"Why Can't They Just Stop?" The Complexity of Addiction Explained

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In this heartfelt episode, we dive deep into the intricacies of addiction and the transformative power of community. Jennifer Manzo shares her compelling journey, from her upbringing surrounded by addiction to becoming a beacon of hope through her work with the HVAC Chicks Coalition. This diverse platform fosters a network of support for HVAC technicians while uniting individuals under challenging circumstances, making recovery more accessible. 

Throughout the conversation, Jennifer highlights not only her personal battles with addiction but also the collective struggles of her loved ones, illustrating the ripple effect that addiction has on families. Her insightful anecdotes reveal the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating secure spaces for individuals to confront their realities. Listeners can expect to learn how community connections lead to healing, affirming that no one has to navigate the challenges of addiction alone.

Join us as we challenge preconceived notions about addiction while emphasizing that recovery is an ongoing journey - one best tackled together. Discover the essential topics of control, the duality of addiction, and the incredible value of a supportive network in mental health and recovery. Don't miss this episode filled with raw honesty and inspiring takeaways. Subscribe now, join our community, and help spread the message of hope and resilience.

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Episode Transcript

Corey Berrier (00:00):
Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast.
I'm your host, Corey Berrier,and I am here with Jennifer.
I don't know your last name.
I can't pronounce your lastname, actually.

Jennifer Manzo (00:09):
It's just Manzo.

Corey Berrier (00:13):
Okay, I was thinking it was started with a V
, gloriani.

Jennifer Manzo (00:16):
Yes, yeah, not actually my last name, but it is
my company name.

Corey Berrier (00:20):
Fair enough.
So, Jennifer, how's it going?

Jennifer Manzo (00:23):
Awesome.

Corey Berrier (00:24):
How's it going with you?
Good so, jennifer, how's itgoing?
Awesome?
How's it going with you?
Good?
So I'm pretty excited to jumpinto this conversation with you.
We've interacted for quite sometime now and finally just got
an opportunity to get on.
So I guess, before we getstarted, just go ahead and tell
everybody a little bit aboutyourself and your group and some
of the things that you're doingand your group and some of the

(00:44):
things that you're doing.

Jennifer Manzo (00:44):
Sure, it's a loaded question, but I'm used to
answering it, obviously.
So I am a business owner fromMaine.
I own an HVAC company, anengineering firm.
I'm also a mechanical engineerI only specialize in HVAC,
though and then I own HVHXCoalition.
I'm the founder.
It is basically a free trainingcoalition, but we have added so
much more to it.

(01:05):
We have a free, 24-7 techsupport line that has five
technicians on it.
We answer 24 hours a day, andwe do that for two countries,
the US and Canada.
And then, on top of that, wehave live hangouts, a community
meetup every Saturday.
We have all kinds of differentcommunity tools to give all of
the younger techs, or even theolder techs who maybe need to

(01:25):
get back to the fundamentals orhaven't had a community while
they've been in the trade.
Now we have, like this big giantfamily of over a thousand
people where, in the HVHXCoalition Facebook group, we
just all love each other, hangout, teach each other, and we
have a mentor program.
There's nothing we don't haveor don't provide.
We have a free tool accountwhere we provide free tools to
starting out techs.
We're going to start a techstart program using the NAVAC

(01:48):
gauges.
We're going to be giving outveto tool bags and NAVAC gauges
and whole hand tool lots for anynew up and coming tech.
So it's just a lot going onthere.

Corey Berrier (01:59):
Jesus, I had no idea.
Yeah, it's pretty great, reallyfreaking cool.
Yeah, that's very impressive.
I had absolutely no idea thatyou did all that.

Jennifer Manzo (02:13):
It's definitely a community effort.
It's a lot of people all comingtogether to add new things.
We just added a blog, we'readding a book club, so I mean
there's a bunch going on inthere.
I definitely urge anybodylistening to this if you're in
any trade, really join HVHXCoalition Facebook group.
It's a big family.
Corey and Jason's new 12-stepmeetings that they're doing are
pretty prominent right now inour group.

(02:34):
We have a lot of recoveringaddicts and alcoholics in our
group that now throw themselvesinto their trade and their craft
in order to do better in life,so we're really excited to have
somewhere for them to meet aswell.
So and their craft in order todo better in life.

Corey Berrier (02:45):
So we're really excited to have somewhere for
them to meet as well.
So you guys are doing a greatjob with that.
Thank you, I'm really excitedabout it.
It was really until we had thatfirst meeting I didn't really.
I've been in recovery for awhile but never have I been in a
room of recovery of all of thesame people.
They're all in recovery, butlike in the same industry, and

(03:07):
there was something specialabout that because it I believe
that it allowed I believe itallowed more of a freedom to
speak, because everybody in theroom was in this trade, which
was really cool.

Jennifer Manzo (03:27):
It's just a deeper level right of connecting
with other people.
So we go to meetings becausethose people have been through
what we've been through.
But to have those people havebeen through what we've been
through and work the same job wedo or a job in the same trade
is just so much deeper.
I love that.

Corey Berrier (03:43):
Yeah, because when you get into especially
when you're new in recovery likeyou're fish out of water, like
you feel like you don't belongin the room for various reasons.
Either one, you don't think youshould be there or two, you
just don't fit in A lot of thesame stuff that we, a lot of us,
have felt all of our livesreally, and it's really the
furthest thing from that.

(04:03):
But I think this gives anopportunity to have
conversations with like-mindedpeople.
It was really cool.
It was really cool.

Jennifer Manzo (04:10):
Yeah, I heard it went amazing.
There are so many people thatare involved in this now that
are just rooting you guys all onand just want to be a part of
it.
So I'm here for it, that's forsure.

Corey Berrier (04:20):
I appreciate that , so let's just segue into a
little bit about how addictionhas affected you or your life,
or what's been your journey withthat caffeine relationships,
right, there are so manydifferent.

Jennifer Manzo (04:36):
Hvac is an addiction to me.
I don't let things go easy andthat's because my family comes
from such a trauma bond withaddiction of any kind, right.
So it started for me at birth.
My stepdad was a lobsterman.
I lived on Peaks Island here inMaine, right in the middle of

(04:58):
Casco Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, isolated, so there's a lot of
addiction that goes on there,and it was the 90s.
My mom is a single mom of fiveand meets a man and that man
happened to be addicted to justabout anything he could get his
hands on, very abusive.
But I think in retrospect,without the addictions that
abuse probably would not havehappened.
He was one of those people thatwas a Jekyll and Hyde.

(05:19):
So looking back on that andhe's my brother's father.
So looking back on that andtrying to find peace with it
I've found a lot that the timesthat he was sober, those were
the times where he was hisactual self.
And sometimes we look at thatdifferently.
We look at that opposite.
We look at it as when you'reunder the influence of something
and you're not able to controlyourself.
That's who you really are.
But I disagree with that andthen, as my mom left him, we

(05:42):
moved away.
We had the police involved.
He went to prison and then wewere all teenagers in a new town
and my mom started to drink.
She had never drank before thatin our lives.
She was an RN.
She worked 16 hour days, raisedfive kids alone for the most
part, and then as my sister.
So I have three sisters two ofthem are older than me and I

(06:04):
have a younger brother from thatside of the family and my two
sisters both fell into addictionvery early.
It started smoking cigarettes,it led into smoking pot, which
is what it is completelyseparate, if you ask me, but it
is a mind altering substance.
From there it went to peerpressure, right, and it went to
healing trauma, or how they sawit was healing their trauma.

