230-TESSA HART

Chuck LaFLange (00:01.577)
Hello everybody, watchers, listeners, supporters of all kinds. Welcome to another episode of the Weekend Ramble on the Ashes to Awesome podcast. I'm your host, Chuck LaFlange, checking in from Krabi, Thailand, halfway around the world in Calgary, Alberta. This is my beautiful co-host, Dr. Lisa. How you doing today, Lisa?

Lisa (00:16.19)
very good. It's a good Saturday on a long weekend. So I'm good.

Chuck LaFLange (00:22.064)
That was the weather in Calgary today.

Lisa (00:23.862)
Beautiful. It's I mean, it Calgary is weird, right? Like it, it was snowing yesterday. So there's like fresh snow everywhere, but blue sky today and it's going to be 19 degrees on Tuesday. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (00:36.357)
Sounds like Calgary to me. I do not, I should say I do miss the warm parts of the winter anyway, but also joining us in virtual studio from Winnipeg, Canada is a very dear friend of mine, Tessa Hart. How are you doing today, Tessa?

Tessa (00:53.234)
I'm doing well, thank you.

Chuck LaFLange (00:56.393)
I'm really glad to have you on. How's the weather doing in Winnipeg today?

Tessa (01:01.378)
pretty much the same as there. It's kind of like on and off cloudy today, but it was snowing and raining yesterday so we kind of just got a thin layer of snow everywhere, but it's supposed to be like 19 on Wednesday, Thursday here too so hopefully winter's over.

Chuck LaFLange (01:14.589)
There you go. Hopefully I think you're probably safe now. Usually, yeah, at the end of March, you should be fine, right? So at least, you know, Calgary standards anyway, from what I'm used to.

Lisa (01:18.146)
We're getting close.

Lisa (01:24.226)
Although I have to tell you, the first year I moved to Calgary, so I moved here in 2006. And I moved here at the end of March. And so of course, went and got hiking and camping gear and then was like, May long weekend, going camping. Went camping on May long weekend, woke up in a tent covered in snow, the roof of the tent drooped in.

Chuck LaFLange (01:41.873)
Ha! Never a good idea.

Tessa (01:47.778)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (01:47.904)
Of course you did. Yeah.

Lisa (01:49.686)
come at an attempt and everything is white. And I was like, okay. And then of course I've since learned that Calgarians will laugh at anybody who tries to do something on May Long weekend because it's like a long standing joke that you just don't do that with nature and you wait until after May Long weekend.

Chuck LaFLange (01:59.139)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (02:03.489)
Yeah, or I mean, when you're 20, you do, right? Because whatever, you know, most people don't fall asleep anyway when you're 20, right? You know, so yeah, and we did a bunch when we were kids, but yeah, I'm too old for that shit. Now I would never attempt that.

Lisa (02:07.498)
Yeah. Yep.

Lisa (02:17.474)
Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (02:20.513)
Anyway, listen, to the listeners and watchers and supporters, so Tess and I go back a couple years now. The last of our using days were spent in Moose Jaw, where we met when I lived there and we ended up living there. We parted ways right towards the end of my addiction and getting close to the end of hers as well. Tess has got, well I'll let her talk, tell her own story I guess, but Tess...

I know your story quite well, so maybe I'll just get you to start. You know what? We'll start the same way I ask everybody. Do you remember the first time you got fucked up?

Tessa (03:01.049)
Yeah, um, pretty vividly actually. Okay, wait, what are we, I'm fucking up on what? Like justice in general? Oh, okay. I was 13 and I got blacked out hammered with my mom.

Chuck LaFLange (03:06.045)
How old were you?

Chuck LaFLange (03:09.498)
The first time you got messed up period. Drugs, alcohol, whatever. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (03:19.511)
Oh, okay.

Tessa (03:20.79)
Yeah, my stepdad set the house on fire.

Chuck LaFLange (03:24.125)
I can't imagine why you remember that. Yeah. There's all sorts of, I can already hear Lisa's mind just whirring in the background there. Like just going crazy, right? And I guess, so to you Tess and to anybody who's listening who might be new to the platform, Lisa is a psychiatrist in Calgary, specializes in addiction, works with people who suffer with SUD quite often. And typically she gets interested in...

Lisa (03:34.326)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (03:54.273)
and our guest stories. She is also the mugglest of the muggles, as I finally fondly call her.

Tessa (03:57.328)
Always an interesting one.

Lisa (04:01.511)
And like, and I've broached on this before, but even like, when you take addiction out of it, right, if it's just mental health, like I'll meet people and we'll talk about whatever they're coming in with, whether it's, you know, depression or anxiety or whatever. And of course, that's what they're most interested in. And usually around like a second or third session, like I'll focus entirely on like their childhood. And it's like, for me, it like all just kind of comes together.

Like it all makes sense once I hear like the childhood story. So when someone tells me to get blackout drunk with their mom when they're 13 years old, I'm just like, whoa, like, I don't know if you can tell us more about it, but I'd be curious. Like, is that like looking back now, like, yeah, like what, like you're a mom now. Like, I don't know if you, if you think, you know, differently about that situation as a, as a mom.

Chuck LaFLange (04:43.171)
Yeah.

Tessa (04:43.67)
pretty open book with these kinds of stuff.

Tessa (04:55.118)
Oh yeah, ye for sure. But also like then, so my mom had been in active addiction since I was like five, six years old. So I was pretty used to what was going on at that point. And by that point I had kind of started to make the separation between my mom being my mom and my mom being my friend because I understood that relying on her to be my mom, I was going to get let down nine times out of ten. But if I had her as a friend, she was a pretty fun person to be around.

and I got hurt less. And so now that I have a baby of my own, I look at those things and I'm glad that I made that distinction so that I still have good memories with my mom, though we may have not been doing the best of things, but I couldn't imagine hurting my.

Chuck LaFLange (05:42.725)
No, no, right. If we could go back to that first time, do you remember specifically how it made you feel, more importantly, relative to how you felt before you got drunk, kind of thing? I won't lead you into anything, you just answer the question.

Chuck LaFLange (06:03.065)
It's okay if you didn't remember as well, so I'm just, you know.

Tessa (06:05.162)
No, I'm trying to figure out how to word it. So, my mom had just left my sister's dad and they had been together for like 16, 17 years, super abusive, toxic relationship. And she met this guy who was actually a year younger than my older brother and super fell in love with him, was super infatuated in this relationship. My brother was an adult, he had moved out, my sister moved in with his dad.

And I was 13 and I was a very mature 13 year old. So my mom was kind of just doing her own thing and I was kind of along for the ride. And she was getting drunk all the time and like I was a second thought. And so that day when she offered me a drink with her, I was like, well, you know what? I'm finally not gonna be like a second thought. And we had a really, really good time until he set the house on fire, cause he's stupid. It was like.

The spring and our whole backyard had a bunch of really tall dry grass and he flipped his stay right by the back door and holy art.

Chuck LaFLange (07:06.426)
Wow.

Lisa (07:07.134)
So, so did you drink with your mom because you wanted to drink? Or did you drink with your mom because you wanted to try to connect with her and thought it was the only way to do it?

Chuck LaFLange (07:18.919)
Or can you even answer that question?

Tessa (07:19.73)
It started as a wanting to connect with her sort of thing, and then once I got drunk and kind of was introduced to why people use coping mechanisms like that, then anytime my mom was like, hey, do you want a drink? I was all over it because I knew that it would lead to me feeling good.

in that shitty situation.

