Aaron is a man on a mission, and by all accounts an advocate for mental health, those who suffer in addiction, and those who have chosen and/or struggle with recovery.
Title Sponsor for this episode is the Yatra Trauma Centre
Chuck LaFLange (00:02.22)
Hello everybody, watchers, listeners, supporters of all kinds. Welcome to another episode of the Ashes to Awesome Podcast. I'm your host Chuck LaFlange checking in from Krabi, Thailand. Joining me in virtual studio halfway around the world back in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, is Aaron Gleadow from Detox Junkie, a social media page that seems to be blowing up these days. How you doing today, Aaron?
Detox Junkie (00:23.931)
Doing very well Chuck. Thanks for having me on the show today man.
Chuck LaFLange (00:27.464)
Yeah, thanks for coming on. Thanks for coming. I did get it right. You are Saskatoon, right? Right? Okay, okay, okay. I've seen you in the studio over at Dan's, so I assumed that you were, you know, right? If you're in person at Dan's, you're from Saskatoon or from somewhere close by kind of thing, right? So, and I should say that's at Hard Knocks Talks. Go check them out, guys. They're a good broadcast there. Second best recovery podcast out of Canada, I should say. I see. Same way he refers to me, what's, you know, right? So, hey, listen.
Detox Junkie (00:31.433)
I am, yep.
Detox Junkie (00:39.287)
That's right.
Detox Junkie (00:43.513)
You got it man.
Detox Junkie (00:55.606)
Yeah, absolutely.
Chuck LaFLange (00:57.036)
Before we get into your story, there's a quick series of questions I always like to ask. I forgot to tell you about this going into it, so I'm going to blindside you a little bit with it, but it's not really.
And I'm always getting to a place when I ask these questions, Aaron. When's the first time you remember getting messed up?
Detox Junkie (01:15.054)
time I remember getting messed up I was 16 years old and I was in Roberts Creek BC and I was, it's a brief story, I was at a friend of mine's house, we'll call him Mark because that's what his name is and yeah exactly we took you know like quintessential sort of teenagers, I filled up a big glass from his parents liquor cabinet.
Chuck LaFLange (01:18.632)
Okay.
Chuck LaFLange (01:29.735)
I won't say his initials, but his name is Mark. Right. Okay. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (01:40.434)
And I was so intrigued by alcohol. I had tasted alcohol at this point and I knew that it sparked something in me. I didn't know why. I didn't know why I was drawn to it, but I knew I wanted it. And even before I'd ever been drunk. So I had this big tall glass of shit mix essentially, and I chugged that thing down and boom, I was off to the races, man. And that was it. That just, that sparked a 26 years of addiction.
Chuck LaFLange (02:02.42)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (02:06.228)
So do you remember how it made you feel specifically at that point?
Detox Junkie (02:10.27)
100%. I really do. It's profound. Yeah, it's profound to look back that long in my life and remember so, so clearly how it felt the first time that I poured that much alcohol down my throat. And there was a euphoria, unlike anything. And I have to be honest about that. It was a euphoric experience. And sure, I was sick as a dog very soon after drinking that. But the euphoria that came with it, I wanted
Chuck LaFLange (02:11.93)
And how was that?
Detox Junkie (02:37.05)
I was listening to Nirvana, it was cranked. It was in the early 90s and like the whole grunge scene was blowing up on the West Coast. And I was on the West Coast of BC at the time, Canada. And and the whole the whole environment, it just it sucked me in. I wanted more instantly, man. Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (02:56.076)
So, did you at the time, were you self-aware enough at the time to understand how profound that was for you? Or does that come with the benefit of hindsight?
Detox Junkie (03:07.05)
Yeah, it comes with the benefit of hindsight for sure. So at the time, by the time I was 16, I knew I felt different. I knew I was different and I do have ADHD and it's diagnosed and it's moderate to severe. So it's pretty, it's a substantial amount of ADHD, if you will. And I'd gone through my life with this, not knowing why I felt so freaking different. I knew I looked at the world differently. I knew I felt differently. I knew I heard things differently. I perceived things differently and I felt alone in the world.
very, very alone. So when the first time I tasted booze and the first time I lashed onto alcohol, it really did.
It made me, it washed away all that anxiety, man. It cleared my mind of that indifference and made me feel accepted. And that was something I wanted to chase hard because as a child, I was always looking for an answer and a way out. And this suddenly appeared in my lap and it looked like it was one. So.
Chuck LaFLange (03:49.271)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (04:00.834)
Okay.
Chuck LaFLange (04:04.092)
Okay, okay. I can relate to the ADHD. Mine was, has been undiagnosed until very recently. I didn't even think that I might have it until I got sober because I'd been high for so long on stimulants. I'd been self-medicating, right? So all of a sudden it was like, oh shit, I'm not self-medicating, and life got very real for me very fast. I'll actually say, and this show isn't about me, but it is something that I do like to speak to when it comes up.
in my first six months of recovery, when the day, I still remember very clearly, the conversation was with my buddy's wife, and she's like, well, of course you've got ADHD. Like, look at you, man. You're a train wreck, and you've been self-medicating all these years. I was like, oh, okay. Now I get it. And I still remember, and I still think sometimes, I wish I didn't know that, because here's the thing, when the chaos begins to take over, and it does.
It really does, and I'm sure you can relate to that, the chaotic mind that can, you know? There was a period of time where it was like 40 bucks in a phone call, man, like, and I can feel normal again. And it was like, it was those demons of addiction found a way, the moment that I knew that about myself, it was like, you know, here it is, you know, here it is. Hey, there's an answer for this, there's an answer for this, right? And I really had to fight against that for some time, so.
Detox Junkie (05:02.22)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (05:25.568)
I think that's whenever somebody says that, I kind of jump on that, right? I'll bet you can, I'll bet you can. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (05:26.548)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (05:30.782)
I can understand that though, Chuck, completely. I mean, the noise, yeah, the noise in my head was excruciatingly loud and confusing for a long time. And I knew that drugs and alcohol could flip that switch. It could deaden that sound. It could provide me with relief, or at least that's the way I looked at it back then, until it didn't.
Chuck LaFLange (05:42.124)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (05:52.456)
So did you look at it as relief or did you just know that it was... you were just drawn to it? Like for myself I didn't realize that it was relief until it wasn't, right? But so for yourself, can you say that it was relief from the noise? Yeah? Okay, okay. That's...
