Life After Losing My Kids Twice, Selling Drugs on Reddit, & Living in a Trash Shelter

Rachel (00:00)
And so the judge just looked at me and she was like, it's time you take responsibility for your life. And I don't know why, but for some reason, like in that moment, I was like, damn, she's fucking right.

Matt (00:14)
I'm Matt Handy and you're listening to My Last Relapse. Okay, Rachel. Yes. Thank you for coming. welcome. So you're from Dallas and we're in Houston now. Yes. And you left at like five in the morning to come. Mm-hmm. Thank you. I appreciate that. Really? Yeah. Are you from Dallas?

Rachel (00:29)
And this is my first time in Houston.

Well, ⁓ I'm not from there, but I mean, I've lived there a majority of my life. The Midwest, Indiana.

Matt (00:39)
Okay, where are from?

⁓ okay. Slipknot Kids. Punk Rock Kids. Yeah. That's right. So obviously, like a good place to start is childhood. Nobody escapes their childhood unscathed. Yeah. But where do you want to start?

Rachel (00:45)
No, punk rock kids.

I'll actually, hmm, you know, I'm to start in the Midwest. I'm not like too young. I mean, I do have memories. So my dad and my mom are both from Indiana, but they got divorced when I was a baby. And I have two sisters. One's a half sister, one's my little sister. And the middle one, the one that's older than me is seven years older than me. And so she stayed with my dad and my mom took me. They just kind of split us up, you know.

And then as I got older, my mom dealt with lot of mental health issues and alcohol and all kinds of shit. So I'd go back and forth. And when I started high school, I moved to the Midwest. I moved back to the Midwest. like, I think that that's kind of when like the actual using drugs started, you know? How old? I think like maybe 12. Yeah. But I truly firmly believe I was like born an addict. Yeah. know what I mean? Because I've never, like,

Matt (01:50)
Okay.

Rachel (01:55)
I'm always just seeking adrenaline. ⁓ So yeah, my cousin picked me up one day and she took me to some house party, playing punk rock and drinking. At this point, I maybe had listened to Avril Lavigne. I think I had a fucking safety pin through my ear and I was just like, ⁓

Matt (02:14)
Yeah

Rachel (02:17)
Yeah, dude, and it was like, and I was like thinking around the drive over here because I have plenty of hours, you know? So I was just listening to music and like going through the Rolodex of photos of my fucking childhood. And I was like, dude, low key, it was not that bad, you know? It was like before phones, really.

Matt (02:33)
Yeah, no, we- so we were like some of the last people to go through high school without cell phones.

Rachel (02:37)
Oh my god, it was so grand.

Dude, it was, you know, and I think punk rock for me, like a lot of people started listening to punk because it was very political or it was just like a way to be like, you know, fuck the system. But I think I just really enjoyed like the chaos of it. You know what I mean? Like in the Midwest, there's trains, so you'd hop trains to go to shows, fucking basements, dude. Like I've seen fucking leftover crack in a basement, you know what Chicago. That's dope. Yeah.

I seen Stizza piss in a 40 ounce bottle and a girl drank it. And the countless bands, I couldn't even tell you their names anymore because it mostly just fucking local bands. And so many graffiti artists. So many graffiti artists. And skateboarding, fucking Jimmy John's. I mean, it was like when I look at it, I'm like, dude, this is like...

Matt (03:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rachel (03:32)
I mean, you could just be driving through and it's like not weird to see a dude like fully studded out with a fucking mohawk. Like I remember being culture shocked when I went there because I was like in ninth grade and I'm like, do these people have tattoos? They're fully pierced up like Texas, there's just a strict dress code, dude. Like you can't do shit like that. You know what I mean?

Matt (03:43)
Yeah

Yeah, I'm from San Diego and it's like do you like yeah, we were tatted in high school Yeah, and like there were my heroin dealer was in my fourth period class and There was like a daycare for the girls that had kids at my high school Yeah

Rachel (04:09)
Yeah.

And it was so weird because there's like, I'm from a small town, but it's kind of like a big town out of all the small towns. And so there's like sections to it, right? There's like the inner city, right? And then there's like the north side that's like the preppy side that have a little bit of money. And there's like...

Matt (04:26)
It's like straight outsider shit.

Rachel (04:29)
Dude, I was just about to get there too. And there's like, you know, like the redneck side that's like still fucking fully racist as fuck. You know what mean? And then there's like, he's a fucking outsider. Called, ⁓ Tera Haute.

Matt (04:37)
What town is this?

yeah, Indiana. Larry Bird's from there. Is he? ⁓ French Lick and Terre Haute. But yeah.

Rachel (04:44)
My dad loves-

I believe that. My dad was a big Celtics fan and he... So, okay, so back to the Midwest. So I started hanging out with people that are a lot older than me. I had a friend, her name was Leah, she was my best friend. She had a car, so I would ride the bus to school and then we'd get in her car and we'd skip school and we'd go to like skate park. We'd get like a half gallon of Beams 8 Star, which I guess is equivalent to Kentucky Deluxe in Texas.

Matt (04:52)
That it make sense. ⁓

Rachel (05:18)
and we get fucked up, you know? I don't even know because I think somehow I set it up to like when I would skip school, the school would call my phone, because I did have a cell phone, but it was like, yeah, like, oh.

Matt (05:30)
Yeah, was like the like a flip phone. Like the Nokia 710s. Yeah. Not like this big.

Rachel (05:32)
Yeah, it's so-

Yeah, brick breaker, all that shit. And ⁓ so my dad never found out, you know what mean? Like, I don't know how he did, but I just, like the entire year, I never went to school, not one day.

Matt (05:46)
Yeah, I got to that like the cops were showing up to my parents house saying that if I didn't go to school They would be in trouble. Yeah, which blows my mind cuz it's like I don't know Our parents don't own us the state does Yeah, why they can take us from them

Rachel (05:53)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, okay, just to backtrack a little bit. The relationship I had with my mother was, ⁓ it wasn't a good one. The relationship I had with my dad was a good one. Like, when I look back, I have way less memories with my dad, but they're way more vibrant, if that makes any sense. And I don't know if I developed this as like a coping mechanism, but I tend to...

Matt (06:21)
Don't make Solana sense.

Rachel (06:28)
hold on to things that I have good memories of more than I do bad memories. Or maybe I stuff them in, I'm not really sure. But those ones are just like more memorable to me, And my dad was, he was just a hard working, you know, blue collar guy. But he always spent time with me, you know? Like we watched wrestling, you know, we played pogs. I don't know if anyone knows what pogs are. I had like the whole set, dude. I just, I loved playing pogs with him.

Matt (06:53)
Do remember when did Star Wars Episode I come out? Like 99, I think. And Taco Bell, on the bottom of every cup there was a Pog. Do you remember this?

Rachel (07:02)
I don't, that sounds so fucking cool. don't have, you my memories, you know, it's very selective, I'll tell you that much. And at this time, you know, I was young, I'd have push-up contests with him and like, he would always go first so I could do one more, you know what I mean? But he'd like push me, you know what I mean? And my sister, my older sister loved me so she was like the epitome of the sister that just gives you shit for everything, you know, like.

She was like, oh, you know, I'm going to cut your Barbie's hair and make it look cute. She cut all the hair off. know what I mean? She was like, I'm going to give you a makeover. Come here, sit down. And she'd like, Marilyn Manson my face up. Just like, look in the mirror and like, what the fuck did you just do to me? You know, like crying. Because I'm only, you know, like I'm in first grade, kindergarten at this time. You know what mean? And I would just, I'd always get into shit. don't know necessarily what, I think she was more like a grungy kind because she listened to ICP.

Matt (07:36)
Yeah.

Was she into punk too?

Rachel (08:00)
I don't know if she listened to it, but I know that she knew that I hated it, that it scared me, because it was a little... And so she would lock me in her room and make me listen to it. And I remember one song was talking about eating bodies for breakfast. I was like, what? No, let me out of here. And she'd be like, hey, what are y'all doing up in my room? And we're in there fucking rolling up paper, just paper, smoking like a cigarette, dude. And she'd just throw stink bombs in there and just hold the door shut so we couldn't get out.

Matt (08:21)
Yeah

Rachel (08:29)
It was fucked up then, but when I look back on it, I was like, how does cool. I'm glad I had that experience.

Matt (08:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I'm the oldest of ten, so I did all that to my little sibling, for sure.

Rachel (08:41)
Yeah, she tortured the shit out of me. And, ⁓ yeah, dude, so I had a really good relationship with him. I I watched every fucking Rocky movie I ever made with him. Like, he played basketball for fun and watched, you know what I mean? Like, we shot pool, we played darts, like daddy's girl, you know what mean? And so we kind of had this bond, we had this trust, and like, up until I really started, until ninth grade, and I started getting into punk rock and stuff like that, ⁓ I kept everything that I was doing.

secret until it exploded. And so what happened one day is I was skipping school and we were supposed to go to the skate park and I had this fucking huge bottle of whiskey and I blacked out and I don't remember exactly what happened. I just heard like kind of stories. My cousin ended up calling the police on me because she was scared of me. She said that I was like basically trying to take her life, know, like beat the shit out of her. So she called the police. I knew they were coming. I'm fucking drunk apparently, you know, just running around Terre Haute hiding in bushes.

Matt (09:11)
Yeah.

Rachel (09:39)
And they found me and I was like, man, fuck the police, fucking, you know, spitting on them and all this kind of shit, trying to fight them. And so they hog tied me and put me in back of paddy wagon. And then I black out again. And then I wake up and I'm in hospital. I'm like, fuck. know, and then ⁓ I fall asleep again and then I wake up and I see my dad. And I'm just like, ⁓ shit, dude. And basically I just remember something like you're in some fucking.

You're in some shit, bro. You're in some shit. And we finally get back to my house and he's like, you're going to juvie for at least two years. You know what mean? Like minimal. That's already just a minimal. And I was like, as all I heard was like, oh, you're going to confine me for two years. No, I just hopped straight out my window. Like I had my friend come pick me up and I hid in another one of my friend's basement for like two months. Police are looking for me all over this little city. You know what I mean? Didn't say goodbye to my dad.

Didn't say sorry, just jumped out my window when he was asleep. And I didn't see him again for like 15 years after that. Yeah, I just seen him for the second time recently. And so I hid in this basement for like two months, and like all my friends are like going around hitting licks. Like one of my girls was like, I have my college savings. You know, he just all put in money to help me get out of this town, you know? It is, dude, like looking back.

Matt (10:40)
mean the logical choice.

Wow.

And how old are you at this time?

Rachel (11:06)
think I'm maybe 14, 15, oldest, but I think 14. And so I finally got a ticket Greyhound to Dallas, because my mom was in Dallas, right? And it was so crazy because my friends dropped me off and they're all lined up there. And I have like a little fucking pint of eight star and like some hot fries with cheese sauce, because they know I like that shit, so they got that for me. And they're all just like, yeah, you've been saying goodbye. And I didn't realize like, I'm not going to see you again for 15 years. You know what mean? Like you guys are my childhood friends.

And so I didn't tell my mom I was coming or anything. I'm just fucking riding this fucking Greyhound through these cities and I'm pretty much almost there. And I think I even called her like on a payphone. I don't remember how I called her, but I was just like, I'm almost to Dallas and I need you to come pick me up. You know what I mean? Yeah, dude. So I got to that Greyhound that's in Dallas, like right in downtown where I've been homeless at before. she wasn't even there to pick me up. One of her boyfriends was there to pick me up and he was, I think, drunk.

And I remember he was driving through that HO feeling and I didn't know what the fuck that was. And I was like, dude, you're going to kill us. I don't think you're supposed to be driving in this lane. But he was, but I didn't know. He was just driving really fast. It scared shit out of me. And for some reason, dude, my mom, I don't even think I enrolled in school when I got back. I was just like, yeah, I'm not going to do this thing. And she would go to work and she'd even leave me a pack of her cigarettes and just be like, you know.

Matt (12:13)
Yeah.

Times are so different.

Rachel (12:35)
Yeah,

that's what I discovered in Myspace.

Matt (12:38)
Yeah.

Rachel (12:42)
And that's where I met the father of my children, is on my space. ⁓ I think a friend of mine, were just like both fucking dropouts. We were just like going through and at that time you could like put your zip code in and it would just bring up people's profiles that lived, you know, so many miles from your zip code. And it was this fucking, you know, Hispanic dude fucking hunched over, hitting a big ass bong, wearing a rancid shirt, holding like a little black kitty. I was just like.

Matt (12:45)
Yeah?

Rachel (13:10)
Oh yeah, we gotta hit this dude up for sure. And he was from South Texas. He had just moved to Dallas. He's from like over there by Corpus. This little town called Taft. And I remember when I met him, his accent was so thick. I just thought it was the coolest thing. I'm coming from the Midwest. There are no Mexicans in the Midwest. You know what mean?