(06:25):
Really it was just making itworse, of course, but both of
them by the time they were 14and 15, were completely addicted
to heroin.
So back then it wasn't, I guess, as harmful a substance at the
time because it didn't have theother substances that kill
people like one try like it doesnow.
So my sisters were able to livein active addiction with heroin

(06:46):
for decades and then nowthey're in their forties.
And well, one of my sisters isa year older than me.
And then my other sister is inher forties and she my oldest
sister is still in activeaddiction.
And then my younger but oldersister is 16 months clean and
sober, which is absolutelyamazing.
She, like I said, has beenaddicted to various substances

(07:08):
meth and heroin mostly since wewere teenagers.
So for her to be 16 monthsclean and sober is immense.
Both of them ended up losingtheir children to the state, and
the first one that happened towas my oldest sister and her two
children, one of them already,her three children.
One of them lived with my momat the time and he is now an
adult lives on his own.
But my other two, niece andnephew, had nowhere to go.

(07:30):
It was near a foster home.
So I took them in.
They've been here for 12 yearsthriving.
They're both in trades.
They're amazing kids.
They are my kids.
I love them to death.
But that sister just stillstruggles with addiction.
She doesn't live in the samestate.
So it's been easier with thekids for them to not watch it
that descent, but it's beenawful for me, of course.

(07:51):
But that's my I guess that's myjourney of life, but also
addiction, has just touchedevery part of that life.
So and I'm also now a boardmember of HVAC and Recovery
nonprofit that works withrecovering HVAC techs
specifically, so that's prettygreat.

Corey Berrier (08:10):
That's amazing.
Yeah, so I can't imagine whatthat was like having to take
those two children to, I think,foster care, is that what you
said?

Jennifer Manzo (08:20):
Yeah, it was terrifying, of course.
All right, so I actually had myoldest daughter at 16, and then
I got with Val, my husband.
He had a son already.
We had just had our first babytogether at that time and I was
only 19, 20 years old at thetime, and they were like here's
two more, and they were 8 and 10, and they had lived through

(08:42):
serious neglect and abuse.
And bringing them in and havingthat whole other side of
raising children that I wasn'tused to was a lot, but they got
through it together, by thegrace of God.

Corey Berrier (08:55):
Wow, yeah, that's amazing.
So I want to go back for asecond.
You mentioned how, I believeyou said, your stepdad yeah,
yeah, you're a step bad Was adifferent person when he was
using, opposed to when he wasn'tusing.
It's interesting because thatis a lot of times that is the
case.
However, for me anyway, evenwhen I wasn't drinking and I

(09:18):
wasn't in recovery, I wassmoking weed.
We can get into that, like youknow.
It's just just a different,like weed's a different it's
another side of the coin?
yeah it is, but it's still forme.
I can't be sober if I'm smokingweed absolutely, I agree 100.
Yeah, I just wouldn't call it aharmful substance because I

(09:38):
don't have the science that saysthat so it's interesting
because I you don't see likeyou're not going to get caught
robbing a store or you're notgoing to run over a bunch of
kids and you're not good thingslike that.
Yeah, you're right, they don'treally happen with weed, but I
could tell you, for me it was.
I was a dry drunk, yeah, I wassmoking weed, but I still had

(09:59):
the same shit that was going on,you're losing it for the same
reason, it doesn't mean much.
Yeah, but I still.
I lived for seven years, really, as a dry drunk.
And you have the.
You act the same way you do,you're just not drinking.
It's the same kind of behaviors, it's the same kind of decision
making.
Yep, and so I, for me, I haveto be, I have to be in a program

(10:25):
of recovery If I want to live agood life, if I want to think
straight, if I want to be normal, if I want to want to wake up
every day.

Jennifer Manzo (10:34):
Otherwise it things go sideways can't and too
many will go into and I seethis a lot in the HVAC and
recovery community is thatthey'll go into recovery, they
will come out sober and at thatmoment they're detoxed and
that's all.
They are right, their soul isnot recovering yet, it hasn't

(10:56):
even started yet, and at thatpoint they're like, okay, well,
I don't need this substancephysically, so I must be healed,
right.
And that only leads back tothat same path of what you were
medicating to begin with.
So I love that you said that Ithink anybody in recovery should
have a whole community wrappedaround them to keep them there
for sure.

Corey Berrier (11:16):
Yeah, there's just something special about it,
but you've got to want it,you've got to want to be there,
you've got to want to do thework and look, it's not easy.
It's simple, but it's not easy.
The road to recovery yeah, it'stough.
You've got to do a lot of deepwork and you've got to ask
yourself a lot of questions andlots of times.
For me anyway, I had to do alot of shit I didn't really want

(11:38):
to do.

Jennifer Manzo (11:39):
Right.
And I think too and I'm basingthis off mostly off my sister,
because she is such an honestperson and she'll be the first
one to call me and say I justwant to go and get completely
effed up right now.
So I'm not going to do it, butI wanted to tell you that's how
I feel, things like that, and Ithink it's always.
I noticed that it's always atthe weirdest times, like she's

(12:00):
going through the weirdest thingthat is causing that feeling,
when she just made it through anentire thunderstorm without
feeling that way.
So I think there's just norhyme or reason to it, right?
Is the thing that makes it sohard?
You just never know when thatfeeling is going to hit you.
You never know when is it?
And this is what she asked meall the time when do I feel
better?
And that's such a loadedquestion for somebody who is 16

(12:22):
months sober.
She has not touched any mindaltering substance in 16 months,
so I'm like what do you mean?
Don't you feel better?
And she just is so honest andshe's like I don't know, I don't
feel better.
I go into my meetings.
She goes to meetings twice aday still, and she's like I go
to my meetings twice a day and Ihave these bake sales and try
to raise money and I throwmyself into recovery and the

(12:43):
recovery community, but I don'tfeel better, I feel worse
because I'm thinking about allthe things that I did, all the
waste of my time losing mychildren, not being able to talk
to them, still working hard tobe able to even get to a point
where I have visitation andnothing is changing.
But she doesn't realize howmuch it's changing every day,
right?
So I think that's what makes ithard.

(13:03):
I think it's.
I think it's the hardest thingyou could ever do, right, is to
let go of something that yougenuinely love, didn't
necessarily want to quit, butyou had to, right.
And so I think it's just likewalking, it's like an abusive
relationship and walking awayfrom that other person.

Corey Berrier (13:18):
Right, that's exactly what it's like, yeah, so
I wonder, I think I would.
My question, I think, to herwould be and you may know the
answer to this has she gonethrough and she's worked the
steps and does she have asponsor?
Because a lot of those thingsreally turn around when you
diligently do the, when youdiligently work those steps.

Jennifer Manzo (13:42):
Yeah, so I think so.
Yes, she does.
She's still in a halfway houseactually after prison.
She got sober in prison.
Her boyfriend at the timemurdered two people.
One of them was a 16-year-oldchild here in Maine and she was
not a witness to the act, butshe was taken to run away with
him after the fact.
So she was basically.

(14:02):
They caught her and said thisis your choice.
You can get better and we willhelp you, or you can go right
down with him, and she made theright choice, for sure.
But then you have that wholeaspect of I have to do this, I
have to do this.
This isn't for me, I'm notchoosing to do this, I have to
do this.
And then, once you get past thecertain hump, it's wait a
minute, I am doing this for me.
I do want to do this.

