have taken
me out. Like, I didn't have the physical
capacity to withstand a dope habit.
Like, it probably would have just killed me.
Yeah. So yeah, I, I, I was in
fantasyland for the first few months of my recovery, though.
Like, I, I mean, I got some mental health problems that I've
(13:32):
dealt with. They're very much under control
at this point. But like I.
What's your diagnosis? Bipolar.
Bipolar Which type one or type 2?
It's like a moderate form of type one.
OK, so it gets back you. Get you get some mania.
You get some pretty insane mania, pretty intense, but it's
I've only had one manic episode that was like full blown.
(13:53):
And I wasn't like talking to walls and stuff like that.
I didn't get that bad. Yeah.
And I was, I was like together enough that I could convince
someone. I was fine for about 15 minutes
and you're talking. Way too fast, yeah.
Yeah, and just the stuff like the, I thought I was filtering
out all the stuff that was really obvious.
And maybe it was like the most obvious insanity, but like what
(14:13):
I was saying, like I told a doctor that I thought I could
make space weapons. Why not?
What? Well, here's why you watched.
OK, I want to hear this argument.
This is going to be good. If you hand a Glock to a
chimpanzee and shoot him into space.
OK. That's a space weapon.
It is. It's a technically space weapon.
Yeah. That wasn't right.
(14:34):
I was arguing. I was mentioning the fact that a
friend of mine and I were talking about doing that when we
were middle school. It's a stupid little, you know,
Yeah. So would the bullet move in
space? Oh yeah, yeah, for sure.
Like the physics slowly. Why?
It probably moved fast faster. Yeah, yeah.
There's no resistance. There's no resistance.
Yeah. And I mean, if it depends on if
you're in a space shuttle or not, if you're in the space
(14:54):
shuttle, there's still oxygen inthere.
So you might move the same. I don't know what direction, I
don't know anyway. Yeah, well, anyway.
Carly is like what the fuck am Igetting into?
Yeah, right. We took it there.
But no, I mean, yeah, so it's been, it was enough that it was
pretty bad. Like it was pretty bad, but for
(15:16):
my first six months of recovery,I was going to meetings, but I
was still hanging out with people that were smoking weed
and like I like passed the blunt.
Like don't do that. Like like I didn't, I didn't hit
it, but I passed. You were still in the relation
and you were just like, oh. Yeah, I do.
You ever? Remember you being around and
not getting high with everybody and he's like, what the fuck is
going on? Yeah, I've never seen that my
(15:37):
friend. Terrace goes wow man, you got
self-control. Like I have 0 self-control.
This is not self-control. This is like some kind of grace
or something like, so I was in agrace bubble and I, I wouldn't
recommend and anybody doing that.
And I'm, I'm really stunned thatI did it, but I was just so
relieved not to have to get highanymore that I just didn't want
to. I could not have done.
That like the desire to use leftme immediately upon coming to NA
(16:00):
yeah, and but I had all these other problems, the underlying
conditions and everything to deal with and.
And I finally, what happened is,I mean, I got AI got a sponsor
who had actually been like a teacher of mine before.
And yeah, it was interesting. And but I wasn't being that
honest with him because I wasn'tbeing that honest with myself.
(16:22):
And finally it broke. And like, I had this idea I was
going to get back together with my ex.
And and like, it finally came tolike, just, that's not
happening. And I just like everything
crashed around me. And I was like, there was a guy
that had been been just listening to me for a while.
Like we would go out to dinner and he would just listen like
we'd go out to dinner as a groupafter the meeting, after my Home
(16:44):
group and I realized, Oh, this is the person that I need to
sponsor me for real. Like the other guys like was
doing pH DS like I can't really sponsor you anymore.
So like the good, the timing wasperfect.
Yes. And I asked, I asked the next
guy and it really like was was alife changing thing.
I got in a relationship at a 10 months clean, which I again, it
(17:06):
was a bad idea and it like didn't work and I like broke it
off because I realized it wasn'tgoing to work and it was long
distance and stuff. It wasn't good.
And but I felt so bad about myself for doing that.
Like I just felt like, I'm just like, it was just grandiose.
Like, oh, I just keep hurting people and I can't stop it.
And I, I fell into a black hole.And then I decided I wanted to
(17:28):
come out of it. And somebody asked me to chair a
meeting like immediately after Istarted like coming up for air a
little bit. And it was another one of these
things were like over overnight practically.
There was this dramatic reorientation and I discovered
this book. It's a little trite now, but at
the time it was important to me.It was the power of now you read
(17:48):
that book. Yeah.
