222- SONYA JOHNSON

Chuck LaFLange (00:01.62)
Hello everybody, watchers, listeners, supporters of all kinds. Welcome to another episode of The Weeknd Ramble on the Ashes to Awesome podcast. I'm your host Chuck LaFlange with me in Virtual Studio halfway around the world with my lovely co -host Dr. Lisa. How you doing today, Lisa?

Lisa (00:14.044)
I'm doing really good. I'm doing good. We're having like a proper winter storm here at the moment. Right? Yeah. But no, I'm doing really good. Thanks. Happy to be here.

Chuck LaFLange (00:21.044)
Oh, I missed that. No, I don't. Not at all. OK. Yeah. Good stuff. And for returning guests, Sonia Johnson. Check it in from Florida, somewhere in the Orange States, I guess, or whatever you guys call it down there. But yeah. How you doing today, Sonia?

Sonya Johnson (00:42.493)
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. And as you're in a winter storm, Lisa, I am here in sunny Sarasota, Florida, and it is nice and warm. And actually it's supposed to be winter, but we really don't experience winter around here. So.

Lisa (00:49.724)
No

Chuck LaFLange (00:50.452)
Sarasota, that's it.

Chuck LaFLange (00:57.524)
You wouldn't, I guess the time, like daylight time wouldn't be very different there either than would it. It would change by, well daylight savings time would add some, but that's about it. Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (01:08.427)
Yeah, the only difference is that it gets darker a little bit later or a little bit earlier based upon the daylight savings time. But I mean, as far as like the seasons changing, that doesn't ever happen. So.

Chuck LaFLange (01:19.22)
No, no, I guess not. It's just like here, the sun. So Thailand doesn't observe daylight savings time at all. Like it doesn't change the clocks. Much like Saskatchewan and Arizona, the two jurisdictions in North America that don't, if you didn't know that, right? So it only changes by like maybe half an hour at most.

Sonya Johnson (01:26.283)
Oh, wow.

Chuck LaFLange (01:37.812)
you know, over the course of the year, because we're so close to the equator, right? So, yeah. And as I was telling you guys pre -recording, she's about to get really hot here. Like 113 degrees is going to be the new norm for the summer here, which I can't even...

Lisa (01:41.756)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (01:51.691)
hot.

Chuck LaFLange (01:52.488)
I can't even imagine that. I don't have AC anywhere in the house except my bedroom. So this little podcast studio is going to the bedroom. I can tell you that right now. There's no way. Typically, I try and work at night as I'm 12 hours off of you guys, give or take depending on where in the country you are. But even that now, like it's it's still 30 degrees at night or 90 degrees at night here. I can't in the summer. It's going to be so hot. Yeah. Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (02:01.067)
hahahaha

Lisa (02:15.708)
Crazy.

Sonya Johnson (02:16.683)
Yeah. So hot. Yeah.

Lisa (02:21.052)
And Sonja, what are the temperatures like there? I've actually never been to Florida. Like, what's...

Sonya Johnson (02:26.475)
So during the winter, we get down to like, sometimes we get down to like 40 degrees, but for the most part, it stays between like 60 and 70. And then in the summertime, we stay pretty consistent between 90 and 100. But you know, I was kind of sharing earlier, it's a different kind of heat because you have the Gulf breeze. We live by the Gulf of Mexico. So you have the Gulf breeze, but you also have the humidity. So it's like this heated blanket that has a little bit of a breeze with it.

Lisa (02:56.188)
That sounds glorious. Right? Wow.

Chuck LaFLange (02:57.876)
That's just gonna say you're talking Lisa's language now, right? Yeah. No kidding.

Lisa (03:05.244)
looking at what this is in Celsius. Okay, so it's like, yeah, winter of 18 degrees and summers of 35. Sounds lovely. No, no.

Sonya Johnson (03:13.021)
Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (03:15.86)
Yeah, not so bad, eh? Not so bad. Yeah, yeah. So hey, listen, as we were chatting, we don't really have much of a plan going into this episode, in my experience. Those have been some of the best episodes I've done. But I did want to talk about, again, because it's come up before, but I don't think it's something we can talk about too much.

when your loved one relapses, or when you relapse for that matter, because we do have that, we have both perspectives here, right? And I think that's one of the great things about having the format that we do. And maybe I'll just open it up quickly about myself and kind of why I like to talk about it is, I never started, like I didn't have a bunch of relapses. I mean, I've been sober for 16 months, which means,

It's like 28 months ago would have been like my first crack ever at trying to get sober. And so for it was about a year back and forth before it finally stuck. But my first, what I would consider my first real relapse, I was going to meetings every day that they were available and they're available five out of seven days in the city I was in.

When I relapsed, the idea of going back and saying zero, and I was at 34 days, first time ever, ever as an adult and as a teenager outside of when I was in juvie, I'd never gone 30 days sober, ever. I was really proud of myself. When I relapsed, I could not go back. I just couldn't. I couldn't go back and admit to zero.

to this day, I don't really keep track of my clean time. I do because I know the date. But at any given point, if you ask me how long I've been clean, I have to do the math. It's not a number that I keep in my head. So I guess that's my experience with Relapse. And of course, through the platform now, I've experienced many other people's.

Chuck LaFLange (05:20.37)
feelings and conversations and you know especially the loved ones you know when it comes to that but but Sonya maybe if you can jump in on now and just kind of what's your experience with it?

Sonya Johnson (05:30.315)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the question I get asked the most. So I like that we're having this conversation because I get a lot of messages on my Facebook Messenger and the request. And what I see the most is what do I do to help my family member? They've relapsed. I've tried everything and I just don't know how to help them. I get that more than anything else, more than I get from people. I get that message and it's such a hard question to answer.

Chuck LaFLange (05:36.02)
Okay.

Sonya Johnson (06:00.269)
But my experience with relapse just kind of like what you just shared, you know, this round of recovery for me was different and I had tried recovery before like I had gone to meetings before I had pretended to be clean a couple times and gone to meetings just to please other people in my life. But this time was different for me because I had just and it wasn't the rock bottom, right? Because I had been rock bottom after rock bottom after rock bottom.

after rock bottom, but this time was just different because I hate this term because it's so cliche, but they say like you're sick and tired of being sick and tired. Like I was just so tired of what I was doing to myself and the way that my life had turned out that I was just sick of my own shit, right? I didn't know any other way to say it. But you know, I had tried other experiences in recovery and I can relate to that feeling of having a couple days or a couple of weeks and then picking up.

and not wanting to face people. And I think if anything, where the rooms of recovery get it wrong is the way they treat people who relapse. So oftentimes people are afraid to come back or they're afraid to tell somebody they picked up because we have this thing in the rooms of recovery that when somebody picks up, everybody turns their back on them. And actually it's very counterproductive because when you relapse, you need help.

the most, like that's when you need the most support. And so it's very helpful.

Chuck LaFLange (07:32.884)
Absolutely. I think, Sonia, if I can interrupt on that one specifically, like anything else, souls are different everywhere you go. I think in some meetings, yes, in other meetings, in my experience actually, it was like a very like, no, no, no, come back, come back. They did kind of open up to that. So very different that way, right? But absolutely, it can be a problem. It can be a big problem. And even if it isn't the way they treat you,

Sonya Johnson (07:54.443)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (08:01.972)
It's the, for me, because that wasn't my experience, for me it was the way everybody took so much pride in their clean time. Right? So even though you're not intentionally doing that to somebody, you're not like, oh, you're worse than me because you're at zero, the way that you strut because you're at five years or a year or 10 years can maybe be enough to have the same effect. And at the end of the day, right, does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.

Sonya Johnson (08:10.539)
Right.

Sonya Johnson (08:27.403)
That's a really good point. Yeah, I totally agree because it's like a badge of honor, right? The whole key tags, I've got 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and it continues to go up and then you get the black and gold key tag. I'm not sure what it is in AA, but it's like two years or more, you know, and you know everything. And a lot of people that can get to their head and sometimes they can take advantage of people with less time because of that. It's like a badge of honor. And you're right. And it subconsciously stigmatizes the person that doesn't.

have as much clean time.

