202- CASEY JORDAN FROM F AROUND & RECOVERY

Chuck LaFLange (00:01.826)
Hello everybody, watchers, listeners, supporters of all kinds. Welcome to another episode of the Ashes to Awesome podcast. I'm your host, Chuck LaFlange, and with me in virtual studio is Casey Jordan. How you doing today, Casey?

Casey Jordan (00:12.317)
You're doing good, Chuck.

Chuck LaFLange (00:13.826)
Good stuff, good stuff. So to, to who's ever paying attention to me ramble on here, um, Casey and I have connected through social media, as is almost always the case these days. He runs a page called F around and recover, which I absolutely love. It is hilarious. Right. Absolutely hilarious. So, um, I really wanted to get you on. You've been, uh, kind of supporting the black ash project as, as Jared and I have been working on that Jared from the blacklist. And I want to get you on and talk about some of the fangs and all the things. So, you know,

Why don't we kick it off with... You know what? The same... If we're not going to do a recovery story, I'm still going to ask my same questions. It's the first time you remember getting messed up.

Casey Jordan (00:55.197)
Um, when I was like 12 or 13, I was at like a family party and everybody was drinking and I just, I talked to an older person and the running down to the county store and getting me something because I wasn't drinking what they were drinking, but if they had something fruity, I might try it. And I remembered that was the first time and it from the first time I had a problem like as a 12 or 13 year old kid to like.

down the six pack and you know, I mean, honestly blackout probably. Oh, I loved it. It like, oh yeah, I was Lucy Goosey. I was, there was some older girls there and I remember having that feeling of like I fit in, like I couldn't talk to them before but once I got those first few drinks, I mean like, and you know, it became my personality pretty quickly and you know, I...

Chuck LaFLange (01:26.706)
Yeah. Do you remember how it made you feel? Do you remember how it made you feel?

Chuck LaFLange (01:46.027)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (01:54.237)
Every substance I ever touched from the first time I touched it, I was like, yeah, that's it. That's what I like. That's what, that's what I'm after. It didn't matter what it was.

Chuck LaFLange (02:03.585)
So at the time, were you self-aware enough to know what exactly it was doing for you,

Casey Jordan (02:10.761)
Oh, it just felt good. I mean, I had, I, I lacked control before that started. You know, I was one of those people like in treatment, they talked to, talked to me and they were like, when do you remember your alcoholic behavior starting? And I was like, well, fear controlled me from the time I was like old enough to think like my first memory is fear, like being controlled by fear and that, that pit and that feeling of just.

fear in your stomach, like that's a feeling that I used for, used over for a long time.

Chuck LaFLange (02:46.774)
No shit, eh? No shit, can I ask what at 12, like your first memory you said is fear, can I ask fear of what or do you remember that?

Casey Jordan (02:54.569)
Uh, like, but it was even before I was drinking, it was like, uh, just being in elementary school, like, this is weird. I mean, a lot of people don't understand it, but, um, first day of kindergarten, they had milk and cartons and, um, I drank a gallon of milk every like two or three days when I was at home. And then the first day of kindergarten, they sent me there. And I remember not being able to open the carton.

And I told the teacher that I did not drink milk, that I had to have water. And like, it was at the time, like nobody thinks about it. He couldn't get it open, whatever. But that was like looking back and thinking about when I was a little kid and being scared and shit, like I made a decision. I, I lied about my life. Like I, you know, I'm a milk drinker, but I'm going to tell you, I don't drink milk because I'm afraid that you'll know that I can't get this carton.

Chuck LaFLange (03:30.423)
Wow.

Chuck LaFLange (03:43.255)
Big deal.

Casey Jordan (03:54.269)
Like something as simple as that. I mean.

Chuck LaFLange (03:57.77)
Well, you know what, man, and before we jump into the rest of it, me being in Thailand at the Yachter Treatment Center here and learning so much about trauma, trauma is something that happens within you, not to you. And shit like that, shit like that, when you're six is a big deal. That to you is as catastrophic as a grown ass man losing his job.

Casey Jordan (04:12.317)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (04:23.758)
or you know what I mean, right? Or a 14 year old girl not being liked by Tommy, or you know what I mean? Like these are, everything's relative, right? So that is a traumatic event. And the thing about trauma is it happens within you. So, okay, that was 30 years ago. However old you are, I'm not gonna profess to guess that, but that was however many years ago. Okay, so it was 25 years ago. That's a long time ago. Or is that ship been snowballing in your head for 25 years?

Casey Jordan (04:32.861)
Mm-hmm.

Casey Jordan (04:43.421)
I'll be 31 in March.

25 years ago. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (04:53.642)
Right? And that's the thing with trauma is people, people think it's about having the gun to your head or all the things that happen when we're in active addiction, but it predates that by a long shot. It's that being afraid of your mom or, you know, your mom favoring a sibling or lying to a fucking teacher because you couldn't figure out how to open up milk and being afraid of, of being discovered for that or whatever. Right? So.

Casey Jordan (04:54.877)
That's, yeah.

Casey Jordan (05:05.059)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (05:20.427)
I don't want to say I understand that, but I think I can certainly kind of wrap my head around it. Right? So, you know, anyway.

Casey Jordan (05:25.297)
Yeah, it's just that feeling that fear that I mean, I remember it again. It was just a couple years later. I was in third grade and I got cut from the basketball team that all my friends made and I remember that night I got that phone call that I didn't make the team. Like, you know, something as simple as that, like just that awful feeling that, you know, for, for somebody like me, we don't learn to cope with it. Like we just learned to numb it out. And.

Chuck LaFLange (05:45.718)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (05:54.495)
Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do.

Casey Jordan (05:54.869)
Once I learned to name it out, it was dangerous.

Chuck LaFLange (05:58.438)
Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. So what happens from there? You're 13, you just what, instantly jump into doing fentanyl or like what's, give me the synapses of what happens in between, brother.

Casey Jordan (06:05.833)
No, this is...

Casey Jordan (06:11.057)
Well, so 13, 14, 15, I had a girlfriend that smoked pot, but, and I was just like, that's the worst thing ever. You know, you might as well been doing math or something. I was like, your family's awful. All the people you associate with are awful. You know, I don't want anything to do with you. Yeah, you know, if you went against my beliefs, I was done.

Chuck LaFLange (06:24.619)
Just say no. Just say no.

Chuck LaFLange (06:30.094)
Cough.

Casey Jordan (06:41.649)
You know, the alcohol was still okay. And, you know, a couple of times when I was 15, 16 years old, me and the boys would sneak and do whatever, not do what you're not supposed to do, steal from the parents and get drunk in the basement, whatever, and it was always, I would always be the one that was the drunkest or the one that was blacking out and making a scene and, um, it was that way early. And then, um, I.

Chuck LaFLange (06:55.19)
Yeah, man.

Casey Jordan (07:11.121)
I tore my ACL when I was 16 and I really don't understand why a doctor, after going through it, why a doctor would prescribe opiates to a young kid. It's just, it puts you behind the ball, man. I remember the first time I took one out of my prescription being 16 years old and I was a pretty good athlete.

Chuck LaFLange (07:25.739)
Right, right.

Casey Jordan (07:39.685)
You know, I wasn't anything spectacular. I was all right at sports. Basketball.

Chuck LaFLange (07:42.454)
Well, obviously you never got, you never made the basketball team.

Casey Jordan (07:46.857)
Yeah, yeah, I had just like, I was a late bloomer. So like, hitting puberty late, I was behind the ball, whatever. But like when I got to be 16, I just like the week before I tore my ACL, I just started to dunk a basketball like I was just getting to like where I thought like I was an athlete I was I might be able to play D two D three college ball play baseball somewhere. I love baseball. That was my thing.

