Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
Got any partners. You're listening to Conversations with Jacob, hosted
by my good friend Jacob Waller. Make sure to check
out the podcast where podcasts are available, and check out
the video version on YouTube. You can follow us on
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(00:49):
CWJ podcast, and you can visit our website Conversations with
Jacob podcast dot weeby dot com. Hey you got a
show idea, maybe a guest suggestion, Email us at conversations
with Jacob at gmail dot com. Now here's your host,
(01:12):
Jacob Waller.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
And what's going on everybody? And welcome to another episode
of Conversations with Jacob. Today is another episode and it's
another guest and another topic. But before we get to
our guest this week, I want to do a few podcasts. Plus,
make sure to check out the podcast every Monday at
one pm Eastern time. Check out the video version on
(01:39):
YouTube and also on the podcast sites including an Apple
podcast and we're on Amazon, We're on Audible, We're on iHeartRadio,
tune in the Let's just go us on and on.
At this point, make sure to check out Conversations with
jacobpodcast dot weepley dot com to check out upcoming podcast,
past guests, and just so much stuff that I'm working on,
(02:05):
some stuff for the website. Oh of course I can't
confirm or deny what's going on, because even I don't
know what's going on at this point. If you got
a question a guest suggestion, go to Conversations with Jacob
at gmail dot com, Facebook Conversations with Jacob, and also
check out a good friend of mine. His name is
out in Newsome. He holds us a podcast called Two
(02:27):
Chairs No Waiting. It's an Andy Griffinth fan podcast, and
hear us out of Newsome to tell you more about
the podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Andy Barney, Opie Goober, Floyd de Barber. That's some of
the names from the Andy Griffth Show. Drop by Two
Chairs No Waiting, the Andy griff Show fan podcast, and
we'll visit with some of those folks, along with tribute
artists and fans and just all kinds of things related
to the Andy Griffith Show. I'm your host, Alan Newsom,
and you can find the show Two Chairs No Waiting
(02:57):
at two Chairsnowaiting dot com or on it youn.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
What's an also you could check out? Uh you can
also check out at a newsome in the movie called
Mayberry Man. Uh, you can check it out on a
thing on YouTube and I think at Mayberryman dot com.
And also it's a Mayberryman series out on Amazon as well. So,
so with all that out of the way, was I'm
honored to welcome my guest, Marybeth O'Connor to the podcast.
(03:25):
And she's the author of the book called Junkie to Judge.
And so, with no further ado, and let's welcome a
Mary o'beth to the podcast. Hi, welcome aboard.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Oh but of course, now before we get started, are you,
by chance kind of Irish related?
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean definitely. The coloring as you can
see is the Irish coloring and the name. But I'm
really only twenty five percent Irish. I'm just a typical
American mutt, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Oh, oh, it's a guest to get started. Can you
tell people a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Sure? So, I mean the full title of the book
sort of captures it. It's from Junkie to Judge, One
Woman's triumph over trauma and addiction, because I really emphasized
both and trying to show the connection between substance use
disorder and trauma histories, and for me, that was definitely
the case. I grew up with a really challenging childhood.
My mother wasn't connected to me. I was left once
(04:23):
for six months, once for three years. She was violent,
but it got a lot worse when I was nine
and she married my violent stepfather, and so he was
very violent with her, physically, sexually violent with me, and
he just started things off on a bad foot and
made drugs attractive and excessive and long lasting for me.
(04:43):
So that's sort of the introductory version.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I was also a rid How you got I'm addicted
to meth at seventeen years old?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
That's right? Yeah, I mean I started with alcohol, which was,
you know, a common introductory drug, and it was Boone's
Farms Strawberry Hill wine, which a lot of people are
familiar with, so I always mentioned it. But by I
mean I added in weed pills, did a lot of
acid for a while. But when I was sixteen, I
did find what became my drug of choice, which was methamphetamine.
(05:14):
And I was shooting meth at seventeen and in full
boar addiction in high school. So it was a pretty
fast and vicious escalation.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Now with all these drugs you were taken at a
young age, and what was some of the side effects
that you was going through.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Yeah, I mean, like, let's say, in high school, I
lost a lot of weight. I mean literally you could
count the bones.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
In my back.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
You know, I had some tweaky like skin picking type behaviors.
But also you know, you know, at first, I mean
if the first snort, the first shot is you know, exhilarating, right,
But that goes away relatively quickly when you do it
to excess. And so I was, you know, really emotionally devastated.
I was exhausted, I was making poor choices, I was
(05:59):
putting myself in danger. So there were a lot of
lifestyle consequences. But also I was still dealing with living
in an abusive household. And so the positive side of
it is that it sort of numbs you out and
it makes it easier to sort of put a liddle
on the pain and keep the pain shoved down. And
so that's the positive, but there definitely were negatives, even
(06:20):
by even in high school.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So I started taking drugs at a you engage, and
when did you decide that you've had enough of it.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
So I went. I grew up in Central Jersey and
I came to California for college. I graduated Berkeley, and
for the first three and a half years of college
I did better, not great, but better. But I had
a really horrible sexual saw kidnapping, grave, multiple sailings, violent boyfriend,
all of that, And so I started using methigan very
(06:51):
regularly in January of my senior year of college. And
I didn't get sober till I was thirty two. So
it was really a long haul. It was twenty years
from first drink to getting sober, and it was really
a large chunk of that was focused on.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Meth and how hard was it to kind of up
and how hard was it to put all that aside?
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Well, I mean, part of the challenge wasn't just the
substance use, right, I Mean the truth is that a
lot of us when we get sober, we have other
things going on. Like I had a trauma history. I
had PTSD and I didn't know it, you know, I
had very severe anxiety. So the sobriety side, I did
rehab once when I was thirty two, but I did it,
(07:34):
you know, very seriously. I was in a long term
women's program. I did use I did use meth three
times in my first five months. And I like to
acknowledge that because perfect abstinence from day one is rare.
You know, most people can't do it. You don't really
have the skill set to do it, you know in
the beginning. It takes time and practice. But I also
(07:56):
really had to tackle the trauma. So I was in
you know, therapy for many years trying to get all
that i'd see. It took about two and a half
years for me to really feel solid in my sobriety,
but it took me about a decade to get to
an even close to a similar point on the mental
health side.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Oh well, most people might be wondering, is how did
you go from doing myth and drugs to becoming a
federal judge?
Speaker 4 (08:24):
So when during the ten years after college until thirty two, professionally,
my terminology is I worked my way down the corporate ladder,
Like I couldn't hold a job right because I was
on meth. And so when I got sober, I had
a really I had Berkeley degree in good grades, but
I had an embarrassing resume, and so professionally, I had
(08:45):
to be realistic, like, first of all, nobody was going
to hire me for a career job. But I also
wasn't really ready for a career job. And so when
I got home from rehab, my first job was a
part time, temporary, low level administrative job. I needed to
get the habit of like going to work every day,
you know, and staying like all the hours and doing
a good job. And then I moved into middle management.
