August 9, 2024 • 63 mins
What happens when unresolved childhood trauma meets the devastating loss of a loved one? Ryan Perry knows all too well. This week on Against All Odds, we sit down with Ryan to hear his incredible journey from a nightmare of physical abuse and parental divorce to the abyss of Oxycontin addiction following his mother's death. Ryan lays bare the gritty details of losing everything—his self-respect, financial security, and even hope. With over seven years of sobriety under his belt, he now dedicates his life to helping others navigate their own recovery paths, offering invaluable insights into the profound connection between trauma and addiction.
We also dive into the emotional terrain of longing and nostalgia that accompanies the loss of a mother. Ryan and Maria reflect on the persistent yearning to relive simple, everyday conversations even years after their own parents' passing. They explore the surreal, yet comforting feeling of their own parents' continued presence and guidance, a sentiment that resonates deeply with anyone who has experienced such loss. Maria adds a personal touch, drawing parallels with her brother's recovery journey, enriching the conversation with relatable, heartfelt experiences. This episode is a powerful testament to human resilience and the lasting impact of familial bonds.
Connect with Ryan:
Instagram: @arantele5
Facebook: Ryan Perry
Website: www.theleap.co/creator/ryanperrycoach/
GrowthDay app offers tools, content, coaching, and community for self-improvement and success.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Follow Maria on Facebook HERE
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to the Against All Odds the Less Than
1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte, where we will
hear stories of incrediblepeople thriving against all odds
, and my hope is that we can allsee how life is always
happening for us, even when weare the Less Than 1% Chance.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, hey, welcome back to Against All Odds, the
Less Than 1% Chance podcast withyour host, maria Aponte.
I am so excited to have youback and I am so excited for
this next episode.
I was just chatting with Ryanfor a little bit before and I
could tell this is just going tobe such a good conversation.
So let me introduce you to MrRyan Perry.
(00:41):
To Mr Ryan Perry 14 years ago hebecame hooked on Oxycontin and
various other painkillersbecause he didn't want to deal
with the trauma surrounding hischildhood abuse and, most
recently at that point, thedeath of his mother.
He lost everything a personcould lose Self-respect, respect
for others, money, his car.
He even almost lost a housethat he inherited.
(01:02):
He tried many differentrecovery programs until he found
none of them suited his needsand finally he had to do it
himself.
Now here he is, 14 years later,with over seven years clean of
all substance which is awesomeand alcohol by choice, and now
he helps clients who are justbeginning their recovery journey
(01:25):
.
I just want to saycongratulations.
That's huge.
My brother is 15 yearsrecovered, so it's been a part
of my life since I was a littlekid and I'm just.
I know how difficult it is.
So, seriously, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
It's a different world.
Let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, so give us a little bit of an idea of your
Against All Odds story.
What's your background?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
So I guess where it started like you were talking,
childhood trauma when it startedwas back when my mother and
father got a divorce.
Back I was, I think, two yearsold and we ended up moving to
Northern California fromSouthern California to live with
my grandparents and it startedwith a very abusive grandfather,
(02:20):
so physically abusive.
He was the only father figurethat I had, so he was prone to
backhand me if I, you know, saidthings out of turn, lock me
underneath the house in a crawlspace.
Yeah, that that wasn't fun, butthat happened several times and
that continued until probablyage 14 or 15 when I got it
(02:43):
through my head.
I wasn't going to deal with thatanymore and I just got out of
there.
I just I left for a while anddidn't come back until he passed
away.
Wow, you know that was.
That leaves a mark, obviously,and there's so much unresolved
issues and a young man neverwants to admit that.
(03:04):
Hey, I have unresolved traumathat I want to deal with, to get
better.
But it shows up later in lifeand for me it showed up with
wanting to.
I wouldn't say abuse anysubstance, but use any substance
.
That really just made me forget.
(03:25):
I wasn't looking for confidenceboosts, a self-esteem boost, I
just wanted to forget.
It was a part of my life andstory that I wished I could
erase completely and, ironicallyenough, I'm very happy that I
have that story now, becausethat's provoked me to do so many
(03:47):
things to help others, to getbetter myself.
What ended up happening was mymother had.
She had a couple of differentautoimmune disorders, different
(04:08):
autoimmune disorders, so shepassed away at age 56 and she
yeah, she passed away veryquickly, one night, but I had
taken care of her medically formany years, so it was something
I was used to, and when shepassed away I had already been
dabbling in painkillersoxycontin.
I'd already been dabbling inpainkillers OxyContin, oxycodone
and at that point I justspiraled.
It was just such anuncontrollable downtrend for the
(04:37):
next year and, I think, towardsthe height of my addiction, I
was taking somewhere close tothree to 400 milligrams of
OxyContin each day.
Oh, my gosh Is to put intoperspective for those who don't
know, that is more than a dyingcancer patient would ever take.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Wow, yeah, my, I was in charge of caretaking for my
dad prior to him passing and hewas a cancer patient and we had
to control all that and so, yeah, that is a lot.
How old were you when shepassed?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
When she passed?
Let's see, she passed in 2011.
So that was 13 years ago.
I was 26, 27.
Yeah, so right at the height ofmy getting and coming into my
own being in my life, and shepassed away and.
I had already devoted a prettysignificant chunk of my life to
(05:31):
taking care of her.
When she passed away, it waslike this massive void that
needed to be filled.
I just I didn't know what to do.
There was so much, there was somuch unknown in everything and
I just I kept wanting to findsomething to do.
And it's amazing how, doingsomething like Oxycontin or
(05:56):
painkillers or anything really,you don't go into it thinking
I'm going to become an addictand I'm going to become just a
really bad version of myself.
You go into it just wanting tostop pain usually and that's
that unresolved trauma thatcomes back.
Because one of the things Ihave learned during my journey
(06:20):
of helping my clients and all ofthe studying and research that
I do is I think the number isprobably 85 to 90% of people who
are addicted to substancesalcohol, anything of that nature
have unresolved trauma and it'sa part, it's a part of why
(06:43):
they're doing it.
It's a part of their life andyou could dig really deep and
not even think you have sometype of trauma, but yeah, 85 to
90% of all addiction is rootedin trauma.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
He's seven years older than me and I think I was
about six or seven years oldwhen he just started to dabble
into drugs and I remember likearound 10 or 11, he would come
home before.
My parents were like enough isenough kind of thing that you
need to leave.
He would come home and he wouldfight with himself in his sleep
and it was just.
He was on all kinds of drugs.
I think at some point it waslike there was meth involved,
there was fentanyl and heroinand like everything.
It started to snowballobviously and he was ball
(07:49):
obviously and he was, I want tosay, maybe close to 20 years of
that life and then he was.
There, was like that hard stopand again he's been sober for 15
years now this year.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
So it is definitely not something I don't think that
he was actively seeking to do Ithink that's a misconception
that a lot of people have whenthey think about people with
addiction issues is that they'redoing this by choice.
And I can tell you frompersonal experience nobody goes
(08:18):
into it saying I'm going tobecome a drug addict, I want to
lose everything.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, I want to do this.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
It just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, agreed, it is, and it's hard to see as a family
that you can't do anything tohelp.
That's got to be a moment thatthey are ready and so, yeah, and
honestly, I could relate tothat void of like what now,
(08:49):
after a parent passes away thatyou care, take for, because I
feel that so heavily.
My dad passed away October of2022.
And thank you, and it was likemy mom's still alive, but she
worked and I had the flexibilityin what I did that I went to
(09:10):
every single appointment withhim while he was going through
cancer treatments and all thatstuff.
I was there and be there, andso I felt like my days were like
everything he needed and theneverything that I could put
(09:33):
around it.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Right.
You build your schedule aroundtheir needs and then your life
comes secondary.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
I totally resonate with that.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, I totally resonate with that and that void
of like wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
What is my day gonna look like now?
What is my life gonna be like?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
now I have this available space and void, but I
don't know what to do with it.
Yeah, and it's still verybizarre to me.
I have obviously occupiedmyself with different things.
However, I would give anythingfor just that to be my life.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
It's funny and I never thought that I would feel
this way when I was younger.
But I would give almostanything that I have to give to
have one more conversation withmy mom, and a lot of people tell
me that oh, you're nuts.
Because I can feel my momaround.
She is still here and I stillhear.
(10:39):
I still feel her knocking me onthe back of the head when I'm
doing something that I shouldn'tbe doing or thinking about
things that I shouldn't bethinking about.
I can still feel her knockingme on the back of the head when
I'm doing something that Ishouldn't be doing or thinking
about things that I shouldn't bethinking about.
I can still feel her just hitme upside the head, and we
didn't have the healthiestrelationship either, but at the
same time it's like she was asingle parent.
She was mom, she was dad, shewas my friend, and I think it
(11:02):
made it harder that she didn'teven pass away from the
autoimmune disease that she had.
She was a frequent flyer in thehospital, so they all knew her,
they all knew me, and she hadtaken a really bad fall one
night on I think it wasChristmas night, and we took her
to the hospital.
They checked her over, lookedher over, said oh, you're good
to go over.
(11:27):
Looked her over, said oh,you're good to go.
And then, january 31st of rightthe next year, she had another
fall, took her to the hospital.
She never gained consciousnessand they found out that it was
from the previous fall, onchristmas, that one of her
organs had actually beenpunctured and she was basically
going septic for the entiremonth.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
And like what do you do with that?
You prepare yourself thatsomebody is going to pass away
from this specific autoimmunecondition.
So I've been building myself upto that and then to hear that,
ok, this was completelypreventable.
Yeah.
So there were a lot of angersurrounding that too.
And I'm hear that, okay, thiswas completely preventable.
Yeah, so there was a lot ofanger surrounding that too.
And I'm sure that added mewanting to just forget about
(12:12):
everything.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You never know, and I never got into any substance
abuse because I watched it.
So he was my biggest form ofdon't do drugs.
The biggest drug campaign thatI ever got was my brother and
seeing him, so I've never donesmoking or anything like that,
(12:37):
so I'm always grateful for that.
However, I feel like there wasways to mask trauma in so many
other ways and how it just wasstuck deep in my body that when
it decided to come out, it waslike I had cancer.
(12:58):
Dis-ease created a disease andwhether it is addiction or
something like cancer, it's likeyour body has so much turmoil,
it's in dis-ease and so I lovethe way you put that.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
By the way, dis-ease created the disease.
I love that term yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I heard it from a mentor years ago and I'm like
that makes so much sense.
That opened my eyes to oh well,duh, if I haven't processed the
sexual assault that happened at16 and I haven't let that go
and I haven't had the moment toprocess those feelings, yeah,
(13:42):
it's going to continue to comeback.
And I had cancer four times inmy life, and so until I decided
that enough was enough, that myoxygen mask had to come first
and that I had to take care ofme first and that I was the
biggest priority, because if Iwasn't there, if I wasn't there,
(14:02):
who was going to take care ofmy three kids?
I was a single mom as well.
It just became like all right,enough is enough.
And unfortunately, at 32 waswhen I had that enough is enough
decision.
But it creates it right.