Detox Junkie (06:06.474)
Yep, 100% for sure. Yeah, it smoothed things out for me. Like it was, I mean, it was absolutely the wrong way of dealing with it. For sure. But it was all I knew. I wouldn't suggest it.
Chuck LaFLange (06:16.632)
Well, we both dealt with it the same way. That's for sure. That's for sure, right? So with that said, and let's just talk about ADHD for a second now that the conversation's gone there. There is noise, but did you find throughout your life that sometimes, like you said, you looked at things differently. You thought about things differently. All those things. A strength at times, though, too, right?
Detox Junkie (06:28.576)
Yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (06:44.264)
you seem to excel at certain things and I'm kind of relating to my own self now but I'm not so I'm asking you because you really got me curious just the way you worded that. Do you find it a strength for you at times as well?
Detox Junkie (06:56.43)
ADHD specifically? Absolutely. I now in my sobriety and I mean, since I've been sober this time, and if you followed any of detox junkie on my page, even recently, I put out a post, you know, when I sobered up in 2021, it wasn't the first time I've been through that many, many times. But this time in particular, after I got sober, I was able to do the work and really learn so much more about my ADHD.
Chuck LaFLange (06:58.464)
Yeah, right, right?
Detox Junkie (07:25.23)
PTSD, I was diagnosed with PTSD shortly after getting sober as well, which makes perfect sense. But I was able to learn about these things. And I was, I'm able now to see my ADHD as a strength and a weakness. Absolutely. It is something that holds me back in certain areas of my life. I will never say ADHD is my superpower. It's not. There are aspects to it that really do help me. I'm super creative. I'm super empathetic.
I'm super compassionate. I listen to people well, which actually isn't a common trait in ADHD. Often in ADHD, conversation goes like this. But for some reason, I become hyper-focused when people are talking about their own issues, their own pain, their suffering, and looking at me to provide help.
Chuck LaFLange (08:11.461)
There's probably some deflection there, I would imagine, if you're anything like me, right? Right? Yeah. If I paid attention to your shit, all right, it's mine could take a nap, right?
Detox Junkie (08:15.242)
likely. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's just it.
Chuck LaFLange (08:27.336)
Oh, there was something that I was gonna jump on you there too. Oh geez. Ha I don't remember what something Yeah, I don't know it was it was brilliant
Detox Junkie (08:34.482)
No worries. Another thing about ADHD though, because it makes so many thoughts fly through my head so often, I've learned how I can pick out certain things that strike me and preserve them and either convert them into a poem or into a piece of prose or into a reel that I put out on my Facebook page or what have you, but the constant flurry of activity inside my brain
Chuck LaFLange (08:44.013)
Yep.
Detox Junkie (09:04.478)
I've learned how to harness that and pull out, extract out the creative bits and the hitting, the heavy hitting parts that I want to be able to share, to be able to round out my own story and to be able to provide help and inspiration for others. So that's a really cool thing that I don't think I'd have without ADHD.
Chuck LaFLange (09:23.332)
Ah, so that when you do that, and now I'm really interested in that process because I, you've got me thinking about my own processes that way now. Is it that, do you hyper focus for 10 or 15 minutes or 20 minutes or an hour or whatever it is on something because it because it's there? And now it's like, as I tend to do that, that's why I ask and you never, I never thought about it until you just said it. That creative stuff because I've never considered myself a creative, but now it's like...
Detox Junkie (09:32.984)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (09:52.852)
I come up with some really weird shit sometimes, right? And I was like, where did that ever come from? But, and it's just, yeah, it's a thought, run it around, that I just grab and go, boop! Right? We're gonna run with this for a little while, right? That's a curious thing that you say that, man. There's something else that I say about ADHD. Go ahead, no, I wanna hear your thoughts on that. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (10:01.691)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Detox Junkie (10:13.394)
No, I was going to say I have this weird thing and I've never shared this before, but I, when I walk through life, I combine imagery with sounds and words in my head. It's odd, it's hard to explain, but I'll have a thought and it'll immediately transform in my head into a phrase or the start of a poem or, and this is daily life. This is just walking through the grocery store, man.
Chuck LaFLange (10:42.14)
I believe it. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (10:42.558)
and then the sound of the music and then the imagery. And for some reason I've been able to learn, I don't think it's even, I think it's intuition. I think it's intuitive, but grasp all of that and put it together in such a way to be able to portray whatever message I'm feeling and really think will resound with my own audience. Whereas before in the past, that used to just bounce around in my head constantly and I didn't really know what to do with it. So...
Chuck LaFLange (11:05.764)
I like that.
Chuck LaFLange (11:12.737)
So an outlet now, that's very cool.
Detox Junkie (11:12.958)
It's, it's, it's provided an outlet. It's provided an absolutely massive outlet and it's, it's like a relief on my brain to be honest. Yeah. It's pretty cool.
Chuck LaFLange (11:20.492)
Uh, okay. So, and now I remembered what I was gonna say earlier. Something that I often talk about with ADHD is, I laugh with everybody else does at the TikToks and the whatever and the, you know, where's my keys? I call it the monkey show, the monkey dance, you know, where's my keys? And you should have seen me as a drug dealer with 22 pockets in the winter, right? It was fucking nuts, right? Just constantly, you know? However, as much as I laugh along with everybody else.
Detox Junkie (11:26.157)
All right.
Detox Junkie (11:33.452)
Mm-hmm.
Detox Junkie (11:43.023)
I bet.
Chuck LaFLange (11:48.308)
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like not to be pissed off at myself all the time. Right, and can you relate to that? Right, like that, fuck, where'd you put your keys? Like how can you be such a fucking dummy? You know, and I hate to swear that much, I try not to, but that is the dialogue that I have with myself, often out loud, right? You know, and I think that's the part that maybe some people don't understand.
Detox Junkie (12:01.582)
For sure.
Detox Junkie (12:07.211)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (12:12.5)
is there's a real chaos there that is really frustrating for a lot of people, right? You know, and it's, you know... Yeah, yeah, right. I didn't... somebody was...
Detox Junkie (12:13.374)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (12:17.866)
Yeah. And you just nailed it with that word, Chuck chaos. You're right. And that's the way it feels. It feels like chaos.