(14:22):
So I think the hardest part forher, and what draws her back so
hard, is the amount of time thatshe spent there.
And so when you don't graduatehigh school right, she didn't
even make it to high school.
She dropped out in eighth grade, completely addicted to heroin,
with a 25 year old boyfriendand pregnant.
So when you lose every bit ofwhat's supposed to make you who
you are, and then all that timeis spent with a drug making you

(14:46):
who you are.
I think that is where now she's, you know, 37 years old and
she's going how do I figure outwhat I'm going to be now?
It's just a lot of time spentand it's going to take twice as
long to feel better.
I think, and that's what I tellher.
It's how long did you not feelgood for?

Corey Berrier (15:08):
I also think that when we find drugs and alcohol,
or relationships or food, itfills a void inside of us that
works Like it works, Like itsolves the problem, Like I found
the damn solution.

(15:28):
This is what I've been lookingfor so long and here it is, and
I just want to keep doing ituntil it stops working.

Jennifer Manzo (15:38):
Right, and not only until it stops working, but
you have to maintain that Right.
So, like even me as a smoker Ismoke cigarettes actively.
I was stuck on a plane for 14hours the other day, coming back
from Orlando, and my entirelife was over right, not because
I was stuck on a plane for 14hours, because I couldn't have a
cigarette for 14 hours.
And I'm going.

(15:58):
I have to rethink all of mylife choices at this moment.
I can't get through thiswithout that crutch that I use
every single day, and I activelyuse that crutch, knowing what
it is.
So if I can do that as somebodywho's never touched drugs or
alcohol for the most part of mylife, what is it like for
someone who has?

(16:18):
And I think that's where thedisconnect is between the sober
community and the un-sobercommunity is the fact that none
of us are free of addiction, noteven a little bit.
So we all have to understand ittogether, instead of just this
community understanding it andus trying to learn about them.

Corey Berrier (16:32):
You know yeah, and I think it.
That's a great example 14 hourson the plane.
The pain got great enough athour four or five or six, or
whatever.
You thought you were going tobe able to smoke right, because
your brain went okay, like I'mgoing to be able to smoke in
four hours or three hours orwhatever it is.
And then it got another hourand then the anxiety kicked in

(16:52):
and it's like holy shit, likethis is ridiculous.

Jennifer Manzo (16:57):
Yeah, oh yeah.
It brings out your anger right,your rage.
It brings out every negativepart of you that you would never
even bring to the forefront ifit weren't for that.
But at the same time, when youfinally get that fix, it does
the exact opposite.

Corey Berrier (17:19):
So it's just such a hard thing to say no, I don't
want to feel better, I'm allset.
Yeah Well, for a lot of us it'slack of control.
We like to be in control, likeas a business owner, you have to
be in control of certain thingsand it's really hard to just
let go of control when you feellike you've got to be in it,
you've got to do the thing, andcontrol is I mean, people in

(17:42):
recovery are riddled withcontrol issues and it could be
any kind of control you name itright.
But that's what you werefeeling on the plane, like you
were out of control and somebodywas forcing you to sit on that
plane.
And we don't like to be toldwhat to do.

Jennifer Manzo (17:58):
Absolutely, and I am absolutely not one to be
told what to do.
I'm like the nicest person Iknow.
And I'm looking at my husband.
I'm like, if they don't give memy effing bags right now and
let me leave here, and I'm inthe middle of Washington DC and
a two foot snowstorm, where am Igoing?
You're not going anywhere.
Just lose control.
And then on top of you losingcontrol and spiraling like that
in your mind, you can't get itback, right.

(18:19):
And that's where my sister isthe most at risk is that when
that's all she can control, allshe's ever been able to control.
She couldn't control hereducation, she couldn't control
my parents, she couldn't controlher own kids being taken from
her, but she could control howmuch and when she used.
So now that's the only thingthat she had.
Now she's like everything iscontrolling me, right?

(18:41):
It feels like an elephantsitting on your chest.
You can't get that control back,no matter what you do, and I
think that's this is why I tryto flip it for her all the time
and tell her but actually youdidn't have control.
You were being controlled by asubstance that you couldn't tell
no, right?
So now you're telling it no,that is the highest amount of
control you'll ever have in yourlifetime, because I couldn't do

(19:01):
it if it were cigarettes.
So I know what you're goingthrough to a tiny amount and
beyond that, I can't evenimagine that pull.
So I think she just she's oneof those people that just it
lasted so long that she justthat was her trait, that was who
she was to herself.
So now she's just learning howto be somebody else and her
recovery community is amazing.
They're very honest, they'revery open and they're on social

(19:24):
media and they are going, they,they do mission work, they go
out on the streets and they pullpeople off the streets and they
say, just come get help.
Like today's the day, and itworks for some reason and she's
so happy to be involved in it.
She just I think that shesometimes thinks too far ahead
about what if I ever don't havethis community right, but that's
why we have to build more andmore of them, because it matters
.

Corey Berrier (19:47):
Well, lots of times I and I talk about this a
lot it's to be to stay presentin the moment and not project
out for tomorrow or think aboutwhat happened yesterday is for
me, that that is something Ihave to really, I have to
consciously make an effort to bepresent.

(20:08):
I have to be constant in itbecause it's like and there's
really no other, we don't haveanything else than right this
second.
Like we don't.
It doesn't matter what we thinkis going to happen tomorrow,
because, guess what, there's agood chance that that is not
going to happen tomorrow youthink it's not happening

(20:29):
tomorrow.

Jennifer Manzo (20:30):
Yeah, probably that break.
That's like like we can sayokay, I'm not going to think
about tomorrow, but you're stillnot going to think about right
now because you're still goingto think about what happened
yesterday, right, and I thinkthat's a big trigger for a lot
of people in addiction and inrecovery well, yeah, and how
much time and how many momentsdo you miss by being in tomorrow
or being in yesterday?

Corey Berrier (20:51):
every single fucking one of them.

Jennifer Manzo (20:53):
Amen, yep, every one of them.
All of your presents are gonebecause they're no longer the
present.

Corey Berrier (21:00):
Yeah, that's right.

Jennifer Manzo (21:01):
And that's what I do.
Tell my sister that too, whenshe calls and she's having a
good day, she'll say, like thisis what I did, this is what I'm
doing later and I say, but whatare you doing right now?
And it's that constant reminder.
She's the same way as you are.
She has to constantly be in thepresent.
She has to be told to be in thepresent or she just won't be.

Corey Berrier (21:20):
Well, and that's a great example of a bright back
to control.
Really, how could I have donethings differently?
Or how can I do themdifferently?
And how can I?
We don't recognize it ascontrol.
We look at it as well.
I'm planning or I'm reflecting.
Well, you could do all that,but you just got to understand

(21:41):
that, like your plans may notwork out the way you want them
to, rarely and Jesus Christ,lots of times.
That's a blessing in itself,because how many times have you
planned to go do something and,oh, that's right, like the
airplane that that crashed, like, yes, if you'd have planned to
be on that plane, you'd be deadright now?

