191- KALEIDOSCOPE WEDNESDAY

Chuck (00:01.73)
Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Kaleidoscope Wednesday on the Ashes to Oals and Podcast. I'm your host Chuck LaFlandre and with me of course at Virtual Studio, halfway around the world, Ryan Bathgate.

RBK Kaleidoscope (00:13.488)
I'm well rested. Got some golfing on the weekend. Took the kids to the pool. I wanted to get at some yard work, but you know, rain season here, so didn't really get the chance to.

Chuck (00:16.895)
Okay.

Chuck (00:27.306)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, apparently it is here too, because it's monsooning outside right now. It is absolutely monsooning.

RBK Kaleidoscope (00:32.327)
Yeah, and I've always wondered, I know it's like here, we're in a rainforest here in Lower Mainland, and on the island was the rainforest as well, Strathcona. And I know that downpour's cool, but you look at Forest Gump or Platoon and that's rain. That is a downpour, you know what I mean? And so I always thought it'd be cool to have that kind of like 25 degrees and that rain, I don't know, it'd be nice.

Chuck (00:39.279)
Yep.

Chuck (00:49.966)
Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, it is, yeah, it is. It is indeed rain, right? Yeah, yeah. I quite enjoy it myself when it rains. Like if it's lightly raining, I won't even, like I just don't care. I'll just act like it's not there because to me it's a break in the heat, right? When it's raining like this, maybe not so much, but I like the after effect, that's for sure. So everything is just cooled down for like 20 minutes. That's nice.

RBK Kaleidoscope (01:01.8)
Love, Rick.

RBK Kaleidoscope (01:05.939)
Yeah, yeah, totally.

RBK Kaleidoscope (01:12.231)
You know what? I had a correlation or an epiphany once when it was raining. Yeah, I lived in this place in Killarney, Vancouver. I'm sitting on the couch and my dog would sit beside me. I'm staring out the window and I'm watching the rain. I'm thinking to myself, this is really peaceful. It occurred to me that rain is like sadness.

Chuck (01:21.464)
Oh, okay.

Chuck (01:36.734)
Hmm.

Chuck (01:42.572)
OK.

RBK Kaleidoscope (01:42.683)
And if I can be sad and at peace at the same time, then why would I ever fear sadness and not see it as a beautiful process? You know what I mean? And so it really taught, and then, so like, it was actually massive because it changed my goal, from my life goal, going from whatever it was at the time, success, whatever, to peace. I just wanna live in that peace. And I realized that peace isn't really an emotion. It's a trait, it's a state of being.

Chuck (01:47.842)
Yeah.

Chuck (01:52.218)
Oh, okay. Yeah.

Chuck (01:59.882)
Yep.

RBK Kaleidoscope (02:11.015)
And so I can maintain peace while experiencing any emotion.

Chuck (02:11.236)
Okay.

Chuck (02:15.758)
Fair enough, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense to me. Yep.

RBK Kaleidoscope (02:17.555)
You know what I mean? I can be peaceful and sad. I can be peaceful and happy. I can be peaceful and content. I can be peaceful and joyous. I can be peaceful and insufficient. Well, anger is not really emotion. It's a shield. It's an armor. You know what I mean? So yeah, that was the first thing I thought. I was like, well, anger doesn't work. But I was like, no, anger doesn't really qualify as an emotion. It's the result of emotion. It's the protector of an emotion.

Chuck (02:28.714)
Everything but angry.

Chuck (02:33.538)
Fair enough, okay, yeah, yeah.

Chuck (02:40.426)
No, okay, okay.

Chuck (02:44.682)
Yep, yep. Let's see if I get the light a little bit better here. Holy cow, is that ever dark, eh? Jeez, yeah. Anyway, oh, that's better. It's all right, eh? And it's 100% legitimate, you know, right? Yes, yes. That's actually, the shirt is real, so yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (02:52.283)
I don't know, sick hat you got there though. I like to... You're really duddin' out lately.

RBK Kaleidoscope (03:00.347)
Yeah, one. Hey, hey, hey. I got I got one for you. Do you remember this just gave me now you showed up to my house with your brother and you're like, check out this sick hat I got. And we both look at it. We're both like Raider. It was supposed to be it was supposed to be a Raider's hat. And he didn't even notice that there was no ass on it.

Chuck (03:19.154)
Oh yeah, I do remember that. Yeah, I do remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad to say this doesn't say Adida, right? So yeah, right. Yeah, they're just, they're really great deals on brand name stuff here in Thailand, right? Stylish yet practical, right? Hey.

RBK Kaleidoscope (03:30.754)
Yeah

RBK Kaleidoscope (03:36.403)
Yeah, man, really great deals. It's amazing they can sell them with a lower price.

Chuck (03:43.226)
Yeah, it really is. I don't understand how. Arrgh. Ha ha

RBK Kaleidoscope (03:48.583)
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I know. Believe me, look. Right? Yeah. Yeah, I can afford a Hublot. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (04:10.075)
Not having, sorry, you know me in my time. I saw a couple of them. Like when I see them, I'll watch them, but yeah.

Chuck (04:12.818)
So I know you don't have to qualify that. Yeah, of course you will. So the first one, I went a minute and 15 seconds, like unbelievably hard, right? No, it was good, it was good. What's really cool is if you listen to the video, there's Guy and Stacey, two of the support staff here, and Guy is like, he's kind of the ice bath guy, that's kind of his thing, right? One of his things. He is in the unbelievably, they are.

RBK Kaleidoscope (04:22.023)
Nope, too long. Yup.

Chuck (04:40.962)
walking me through this, it's a kind of support that is just, it's amazing, right? Like they're talking me through the breast and they're making me feel safe and it's something else really to check out. And I think it speaks to A, the environment here at Yatra, which I can't speak enough good things about, can't say enough good things. And, and, ah, thank you, Matt, thank you, right? Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (04:49.316)
Okay, yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (05:00.396)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're wearing it. You look better. You know what I mean? The energy is that of one on an enlightened journey.

Chuck (05:14.427)
And I'm just starting out too, eh? You know, thank you for that. So, yeah. And then the other thing, it really got me. Go ahead.

RBK Kaleidoscope (05:16.627)
Yeah, that's why I said Journey. Yeah. But no, yeah.

Well, it's just like, I hate cold, anything. Hate it. But it is interesting that using support and safety can really nurture us through just about anything, including excruciating cold. Because I'd rather go through emotional pain than deal with ice water, thanks.

Chuck (05:26.966)
Hahaha.

Chuck (05:40.183)
Oh man, right? And I've had borderline frostbite in my lifestyle, being homeless and all that stuff a couple of times. And after that, it gets worse forever, right? Like it's forever. Like you're forever scarred by that, like physically scarred in that cold hurts faster forever. Right? So like my toes were on fire for half an hour coming out of there. Like it was just excruciating. But the other thing it speaks to,

RBK Kaleidoscope (05:45.823)
Yeah, right. I thought you meant in the tub, I was like, you really pushed yourself. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (05:57.779)
Yes, like it's a burn. Yeah. Oh wow.

Chuck (06:05.702)
And I really, I made a correlation there. You know, I'm gonna steal your word for a minute there. The support, and you just kind of spoke to it yourself, right? The support that it took me to get here to go through this in the first place. The support emotionally, financially, all of those things, man. Like the support it took me to get here and to be in a place where I can grow and heal and by extension help more and more people the way we were trying to do now, right? That's all because of the support.

RBK Kaleidoscope (06:32.753)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (06:34.762)
Right? And it just, you know, I was thinking about that and I got a little emotional as I tend to do when I thought about, you know, like it's amazing, man. It's absolutely amazing. Right. You know, so that said, I'll take this as a moment to be a little shameless, um, still way far off my goal. I'm going to be on my own here in Thailand pretty quick. It's like the days are counting down and still trying to figure that out. So, uh, the go fund me is still open guys. If, uh, if you've got anything else to give or, you know, if you can contribute, I really appreciate it. Shy of that sharing.

