Raised by a Deaf Mother, Now Building Recovery Support for the Deaf Community

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Welcome and why Avery started RAAD

00:59Avery Elliot welcome thank you it's a really an an an honor and a pleasure to have the opportunity to spend time with you um you know kind of when John told me about what it is that you were doing I just I couldn't wait man um because it's really about I mean it really hits about what we're about here at on this show so um real quick maybe you could tell our audience um a little bit about the organization and why you're here sure my name is Avery last name is Elliot I am the founder of RAAD Recovery Advocates for Adult Death um that started fall of last year um I was going through a bit of a transition point in my life

01:49looking for employment and was speaking to somebody who was mentoring me at the time and they asked me well if money wasn't an issue and you could do anything you want what would you do so well I'm in long term recovery my mom is deaf and this is something that that I've thought about for quite some time and I said well I'd love to be able to help deaf and hard of hearing seeking recovery he said great news money is not an issue cause you're not making any go do it so that's uh that's how RAAD was born I started uh doing some research uh reaching out to different people that I knew um and the the research that I found was

02:40heartbreaking um the lack of resources nationwide for the deaf and hard of hearing seeking recovery um and uh and so I started flushing it out um the first phase the phase that I'm in now until I get some funding and and get a little bit more traction is really just spreading awareness and that's a two pronged approach um it is spreading awareness to the deaf and hard of hearing community that while very sparse there are resources out there we are growing there are options they're not alone and also to the hearing people in recovery that there is a very sure it might be niche

03:32but a swath of people that are seeking help that don't know where to turn that can't find it'cause those resources just aren't prevalent um and and that's that's what I'm doing now um posting on social media um building connections building bridges fostering relationships and trying to to build this outreach well man that's awesome so let's buckle up and uh let's uh strap in and see uh maybe if we can reach some people so in true fashion in the spirit of the show

Raised by a single deaf mother

04:13do me a favor kind of tell me about yourself where'd you grow up where you come from sure so I was primarily raised by a single deaf mother um my parents got a divorce when I was pretty young it was essentially my mom me and my sister um and that allowed me to have a pretty unique perspective on on what life is uh what what an upbringing is like um so many people can say well I was raised different um but what I mean what really is that right we're all raised in our own way um nobody has a a their upbringing has been replicated right it's all a unique experience

05:01so I didn't know that that how different mine could have been or was um there was no sign of there's no history of alcoholism or addiction in my family it wasn't until much later in life when I got into treatment that I find out that my great grandfather was an alcoholic and that was the only other sign of alcoholism in my family there was also no other history of deafness in my family my mom and my brother were both born deaf um their sister was not there was no other sign of deafness um I felt

05:51very responsible at an early age I now look back and wonder if that um forced responsibility on me robbed me of some innocence and some childhood that I would later try to reclaim uh that would manifest itself in in juvenile behavior uh poor choices in life and action begets action and I set that ball in motion uh I don't think that I was born an alcoholic or an addict I think that I eventually became a moderate then heavy drinker and at some point I turned right that that I hit that that point of no return and I was full blown alcoholic and addict

06:41um my experience is like everyone will say my experience was different than than everyone else uh everyone else but I'm not so terminally unique right um there was a long line of people throughout my life that was telling me that I was ruining my life I was making all of these bad decisions and I didn't want to hear it I ignored all of the ominous signs the warning signs I didn't care um a part of my issue was a lack of consequences or if there were consequences a lack of care regarding those consequences I didn't ever wake up hungover probably if I did I would say I don't really want to feel that way again um

07:32I would often wake up drunk and wanted to keep it going can I ask you a question because I try to make a comparison of when I was when I was young and you know children can be cruel and you know you had mentioned that your your mother was deaf did you experience any type of ridicule or anything as a child did people ever make fun of of your mother or your family like when you were in school or anything not that I really remember not

Being the family interpreter

08:10not so much of ridicule there were certain challenges like I said what that force responsibility that uh having to grow up a little bit too quick I remember my mom asking my sister and I if we wanted pizza for dinner and we got so excited cause this was a special treat I mean typically in that time of of our lives if we got to go to McDonald's the choice was either hamburger or fries and my sister and I would pick one of the other and and share it so that we could have some of both so this special treat of getting pizza we would get all excited and then my mom would say well you would have to call and order it and then I break down and cry I don't I don't wanna do it I want the pizza but I don't I don't wanna do that for it though I'm tired of doing this constantly being the interpreter

09:02um it wasn't uh it wasn't ridicule out in the world but seeing how people treated my mom different and I don't think that it was with malice I don't think there was ill intent most of the time I think it was born out of ignorance they did what they thought they should be doing but what they were doing was wild and when you find out someone's deaf yelling at them does not make them hear you any better it just doesn't um trying to enunciate with your mouth can be beneficial for some if they were raised to read lips my mom was raised at a time where the deaf people had to adapt to the hearing world

09:51this is the world that you're in so adapt to us learn how to speak learn how to read lips learn English things have changed dramatically since then it's there's more and more understanding that deaf people have their own culture that sign language is its own language entirely there's different syntax there's different sentence structure uh different verbiage it's not a transliteration of English can you give us an example of that real quick would you mind maybe signing in a different sure show it maybe do this do one and then show a nuance different sure so uh

ASL vs. signed exact English

10:37what's called s E E signed exact English would be something like I I am going to the store and there you have a sign for each word but that's signing exact English and that's not the language that deaf people know American Sign Language is definitely more picture oriented uh some would say abbreviated but far more expressive it would be I'm going to the store right and deaf people rely a lot on expression because that is the um emphasis right that that that we use with our voice the inflection is done with expression

11:26so I could say sure mom I'd love to take out the trash but if I had that look of disdain on my face it was very clear right and then my mom would get on me um so reading faces is is a big thing right that that expression and thank you for that that's really cool like these nuances and things that we don't ever ever think about I wanna

Responsibility, fear, and a road trip to Canada

11:53I wanna kind of lock in cause you use the term responsibility and you know in thinking about this whenever I'm I'm listening I try to put myself in your position and how you frame responsibility I think of stress um I think about fear I think about um all of the things that really come under the umbrella of responsibility so could you maybe speak to that a little more in detail as well as what impact do you think that that had on you at such a young age so again going back to having to be the interpreter all the time um my mom was born and raised in Canada

12:41so that's where her parents lived and we were raised just south of Tampa and during the summertime we would make an annual trip to see Grandpa and grandma up in Canada but flying was expensive so we drove and I recently had a daughter and as a result my mom told me that uh I had no idea never in my life had I been in a child seat I'm kind of sharing my age there yeah haha uh cause you know now my daughter is in a child seat but on this road trip from south of Tampa to Winnipeg Canada just my mom my sister and I and we had a couple experiences where the car broke down we're in Wisconsin don't know anyone are we trusting the mechanic

13:30the mechanic is saying well I can get it fixed tomorrow there was one time that happened for some reason there were no hotel rooms available anywhere in the vicinity and the mechanic said well you can stay at our house like how crazy is that as an eight year old boy who feels like he has to be on the lookout for his deaf mother and his younger sister things like that interpreting having to be discerning and trusting and and hope that it worked out that was a lot of responsibility a lot of stress a lot of fear sure I'm glad that you brought that up um I'm I'm able to like go back and and look at it in a different light now and absolutely recognize that and I felt it so heavily and for so long prematurely

14:24that when I was able to shrug that or shed that I did and tried to live as carefree a life as possible um shirking all responsibility when when I could and doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it letting my ego run wild because now I was finally able to I was at least old enough to to do that I was not under the parents roof anymore I was on my own and I was gonna do what I was gonna do when I wanted to do it I didn't have to be tethered to interpreting I didn't have to be tethered to responsibility that was placed upon me that I didn't choose at what age did you do that

Divorce, a stepdad, and interpreting mom's first date

15:11so my parents got a divorce when I was six and so that was throughout my you know preteen years you know my my formative years my mom and stepdad got married when I was just before I turned thirteen finally enough my dad and my stepdad both share the same birthday one year apart my mom I guess traded in for a newer model hahaha but they also both did not know sign language when they met my mom one big difference is I was obviously not around when my mom and dad met but I was there when my mom and stepdad met I was the interpreter the for their first conversation this was not completely foreign to me there were guys you know

16:00that were asking my mom out but didn't bother pulling out a pen and piece of paper to communicate on their own they saw me as a means so would you like take mom on a date and like while they were at dinner like sign for or how did that work no it it that that required a level of trust on their end that I would actually interpret what they were saying right um my mom was not interested in I mean especially if that was the way that they were gonna go about it then did they really even want to communicate with her was that their intention was to get to know her in a in a way that was made her feel a part of instead of less than right did were they trying to accommodate her and

