April 6, 2022 • 46 mins
Today's guest is Alexis Haines. Listen in as GG discusses how Alexis overcame her strenuous past and pivoted to a more stable life by getting married and starting a family. In the late 2000's Alexis got caught up in the 'Bling Ring' scandal that involved the burglary of multiple celebrity homes.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawut Media ERSA are you ready for this girl?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I know it's been a minute since you co hosted
with me. You look ready. Welcome to another episode of
Genuinely Gig Everybody. I have no LG to worry about
and no Anita to go Harry, that's an ag. Oh
my god, Gigi lg ag. We are g three, Ursula,
We're gonna have to give you a G something. You're
(00:25):
just you are an og. All right, Ursula, listen, we
have a really really cool guest today. I think she's
super cool because everything that I read about her just
she just exudes a warrior. She's been through everything that
you can possibly imagine, this woman, and she turned that
(00:47):
into magic. She turned that into a healing process into
her successes. And after talking to her, I just I
want to be vff's with her. I'm sorry, so please
don't use that knife on me again. I'll be your
bitch always, but I just need a new BFF. Okay,
all right, let's cut to it. Alexis Haynes.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
You know her from Shaws of Sunset. You know she
doesn't hold back.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Know we know me are the source of our anger
and sadness and madness. Is the same source responsible for
our happiness and for our transformation into positivity.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
This is genuinely gig well.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I am excited to have Alexis Haynes here with us today. Hi, Alexis,
thank you for being here. How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Thanks for having me. I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Nice to hear from you. Where are you located right now?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I live out by Calabasas.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Oh you do.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
You're a valley girl born and raised? Really? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Wow, I'm born and raised in LA but I'm very,
very new to the valley. Like I just pop my
cherry of going north of Mulholland off the four five.
But I have to say, I'm obsessed. There's so much
stuff all around.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I know, it's great. Are you in like the Encino area,
Sherman Oaks? Where are you?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I'm yeah, I'm in the Hills and Sino Hills. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
It's just everything's so accessible.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I know. I remember I moved from the city back
out you know, I'm more suburban than you are. But
I remember moving out here when I had my first daughter,
and I was like, you mean to tell me I
can go to Target and Costco in the same day.
Like this is amazing score because in La that's just
not a thing. Like it's the parking and the traffic,
(02:40):
and it's just like such a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Absolutely, my I grew up in Palace Rdes. I don't
know if you're familiar with you know, h is so
same thing. It's like over there you have a costco
in a Low's and a home deep how all in
the same little you know, parking lot. So it's it's
perfect when you go out of LA and you have
all this spread out space and these days you have
(03:03):
peace because I mean, LA is so dangerous right now.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
It's chaos and I don't think I just think it's worldwide.
Right now, we are definitely in this place of awakening.
And I've been saying this for years, like the way
that we operate as a society is just no longer
sustainable and it's driving people to their threshold.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Right where do you what do you think the sources
for that?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Capitalism living underneath the patriarchy, endless wars and violence, not
honoring like the divine feminine in any of us. And
you know it traces back really to I mean, I
don't know how deep you want to get into this.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
As deep as you want to take it, baby.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So yeah, I mean as a human species, we thrived
and hunter gatherer societies and during the you know, in
these days, what you see in these hyper individualistic Western
cultures is tons of addiction, tons of pain, and tons
(04:17):
of chaos because it's just not sustainable. It's not sustainable
to live like this in disconnected societies. It literally drives
people mad. The human brain was never meant to live
like that. Right.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
For those of you who don't know who Alexis Haynes is,
please google her as you're listening to this. Alexis Haynes,
you are thirty years old, right, I am thirty. She's
thirty years old. You got clean at the age of nineteen,
and man, you have really experienced so many different forms
(04:52):
of obstacles in your life that I don't want to
say normal people because I don't believe in the normal,
but which a lot of people don't have the luxury
of having had to experience it to grow from it.
A lot of people go through it and don't grow
from it. Go through it, get stuck, go through it.
(05:15):
And unfortunately, the worst case scenarios is, you know, they
don't exist anymore because a lot of what we go
through is misunderstood because of our society. I do believe
what you said capitalism meaning going into politics in general.
It's a big weight on us. And we are conformed
to a specific type of society, and if we don't
(05:38):
follow suit, then we are considered abnormal. And then that
you know, has its whole array of psychological disorders, and
then drugs and this and that and right, so, I
too have gone through it. I started using drugs at eleven,
and I got clean into my twenties. I took a
bit longer than you. You got cleaned at nineteen, But
(05:59):
you're drug of choice at that time was heroin? Is
that correct?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I mean I was a trash can for all drugs,
but my primary drug of choice was opiate. It started
when I was an early teen, and it progressed pretty
quickly to being a full blown heroin addiction.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Now I know, I don't want to get into your
whole legal past. You did get arrested for some mischief
you were going through as a young adult, and was
that the only reason you decided it's time to turn
my life around or was there something else in you
that was aching to make a change and that was like, okay,
I gotta do it now.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah. I think it was a combination of things. You know,
I am or was. My record has since been cleared
a twice convicted felon by the time I was nineteen.
The first was a residential burglary charge and the second
was possession of heroin. And it's interesting because everyone was
(07:05):
you know, would always ask me like, oh, okay, but
that's that's when you decided to get sober. And actually
it wasn't. Like I was facing six years in prison
for my second arrest and I still didn't want to
go to rehab. Like I knew that that was the
better option. I knew that I needed treatment. And you know,
my whole family, they're all alcoholics and addicts for the
(07:28):
most part. And you know, I had tons of early
childhood abuse in every form, sexual abuse, physical violence in
the home. Like I said, my dad was a really
bad addict and alcoholic. There was emotional abuse, all of
the things, which is why I used substances to numb
out of that, to check out of my reality and
(07:50):
my existence. And you know, I but I couldn't see.
I could kind of see that drugs were a problem,
but I I wasn't ready to do anything about it yet.
I kicked heroin cold turkey both times in the Linwood
Correctional Facility, in in the hole and in lockdown. I
(08:12):
wasn't in general pop. So I was by myself in
a cell twenty three out of twenty four hours a day,
and I could kind of see like, Okay, you know,
heroin's a problem for me, but weed isn't a problem.
Alcohol isn't a problem. And by the grace of God,
Judge Peter Espinoza, I'll always say his name because he
saved my life and this is why I advocate for
prison reform and divergence over going to prison for drug
(08:38):
and drug related crimes. He sent me to treatment for
a year. He said, you know, go to treatment, but
if you fuck up, then you're going to do your
full sentence. Well I did fuck up. I just happened
to not get caught. And when I had that relapse
March eighth, I just turned eleven years sober. March eighth
(09:00):
of twenty eleven, I did whippets and those were never
my drug of choice. I had maybe done them once before,
but I was sitting in the back of a car
on the way to my drug treatment, and I was
doing whippets and I kind of had this like earth
(09:21):
shattering moment where I realized that the drugs and alcohol
weren't actually the problem. I was the problem. That my
unwillingness to heal, my unwillingness to face myself, my unwillingness
to do the work, was the problem. And so I, thankfully,
in that moment, had the clarity to go, Okay, I'm
(09:45):
going to go inward and I'm going to do the
work that's necessary. And I did You.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Did the work, so you checked yourself in. Was it voluntary?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
No, I just stayed. I stayed. So I was court
ordered mandated to a year. And in that moment, I
was like, you're either going to get sober or you're
going to die. Like that's just the way that it is.
And so I started actually going to the therapy and
I started actually participating in the group therapy, and I
(10:17):
threw myself into a twelve step program and from there,
you know, my life began to change. And like I
was speaking about prior, like that that need to check
out of reality, like we all have, we all have pain, right,
and these different parts of ourselves that get wounded, and
(10:44):
all of those different parts, all of the fear, all
of the anger, all of the anxiety, none of them
wanted me to get sober, right, They all wanted me
to continue to them out with drugs, and so it
was incredibly difficult for me to, you know, stop. And
I realized that my addiction actually was my form of protection.