RBK Kaleidoscope (06:43.592)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (07:04.178)
The GoFundMe link really does help me, you know, get it in front of as many people as we can. And lastly, and most certainly not leastly, the words of encouragement that are coming are, I read every single comment, I look at everything that comes through, and I take it personally in a really good way. So thank you to each and every one of you for what you've done and what you might do in the future. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (07:25.67)
stuff.

Chuck (07:25.854)
Anyway, yeah, so there's that shameless little plug out of the way right away, right? So, and you know what, right? Before we get into the meat of this episode, there's something I wanna do, Norris. So to our listeners, we run a Norris commercial that's quite startling at times. I'm not gonna do it inside these episodes anymore. We've got some feedback from one or two or maybe more people that have said.

Yeah, not really the great environment for that episode. It's got to say, it's like, it just comes at you. 100 mile an hour punch to the face when it's interrupted, one of these episodes specifically, right? Because they're supposed to be a little more relaxed and conducive to growing and all that stuff. So we're not gonna run that commercial during here. Yeah. Right? It's like bringing an air horn into yoga, right? You know? Yeah, so.

RBK Kaleidoscope (07:54.699)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

RBK Kaleidoscope (08:00.027)
heart attack.

RBK Kaleidoscope (08:07.955)
Yeah, I hope you're like, you're like in deep thought and process and then just like wham like a Mack truck. BAAA

RBK Kaleidoscope (08:17.563)
Oh yeah, totally like contemplating the universe and then... Whoa! It hit by an ambulance!

Chuck (08:23.02)
So we're not going to do that anymore. There it is. That's the metaphor.

RBK Kaleidoscope (08:29.539)
Yeah, and honestly, I didn't even, I never heard it, but I heard some feedback like, hey man, I thought I was getting raided. But then when I was listening to it, I was driving and I literally jumped out of my seat like, whoa!

Chuck (08:35.098)
Yeah, yeah, it's a little intense, right? Yeah. Right? So I love the commercial. So, okay, I think that commercial has a great place in other episodes. I don't think it's the one for here. I think the fact that it gets your attention like that is a great thing, but...

RBK Kaleidoscope (08:52.959)
So I was like, okay, I get it. So do I, so do I.

RBK Kaleidoscope (09:03.103)
Ha ha.

Chuck (09:03.838)
in this particular setting, we're not gonna do it anymore. But what we are gonna do, we're gonna have to do is like, we're gonna talk about NORS every time for a minute or so. Here's why. To me, NORS, and for those of you that don't know what it is, the National Overdose Response System, users can call in when they're using and maintain connection with somebody either throughout their use or have a plan in place that they will call back after X amount of time. If they don't, the NORS volunteer will call them.

RBK Kaleidoscope (09:11.103)
Sure, yeah.

Chuck (09:31.21)
make sure they're okay if they don't answer them, they enact an emergency plan that is formulated by the user and the North's volunteer. So it doesn't mean they're gonna send EMS to your house. It means the first thing they're gonna do is they're gonna call your buddy who might live next door and has Narcan. They're gonna call, you know what I mean? They're gonna do this in a progressive way until they have to call EMS or something like that. So if you're a user, it puts you in control of what's gonna happen, because nobody wants the flashlights and shit outside their house.

RBK Kaleidoscope (09:47.571)
Right. Yep.

RBK Kaleidoscope (09:53.608)
Yeah, so like.

Chuck (09:59.818)
And I think that prevents a lot of people from doing something like this. Right. You know, so, you know, right.

RBK Kaleidoscope (10:03.883)
I agree, yeah. Especially if you have any history with institutions, whether they be life-saving institutions or not. I'm learning about this as we go. I know we have something similar to that here. Offline, actually, I'm going to talk to you about that. But I might have a really good guest for you. But I haven't made contact, but I haven't...

Chuck (10:09.002)
Yeah. Or a penal. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Chuck (10:23.275)
Yep.

Chuck (10:26.862)
Okay, okay. Well, you know, I love to guess.

RBK Kaleidoscope (10:32.079)
solidify anything, so I'm not going to bring it up right now. But really cool. I think, and like you said, I think they need volunteers. They need help. And yeah. Yeah.

Chuck (10:34.45)
Okay.

Chuck (10:39.87)
And that's why, that's what the commercial's about, right? They're always looking for funding, but I don't think our listeners are gonna be, if you're gonna fund something, I gotta go fund me. So nevermind Norris, I'm just kidding. Not really kind of. Okay, but the thing about volunteering for Norris is you can do it with like, it's as much time as you wanna give. You sign on when it works for you because you happen to have an extra hour today. You sign on, you sign off when it stops working for you.

RBK Kaleidoscope (10:49.756)
Priorities, yeah.

Chuck (11:06.026)
So it's not like you're making a commitment, you're trying to mix it in with the kids and the wife and the husband and life and work. It's, you know what, I feel like giving today, so I'm gonna sign on, right? And it's such a small imprint, footprint on your life can have a giant impact on the lives of others. Quick stat. Go ahead, yep. Yeah, yep. You could save a life, yeah. Right, that easy, and that easy. And they are desperate for volunteers.

RBK Kaleidoscope (11:06.704)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaleidoscope (11:23.231)
Well, just think about that. You sign in for an hour, and you take a call, and save a life. And you know.

Chuck (11:35.278)
Do you know how many volunteers are in Vancouver area? Two. Yeah, I did. I did. I kind of, kind of some, yeah. For the listeners, for the listeners that aren't watching, I kind of stuck up my two fingers in the middle of asking the question, right? So, yeah, yeah. But. So anyway, two in all of Vancouver, if you can imagine. And it's not that.

RBK Kaleidoscope (11:39.795)
Two? Because you went like this. You went like that. You threw the number out before it.

RBK Kaleidoscope (11:50.714)
Yeah. He gave me the answers. He's a test guy.

Chuck (12:02.654)
If you volunteer in Vancouver, you're in Vancouver for the volunteer process. I mean, once you sign on, it could be anywhere in the country. But it's just to think that so much of the epidemic is happening right there, and there's only two people from, like this is nuts, right? You know, so.

RBK Kaleidoscope (12:17.599)
So where would I go if I wanted to volunteer?

Chuck (12:20.018)
Norris.ca, N-O-R-S dot C-A. And they've got all the information right there, right? So if you go to our website, 2a2apodcast.com, there's a banner ad up there as well, you know, on the footers, if you're on mobile and on the sidebar and the footers, if you're looking at the desktop, it's quite obvious that it's there. And Attica, of course, our co-host on the Weekend Ramble, is a flag-waving volunteer for Norris, right? So she dedicates, yeah, she's all over it.

RBK Kaleidoscope (12:23.54)
Okay.

RBK Kaleidoscope (12:45.052)
One of the two.

Chuck (12:48.362)
And there's other programs like it in the country. If anybody knows anything about me on a personal level, they know that I'm not a big fan of anything government run. I don't think the government typically does a great job of administrating things and spending money. So some of the other programs are run by provincial governments. This is all privately run, right? So that means when you give somebody a dollar or an hour, you're actually getting that dollar or the hour out to the end user, or as at least as high percentages as possible.

The challenge with anything government run is when they take a dollar, 20 cents makes it out to the end user, right? Because of admin and all that stuff. So that's why I push this particular, um, uh, organization over some of the other outfits that are out there. That's, you know, that's why I try and encourage them. And there's, there's actually some really cool history, not cool history, interesting history, I think is a better way to say that the founder, Rebecca passed away from overdose. She relapsed, passed away.

And she started out with a cell phone, right? She, yeah, she started out with a cell phone in the Toronto area, I think it was, and was just telling people, hey, give me a call if you're using a loan, don't use a loan, right? And she grew it into a national thing, of course, which Dr. Monique Ghosch is a part of. And her sister, Lisa, is now runs it as she passed, right?

So, yeah, so.

RBK Kaleidoscope (14:15.967)
Cool. Like, legacy.