It's so much dis-ease in yourbody that your body's like I
need to alert you somehow.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, absolutely, and there's no age limit on when
that happens.
I've had clients who are intheir mid fifties and they're
just going through it right now.
I've had clients who are young18, 19 years old and it's always
been interesting to me the agerange of when everything happens
(14:44):
, which tells me, obviously,that trauma has no barrier.
Pain has no barrier at all andit happens to everybody, and
your negative coping mechanismsare sometimes a product of you
not dealing with things or youjust not having the proper skill
(15:04):
set.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that's where itbecomes like necessary to
surround yourself with people,or with a mentor, or with
somebody that's going to guideyou in a way that like, all
right, I see you, I feel youLike, I know where you're coming
from.
I'm maybe three, five, 10 stepsahead of you, and this is what
(15:32):
we did, and this is the mindsetthat we start to take on, and it
becomes just a guide for lifehow to deal with these things.
So give me an idea.
What is it that you do now withyour clients and so forth?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Okay.
So with my clients, I would saythat ideally, I prefer doesn't
always happen.
I prefer to work with peoplewho are anywhere from one month
to two months out of activeaddiction.
I've worked with people inaddiction.
My preference is working withpeople out of addiction because
(16:12):
and to your question, what doesa personal coach do for these
people?
I'm their biggest advocate, acoach is, and what I do for them
is I don't offer them a hundredpercent solution to their
problem.
You can't, you cannot do thatbecause everybody's different.
What works for one person willnot work for anybody else.
(16:34):
But you offer small coursecorrections so you listen to
their story.
And that's a big, big part thatI find when I talk to my
clients or when I talk to people, nobody wants to listen to
their story.
You know, they hear okay, addictdrug addiction and they want to
go from there and use whatevermethod they want to use and they
(16:58):
don't listen to the person.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So I try to teach.
I try to teach different skills, different coping mechanisms,
but I want to get to the root ofwhat's causing a lot of this.
I've had sessions with clientswhere I think I've said two
sentences in an hour and nothing.
It just provokes them to talk.
(17:22):
It provokes them to go and leteverything out, like the
floodgates are opening.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, absolutely.
You validate what they need,that's all.
Even my therapist when shevalidates the fact that being
angry is not a bad thing.
And anger is your biggestadvocate, because your angry
part of you knows your worth andthat worth isn't being met, and
so that's why we get angry.
(17:50):
And it's validating theirfeelings and listening to them,
because so many times people getshut up.
Yeah.
And it's so sad that it could beas simple as like listen to me
and I just need someone to hearme and be there, and a lot of
(18:14):
people just don't have that intheir life.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Even in formal therapy or counseling, there's
always I don't want to say anagenda, but it tends to always
follow a form.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
And in coaching I feel I have so much freedom to
explore something with my clientto even if they say, no, I
don't want to talk about that.
We can say, okay, that's fine,let's go somewhere else.
Yeah, what do you want to talkabout that?
We can say, okay, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Let's go somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, what do you want to talk about?
Talk to me about who you are.
What do we want to work on here?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
So it's wonderful to have that freedom.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that so much.
So why do you think there seemsto be so much more addiction
now in our society, now morethan ever?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
That's a good question.
My personal view on that isthat there's so much turmoil in
the world at large not just theUS, but at the world at large
and people are looking for a wayto just get away from it.
We're connected 24-7.
The news services, no matterwhat.
(19:26):
You open your phone andsomething negative pops up
Social media wonderful thing.
I love social media.
But it contributes to thingslike depression, because people
become addicted to those likesthey come addicted to living
their best life.
So it's.
(19:51):
I think that one of the biggestcontributors to addiction
nowadays is just looking forescape, because there's
unrealistic expectations withall of this stuff.
Social media is a prime example.
What on social media is notthat person?
Most of the time, unless you'rebeing completely transparent
and honest, this person doesn'tlive on a million dollar yacht
and doesn't have all this cashthat's raining from the sky, and
(20:16):
you get impressionable peoplewho want to live like that and
then they realize, well, okay,it's a little bit harder than I
thought, so let's go find someway to escape.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, I recently watched a documentary on Netflix
called Dancing with the Deviland it's about a cult that this
man created that is full ofTikTok dancers like viral TikTok
dancers and so like you see theperspective from the family and
(20:50):
how they've cut everybody offand all of that.
And they're trying to get intouch with their family member
and they've been cut off and yousee these people doing amazing
things and living this joyfullife, dancing and so forth on
social media.
(21:10):
But they're in a cult andthey're told that they can't be
around family until it becomesconvenient for the leader, until
media starts coming in andmakes it convenient.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I need to go watch this documentary.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
It's so mind blowing.
But my daughter, she's 15.
And she loves to dance and shecan like look at somebody dance
and mimic the dance routine andI'm like God, I wish I had that
coordination in my brain.
But I have a lot of rhythm,very little coordination.
She's got it all right.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
I have none of the above, by the way.
No coordination, no rhythm atall.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So I see her watch these people and, funny enough,
she follows the sister of themain character, if you will,
that they focused on.
She follows the sister, the onethat's like trying to get her
sister out of this cult.
And my daughter's like, oh mygosh, yeah, I know her.
(22:17):
And I'm like, oh my gosh, theyare literally seeing this
lifestyle that they're like Iwant to have a viral video or
whatever.
And it's not what you think itis.
It is this like dopamine hitand I want to live the way
(22:39):
they're living.
And they can't even appreciatewhat is in their life and the
blessings that are in their lifebecause they are just looking
at that comparison every timesomebody comments and you're
(23:06):
looking at it.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
What happens when?
Those comments and those likesdon't do it for you anymore.
Yeah, you have to look forsomething else for your next hit
of dopamine.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, yeah it's.
It is scary to navigate.
I held them off of phones andsocial media as much as I
thought like I could, and soit's still like you never know
right.
There's no manual for parenting.
And did I maybe do this toosoon or allowed that too soon,
(23:35):
like with my oldest one?
I think my oldest is 20, but Ithink she wasn't allowed to have
a phone until she was in highschool.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
That's awesome, by the way.
I fully support that 100%.
I'm not a parent, but I thinkthat's great.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Well, it got younger.
My son, he's 18 now, he's aboutto be 19.
But it was like in eighth grade, and then my little one was
like in seventh grade.
So, little by little went alittle earlier and I wish I
would have stayed strong on the.
By the time you're in highschool you can get one.
(24:11):
However, it's crazy how societyis now that even if I was going
to go pick up my daughter fromschool or drop something off
this is for my youngest theywere like text her and I'm like
she doesn't have a phone, andthe school would look at me
(24:34):
crazy and I'm like, well, shedoesn't have a phone.
I need you to like call her downand what you guys used to do
back to your phones yeah, and soit was just mind-blowing to me,
and I think that's where thepressure of society or whatever
(24:54):
comes in.
Even for parents, you're like,okay, well, I guess I'll do this
and I have like a ton ofrestrictions on her phone, but
then, little by little again, itjust keeps diminishing and I'll
give you six hours on yourphone or whatever.
So it is trying to stop thatdopamine hit to start so early
(25:18):
in life.
However, I agree with you.
I feel like that is part of theissues with society right now
is because they're looking forthat next excitement.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
And I just want to say I like the comment you made
about there's no manual to be aparent, and that applies so much
to I'm thinking about it herethat applies so much to my own
mother, because I can find athousand things wrong that she
did.
Looking back in hindsight, whenI would work overnight she
would be hey, do you want a bumpof this to keep you awake?
(25:52):
It's like what parents supposedto do that for their child?
so that is like an unhealthyrelationship right there yeah
and I could look back at all ofthis stuff, but I don't, because
she was one of the most, if notthe most central, important
person in my life.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah, absolutely, and I've had this conversation a
lot lately.
I feel like there isn't amanual for parenting.
You always wake up wanting todo the best that you can and
that may look different everysingle day.
My youngest is now 15.
And it has been really eyeopening even how much I've
(26:33):
evolved as a parent and withthat, I have had conversations
with my parents.
Like a few, probably like threeyears ago Like a few, probably
(27:13):
like three years ago, I had aconversation with my parents
about how they reacted.
All you want is for their safetyand for them to be healthy and
happy and OK, and knowing thatI'm not coming to you with this
conversation in terms of anytype of judgment, I just need
you to know what I needed atthat moment and what I didn't
receive and what my 19 year oldself needed from you, and I'm
prepared to give it to myself.
(27:35):
But I need to heal this and Ineed you to know that, like, all
I needed in that moment was ahug and support and love, rather
than judgment and making mefeel additional shame and guilt
for something that wasn't myfault, and so it became this
(27:57):
like I'm not judging you forthis, I just need to heal this
part of my staying quiet of howthis hurt me.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
It's like you were saying before you just need to
be heard.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
A lot of it comes down to.
You just need to be heard.
You don't have to be understoodper se, but the fact that
you're getting it out means alot.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah.
It heals a whole lot.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, it's things that you couldn't talk about
before and I would say that'sprobably a regret of mine that I
didn't get that chance with mymother to say hey mom, it
probably wasn't a good idea toshare drugs with me and make
that a normal behavior.
Or it probably wasn't a goodidea for you to take off for a
(28:47):
week or two at a time and mygrandparents scream and yell and
abuse me and wanting to knowwhere my mother is because I'm
not their job.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah.
So you said something earlierthat really resonated with me
and I'll give you some contextfrom it as well.
I had a podcast interview aweek ago with a lady that she
went through a lot and when hermother passed away, that she
(29:18):
started doing therapy and didhypnotherapy and whatever.
And did hypnotherapy andwhatever she says.
She felt her mother on her backsaying I wasn't able to protect
you in this earth.
However, I'm going to start toprotect you from going forward
from this realm, right?
And so this lady had all of asudden, like clairvoyant
(29:39):
abilities, and so she told me,prior to us starting to record
the podcast, that she saw my dadon my left side and I was like
what that was the most likemind-blowing experience.
(29:59):
And when my daughter got hit bya car, she said that my
ex-boyfriend, which passed awayof a massive heart attack, that
he protected her.
Wow, and it should have been,it was powerful.
She said like a comment so Ihave my vision board up here in
(30:23):
front of me and I have a pictureof me and my dad right here on
my left side and beforehandshe's not Spanish, but she said
I keep hearing the phrase, whichmeans give me a kiss in Spanish
.
Well, the picture on my lefthand side is me giving a kiss to
(30:44):
my dad on his cheek.
Oh, wow, and I was like this ismind blowing.
Mind blowing, completely Right,and I feel very at ease.
Now I would get annoyed, if youwill, when people because my
dad was just like one of thosepeople that everyone just loved,
(31:06):
he was just such a good hearted, happy person and when people
would come up to me and tell me,oh, I had a dream with your dad
I would be like why is hecoming to you in your dreams and
not in mine?
And so I felt like this tug ofjealousy, that it's not fair.
(31:28):
I was so close to him.
Why is it that you're gettingto see him and I can't?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah, and I'm not, and I want to, and I want to.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
And so she was like you don't need him in your
dreams, he's literally alwayswith you.