(11:06):
Like it protected me for a really long time until
it didn't anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And so when you say it protected you, do you
mean it allowed you to be numbed out emotionally, to
not be affected psychologically by things that were happening.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, exactly. It was like my only coping skill. It
was the thing that kept me from killing myself. Right,
So then I could kind of have like a gratitude
towards it, like thank you for protecting me for as
long as you did, and I need to take the
reins now. And I went to school to become a
(11:45):
chemical dependency counselor.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Where did you go to school for that?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I went to like a three year online you know training.
I don't even remember what school it was.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I went to LMU for the same certification.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Oh okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I got my KIDA. I went to LM yeah, I
went we would have a lot of similarities, so I did.
I still opened a sober living house. I did all
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
And oh amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Literally like two months after my doors are open and
I'm starting to get calls to get people to come
in to stay this over living, I got a call
from Ryan Seacrest's production company and they're like, you know,
we have this TV show for you. And that was,
you know, eleven and a half years ago that I've
been now on this TV show. So I closed up shop.
(12:35):
I did all that, and I really regret that I
closed it up. But I just thought, if I'm going
to be doing this new world of TV, like I
don't know, oh my god, am I supposed to talk
about this like sober life, like what I went through?
So I was like kind of trying to hide it
ish like I'm very open, but I didn't want it
to be because I still drank alcohol, mind you right,
(12:56):
So I'm like, Okay, I don't do those drugs anymore
when I went to rehab for but I'm still drinking.
But if I tell people, most people don't understand that
they don't so I'm just not going to say anything.
And then it started coming out because I started celebrating
my sobriety date and it was like, but wait, you
drink alcohol and I'm like, yeah, but it's not that bad.
(13:17):
And then it was four bottles of alcohol every night,
and then it was rehab again, and you know, so, yeah,
I went through a lot of stuff similar to you.
But you went in and you did that too. You
got this realization that it has a lot to do
with ourselves, you know, whether it's addiction, psychological, what's going
(13:38):
on environmentally. We sometimes just need to detach and look
in the fucking mirror and realize we are the source.
And knowing that we are the source of our anger
and sadness and madness is the same source responsible for
our happiness and for our transformation into positivity.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
We're going to take a quick break, but when we
come back. She has this amazing book. It's to just
everyone read it. One of the Places that Scare you.
And two When Things Fall Apart.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Oh, I love when Things Fall Apart. It's so good.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
It's so good, changed my life.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I love it. Now. You said you had a daughter.
I know you have two daughters.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Correct, Yeah, I have two children.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
When did they come into the picture in your life
of sobriety and realization and healing.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah. So I've met my husband, Evan. We are now separated,
and I'm starting this whole new journey and I haven't
really talked much about that publicly, but.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Oh we will. We will in a second. We will
in a second, because I'm into it too. Baby.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
So I met my husband, my partner, Evan. We started
our own drug and alcohol treatment center, Ooral House that
is still existing and thriving, and I'm just so grateful.
And we got married and we had our first daughter
when I was twenty one, and then I had my
(15:18):
second daughter at twenty four, and so I was a
really young mom and you know, still in the midst
of healing because I think it, you know, it unfolds
in layers, like the healing is never ended. It's like
life presents us with I always say, like whatever you
(15:43):
resist persists, and so life offers us opportunities in relationships
with one another, in just life in general, opportunities for growth.
And thankfully I had the tools to continue to grow.
So I was doing that and I was, you know,
(16:04):
a young mom of two and also starting the treatment
center and eventually now as you know, the podcast and
my online courses and all of that, and I just
I really found my passion. I think I would love to,
just if you're open to it, talk about different types
(16:28):
of sobriety, because I do think that it is something
that is so taboo and everyone has a fucking opinion
about it. Yeah, and in my last eleven years of sobriety,
ten of which were owning a drug and alcohol treatment center.
I think that. And actually I had La La count
on my podcast and we had a really challenging but
(16:53):
beautiful conversation about California sober and about all of these
different things, and we had very different opinions on them.
In my opinion, sobriety and abstinence are two separate things.
I know many people who are stone cold abstinate for
(17:13):
twenty years, who are not at all emotionally sober. And
then I know people who had two years and decided
to start smoking weed or decided to go try ayahuasca
or whatever it might be, who are some of the deepest,
most connected, most healed people that I've ever known. And
(17:34):
I really think we have to move away when we're
talking about, you know, medication management aka savaxen methodone. Things
like that. When we're talking about all of these things,
I think often the conversations are from a place of fear, yes,
and not actually from fact. And the fact is that
(17:57):
many people thrive on twenty thirty whatever, however, many milligrams
of subboxin for years. That's not my personal journey. But
I'd rather than be on suboxin than be dead. There's
many people who really struggle with chronic pain, who don't
want to be on prescription medications, who in sobriety choose
(18:21):
to consume marijuana and they're still doing the work and thriving.
And there's lots of people like who just can't do
that too. Right, But I think that not including these
conversations and having them in a thoughtful way is doing
(18:43):
more harm than good. And I personally, I don't advocate
for either side. I am just here to help people heal.
I think that again, for most, getting abstinate different than sobriety.
Getting abstinate are the beginning steps that are absolutely necessary
(19:06):
to begin healing and doing the work one hundred percent,
but it is not the only way, right, I agree,
And we're seeing that, you know, the studies out of
John Hopkins with psilocybin and these studies with the use
of DMT really just our solid science. You know that
(19:32):
these plant medicines can absolutely heal the neurotransmitters in your
brain and heal your brain like there's no question about it.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
There isn't any question about it. And that's where we
go back to the politics, you know that we were
talking about in the beginning of this episode. We were saying,
there's a big implication from our political side, the society
that says these things are bad, these things are good.
You know. It was then called marijuana because it was
(20:06):
affiliated to Hispanics and black people and people of color.
It was a bad thing. We needed to get rid
of it. Big Pharma was not okay with this plant
that was healing people. Right, So let's let's throw a
name on it. Let's call it a drug, and let's
you know, let's give it a Hispanic Mexican name, marijuana. Right,
And now it's twenty twenty two and we're sell We
(20:28):
have CBD in every fucking store. There's a dispensary on
every block, more than Starbucks, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So it's just there's tens of thousands of people in
jail for marijuana crimes. It's like, yeah, cannabis, it's for cannabis.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely there are and they are. I mean,
I'm happy to see politicians that are stepping up slowly
and they are speaking up in that regard that people
with cannabis convictions. It just needs to it needs to
get overturned. It needs to Your husband, you have been
married for how long.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
In April it will be ten.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Years, and you guys were separated at some point you.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Said we are currently separated. Yeah, and it is. I'm
very raw and I'm not really ready to talk.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Oh so this I had no idea. This is currently okay, this,
this is something that's just happened.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Okay, just happened, and you know, and it's okay. Like
we love each other very very much, but.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Well, let's talk about this. Let's talk about this part
of lixus. You we both know that so much of
getting clean and dependency, codependency, all these things it has
to do with us and what we go through and
our experiences. Now I know you have you said eleven
years sober two days ago, right, Yeah, eleven year sober. Congratulations.
(22:02):
By the way, that is a huge, huge thing to have.
Do you get scared in times like this when there
is a big emotional psychological disruption to your life where
now you have kids, so your kids are involved in
this you know situation. Does this scare you like, oh
my god, am I going to dip back? Or are
(22:23):
you in a different mental place completely?
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah? So it's interesting. The title of my podcast, Recovering
from Reality, really came from this major shift that I
had around two years sober. Like prior to two years sober,
I would sit there and ruminate and go, how am
I never going to have a glass of wine again?
How am I never going to have a glass of champagne?
