172 - KALEIDOSCOPE WEDNESDAY- THE REALITIES OF LOVING AND ADDICT

Chuck (00:00.558)
Hello everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Kaleidoscope Wednesday on the Ash's To Awesome podcast. I'm your host, Dr. LaFlandre. Joining me in virtual studio, of course, is Ryan Bathgate. How you doing today, Ryan?

RBK Kaledoscope (00:12.362)
pretty good Chuck. It's been a bit of a grind coming back from holidays and well yeah you know it's like you take two weeks off and at least a month to recover from two weeks off. You know I always talk about rhythm and how important rhythm is and paying attention to rhythm and it's just like it's hard to find that rhythm when you're going from zero to a hundred in a matter of a day.

Chuck (00:17.786)
We're still milking that holiday thing, hey?

Chuck (00:39.482)
Yeah, true story, true story.

RBK Kaledoscope (00:41.83)
And then it's like, there's just like this, in behind all that is like this awareness that, you know, this is my life from now until next June or whenever the kids get out of school and I can take holidays again, you know, so. Yeah, so it's been a lot, it's been a bit overwhelming at times, as you know, I've been,

Chuck (00:59.824)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (01:08.654)
quite busy and distant. And I don't mean, you know, like there's no rhyme or reason for it, but...

Uh, yeah, it's just the ebbs and flows of life and life's demands. Certainly, um, you know, it's, it's really easy to think about the world and the, you know, our reality when, um, we have space to navigate that. But it's like the more demands and the more stresses you have, the smaller that world becomes and the more tunnel vision I think we get. Uh, and then it's like the, the reality of the cold hard world starts to

set in and you know you do I start to realize that I need to and this is an ongoing a constant thing where I'm in constant assessment of priority

priority assessment. And so, like I have been, you know, I've been lacking in my engagement with a lot of friendships, a lot of developing or maintaining my support networks and the people that are close to me. And then obviously, like the investments that I have into what we do here on a weekly basis has...

You know, it's always on my mind, but there's always something in front of it that I need to get done before I can get there, and then I just never... You know, the old Ringo Starr says, tomorrow never comes. Which is a Beatles song, ironically enough.

Chuck (02:38.675)
Yeah.

Chuck (02:43.706)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (02:47.286)
Yeah, so, and it's kind of like, oh yeah, well tomorrow I'm gonna get on this and then, you know, trying to get back to the gym. I went to, you know, I went on vacation, put on 17 pounds, and then, you know, three weeks later I am down three pounds. So, you know, it's sure a hell of a lot easier to put on than it is to get off, so. Yeah, yeah, so no, I'm good. It's just, um.

Chuck (02:47.331)
Yes.

Chuck (03:04.061)
Hehehehehehe

Chuck (03:08.334)
True story there. True story. Yep, yep, yep.

RBK Kaledoscope (03:16.366)
This working for a living thing, it's real.

Chuck (03:19.35)
Yeah, yeah, no kidding, no kidding. Myself, it's been a hell of a couple weeks here, or hell of a week anyway since last week. We did the Weekend Ramble, I know you didn't have a chance to listen to it, but Norris, who is now, I've teamed up with Norris you know, on the show here, we're gonna do whatever we can for them, that's the National Overdose Response System for anybody that's listening. What a great program they've got going on there, hey.

RBK Kaledoscope (03:31.506)
I did know.

RBK Kaledoscope (03:45.74)
Yeah.

Chuck (03:46.49)
So, I'll do the plug now, rather than cut a commercial in later on, and we can talk about that for a second. So, with Norris, somebody who is using a loan can call in and either stay on the line with somebody while they use, and if something goes wrong, Norris will enact their, or trigger their emergency plan as it was made with the person using.

So that might not involve 911 off the bat. It might start with my mom lives down the street and has an arc and, or my roommate has an arc and you can call them or whatever. Which I think it's great that the user actually has some control over that because sometimes 911 is a scary thing and people, regardless of how badly they need it, just don't want that to happen. So, and one of the great things that I didn't think about until I really started talking to Attica, who's a co-host on, you know.

RBK Kaledoscope (04:21.293)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaledoscope (04:26.727)
options.

Chuck (04:42.886)
on the weekend ramble was what an opportunity for connection, right? You know, for somebody who's, you know, suffering this alone and 75% of overdoses happen in the home alone, right? So what a great thing. 8,500 phone calls, not one death, not one single death.

RBK Kaledoscope (04:46.912)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaledoscope (05:02.466)
Mmm.

Chuck (05:04.762)
So to me that's a pretty powerful thing, right? And they need volunteers and they need awareness, they need people to know that they're available too, right? People that might use the system. So that's nors.ca if anybody's interested in volunteering for that. The great thing about volunteering for them is it's from home and it's when you're able to.

So you can at any point, it's kind of like Uber, an Uber driver can just check in when they wanna check in or check out when they wanna check out, kind of the same idea, right? So what a great way to have a huge impact on somebody's life and save a life potentially with a small imprint on your own, right? So, you know.

RBK Kaledoscope (05:39.178)
Yeah, we got something similar. I don't think it's as evolved. Over here it's called Lifeguard.

Chuck (05:44.61)
Yep, yep, very similar app. Yeah, so is Brave be the same thing, right? Yep, yep.

RBK Kaledoscope (05:48.226)
Yeah, and Lifeguard was actually developed by a guy that I know really well. And so, I, you know, being a manager of harm reduction, I've actually just recently reached out to him to try to get some traction on mission, the city I live in, to be adopting that a little bit more. But hey, maybe Norse is something we need to look at. So, you know, when we go offline, let's talk a little bit about that. And maybe I can get a contact or something that I can reach out to.

Chuck (06:12.61)
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I had a great conversation with Lisa Morris, who is the executive director over there at Norris, right? Of course, Dr. Monte Gauche, who we had on the Weekend Rumble a few weeks back, he's a huge part of that, of the Norris team over there. I had a great conversation with her. It didn't work out for the last weekend's Rumble that she could be on, but there's so much more than what I just talked about as well.

They're mental health, they're all the things. Bit of a backstory on Norris, which is kind of cool. Not cool, of course, really wrong words to use here. Becky Morris is the one who started it. She passed as a result of an overdose, she relapsed. And now her sister is taking that torch and carried on with it, right? So, yeah, right, so.

RBK Kaledoscope (07:05.226)
Cool, yeah. Legacy. Yeah.

Chuck (07:06.73)
Yeah, yeah, right. So you imagine 8,500 phone calls, zero deaths. So to me, the reason that I'm so behind this is there's so many people out there, ourselves, countless other individuals, organizations who are trying really hard to do something good and put all their heart and soul into it. This is one of the few things that's in real time making a difference, right? So to me, you can't do much better than that, right? But.

RBK Kaledoscope (07:28.663)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (07:34.314)
Well, I'd like to think, Chuck, that we are also one of those few that are in real time.

Chuck (07:38.942)
I would like to think so as well, right? So that's why I volunteered to team up with them for, you know, and spread the word and all of that stuff, and, you know, for no funding at that. So, you know, we'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. But yeah, right. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (07:50.554)
Yeah, no, for real funding. You know, it's funny you say that. Part of my struggle lately has been like, the priority is family, food on the table, bills paid, and you know, I love what we do here. It's just, it doesn't get priority because it doesn't feed my kids, you know.

Chuck (08:15.307)
I get it. I totally understand, right? Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (08:15.934)
Yeah, and I hate that because it's an honest take. But you know, if we could do this show every day and I could put food on the table, I think my life's dream would be realized.

