Life After Losing My 3 Children, My Sister, and My Parents, Moving in With My Dealer, and Living Under a Bridge With My Husband

Matt (00:00:03):
I am Matt Handy, and you're listening to My Last Relapse. How are you doing?

 

Candice (00:00:08):
I'm good.

 

Matt (00:00:09):
Good. You showed up?

 

Candice (00:00:10):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:00:11):
Awesome.

 

Candice (00:00:12):
Yeah. Wreckage of my past. Yeah. Sorry I had to cancel on you.

 

Matt (00:00:16):
That's fine.

 

Candice (00:00:16):
Last minute.

 

Matt (00:00:17):
Yeah. It happens more often than you would think, or it has at least, but never had a valid reason like that so far. That's crazy. You want to talk about it?

 

Candice (00:00:31):
Sure. Yeah. So I have degenerative disc disease and I found out about it probably three years after I quit using heroin. And so my dog was running outside, bent over to grab him by his collar. He is like a hundred pound dog, and my back snaps. It feels like acids running down my leg. Probably one of the worst feelings I've ever had. I could not stand back up. It was awful. And I get rushed to the emergency room and the doctor does the MRIs and everything, and he's like, you have degeneration in your back, which is typically something that happens for folks much older. But as he started evaluating and going through my past, he's like, this is from IV heroin use. And I'm like, dope. So this is something that happens every now and then, so you get flare-ups with it. So it just so happens to be my time, the day that we were scheduled to do this Wednesday.

 

Matt (00:01:38):
Did he say what it was in the heroin that does that because I slammed heroin for 17 years.

 

Candice (00:01:44):
Yeah, my husband too, and he doesn't have it, but for whatever reason I do Now, I don't know if it's necessarily the heroin because I wasn't on heroin nearly as long as my husband was, but I was on painkillers for a number of years. We're talking at least 10 years before that. So I don't know if it just weakens the discs because with degenerative disorder, essentially what happens, so there is, and I'm going to totally butcher this. I am not a medical professional, but there is something inside of the disc like moisture for, or

 

Matt (00:02:23):
It's a lubricant.

 

Candice (00:02:24):
Yeah, it's like a lubricant. So over time, essentially you lose that regardless whether you're a completely healthy person or not. You lose that, but I'm assuming,

 

Matt (00:02:36):
I think it's actually collagen.

 

Candice (00:02:37):
Something. There's something in there that over time you lose it. And I think that the opiates probably didn't help. And it's probably, I was in sports. I was a swimmer. I started swimming when I was five. I was a state swimmer by the time I was in my freshman year in high school.

 

Matt (00:02:57):
Me too.

 

Candice (00:02:57):
And dope

 

Matt (00:03:00):
Water polo really. So I swam to cross train.

 

Candice (00:03:05):
Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. No, it was the only sport that I was any good at and just did it. But I don't really know what if it was just a matter of me being incredibly active to really nothing at all. And I had kids really young, so I think there were just some things at play there, but here we are. And so essentially the solution is either go ahead and have surgery or work out, which I'd much rather do The workout part, which I don't stay consistent with. Life is life. You get busy. So Yeah.

 

Matt (00:03:45):
Yeah. So my wife, it was the same thing, right? Without exposing too much of her story without, but she, how do you say this? She had a lot of friends that were doctors, and these doctors would write prescriptions for her for 10 years. That's all she did was pills. And then she met me in really accelerated or opiate issue. But yeah, I slammed heroin for 17 years. Now I've met other people that have residual complications due to heroin use. But all of the bone issues that I've heard of have had to do with posture more than anything because, and you see it with fentanyl addicts even crazier than with heroin addicts, because heroin addicts, they no out and they fall asleep in weird contorted just crazy positions. But fentanyl addicts, you could see one walking down the street. They're completely hunched over. It's really crazy.

 

Candice (00:04:55):
Yeah, the junkie shuffle. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like this bounce.

 

Matt (00:05:02):
Definitely got a pep to the step.

 

Candice (00:05:04):
Oh, for sure. They're

 

Matt (00:05:04):
Feeling good.

 

Candice (00:05:06):
Yeah. I had that with heroin. And then I was also a soma addict. I was terrible on Soma. I mean, you would not believe. And that was, yeah, you want to talk about the bounce that was

 

Matt (00:05:21):
So I don't know what it is about benzos and muscle relaxers, but I black out immediately. Cyclobenzaprine is nothing compared to nothing compared to, I mean, they used to give them, in jail, they used to hand the blister packs. So blister packs are like the medication trays where it's like they're individually packaged and you can just pop it out.

 

Candice (00:05:49):
Gotcha. Oh, okay okay. Okay.

 

Matt (00:05:51):
So they're called blister packs. They used to hand out sheets of those in jail of cyclobenzaprine.

 

Candice (00:05:56):
What?

 

Matt (00:05:57):
Yeah.

 

Candice (00:05:58):
Oh my God.

 

Matt (00:05:58):
Yeah. But if I take two of them, I black out immediately. So my one horror story about Soma was that I blacked out apparently, but I also nodded out at the same time. I was whatever blacked out and was using, but I fell forward like this, and I rug burned my whole face.

 

Candice (00:06:30):
The amount of cigarette burns I have on my thighs because you're holding the cigarette, and I mean, you're losing control

 

Matt (00:06:43):
Of everything

 

Candice (00:06:43):
Pretty quickly. So I mean, I'm talking It was a constant

 

Matt (00:06:47):
Holes everywhere.

 

(00:06:48):
Yeah.

 

Candice (00:06:48):
Everywhere. Yep.

 

Matt (00:06:51):
Yeah,

 

Candice (00:06:51):
Yeah, yeah. Good times, man. Good times.

 

Matt (00:06:56):
So there's the horror stories of addiction, and even still, these are people wake themselves up from the nod by burning themselves, and that's the norm. Those are the mild stories about heroin addiction. But then you hear about, so my wife and I were talking about, my wife and I were homeless together.

 

Candice (00:07:19):
Yeah, my husband and I were too.

 

Matt (00:07:20):
Oh, that's cool. So we're like the anomalies. That is so crazy.

 

Candice (00:07:26):
And people say that all the time, and I'm sure you get it a lot too, where they're like, wait, so you were in addiction together and you're still together and you're sober. And it's like, yeah, yeah,

 

Matt (00:07:35):
Yeah, yeah. So we were talking about this lady that the doctors told her, if you do not stay in the hospital, you're going to lose your arm. She stayed in the hospital for two days and was like, fuck it, and left and disappeared for a month. She came back with one arm and she learned how to shoot up with her feet. And she was like, I just don't even care. At that time. I was like, I understand that, and I still understand the choices, but on this side of it, I'm like, holy, the sacrifices that we intentionally make to be as close as possible to whatever it is that we're doing, it's insanity.

 

Candice (00:08:22):
Oh, yeah, yeah. But that's the crux of it, right? It's like the insanity of the mind. It's the insane thinking surrounding the first drink, the first drug. It's this constant chase of needing to feel that needing to. And so when we try to unpack addiction and when we're trying to go at it head on and we're trying to understand as a society, it's like, well, what's underneath that and what's really causing that? And I can tell you from my personal experience, I rode the wave of it being this external circumstance. I had these ideas surrounding why I used in excess. Oh, I've gone through this many deaths. I've never really had a stable place to live. I've been a single mom. I've had all these things. But the interesting thing, and I love that this podcast is my last relapse, because my story is interesting because my last relapse wasn't that severe. It really wasn't

 

Matt (00:09:32):
Mine either.

 

Candice (00:09:32):
And I think that it's interesting, and I love that we're able to kind of unpack that and talk about that for a second. Because I think there's this common misconception when people decide, okay, they have that divine intervention or that gift of desperation, and they come in, they have this idea that it needs to be this large, huge bottom, which homelessness and all of those things kept me sober for three years, but it wasn't enough apparently, because when I did relapse, I didn't lose anything. I lost literally nothing. But there was something internal that had happened to me, very different than just experiencing homelessness and really wanting to not bathe in a carwash anymore. There was something interesting about that. So I say all of that to say underneath, it's like I had these fixed ideas around what the reason was that I drank it, but then after coming into a 12 step fellowship and hearing other people's stories, I'm like, but you didn't lose shit.

 

(00:10:44):
So we have this common bond. And so trying to figure out what the reason was interesting, and the reason is super simple. It has actually nothing to do for me. It had nothing to do with my life and what it looked like and what I went through and all of this. There's something physically and mentally different with me that causes me to use the way that I do. There's that insanity of the mind. There's the mental blank spot around. It doesn't matter. The evidence that I have that's been provided to me that I don't actually use really well, I wind up using in excess, and I have all of these consequences, but those things are not, I'm not able to bring those things into the forefront of my mind. And then the fuck it goes on, and it's like, I'm going to do this because I literally have no choice. I have lost the power of choice and whether or not I'm going to pick up that drink or drug. So yeah, it's interesting when we look at different stories and we look at the links that people have gone to surrounding trying to achieve this feeling. It really, it is a very interesting concept.

 

Matt (00:12:03):
So this is called My Last Relapse because it was the most pivotal experience I've had in my life. And it was historically my shortest relapse, and I didn't lose anything in the same way that I had lost everything else previously. And it's funny, I was clean for three years and I had built up all these experiences in sobriety, and there's a lot of misconception around what relapse is,

 

(00:12:31):
Where rock bottom is a very individual and subjective thing, because people think they hit a rock bottom. They hit a rock bottom, but not the rock bottom. You can always go lower, always go. And so I tell people, rock bottom is a really shitty place to be, but it's an amazing foundation to build on. But you think you hit rock bottom until your addiction throws a jackhammer at you and tells you to keep digging and you can. But my last relapse was nothing compared. And so consequences, right? By the time I was 21, I had lost a marriage, lost a kid, been to prison, got out of prison, and was heading back to prison. OD'ed been alienated from my nine siblings that are all younger than me, my family, I have experienced, I am almost positive that I've experienced every negative consequence that you possibly can without dying. And I've came pretty fucking close.

 

(00:13:42):
And so the consequences are not enough. The consequences are so disproportionate to my desire to use. It doesn't matter. And so I can point to any single one of these consequences that I've experienced, and the rest of the world would experience one of them and avoid it like the plague. But that wasn't me. I didn't care what the consequences was. This was not a consequence based lesson that I was going to learn. This was strictly experiential. And what I've learned for myself at least, is that it didn't matter what I had experienced, good or bad. I had to do it one way or another. And I tell people all the time, if I would've followed the plan for my life, if I would've continued to do things that my parents told me and gone to law school and done all this stuff, I would've been 35 years old fucking up my entire life because there was something in me that was broken that I had to satisfy.

 

(00:14:45):
And so one way or another, this was going to find me. It was a piece of me that I to figure out. And so the misconceptions that I like to talk about around relapse is that if you relapse, you start from zero. That is not true. That wasn't true for me, and it wasn't true for a lot of other people that I've talked to about this. I had this experience in sobriety, then relapsed, and then all of the rest of my recovery since then has been based on all of that. And I didn't restart. I did have consequences, but it wasn't the consequences that are keeping me sober anymore. What keeps me sober is a whole different category of consequences. The consequence is just, it is the reaction to the action. It could be positive consequence, a negative consequence. It could be a neutral consequence, but they're consequences, period. And so consequences as a baseline, yeah, there's reasons and consequences why I stay sober today, but they weren't the going to jail. They weren't the losing everything. It didn't look like that this time, but it was the most pivotal moment of my life. It pointed me directly into all this. I would, if I would've gotten everything that I wanted when I got sober five years ago, I would be working a construction job more now and just barely probably making it and maybe happy, but I experientially know I wouldn't have been happy now. I needed to get pointed in this direction. And now every suffer, every bit of suffering, every painful moment, every lesson that I've ever learned as a consequence of the terrible and poor decision making that I have makes sense now. It all has a purpose now, but it would've never happened if it wasn't for that relapse.

 

Candice (00:16:38):
Yeah. I think that those relapses and those different things, and it's interesting, right? Because you're correct, everybody's different. I think there are a lot of relapses that, I mean, it gets pretty bad, pretty fast, and people do lose it all. And I mean nine year, nothing. And so I think that they serve their purpose, and I don't think that you necessarily start from zero in terms of they say self-knowledge avails us nothing. And I think that that's true. But I think that there are some things that have happened in the stents of sobriety that have been building blocks. And I think that I had a poor experience in a 12 step fellowship my first three years sober. And then when I got back this time based on that poor experience, I was able to then see, okay, something's got to give because what I was doing before wasn't working. And so I wind up with a really dope sponsor who is able to explain to me what's wrong. That allergy obsession piece is able to bust open the cycle of addiction and help me understand that a spiritual solution is the only way out of this. And at that point, I'm able to go, oh my God, now I get it.

 

Matt (00:18:12):
Yeah, the light comes on. And so let's kind of backtrack, right? Let's talk about you. Who are you? What got you to wherever you're at, and why are you doing what you're doing?

 

Candice (00:18:28):
All right, well, don't put me on the spot or anything, man. Who am I? I'm a person in recovery that's trying to help other people. I guess I had a pretty rough upbringing. Both parents were alcoholic addicts, lots of child abuse, lots of different things. My mom died when I was 11. I moved from the memorial area over to the Aldi Mill route area when that happened. And so I was introduced to a lot of different things. Street life and fun, things like that. I got pregnant by the time I was 16. I had three kids by the time I was 21. And after I had my third is when I really started using, I had been drinking pretty heavily prior to that, but started using around that time. And what I found was that unlike alcohol, pills, I knew what I was doing. My kids were no longer driving me crazy. I felt pretty decent. And that went on for quite a while. And I eventually lost all of my kids. My son has a different dad than my daughter's. And my daughter's dad had been long gone out of the picture, wanted nothing to do with them. Son's dad, however, was still trying to actively be involved. And he was kind of jacked up in his own right, but not as bad as me. And ultimately, I lost my son to him through the court. Nobody was there to fight for my girls. So the girls went, when I lost them, I essentially just gave them away is what happened. I called their aunt, I was like, Hey, it'll just be a year. I just need a year to get it together. And that year turned into four because the kids were kind of in the way. If I'm being totally transparent, it's incredibly hard to maintain and have kids around.

 

Matt (00:20:46):
Absolutely.

 

Candice (00:20:48):
That's a tough draw. So I really gave them to her with the true motive in mind of, I want to get better and I want to get these kids back. But

 

Matt (00:20:59):
Yeah, I'm sure if someone hooked you up to a lie detector, you would've passed with flying colors. The intentionality will never be enough though. So these are crossroads that you hear about constantly, where it's like you've got a mother who's actively addicted, and if they don't make that almost selfless decision to let their kids go somewhere safe, the kids get fucked over in that situation so hard. So it's like, yeah, a lot of people who don't understand what we go through or the decisions that we've made or addiction at all, will look at the situation and be like, she did what? But the reality is it probably wasn't easy, but it was the best possible thing that could have happened for them at the time.