Chuck LaFLange (08:59.284)
Absolutely, it does, absolutely. Lisa, of course, you being the mugglest of the muggles, as I fondly refer to you sometimes, but you have had experience with loved ones, and of course, working in addiction in the hospitals, right? What are your kind of initial thoughts on the whole thing?

Lisa (09:04.636)
Yeah.

Lisa (09:12.314)
Mm -hmm.

Lisa (09:16.86)
I mean, I agree a lot about the, I think that the idea of counting days is like the idea of positive reinforcement, right? Is like, if we celebrate it, it'll encourage people. But I, yeah, but I agree that I think the fear is the other side of that, which is often not talked about.

Chuck LaFLange (09:29.844)
And it does, yes.

Lisa (09:39.068)
But that's why even, you know, there was one point when my brother had first gone into treatment where I was like, you know, my brother's been clean for this many days. And then I was like, you know what? It dawned on me one day that the amount of pressure that that probably placed on him. And that's why I stopped doing it because again, clean days, great. Celebrate them if you want to.

But I do recognize the risk in what happens when somebody then relapses. And I think that it builds up the shame. And so, you know, I see it a lot in patients. Like I'll have patients come into the emerge suicidal because they relapsed.

Chuck LaFLange (10:24.468)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.

Lisa (10:25.34)
and they'll come in, right? And it's like the level of catastrophizing and the intensity of the shame. And it's like the sense that everything they had accomplished is gone. And so one of the conversations that I have with patients regularly is that clean time is never lost. It's never lost. And if anything to me, it's,

Sonya Johnson (10:42.091)
Right.

Lisa (10:55.74)
an opportunity to learn something in the journey that is sobriety, because it's not an endpoint destination, right? It's a journey. It's a lifelong journey. There'll be hard times, easy times, bumps, slips, whatever they might be. And so I always try to get a patient's focus less on, I had this and I've lost it, and more on, what did you learn? You know, like I've heard...

I've had a lot of patients, and again, I haven't lived this, but I've heard plenty of stories, but I've had patients say to me, like, relapses don't happen in an instant. There's, you know, like, they might tell themselves in the moment that, you know, they found themselves in a relapse and how did I get here? But with hindsight, they are able to recognize that this may have started weeks ago or months ago or days ago.

Sonya Johnson (11:33.995)
Great.

Lisa (11:51.13)
you know, where they started to make decisions, they started to justify, or they started to minimize, or they started to tell themselves lies. And so it's like, you know.

Chuck LaFLange (11:59.348)
found resentments. That's that's.

the resentment. Say, Sonia, I don't know if you can relate to that, but they were like, that was the shit right there. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. You gave me a solid resentment and I'm done. Right. You know, relationship trouble. That's the king of resentments. Like that's the that's a straight road to relapse right there. Right. You know. Yeah. Yeah. And as a dealer, I can tell you the phone call, the text message. Oh, I just found out she's cheating on me. Oh, he left me. Oh, he like.

Sonya Johnson (12:04.235)
Mm -hmm. Yes.

Lisa (12:09.252)
Mm -hmm.

Lisa (12:13.02)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (12:13.291)
Right?

Oh gosh.

haha

It is.

Lisa (12:23.226)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (12:31.814)
just hurry up and get here and it was always the same shit right you know that's yeah you know. Sonja we kind of cut you off there and I apologize for that kind of. What's uh when you get those messages what is that you what's do you have a typical response and I hate to use that word because it might sound like it's a like a canned thing but I know it's not you know it's not but you know what's your go -to maybe.

Lisa (12:35.802)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (12:36.075)
Yeah, but.

Sonya Johnson (12:55.723)
Yeah, there is sort of a typical response, but I do look at everybody's situation because everybody kind of has a different set of cards and they're all in different places in their own journey and maybe, you know, this is their first relapse or maybe they've never had recovery so it can all be different. But I think the typical thing that I say the most is to be mindful of the words that we speak to people because I think we could very much speak life or death over people with our words and

The last thing that somebody that's in a relapse needs to hear is you're a POS, why don't you love me enough to stop using? Why don't you love your kids enough to stop using? Why can't you just get it right? Those are the things that actually make it a lot worse. And instead of saying, I believe in you, I'm here for you when you're ready, I know where you can go. And having those kind of resources lined up, that's really my typical thing, to let somebody know that you love them, you

Chuck LaFLange (13:42.932)
Hell yeah.

Sonya Johnson (13:55.637)
believe in them, you know that they have this in them, and then have the resource ready when they're ready to get the help that they need, but never to speak death over them, because really that's what you're doing. You're speaking death over somebody when you're condemning them and telling them.

Chuck LaFLange (14:12.98)
Yeah. Oops, I didn't mean to do that, but yeah.

Sonya Johnson (14:17.131)
That scared me.

Sonya Johnson (15:08.971)
I love that so much.

Lisa (15:11.58)
Hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (15:11.924)
Isn't that powerful?

Sonya Johnson (15:13.863)
Sometimes it just takes that one person to believe in you because you don't believe in yourself, nobody else believes in you, you feel like you're a total failure. And just having that one person that sees something in you that you can't see in yourself makes all the difference in the world.

Lisa (15:31.004)
And I find I see that with patients where they'll come in again in this catastrophic, suicidal, hopeless sort of state and we'll have a conversation and I don't catastrophize it. And it's like, you know, at some point I think you're going to be able to learn something that you can use in the future, but it's like, okay, so what are we going to do to get you back on track? And having this like can do approach and you know,

we're here and you've come, you want help, we're gonna help you, we're gonna get you back on. And the most common reaction I'll have from patients is they'll just start to cry. And for me, it just speaks to exactly what you're describing, right? Is that I think it just lifts this load and they just feel like somebody believes that they're still worth it.

you know, but you just see it, see the, see the wall crumble and you just, it's just, you know, almost, I think, I don't know what the right word is, but it's like a, like a release or a relief or, and I think it's very much that they will, they look at, at, you know, the team of people I work with going, okay, you guys aren't going to give up on me. Like you're actually going to still help me. And that's,

communicates to them that they're worth it.

Sonya Johnson (16:57.321)
Exactly. Yeah. You know, when I was in jail, I had this one woman and I had shared in her class that I would never be anything but a failure. I was 34 years old. I never did anything right in my entire life. And I was destined to be a failure or a loser or whatever you call that. And she believed in me. And because she believed in me, I didn't believe in me yet, but I believed that she believed in me.

And so I borrowed some of her hope from me, which gave me just enough strength to try to get it right. That woman is still like a big part of my life today. And I credit her for planting that seed that gave me the hope and strength to be the person that I am today. And now I get to give that back to other people.

Chuck LaFLange (17:50.356)
That's awesome. That's awesome. I love that term, Sonja. I borrowed some of her hope. I just, yeah. I see a meme coming on. Right? I mean.

Sonya Johnson (17:58.923)
hahahaha

Lisa (18:02.556)
you know, for me, like, you know, obviously, not having walked in the shoes of somebody that has been on the suffering end of this, like, I just, I know that I have gotten the privilege of being that person. And I just am like, like, in that story, there's a lot of people who will listen to that story, and they'll relate to Sonia's side of that. And I can relate entirely to that other woman and think how fucking lucky is she or am I at times to get to

Be that person to somebody. Like I just, you know what I mean? Like how privileged a life do I live that I get to do shit like that? Like it blows my mind.

Sonya Johnson (18:39.371)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Chuck LaFLange (18:41.3)
Well, and here's the thing, Lisa, is that Sonja, myself, other content creators, anybody who's out there trying to do their thing, whether it's in a room to one person or whether it's on the internet to 300 ,000, that's a sense of purpose there. There's a sense of something there that is not, yeah, it's great for the other person, but selfishly, fuck yeah. Right? You know, right? Like, yeah. You know.

Lisa (19:05.852)
Yeah, I know. I mean, you can get into the whole debate, you know, do humans do anything altruistically, really ever, you know?

Sonya Johnson (19:06.027)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (19:12.66)
Yeah, you're gonna feel good because you did something good for somebody, right? I'll take that. I'll take your ego with roses if that's what's gonna help people get their shit together, right? And to help lead a better life, so whatever.