Chuck (08:30.406)
It's living the best life right there. I say it at the end of every episode, right? You know, that is living my best life. So, you know, right? Get, you know, some time, some time we're coming along. So, you know, right? Of course we have our own little side projects waiting to happen here too. And maybe, you know, maybe something comes of that as well, right? So the caring compass, right? Yes, as I call it.

RBK Kaledoscope (08:37.357)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (08:42.048)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (08:48.894)
Well, yeah, I think it's, you know, I don't know how much you want to get into that, but I mean the need for support, you know, just outside of the individual addict. I think I've mentioned it many times in a number of episodes that, you know, those that use Get A Break, those that support and love the user don't, yeah.

Chuck (09:12.77)
Right? No, because even when I get clean, my mom, even today, even today, with all of the good stuff we're doing, somewhere in the back of my mom's mind, she's worried about me relapsing. Right? Like somewhere, right? You know, and we're almost a year now. Right? And she's still worried. I guarantee she is. Right? You know, right? Yep.

RBK Kaledoscope (09:26.306)
Put it.

RBK Kaledoscope (09:31.242)
What? I hate to like... You know, throw rocks at, um... Glass houses, but... Let's be honest, you're aint shit, man.

Chuck (09:43.746)
No, no it isn't, it isn't, right? So, you know, the families, they just don't get a break. They just don't, and that's the reality of it, right? Which I guess kind of leads into today, what we want to talk about, right? So...

RBK Kaledoscope (09:57.29)
Well, I'll be honest with you, like, I don't know what we want to talk about today. And there's some background to that, I mean. We just finished two back-to-back series, and, you know, we don't do a lot of prep for the Kaleidoscope show. But yeah.

Chuck (10:03.426)
Yep. Ha ha ha.

Chuck (10:21.379)
Very little to none actually if you want to peek behind the curtain right yeah, but

RBK Kaledoscope (10:24.898)
But there is at least some like, even driving, I'm planning a little bit about how the series is going to fit together, you know? And so I have to be completely transparent saying that it is nice today to not have a clue what road we're going to go down. Yeah, yeah.

Chuck (10:33.698)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chuck (10:43.934)
just to have a conversation, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, and so I do wanna finish talking about the Weekend Ramble because what it turned into was an amazing, I'll say conversation, but really what I mean is debates about coerced treatment. Right, so and I know you haven't had a chance to watch that yet. If you're gonna catch up on any episode, make it last week. It might have been the best episode I've ever recorded.

RBK Kaledoscope (11:11.722)
Yeah, it's sort of s-

Chuck (11:12.502)
Lisa kind of kicked it off with just a comment or a question, whatever it was, and it just went, yeah, it really did, right? So, a guy had mentioned on a LinkedIn post after Dr. Tangay's episode with us that he works in coerced treatment, like in mandated treatment down in the state somewhere, and said, he said, our rates are only 20%, our success rates are only 20%. I went, 20%?

RBK Kaledoscope (11:19.714)
Bye, boom.

Chuck (11:41.334)
So that was kind of the basis of my entire argument was like, if you're pushing a 20% success rate, right? Like I was trying to explain to Attica, who's very much against coerced treatment as it has been in the past, I shouldn't say that she's against it as we want to do it or as we think of it now, but yeah, right? We're based on the moral model, right? Right, right? And to date that has been what mandated treatment's been about.

RBK Kaledoscope (11:59.918)
but it's a traditional model. Yeah.

Yeah.

Chuck (12:10.166)
right you know

RBK Kaledoscope (12:11.021)
Wow, in all fairness.

Chuck (12:13.955)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (12:14.03)
I think that that's what the optics look like from the outside looking in or the untrained eye or really like without understanding the intricate parts of that because I mean my feelings about it have definitely evolved over time the more that I have either lived it, understand it, worked with it and like right off the bat you say mandated treatment and I'm like fuck you.

Chuck (12:30.478)
Yep.

Chuck (12:39.798)
You picture a van running around scooping up people and violating their human rights, right?

RBK Kaledoscope (12:43.634)
Or like, you know, like, well I'm up to smoking a quarter of a weed now, a day, and now they want to send me to treatment, you know, like, and that's not what, that's not, you know, my, I'm not of any mind particularly. I don't like mandated anything as a human being that is like anti-establishment or, you know, like, you know, like, so I have that like set point of like, F you, you know, but um.

Chuck (12:48.426)
Yeah.

Chuck (13:07.616)
Yeah.

Chuck (13:10.968)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (13:11.394)
But the more I look at it, I mean, for me, basically, like, I think mandated treatment is much better than an APE. You know? And it's so-

Chuck (13:18.734)
Yeah, right, every time, right? Yeah, yeah, or the other result, you know, of a serious addiction problem, that's death, right? So, you know.

RBK Kaledoscope (13:27.874)
Fatality, yeah. And I mean, it's no different than like, you know, my views on interventions originally were like, I think they're awful and I think that they are, originally I thought it was a capitalist design to create viewership for a television show.

Chuck (13:39.523)
Yep.

Chuck (13:45.974)
Yeah, yeah, right. Which I think most of us had that impression about interventions, right? Did Devon sure help shape that for us, right? Myself, you know, if not yourself as well, right? You know, you know, yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (13:50.678)
We did.

RBK Kaledoscope (13:56.731)
Definitely Devon had an impact. I think knowing some other... I've never actually met an interventionist that embodies what I thought an interventionist is. Oh, that's not true. I've met one and I'm not going to say any names or anything. And honestly, that was like...

Chuck (14:07.694)
Yep.

Chuck (14:12.175)
I'm sorry.

RBK Kaledoscope (14:17.362)
20 years ago that I knew this individual and that's a lot of where my forming of my judgment came from. But when I look at it like, you know, Devon said something really important that really hit home for me is like, you know, if we're at the state of intervention everything else has been tried.

Chuck (14:24.95)
Yep.

Chuck (14:37.346)
Right? You would think in the vast majority of cases, absolutely. Right? You know, right? Yeah, right.

RBK Kaledoscope (14:41.442)
For the most part, yeah. Most people, I mean, A, they're not cheap. People don't jump to that first. It's not like, okay, 10 grand intervention, off you go to treatment, 30 grand a month. Like, that's not the reality of it. No, the default is like, well, the default is actually probably a...

Chuck (14:46.635)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chuck (14:53.283)
Yeah.

Yeah, certainly not the default. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

No.

RBK Kaledoscope (15:08.074)
And this is something maybe we want to get into today. It's like... If the family or the support network doesn't have an understanding of addiction, then their first go-to is usually, it's not as bad as it looks, or I think, or... Why don't you try to regulate? Why don't you try to use less? Why don't you try to use something different, more healthy? And...

You know, we know how that goes. And as far as like 20% success, good for you.

Chuck (15:41.098)
Yeah, that's what I, again, the whole base of my argument is 20%. I said, if any other recovery modality could claim a 20% success rate, it'd be the only thing we do. That'd be it, right? I said that you would be a rock star. And quite frankly, if I can save two people's lives and piss off eight people, I'll do that every day of the week, right? So like 20% is a hell of a number. Again, I don't know where those numbers came from. I don't.

RBK Kaledoscope (15:52.67)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Chuck (16:08.002)
I have no idea if that's factual. That was just what one person had said who seemingly works in that industry, right? So, you know, right?

