January 2, 2023 • 38 mins
Episode 53 Mental Health Mondays with Special Guest Jamie Key. He is Product Sales and Support Manager at Comcast Business Headquarters. He is 8 months without alcohol and has recently moved his life from Denver to Philadelphia. Join BCC Evolution’s weekly live YouTube show for Mental Health Mondays hosted by the Founder Kelli Melissa where we talk to special guests who are professional mental health experts or guests who experience a mental health challenge or mental health advocates. You can find more about Jamie here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-key-a2a80015a
Want to be a guest? Reach out to support@bccevolution.org and tell us your story. Need more resources? Want to get educated more about mental health and suicide prevention? Check out our programs and website for more info: www.bccevolution.org Support our cause today to help us bridge the gap by educating people to support those who are faced with a mental health challenge. Become a “Warrior for Mental Health” today for only $20 or more per month!
Want to be a guest? Reach out to support@bccevolution.org and tell us your story. Need more resources? Want to get educated more about mental health and suicide prevention? Check out our programs and website for more info: www.bccevolution.org Support our cause today to help us bridge the gap by educating people to support those who are faced with a mental health challenge. Become a “Warrior for Mental Health” today for only $20 or more per month!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome to another episode of Mental Health Mondays, where I
talk to guests who are either professionals in the mental
health space, advocates of mental health, or those that live
with or experience a mental health challenge. And as a reminder,
if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you mash
down that subscribe button so that you don't miss another episode.
(00:54):
If you're watching this on LinkedIn or Facebook, you probably
already subscribe to our page, but if you don't, make
make sure that you follow us so that again you
don't miss another episode. Because I have amazing a guest,
amazing a guest, amazing guests that I talk to every
single week that I promise you don't want to hear that,
don't want to miss their story. Wow, my mouth is
(01:14):
not working today, But that's okay, right, Not about perfection,
just about getting the information out. And I am so
excited to bring on one of my friends that I've
known for years and we haven't talked in a long time.
But without further ado, I'm going to bring them up.
So welcome Jamie. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, it's my pleasure, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, So I am really excited obviously, but because we
haven't talked in quite some time. But you and I
used to work together at a corporation, and I it's
just been a really cool journey. Or I've been watching
you right, like I've been watching you go through your
(02:00):
and so share a little bit about yourself. Tell the
audience about yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, my name is Jamie Key.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I have Oh gosh, this is a tough one to
be put on a spot with.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So I work for a major telecom corporation.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I am a manager of product sales, support and analysis. Basically,
in a nutshell, I do a lot of like project
management work to ensure that we have some awesome new
tools and provide support to those tools as well. Recently,
for this job, I've moved out to Philadelphia from Denver
about four three and a half months now, still slowly
(02:39):
getting settled in the new city. It's definitely a change
of pace, change of environment, and yeah, we're all start awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, I mean, just a move out to a new
city can be interesting or challenging in itself, because I
know I've been out to Philly a couple of times,
so it's a really cool city for sure.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Absolutely tons of great food, I actually have really enjoyed
the people in this new city, and it's been an
interesting transition, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah. Well, because you were how long did you live
in Colorado?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Wow, let's see, since like second or third grade? I
would to say like two three.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So all my friends and family are still back in
Colorado and starting to make some new friends out here
in Philly.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Nice. That's awesome. So I know, I mean, obviously I
brought you on the show for a reason, But what's
the main reason or what do you want to share
about your experience that had me want to bring you
on to my show?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, so two things, I'd say, the main point being
mental health awareness for males out there. I know that
it's not something that's easy to talk about, and it's
kind of just how society has.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Been throughout the years.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
You know, you've been taught at a young age like okay,
you know, rub some dirt on it or you know,
your guy, you just got to suck it up and
continue on with yourself. And then some other things that
like to talk about would be like sobriety, it's a
choice that I made back in April. Don't really have
like the exact start date unfortunately, but sobriety and really
(04:22):
how it's helped open my eyes to other aspects of
mental health as well.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, I mean both really really important topics, but I
think men's mental health as so. We do a film
festival every single year, and last year, for whatever reason,
we had a lot of entries centered around men's mental health,
which I thought was really really cool because we don't
talk about it enough, and so we ended up doing
(04:47):
the whole film festival mainly around men's mental health. And
like you were saying, those words that they can be
really damaging, I mean, the suck it up, get over it,
be a main all those things that you hear more
often than not, and I like cringe to Now I'm like,
I don't say that, so it can. It can be
really damaging to men in general and just creates this
(05:11):
this feeling of not being able to talk about anything,
which which ultimately that's why we have the stigma around
talking about mental health.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
And one thing I'd say that has really helped me
out was getting a new therapist, or actually just gaining
a therapist in general. Took me a couple of rounds
in order to find somebody I finally clicked with. But
you know, you hear your friends going into therapy or counseling,
and the first thing people go is like it is everything, okay,
are you all right?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
And I think that we should.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Start normalizing that conversation of you know, being supportive people
going through therapy and counseling. And I think that it's
a major part of life for or it should be
a major part of life for like everybody, because it
doesn't matter how mentally like stable you are or how
good you feel about your position in life. I think
that it's always good to have somebody out there to
(06:03):
talk to as a third party that's not a part
of any bit of like the challenges you may be facing.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, that's such a great point too, is that. I
mean I always say that mental health should be talked
about like we do the weather. It should be an
everyday normal conversation that you have. I mean, hey, how
are you doing? Or like, are you okay? Of course
those are things that are kind of cliche, and we
have our automatic responses kind of like walking down the
whole at work, how are you great? How are you great? Right?
(06:33):
But it's all this persona that we put on in
front of people, And so I think how cool would
that be to be able to be like, you know what,
like my day really sucks and somebody being like, oh, okay,
well do you want to talk about it? And you're
like not really and they're like okay, you know. I
mean how those conversations I think should be normalized and
(06:53):
maybe they want to talk about it, maybe they don't,
and that's okay.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Absolutely, I think that even just knowing that somebody and
having a great day, week, month, whatever, it can really
help you with your approach for even just those quick conversations.
You know, it might just be a quick check in
like hey, I remember you weren't doing so well last time.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
How's everything going right now?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
You know, like just having a real conversation with people
instead of just checking the box of like okay, I
walked by them, I said hi, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, And I know, I mean when we work together,
we used to sit pretty close to each other, and
so that was fun to be able to like banter
back and forth. But you do you start listening to
what people say around you. And we were in a
call center and it was hard to do that because
there was a lot of noise. But I think that
(07:40):
as both of us were supervisors, we got to know
how to have those conversations whether we wanted to or not. Right,
But in those environments, we're pretty limited on what we
can and can't say. And I know, since I've walked
away from the corporate environment, I feel like I'm a
(08:02):
lot more free to talk about whatever I want, whenever
I want. And I like actually having the hard conversations,
which before I would have been like I don't even
want to go in this room and talk to this
person because it's scared me to have those conversations. So
I think it's important in the business and in life
for sure.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, And one thing I'd like to say is, you know,
foster an environment that really encourages people to bring their
authentic self. You know, there's a lot of workplaces out
there that you come in and you're like, I can't
really talk about this.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I've got to leave all my stuff like right there
at the door.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
You know, don't bring anything as far as like politics, religion.