(09:09):
And then at six and a half years sober, I
went to Berkeley Law School, and then I worked at
a big law firm. Then I did class action work
for the federal government, and I really emphasized At twenty
years sober, I was appointed a federal administrative law judge.
So it wasn't on my radar when I got sober.
It wasn't something I planned on. It was really about
(09:29):
just sort of more like what's the right next step,
what's the right next step after that, and just you know,
moving forward incrementally.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Now, if you've been a federal judge and what kind
of cases takes you handle.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Yeah, so you're right to ask that, because there's all
all kinds of different judges federal, state, county, right, And
so I was a federal administrative law judge, and so
that meant I worked for a specific agency, and I
worked for the Social Security Administration, So mostly I handled
disability cases as well as some other cases that were
(10:01):
against Social Security.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Did you ever handle a case to where you didn't
know what to do?
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Well, I mean, it's it's not so much that you
don't know what to do, it's that you know, like,
let's look at it this way. So here's the range
of cases, right, And there's a chunk of them that
are clearly this answer and a chunk that are clearly
that answer. But it's those those middle cases that you know,
sort of keep you up at night sometime trying to
make sure you're making the right decision. They're the ones
that you might look through the record two or three
(10:30):
times instead of just once, or talk to one of
your colleagues right about what you're weighing. And so there
definitely are some cases that are that are harder to
make a decision, and you know, you're really trying to
do the right thing and come to the right conclusion.
But if yeah, there's those cases in the middle that
can be a challenge to really make that determination, because
(10:52):
you're making a really critical decision in the life of
the person that's before you, right, I mean, this is
not a minor issue. It's going to have a great
impact on that individual, and you really want to try
to get it right.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And what did you say to kind of step away
from being a judge?
Speaker 4 (11:09):
So by the time I was a judge for five
and a half years, and you know, because I didn't know,
I didn't become a lawyer until so late. I mean
I got sober thirty two. I was thirty nine when
I started law school, in forty two when I graduated.
So you know, by the time I was a judge,
I was in my in my early fifties. And so
I did it for five and a half years, and
(11:30):
then I took early retirement for medical reasons basically, and
and so so then it was sort of my time
to say, Okay, well I can't work full time, but
I can do some things, you know, and so what
am I going to do? And because I was retired
for the first time, I could tell my whole history
and my whole story and have conversations with people like
(11:51):
you without having to worry about professional ramifications. So it
was really a time. It really frees me to sort
of to be able to to say everything, to be
able to sort of use my third thirty years of
continuous sobriety. I'm a former federal judge. I'm on the
board for Life Bring Secular Recovery. I'm on the board
(12:12):
for she Recovers Foundation. I've had opinion pieces like in
the Wall Street Journal and the La Times. They're on
my website, by the way, Junkey to judge dot com.
And I have my book out and so I try
to use all of that as a package as an
opportunity to you know, do workshops and presentations and trainings
and have discussions about topics related to substance use and recovery.
(12:36):
And it's really a very rewarding time for me.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Actually, now, did you decide to write your book after
you retired or did that come later in life?
Speaker 4 (12:46):
So when I was appointed a federal judge, it was
kind of a natural time of reflection, right, like, how
the heck did I go from shooting methods seventeen to
being a judge? And I started to think could my
story be of use? You know? And one of the
things is that my recovery approach was more individual plan like,
I didn't do it just by twelve steps. I pulled
(13:06):
a couple ideas, but it wasn't my primary program. And
twelve steps is you know, alcoholics anonymous and all the anonymouses.
I used Life rang Secular Recovery's parent, I used Smart
Recovery's parent. I did a women's program, Women for Sobriety.
So I built a more individualized program, which when I
got sober ninety four, I didn't know anyone who did it,
(13:27):
but more people do it today. But I didn't see
a memoir talking about that. And so a third of
my book is my first three years of recovery to
show sort of what that looked like. But also I
wanted to show that trauma, mental health, substance use connection,
to try to show that the recovery really involves both.
You know, for me to live my best, most productive,
(13:48):
happiest life, I had to tackle both of those areas
or I was really going to not I wasn't going
to be my true self. I wasn't going to be
my authentic self. I wasn't going to be everything I
could be. And I thought the memoir that would be
important to run a memoir that talked about that.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Now, now with your bug T think you will help
people that went through the same thing that you went through.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
I mean, I try to use my story as a
positive example, right. I mean, look, I was abused as
a child, physically abused, sexually abused. I had sexual saults,
a violent boyfriend. I had twenty years of drug use,
and yet and I think it's so much. I was
thirty two, and yet you know, I have a happy
and productive life and the job the judge title. I mean,
(14:35):
I'm proud of that. And then I managed to go
to law school and become a judge. But that's really
my job, right, I mean, the joy of recovery is that, like,
you know, I'm a fair partner to my husband, I'm
a good aunt. You know, I'm able to be of
service and all those things. And so I try to
I try to use my story also as a reassurance
(14:55):
to the friends and family who say the loved one
is still struggling. I talked to someone the other day.
She said her brother's using meth and I said how
old is he? And she said thirty two, And I said, well,
I need it's sober till I was thirty two, like,
you know, to sort of reassure her it's not too late,
you know, don't give up. And so I try to
use my story as a reassurance to people that there's
(15:18):
a path forward and a good life is possible.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Now you talked about you haveing trauma and being abused.
Do you ever have like nightmares or maybe flashbacks to that.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
I did for a long time. I mean I still
have a little bit of like if you've come up
behind me and you say something, I'll jump, you know,
those kind of things. But I did a lot of therapy.
I was in individual therapy with a trauma specialist for
three years, and then I was in therapy of women.
It was group therapy with women who had trauma histories,
(15:48):
and that was really a healing process because we all
had a similar experience and we could learn from each other,
and so I did for a long time. For me,
the biggest result of the trauma was my PTSD showed
up as very severe anxiety. So I was always like
worrying and spinning and I could never sort of enjoy
(16:09):
my life because I thought something horrible's going to happen tomorrow,
and so that was really what kept me emotionally stuck
for a long time, was the hyper anxiety. And I'm
a lot better. I say, I'm ninety two to ninety
five percent recovered, depending on the day. And I don't
want to scare anybody who's struggling with that when I
say ten years, it's not horrible and a light switch,
(16:32):
You're great. It's you know, gradual improvement, better, better, better, better.