RBK Kaledoscope (16:14.125)
Yeah. Yeah, I have a stat that I've hung my hat on for many years that I read years ago when I first started out. I don't even know. And the other thing is like, stats are like, I also look at them a little differently now. Like, you know, like.

Chuck (16:25.498)
There's, yeah, right. They're so easily manipulated. They're so, you know, what is success, right?

RBK Kaledoscope (16:30.466)
Well, I saw, I know of like working in the treatment field for years. I know of treatment centers that would claim 100% success rates and based on, based, based on the way that they optically collect data to prove a point, you know, like, and it's, and it's completely skewed. So, um,

Chuck (16:42.414)
based on no recidivism in the first six months or month. Right?

Chuck (16:50.455)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (16:55.986)
You know, like, you know, again, capitalism in action. If I say that I have a 100% rate, I make more money. You know, right. All those, or, and to be honest, this is a private place that I'm speaking to you directly. So it wasn't actually about appeasing government funding. It was about appeasing the one percenters, well, the upper class, you know.

Chuck (17:02.63)
Yeah, right. Funding comes my way, all those things, right? So, right.

Chuck (17:11.438)
Yeah.

Chuck (17:19.886)
potential clients and yeah. Yeah, yeah, right, right. So.

RBK Kaledoscope (17:26.688)
And people that make money in the capitalist North America usually have a good understanding of statistics and how they work.

Chuck (17:34.406)
Yeah, yeah, right. So, and again, I don't know if 20% is the actual number, but if it is, let's take a real strong, hard look at what's going on there, right? So, you know.

RBK Kaledoscope (17:44.662)
Yeah, and I think where I agree with it is again, like interventions, it's the last block on the house. Last block on the house on the block, man. It's a slick, sick much. So, yeah, and I'm like.

Chuck (17:54.05)
Yeah. Right. Yeah, if you've got somebody whose brain is not working, right, who's actually incapable. And if you talk to Lisa, Dr. Lisa, she'll talk about watching brain scans of people that are in serious addiction, you know, and their frontal cortex just not working, right? You know, so how do you, you know, yeah, I could go down that road for it, right? You know, right?

RBK Kaledoscope (18:18.25)
Well, I mean, litigiously it's not much different than claiming, you know, not guilty based on insanity. Like, you know, and so, and I do...

Chuck (18:27.298)
Yeah, yeah, right.

RBK Kaledoscope (18:31.274)
I agree, especially with the shit that's out there now, the Benzos and the dope. Like I said before, you go down to Hastings in that area and you see a lot of people that are basically in a state of insanity and completely lost their own identity and essence. Because that's what happens. I mean, we lose touch of reality, we have a psychosomatic disconnect, we have dreams, goals, aspirations.

Chuck (18:50.487)
Absolutely.

RBK Kaledoscope (19:00.808)
to the back burner. And I've spent time down there on different levels, and most of the stories are usually about, like, who I used to be, the things that I have done in my previous life.

Chuck (19:08.608)
Yep.

Chuck (19:13.986)
Yeah, yeah, right.

RBK Kaledoscope (19:19.026)
as some sense of like, I'm still somebody. Although, and it's a projection of this, the role of Eagle, I feel less than, so I'm gonna make myself appear more so you don't find out how low I am.

Chuck (19:19.185)
Yep.

Chuck (19:24.569)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (19:37.11)
Yeah, yeah, right, right. Which is something I can relate to most certainly as well. Right. I held onto my, you know, I went and visited the MLA in Saskatchewan shit for, for years, right. You know, you know, into it, right. So yeah, most certainly, most certainly, you know. A great example of that would be, you know, this, this past week when we took a friend's wife, not a strange wife, you know, they're separated now for a couple of years, but.

RBK Kaledoscope (19:40.542)
Yeah, well, I go.

RBK Kaledoscope (19:46.44)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (19:50.079)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Chuck (20:01.818)
to the Peter Lougheed Center here, that's a hospital here in Calgary, to the emergency room to try and get her some help. And what she's saying to the doctors, the moment we're not in the room is completely different than her reality. So it's like, I don't think she's lying. I don't think she really understands how bad or dire her situation is. Like, ah, it's frustrating.

RBK Kaledoscope (20:22.194)
Yeah, yeah, and that is... So I don't...

It is, and it's a very common distortion. One of the things, as you know, a lot of the work that I do is based on how, or reality construction, how we build the lenses that we see the world through in a way that's conducive to our own flourishing. And predominantly, the people that have suffered from characteristics of addiction have a distorted sense of reality because they didn't build that reality

Chuck (20:42.234)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaledoscope (20:56.52)
with choice and freedom, they built it with a lack of choice and oppression. And so they actually, they didn't build it, their history built it for them. Which makes it, just, it's a, you know, it's...

Chuck (21:04.662)
Yeah, yeah, right.

RBK Kaledoscope (21:12.002)
To mitigate or abandon the sense of choice within our own being is to invite both shame and oppression into our existence, which ultimately creates a pressure that eventually pops. Yeah.

Chuck (21:27.094)
Yeah. Right. So yeah, it's a, it's a scary thing, man. It really is. Uh, with her, we continue to fight, you know, and we're like, and if we just got ourselves a few days last night was our last update, you know, so a few more days in care, but at this point, you know, my, my friend and I are both of the mind that every day, if we got to fight for one more night, then we'll fight for one more night, right? Like whatever, whatever we got to do, right. To keep her there. So, you know,

RBK Kaledoscope (21:53.614)
Think about that statement you just said.

Chuck (21:55.898)
Hmm.

RBK Kaledoscope (21:57.91)
Where's hope?

Chuck (22:00.246)
Yeah, well, you tell me. You got me on the ropes there.

RBK Kaledoscope (22:06.782)
Well, obviously, hope is the one thing we need to get through this. Whether it be family, whether it be the person themselves. When we're talking about a day to day, you're not going up against addiction in this case. You're going up against a broken system. And who's to blame?

Chuck (22:12.398)
Yeah, right.

Chuck (22:25.826)
Yeah, right.

RBK Kaledoscope (22:29.762)
Do you blame the nurses who were burnt out, tired, and using apathy? But that too gets the run of it. Do we blame the doctors that have this caseload that they need to get through and get through and get through it? And at some point it becomes dehumanizing. And it's just like, okay, well I've got to get this one through and this one. I want the best for this person, but that's the best I can do is want it.

Chuck (22:33.25)
Most certainly not. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Chuck (22:40.202)
same thing. Right. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Chuck (22:47.65)
Yeah, right.

Chuck (22:57.762)
Yeah, yeah, right, so. And we're fortunate, we have Dr. Lisa helping us navigate the situation, right? And I know she doesn't mind if we talk about that, right? I can't imagine a family member that doesn't have the resources we do, that doesn't have, like, you know, someone like me who's got the podcast and a platform, and, you know, and Dr. Lisa. What that must be like, what that must be like, right? Like, it's just.

RBK Kaledoscope (22:59.47)
There's not much I can do for it.

RBK Kaledoscope (23:05.143)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaledoscope (23:22.35)
Think about the level and the depth of that, and I'm gonna use the word handicap, in that, okay so like let's just say I know nothing about addiction. You know, maybe my dad drank scotch every Saturday night, you know, and like, and then now my child is lost in the streets of the downtown east side.