And I'm not saying like come in and try to
like start a major conversation about life, but you know,
foster that environment that allows you your peers, your leaders,
whoever it might be, to really bring their authentic self
and represent who they truly are versus you know, Oh,
(09:00):
we don't talk about that.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
This is a this is a work environment type of approach.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, absolutely, but not that we came here to talk
about work environments.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah. Yeah, obviously mode be in the middle.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Here right right. I'm like, hey, jump on. When you're
at work, it's okay. I'm like, this is what I
do now as my job, which is fun. But no,
I'd like to shift now into what you talked about sobriety,
and this is definitely something that I mean, BCC evolution.
We talk about mental health, substance use and uh, suicide thoughts,
(09:36):
but sobriety is one of those things that I mean,
substance abuse in general is a mental health challenge, and
too often we don't talk about it, and people really
truly are, whether they're struggling or they're suffering, or whatever
it might be that they're going through, they just don't
talk about it. And you can see people go out
(09:57):
and party and do all the things. But like, once
you try to shift into not doing that, I'm sure
there's a lot that has come up. So what has
been your journey centered around becoming sober?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah, so kind of the whole started with initially starting
conversations with my therapist. And you know, it almost sounds
like when you go to the doctor and they ask, oh, well,
how many drinks do you have per week?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And you're like per.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Week, let me think about that, like yeah, this or
the last like per month. And when he had asked,
you know, I was having a couple drinks each night,
which seemed normal because that's what a lot of my
peers were doing a lot of my friends were doing.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
And immediately he's like, well.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I would recommend like an outpatient recovery program and whatnot.
I was like, hold the phone, like I still got
like all my priorities in line. I'm taking care of
all my stuff, Like why would you jump to that
and don't lie? Like initially with that therapist, I was
like a little bit off put by that. I was like, here,
let's start talking, start with talking through some of the
other issue and as we progress, like you know, maybe
(11:02):
I'll start exploring this idea of sobriety. So then it
started off with all right, well, let's see about like
not drinking throughout the week, And I'm sure a lot
of people have tried this method where they're like, Okay,
I'm not gonna drink throughout the week. But then you
get this mindset of like you're collecting tokens that you
can cash in at the end of the week. So
all of a sudden, Friday night, Saturday night rolls around
(11:23):
and I was cashing in all my tokens, feeling my
garbage going into work on Monday. And I'm sure a
lot of people can relate where, oh, I've got a hangover,
I'm gonna have some drinks to like cure this, you know,
the next night or something like that, thus falling back
into the pattern. So through a couple more sessions, I
(11:45):
was like, you know what, I think I'll give this
a shot. Like he said, how long do you want
to do this? I said, I really don't want to
put a time on it. I don't want to seem
like this is a deadline. And I still have stuck
true to that, and I don't know, one day, woke up, uh,
poured out whatever was remaining within the house, and decided
to start going sober. I will say anybody that's curious
(12:11):
on starting their journey with sobriety, the rewards you get
from it are immediate. So like day one, you're going
to start feeling fantastic. You're going to realize that once
you do fall asleep, because initially you're not gonna be
able to fall asleep but as quickly as you were
used to.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
But once you do fall asleep, you're gonna wake up
feeling refreshed.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Within like a week, you're sleeping like a baby, because
I mean, your body is just really healing from all
the year's months however long you've been drinking for And
in a short amount of time, what was it, I
had clean up my credit, got like an extra one
hundred hundred and fifty points on my credit score, ended
(12:56):
up buying a house out here in Philly versus renting,
and this is my first house that I had, And
I got to say, it's the smartest decision I've made
in a long time. And nothing against people that are
out there and drinking, but now being on the outside
and looking in at it, you start noticing just how
normal it is with society. You know, drinking is a
(13:19):
part of the holidays, Like right now we're in the
holiday season. You know, people are like Oh, I better
grab a couple extra bottles of wine because and so
and so is coming into town or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And even advertisements around the time of the year.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
You'll see, oh, it's our holiday Bailey's, like, you know,
kick off your I don't know, like Christmas the right
way with starting off a drink from Bailey's. But just
how normal it is in society right now, and how
acceptable drinking is, to the point of even when when
(13:54):
I go out right now, a lot of my friends
are aware that I am like sober, so they want
to try to accommodate and they want to make sure
that I'm made a comfortable environment, which to me, I
really enjoy. But I always tell them like, oh, it's okay.
I can still go to a bar, I can still
(14:14):
go out, I can be around alcohol. It's just I'm
gonna choose not to drink.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah. I kind of rambled down there for a minute,
but I'll pause there for a second.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
No, I think that's great. I mean it really is.
I mean it's a choice, right. We all have a choice,
the choices that we make, and I know that when
you talk about substance abuse, sometimes that choice is really,
really hard. To make because I love the fact that
you talked about going to therapy right, like this was
(14:45):
something that was brought up in therapy because I don't
think that you can necessarily just quit. Maybe some people can,
but there has to be a whole conversation around your
mental health in general and why why are you drinking?
Like is it a societal thing? Is it a coping mechanism?
(15:05):
Like there's so many different layers to why people drink.
And that's why the conversation with a therapist or finding
somebody that is going to be there to bounce things
back and forth is really important, especially as you talk
about drinking in general.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
It gives you that moment of self reflection when that
question come up, like why why do you drink? I
started realizing it was I always had an excuse to drink,
whether it was hey, it was a really awesome day,
it's time to celebrate because whatever award came in or
our team did whatever, let's go drink, or oh it
was a bad.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Day and uh, you know, let's.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Have a couple of drinks to unwind from the end
of the day. Or it was just me, it was whatever,
and you're just like, all right, time for a drink.
And another thing that he helped me realize too was,
you know, we we think of alcoholism or like being
a drunk or whatever, we start picturing somebody that's homeless
(16:06):
and begging on the side of the road, and we're like, Okay,
I'm not at that level quite yet. Or you think
about maybe a relative that has had some really major
issues with drinking. You're like, I'm not at that level yet,
so I don't really need to like this is not
a problem.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
But the key word is like yet.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Okay, sure, you might have had a couple drinks and
you drove home and everything's fine, but what when are
you going to hit that point where you might have
slipped up, maybe somebody hit you, and suddenly you've got,
you know, a duy under your belt. But when I
had to peel myself away from that and just realize
that this is a me thing instead of trying to
(16:47):
compare myself to friends, because you can always find that
person that's, you know, drinking a little bit more heavily
than you, or it's a little bit sloppier at whatever
social event that you're out at. But when you can
start realizing how often during these interactions you're drinking, you
(17:08):
realize how much of a dependency you had on it.
You know, like, in order for me to go out
to the social situation, I need to have, you know,
a couple of beers before they get there, so I
can kind of loosen up and really really get in
my zone. But once I peeled that out, I realized
I can still have fun, I can still party, I
can still like be a part of the crowd.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I just leave a little earlier than I would have before.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
You know, So it's at now eleven o'clock by the
time I head out, instead of waiting until the bar flows,
is with everybody else, and I wake up the next
day feeling great and I can take care of them.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Then, you know, yeah, I think that. I mean as
a parent, I don't. I mean, you would think that
we drink a lot in our house because we have
a lot of alcohol, but like we never drink, so
that's why we have a lot. And I mean more
so as a parent, it's like I don't want to
wake up and feel like crap because I know that
next day my son's gonna wake up at like six am.
(18:03):
Because it never fails. And so for me, it's just
been or or I'm like, yeah, I want to have
a drink, and then I forget that I want to
have one, And so it hasn't ever, hasn't ever gotten
to that point that I like, I'm drinking every single night.