Sonya Johnson (19:17.451)
Yeah, and that's good. Why not?

Lisa (19:24.956)
Yeah, yeah. And you know, it makes me think of there's a lady that I have in the hospital right now who is actually going to be discharged this coming week. We just found out on Friday that she's been accepted into a housing program. She's been in hospital with us for nine months. So this is a lady who has she does have like a primary mental illness, but she has severe polysubstance use disorder. And no word of a lie.

Sonya Johnson (19:25.963)
Ha ha.

Sonya Johnson (19:42.891)
Wow.

Lisa (19:54.14)
I've read multiple discharge summaries where there's no way to spin it except people would give up on her. So she would be in the hospital and she would AWOL from hospital. She would go use drugs. She would get brought back by police in a really agitated state because she was intoxicated. And on multiple occasions, like they would say, you know what, she just keeps AWOLing, discharge. And this woman, I would say for the first three months I had this woman in hospital,

I had to pep talk myself every damn day to go and meet with her. Like, I'm not kidding you. Like she was nasty to me. Like she would swear at me and call me names and storm out of rooms. And it was such a challenge. And now she's like sweet as peaches. She's been sober for nine and a half months. She

You know, she's now, she has passes, she has four hours every day where she goes out of the hospital when she wants. She does that, she, oh no, no, she goes out every day now and she's maintaining her sobriety. But what made me think about it is that she has been, from what I can gather, she's been sick from a mental health perspective and using substances for at least 10 years where she had not been ever stabilized.

Chuck LaFLange (20:58.58)
So it's not like she hasn't had opportunities, she's, right? Okay, okay, yeah.

Lisa (21:22.044)
she'd lost contact with her family. She has five children, she has grandchildren, and she still has not reached out to them, which is a whole other conversation, but she has very much like taken on the hospital team as her family. Like she will talk about us like we're her family, like she doesn't want to let us down as if like, you know, she's speaking about her spouse or her parent or her child. And,

Yeah, like we've very much become like family to her. And now she's gonna leave. Fly little birdie. Right?

Chuck LaFLange (21:54.676)
Kidding. That must, that transformation, and I think back to the few times I did detox, I ran through social detox, in two weeks, the growth you see from somebody who's coming in off at raw and gets the programming and the things that you see that person, like.

Sonya Johnson (21:57.131)
That's amazing.

Chuck LaFLange (22:20.052)
You get to see that real person, Lisa, we've talked about that, how it's, you know, what you see in the emergency room is not the real person, right? And you get to see a glimmer of that person. I can't imagine, over the course of nine months, what that looks like. That must feel just amazing, right? And you've heard me talk about it before, validation of purpose, right? And that must be the ultimate validation of purpose, right? I mean, yeah.

Sonya Johnson (22:28.683)
Yeah.

Lisa (22:34.724)
It's crazy.

Lisa (22:41.468)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (22:41.995)
Yeah.

Lisa (22:43.836)
Oh, it's like, it's crazy. And again, like, you know, but to say that it's all altruistic is that's bullshit. Like, you know, like it feels amazing. Like, I feel amazing looking at this person and going, I played a role in that. I mean, I'll never let patients tell me that I did things because I'm like, I can't do it. Like you have to do it. But to be a part of it, to be a part of somebody's journey and to see them transform in that way, um,

Sonya Johnson (22:54.067)
Yeah.

Lisa (23:12.508)
That's incredibly rewarding. Like I don't know that there's anything that would ever be more rewarding in life than seeing somebody become healthy and get their life back. Like it's crazy, you know? Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (23:14.795)
Mm -hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (23:15.06)
this.

Chuck LaFLange (23:23.86)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (23:25.355)
Yeah, I think that really speaks to what kind of person you are though, because there's so many people that work on the front lines, especially in emergency rooms, especially EMT workers, police officers, people that are literally out there on the front lines and they see the darkest of the darkest.

of people when they are in their worst moments. But you do this every day and you still have this spirit where you just want to help people. And it does serve you to serve them and to see that change in them. But it does speak to a lot of who you are as a person because typically like people become jaded when they're in that profession for so long because they see so much. But to see your face light up when you talk about this woman like I love that so much.

And also I think it speaks to that woman too, because it sounds to me like she has been through system after system after system or institution after institution after institution and everybody's given up on her, including her family, including her children and everywhere she's gone, people have said, you're too far gone. We can't help you. You're too messed up. We can't help you. But you and whoever you work with in this amazing emergency department gave this woman.

Lisa (24:15.452)
Thank you.

Lisa (24:35.58)
Yep.

Sonya Johnson (24:44.557)
and a chance and you did not give up on her and she found her belief in herself because you guys believed in her first and you were patient enough with her to give her that time right because it took three months of her being nasty because she thought she was gonna get what she always got but she didn't you were patient and you waited and you loved her and that to me that woman has the potential to help tons of people with that experience.

Lisa (25:12.86)
Thank you.

Sonya Johnson (25:15.125)
And yeah, it's awesome.

Chuck LaFLange (25:16.756)
This is what you're saying there, Sonja, about frontline workers. I was in a situation, we didn't have Narcan, somebody had overdosed. I had to give her CPR for forever. It's what it felt like, as it tends to, right? It's a long time. No, and like even 10 minutes of it, right? Because it's not just the physical, it's...

Sonya Johnson (25:33.931)
It's not easy to give CPR.

Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (25:42.836)
You're in raw panic. It's like it's 100 % adrenaline. Yeah. And me typically, even in my craziest days, for me to spend time with people I didn't care about wasn't something that I really did. So if I was around somebody who was overdosing, that's somebody I genuinely cared about. And they're dying and it's like the worst feeling, right? And paramedics showed up in Narcando two or three times. On the way out the door, does the paramedic say, we'll see you later?

Sonya Johnson (25:44.329)
Mm -hmm.

Lisa (25:45.948)
adrenaline.

Sonya Johnson (25:46.963)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (26:00.395)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (26:14.036)
and I could have punched him. I was so disgusted with it, but, but, hindsight, you have to wonder, and of course, I become more and more, as I become more and more informed, specifically being trauma -informed, more and more trauma -informed as my journey continues here, you have to imagine.

How many times has he seen that person later? How easy is it for that person to get there? Maybe you should be in a different line of work or maybe there should be some supports out there for people like you that are, where apathy isn't a break where it's become the thing, right? If you're gonna say nasty things like that to somebody on the way out the door, you know, but apathetic things at best, you know, maybe nasty is not the right word, but.

Sonya Johnson (26:54.027)
Exactly.

Chuck LaFLange (26:58.216)
We need supports for people, for frontline workers, for people like yourself, Lisa. And we've talked about equity quite a bit, with Ryan as well. And just a few hours ago, Casey Jordan from F Around and Recover. I was talking to him, he's out in Vegas right now. By the way, folks, if you're paying attention, go check out F Around and Recover.

Sonya Johnson (27:00.393)
Mm -hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (27:24.244)
He's out there doing some crazy things with people out on the streets and he's doing it all with no money. Like he needs some help out there. He needs he needs gas money. Right. Like he had 18 dollars when I spoke to him last. And but he's like he's out there on the street and he's he's talking to people. He's communicating with people. He's he is fucking walking the walk right now in the biggest way. So check him out. But he had gotten to he was like man.

Sonya Johnson (27:31.275)
That's awesome.

Sonya Johnson (27:36.937)
Wow.

Lisa (27:47.004)
Amazing.

Chuck LaFLange (27:52.532)
these people just need a break. It's like, yeah, they do. Yeah, they do. And they need someone to believe in them. And I guess where I was going with this, because I kind of went on a tangent there, was.

Sonya Johnson (27:56.267)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (28:06.772)
I had a chat with him about, you gotta be careful man, because the heaviness can get to you in a big, big way. Right now he's been talking into a camera for the last year and a half or whatever that he's had his platform. He's been talking into a camera saying some really inspiring and some funny stuff and he's great, great man. But and you know, some messages, but he hasn't been living it and he hasn't been talking to people every day and you can see it wearing on him now, right?

