Life After Childhood Sexual Abuse, 15 Years in Prison for Organized Crime, and Relapsing With a Weapon While on Parole

Matt Handy (00:00:03):
I am Matt Handy, and you're listening to My Last Relapse. Alright, Brandon.

 

Brandon (00:00:07):
What's going on? Good morning.

 

Matt Handy (00:00:10):
Good morning, thank you for coming.

 

Brandon (00:00:12):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:00:13):
Alright, so tell me a little bit about you.

 

Brandon (00:00:17):
So just to go back a little bit. So I've been sober since 3 25 21.

 

Matt Handy (00:00:25):
Okay.

 

Brandon (00:00:25):
Yeah. I work in the recovery field at Arise Recovery Center. Separately from that, I got a couple sober livings in the Conroe Woodlands area. Yeah, man, I'm all about the recovery, all about recovering out loud. That's the most important part to me, for sure. Yeah. I could go as far back as childhood if we need to.

 

Matt Handy (00:00:51):
Yeah, let's do it.

 

Brandon (00:00:52):
Absolutely, man. Let me just get a little comfortable right here. Yeah. So just to kind of go back, I know we're talking about that last relapse, right? Yep. Just to kind of go back a little bit into childhood where my traumas really started. Sure. So I was born into an alcoholic family. My dad was a severe alcoholic, physically, mentally abusing. So it was never a safe place for me. So at the age of 11 is when I first put the first drink of alcohol in my body. Now, mind you a little bit before that, at the age of eight, I was molested as a child and that was something that I helped in forever. I never wanted to let that out. So ages eight, I was molested by a male form figure. At the age of 10, I was molested by a female figure.

 

Matt Handy (00:02:02):
Was it a repeating thing?

 

Brandon (00:02:05):
It was a repeated thing at the age of 10 with the female figure. So at the very beginning of my life, I was already brought into trauma with the alcoholic dad, the family lifestyle that we had. There was never a safe moment where you can open up about anything like that. My mom wasn't an alcoholic and she tried the best she could. So it carried on for a little bit, and at that age of 11, man, I put that first drink of alcohol in my body and I remember how it felt, and I knew at that point that was what I wanted my life to be. I didn't want to feel anything else. And what it also allowed me to do, it allowed me to feel like I fit in around kids that were my age. Because there was a lot of times as my childhood, I would be around kids that were my age and I felt way out of place. I felt like I didn't fit in. You know what I mean?

 

Matt Handy (00:03:21):
Yeah, I know I do. So I've had a bunch of these conversations that is a running theme. We all get molested. I say we all, because basically everybody that I've talked to, it's like the same thing. Childhood, sexual trauma. Me too by a male when I was really young and it happened over and over and over. It was a family member. And for me, I didn't fit in either. And I think a lot of that really does have to do specific, even though it's not like the thing we are thinking about. I feel like it's always something that is thought about and that sets us apart. We have an adult trauma as a child, and most of these kids have just, they're innocent and it's a very difficult thing for a child to deal with adult issues and not be able to talk about it.

 

Brandon (00:04:18):
Right? Absolutely. And back in the era when I was coming up, so I'm 47 now, so you got to think, I was born in

 

Matt Handy (00:04:28):
Looking good for 47.

 

Brandon (00:04:30):
I was born into the eighties, so 78 was when I was born. So recovery back then,

 

Matt Handy (00:04:39):
Way different

 

Brandon (00:04:39):
Isn't like it is now.

 

Matt Handy (00:04:41):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:04:42):
By far. You didn't hear much about therapists, counselors, you didn't hear anything about LCDCs. You didn't hear none of that. So forever. I just masked with alcohol and then it progressed, right?

 

Matt Handy (00:04:58):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (00:04:59):
It just progressed to the hard drugs, the cocaine, the crack. And then before you know it, I'm shooting heroin in my veins. Anything to take that feeling away. And just leave society and leave the world and be in this la la land and feel like you fit in. Right?

 

Matt Handy (00:05:19):
Yeah. I mean the nature of addiction, right? Progressive as fuck. So you start drinking at 11, it probably stopped working by 12, and you're already looking for 12 years old is crazy, but you're already looking for something else. Most of us don't have access to drugs. In an alcoholic home. You have access to probably different types of alcohol, but when the drugs become an option, so alcohol is a whole different beast, still a drug. Whole different beast than drugs, right? But when drugs became an option for me, I haven't dranken. I hate drinking. I'm Vietnamese, so I have that allergy. I just get red and puffy and feel sick. So when drugs became an option, those people talk about, I found my home when I got dude, it was like I discovered myself.

 

Brandon (00:06:17):
I have arrived.

 

Matt Handy (00:06:18):
Yes, for sure. I have arrived.

 

Brandon (00:06:20):
I have arrived.

 

Matt Handy (00:06:21):
Yep.

 

Brandon (00:06:22):
Yeah, no man. And it's crazy what it led, the destruction, just how it progressed so quickly and how I ended up getting into this crowd of people. I was born and raised in Houston, Texas my whole life. So on the north side at that, the neighborhood that I was raised in was a very rough neighborhood. So the crowd that I started hanging with were all older than me.

 

Matt Handy (00:06:59):
Right? Yeah, of course.

 

Brandon (00:07:00):
And the crowd. So one thing they did do a lot of is they helped me feel loved and accepted.

 

Matt Handy (00:07:07):
For sure,

 

Brandon (00:07:08):
Something I didn't get at home. So I carried that on, man, and it just progressed. As the years went on, at the age of 17, man, I caught my first criminal charge. I caught an engaging in an organized crime activity charge. From that point on, I get locked up, I make this bond, and I come home. I'm in a different county, like two and a half hours away from Houston, and I make this bond. I come back to Houston and I jump right back into the same mess I was in again. I had no solution. I didn't understand solution, and I caught another criminal charge. And at 17 I was heading to the prison with a seven year sentence. Lost, just a scared little boy at this time. I'm not even shaving yet, man.

 

Matt Handy (00:08:05):
That's so crazy.

 

Brandon (00:08:07):
I mean, how I learned how to shave was watching older gentlemen while I was in prison, shave in the mirror, and I started picking up these things. But yeah, man, for five more years of my life, from 17 on for five more years after I was institutionalized into the prison life. So getting into the prison mentality, I already had the street mentality before getting locked up. So I was destined to fail with no program. I had no outlet. Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not put you in any kind of programs to give you any kind of bettering, come ups. It was a disaster. It was over and over. It was constant. So each time I come home, I would go right back into the same thing. No solution.

 

Matt Handy (00:09:11):
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that is a solution, right?

 

Brandon (00:09:14):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:09:17):
I say this all the time. If drugs weren't as good as they are at what they do, nobody would do. So it's kind of like a running theme. People talk about this all the time, or it's like men need other men to raise them.

 

Brandon (00:09:35):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:09:37):
And so when you are in a situation where you get no role model at home, gangs are full of people that have parents, but hardly any of them have role models. And then you'll hear about that one guy. It's like, oh yeah, both my parents and good role model. And it's like, dude, what are you doing here? But yeah, you're going to look for guidance. We're lost without any kind of guidance. Men, specifically, we need people to show us how to be men. You can't just learn how to be a man without someone teaching you.

 

Brandon (00:10:16):
Not at all. I totally agree. And I feel like that's how I kind of grew up. For sure. I grew up piggybacking on all the male forms that were a part of my life, and a lot of these mail forms that were a part of my life that wasn't family. They were all into criminal activities, all into drugs, womanizing, anything that you could do that was totally wrong. It was being done right.

 

Matt Handy (00:10:48):
Fast money,

 

Brandon (00:10:49):
Fast money, fast life, the streets. That was the cycle that I grew up in at an early age. So every time I came home, it was the same thing. That's all I knew.

 

Matt Handy (00:11:04):
There's so much positive reinforcement for negative behavior in those situations. So I did have both my parents in my home, but I'm the oldest of 10 kids.

 

Brandon (00:11:17):
Wow.

 

Matt Handy (00:11:17):
So there was no oversight. There was discipline, there was very severe discipline. But there I could never go to my parents when I was a kid and talk about my problems. And even if I could, in theory I didn't because my mom was physically abusive. My dad just kind of did what she said to do, which I know he didn't want to, but it was, he was in school and working. He had three jobs my whole childhood, and my mom kind of ruled the roost and whatever she said went. And so as soon as I could leave, as soon as I had that option to dip, I was gone.

 

Brandon (00:11:57):
Time to go.

 

Matt Handy (00:12:00):
But even with both parents in my home, it wasn't conducive to a healthy childhood for me. And so there are those people out there. It's like, what are you doing? Right? I'm sure people looked at me in my first prison term. I was 19. I was the youngest person on the yard, got arrested at 18, turned 19, hit the yard. And I'm sure people, as they heard my background, were like, what the fuck are you doing?

 

Brandon (00:12:26):
Yeah, absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:12:28):
But the reality is, and the rooms and recovery and the people that are still suffering, it's full of people with different stories and different circumstances, and the circumstances are really what matters. Because people say blood is thicker than water, but not in my experience.

 

Brandon (00:12:46):
Not mine either.

 

Matt Handy (00:12:47):
Yeah,

 

Brandon (00:12:48):
Absolutely not. I agree.

 

Matt Handy (00:12:52):
And that is not an uncommon thing. Most of our trauma, specifically my sexual trauma, but also I have physical abuse, trauma and abandonment, trauma, all this stuff is from my family. So when the core issues are stemming from that situation, what do you expect 'em going to do? And so with you, same shit, it's like, of course we are going to look outside of that for something different. And you're right, they're really good. They're really, really good because this is their family and they're raising up the next generations and the next generations. And I was talking to Dr. Shah yesterday, Dr. Shah, I

 

Brandon (00:13:31):
Love Dr. Shah.

 

Matt Handy (00:13:32):
I was talking to him yesterday and I was like, most people have a misconception about the criminal mindset and the prison mindset about that. We don't have morals or values. We probably have more morals and values than you do. They just look different.

 

Brandon (00:13:46):
Yeah, they do.

 

Matt Handy (00:13:47):
And then there's severe consequences behind violating your morals.

 

Brandon (00:13:53):
Yeah. It's discipline.

 

Matt Handy (00:13:55):
A lot of discipline.

 

Brandon (00:13:56):
Lot of discipline. Lot, lot of respect too.

 

Matt Handy (00:14:00):
I mean, yeah, foundationally, it's about respect, right? And so you violate the respect. I mean, because really all foundationally on respect and then it's loyalty, honor, there's all these different levels to it, but what it all really comes down to is respect.

 

Brandon (00:14:17):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:14:18):
Right?

 

Brandon (00:14:18):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, man, I just repeated that cycle, man. And before you know it, here I am. And I've spent 15 years of my life behind prison walls. And each time that I would go in, I would have these hopes, these dreams, these visions. There would be times, man, I would be watching a TV show and I would see this family coming out of a store and they were happy. And that was something that I was very attracted to. Here I am, I'm hit. I'm an adult now, and I want a simple family. I want a simple house, simple job, simple car, simple bank account, all the simple things that I wanted just being a part of that man. Just stuck in that cycle over and over and over again for 15 years. And just looking back on that, all of that was a learning tool for me. And I feel like I'm a believer in God. I believe in God. I got a higher power.

 

Matt Handy (00:15:32):
Was that a result of prison or was that

 

Brandon (00:15:35):
It was not.

 

Matt Handy (00:15:36):
Okay.