And I was like oh't need him inyour dreams, he's literally
always with you.
And I was like oh my gosh,since my dad passed away, I see
cardinals everywhere how long?
Speaker 3 (31:52):
how long ago was it that your dad passed away?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
am I asking?
No, not at all.
October 2022 okay so veryrecent, I had never paid
attention to birds ever.
And now I know the chirp of acardinal.
I speak to the cardinals, right.
So like I'll be walking and Ihear the chirp and I can't see
him.
And I was like are you gonnacome visit me today, because I
(32:15):
can't see you?
I could hear you but I can'tsee you.
And all of a sudden, like downthe street, this like cardinal
swoops in front of me and I'mlike hi, good morning.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
That is that's.
I'm having one of those mindblown moments right now,
actually, because my mother'sname was Robin and she always
she did a lot of paintings,ceramic paintings, and she had
ceramic paintings, oil paintingsof Robins all over the place.
And there are still some timeswhere I'll go out or I will be
(32:48):
somewhere, even if I'm travelingor whatnot, and I'll see Robins
and they'll just come acrossand I have to stop and think
like, hi, mom.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
So when you say, when you said earlier that you still
feel her yeah, it's her.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Oh yeah, I was hesitant to believe that years
ago, within the past seven yearsof my recovery, I went through
my own spiritual awakening, andI'm not religious per se.
I know there's more and I knowthere's something.
So, I call myself just aspiritualist, and so probably
(33:28):
three years ago, maybe, is whenI really started to accept the
fact that all of these thingsthat I keep hearing in my head,
that would be something that mymom would say, so I attribute
all of that to her.
Yeah, I tell my friends I stillhave conversations with my mom.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I'll pull on, like what do we have for me today?
It just it's so crazy what thatintention will do for your own
healing.
So the reason that I said thatand the reason that this has
been so long drawn out isbecause I feel like, when you
(34:06):
said I wish I could have thatconversation with my mom, of
like maybe this wasn't a goodidea.
You literally can and it couldstill heal because you are aware
that she is all around you,that she is still there.
So it feels like maybe shecan't talk back, but you could
probably feel her sense.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
You're 100% correct and I've done that to a degree,
and it's a work in progress.
It's not something that you'rejust going to snap your fingers
and say it and then it's goingto make everything better.
So it's.
I always look at it as just astep by step process.
And it's interesting my mom,when I was starting my recovery
(34:49):
journey, I still felt that shewas there and it was something
that I couldn't explain and Ialways remember hearing in my
head, in my dreams, in mymother's voice I know I didn't
do enough, but you need to domore.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
And I didn't understand it for the longest
time, until I started myrecovery journey and I was
trying different modalities.
Like I tried NarcoticsAnonymous, I tried Alcoholics
Anonymous.
Everybody starts with those, Ithink, and I'm not going to
speak bad on any of them,because they all work for people
(35:24):
, but the religious aspect ofthose just did not resonate with
me.
There's a lot of things aboutthose programs that just don't
resonate with me and when I wasgoing through them for I gave
him a shot a month or two each Iwas going, when I was going
through them, I remember my momtelling me stories about how she
(35:47):
went through NarcoticsAnonymous and Alcoholics
Anonymous and they never workedfor her either.
Yeah, and it's.
I think it hit me really hardduring my recovery that my
mother and I are so much morealike than I gave us credit for.
Yeah.
So much more for everything shehad to overcome, everything I'm
(36:10):
had to overcome, and she's beenmy constant companion, which
through the through my recovery,and that's one of the things,
like I said, where she told me Ididn't do enough, but you need
to do more, you need to dobetter, and I try to live by
that as much as I can,especially when it comes to my
(36:32):
own healing and my own recovery.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
That's beautiful.
I love that because we do, and,like I want my kids to do
better than me, so I get toleave my legacy for them.
However, what I want is for youto one up me, please, one up me
, please do better, and I try tobe the best that I can be as a
person, as a parent, as a humanbeing and go do life and do
(37:01):
better, like do better than whatI was able to accomplish,
because then that legacy wasjust that building block right.
Absolutely, I love that.
So what are the different typesof recovery methods that are
available to people?
And then give me kind of anidea why you feel like addicts
(37:21):
are so stigmatized in oursociety.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So there are the narcotics anonymous, alcohol
Anonymous, which are basicallythe same thing.
They just focus on differentaspects and different substances
.
There's Smart Recovery, whichis something I found a couple of
years ago which I am absolutelyin love with.
It's an online-based format formeetings.
(37:47):
There's no judgment, there's nooh, if you screw up, you're
going to go back to day one,which I don't believe in that at
all, and I'll go into thatlater.
There's other ones, calledrecovery Dharma, which I have
not personally experienced, butit's like a spiritualist type of
recovery method and I just Ihave not had a chance to
(38:11):
experience it at all.
You can find groups anywhere.
There's several on Facebook,there's several on all over the
place, and you can even findthem on the meetup application,
and it's people who are justspending time together.
It's people who are justspending time together, and so
there are as many methods torecovery as stars in the sky.
(38:34):
It's different for each personand that's what I've always felt
makes it so beautiful and sopersonal, because there is a
method out there for you and nomethod is going to be the end
all be all, what worked for meand I didn't like I said, I went
through NAAA and it just didn'tresonate with me.
(38:58):
The religious aspect, thehaving to surrender yourself to
your addiction.
I don't believe in that,because when you surrender
yourself and tell people I'm anaddict or I'm an alcoholic, you
are basically saying that's myidentity.
And in my coaching sessionswith my clients, a big thing is
(39:23):
I want them to reclaim theirpower, reclaim their identity
and by saying every time hello,I'm Ryan and I'm an addict.
Yeah.
Your brain is going to startbelieving that after a while and
you're always going to havethat in the back of your head
that, oh, I'm an addict, it'sbecause of my addiction, it's
because of that, and I just Idon't believe in that at all.
(39:46):
There's, there's so muchpersonal power that you can take
back.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
And there's so much power in words.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Absolutely and they matter.
They absolutely matter.
And same thing with going backto day one if you have a mess up
.
There's a statement which somepeople agree with, some people
don't.
That says relapse is part ofrecovery.
You can take that for what youwill.
The fact is that relapses is abig part of recovery because
(40:19):
statistically, I believe it's 68to 75% of people will relapse
at some point and there'snothing wrong with that.
It's when you look at themethods of AA or NA that state
you have to go back to day oneeven if you had five years clean
(40:40):
and sober.
I just I don't believe in thatbecause they erased that five
years completely.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Yeah, and you worked so hard.
They erase that five yearscompletely yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
And you worked so hard, exactly, and that's a that
smart recovery that I told youabout.
It's not a judgment-basedsystem, but you can go in and
say, oh, I messed up last night.
I took a drink, or I had aglass of wine, or I went out and
I took a bump, or I did this,and the facilitator is going to
say, okay, all right, well, allright.
(41:09):
Well, how did that work for you?
Tell me what you learned fromdoing that.
How do you feel?
Yeah.
What can you learn from thisexperience?
To move forward and makeyourself better.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, Like so as a very similar and completely off
the topic thing in my lovely 40smy body can't tolerate cheese
(41:41):
anymore.
And so it sucks because there'sjust that's one of my favorite
foods.
But I can either say, all right, well, I'm going to suck it up
and not feel great tomorrow andhave this amazing pizza, or I'm
going to say, you know what Ifeel like I'm going to pass
(42:02):
because I don't want to feellike that tomorrow.
So it helps you realize how doI feel today if I had that mess
up yesterday and do I reallywant to continue to feel this
way.
And it's giving you the agencyof saying no, but I have a
choice to say I'm deciding notto feel that crappy anymore.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Exactly, exactly, and that the fact that it's a
choice and you're making thechoice for yourself is extremely
empowering.
Not having to.
So my higher power says I needto do this, so I'm going to do
it.
Yeah, if that works for you,more power to you.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Exactly yeah.
In Spanish we say you morepower to you.
Exactly yeah, in Spanish we saypara los gustos los colores, so
it means for every kind ofliking there's a color.
So okay, you know, pick yourcolor and it'll be to your
liking like that actually,that's really.
That's a great way of sayingthat yeah, like everyone works
(43:07):
differently and some things workwith some people.
For my health journey, I neededsomething that I could do from
home, because I had three littlekids and I was single mom, so I
couldn't just be like, alright,you guys stay here while I go
to the gym.
And so I found something thatworked for me.
I worked from home, I workedout from home, I started
watching these nutritionprograms and figured out what
(43:30):
worked for me.
Okay, it just it's whateverworks for you.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Exactly.
It's like when you're going tothe doctor looking for help with
depression or bipolar disorder.
The first one is never going towork and if it does, then
you're in that 0.5 percentilethat everybody wishes they were
in.
Part of the journey is puttingthe work in to find what works
for you.
(43:56):
Yes, and to back to yourquestion about what the stigma
is there's, I would say that inmy experience the stigma
revolves around when you hearthe term addict, you associate
that word with so many differentthings homeless, broke,
(44:17):
criminal and a host of otherthings.
So to a lot of people, thenormal people out there, they
hear addict and they thinkcriminal, they think bad person.
It's just like a flashing redlight in their head, and I
understand the perspectivebecause they've never
(44:37):
experienced anything like that.
They probably know some peoplewho have addiction issues and
don't even know it.
So I think a lot of the stigmacomes from just people not
wanting to understand andexplore that topic at all.
They don't want to educatethemselves.
(44:58):
One of the things I tell myclients is I know people with
addiction issues who are some ofthe most resourceful people I
have ever met in my life, andsome of my friends who and
people who know me who don'tunderstand all of that would be
like what do you mean?
Are you kidding and say, yeah,when you wake up in the morning
(45:22):
and you're going throughwithdrawal and you're broke, you
have no money, no gas in yourcar and you start what is akin
to an eight to 10 hour job everysingle day You're looking for
stuff.
Then you finally find somebodywho will get it to you.
Then you have to go find themoney, then you have to work out
how much gas it's going to take.
It's so resourceful, it's justit has to be put towards
(45:45):
something different.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
I love that because yeah, Iagree, I feel like coming from
my brother.
I even saw that as a kid Likehe figured out a way.
He figured out what he needed,how to get it, who to talk to.
He could literally talk toanybody.
He could literally sellanything to anybody.
(46:08):
Every company that he works forhe's always number one sales or
whatever.
It's just crazy, but I feellike that's what happened.
So I have a huge belief thatlife happens for you and not to
you, and even if we're goingthrough the hell, hells of hell,
I feel like you could alwaysfind a blessing in it and a
(46:33):
lesson in it, right?
So what did thatresourcefulness get my brother?
He is literally, like, alwaystop of whatever company he's
working for he's the gm of at-mobile store and top number
one in the region every singletime, number one in the company
(46:57):
every single time.
And I'm like dude, you canliterally sell like ice to
eskimos.
Are you freaking, kidding me?
But then I now that you saythat I'm like duh.