How am I not going to have a glass of
(22:48):
champagne on my wedding? How am I going to stay
sober the rest of my life? I had all of
these thoughts that, you know, it was just really the
obsession over checking out of my existence, over checking out
of my reality. And then around the two year mark,
I really had this profound spiritual experience where all of
(23:14):
the sudden being present and being in my life felt
so much better than getting loaded, and the obsession of
using to escape my existence was lifted. It was gone
and it's never returned. These moments of challenges, and I've
(23:36):
had lots. I almost died during childbirth with my second child.
We had a super high risk pregnancy where they told
me she was going to die for my whole pregnancy.
I've lost loved ones and friends. I've been through financial turmoil,
I've had. Life has shown up for me in like
pretty intense ways in the last decade of my recovery,
(23:59):
and I've always just I see my pain as purpose, right.
It's there to teach me something, and escaping from that
does mean no good. I know that the only way
through it is to go through it. And you know,
I practice a lot of Buddhism. Pema Children is like
(24:22):
one of my greatest teachers, and she has this amazing
book is to just everyone read it. Well, there's two
one The Places That Scare You and two When Things
Fall Apart. Oh.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I love When Things Fall Apart.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
It's so good.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Changed my life. In that book, she talks about this
analogy about how life is a free fall, and in
this free fall we have a couple of options. We
can go down kicking or screaming, freaking the fuck out.
We can go down in complete fear and just pray
and pray and pray that it gets better. Where we
(25:00):
can soften in the free fall and we can allow
life to come as it is, and we can get
out of judgment and stop saying that things are inherently
bad or inherently wrong. Everything is pretty like neutral. And
when we can get to this place of neutrality and
of softening and of heart opening, we realize that our
(25:22):
pain is our greatest teacher, and that eventually it leads
to purpose. And so even though I'm in an immense
amount of pain, I haven't slept in like four days, right,
it's like so painful, I know that this is a
great lesson for me, that there are gifts in all
(25:43):
of this. And so when I can begin to shift
my perspective and sit with the pain, and see, here's
the thing. We heal in relation to one another. Everything
is a mirror for us. And so this is coming
in and it's illuminating fears of a baendment that I
thought that had already healed. Right, if your's a financial
(26:04):
insecurity that I thought that I had already heal, all
of these things, and what I get to do is
invite healed my capital s higher self right to come
in and to nourish my soul, and that is as
soothing as the drugs were. And that's really so the
(26:24):
title of my podcast is Recovering from Reality, because it's like,
we get to be in our reality, be in our existence,
sit with it, and allow it to transform us into
something beautiful and something different. And so yeah, there's like
no desire to escape this. I just know that, you know,
(26:49):
we get to put one foot in front of the other.
We get to be kind and understanding. You know, I
get to soften my heart towards my partner who's going
through his own and stuff. And I get to support
my children, and by supporting them, it's really allowing my
inner child to heal because I'm able to do all
(27:12):
of the things for them that I needed as a
little girl when my parents separated. A perfect example was
the other night, you know, my my partner was out
with a woman that he's been dating for a while,
and the girls were upstairs in my bed and my
(27:33):
oldest was clearly disregulated, disregulated, clearly upset, and so I said,
do you want to try something with mommy? And she's
like sure, Like what is it. And I said, on
the count of three, we're gonna scream and we're gonna
let it all out, and we're going to shake our bodies,
and we're gonna have a dance party, and we're just
gonna sit here and we're gonna scream and yell and
(27:53):
shake and all the things. And my little list is autistic,
so she didn't really understand what was going on. She
just thought it was fine. But it was like this
deeply therapeutic moment for them, but also for me because
I was showing up for my own and our child,
for my own little girl, just as much as I
was for my daughter.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Well, can I ask you something about that?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I think a lot of the times there's a fine
line of confusion for a lot of parents. When we
say we want to do we want to we usually
want to give what we didn't get, and by doing that,
we also continue to leave gaps and other things that
we're not focusing on because we're so focused on only
(28:39):
giving the things we didn't get, because we are feeding
ourselves in the same way when we feed our kid.
So do you feel like there is a balance with
you with your awareness, I am feeding myself while feeding
my child in this is there something else I need
to be doing with my child? Does that play a
(29:00):
factor or how does that work for you?
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Of course, I think it's a degree of just like mindfulness, right,
It's like the more that I'm mindful, the more I
can see and illuminate those gaps and make sure that
I'm filling up my own cup and making sure that
they're taken care of, you know. And that means, you know,
getting my littlest into all of the different therapies that
(29:27):
she needs, and getting my oldest into all of the
therapies that she needs, right, and also getting myself into
the therapies and doing the things that I need to
take care of myself. And I think a lot of
people feel like they're drowning and like this is that
would be so overwhelming, Like how do you balance all
of that? And again, I think that it goes back
(29:49):
to our Western culture and the way that we're living.
And this is why I say that it's just so
unsustainable to be go go go all the time. It's
just not when are able to slow down, when we're
able to develop a mindfulness practice, those things don't build
up and they don't let make us drown. Instead we
(30:10):
can clearly seeing like what what is laying out in
front of us and what is needing to be cared for,
and then we get to take the appropriate action and
those things don't build up in unhealthy ways and leave us,
you know, flailing and trying to pick up the pieces.
Later on we're going to take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
But when we come back and it's not bad behavior.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Sorry, that was my Alexa. What is my what is
my life right now?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
What do you think that we could be the best
we are at being parents, giving our children a great home, food,
(31:06):
healthy lifestyle, healthy emotionally, psychologically, but still the child can
find their own path and that might lead into perhaps
drugs or you know, poor decision making. Do you think
that it's always from home.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It's a complicated answer. So I will say that in
the last ten years, you know, I own a drugon
alcohol treatment center. I have yet to come across someone
who doesn't have early childhood trauma, and it just it
usually goes hand in hand. Now, those can be big
TA traumas, sexual abuse, physical violence, and the home emotional abuse,
(31:50):
all those things, or they can be compounded little TA traumas,
right that eventually build up over time to the point
where you reach your threshold. But so much of this
is just not having the coping skills and the ability
to heal. And that's why early childhood intervention is so important. Statistically,
(32:11):
they say that if we eliminated any listen, suffering happens period.
When we come into this earth, we're going to suffer.
The degree to suffering matters. And having the tools to
handle and process and cope with said suffering right matters.
(32:31):
And so there's suffering that's just going to happen that
is just inherent, the loss of loved ones, things that
come up for us. Absolutely, But then there's this aspect
of society, society's impact on us. So in early childhood,
in the first zero to seven years and up to
(32:53):
age fourteen, our brains are like little sponges. They are
absorbing our entire environment. Most two year olds know a
McDonald's m over their last name at age two, right. So,
like the things that we see out in society and
the messages that we receive as especially as women, especially
(33:15):
as women. One second, sorry, sailor, go down, go down,
lay down. I don't want you to hear her like jingling.
She's my little three legged purple lay down three legged.
She's got three legs. She's my little tripod. She's so cute.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
What happened to her leg?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
She got cancer? Oh yeah, she got cancer. I'll just
take off her callers, so that way.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
We don't need to do you think that I know
I do. My son will be two next month, And
having had gone through it at such a young age
and come out of it and had the psychological awareness
and studied it and done all that kind of stuff,
I always say, oh, I'll know if my kid's on drugs, right,
(34:05):
But they the generations only advance and they get smarter,
and the drugs become different looking, and you know what
used to be, you know, powder is maybe now like
a little drop of something. And I know what I mean.
So it's like I swear, I think if my son
Elijah is gonna try drugs or be on drugs, I'm sorry,
(34:25):
I will know because I don't have a problem with
him trying certain things recreationally, Like I don't want him
to get mixed up in like cocaine or heroine or
you know, these extreme drugs. But it's it's only inevitable,
like smoking pot, drinking, smoking cigarettes, cocaine. This is la lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Well, it's it's across the US and even the world.