Chuck LaFLange (07:42.766)
Wow, usually that's an insight that comes long after the fact. So that's interesting for sure. Lisa, you can run with this. Yeah.

Lisa (07:53.558)
Yeah, I'm just curious, like what, before you found drinking, what were the, and I don't know if you'll remember this, but what were the feelings that you had that drinking helped you escape from?

Tessa (08:08.066)
I was angry. I was really, really mad that my mom couldn't pick me over her addictions, that my whole family got ripped apart, that we were living in the city and all of a sudden we were living two and a half hours outside of the city. I had no friends, no one to talk to. We were seven kilometers from like the closest town. We had no car. I was just out.

Lisa (08:34.54)
Yeah.

Tessa (08:34.754)
But at the same time, I loved my mom so much and there was a lot of what was going on that I didn't blame on her for. Yeah, she fucked up and she had her addictions, but there was a lot of it that was situational that I didn't really blame her for. And so it was being mad at her, but not being able to be mad at her and wanting to protect her because she's my mom and I love her and it's not her fault.

Chuck LaFLange (08:36.259)
Oh, okay.

Lisa (08:47.31)
Mm-hmm.

Lisa (09:00.162)
Yeah, but it's like awesome that you're aware of that because again, one of the things I find is that people, for example, out of that like desire to protect their parent, they can't admit that they were also angry and they were also hurt. And for some people, it takes like a lot of work and therapy to like be able to pull out that they can realize that their parent, just like all the rest of us, we're not black and white, right? We're made up of 10 million shades of gray.

and people are not all bad or all good. So it's like super insightful that you are aware of all that. And it sounds like you were aware of it even when you were a kid, is that right?

Tessa (09:41.918)
Yeah, I knew exactly what I was doing. Because, I mean, I had to go up really, really fast. I had a little, like my little sister, who was three years younger than me, that I couldn't just watch Fen for the wolves. And my older brother, who was seven years older than me, did a pretty good job, like, stepping up and raising me. But the 10-year difference between him and my sister, he wasn't really interested in her. And so I had to, I went from being five to being her parent, like that.

And so yeah, I just kind of realized and had to realize a lot of things because in order to take care of her and do what I had to do to keep my whole family talking to each other, make sure that my mom was okay, that all these things were okay, I had to learn how to deal with myself and make sure that I was okay to be able to do those things.

Lisa (10:34.902)
And the thing is, I think when kids grow up in trauma and chaos, they do grow up faster, right? Like they don't really have a choice in the matter. But at the same time, kids don't have the capacity to truly grow up the way that they need to. Their brain just is not developed, it's not capable, right? But so it's like, there's this expectation to function like an adult when you don't have the tools to do it. And, you know, I don't know if you've...

Tessa (10:49.708)
Yeah.

Lisa (11:01.307)
looking back if you can relate to that.

Tessa (11:04.574)
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, there is.

Lisa (11:07.296)
Yeah.

Tessa (11:10.382)
For example, my mom used to have house parties and stuff all the time. And like, us kids were home, sure, we'd be in bed. But like, there was a time where my sister had to go to the hospital because she found a bag of my mom's caps behind the couch. And she was fine. She ended up just like riding the trip out in the hospital room. But that was a normal thing for me. A bag of my mom's caps. Like MDMA capsules.

Chuck LaFLange (11:29.253)
back of your mom's what I'm sorry

Chuck LaFLange (11:35.269)
Oh, okay. Okay. Wow. Okay. So she

Tessa (11:37.098)
Yeah. Yeah, she came into the living room and she looked at my mom and she went, Mom, I'm talking to Jesus. We weren't like a religious household either. So, uh, yeah.

Lisa (11:38.606)
Mm-hmm.

Lisa (11:48.713)
And how old was she at the time?

Tessa (11:52.47)
Five, maybe four, because she wasn't kindergarten yet.

Lisa (11:57.006)
Wow. And then did that like, was their child and family services involved? Like did?

Chuck LaFLange (11:57.341)
Wow.

Tessa (11:58.178)
Yeah.

Tessa (12:02.65)
No, no, as we were running out the door to the emergency room, my mom looked at my brother, who was 16 at the time, and said, this is your stash. And so when we went into the emergency room, they were all like, oh yeah, that kind of thing happens all the time, otherwise, not a big deal. But yes, that's the only other thing into my home when I called them in. Because all my siblings, like my brother had moved out, my sister was living with her dad, and I was living with my mom out in the country. And it was shortly after I had started drinking with her. She hadn't...

Lisa (12:09.169)
Okay, gotcha.

Lisa (12:16.234)
Mm-hmm.

Lisa (12:20.28)
Okay.

Tessa (12:31.394)
We were broke as shit, and so the food that was in the house, mom had meals for. You weren't just, you don't just go snack on stuff. And she was next door at the neighbor's place, and my mom was a really frail, small woman, and she had been blackout drinking for like, three days at this point, so I was hungry. And she started picking a fight with this really, really big Aboriginal woman, and my mom was like 80 pounds soaking wet, two fake hips, and said like, this was gonna go bad. So for her own safety,

I'm like, mom, like, can we go home? I'm hungry, blah, blah. And eventually I convinced her to come home with me. And as we were walking from our neighbor's place to our place, there was a fence in between that we had to crawl over. And I tripped going over it. And I, she looked at me, she came out, she's like, good, stay on the ground. I fucking hate you anyways. And my mom had said, like, I should have aborted you, like a lot of, a lot of awful things, but she'd never told me she hated me before. And so that, that's, that's stung. And then we went in the house and she beat the ever loving sh-

shit out of me from one side of that trailer to the other. And that was another thing that had never happened before. She'd never laid her hands on me. And so I went to bed that night, and I woke up in the morning fully ready to adult sit down and talk to her about this situation, because even then I knew that wasn't her. She was drunk, that had nothing to do with me. I was just the person that she took it out on. And I sat down and we talked about it, and we had a really good conversation. And at the end of it, she goes, well, in my defense though, the last week, you have been being kind of a bitch.

And so I walked out my door and called CFS and didn't go back.

Lisa (14:02.23)
You never ever went back or? Oh wow, how old were you when that happened?

Tessa (14:07.863)
I was 14.

Lisa (14:12.123)
Wow. Yeah, that's a lot. I'm just sort of like stuck on that for a minute. Like, you know, right? Yeah. And the fact that like, I mean, I'm not surprised it was a profound moment, but like, clearly, as you're sitting here saying, like, she had said all these other things to me, but she'd never said that, right? It's like, did you ever like struggle with, because on one hand,

Chuck LaFLange (14:16.913)
It is a lot. It's a ton, right? Yeah.

Lisa (14:40.03)
I feel like there's this, I don't know if desire is the right word, but like desire to connect with your mom, to be in her field of vision. So it's like, well, if I drink with her, then, you know, I can be, I can be with her. But you also had that awareness that your mom behaved in ways because of substances. Like you said, that wasn't really my mom. So was there, did you ever resent the substance? And like,

not want to drink it or want to go pour it all out because you're like this shit is ruining my mom.

Tessa (15:15.354)
Yes, but I also, okay, so my mom, she abused opiates. That was her main, like she would do whatever, she'd get her hands on, but opiates was her big thing. And it was because when she was two and a half years old, she was diagnosed with juvenile room-sort of arthritis. She had osteoporosis, she had two fake knees, or two fake hips, a fake knee, three herniated discs, she was, she had a lot going on. And so even if she didn't abuse her medication, she still needed it, right?