People always just loved himand whatever words came out of
his mouth, he literally wentthrough like 20 years of
(47:17):
figuring out how to even if hedidn't have the money, how to
get drugs, like duh.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
It's, and you know what?
What it's something that youdon't realize at the time.
Look, hindsight, being 2020,it's like I wonder how I'm not a
good salesman because I had somuch ability to find stuff to
get somebody to give it to mewithout even paying, and then
getting there, getting home itand then starting it over and
(47:46):
then starting the process thenext day.
It yeah.
Yeah, one of the big things alsothat I tell clients and I've
done a couple of videos on TikTOK about this is addiction is a
full-time job.
Yeah, it's 100% a full-time joband for me, what helped me was
getting back into physicalfitness weightlifting, exercise,
(48:08):
martial arts and I've done.
I've said this to a lot ofpeople you have to find
something constructive to fillthat void, because that void,
which was filled with substances, alcohol or gambling or eating
or any type of addiction thatyou can name is going to come
(48:29):
right back around, because thatis your coping skill, that
that's exactly what you know howto do and then so I always tell
them.
For me, I just started going tothe gym a lot.
I started doing physicalfitness.
I started getting back intothat which I was into beforehand
and after my journey throughaddiction.
(48:53):
I had a lot of work to do.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Yeah, yeah, it just I think that you just have to
find constructive ways to usethat same output that you have.
I love that.
That's, that's perfect.
What's so important about yourrecovery story versus anyone
else's?
Speaker 3 (49:10):
I would say that my recovery story is one of and I
don't recommend this foreverybody, but I did the work on
my own because I didn't knowthat there were resources
available.
Personal coaching was not athing seven years ago.
It wasn't known as much as it'sknown today.
(49:32):
I would say what makes my storyspecial is the ability to
recognize that there is help outthere all the time.
You can do things on your own,like I did, and I would say,
just logic the shit out of itand how you're going to get off
(49:55):
of it.
But there are easier ways, thereare more constructive ways, and
a big takeaway that I tellpeople all the time is that
there is a life out there thatis your perfect life and you can
get it and you can absolutelyget there and there is no reason
(50:18):
why going through addiction orsubstance abuse or any of that
should keep you from that life.
So, yeah, my biggest thing withwhat I think makes my story
different is that it's proof youcan do anything on your own.
I went from three to 400milligrams of Oxycontin a day
(50:41):
down to nothing.
Yeah.
And a couple of months time,which all that all of my doctors
, all of my therapists saidthey've never heard of anybody
else doing that.
So you have so much powerwithin you to make anything
happen.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I full, wholeheartedlybelieve in that.
It is easier when you havesomeone that's been there, that
kind of can coach you through it.
But, yeah, absolutely, you haveeverything that it takes to do
it within you, and I thinkthat's so powerful, that is
amazing.
So what?
(51:20):
I guess?
What limiting beliefs orroadblocks do you feel you had
to overcome in order to get towhere you are now?
Speaker 3 (51:27):
My limiting beliefs.
I had a big, big limitingbelief when I started my
recovery journey that I was notgood enough and it's.
I don't want to say it's funny,but it's interesting how a lot
of these limiting beliefsthey're the same for people,
just worded completelydifferently, but the root of
(51:48):
them is exactly the same.
My big limiting belief was Iwasn't good enough.
I had screwed my life up somuch that I was just going to go
away and just forget everybodythat I'd ever known and
disappear completely.
And it comes back around tothat personal power, that taking
back your personal power andbeing empowered to make those
(52:12):
changes.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
I love that so much.
And then, what daily habits doyou feel like helped you reach
your level of success?
Speaker 3 (52:23):
I love this one.
So physical fitness, like Isaid, that's a big, that's still
a big thing for me, not threeor four hours a day anymore, but
no one needs all of that.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
But yes, at the beginning maybe I just turned 40
.
Speaker 3 (52:38):
I can't do that.
I do 30, 45 minutes tops, andwe're good, I do about an hour
and I'm good.
So keeping that physicalfitness routine, that healthy
outlet for energy, that anythingthat happens during the day,
that negative energy builds upthat you need to clean out, that
(52:58):
all gets taken care of at thegym.
A big one.
A big one which I didn't evenstart until two years after I
had quit everything completely.
Meditation, meditation,meditation, meditation of a
(53:30):
thing.
But quieting your mind for 10,15, 20 minutes a day you know
when you wake up or in themiddle of your day or before you
go to bed is so powerful, juststopping the train of conscious
thought and just existing andbeing one.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
And that's so hard for people with people like
myself who had addiction issuesis to be in their own space with
their own train of thought, orstopping that train of thought,
because the natural reaction isI want to fill that.
I need to worry about otherthings, and meditation forces
(54:04):
you to confront a lot of thesethings.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
And I did not really get into that until I had my
spiritual awakening per se.
I started following so manyauthors, so many speakers
Abraham Hicks, joe Dispenza.
I saw Abraham Hicks earlierthis year in San Francisco and I
was just like blown away atjust seeing her live and I
(54:30):
listened to her every morning.
Now Joe Dispenza, he's anotherone that I love.
I'm hoping against hope thathe's a speaker at the summit of
greatness in LA with Lewis Howesthis year.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
I love all the people you're mentioning right now.
So I listen to an app everymorning called Growth Day, and
it's from the creators, brendanBurchard, and he has speakers
like Ed Milet and I think LewisHowes has been in there and Mel
(55:03):
Robbins and just all theseamazing speakers that are
constantly teaching us daily,monthly.
They usually pick a topic andit has been so good, and he does
a daily fire every morning andI wake up and I listen to that.
The first thing I put myheadphones in and I get ready to
(55:24):
listening to Brendan give mesome goodness in my ears, and
then meditation and that is justall the good things and I
learned from listening toAbraham Hicks and Joe Dispenza
and reading their books.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
I have piles of their books and some I haven't even
read yet because I keep buyingmore, but manifestation.
I never, ever in my life before,would have believed that you
could manifest things just bythe power of your thoughts, and
that was an incredible,incredible awakening and that
(56:01):
helped me to keep in line withmy recovery, because I imagine
every day, I visualize where Iwant to go, the life that I want
to have, and I don't want asuperstar existence, I don't
want any of that.
I imagine my life as justcontent and happy, and I see
(56:22):
myself getting there everysingle day, helping people with
my coaching business, speaking.
When I get a chance to speak,it's I feel that getting that
word out there that makes mefeel so content and so happy.
Like how, if you can help oneperson with your podcast, which
(56:43):
I am absolutely positive you'rehelping hundreds of people with
your podcast.
If I can do the same thing withcoaching and help somebody and
be their advocate, be their, bethe accountability that they
need, be a friend, be devil'sadvocate if they need it, I've
met my purpose and that's what Irealized doing this type of
(57:04):
work is it's so fulfilling, andI'm already doing all of these
fulfilling things.
So all that visualization yearsago is coming to pass.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Yeah, I love that so much because I completely,
wholeheartedly believe in all ofthat.
I feel like and it's notnecessarily, I don't know if
content sounds like the rightword that because we don't want
to just stay steady, we want toalways grow, and contentment
just feels like you're juststeady.
Speaker 3 (57:34):
You might be onto something there.
I can see that Because like theprogress equals happiness.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
One of my favorite people is Tony Robbins and he
always like focuses on progressequals happiness.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
It's his voice, isn't it?
That's why he's amazing.
Speaker 2 (57:50):
He is amazing, and so part of my vision is always I
want to go to date with destiny.
That's my big, huge goal.
And it just makes sense becauseif we stay content in our life,
then there isn't anyprogression there, it's just,
it's steady, whereas when we'restarting, when we grow and it's
(58:12):
even just a little bit stepforward in the right direction,
it's growth.
I don't know.
Content didn't seem like theright word and I was like wait
what?
Speaker 3 (58:20):
am I looking for?
I get it, actually, the waythat you're putting it.
I get it absolutely, becauseone of the things I say to my
clients, to myself, to myfriends, is progress over
perfection, and that is one ofthe biggest things for me is I
just want to be better than whoI was yesterday.
I'm not in competition withanybody but myself and who I was
(58:43):
yesterday.
I'm allowed to succeed.
I'm not in competition withanybody but myself and who I was
yesterday.
I'm allowed to succeed.
I'm allowed to have setbacks.
So, content.
probably not the right word.
You're right, it's what I hadin my head at the time.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
I know and I was just like wait, no, I feel like
that's not the right word, thatI like feel and envision for
when you're saying that, BecauseI understand what you're saying
, that, because I understandwhat you're saying, I feel that
it's like an amalgamation ofseveral different terms and
words that we need a new wordfor we need a new word for it,
exactly, but no, you're right.
Speaker 3 (59:19):
Actually, now that I think about it, content isn't
the right word, but that's whatI had at the moment.
Speaker 2 (59:24):
I feel, though, what you're saying is that you're
living that.
That previous vision of you'reprogressing in life, you're
helping people, you're livingout your purpose, and this is
what the cool thing about lifeis always happening for you and
not to you, because you tookeverything that you've been
(59:45):
through and created the blessingin disguise, right.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
And I love that.
One of my closest friends.
She's a trauma coach and shehelped me get into the world of
coaching.
Her name's Kristen Fuller.
She's amazing.
She has that same saying.
She's like addiction did nothappen to me, it happened for me
and I totally resonate withthat completely.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
It's another Tony Robbins thing, by the way, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
It's amazing and it's helped me to.
One of the things that I neverthought I would do is I'm
writing a book and I don't wantto say odd, but it's not.
One of the things that I neverthought I would do is I'm
writing a book and I don't wantto say odd, but it's not one of
those things that I everpictured myself doing 10, 15, 20
years ago.
If you had told me that, hey,you're going to write a book
about the opioid epidemic andaddiction and to be like a
(01:00:41):
self-help book for people.
I would have looked at myyounger self and been like
you're kidding.
Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I'm so excited for you.
That is in my vision.
I always say that I'm a numberone New York Times bestseller, a
speaker and number one podcast,so I'm happy that you got that
started.
Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
It's hard.
It's hard because you, you haveall these ideas and whatnot,
but then you sit down toactually do it and how are you
going to make this a book?
I can't think of anything, andso I got around that.
This is funny, but I got aroundthat by just having Google docs
app on my phone, so I wouldjust start dictating If I feel
(01:01:29):
something.
If I think about something, Icould be in my car and I'm like,
oh God, that idea could be puregold.
And now we just start talkingabout it and go back and edit it
later.
Editing is someone else's job,not mine.
Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Yeah, exactly.
No, I love that so much so Iwill put all of your information
in the show notes, but is thereanything else that you feel
like you want to say that'scoming to your heart before we
wrap up today?
Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
I would say that to anybody listening you're not
alone.
You have addiction, substanceabuse.
It makes you feel alone and oneof the things that is always
said, what's the opposite ofaddiction?
Connection and connection inthis world now is so important,
(01:02:20):
I think, more than it has beenin the past, because we are all
so isolated Even though we're soconnected.
We're so isolated because wecould all be at the dinner table
and every one of us is on thephone while eating, so that
isolation just breeds.