And, you know, to tear my ACL playing my backside sport kind of crushed me. Um, I remember being accused of, I had this problem of being a hypochondriac, you know, faking injuries and stuff like that. And after, after the ACL tear, they're like, I had an MRI and the MRI came back and my ACL was intact in the MRI. So, you know, I was being accused of faking that injury.

Chuck LaFLange (08:17.099)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (08:30.545)
Ha ha ha.

Casey Jordan (08:43.961)
and then went to see a specialist, had the surgery, got prescribed. You know, from day one, it's snowballed. Um, by day three after the surgery, for some god awful reason, and God bless my mother, she didn't know any better. My girlfriend at the time is the one that like held my prescription for me. So like, cause she was there, my mom was at work. So it was like when I was in pain, I needed.

You know, if I need to be given, they didn't want me to have it, but as needed. Day three, the 10 day prescriptions gone. I'm, I don't even talk to people and I'm personally calling the doctor like, Hey, can we get this refilled? And he's like, what are you talking about? There is no refill. And, uh, I just remembered, uh, I don't really know if I was dope sick.

Chuck LaFLange (09:15.551)
Mm-hmm.

Casey Jordan (09:36.145)
Cause I don't know if there was quite that much, but the mental anguish of not having that prescription right after I knew people in high school that had resources. And then it just, you know, early on in high school, it was, I was the kid at the water fountain eating handfuls of whatever I could get, you know, to get me going. And, you know, I hit it really well. I was really, I was a high functioning. And I.

Chuck LaFLange (09:44.242)
Yeah, man.

Chuck LaFLange (09:56.82)
Yep, yep, yep.

Casey Jordan (10:04.137)
I call it like a revolving door addiction of I would do pretty good for a long time, but then when I would fall off, it would always be worse than it was before. Like my whole, yeah, I might have a few weeks where like I drank on the weekends, but then that would turn into drinking four days a week, five days a week, six days a week. And then

Chuck LaFLange (10:13.654)
Peaks and valleys, science, I can relate to that, bro. Yeah, I can. Yeah.

Casey Jordan (10:31.493)
You know, my family owned a bar that I had access to early. You know, I was drinking in the bar at 17, 18 years old. And, you know, I just had that alcoholic behavior of more. It was like, I guess because we got stuff at half price, you drink double. Is that what the thought process was? But it was not good. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (10:49.986)
Of course it is, of course it is. You ever seen half fat ice cream? It lasts half as long, same idea, right?

Casey Jordan (10:54.793)
Yeah, yeah, I can eat the whole thing. Yeah, like, and that's, that's my biggest problem is the more thing like I like the disease of more thing because you know I can I can do it with Twinkies I can do it with my dinner, I can I chew tobacco I can do it with tobacco I mean, you know, I catch myself still that behavior still happening but you know, I

Chuck LaFLange (11:15.458)
Yeah, bro. I get it. Yeah, man.

Casey Jordan (11:22.361)
I was in a bad position when I got out of high school. I went to college at Ohio State for like a few weeks, but I only went there because my sister was there. So it was like, she was two years older. It was like, you have to go there because she's in Columbus. You know, it's just more convenient if you're in the same city. And, um, that is when shit really got out of control and it was from.

Day one, it was from the day I unpacked my fucking clothes. Can I, pardon my French, I didn't mean the F word, offensive. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (11:55.738)
Nah, nah, in context, bro. This is in context. Trust me, I dropped the odd fuck bomb here and there, no worry. Yeah, yeah. So as long as it's not gratuitous, right?

Casey Jordan (12:01.413)
Yeah, I try to watch it, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you fill out this questionnaire before you get there about whether you plan on drinking or smoking pot pretty much is what the questionnaire said. So if you say yes, they're gonna put you in a room with people that have the same intentions. Well, what they did was they put me in a room with a dude that was there from the year before as a freshman, but then he was a sophomore when I was there.

Chuck LaFLange (12:27.981)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (12:30.641)
but he knew everybody on campus from the year before. So he had the hookup, he had the plug. I went up there with the money I saved from that summer. And I think within like the first six or seven days, I was back to living on a food card. Like just clear, it's always just clear out of control. Like always more, yeah. But yeah, that's when it really spiraled for me was, you know, I got.

Chuck LaFLange (12:36.086)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (12:47.53)
Wow. Wow, hey. More. Yeah, man.

I got you, I got you, yeah, right.

Casey Jordan (13:00.465)
got hooked in high school, got away from anybody that could tell me what to do, and then just.

Chuck LaFLange (13:06.474)
Yeah, so how long does that go on for then?

Casey Jordan (13:07.601)
took a little vacation.

Casey Jordan (13:12.593)
Uh, 10 weeks I was there and it like, it just continually got worse. I mean, I had a pretty rough overdose where, um, my bunkie like sat me up. I mean, there's no, it was alcohol and opiates. So I don't know what you call it, but I was sleeping on my back and started puking. And my roommate just so happened to wake up and set me up and, you know, save the day or whatever, but. I mean, it just.

It just got real progressive from there. And I came back here.

Chuck LaFLange (13:44.634)
You mean that wasn't enough to sober you up?

Casey Jordan (13:48.805)
No, and that was crazy. Like, three hours after that happened was my first day at work. I had a campus job working for my family at a bar. And like, I had to be at work that day. I couldn't miss. And I remember that feeling, that sick feeling. Like, in my, I remember thinking, and this is crazy, like, my thought process was I'm never, it's not that I wasn't going to do it again. It was like,

you need more. Like that's what I was thinking was like, I just need the next one and I'm not gonna feel like this. And it didn't work. I mean, never worked.

Chuck LaFLange (14:26.242)
Wow, yeah, right, right. So, let's fast forward a little bit, bro. Let's, yeah, okay, okay. So let's fast forward then. Where do you, well, what happens for a very rough few years? How do you end up in a spot? Take us closer to the end of that, right? So that we're not talking about the gory details the whole time, right?

Casey Jordan (14:32.165)
But yeah, I dropped out pretty quick.

Casey Jordan (14:47.889)
Um, yeah, yeah. Um, so I went from college to back to my hometown. Uh, my parents own like a tire shop. We do like cars and, uh, I do like onsite service for farms. So like tractors and combines and all that stuff. And I started doing that in like 2013. Um, I did all right. Like I, I don't know. I just.

I felt like I didn't really have a direction, but I thought that I was doing all right. Like I had an apartment, I had an all right car, I thought I had friends, and you know, it just kind of, that revolving door thing, man, like hold it together for a month or two, fall off, and then spend whatever I had in my bank account. Then I'm crying the blues. I always joke about how...

that my parents have always paid on Monday. And Monday's like the worst payday if you're a drug addict. Like, where's the weekend fun? I'm broke by the weekend. But I did all right. And then 2017, before my son was born, I had fallen off the wagon pretty hard, telling myself like, you're gonna have to get sober before he's born. So you might as well.

Chuck LaFLange (15:54.072)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (15:59.617)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (16:15.237)
Well, she's not very pregnant. Get it out of the way. Um, I got caught by family and you know, how our brains work. I wasn't done yet. So I took over the treatment plan. Um, I decided what was going to happen. Rehab was not an option. That was not going to happen. Um, so I made some phone calls. I got a doctor's appointment in the city. Um,

Chuck LaFLange (16:35.188)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (16:40.851)
Thank you.

Casey Jordan (16:44.985)
met with a therapist, that was awesome, the therapist was great, but then I talked to a doctor and I connived my way into an ADHD diagnosis, really, I think. It was subconscious the whole time, I was trying to get something out of that appointment. I walked away with just a worse situation. I ended up...

