The Road to Recovery

lights camera action meth makes me a monster i was sure i was gonna wake up and this was just a nightmare i was alone with my demons i didn't know how to deal with it i wanted to stop and i tell myself i would stop using but the monster took over [Music] in my career i never thought that i would be involved with substance abuse what has kept me involved it's their stories it's their lives it's their hunger to get help but no idea where to turn to by hearing these individual stories and get to know them like we have got to know them we hope that you will be inspired to be part of the solution or find the courage to get help yourself [Music] my mother had me at 13 years old so it was like growing up with a sister i don't know my father i always looked at my mom and my grandmother as both parents my mother she wasn't a drug addict she just didn't have the best choice in men my little brother's dad is a guy i thought was a devil growing up every bad thing i learned or every bad thing that i could possibly see as a kid i i seen him do it was so bad that uh i would rather live on the streets than be at home when i was 12 years old i ran away six months i lived on the streets until it was enough to where i would rather be at home i grew up in chicago illinois unfortunately in a dysfunctional family very poor always moving poor parts of town my dad was a very hard guy he drank a lot he used to hit my mom you know every year i had to go to different schools so i was always tested and being in the bad neighbors i had a fight and so it was just really bad growing up i was born in dodgeville and i grew up kind of all over the place my parents were married until i was about six years old after that it kind of got rough my mom has a lot of mental issues wasn't ever happy where we were we were constantly moving i attended 13 different schools and i've moved more times than that it was just really hard i grew up in cuba city wisconsin it was a typical middle class family only difference was my parents weren't together i had a very stressful childhood i always had to be the emotional support system for my family my mother had dealt with trauma in her childhood so she leaned on me for a lot of support and my little brother trevor relied on me as well i grew up in monroe point wisconsin i had a really good childhood a lot of fun loving parents support kind of spoiled i had a lot of friends from almost every demographic in high school i did really well in school played sports all year round football basketball and baseball born and raised in montfort wisconsin i now live in dodgeville i had a pretty normal childhood we had pretty much had anything we wanted you know like clothes money-wise had a pretty good life other than both parents fighting depression i had a twin sister jody and a brother richard they're both gone to drugs and alcohol i've lost so many people i love to drugs and alcohol my father passed away right before i was 14. the disbelief and the the hole that was there started like smoking cigarettes drinking beer and that made me feel better for a while and it just kind of went from there the first time i tried alcohol was about 12 years old i smoked marijuana at 14 after i had been smoking marijuana for consistently for about a year and then i eventually started selling harder drugs came with the friends i had made after selling marijuana eventually the money for hard drugs came into the scenario and then i stopped selling marijuana i just sold hard drugs so that was the only thing i kept around and then i started using hard drugs consistently about age 17. cocaine xanax ritalin very many different prescription drugs i have tried about everything in between besides crack heroin and meth at eight years old i had smoked weed i hadn't really done nothing but smoke weed until i had ran away and at 12 years old i started shooting heroin it comes to a point to where i jumped on a bus and went to massachusetts got up there and cleaned my life up i did good you know i mean i smoked weed i drank but i just wasn't putting needles in my arm no more and my life was kind of starting to come it was better than than i had ever had it i first started abusing alcohol and then combining alcohol and marijuana it did led to using and trying everything from cocaine prescription pills heroin adderall and meth my addiction began with pain pills i was 42 diagnosed with ulnar nerve damage in my left arm and they prescribed me hydrocodone three a day 90 a month i was supposed to have surgery and i just kept making excuses in order to get them pills because it became my want over everything else my kid's dad and i broke up after being together for six years life was just really hard trying to figure out how i was going to be a single mom and pay all the bills and i started having health issues i didn't know what was going on and i was trying everything with the doctors and nothing was working my boyfriend at the time told me to take opiates because it would make me feel better when i was 17 i got my wisdom teeth removed the doctor that did the procedure put me on oxycodone i didn't really think much of it i didn't really know what that was when i was 17. i pulled my back working on a roof and they put me on oxycontins i never did pills you know it just wasn't my thing you know i didn't know