But I've been in those situations, right, Like I had
I have a DUI. I got it in twenty eleven,
(18:24):
and that was a wake up call for me of
like what am I doing with my life? And I
think it even extends into twenty thirteen, Like I feel
like that was the lowest point of my life. I
was drinking constantly all the time, hanging out with friends,
and I really truly say that my son saved my life,
like having my son, because I was in such this
(18:45):
perpetual cycle of going out and partying, like I didn't
have any responsibilities. I did whatever I want whenever I wanted,
and like you said, I woke up feeling like crap
every single day. And I know, like those questions come
up on whenever you do physical and you're like uh,
and then I have to think, now, I'm like when
was the last time? But I think that's amazing, Like
(19:07):
you you found the space of I need, like something
has to change. But first you started with a therapy,
and like you said, it can take multiple going through
multiple like maybe that first person is not right for you,
and that's okay. I talk about advocating for yourself, advocating
(19:29):
for others, making sure that you are finding that person
that you're going to click with, which you finally got
to that right therapist, which is great. And then you
have to ask those questions of yourself of like is
this about me or is this about somebody else? And
it is about me, and so now I need to
reflect back in and find out, like what is it
(19:52):
about me that's causing me to drink every single night?
So as you started to really shift and not drink,
what came up? Like, was there stuff that came up that?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Absolutely? Absolutely? So.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I would say the biggest thing that I didn't realize
drinking was doing was suppressing my emotions. It was, Oh,
I'm stressed out about this at work, so let me
drink so I don't really have to feel this feeling
or I'm stressed out about bills or you know, whatever
it might be coming up. I have to move here
in a few months to go to Philly or something.
So you drink and you're like, I'll deal with it tomorrow,
(20:28):
which was a lie I was telling myself all the time,
and all it did was push off all those problems
until I got sober.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
So as soon as I got sober, all of a sudden,
I'm hearing that voice in my head and I don't
have a way to shut it up.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
And also moving out here alone gave me this time
while being sober to just sit, Like if you ever
get a time in your life where you could sit
in a room of silence by yourself and finally stop
hearing you know the stressors and all that stuff coming up,
or when you are hearing them, you.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Can actually fully embrace them.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Another thing I'm noticing is when I feel happy, I
can truly relish and feel happy, and when I'm feeling sad,
I don't find ways to avoid it or suppress it.
I want to fully embrace what am I being sad about?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
How How did I get here?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Am I really reacting the correct way or appropriate way
and just riding the wave as opposed to avoiding it
all together? I've really become more in tune with my
emotions overall, and feeling mad or sad doesn't seem so
scary anymore because I'm fully in control of that emotion. Now,
(21:40):
I'd say that's probably the biggest thing I've noticed with
sobriety and what's cut me holding onto it ever since.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I mean, what has it been eight months or so?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Now, that's amazing. I mean, just that alone is something
that it's like that hope piece, right, Like you have
this hope of you can move through instead of shoved down.
And that's a lot of what I talk about too,
is that oftentimes, I mean, substance use is a coping
(22:12):
mechanism because we want to shove it down as far
as we possibly can so that we don't have to
deal with it. But the most healthy way is to
move through verse that shoving down, because eventually it's going
to come up. Eventually everything comes up, and that's when
we have to build in these positive coping skills versus
(22:33):
the negative coping skills, and so being in control of
your emotions and being able to move through them verse
using something to go around them. I think that is huge,
really huge.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yeah, And if you're feeling sad, mad, or going through
a moment in your life, you've got to really hold
onto it like, figure out why you're feeling this way.
Like you said, if you suppress it, that's all you're doing.
You're suppressing it. It's going to come up again. It
might be when you stub your toe. It might be
when your dogs have an accident in the house. You're
going to realize that you're going to have a reaction
(23:13):
to those moments that is probably way bigger than you
were ever needing for that moment and realizing, Okay, this
isn't about stubbing my toe, This is not about the
dog going to the bathroom in the house. This is
about something bigger and I need to address it head on.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
That's so important. And so when you as you started
this journey through sobriety, did you find that you lost
friends or did you gain friends? Or how did the
social aspect.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I'd say if you're looking at like friends through.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Like this didn't literally happen, but like a Facebook friend count,
I would say I kept the same amount of friends.
But what I did realize is that I had friends,
and I had drinking buddies. And I think that your
drinking buddies are the ones that you go out drinking with.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
They go out drinking with you.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
It's like a hey, I don't have a habit or
a problem or whatever it is because I'm always going
out with this person. But I did realize that I
still had probably about ten really close friends, people that
I truly care about, the ones that I can talk
through like emotional stuff that's happening in my life and
they actually provide or provide feedback or even just listen,
(24:29):
and they can do the same with me too. But
I'd say, you know, your friend group will shrink, like
what you consider like your immediate friends because you're like, wait,
I used to go out with Bob all the time,
and Bob doesn't hit me up anymore.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
And then you start realizing, like Bob and I would
just go to the bar.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Bob and I would go watch sporting events at the bar,
and that was it. We didn't really connect on any
other level. Sure, we might have had those deep life
conversations at like one o'clock in the morning, but neither
of us remember them. So was it really like true
deep conversation or was it, you know, just because we
were drinking.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, And that's I mean. I know some people that
look at being sober, they're like, well, I'm not going
to have any friends left or I'm not gonna you know,
I'm not gonna have these things that I have now.
But what of those things are real and true? And
what of those things are maybe better to release? I
(25:30):
mean that's something obviously that whomever chooses that path needs
to understand that some of this will start to come up.
But I think the important part to showcase is you
don't have to go through it alone. There are therapists,
there are people, friends, so many different coaches out there
(25:52):
now that really truly want to help. And if it's
not the right person, like I say that to my
clients all the time, is I'm or may not be
the right person for you. But if I'm not, that's okay,
and I will I'll refer you to somebody else, you know.
So it's definitely one of those things that you can
be able to guide people and help people through whatever
(26:15):
they're going through. And it sounds scary. Maybe somebody who
might be listening to this was like, I can't get sober.
It's my thing, right, Like it's my thing and I'm
gonna hold on to it like a blanket.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
A lot of people would think, Okay, I need to
get sober from alcohol or whatever, I need to go
to AA, and I think AA is.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
A great avenue for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
There's tons of different types of meetings out there, whether
it be like a speaker meeting, whether it just be
hanging out with other.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
People that are sober. For me, it wasn't something that clicked.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
If the thing that clicked for me was having a
therapist that I could talk through with these types of things.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
I've tried doing some of those meetings. It's not for everybody.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Don't think that that one path is the only path
in order to get sober in your life.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
There's Yeah, there's tons of avenues.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
There's I have friends that are supportive, that are sober
themselves and that are not sober as well, that still
want to support me in.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
My own journey. Yeah, you're you're not alone out there.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
And initially, when I first started sobriety, I was thinking, Okay,
there's nobody out there that's sober.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
There's I'm going to be the boring one at every event.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
You'll start realizing it's about a quarter of the population
out there that doesn't drink. They and they choose not to,
whether they have never drank in their life, or you know,
tried it a couple of times through college and they
never really connected with it. But you're you're not alone.
There's bands out there, there's there's celebrities out there, there's
(27:50):
and right now it's probably even the best time for sobriety.
