259 - SOBER BARBIE

[00:00:00] I just wanted to play it safe. They put me on my epidural and guess what it is? Fentanyl. My epidural is fentanyl so it says the word fentanyl on the bag that's hanging behind me

[00:00:12] and my husband, I just I remember seeing it in his eyes because he's sober. He relapsed the day I gave birth and we had like 50 grand in the bank so I had a feeling. I had a feeling. Don't

[00:00:27] ever go against your feeling. I had a feeling. I saw them arms but we were just we had to we had a new baby. There was so much going on and he took full advantage of that. So that's our guest today

[00:00:39] Krista Flanders aka Sober Barbie. She's got a vibe that's just one in a million. I'm so glad that we have a chance to get this episode done finally. So hey listen today's title sponsor is the Autotrauma Centre in Krabi Thailand where I reside. My whole journey

[00:00:52] in Thailand started when I came here to take part in their residential treatment program to get some of the traumas that led me to addiction. Of course some of the traumas happened when I was addiction addressed and it's completely changed my life. I highly

[00:01:03] recommend you check them out. You can learn more about them at a2apodcast.com slash trauma. Lastly hey if you're enjoying our content if you just go ahead like comment share do all those little interactions on across the different platforms whatever you're

[00:01:15] enjoying this on. It really does help us to spread the message and I appreciate every single interaction so very very very much. Hey I hope you enjoy the show. Hello everybody watchers listeners supporters of all kinds welcome to another episode of The Weekend

[00:01:26] Rumble on the Ashes to Awesome podcast. I'm your host Chuck LaFlandre checking in from Krabi Thailand halfway around the world of course my beautiful co-host and Calgary Dr Lisa how you doing today Lisa? I'm doing good do you know that it so what yesterday was the first

[00:01:38] official day of summer right? Summer solstice was yesterday and I feel like today's like first day we've had that is like spring summer weather like the sun is shining and it's 25 degrees and so I'm gonna enjoy that. Awesome awesome it is literally 25 degrees here right

[00:01:57] now and it's midnight so there we go. I want to swear at you but I won't. In America that's like 80. We're at 100 degrees okay oh oh that is hot that is some it's miserable so hey our guest

[00:02:12] for today of course is Krista Flanders also known as sober Barbie on Facebook she's got quite the following there again so how are you today Krista? I'm doing great I'm really excited to be doing this. It's my first official podcast so that's crazy that's crazy well welcome to

[00:02:30] the big leagues now not really I don't know if you've heard but I'm kind of a big deal around here. I love it. So for listeners that are new to the platform of course myself my real name is Chris Horter I go

[00:02:48] like Chuck LaFleur because whatever because I do there's a monster that I created a while back in here we are now it's just it is what it is so 20 some odd years in active addiction recovery now for 20 months 20 months in a day actually I guess it would be

[00:03:04] so yay for that and this is our this is my podcast my co-host Dr Lisa has lived experience as a loved one of somebody who suffers an addiction and of course is a psychiatrist who

[00:03:18] works a lot with addiction and has now been co-hosting with me for over a year which is just crazy to think that yeah yeah right so um so that's who we are let's talk about you

[00:03:31] though Krista that's what we're here to talk about so yeah as we talked we discussed pre-record we're not really doing the whole testimony let's talk about all your crazy active addiction days let's talk about recovery let's talk about what what gets you to recovery what's like what

[00:03:46] are your last days look like and when's enough enough and and how does recovery start out for you okay um i'll celebrate nine years of sobriety in august august yay yay so 2015

[00:04:00] was like the worst year of my life yes um i was 29 or about to be no i just turned 29 um i was it i was just going through a breakup i met this new guy we started dating and just

[00:04:16] partying hard for all the things drinking i mean i'm on a resort island so that's kind of like the norm and i was a bartender since today i turned 21 yeah so and i've been in food and

[00:04:30] beverage like my whole life and um i have a very loving large family my dad's pretty well off he owns a construction company and um i was actually able to live in one of his houses rent

[00:04:47] free i didn't have to work but my boyfriend was making some good money he moved in and we were having a good time when i thought um mind you i have had a history of drinking

[00:05:02] and taking it too far and getting arrested all the time little things here and there and i was always like in denial i had a problem because everyone else was drinking what was

[00:05:13] different about me why couldn't i keep up or not get arrested or why was it different for me but um so my last day drinking it was like a normal day and a friend of mine ironically

[00:05:28] asked me to go to an a.a meeting and i was like no no and she's like i'll give you a danx bar and i was like okay let's go so i couldn't i know i couldn't take a danx

[00:05:46] what's the tradition attraction over promotion i think sounds attractive to me right i had never been to an a.a meeting i thought it was like cult like like i just

[00:05:59] no but anyways she was court ordered to it so i was going along with that and we got there i see an ex-boyfriend in there and i'm like oh no i go back out and i'm drinking my mike's

[00:06:09] horse lemonade by my friends in there through the hour meeting she gets out and i'm feeling pretty good at this point takes me home my boyfriend's there milan a lot and for some

[00:06:22] reason when i would take danx and drink on it i was somebody i was and i was a thief i was a cheater i was a liar i never did any of that sober none of that like i can't

[00:06:33] i can't like no so and it even just drunk i wouldn't do any of that it was the xanax so i was talking to an ex-boyfriend on the phone and i was upset he had a new girlfriend

[00:06:45] and my boyfriend my new boyfriend's here and he gets mad he takes the phone breaks it and that's why i blacked out and i broke a golf club over my knee and i stabbed him in the

