WEBVTT
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Chemsex.
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Sexualized drug use among men who have sex with men, typically involving methamphetamine, methadrone, and GHB, among others.
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Chemsex misuse is a worldwide epidemic that needs attention, dialogue, and hope for those lost in it, which is the purpose of the Aftermath Podcast.
00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:28.160
Please note the views expressed by the host and guest on this podcast are not to be taken as medical advice, and the content around sex and drug use can be triggering.
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Alright, welcome back to the Aftermath Podcast and this solo episode.
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Don't forget there is a supplemental study guide that goes along with this episode.
00:00:36.159 --> 00:00:37.759
The link is in the show notes.
00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:46.079
Please remember to like, subscribe, and rate the podcast so we can get the algorithm to place it in the ears and the eyes of those who need it.
00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:51.439
All right, in the last podcast, we spoke on a high level about my theories.
00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:52.799
These are my theories.
00:00:53.039 --> 00:00:57.520
This is not scientific evidence around the common chemsex recovery process.
00:00:57.679 --> 00:01:03.119
And I've arranged it to correlate with the five stages of grief one goes through after the death of a loved one.
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So I'm applying them to the way I see men allowing their old self to die in order to reveal the man they've always been, chemsex-free.
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Now, we will spend five weeks taking a deep dive into each of these stages.
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So we are starting today with denial because that is where almost every man begins, including me, including the man listening to this or watching this who thinks this message is about somebody else.
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Denial seems to be the first room we enter along this journey.
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And I think it is the darkest room that we wander around for a while in delusion.
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I know I did.
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And as with all stages, we may leave and re-enter this room several times.
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But when you are finally ready to move on, you are ready to begin the deeper death process.
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So let's talk about this a little bit.
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What denial actually is.
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So to me, denial is your brain protecting you from a truth it has decided you cannot survive yet.
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To the subconscious, the the truth that your subconscious your chemsex experience is over seems like life or death to you.
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The dopamine and the importance you've placed on chemsex tells your pleasure center that this is a great thing, necessary for your survival, chemically speaking.
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This part that wants to use meth is hoping to protect you.
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This part that's denying it is hoping to protect you.
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So please note that denial has your best interest at heart.
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That's a very important distinction.
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So we tend to treat denial like a moral failing, as if the man in denial were willfully blind, right?
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Like choosing not to see what's right in front of him, being selfish, being stupid, being ignorant.
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I want you to stop that shit.
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Denial is older and smarter than that.
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Denial is a survival mechanism.
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It is your nervous system saying, if you let the full weight of this in right now, you will not make it.
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So I'm going to filter it.
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I'm going to soften it.
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I'm going to let you keep functioning.
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The problem is that the filter never turns off on its own.
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The subconscious will keep it there.
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The filter has to be removed.
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Removing it is the work you must do.
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This is where your free will comes into play.
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For men in chemsex misuse, denial has a particular flavor.
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It's not just denial of the substance here.
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It's denial of the cost to your life.
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It's denial of the that the community you're in is harmful.
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It's denial of the identity you've chosen to inhabit.
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It's denial of the fact that this thing that started out as fun, as freedom, as belonging has now become a prison.
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So how how did denial show up for me?
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I kind of alluded to it in the last podcast.
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I told you that I barely had time to be in denial because of how often I was using.
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And that is true on the surface, but but listen, underneath, my denial was running the whole show.
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My denial was so deep that it could not even form sentences.
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There was no way to articulate it.
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There was no voice in my head.
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It was structural.
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It was the architecture of my entire life.
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I was being evicted from my home and I could not comprehend that it was happening.
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And not because I was high in that moment either, because my brain refused to assemble the evidence into a coherent picture.
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My subconscious knew that if the gravity of that situation truly landed in my nervous system, I would have short circuited.
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The notices came, the court day passed, the sheriff arrived, and here I stood, right on the curb, with my belongings on the sidewalk, and felt something close to confusion.
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Delusion.
