May 17, 2025 • 61 mins
In this powerful episode, we sit down with Chris Willis, co-founder of Restore & Recover LLC, to explore how one organization is transforming lives through safe, structured, and affordable sober living in Philadelphia. With eight residences across Harrowgate and Germantown, Restore & Recover is more than just a housing solution — it's a community-driven pathway to healing. Chris shares his personal journey, the philosophy behind their evidence-based approach, and how Restore & Recover empowers individuals to rebuild their lives with dignity, stability, and hope. Whether you're in recovery, supporting someone who is, or passionate about grassroots change, this episode is a must-listen.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to be a voice. I'm Brick Carpenter and this
is Soucili Media. Thanks for joining me today today's show.
We're continuing on with our theme this year of switching gears,
talking to people who have switched gears in their lives,
and I'll continually do so in order to better themselves
and better their worlds. And today I'm sitting here with
a good friend of mine and somebody who's a person
in long term recovery as well, and the founder and
(00:44):
the president of Restore and Recovery Recover.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Right and Recover.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I screwed that up on there, Chris there. I'm sitting
here with Chris Will Hey.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Chris, Hey, Britt, what's up? How are you good?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And the funny thing is all the way over here.
I'm like, restore and recover so simple, And why the
hell I went? Restore and recovery just blew that right
off the bat. Yeah, you know, so since we're talking
about it, you know what is restore and recover?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
All right? So Restore Recovery is basically we manage sober
living homes and recovery houses in Philadelphia. You know, we
have a few. We have like a men's recovery house
program in Germantown, we got three houses over there, and
then we have like a whole other sober living program
uh in like Harrowgate, Kensington area, we have five houses
(01:32):
over there, and that's that's it. That's what we do,
you know, and you know, obviously we we try to
work with other organizations in the community and kind of
like you know, interact with all the other things that
are going on, because Kensington is is it's Kensington, right, so.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
There's yeah, you know, so right now you have eight homes, yes,
eight homes, and do you do you classify all those
homes as sober living or do you class women's recovery
homes or no?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So, yeah, so that's that's the difference.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So the difference with a you know, sober living is
it's it's for someone who might be a little farther
along in their recovery. So you know, like our recovery
house program is, uh, you know, we have like a
living manager there and you know all that type of stuff.
And the sober living homes are obviously like a different
a different thing.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So you have transitional homes, you have medical b m
at homes, homes where except we do.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
We we accept m AT, Yes, you do.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Some n AT, which would be the medical assistant with
for people who are coming out of treatment or off
of opia, useless order or mod.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Are those homes integrated with people who are sober or
are they all one home?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So they are they're integrated because over in Germantown we
have it kind of set up where we have like
three houses and we can kind of like shuffle people
around as we need to. And in the over living homes,
it's kind of expected that if you know, if you
have a year or more of recovery, that you can
(03:06):
you know, you can kind of make your own decisions, right,
So you know, if you tell us that's something you
can't deal with it, maybe we can place you somewhere
where we don't have anyone on m AT at that house.
But you know, if we can't, then we'll refer you
to somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
And I always find that very interesting because you think
about m AT, you think about somebody who's on that,
It's not like they're utilizing any type of paraphernalia. It's
not like they're utilizing anything that's going to jeopardize somebody.
The only thing is is the stigma that comes along
with things such as the boxing. Yes, you know, because
the boxing on the black market is is basically like
you know, using heroin.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and there's you know, obviously like there's
this stigma attached to it. And you know, some people
in like twelve step recovery or other things like may
feel a certain way about it, but we're not. So
we're not like a program that like pushes m at right.
If someone comes to us and they need help and
(04:03):
we have a space for them, and we think that
they fit in our program, we'll take them. But we don't.
We have plenty of abstinente people we started out with
all apps.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
So with eight homes, are they do they do you
even come directly out of treatment or have they been
in a sort of a little bit longer in recovery home.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
So in the sober living homes, typically no, they don't
come directly out of treatment unless you know, sometimes we'll
get like a special call for you know, someone who's
been in like long term treatment or you know, been
to some kind of halfway house or something like that.
But usually if someone is coming straight out of a
(04:41):
thirty day treatment center. Uh that that would only be
accepted at our recovery houses in Germantown.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So, you know, let's take it a little bit back,
pel layers back a little bit more. We could talk
about restoring recover, We could talk about the eight homes,
we could talk about that, but you know, the road
to getting there, for you to get there, yeah, you know,
it is always the road that I like to see
what happens or how it unfolded, or the road that
you went down, because you consider yourself a person in
(05:09):
long term recovery.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Sure, how many years do you have?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Nine and some chid ten in June.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Ten in June. Yeah, this coming June is ten years yes, sober?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Sober?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
No.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, And just to like clarify, like I don't care
what anyone else does, like I I just so happened
to be abstinate from all substances four ten years in June.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That's amazing, that's a very I mean, that's admirable. I mean,
you know, people have a hard time getting through dry January.
I Yeah, they complain about that, like, oh my gosh,
I need a drink, you know what, Oh my gosh,
hand me the needle.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know what that Yeah, yeah, that's one of those things.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
It's like, come on people, yeah, you know, if you
can't get to you know, and that's thirty days, thirty
one days. Ye when you think about it, and you know,
treatment anymore isn't just isn't thirty days. It went to
twenty eight, It is twenty one now. It's like that microwave.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Read, which is to me, is insane. I totally I
don't like it. I don't agree with it. You know,
like I needed to be in a place like like
before I entered the real world, Like I needed to
be in like a safer place for a longer period
of time that like, you know, it's just me. You know,
some people come out and do great.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
But I had a smile when you said the real world,
because when you are in active addiction, you.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Know, there really isn't a real world.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
There's a lot of blurred lines, and there's a lot
of like reality that doesn't really happen to anybody else,
only to you. So it's really funny because I don't
think people really get that. They're like, oh, the real world. Well,
because to us, we be prior to going into recovery,
we never were able to function in the real world.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
That's why we were people with substance use disorders. Yeah,
so exactly, you how many years were you in an
active addiction.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So from the point that I ever, that I first
used any substance ever until the point that I stopped
was fifteen years. But from the point that I was
really addicted to something like opiates through the point that
I stopped was like ten years.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And that that's funny because you know, we look at
it and I talk about it too that you know,
people know the fact that, like I did, heroin and
opioid addition was a huge part of my life. Sure,
but they forget that, like it started with the drinking
and smoking the dope and right blowing the lines and
all the little things that led up to that. Right,
but everybody thinks about that lasting sort it did so
(07:46):
and I wasn't really.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Discriminatory on what I used, meaning.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
You know, if it was put in front of me,
I'd be like, okay, cool, except for math. I really
couldn't stand math.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, I uh, I tried it. Yeah, I tried it
a couple of times.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
But we could be discriminatory there, huh. You know, yeah,
scriminatory drug addicts.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, I think it depends on your brain, you know
what I mean, Like some people just get really into
uppers and you know, and that wasn't me, Like I
got really into opiates. That was just how my brain
was wired.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
So and it was it was wired a certain way
because you used opiates for a purpose exactly, you know,
and people forget that too, so you know, and yours
wasn't just like you used opiate.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
It's like you were you were a hardcore.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Man, I get. I mean, I got I got hardcore. Yeah,
eventually you.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Got to a point of hardcore.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
When I say hardcore, yeah, I'm not talking like you know,
you were going to work and coming home at five
point thirty and sitting in your.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
House all night.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You were like you know, people talk about Kensington, people
talk about streets of Kensington, how bad it is, and
it's bad. I mean, I'm out there, you know, on
a daily doing the outreach and distro and stuff like that.
But it's a little bit more tame than the streets
of where you were running for quite some time.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I would say, now currently probably yeah, I don't know,
maybe maybe ever Yeah, no, maybe you're just right.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
On that where and you were running the streets of Camden, Camden. Yeah,
and people don't really know about Camden.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah. And the thing is about Camden is like they
cleaned it up a lot. But back in this time,
it was the wild West. It was insane, and you
ran the streets, you and yeah, no, I was just
out there. I was just out there.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
You were unsheltered.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah. Well, I bounced back and forth, you know, I
might be living in an abandoned house and then maybe
in this shelter or that shelter, or then back to
jail for a little bit, and then okay, I went
up to North Jersey to rehab for thirty days and
then I came back and then you know, so I
bounced around a lot. But yeah, no, I was. I
was unsheltered out there. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
How long was that.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
A couple of years.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
It's a huge part of your story, man, Yeah, it's
a huge part of your story that some people probably
don't even know.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
They you look at you and they they say, oh,
my gosh, look at him.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
He's doing well.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
He has a recovery homes, he has a great job,
he's you know, he's put together.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeah, huge party.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I mean yeah, like outside of like recovery settings, how
often do you get to ask anyone what their story is?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
You know?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, and there's power in your story, sure, you know.
I mean anybody who's been unsheltered, you know, there's power
there because that's a special person to be able to
bounce back from something like that, especially one who's been
out there an active addiction all those years. Yeah, and
like you said, it was like the while west it
Kendon is not a pretty place to begin with. Yeah, no,
not at all, let alone to be unsheltered and being
(10:38):
unsheltered back in you know, twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, yep,
So you know, and you know, for myself, when I
was at my lowest, which you know was for many
years and many different times, you know, everybody was asked
about a bottom, and I'm like, I don't think there
is a bottom. I think it's sort of just when
you're ready. You know, everybody's bottom is different. There's no
(10:59):
one off moment for me. Yeah, with several aha moments, but.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Like what led And this is always in my head.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Intriguing because when I was in my height of my
active opiate used addiction, ask, oh my gosh, I'm like,
how am I going to afford my thirteen hundred dollars
a month rent. I'm gonna have to live in like
a five hundred dollar a month house somewhere and move
my you know. And that's where my brain was thinking,
you know, like I was going to downside down great
and everything. Well that's what I did, And that's what
(11:27):
you did. You downgrade into the streets. How does that happen?
Did you ever put your finger on that and say
this is out?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah? I mean it kind of, you know. So, Like
the more the more you get, like deeper into addiction,
the more things you like cut off from your life,
the more people you cut off from your life, the
more people don't want you around, you know what I mean.
And if you go deep enough, eventually you know what
you're like, you know what, it would be easier just
to live right next to the set. And it would
(11:54):
also be easier to just not live, you know what
I mean. Like all these people who want me to
stop doing what I'm doing, well they don't have to
be bothered anymore because I just won't be around, you
know what I mean. So it's just easier to just
go do your own thing.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
And that's crazy to have that mind frame and think
to yourself, it's easier to be away from the people
who care about you.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, well because they it's like they have expectations, right
as they should. If you have family members or friends
or coworkers or whatever, right like, you have some sort
of responsibility to the people in your life, and it's
just easier to not have any responsibility, to don't be
accountable to anyone, because why would why would you? Like,
(12:34):
I want to do what I want to do as.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
A person with an active addiction, they smother you. It's like,
the hell away from me, leave me alone.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I'm fine. I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, it's all.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I know what I'm doing. I'm gonna go live on
the streets of Camden.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah exactly, Yeah, no, I know, Yeah, i know what
I'm doing. Yeah, Like I'm good, you know. And then
you know, you get out there and it's it's nutty.
And then the crazy thing about it is like your
brain is so warped. The wiring in your brain is
not working correctly. So like the more you survive, the
(13:05):
better you think you are. Right, You're just like, yeah, no,
it's nutty out here. This guy's dropping dead, people are
getting shot. This is happening, that's happening. I've been to jail,
this that, and you're just like, yeah, but like I'm
doing like I'm doing. I'm going through all this stuff
and I'm doing the thing that i want to do,
so that means I'm good.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
At it and I'm I'm still standing and that's good.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, and I'm still yeah, like.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
And and let's let's face it, man, when when people
talk about people in diction, I say, you know what,
you can't bullshit a bullshitter. Yeah, you know, we're the
we're the best use that's what we really do. We
bullshit people, right, you know. And you know we we
sort of smell our own so we know how we
can react to other people, and we know how we
get over on people. So that is a that's a
(13:49):
different mind, frat. And I'm going to tell you people
think that people that have substance use disorder are dumb,
I will tell you they're probably one of those They're
probably the most intelligent people out there percent because of
the way they can survive, yep, because it's an instinct
that's survival. Yes, being on the streets for any amount
of times.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
It's survival.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
It's yeah, it's definitely survival.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
And it's an instinct. It's an instinct that people have
and you have to have that instinct. So, you know,
if you could take it all the way back and
peel that back to your very first time that you
were on the street the first night, do you remember that.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I I don't know if I remember the first night.