This breeds everybody to thinkthat there's no connection.
(01:02:41):
So just I would say the biggesttakeaway remember you're not
alone at all and asking for helpdoes not make you any less of a
person than anybody else.
It makes you a stronger personfor realizing that you need to
make a change.
Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yeah, I love that so much.
You guys, ryan, this wasawesome.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
I had so much fun talking with you.
Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
I know this like I can literally talk to you for a
long, long time.
Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
That's part two.
That's part two.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
We gotta do part two.
So you guys, like I said, Iwill put all his information in
the show notes.
Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you got as much out oftoday's conversation with Ryan
as I did.
And peace out, guys.
Love your life.
Bye.
Welcome back to the Against All Odds the Less Than
1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte, where we will
hear stories of incrediblepeople thriving against all odds
, and my hope is that we can allsee how life is always
happening for us, even when weare the Less Than 1% Chance.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, hey, welcome back to Against All Odds, the
Less Than 1% Chance podcast withyour host, maria Aponte.
I am so excited to have youback and I am so excited for
this next episode.
I was just chatting with Ryanfor a little bit before and I
could tell this is just going tobe such a good conversation.
So let me introduce you to MrRyan Perry.
(00:41):
To Mr Ryan Perry 14 years ago hebecame hooked on Oxycontin and
various other painkillersbecause he didn't want to deal
with the trauma surrounding hischildhood abuse and, most
recently at that point, thedeath of his mother.
He lost everything a personcould lose Self-respect, respect
for others, money, his car.
He even almost lost a housethat he inherited.
(01:02):
He tried many differentrecovery programs until he found
none of them suited his needsand finally he had to do it
himself.
Now here he is, 14 years later,with over seven years clean of
all substance which is awesomeand alcohol by choice, and now
he helps clients who are justbeginning their recovery journey
(01:25):
.
I just want to saycongratulations.
That's huge.
My brother is 15 yearsrecovered, so it's been a part
of my life since I was a littlekid and I'm just.
I know how difficult it is.
So, seriously, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
It's a different world.
Let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, so give us a little bit of an idea of your
Against All Odds story.
What's your background?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
So I guess where it started like you were talking,
childhood trauma when it startedwas back when my mother and
father got a divorce.
Back I was, I think, two yearsold and we ended up moving to
Northern California fromSouthern California to live with
my grandparents and it startedwith a very abusive grandfather,
(02:20):
so physically abusive.
He was the only father figurethat I had, so he was prone to
backhand me if I, you know, saidthings out of turn, lock me
underneath the house in a crawlspace.
Yeah, that that wasn't fun, butthat happened several times and
that continued until probablyage 14 or 15 when I got it
(02:43):
through my head.
I wasn't going to deal with thatanymore and I just got out of
there.
I just I left for a while anddidn't come back until he passed
away.
Wow, you know that was.
That leaves a mark, obviously,and there's so much unresolved
issues and a young man neverwants to admit that.
(03:04):
Hey, I have unresolved traumathat I want to deal with, to get
better.
But it shows up later in lifeand for me it showed up with
wanting to.
I wouldn't say abuse anysubstance, but use any substance
.
That really just made me forget.
(03:25):
I wasn't looking for confidenceboosts, a self-esteem boost, I
just wanted to forget.
It was a part of my life andstory that I wished I could
erase completely and, ironicallyenough, I'm very happy that I
have that story now, becausethat's provoked me to do so many
(03:47):
things to help others, to getbetter myself.
What ended up happening was mymother had.
She had a couple of differentautoimmune disorders, different
(04:08):
autoimmune disorders, so shepassed away at age 56 and she
yeah, she passed away veryquickly, one night, but I had
taken care of her medically formany years, so it was something
I was used to, and when shepassed away I had already been
dabbling in painkillersoxycontin.
I'd already been dabbling inpainkillers OxyContin, oxycodone
and at that point I justspiraled.
It was just such anuncontrollable downtrend for the
(04:37):
next year and, I think, towardsthe height of my addiction, I
was taking somewhere close tothree to 400 milligrams of
OxyContin each day.
Oh, my gosh Is to put intoperspective for those who don't
know, that is more than a dyingcancer patient would ever take.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Wow, yeah, my, I was in charge of caretaking for my
dad prior to him passing and hewas a cancer patient and we had
to control all that and so, yeah, that is a lot.
How old were you when shepassed?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
When she passed?
Let's see, she passed in 2011.
So that was 13 years ago.
I was 26, 27.
Yeah, so right at the height ofmy getting and coming into my
own being in my life, and shepassed away and.
I had already devoted a prettysignificant chunk of my life to
(05:31):
taking care of her.
When she passed away, it waslike this massive void that
needed to be filled.
I just I didn't know what to do.
There was so much, there was somuch unknown in everything and
I just I kept wanting to findsomething to do.
And it's amazing how, doingsomething like Oxycontin or
(05:56):
painkillers or anything really,you don't go into it thinking
I'm going to become an addictand I'm going to become just a
really bad version of myself.
You go into it just wanting tostop pain usually and that's
that unresolved trauma thatcomes back.
Because one of the things Ihave learned during my journey
(06:20):
of helping my clients and all ofthe studying and research that
I do is I think the number isprobably 85 to 90% of people who
are addicted to substancesalcohol, anything of that nature
have unresolved trauma and it'sa part, it's a part of why
(06:43):
they're doing it.
It's a part of their life andyou could dig really deep and
not even think you have sometype of trauma, but yeah, 85 to
90% of all addiction is rootedin trauma.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
He's seven years older than me and I think I was
about six or seven years oldwhen he just started to dabble
into drugs and I remember likearound 10 or 11, he would come
home before.
My parents were like enough isenough kind of thing that you
need to leave.
He would come home and he wouldfight with himself in his sleep
and it was just.
He was on all kinds of drugs.
I think at some point it waslike there was meth involved,
there was fentanyl and heroinand like everything.
It started to snowballobviously and he was ball
(07:49):
obviously and he was, I want tosay, maybe close to 20 years of
that life and then he was.
There, was like that hard stopand again he's been sober for 15
years now this year.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
So it is definitely not something I don't think that
he was actively seeking to do Ithink that's a misconception
that a lot of people have whenthey think about people with
addiction issues is that they'redoing this by choice.
And I can tell you frompersonal experience nobody goes
(08:18):
into it saying I'm going tobecome a drug addict, I want to
lose everything.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, I want to do this.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
It just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, agreed, it is, and it's hard to see as a family
that you can't do anything tohelp.
That's got to be a moment thatthey are ready and so, yeah, and
honestly, I could relate tothat void of like what now,
(08:49):
after a parent passes away thatyou care, take for, because I
feel that so heavily.
My dad passed away October of2022.
And thank you, and it was likemy mom's still alive, but she
worked and I had the flexibilityin what I did that I went to
(09:10):
every single appointment withhim while he was going through
cancer treatments and all thatstuff.
I was there and be there, andso I felt like my days were like
everything he needed and theneverything that I could put
(09:33):
around it.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Right.
You build your schedule aroundtheir needs and then your life
comes secondary.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
I totally resonate with that.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, I totally resonate with that and that void
of like wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
What is my day gonna look like now?
What is my life gonna be like?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
now I have this available space and void, but I
don't know what to do with it.
Yeah, and it's still verybizarre to me.
I have obviously occupiedmyself with different things.
However, I would give anythingfor just that to be my life.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
It's funny and I never thought that I would feel
this way when I was younger.
But I would give almostanything that I have to give to
have one more conversation withmy mom, and a lot of people tell
me that oh, you're nuts.
Because I can feel my momaround.
She is still here and I stillhear.
(10:39):
I still feel her knocking me onthe back of the head when I'm
doing something that I shouldn'tbe doing or thinking about
things that I shouldn't bethinking about.
I can still feel her knockingme on the back of the head when
I'm doing something that Ishouldn't be doing or thinking
about things that I shouldn't bethinking about.
I can still feel her just hitme upside the head, and we
didn't have the healthiestrelationship either, but at the
same time it's like she was asingle parent.
She was mom, she was dad, shewas my friend, and I think it
(11:02):
made it harder that she didn'teven pass away from the
autoimmune disease that she had.
She was a frequent flyer in thehospital, so they all knew her,
they all knew me, and she hadtaken a really bad fall one
night on I think it wasChristmas night, and we took her
to the hospital.
They checked her over, lookedher over, said oh, you're good
to go over.
(11:27):
Looked her over, said oh,you're good to go.
And then, january 31st of rightthe next year, she had another
fall, took her to the hospital.
She never gained consciousnessand they found out that it was
from the previous fall, onchristmas, that one of her
organs had actually beenpunctured and she was basically
going septic for the entiremonth.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
And like what do you do with that?
You prepare yourself thatsomebody is going to pass away
from this specific autoimmunecondition.
So I've been building myself upto that and then to hear that,
ok, this was completelypreventable.
Yeah.
So there were a lot of angersurrounding that too.
And I'm hear that, okay, thiswas completely preventable.
Yeah, so there was a lot ofanger surrounding that too.
And I'm sure that added mewanting to just forget about
(12:12):
everything.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You never know, and I never got into any substance
abuse because I watched it.
So he was my biggest form ofdon't do drugs.
The biggest drug campaign thatI ever got was my brother and
seeing him, so I've never donesmoking or anything like that,
(12:37):
so I'm always grateful for that.
However, I feel like there wasways to mask trauma in so many
other ways and how it just wasstuck deep in my body that when
it decided to come out, it waslike I had cancer.
(12:58):
Dis-ease created a disease andwhether it is addiction or
something like cancer, it's likeyour body has so much turmoil,
it's in dis-ease and so I lovethe way you put that.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
By the way, dis-ease created the disease.
I love that term yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I heard it from a mentor years ago and I'm like
that makes so much sense.
That opened my eyes to oh well,duh, if I haven't processed the
sexual assault that happened at16 and I haven't let that go
and I haven't had the moment toprocess those feelings, yeah,
(13:42):
it's going to continue to comeback.
And I had cancer four times inmy life, and so until I decided
that enough was enough, that myoxygen mask had to come first
and that I had to take care ofme first and that I was the
biggest priority, because if Iwasn't there, if I wasn't there,
(14:02):
who was going to take care ofmy three kids?
I was a single mom as well.
It just became like all right,enough is enough.
And unfortunately, at 32 waswhen I had that enough is enough
decision.
But it creates it right.
It's so much dis-ease in yourbody that your body's like I
need to alert you somehow.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, absolutely, and there's no age limit on when
that happens.
I've had clients who are intheir mid fifties and they're
just going through it right now.
I've had clients who are young18, 19 years old and it's always
been interesting to me the agerange of when everything happens
(14:44):
, which tells me, obviously,that trauma has no barrier.
Pain has no barrier at all andit happens to everybody, and
your negative coping mechanismsare sometimes a product of you
not dealing with things or youjust not having the proper skill
(15:04):
set.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that's where itbecomes like necessary to
surround yourself with people,or with a mentor, or with
somebody that's going to guideyou in a way that like, all
right, I see you, I feel youLike, I know where you're coming
from.