And there was a point in my life where I went into the house and I grabbed all of her pain meds and I flushed them all down the toilet and then I saw what happened. And I saw how much pain I caused her and I knew that wasn't, that's not how you do it.

that I couldn't just ask for it to stop.

Lisa (16:00.543)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (16:00.605)
Wow.

Lisa (16:02.862)
That reminds me, Chris, like different scenario, but similar to when you've talked and you've said it a few times, but you saw somebody go through an opiate withdrawal and the pain they were in and how it like impacted. Oh.

Tessa (16:13.57)
Was it me?

Chuck LaFLange (16:15.693)
No, that one wasn't you, but I do remember seeing that a few times too, hun. Yeah. No, for me, it was the first time I'd ever been exposed to it. I've seen lots of people go through being dope sick the first time I was ever exposed to it. It was, for me, it was like an instant, I will never let somebody go through that if I could help it again. Right? And call it enabling, call it whatever you want. But for years after that, if I could help somebody that was dope sick, I would buy them their shit. Right? Every time.

Tessa (16:17.806)
I'm going to go to bed.

Lisa (16:25.323)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (16:45.457)
Because they're not gonna quit if I don't help them. They're just gonna suffer. Right, and you're watching another human being suffer. Suffer is the word too, right? And it...

Tessa (16:51.276)
Thank you.

Lisa (16:54.062)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tessa (16:57.154)
I'm the same way, even going through active addiction, if I had this much less and I saw somebody that I could clearly see was dope-sick, half of that was theirs, I didn't care who you were.

Chuck LaFLange (17:08.785)
We've talked about this on the show too, at least I don't know specifically with you, but it's certainly something that's come up. Something that always amazed me, of course I was never into opiates personally, but when you saw two people who were addicted to fentanyl and one person would have a couple points left, which is two tenths of a gram and not that much, knowing that they have no more money, they have no more resources to get more dope, but if somebody next to them was sick,

you know, knowing they were going to be sick in two hours because they're going to share it, they would still share it. Almost every time. Right? And yeah, it was just kind of this camaraderie of, I know what it's like, man. Right? And it's crazy to see. Right? I've also seen the extreme opposite of that with horribly selfish and...

Lisa (17:44.005)
No.

Tessa (17:51.041)
horrible.

Tessa (17:55.542)
Oh, the extreme opposite where it's like, oh, you know what? I'm about to run out of dope. That guy next to me has $10 and they're sick and they're too sick to get up. I'm going to take that $10 and make sure that I can. Yeah, there's two sides to every.

Chuck LaFLange (18:04.641)
Yeah, right. There is that side of it as well. So it's not all roses and you know, I don't mean to paint it like that, but just the fact that selflessness exists in a place where you have every reason for it not to exist always kind of blew me of mind.

Tessa (18:16.246)
They're not all bad, like, and that's what I try to explain to people that like don't.

that have that like stigma and negativity against it. Nobody woke up and wanted that. It's fucking awful. They are suffering. They are not happy. It's... You don't wanna be like that. So if someone is in that situation, you can help somebody not feel as shitty, you're gonna.

Lisa (18:32.778)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck LaFLange (18:33.009)
Yeah, right.

I actually.

Lisa (18:36.468)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (18:43.609)
Yeah, right. I was, it's funny, I was doing my comment thing, my war in the comments thing again, Lisa. And so every week I end up just telling Lisa about some fucking craziness that I did. So I may have overstepped this time. And it's not often you'll hear me say that. So somebody came in saying some really rude, ignorant things in a post about people who suffered addiction.

Tessa (19:00.984)
BLEH

Tessa (19:04.353)
No.

Chuck LaFLange (19:09.925)
And I might have gone to their profile and just grabbed a picture of the kids. No, this is somebody else. This is a mom who did not react because I did the same thing last week, right? With the grandpa guy. Yeah. Who he just, that was the end of the conversation. This woman went fucking crazy. I did blur out the faces of her kids. I'm like, I'm not going to post that shit online and you know what I mean? Oh, whatever.

Lisa (19:13.855)
Was this the grandpa?

Lisa (19:20.462)
Yeah, because there was the grandpa one and you took, yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (19:34.545)
So I blurred out the faces and said, hey, if it's these two, you might have a different, I'm calling the police on you, you can't post pictures of my kids. So it was like, okay, whatever, right? Yeah, of course I, yeah, right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, exactly. Yes, and I mean, I blurred out their faces because I'm not a total asshole, but yeah, right. And so just, but just to make that point, and it's like, now you get it. You see how passionately protective?

Lisa (19:41.294)
But you actually can. And so at the end of the day, like if she puts it on social media, then the world can do whatever they want with those photos, which is why people should be careful. Yeah.

Tessa (19:43.732)
You are mad!

Tessa (19:54.954)
Because you're respectful. But you got your point across.

Lisa (20:00.906)
I was going to say, I think you struck a chord. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (20:03.757)
Yeah, right. And of course she denied that just called me a creep and all that. But yeah, right.

Tessa (20:04.138)
Yeah, you hit her little mom nerd, you did exactly. She's still gonna think about that though, so you accomplished your goal. You're not a creep, Chris, I know.

Chuck LaFLange (20:12.709)
That's kind of the way I look at it. I mean, she left the conversation very angry and threatening, but I'm not saying whatever. You know, and you just, you get so fucking tired of it. You get so tired of how mean people can be, right? And like, I don't know how many times people will say it, how many times I've said it, it's, that is somebody's kid, right? Like that could be your kid. Her response, that would never be my kids. I take care of.

Tessa (20:20.91)
That's what happens when people know that they're wrong though, they just get mad.

Tessa (20:38.934)
Somebody's somebody.

Chuck LaFLange (20:41.913)
my kids, that would never happen. It's like, oh, you poor lady. I hope reality never knocks on your door. I hope you get to live in that bubble forever. And I hope reality never knocks on your door and that you have to think back to conversations like this. Right? Like, you know.

Lisa (20:44.257)
Oh god. Yeah.

Tessa (20:45.441)
Oh, that's not hello!

Lisa (20:50.075)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And actually, I actually feel like people like that, they're kids to me. Like, so on one hand, I think it's protective if in fact, there's been no family history of addiction, there's been no trauma. That's protective. But her ignorance is dangerous, right? Because drugs are everywhere. They're in the schools, they're in private schools, they're used amongst people who come from money.

Tessa (20:56.398)
It doesn't matter where you come from.

Lisa (21:24.554)
And so it's like, if you literally believe that could never be your kid, then your poor kid is not going to have the right supervision.

Chuck LaFLange (21:25.138)
Yeah.

Tessa (21:34.734)
Okay, there was a girl that I went to school with her dad was a preacher her mom had a super good job Beautiful home. She was adopted into the family. This kid had absolutely everything going for her and was super smart I was really good friends with her and While I was using I was staying at a shelter and I woke up and the girl sleeping next to me on the mat on the floor was the valedictorian fucking dad was a priest of my class and She had everything

in these under the sun going for her and she went to a party. Parents hadn't educated her on everything because that could never be my kid and now she was sitting right there next to me. She has since had a baby girl and has been clean for like two years so... but yeah.

Lisa (22:12.014)
Exactly.