Chuck LaFLange (16:59.758)
Okay, yep.

Casey Jordan (17:12.173)
I don't know, I went there for an opiate addiction, like I was honest, I was truthful, I was open. And then they prescribed me Adderall and that just, again, like that revolving door, like I was doing okay, I went to the appointments and stuff and like it was being truthful and then fell off. And that bender went from 2017 to 2019. I mean, I don't remember a lot of it. I

Chuck LaFLange (17:30.146)
Yep. Yeah, I, yep.

Casey Jordan (17:41.125)
I quit the family business, I got away from that. There was a car lot in town that I never sold anything in my life that I was prescribed at or I could talk to anybody so I just, I applied, I got the job, I sold the shit out of some vehicles, I thought that's what I wanted to do and then that blew up in my face because I couldn't stop drinking, I was going to work drinking, you can't be driving around brand new trucks and stuff.

I mean, they just, boss is not gonna let it fly. They let it slide for a little while because I was doing well. I know, man. I, yeah, what do we do? Can't work for anybody. But it all went well and then, you know, I had enough of that. I'm really bad about like fads and stuff like.

Chuck LaFLange (18:13.266)
Nope. I don't know why they think the bosses suck the fun out of everything, eh? Yeah.

Casey Jordan (18:38.641)
I'll think about something and that's the end of it. Like I'm just moved on from it. Like I get a thought in my head and I'm done with it. Yeah. And I just, I did all right again. And then me and my baby mama got together, my most recent baby mama and we just,

Chuck LaFLange (18:46.67)
That's ADHD, bro.

Casey Jordan (19:07.773)
When we got together, I was out of control and the drinking was out of control. It was like 2020, COVID, all that. I was drinking out of control, partying out of control. Um, found out she was pregnant and I did the same thing again. I was like, you gotta get clean before the baby gets here. Let's go all out for a little while. And then that's when the big scary F word happened. So my, my run with that was not very long, but I mean, it's what brought me to my niece.

Um, I had kicked everything before I had kicked all of them. You know what I mean? I went through withdrawal with everything, but the withdrawal with that was, it wasn't just enough for me to be done. But the craziest part of it was like, I got on it to get off of what I was doing. Like that's the insanity of like where we are when we're in addiction is like, I picked up the worst thing possible.

Chuck LaFLange (19:53.086)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (20:06.769)
because I told myself it was cheaper by volume and I could kick it if I was doing like less, you know what I mean? Like less is more, I can get off of this easier. And, you know, within a few months, within four or five, six months, I'm a zombie, I'm not human, I'm the worst I've ever been. Like, and people know something's up too cause I quit drinking. Like I was, my-

Chuck LaFLange (20:16.152)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (20:36.761)
I'm sure you've seen my email, it's 2KStacy. I mean, I got my nickname from drinking. And like when people saw me put the bottle down, not when I was sober, but when I put the bottle down and I was still walking around with my eyes closed, people were like, something's going on.

Chuck LaFLange (20:39.806)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (20:45.919)
Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (20:53.174)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Casey Jordan (20:54.233)
I think that shame kind of brought me here too. It was like I was going out in the community and stuff like that. And I people look at me now and they're like, I can't see that. I can't imagine that man. I was it was awful. It was so bad. It was unbelievable.

Chuck LaFLange (21:10.966)
Yeah, yeah, hey, yeah, right. If you only knew, if you only knew, right. And I guess what's important is that we don't lose sight of that ourselves, right. If you remember, right, it's easier to fast forward that tape, if you will, right. So let's flip to when you had your awakening and when you've decided to pull your head out of your ass. How's that look? Yeah.

Casey Jordan (21:27.237)
Yeah, play it through.

Casey Jordan (21:36.073)
Hell yeah, man. That's my favorite part of the whole thing is, you know, how I got here. So, I don't know what happened. Something clicked in my head. I had money in my pocket. I could have went back. I was laying in bed and I'm like, I'm done. You know, I went to the motel that morning, got home. It was my mom's birthday. It was May 2nd. I'm like, yeah, I'm done.

I'm not doing this no more. This just ain't working for me. I laid in bed for like four days, shitting myself and throwing up and all that's good stuff. And my baby mama, fiance, whatever, talked me into going to the hospital to just get an IV. Cause I don't know what it was, but like if liquid touched my lips, I puked. And, or like I couldn't keep anything down, didn't drink for four or five days, four days for sure.

Chuck LaFLange (22:34.954)
It's a dope sec, right? Yeah, man. That's the real deal that shit is, you know? Yeah, man. Yeah.

Casey Jordan (22:37.061)
And so bad, man. Yeah. And I went to the hospital, got the IV and it just so happened that the nurse that was there on duty that day, taking care of me, she came in and she heard what I was going through, you know, they let him know this guy's going through withdrawal, he needs whatever. And she just came in, she just kind of looked at me and she talked to me for a second about how.

her husband had just done a stay at treatment. And I stared at her for a second. And I was like, I didn't know what that word meant. I didn't know what treatment meant. She said treatment. I was like, I stared at her and I was like, treatment? And she's like, rehab. And I said, that's an option? She was like, yeah, you can go. I was just like, all right, well, maybe. As I'm sitting there.

Chuck LaFLange (23:09.261)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (23:15.022)
Okay.

Casey Jordan (23:30.489)
just dying and my dealers texting me and I'm trying to hide my phone from everybody, you know, like the insanity of it. I was, I decided that I was gonna go to rehab and um, went home, got left at home for 20 minutes and relapsed and I was so sad, like I was so upset with myself. I was so, I was so done.

Chuck LaFLange (23:38.244)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (23:53.751)
Yeah, hey.

Casey Jordan (23:59.845)
Like everything that I had tried did not work.

Chuck LaFLange (24:02.974)
Yep.

Casey Jordan (24:03.973)
I'd just given up and...

I was like not sick, so I was like, but I was done at the same time. So I was like, let's figure something out. You know, we started making phone calls and a family friend that knew my mom reached out and was like, you know Daniel Richie, have you seen any of his stuff? The inspiring recovery guy.

Chuck LaFLange (24:26.391)
Hmm

OK, yeah, I know who you're talking to. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Casey Jordan (24:32.057)
Yeah, well, he I don't even know if he remembers, but somehow I ended up with his phone number. And I was sitting in the parking lot, four hours away from home. And I was like, I was already at rehab, but I was, I was talking myself out of it. And I made a phone call to him and he just, he gave me that little bit of hope that like, as somebody that had already been through it and like.

You know, seeing the other side and seeing the good, I was just like, I don't know what it was about trusting just some random person on the phone, but it worked for me. And it got me in the door. And then, uh, I did 28 days at RCA in Indianapolis.

Casey Jordan (25:22.429)
is 12 step. I mean, I really, I just had to remove myself from here because I joked with everybody if I could have walked home I would have like, cause that little thing was still on my shoulder. Like you could still, you know, I watched, I watched so many guys walk out the front doors of treatment and go right back out. And you know, that the dealer's on the corner when you're at treatment. If you decide to go back out, it's right there. That death is on, on the corner. I mean, it's insane.

Chuck LaFLange (25:25.174)
Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (25:29.995)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (25:33.166)
Oh yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (25:43.355)
Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (25:46.842)
Yeah, right.

Chuck LaFLange (25:51.126)
Isn't that just fucked up, man? That's just so fucked up. They should do, there's laws of bids, you know. Yeah, hey, that's messed up, man, because that's just too much. I feel like just saying that, no, I've never thought this before, certainly never thought it out loud, man. Like, and I'm sure it's the same down there. If you get caught dealing anywhere near a school, right, it's like extra, like you're in real shit now, right? It should be the same thing, anywhere near a treatment facility, sober house treatment facility, any of it.