And it's that, and from my own experience, it's why we don't do six episodes a week. Well, that and I'm human. But when I was doing six episodes a week, the heaviness of it, it was unbearable at times. Because we were doing some pretty heavy stuff, it was a couple days of the week anyway. So I guess that's the other part of it too, is there needs to be some supports for people that are, or I don't know, either one of can speak to that. But yeah.

Lisa (28:44.956)
Hmm.

Sonya Johnson (28:57.675)
I agree.

No, I agree with you completely. And I'm sure you guys probably do know this, but what I do professionally is work with parents who've lost their children, where the system separates them from their kids. And I work as a peer. And so by the time that I meet these parents, they are, I mean, everybody's given up on them. And there's this whole stigma, like everybody thinks that they're saving these children from their wicked and horrible parents. But what's really happening, and there is that 10%, right?

Chuck LaFLange (29:09.736)
Yes.

Perfect example. Right?

Sonya Johnson (29:28.877)
these egregious things happen to the children. But for 90%, I would say even 95, honestly, it's people that are struggling with addiction or mental health challenges or victims of domestic violence. It is people who have been through trauma and abuse, incarceration. Like they've been through stuff and they're currently navigating through challenges. And everybody just wants to like, you know, put them through more stuff. And it's very hard. And I see it. And I've been that parent too.

So there's also that element of it, where people kind of see that me that way sometimes too. Even though I work in the field professionally, there's that stigma that's still there. But I think what you're referring to is like vicarious trauma or secondary trauma. And you do experience that. And sometimes when you're giving and giving and giving, and you're experiencing so much trauma and just bad injustices and things that happen around you, it can be really hard sometimes. And I think that's a really good thing.

Chuck LaFLange (30:01.556)
Yes.

Sonya Johnson (30:28.717)
think you're right that we need to do better to support those people that are out there on the front lines. They need to be supported. They need to be in it for the right reasons. Those two things go together.

Lisa (30:40.316)
I am in the hospital, you know, we do sometimes have to contact Child and Family Services. And I mean, I will say that I can't imagine what that job must be like. Like I can't imagine having to like the number of times they must must witness neglected children or abused children the number of times they're needing to go into these home environments and actually remove children and and

Chuck LaFLange (30:40.436)
Fair enough. Fair enough. Well said.

Lisa (31:11.196)
There's one thing, and I've said this many times on the show, Sonia, but ever since I had a child of my own, like, it just did something to me. Like, I used to think about doing pediatric work, and I've worked at the children's hospital, and I've worked with shaken babies, and I've seen sick babies, and I used to be able to do it. And then I had my daughter, and now if I so much as hear a baby crying in the hospital, I'm just like, somebody fix this. Like, I can't handle it.

Sonya Johnson (31:28.075)
Right.

Lisa (31:40.092)
So I'm not suggesting it's an easy job, but I think that the average person out there would get that, would agree with the fact that doing child and family services work must be really, really difficult. Sadly, I will say that I have also seen the other side where I have seen parents who do have mental illness, who do have addiction struggles, who are doing all the things.

and CFS sometimes feels against them. You know, like I've had cases where my social worker, who we always say we must have on the show someday, and he's incredible, where he's like, I'm gonna go to the meeting with them, even though he's not expected to, because he had, you know, worked with them enough to recognize that this worker looked like they were looking for any opportunity.

Sonya Johnson (32:14.891)
Right.

Lisa (32:39.196)
to pull these kids or to not let them see their kids. And the social worker will go and sit in on these meetings because it's just like, no, like I've had worked on cases where I've been explicit. I do not think this woman is a danger to her children. And I actually think that what's being done is worse for her mental health. Like she might need support and maybe she needs supervision for a period of time or whatever, but it's like to take,

children away, it's like you better damn well know that that child is at risk with that parent because it's not good for the child and it's not good for the parent. You know?

Chuck LaFLange (33:17.396)
No, certainly not. There's a program in Regina, and I wish I could remember the name of it, and this is in Regina, Canada. It's a supervised living facility. They've got a bunch of two or three bedroom apartments where you can go live with your kids while you're going through treatment.

Sonya Johnson (33:37.803)
That's awesome. That's awesome.

Chuck LaFLange (33:39.828)
Right? And it was like, oh my god. And at the time, even then, and I was in it, you know, when I had heard about this, I was like, oh, that makes just so much sense. You know, this person.

The one thing that people have is their kids and you want to take that away, you're going to give them that trauma and tell them to get clean, right? You're going to give them the one thing that they're holding onto, right? And it's, so what a wonderful service that is and I hope that maybe that gets expanded and who knows? I haven't, you know, I haven't talked about it or been informed about anything that's going on there in a long time, but.

Sonya Johnson (33:58.603)
Exactly.

Lisa (34:13.372)
Yeah. And the thing is, I don't think anybody would challenge or question that child safety is number one. Like, obviously, right? Like, that's for sure. But I do think that programs that allow people to get help and get well and get support while remaining connected to their children, that's what needs to happen, you know? Like,

Chuck LaFLange (34:14.676)
one of the tools in the toolbox. Sorry Lisa, go ahead.

Sonya Johnson (34:23.467)
course.

Lisa (34:40.092)
I don't have a mental health diagnosis and I don't have struggles with addiction. If someone came in and took my child from me, you would need to put me in a locked rubber room. No doubt, you know? So I can't imagine taking...

Sonya Johnson (34:48.555)
Exactly.

Chuck LaFLange (34:49.012)
Yeah, yeah, right. No kidding, no kidding. And Lisa, let's be honest Lisa, they'd be back pretty quick. They'd be like, oh, this one's a firecracker, you're gonna have her. No.

Lisa (34:56.442)
I'm sorry.

Sonya Johnson (34:56.907)
No, you would be considered combative or violent. You know, when parents react, they automatically get stigmatized because of their reactions. And so it's ridiculous. Right.

Lisa (35:00.572)
So like, oh, I would. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (35:09.512)
Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa (35:10.236)
when the reaction is normal, you know? Like I had a case where a woman on labor and delivery, you know, she was asking for, she'd had a premature child and they were wanting to do things. And I think she literally had convinced herself that what a good mom would do is ask for second opinions, is asked to speak to the doctor.

And so because she wasn't blindly just saying yes to everything that was being put in front of her by nurses, they literally certified her and sent her to a psych unit.

Chuck LaFLange (35:47.54)
Jeez, hey, jeez.

Lisa (35:47.964)
And like she came to me and I remember her being on the unit and I was like, you know what? She's got some personality. Like, you know, there's she's someone who's going to challenge things, someone who maybe doesn't love authority. But I saw nothing. I was like, this woman is not depressed. She's not manic. She's not psychotic. She doesn't do drugs. This is just a woman with a bit of a difficult personality who thought she was doing the right thing by her child to say, well, I would like a second opinion on that before you do that to my baby.

Um, and they sent her to a psych unit, like, you know, and then she did when they started to put barriers between her being with the baby on labor and delivery before they certified her and sent her to a psych unit, she started to get agitated and verbally aggressive. And this was all getting documented. And I'm like, you wouldn't let her see her newborn baby. Like some of this is normal behavior, you know?

Chuck LaFLange (36:19.252)
Wow. Wow.

Chuck LaFLange (36:37.618)
Oh.

Sonya Johnson (36:39.819)
bright.

Chuck LaFLange (36:44.34)
Yeah, absolutely, right? Absolutely. That's like gaslighting 101 right there, right? That's like the worst kind. I shouldn't laugh because it's not funny, but...

Sonya Johnson (36:44.619)
bright. Yeah.

Exactly.

Lisa (36:51.74)
Mm -hmm.

Lisa (36:55.484)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (36:55.819)
BWAH!

It kind of makes me think of being trauma -informed like you had said a moment ago and I think a lot of it has to do with people receiving the right training and learning how to be trauma -informed because that is a normal reaction and when we deal with people differently we get better outcomes. So I think it does have a lot to do with support and learning things maybe from people that have lived experience when people are in their education, right? Maybe they need to hear from people.

like us, if they're gonna serve us, they should hear from us, right? Like they should know who they're serving instead of just hearing it out of a textbook because you don't always get a clear picture like that.