Chuck (23:50.062)
Right? Ah, wow. You know. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (23:52.039)
What the hell? What the hell do I do? I don't understand the affliction. I don't understand the culture. I don't understand the, uh...

the ontology of it, I definitely don't understand the system because the system is built and geared towards healthy, flourishing, thriving citizens that vote, that are consumers, and that predominantly base opinions that are in line with political agendas whether they mean to or not, that's kind of the way it goes, I mean just look at Twitter

Chuck (24:00.818)
system.

Chuck (24:05.422)
Yeah.

Chuck (24:14.074)
Yeah.

Chuck (24:27.734)
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (24:28.318)
You know, like, and so like, what do they do? Well, as I've said before, you know, even the person that is suffering the characteristics of addiction doesn't have these understandings as well, but what they get is they get a six to eight hour reprieve every day from anything.

Chuck (24:49.11)
Yeah, right, you know, yeah, so. And it, okay. We dedicate what resources there are and there should be more, but what resources, what there are, we dedicate 90% of those to the people that are suffering an addiction. But in my mind, that's only 10% of the people that are affected by addiction, right? Because you've got their families, their friends, their loved ones.

are the other 90% who don't get really any of these resources, right, to help them navigate. And I believe, and it's part of the reason as the host here, that I dedicate so much to the families that if we can dedicate more to the families, in effect we are helping the people that are suffering in it, right?

RBK Kaledoscope (25:31.966)
Well, absolutely. And so like, to kind of feed off that, when I started this work, it was like, you know, I went through a period of what they don't teach you in school is how futile it can feel and appear and in reality is to be, you know, fighting and I hate using that word, but to be fighting this thing and like...

Chuck (25:57.966)
It's accurate, right? Yeah, right.

RBK Kaledoscope (26:01.238)
And so what I used to tell myself is that the successes that we have within being mental health professionals, we're never going to see. Once in a while we'll get somebody that pops back in five years later and says, you know, I ran into a guy at the gas station who was one of the hopeless variety as per the big book verbiage, and he was taking his kids to soccer and filling up his new car with gas, and I was like, thank God, there's a win.

Chuck (26:15.53)
Yeah, right.

Chuck (26:29.602)
No kidding, right? But good point, you wouldn't see them, right? You wouldn't, yeah. In my case, I like to think that I would because it's a very different dynamic. But in your case, yeah, you would not, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (26:30.712)
Yeah. No, you don't. No.

RBK Kaledoscope (26:40.662)
You don't. What you see is obituaries. You hear about the deaths through the whisper networks. And so what I would tell myself is that if I'm here doing this work today with this one person, that one person has at least ten people attached to them, either witnessing, viewing, learning from this experience that this person is going through.

Chuck (26:50.662)
Yeah.

Chuck (27:06.154)
Absolutely. Right. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (27:07.838)
And so now to be honest, I mean now that I'm out of the treatment world and I do private practice, I'm going to say when it comes to the clients that have characteristics of addiction, I spend probably...

20% of the time with the individual and the other 80% of the time coaching and advising the family members because they just don't have any idea what to do. Like you talk about feeling lost, it's like it would be like me going in playing a game of cricket and I have no idea how that game works at all. You know like...

Chuck (27:35.382)
Right? Right.

Chuck (27:42.755)
Yeah.

Chuck (27:46.09)
Yeah, me neither.

RBK Kaledoscope (27:49.102)
no idea and so like what do I do and like and think about the hopelessness that can accompany that the devastating disappointment that like completely talk about like you know I like I've got concussion issues

Chuck (27:57.534)
Oh, I...

Yeah, right.

Chuck (28:05.546)
Yep.

RBK Kaledoscope (28:06.15)
I've had way too many for human beings. And that's what I relate it must be like for them. It's like BAM getting hit in the head and being like who the fuck am I, where am I, what's going on, why am I nauseous, why do I have headaches, all these things. It's just like what do I do, who can I contact, where do I get help. And thank God for people out there like Andy Batty and Andy Batty Interventions.

you know, Devin McGuire and Revolution Recovery and Stacey over at T.F.E. The people that actually make the investments. And you know, like, I don't get paid to spend three hours on the phone with a mother or a husband or...

Chuck (28:49.942)
No, no you don't.

RBK Kaledoscope (28:53.398)
a brother or sister, you know? And I say that not because I'm like, well I should be, no, I'm saying that because my commitment was to help people, not to make money. Now when I started, I was single, I had abs, I had maybe a bit of hair left, didn't give a shit about how much money I made, and now I got two kids and a mortgage in the lower

Chuck (29:10.362)
Ha ha ha.

RBK Kaledoscope (29:23.052)
a week, you know, like, well, you know, and rising and like inflation don't get going about Bank of Canada and whatever the hell they're doing to screw me over. And you know, it gets you, you know, like I work in, I work with the unhoused now specifically in a day to day basis and like, let's face it, our government is creating homelessness based on.

Chuck (29:24.194)
Yeah, yeah, right. And rising from here still, right? Yeah, yeah.

Chuck (29:35.064)
Yeah.

Chuck (29:48.046)
without a shadow of a doubt.

RBK Kaledoscope (29:49.09)
based on their attempt at fighting inflation, as they say.

Chuck (29:54.222)
Which is a result of Carbotext. Ah, don't even get me started. Thank you Trudeau. That's what it comes down to.

RBK Kaledoscope (29:57.078)
Well, to be, there's more to it than that. Here in the lower main line, a big part of it is...

people that own properties that don't live on this continent and just buy properties up so that the value will increase. These houses sit empty. My taxes went up 55% on my property. My mortgage rate went from 1.6 to 7 point whatever it is now.

Chuck (30:15.659)
Yeah.

Wow. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (30:33.498)
And that's why I have to work 60 hours a week and I'm still behind. Anyway, that's a whole nother pissing, moaning... Yeah, yeah! Definitely difficult. But the point is, and so like, no, that is correlatable because, you know, like, how, this is why Tiffany, thank God for Tiffany, being able to raise money to get people...

Chuck (30:38.21)
Yeah, right, right. So, yeah. Yeah, that's another podcast. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, yeah. But.

Chuck (31:00.962)
The Nate D Foundation, by the way. Yeah, so anybody that's, yeah, yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (31:02.294)
the NAD foundation to, you know, like she raises money so people can come and see me and get help with their, you know, their addiction issues and like, that's what, and you know, and it's a drop in the bucket.

Chuck (31:15.846)
Yep.

RBK Kaledoscope (31:16.066)
But how do I say to a single mother of three whose oldest son is in fentanyl addiction, that hey, you know what, I'm gonna require about 20 sessions at $140 a session. And if you can't come up with that, then your son doesn't get any help. You know? It is. And for me to do it for free is like, well, now my kids suffer.

Chuck (31:29.923)
Yep.

Chuck (31:34.318)
What a like, yeah, man, that's a tough, tough call.

Chuck (31:42.178)
Yeah, yeah, right, right.

RBK Kaledoscope (31:43.29)
You know, and so like it's literally the definition of dissonance.

Chuck (31:47.67)
Yeah, yeah, that's horrible, man. I'm reading a great book right now, Here With You by Kathy Wagner, which speaks to all of this, right?

RBK Kaledoscope (31:54.286)
Don't start with me. Don't you start with me and read books.

RBK Kaledoscope (32:02.09)
I'm very proud of you for reading a book that...

Chuck (32:06.407)
Again, it's in PDF, I could blow it up, these old eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what a fantastic book. It's all about that struggle, right? Just that, right? Yes.

RBK Kaledoscope (32:10.501)
Uh huh, uh huh.

RBK Kaledoscope (32:18.348)
Do you mind just saying the book again and by who just because I feel like I kind of ruined that?