I can remember the first week that I went out
there permanently and I ended up I don't know. I
ran into some girl and she happened to have like
(14:43):
an abandoned house that was behind this like old abandoned
car wash or whatever, and you know, she was just like, yeah,
like you can come stay with me or whatever, and
like I just hang out of my abandoned minium. Yeah,
just you know whatever. And then you know, she'll go
do what she does, and you know what I mean,
bring back some dope. And I'll go do whatever I
do and bring back some dope. And you know, I
(15:03):
just slept on the floor in that abandoned house and
you know that probably lasted for a little bit, and
then uh, you know, I ran into some other person
on the street and they had something better going on,
and then I went to their abandoned house or you
know whatever, whatever happens.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You know, isn't it weird that when you're on the street,
it's like that, like you can bounce around and then
you have these friends, yeah, that you know you can
hang with and be with. But then like you know,
you don't you lose concept in sight.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Of everything else. Yeah, and you don't really know.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Things become askew once you can those lines become blurred
and ever. So you know, it's a crazy thing. H
Do you ever see any of these people that I
bounced around went from.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Uh today, No, but I have so Once I came
to Kensington to get sober, A lot of those people,
I'm not gonna say a lot, but you know, a
handful of those people ended up coming to the same
place like I got sober rat and you know most
of them didn't stay sober or didn't you know, you know,
(16:07):
but like, yeah, I ran into people for sure, so.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Over and Canon like you were buying over there, you
were they have they have?
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Is it open air? Like it isn't Kensington or is it?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
And you can get anything over there you wanted to,
just like you could hear and you get rock, you
get hard, soft.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
All that anything anything.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
So and you you were in the height of an
opiate addiction, then yep, were you doing it injectable or
were you doing sniffing.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Inject injectible pactable I mean by the end, yeah, injectible,
And then it was you know, then it was just
a mix of things, right cause it's like, all right,
like this is rough, like getting all this money doing
this and that, so all right, I'm gonna get on
the methadone clinic. But like now it's like you go
to the methadone clinic and then like you take some
(16:50):
xanax from you know, you buy some xanax from somebody there, right,
So now you're doing that and that, and then you
got some money left over, so you go get some
crack and smoke that, and you know, it's just kind
of like whatever happens, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
It's a domino effect. Yeah, it really is. I know
that very well. You know, you do whatever you can
to to stay here, and then you do whatever you
can go back to your here and then get back
up here.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
That's it. Yeah, But I mean I would say there,
you know, if there was no point where I wasn't
on obit though.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, And it's funny you said something that might strike
people funny if if they caught it, because I didn't.
And I sort of snickered because I know what you meant,
but some people not you. You made the comment that
you went from Camden to Kensington to get sober.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
That's clean.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Usually when it was funny.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
That you said it, because normal personal isity was like,
what the hell is that you went to Kensington to
get clean?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
That doesn't make sense? Yeah to almost nobody on earth.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Yeah that make What does that mean? How does that happen?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Okay, So I'm in Camden. You know, I'm doing whatever
I'm doing out there, and at some point I was
staying in a shelter and I had tried to like
I went to rehab, came back. I'm staying in a
shelter and you know, I meet this kid there who
(18:13):
you know, asked me if I wanted to go to
a meeting, and I said yes because I was like,
like I was doing my like okay, like I'm on
the methodon in clinic right now, I'm gonna try not
to take xanax or smoke crack. You know what I mean.
So I'm just gonna like, you know, so I had
nothing going on, right because I'm not running around the
store is stealing, I'm not working on the set, I'm
(18:34):
not doing anything. So I'm like, yeah, all right, let's
go to a meeting. I don't have anything else going on.
So we go down to this place on Fifth Street
and it's like this little like recovery clubhouse place called
the Last Stop. And yeah, like he just took me
there randomly, and I liked the vibe of it, you know,
(18:55):
there were some cool people there or whatever, and I
just kind of started going there. So like every day
on my way to the clinic, I would stop in
there because they had like an early morning meeting, like
a small early morning meeting, and they had coffee, so
I would just like stop in there whatever. And then
later on down the road, the guy who owned the place,
(19:20):
this guy Eddie Z, who just I you can look
him up. I'm not going to even get into like
the Eddie Z lore and all that, but yeah, like
you know Kensington legend, yah, yeah, and he's back back
in Kensington. So this guy, you know, he would see
(19:42):
me coming around, so he would always try to like
his thing is like he just likes to recruit people
into whatever he has going on. Right, So he was like, listen,
you need to come over to Kensington and like see
the place and see the people, and and I think
he really just like wanted me to come stay there.
But I'm like, you know, I got it sweet in
the shelter that I'm in at the time. Right, It's
(20:03):
just like one of those moments where like my life
isn't complete shit. So I'm just like, no, I'm good,
you know. But so he brought me over to Kensington.
As soon as I get into the building versus clubhouse
in Kensington, there's way more people there. This was like
a way bigger place, like a bigger clubhouse. And then
there were like also like five recovery houses on that
(20:25):
block or whatever that he had like women's men's workhouse
all this other stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
So well, he was living at Graffiti Pier. He's living
down at the pier, but he has all these houses.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Well, so that was later at the time, he was
just staying in like a little like makeshift room behind
the houses right on Lee Street. So yeah, just you
know what I mean, Like typically yeah, right, So yeah,
so as soon as I walk into this place, I
see this guy that I used to run the streets
(20:55):
with and the last time I saw him, we were
like stealing and panhandling and went and like you know,
shooting dope behind a dumpster in Center City somewhere and
just like all this crazy stuff. And then I saw
him and he's like, yeah, like I've been here for
five months, like I'm sober, I'm actually moving out tomorrow.
(21:18):
I got my own apartment and all this. And I
was like, oh, that's that's interesting because we were just, uh,
we're just on the street. Like that's crazy, you know.
So like I was one of those moments. I was like, Okay,
that's something to think about, you know. Yeah, And that
was like that was like the beginning of that. Obviously,
(21:38):
I went back out ran for a while, did whatever
I did. But like eventually, you know, I came back
to the Cammon Clubhouse and then was brought over to Kensington.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
So that's awesome though. Yeah, I mean think about that,
like what an inspiration that is.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Like see somebody that you're on the streets with just
recently and all of a sudden, now they're getting their
own place.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, and I was just like, how does that? I
don't how do you do that? How does that happen?
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And and the last stop, let's say Eddie does Eddie
he does amazing things for the community, amazing things for
the recovered community.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
He is unconventional, very you know, unconventional.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I'm going to say it. Nobody else has ever said
this to me. I say it all the time. He's
almost like a cult like following, but not a cult.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I mean I would, I would, I wouldn't disagree, I wouldn't,
you know, you.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Know what I mean by that? Though, he's not a
cult leader, but it's like a following like that. But
it's not. It's a movement.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
It's a movement of people who needed somebody to just
say I believe in you, but yet I'm not going
to I'm not going to cater to you. Yeah, you're
gonna have to do this on your own. So Eddie
has done things like you come here, you know how
it's gonna work. You're gonna sleep on this floor. Yeah,
and that's how you're going to get yourself clean.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It's sober.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, no, yad percent And I slept on the floor pillow.
Uh maybe not the first night. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Maybe you slept on the floor. You were one of
the people who slept on the floor. Yes, the last
stop was it a redund floor? Was it the dirt floor?
Gravelly floor?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It was not a dirt floor. So this was in
the clubhouse, in the clubhouse, yeah, so this was This
was in the clubhouse, I believe back in the day
the men's house was at the basement of the men's
house was unfinished, yes, and it yeah, and they just
built beds there, yep, because we you know, we want
people to have somewhere to go. So that's whatever. But
(23:31):
I mean by the time I got there, the basement
was finished though, and I slept in there too.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
So how long did you sleep on the floor in
the last stop?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
A few weeks before I got moved down to the
men's house.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
So was that your treatment facility?
Speaker 2 (23:44):
That? Yeah? That was it.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So you didn't go to like one of these Kirkbrides
or Eaglevill's or all these keystones.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
And no, and like and it's not even like it
wasn't even like a choice thing. So one time, when
I was like twenty, I went to a detox and
then I never went to another treatment center again until
I was like twenty seven. I went up to North
Jersey for like thirty days. That's so I can't even
(24:12):
remember the place. But and that was it. That's all
the treatment centers that I ever did. All that time
in between, I just got high and like that was it,
and whatever happened happened. And so yeah, so when I
went to the last stop, like that was it. That
was my treatment center.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Yeah, it's admirable. That's that's not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Sometimes it's not. But I was just in a spot
where I was so to so I remember I, Uh,
I had just gotten out of jail and I went
back to the streets.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Anything in particular the usual boosting probation violations one of
the amazing.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I couldn't need some dumb shit like that.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, for sure, bad Chris, Well, let's you were a badass.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, I'm horrible. Yeah, but uh, I got out. I
got out of jail around the streets where I couple
of weeks and it was just like the worst little
run or period of time that I ever had, and
I was really tired, and I didn't have like my
ID and my Social Security card anymore, and I couldn't
remember if the state health insurance was like still activated
(25:16):
or not. And like I just like literally just gave up.
It was like I'm just going to walk down in
this place to see what happens. And that was that.
That was it, and that was it. Yeah, Like if
I had known, like if I had had my ID
or I knew what was up with my health insurance
or whatever, like I might have done something different. But yeah,
it's just not what happened.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
So it's amazing how like all these people go to
treatment over and over and over again.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yeah, and the system fails them, I feel, or and
you know, and it doesn't work for them.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
But yet there's all these people that you know and
that I know that have gone through this program called
the Last Stop where they have succeeded. They continue to
and they become this this a little army of friends
that yeah, you're not.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
All hanging out together, but there's that connection.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, No, there's a connection there for sure.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Almost like you should have a secret handshake for the
Last Stop. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's one of those.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And it's it's pretty cool because he helped so many
people stay alive, for sure, and that was ten years
ago almost for you.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And that was yeah, it was ten years ago almost
that I walked in.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
So in those two, first of all, what made you
once you got into recovery, what made you want to
start recovery home? Because number one, they were paining the ass.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
They yeah they I know that because I got I
got headaches. Yeah yeah, yeah, I So it was kind
of it was so like I kind of wanted to, like,
all right, so I get into the last stop, right,
and I got nothing going on, Like I got no
(26:54):
you know, I got no skills, I got no like
I have nothing, right, And so I start working for
Eddie Z because he's always got something going on, like
he at the time anyway, he was always like you know,
buying a buying a house in Camden and like you
know what I mean, just rebuilding the whole house or
(27:16):
like whatever, and he always had these little projects going on.
So like one day, some dude I guess who was
working for him, like comes around the corner to the
men's house and is like, hey, who has a license?
And I was like I got one and I did not,
so it was for sure suspended, but I was like
I got one in my mind, I'm just thinking, like,
(27:36):
hey man, I'm gonna get out of here for a
couple of minutes.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
We're gonna go to the store or something. And he
was like, okay, yeah, you know what I mean, Like
I can't sit still, you know what I mean, I
only got a couple of weeks over or whatever. So
he's like, all right, you come with me, you're working
with us. I'm like okay, cool, you know. And then
like through that, like I ended up becoming the guy
who would like drive all these guys to whatever job
(28:02):
he had going on building this new house in Camden
or whatever. And you know, some of these guys were
super talented carpenters, plumbers, whatever, and I learned all this
stuff from them. And then I also saw what like
Eddie was doing with the buildings and the houses, and
like then I knew. I was like okay, like I
for sure want to be in construction probably and like
(28:25):
real estate, like real estate somehow is the thing. And
then like if I can use some of that to
like help people also this way, then like that would
be cool. But like we'll just start, you know, we'll
start with like kind of learning these skills and see
where it goes so then I don't know. Three years later,
just randomly, a couple friends of mine were just like, hey,
(28:48):
we're opening a recovery house and I was like, okay,
I'll manage it for you. And then that was it.
That was outstarting. It's it's weird because it's like I
like I felt that from the beginning, you know what
I mean, And like sometimes I would make these moves,
like when they said they were opening the recovery house
and I was like, I'll manage it for you, like
(29:10):
I'll move in there or whatever. Like people who were
in recovery were like questioning me and like laughing at
me because they're like, oh no, like you got this,
you got this career. I just started in the like
cell tower industry at the time, Like oh like you
got this career, you got you know, your own apartment,
da da da dhah, Like why you want to move
(29:30):
into this house and all that, and like in my mind,
I'm just like I got a plan, Like I know
exactly what I'm doing. I know exactly where I'm going
to be in five years. Like don't tell me, like
you can't. I can do whatever I want, Like right,
you can't so just stick to you, you know what
I mean? And yeah, and I didn't.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
So now you're ten years in recovery, you have eight homes.
You're actually living in one of the homes, one of
your first homes.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Uh, it's like, my what it's like the fourth one
I think that I got.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It's in your set of them. Yeah, it's and you
do sell? What do you? What do you do there?