Chuck (14:19.538)
Yeah, yeah, right. So she often says her sister would shank her if she didn't do a good job at running that. But yeah, so we get that out of the way. I know that was a bit of a long-winded talk about them in a little longer than a minute, but that said, guys, if I'm not gonna scare you out of your seats and hit you in the face with an ambulance, then that's what we're gonna do, right? And hey, if you're gonna kill some time, then what better way to kill some time than talking about Norris, right? So, yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (14:46.471)
And you know what, if you'd prefer the Siren, let us know in the comments.

Chuck (14:50.794)
Yeah. Hey, absolutely. Right. Absolutely. I'll run a siren any day. I love it. I love that commercial. I had it built into the intro at one part got time. It was a bad news bad news. Let's start this off the right way. Get your fucking attention. So yeah, yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (15:06.363)
Hey, that intro song has some good bass, man. That comes up real nice in my truck, I'll tell you.

Chuck (15:09.634)
I love it. I still love it. And we're on almost 200 episodes, okay? We're almost there at 200 episodes right now. And I've been running that song since day one. And I'll tell you, I love it still. Still I listen to it on my personal, it's on my playlist and you know, right? So yeah. Yeah, what did I say? Some cool stuff. Was that Black Ash? Did that promo? Okay, for the Black Ash radio thing. Did you check that out? That was, yeah, I thought I did a really good job of that. Some radio voice action in there.

RBK Kaleidoscope (15:25.191)
Yeah, nice. 200, wow.

RBK Kaleidoscope (15:31.111)
Yeah. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah. Well, yeah, that was cool. Yeah. Yeah, I know. We talked about that. What's that? We talked about it on Black Ash. Your radio voice. It's impressive.

Chuck (15:38.322)
You came on the live feed. What'd you think of that, Ryan? Yeah. You came on the live feed. What'd you... Yeah, yeah, the radio voice, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right? So that's gonna be on again this Friday as well. We've got Sean Young from Recover Out Loud podcast. Sean's quite the character. Sean's quite the character, indeed. He's uh...he's uh... ex-marine. Um... I shouldn't say ex-marine. I think he was army. He was army. Um... Four deployments? Three of them in Iraq?

some crazy PTSD that he suffers from. So he started his podcast and he's, yeah, that's why I switched it up and said it was Army, right? So yeah, yeah. What a great guy. So his episode with me is gonna be dropping here too next week. So Friday he's gonna come on. And of course, one of my favorite humans ever is Rich Johnson from Rosecrest Services out of Florida. He also has a podcast called Rosecast.

RBK Kaleidoscope (16:12.231)
I think... I think Marine's Navy, isn't it?

Yeah. Army, yeah.

Chuck (16:36.746)
He's come on the show now a bunch of different times. He's an interventionist. He's, you know, and he's far from your typical interventionist. He's just got this huge, huge heart. Not that they don't typically, but yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (16:46.363)
To be honest with you, I don't think I've ever met an interventionist that actually fits the mold of what I thought an interventionist was.

Chuck (16:53.794)
You know what's funny about that brother? The 12 step guess that we have on. There's this constant fear that somebody's gonna come on and say 12 steps, no steps, it's gonna be in our command, it's gonna be a, every single one of them that has come anywhere near the show has been like, whatever works for you man. You know what I mean? So it's this preconceived shit in our own mindset that gets us to these places and apply that to how many things in your life.

RBK Kaleidoscope (17:10.203)
Yeah. Why especially...

RBK Kaleidoscope (17:15.743)
To be honest with you, I think it's a lot of legacy thinking. And since 2016 when the opioid epidemic was named or labeled an epidemic, yeah, people are dying. And I think at that point, people are looking at it like, OK, steps are nothing. Maybe that's not going to be as effective. And it's like a little.

Chuck (17:20.824)
Yep.

Chuck (17:29.019)
Acknowledged. Maybe it's better, yeah. Yeah.

Chuck (17:39.65)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (17:41.543)
a lot of that shame-based theory seems to be dissipating and there's a lot more open minds. I mean, that's what I've experienced. I haven't been part of the recovery community since before 2016, so my history of it is a myriad, but there's definitely some of those philosophies that are black and white, very linear. So, not my favorite, but...

Chuck (17:45.706)
Right?

Chuck (17:50.989)
Yep.

Chuck (18:03.006)
Yeah, yeah. And I think you're right. I think we have grown past most of that stuff, right?

RBK Kaleidoscope (18:09.387)
I do too and you know what, if people are gonna make time for my opinions, I need to make time for other people's opinions whether I like it or not.

Chuck (18:14.838)
Fair enough, well said man, well said. That speaks to ADHD right there folks. Yeah, right, like woo, look at that. Chris had an idea, do it, the next 24 hours is that idea. There is nothing else in the whole universe than that idea for 24 hours. And then it gets put on a back burner somewhere and we never look at it again. And put on the ADHD Procrastination Express.

RBK Kaleidoscope (18:17.159)
Yeah, I don't know boss, you say love your idea for five minutes.

RBK Kaleidoscope (18:23.764)
Good advice.

RBK Kaleidoscope (18:28.727)
Where are my car keys?

RBK Kaleidoscope (18:39.337)
Uh-huh.

RBK Kaleidoscope (18:42.791)
Yeah, that's quite the stove you got going. Yeah. A lot of back burners, not many front burners. One, you got one front burner.

Chuck (18:45.77)
You know, yeah. A lot of backbenders on that stuff, let me tell you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right, right. So anyway, listen, we've killed 20 minutes, man. Well, and you know my thoughts on organic conversation, right? So I'm not at first to just talk and sometimes, you know. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (18:59.undefined)
I know, so we got 10 minutes for theory.

RBK Kaleidoscope (19:06.439)
Yeah, and so am I. It was just like... And I mean, today, I don't know. You know, here's... There were some things that came up for me in the Ramble that I kind of wanted to just kind of, I don't know, maybe... I found myself wishing I was part of that conversation, to be honest with you. That's typically what happens with my arrogant self.

Chuck (19:17.386)
Yeah.

Chuck (19:27.371)
Hahaha.

Chuck (19:32.286)
Yeah, yeah. Your words, not mine. Yeah, okay.

RBK Kaleidoscope (19:36.211)
I like, you know, it's ironic because in my microphone, I turn my voice off in my ears, which would surprise most because I think I'd love to hear my own voice. Yeah.

Chuck (19:50.05)
I'm of the same mind. I can't stand it. I cannot, like I cannot run a show with my own voice in my ears. I can't do it.

RBK Kaleidoscope (19:52.596)
Okay.

RBK Kaleidoscope (19:56.031)
To be honest with you, even listening to my own shows, when we do a show and I listen to myself, I'm like, oh, you didn't say that. Oh, no. Yeah.

Chuck (20:00.366)
Yeah. Well, that's because you have voice envy of yours truly. Everybody, we discovered on the live feed that everybody has voice envy. So yeah. Yeah. Right. Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

RBK Kaleidoscope (20:12.187)
Yeah, it just, sometimes I shock myself with the stuff that comes out of my mouth.

Chuck (20:17.778)
Yeah, well, you know, I've heard the odd thing lately that's shocking. Anyway, we had that conversation pre record. What about the ramble caught your attention, my friend?

RBK Kaleidoscope (20:24.875)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (20:28.703)
So, you know, first of all, the title itself is like so bang on, you know, like, there's no verses. And, and, and we...

Chuck (20:37.018)
Oh, Harmer Dirksen, yeah, right, right. And that was Lisa called me out on the live feed on that, right, and then we kind of jumped in on that, yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (20:44.475)
So I think I look at it as a spectrum, or I guess I'm gonna use the word spectrum because the word that I wanna use isn't in my brain right now. So when we think about movement through the spectrum, when you take, let's just go to the extreme, concurrent disorder, substance use disorder, maybe.

Chuck (20:57.971)
Okay.