Chuck (32:24.014)
Ah, okay. Here With You by Kathy Wagner. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. What an incredible tale she tells, right? And it is, it's all about being a single mother with three kids and her youngest, I guess, in this case, is suffering and she talks about the money. Where does that come from? She's finding a solution, but then she has to find the money and then it's just like, oh, what a tough go that is, right?

RBK Kaledoscope (32:26.186)
Right. Okay.

RBK Kaledoscope (32:50.734)
It really is, and it's a constant struggle. And so, like, can I plug myself here quickly? I've actually never done it on this show, but this is quite intentional. You know, if you're a parent or a loved one that needs just to talk to somebody for...

Chuck (32:56.706)
You can plug yourself, absolutely you can. Yeah, yeah, of course you can.

RBK Kaledoscope (33:11.978)
you know for nothing, go to ryanbathgate.com which is my counseling website, give me a call and I'll do whatever I can to help over the phone. If it looks like it's going to be longer and we need to book sessions and you know we'll navigate that but my point is this like if you go to ryanbathgate.com you don't have to be alone. I will do whatever I can to help you know at no cost to talk on the phone, no cost at all.

Chuck (33:20.195)
Yeah.

Chuck (33:33.41)
Yeah, right, right.

Chuck (33:39.322)
Whatever that looks like, yeah. Yeah, right. So, yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (33:40.31)
Whatever it is, even if it's just like, I don't know what to do next, or I don't know how to feel, or I don't know a lot of it. Because in reality, what I deal with the most is these presumptions or notions of moral model existence. And most parents either go one way or the other, which is enabling, which is not a good thing, or complete cutoff and neglect and walk away.

Chuck (33:55.743)
Yeah, oof, oof.

Chuck (34:03.393)
Yep.

Chuck (34:08.686)
which is horrible.

RBK Kaledoscope (34:10.438)
In both ends of the spectrums, I don't believe are the answer. And we talk, and I'll say it many times, the answer to this is the love model. It's not sexy, but it is, in my opinion, the most effective way. And so, hey, maybe that's an idea for another series, the love model.

Chuck (34:14.457)
Yep.

Chuck (34:21.381)
Yep.

Chuck (34:31.926)
Love my, you know, it's been a while since we've really hit home on that. And absolutely, actually, I think that would be great. You know, it's actually something we could tie an entire week into as well. Now that you mentioned that. Right. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (34:37.762)
Yeah.

Yeah, and most...the reason I'm saying this is obviously not so I get 600 phone calls a day, but the reason I'm saying this is because you and I both know how...there's just no...

Chuck (34:48.809)
Hahaha

RBK Kaledoscope (34:55.466)
no direction, there's no resource for the families that are going, and it's hell man. Like it is a living hell that is not a consequence of each of an individual family member or loved one. The only thing they've done is love them.

Chuck (34:59.622)
Right.

Chuck (35:03.684)
Yeah.

Chuck (35:12.354)
Yeah, right, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (35:14.356)
And the person that's going through it doesn't want to be putting you through that. It's just the nature of the loss of essence. Because what it takes from us is our soul, in my opinion.

Chuck (35:27.186)
It eats the soul, 100%. That's what happens.

RBK Kaledoscope (35:31.278)
Or, I just want to shift that verbiage. It takes, it suffocates it. It doesn't kill it. It takes it hostage. It's in there. That person's essence is in there. We see it. You know, I don't know, I've been to a few meetings in my day, and like, you know, you hear this like.

Chuck (35:40.878)
Yep.

RBK Kaledoscope (35:55.594)
Well, I just got my one month chip and everything is amazing. I love everything. My life is so amazing and everything's great. And I was like, give it another month or two. But, you know, not to be cynical, but you know. But the reality is, and I believe that happens because it is like for most people, the first time they've felt their true essence or their spirit in so fucking long.

Chuck (36:08.431)
Yeah. It's realities. Yeah.

Chuck (36:20.458)
Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (36:22.926)
you know, and that is an exciting time. The problem is, is I don't know, I don't think that we educate in a way that is, you know, how do we handle tension? How do we, how do we handle adversity? Who are we going to be within that when, you know, when these things come down the pike? And so, yeah. Anyway.

Chuck (36:25.624)
Yep.

Chuck (36:42.092)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (36:48.542)
I got that little clock going in the corner that I don't know where it is.

RBK Kaledoscope (36:54.859)
Ha.

Chuck (36:55.695)
Well, we can certainly switch over to mailbag. You know, I've got a few here.

RBK Kaledoscope (37:00.434)
Okay, so I just want to tie it up then.

Chuck (37:01.006)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (37:05.006)
The, this thing only survives in isolation, loneliness, and a lack of connection. That's not just the person struggling with characteristics of addiction. That is the entire.

ecosystem of that family or loved unit. And so, and it doesn't have to be like that. Shame has no place in it in the process. And there are people like myself, Chuck, Devin, Andy Batty, Lisa, a number of people that are just more than willing to make sure that you don't feel alone. We may not have the answers, but we do have a

RBK Kaledoscope (37:50.352)
guarantee and I don't like to make guarantees but that will help.

Chuck (37:54.538)
Absolutely, absolutely. And an ever-growing network, right? An ever-growing network of people that can help, right? So please, please don't hesitate. As a matter of fact, I'm going to put up, as soon as we're done recording this episode, I'm going to make sure that there's a link to your website on our website, right? I can't believe that I haven't done that already, right? But yeah, yeah. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (37:57.814)
Yes. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (38:03.894)
Yeah, oh, hey.

RBK Kaledoscope (38:08.578)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (38:11.882)
Okay.

Well, I just, it's not, to be honest with you, like, you know, my, my counseling business is, is a wait list. And so I don't promote it on here because I, I hate having to say I, you know, I, I can see you in two, three months. Like, you know, this is not helpful for anybody. So I don't, I don't promote it on here because, you know, as I have a, yeah.

Chuck (38:21.834)
Yeah.

Chuck (38:28.15)
Yeah, right, right. So, but, you know, yeah. But perhaps we'll figure out some sort of email thing, or I don't know, let's talk more about that and see how it goes, right? So yeah, absolutely.

RBK Kaledoscope (38:40.758)
Sure, yeah. Oh, and then you can, you can always, you guys always check out a2apodcast.com or email Chuck.

Chuck (38:46.582)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, of course, right? Before we move on to Mailbag, a couple things I wanna talk about. Normally I plug in commercials, but what I'm supposed to do is do kind of a loose rotation between verbal mentions and that. So, deadkids.com, for any of you that have been paying attention since the beginning, in the beginning we didn't do video episodes. And we didn't do them because of a broken smile, right? I was absolutely, when I was recording with people,

pull this thing down, oh no, okay. When I used to record with people, you had those big screens that go up in front of the microphone, yeah, like this one here. Exactly, yeah, that is how I would do it, right? And for those of you that are just listening, I would put the microphone screen in front of my face because I was so embarrassed about my smile. And not just embarrassed, but it brought up a lot of really painful memories, right, as to how that got broken, right? So, but.

RBK Kaledoscope (39:23.8)
Like this.

Chuck (39:46.21)
DENTKIDS.COM, you know, it was three weeks or so and my life changed forever. I remember Carl the Atheist was with me when I picked up those dentures. And he said, as soon as I put them in my mouth, my life changed 100%, right? Like he could see a total change come over me. So, you know, I still got some stuff to do on the bottom, but you know.