Tell me, like, do you climb these towers? Man?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I used to? Yeah? If you you know, you can
go to my Facebook or my Instagram. You can see
pictures of me.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Which is how can they find you on Facebook or Instagram?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Oh? Good question. Yes, you have a storm recover for
Intra Restor Recover. Yeah, look up Restor and Recover. Look
up Christopher willis their public You'll see me.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
But you you climbed cell towers.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So I did. So I'm still in the cell tower industry,
but I'm a construction manager now. But yeah, I started
out climbing towers. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I just got anxiety think about that, Like I was like,
oh my gosh, Like let me hold on. Because number one,
I have a fear of heights. Yeah, I terrify the heights,
like the thought of it. Like I see commercials or
I see these reels of people doing these things, and
like I had to turn them off because I get
anxiety too quickly. So, and you're talking about the towers,
the big cell towers with the flashing lights and all
(31:00):
that crap.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
You climb those suckers.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I climbed them. Yeah, from the ground up.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
There's not an elevator or anything like that. There's a ladder, No,
there's not anything. Back in the day.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Every once in a while, maybe once every ten or
twenty sites, we might have a crane on site and
be able to take a like a man basket up there.
But but no, yeah, you're pretty much on the tower.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Just climb those things, man.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
So for cell service, they could be anything from like
fifty feet to four hundred feet.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
What's the highest you ever climbed?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
You know, probably about three fifty Is that?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Like the top of it does sway?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah, they sway?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah? Right, Yeah, you're you're you're hooked in, right, you're
latched in like your heart, Yeah you're yeah, you're yeah,
you're Like do you feel safe.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
You're tied off? I mean so yeah, I not the answer.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I don't feel safe.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
It took time. It took time when everyone's like like
I'm afraid of heights, Like, yeah, dude. The first time
I climbed, I was like, this is crazy. I don't
know if I'm gonna keep doing this, you know what
I mean? But I did and I got I eventually
got to a point where I was comfortable with it.
But yeah, the first time that I was on a
tower by myself and like the wind was blowing like
(32:19):
it is today. Yeah, Like the wind started blowing and
I just laid down on the platform. I was like,
this is crazy, what is happening. I didn't know towers
could move that much. But you know, I got I
got over it.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
How long does it take to climb?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
It depends. I mean when I when I was like,
let me see to like toward the end, when I
was like like really, you know like every day climbing
or whatever, I don't know, a few minutes, a couple minutes,
did you.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Go for like clutching the climb to like now you
just sort of just do it?
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah? Yeah, that's it. So the first that's exactly like
one of those persons like no, yeah, the first time
I climbed, The first time I ever climbed. When I
got done, I had bruises on my forearms from you know, gripping,
the gripping the last.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
I bet you did. I bet I'd be crying as
I was ten feet up. You know.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Yeah, that's enough for me. So it was the last
time you climbed the.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Tower, I don't know, a few years ago, now, okay,
so you know it was a tower climber. And then
I was like like what they call a top hand
in the industry, which is like the league guy up top.
And then I was a foreman, and now I'm a
construction manager.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
So so you like manage the whole thing, you know,
the project manager.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Sort yeah, so yeah, so right, so I work with
the project manager, who you know, is like a remote
person who you know kind of like manages all the whatever,
and you know, I do a little bit of that
and also go around to the all the crews that
we have in the market and check their safety and
make sure they have their materials.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
And so you went through how many years of active
addiction from the beginning of the.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
End ten to fifteen, So you went from that to
living on the streets and abandon mimiums and sort of
just getting by, you know, in jail and you know,
doing whatever drugs you can find, you know, sleeping on
a floor in the last stop two in the last
ten years. Building yourself really an empire for yourself.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I mean it's you know, I don't I mean, if
that's you know, you could call it that. I guess
if that if you want to, it's your life, your life.
I mean listen, like you know obviously like it's it's
it's more than I ever.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
You know, imagine you had the car we anybody in
this the cars are stacked against us. You know, the
chances that somebody that has gone as far as we
have into an active addiction to back out and make
it our slim like we don't. We don't have an
average that's our success rate. Isn't that successful.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
It's not good, and you know, say even less today
it is, especially since out there now are not the
drugs that we're used to.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Yeah, we did the real drugs.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah, you know, we got out of it when fentanyl
started coming in and everything, and now all these others
is that it's ship and so that's killing us.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
But like, you know, you really have.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Built a life for yourself, so recovery is possible. Yeah,
for sure it is, but you have to work a program.
Do you still have to do it? Do you do
meetings still?
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I do? I go to meetings, you know, and you
know I do meetings, but like I do other things also,
and like I also listen, there are there are many
past the recovery right, Like everyone always says, like, you know,
if just going to meetings works for you, go ahead,
you know what I mean, If you know it does.
If meetings don't work for you at all, cool, like
(35:58):
you know, so I don't. I don't like subscribe to
one thing. But like the network that I've built over
you know, the past ten years is you know a
lot of those people are still in meetings. I go
to meetings. Yeah, so you've work the steps. I have
worked the steps. Yeah, they're pretty painful. I don't disagree.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
People understand the pain involved with that because they think, oh,
you go, you know, you get it's easy, you get stop,
you could stop, and then you do this, and then
you go into meetings and then you work these steps
and that's you knows the cake and those steps are brutal, man,
because those steps really you take a self inventory that
you've never done before. And it's more it's really more
(36:46):
emotional than anything. Yeah, and that's where the brutality of
it all comes in. How do you find those steps?
Were they brutal for you? Were they easy?
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I mean, didn't help you?
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah? No, for sure help me because you can't, like
you can't just go through And this is like not
me saying like everyone should get involved in like twelve
step or like anything like that, but you can't. There
are some basic things within the twelve steps that like
(37:17):
could help anyone, and like you can't just go through
your entire life and just kind of like be the
same person and not like look at it, you know
what I mean. Like, and that's you know, that's what
the steps are, right, It's like you're taking a look
at yourself saying, Okay, you know what I mean, this
could change, that could change I was probably wrong for that,
(37:40):
et cetera, et cetera, and then like doing whatever work
you need to do to fix those things. And obviously,
with some people there might be other factors. There might
be mental illness, there might be everybody has different circumstances.
But you know, I think try to take a look,
(38:01):
you know what I mean inside in yourself and take
some responsibility for something. Is you know, a good step
toward that any type of recovery.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
You hit it right there.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
It's funny because the twelve Steps they were developed for
alcoholics anonymous, Yes, they were originally originally Yeah, the twelve
Steps aren't just for people who are going through recovery
or going into recovery or coming out of an active
substitute disorder. Anybody could work those twelve steps, and I
(38:33):
would highly encourage people to try to do that.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I yeah. And here's the thing is, like, you know,
people have their to think, well, you know, I'm not
into the twelve Steps because like I'm not religious, or
I don't believe in guy, or I don't big book. Okay,
that's that's cool. Yeah, I don't want to be or
like I don't subscribe to the threefold Disease thing or
I don't Okay, Like that's cool, but you know, it's
(38:59):
it's not gonna hurt you to make amends to maybe
some of the people you fucked over. It's not gonna.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Hurt because everybody.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Exactly, Like, it's not gonna hurt you to do that.
It's not gonna hurt you to you know what I mean,
in some cases, not in all cases. There are some
people that you know what I mean, I probably deserved
what they got. But like you know, there are some
things in there that, like you know what I mean,
are are just generally good?
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Well, you know what, Some bridges are meant to be burnt.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I just I agree with that.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Because you don't want to cross some of those bridges again,
and that that's that's a great way.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Of doing it.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, burn that bridge. You never have to worry about
it again. And that's cool. But there's a lot of
them that shouldn't have been and people people have written
that off.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Whether you are you are you.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Know, going through something with an addiction or not, you're
just a rmy or somebody who can have a drink
and recreational use.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
There are amends that could be made.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yeah, there's a personal self inventory that everybody can take
and reflect upon your soul and who you are and
how you got to where you are and are you
okay with that? And that's what we have to look at,
like are we okay with laying our heads down at
night and being.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Okay with that? Did you do everything you could have
done the right way. Yeah, that's the thing, and that's
what the twelve steps are.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
That's yeah, taking that self inventory to understand did you do.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
It the right way and just checking yourself because I'm
not religious.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yeah, I'm not one of those like oh, you know, like, hey, great,
I know it helps so many people, the prayer, God,
the belief, and it helps many people in recovery. It's
huge in recovery, the Christianity and the you know, yeah,
it's huge.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
Yeah, yeah, I think it's one of those spiritual yes, okay, yeah,
but in.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
A different sense, It's helped a lot of people. And
I think that scares some people too. I think it
really does. It scared me when I used to go
to meetings a lot because they started talking about God
and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
And I'm like, that's yeah, and that's you know, like
we live in a place where you know, it's it's big, right,
Like we have a lot of Christians in the United States,
and we also live in a place where a lot
of people have had a bad experience with Christianity or
you know whatever, Catholicism, whatever it is. So yeah, like
(41:22):
I just I get it, you know, what I mean.
And like I said, like I'm not encouraging anybody to
to do anything but or saying that whatever worked for
me will work for you. But yeah, you can. You
can make amends, you can help other people. You can,
you know what I mean, pay back the money you owe,
you can do you know whatever, all that stuff. You
can do that right to just say, you know, don't
(41:45):
don't throw out the baby with the bath water or whatever.
I say.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
I like that you said, you know, pay people back
the money that you owe, because like, going in my
active addiction, I'm probably owed so many people.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
I probably still do.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, but like today it like hangs over me if
I owe somebody even like ten dollars.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Yeah, like that really bothers me. Yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
I used to remember what it was like when the
dealers were like reaching out, like you owe me, and like,
oh my gosh, you know so like and it's funny
you said that because I think for people that have
always anybody who's had an active you know, addiction of
some type, you know, or substance use disorder of some type,
they can relate to that for some money owed. And
that's a huge thing, you know, And I think that's
(42:28):
why a lot of us become entrepreneurs because we want
to build ourselves. We don't want to build ourselves off
of anybody else, because we did that our whole time
in addiction.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Yeah, I agree with that, you know, and that's.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Why I think that we make the best entrepreneurs because
we know what's up, you know. Plus we also know
how to like hustle and boost, so you know.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
That's yeah, that's the thing, too, is like, yeah, yeah,
it's we're hustlers. Yeah, we're generally hustlers. Yeah, you know,
it's just because like you couldn't make you know, one
hustle work while you were high, doesn't mean you know
what I mean, like you have the skills that you
have still.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
So that reminds me about one guy who uh that
rob Banks and he's I was a really good bank robber.
I'm like, oh yeah, he's like yeah, he's like and
then I was. Then I was in jail and they
weren't in jail for oh, for Robin Banks, Like, you
wouldn't been that good.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
He got caught.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
You know, you're always going to get caught. But it's
a skill set, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah, I mean it's yeah, it's for sure.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Yeah. So but you know, I think about that, like
we thought we were good. We're legends in our own
mind a lot and that.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And you said something that a lot of people don't
touch on when we talk about addiction. When we talk
about addiction, we talk about the trauma, we talk about
what happened to us, We talked about, you know, all
the horrors, but nobody talks about the mental health. And
you said that, you said the issues that go along
with that, and the people forget that there is a
dual aspect to addiction and that comes with that mental health. Yeah,
(43:55):
and you know people don't want to talk about it
because it's a stigma.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Yeah, you were very free to say that.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
It's another Yeah, it's another stigma. And it's like it's
a big deal, right because everyone's not gonna have the
same experience in addiction or in recovery. You know, everyone's different,
and some people just have mental health issues and that's
you know, that's gonna be a big, a big thing, right,
Like you can't just you can't just walk into say
(44:24):
some you know, abstinence based recovery program, right and like
be off your meds or whatever. The situation is and
think that you're going to have you're not going to recover.
It's gonna be bad, you know, and stay. Yeah, And
like I met like a lot of people, like I
remember being on the street, Like there's a lot of
people who are like schizophrenic or something and they're just
(44:49):
getting high to like not have voices in their head, yeah,
to just to maintain because you know, and because they can't,
they don't feel like they can live a normal life
on like whatever medications are available, you know, which you know,
I've seen people on those medications. Sometimes they're like it's like, yeah,
you're not you're not really here, no, you know what
(45:09):
I mean. But some people, some people need to be
on them, and some people are going to continue to
use no matter what because that's that's the way that
they like to deal with whatever they have going on.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
So yeah, it's a thing, you know, we we you know,
everybody talks about, you know, recovery. And it's funny because
it's almost become like one of those you know, us
and they things when it's like a we thing, it
really should be one of those. And in recovery, there
there is divisions. There's divisions between the aas the NAS. Yeah,
(45:42):
you know, you go to AA. You know, I'm an alcoholic,
you know, but there's a lot of people in AA
that were, you know, heroin users and you know.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Here, yeah, literally everyone.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Everyone they don't want to go to NA because they
don't like sometimes the stigma behind that or what they
found there. And you know, we look at that, and
you know, we look at the visions, and we look
at the fact that even like in the recovery world.