nothing about pills and i took these pills like the doctor told me to take them [Music] honestly from the first time i took a narcotic was when i started to get addicted as long as i asked for the pill the doctor gave it to me i don't really remember much during that but i remember saying okay i need to stop doing this i informed my parole officer he had told me to listen to my doctor you know i had to have just a couple pills at first and it got just to a point where my tolerance just got so great i just had to have more and more and more i used prescription painkillers for about 15 years and around year 10 is when i started not following the directions and doing more and more i started taking the pills to school give them to other people i would take more than i needed to go to practice and take them take them after practice yeah i knew it was a problem mentally because i knew how much i love that feeling [Music] it's like having the flu you know multiply that by 10 times at least profuse diarrhea profuse vomiting restless legs muscle severe muscle aches you're freezing cold but yet you're hot at the same time so you can't get comfortable whatsoever so you just yeah it's it's rough i couldn't deal with the up and down feeling emotionally i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy you just feel like crap there's your body is so used to something that you know it's telling you that it needs more and the only way to fix that is to get more drugs i know what that feeling is of being sick from heroin it's a doctor's heroin to me i felt like garbage and i needed to use that was the only solution i did opiates for about five months and then they were just getting harder to find the laws really started changing and people couldn't get it so easy anymore [Music] the person i was getting the pills from you know they were going to the city to to get heroin and at first i was like oh you know hell no screw that i'm i'm never why would i do that never do heroin two or three days passed and i was withdrawing severely from the opioid painkillers i caved in and i tried some my boyfriend at the time was freaking out because you know we couldn't find anything and so we went to madison and we got heroin and that's kind of where it all started to go down from there i told the guy that i was working with that uh i wasn't gonna be able to make it that day and explained to him how i was feeling he said his wife was a heroin addict and sold heroin to support her habit so off to the race as i am one of the guys that i was getting some from was i have heroin and i said no i've never done that i don't want to do that well then the pain started coming from not having the pills i called them i said well let me just try it and i got some and then got some more next thing you know was out of control and i turned into a serious addict my addiction really took off after i dropped out of school in my last semester of college i went through a pretty rough breakup and that was when i first dealt with real anxiety and depression i was on the dean's list the semester before and then that semester i just stopped going to class i was up to 300 a day like 300 milligrams of oxycodone a day sometimes more and i blew through fifteen thousand dollars in three months it all it all went to drugs all of it at first i could um hide it and carry on you know with my work and my activities and everything i had to do i had my family i had a full-time job we had a house you know a big four bedroom house we were doing we were doing well i was really good at hiding the signs not a good job i had a great grade point average it's an honor roll i was in forensics i had friends that lifted weights i'd gone to the gym with them i had a job my kids lived with me i had an apartment and that quickly changed i lost my apartment my kids went to stay with their dad because i knew that it was much safer with him i thought i had it handled i was working i was everything was great but then as time went of course i start feeling effects i tried to hide my addiction for the longest time and i could only do so for so long you know i was like falling asleep in front of people and i was doing shady things stealing from people that i love and i care about i stopped seeing the positivity in people i started seeing people for okay what can i get from you you know i told myself for years drugs never lied to me like like everybody else i thought was lying to me you know i knew what was going to happen doing drugs it just put me in a different mindset to where i really didn't care what i would feel like tomorrow as long as i felt good today i got to a point where i had to do it every night if i had went to work no matter where i was you know i would leave on break to go get some if i didn't have any i would have it delivered to work after years of covering up and hiding it i started making excuses not making appointments not going to work saying i was sick a lot neglecting my kids and not being doing what i should have been doing with them and missing more time with them it just started to like unravel over years life was chaotic it was stressful i had one thing on my to-do list and nothing else mattered the fear that you have of running out it controls you and it's so hard to stop those thoughts and get into a different pattern once that's what