00:00:00
Speaker 1: This podcast has content that may not be appropriate for all audiences. You'll hear about some difficult subjects like substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, childhood, sexual abuse, and sexual assault. Please take care. Last time on Crumbs, I ended the season story with step twelve service, But like in previous seasons, I want to give you just a little bit more so today Episode thirteen a bonus episode. Like I've said over the course of the season, everyone's recovery journey is different, but there's also things that connect us, and coming together to talk about our differences and similarities is a really beautiful, powerful thing. So I've invited a guest to join me in the studio. John Hill is an amazing stage actor and TV producer. You might know him from the original cast of Hairspray or Bear a Pop Opera, or maybe you know one of his many shows Project Runway or watch What Happens Live. He's managed to fit us into his busy schedule since he's also on a national tour with his original stand up comedy musical Wellness Check with John Hill, and he's a podcast pro. He co hosts Andy Cohen Live and hosts The John Haill Show. He's also a member of a top step recovery program, so he's a dream guest for me.
00:01:28
Speaker 2: Hi, John, Hi, thank you so much for having me.
00:01:31
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited because I get to have an honest conversation with you about something that we have in common and that ties to the season's theme, which is recovery. When the idea came up to having someone come and be a guest, I thought of you because well, A, you're a natural at this, you're a pro, and B we have that common bond of recovery.
00:01:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think we have a lot in common.
00:02:00
Speaker 3: You know, we're both members of the queer community, and I love meeting other people who are sober. It's funny when you do a gig with someone or in appearance and you don't know anything about anybody, and then at some point you kind of click and like, oh, we're both in recovery. It's it's such a relief to know there's someone in close proximity to you that if the shit hits the fan, you could say, okay, girl, no.
00:02:26
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. There's something that a lot of people who are not in the program don't understand that there's something this like voodoo magic shit that happens with like one person in recovery speaking to another person in recovery. It's something that I've struggled to describe in the season. But you know what I'm talking.
00:02:44
Speaker 3: It's hard to describe because you also don't want to sound like you're telling the rest of the world. You know, it seems like you have a secret language or something and it's accessible to everyone. But it is true. We have a shorthand you know, we have the same spiritual program.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: I think.
00:03:01
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear more about your recovery journey, if you're open and willing to coss that.
00:03:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I first started, oh gosh, how much time do we have. Let's see, it took me a long time to get sober. I knew I needed to get sober, but it took me a really long time. I just knew from the minute I started using and drinking that substances don't work with me. I want all of it, you know, if you have a joint else, I want the entire thing to myself saying yeah, it's so crazy right, like and even now, like I do the same thing with I'm the same way still, and even with like dryer sheets or moisturizer. It's like, well, I'll take another, just another pump. That's just the way we're wired. But in two thousand and four, that's when I first kind of went to a meeting, started just kind of talking to a couple of people. I didn't have an issue with admitting I had a problem. I knew that I did. I didn't take to it for a while, and then in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, I went to treatment for the first time. So between twenty four and twenty fourteen, I mean you can imagine I grew up in a really religious environment, a really strict religious Christian household, fundamental like white conservative Texas, you know, just very stereotypical. For all the time we spent to church all the hours, all the I mean every single three times a week for eighteen years. In all of that time, I never got functional tools for how to be a human being.
00:04:33
Speaker 2: Was it was almost, in a way, the opposite of.
00:04:36
Speaker 3: What we do in recovery, I think, which was all that honesty now, but before it was about tell whatever lie. You need to keep appearances up right.
00:04:49
Speaker 1: And that's something that I've also talked about throughout other seasons with my grandmother, who was pivotal in raising me. She was about keeping appearances, and you know, she went to prison for working with the Mexican drug cartel, and so that must have been very devastating for her to have that image of her just tarnished. Right, But I grew up with those ideologies of like, you present one way and you don't talk about what happens, and fucked with me in my head so much.
00:05:18
Speaker 3: It's a perfect storm for an addict because you now have a big secret you need to keep secret. So living a double life or lying about the truth was so easy for me. When I ended up being in my disease and using and drinking, it was so it was just second nature for me to lie about it and definitely would never want to ask for help.
00:05:40
Speaker 2: So I coped with drugs. I coped with pills.
00:05:44
Speaker 3: It was so easy to take a pill if I was stressed out about something or afraid of something, it just immediately took it away.
00:05:50
Speaker 2: It was great.
00:05:53
Speaker 3: I had an aunt who passed away from this disease in a treatment center from a seizure come off of benzos, and I'll come back to that. But that was the only red flag in my mind. But no one ever talked about it. No one will admit that she had a problem with pills, even though again she died in a treatment center withdrawing benzos. But I became a pill popper and yeah, a big opiate head, and I did have kind of like an epic rock bottom moment. It was unavoidable, and my friends and family had to intervene.
00:06:26
Speaker 2: I'm happy to tell you about that, yes, please please.
00:06:32
Speaker 3: At the time, I lived on the Upper West Side of New York. I was making a lot of money and I had a really nice apartment. But it had gotten to the point where I was quote unquote sober. I was performing the role of a sober person. I was bragging about I'm sober, but totally using you know, I didn't know. I couldn't be honest with myself, so I was just kind of externally acting sober to people and talking about.
00:06:55
Speaker 2: It a lot. But I was at the worst of the worst addiction.
00:07:00
Speaker 3: I was wearing fentanyl patches and I would put them on and just walk around New York for like days at a time. I would fall asleep while I was walking and people would I remember someone stopping me and saying Hey, you're asleep and you're walking and I was like, I know, and I just it was crazy. So I had this really nice apartment and money and I had a good job. But my apartment, I didn't even have a mattress. I had an air mattress. I didn't have Wi Fi. I just used my hotspot to sign on for my laptop so I could watch Avatar every single night.
00:07:35
Speaker 2: For some reason, that's what I wanted to watch. This is twenty fourteen.
00:07:39
Speaker 3: And then I didn't have a shower curtain, I didn't really have furniture. It just was It's a good metaphor for what was happening. It was just kind of this empty flophouse, but a really nice apartment didn't match the exterior of what I was presenting to the world.
00:07:54
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how as addicts liant. That's the reality. Yeah, it's to me, so I get it.
00:08:03
Speaker 3: But I had an ex boyfriend who wrote a book and I was house sitting for him and he said, listen, the book is coming.
00:08:10
Speaker 2: Out tomorrow and I want you to read it. You're in it.
00:08:14
Speaker 3: And so there's a manuscript on the bar. So I went there and I picked up the book and I was trying. I was in that phase of trying to be sober, you know. I would get a couple of days maybe, and just kind of always got sucked back in.
00:08:28
Speaker 2: It's so cyclical. I read.
00:08:30
Speaker 3: I flipped through the book, and I remember it was all such really nice stuff. It was really nice mentions, and it was talking about me. It was a kind of a The book was about the previous year, and it was all these things that had happened, and his perception of everything was really great. And I just kept thinking, this is not how my life actually is. And it made me feel It just made me feel too many feelings. So I started to drink. You know, I was at the bar at his house anyway, So I started drinking tequila, and then I found some joints, smoked those. I found some ecstasy pills, took all of them, and then I found some ambient took all of those. And then I got locked out of the apartment in my underwear, running up and down.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: The halls because I could.
00:09:16
Speaker 3: I was out of my mind and trying to open what I thought was his door, but it was just random people's stores, and they were scared.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: This is four in the morning because I've done that.
00:09:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, we lose our minds.
00:09:30
Speaker 2: It's awful.