Casey Jordan (25:55.407)
I mean, you could watch out the windows.

Casey Jordan (26:13.645)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (26:19.678)
If you're anywhere near there, the penalty should be tripled, right? You know, like just fuck that man, you know, right? Yeah, yeah. Maybe there's a campaign to start right there, hey? Right? You know, get that added into the law, you know? Yeah, yeah, right, right. So how much clean time you got now, bro, if you don't mind me asking. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, you're not, yeah, yeah.

Casey Jordan (26:23.089)
Yeah, for sure.

Casey Jordan (26:26.897)
It's so hard to watch.

Casey Jordan (26:32.049)
Yeah, I'm all for whatever man. It's crazy.

Casey Jordan (26:39.721)
Yeah, I did that.

Casey Jordan (26:44.293)
No, you're right. I was just going to say I, when I got out of treatment, I, I jumped into a program and you know, honestly, I think if I didn't do that, the only better option would have been a 90 day, six month, one year program, 18 month program, like getting out and being this far where I'm at now. I wish that I had done longer because I feel like it sets you up better for the long run. Especially if you're doing therapy. Oh yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (27:09.066)
less white-knuckle in it, you know? Yeah. Well, Nat, I'll tell you what, man. I haven't done a recovery program, period. My recovery program has been this podcast, as we were talking, right? 12, 16 hours a day since day one. Now that I've experienced therapy, right? The value that cut, like, fuck man. It's incredible, hey? It's just, it's incredible.

Casey Jordan (27:34.428)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (27:35.898)
If addiction is the smoke, trauma is the fire, they like to say around here. You know, and it's so much, and that's not a blanket statement, that doesn't apply to everybody, but I think, well, some of the big names in recovery, Gaber Mate being one of them, there's a few will say that all addiction is a result of trauma, but I would offer that a ton of it is. A huge percentage of addiction comes as a result of trauma, right? Especially knowing what I know now, I'm pretty sure.

Casey Jordan (28:03.951)
Oh yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (28:05.154)
pretty trauma informed now, right? You know, relative to where I was a month ago, but therapy is like, wow, hey. Have you ever heard of EMDR? You know what this is? EM? Yeah, it's incredible, man. It's incredible. The worst thing I've ever gone through, my biggest T trauma, as I call it, 20 minutes, man, 20 minutes. And I was like, like I could talk about it. I could, it wasn't, writing it down made me melt down. Just giving it a name had me just.

Casey Jordan (28:14.841)
I heard you talking about it the other night.

Chuck LaFLange (28:34.594)
like a hot mess. And 20 minutes later I could talk about it like it was, you know, a matter of fact thing, right? You know? Yeah, I tell you what man, yeah, right? And here's the thing, I don't think there's a person on the planet that wouldn't benefit from it. Because it's not just, it's not just, you know, that one in particular, that was when I was taking hostage and was, you know, I knew I was going to die half a dozen times that night. See, even now saying that, I can say it.

Casey Jordan (28:40.921)
Yeah, I could use something like that. I think we all could.

Casey Jordan (28:51.43)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (29:02.338)
Right? That used to be a really big thing for me to even say that. Um, but you know, once we get past kind of that obvious stuff, we started working on some of the smaller things, a memory of this with my mom or this, you know, and it's never, Hey, I love my mom. She is an amazing human being. There was things that happened as we were kids that who could have guessed raising kids 40 years ago was a very different thing than it is now. Right. And for good fucking reason, right? Back then they were still telling people that let their kids cry in the crib.

You know, it was a messed up world, but all those things, man, they all contribute to this, to these core beliefs about yourself and about the world. And all of that feeds into self-soothing behaviors. Drugs, alcohol, porn, gambling, whatever it is, right? So I think everybody could benefit from some trauma therapy. If it were up to me, every single person I left behind, I'll use that term, I wish I could bring them here right now.

Right? I just wrap them up in a blanket and bring them back and just like, he guys, you need to experience this, you know? Um, and there's a lot of stigma around mental health, but, uh, not as much as it used to be in, in for good reason. Right? So have yours yourself? Do you, did you do any kind of therapy or is that, uh,

Casey Jordan (30:18.989)
Um, you know, to be honest, uh, when I made it to, uh, 10 months sober, I landed myself in a behavioral hospital for four days. Um, I made the mistake of telling somebody that I wanted to use, uh, some shit happen. You know, some stuff was going on and that was life happened. You know, life doesn't stop, you know, when you're sober and I just.

Chuck LaFLange (30:32.494)
I'm sorry.

Chuck LaFLange (30:39.998)
Yeah. Life, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

sure doesn't.

Casey Jordan (30:49.105)
I mentioned it to someone and it landed me in the loony bin for or my like my sponsor calls it the haha farm You know, I did a little time there Give me a little time to

Chuck LaFLange (30:56.718)
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

Doesn't count if you don't get the I love me jacket though, right?

Casey Jordan (31:05.329)
They were pretty close to putting me in it because I was, I was lucid. I knew what was going on. I just made the mistake of saying, you know, so they 51 50 me like I was suicidal, um, which I always tell people I like myself too much. Like that's not, that's never been an issue all the times. I'd like

Chuck LaFLange (31:18.505)
Okay.

Chuck LaFLange (31:23.03)
Yeah, yeah. But here's the thing now with fentanyl, bro, with fentanyl, saying you want to use is almost suicidal. Right? Because it's especially after some fucking 10 months of clean time. Right? You know, like that's, yeah, that is almost suicidal, you know, unfortunately.

Casey Jordan (31:31.214)
I know.

Casey Jordan (31:37.969)
The last, my last OD was on my birthday in 2022 and it wasn't enough. Like it wasn't enough to, I still was out there for two more months after it. And you know, if it wasn't for us, 19 months, so 19 months and two days.

Chuck LaFLange (31:42.528)
Cough.

Chuck LaFLange (31:53.646)
Right, right, all right. So how much clean time you got now, bro?

Sorry. I'm congratulating you, congrats for that. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, man, yeah, right. How...

Casey Jordan (32:03.61)
Yeah. Appreciate it.

Chuck LaFLange (32:11.062)
Something I like to say, and if you can resonate with this or not, is that the first day is as hard as the first week, as hard as the first month, as hard as the first six, as hard as the first year, right? Like, so it's such a grind day, so in a year and a half, that first day was just as hard as your first year and a half, and I think people get caught up in these badges of clean time sometimes, and maybe somebody without that year and a half.

almost idolizes a guy, you should. You should look up to somebody who's done that, but at the same time, you gotta be proud of your day. Sometimes you gotta be proud of the hour. That's just the reality, right? I don't know if that resonates with you or not.

Casey Jordan (32:51.933)
You know, one thing that I think I've benefited from is like the pain of other relapses of like watching other people go through it. Like you just said, like the guy with very little time idolizes the guy with 18 months. When I first got out of treatment, there was like a family friend that was at some, he was, I was seeing him at meetings and you know, he's looking good, man. Had a light in his eyes like I'd never seen before and felt good to see him like that. Then one day,

I went to the meeting and he didn't have that look. I don't even know how to explain it. The color had left him. The life was just not there. It had been prior weeks and I asked him what happened. He relapsed, he went back out. In a matter of a couple days, just as messy as it was after years of doing it. I mean, they beat into my head. I had this...

Chuck LaFLange (33:30.319)
Yeah, I feel it.

Chuck LaFLange (33:35.915)
Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (33:45.794)
Right?