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Like I had wandered somehow into someone else's life accidentally.
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This is what late stage denial looks like.
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It's not a story you're telling yourself.
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It is the absence of a story.
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It is the inability to connect the dots that everyone around you can see clearly.
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And before that moment on the curb, denial was every small minimization I had made for years before that.
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Every time I told myself I had it under control, every time I compared my use to a guy who was worse, every time I rationalized why this Friday would be different, while this session would be the last one, why I deserve this after the week I had.
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Denial is not one big lie.
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Denial is 10,000 small ones, told very quietly, very subtly, every day, until you're living in that state of delusion that I was in.
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So let's listen to the voices of denial.
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Right?
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Denial speaks in a vocabulary that sounds very reasonable.
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That is what makes it dangerous.
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If denial sounded crazy, you would catch it, right?
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But it sounds like the most logical voice in your head.
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It says I can moderate.
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It says I only use for energy.
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It says I can keep this going.
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It says I just need to slow down, not stop.
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It says the other guys are worse than me.
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It says my job is fine, my family doesn't know, my body's holding up.
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It says this is not a problem yet.
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It says I will know when it is time to stop.
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And it says my dealer's my best friend.
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And it also says the sex is incredible.
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The community accepts me, and I belong here, and I'm not ready to give that up, and I shouldn't have to.
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That's what my denial sounds like.
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A little timber tantrum.
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So notice, though, how reasonable some of that could sound.
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That's the trap.
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This is that is the trap that you're in.
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Denial does not announce itself.
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It blends in subtly with your other thoughts.
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It uses your own voice.
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It borrows your intelligence.
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It dresses itself up in your own values.
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Like the man in denial is not a stupid man.
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He's often very smart, and he's using all of his intelligence to avoid one specific truth.
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So let's look at comparison in this sense.
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So the most seductive form of denial is going to come in comparison.
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So you look at that guy who lost his job and you still have yours.
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You look at the guy who lost his apartment and yours is still standing.
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You look at the guy who has been hospitalized and your body's still moving.
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You look at the guy who has been arrested and you've stayed under the radar.
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And you tell yourself, I am not that bad.
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Comparison is denial.
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But it's wearing a suit and tie, right?
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It looks like reason.
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It seems like reason.
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It uses evidence.
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It gives you something to compare, it gives you something to look at.
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It performs in a mature way, but it is doing the same thing every other voice of denial does.
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It is buying you time.
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It is letting you keep using while telling yourself you are different than the other guys.
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Here's the truth comparison hides.
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Every man who lost everything started where you are or has been where you are on your journey.
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The man with no job had a job once.
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The man with no apartment had an apartment once.
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The man in the hospital had a healthy body once.
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The man in handcuffs had freedom once.
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And every one of them, at some point in the early years, said the exact sentence you're saying right now.
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I am not that bad.
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Comparison is not data.
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Comparison is a delay tactic.
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It is your denial trying to convince you that the cliff you're walking toward does not apply to you because you're still further back from the edge than the guy who already fell off.
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You are still on the cliff.
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So listen, this is why denial has to break.
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Denial has an expiration date.
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It has to.
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It has to, because reality keeps applying pressure from the outside, and your soul keeps applying pressure from the inside.
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And the body feels it.
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The body knows.
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Even when the mind is busy minimizing, your nervous system's keeping the score.
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The G outs, the crashes that last longer than the highs, the skin breaking down, the teeth, the heart palpitations in the middle of the night, when you're alone, and when you're alone and the silence is too loud.
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The body is going to be the first whistleblower.
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The body refuses to lie.
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Even when your mouth keeps lying to you, even when your thoughts keep saying those things, the body knows.
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The relationships on the outside will know too.
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Your family stops calling as often.
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Your friends from before chemsex quietly step back.
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The community you found in the scene starts to feel less like family, more like an audience and more like a transactional relationship.
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Even the sex starts to feel like work if it's even there anymore.
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Even the connection starts to feel performative.
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Something in you is registering that you are alone in a crowd.