I'd say in social media in general, it's a lot
more supported than it used to be. It's not where
it's like, wait, why aren't you drinking?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Okay, we're not inviting out Jamie anymore.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
There's even like post Malone songs that are coming out
about his journey with alcohol.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
It's becoming a lot more normal.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
And I like having these types of conversations because it
should be you know, easy to talk about.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
You know, I didn't go and crash it, you know there.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
I've heard stories where people were like, Okay, this was
like a big force like wake up call for my alcoholism.
For me, it was I just wanted to do better.
I wanted to be a better person. And well, I say,
you know, completely stark sober for my entire life.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I'm unsure at this time, but.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
I do know that if I ever tried to introduce
it into my life, I would definitely be aware of
everything that's happening around me, whether it's okay, this is
the one time event which turns into like a daily
thing again, you know, I want to make sure that I'm.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Ahead of it.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, I think that's important too. Is like, you have
to know what are your boundaries, and it doesn't necessarily well,
I mean, depending on the level of where you're at
in your journey with substance use or drinking alcohol or
whatever it is their key and be times maybe that
(29:15):
you move into potentially drinking again, maybe you don't write
that's okay, And I know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
I've seen both sides of the coin there.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I've seen people that haven't drink for six years and
then they reintroduce it to their life and they're perfectly okay.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
But I've also seen people.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Ruin their entire life within thirty days of reintroducing alcohol
to their life. At this point and stage in my sobriety,
I'm like, I'm not willing to take that Campbell, and
I'm not sure I ever will be, but it's interesting
to see, you know, of those examples, I'd say I
have one good example of somebody rehearing reintroducing it to
(29:51):
their life and then about four of reintroducing it to
their life that has just ruined all aspects, whether it's family, financial,
what have you. And that's only just in the last
few months.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, it's I mean everybody experiences things differently. We all
are different people, We're all human, and we're going to
have our own experience whatever our journey might be. I
think it is important that the conversations are had whether
you are sober or not sober, right, like what what
is the reason that you choose to drink alcohol? And
(30:30):
who are the people that can support or be around you?
And one of the things that you said, it's interesting
like because we just got married in July and thinking
about the guest list, right is like who drinks and
who doesn't? And a good majority of the people that
we're going to be there don't drink. And I thought
that was really interesting for me because I'm like, oh wow,
(30:53):
I have more sober friends than I do friends that drink.
And so it is. It's it's annoy and society has
programmed us. Like you talked about earlier, is that you
see it on commercials, you see it in the news,
you see it everywhere, right, and it doesn't have to
be your normal, Like you create or define your own life,
(31:16):
and what is going to be the best route or
experience for you is up to you. And I think
that's important to understand. But also like, what's the reason
that you might be turning to alcohol or maybe you're
turning to drugs, Like what are the things underneath? Like
what's that onion layer that we need to uncover? And
(31:37):
I think that therapy or a coach or somebody that
you trust, talk to them and see how you can
start shifting it.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
And if there's one major point to take away from
here is like if you are considering therapy, go if
you hear about a friend that's in therapy.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Be supportive. Don't go to kind of ostracize them where
you go. Okay, wait is everything? Okay?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
I didn't realize it was that bad. Sometimes it doesn't
have to be that bad. It's a good thing that
your friend is there. And just keep an eye on them,
watch them, watch them grow. And if you see them,
you know, maybe having a rough time, reach out and
lend an ear.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, I mean, And if you don't want to call
it therapy, call it coaching, call it a mentor.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, that's how I started. I was like, ah, this
is gonna be coaching. I want to take my life
to a new elevated level. Because in that moment I'd
say that, my friends and family that were looking at
me were like, Jabe, you have everything going for you.
Everything's fine, Why are you seeing a therapist. It's like,
I want to become a better person. This is an
avenue that can help me realize where I can improve.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, therapy is not just for I mean, it's good
to be talking depending on what type of therapy, right, Like,
there's talk therapy, there's coaching. There's there's so many different
styles of therapy that I mean, if you don't feel
comfortable saying therapy, call it coaching or get a mentor,
you know, Like, I mean, there's so many other That's
(33:04):
what I'm whenever I with my clients, I'm like, well,
technically it's coaching, like it's a type of therapy, but
we're not gonna call it therapy, right right, So right, Yeah,
there's lots of place around. But anything else that you
want to share with the audience.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Nothing that's coming to mind.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I'm sure I'll be flooded with thoughts as soon as
as soon as we in the call, but nothing in
this moment.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Cool. Well, if anybody wants to follow your journey, I
mean I put your LinkedIn in the comments below, But
is there anywhere else that if people want to follow
your journey? Worth where can they find you?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
That would probably be the best one, If not Facebook,
if you're okay with seeing some memes that might be
slightly offensive, but we'll make you laugh.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
But you can also find me on Facebook.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Too, awesome. Yeah, so go connect with Jamie on LinkedIn
or maybe on Facebook. Book. I always, every single time
we sat next to each other, it was like the
best banter back and forth. And I love your personality
and how you keep things lighthearted. So I'm so incredibly
(34:12):
proud of you going through this journey and I just
can't wait to watch it unfold even more so, thank
you so much for being on the show today.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
And thanks again Kelly for having me of course.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
All right, y'all, that was another amazing episode of Mental
Health Mondays, where we talk to guests who are either
professionals in the mental health space, advocates of mental health,
or those that live with or experience a mental health challenge.
And I just want to remind you if you're watching
this on LinkedIn or Facebook, make sure that you're following us.
(34:48):
Hopefully you are. If you're on YouTube, mash down that
subscribe button. And last reminder is that we are still
doing our Clime for Mind Clime for Mind fundraiser. So
we are going to climb a mountain next August, myself
and Phillip and it is thirty miles going up the mountain,
(35:12):
coming down, going up, coming down thirteen times, which equals
thirty miles. And our goal is to raise sixty thousand
dollars for this event that will all go towards mental
health and suicide prevention education. And I'm sure you all
heard recently that Twitch recently passed. He died by suicide.
(35:33):
And I know that it's a big, big conversation, and
this is everything that we do within BCC Evolution. We
are a mental health and suicide prevention five oh one
C three and so we really need your help to
be able to educate more people. And that's why we
do what we do, especially on this show, is bring
those people that can give you resources, those people that
(35:55):
can share their experience, they can share their story and
they can help you potentially if they're a coach or
a therapist or whatever they might be, or maybe you
just need to hear their story. Like Jamie told you today,
it can be really really hard to wake up and
be like what am I doing with my life? How
am I going about it? But I need to talk
(36:17):
to somebody, And so therapy is a great space. If
you don't want to call it therapy again, call it coaching,
get a mentor. There's lots of people out there that
want to help you, including myself. You can reach out
to BCC evolution, you go to our website. There's lots
and lots of online resources. There are also people that
(36:37):
you can talk to, people you can connect with. Myself
is included there, and so it is just really really important.
The work that we do is all centered around mental
health and suicide prevention education because if we don't talk
about it, we don't educate educate people about it, then
we will never be able to help anybody. And like
(37:00):
I said, these are a lot of things that I
go over in all the classes that we do. And
if you support us at this fundraiser, the easiest way
is to text climb the number four mind to four
four three two one, and again, all of that goes
to all of our mental health programs that we offer
(37:20):
and all of our classes, which is super amazing because
I promise you, if you don't know how to identify
or don't know how to know the signs or symptoms
of a mental health, substance use or suicide thoughts, you
can learn them from me. And I promise you they're
pretty fun classes because I teach them. So you can
(37:43):
join one of our classes. You can go support our
climbs and watch me well I'm thirty miles thirteen times
up the mountain, and have all of it go towards
mental health and suicide prevention and education, because now is
the time to get educated, and now is the time
(38:05):
to make an impact on this world, because we all
know that there's a lot of people that are out
there suffering in silence, and we need to give them
a voice, and that's what I'm doing with BCC Evolutions.