Chuck LaFLange (37:34.932)
So there's a question, Lisa. To become a psychiatrist, 10 years? School? Something like that? 10 years of learning before you're an accredited psychiatrist? At any point did you speak to anybody with lived experience?

Lisa (37:41.818)
Yep. Yep.

Sonya Johnson (37:43.549)
Wow.

Lisa (37:49.404)
In my education, you mean? So I mean, yes, because the way it was, and I don't know how every medical school works, but in Calgary from month one of medical school, so I mean, you're not a resident at that point. In medical school, we were working with patients. We were in the hospital with preceptors, seeing patients, and particularly like early days. I have to say that one of the things are,

Chuck LaFLange (37:50.932)
Yes. Yes.

Sonya Johnson (37:51.465)
Mm -hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (38:10.836)
Okay.

Lisa (38:19.238)
our preceptors often, because I mean, you're say we're in cardiology, like we're not going to go in and, you know, come up with some cardiac diagnosis with one month of medical school. But we were often encouraged to speak to the patient, learn about the patient, hear the patient's story. So I do think that that was quite encouraged. But I still feel like a lot of people who go to medical school are, well, maybe all like,

You're privileged. You know, you are, you're privileged.

Sonya Johnson (38:50.571)
right.

Chuck LaFLange (38:51.604)
Just to get there, I mean, yeah, there's some barriers that other people would not be able to cross, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sonya Johnson (38:54.665)
Mm -hmm. Right.

Lisa (38:54.684)
You know, right? I mean, the amount of education you need just to get into medical school in Canada, you know, you have to already be privileged. And there's a lot of people I went to medical school with who both of their parents were physicians. And I think one of the things that I did see repeatedly, and we've talked about this before, is, you know, as medical students, they would sit there with a patient hearing the story, and you would hear them say, oh, I understand.

Sonya Johnson (39:02.475)
Yeah.

Lisa (39:24.572)
And I remember it being a repeat conversation where I was like, can you just stop saying that? Because you don't understand. We do not like, and I'm part of that, like we do not understand. We don't understand what it's like to just be told you have ALS. We don't understand what it's like to be homeless. We don't understand. Like, and so there's, that was something that I saw despite us, yes, being exposed to patients and getting to hear direct stories.

Sonya Johnson (39:25.099)
and they don't.

Lisa (39:50.62)
Just still that ignorance around how little we actually understand what it's like to be in the patient's shoes.

Sonya Johnson (39:58.027)
I have a follow -up question to that. So when you were out, and I love that they actually put you out there and they encourage you to hear patient stories, how was the culture referring to the person that was training you or supervising you or the on -call physician that you were observing, how was their attitude towards those patients as you're hearing their stories?

Chuck LaFLange (39:58.26)
I'm kidding.

Chuck LaFLange (40:25.428)
specific to addiction kind of thing? Is that what we're just generally general?

Lisa (40:28.924)
or just in general.

Sonya Johnson (40:30.207)
Yeah, just in general. I mean, did you notice the stigma or were they subconsciously teaching you those things as you're learning, like you were also hearing on the back end?

Lisa (40:40.44)
Awesome question. I love that. I guess things I noticed were that older physicians were more maybe we could use the word jaded. And it's sort of, you know, they'd heard the story so many times that there was like a loss of sensitivity sometimes in older physicians, not always. Like there's like older physicians popping in my head right now who were super compassionate and

you know, and it always stood out to me, but I would say that older physicians, I saw that another thing that I noticed a lot was physicians being so overstretched and overworked. And it would come across to me as insensitivity, but I also recognized it's because they had this list of a hundred things they still had to do that day. And that took away from their ability to be present with people.

because it's just like, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go. And so how much can you really sit and listen to somebody when you know you have a hundred things that you need to do? It's not like, oh, it'll be good if I can do all these things today. It's like, no, I need to do all these things today. So I think, yeah, sometimes older docs, a little bit more jaded. And I think also just really recognizing how, you know, overstretched people are.

Like even now I'll have family or friends who will text me and be like, I've been in the emergency department for eight hours. I'm still waiting. And I'm like, you know what? It sucks. But I promise you those emerge docs are run off their feet. They're not sitting in the back room, having coffee, shooting the shit about what they did on Friday night. Like they are, they don't stop. And so yeah, just people quite overworked. And I think that that.

Sonya Johnson (42:20.075)
Yeah.

Lisa (42:32.86)
that has an impact on the care patients get. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (42:35.956)
Of course it does, right? And that's a systematic thing. That day, Lisa, that I sat in your emergency room with my friends there and trying to get somebody to help, we were there for, I don't know, eight hours or something like that by the time we left. And those circumstances were different. Anyway, we watched that emergency room fill up and empty. I don't even know.

I gotta say once an hour.

Lisa (43:06.044)
Yeah. Oh, it's crazy.

Chuck LaFLange (43:06.356)
It would fill up and empty out, fill up and empty. It was like this, like, holy shit. Just the sheer, like, the number of people that are being cycled through there is crazy. And kudos to the people that are working it and shit to the system that allows for something where you have to run that many people through like cattle just to get to the next person and trying to help them. Like, how frustrating that must be for everybody involved, right? For everybody involved.

Lisa (43:16.956)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (43:23.179)
Right.

Sonya Johnson (43:26.923)
Mm -hmm.

Lisa (43:31.612)
Yeah, yeah. And again, that was one of the reasons that I picked the discipline I picked. Because I mean, you can work in addiction through doing like Dr. Ghosh, who's been on the show, he's an internist. Dr. Scott, who's been on the show is an emergency physician. I'm trying to think we're thinking of having Dr. Van on, I think she's a family doctor by training, but it's like you can do addictions work through so many different avenues of medicine.

But for me, what sets psychiatry apart is that aside from when I am in the Emerge, which is equally crazy for us as it is the Emerge docs, but on the unit, when patients are my patients and they're assigned to the unit that I work on, like I get time, you know, like I have patients who are not allowed outside and when I visit with them, we'll go and walk laps around the hospital and that's how we talk. And so it's like, I actually get.

to just sit with patients and hear their stories day after day. And you don't get that in other specialties, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (44:36.628)
I'm so fortunate that you reached out the day you did Lisa. Yeah we are, hey? Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (44:38.379)
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah.

Lisa (44:41.244)
Yeah, very lucky.

Lisa (44:47.196)
We're coming up on a year. It was March something that I was.

Sonya Johnson (44:48.981)
Hahaha.

How did you guys meet? Can I hear the story real quick? Okay.

Chuck LaFLange (44:55.252)
Yeah, of course. So one of my guests on the show, Devin McGuire, who owns, runs three recovery houses in Lower Mainland BC, Canada. And Sonja, for your reference, he's in the trenches out there. He's by East, downtown Eastside, it's called Vancouver.

Lisa (44:55.428)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (45:13.931)
Mm -hmm.

Sonya Johnson (45:20.587)
Okay. Oh.

Chuck LaFLange (45:20.852)
which is Skid Row in Canada. And I think actually by most metrics, it might be the worst city in Canada. There's been some sort of, yeah, in North America, it's way up there. Yeah, it's crazy.

Lisa (45:29.564)
In Canada for sure, yeah, and I think it's in North America, it's probably top two, you know, maybe three next to San Fran and it's really rough.

Chuck LaFLange (45:39.284)
It's crazy where he's at. And so he came on the show and he's still one of my favorite guests I've ever had. He said some controversial shit. We had to have him back on because he got hate mail and hate phone calls from some of the things he had said and it was crazy. As a harm reduction person, you might have been in that club, but there's a whole story there. At that point, how do I say this? So there,

Sonya Johnson (45:39.499)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (45:51.689)
What?

Lisa (45:53.562)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (46:06.28)
did bid some attachment with Lisa and through her story and whatever. Lisa, I don't want to say what, you know, I gotta be careful what I say there, right? Oh, okay. Okay, yeah, so.