I got the top. So it's a big difference for me. It's all the difference in the world. It's the only reason that we do video. So check them out guys, that's denkkids.com. The most expensive product they have is the full set for like $600 and it only gets cheaper from there. So if you know, yep, yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (40:19.626)
Hey, excellent. Um, can you do a, can you just do a thing here? Like I'm just realizing something, you can put, when I edit this out. I'm not on the camel. That's why, that's why the computers, the, the thing sucks. Cause when I set, okay. Alright, alright.

Chuck (40:32.143)
Okay.

Oh, well, if we're here now, so might as well just run it. Yeah, yeah, for next time though, right? So yeah, okay. And I'm not gonna edit that out actually, just to make, because it's Wednesday and I have to release this on Wednesday, we're just gonna make this real easy. So with that said, one more plug that I'm gonna do here is for the swag shop guys, check them out. You know, I've been putting commercials inside the episodes, I'm not gonna do it this time. Hoodies, highly, highly customizable.

RBK Kaledoscope (40:47.48)
There.

Chuck (41:02.914)
if you wanna check out a hoodie. Anything you wanna do, if you just shoot me a message, I can absolutely do that on them. T-shirts, tank tops, all that jazz. Check it, you know, if you buy them, you're really helping to spread the message and helping me out here too. Certainly not a lucrative thing that we're doing, this is to say the least, right? With that said, we'll break for a quick public service announcement and...

Move into the mailbag. Edit, edit, edit. Okay. Okay, so we're back from the break and into the mailbag. So we'll just jump right into it here, right?

RBK Kaledoscope (41:32.555)
Okay.

RBK Kaledoscope (41:45.001)
Okay.

Chuck (41:46.442)
Sarah from Toronto asks, I've been struggling with alcohol addiction for years and it feels like an insurmountable mountain to climb. How can I begin to believe in my own ability to recover and what steps should I take to start this journey?

RBK Kaledoscope (42:01.714)
Okay, um, well, you know, it is...

You know, I, um...

RBK Kaledoscope (42:15.778)
These challenges that we have.

They're never really just about addiction. I don't know if you've been following the show, you've been listening long enough, you realize that these are all humanistic challenges and that I believe that the coping mechanism of substance use and when it crosses that line into substance use disorder is just about us coping and then the underneath underlying driver is typically what needs to be attended to.

with, you know, and I like how it is, she uses the word alcohol addiction instead of alcoholism because, you know, to me it's behavioral and it is, again, you know, the symptom of something deeper. How do I believe in my own ability to recover?

I'm gonna say if I want to change that word from recover to flourish, I believe that the human spirit is in a constant state of intaking our...

RBK Kaledoscope (43:44.314)
So my brain, I think it goes to this like how the entire premise of the universe is set that everything organic that is living in the universe is always in a consumption of energy and usually dependent on the Sun Anyway, so how do I believe my own? How do I believe in my own ability to do anything? What I need to do is Get this idea of hey, like my capacity is what?

you know, and my potential is what. And so I think that we are programmed or we're...

RBK Kaledoscope (44:22.806)
designed or influenced to think that there is a ceiling on our potential and our capacity and that is in direct contrast of human spirit and the evolution of our human existence. And so like right away it's like how do I develop the intrinsic resources to believe in myself? So what are we talking about? What does believing in myself, what does that mean? And to me it means self-worth, self-esteem, self-respect, living in values, integrity.

thing that I do is like you know like I stop you know I believe whatever we fight we empower so I stop fighting this idea like I'm struggling with alcohol addiction well what if that's the wrong words?

Chuck (45:02.995)
Yep.

RBK Kaledoscope (45:13.49)
What if it is I've been blessed with or I've been gifted the tension and struggle that will, I know will make me a better human being so long as I am in constant movement in hopefully a direction of flourishing. And so if we're using the word insurmountable to climb, that makes it almost impossible.

Right? So what if it isn't insurmountable?

What if there are millions and millions of people all around the world that have managed to find a semblance of existence that doesn't include alcohol or any other narcotic or behavioral deficit that have found great lives? And so like, I would do evidence collection and intrinsic resource development. And then small victories, man.

Chuck (46:14.602)
Okay.

RBK Kaledoscope (46:19.84)
When I make my bed in the morning, it gives me just a little smidge of self-worth And when I come home and the beds made a little bit of smidge of self-worth those intrinsic resources developed so in our daily basis, I just set little goals like Today, I'm you know, I'm gonna go to the gym today That makes you feel better myself and I do that day to day and it starts to rise now I want to take away the idea that I'm fighting anything because if I'm fighting it I'm empowering it and if I'm empowering it then Then

it becomes insurmountable. So I would be careful the words I use. How do I believe in myself? Well I start by believing in myself. I start by thinking, you know what, this is something I can do. One of the most amazing phenomenons of the human experience is our ability to be resilient. It's actually defining characteristics of humanity along with fallibility. And so allow myself the space to be human, in other words be of air, and then start to build up these things that

Chuck (47:15.597)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaledoscope (47:19.452)
that like you know you know for me personally I like look at like look what Martin Luther King did then he believed in himself changed the world you know why is he why is he different than me he's not mother Teresa why is she different than me Nelson Mandela why is he getting Gandhi like on and on and on and on and so I just whatever I look for I'm gonna find

Chuck (47:27.97)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely he did.

Yep, yep, at least not.

Chuck (47:38.871)
Yeah.

Chuck (47:42.148)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (47:47.107)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (47:47.438)
So if I start looking for the reasons that I can overcome, or not even overcome, that I can turn this into strength, then I will find evidence that will state that I can, or other people have that I can borrow.

Chuck (47:56.963)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaledoscope (48:03.346)
And the steps I take in this journey is just a it's a day-to-day thing like Like I said, I get up and I make my bed. Maybe one day I don't get up and I don't make my bed Maybe one day I don't conquer any goals what maybe one day I just sit at home and I sit in the feeling of Self-pity whatever I have to assume that has value and So I start assigning everything value you including alcohol

Chuck (48:27.196)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (48:32.514)
So let's look at what alcohol... look at... ok so alcohol is an awful, awful thing. It's destroying my life. I hate it. Ok. What is it? It's an inanimate object that I've assigned an unfair amount of power to that is actually taken over and control me. Now, pretending it's not there will do the same thing. It'll control me.

Chuck (48:33.132)
Okay.

RBK Kaledoscope (48:55.234)
But accepting it as a part of me and an essential element to my own intrinsic development and personal growth as a human being, now it has value. In the beginning it had value. I remember man, I'm 10 years old, bottle of Southern Comfort, in behind 7-Eleven in Comox. I slammed that thing and for the first time in my life I experienced what I thought was peace. It had value.

Chuck (49:06.542)
Yes.

Chuck (49:14.797)
Yeah. Yep.

Chuck (49:24.354)
Yeah, yeah, right, right. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (49:25.338)
until it didn't. You know? But it did, it did, so like, you know, I also believe that validation removes defense. So and it's no different than the ego or anything else. If I give it value that it deserves, then it doesn't take value it doesn't deserve. In other words, I'm the captain of the ship. And so I look at it like, you know, like, okay, so I went three weeks without a drink and I had a drink.

Chuck (49:34.5)
Yep.

Chuck (49:46.156)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (49:54.582)
What am I going to do with that? Am I going to ice-share myself? Am I going to deplete all my intrinsic resources? Am I going to take that three weeks and flush it, like they say? No. You're going to be like, OK, well, I've just proven that I can do three weeks. Let's go for four. Maybe I go four weeks and have another drink, and I go, OK, good job. Let's do five.