Matt (13:28)
We got a Texas accent or a Mexican accent?

Rachel (13:31)
A Texican accident. Texican accident. But I mean, he's actually from Mexico, but with also a birth certificate from Texas. So yeah. dual citizen. And yeah, so he pulled up, think, in his brother's car, and he had fucking his name tattooed in old English on his back. He's wearing like a wife beater and some dickies, like, you know, with the tall socks on the car. I was like, what the fuck? Come on in, You know what mean?

Matt (13:33)
Okay. Alright.

But ⁓

Yeah.

Rachel (14:02)
And yeah, he just kind of ended up becoming my best friend. I introduced him to all my high school friends that I listened to punk with and grew up with and partied with and shit like that. And then next thing you know, I was pregnant.

Matt (14:17)
Yeah, so 15 you're pregnant?

Rachel (14:20)
Yeah, uh, yeah, because I was 16 when I my first daughter. Yeah. Carmen. Yeah. And then at that point, I was like, so I stopped doing everything. You know, I stopped drinking. I stopped partying. His mom was like the sweetest lady I had ever met. His whole like, they fucking get together. They play bunko, fucking spreads of food. They just like family, you know? And I was like, what the fuck? Dude, this is cool. You know?

Matt (14:28)
Crazy.

Rachel (14:49)
And she was so nice to me and I just never met a lady that was just like so loving and sweet, you know? And she didn't even like me at first. She found out was pregnant, she was like, right, well, you you're holding my grandbaby. We're going to be cool now. And yeah, so she helped us get our first apartment and he started working for like Time Warner Cable. He got a cable job. And I remember he was still drinking and all that kind of shit, right? We ended up being friends with our neighbors.

Matt (15:01)
Yeah

Rachel (15:17)
And I'm like fucking seven months pregnant. I looked down on the balcony and just see him fucking doing a fat ass line of coke and I was like, that motherfucker. But really I was just jealous. Yeah. Because I wanted to and I couldn't. So I went down there, I was like banging on the door and fucking his friend opened. I said, let me talk to Joseph. He comes up and I just fucking slapped him, dude. I was like, fuck you.

Matt (15:24)
Mm-hmm.

Seems proportionate. Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel (15:42)
So there was that. And yeah, I had my daughter two days after I turned 16.

Matt (15:48)
Jesus that's That's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy

Rachel (15:55)
She

was born on her dad's birthday, so two days after my birthday and then on his birthday.

Matt (16:00)
Yeah, yeah, there's like 12 people in my immediate family and everybody shares a birthday. and then like the me and my very youngest sibling were born on the same day too. So I like closed out that whole area.

Rachel (16:05)
Really?

Yeah,

I was born on one of my uncle's birthday. His name was Leo too. I was like, that's cool as fuck. But he's since passed away in the last couple of years. then my dad's brother just passed away like a week ago. So was like, oh my God. Because he was like, you know, like the Uncle Buck. It'd be just like the coolest. And I had just seen him because I went to my sister's wedding. And I mean, he didn't look great, but you know, he looked happy.

Matt (16:41)
Did he die young?

Rachel (16:43)
I would say so. mean, early 60s.

Matt (16:46)
Okay, I'll be lucky to make it to 60, I think.

Rachel (16:50)
See, I don't feel like I'm immoral or gonna live forever or anything, but I just feel like I'm way more active than most people my age.

Matt (16:58)
Yeah, I mean we should be dead though, so...

Rachel (17:02)
Yeah. I mean, Narcane is the reason I'm still alive.

Matt (17:07)
Dude, it's so uncomfortable coming out of like a Narcan like ⁓ post overdose Narcan save your life

Rachel (17:14)
My god, that shit is fucked up.

Matt (17:18)
So what I used to do was, my wife now was, we've been together for nine years, and so we were homeless together and all the crazy shit. And the first time I saw her overdose, she overdosed standing up. And we called the UNTs and that whole thing, they tried to arrest me and I ran. It was this whole mess. And so I was like, I'm never doing that again. And so I did a bunch of research and I was like,

It's a respiratory system suppressant, so if I just breathe for her, she'll be okay. so, dude, over the next two years, I breathed for her a couple times a week. She would overdose constantly. And so I'd be on the floor breathing for her. And so I got so sick of it, I was like, I would fight with her over it. Like, dude, what is wrong with you? Why do you? The problem was, I'd been slamming heroin for over a decade at this point, and she'd been slamming heroin for a couple years.

And it was like, she would, you know, it's like that whole fight of like, you're fucking me over, like I wanna do the same amount as you. So she would overdose all the time, so I was like, check it out, dude. Like, I'm not doing this shit anymore, I go in the bathroom, purposefully overdosed, to like, I was like, watch, you wanna see how shitty this is? Check this out. So I like, go, overdose, and I come to him, she's like, why did you do that? I was like, what did you do? She hit me with like four Narcans.

I was like, I would never do this to you. I was so mad at her, but.

Rachel (18:48)
No, I totally get that because I started doing heroin with the father of my children and he would get so high, dude. I'd be pissed off because I'd be like, your daughter just sees you standing there fucking looking. I don't even know how to, like, alive, half dead. You know what I mean? Zombie just can't hear anything. Conscious for a second, you know? And I'm just like...

Man, fuck, I never get that high.

Matt (19:19)
Yeah,

that's like, it's like you're fully aware in your own head, but everybody else sees something totally different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel (19:28)
He fucking, and he's always been like that. Like from when we started using, even to this day, I was like, dude, how are you still getting this out? Like it's been over a decade. But I mean, you know, it's switched from, you know, coke to heroin to now fentanyl. Like I will say I got clean because of the state of Texas. So thank you very much. Very effective. And it wouldn't, and it wouldn't happen any other way. Like, you know, you're saying like,

Matt (19:38)
That's crazy.

Rachel (19:58)
my people, right? Like, I'm not going to walk into a room of a narcotics anonymous who I was before I went to prison and be like, need help. That was not going to happen for me. I had to be taken against my will and sat down for a long period of time and like meet the dark night of the soul and realize, okay, yeah, I'm ready to do something.

Matt (20:20)
No, totally. I don't know about here, but in the California jails and prison systems, there's these free Bibles that this organization passes out. And it's only in Spanish, but there's handcuffs on it. And in Spanish it says, rescued not arrested. And I'm always like, yeah, I definitely got rescued.

Rachel (20:40)
Yeah, for sure. yeah. And you know, it's hindsight, you know what I mean? Because, you know, of course we've, like, first of all, when I got arrested, they were looking for me. You know what mean? I didn't even know I was being looked for and that they were...

Matt (20:53)
Still

like from whatever happened in

Rachel (20:56)
No,

no, no, this is something totally different. So like, okay, so I was at a hotel.

Matt (21:00)
Whatever happened in media, like all that shit. What do mean? Like, they were looking-

Rachel (21:05)
I never went back and ⁓ all of my family over there hated me for a long time and my dad ended up paying a lot of money.

Matt (21:13)
Yeah, okay, that'll do it.

Rachel (21:14)
about the gist. ⁓ Everything going forward from that is like not in

Matt (21:20)
We

even wanted four.

Rachel (21:22)
assault on an officer. I'm sure some other things, but I know for sure that one. Public attack. I don't know. A lot of stuff. But yeah, the father of my children, we were together for I think about five years before we started using heroin. We split up because he was an alcoholic and I just couldn't take it anymore. He wasn't like...

Matt (21:23)
⁓ that'll do it.

Yeah.

Rachel (21:49)
angry or abusive, he was just fucking annoying. You know what mean? Like they'd just wake up and just piss on everything. You know I Like, and just act obnoxious. And I was just like, I just felt really detached, you know? Well, come to find out, and I didn't know this until later, but he had been doing heroin for a whole year while he was drinking. So I think that had a lot to do with like me kind of getting to that point, but I didn't know. And so we split up and my mom came and picked our daughter up and she was like, you y'all are going through a lot of shit. Like, I'm just keeping your daughter for the summer.

That probably was not the best idea because I had never not been like responsible for another human being. So now I'm just like, motherfucker. And I'm not, you know, with someone. So I just like went hard. And so did he. You know what mean? He started straight shooting that shit up. And I started fucking popping out of it all. Like it was candy, day drinking, fighting, you know what I mean? All kinds of stuff. Well, one day I was living with my friend and...

I built the whole tab we didn't have money for at the bar. And I was like, oh yeah, it's hers. And I left. And she found out while I went back to the house. And she was raging drunk and fucking beat the shit out of me with a baseball bat. Dude, like slashed all the tires, broke windows in my car. I mean, she was a little crazy. I mean, I was still looking back. We've been best friends since kindergarten.

Matt (23:01)
How much was the tab?

Yeah, addicts have like this proportion issue where it's like we take shit so far out of the realm of proportional. It's crazy.

Rachel (23:19)
She just

saw red, you know? And ⁓ so I was in the hospital and they were trying to release me and they didn't have no one to release me. I had nowhere to go. And the only phone number I knew was my baby daddy Joe. ⁓ hell no. No, it wasn't even his. It was his mom's, like her house number, you know? Because she had a house phone

Matt (23:40)
Which aren't isn't even a thing anymore. Do you remember like when we used to have like phone books memorized?

Rachel (23:46)
yeah, I used to fucking roll through those motherfuckers and prank call all day. The police showed up one time because we were prank calling so much. I don't know how they found us. We didn't answer the door.

Matt (23:56)
Soundboards from ebomb or ebombs world and shit. Did you ever do that? There was like these soundboards and it was like all these voices one of them like the favorite one that we do is like Arnold Schwarzenegger and it was right when he was like Trying to get elected to and so we would like call people with his voice and like prank him and shit Yeah, it was fun. Yeah

Rachel (24:15)
Oh, that's genius.

But, yeah, so I called his mom and his mom came and picked me up. so I had to see him again. I hadn't seen him for, you know, that entire summer. And, know, he was my first love, you know what I mean? He was the father of my kids. And I was like, fuck, I still want to make this work, you know? But the pain was like so deep. We had already fucked each other over so much, fucked other people and all this kind of stuff.

And so I'm like trying to make it work, but you know, he hates me, I hate him. And he was just like, well, I got this stuff. You know what mean? Like, it's gonna make everything better. Just try some of this, you know? And so he made me some cheese. And I remember throwing up because that shit was so gross, Fuck, I don't know, it wasn't even cheese. was just on the spoon, you know what I mean? Just water and just, oh God, it's disgusting, dude.

Matt (25:00)
Yeah.

Rachel (25:09)
But after the disgust of it went away, was just like, oh. You know what mean? Like all of that.

Matt (25:17)
Yeah, all the world answers right here.

Rachel (25:20)
It's not even so much the answers, just like all the give-a-fucks are gone. It's just like, I don't give a fuck. I could give a fuck. And so it didn't take me long before I already had built up a tolerance. I was starting to withdraw and I was interfering with my work. Like, know, me getting to work and, you know, I was a waitress. So I'd be like, hey dude, should I my first cash tip? Like, come up here, get this money. Go get that shit.

Matt (25:44)
You

Rachel (25:47)
And then we found this bar called Muddy Waters in Dallas and it was a fucking cartel coke front. It was so cool because it was called Muddy Waters and we'd be like, badass punk shows there. And they're fucking Mexican. They're just being in the back with all the fucking coke all, you know what mean? And like, you'd have to know them to get it. So we got introduced to them a little. And then like, you couldn't even just go in and buy coke. You have to sit in there and drink and hang out. Dude, I got pregnant with our second daughter. had my baby shower there.

Matt (26:13)
That's so crazy. spent a little bit of time at this bar.

Rachel (26:20)
So I ended up working in Deep Ellum and there'd be a lot of people always wanting coke. So I'd be like, dude, go get the coke, bring it over here and we're just getting taxed shit out of it and then we're gonna go buy heroin. And then that's how we did that for a while. then next thing you know, none of us, we don't have jobs or anything like that. And we're living with his mom and she's a fucking registered nurse.

Matt (26:30)
Yeah.

Rachel (26:42)
I don't, maybe she was blind for a long time with love. know what mean? But it finally got to the point where like, okay. And so I ended up getting pregnant with our second daughter and ⁓ I couldn't quit. And I didn't know how to ask for help and I was scared and I was embarrassed and I was ashamed. You know? And I remember like, when I was like seven months pregnant, I had our daughter's like, I think it was like a DS or something like that. you know? And I didn't tell them when I went to the pawn shop and I pawned it and I came back with like 60 bucks worth of dope.

Matt (26:59)
Yeah.