Yeah, I think. Eric's actually read it I know
of. It yeah, it's just a primer in
like you wrote. The power of habit, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Well, the power now is just
like, you know, kind of a stripped down non dual
spirituality thing where but thewhole point of it is pay
attention to what's going on right now, right now.
(18:10):
And so that became my my focus. And around the time I worked the
third step and I had this just transformation just in these few
months and everything was put meon a footing to have a different
life for the next, you know, number of years.
Yeah. Yeah, So what happened with the
(18:31):
relapse? Well, I I had I had a what had
What had happened was. But me and my ex used to say
that all the time. The one from the relapse
actually, but is. That a Maryland saying.
What I think it's from ATV show.I think it's from ATV show like
some, somebody said that. But so I, I had about, from the
(18:56):
time that I got that second sponsor until when I was like,
you know, nine years clean, I didn't have any mental health
problems at all. I was never really, I was a
little bit down occasionally, but I was never really up and I
was mostly in the middle and pretty stable.
I started having like, I got really, really burnt out doing
this music therapy internship, which is dumb.
(19:16):
I was doing it like 50 hours a week and driving to and fro and
I was still like on heavy treatment for Lyme.
It was just really stupid to tryto do it at that level.
And my recovery fell by the wayside because I didn't have
any energy. So I wasn't putting my energy
into the thing that I need to keep me OK.
And by the time I got some energy back, I was already sort
of off on, you know, my own trip.
And I didn't, I didn't know thatI was sick.
(19:38):
Like, that's, that's the insidious part about it is just
like when I'm dry, I, I won't notice it.
I think I'm just like doing somereally interesting things.
And but anyways, eventually after an up period that wasn't
like insanely up, it wasn't likenobody really noticed.
But after the fact they were like, yeah, I guess that was
kind of weird. You were like, you know, doing
doing a few weird things. And but I got I was in a really,
(20:01):
really low spot for a while. 2020.
I was living at this this house with, with one of my best
friends and, you know, a friend of ours who owned the house who
was like, you know. Letting us letting me live there
for a while for free in exchangefor like some yard work.
And and then I was, I got a job and things were stable and
things were good. But then the mania started
(20:24):
coaching in and I was like, I took a couple months off to do a
bunch of work around the house for him, like do some drywall,
do some painting. And I was by myself in this
crazy house for, for like a month and I just ramped up.
And by the time I, I was at thispoint moving back to
Pennsylvania to, to finish an internship.
And by the time I got there, I was full blown like, I had this
(20:47):
crazy idea. I was going to make this like
workshop thing and like help like disadvantaged youth or
something. And this is like, not a terrible
sounding idea, but it's just like, it's not what I it's just.
Grandiose. It's just grandiose.
It's not what I was supposed to be focusing on.
You know, it's not what I was supposed to be focusing on.
And I, you know, the relapse, you know, happened long before I
picked up. But when I picked up I I was on
(21:09):
Facebook marketplace just looking for random crap as you
do in your manic and and. That's what Eric does just on
the. Usual.
Yeah, some people, that's just, that's just some people's back.
But I, I found this, this familywas giving away a bunch of a
bunch of country records. And I have a cousin who's really
into country records, like old vinyls.
(21:30):
And I was just like, well, I might like some of them, He
might like some of them. I'm going to go over there and
get those. And they were also getting rid
of a whole bunch of random stuff.
And I took a bunch of like, justrandom trash, like just crap I
didn't need. And at the time, I rented a
truck I'd rented a truck from. I've done that many times.
I'd rent, especially with vinyl.Yeah, I, I'd rented this truck
from from Home Depot, so I had the capacity.
(21:53):
It was like a big like F-250 with this huge like modified
bed. And but one of the things we're
getting rid of was about 6 or 7 gallons of top shelf liquor.
And I was like, well, I suppose this is a side if there ever was
1. And I started drinking and you
what happened when I took a drink?
Nothing. Yeah, nothing.
And I was like, I guess it's. Possible.
Yeah, but I immediately was drinking and driving.
(22:15):
That should have been a. Communication.
Yeah, Within a few weeks, I was,I had like come back down from.
I was. I was.
What do you wait? What was it?
What did you start? With it was like a commemorative
whiskey from the the World Cup in like Dubai or something.
That's awesome. That's.
Pretty awesome. That's a good relax if ever
there was a good relax. High class you're like very.
(22:35):
High. There you go.
Yeah, it was. It was like a little soccer ball
shaped container. That was pretty awesome.
That's why I picked it. I had like a whole bag full of
MO. Like this is the one.
Yeah. I don't care about soccer, but
like, yeah. It looks cool.
That's fair. Yeah, yeah, man.
So it proceeded to spiral out ofcontrol.