You know, I look at treatment centers nowadays, and I
look at some of them as being you know, they're businesses,
of course, their businesses, yeah, you know, but I look
at the people then that do harm reduction on the streets,
(46:12):
like myself and stuff, And there's a division there between
the recovery and that, and yeah, you know, it doesn't change,
you know, no matter where you are though, it doesn't change.
How do you balance that because you do both. You
do harm reduction because you help out with that. Sure,
you do the treatment because you have sober living and
you yourself are sober, and you yourself have strong opinions
(46:32):
against the harm reduction that's done on the streets.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
I do. I have strong opinions about about some of
the harm reduction that's done. But like and everyone in
any any of my friends, anyone who knows me in
any twelve step program, knows that. Like, I have never
advocated for anything but the legalization of all substances period
(46:57):
because you know, and then I'm not going to get
crazy political and get the war on drugs and the
prison industrial complex and all that. But like i have
very strong opinions about that. And yeah, I've never been
anything other than a harm reductionist and I've never like
hidden that from anyone in any room aa na wherever.
So like anyone who knows me knows that. But you know,
(47:21):
you have you have some harm reduction organizations in the
streets that are you know, whatever they've been, they've been
accused of like many things. But like also they're like
bashing all these like other people and you know, people
who have different opinions, and they're bashing twelve step programs
(47:42):
and they're you know what I mean, and kind of
trying to position themselves as like like up here, like
there's somebody or whatever, and like meanwhile, they're taking money
from the people who make the laws that are causing
this shit. So what are we talking about? You know,
so like yeah, like I have I have opinions, you
(48:04):
know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Well, because it's organizations like that organization that you're referring
to or talking about or in general or whatever that
give other organizations a bad name or give the the
whole harm reduction you know genre, you know, a bad
name because that's what they associate it with. Yeah, you know,
and are you doing more harm than you are doing
(48:25):
good with harm reduction?
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (48:28):
And you know, so you gotta find that balance and
you have to have a stance and you got to
know that stance like you do, and you want to
be able to build the bridges and not the walls.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
That's yeah, Like that's my thing too, is like I
I think that we should be building bridges. Like, you know,
let's just say someone in harm reduction is just like
railing against twelve step programs and like or AA specifically
and like the the idea of like the threefold disease. Right,
(48:58):
It's like okay, like that's cool, but like there are
lots of people in AA or NA or whatever who
can understand the concept of addiction happening on a spectrum, right, Like,
but instead these people who consider themselves like the greatest
harm reductionist ever, or just putting all these people in
(49:20):
a basket and saying they're stupid. Right, they're stupid, they're ignorant,
they need to learn, they can't get it, they're causing
harm blah blah blah blah blah whatever. And it's like, no, dude,
like people people in AA can understand that. And just
because they you know, pray to a god at night
or whatever it is that some people do, doesn't You're
(49:44):
not better than them. You're not you know what I mean.
And here's the thing is, like these twelve step programs
are not going anywhere, So like being being mad at
it is not like it's not helping. You're just you
know what I mean, You're just causing You're just causing division,
right when you could be creating an environment in twelve
step programs that helps more people than it already does.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Use your voice and platform for good, yeah, don't don't
use it for yourself.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Don't use it as a photo op. Don't use it
as a you know, a likes and clickspait sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Yeah, and that too, and also the like the weird
like positioning right, you're not a teacher, you're not an authority,
you're literally nobody.
Speaker 5 (50:27):
We're either here to help people or not. Like end
of story, and we're in it together. Yeah, we could
have our different opinions, and we do. You know, we
look at things differently in that aspect too. And you know,
years ago, you know, it was called an A or
AA or c A or essay, and that A was
always anonymous.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
Yes, because it was We were always told to be
ashamed of it or we were told to hide the
stigma because people wouldn't accept it. It would harm us
in the workforce, it would harm us in the real world.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
People look differently. That's not so much anymore.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
People are recovering out loud like us like we don't
have a problem all about it, you know, And it's
there and it's going to be there. We need those voices,
but we got to be raising them in the right way.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
You know, you talked about the War on drugs and
briefly you said, you know, it's about the legalization of
all drugs. Do you think if that were ever to occur,
that there was the War on drugs, would finally legalize
all drugs.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Or would be monitoring of all of them. Do you
think that would affect your sobriety?
Speaker 2 (51:25):
No, Because I can buy anything I want right now.
I could go order real Heroin on the internet right
now and have it delivered to my door. So why
why would that affect my sobriety? You know what I mean?
Like I lived, you know, I live, you know, right
around the corner, like and then.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
So here here we are talking about a disease that
is classified as a disease that if you work it,
it does become a choice of doing it or not doing.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
It at some point at some point.
Speaker 3 (51:58):
But do you believe it's a disease or a choice
in the end?
Speaker 2 (52:01):
You know what? Man Like, that's a good question. But
that that goes back to, you know, addiction being something
that happens on a spectrum, right, So for for some
people it's probably not. Some people have probably used so
much that that's it, Like their brain has been rewired,
and it probably maybe it just will it won't, you
(52:23):
know what I mean. There's no amount of work that
can change that. Maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Do you have to work your recovery every day? Chris?
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Yeah, I mean I have to. Yeah, of course, I
have to, like there has to be I think you
have to maintain a level of self awareness and the
work like whatever the work is for for you or
for me, Like, the work is what helps you do that, right, right,
because when I start losing like whatever, that level of
(52:51):
self awareness, like then I start like, you know, kind
of going back to my old ways and just kind
of being like a person that I don't want to be,
you know what I mean, And then you know whatever,
one day a fuck it turns it to another day
of you know, et cetera, et cetera. Well, yeah, it
has to be every day.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
There there are so many people. I mean you, like
you said you live on Algany right now, you're right
there in the heart of Yeah, you see it. We
drive through it on a daily basis. You know, we
are two living examples that recovery is possible, especially for
sometimes two degenerates like like us. Sorry, I'm gonna classify
you in that area.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
No, that's that's fine. You know, I don't care.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
You were friends long enough for me to say that.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yeah, like that's fine.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
I mean, you know, we're not that person anymore, and
it is possible, so to that person that's out there,
to that person that is on that street corner, to
that person that we drive by and we see them
crying or they look at us and we know that pain.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
What can what words you have for them?
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Like you could turn anything around, you know, Like that's
really it, Like you don't know that when you're in
that spot. There's no way to know that. And it
sounds crazy if somebody says it to you, but it's
literally true, you know what I mean, Like you can
turn anything around, and like that's the main thing that
(54:17):
you have to know, Like whatever it is that you're
like afraid of, right, Like all these things that you
have to deal with in real life. Like for me,
if I'm in my addiction on the street, homeless or whatever,
I probably got warrants in however many different counties. I
don't want to withdraw, you know what I mean. Today,
(54:40):
I gotta steal this, this and that. I gotta rob
that person whatever it is. You know, family members don't
want to talk to you whatever. Right, So you have
like all these things going on in your head and
you just want to like you just want to get
high to not deal with it, right, You just want
to be like obliterated, but like, just just believe for
(55:05):
one second that you can literally turn all that around.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
Through all what you were just saying there, you were
actually were just describing your entire journey. Everything you just
described like you could do this, you could do that,
from robbing, from boostings, from this to this to this.
You just described your whole life pretty much is what
you did.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
You broke it down.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
So basically what you're doing is you're telling people that
this is who I was, this is what I went through,
this is who I am now and where I'm at.
So you're giving them hope. Yeah, And it's essentially what
we do in recovery is we get people hope.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
That's that's literally it just the if you know, if
you want what we got, do what we do, or
if whatever whatever other sayings don't there you were.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
You were living on the streets and abandon miniums.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
You're shooting up, you were doing this, you're doing that,
you were boosting, you were doing what you had to
do to survive. And you have eight homes right now,
recovery homes that you're helping. You're not just owning a
recovery home because it's not an own ownership. You are
helping people with their lives and recovery. You're giving them
a chance something that most people didn't give to us.
Speaker 2 (56:16):
That's that's that's what we do. Yeah, we give people chance,
and like that's why you know our program in particular,
like we do, like I said over in Germantown, like
we do take people from a treatment center sometimes, but
like we will also take at you know, anyone who
you know, anyone who we think we can help, whether
(56:38):
they have ID or money or insurance or whatever, Like
none of that shit matters, right because that's literally what
was done for me. Like I just walked into a
place and they were like, all right, we'll give you
a shot.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
Because if you don't get that person a shot, how
are they gonna get their ID, how they gonna get
their money? How they can't So you've got to give
them that. So you give them that hope, you give
them that chance. You do what people didn't do for you.
But then there was somebody who did.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
Yeah I want somebody. Yeah who then, by the way,
for anyone who's interested, that's that's low barrier housing. That's
the actual definition. I don't know what all these other
programs are talking about they don't offer low barrier housing.
We do the last stop did back in the day.
Speaker 1 (57:24):
And explain low barrier because that's something that some people
don't get.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Or yeah, so it just means there's nothing in your
way to getting in right there. There are some, you know,
shelters where it's like, well, you need an ID and
you need a referral from social services, and you need
da da da da da. You need a letter, Yeah,
you need a letter, or you need this you know whatever.
And then with rehabs, it's like you need this insurance
or you have to be referred from this place or whatever,
(57:50):
and we're just like, yeah, whatever, man, just call us
up and you know, we'll see what you got going on.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
And I can attest to that because I have done
it many times. I have seen on the boards out
there's somebody who is in need of housing, and I
reach out to Chris and I say Chris, and he says,
send them my way, and I do, and they get it.
And I've met some of them too. In the end,
I met some of them that needed it, and it's
a really rewarding thing to know in the end. And
(58:17):
I think that's another thing that keeps people like yourself
on that straight and narrow in that path, because now
you're not just really looking out for yourself. You have
eight houses full of people that you're looking out after,
and they're looking for you for that guidance.
Speaker 3 (58:31):
Sure, so you are a role model to all those people.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
I mean I try, you know, like, I don't know
what the standard is. I don't know what you know
what I mean, but like I just do what do
what I was taught and what you know.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
I don't think there's a standard, man, I think this.
I think there is no standard. I think it's really
just you know, what you do that others can pick
and you know, pick pieces from and say, you know what,
I want to be like that. I want to do that,
I want to remember this and and and there is
no standard. It's really just what you exude. It's what
you put out. Yeah, you know, and that's really important.
So you know, you do all this stuff, you work,
(59:08):
you're kind these towers are you used to you? You
do that full time? You run their homes. What do
you do for yourself?
Speaker 2 (59:14):
What do I do for myself?
Speaker 3 (59:15):
It's a self care thing.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
That's a good question.
Speaker 3 (59:19):
Well, smoking cigars at the Turkish Bath or.
Speaker 2 (59:22):
Yeah, we do so we uh, I mean well once
in a while, Yeah, like me and some guys will
you know, we'll go do that.
Speaker 3 (59:27):
We'll have a cigar, we'll it's a fellowship.
Speaker 2 (59:29):
We'll go to. Yeah, for sure, you know. And like recently,
I'm just getting back into uh making music, you know,
and like the past I don't know, six eight months
or whatever, like I just got into like, you know,
videography and photography. So like I'm you know, kind of
playing with that and like trying to like use it
for the business a little bit. So yeah, you know,
(59:50):
I do some stuff nice.
Speaker 3 (59:52):
It's always important to have those outlets.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
Yeah, and yes, he's done a video for Philly Unknown
for us when we have to Dope Con one of
the events that we attend every year that we went
to two years of in a row now, which has
been a killer. You are out there doing what you
got to do. You have so much going on. If
people need a place reach out to Chris Willis at
Restore and Recover. You can find that on Instagram. Are
(01:00:15):
you on Facebook?
Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
Instagram? Facebook? X? Oh you're onx literally whatever? Or restore
recover dot com and go Yeah, and you know, you
can just fill out the little form and yeah, whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
You get to the help.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
YEP.
Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
It's important to know, Chris, it's really important that you
know that I appreciate you sharing your story. I appreciate
all you've done for me. You've been very helpful to
me over the years. You know, it works both ways.
It's the only way we can get this thing done,
you know, the only way we can survive. Without that,
we might be back there on those streets, you know,
and we need that in our world. So but you know,
I want people to know that there is hope. You know,
(01:00:52):
there is chances, you know, people like Chris, like myself
that have been to the bottoms that people call or
the this bottoms or the pits that we keep falling down,
to pour ourselves out and to be where we're at.
You know, that's amazing. So you know, check them out.
Check Chris Willis out on social media, restore and recover.
Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Thanks for joining me today, man, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Remember everybody, whatever it is you stand for, be a voice.
This is Brick Carpent or Nusuli Media. I have a
great rest of your dad
Welcome to be a voice. I'm Brick Carpenter and this
is Soucili Media. Thanks for joining me today today's show.
We're continuing on with our theme this year of switching gears,
talking to people who have switched gears in their lives,
and I'll continually do so in order to better themselves
and better their worlds. And today I'm sitting here with
a good friend of mine and somebody who's a person
in long term recovery as well, and the founder and
(00:44):
the president of Restore and Recovery Recover.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Right and Recover.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I screwed that up on there, Chris there. I'm sitting
here with Chris Will Hey.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Chris, Hey, Britt, what's up? How are you good?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And the funny thing is all the way over here.
I'm like, restore and recover so simple, And why the
hell I went? Restore and recovery just blew that right
off the bat. Yeah, you know, so since we're talking
about it, you know what is restore and recover?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
All right? So Restore Recovery is basically we manage sober
living homes and recovery houses in Philadelphia. You know, we
have a few. We have like a men's recovery house
program in Germantown, we got three houses over there, and
then we have like a whole other sober living program
uh in like Harrowgate, Kensington area, we have five houses
(01:32):
over there, and that's that's it. That's what we do,
you know, and you know, obviously we we try to
work with other organizations in the community and kind of
like you know, interact with all the other things that
are going on, because Kensington is is it's Kensington, right, so.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
There's yeah, you know, so right now you have eight homes, yes,
eight homes, and do you do you classify all those
homes as sober living or do you class women's recovery
homes or no?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So, yeah, so that's that's the difference.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So the difference with a you know, sober living is
it's it's for someone who might be a little farther
along in their recovery. So you know, like our recovery
house program is, uh, you know, we have like a
living manager there and you know all that type of stuff.
And the sober living homes are obviously like a different
a different thing.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So you have transitional homes, you have medical b m
at homes, homes where except we do.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
We we accept m AT, Yes, you do.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Some n AT, which would be the medical assistant with
for people who are coming out of treatment or off
of opia, useless order or mod.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Are those homes integrated with people who are sober or
are they all one home?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So they are they're integrated because over in Germantown we
have it kind of set up where we have like
three houses and we can kind of like shuffle people
around as we need to. And in the over living homes,
it's kind of expected that if you know, if you
have a year or more of recovery, that you can
(03:06):
you know, you can kind of make your own decisions, right,
So you know, if you tell us that's something you
can't deal with it, maybe we can place you somewhere
where we don't have anyone on m AT at that house.
But you know, if we can't, then we'll refer you
to somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
And I always find that very interesting because you think
about m AT, you think about somebody who's on that,
It's not like they're utilizing any type of paraphernalia. It's
not like they're utilizing anything that's going to jeopardize somebody.
The only thing is is the stigma that comes along
with things such as the boxing. Yes, you know, because
the boxing on the black market is is basically like
you know, using heroin.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and there's you know, obviously like there's
this stigma attached to it. And you know, some people
in like twelve step recovery or other things like may
feel a certain way about it, but we're not. So
we're not like a program that like pushes m at right.
If someone comes to us and they need help and
(04:03):
we have a space for them, and we think that
they fit in our program, we'll take them. But we don't.
We have plenty of abstinente people we started out with
all apps.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
So with eight homes, are they do they do you
even come directly out of treatment or have they been
in a sort of a little bit longer in recovery home.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
So in the sober living homes, typically no, they don't
come directly out of treatment unless you know, sometimes we'll
get like a special call for you know, someone who's
been in like long term treatment or you know, been
to some kind of halfway house or something like that.
But usually if someone is coming straight out of a
(04:41):
thirty day treatment center. Uh that that would only be
accepted at our recovery houses in Germantown.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So, you know, let's take it a little bit back,
pel layers back a little bit more. We could talk
about restoring recover, We could talk about the eight homes,
we could talk about that, but you know, the road
to getting there, for you to get there, yeah, you know,
it is always the road that I like to see
what happens or how it unfolded, or the road that
you went down, because you consider yourself a person in
(05:09):
long term recovery.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Sure, how many years do you have?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Nine and some chid ten in June.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Ten in June. Yeah, this coming June is ten years yes, sober?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Sober?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
No.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, And just to like clarify, like I don't care
what anyone else does, like I I just so happened
to be abstinate from all substances four ten years in June.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
That's amazing, that's a very I mean, that's admirable. I mean,
you know, people have a hard time getting through dry January.
I Yeah, they complain about that, like, oh my gosh,
I need a drink, you know what, Oh my gosh,
hand me the needle.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You know what that Yeah, yeah, that's one of those things.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
It's like, come on people, yeah, you know, if you
can't get to you know, and that's thirty days, thirty
one days. Ye when you think about it, and you know,
treatment anymore isn't just isn't thirty days. It went to
twenty eight, It is twenty one now. It's like that microwave.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Read, which is to me, is insane. I totally I
don't like it. I don't agree with it. You know,
like I needed to be in a place like like
before I entered the real world, Like I needed to
be in like a safer place for a longer period
of time that like, you know, it's just me. You know,
some people come out and do great.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
But I had a smile when you said the real world,
because when you are in active addiction, you.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Know, there really isn't a real world.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
There's a lot of blurred lines, and there's a lot
of like reality that doesn't really happen to anybody else,
only to you. So it's really funny because I don't
think people really get that. They're like, oh, the real world. Well,
because to us, we be prior to going into recovery,
we never were able to function in the real world.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
That's why we were people with substance use disorders. Yeah,
so exactly, you how many years were you in an
active addiction.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
So from the point that I ever, that I first
used any substance ever until the point that I stopped
was fifteen years. But from the point that I was
really addicted to something like opiates through the point that
I stopped was like ten years.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And that that's funny because you know, we look at
it and I talk about it too that you know,
people know the fact that, like I did, heroin and
opioid addition was a huge part of my life. Sure,
but they forget that, like it started with the drinking
and smoking the dope and right blowing the lines and
all the little things that led up to that. Right,
but everybody thinks about that lasting sort it did so
(07:46):
and I wasn't really.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Discriminatory on what I used, meaning.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
You know, if it was put in front of me,
I'd be like, okay, cool, except for math. I really
couldn't stand math.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, I uh, I tried it. Yeah, I tried it
a couple of times.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
But we could be discriminatory there, huh. You know, yeah,
scriminatory drug addicts.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, I think it depends on your brain, you know
what I mean, Like some people just get really into
uppers and you know, and that wasn't me, Like I
got really into opiates. That was just how my brain
was wired.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
So and it was it was wired a certain way
because you used opiates for a purpose exactly, you know,
and people forget that too, so you know, and yours
wasn't just like you used opiate.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
It's like you were you were a hardcore.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Man, I get. I mean, I got I got hardcore. Yeah,
eventually you.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Got to a point of hardcore.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
When I say hardcore, yeah, I'm not talking like you know,
you were going to work and coming home at five
point thirty and sitting in your.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
House all night.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You were like you know, people talk about Kensington, people
talk about streets of Kensington, how bad it is, and
it's bad. I mean, I'm out there, you know, on
a daily doing the outreach and distro and stuff like that.
But it's a little bit more tame than the streets
of where you were running for quite some time.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I would say, now currently probably yeah, I don't know,
maybe maybe ever Yeah, no, maybe you're just right.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
On that where and you were running the streets of Camden, Camden. Yeah,
and people don't really know about Camden.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah. And the thing is about Camden is like they
cleaned it up a lot. But back in this time,
it was the wild West. It was insane, and you
ran the streets, you and yeah, no, I was just
out there. I was just out there.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
You were unsheltered.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah. Well, I bounced back and forth, you know, I
might be living in an abandoned house and then maybe
in this shelter or that shelter, or then back to
jail for a little bit, and then okay, I went
up to North Jersey to rehab for thirty days and
then I came back and then you know, so I
bounced around a lot. But yeah, no, I was. I
was unsheltered out there. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
How long was that.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
A couple of years.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
It's a huge part of your story, man, Yeah, it's
a huge part of your story that some people probably
don't even know.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
They you look at you and they they say, oh,
my gosh, look at him.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
He's doing well.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
He has a recovery homes, he has a great job,
he's you know, he's put together.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeah, huge party.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I mean yeah, like outside of like recovery settings, how
often do you get to ask anyone what their story is?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
You know?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, and there's power in your story, sure, you know.
I mean anybody who's been unsheltered, you know, there's power
there because that's a special person to be able to
bounce back from something like that, especially one who's been
out there an active addiction all those years. Yeah, and
like you said, it was like the while west it
Kendon is not a pretty place to begin with. Yeah, no,
not at all, let alone to be unsheltered and being
(10:38):
unsheltered back in you know, twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, yep,
So you know, and you know, for myself, when I
was at my lowest, which you know was for many
years and many different times, you know, everybody was asked
about a bottom, and I'm like, I don't think there
is a bottom. I think it's sort of just when
you're ready. You know, everybody's bottom is different. There's no
(10:59):
one off moment for me. Yeah, with several aha moments, but.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Like what led And this is always in my head.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Intriguing because when I was in my height of my
active opiate used addiction, ask, oh my gosh, I'm like,
how am I going to afford my thirteen hundred dollars
a month rent. I'm gonna have to live in like
a five hundred dollar a month house somewhere and move
my you know. And that's where my brain was thinking,
you know, like I was going to downside down great
and everything. Well that's what I did, And that's what
(11:27):
you did. You downgrade into the streets. How does that happen?
Did you ever put your finger on that and say
this is out?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah? I mean it kind of, you know. So, Like
the more the more you get, like deeper into addiction,
the more things you like cut off from your life,
the more people you cut off from your life, the
more people don't want you around, you know what I mean.
And if you go deep enough, eventually you know what
you're like, you know what, it would be easier just
to live right next to the set. And it would
(11:54):
also be easier to just not live, you know what
I mean. Like all these people who want me to
stop doing what I'm doing, well they don't have to
be bothered anymore because I just won't be around, you
know what I mean. So it's just easier to just
go do your own thing.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
And that's crazy to have that mind frame and think
to yourself, it's easier to be away from the people
who care about you.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, well because they it's like they have expectations, right
as they should. If you have family members or friends
or coworkers or whatever, right like, you have some sort
of responsibility to the people in your life, and it's
just easier to not have any responsibility, to don't be
accountable to anyone, because why would why would you? Like,
(12:34):
I want to do what I want to do as.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
A person with an active addiction, they smother you. It's like,
the hell away from me, leave me alone.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
I'm fine. I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, it's all.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I know what I'm doing. I'm gonna go live on
the streets of Camden.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah exactly, Yeah, no, I know, Yeah, i know what
I'm doing. Yeah, Like I'm good, you know. And then
you know, you get out there and it's it's nutty.
And then the crazy thing about it is like your
brain is so warped. The wiring in your brain is
not working correctly. So like the more you survive, the
(13:05):
better you think you are. Right, You're just like, yeah, no,
it's nutty out here. This guy's dropping dead, people are
getting shot. This is happening, that's happening. I've been to jail,
this that, and you're just like, yeah, but like I'm
doing like I'm doing. I'm going through all this stuff
and I'm doing the thing that i want to do,
so that means I'm good.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
At it and I'm I'm still standing and that's good.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, and I'm still yeah, like.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
And and let's let's face it, man, when when people
talk about people in diction, I say, you know what,
you can't bullshit a bullshitter. Yeah, you know, we're the
we're the best use that's what we really do. We
bullshit people, right, you know. And you know we we
sort of smell our own so we know how we
can react to other people, and we know how we
get over on people. So that is a that's a
(13:49):
different mind, frat. And I'm going to tell you people
think that people that have substance use disorder are dumb,
I will tell you they're probably one of those They're
probably the most intelligent people out there percent because of
the way they can survive, yep, because it's an instinct
that's survival. Yes, being on the streets for any amount
of times.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
It's survival.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
It's yeah, it's definitely survival.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
And it's an instinct. It's an instinct that people have
and you have to have that instinct. So, you know,
if you could take it all the way back and
peel that back to your very first time that you
were on the street the first night, do you remember that.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I I don't know if I remember the first night.