 

Candice (00:21:54):
Absolutely. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean was without going into too much, there were just things that even in my fogged addicted mind, I was able to go, okay, this is fogged. And these kids deserve better now. My son, different situation. I met up with his dad. He was like, Hey, I really want to get him for the weekend. And I'm like, have this prideful piece of me where I'm like, well, just for the week as if I have him in it. Literally, we were living with one of my dealers, that's where I had my kids. And I'm like, yeah, you can have him for the weekend, but only the weekend. Well, I went and met up with him at a Burger King, and I got served with papers and I never saw my son again. I still don't have my son to this day. And so shortly after that is when I made the phone call. It became very real. This is bad. And so my girls go and live with their aunt. I'm now kid free where I can kind of breathe a little bit. It's not just about breathing and being able to go, okay, I can use freely. It's like I can breathe knowing my kids are safe.

 

Matt (00:23:10):
Yeah.

 

Candice (00:23:12):
It's tough because it almost gave me even more of an excuse to continue to get loaded just that much more because the pain is so great, and you don't understand why your kids aren't enough. You don't understand why you continue to get in relationship after relationship when you should be focused on probably getting sober and getting your kids back. But it's like I am in this cycle and I cannot break out of it, and it's just this four year bunch of bullshit. And I wind up living with my other dealer and God rest her soul, she's dead now, but she winds up becoming my best friend. She was like, okay, you're going to live here and we're going to get you off of these pills. And we're lo and behold, she's like taking 'em too. And then she's also, please go take all of these people to the pill mill for me once a week and be in charge of this, but also don't use, and it's like, that's not a thing,

 

Matt (00:24:13):
Disconnect.

 

Candice (00:24:14):
And so she did her best to try to help me, and she was actually the first person that talked to me about rehab. So I tell this story, this really large story really quickly to kind of get to the piece of treatment. I was never introduced to treatment. I didn't know that rehab existed. I didn't know that detox existed. I didn't know that there were 12 step fellowships.

 

Matt (00:24:40):
How old are you?

 

Candice (00:24:41):
38 now.

 

Matt (00:24:43):
Okay,

 

Candice (00:24:43):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:24:44):
So when we were kids, treatment was way different. And parity didn't come around for until we were adults. And so access to that level of care was expensive. And it was like a secret society. There was in the hierarchy of drug addicts, there are the drug addicts that know about treatment because they can afford it. And then there are the drug addicts that are forced into it because of courts. Those are the two treatment people. And then everybody else is just living or surviving really.

 

Candice (00:25:24):
Right? Yeah. And it wasn't just that. It was also, I think the type of people I was exposed to were also drinking and using the same way as me. So it's not like I was ever going to really be faced with somebody saying, Hey, I think you have a problem. That was never the case. And I was a person that I worked in strip clubs. I either waited tables or I was a hostess at the door. And so in that lifestyle, you're also not going to be exposed to people that are going to be like, Hey, so noticed you were nodding off. You know what I mean? It's like the norm. And so I move in with this check, her name's T. And so I move in with her and she's trying to clean me up and she's trying to help me, but she just can't even help herself. But finally is like, yo, you have a problem and we got to figure out how to get you into treatment. Well, she had been exposed to treatment and she knew about, and I'll talk about it because this place is super near and dear to my heart, but I mean, I had no money, no nothing. So I went to state funded. I went to Santa Maria, which is sadly no more

 

Matt (00:26:42):
Recently, right?

 

Candice (00:26:43):
Very recent. It was very recent, recently, very recent. And so it's kind of tragic, but I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know what detox was. I just knew that they took me to a place they were giving me meds. And then they, now by this time, so you and I have had conversations about Suboxone, and so I want to give my experience with it and what happened to me. So I had been on Suboxone by this point before I went into treatment, and this was kind of the way that I was trying to clean up and stop using and what have you. And at this time it's just pain pills. So I'd been on Suboxone for quite a while at this point, but on and off of it, I'm either on Suboxone or I'm back on pills or I'm doing this. And so I go into treatment. And at the time, this is in 2014, and at the time there's not enough education around Suboxone withdrawal.

 

(00:27:45):
I had even been in jail prior to going into treatment, and I'm trying to tell these people I am sick. Something is not right. I had been sick off of pills before. I had never really been sick off of Suboxone. And they're looking at me and they're like, you're lying. You don't detox off of that. And then I go into Santa Maria and I go through this detox and they're like, okay, three to five days, you're good to go. We're going to send you over to the Jacqueline House. And I'm like, all right. And I'm like, miserable, dying. I'm crawling out of my skin. I have the body burns. It's like a whole thing. And it lasted for a month

 

(00:28:25):
At least, at minimum a month. And my experience with it was that all I wanted to do was fix because I could not stand how awful I felt it was the worst. But at the time, again, this is when I don't think there was a whole lot of education around the reality of Suboxone causing the withdraw. And if it's not tapered properly, it's not monitored properly, then you're setting yourself up for some pretty deep failure. And so that was my one experience with it. I swore to God I'd never, if I got off of anything ever again, I do it completely cold turkey, which I did. So I go through treatment and I meet my husband while I'm in treatment. And how, because I'm in an all female treatment center and we go to Mercy Street, which is a church for people in recovery, and he's there and I meet him because I can't seem to get out of the cycle of needing to feel something different, whether it's the drink or the drug or the guy or whatever the case.

 

(00:29:44):
I can't seem to get out of this cycle. So as I'm making progress in treatment, I'm like, oh my gosh, but this could totally work and we're going to be great together and I'm going to be fine. And so I'm very close to getting my kids back at this point. I'm going through family-based services, and when I say my kids, I'm talking about my girls. I'm going through family-based services, and I just decide this is more important and get with husband. I move into an Oxford house from treatment. I get successfully discharged. I now move into an Oxford house where our relationship really picks up, and ultimately I relapse with him. And lo and behold, I'm a full-blown heroin addict.

 

Matt (00:30:34):
So at the time, 2014, suboxone was being used as just a detox drug. And the education, I'm sure that there was a lot of studies into this, but the treatment industry at large was not aware of a lot of what Suboxone's potential is. And let me preface all this by saying that Suboxone probably saved my life, but with the scientific advances and the industry advances in what happens with detoxes just in general, right? Detox in general is so much better understood today than it probably has ever been, and it probably gets better understood every day at this point, right?

 

Candice (00:31:25):
Sure.

 

Matt (00:31:26):
Dr. Shah, he oversees detoxes, right? But his whole thing is the prevention and prediction of relapses. So my Suboxone success also came with some very scary situations because I was on Suboxone for a year, a year and two months. I went into detox to Dr. Shah's detox. Surprisingly of all things is how we first met. And then fast forward, he's my medical director, so that's pretty cool. But going into detox, they do a very thorough assessment of me and where I'm at and what I'm doing and how much and how long. And they're like, okay. They put me on, it was like four milligrams in morning or two in the morning and four at night. So six milligrams basically. And then I go from detox to treatment. I think the day after I got there, I went from six to 24 milligrams immediately and stayed there. So at this point, I am determined I am going to stay sober. The experiences that I had internally and externally and all this stuff, I was like, okay, I understand now I am staying sober, but I'm on Suboxone and I know this is a very slippery slope.

 

(00:32:58):
So I'm like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to continue getting prescribed 24 milligrams, but I'm going to taper myself down because I don't want to deal with their, doctors although they may be well-intentioned, do a lot more harm, then it's an addiction medicine, especially because to get an md, do you know how much addiction medicine training you get?

 

Candice (00:33:22):
How much?

 

Matt (00:33:22):
Six hours out of the 12 years of training, you get six hours. So unless you're an addiction medicine specialist, you're getting six hours.

 

Candice (00:33:31):
Wow.

 

Matt (00:33:32):
That's it. And then when you look at the big picture of big pharma, there's a lot of incentivizing going on behind these medications. So anyway, I'm in this predicament. I'm like, I'm not going to taper with the doctor. I'm going to taper myself. And then when I get to that point, I'm going to tell the doctor where I'm at. I go from 24 milligrams to four milligrams in two months, maybe less. Super easy, super easy, no withdrawal symptoms, very easy. I made a schedule and I dropped down every week clockwork, and it was easy. And then I got down to four milligrams, and then I told them, this is what I'm doing. And they were like, why didn't you tell us, dah? They're like, you need to send back all of the stock medication that you have and we're changing your prescription. I was like, okay, whatever. That's fine. I got to this point already. Then I got down over the next month and a half, maybe I went from four to two, and then the nightmare hit. I went from two to one to half of a milligram and then back up to two, like nightmare of trying to get off that last two milligrams of Suboxone. And one of the actual consequences that I had to deal with because of that last relapse was I lost custody of my daughter. She's four years old now, and this was over 18 months ago, and I'm still dealing with this. This is a real consequence, but I'm getting drug tested. The people who are monitoring the drug test are seeing the fluctuations in the medication. And I'm like, dude, I am on such a low dose of this stuff, you guys. Why are you even fucking with me about this?

 

(00:35:30):
If you look at where I started, the levels maxed out at 2000 nanograms, and it was like 2000 nanograms plus for months. And then I got all the way down. It was like 148 nanograms, 68 nanograms. It would fluctuate between 200 and under all the way down to maybe 40, but it would fluctuate. And they were like, what are you doing? I was like, man, I do not know why, but I cannot get off this. And they were like, look, if you don't get off this, we're going to start counting 'em as dirties. I was like, so now I'm in this situation where I'm like, holy fuck. These people that are pushing these consequences on me have no clue what they're talking about. They don't understand what's going on. And it's like, and so I had to do this massive amount of research. How am I going to get off this drug? I told 'em I was going to get off in March, it's now July. They gave me till May. If I don't do something now, I'm going to have consequences where my daughter and all this stuff's going to start happening. So I was doing all this research on the withdrawal and my fear and the fear for opiate addicts around this withdrawal is if I get to a point where this is unbearable and I don't have the medication, I'm going to go pick up heroin.

 

(00:36:44):
I know that that is the slope that I'm on. So I was like, fuck, what am I going to do? And it got to the point where I was so desperate. I was calling doctors and trying to figure stuff out, and then I read an article on Reddit of this guy. He was like, I got one sublocade shot. I was down to two milligrams for two years, couldn't get off. I took one sublocade shot and never looked back.

 

Candice (00:37:11):
Wow.

 

Matt (00:37:11):
So I was like, oh. So then I went through this whole process of trying to find a doctor that would give me a prescription, cuz like for some reason now today, there aren't many doctors that are writing prescriptions for Sublocade. And so I found one, it was expensive. It was all cash pay. I had to come out of the pocket to do all that. I was like, at this point, I don't care.

 

(00:37:37):
I found this doctor. We had a series of interviews. They made me meet with an addiction specialist on top of it. I was like, okay, this is cool. But then it came day of the shot and they were like, this is 300 milligrams. And immediately I was like, oh, fuck the drug test. This is going to skyrocket. And I was like, listen, this is what's going on. Is there any way that you can give me, because the first dose of sublocade is 300 milligrams. It is a ton of the medication. So I was like, can you give me half the shot? He was like, the drug isn't designed that way. You have to take it. And I was like, what about, let's talk about it. What happens if I just take half of it? And he was like, well, you are on such a low dose that the saturating dose is not going to, I guess do the same thing anyway. Anyway, we talked about it and I talked him into it, just give me half of the dose. And so he gave me half of the dose, and I never felt any withdrawal symptoms. That was it. I never had that thought again of like, am I going to end up relapsing because of the withdrawal of this medication?

 

Candice (00:38:58):
But the problem. But do you see the links you had to go to

 

Matt (00:39:05):
Absolutely.

 

Candice (00:39:05):
To find that. And even worse, I was not a person that could have afforded, right? I wasn't a person that, and so I think I see that more often where people don't really know what the solution is, and it is miserable. I mean, the whole story you're telling is literally, I mean, I've heard it a million times, and what winds up happening typically is people do return to use nine times out of 10. It's very rare. Now, I do know some people who I happen to really love and adore, and I'm so grateful for their recovery and their path. I do happen to know some people that Suboxone also saved their life, and they were able to maintain sobriety through it. They were able to maintain sobriety through the taper and are completely successful in sobriety today, which I believe they deserve every bit of honor and praise for that because it's a big deal. I wasn't built that way, and I also wasn't set up in a way where I could, I didn't have those resources. I'm a person that went through state funded rehab.

 

(00:40:20):
I didn't have any family. I've lost most of my family by the time I'm 19. Most of my family is dead. I have a sister, a cousin, really in this life. And so I think it's just this tossup of, and there is this stigma. There's this resistance almost. And I think that not more conversations are being had, right? You and I are having a conversation about this where you're explaining a solution that you were able to find, which I respect, and I am happy that, or I'm actually grateful that you're talking about it because this is going to go on YouTube and hopefully somebody will hear this and they'll be able to have those resources to be able to get it. Or on the flip side, there's the other piece of my suggestion through my experiences, tough it out. Two weeks, you're done. Tough it out

 

Matt (00:41:15):
As far as just the initial heroin withdrawal. Just tough it out. And you know what? I would say the exact same thing to most people. The people that I would not suggest that to are chronic relapsers. If you are that person that is treatment resistant. And what's interesting, I did a lot of state funded treatment. I did Salvation Army for seven months. I did Delancey Street for three years. I mean, I've done a lot of state funded treatment because of the incentivized, the way that insurance companies pay for treatment. They're failing because a state funded place, it's almost always a minimum of a year, almost always. That is actually a minimum amount of time that somebody should stay in treatment. But treatment is so expensive that insurance companies are not paying for a year, just that they're just not. But you can't send somebody into treatment for 28 days and expect 'em to figure out, rectify and heal from years of putting a needle in their arm. It's impossible. It's impossible.

 

Candice (00:42:20):
Yeah. I mean, you're tacking on, and I think that, so this is a good conversation to kind of go back and forth on where I, it's interesting. So you asked who I am, what do I do? And so I work in treatment and I swear to God, I'd never worked in treatment. I didn't believe in it. That was the truth. That was my firm. I don't believe in that. I think it's bullshit. There's another solution. It's just going to jail and you're in this comfortable bubble, and then you get released and then you're fucked.

 

(00:42:55):
And so I really had this as a person that went through treatment. I had this opinion. I had a very strong opinion of it. And boy, God showed me. So I'm in this stint of sobriety, and I talked about the sponsor, and as she's taking me through the steps, she introduces me to financial amends. And I'm like, stop you right there. I'm not paying those medical bills. I'm not doing that. She's like, yeah, so you, we don't dodge our creditors. And not only that son that you lost through the court, you've racked up a pretty hefty back child support. And I'm like, yeah, but I don't get to see him. I, no, I had all of these arguments as to why I was not going to pay this.

 

Matt (00:43:46):
And they were darn good arguments too.

 

Candice (00:43:48):
I was justified and I felt good in it. And she's like, yeah. So you don't get to get away with that. You don't get to have the gift of sobriety and have freedom and behave that way.

 

Matt (00:44:01):
Yeah, it is the accountability of. So the rest of the world, wo people in recovery have, I think, the highest level of accountability of anybody else, because the rest of the world can fuck people over and do shitty stuff to people and still live in their mansions and drink on the weekends or drink every day and keep their families and their kids love them and all that shit. And it's like, yeah, but you're a shitty person,

 

Candice (00:44:34):
Right?

 

Matt (00:44:35):
But not us. We cannot get away with that stuff.

 

Candice (00:44:38):
We don't get to skate on that. We don't really get to make a whole lot. There's not a whole lot of room for error. And so I was like, yeah, but I'm not super willing to do this. And she's like, yeah, cool. So pray you're going to pray for the willingness to do this. And I'm like, I want to. And I fought it, dude. I fought it the first, at least year and a half of my sobriety. I fought it and I would not pay it. I was like, I'm not doing this. And I don't know what it was. I had a friend that came over and my husband's in the roofing industry. He's in roofing sales. And I did that with him for a time, and it was cool. But I had a friend come over and she was like, man, I really think you should work in treatment.