[00:06:58] wrist oh no so much blood like he sprayed me with there was so much blood and people were saying that he wanted to get the evidence all over me so he like i like had an artery so we're fighting

[00:07:13] he takes a corona bottle and gets me in the arm right here my skin's like open this is 5 pm um in my in this lovely little neighborhood i grew up in

[00:07:25] um i gotta say i went to my first meeting i was not expecting this story to go here so right like not at all this is not how i expected that day to end i was like oh my

[00:07:36] god she found recovery like before it got too bad and no no it got really bad didn't it okay so please continue yeah i was like violent i don't i was an angry violent person so

[00:07:48] uh i run next door and call 911 she's got three young kids they're seeing this whole mess like they probably need therapy for what they saw that day um i'm i don't even know what's

[00:08:02] going on i'm blaming him for everything like he did this whole day well run so the ambulance my family shows up the literally squad team shows up they had a blueprint of our house

[00:08:14] there was like rumors that people were making mess there like it was weird it was really weird hey sorry to interrupt you here but i just want to let you know that one of the sponsors that

[00:08:22] makes this all possible is arc that's the alberta adolescent recovery center located in of course alberta canada they are a treatment center for adolescents their program is one of a kind it's nowhere else in in canada i don't think anywhere else in north america

[00:08:36] they use a peer support model that's absolutely one of a kind it's amazing what they're doing there and i can't possibly do it justice in this quick little mention so check them out guys

[00:08:43] at arc.ab.ca that's arco2a back to the show really good they couldn't find my boyfriend because he thought he was getting in trouble so he ran and hid they take me to the er

[00:08:56] they finally get him at the er i'm like just talking i'm still feeling good even though i'm getting stitches i'm still feeling good and i get up to leave and they're like he's going

[00:09:08] to another city because it's so bad he needs like serious surgery and you're going to jail and i was like wow and i managed to get a painkill prescription squeezed out of that

[00:09:23] as well for my teeth i was there for okay i was like just trying to get it off so i ended up getting walked out handcuffed of the er i see him he still loves me he's like i love you it's okay

[00:09:40] and he's in fact the ambulance about to go to the next hospital or whatever and i try to run in my car in the er parking lot and they tackle me get me in the car

[00:09:52] whatever and the next morning i don't really remember anything i wake up in jail my bond is 25 000 criminal domestic violence at a high and aggravated nature one under attempted murder i know i wasn't getting out my mom that did one answer my phone

[00:10:13] for that first week it was scary my cellmate killed someone in a d-y and she had already been there a year and she was facing about 10 years um she showed me a in jail i read that book

[00:10:29] i was like is this my life like is this me i related so much to the book um i didn't know anything about rehab i thought it was cult right i didn't you know but i knew this was like my

[00:10:43] i knew i could not go back to that life like this was like repeat repeat repeat i had a lot of criminal domestic violence i beat my boyfriend's up little me and they call the cop or i would

[00:10:57] call the cops but i would go to jail way of my life so the coolest part about you before i think i think i dated you it was i was an angry king too me and my dad but and i go on and i was like

[00:11:17] i did my like i fought in high school i got suspended a lot in school like i was i had a lot of anger that was unaddressed and i see that now that that played a huge role

[00:11:29] and how my life was spiraling out of control it was mental health like there was some kind of depression and anger and all that but uh so i'm in jail my mom finally answers the phone

[00:11:41] she's like christy you can't go back you can't go home you can't go back and i'm like all right well i'll go to rehab i'll do whatever sell my things i don't want to go back to that i

[00:11:52] almost killed my boyfriend like no i don't want to go back to this so we made a plan and also my grandparents so ironically they both passed away in the last few years but i'm living in my

[00:12:07] grandma's house right now which is kind of like she was always my first phone call from jail because she lives in the town of a jail and she always answered but her next-door neighbor

[00:12:17] who's my neighbor now is the head of public defender's office and he was kind of retiring but he was like ked honcho he came and saw me and he goes your record looks like it's really

[00:12:32] i didn't have any drug charges but it looked like a drug and alcohol induced record like the fighting and the dui there was just stuff like that he's like you should go to treatment

[00:12:43] you if you go to treatment right now you most likely won't have jail time so let's do it let's go so we make a plan my mom said you're sitting in there for 30 days which i'm grateful

[00:12:57] i did i met some really amazing women i got to get my head right before rehab but we made a plan to go to a four-month program three hours away because there's nothing

[00:13:10] in my town nothing you have to go two plus hours away for anything which is really this is what pushed me a lot more to speak up but i am in the process of going to this treatment

[00:13:23] facility and i can't go because my ex-boyfriend's another ex-boyfriend there and i'm like so where am i gonna go i can't get out now like my mom's gonna keep me in here forever so we they recommended another place so i ended up getting there in greenwood south carolina

[00:13:41] so it was labor day weekend we did the plan i bonded out i went to walmart paid my bond or signed my life away to the bondsmen bought a little wardrobe from walmart and my mom drove

[00:13:53] me four hours treatment i did not go back home did not pass go did not collect $200 and it was labor day weekend i get there i'd never been to a rehab it was like a shack

[00:14:06] it was literally i'm like where are we where are we we were literally in the hood like trap houses next door it was i'm like we're culture shock for you i guess eh coming from from the resort

[00:14:18] right yeah and then from jail from jail they call it the holiday in this jail here because it's on the water yeah yeah so i get there it's like a it looks like a 12 year old

[00:14:30] little girl is checking me in she's got a hat on back like a flat rim hat on backwards like they're about to leave for labor day weekend here so they go through my bag they set me up