Lisa (46:13.55)
It's been talked about openly on the show before, but so he is an interventionist and he actually assisted. And it wasn't truly an intervention at that point. It was an intervention from four years ago. And then four years later, my brother reached out to the interventionist saying, I'd like to get some help. And a decision was made with my brother's input to go to a treatment center in Thailand. But of course he's so unwell at the moment that they don't

send them on the plane to Thailand alone and so they are escorted and and Devon was the interventionist who took my brother to Thailand. Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (46:53.673)
Wow.

Chuck LaFLange (46:53.972)
Yes, yes, yes. So, yeah, Devon, we had this great conversation. Devon had told Lisa about it, about the podcast. She listened to that episode, messaged me, I think the same day or maybe the next day, whatever it was there. Three days later, Lisa came on the Weekend Rambler with us and has been a part of the show ever since. Right?

Lisa (47:15.132)
Never went away, now he can't get rid of me. This is like...

Sonya Johnson (47:16.395)
I love that.

Chuck LaFLange (47:20.788)
What was crazy about that though, Sonja, extra crazy about that, is we both were in Calgary. At this point, I'm living in Calgary, so is she, right? It still took us like six months to meet or something like that, right? Living 10, 15 minutes apart from each other, I guess, but yeah, right? So, yeah.

Lisa (47:24.826)
Yeah.

Lisa (47:29.496)
I know, yeah.

Sonya Johnson (47:29.931)
Hahaha.

Sonya Johnson (47:36.267)
That's so cool. It was like meant to be that you guys connected and now here you are all the way across the world in Thailand, right? That's awesome.

Lisa (47:40.604)
Yeah.

I know. Right?

Chuck LaFLange (47:43.476)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. It is, it's nuts, it's nuts. And I'm every week, well, more than every week, quite often daily, I think about how all that's played out in my relationship with Lisa and I'm truly thankful for it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been a blessing.

Sonya Johnson (47:51.293)
I'm gonna go to bed.

Yeah, it's awesome.

Lisa (47:55.996)
Same, same. One thing, because we started out kind of talking about like family relapse, people relapsing. And, you know, I kind of spoke to it from like my role at the hospital. But there's that other angle that I've experienced, which is being the family member of somebody who has relapsed, right. And one of the things that I wanted to say is that,

I also think like education for families is so key because I remember 20 something years ago, the first time my brother relapsed. I had such catastrophic views of that. Like I felt so defeated and it was just like the world just crashed.

Sonya Johnson (48:27.083)
Yes.

Sonya Johnson (48:42.699)
Did you feel betrayed?

Lisa (48:47.086)
Um...

Sonya Johnson (48:48.555)
Did you take it personally, I guess is what I'm asking. That's good. You must have had some education already because I've noticed a lot of people take it personally.

Lisa (48:51.738)
No, no.

Chuck LaFLange (48:58.918)
Absolutely to do. Can't you just love me enough? That whole mentality.

Lisa (49:00.476)
Yeah, and I think for me...

Sonya Johnson (49:04.171)
Right.

Lisa (49:05.116)
Yeah, I think for me, like I just saw how sick he was, you know, like, um, like I had told the story before, but he had gone into a detox center and I remembered thinking problem solved. He's in detox. We're going to pick them up in three days. We're going to take them to a treatment center. We're done. And that's like speaking muggle of the muggles, like you should have met me 25 years ago. Like, you know, like I just,

Chuck LaFLange (49:33.812)
I can only imagine.

Sonya Johnson (49:34.731)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Lisa (49:35.996)
Like, like I was like, you know, we, this is the answer to the problem. We're done. And yeah. And then he had called the dealer from detox and the dealer picked him up at the detox center with a crack pipe loaded and was like, Oh man, don't go in there. Like they'll screw you up. You know, like, and then he went back and.

Sonya Johnson (49:41.899)
He's cured.

Sonya Johnson (49:49.355)
Yeah.

Lisa (50:00.572)
Then my boyfriend at the time, him and I sat outside the detox for the next five days in the parking lot so he wouldn't leave. And I remember he would call me up and he would swear at me and yell at me and spit venom at me. And then 10 minutes later, break down.

And so I think the reason I never took it personally is like that for me was just this like smack in the face of his suffering. Cause I was just like, Oh my gosh, like what is happening? You know? And I think sort of being eyes wide open and seeing him sick and seeing the internal struggle, I was like, this ain't about me. Like this is not, you know, he's not doing this to me.

Sonya Johnson (50:35.499)
Yeah.

Lisa (50:53.724)
But I will say that like in and to speak to the fact that I think families educating themselves is so important because in those early days, like I don't think I ever got mad at him, but I definitely had that catastrophic experience with the relapse. And then I think by learning and realizing that it's a relapsing remitting illness, that sober time is not lost, that there's things to be learned through relapse.

You know, I feel sad for him when he has relapses because I recognize that that comes with the struggle of trying to climb out again. But I do think families approach it differently the more they understand.

Chuck LaFLange (51:41.876)
Yep, they do, they do, which it's the entire premise of the show, right? And as we've talked about many times, but I figured out early on that when I was in Activitiction, there was no way I was turning into a podcast every week, let's be honest. Right? I was so fucked. I was too busy trying to survive to get high, to get whatever, right? That was not happening. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, hustling, always hustling. Grinding, always on the grind, right? But.

Sonya Johnson (51:42.027)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (51:57.079)
Right, yeah. Right. Hiding under a rock somewhere, hustling or...

Lisa (52:02.672)
Yep. Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (52:11.22)
The families are a desperate search of resources. And I feel there's many great recovery podcasts out there, and I don't need to take away from that at all, but I just, I feel the best way that I could help was to help educate some families and to give them some resource and something to pay attention to. Because in turn, we are helping the people that are suffering by doing that, right? You know.

Lisa (52:14.812)
Mm -hmm.

Sonya Johnson (52:14.987)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (52:35.753)
Yeah.

Lisa (52:35.868)
And even for me, Chris, I've said this before, but as somebody who has had a loved one for 20 something years struggle with addiction, you know, who has done a lot of research trying to find him help, you know, like I've spent a lot of time on my computer looking up programs and resources and all the rest of it. There are so many resources that I've learned about in Canada through this podcast that I have never heard of before.

And like, you know what I mean? Like I just, it still blows my mind. Cause I think I've done some pretty extensive searching to try to find help. And there's so many programs that you've had on this podcast to talk about support that exists. That I think it's necessary. It's just, it's so hard for families to try to find help and support. And...

Chuck LaFLange (53:14.708)
Yeah.

Lisa (53:32.228)
Sometimes families are afraid to ask, like families feel stigma too, you know? And.

Sonya Johnson (53:36.649)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (53:36.788)
Oh, fuck, we could do another 10 episodes. We've done a couple on that, but we could do a whole, and we probably will, now that you said it, at least I think that'll be coming up again real soon, right? But, you know, yeah, yeah, this thing was faced by the families, right? Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (53:39.989)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (53:45.555)
Mm -hmm.

Lisa (53:45.724)
Yeah.

Lisa (53:49.66)
Yeah, which is so sad. And I mean, no more sad than someone with addiction suffering with stigma. But yeah, it's just crazy to think that you have a loved one with an illness and you're afraid to talk about it.

Sonya Johnson (53:49.769)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (54:03.275)
Yeah, I saw this meme once that said drugs are ruining my life and I'm not even the one using them. And that just speaks so much to that. And I love that this podcast is about family members because they don't get the support. I mean, there's all kinds of resources and treatment centers and detoxes for people that are struggling with addiction. And there is limited support for family members of people who are struggling with addiction.

Chuck LaFLange (54:30.804)
At best, I would venture to say, Sonja, that the math is kind of reversed and not that it should change. Not that we should have less of anything, but certainly more on the family side. We say often here, if for every person who struggles with addiction, there's 10, it's an arbitrary number I pull out of the top of my head, and let's be honest, it's way low. There's 10 people that are affected by that, right?

Sonya Johnson (54:52.715)
Yeah, absolutely.

Chuck LaFLange (54:55.956)
So 10 % of the people that are affected are getting 90 % of the resources. Because there's very little resources for those 10 people. So the math is almost reversed. And again, I don't think that we should be taking away from the people that are struggling. I think that there should be more for the people that, for their loved ones. It's important to qualify that statement. That's right. But yeah.