 

Brandon (00:15:39):
Did I always think that there was a higher power? Yeah, I did. And I prayed to the Santa Clause, God, that God, if you get me out of this, I won't do wrong or whatever. But I never had the strong faith, the belief. But somewhere in there, there was something. But I didn't find that until recovery, until my last relapse we're Talk about the last relapse. I came home 2017. That was the last time that I've been down. Damn. Yeah. And I had a little bit of parole left, and I jumped into this, well, I met this girl through a pen pal, and I started writing her, and I'm womanizing and I make parole to her house. And the whole time it's lying. It's manipulating I, it's thinking about myself, not thinking about the other person. Not long after that, I'm playing with parole. I'm dipping back into drugs, but I'm not really wanting to engage all the way in because I know what the disaster's going to be. And I ended up leaving that relationship and I jumped into another one and trying to settle. I didn't know what the love was. Right. I didn't know how to love me.

 

Matt Handy (00:17:14):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:17:14):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:17:15):
Let me ask you something.

 

Brandon (00:17:15):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:17:18):
What's the total amount of time you spent in prison?

 

Brandon (00:17:20):
15

 

Matt Handy (00:17:21):
Years.

 

Brandon (00:17:21):
Years.

 

Matt Handy (00:17:22):
Okay. I don't even need to ask this then. So at the bottom line of prison, right? There are a lot of lessons that you learn. There's a lot of morals that you pick up. There's a lot of things that you bring with you into the real world. I had this conversation yesterday with Dr. Shah about morals and values based on what I learned in prison. I didn't grow up a lick until I went to prison.

 

Brandon (00:17:51):
Right. Me too.

 

Matt Handy (00:17:52):
And then somebody. So I'm 19 years old, I'm running around. There's drugs on the yard. And this guy pulled me aside. His name is David Johnson. I'll never forget this guy. And he told me, he said, there's two types of dangerous people in prison. There are people with a brain and people without a brain. Very rarely do you get to choose which one you are, but you get to choose which one you are. So you keep fucking around and playing with these dudes and do some dumb shit and end up in here for the rest of your life like me. Or you can straighten your shit up and start reading and fucking really learn some shit while you're here. I was like, okay. And took that very seriously. And that was my first prison term. I ended up doing three and ended up doing about nine total. But that changed my mindset. That was the first time that I learned from somebody else. So did you bring, and I still apply a lot of the things that I know, especially about interaction with people. Do you use the things that you learned today in a healthy way?

 

Brandon (00:18:58):
Absolutely. I think all of those experiences that I went through, the 15 years, even the streets, everything that I learned along that process, I carry it with me and my recovery and my family with the morals, the loyalty, honesty, everything that carries on in that respect, I carry it on every day. I think that's number one for me. I'm a people's person. I love people. And had it not had been for me, going to prison and being surrounded by so many guys at one time, I wouldn't be here. I don't think I would be here. And I wouldn't like people the way that I do now. I love people.

 

Matt Handy (00:19:50):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (00:19:50):
Yeah,

 

Matt Handy (00:19:51):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:19:52):
Yep.

 

Matt Handy (00:19:52):
Some of the best people I know are doing the rest of their life in prison.

 

Brandon (00:19:55):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:19:56):
Some of the smartest people I know are doing the rest of their life in prison.

 

Brandon (00:19:59):
Very talented people. Very, yeah. Those were a lot of life lessons that I carry on with me. And I can say this too, there was a lot of institutionalized. I had that mentality that stuck with me. I had the streets embedded in me. I had the prison life embedded in me. And when I first came into recovery, which was 2019 was the first time I walked in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. That was the first time. Now I went to go get the paper signed. And frankly, I signed it myself

 

Matt Handy (00:20:40):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:20:41):
It was anonymous. So I wasn't really just involved in it that way. Had it not been for another human being, get me into that room, I wouldn't be here where I'm at right now

 

Matt Handy (00:20:55):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:20:55):
Because something happened. They talk about the seed that's planted for sure. And that's what took off for me. But I was scared. I was scared. I had so much fear. I didn't want people to know who I really was. I didn't have drugs to mask it. In fact, I went back out several times when I came in, not wanting to give it up, not wanting to surrender. That was the biggest thing for me. But then leading up to that 3 25, 21 date, March 21st of 25.

 

Matt Handy (00:21:35):
So 2019 was your first introduction.

 

Brandon (00:21:38):
First introduction.

 

Matt Handy (00:21:39):
That's a fairly short amount of time to get introduced to it and then clean your shit up. So that's pretty good.

 

Brandon (00:21:47):
Well, you got to think I'm 47 now.

 

Matt Handy (00:21:50):
Yeah. Okay.

 

Brandon (00:21:51):
And so for over 30 plus years, man, I was getting my ass kicked over and over and over. And it's kind of one of those things we talk about. We hear it in the rooms too. You finally get sick and tired of being sick and tired. You're tired of getting your ass kicked. And that was kind of where I was at, man. That last relapse, man, I'll never forget. I went out on a bender. I was broken, defeated, hopeless. I was at a spot. I really did not want to be alive anymore. Here I am, I'm in my forties and I have absolutely nothing. I have no car. I have no home. I have no money in my pocket. The only thing I have is the clothes that I'm wearing, literally. And I had been ripping and tearing so hard that my socks were stuck to the bottom of my feet. On a mission.

 

Matt Handy (00:22:51):
Are you doing the petty crime to support the habit shit?

 

Brandon (00:22:54):
Yeah. I mean, whatever I could do at that moment, I think really I was just trying to take my own life.

 

Matt Handy (00:23:03):
So that's interesting. A lot of people, they were not suicidal, but we'd be perfectly okay with not waking up.

 

Brandon (00:23:11):
Yeah,

 

Matt Handy (00:23:12):
Absolutely. What drugs are you doing

 

Brandon (00:23:14):
At this time, so I had heroin and I was messing with the oxys. There was methamphetamines involved. The day that I got that call from a guy out of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, this guy called me out of the blue. He was my angel. And he says, I'm going to come get you no questions asked. I remember that man taking everything that I had, disposing all of it. And then I take a ride with him not knowing where I'm going, have no clue. But for the first time in my life, I did not feel alone. That was the first time.

 

Matt Handy (00:23:56):
Yeah. And that's funny too, right? It's like we could be in a room full of people and still feel so alone, so

 

Brandon (00:24:02):
Alone.

 

Matt Handy (00:24:04):
But it's miraculous when you run into those people. The rooms are full of people. Dude, not many of 'em would do that.

 

Brandon (00:24:14):
Not many of. So this guy just calls me out of the blue man, and he says, I'm going to come get you. No questions asked. I get in the car with him. At this time, I had a weapon on me too. I don't know what he did with the stuff that I had at that part. I wasn't even worried about it. So he took me to a place called the 25th Hour Club. It's on the north side of Houston. It's an AA club that's been around for 70 plus years. And next door to it is like a halfway house, sober living. And when we get there, one of the things he asked me, he says, are you willing to go to any link for your sobriety? At that point, I was so broken, bro. I was desperate. If he would've told me to sit my ass in the corner and shut up, I would've did that. Anything that he would've told me to do, I would've done in which he did that, man, become my sponsor. So I'm at this place to this day. So he's passed.

 

Matt Handy (00:25:23):
Oh, wow.

 

Brandon (00:25:23):
He's passed away. I've got another sponsor that's got 29 years sobriety. Carries himself very well for a man in a good marriage, treats his kids good, his wife good.

 

Matt Handy (00:25:42):
A real example,

 

Brandon (00:25:43):
A real example. We get attracted to certain people in the program. Anything in recovery, I think anything in life, I'm attracted to people, human beings, the way they carry their self, right? Yeah. So this man, his name was Troy G. I'll never forget him. He was my hero man. Yeah. He was my hero.

 

Matt Handy (00:26:11):
So I talk about the logical ending, right? It's people like us that really play the tape, not just play it, live the tape all the way through, right?

 

Brandon (00:26:20):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:26:21):
There's a large percentage of people that they never actually experienced the full depth of what they could have. They get rescued, they get forced into it, whatever, and they end up in these rooms, or they end up in recovery and they talk about rock bottom. And it's like you constantly hear people say, I don't got another one in me. Or if I go back out, there're all dying. It's like I don't agree with that. Typically.

 

Brandon (00:26:52):
I don't either,

 

Matt Handy (00:26:52):
Because you could always go lower. I tell people, you think you hit rock bottom, but wait till your addiction throws a jackhammer at you. Absolutely. Keep digging. You can always go lower.

 

Brandon (00:27:02):
Yeah, you can go deeper.

 

Matt Handy (00:27:04):
Way deeper, way deeper. But we talk about families and the family dynamics and how important that is to go back into the family, do the family work, right? Because it's one of those situations where if a person's healing and they go get set back into a sick situation, it's going to fuck 'em up. But the family typically is completely just ignorant or unaware that they have contributed to this issue. A lot of people, A, so when you're dealing with a manipulative addict, right? Alcoholic addict, whatever, we're lying, we're cheating, we're stealing. We'll sell our moms. We'll do the whole night. Right? Absolutely. And once you get to these points where you're like, you burning up bridges and your family's aware of, I don't know what to do. They like to love with their time or their money. And unfortunately, when you get to those points in your addiction, and you still got that phone call that you can make to get 20 bucks, Or you've got that when it pours here, it really pours here. So you can call somebody and be like, can I just come inside? It's raining and dah, dah, dah. The families don't realize by taking that opportunity to suffer away, you are negatively reinforcing.

 

Brandon (00:28:25):
Yeah, absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:28:26):
And you never know if you'd have told 'em no that time or if you'd have told no a long time ago when they would've actually come inside.

 

Brandon (00:28:34):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:28:34):
Because they get robbed of the full benefit of their suffering.

 

Brandon (00:28:36):
Yeah, man. I'm a firm believer in that. So even with the sober livings, we can have 30 people at one time. It's three different houses, same neighborhood. That's one of the things that I'm, I deal with the parents a lot too. There's a lot of moms and dads, there's wives that I'm dealing with. And a lot of times they get in the way of their significant other's recovery. And it's hard for me to stay out of the way of that without being too aggressive and saying, you need to let him suffer. Let him suffer. Let him feel what he's going through. And then I share a little bit about my journey. Everybody cut me off. Nobody wanted me around. They had hard boundaries. I burnt all bridges, but I'm here to give hope to people. If it wasn't for those moments, I wouldn't be here where I'm at right now. There's no way. There's no way.

 

Matt Handy (00:29:44):
If I would've been able. So I'm the oldest 10 kids. I got kicked out at 16, basically, right? Slimming heroin. I'm smoking heroin at the time, right?

 

Brandon (00:29:53):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:29:53):
Well, they've got a three-year old, a five-year old, a seven-year old, and they got a bunch of little kids. They're like, you got to go. You can't be doing this here. So I'm pretty sure they were trying to scare me into making the right decisions, but that shit did not work. I went out there and did whatever I had to do,

 

Brandon (00:30:09):
Of course.

 

Matt Handy (00:30:11):
And so I never had that ability to, for that rescue. Right. And granted, my entire adult life, I used right. There was no consequence. That was by the time I'm 19, I'm in prison. By the time I'm 21, I've got one prison term under my belt. I've lost a marriage, I've lost a kid. I don't talk to any of my siblings, I don't talk to any of my family. I'm out there literally surviving on my own. And I try to tell people, when you take responsibility for someone, you take responsibility from them. Absolutely. Now, first of all, they're not learning any lessons, but this is your fault

 

Brandon (00:30:51):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:30:52):
But trying to get them to recognize that you are damaging, hindering, and enabling this situation is nearly impossible. It's people that are making good decisions. So we're coming from the problem to the solution. They stay in the solution their whole life. So it's really hard for them to accept that they're contributing to the death of their child, basically.