And I think that I think it's unreal realistic to
expect our children to remain abstinence. Right, We'll just do right.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Do you think a big part of a problem with
parenting is that parents swear that they're never let their
kids do drugs instead of instead of working on what
they will do because they will one day do drugs.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, I think that, you know, we know statistically that abstinence,
abstinence based sex education doesn't work. We know DARE. You
know remember DARE and stuff. We all became drug audictable
resistance education.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Are they forty years old? I don't DARE.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Exactly right, And and so we know that these things
don't work. I think that we are just so that
at home life absolutely matters, and reducing as many traumas
like those big T traumas really matter, and giving our
kids the tools and necessary coping tools and communication tools
(36:01):
to handle those small T traumas absolutely matters. But as
a society, the messaging we get is just so fucked
up that like that impacts us too. Like I think
people don't think that they're affected personally by endless war,
by poverty, by all of these things. We absolutely are
(36:26):
on a spiritual level, We absolutely are, and our children
are sensitive and they pick up on all of these things.
And I guess what I would say is, you know,
it's so important that we as parents go and do
our own healing. And I think that most adults don't
(36:48):
know how to communicate their feelings, don't know how to
take care of themselves, don't know how to live presently,
don't know how to do all of these things. Which
is why I've made it my mission to do the
work that I do to help heal as many people
as possible, because it's important to do this work.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
It is important. And when people don't know how to
deal with those things, or cope with those things, or
even have the self awareness of their own issues, they
begin blaming everything and everyone around them for what's actually
wrong with them. And that has a psychological toll. And
because I see it happening in a lot of households
where the parents might be maybe a little less educated
(37:31):
than their child, or more shelled, or from a third
world country or whatever it is, that they're more primitive
in some sense than the child, and the child gets
put down for not living in that sheltered box, and
that creates rebellion. You know what I mean, alexis if
I were to ask you if you could, because I
(37:52):
have a lot of moms out there that listen to
this podcast and you have an amazing, amazing podcast. I
went to your website, Recovery from Reality dot com, and
I checked in to a couple of your episodes of
your podcast, which is Recovering from Reality. I really enjoyed
listening to that, and I enjoy your insight on life.
(38:13):
It's always easier for me. I went to rehab a
couple of times. You've been through the system, we've come
out of it, and I'd say it's really easier helping
people having had gone through it yourselves. And I think
people listen to us a little bit more attentively than
they do someone who just memorized some stuff out of
a book. So if you were to leave all these
(38:34):
moms out there, or are people who are out there
perhaps maybe going through an issue with their kid that
might be going into drugs or might have drug addiction,
what would you recommend for these people to take even
just as the first step.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
See, well, the first thing is to seek professional help,
is like the most important thing from someone who is
actually well versed this arena. And I will say, there
is this paradigm shift happening that I love to see.
We were kind of the first treatment center that and
(39:12):
most still treat addiction as a behavioral issue, as if
you know, this is bad behavior and it's not bad behavior. Sorry,
that was my Alexa, what is my what is my
life right now? I'm such a bitch. So you know what,
(39:37):
So I would say, see, seek professional help. You know
my mom and I this is what we do all
day long is help help families navigate this and it's definitely,
uh not a behavioral issue and in really the most
important thing you can do. And I love alan On.
(39:59):
I been an alan On for years.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
I was just going to say they families need alan On,
alan On, alan On alan On.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
I think ellen On's great, but I really have an
issue with this with the messaging of basically cut them
off and set boundaries. If you cut off your connection
from your child, that is the most valuable thing that
you have. And so I've kind of taken upon myself
(40:27):
and my initiative is to cultivate such a beautiful connection
with your child, with having firm boundaries in place that
they want to have a relationship with you and they
feel loved and it's an unconditional love. I think when
we're an active addiction, often we feel like we are
unlovable and unworthy, and that just continues our desire to
(40:51):
check out. This is the perfect example of this is
my sister test She continued to use for several years
after I got sober. I put her in countless rehabs.
I set all of the boundaries, I did all of
the alan on things, and she stayed sick. And finally
I had this epiphany moment with a dear friend of
mine where I decided that I wanted to cultivate a
(41:16):
relationship with her. I wanted to heal, I wanted to
mend my relationship with her, and I wanted to love
her and just meet her where she's at because just
like I said that I used drugs, drugs saved my
life for a long time. I needed those drugs. And
so when we can look at our children or our
partner's addiction as something that's helping them rather than something
(41:38):
that is just so awful. We can start to see
them more empathetically. That doesn't mean that we have to
give them money, that doesn't mean that we have to
go pick them up, that doesn't mean we have to
do any of those things. But when we can cultivate
this beautiful connection with farm boundaries, I've seen far more
success and actually get that person into treatment. And then
(42:03):
following that, it's really important that you look at your
part in their addiction and you begin to heal yourself.
It's really important that you learn how to communicate with
non violent communication. That's something that I teach and work
with my families. It's really important that you stop the
vicious cycle of shame, and once you do that, you
(42:27):
will see that your loved one will probably be able
to get and maintain sobriety. It's just the way that
it is. My treatment center, the national average is about
twenty percent success, that only twenty percent of people stay sober,
and my center over fifty percent of people are staying sober.
It is totally normal to relapse, but we can't keep
(42:47):
treating addiction as a purely behavioral issue and not a
social issue, not a spiritual issue, not an emotional issue.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
I agree. I couldn't agree more. I remember even taking
a course for this certification program, which was the bio
psychological and sociological right of the effects of that and
choice theory, and I am I was the small percentage
of people in my program that believed in it's a
(43:21):
choice and it's not behavioral. But there's not a lot
of people out there that agree to that, because just
like a lot of things, like things like religion, it's
easier to give the responsibility to someone else or something
else and not to yourself to take accountability of things
in your life. But I do. I think that, you know,
going back to the whole thing about you know, getting
(43:41):
into the drugs, and that I think when we educate
ourselves is when we can expect our children to educate
themselves as well. That that's just to me, the way
it should work. We have to learn about it, what
it is if we see our children going through it,
before we start blaming them. I don't think it's healthy
(44:02):
to just toss your child into a rehab without due diligence,
without the work that goes behind that, because that also
affects the child, you know, it's like, oh, they don't
want me they tossed me to, you know, an institution
to deal with me. So it's a process. But I
think being very active, being a part of your child's life, speaking, communicating,
not being afraid of what it means to say I
(44:24):
used drugs and I need a lot of help.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, there's two books that I would recommend. One is
Beyond Addiction and the second one is No Bad Parts.
Those are two really great places to start.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I love that. Thank you so much for all this advice.
I mean, I feel like we just started the conversation.
But thank you so much for all your knowledge and help.
If anyone wants to learn more about Alexis, go to
Recovering from Reality dot com, her podcasts, her website. Everything
is so cool, it's so informative. It's very easy going.
(45:00):
I don't feel like I just entered like one of
those rehab sites or anything. I just felt like I
was talking to one of my homegirls or reading what
one of my homegirls was writing on a blog, almost
feeling like it was nice. It was pleasant. So go
check out Alexis Haynes. Thank you again for being here
so her, You're amazing.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
What a great conversation. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Wow. Well I was not expecting the episode to go
like that. I was not expecting for us to connect
on so many levels, and spiritually more than anything else.
I feel like our soul's connected for a quick second
because she has that energy. I swear, she's just amazing.
(45:47):
Alexis Haynes, thank you so much for being here. Ursula,
how profound was she? I mean, does she not make
you regret hurting people with a knife while you have
a bond? Ursula? I know it's plastic, but still, Well,
we're going to have a conversation and you guys go
(46:08):
ahead and rate us, give us a star, five of them,
comment do everything, Just tell us if you like it,
tell us if you don't like it. All right, we'll
be back. Thanks for listening to Genuinely Gigi.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Download new episodes every week, and if you haven't already,
subscribe and be sure to leave us a rating and review.