Jennifer Manzo (21:57):
yeah so yeah that's what happened to me with
the 14-hour flight.
I had been canceled because ofthe snowstorm and I got on an
earlier one because I had to gethome to my kids that day had to
and I knew there was a chancethis would happen.
Right, it was like two hoursearlier.
I knew, I knew this wouldhappen, but instead I'm sitting
on this flight, haven't had acigarette in 14 hours and I'm
ready to jump out of plane, andit's everyone's fault but my own

(22:18):
.
I could have just taken thenext day's flight and known for
a fact it would be a three and ahalf hour flight, but I wanted
to control things Right.
So, yeah, it's in everything.
It's in every single humanbeing that need in everything.

Corey Berrier (22:37):
It's in every single human being that need.
So how do you protect yourselffrom?

Jennifer Manzo (22:39):
control in your relationship.
So that's.
I get asked that a lot, right,cause I am this very open,
passionate badass who stole myhusband's trade, right.
But I think and this is notgoing to make a lot of people
happy relationships aren't aboutthe other person.
In fact, the other personmatters very little in a

(23:02):
relationship.
When you have grown up in aworld like mine and you've
watched relationshipsdeteriorate to a point where
people have died from it or beenhospitalized from it, right,
you start to understand that theonly thing that really you can
control is yourself.
So in my relationship and myrelationship with my siblings
even right, it's not justromantic relationships, it's all

(23:22):
relationships.
You've got to have such ahandle on your own behavior and
you have to take fullresponsibility.
And I think, when I came intothis trade, for instance, I
looked at my husband and I havebeen together for 18 years, so I
was a child when we gottogether.
He had been married before butbeen divorced, and we were both
growing up together, right.
So in the very beginning, welooked at it as we were each

(23:46):
other's saviors.
Right, he's pulling me out ofthis awful life that I wouldn't
have gotten out of any other way, and I was the person to truly
love him after such a badexperience and it was God.
Was that stupid?
Because the stupidity that camefrom that one thought was just
abhorrent.
We never should have livedthrough some of the things we
lived through together, becausewe should have just left each
other, but we forged a traumabond.

(24:08):
So as we grew, as we took thesekids in, we got help for us
because we didn't think weneeded help.
We're not addicted to anything.
We're the ones coming in hereand taking these kids and giving
them a loving home.
Boy, were we wrong?
Addiction is a family disease.
You hear that all the time, butit's more than that.
It's a global disease.
Every person on this earth isaffected by addiction.

(24:30):
So for us to be completelynaive and say we're not the ones
that need help, and then go gethelp and find out oh my God,
how badly did we need help.
And then we get that helpseemingly for our kids, but
we're then taught you don'tmatter, he doesn't matter, the
kids don't matter, eachindividual is what matters.
So if I am trying to controlevery situation and saying I

(24:52):
need to get these kids out ofhere, I need to do this, I need
to do that and you're just alongfor the ride.
That takes away his ability totake responsibility for his own
needs and actions during thattime.
Right, he also has to choose tostep up.
I can't choose that for him.
So we had to completelyseparate our thought processes.
We had to each have our owncounselors.
We had to each go to therapyseparately, which was hell for

(25:14):
me because it's like I can'tcontrol this.
I can't control how he'sfeeling or what he's saying, or
what the counselor is sayingabout me, and really what came
of it was you guys are bothriddled with addiction
yourselves.
Whether you think it's somebodyelse's problem or not, it's
your problem because otherpeople put that on you.
You still have to deal with it.
So us both individuallyseparating and saying I want to

(25:36):
do this for my niece and nephewand it doesn't matter what he
wants, and for him to say I wantto do this for my niece and
nephew and it doesn't matterwhat she wants, and for us to
come together and both make thatdecision separately.
Now I lead my entire life thatway.
I don't ever make decisionsbased on somebody else's wants
or their needs, and it sucksbecause I am the person that
takes care of everyone andthat's even prominent in my

(25:57):
career.
I teach 566 technicians forfree, right, but I don't do that
for them.
I do that for me, I do that formy industry because I care
about what happens to the futureof this world, but also I can
only control what I do today.
So I can say a million timesover this person can talk shit,
but they could have helped andthey chose not to.
They just chose to talk shit.

(26:18):
And then I'm sitting heretalking shit, right, and I'm not
doing anything to help theproblem.
And so now we just have thismassive problem and a bunch of
people talking shit.
Well, I chose to, every singletime I have something to talk
shit about, stand up and dosomething to help.
And because of this situationwhere I had a very big choice
either step up and get thosekids out of separate group homes
and they were past adoptableage by far it would not have

(26:40):
been good for either one of them, but it also wouldn't have been
good for me, because I wouldhave still been talking shit in
another 12 years instead ofsitting here looking at those
faces that are killing it atlife, graduating with straight
A's and just being amazing humanbeings loving and caring so
much about other people.
And I would have missed out onthat and it wouldn't have been
any fault of my own.
So I had to take thatresponsibility and say this is

(27:01):
what I'm going to do.
You can decide what you want.
And then we just happened todecide it together and because
we did, it saved the way both ofus look at relationships where
now neither one of us was everable to separate from our
families either.
Like, my mom was the matriarch.
She told me to do it and I didit, and that was it.
Well, my mom passed away in 2023and I'm like man had I just
made some of my own decisions,had my sisters maybe this would

(27:24):
be different, but he was in thesame situation with his dad and
his four brothers.
So we were both at a crossroads, where it was we're going to
keep living for everybody elseor we're going to start living
individually for ourselves, andthere can't be a medium about it
.
It can't be just you and yourhusband, it can't be just you
and your kids.
It has to be you alone or youfor all of them.
So I'm really glad that thishappened to us, not only because

(27:47):
I got two amazing kids out ofit, but because all the things
Val and I needed to learn aboutour own addictions and how
addiction made us suffer wastaught to us through that
situation.
So I think it was probably thesingle catalyst of my life.
Was that happening to us?

Corey Berrier (28:05):
So I'm just curious how long did that, god?
It sounds like a gruelingprocess, but how long did that
process take from the time youdecided to go and you guys went
to get help, and then they saidwell, we need to see each other
separately?
How long did that take?

Jennifer Manzo (28:22):
Oh boy, so long, so long.
So in the state of Maine, as itis everywhere, the foster care
system is completely broken.
It's shattered and broken andthe pieces are spread out over
an entire country.
So there is no amount of timethat you can think could
possibly be it, because it willalways be more beyond that.
But for us, for our situation,we were going into kinship care,

(28:43):
which is different than fostercare.
We were not offered financialhelp because we were already
able to financially support thekids, which was totally fine.
But you still have to go throughthat process, so that time is
still spent.
We had to have a home study, wehad to do federal background
checks, we had to have both ofus had to be in counseling
separately, because they don'tput kids with family members who

(29:04):
might revert and allow thatfamily member to come in.
I could have let my sister comeraise them in my house, for all
they knew they didn't know.
So I have to be able toseparate myself from her and
that's all.
Psychiatric evaluations, that'sall.
Oh my God, there's so much thatgoes into it.
The fire marshal had to comeand make sure my windows were
big enough.
There was just so much involved, I think from the time that DCF

(29:26):
dropped them on my doorstep tothe time where they were
actually permanency guardianship.
My children was probably threeyears and in that time we also
did two heart surgeries.
They were both born withgenetic defects from addiction.
So we were just going throughthis grueling process with the
state trying to be absolute,perfect, upstanding citizens,
even though my reputationbecause of my family wasn't the

(29:47):
greatest.
When you're the only one inyour family that could even pass
a federal background check, itdoesn't look good for you, right
?
But it worked.
It actually worked out andactually their father's brother
tried to fight me for the kidsin the very beginning.
He is a army sergeant at thetime and has a much bigger house
than I have.
He has a much bigger incomethan I have at the time and he

(30:08):
won the kids.
And so I had done all this workand gotten my heart broken.
I'd had the kids from the daythey got dropped off until this
moment.
So they ripped them away fromme and moved them to Connecticut
, four states away.
So I wasn't going to see themagain.
And three weeks later, luckily,I got the call from the brother
, the uncle, who said I'm comingto drop the kids off to you.
I can't do this, so for me ittook a little bit longer because

(30:32):
of that whole ridiculousprocess as well.
But I would say if someone wereto do it, it would be probably
closer to two years beforeyou're at a point where you can
just raise your kids the way youwant to and go, and even then
there's rules.