 

Brandon (00:31:17):
There's a lot of times too, man, that I'll redirect these family members into Al-Anon, something with family support, because I go back into my addiction, what I did to my mom, my mom, bless her heart, she went through an alcoholic husband that definitely mentally, physically abusing, and then her son, right at the early age of 11. So she was just as sick as we were. And thank God that I understand those things today, because I think that's what makes me more knowledgeable to understand each dynamic that comes in, especially with dealing with family. And there's some family that you can talk to your blue in the face

 

Matt Handy (00:32:13):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:32:14):
And it's not going to work. It's kind of one of those things that's got to be experiences that they go through for their self. But I'm just grateful that I get to be a guide

 

Matt Handy (00:32:24):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:32:25):
If it works. Right, man. Yeah. What a journey. What a journey. It has been, it's been four and a half years I've been sober, man. And I can tell you from having nothing to being in a home, I talk about this a lot to being in a home that I'm on a lease at, and I have 13 felonies. That is a miracle. That is a miracle. Only God. And working a program that I've worked could have got me here. There's no other way. No other way. I was honest about it. That's one of the things that it taught me, right? To be honest about where you're at. Yeah. There's no way. I've got the car that I've got down in this parking garage right now, that's the first car that I've ever purchased in my name. The bank account that I have right now is the first bank account that I've ever had. So I'm a late bloomer in my forties trying to catch up with society because I was so behind. Right? And that's the thing about it is, and I do take it one day at a time, I never overwhelm myself. I stick to the roots of what my program teaches me, and I help others. And that's the key.

 

Matt Handy (00:33:56):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:33:57):
That's the key.

 

Matt Handy (00:33:58):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:33:59):
For sure. Man.

 

Matt Handy (00:33:59):
Dude, I tell people, if you're going to get into, so I talk about the debt of recovery specifically. I don't go to aa. I do what I do. It's very specific. So kind of what happened to me was I was going to meetings. I had a great sponsor, I was doing step work, and I was fucking miserable, and I couldn't figure out what it was. And then I met my mentor and basically told me, quit going to meetings, quit. If this is hurting you, stop doing it and do this. And it completely changed everything. And so in that everybody's recovery is different. Absolutely agree. Everybody's solution. Well, everybody's problems are different, but in the solution, it's like you've got to do, you ever talked to Dr. Sha about his solutions? And so we all kind of figure this out for ourselves, even though we don't have a vocabulary around it. But there's a biological driver to the AA thing. He's writing a book right now called Why It Works to kind of match how it works. And he's pointing to these biological things. We all have these biological things that are going on. And he said, as long as you get a community, you're oxytocin and a safe place.

 

Brandon (00:35:21):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:35:21):
Doesn't matter how you get it.

 

Brandon (00:35:22):
Don't.

 

Matt Handy (00:35:23):
Right. A lot of people who go into the rooms and that works for them, I'm super happy for them. But there's a lot of people out there that doesn't work for them.

 

Brandon (00:35:34):
No, no, it doesn't. And I agree. I think there's so many different platforms to sobriety, whether it be the Smart Recovery, celebrate Recovery, there's so many different branches of recovery. I believe in it. I've seen miracles. Even there's the MAT program, medical Assistant treatment program. There's been success stories, and that's the key. Whatever works for the individual. I think at that given time, it's kind of where you're at and what section of your life. And it just happened to be right there for me when I needed it. And it's been the bright spot of my life. So you were on mat? No, never was on mat. Never was on mat. But I've seen the miracles off of it at the beginning. I was totally against it

 

Matt Handy (00:36:34):
For sure. I was. So Suboxone saved my life. And a lot of the friction points that I hit in recovery was because of that. And so this is a message that I try to bring to people all the time. If you are rejecting the rooms, it does not mean that you have to reject recovery.

 

Brandon (00:36:54):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:36:55):
Right. Recovery and the rooms are two different things. You can find recovery in the rooms. But for what happened for me is I am a heroin addict, dude. I slammed heroin for 17 years. So I would go into these rooms and I'm going in there with a mission. I'm trying to deal with my shit.

 

Brandon (00:37:12):
Yeah, you're trying to stay sober

 

Matt Handy (00:37:15):
And automatic rejection. And I'm told, if you're on mat, you're not sober. And I'm like, I mean, just the resounding, I met one person who was like, don't listen to them, just keep coming back. But the thing is, I can't go to na. I cannot go to NA because of what's going on in those rooms. I can't talk about drugs with people. And so I chose AA because of the integrity in the rooms. There's a different type of recovery in AA. And so that's what I needed. Unfortunately, they didn't want me there because of my story, because of what was going on in my life. And so I was like, but I still did it.

 

Brandon (00:37:57):
Absolutely. Right.

 

Matt Handy (00:37:58):
I still did what I had to do to get me to that next jumping off point. And a lot of people, there's people out there dying right now because they're rejecting recovery, not realizing that there's other answers.

 

Brandon (00:38:11):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:38:12):
So like Harmony Grove, we have a multiple pathway approach, and that's kind of like a thing that's starting to catch on in the industry, but especially, so the MAT program specifically, massive success. What's the one over here? It's an IOP, but it's just great. Dude. That's an amazing program,

 

Brandon (00:38:32):
Dude. They're amazing. Yeah. I work with the reps on the outside. The program that they got, they've got this location. They've got another location that's in North Houston by Spring.

 

Matt Handy (00:38:43):
They've got 11 locations.

 

Brandon (00:38:44):
They do. And they have a solid foundation

 

Matt Handy (00:38:48):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:38:49):
Yeah. I mean, I've done a lot of work with them with other clients before. Dude. Superb.

 

Matt Handy (00:38:56):
Yeah,

 

Brandon (00:38:56):
It's great. I'm with you on that. We get a lot of guys at our sober living that they're not just alcoholics. Some of them, their primary drug is heroin, or there's a lot of 'em with the fentanyl. And they come in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, and they always kind of say their name and then they say, I'm an addict. There's a lot of old timers that might say, I think you're in the wrong place. And I always tell them, guys, don't listen to what they say. Work the 12 step program, get you a sponsor, somebody that's going to be transparent with you, somebody that you feel like is attractive for you. Let that guy guide you. It's going to save you. Don't worry about the next man. It's none of their business anyway.

 

Matt Handy (00:39:49):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:39:49):
Frankly.

 

Matt Handy (00:39:51):
Yeah. I mean, so I always go back to Dr. Shah's model. It's like if we could tell them why it's a lot easier to sell somebody on why. So if we could tell 'em, look, you got to do this fourth step. Dr. Shah says, you don't need to find God.

 

Brandon (00:40:06):
He's a dissector too, man.

 

Matt Handy (00:40:07):
Oh, yeah.

 

Brandon (00:40:08):
Oh,

 

Matt Handy (00:40:08):
Man. He says, don't go do these because you are trying to find God, do these because you're addressing a biological issue. So you do a thorough four step, you've now become vulnerable with another person, and you're able to build a bond, a real bond. And that allows you to now have a good flow of oxytocin. And when you're quieting the amygdala, that is the best way to do it.

 

Brandon (00:40:34):
It is.

 

Matt Handy (00:40:35):
And so, yeah, go into these rooms. And so my executive director, so here at Harmony Grove, everybody does something different. A lot of us are in recovery. We all do something different. And my executive director specifically, he didn't go to meetings for the first nine years of his recovery, but his recovery led him into the rooms.

 

Brandon (00:40:56):
Right.

 

Matt Handy (00:40:57):
And so it's like, we're not telling you what you got to do. We're just telling you got to do something.

 

Brandon (00:41:01):
Giving you a guide.

 

Matt Handy (00:41:02):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (00:41:03):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:41:03):
And if you don't know what it is that you want to do, we'll help you find it. And so AA is a really good option for people that can get behind that because it's a set program.

 

Brandon (00:41:15):
It is.

 

Matt Handy (00:41:16):
The steps are literally drawn out for you. There's meetings everywhere, and it's like if you fit into those rooms, go, there's almost no better way. The rest of the ways, it's like you're going to struggle a little bit if you're to have just the easiest way possible, and you can speak their language. So I did a bunch of AA and I learned how to be, my bottles looked a little different than yours. Learn how to say it in a certain way so that they're like, okay, you tiptoe around it, right?

 

Brandon (00:41:52):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:41:54):
But it's like a proven tracker. But at the same time though, it's like statistics, right? We talk about statistics all the time, and it's like the statistics point to a disconnect in what's going on in the recovery community and the treatment industry as a whole. And with the introduction of fentanyl to the drug supply, we're living in a dangerous time. Dude,

 

Brandon (00:42:16):
Dangerous.

 

Matt Handy (00:42:17):
It's terrible. People are taking chances with their lives every time they get high, every single time they get high, they're taking a chance with their life. And then you got people that are forced to go to treatment. This is something that I have been really tripping on lately, and I talk to people all the time about this, and I'm like, I give him a hypothetical. I'm going to give it to you too. You got a 19-year-old who's strung out on Fentanyl. His parents are forcing him to go to treatment. You and I as the professionals, we know he is going to relapse.

 

Brandon (00:42:46):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:42:47):
How do you deal with that, knowing that he's probably going to die?

 

Brandon (00:42:49):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:42:50):
How do you deal with that? How do you prepare the family? What does the conversations look like? Do you tell him, don't force him to go to treatment? I went to dinner last night with Dr. Shah. We had this conversation. He was like, there is an incentive to get people into treatment. We are trying to save lives. We're trying to help people. But there is a certain level of let's just get everybody in that we can. We're trying to run a business, but at the same time, when does that cross the line into unethical with this kid specifically, who's 19? He's strung out on Fentanyl. We all know he's going to relapse. Every single person that he interacts with knows he's going to relapse. How do you safely and ethically and morally handle that situation?

 

Brandon (00:43:37):
It's a hard one.

 

Matt Handy (00:43:38):
It is. It's a fucking hard one. Right?

 

Brandon (00:43:39):
So hard.

 

Matt Handy (00:43:40):
What would you do?

 

Brandon (00:43:43):
I take my hand off the wheel. I think the more that I try to control a situation, the more out of control that I get on the inside.

 

Matt Handy (00:43:56):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:43:57):
So I just kind of let go, let God,

 

Matt Handy (00:43:59):
Okay.

 

Brandon (00:43:59):
That's always been my theory. Obviously it's a lot of practice. I mean, I've had my fair share. We've had a couple guys actually at the Sober Living man that have passed.

 

Matt Handy (00:44:14):
At the sober living.

 

Brandon (00:44:15):
Yeah. Fentanyl overdose. Not at the, they wouldn't living at the sober living, actually, we had to remove them because they relapsed. We got 'em back into treatment, a detox for 10 days. One leaves AMA on a, I got a call from his mom on a Monday that they found him dead in his room.

 

Matt Handy (00:44:37):
Over the weekend.

 

Brandon (00:44:38):
Over the weekend. And vice versa with the other one, right? It's hard.

 

Matt Handy (00:44:45):
Yeah,

 

Brandon (00:44:45):
It's hard. It's heartbreaking. I just kind of got to let it go. I got to let God do his work and just be prepared to be a rock for the family. We ended up naming one of the houses after the guy.

 

Matt Handy (00:45:02):
Oh, wow.

 

Brandon (00:45:02):
Yeah. With the parents permission.

 

Matt Handy (00:45:05):
What's his name?