But the thing about this whole time was that the mania was so
(22:58):
bad that the drinking was almostlike, and this I was smoking
too, as much as I could. It was almost like a footnote.
It was just like, because, I mean, it was bad, right?
And if it didn't stop, it would have gotten worse.
And I got engaged in this periodof time.
Like I got reconnected with thisgirl I dated in middle school
and we. Had the middle.
School, yeah, this whole like, oh, we were supposed to be
(23:20):
together and we weren't and it'sjust like, you know, so.
Man, that would be no, that would be bad for me.
Yeah, if one of my exes from like middle school came back
around and be like, Oh, no, unrequited love, but like, it's
the universe talking to me. Yeah, it was.
We had that going on and and so she asked me to marry her and I
was just like, OK, she asked. You.
(23:42):
She asked you. She asked me.
She's very progressive. She was.
She was supposed to be. More women, Any women out there
listening to this? More women need to and to start
proposing. To men.
She did it sarcastically, though.
It was kind of funny. She's like, marry me.
And I was like, wait, are you serious?
She was like, yeah, I was like, OK, you know, And this had been
(24:03):
after, like, a couple weeks of being back together and like,
she was in Florida, so we didn'teven see each other until, like,
she came up for a couple weeks and I think she grounded me.
She sort of stabilized me for a while.
It seems like all. Your girlfriends live in other
places. So wait, from what?
It's just these two I've mentioned just these two.
OK, How? Did you?
How did you propose to MC? I didn't say it, I just held out
the ring. Where?
(24:24):
On top of Dan's Rock in Frostburg.
Oh, OK. Yeah, cool.
And I was taking pictures of herand then I was like, oh, turn
around and I just had the ring. I didn't ask though.
OK, what do I how did Garrett? Propose to you.
I don't remember what he said. Where was I think I blacked out
National Harbor? OK, you blacked out.
(24:45):
I think I did. Aw, that's kind of adorable.
About the day before the world shut down.
Oh, this is 2020. Yeah.
Yeah, March. 15th, yeah. 2020 mine was in Yosemite.
Same. I didn't say anything.
I just, yeah, I tried to do it in a selfie like an idiot.
But anyway. He said a lot.
I have no idea what he said, so wait, now I remember did.
(25:05):
You get married, you know Sam, No.
We didn't. I probably would have done the
courthouse thing, but she was, she was a little more grounded
than I was at that point in time.
She's like, wait until she's like, I got some stuff I'm
trying to get ready and get in place.
Let's like, wait for that. She was, I mean, she's a sweet
girl, very sensitive and very, you know, just just very kind.
(25:28):
We weren't a good match. But but I, you know, nothing.
But I don't just love, but like,I have gratitude for her being
there. Yeah.
You know, and she, she tried herbest to, to help get me in a
good place because I really, I really wasn't in a good place at
that point in time. So, but, but my last, I don't
(25:51):
know when the last day I I used was.
And so that was. During 2020. 2020 Who called it
off? Who called the engagement off?
Yeah, OK. And this was so this.
Was during the pandemic. This was during the pandemic, it
was during lockdown. OK during lockdown.
Yeah, OK, that makes a. Lot of sense.
Yeah, and I, I, I don't know. I know what the last thing I
used was. I did ketamine.
(26:13):
Oh, yeah, Academy. It wasn't a whole lot.
It was like somebody came over in the middle of the night and
they were like, I have a little bit left and I was like, all
right, I'll do whatever you have.
And it's enough to fuck up your day.
Thanks. Yeah.
So I mean, that was, but I don'teven know when that was.
That was a resounding yuck by all.
(26:34):
Yeah, it was actually pretty amazing.
Though I do I do see positive like studies.
In a therapeutic. In a yes.
In a. Therapeutic.
Setting is. I don't wanna.
Shit on it, but in a recreational setting.
Yeah, I did it twice and it was fucking horrendous.
Twice. Yeah, I've done it a few times,
but one time I just got a reallybad Nosebleed, but I'm gonna K
(26:54):
hole and my face is bleeding, which is like not a good
combination. Oh God.
That's kind of funny, yeah. How is it fun?
That's why it was kind of funny.God damn, You're dude, that's
kind of funny, yeah. In a dark sort of, I see.
The humor in that? Fuck you, Eric.
I I just see you trying to like like trying, you know, I.
(27:14):
Can see you just drowning on your own.
Blood I've been in like situations where like everyone's
on K except for me and I'm like the clean one in the room and
like just watching everyone on ketamine.
It's like watching people on salvia.
It's like kind of hilarious, right?
Like it's just like, man, if youguys want to say I'm.
So glad I never used with you. You seem like a piece of shit.
Everybody in the room. This guy's a deck.