But it was a long process for me.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And what do you mean when you say that you
built an individual hall recovery plan.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
I mean so like the Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, all
the twelve step that's one pure support option and a
lot of people that's a good fit for but it
wasn't really the best fit for me. And there are
other groups. There's Life Ring Secular Recovery that I'm on
the board for. There She Recovers Foundation, which is for
(17:07):
not just substance recovery, but mental health and trauma and
other behavioral disorders like gambling or shopping. There's a number
of options. And so what I did when I got
sober in ninety four is that I read the books
for all. I read the books for AA and Narconics, anonyms,
and Life Ring's parent and Smart's parent and women for Sobriety,
(17:29):
and I went to meetings for all of them. But
I was always viewed myself as the decision maker, like,
what are the ideas that I'm being presented with, the strategies,
the techniques, which ones do I think will help me
as an individual? And so I was always filtering them.
So I might pull two ideas from AA and these
(17:49):
other ideas from Life Ring and these ideas from Smart,
and I would synthesize them into a plan. When I
say individual, it doesn't mean alone. It just means that
you decide. You know, you're sort of deciding what's the
right plan for you because we're all different. You know,
what works for you might not be a good fit
for me. And so it's really about letting people know
(18:11):
they have choices so they can find the right place,
but also giving them sort of my permission, not that
they needed my example that you can mix and match
programs and get thirty years of continuous sobriety if you
make a plan that's going to work for you.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
So you kind of make your own AA plan, yes, Yes.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
And in life when we call it a personal recovery plan.
That's the terminology that we do. But again it doesn't
mean alone. Like part of a recovery plan is deciding
what help you need. Like it's a self empowered choice
to decide I need professional help, or I need to
go to these meetings or I need to go into
you know, treatment. That's still a self empowered decision because
(18:53):
you're deciding that's what I need and you're going out
and you're getting it now.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And what is the difference between a criminal or a
pro to a drug used onto a health approach?
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yeah? I mean we've done the war on drugs for
over fifty years and you know it's failed, right. I
mean last year we had more overdose deaths than ever
record number. Well, actually twenty twenty three went down three thousand,
so it was one hundred and twenty and twenty twenty
two and one hundred and seventeen and twenty twenty three,
but that's still very, very high. The overdose death is
(19:27):
the number one cause of death in the eighteen to
thirty five age group in America. So this war on
drugs approach hasn't reduced availability of drugs.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Right.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Drugs are very easy to get for anybody hasn't saved lives.
It's actually you know, people are dying. But also there's
a lot of problems with the way it's implemented. And
so for example, you could treat three or four people
for the price of incarcerating one. And so if we
took the dollars used for incarcerating someone, let's just say
(19:59):
for possession, right, pure possession, not other crimes related to drugs,
just possession. And by the way, there's a half a
million people in jail today just for possession. You could
you could treat like a million and a half people
for the price of incarcerating that half a million. And
so it's not a good use of our tax dollars.
But also the government recognizes that addiction is a is
(20:22):
a disease or medical condition, right, and why would you
criminalize a medical condition. It's a it's a contradiction. Plus,
we have a really vast racial disparity in the way
we enforce our drug laws. So people of color and
white people use drugs at the same rate, but they don't.
The people of color get arrested a lot more, they
go to jail a lot more, the sentences are longer,
(20:44):
so there's not even a fair enforcement of the laws
we have. So for me, for all of those reasons,
I would I would I support the public health approach
and using our dollars for treatment for harm reduction, for
other supports rather than criminalizing people, which also has long
term ramifications when they get out of jail.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Right now, can you give me a reason? Maybe you can't,
Maybe you can't. Don't know why people turn to drugs.
It's just something that goes in It is something that
goes inside of the home that causes them to try it.
Or do you think it's friends that kind of pushes
them to do it? You know, do you got a
(21:25):
reason or.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Well, I'll say this. The majority of people that use
all drugs, I mean any drug, they use it in moderation. Right.
The people who develop a problem, it's a small subset.
It's usually ten to twenty percent of the people that
use any specific drug develop a problem with a drug.
And by the way, when I say drug, I always
mean including alcohol. Right, Alcohol is a drug. Alcohol is
(21:49):
still the number one killer. Alcohol still killed more people
than all the other drugs combined last year, So it's
still the biggest killer. So when I say drugs I mean,
including alcohol, but most people use a moderation. The people
who develop a problem, the large majority, either have trauma
history childhood trauma, and or they have a mental health
(22:11):
condition that's not properly treated. That's not everybody, but that's
a large percentage of it.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
All right, And how can friends and family assist with
those that are struggling with drug addictions.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
I'm glad you asked, because I took a lot to
friends and family. So there is this idea of tough love,
which you probably heard that term, and that actually doesn't
have very good evidence for being effective today. The evidence
based approach is called craft, community reinforcement, and family training.
And I always recommend to friends and family the book
(22:47):
Beyond Addiction. There's a book and a workbook, and it
really offers. It explains craft techniques. It explains well. First,
it explains what addiction is, why it's so hard to change,
you know, why the formation it's hard to change. It
talks about what friends and family can do to sort
of move the ball forward in a positive direction, and
(23:08):
what they can't do and what they shouldn't do, and
it gets very concrete examples of techniques that friends and
family can use and a more positive reinforcement focused. So definitely,
if I had a friend or family member today, I
would read Beyond Addiction and do that work book. I
think it's very it's just an excellent resource for families.
(23:28):
I'm friends now.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I know I'll never ask it, you know what? Oh oh,
it's I never asked this question. So it may sound
dumb again, which it may not, but what is your
definition of addiction?
Speaker 4 (23:43):
So it's interesting. When I got sober in ninety three
ninety four, it was really focused like how many drinks
a day do you have? Or how many days a
week do you drink? And that's still considered for severity.
But today the definition is really what are the negative
consequences in your life? And yet you keep using? So
the focus is on how is it impacting you? And
(24:04):
the worst that it impacts you, the more severe it
is considered. The other thing is that addiction, and today
we call it, we say substance use disorder today rather
than addiction because it's the medical term and it is,
you know, considered a medical condition. Substance use disorder or
addiction can be It's can be mild, moderate, or severe,
(24:25):
just like anxiety right could be mild, moderate, or severe,
or depression could be mild monitor severe. So today one
of the new focuses is let's disrupt this problem at
the mild or moderate level and not wait until it
gets really severe. So let's not have that old ideology
of you have to have this vicious, horrible bottom to
(24:46):
get sober. It's not true, and it's dangerous for people
to wait that long. Plus they're just like losing more
years and destroying more of their lives. So today it's
really the focus is on what are the negative consequences
in your life, and let's try to help you get
this under control as early as possible.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Now, how when you was doing drugs or meth and
all that stuff, if you didn't get sober, where do
you think you would be at today?
Speaker 4 (25:16):
I don't know if I would be alive. I mean,
you know, I was having a lot of physical problems
at thirty two, and if I was alive and still using,
it's really hard to imagine. I probably would have been
in and out of jail. I probably would have been
you know, good chance I would end up, you know,
living on the periphery of society or homeless. With the
(25:38):
wide variety of potential medical conditions, right from meth and
from using needles, although I used the needle exchange, so
I was getting clean needles, which means you don't get
HIV and you don't get HEPSI and those kind of things.