00:09:33
Speaker 3: And I came to in the basement and they had given me some pants from the Lost and Found and they were like, we are on the phone with your friend whose house you're supposed to be staying in, and we're asking him if we should call the cops or not. Luckily he said no, I'll send another friend over. Friend came and got me. I went home and I tripped balls for like four more days, just kind of coming down from that. I thought I was locked out of my apartment, and so I sat outside and I saw crazy things. I put a ladder up to the window. I broke into my apartment, only to find the key was in my pocket. The whole time, just the mess of what we go through. And then when the air kind of cleared, my friend called and I went down there, you know, to the house to kind of say, you know, sorry, and friends and family were there and they said, what's happening. It was an intervention. There was an interventionist there was I knew this, like tall guy. I was like, okay, I've seen an intervention. I know the show. I know how it works. You're friends and family there and some random tall guy like, this is rehab. And I was so ready to go because I had been googling for weeks leading up to it, where's my life going to go? Because I was going to get evicted too, Like I wasn't paying any bills, so I was like looking for where could I go if I get evicted? Do I go to a motel for the night? It was crazy, so and then I would google what about re have? And I was like, I can never afford that. So when they said, we have been talking about this, we have a solution for you if you want to go, and I was like, oh, let's go to night, honey. I don't want to go back to that crappy you know, air mattress. Let's go, Let's go to a rehab. And I didn't know what to expect, but I did go. I wanted to be done. That's I think the biggest thing I wanted to be. I was sick of using and drinking. I was really tired of it. And I was old, you were young when you got sober. I was like thirty six at this point.
00:11:39
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about character defects in season three and how for me lying was a big one because I had to lie to cover up for my mom. I had to lie to cover up for being different, and that was kind of hard to do because I was very slumboyant and very It was very obvious that I was like other too that was different, and so I was a very easy target.
00:12:05
Speaker 3: I had the same experience I was. I knew from a really early age that I was gay. I didn't really understand what gay sexually meant, but I knew I was gay. I did play with trucks and stuff, but I was at night. I would sneak my sister's Barbie dolls and do their hair, and I was very happy, you know. I didn't know until you know, middle school or something, how to keep that under wraps. So I knew pretty early. There was never I wasn't like I was young. I was really young. I knew I liked boys, and I just knew I was different. But the greatest gift, one of the greatest gifts of my life, is that I never felt I never hated myself for it. I understood I hadn't understand it, even though I was in a environment that not only doesn't support anyone who is other or you know, feminine or gay, you know, any sort of.
00:12:59
Speaker 2: Like other type of queer vibes.
00:13:03
Speaker 3: You know, not only do they not support it, but they want to, you know, punish you for it or see you suffer or beat you up or hurt you. So there's all this pressure that happens from a really young age that's like okay for me to survive. And I know you know this too, what do I have to do? And like I was saying about growing up in our household, it was just forced on us to, like, whatever is going on that might be embarrassing, keep it a secret. And that's the best way I can explain to people who aren't in recovery why I think it helps understand the cycle of being in addiction. Because lying was second nature to me. So I had to lie to survive. I didn't want people in school to know I was gay, even though they all figured it out. You know, everyone was calling me gay and f slur all the time. So by the time I was an adult and I was suffering and you know, on death's door, and just like you know, from drugs, in my mind, I knew I should have said. I could have said to a friend, hey, I'm struggling, Can you help me? But that was never an option.
00:14:11
Speaker 1: Having listened to how you grew up, what was your conception of a higher power when you got to the rooms of recovery? And how did that change?
00:14:20
Speaker 2: Oh man, it's so I'm still processing it. You know. We grew up thinking that.
00:14:27
Speaker 3: When I think back about growing up in the church, it was that God was always going to be mad.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: It didn't and he's always watching. So whatever you.
00:14:34
Speaker 3: Did, we're always sinning. You were always sinning, and he was going to be mad. You were always about to get in trouble. I remember the feeling of always scared that I was going to get in trouble. My parents were very like, I won't stay boring. My parents were very sweet people, but the fear was so strong. I don't know what we were afraid of. No one was beating us at home. We had like a very quiet home, but we were It was almost like we were petrified being abused at all times because we were told in a Bible school how mad God was going to get and how you're supposed to fear him. So it was drilled into me for so long that you're going to get in trouble. I love spirituality, I love praying, I love meditating, I love all of that. So I like that part of recovery and it was not hard for me to grasp.
00:15:21
Speaker 2: But what I had hatred and rage to.
00:15:24
Speaker 3: That kind of God and that kind of idea of a higher power that I'm going to get in trouble for having the biological desire to have sex, Like the worst offense you could have is to have like an impure thought or whatever, masturbate or have sex, like you're going to go to burn in hell. Return that I had, I was excited to get into recovery because they say it can be your own interpretation, your own understanding of what a higher power is for yourself. And it was like, oh, I get to decide what I think about my own spirituality. And that was when everything was kind of UNLIKEE because I was like, there are no rules, there is no person standing over you saying here's what you have to believe in. If you don't, you're going to be in trouble. So I just felt free. The irony is it looks a lot like what my parents probably wanted it to look like. I'm honest, I give things over to a higher power. I talk to friends, I trust in a higher power. I operate this way now. But it took a lot to realize that.
00:16:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean my struggle was similar. We're a Catholic and I was going to go to hell for being different and I was going to be condemned and all this stuff. So, you know, I kind of picked it apart when I got to the rooms of recovery and said I like this, I'm taking this. Yeah, I'm leaving that out. And it morphed over time into something else, into what it is today.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: I think it's really ironic though now.
00:16:59
Speaker 3: I spent a lot of my time hating the religion I was brought up, and hating my parents for bringing us up in it, and hating the people that told me I was going to burn in hell for just for being gay. And I really had a lot of rage, a lot. But it's ironic because of the foundation that they gave us as kids, I'm able to now be really grateful. I think it's a huge advantage because it's never it's my first instinct to give something over to, you know, not think that I have to solve things myself.
00:17:30
Speaker 2: It's second nature to me. To think about things spiritually, and.
00:17:34
Speaker 3: That's from this toxic way I was brought up, but it has turned into something that I can be really grateful for.
00:17:41
Speaker 2: It's a big asset.
00:17:43
Speaker 1: I never thought of it like that until right now you're mentioning it.
00:17:49
Speaker 3: So I mentioned that I went to rehab in twenty fourteen, and I did get sober ish. I was about sober for about nine months and then for sixty relapsed until twenty twenty one, which is when I went to treatment again. But it's that time the difference in those that there was no intervention. There was no one left to give me an intervention.
00:18:11
Speaker 2: I would have loved to have.
00:18:12
Speaker 3: Another intervention, but everyone not that everyone had cut me off, but I had established by this point what I was going to do and my behavior and what to expect from me, which was a flake, a liar, full of shit, doing too much, desperate that the.
00:18:29
Speaker 1: People just gave up on you and said, ohow, just you're gonna be how you're gonna be.
00:18:33
Speaker 3: It made me sad when I would have friends who were still around and they were sweet to me, but I could tell by their behavior that they expected nothing from me, which was it broke my heart because I wanted to be everyone's favorite friend. I wanted to be the person they'd call it like they'd say, oh, we're going out of town where having so and so dogs said like why do you call me to dog sit? Like, oh, you know it's okay, And I'm like, oh right, I can't. You can don't even trust me to can't be trust you? And that broke my heart. And that stuff started happening a lot, like my best friend from college after a few days when she could kind of tell, she would just know that I hadn't really eaten, and she would show up My house was like a Ralph's bag of ribs and she would kind of drop it off and be like by, like not really that nice, but just like I figured you had no sweet you know. And but that broke my heart thinking about, oh she must I'm taking up a lot of her time worrying about me. Hair exactly hair. So things got really bad in the pandemic. I was so addicted to xanax at this point, I was a benzo monster. I was waking up and taking bars and then I was going to the gym on xanax like it made it gave me all this energy. I had the opposite effect. It's like when people take coke and they relax. I was that with benzos it gave me energy. So I was taking like a hippopotamus amount, like a rhinoceros king Kong amount of benzos and withdrawing and then having life threatening seizures. Thinking back to my aunt who died in treatment after having seizures from ben's or withdrawal, so I knew this was going to end in a grave.
