Life After Seriously Injuring Another Woman While Driving Drunk, Getting a Felony DUI, and Attempting Suicide

Matt (00:00:03):
I'm Matt Handy and you're listening to My Last Relapse. So Jennifer, I was going to ask you though, why'd you get divorced?

 

Jenifer (00:00:16):
I was a drunk. So I couldn't trust him. It was a trust issue from the beginning. One month in, I was like, "Man, I hate you. I can't stand you. I don't know why I married you.

 

Matt (00:00:29):
Really?

 

Jenifer (00:00:29):
It was turbulent. I mean, we argued, but we were never physical. I grew up in a physically abusive environment, so I knew you weren't going to hello. I knew you weren't going to hit me, but we still did the verbal abuse and it was trash. But we had a lot of fun too. So I mean, he was a super personality. I like to have fun. I like to clown around.

 

Matt (00:00:58):
Is that your son's dad?

 

Jenifer (00:00:59):
No.

 

Matt (00:01:01):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (00:01:01):
So excited you asked that. No, that's part of my story is I got pregnant when I was 18, had Hunter when I was 19. So I was a literal baby.

 

Matt (00:01:14):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:01:15):
But no, I didn't have children with him. I actually had infertility. So I got pregnant super easy when I was 18. And then whenever I wanted to have a baby, I couldn't. So that was part of my story too.

 

Matt (00:01:30):
Was it infertility due to health complications around drinking?

 

Jenifer (00:01:35):
I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, I smoked cigarettes a lot. Now I vape a lot. But when you smoke, it reduces your chance of pregnancy. I got married when I was 28.

 

Matt (00:01:47):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (00:01:48):
So I mean, you would think I would be healthy, but I'm sure there was some other health stuff going on, obviously.

 

Matt (00:01:53):
Yeah. So my wife is so weird. So never worried about getting pregnant in any way. No protection at all. But when we were slamming heroin, she could not get pregnant. She wasn't getting pregnant.

 

Jenifer (00:02:14):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:02:14):
Second she stopped, I mean, within a couple weeks of her stopping, she got pregnant.

 

Jenifer (00:02:19):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:02:20):
So I mean, she went from slamming heroin to smoking fentanyl, but a bunch of people that we were hanging out with at the time, it was the exact same. Three or four of us got pregnant at the same time because we all stopped doing ... Well, I didn't, but she did. They all did and started doing fentanyl and they all got pregnant.

 

Jenifer (00:02:41):
Yeah. It's just crazy. A lot of people want to get pregnant and can't. And it's like other people in their disease, pregnant, pregnant, pregnant. I don't know, but it's most likely divine intervention. I know that looking back once we got divorced, looking back, I'm like, dang, I'm so glad I wasn't. I don't have to deal with a child in a divorce.

 

Matt (00:03:02):
Yeah. So especially with verbal abuse. And most kids, at least this is my experience, dealing with getting hit was like whatever. It was the verbal abuse, the mental anguish that came from verbal abuse that was like, that fucked me up more than anything.

 

Jenifer (00:03:23):
Yeah. The number one thing that sticks with me, because certain things just stick with you, is my ex- husband, which I want to explain what recovery looks like back on that relationship, but he called me damaged goods.

 

Matt (00:03:37):
Ah.

 

Jenifer (00:03:38):
I was like, oh my God, that was horrible. But we both were kind of damaged goods. And that's one of the things is two broken people don't make a well couple.

 

Matt (00:03:51):
Yeah,

 

Jenifer (00:03:52):
That's it. Yeah. So he actually thought my childhood was bad, but his childhood was horrible. So we're bringing those things into the relationship and we weren't well and doing therapy, but we just kind of laughed and drank.

 

Matt (00:04:07):
Yeah. Especially today where the family systems and dynamics, they're all broken down. It's like anybody that lives past 15 is just fucked up.

 

Jenifer (00:04:18):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:04:19):
In a lot of places, not 100%, but ...

 

Jenifer (00:04:23):
Yeah. I don't think there are a lot of super well-adjusted people.

 

Matt (00:04:27):
Have you seen this whole generation Alpha thing? I've been talking about this a lot, but there is a ... So it's millennials, then Gen Z and then Gen Alpha. These kids, we're talking about literal kids. They're making commitments to sobriety.

 

Jenifer (00:04:45):
Yeah. I listened to you and Andy's podcast. And y'all were talking about that, or you are. Yeah. I mean, they're making good decisions.

 

Matt (00:04:54):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:04:55):
But that's the information that you were saying. We have that out there and they're looking at us going, "Man, y'all are screw ups. Mom and dad or grandma and grandpa." So looking back on that relationship, I call him my "wasband" because that's hilarious.

 

Matt (00:05:14):
I've never heard that before.

 

Jenifer (00:05:15):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:05:15):
Is that a thing? People say that?

 

Jenifer (00:05:17):
Actually, the chef, when I was in treatment and rehab, she taught me that. And I thought that was just hilarious, so I use it.

 

Matt (00:05:23):
I've learned so many different little terms for things on this show. It's so funny.

 

Jenifer (00:05:29):
It's fun. Anyway, when I was in PHP in this beautiful house, my treatment episode was just beautiful and everything I needed. Nope. Just one. But anyway, so I was in PHP. I went to treatment at Covenant Hills in Boerne, Texas, which is no longer around. It was a California company. So I was in PHP and I started making amends, which is not what you're supposed to do. I was not-

 

Matt (00:05:58):
A little early.