RBK Kaleidoscope (21:13.407)
Poverty, hidden poverty, homeless, you know. So that's our disenfranchised citizen. And then we have, you know, by definition, homeowner, job, taxpaying, consumer, children, property, citizen, right? So as we like, North America, capitalist society, that's your citizenship.

markers, you don't have any of those things and you're struggling to be a citizen. And so the idea as healthcare professionals, as people working with other human beings, and I want to say so important that we are human beings that work with human beings serving human beings. And I think that is so important to keep

Chuck (22:04.599)
Okay.

RBK Kaleidoscope (22:08.219)
in the foundation of what we're doing and why we're doing it, because it's so easy to get caught up into how we compartmentalize and make sense of other people by dehumanizing them and putting them into brackets. You know what I mean? And so, you know, so maybe like, each individual has its own individual goal and those goals might change over the course of a lifetime many times. But when we meet people,

Chuck (22:22.39)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (22:36.903)
You know, harm reduction to me is about one thing and one thing only, and that is connection. It's about making connections to build relationships so that you become a trusted agent when the time comes that changes desire.

Chuck (22:42.538)
Yeah.

Chuck (22:52.618)
Yes. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (22:53.039)
Okay, so if that means if I'm giving you clean rigs, it should come with a conversation. Or I would prefer that if it was me, I wanna be making, yeah, and like, you know, let's humanize all the way. So it's like, you know, like maybe I haven't seen this person for six years in a harm reduction capacity and they come to me and say, listen, I'm sick of this. You know, it's time.

Chuck (23:03.399)
for a conversation, there's nothing else, right? Yeah, right? Yeah.

Chuck (23:21.278)
Yep.

RBK Kaleidoscope (23:22.491)
Now I'm going to hop on a referral. Now, of course, the system isn't very good with that because I have to tell them, well, great, congratulations, you're on a six month wait list. You know, like, but it is what it is. So the idea is like, keep them going through that, that paradigm or that spectrum of really like life of fulfillment. We call it recovery. I'm not my favorite term, but whatever you want to call it or self-actualization is ultimately the goal.

Chuck (23:27.532)
YUM

Chuck (23:34.108)
Yeah.

Chuck (23:46.673)
Hmm.

RBK Kaleidoscope (23:51.707)
Okay, so, you know, and basically like, I think Jason and Lisa were talking about similar things and like, it's interesting to me how Jason's perception has expanded by being in the work and how he's had to almost evolve himself in order to be effective as a mental health professional. And I think that, you know, that's a, I think that's a common trait, especially for people coming from the abstinence world of recovery, where, you know, in the old days it was

Chuck (24:04.863)
Yeah.

Chuck (24:10.857)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaleidoscope (24:20.771)
steps or die. If you look at other countries where they have like, oh yeah, that's one thing that was really getting to me about the safe supply, but I'll come back to that. So in other countries, I think Switzerland in the 1980s, their number one epidemic was the spread of the AIDS virus through intravenous needles. So that became number one, their political agenda. So they introduced legal regulation.

Chuck (24:22.506)
Yeah.

Chuck (24:44.47)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (24:50.163)
and you could literally go and get heroin from your doctor. You'd go in the morning and get heroin from your doctor and you can go as many times as you want in a day. And so people in the first two weeks started going like 10 times, but then they started to get jobs and they started to get their life together and they were functioning heroin addicts, if you can believe it. So when you take the stigma away and the criminality away, there's more opportunity to human flourishing, which is ultimately the goal. So whether, you know, like free market idealism is like,

Whatever you put in your body is your business. It's, if you're not hurting other people, why would that be illegal? Now make it illegal and all of a sudden people are hurting other people.

Chuck (25:25.57)
Yeah.

Chuck (25:30.318)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (25:31.255)
based on illicit market, no regulation, the introduction of violence guns. You don't go to school and get a degree in drug dealing. You go to your street corner. You know what I mean? Like there's no, you know, and so like, and I think the same personally, I think the same with sex trade. I think that should be legal, regulated and educated. It's the oldest profession on the planet.

Chuck (25:34.238)
of all the things that come with that.

Chuck (25:44.118)
Yeah.

Yep.

Chuck (25:55.466)
Yeah, right.

RBK Kaleidoscope (25:59.663)
So the stigma around that, I think is... Exactly right. Like, America's number one enemy is drugs. Like, are you kidding me? It's like saying America's number one enemy is tables. You know, like an inanimate object. Yeah. Right? Like, so... And then, so then, so we talk about safe supply, which to me is just a butchering of a term. There is no such thing as safe supply.

Chuck (26:00.895)
Obviously, we're not going to make it go away. Why aren't we just taking it on then? Right? Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Chuck (26:13.554)
Yeah, right. Yeah, it's an inanimate object. Yeah, right. It's right. Yeah. So.

Chuck (26:30.13)
Okay.

RBK Kaleidoscope (26:30.275)
It should, for example, they're not called safe injection sites anymore. They're called supervised consumption sites because there's nothing safe about it. So that is completely misleading. And the people that I've talked to, which are many that have been on that program or experienced it, it's all say the same thing. It, the morphine has no legs. Like it doesn't do shit.

Chuck (26:38.782)
Yeah.

Chuck (26:53.046)
Yeah, right. Once you're in the throes of a fentanyl addiction, that's, yeah, right, yeah. Yeah, it's ridiculous, yeah, yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (26:58.407)
Yeah, like, you know, and like, it's like, yeah, it talked about a band aid, like, it's not even a band aid. You know, it's

Chuck (27:07.042)
No, it's not even that, right? And we know, well, it is, because they end up diverting that supply for cash so that they can go get the real Band-Aid and that is street fucking at Fentanyl, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all that's happened there. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (27:16.691)
And that's my point. You've created another market. You know what I mean? Or another source. So, um, you know, in looking, this is what I mean, it's never gonna work here unless we go all in. And that's my opinion. I don't this half ass stuff does it worked in Switzerland because they went all in. But the political in the political landscape will never allow that to happen in Canada. Oops. Hold on.

Chuck (27:29.802)
Yep. Yeah.

Chuck (27:35.775)
Yeah.

Chuck (27:40.422)
Oops. Yeah.

Chuck (27:57.098)
A little excited there, did you?

RBK Kaleidoscope (27:59.295)
Different angle. Just gonna, just gonna have to do. My holder's not holding. Yeah, so, you know, even when they introduced the four pillars here, it didn't do well because they were still walking people down Cordova that were selling 10 pieces, you know what I mean? And taking them to jail. That is not the market. I mean, Portugal's done a good job. They've apparently had some hiccups.

Chuck (28:01.31)
Yeah, yeah, it's all good. Yeah.

Chuck (28:18.976)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (28:26.759)
And that's decrim. Now that's a totally different thing. Like legal, we need, I think we need to dig into the illicit markets. And that's what we need to really, uh, hammers is the ones making billions off of this and making it really a violent endeavor and about illegal regulation or no regulation, in other words. So yeah, I mean, you know, I have lots of thoughts about it, but I don't see any other way out of this other than full blown, um,

Chuck (28:34.583)
Yeah.

Chuck (28:45.854)
Yeah. Fair enough, eh? Fair enough.

RBK Kaleidoscope (28:55.291)
legal regulation and understanding that there's going to be a three-year period of complete devastation and failure until it starts to shift the social tapestry.

Chuck (29:05.47)
And unfortunately, the reality is with our system, our current system, political system, that nobody thinks in terms longer than four years, right? So, you know, yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (29:13.139)
Well yeah, you think, you go, so if you think it's a complete, three years it's gonna look like a complete failure? Well you're not getting reelected. There goes your beach house.

Chuck (29:19.25)
Yeah, yeah, right. Unfortunately, it's probably not gonna work out that way. So in the meantime, we end up, you know, right, yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (29:26.171)
No, and so the bottom line is all these half measures are going to lead us to the conclusion that everything is a failure and we're going to need more handcuffs and tasers and prison cells. And that's the only solution that... So if you look at the way that they've been marking success of the war on drugs, it's been by busts. How quantities that they've busted, which to me is absolutely ludicrous.

Chuck (29:38.07)
Right, right.

Chuck (29:47.818)
Yeah, which is ridiculous, right? Let's look at the failure of all the war on drugs and look at our prison numbers. How about we do that, right? It's like, yeah, all right.