I'm maybe three, five, 10 stepsahead of you, and this is what
(15:32):
we did, and this is the mindsetthat we start to take on, and it
becomes just a guide for lifehow to deal with these things.
So give me an idea.
What is it that you do now withyour clients and so forth?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Okay.
So with my clients, I would saythat ideally, I prefer doesn't
always happen.
I prefer to work with peoplewho are anywhere from one month
to two months out of activeaddiction.
I've worked with people inaddiction.
My preference is working withpeople out of addiction because
(16:12):
and to your question, what doesa personal coach do for these
people?
I'm their biggest advocate, acoach is, and what I do for them
is I don't offer them a hundredpercent solution to their
problem.
You can't, you cannot do thatbecause everybody's different.
What works for one person willnot work for anybody else.
(16:34):
But you offer small coursecorrections so you listen to
their story.
And that's a big, big part thatI find when I talk to my
clients or when I talk to people, nobody wants to listen to
their story.
You know, they hear okay, addictdrug addiction and they want to
go from there and use whatevermethod they want to use and they
(16:58):
don't listen to the person.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So I try to teach.
I try to teach different skills, different coping mechanisms,
but I want to get to the root ofwhat's causing a lot of this.
I've had sessions with clientswhere I think I've said two
sentences in an hour and nothing.
It just provokes them to talk.
(17:22):
It provokes them to go and leteverything out, like the
floodgates are opening.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, absolutely.
You validate what they need,that's all.
Even my therapist when shevalidates the fact that being
angry is not a bad thing.
And anger is your biggestadvocate, because your angry
part of you knows your worth andthat worth isn't being met, and
so that's why we get angry.
(17:50):
And it's validating theirfeelings and listening to them,
because so many times people getshut up.
Yeah.
And it's so sad that it could beas simple as like listen to me
and I just need someone to hearme and be there, and a lot of
(18:14):
people just don't have that intheir life.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Even in formal therapy or counseling, there's
always I don't want to say anagenda, but it tends to always
follow a form.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
And in coaching I feel I have so much freedom to
explore something with my clientto even if they say, no, I
don't want to talk about that.
We can say, okay, that's fine,let's go somewhere else.
Yeah, what do you want to talkabout that?
We can say, okay, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Let's go somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, what do you want to talk about?
Talk to me about who you are.
What do we want to work on here?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
So it's wonderful to have that freedom.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that so much.
So why do you think there seemsto be so much more addiction
now in our society, now morethan ever?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
That's a good question.
My personal view on that isthat there's so much turmoil in
the world at large not just theUS, but at the world at large
and people are looking for a wayto just get away from it.
We're connected 24-7.
The news services, no matterwhat.
(19:26):
You open your phone andsomething negative pops up
Social media wonderful thing.
I love social media.
But it contributes to thingslike depression, because people
become addicted to those likesthey come addicted to living
their best life.
So it's.
(19:51):
I think that one of the biggestcontributors to addiction
nowadays is just looking forescape, because there's
unrealistic expectations withall of this stuff.
Social media is a prime example.
What on social media is notthat person?
Most of the time, unless you'rebeing completely transparent
and honest, this person doesn'tlive on a million dollar yacht
and doesn't have all this cashthat's raining from the sky, and
(20:16):
you get impressionable peoplewho want to live like that and
then they realize, well, okay,it's a little bit harder than I
thought, so let's go find someway to escape.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, I recently watched a documentary on Netflix
called Dancing with the Deviland it's about a cult that this
man created that is full ofTikTok dancers like viral TikTok
dancers and so like you see theperspective from the family and
(20:50):
how they've cut everybody offand all of that.
And they're trying to get intouch with their family member
and they've been cut off and yousee these people doing amazing
things and living this joyfullife, dancing and so forth on
social media.
(21:10):
But they're in a cult andthey're told that they can't be
around family until it becomesconvenient for the leader, until
media starts coming in andmakes it convenient.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
I need to go watch this documentary.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
It's so mind blowing.
But my daughter, she's 15.
And she loves to dance and shecan like look at somebody dance
and mimic the dance routine andI'm like God, I wish I had that
coordination in my brain.
But I have a lot of rhythm,very little coordination.
She's got it all right.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
I have none of the above, by the way.
No coordination, no rhythm atall.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So I see her watch these people and, funny enough,
she follows the sister of themain character, if you will,
that they focused on.
She follows the sister, the onethat's like trying to get her
sister out of this cult.
And my daughter's like, oh mygosh, yeah, I know her.
(22:17):
And I'm like, oh my gosh, theyare literally seeing this
lifestyle that they're like Iwant to have a viral video or
whatever.
And it's not what you think itis.
It is this like dopamine hitand I want to live the way
(22:39):
they're living.
And they can't even appreciatewhat is in their life and the
blessings that are in their lifebecause they are just looking
at that comparison every timesomebody comments and you're
(23:06):
looking at it.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
What happens when?
Those comments and those likesdon't do it for you anymore.
Yeah, you have to look forsomething else for your next hit
of dopamine.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, yeah it's.
It is scary to navigate.
I held them off of phones andsocial media as much as I
thought like I could, and soit's still like you never know
right.
There's no manual for parenting.
And did I maybe do this toosoon or allowed that too soon,
(23:35):
like with my oldest one?
I think my oldest is 20, but Ithink she wasn't allowed to have
a phone until she was in highschool.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
That's awesome, by the way.
I fully support that 100%.
I'm not a parent, but I thinkthat's great.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Well, it got younger.
My son, he's 18 now, he's aboutto be 19.
But it was like in eighth grade, and then my little one was
like in seventh grade.
So, little by little went alittle earlier and I wish I
would have stayed strong on the.
By the time you're in highschool you can get one.
(24:11):
However, it's crazy how societyis now that even if I was going
to go pick up my daughter fromschool or drop something off
this is for my youngest theywere like text her and I'm like
she doesn't have a phone, andthe school would look at me
(24:34):
crazy and I'm like, well, shedoesn't have a phone.
I need you to like call her downand what you guys used to do
back to your phones yeah, and soit was just mind-blowing to me,
and I think that's where thepressure of society or whatever
(24:54):
comes in.
Even for parents, you're like,okay, well, I guess I'll do this
and I have like a ton ofrestrictions on her phone, but
then, little by little again, itjust keeps diminishing and I'll
give you six hours on yourphone or whatever.
So it is trying to stop thatdopamine hit to start so early
(25:18):
in life.
However, I agree with you.
I feel like that is part of theissues with society right now
is because they're looking forthat next excitement.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
And I just want to say I like the comment you made
about there's no manual to be aparent, and that applies so much
to I'm thinking about it herethat applies so much to my own
mother, because I can find athousand things wrong that she
did.
Looking back in hindsight, whenI would work overnight she
would be hey, do you want a bumpof this to keep you awake?
(25:52):
It's like what parents supposedto do that for their child?
so that is like an unhealthyrelationship right there yeah
and I could look back at all ofthis stuff, but I don't, because
she was one of the most, if notthe most central, important
person in my life.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah, absolutely, and I've had this conversation a
lot lately.
I feel like there isn't amanual for parenting.
You always wake up wanting todo the best that you can and
that may look different everysingle day.
My youngest is now 15.
And it has been really eyeopening even how much I've
(26:33):
evolved as a parent and withthat, I have had conversations
with my parents.
Like a few, probably like threeyears ago Like a few, probably
(27:13):
like three years ago, I had aconversation with my parents
about how they reacted.
All you want is for their safetyand for them to be healthy and
happy and OK, and knowing thatI'm not coming to you with this
conversation in terms of anytype of judgment, I just need
you to know what I needed atthat moment and what I didn't
receive and what my 19 year oldself needed from you, and I'm
prepared to give it to myself.
(27:35):
But I need to heal this and Ineed you to know that, like, all
I needed in that moment was ahug and support and love, rather
than judgment and making mefeel additional shame and guilt
for something that wasn't myfault, and so it became this
(27:57):
like I'm not judging you forthis, I just need to heal this
part of my staying quiet of howthis hurt me.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
It's like you were saying before you just need to
be heard.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
A lot of it comes down to.
You just need to be heard.
You don't have to be understoodper se, but the fact that
you're getting it out means alot.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah.
It heals a whole lot.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, it's things that you couldn't talk about
before and I would say that'sprobably a regret of mine that I
didn't get that chance with mymother to say hey mom, it
probably wasn't a good idea toshare drugs with me and make
that a normal behavior.
Or it probably wasn't a goodidea for you to take off for a
(28:47):
week or two at a time and mygrandparents scream and yell and
abuse me and wanting to knowwhere my mother is because I'm
not their job.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah.
So you said something earlierthat really resonated with me
and I'll give you some contextfrom it as well.
I had a podcast interview aweek ago with a lady that she
went through a lot and when hermother passed away, that she
(29:18):
started doing therapy and didhypnotherapy and whatever.
And did hypnotherapy andwhatever she says.
She felt her mother on her backsaying I wasn't able to protect
you in this earth.
However, I'm going to start toprotect you from going forward
from this realm, right?
And so this lady had all of asudden, like clairvoyant
(29:39):
abilities, and so she told me,prior to us starting to record
the podcast, that she saw my dadon my left side and I was like
what that was the most likemind-blowing experience.
(29:59):
And when my daughter got hit bya car, she said that my
ex-boyfriend, which passed awayof a massive heart attack, that
he protected her.
Wow, and it should have been,it was powerful.
She said like a comment so Ihave my vision board up here in
(30:23):
front of me and I have a pictureof me and my dad right here on
my left side and beforehandshe's not Spanish, but she said
I keep hearing the phrase, whichmeans give me a kiss in Spanish
.
Well, the picture on my lefthand side is me giving a kiss to
(30:44):
my dad on his cheek.
Oh, wow, and I was like this ismind blowing.
Mind blowing, completely Right,and I feel very at ease.
Now I would get annoyed, if youwill, when people because my
dad was just like one of thosepeople that everyone just loved,
(31:06):
he was just such a good hearted, happy person and when people
would come up to me and tell me,oh, I had a dream with your dad
I would be like why is hecoming to you in your dreams and
not in mine?
And so I felt like this tug ofjealousy, that it's not fair.
(31:28):
I was so close to him.
Why is it that you're gettingto see him and I can't?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah, and I'm not, and I want to, and I want to.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
And so she was like you don't need him in your
dreams, he's literally alwayswith you.
And I was like oh't need him inyour dreams, he's literally
always with you.
And I was like oh my gosh,since my dad passed away, I see
cardinals everywhere how long?
Speaker 3 (31:52):
how long ago was it that your dad passed away?
Speaker 2 (31:54):
am I asking?
No, not at all.
October 2022 okay so veryrecent, I had never paid
attention to birds ever.
And now I know the chirp of acardinal.
I speak to the cardinals, right.
So like I'll be walking and Ihear the chirp and I can't see
him.
And I was like are you gonnacome visit me today, because I
(32:15):
can't see you?
I could hear you but I can'tsee you.