So thank you so much for watching this episode, make
sure you check out the next one, and we'll see
you back next Monday. By y'all,
Welcome to another episode of Mental Health Mondays, where I
talk to guests who are either professionals in the mental
health space, advocates of mental health, or those that live
with or experience a mental health challenge. And as a reminder,
if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you mash
down that subscribe button so that you don't miss another episode.
(00:54):
If you're watching this on LinkedIn or Facebook, you probably
already subscribe to our page, but if you don't, make
make sure that you follow us so that again you
don't miss another episode. Because I have amazing a guest,
amazing a guest, amazing guests that I talk to every
single week that I promise you don't want to hear that,
don't want to miss their story. Wow, my mouth is
(01:14):
not working today, But that's okay, right, Not about perfection,
just about getting the information out. And I am so
excited to bring on one of my friends that I've
known for years and we haven't talked in a long time.
But without further ado, I'm going to bring them up.
So welcome Jamie. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, it's my pleasure, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, So I am really excited obviously, but because we
haven't talked in quite some time. But you and I
used to work together at a corporation, and I it's
just been a really cool journey. Or I've been watching
you right, like I've been watching you go through your
(02:00):
and so share a little bit about yourself. Tell the
audience about yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, my name is Jamie Key.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I have Oh gosh, this is a tough one to
be put on a spot with.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So I work for a major telecom corporation.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I am a manager of product sales, support and analysis. Basically,
in a nutshell, I do a lot of like project
management work to ensure that we have some awesome new
tools and provide support to those tools as well. Recently,
for this job, I've moved out to Philadelphia from Denver
about four three and a half months now, still slowly
(02:39):
getting settled in the new city. It's definitely a change
of pace, change of environment, and yeah, we're all start awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, I mean, just a move out to a new
city can be interesting or challenging in itself, because I
know I've been out to Philly a couple of times,
so it's a really cool city for sure.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Absolutely tons of great food, I actually have really enjoyed
the people in this new city, and it's been an
interesting transition, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah. Well, because you were how long did you live
in Colorado?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Wow, let's see, since like second or third grade? I
would to say like two three.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
So all my friends and family are still back in
Colorado and starting to make some new friends out here
in Philly.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Nice. That's awesome. So I know, I mean, obviously I
brought you on the show for a reason, But what's
the main reason or what do you want to share
about your experience that had me want to bring you
on to my show?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, so two things, I'd say, the main point being
mental health awareness for males out there. I know that
it's not something that's easy to talk about, and it's
kind of just how society has.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Been throughout the years.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
You know, you've been taught at a young age like okay,
you know, rub some dirt on it or you know,
your guy, you just got to suck it up and
continue on with yourself. And then some other things that
like to talk about would be like sobriety, it's a
choice that I made back in April. Don't really have
like the exact start date unfortunately, but sobriety and really
(04:22):
how it's helped open my eyes to other aspects of
mental health as well.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, I mean both really really important topics, but I
think men's mental health as so. We do a film
festival every single year, and last year, for whatever reason,
we had a lot of entries centered around men's mental health,
which I thought was really really cool because we don't
talk about it enough, and so we ended up doing
(04:47):
the whole film festival mainly around men's mental health. And
like you were saying, those words that they can be
really damaging, I mean, the suck it up, get over it,
be a main all those things that you hear more
often than not, and I like cringe to Now I'm like,
I don't say that, so it can. It can be
really damaging to men in general and just creates this
(05:11):
this feeling of not being able to talk about anything,
which which ultimately that's why we have the stigma around
talking about mental health.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
And one thing I'd say that has really helped me
out was getting a new therapist, or actually just gaining
a therapist in general. Took me a couple of rounds
in order to find somebody I finally clicked with. But
you know, you hear your friends going into therapy or counseling,
and the first thing people go is like it is everything, okay,
are you all right?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
And I think that we should.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Start normalizing that conversation of you know, being supportive people
going through therapy and counseling. And I think that it's
a major part of life for or it should be
a major part of life for like everybody, because it
doesn't matter how mentally like stable you are or how
good you feel about your position in life. I think
that it's always good to have somebody out there to
(06:03):
talk to as a third party that's not a part
of any bit of like the challenges you may be facing.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, that's such a great point too, is that. I
mean I always say that mental health should be talked
about like we do the weather. It should be an
everyday normal conversation that you have. I mean, hey, how
are you doing? Or like, are you okay? Of course
those are things that are kind of cliche, and we
have our automatic responses kind of like walking down the
whole at work, how are you great? How are you great? Right?
(06:33):
But it's all this persona that we put on in
front of people, And so I think how cool would
that be to be able to be like, you know what,
like my day really sucks and somebody being like, oh, okay,
well do you want to talk about it? And you're
like not really and they're like okay, you know. I
mean how those conversations I think should be normalized and
(06:53):
maybe they want to talk about it, maybe they don't,
and that's okay.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Absolutely, I think that even just knowing that somebody and
having a great day, week, month, whatever, it can really
help you with your approach for even just those quick conversations.
You know, it might just be a quick check in
like hey, I remember you weren't doing so well last time.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
How's everything going right now?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
You know, like just having a real conversation with people
instead of just checking the box of like okay, I
walked by them, I said hi, and that was it.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, And I know, I mean when we work together,
we used to sit pretty close to each other, and
so that was fun to be able to like banter
back and forth. But you do you start listening to
what people say around you. And we were in a
call center and it was hard to do that because
there was a lot of noise. But I think that
(07:40):
as both of us were supervisors, we got to know
how to have those conversations whether we wanted to or not. Right,
But in those environments, we're pretty limited on what we
can and can't say. And I know, since I've walked
away from the corporate environment, I feel like I'm a
(08:02):
lot more free to talk about whatever I want, whenever
I want. And I like actually having the hard conversations,
which before I would have been like I don't even
want to go in this room and talk to this
person because it's scared me to have those conversations. So
I think it's important in the business and in life
for sure.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, And one thing I'd like to say is, you know,
foster an environment that really encourages people to bring their
authentic self. You know, there's a lot of workplaces out
there that you come in and you're like, I can't
really talk about this.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I've got to leave all my stuff like right there
at the door.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
You know, don't bring anything as far as like politics, religion.
And I'm not saying like come in and try to
like start a major conversation about life, but you know,
foster that environment that allows you your peers, your leaders,
whoever it might be, to really bring their authentic self
and represent who they truly are versus you know, Oh,
(09:00):
we don't talk about that.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
This is a this is a work environment type of approach.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, absolutely, but not that we came here to talk
about work environments.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah. Yeah, obviously mode be in the middle.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Here right right. I'm like, hey, jump on. When you're
at work, it's okay. I'm like, this is what I
do now as my job, which is fun. But no,
I'd like to shift now into what you talked about sobriety,
and this is definitely something that I mean, BCC evolution.