Corey Berrier (30:45):
So how long was it before you and Val, let's say
, got on the same page with I'mgoing to do this for me and
you're going to do this for you,and we can agree on.
We're going to do this that way?

Jennifer Manzo (30:58):
Yeah, so that was even longer.
So we made the decision to takethe kids before that process
was ever over.
This was just us making theindividual decision to take the
kids, yes or no.
We had no idea what that wasgoing to come with and it came
with severe trauma, severemedical problems, autism, so
many things.
So I guess looked at each otherand went, this is where it

(31:19):
starts.
Not, like most people probably,sigh and say, phew, it's over
For us.

(31:39):
We were like we just learnedall of these things about
ourselves.
So this is where it starts,this is day one for us.
And that was three years intohaving the kids.
So I would say it doesn't, itdoesn't.
You never finish that process.
And even still, like I havepeople even come into the
coalition that are, have greatdrive, they want to help, they
are selfless, they're amazingand they lie Right.

(32:02):
And so for me, I was the personbefore this whole process that
would believe them, because I,part of my trauma bond, was
wanting to be lied to.
I wanted to believe my sisters.
I wanted to believe all of thecrazy stories that they told me
as to why my nieces and nephewswere fine, even though I knew
they weren't.
I wanted the easy informationright.
And so when I meet someone evennow in my career and I'm

(32:25):
like-minded with them or I feellike we have a kindred ship
right, and then I find out thata lot of it was lies, it takes
me even longer to figure thatout than it would normal people,
because I have to actively tellmyself you need to listen, you
need to watch, you need to bepresent in this or that person
is going to just completely pullthe wool over your eyes.
And now I have people in placethat help me with that process,

(32:47):
because I know myself, I knowthat's part of my trauma bond
and if somebody seems like theyneed love from me, I will just
give it openly and not thinkabout it.
And that's what I had to learnon my own.
And Val is the opposite.
He had to learn to not enableme in that right.
He's the guy that wanted tosave me and to bring me away
from my family and give me thisbeautiful life.

(33:08):
And he did.
He absolutely did, and all itdid was make me dependent, make
me scared, because I didn't havethat stability that I was
creating for myself.
And then the second that we gotinto a situation where it was
like I'm going to try HVAC.
He was like this is hard for me.
This is hard to let you do adangerous job.
It's hard for me to let you doa job where I know people are

(33:30):
going to bully you and put youin a bad situation.
I know you'll get through it,but I don't want to put you
there.
And so him being in the fieldfor 28 years at this point he's
like you're going to hate ithere.
It's going to be awful for you.
So he had to learn to let goand let me fail on my own, which
was hard for him or fly, and Iflew.
So had he not learned that, Iwould not be here today.

(33:56):
Hvac chicks coalition would notbe a thing.
All of my students would nothave a teacher.
All of my mentees would nevermentor.
So pretty huge to learn thatabout yourself.

Corey Berrier (34:05):
Yeah, and he had yeah.

Jennifer Manzo (34:06):
So he had to learn how to not be the savior,
and you had to learn how not tobe the saved basically, exactly,
we were the perfect damsel indistress and white knight
syndrome for many years andlooking back, going, I can't
believe that was me right.
It was crazy.
But I was also taught by anaddicted mother that if you're

(34:26):
the victim, it's okay to do somethings.
Sometimes it's not okay forsome people to do it, but if
you're a victim, it's okay foryou.
And so being the victim andsaying I'm going to have my own
white knight syndrome here andI'm going to make sure nobody
else is ever a victim, so I'llalways just be the victim it was
eyeopening at best butlife-changing at most.
I think because, knowing Ialways thought of myself as the

(34:48):
good sister.
I worked harder, I went tocollege, I did everything I
could to make my mom proud.
I worked harder, I went tocollege, I did everything I
could to make my mom proud, andit was never enough and I was
the victim.
No matter what happened, nomatter how much work I put in, I
was the victim because I wasmaking sure of it.
And so then, when I met Val, itwas a perfect storm.
It was like this guy would waiton me hand and foot.
If I asked him to, I could be areal life Cinderella right now

(35:11):
and I thought that was what Iwanted and I knew that was what
he wanted to give.
But I didn't know that thoseweren't our personalities, that
those were trauma just comingout in a really weird way.
So now we are the completeopposite.
Val is like this, extremely like.
I can't even describe Valbecause he really just doesn't
exist anywhere else in the earth.
But he handles me being at theforefront of the spotlight in

(35:34):
his trade.
That he taught me right.
He's been my teacher.
So every teacher has a teacheror many, and he's been one of
mine.
So, knowing that I'm out herewinning awards, that I'm out
here there's not an HVAC tech inthe world that doesn't know my
name or a manufacturer thatdoesn't know my name and that
they know my name, not fornecessarily the work I'm doing
in HVAC, but for the work I'mdoing with people he really just

(35:57):
it does not bother him and Ialways say, like people will say
, oh, it does, but he's just nottelling you he's not that type
because he learned how not to be.
He had to learn how not to bethat type Because if not, this
whole my entire family wouldsteamroll right over him, but he
just stands.
So many, like at the tacticalawards last week people are
shaking his hand, like how doesit feel to be with a celebrity?
And he's like it feels amazing.

(36:17):
She's great, isn't she?
But he had to learn to be thatbecause 10 years ago he would
have shielded me like a I don'teven know like a DEA agent and
made sure nobody saw me andnobody touched me and nobody
hurt me.
And now he has to just push meout there and say you can do
this, to just push me out thereand say you can do this and I
know you can and watch it happenover and over again every day.

Corey Berrier (36:36):
So we both have a lot to learn.
It sounds like he had to puthis ego, to completely put his
ego to the side, and that'sreally cool.

Jennifer Manzo (36:45):
We both did.
Really, I think that's thenumber one thing about addiction
, whether you're a family member, whether you're active
addiction, whether you're analcoholic, ego is sometimes the
death of human beings, ofhumanity, and so you can't care
about another human being morethan you care about yourself,
unless you have taken the actualtime and done the actual work
to destroy that ego altogether.

(37:06):
So Brian Orr actually asked meon a podcast once how do you
manage to love every woman thatwalks in front of you as if
she's your sister, when otherwomen can't even stand to be in
the same room with other womenwithout fighting or jealousy and
all these things?
And that is the answer.
I had my ego stomped sodesperately that it will never,

(37:26):
ever reappear again.
I just had to get rid of all ofthat.
I had to in order to learn anddo that inner work.
I had to learn that I was theproblem, and so when you learn
that you're the problem, youhave to if you take
responsibility for that that youwere the problem.
In all of those fights you everhad with another woman, you were
the problem.
You can't blame somebody else'swork that they haven't done on
them.
You have to blame the work youdidn't do on yourself and that's

(37:49):
all you can do.
So both of us having to do thatlike that, and even our
counselors looked right at usand said you shouldn't be
together, You're toxic.
Like they told us we shouldbreak up right now, right here
today.
And they were like there's noway anyone could do this amount
of work where you guys could bea healthy relationship, and sure
enough, not even a year later.
It was like looking at two newhuman beings.