Sonya Johnson (55:01.579)
Mm -hmm.

Lisa (55:12.252)
Mm -hmm.

Sonya Johnson (55:14.443)
Wow.

Lisa (55:16.572)
And I think that, you know, as family members, we don't necessarily know what it's like to live in the shoes of our loved one who suffers. But I do remember a conversation I had with my brother, and this was the very first time he was ever in treatment. So you're going like back many, many years and he was still quite young. But I remember saying to him, not in a, hopefully not in some sort of an angry, punitive way, but I said to him, like, you also don't know what it's like to be your sister.

Sonya Johnson (55:45.003)
great.

Lisa (55:45.212)
You don't know what it's like to have a sibling suffering and sick and to sit there and be terrified that you're going to die and to feel like there's not a damn thing I can do about it. Like, but cross my fingers, I guess, like, you know, I mean, yeah, it's people don't know what it's like to be the mother of the father of the sister of the spouse of the child of unless they've lived that too. You know?

Sonya Johnson (56:12.107)
Yeah. My mom has described it as her getting to know me now that I'm in recovery is like getting to know a new person. We don't come back the same. It's like sending somebody to war. And when they come back, they are not the same person anymore. Right. True.

Chuck LaFLange (56:28.276)
And nor do our loved ones, our parents, you know, that they'll never be the same. My mother, Sonia, and I don't know if you're, she's a big part of, she's the inspiration to You Are Loved, and I think I probably told you about that. She is a huge part of the show. She will never be the same. Right? Never, right? You know?

Sonya Johnson (56:43.147)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (56:52.02)
The bar has moved to say the least. You like things are really different now. And for the better, I mean, mom, you know what's funny, Lisa? Just, I've been kind of sick for the last 24 hours. So rather than work on new content, I was going back to some of the episodes and I was watching that last one that mom did with us. And it was just like, ah, this is so cool. I just love that she's a part of this. Sonia, she's made herself available to, I don't even know.

Lisa (57:14.542)
Mmm.

Sonya Johnson (57:21.963)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (57:22.1)
but like so many mothers. So our relationship now, like you said, Tonya, yours with your mom is different than ever. My mom and I, it's like we're doing this together. You know what I mean? So she's working on the You Are Love stickers for me. I can't wait to get those done. Yeah, right.

Lisa (57:25.02)
Mm -hmm.

Sonya Johnson (57:35.305)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (57:40.331)
That's so cool.

Lisa (57:40.636)
And I think there's, you know, you can look at, you can look at true for everybody, true for the person suffering with addiction, true for the family members. You know, you can say that, well, you don't know what it's like to be me, but there's a gift in it too, right? Like there's no way if you erase 25 years of my life and my brother never suffers with addiction, there is no way that I am the person I am today.

with the empathy that I feel today, the desire to help people like I do, like, do you know what I mean? So.

Chuck LaFLange (58:16.724)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah.

Lisa (58:19.516)
There's, you know, it there can be good that comes from it.

Sonya Johnson (58:23.275)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (58:23.316)
And I agree, and guess, Lisa, that's kind of what I was saying there, is that 100 % there is, right? Look at mom and I. My mom is a force.

Like on anything she does, she is a force. I can tell you stories, everything she ever touches is done to like, y 'all better watch the fuck out now, right? Like she is crazy when she gets onto something. And so now I think, and myself as well, I've got some, there's a skill set there where I get my teeth into something, I'm pretty good with it. And it's like, mom and I can take over the world together if that's what, you know? And so, and we're directing that energy together into this thing, and it just makes my heart happy, right?

Sonya Johnson (58:41.451)
Hahaha.

Lisa (58:41.756)
I'm

Lisa (59:01.564)
Mm -hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (59:01.828)
that couldn't have happened without the years of shit that led up to it.

Lisa (59:07.068)
Mm hmm. Sonya, can I ask you a question? So you sort of at one point today talked about like, you know, the advice you give to people around what not to say, right? That just kind of promotes the shaming. And I love the way you described it, like speaking death over somebody. But what are things that because again, I think for family members who might be watching who are newer to the struggle who don't necessarily have tons of support or education, like,

Sonya Johnson (59:08.427)
Yeah.

Lisa (59:36.188)
What are the things that you encourage them to say to people?

Sonya Johnson (59:41.035)
I think the most important thing that somebody needs to know is that you still love them and that you still see them as a person, as a human, because we feel when we're out there like we're less than human, like we're the scum of the earth. And so if you speak to the person that's inside of them, the person that I know and love, and let them know that you believe in them and that you are going to support them on this journey,

journey when they are ready to get help, you're going to be there for them the whole way as their biggest cheerleader. And you just know that just letting them borrow that hope, right? Like we had kind of talked about before, giving them the hope that you believe in them and that you have hope for them. You haven't given up on them. Nothing that they could ever do is going to change the way that you love them. That's always going to be there. No matter how low they feel, you love them, you support them.

you believe in them and you have not given up on them. I think that in itself is very powerful for a person struggling to hear.

Chuck LaFLange (01:00:50.58)
Sonja, have you seen another content creator, Brandy Mack? Have you seen her? Holy shit, eh? Holy shit, this woman. Oh, Lisa, you gotta see, I shared a video to the pitch the other day.

Sonya Johnson (01:00:55.147)
Yeah, yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (01:01:05.106)
It was a while back now. She's amazing. I've been reaching out to her trying to get her attention to come on the show, but she is like, holy shit, is she ever cool, eh? I just listen to her go, oh my god, right? Like, you're my people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's absolutely amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sonya Johnson (01:01:08.299)
Yes. Yes.

Lisa (01:01:08.38)
team.

Sonya Johnson (01:01:14.091)
Yes.

Sonya Johnson (01:01:18.347)
Yes!

Lisa (01:01:20.388)
Really?

But what made you just think of that now?

Chuck LaFLange (01:01:26.546)
She's the mother of somebody, her daughter, who suffers or has suffered, whichever. And her entire message, her entire message is, you know, this healthy balance between boundaries and loving. And, you know, basic needs. One of her, like, feed them. Is there a human being that's hungry? Just feed them because you love them, right? And you know how I feel about that, right? Yeah, she is right. Yeah. Absolutely, right?

Lisa (01:01:40.7)
Mmm.

Sonya Johnson (01:01:47.369)
Well...

her daughter is clean right now as a result of the way that she loved her through the struggle. And in the beginning of her journey, she was one of those, I'm not going to support you. I'm not going to enable you. I will give you no money. I will give you no phone. And what happened is she had a bad experience. She trusted all the people that were telling her, you can't support her addiction. You can't enable her tough love, tough love, tough love. She trusted those people and then sent her daughter to a treatment center where she was the victim.

of body brokers, right? And it changed her whole perspective on the way she dealt with her daughter. So every time she spoke to her daughter, instead of speaking to her addiction, she spoke to her as a person. And she just had regular conversations with her, but not about her addiction, because her daughter already knew she wanted her to get clean. So she just spoke to her. And eventually it worked. And her daughter is clean now, lives with her and her son. It's the most beautiful thing.

Chuck LaFLange (01:02:21.82)
Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (01:02:46.9)
It really is, it really is a, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's, Brandy with an I, Mac with a C. You can find her on TikTok, to Facebook, I think might be a pirated account. I'm pretty sure it is actually. Yeah, yeah, it's got like a thousand followers, right? Okay, yeah, and I suppose Instagram, yeah, yeah, right, so.

Lisa (01:02:48.22)
Aww. How do you spell her name? I'm trying to find her.

Sonya Johnson (01:02:54.601)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (01:02:58.315)
Yeah, and Instagram as well. Yeah.

Lisa (01:02:58.364)
Oh, OK. OK.

Lisa (01:03:04.956)
Okay, I'll find her.

Chuck LaFLange (01:03:07.572)
Yeah, it's absolutely amazing, for sure, for sure. Listen ladies, we've crossed over the hour mark, so as we tend to, I'm not surprised that the conversation's gone. I see your eyes light up there, Sonja, about daily gratitude. So that brings us to my favorite part of the show, that is the daily gratitude, and well, let's start with you, Sonja. Whatcha got?