Casey Jordan (33:49.741)
I had a guy that took two men treatment that was up my ass the whole time. And he just kept saying that elevator doesn't stop. Like when you get off of it, when you get back on it, you are where you are. Like it just never, there is no going back to where you started. Like, you know, I mean, yeah, I honestly believe that.

Chuck LaFLange (34:01.59)
Yep, yep, yep.

Chuck LaFLange (34:06.826)
Nope, nope. And worse than that, you make up for lost time. Right? I know for myself, you know, OPS, whatever my thing, but yeah, you know, so crack was my thing. And I, oh, I went, I went a year, did I? Right? Well, let's watch for the, I'm okay, I'm kidding. I never went to a year ever, but yeah, until I did. Right. Yeah. So you got the platform, F around and recover. Let's talk about that shit, man. Cause like, that's, that's crazy. Hey.

The sense of humor thing, man. You and Chantelle from Trap House are so similar in your humor, right? I laugh every single day, shake my head. One of the things about people that have lived it, and our families too, for that matter, the bar gets moved. Muggles, as I call them, are normies, right?

Casey Jordan (34:40.684)
Hehehe.

Casey Jordan (34:53.503)
Thank you.

Casey Jordan (34:56.987)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (34:57.022)
What they look at is, what the fuck's that? Oh, it's hilarious, nevermind. Yeah, of course it's funny, right? Like you're just like, right? That bar gets moved. The shit you've seen, the shit you live through, the shit our families have dealt with. Even they like, my mom laughs at things that other moms are just like, what? Right? But like, here we are, man. We got here together, right? So your sense of humor, it's just, fuck, there's a couple of years I was like, ooh. It's like, I'm not gonna repost that one, but I'ma laugh, right? It's, you know.

Casey Jordan (35:02.386)
Mm-hmm.

Casey Jordan (35:12.658)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (35:24.081)
Yeah, sometimes I feel that way too. Like, did I really post that? Like, man. Really impulsive sometimes. Sometimes it just, yeah, you click the send button and you're like, man, I shouldn't have done that.

Chuck LaFLange (35:29.353)
Hahaha!

Ha ha.

Chuck LaFLange (35:37.326)
Have you ever gotten a bunch of kickback for something? Has anybody ever like really got down on you for something for a post?

Casey Jordan (35:40.937)
Uh, yeah, man, I posted, I, you know, I'm the king of stealing memes. And it's funny that like, my phone has like 15,000 pictures in it and 13,000 of them are memes. And it, you know, this is, I've done this forever. Like if I see something I think's funny, it's in my phone. And, um, I saw one I thought was funny and it was a kid falling over in a car seat.

Chuck LaFLange (35:54.99)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (36:01.102)
I'm sorry.

Casey Jordan (36:10.529)
And you would not believe the amount of, yeah, the amount of people that thought that was real. And the hundreds of comments of people like bashing me as a parent and, you know, from a stolen picture of a kid, you know, like, you know, a setup picture definitely didn't take it while he was driving. Like, you know, I, I said, I posted something last night and you know, I've

Chuck LaFLange (36:11.454)
Uh oh. Oh no. Oh no.

Chuck LaFLange (36:22.262)
Yeah, yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (36:28.784)
Ha ha ha.

I'm sorry.

Casey Jordan (36:39.965)
People, I don't really get it, but I love the women in recovery. Like there's the women that are in my home group, whatever. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but the women in my area that are in recovery, like the older ladies, they don't make them know better than that. And people think that I'm sexist or something, because I post some things and I'm the complete opposite. Like I realized that without mother's love, none of us are here.

Chuck LaFLange (36:40.76)
Oof.

Chuck LaFLange (36:54.966)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (36:58.598)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (37:10.145)
know what I mean? Like, especially seeing, I feel like it's really hard. And I've seen a lot of people and I'm grateful for the platform because I think that the position I'm in, it makes it okay to say where you've been or say that you're struggling. And I've seen all these women, like middle aged women, older women come out and be like,

Chuck LaFLange (37:10.846)
Yeah, man. Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

Chuck LaFLange (37:29.438)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (37:33.341)
You know, I struggle with this or that, but I can't say nothing because I'm in this group or that group and you know, if they're at my messenger and I get to say, you'll, if you come out and tell people what you're struggling with, you're going to be really surprised how they react. Like the majority of the time, like the support that you're going to get is it's 10 fold the negative energy you're going to get, like that's one thing that you don't know until you're like, once you make it into recovery, yeah, it's like.

Chuck LaFLange (37:46.394)
Yeah. Right.

Chuck LaFLange (37:54.918)
And fuck that negative anyway, right? You know, I yeah Fuck the negative stuff, man

Yeah.

Casey Jordan (38:03.217)
You know, the shame of something that hasn't even happened, the shame of like coming out and telling people that you struggle because there's a lot of closet alcoholics. There's a lot of closet addicts that like, they're not the junkie on the corner. They're the mom or dad taking their kids to soccer, but they can't quit. And they're afraid to like speak up. I'm grateful for the platform because people look at me and they're like, well, if he can tell people that he used to do drugs or he used to like not be able to stop drinking, like maybe I can do it.

Chuck LaFLange (38:18.646)
fucking right there's yeah

Chuck LaFLange (38:23.997)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (38:31.16)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (38:34.415)
You said you posted something last night. Is that the one with the dumpster? Is that the one we're talking about?

Casey Jordan (38:39.017)
Mmm, but the one that they flagged is a kid in a car seat Yeah

Chuck LaFLange (38:44.182)
I don't know if they flagged it. Okay, no, okay. Oh, was that just last night? I thought you had mentioned a post that you made last night. You made one about I'm 13 step in it and we are not the same. Yeah. That was like fuck, holy shit. Before she gets fat, right? Say it.

Casey Jordan (38:56.309)
Yeah, that gets them going too. Yeah, it's mine. What the hell is that? Yeah, no, I remember what it was. Yeah, your addictions in the parking lot doing push-ups. Yeah. Yeah, your Your addictions in the parking lot doing push-ups, mine's in the meeting, 13th step in the new hot newcomer is what it was. It's funny to joke about

Chuck LaFLange (39:11.865)
Say it, say it, come on, I dare you.

Chuck LaFLange (39:22.738)
Yeah, taking her out behind the dumpster before she gets fat. Right? Yeah, right. That's what she said.

Casey Jordan (39:30.349)
I mean, it is funny to joke about. Yeah, we both will. Cause like the-

Chuck LaFLange (39:32.354)
I'm gonna get in shit for this. No. I'm totally gonna get in shit. My mom's gonna hear this, bro. I'm sorry, mom, it was funny. It was funny because it was never a thing for anybody. That's why it was funny. Okay, anyway.

Casey Jordan (39:40.656)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (39:48.389)
Yeah, yeah, I like, I'm sensitive to it because like, I joke about the 13th step. But then when I was in treatment, I don't know how many people I watched walk out over like a rehab love story, like, you know, meet somebody in the first seven days and run off and, you know, thank you. Got it all figured out. Like, yeah, I think they should flip that one to number one, honestly. Step one, stay away from the other sex till you're sober.

Chuck LaFLange (40:00.562)
Oh yeah, hands down, right? Yeah, yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (40:06.43)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (40:11.924)
Yeah

Yeah, yeah, step 0.5. Right? Right. I'll tell you what, for me, man, it's something I rarely talk about, not openly anyway on the platform, is separating drugs and sex is a big deal for me. Right? Like, it's a big deal. And it's something that I had to work really hard at. And even now, I've only had one relationship since, you know, I decided to get sober.

Casey Jordan (40:18.776)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (40:43.854)
and like one relationship period, physically or otherwise, right? Because now I'm so hyper aware of that, right? Like, I'm just like, fuck, man, like my life for years, one went with the other, right? And so having to separate those two things is kind of a challenge, right?