 

(00:45:23):
I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. I don't believe in that stuff. And I don't know what it was, man. I just started praying about it, and God was opening these doors, and I wound up working for $17 an hour in an admissions position, which I just showed up to work happy every day. I was like, whatever. I'm just going to do this. And as I'm working in this, and this is solely to pay my financial amends by the way, I go get this. I'm like, I need to get a job. This roofing thing's not sustainable. I'm at a willing place and I'm ready to start paying this amends. I just need to get a job and maybe I can be good at this.

 

Matt (00:46:02):
How did you get to that point from absolutely not to, okay, I'm willing to.

 

Candice (00:46:08):
Facing consequences, financial consequences.

 

Matt (00:46:12):
Was it understanding the healing that comes from facing other consequences that you were like, okay, maybe the financial ones

 

Candice (00:46:20):
Yeah, so I think I was facing consequences sober, and a lot of that was spiritual disconnection, certain behaviors cropping up. Again, financial irresponsibility, and then financial just, I mean, we were not in a good place financially. I got sober in 2020, so you think I got sober at a time when the world is shut down. My husband is a bartender. I'm not really working at this time, but my husband is, so he's not essential. So his bar shut down

 

Matt (00:46:57):
A bartender in recovery.

 

Candice (00:47:00):
Oh, yeah, he still is.

 

Matt (00:47:00):
Yeah, yeah,

 

Candice (00:47:01):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:47:02):
Do you know how common that is?

 

Candice (00:47:03):
Oh, it's so common.

 

Matt (00:47:04):
It's so crazy.

 

Candice (00:47:05):
Yeah. I worked in the bar industry too for 12 years. So you tack on the seven years I was in clubs and then hopped over to being a bartender. The first time I was sober, I was in the bar industry. And so a lot of people are like, how do you do that? And it's like, well, it's not really that big of a deal. Because when you're doing the deal, it's really not. It's kind of like whatever.

 

Matt (00:47:26):
For sure. I think it's a lot easier when you're a drug addict, be a bartender.

 

Candice (00:47:29):
Oh, sure.

 

Matt (00:47:31):
I hate drinking. Well, I'm also Asian. I'm a good amount Vietnamese. And so I have an actual allergy to it. Aside from the alcoholic allergy, I have a physical biologically, and so when I drink, it's painful almost. I get puffy and red. It's uncomfortable. It tastes disgusting. I don't know how anybody can, the way it tastes, but tastes disgusting and you feel like shit the whole next day. And because I can't really, what it is is I can't process some of the enzymes. So I get drunk off a 24, can I get drunk so fast? So just everything about it is so gross to me. And so it's really easy for me to be like, I don't drink. I've never liked, I didn't like drinking in high school. But that's also why I was sliming heroin in high school.

 

Candice (00:48:24):
And the thing is, I had a poor reaction to alcohol too. It didn't stop me from drinking. I wish I could sit here and say that it did, but it didn't. But the hangovers were so bad. It was to the point where if I knew, okay, I am going to drink. I took Xanax before I went to sleep to not have those hangovers. It was miserable. So that's precisely why once I started using pills, I was like, this is it.

 

Matt (00:48:54):
Yeah, never doing that again.

 

Candice (00:48:55):
This right here. Yeah, this is the sauce. This is how I want to feel, period. So yeah, I got sober during COVID, and so finances were trash anyways at that time. And I think just trying to dig our way up. And so this is when we get, we're introduced into roofing about 30 days sober. My husband and I have the same sobriety date, and so we're introduced to roofing pretty early on in recovery, which I swore to God was a pyramid scheme. I was like, this is crazy.

 

Matt (00:49:30):
Were you doing the door to door?

 

Candice (00:49:32):
Oh, yeah,

 

Matt (00:49:32):
Yeah, yeah.

 

Candice (00:49:33):
Oh, I

 

Matt (00:49:33):
Do that too. Yeah.

 

Candice (00:49:34):
Yeah. I mean, it's a real job. My husband still does it. He is a very successful, there's

 

Matt (00:49:38):
Really good money in it.

 

Candice (00:49:39):
Oh, yeah. He's very successful at it. And he's got a whole team under him. He's a sales manager now, and he does really well. But it just wasn't my jam. It was not something that I was interested in. And I've done that most of my life. I've struggled to find what my niche is and what I'm good at, and

 

Matt (00:49:57):
Everybody does.

 

Candice (00:49:58):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:49:58):
That's why Everybody hates what they do.

 

Candice (00:50:00):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:50:00):
They just do it. It pays the bills.

 

Candice (00:50:02):
That's right. Yeah. It's a thing. It's really tough. And so it's interesting how this thing that I was so resistant to is the thing that gives me the most joy.

 

Matt (00:50:11):
It makes sense.

 

Candice (00:50:11):
Yeah. Yeah. It's like it's wild. So I face these consequences, and I love that we're not going to spend a whole lot of time on the mess because I think there's so much to be said about being in sobriety. There is life that happens. It's like if I live in the story is the story, and that's super dope. And it helps me. It does a great deal of good for what I do for a living today, and it helps me to help others navigate through different things. However, there is this life and I'm just a baby trying to figure out how to navigate sobriety. I've had assistance up until this point. I've had the mommy's little helpers. I've had the needle in my neck. I've had all of the different things,

 

(00:51:07):
And now I'm having to figure out feelings because what the fuck is that? And so I think there's so much to say about what does sobriety actually look like? What is that? And so there was this formula that worked for me, and it doesn't have to be everybody's jam, but it was mine. And the formula was I got through the steps very quickly because I needed relief just as quickly as I needed relief from a shot of dope. I needed the same speed of relief because I am firm on, I have a weaker a month before I forget the suffering and humiliation. And so the

 

Matt (00:51:57):
Disease of amnesia.

 

Candice (00:51:59):
For sure. So the quicker I can get to that solution, that doesn't mean that everything's better. It doesn't mean that I am totally changed and all of these great things are happening and all of the trauma has left and all of the things are fixed. That's not what that means. It means that I have gotten from total disconnection to now I have a connection. Now what do I do with that?

 

(00:52:24):
And how do I live and how do I move forward with that? And it is a daily reprieve. And that daily reprieve is so important because it helps me see the blind spot. It helps me to see where I'm maybe struggling in certain areas. And so that financial amends piece for me was a really large, pivotal moment where I kept having this idea, no, I need to make X amount of dollars and I need to do this, and I need to do that. God was like, no, you need to do this and you need to make $17 an hour and you need to be miserable. And the reason I was miserable, because every person I spoke to on the phone, I was the person in admissions. We worked in a call center, and I was the person that I wanted to greet them at the front door, and I wanted to walk with them to their assessment, and I wanted to be close with them.

 

(00:53:21):
And I just wanted them to know that they weren't alone. And I can't tell you, I didn't get in trouble for it. I think that they were like, yeah, but you're doing too much. And I'm like, I want to be in direct client care. And so I worked there until God opened another door. I went to decorate. So that's my thing. And anybody that knows me that's going to watch this knows that I'm a decorator, and that's my deal. And I went to go decorate. I was asked to come and look at an office space and go decorate that office space. And the owner of that treatment center, it was Matthew Hope Foundation.

 

Matt (00:53:58):
Oh, wow.

 

Candice (00:53:59):
So she was like, Hey, so you're in an interview. And I'm like, in fucking jeans. I'm like, bitch, whatcha talking about? What are we doing? And she's like, yeah, you're in an interview. This is what I'm willing to pay you. Will you please come work for me? And I'm like, all right, dope. And so she was like, you need to go get your Recovery Coach certification. I was like, done, say less. And so I did it. I started working at Matthews Hope, and pretty quickly after I started working there, we lost our detox. And that was really tragic. It was tough on us, but it gave me experience around starting an IOP, which took time. And it's actually, it's not far from here. I don't believe it's still existing as far as an IOP

 

Matt (00:54:44):
Michael is around though,

 

Candice (00:54:50):
Lohan.

 

Matt (00:54:50):
Yeah.

 

Candice (00:54:51):
Yeah. He's not attached to that anymore.

 

Matt (00:54:52):
What?

 

Candice (00:54:54):
No. Larry Wedekind is the founder of Matthew's Hope Foundation.

 

Matt (00:55:00):
Who's Matthew's Dad?

 

Candice (00:55:02):
Larry.

 

Matt (00:55:02):
Okay. Okay. So I think it was Larry that I was talking to. He's still around there.

 

Candice (00:55:06):
Yeah, he's around. He's around. I think they've shifted a little bit from the addiction piece to more of, they do something called iasis, which is Microcurrent neurofeedback, which I got the opportunity to do. I was the main iasis tech at Matthews Hope.

 

Matt (00:55:21):
Wow.

 

Candice (00:55:22):
Yeah, I did ISS for two years. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty cool modality. But what I found with it, I wasn't really engaging with addicts or alcoholics as much anymore because it was open to everybody, which I think it's a good thing that it's open to everybody, but I really, I was like, man, this isn't it. This isn't it. This is not. And so when we started up the IOP, I started marketing. So we all kind of collectively marketed here and there, and I was like, man, this is it. This is what I want to do. I want to do this. I want to bridge the gap. I want to be the person that I didn't have. I want to talk to these people when they're at their lowest on the phone and talk them off the ledge and get them into treatment and help them figure out what level of care they need to be in. This is what I want to do. And so here I am, and it's wild because I did all of this initially to pay a financial amens, and it turned into a full-fledged career. And I get to work at a place that's like, I can't even put into words how incredibly grateful I am for this treatment center and how as a person who was so resistant to treatment, I morally, so I can lay my head down at night and know that I've gotten people into a good facility.

 

(00:56:55):
And that's a big deal to me. One of those people that I'm pretty opinionated when it comes to certain things. And

 

Matt (00:57:02):
I've heard,

 

Candice (00:57:02):
Yeah, I'm pretty opinionated. So it's interesting to be able to, and treatment is treatment, right? And there,

 

Matt (00:57:11):
That is not true. Not all treatment is the same.

 

Candice (00:57:16):
I think there's a lot of treatment that's the same.

 

Matt (00:57:19):
Okay. That's a really good point. There's a lot of really shitty treatment out there though.

 

Candice (00:57:22):
Sure, sure. Absolutely.

 

Matt (00:57:23):
And that's the majority I

 

Candice (00:57:24):
Feel like. And so it's hard, right? It's hard to be like, yeah, but we're different, right? You hear that all the time across the board, you always hear, but we're different.

 

Matt (00:57:36):
Okay. So there's buzzwords in the industry. First of all, somebody brought something to my attention the other day, and they were like, did you know that in the nonprofit sector of treatment, they don't call it the treatment industry. They call it the treatment field. I was like, Ugh. And now whenever I hear treatment industry, I'm like, Ugh, it's so gross. And I will say this, the BD part of this industry is so gross. There is, I don't know. I don't even want, well, whatever.

 

Candice (00:58:07):
We can open it. You want to open that topic?

 

Matt (00:58:09):
No because a lot of the people that have come on here are BD reps, and I'm not talking shit about them. I'm just talking about there is, this is a thing. You don't necessarily have to have the qualifications that a marketer in any other industry needs. You don't need education, you don't need experience. You don't need anything like that. But a lot of what people depend on for this industry is good looks. So you can start the conversation there and then extrapolate it out and it just gets crazier and crazier and crazier. And it's like, okay, now I get why there are a good amount of very successful treatment centers that have zero BD reps at all. They do all SEO, they do pay per click, they do that kind of stuff. And it's like, this makes sense to me, a hundred percent. But the experience that everybody has for treatment, so this is the baseline, and I say this all the time, so my listeners are probably like, God, shut up. But the way that it works is this, and this is why this podcast is designed the way that it is, because the baseline of every addiction is you grow up, you make fucked up decisions based on trauma, you then end up abusing substances. Your life gets substantially worse.

 

(00:59:40):
Something happens. You get sober and your life gets better. And everybody's story is the same in that. But the story really starts after you get sober. And I'm thoroughly convinced that there are three real superhuman powers. And it's high level math, childbirth and recovery. Those are super powers. But everybody's struggle in recovery is never talked about because there are real struggles. Now we're talking about real life without our crutches. And it's like the actual victory in our stories isn't the fact that we quit. It's easy to quit. That is the smallest piece of getting sober is quitting. It's staying, quit that struggle. If it was easy, the statistics wouldn't be as gnarly and as staggering as they are about relapse. And they did all the military, did a ton of studies and came out with all these statistics. And when you really look at it, the treatment industry fails almost a hundred percent of the time, almost a hundred percent of the time. And so they've got these buzzwords though. There's trauma-informed care or individualized care, or you've got all these buzzwords that kind of signal to people something specific. But that's not what's actually going on.

 

(01:01:04):
I was sold on a treatment center. I was told, if you go to this treatment center, they specialize in childhood sexual trauma. And then I get there and they're like, no, we're not doing that. We're not doing that with you. You can call your family during our one-on-ones. You can just get on the phone the whole time. I was like, what am I doing here? And so you get this experience in treatment. And the thing about recovery is a lot of people reject recovery because they reject their experience in rooms, in treatment in one-on-one experiences. And they don't separate what recovery is from what their experience was. And it's two very different things.

 

Candice (01:01:51):
Absolutely.

 

Matt (01:01:51):
And so when you talk about we have a very similar path, the experiences and then the pivotal moments, and then the call to serve and all this very similar drugs, similar. I'm 36, so we both got clean in 2020. I relapsed since then, but it was at my last relapse. Right?

 

Candice (01:02:17):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:02:21):
But my experience in recovery and my experience in treatment specific, I've done almost five years in treatment, like three years, nine months, seven months, and then a bunch of one month treatment centers. And the disconnect between what goes on in expensive high level treatment and the dichotomy about what goes on in those treatment centers, and then the work therapy treatment centers, the Synanon treatment centers, I mean the therapeutic communities, there is serious changes that goes on, but it takes that long stay in treatment to have those effects in treatment. Otherwise, you go to treatment for 28 days and then you get literally kicked out to the wolves. And if you're not committing to aftercare, if you're not committing to PHP, if you're not going to I after that, if you don't participate in an alumni program, you are literally out there with no direction. And you can go to meetings and it works for as long as you stay motivated. But the problem is people base their recovery on the motivation. And motivation falls off so fast because you forget. Forget how terrible it actually was. And everybody romances the stone when it comes to war stories. And it's like the war stories are the beautification of the absolute terror and hell that we all go through. And so that's why we don't tell war stories on this podcast. Every other, not every other, I won't say that, but the majority of recovery podcasts that you listen to, if it's three hours long, two hours of it, is them trying to hook the listener by telling just

 

Candice (01:04:12):
This traumatic.

 

Matt (01:04:12):
And what it ends up happening is they end up getting in a pissing contest of My bottom was lower than yours. And then it sounds like, is this shit even true at this point anymore? Just becomes so fantastical. And it's like this, the people that need to hear this will stop listening by then because they're still out there doing exactly what you're talking about

 

Candice (01:04:35):
Right, right. There's no solution. And oftentimes there's no solution in what's being talked about. It's a, I shot this many and it's like, that's so dope. I'm so glad you're alive. Amazing. So what about today though? Because the reality is the amount that I took is not what made me and I identify as alcoholic, but the amount that I took is not what made me alcoholic. The amount that I took had little to nothing to do with it. Right. The way I took it. Sure. But the amount that's not

 

Matt (01:05:12):
You're talking about symptoms. These are symptoms of the issue.