00:20:13
Speaker 2: So I thought I was going to have a heart attack. One night because I had to run out of stuff.
00:20:18
Speaker 3: I was like, I just want to go to the emergency room because I don't want to have a seizure alone and die. I called the fire department and like, well, what's wrong with you? And I was like nothing, and they were like, well, we can't take you the emergency room for nothing. And he was like, are you in danger of hurting yourself or someone else? And I was like no. He's like, well then we can't take him. I go no, I am, I mean, I am. He's like what do you mean. I'm like, I'm going to hurt myself and he's like and he didn't believe me because I was lying and he was like, do you have a weapon in mind? And like yes, He's like, what is it. I'm like the butcher knife inm my kitchen. I was gonna stab myself. And he was like, okay, get on the truck and something took me in the emergency room and he said to me, though, if you get on this ambulance and you go to the emergency room because you've said you're going to hurt yourself, you will then be transferred.
00:21:06
Speaker 2: To a psychic psych ward.
00:21:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, psych unit.
00:21:10
Speaker 3: So I mean I was lying at that point too, saying, oh no, I'm totally sober. I'm just having like a night panic. I'm just having a panic attack. And they were like okay. But they did transfer me to the mental board in Downey, which was so bleak, so bleak, and I remember and I had to work that day. I had to email my work from the psych ward and be like, I'm not feeling good. Meanwhile, I'm in a gown, my ass is hanging out. So after that happened, I went back and everything was so quiet. No one was calling, no one was intervening, and every day I was waking up thinking is this today? You change your life is this today, you are honest with someone. So a girl from high school who i'd known that was ten years sober at that point. She was calling just to say hi, and I was I normally would decline the call because I don't I didn't want to talk to anyone. I don't know what happened, but I answered. She was like, how are you? And I said I'm not good. I've been relapsing and I don't know what to do, and she was like okay. And when she didn't have a reaction, that freaked me out. It was like the biggest sigh of relief because I was like, Oh, why was I so afraid to say anything.
00:22:22
Speaker 2: It's not a big deal. It's understandable.
00:22:24
Speaker 3: And she was like, girl, it's the pandemic, like everyone's going through it. That's not out of the realm of Its not shocking that someone who has problems relapses in the.
00:22:34
Speaker 2: Middle of a global pandemic. So she was like, well, what do you want to do?
00:22:37
Speaker 3: And I said, I just I need to go to detox so they look after me so I don't have a seizure, or if I do, they can protect me so I'm not alone in thirty minutes, she had some numbers and names and stuff. Then after that, I was like, okay, I'm just going to I'm going to lean into being honest. I'm just going to be blunt. So I called another friend. I was like, girl, i've been on drugs. I'm relapsing. And she was like, all right, you got this, what do you want to do? And so the more I did that, the more I got courage, and I took myself to treatment. And it was the first time in my life at this point I was forty three, the first time in all these years and all these years of trying to get sober, that I had a conversation with myself that whole time, going to treatment, going to rehab, trying to go to meetings telling everyone to work on sober. I never had a conversation with myself ever I was. I couldn't have. I didn't know myself. I had no connection to my heart, my soul, my spirit, nothing. So in treatment, I had taken myself there because there was no one left to drag me there. And that gave me a tiny little spark, or that gave me the tiniest shred of dignity to say Okay, well, even if you die tomorrow, you did. You tried to do something good for yourself, and that little thing grew every day I would remind myself and then I would say, okay, well, you're at the end. It feels like you're at the end of your life, so why not just be honest with yourself. And when those doors started opening in my mind and my heart, when I started being honest with myself, my life changed really fast, and I have stayed sober ever since. We talk about a lot in recovery about the things that will help you stay sober, and you know service or you know having a sponsor doing the things, and you know, whatever your program suggests. But the one thing I never wanted to do was to make any friends. I don't want to make friends in recovery. I don't want anybody. The whole thing you get you you get recovering. People want your phone number, they want to take you to coffee, and I was like, hmm, nobody, no one's getting close. I will show up to whatever event or meeting and then I will GTFO and didn't stay sober, and it's a pitfall in early sobriety. I think too of course you think that you don't want to be like these people the twelve step programs. A lot of times, it's not It's not a collection of the people with the most charming personalities.
00:25:07
Speaker 2: Like it is a grab bag.
00:25:09
Speaker 1: It is not wrong.
00:25:11
Speaker 2: It's like I went through a.
00:25:13
Speaker 3: Phase in early sobriety where I thought I would not spit on these people if they were on fire.
00:25:19
Speaker 2: I hate them. I hate them.
00:25:20
Speaker 3: I was I like my second year, I was just enraged anybody who would walk through the door, It's like, fuck them. And then I had to tell a friend, I'm like, what is going on with me? Why am I hating everyone? Just going through the room like as people are sharing and thinking, Oh, I hate them for this, I hate them for that. And he was like, yeah, maybe you think about that. We need to start thinking about it. And once I said it, I was like, oh my gosh, I am so my disease is trying to get me out of these meetings and it is trying to get me alone.
00:25:50
Speaker 1: And separate yourself from the Fellowship. You know, I talk about this a lot in the season, how the Fellowship was the first thing that I fell in love with in the program because coming from where I came from. This was a group of people that wanted to love me and make me feel welcomed and nurture me, take me out to coffee or whatever. They were genuinely interested in how I was feeling, with no ulterior motives. I had a sponsor who made me call five women a day, and I'm like, what the fuck why, Like they don't want to hear but from me. I don't want to hear from them. But it's because like now that when shit hits a fan, it's so much easier to pick up the phone and call someone and tell them that your ass is falling off because you're in.
00:26:34
Speaker 2: The habit of doing so.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: Yep, And it all starts making sense when you start seeing it from a different perspective.
00:26:40
Speaker 3: When I had had COVID a few times now, and it's like people in the program will say, can I bring you over some food?
00:26:45
Speaker 2: And was like, yeah, sure, drop it over.
00:26:47
Speaker 3: Because people don't realize, but that's twenty five minutes of a little sliver of serenity when you might be melting down about something else and it gives you something to do something for somebody else. It makes me feel so much better. But before before I got so over, I had nothing to be proud of. I had things on paper that you could be proud of, but in my heart of hearts, I was proud of nothing in my life. So getting out of treatment and being able to do what we call esteemable acts, you know, you toss those out the window when you're using and drinking, like I don't need to pick up my dog's shit, you know.
00:27:21
Speaker 2: But then it was like, oh, I'm building a new life.
00:27:24
Speaker 3: I'm the kind of person who, even if no one's looking, picks up my dog shit. And those little things, even though they were so small into normal people seem not a big deal, were huge. It was like being, you know, graduating college, like those things were huge for.
00:27:41
Speaker 2: Me to feel proud of.
00:27:51
Speaker 3: We look back on our childhood and think, where were the signs do I have the ism?
00:27:56
Speaker 2: Where's it always there?
00:27:57
Speaker 3: And for me, the first time I remember it being an issue was with video games. It was Nintendo Super Mario Brothers and I would play it before class, before school, like elementary school, fifth grade maybe, and I didn't even realize it was happening. But my parents sat me down and they were like, we're taking this away from you. And I said why and they said, because you're getting so worked up and you can't stop.
00:28:25
Speaker 2: So this is before school. So I was playing in them.
00:28:27
Speaker 3: I would wake up and the first thing I wanted was to go to that Nintendo. I would go and I would play, and I would die. I need another life, I would die. I need another life, one more if I get if I do one more, I'll get a better score.
00:28:39
Speaker 2: And I the obsession. It was a fix and it.
00:28:43
Speaker 3: Was nons There was no end in sight, and I just needed, needed, needed, And they said, you know, you can play after school, but you're not going to play before school anwhere because you're getting so upset that you're getting to school and you're aggressive and you're you're a monster in class. And I was so angry. I was enrage. They were taking away my drugs. Yeah, but that was the first moment I thought, oh, I have a hard time controlling my obsessions with things that behavioral.