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And that registration is the soul refusing to be denied any second longer.
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The days you can't account for, the money you can't trace, the promises you made and you broke, the plans you canceled, the version of your life you keep saying you're going to start tomorrow.
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At some point, the pressure from reality and the pressure from your soul meet in the middle, and the walls of denial cracks, and now we have rock bottom.
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That crack is grace.
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That breakdown.
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That's the devastation.
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But it is still grace.
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Because on the other side of that crack, on the other side of that rock bottom is the beginning of your actual life and the process of death.
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So what does it feel like to move through denial?
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So coming out of denial does not feel like enlightenment.
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It doesn't feel like it's happy and free.
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It feels like falling.
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Because you wake up one morning, that filter's gone.
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The evidence you have been refusing to see assembles itself in front of you, usually without your permission.
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The filter's gone.
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You see what you're using has actually cost you.
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Not the sanitized version, the real version.
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You get to see the relationships you've damaged, the opportunities you've missed, the years you cannot get back.
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The version of yourself you abandoned to become the version of yourself that could survive in the scene.
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And it begins to hurt.
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It hurts bad.
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And it hurts in a way that nothing has hurt before because for the first time in years, you're feeling it without the denial filter.
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And this is the moment where many men will relapse.
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Not because they want to use, but because they cannot bear the weight of what they're seeing and feeling.
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They reach for the substance not to feel good, but to stop feeling at all.
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To put the filter back on.
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Please put the filter back on to return to that euphoric bliss of ignorance, right?
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If this is where you are right now, I want you to hear me very clearly.
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The pain of seeing is not punishment for you.
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The pain of seeing the actual price, that is the price of admission to your actual life ahead.
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The price of admission to this process.
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This is the beginning of your journey.
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Sit in the pain.
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Do not run from it.
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Do not try to numb it.
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Do not try to make it feel better.
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Feel it better.
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It does not last forever, but it does transform.
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You have to stay in it long enough for the transformation to happen.
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You cannot heal what you cannot feel, and you will not see what your denial is still protecting you from.
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All right.
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If you have read this far or watched this far, or listened this far, something in you is already past the worst of denial.
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Because the men who are deep in denial are not going to listen to podcasts like this.
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They're going to click off.
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They're going to tell themselves, eh, that's for somebody else.
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They scroll past for something that they want to hear, right?
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You are still here, which means a part of you is ready to see.
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You do not have to see everything at once.
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You do not have to dismantle a decade of denial in just one afternoon.
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You just have to be willing to look at one thing today that you've been avoiding, one truth, one piece of evidence, one sentence you've been refusing to say out loud.
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This is how denial ends.
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It's not in a single moment, a big revelation, but in a thousand small acts of looking.
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So in the next podcast, we're going to go into anger.
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Because once that filter comes off and you start to see what was taken from you and what you gave away and what was stolen, the rage begins to bubble.
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And anger is its own terrain with its own danger, but also its own gifts.
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So for now, just look.
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Witness.
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Let one thing in.
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And let's get this process going.
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Okay.
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I hope this helps.
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If you have any comments, suggestions, feedback, you can comment on Spotify, you can comment on YouTube, or you can DM me.
00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:32.000
I'm on social media at all times, everywhere.
00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:32.639
All right.
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Have a good week.
00:00:00.479 --> 00:00:01.360
Chemsex.
00:00:01.760 --> 00:00:09.119
Sexualized drug use among men who have sex with men, typically involving methamphetamine, methadrone, and GHB, among others.
00:00:09.359 --> 00:00:18.399
Chemsex misuse is a worldwide epidemic that needs attention, dialogue, and hope for those lost in it, which is the purpose of the Aftermath Podcast.
00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:28.160
Please note the views expressed by the host and guest on this podcast are not to be taken as medical advice, and the content around sex and drug use can be triggering.
00:00:28.640 --> 00:00:32.479
Alright, welcome back to the Aftermath Podcast and this solo episode.