(27:37):
I I I remember when I stopped smoking salvia and started just
watching people smoke salvia it was way better.
Such a. Terrible drug.
Yeah. Every time I did salvia, I was
like, this time it's gonna be good.
I was just for good. I always just felt like I was
some sort of a blue collar worker, like I was laying bricks
or doing plumbing or like fucking Mario or something like
that. I.
Would get trapped in like rooms and stuff.
(27:58):
It was so weird. It tasted like fish food too.
It's like so gross. The weirdest thing Did you ever
smoke Salivia? No good.
You're lucky. Yeah, atypical psychedelic.
Yeah, the weirdest atypical thing.
I I think the weirdest experience you could have is
probably Salivia. It's.
As far as weird, it's like just straight up weird.
Bizarre. There's no sense, There's no
(28:19):
right. It's a terrible fucking drug
anyway. You're doing they.
All are terrible. Guy, they are.
They all are terrible. That is correct.
See, Guy comes over with ketamine, you do ketamine.
Yeah, and that was the last timeI, that was the last time I
used, but I I don't know when that was.
So my my clean date is actually.Academy will do that, yeah.
(28:39):
You have a good clean date as far as like.
Yeah, it's the first day of spring.
Yeah, I like it. What is it?
It's 3/21/21. Yeah.
Oh, nice. Yeah, it's great.
Sweet. And it's it's three days before
my clean date was in 2010. So yeah.
And there's three. I love it.
Yeah, so and I still celebrate that original clean date, I
think. Not like in a meeting, like I've
got 14 years, but like, you know, I celebrated because it
(29:01):
saved my life. Yeah.
It's like, it's like a big thing.
So I get to celebrate them both at the same time, you know, But
I, yeah. So I don't know when my last day
was, but, but so my, my clean day is the first day that I
called my sponsor. And it was the day after I broke
up with, with the girl because that it was just like that was
(29:22):
the very end of the whole being off on my own trip thing that
had been going on for about 6 months.
And it was and it was just finally, you know, you know,
come to Jesus kind of thing. Yeah.
Back to reality, back to reality, back to my.
And that sponsor was, I mean, hewas great for me, but I'm not,
I'm not with him anymore. He was, he was a very generous
person, very insightful. There was some conflicts that we
(29:43):
have, but just never, never really got resolved.
I still talk to him. Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, for the time that after I came back, he was,
he was crucial. Like I had a period of about
four months where I didn't really talk to anybody,
including him. I didn't go to meetings.
I just went to work. I was working at Sprouts.
Awesome. Yeah, it was a decent job to
have. I'm almost finished my time
(30:05):
there but I I just went to work and.
Those birds are so. Fucking came home.
They're being mean to each other.
I know they're being Dicks. They're over here.
There is enough food for all of them.
For everybody, Yeah, you should be communists, you fucking
birds. Capitalist turds.
Oh. Man, the yeah, I, I didn't
(30:30):
participate in my recovery for afew months and I was as
miserable as I thought I could get.
And finally it was like I had this realization.
I just kept going to therapy, though.
I don't know why. It's just like I wasn't, I was
like, I'm checked out. I don't care about anything, but
I'll show up to therapy. Right.
Yeah. So it was like something in
there was still trying to get better.
And I was like doing quality like trauma work and therapy
too. It was just got.
Good. You know you have a finger on
the ledge of you know something good.
(30:51):
Yeah, and I had this realizationand I I said to my I said to my
therapist, I was like, there is no alternative to facing life
either. You face life as a, you know,
man, woman, you know, adult person.
The. Other one's better.
Fuck you. Or you just get chewed up by
something that you're not willing to have the courage to,
(31:14):
to show up for in a, in a, you know, adult way.
Yeah. And you know, I'd gotten, I'd
gotten the shit knocked out of me.
And when I, I came back to the street, I was like, I was
knocked out. I was kicked out of school.
They gave me a sort of BS degreethat was good enough to get me
into grad school, but I got kicked out of my program.
I couldn't be a music therapist.I had all of this debt from
(31:36):
about a week of manic spending. And like, I, I bought a bunch of
instruments. I bought a bunch of furniture, a
bunch of power tools. Sweet.
That's fun, right? Like instruments.
I'm like, OK, hear me as a guy. Furniture.
Yeah. You need a place to set power
tools. Very weird.
OK, no, he was fixing up the house.
I was doing work, I was doing that kind of work at the time,
(31:59):
so it was like it was a smashed.As a functional spending.
Well, kind of. I mean, not really.
You can always justify a good tool.
Here's a thing that shows it wasn't justified.
OK, I bought all this stuff fromthis music store.
I just opened a line of credit there and maxed it out
instantly. Yep.