16:50and uh reinforce her accessibility or do they just see me as the easy way and try and well I can manipulate this kid I'll just take this kid out and buy him some baseball cards right and then he'll he'll send a good report to back to mom and it just it didn't work out um cause god had other plans

Relationship with his father

17:11yeah so what's your relationship like with your father and what was your relationship like early on with your stepfather early on they were both very strained my stepdad didn't admittedly did not know what he was doing uh we can look back now and and realize that he was doing the best he could um my relationship with my dad was pretty strained it took it it honestly took me in recovery to repair that relationship and as I worked on myself and and rectified the wrongs on my end between us um that was uh

18:01essentially reciprocated so when when you say strained what do you mean cause they get a divorce so dad leaves I would would you see him on the weekends or did was he gone for a period of time and you were just there to be the man of the house like what what was that really like what was going on so I would see my dad every other weekend um there were times where I was less than thrilled to go why in part because when I was there I felt like a part timer especially after his he married his second wife did you feel neglected not neglected segmented compartmentalized like something that he had to do or not something that he had to do but something that he did

18:52sometimes um he would try and go to some Little League games you know things like that he also worked late UPS um but it was really I think that was really more steered by my stepmom um I knew I I never doubted he loved me I just did not know how to receive the love that he was giving he was giving love his own way I may not have recognized it as love initially you know being so young looking back I know that he loved me the entire time and loved me in in the best way he knew how what do you what do you think you were missing or or what would you have liked from him

19:41I wouldn't want anything to be different now I have a frame of reference now I am 100% invested all of the time in my daughter's life even though she's four and a half months old now I know how I don't want anyone else to feel how was that segmented marginalized I don't I don't wanna use the the term convenience right because every other weekend is not always convenient I didn't feel connected yeah as somebody that didn't really know his father I you know I I try to put myself in that position and I try to think about some of the things that really

20:29would have benefited or I would have liked to have had as a young man growing up and um you know just a role model maybe a hug a kind word of that a boy or maybe to show me how to do something I didn't have any any anyone present um and so I just try to get a get it just from your perspective because you're on one side over here with all of this responsibility right being being the man in in the house and then you have the opportunity to spend time with your father and I'm sure that it would have been nice to have um some support and and like you said he was doing the best he could with what he had at the time

21:20he could have given me all the support that I desired at the time and still found a reason to complain still found a reason why that it wasn't enough I think that's kind of how we're created right we we are in essence born into uh a sense of being that that develops incomplete I don't think that we're born complete so until we find something to fill that god shaped hole that is going to completely fill that hole we're going to find reasons that we didn't get enough that there should have been more I'm regardless of of how much or how little he may have participated

22:15how much or how little he may have cared or how much time we spent together I could have I would I would find reasons why it didn't work right it's teenage angst right rebellion it's it's what we do the black hole never satisfied right hahaha right and so when you look back you could see that perhaps that had always been there I think that's how we're created yeah um for sure you know

The grass is always greener

22:45I remember a few years ago hearing somebody talk about the that grass is always greener mentality and when we are faced with that mentality we basically have three options one we can chase after that thing which we think will make our grass greener spend the rest of our lives looking for it and never finding it 2 we can spend the rest of our lives looking for that thing find it and realize that it doesn't really make our grass that much greener or three be grateful for the green grass that we're put on hmm so I could absolutely spend the rest of my life dissecting my past and wondering what life would look like if this was tweaked

23:35or if that was tweaked but I'm at a point in my life now where the nuances are exactly what put me here and if I tweaked it it's that whole butterfly effect thing right I have no what what little tweak could be made in the past that would prevent me from being here right now I do believe that uh where I'm at is a prerequisite for where I'm going I cannot get to where I'm going without being where I am and that is also true going backwards right um my past is a prerequisite for my present so again

24:23some little tweak some extra Atta boy have I started RAAD who knows I'm not I'm not here to deal with hypotheticals yeah uh I'm this is this is the situation I'm in this is where I'm at this is the hand I've been dealt however you wanna put it this is my present what am I doing now I I have an issue I hear this in the in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous all the time

Why "the next right thing" fell short

24:51do the next right thing I hate that phrase whatever that is well I'm the type of person where that allows me room to justify the wrong that I'm doing now ha ha ha ha cause I'm not concerned with now I'm concerned with well it's okay as long as I do the next right thing so when I sponsor guys and when I mentor guys the the mindset the mantra is not let's do the next right thing it's let's do this thing right and let's do it now whatever we're doing now let's do it right Mike drop we can all go home hahaha that's a great perspective

First drink, first time drunk

25:35so let me ask you this how old were you when you had your first drink like let's go ahead and uh let's rip that Band Aid off first drink uh I was probably about 11 I had a sip of beer I was gonna say I'm in Wisconsin at 8 while you're waiting on the car to get fixed ha ha ha ha ha uh no it was it was down in Florida and it was disgusting it was just it was gross the first time I got drunk different story entirely I was uh holiday help for UPS my dad worked for UPS he was a driver um we had my mom stepdad moved up to the Atlanta area by this time I was having issues with my stepdad

26:28so I left there I was staying with my dad as a holiday help right for UPS I was a jumper um and my dad had enough pull and seniority that he was able to arrange it so that I was his jumper so that was pretty cool how old were you 19 okay 19 something like that I was somewhere on there um but I had I had been getting into some trouble making some bad decisions um had lived out of my car for a while um I don't wanna say anything too incriminating haha um but uh but the holiday season was over uh it it had a great time like being able to work with my dad getting paid to hang out with him no were you drinking no no

27:15not at the time so you were doing you were doing bad shit without drinking oh yeah yeah yeah alright nothing in my life has been conventional like absolutely nothing um an unconventional criminal yes yeah so we're having a an unsanctioned Christmas party right couldn't be a UPS party because of liability issues or whatever uh but it was at a supervisor's home and and a lot of the the people got there and and we're having a great time and uh it wasn't my my first uh tasting of of alcohol right I tasted beer when I was much younger I thought it was gross I had tasted other stuff

28:03was like okay I was getting more familiar but I had never been drunk until that night and um coworkers of my dad for the season of mine uh thought it would be awesome to help me out and and in my endeavor to to get drunk and uh they kept filling up my Coke can with uh with booze right my dad told me before we got there that I wasn't to drink even though there would be a lot of people drinking and he didn't care if I drank so long as I was 21 like he was pretty pretty strict about that um and uh I got I got pretty buzzed and there was a guy that was playing guitar for the party you know he was hired he had a microphone he had the guitar and I hijacked the microphone

28:52cause I thought I was so awesome and sing so well um I and then I eventually just like just got tired like sleepy and I asked my dad I was like dad I probably slurring my words but feeling awesome right cause this is the first time I'm drunk I'm feeling accepted I'm feeling so cool um and like dad I need to sleep in the in the car so you unlock the car and let me sleep and and the next day he uh he confronted me about it and he said I'm not an idiot nobody holds on to the same can of Coke all night at a party I know you got drunk but that was um that was the first time I felt that no matter what I did I was more than

29:42like I was nothing that I could do would make me less than or even equal everything I did was embellished right it was the better version of me and that stuck with me um then I became you know I drink more and more and I was always more than when I drank um and it it became it became an issue but for a long time I was able to control it I

Nine months in the Army

30:11I actually uh ended up joining the army and and uh serving uh full nine months hahaha in the army this was um well thank you for your short lived service what happened why only isn't that supposed to be four years or you're on a nine month plan how that how that come to pass I actually uh got chaptered out um because I had an issue with nicotine uh when I got to Fort Wachuka you could be a certain phase and smoke I was not of that phase I got caught with nicotine a few times that prevented me from being that phase but uh I I couldn't shake the the nicotine man and I got caught several more times I was an intelligence analyst my first sergeant CEO were both Army Rangers

30:59I wasn't cool enough for them and uh yeah it was alright you gotta go whoa an intelligence analyst I didn't see that one coming tell me about this bro how do you how do you pick hey i'mma be an intelligence analyst what one what is that and how did you get into that I so when I did that that holiday help I didn't have anywhere else to go right I was living out of my car my options at the time were go back to Atlanta where I had no job no home still live out of my car or I could stay with my dad my dad said that he was gonna essentially run my life my finances everything um

31:46this is a time where you could write a check to pay for your groceries okay not only could you write a check to pay for your groceries but you can write a check for over your the amount owed for your groceries and get cash so I would use the cash to pay for gas I'd get all my non perishables for for food cause I'm living out of my car and cigarettes writing a a check and so now I'm behind the eight ball there and I know that eventually this is gonna catch up to me so my dad is like well I'm gonna run your finances his best friend said well what about the what about the army I was like hell no so what okay why don't you just take the ASVAB just to see how you do and that's how I was able to tap into into this idea my competitive nature