Casey Jordan (41:03.397)
Yeah, um, honestly, like my worst relapses, my worst falloffs have all been relationship induced. I mean,

Chuck LaFLange (41:05.495)
You're welcome.

Chuck LaFLange (41:10.903)
What better excuse to go fuck your life up than be crying around about a woman? Right? Like what better excuse is there? You know, that's just... yeah.

Casey Jordan (41:14.583)
Oh yeah.

Casey Jordan (41:21.125)
Yeah, I remember the first one that I learned to drink their use over was like, my high school girlfriend lived with me. Great idea. I don't know whose parents, my parents, but she lived with me and then a guy died and they were dating while she was living with me. But I didn't know it until he died and she posted all these pictures of them together from when she'd...

been living with me and stuff. And that was like, that was straight down the drain. That was like the month before I went to college. So that explains like the spiral.

Chuck LaFLange (41:54.503)
Oh yeah. Right?

Chuck LaFLange (42:02.794)
Mm-hmm. You sure showed her, right? Yeah. Well, I've never heard that one before. I'm gonna keep that. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So, um, there's so much we can talk about, bro. There's so much, right? Let's do the content creator thing, though, for a minute. Something that I laugh at and struggle with. So people in your life that are close to you, they know.

Casey Jordan (42:05.305)
Yeah, I'll show you all hurt me.

Chuck LaFLange (42:32.938)
what you're up to with the content creation and trying to make a go of it and all those things. The liking and sharing of your shit. You know, I guess with you it's different because you've got some pretty racy stuff, but like my best friends, my family, it's like, could you like comment or share please? Right, like I just put hours into that reel, like what the hell, you know? And it's like you're begging them for this, which is, you know, there's probably some co-dependency issues there, but right, you know, of some kind, whether it's on the platform itself or on the people that you're asking about.

Casey Jordan (42:51.773)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (42:57.81)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (43:03.646)
I get it, like for myself, if you're a content creator in my life, whether it's somebody that I've never spoken to and you're just happen to be on my Facebook now, I will like, comment or share all the time. Because now I get it, now I know the struggle, right? What goes into making this work and how much time. Do you find that you have that as well or that, you know, again, your content's a little racy sometimes, but, you know.

Casey Jordan (43:25.669)
You know, I try to stay out of my head about it, but if we're going to actually, we're going to continue the honesty and the openness. Um, you know, it is a little, it is a little painful for me because, um, you know, I went from a following of like 5,000, I think I'm at like 14,000 right now. And there's just, there's these people from all over the country, all over the world, you know, and I have more support from a bunch of strangers.

Chuck LaFLange (43:33.61)
Yeah, of course.

Casey Jordan (43:55.409)
than I do from the people that I thought would be there. And that's the thing is like, I know I post some, I even, but like I have two profiles. I have a personal profile where I keep things kinda a little better, you know, a little cleaner, but you know, and you know, I was at.

Chuck LaFLange (44:10.978)
Yeah, yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (44:15.254)
You also post a lot of inspirational stuff too, man. So let's not take away from that.

Casey Jordan (44:18.961)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I try to keep it a little bit of both. I try to keep it light, but then I try to remind people, just keep going, just keep doing it, whatever works. That's the whole F around thing. I got this tattoo, it says, ain't dead yet. As long as we're still breathing, you can still recover. You're not done, but like...

Chuck LaFLange (44:39.836)
Yeah, yeah, right.

Casey Jordan (44:48.441)
If you go back out and you let the more get you, it's over.

Chuck LaFLange (44:54.166)
let the more get you, I like that, I like that, right? And that is the reality now, right? And then there's just a couple of things that have changed from back in the day. A, using now, we almost have to go back to the just say no days, which was ridiculous, but we all know that shit didn't work. What the reality is for young people, you want it done, it's a real thing, right? You don't even like, I know, I have had, we used to do Memorial Mondays, and I have a guest who lost his son.

who rarely touched drugs, once in a while recreational user, him and some buddies bought some MDMA at the bar, four of them went into the bathroom to do a line, all four of them dropped. His son was the only one that actually passed, but like that's the reality now, right? That is our reality, you know, all the drugs are tainted, you know, no. And because of that, relapse isn't like it used to be either. You know, it's just not like you go out there, well, look at Van Earl, right?

Casey Jordan (45:37.957)
Yeah. The drugs aren't the same anymore. Yeah.

Casey Jordan (45:52.605)
Yeah, that's a hard one to see, man. That's a wake up call for a lot of people for sure.

Chuck LaFLange (45:52.79)
Look at that, that just... Yeah, right, you know. I hope so, I hope so. I hope if nothing else that does serve us will wake up, right? I know for myself it most certainly does, right? You know, it's that easy. It's that easy. Everything can be gone, you know, and imagine how many people cried yesterday when we did that, right? And that doesn't even come close to the amount of people, right, you know what I mean, right? Like not even, it's not even a fraction of a fraction of the amount of people that were affected by that death, right?

Casey Jordan (46:13.585)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (46:17.862)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (46:22.954)
all those people he helped.

Chuck LaFLange (46:26.227)
But you can focus on that or you can focus on all those people that he helped. Right? And like I, you know, when I, when I spoke directly to her in that, in that episode of Black Ash, it was like to his mom. You can't even begin to, none of us could ever possibly imagine how many lives that guy's affected. Right? Like you, you see the video and you can count a dozen or two dozen or three dozen people.

Casey Jordan (46:30.993)
Yeah, exactly.

Casey Jordan (46:45.028)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (46:50.806)
But how many people have seen that and were affected by it? How many people, you know, did we not see him interact with it, whose lives he touched, and with delayed responses? Maybe it's three years from now before somebody really remembers that moment with him and, you know, wants to change their life or whatever, right? So, you know, it's, yeah, right. You know, fucking Jared gets me crying in the first two minutes of an episode, you know? Usually it takes me a bit longer than that. Right, right, right.

Casey Jordan (47:14.317)
asshole. Thanks Jared. God love him.

Chuck LaFLange (47:19.786)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's, you know, Jared's just a great guy. He really is. And for anybody listening, that's the Blacklist podcast. By now, if you've been paying attention to my platform, you know who he is, and most certainly Casey's as well, I guess, right? With Afron and Recover. He sure brought a lot of people that one yesterday. You know, yeah, he's quite the guy. He's quite the guy. So I just recorded with his other half, Brianna. So by the time this episode airs,

Brianna's will be upcoming. Cause I'm gonna, yeah. So tune in next week to hear her story. I gotta think that shit through, right? We do three episodes a week on Ash is Awesome. And then the fourth is the Black Ash Radio Project, right? So it's a pretty, it's crazy. I used to do six episodes a week, bro. If you can imagine that, right? That was nuts. Yeah, right. And there was, what happened was,

Casey Jordan (47:54.821)
Oh yeah. Cool.

Casey Jordan (48:11.337)
It's a lot of editing. It's a lot of stuff.

Chuck LaFLange (48:19.166)
We started doing this thing Memorial Monday. So we lost my cousin, it'll be two years in February. She's like a sister to me, like a daughter to my mom. She had 11 months clean time, lost the fight to get her kids back with 11 months under her belt. Dude, like a toxic mother-in-law. Lost the fight to get her five kids back and it was just too much for her. She went back out and she was, you know, died alone in a bathroom, you know. So mom.

made this post on Attic's diary about her and really spoke to who she was, not so much how she passed. And it went crazy viral. So when I first started the show, I said, I'm gonna read this post from mom about Jessie. I think this will be good. I couldn't do it. I couldn't get through it. So I got mom to read it and send it to me. And it was on a Monday and that turned into Memorial Monday.