 

Brandon (00:45:06):
John Reese. He actually, Montgomery County overdose Awareness, they got a billboard up, and he's on that billboard of overdosing from Fentanyl.

 

Matt Handy (00:45:19):
So my best friend passed away in 2022. I got sentenced to a three year program, and he followed me there. And he didn't have to be there, but fentanyl addict out there on the streets, living under a bridge and heard that I had went there. So he went there. Politics were crazy in this place. And a couple years in, he was like, you know what? Don't got to be here. So he left. And it's one of those lessons that I had to learn. It was a pivotal moment in my recovery because about the same time that he was leaving, I was having realizations about where I was. And I woke up one morning, maybe three weeks before he left, and I realized it's been months since I thought about getting high. Right. Changes had started to happen and I didn't realize it. And when he left, I knew he was going to relapse. It was just, I knew you could tell. Right. And my daughter's birthday party, I think it was actually on her birthday. So 4th of July, he comes to the birthday party and he's high, but because of selfish reasons, first of all, I didn't want him to lie to me. And second of all was he was late to the party. I was kind of upset with them or whatever. And I didn't want to have this confrontation in front of all these people. So I didn't say shit to him. I just kind of acted like I didn't know. A couple of my other buddies that knew him were there, and they were like, is Ryan high? And I was like, nah, he's good. And he crashed his car on the way to the party. Oh,

 

Brandon (00:47:06):
Wow.

 

Matt Handy (00:47:06):
It was just a whole mess. Right. Well, within a week he overdosed and died, and I had a lot of regret. I was like, fuck, dude. I missed an opportunity to pull him up on this. And maybe if I would have something would've been different. But the reality is I didn't. And also the reality is these are his choices, right. He's a 3-year-old man. He knew what he was doing. So

 

Brandon (00:47:34):
You had guilt.

 

Matt Handy (00:47:35):
I do. To this day, I do. Right on the anniversary of his passing, and on his birthday for the first two years, would call his parents. And I called him just recently. His birthday was on the 12th of this month. I called his dad and he didn't answer. And I was like, fuck, dude. And these are things that I have to learn how to deal with, learn how to talk about, so that I can deal with it in a healthy way. And the reality is I might live with some of that guilt because telling his dad how this all played out on my side, I didn't tell him until our conversation on his birthday last year, and now he didn't answer the phone. And it's like, fuck, dude. And so I'm moving forward with that lesson knowing that I have a responsibility now. If I see something, I got to pull him up.

 

Brandon (00:48:36):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (00:48:37):
I've got to say something, right. And this is a hard thing for me to deal with because Scott, my executive director, told me recently, he said, there's going to be a weekend where you're dealing with three moms that are crying. Their children are dying on the streets, and you can't help 'em. You're going to have to learn how to deal with that. They don, they don't got insurance. The child doesn't want to come in, whatever it is, and you are helpless in the situation. You can't do shit. You have to learn how to be okay with that because ultimately, we all are individuals. We're all living our lives, we're all learning our lessons, we're all making our mistakes, and we're all becoming the person that we are supposed to be or we're not moving that direction

 

Brandon (00:49:22):
Right? Absolutely. That's a hard one, man. That's a hard one.

 

Matt Handy (00:49:26):
It is a hard one. And so there are things, especially in recovery, especially as people with responsibilities in the industry. I thought I was going to come into this field and not, I was delusional about some things. I thought I was not going to have to experience these things. I haven't experienced it yet, but through conversations with people like you and Scott and a good friend of mine, Cody, they've kind of prepared me for the inevitable. These things are going to happen.

 

Brandon (00:50:00):
Yeah. No, it's going to happen.

 

Matt Handy (00:50:02):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:50:02):
For sure. Man. It's experience. It's kind of the same thing with a Rise Recovery Center. Any call that I get in, I'm always trying to make that window of opportunity, always. I don't waste no time. I'm trying to make things move that we can get that person admitted in, get 'em safe, whatever the case may be. And sometimes I might get aggressive with some team members if they're not picking it up fast enough. Right.

 

Matt Handy (00:50:40):
Totally understand.

 

Brandon (00:50:42):
And I've worked at other companies before where they didn't pick it up immediately. That 30, 45 minutes went by. It still hasn't been picked up. Like, man, pick this up. This is important.

 

Matt Handy (00:50:57):
And that's an interesting point, like when you are going into treatment, when you're being forced to go into treatment, especially, this is the most dangerous time.

 

Brandon (00:51:07):
Dangerous,

 

Matt Handy (00:51:08):
Very dangerous, vital, making terrible decisions. You're rushing around to try to get high that last time, probably 10 times. And you're at the peak of manipulation. So if you're getting forced to go into treatment,

 

Brandon (00:51:23):
You're going to be downing all kinds of drugs before you go in.

 

Matt Handy (00:51:25):
And it's like those 45 minutes could be the difference between life or death.

 

Brandon (00:51:30):
It could. And I've learned so many different things in this and having to go to those funerals. I've been to so many funerals, so many. And I'm sure you have too, right?

 

Matt Handy (00:51:41):
I've been to a few

 

Brandon (00:51:42):
Man. And it doesn't get easier. It doesn't get easier. But one thing I can tell you that it does for me personally, is I get gratitude. I do. Is perspective. Perspective. This might sound a little weird, but I feel like the ones that we lose on the front line are the ones that are our greatest sacrifice for us to stay sober one more day. And that's what I'm always telling the guys, especially when we lost those two that were at the house, the houses.

 

Matt Handy (00:52:19):
Was it a back to back situation?

 

Brandon (00:52:20):
It wasn't back to back. It was like a year apart.

 

Matt Handy (00:52:23):
Okay. Still pretty close.

 

Brandon (00:52:25):
It was still pretty close, but it was a different crowd of people. So that one year, the first one that we lost, it was a way different crowd compared to the other one.

 

Matt Handy (00:52:35):
Everything turned over.

 

Brandon (00:52:38):
I try to instill in the guys, listen, we're going to see this. And I have 'em look around the room when we have a house meeting on Sundays, look around the room right now. Maybe five to 10% of us in this room, we'll make it. And the rest, this is how vital this disease is, right?

 

Matt Handy (00:53:00):
Yeah. Yeah.

 

Brandon (00:53:01):
It's severe.

 

Matt Handy (00:53:02):
I mean, the reality is the statistics say that one out of a hundred.

 

Brandon (00:53:06):
Yeah, dude, it's not a good ratio. And that's the scary thing. Just like doing the numbers. We've talked about it in the 12 step program. 8% maybe 8%,

 

Matt Handy (00:53:23):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (00:53:23):
Term that 12 term. Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:53:24):
Yeah. So the statistic that I point to all the time, it was connected to that five-year study that they did with Air Force pilots. But what they said, they said that one out of 10 will stay clean for one year, and then of that 10%, one out of 10 will stay clean for 10 years, but they got to go to treatment seven times. So what the statistic comes out to, it's like 0.015% of people stay clean for 10 years, but they got to go to treatment seven times. So it's almost a hundred percent failure rate. And when you're in a room of 30 people, the chances nobody's going to stay clean forever.

 

Brandon (00:54:03):
Yeah. That's how it goes.

 

Matt Handy (00:54:05):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (00:54:06):
What's crazy is that you see people with multiple years of sobriety where they were on this pink cloud, they're spiritual, and then they go back out. Those are the ones that I really pay attention to. I'm like, where did you go fucking wrong at? I don't want to go down that path. I don't want to go through the pain no more. Yeah. It's sad, man, seeing that the way it pans out to be with people having long-term and going back out, man,

 

Matt Handy (00:54:43):
Dude, it's crazy.

 

Brandon (00:54:44):
I mean,

 

Matt Handy (00:54:45):
It's crazy.

 

Brandon (00:54:47):
Even crazier is seeing them come back in and with the humility.

 

Matt Handy (00:54:54):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:54:54):
And I'm like, wow, could I do that?

 

Matt Handy (00:54:59):
I mean, that's painful.

 

Brandon (00:55:00):
Wow.

 

Matt Handy (00:55:00):
We got somebody in the community that just came back in and he talks about this very openly. It's like 10 years kind of a force to be reckoned with in the market. Everybody looked up to him and liked him, and then he went back out and it's like 10 years,

 

Brandon (00:55:14):
Dude.

 

Matt Handy (00:55:16):
But then he comes back and it's like, okay, miracle, first of all that you made it back. But you hear these cliches and these things, and it's like the one that's painful to hear is, do you know how many people had to die for you to get here? And that's just the fucking truth's, the truth. How many people died around you? How many people died around me? How many people die around? Every single one of us. And it was in regards to Hillary Clinton where they were, the average person only has a few people die around them in their life. It's like not for us.

 

Brandon (00:55:52):
Not for us.

 

Matt Handy (00:55:53):
Not for us at all.

 

Brandon (00:55:54):
On the frontline every day, every day. We just had one. We lost. He wasn't at the house, but he was in the rooms with us. He had two and a half years. Man went back out and we get a message that he's no longer here. He passed alcoholism, took his life.

 

Matt Handy (00:56:17):
That is crazy.

 

Brandon (00:56:18):
Alcoholism. It's crazy. It floors you. One moment you're laughing with somebody, you are shooting the shit, doing fellowship somewhere, and the guys are no longer here.

 

Matt Handy (00:56:33):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (00:56:34):
It's crazy.

 

Matt Handy (00:56:35):
And being part of the industry, like a professionally industry, I've been around the industry now as a professional for about a year and a couple months since this whole thing came about. I've gotten three or four text messages in a couple phone calls where my friend Cody will call me and say, dude, do not fucking relapse. Right? I'm like, alright, what happened? You're like, dude, another one of my fucking friends just died last night. And he is like, this guy owned a treatment center. Another guy was a well-known motivational speaker. Another one was like this guy that was kind of like a powerhouse in the Colorado market. Everybody loved him. This

 

Brandon (00:57:22):
I see that too.

 

Matt Handy (00:57:24):
And it's mind blowing.

 

Brandon (00:57:27):
It's scary.

 

Matt Handy (00:57:27):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (00:57:29):
That's why I'm real big on

 

Matt Handy (00:57:34):
For sure.

 

Brandon (00:57:34):
For myself. I can sometimes be so extreme that I'm so selfless all the time that I forget about self for sure. And when I'm forgetting about self, that's when it gets dangerous for me. So I got to understand, and I learned this at the very beginning. I've been in this deal now, probably about almost four years.

 

Matt Handy (00:58:02):
As a professional.

 

Brandon (00:58:03):
As a professional, yes. I worked at a few other places before in recovery. And one of the things that they told me, and this was a sponsor and a few gentlemen that had multiple years of sobriety, they said, listen, just because you're working in recovery does not mean it's your recovery. They were real big about that. And so it kind of stuck in my brain. And so from that moment on, I'm like, okay. There was a lot of times that I got restless, irritable, and discontent a lot of times working, and I had to pull back and I had to say, okay, I've got to go get fed in order to feed. That's the key. And it's been very successful for me personally because I'm able to sort out family time, my work time, and my own personal time. And it's crucial. I've seen people lose their life's.

 

Matt Handy (00:59:01):
It's a skill. It is. For sure. You got to practice that. It's not something that just comes easy, and it's not something that's logical either. Right. It's like finding that balance is not natural. You have to practice it.

 

Brandon (00:59:17):
You do. It's a practice deal dude.