you've done i plan my day around it i have to get there before i have to go to work i have to uh making excuses of course people were starting to realize that my actions were different my moods were different and i was being questioned but i just turn on the talk of saying there's nothing wrong i'm tired i work a lot i met my youngest son's mother where i met the guy that taught me how to make meth now me and her just doing as much math as i can make and i'm hard to be around as it is i don't handle things the right way probably from all the drugs and from upbringing and meth makes me a monster going to work the next day coming in late i always tell myself tomorrow i'll stop tomorrow i'll stop i'll get some sleep tomorrow but um tomorrow never came two or three months after i started using heroin my family started to know what was going on i went to florida in 2017 i jumped around to a lot of different treatment centers they call it the south florida shuffle i would jump around from one to another [Music] so [Music] in the beginning of 2018 my mom visited me and i knew my mom missed me so i took advantage of that and manipulated that into me coming home and we stayed in a hotel for a few days and i ended up relapsing on heroin and i left the hotel and i overdosed as i was walking on the street and spent four hours in the hospital when i first started using i was working at alcorn school district at westside elementary i worked there for like 20 years and i was very popular person of the whole town of elkhorn i did so much for the kids kirby's kids was a team name for a battle of books i'd get two groups of kids mix in trouble kids with the group so they learn how to be friends i treated all the kids the same they loved it one night i went to work and this stuff that i bought was a little more potent than all the rest of the stuff and i passed out in a school on the floor at going home time for the kids woke up in an ambulance and i just laid my head back down because i thought i was dreaming i was sure i was going to wake up and this was just a nightmare but that didn't happen that's when i knew uh-oh this has got me my quality of life was scummy i was just a scumbag a young punk and like in a metaphor i hung out in the sewers you know with the rats with the scum of society i was arrested and then i had to sit about two months in dubuque county jail i was sent to a halfway house after that about six months into my halfway house stint i was taking around 12 pills a day i had overdosed a couple times i od'd one morning you know my habit is so big now i would have never thought i would od off of three bags of heroin when i'm usually doing 10 of them in the morning just to go to work i know i'm going to prison i don't care no more i don't want to quit getting high is what it is and i feel like no one that should have been there they weren't there so i'm mad at everybody and everything i steal everything that i'm getting from gas to food to cigarettes to clothes every day i'm pretty well at rock bottom i end up having a high speed chase cause i'm in a stolen car i get pulled over i go to prison in texas first and to think that a person goes to prison that's extreme drug addict you would think that i would clean up but i found ways to get drugs in there i shared needles with every guy on the yard i was there for almost 13 years i did a stent of nine months in jail for drug charges and drug use i was alone with my demons i didn't know how to deal with it i thought i was gonna fly apart i just didn't know there was no help nobody to talk to when i got out of jail i felt so hopeless just hopelessness that nobody cared nobody was gonna change anything and that led me to using again i got so in the negatives and set in such a dark place i couldn't do anything for myself i i had myself talked out of i couldn't leave the house i didn't think that i could ever be pulled out of it i can't even count the amount of times i've tried to get clean upwards 20 times i would get out of the woods as far as the physical withdrawal and stuff which to me is one of the hardest parts mentally i still wasn't okay so i think that's why i would relapse and i would never fully commit to changing my life or embracing recovery it's like i was in love so i didn't want to give that up give that up even though the rest of my life was chaos and misery it is the only thing that was giving me happiness so i think that's why i didn't quit the first time i tried quitting i was staying in a sober living house in south carolina and i was successful for six months i moved back to wisconsin so that i can be with my children everything was going really well and i decided somewhere along those lines that i was okay and that i didn't need to go to meetings anymore you know boredom got the best of me and i relapsed [Music] i stopped using for about a month but i was doing heavy drinking like a 30 pack a day and thinking well i've never drank that much so this was no problem but that was down from like 190 195 pounds to 150. i had no strength and i had to do all this moving so i decided to go buy some of the stuff again family have found it and called the police on me and went to jail for three four days after i relapsed i ended up trying meth after i told myself i wasn't going to and i was back in my full-blown addiction worse than