32:37um I I pride myself for not being dumb and so I took the ASVAB and and at this point because of my score uh this entity is like hey now we're gonna let you choose where you wanna live what you wanna do we're gonna pay you to learn how to do it whatever you want I think there was like two jobs I didn't qualify for in the army uh satellite communications didn't wanna do that cause I was an idiot uh and I don't even remember the other one I I but I didn't care and it just kind of piqued my interest um so that's what I chose to do an intelligence analyst went to Fort Wachuka um I remember I turned 20 uh I had to do extra duty cause I got caught with

33:33with tobacco with nicotine and I got chaptered out and it was weird uh they didn't catch me doing the worst stuff I did right they didn't catch me sneaking out of the barracks and going to the club on post they didn't catch me drinking which I was legally you were able to right everyone's like well if you can die for your country you should be able to drink well you can as long as you do it on post right you can be 18 19 20 and drink on post and so that's what I was doing with they never caught me with civilian clothes they didn't catch me and my roommate at the time going to Mexico and coming back yeah they just caught me with with tobacco

34:19and I got chaptered out and I was doing the controlled drinking I would sneak I had it timed perfectly I was on the third floor the drill sergeant had a pattern and they would do the left wing right side do bed check down the hall turn around do their right side go back to the other wing and do the same thing I knew that as soon as I heard that at ease on the other wing I had that long as long as it took for him to make it to that wing with his back to the stairwell so as soon as I got signed off for bed check take off my pts my my army sweats have my civilian clothes underneath walk with confidence to the club like out of the barracks to the club and I'd order two Long Islands

35:07chug the first one sip on the second cause I knew that as soon as that second one was done I was gonna be tipsy and I had to be sure that I didn't get caught on the way back so I was able to do controlled drinking that whole time I get chaptered out I still have this my first addiction which is nicotine uh and now I've got a I wanna drink because now I used to be able to legally drink no longer in the military so I can't drink I'm posed right um and uh yeah I was uh staying with a friend and we got we got stuck in Washington DC um was able to make it back when we got back her parents thought that I was a bad influence for us trying to make it to Boston and not getting there

36:00getting into a car accident so at this point why would people think you're a bad influence what's going on to make people think that I wasn't your stereotypical you know like look at him he's clearly an addict or he's clearly an alcoholic um but that was just a facade I had all of the the symptoms right underneath um and I guess they were able to see that that didn't have the outward appearance of OF one um but I just got kicked out of the army I'm you know 20 years old uh got nothing going you know no no job uh no car no home like there was nothing that that in my life that made him think that I was a positive influence

36:51so it made it kind of simple for them never satisfied always you know probably negative all of these things that come together to make a a picture that we can't see right so uh I I would imagine that there's some kind of progression here take me through that with your drinking the drinking became more and more frequent uh became an outlet um but I had this um for a long time this backwards logic you know like I said that nothing in my life was was conventional I was still like very much against drugs um ironically my senior year of high school I was president of Students Against Drunk Driving what haha um yeah it was uh it was very very weird

37:38but I mean I I wasn't driving drunk uh when I started drinking really um but I

Weed, ecstasy and an open door

37:45I started working at Waffle House nice you know back when you could like smoke inside Waffle House right it was awesome shoot now they smoke crack yes or meth or both yeah or both yeah fentanyl whatever yeah I definitely did meth in some Waffle House nice I was gonna ask did you do drugs too or were you just the self righteous alcoholic well at first I was the self righteous alcoholic of course you were right I get it yeah you know I'd never smoked pot you know I was like like I didn't care if other people did that it just wasn't my thing and I I had said for a long time if I were to ever do drugs right it would be either acid or ecstasy there you go yeah but I would I would drink and I would start getting drunk a little bit more frequently um loosening up so then then we'll

38:34we'll get into the the first time I I did drugs uh there was somebody that that let me stay with them was couch surfing um juxtaposition here it was me it was uh a hippie and two punk rockers that lived in this house I was on the couch it was like my second night there um three punk rockers and a hippie there's four people that live there and what would you characterize yourself are you a metal guy or what unconventional I I don't know I like to dabble in in in all of it like you know have my fingers in all the all the pots nice I don't know I'm just I'm just me I I I don't that's just Avery yeah Avery's Avery right yeah um so the one guy said hey

39:20I'm gonna go get some some XC any anybody else wanna roll and and everyone else was like yeah and I was like well this this is my chance you know I did say all right yeah give me some so he leaves and then I have a change of heart while he's gone but I know the game when he comes back I said hey look I know I told you to get me some I'll pay for it cause I told you right I know I know the deal but I don't wanna do it he said that's fine I'm just gonna put it right here on the counter if you change your mind again there it is they all pop their ecstasy and I'm like shit am I really gonna be the this is gonna suck and I started going back and forth should I shouldn't I should I shouldn't I this weird logic in my head told me

40:10well if you take it you can't argue with yourself anymore it will be too late so just take it kick back and enjoy the ride oh that's right yeah no more arguing so I took the ecstasy and started tripping my nuts off man ha ha ha uh with with everyone else and and uh I remember sitting on the floor rocking back and forth rubbing my pants listening to me I was the music right ha ha ha they're all on the bed and and they're smoking weed and they said here hit this and I stopped I looked back at them and I said no thanks I don't smoke weed hahaha I said no

40:57you don't understand it'll make it better I was like better yeah at that point I became a pothead right at that point at that point one hit of ecstasy and a hit of weed that's it and the next day I felt horrible oh yeah right from the the lack of serotonin yeah all that and and the hippie had had gotten up and he started smoking and I was explaining to him how terrible I felt and he said dude hit this weed it'll make you feel better and here again is reinforcing this idea that weed is gonna make things better right weed makes everything it's like bacon yeah it's weed is the bacon yeah of of of drugs it it made everything better uh so yeah from that point forward I was a pothead and then the whole my whole world shifted

41:48um I was open to everything right um I I I refer to it now as alcohol was my cheeseburger weed was my bacon and I loved condiments hahaha I get that so that's how I lived my life for a long time um nothing really stable no no stable job no stable home the only thing that was really stable was my desire to consume more substance to not feel the way that I was feeling to to feel different to be different to think different to perceive different just to to not be present right whatever it took

42:36um I ended up uh

A DUI and ten years without a license

42:41moving in with uh with some guys down in the Virginia Highlands little neighborhood of of Atlanta and just bought a car off of one of my roommates and the night that I got it I drove home drunk um I saw something in the middle of the road I swerved to avoid it and ended up hitting one of those big electrical boxes on the side of the road wanted to um be something of a good Samaritan so I get out of the car and I'm trying to drag this out of the road so that no one else hits it and the cops show up and that's when I get a DUI at that point I knew I had to make a big life change right it was either quit driving or quit drinking and like a good alcoholic I chose to quit driving ha ha ha

43:32so I spent the next 10 years of my life without a license but I still drank because again with this logic I can't get a DUI if I don't drive well you can still get a license right you don't have to drive is what people told me right but if I got a license then while I'm drinking you could probably convince me to to drive cause I have a license oh you're you're less drunk than me or or whatever it was but to avoid that I just never got a license and I lived inside the perimeter of Atlanta so I could rely on and this is before Uber I'm relying on public transportation yeah or what we call the Army LPC's other personnel carriers reboots so you in 10 years

44:19you never just drove without a license not legally hahaha very rarely did I drive yeah yeah um depends on how convincing you were and how bad I wanted to get to where I was trying to go or how drunk or whatever right hahaha right you can kind of get away with anything in Atlanta it's the jungle it is it is what was that like over that ten year period did you encounter you know

The restaurant industry

44:48anything that kind of stand out problems challenges it it just kept getting progressively worse and and more unstable um I don't know how I was able to keep a job for three years at the same restaurant um I I don't know I I look back now and I realized like what a weird situation that that was uh the manager of the restaurant was extremely angry and yelled all of the time like and this is in Midtown Atlanta so like imagine a combination of Simon Cowell um

45:40Gordon Ramsay in a Midtown Atlanta gay man right this this is the combination that I'm dealing with right in the restaurant industry and looking back I realize this guy was sober well he wasn't drinking he is reformed alcoholic I never heard him talk about meetings he did not exhibit characteristics of somebody in recovery um but he did disclose like and I look back now I'm like oh oh that's what he meant oh I understand now no I'm not drinking no no he always turned it down because uh he had issues um and then a coworker he would be on the wagon off the wagon all the time