And it was all about this, let's remember, like let's focus on who these people were and that there are so much more than a statistic or how they passed. Maybe we can get the attention of some normal people, some muggles and see what's really going on out there, you know, and just put the focus on who they were. So that was Memorial Mondays. And then Wednesdays I had, you know, my kaleidoscope Wednesday that we still do with the therapist, Ryan Baffgate. And then Thursdays we were doing this kind of funny thing. And then Fridays I started interviewing people who have family members that were still in it, the mothers and brothers and you know.

So that was Family Fridays. And then it just like one thing led to another. And all of a sudden I've got six episodes a week. And it was like, holy shit, man. And then we switched to video and that was not sustainable anymore. Just was not, right? So, but even three. So we got the Wednesdays with him. The Weekend Rumble, you'll really like that if you pay attention to it. I'm like plugging my own shit here right now, by the way. I'm allowed to do that. Um, the Weekend Rumble, I have Dr. Lisa, who is a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction.

She's one of my co-hosts. She's never even smoked a cigarette, but her brother for 23 years in active addiction, she quit her job as an oil field engineer, so the big money, to go back to school and become a psychiatrist to further understand her brother's struggle. If you can imagine, right? She's just... That lens is one in a million, right? And she's just like the most incredible human being. So she co-hosts with me with another co-host, Attica, who's...

Casey Jordan (50:28.431)
awesome.

Chuck LaFLange (50:39.446)
a frontline harm reduction worker on Vancouver's downtown east side, up here, or up over there in Canada, I should say. And we bring on different medical professionals, healthcare professionals, harm reduction, I'm missing one in there, oh, and recovery people for like, to do some different things. Quite often doctors lately, actually, we've had a ton of doctors on. And then the third episode is this one. It varies day to day, or week to week, what day I release it.

Sometimes it's a Family Friday, sometimes it's a Memorial Monday, sometimes it's a recovery kind of thing like we're doing now. That varies all over the place, right? So, yeah, three episodes a week, it's a lot of content, right? A lot of content. And then trying to manage all the different social media platforms too, right? So, you know.

Casey Jordan (51:24.137)
I don't know how you do it. I can barely keep track of one and I don't even make videos. I mean, I make minute long videos.

Chuck LaFLange (51:30.083)
Well, I'll tell you what, I was doing 12, 16 hours a day, and then I came here. I have to maintain the, like I still have to make a living. So I've still maintained the amount of content, but I've had to mix it in with my programming here, which is pretty intense, right? Like in a normal day, there's mindfulness, therapy, yoga, meditation.

That might be it. Oh, and group, right? So like a normal day here is probably six hours of programming and I still had to maintain all that. What I've done though is I've got better at the show stuff because I've had to, right? So now when I leave here, the idea being, maybe I can find some balance because now I figured out how to do all that stuff in less time than I have to do, right, but I'll probably just end up doing more stuff. Let's be honest. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Casey Jordan (52:15.425)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (52:23.542)
What do you got going on in the future here? What do you got? You got future plans? What's your deal?

Casey Jordan (52:28.005)
Man, I don't really know what direction I'm headed. I've thought about some peer support stuff, but I still feel like I'm not quite reaching as many people if I'm in that, if that's where I'm at. I'm still trying to figure it out. I like to talk, I like people. For some god awful reason, people like me, I don't know why. But...

Um.

Chuck LaFLange (52:58.912)
This must be the good looks, right?

Casey Jordan (53:00.917)
I, you know, people say stuff like that to me and I suffer from like the worst kind of like body dysmorphia. I still struggle with the mirror. There's days where I walk by the mirror and like, damn, you look all right, you're doing good. And then there's the majority of days where I'm like, you look like shit today.

Things aren't going your way. You know, I got a case of the poor pitiful me sometimes, but I've gotten so much support from the platform, man. That's like, that's crazy. Just the amount of people like, not only buying bracelets, but there's been so many people like donate so I can ship bracelets without having to worry about the shipping and stuff like that. I mean, it's just crazy how... Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (53:26.402)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (53:31.722)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (53:50.466)
Let's talk about those bracelets. Let's get a good look at that on camera and tell us what it says, yeah?

Casey Jordan (53:54.993)
Got a bunch of them. Um, just says F around and recover. And, um, I just, I heard when I was, I was going to NA meetings for a little while and there's this dude, he's probably almost, I think he's coming up on eight years clean and, uh, I saw him a lot while he was out and he was one of those dudes that like, ain't no way he's coming back. And you know, now it's like the

Chuck LaFLange (54:01.032)
Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (54:05.386)
I'm sorry.

Casey Jordan (54:21.261)
It's the complete opposite. Like you could never see him being the other way, but he used to drive me to meetings and he used to fuck with or mess with me. And he would be like, we're going to fuck around and recover. Aren't we? And I was like, you know what? I just, I like the sound of it. And I changed it to the F just because I try to. Yeah. I mean, I like.

Chuck LaFLange (54:33.056)
Hahaha!

Chuck LaFLange (54:42.13)
Obvious reasons, yeah. Because you're all about not wanting to offend people.

Casey Jordan (54:47.961)
Yeah, that's just, I feel like it's harder like to get it out there if it does say the F word. Like, I don't know.

Chuck LaFLange (54:49.134)
crickets.

Chuck LaFLange (54:55.818)
Of course it does. It's a real smart decision, man. Yeah, most certainly, right? Most certainly. How much can we buy those bracelets for?

Casey Jordan (54:58.913)
Yeah, personally, um, honestly, it's $5 a ship them and then I was just taking donations. Like I'm not, I'm not putting a price on them. Like I ordered a bunch of them. It cost me a little bit of money. Um, but I'm not really worried about the return. Um, but we did get to do something cool. Like within the first day or two of me having them. Uh,

Chuck LaFLange (55:11.054)
Okay, yep, yep.

Casey Jordan (55:27.205)
I donated 200 bucks to a local group that like transports people to and from treatment or whatever. They help people get into treatment. Yeah, so they have like drivers and stuff that they give gas cards to so that they can pick people up and take them or whatever. So there was a guy, he was from the town that almost killed me. Like I didn't get my things here, got my things in a local town and that town, you know,

Chuck LaFLange (55:35.453)
Oh, that's awesome.

Chuck LaFLange (55:45.522)
I like that.

Casey Jordan (55:57.353)
try to stay away from there at this point, but like there was a guy that overdosed and died and his family made a group or whatever. I don't know if it's a nonprofit exactly what it is. I don't ask a lot of questions. I'm still not too keen to this. I'm still learning, but to be able to give 200 bucks to help people get to treatment is just pretty cool.

Chuck LaFLange (55:57.462)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (56:10.934)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (56:20.014)
That's deadly, man. That's awesome. Absolutely, right? So I think we got to find someone in Canada to do that. We're like, we were talking ahead of time. If what you're thinking doesn't work out, you let me know. I got a whole pile of people that will gladly take on that responsibility. Right? You know? Yeah. Yeah, most certainly, man. Most certainly. You know, strong Canadian audience. I'm about 60% US, 40% Canada right now. So, you know? Yeah.

Casey Jordan (56:36.049)
Yeah, we'll figure something out for sure.

Chuck LaFLange (56:49.686)
So nothing else in the pipeline, just kind of figuring that out as you go as we get to the hour mark here. Yeah.

Casey Jordan (56:53.957)
Yeah, I'm just kind of, you know, fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy. I've always been that way. Um, and I kind, I have the not kind of the just for today, one day at a time approach of like, if I started looking too far forward, then I might trip because. You know, I don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. Uh, life's been pretty, I mean, life's been really crazy and sobriety. Like.