And all of a sudden, like downthe street, this like cardinal
swoops in front of me and I'mlike hi, good morning.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
That is that's.
I'm having one of those mindblown moments right now,
actually, because my mother'sname was Robin and she always
she did a lot of paintings,ceramic paintings, and she had
ceramic paintings, oil paintingsof Robins all over the place.
And there are still some timeswhere I'll go out or I will be
(32:48):
somewhere, even if I'm travelingor whatnot, and I'll see Robins
and they'll just come acrossand I have to stop and think
like, hi, mom.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
So when you say, when you said earlier that you still
feel her yeah, it's her.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Oh yeah, I was hesitant to believe that years
ago, within the past seven yearsof my recovery, I went through
my own spiritual awakening, andI'm not religious per se.
I know there's more and I knowthere's something.
So, I call myself just aspiritualist, and so probably
(33:28):
three years ago, maybe, is whenI really started to accept the
fact that all of these thingsthat I keep hearing in my head,
that would be something that mymom would say, so I attribute
all of that to her.
Yeah, I tell my friends I stillhave conversations with my mom.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I'll pull on, like what do we have for me today?
It just it's so crazy what thatintention will do for your own
healing.
So the reason that I said thatand the reason that this has
been so long drawn out isbecause I feel like, when you
(34:06):
said I wish I could have thatconversation with my mom, of
like maybe this wasn't a goodidea.
You literally can and it couldstill heal because you are aware
that she is all around you,that she is still there.
So it feels like maybe shecan't talk back, but you could
probably feel her sense.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
You're 100% correct and I've done that to a degree,
and it's a work in progress.
It's not something that you'rejust going to snap your fingers
and say it and then it's goingto make everything better.
So it's.
I always look at it as just astep by step process.
And it's interesting my mom,when I was starting my recovery
(34:49):
journey, I still felt that shewas there and it was something
that I couldn't explain and Ialways remember hearing in my
head, in my dreams, in mymother's voice I know I didn't
do enough, but you need to domore.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
And I didn't understand it for the longest
time, until I started myrecovery journey and I was
trying different modalities.
Like I tried NarcoticsAnonymous, I tried Alcoholics
Anonymous.
Everybody starts with those, Ithink, and I'm not going to
speak bad on any of them,because they all work for people
(35:24):
, but the religious aspect ofthose just did not resonate with
me.
There's a lot of things aboutthose programs that just don't
resonate with me and when I wasgoing through them for I gave
him a shot a month or two each Iwas going, when I was going
through them, I remember my momtelling me stories about how she
(35:47):
went through NarcoticsAnonymous and Alcoholics
Anonymous and they never workedfor her either.
Yeah, and it's.
I think it hit me really hardduring my recovery that my
mother and I are so much morealike than I gave us credit for.
Yeah.
So much more for everything shehad to overcome, everything I'm
(36:10):
had to overcome, and she's beenmy constant companion, which
through the through my recovery,and that's one of the things,
like I said, where she told me Ididn't do enough, but you need
to do more, you need to dobetter, and I try to live by
that as much as I can,especially when it comes to my
(36:32):
own healing and my own recovery.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
That's beautiful.
I love that because we do, and,like I want my kids to do
better than me, so I get toleave my legacy for them.
However, what I want is for youto one up me, please, one up me
, please do better, and I try tobe the best that I can be as a
person, as a parent, as a humanbeing and go do life and do
(37:01):
better, like do better than whatI was able to accomplish,
because then that legacy wasjust that building block right.
Absolutely, I love that.
So what are the different typesof recovery methods that are
available to people?
And then give me kind of anidea why you feel like addicts
(37:21):
are so stigmatized in oursociety.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So there are the narcotics anonymous, alcohol
Anonymous, which are basicallythe same thing.
They just focus on differentaspects and different substances
.
There's Smart Recovery, whichis something I found a couple of
years ago which I am absolutelyin love with.
It's an online-based format formeetings.
(37:47):
There's no judgment, there's nooh, if you screw up, you're
going to go back to day one,which I don't believe in that at
all, and I'll go into thatlater.
There's other ones, calledrecovery Dharma, which I have
not personally experienced, butit's like a spiritualist type of
recovery method and I just Ihave not had a chance to
(38:11):
experience it at all.
You can find groups anywhere.
There's several on Facebook,there's several on all over the
place, and you can even findthem on the meetup application,
and it's people who are justspending time together.
It's people who are justspending time together, and so
there are as many methods torecovery as stars in the sky.
(38:34):
It's different for each personand that's what I've always felt
makes it so beautiful and sopersonal, because there is a
method out there for you and nomethod is going to be the end
all be all, what worked for meand I didn't like I said, I went
through NAAA and it just didn'tresonate with me.
(38:58):
The religious aspect, thehaving to surrender yourself to
your addiction.
I don't believe in that,because when you surrender
yourself and tell people I'm anaddict or I'm an alcoholic, you
are basically saying that's myidentity.
And in my coaching sessionswith my clients, a big thing is
(39:23):
I want them to reclaim theirpower, reclaim their identity
and by saying every time hello,I'm Ryan and I'm an addict.
Yeah.
Your brain is going to startbelieving that after a while and
you're always going to havethat in the back of your head
that, oh, I'm an addict, it'sbecause of my addiction, it's
because of that, and I just Idon't believe in that at all.
(39:46):
There's, there's so muchpersonal power that you can take
back.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
And there's so much power in words.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Absolutely and they matter.
They absolutely matter.
And same thing with going backto day one if you have a mess up
.
There's a statement which somepeople agree with, some people
don't.
That says relapse is part ofrecovery.
You can take that for what youwill.
The fact is that relapses is abig part of recovery because
(40:19):
statistically, I believe it's 68to 75% of people will relapse
at some point and there'snothing wrong with that.
It's when you look at themethods of AA or NA that state
you have to go back to day oneeven if you had five years clean
(40:40):
and sober.
I just I don't believe in thatbecause they erased that five
years completely.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Yeah, and you worked so hard.
They erase that five yearscompletely yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
And you worked so hard, exactly, and that's a that
smart recovery that I told youabout.
It's not a judgment-basedsystem, but you can go in and
say, oh, I messed up last night.
I took a drink, or I had aglass of wine, or I went out and
I took a bump, or I did this,and the facilitator is going to
say, okay, all right, well, allright.
(41:09):
Well, how did that work for you?
Tell me what you learned fromdoing that.
How do you feel?
Yeah.
What can you learn from thisexperience?
To move forward and makeyourself better.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, Like so as a very similar and completely off
the topic thing in my lovely 40smy body can't tolerate cheese
(41:41):
anymore.
And so it sucks because there'sjust that's one of my favorite
foods.
But I can either say, all right, well, I'm going to suck it up
and not feel great tomorrow andhave this amazing pizza, or I'm
going to say, you know what Ifeel like I'm going to pass
(42:02):
because I don't want to feellike that tomorrow.
So it helps you realize how doI feel today if I had that mess
up yesterday and do I reallywant to continue to feel this
way.
And it's giving you the agencyof saying no, but I have a
choice to say I'm deciding notto feel that crappy anymore.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Exactly, exactly, and that the fact that it's a
choice and you're making thechoice for yourself is extremely
empowering.
Not having to.
So my higher power says I needto do this, so I'm going to do
it.
Yeah, if that works for you,more power to you.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Exactly yeah.
In Spanish we say you morepower to you.
Exactly yeah, in Spanish we saypara los gustos los colores, so
it means for every kind ofliking there's a color.
So okay, you know, pick yourcolor and it'll be to your
liking like that actually,that's really.
That's a great way of sayingthat yeah, like everyone works
(43:07):
differently and some things workwith some people.
For my health journey, I neededsomething that I could do from
home, because I had three littlekids and I was single mom, so I
couldn't just be like, alright,you guys stay here while I go
to the gym.
And so I found something thatworked for me.
I worked from home, I workedout from home, I started
watching these nutritionprograms and figured out what
(43:30):
worked for me.
Okay, it just it's whateverworks for you.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Exactly.
It's like when you're going tothe doctor looking for help with
depression or bipolar disorder.
The first one is never going towork and if it does, then
you're in that 0.5 percentilethat everybody wishes they were
in.
Part of the journey is puttingthe work in to find what works
for you.
(43:56):
Yes, and to back to yourquestion about what the stigma
is there's, I would say that inmy experience the stigma
revolves around when you hearthe term addict, you associate
that word with so many differentthings homeless, broke,
(44:17):
criminal and a host of otherthings.
So to a lot of people, thenormal people out there, they
hear addict and they thinkcriminal, they think bad person.
It's just like a flashing redlight in their head, and I
understand the perspectivebecause they've never
(44:37):
experienced anything like that.
They probably know some peoplewho have addiction issues and
don't even know it.
So I think a lot of the stigmacomes from just people not
wanting to understand andexplore that topic at all.
They don't want to educatethemselves.
(44:58):
One of the things I tell myclients is I know people with
addiction issues who are some ofthe most resourceful people I
have ever met in my life, andsome of my friends who and
people who know me who don'tunderstand all of that would be
like what do you mean?
Are you kidding and say, yeah,when you wake up in the morning
(45:22):
and you're going throughwithdrawal and you're broke, you
have no money, no gas in yourcar and you start what is akin
to an eight to 10 hour job everysingle day You're looking for
stuff.
Then you finally find somebodywho will get it to you.
Then you have to go find themoney, then you have to work out
how much gas it's going to take.
It's so resourceful, it's justit has to be put towards
(45:45):
something different.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
I love that because yeah, Iagree, I feel like coming from
my brother.
I even saw that as a kid Likehe figured out a way.
He figured out what he needed,how to get it, who to talk to.
He could literally talk toanybody.
He could literally sellanything to anybody.
(46:08):
Every company that he works forhe's always number one sales or
whatever.
It's just crazy, but I feellike that's what happened.
So I have a huge belief thatlife happens for you and not to
you, and even if we're goingthrough the hell, hells of hell,
I feel like you could alwaysfind a blessing in it and a
(46:33):
lesson in it, right?
So what did thatresourcefulness get my brother?
He is literally, like, alwaystop of whatever company he's
working for he's the gm of at-mobile store and top number
one in the region every singletime, number one in the company
(46:57):
every single time.
And I'm like dude, you canliterally sell like ice to
eskimos.
Are you freaking, kidding me?
But then I now that you saythat I'm like duh.
People always just loved himand whatever words came out of
his mouth, he literally wentthrough like 20 years of
(47:17):
figuring out how to even if hedidn't have the money, how to
get drugs, like duh.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
It's, and you know what?
What it's something that youdon't realize at the time.
Look, hindsight, being 2020,it's like I wonder how I'm not a
good salesman because I had somuch ability to find stuff to
get somebody to give it to mewithout even paying, and then
getting there, getting home itand then starting it over and
(47:46):
then starting the process thenext day.
It yeah.
Yeah, one of the big things alsothat I tell clients and I've
done a couple of videos on TikTOK about this is addiction is a
full-time job.
Yeah, it's 100% a full-time joband for me, what helped me was
getting back into physicalfitness weightlifting, exercise,
(48:08):
martial arts and I've done.