We talk about mental health, substance use and uh, suicide thoughts,
(09:36):
but sobriety is one of those things that I mean,
substance abuse in general is a mental health challenge, and
too often we don't talk about it, and people really
truly are, whether they're struggling or they're suffering, or whatever
it might be that they're going through, they just don't
talk about it. And you can see people go out
(09:57):
and party and do all the things. But like, once
you try to shift into not doing that, I'm sure
there's a lot that has come up. So what has
been your journey centered around becoming sober?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah, so kind of the whole started with initially starting
conversations with my therapist. And you know, it almost sounds
like when you go to the doctor and they ask, oh, well,
how many drinks do you have per week?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And you're like per.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Week, let me think about that, like yeah, this or
the last like per month. And when he had asked,
you know, I was having a couple drinks each night,
which seemed normal because that's what a lot of my
peers were doing a lot of my friends were doing.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
And immediately he's like, well.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I would recommend like an outpatient recovery program and whatnot.
I was like, hold the phone, like I still got
like all my priorities in line. I'm taking care of
all my stuff, Like why would you jump to that
and don't lie? Like initially with that therapist, I was
like a little bit off put by that. I was like, here,
let's start talking, start with talking through some of the
other issue and as we progress, like you know, maybe
(11:02):
I'll start exploring this idea of sobriety. So then it
started off with all right, well, let's see about like
not drinking throughout the week, And I'm sure a lot
of people have tried this method where they're like, Okay,
I'm not gonna drink throughout the week. But then you
get this mindset of like you're collecting tokens that you
can cash in at the end of the week. So
all of a sudden, Friday night, Saturday night rolls around
(11:23):
and I was cashing in all my tokens, feeling my
garbage going into work on Monday. And I'm sure a
lot of people can relate where, oh, I've got a hangover,
I'm gonna have some drinks to like cure this, you know,
the next night or something like that, thus falling back
into the pattern. So through a couple more sessions, I
(11:45):
was like, you know what, I think I'll give this
a shot. Like he said, how long do you want
to do this? I said, I really don't want to
put a time on it. I don't want to seem
like this is a deadline. And I still have stuck
true to that, and I don't know, one day, woke up, uh,
poured out whatever was remaining within the house, and decided
to start going sober. I will say anybody that's curious
(12:11):
on starting their journey with sobriety, the rewards you get
from it are immediate. So like day one, you're going
to start feeling fantastic. You're going to realize that once
you do fall asleep, because initially you're not gonna be
able to fall asleep but as quickly as you were
used to.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
But once you do fall asleep, you're gonna wake up
feeling refreshed.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Within like a week, you're sleeping like a baby, because
I mean, your body is just really healing from all
the year's months however long you've been drinking for And
in a short amount of time, what was it, I
had clean up my credit, got like an extra one
hundred hundred and fifty points on my credit score, ended
(12:56):
up buying a house out here in Philly versus renting,
and this is my first house that I had, And
I got to say, it's the smartest decision I've made
in a long time. And nothing against people that are
out there and drinking, but now being on the outside
and looking in at it, you start noticing just how
normal it is with society. You know, drinking is a
(13:19):
part of the holidays, Like right now we're in the
holiday season. You know, people are like Oh, I better
grab a couple extra bottles of wine because and so
and so is coming into town or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And even advertisements around the time of the year.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
You'll see, oh, it's our holiday Bailey's, like, you know,
kick off your I don't know, like Christmas the right
way with starting off a drink from Bailey's. But just
how normal it is in society right now, and how
acceptable drinking is, to the point of even when when
(13:54):
I go out right now, a lot of my friends
are aware that I am like sober, so they want
to try to accommodate and they want to make sure
that I'm made a comfortable environment, which to me, I
really enjoy. But I always tell them like, oh, it's okay.
I can still go to a bar, I can still
(14:14):
go out, I can be around alcohol. It's just I'm
gonna choose not to drink.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah. I kind of rambled down there for a minute,
but I'll pause there for a second.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
No, I think that's great. I mean it really is.
I mean it's a choice, right. We all have a choice,
the choices that we make, and I know that when
you talk about substance abuse, sometimes that choice is really,
really hard. To make because I love the fact that
you talked about going to therapy right, like this was
(14:45):
something that was brought up in therapy because I don't
think that you can necessarily just quit. Maybe some people can,
but there has to be a whole conversation around your
mental health in general and why why are you drinking?
Like is it a societal thing? Is it a coping mechanism?
(15:05):
Like there's so many different layers to why people drink.
And that's why the conversation with a therapist or finding
somebody that is going to be there to bounce things
back and forth is really important, especially as you talk
about drinking in general.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
It gives you that moment of self reflection when that
question come up, like why why do you drink? I
started realizing it was I always had an excuse to drink,
whether it was hey, it was a really awesome day,
it's time to celebrate because whatever award came in or
our team did whatever, let's go drink, or oh it
was a bad.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Day and uh, you know, let's.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Have a couple of drinks to unwind from the end
of the day. Or it was just me, it was whatever,
and you're just like, all right, time for a drink.
And another thing that he helped me realize too was,
you know, we we think of alcoholism or like being
a drunk or whatever, we start picturing somebody that's homeless
(16:06):
and begging on the side of the road, and we're like, Okay,
I'm not at that level quite yet. Or you think
about maybe a relative that has had some really major
issues with drinking. You're like, I'm not at that level yet,
so I don't really need to like this is not
a problem.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
But the key word is like yet.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Okay, sure, you might have had a couple drinks and
you drove home and everything's fine, but what when are
you going to hit that point where you might have
slipped up, maybe somebody hit you, and suddenly you've got,
you know, a duy under your belt. But when I
had to peel myself away from that and just realize
that this is a me thing instead of trying to
(16:47):
compare myself to friends, because you can always find that
person that's, you know, drinking a little bit more heavily
than you, or it's a little bit sloppier at whatever
social event that you're out at. But when you can
start realizing how often during these interactions you're drinking, you
(17:08):
realize how much of a dependency you had on it.
You know, like, in order for me to go out
to the social situation, I need to have, you know,
a couple of beers before they get there, so I
can kind of loosen up and really really get in
my zone. But once I peeled that out, I realized
I can still have fun, I can still party, I
can still like be a part of the crowd.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I just leave a little earlier than I would have before.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
You know, So it's at now eleven o'clock by the
time I head out, instead of waiting until the bar flows,
is with everybody else, and I wake up the next
day feeling great and I can take care of them.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Then, you know, yeah, I think that. I mean as
a parent, I don't. I mean, you would think that
we drink a lot in our house because we have
a lot of alcohol, but like we never drink, so
that's why we have a lot. And I mean more
so as a parent, it's like I don't want to
wake up and feel like crap because I know that
next day my son's gonna wake up at like six am.
(18:03):
Because it never fails. And so for me, it's just
been or or I'm like, yeah, I want to have
a drink, and then I forget that I want to
have one, And so it hasn't ever, hasn't ever gotten
to that point that I like, I'm drinking every single night.