Sonya Johnson (01:03:09.803)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (01:03:21.513)
Hahaha!

Sonya Johnson (01:03:28.105)
Okay, so it's amazing that we are talking about this topic today and the gratitude that I want to share with you today. So.

Kind of a story. In 2016, I was living in a halfway house. I was not ready to get clean. My mom had custody of my kids at the time. And she came to visit me at the halfway house, right? And she was just in that struggle. She wanted it for me so much. But I wasn't ready. And that's just all that there was to it. I wasn't ready. It wouldn't be, but a couple weeks later before I get kicked out of the halfway house for using. And when she came to see me, she brought this song that she had been listening to.

And the name of the song was trust in you. And it was just saying like, I'm going to trust in God's will. Like even though I can't see it right now, I'm going to trust that everything is going to be OK. Right. And so fast forward a couple of years later, I get arrested. I'm in jail. And I was just in the darkest period of my life. And I heard another song. And the name of the song was rescue. And I don't know if you guys have ever heard me share this part of my story. But it was like, you know, I will rescue.

you and I had this revelation that I hadn't been arrested I had been rescued from the darkness that I was living in because I was so scared back then to say I wanted help to say I didn't want to be there I knew I didn't want to be there but when you're out there in the streets like that you can't speak that you have to be tough you know so I had this revelation when I was in jail that I had been rescued and so that song got me through so much hard times and

And last night, the person that sings both of those songs is the same woman. Last night, I went to a concert with my mom.

Sonya Johnson (01:05:18.283)
And the woman that sang those songs was the concert that we went to. So she saw she sang trust in you and rescue while I'm sitting there with my mom and my kids. And it just speaks to the fact, right, that, you know, however many years ago, seven years ago, when she heard that song, she had no idea what would happen last night. She had no idea that I was going to be OK. She had no idea I was going to be in recovery. Get my kids back.

Chuck LaFLange (01:05:24.466)
Oh.

Sonya Johnson (01:05:48.229)
And then, you know, four years ago when I heard that song in jail, I thought I was going to prison. I thought it was over for me. I thought it was nothing but a failure. That's all I would ever be. And then here we are four years later and I'm sitting in a concert with my mother and my children and I'm listening to the song that changed my perspective on my...

recovery and on my life and it just was such one of those full circle moments and I felt so much gratitude. Yes. Oh, I cried. I cried.

Chuck LaFLange (01:06:14.932)
Did you cry? Did you cry?

But you did. I'm kind of trying not to right now, I'm to be honest. So yeah, that's awesome.

Lisa (01:06:19.324)
Ha ha!

Sonya Johnson (01:06:23.435)
But it's that family member thing, right, that we're talking about. Like, she struggled so much and she didn't do it perfectly. She made mistakes. She put me down sometimes. She shamed the addiction and she gave me tough love, but she never gave up on me. And she always believed in me and she always loved me. Nothing ever changed that. And although we struggled, we made it to the other side. And last night was one of those moments when we got to embrace that. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (01:06:52.724)
That is absolutely awesome. I see Lisa was tearing up a little bit there.

Sonya Johnson (01:06:53.739)
That's my gratitude.

Lisa (01:06:56.508)
That's a good gratitude.

Lisa (01:07:00.712)
I know. I just feel like I was imagining myself in that moment, you know? And just, yeah, like, right? Like this full circle. It's like this full circle moment of recovery and love and family and unity and support. That's awesome.

Chuck LaFLange (01:07:07.194)
How can you not?

Sonya Johnson (01:07:09.611)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (01:07:22.443)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (01:07:22.516)
really is. Lisa, what you got?

Lisa (01:07:25.564)
I am grateful that Sonya's here. I have told Chris that like we have a lot of great guests on this show, but there's something about you Sonya that just like speaks to me. It's the way you say things, the way you describe things. Like it just, I don't know, it just hits me differently. And so from that first episode when we had you on, like, you know, when we wrapped up and Chris and I were speaking later and I was like, that was just one of my favorite episodes and you're one of my favorite people.

And I'm just happy to know you and I love that I get the privilege of getting to listen to you speak and hear your story and just hear your wisdom. And so I feel very grateful that I get to be here and do this with you again.

Sonya Johnson (01:08:10.109)
Thank you and actually I'm very grateful too. I love we did like that first episode I feel like we really had such a great connection and a great conversation and I've been looking forward to coming back on here with you guys for Six months now because it's actually been six months since the last time I was here. I know but I love these Conversations and I'm I'm grateful for it too. I know right it has time flies

Lisa (01:08:11.452)
Yeah.

Lisa (01:08:19.226)
Hmm.

Lisa (01:08:26.492)
Wow.

Chuck LaFLange (01:08:29.14)
Really? Holy cow, hey? Wow, geez. No kidding, hey? So much has changed in six months, right? Well, I guess, yeah, I've been here for four months now, right? So yeah, that adds up. That adds up, hey? Holy cow, wow. Yeah, okay. And for myself, um...

Lisa (01:08:29.436)
that long.

Lisa (01:08:35.868)
Time flies.

Sonya Johnson (01:08:40.683)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Lisa (01:08:44.508)
Yeah, crazy.

Chuck LaFLange (01:08:52.66)
so much. My dog is always in there now. He's all I got here. He's not all I have here, but he's like he's the only physical thing I have every day in my life. The only, you know, relationship and I just love him so much. But I don't know if you've checked it out. Sonja, Sonja the Sonny in a Sidecar page. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, he's a little star around here now.

Lisa (01:08:56.476)
Sunny.

Sonya Johnson (01:08:57.547)
Yeah.

Sonya Johnson (01:09:07.723)
I have, yes.

Lisa (01:09:13.54)
I'm a little celebrity.

Sonya Johnson (01:09:13.707)
I noticed the drone videos too. You just got like a drone that you did some like... I love that. That's awesome.

Chuck LaFLange (01:09:17.556)
Yeah, so that's Mike Miller from the Outdoor Treatment Center. He has a film background too, right? He used to work for TSN actually. So yeah, we busted out. He's got some really nice drones, right? So yeah, that was pretty cool. There's a bunch more footage there too that I get to play with once he sends it over to me. So yeah, definitely thankful for that. I'm also thankful.

Sonya Johnson (01:09:29.163)
You

Sonya Johnson (01:09:34.675)
I'm

Chuck LaFLange (01:09:39.028)
I just, as we were sitting here recording, I just got another message from somebody who's the sibling of somebody that was lost and who's actually writing a book called Ask Just Awesome. What are the odds of that? But...

And again, this is kind of that weird coincidence that we're sitting here talking about family and then here she is and then of course with Lisa being a sibling and all that. So looks like we're gonna have her on the show. Most likely with you Lisa. I just, for that message specifically, but all of the messages, right? Like, I struggle. I struggle with so much the financial side, all of those things. And...

Sonya Johnson (01:09:54.091)
Well, yeah.

Lisa (01:10:05.052)
Awesome. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (01:10:21.466)
Validation of purpose is the thing that you need. And it just, in all of those messages, all of those comments, this. That's one of my favorite comments ever on one of my, like if I see that on a real or a meme, I'm like, I did it. If somebody just says this, right? I'm like, yeah. I nailed it.

Sonya Johnson (01:10:37.643)
Yeah.

Lisa (01:10:41.66)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (01:10:44.532)
All of that stuff is just such a blessing and I'm so, so thankful for that. I'm also grateful to every single person who continues to support us in any way you're doing it, whether it's a like, a comment, a share, subscribe, the buttons.

Anytime 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 continue making 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 Deox, go to a meeting, go to church, pray. I don't care. Do whatever it is you have to do to get that journey started, because it is so much better than the alternative.

If you have a loved one who's suffering an addiction right now, you're just taking the time to listen to another amazing conversation on the ramble. If you just take one more minute out of your day and text that person, let them know they are loved. Use the words.

Lisa (01:11:34.844)
You are love.

Sonya Johnson (01:11:34.955)
You are love.

Chuck LaFLange (01:11:38.772)
That little glimmer of hope just might be the thing that brings them back. Boom.