RBK Kaleidoscope (29:54.523)
Alright, yeah, let's look at that. Three million plus in the United States, and they have 365 million people in their country. There isn't three million prisoners in China who has over a billion people. That's 20% of the population, and then, and most of them, I mean, 60 or 70% of them are not Caucasian. Yeah. Yeah, predominantly African American and...

Chuck (30:06.67)
thing about that right yeah

Chuck (30:13.802)
Not white males.

Chuck (30:20.282)
We can speak to the system for a second. Actually, there's a couple of things I wanted to talk to you today about, right? One of them I have talked to you about offline, the other I did not. Jess, who I spoke about with in previous episodes, this is my night last night, one o'clock in the morning. Here's how it starts. I get a message from Jess, finally. She's at home with her mom. I've spoken about Jess, somebody that I went to go see before I left for Thailand. Was terrified for her. I was super concerned about her wellbeing, you know, being a sex worker and the struggle.

having to climb a mountain every day to get your mountain climbing deer to start today. Right? Like that's her life. And then I lost track of her for four days. She had been online. It was terrifying. It was two days when I mentioned it to you. It turned into four days. Then I finally got a message from her mom saying that she had talked to her after freaking her mom right out by messaging her. It was this guy, right? And of course, her being a sex worker and this beautiful girl.

RBK Kaleidoscope (31:02.451)
Nerve, yeah, nerve wracking.

RBK Kaleidoscope (31:13.649)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (31:16.03)
It's not uncommon to have guys that pretend to be looking out for their own good and are really being predatory. And, and you know what I mean? So her mom was really had her guard up. They're indigenous. So now you got this white guy that's calling in and like, you know, there's all sorts of trust issues that go along with that.

So finally, one o'clock this morning, I get a message from Jess. She's at home with her mom. And oh my God, right? I just, I bawled. I just bawled like a baby, you know. Got on the video chat with her for like two hours. Just had some connection with her and just felt so much better about life in general. And then, then it comes. So I made a reel yesterday. You probably haven't seen it, Ryan.

Close friends of mine in Calgary, very, very close friends of mine, their family. Well, you know, she has a niece that's, it's been a rough go for her. Day before yesterday, they find her camped out in a car behind her parents' place. She had been there for at least three days, unresponsive, soiled herself, blue gray in color, the calling ambulance. We come to take her away to what's the Sheldon Shuen Center downtown and told, wait till tomorrow. There's nothing we can do. We're just gonna take care of her.

Go home, get some sleep, get in touch tomorrow, we'll start making a plan. Police had given them some options about getting her committed into psychiatric care. So they did, they did everything they were told to do. And the message I woke up to today was they called Sheldon Schumer, Sheldon said, there's never anybody here by that name. What the fuck are you talking about? They go into panic mode. If you can imagine, if you can just imagine.

RBK Kaleidoscope (33:00.117)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (33:01.27)
this poor mother and aunt freaking out, called every hospital in Calgary. No, not here. The fuck are you talking about? So finally she calls back to the Sheldon Schumer. Oh, she was here. She was released at 5.30 yesterday. She was admitted at one in the afternoon, unresponsive. And you released her at 5.30 in the evening after telling her family you would look after her, after telling her that you would take care of the paperwork tomorrow that would look at getting her committed.

RBK Kaleidoscope (33:21.577)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaleidoscope (33:24.915)
Yeah.

Chuck (33:30.058)
And then you released her at five, because what? Because she chose to get released, discharged, right? And I'm pissed off.

RBK Kaleidoscope (33:34.227)
Need to the bed?

They needed the bed for somebody that wasn't an addict.

Chuck (33:41.562)
No doubt, no doubt, and I pissed off about it. And I said in the video I posted on social media the day before that we were gonna follow the situation of the good or the bad, and maybe it's an opportunity. Maybe it's an opportunity to see what the system can do when somebody, you know what I mean? Like maybe, and I was, I was some, I was cautiously optimistic. Now I'm just pissed off. And it's going public, and I'm gonna make this, this is the case now that Ash is Awesome gets in behind and says what in the actual fuck is going on? Right? You know?

RBK Kaleidoscope (33:44.357)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaleidoscope (34:08.735)
So that happens every day.

Chuck (34:11.722)
I know it does, I know it does, you know. But you gotta take one case to make it to show people. You know what I mean, right? You gotta make a case of one to show people because otherwise it's overwhelming and the numbers, it's too easy to show apathy when you're looking at statistics and all that. That and people make mistakes. Yeah, right? People make mistakes, but that unnecessary trauma, somebody better address that for that family. Hours this morning.

RBK Kaleidoscope (34:14.211)
every fucking day, pardon my language. Yeah, well.

RBK Kaleidoscope (34:27.111)
Now, you need like 80% of the vote to care. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (34:38.654)
Yeah.

Chuck (34:39.562)
hours this morning in your part of the world, right, this evening in mine, spent trying to track down what the hell happened with their daughter, their niece, calling every single hospital to find out no, no. So that's a trauma that's over and over again. It's happening to these people and, you know.

RBK Kaleidoscope (34:54.427)
And those people can probably go get counseling, but it's not covered under MSP, so maybe they can't. Yeah. It's really, it's, yeah.

Chuck (34:59.962)
Yeah, right? Yeah, here we are. So I'm pissed off and I'm going to make like this is this is the thing we're going to talk about now in social media anyway, and it's going to get loud and I'm going to do everything I can to bring attention to this shit show. And God forbid if something happened, they don't have any idea where she is now. They don't have any idea. It's fucking winter in Canada, folks. You know, they just found her in a car for three days. Almost arguably almost dead.

I mean, how far off a dead are you if you're living in a car in Canada anyway, right? In winter, right? You know, you're, you're a couple of bad hours away from, from passing at any given point, you know, right?

RBK Kaleidoscope (35:31.655)
Yeah. Well.

RBK Kaleidoscope (35:36.847)
east of the Rockies anyway.

Chuck (35:38.634)
Yeah, yeah, all right. So, yeah, that happened. That was my night last night. I didn't get a lot of sleep. I didn't get any sleep, I'll be honest with you. And I promised myself that I was going to do some laps in the pool, get grounded before I picked up my phone every day. And instead, I picked up my phone in the middle of the night and that's how it went. So I had to, I've already recorded a reel on that, but I think I'm gonna re-record when I'm in a better state of mind as I am now, right?

RBK Kaleidoscope (35:47.932)
That's typical.

Ahem.

RBK Kaleidoscope (36:00.977)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (36:07.93)
I was flipping the fuck out this morning, let me tell you. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty angry about it.

RBK Kaleidoscope (36:13.038)
I'm back.

Yeah, I mean It is You know like I don't I'm you know dealing with these systems Here's the thing. There's no one to there's no one to blame you that you blame a second cousin of Harvey the rabbit like It's a Corporate entities that don't exist is sociopathic like you can't blame the nurses because they're burnt out

Chuck (36:16.086)
And that's, you know, ah man.

Chuck (36:29.034)
No.

Chuck (36:34.474)
Yeah, well, that's the problem. Oh, that is the problem. And maybe there should be.

Chuck (36:43.595)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (36:45.503)
They're overworked, they're underpaid, they're understaffed. You know, the properties and the real estate prices, doctors or hospitals need to get people in and out, in and out, in and out to make their mortgage, to make their payroll. Like, it's just so embedded and intertwined and so screwed up that none of it, it's all in contrast to the human spirit. That's my problem with capitalism, the ultimate.

Chuck (37:01.866)
Yeah, right.

Chuck (37:07.649)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (37:14.759)
is that it is exactly the antithesis of what the human spirit is, which is about to connect and flourish and grow. Get me fired up over here.

Chuck (37:14.89)
Yeah, fair enough, man. Now, that said, that said, my friend, situation like this ends up in front of our very dear friend, Dr. Lisa. That's not how this plays out. So my point is that maybe there should be somebody to blame. Maybe the doctor that allows that discharge to happen should take the blame or the focus, right? You know what I mean? Because it's gotta start, somebody somewhere has to start owning what the fuck is going on.