00:29:12
Speaker 2: And that was before I used a drink.
00:29:14
Speaker 3: Obviously, I was only in fifth grade, but I knew they were right and it was making my life unmanageable, even at ten.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: And I was like that with people too.
00:29:28
Speaker 3: I would have like a little girlfriend or something, and I could think or talk about nothing.
00:29:32
Speaker 2: Else, and my mom would be like, why are you so obsessed?
00:29:36
Speaker 3: And that word obsession was like, that's kind of that sounds dramatic, that sounds embarrassing. But I guess I am obsessed. But that's always been the through line in my life. And that's how I've been able to succeed at certain things, because if I'm obsessed with something, great, I'd do it really well. Twelve SEP programs work for me because I'm so overwhelmed and chaotic in my mind.
00:30:01
Speaker 2: Everything I will blow it out of proportion.
00:30:03
Speaker 3: I'll think of the catastrophic anything it doesn't matter, you know, like this iced coffee, I might choke on the ice and then die. Like I'm always thinking of the worst case scenario. It's just extreme. We live in extremes. That what the twelve steps do for me is it simplifies all of that. There's no need to really figure anything out. There's nothing to figure out. You know exactly how to handle things, and if you don't, you ask a friend in the program. So it simplifies this chaotic mind. We have chaotic minds that are capable of so much creativity and productivity, and we're thinking we can think of great things if our disease is managed. So for me, the twelve steps simplifies. It's a guide for a design for living. It's theoretically what we should have gotten growing up. And again I respect everyone's religion, respect everyone's faith. But for me, I grew up in everally toxic version of Christianity, and in theory, the Bible was supposed to do all of that. It was supposed to teach you a guideline for your life, but it was not right for this. I didn't get a lot of tools about how to be honest about your life. No one in our like my parents, never showed vulnerability that way of saying, like, you know what, I have to be honest about something. I'm really struggling with this. That was not an option. So even though I knew in my head, like just tell a friend, tell someone it was, it just wasn't in my mouth, as I say, like, it wasn't modeled for me, and it wasn't something I thought I could do, and it's what I had done since I was a really young kid. Just lie, keep the secret, don't be embarrassed, or you don't want to feel embarrassed.
00:31:39
Speaker 2: But in recovery is the only time in my.
00:31:42
Speaker 3: Life I've been able to trust people because I could just be honest.
00:31:48
Speaker 1: It took me a while to grasp that because I always felt like I was always alone, Yeah, my entire life. So even now, like when I'm going through things like or I'm feeling a certain type of way, like i have to call and tell my people, like, hey, this is happening so they can hold my hand through it. It took me a long time to realize that this was not a sign of weakness.
00:32:11
Speaker 2: Because people worry about us.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: I mean, I put my family through a lot.
00:32:15
Speaker 3: That was actually the way I finally was able to make amends to my mom. And I loved listening to you talk about that, but I didn't know the way in to making an amends because it's complicated as it is. You know, everyone's mom is complicated. But the way in that was suggested to me by someone in the program is like, you can easily apologize for causing her concern or to cause her.
00:32:39
Speaker 2: To worry about you.
00:32:41
Speaker 3: And then I was like, okay, and that stuck in the back of my head, and as she and I began talking she brought up you know. I remember I came and stayed with you in New York that one time, and it was after I had had a seizure and I was also relapsing.
00:32:54
Speaker 2: It was just a mess.
00:32:55
Speaker 3: And she's like, yeah, and you are getting up in the middle of the night and doing weird things in the case, and she's like, I cried all the way back home to Texas.
00:33:03
Speaker 2: And in that moment, I was.
00:33:04
Speaker 3: Like, oh shit, wait, that's heartbreaking, for like, it doesn't matter who your mom is, for a mom to see her baby suffering, and and like her thoughts were like, maybe I will never see him again.
00:33:18
Speaker 2: Maybe the next time I see me in a casket.
00:33:20
Speaker 3: I was like, bitch, I'm so sorry like that, and that was so easy to say that. And once we had that little dialogue, it grew and was wonderful.
00:33:31
Speaker 2: But it's a conversation I never thought I would have.
00:33:38
Speaker 1: John, if you could talk to the younger version of yourself, what would you say?
00:33:45
Speaker 3: I would say, don't overdo it on the botox. I recently got botox to make me not frown, and I hate it. I feel like my face is frozen.
00:33:54
Speaker 2: Now. What I would say is it's so cliche.
00:33:58
Speaker 3: But the message I would give to that person that kid is to trust yourself and that I really just wanted to approval from my family. I want to approve from my church, and I want to approve from every kid in school to not beat me up or something. And none of that mattered, none of it. The only voice that mattered was from people who love me and my higher power in my heart and my gut. When I got sober, it's almost like I got a gut for the first time. My gut instincts about people are always right in recovery now because there's nothing clouding it. I feel like that was one of the biggest gifts of sobrieties that I never really knew what people say, trust your gut. I never knew what that meant until now. But that's what the message would be, is that you don't have to search too far for approval or for an answer.
00:34:51
Speaker 2: You know in your heart what to do and to trust that.
00:34:57
Speaker 1: Having you on this episode such a form of service to me because you're helping me with certain things that I'm currently struggling with, and that little perspective shift that you know sometimes I lose sight of because I'm in the thick of like my thoughts or whatever.
00:35:18
Speaker 2: That's what we do for each other.
00:35:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm so so grateful that you are being of service to me, like in a way that you have no idea.
00:35:26
Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:35:27
Speaker 3: This is an opportunity for me to be of service and that's the most important thing. And maybe someone's listening, you know, who is afraid to tell anybody that they're struggling. And I remember when I called one of my coworkers and I was like, I need to be honest. I am going to go to treatment for months. You're not going to see me. And she was like, I love you, I believe in you. And I was so embarrassed to call. I was so scared to call. And there has never been anyone I've been honest with about this who has said, oh my god, just disgusting, or then no one's ever. Everyone is always relieved also to know what's been going on. And I know, personally, most of my life was spent embarrassed and ashamed, So like, you don't need to feel that way.
00:36:14
Speaker 1: You know, they're they say in like the rooms of recovery, right, we don't shoot are wounded, right, you you're willing like, come on, let's go, let's do this.
00:36:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
00:36:26
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for coming on crumbs.
00:36:28
Speaker 2: Of course, I'm honored. Thank you, and.
00:36:33
Speaker 1: Thank you listeners for joining me on this journey through my addiction and my recovery, through the ups and dark downs. The point of all of this, of sharing all the details of my life, including my shortcomings and the lessons I've learned, is to break stigma and give hope. It's scary out there in the dark, and whether the person having a hard time is you, someone you know, or someone you love. I hope you know that there are people out there like me who have been there and who care, and that there's help and that there is light. If you or someone you know is struggling, reach out to someone. There's a lot of difficult subjects that we cover in this show. If you are someone you know needs help, you can reach the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Hotline at twenty eight hundred sixty six y two four three five seven. They'll connect you with information and resources on treatment. There's also the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at twenty hundred two seven three tal K. Both are available twenty four to seven. You don't have to be in crisis to reach out either. They're available to anyone who needs help. You can also reach the National Sexual Assault Hotline twenty four to seven at one eight hundred six five six four six seven three. Crumbs is a Sonoro production in partnership with Iheartsmikultura Network and Trojan Horse Media. It's produced by Margaret Catcher and Patimei Ragunav and edited by Rodrigo Crespo. Original music by D. Peter Schmidt and engineering by Manuel Barra. Studio, Recording by JTV Recording and Podcasting Studio. Executive produced by conro Byrne and jessav And says for iHeart, Alex Filmeto, Elizabeth Schuzzo and Margaret Catcher for Trojan Horse, Camille Vittriano, Joshua Weinstein for Sonoro, and me Emmio lea special things to Mariana Coronella. Iire listen to Crumbs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:39:01
Speaker 2: A band
Speaker 1: This podcast has content that may not be appropriate for all audiences. You'll hear about some difficult subjects like substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, childhood, sexual abuse, and sexual assault. Please take care. Last time on Crumbs, I ended the season story with step twelve service, But like in previous seasons, I want to give you just a little bit more so today Episode thirteen a bonus episode. Like I've said over the course of the season, everyone's recovery journey is different, but there's also things that connect us, and coming together to talk about our differences and similarities is a really beautiful, powerful thing. So I've invited a guest to join me in the studio. John Hill is an amazing stage actor and TV producer. You might know him from the original cast of Hairspray or Bear a Pop Opera, or maybe you know one of his many shows Project Runway or watch What Happens Live. He's managed to fit us into his busy schedule since he's also on a national tour with his original stand up comedy musical Wellness Check with John Hill, and he's a podcast pro. He co hosts Andy Cohen Live and hosts The John Haill Show. He's also a member of a top step recovery program, so he's a dream guest for me.