[00:14:41] my mom's trying she leaves i'm like bye four months and they took me under their wing and these women like i can't i'm still good friends with a lot of them but they showed me

[00:14:53] requiem for a dream my first day of rehab have you ever seen that movie i have not they don't show me that movie it's rude well i like again as as you know chuck said i i've

[00:15:10] never lived in that life um but i have a brother who has and i i certainly work with plenty of patients now who have but for me and again maybe krista you can speak to this but i

[00:15:25] i felt like when i watched that movie that it was maybe one of the most realistic representations for the muggles of the world to see what that life looks like it's i have no idea

[00:15:39] about that world yeah i was like a little drunk that pop toast yeah this is like wow yeah so the lady blokes the dvd the next day she was so mad they showed the new girl in it

[00:15:51] like oh trouble it was a big deal a big deal like it's very triggering if you come from that world yeah like it shows it all like all so anyways i recommend that for people who are comfortable and don't get triggered and whatever but anyways yes um

[00:16:11] i'm now in this rehab getting they hand me the a book it's strictly like a 12 step program they give me two weeks to like read the first 160 pages and like get the hang of it and then

[00:16:29] you start doing your stuff work you get a sponsor you're doing like 10 meetings a day as i'm reading this book and learning i know a lot of people are like anti-a

[00:16:39] but i can guarantee you they didn't read that book without any false things told to them or like negative things like i was thought it was like a cult like and i but i'd never picked the book

[00:16:52] up i read it yeah yeah i just i relate it so much and i know it's a little old school too so there are parts that people are like so like in it but it's worked for people it's

[00:17:05] worth it's this proven fact that it's worth to get people sober and stay sober and so as i'm learning it i'm asking them i'm like why is everyone in the world not do like not like

[00:17:19] working on themselves like this because you're literally like cleaning your side of the street and then just being a better person working on your kids your defense two weeks ago lisa said

[00:17:30] that very same thing in an episode actually it's mind-blowing i said this nine years ago and i can't like that's why i pushed myself to i want the normal people to get it because like i go

[00:17:43] to a now i go to a christ-based recovery meeting on thursday night and i'm sorry what recovery meeting i did like a christian base okay okay yep like kind of like celebrate

[00:17:57] recovery like kind of a spin-off on it and i really enjoy it i really changed my life but as i'm sitting there thursday night i'm like we are taking an hour of our day

[00:18:08] week we're all sitting in here working on our character defense like what are the normal people doing not that but anyway not that yeah i don't keep into recover i loved it i loved

[00:18:22] rehab i missed my family so much every weekend i'd call and want to go home but that's when it was boring and laid back and like there's not much to do i ended up getting

[00:18:32] a job in the food and beverage world and rehab so i was able to kind of get back into i tried not to i tried to work for with animals and stuff but no one would hire me so i'm like i

[00:18:44] guess it's a restaurant well so i went back they understood where i was coming from and then when i left rehab i finished my four-month program and they wanted me to stay in the like

[00:18:56] sober living part to help the newcomers so i stayed an extra month so with 30 days in jail four months in treatment and then the extra month i was gone from home for six months

[00:19:07] like vanished no one knew where i was well they knew where i was but i'm still coming back yeah i got a job with a sober restaurant owner and he took me under his wing he showed me how to

[00:19:21] pour drinks and be sober while doing this and it turned into an art for me it was craft cocktails and mocktails and juicing and using fresh ingredients and all that and i learned all

[00:19:34] about food and that was really good so krista was do you mean that he taught you how to bartend and stay sober or do you mean that this was a place where all the drinks were alcohol free

[00:19:49] no it wasn't alcohol free he taught me how to stay sober while being in the normal world in a way you know yeah yeah yeah i'm allergic to break out and handcuff to alcohol

[00:20:06] that's actually brilliant um so can i ask you some questions um so you mentioned alcohol xanax but then you also talked about the pain pills so was it mostly booze and benzos

[00:20:23] were you using opiates or i know whatever would come my way like yeah like you know because i wasn't going to like a straight one drug dealer it was like part more party right and i think if

[00:20:38] it would have been a few more weeks of me continuing this i would have been hooked because the boyfriend i was with at the time he ended up going to treatment while i was in treatment

[00:20:50] and i didn't even know he was a heroin addict no idea no idea he's overdosed while i'm in rehab i helped i got a foundation he ended up going to arizona pesca arizona which is a huge recovery

[00:21:03] mecca um and then came back and he relapsed and my story goes a little crazy here so he comes back relapses but i'm staying with them i believe it up but i only know one way of

[00:21:19] recovery at this point that's rehab it worked for me it better work for everyone else was i wrong was i wrong um he it was hard for him and plus he was into the hard stuff in the

[00:21:36] i just didn't know how it all works and um he ended up going to jail for getting in a fight with me because i took his paycheck he wanted to go blow it on drugs and i took it and

[00:21:46] he grabbed me and it was a big scene and um but then he ends up going to another treatment center and it's over it's over we get engaged um and then october 9 2017 i was at work bartending

[00:22:04] with short staff i get a phone call he fell off the roof at work he's in construction and um they said they think he broke his arm and i'm like i can't leave work right now

[00:22:14] there's short staff i'm sending your mom his mom there and they put him in in a coma to because his clean shirt as well when he fell and something happened during surgery and

[00:22:28] his heart stopped for an hour and 15 minutes and the next day me and his mom go to the hospital and so the doctor's bedside manner was so bad and he's like um i just don't think he's