00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:36.079
Don't forget there is a supplemental study guide that goes along with this episode.
00:00:36.159 --> 00:00:37.759
The link is in the show notes.
00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:46.079
Please remember to like, subscribe, and rate the podcast so we can get the algorithm to place it in the ears and the eyes of those who need it.
00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:51.439
All right, in the last podcast, we spoke on a high level about my theories.
00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:52.799
These are my theories.
00:00:53.039 --> 00:00:57.520
This is not scientific evidence around the common chemsex recovery process.
00:00:57.679 --> 00:01:03.119
And I've arranged it to correlate with the five stages of grief one goes through after the death of a loved one.
00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:12.799
So I'm applying them to the way I see men allowing their old self to die in order to reveal the man they've always been, chemsex-free.
00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:18.000
Now, we will spend five weeks taking a deep dive into each of these stages.
00:01:18.159 --> 00:01:31.040
So we are starting today with denial because that is where almost every man begins, including me, including the man listening to this or watching this who thinks this message is about somebody else.
00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:36.560
Denial seems to be the first room we enter along this journey.
00:01:36.719 --> 00:01:42.560
And I think it is the darkest room that we wander around for a while in delusion.
00:01:42.719 --> 00:01:43.680
I know I did.
00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:49.760
And as with all stages, we may leave and re-enter this room several times.
00:01:50.079 --> 00:01:56.319
But when you are finally ready to move on, you are ready to begin the deeper death process.
00:01:56.719 --> 00:01:58.959
So let's talk about this a little bit.
00:01:59.120 --> 00:02:01.280
What denial actually is.
00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:10.000
So to me, denial is your brain protecting you from a truth it has decided you cannot survive yet.
00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:22.800
To the subconscious, the the truth that your subconscious your chemsex experience is over seems like life or death to you.
00:02:23.439 --> 00:02:34.560
The dopamine and the importance you've placed on chemsex tells your pleasure center that this is a great thing, necessary for your survival, chemically speaking.
00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:40.319
This part that wants to use meth is hoping to protect you.
00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:44.879
This part that's denying it is hoping to protect you.
00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:49.759
So please note that denial has your best interest at heart.
00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:52.560
That's a very important distinction.
00:02:52.960 --> 00:03:00.639
So we tend to treat denial like a moral failing, as if the man in denial were willfully blind, right?
00:03:00.719 --> 00:03:06.000
Like choosing not to see what's right in front of him, being selfish, being stupid, being ignorant.
00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:07.919
I want you to stop that shit.
00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:11.280
Denial is older and smarter than that.
00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.319
Denial is a survival mechanism.
00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:21.599
It is your nervous system saying, if you let the full weight of this in right now, you will not make it.
00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:24.159
So I'm going to filter it.
00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:26.400
I'm going to soften it.
00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:29.680
I'm going to let you keep functioning.
00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.960
The problem is that the filter never turns off on its own.
00:03:35.199 --> 00:03:37.280
The subconscious will keep it there.
00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:40.000
The filter has to be removed.
00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:44.000
Removing it is the work you must do.
00:03:44.240 --> 00:03:46.800
This is where your free will comes into play.
00:03:47.039 --> 00:03:52.240
For men in chemsex misuse, denial has a particular flavor.
00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:55.039
It's not just denial of the substance here.
00:03:55.199 --> 00:03:58.879
It's denial of the cost to your life.
00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:03.199
It's denial of the that the community you're in is harmful.
00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:07.680
It's denial of the identity you've chosen to inhabit.
00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:15.840
It's denial of the fact that this thing that started out as fun, as freedom, as belonging has now become a prison.
00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:19.360
So how how did denial show up for me?
00:04:19.519 --> 00:04:21.920
I kind of alluded to it in the last podcast.
00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:29.040
I told you that I barely had time to be in denial because of how often I was using.
00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:36.720
And that is true on the surface, but but listen, underneath, my denial was running the whole show.
00:04:37.519 --> 00:04:43.199
My denial was so deep that it could not even form sentences.