Chuck LaFLange (12:27.636)
Yeah, and anger, like self-loathing is a shitty thing, right? My experience at Yatra Center, he, Mike Miller at the Yatra really helped me to address some of that horrible self-talk, right, that centers around my ADHD, but through the help of internal family system therapy, that specifically, but it's been an amazing thing just to.
Detox Junkie (12:34.821)
It is.
Detox Junkie (12:45.975)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (12:51.4)
Now I catch myself. So I'll start that dialogue with myself often, but I catch myself. Right? You know, it's okay. No, man, don't do that to yourself. You know what I mean? Right? Yeah. Self-loathing sucks.
Detox Junkie (12:55.798)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's it.
Yeah, that's right. And I actually put a post out about negative self talk. Yeah, it sucks harsh. It's it's you know what self loathing is it I can probably do more damage to myself emotionally than anybody else can at this point I have some pretty solid boundaries up. And I have huge warning bells go off in my head when I'm being approached with any sort of narcissistic opinions or manipulation or gaslighting like it's just, I'm very aware of that shit.
Chuck LaFLange (13:15.889)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (13:31.634)
is that negative self-talk. And I've spoken about it before, but I'm at the stage and you just shed some light on it, Chuck, is when it does crop up, now I'm very quick to be self-aware of it happening. And I make an effort to flip it. And I make an effort to flip it every time, because that's really what's gonna help you establish new behavior in your life. And I'm speaking you as in the French term, vue. I always go vue because there's a plural you in French and not in English.
Chuck LaFLange (13:34.88)
Yeah, man.
Chuck LaFLange (13:45.217)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (14:02.066)
So the collective you, as you practice being self-aware and grabbing onto those nuggets of negativity that you produce in your head and say about yourself, and you grab them and you flip them, you tell yourself that's not true. I'm not an idiot. And even if there's ADHD-isms coming up and you're constantly losing your keys or putting your shit in the wrong place, I do that every day. I do have some tools that I use at home now.
Chuck LaFLange (14:19.424)
Yep. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (14:30.882)
that help you with that, but it still happens. And when it does, and I start going down that, oh man, are you ever gonna get this? You know what, I might not ever get this. I might not ever be able to put my keys in the exact same spot and remember where they are. And that might be part of my ADHD, and that's totally okay. And I have to let myself be okay with that, you know? So it's, yeah. Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (14:52.948)
Yes, yeah, 100%. Something I often say, and I almost guarantee you're gonna relate to this one, Aaron, is I am great at implementing systems of organization, I am terrible at maintaining them. So, like I can come up with a way to organize your entire life for you, right? In subcategories and all the things, but do you think I could maintain that? Not a chance, right? Right?
Detox Junkie (15:15.49)
Sure, totally.
Chuck LaFLange (15:19.244)
That's that creative bit comes up, you know, whatever, right? Great ideas. But, um, so listen, self-loathing. You got a story. I mean, you go by detox junkie. So obviously you got a story. Tell me about some of that self-loathing. Where's that coming from, brother? I think that was a good segue. We just did there. I think that was good. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (15:35.746)
Hahaha!
Detox Junkie (15:39.626)
All right, let's talk about it a little bit. So, I mean, we touched on it a little bit with, yeah, that's a perfect segue. We talked a bit about ADHD in my childhood and growing up with those feelings of less than, you know what I mean? So leading into my addiction, I already had established there was something wrong with me. I believed that about myself, right? So add addiction into that. And really my addiction took off probably when I was about 18 years old. I was actually living on a kibbutz in Israel.
Chuck LaFLange (15:44.844)
Ha ha
Chuck LaFLange (15:53.27)
Yep.
Detox Junkie (16:10.11)
at the time. And I spent about five months in Israel. And yeah, Kabutz is it's a community. It's it's a community where people on the community all work together for a common goal of providing for the community as a whole. And these exist all over Israel. It sounds almost communist in nature. It's not. But but people do collectively work together.
Chuck LaFLange (16:10.248)
Okay, I could butt. What's that?
Chuck LaFLange (16:26.064)
Okay. Yeah.
It kind of does. It kind of does. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (16:39.935)
Yeah, yeah,
Detox Junkie (17:03.858)
And actually a couple of those people now follow Detox Junkie on Facebook from, you know, 30, 26 years ago, whatever it was. So it's pretty cool. But.
Chuck LaFLange (17:08.097)
Oh.
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (17:15.078)
I wasn't drinking like normal people. And when I got back to Canada, I lived on the West Coast, I went back home and things really started falling apart. I started just drinking more and more, but also starting to dabble and experiment with drugs. And it started a slow spiral. And I kinda got lucked out at that point. I think it could have gone south, but at that point I was actually took a job in Toronto.
And so at 20 years old, I flew to Toronto. I started a new job at a resort as a server and it kind of washed away the lifestyle I had from the past but the booze hung on. The booze hung on big time. And I just started the whole pattern over again in Toronto. And this pattern repeated through my 20s and 30s. I mean, when I got sober and detoxed, clean and sober in 2021, I had four other attempts before that. When I was 19, I went to AA.
Chuck LaFLange (17:45.001)
Okay.
Chuck LaFLange (17:55.905)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (18:14.133)
Yep.
Detox Junkie (18:14.474)
and I wasn't ready. I thought I was different than everybody else. I thought that I didn't need it. And then, you know, jumping ahead a little bit more, in my mid-20s, I did the same thing. And I, you know, it was again, I wasn't ready. I was different than all those old guys. I was in my mid-20s. By this point, I was back in Vancouver working at the keg restaurants. I was actually a manager for the keg for years, which was an absolutely perfect
Chuck LaFLange (18:40.201)
Okay, okay.
Detox Junkie (18:45.098)
Disguise. Working in the restaurant business is a perfect disguise for a person in addiction. I have to be honest. And throughout my 20s, being a manager for the keg and getting invited to these big high-end parties and eating great food and people all around always drinking, my addiction hid very well within the confines of that job. But inside man, I was crushed. I was miserable. I knew where I was. I knew what was happening to me.
Chuck LaFLange (18:46.702)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (18:52.484)
100%.
Chuck LaFLange (19:05.408)
Yeah, as it would.