[00:22:39] gonna wake up like it was just so weird and um he lived on life support for three days and i held his hand for his last breath and that was i was sober for two years at this point i got sober

[00:22:52] like with him part of day of my life october 9 he fell and october 12 he died his birthday is october 2nd so the month of october is oh my dad's birthday is the day he fell so it was

[00:23:07] it's like so i got super spiritual i was like i'm not going to start drinking again i'm not i have to honor him i felt him literally i don't know what's weird but i felt him inside

[00:23:21] of me as soon as he died like he's in my heart i had to or i was gonna go drink or i was gonna go do something dumb so i had to believe he was still with me and i kept trucking

[00:23:32] and i'm sad and we had a puppy together i left his dirty clothes on the floor for like three weeks a month after that i get kicked out of my apartment because the landlord lost in

[00:23:44] foreclosure and i was still paying her rent and she the new owner's knock on the door and i'm like what do i do so my sister ended up helping me and i ended up getting on my feet

[00:23:57] and then i was super trying to get the hang of life being alone still grieving like i'm i feel like i'm still grieving like that was like my future just changed all in one second and

[00:24:12] it just got really weird and then that's weird that's just weird to me like i've been like now i don't it's weird but that was so hard his name was brian and he's the one i stabbed

[00:24:26] and he survived that he survived addiction and it was a dumb route but anyways so he's in my heart he's got i go by signs i literally thrive off him like everything's a

[00:24:40] sign from above and so a year goes by and i bumped into my high school crush and he's my now husband um he we were together for a week and then i found out he was not sober yeah so um his

[00:25:01] cigarette pack has like some white powder in the cellophane and i'm like what is that like oh he was like he was ready he dumped it down the toilet he's like whatever like i'm sorry

[00:25:12] i'm like here we go here we go again but his for his so he has a two older children um and he was married to the one of their moms and she had like found him using like

[00:25:27] six months into the marriage and just left them never gave him a second chance just left them so i was like i'm not leaving like i helped brian get sober i like i was loving somebody

[00:25:40] who you know you don't want to give up on and i know we haven't been dating long but i'm not giving up on this man i already i felt like i already loved him he took me for being like a

[00:25:50] widow you know like he knew that was coming into this and stuff and he knew brian too so but anyways he um he struggled big time we tried everything remember i was still one way

[00:26:05] well that's that's it let's get it yeah dude you better figure it out but then we were introduced to the mat like methadone is the boss man and subutex and i was still like

[00:26:18] because brian used to abuse it so i didn't know even know that it was like a good thing whatever so he got on subutex for a while and doing really good and then i caught him hoarding

[00:26:32] the medication and he was obviously doing other stuff instead but then we got sober again we're back at it again and i get pregnant and uh he's sober the whole pregnancy and then two

[00:26:49] weeks before i give birth brian's workman's comp paid me a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars from when he fell off the roof i had we had we had a rundown car we didn't we had roommate

[00:27:05] we didn't have furniture we didn't have anything so we quickly got a house got furniture got a car got to get our lives on track i go in to give birth i was induced and i had

[00:27:17] diabetes for both pregnancies so i just wanted to play it safe they put me on my epidural and guess what it is fentanyl my epidural fentanyl so it says the word fentanyl on the bag that's

[00:27:30] hanging behind me and my husband i just i remember seeing it in his eyes because he's sober he relapsed the day i gave birth and we had like 50 grand in the bank so i had a feeling

[00:27:47] i had a feeling don't ever ever go against your feeling i had a feeling i saw it on his arm but we were just we had to we had a new baby we are like there was so much going on

[00:27:58] and he took full advantage of that and when we got home he'd be gone all the time saying buy me earrings for christmas but he was actually getting cash back to go

[00:28:08] do whatever he was doing so a whole it was exactly a year of this covid just started covid this was 2019 the end of 2019 so he really really relapsed right the month of covid

[00:28:24] so uh we had to call 911 and they showed up because he had like trying to having like a stroke and he ended up he was having a stroke a mini stroke and they were like your wife

[00:28:35] probably aggravating you used to go for a walk so anyways so a year goes by yeah a year goes by i'm like a new mom i sent him the treatment like we're trying everything and mat worked

[00:28:52] before we weren't ready to go back that route we wanted to see i mean he tried it all tried it all and uh on his first on my son's first birthday he didn't show up i got a call he overdosed

[00:29:07] like from the day he was born to the first birth like that's so crazy the next day he got sober and he'll be four years sober in november oh thank god so he's sharing his story

[00:29:20] i want to take a moment though and acknowledge something krista and i know from my own personal experience you just listed off like 20 freaking reasons to relapse and you've stayed strong through that entire process that's amazing that's amazing because yeah you had a lot of reason to

[00:29:41] to not to not stay the course and then the same thing yeah yeah right you know so that's amazing yeah yeah good for you i got i got a higher power but i truly believe my angel

[00:29:55] brian is like the fire in me and then i've seen a lot more angels in the last few years like a lot of angels so of course right um but in the middle of baba my husband thinks baba

[00:30:10] um in the middle of his relapsing and stuff and covid and social media taking off because of covid don't delete their houses picked up huge i don't know if you guys know who britney jade

[00:30:22] is on pick up she's got like another power she was one of the first to really recover out loud like her i watched her go whoa so big so big and people were responding

[00:30:39] and then she followed me back and then while baba was in treatment i did start a recovery clothing line called recovery island and i started making shirts with our sayings that everybody could benefit from like let go let go face over fear little things like that and people