00:01:28
Speaker 2: Hi, John, Hi, thank you so much for having me.
00:01:31
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited because I get to have an honest conversation with you about something that we have in common and that ties to the season's theme, which is recovery. When the idea came up to having someone come and be a guest, I thought of you because well, A, you're a natural at this, you're a pro, and B we have that common bond of recovery.
00:01:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think we have a lot in common.
00:02:00
Speaker 3: You know, we're both members of the queer community, and I love meeting other people who are sober. It's funny when you do a gig with someone or in appearance and you don't know anything about anybody, and then at some point you kind of click and like, oh, we're both in recovery. It's it's such a relief to know there's someone in close proximity to you that if the shit hits the fan, you could say, okay, girl, no.
00:02:26
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. There's something that a lot of people who are not in the program don't understand that there's something this like voodoo magic shit that happens with like one person in recovery speaking to another person in recovery. It's something that I've struggled to describe in the season. But you know what I'm talking.
00:02:44
Speaker 3: It's hard to describe because you also don't want to sound like you're telling the rest of the world. You know, it seems like you have a secret language or something and it's accessible to everyone. But it is true. We have a shorthand you know, we have the same spiritual program.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: I think.
00:03:01
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear more about your recovery journey, if you're open and willing to coss that.
00:03:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I first started, oh gosh, how much time do we have. Let's see, it took me a long time to get sober. I knew I needed to get sober, but it took me a really long time. I just knew from the minute I started using and drinking that substances don't work with me. I want all of it, you know, if you have a joint else, I want the entire thing to myself saying yeah, it's so crazy right, like and even now, like I do the same thing with I'm the same way still, and even with like dryer sheets or moisturizer. It's like, well, I'll take another, just another pump. That's just the way we're wired. But in two thousand and four, that's when I first kind of went to a meeting, started just kind of talking to a couple of people. I didn't have an issue with admitting I had a problem. I knew that I did. I didn't take to it for a while, and then in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, I went to treatment for the first time. So between twenty four and twenty fourteen, I mean you can imagine I grew up in a really religious environment, a really strict religious Christian household, fundamental like white conservative Texas, you know, just very stereotypical. For all the time we spent to church all the hours, all the I mean every single three times a week for eighteen years. In all of that time, I never got functional tools for how to be a human being.
00:04:33
Speaker 2: Was it was almost, in a way, the opposite of.
00:04:36
Speaker 3: What we do in recovery, I think, which was all that honesty now, but before it was about tell whatever lie. You need to keep appearances up right.
00:04:49
Speaker 1: And that's something that I've also talked about throughout other seasons with my grandmother, who was pivotal in raising me. She was about keeping appearances, and you know, she went to prison for working with the Mexican drug cartel, and so that must have been very devastating for her to have that image of her just tarnished. Right, But I grew up with those ideologies of like, you present one way and you don't talk about what happens, and fucked with me in my head so much.
00:05:18
Speaker 3: It's a perfect storm for an addict because you now have a big secret you need to keep secret. So living a double life or lying about the truth was so easy for me. When I ended up being in my disease and using and drinking, it was so it was just second nature for me to lie about it and definitely would never want to ask for help.
00:05:40
Speaker 2: So I coped with drugs. I coped with pills.
00:05:44
Speaker 3: It was so easy to take a pill if I was stressed out about something or afraid of something, it just immediately took it away.
00:05:50
Speaker 2: It was great.
00:05:53
Speaker 3: I had an aunt who passed away from this disease in a treatment center from a seizure come off of benzos, and I'll come back to that. But that was the only red flag in my mind. But no one ever talked about it. No one will admit that she had a problem with pills, even though again she died in a treatment center withdrawing benzos. But I became a pill popper and yeah, a big opiate head, and I did have kind of like an epic rock bottom moment. It was unavoidable, and my friends and family had to intervene.
00:06:26
Speaker 2: I'm happy to tell you about that, yes, please please.
00:06:32
Speaker 3: At the time, I lived on the Upper West Side of New York. I was making a lot of money and I had a really nice apartment. But it had gotten to the point where I was quote unquote sober. I was performing the role of a sober person. I was bragging about I'm sober, but totally using you know, I didn't know. I couldn't be honest with myself, so I was just kind of externally acting sober to people and talking about.
00:06:55
Speaker 2: It a lot. But I was at the worst of the worst addiction.
00:07:00
Speaker 3: I was wearing fentanyl patches and I would put them on and just walk around New York for like days at a time. I would fall asleep while I was walking and people would I remember someone stopping me and saying Hey, you're asleep and you're walking and I was like, I know, and I just it was crazy. So I had this really nice apartment and money and I had a good job. But my apartment, I didn't even have a mattress. I had an air mattress. I didn't have Wi Fi. I just used my hotspot to sign on for my laptop so I could watch Avatar every single night.
00:07:35
Speaker 2: For some reason, that's what I wanted to watch. This is twenty fourteen.
00:07:39
Speaker 3: And then I didn't have a shower curtain, I didn't really have furniture. It just was It's a good metaphor for what was happening. It was just kind of this empty flophouse, but a really nice apartment didn't match the exterior of what I was presenting to the world.
00:07:54
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how as addicts liant. That's the reality. Yeah, it's to me, so I get it.
00:08:03
Speaker 3: But I had an ex boyfriend who wrote a book and I was house sitting for him and he said, listen, the book is coming.
00:08:10
Speaker 2: Out tomorrow and I want you to read it. You're in it.
00:08:14
Speaker 3: And so there's a manuscript on the bar. So I went there and I picked up the book and I was trying. I was in that phase of trying to be sober, you know. I would get a couple of days maybe, and just kind of always got sucked back in.
00:08:28
Speaker 2: It's so cyclical. I read.
00:08:30
Speaker 3: I flipped through the book, and I remember it was all such really nice stuff. It was really nice mentions, and it was talking about me. It was a kind of a The book was about the previous year, and it was all these things that had happened, and his perception of everything was really great. And I just kept thinking, this is not how my life actually is. And it made me feel It just made me feel too many feelings. So I started to drink. You know, I was at the bar at his house anyway, So I started drinking tequila, and then I found some joints, smoked those. I found some ecstasy pills, took all of them, and then I found some ambient took all of those. And then I got locked out of the apartment in my underwear, running up and down.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: The halls because I could.
00:09:16
Speaker 3: I was out of my mind and trying to open what I thought was his door, but it was just random people's stores, and they were scared.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: This is four in the morning because I've done that.
00:09:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, we lose our minds.
00:09:30
Speaker 2: It's awful.