Detox Junkie (19:13.002)
I'd already stepped into the rooms of AA a few times at this point. So I knew that where I was going, like I had the knowledge behind what I was doing and that really started implanting that self-loathing more and more and more. And the difficulty started cropping up the credit problems, the money issues, the multiple tickets and driving problems. I spent, you know, a day in jail here and there. That type of thing all started building up on me in my 20s.
Chuck LaFLange (19:28.868)
Okay.
Detox Junkie (19:42.718)
and into my 30s. And I didn't slow down, man. Like in my 30s, my first son was born at I think I was 30 years old, yes, no, because he's 13 now. So I was 32 when he was born. And for a while, I was okay. I went to work and I went back to school, I went into health sciences, and I got a job as a diagnostic technologist here in Saskatoon. And, and life was okay. But you know what, it really wasn't.
It was okay from the outside. I was able to hold down a job. I was able to dress myself and look decent and kind of be there for the kids. But what was happening in the home was a completely different story, Chuck. And I was just sinking deeper and deeper and deeper into self-loathing and pulling myself away from that entire environment and isolating myself.
Chuck LaFLange (20:26.02)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (20:35.529)
Okay.
Detox Junkie (20:37.886)
It was fucking brutal. It was the most lonely period of my life, especially the last few years leading up to when I decided to go to treatment. And those few years were ridiculously dark. COVID came right before I went to treatment. And that was the catalyst on my addiction. And I think COVID could have gone two ways for me, and it almost did. It could have gone to death or it could have gone the route I took, which is, which is...
propelled me into treatment. But the first little while in when COVID hit Chuck, I was deeply, yeah, go ahead.
Chuck LaFLange (21:09.61)
I think.
Chuck LaFLange (21:15.324)
And I think COVID did that to a lot of people, a lot of people, right? Yeah, what COVID did for addiction in North America especially, and I can't speak to the rest of the world, it was awful, it really was, right? You've got, if addiction is a lack of connection, is the opposite of connection, then whoa, right? What did COVID do, right? It isolated so many of us, right?
Detox Junkie (21:22.03)
Mm-hmm.
Detox Junkie (21:35.126)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (21:42.063)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (21:43.988)
And I shudder to think at how many lives are still directly ruined as a result of that, right? Or ruined directly. So, I'm glad that you managed to go that way. What kind of pushed you into recovery? What pushed you into it?
Detox Junkie (21:44.76)
Absolutely.
Detox Junkie (21:57.078)
I agree, man.
Detox Junkie (22:04.83)
A year before I got into Cedars at Cobble Hill, which is where I went for my treatments in British Columbia. And I have no affiliation with them, but I can't recommend them enough. They're amazing. It was a year before I went in and I was sitting in a field in my vehicle and I was trying to decide whether I should take my own life.
Chuck LaFLange (22:17.738)
Okay.
Detox Junkie (22:34.45)
and sitting in that vehicle that night. And it was the darkest night of my entire life sitting there and thinking of my kids at home and thinking about the world around me and thinking where I fell short. I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure out. I was looking for a spot in my life, something, some catalyst that had put me to this point because it didn't add up to me. I didn't think, it was such a confusing spot, Chuck.
Like I knew I didn't want to live the life I was in and I didn't know how to get out. And I thought maybe that was the only answer. While I was thinking of that in that field, I was suddenly overcome with this crazy sense of hope, Chuck. And it came from nowhere. I have no idea. I mean, maybe, you know, I am spiritual. I do believe in a God of my understanding.
I don't know where the sense of hope came to me while I was sitting in that vehicle, but I knew at that point that I wanted to live and that I had to find a way out of addiction. And I drove home that night and I walked into the house and I probably stank like booze because I was drinking heavily while I was out in that farmer's field. And I read stories to my three boys and I told them that I loved them. And...
As I read stories, I was crying. I remember sobbing while I was reading to my boys and they were, you know, very, very young, not understanding, probably scared to be honest now that I look back, you know, their dad's crying reading them story. But I was so overwhelmed with a sense of love and a sense of hope and a sense of purpose. And I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew in order to live the life that I was supposed to live, I had to find a way out of addiction. It took me a year.
from that point to get into treatment. And I tried everything. I tried going back to AA and NA. I tried outpatient detox. I tried so many different things. I was going to counselors and therapists. I needed the ICU of addiction therapy, which was for me an intensive treatment program for 60 days.
Chuck LaFLange (24:49.764)
Okay, okay. So you say it took you a year to get into treatment. It took you a year to get, like to bring yourself to that point or it took you a year administratively to get into treatment? Like if you clarified that part.
Detox Junkie (24:51.202)
So, yeah.
Detox Junkie (25:01.518)
Took me a year to get to that point where I realized that was the option I had to go for. I didn't really consider it. Basically over the course of that year, I think because I was so keyed on trying to get out of addiction, even though I was still living in addiction for that year and it was fucking terrible year check, it was brutal, man. But at the same time I was searching and searching and searching for the right things that would grab me and help me give me that, give me the tools, give me that leverage to be able to pop.
Chuck LaFLange (25:05.352)
Okay, okay, okay.
Detox Junkie (25:31.058)
myself out of that lifestyle. And because I tried everything, I reached a point where it was suggested to me, you got to try treatment. And actually Cedars at Cobble Hill would suggest it to me as well by a woman that lives in Saskatchewan. Her name is Wendy Gore-Hickman and she's an advocate with addiction and mental health and she's actually a she's a retired physician. And so I got her name. She basically coached me through the last month of my addiction.
Chuck LaFLange (25:46.977)
Okay.
Chuck LaFLange (25:53.854)
Okay, okay.
Detox Junkie (26:00.538)
and was just sort of suggesting to me. Her words kept me alive on some days, I'm sure they did, but suggesting about treatment. By the time I decided to go to treatment, I reached out to them. I actually got in, I flew out to BC. I was in treatment eight days after I called them. It was very quick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (26:05.036)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (26:19.312)
Oh, nice, good, good. You know, I actually, and I'll take this moment to plug one of my sponsors, CWC, just before you and I started recording, a friend of mine living in Saskatchewan right now, it's still in Regina, had reached out to me this evening for me, because it's the middle of the night here for me. He said, I'm ready, is there anything you can do?