Chuck LaFLange (57:01.558)
Mm-hmm.

Casey Jordan (57:22.293)
A lot of it's dealing with consequences of my own actions, you know, I won't lie about that. But at the same time, I still have to cope with all that stuff. I still, I still have to handle it. And my main coping skill is no longer here. So it's a new way to live. It's different, but it's worth it for sure.

Chuck LaFLange (57:41.722)
Right, right. Alright. I'll ask you two questions before we get into daily gratitudes. First one is, if you had to give some advice to somebody that was either early in recovery or looking at getting into recovery, what would you say?

Casey Jordan (57:56.397)
Um, find someone in recovery and, you know, talk to them. Uh, cause I think a lot of what kept me on the outside looking in was a lot of people with opinions that weren't struggling, you know, they weren't going through what I was going through. A lot of that just stop approach, just quit. I mean, that approach did not work for me. Yeah. Thanks. I.

Chuck LaFLange (58:18.259)
Yeah, yeah. Never thought of that, right? Yeah, that never occurred to me. Yeah.

Casey Jordan (58:23.889)
I love that idea. Let's try it. Yeah, that's probably the biggest thing is reaching out to somebody that's open like me. That's like, you don't have to be afraid. I'm not gonna judge anybody. I've been through it all.

Chuck LaFLange (58:39.55)
Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, all right.

Casey Jordan (58:42.461)
Just find what makes you comfortable for sure.

Chuck LaFLange (58:45.706)
most certainly. The second question, if you had talked to, because this show focuses so much on the families, you know, if you had talked to advice for the loved one of somebody who's suffering an addiction, what would you say?

Casey Jordan (58:58.461)
find someone in recovery and pass them along. Don't tell them what to do, don't give them your opinion. That stuff I think made me sicker. I think that shame and that guilt of dealing with family. But, and it's crazy too, cause I come from a family where I have an uncle.

Chuck LaFLange (59:02.541)
No, no, no.

Casey Jordan (59:20.873)
who was in the program for like, in a program for like 35 years, probably saved hundreds of people. I have an aunt that she's coming up on 30 years, she's been in the program. And, you know, family kind of shut me out to them. Like, because my problem was different, I guess, because they were recovering alcoholics and I was on the other side of the spectrum. They didn't realize that we suffer from the same thing, like the same issue. And, you know, I think it helps

Chuck LaFLange (59:40.7)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (59:45.642)
Yeah, man. Right, right.

Casey Jordan (59:51.361)
If you have family that's in a program or something, that's where it's at. Because, I mean, that's what worked for me. I mean, I don't like, I hate giving advice because I feel like I don't know shit. But that's what gave me the initial, it gave me the boost that I needed for sure, was having somebody with almost 30 years, you know.

Chuck LaFLange (01:00:06.534)
Yeah, yeah. You got something to say, bro. You know, you got something to say, right? You've heard that, yeah.

Casey Jordan (01:00:17.633)
a retired school teacher with almost 30 years that, you know, I never would have dreamed was recovering alcoholic, but she knew the way out, you know, like.

Chuck LaFLange (01:00:26.91)
Yeah, right, right. Yeah, man, yeah. Hey, that brings us to my favorite part of the show, and that is the daily gratitudes. So what you got for us today?

Casey Jordan (01:00:37.593)
Um, I'll keep it pretty short. Um, I've got a couple of kids, my son's six, my daughter will be two here in, uh, 13 days or something.

You know, I'm grateful for them because, you know, like I told you before, I tried to get clean for them. I tried that and you know, I failed horribly, failed miserably. And I felt like I really let them down, especially with my daughter, you know, because it was the second chance to get it right. And I still, I couldn't quit. Like I was in my head like, dude, you got to put this down. But at the same time, I'm...

texting the dealer, you know, like the insanity of it. Like you want to be done, but you just can't. So I'm really grateful for my kids and like that second opportunity to like be there and be more involved than what I had growing up, you know, having a dad that's there every day and that kind of stuff. You know, I grew up without that, but you know, I'm able to do that now and you know.

Chuck LaFLange (01:01:21.643)
Yeah, man.

Chuck LaFLange (01:01:25.08)
Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (01:01:38.125)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (01:01:45.981)
I'm grateful for the platform that F-Round Recovery has given me.

It's just, there's some hope, man. There's some hope. And I remember being hopeless. I just like at the end of my rope, not knowing the way out. I mean, it's like being locked in a closet with the lights off. Like you can't find the door. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's so you can get out, but you can't leave. Like, and you know.

Chuck LaFLange (01:02:13.758)
Yeah.

Casey Jordan (01:02:22.285)
I've been open about my struggles. You know, I'm not, I don't like to call myself a creator. That's not what I am. I'm just a dumb ass with a phone that can't shut up. I just, I wanna help people and you know, F-Round Recover has given me a way to touch people all over the world. I mean, do you know Danny Shannon at all? Have you seen any of his stuff, the guy from Australia?

Chuck LaFLange (01:02:35.374)
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 LaFLange (01:02:46.19)
That's awesome, man.

Nope, don't know that one. No, no.

Casey Jordan (01:02:51.225)
Yeah, he's pretty big out there. But yeah, like stuff.

Chuck LaFLange (01:02:55.798)
I'll have to reach out. That's like a hop, skip and a fart from here, right? Like Australians, that's a, there's a beaten path with the Australians and Thailand, right? So, yeah.

Casey Jordan (01:02:59.706)
Yeah.

Yeah, Sober Squad, you'll have to look them up. They're pretty cool. I like those guys. I like everybody in the internet recovery community. Like, you know, you know, Ben Lerner love Ben. Ben's like, yeah, he's like my hero when it comes to like the recovery community because he just, I don't know, just being out there and being open and like even the simple stuff like

Chuck LaFLange (01:03:05.594)
I will. I will.

Chuck LaFLange (01:03:15.276)
Oh yeah, yeah. He was on Black Ash a week before last. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Casey Jordan (01:03:32.061)
The dad stuff he shares, for guys like me, we gotta see that stuff, man. Because we don't, honestly, I started drinking and using so young and didn't have that guidance. I didn't know what a normal life was like. So like seeing other guys living it in recovery, it gives you a boost.

Chuck LaFLange (01:03:35.531)
Yeah, man.

Chuck LaFLange (01:03:49.942)
Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. Yeah. For myself, I am grateful for vapes. Still, I'm still trying to quit smoking. I'm grateful for everything that's happening to me here right now. This is just the most amazing experience, right? This has been wow. I live in paradise, bro.

I live in paradise right now and it's, you know, the generosity of so many people. You help them with the GoFundMe page. I do need another burst guys of GoFundMe help there. I'm trying to get my education visa here and that's an expensive thing and I don't have any money. So hopefully you can find it in your hearts to give it a little bit. I am thankful for another great guest. I'm glad we connected, man. And last most certainly not least, I am grateful to every single Washtner listener and supporter. Whatever you guys are doing, it's working. Please keep doing it.

Like, comment, share, do all the things. Every time you do any one of these things, you're getting me a little bit closer to living my best life. My best life is to make a humble living, spreading the message. The message is this. If you're in active addiction right now, today could be that day. Today could be the day that you start a lifelong journey. Reach out to a friend, reach out to a family member, call into detox, go to a meeting. I don't really care what you do, just please get that journey started because it is so 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 conversation. You just take one more minute out of your day and text that person, let them know they are loved. Use the words.

Casey Jordan (01:05:16.453)
You are love.

Chuck LaFLange (01:05:18.962)
That little glimmer of hope just might be the thing that brings him back.

200 fucking episodes and I still get them.