46:29the owner of the restaurant on the wagon off the wagon all the time what I remember music remember the show Designing Women absolutely okay if one of those women was a guy that's him that was the owner of the restaurant what am I on it was it on on on the wagon off off off the wagon what whatever it is I'm drinking water now man um it was it was so weird but um I was able to to fit in as best I could and that's the depending on what side of the coin you're looking at either the beauty or the danger of working in the restaurant industry as someone who's an alcoholic and drug addict this is this is the environment you're most camouflaged in the environment you can

47:19be seen the least and it's almost expected to partake a lot more than any normal human should right uh whether that's alcohol or drugs right whether that's front of house or back of house yeah I am I I wanna take a second to drop this plug because the the FMB industry it's it's a it's notorious that there's a lot of challenges with substances and alcohol use there's a there's a guy

Ben's Friends for food and beverage workers

47:50his name's Steve Palmer and a group of them they have a they have an organization called Ben's Friends and it is a uh it's a recovery organization and it it has it started down in in Charleston where you know specifically for people that work in food and beverage and it has now kind of grown throughout uh the nation for individuals that work in FMB so I just wanted to take the time to kind of drop that plug cause time and time again especially where I'm from in Charleston and having spent a lot of time in Atlanta um you know cause you can make a good living you know what I'm saying there's in in a I think there's a lot of creativity and and art form uh in from the aspect of of uh

48:37whether you're a restaurant tour or just in the culinary or mixology but on that flip side if you've got what I got it can be a nail in in the coffin so I just wanted to take a a second to kind of drop uh again Ben's friends

Meth and cocaine

48:53but you mentioned meth mm hmm where did that come in at I don't remember exactly how that happened I was in Buckhead one night and time lines get get lost right um when when when you're as deep in the woods as I was uh and and no matter how much time and recovery I have I don't think they'll ever be able to like piece together accurately in terms of timelines I remember events not necessarily in the order in which they occurred um did you get deep in the woods with meth or that was that was weird for me uh it was me and a couple guys that that like in it at its peak it was the three of us we'd get some we

49:42we would and we'd only do it if the calendar aligned as such that the three of us had like three days off at the same time hahaha yeah and that would be what we did for for two days and then a day of recovery yeah right and if we ran out during those two days we would get more but when those two days were done we were done and I don't know how I didn't get sucked into the the the grip of meth I don't know why it was a take it or leave it for me mm hmm I I can't explain it but I also can't explain why alcohol is a take it or leave it for so many other people

50:30yeah I just know that it that's what it was for me um and it was just coke with oomph right like it got to a point where coke just wasn't cutting it anymore no point so we did some cocaine too my guy like I said I loved condiments condiments right I and I was I would do whatever drugs you had sure right um cause you didn't have any well I spent all my money on alcohol and weed yeah so whatever drugs you had let's do sure yeah I get it yeah and that'll protect you from things getting too bad right yeah yeah so let me ask you this

Swirling the drain

51:17walk me through what what was going on to make you throw in the towel and how were you introduced to recovery what was going on prior to and what was that like the I was just swirling the drain more and more and and it kept getting worse and worse um I I eventually I mean I was I would get restaurant jobs drunk and if I could get the job drunk I could do the job drunk and it was just getting worse and worse I was at this one restaurant um it uh haha it doesn't exist anymore when uh this particular franchise went out of business but at the time it was me and the assistant manager we were drinking after hours

52:04it was just the two of us no form of entertainment there other than television so it wasn't a pool table I don't I don't know what we why we thought what we were doing was such a great time but we were doing shots drinking doing blow uh I was standing at the service well as though I was going to run drinks to a table for some reason but I was standing there and and they were able to see this on the security footage I I hadn't seen the footage um but I was standing there and apparently a voice in my head told me to lean back and don't stop and I listened the next thing I remember is waking up on a bench outside of the restaurant the next morning um

52:55what had happened was I cracked my head open in the restaurant the assistant manager dragged me out laid me on the bench cleaned up all of the blood and locked up and left when I came to I realized I didn't have my cigarettes on me uh my phone like nothing um no I had my phone it was almost dead but I didn't have my cigarettes or my lighter or anything and I had to open the restaurant that morning so I'm like alright well I need I need I walked down to the gas station got a pack of smokes and a lighter got that fixed done on my way back the the manager unlocked the doors I snuck in behind him I fell asleep on the booth in the booth'cause I had a little bit more time

53:43before I had to start opening the restaurant he ends up waking me up I start opening the restaurant the owner shows up and somebody notices all of this dried blood caked on the back of my head and they're like what happened I said what are you talking about that's when I felt the back of my head I had no idea I just thought it was another one of those nights right um I should have got stitches I didn't still have the scar um but it was I I ended up losing that job but I had met a coworker of mine at the time he and I and another coworker we ended up getting a room at an extended stay not far from there um cause we didn't have anywhere else to go I was done man

54:30it it got like they were really bad like almost as bad as me I'm losing all of my friends I'm losing all of my jobs my family is distancing themselves from me I got nothing left and and now I'm in a room with these two other guys one bed and now they're going out and leaving me behind because they think I'm I'm that much worse than they are and I'm scraping the change off the nightstand their change just so I can go to the gas station and and get a can of Steel Reserve 2 11 right just to not go through DTS because I had a seizure once and I was not so I'm gonna back up a little bit a few years prior um I went up to Canada I knew that this is gonna be an environment

55:19where there wasn't gonna be a whole lot of drinking ended up meeting up with a friend of mine and her husband uh we go to this establishment it was really weird um half of it was a diner the other half was a sports bar like oh what side do you wanna go on and I'm like hmm and if NHL playoffs in Canada let's go to the sports bar side right this is my chance to drink and we order uh what we order I ordered my usual beer and a shot it comes to the table and I did something for the first time in my life when that beer and shot hit the table I got up to go to the bathroom every time in my life before then and after when that hit the table I took the shot and a sip of beer cause of priorities this time I decided to go to the bathroom first I made it two steps my eyes rolled in the back of my head

56:08and I was on the ground and had a seizure at that point alcohol in my mind was saving my life right it was keeping me alive I couldn't go through DTS if I just kept it in my system so that you know that I'm with that mentality and then I hear this this term and I would get argumentative with people that called me an alcoholic I would say no no

The seizure and a word nobody knew

56:32I'm actually a dipsomaniac you know what a dipsomaniac is I have no idea what is that nobody knows what it means that's why I felt so comfortable using it is that a Canadian thing or no actually it is a psychological or physiological condition that renders alcohol completely irresistible I actually just heard about that the other man that's crazy so that's what you said I would freely admit to being a dipsomaniac because nobody knew what it meant it was my way of being honest but not really it was my way of being honest but not completely it was kind of acknowledging but not taking any of the responsibility for the acknowledgement it's your rationalization yes yeah of a very bad issue going on that's killing you right right it's actually the clinical term that was used before the term alcoholic was coined really

57:21I did not know that um maybe we'll fact check that and we'll throw it up on the screen sure and post as long as if I'm wrong please let me know no I don't want to ride man we'll just create a new trend right we'll just say did you know hahaha back in back before in in my day you know we didn't have Google so in order to like win an argument you just had to be really convincing right there there was you couldn't pull out your phone and and Google it nope nope nope um now we got AI right actually no hahaha so so that was years prior yes that that took place so you were really dependent on alcohol you were a daily drinker I couldn't get my day going without right there if I had right in the morning

58:11when I woke up before my feet touched the floor I'm reaching for the whiskey bottle hoping that I didn't finish it the night before but always always trying to plan to make sure that I never ran out if I had money right if I if I had money then I always had booze that was that was the priority that was that was it so for years I get that's how alcohol that waking up with the shakes and all that was just a horrible way to live horrible so you that happened for a number of years

"I'm done"

58:45it did and then I finally made the call for help and um you know I can now I say look at god um walk me through that who'd you when you say made the call for help what was going on who'd you call or or where'd you go I I I I was done it just something I don't know if it was a switch that was flipped or or what but all of a sudden I'm I'm just done I'm done and that's all I can say in my head is I'm done I'm done I'm done and I called my sister at this time my sister had three kids um very busy uh she was going through some issues uh domestically um and it just so happened look at god it just so happened that

59:35the night that I called my sister was the first night that the kids stayed the night with their dad that my sister didn't have the kids and she answered the phone and it kind of caught me off guard and I just told her I'm done and I we hadn't my sister and I still haven't had a conversation about that moment I think she might have taken that a little bit differently than than I was trying to convey and I think she might have thought that I was talking about my life that I was done with living in a sense that's true I wasn't done breathing I was done living the way I had been living um just I tapped out