Chuck (49:56.565)
Yeah. Well.

Chuck (50:08.75)
Yeah, right. Yep, yep, yep.

Chuck (50:15.65)
Yeah, I'll go for six. Whatever, right? Yeah, right? Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (50:17.022)
Yeah, like, yeah, and just keep building. So a lot of this has to do with the language we use within our internal dialogue. I try to pay attention to the words that I'm choosing to use within my own internal dialogue. And so like I look at this and I see struggling. Okay, that's a deficit term.

Chuck (50:29.326)
Yeah. Yep.

Chuck (50:38.724)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaledoscope (50:39.03)
You know, maybe I changed that word to, I've been gifted the process of tension and challenge. You know? Insurmountable mountain decline? No. It is a difficult mountain decline. It's, yeah, I'll tell you, you tell me, you know, if I tell myself I can't do something, I won't. If I tell myself something is hard to do, I'm gonna conquer that.

Chuck (50:50.039)
Hmm. Yep.

Chuck (50:57.731)
Yeah.

Chuck (51:04.39)
Yeah.

Chuck (51:09.346)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (51:10.122)
You know what I mean? Because that's who I am. It's like, you give me something hard and I'm going to show myself who I am. And to believe in my own ability to recover, to flourish. Well, I'm flourishing every day. Here's what we know. Everything is moving. Everything is changing. Glaciers are moving. You can't see it, but it's happening.

Chuck (51:17.006)
Yeah, right.

Chuck (51:30.936)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (51:34.858)
You know, there is the cliffs of Dover being molded by the weather on a daily basis. Everything changes. Wouldn't I want to have a say in what that change looks like? And if I don't make a choice, my history makes it for me and I get the repeat. That's the problem. It's like I'm choosing to not beat the f out of myself for having a slip.

Chuck (51:58.006)
Yeah, yeah, right, right.

RBK Kaledoscope (51:58.794)
what I'm going to choose to do is I'm going to take that, what I was always calling a mistake and a worthlessness, and I'm going to make it a lesson and make it a value.

Chuck (52:05.38)
Yep.

Yeah, yeah, fair enough, eh? Fair enough, okay. Well, you know, that's okay, right? It just matters how many questions we get to, and I know you hate leaving them behind, so, right? That's all right. Okay, next question up. Jason from New York City says, my sister has been addicted to opioids for a long time, and our family doesn't know how to help her anymore. What advice can you offer?

RBK Kaledoscope (52:10.314)
Yeah, I don't know, that's a little long-winded for... Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (52:21.647)
Yeah, I do, I do.

Chuck (52:37.934)
What advice can you offer to family members like us who want to support a loved one through addiction recovery?

RBK Kaledoscope (52:42.926)
Okay, I'm gonna have to put a pause on. Hold on.

Chuck (52:45.133)
Okay.

Chuck (52:48.695)
Edit, edit, edit.

RBK Kaledoscope (52:51.298)
Sorry, my back is just killing me today. I'm an old person. Okay, so here we are beginning with being a loved one, right? Being addicted to opiates for a long time is an incredibly difficult sentence and indictment. And...

Chuck (52:54.25)
Oh no, it's okay.

RBK Kaledoscope (53:17.802)
You know, I think the first thing we do based on our moral model, Reaganisms, is we blame the person. And so the first thing I would say is like, have you dehumanized this individual? You know, is this, is this, uh...

Chuck (53:32.459)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (53:41.29)
Sorry, I'm going to shift actually that thought. My family doesn't know how to help anymore, right? Well, my question would be, did they know how to help in the first place?

Chuck (53:49.614)
Yeah.

Chuck (53:55.526)
Touche, touche, right?

RBK Kaledoscope (53:57.43)
Were they just taking stabs at things? You know, we have a lot of like, a lot of this old way of like, you know, we don't, well we don't air our dirty laundry and the family's dirty little secret and like, it, there's nothing dirty about it. So I would say, I would say for the family, explore what help is.

Chuck (54:04.602)
preconceived notions and yeah.

Chuck (54:12.739)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (54:24.922)
There are not a lot, but there are people like us who you can reach out to actually get some sound advice that have experience and understanding of the whole process, the throws of it, what each individual might be going through, whether it be the loved one or the individual experiencing itself. And like, what the reality is, is like, it wears us down.

Chuck (54:50.766)
Yeah, it does, yeah. For both people involved, right? Or for both sides of that, yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (54:51.506)
especially as loved ones. Like it wears us down. That's what I mean. And so, been addicted for a long time. Well, you're probably tired. You're probably exhausted. You're probably at your wit's end. You've probably went to apathy at some point because empathy is exhausting. And so I think that we expand our horizon of support.

Chuck (55:09.294)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (55:18.962)
and start asking people that understand and know for guidance or help or whatever. Even just like, you know, like, we already talked months ago about overwhelmed and stressed out and the difference between that. And like, if we're talking about a long time, the chances are the family members need a break and they need to hand the batonnel off, at least for a period of time, to somebody that can re-humanize the process.

see that, you know, like Gabbo Mantis says, and this is not why the addiction, but it's why the hurt, why the pain. And so getting an understanding of the pain and putting, you know, seek to understand. Right, and like, start, instead of like, how could you do this to me? It's.

Chuck (56:00.898)
not to be understood, yeah, right? Yeah, yeah.

Chuck (56:08.83)
I, yeah, that one is in particular, right? Yeah, not doing anything to you, right? They are not doing anything to you. They are doing something to themselves that unfortunately affects you, but there is no intent, right? You know, right? Yeah, yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (56:14.577)
Mm-mm. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (56:19.25)
And so, just think about that. Like, okay, you're one of my good friends, right? Let's just say that I'm in it, and I did something to you because of maybe I stole from you to feed my habit. You're gonna be mad at me. You know who's gonna be more mad at me? Yeah.

Chuck (56:26.435)
Yeah.

Chuck (56:31.916)
Yep.

Chuck (56:42.568)
Yeah. You. Yeah. Yeah, right. You know. Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (56:45.542)
And then, and then, you know, we don't have, we're not built with the tools to like, counter that with some kind of like, well I, you know, it's addiction, I'm a human being, and, you know, it's like, I'm a piece of shit for doing that. You know, and so what do I do with that? I cope. I don't want, I, you know, the one constant thing about specifically narcotics, is that, never.

Chuck (56:58.166)
Yeah, yeah, right.

Chuck (57:03.213)
Yeah. Yep.

Chuck (57:10.458)
They never let you down, right? No, no.

RBK Kaledoscope (57:12.438)
They will, if you don't like the way they feel and you snort that, it will change the way you feel every fucking time and it works every time. And so, and the cycle continues and the cycle continues. And so.

Chuck (57:20.526)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, right. So.

RBK Kaledoscope (57:30.254)
My advice is reach out to people that know and understand.

preferably somebody that works from a love model, preferably somebody that understands the workings of the moral model and does not use it and knows how to safeguard against the tenets of the moral model. I think the moral model is extremely devastating to the process. It isn't a process. It is the opposite of love. It is the opposite of connection. What it ends up being is more about making the person that is affected by the person

Chuck (57:45.283)
Yeah.

Chuck (57:52.748)
It's horrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chuck (57:59.526)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (58:07.32)
It makes them feel better and is much less about any help. And so and then like, you know, I'm not I'm not the biggest go to meetings guy, but check them out. You know what? And get it. Right, dude, like, dude, I had a I had a service position, a sponsor and a home group, my very first meeting I ever went to.