00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:45.040
There was no way to articulate it.
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There was no voice in my head.
00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:48.160
It was structural.
00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:53.279
It was the architecture of my entire life.
00:04:53.839 --> 00:05:01.040
I was being evicted from my home and I could not comprehend that it was happening.
00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:11.199
And not because I was high in that moment either, because my brain refused to assemble the evidence into a coherent picture.
00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:21.120
My subconscious knew that if the gravity of that situation truly landed in my nervous system, I would have short circuited.
00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:36.319
The notices came, the court day passed, the sheriff arrived, and here I stood, right on the curb, with my belongings on the sidewalk, and felt something close to confusion.
00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:38.160
Delusion.
00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:43.680
Like I had wandered somehow into someone else's life accidentally.
00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:47.439
This is what late stage denial looks like.
00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:49.920
It's not a story you're telling yourself.
00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:52.079
It is the absence of a story.
00:05:52.319 --> 00:05:56.639
It is the inability to connect the dots that everyone around you can see clearly.
00:05:56.879 --> 00:06:03.920
And before that moment on the curb, denial was every small minimization I had made for years before that.
00:06:04.160 --> 00:06:18.399
Every time I told myself I had it under control, every time I compared my use to a guy who was worse, every time I rationalized why this Friday would be different, while this session would be the last one, why I deserve this after the week I had.
00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:22.319
Denial is not one big lie.
00:06:23.279 --> 00:06:34.720
Denial is 10,000 small ones, told very quietly, very subtly, every day, until you're living in that state of delusion that I was in.
00:06:34.959 --> 00:06:38.399
So let's listen to the voices of denial.
00:06:38.639 --> 00:06:39.040
Right?
00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:43.759
Denial speaks in a vocabulary that sounds very reasonable.
00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:46.720
That is what makes it dangerous.
00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:50.800
If denial sounded crazy, you would catch it, right?
00:06:50.959 --> 00:06:54.399
But it sounds like the most logical voice in your head.
00:06:54.639 --> 00:06:56.399
It says I can moderate.
00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:58.879
It says I only use for energy.
00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:00.800
It says I can keep this going.
00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:04.160
It says I just need to slow down, not stop.
00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:06.879
It says the other guys are worse than me.
00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:11.600
It says my job is fine, my family doesn't know, my body's holding up.
00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:14.000
It says this is not a problem yet.
00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:17.199
It says I will know when it is time to stop.
00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:20.079
And it says my dealer's my best friend.
00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:22.800
And it also says the sex is incredible.
00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:30.560
The community accepts me, and I belong here, and I'm not ready to give that up, and I shouldn't have to.
00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:34.639
That's what my denial sounds like.
00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:36.560
A little timber tantrum.
00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:40.879
So notice, though, how reasonable some of that could sound.
00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:42.480
That's the trap.
00:07:43.199 --> 00:07:46.399
This is that is the trap that you're in.
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Denial does not announce itself.
00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:55.040
It blends in subtly with your other thoughts.
00:07:55.279 --> 00:07:57.279
It uses your own voice.
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It borrows your intelligence.
00:07:59.519 --> 00:08:01.839
It dresses itself up in your own values.
00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:05.759
Like the man in denial is not a stupid man.
00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:12.800
He's often very smart, and he's using all of his intelligence to avoid one specific truth.
00:08:13.759 --> 00:08:17.519
So let's look at comparison in this sense.
00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:23.680
So the most seductive form of denial is going to come in comparison.
00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:28.399
So you look at that guy who lost his job and you still have yours.
00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:32.559
You look at the guy who lost his apartment and yours is still standing.
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You look at the guy who has been hospitalized and your body's still moving.
00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:41.279
You look at the guy who has been arrested and you've stayed under the radar.
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And you tell yourself, I am not that bad.
00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:49.039
Comparison is denial.
00:08:49.279 --> 00:08:51.120
But it's wearing a suit and tie, right?
00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:52.159
It looks like reason.