(38:09):
So not saying it works foreverybody, but I am saying if
you can lay that ego down andyou can understand that you're
the problem, you can move on.
You can move mountains in thisworld.
You really can.

Corey Berrier (38:20):
Yeah, your ego is not your amigo.
No, not at all.
Yeah, it's ego, and ego showsup in different ways.

Jennifer Manzo (38:29):
It's not just typical what you think, it is
right.

Corey Berrier (38:32):
Right, it's not just typical what you think.
It is right.
Right, because it was ego withyou getting in the relationship
with Val, and it was his egosaving you.
It was your ego getting savedand a lot of people think about
ego as just like….

Jennifer Manzo (38:47):
Pompousness right.

Corey Berrier (38:49):
Yeah, and it can definitely show up that way, for
sure.
But I think there's differentflavors of ego and I think
sometimes it's hard to recognizeunless you've done a lot of
deep work.
But you've got to do a lot ofdeep work in order to get to
that point.

Jennifer Manzo (39:06):
Yeah, so the problem with ego is that it's a
defense mechanism, right?
So it's how we save ourselves,or so we think, right, so it's
how we save ourselves, or so wethink right.
So when I'm constantlyprotecting myself from Val, a
man who would lay his life onthe line for me any day, that
doesn't make much sense.
But to my ego it's like youdon't need him to take care of
you, but you also definitelydon't need him to tell you're

(39:28):
the problem.
So anytime he would say, okay,yeah, I did this, but this was
your part in it.
I would say F you, I didn'thave a part in it.
Right, that's your ego.
Your ego is the part you playand there's.
You have to take responsibilityfor it.
There's no one else at fault,Just you.
So that was the hard part, forsure.

Corey Berrier (39:47):
Yeah, and we all have a part in any situation.

Jennifer Manzo (39:54):
If you're in the situation you had a part in it
Yep, amen.
And that could be negative,positive, negative, positive,
negative, positive, back andforth the whole time you're
opening your mouth right, oryour body language or your
physical, you could literallygive somebody a hug the wrong
way because of your ego.
And that was the part I didn'tknow.
I didn't know that the Ithought everything I was doing
was to protect myself from this,from being a victim, and had to

(40:14):
learn that I was actuallycreating a space in which I
could always be the victim, nomatter what, and even my
intelligence.
My counselor looked at me andsaid why do you strive for
intelligence so badly?
And I said the typical right,because nobody in my family ever
graduated college.
Nobody in my family ever gottheir high school diploma.

(40:34):
All of my siblings are not asintelligent as me and they were
like okay, but so you did all ofthis with your whole life just
to impress your mom and I'm likeokay, and then, on top of that,
I get into a trade that's maledominated.
So now I have to be thesmartest one in the room or I'm
not worth anything in my mind.
That's ego.

(40:57):
That's not real, and ego is notjust thinking you're the best.
Sometimes it's doing hard workin order to be the best that you
can be, only because youweren't enough for yourself to
begin with, not because you haveto be the best in the room.
I don't have to be the smartestin the room.
I have so many people you'veseen.
Anybody who knows me sees mynetwork.
That's what makes meintelligent, not the fact that I
stayed up studying to get fouryears of MIT done in two and a

(41:19):
half years.
I did that to myself, for noreason other than my own ego,
made no sense.
Nobody cares about it.
It did not give me anythingfurther than what I already had.
It was a way for me to prove tomyself that I not only could do
it, but I could do it and bethe best.
But then I had to hear from mycounselor.
So what made you the best?
And hearing that was the mostearth shattering question I've

(41:42):
ever been asked, because Icouldn't answer it.

Corey Berrier (41:45):
Hang on, hang on.
Did you say you you fit it?
You did you say you completedMIT in two and a half years.
Is that what you said?

Jennifer Manzo (41:55):
That's what I said.
I still had to physically go toschool after that.
But, yeah, my workload was donein two and a half years for
absolutely no reason whatsoever,and I was a mom of four at the
time.
So, yeah, and then, and also sowhen I got into HVAC this is
actually why this happened andit's so funny that I'm just

(42:16):
going to share it here, becauseI will never go this deep into
my life again.
I'm sure I only applied to be amechanical engineer because the
company that Val was at told methey would hire me, told me they
would hire me and then didn'thire me, and the reason that
they gave was we can't have twovans in one driveway.
So I know it's because I'm afemale, I'm not stupid, but I

(42:38):
can't say that.
But I know.
And so I said I'm going to showthem.
Because the owner was a UNHaccredited engineer and I said
I'm going to show him.
So here's my ego again.
Right Cause and problems for me.
So I did.
I not only I applied to eightdifferent schools, I got
accepted at five of them.
I chose MIT because it's MIT,for no other reason other than

(43:00):
its name.
I did not know any professors,I had not done any research.
I knew the name MIT and I saidI know that beats UNH.
So that's why I became anengineer and that's the sole
reason, the only reason.
And now I look back and I don'tneed the engineering degree, I
have to do the engineering work.
I do so where my and I saidthis to my sister once where you

(43:24):
look back and you look at thewasted time and addiction.
I wasted my time and addictionas well.
I was addicted to having to bethe best.
I was addicted to it had to beMIT.
I couldn't have taken a twoyear associates program.
I couldn't have just gone toACA and learned how to do a
manual J.
I had to do it way better thaneverybody else did and I lost
that time too.
So she and I together now justhave this constant need to do

(43:48):
something now and to experienceit, because we are not getting
any younger and our egos aren'tgoing to be at the spot where
they are right now ever again.
And that's why it's soimportant not to look to the
future or the past.
And I wanted to come on herebecause I wanted everybody to
know they're all in addictionright.
So, like I said to you guys,because I haven't experienced it

(44:10):
myself.
That was a complete and utterlie.
That was to get you here right.
I have experienced it myselfand I experience it myself every
day and I also have to comeclean and tell you all that I'm
still in active addiction withmy family members.
I'm still in active addictionwith my cigarettes and my coffee
and my work, right.
So anybody who thinks they'renot in active addiction, you
need a meeting, you absolutelyneed a meeting and I still, to

(44:33):
this day, when I've never had asingle substance abuse issue
other than the ones I'vementioned in my lifetime, I
still today go to meetingsbecause we're all in addiction
and we all need a community andwe all need sponsorship.
Every single one of us Shityeah it's deep.

Corey Berrier (44:52):
I didn't, I just didn't, I just didn't see all
that coming.
That's but you're yeah, butyou're, but you are, you're 100
right regard.
And it's fascinating to mebecause I don't talk to a ton of
people that have that sort ofinsight that can recognize those
other things that are on thesurface.

(45:13):
People don't look at thosethings as addiction.
They look at the bad shit asaddiction.
They don't look at the thingsthat you've listed.
It's all the same If it hascontrol over you and if it's
something that pulls you in waysthat you'd rather not be pulled
, then that's what you'redealing with.