 

Candice (01:05:16):
Correct. So it's like, no. So that's really dope and cool for you. But I'm interested in figuring out how to get into the solution because we've talked about this now a couple of times is like we forget right there, there's this blank spot that takes place. So treatment, we're talking about length of stay and some different things where we may have some difference of opinion in terms of what helps somebody maintain sobriety getting out now, I believe,

 

Matt (01:05:46):
No we don't.

 

Candice (01:05:46):
I believe. Well,

 

Matt (01:05:47):
We don't have a difference. I don't disagree with the 12 step programs. I disagree with forcing people to continue to try something that's not working. That's all. But I am thoroughly convinced that there is success in the rooms. I have not. Actually what it is, is my experience says that there is other solutions as well.

 

Candice (01:06:10):
Sure. Yeah, sure. There are other pathways and I believe that wholeheartedly. I do also believe that not everybody belongs in the rooms. And you and I talked about this the other day, but not everybody belongs in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous or of Narcotics Anonymous or of wherever, whatever fellowship we're going to talk about. Not everybody belongs there. And there are certain things in literature in each fellowship that kind of helps somebody deduce whether or not they're even supposed to be there in the first place. But we don't do a good enough job educating. When I worked at Matthews Hope, one of my positions was to teach big book. And I loved it. I loved every minute of it. Why? Because I was able to educate and there were a lot of people that did not relate. And I knew that I did my job.

 

Matt (01:06:59):
So I also as a full-blown heroin addict, hate alcohol identified as an alcoholic when I was participating in 12 step meetings because of the complete difference in how serious people take the program and the integrity in the rooms. I found that I could not successfully attend NA and stay sober it. And so I identified as an alcoholic and that could have contributed to the experience that I had because I was not respecting their traditions. I still changed my language to fit their traditions, but I was not really one of them.

 

Candice (01:07:48):
Did you feel like a fraud in the rooms?

 

Matt (01:07:50):
I was told constantly because I was on Suboxone that I wasn't one of them and that I shouldn't speak.

 

Candice (01:07:55):
Was this here or

 

Matt (01:07:56):
This was here.

 

Candice (01:07:57):
Interesting.

 

Matt (01:07:57):
This was here, but I had the same experience in California too.

 

Candice (01:08:00):
Okay.

 

Matt (01:08:02):
But the problem was I needed to save my life and I needed it faster than you were going to accept me. Sure,

 

Candice (01:08:08):
Sure.

 

Matt (01:08:08):
And so that's why my path diverged. That's it.

 

Candice (01:08:12):
Sure,

 

Matt (01:08:12):
But I love the big book too, right? I've read it more than 10 times. I stopped counting after that. And I love the history of the program, but the problem, I shouldn't say it like that, but some of my issues with what actually happens is there is dogmatic belief systems that people just adopt. And it's like people do not buy into what is being sold. They bought into what they're being told. And it's like if they don't understand what's actually going on, they're going to relapse. You can't just take what the person in front of you said and tell it to the person behind you and expect that that's enough, not. You have to understand what's going. And so I love the book. There is so much in the book that can save someone's life. And you said earlier that you did your steps as fast as you could. I've never understood it where somebody can get stuck on their four step for three years.

 

Candice (01:09:13):
Me neither. Me neither.

 

Matt (01:09:14):
Because I need relief. And originally when Bob and Bill were doing their thing, it was 15 minutes. You did your steps in 15 minutes, and then you went to the room next to you and started doing the work with someone else.

 

Candice (01:09:27):
And back then, do you know the statistics back then of success?

 

Matt (01:09:31):
Dude it was almost a hundred percent.

 

Candice (01:09:33):
And look at it now, and it's interesting because, so there's a lot to be said about that. There's a lot of opinions about it and none are true and none are true. The only true thing about that as to why it looks very different is because treatment judicial system and people being forced into the rooms that don't belong there, there's been things that have trickled down into the rooms of 12 step fellowship that don't belong there.

 

Matt (01:10:08):
People have muddied the culture of what it actually was. And I tell people all the time, if Bob and Bill magically appeared today and they went to a random room, they would not recognize it for what it is.

 

Candice (01:10:19):
Not at all. Not at all. And so in the preface it says that it's, the literature is fundamentally unchanged and there's a reason for that because the solution is still the solution. No matter how you flip it. I don't care how far down the line we get, the solution is still the solution. And that's what I had to understand when I came in the first time. There was this, I was never really introduced to the literature. I picked up all of the cliches. It was the the plug in the jug. It was, you don't have to drink today, but actually fuck you because I do, because I've lost the power of choice. I'm so glad that you were able to play the tape through and that you were able to put the plug in the jug and that you had the self will to do that. But the literature tells me very clearly that I do not have, that

 

(01:11:08):
I am broken in the way of having the self will to stop and stay stopped. I don't identify as a hard drinker. I identify as a real alcoholic. And so I had to really go through those things and I had to have somebody break that down to me and help me understand it for what it was. And the way that I take people through is the exact same way that I was taken through that time with that sponsor. And it's what I have found to be the most beneficial. I don't slap it on 'em and say, now go. I'm spending ample time when I meet with somebody, I make that time because this sobriety that I have is a gift. And what am I doing with it if I'm not giving it away? I've heard a lot of folks, and this is fine to each their own, but I've heard a lot of people that work in treatment that it's like, well, that's my recovery. And that's dope for you. I'm so glad that that works for you, but it doesn't work for me. I still have to have the altruistic piece. I cannot gain a paycheck and say this is enough and I'm feeding somebody and I'm giving no giving. What away You're getting paid for that.

 

(01:12:22):
I have to give it away selflessly. I have to have this voluntary action and know that I'm doing for somebody what was done for me freely. I can't collect a paycheck for that. And so we're talking about sobriety straight up, right?

 

Matt (01:12:43):
Real sobriety.

 

Candice (01:12:44):
Real sobriety.

 

Matt (01:12:46):
So Dr. Shah, there is how it works, but where is the why it works. It is much easier to sell somebody on why instead of should. And for me, you could tell me till you're blue in the fest, you should do this. But unless I understand why I'm not going to do it.

 

Candice (01:13:10):
Sure.

 

Matt (01:13:10):
And so one of the beautiful things about what Dr. Shaw does is he tells you, go to AA because I need you to address your biological problem, which is ultimately the scarring of the amygdala, which is caused by trauma. And the scarring of the amygdala causes a chain reaction that creates an escalation. And this cycling mood disorder that once we are in this escalation, we have to quiet the amygdala, which means what this really looks like is you get into that fear and next thing you know you're picking up and you have no clue why. But what he says is go into these rooms because you need a safe place. You then need to build trust with people, which ultimately then you can exchange oxytocin and then you get to rebuild your prefrontal cortex. When he said that, I was like, fuck, if you'd have told me this, I would've probably stayed going to meetings. And so now it's like when you change the framing of why you're going from, you're going, because other people have stayed sober this way to we're going, because you need to address these simple things, which they're not simple, but they're simpler when you break it down like that. Well now you can sell people on why you should go sit in this room, why you should do your fourth step thoroughly. Because if you're lying, you're not getting oxytocin, you're being deceptive, you're not being fully open with somebody. And now it's like, okay, this makes a lot more sense. And so his book is why it works, not how it works. And it's going to double off of the doctor's why it works, right?

 

Candice (01:14:54):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:14:55):
But I was constantly told, I mean, you've probably heard this many, many times. It's like, well, now you're sober. You should work out and eat better

 

Candice (01:15:04):
Mind, body, spirit.

 

Matt (01:15:06):
But they never tell you. They never show you how and they never tell you why. They just say you should.

 

Candice (01:15:10):
That's right.

 

Matt (01:15:12):
So when I finally was at that point where in recovery I was fucking miserable and I met my mentor and he was like, do this, this, and this. And the two things that he put into place for me was working out and eating better. And he showed me why and broke down why. And it's like, Oh, Right. And now I do it religiously. And it's like, but you could never sell me. I mean, I heard that for years, years over a decade on how once you're sober you should work out and any eat better. But there was no breakdown why It was always just, you should do this,

 

Candice (01:15:47):
You should do it.

 

Matt (01:15:48):
And for somebody who you should stay away from drugs because it's going to ruin your life. Well, guess what I did? I fucking ran to them. Ran to them. So you can't sell me on should, because I had every reason in my life why I shouldn't do these things. And I still did it. Right?

 

Candice (01:16:07):
Yeah, for sure. And I think that the literature's really great about saying this book is meant to be suggestive only right now. Does that mean that you can come in and just take what you want and leave the rest? I mean, no,

 

Matt (01:16:24):
You can't cherry pick the easy cards.

 

Candice (01:16:25):
It's like there's a start and there's a feeling you got to go through in this order.

 

Matt (01:16:31):
I mean, it's structured very specifically.

 

Candice (01:16:33):
It is. And it's pretty genius how it's all written and it ties together and you can cross reference and do all these different things have spent countless hours, whether with a sponsee or not, just going back and forth like, oh, that's dope. That was there time. Yeah.

 

Matt (01:16:49):
They talk about moral be revealed. And it's like every time I did my step work, definitely moral was

 

Candice (01:16:55):
Revealed always.

 

Matt (01:16:56):
Every time I read it, there was something new.

 

Candice (01:16:58):
Well, and it's like if we go back to unmanageability as we're going along, my unmanageability today looks so different night and day different than it did when I came in. I was able to conceptualize, okay, I have my use is unmanageable. Cleanliness or whatever, because these things don't apply when you're drinking, using whatever. So I was able to have some pretty obvious things on that list. Whereas if you were to ask me today what's unmanageable? My organization doom scrolling politics, it's real different today I have a very different outlook and life is just real different. So I think that's the importance of addressing different things. It's not this one and done. We're good.

 

(01:18:00):
If I need to write inventory, I need to write inventory as a person that's over five years sober. If I need to do that, yeah, it's a thing. I'm going to do it right. Because there's maintenance. I can't just rely on the 2020 inventory that I wrote and say, okay, all is well. I meet new people all the time. I'm going to come into contact with somebody. And what I know to be true is that resentment is poisoned to me. It's still poisoned to me. I'm not cured. Identifying as somebody who is recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body, doesn't mean that I'm cured, but there's certain things that I have to do to maintain being recovered, having the desire to drink and use be removed where it's not where I am able to go in that bar, I am able to be around that alcohol I am able to do. That's simply being recovered of a recovered mindset where I don't have the insane thinking.

 

Matt (01:19:00):
Yeah, unmanageability is a part of the human experience. There will always be some level of unmanageability, but there's a vast difference between the unmanageability of slamming heroin and the unmanageability of working in treatment or raising kids in active addiction or raising kids in sobriety. Still very different, unmanageable very different. And so it's in recovery, we're still human and we're hyper aware of a lot of the things that the rest of the world is not. And the scary part is the consequences of not managing, of not doing your daily 10 step or whatever it is that you do that that manages your unmanageability. If you don't do it, the consequences are dire.

 

(01:20:02):
And with the introduction of fentanyl to the drug supply, so my best friend, so I robbed a bank and got sentenced to a three-year program. He heard that I got sentenced to this program and went there. And so he was there a week after I was, and we got clean together and he, he followed me through this insane, just this whole process. And about two years in it was getting crazy. There was politics involved and just crazy shit. And he was like, you know what? I'm good. I don't need to be, don't got 30 years over my head. You do. I'm out of here. But that point that he was at in his life was like, we had long discussions around him leaving and it was like, do it then. Dude, if you understand that as long as you stay connected, you'll be okay then. But he stayed connected and still relapsed. He was not managing his unmanageability. And what happened was my daughter's first birthday, we had this party at the park and he was supposed to come and there was a bunch of my friends that were sober came a bunch of my friends that were sober, that were not sober the last time I saw them. And a bunch of us knew each other. And so it was cool to, there was one would show up and it would be a meeting of each other for the first time, even though we'd had this history.

 

(01:21:38):
But he shows up after the party's over, literally we're all just hanging out now. A bunch of people had left, but it's like my close friends and my wife's close friends we're all just hanging out now. And he showed up. He had crashed his car, he's with his girlfriend. He had this elaborate story about what was actually going on. But all of us looked at him and immediately knew this kid's on heroin. We were like this. But in my head I was like, if I don't address this now, I can just ignore it. And that's exactly what I did. And he was dead three days later and I never talked to him about it. And so now I live with this where it's like the introduction of fentanyl makes relapse way worse, extremely dangerous. And because of that experience, I have an obligation now where it's like if I even think that something is, it was very obvious he had relapsed though. There was no question, but I didn't say anything. And now it's like, what if I did? What if I did say something to him? Would he still be alive? What could have happened if I would've said something?

 

(01:22:54):
And it's like, but I didn't. And so now I have this obligation to say something whenever I even think something's going on. And this is just the built experience that I've had to go through in recovery that sucks because there are days where I do feel good. I call his parents on his birthday and on the anniversary of his passing, and this last year now they didn't answer on his birthday or on his anniversary. And so now I feel even more guilty because I think that I haven't talked to them about this, but I think that they do blame me to a point where it's like, I understand why you would blame me because I talk about this openly now and they probably have a lot of pain around it.

 

Candice (01:23:41):
But I think that that goes back to let's kind of t trudge back to the conversation that we had initially around consequences and jail and all of these different things. What I would suggest asking yourself is what makes you think that consequence, the words coming out of your mouth would've been enough. And so saying something may not have made a difference at all, I'll deliver it to you the same way I would anybody else Where it's like if I believe that I'm beyond human aid and I believe that, I don't know that it brought the emotional appeal, seldom suffices and carrying it kind of doesn't really serve any purpose. Carrying it in the way of feeling like you could have made some grand difference. Because if the rules were reversed, would it have made a difference to you?

 

Matt (01:24:44):
Possibly. Here's the thing, the reason why I constantly ask myself the question, I think that I am so powerful that I could have changed anything. My question is did I fail in my obligation?

 

Candice (01:24:57):
To speak up?

 

Matt (01:24:58):
Yes,

 

Candice (01:24:58):
Sure. And I feel that, right? So the girl that moved me into her house and whatever, she was my best friend and she was the only friend that I had. She was the only person in my life that had not turned her back on me, despite the mess and all of the things. But she reached out to me. I was already sober by this time. She had reached out to me, she was like, I really need some help. And I haven't really talked much about my husband and I being homeless. And the family that picked us up off the side of the road didn't know us, moved us into their house, and we lived with them for a year. So she had heard about that and she was like, do you think that they would talk to me? Do you think I really need help? And I'm like, yeah, dude, whatever. But at the same time, it's like I can bring a horse to water, but I can't make 'em drink. And I laid it out for her and a week later she was dead. And so it's like I understand that feeling and I understand, but I also understand that sometimes the call out is not necessarily the best formula.

 

Matt (01:26:06):
No, you're right.

 

Candice (01:26:07):
It can cause the runout, right? It can cause the person to avoid and run. Because the reality is I'm going to use whether you like it or not. And if you show me any distaste for that or call me out or put me on the spot, I'm just going to avoid you anyways. Because the truth is is that I'm going to get loaded regardless.