Rachel (27:12)
And he's like, where the fuck did you get that? And I was like, I fucking, you know, pawned our daughter's shit. And he was like, if you knew that dope right now, I'll leave you. Like, you're about to have this baby, you gotta quit. Like, I mean, he was like dead serious. Like, don't give, I'll leave my mom's house, you can stay here, but you will never see me again. And like, I was so angry, especially cause he did the dope.

Matt (27:32)
Yeah, he got you on it too. Yeah.

Rachel (27:37)
And I'm like, and so I have to sit there watching doing the dope that I just went and pawned our daughter's shit for. Well, I can't do this. And that was like, was, ⁓ I was so.

Matt (27:42)
⁓ man

Yeah.

Rachel (27:49)
And so he ended up getting some Suboxone or something from the streets, know? And that kept me at least off of heroin for the last couple of weeks until I went into labor. But yeah, you know, she came out and she had obvious signs of, know, dependency or whatever. So CPS came in right away and they wouldn't let me breastfeed or anything like that. I just, and I mean,

Matt (28:08)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel (28:14)
Well, I can't explain it, you know, like how it feels when you hold your baby for the first time, you know, but like, it was, it was something to have them like take her from me and be like, I'm still got the, I'm still, they still haven't finished stitching me up from this shit. You can't have this baby. And I'm like, fuck. And so his mom, they ended up placing, well, she was still in the hospital because she was in the NICU. And basically they were like,

You can be in the NICU with her as long as his mom is here, right? But if she leaves, you gotta go. And there's gonna be people monitoring you at all times. So I think she was in the NICU for two weeks. His mom didn't leave the NICU one second. She made sure that we could be there the entire time, you know? And then of course we'd leave to get dope, but we'd come back. And I remember the ladies like, you know, I think this is one of the fastest recoveries I've ever seen considering the situation.

Matt (28:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rachel (29:11)
You know, cause I mean, we would go and get our dope and we'd do it in the bathroom in there while his mom's there, you know? And then I would just hold her and just kiss her. And I kind of cried, you know what I mean? But she was just smothered with love. And I don't know, I really believe that, you know, like the love kind of helped her heal quicker. know? And so, so yeah, so they placed, and we were supposed to move out of his mom's house cause we were living there. Like we can't live there.

Matt (29:29)
Yeah.

Rachel (29:40)
You can visit, but it has to be supervised around this time. Well, we're like, okay, but we didn't leave. oldest sister, my half sister, was 14 years apart from me, was like, you guys aren't getting any better. Y'all are still doing dope and they're about to take y'all's name off the birth certificate. And I didn't, you I see it as a betrayal at the time, but she went to CPS and was like, they're still living in that house, you know? And so they took our kids and placed them with her. And then, ⁓

Matt (30:02)
Yeah.

Rachel (30:09)
So she spent a little bit of time there and then she went to Indiana. Or both of them went to Indiana with my other sister. They spent a year there. And then finally they came back to text with my mom and mom's like, you gotta sign over rights. You gotta sign over your rights. You know what I mean? And like, it was hard but at the same time I realized like this is the best thing that I could do for them because I have nothing to provide for them. Oh dude. Just worse than ever. know? No, does not get me.

Matt (30:30)
Yeah, were you still strung out? Yeah.

and get better.

Rachel (30:39)
This story gets deeper. But yeah, so once I did that though, was like balls to the wall. You know what mean? Like I was fucking selling drugs on Reddit.

Matt (30:50)
I just heard about this. That's a- It was you.

Rachel (30:52)
I don't know if it's still a thing, but it is a thing.

was it? Yeah. Okay.

Matt (30:57)
Yeah, I don't remember what you said, but I was like that was a thing

Rachel (31:01)
Was

a thing, As a matter of fact, we went to Florida. Went to fucking Disney World. And we, ⁓

Matt (31:08)
This is the story that I heard, yeah. Yeah, yeah,

Rachel (31:10)
Yeah.

Okay, so we have the CPS case and basically that's how I stayed clean the entire year. That's how I got custodial rights back from CPS the first time was with Suboxone. And I remember seeing my baby daddy, he was so mad because he wanted to use so bad. And he couldn't and that shit just like made him cry. It hurt him. That's how bad he wanted to use. And so, yeah, so his mom had planned a trip to Disney World and had like one of those time shares and shit. Kids are all excited.

Matt (31:20)
Okay.

Rachel (31:40)
And like, we have this suboxone, we're trying to shoot it up, dude. We fucking liquefied it down, have all these fucking dirty needles, you know? And so my baby daddy's actually wanna go on Reddit and found out that, you know, like, yeah, dude, people are gonna fucking middle that shit so that they can come up on it. It's like a way to support a habit. And it's a risk, but, you know?

Matt (32:03)
Risks? What are those?

Rachel (32:05)
Yeah, so we met someone and then we didn't even get high because we were on Suboxone. So we're at Disney World just, you know, strung Pissed off. Pissed off. At Disney World, dude. Can't even enjoy your fucking churros. Yeah. Yeah. So eventually his mom kicked us out.

Matt (32:14)
Yeah, yeah.

$40 Turo? Yeah.

After how long?

Rachel (32:33)
Okay, so we got custody back and the day we got custody back, we got high. Right? And so it wasn't very long before she was like, okay, y'all got to get the fuck out. So we ended up getting like, he was still working for a cable company. He was working for AT &T at this time. He's like fucking driving his work van to get dope and shit and driving around the AT &T van. And it was crazy too because the lady next to us called CPS on me several times, you know?

Matt (32:39)
Yeah.

Rachel (33:00)
But luckily each time they came, either one, the kids weren't there or were in school. I'm OCD, dude, so it looked really clean. There's toys, there's food. I just tried to be a mother. It's just that shit gets a grip on you. know what I mean? I always say one of my worst moments of my addiction was I was in the bathroom in the motel room trying to hit.

And my daughter's like on the outside of the door, banging on the door, like, please take me to school, you know? It's already been like second day she'd missed school, she's late every day. She lives in a dirty motel room that has roaches. You know what mean? She used to have a great life, you know? And I'm in there just like sweating, covered in blood, crying.

Matt (33:47)
Shot after shot.

Rachel (33:49)
I mean abscess is everywhere, bruises, no veins, nothing. And this part of me and my soul, I could still hear it, wants to come out of that bathroom and do what I'm supposed to do and be with her and play with her, but it's like this other part of me is just like, not until you get this.

Matt (34:04)
Yeah. addiction has nothing to do with intention. Like, we don't mean to miss appointments, we don't mean to not be there, we don't mean to like, fuck other people's life up, ⁓ as long as it's in the way, it's like, that is in the way. Yeah. It's like, there is no... But we want to do all the right things. Yeah.

Rachel (34:26)
No, dude, it is fucking prison, It is, ⁓ it is hell, quite literally. And ⁓ yeah, so it didn't take very long till all of that, you know, CPS came back into my life and then I signed over rights. And then ⁓ my baby daddy and I ended up splitting up. We were still friends, would meet each other's pathways because we were in that drug world, you know? But he ended up, he was like taking drugs over to Arkansas.

And you know, they didn't really have heroin over there and like he had found, he had it plugged at really good price and he just thought he was like lord of the heroin, you know what I mean? And I was like, man, fuck this guy. Cause I was at this point, I'm living under a bridge. You know I'm just like, abandoned. Yeah, literally. I've been fucking abandoned. But then, but I was so prideful. like, I still won't accept help even if you try to offer it to me. You know what I mean? Like not even.

Matt (35:11)
Literally. Yeah.

But I mean, like, what does help look like at that point? It's like, the help that we want is not the help people want to give us. You know, it's like, dude, yeah. But I loved my bridge.

Rachel (35:25)
Dope.

Okay, that's the dichotomy about this thing. And I will say, you know, because one, I was free of another person, and two, I was free of responsibilities. And like, I had made a friend, was my best fucking friend dude, he was just the funniest fucking dude. And we made that, man, that shit looked like Bombay Nights, bro.

Matt (35:57)
My wife and I talk about it, we're like, because she's got her own recovery. I do whatever I do, she does whatever she does. And people ask me all the time, like, do you ever miss anything about it? And me and her will talk about it. It's like the only thing that her and I actually miss is like being homeless. It's like the freedom that comes from the full detachment from society.

Rachel (36:18)
Yes. And so now, like, I'm still seeking that, but in a more positive pathway, right? Because, I'm going to hopefully my end game is like buying some land and like kind of being self-sustaining. Me too.

Matt (36:31)
I want to just ride a horse and like fuck around with a couple cows. I'm so... Yeah, I mean that may, I mean, I don't know, for me it's like dude, I've been so like... So first of all, I was raised in like a really Christian household. I was Mormon and ⁓ so there's like all of this like I lived in a very religious situation and very secular and then it's like dude, I just want to like... And then I ended up at a ranch.

Rachel (36:36)
we do.

Matt (37:00)
like at a rehab for like years. mean, three years was the last time I went to treatment. I was there for three years. It's a long time. Yeah, I needed it though. Right? And was like, if I fuck this up too, was like I was going to go do the rest of my life in prison. And so it was like the courts again. Yeah. It was like a really good motivator. yeah. But, you know, was like I ended up on this ranch where there was 10,000 head of cattle on 10,000 acres and we literally like, it was a working ranch and that's all we did. And so I was like,

Got a taste of that. We were like branding cattle and like castrating like on the like every weekend and like just doing crazy shit And I was like this is what I want to do. Yeah, and so now it's like everything that I do today is like this is my end goal

Rachel (37:43)
I I think that's a good idea for the whole recovery thing, because it's like connecting you to something, I don't know, just more present and like just natural ⁓ and peaceful.

Matt (37:57)
The peaceful part for sure.

Rachel (37:58)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. became part of this community. It was up in Dallas. They call it Pleasant Grove. And ⁓ it's off a, anyone watching this knows where that's at. It was off of Jim Miller and 30. And this whole little fucking stomping ground, dude, like, you know, became my community. You know how like the hood, they say, you you look out, the hood looks out for the hood. You mean? And so.

It's like today I wouldn't walk through there, but then it was like, motherfucker, nothing scared me. I'd seen people get shot, I'd seen people fucking shooting in their necks behind trash cans, you know what I mean? I'd seen people get jumped. I've been jumped. ⁓ And so now that shit scared me, but it was a little bit of a community. the guy I talking to, my friend Floyd, he taught me so much stuff, ironically, so weird. He would be like, dude,

You're so stupid you don't want to get fucked by the police. You have to act insane. They're not going to fuck with you if you're insane. And so he would do off the wall shit. And I remember one time, he's like, the cops are coming up to him. He's like yelling at somebody who doesn't even know. Like, hey man, I need that dime piece. know what I mean? Like, trying to put it like that dude has the drugs. And then the cops approach him and he just looks down. There's a bug down there. So he just picks it up and eats it and starts crunching it in their face, dude. I was watching from the side lights and I'm like,

This dude's fucking insane. And meanwhile, he's wearing like a Santa Claus hat. It's like one those worker vests, like fucking light up, fucking glow sticks around his fucking neck. You know what I mean? Just dirty, raw dude, you know? And yeah, so he would go and he'd get all this kind of trash, all kinds of shit, dude. Every fucking dumpster, every abandoned house, every freaking donation box, he'd been in them all.

Matt (39:52)
Yeah.

Rachel (39:53)
So I go to this car wash that's like right down the street and he was like, come check this shit out, you know? And this fucking car wash, like he had made like a mansion out of trash. Like if you're just looking at it from the outside, you're just like, what is this pile of shit, dude, right? But like you go in and there's like seven different rooms. It's like a fucking maze, candlelit. He's got speakers playing fucking chopped and screwed-ass music. You know I mean? Just like, and you could like be in there and hide, right?

And no one would see you, you could like shoot all your dope and just like chill and not have, you know what mean? And if the police do come and say, dude, you're already in the seventh room down, they can't even see you. don't even know you're in there. So, you know, it was crazy.

Matt (40:32)
Yeah.

Yeah,

homeless people are amazing. It's so crazy. is, dude. Yeah.

Rachel (40:42)
It is. ⁓ But yeah, I remember I hated my shit, always getting stolen, you know?

Matt (40:49)
Yeah, that's the only yeah for sure.

Rachel (40:51)
I mean, I couldn't have fucked anything.

Matt (40:53)
Yeah, I was just talking about it. I've had these for two years. And I was like, I was like, Megan, I've had these for two years, my wife, and I was like, I've had these for two years. I would have never been able to do this before. And she was like, you wouldn't have been able to have that for a day.

Rachel (41:07)
You can

put it with an air pod, maybe it'll go.