it ever had been it does something to your brain that makes you think that acting insane is okay stealing and lying and doing whatever you can or have to or so you think to get your next fix the first time i went to jail was because i got caught stealing to get money for meth when i got out i told my mom i said i'm not coming home this time man it's been one bad thing after another i just feel like i can't i'm i've got it already in my mind and i'm going to mess up if i go down there i'm tired of being here i said it broke me this time i said i'm i'm missing everything man because i i choose to keep getting high and she said i need you to come back down here and help me watch my brother's kids i'll do anything for her as much as i didn't want to go back down there i went back down there i got out and i got high again right away i'm just in a place i don't want to be even after the first overdose it scared me for a while but it wasn't enough to keep me clean so i would just started using again it was just the same theme i would get clean for a week or two go back to using you know lie to everyone around me they say in recovery that you need to hit a rock bottom to to get clean and to stay clean but i've had a lot of rock bottoms five overdoses i've been to jail i don't even know exactly how many times i've been to jail now my rock bottom um just so happened to be like the last time that i got arrested the apartment got raided because i found some stuff and i was arrested and i spent five weeks in jail being in jail is emotional just the people are not friendly i couldn't make phone calls i had no money on my books i felt like i was alone and i felt like there was no one supporting any decision you know there was a lot of people that were just waiting for this moment waiting for me to get arrested i was revoked for my probationary period in the halfway house due to overdosing and inability to keep a job and that was the turning point because the sentence was going to be rehab but rehabs are very full it was about a two-month waiting period after a two-week waiting period that i was informed of so i had said i'm just going to go to prison because i need to get out of my environment i need to get clean get healthy i'll go in there lift weights get tough there was one day i was feeling sorry for myself and just got really drunk one night on a bottle of scotch and my wife called an ambulance because she didn't know if i was old ian from drugs or having a diabetic reaction my wife mentions that i said something about suicide and i talked my way out of that and then the next day i got a call from unified services [Music] to me i was like nah but i said sure i'll try it and i went you know not happily because i didn't think you know nothing was going to help me so i went with the idea of not even going back but it was interesting i went through it and then when i got home i thought well that wasn't bad and when wednesday came for the second time to go i went again and then i just kept going and going after five weeks in jail i went to residential treatment i didn't have any other option i i was at my bottom i didn't have anywhere to live i didn't there was no other option then to get my life together there was a turning point while i was there because i was trying i wasn't trying my hardest but i was trying and somebody said something and it just it has always stuck with me there are people who are dying for the seats that you are in right now and if you're not here to take this seriously then why are you here and that still gives me chills every time i think about it it made me really want to see if i could do this and that is when i fully committed myself to rehab and to a better life my determination went from here to here you know i was just like nothing is going to stop me so this next time i got put in jail i just surrendered to i cannot do this anymore i cannot live a life like this anymore something has to change and i just that was the point in my life where i just surrendered i was gonna tell the truth i was gonna do whatever i had to do my probation officer came to see me she said she'd be back in a couple days and she would help me and she would try to get me into drug court i didn't believe that she was going to get me out even though she said so she came back on the day she said she was going to come back she got me out started me on drug court and that just was life changing to me because i felt like somebody cared enough and thought enough of me that they were going to help me and that's when i surrendered and started to change i felt like somebody actually cared when i got charged with possession of heroin they offered me treatment court and at first i was not going to do it because i've heard that treatment court is hard and if you don't think you can stay clean for as long as it takes to graduate then don't take it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] even my past and my track record of relapses and things like that i wasn't i wasn't going to take it but i thought about it for a little while and everyone's telling me to to do it so i said all right if i'm gonna do it if i'm gonna sign this then i'm gonna i'm gonna fully commit to it and i'm gonna embrace it instead of trying to do it my way so that's what led me to the point i'm at now drug court was life