 

Matt Handy (00:59:21):
I went to a convention in Palm Springs and the hotel that I was staying at, so the hotel that the convention at filled up immediately. So I'm staying a couple blocks from there and there I'm leaving to go to a lunch event, leaving the hotel to go to a lunch event. And in the parking lot I see these two people walking by and this chick's trashed. I mean, just done. And this guy's dragging her. And people call the cops and the cops show up. And they were at the convention with us and they got arrested. They had meth on them. It was like a whole thing. They're carrying a tote from the convention. It's like these are professionals. They were probably somebodies in their given market. And it's like we are all so susceptible if we do not find this balance. Well, first of all, we're addicts, right? If we do not find this balance, what is the likelihood that we fuck up?

 

Brandon (01:00:25):
No, I mean, it will happen.

 

Matt Handy (01:00:27):
It will.

 

Brandon (01:00:28):
And I think I'm grateful for when I did first come in, how I saw there was a few people that were working in this lifestyle in the industry, and they lost their life. And it was pointed out to me how successful the guy was, how he had everything running correctly, but he lost his life due to his addiction because he wasn't focusing on his own personal recovery boundaries, the things that come in that category. Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:01:04):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (01:01:05):
Dude, I think it's the most important piece for me personally. No, I think it is for me,

 

Matt Handy (01:01:11):
I think it is for everybody. I think everybody's got a hierarchy of priorities. And you can see it around us where there are certain people that I can think of where it's like they need to take better care of themselves.

 

Brandon (01:01:25):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:01:26):
But they're just running gunning in this lifestyle. It's a lifestyle. It is, right? I mean, there's events constantly. There's

 

Brandon (01:01:35):
Networking dinners, lunches,

 

Matt Handy (01:01:36):
Dinners, lunches. There's

 

Brandon (01:01:38):
Rooms full of people, constantly extreme.

 

Matt Handy (01:01:42):
So it's another level of recovery. I feel like it's a whole different lifestyle almost of recovery where we're working in this field, and I look at people's Instagram and their little bios, and it's always changing lives. And it's like, no, for real. Yeah, for real. That's it. And then I look at their pictures and they're like out on Friday night with all these other people. They're all hanging out and shit. And it's like, okay, that's cool. So it's a lifestyle, but it happens enough for us to really have to sit back and think about it, where somebody falls back into some, it's unfortunate.

 

Brandon (01:02:21):
That's why I think I feel like, and I could speak for the Houston market, we've got a pretty tight knitted community. And what I can say about it is that we all talk openly. We talk about, Hey, if a person's off, they're going to share with one another where we can have those lunches. It's about business. But on the other part of it, it's about checking on one another. And that's the key too, working in this field, is that you have a host of good friends that work in the industry together that are helping each other out physically, mentally, spiritually. I think that's the key. What's helped me so long in this deal as having these people to rely on too, as well as my 12 step people in the rooms.

 

Matt Handy (01:03:23):
You know what? So I forget who was saying this, but they were like, it isn't one thing, it's 10 things. I got to have this network in place, this network in place. I got to be able to pinball around to all these different things. And one thing that I realized was I was trying to put all my eggs in one basket very early on. And I thought, okay, as long as I sit in this chair, I'll be good. And so my mentor, he's like an ex Navy Seal, got a massive recovery story after the Navy Seals, he entered the French, what the French Foreign Legion is. Oh man, it's crazy. Well, and he built a whole business model around helping people, right? But I watch his, he has all these shorts. He has a pretty big social media presence. And I watch this guy and I'm like, man, this dude is such a good example. A healthy man. Somebody that came out of some really fucked up shit that got his shit together. But this guy had to go scrub toilets for years in the French Alps in order to, he calls it his baptism in humility,

 

(01:04:38):
But it was like he had to go through extreme to extreme lengths. He was thinking about jumping into a volcano one minute and was like, fuck that. I'm going to get my shit together. Flies out, gets a payday loan for 500 bucks, gets on a one-way flight to France, joins the French Foreign Legion for five years, and he just knew I have to do some extreme shit to change the shit. Addicted to Fentanyl, addicted to Xanax and Adderall, and dude, but was massively successful during that time period. Worked for a big weed company and was pitching multimillion dollar deals successful. But at the bottom of all that, there was a rocky foundation that just couldn't hold up. And he was like, when you hear the story, he talks about that shit was not going to last. And everybody around him knew it. And they kind of isolated him over here in Hawaii. And that kind of put him in that situation where he was suicidal, no gas money in the national park with the volcano. And he was like, man, I was suicidal. I was going to jump in that thing. But the key was he had people around him realize what was going on. But in his situation, they didn't help him. It was a business situation. But for this situation, we got a bunch of people that will pull us up.

 

Brandon (01:06:02):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:06:02):
We got a bunch of people that'll hold us accountable on top of your recovery. And that's so key. It's like you cannot put all your recovery cannot all be put in one basket.

 

Brandon (01:06:14):
It can't. It's got to be scattered

 

Matt Handy (01:06:16):
For sure.

 

Brandon (01:06:16):
You got to have different parts, different places. You got to have different connections at those different places. Right. That's why I'm so open, even when I get my presentations, I think you've been to maybe one of mine. Yeah,

 

Matt Handy (01:06:31):
I've been to one. Yep.

 

Brandon (01:06:32):
I'm open. I'm very open for one, I want to spread hope, right? But I also want to set myself up for success to let people know, Hey, I'm in recovery. If I'm off and pull me to the side and call me out. Say, Hey, are you okay? Is there something I could do for you? And vice versa. There's been times I've seen some of our fellows that work in the community that are off, and I'll call 'em. It's a feeling. I might get a feeling on the inside. I'll pick up the phone and I say, Hey, I don't know what it is. I just wanted to call you. Check on you. How are you doing? Are you okay? And I think that's a key. We're on the front line at the end of the day. We're on the front line. We see a lot of stuff. Right, man. And we hear a lot of stuff.

 

Matt Handy (01:07:25):
We're on the front line of a losing fucking battle too, man.

 

Brandon (01:07:27):
It's losing. And I'm grateful that I get to do these things. I truly am. I have the experience. I have all that 30 plus years of severe alcoholism, drug addiction, womanizing, street mentality, penitentiary mentality, all of that has brought me to this moment. Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:07:53):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (01:07:54):
It's huge, man. It's huge.

 

Matt Handy (01:07:56):
Yeah. So I very much so identify with that, right? Where it's like people will ask me, do you regret anything? And it's like there were definitely times in my life where I've regretted things, but sitting where I'm at today, it's like I don't regret.

 

Brandon (01:08:13):
No.

 

Matt Handy (01:08:13):
I don't regret a single day.

 

Brandon (01:08:14):
Nothing.

 

Matt Handy (01:08:15):
Right? And it's like I've had a couple people tell me, how can you say that people that I've done wrong, and I have to tell 'em I would do it again if it meant that I got to sit here.

 

Brandon (01:08:29):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:08:30):
Right? And people might not ever understand that, that are not in our position. But the reality is we are set apart. I am not saying that we are the answer, but we went through all that shit and survived how many didn't survive. And it's like we now have a responsibility, and this is the debt that I talk about. It's like if you are not paying back this debt, and everybody pays it back a little differently, but the bottom line of all this is we got to help other people. You

 

Brandon (01:09:02):
Got to pay it forward.

 

Matt Handy (01:09:02):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (01:09:03):
Got to pay it forward.

 

Matt Handy (01:09:04):
If we do not help other people, we might as well just be using. I think it is so pointless to get into recovery if you're not going to do shit about it.

 

Brandon (01:09:11):
No, I agree. I think, and what you're talking about is kind of some service work, being there for another human being. That's been the key in my deal. I have sponsees that I work out of that book with where we're sitting across from each other. We're talking directly solution out of the book. Let me just show you and give you guidance on what was given to me. It was free

 

(01:09:42):
And I want to give it to you. But the more that I do that, the more that I'm serving that coffee at that coffee bar. And I used to pick cigarette butts up. Me too. That first place that I went to, it wasn't suggested to me. They said, no, you're going to go pick those cigarette butts up. Never understood what sense that made at all until my sponsor's like, you're saving another alcoholic in an addict's life by picking those cigarette butts up. You're keeping things straight and clean for the next person that needs to come in. Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:10:18):
Yeah. Service work is such a funny thing because you are doing something for somebody else, but the person who benefits the most from it is you. And it is a very hard concept to understand at first. But for me, it would not have made sense if I kept doing all this work and nothing happened. But the reality is, you do all this stuff and a lot of good shit comes back.

 

Brandon (01:10:44):
You get high on the inside.

 

Matt Handy (01:10:46):
Yeah. Lit up. I slammed heroin. You've slammed heroin. So I slammed heroin for a very long time. That shit feels really good. I wake up some mornings and I go, God, this is fucking so crazy. I feel good. Not just physically, not just emotionally. I feel good about myself. And that is something that I never thought five years ago. I'm living under a bridge five years ago. If you'd have told me five years ago, this is what your life's going to look like, I'd have been like, dude, what the fuck? Are you smoking way? No fucking way. Smoking. Yeah. No

 

Brandon (01:11:22):
Chance. It's not happening.

 

Matt Handy (01:11:24):
I'm going to have a treatment center.

 

Brandon (01:11:25):
Yeah,

 

Matt Handy (01:11:25):
You're smoking, right? You're going to have two kids, right? It's like, no, not a chance. And then I talk about the ripple effect. There's waves that are caused for you getting clean caused waves, me getting clean, caused waves, a single person getting clean. We don't understand the effect that we can possibly have. And it's a responsibility we owe this. And the higher power part of all this is a whole different layer of the conversation, right? It's like everybody's higher power is different and people buy into certain things or whatever. You hear it in the rooms where it's like a doorknob, even. It's a doorknob. But the whole concept is you are the insignificant part of this, right? There is a greater work at play. And as long as you do your part, shit, work out.

 

Brandon (01:12:24):
Spirit of the universe.

 

Matt Handy (01:12:25):
Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever heard that theory about, if you could hear the movement of the universe, it would sound like classical music.

 

Brandon (01:12:36):
No, I haven't.

 

Matt Handy (01:12:37):
There's mathematical equations that are going on gravitational equations, and then our solar system specifically, we'll take that for example. There's a lot of math going on. Well, all music is math. And somebody said this one time in a podcast somewhere, they're like, if you could hear the movements of the universe, it would sound like Bach. Like what? Yeah. Yeah. You can map out certain things mathematically, and it translates immediately onto classical music. I'm like, Jesus, that is so crazy. So it's like people talk about science and chance that all this happened. It's like biology and all this shit, and it's like, dude, I'm not even that smart. It's like, I don't know. But what I do know for sure is there's something out there that knows me.

 

Brandon (01:13:29):
Yeah. There is

 

Matt Handy (01:13:30):
Something out there that intimately knows me on a level that better than I know myself

 

Brandon (01:13:37):
Better.

 

Matt Handy (01:13:38):
And one of the things that I always point to that it was one of the first realizations that I had, and it was like, oh yeah, there has to be a God, cuz I'm five, five, Right? If I was six foot, it would've been a fucking problem. I would've been a fucking dick. But all jokes aside, it's like I should have died. I should have been in prison multiple times over for life. The last time I got arrested, I was looking at 33 years in prison. I didn't do any time. I did zero. I did no prison time. I fought the case. I got amazing deal that it was like, how does that shit happen? There's either luck or there's a God, right? And now looking backwards, it's like luck is a 50 50 thing.

 

Brandon (01:14:23):
It was part of the plan.

 

Matt Handy (01:14:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So luck is a 50 50 thing, right? Shit wouldn't work out half the time. Shit would work out half the time. But it's like since I got clean shit works out like 99% of the time.

 

Brandon (01:14:34):
All the time.