Detox Junkie (26:38.062)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (26:41.908)
So I sent the email off to TWC, I'm just waiting to hear back from them right now about hey, can we do something for this person? And I know they're gonna come through for me, right? So TWC is Together We Can, Recovery Society, for anybody that's listening. They're the title sponsor of this episode. Yep, they are. They are the biggest treatment facility in Canada, Recovery Society, they're not a treatment center.
Detox Junkie (26:50.728)
off.
Chuck LaFLange (27:07.692)
They have every asset, they have detox, interim housing, treatments, they just cover it all. So, and they are my original sponsor. So, I reached out to the executive director there in hopes that maybe we could find my friend some help. But just you saying that now is like, yeah. So that, geography, geography. So this friend that I've made that email for on behalf of her, she.
Detox Junkie (27:13.782)
That's awesome.
Chuck LaFLange (27:34.108)
has done the gambit in Saskatchewan, right? Estevan, she's done the Moosejaw Detox, which, let's talk about Moosejaw Detox. I don't know if you have any familiarity with them down there, but that program is fucking amazing, what they do there, it's incredible. It is, it's absolutely, when I was there, there was people coming from all over Canada, there was three different groups of people that had come through. Some from the East Coast, from central Canada.
Detox Junkie (27:36.447)
Mm-hmm.
Detox Junkie (27:47.69)
Is it? Oh wow, okay.
Chuck LaFLange (28:01.588)
and maybe it was Northern Saskatchewan, somebody else, but to see what they were doing differently, because it's such a great program. I mean, they're just, they're amazing. Chad, can't remember his last name, the director there of the Waccamaw Health Region, or the Waccamaw, whatever it is, again, I'm not gonna try and remember all the names, but he is just this fantastic character who cares so much and he's built a program around results, and it's pretty amazing.
Detox Junkie (28:07.191)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (28:28.492)
back to geography. So this friend, we'll call her Kay, has done the gambit, but the problem, the challenge is when you're in your part of the world and you're ready to like, okay, now, and this isn't for me, you find a resentment, all the things that you do, and you know if you went through all of that, right? For me, I found a resentment in the rooms and whatever, but you can just make that phone call, somebody will come pick you up, because misery loves company.
Detox Junkie (28:48.44)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (28:57.252)
There's always somebody out there with a bag of meth or a down or whatever your drug choice is that's gonna come pick you up Right and because again misery just loves company, but so does healing so does recovery For me Yeah, hmm. What's that? Down straight we do right to have straight. I actually just I made that meme the other day It was like one of my one of my best ones I've made yet
Detox Junkie (29:02.37)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (29:10.158)
Well, you just nailed it too. Healing and recovery loves company. Sorry. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (29:22.922)
Nice!
Chuck LaFLange (29:27.992)
to get out of the environment. So for me, moving away from Saskatchewan back to Calgary, my hometown, was what it took for me to get sober. And people say, well, you're still you wherever you go, when you are, but geography can make a huge difference in somebody's life, right? Not people, places, things, right? So I don't know how you feel about that, but you know.
Detox Junkie (29:48.194)
Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. I mean, when I was like jumping back when I was 19, 20 years old and jumping out of the situation I was in, I was living in a crappy little rental house with a bunch of buddies and really we were only keyed on partying our faces off as hard as we possibly could at that time. And I know because the hooks of addiction had always already kind of latched into me, more than my peers that I was around, they were going through just the party phase in their 20s. I wasn't.
Chuck LaFLange (30:04.524)
Sounds familiar. All right. Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (30:12.638)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (30:18.188)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (30:18.742)
I was on a whole different level, you know. And at that time, that geographical swap when I flew to Toronto and started work out east and knew no one and knew nobody in any scene, that actually really did suppress the progression of my addiction for a short period of time, you know. And also when I was going through this time in Seychelt, I was on the West coast in a little town called Seychelt in my early 20s there.
Chuck LaFLange (30:37.361)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (30:47.462)
I was using, you know, I was playing with a lot of hard drugs that I actually stopped playing with for a time when I moved as well. So I don't know if those would have gotten their hooks into me faster, but yeah, I tried a lot of different shit, man. I tried crystal meth, I tried PCP, I done coke, like all that stuff, like was part of my life. And at that time, that geographical swap just getting me out of that environment really did suppress that activity for me. Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (30:55.617)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (31:14.412)
Yeah, right. So and maybe who knows, you can't go back in time and things play out the way they're meant to play out. But perhaps had you, you know, been able to find the right program at the right time, you could have capitalized on that kind of gap or that break. Right. But who knows. Right. Who knows. So hindsight, just vision is perfect. Right.
Detox Junkie (31:26.219)
Maybe.
Who knows?
Detox Junkie (31:34.39)
That being said, if I found the right program back then, I wouldn't be sitting here with you right now.
Chuck LaFLange (31:39.044)
Like I say, things work out the way they're supposed to, right? You know, they do. Myself, I was 25 years, right? Ups and downs and backs and forths and all that stuff, right? But a lot of bad things have happened in that time. But in the last year, a lot of good things have happened. And none of that happens without that 25 years, right? So...
Detox Junkie (31:41.183)
Exactly, yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (31:59.532)
You know, we all do what we do and, you know, and there's a reason for it. I mean, whatever you want to believe, whatever your spiritual place is, you know, right? So, yeah, yeah. All right, so let's thank God for Cedar. I'm sorry, Cedar's.
Detox Junkie (32:08.693)
Mm-hmm.
Detox Junkie (32:15.79)
Cedars at Cobble Hill.
Chuck LaFLange (32:17.696)
Cobble Hill, okay, yeah. I know I've heard of them because I've looked at all the treatment facilities in BC, mainly looking for sponsorship, if I'm gonna be honest. But, yeah, yeah. So, fair enough, right? Thank God for them. So now, you come out of treatment, you found recovery. How do you get to a place where detox junkie is the handle, and this is what you're doing? Tell us about that. There's...
Detox Junkie (32:26.326)
Yeah, yeah. I hear you. I'll be doing that too.
Detox Junkie (32:44.17)
Yeah, absolutely. While I was in treatment, I found a voice and it didn't take me long. My initial detox took about six days. If you guys wanna read about that, there's poems and articles on my page and website about it. But my initial detox took six days and it was harrowing. It was freaking brutal. I had a really, really rough detox. I was not prepared for how rough it was gonna be coming off alcohol after that long. Yeah, it was really rough.