Matt (41:12)
And then it'd be like the I don't know what happened to him and it's like I sold them to buy dope ⁓ Fucking people stole me yet. It's like yeah. Yeah, they saw him

Rachel (41:22)
I do digital anything. Fuck it. I mean, like, I'm telling you, it didn't matter where I put my shit. I woke up, it's going every day. Every day. And I'm like, that's how you feel with those headphones, how I feel about my phone number, dude. I this phone number for three years. I know, I got it memorized by heart.

Matt (41:35)
Yeah.

Yeah, did you guys ever get Obama phones here?

Rachel (41:43)
Yeah, yeah, I don't think I had one, but I did know people that had them.

Matt (41:46)
Dude, would like, you could buy them from the people for like 10 bucks. So we would just, we had so many phone numbers, it was crazy.

Rachel (41:55)
Yeah, dude. And if you didn't have a phone out there, it was like, ⁓ God, it made things like 10 million times harder. Because you can't call the devil, man. You can't message anybody for a ride. ⁓ what do you got going on? ⁓ y'all have a house you're sleeping in?

Matt (42:11)
Yeah, when so when I was homeless so downtown San Diego is like pretty small, but there was 2,500 homeless people Like a massive community of homeless people and everybody knew each other Yeah, and it was like there was one there was two streets It was 17th and commercial and it was like you didn't need a cell phone, right? Is everybody was just all the homeless people that were selling drugs were right there. Yeah, and so you could just Yeah, you just didn't need a phone

Rachel (42:38)
Yeah.

Matt (42:39)
And then there was two of us, so as long as one of us had a phone, it was like, okay, whatever. And she could always hold onto hers, and I couldn't, so.

Rachel (42:48)
I just, I think I thought if I had a phone that like, know how people are like, okay, well I'll be able to like have a life and get high if I have a phone. Or like, I know that sounds obscure, or like, I'll be able to get high and have a life as long as I have an apartment. And it is long, and I'm just gonna go hit this lick and then I'll get an apartment and then I'll still be able to get high and have an apartment and then I'm gonna see my kid. Like all these stories you make up, like I'm still gonna be able to get high.

Matt (43:06)
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're

Rachel (43:17)
And I just, no you're not.

Matt (43:19)
Never works out that way.

Rachel (43:21)
It never does, dude. You know, it never does. And then, you know, I told myself so many lies. I believe them, you know. I feel like I can believe them. yeah, dude. So, okay, so this is what happened. This is I got arrested this last time that saved my life. So we were getting high in like a Motel 6 with some friends that we had actually met at IOP, whatever, was still with CPS.

And they were a couple, we know that for a really long time, so we've been clean with them, relapse with them on that stuff. And so my baby daddy and I, and we're not together, we just still hang out with the same people in the bathroom trying to hit. And we've been in there so long that when we come out, we didn't realize that our friend's been OD'd for who knows how long. know what mean? And so we're like, fuck dude. And I'm like, I have fucking, you know, a warrant for probation violation.

Matt (44:03)
Yeah.

Rachel (44:17)
So my baby daddy and our other friend stays there and calls the police. And our friend that passed away, I took his car keys and I left in his car. And so I don't know how they ended up going to jail, but the cops took him on some felonious bullshit. Cause of course they didn't have any dope or anything when the cops arrived. Like they called the cops, right? So he was in like... ⁓

Matt (44:25)
Yeah.

So in California, there's the good Samaritan laws. Where like, if you're calling because somebody overdosed, they're there to pick that person up. And they can't, there could be guns on tables. Like, they cannot fuck with you. Yeah.

Rachel (44:54)
That's not like that in Texas. Yeah, that's crazy. Texas is very strict on drugs.

Matt (45:00)
I know a guy, he said his first prison term was for a dime a crack. I was like, God damn, you can't even get arrested for under, you can't get a ticket for underannounce in California.

Rachel (45:05)
Yeah.

Yeah. Under a gram is still a felony. That's a state-run felony here.

Matt (45:15)
You know

what though, that's probably a good thing. Yeah? Like in some way or another. Because look at California, it's a fucking dump now. Look at Portland. Yeah. Do know what's going on in Portland? It's like a fucking post-apocalyptic wasteland. Yeah, not only is it illegal, it's like, you know, what it like if if we're living in Idaho and it's fucking hard out there on crime, it's like

Rachel (45:30)
Because everything's legal there, right?

Matt (45:42)
Okay, I can drive five and a half hours and now I can like be free, you know, like all these people start migrating like Oregon and Washington. It's like whole West Coast is fucking gonna fall off there is now

Rachel (45:54)
I fall into the fucking notion. So yeah, okay, so I left that car ⁓ somewhere in between my ⁓ getting drugs and him being locked up. was like, I need some clothes. So just like I'm in this stolen car, which belongs to my friend who's now dead. And I just like pull up to this fucking.

Matt (46:19)
Yeah.

Rachel (46:23)
ghetto-esque or in the hood. And I'm in there just like fucking nonshlein. I mean, clothes like this, a pile like this. You're just like, this is cute. This is cute. This is cute. And the lady's looking at me like, and I'm like, I know you know, and I don't give a fuck because I'm to run out of here. And so that's what I did. I ran out and I threw the cars over. I shut the door and I fucking drive off. Well, she tried opening my door or tried to open the door to the car, I locked it. As soon as I got in, I drove off.

Matt (46:35)
We know.

Rachel (46:53)
Well, I think I'm scot-free. I'm driving quick to whatever my escape route was. And I just thought that was it. I got away. And then one day I'm fucking in Forney, which is like an outside city of Dallas where my mom lives. I'm going to pick up some stuff at a Kroger. And cherries go off. And I look back and I'm like, that's Dallas police. We're not even in Dallas.

And was like, fuck, and I have like a lot of stuff on me, all different kinds of everything, you know? And I'm still in the stolen car. And so ⁓ we get pulled over and thank God, I guess that they were just, I had a blue warrant for aggravated robbery and they were just nice police because they didn't search the car or take anything out of it. They didn't even take the car. They let my mom come pick it up. But they were like, you know.

Matt (47:47)
Yeah, I mean, is it classified as stolen?

Rachel (47:50)
You know, honestly don't I didn't get charged with it I didn't get charged with it, you know, but come to find out my friend's sister It's like one of the top prosecuting DA's and that was So I had been communicating with her because I was trying to her some closure at least you know what I mean and Ended up incriminating myself and somewhat a little bit in between that Well at least to where I could be found

Matt (47:52)
It was legit.

Yeah.

Like to her.

Yeah, ⁓ yeah, that's right.

Rachel (48:21)
⁓ And so she was communicating with them and this whole thing was set up. so they take me to like the first 48 building, right? And I'm just like, I'm still like aggravated robbery. Like, I definitely haven't robbed anybody. I'm just thinking the worst, know? Like, you know? ⁓ And so he sits me in the room and Joseph's there too. He gets arrested too. He's got a warrant. And he had just been trying to shoot. He's got like blood all over his shirt. He's all fucking sweaty. We just look gross. You know?

And I've been there and I'm like, you guys got the wrong person. I didn't love it.

Matt (48:53)
You're

fucked up, like, I didn't do sh-

Rachel (48:55)
Shit.

It was not me. And the detective just pulls up a printed picture of that store. I it was called Melrose. And my face just like, gonna be like the recognition of like, wait, what the fuck? Yeah, all right, I something. Okay.

Matt (49:08)
You guys want water?

It's like right there on the table.

Rachel (49:17)
And so my dumb ass, I immediately tell him myself and I'm like, I didn't rob that place. Like I just stole some clothes. They're like, okay. It turns out that if you flee in a vehicle and could harm somebody that's considered a weapon.

Matt (49:35)
Yeah, they can classify some crazy shit.

Rachel (49:37)
Yeah,

so I did get charged with aggravated robbery. Yeah, I'm on deferred probation for it still. It's been like six years. Yeah. And I remember ⁓ going to court and like trying to plea with the judge like, come on, like, you know the details, ma'am. You know what mean? Well, it turns out that like she could possibly listen to charge, but only if the victim agrees. And the victim was like, nah, fuck her. She's going down.

Matt (49:39)
That's crazy.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rachel (50:05)
And so the judge just looked at me and she was like, it's time you take responsibility for your life. And I don't know why, but for some reason, like in that moment, I was like, damn, she's fucking right. Yeah.

Matt (50:17)
Yeah, mean, yeah. Objective truth is like... That's the thing about addicts is like, you know, a lot of people will still connect... I don't know how they do this still, but they still like try to connect addiction to like moral issues. But something that I learned like really young was that like most addicts, alcoholics and like people that are involved in like the criminal system, even though they're in prison, there's like more morals and values built into that system than there are like just for the average person that's just walking around.

Rachel (50:47)
Oh yeah, mean, we need them for survival.

Matt (50:50)
Yeah, yeah, there's like codes right of like honor and respect and like all this stuff and it's like yeah You guys might not like Jaywalk, but like we're not gonna well we will Yeah, we won't do that

Rachel (51:01)
We're not gonna snitch on somebody. Unless

it saves our own ass.

Matt (51:07)
Yeah, this is a different time for sure.

Rachel (51:08)
Yeah, no, I mean, it's all subjective. But yeah, so I guess the statute for that is like five to 99. And so they gave me two options, safe P or, you know what mean, like 10 years.

Matt (51:11)
Yeah.

Did

you ever heard of this crazy place?

Rachel (51:28)
It is kind of crazy. And this is like right when COVID hit. So like, it was like being double in prison. Because everyone was scared, everyone was dying. The guards would come in and they wouldn't let you out. You couldn't go anywhere. If you tested positive, you were fucking down for two weeks. You know what mean? Like you couldn't have no job. You couldn't go outside. You couldn't get fresh air. Like it was literally just like, if you want to get free, Rachel.

Matt (51:32)
Okay.

Rachel (51:56)
You're have to get free inside yourself, motherfucker. Yeah. Because that's the only way you're getting out right now.

Matt (52:02)
Yeah, I got my the so my last arrest it was December of 2020 and so when I got arrested I thought I had this whole system figured out and I hadn't been to jail in like a year and And it was like I had all this shit going on and like that bank robbery and like the FBI was like coming and fucking with me and shit and I was like, okay I just got to play this game and then I get in there and I was like, oh no, like your first court date isn't 72 hours anymore. It's two weeks

Right? And it's like, yeah, no, you're isolated, like all this crazy shit. was like, fuck. How am gonna get out of this? There was no getting out of that.

Rachel (52:41)
⁓

The courts were so fucked when I went in because of COVID, I was in ⁓ county jail for two years.

Matt (52:49)
Whoa.

Yeah, I did 28 months in the county straight one time. Because in California they fucking, they thought they were gonna like be smart. Do you remember when like the California prisons got shut down by the federal government? No. Okay, so they came in and like they were, they shut, they didn't like shut them down, but like effectively shut them down like program-wise. And then they were like threatening like the feds are gonna come and take over your shit because you're like 300 times like past your like possible

maximum ⁓ occupancy. And so what they did was they started sentencing people to prison and giving them half time to stay in the county.

Rachel (53:28)
Okay, so they could do time served and counting.

Matt (53:30)
Yeah, so now it was like people were getting 10 years in the county, but they were doing five. Yeah. I think you get like 10 years in a day was like the most you could get to serve in county. People were doing half a decade in county. Yeah.

Rachel (53:44)
I remember I was in Dallas County jail and so there's a part that's called the North Tower. And it's essentially where like all the violent crime offenders go. And I seen this girl that I used to work with at like this telemarketing agency. And she wasn't there for murder. I forget what they called it, but she, so because in Texas, like you don't actually have to murder someone to be convicted of murder. Like you could just be present.

Matt (54:13)
Yeah.

Rachel (54:13)
And so yeah, she was in there fighting that. And I had been through that county so many times. I like, every time I fucking see you, dude, how long have you been in here? And it was like six years, dude, six years. And I remember I met her co-defendant when I went to a different area and she ended up going to prison. She got the time for it. And I just remember seeing the other girl when I knew I'm in a different tower, we're all signing, you know what mean? And she's like getting out.

And we were like, fuck dude, she'd been here for, in Canada for six years and I'm just seeing her walk out. I'm just like, holy shit.

Matt (54:50)
Dude, that's what people don't get nowadays. Like if you keep your mouth shut, they just keep your mouth shut. And it's like eventually shit will wash out. Yeah.

Rachel (55:00)
of it six years eventually.

Matt (55:01)
Dude, it's better than whatever she was facing.

Rachel (55:05)
Yeah, oh yeah, because I've, yeah, because her co-defendant is still in prison right now. I've, um, J.P. emailed her a few times. I stay in touch with some people, you know. And like, one of my oldest friends from high school, I was like, dude, he's a wild kid, you know? And I was like, I haven't heard from him in a while. So I just went into the TDC system and searched his information. Sure enough, he was there for aggravated robbery too. He had been robbing fucking pharmacies.