But mostly it's about the misery, right, I mean, being
a drug addict is not a fun life, you know,
It's a really exhausting, debilitating, miserable existence. And so I
(26:06):
when I see people that are struggling, I just feel
sympathy for them. It's a very hard way to live,
and they are not out there having a good time,
and I really, I really want to do what I
can to encourage getting them access to treatment and getting
people to offer a helping hand.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Can you explain the overdose of crisis.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Yeah, so, I mean it used to be that pretty
much everybody that died of an overdose was a long
term drug user, and that's still two thirds of the dests.
But what's changed is that about a third of the
desks are more casual users. And it's because the the
drug supply, especially the opiate drug supply, has been infiltrated
(26:51):
with fentanyl and other similar drugs that are used instead
of heroin, you know, which which I mean here, and
has problems With fentanyls. It's much higher concentration and it's
harder to control the dose. And also people don't always
know they're getting it. So part of what's happening is
that people in their teens in twenties, let's say, are
(27:13):
ordering pills off the internet and they think it's oxycodone
or they think it's percoset, but it's really not. It's fentanyl.
And in a pill form, the fentanyl isn't always evenly
distributed in all the pills, so one could have more
than the other, and so kids are dying, and so
that's a big part of it. It's about the toxicity,
(27:34):
is the terminology of the drug supply. But that's also
why it's important to have narcan around. And so nar
can is a spray. If somebody is having an opiate overdose,
you spray nar can up their nose and it will
revive them. It sort of kicks the opiates off of
the receptors and they will revive. But also if you're
(27:56):
wrong and they're really not having an overdose, it won't
hurt them. And so it's a safe drug. And so
I really encourage anyone in particular with teenagers or twenty
somethings in their household to have narc can because either
your child could be using and you don't realize it,
or maybe one of their friends would need it. And
(28:17):
so having nar can on hand is a lifesaver in
a lot of circumstances.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Now and how and what is the relationship between trauma
and addiction.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
So there's something called an ACE score. It's an Adverse
Childhood Experiences Score. It's a test. You can find it online.
It's a test of ten questions and it's about different
forms of trauma in your childhood's physical, verbal, sexual, but
also things like did you have a parent that had
a mental health untreated mental health issue? Did you have
a parent that was incarcerated? I think poverty is one
(28:51):
of the ten questions. The data shows that if you
have an ACE score of let's say four, odds of
developing a substance use disorder are like three or four
times higher than the national average. And so, for example,
my A score is seven, and so that put me
at really high risk. It's because when you have that
(29:14):
kind of experience, as especially when you're younger, and especially
if it's ongoing. In other words, it's not like a
one time event, but it's something that happens over and
over again. It affects the way your brain develops, and
it makes drugs more appealing. And it also drugs initially
seem to work. They seem to work in the beginning
(29:37):
to help you manage your pain and to feel better.
They in the long run, they can become a real problem,
but in the beginning they seem to work, and so
it's very attractive to people that have that kind of pain.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
And what is harm reduction?
Speaker 4 (29:52):
So harm reduction is anything that reduces risk of dying
or other negative consequences. Arcan is considered to be a
form of harm reduction. When I was using shooting meth
the last couple of years in the late eighties and
early nineties, I would get clean needles from a needle exchange.
That's considered a form of harm reduction. It prevents you
(30:15):
from getting blood borne diseases, you know, from sharing needles.
Harm reduction can include things like moderating, you know, like
I'm not gonna I know, people when they get sober,
sometimes maybe they're using alcohol and cannabis, but they think
alcohol is the big problem, so they'll stop alcohol but
keep using cannabis. That's a type of harm reduction. Giving
(30:37):
people medication for alcohol use disorder and opiate used to disorders.
There are medications that will prevent cravings and reduce overdose
risk by like sixty percent. Sometimes they're import in the
harm reduction box. So it's really about different techniques that
will help people not die or not have long term
(30:59):
medical or consequences from their drug use. Sometimes harm reduction
people do it on the way to sobriety, but sometimes
it's really just even if you're not getting sober, we
don't want you to die from HIV, right, we don't
want you to have some other horrible consequence. And so
that's sort of the concept, is to help people where
they are not knowing if it's ever going to lead
(31:21):
them to abstinence.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Now, now with your book from Junkie to Judge, where
can people purchase that book at?
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Yeah, so it's on Amazon and all the usual sites.
You can also get it at your local bookstore or
they can order it if you don't have it, I mean,
if they don't have it and it is available not
just the paperback, but the E version I know a
lot of people read on their kindle, and there's a
kindle version. There's even an audio version, so it's readily available.
And I will also emphasize that, like I said, thirty
(31:53):
percent of the book is about recovery, and so it
really does show sort of a more realistic example of
what the first couple years of recovery look like. And
then I do have guidelines and checklists in the back
to help people think about their early recovery.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Now, now with the book, and what do you kind
of want people to take away from it?
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Yeah, I mean, so I'm really trying to. I hope
that it shows an example of how even with a
lot of all the challenges that I face, there's still
a path forward to a happy and productive life. And
so the book itself, I think that's really the primary goal,
to show a realistic example of how to get out
of that misery and how to heal from trauma from
(32:39):
mental health conditions, as well as how to maintain a
solid sobriety, how to build a good song and robust
sobiety foundation.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And where can people find you on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
So I'm junkid Judge dot com is my website and
there's some of my opinion pieces like in the Wall
Street Journal and the La Times. Those are there events.
I do a lot of speaking and people can message
me through my website if you if you want more
information about anything I talked about today, or if you
have a speaking opportunity, you can always message me through
(33:12):
my website. And then I'm on Twitter X, you know Twitter,
and I will emphasize I don't argue with people on Twitter,
but I provide a lot of information about substance use
and recovery. And so I'll provide the new studies or
the new articles, and I'm at Mary Betho underscore all right, Uh.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Before you wrap up what they usually ask my guests
if they have a close in thought to you goet
a close and thought.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
I guess, I guess it would just be that you know,
if if we if we help people get out of
that chaos, you know there is a way forward. But
we also need to be practical and realistic. And so
it's why I always talk about how my early sobriety
wasn't perfect, right, I mean, people getting sober is a challenge.
(33:59):
It's you know, it's a new way of thinking. You
need sort of practice, building the habits, practice being able
to handle cravings, practice being able to handle situations where
you're exposed to your drug of choice, especially if it's alcohol.