Jennifer Manzo (45:33):
Yeah, success, success is an addiction for me.
I have to constantly remindmyself that working an extra
hour isn't going to help me inany way.
And that's now, that's after Iknow.
So, yeah, for people to thinkthat breaking addictions is, or
should be, an easy thing or thatit's personality-based either
you have an addictivepersonality or you don't it's

(45:55):
all wrong, it's all backwards.
You have to understand thathaving success be your addiction
is just as harmful maybe notphysically to your body, but
mentally to your mind.
It is because you leave all ofthose wonderful things that you
could experience on the tablewhile you drive for that success
.
And then, when you wake up oneday and you're 36 and you go,
wait a minute, what justhappened to all of my time?

(46:17):
And I'm asking the samequestions of myself that my
sister, who lived in activeaddiction for 25 years, is
asking herself.
There is no difference.

Corey Berrier (46:27):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
One of the things that I thinkis just for me, it's a god thing
when I get into conversationswith people like yourself that I
don't know a ton about, and anaddiction is the primary
conversation.
There's always some sort ofmagic that comes out of those
conversations that that I wouldhave never been able to predict

(46:51):
in my life, and so and I'll chatwith you about what that is I
had no idea all the shit thatyou do, and you said a few
things that I'm like holy shit,there's some things that I can
help you with.
For sure that it's going totwist your brain.
I would love that.

(47:11):
Yeah, and there's.
We would have never known thatif we hadn't have sat here and
had this conversation about allthe crazy shit that we've talked
about.

Jennifer Manzo (47:19):
Yeah.
So now imagine all the decadesthat nobody talked about
addiction while it was ragingaround the country and the world
.
So those are all missedconversations, those are missed
little nuggets of magic that canbe passed on and on.

Corey Berrier (47:32):
Now I won't ask specifically whatever meetings
that you go to, but I am curiousas it pertains to.
You're fully aware that I'm ina 12-step program.
Part of that is that I have asponsor and I have sponsees and
those things sponsees especiallyare what really keep me.
What's what keeps me sober,helping other people like you do

(47:53):
with your community?
So do you work with people alsoin that program like that?

Jennifer Manzo (48:00):
So I do so the ones that I go to.
I have not been physically toone that is for active addiction
as of yet I'm hoping to butthis all kind of came about
right before COVID and it wasjust really hard to navigate,
and that's the other thing weneed to change.
It is way too hard to navigaterecovery first of all, but
that's another story.
But, yeah, so what I am part ofnow and I have been part of

(48:24):
active online virtual meetingsmany times in the past but what
I'm part of now is one that isspecifically for family members,
and the reason for that is thatmy kids are now adults so one
is 17 and one is 18, my twofoster kids and so I needed to
learn how to do the work.
That was a step beyond.
I had gotten to a good pointworking on myself, that I now
need to know how to help them,because now they're adults and

(48:46):
now they're going to be exposedto things that they just can't
try even once.
There's going to be exposed tothings that they just can't try
even once that they.
There's going to be situationswhere people take advantage of
what's happened to them, and Iguess I saw it happening.
All of my kids are nowhomeschooled.
My son, my foster son and mybiological daughter graduated
last year.
They're both working in trades.
So now I'm like I know what thetrades are, I live here, right,

(49:07):
and so I don't want it to gethim, when he's done so much work
as a child, to not be part ofthat mess.
So that's why I go to one.
That's for family members.
Now it's mostly to forgenetworking and communication,
and then also friends that arein the same situation as him,
where they can go to a moviewith each other and they're not

(49:29):
going to look at the alcoholbecause they know they can't.
But they don't have to say thatto each other necessarily.
You know how it can be whenyou're in recovery and my son is
not in recovery, but he is inrecovery right, so he would have
to say that and so just tryingto network for him is really
where I'm at now.
But I also have help on the spaand seaside for myself, and it's
families who have done thisover and over again, like it's

(49:51):
so huge for me to have done itonce that I can't imagine it.
But there are families, thereare couples, there are single
people who have done this 50 ormore times with 50 or more
families.
So those are the people that Ireally need to learn from right
now as I struggle in my ownaddictions and then as I
struggle in keeping my kidswhere I raised them Right.

(50:12):
So that's it.
Right now I obviously I'm amentor of HVAC technicians and
I'm also I sit on the board forHVAC and recovery, so people who
are in recovery or who needrecovery do tend to reach out to
me, but I don't.
I'm not where I need to be yetenough to sponsor somebody
that's in addiction.

Corey Berrier (50:31):
Well, that's an interesting statement, Because
and here's what I would say tosomeone that if someone in my
program said that to me andthey've got five days further
along than the one person, thenI would say you have five days
worth of experience that you canshare with that guy that has
zero.
And that's the truth.

(50:53):
Now this other the programyou're talking about and I think
I know what you're referring tothat also helped you with your
mom.

Jennifer Manzo (51:00):
Yes, it does so and I also have.
So I have diagnosed PTSD frommy childhood, from things that
happened within that timeframe,and so I've had really great
therapists at the same time whounderstood that I would go in
there and sit there with mymouth shut for an hour and pay
for it because I didn't want todo this Right, and so a lot of

(51:21):
the time what they did was theyjust talked, and so, the way
that I am and in my need tolearn constantly, I couldn't
avoid learning what they weresaying, right?
So now I have a whole group ofpeople within that families of
addiction community where that'swhat we do the people who come
in and they don't want to talk.
We just talk around them, wetalk to them and then eventually

(51:42):
most of them end up on our sideof the fence, right.
But as far as I also think andthis is going to be super
controversial, but I also thinkI have had a very deep root in
addiction, right, but I have notbeen in the shoes of the people
like my sister living under abridge for two years over active
addiction.
I can't relate to that and Idon't think it's right for me to

(52:05):
accidentally condescend thembecause I don't understand.
And so that's what I what Imean when I say I don't think
I'm ready to have a sponseeunder me.
It's not about sharing myexperience, it's about holding
their safe and sacred.

Corey Berrier (52:18):
Oh, I see what you mean.
Okay, so when I said that I wasreally more talking about yeah,
I would agree that was peopleon the same plane, right?

Jennifer Manzo (52:30):
Yeah, yeah To somebody.
I am so involved and it wouldseem that would be a good idea
for me.
But for me I'm also sodisconnected Like I can still
look at my sister and say, oh,why didn't you just call me?
Like that's a crazy answer toanything she says, but I still
say it and that's just nothelpful.

Corey Berrier (52:45):
Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Manzo (52:49):
If we're going to use, we're not going to call
you Right.
Why would I do that?
You're the last person I'mgoing to call.

Corey Berrier (52:53):
Yeah, like it's funny, a guy called me two
nights ago and he said hey, Ineed.
He said do you want to go on a12-step call?
I've never been on an actual12-step call, oh awesome.
And so it was a friend of oursthat went back out for the 20th,
fucking fifth time and so Icalled his sponsor after I got

(53:18):
off the phone with the guybecause we decided not to go for
various reasons, because he gotbelligerent and whatever and so
I called his sponsor.
He was like I said I guessyou've heard about.
So he was like Corey, like I'mhis fucking sponsor, I'm the
last dude that hears about allthis.
And I'm like I said I guessyou've heard about.