Matt (55:16)
Yeah.

Yeah, that'll do it for sure.

Rachel (55:36)
And he's like one of my best friends, I message him and stuff. But he might be getting out soon.

Matt (55:41)
My, like, one of my best friends, in, he got sober, he was five years sober, and the cops raided his house. He was completely sober, and they found an ATM machine and the stolen car that they were looking for. But they found an ATM machine, so now he's in prison. So I'm like, fuck, dude, that sucks. But he was stone cold sober.

Rachel (55:55)
Yeah.

Every week to go to car washes like break into the coin machines like it. Yeah. mean there's like there is no Limit to what you can do like figure out.

Matt (56:09)
Laundromats,

you can buy those, the keys online, you just unlock the change machines.

Rachel (56:17)
Yeah. Yeah. But, ⁓ so the two years I was in county, I was just wadding out, dude. I actually ended up spending my last couple of months in, segregation for fighting and stuff like that. And I think like that's where my, my initial, maybe I didn't know it yet, but like where I started to change, right? I just started reading and nothing but time, you know, I have my little routine I'd set up and just reading and writing and reading and writing and reading and writing.

And they were just kind of interesting novels and stuff. But then when I went to Plain State, which is actually in Houston or outside of Houston or something, that's where I went to safety. And so they put you in this one area where they were first, they do like their medical exams and everything. I found you, they call it the dog pound. And because it looks like a dog, just in a cage, dude, and you don't have pencils. I mean, you don't have soap. You just have a toilet and like a clumpy ass bed.

And so sometimes you stay in there for maybe three or four days. I was in there, I think, for two weeks. I was living my shit, and some trustees came by, and they had brought some books, like smuggled them in, know? And I got this book. It was called The Synthesis of Philosophy, Science, and Religion by H.P. Blavatsky. And I didn't know what the fuck I got ahold of, but it...

like put my mind, like I was on a quest. know mean? I'm like reading all this information cross, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, I had never, I felt like I was in a movie, you know? And it was, the book was this big. like, I still had to, you know? And that book saved my life because I started, I was reading shit on quantum physics, all the philosophers, all the classical philosophers, political philosophers. I love Aristotle.

You know, anything about science, dopamine, the... Like any of that shit that kind of helped me understand myself and how to interact in the world, right? And so like I started after so like so much reading and learning and thinking and writing, I was like, well, why don't I just put this shit to the test? You know, like I'm in a pod with 64 crazy women. We're all mentally ill.

Matt (58:25)
Yeah.

Rachel (58:43)
and unstable, you know what I mean? So like, let's see if any of this shit you read works, like in interacting with people, you know? And like, I'm not even joking, I seriously became like the fucking Buddha of the pod. You know I mean? And like, I found out that a lot of confrontation comes just like from not being understood. You know? I mean, I hate being misunderstood. Like, if I tell you something and you take it the way that I didn't mean it, I get pissed off. I'm like, even though it's really not your fault.

Matt (59:03)
Yeah.

Rachel (59:14)
but it pisses me off because I want to be understood. And so, ⁓ yeah, I discovered I love to read and I love to learn and I'd never even fucking picked up a book. I think the only book I ever read before I went to prison was The Outsiders. That's so funny. And To Kill a Mockingbird. Yeah, it was. Yeah. And so...

Matt (59:31)
In 10th grade.

Yeah, that was the same year. Yeah.

Rachel (59:42)
I just, I took that with me when I got out. then, so the state of Texas, you know, saved me from myself because even after I was on this real strict probation, it's a re-entry probation. essentially for 18 months, you have to call a color line every day. You to go to IOP like three times a week, court once a week, all these things. And I had never been so scared to go back to jail in my life. I got to the point where I'm like, right, I'm willing.

to do anything, whatever it takes. And like, honestly, if it wouldn't have been for those 18 months of like just straight fear of going back to prison, I would have relapsed. would have, know, something would have, I mean, there was a couple of times throughout that process I wanted to relapse, but didn't because I didn't want to go back to prison. know? So yeah, it is a very good motivator.

Matt (1:00:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, dude, people like, so I own treatment, right? And my whole mission now is to like raise awareness around how ineffective treatment is. And it like seems like counterproductive to what I'm trying to do, but it's like, dude, I don't want you to come to me thinking, I don't want you to send your son to me, mortgage your house a second and third time, whatever, and think that like this is gonna be it, because.

I'm convinced that in the history of treatment, nobody's ever gotten clean at treatment. It's all after. Like whatever happens, like yeah, maybe like seeds are planted, which people are like, yeah, like we're just planting seeds. And like, this is not a gardening experiment. These are people's lives. You know, and it's like, so, you know, like the treatment industry systematically over promises and under delivers. But the problem is that it's like people like us will end up.

not being able to afford it the next time and then everybody gets dropped on their head and it's like there are people that go to treatment one time and then just stay clean, right? But in the rooms they call them one-chip wonders. These are statistical anomalies. Like this isn't the norm. And so, but like when I look at like what happened with Bill and Bob, two just complete fuck-ups, like real fuck-ups, right? Like.

probably one of us, like if they would have been alive today, they would have been under a bridge somewhere doing whatever they were doing. They created this program that, I mean it says it in the book, it's like there are two people who can't get clean that interact with this program. are people who are born fundamentally disabled with living a life that requires vigorous honesty or psychopaths. And it's like the government came out with statistic recently that said one out of 10 people stay clean for a year.

And then of that 10%, one out of 10 will stay clean for 10 years, but they have to go to treatment seven times. So it's like 98.5 % of people will relapse an average of seven times before they get clean for a year. Not for the rest of their life, just one year. And it's like 100 % of people with no scientific advances and no social advances and no social acceptance to billions of dollars in research and like all of this medical advances and

medications and all this shit and it's the complete opposite. It's like, how did this happen? And then I found a book by William White that answers all of it. And it was like, yeah, we became the bridge between the medical and the pharmaceutical industry and we claim to be the business of saving lives, but we're really the business of saving lives that can afford it. And for anybody else that can't afford it, then we will sacrifice your life to continue to make money with the people that can. All right, and it's like.

There's a disconnect between what is needed and what is being delivered, and I don't think that that should be a thing. Especially because I go to these treatment conferences and stuff, people are pulling up in Ferraris and McLarens and Porsches, and it's like, you guys were those people, and now you are just so fucking self-involved. You start a treatment center, and...

Now everybody looks at you like, you're saving lives, right? But this person's still an addict, right? It's like most people that start treatment aren't like 25 years into their recovery. It's like, I'm a couple years in, I'm gonna start this, and so now you're giving them prestige and recognition and you're inflating their ego and money, which we're fucking terrible with. And it's like, yeah, what do you think's gonna happen? Like, they're gonna lose sight of everything that they ever thought they were gonna do. The next thing you know, it's like,

All you're worried about is maximizing profit.

Rachel (1:04:21)
That's always the case. Yeah. Yeah, dude. So my husband, he actually works for this place in Dallas called Homeward Bound. And it's a homeless shelter slash rehab. But they've since recently, I don't know how recently, contracted with QT, the gas stations. What? Yeah. So they've been funded. So they're a nonprofit and they've been funded.

to pay people like my husband who's essentially, you know, at LCDC. And what he does is like, he literally goes out on the front line, like they have a van, they got like, shit blankets, tools, gift cards to get food, you know what I mean? Outreach. Yeah. And so instead of calling the police on them, they call them. And so they just go and like, and they're all addicts. All of them. Yeah. You know I mean? Like hardcore, you know, crazy. I mean, they're not scared of like the shit that they see.

Matt (1:05:07)
That's so dope.

Rachel (1:05:19)
And yeah, and so occasionally they might reach somebody that wants help, but sometimes it's just like someone needing a ride, you know what I mean? And they're able to give them that ride or whatever the case is, they're like, you can't hang out here. You know I mean? But I'm not trying to fucking bully you or shame you. You know what I mean? I'll help you anyway. And so sometimes people are like, fuck you. You know I mean? And other times, it's something good. But I think that's cool. I've never heard of anything like that until recently.

Matt (1:05:49)
Yeah, the there's like a shit. So do you know what Sam says? Do you guys know what Sam says? Yes substance abuse and mental health Department of the federal government. Yeah, they've been around for like 30 plus years in the this is the first time in their history that the director like the guy that reports to the president is in recovery First time yeah, and ⁓ so the and then like

Rachel (1:05:54)
I've heard of it.

Shut up.

Matt (1:06:13)
everybody's kind of waking up to like treatment is not the solution. Yeah. And so I think there's like a big shift that's about to happen around like what is actually the product of treatment.

Rachel (1:06:24)
What do you think it is? I think it's a human connection.

Matt (1:06:28)
So you hear it all the time, right? That people will be like, the opposite of addiction is connection. But I had like super meaningful connection and addiction too. And so I would agree with them to a point, but I would say that the quality of connection is what makes that difference. ⁓ ultimately, addiction is multi-dimensional for a lot of people, right? There's a lot of a lot of untreated and undiagnosed sexual trauma that go for men and women.

that feeds into it, but my doctor, Dr. Shah, like the guy that's on here all the time, he always says, nobody escapes their child in unscathed, right? And then it's like the maladaptive coping mechanisms that you learn as a child from your parents. So like we're reading, like we're reading a book together right now, it's called Addiction as an Attachment Disorder. And it's like this whole philosophy that it's like 100 % of addiction is based on your inability to connect with people correctly because of your parents.

because of the relationship that you had with your parents. Because that's where you learned how to connect with people. Yeah. Right? It's like, I don't know what the solution is for... First of all, drugs have been... Substances and drugs, hallucinogenics, stimulants, opiates, depressants, all this stuff's been around for thousands of years. It's intimately intertwined with the human animal. Right? And then if you talk about the stoned ape theory, it's like the reason why we are...

Who we are is because of drugs too. like You know, it's like all of this kind of points like it's here to stay. Yeah, right. Why is it so bad today though? And I think a lot of it has to do with like the deterioration of our communication like in a day and age where we're systematically letting in foreigners into our intimate lives We're blocking out our neighbors, you know, it's like the average person isn't connecting

their neighbor, their friends, like friends groups are shrinking and then like you add in the internet to this and like social media and like people are so distracted and divided and like just this like we are in a fucked up situation societally. Yeah. You know, and it's like everybody knew this was gonna happen. Like you could see this, you could see the writing on the wall in eighties, right? Like this is where we were going.

Rachel (1:08:48)
Well, I will say that like So I have six years clean right now that's including the time I was like Thank you. And When I was at about four years clean, I had already got off that probation I was supposed to be going to NA meetings and I was just signing the paper not going, you know I was too busy. I was doing other things. I got custody of my kids back. I was going to school You know, I was working a decent job Trying to figure out how to put a roof over their head

Matt (1:08:56)
Congratulations.

Rachel (1:09:18)
And I eventually got to a point kind of like, I guess where I had a little bit of balance in my life. And I realized that like, you know, I didn't really have, I had kind of created this bubble for myself, right? Like I didn't let anything come into the bubbles. Therefore nothing could like pop it and make me like, you know, I didn't have social media. I didn't go out to places where like alcohol, you know what mean? I just went to school, I went to work and I came home with my kids and I would read and then fall asleep. You know what I mean?

And then eventually I started running. I was like 205 pounds when I got out of prison, I worked in the kitchen, so, you know, and it was COVID time.

Matt (1:09:54)
Cheers.

That

happened so fast in jail.

Rachel (1:10:01)
And when I looked in a mirror the first time I got out, because you know they have mirrors in there. It's like, so you know you're getting big, but you don't have like the full spectrum of how big you're actually getting. And I was like, what? he was like, fuck, damn it. ⁓

Matt (1:10:12)
What?

And there's no scales in it, like, you gotta like, do a med, like, weigh your- Fuck yeah.

Rachel (1:10:20)
Yeah, lying to you like, girl, you look good.

Like the girls are, you know? And I was like really into podcasting. I was really, Andrew Huberman, Joe Rogan. I was really into fucking David Goggins, dude. I got so into David. Dude, David Goggins got me through so much shit. Jordan Peterson. I fucking love watching Jordan Peterson's like,

Matt (1:10:31)
Hmm?

Rachel (1:10:48)
online lectures like the one he did on the Lion King in Pinocchio. don't know if you've ever seen him. He goes through the full spectrum of archetypes like umik.

Matt (1:10:53)
But I probably will know.

Oh, you know what? Yeah, yeah, I've seen, like, I've seen parts of this.