 

Matt Handy (01:14:35):
All the time. Daily basis

 

Brandon (01:14:37):
More keeps getting revealed, right?

 

Matt Handy (01:14:38):
Yeah. So it's like what part does God play in all this? Probably everything.

 

Brandon (01:14:43):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (01:14:45):
What part do I recognize that he plays? Sometimes it's like, sometimes I want to take credit for this shit. It's like I had a conversation with somebody the other day. They were like, well, I know that it's really hard to start a treatment center and all this shit. And I'm like, that's another testament that I have about God. Like this shit was not hard for me. Shit really fell into place. And they're like, really? I was like, dude, I know this isn't me doing something. This is something else going on. Because the shit happened to me. I didn't have to force anything to happen. I didn't struggle with anything. I was like, this shit really all fell into place. And so I always am very grateful for that. I know me, I fuck shit up. I fail. If it's me running on self, well, I know I'm going to fuck everything up.

 

Brandon (01:15:36):
The same thing for me, man.

 

Matt Handy (01:15:37):
So yeah, it's like we can point at our lives on a daily basis. Dude, I'm about to have a second daughter. Right?

 

Brandon (01:15:43):
Congratulations.

 

Matt Handy (01:15:44):
Thank you. The last week, so the day before Thanksgiving is the scheduled Cesarean, right?

 

Brandon (01:15:50):
Wow.

 

Matt Handy (01:15:51):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (01:15:51):
Wow. It's like

 

Matt Handy (01:15:53):
Five years ago. Five years ago, my life looked, I was living under a bridge.

 

Brandon (01:15:59):
Disaster.

 

Matt Handy (01:15:59):
Disaster.

 

Brandon (01:16:00):
Disaster. Dude.

 

Matt Handy (01:16:01):
Dude. Have you seen my booking picture?

 

Brandon (01:16:04):
I have not seen it.

 

Matt Handy (01:16:05):
Okay. Check this out. You're going to love this. I had done so much damage to myself. I didn't think that I could have kids at certain points because it was like when you're doing drugs and you're out there and running and gunning, you're doing whatever you're doing. It's like I never had kids during that time. I was like, well, what makes me think I'm going to get clean and have kids? It's like I should

 

Brandon (01:16:26):
How old is the oldest?

 

Matt Handy (01:16:27):
She just turned four on the 4th of July.

 

Brandon (01:16:29):
So your daughter, right?

 

Matt Handy (01:16:32):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (01:16:33):
Has never seen you in active use?

 

Matt Handy (01:16:35):
She has. I relapsed.

 

Brandon (01:16:37):
Okay.

 

Matt Handy (01:16:37):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (01:16:38):
Okay.

 

Matt Handy (01:16:39):
And so this podcast is called My Last Relapse because the most pivotal part of my recovery was my last relapse. And I wish I could say that she had never seen me. She's so young. She probably will never realize what was going on, but I know I was around her. So it's like it sucks, and I'm dealing with some of the consequences still, but

 

Brandon (01:17:09):
Oh, wow.

 

Matt Handy (01:17:10):
Yeah. Holy crap. Isn't that crazy?

 

Brandon (01:17:14):
Yeah, it looked like a mad man.

 

Matt Handy (01:17:15):
Yeah,

 

Brandon (01:17:16):
For sure. That is a miracle, my friend.

 

Matt Handy (01:17:20):
Isn't that crazy?

 

Brandon (01:17:21):
That is nuts, bro. Yeah. Wow. You don't even look the same at all.

 

Matt Handy (01:17:26):
I know. I know. It's, it's

 

Brandon (01:17:28):
Isn't it crazy the makeover? It does for you, coming into sobriety and getting yourself together, man. I mean, family. I think about that. You just brought up the girl, your daughter. So I have a 22-year-old. She's my biological, and I'm in a relationship now, and we have four on her side. But that 22-year-old has watched me, my ho addiction in and out of prison. There was times, dude, I had her in the car seat and delivering drugs in dangerous situations. That girl didn't want anything to do with me, man. But what I can say now, from this recovery coming into my life and transforming everything, that psychic change, and we're really good friends. She's my daughter. She calls me when she needs something for advice. She comes over the house. She just moved back from college, actually. She was in Lubbock for a little while. She went to Texas Tech. She moved back and she said, dad, I'm moving back towards you. I want to find an apartment that's maybe five or 10 minutes away. She's 10 minutes away from home for me.

 

Matt Handy (01:18:59):
Yeah, it's huge. Yeah. I mean, these are things that we assume they're just gone forever. Right? Let's talk about psychic change, right? For sure. What did that look like for you?

 

Brandon (01:19:15):
So when I came in, I kind of explained a little bit, having the clothes on my back. I had this one way of looking, one way of acting. I had a hard ego image. The guys with the tattoos, the persona, prison, the persona, the baggy clothes chains. That was how I first entered the program. And when I sat down and I really surrendered knowing that I didn't know what, I didn't know anything about, nothing. I knew this. I'm like, here I am. I'm in my forties. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I need help. I'm willing to take whatever suggestions. Working through those 12 steps, the way that my sponsor did, my whole life started to unfold in front of my eyes. I started to see different figures, male forms, and I started falling in love with male form. Dude, no gay shit involved or anything. I started

 

Matt Handy (01:20:34):
Real masculinity.

 

Brandon (01:20:35):
Real masculinity. I started falling in love with male form. And these images that the way they carried their self, the way they walked, the way they talked, their presence about their appearance, I was very attracted to it. And so the psychic change for me, transforming from a severe alcoholic and drug addict over to a recovered person, was me actually that human being, or those men that I was attracted to. They taught me how to be a man. They taught me how to respect and love. They taught me how to treat a woman like a queen. All the little morals that 12 step base foundation did for me, it just unraveled. I can tell you, I've been in my relationship now for, we just made three years,

 

Matt Handy (01:21:41):
Cool.

 

Brandon (01:21:42):
Nine 11. It's actually my birthday. I just turned 47.

 

Matt Handy (01:21:45):
Oh, happy birthday.

 

Brandon (01:21:46):
And was my,

 

Matt Handy (01:21:47):
That was a crazy birthday for you then,

 

Brandon (01:21:50):
Dude. It was.

 

Matt Handy (01:21:50):
And

 

Brandon (01:21:51):
I was out in active use on parole, but I've been in this relationship for three years, man in, it's been the most healthiest relationship I've ever been in my whole life. And it's like foreign. I'm just waiting on the other ball to drop or something. But really, in reality, I've set myself up for the success by just surrendering, by just letting these men guide me and give me the guidance that I needed, right?

 

Matt Handy (01:22:26):
Yeah,

 

Brandon (01:22:27):
Man. My relationship is at the very tip top. There's no arguments. We might have some different agreements or whatever. There's never yelling at the home. And so for our kids to have a safe place, oh man, dude, that's golden, bro. It's golden.

 

Matt Handy (01:22:48):
Yeah. Yeah. You've broken a generational thing,

 

Brandon (01:22:50):
Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:22:53):
So we talk about, so one of the things that I talk about, my psychic change, one of the realizations that I had was I had to stop listening to rap,

 

Brandon (01:23:03):
Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:23:04):
And everything that you just talked about, the healthy relationships, the respect for women, carrying yourself a certain way, kind of shedding the chains in the baggy clothes and shit up that is all glorified in the mainstream today. And they're not just talking about bitches and hoes and shit. They're talking about pimping bitches and some really destructive shit.

 

Brandon (01:23:24):
It's different.

 

Matt Handy (01:23:25):
And this is Trump just pardoned a bunch of rappers. It's like people are idolizing these people now. So for me, in my recovery and the direction that I'm trying to go in my life, it's like I'll listen to rap every now and then, more of a nostalgic thing or whatever. But then even still, if I listen to it for too long, I start feeling guilty about it. I'm a metalhead. I have a bunch of friends

 

Brandon (01:23:52):
That You look like a metalhead.

 

Matt Handy (01:23:53):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (01:23:53):
That's what you strike me as.

 

Matt Handy (01:23:56):
I tell people all the time, it's like metals for smart people. There is a lot of math involved. There's a lot of pattern recognition involved, but there's also a different message altogether. A lot of 'em are talking about love and heartbreak and shit. It's like country, like a hard country. But rap is one of those things that I had to learn to let go of because I think about the influence that it had on my life, and it embarrasses me to say it sometimes. But the reality was I was so influenced by the music that I was listening to. And one of my favorite artists of all times, Eminem, right? And he talks about it in his music about the influence that music has on people.

 

Brandon (01:24:40):
He does.

 

Matt Handy (01:24:42):
And this is 20 years ago, his music coming out or whatever. And then we have this wave of just destructive music that has come to the forefront of the pop culture. And when I was a kid, it was in sync. Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, those are the guys, right? And now it's like Little Yachty, all these dudes that, dude that just young thug, it's like you listen to their music and it's disgusting. It isn't conducive to a healthy recovery to be glorifying this shit. And then another part of that psychic change that I had, I mean, there was a lot of introspection that has to go into that. The psychic change does not just happen organically. There's a lot of work that goes into it, a lot

 

Brandon (01:25:35):
Of action.

 

Matt Handy (01:25:36):
And one of the things that I had to realize for myself was my vocabulary had to change, and I had to redefine words for myself. Because there are things that you hear very common terms in the industry, specifically talking about triggers and cravings. For me, I had to get rid of those words because I don't have triggers. I have something I can point to that excuses my actions. I don't have cravings. I just wanted to get high, and I had to take the power back from these words in order for me to have a clear head about what was actually going on, leaned on that many, many times and be like, I don't know. I was triggered and I don't know what happened. Or I don't know, man, I had a craving and it wouldn't go away. And I ended up using it. It's like, no, that's not the truth for me. I'm not saying that these are not real. I'm sure there are people out there that have these experiences that are very real. I don't though, and that was part of my psychic change. It's like taking power back from these things, really taking control and accountability for your life. These are the things that really set apart somebody's recovery from somebody's recovery that isn't going to make it.

 

Brandon (01:26:52):
That's exactly true. I believe that, man. And it's crazy. I get to watch these guys that come in, they're fresh coming in. They have no recovery in them, but they have the gift of desperation, right?

 

Matt Handy (01:27:10):
Beautiful.

 

Brandon (01:27:11):
And they're willing. They're willing to go to any link. I'll use this one example, and I know he won't mind me using his name. He's become like a son to me. His name is Ryan. Ryan was a fentanyl user, and Ryan's best friend was John Reese, the one that passed. And within a month time, he lost his girlfriend too. So two overdoses that this guy experienced. Ryan.

 

Matt Handy (01:27:45):
Two overdose deaths.

 

Brandon (01:27:46):
Two overdose deaths. That was real dear to his heart. This dude, instead of taking his own life from watching his best friend and his girlfriend pass, he decided to go to treatment. And while he was in treatment, I was able to go see him. And he had no money. He had nothing. He had no job, no bank account, nothing. I scholarshiped him in to come into the sober living from day one. This dude was 10 toes deep and working in his recovery, I've seen him. He stayed at the sober living for 13, 14 months. Man, I seen his whole life unfold. This was the first guy that I ever seen this happen, especially with Fentanyl unfold, where the guy is making damn near $30 an hour as a good mechanic, 25 years old. He's got his son back in his life. He's got his own apartment. His apartment is close to his job, and close to his recovery group, right in the middle,

 

Matt Handy (01:29:02):
Get it right.