00:09:33
Speaker 3: And I came to in the basement and they had given me some pants from the Lost and Found and they were like, we are on the phone with your friend whose house you're supposed to be staying in, and we're asking him if we should call the cops or not. Luckily he said no, I'll send another friend over. Friend came and got me. I went home and I tripped balls for like four more days, just kind of coming down from that. I thought I was locked out of my apartment, and so I sat outside and I saw crazy things. I put a ladder up to the window. I broke into my apartment, only to find the key was in my pocket. The whole time, just the mess of what we go through. And then when the air kind of cleared, my friend called and I went down there, you know, to the house to kind of say, you know, sorry, and friends and family were there and they said, what's happening. It was an intervention. There was an interventionist there was I knew this, like tall guy. I was like, okay, I've seen an intervention. I know the show. I know how it works. You're friends and family there and some random tall guy like, this is rehab. And I was so ready to go because I had been googling for weeks leading up to it, where's my life going to go? Because I was going to get evicted too, Like I wasn't paying any bills, so I was like looking for where could I go if I get evicted? Do I go to a motel for the night? It was crazy, so and then I would google what about re have? And I was like, I can never afford that. So when they said, we have been talking about this, we have a solution for you if you want to go, and I was like, oh, let's go to night, honey. I don't want to go back to that crappy you know, air mattress. Let's go, Let's go to a rehab. And I didn't know what to expect, but I did go. I wanted to be done. That's I think the biggest thing I wanted to be. I was sick of using and drinking. I was really tired of it. And I was old, you were young when you got sober. I was like thirty six at this point.
00:11:39
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about character defects in season three and how for me lying was a big one because I had to lie to cover up for my mom. I had to lie to cover up for being different, and that was kind of hard to do because I was very slumboyant and very It was very obvious that I was like other too that was different, and so I was a very easy target.
00:12:05
Speaker 3: I had the same experience I was. I knew from a really early age that I was gay. I didn't really understand what gay sexually meant, but I knew I was gay. I did play with trucks and stuff, but I was at night. I would sneak my sister's Barbie dolls and do their hair, and I was very happy, you know. I didn't know until you know, middle school or something, how to keep that under wraps. So I knew pretty early. There was never I wasn't like I was young. I was really young. I knew I liked boys, and I just knew I was different. But the greatest gift, one of the greatest gifts of my life, is that I never felt I never hated myself for it. I understood I hadn't understand it, even though I was in a environment that not only doesn't support anyone who is other or you know, feminine or gay, you know, any sort of.
00:12:59
Speaker 2: Like other type of queer vibes.
00:13:03
Speaker 3: You know, not only do they not support it, but they want to, you know, punish you for it or see you suffer or beat you up or hurt you. So there's all this pressure that happens from a really young age that's like okay for me to survive. And I know you know this too, what do I have to do? And like I was saying about growing up in our household, it was just forced on us to, like, whatever is going on that might be embarrassing, keep it a secret. And that's the best way I can explain to people who aren't in recovery why I think it helps understand the cycle of being in addiction. Because lying was second nature to me. So I had to lie to survive. I didn't want people in school to know I was gay, even though they all figured it out. You know, everyone was calling me gay and f slur all the time. So by the time I was an adult and I was suffering and you know, on death's door, and just like you know, from drugs, in my mind, I knew I should have said. I could have said to a friend, hey, I'm struggling, Can you help me? But that was never an option.
00:14:11
Speaker 1: Having listened to how you grew up, what was your conception of a higher power when you got to the rooms of recovery? And how did that change?
00:14:20
Speaker 2: Oh man, it's so I'm still processing it. You know. We grew up thinking that.
00:14:27
Speaker 3: When I think back about growing up in the church, it was that God was always going to be mad.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: It didn't and he's always watching. So whatever you.
00:14:34
Speaker 3: Did, we're always sinning. You were always sinning, and he was going to be mad. You were always about to get in trouble. I remember the feeling of always scared that I was going to get in trouble. My parents were very like, I won't stay boring. My parents were very sweet people, but the fear was so strong. I don't know what we were afraid of. No one was beating us at home. We had like a very quiet home, but we were It was almost like we were petrified being abused at all times because we were told in a Bible school how mad God was going to get and how you're supposed to fear him. So it was drilled into me for so long that you're going to get in trouble. I love spirituality, I love praying, I love meditating, I love all of that. So I like that part of recovery and it was not hard for me to grasp.
00:15:21
Speaker 2: But what I had hatred and rage to.
00:15:24
Speaker 3: That kind of God and that kind of idea of a higher power that I'm going to get in trouble for having the biological desire to have sex, Like the worst offense you could have is to have like an impure thought or whatever, masturbate or have sex, like you're going to go to burn in hell. Return that I had, I was excited to get into recovery because they say it can be your own interpretation, your own understanding of what a higher power is for yourself. And it was like, oh, I get to decide what I think about my own spirituality. And that was when everything was kind of UNLIKEE because I was like, there are no rules, there is no person standing over you saying here's what you have to believe in. If you don't, you're going to be in trouble. So I just felt free. The irony is it looks a lot like what my parents probably wanted it to look like. I'm honest, I give things over to a higher power. I talk to friends, I trust in a higher power. I operate this way now. But it took a lot to realize that.
00:16:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean my struggle was similar. We're a Catholic and I was going to go to hell for being different and I was going to be condemned and all this stuff. So, you know, I kind of picked it apart when I got to the rooms of recovery and said I like this, I'm taking this. Yeah, I'm leaving that out. And it morphed over time into something else, into what it is today.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: I think it's really ironic though now.
00:16:59
Speaker 3: I spent a lot of my time hating the religion I was brought up, and hating my parents for bringing us up in it, and hating the people that told me I was going to burn in hell for just for being gay. And I really had a lot of rage, a lot. But it's ironic because of the foundation that they gave us as kids, I'm able to now be really grateful. I think it's a huge advantage because it's never it's my first instinct to give something over to, you know, not think that I have to solve things myself.
00:17:30
Speaker 2: It's second nature to me. To think about things spiritually, and.
00:17:34
Speaker 3: That's from this toxic way I was brought up, but it has turned into something that I can be really grateful for.
00:17:41
Speaker 2: It's a big asset.
00:17:43
Speaker 1: I never thought of it like that until right now you're mentioning it.
00:17:49
Speaker 3: So I mentioned that I went to rehab in twenty fourteen, and I did get sober ish. I was about sober for about nine months and then for sixty relapsed until twenty twenty one, which is when I went to treatment again. But it's that time the difference in those that there was no intervention. There was no one left to give me an intervention.
00:18:11
Speaker 2: I would have loved to have.
00:18:12
Speaker 3: Another intervention, but everyone not that everyone had cut me off, but I had established by this point what I was going to do and my behavior and what to expect from me, which was a flake, a liar, full of shit, doing too much, desperate that the.
00:18:29
Speaker 1: People just gave up on you and said, ohow, just you're gonna be how you're gonna be.
00:18:33
Speaker 3: It made me sad when I would have friends who were still around and they were sweet to me, but I could tell by their behavior that they expected nothing from me, which was it broke my heart because I wanted to be everyone's favorite friend. I wanted to be the person they'd call it like they'd say, oh, we're going out of town where having so and so dogs said like why do you call me to dog sit? Like, oh, you know it's okay, And I'm like, oh right, I can't. You can don't even trust me to can't be trust you? And that broke my heart. And that stuff started happening a lot, like my best friend from college after a few days when she could kind of tell, she would just know that I hadn't really eaten, and she would show up My house was like a Ralph's bag of ribs and she would kind of drop it off and be like by, like not really that nice, but just like I figured you had no sweet you know. And but that broke my heart thinking about, oh she must I'm taking up a lot of her time worrying about me. Hair exactly hair. So things got really bad in the pandemic. I was so addicted to xanax at this point, I was a benzo monster. I was waking up and taking bars and then I was going to the gym on xanax like it made it gave me all this energy. I had the opposite effect. It's like when people take coke and they relax. I was that with benzos it gave me energy. So I was taking like a hippopotamus amount, like a rhinoceros king Kong amount of benzos and withdrawing and then having life threatening seizures. Thinking back to my aunt who died in treatment after having seizures from ben's or withdrawal, so I knew this was going to end in a grave.
00:20:13
Speaker 2: So I thought I was going to have a heart attack. One night because I had to run out of stuff.