Rachel (1:11:03)
It is so good. Like I would watch Jordan Beegerson so much whenever he's going to prison, my kids would like call him grandpa. I'd be like, what's grandpa talking about today? You know? And yeah, dude. And then I started watching David and then finally I was like, man, fuck, I'm tired of being fat. You know? I just woke up one day and I was like, I was living with my mom at the time. I was like, mom, I'm going to start running today. And she was like, okay, good for you. And I just put on headphones and I'd listen like gangster rap.

fucking nothing motivates you like Kevin Gates for some reason when you're trying to lose weight. And I didn't know how far I was running or anything. I would just be like, I'm gonna run for an hour every day at 5 a.m. I did it every day for like a year. I would sleep with pre-workout next to my bed. It'd be like already mixed in the bottle. I'd have my running clothes on, you know? And I'd just chug the pre-workout and just start running. And I remember even my neighbor was like, girl, you used to be fat as hell.

Matt (1:11:38)
It's so funny.

Rachel (1:12:01)
You couldn't even make it, know, like 10 feet to that being out of breath, know, just like, look at you now. And then, yeah, so that's a real big part of my recovery because I don't know. I mean, I know there's a lot of chemical stuff that goes on with that. You know I mean? But like, it gave me a way, like a sense of self, right? Like a belief in myself that I could do anything if I just put my mind to it. You know what I mean? Like if I really wanted something and I did whatever it took to get it, that I could get it.

Matt (1:12:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well, my hat's off to you. I will not run.

Rachel (1:12:33)
I don't run, I don't really run anymore, but I did. I started just going to the gym and maintaining, but I love that too.

Matt (1:12:42)
My mentor always, he's an ex-Navy SEAL and he says, running for the enemy.

Rachel (1:12:47)
Nice.

Matt (1:12:48)
Yeah, yeah, like cool. I'm totally fine with that

Rachel (1:12:51)
Dude, I'm telling you, I was so into fucking David Goggins. One time, I think he was at work. I promise you this is true story. I was like, just out of nowhere. Like, I didn't plan it, wasn't prepared for it. I was just like, running 20 miles today. It wasn't a marathon, it was just me, you know, by myself. Did you do it? Yeah, I I almost died, bro. I was so tired.

Matt (1:13:09)
You do. Jesus.

Yeah, what'd your feet look like after?

Rachel (1:13:16)
Dude, they were rough, but like I could barely walk and I had to go to work the next day and I was just, and then it was so funny because the other manager I worked with, he's like, I don't feel sorry for you, you're an idiot.

Matt (1:13:25)
Yeah, wow. 20 miles. So the other person that I know that went to safety, he started running out of nowhere too, like very recently. And he was like, hey, you should come run with us. I was like, yeah, not happening. And then he like sent me the screenshot of his like analytics and it was like, he ran 18 miles today. I was like, yeah, fuck no, not happening.

Rachel (1:13:47)
But that shit is, I mean, there's, you get to a point where it's like, it's not, you're not tired. Like it doesn't, it's not like Zerdy and like you're just in that zone.

Matt (1:13:54)
I've never been to that point, so I don't know what that's like.

Rachel (1:14:00)
Okay, well, my brain like never shuts the

Matt (1:14:02)
Let

tell you the extent of my running. Post-PE was ⁓ running from cops. That's it. That's when I ran.

Rachel (1:14:11)
yeah,

Yeah,

I would mostly hide from them because I can run fast. ⁓ but okay, so just side note one time.

Matt (1:14:20)
I

was just running too, it wasn't getting away. didn't get away. Yeah. It was never... One time I actually got away, and it was when my wife overdosed. Because everybody was focused on this, and then there were these cops that were trying to... Actually, they just wanted her purse, but there was drugs in the purse, so I dipped, and they ran. It was like downtown San Diego, busy. It is so crazy, that story is so crazy. We were up in this parking structure,

Rachel (1:14:23)
Got you. That's why you have to hide.

Matt (1:14:50)
on the top floor and she like overdosed standing up and I was like, fuck and so I got in the elevator and it's like busy six o'clock Friday night and everybody of course is like going to every floor and there's like all these people in this elevator and I'm like got this dying girl in my arm. It was crazy.

Rachel (1:15:08)
Yeah.

Matt (1:15:11)
People weren't happy with that, but...

Yeah. And of course, it was like stopped at every floor on the way down. I was like, this girl's gonna die.

Rachel (1:15:21)
Dude, there's only one time I ever got away from the police and I don't know, like, adrenaline hit and I just became a fucking superhuman. And like I was, I fucking hit through the alley, like hooked over the fence, like didn't climb over it, like I jumped over

Matt (1:15:35)
It's how you can never do normally.

Rachel (1:15:38)
And fucking just like slid so like hit the fence and then slid into a dog house a dog house There was a dog in the dog house Dude, it was like a fuck it. It was like a mud. It was probably like something maybe German Shepherd Yeah, mix with some other shit, you know Like right at my face and I was scared like yeah dogs about to eat me, but I'm not coming out of the dog

Matt (1:15:48)
What kind of dog?

Yeah, for sure.

Rachel (1:16:07)
Police are like flashed it like where the fuck did she go and he's just barking barking but didn't bite me, you know and fucking they finally left and I got out that's the only time I ever got away from police that story was crazy But yeah so Let's see. What was that?

Matt (1:16:24)
I derail conversations all the time.

Rachel (1:16:28)
But I did get over my David Goggins phase. mean, I still love him. think he's fucking dead dude. Man, it's crazy.

Matt (1:16:34)
Did you know what like happened with his knees and hips?

Rachel (1:16:37)
Know that I don't think I don't even think those things are real. She's like fake pieces

Matt (1:16:42)
Yeah, now it is. at one point his knees were just bone on bone and they had to slice it and like shape it out. Yeah. And then he still like ran 200 miles like that same week or something. Yeah, I do.

Rachel (1:16:55)
fucking jumping out of planes, stopping forest fires and shit. But that's, that like, okay, that's kind of what running was for me because like, you know, I've always wanted to meditate, but I, I won't like, I mean, I guess they're like, if you just, you know, sit long enough, you'll eventually, I'm like, no, I won't. You know, never be, I can't sit still long enough. My brain is fired and wiring. But when I run, it's like, I exert my body so much that finally it's like, okay, it shuts the fuck up.

Matt (1:16:59)
Yeah.

Rachel (1:17:26)
And then it just like kind of digs into what really needs to be thought about, right? And I have so many like, epiphanies. Like one time I was running and I saw where I was like, I was tripping. was like, seen all these versions of me from like, a little four year old up, right? And I'm like running, I'm so proud of myself because I lost all this weight and like listen to this song. And I'm just feeling the moment. And they're like waving and then saluting me and I'm like, dude, what? And like, it was just my imagination.

I wouldn't imagine anything like that if I wasn't running. I couldn't just sit down and be like, mm-hmm, you know, I can't. But shit like that happens to all the time when I run.

Matt (1:18:04)
Yeah, people who can meditate, like, blow my mind. like, Like, what do you think? Like, they're like, yeah, you're supposed to, like, not think of shit. So, like, okay. ⁓ It's like, okay, this doesn't make actual logical sense to me. How does this work? It's like, no, can't do it. No. I don't know if I've ever actually successfully meditated. I've definitely sat there for, like, stupid amounts of time trying to, though.

Rachel (1:18:13)
Thinking about not thinking about shit.

Yeah, me too. Well, the thing is, I don't know necessarily what defines meditation. I don't think that it has to just be like, no thought.

Matt (1:18:41)
Yeah, I mean there's like those kundalini yoga's Yes, yeah, it's like the fire breath fire breath and I'm not talking about what happens when you wake up, but ⁓ Yeah, there's like supposedly like this specific method of like breathing can get you like visual hallucination. ⁓

Rachel (1:18:45)
I've heard of it.

I tried them in prison.

Matt (1:19:06)
I like really? Okay, okay, I guess

Rachel (1:19:10)
There was this book, it was called We're All Doing Time, by the Human Kindness Foundation, have you ever read it?

Matt (1:19:15)
No?

Sounds good, no?

Rachel (1:19:17)
And so it just has this fucking sick dude and wife that just wrote this rad ass book and had all those different breaths, right? And it's like, I did this one thing too, where you're to like stare into another person's eyes.

Matt (1:19:30)
yeah, that's... yeah, couldn't do that either. don't mean... Really convincing somebody in jail, you're like, hey, check this out, I just need you to like, sit here. Yeah. ⁓ yeah.

Rachel (1:19:32)
Did it.

We were born in D.

This was a different county. This was Kauffman County. And that jail is like a dungeon. Like they just take you down somewhere dark and you never come out of that bitch until you get out. Like you stay in that little one spot and it's like, and they just feed you cornbread and beans every day. that's it's so weird.

Matt (1:20:00)
Dude, jails in Texas? I just, the guy that wrote this book right here, his name is David Douglas Smith, right? He was part of this organization in Austin that goes after dictators, foreign dictators and shit like that. People are committing human rights violations, atrocities, and they're also suing TDC for human rights violations. Fucking right. Yeah, it's like, I-

Never realized how lucky I was to go to prison in California, because here it sounds... it's horrible.

Rachel (1:20:35)
It's dude. It's horrible. One time I tested positive for COVID and they took me and like the other seven girls that tested positive and they threw us in this pod and there was no TV and they brought us our food. They never came and took the trash out. And I just remember one day and I actually felt sick. know what I mean? I was sick. couldn't, I could barely walk, felt pretty bad. And the guard comes in, she was just like, y'all fucking stink. Y'all are filthy. Get your ass up now. And made us all strip naked and get in the shower, dude.

Matt (1:21:04)
I bet it didn't smell that actually I've always heard like

Rachel (1:21:06)
It

was the food. The food had been in there forever. They hadn't even taken any of the trash. So was like seven days worth of food. So it did stink. And that was the time when I finally was like, okay, take me, I'm ready. I fucking went under my covers and I think I cried every tear I had ever held back in my whole life for like three hours straight. Someone came to check on me and the one girl I got really close with was like, no, no, she needs this. Don't fuck with her.

Matt (1:21:34)
Yeah.

Rachel (1:21:36)
I don't know, mean, that was like, God, you know, because I remember thinking like, first of all, my kids don't want to fuck with me. They don't believe anything I say, they don't trust me, they're hurt. But I feel like I, right now, I feel like I've abandoned, I have nobody, right? No one's fucking with me anymore. And I'm like, damn, maybe that's what they feel like, right? Because like their mom and dad, especially my oldest daughter, because before we got on drugs, I mean, her dad still drank and did stuff, but like we were very active parents and she was a daddy's girl.

And then my youngest daughter, she was just passed out from the day she was born. She never had a mom or dad. And so I was like, fuck.

Matt (1:22:11)
Yeah.

Older than now they're like old now

Rachel (1:22:17)
One's 18, she's turning 18 and she ⁓ started her first semester of college. She already fucked that off so we could try to fix that for her. But she works at, I work for a company, the manager at this place called Pie Top and it's like a restaurant in Dallas. And so she started when she was 15 when I first got custody of her back, because it's like, we were broke, dude. She's like, I want to buy some stuff. So they didn't even hire 15 year olds, they just let me do it.

And so she started as a busser and then she'd do to-go orders and she'd make good money. And now she's a waitress there and at a different location. So she's 18. She graduated high school. I got to see her graduate high school.

Matt (1:22:59)
Your first graduation year.

Rachel (1:23:01)
And then my other one, she's 11 and dude, she is everything like me like in a good way though, cause she's getting like so much healthy nurturing from all the things I've learned, you know, that I never got. But like I see all of my addict tendencies in her. Like, so I put her in jujitsu and she's her person. Like she's new. And so like there's people that might be technically better than her, but like she will die trying. She will die.

die trying before she lets someone take her out, you know? And so I'm hoping that's, you know, good for her. It seems to have been helping her a lot.

Matt (1:23:40)
Yeah, that's... I've got two daughters, one's two months old and one's four. And I'm like, how the fuck am gonna do this? You know, like, I already found this boarding school in the UK that's like eight hours away from like civilization up in the mountains, all girls. I was like, that sounds really good to me. You know? If they're till 18, we'll see her in spring break in summer. Like, hey, this sounds great.

Rachel (1:24:05)
Dude, I was doing some research on Finland because I did an ancestry report and I found out I some Finnish ancestry. And I'm like, dude, these people are so raw. Dude, don't even start school until eight years old. The first part of your life is just learning how to live in nature.

Matt (1:24:26)
Well, and it's like yeah, do we really want to have to try to get kids to see like it the weather there is insane Yeah, yeah

Rachel (1:24:33)
But I was crazy as I hate the cold, for some reason I feel like if the cold was covered by snow and beautiful mountains and stuff, I'd probably enjoy it. You know what mean? Because I watch videos of people just jumping in ice water, just doing a fucking ice bath. It's a regular day thing that they do.