I can remember the first week that I went out
there permanently and I ended up I don't know. I
ran into some girl and she happened to have like
(14:43):
an abandoned house that was behind this like old abandoned
car wash or whatever, and you know, she was just like, yeah,
like you can come stay with me or whatever, and
like I just hang out of my abandoned minium. Yeah,
just you know whatever. And then you know, she'll go
do what she does, and you know what I mean,
bring back some dope. And I'll go do whatever I
do and bring back some dope. And you know, I
(15:03):
just slept on the floor in that abandoned house and
you know that probably lasted for a little bit, and
then uh, you know, I ran into some other person
on the street and they had something better going on,
and then I went to their abandoned house or you
know whatever, whatever happens.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You know, isn't it weird that when you're on the street,
it's like that, like you can bounce around and then
you have these friends, yeah, that you know you can
hang with and be with. But then like you know,
you don't you lose concept in sight.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Of everything else. Yeah, and you don't really know.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Things become askew once you can those lines become blurred
and ever. So you know, it's a crazy thing. H
Do you ever see any of these people that I
bounced around went from.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Uh today, No, but I have so Once I came
to Kensington to get sober, A lot of those people,
I'm not gonna say a lot, but you know, a
handful of those people ended up coming to the same
place like I got sober rat and you know most
of them didn't stay sober or didn't you know, you know,
(16:07):
but like, yeah, I ran into people for sure, so.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Over and Canon like you were buying over there, you
were they have they have?
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Is it open air? Like it isn't Kensington or is it?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
And you can get anything over there you wanted to,
just like you could hear and you get rock, you
get hard, soft.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
All that anything anything.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
So and you you were in the height of an
opiate addiction, then yep, were you doing it injectable or
were you doing sniffing.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Inject injectible pactable I mean by the end, yeah, injectible,
And then it was you know, then it was just
a mix of things, right cause it's like, all right,
like this is rough, like getting all this money doing
this and that, so all right, I'm gonna get on
the methadone clinic. But like now it's like you go
to the methadone clinic and then like you take some
(16:50):
xanax from you know, you buy some xanax from somebody there, right,
So now you're doing that and that, and then you
got some money left over, so you go get some
crack and smoke that, and you know, it's just kind
of like whatever happens, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
It's a domino effect. Yeah, it really is. I know
that very well. You know, you do whatever you can
to to stay here, and then you do whatever you
can go back to your here and then get back
up here.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
That's it. Yeah, But I mean I would say there,
you know, if there was no point where I wasn't
on obit though.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, And it's funny you said something that might strike
people funny if if they caught it, because I didn't.
And I sort of snickered because I know what you meant,
but some people not you. You made the comment that
you went from Camden to Kensington to get sober.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
That's clean.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Usually when it was funny.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
That you said it, because normal personal isity was like,
what the hell is that you went to Kensington to
get clean?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
That doesn't make sense? Yeah to almost nobody on earth.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Yeah that make What does that mean? How does that happen?
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Okay, So I'm in Camden. You know, I'm doing whatever
I'm doing out there, and at some point I was
staying in a shelter and I had tried to like
I went to rehab, came back. I'm staying in a
shelter and you know, I meet this kid there who
(18:13):
you know, asked me if I wanted to go to
a meeting, and I said yes because I was like,
like I was doing my like okay, like I'm on
the methodon in clinic right now, I'm gonna try not
to take xanax or smoke crack. You know what I mean.
So I'm just gonna like, you know, so I had
nothing going on, right because I'm not running around the
store is stealing, I'm not working on the set, I'm
(18:34):
not doing anything. So I'm like, yeah, all right, let's
go to a meeting. I don't have anything else going on.
So we go down to this place on Fifth Street
and it's like this little like recovery clubhouse place called
the Last Stop. And yeah, like he just took me
there randomly, and I liked the vibe of it, you know,
(18:55):
there were some cool people there or whatever, and I
just kind of started going there. So like every day
on my way to the clinic, I would stop in
there because they had like an early morning meeting, like
a small early morning meeting, and they had coffee, so
I would just like stop in there whatever. And then
later on down the road, the guy who owned the place,
(19:20):
this guy Eddie Z, who just I you can look
him up. I'm not going to even get into like
the Eddie Z lore and all that, but yeah, like
you know Kensington legend, yah, yeah, and he's back back
in Kensington. So this guy, you know, he would see
(19:42):
me coming around, so he would always try to like
his thing is like he just likes to recruit people
into whatever he has going on. Right, So he was like, listen,
you need to come over to Kensington and like see
the place and see the people, and and I think
he really just like wanted me to come stay there.
But I'm like, you know, I got it sweet in
the shelter that I'm in at the time. Right, It's
(20:03):
just like one of those moments where like my life
isn't complete shit. So I'm just like, no, I'm good,
you know. But so he brought me over to Kensington.
As soon as I get into the building versus clubhouse
in Kensington, there's way more people there. This was like
a way bigger place, like a bigger clubhouse. And then
there were like also like five recovery houses on that
(20:25):
block or whatever that he had like women's men's workhouse
all this other stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
So well, he was living at Graffiti Pier. He's living
down at the pier, but he has all these houses.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Well, so that was later at the time, he was
just staying in like a little like makeshift room behind
the houses right on Lee Street. So yeah, just you
know what I mean, Like typically yeah, right, So yeah,
so as soon as I walk into this place, I
see this guy that I used to run the streets
(20:55):
with and the last time I saw him, we were
like stealing and panhandling and went and like you know,
shooting dope behind a dumpster in Center City somewhere and
just like all this crazy stuff. And then I saw
him and he's like, yeah, like I've been here for
five months, like I'm sober, I'm actually moving out tomorrow.
(21:18):
I got my own apartment and all this. And I
was like, oh, that's that's interesting because we were just, uh,
we're just on the street. Like that's crazy, you know.
So like I was one of those moments. I was like, Okay,
that's something to think about, you know. Yeah, And that
was like that was like the beginning of that. Obviously,
(21:38):
I went back out ran for a while, did whatever
I did. But like eventually, you know, I came back
to the Cammon Clubhouse and then was brought over to Kensington.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
So that's awesome though. Yeah, I mean think about that,
like what an inspiration that is.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Like see somebody that you're on the streets with just
recently and all of a sudden, now they're getting their
own place.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, and I was just like, how does that? I
don't how do you do that? How does that happen?
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And and the last stop, let's say Eddie does Eddie
he does amazing things for the community, amazing things for
the recovered community.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
He is unconventional, very you know, unconventional.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I'm going to say it. Nobody else has ever said
this to me. I say it all the time. He's
almost like a cult like following, but not a cult.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I mean I would, I would, I wouldn't disagree, I wouldn't,
you know, you.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Know what I mean by that? Though, he's not a
cult leader, but it's like a following like that. But
it's not. It's a movement.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
It's a movement of people who needed somebody to just
say I believe in you, but yet I'm not going
to I'm not going to cater to you. Yeah, you're
gonna have to do this on your own. So Eddie
has done things like you come here, you know how
it's gonna work. You're gonna sleep on this floor. Yeah,
and that's how you're going to get yourself clean.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
It's sober.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, no, yad percent And I slept on the floor pillow.
Uh maybe not the first night. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Maybe you slept on the floor. You were one of
the people who slept on the floor. Yes, the last
stop was it a redund floor? Was it the dirt floor?
Gravelly floor?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It was not a dirt floor. So this was in
the clubhouse, in the clubhouse, yeah, so this was This
was in the clubhouse, I believe back in the day
the men's house was at the basement of the men's
house was unfinished, yes, and it yeah, and they just
built beds there, yep, because we you know, we want
people to have somewhere to go. So that's whatever. But
(23:31):
I mean by the time I got there, the basement
was finished though, and I slept in there too.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
So how long did you sleep on the floor in
the last stop?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
A few weeks before I got moved down to the
men's house.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
So was that your treatment facility?
Speaker 2 (23:44):
That? Yeah? That was it.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So you didn't go to like one of these Kirkbrides
or Eaglevill's or all these keystones.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
And no, and like and it's not even like it
wasn't even like a choice thing. So one time, when
I was like twenty, I went to a detox and
then I never went to another treatment center again until
I was like twenty seven. I went up to North
Jersey for like thirty days. That's so I can't even
(24:12):
remember the place. But and that was it. That's all
the treatment centers that I ever did. All that time
in between, I just got high and like that was it,
and whatever happened happened. And so yeah, so when I
went to the last stop, like that was it. That
was my treatment center.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Yeah, it's admirable. That's that's not an easy thing to do.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Sometimes it's not. But I was just in a spot
where I was so to so I remember I, Uh,
I had just gotten out of jail and I went
back to the streets.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Anything in particular the usual boosting probation violations one of
the amazing.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I couldn't need some dumb shit like that.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, for sure, bad Chris, Well, let's you were a badass.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, I'm horrible. Yeah, but uh, I got out. I
got out of jail around the streets where I couple
of weeks and it was just like the worst little
run or period of time that I ever had, and
I was really tired, and I didn't have like my
ID and my Social Security card anymore, and I couldn't
remember if the state health insurance was like still activated
(25:16):
or not. And like I just like literally just gave up.
It was like I'm just going to walk down in
this place to see what happens. And that was that.
That was it, and that was it. Yeah, Like if
I had known, like if I had had my ID
or I knew what was up with my health insurance
or whatever, like I might have done something different. But yeah,
it's just not what happened.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
So it's amazing how like all these people go to
treatment over and over and over again.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yeah, and the system fails them, I feel, or and
you know, and it doesn't work for them.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
But yet there's all these people that you know and
that I know that have gone through this program called
the Last Stop where they have succeeded. They continue to
and they become this this a little army of friends
that yeah, you're not.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
All hanging out together, but there's that connection.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, No, there's a connection there for sure.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Almost like you should have a secret handshake for the
Last Stop. Yeah, you know, yeah, it's one of those.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And it's it's pretty cool because he helped so many
people stay alive, for sure, and that was ten years
ago almost for you.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And that was yeah, it was ten years ago almost
that I walked in.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
So in those two, first of all, what made you
once you got into recovery, what made you want to
start recovery home? Because number one, they were paining the ass.
Speaker 4 (26:34):
They yeah they I know that because I got I
got headaches. Yeah yeah, yeah, I So it was kind
of it was so like I kind of wanted to, like,
all right, so I get into the last stop, right,
and I got nothing going on, Like I got no
(26:54):
you know, I got no skills, I got no like
I have nothing, right, And so I start working for
Eddie Z because he's always got something going on, like
he at the time anyway, he was always like you know,
buying a buying a house in Camden and like you
know what I mean, just rebuilding the whole house or
(27:16):
like whatever, and he always had these little projects going on.
So like one day, some dude I guess who was
working for him, like comes around the corner to the
men's house and is like, hey, who has a license?
And I was like I got one and I did not,
so it was for sure suspended, but I was like
I got one in my mind, I'm just thinking, like,
(27:36):
hey man, I'm gonna get out of here for a
couple of minutes.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
We're gonna go to the store or something. And he
was like, okay, yeah, you know what I mean, Like
I can't sit still, you know what I mean, I
only got a couple of weeks over or whatever. So
he's like, all right, you come with me, you're working
with us. I'm like okay, cool, you know. And then
like through that, like I ended up becoming the guy
who would like drive all these guys to whatever job
(28:02):
he had going on building this new house in Camden
or whatever. And you know, some of these guys were
super talented carpenters, plumbers, whatever, and I learned all this
stuff from them. And then I also saw what like
Eddie was doing with the buildings and the houses, and
like then I knew. I was like okay, like I
for sure want to be in construction probably and like
(28:25):
real estate, like real estate somehow is the thing. And
then like if I can use some of that to
like help people also this way, then like that would
be cool. But like we'll just start, you know, we'll
start with like kind of learning these skills and see
where it goes so then I don't know. Three years later,
just randomly, a couple friends of mine were just like, hey,
(28:48):
we're opening a recovery house and I was like, okay,
I'll manage it for you. And then that was it.
That was outstarting. It's it's weird because it's like I
like I felt that from the beginning, you know what
I mean, And like sometimes I would make these moves,
like when they said they were opening the recovery house
and I was like, I'll manage it for you, like
(29:10):
I'll move in there or whatever. Like people who were
in recovery were like questioning me and like laughing at
me because they're like, oh no, like you got this,
you got this career. I just started in the like
cell tower industry at the time, Like oh like you
got this career, you got you know, your own apartment,
da da da dhah, Like why you want to move
(29:30):
into this house and all that, and like in my mind,
I'm just like I got a plan, Like I know
exactly what I'm doing. I know exactly where I'm going
to be in five years. Like don't tell me, like
you can't. I can do whatever I want, Like right,
you can't so just stick to you, you know what
I mean? And yeah, and I didn't.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
So now you're ten years in recovery, you have eight homes.
You're actually living in one of the homes, one of
your first homes.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Uh, it's like, my what it's like the fourth one
I think that I got.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It's in your set of them. Yeah, it's and you
do sell? What do you? What do you do there?