RBK Kaleidoscope (37:34.189)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (37:38.6)
I agree. What?

RBK Kaleidoscope (37:44.839)
Well, look at...

Chuck (37:44.882)
And our and Dr. Lisa is a great example of somebody who's doing that, right? She's bucking the system. She's, you know, go ahead. Yeah. Yep.

RBK Kaleidoscope (37:48.915)
They did it. They did it with OxyContin. It's possible.

You know, oxys now aren't easy to get. But I had migraines in 2008 and got oxys. You know what I mean? So there was penalties. And it took the college of, of the college of physicians to start imposing penalties and threatening to take licenses away for change to happen. And jail time. So ultimately some doctors got jail time for their prescriptions, but it takes, it takes punitive.

Chuck (37:57.44)
No, no.

Chuck (38:01.886)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy, eh? Like that, just put that in perspective, man.

Chuck (38:15.243)
Yeah, right.

Chuck (38:21.205)
Yep.

RBK Kaleidoscope (38:23.935)
penalty to make change. It has to impact people in their wallet and in their homes in order to care enough to save some fucking lives. Sorry.

Chuck (38:33.322)
Yeah, right, right. No, don't be sorry. I'm not, I'm over, I'm not apologizing for anything that comes out of my mouth in regards to this situation. I'm just not, I'm not. We finally had a win, finally had a win. Jess was home and you know, like I'll focus on somebody because that's all I can do. I can't focus on everybody. I can't focus on anything really. So I'll focus on one person. We got a win, man. We got a win. And then not even three hours later, I get that goddamn message. Ah, I ain't fucking apologizing to nobody for nothing. You know?

RBK Kaleidoscope (38:42.448)
Well.

RBK Kaleidoscope (38:50.175)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (39:02.75)
just not. No. So, you know. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (39:03.727)
Yes, that's why I always say we gotta enjoy the wins while we have them, because they ain't gonna last. Not to be too pessimistic, when we understand the landscape of what we're up against, it's... I personally believe if people really understood what we were up against, most people wouldn't even try. And, you know, I think...

Chuck (39:10.462)
Yeah, right, right. So this is the reality of it. Yeah.

Chuck (39:24.886)
Yeah, right. I tell you man, I wonder myself, I still do. You know, direction and purpose are important in my life. And it's probably the thing that really keeps me in it because I need to have that in order to flourish. So it's not selfless by any standard, right? But, you know, that's it.

RBK Kaleidoscope (39:28.371)
We'll sort of wait and I always...

RBK Kaleidoscope (39:34.26)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaleidoscope (39:38.291)
But honestly, if we don't do it, who's gonna?

Chuck (39:41.058)
So yeah, right, and that's the challenge, man. That's the challenge. You know, I know Chelsea Hewell, you know, she said, I said, there's lots of work to do, and Chelsea said, but we're doing it. And I said, we all, good point, good point, right? Chelsea from Trap House, that's the one I said that, so. Hey listen, why don't we get into mail back? That works for you? Take a, yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (39:45.137)
Yeah, giving up is not an option.

RBK Kaleidoscope (39:57.984)
Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to, so I just, I wanna put a pin in, I think it's time to, I know we talked about this a long time ago and I think I'd like to get this in one of these just based on what I heard on the ramble, talking a little bit more about boundaries and enabling and the difference. And yeah, so if I get into that now, we're going way over. So I would like to.

Chuck (40:13.621)
Oh, yes. Yeah.

Chuck (40:18.57)
So how about this? How about this? Let's make a promise to the listeners, watchers, supporters to say next week, next Wednesday, tune in, because we're going to talk about boundaries. Right? We're going to talk about how to manage that and or some ideas on how to manage that. Yeah, what boundaries really are. Of course, we've touched on this in previous episodes, but we have a lot of new listeners since then. You know, a lot of things have happened since then. So let's, let's

RBK Kaleidoscope (40:32.936)
What they are.

Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (40:42.067)
Yeah, I feel like last, when we talked about that, it must have been like episode 50 or something like.

Chuck (40:46.714)
Yeah, right. So it's a long time ago. So that's definitely. So go ahead.

RBK Kaleidoscope (40:48.891)
It was actually, I will quote, it was my friend Rachel that said, hey, I'd like to hear more about that. And I was like, well, actually we talked about this many episodes ago. So having said that, I don't even know if you could, yeah, like it was before video and I don't even know if you could get it on the website, to be honest. I think it only goes back to 70 or something.

Chuck (41:00.51)
Yeah, yeah, very different show back then, right? Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. It'd be there for certain, but yeah. Let's just do a redo and do a better job because we're better at our jobs now. How's that sound? So if you're listening folks, that's where they'll be on the table for next week. Promise get into it much earlier and not just be sitting around bullshitting. But again, those are some of my favorite conversations.

RBK Kaleidoscope (41:17.812)
Sure, yeah.

Chuck (41:30.916)
Take for a quick break and we'll get into the mailbag.

Chuck (41:36.03)
Okay, so we are back for the break. Ryan, I got a few questions queued up for you here. They are, well, they look like decent questions too. So, you ready? I feel like we should have some sort of sound effect right now for mailbag. You know, blah, blah. Yeah, what's that? Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, cha-ching. All right, you've got mail, right? Ooh, the AOL sound effect. Sorry, I just occurred to me, yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (41:46.707)
Yeah, let's do it.

RBK Kaleidoscope (41:51.467)
$20 words. Oh, yeah. $20 words. Cha-ching. I know they have a song in this show I watch called...

RBK Kaleidoscope (42:05.839)
There you go. They have a sound effect in one of the shows I watch with the mailbag and it's like, I don't know, it's gotta be like Homer Simpson or something singing, mailbag, get your mailbag. I don't know. Anyway. Yeah. They're out there. Yeah.

Chuck (42:06.896)
That's what we're going to have to go with. Yeah.

Chuck (42:17.45)
Really, eh? Well, maybe I'll try and hack that. Right, yeah, yeah. I'll find it if it's out there, okay. Okay, all right. Alex in Seattle, Washington says, do I do these in radio voice now? Is that a thing after the live feed? Right, yeah. I feel like we're not taking them seriously when I do that.

RBK Kaleidoscope (42:29.211)
Yeah, sure. Yeah. I always liked the radio voice.

RBK Kaleidoscope (42:35.585)
So don't.

Chuck (42:35.99)
Hi Ryan, I'm Alex from Seattle. I've been in recovery for two years now, but I still struggle with feeling isolated from my friends and family who don't understand my journey. How can I bridge the gap and rebuild these important relationships while staying true to...

That's a great question.

RBK Kaleidoscope (42:53.84)
Okay.

RBK Kaleidoscope (42:57.959)
Struggle with feeling isolated is, well that's the breeding ground for addictive tendencies or maladaptive coping measures, as I would rather put it. But apparently those words are big sometimes, so I'll say what I said first. Whatever we look for, we're going to find.

Chuck (43:11.639)
Yeah, it is.

Chuck (43:27.943)
Anyway, okay.

RBK Kaleidoscope (43:27.973)
Dig it in. What I'll say, Alex, is we can always find commonalities. So what I would say is separate yourself from difference. It's not about people not understanding your journey, because really, we can always find people that don't understand us and still get along. I think it's more important to start investing in the things that are connectable. So I remember time.

Chuck (43:32.814)
Thanks for watching!

RBK Kaleidoscope (43:54.899)
And I'll speak to like personally where it was like, I couldn't, I couldn't be around the people that I was consistently around for so many years. So what I did is I like golf and play hockey and baseball. And, um, and so I found the commonalities of those people. So instead I would hang out with my friends and we'd go golfing and it would be four hours or five hours together on a golf course, uh, you know, catching up, having a good time without.

any of the usual drinking this and snorting that and smoking that, you know what I mean? So like, I think, and you know, I'm not saying it has to be golf, it could be intrinsic in nature just about what are these things that make us connect? Well, again, like isolation is about closing off. It's not the outside world, it's the inside state. And so how am I creating an openness to the world or vulnerability to be able to give access to who I am and, you know, possibly what I'm going through? Because I mean,

When we get past that hump of like, I'm different than them, and we start to look at I'm the same of them with these other characteristics, now we have the opportunity to learn from one another. And it's in our similarities that we find connection, and it's in our differences through that connection that we find growth and we learn. And so I would say like, I would say stop focusing on what's different and they don't understand. Maybe it's more about seeking, again, that seeking to understand.