Chuck LaFLange (32:49.417)
Okay.
Detox Junkie (33:11.142)
After that though, I hit the ground running like gangbusters. And actually the very first day I walked into treatment, I told the director of Cedars, I said to him, I will do anything you guys ask me to do while I'm here. I won't ask questions. I'm in your hands. I trust you guys. I'm all in. And I stuck to that. I stuck to that. And like you probably know, and maybe some other of your viewers know, when you're in treatment,
Chuck LaFLange (33:32.44)
Yep.
Detox Junkie (33:42.266)
Like you can't make your own decisions and you know why? Because your own decisions have got you really messed up. Yeah, so they take that away from you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But they do. They remove a lot of the decision-making ability from you when you're in treatment. And a lot of people fight against that at first. They feel like I don't want to be controlled or I don't want to be treated like a six-year-old or whatnot. But for me, I was like, you know what?
Chuck LaFLange (33:45.668)
because you can't make your own. To a place, yeah, your own decisions got you to treatment. So, right, like, yeah. Yeah, to a place where you need a treatment, I should say, right? Yeah, yeah, right, yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (34:02.145)
100 percent.
Detox Junkie (34:11.622)
I'm learning how to walk again. I am six. My mental capacity has been so like just beat up over for so many decades that I need to be treated like an infant in some ways. Please take my responsibility. Please take my choice right now and tell me. And that's really what I needed. Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (34:27.683)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (34:34.08)
Yeah. Yeah, fair enough, right? I don't think that's unique to yours. Obviously, it's not. There's a reason that they do things like that, right? You know, there's one aspect of treatment that I didn't realize at the time. It was happening kind of outside of my awareness, but it was definitely happening. The micro movements. Do you know what I mean when I talk about micro movements? No? Okay, so our Wednesday episodes with Ryan Bathgate, he's helped me to understand a lot of this. Micro movements.
Detox Junkie (34:41.302)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (35:00.18)
you have to make your bed treatment, right? You have a chore you have to do. You have to all those things. There's a psychology behind that and it's the micro movements. So you make your bed every day and just for a second, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, just for a second you're proud of yourself, right? Like, cause you cleaned your room or you made your bed. This is shit, especially in like a hardcore act of addiction.
Detox Junkie (35:02.042)
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Detox Junkie (35:20.078)
Totally.
Chuck LaFLange (35:23.66)
make my bed. I can't even imagine, like that was so far past anything that I was like even thinking about, right? But so just for a second you're proud of yourself. You mop the floor, you do a good job of it, just for a second you're proud of yourself, right? And
Detox Junkie (35:29.154)
Totally.
Chuck LaFLange (35:41.24)
that begins to build some intrinsic value and there's a whole process there that begins for you. So it starts with that and it moves into bigger things and all of a sudden, myself, I just now, after a year, started focusing on that bed because now I understand how important it is to make sure that I make it every single day and cleaning up the house every single day and all those things that I used to let slide for a week or two at a time.
Detox Junkie (35:46.926)
Totally.
Detox Junkie (35:58.486)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (36:10.428)
or month.
Detox Junkie (36:10.442)
Yeah, and those things do make you feel accomplished and they do make you feel good. Even though I still let those things slide sometimes from here, from time to time myself, but absolutely.
Chuck LaFLange (36:15.126)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (36:23.142)
I think we all do. We all do, right? For me, it's just... Go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Go ahead.
Detox Junkie (36:24.29)
But I kind of, yeah.
Detox Junkie (36:30.89)
No, I kind of, I just was realizing, I went sideways on your question there. You were asking how, or where detox junkie kind of came out of all of this. And so when I was in, yeah, we sure did. And then, so in treatment, I started speaking in the rooms and I got an opportunity to tell my whole story in the room. So I was able to actually speak for 40 minutes. It's the longest I'd ever spoken at that point about myself. And it just came so fluidly.
Chuck LaFLange (36:38.472)
Oh yeah, I guess we both went sideways. Yeah.
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (37:00.442)
And when I left treatment, there were a lot of really heavy things I had to do to reestablish my life. Like I was living in sober living houses and I was doing 100 meetings in 100 days or 90 in 90 or, you know, I was probably more than that. Hundreds of hours of therapy. I was in, you know, treatment for PTSD very shortly after. So there was a lot of things I had to do. But through all of this, I continued to have a voice. So I was speaking out more and more at meetings. I was talking to people about recovery.
Chuck LaFLange (37:13.324)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (37:29.67)
I was open with my own recovery and my own history from the get go. And it reached a point where I needed an outlet. Now also before this, I've always been a writer. So I've had like, I've got hundreds of poems. I've got books of poetry that I started writing when I was 15 years old. And I continued doing that throughout my addiction. Um, a lot of dark stuff, obviously, but as I came out of my addiction, as I embraced my recovery, I found that my words really started to flow with some purpose and meaning.
Chuck LaFLange (37:48.84)
Okay. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (37:59.962)
And I needed an outlet man. So like talking about detox junkie, all I wanted to do at first was open a Facebook page where I could start being more of an advocate of mental health and addiction. And really my go-to is being an advocate of mental health and addiction without ever having any stigma or judgment and crushing the stigma and judgment that's really associated with mental health and addiction. And learning how to live is my true authentic self. And that's what I wanna portray through detox junkie.
Chuck LaFLange (38:22.52)
down straight.
Detox Junkie (38:26.942)
And that's it, man. That is the main goal. And to help as many people that are suffering as humanly possible. That's the main goal. And so when I started the page, I got some pretty quick immediate validation check and it felt good. People responded to what I was saying. People responded to the way I was thinking and portraying my own thoughts and experiences out of addiction and being able to reach out and really.
make an impact on people that felt alone, people that had questions, people that were struggling with confusion and whatnot. So it was really, really a...
It was an epiphytal movement and I realized how much of an impact I could have. And then basically from there over the last five months, detox junkies just continue to take off. And now it's leading into bigger and bigger things. This year I'm going to actually get incorporated. I'm reaching out for sponsors. I'm going to be putting in some programs that I can actually, you know, help people in our communities around Saskatchewan with. And there's some other work that I'm involved in. So it's a lot of fun. It's hard work. It's a grind, but...
it's exactly where it's supposed to be.