And while you're at it, check out some of the
other great shows available on straw Hut Media.
Strawut Media ERSA are you ready for this girl?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I know it's been a minute since you co hosted
with me. You look ready. Welcome to another episode of
Genuinely Gig Everybody. I have no LG to worry about
and no Anita to go Harry, that's an ag. Oh
my god, Gigi lg ag. We are g three, Ursula,
We're gonna have to give you a G something. You're
(00:25):
just you are an og. All right, Ursula, listen, we
have a really really cool guest today. I think she's
super cool because everything that I read about her just
she just exudes a warrior. She's been through everything that
you can possibly imagine, this woman, and she turned that
(00:47):
into magic. She turned that into a healing process into
her successes. And after talking to her, I just I
want to be vff's with her. I'm sorry, so please
don't use that knife on me again. I'll be your
bitch always, but I just need a new BFF. Okay,
all right, let's cut to it. Alexis Haynes.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
You know her from Shaws of Sunset. You know she
doesn't hold back.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Know we know me are the source of our anger
and sadness and madness. Is the same source responsible for
our happiness and for our transformation into positivity.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
This is genuinely gig well.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I am excited to have Alexis Haynes here with us today. Hi, Alexis,
thank you for being here. How are you?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Thanks for having me. I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Nice to hear from you. Where are you located right now?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I live out by Calabasas.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Oh you do.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
You're a valley girl born and raised? Really? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Wow, I'm born and raised in LA but I'm very,
very new to the valley. Like I just pop my
cherry of going north of Mulholland off the four five.
But I have to say, I'm obsessed. There's so much
stuff all around.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I know, it's great. Are you in like the Encino area,
Sherman Oaks? Where are you?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I'm yeah, I'm in the Hills and Sino Hills. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
It's just everything's so accessible.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I know. I remember I moved from the city back
out you know, I'm more suburban than you are. But
I remember moving out here when I had my first daughter,
and I was like, you mean to tell me I
can go to Target and Costco in the same day.
Like this is amazing score because in La that's just
not a thing. Like it's the parking and the traffic,
(02:40):
and it's just like such a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Absolutely, my I grew up in Palace Rdes. I don't
know if you're familiar with you know, h is so
same thing. It's like over there you have a costco
in a Low's and a home deep how all in
the same little you know, parking lot. So it's it's
perfect when you go out of LA and you have
all this spread out space and these days you have
(03:03):
peace because I mean, LA is so dangerous right now.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
It's chaos and I don't think I just think it's worldwide.
Right now, we are definitely in this place of awakening.
And I've been saying this for years, like the way
that we operate as a society is just no longer
sustainable and it's driving people to their threshold.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Right where do you what do you think the sources
for that?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Capitalism living underneath the patriarchy, endless wars and violence, not
honoring like the divine feminine in any of us. And
you know it traces back really to I mean, I
don't know how deep you want to get into this.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
As deep as you want to take it, baby.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So yeah, I mean as a human species, we thrived
and hunter gatherer societies and during the you know, in
these days, what you see in these hyper individualistic Western
cultures is tons of addiction, tons of pain, and tons
(04:17):
of chaos because it's just not sustainable. It's not sustainable
to live like this in disconnected societies. It literally drives
people mad. The human brain was never meant to live
like that. Right.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
For those of you who don't know who Alexis Haynes is,
please google her as you're listening to this. Alexis Haynes,
you are thirty years old, right, I am thirty. She's
thirty years old. You got clean at the age of nineteen,
and man, you have really experienced so many different forms
(04:52):
of obstacles in your life that I don't want to
say normal people because I don't believe in the normal,
but which a lot of people don't have the luxury
of having had to experience it to grow from it.
A lot of people go through it and don't grow
from it. Go through it, get stuck, go through it.
(05:15):
And unfortunately, the worst case scenarios is, you know, they
don't exist anymore because a lot of what we go
through is misunderstood because of our society. I do believe
what you said capitalism meaning going into politics in general.
It's a big weight on us. And we are conformed
to a specific type of society, and if we don't
(05:38):
follow suit, then we are considered abnormal. And then that
you know, has its whole array of psychological disorders, and
then drugs and this and that and right, so, I
too have gone through it. I started using drugs at eleven,
and I got clean into my twenties. I took a
bit longer than you. You got cleaned at nineteen, But
(05:59):
you're drug of choice at that time was heroin? Is
that correct?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I mean I was a trash can for all drugs,
but my primary drug of choice was opiate. It started
when I was an early teen, and it progressed pretty
quickly to being a full blown heroin addiction.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Now I know, I don't want to get into your
whole legal past. You did get arrested for some mischief
you were going through as a young adult, and was
that the only reason you decided it's time to turn
my life around or was there something else in you
that was aching to make a change and that was like, okay,
I gotta do it now.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah. I think it was a combination of things. You know,
I am or was. My record has since been cleared
a twice convicted felon by the time I was nineteen.
The first was a residential burglary charge and the second
was possession of heroin. And it's interesting because everyone was
(07:05):
you know, would always ask me like, oh, okay, but
that's that's when you decided to get sober. And actually
it wasn't. Like I was facing six years in prison
for my second arrest and I still didn't want to
go to rehab. Like I knew that that was the
better option. I knew that I needed treatment. And you know,
my whole family, they're all alcoholics and addicts for the
(07:28):
most part. And you know, I had tons of early
childhood abuse in every form, sexual abuse, physical violence in
the home. Like I said, my dad was a really
bad addict and alcoholic. There was emotional abuse, all of
the things, which is why I used substances to numb
out of that, to check out of my reality and
(07:50):
my existence. And you know, I but I couldn't see.
I could kind of see that drugs were a problem,
but I I wasn't ready to do anything about it yet.
I kicked heroin cold turkey both times in the Linwood
Correctional Facility, in in the hole and in lockdown. I
(08:12):
wasn't in general pop. So I was by myself in
a cell twenty three out of twenty four hours a day,
and I could kind of see like, Okay, you know,
heroin's a problem for me, but weed isn't a problem.
Alcohol isn't a problem. And by the grace of God,
Judge Peter Espinoza, I'll always say his name because he
saved my life and this is why I advocate for
prison reform and divergence over going to prison for drug
(08:38):
and drug related crimes. He sent me to treatment for
a year. He said, you know, go to treatment, but
if you fuck up, then you're going to do your
full sentence. Well I did fuck up. I just happened
to not get caught. And when I had that relapse
March eighth, I just turned eleven years sober. March eighth
(09:00):
of twenty eleven, I did whippets and those were never
my drug of choice. I had maybe done them once before,
but I was sitting in the back of a car
on the way to my drug treatment, and I was
doing whippets and I kind of had this like earth
(09:21):
shattering moment where I realized that the drugs and alcohol
weren't actually the problem. I was the problem. That my
unwillingness to heal, my unwillingness to face myself, my unwillingness
to do the work, was the problem. And so I, thankfully,
in that moment, had the clarity to go, Okay, I'm
(09:45):
going to go inward and I'm going to do the
work that's necessary. And I did You.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Did the work, so you checked yourself in. Was it voluntary?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
No, I just stayed. I stayed. So I was court
ordered mandated to a year. And in that moment, I
was like, you're either going to get sober or you're
going to die. Like that's just the way that it is.
And so I started actually going to the therapy and
I started actually participating in the group therapy, and I
(10:17):
threw myself into a twelve step program and from there,
you know, my life began to change. And like I
was speaking about prior, like that that need to check
out of reality, like we all have, we all have pain, right,
and these different parts of ourselves that get wounded, and
(10:44):
all of those different parts, all of the fear, all
of the anger, all of the anxiety, none of them
wanted me to get sober, right, They all wanted me
to continue to them out with drugs, and so it
was incredibly difficult for me to, you know, stop. And
I realized that my addiction actually was my form of protection.