changing to me they have so many people and so much structure and the working on yourself and counseling and talking about things intensive outpatient was life-changing to me the sharing and hearing other stories it was the first time in my life i didn't feel alone that saved my life you know back at the school i felt shame and guilt for what i did all these kids that trusted me i would tell them the bad things of taking drugs or getting involved in that kind of lifestyle and not to do it no matter how your home life is come to me i'll talk to you i'll help you and then i go and do it that's just like total disrespect so all that was was guilt and just laying heavily on me but meanwhile i kept going to unified it took me like a year to get out from underneath the grips of depression i start seeing a little edge of light at the end of the tunnel even now i'm still involved at this point with unified because it's saved my life when you're in there with a bunch of criminals going to go out and do crimes again we talked a lot about doing crimes a lot about how would be the best drug dealers how you do this how we do that but um you know other days you know you you kind of actually think about what you're gonna do and when i got out i got a factory job making 16 bucks an hour never made that much of my life before 50 hour week 60 hour week because the structure helped me so much you know i worked pretty hard got paid really good money i got a good job opportunity at another cheese factory that is very awesome to me after achieving the goals i set originally for getting out paying off my fines paying off my collections that was the turning point my wife was the only one that answered the phone for years of me calling she's like uh sean god man you look like crap again i don't want to let her down she's the only one that ever believed that i could be better i had like a few people just starting to really believe like maybe this dude can do something different man if we just get him away you know get him support encouragement my wife was there every day i'd love her to death i would tell her man you could do better i promise you could do better well now she's telling me that and you could do better we just got to get away from here finally i just said let's go i think we had two bags when we came up here and i didn't want to do nothing that i had ever done before live that way ever again if i thought it was lame before i'm doing it now i got a job right away i've had the same job i love my job i make backyards art pieces i try to just do positive things trying to live a different life i would say the hardest part of recovery is being reminded of the things that i've done the last few years the pain that i've caused people around me and myself that's what kept me using and relapsing for so long is because i feel like there is no way out the damage is already done and what's the point of getting clean i'm reminding myself now that there's plenty of time to fix things if i give it a full honest effort i can't take take things away that i've done in the past but i can be better i can i can change my ways and change myself and be a better person it takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of self-worth to to achieve recovery especially long term i know i've done a lot of bad things and i i'm not i'm gonna have to live with those but i guess now i'm trying to seek redemption in society try to pay my dues trying to connect with people who are good for me and you know i can actually see people who are doing good things and i try to just be around those people rather than the toxic people who aren't going going anywhere my family thought you know once you stop you're sick for a couple days and then you're back to normal that's not how it works you're sick for quite a while and mainly after the physical part your brain that's the hardest part of all because i thought there was no hope i was like i really screwed up everything losing my relationship with my father hurt probably the most and then missing out on times with my little sister my mother and my grandparents because even when i was using i wasn't fully there i wasn't i wasn't able to feel those memories and everything and i feel like i missed out on a lot and that's honestly what hurts the most 20-plus years i held everything in i didn't think anybody wanted to hear my my story nobody wanted to hear the things that i was feeling and that's just kept me in the negative my life has changed immensely a year ago i never thought ever that my life could be what it is today shortly after my recovery journey i found out that i was pregnant and being a mother motivates me because my kids need me they need their mom they need me to be there and i am so grateful for my dedication and determination for my recovery without it i probably wouldn't be here today you know i got a great job that works around my school schedule they have a great 401k which when i was using i don't even know what a 401k was who cares about 65. i don't have to worry about that i'll probably be dead by then and you know i was well on my way the benefits of recovery are everything that i was losing or lost when i was using my relationship with my family my relationship with my friends i mean finally able to hang onto money again the last few years i was not reliable