But these skills are possible with time and with effort
and with hard work, and so I hope that my
(34:22):
story will reassure people that there's a path forward.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Absolutely. Oh well, Mary Beth, I thank you for coming
on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Well, thank you for having me. It's been a nice conversation.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Oh absolutely all right. That wraps this week of conversations
with Jacob. Tune in next Monday for another interview hone
a different topic. Until then, God bless and we'll kick
you guys right here next week
Got any partners. You're listening to Conversations with Jacob, hosted
by my good friend Jacob Waller. Make sure to check
out the podcast where podcasts are available, and check out
the video version on YouTube. You can follow us on
social media. Facebook is Conversations with Jacob, Twitter is at
(00:49):
CWJ podcast, and you can visit our website Conversations with
Jacob podcast dot weeby dot com. Hey you got a
show idea, maybe a guest suggestion, Email us at conversations
with Jacob at gmail dot com. Now here's your host,
(01:12):
Jacob Waller.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
And what's going on everybody? And welcome to another episode
of Conversations with Jacob. Today is another episode and it's
another guest and another topic. But before we get to
our guest this week, I want to do a few podcasts. Plus,
make sure to check out the podcast every Monday at
one pm Eastern time. Check out the video version on
(01:39):
YouTube and also on the podcast sites including an Apple
podcast and we're on Amazon, We're on Audible, We're on iHeartRadio,
tune in the Let's just go us on and on.
At this point, make sure to check out Conversations with
jacobpodcast dot weepley dot com to check out upcoming podcast,
past guests, and just so much stuff that I'm working on,
(02:05):
some stuff for the website. Oh of course I can't
confirm or deny what's going on, because even I don't
know what's going on at this point. If you got
a question a guest suggestion, go to Conversations with Jacob
at gmail dot com, Facebook Conversations with Jacob, and also
check out a good friend of mine. His name is
out in Newsome. He holds us a podcast called Two
(02:27):
Chairs No Waiting. It's an Andy Griffinth fan podcast, and
hear us out of Newsome to tell you more about
the podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Andy Barney, Opie Goober, Floyd de Barber. That's some of
the names from the Andy Griffth Show. Drop by Two
Chairs No Waiting, the Andy griff Show fan podcast, and
we'll visit with some of those folks, along with tribute
artists and fans and just all kinds of things related
to the Andy Griffith Show. I'm your host, Alan Newsom,
and you can find the show Two Chairs No Waiting
(02:57):
at two Chairsnowaiting dot com or on it youn.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
What's an also you could check out? Uh you can
also check out at a newsome in the movie called
Mayberry Man. Uh, you can check it out on a
thing on YouTube and I think at Mayberryman dot com.
And also it's a Mayberryman series out on Amazon as well. So,
so with all that out of the way, was I'm
honored to welcome my guest, Marybeth O'Connor to the podcast.
(03:25):
And she's the author of the book called Junkie to Judge.
And so, with no further ado, and let's welcome a
Mary o'beth to the podcast. Hi, welcome aboard.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Oh but of course, now before we get started, are you,
by chance kind of Irish related?
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean definitely. The coloring as you can
see is the Irish coloring and the name. But I'm
really only twenty five percent Irish. I'm just a typical
American mutt, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Oh, oh, it's a guest to get started. Can you
tell people a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Sure? So, I mean the full title of the book
sort of captures it. It's from Junkie to Judge, One
Woman's triumph over trauma and addiction, because I really emphasized
both and trying to show the connection between substance use
disorder and trauma histories, and for me, that was definitely
the case. I grew up with a really challenging childhood.
My mother wasn't connected to me. I was left once
(04:23):
for six months, once for three years. She was violent,
but it got a lot worse when I was nine
and she married my violent stepfather, and so he was
very violent with her, physically, sexually violent with me, and
he just started things off on a bad foot and
made drugs attractive and excessive and long lasting for me.
(04:43):
So that's sort of the introductory version.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I was also a rid How you got I'm addicted
to meth at seventeen years old?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
That's right? Yeah, I mean I started with alcohol, which was,
you know, a common introductory drug, and it was Boone's
Farms Strawberry Hill wine, which a lot of people are
familiar with, so I always mentioned it. But by I
mean I added in weed pills, did a lot of
acid for a while. But when I was sixteen, I
did find what became my drug of choice, which was methamphetamine.
(05:14):
And I was shooting meth at seventeen and in full
boar addiction in high school. So it was a pretty
fast and vicious escalation.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Now with all these drugs you were taken at a
young age, and what was some of the side effects
that you was going through.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Yeah, I mean, like, let's say, in high school, I
lost a lot of weight. I mean literally you could
count the bones.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
In my back.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
You know, I had some tweaky like skin picking type behaviors.
But also you know, you know, at first, I mean
if the first snort, the first shot is you know, exhilarating, right,
But that goes away relatively quickly when you do it
to excess. And so I was, you know, really emotionally devastated.
I was exhausted, I was making poor choices, I was
(05:59):
putting myself in danger. So there were a lot of
lifestyle consequences. But also I was still dealing with living
in an abusive household. And so the positive side of
it is that it sort of numbs you out and
it makes it easier to sort of put a liddle
on the pain and keep the pain shoved down. And
so that's the positive, but there definitely were negatives, even
(06:20):
by even in high school.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So I started taking drugs at a you engage, and
when did you decide that you've had enough of it.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
So I went. I grew up in Central Jersey and
I came to California for college. I graduated Berkeley, and
for the first three and a half years of college
I did better, not great, but better. But I had
a really horrible sexual saw kidnapping, grave, multiple sailings, violent boyfriend,
all of that, And so I started using methigan very
(06:51):
regularly in January of my senior year of college. And
I didn't get sober till I was thirty two. So
it was really a long haul. It was twenty years
from first drink to getting sober, and it was really
a large chunk of that was focused on.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Meth and how hard was it to kind of up
and how hard was it to put all that aside?
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Well, I mean, part of the challenge wasn't just the
substance use, right, I Mean the truth is that a
lot of us when we get sober, we have other
things going on. Like I had a trauma history. I
had PTSD and I didn't know it, you know, I
had very severe anxiety. So the sobriety side, I did
rehab once when I was thirty two, but I did it,
(07:34):
you know, very seriously. I was in a long term
women's program. I did use I did use meth three
times in my first five months. And I like to
acknowledge that because perfect abstinence from day one is rare.
You know, most people can't do it. You don't really
have the skill set to do it, you know in
the beginning. It takes time and practice. But I also
(07:56):
really had to tackle the trauma. So I was in
you know, therapy for many years trying to get all
that i'd see. It took about two and a half
years for me to really feel solid in my sobriety,
but it took me about a decade to get to
an even close to a similar point on the mental
health side.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Oh well, most people might be wondering, is how did
you go from doing myth and drugs to becoming a
federal judge?
Speaker 4 (08:24):
So when during the ten years after college until thirty two, professionally,
my terminology is I worked my way down the corporate ladder,
Like I couldn't hold a job right because I was
on meth. And so when I got sober, I had
a really I had Berkeley degree in good grades, but
I had an embarrassing resume, and so professionally, I had
(08:45):
to be realistic, like, first of all, nobody was going
to hire me for a career job. But I also
wasn't really ready for a career job. And so when
I got home from rehab, my first job was a
part time, temporary, low level administrative job. I needed to
get the habit of like going to work every day,
you know, and staying like all the hours and doing
a good job. And then I moved into middle management.