 

Matt (01:26:25):
No, for sure. So the relationship that him and I had would not have been hindered. He wouldn't have ran from the confrontation. And this is why I feel like I failed in my obligation. I do know what would've happened. He would've lied to me and I would've just said, okay. But the lesson that I took from that was regardless of the reason why I didn't do it was because I didn't want him to lie to me, even though I knew he was going to. And so my question to, so I did a bunch of intervention training because I have friends that are interventionists and they tell all these cool stories about these interventions. And then I did the training and I was really, really quickly realized, this is not a fun thing. This is not something, although there is of romance of it because of the outcomes, and you get to go cool places and then cool experiences around it. The reality is it's heartbreaking and it fails more than it succeeds 100 hundred percent the family component of interventions. It's 95% of the work, 5% of the work is the intervention. But there is a lot more that goes into it. And my takeaway from all the training and the conversations and all that stuff was, if I fuck this up, there's a high likelihood that I have now hindered somebody's possible recovery. And so I don't want that responsibility,

 

(01:27:53):
Right? So I was like, okay, well not going to do that. There are experts out there that are really good at what they do. I'm not one of 'em. And a lot of what I do today was really sparked by some of these experiences like Ryan dying that pointed me in a specific direction that pointed me in a different direction that got me to somewhere else, that pointed me to a different direction, which ultimately led to that relapse, which pointed me ultimately in this direction. And so it's like everything is cumulative. And looking back now, hindsight's 2020, looking back now, it's like every single painful moment, every cold night out in the rain, every single time I was rejected by society or whatever, they all played into who I became today. This person sitting here today is the direct result of every bit of suffering. The benefit of my suffering is what's manifesting today. Not the benefit of my good decisions. This is the benefit of my terrible decisions.

 

Candice (01:28:56):
Exactly. Yeah.

 

Matt (01:28:57):
And so yeah, there's a lot that goes into recovery than people think around staying recovered and maintaining a spiritual connection in a meaningful way. Because there are plenty of people out there who are abstinent that are exactly that. They're abstinent and there is no spiritual connection. There's no emotional healing, there's no trauma healing. They're just stagnant.

 

Candice (01:29:27):
And that's it.

 

Matt (01:29:28):
And they're totally fine with, and so this is controversial, and I say it because I believe it, but I tell people, if you're not going to get sober and help people just stay using, it's fucking pointless for you to,

 

Candice (01:29:44):
It's in the literature, it says that we think we feel a man is unthinking. When he says sobriety is enough, period. It is very clear. And I stand firm on that. I upset a few people

 

Matt (01:29:56):
Mean, yeah. So

 

Candice (01:29:57):
My time with that,

 

Matt (01:29:58):
It's not like what everybody would say because whatever, it sucks to hear it or whatever, it isn't attractive to people. And it's a program of attraction. And it's like, well, the reality is I know people who've got 30 years of clean time that are fucking miserable. And when I look at that, I'm like, there is a simple solution to your immediate problem. And it is, you are fucking selfish still. And it's like, get out. And it's like everybody's seen these people, they're in the back of the room and they yell at people and they tell people to shut up. And it's like, alright, do I want to be that guy?

 

Candice (01:30:42):
Then they're also the people that are sitting in the back of the room at 30 years sober saying, I just really wanted to drink today. They're crazy. It's so mind blowing. So for the girl or the guy that's two and three days sober, hearing Jim in the back saying, I'm really white knuckling and it's progress, not perfection. And if all I did was get out of my bed today and I came to this meeting, I've made progress. Actually, sir, that's not at all what it's saying. It's says spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection, perfection. And so what you're telling me is that at 30 years, I'm going to white knuckle this and I'm still going to be fighting this thing and I'm still going to really want to drink. And that's the problem. And that right there is what has shifted the fellowship and what is destroyed, what it was intended to be, right?

 

Matt (01:31:32):
I mean, yeah, we have examples of the disciples like the first 100 and then the Oxford group, and then all these other subsections that have broke off. There are disciples of the program that lived a fulfilling and happy life. There were humans still. And you hear the stories about Bill and Bob even where it's like they were obviously human, but the reality is for a lot of those people, they lived a fulfilling life, not because they were sober, but because they helped a fuck load of people.

 

Candice (01:32:04):
That's right.

 

Matt (01:32:04):
That's right. That's where the miracle is. And so it's like When I tell people my hot take on if you're going to get sober and then just sit and not do shit, just stay using. What I'm really trying to say is your ultimate debt needs to be paid. And the only way to do that is to help people.

 

Candice (01:32:23):
Self sacrifice and helping others. And that was the concept. That was really what changed my life. When I was sober the first three years, I had what we call back problems, not what I'm actually experiencing, but theoretically what we call back problems where I got everything back really fast. I got a job, I got a car, I got my kids back when I was six months sober. I got my girls back, not my son, but I just, I attended meetings, but I didn't do anything. And I cycled through five sponsors in the three years. I just kept thinking maybe if I do a sponsor switch, maybe if I all of these different things. But I never worked with others. I never nothing. And so ultimately I wind up cheating on my husband. I'm like, this is safer than

 

Matt (01:33:17):
Drinking.

 

Candice (01:33:17):
This is totally safer. And so I wind up doing that and eventually I'm drinking and smoking crack and doing heroin again and whatever. And that lasted for two weeks. My husband winds up overdosing. It's a whole big thing. He's on dialysis. It's like this whole deal. And then I decide that I'm going to be a closet drinker for two years, and in the two years I really am closet straight up

 

Matt (01:33:45):
A really good decision.

 

Candice (01:33:47):
It's totally good, right?

 

Matt (01:33:48):
Excellent.

 

Candice (01:33:48):
It's like AA doesn't work. I'm not doing this. This is whatever. And so I decide I'm going to closet drink and I can totally handle this, but I have to, in my mind, this is the most insane thinking, right? I can totally drink, but my husband can't, so he can't find out because if he finds out that he's going to drink and then he's going to wind up overdosed again. And so to protect him, this is what I'm going to do,

 

(01:34:12):
Which winds up in a disaster. He finds out, I'm like, whatever I drink, I don't think you should. And so that lasted for maybe two weeks until he's then drinking and it just spirals out of control. But the funny thing is, again, no real serious consequences. No, I didn't lose my home, didn't lose my kids, didn't lose nothing but 2020, the peak of COVID when you have nothing else to do, I mean, nobody's questioning it, the amount you're drinking. And I really had this idea, if I stuck it to alcohol, it meant that I was totally not an alcoholic. As long as I didn't return to use this totally fine.

 

(01:34:59):
And I did the night before I got sober, I definitely did. And I remember walking back into the rooms the next day or so miserable and pissed off that I was there. I was convinced that 12 steps didn't work. I didn't want anything to do with it. I didn't want any part in it. And I walked back in and the first woman that raised her hand, I asked her to sponsor me. And I almost wound up in the same flavor of AA that I had been privy to the first three years. And somebody noticed the pace in which I was going and said, Hey, so I think you should call this number. And then I wound up calling that number, got hooked up with that woman that ultimately saved my life. And so here I am, a little over five years into the deal, and life is lifeing, right? My kids are adults now. My oldest daughter has two daughters. So I'm a grandma. I have two grandkids.

 

Matt (01:36:06):
Holy shit.

 

Candice (01:36:07):
I have two grandkids. And it's interesting because all of this stuff that I missed out on with my daughters growing up, my daughter had my kids. So she has zalie and Kinsley. Zalie is identical to her. Kinsley is identical to Lily. So those are my kids. And so it's so interesting watching them grow up and being able to be present, understanding. Obviously I'm their grandma. I'm not their parent, but being able to be present for these kids is the biggest blessing that I could have ever imagined having. And I think people notice how involved I am and how connected I am to these kids and mostly get mistaken for being their mom because I imagine, yeah, it's a whole thing, but life is busy and it's happening. And I think there's also, and maybe you'll agree with this, maybe you won't. I don't know. We have very similar stories, but I think there's this common misconception that people think it's so much easier to be with somebody that's sober and it's like, I want to stop you actually, because that's not true. We are never at the same place spiritually. One is either here and the other one's here, or vice versa. It's heavy.

 

Matt (01:37:25):
There is complications that go into a recovery relationship that are not normal. And if you try to marry your recoveries together, it fucking will never work. You got to do your own thing. I have to do my own thing.

 

Candice (01:37:41):
That's right. That's right.

 

Matt (01:37:42):
And learning to do that. So we're having another daughter, she'll be born in seven weeks. And one of the conversations that, so the conversation, we have all this stuff over our head with our drug testing and our daughter, but you're going to have a C-section and they're going to prescribe you opiates. And so we've had hours and hours of conversations with doctors and each other and the healthiest conversations around medications that I've ever heard of because we're trying to figure out what the game plan is. But these are not normal conversations because normally people don't have to worry about this stuff.

 

(01:38:27):
But we have these conversations that because we're both in recovery and we're both fighting for the same thing, and we both desperately want our daughter back, it's like these conversations are a hundred percent necessary, but they're not normal. But ultimately they're not normal because they're healthy and nobody out there's healthy anymore. So It's like, yeah, a relationship that where both of you are in recovery, first of all, a lot of these relationships don't start the same way that ours did. Ours started in active use. And so we've also been together for eight years, and we lived under a bridge together, and we have struggled in real fucking ways together that

 

(01:39:15):
are not normal either. That's right. We're not talking about monetary struggles, we're not talking about regular marital struggles. It's like, no, no, no. The level of struggling that we've done together is on just a whole different plane. We're not talking about the same book of struggling. This is a different book of struggling. And so the struggles in our recovery, they'll never cost us our life. They'll never cost us our freedom. They'll never cost us our sanity. They'll never cost us our living situation. It's very different. Still complicated, still messy, still not easy, but the consequences, as long as we continue to make the right decisions, will never equate to a lot of the fucked up shit that we've experienced together already. And so in that, it's very rewarding. But most recovery relationships start after you guys are in recovery.

 

Candice (01:40:10):
That's right.

 

Matt (01:40:10):
And now you're seeking each other to heal something that you're trying to heal externally, but you need to heal it internally before this will ever work.

 

(01:40:19):
And It's like, so a lot of these recovery relationships that you see are toxic because you haven't had the level of healing that you need. And then also you don't have the experience together that you need in order for this to work.

 

Candice (01:40:33):
That's right.

 

Matt (01:40:34):
And it doesn't necessarily have to be true that it won't work just 99% of the time. It doesn't.

 

Candice (01:40:40):
It, doesn't, yeah, because it's either I don't think it's talked about enough, because I think you're right. It's so uncommon that people that are in addiction together get out of it together. And so I remember, and you may have had this experience too, but I remember getting sober and I remember being like, who the fuck are you? I don't know you because you do a

 

(01:41:06):
In certain things.

 

Matt (01:41:06):
Oh yeah. It's like you do on such a deep level because when you experience homelessness and live under a bridge with somebody, there is a different level of closeness that takes place that it's very hard to come back from. It's intimacy and all these different things. It's very hard to see this person in this, oh my gosh, goo gaga. Like, oh, how cutey. Nothing is cute anymore. I mean, it is

 

(01:41:31):
The abscesses.

 

Candice (01:41:34):
All of it, dude. It's so real. And it's like, I remember going through that and trying to figure out who this person was trying to navigate that. And unless you're ready to buckle up and go through the hardships, because it's hard. It's not like a walk in the park unless you're ready to trudge through that shit, just give up because it's not going to be this beautiful love story. It's going to be work every single day, and it's like trying to trudge through that. But if you can, my husband and I have been together 11 years, and if you can get past that and go through those struggles and understand your recoveries are separate, you can't be codependent in this. You have to have two completely different, it can be the same avenue, but it needs to be two completely different paths. We're like, we're not intersecting step work here. We're not getting a couple to sponsor us. We're not doing these really

 

Matt (01:42:39):
Way out, ineffective, but logical to a point thing, Because recovery is not logical.

 

Candice (01:42:47):
No,

 

Matt (01:42:48):
There is almost nothing that follows through logically when you play tapes through, it's like, this doesn't make sense why this works.

 

Candice (01:42:55):
No.

 

Matt (01:42:56):
And so she's a 12 stepper and I'm not. And it's like, then on top of that, it's like the person, I think this is also why it worked really well, is because I used from basically hard from 16 until I got actually sober at 30. I was introduced to myself for the first time around the same time she was introduced to me for the first time, the real me. And it makes it a lot easier when you like the person that you become. And so she got to see me become this person. I got to see her become that person through a lot of crazy struggles in recovery. We're going through some crazy shit in recovery. We are going through trying to get our daughter back. That is hard for anybody. People that are not addicts and whatever. It's hard. But the resilience and the level of determination. So I met her for the first time, really after we got clean. She met me for the first time, really when we got clean. But those experiences will never go away. The person, the things that I'd seen her do and the respect that I have for her based on some of the things that she's accomplished and the fact that she's clean. There's just this level of respect. And it is not like a, I'm so in love with her, and we do get along really well. We're actually really, really good friends. But this is not a fairytale love story at all.

 

(01:44:37):
And I think a lot of people do have this misconception around, oh, I'm going to get sober and I'm going to find somebody who's sober and we're going to have this aa love story. And the reality is, and without naming names, I have a friend who is very respected. He's respected in what he does, and he's respected in who he is, and he's respected about his recovery. But I'm watching him struggle in trying to find somebody. And the reality that I keep having is you will never have, maybe I shouldn't say never, right? But the path of least resistance will always be finding a normie because you trying to heal and he's got a substantial amount of sobriety, but does the person that you're attracting does the people who, and women are ultra emotional, and then men become emotionally aware in recovery. So now you have two emotionally aware people, but maybe not necessarily emotionally healthy or mature. And it's like we have this hindrance of we started using as kids, and so we're emotionally stunted, and now we're trying to evolve emotionally into a healthy, contributing human. And it's like we have all of this growing up to do while we're still having to deal with our responsibilities and accountability and all this stuff. And it's like relationships and recovery in concept are beautiful, but they typically become extremely toxic

 

Candice (01:46:21):
Very quickly,

 

Matt (01:46:22):
Very quickly.

 

Candice (01:46:22):
Very, very quickly. My husband and I, and I'm sure you and your wife get this all the time where it's just like, you guys are so cool and I want that. And it's like, no, you have no idea what you think you want. If you're willing to give up the really cute head over heels, whatever, go for it

 

Matt (01:46:46):
For sure,

 

Candice (01:46:46):
Because that's the sacrifice that you have to make. But there's this piece, and I think it takes time to get there that way. Now with my husband, and I know for a fact he's that way with me, but it took time to get

 

Matt (01:47:03):
There. So the male's experience in this is very different than the females. And I'm sure your husband was always like that because a part of me that was always like that with her, there's the adoring factor, but I don't know what you saw with him, but I know what she saw with me, and there is no adoring what I have done. I got her arrested in TJ on Valentine's Day in 2019 or something, and we spent our Valentine's Day in TJ jail, right?

 

Candice (01:47:39):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:47:40):
There is just so much gross shit that one of my stories is I got botulism while we were homeless. And dude, it is the most, anyway, we're homeless. We don't have access to a bathroom. And dude, I'm like shitting on my, I have no clothes now at this point, and she's got a pack of baby wipes wiping my ass on the streets. There's nothing like Gogo gaga, super cutesy. Let's go on a date tonight thing. It isn't. We do go on dates, but it's very friendly almost. My parents told me one time, they were like, did she even love you? It's like, it's so different.