But I've been in those situations, right, Like I had
I have a DUI. I got it in twenty eleven,
(18:24):
and that was a wake up call for me of
like what am I doing with my life? And I
think it even extends into twenty thirteen, Like I feel
like that was the lowest point of my life. I
was drinking constantly all the time, hanging out with friends,
and I really truly say that my son saved my life,
like having my son, because I was in such this
(18:45):
perpetual cycle of going out and partying, like I didn't
have any responsibilities. I did whatever I want whenever I wanted,
and like you said, I woke up feeling like crap
every single day. And I know, like those questions come
up on whenever you do physical and you're like uh,
and then I have to think, now, I'm like when
was the last time? But I think that's amazing, Like
(19:07):
you you found the space of I need, like something
has to change. But first you started with a therapy,
and like you said, it can take multiple going through
multiple like maybe that first person is not right for you,
and that's okay. I talk about advocating for yourself, advocating
(19:29):
for others, making sure that you are finding that person
that you're going to click with, which you finally got
to that right therapist, which is great. And then you
have to ask those questions of yourself of like is
this about me or is this about somebody else? And
it is about me, and so now I need to
reflect back in and find out, like what is it
(19:52):
about me that's causing me to drink every single night?
So as you started to really shift and not drink,
what came up? Like, was there stuff that came up that?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Absolutely? Absolutely? So.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I would say the biggest thing that I didn't realize
drinking was doing was suppressing my emotions. It was, Oh,
I'm stressed out about this at work, so let me
drink so I don't really have to feel this feeling
or I'm stressed out about bills or you know, whatever
it might be coming up. I have to move here
in a few months to go to Philly or something.
So you drink and you're like, I'll deal with it tomorrow,
(20:28):
which was a lie I was telling myself all the time,
and all it did was push off all those problems
until I got sober.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
So as soon as I got sober, all of a sudden,
I'm hearing that voice in my head and I don't
have a way to shut it up.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
And also moving out here alone gave me this time
while being sober to just sit, Like if you ever
get a time in your life where you could sit
in a room of silence by yourself and finally stop
hearing you know the stressors and all that stuff coming up,
or when you are hearing them, you.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Can actually fully embrace them.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Another thing I'm noticing is when I feel happy, I
can truly relish and feel happy, and when I'm feeling sad,
I don't find ways to avoid it or suppress it.
I want to fully embrace what am I being sad about?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
How How did I get here?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Am I really reacting the correct way or appropriate way
and just riding the wave as opposed to avoiding it
all together? I've really become more in tune with my
emotions overall, and feeling mad or sad doesn't seem so
scary anymore because I'm fully in control of that emotion. Now,
(21:40):
I'd say that's probably the biggest thing I've noticed with
sobriety and what's cut me holding onto it ever since.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I mean, what has it been eight months or so?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Now, that's amazing. I mean, just that alone is something
that it's like that hope piece, right, Like you have
this hope of you can move through instead of shoved down.
And that's a lot of what I talk about too,
is that oftentimes, I mean, substance use is a coping
(22:12):
mechanism because we want to shove it down as far
as we possibly can so that we don't have to
deal with it. But the most healthy way is to
move through verse that shoving down, because eventually it's going
to come up. Eventually everything comes up, and that's when
we have to build in these positive coping skills versus
(22:33):
the negative coping skills, and so being in control of
your emotions and being able to move through them verse
using something to go around them. I think that is huge,
really huge.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yeah, And if you're feeling sad, mad, or going through
a moment in your life, you've got to really hold
onto it like, figure out why you're feeling this way.
Like you said, if you suppress it, that's all you're doing.
You're suppressing it. It's going to come up again. It
might be when you stub your toe. It might be
when your dogs have an accident in the house. You're
going to realize that you're going to have a reaction
(23:13):
to those moments that is probably way bigger than you
were ever needing for that moment and realizing, Okay, this
isn't about stubbing my toe, This is not about the
dog going to the bathroom in the house. This is
about something bigger and I need to address it head on.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
That's so important. And so when you as you started
this journey through sobriety, did you find that you lost
friends or did you gain friends? Or how did the
social aspect.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I'd say if you're looking at like friends through.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Like this didn't literally happen, but like a Facebook friend count,
I would say I kept the same amount of friends.
But what I did realize is that I had friends,
and I had drinking buddies. And I think that your
drinking buddies are the ones that you go out drinking with.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
They go out drinking with you.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
It's like a hey, I don't have a habit or
a problem or whatever it is because I'm always going
out with this person. But I did realize that I
still had probably about ten really close friends, people that
I truly care about, the ones that I can talk
through like emotional stuff that's happening in my life and
they actually provide or provide feedback or even just listen,
(24:29):
and they can do the same with me too. But
I'd say, you know, your friend group will shrink, like
what you consider like your immediate friends because you're like, wait,
I used to go out with Bob all the time,
and Bob doesn't hit me up anymore.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
And then you start realizing, like Bob and I would
just go to the bar.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Bob and I would go watch sporting events at the bar,
and that was it. We didn't really connect on any
other level. Sure, we might have had those deep life
conversations at like one o'clock in the morning, but neither
of us remember them. So was it really like true
deep conversation or was it, you know, just because we
were drinking.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, And that's I mean. I know some people that
look at being sober, they're like, well, I'm not going
to have any friends left or I'm not gonna you know,
I'm not gonna have these things that I have now.
But what of those things are real and true? And
what of those things are maybe better to release? I
(25:30):
mean that's something obviously that whomever chooses that path needs
to understand that some of this will start to come up.
But I think the important part to showcase is you
don't have to go through it alone. There are therapists,
there are people, friends, so many different coaches out there
(25:52):
now that really truly want to help. And if it's
not the right person, like I say that to my
clients all the time, is I'm or may not be
the right person for you. But if I'm not, that's okay,
and I will I'll refer you to somebody else, you know.
So it's definitely one of those things that you can
be able to guide people and help people through whatever
(26:15):
they're going through. And it sounds scary. Maybe somebody who
might be listening to this was like, I can't get sober.
It's my thing, right, Like it's my thing and I'm
gonna hold on to it like a blanket.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
A lot of people would think, Okay, I need to
get sober from alcohol or whatever, I need to go
to AA, and I think AA is.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
A great avenue for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
There's tons of different types of meetings out there, whether
it be like a speaker meeting, whether it just be
hanging out with other.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
People that are sober. For me, it wasn't something that clicked.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
If the thing that clicked for me was having a
therapist that I could talk through with these types of things.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
I've tried doing some of those meetings. It's not for everybody.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Don't think that that one path is the only path
in order to get sober in your life.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
There's Yeah, there's tons of avenues.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
There's I have friends that are supportive, that are sober
themselves and that are not sober as well, that still
want to support me in.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
My own journey. Yeah, you're you're not alone out there.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
And initially, when I first started sobriety, I was thinking, Okay,
there's nobody out there that's sober.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
There's I'm going to be the boring one at every event.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
You'll start realizing it's about a quarter of the population
out there that doesn't drink. They and they choose not to,
whether they have never drank in their life, or you know,
tried it a couple of times through college and they
never really connected with it. But you're you're not alone.
There's bands out there, there's there's celebrities out there, there's
(27:50):
and right now it's probably even the best time for sobriety.
I'd say in social media in general, it's a lot
more supported than it used to be. It's not where
it's like, wait, why aren't you drinking?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Okay, we're not inviting out Jamie anymore.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
There's even like post Malone songs that are coming out
about his journey with alcohol.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
It's becoming a lot more normal.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
And I like having these types of conversations because it
should be you know, easy to talk about.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
You know, I didn't go and crash it, you know there.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
I've heard stories where people were like, Okay, this was
like a big force like wake up call for my alcoholism.
For me, it was I just wanted to do better.