(09:09):
And then at six and a half years sober, I
went to Berkeley Law School, and then I worked at
a big law firm. Then I did class action work
for the federal government, and I really emphasized At twenty
years sober, I was appointed a federal administrative law judge.
So it wasn't on my radar when I got sober.
It wasn't something I planned on. It was really about
(09:29):
just sort of more like what's the right next step,
what's the right next step after that, and just you know,
moving forward incrementally.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Now, if you've been a federal judge and what kind
of cases takes you handle.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Yeah, so you're right to ask that, because there's all
all kinds of different judges federal, state, county, right, And
so I was a federal administrative law judge, and so
that meant I worked for a specific agency, and I
worked for the Social Security Administration, So mostly I handled
disability cases as well as some other cases that were
(10:01):
against Social Security.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Did you ever handle a case to where you didn't
know what to do?
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Well, I mean, it's it's not so much that you
don't know what to do, it's that you know, like,
let's look at it this way. So here's the range
of cases, right, And there's a chunk of them that
are clearly this answer and a chunk that are clearly
that answer. But it's those those middle cases that you know,
sort of keep you up at night sometime trying to
make sure you're making the right decision. They're the ones
that you might look through the record two or three
(10:30):
times instead of just once, or talk to one of
your colleagues right about what you're weighing. And so there
definitely are some cases that are that are harder to
make a decision, and you know, you're really trying to
do the right thing and come to the right conclusion.
But if yeah, there's those cases in the middle that
can be a challenge to really make that determination, because
(10:52):
you're making a really critical decision in the life of
the person that's before you, right, I mean, this is
not a minor issue. It's going to have a great
impact on that individual, and you really want to try
to get it right.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And what did you say to kind of step away
from being a judge?
Speaker 4 (11:09):
So by the time I was a judge for five
and a half years, and you know, because I didn't know,
I didn't become a lawyer until so late. I mean
I got sober thirty two. I was thirty nine when
I started law school, in forty two when I graduated.
So you know, by the time I was a judge,
I was in my in my early fifties. And so
I did it for five and a half years, and
(11:30):
then I took early retirement for medical reasons basically, and
and so so then it was sort of my time
to say, Okay, well I can't work full time, but
I can do some things, you know, and so what
am I going to do? And because I was retired
for the first time, I could tell my whole history
and my whole story and have conversations with people like
(11:51):
you without having to worry about professional ramifications. So it
was really a time. It really frees me to sort
of to be able to to say everything, to be
able to sort of use my third thirty years of
continuous sobriety. I'm a former federal judge. I'm on the
board for Life Bring Secular Recovery. I'm on the board
(12:12):
for she Recovers Foundation. I've had opinion pieces like in
the Wall Street Journal and the La Times. They're on
my website, by the way, Junkey to judge dot com.
And I have my book out and so I try
to use all of that as a package as an
opportunity to you know, do workshops and presentations and trainings
and have discussions about topics related to substance use and recovery.
(12:36):
And it's really a very rewarding time for me.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Actually, now, did you decide to write your book after
you retired or did that come later in life?
Speaker 4 (12:46):
So when I was appointed a federal judge, it was
kind of a natural time of reflection, right, like, how
the heck did I go from shooting methods seventeen to
being a judge? And I started to think could my
story be of use? You know? And one of the
things is that my recovery approach was more individual plan like,
I didn't do it just by twelve steps. I pulled
(13:06):
a couple ideas, but it wasn't my primary program. And
twelve steps is you know, alcoholics anonymous and all the anonymouses.
I used Life rang Secular Recovery's parent, I used Smart
Recovery's parent. I did a women's program, Women for Sobriety.
So I built a more individualized program, which when I
got sober ninety four, I didn't know anyone who did it,
(13:27):
but more people do it today. But I didn't see
a memoir talking about that. And so a third of
my book is my first three years of recovery to
show sort of what that looked like. But also I
wanted to show that trauma, mental health, substance use connection,
to try to show that the recovery really involves both.
You know, for me to live my best, most productive,
(13:48):
happiest life, I had to tackle both of those areas
or I was really going to not I wasn't going
to be my true self. I wasn't going to be
my authentic self. I wasn't going to be everything I
could be. And I thought the memoir that would be
important to run a memoir that talked about that.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Now, now with your bug T think you will help
people that went through the same thing that you went through.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
I mean, I try to use my story as a
positive example, right. I mean, look, I was abused as
a child, physically abused, sexually abused. I had sexual saults,
a violent boyfriend. I had twenty years of drug use,
and yet and I think it's so much. I was
thirty two, and yet you know, I have a happy
and productive life and the job the judge title. I mean,
(14:35):
I'm proud of that. And then I managed to go
to law school and become a judge. But that's really
my job, right, I mean, the joy of recovery is that, like,
you know, I'm a fair partner to my husband, I'm
a good aunt. You know, I'm able to be of
service and all those things. And so I try to
I try to use my story also as a reassurance
(14:55):
to the friends and family who say the loved one
is still struggling. I talked to someone the other day.
She said her brother's using meth and I said how
old is he? And she said thirty two, And I said, well,
I need it's sober till I was thirty two, like,
you know, to sort of reassure her it's not too late,
you know, don't give up. And so I try to
use my story as a reassurance to people that there's
(15:18):
a path forward and a good life is possible.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Now you talked about you haveing trauma and being abused.
Do you ever have like nightmares or maybe flashbacks to that.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
I did for a long time. I mean I still
have a little bit of like if you've come up
behind me and you say something, I'll jump, you know,
those kind of things. But I did a lot of therapy.
I was in individual therapy with a trauma specialist for
three years, and then I was in therapy of women.
It was group therapy with women who had trauma histories,
(15:48):
and that was really a healing process because we all
had a similar experience and we could learn from each other,
and so I did for a long time. For me,
the biggest result of the trauma was my PTSD showed
up as very severe anxiety. So I was always like
worrying and spinning and I could never sort of enjoy
(16:09):
my life because I thought something horrible's going to happen tomorrow,
and so that was really what kept me emotionally stuck
for a long time, was the hyper anxiety. And I'm
a lot better. I say, I'm ninety two to ninety
five percent recovered, depending on the day. And I don't
want to scare anybody who's struggling with that when I
say ten years, it's not horrible and a light switch,
(16:32):
You're great. It's you know, gradual improvement, better, better, better, better.