 

Brandon (01:29:02):
But watching him, I look at the pictures, just like that picture you just showed me, similar. He was on deathbed, dude, same thing as that picture you just showed me of yourself. But seeing that dude that gets me high, watching that psychic change through somebody else, because I always heard it with other guys that would tell me, man, you're not the same person anymore. Of course, I didn't feel like the same person. I felt good. I had a vibe motivated. I love people bright, vibrant. But when you get to experience it with another human being, watching them come in, broken, defeated, hopeless, and then that psychic change it. Oh, bro, it's priceless. You can't put a price tag on it.

 

Matt Handy (01:29:56):
Yeah. These old timers that have been around for 25, 30 plus years, they've seen this over and over and over. So I knew this dude, his name was Conrad, and he was like that grumpy guy in the back of the meetings. And I'm 21, and just desperate, not desperate enough to stay clean, but desperate at the time to not deal with the consequences of what was going on. And my home group at the time was an everyday nooner, and I was going every day, and they got to know my face and got to have cool conversations. And one of the conversations that I had with him was like, well, why do you stay? And he was like, because shit's like you. I love watching you guys come in and struggle.

 

Brandon (01:30:43):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:30:44):
It's like, and every now and then, there's that one kid that makes it. And my sponsor at the time, he was like, yeah, that. So Conrad pointed me to my sponsor and he was like, yeah, yeah. Every now and then one of you shits. Steve makes it. And it just makes me so happy.

 

Brandon (01:31:01):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:31:02):
It's like, wow. And I never, especially that early on in my recovery journey, I knew I wasn't done. And that's another amazing part about it. I knew enough times that I wasn't done where I can easily say now, I have no desire, no want no nothing to get high again. Whereas every other time, there was always that 1%, 2%, 10%, 25% of me that was like, man, it's just a matter of time counting down the days sometimes. Really? As long as I can avoid these consequences, I'm going right back to it. Right?

 

Brandon (01:31:41):
And I'm sure it was kind of like, I'm sure it was like this for you too. They were making bets on me that I wasn't going to make it.

 

Matt Handy (01:31:47):
Dude. My parents,

 

Brandon (01:31:48):
They were making bets on me, bro.

 

Matt Handy (01:31:50):
For sure. For sure. My parents had a bet. I remember this. They had a bet that I wouldn't make it to 21. They thought that I was going to die before I was 21. And that was just the first series of bets that were probably made. And that's a common thing. And it's always the one you never expect,

 

Brandon (01:32:08):
Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:32:08):
It's always that guy.

 

Brandon (01:32:09):
That's what them old timers tell me right now, man. I started out at that home group, and a lot of them seen me when I first came in in 2019, and they said, man, you are a fucking miracle, bro. You are a miracle. Because they have watched my every move from the very beginning to now with having nice stuff, like having a good job, having the family dynamic in a house that is a convicted felon. All of these guys were a big part of that journey. In fact, when we talk about the house, we had a house warming party. There was over 150 people. Jesus, that came to that house warming party, all in recovery,

 

Matt Handy (01:33:05):
For sure.

 

Brandon (01:33:06):
I mean the whole street. Now, mind you, I knew it was going to be a big crowd, and I let the neighbors know. I'm like, listen, there's going to be a house room party. No alcohol. We're not going to have any drugs, no alcohol. But the whole street was flooded, and it was all people out of those rooms that came to support, but also got to support the miracle, right? To watch this guy come in, broken, defeated, hopeless, and not only me, but my other half too. She's in recovery as well. So they watched both of us from a distance get this recovery deal and living life on life's terms, right?

 

Matt Handy (01:33:51):
Yeah. Crazy. Everybody loves to be a part of a comeback story, and I am thoroughly convinced that if you can get off drugs, you can do anything. It's got to be the hardest thing that humans have ever had to do. I get it that getting a doctorate's hard, I get it, that going to law school is probably hard. That shit's hard. That is a different level of hard,

 

Brandon (01:34:14):
Though. Way different.

 

Matt Handy (01:34:15):
If you can get off heroin and stay off heroin, I am thoroughly convinced you can do anything.

 

Brandon (01:34:20):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:34:21):
Thoroughly.

 

Brandon (01:34:22):
Yeah. No, for sure.

 

Matt Handy (01:34:23):
It's hard. It's fucking hard.

 

Brandon (01:34:25):
Yeah, it's hard. Yeah. You got to let go of something. Well, that's helped you for so long, and then you got to show the true feelings. Let's talk about feelings,

 

Matt Handy (01:34:36):
Dude.

 

Brandon (01:34:37):
Oh, bro.

 

Matt Handy (01:34:38):
Talk about, let's talk about the

 

Brandon (01:34:40):
Feelings.

 

Matt Handy (01:34:40):
So yes, you're getting rid of your coping mechanism. You're getting rid of that blanket. You're getting rid of everything. So I tell people all the time, I found a consistency in heroin that I'd never to this day found in humans that it was there for me. And now I have to learn how to deal with rejection and my own feelings and

 

Brandon (01:35:02):
Trust issues, abandonment issues,

 

Matt Handy (01:35:04):
All that.

 

Brandon (01:35:05):
All the things that fall in the category.

 

Matt Handy (01:35:07):
We never talked about that. I admitted it for the first time that I was sexually abused 18 months ago.

 

Brandon (01:35:13):
Wow. I love that. I love that. Men need to hear that.

 

Matt Handy (01:35:19):
Yeah, sure. Men need

 

Brandon (01:35:20):
To hear that

 

Matt Handy (01:35:21):
For sure. Everybody out there is touched by addiction today. I'm thoroughly convinced of this too, is that sexual trauma is a huge component of what's going on. Huge. And because of what a man is, a lot of us are under this false belief that we can't talk about it. And what that does is damages us.

 

Brandon (01:35:44):
It does.

 

Matt Handy (01:35:45):
And it damages people around us because sick men hurt people.

 

Brandon (01:35:49):
Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:35:49):
Well,

 

Brandon (01:35:50):
Back in the day, that's how a man was raised to keep your mouth shut. You hold that stuff in.

 

Matt Handy (01:36:01):
Yeah, don't cry.

 

Brandon (01:36:02):
Don't cry. Don't show your true feelings. And for me personally, that was something that I learned at an early age, being in the atmosphere that I was in with my dad, I learned how to put defensive walls up automatically. I knew when a doorknob turned a certain way, I knew if it was going to be bad or not. So at an early age, I'm already hitting stages where I can't even be that kid. Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:36:31):
Yeah. It's crazy. Meeting Dr. Shaw. We've had a long series of conversations now, right? And he talks about trauma as the core of all this. And then he talks about the biological, the actual scarring of the amygdala and how different traumas, scar, different parts of it and shit. And it's like when I talked to him about my traumas, he was like, oh, when I hear him talk about what it actually is, it all makes so much sense. But in order to get to that place where I can look at it and be accepting of it, and in a healthy way, process through it and shit like that, you got to talk about it.

 

Brandon (01:37:09):
You do.

 

Matt Handy (01:37:09):
You have to admit it.

 

Brandon (01:37:10):
You do.

 

Matt Handy (01:37:11):
Right? But that is so fucking hard.

 

Brandon (01:37:13):
It is.

 

Matt Handy (01:37:13):
I held onto it for, so I was like five to 30, 34, almost 30 years, no talking about it at all. When I finally let that go, finally talked about it. I went into treatment and dealt with it, talked about it. I've been going to therapy about it. And now it's like my therapist tells me all the time, she's like, your sexual trauma is not why you used. Right. Ultimately, you were going to do this either way. But the sexual trauma specifically for men, is such a hard thing to deal with, especially when it's a man that did it to you. There is a massive amount of guilt and shame that we inherit that isn't ours. That is not my guilt, not my stole

 

Brandon (01:38:01):
The innocence.

 

Matt Handy (01:38:02):
Fuck yeah.

 

Brandon (01:38:02):
Stole the innocence.

 

Matt Handy (01:38:03):
Fuck. Yeah. And it's like, this isn't really, we are left with the mess, but it isn't our trauma. I mean, it isn't our problem. We let it become our problem. But ultimately, you learn how to deal with this in a healthy way. And we're moving in a generation alpha. They blow my mind, the TikTok generation. So you're a millennial? No, no, no. You're a Gen X.

 

Brandon (01:38:28):
Gen X

 

Matt Handy (01:38:29):
Right. Okay. So I'm a millennial, and then there's Gen Z right behind me. And then Gen Alpha, we're talking about 9, 10, 11 year olds that are committing themselves to sobriety and sexual being sexually chased. And I'm thoroughly convinced that it's because of us. They're watching how fucked up we are.

 

Brandon (01:38:49):
They are.

 

Matt Handy (01:38:49):
And it's like you're little kids, and we're living in a broken system. We know it's not their parents teaching these core values. They're picking this stuff up on their own. And it blows my mind because at 9, 10, 11, that was the last thing that I was thinking about. It's

 

Brandon (01:39:03):
Bizarre.

 

Matt Handy (01:39:04):
It's very bizarre.

 

Brandon (01:39:06):
I got a question. So what made you finally come out with it?

 

Matt Handy (01:39:12):
I tell people that my addiction ran to its logical end. There was no consequence. That was enough for me to stop prisons, loss of family overdoses, health ramifications, homelessness to

 

Brandon (01:39:26):
The bitter end,

 

Matt Handy (01:39:27):
To the bitter end. And individually, every single one of those consequences, a lot of people could experience one of them, and it'll stop them in their tracks.

 

Brandon (01:39:35):
Of course.

 

Matt Handy (01:39:36):
So I say that my addiction ran to its actual logical end to where I liken it to an abusive marriage. There's the honeymoon phase, and then there's the abuse cycle starts, and then towards the end, you hate each other. Well, I hated what I was doing. I fell out of love with the drugs. They were no longer working. And I would, for the last three years of my addiction, I didn't realize it then, but I was negotiating with God. Where I would say to myself constantly, if I make it out of this, if I find a way out of this, I'll never look back. And so it was a long series of things that prepared me and got me to a point where I said, I don't want to do this anymore. And then I got rescued through that arrest, and everything just was set up so that I was in a place where I could then, so what happened was the guy who abused me went on to abuse a bunch of other people, and that shit kind of hit the fan. So I was confronted about it. I was left with this person.

 

Brandon (01:40:40):
So it poured it back up.

 

Matt Handy (01:40:42):
Well, it was an actual,

 

Brandon (01:40:43):
Did you mask it down where you almost forgot about it?

 

Matt Handy (01:40:46):
No, no, no, no, no. I remember it. I remember it. And so I remember it. And it was never something that I ever forgot. And also, this is my uncle. My uncle was one of the only people in my family who was actually there for me. So there was this really sick dynamic of

 

Brandon (01:41:07):
Protection.

 

Matt Handy (01:41:07):
Protection. And so through my life, we had had a series of conversations where he was constantly apologizing. And I didn't realize at the time, all my life we had had these conversations. I didn't realize at the time that he was in the background still hurting other people. And now that I think about it now, it's like he was trying to justify to himself what he did. And he made all these outward apologies, but he was still hurting other kids. He's 10 years older than me right now. He's being accused by his own daughters. It's so I had never had an issue talking about it to the right person. So when I relapsed, I was like, well, I had been clean for three years. I was like, well, what the fuck happened? And I started to deconstruct it. And so all this shit was happening in my face, and I was like, I need to let go of this. So that was just another piece that was very easily, it was

 

Brandon (01:42:11):
Hanging on,

 

Matt Handy (01:42:13):
And it was very easy for me to make that next step of just admitting that it happened and the floodgates opened, and I was able to address it in a really healthy way.