1:00:23I'm done and that's that's the best way I can I can I know how to explain it is tapping out I still had a bag of clothes I could have lost right I didn't lose everything cause I still had a bag of clothes um at the in town suites yes with two other people yes that were worse off than you but they thought they were doing better than you yes they didn't want to associate you could have lost basically a bag of clothes and maybe your phone and that would have been and your life right well that's all I had left to lose yeah um but I could have kept fighting I could have you know um you're comfortable in very uncomfortable situations cause it seems to be that due to having a segmented childhood responsibilities

1:01:16you're accustomed to living in very uncomfortable positions like that's normal you you're able to pivot a lot easier when you're uncomfortable when you're on your toes you can uh yeah I didn't want to get set in my ways even though I was so set in my ways yeah I I absolutely thrived in squalor and uncomfortability and chaos that I created absolutely it was um like almost like a camouflage right if I can create all this chaos around me then I might be able to blend into that with my internal chaos right and it all looks the same um

1:02:05so I my sister answered I said I'm done she said what do you mean you're done I said I'm done she said well I'm coming to get you pack up your stuff oh you mean zip up my bag haha yeah I can I can do that and she came and she picked me up and the next day my brother in law showed up with uh a man who became my mentor for for years and when I saw this guy look at this well dressed white and polite guy he has no clue what I've been going through none and instead of joining that long list of people throughout my life that was telling me that I had messed up that I was making bad decisions I was throwing it all away he did something very different

1:02:54he told me his story when he was done I realized this guy knows exactly what I'm going through okay now what he said now if you're serious we'll get you some help this is a a pretty big thing this is life changing and I need I need to think about things alright let's do it and so he gets on the phone and he uh he ends up finding me a place to detox but it was not not gonna be the next day um my brother in law was like well in the meantime I mean like do we give him a couple drinks to like

1:03:42make sure he doesn't go through DTS and I'm thinking yes this is perfect right like one last hurrah and and Billy said yeah that's absolutely not what you should do no he can go 24 hours he'll be okay

Detox and treatment

1:03:59and so the next day we went to Sunrise Detox in Alpharetta and I remember being in the waiting room and that door finally opening and I looked at this threshold and I knew that as soon as I crossed that threshold everything was going to be different everything and I had zero idea what that was gonna look like I also did not care because anything was gonna be better than what it was anything and talk about just a little tweak a little tweak and that would have been that would have meant the world let alone the entire everything changing right

1:04:51and uh you know big big hesitation of mine was DTS I didn't want to go through DTS they assured that um that I wouldn't they gave me medication to prevent that and another big hang up of mine was was finances I couldn't afford anything right I couldn't I was stealing coins from my friends to get one can of beer right but Billy had had assured me he's like look I mean if if money is not an issue would you do this and I said well well yeah he said okay money is not your issue you don't have any it it it'll get sorted out if you're willing so as long as I didn't allow money to be an issue as long as my focus was on getting better

1:05:43then I was gonna do my job that's what that's the promise that I was asked to make and that's the promise I made did not let money be an issue and I got through detox he had made arrangements he found a place for me to go to treatment Twin Lakes out in Monroe yeah and I went there and and it it it was very difficult for me to not think about the financial aspect of it but did they have the therapy cows when you were there no those I was there Maverick and Goose yeah yeah shout out Maverick and Goose out at Twin Lakes therapy cows baby and I was there I've you know shout out Sunrise Detox I remember when they opened it's crazy man like hearing this cause you've been sober 12 years or so June 1st, 2017 so just over nine years nine years yeah

1:06:34um I get through through treatment and um you know I was just asked to not worry about anything other than than get better and so I I go through the 30 days at Twin Lakes and very grateful for that place um I'm starting to synapses are starting to fire I'm starting to get some clarity and and really struggling mentally and spiritually in this early recovery and and what what does this look like what what what do I do now how how does how does life get lived in this manner um but I was feeling a lot better and at this point I'm thinking well now I I've Learned now how to feel better how to get my body better when I get out of here I can drink again

1:07:24and then before it gets too bad I can do this right I can like a pilot will pull back on the yoke right before he hits the ground he can pull back on the yoke and that's what I was gonna do I I decided OK now I'm gonna live my life undulating yeah cause now you have an out right when it gets too bad you can go lay up I I Learned how to do this now let me ask you a question prior cause you talked about the the body but you know spiritually and mentally right so I know I know where we're we're going with this was there any kind of introduction or or spirituality as a kid growing up in your home anywhere or was that just not a thing how how did I leave this out this entire time

Faith and a relationship he broke

1:08:13my dad was a Southern Baptist pastor hahaha praise Jesus praise Jesus indeed yeah um I was raised in the church um yeah like I had a fundamental belief throughout my life one that I never lost sight of this belief but a relationship with god that I completely destroyed right um not that I was able to prevent god from being in my life but I prevented myself from participating in anything that god was doing for me uh and I'm definitely gonna to touch on on what that look like here that's awesome cause I can relate you know what I'm saying I mean I at a very young age it was there

1:09:02it was laid out I know you know what's right and wrong as far as principles all of these things but certain things took place to where my mind was snapped shut and we can talk about this for days on end but so that's interesting because when we start to look at the paradox of maybe this anger and all of these things is because of the resistance or the lack of acknowledgement of that aspect or the denial of it is that a fair statement you think yes yeah so what happened man so you get the body straight at Twin Lakes Mm hmm well

"You no longer have to"

1:09:43somebody slapped me upside the head with some truth is what happened oh what was that one of the tax uh we we call him scary Cherry God rest his soul uh he ended up passing away a few years ago in a motorcycle accident but um he said nobody here is telling you that you can never drink again cause you know I was very much a tell me I can't kind of guy tell me I won't and this this idea I knew that if if I started with this idea of never being able to drink again there was no more sure fire way to ensure I was going to drink again than the idea that I could never drink again yeah that was going to guarantee a relapse a slip up however you want to call it uh it was going to guarantee alcohol in my system again

1:10:33and he said no no that's not what we're saying here what we're saying here is you no longer have to and that was that was the big paradigm shift for me this this idea that I no longer that was incomprehensible to me I was beginning to get a grasp on on life without but I thought that meant that I couldn't the fact was true then and it's true now I can pick up whenever I want to yeah that's crazy you say that man I was a was having a conversation with an individual and kind of in this space probably right about where you were right and you know has had had a period of of not drinking

1:11:23and has the idea like hey I wanna drink and really to kind of bring some things into alignment I've said man you can you can go drink you can go drink right now right cause my thing and what I found to be most effective um I don't care whether people drink or use drugs I think that people are deserving of love and compassion and empathy and if there's any way that I can support them then that's what I want to do and their vision and and in their goals and that has really nothing to do with drugs and alcohol now if drugs and alcohol are something that you want my support to to not do then of course we're going to look at those things but it my framework is not based or on contention as to whether or not you drink or use I've just found it to be take it off the table

1:12:12off the equation whatever what are our goals what are the things that we want out of life and even in that same conversation uh this individual was like yeah I wanna drink and I looked at I said do you wanna drink then why like why do we stop and and if you want to then why not go drink and he was able to like really line up logically in his mind and he's like yeah I don't want to drink I said so why are we telling ourselves that and we were able to kind of walk through some stuff and really was a really good breakthrough and it so just like what you said his name's Terry right was it Terry looked at you he said no you don't have to right

Stockholm syndrome and the real desire behind the drink

1:12:54because I was I had Stockholm syndrome I was in love with my captor right I was a slave to drugs and alcohol and I loved it for it hmm it people would let me down I hated people but the substance I could count on damn bro I've never heard it put that way man that's a great way I had Stockholm Syndrome for our audience please let them know what Stockholm Syndrome is I mean to put it as crudely as possible falling in love with your captor that's it yeah it's um thinking that now you're in a situation that that is just that maybe you deserve it this is what I'm worth um you start getting some comfortability

1:13:42some familiarity and your standards start lowering and and and now you're at a place where like this is now acceptable to me and you sympathize yes yeah man that's fire bro that's why man yeah that's a great way to look at it so I now have a choice that's the paradigm shift right I don't have to do this anymore and you know talking about those guys and and and I've you know felt that like man I I I wanna drink but the the reality is that's just the surface desire the the deeper the true desire is not that I want the drink the true desire is I want the effect of it I want to change the way I feel

1:14:31in recovery I've Learned that that is not ever going to go away there are going to be situations for the rest of my life that I absolutely want to change the way I feel and I still do that I still change the way I feel I just don't use substance to do it I get more plugged into god I do change the way I feel by changing my perspective by getting right sized by having gratitude exercises it absolutely changes the way I feel which was the objective