(11:06):
Like it protected me for a really long time until
it didn't anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
And so when you say it protected you, do you
mean it allowed you to be numbed out emotionally, to
not be affected psychologically by things that were happening.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, exactly. It was like my only coping skill. It
was the thing that kept me from killing myself. Right,
So then I could kind of have like a gratitude
towards it, like thank you for protecting me for as
long as you did, and I need to take the
reins now. And I went to school to become a
(11:45):
chemical dependency counselor.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Where did you go to school for that?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I went to like a three year online you know training.
I don't even remember what school it was.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I went to LMU for the same certification.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Oh okay, cool.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I got my KIDA. I went to LM yeah, I
went we would have a lot of similarities, so I did.
I still opened a sober living house. I did all
that stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
And oh amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Literally like two months after my doors are open and
I'm starting to get calls to get people to come
in to stay this over living, I got a call
from Ryan Seacrest's production company and they're like, you know,
we have this TV show for you. And that was,
you know, eleven and a half years ago that I've
been now on this TV show. So I closed up shop.
(12:35):
I did all that, and I really regret that I
closed it up. But I just thought, if I'm going
to be doing this new world of TV, like I
don't know, oh my god, am I supposed to talk
about this like sober life, like what I went through?
So I was like kind of trying to hide it
ish like I'm very open, but I didn't want it
to be because I still drank alcohol, mind you right,
(12:56):
So I'm like, Okay, I don't do those drugs anymore
when I went to rehab for but I'm still drinking.
But if I tell people, most people don't understand that
they don't so I'm just not going to say anything.
And then it started coming out because I started celebrating
my sobriety date and it was like, but wait, you
drink alcohol and I'm like, yeah, but it's not that bad.
(13:17):
And then it was four bottles of alcohol every night,
and then it was rehab again, and you know, so, yeah,
I went through a lot of stuff similar to you.
But you went in and you did that too. You
got this realization that it has a lot to do
with ourselves, you know, whether it's addiction, psychological, what's going
(13:38):
on environmentally. We sometimes just need to detach and look
in the fucking mirror and realize we are the source.
And knowing that we are the source of our anger
and sadness and madness is the same source responsible for
our happiness and for our transformation into positivity.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
We're going to take a quick break, but when we
come back. She has this amazing book. It's to just
everyone read it. One of the Places that Scare you.
And two When Things Fall Apart.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Oh, I love when Things Fall Apart. It's so good.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
It's so good, changed my life.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I love it. Now. You said you had a daughter.
I know you have two daughters.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Correct, Yeah, I have two children.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
When did they come into the picture in your life
of sobriety and realization and healing.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah. So I've met my husband, Evan. We are now separated,
and I'm starting this whole new journey and I haven't
really talked much about that publicly, but.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Oh we will. We will in a second. We will
in a second, because I'm into it too. Baby.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
So I met my husband, my partner, Evan. We started
our own drug and alcohol treatment center, Ooral House that
is still existing and thriving, and I'm just so grateful.
And we got married and we had our first daughter
when I was twenty one, and then I had my
(15:18):
second daughter at twenty four, and so I was a
really young mom and you know, still in the midst
of healing because I think it, you know, it unfolds
in layers, like the healing is never ended. It's like
life presents us with I always say, like whatever you
(15:43):
resist persists, and so life offers us opportunities in relationships
with one another, in just life in general, opportunities for growth.
And thankfully I had the tools to continue to grow.
So I was doing that and I was, you know,
(16:04):
a young mom of two and also starting the treatment
center and eventually now as you know, the podcast and
my online courses and all of that, and I just
I really found my passion. I think I would love to,
just if you're open to it, talk about different types
(16:28):
of sobriety, because I do think that it is something
that is so taboo and everyone has a fucking opinion
about it. Yeah, and in my last eleven years of sobriety,
ten of which were owning a drug and alcohol treatment center.
I think that. And actually I had La La count
on my podcast and we had a really challenging but
(16:53):
beautiful conversation about California sober and about all of these
different things, and we had very different opinions on them.
In my opinion, sobriety and abstinence are two separate things.
I know many people who are stone cold abstinate for
(17:13):
twenty years, who are not at all emotionally sober. And
then I know people who had two years and decided
to start smoking weed or decided to go try ayahuasca
or whatever it might be, who are some of the deepest,
most connected, most healed people that I've ever known. And
(17:34):
I really think we have to move away when we're
talking about, you know, medication management aka savaxen methodone. Things
like that. When we're talking about all of these things,
I think often the conversations are from a place of fear, yes,
and not actually from fact. And the fact is that
(17:57):
many people thrive on twenty thirty whatever, however, many milligrams
of subboxin for years. That's not my personal journey. But
I'd rather than be on suboxin than be dead. There's
many people who really struggle with chronic pain, who don't
want to be on prescription medications, who in sobriety choose
(18:21):
to consume marijuana and they're still doing the work and thriving.
And there's lots of people like who just can't do
that too. Right, But I think that not including these
conversations and having them in a thoughtful way is doing
(18:43):
more harm than good. And I personally, I don't advocate
for either side. I am just here to help people heal.
I think that again, for most, getting abstinate different than sobriety.
Getting abstinate are the beginning steps that are absolutely necessary
(19:06):
to begin healing and doing the work one hundred percent,
but it is not the only way, right, I agree,
And we're seeing that, you know, the studies out of
John Hopkins with psilocybin and these studies with the use
of DMT really just our solid science. You know that
(19:32):
these plant medicines can absolutely heal the neurotransmitters in your
brain and heal your brain like there's no question about it.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
There isn't any question about it. And that's where we
go back to the politics, you know that we were
talking about in the beginning of this episode. We were saying,
there's a big implication from our political side, the society
that says these things are bad, these things are good.
You know. It was then called marijuana because it was
(20:06):
affiliated to Hispanics and black people and people of color.
It was a bad thing. We needed to get rid
of it. Big Pharma was not okay with this plant
that was healing people. Right, So let's let's throw a
name on it. Let's call it a drug, and let's
you know, let's give it a Hispanic Mexican name, marijuana. Right,
And now it's twenty twenty two and we're sell We
(20:28):
have CBD in every fucking store. There's a dispensary on
every block, more than Starbucks, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So it's just there's tens of thousands of people in
jail for marijuana crimes. It's like, yeah, cannabis, it's for cannabis.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely there are and they are. I mean,
I'm happy to see politicians that are stepping up slowly
and they are speaking up in that regard that people
with cannabis convictions. It just needs to it needs to
get overturned. It needs to Your husband, you have been
married for how long.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
In April it will be ten.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Years, and you guys were separated at some point you.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Said we are currently separated. Yeah, and it is. I'm
very raw and I'm not really ready to talk.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Oh so this I had no idea. This is currently okay, this,
this is something that's just happened.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Okay, just happened, and you know, and it's okay. Like
we love each other very very much, but.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Well, let's talk about this. Let's talk about this part
of lixus. You we both know that so much of
getting clean and dependency, codependency, all these things it has
to do with us and what we go through and
our experiences. Now I know you have you said eleven
years sober two days ago, right, Yeah, eleven year sober. Congratulations.
(22:02):
By the way, that is a huge, huge thing to have.
Do you get scared in times like this when there
is a big emotional psychological disruption to your life where
now you have kids, so your kids are involved in
this you know situation. Does this scare you like, oh
my god, am I going to dip back? Or are
(22:23):
you in a different mental place completely?
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah? So it's interesting. The title of my podcast, Recovering
from Reality, really came from this major shift that I
had around two years sober. Like prior to two years sober,
I would sit there and ruminate and go, how am
I never going to have a glass of wine again?
How am I never going to have a glass of champagne?