Just like. Yeah, why not?
And. Fucking burn it down.
(32:20):
I bought something like 9 guitarslides.
Why why why? I don't know.
Some of them weren't even the right size.
Like I wound up giving some of them away to a Co worker of
mine. I was like here you go.
Like I don't have any other use for these.
I don't even play slide guitar. Like, yeah, maybe I'm like, I'm
like a finger style guy. I don't do slide.
(32:41):
No, that's weird. So it was, it was nonsense.
But but I just had to spend the next, you know, period of time
just working my way out of that hole that I've gotten myself in.
And, you know, I worked out OK, you know.
And that's where you're at at today.
(33:01):
Pretty much, yeah. I've gone back to school.
I'm doing well. I My musicianship has sort of
really kicked off to another level.
I've been writing those songs like crazy.
I'm in a band I'm trying to record.
So, yeah, yeah. Awesome, dude.
All right, Well, we got some questions for you, Carly.
(33:22):
What do you got? The first time you got clean you
said you ran out of money, you ran out of drugs and was like
why the fuck not let's go to NA.But what really happened like
the second time like after that relapse, like what your come to
Jesus moment? What were you thinking feeling
like? OK, So what happened was I
(33:44):
started to realize that like, I was in this, this denial that
my, I was like, I'm not an addict, I'm not an alcoholic,
you know, this is just, I was just doing my thing.
And I started to realize that wasn't true.
It was like the mania had finally worn all the way off.
Like I've been in the hospital and like, I got better in the
hospital, but it wasn't all the way there.
(34:06):
And it really started to like finally I was back on the ground
and I was just broken. And I, I realized I needed
something like I, I was like, oh, that was a relapse.
Like this isn't, this isn't me being OK, that's a relapse.
So I called my first sponsor, the first one that I worked
through the steps with, and he challenged me on whether it was
(34:26):
healthy for recovering or at least potentially recovering
addict to be in a relationship with somebody that was using as
heavily as the bigger I was with.
And when he said that, I finallyrealized I couldn't keep up the
illusion anymore. And when I realized I couldn't
keep up the illusion, I had a breakdown.
(34:49):
I, I like, I just fell apart andmy I called out of work and I,
my dad took me out to this battlefield in Western Maryland
and we just. Which battlefield?
Antietam nice, great Battlefield.
Yeah, it's beautiful. And we just I was in just sort
of cycling through my head like trying to trying to like, what
am I going to do? Like all day?
(35:11):
And and that night I think I called her and I wasn't great
about the breakup, but it did what I had to do, I guess.
And then it was that next day I realized I needed to call my
sponsor and really get honest and start start over again.
All right. What you got, Eric?
You're going to ask some weird ass fucking esoteric question.
(35:33):
No, no, no, I'm just going to ask about Lyme disease, how
you're doing today with it. And 'cause I, I can definitely
relate to like chronic disease, but not anything like Lyme.
And like, my wife has RA and that's just, I see how that
completely fucks her system up and like her immune system's
just completely fried. And she'll get other shit too,
(35:57):
like shingles or like tuberculosis.
Oh, she's got shingles. She's gotten shingles twice in
her eye. Oh.
God. And she got tuberculosis when
she was pregnant. Jesus.
But I didn't know that like how how are you doing?
Because I know like it's the same type of immune like
deficiencies and like. Yeah, it, well, I was pretty
(36:21):
solid from about 2020 to like 2023.
I wasn't on any medication for it.
And then in early the early partof this year, I had started to
like sort of get like really tired all the time.
Yeah, the fatigue. And then I just overdid it one
(36:42):
day and had to work 8 hours the next morning and it was just
like it put me in a hole. So I've had to go back and see
treatment again. I I'm better than I was, but I'm
still I'm still like on antibiotics and still like
fighting through it do. You have to take steroids and
stuff for. That no, I don't have steroids.
(37:02):
I have in the past taking like corticosteroids because my, my
cortisol levels really low, but this time I'm just doing, just
doing a combination of like someherbs and some, some like
conventional antibiotics. And I've been like for a while I
was only working like 16 hours aweek at my job and that was sort
of all I can handle. And I'm back full time now.
(37:24):
So, but I did, I still am not, I'm not 100%, but I'm, I'm
getting in the direction. Yeah.
You know, So we're, you know, and I feel confident that I can
probably get to a point with this where it's once again, it's
not an issue and I'm maybe even better than I was before.
So we'll see. What's good?
Yeah. Oh yeah.
It's hard. From what you were saying, like
(37:48):
a batch of relapse, like it was,it was just one of the most like
health, like healthy refreshing takes about it, like how you
were like I didn't throw the time away.