Tell me, like, do you climb these towers? Man?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I used to? Yeah? If you you know, you can
go to my Facebook or my Instagram. You can see
pictures of me.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Which is how can they find you on Facebook or Instagram?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Oh? Good question. Yes, you have a storm recover for
Intra Restor Recover. Yeah, look up Restor and Recover. Look
up Christopher willis their public You'll see me.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
But you you climbed cell towers.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So I did. So I'm still in the cell tower industry,
but I'm a construction manager now. But yeah, I started
out climbing towers. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I just got anxiety think about that, Like I was like,
oh my gosh, Like let me hold on. Because number one,
I have a fear of heights. Yeah, I terrify the heights,
like the thought of it. Like I see commercials or
I see these reels of people doing these things, and
like I had to turn them off because I get
anxiety too quickly. So, and you're talking about the towers,
the big cell towers with the flashing lights and all
(31:00):
that crap.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
You climb those suckers.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I climbed them. Yeah, from the ground up.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
There's not an elevator or anything like that. There's a ladder, No,
there's not anything. Back in the day.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Every once in a while, maybe once every ten or
twenty sites, we might have a crane on site and
be able to take a like a man basket up there.
But but no, yeah, you're pretty much on the tower.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Just climb those things, man.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
So for cell service, they could be anything from like
fifty feet to four hundred feet.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
What's the highest you ever climbed?
Speaker 2 (31:36):
You know, probably about three fifty Is that?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Like the top of it does sway?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah, they sway?
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah? Right, Yeah, you're you're you're hooked in, right, you're
latched in like your heart, Yeah you're yeah, you're yeah,
you're Like do you feel safe.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
You're tied off? I mean so yeah, I not the answer.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I don't feel safe.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
It took time. It took time when everyone's like like
I'm afraid of heights, Like, yeah, dude. The first time
I climbed, I was like, this is crazy. I don't
know if I'm gonna keep doing this, you know what
I mean? But I did and I got I eventually
got to a point where I was comfortable with it.
But yeah, the first time that I was on a
tower by myself and like the wind was blowing like
(32:19):
it is today. Yeah, Like the wind started blowing and
I just laid down on the platform. I was like,
this is crazy, what is happening. I didn't know towers
could move that much. But you know, I got I
got over it.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
How long does it take to climb?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
It depends. I mean when I when I was like,
let me see to like toward the end, when I
was like like really, you know like every day climbing
or whatever, I don't know, a few minutes, a couple minutes,
did you.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Go for like clutching the climb to like now you
just sort of just do it?
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah? Yeah, that's it. So the first that's exactly like
one of those persons like no, yeah, the first time
I climbed, The first time I ever climbed. When I
got done, I had bruises on my forearms from you know, gripping,
the gripping the last.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
I bet you did. I bet I'd be crying as
I was ten feet up. You know.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Yeah, that's enough for me. So it was the last
time you climbed the.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Tower, I don't know, a few years ago, now, okay,
so you know it was a tower climber. And then
I was like like what they call a top hand
in the industry, which is like the league guy up top.
And then I was a foreman, and now I'm a
construction manager.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
So so you like manage the whole thing, you know,
the project manager.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Sort yeah, so yeah, so right, so I work with
the project manager, who you know, is like a remote
person who you know kind of like manages all the whatever,
and you know, I do a little bit of that
and also go around to the all the crews that
we have in the market and check their safety and
make sure they have their materials.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
And so you went through how many years of active
addiction from the beginning of the.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
End ten to fifteen, So you went from that to
living on the streets and abandon mimiums and sort of
just getting by, you know, in jail and you know,
doing whatever drugs you can find, you know, sleeping on
a floor in the last stop two in the last
ten years. Building yourself really an empire for yourself.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I mean it's you know, I don't I mean, if
that's you know, you could call it that. I guess
if that if you want to, it's your life, your life.
I mean listen, like you know obviously like it's it's
it's more than I ever.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
You know, imagine you had the car we anybody in
this the cars are stacked against us. You know, the
chances that somebody that has gone as far as we
have into an active addiction to back out and make
it our slim like we don't. We don't have an
average that's our success rate. Isn't that successful.
Speaker 5 (35:07):
It's not good, and you know, say even less today
it is, especially since out there now are not the
drugs that we're used to.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Yeah, we did the real drugs.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah, you know, we got out of it when fentanyl
started coming in and everything, and now all these others
is that it's ship and so that's killing us.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
But like, you know, you really have.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Built a life for yourself, so recovery is possible. Yeah,
for sure it is, but you have to work a program.
Do you still have to do it? Do you do
meetings still?
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I do? I go to meetings, you know, and you
know I do meetings, but like I do other things also,
and like I also listen, there are there are many
past the recovery right, Like everyone always says, like, you know,
if just going to meetings works for you, go ahead,
you know what I mean, If you know it does.
If meetings don't work for you at all, cool, like
(35:58):
you know, so I don't. I don't like subscribe to
one thing. But like the network that I've built over
you know, the past ten years is you know a
lot of those people are still in meetings. I go
to meetings. Yeah, so you've work the steps. I have
worked the steps. Yeah, they're pretty painful. I don't disagree.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
People understand the pain involved with that because they think, oh,
you go, you know, you get it's easy, you get stop,
you could stop, and then you do this, and then
you go into meetings and then you work these steps
and that's you knows the cake and those steps are brutal, man,
because those steps really you take a self inventory that
you've never done before. And it's more it's really more
(36:46):
emotional than anything. Yeah, and that's where the brutality of
it all comes in. How do you find those steps?
Were they brutal for you? Were they easy?
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I mean, didn't help you?
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah? No, for sure help me because you can't, like
you can't just go through And this is like not
me saying like everyone should get involved in like twelve
step or like anything like that, but you can't. There
are some basic things within the twelve steps that like
(37:17):
could help anyone, and like you can't just go through
your entire life and just kind of like be the
same person and not like look at it, you know
what I mean. Like, and that's you know, that's what
the steps are, right, It's like you're taking a look
at yourself saying, Okay, you know what I mean, this
could change, that could change I was probably wrong for that,
(37:40):
et cetera, et cetera, and then like doing whatever work
you need to do to fix those things. And obviously,
with some people there might be other factors. There might
be mental illness, there might be everybody has different circumstances.
But you know, I think try to take a look,
(38:01):
you know what I mean inside in yourself and take
some responsibility for something. Is you know, a good step
toward that any type of recovery.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
You hit it right there.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
It's funny because the twelve Steps they were developed for
alcoholics anonymous, Yes, they were originally originally Yeah, the twelve
Steps aren't just for people who are going through recovery
or going into recovery or coming out of an active
substitute disorder. Anybody could work those twelve steps, and I
(38:33):
would highly encourage people to try to do that.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I yeah. And here's the thing is, like, you know,
people have their to think, well, you know, I'm not
into the twelve Steps because like I'm not religious, or
I don't believe in guy, or I don't big book. Okay,
that's that's cool. Yeah, I don't want to be or
like I don't subscribe to the threefold Disease thing or
I don't Okay, Like that's cool, but you know, it's
(38:59):
it's not gonna hurt you to make amends to maybe
some of the people you fucked over. It's not gonna.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Hurt because everybody.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Exactly, Like, it's not gonna hurt you to do that.
It's not gonna hurt you to you know what I mean,
in some cases, not in all cases. There are some
people that you know what I mean, I probably deserved
what they got. But like you know, there are some
things in there that, like you know what I mean,
are are just generally good?
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Well, you know what, Some bridges are meant to be burnt.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I just I agree with that.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Because you don't want to cross some of those bridges again,
and that that's that's a great way.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Of doing it.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, burn that bridge. You never have to worry about
it again. And that's cool. But there's a lot of
them that shouldn't have been and people people have written
that off.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Whether you are you are you.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Know, going through something with an addiction or not, you're
just a rmy or somebody who can have a drink
and recreational use.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
There are amends that could be made.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yeah, there's a personal self inventory that everybody can take
and reflect upon your soul and who you are and
how you got to where you are and are you
okay with that? And that's what we have to look at,
like are we okay with laying our heads down at
night and being.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Okay with that? Did you do everything you could have
done the right way. Yeah, that's the thing, and that's
what the twelve steps are.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
That's yeah, taking that self inventory to understand did you do.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
It the right way and just checking yourself because I'm
not religious.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yeah, I'm not one of those like oh, you know, like, hey, great,
I know it helps so many people, the prayer, God,
the belief, and it helps many people in recovery. It's
huge in recovery, the Christianity and the you know, yeah,
it's huge.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
Yeah, yeah, I think it's one of those spiritual yes, okay, yeah,
but in.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
A different sense, It's helped a lot of people. And
I think that scares some people too. I think it
really does. It scared me when I used to go
to meetings a lot because they started talking about God
and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
And I'm like, that's yeah, and that's you know, like
we live in a place where you know, it's it's big, right,
Like we have a lot of Christians in the United States,
and we also live in a place where a lot
of people have had a bad experience with Christianity or
you know whatever, Catholicism, whatever it is. So yeah, like
(41:22):
I just I get it, you know, what I mean.
And like I said, like I'm not encouraging anybody to
to do anything but or saying that whatever worked for
me will work for you. But yeah, you can. You
can make amends, you can help other people. You can,
you know what I mean, pay back the money you owe,
you can do you know whatever, all that stuff. You
can do that right to just say, you know, don't
(41:45):
don't throw out the baby with the bath water or whatever.
I say.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
I like that you said, you know, pay people back
the money that you owe, because like, going in my
active addiction, I'm probably owed so many people.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
I probably still do.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, but like today it like hangs over me if
I owe somebody even like ten dollars.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Yeah, like that really bothers me. Yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
I used to remember what it was like when the
dealers were like reaching out, like you owe me, and like,
oh my gosh, you know so like and it's funny
you said that because I think for people that have
always anybody who's had an active you know, addiction of
some type, you know, or substance use disorder of some type,
they can relate to that for some money owed. And
that's a huge thing, you know, And I think that's
(42:28):
why a lot of us become entrepreneurs because we want
to build ourselves. We don't want to build ourselves off
of anybody else, because we did that our whole time
in addiction.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Yeah, I agree with that, you know, and that's.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Why I think that we make the best entrepreneurs because
we know what's up, you know. Plus we also know
how to like hustle and boost, so you know.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
That's yeah, that's the thing, too, is like, yeah, yeah,
it's we're hustlers. Yeah, we're generally hustlers. Yeah, you know,
it's just because like you couldn't make you know, one
hustle work while you were high, doesn't mean you know
what I mean, like you have the skills that you
have still.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
So that reminds me about one guy who uh that
rob Banks and he's I was a really good bank robber.
I'm like, oh yeah, he's like yeah, he's like and
then I was. Then I was in jail and they
weren't in jail for oh, for Robin Banks, Like, you
wouldn't been that good.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
He got caught.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
You know, you're always going to get caught. But it's
a skill set, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah, I mean it's yeah, it's for sure.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Yeah. So but you know, I think about that, like
we thought we were good. We're legends in our own
mind a lot and that.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And you said something that a lot of people don't
touch on when we talk about addiction. When we talk
about addiction, we talk about the trauma, we talk about
what happened to us, We talked about, you know, all
the horrors, but nobody talks about the mental health. And
you said that, you said the issues that go along
with that, and the people forget that there is a
dual aspect to addiction and that comes with that mental health. Yeah,
(43:55):
and you know people don't want to talk about it
because it's a stigma.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Yeah, you were very free to say that.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
It's another Yeah, it's another stigma. And it's like it's
a big deal, right because everyone's not gonna have the
same experience in addiction or in recovery. You know, everyone's different,
and some people just have mental health issues and that's
you know, that's gonna be a big, a big thing, right,
Like you can't just you can't just walk into say
(44:24):
some you know, abstinence based recovery program, right and like
be off your meds or whatever. The situation is and
think that you're going to have you're not going to recover.
It's gonna be bad, you know, and stay. Yeah, And
like I met like a lot of people, like I
remember being on the street, Like there's a lot of
people who are like schizophrenic or something and they're just
(44:49):
getting high to like not have voices in their head, yeah,
to just to maintain because you know, and because they can't,
they don't feel like they can live a normal life
on like whatever medications are available, you know, which you know,
I've seen people on those medications. Sometimes they're like it's like, yeah,
you're not you're not really here, no, you know what
(45:09):
I mean. But some people, some people need to be
on them, and some people are going to continue to
use no matter what because that's that's the way that
they like to deal with whatever they have going on.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
So yeah, it's a thing, you know, we we you know,
everybody talks about, you know, recovery. And it's funny because
it's almost become like one of those you know, us
and they things when it's like a we thing, it
really should be one of those. And in recovery, there
there is divisions. There's divisions between the aas the NAS. Yeah,
(45:42):
you know, you go to AA. You know, I'm an alcoholic,
you know, but there's a lot of people in AA
that were, you know, heroin users and you know.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Here, yeah, literally everyone.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Everyone they don't want to go to NA because they
don't like sometimes the stigma behind that or what they
found there. And you know, we look at that, and
you know, we look at the visions, and we look
at the fact that even like in the recovery world.