[00:31:00] responding of hope dealer and britney jade helped me um promote some of that stuff but that was always going to pay for my life being single mom and all that and uh so i started

[00:31:12] recovering out loud watching britney i'm like all right and i made a video saying i'm losing my husband to addiction please pray for us or something like that it was a video of my husband

[00:31:22] holding my son sad song it was only a couple seconds i go to sleep because i was i had no other option i never felt more alone ever i was in these facebook groups loving an addict like

[00:31:36] i've been both and i'm probably going to catch some fat for this but loving an addict harder than being one yeah yeah nobody has the right to give you crap about anything in your journey

[00:31:50] no but those are two things that you've experienced so right you know a lot believe it no i think that's lisa can certainly relate more to that i mean not as a romantic

[00:32:01] partner but you know i mean she obviously loves her brother greatly and and it is tough there's right to try to save someone who doesn't want to be saved yet it has so much potential and or

[00:32:12] they're showing signs they do want the help but they just can't surrender it they just well so christa part of our show part of this this platform a big part of what we do

[00:32:23] is is we focus on the loved ones of people who suffer an addiction like in a big way and we've done that from early on and one of the reasons for that that like uh i've said this many times for every person that suffers an addiction there's

[00:32:36] 10 people and that's just an arbitrary number i pulled out of the air but it's it's at least 10 people that are affected right and there's no resources going to yeah there's no resources

[00:32:45] going to those people very very little right so we actually have um one of my sponsors uh far is uh families against rejection our families for addiction recovery that's their focus is on the families 100 right um but as somebody loving somebody an addiction and i've said this about

[00:33:03] my mom when i'm high she stresses out when i'm sober she stresses out it's different stress but it's still stressed she never and for the rest of my life on some level she is going to

[00:33:17] worry if i don't answer the phone like i was sober for a year a year and 10 days and i didn't answer the phone you want to see what lisa did i didn't answer the phone for

[00:33:26] like a day and a half and and i was at 30 some odd missed calls i didn't even realize it right lisa's calling me right and like 32 times because i hadn't answered the phone

[00:33:39] right that's the kind of stress our loved ones go through so yeah for somebody to try to try and invalidate that for you to say that in your experience it's harder i think

[00:33:47] is ridiculous and nobody has the right to do that right you know yeah it's very hard yeah and i think too like people who are inactive addiction right we've talked about this on the show maybe every episode but their brains are not working properly they're not themselves

[00:34:06] no and so when you are assuming you're a sober loved one and obviously that's not always the case but when you add in the fact that you know if you're sober one or your loved one is

[00:34:18] sober it's like well our brains are working properly and so we're appreciating all of the chaos we're appreciating all of the risks we're and we feel completely helpless like you said like you can't force somebody to do something that they're not willing or ready to do now

[00:34:41] again that takes down you know and go down the avenue of mandated treatment we won't go down that road right now but it's like um but that aside you know we're sitting there watching our

[00:34:51] loved one and like i remember having this feeling that like the the best analogy i could use is it was like he was taken over by some demonic spirit do you know what i mean and

[00:35:05] i felt like i could see him and i couldn't get to him do you know what i mean like it was like there was something bigger and darker and more powerful that had its grip in him

[00:35:20] and we were like i always felt like i was trying to save my brother from this monster yeah you know and you do you feel completely helpless most of the time

[00:35:32] in my case when i try to save some or you know like i try what i can i get a lot of judgment because i am sober and they think i'm judging them and i'm not i'm actually like as compassionate

[00:35:50] i'm on their level like putting myself in those shoes that's a cognitive distortion that that's somebody in addiction that's that's we don't as a sick person i don't want you to want

[00:36:02] me to you know i'm looking for resentments because if i have resentments i get to stay high right and highs where i want to be highs where my iadic brain wants me to stay

[00:36:11] i'm going to look for those resentments and so you can't even like to take that personal i think is doing a real disservice to yourself and even to the person who you're trying to

[00:36:18] help because that's the thing that i just went through and i'm seeing the light now yeah yes right right yeah but that's cool to not take those behaviors personally is

[00:36:32] is a mountain unto itself to climb oh so hard right yeah so hard you know how do you do that how do you do that and the person who's taking to the person who's you know who's

[00:36:42] suffering an addiction we get to check out from all that shit right we just go get high those are feelings i don't want to feel and i've got a coping mechanism built in for that so

[00:36:51] while you're stressing out i'm just going to be over here you're just going to go yeah yeah yeah so you can do that and i'm gonna be over here and then i'll get sober you know

[00:37:01] and everyone will be proud of me but you'll still be stressed out and it's just it's a no win situation it really is but also like something that we've also talked about before

[00:37:11] but i feel like it's coming up for me right now listening to this conversation is like the amount of judgment that exists and it exists from ignorant sober muggles in the world it exists within the medical profession but even you know we've talked about how well

[00:37:29] the cocaine addict looks down on the person addicted to crack you know how again people in sobriety can be very judgmental about the right way to get sober like it's just everywhere and it's so sad and so disappointing yeah like it's just 100 right but that's why we're here

[00:37:50] that's why we're here 100 that's why we're here right that's that's why i get up in the morning or in the middle of the night so it is here yeah what time is it there it's uh 12 17 a.m

[00:38:03] here yeah so yeah 12 hours uh yeah 11 hours in front of you yeah yeah yeah yeah wow so you're already in tomorrow yeah yeah i'm in the future yeah that's cool okay by the way it all works