Chuck (58:11.042)
Yeah, yeah, right. 100%.

Chuck (58:17.666)
If it helps, go, right? My first 30 days doesn't happen without the meetings. There's no way, right? So, yeah, yeah.

Chuck (58:30.422)
I'm kidding, eh? Yeah. Right.

RBK Kaledoscope (58:31.09)
Yeah, and that went on for quite a while until my trauma caught up to me eventually. But, you know, multiple, multiple years. And it was because it created consistency. It created, what's safety, consistency and structure. Right? It also gave me something that I didn't even realize. I'm talking 25 years later now I'm talking about this. But it brought about.

Chuck (58:48.838)
Structure, yeah, yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (58:59.178)
a sense, my understanding of freedom through accountability. So every time I showed up to make coffee for that home group, I felt a new sense of freedom that I didn't really know existed. You know? And it's a simple little job, but I showed up.

Chuck (59:04.099)
Okay, yeah.

Chuck (59:08.059)
Yep.

Chuck (59:12.814)
Ah, okay. Yeah, yep. Yep, yep. Yep.

RBK Kaledoscope (59:19.174)
And eventually I did that enough times that I created a safety within my own existence that I could trust my own internal values or intrinsic resources of integrity. And integrity is like, wow, what integrity does for me, it makes me feel like I am who I am. When I say, when I do what I say and say what I do, something happens to my human spirit flourishing. And like I said, I don't like the word recovery because it's a medical model term.

Chuck (59:36.58)
Yeah.

Chuck (59:47.555)
Yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (59:47.774)
It's a deficit term and it's saying that I'm getting something back and I believe we're actually adding to what already exists at all times. It's a very easy buzzword to use and you say the word recovery and everyone understands it. But it's like love. Everyone thinks they know what love means but how many people can actually define it? And so with recovery, how many people can actually define recovery?

Chuck (59:58.394)
Yeah, yeah, right.

Chuck (01:00:10.102)
Yeah, yeah, true enough, eh?

RBK Kaledoscope (01:00:14.798)
Because recovery is getting something back, recovering. And I don't think we lose anything at any point in our process. We're always, there's always value. There's always something to be learned from it. There's always something that can give us growth, you know? Okay.

Chuck (01:00:18.254)
Yeah.

Chuck (01:00:28.45)
Yeah, yeah, I do, I do, okay. So, and I think this last question here will do much better as a standalone because we've already touched on it so much and it'd be a little repetitive. So I'm gonna leave that for next week. But not because of time, but because I really do feel like it's already, we've covered it so much, and I don't wanna do it as a repeat. I think on its own it'll do much better. So we're gonna put a plug in that one for next week. So, yeah, yeah. So sorry, Mike from Chicago, hold me to it next week. You got it.

RBK Kaledoscope (01:00:40.247)
Ha ha.

RBK Kaledoscope (01:00:51.582)
Okay.

Chuck (01:00:58.07)
All right, all right, okay, so. And hey, that's one more listener that's committed next week to listening now. You see what I did there?

RBK Kaledoscope (01:01:00.238)
By the way, thank you. I do appreciate the listeners and the questions that you guys bring forward. I like the more philosophical, humanistic, beyond addiction questions. However, it's all relevant. And this is an addiction network, or a recovery network.

Chuck (01:01:23.11)
Absolutely it is, absolutely it is. Bring this to my favorite part of the show, that's the Daily Gratitudes. What you got for us today, right?

RBK Kaledoscope (01:01:31.787)
Well...

RBK Kaledoscope (01:01:35.066)
You know, I was going to start with I'm so grateful for my beautiful wife and children and everything they bring to my world. I'm grateful for difficulties. I'm grateful for challenge. I'm grateful for tension. I'm grateful that sometimes I feel like shit and sometimes I have to be reminded that, uh, fuck, I'm gonna...

Instead of doing all that, I'm going to say I'm really grateful for the ability to be present when it shows up. I'm not always there. Yeah.

Chuck (01:02:08.962)
Yeah, yeah, right, so, okay, I like that, I like that. For myself this week, wow, we've got some fantastic, there's a couple things happening. Financially, things are rough right now, and you have to be thankful for that because you have to be, right? At the end of the day, for all the reasons you just said. However, I see a shift in the show. I've got authors lined up.

I've got professionals lined up, I've got hip hop stars lined up, some really great things are happening on the show and I'm really grateful for that. I can see another transformation, another stage of growth happening and for that I'm very, very thankful. Our time, which has been lacking lately, but even just spending this hour and change with you now, buddy, I gotta say, I feel better. So it does help, it does help. And yeah.

RBK Kaledoscope (01:02:54.669)
Mm.

RBK Kaledoscope (01:03:03.082)
Yeah, and that's reciprocal. I've definitely felt avoid not talking every day or every other day like we usually do.

Chuck (01:03:09.346)
Right? I know, right? Yeah, I kind of feel like a liar when I'm explaining it. Oh, this guy, right? Like, Jesus, you know, we were buddies at school, we reconnected, and now I talk to him like every week, once, right? No, it's, anyway, anyway.

RBK Kaledoscope (01:03:18.84)
To...

Chuck (01:03:24.81)
And mostly guys, I am thankful for every one of you, the listeners, watchers, supporters, whatever we're calling you, because whatever you're doing, it's working. So we're on all the social networks now. Everywhere you see the logo, you can drop a like, comment, share. Remember, every one of those times, you do any one of these things, you are contributing to me living my best life. My best life would be to make a humble living spreading the message. The message is this. If you are in, sorry, you got something you want to throw in? Oh, oh, okay, okay.

RBK Kaledoscope (01:03:49.642)
No, no, I just had someone come to my door. I do have someone I want to throw in. But I'm messing with your business now. Ha, ha. Grrr. Uh, I just had another great attitude that, as you were talking, that really hit me hard. And I'm grateful for the value of implication. In other words, I need to under- like, I- uh, life implies death, white implies dry. Wealth implies poverty.

Chuck (01:03:54.298)
Go ahead. Go ahead. Just do it. Just do it. I'm gonna act like it's okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Chuck (01:04:05.571)
Okay.

RBK Kaledoscope (01:04:18.018)
And we need to experience both for the other two to exist. And so, and I'm grateful that not having talked to you every day for a couple weeks made me really realize the importance of our relationship and our friendship and what you mean to me. So, yeah, there was... I feel like I needed to get that out. I realized it was in the middle of your thing. And I'm like, yeah! And I know you hate that.

Chuck (01:04:22.062)
Yeah, yeah, right.

Chuck (01:04:33.752)
Ah.

Chuck (01:04:42.842)
No, it's okay, it's okay, no. No, it is okay, yeah, no. It is, it is, it is, it is, so. Back to the message. If you're in active addiction right now, today could be the day. Today could be the day that you start that lifelong journey. Reach out to a friend, reach out to a family member, call into detox, go to a meeting, do whatever the hell it is you need to do to get that journey started, because it is so much better than the alternative.

RBK Kaledoscope (01:04:45.991)
But I think it's an important one.

Chuck (01:05:07.574)
And if you're the loved one of somebody who's suffering an addiction right now, you're just taking the time to listen to us. If you could just take one more minute out of your day and text that person, let them know they're loved. Use the words. That little glimmer of hope just might be the thing that brings them back.

RBK Kaledoscope (01:05:15.926)
You are loved.