But it was a long process for me.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And what do you mean when you say that you
built an individual hall recovery plan.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
I mean so like the Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, all
the twelve step that's one pure support option and a
lot of people that's a good fit for but it
wasn't really the best fit for me. And there are
other groups. There's Life Ring Secular Recovery that I'm on
the board for. There She Recovers Foundation, which is for
(17:07):
not just substance recovery, but mental health and trauma and
other behavioral disorders like gambling or shopping. There's a number
of options. And so what I did when I got
sober in ninety four is that I read the books
for all. I read the books for AA and Narconics, anonyms,
and Life Ring's parent and Smart's parent and women for Sobriety,
(17:29):
and I went to meetings for all of them. But
I was always viewed myself as the decision maker, like,
what are the ideas that I'm being presented with, the strategies,
the techniques, which ones do I think will help me
as an individual? And so I was always filtering them.
So I might pull two ideas from AA and these
(17:49):
other ideas from Life Ring and these ideas from Smart,
and I would synthesize them into a plan. When I
say individual, it doesn't mean alone. It just means that
you decide. You know, you're sort of deciding what's the
right plan for you because we're all different. You know,
what works for you might not be a good fit
for me. And so it's really about letting people know
(18:11):
they have choices so they can find the right place,
but also giving them sort of my permission, not that
they needed my example that you can mix and match
programs and get thirty years of continuous sobriety if you
make a plan that's going to work for you.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
So you kind of make your own AA plan, yes, Yes.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
And in life when we call it a personal recovery plan.
That's the terminology that we do. But again it doesn't
mean alone. Like part of a recovery plan is deciding
what help you need. Like it's a self empowered choice
to decide I need professional help, or I need to
go to these meetings or I need to go into
you know, treatment. That's still a self empowered decision because
(18:53):
you're deciding that's what I need and you're going out
and you're getting it now.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
And what is the difference between a criminal or a
pro to a drug used onto a health approach?
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Yeah? I mean we've done the war on drugs for
over fifty years and you know it's failed, right. I
mean last year we had more overdose deaths than ever
record number. Well, actually twenty twenty three went down three thousand,
so it was one hundred and twenty and twenty twenty
two and one hundred and seventeen and twenty twenty three,
but that's still very, very high. The overdose death is
(19:27):
the number one cause of death in the eighteen to
thirty five age group in America. So this war on
drugs approach hasn't reduced availability of drugs.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Right.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Drugs are very easy to get for anybody hasn't saved lives.
It's actually you know, people are dying. But also there's
a lot of problems with the way it's implemented. And
so for example, you could treat three or four people
for the price of incarcerating one. And so if we
took the dollars used for incarcerating someone, let's just say
(19:59):
for possession, right, pure possession, not other crimes related to drugs,
just possession. And by the way, there's a half a
million people in jail today just for possession. You could
you could treat like a million and a half people
for the price of incarcerating that half a million. And
so it's not a good use of our tax dollars.
But also the government recognizes that addiction is a is
(20:22):
a disease or medical condition, right, and why would you
criminalize a medical condition. It's a it's a contradiction. Plus,
we have a really vast racial disparity in the way
we enforce our drug laws. So people of color and
white people use drugs at the same rate, but they don't.
The people of color get arrested a lot more, they
go to jail a lot more, the sentences are longer,
(20:44):
so there's not even a fair enforcement of the laws
we have. So for me, for all of those reasons,
I would I would I support the public health approach
and using our dollars for treatment for harm reduction, for
other supports rather than criminalizing people, which also has long
term ramifications when they get out of jail.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Right now, can you give me a reason? Maybe you can't,
Maybe you can't. Don't know why people turn to drugs.
It's just something that goes in It is something that
goes inside of the home that causes them to try it.
Or do you think it's friends that kind of pushes
them to do it? You know, do you got a
(21:25):
reason or.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Well, I'll say this. The majority of people that use
all drugs, I mean any drug, they use it in moderation. Right.
The people who develop a problem, it's a small subset.
It's usually ten to twenty percent of the people that
use any specific drug develop a problem with a drug.
And by the way, when I say drug, I always
mean including alcohol. Right, Alcohol is a drug. Alcohol is
(21:49):
still the number one killer. Alcohol still killed more people
than all the other drugs combined last year, So it's
still the biggest killer. So when I say drugs I mean,
including alcohol, but most people use a moderation. The people
who develop a problem, the large majority, either have trauma
history childhood trauma, and or they have a mental health
(22:11):
condition that's not properly treated. That's not everybody, but that's
a large percentage of it.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
All right, And how can friends and family assist with
those that are struggling with drug addictions.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
I'm glad you asked, because I took a lot to
friends and family. So there is this idea of tough love,
which you probably heard that term, and that actually doesn't
have very good evidence for being effective today. The evidence
based approach is called craft, community reinforcement, and family training.
And I always recommend to friends and family the book
(22:47):
Beyond Addiction. There's a book and a workbook, and it
really offers. It explains craft techniques. It explains well. First,
it explains what addiction is, why it's so hard to change,
you know, why the formation it's hard to change. It
talks about what friends and family can do to sort
of move the ball forward in a positive direction, and
(23:08):
what they can't do and what they shouldn't do, and
it gets very concrete examples of techniques that friends and
family can use and a more positive reinforcement focused. So definitely,
if I had a friend or family member today, I
would read Beyond Addiction and do that work book. I
think it's very it's just an excellent resource for families.
(23:28):
I'm friends now.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I know I'll never ask it, you know what? Oh oh,
it's I never asked this question. So it may sound
dumb again, which it may not, but what is your
definition of addiction?
Speaker 4 (23:43):
So it's interesting. When I got sober in ninety three
ninety four, it was really focused like how many drinks
a day do you have? Or how many days a
week do you drink? And that's still considered for severity.
But today the definition is really what are the negative
consequences in your life? And yet you keep using? So
the focus is on how is it impacting you? And
(24:04):
the worst that it impacts you, the more severe it
is considered. The other thing is that addiction, and today
we call it, we say substance use disorder today rather
than addiction because it's the medical term and it is,
you know, considered a medical condition. Substance use disorder or
addiction can be It's can be mild, moderate, or severe,
(24:25):
just like anxiety right could be mild, moderate, or severe,
or depression could be mild monitor severe. So today one
of the new focuses is let's disrupt this problem at
the mild or moderate level and not wait until it
gets really severe. So let's not have that old ideology
of you have to have this vicious, horrible bottom to
(24:46):
get sober. It's not true, and it's dangerous for people
to wait that long. Plus they're just like losing more
years and destroying more of their lives. So today it's
really the focus is on what are the negative consequences
in your life, and let's try to help you get
this under control as early as possible.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Now, how when you was doing drugs or meth and
all that stuff, if you didn't get sober, where do
you think you would be at today?
Speaker 4 (25:16):
I don't know if I would be alive. I mean,
you know, I was having a lot of physical problems
at thirty two, and if I was alive and still using,
it's really hard to imagine. I probably would have been
in and out of jail. I probably would have been
you know, good chance I would end up, you know,
living on the periphery of society or homeless. With the
(25:38):
wide variety of potential medical conditions, right from meth and
from using needles, although I used the needle exchange, so
I was getting clean needles, which means you don't get
HIV and you don't get HEPSI and those kind of things.