How am I not going to have a glass of
(22:48):
champagne on my wedding? How am I going to stay
sober the rest of my life? I had all of
these thoughts that, you know, it was just really the
obsession over checking out of my existence, over checking out
of my reality. And then around the two year mark,
I really had this profound spiritual experience where all of
(23:14):
the sudden being present and being in my life felt
so much better than getting loaded, and the obsession of
using to escape my existence was lifted. It was gone
and it's never returned. These moments of challenges, and I've
(23:36):
had lots. I almost died during childbirth with my second child.
We had a super high risk pregnancy where they told
me she was going to die for my whole pregnancy.
I've lost loved ones and friends. I've been through financial turmoil,
I've had. Life has shown up for me in like
pretty intense ways in the last decade of my recovery,
(23:59):
and I've always just I see my pain as purpose, right.
It's there to teach me something, and escaping from that
does mean no good. I know that the only way
through it is to go through it. And you know,
I practice a lot of Buddhism. Pema Children is like
(24:22):
one of my greatest teachers, and she has this amazing
book is to just everyone read it. Well, there's two
one The Places That Scare You and two When Things
Fall Apart. Oh.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I love When Things Fall Apart.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
It's so good.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Changed my life. In that book, she talks about this
analogy about how life is a free fall, and in
this free fall we have a couple of options. We
can go down kicking or screaming, freaking the fuck out.
We can go down in complete fear and just pray
and pray and pray that it gets better. Where we
(25:00):
can soften in the free fall and we can allow
life to come as it is, and we can get
out of judgment and stop saying that things are inherently
bad or inherently wrong. Everything is pretty like neutral. And
when we can get to this place of neutrality and
of softening and of heart opening, we realize that our
(25:22):
pain is our greatest teacher, and that eventually it leads
to purpose. And so even though I'm in an immense
amount of pain, I haven't slept in like four days, right,
it's like so painful, I know that this is a
great lesson for me, that there are gifts in all
(25:43):
of this. And so when I can begin to shift
my perspective and sit with the pain, and see, here's
the thing. We heal in relation to one another. Everything
is a mirror for us. And so this is coming
in and it's illuminating fears of a baendment that I
thought that had already healed. Right, if your's a financial
(26:04):
insecurity that I thought that I had already heal, all
of these things, and what I get to do is
invite healed my capital s higher self right to come
in and to nourish my soul, and that is as
soothing as the drugs were. And that's really so the
(26:24):
title of my podcast is Recovering from Reality, because it's like,
we get to be in our reality, be in our existence,
sit with it, and allow it to transform us into
something beautiful and something different. And so yeah, there's like
no desire to escape this. I just know that, you know,
(26:49):
we get to put one foot in front of the other.
We get to be kind and understanding. You know, I
get to soften my heart towards my partner who's going
through his own and stuff. And I get to support
my children, and by supporting them, it's really allowing my
inner child to heal because I'm able to do all
(27:12):
of the things for them that I needed as a
little girl when my parents separated. A perfect example was
the other night, you know, my my partner was out
with a woman that he's been dating for a while,
and the girls were upstairs in my bed and my
(27:33):
oldest was clearly disregulated, disregulated, clearly upset, and so I said,
do you want to try something with mommy? And she's
like sure, Like what is it. And I said, on
the count of three, we're gonna scream and we're gonna
let it all out, and we're going to shake our bodies,
and we're gonna have a dance party, and we're just
gonna sit here and we're gonna scream and yell and
(27:53):
shake and all the things. And my little list is autistic,
so she didn't really understand what was going on. She
just thought it was fine. But it was like this
deeply therapeutic moment for them, but also for me because
I was showing up for my own and our child,
for my own little girl, just as much as I
was for my daughter.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Well, can I ask you something about that?
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I think a lot of the times there's a fine
line of confusion for a lot of parents. When we
say we want to do we want to we usually
want to give what we didn't get, and by doing that,
we also continue to leave gaps and other things that
we're not focusing on because we're so focused on only
(28:39):
giving the things we didn't get, because we are feeding
ourselves in the same way when we feed our kid.
So do you feel like there is a balance with
you with your awareness, I am feeding myself while feeding
my child in this is there something else I need
to be doing with my child? Does that play a
(29:00):
factor or how does that work for you?
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Of course, I think it's a degree of just like mindfulness, right,
It's like the more that I'm mindful, the more I
can see and illuminate those gaps and make sure that
I'm filling up my own cup and making sure that
they're taken care of, you know. And that means, you know,
getting my littlest into all of the different therapies that
(29:27):
she needs, and getting my oldest into all of the
therapies that she needs, right, and also getting myself into
the therapies and doing the things that I need to
take care of myself. And I think a lot of
people feel like they're drowning and like this is that
would be so overwhelming, Like how do you balance all
of that? And again, I think that it goes back
(29:49):
to our Western culture and the way that we're living.
And this is why I say that it's just so
unsustainable to be go go go all the time. It's
just not when are able to slow down, when we're
able to develop a mindfulness practice, those things don't build
up and they don't let make us drown. Instead we
(30:10):
can clearly seeing like what what is laying out in
front of us and what is needing to be cared for,
and then we get to take the appropriate action and
those things don't build up in unhealthy ways and leave us,
you know, flailing and trying to pick up the pieces.
Later on we're going to take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
But when we come back and it's not bad behavior.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Sorry, that was my Alexa. What is my what is
my life right now?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
What do you think that we could be the best
we are at being parents, giving our children a great home, food,
(31:06):
healthy lifestyle, healthy emotionally, psychologically, but still the child can
find their own path and that might lead into perhaps
drugs or you know, poor decision making. Do you think
that it's always from home.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It's a complicated answer. So I will say that in
the last ten years, you know, I own a drugon
alcohol treatment center. I have yet to come across someone
who doesn't have early childhood trauma, and it just it
usually goes hand in hand. Now, those can be big
TA traumas, sexual abuse, physical violence, and the home emotional abuse,
(31:50):
all those things, or they can be compounded little TA traumas,
right that eventually build up over time to the point
where you reach your threshold. But so much of this
is just not having the coping skills and the ability
to heal. And that's why early childhood intervention is so important. Statistically,
(32:11):
they say that if we eliminated any listen, suffering happens period.
When we come into this earth, we're going to suffer.
The degree to suffering matters. And having the tools to
handle and process and cope with said suffering right matters.
(32:31):
And so there's suffering that's just going to happen that
is just inherent, the loss of loved ones, things that
come up for us. Absolutely, But then there's this aspect
of society, society's impact on us. So in early childhood,
in the first zero to seven years and up to
(32:53):
age fourteen, our brains are like little sponges. They are
absorbing our entire environment. Most two year olds know a
McDonald's m over their last name at age two, right. So,
like the things that we see out in society and
the messages that we receive as especially as women, especially
(33:15):
as women. One second, sorry, sailor, go down, go down,
lay down. I don't want you to hear her like jingling.
She's my little three legged purple lay down three legged.
She's got three legs. She's my little tripod. She's so cute.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
What happened to her leg?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
She got cancer? Oh yeah, she got cancer. I'll just
take off her callers, so that way.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
We don't need to do you think that I know
I do. My son will be two next month, And
having had gone through it at such a young age
and come out of it and had the psychological awareness
and studied it and done all that kind of stuff,
I always say, oh, I'll know if my kid's on drugs, right,
(34:05):
But they the generations only advance and they get smarter,
and the drugs become different looking, and you know what
used to be, you know, powder is maybe now like
a little drop of something. And I know what I mean.
So it's like I swear, I think if my son
Elijah is gonna try drugs or be on drugs, I'm sorry,
(34:25):
I will know because I don't have a problem with
him trying certain things recreationally, Like I don't want him
to get mixed up in like cocaine or heroine or
you know, these extreme drugs. But it's it's only inevitable,
like smoking pot, drinking, smoking cigarettes, cocaine. This is la lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Well, it's it's across the US and even the world.