Lisa (22:18.998)
Yay. Yeah. Now I think like people need to be talking to their kids. Like I have a six and a half year old, you know, and you obviously have to be mindful of their age exactly, you know, but like she went through when she was five years old, her birthday party was Michael Jackson themed. She was obsessed with Michael Jackson at five years old. And, you know, and, right? And also around that age, she started to become aware that

Tessa (22:31.82)
appropriate. Yeah.

Tessa (22:45.838)
I'm going to go to bed.

Lisa (22:48.35)
aware of death, right? That death was a thing. And so, you know, she had asked me one day, like, Is Michael Jackson still alive? And I was like, No, he died. And she's like, Well, how did he die? And I told her, I said, you know, sometimes people take medication they're not supposed to take. Sometimes people you put things in their mouth that's bad for their body. And that's what he did. And I think he probably died by accident. But I think, you know, you need to be

aware that this is out there in the world and talking to your kids. Because yeah, if you don't tell your kids, someone else is going to tell them.

Tessa (23:21.886)
completely, that's just, I'm gonna be completely trans, age appropriately transparent, but completely transparent with my daughter about whereas in what things are like, she's yeah, she's gonna know. And really like, I learned by like seeing things and as many bad stories I had, she was also an incredible mom. She did, she

Lisa (23:32.778)
Yeah.

Tessa (23:51.81)
And um, and yeah, I know like I, the more knowledge you have, the better you are and like better prepared you are for things. And um, any questions she has will be aid appropriately answered, but answered.

Lisa (24:07.722)
Yeah. And then Tessa, can you tell me just because I don't know your story. I know that Chris does, but like, so you started drinking with your mom when you were 13. And then what happened from there? Because I know you guys knew each other. But yeah.

Tessa (24:22.302)
Yeah, so I ended up moving in with my grandparents and then I finished school living with them. I would go to parties on the weekend and whatever, but I graduated with honors. I had a full time, like I did really, really good through high school and stuff. And then I moved to the city for a year and my mom was on and off living with me. And then she passed away of an overdose really abruptly right after my 19th birthday.

And I, after I graduated, I started putting all my time and energy into taking care of her. And when she passed away, I was honestly really lost. And I had, I didn't know what to do. And I had my brother living with me at the time. And I knew that she had died of a fentanyl overdose. Everyone around me was dying of a fentanyl overdose at the time because it had just become popular. And I was in a really bad mental state. And I knew where I could get my hands on some.

And so I went and I bought them with the complete intentions of overdosing. I went home, I walked into my brother's room, and I said, Hey, I have this in my pocket. I'm going to go into the bathroom and get high. And that was like my, you know, last ditch, final cry for help. But he told me to come knock on his door when I was done so that he knew I was OK.

Chuck LaFLange (25:36.285)
Wow.

Tessa (25:37.662)
Yeah. And then.

Lisa (25:38.666)
And so the intention had been overdose, but did you overdose?

Tessa (25:41.726)
Yeah. Nope. And then yeah, that was, I just, I kept trying for like a week and then I ran out and I was like, well, fuck it, I guess this is over. But then witch y'all started. And then I just kind of chased that for a while. And then I ended up homeless and that was really rough. But then I got on the methadone program and I picked my shit up. I got custody of my little sister. I moved out of the city.

And I was doing really good for like a year and a half. And then I was in a relationship and he ended up cheating on me. And so I got like really down in the dumps, moved back to the city. The person that I was staying with ended up being an addict. And so I relapsed and was on dope for a while. And when I met Chris, actually, I was on my way to BC to go try to get help there because the help in Manitoba is just, it's not here. And I figured if I can get out there.

there'll be something. And on my way there, the person that was driving me, we stopped to go camping and I had sent him to the gas station with like $200 in his pocket. Okay? He grabbed and goad the gas and stole like $200 from in the gas station and then ripped into our provincial parking or camping spot, took the place off and it was like, everything's fine, everything's fine. So sure enough, the cops came, impounded the car.

took him and I was just stuck in the middle of nowhere in my little camping thing for like three days there and the guy in the campground next to me ended up dropping me back to Regina where I met our mutual friend who introduced me to Chris and then really he took me in because he felt bad for me and kind of saved my ass.

Chuck LaFLange (27:32.957)
Hmm. Yeah, she's a crazy time. Yeah, I was actually, we had met, I was, I was taking her back into Regina after hanging out for a couple of days and we didn't make cutoff. Hey, I guess you lost your spot at the YMCA or YWCA. Yeah. So, um, it was like,

Tessa (27:46.386)
Yeah, yeah. And it was like 11 o'clock and I'm sitting outside with all my stuff on the curb and he's the only person I knew. So I called him and I was like, I have nowhere to go. And he turned right back around and grabbed me all my stuff and brought me home with him and yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (28:02.665)
It was crazy. Wow, wow, wow. It was a rough, interesting time. I had a thing, I collected strays along the way, quite a bit, yeah, yeah.

Tessa (28:05.474)
Thank you again.

Lisa (28:05.77)
not surprised to hear that part of the story.

Tessa (28:10.219)
Yeah.

Lisa (28:15.162)
Yeah, I mean, I can't you'd have to refer to yourself as a what was it? Crack a source or some name? Right, I can't really picture it like I try sometimes I'm like, I can't really picture what that looked like But I certainly can't ever picture you being mean to somebody

Chuck LaFLange (28:21.837)
Cracosaurus Rex. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (28:34.313)
This is not typically what I did. There's, I mean, on occasion, of course, but never, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly not typically.

Tessa (28:37.538)
No... There was actually, there, I remember there being an instance of somebody... We thought that they had left with a large quantity of something that wasn't theirs. And... Him being the nice person that he is, like, calmly texted her, I put my steel-tow booth on, I was like, Let's fucking go, we went to her house, I like ripped and... I was running the PTFL shit out of her. He was like, No, we're just, we're gonna do this nicely. I was like, No!

Lisa (28:50.945)
Okay.

Chuck LaFLange (28:50.972)
Yeah

Chuck LaFLange (29:05.425)
Oh my God. Oh my God. And you remember how that ended up? Right? Yeah. We... Yeah. It was in my pocket the entire time. Yeah. I'm so glad that we didn't do something when we got there. Right? But yeah. I like... I... It was like, no, you're coming back to my place until we find it. That's what's happening. Right?

Tessa (29:11.146)
Yeah, yeah, we had it the whole time.

Lisa (29:14.513)
Oh no!

Tessa (29:19.63)
Yeah, I'm glad I didn't eat the snot out of her, yeah.

Tessa (29:25.806)
And that's what happened, we had her there for like two hours until we found it. I mean, she had water and she was good, but...

Chuck LaFLange (29:29.221)
Yeah, and then there was. She we watered her. Yeah, right. Yeah, it was in my pocket the whole time. Right. So yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Lisa (29:32.363)
And it was in your pocket. Oh, man.

Tessa (29:37.558)
There was- there were deep, weird pockets.

Lisa (29:40.723)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (29:41.065)
Yeah, yeah, that was interesting for sure.

Lisa (29:45.458)
See

Chuck LaFLange (29:47.793)
Tessa, I want to talk about the time that after that, so, so after we parted company, there's, there's a few months in there. I, I thought, cause that would have been September. So about a year, I guess. Hey. Yeah. And you got sober in March.

Tessa (29:55.209)
Okay.

Tessa (30:02.254)
I left at the end of August.