Matt (1:24:52)
Yeah, they've done all these like outcome studies for like countries right and it's like that whole block of countries right there everybody's fucking happy

Rachel (1:25:01)
Oh,

dude, they're fucking thriving. Like, their teachers over there are paid like our doctors are made over here. And they have like, they have a lot of education and they get to pick their own curriculum. It's not picked by, you know, a state or any type of mandate. And there's like no, there's no tests like those A, B, D, you know what I mean? You have to write out your thoughts, you have to think critically. And it's not wrong or right really per se.

Matt (1:25:10)
That makes sense.

Thank

Yeah, just justify what you think. Dude, the whole education system here, like, it blows my mind. It blows my mind. Especially because it's like, the average person isn't going to work in a factory anymore. And we know for sure that it was developed to train factory workers. It's like, why do you think nobody wants to go to school? Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel (1:25:53)
My eyes, so the only justification I have for the whole school thing is honestly, like sometimes my 11 year old teachers will call her, like she won't submit some assignment or whatever. And I'm like, I'm really not that fucked up about it. know? Cause I'm like, but I want you to be socialized. I want you to know how to like make friends and have deep relationships and like know what it's like to have, you know, someone lie to you or, know, things like that. And so even like at school, I'm like, okay, so what are you gonna do?

Because she draws, she's like really good artist, right? So it's like, okay, so you draw, you play clarinet, you do jiu-jitsu. It's like you get all these things, experiences of life that are more than just a standardized test.

Matt (1:26:33)
Yeah, and like what is the likelihood you're gonna use... Actually, we don't learn anything fucking usable in school. I didn't at least, right? It's like the last time I like added anything was... Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a... horrible at it. Yeah, math... math... There's three real human superpowers, okay? It's high-level math that like translates into like nukes and like space travel and then childbirth, which I can't do, and then recovery. Yeah.

Rachel (1:26:45)
I suck at math.

Matt (1:27:03)
So I can only participate in one of them.

Rachel (1:27:06)
Well, really did. Okay, obviously not in school, like, middle school or actually elementary I did like to write. But once I got into high school, I wasn't thinking that any of that stuff was useful. But when I got into college, I had a really good English professor. And I realized that writing, even though there's like still the stupid sheds, like you have to write this way and use this type of citation or whatever. once you get the hang of it, you're like, okay, fuck it, I got it. But like, that's how I kind of started developing like,

to think for myself and have a voice and know what, like opinions and like be able to speak and people want to listen to what I'm saying, right? It was like through learning how to write because it's like, it wasn't like, you know, what I thought it was just grammar. was like, no logic. You know what mean? Like ethos, you know, like touching on people's emotions, like all of these cool things, you know? was like, fuck, this is actually pretty cool. You can use your words to inspire somebody or like to...

Help them see something differently right without forcing it on them Yeah, and that's kind of the cool thing about narcotics anonymous and like what I heard you say about earlier my experience is a complete opposite because like At least the group that I a lot of you It's like dude. You can come in here. Hi. We don't fucking care We rather you being here high than out there. Yeah, you know, like they do say like if you are high then just listen don't talk

Matt (1:28:20)
people are.

Yeah.

That's probably a good rule.

Rachel (1:28:35)
So that's what I was, you know, so I was clean. I was off that strict probation, the strict one, but I felt like, I have no connection to the outside world. Like I have all this information that I've taken in for these years, from prison and school and writing and podcasts. And I have no outlet or anyone to tell it to.

Matt (1:28:58)
Yeah.

Rachel (1:28:59)
And so my first reason I went to narcotics and all of this is because I want to practice learning how to speak in public. And I know that that's what they do there. That's why I went there. And it became so much more. And I realized I had problems that I didn't even know I had. And this is kind of a cliche, but it's so true across the board. You'll hear this identification. I felt weird hugging people.

Matt (1:29:06)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Rachel (1:29:25)
And I mean, I definitely didn't want to look you in the eye. And if you're trying to look me in the eye, was going to fucking run, Because I'm like, I'm hiding something. I don't even know what it is. Because I don't know myself. And so I was going to these meetings for like six months. I was spewing off all this fucking philosophical shit. And just listened to me mumble like, OK, bro. Keep it simple, dude. I'm thinking, you know, I'm just prophetic, right?

Matt (1:29:30)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rachel (1:29:51)
And so I went to this Narcotics Anonymous Convention, the Lone Star Regional Convention, and these are like huge. mean, addicts come from all over the world, countries and stuff, to go to this thing. As I was like, dude, there's like thousands of addicts in recovery here, like all in one place, and they're all just like playing volleyball. It means spades tournaments, speaking, like hugging each other, like happy.

I'm like, what is this shit? this, was so foreign to me. I had never seen anything like that. I had never been anything, lived anything like that, you know? Because I lived in survival for so long, I never trusted anyone. You know what I mean? And so getting a sponsor kind of helped me, one, learn how to trust someone, but two, I picked a sponsor that happened to be a guy. And like sometimes people be like, oh, I don't think you can do that, you know? But I'm pretty, I can read energy.

Matt (1:30:31)
Yeah.

Rachel (1:30:45)
pretty well. know, he's an older dude. He's married. Like he wasn't trying to, you know, cover me in any type of weird. No, yeah. And plus if you tell me not to do something, I'm going the opposite. And I had just heard him and I was like, you know, this is 100%. And so then I, so not only did I learn how to have a relationship with someone that wasn't contingent on

Matt (1:30:50)
Nowhere in the book does this

Yeah.

Rachel (1:31:14)
getting anything from them. Yeah, transactional. But it was with a man. That what you know what I mean? And like in my experience, you know, I've been, you know, I've been kidnapped. I've been fucking taken hostage and used, you know, over and over again. So like and in all different and more experiences other than that. like in my experience, like any time I seen a man, I just automatically thought like, he's trying to like fuck me, even if they weren't.

Matt (1:31:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel (1:31:42)
I just felt that.

And so I was like, oh, well, OK, this person's not trying to do that. And they're trying to help me. And I'm learning from that. I'm like, OK. And so I was able to now communicate with other guys in a way where I was like, OK, I'm not trying to flirt with you. And you're not trying to flirt with me. And I've never experienced anything like that. Because in the world I come from, it's just like, even if a man's not trying to fuck you, he's trying to use you so he can get money to get dope, right? And that way it might be. And whichever way.

you know, necessary. So I got a lot from that, but and now I sponsor people. And I remember when I started doing that, I was like, I'm going to fuck this up 100 percent. I have no idea what I'm doing. But I still don't, you know, but it's like whatever these people call me and now I have relationships with them. Like, dude, one girl I worked with, like when I was 18, I seen her at the gym. She just looked at me and like I was already fucking, you know.

Matt (1:32:12)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Rachel (1:32:38)
six years clean and I just seen on her face, I was like, oh shit, that's hopeless. Like I seen it in her eyes, she didn't have to tell me. But then she was like, I've been clean for like 30 days or something, you know? And I was like, well, I've got this grip and we're having like a chili cook-off, dude. Come tomorrow to court, you know? I do shoes with code every day since and like, she just doesn't look hopeless anymore. And I've kind of like surrendered.

Matt (1:32:55)
Yeah.

Rachel (1:33:05)
trying to understand everything. I was like, fuck it dude, like, you know, whatever brings me joy.

Matt (1:33:09)
Did you hurt yourself trying to understand it? Yeah.

Rachel (1:33:12)
Actually, it's stressful.

It's like, whatever dude. ⁓ Yeah, so I mean, it's been a very good learning process. And those steps do help you some freedom and some understanding of yourself. mean, that's the reason why I could just be like, okay, I don't need to understand everything.

Matt (1:33:30)
Yeah.

I mean, so my story around like my membership of like 12 step programs is way different than actually like what I do, right? Like I don't, yeah, whatever happened, but like the 12 steps probably saved my life too, right? And like, dude, I've read that book so many fucking times. And especially here, it's like, dude, multiple pathway doesn't mean you can start somewhere else. You got to make sure that shit doesn't work. And most people can't.

Like justifiably be like yeah, that shit didn't work for me. It's like no no you just didn't do it. Yeah, you just Yeah, so it's I I always want people to know that it's like I Ended up on this path that I'm on I think be to help a specific demographic of people who are fucking hopeless like yeah, not just hopeless and like the alcoholic sense, but like They're living under a bridge

They literally cannot get clean. And now with fentanyl, it's like they will probably die before they ever make it here.

Rachel (1:34:34)
So like, what is the process? do you reach out? Do they reach out to you?

Matt (1:34:40)
Yeah, so there's a... As of now, what it really is, is just like going and talking to them, like handing out cards, like just... And telling them, like, look, you don't got to be abstinent. Like, just plant that seed, right? Or it's like, dude, look, I was exactly where you're at. Maybe you're worse. Maybe I was... I don't know, right? But the reality is, is like, you're going to die. Yeah. Right? And if you're in that place where like you don't want to do it... Like, because I didn't know how to stop.

Like that, like, I fell out of love with the drugs right around the same time that they stopped working, which makes sense. And, but that was years before that arrest. And I just remember like, for years I was having a conversation with myself and ultimately I look back on it now and I was like, was like, taught, like pleading with God, like, if I ever find a way out of this, I'm never gonna turn back. Yeah. Right? But it was like, how do you do that? Like, how do you do that when you're actively like,

dealing with life and death around, and there's like an association around like, if I stop, I will die.

Rachel (1:35:46)
Yeah. I mean, it hijacks your entire dopamine reward system. literally the only thing that motivates you is going to get some more drugs. I mean, like that's what motivates you. Like it hijacks that shit. It's like you have no control. You are powerless.

Matt (1:36:02)
Yeah.

A lot of this has helped. Like lot of people reach out. Like I'm talking to this dude in Florida right now that he saw a short, then watched an episode, and now we're like talking back and forth around like, I know people in Florida that have a homeless outreach program and like we're connecting him with all that. And so it's like, this is helping with that. I also like certify sober coaches. And so like, there's a lot of give back right there cause they're all.

going to go out and hopefully take the peer support model and like help people. ⁓ But then I do all the sober coaching here, you know, and it's like, I'm looking for a specific person, right? Like I'm looking for me. And a lot of people that I interact with are not me, right? They're maybe not there yet or will never get there. But there's a thing that's real that's like going on today within the recovery world. It's everybody's like, maybe not everybody.

but a lot of people are being systematically robbed of the full benefit of their suffering. Whether that's co-dependency or like, but look at the average person that goes into treatment, it's a preventative measure. Like it is not the, if I don't do this, I'm gonna die. It's, I got caught. I don't want my wife to leave me. I don't want to go to jail. It's like, this is where they're sending people to stop bad shit from happening. But it's like, you guys gotta have bad shit happen in order to be in that position. You know, so it's like,

There's a lot of like set up for failure going on. There's just problems like ultimately going on. And so like I can't change everybody else, but I can for sure change what happens here. Right. And it's like, are you willing to turn people away? Are you willing to turn 35 grand away to tell somebody like, go keep trying? Or is it even ethical because they're using fentanyl? There is so many like hurdles around like

trying to do this right and whatever that means, right? But ultimately it's like, I have a friend that lives in Spain, right? He owned a treatment center in LA for like 20 years. And he quit, he was like, I can't do this shit anymore, right? Because the way that he started, he was like this old, like Mexican punk rocker from the Valley and like got sober. He was homeless, like got sober and just like bought a house and then would like move homeless people in and help them get sober. And then that turned into a treatment center.

And years into it, he was like, I'm not even helping people anymore. It was like, I'm literally making all this money, and I don't feel good about what I'm doing anymore. So he sold all the shit and moved to Spain. And it's like, is that the end game for this? Or are we going to build a program based on what we're trying to actually do? And if you are, that's what we're really trying to do. How do you set up the systems to do that?

And so we put a bunch of shit in place already where it's like, you have to sacrifice money to save lives. Or you can sacrifice lives to make money. Yeah. Right? There is no doing both.

Rachel (1:39:11)
Exactly.

Matt (1:39:12)
There really is. It's like, I don't see any other path. It's like...

Rachel (1:39:16)
Yeah, there's no profit in it if you're doing what you're doing.

Matt (1:39:22)
Yeah, well, so now it's like, okay, we're buying a residential and we're like, how do we scale it? Like, in order to do what we say we're doing, we have to like scale it, right? And so it's like, so now the philosophy is the people who pay, pay for people who can't. And so now it's like, instead of fighting for scholarships, it's like 20 % of all of our census will be scholarshiped at any given time, right? So now it's like, okay, now these people are paying for these people to be here.

But it's those people who can't pay that most likely are coming off the streets. that's ultimately who I want to help anyway.

Rachel (1:39:58)
And what does the residential look like? What does that mean?