at all very flaky and wouldn't follow through with things so i'm taking more pride in being reliable i have a lot of things now i had two bags of clothes and now i got a five-bedroom house that's mine my wife said sean look where we're at we got what we wanted when we came up here every goal that we said you know we said we're going to get our kids back my son lives with me he's lived me over a year he's about to graduate my wife's kids are here they live with us full-time i could sit back and be like and that's mine i did that and i worked for it and you know i feel good about it i feel so much better about myself and i'm confident i can think better i feel better i enjoy things again fantasy football outside sports bowling everything is better food tastes better playing cards is better it's just everything is better because i don't have that pull anymore i just have more self-awareness peace of mind confidence i was one who thought i could never be alone and i enjoy my alone time now just sitting on the porch being at peace with myself i have deeper relationships with my three sons my mother there's trust and there's happiness now i have so many new friends in recovery i have a lot of support systems now i've you know doing jiu jitsu i've made a lot of friends there one really helpful person for me has been my jiu jitsu coach i've helped him coach classes he allows me to do addict to athlete meetings at his place no cost addict to athlete is a group based on erasing addiction and replacing with things of greater value i wasn't part of the group in prison but i felt like that was my mindset in prison okay i can find something else get addicted do exercise reading books my therapist had actually recommended me going to school for substance abuse counseling because one out of every 10 subs abuse counselors is a man a lot of the people who use substances are men dr roman sounds pretty cool i have gained from being in recovery a sense of purpose a sense of living a life a sense of helping others to not have to go through that pain anymore of addiction i'm working with southwest cap volunteering going to the opportunity house it's a home for individuals that are trying to make their life better come out of jail or prison or our treatment center go there and live i go there and try to help them along the way follow rules of course and let them know what i've been through and how there's a way out and how this can be positive it's making me feel better because i could help these guys and it's good seeing them making progress and coming along i started working for the opportunity house just being there for them if they want to talk being there for them so they don't feel alone introducing them to new recovery people anything i can do anything that they need because i've been at the point where i had no right or no friends and i blew all family up here our first christmas so we could go deliver food to people who just couldn't get out of their house and had no one to spend christmas with it felt so great to do that you know if it's positive i want to be part of that i feel good about it it makes me feel good i've been such a destructive part of any community i've ever lived in these past two years man felt great i was rebuilding the community other than now being a positive part of it you know i can reach out now and i don't feel so much shame about it i don't feel like i'm just weak because i have to reach out to somebody you know i have a lot more self-confidence even just handling a situation where i use drugs just leave you know put yourself in a risky situation because you got two felonies on your record they're not going to believe you good luck man no just all right hey man i'm out it seems like my using is long gone but understand it's never long gone you will be addicted for life once you go through this as we all know is addictive people it could still come and grab you at any time anytime you're frustrated about something you have to learn to deal with that kind of thing i've had moments like i used to do a lot in the burger king bathroom for a long time i passed burger king boom it was in my head [Music] do [Music] i hear music when i used to go pick up the drugs and then do some on the way back and i hear this song and it's like jamming this is great this because of course it was great you're getting high and i hear them songs now that brings me back there so then i just change a station listen to something else it starts with with self-talk like when my cravings are real bad or something happens that usually triggers me to go use i try not to act on it right away and think about what the outcomes could be if i do that i don't want to have idle time when i'm having a bad day because my mind gets right to the gutter good and bad birdies on your shoulder man that bad one is really loud and i have to have to keep that in check and i have to stay busy and but i keep myself busy with positive things you got to find deterrence something that will take your mind from it go to a meeting go to unified get a book and read but if you just sit there and stir with it something bad is probably going to happen i stopped at my parole officer's office more than once just because i was having such a hard time with you know reintegration to society because hey here we're going to structure your