Tessa (30:07.271)
March 8th of 2023 was my last day.

Chuck LaFLange (30:11.449)
Okay, okay. So not quite a year later. Yeah. That's what she messaged me last night to say, hey, you know, it was like, oh, well, doesn't that work out that you're coming on the show? Right. So, yeah. That's why I made that post on Facebook about her and, you know, right. To congratulate. Um, and I don't even really want to talk too much about the time in between their tests. You find out you're pregnant. How's recovery journey look for you from there?

Lisa (30:14.462)
March 28th. No, it is here. March 8th. Yeah. Awesome.

Tessa (30:16.087)
Mark it.

It was a year ago. Yeah.

Lisa (30:27.394)
Yeah.

Lisa (30:30.896)
Mm-hmm.

Tessa (30:43.13)
get it fucking done. Um, No, I found out that I was pregnant and-

Tessa (30:52.49)
I don't, the fear that washed over me, and not because I didn't think that I could like take care of a baby or whatever, but the fact that there was no more.

There was no more fucking around, like it just... It had to be done and I didn't know... If I could do that? And so it was a really hard, like... Battle of, am I gonna be capable of... Cleaning myself up as fast as I need to? So that I don't impact her? Or... Do I make this other medical choice to not... Have this negatively impact her?

So there was that I was tossing around in my brain. And I was already, I had just started methadone at the time, but I was still using while my dose was getting like figured out and everything. And I went to my doctor the next day and I told him what was going on and we kind of figured out a bit of a plan because I knew that if I did get everything together, that she was gonna save my life. That once I have her, there was gonna be no relapse and there hasn't been like, it's not even a thought that I have.

because anytime I'm even a little bit upset, I look at her and everything's just, it's okay, Dan.

Tessa (32:20.499)
But I found out that I was pregnant at the end of January and the last day that I used was the end of March. And it caused... and I was really open with my partner about it because how we met actually, I was about to hitchhike back to Saskatchewan. It was like midnight and I was saying goodbye to my best friend and I was going to go hitchhike all the way back because Chris was the only person that I knew would make sure that I was okay.

and I was walking past a bar and it was really late, it was kind of cold, I didn't have any dope in my pocket to do this whole trip, so I was a little unsure about that and her dad walked past me and was like, oh like where are you going? He ended up talking and he let me spend the night at his house and I told him what was going on and he was like yeah you don't have to like go hitchhike, you can stay here and figure some shit out and then after a day or two I was like hey I just feel like I should let you know.

I'm a little bit of a junkie and like probably not a person you want to have in your house. He was like, no, I kind of figured there was something going on. Let's figure this out together and kind of let me stay here and get on methadone. He didn't, he made sure that I didn't have to go and do anything illegal to bridge me from getting on my methadone ideas. So I was, thankfully I had a huge support in that way. And so when I found out that I was pregnant with her.

I told him, I was like, look, I don't know what to do about this, and he had my back, every step of the way, and without that I don't think I would have been able to do it.

Lisa (33:54.51)
That's awesome. And is he still in your life now?

Chuck LaFLange (33:57.815)
Um.

Tessa (33:59.914)
Yeah, I'm sitting in his house right now.

Lisa (34:03.927)
Okay.

Tessa (34:04.342)
He's playing with our baby in the living room.

Lisa (34:07.342)
Oh, that's awesome. Awesome.

Chuck LaFLange (34:09.853)
So Tess, something else happened in between there that I just remembered. So Tess actually did a Memorial Monday episode with us way back in the beginning. It was like the third or fourth one, actually. Do you wanna talk to us about that? Yeah, I... Yeah.

Tessa (34:22.73)
Yeah, that's one of the reasons I came home. I had a weird gut feeling that I needed to come home and see my big brother, Zach. And I spent like three weeks from the day that I got home just hunting him down. And this girl was like, yeah, okay, he's at my house. But even through my whole addiction, I took pride in my appearance. I did not look like an addict. And so when I came up to you and I was like, hey, I'm looking for this person, take me to your house. Your...

probably not going to trust that, you're going to go make sure with the other person that I'm not like a cop or something, which I totally understood. And instead of going back and saying, hey Zach, I, your sister is looking for you, she went shopping for six hours instead and my brother overdosed.

Tessa (35:13.374)
And so I still kind of carry, like I should have been there to save him.

Tessa (35:23.09)
I should have just said fuck her, I knew where the house was. But... I didn't know.

Tessa (35:31.094)
But I remember finding out, because I was still standing in that parking lot where she left me, like, four hours later, and someone was like, Ah, some ginger overdose! And I was like, hold the fuck on, what ginger where? And I found out, and I hysterically sawed in a random parking lot. I don't even know how long.

Chuck LaFLange (35:31.399)
I mean...

Chuck LaFLange (35:50.121)
Wow. I mean, that survivor's guilt is understandable tests vary. It's also not rational, but when is emotion rational anyway, right? So, you know, yeah, I can completely understand that. That was episode 24, by the way, if that, you know, so it's kind of, it was 200 episodes ago, right? Put that in perspective, 200 and some odd.

Tessa (35:58.474)
No, not at all, but...

Lisa (35:58.561)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Lisa (36:03.014)
Yeah.

Tessa (36:03.546)
Exactly.

Lisa (36:09.866)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Tessa (36:16.674)
Hey, I like your shirt. Can I order a shirt with my sweater?

Chuck LaFLange (36:17.725)
that.

But yeah, of course you can. Well, your sweater's probably on the way, but yeah, we'll get you a tank top going on for sure. Yeah. Hell we could do negligeeism with a, with the, you are loved on them. Right? That's the thing. Right? Yeah. The print goes on the, on the butt. Yeah. Sorry. All of it. Literally anything you can imagine. Yeah. Literally anything you can imagine. Yeah. I get you.

Tessa (36:22.666)
Yeah? Okay. Well, yeah. Okay, cool.

Lisa (36:24.586)
Hehehehe

Tessa (36:30.57)
Woo-hoo!

Lisa (36:32.206)
Hey, night shirts.

night shirts, right? Yeah, that would be and you could still do a night. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's so cute. But you could totally do a night shirt and put your loved on the butt. Why not?

Tessa (36:36.692)
I would actually yeah like mention that a little bit.

Tessa (36:43.406)
I'm gonna get a baby one today.

Chuck LaFLange (36:48.346)
I could do shoes.

Tessa (36:51.566)
Yeah, I'd be a dog.

Chuck LaFLange (36:51.589)
Why not, right? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, hell, I can get you shoes if that's what you want. Go ahead.

Lisa (36:54.794)
And Tessa, can I ask about, can I ask about Zach? So is this the brother that you said was, how many years old or seven? Oh no.

Tessa (37:01.022)
No, he wasn't my biological brother. When we were all living with my mom and she was kind of, what's her name?

Tessa (37:13.218)
When you're an ad, she was a functioning addict at this point. And my brother used to have all his friends come over all the time. It was like two, three in the morning and I had gotten up to use the washroom and they were having a bonfire in the backyard and I heard this teenager in my backyard talking about how hungry he was. My mom had always taught us that if someone was hungry, you feed them. So I made him a sandwich and I had made cinnamon buns or something that night and so I brought them outside him and I gave him the sandwich. He just started crying. I didn't understand.

I was like 11 years old and come to find out that his parents had both abandoned him when he was like 12 and taken off to BC and nobody had ever done anything nice for him up until like that point. And so from that point on we were just, he was my big brother.