Jennifer Manzo (53:30):
So he was like Corey, like I'm his fucking
sponsor, I'm the last dude thathears about all this and I'm
like, of course, and it's greatfor that accountability, because
if you care that much aboutdisappointing that person, that
should show you how much youmean to them.
But when you are that person,you're like they hate me, they
don't respect me, they don'tcare if I know about their life,

(53:51):
they think that I'm going toand you.
That was the other part of theego that had to die for me.
It was like I would say to her.
I would say ditch the boyfriendand come live with me.
I'll get you help, I will payfor your whole life.
I, you, will be with your kids.
I would be everything you couldever imagine, and that's why
she would never call me.
So what she wanted to hear, shewanted to hear here's 50 bucks.

(54:11):
You and your boyfriend go havefun.
So but that accountability,just if you are in that
situation where you have someonethat you love that is in
addiction and they're mad at you, just know that you're probably
doing the right thing.

Corey Berrier (54:24):
Yeah, yeah, exactly Because it doesn't.
It wouldn't matter if you had aroad paved with gold.
Yeah, that would not beappealing, unless she could take
the gold and turn it in formoney and turn it in for meth
right.

Jennifer Manzo (54:37):
That'd be the only reason that'd be
interesting.
We have a running joke in ourfamily.
So there was this pawn shopcalled Jimmy's and that's she
used to steal all of our stuff.
The second she'd get in yourhouse she'd steal all of our
stuff and go take it to Jimmy's.
So every time she'd leave andwe'd notice something missing,
we'd call Jimmy's.
We'd say, hey, you got mylaptop, you got my camera
wherever it is.
So now, still to this day, shecalled me the other day and
we're 16 months sober Right andshe says have you seen my debit

(55:01):
card?
She's like I didn't leave it.
I thought I may have left atyour house and and like now we
can look back and laugh about itand that's great.
But like in that situation, Ijust remember being so angry
about how she didn't love me,she didn't respect me because
she lied to me and didn't justtell me she stole it.
But now, looking back, andshe'll even say this out loud I
didn't tell you because I didn'twant you to look down on me, I

(55:22):
didn't feel like I was worthy ofyou, I didn't feel like I could
just ask you because I didn'twant you to know all these
things that are like so egokilling that I'm like man, I, my
sister, just loved me and Ishouldn't seen that.
But when you don't understandaddiction, it's really hard to
navigate feelings like that.
So she's like I'm sorry I stolefrom you.
That's the best we can do.

Corey Berrier (55:46):
Yeah, and that's why I think it's so hard, like
if you look at somebody who iswho's gotten cancer and they're
struggling, like we feel bad forthose people.
We don't feel bad for thealcoholic because it's it's too
different.
They're in a different box andbut they're not in a different
box because it's this whenyou're in addiction is just is

(56:07):
more hereditary than cancer.

Jennifer Manzo (56:09):
And that's not even just nature, that's nurture
as well.
So when you picture there's twosides of a person nature versus
nurture right and then you haveaddiction in that it's smashing
both of those two sidestogether and making one giant
mess that becomes a real person.
So you have to.
Someone can have cancer andthey can get treatment and they
can get through it.

(56:29):
My mom did Right, and then mymom also died of cancer, but
what didn't happen is she didn'tstop drinking until two months
before she passed away.
So there's having it, havingboth of those two things in one
person like looking at thecancer as a disease and not
looking at her alcoholism as adisease was eye opening.

(56:50):
After she passed away, I had togo back and go.
I literally told this like Icouldn't see her cancer either,
right, but I told this personthat she was making excuses for
having a disease that she reallyhad, but I didn't tell her that
about her cancer.
So I guess when you see it bothof those two things in one
person it's like they're theexact same thing, except cancer

(57:11):
eventually either lets go ordoesn't.
Alcoholism never lets go,period Ever.

Corey Berrier (57:17):
Not, unless you make a decision to let it go.

Jennifer Manzo (57:20):
Right, you have to let it go.

Corey Berrier (57:22):
Yeah, it's like a best friend.
It's like a best friend, likeyou don't want to let it go, no
matter how much pain.
Or like in, like you don't wantto let it go, no matter how
much pain.
Or, like you said at thebeginning of this, it's like an
abusive relationship.
You just keep coming back formore.

Jennifer Manzo (57:33):
My sister, who's still in addiction actually
I'll share this in the groupwrote a poem.
I think she was 17 and it gotpublished in the anthology of
poetry and it was just this bigthing.
It was on the news and it wascalled Lady Heroine and it was
written as a love letter fromthe user to the heroine, as if
heroine was a person.
And I think every time somebodyasks me why an addict can't

(57:55):
just say no or can't just stopor can't just accept help, that
poem is in my head every singletime and having been in abusive
relationships, being the productof an abusive relationship
myself, that I can understandright.
So once I realized those twowere the same exact thing, I
could understand it.
If you picture that batteredwomen go back to their abuser 35
to 205 times in their lifetimebefore they leave or die.

(58:18):
How many is it for alcohol?
How many is it for meth?
How many is it for heroin?
Even cigarettes I can't tellyou how many times I've quit
cigarettes.
It just doesn't stick for verylong, because that's my best
friend I've quit cigarettes.

Corey Berrier (58:30):
It just doesn't stick for very long, because
that's my best friend.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, a hundredpercent.
So I know we're getting closeon time.
We've gone.
I think we got a little bitover, but this is dude.
This has been such a greatconversation.
I have really enjoyed hearingall about like, yeah, I, now I
get why you're cool.

Jennifer Manzo (58:50):
But seeing what you and Jason are doing and
realizing, I know how deep of aproblem it is in trades, but
also in the world, right, and soI just wanted to be part of
that.
I want to make sure that youguys have one perspective and I
have a completely differentperspective, but I think all of
the perspectives have to betalked about in order for
everyone to understand that weall need this.
So I urge everybody to go toone of the 12-step meetings if

(59:13):
you feel that's what you need.
If not, we have even justcommunity hangouts on Saturday
where you can talk aboutliterally anything you want to
talk about addiction or not.
Get a community, that's allthat matters.
All that matters is you arepart of a community that loves
you and that will do anythingfor you.
That's all I care about.
It's the only reason I'm hereon this podcast today is to make
sure everyone knows there aremultiple avenues.

Corey Berrier (59:33):
I really appreciate that and such a great
perspective.
Where can people find you?

Jennifer Manzo (59:45):
Sure, so the HVHX Coalition group on Facebook
is my hub, and then we haveHVHXcom has all of our forms.
If you want to apply for helpin some way but you also don't
have to do any of that you canemail me at Jennifer at
skillcatopcom.
You can find me, hvhx Jennifer,on every platform, including
LinkedIn.
And then HVAC and recovery isalso on Facebook, and HVAC and
recoverygov is the website forthat.

Corey Berrier (01:00:01):
So yeah, All right, Jen, thank you so much.
I really appreciate you comingon today.

Jennifer Manzo (01:00:08):
All right, jen, thank you so much.
I really appreciate you comingon today.
Thank you, corey, I reallyappreciate you having me.
And not only that what you andJason are doing is the one thing
that was missing from our groupand from the industry, so
please keep doing that.
I know it's so hard, especiallywith the added days you guys
added, but you guys are thedifference for so many people,
so keep it up.
Whatever I can do to help you,I will do it.

Corey Berrier (01:00:28):
Thank you so much .
I really appreciate you Anytime.
All right, let me see how toturn this live off.
I don't know if I have a cluehow to do it.
All right, so I'm probably justgoing to have to end the call,
because I literally have no idea.

Jennifer Manzo (01:00:40):
That's fine.
If you need me, just text me.
Thank you so much, corey.
Seriously,