It like it just is what it is. So I mean, what do you think is
the process of kind of like changing the stigma of round
relapse? Because some people when they
(38:08):
feel that like guilt and shame about like, oh, I threw all my
time away. It'll just keep them out longer.
It could kill him. Yeah, and it can kill him.
But no, like your, your take on it is just like, you know, it,
it, it, you didn't throw away all that growth.
You just, you know, had to dig it back.
Up which I love doing sideways. Yeah.
I mean, I would say maybe part of the part of overturning the
(38:31):
stigma is to take away some of the glamour of a clean time.
Yeah. You know, I think, I mean, I've
heard people share at meetings and they've got like 40 years
and they sound like trash. Yeah, right.
And I've heard people that have a few months and it's just like,
man, this guy's got something I want, right?
Yeah. So I think like focusing more on
(38:51):
focusing more on the quality of the present moment and, you
know, and sobriety and recovery is like, that's what I, I would
say. Like that's where my focus is.
That's a great point. Dude that just fucked.
That hit me so fucking hard. Because there's people, there's
people who are taking away new. Taking away the glamour of clean
(39:12):
time. Holy shit.
And because what you just said is like, instead of the
quantity, it's about the fuckingquality, right?
And. Because that's like we talk
about with Celebrate Recovery and their slips and like, yeah,
how like slips work and like, it's like they don't forfeit
their recovery. Yeah.
Right. But in NA or AA, you have to
like, forfeit your recovery, butyou're not forfeiting what
(39:32):
you've learned. Yeah.
It's very an all or nothing kindof thing, yeah.
Yeah, and I was a little, a little.
I'm not. We're not telling anybody to go
fucking relapse. That's no, no, no, no, no, no,
no but but it's just something not to.
It doesn't. It's not be a fucking disaster.
It's like a boogeyman right now.Yeah, I, I very conceivably
(39:53):
could have had like 5560 years if I had stayed clean from when
I got clean. Yeah.
But now it's just like, yeah. But like, is that really, you
know, do I think God is countingtime, right?
Do I think like that? Like I.
Think I like that title, you know.
It's just like you. It is about that present moment
orientation. And you just fucking blow my
(40:16):
fucking mind. What do you got, Carly?
You got nothing. I'm.
Just here all. Right, that's fantastic.
Just here today that's. Fantastic.
Here now, right? Yep.
I have a manifestations. Go for it.
OK, Emoji. I'm just here.
OK, Eric. OK.
How has your addiction manifested itself today in your
(40:38):
recovery? Today I was.
Like. I zoned out on Facebook a little
while after getting up. Oh, hell yeah.
I I think something that like anaddiction for me is like, I woke
up and I wasn't tired anymore and I didn't get out of bed.
Yeah, you know where like that one, that one don't get me
because like I really like the feeling of getting out of bed
(41:01):
early in the morning, you know, brewing a pot of coffee, getting
going the day. How early you waking up?
When I have work I get up like 7, no.
Or like tomorrow I have to get up at 5.
Jesus. What?
On Sunday? Yeah, I get.
Up today I get up at like. Four.
I'll get up at like 8. Really.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, pretty much every
day I get up at like 4:00 to 5:00.
Yeah, yeah. So I'm I don't.
(41:21):
I don't accomplish anything withthe fucking extra time, I'm just
saying I do. Just do it.
Yeah. That's something I would like to
work towards this more like, youknow, but I also have insomnia,
so she kind of like, well, if I sleep in a little bit, just you
got to make it up somewhere, yeah.
So anyway, you like the feeling of getting up early?
But I don't do it. Yeah.
(41:42):
But I think that, and that's definitely a, a manifestation of
addiction, if it's just like, you know, like knowing what's
good for you and even like experiencing the benefits of it
and still doing what isn't good for you.
Yeah, still doing what doesn't work.
God damn. Anything else?
Any other crazy spending? No, actually I track every cent
(42:07):
that goes out of my wallet. Wow, yeah, I'm I, I hate not
knowing. I have like a little spreadsheet
that I update on my phone. I just don't, I don't like it
being all like, you know, scattered and probably just
because of that, having to pay all that debt off.
I, I became more fastidious about money.
But but it's I've had, I haven'thad any crazy spending.
(42:30):
I had to save up to make sure I was good for the school year.
So I did. Oh yeah, yeah, I did.
Nice. What about you, Eric?
What you. Got All right, so you're bipolar
type 1, which means you should be medicated, right?
And you are. You've gotten back on meds,
right? Because I mean, you weren't on
(42:51):
meds when you were in mania or were you?
Well, were the meds not working anymore?
I had been I've been on. I stopped taking my meds after I
was manic. Well, yeah, yeah.