Lisa (38:02.071)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (38:04.198)
Um.

Lisa (38:04.974)
Super sad. And I think, you know, everybody, when something bad happens, right, I think we always think, well, what if? And there's an infinite number of what ifs, because it's like, if we do anything different in this moment than what we're doing, the future will be a little bit different. Right? And so it's always the, well, what if I had done, again, there's an infinite number of things.

Chuck LaFLange (38:08.125)
so much there.

Tessa (38:21.719)
many things in action.

Lisa (38:30.662)
it doesn't change the reality of what's happened. And so it just kind of torches you for nothing, but I think it's also very normal.

Chuck LaFLange (38:37.809)
Yeah, yeah, it is right

Lisa (38:40.42)
Yeah, and what about your biologic brother? Is he is he okay?

Tessa (38:47.878)
For the most part, like he um, he's not like an addict or anything like that. He kinda just, he has some like mental health issues that he doesn't really deal with so he um, he works like a minimum wage job and has his little apartment and he's doing alright.

Lisa (39:10.418)
Yeah, and are you still close with your little sister? Because it sounds like you were sort of like a mom to her growing up.

Tessa (39:16.602)
I was until very, very recently actually. She was in an abusive relationship and so I went and I rescued her from that and I brought her into my house and I set her up a bedroom in my basement and she spent three weeks eating all of my food, dirtying my house and not going to any of her meetings and so I told her that she had to go to her meetings and stop doing nothing or get out of my house and she...

barricaded herself in my basement until I had to call the cops and get her.

Chuck LaFLange (39:49.393)
Hopefully that's a temporary setback in relationship. I mean, typically.

Tessa (39:52.002)
I'm really hoping that she smartens up and gets the help she needs. I love her, she's my little sister.

Lisa (39:53.323)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (39:57.211)
Yeah.

Lisa (39:59.994)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (40:00.381)
Of course, right? Of course.

Tessa (40:01.002)
I still texted her the next day and was like, did you get up and go to the thing you were supposed to?

Lisa (40:07.15)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a lot though, hey, Tessa. Like, you've been through a lot in your life, you know? And yeah, and some of it's still there. But I'm glad you've got your little girl, right? Because it sounds like she's that reminder and motivator to keep doing what you're doing, you know? So that's a lot.

Chuck LaFLange (40:09.466)
sure it will be.

Tessa (40:22.743)
Thank you.

Tessa (40:31.53)
Well, and I think of having her as like, that part of my life ends where she starts.

And so it was like a complete 180 fresh start. Let's all of that happen where this is ground zero. And it's looking at it that way has allowed you to be a lot happier with her and just with everything else that's gone.

Chuck LaFLange (40:57.233)
That's a wonderful outlook to have. It does remind me, and I said it in that Facebook post about Chetess, I just posted a reel, and Lisa, this is from Sonia Johnson's first episode with us. I don't know if you caught that reel that I posted yesterday about her, the day before. Where she tells us that in her story, you often hear the, you have to quit for yourself, it can't be for anybody else, and yeah, and she says for her, that wasn't her story, right? For her.

Lisa (41:12.366)
I don't think so, no, not yet.

Lisa (41:21.65)
Oh, I did see that, yes.

Lisa (41:26.872)
Yep.

Chuck LaFLange (41:27.633)
She didn't think she was worthy of recovery. She didn't think she was worth it. Yeah, right. So, yeah. So that's why yesterday, Tess, I asked you specifically, did you quit when you found out you were pregnant? Because I didn't know that was the correlation, right? So when I made that post and I mentioned it, right? Yeah.

Tessa (41:30.218)
I didn't matter. Yeah, no, I wasn't gonna quit for me.

Lisa (41:33.191)
Yes.

Lisa (41:43.328)
Mm-hmm.

Tessa (41:43.626)
Yeah, yeah, that was it. That was.

Lisa (41:47.882)
And this is part of why.

Tessa (41:48.274)
I couldn't look back in innocent ways because of my bullshit.

Lisa (41:52.742)
Yeah. But no, this is part of why I believe in mandated treatment, you know? And Tess, I'll just like preempt that with saying, I don't, to me, mandated treatment is not appropriate for everybody with addiction. It doesn't.

Chuck LaFLange (41:55.461)
You're saying.

Tessa (42:08.942)
No, but the people that you see that are losing their marbles on the street corner, 100% should be put in mandated treatment. 100%.

Lisa (42:15.818)
you know, because I hear stories like this often. Like I'll hear stories like Sonia's where she is pretty open about the fact that being in jail is what saved her life. You know, I also because of the work I do, like I work on an adult inpatient psychiatry unit. So for example, we'll get people who get admitted to hospital in a state of psychosis that is drug

in the early part of being on the unit, they sometimes want nothing to do with me, nothing to do with the hospital. And then, you know, we'll keep them there. Even within a week, the change in their perspective is shocking, right? And, and suddenly they'll a weekend, they'll be saying, you know, can we get that addiction team to come see me? Like, can we actually talk about those residential programs I could go to and

And again, it's like if they hadn't had a period of kind of...

Tessa (43:15.252)
being able to calm down and regulate their brain chemistry and yeah, because you're not thinking rationally when you're like that, your brain is in fight or flight mode.

Lisa (43:24.702)
Yeah, yeah, you know, and so, yeah, I think sometimes, yeah, I just think people in that, in that active phase of recovery, or addiction, sorry, they don't, they don't believe they can do it. They don't think they're worthy of doing it. They don't believe there's the help that they need to do it. Like, there's so many of these different stories, but

Tessa (43:48.27)
Before I had Emory, I had tried to get clean twice. I got on the methadone program once and did pretty good. And actually, I was almost done the methadone program. And that's where my hiccup was. I went down on my dose too fast and started to not feel good. I was down to three milligrams. I was so close. But the second time that I wanted to get clean, I was dating my dealer. And so I was going through a lot.

Chuck LaFLange (43:49.016)
is.

Lisa (44:08.981)
Oh wow.

Tessa (44:18.066)
and we had ran out. I had gotten sent $400. We went and picked up again and we woke up the next morning and there was nothing anywhere to be found in the whole house and I didn't even remember the last 24 hours. And I sat up and I looked at him and I said I can't do this anymore. You can leave, you can stay. I'm about to ride this the fuck out. And I did for like I ended up my grandma ended up

Tessa (44:47.814)
where I was staying. I couldn't walk, I couldn't move. They were like, get the fucking thing out of here. So my grandma came and carried me to her car. And I gave her a list of places she could take me. Because at that point I was done despite, I just wanted to go high. This was horrible. And she was like, you can't walk, you can't do anything right now. And I'm like, no fucking take me here. And she took me to St. Boniface Hospital and she put me in a wheelchair and she left me at the door.

and they put me in, they took me to the back and they like got me off because I was having seizures and passing out. It was, it was ugly and they put me in detox over Christmas and I did, I was, I did pretty good and I made it to the other side of it where I started to feel better again and then when I checked out of detox I had nowhere to go.

Tessa (45:40.898)
And the only place that I had to go was with other addicts and I couldn't go stay with them unless I was using because they couldn't trust me unless I was using.

And it was December.

Tessa (45:55.711)
December in Manitoba is fucking cold.

Chuck LaFLange (45:58.695)
Yeah, yeah it is.