[00:38:17] out so yeah whatever your whatever whatever's on your brain is all gonna be okay yeah yeah it all works out so yeah so wait uh back so by wait well i just want to finish that story

[00:38:28] i was saying how mine got picked up i got 16 000 followers overnight no hate at all my video is up to a couple million this is a brand new account i didn't want anyone to know but i wanted

[00:38:43] people to know like i didn't want my local people local people to know you know but i wanted to support that showed me right there that power of prayer is unreal and i said then

[00:38:55] he got sober and i said i have a platform so i wrote it and 60 something k on tiktok and then i said let me when you you said halloween you moved there yeah and tylen that's the day i

[00:39:10] started posting my tiktok on facebook and it blew up wow and now i'm a hundred and 12 000 followers so see i just i just i just want to throw a little bit of hate your way just a

[00:39:23] little bit of hate your way i've been at this for a year and a half solid 16 hour days and i'm at 5500 followers so um i was thinking you need to do like videos with your views like where you live

[00:39:35] yeah yeah like the stuff you're explaining where you live you need to make some content using those back that yes yeah yeah right so um most of my content comes from from the

[00:39:45] from the podcast of course right so yeah you know we do three episodes i was wondering why yours was not that high because you got some good stuff yeah yeah right it's coming it's coming

[00:39:55] when i got to tyland it was it was at 600 so we're you know we've almost 10x'd it in you know in the six seven months that i've been here so it's coming around yeah it's

[00:40:04] coming around well i got tips in trying to see if you need help with your rails awesome hey i'm always open to things right so um so christ another question so when you got put in

[00:40:15] jail um because you said that you went to jail and then your mom was like you're going to stay there for 30 days um i mean what about detox because obviously alcohol withdrawal is medically

[00:40:26] dangerous so did they did you have detox in jail i obviously my body detoxed but they didn't check out like there was no checking there was no i was there with girls that were detoxed

[00:40:40] from heroin and stuff and i mean they would check there's nothing you can do really with that here's an emodeum in jail for the heroin and stuff but i think they if i can remember

[00:40:52] because there were a couple alcoholics in there like the lady that was the lady that would soak up the hand sanitizer in a paper towel and then suck it out oh like wow that's that's alcohol like that's a real alcohol i'm not an alcoholic like

[00:41:08] that's how i felt then but see i'm sure the nurse saw them a few times but since then we have so much more good stuff in that jail like the people taking care of them there's recovery

[00:41:23] advocate all types of stuff so i'm sure there's a lot more on top of it but i my body definitely detoxed in there for sure i didn't really i felt like crap like yeah for so when

[00:41:34] i went to rehab i was feeling great yeah yeah right yeah in the penal system there's not much there's not much help for detoxing off anything and that's what i wanted with alcohol than there

[00:41:45] would be with something like opiates right like much less actually with oh yeah yeah so nobody's really it's not the focus unfortunately and if if maybe that time was taken as an opportunity

[00:41:55] instead of you know what they're doing and now that said and you just said it yourself it's so much better now than it was then yeah right and yeah as people we tend to focus on

[00:42:06] the negative it's this human nature right yeah society is society and our systems have come a long ways in in the last 10 years 20 years whatever it is right from from where they were

[00:42:17] right um and it's and there's a lot more work to be done don't get me wrong but i think it's important to acknowledge that even even calling addiction a disease is is now mainstream right the outliers are the people that argue it they're a vocal minority

[00:42:35] and they're vocal and they're ignorant and all of us that's a big controversy i have in my comments on my videos oh of course it is and i kind of let them argue away

[00:42:45] i love getting into those i love them right i was telling there's a thing that i do you might appreciate this but you could the job up but every scenario is different like what about

[00:42:58] my husband who got hooked from a injury a football injury and the doctor was prescribing them and then cut it off you know like well lisa lisa loves to to to draw comparisons between other

[00:43:13] diseases diabetes heart disease yeah obesity right these are all things that are caused by behaviors not all the time but often right yeah of course they are yeah right often are medication

[00:43:33] sorry go ahead no the other thing is like you know for the people who say that to you i mean how many of them drink right yeah right right so you did what they did they did what you did

[00:43:46] um you know but again i think some people are genetically wired you know they're predisposed to addiction right so i often say like people love that argument of well you did it it was your

[00:43:57] choice but if you actually take it back most people who end up suffering an addiction made the exact same choices as the people who didn't end up suffering an addiction i feel like that was me i couldn't keep i wasn't drinking like the alcohol was doing

[00:44:12] something different than they were it was to my friends and now they're lawyers and stuff and i'm just a recovering alcoholic i take that no it's all good now i'm very happy way but i'm not i did not grow up to be a recovering

[00:44:29] alcoholic by the time i was 30 you know yeah yeah yeah certainly wasn't in the plan right well no one chooses that that's the other that's the other counter right is that when you look

[00:44:39] at me no one regrets the recovery yeah right yeah right but yeah people don't people don't seek out a life of addiction you know in any case that somebody chooses that doesn't have a bloody

[00:44:52] clue what it's like to live that life because nobody chooses to live that way exactly no yeah no no they most certainly don't right yeah yeah um so these days and you know i've watched

[00:45:06] some of your content not a ton of it you know if i'm totally honest um because this i'm on social media all day every day doing my thing and working right but um how's it going

[00:45:16] for you where do you plan on going now with the platform do you just do you have a specific mission in mind you just keep doing what you're doing big things big things tell me tell me

[00:45:24] about your big things so where i went to london island south carolina i don't know if you guys ever heard it was a year or two ago the big murdoch murder killed his wife inside he