Changing how he feels without substances

1:15:13the worst times in my life happened in my sobriety the hardest times in my life happened in my sobriety and not once did I think that picking up was going to be an answer to anything it was going to be a band aid sure it could delay the inevitable and if I didn't want to deal with it right now it would that would be successful I wouldn't deal with it right now but I'd have to deal with that plus so much more later right and no matter how far down this road to recovery I go I am always one bad decision away from being right there right from having to start back on the journey

1:16:04right that's but I don't have to pick up substances no matter what happens I don't have to pick up drugs or alcohol I don't have to that's the paradigm shifter um how did you learn that so you get the body straighten out you get done with 28 days right walk me through that process of

Sober living and early recovery

1:16:29so Billy had found me a sober living anchor sober sober living is where I I I started um and I ended up getting a job doing the uh diametrical opposite of what I had been doing instead of bartending now I'm landscaping right just polar opposites right um and it was awful it was miserable but that that was kind of what I needed at the time ironically enough an old regular of mine at a bar that I worked at saw a picture of me holding a 60 day chip and sent me a text message of congratulations this is amazing if you keep it up your life will be incredible all this stuff like

1:17:16from a regular at the bar right is congratulating me on my sobriety and then at the end said if you ever want a a job working for me let me know yes please right um they ended up hiring me I ended up working for this company for 3 years it was uh low paying and exactly what I needed it gave me uh more free time than landscaping would so that I can attend meetings and so now I'm working the steps I'm working with a sponsor I'm going to meetings my mentor it has a weekly fellowship with other guys that are like minded it was not really an AA kind of group but it was all recovery and I was the only one of the group uh aside from the mentor that had substance abuse issue

1:18:05everyone else had addiction issues that were not substance related nice and now I'm really seeing that this isn't like a physical thing this is not a drugs are bad or drinking is bad this is this is really a spiritual dilemma that we're facing this is really a disconnect from god that I experienced it was manifested by me trying to do what I wanna do when I wanna do it right my ego was running wild it was I was the dark center of my universe right and and drugs and alcohol just fueled that and it allowed me to keep consuming myself um and it really was a spiritual issue and I was able to get reconnected with god when I'm working at this uh

1:18:53this place called Bird Bath I'm gonna give them a plug out of Peachtree the cab airport um I ended up getting uh with the help of my mom and stepdad

The 2001 Corolla and God's long game

1:19:02a 2,001 Toyota Corolla it was a hooptie it was a piece of shit and I loved it rolling yes what when I got that car I'm driving around now I told you like I had gone 10 years without a license now I've got some like level of freedom which is also a little bit dangerous cause I'm in early recovery now I have the freedom to go back to my old stomping grounds where I have that that temptation to go to where I used to get trashed right all the people that that saw me in my worst just to show them how much better at life I am now right go flex on them yes I had this you know temptation for sure but while I'm dealing with that temptation I'm driving around I'm seeing all kinds of 2001 Toyota Corollas on the road it was wild right

1:19:53but we're talking like 2018 17 this car is 17 years old and I'm starting to see a whole lot of them on the road obviously they didn't like restart production on these right no the number of O1 Corollas in the world did not change the number of 0 one Corollas in the world that I noticed did that was a big growth moment a big aha moment in my life in my recovery god didn't all of a sudden start working my life when I got sober he wasn't waiting on me to say okay now I'll let you in he had been working in my life the entire time that's why my sister was available that night that I made the call because god deemed it so because god is so good at the long game

1:20:40and we are so terrible you got some awareness finally got some awareness you woke up I did I did that that veil was gone right I'm starting to see things for what they actually are and not um behind this this cloud of smoke behind this this veil of substance abuse um so god is really working in my life and I'm seeing that but like I'm I'm welcoming it I'm facilitating it right I'm I'm trying to accommodate this and I'm trying to let that be the driving force in my life and I'm seeing all this and and life is getting great man um and like I said it was not a high paying job

1:21:28the ceiling was was pretty low and I felt pressed against the ceiling and I kept talking to my sponsor about it and I don't know if my sponsor just got tired of of hearing me bitch and complain about it or if god spoke through him but probably both and he finally said look Avery I know that you want something better and you're praying about it earnestly and diligently I know this but if all you do is pray about it then all you're going to get is the opportunity to keep praying about it

A sponsor asks: where's your action?

1:22:02where's your action that day that afternoon I'm in the parking lot uh with my uh at the time girlfriend I ended up marrying her um she's talking to her best friend we just happen to see her best friend in the parking lot and my sponsor's words start ringing in my ear I pull out my phone and I Google something stupid like great paying jobs without a college degree right now I start scrolling and I make some offhand comment about some post I saw and her friend was like well I thought you have a job well I do I just need something more and she said well we had someone quit this morning and our bosses are like if you know of anyone let us know I just started scrolling and

1:22:51and I made a comment I sent her my resume the next day they call me up want to schedule an interview and now I'm in the mortgage industry I get the job right like look at god what what are you doing in my life this is awesome and and things are are really progressing um but as they're progressing I'm really still holding on tightly to certain aspects of my life and trying to run them the way that I want them to be run and covid is happening and things are just so wild right throughout the world not just in my little recovery awareness but everything everywhere it's all just foreign um I end up getting married uh right

1:23:47you know when this is uh finishing up when Covid's finishing up a little bit after I got married um I've been having issues with with my wife um we start seeking outside help my best friend ends up dying unexpectedly and when you have someone close to you die unexpectedly and it's not substance related it hits very differently it's not one of those he he knew better right there's there's no anger there of like why didn't you just do what you knew to do this was just a a loss for words and just just a different kind of pain that

1:24:35that you don't you can't really define and dealing with that and not having that desire to like use chemicals to alter my state of mind really showed that I was still dependent but not on substance I was just now extremely dependent on god I'm like god I'd I'd I'm lost right like guide me and he carries me through that but I'm still having domestic issues um and what ultimately ended up happening was uh while I was uh I spent the weekend with my dad um

1:25:24a wellness check was done on on my now ex wife and she was incapacitated to the point where paramedics decided it was time to for her to go to the er she had to go to the er and I'm on my way back from from Tennessee and this is all happening and I'm feeling all of the emotions because I'm getting little bits of information um sporadically and didn't realize that she was extremely intoxicated I had met her in the rooms right um by the time I get there she's in ICU she spends the next six weeks in the hospital for which is in ICU um extreme relapse I mean

1:26:12alcohol with a litany of prescribed drugs some unprescribed drugs uh all of which are not supposed to be mixed with with each other and this is now an extremely dark time of my life and it's the hardest thing that I've gone through and two things that I I don't want to ever let go of during this time one is god saying very clearly to me

"Move your damn feet, I got the weight"

1:26:42move your damn feet I got the weight that's what got me through um the realization that that there's not many ways I can glorify god more then letting him be him and getting out of the way and and realizing having the humility that I am not created to carry this weight this is not the way I was designed I was designed to be to submit to god and say you do this I cannot right that kind of honesty and humility but that was that was the biggest thing was god saying just move your damn feet I got the weight and so there I was dropping all of my my baggage at god in his feet and saying

1:27:33you do this cause I can't I will collapse under the weight of this I get through it eventually and I look back and I realize that the most profound reason why I could have gone through anything is to help somebody else that's going through something similar it is the embodiment of why we spread a message of hope of experience and strength this is exactly what I had Learned in my recovery what what I Learned from the 12 steps right is that this is why we go through these things because we are not designed to be alone that feeling of isolation I had before I got recovery is not how I'm supposed to live my life

1:28:23it's not how anyone is supposed to live their life so now I'm able to to share that with other with other guys um to to relate to to men in ways that I was not able to before and that that marriage dissolved uh come to find out she had relapsed before her and I ever started dating um she was able to hide so so well in the rooms that everyone was fooled um but I was able to uh to carry on and I ended up meeting uh someone else and we fell in love I'm now remarried um and uh

1:29:10you know I just wanna wanna say look at god again

A layoff, a wedding in a driveway, a baby on the way

1:29:13September 4th of last so we're you know less almost a year ago I went into work and I had a meeting with the branch manager I'm selling flooring for a company in the multi family space and we're supposed to discuss this portfolio I had just won we're supposed to discuss the pricing and all that and instead I discovered that I'm getting laid off so I'm feeling incredibly dejected uh and less than at this point because just prior I discovered that she was pregnant and we had decided to get married we before she was pregnant we wanted to get married um

1:30:01this pregnancy just expedited everything right in a very unconventional way and the day before I got laid off um those rings showed up a day early for whatever reason I pick them up I get laid off I come home I'm in tears um feeling less than right I'm still sober but what is going on really and she was an absolute rock and uh and she said listen um god did for you what you weren't gonna do for yourself you were going to be just in mediocrity and be okay with it and and not strive for anything greater because this was just enough but now here you are and your hand is forced