Lisa (45:58.926)
And Tessa, like, did you have support? You know, I mean, because we always talk about how, I think a large number of people who listen to this podcast are family members. And hence we talk a lot about the you are loved message, right? But you know, your mom had died of an overdose. Did you have people that you felt could help you get well?

Tessa (46:25.39)
Um, yes and no. Like, my family is really, really small. I have my brother who had his own shit going on, my sister was younger than me, I'm not close to any of my aunts and uncles or anything like that, and I have my grandparents who dealt with my mom's active addiction for so long. And by that point, they had already taken me into their house once and I robbed them blind. And so they were kind of, they were hurt by what I did and had

done in their eyes as much as they could to help me. And them enabling me essentially wasn't gonna help me get anywhere better, so they were doing the tough love sorta thing, and I was really, I was on my own to figure it out.

And I really, then I was very mad at them. And I was mad at my sister who wouldn't let me in her apartment. And I was mad at all my friends that wouldn't let me in. Looking back at it now, I wouldn't have let me in.

Chuck LaFLange (47:23.497)
It sounds to me, Tess, like similar to my experience, that's a perceived lack of connection, right? Because you would have had to concede to some things in order to receive the help that you needed from them at that time, right? To be let back in the home, to be whatever, right? You'd have to address some of your behaviors that were a result of the addiction, right?

Um, because I, and correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like your grandma's a pretty big part of your life now, right? Um.

Tessa (48:00.494)
Oh yeah, she definitely, she's a huge part of my life and my daughter's life now. And we've had a few instances where we've been on and off again, Rocky. And actually, when I got out of the relationship and I started using again and they let me, yeah. But when they let me into their house the first time, my grandma was so supportive of my addiction and she was taking me to get me on Suboxone and there was a long, long waiting list and she didn't want to see me sick so she made sure that I had enough dope.

Chuck LaFLange (48:10.329)
But that's normal fucking life is what that is.

Tessa (48:28.694)
to make sure that I wasn't sick until I got into my flu-oxidant appointment. And where I started stealing from her was just enough dope to not be sick, wasn't good enough for me.

Chuck LaFLange (48:39.641)
Yeah, yeah, bad behavior for sure.

Tessa (48:40.938)
And so, exactly. And that obviously it hurt them because they were already draining their retirement fund and letting me smoke dope in their home. And they were doing as much as they could in their eyes to help me. And I just said, fuck you.

Chuck LaFLange (49:00.397)
Yeah, yeah, right. Cause I also remember when we were in Moose Jaw, your grandparents showing up and helping you out, right? Yeah, right. That's a big deal, right?

Tessa (49:01.55)
I didn't, I didn't.

Tessa (49:07.522)
They drove out to see me. Yeah, yeah, they brought me a whole bunch of clothes and sent me like Amazon, like shampoos and conditioners. And I tell my grandma all the time that she loves me about more than I deserve.

Chuck LaFLange (49:22.949)
Well, not more than you deserved, just enough, right?

Lisa (49:27.538)
Yeah. I mean, again, Tessa, like I would say, as a mom, is there something that your daughter could do that would ever make you not love her? And so it's no different, right? Like you might look back and think that you did some terrible things when you weren't well, but just like you would never not love Emery, I'm guessing your grandma would never not love you, right?

Chuck LaFLange (49:28.265)
I don't like that statement.

Tessa (49:40.446)
Nah. Yeah.

Tessa (49:57.102)
Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (49:57.453)
said. You can you can cry if you want a little bit. Because I am a little bit. Yeah. Actually your grandma did comment on that post this morning as well, which I thought was pretty amazing. Yeah she did. She did. Yeah. I was like, oh I've heard so much about you. I never actually met her. So yeah.

Lisa (50:05.518)
Right. Yeah.

Tessa (50:11.668)
I'll just try that again.

Lisa (50:12.368)
Oh.

Tessa (50:19.79)
Actually, we were in the car the other day and she was like, So, do you still talk to Chris? I was like, oh yeah, all the time. She was like, oh, okay, so he was there when we came to Moose Shop. And I was like, yeah, and I told her actually our whole story and she was like, wow, you guys do go back. I was like, yeah, he's a good dude.

Chuck LaFLange (50:40.617)
Try not to be a bad one anyway.

Tessa (50:40.726)
But yeah, at least once a week my grandma texts me like, you are loved with a little heart. And so I always screenshot it and send it to her.

Lisa (50:46.673)
Oh.

awesome. But you know, I feel like because Chris, you said that, you know, you think it's a perceived lack of connection and like, I was like, I just keep running over that in my head, because I'm like, it sounds like grandma was there for moral support, but because of some of the behaviors, there were these boundaries that at that time, she was not willing to have you back in the home. And

Chuck LaFLange (50:50.961)
Fuck.

Lisa (51:13.706)
You know, I see this a lot with patients where they show up and I'm like, is this perceived or is this real? And even if it's real, sometimes it's understandable because of history, right? But I'll have patients who show up and they like, they have nowhere to go. The only place they can go are places where people are actively using. And there's like, from my perspective, I'm like, there's no way you're going to go there and stay sober. Like that's not going to happen.

Tessa (51:43.719)
No, it's not.

Lisa (51:44.154)
Um, and so, you know, just from the perspective of resources and what I think should exist out there for people to get help, like hearing your story, Tessa, like I totally get where your grandma was coming from at the time, but I also, right, I can very much though, feel that for you, you probably felt like there was nowhere to turn.

Tessa (52:03.306)
I'm starving.

Lisa (52:13.674)
You know, and so it's like, how do you?

Tessa (52:14.046)
Yeah, it was a very helpful.

Chuck LaFLange (52:18.962)
Yeah, right.

Lisa (52:19.719)
You know, and addiction is such a monster that it's like when you feel like you have nowhere to go, how do you beat it?

Tessa (52:28.13)
Yeah, yeah, where do you start?

Lisa (52:31.294)
You know? Yeah. But you did it. You did it. You're doing it. You did it. You're doing it. That's awesome. Yeah.

Chuck LaFLange (52:36.529)
Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did. Yeah, you are. Right. I'm so grateful for that, Tess. I really am. You know, at the beginning of that post, I did mention that. I've said it out loud, like, could we just win? It'd be really fucking nice, you know, because it just as the platform grows, there's more and more people messaging and often their mothers, grandmothers.

Tessa (52:41.041)
I'm doing it every day.

Chuck LaFLange (53:05.957)
and you just get so discouraged by the numbers. But if you just stop and focus for a minute, I mean, your success story, that's great, right? We have our mutual, thank you, our mutual friend who's now sober, never saw that coming, I thought for sure. So.

Lisa (53:21.299)
As are you.

Tessa (53:21.398)
Thank you. Yeah, I was gonna say, so are you.

Tessa (53:29.526)
Yeah, don't me either.

Chuck LaFLange (53:31.121)
The mutual friend that we're talking about, and we won't use her name because it's not, I don't think that's appropriate to do right now, but Lisa, when I talked about the paramedic, who after me doing CPR for like 10 minutes while I waited for the ambulance, this is the same friend. So Tess, I don't know if I ever told you about this, but she had overdosed multiple times over a couple of days too. But we didn't have Narcan in the house. And I did CPR on her until the paramedic showed up and on the way out the door, the paramedic said,

Lisa (53:43.687)
Oh, yeah.

Tessa (53:57.376)
Mm.