00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:53.279
It seems like reason.
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It uses evidence.
00:08:55.600 --> 00:08:58.799
It gives you something to compare, it gives you something to look at.
00:08:58.960 --> 00:09:05.519
It performs in a mature way, but it is doing the same thing every other voice of denial does.
00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:08.960
It is buying you time.
00:09:10.639 --> 00:09:17.440
It is letting you keep using while telling yourself you are different than the other guys.
00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:21.200
Here's the truth comparison hides.
00:09:21.679 --> 00:09:34.799
Every man who lost everything started where you are or has been where you are on your journey.
00:09:35.120 --> 00:09:37.440
The man with no job had a job once.
00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:40.080
The man with no apartment had an apartment once.
00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:42.559
The man in the hospital had a healthy body once.
00:09:42.639 --> 00:09:44.720
The man in handcuffs had freedom once.
00:09:44.799 --> 00:09:51.279
And every one of them, at some point in the early years, said the exact sentence you're saying right now.
00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:54.799
I am not that bad.
00:09:55.200 --> 00:09:58.000
Comparison is not data.
00:09:58.320 --> 00:10:01.360
Comparison is a delay tactic.
00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:12.480
It is your denial trying to convince you that the cliff you're walking toward does not apply to you because you're still further back from the edge than the guy who already fell off.
00:10:14.399 --> 00:10:17.600
You are still on the cliff.
00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:20.720
So listen, this is why denial has to break.
00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:23.519
Denial has an expiration date.
00:10:23.919 --> 00:10:24.879
It has to.
00:10:25.279 --> 00:10:34.399
It has to, because reality keeps applying pressure from the outside, and your soul keeps applying pressure from the inside.
00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:37.039
And the body feels it.
00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:38.240
The body knows.
00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:42.720
Even when the mind is busy minimizing, your nervous system's keeping the score.
00:10:42.879 --> 00:10:55.360
The G outs, the crashes that last longer than the highs, the skin breaking down, the teeth, the heart palpitations in the middle of the night, when you're alone, and when you're alone and the silence is too loud.
00:10:57.039 --> 00:11:00.720
The body is going to be the first whistleblower.
00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:03.120
The body refuses to lie.
00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:10.240
Even when your mouth keeps lying to you, even when your thoughts keep saying those things, the body knows.
00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:14.320
The relationships on the outside will know too.
00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:16.399
Your family stops calling as often.
00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:19.919
Your friends from before chemsex quietly step back.
00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:29.519
The community you found in the scene starts to feel less like family, more like an audience and more like a transactional relationship.
00:11:29.840 --> 00:11:34.240
Even the sex starts to feel like work if it's even there anymore.
00:11:34.559 --> 00:11:37.440
Even the connection starts to feel performative.
00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:42.240
Something in you is registering that you are alone in a crowd.
00:11:42.559 --> 00:11:50.080
And that registration is the soul refusing to be denied any second longer.
00:11:51.360 --> 00:12:02.639
The days you can't account for, the money you can't trace, the promises you made and you broke, the plans you canceled, the version of your life you keep saying you're going to start tomorrow.
00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:14.720
At some point, the pressure from reality and the pressure from your soul meet in the middle, and the walls of denial cracks, and now we have rock bottom.
00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:18.559
That crack is grace.
00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:19.759
That breakdown.
00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:21.519
That's the devastation.
00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:23.440
But it is still grace.
00:12:23.679 --> 00:12:32.720
Because on the other side of that crack, on the other side of that rock bottom is the beginning of your actual life and the process of death.
00:12:33.039 --> 00:12:35.120
So what does it feel like to move through denial?
00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:38.879
So coming out of denial does not feel like enlightenment.
00:12:39.120 --> 00:12:40.960
It doesn't feel like it's happy and free.
00:12:41.120 --> 00:12:42.320
It feels like falling.
00:12:42.559 --> 00:12:44.960
Because you wake up one morning, that filter's gone.