 

Candice (01:48:31):
It is.

 

Matt (01:48:32):
Because my dad fell in love with my mom in high school. That was the girl that he always had a crush on, and their love is so they have 10 kids and so different than the love that me and my wife have. It's in a different arena.

 

Candice (01:48:48):
Yeah, it is it, and it is almost like a friendship, but it's like

 

Matt (01:48:52):
It's really a partnership.

 

Candice (01:48:54):
Yeah, it is.

 

Matt (01:48:55):
That you understand no matter what, I got your back.

 

Candice (01:48:58):
For sure, for sure. And

 

Matt (01:48:59):
I've proven it to you.

 

Candice (01:49:03):
And I think the even better piece of it is those petty fights don't really take place. You're not paying attention to me. First of all, don't dude, don't face. I'm here doing my thing. You be there, do your thing. We have our routines, we have our things. And most therapists will advise against that. Most therapists will say that, that's so unhealthy and whatever, but it's like, okay, but then educate yourself on this particular type because it's not cookie cutter for everybody. And so with us, it is. It's more of it's this partnership of, and there's intimacy, there's all of those things. It's not lost on us that obviously this is a marriage and this is how, yeah, for

 

Matt (01:49:53):
Sure. It wouldn't work if it wasn't like that

 

Candice (01:49:55):
100%. It's not a roommate situation, but it's like we're so close and so bonded in such a way that we don't have to go the extra mile anymore. For sure. I think we're at that point where it's like there's this understanding of this is my person, I'm doing life with this person. I love this person with everything that I have, but it just looks so different. And I think when you include God in the middle of all of that, you include whatever it is that you believe in. I think that that's where it really gets mended and you begin to learn. You were put together for a purpose. And it's not to make yourself feel good.

 

(01:50:33):
There's a bigger purpose at play here. Just like there was a bigger purpose for me to ultimately be an alcoholic. There was bigger purpose in all of this, a bigger plan. And when my husband and I were able to realize, okay, our deal here is we're supposed to help people, and we don't really know what that looks like, and we're still trying to figure that piece out, and maybe it has to do with homelessness and we don't know, but there's a bigger purpose here. And when I can include God in that and include him in the plans and designs, what I realized is my marriage does better. I ultimately do better. And again, there are certain small sacrifices that had to be made in order for this marriage to work. So yeah, it's not the dream, but I think that just, I thought I was going to get with another junkie, and it was going to be this dream. People have to go through their stuff, right? Yes. We stayed together. But at what cost?

 

Matt (01:51:37):
Yeah. Yeah. So flowers mean something very different in our relationship than another relationship. Going on dates means something very different than I think a normal, normal relationship. This isn't, I almost feel like guys in long-term relationships that are still buying flowers for their wife. It's an obligation, but it just feels so different in our relationship and it doesn't, like you're right, there is nothing. Nobody would ever look at our story and be like, I'm going to write a Disney book about this shit. It's not this, but when you really take a thousand foot or a 10,000 foot view of it, it's like, this is probably going to work better than, we don't have to constantly remind each other that we love each other. We're not in each other's face constantly about bullshit. And the thing about since we got clean, we don't fight. And most people are like, yeah, right. Dude, you don't understand the fighting that her and I have done in our active addiction and the real fighting that we have done. And so now it's like we talk about it all the time where our lives are so fucking easy right now. And it isn't easy in that there isn't struggles. It isn't easy in that it's like,

 

Candice (01:53:04):
But you're not counting change. You're

 

Matt (01:53:06):
Not just that.

 

Candice (01:53:08):
You're not living under a bridge. And we do go through that too. It comes to, it's like we go through that. We lived at Bissinet in the beltway, and so there's a little piece of the bridge over there that it's the beltway in 59 that intersects is where we lived, was up under there.

 

Matt (01:53:25):
I know where that is.

 

Candice (01:53:26):
So we drive over it pretty often, and it's like if I'm by myself and I drive over it, or Matthew's by himself, we call each other, we text each other

 

Matt (01:53:37):
You husbanc's name's Matthew?

 

Candice (01:53:38):
My husband's name's Matthew. So we will call each other or whatever. And it's like, life is actually really good today. Life is really simple today. And look, your kids are still young, just fucking wait because I'm an adult. It's like the struggle is so different. Oh my God.

 

Matt (01:53:58):
I have daughters

 

Candice (01:53:59):
Same.

 

Matt (01:54:01):
And so my wife was like, are we going to have another? I was like, fuck no. You're getting your shit tied. I don't care what we got to do. We're not having more kids. I am going to only produce girls because of the fucked up shit that I've done in my life, so I am done.

 

Candice (01:54:17):
That's right. And doesn't get easier when they become adults. I love my kids, and God bless their hearts. They were not set up for success with the parents that they had and the hand that they were.

 

Matt (01:54:30):
They didn't win that lottery.

 

Candice (01:54:31):
Man. They did not. And so they have their things. And so life gets really difficult, and it's always car issues no matter what. It's a car issue between the two of them. And so we've been going through a lot of that here recently. But it's like our hard today is so different.

 

Matt (01:54:56):
So different.

 

Candice (01:54:56):
And it's the coolest thing to stop and be like, I used to make that Matthew, because he would get quarters. We called him his little piles. He would make dollars out of quarters, change, whatever, but through these little piles. And that's always my comment to him is like, you're not making your little piles anymore. We're not scrounging to get by because we flew signs. I don't know about y'all, but we flew signs. So I mean, that was a whole thing. And life is just so different. So it's like we're incredibly, incredibly blessed to be where we are. We don't deserve this life. Absolutely. One of my biggest pet peeves is people that say that they're proud of themselves and people that think that they deserve this after all of the things, I don't deserve this. I've been blessed with this opportunity.

 

Matt (01:55:51):
That is such a refreshing thing, right? Yeah. Because my whole thing, so because of the direction that my recovery went, I've had to do a lot of work on my own for myself. And one of the things that, so ultimately what I call it is the debt of recovery where I've lived this fucked up existence, and I've accumulated all this debt because of all the fucked up shit that I've done to other people. And so there's all that debt, and then I entered recovery, and that's where my actual debt really started piling on, because I don't deserve any of this shit. And it's like every single day that I am alive after getting clean, there is no way to balance these scales because I'm just packing on more and more debt, and I'm in a situation in my life where life is happening to me in a way that I cannot even describe. And the only way I can fuck this shit up is if I actually fuck up. Everything snaps into place, and that's how I know I'm on the right path is because things are happening to me. And it's like people are like, this had to be hard. And it's like, no, no, no, no. The people, the organization, the hiring, all of this stuff is, this was an idea a year ago. That's it.

 

(01:57:13):
It's like we have almost a full group at our IOP now we're buying 148 bed facility. We're doing other stuff. It's like, this is not me. I tell people all the time, I have almost nothing to do with this other than I'm a widget. This could have been anybody. It wasn't me. I just got blessed with this. Right?

 

Candice (01:57:39):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:57:40):
But hard today, hard today, i's like having to watch my wife cry daily because we don't have her daughter. That's hard.

 

Candice (01:57:51):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:57:53):
And it's been over a year. It's been 18 months that we don't have her. Right. And so that is hard, but it isn't some of the crazy shit that we've been through being under those bridges. People don't understand what being under those bridges really means. It

 

Candice (01:58:11):
It's like what you hear people talk about, well, I was homeless. It's like, did you have a fucking car?

 

Matt (01:58:16):
Yeah. Yeah.

 

Candice (01:58:17):
Then you weren't homeless.

 

Matt (01:58:18):
No.

 

Candice (01:58:18):
Sorry, I hate to break it to you, bud, but that's not, I'm talking about real deal. No vehicle, probably no phone.

 

Matt (01:58:28):
And addicted to the most expensive.

 

Candice (01:58:30):
Exactly. And waking up dope sick every day knowing I have to walk down to this corner, muscle up the strength to hold this, to do this. Right. And I mean, it's every single day and where you're literally, I don't know if y'all did this, but we did at the end of the day, it's like, let's go home. The bridge. We literally called it home and every day it was like this so crazy. Every day we would pack up our stuff every single day and then unpack it at night

 

Matt (01:59:04):
And reset it all up. Then it was like,

 

Candice (01:59:07):
Yep. It was the most bizarre thing. And it's like people would be like, well, how did you eat? Well, I mean, the thing is don't usually that

 

Matt (01:59:15):
Is very low on the priority list.

 

Candice (01:59:17):
It's very low. I don't know if y'all were us where you'd get the hygiene packets or whatever, and they had the crackers. We'd split the crackers. The biggest fight we ever had was over dope. I was always watching

 

Matt (01:59:29):
All day

 

Candice (01:59:29):
Because he's rigging it up. And I'm always watching, are you shorting me?

 

Matt (01:59:35):
Dude, we had,

 

Candice (01:59:36):
Dude, it's

 

Matt (01:59:37):
Wild. So what we do is we would buy a pie in the morning and we would both just eat the pie all day. Because it was like six bucks at Albertson's And It had everything you needed, sugar, carbs.

 

Candice (01:59:48):
There it is.

 

Matt (01:59:50):
And then when we would, so we had access to a lot more funding because of what we were doing. We were selling drugs and doing other really crazy shit too. And she was always working doctors, and we had a lot more, when we became homeless, it was a very intentional thing. We were like, we're paying a couple grand a month for a studio, And I'm constantly getting us kicked out and we're having to find a new place to go. We were like, we just talked about this again the other day. I was like, do you remember when we decided to be homeless? And it was like a very, we could spend that money on more drugs. And we're like, we never come home anyway. And we're always downtown. We were just like, you know what? All of our friends are homeless. We're just going to do it, and then we can go get a hotel room when we need to shower. And it'd be like, so the deal was as long as when she wanted to shower, we could be homeless. But if that ever became a thing where we're now, I would never shower. I didn't give a fuck about showering. That was such a low priority for me. But these were all very intentional things, but our biggest fights were always around drugs. Always, always.

 

Candice (02:01:13):
He was always shorting me.

 

Matt (02:01:14):
That's what she says too,

 

Candice (02:01:15):
Always. But he swears to this day, he swears he was so fair. And I'm like, I don't trust you.

 

Matt (02:01:21):
Believe him. I believe him because she did the same thing. And I was always really fair, dude.

 

Candice (02:01:25):
And I think he was, the truth was, and I don't know if you were like this with her, my husband was always so afraid of me. I was just like,

 

Matt (02:01:33):
Me too, dude.

 

Candice (02:01:35):
My husband was terrified of me.

 

Matt (02:01:36):
I can't tell you how many times. So I would just not leave the house because there would be times where I would come back and all my shit would be packed and on the front porch.

 

Candice (02:01:45):
Dude, it was

 

Matt (02:01:47):
So scared of her,

 

Candice (02:01:48):
Bro. I don't know what it was. Opiates immediately made me angry, but I loved them, but they made me so angry, and my husband was just like, oh my God, I don't want to piss her off today. It's just a whole thing. And so I just don't think that he had the balls to short me, but in the back of my mind, it was like, you're shorting me, dude. You're totally, but he would hold them up. Look, it came out of the same cooker. What is wrong with you?

 

Matt (02:02:15):
I do graffiti, and especially while I was homeless, I was painting. I mean, we would walk down a street and I would have pockets full of markers, and every single, I would hit 50 different things on a single block. And so what I would do is when I was really just fed up with how she was treating me, I would just disappear for days and go to the other side of the city and just paint for days. And then she'd finally come and find me and bring me home, or bring me back to our bridge, Bring me home. And I was Like, Okay. Then it got really bad. I got psychotic, and she found out she was pregnant, and she left me because she was like, dude, so I was robbing connects and doing really dumb stuff, and she was like, you're going to get us both killed, and I'm pregnant. So she left me, and then I was like, okay, well, I've been talking about robbing banks for years now, so this is the perfect time. It's COVID. You can't go into a bank without a mask on. I was like, they're asking for it. So I was finally like, okay, watch this then. Fucking went and robbed a bank and ended up getting arrested for it like a week later or something like that. But that was when she had finally drew the line where she was like, you're so dangerous to be around. You are a dangerous person to be around. I can't be around you if I'm pregnant. And then she ended up getting clean. And that's actually what started this whole cascading effect of us getting clean was I robbed that bank. Yeah. But it's so crazy how similar these stories are.

 

Candice (02:03:54):
Yeah, it's wild. And so it's funny.

 

Matt (02:03:55):
This is not a normal story ether.

 

Candice (02:03:57):
No, it's not. And it's funny, so obviously y'all were homeless when she wound up pregnant because people ask, my husband and I all the time were y'all. And it's like, yeah, mean we were together, dude. I mean, if you've never done heroin, I'm just telling you, it doesn't make you not feel these feelings. If anything, it makes you more okay with your circumstance,

 

Matt (02:04:19):
More emotionally connected, for sure.

 

Candice (02:04:21):
Absolutely. And so it's like, yeah, man, homelessness is such a wild trip and it's a wild ride. And thinking about it, it really puts things into perspective. It's the thing that I never want to forget, not because it's like, oh, that's going to stop me from getting loaded. Obviously it didn't. Right?

 

(02:04:46):
But it's the thing I never want to forget because of gratitude because, and a lot of people are like, that's so awful. You went there. I don't think so. I'm so grateful. I'm so fucking grateful that I had that experience. If God came down today and said, do you want to do it all over again? I'd say yes. In a heartbeat. I wouldn't change a thing. There's nothing about my life that I would've changed. No death. I lost my mom, I lost my dad, I lost my sister to a murder suicide. I would not change a moment including losing my son. I would not change any of it because it was perfectly designed for a reason. And you've talked a lot about the struggle you're going through with your daughter, and I never had a real, when I started fighting for my son, it was when I was sober the first time. It had been that four years not having him actually more by this point. And I really got dealt a really shitty hand. I got a really terrible attorney. I found him in the rooms and he was just not a good dude

 

(02:05:59):
And didn't really do a whole lot. And there was a lot going on around that time and it was doing more harm to my son than good, and it was just not a good deal. Ultimately, I just kind of dropped the whole thing. He'll be 18 in July, next July, and

 

Matt (02:06:16):
So crazy. You're like adult kids and you're my age, dude. But you know what? I have a 15-year-old daughter though,

 

Candice (02:06:23):
So and so it's like with the whole battle with me and with my son and all of that, this was one of those things that I had, and this is not everybody's experience. I commend you and I encourage you to continue to fight this good fight because it's worth it. My story just looked a little bit different and my son is okay. He is okay, right? Do I love that? That's how it went. No, but do I pay that back child support you back your ass? I pay it and I show up and I do the things that I'm supposed to do that are pleasing to God. And I believe with everything that I have that he's going to turn 18 and God's going to bless me with an opportunity. What was so cool about paying those financial amends, I'm going to circle back to this for a second. One of the biggest parts of my sobriety journey is getting that job and starting to do that. Not three months into having that job, my son reached out to me on his own, found me on social media, pissed. He's got a whole other story of what happened. And I'm not willing to ruin his relationship, his dad to correct that. I'm letting him be there. But what ultimately happened is he built a relationship with my daughters.

 

Matt (02:07:44):
That's awesome.