You know, I look at treatment centers nowadays, and I
look at some of them as being you know, they're businesses,
of course, their businesses, yeah, you know, but I look
at the people then that do harm reduction on the streets,
(46:12):
like myself and stuff, And there's a division there between
the recovery and that, and yeah, you know, it doesn't change,
you know, no matter where you are though, it doesn't change.
How do you balance that because you do both. You
do harm reduction because you help out with that. Sure,
you do the treatment because you have sober living and
you yourself are sober, and you yourself have strong opinions
(46:32):
against the harm reduction that's done on the streets.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
I do. I have strong opinions about about some of
the harm reduction that's done. But like and everyone in
any any of my friends, anyone who knows me in
any twelve step program, knows that. Like, I have never
advocated for anything but the legalization of all substances period
(46:57):
because you know, and then I'm not going to get
crazy political and get the war on drugs and the
prison industrial complex and all that. But like i have
very strong opinions about that. And yeah, I've never been
anything other than a harm reductionist and I've never like
hidden that from anyone in any room aa na wherever.
So like anyone who knows me knows that. But you know,
(47:21):
you have you have some harm reduction organizations in the
streets that are you know, whatever they've been, they've been
accused of like many things. But like also they're like
bashing all these like other people and you know, people
who have different opinions, and they're bashing twelve step programs
(47:42):
and they're you know what I mean, and kind of
trying to position themselves as like like up here, like
there's somebody or whatever, and like meanwhile, they're taking money
from the people who make the laws that are causing
this shit. So what are we talking about? You know,
so like yeah, like I have I have opinions, you
(48:04):
know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Well, because it's organizations like that organization that you're referring
to or talking about or in general or whatever that
give other organizations a bad name or give the the
whole harm reduction you know genre, you know, a bad
name because that's what they associate it with. Yeah, you know,
and are you doing more harm than you are doing
(48:25):
good with harm reduction?
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (48:28):
And you know, so you gotta find that balance and
you have to have a stance and you got to
know that stance like you do, and you want to
be able to build the bridges and not the walls.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
That's yeah, Like that's my thing too, is like I
I think that we should be building bridges. Like, you know,
let's just say someone in harm reduction is just like
railing against twelve step programs and like or AA specifically
and like the the idea of like the threefold disease. Right,
(48:58):
It's like okay, like that's cool, but like there are
lots of people in AA or NA or whatever who
can understand the concept of addiction happening on a spectrum, right, Like,
but instead these people who consider themselves like the greatest
harm reductionist ever, or just putting all these people in
(49:20):
a basket and saying they're stupid. Right, they're stupid, they're ignorant,
they need to learn, they can't get it, they're causing
harm blah blah blah blah blah whatever. And it's like, no, dude,
like people people in AA can understand that. And just
because they you know, pray to a god at night
or whatever it is that some people do, doesn't You're
(49:44):
not better than them. You're not you know what I mean.
And here's the thing is, like these twelve step programs
are not going anywhere, So like being being mad at
it is not like it's not helping. You're just you
know what I mean, You're just causing You're just causing division,
right when you could be creating an environment in twelve
step programs that helps more people than it already does.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Use your voice and platform for good, yeah, don't don't
use it for yourself.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Don't use it as a photo op. Don't use it
as a you know, a likes and clickspait sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Yeah, and that too, and also the like the weird
like positioning right, you're not a teacher, you're not an authority,
you're literally nobody.
Speaker 5 (50:27):
We're either here to help people or not. Like end
of story, and we're in it together. Yeah, we could
have our different opinions, and we do. You know, we
look at things differently in that aspect too. And you know,
years ago, you know, it was called an A or
AA or c A or essay, and that A was
always anonymous.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
Yes, because it was We were always told to be
ashamed of it or we were told to hide the
stigma because people wouldn't accept it. It would harm us
in the workforce, it would harm us in the real world.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
People look differently. That's not so much anymore.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
People are recovering out loud like us like we don't
have a problem all about it, you know, And it's
there and it's going to be there. We need those voices,
but we got to be raising them in the right way.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
You know, you talked about the War on drugs and
briefly you said, you know, it's about the legalization of
all drugs. Do you think if that were ever to occur,
that there was the War on drugs, would finally legalize
all drugs.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Or would be monitoring of all of them. Do you
think that would affect your sobriety?
Speaker 2 (51:25):
No, Because I can buy anything I want right now.
I could go order real Heroin on the internet right
now and have it delivered to my door. So why
why would that affect my sobriety? You know what I mean?
Like I lived, you know, I live, you know, right
around the corner, like and then.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
So here here we are talking about a disease that
is classified as a disease that if you work it,
it does become a choice of doing it or not doing.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
It at some point at some point.
Speaker 3 (51:58):
But do you believe it's a disease or a choice
in the end?
Speaker 2 (52:01):
You know what? Man Like, that's a good question. But
that that goes back to, you know, addiction being something
that happens on a spectrum, right, So for for some
people it's probably not. Some people have probably used so
much that that's it, Like their brain has been rewired,
and it probably maybe it just will it won't, you
(52:23):
know what I mean. There's no amount of work that
can change that. Maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Do you have to work your recovery every day? Chris?
Speaker 2 (52:30):
Yeah, I mean I have to. Yeah, of course, I
have to, like there has to be I think you
have to maintain a level of self awareness and the
work like whatever the work is for for you or
for me, Like, the work is what helps you do that, right, right,
because when I start losing like whatever, that level of
(52:51):
self awareness, like then I start like, you know, kind
of going back to my old ways and just kind
of being like a person that I don't want to be,
you know what I mean, And then you know whatever,
one day a fuck it turns it to another day
of you know, et cetera, et cetera. Well, yeah, it
has to be every day.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
There there are so many people. I mean you, like
you said you live on Algany right now, you're right
there in the heart of Yeah, you see it. We
drive through it on a daily basis. You know, we
are two living examples that recovery is possible, especially for
sometimes two degenerates like like us. Sorry, I'm gonna classify
you in that area.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
No, that's that's fine. You know, I don't care.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
You were friends long enough for me to say that.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yeah, like that's fine.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
I mean, you know, we're not that person anymore, and
it is possible, so to that person that's out there,
to that person that is on that street corner, to
that person that we drive by and we see them
crying or they look at us and we know that pain.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
What can what words you have for them?
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Like you could turn anything around, you know, Like that's
really it, Like you don't know that when you're in
that spot. There's no way to know that. And it
sounds crazy if somebody says it to you, but it's
literally true, you know what I mean, Like you can
turn anything around, and like that's the main thing that
(54:17):
you have to know, Like whatever it is that you're
like afraid of, right, Like all these things that you
have to deal with in real life. Like for me,
if I'm in my addiction on the street, homeless or whatever,
I probably got warrants in however many different counties. I
don't want to withdraw, you know what I mean. Today,
(54:40):
I gotta steal this, this and that. I gotta rob
that person whatever it is. You know, family members don't
want to talk to you whatever. Right, So you have
like all these things going on in your head and
you just want to like you just want to get
high to not deal with it, right, You just want
to be like obliterated, but like, just just believe for
(55:05):
one second that you can literally turn all that around.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
Through all what you were just saying there, you were
actually were just describing your entire journey. Everything you just
described like you could do this, you could do that,
from robbing, from boostings, from this to this to this.
You just described your whole life pretty much is what
you did.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
You broke it down.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
So basically what you're doing is you're telling people that
this is who I was, this is what I went through,
this is who I am now and where I'm at.
So you're giving them hope. Yeah, And it's essentially what
we do in recovery is we get people hope.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
That's that's literally it just the if you know, if
you want what we got, do what we do, or
if whatever whatever other sayings don't there you were.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
You were living on the streets and abandon miniums.
Speaker 1 (55:55):
You're shooting up, you were doing this, you're doing that,
you were boosting, you were doing what you had to
do to survive. And you have eight homes right now,
recovery homes that you're helping. You're not just owning a
recovery home because it's not an own ownership. You are
helping people with their lives and recovery. You're giving them
a chance something that most people didn't give to us.
Speaker 2 (56:16):
That's that's that's what we do. Yeah, we give people chance,
and like that's why you know our program in particular,
like we do, like I said over in Germantown, like
we do take people from a treatment center sometimes, but
like we will also take at you know, anyone who
you know, anyone who we think we can help, whether
(56:38):
they have ID or money or insurance or whatever, Like
none of that shit matters, right because that's literally what
was done for me. Like I just walked into a
place and they were like, all right, we'll give you
a shot.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
Because if you don't get that person a shot, how
are they gonna get their ID, how they gonna get
their money? How they can't So you've got to give
them that. So you give them that hope, you give
them that chance. You do what people didn't do for you.
But then there was somebody who did.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
Yeah I want somebody. Yeah who then, by the way,
for anyone who's interested, that's that's low barrier housing. That's
the actual definition. I don't know what all these other
programs are talking about they don't offer low barrier housing.
We do the last stop did back in the day.
Speaker 1 (57:24):
And explain low barrier because that's something that some people
don't get.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Or yeah, so it just means there's nothing in your
way to getting in right there. There are some, you know,
shelters where it's like, well, you need an ID and
you need a referral from social services, and you need
da da da da da. You need a letter, Yeah,
you need a letter, or you need this you know whatever.
And then with rehabs, it's like you need this insurance
or you have to be referred from this place or whatever,
(57:50):
and we're just like, yeah, whatever, man, just call us
up and you know, we'll see what you got going on.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
And I can attest to that because I have done
it many times. I have seen on the boards out
there's somebody who is in need of housing, and I
reach out to Chris and I say Chris, and he says,
send them my way, and I do, and they get it.
And I've met some of them too. In the end,
I met some of them that needed it, and it's
a really rewarding thing to know in the end. And
(58:17):
I think that's another thing that keeps people like yourself
on that straight and narrow in that path, because now
you're not just really looking out for yourself. You have
eight houses full of people that you're looking out after,
and they're looking for you for that guidance.
Speaker 3 (58:31):
Sure, so you are a role model to all those people.
Speaker 2 (58:35):
I mean I try, you know, like, I don't know
what the standard is. I don't know what you know
what I mean, but like I just do what do
what I was taught and what you know.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
I don't think there's a standard, man, I think this.
I think there is no standard. I think it's really
just you know, what you do that others can pick
and you know, pick pieces from and say, you know what,
I want to be like that. I want to do that,
I want to remember this and and and there is
no standard. It's really just what you exude. It's what
you put out. Yeah, you know, and that's really important.
So you know, you do all this stuff, you work,
(59:08):
you're kind these towers are you used to you? You
do that full time? You run their homes. What do
you do for yourself?
Speaker 2 (59:14):
What do I do for myself?
Speaker 3 (59:15):
It's a self care thing.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
That's a good question.
Speaker 3 (59:19):
Well, smoking cigars at the Turkish Bath or.
Speaker 2 (59:22):
Yeah, we do so we uh, I mean well once
in a while, Yeah, like me and some guys will
you know, we'll go do that.
Speaker 3 (59:27):
We'll have a cigar, we'll it's a fellowship.
Speaker 2 (59:29):
We'll go to. Yeah, for sure, you know. And like recently,
I'm just getting back into uh making music, you know,
and like the past I don't know, six eight months
or whatever, like I just got into like, you know,
videography and photography. So like I'm you know, kind of
playing with that and like trying to like use it
for the business a little bit. So yeah, you know,
(59:50):
I do some stuff nice.
Speaker 3 (59:52):
It's always important to have those outlets.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
Yeah, and yes, he's done a video for Philly Unknown
for us when we have to Dope Con one of
the events that we attend every year that we went
to two years of in a row now, which has
been a killer. You are out there doing what you
got to do. You have so much going on. If
people need a place reach out to Chris Willis at
Restore and Recover. You can find that on Instagram. Are
(01:00:15):
you on Facebook?
Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
Instagram? Facebook? X? Oh you're onx literally whatever? Or restore
recover dot com and go Yeah, and you know, you
can just fill out the little form and yeah, whatever.
Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
You get to the help.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
YEP.
Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
It's important to know, Chris, it's really important that you
know that I appreciate you sharing your story. I appreciate
all you've done for me. You've been very helpful to
me over the years. You know, it works both ways.
It's the only way we can get this thing done,
you know, the only way we can survive. Without that,
we might be back there on those streets, you know,
and we need that in our world. So but you know,
I want people to know that there is hope. You know,
(01:00:52):
there is chances, you know, people like Chris, like myself
that have been to the bottoms that people call or
the this bottoms or the pits that we keep falling down,
to pour ourselves out and to be where we're at.
You know, that's amazing. So you know, check them out.
Check Chris Willis out on social media, restore and recover.
Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Thanks for joining me today, man, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Remember everybody, whatever it is you stand for, be a voice.
This is Brick Carpent or Nusuli Media. I have a
great rest of your dad
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