 

Brandon (01:42:21):
Isn't it beautiful? I think for me, and I'm so grateful, had it not had been for a guy in my home group at the very beginning that shared about his journey, this dude, he's yoked up, big guy, a manly man, right? And he shared this in a meeting, and I heard him share it, and it resurfaced for me. So for me, I had numbed it down for so long that I wanted to forget about it. In my mind, I forgot about it, but really it was still there

 

Matt Handy (01:43:08):
For sure.

 

Brandon (01:43:09):
Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:43:09):
For sure.

 

Brandon (01:43:10):
So I was, we talked about the fourth step, what Dr. Shah was talking about. The fourth. I remember getting on that fourth step and getting raw, writing that stuff down, and then finally opening up for the first time when I worked that fifth, right. Man, the relief I remember immediate. Immediate, it was something that set me free, for sure.

 

Matt Handy (01:43:37):
So a lot of people will talk about getting set free, and I hope that they do experience that, but I don't think people understand what that feel is like to really be set free from something that you carried with you your whole life. It's a feeling, I can't with words describe, but I know that for me, it set me on a path to truly heal. And I think about this all the time where it's like there's a large percentage of men that are out there suffering quite, they call it the epidemic of silent suffering. And it's like they're out there. They're all over the place, and it is so prevalent. How many men have been sexually abused? It's like, but we live in a society where they are shamed for talking about it. And it's very unfortunate now hurting other people. They're hurting themselves. And it's like life would look so different if people like us would talk about it more, and other people would talk about it more. People would talk about it.

 

Brandon (01:44:46):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:44:47):
It's a situation that these kinds of conversations can really help people. Right?

 

Brandon (01:44:53):
No, and I believe this is what I really believe. I believe that if everybody just worked a 12 step program, it don't matter what it is. I'm not talking Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm not talking about Narcotics Anonymous, celebrate Recovery, just a 12 step program. If everybody in the whole world would work that program, 12 steps. Dude, it would be an awesome world.

 

Matt Handy (01:45:20):
Significantly different world. A lot of people who, so they stay in the solution. They never then have to really deconstruct themselves, and that's good for them. It's good that they live a life that they never have to actually think about this shit, but they would still benefit from it.

 

Brandon (01:45:39):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:45:40):
Thoroughly convince them

 

Brandon (01:45:41):
Thoroughly. Thoroughly.

 

Matt Handy (01:45:42):
Yeah. It's an interesting thing, though. It's like a hundred years ago, these two dudes came together and developed this plan to help other people, and ultimately it was to help themself. But the ripple effect of these, it's crazy, right? These two dudes, dude, it's crazy. It's

 

Brandon (01:45:56):
Crazy.

 

Matt Handy (01:45:57):
Now,

 

Brandon (01:45:57):
1930s,

 

Matt Handy (01:45:59):
We're coming up on a hundred years.

 

Brandon (01:46:01):
Yeah,

 

Matt Handy (01:46:01):
Right.

 

Brandon (01:46:02):
I just made a hundred, I think.

 

Matt Handy (01:46:03):
Yeah. I think 34 was the book, 29 was the implementation of the program. So we're coming up on a

 

Brandon (01:46:10):
Hundred. Wow.

 

Matt Handy (01:46:11):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (01:46:11):
Straight gangsters.

 

Matt Handy (01:46:13):
A hundred years, dude. And it's like I, I'm vocal about this because of my experience. I want to help other people to know that there's options out there for them. I don't subscribe to the rooms, but I am an advocate for people to find what works for them.

 

Brandon (01:46:33):
Yeah, no, absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:46:35):
A lot of people have success in those rooms,

 

Brandon (01:46:38):
Dude.

 

Matt Handy (01:46:38):
They do.

 

Brandon (01:46:39):
They do.

 

Matt Handy (01:46:40):
And I can never take that from them, and I would never try to tell people not to go unless it was hurting them.

 

Brandon (01:46:46):
But

 

Matt Handy (01:46:49):
It's amazing that these two dudes total, I mean, just total,

 

Brandon (01:46:54):
Right? Two alcoholics. Two alcoholics.

 

Matt Handy (01:46:55):
Two alcoholics. One of them was a doctor, the other one was a finance dude. But they

 

Brandon (01:47:01):
Wall Street guy.

 

Matt Handy (01:47:02):
Wall Street, dude. And then it's funny too, because the Wall Street guy was the fuck up. And when you look at Wall Street nowadays, the movie Wolf of Wall Street, I just imagine Bill in there. I do too. It's like

 

Brandon (01:47:15):
Riding his bike,

 

Matt Handy (01:47:17):
Dude. Totally. And it's like we live in a society now where it's socially acceptable to drink. You're almost a weirdo if you don't in some circumstances. And it's like, but we're talking about the amount of suffering that people do just behind these drinks. It's amazing to me that people still haven't kind of put two and two together. This is the root of a lot of people's problems.

 

Brandon (01:47:41):
It is, dude.

 

Matt Handy (01:47:42):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (01:47:42):
Firmly believe that, man. Yeah, man. I'm grateful. I'm grateful of it. And I believe I'm kind of where you're at too. I believe in all platforms. I do. I work at the Arise Recovery. We're an outpatient program service, and we've got several locations, Dallas, Houston, Austin. And that's what we try to do, is we try to navigate with each client, each individual, to whatever your recovery looks like, let's find it. Whether it's a religious, whether it's non-religious, whether it's just having one-on-one individuals with the therapist, the counselor, a couple of times a week, whatever works. Because for some it might work for some it doesn't. Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:48:34):
Dude. So I know a dude, and I tell this story probably way too often, but I know a dude, he was 16 years old. He got drunk for the first time. He got drunk for the first time in Oceanside, California and got beat up by some Marines. So he's 16, he blacks out, gets beat up, ends up in the hospital, and literally immediately realized, I have a fucking problem. Went into the rooms and never drank again. Now, that's an extreme example of somebody who's aware of that kind of thing. But he is like a poster boy for success in that model. And then I know people who, my mentor specifically, never went into the rooms, but now has a massive platform where he just helps people. So there's this wide spectrum of what is available for recovery, and that is really what I'm trying to push here, right? It's like I'm not telling you what you have to do, because everybody tried to tell me what to do, and none of that shit worked for me.

 

Brandon (01:49:35):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:49:37):
And I tell all my clients, tell me what your goals are. If you don't have 'em, set 'em. And we can help you find where you fit in so that you never have to hurt yourself again. And it's just that easy. I mean, we want to be the safe place. Absolutely.

 

Brandon (01:49:51):
That's the number one most important part.

 

Matt Handy (01:49:54):
Safe

 

Brandon (01:49:54):
Place.

 

Matt Handy (01:49:55):
So Harmony Grove, when the naming process came around, that was a huge part of where the name comes from. We want them to know when they hear Harmony Grove, we want 'em to feel safe. I

 

Brandon (01:50:06):
Love the name, by the way.

 

Matt Handy (01:50:08):
Thank you.

 

Brandon (01:50:08):
Thank

 

Matt Handy (01:50:09):
You. There's actually a long history and story with that Harmony Grove. When I was a teenager up in the hills of San Diego, there was a spiritual retreat called Harmony Grove, but it was like a Pagan spiritual retreat. So we would go up there and smoke weed and hang out with girls. There was a river that ran through it, and we'd go tell ghost stories and stuff, but every time we would go over there, there'd be witches from all over the world over there. That was my first interaction with a place called Harmony Grove. But so many good memories and a lot of really cool things happened. Well, anyway, just a lot of cool stuff happened there. And so when the naming, I originally wanted to name this Samurai Recovery, and immediately they're like, fuck no. That could put on the chopping block and executed really quick. They're like, no, that's crazy. But yeah, harmony Grove is a, I hope when people hear that, they do hear what the message is behind

 

Brandon (01:51:10):
It,

 

Matt Handy (01:51:10):
Just in the name alone. But yeah, man, it's cool coming into this. So I've only lived here for 18 months and I moved here last January, so more than that. Welcome

 

Brandon (01:51:24):
To Houston.

 

Matt Handy (01:51:25):
Yeah, man. I come from paradise, like San Diego. So the weather here,

 

Brandon (01:51:31):
It's hot.

 

Matt Handy (01:51:31):
The beginning of the summer, I didn't leave my front door for three weeks. I just stayed at home.

 

Brandon (01:51:36):
Yeah, dude.

 

Matt Handy (01:51:37):
But it's really cool to come into a place where it's like there's a lot of really cool people that really care about each other.

 

Brandon (01:51:43):
Yeah, they do. It's a lot of southern hospitality too.

 

Matt Handy (01:51:47):
I did not know that was a real thing.

 

Brandon (01:51:49):
Yeah, it's real.

 

Matt Handy (01:51:50):
I tell people Southern hospitality is a real thing. Unless they're driving and it's like driving to Mexico,

 

Brandon (01:51:55):
It's a different story.

 

Matt Handy (01:51:56):
Right. Definitely a different story,

 

Brandon (01:51:57):
Dude. Yeah. I talk, I do a lot of work with people. They call from Cali, and that's one of the things they say. They're like, man, we can tell you're from Texas. You got that accent. I don't even know. I got it.

 

Matt Handy (01:52:11):
Yeah, I know you do.

 

Brandon (01:52:12):
And I'm like, I don't even know I got it, but hey, I'm here for it. Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:52:15):
Yeah.

 

Brandon (01:52:16):
But yeah, man, we open doors, we open doors for people. We do let people in traffic. Some people might not, but at the end of the day, we're are real helpful. We want to help people. I mean, that's kind of how I was raised. I was brought up into that atmosphere, even though it was kind of twisted and delusional with my addiction, but with Southern hospitality, it's beautiful. I love it, dude. I do.

 

Matt Handy (01:52:51):
That was one of the first things that I noticed when I moved here,

 

Brandon (01:52:54):
Man, everybody's so fucking

 

Matt Handy (01:52:56):
Nice. California people are

 

Brandon (01:52:58):
Hustle and flow,

 

Matt Handy (01:52:59):
Right? Yeah. It's crazy. Super

 

Brandon (01:53:02):
Fast.

 

Matt Handy (01:53:02):
And it's like you go to the grocery store and people say hi to you here. There. It's like everybody's got their headphones in, nobody's acknowledging each other. They're all living their own life. So yeah, it was one of the first things that I realized, like southern hospitality,

 

Brandon (01:53:15):
Culture shock, right?

 

Matt Handy (01:53:17):
So luckily it wasn't a shock. It was a culture relief,

 

Brandon (01:53:20):
Almost a relief. Yeah. There you go.

 

Matt Handy (01:53:23):
Well, yeah, man, I appreciate your time.

 

Brandon (01:53:25):
Yeah, dude, thank you. It was an honor. I appreciate you having me on, man.

 

Matt Handy (01:53:29):
Yeah, Let's do it again.

 

Brandon (01:53:30):
Absolutely. Alright, good deal.

 

Matt Handy (01:53:35):
Thanks for listening to My Last Relapse. I'm Matt Handy, the founder of Harmony Grove Behavioral Health, Houston, Texas, where our mission is to provide compassionate evidence-based care for anyone facing addiction, mental health challenges, and co-occurring disorders. Find out more at harmonygrovebh.com. Follow and subscribe to My Last Relapse on YouTube, apple Podcast, Spotify, and wherever you like to stream podcasts. Got a question for us? Leave a message or voicemail at mylastrelapse.com. If you're feeling overwhelmed or struggling, you don't have to face it alone. Reaching out for support is a sign of strength and help is always available. If you or anyone needs help, give us a call 24 hours a day at 8 8 8 - 6 9 1 - 8 2 9 5.