1:30:50um god didn't put you in my life to just do not much god put you in in my life to do something great and we are going to get married we are going to have this child it's going to be awesome um you need to get out of this funk and I'm going to take a nap cause I'm pregnant hahaha figure it out right she takes a nap she wakes up and and she realizes the next week she's starting a job and our plan was to get married on a Friday uh that Friday courthouse wedding she wakes up from a nap she's actually you know I'd have to miss a day at work let's get married now I was like oh yeah that's great but by now you mean now

1:31:37yes now let's do it so I get on the phone with a different courthouse Forsyth County hey do you guys do courthouse weddings no but there's a retired magistrate judge who does you want his number yes I do call him up and uh we ended up getting married in his driveway that day juxtaposition this is a good old boy retired judge he's wearing a Braves T-shirt tucked in with his athletic shorts hair clippings all over me and my my now bride who's from born and raised in Lagos Nigeria right this this is and we're in his driveway out in the woods of Forsyth County right just wild um but the fact that the rings came in the day before like everything just started falling into place

1:32:25in a way that I couldn't anticipate uh just just look at god and I'm still struggling I I can't find meaningful employment that's a good fit um I have no purpose I'm I'm lost I I just I know what's going to happen I know that we're going to have this kid but I don't know the means in which I'm going to provide anything I come to find out I don't provide anything it comes from god um I'm having a conversation with a with a guy he was mentoring me at the time and and he asked me alright Avery if um

How RAAD was born

1:33:07if money was an issue and apparently this is now a theme in my life if money is not an issue what would you what would you do I said well I'm in long term recovery my mom is deaf I'd love to and I had this thought for quite some time I'd love to be able to help deaf people in recovery so I've got good news for you money is not an issue cause you're not making any go do it so I did I started doing some research and that's how RAAD was born um I was I was holding me back right I was like well let me let me come up with like an awesome name first and and all this stuff and um I had to I had to get out of the way right

1:33:57things were were were going to fall into place the way that they were supposed to and uh I came up with RAAD um did a lot of research again tell our audience what RAAD stands for so RAAD stands for Recovery Advocates for Adult Death uh I started doing my research and and finding out what little resources there were out there in in the country for the deaf and hard of hearing seeking recovery

Deaf people and substance use

1:34:22uh deaf people are twice as likely to develop substance use disorder than hearing people deaf people are born into a world of isolation right it's not these aren't it's not clustered right it's not like a line a genetic line of people like the deaf people are descended from deaf people that are descended from deaf people it's not genealogical like that right again my mom and uncle were the only deaf people in our entire family tree yeah I got a statement um somebody um who I love dearly uh we were talking about um you coming in and she's like man that's

When the system can't or won't

1:35:08that's so wild what do you do when a person is ready for recovery but the system can't handle that their recovery or it doesn't exist right and I thought that was such a profound thing that I wanted to ask you the system can't or the system won't bingo I think there's both right I mean I the one thing that I'll say is especially in the space that I'm at and and what I work in right one is we believe multiple pathways there's a mission everyone everywhere deserves a fighting chance at recovery but when you think about cause I I mean I'm more than happy to help any or everyone I'm not equipped and I also wanna tell another story right

1:35:56cause you're in it I have a hospital I have hospital teams right and one of my expert is actually uh very close with how we got connected a guy named John right and he's actually in this room and very much a part of this podcast there's another Esper that's in a place um you know a long way away from here in another hospital with an individual who was deaf she picks up the phone reaches out to ask Chad Chad I have somebody here who needs services I don't know what to do do you know anybody he was like well as a matter of fact John was just talking about the somebody that I don't know let me call John and see what and somehow I they got in touch with you

1:36:46and I don't know maybe you can tell this story but you were definitely involved with being able to provide help to somebody who I've never met through somebody that had no clue how to really make an impact and help somebody and this is in real time this isn't something that I heard about this isn't something that I read in a book I like this is something I'm a part of before I've ever even met you so you know I don't wanna I don't wanna beat the system up we can do that at another time the thing is is you're equipped with the ability one with a vision and two the ability right and the drive to stand in a space where we can improve what exists I don't know to the extent of how that works

1:37:37but I definitely want to hear from you about what can we do what's broken about it or what won't they do right like I wanna hear the whole thing starting with the vision of what what you hope to accomplish with your organization so I do wanna say that I feel like you are equipped because that did happen I think you're more equipped than you realize because you are plugged in the way that you are because you have the connections that you have if you you may not have the firsthand knowledge or the connections that I have but without your connection with John without John's connection with me we're not having this conversation I'm not here so it's a matter of utilizing everything at our disposal

1:38:28everything that god has placed in front of us we are free to utilize right and do how do we utilize it and we get the word out there that's what we do right um there was a time not that long ago I mean it seems like a long time ago for for many people but uh

The ADA and who gets accessibility

1:38:47the Ada when that was passed right there was a lot of people like man it'd be awesome if people in wheelchairs can come into our establishment wouldn't that be cool if they could like would by themselves like in their wheelchair Ada's passed and all these developers like man but the cost you know how much it's gonna cost for me to like put ramps into places to have dedicated parking spots and then not only dedicated parking spots but now I've got to like have this little area next to the parking spot a matter of inconvenience and a matter of cost I'd rather not but somebody stepped in and said no no no they need to have access mm hmm now we we look at that as just inherent into the cost of doing business the cost of developing land

1:39:36you you have to have these ramps you have to have accessibility to these people and that's great but there was a a swath of people a group of people that that apparently did not apply to and it's been a struggle in the deaf community for a long time um why we I mean we have the technology for closed captioning in movie theaters now but we don't have them it might inconvenience someone else right um all all kinds of things and I don't want to harp too much into that because that's not the focus um but we do have these things at our disposal we do have these connections that are made uh I'm not any more special than anyone else just because I was raised by a deaf mother I just have uh a calling for it I just have

1:40:25uh some knowledge I'm not I'm just a coda it's a child of deaf adult right um it took AA had to start from somewhere it'd be easy for someone that like for Bill to just say oh well I don't I don't know who to reach out to I'm just not going to he had he had a calling right and it started right and like okay so he was and he was essentially sponsored by Abby Thatcher right and started these meetings and they could have easily said well um no we're we're okay with with how we are this is good no they they felt it and come it upon them to spread this this word of of hope this

1:41:14this message of you don't have to live this way anymore so they did they just did it money was not an issue money is still not an issue and and money is just a thing that a lot of people can hide behind because it's easy you have the ability just like my mom had the ability to communicate with people that could read and write it was incredibly inconvenient it was cumbersome it was time consuming but you could absolutely have a full conversation with my mom with just some pen and paper right all you need is the willingness and desire that's all you need just like in recovery all you need is the willingness to get sober right you can't let any potential hurdle derail you

1:42:05if you do then you are not going to achieve long term recovery your sole objective is how do I get better how do I get sober and stay sober what do I need to do and overcome any obstacle whether it's the loss of a best friend whether it's the the the failure of a marriage whether it's the loss of hearing whether it's uh some some communication barriers it doesn't matter these things can all be broken down if there's the willingness and desire to do so I don't know that that is the objective of many people in treatment um for better for worse right um it it's if people get better

1:42:53then it doesn't matter what what the founder's intention were right like the if somebody is a for profit seeker and they start a treatment facility and people get sober as a result well then hey I want to focus on the sober people as a result right and that that's a victory to me and if a deaf person goes to a hospital because they are dealing with some kind of substance issue they don't know where to go but somebody heard something from somebody who heard something from somebody who has a connection to somebody that there's a reason why that worked right and so I think that we all have the ability if we want it bad enough I don't think that everyone has the awareness and that's what I'm trying to do right in this in this phase of RAAD is just build the awareness

1:43:42that there is so many people that need help um it took like earlier in my story it I I told you that when I made a call for help what it what it took was somebody telling me their story and then I was able to finally really hear what they were trying to say it took somebody with experience relatable to mine and that's what we're trying to do here with RAAD is there's somebody with this experience that's relatable right and the more deaf people are aware the more they can get plugged in the more they can help other deaf people the better we're at uh as a as a collective but that a lot of that is gonna fall on

1:44:32and I don't wanna just put it all on the hearing people in recovery or the deaf people in recovery this is something that we should all in recovery should feel that there should not be any barrier whatsoever to anyone right that's that's what we Learned in AA right when we have to be the helping hand when anyone calls right yeah and and you know there's a word that comes to to my mind which is uh