Chuck LaFLange (54:01.725)
Um, we'll see you later. And I just, like, I wanted to punch him out. I was so pissed off that he could say that. And of course, at the time, my emotions were, you know, and I care about people and this person just died, fortunately was brought back, but like she was dying and I was panicking and what the fuck did you just say? Right. Like what, what? And of course now through a different lens, I understand. I try to understand how.

Tessa (54:16.562)
Yeah, like that's somebody I care about. Oh my God.

Tessa (54:28.682)
That's still... No, that's not a... That's...

Chuck LaFLange (54:28.957)
how hard it must be for first responders. No, but, and you're right, it's not okay, but I can understand how it gets to that place. If you've seen that person six times in two days, you're just like, once it's stopped, man, once it's stopped.

Tessa (54:37.794)
Yeah, for sure. You know what? I- And I'm guilty of-

Tessa (54:45.23)
guilty of that actually in my active addiction there was a house that I lived in and there was a girl that used to come over all the time and if she was in the house it was like ah fuck let's make sure we know where this is like she's gonna go down at some point and it was it was to the point where I was but I was actually there was a couple times where I was the only person that would bring her back because she had gone down so many times that everyone was like well fuck it

Chuck LaFLange (55:03.537)
Yeah, right.

Chuck LaFLange (55:12.837)
Yeah, right. So imagine being a first responder who's not privy to that lifestyle, who's not even getting to get high. And I've said this to many people that were using fentanyl around me, you don't get it because you're fucking high. Sure, you've been around and you brought people back, but you're high when it happens. The rest of us that aren't using that shit are just sitting around hating the fact that you're using it and then watching somebody we care about die. And it's horrible and it's shitty and it's traumatic and it sucks, right? So to somebody who's spent

Tessa (55:34.578)
literally die.

Chuck LaFLange (55:42.065)
How many times, how many hours of their day, running around Narcanning people as this epidemic gets worse and worse? You know what I mean? Pretty easy to see how they get there, right? You know?

Tessa (55:48.182)
It's awful. Even now that I'm not using, I always keep one in my bag when I'm going out, because there have been many times where I've been like, well, I guess I have to get off my bus and go dark pan that person in the bus, because all their friends are just standing around getting high while they're falling over.

Chuck LaFLange (56:06.245)
realities of living in a city like, well, like any major city.

Lisa (56:06.792)
Mm-hmm.

Tessa (56:07.89)
and that I don't understand either. Like, if you're in a group and you're all getting high and someone starts falling down, why don't you just shuffle over a little bit and let that person die?

Chuck LaFLange (56:18.109)
Well, because dope, that's why, right? It's fucked up, you know? Yeah, it is, it is. Listen, we've come to the top of the hour, so which means it's my favorite part of the show, and that's the Daily Gratitudes. So Tessa, what you got for Daily Gratitudes today?

Lisa (56:24.479)
Mm.

Tessa (56:38.332)
Alright, I'm gonna start out strong with, how many do I gotta get? Three?

Chuck LaFLange (56:42.125)
You just, we don't put limits on gratitudes. That'd be crazy, right? Yeah.

Lisa (56:42.57)
You're good.

Tessa (56:48.46)
My baby's pretty amazing. She's actually seven months old now and has been the greatest seven months of my life. I'm grateful for the fact that I'm a little over a year sober. Feels really good. I'm grateful for the fact that winter is almost over and things are going to get sunny out. And I'm grateful for friendships like this.

Chuck LaFLange (57:10.278)
Awesome. Lisa, how about you? What you got for some gratitude?

Lisa (57:15.73)
I'm grateful the sun is shining. I'm grateful that it's a long weekend and I have very few commitments and can just hang out with my family. Yeah, and I'm grateful Tessa to get to hear your story. And again, like, you know, we'll talk sometimes about how we feel like it's a battle. There's, you know, we're never going to win when it comes to sort of the drug, you know, the epidemic that exists right now.

uplifting to hear a story like yours, right? A success story. I think it does everybody good to hear them.

Chuck LaFLange (57:52.841)
Yeah, it does. Yeah. For myself, ladies, I am. I'm grateful for you, Tess. I am. I'm so fucking happy you made it. I really am. I am grateful once again to my family. My education visa, as I was telling you ahead of time, looks like it's squared away. So I will have a year of stability for the first time in 10 years.

maybe something like that, where I won't be worried about what's gonna happen at the end of the month. So pretty excited about that, right? Really excited about that. So I can stay here in Thailand, learn the language, which will help with the whole isolated feeling that comes here quite so often. I might be able to find some cup of noodles or ramen that isn't too spicy. If I can read a little bit of Thai, that'd be nice. Right? Also.

Tessa (58:38.892)
Yeah, probably. You can't just go for like the green colored one? Dang.

Chuck LaFLange (58:49.969)
There is one that I know now, and if I get the wrong shade, I'm screwed. And there's an entire aisle of ramen here. Like I'm a pisser, like in the grocery store, it's a whole aisle and it's still just too damn spicy, right, like this is nothing. So there's one flavor that I can buy, right. But that said, like I eat like one cup of noodle a day and other than that, it's to say it's turnips, not turnips, sorry, sweet potatoes, potatoes and carrots. That's what I eat all day, every day.

Tessa (59:17.678)
They're my three favorite vegetables too.

Chuck LaFLange (59:19.173)
Now butter because of you, right? So yeah. Well, I'm trying real hard to lose weight, right? And it's now it's actually it's starting to fly off like really fast now, right? Cause it's between keeping it active with Sunny and eating so much better, you know? So, and I love sweet potatoes. Love them, right? Like I could, I'm good. Absolutely they are, right? Yeah. I got my rice cooker, which has access to steamer. So I just, yeah.

Tessa (59:36.95)
Get good!

Go with him. I'm with you. You can do so much with him.

Chuck LaFLange (59:45.217)
No, just steam them. I'm good. I didn't even have butter on them until Lisa went and mentioned it the other day. Next thing you know, I'm at the grocery store like resisting the urge to look over my shoulders. I buy butter because I felt guilty for buying it. You know, right? Yeah. Shhhhhhhhhh. Just shut your mouth. Okay. Yeah. I'm not buying brown fucking sugar. Yeah. Okay. No. Anyway.

Tessa (59:51.657)
Whoa.

Tessa (59:56.554)
A little bit of brown sugar.

Tessa (01:00:01.538)
Oh.

Chuck LaFLange (01:00:07.489)
I'm also grateful to every single person who continues to support us. Like, comment, share, buy the hoodies, buy the tanks. Guys, I really need that. The show pays my bills, but just everything else comes in the way of support from people and buying the hoodies and what have you. So at least I'm really looking forward to getting that white one. I don't know if you saw the white one on Rachel from Addict with Purpose.

Lisa (01:00:33.674)
I didn't. Is it nice?

Chuck LaFLange (01:00:34.829)
Oh, wait till you get fit. Fucking awesome. Yeah, they look incredible. I'll send you over the post anyway. Every time you guys do any one of these things, 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 an 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 the talks, go to a meeting, pray, go to church. I don't give a shit. Do whatever it is you gotta do to get that journey started. It is so much better than the alternative. If you have a loved one who's suffering an addiction right now, just taking the time to listen to our weekend ramble here, 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.

Lisa (01:01:17.95)
You are love.

Tessa (01:01:18.317)
You are loved.

Chuck LaFLange (01:01:21.201)
That little glimmer of hope just might be the thing that brings him back.

I forgot to tell Tess about that.