Matt (1:40:02)
Residential. You know, like inpatient. Okay. yeah, so it's like you go to, you've been in treatment, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so you like go for 28 days to like residential. you like detox. that's the thing is like, you ask like what, you know, what's being promised is something that's not possible. Like people go to treatment, especially people who are first time interaction with treatment. And it's like their parents think, oh, I'm just gonna.

Rachel (1:40:05)
How does this day in here?

Matt (1:40:31)
So in 1985 like this giant shift happened right and before 85 there was this like normalized term they would say Length of exposure to the treatment episode dictates the outcome right so the longer in it the better like most likely you'll do But now with the 28-day model. It's like they stopped saying now. They just say Exposure to treatment dictates outcomes So what they used to tell you is the longer you stay in this the better your outcomes gonna be and now they're like if you go to treatment You'll get better

And it's just not true.

Rachel (1:41:03)
And yeah, so that is just a way for them to generate income. Yeah. obviously biologically, the longer you stay. ⁓

Matt (1:41:13)
There's

like a logical component to what they used to say. scientific. Yeah. But now it's like because the treatment industry married themselves to the insurance companies. Like insurance companies are in Congress like today being grilled around like a bunch of crazy shit. But they're still not talking about the treatment industry. And one of the things that is very public, you can look this up right now, like last week they just talked about this where it's like...

you have a fiduciary obligation to your investors to maximize profits. And they found out that they own all the auxiliary and wraparound services and pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies. it's like, you don't actually own insurance companies. You own everything and you claim you're an insurance company. Well, the treatment industry is married to that. And it's like the average person could never pay for treatment out of pocket. No. Because cash pay is fucking ridiculous.

And so it's like everybody depends on insurance to go to treatment, but you'll never like the average is 28 days. Some people get 14, some people get 10, some people get 45, right? But ⁓ the problem is you have to justify services. And so like when I went to treatment the last time, I was good. Like I had relapsed for 11 days and I fit the criteria.

Rachel (1:42:34)
criteria.

Matt (1:42:36)
But I was good. Like, this is where the name comes from, right? Is like my last relapse after the prison and homelessness and arrests and lost a marriage, lost a kid, alienation, all that shit. Those 11 days were the most pivotal moments in my life, right? And so I go to treatment and I was like, you you gotta like, every time you meet with your counselor, they're asking you like, what are your cravings? What are your this? What are that? And it's like, there's seven different metrics they use on a one to seven scale.

And I was like, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. Right? But if they were to have reported that to the insurance agency, they'd have been like, kick them out. Yeah. So they have to like, actually lie, commit a crime in order to keep me there. Right? And this is a massive problem where it's like, people actually can go to treatment and feel good without having to like, lie to you guys. Like, it's just a crazy situation. Yeah.

Rachel (1:43:32)
It's a complex one too.

Matt (1:43:34)
And it's very complex. And we all know. It's like, you're only here for 28 days. We all know we need to maximize that time. So it's like, are you going to lie on some paperwork? You're going to send them out there to fail. They're going to lie on the paperwork. But if they get caught, they can go to prison. They'll lose their business. can, all the money that they've ever been paid, the insurance companies can claw it back. people end up fucked over. But it's like, my friend that lives in Spain, he was like, doing the right thing is always the right thing.

Rachel (1:44:07)
I definitely believe that. ⁓ Yeah, Jordan Pearson talks about that a lot. I think he used Harry Potter as a reference. You know what mean? He would break the rules, but only in the pursuit of what was right.

Matt (1:44:21)
Yeah. ⁓

Rachel (1:44:23)
And did you get it? Look, he's got some cool ass shit on.

Matt (1:44:26)
I watched a lot of his debates because he does the Christian versus atheism thing.

Rachel (1:44:31)
Yeah,

his debates are cool because I love his composure and the way he articulates himself.

Matt (1:44:37)
His

suits. Yeah. His suits are so fucking dope.

Rachel (1:44:41)
But I mean, that man is, he is so well composed up here. You know what mean? It's like you can't even upset him.

Matt (1:44:50)
Dude, his story, you know how he started doing what he's doing? Yeah, yeah. That is so crazy. And then he was like a hardcore Xanax addict. Which is, Xanax is one of the craziest addictions.

Rachel (1:44:54)
because of the college. Yeah.

No, I didn't know that. Yeah, when I came to Texas, I was like, when I was in the Mid-Bus, it was just like weed and alcohol, you know? But I came in there like, we had Xanax, Ecstasy, Heroin Myth. Which one would you like?

Matt (1:45:16)
this cornucopia of substances that make you, if you want to go up, can go up. If you want to go down, you can go down.

Rachel (1:45:22)
Yeah,

and by the end, it was like I needed all of them. You know what mean? Like I need one to not be sick, one to get up.

Matt (1:45:26)
Yeah.

One

to like not be fucking crazy when you're up. Yeah And then when to go to sleep when to wake up. Yeah, was a mess when I got arrested the last time I was Smoking PCP strong on meth and heroin Smoking weed on a ton of Xanax and then like smoking crack on the weekends for fun. Yeah And I was like had to kick that but I didn't wake up for like three days. Anyway, like I fell asleep

And my whole plan was like, okay, I'm just gonna bail out, because as long as they don't book me on the bank robbery, like I'm just here on a bunch of bullshit. I was like, okay, I just gotta bail out. And then I like hit my cell, fell asleep, woke up like three days later, I was like, fuck. Fuck, how did that happen? It was crazy.

Rachel (1:46:17)
Yeah, I did that one time. used my best friend, the one that beat me up with the baseball bat. I knew all of her information. I previous addresses, school, anything, you know? And she didn't have no warrants for the longest time. So I'd always use her shit and get away with it. One time they're like, you got a warrant, but I'm like, well, this is way less than the one I got. You just try to get booked in and get out, know? Get in get out. Well, it did not ⁓ bond out in time before the fingerprints came back in there. And I caught a whole nother charge.

Matt (1:46:36)
Yeah

Dude, one time I found an ID that looked so much like, and it was like just, so there was like this freeway and then like this underpass and everybody was homeless right there and I found this ID that looked just like me. And I got pulled over and I gave the cop the ID and dude, other cops pulled up. I was like, what the fuck? And they pulled me out and they were like.

So until I forget the name, they're like, I was like, yeah, they're like, you're wanted on a murder. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, hold on, hold on. That is not me. Here's my ID. They were like, oh, okay.

Rachel (1:47:19)
You didn't think you'd do a check on it, did

Matt (1:47:21)
No, and it's like five minutes before the exit to Mexico And I was like fuck like why wouldn't I think like yeah, somebody definitely is getting rid of their ID?

Rachel (1:47:30)
Yeah, they did not want that bitch.

Matt (1:47:33)
Yeah, I was like, hold on. Hold I lied. I'm sorry. You know that's a charge, right? Yeah, but, I mean, sorry.

Rachel (1:47:42)
Yeah, it was another charge. I was like, fuck. But okay, so I remember, that's how I was working for the company I'm working for now. I started as a server because before that was working as a maid because I all these felonies, right? And when I was in the halfway house, they're like, oh, this place will hire you. So I was just like scrubbing rich people's floors. I mean, like these beautiful homes, dude, for like seven bucks an hour.

Matt (1:48:06)
In

Dallas? Yeah.

Rachel (1:48:08)
I mean, like some of the richest people ever. And I'm like, dude, they don't even know who they're trusting in their house right now. If they only knew. And, but I was like, I can't fucking do this anymore. And I remembered I had been a waitress when I was younger. So I was like, I'm just going to go. I went on an Indeed and applied in whole bunch of places. The first place that called me back, I got hired and I started making pretty decent money. I'm really good at like serving people without judgment. I don't know.

Matt (1:48:15)
Yeah.

Rachel (1:48:37)
It's like I can read people and know exactly what they want before it's just an unwanted gift I was given. Yeah, mean, just any, you know? And so I made a lot of money, but I was like, I'd been working there for about two years. The GM got promoted to area director and I don't know why, but I was just like, I'm going to go in this place and I'm going show up every fucking day the same. No matter what happens, I'm never going to like, I'm never going to be late.

Matt (1:48:43)
The chameleon.

Rachel (1:49:05)
I'm never going to not do what I'm supposed to do. I'm going to above and beyond what I'm supposed to do, you know? And so I was like, I am going apply to be a manager. so I made a resume. It was like a bullsh-ass resume. even know was doing. And I gave it to the area director at the time. And he sat me down while I'm waiting tables in my f-ing uniform. He's like, what's this gap here? was like, well, I was a drug addict and I went to prison. And he was like, ⁓ OK, some people get their life together or whatever. I never heard from him again.

Matt (1:49:34)
Yeah.

Rachel (1:49:36)
But then I was like, fuck, I'm not giving up. kept, so instead of like letting it get me down, I was like, I'm still going to keep doing what I do. You know, like I'd learn every area of that restaurant. And then I made another resume. Like a year later, we had got a new area director and the resume was so stupid. I actually found it in my glove box. was like, yeah, I generate this much in sales. I know every regular by name and they're, you know, start naming them off in a resume. And I gave it to the dude and, and they ended up giving me a chance. They hired me, right?

And so they gave me the offer letter and it was like, okay, this is the offer letter. We're offering you like six, I think it was like 65,000 at the time and pending your background check.

Fuck, fuck. But the area director had known me this whole time, been working there, and she knew I was on probation, I could take drug tests, all this kind of stuff. And so I called her and she was like, dude, it's gonna be fine. like, you've never seen it on paper, ma'am. You don't know what you're getting into. She was like, dude, I believe in you, it's gonna be fine, it's gonna be okay. And then, so the background came back and I'm just like, I had never seen it on paper. And I was like, holy fuck, dude. I mean, it just kept going, dude. I was a little depressed about it.

Matt (1:50:31)
Yeah

Rachel (1:50:50)
And so I had already started, I was like on my second day, and I walk into the restaurant, you know, and I see every person from HR sitting at the table. And they all just look at me when I come in and I'm like, fuck, it's over. You know what mean? It's over. And they were like, you know, come over here. ⁓ You know, before we continue to move forward, we just want to go over some things in your background. And I was like, no, motherfucker, already picked me. They were going forward. I was like, okay, all right.

And I don't know, but I just got a surge of confidence. And the head of HR was like, we'll go ahead and start with the most recent charge you have here, aggravated robbery. And I was like, how about we stop at that one? Because I'll let you know that every single charge on that paper is related to addiction.

Matt (1:51:32)
Yeah.

Rachel (1:51:41)
I was like, and I don't know if you understand anything about addiction. I was like, and it just went off. I don't even remember everything I said. It was like, hijacks your dopamine reward system, all this kind of stuff. And then I was like, and I've been clean this long. I had fucking letters of recommendation from the judges, lawyers, previous workers, all this kind of stuff. And she was like, looked at the vice president of operations. And she was like, do you have any other questions? And he was like, no, think we're good.

Matt (1:52:07)
That's sad.

Rachel (1:52:08)
And ⁓ I've been moving up that company ever since, And I'm just like, hell yeah. Sometimes it's just like straight 100 % in vulnerability and honesty. You might have to work harder than someone else to get it, but you can still get it.

Matt (1:52:23)
Yeah, for sure.

Rachel (1:52:26)
I'm really stoked about that. I've never had like, so now I have a house. That's mine. I'm on the lease, same phone number, a car, you know, it's not stolen. I got the keys to this house. You know what mean? The tags aren't expired. Kids, know, fucking thriving and I'm like, and it's a lot, dude. I couldn't imagine coming out of prison, all the responsibilities I have right now, I would have fucking had a panic attack. I mean, there's no way.

I would have never foreseen this. And I think it's just because I never stayed clean long enough to see the other side of it. Because I started doing drugs so young, it's like I never knew what a life was like without drugs. And so being scared to go back to prison gave me enough time to be like, even just those little things, right? Like just getting custody of, I mean, that's a big thing, but working and...

Matt (1:53:00)
Yeah.

Rachel (1:53:20)
getting custody of my kids and starting to develop a relationship with them. We went through some shit together. We were sleeping in a two-bedroom apartment with my sister, who was an active addiction, going through divorce with her son. And then me and my two kids shared a room. And I did everything I could to try to make it all homey for them. We all slept in the same bed. And my youngest daughter hated it. She would kick us. She was like, fuck. It went from living in a two-story, nice house, swimming pool.

I mean, everything spoiled. Now they're poor. They sleep in the same bed with me. And it took us three years to get out of that. But we grew through it together as a family.

Matt (1:54:04)
Yeah. Yeah, that's the kind of shit that people don't forget. Yeah. For sure. I really appreciate you guys coming down. Thank you for having us. Yeah, and thank you for coming on.

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 Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you like to stream podcasts.

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