[00:45:37] was a lawyer and oh yes i have heard of that yes yes yes yes get me out of jail really oh yeah it is co-defendant was my main attorney and he's in britain now okay

[00:45:52] because they took a lot of lawsuit money too from people like they say we get you millions for wrongful death and not get him a penny but pocket at all millions and millions and

[00:46:04] and they're from this area like it's it's crazy so um we got a lot of like uh a clavicity in like how corrupt our government is here but besides that there is no there's no detox here two plus hours away you can't detox here if you someone wanted

[00:46:26] to quit drinking today they called me i go you can try the charlson center it's like i think it's a government fun place but it's two hours away from here and it's first come first

[00:46:38] serve and you have to say there's a ban open and you got to keep calling every morning in between that time right now with what's out there that's like for death so that's a

[00:46:48] problem people come to me every day because i've been recovering out loud since i got sober like the day i went from jail to rehab i posted on facebook i was going to rehab and

[00:46:58] then when i got home i like i was recovering and then people started seeing that you could change in my inbox local people are always messaging me what can where can i get help you know like

[00:47:12] just we're trying because google won't tell you anything so and then my mom she wants to she's going to get me all the paperwork that she wrote down like she said it was so hard

[00:47:21] to find me rehab she said she has pages and pages of like resources she had to go through to find where me for me to go so um but it's 10 months ago i had a friend reach out well no

[00:47:36] he was suicidal on facebook live and i reached out i said dude i can help you i can help you let's do it you don't have to live like this he accepted so mission game on

[00:47:50] let's do this so i had to find him a detox that was hard he ended up going to the psych ward at the charleston hospital like we went on a prayer i got the center from my kids my husband

[00:48:02] i threw him in the back of the truck we went and we took him to the er and he had to tell him like he was suicidal so they would take him and they detoxed him there you're talking

[00:48:14] lisa's language right now this is this is lisa's day like an average day at work is what how you can't get help if you want it it's impossible so this is what's made me speak up

[00:48:28] even more because we need this we need a detox here so because when i went to rehab you could go to the hospital then they would detox you then but now it's not a thing so because we

[00:48:39] would drop girls and the new girls off and come back in a couple days and they're ready work in the program and get their books and you know and so we took them i kept in touch with

[00:48:52] the caseworker she was like helping me and my husband's very involved in this and we had somewhat paper we had a foundation paper a format four plus month program two plus hours away

[00:49:05] so we added bed secure but he had to detox her so he successfully does it my husband ends up because we have two small kids so we can't just pick up and eat you know someone's gonna

[00:49:15] choose kids so he went and took the whole day to drive all the way out there take him to rehab take them to walmart i raised like 1300 bucks to get him new clothes whatever he needed to

[00:49:27] give him money throughout his day in treatment because it's hard it's hard if you don't have a loved one or funds or i mean and you're hungry when you're sober you're starving this

[00:49:39] is true you want to eat all the food so yeah so we got him to treatment finally and that i just couldn't believe how hard it was to get him he just celebrated 10 months of sobriety

[00:49:57] oh yeah he's back in his kid's life like it's a beautiful thing but i'm like we got to do something about this so i found out when they do town meetings that's usually the second or

[00:50:09] fourth tuesday of the month and i first got asked by the sheriff the the next town over the sheriff asked me to or chief of police asked me to come and speak on because we just got

[00:50:21] the opioid settlement fund that america got a large amount and each state gets a certain amount and this little town got like 25 grand but the county we're in got like six hundred thousand dollars so i wanted to see where this money was going because these people aren't

[00:50:42] living what we're living like do you really know what we need we need our hand first off we need harm reduction because if you can't stop it let's make it safe first and half the

[00:50:56] men didn't even know what narcan was wow but they wanted to know more it all started with the election of the councilman and they said do you have someone asked hey town do you have any

[00:51:08] questions and i said what about narcan what about detox what about treatment and it blew up and this question was asked to all the councilmen it was made into a youtube

[00:51:19] all this and my voice was out the questions were being asked and i went and spoke in front of that town and then the next month i went and spoke in front of the whole county did my public comment

[00:51:33] i learned how to do a public comment in three minutes and i went prepared and then i went to the town hilton head island where i almost destroyed my life and i went and i spoke in front

[00:51:45] and it was just oh it was just a feeling and they listened for you that's amazing and they put a advocate in the jail with that money they put um they're giving the coroner

[00:51:59] narcan because when he shows up for a like an od the people that were using with that person are usually there give them the narcan even though their friends not coming back but give

[00:52:12] them the narcan they up the topology report to make it only like like 72 hours for two or three weeks to get that back so they know if there's a hot spot happening they can alert the community

[00:52:27] like they're making moves wow you must be so proud you should be so proud of yourself i i just i'm sick of seeing my friends i lost three friends in 30 days and it just

[00:52:40] it rocked my world it rocked my world and just being a new mom and when i put my mom through i'm gonna cry but like just seeing these moms watching their kids they had this side

[00:52:54] like turn like just not want to help themselves or listen to their mom anymore or like want to be better it's just i'm i'm fighting for them really good mom that's

[00:53:05] amazing and the kids because i have a lot of loved ones in my life i can't speak on it's not my story i can't save them but i'm watching these kids suffer big time i have perfect childhood

[00:53:18] i really really did my parents are still married i was a catholic my parents they're they're not perfect but they made it seem i had a rock college and seeing things now it just breaks my heart because every kid deserves what i have