Chuck (45:17.067)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (45:23.763)
So if I'm seeking to understand them, they're gonna probably seek to understand me instead of me seeking to be understood. And so what I hear in this one.

Chuck (45:30.126)
Even if it's not an intentional thing, I think that just happens when you become that person.

RBK Kaleidoscope (45:34.311)
I agree, and it's not malice, it's not, you know, we're not out to, but it's, we're wired to protect ourselves. So of course we look for differences. It's part of our makeup as human beings is to defend. And when there's nothing to defend, we, our brain, like, there's an old saying that, you know, my brain's made to solve problems. And when it doesn't have any, it makes them. So, you know, like this is another, it's just like, uh, you know, spending time with these people.

Chuck (45:54.794)
Yeah, right.

RBK Kaleidoscope (46:03.955)
doesn't have to be about them understanding what you're going through. It can be about spending time with people. You know, we don't all wear the same color shirt every day. That doesn't mean we don't get along. You know what I mean? So I think it's like, you find what you're looking for. If you're looking to be connectable, if you're looking to find connection, you will. Sorry, what was that?

Chuck (46:10.678)
Right.

Chuck (46:17.298)
Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, unless you're blood or a crypt, then it really matters. I said, unless you're blood or a crypt, which case, you know, yeah. Just saying, yeah. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (46:30.922)
Yeah, I don't know how to do this. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, so to build, I would say the term rebuild these bridges, I think, something like that.

Chuck (46:50.294)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's what it was. Go back to that time. Right, there you go. How do I bridge this gap and rebuild these important relationships? Well, you know what? He said that pretty good. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (46:51.923)
Why'd we build a new bridge? Why'd we build an old one?

RBK Kaleidoscope (46:58.888)
Yeah, and so...

So how do you bridge the gap? Start seeking to understand. Look for connectables instead of disconnectables. Look for why we are similar instead of why we're different. And I would invest in the emotional connection with other human beings as an evolutionary state of being. Like I will become more by appreciating. So that which appreciates appreciates. If I appreciate that they don't understand instead of resent it, then I'm more likely

Chuck (47:05.782)
Yep.

Chuck (47:08.962)
Yes.

Chuck (47:13.774)
Well said. Yeah.

Chuck (47:21.814)
Good answer, man. Good answer. Yeah.

Chuck (47:30.462)
Yep.

RBK Kaleidoscope (47:32.363)
to become more connectable. And with that, Alex, I hope that answers your question. I'm getting the old cane off the stage. So, bing, bing.

Chuck (47:35.618)
Fair enough.

Mm-hmm. We know, we just know how it is, right? All right, all right. Thank you for that question, Alex. And again, yeah, Ryan's right. I hope he did a good job answering that for you. I feel like he probably did. So moving on, Emily in Toronto says, hello, Ryan, this is Emily from Toronto. I recently started my recovery journey and I am finding it hard to deal with the stigma associated with addiction, especially at my workplace.

What advice would you give for handling these kinds of situations and maintaining my dignity and self-respect?

RBK Kaleidoscope (48:14.724)
Emily, me too. It's funny, I just got asked to sit on a board in the city I live in specifically about addiction. Sorry, not about addiction. Part of it is about addiction, but it's about stigma. It's about stigma for racism, intersectionality.

homelessness, drug addiction, mental health. Anyway, so.

Chuck (48:46.87)
When you say intersectionality, what do you mean by that?

RBK Kaleidoscope (48:49.223)
intersectionality is... Oh, you're gonna make me explain that? I'm gonna give you the...

the proper.

Chuck (48:59.574)
Wikipedia.

RBK Kaleidoscope (49:02.247)
Yeah, the meaning. The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to given individual or group regarded as creating overlapping or, sorry, and interdependent systems of discrimination and disadvantage. Through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge the ground differences among us. So where races meet, where beliefs, different beliefs meet...

and they cross. And so it's a contact point of different cultures or different races or different genders and how we apply whatever it is that we apply to it, whether it be understanding, whether it be seeking to be an ally or whether it be discrimination. And so like, I think about it as like, how about a black woman in the workforce? There's intersectionality every day in her life.

Chuck (49:33.454)
Okay.

Chuck (49:48.618)
Okay, okay, yeah.

Chuck (49:56.45)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (49:59.695)
as she goes to work and is treated differently, underpaid, system, personal, all this kind of discrimination. And so how do we handle that intersectional point of existence? So yeah, not to go on a run there, but I want to go back to Emily's saying, I think like when we're...

Chuck (50:00.225)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (50:09.238)
Yeah.

Chuck (50:13.402)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (50:27.507)
When we're in the workplace, it's like, I know, so we have to, I think it's important to have a strong sense of self as we're in this, our own journey, our journey is ours. Our reality is ours. It has its own fingerprint. And so I can have a boundary around what I'm okay with being around or discussing and what I'm not. And so like, I look at it as like, the choice to educate, for example, today we were talking and the word overdose came up a few times and I thought, we're up.

We're a group about stigma and we're using a term that reinforces stigma. I just, I asked to challenge the term and, and I asked that we use the term drug poisoning based on the same things we've talked about. You never hear about someone with an alcohol overdose. And so how, how that term splits alcoholics from drug addicts being different, which it's a, it's a malady. Like it's a meh. Yeah. And it's also, it's also.

Chuck (51:11.446)
Yep, yep, yep.

Chuck (51:23.102)
legislation right that's all yeah

RBK Kaleidoscope (51:26.323)
It's born in racism, to be honest. I mean, you know, like, so, and so, not okay, I won't, but so how do we, so, but you know, I like the word stigmata and respect, self-respect, so I would just be firm in my, in articulate, in my message. It wouldn't be aggressive, mine might be, but I wouldn't recommend that. You know, I would just be firm in my boundaries, and you know, that's not something I'm comfortable with discussing or,

Chuck (51:28.798)
Yeah, yeah, right. So don't go down that path. Don't don't go down that rabbit hole right now. We don't have time for it. So okay. Okay.

RBK Kaleidoscope (51:55.619)
For me, it's probably like, you know, I find that comment ignorant and don't say that shit around me. You can't do that. I can't recommend that.

Chuck (52:01.647)
Right? And the best way to slaughter anybody in a disagreement is just to do well. Right? Keep showing up at work. Keep doing your job. Keep showing people that what? Right? Like what are you stigmatizing here? You know what I mean? That's the best way to kick them. Kick ass. You know? Right?

RBK Kaleidoscope (52:09.235)
Yes. Yeah, and-

RBK Kaleidoscope (52:19.195)
Yeah, and I completely agree with that. I think, you know, carrying ourself at a high standard as well, it increases our confidence in our intrinsic resources, like self-esteem, self-worth, self-respect. And so, yeah, I think know who you are. I'd say, say what you mean, mean what you say, stand behind what you believe. Don't apologize for your beliefs. Yeah.

Chuck (52:30.229)
senators.

Chuck (52:38.646)
Yeah. Right. True story. True story. Good. I hope, Emily, that helps. So thank you very much for that. Now we have a question from Michael in Austin, Texas. Hey, Ryan, Michael from Austin here. Like I did it. OK. No, I'm not going to do that. Sorry. Sorry, Michael. I am very sorry for that. You know what, Michael, you win radio voice question of the day just because I because I am as a dig. So I'm going to do the radio voice for your question.

RBK Kaleidoscope (52:56.458)
Sorry, Michael.

RBK Kaleidoscope (53:03.978)
Hahaha.