Not before I was manic. So it was just like I was on a
little bit of Seroquel. And a little bit of Seroquel is
not gonna stop the juggernaut oflike a full blown man.
Yeah. But you were still drinking like
you were using at that time, right?
(43:13):
The using happened after. Oh, OK.
Yeah, the using it, it was like the lid was already blown off
and then I started. The opening a line of credit and
then maxing it sounds like the most manic thing.
Yeah. Like like like.
It's I just, I did it like threetimes.
Yeah, I did it like three times.Yeah.
It's because it's like. What do you think I issue?
Spending. I, I wrote, AI wrote a song
(43:33):
about the experience. And the one line is I've got the
sun burning a hole in my pocket because that's what it feels
like. It's like, you know, you're just
like, you just got like all the power in the universe, like.
But there's consequences to that.
Oh my. God, it's not worth it.
It feels pretty great, but it's not worth it.
Plus, like, you know, I, I was trying to be all creative when I
(43:56):
was mannequin and I, I did some things that were interesting,
but the thing about creativity is it requires a whole lot of
organization and discipline to, to really pull it off.
So like, whatever crazy ideas I had that might have been kind of
interesting, and most of them weren't that good.
It's probably the problem with mania is that you don't have a
filter. And like they've confirmed this.
This is Carl Jung's idea that the psyche loses its capacity to
(44:17):
differentiate between any valuesthat it has in its instrument of
consciousness. And they've confirmed this
neurologically, that the part ofyour brain that says that's a
bad idea is turned off. So I was just.
Everything's a good. Idea So I just have like all
these terrible songs. I wrote a few good ones, but
like mostly just terrible songs and there's just dumb stuff and
(44:39):
I did some interesting art, but I'm, I'd almost like, yeah, it.
So I'm on medication. Yeah, I'm on medication.
I, I don't, I don't want to do that again.
And, and my, you know, my psych is like, you know, if you keep
doing what you're doing and you know, you're going to be fine.
(45:00):
And he's like, it was also told me, you know, he's like, NAA,
save your life, right. Just like, no doubt about that.
Like, in multiple ways, because that's for me, like the, like,
my biggest temptation for a relapse is like psilocybin or
LSD. Yeah, but I, like, would be
rolling the dice as to whether that's going to hot wire a manic
episode. So it's just like even beyond
just the like cost of a relapse.Yeah, your brain is wired a
(45:22):
little bit differently for that sort of shit.
I can't. And I just like also like I've
done enough of them already to get whatever benefits I was
going to get. Like it's not going to get any
better. You know, I'm not going to you
know, I, I just don't, I just whatever, whatever usefulness it
has for people in like terminal illness or what not that I'm.
Well, there is there is. I agree with like the terminal
(45:43):
illness ones like that's amazing.
Those studies and with depression I've seen like really
impressive things with. Depression almost.
It's in phase three clinical trials.
Like it's probably going to be legalized for medical use within
like a year or 18 months or something.
Like that. Yeah.
And the micro dosing thing is fascinating too, I'm not gonna
lie. But for me?
But yeah, for you. Like I can't brain.
(46:04):
Isn't Why? Yeah, isn't worth the gamble.
It's not, it's not worth the gamble.
It's like even if I was at the end of my life, it's like, do I
want to spend the last three months of my life?
Going to be Huxley. And yeah, right.
I was listening to one of our podcasts where we were talking
about Huxley. Huxley taking the 100, the 100,
what was 100 Ucgs, Yeah. So it was.
It was Huxley, JFK and CS Lewis who.
(46:26):
All died on the scene. Died on the same day.
On the same day, yeah, which is pretty fucking amazing.
All died and JFK stole all the headlines.
All of them. What a Dick head headless fuck
he got. Shot.
He. Wasn't even on that.
He got shot. You wouldn't even know Andy.
He's got a shot. That's fucked up.
I'm sorry, JFK. That was rude.
I apologize. Your wife was lovely.
(46:50):
Fuck, I don't know what I was just going to.
Ask OH. OK, yes, I do.
All right. So you you really have kind of
like a three pronged recovery inyour life.
You kind of have you know, your physical with your Lyme's
disease and you know, tracking that for however many years and
you have your mental health recovery working on that.
(47:12):
And then I guess, you know, you're spiritual, I guess
recovery in Narcotics Anonymous,I guess like just sort of mind,
body, spirit, what, what kind oflike, what are some parallels
between like all three of those recoveries that like you use to,
you know, balance them off each other?
(47:34):
I mean, I would say the biggest part about it is just not
thinking of them as separate things.