But mostly it's about the misery, right, I mean, being
a drug addict is not a fun life, you know,
It's a really exhausting, debilitating, miserable existence. And so I
(26:06):
when I see people that are struggling, I just feel
sympathy for them. It's a very hard way to live,
and they are not out there having a good time,
and I really, I really want to do what I
can to encourage getting them access to treatment and getting
people to offer a helping hand.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Can you explain the overdose of crisis.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Yeah, so, I mean it used to be that pretty
much everybody that died of an overdose was a long
term drug user, and that's still two thirds of the dests.
But what's changed is that about a third of the
desks are more casual users. And it's because the the
drug supply, especially the opiate drug supply, has been infiltrated
(26:51):
with fentanyl and other similar drugs that are used instead
of heroin, you know, which which I mean here, and
has problems With fentanyls. It's much higher concentration and it's
harder to control the dose. And also people don't always
know they're getting it. So part of what's happening is
that people in their teens in twenties, let's say, are
(27:13):
ordering pills off the internet and they think it's oxycodone
or they think it's percoset, but it's really not. It's fentanyl.
And in a pill form, the fentanyl isn't always evenly
distributed in all the pills, so one could have more
than the other, and so kids are dying, and so
that's a big part of it. It's about the toxicity,
(27:34):
is the terminology of the drug supply. But that's also
why it's important to have narcan around. And so nar
can is a spray. If somebody is having an opiate overdose,
you spray nar can up their nose and it will
revive them. It sort of kicks the opiates off of
the receptors and they will revive. But also if you're
(27:56):
wrong and they're really not having an overdose, it won't
hurt them. And so it's a safe drug. And so
I really encourage anyone in particular with teenagers or twenty
somethings in their household to have narc can because either
your child could be using and you don't realize it,
or maybe one of their friends would need it. And
(28:17):
so having nar can on hand is a lifesaver in
a lot of circumstances.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Now and how and what is the relationship between trauma
and addiction.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
So there's something called an ACE score. It's an Adverse
Childhood Experiences Score. It's a test. You can find it online.
It's a test of ten questions and it's about different
forms of trauma in your childhood's physical, verbal, sexual, but
also things like did you have a parent that had
a mental health untreated mental health issue? Did you have
a parent that was incarcerated? I think poverty is one
(28:51):
of the ten questions. The data shows that if you
have an ACE score of let's say four, odds of
developing a substance use disorder are like three or four
times higher than the national average. And so, for example,
my A score is seven, and so that put me
at really high risk. It's because when you have that
(29:14):
kind of experience, as especially when you're younger, and especially
if it's ongoing. In other words, it's not like a
one time event, but it's something that happens over and
over again. It affects the way your brain develops, and
it makes drugs more appealing. And it also drugs initially
seem to work. They seem to work in the beginning
(29:37):
to help you manage your pain and to feel better.
They in the long run, they can become a real problem,
but in the beginning they seem to work, and so
it's very attractive to people that have that kind of pain.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
And what is harm reduction?
Speaker 4 (29:52):
So harm reduction is anything that reduces risk of dying
or other negative consequences. Arcan is considered to be a
form of harm reduction. When I was using shooting meth
the last couple of years in the late eighties and
early nineties, I would get clean needles from a needle exchange.
That's considered a form of harm reduction. It prevents you
(30:15):
from getting blood borne diseases, you know, from sharing needles.
Harm reduction can include things like moderating, you know, like
I'm not gonna I know, people when they get sober,
sometimes maybe they're using alcohol and cannabis, but they think
alcohol is the big problem, so they'll stop alcohol but
keep using cannabis. That's a type of harm reduction. Giving
(30:37):
people medication for alcohol use disorder and opiate used to disorders.
There are medications that will prevent cravings and reduce overdose
risk by like sixty percent. Sometimes they're import in the
harm reduction box. So it's really about different techniques that
will help people not die or not have long term
(30:59):
medical or consequences from their drug use. Sometimes harm reduction
people do it on the way to sobriety, but sometimes
it's really just even if you're not getting sober, we
don't want you to die from HIV, right, we don't
want you to have some other horrible consequence. And so
that's sort of the concept, is to help people where
they are not knowing if it's ever going to lead
(31:21):
them to abstinence.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Now, now with your book from Junkie to Judge, where
can people purchase that book at?
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Yeah, so it's on Amazon and all the usual sites.
You can also get it at your local bookstore or
they can order it if you don't have it, I mean,
if they don't have it and it is available not
just the paperback, but the E version I know a
lot of people read on their kindle, and there's a
kindle version. There's even an audio version, so it's readily available.
And I will also emphasize that, like I said, thirty
(31:53):
percent of the book is about recovery, and so it
really does show sort of a more realistic example of
what the first couple years of recovery look like. And
then I do have guidelines and checklists in the back
to help people think about their early recovery.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Now, now with the book, and what do you kind
of want people to take away from it?
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Yeah, I mean, so I'm really trying to. I hope
that it shows an example of how even with a
lot of all the challenges that I face, there's still
a path forward to a happy and productive life. And
so the book itself, I think that's really the primary goal,
to show a realistic example of how to get out
of that misery and how to heal from trauma from
(32:39):
mental health conditions, as well as how to maintain a
solid sobriety, how to build a good song and robust
sobiety foundation.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And where can people find you on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
So I'm junkid Judge dot com is my website and
there's some of my opinion pieces like in the Wall
Street Journal and the La Times. Those are there events.
I do a lot of speaking and people can message
me through my website if you if you want more
information about anything I talked about today, or if you
have a speaking opportunity, you can always message me through
(33:12):
my website. And then I'm on Twitter X, you know Twitter,
and I will emphasize I don't argue with people on Twitter,
but I provide a lot of information about substance use
and recovery. And so I'll provide the new studies or
the new articles, and I'm at Mary Betho underscore all right, Uh.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Before you wrap up what they usually ask my guests
if they have a close in thought to you goet
a close and thought.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
I guess, I guess it would just be that you know,
if if we if we help people get out of
that chaos, you know there is a way forward. But
we also need to be practical and realistic. And so
it's why I always talk about how my early sobriety
wasn't perfect, right, I mean, people getting sober is a challenge.
(33:59):
It's you know, it's a new way of thinking. You
need sort of practice, building the habits, practice being able
to handle cravings, practice being able to handle situations where
you're exposed to your drug of choice, especially if it's alcohol.
But these skills are possible with time and with effort
and with hard work, and so I hope that my
(34:22):
story will reassure people that there's a path forward.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Absolutely. Oh well, Mary Beth, I thank you for coming
on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Well, thank you for having me. It's been a nice conversation.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Oh absolutely all right. That wraps this week of conversations
with Jacob. Tune in next Monday for another interview hone
a different topic. Until then, God bless and we'll kick
you guys right here next week
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