I wanted to be a better person. And well, I say,
you know, completely stark sober for my entire life.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I'm unsure at this time, but.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
I do know that if I ever tried to introduce
it into my life, I would definitely be aware of
everything that's happening around me, whether it's okay, this is
the one time event which turns into like a daily
thing again, you know, I want to make sure that I'm.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Ahead of it.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, I think that's important too. Is like, you have
to know what are your boundaries, and it doesn't necessarily well,
I mean, depending on the level of where you're at
in your journey with substance use or drinking alcohol or
whatever it is their key and be times maybe that
(29:15):
you move into potentially drinking again, maybe you don't write
that's okay, And I know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
I've seen both sides of the coin there.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I've seen people that haven't drink for six years and
then they reintroduce it to their life and they're perfectly okay.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
But I've also seen people.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Ruin their entire life within thirty days of reintroducing alcohol
to their life. At this point and stage in my sobriety,
I'm like, I'm not willing to take that Campbell, and
I'm not sure I ever will be, but it's interesting
to see, you know, of those examples, I'd say I
have one good example of somebody rehearing reintroducing it to
(29:51):
their life and then about four of reintroducing it to
their life that has just ruined all aspects, whether it's family, financial,
what have you. And that's only just in the last
few months.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, it's I mean everybody experiences things differently. We all
are different people, We're all human, and we're going to
have our own experience whatever our journey might be. I
think it is important that the conversations are had whether
you are sober or not sober, right, like what what
is the reason that you choose to drink alcohol? And
(30:30):
who are the people that can support or be around you?
And one of the things that you said, it's interesting
like because we just got married in July and thinking
about the guest list, right is like who drinks and
who doesn't? And a good majority of the people that
we're going to be there don't drink. And I thought
that was really interesting for me because I'm like, oh wow,
(30:53):
I have more sober friends than I do friends that drink.
And so it is. It's it's annoy and society has
programmed us. Like you talked about earlier, is that you
see it on commercials, you see it in the news,
you see it everywhere, right, and it doesn't have to
be your normal, Like you create or define your own life,
(31:16):
and what is going to be the best route or
experience for you is up to you. And I think
that's important to understand. But also like, what's the reason
that you might be turning to alcohol or maybe you're
turning to drugs, Like what are the things underneath? Like
what's that onion layer that we need to uncover? And
(31:37):
I think that therapy or a coach or somebody that
you trust, talk to them and see how you can
start shifting it.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
And if there's one major point to take away from
here is like if you are considering therapy, go if
you hear about a friend that's in therapy.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Be supportive. Don't go to kind of ostracize them where
you go. Okay, wait is everything? Okay?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
I didn't realize it was that bad. Sometimes it doesn't
have to be that bad. It's a good thing that
your friend is there. And just keep an eye on them,
watch them, watch them grow. And if you see them,
you know, maybe having a rough time, reach out and
lend an ear.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, I mean, And if you don't want to call
it therapy, call it coaching, call it a mentor.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, that's how I started. I was like, ah, this
is gonna be coaching. I want to take my life
to a new elevated level. Because in that moment I'd
say that, my friends and family that were looking at
me were like, Jabe, you have everything going for you.
Everything's fine, Why are you seeing a therapist. It's like,
I want to become a better person. This is an
avenue that can help me realize where I can improve.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, therapy is not just for I mean, it's good
to be talking depending on what type of therapy, right, Like,
there's talk therapy, there's coaching. There's there's so many different
styles of therapy that I mean, if you don't feel
comfortable saying therapy, call it coaching or get a mentor,
you know, Like, I mean, there's so many other That's
(33:04):
what I'm whenever I with my clients, I'm like, well,
technically it's coaching, like it's a type of therapy, but
we're not gonna call it therapy, right right, So right, Yeah,
there's lots of place around. But anything else that you
want to share with the audience.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Nothing that's coming to mind.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I'm sure I'll be flooded with thoughts as soon as
as soon as we in the call, but nothing in
this moment.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Cool. Well, if anybody wants to follow your journey, I
mean I put your LinkedIn in the comments below, But
is there anywhere else that if people want to follow
your journey? Worth where can they find you?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
That would probably be the best one, If not Facebook,
if you're okay with seeing some memes that might be
slightly offensive, but we'll make you laugh.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
But you can also find me on Facebook.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Too, awesome. Yeah, so go connect with Jamie on LinkedIn
or maybe on Facebook. Book. I always, every single time
we sat next to each other, it was like the
best banter back and forth. And I love your personality
and how you keep things lighthearted. So I'm so incredibly
(34:12):
proud of you going through this journey and I just
can't wait to watch it unfold even more so, thank
you so much for being on the show today.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
And thanks again Kelly for having me of course.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
All right, y'all, that was another amazing episode of Mental
Health Mondays, where we talk to guests who are either
professionals in the mental health space, advocates of mental health,
or those that live with or experience a mental health challenge.
And I just want to remind you if you're watching
this on LinkedIn or Facebook, make sure that you're following us.
(34:48):
Hopefully you are. If you're on YouTube, mash down that
subscribe button. And last reminder is that we are still
doing our Clime for Mind Clime for Mind fundraiser. So
we are going to climb a mountain next August, myself
and Phillip and it is thirty miles going up the mountain,
(35:12):
coming down, going up, coming down thirteen times, which equals
thirty miles. And our goal is to raise sixty thousand
dollars for this event that will all go towards mental
health and suicide prevention education. And I'm sure you all
heard recently that Twitch recently passed. He died by suicide.
(35:33):
And I know that it's a big, big conversation, and
this is everything that we do within BCC Evolution. We
are a mental health and suicide prevention five oh one
C three and so we really need your help to
be able to educate more people. And that's why we
do what we do, especially on this show, is bring
those people that can give you resources, those people that
(35:55):
can share their experience, they can share their story and
they can help you potentially if they're a coach or
a therapist or whatever they might be, or maybe you
just need to hear their story. Like Jamie told you today,
it can be really really hard to wake up and
be like what am I doing with my life? How
am I going about it? But I need to talk
(36:17):
to somebody, And so therapy is a great space. If
you don't want to call it therapy again, call it coaching,
get a mentor. There's lots of people out there that
want to help you, including myself. You can reach out
to BCC evolution, you go to our website. There's lots
and lots of online resources. There are also people that
(36:37):
you can talk to, people you can connect with. Myself
is included there, and so it is just really really important.
The work that we do is all centered around mental
health and suicide prevention education because if we don't talk
about it, we don't educate educate people about it, then
we will never be able to help anybody. And like
(37:00):
I said, these are a lot of things that I
go over in all the classes that we do. And
if you support us at this fundraiser, the easiest way
is to text climb the number four mind to four
four three two one, and again, all of that goes
to all of our mental health programs that we offer
(37:20):
and all of our classes, which is super amazing because
I promise you, if you don't know how to identify
or don't know how to know the signs or symptoms
of a mental health, substance use or suicide thoughts, you
can learn them from me. And I promise you they're
pretty fun classes because I teach them. So you can
(37:43):
join one of our classes. You can go support our
climbs and watch me well I'm thirty miles thirteen times
up the mountain, and have all of it go towards
mental health and suicide prevention and education, because now is
the time to get educated, and now is the time
(38:05):
to make an impact on this world, because we all
know that there's a lot of people that are out
there suffering in silence, and we need to give them
a voice, and that's what I'm doing with BCC Evolutions.
So thank you so much for watching this episode, make
sure you check out the next one, and we'll see
you back next Monday. By y'all,
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