Nice. Like I can understand the
distinction, right? I mean, I'm, and I'm not going
to, like I've made the mistake before of thinking if I just got
the spiritual lined up and it says this in the big book in a
very specific context, you get the spiritual sorted out, the
mental and physical workout too.We're talking about the physical
problem of like being drunk all the time and all this stuff.
(47:54):
That's just your body. I don't, it's not like if you
have, you know, rheumatoid arthritis or Lyme disease, it's
going to work itself out becauseyou found Jesus, right?
Yeah. But I yeah, I.
That's why that book needs an update.
I've sort of had that. I've had that problem of
thinking before. No, I'm cool with him, but if I
(48:15):
just thought like, if only I'm spiritual enough, it's going to
call it solve all my other problems.
And it's like, no, it's, it's like, it's more of the
spirituality is an invitation toface all of your problems with a
certain kind of dignity and, andresolve.
And so I, you know, there's a guy named Ram Dass who's a Ram
Dass says he wrote a book calledGrist for the Mill.
(48:36):
And the grist is the part that'slike, it's like it's breaking up
the, the seeds and getting it out of the hall.
And so the difficult experienceswe have in our life are actually
part of the process for us to break down the stuff that we're
trying to work through. And so I, I've been with it all
comes back to being present for me.
(48:57):
Like when I am dealing with physical symptoms, especially at
work, if I'm like feeling like shit and just trying to get
through a, you know, 8 hours on my feet, it's always a matter of
OK, well, right now I'm making tuna salad, but I'm not even
making tuna salad right now. I'm cutting open a pack of
mayonnaise right now. I'm not even cutting open a pack
(49:19):
of mayonnaise. I'm picking up a pair of
scissors. Like it's like breaking things
down and it, and it think there is a neurotic way to do that.
But it's more like if you just pay attention to what's
happening, the idea of the wholepicture is like an idea that we
need to have. Like if I don't have an idea of
what I'm doing, then I'm not going to be able to do it.
But stepping out of the idea a little bit and just getting into
where am I right now and just staying where I am right now and
(49:41):
feeling in the body. This is helpful for the mind and
the body feeling sensations of like, am, am I overdoing it?
Do I need to take a walk? And you know, something obvious
like, am I, am I hungry or thirsty?
And then that translates over into the mental stuff of like,
am IA little off, like do something.
Because when I'm a little off, it's like my mind isn't sitting
on my body properly. And I can like get by getting
(50:05):
into the body and feeling deeplyand just sort of moving with
that and moving with the breath.The mind settles usually.
And I know that if it won't settle and I need extra help, I
can get extra help. But all of this works together
and, and I don't, I don't resentor regret any of it.
I don't know that it was a good thing, but I, I know that
(50:26):
because because I was given the possibility of responding to it
from a place of recovery and a place of growth, yeah.
That there are good things that can come out of it.
And I like the person I am now. And I wouldn't be that person if
I if things had gone differentlyfor me.
Yeah. You're going to be a really good
therapist. Oh, thanks.
(50:48):
Yeah. I think that's my my questions
issue today. I think I've just been drawn in
about everything that you've hadto say, yeah.
God damn. Appreciate that.
Do you have any other questions,Eric?
No, I think that. I think I'm out.
Yeah, dude, I like, I you like, I have more written down, but
I'm like, I think you answered all of it.
Like especially with that last answer, it was just fantastic.
(51:13):
But we want to give you one lastquick minute to talk to anybody
out there struggling, needs to hear a message of hope.
What do you have to say directlyto them?
Doesn't matter what the weight of your past is, It doesn't
matter what's coming down the Pike tomorrow.
We don't even know that. But right today their meetings
open all around the city, there's meetings open all around
(51:35):
the country, there's phone lines, there's people you can
call and there there is always hope.
And you don't have to, you don'thave to use today.
I mean, I, you can't say that, you know, everybody I know
that's had serious problems withaddiction has had a lot of other
stuff going on in their life too.
That's there. But none of that is powerful
(51:56):
enough to A prevent you from getting getting clean, getting
sober, or B prevent you from finding a peace and happiness in
your life. So don't lose hope.
Don't worry about the past, don't worry about the future.
Think about what you can do today, and there's plenty of
places to go for help with that.Perfect.
All right, Well, we would like to thank our guest Sam for
(52:18):
joining us today. Fantastic job, dude.
All right, everybody, thanks forjoining us once again.
Go to all our social media outlets, Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, go to our Patreon, you know, 'cause we need help
keeping the mics on. So, you know, throw us a few
shekels. Click all our links.
(52:39):
Click all the links and go to our merch and.
Yeah, we. Got merch, pick up some cool
shit, but yeah, like share, subscribe, most importantly,
everybody out there. Stay safe, stay safe and stay
clean there. You go.
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