I've said this to a lot ofpeople you have to find
something constructive to fillthat void, because that void,
which was filled with substances, alcohol or gambling or eating
or any type of addiction thatyou can name is going to come
(48:29):
right back around, because thatis your coping skill, that
that's exactly what you know howto do and then so I always tell
them.
For me, I just started going tothe gym a lot.
I started doing physicalfitness.
I started getting back intothat which I was into beforehand
and after my journey throughaddiction.
(48:53):
I had a lot of work to do.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Yeah, yeah, it just I think that you just have to
find constructive ways to usethat same output that you have.
I love that.
That's, that's perfect.
What's so important about yourrecovery story versus anyone
else's?
Speaker 3 (49:10):
I would say that my recovery story is one of and I
don't recommend this foreverybody, but I did the work on
my own because I didn't knowthat there were resources
available.
Personal coaching was not athing seven years ago.
It wasn't known as much as it'sknown today.
(49:32):
I would say what makes my storyspecial is the ability to
recognize that there is help outthere all the time.
You can do things on your own,like I did, and I would say,
just logic the shit out of itand how you're going to get off
(49:55):
of it.
But there are easier ways, thereare more constructive ways, and
a big takeaway that I tellpeople all the time is that
there is a life out there thatis your perfect life and you can
get it and you can absolutelyget there and there is no reason
(50:18):
why going through addiction orsubstance abuse or any of that
should keep you from that life.
So, yeah, my biggest thing withwhat I think makes my story
different is that it's proof youcan do anything on your own.
I went from three to 400milligrams of Oxycontin a day
(50:41):
down to nothing.
Yeah.
And a couple of months time,which all that all of my doctors
, all of my therapists saidthey've never heard of anybody
else doing that.
So you have so much powerwithin you to make anything
happen.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I full, wholeheartedlybelieve in that.
It is easier when you havesomeone that's been there, that
kind of can coach you through it.
But, yeah, absolutely, you haveeverything that it takes to do
it within you, and I thinkthat's so powerful, that is
amazing.
So what?
(51:20):
I guess?
What limiting beliefs orroadblocks do you feel you had
to overcome in order to get towhere you are now?
Speaker 3 (51:27):
My limiting beliefs.
I had a big, big limitingbelief when I started my
recovery journey that I was notgood enough and it's.
I don't want to say it's funny,but it's interesting how a lot
of these limiting beliefsthey're the same for people,
just worded completelydifferently, but the root of
(51:48):
them is exactly the same.
My big limiting belief was Iwasn't good enough.
I had screwed my life up somuch that I was just going to go
away and just forget everybodythat I'd ever known and
disappear completely.
And it comes back around tothat personal power, that taking
back your personal power andbeing empowered to make those
(52:12):
changes.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
I love that so much.
And then, what daily habits doyou feel like helped you reach
your level of success?
Speaker 3 (52:23):
I love this one.
So physical fitness, like Isaid, that's a big, that's still
a big thing for me, not threeor four hours a day anymore, but
no one needs all of that.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
But yes, at the beginning maybe I just turned 40
.
Speaker 3 (52:38):
I can't do that.
I do 30, 45 minutes tops, andwe're good, I do about an hour
and I'm good.
So keeping that physicalfitness routine, that healthy
outlet for energy, that anythingthat happens during the day,
that negative energy builds upthat you need to clean out, that
(52:58):
all gets taken care of at thegym.
A big one.
A big one which I didn't evenstart until two years after I
had quit everything completely.
Meditation, meditation,meditation, meditation of a
(53:30):
thing.
But quieting your mind for 10,15, 20 minutes a day you know
when you wake up or in themiddle of your day or before you
go to bed is so powerful, juststopping the train of conscious
thought and just existing andbeing one.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
And that's so hard for people with people like
myself who had addiction issuesis to be in their own space with
their own train of thought, orstopping that train of thought,
because the natural reaction isI want to fill that.
I need to worry about otherthings, and meditation forces
(54:04):
you to confront a lot of thesethings.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
And I did not really get into that until I had my
spiritual awakening per se.
I started following so manyauthors, so many speakers
Abraham Hicks, joe Dispenza.
I saw Abraham Hicks earlierthis year in San Francisco and I
was just like blown away atjust seeing her live and I
(54:30):
listened to her every morning.
Now Joe Dispenza, he's anotherone that I love.
I'm hoping against hope thathe's a speaker at the summit of
greatness in LA with Lewis Howesthis year.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
I love all the people you're mentioning right now.
So I listen to an app everymorning called Growth Day, and
it's from the creators, brendanBurchard, and he has speakers
like Ed Milet and I think LewisHowes has been in there and Mel
(55:03):
Robbins and just all theseamazing speakers that are
constantly teaching us daily,monthly.
They usually pick a topic andit has been so good, and he does
a daily fire every morning andI wake up and I listen to that.
The first thing I put myheadphones in and I get ready to
(55:24):
listening to Brendan give mesome goodness in my ears, and
then meditation and that is justall the good things and I
learned from listening toAbraham Hicks and Joe Dispenza
and reading their books.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
I have piles of their books and some I haven't even
read yet because I keep buyingmore, but manifestation.
I never, ever in my life before,would have believed that you
could manifest things just bythe power of your thoughts, and
that was an incredible,incredible awakening and that
(56:01):
helped me to keep in line withmy recovery, because I imagine
every day, I visualize where Iwant to go, the life that I want
to have, and I don't want asuperstar existence, I don't
want any of that.
I imagine my life as justcontent and happy, and I see
(56:22):
myself getting there everysingle day, helping people with
my coaching business, speaking.
When I get a chance to speak,it's I feel that getting that
word out there that makes mefeel so content and so happy.
Like how, if you can help oneperson with your podcast, which
(56:43):
I am absolutely positive you'rehelping hundreds of people with
your podcast.
If I can do the same thing withcoaching and help somebody and
be their advocate, be their, bethe accountability that they
need, be a friend, be devil'sadvocate if they need it, I've
met my purpose and that's what Irealized doing this type of
(57:04):
work is it's so fulfilling, andI'm already doing all of these
fulfilling things.
So all that visualization yearsago is coming to pass.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Yeah, I love that so much because I completely,
wholeheartedly believe in all ofthat.
I feel like and it's notnecessarily, I don't know if
content sounds like the rightword that because we don't want
to just stay steady, we want toalways grow, and contentment
just feels like you're juststeady.
Speaker 3 (57:34):
You might be onto something there.
I can see that Because like theprogress equals happiness.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
One of my favorite people is Tony Robbins and he
always like focuses on progressequals happiness.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
It's his voice, isn't it?
That's why he's amazing.
Speaker 2 (57:50):
He is amazing, and so part of my vision is always I
want to go to date with destiny.
That's my big, huge goal.
And it just makes sense becauseif we stay content in our life,
then there isn't anyprogression there, it's just,
it's steady, whereas when we'restarting, when we grow and it's
(58:12):
even just a little bit stepforward in the right direction,
it's growth.
I don't know.
Content didn't seem like theright word and I was like wait
what?
Speaker 3 (58:20):
am I looking for?
I get it, actually, the waythat you're putting it.
I get it absolutely, becauseone of the things I say to my
clients, to myself, to myfriends, is progress over
perfection, and that is one ofthe biggest things for me is I
just want to be better than whoI was yesterday.
I'm not in competition withanybody but myself and who I was
(58:43):
yesterday.
I'm allowed to succeed.
I'm not in competition withanybody but myself and who I was
yesterday.
I'm allowed to succeed.
I'm allowed to have setbacks.
So, content.
probably not the right word.
You're right, it's what I hadin my head at the time.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
I know and I was just like wait, no, I feel like
that's not the right word, thatI like feel and envision for
when you're saying that, BecauseI understand what you're saying
, that, because I understandwhat you're saying, I feel that
it's like an amalgamation ofseveral different terms and
words that we need a new wordfor we need a new word for it,
exactly, but no, you're right.
Speaker 3 (59:19):
Actually, now that I think about it, content isn't
the right word, but that's whatI had at the moment.
Speaker 2 (59:24):
I feel, though, what you're saying is that you're
living that.
That previous vision of you'reprogressing in life, you're
helping people, you're livingout your purpose, and this is
what the cool thing about lifeis always happening for you and
not to you, because you tookeverything that you've been
(59:45):
through and created the blessingin disguise, right.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
And I love that.
One of my closest friends.
She's a trauma coach and shehelped me get into the world of
coaching.
Her name's Kristen Fuller.
She's amazing.
She has that same saying.
She's like addiction did nothappen to me, it happened for me
and I totally resonate withthat completely.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
It's another Tony Robbins thing, by the way, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
It's amazing and it's helped me to.
One of the things that I neverthought I would do is I'm
writing a book and I don't wantto say odd, but it's not.
One of the things that I neverthought I would do is I'm
writing a book and I don't wantto say odd, but it's not one of
those things that I everpictured myself doing 10, 15, 20
years ago.
If you had told me that, hey,you're going to write a book
about the opioid epidemic andaddiction and to be like a
(01:00:41):
self-help book for people.
I would have looked at myyounger self and been like
you're kidding.
Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I'm so excited for you.
That is in my vision.
I always say that I'm a numberone New York Times bestseller, a
speaker and number one podcast,so I'm happy that you got that
started.
Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
It's hard.
It's hard because you, you haveall these ideas and whatnot,
but then you sit down toactually do it and how are you
going to make this a book?
I can't think of anything, andso I got around that.
This is funny, but I got aroundthat by just having Google docs
app on my phone, so I wouldjust start dictating If I feel
(01:01:29):
something.
If I think about something, Icould be in my car and I'm like,
oh God, that idea could be puregold.
And now we just start talkingabout it and go back and edit it
later.
Editing is someone else's job,not mine.
Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Yeah, exactly.
No, I love that so much so Iwill put all of your information
in the show notes, but is thereanything else that you feel
like you want to say that'scoming to your heart before we
wrap up today?
Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
I would say that to anybody listening you're not
alone.
You have addiction, substanceabuse.
It makes you feel alone and oneof the things that is always
said, what's the opposite ofaddiction?
Connection and connection inthis world now is so important,
(01:02:20):
I think, more than it has beenin the past, because we are all
so isolated Even though we're soconnected.
We're so isolated because wecould all be at the dinner table
and every one of us is on thephone while eating, so that
isolation just breeds.
This breeds everybody to thinkthat there's no connection.
(01:02:41):
So just I would say the biggesttakeaway remember you're not
alone at all and asking for helpdoes not make you any less of a
person than anybody else.
It makes you a stronger personfor realizing that you need to
make a change.
Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yeah, I love that so much.
You guys, ryan, this wasawesome.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
I had so much fun talking with you.
Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
I know this like I can literally talk to you for a
long, long time.
Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
That's part two.
That's part two.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
We gotta do part two.
So you guys, like I said, Iwill put all his information in
the show notes.
Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you got as much out oftoday's conversation with Ryan
as I did.
And peace out, guys.
Love your life.
Bye.
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