00:20:18
Speaker 3: I was like, I just want to go to the emergency room because I don't want to have a seizure alone and die. I called the fire department and like, well, what's wrong with you? And I was like nothing, and they were like, well, we can't take you the emergency room for nothing. And he was like, are you in danger of hurting yourself or someone else? And I was like no. He's like, well then we can't take him. I go no, I am, I mean, I am. He's like what do you mean. I'm like, I'm going to hurt myself and he's like and he didn't believe me because I was lying and he was like, do you have a weapon in mind? And like yes, He's like, what is it. I'm like the butcher knife inm my kitchen. I was gonna stab myself. And he was like, okay, get on the truck and something took me in the emergency room and he said to me, though, if you get on this ambulance and you go to the emergency room because you've said you're going to hurt yourself, you will then be transferred.
00:21:06
Speaker 2: To a psychic psych ward.
00:21:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, psych unit.
00:21:10
Speaker 3: So I mean I was lying at that point too, saying, oh no, I'm totally sober. I'm just having like a night panic. I'm just having a panic attack. And they were like okay. But they did transfer me to the mental board in Downey, which was so bleak, so bleak, and I remember and I had to work that day. I had to email my work from the psych ward and be like, I'm not feeling good. Meanwhile, I'm in a gown, my ass is hanging out. So after that happened, I went back and everything was so quiet. No one was calling, no one was intervening, and every day I was waking up thinking is this today? You change your life is this today, you are honest with someone. So a girl from high school who i'd known that was ten years sober at that point. She was calling just to say hi, and I was I normally would decline the call because I don't I didn't want to talk to anyone. I don't know what happened, but I answered. She was like, how are you? And I said I'm not good. I've been relapsing and I don't know what to do, and she was like okay. And when she didn't have a reaction, that freaked me out. It was like the biggest sigh of relief because I was like, Oh, why was I so afraid to say anything.
00:22:22
Speaker 2: It's not a big deal. It's understandable.
00:22:24
Speaker 3: And she was like, girl, it's the pandemic, like everyone's going through it. That's not out of the realm of Its not shocking that someone who has problems relapses in the.
00:22:34
Speaker 2: Middle of a global pandemic. So she was like, well, what do you want to do?
00:22:37
Speaker 3: And I said, I just I need to go to detox so they look after me so I don't have a seizure, or if I do, they can protect me so I'm not alone in thirty minutes, she had some numbers and names and stuff. Then after that, I was like, okay, I'm just going to I'm going to lean into being honest. I'm just going to be blunt. So I called another friend. I was like, girl, i've been on drugs. I'm relapsing. And she was like, all right, you got this, what do you want to do? And so the more I did that, the more I got courage, and I took myself to treatment. And it was the first time in my life at this point I was forty three, the first time in all these years and all these years of trying to get sober, that I had a conversation with myself that whole time, going to treatment, going to rehab, trying to go to meetings telling everyone to work on sober. I never had a conversation with myself ever I was. I couldn't have. I didn't know myself. I had no connection to my heart, my soul, my spirit, nothing. So in treatment, I had taken myself there because there was no one left to drag me there. And that gave me a tiny little spark, or that gave me the tiniest shred of dignity to say Okay, well, even if you die tomorrow, you did. You tried to do something good for yourself, and that little thing grew every day I would remind myself and then I would say, okay, well, you're at the end. It feels like you're at the end of your life, so why not just be honest with yourself. And when those doors started opening in my mind and my heart, when I started being honest with myself, my life changed really fast, and I have stayed sober ever since. We talk about a lot in recovery about the things that will help you stay sober, and you know service or you know having a sponsor doing the things, and you know, whatever your program suggests. But the one thing I never wanted to do was to make any friends. I don't want to make friends in recovery. I don't want anybody. The whole thing you get you you get recovering. People want your phone number, they want to take you to coffee, and I was like, hmm, nobody, no one's getting close. I will show up to whatever event or meeting and then I will GTFO and didn't stay sober, and it's a pitfall in early sobriety. I think too of course you think that you don't want to be like these people the twelve step programs. A lot of times, it's not It's not a collection of the people with the most charming personalities.
00:25:07
Speaker 2: Like it is a grab bag.
00:25:09
Speaker 1: It is not wrong.
00:25:11
Speaker 2: It's like I went through a.
00:25:13
Speaker 3: Phase in early sobriety where I thought I would not spit on these people if they were on fire.
00:25:19
Speaker 2: I hate them. I hate them.
00:25:20
Speaker 3: I was I like my second year, I was just enraged anybody who would walk through the door, It's like, fuck them. And then I had to tell a friend, I'm like, what is going on with me? Why am I hating everyone? Just going through the room like as people are sharing and thinking, Oh, I hate them for this, I hate them for that. And he was like, yeah, maybe you think about that. We need to start thinking about it. And once I said it, I was like, oh my gosh, I am so my disease is trying to get me out of these meetings and it is trying to get me alone.
00:25:50
Speaker 1: And separate yourself from the Fellowship. You know, I talk about this a lot in the season, how the Fellowship was the first thing that I fell in love with in the program because coming from where I came from. This was a group of people that wanted to love me and make me feel welcomed and nurture me, take me out to coffee or whatever. They were genuinely interested in how I was feeling, with no ulterior motives. I had a sponsor who made me call five women a day, and I'm like, what the fuck why, Like they don't want to hear but from me. I don't want to hear from them. But it's because like now that when shit hits a fan, it's so much easier to pick up the phone and call someone and tell them that your ass is falling off because you're in.
00:26:34
Speaker 2: The habit of doing so.
00:26:35
Speaker 1: Yep, And it all starts making sense when you start seeing it from a different perspective.
00:26:40
Speaker 3: When I had had COVID a few times now, and it's like people in the program will say, can I bring you over some food?
00:26:45
Speaker 2: And was like, yeah, sure, drop it over.
00:26:47
Speaker 3: Because people don't realize, but that's twenty five minutes of a little sliver of serenity when you might be melting down about something else and it gives you something to do something for somebody else. It makes me feel so much better. But before before I got so over, I had nothing to be proud of. I had things on paper that you could be proud of, but in my heart of hearts, I was proud of nothing in my life. So getting out of treatment and being able to do what we call esteemable acts, you know, you toss those out the window when you're using and drinking, like I don't need to pick up my dog's shit, you know.
00:27:21
Speaker 2: But then it was like, oh, I'm building a new life.
00:27:24
Speaker 3: I'm the kind of person who, even if no one's looking, picks up my dog shit. And those little things, even though they were so small into normal people seem not a big deal, were huge. It was like being, you know, graduating college, like those things were huge for.
00:27:41
Speaker 2: Me to feel proud of.
00:27:51
Speaker 3: We look back on our childhood and think, where were the signs do I have the ism?
00:27:56
Speaker 2: Where's it always there?
00:27:57
Speaker 3: And for me, the first time I remember it being an issue was with video games. It was Nintendo Super Mario Brothers and I would play it before class, before school, like elementary school, fifth grade maybe, and I didn't even realize it was happening. But my parents sat me down and they were like, we're taking this away from you. And I said why and they said, because you're getting so worked up and you can't stop.
00:28:25
Speaker 2: So this is before school. So I was playing in them.
00:28:27
Speaker 3: I would wake up and the first thing I wanted was to go to that Nintendo. I would go and I would play, and I would die. I need another life, I would die. I need another life, one more if I get if I do one more, I'll get a better score.
00:28:39
Speaker 2: And I the obsession. It was a fix and it.
00:28:43
Speaker 3: Was nons There was no end in sight, and I just needed, needed, needed, And they said, you know, you can play after school, but you're not going to play before school anwhere because you're getting so upset that you're getting to school and you're aggressive and you're you're a monster in class. And I was so angry. I was enrage. They were taking away my drugs. Yeah, but that was the first moment I thought, oh, I have a hard time controlling my obsessions with things that behavioral.