Chuck LaFLange (39:38.056)
It, we have some parallels, my friend, we do. And I'm not gonna go into, your story's very similar to mine and I think without getting into all the details, right? Finding that voice, finding a reason, right? And it just, one of the things, and I've been talking a lot about this lately, so let's talk about this. Community, recovery community. You've got your local recovery community, which is so important.
Detox Junkie (39:55.415)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (40:05.048)
But the power of the internet, what that's done for recovery community is just mind blowing, isn't it? You and I are having a conversation, right? So social media is not a great thing in so many ways, but in a lot of ways, it's a great thing. You and I are having a conversation that with the power of social media is gonna get out to more people, right? I mean, the podcast isn't on Facebook, but that's where most people come across it, right? More than that though.
Detox Junkie (40:12.586)
Mm-hmm. Completely.
Detox Junkie (40:22.732)
Totally.
Detox Junkie (40:28.532)
Mm-hmm.
Detox Junkie (40:33.302)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (40:33.384)
I've got my community, our community, you've got your community, Trap House testimonies has theirs, Hard Knocks Talks has theirs, Sober Squad, Jamie Tall, Sonya Johnson, the list goes on. And now, much like, and I made a comparison. Remember in health class, when you first learned about STDs and about how if you sleep with one person, you've slept with everybody, it's the same thing. It's that same, it extrapolates out.
Detox Junkie (40:47.566)
Totally. Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (41:00.648)
in this massive way without all the antibiotics. It's like this same, you know, it's this crazy community that absolutely like, around the world. I'm in Thailand, you're in Saskatchewan, Canada. I had somebody yesterday from Ireland reach out to me. You know, it's amazing, recovery community, right? It really is. And I just, to me,
Detox Junkie (41:08.206)
That's right.
Chuck LaFLange (41:29.332)
Sometimes it's overwhelming when I think about how many people we can help doing this, right? And you know, which is why I find myself living in Thailand. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (41:37.438)
It's, that's just it. You just nailed it. And-
Yeah, social media does that for us. It opens the doors of being able to help so many more people. If I look at the followers of my Facebook page and I'm just shy of 14,000, but like my biggest demographics, the US, second biggest is England or the UK, or I should say third is Canada. And then we're into Australia, South Africa, New Zealand. And that's kind of the breakdown, but my page is truly
Chuck LaFLange (41:44.536)
Continue. Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (42:02.602)
Okay, really?
Chuck LaFLange (42:08.118)
Yep.
Detox Junkie (42:11.91)
international. And the sharing that occurs on my page is truly international. The suffering that we experience within mental health and addiction and the tools we use to pull ourselves out of them and the encouragement, motivation, inspiration we can grab on the other side is a language that traverses borders and language itself, if you know what I'm saying. And it's phenomenal. It's phenomenal to see that.
Chuck LaFLange (42:13.644)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (42:18.196)
Isn't that cool?
Chuck LaFLange (42:35.028)
Yeah, it does. I love that. I do, yeah. Yeah, it is. It's uplifting and it's incredible, right? So... Hmm. Usually, yeah, there's other times, right? There's other times. I can tell you, just... anecdotally, right? Yeah, right? Right? And, you know, and I can tell you already, we're gonna have more episodes to be recorded with you, Aaron.
Detox Junkie (42:47.798)
Hugely, yeah.
Detox Junkie (42:55.538)
Oh yeah, we got lots to talk about.
Chuck LaFLange (43:05.696)
Not that we're at the end of this one yet. Let's talk about sense of humor in recovery. I don't know if you saw the whole thread that kind of blew up on me there. There's maybe I call it a code Karen. Probably shouldn't have called it a code Karen. But there's the meme. Do you know the one I'm talking about? No, there's a meme I posted.
Detox Junkie (43:07.406)
Sounds good.
Detox Junkie (43:15.533)
Mm-hmm.
Detox Junkie (43:25.738)
Yep. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (43:33.862)
I do, I sure do, yep.
Chuck LaFLange (43:34.316)
comparing... You know, you do... Yeah, yeah, right? Where Chantel jumped in there with some pretty outrageous things and... Ooh, jeez. Yeah, it got kind of crazy. And it's... For the woman... I should not say code Karen, that's horrible. For the... The woman that was so offended on behalf of people that have suffered an addiction.
Detox Junkie (43:40.342)
Yeah, I saw it.
Detox Junkie (43:44.886)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (43:59.592)
I don't, and I think I went wrong trying to explain to her the sense of humor, because if you don't get it, you don't get it. If you haven't lived it, you just haven't lived it. And maybe you'll never will get it. But when you've been through hell, when you've lived through the closest thing to hell that you can as a human is what it, well, that, that we have, everything's relative, right? There's certainly some things that might, that would be considered worse, but the bar has moved.
Detox Junkie (44:09.166)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (44:26.4)
Things that you find funny are different than what normal people are. Our loved ones, my mom laughs at shit that most moms would be horrified at. Right. You know, but it's like you got it now. Right. It's like, you know, so. Are you? Yeah, so you did see that thread. What are your thoughts on sense of humor? All right. No.
Detox Junkie (44:47.666)
You. Yeah, I did. Well, yeah, no, I think I think it's. I mean. And I don't want to exclude anybody, but I don't think people that have like if you haven't lived through active addiction and regained a sense of self afterwards in recovery, and regained who you are and regained a new perception of the world.
and opened yourself up. If you haven't gone through that process, I think it would be hard or okay two things. I think a it would be easy to be offended by some of the humor that is used in recovery. But b at the same time it would be hard to understand why people in recovery find it funny in the first place. And I'm not talking about any sort of in or specific
joke or phrase or pun or I'm just talking in general because you just said it man. We walked out of fucking hell and I'm serious I am right there with you. I don't know what is lower than that on earth for me. Certainly nothing I've ever experienced. There's nothing else in my life that has put me on literally the precipice of choosing life or death and I've had that decision in recovery or not in recovery in active addiction.
Chuck LaFLange (46:15.724)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (46:15.806)
I literally stood at the edge and said, this way or this way. And thank God I chose the way I did. But there's nothing closer to help than that. And that does put
Chuck LaFLange (46:22.957)
Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (46:27.314)
Mm-mm.
Chuck LaFLange (46:30.741)
No, there isn't.