 

Candice (02:07:45):
So it's like I may not have the relationship with him, but my daughters get his

 

Matt (02:07:50):
Hi sisters, do

 

Candice (02:07:50):
They get to heal? They get to have that. And so all because I became willing to pay this amends. And so it just goes to show

 

Matt (02:08:00):
At the perfect time,

 

Candice (02:08:01):
At the perfect time,

 

Matt (02:08:03):
So people ask me, do you regret anything? And it's like, okay. So at this point in my life, I have to look back and honestly say that there were times where I was living in regret, but at this point in my life, I don't regret anything. And I would do it all over again because now I can actually see the benefit of every single bit of suffering and pain. And if it wasn't for every single one of those experiences, I don't know if this would turn out the same. And so I don't regret anything anymore. Do I wish that things didn't have to be so painful to get to the same place? Fuck yeah. But at the same time, I have so much appreciation around what I went through that it's like my wife does struggle with what we have to go through. And I constantly try to shed light on my perspective because one of the things that she says is, I don't know how you are so okay with what's going on. And I just try to tell her I have no control.

 

Candice (02:09:09):
That's right.

 

Matt (02:09:10):
I have zero control over people. I have no control over outside circumstances anymore. And so I do what I have to do and I'm really good at at understanding what my responsibilities are. And I'm not saying that she's not. It's just a hard pill to swallow every day. She wakes up and has to deal with that.

 

Candice (02:09:33):
Yeah. Well, I've had people question me over the years of how can you be okay knowing that your son is, and it's like, okay, so I don't have a choice because this is the reality. I can choose. And because my story in regard to this, my story is a little bit different because I knew I wasn't getting my son back. So it was like I could choose to live in that and be miserable for the other two kids that I did get back, or I could choose to allow God to run his show the way that he needs to and just get out of his fucking way. And I think that that was what I had to do for everybody, not just for myself, for everybody. It's not that I am aloof or that I am just completely removed and just dismissive of the whole situation. It pains me to my core. I miss my son every day, but I also don't know my son. And that's a piece that people understand. I lost him when he was four. I don't know that kid and he doesn't know me. And it's a tough and a bitter pill to swallow. Do I miss my son? Do I know? Am I connected to him as a mother? Absolutely. Do I know in my heart that I didn't give up on him? Absolutely. But in some ways did I? Yeah, I had to.

 

Matt (02:10:54):
Right? Yeah. So seeing the forest through the trees is difficult. And so for somebody to try to put themselves in your shoes, they're not going to be able to see it because of the experiences, but the reality, well, from my point of view, the reality is this is that every single behind every principle, there's a promise. And behind our feelings is nothing every single time. And so we can get lost in our feelings, but then guess what happens? We ignore our responsibilities and by thinking that we can change things. This is for me at least, if I ever think that I can change things, that means that I'm in a fucked up place because I think I have the power and I have no power outside of myself. And powerlessness is a thing that has to be accepted over certain things, period. But it does not mean we are powerless, period. It means that we are powerless over specific things.

 

Candice (02:12:00):
That's right.

 

Matt (02:12:01):
But I have a lot of power within my own life. I have the power to stay sober. I have the power to continually progress. But that's why I say that sobriety and recovery is a superpower because it is. And it is probably getting a doctorate or a juris doctorate and going to law school or medical school, those are hard things. This is a whole different level of hard. And it's one of the hardest things that humans will ever have to do is get sober. Thoroughly convinced to that.

 

Candice (02:12:33):
Well, and you mentioned the business development aspect. So we'll kind of trudge through that a little bit, having integrity and being in this field. And because I agree with you on a lot of points that you made, it can get very sketchy very fast. There is the vanity piece of it. There is the, we don't actually care what you bring to the table, but what do you look like? Kind of deal. I'm thankful. I don't work for a company like that. I'm thankful for the type of interview that I went through to get this job. But there are jobs like that in this particular field, and it's incredibly hard. And it was hard for me to decide to even come into this part because I was a person that was indirect client care I, I had this genuine care for people and for their journey. And once I had the understanding of the purpose of treatment and how it can be very beneficial, it then ignited this fire in me to get more. So I work for the last resort out in Smithville, and it is a 45 day, and there's all levels of care. So there's detox, residential, P-H-P-I-O-P, and sober living,

 

Matt (02:13:50):
Full continuum,

 

Candice (02:13:50):
Full continuum. And so it's really neat. And they've had people hang out for quite a while there. And it's an all male facility. And so when we say we do something, we really do. You mentioned that earlier about trauma. We actually do do that there.

 

Matt (02:14:07):
Yeah.

 

Candice (02:14:10):
Being on property, there is an experience all in itself experiencing what these guys are going through day to day and having them kind of secluded in this all male facility is so neat because there's not these outside distractions. We're dealing with some men's issues there and it's like I just have a high, the equine therapy, you hear a lot of places say, yeah, we have that. No, we are nationally recognized for ours. We have our horses live there.

 

Matt (02:14:47):
An episode was posted today of this podcast. Listen to that. So that guy is an equine therapist on a really high level. And we talked about horses I think for the first hour of the podcast, but it was such a cool conversation around that. But what you're speaking to is the evolution of the individual inside of treatment. Something that Dr. Shah and I are developing right now as part of the curriculum around and packaging his model. And one of the core pieces is the evolution after the work is done, after the initial trauma work is done, because trauma work is interesting. It isn't something that is healed definitively at a single point. There are layers to the trauma and different types of trauma where it's like, it's very obvious when somebody's been sexually traumatized. They present and have very specific mannerisms and it's very different when somebody's been physically abused, they present a completely different way or somebody that was emotionally abused. They present a whole different kind of way. And it's all trauma, but not all trauma is the same.

 

Candice (02:15:58):
That's right.

 

Matt (02:15:59):
And not all trauma affects people the same. They could have gone through the exact same thing, but the way that they process it or the way that they have blocked things or the way that they coped with things is totally different. And so I was sexually abused as a kid and I've done a bunch of therapy around it. My therapist, we kind of joke about it now. I've gotten to this point where she's like, dude, your sexual trauma is not what you used over. It just wasn't right. Whereas I know other people that their sexual trauma is the crux of every single bit of everything that they go through. And every day, everything that they experience is looked at through the lens of I was sexually abused. Whereas other people can go through that and it's like I had other trauma that was significantly more traumatizing than that experience for sure. And then men specifically, we are living in the epidemic of silent suffering specifically for men, but this is systemic for both genders. But men are put in a position where trauma is not something that we're first of all educated about. We don't understand the language around it, and we're taught to suffer in silence around it.Right? That's right. What happens when men suffer in silence?

 

Candice (02:17:22):
Oh, an even bigger explosion happens.

 

Matt (02:17:23):
They become destructive men.

 

Candice (02:17:24):
That's right.

 

Matt (02:17:25):
Emotionally unstable. Men are the most dangerous men to be around

 

Candice (02:17:29):
100%.

 

Matt (02:17:30):
And so we need to develop this language and this culture around trauma that is way more actually informed. But the key to all of this is awareness for the individual that's making them aware of what's actually going on. A lot of us are just not aware.

 

Candice (02:17:50):
Yeah. So up at TLR, we have had men come in with families, wives, kids come in and come out while they're there, come out as gay while they're there, have been living. But this is the type of environment that we have there. This is safe, this is space that we provide. We're not just saying, come to our facility and we offer X, Y, and Z and you're just going to be here for a set amount of days and then fuck you when you leave. That's not how we are set up. And I know that it's like seeing is believing, but I encourage, when we have our next pro day, I encourage you to come.

 

Matt (02:18:29):
Yeah, I'll be there.

 

Candice (02:18:30):
because this is what we're doing. We're truly doing this every single day up there and I could not be more proud to be a part of this.

 

Matt (02:18:43):
How long have you been with them?

 

Candice (02:18:44):
So I got with TLR, August 11th was my first day there and they reached out to me and it was just such a God thing and

 

Matt (02:18:55):
Definitely a God thing. I know what happened.

 

Candice (02:18:58):
Right, right. Definitely a God thing. Yeah. So that happened on a Tuesday. Friday. TLR reached out to me. That is amazing. It was awesome. And it's just so cool. I know I'm smiling like a dork, but it's so cool to be at a place that aligns with everything that I believe in and that I can scream from the rooftops that I'm so proud of. And it's like I feel like I'm home. It was crazy because walking into working in treatment, I felt like I just kept hitting walls. I was like, maybe I didn't hear God right. Maybe this is not where I'm supposed to be.

 

Matt (02:19:36):
You're like, did I make this decision based on what I want?

 

Candice (02:19:40):
Yeah. It's like, what?

 

Matt (02:19:42):
This shit is not working.

 

Candice (02:19:43):
This is not this, isn't it? It's like I kept thinking, alright, well this is the place, but then this. And then it was like if I didn't have all of the shitty experiences that I had, I would not be where I'm at today doing this, being able to get on the phone with that person. I have spent hours on the phone with somebody just trying to get down with going to treatment because we all have these demands when we're going to go to treatment. It's like, what kind of beds do you have? What's the thread count? It's all of these things. It's like, buddy, let me talk to you for a second about how much of those things are about to not matter at all, right? If you continue to go the way that you're going, let me break that down for you and give you some real perspective. It's like,

 

Matt (02:20:31):
Yo, I've been around that corner

 

Candice (02:20:33):
Dude,

 

Matt (02:20:33):
And you have no clue what's around it.

 

Candice (02:20:35):
You have no clue. And it's a tough pill for people to swallow sometimes, but sometimes it takes that. It takes spending that time. And as a recovery coach, I have that background to be able to do that. You're not just a number to me. You're a person. And I will follow them while they are in treatment. I will follow them in treatment silently. But I have the ability to see, okay, are they making it? Are they doing it? I'm silently rooting for them because it's like, man, I just want to see you make it. I just want to see you get to the other side.

 

(02:21:11):
My job as a marketer in business development period is we are building numbers and we're trying to build up and we're trying to develop business, but at the end of the day it's like, can I get down with this? And how do I morally get behind this? And how I morally get behind all of it is like it's the help on the other side. I know where I'm telling them to go is a good place. I know they're getting the help that they need and that they deserve. So I feel confident in that. And that's a damn good feeling.

 

Matt (02:21:41):
There is a lot of subpar treatment out there. And then there are pillars and then beacons of hope and light within the industry where it's like this is a new organization. We've been open for a couple months, a few months almost. But this business was built from my experience in treatment where I've done a lot of treatment. People typically go to treatment a lot. Not only did I go to treatment a lot, I did a lot of time in treatment. I did more treatment at one stay than most people ever do in their life. And just the disconnect. So you're right, A lot of people have these expectations around what treatment is based on what they're sold about, what treatment is. And one of the things that I really, really disagree with is selling people on treatment based on amenities or shit like that. It's like, I get it. You guys need to attract people to this because you can't force any. Actually, Trump just, did you see what he did a month ago?

 

Candice (02:22:51):
Maybe

 

Matt (02:22:51):
He made it federally legal. So they did this in California a long time ago, but they made it federally legal to involuntarily commit people to treatment if they're homeless. But yeah, your job, you can't force people into treatment.

 

Candice (02:23:07):
No, absolutely not. No.

 

Matt (02:23:08):
But being able to say, listen, there is things that happen here that I can promise you will happen here. That makes a big difference. Because like I said, I had that experience where I went to a really highly regarded treatment center based on this one thing, and I got there and they were like, nope, Ain't doing it. And it wasn't like, I'm glad they didn't because ultimately they weren't qualified to do it. And if they would've tried to do it, I don't know how the outcome would've been.

 

Candice (02:23:43):
It could have been a disaster.

 

Matt (02:23:44):
Right. And that is another thing where it's like trauma-informed care. It should mean something very specific. But how are you going to scratch at these scabs, this person's in there for 28 days. You're going to scratch these scabs. And if they're not committing to aftercare levels like P-H-P-I-O-P op, You're going to send them out there to spiral because now they're just activated. Right? So it's like how do you actually,

 

Candice (02:24:08):
It's like telling somebody to write a fourth step and not actually doing the fifth step. That's exactly what it's like.

 

Matt (02:24:13):
Exactly. That is exactly what it's like.

 

Candice (02:24:16):
Yep, 100%. And so it is precisely why I developed such an opinion. I developed this opinion around it because I was like, it's a setup, but all treatment is not like that.

 

Matt (02:24:31):
Not all treatment.

 

Candice (02:24:32):
It's truly not. And I had to go through being on the other side of it, not as a patient, but on the other side of working in it to kind of deduce, okay, this should maybe happen and maybe this shouldn't happen. And I will tell you, working at Matthews Hope Foundation, that was a really incredible experience because what we were given was kind of this free reign to really help people recover and really tailor this experience, even though we were a detox and we had 'em for a short amount of time. We came in there, heavy recovery coaches, and we had LCD CS on staff, and we were all super aligned and really had the same motive in mind as far as helping these people. And we really did this. And so they'd go through the detox and then they'd get two years free of recovery support thereafter.

 

Matt (02:25:25):
That's amazing.

 

Candice (02:25:26):
So then they were just coming in and getting coaching set. So I'm literally walking with these people hand in hand through their journeys and not everybody picked up a 12 step avenue of recovery, but I'm walking with them through these things. And it's like when typically when they didn't pick it up, and not all the time, not everybody needs to be there, but oftentimes I'd have people that could not stay sober. And it's like, okay, so do you think you want to try this one more time? Do you think you want to maybe walk this way? And it was always so cool when they would pick up the tools and they would do it. And I'm getting to show up to meetings with them and I'm getting to really walk. And so I had this really amazing experience, which just afforded me the opportunity to do it differently in business development, to really show up for these people, to be engaged with them and love on them because I am not the family.

 

(02:26:16):
They pissed off. And I have to remember that because this level of tough love that goes into it, I think. But I'm also not the person that they harmed. So when I can be that sounding board and say, yo, I'm proud of you. You don't get to be proud of yourself, but I'm totally proud of you for making this decision. It means something to them. When somebody can say these pivotal things that seem so small and so minute, everybody's pissed at them. So when you're the one person that says, I'm proud of you, you've done something for them and it's helped them make this decision.

 

(02:26:50):
I walked a guy through, he had to go to detox here locally before he came out to one of our facilities. And I'm talking, I probably talked to this guy every single day. He had anger issues and all these different things going on, and I would talk him off the ledge. He almost jumped ship a couple different times. He's successfully discharging in a couple of days. It's like, but walking through that. And I told him, dude, I'm so proud of you. And he lost it crying because nobody's proud of this guy. He's a veteran. He's been to prison, he's lost his kids. It's like a whole thing. And nobody's proud of this dude. And he's never attempted sobriety before. He is never done any. And so hearing that for him was enough. He was just enough to give him the motivation. It's not enough to keep him sober, but it's enough to give him the motivation to at least give himself a fair shot. Yeah.

 

Matt (02:27:39):
Yeah. I mean, so that is something that if you listen to any of these episodes, I talk about it all the time where it's like, you're right, historically, the people who cared about you so much and wanted you to just go to treatment and get better and not be sick anymore and be the son that I raised you to be and all that stuff, when you get out of treatment, they're pissed at you all this years of wreckage and damage and you've robbed us and stolen and cheated and this and that. And it's like the people who wanted you to go are now just fucking pissed at you. And trying to send a person back out into that without doing the family work is a recipe for disaster.