00:29:12
Speaker 2: And that was before I used a drink.
00:29:14
Speaker 3: Obviously, I was only in fifth grade, but I knew they were right and it was making my life unmanageable, even at ten.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: And I was like that with people too.
00:29:28
Speaker 3: I would have like a little girlfriend or something, and I could think or talk about nothing.
00:29:32
Speaker 2: Else, and my mom would be like, why are you so obsessed?
00:29:36
Speaker 3: And that word obsession was like, that's kind of that sounds dramatic, that sounds embarrassing. But I guess I am obsessed. But that's always been the through line in my life. And that's how I've been able to succeed at certain things, because if I'm obsessed with something, great, I'd do it really well. Twelve SEP programs work for me because I'm so overwhelmed and chaotic in my mind.
00:30:01
Speaker 2: Everything I will blow it out of proportion.
00:30:03
Speaker 3: I'll think of the catastrophic anything it doesn't matter, you know, like this iced coffee, I might choke on the ice and then die. Like I'm always thinking of the worst case scenario. It's just extreme. We live in extremes. That what the twelve steps do for me is it simplifies all of that. There's no need to really figure anything out. There's nothing to figure out. You know exactly how to handle things, and if you don't, you ask a friend in the program. So it simplifies this chaotic mind. We have chaotic minds that are capable of so much creativity and productivity, and we're thinking we can think of great things if our disease is managed. So for me, the twelve steps simplifies. It's a guide for a design for living. It's theoretically what we should have gotten growing up. And again I respect everyone's religion, respect everyone's faith. But for me, I grew up in everally toxic version of Christianity, and in theory, the Bible was supposed to do all of that. It was supposed to teach you a guideline for your life, but it was not right for this. I didn't get a lot of tools about how to be honest about your life. No one in our like my parents, never showed vulnerability that way of saying, like, you know what, I have to be honest about something. I'm really struggling with this. That was not an option. So even though I knew in my head, like just tell a friend, tell someone it was, it just wasn't in my mouth, as I say, like, it wasn't modeled for me, and it wasn't something I thought I could do, and it's what I had done since I was a really young kid. Just lie, keep the secret, don't be embarrassed, or you don't want to feel embarrassed.
00:31:39
Speaker 2: But in recovery is the only time in my.
00:31:42
Speaker 3: Life I've been able to trust people because I could just be honest.
00:31:48
Speaker 1: It took me a while to grasp that because I always felt like I was always alone, Yeah, my entire life. So even now, like when I'm going through things like or I'm feeling a certain type of way, like i have to call and tell my people, like, hey, this is happening so they can hold my hand through it. It took me a long time to realize that this was not a sign of weakness.
00:32:11
Speaker 2: Because people worry about us.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: I mean, I put my family through a lot.
00:32:15
Speaker 3: That was actually the way I finally was able to make amends to my mom. And I loved listening to you talk about that, but I didn't know the way in to making an amends because it's complicated as it is. You know, everyone's mom is complicated. But the way in that was suggested to me by someone in the program is like, you can easily apologize for causing her concern or to cause her.
00:32:39
Speaker 2: To worry about you.
00:32:41
Speaker 3: And then I was like, okay, and that stuck in the back of my head, and as she and I began talking she brought up you know. I remember I came and stayed with you in New York that one time, and it was after I had had a seizure and I was also relapsing.
00:32:54
Speaker 2: It was just a mess.
00:32:55
Speaker 3: And she's like, yeah, and you are getting up in the middle of the night and doing weird things in the case, and she's like, I cried all the way back home to Texas.
00:33:03
Speaker 2: And in that moment, I was.
00:33:04
Speaker 3: Like, oh shit, wait, that's heartbreaking, for like, it doesn't matter who your mom is, for a mom to see her baby suffering, and and like her thoughts were like, maybe I will never see him again.
00:33:18
Speaker 2: Maybe the next time I see me in a casket.
00:33:20
Speaker 3: I was like, bitch, I'm so sorry like that, and that was so easy to say that. And once we had that little dialogue, it grew and was wonderful.
00:33:31
Speaker 2: But it's a conversation I never thought I would have.
00:33:38
Speaker 1: John, if you could talk to the younger version of yourself, what would you say?
00:33:45
Speaker 3: I would say, don't overdo it on the botox. I recently got botox to make me not frown, and I hate it. I feel like my face is frozen.
00:33:54
Speaker 2: Now. What I would say is it's so cliche.
00:33:58
Speaker 3: But the message I would give to that person that kid is to trust yourself and that I really just wanted to approval from my family. I want to approve from my church, and I want to approve from every kid in school to not beat me up or something. And none of that mattered, none of it. The only voice that mattered was from people who love me and my higher power in my heart and my gut. When I got sober, it's almost like I got a gut for the first time. My gut instincts about people are always right in recovery now because there's nothing clouding it. I feel like that was one of the biggest gifts of sobrieties that I never really knew what people say, trust your gut. I never knew what that meant until now. But that's what the message would be, is that you don't have to search too far for approval or for an answer.
00:34:51
Speaker 2: You know in your heart what to do and to trust that.
00:34:57
Speaker 1: Having you on this episode such a form of service to me because you're helping me with certain things that I'm currently struggling with, and that little perspective shift that you know sometimes I lose sight of because I'm in the thick of like my thoughts or whatever.
00:35:18
Speaker 2: That's what we do for each other.
00:35:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm so so grateful that you are being of service to me, like in a way that you have no idea.
00:35:26
Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:35:27
Speaker 3: This is an opportunity for me to be of service and that's the most important thing. And maybe someone's listening, you know, who is afraid to tell anybody that they're struggling. And I remember when I called one of my coworkers and I was like, I need to be honest. I am going to go to treatment for months. You're not going to see me. And she was like, I love you, I believe in you. And I was so embarrassed to call. I was so scared to call. And there has never been anyone I've been honest with about this who has said, oh my god, just disgusting, or then no one's ever. Everyone is always relieved also to know what's been going on. And I know, personally, most of my life was spent embarrassed and ashamed, So like, you don't need to feel that way.
00:36:14
Speaker 1: You know, they're they say in like the rooms of recovery, right, we don't shoot are wounded, right, you you're willing like, come on, let's go, let's do this.
00:36:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
00:36:26
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you for coming on crumbs.
00:36:28
Speaker 2: Of course, I'm honored. Thank you, and.
00:36:33
Speaker 1: Thank you listeners for joining me on this journey through my addiction and my recovery, through the ups and dark downs. The point of all of this, of sharing all the details of my life, including my shortcomings and the lessons I've learned, is to break stigma and give hope. It's scary out there in the dark, and whether the person having a hard time is you, someone you know, or someone you love. I hope you know that there are people out there like me who have been there and who care, and that there's help and that there is light. If you or someone you know is struggling, reach out to someone. There's a lot of difficult subjects that we cover in this show. If you are someone you know needs help, you can reach the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Hotline at twenty eight hundred sixty six y two four three five seven. They'll connect you with information and resources on treatment. There's also the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at twenty hundred two seven three tal K. Both are available twenty four to seven. You don't have to be in crisis to reach out either. They're available to anyone who needs help. You can also reach the National Sexual Assault Hotline twenty four to seven at one eight hundred six five six four six seven three. Crumbs is a Sonoro production in partnership with Iheartsmikultura Network and Trojan Horse Media. It's produced by Margaret Catcher and Patimei Ragunav and edited by Rodrigo Crespo. Original music by D. Peter Schmidt and engineering by Manuel Barra. Studio, Recording by JTV Recording and Podcasting Studio. Executive produced by conro Byrne and jessav And says for iHeart, Alex Filmeto, Elizabeth Schuzzo and Margaret Catcher for Trojan Horse, Camille Vittriano, Joshua Weinstein for Sonoro, and me Emmio lea special things to Mariana Coronella. Iire listen to Crumbs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:39:01
Speaker 2: A band