Chuck (53:08.17)
Hey Ryan, Michael from Austin here. I've been sober for five months now and I'm curious to find out about new healthy ways to cope with stress that used to lead me to substance use. Could you share with me some effective strategies or practices that work for you and others that you've counseled? There you go. Radio voice of the day question goes to.

RBK Kaleidoscope (53:22.791)
Yeah, okay.

You're a big winner.

Chuck (53:29.654)
Someday I'll have like prizes for people but right now radio voice is best to get.

RBK Kaleidoscope (53:34.783)
So first thing I'm going to say to this is I'll, and I'm going to use a profanity because it was a title of one of our episodes, fuck the noise. And so, you know, when we think about these stresses, it's like, let's qualify them as stresses first. Like, is this actually stress or is this just noise? Is this adding to the hum in the background that always makes me anxious and uncomfortable? And so, you know, when,

Chuck (53:47.118)
Yeah, all right.

Chuck (54:01.656)
Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (54:06.007)
If we think about healthy ways to cope it's just like first anything I need to do is ground I need to be present in my own existence I need to I need to gain the self-awareness so I know that what choices I have and those choices are Fuck the noise is a choice I'm taking this thing and I'm looking at it and going is this Important is this fit in to the trajectory of my goal of life or what I'm trying to do or what I'm trying to accomplish And if it doesn't it's noise let it go it doesn't matter You know what I mean, and so like that's like I don't know 90% of stresses

Like even when it comes to a job, it's just a job. You know, you're employable because you have one. So you could probably get another one. It's not a big deal. Everything will be fine. EI is not great, but it doesn't last forever. You know, like, so like, it's just, and then the other thing, honestly, what I like to do, and I don't know if I can, I don't know if it's just something I want to promote, but I worst case scenario, what's the worst thing that can happen here? I get fired. Oh.

Chuck (54:36.636)
Yes, yes, yes.

Chuck (54:42.514)
Yeah.

Chuck (54:47.86)
Yeah.

Chuck (54:57.842)
Yep.

RBK Kaleidoscope (55:01.519)
Oh no, look, I've never done that before. You know, like from every job I've ever had. Yeah. So you know what I mean? Like how big of an, and if it is a big deal, then I would say support, get vocal, get vulnerable, be with whatever it is you're with, allow those emotions to process, let them do their job. If it is a psychodynamic stress that is

Chuck (55:03.726)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Chuck (55:18.538)
Yep.

Chuck (55:23.406)
Hmm.

RBK Kaleidoscope (55:28.015)
It's probably not important. It's probably noise and it's probably you know, it's probably creating this Psychosomatic disconnected an interruption of rhythm and so that's I just want to let that go and get back to like, you know Not a big deal. I can deal with it I've been through this before or I haven't been through this before but I'm pretty confident myself and There's no such thing as failure as long as I'm trying, you know what I mean? So Yeah, I mean just really it's like

Chuck (55:31.84)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (55:38.806)
Right?

Chuck (55:51.754)
True story. Yep, yep.

RBK Kaleidoscope (55:57.703)
Stress is, we experience it as a hormone, cortisol. And so in order to get those levels down, the physical part is, the first thing I guess, I should have started with this. Take a deep breath, get as much oxygen in your blood as possible. Diaphragmatic breath reduces cortisol, which makes stress go down. From there, we can decide what the options are, make a choice, live in the freedom associated with that choice. I usually say fuck the noise, it doesn't matter. It's not actually a big deal.

Chuck (56:15.498)
Yes.

Chuck (56:21.91)
Yes.

Fair enough. Yeah, exactly.

RBK Kaleidoscope (56:26.219)
And if I worst case scenario, worst case scenario, I'm still okay. You know what I mean? So every, everything from there is fine.

Chuck (56:31.114)
Right, right. Yeah, yeah, it always goes that way. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so. All right, my man. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. That's an episode. Thank you, Michael. Sorry for trying to make fun of your Texan accent. I didn't, I did it terribly anyway. So no, good point, good point. Yeah, trying to use, sorry for trying to use a stupid voice to read your question. That's probably a better way. No, but I made up for it. He got radio voice of the day, right? So.

RBK Kaleidoscope (56:36.711)
Yeah, look at that.

Yeah, hey.

RBK Kaleidoscope (56:45.551)
I would not call it a Texas accent. I think you're safe. I think it was too bad to even be offensive.

RBK Kaleidoscope (56:59.295)
He did, yeah.

Chuck (56:59.95)
That's what we're handing out for prizes these days at the Ash Stossel podcast. So anyway, hey listen, that brings us to my favorite part of the show and that is the Daily Gratitudes. What you got for us today, Ryan?

RBK Kaleidoscope (57:12.519)
Of course, beautiful family. Yeah, so supportive and awesome. I'm you know, I'm extremely grateful for people in my life that allow me to be me without the need to change who I am. And I see a few in far between but they are certainly powerful and impactful and there are a few of them that are close to me that

You know, fact is I probably wouldn't be here without them, and I certainly wouldn't be doing what I'm doing without them. So, yeah. People. I'm grateful for people.

Chuck (57:50.198)
Yeah.

Chuck (57:54.402)
That's a good one to be grateful for. I am grateful for a monsoon that has ended and an incredibly beautiful day that has emerged. Trust in the emergence, because it is beautiful out there. Wow. There you go, right? Yes, yes. I am still thankful for bougie water bottles. As we know.

RBK Kaleidoscope (57:55.881)
Mm-hmm.

RBK Kaleidoscope (58:06.867)
Trust in the emergence, I like it.

RBK Kaleidoscope (58:14.323)
Yeah, I need some of those. Look at this one. Ghetto.

Chuck (58:18.45)
Look, it's you, plastic. I used to have those, and then my mom got a job. Right? Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (58:23.007)
Yeah

RBK Kaleidoscope (58:28.423)
Yep, bougin' it up.

Chuck (58:30.254)
Even the one plastic water bottle I have in my room is like, looks bougier than the one you got, right? You know, so anyway. Yeah.

RBK Kaleidoscope (58:35.355)
Yeah, yeah, well it probably is. That's the one you'd spit your chewing tobacco spit in. Ha ha ha.

Chuck (58:44.111)
Anyway, anyway. I'm also, I am thankful that Jess made it back to her family. Unbelievably grateful. You know, I get, yeah, right, right. I am thankful for every bit of support I get. Emotional, financial, all of it. It's just the most amazing situation. Everybody here at Yatra, man, this place is nuts. It's like, ah, did I tell you about the food?

RBK Kaleidoscope (58:50.855)
As am I. I don't know, Jess, but I'm thinking.

RBK Kaleidoscope (59:10.856)
Yeah, but you can again.

Chuck (59:11.838)
I don't like spicy food. So they changed the menu because I should be stressed out about lunch. Right? Like, no, true story, man. Yeah, there's always a special plate with Chris on it because I don't like spicy shit. It's just the most amazing thing. Yeah, so anyway. Hey, so.

RBK Kaleidoscope (59:17.945)
You didn't tell me that.

Chuck (59:32.482)
Just got a message from our friend Jason McMillan. Mostly, oh, not mostly, but lastly, I am thankful to each and every watcher, listener and supporter. All of you guys are amazing. Please keep doing what you're doing. Smash the subscribe button wherever it might be. Yeah, there you go. Like, comment, share, you know what you gotta do. Every time you do any one of these, you're getting me a little bit closer to like my best life. My best life is to make a humble living spreading the message. The message is this.

If you're inactive addiction right now, today could be the day that you start a life-long Yatra. Reach out to a friend, reach out to a family member, call into detox, go to a meeting. I don't care. Do whatever you got to do to get that journey started. It's just so damn much better than the alternative. And if you have a loved one who's suffering an addiction right now, just taking the time to listen to our show, if you just take another minute and text them, let them know they're loved. Use the words.

RBK Kaleidoscope (01:00:26.78)
You are loved.

Chuck (01:00:28.47)
That little glimmer of hope just might be the thing that brings him back.

Chuck (01:00:35.53)
Alright. There we go. Done, son.