 

Candice (02:28:20):
That's right.

 

Matt (02:28:20):
It's a recipe disaster. And that is something that is lacking in the industry. I know that everybody's got a family day, but if they don't go to family day, there is no premium put on. Like, Hey, we're going to reach out to these people. We're going to do, because it's the obligation to the client. Yeah, we're not going to get paid for that. And this is where so one thing leads to another, leads to another where it's like I have heard so many times where it's like treatment centers survive on their relapses on the people who relapse and come back. And it's like, so it's like, okay, are you not doing the family work because you want them to come back?

 

Candice (02:29:00):
There are a lot of revolving doors in treatment. Absolutely.

 

Matt (02:29:03):
For sure.

 

Candice (02:29:04):
Absolutely. Set up, designed

 

Matt (02:29:06):
For sure.

 

Candice (02:29:07):
And yeah, that's all I'll say about that.

 

Matt (02:29:10):
I mean, I don't know. We are building something different here for that for sure. And every single person on my team, my medical director, our clinical director, my executive director, we're all in recovery. Every single person here is in recovery. And we all do something different, which is why we can justify and have these conversations around a multiple pathway approach that's meaningful in a way that it's like we are doing something different. And it's like, yeah, everybody says that.

 

Candice (02:29:44):
They do,

 

Matt (02:29:45):
But we are already getting negative feedback from the community where we're obviously doing something different, very obviously.

 

Candice (02:29:54):
And that that's the first way to figure out if you're different is like that

 

Matt (02:30:01):
For sure.

 

Candice (02:30:03):
And I've heard nothing but good things. And I told you that on the phone that day in a minute, I've heard nothing but good things about what you guys are doing over here. And we were coming up when I was at the old place that I won't name. We were coming up at the same time. And I remember thinking, they're doing it right. Can we just pay attention to what they're doing? Because that was part of the struggle at the old place. And I have, again, I've heard nothing but good things about what's going on over here. I've met your staff, I happen to know one of your staff members pretty well. And I just think that what y'all are doing is really dope. And I think the way that you did it and how generous you were upon opening and compassionate, really spoke volumes because we see it right in this world. We pretty much see and pay attention to what's going on around us at all times, right? Because it's our job and we have to, but sitting on the sideline and I'm watching, I'm like, they're doing it. They're doing it, and they're doing it well, and I think you're doing it in the most simple, and I don't say that to minimize what you guys are doing, but you're not overcomplicating it. And because why would you?

 

(02:31:30):
Because that's the setup for failure. When you start overcomplicating it, you start to, I have this and I do this, and it's all this stuff. It's like, no, find the thing so you can actually help these people because if you're going to start adding all the amenities and doing all this stuff as an outpatient, you're doing it wrong.

 

Matt (02:31:50):
There is, if we are in the business of saving lives, then what is most important is efficacy and efficiency. And in order to be as effective as possible, you have to focus on what's important.

 

Candice (02:32:06):
That's right.

 

Matt (02:32:07):
And so it's like we did not try to build the plane after it left. We built the plane and then took off in it.

 

Candice (02:32:15):
I saw that you did it beautifully

 

Matt (02:32:18):
And everything was very intentional. And if we did something, there was meta conversations around every aspect of what we did. And it was like, I'm sure people were asking like, well, why are they doing it like that? Or what is going on over there? And it's like, why don't they have a medical directory yet? Why don't they have a clinical directory yet? We are not going to put our eggs in a basket if we do not understand the person. And so now we have Dr. Shaw, we have Annette Martinez, and it's like, this is why we waited. Because if we would've just knee jerk reaction, hired somebody out the gate, just

 

Candice (02:32:56):
Picked them all up, then what?

 

Matt (02:32:58):
What would've happened.

 

Candice (02:32:58):
That's right. That's

 

Matt (02:32:59):
Right. And if you look at the success rates around early startup iops by now, typically the entire staff has turned over. Nobody has turned over here.

 

Candice (02:33:11):
You're absolutely correct.

 

Matt (02:33:12):
So it was very intentional, and it's like the interviewing process was rigorous, and it was like we are hiring for something specific. We're hiring off qualifications, and we're hiring off of multiple things. But loyalty and intention, are you going to be with us 15 years from now? It is one of the questions, what is your long-term plan for this industry? What are you going to be doing 15 years from now? If you can't see yourself with us in 15 years, then you're not going to be a good fit.

 

Candice (02:33:43):
That's right.

 

Matt (02:33:44):
Because the collateral that is built with clientele is not built with the clinicians. It's built with the guy that's washing dishes. It's built with the maintenance guy. It's built with the front desk lady where after they go through a hard processing group and whatever, they're going to go to the kitchen and talk to the cook about whatever it is that they're struggling with because that's the person that they've built that relationship with. So all of these people are vetted for what is your longevity? How much tolerance do you have for this work? Is this actually what you're meant to do? If it's not, then there's plenty of treatment centers here that you can go work for.

 

Candice (02:34:21):
That's right. That's right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that, yeah, man, I watched that unfold and I just thought, yeah, that's the way to do it right there. And I've done, now, two startups, got two startups under my belt, and I'm over it. I want no part of it ever again. But I'm so glad that yours went the way that it did, and it happened as smoothly as it did. And I think that there's something to be said about that's nothing, but that's a God thing, period.

 

Matt (02:34:55):
That is strictly a God thing. There is no handbook for this. And there is so much conflicting data and information about what's the right way and what's the wrong way. And it's like I tell people constantly, I had almost nothing to do with the success. This was not a testament of me. This was meant to be, and I was just the person that was chosen.

 

Candice (02:35:17):
You're an instrument that you're just that vessel. And I think that that's where I find that my life is the most simple, is when I can recognize that I am just a vessel. I do not. It's not me, period. All of the good deeds and the kind and loving acts and the service work and all of that, I don't get to take credit. If I can just get down with the idea that I'm being used as a vessel. That's when God has the most free range to just work and do. And I'm always pleasantly surprised when I get out of the way and I'm just letting him work. It's like, oh, this is really easy. It's the hardest decision to make, but it's the easiest piece of action where it's like, I just really have to be in this end place. He's going to ask me to put some footwork in with certain things. That's reality. It's not like I'm just floating around and all these things are happening, but if I can just let him run it, use me as the vessel move my feet and the way that they need to go.

 

Matt (02:36:28):
So when conversations get to this point, I'm sure people are like, what the fuck does that even mean? And it's very simple. They talk about it in aa, the next right indicated step. If you do the right thing now, then next thing will be presented. And it's that simple. And as long as you make those right decisions and you'll know it feels right, things happen. It will be very obvious when you're doing what you're supposed to do.

 

Candice (02:36:56):
That's right.

 

Matt (02:36:56):
It's become very obvious for me when I do what I'm supposed to do, it becomes very obvious. And on the other side of that coin is when I am not doing what I'm supposed to be doing, it is also very obvious,

 

Candice (02:37:07):
Very much.

 

Matt (02:37:08):
And it's very obvious for people around us. And it's very obvious to me because I can feel it.

 

Candice (02:37:12):
Oh, yeah. Oh, it comes out. And it manifests in various ways where it's like the delusions begin to build. Now everybody's mad at me now that guy doesn't like me now. I

 

Matt (02:37:22):
Paranoia.

 

Candice (02:37:23):
Oh my God, it's a cancer. It's so awful. But all the defects of characters start glaring again. They, I'm vomiting defects of character, and it's just like, how do I get out of this? How have I gotten here again? Oh my God. Oh my God. And it's like I just made decisions based on self, which later placed me in a position to be hurt. That's what I did.

 

Matt (02:37:48):
If you have awareness around the process and you can catch whatever the situation is that you're in, it's almost easy to point to, oh, that's the moment that I took control. Right? Okay. I need to go back to that position or back to, I just need to write this wrong. Right. Wrongs becomes a lot easier. It becomes, It's a skill. There's no talent in it. Nobody's just naturally good at fixing their fuckups.

 

Candice (02:38:16):
Hey, I harmed you in the following ways. Yeah.

 

Matt (02:38:18):
But it's definitely a skill. You get better at it. For sure.

 

Candice (02:38:21):
Yeah, no, for sure. And that's a gift in itself because I lied to everyone, and I was never admitting when I harmed you, I was never was going to, no, fuck, you did more harm for me, period. I'll die on that hill. But it is so much easier for me today to go, you know what? Hey, I said X, Y, and Z, and I was wrong in these areas. And actually I was dishonest in the answer that I gave you, and

 

(02:38:51):
I didn't respect your boundary. These are things that I had to learn over time practicing them. And it talks in the literature about the proper use of will and praying and some different things. And I think that there's proper use of will in literally forcing myself into this integrity of being able to admit when I've been wrong and showing up and being honest behind closed doors and living this life fully at all times, which is not perfect. Definitely not the perfect person in sobriety. I have my own fair share of crap. But I think this practice of doing these things and showing up a certain way, it matters for long-term sobriety. It matters because my spirituality is what I come to realize is the most prominent part of the whole thing, right? It's like I am powerless and I am this deep down. This person that I am is not a good person. The person that I truly am is awful, is a liar, will steal your shit and help you look for it.

 

Matt (02:40:06):
I think that the potential person, but I think that we become the person we were supposed to be.

 

Candice (02:40:11):
Sure. That was going to be my next point. So when I'm taking a girl through the steps, when she's reading her fist up to me, I'm writing down her defects of character. And I always write this little note and every response you have, mine can attest to this, but I write this little note, this is not who you are. These are the things that are blocking you from who God intended you to be. Let 'em take all of them. You don't need 'em where you're going. And so I think that the person that I am today is who God always intended me to be. But in my natural self, flesh me minus or absent God, terrible,

 

Matt (02:40:48):
Somebody told me one time that all of your defects of character are abused gifts. Every single defect of character that you had is you taking control of a gift that God gave you and abusing it. And then eventually we always talk about the defects of character become our strengths. And what that ultimately means to me, at least the way that I have to simplify it is if the defect becomes a strength, that means that God took back control, or I gave God back the control over whatever this is.

 

Candice (02:41:17):
That's right. Yeah. So I think it's all in perspective, right? It's like if I'm going to let God make me who God intended me to be, then that version of me is stellar. But when I start taking, which he gave me, right? He gave me free will to it's either this or it's that. There is no gray area with it, right? It's like there's

 

Matt (02:41:36):
Not for us,

 

Candice (02:41:37):
Right? No, I mean it's very black and white and He gave me the free will. So if I'm in my will, terrible, if I'm trying to align with His will, Pretty okay.

 

Matt (02:41:47):
And we have the history to prove it.

 

Candice (02:41:48):
Yeah, absolutely.

 

Matt (02:41:49):
We don't have to question this anymore. We know

 

Candice (02:41:51):
No, God no. And step one tells me there's a guarantee, right? There's a guarantee behind step one, I will get loaded, period. It's not like if I choose no, literally I will get loaded, right? Because this is who I am

 

Matt (02:42:10):
It isn't if it's when

 

Candice (02:42:11):
100%. But man, I'm so grateful that you had me on. I didn't realize our stories were so similar. That's That's a trip. That's

 

Matt (02:42:21):
Rare. Like I said, we all have the same baseline, but to have so many similarities is really cool.

 

Candice (02:42:27):
I don't ever meet anybody that is close me either. It's a very odd, and you mentioned choosing. We chose to, I will never forget making that decision, choosing to be homeless. It's a wild thing. Not that we had a whole lot of options. It was getting pretty sketchy, but it would just be easier for we're going to go to this corner anyways and we're going to go hustle. So may as well just stop getting rides and stop whatever. So we're just going to do this. And we did.

 

Matt (02:43:01):
And it becomes easier.

 

Candice (02:43:03):
It does. But that first night out there, I was crying. I was like, what have I done?

 

Matt (02:43:07):
Really?

 

Candice (02:43:08):
Oh God, it was bad.

 

Matt (02:43:10):
I tell that have never experienced it. I try to explain to them, there is a level of freedom that comes with homelessness that normal people will never understand.

 

Candice (02:43:19):
That's right.

 

Matt (02:43:20):
There is a complete disconnect between every responsibility of a contributing member of society, a complete disconnect between that and what we are doing. And people try to mimic it all the time. They try to go off into the wilderness and go camping for a month at a time and stuff like that, but they'll never capture what we have discovered in homelessness.

 

Candice (02:43:40):
No, no, never. It's a wild ride. And I'm forever grateful for the experience because, but there's the homeless community that will never, there are people out there, and we've both been homeless with them. They'll never ever come off of the streets, ever.

 

Matt (02:44:02):
So I talk about this all the time. There's a 24 billion scandal that's happening in California right now where they were like, oh, we're going to fix the homeless problem. And in light of time restrictions right now, I'm going to just really quickly go through this. Basically at the bottom line was they started this experiment with 32,000 homeless people in California, 24 billion later, there's 162,000. And they're going, what the fuck happened? How did this happen? And I've done drugs with every homeless person in San Diego County, probably no exaggeration, probably done drugs with every single one of them. And of the 2,500 that they say are downtown in San Diego, maybe, maybe. And I'm going to be very generous, maybe a hundred of them are actually mentally ill. It's probably somewhere closer to 12, but maybe a hundred are actually mentally ill and don't have a choice. The rest of them, when we are public facing, we will say, man, we would really appreciate a hand up. And they've got all this terminology around, we don't know what to do. And it's like, I've had deep conversations around this. Every single one of them wants to be there. They love,

 

Candice (02:45:11):
That's it.

 

Matt (02:45:12):
The lifestyle.

 

Candice (02:45:14):
And that's the thing people don't understand when I say this, they're like, don't say that about them. It's the truth. The streets eat 'em up.

 

Matt (02:45:19):
Don't say that about them.

 

Candice (02:45:21):
I am one of them. I am. I am. And I know the streets were about to eat me up too. It's just easier. It really is. And you're correct. It's a very small percentage of them that are actually mentally ill with no choice.

 

Matt (02:45:32):
Very, very small.

 

Candice (02:45:34):
Most of them are all drug addicted, Period.

 

Matt (02:45:38):
And want to be there.

 

Candice (02:45:38):
They want to be there. Absolutely. And so it's like, but I will say that if it hadn't been for this family that did not know us, and I mean that's a whole other story, but if it hadn't been for them, I don't know that we would've made it off the street. So I have to pay attention to that at some point in my life where it's like, I need to give back in the same way, because it was that family that scooped us up and didn't have to, and here I am sitting here doing a podcast with you about it.

 

Matt (02:46:14):
Five years ago, if somebody said, this is what you're going to be doing. I know five years ago if somebody said, Hey, Matt, this is what's going to be happening to you, and they told me about my life today. I'd be like, dude, you're fucking no way. No. I mean, it isn't even in the cards. Like I said, none of this logically makes sense. This is not a US thing, for sure.

 

Candice (02:46:35):
Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matt (02:46:36):
Okay. Well, let's do this again.

 

Candice (02:46:38):
Yes.

 

Matt (02:46:38):
I have a feeling that these conversations can go on for a long time.

 

Candice (02:46:42):
Oh, for sure. Yeah.

 

Matt (02:46:43):
I appreciate your time, and thank you for coming.

 

Candice (02:46:45):
Thank you for having me.

 

Matt (02:46:46):
We'll definitely do this again.

 

Candice (02:46:47):
Yeah, absolutely.

 

Matt (02:46:51):
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'd 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.