00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:51.519
The evidence you have been refusing to see assembles itself in front of you, usually without your permission.
00:12:51.759 --> 00:12:52.799
The filter's gone.
00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:55.840
You see what you're using has actually cost you.
00:12:56.080 --> 00:12:58.960
Not the sanitized version, the real version.
00:12:59.360 --> 00:13:07.679
You get to see the relationships you've damaged, the opportunities you've missed, the years you cannot get back.
00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:14.240
The version of yourself you abandoned to become the version of yourself that could survive in the scene.
00:13:14.480 --> 00:13:16.320
And it begins to hurt.
00:13:16.559 --> 00:13:17.919
It hurts bad.
00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:26.399
And it hurts in a way that nothing has hurt before because for the first time in years, you're feeling it without the denial filter.
00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:29.679
And this is the moment where many men will relapse.
00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:36.480
Not because they want to use, but because they cannot bear the weight of what they're seeing and feeling.
00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:42.000
They reach for the substance not to feel good, but to stop feeling at all.
00:13:42.399 --> 00:13:44.000
To put the filter back on.
00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:49.360
Please put the filter back on to return to that euphoric bliss of ignorance, right?
00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:53.039
If this is where you are right now, I want you to hear me very clearly.
00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:58.240
The pain of seeing is not punishment for you.
00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:08.000
The pain of seeing the actual price, that is the price of admission to your actual life ahead.
00:14:08.159 --> 00:14:10.240
The price of admission to this process.
00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:12.799
This is the beginning of your journey.
00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:14.960
Sit in the pain.
00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:16.240
Do not run from it.
00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:17.600
Do not try to numb it.
00:14:17.759 --> 00:14:19.759
Do not try to make it feel better.
00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:21.120
Feel it better.
00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:26.240
It does not last forever, but it does transform.
00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:31.919
You have to stay in it long enough for the transformation to happen.
00:14:32.799 --> 00:14:42.080
You cannot heal what you cannot feel, and you will not see what your denial is still protecting you from.
00:14:42.879 --> 00:14:43.519
All right.
00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:56.639
If you have read this far or watched this far, or listened this far, something in you is already past the worst of denial.
00:14:56.799 --> 00:15:02.399
Because the men who are deep in denial are not going to listen to podcasts like this.
00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:03.759
They're going to click off.
00:15:03.840 --> 00:15:06.399
They're going to tell themselves, eh, that's for somebody else.
00:15:06.559 --> 00:15:09.600
They scroll past for something that they want to hear, right?
00:15:10.480 --> 00:15:15.440
You are still here, which means a part of you is ready to see.
00:15:15.919 --> 00:15:18.480
You do not have to see everything at once.
00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:23.039
You do not have to dismantle a decade of denial in just one afternoon.
00:15:23.279 --> 00:15:35.840
You just have to be willing to look at one thing today that you've been avoiding, one truth, one piece of evidence, one sentence you've been refusing to say out loud.
00:15:36.159 --> 00:15:38.480
This is how denial ends.
00:15:38.879 --> 00:15:46.480
It's not in a single moment, a big revelation, but in a thousand small acts of looking.
00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:50.639
So in the next podcast, we're going to go into anger.
00:15:50.879 --> 00:16:00.720
Because once that filter comes off and you start to see what was taken from you and what you gave away and what was stolen, the rage begins to bubble.
00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:08.240
And anger is its own terrain with its own danger, but also its own gifts.
00:16:08.639 --> 00:16:11.519
So for now, just look.
00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:12.960
Witness.
00:16:14.720 --> 00:16:15.919
Let one thing in.
00:16:17.039 --> 00:16:19.200
And let's get this process going.
00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:19.840
Okay.
00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:21.039
I hope this helps.
00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:29.039
If you have any comments, suggestions, feedback, you can comment on Spotify, you can comment on YouTube, or you can DM me.
00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:32.000
I'm on social media at all times, everywhere.
00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:32.639
All right.
00:16:32.879 --> 00:16:34.159
Have a good week.