What the deaf community needs

1:45:00cultural humility right and I think I would imagine that there is a culture uh in the deaf community if they as a collective from a from a perspective of a collective voice you know were to kind of write out a wish list or kind of a needs list of things that would be a priority in this space what are some of those things that you think uh would be said the same things that anyone else that knows one language would say if they were in a an area that didn't know that language it would be the same thing

1:45:48um accessibility somebody that they can communicate with right um that's uh the opposite of of isolation right just that communication and while covid was so wild and changed everything one of the great things to come out of covid was

Zoom meetings and why captions aren't enough

1:46:09it forced technology into recovery before covid if you wanted to go to a meeting you had to literally go to a meeting now even still there's so many zoom meetings yeah I mean shoot we have zoom meetings every day every day 24 hour there's a website I can't remember the name of it I would give them a plug yeah but every hour there's a meeting yeah on zoom they host it every single there's so there's never an excuse that I can't go to a meeting but how many of those meetings are closed captioned and that that's just that that's not enough it really isn't because as as I told you before about uh signed exact English

1:46:58that's what closed caption is right it's words on a page it's English it's not their language so what I don't I don't think at this point they're asking for anything more than we can already provide right there are video relay services that that can be taken advantage of um there are ASL classes um many of which are free sometimes they're in like a community college sometimes they're online could you speak to I was gonna ask you maybe educate us a little bit on what the ASL is

What ASL really is

1:47:37okay so ASL is is uh a a language that was suppressed for a very long time um and up until the last 50+ years uh has it really been uh acceptable uh and and started to be viewed as a separate language right but uh but um if you start looking at the entomology of things um uh linguist they they all will tell you that no this is not a uh symbol version of English this is its own language just like um French Spanish uh Mandarin they all have their own structure

1:48:27they it's a completely separate language this is a topic that most people are just completely oblivious to like he's we get in our Silo we get so consumed or concerned about us and I mean just think about it man there's an arrogance of all thinking I know something about recovery well what do you know about caring or uh a message to somebody who's who's deaf are you do you have that ability right like looking at how we can grow how we can evolve think about the stigma that may be associated or affiliated that they may experience right like as well as just like what's the accessibility how can we break down those barriers cause that's the kind of stuff that I'm on I believe everyone everywhere deserves a fighting chance and so if somebody who uh

1:49:14is seeking recovery services walks through my door I'm glad I'm I got you know a direct connect to be able to help them because I'm that like this not a job for me this is an assignment right to be able to do this and so one thing even in all of this sometimes I might get too big for my own but but this is very um humbling is like I man once you brought once once I heard this this we were about to do it's like man you don't know nothing sometimes I like I just kick myself in the in the ass man because it's like there's so much that I don't know and when I hear this also it's my hope and even for doing this that somebody out there may see this and they may see you who's deaf

1:50:03who's struggling that it may inspire them to reach out to seek help and it also may bring some unity around other individuals who may be inspired to come together to step into this space to help so from that perspective what does

How to support RAAD

1:50:24what kind of help do you need uh for your organization like what are your true needs what do you need if you had it in an ideal world right money is not an issue well so one we know money is an issue so we need some money everything cost right yes so do you have a website or you how do people get in touch with you so we do have a website it's RAAD USA dot org um right now because money is such an issue it's been a social media campaign to begin uh so you can find us on Instagram and Facebook again RAAD USA um I don't want it to be limited to USA um but this is you know uh and this is another interesting thing about sign language every language has their own sign language right like um

1:51:11the French have their own sign language Australia while they speak English there's Australian Sign Language there's British Sign Language and they're they're different right um but we're seeing we're seeing stigmas get taken away we're seeing this culture become a little bit more mainstream especially with the success of the film Kota uh with Troy Kotsur winning an Oscar right as a deaf actor um HBO is doing awesome stuff right now with so many of the movies and shows that are on their streaming platform also have interpreters um this is a a network of people that is is pretty well connected with each other but also somewhat detached from the recovery world

1:52:04and that's something that that we're building there is a group of people that meet quarterly on zoom and they are all about people in just like RAAD uh organizations just like RAAD that are trying to help deaf and hard of people hard of hearing people in substance abuse disorder um recover right they're they're professionals and we get together and it's all about building those connections building that network um connecting uh counseling centers right that that have deaf therapists that are licensed in all these different states there are people uh working in their own way at their own angle but the the issue is not that

1:52:51the issue is that they're not all brought together in in cohesion right and so that takes some some legwork that takes some groundwork that takes some some building of bridges

Building an ecosystem run by deaf people

1:53:02um ultimately the idea is to have a an ecosystem that's run by deaf people for deaf people in recovery just like it took an alcoholic to tell me their story for me to they okay they get it it also takes somebody who's deaf to speak to somebody else who's deaf say oh they get it so I'm in this you know somewhat unique position there's not many people that live on the intersection uh in life that I live which is uh the corner of Kota and recovery right somebody who has been signing their whole life who also now has experienced strength and hope that is you know was found in recovery um so that's what we're trying to do yeah money is an issue

1:53:51um but really it's it's it doesn't matter how much money uh if there's no awareness right so we're building this awareness and you know I told you I've got a four and a half month old and and there's no there's no handbook for that you know you're in the hospital and all they say is let me see the car seat OK you're good to go bye that's it yeah um and and you just figure it out as parents and hopefully it's um less error uh but it's all trial and error and you hope that a lot of those trials are successes right but you just you just do it you don't I don't just move your feet just move your feet right and and and give it to god that's it right god has a way of making it work

1:54:38and as long as we have that desire and that willingness right then that's what recovery is right nobody had the guidebook to recovery at first right it wasn't handed to us in its entirety like oh this is the manual no it was toyed with it was tinkered with it was figured out and then the message grew right so I don't have all the answers um I don't have you know I can't just snap my fingers and say this is how it's going to be now um not everything that I'm going to do is going to be right right but if we have the willingness then we will figure it out as a collective right if people in recovery really want it to be accessible we will make it accessible

1:55:27whether it's cumbersome at in the beginning whether it's just really clunky and it is archaic and writing back and forth right but we the we can't figure it out and then offer it the the offering has to be there we have to be authentic when we say that anyone who wants it can have it just because we haven't sorted out the blueprint yet doesn't mean that the offering is contingent on whether or not we can communicate we'll figure out the communication part as we go right that's been true with all of humanity right if I'm just dropped off in a foreign country we'll figure it out

1:56:15we will we will get there because we have the willingness and the desire um but it's going to take it's not a herculean effort right um we just have to build that awareness cause once we're aware we're responsible right

3 million people

1:56:30we're talking about roughly the same the equivalent of the population of Nashville or Cleveland right if you if you look if you take the numbers the deaf population you understand that deaf people are twice as likely to develop substance abuse disorder and you extrapolate those numbers we're looking at over 3 million people uh would be estimated to be deaf struggling with substance abuse disorder that's a pretty big number to say we don't care about you we don't care if you have access to life saving measures it's just not convenient for us damn it is astonishing the the number of deaf people

1:57:22that have reported being turned away at treatment centers because that treatment center feels like they can't accommodate not because they didn't make the effort but because they felt like they couldn't and that's just what was reported so when that is the word on the street why are deaf people going to even begin to seek something out they got no hope so that's really what we have to to attack right is break down this this idea that there is no hope I was hopeless for a long time in my life there was no hope and then somebody had to say hey look no no this is how I got through it

How any of us can help

1:58:06that's it so how can how can we help as individuals by just being a beacon of light by saying hey it doesn't matter if you speak French and I don't it doesn't matter if you're deaf and I'm not if we want to survive we will work together right and it's just that's the message that we have to have that's what we have to share with other people um we just have to be willing to be conduits of what god is going to provide right of what god what god can do in our lives cause it's it's all a matter of hindsight 20:20 right look at look at god and it's easy to say that about the past what are we doing now to be the

1:58:56that conduit and how are we preparing ourselves for the future how are we bridging that gap right it's um and it kind of goes back to what what I was talking about before I can't get lost in the in the what ifs the what what could have been right um it's I'm not focused on what the next right thing is I'm not focused on the next phase of RAAD I'm focused on is there a deaf person in need if the answer is yes then the next question should be whether it's me or anyone else watching the podcast or not the next question should be how can I help it is not a prerequisite to know sign language it is not a prerequisite to know an interpreter

1:59:46the only prerequisite is your willingness to help because maybe you don't know sign language but maybe you know somebody who knows somebody so are you equipped the short answer is yes yes as equipped as you might like probably not but are we ever with anything on that note man Avery it's been an honor and a privilege and uh you know I any way that I can help you um we're gonna put this out and um you know hey we'll we'll figure it out together bro um until we meet again uh thank you thanks for having me