Detox Junkie (46:35.454)
There isn't. Hey, yeah, I agree. It's it's fricking brutal, bro. It's absolutely brutal.
Chuck LaFLange (46:38.459)
No. Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (46:44.676)
I'll tell you something that I've spoken to once or twice in the last year. Yeah, yeah. There was a, no, there was a period of time, the last year, year and a half of my active addiction. I never used opiates. I never used fentanyl or morphine or heroin or any of that, but I sold some for a while and I'm not proud of that. But we do what we do and we're in it.
Detox Junkie (46:46.718)
And so having humor about that, I mean, yeah. No, go ahead. I want to hear what you have to say Chuck. Sorry, I was just basically tying that in.
Chuck LaFLange (47:12.128)
Um, there was a time where I carried a portion of fentanyl with me in case that was the day when I finally had the guts and I did that for a long time and the odd time that I would sell it because I wanted my drug of choice and I had to, I felt naked without it because I was like, it was this weird messed up sense of comfort.
Detox Junkie (47:14.614)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (47:38.06)
that maybe today was the day when I'd finally have the guts to do it, right? What a fucking crazy way to think, right? So I can really relate to what you're saying. Slightly different, but same thing, right? You know, and to try and explain to somebody that hasn't had that experience, it's just, you know, there's no point, right?
Detox Junkie (47:49.89)
No, there's...
Chuck LaFLange (48:03.56)
And that's where I went wrong by engaging the way I did and let it going on as long as I did, right? But, you know.
Detox Junkie (48:06.87)
Yeah, I mean.
Detox Junkie (48:13.57)
That's, that's, it is, it's crazy, but I completely understand where you were at. You were carrying around insurance in your pocket, death insurance. Shit got too bad. You were, you, you had your out and, and very similar to that, Chuck, um, on the night that I told you about where I chose life or death, um, what I didn't tell you is I actually forgot my wallet that night and I had some money on me and my whole plan was to get some.
Chuck LaFLange (48:19.756)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (48:40.142)
tubing to attach to my exhaust to my vehicle. And I'm not going into any more details other than that, but basically that was my plan. But I had to buy the tubing. And so I realized I forgot my wallet. I had 20 bucks in my pocket. I could buy the tubing or I could buy the boots that I needed to do the job. You know where I spent the money. I spent it on the boots because I'm here in front of you right now. My addiction was more powerful at that moment than my desire to escape.
Chuck LaFLange (48:59.846)
Mm hmm. On the boost. Yeah.
Yep.
Chuck LaFLange (49:09.868)
Wow.
Detox Junkie (49:10.014)
And you know what? In that instant, thank God it was. That's fucked up. You know what I mean? My addiction saved my life that day.
Chuck LaFLange (49:13.652)
Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. As it will. Yeah, man. Yeah, that is, that's crazy. It's a horrible way to think.
Detox Junkie (49:23.658)
Like that's messed. Yeah.
Detox Junkie (49:29.046)
That just shows you the power of addiction. It is. It's twisted and it's disgusting. And at the time, it's all I could see.
Chuck LaFLange (49:32.544)
It does.
Chuck LaFLange (49:41.748)
Yeah, no kidding, no kidding. Hey, listen, Aaron, we're getting to that time here as much as we could, we could talk about so much more. I'm glad that we've had the conversation that we have. Like I said, previous to recording, kind of over the blood and guts of it, and these are the conversations I just love having. I just love having these ones, right, about all the different things. And we could talk for hours and hours.
Detox Junkie (49:43.34)
Yeah.
Detox Junkie (49:46.702)
Crazy.
Detox Junkie (49:54.102)
I think so. Me too.
Detox Junkie (50:06.734)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Chuck LaFLange (50:11.029)
That does bring us to my favorite part of the show and that is the daily gratitudes. So what you got for us today?
Detox Junkie (50:20.63)
I love this part of the show, Chuck. And I'm so glad that I get to do it with you today. You know what? Gratitude, the first thing that comes to mind is my relationships in my life. Actually, that's the second thing that comes to mind, but I'll do it in reverse order. Gratitude, relationships in my life with the people that I truly love, that I'm able to nourish with and have authentic, real living relationships with these people based on who we truly are. Holy shit, man.
That is daily gratitude right there every single day that shines through the most, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. The other thing is my recovery, being me. Yeah, just being me, being authentically me and being able to live in my own skin and being able to continuously become more and more comfortable with myself. I won't say I'm like glowing and floating around on a carpet yet.
Chuck LaFLange (50:55.56)
Kidding kidding and you mentioned another one
Detox Junkie (51:15.586)
but I'm doing better.
Chuck LaFLange (51:19.817)
Well, I'll tell you what, I posted a meme the other day that it occurred to me is the day that I feel like I am done healing, I'm obviously not done learning. And there's so much more to go, right? And I think, I think we're all there as humans. So from my daily gratitudes. First off, I'm great for another great conversation.
You never know what I'm going to get into when I'm doing these. And, you know, we hadn't talked at all previous to today. So I think it's just great, man. It's just wonderful when we do this. I'm very, very grateful. So I've got my scooter and my sidecar ready to go so that my dog and I can get out there and explore Thailand together. Yeah, I just believe the GoPro is going to go up on that sidecar as well. So I'm going to document that entire journey with the two of us.
Detox Junkie (51:52.11)
Mm-hmm.
Chuck LaFLange (52:13.1)
beyond excited about this. I'm beyond excited. He is my best friend. And he just got me through the holidays. So it's just him and I, and I love that. So, and my last gratitude is gonna go out to.
every single person who continues to watch, listen and support. You guys, like, comment, share, please keep doing what you're doing, it's working, we're growing, we're growing faster than ever. Hit the buttons down at the bottom, I never know where they are when I'm doing this, so just, you know, the ones that you gotta hit. We very much do appreciate every single time you do any one of these things. Anytime you do, 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 the 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 care. Do whatever it is you gotta do to get started because it is so much better than the alternative. And if you have a loved one who's suffering in addiction right now, you're just taking the time to listen to our conversation. If you could just take one more minute out of your day and text that person, let them know they are loved. Use the words.
Detox Junkie (53:25.938)
I love you. You are loved.
Chuck LaFLange (53:28.128)
You are loved. That little glimmer of hope just might be the thing that brings him back.
Chuck LaFLange (53:40.676)
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