day every day for you but now you're free to go don't do drugs don't do crimes figure it out i didn't reach out before so reaching out and talking to peer support or counselors or any member on drug court even recovering friends i have friends that i talk to every night just so that we know each other's there just to check in no it's not easy it's hard but you can do it and i've done it you don't want to go back to that pain that's all that is pain i've had some laughs his post prison i have smoked marijuana a couple times the first time i smoked i called my parole officer right away i said i did it i smoked i'm sorry don't don't send me to prison you know i'm scared for my life i don't want to go back listen i'll go i'll go back to therapy y'all what do you need me to do and she just told me to calm down on it you know you smoked weed once no we don't think we're going to send you back for that you got a job you're doing good i'm purely terrified of who i will become if i use again because everything's at stake you know i got two felonies i'm gonna be hanging out for a while next time if i do mess up my mom died and i went down to clean out her house and do everything i get down there and tweakers come out of my mom's house and as i'm cleaning my mom's house i'm finding bags of dope everywhere you know i was good it was such a stressful situation i just got i got so much on my plate i don't know how to deal with it you know uh my mom just died and if i find one more bag of dope i'm doing it and i found it i lost my mind for the next month [Music] [Music] i was had two years clean i did that on my own my wife was gonna leave just because man i was miserable and finally one day i just told her i know you know maybe i don't feel like this no more and i'm sorry i really don't know how to deal with a lot of things like that you know real personal feelings i don't know how people even deal with it you know i always i always did drugs you know i would call my own parole officer i was like i need to talk to somebody but i don't want to talk to you i don't want to talk to a person that knows me she's a lady i didn't want to let down you know i didn't want to let my wife down [Music] [Music] you know i failed but i quickly came back out of it learned that sometimes man it ain't weak to ask for help man you can't do it all on your own you know it's actually helped me more since i humbled myself enough to come into a person and be real about it look man i need some help man are you ready to give up the pain because there's a lot of pain in this addiction that people don't even realize they have until they start recovering you did that it's an addiction you're not a bad person there's a way out if you want to find that way out looking back if i just would have reached out went to that counseling appointment shared things with friends it wouldn't have been so negative it wouldn't have got so hopeless and alone feeling dealing with it alone that just gives the negativity so much more power if you share it it isn't it doesn't seem so bad check out an n a meeting look at listen to those stories ask some people who have been through it and are clean where that'll lead you because i can tell you hang around the barber shop you're gonna get your hair cut you hang around people are doing drugs you're gonna do drugs you hang around people are successful you're gonna be successful watch your environment love yourself enough to not put yourself in in those types of situations self-love is an amazing feeling and to not put yourself around toxic people because you know your worth when you're in a relationship with someone who is also using it's not even about a relationship it's a relationship where the only thing that matters is getting and using you may develop feelings for them but they're not genuine be genuine needs to be completely honest that's something i was missing for a longest time you have to listen to the people that are in recovery and that you know have had success you need to listen to the professionals because they do know what they're talking about you're not alone there is hope out there people who care it will work if you work it if you just take one baby step at a time it will work it's hard at first but you know once you once you start doing good for yourself people see that it feels it feels really good recovery has done so much for me and giving my life back my life is great now and i can't believe that i could have been this great if i would have only just stopped man a long time ago you can do it you can get rid of it i'm living proof you know living proof right here prevention takes all of us in our communities we need to be aware and informed to help end the stigma of substance abuse [Music] [Applause] [Music] i don't want to do drugs no more i know that's crazy because i feel like doing them today you know i don't want to be this guy that's alone in nighttime in a jail cell anymore that's where you're going to go i got to keep fighting for myself to get my head right and then i got to keep fighting for my kids my wife i'm gonna be that man that i told them i was gonna be [Music] you

Channel: alex carey films

Views: 175,981

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Id: Y5S8E-7dC4U

Length: 53min 2sec (3182 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021