[00:53:34] yeah that's amazing congratulations good for you good for you for for recovering out loud in the first place and my goal is to be a Washington DC thank you but i want to go to

[00:53:46] Washington DC and i want to make a law or an act that if you go to jail for any drug charge that you are off at least just offered a treatment plane yes don't take it just

[00:54:00] someone told me about and i i took it yeah so yeah right that's amazing good for you good for you yeah Lisa did you got anything else to ask before we move into gratitudes

[00:54:15] um all of a sudden we're at the top of the hour here so crazy right no but i do want to just um i don't know if we want to call it add on to to something is that one of the things so i'm

[00:54:26] i'm all for yes recover out loud recover out loud show people you know lead the way light the path whatever recover out loud i do um something that chris and i've spoken about

[00:54:39] we haven't really done a lot of it on the podcast yet but i feel like it warrants like an entire episode because i also want to tell if there are people out there who are sober who

[00:54:49] are listening or who are struggling is relapse out loud too don't relapse in secret when you relapse yell it you know let the troops right up until you right but i think a lot of people

[00:55:04] um recover i think people are proud of their recovery and so it's easier easier to recover out loud but i think relapse is so shame riddled absolutely that people do that in secret

[00:55:18] and it's deadly and so and relapse there is more there is a lot less shame in a relapse than there is grief at a funeral so like just just own it absolutely there's a big content

[00:55:32] creator was that just he's sharing his story i don't know yeah josh i was in the comments people on that one absolutely just that's a so part of that dude heartlet cartlet cartlet scarlet yeah yeah we're proud of you dude

[00:55:51] big time big time beautiful i want to cry because it's so cool he's just he's out there he's open he's like through it yeah yeah yeah and he is he's he's owning he's owning his mistakes

[00:56:03] and yeah you know and more people need to do that because and people need to know what the topic he's talking about too yeah they do they do absolutely yeah so wonderful um this was awesome

[00:56:15] we could go on for hours we could go for hours but i actually have to tell you i looked up and saw we were at like 45 minutes a little bit ago and i was like what like i feel like we've been

[00:56:25] here for 10 minutes where did they go yeah we're gonna have to get you back on christopher yeah for sure anytime yeah yeah um in the meantime though let's move into my favorite part of show

[00:56:37] that's the daily gratitudes so the daily gratitudes are brought to you by FAR Canada that's families for addiction recovery they're a non-profit organization based in canada they offer completely free services including four weekly meetings for people on similar

[00:56:50] circumstances to get together and support each other they have some one-on-one peer they have a one-on-one peer-to-peer support system that is absolutely next level and as well they offer some real-time support if you call under their phone line on during their business hours so you

[00:57:04] can look them up at FARCanada.org and in the meantime use your daily gratitudes so what's your office of gratitude krista i'm grateful to be on this right now this is awesome you

[00:57:13] guys are amazing i'm super grateful to just be happy to enjoy the moment to not have to worry about have that prison in my mind and gratitude multiply so if you're jealous of something be grateful for that maybe you'll get it absolutely absolutely yes yes lisa what

[00:57:39] you got for some gratitude um i'm grateful to meet you krista um you know i think the the thought i had as i was thinking about a gratitude for today is that if we go back 25

[00:57:52] years when my family started on this journey i felt very alone you know in wanting there to be change and there to be more and there to be education and there to be help um and i just find

[00:58:06] with this podcast like every week i feel like i'm meeting somebody else who has those same goals and those same motivations and that same love for people um and so it's just so awesome

[00:58:21] to be meeting people krista being one of them and just realizing that you know none of us are alone there's a huge community of people that want to make this better and there are people in

[00:58:31] recovery there are family members there are medical professionals there are so many people and i think things like you know this podcast that kriss has created it brings people together and our voice is so much louder when we're united when we're together and so yeah

[00:58:51] um i'm obviously grateful for another wonderful conversation krista you're you're a fantastic guest yes um it's not just the uh the obligatory kind of offer to come back sometime i'm definitely

[00:59:01] going to have you back on um i'm also today i was thinking about um our sponsors for the show so krista something you don't know i have struggled financially from the day i started

[00:59:12] this until very very recently um and just this last month i finally got a sponsor that puts me over the cusp of i'm self-sufficient for the first time in years right but and lisa knows this part

[00:59:24] of the story i have been in survival mode for so long that i forgot i forgot what it was like to not be stressed out all the time and now for just this past couple weeks

[00:59:39] three weeks maybe since since i got the news of this last sponsor this you know my most recent sponsor it's been like wow like i remember what it's like to just enjoy life again right and

[00:59:49] not be like like i've been counting potatoes broke for a very long time so this is like to my sponsors to to far canada to to the art program to of course mike here at the autra

[01:00:02] center who's done so much more than financial sponsorship for me and giving me that scholarship to to to treat my trauma um i am so grateful to my sponsors you know so um i'm also grateful

[01:00:13] to every single person who continues to like comment share do all of the things subscribe whatever platform you're on every time you do these things you're getting me a little bit closer to my best life my best life is to continue making a humble living writing the

[01:00:24] message and the message is this if you're an active addiction right now today could be the day today could be the day that you start a lifelong journey reach out to a friend reach

[01:00:32] out to a family member calling the detox go to a meeting pray go to church i don't care do whatever it is you got to do to get that journey started because it is so much better than

[01:00:39] the alternative and if you have a loved one who's suffering an addiction right now you've taken the time to listen to this conversation can we just take one more minute out of your day

[01:00:48] and text that person let them know they are loved use the words you are loved that little glimmer of hope just might be the thing that brings them back