And I think that I think it's unreal realistic to
expect our children to remain abstinence. Right, We'll just do right.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Do you think a big part of a problem with
parenting is that parents swear that they're never let their
kids do drugs instead of instead of working on what
they will do because they will one day do drugs.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, I think that, you know, we know statistically that abstinence,
abstinence based sex education doesn't work. We know DARE. You
know remember DARE and stuff. We all became drug audictable
resistance education.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Are they forty years old? I don't DARE.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Exactly right, And and so we know that these things
don't work. I think that we are just so that
at home life absolutely matters, and reducing as many traumas
like those big T traumas really matter, and giving our
kids the tools and necessary coping tools and communication tools
(36:01):
to handle those small T traumas absolutely matters. But as
a society, the messaging we get is just so fucked
up that like that impacts us too. Like I think
people don't think that they're affected personally by endless war,
by poverty, by all of these things. We absolutely are
(36:26):
on a spiritual level, We absolutely are, and our children
are sensitive and they pick up on all of these things.
And I guess what I would say is, you know,
it's so important that we as parents go and do
our own healing. And I think that most adults don't
(36:48):
know how to communicate their feelings, don't know how to
take care of themselves, don't know how to live presently,
don't know how to do all of these things. Which
is why I've made it my mission to do the
work that I do to help heal as many people
as possible, because it's important to do this work.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
It is important. And when people don't know how to
deal with those things, or cope with those things, or
even have the self awareness of their own issues, they
begin blaming everything and everyone around them for what's actually
wrong with them. And that has a psychological toll. And
because I see it happening in a lot of households
where the parents might be maybe a little less educated
(37:31):
than their child, or more shelled, or from a third
world country or whatever it is, that they're more primitive
in some sense than the child, and the child gets
put down for not living in that sheltered box, and
that creates rebellion. You know what I mean, alexis if
I were to ask you if you could, because I
(37:52):
have a lot of moms out there that listen to
this podcast and you have an amazing, amazing podcast. I
went to your website, Recovery from Reality dot com, and
I checked in to a couple of your episodes of
your podcast, which is Recovering from Reality. I really enjoyed
listening to that, and I enjoy your insight on life.
(38:13):
It's always easier for me. I went to rehab a
couple of times. You've been through the system, we've come
out of it, and I'd say it's really easier helping
people having had gone through it yourselves. And I think
people listen to us a little bit more attentively than
they do someone who just memorized some stuff out of
a book. So if you were to leave all these
(38:34):
moms out there, or are people who are out there
perhaps maybe going through an issue with their kid that
might be going into drugs or might have drug addiction,
what would you recommend for these people to take even
just as the first step.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
See, well, the first thing is to seek professional help,
is like the most important thing from someone who is
actually well versed this arena. And I will say, there
is this paradigm shift happening that I love to see.
We were kind of the first treatment center that and
(39:12):
most still treat addiction as a behavioral issue, as if
you know, this is bad behavior and it's not bad behavior. Sorry,
that was my Alexa, what is my what is my
life right now? I'm such a bitch. So you know what,
(39:37):
So I would say, see, seek professional help. You know
my mom and I this is what we do all
day long is help help families navigate this and it's definitely,
uh not a behavioral issue and in really the most
important thing you can do. And I love alan On.
(39:59):
I been an alan On for years.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
I was just going to say they families need alan On,
alan On, alan On alan On.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
I think ellen On's great, but I really have an
issue with this with the messaging of basically cut them
off and set boundaries. If you cut off your connection
from your child, that is the most valuable thing that
you have. And so I've kind of taken upon myself
(40:27):
and my initiative is to cultivate such a beautiful connection
with your child, with having firm boundaries in place that
they want to have a relationship with you and they
feel loved and it's an unconditional love. I think when
we're an active addiction, often we feel like we are
unlovable and unworthy, and that just continues our desire to
(40:51):
check out. This is the perfect example of this is
my sister test She continued to use for several years
after I got sober. I put her in countless rehabs.
I set all of the boundaries, I did all of
the alan on things, and she stayed sick. And finally
I had this epiphany moment with a dear friend of
mine where I decided that I wanted to cultivate a
(41:16):
relationship with her. I wanted to heal, I wanted to
mend my relationship with her, and I wanted to love
her and just meet her where she's at because just
like I said that I used drugs, drugs saved my
life for a long time. I needed those drugs. And
so when we can look at our children or our
partner's addiction as something that's helping them rather than something
(41:38):
that is just so awful. We can start to see
them more empathetically. That doesn't mean that we have to
give them money, that doesn't mean that we have to
go pick them up, that doesn't mean we have to
do any of those things. But when we can cultivate
this beautiful connection with farm boundaries, I've seen far more
success and actually get that person into treatment. And then
(42:03):
following that, it's really important that you look at your
part in their addiction and you begin to heal yourself.
It's really important that you learn how to communicate with
non violent communication. That's something that I teach and work
with my families. It's really important that you stop the
vicious cycle of shame, and once you do that, you
(42:27):
will see that your loved one will probably be able
to get and maintain sobriety. It's just the way that
it is. My treatment center, the national average is about
twenty percent success, that only twenty percent of people stay sober,
and my center over fifty percent of people are staying sober.
It is totally normal to relapse, but we can't keep
(42:47):
treating addiction as a purely behavioral issue and not a
social issue, not a spiritual issue, not an emotional issue.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
I agree. I couldn't agree more. I remember even taking
a course for this certification program, which was the bio
psychological and sociological right of the effects of that and
choice theory, and I am I was the small percentage
of people in my program that believed in it's a
(43:21):
choice and it's not behavioral. But there's not a lot
of people out there that agree to that, because just
like a lot of things, like things like religion, it's
easier to give the responsibility to someone else or something
else and not to yourself to take accountability of things
in your life. But I do. I think that, you know,
going back to the whole thing about you know, getting
(43:41):
into the drugs, and that I think when we educate
ourselves is when we can expect our children to educate
themselves as well. That that's just to me, the way
it should work. We have to learn about it, what
it is if we see our children going through it,
before we start blaming them. I don't think it's healthy
(44:02):
to just toss your child into a rehab without due diligence,
without the work that goes behind that, because that also
affects the child, you know, it's like, oh, they don't
want me they tossed me to, you know, an institution
to deal with me. So it's a process. But I
think being very active, being a part of your child's life, speaking, communicating,
not being afraid of what it means to say I
(44:24):
used drugs and I need a lot of help.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, there's two books that I would recommend. One is
Beyond Addiction and the second one is No Bad Parts.
Those are two really great places to start.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I love that. Thank you so much for all this advice.
I mean, I feel like we just started the conversation.
But thank you so much for all your knowledge and help.
If anyone wants to learn more about Alexis, go to
Recovering from Reality dot com, her podcasts, her website. Everything
is so cool, it's so informative. It's very easy going.
(45:00):
I don't feel like I just entered like one of
those rehab sites or anything. I just felt like I
was talking to one of my homegirls or reading what
one of my homegirls was writing on a blog, almost
feeling like it was nice. It was pleasant. So go
check out Alexis Haynes. Thank you again for being here
so her, You're amazing.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
What a great conversation. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Wow. Well I was not expecting the episode to go
like that. I was not expecting for us to connect
on so many levels, and spiritually more than anything else.
I feel like our soul's connected for a quick second
because she has that energy. I swear, she's just amazing.
(45:47):
Alexis Haynes, thank you so much for being here. Ursula,
how profound was she? I mean, does she not make
you regret hurting people with a knife while you have
a bond? Ursula? I know it's plastic, but still, Well,
we're going to have a conversation and you guys go
(46:08):
ahead and rate us, give us a star, five of them,
comment do everything, Just tell us if you like it,
tell us if you don't like it. All right, we'll
be back. Thanks for listening to Genuinely Gigi.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Download new episodes every week, and if you haven't already,
subscribe and be sure to leave us a rating and review.
And while you're at it, check out some of the
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