 

Jenifer (00:05:59):
Yeah. I was not healthy. I was just like, "I feel moved to do so. " Yeah, I totally didn't do everything right. Anyway, so I called him and I was like- And what is Ray? I don't know. I don't know, but not suggested.

 

Matt (00:06:12):
Yeah. Okay.

 

Jenifer (00:06:12):
But I called him- Because you

 

Matt (00:06:14):
Got to remember, Bill and Bob were doing steps in 15 minutes.

 

Jenifer (00:06:19):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:06:20):
And they had 100% success rate.

 

Jenifer (00:06:22):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:06:23):
So what is right?

 

Jenifer (00:06:24):
I don't know.

 

Matt (00:06:25):
But anyway, keep going.

 

Jenifer (00:06:25):
I called him and I was like, "Hey, I'm seeing things," because I started seeing things differently.

 

Matt (00:06:32):
Oh, you're like on drugs?

 

Jenifer (00:06:32):
Which is the point.

 

Matt (00:06:33):
I'm just kidding.

 

Jenifer (00:06:36):
And I was like, "Yeah, I really had a lot of fault. I really can see where I was wrong." And he was like, "What?" So it started healing that relationship and we actually tried to work on our marriage. And man, there's just so much stuff that I could say on this podcast, but we don't have time because I could talk to her.

 

Matt (00:07:00):
Well, we got a little bit of time. I've got till 1:30.

 

Jenifer (00:07:03):
I've got till about 10:00.

 

Matt (00:07:06):
Oh, wow. That sucks.

 

Jenifer (00:07:08):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:07:09):
Okay. Then let's start like this. Who are you?

 

Jenifer (00:07:13):
Jenifer.

 

Matt (00:07:13):
And what do you do?

 

Jenifer (00:07:14):
Jenifer with one N. I'm actually ... 1N, 1F.

 

Matt (00:07:19):
Wait. Yeah. Jenifer's spelled like a million different ways,

 

Jenifer (00:07:23):
Right? I've never seen somebody with two Fs. Have you?

 

Matt (00:07:27):
I don't remember. I've seen ... Oh no, it was Christopher.

 

Jenifer (00:07:31):
Okay. But people, I'll say it's Jenifer with one N. And really I say that for two reasons, so you'll spell it right because it's ugly with two N's. Sorry for the people that have two Ns. And they say two Fs? And I'm like, "Nope, just one and one and one." But anyway, Jenifer and I'm a nurse by trade and I was a dialysis nurse for 20 years. So I know all things kidneys, but a year and one month ago I started working and doing business development for Plum Creek Recovery Ranch.

 

Matt (00:08:05):
Why did career change?

 

Jenifer (00:08:07):
Nursing was killing me.

 

Matt (00:08:09):
That is a pretty common thing,

 

Jenifer (00:08:12):
Right? I went through the most ... I have major depressive disorder and I went through the worst depression of my life last year.

 

Matt (00:08:20):
Okay. Was it painful, like physically painful?

 

Jenifer (00:08:25):
No, just stressful. I just describe it as I'm drowning. My life preserver's failing. I'm drowning and then you throw 10 more tasks on top of me and you're like, "I literally can't do what y'all are asking me to do in a safe, effective manner." And it's like, y'all are killing me. So yeah, I was looking for a change. I was praying. Man, and I'm defiant. Even when I pray, I'm just like, life is good. I'm not praying. I'm a horrible prayer. But I was in prayer like, "God, help me. " And so I started taking action. I went to TAP and I was not a professional in the field. I've been thinking about that industry word.

 

Matt (00:09:20):
Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

 

Jenifer (00:09:22):
Yeah. So I'm choosing to use better words, but I wasn't in this field and people, everybody that knows me is like, "God, Jen, you love recovery. Why are you not working in it? " So anyway, I went to tap with Rachel and people are like, "Who are you with? " And I'm like, "Me."

 

Matt (00:09:41):
Would you ever be a nurse again for a treatment facility?

 

Jenifer (00:09:45):
No, I was a detox nurse for Mag City.

 

Matt (00:09:48):
Okay. Okay. I get that.

 

Jenifer (00:09:50):
It was great. It was fun. It was cool. And people like my clients actually started freaking vaping when I worked at Mag City because all of my clients would come in and they're vaping because we let them vape in there. And Rachel, I stole her vape one time. I was like, "Hey, it was a grape sakura or whatever." I stole it. I started vaping.

 

Matt (00:10:13):
Did you get the whole tingly thing when you first started vaping?

 

Jenifer (00:10:16):
No.

 

Matt (00:10:16):
I did.

 

Jenifer (00:10:18):
I coughed. I was like, "This is weird." But it tasted so good.

 

Matt (00:10:21):
It does.

 

Jenifer (00:10:22):
And my 11-year-old niece, a couple weeks ago, she was like, "Hey, Jen, why do the vapes smell so good?" She's like, "They just smell so good." And she said, "Are they good?" And I was like, yes.

 

Matt (00:10:35):
Yeah. No. So there's a huge movement to ban flavored vapes across the ... So do you remember? So you don't remember. Remember Joe Camel? No.

 

Jenifer (00:10:48):
Oh, the camel dude? Camel did.

 

Matt (00:10:50):
Camel

 

Jenifer (00:10:50):
Camel.

 

Matt (00:10:51):
Yeah. And so they had to get rid of all cartoons.

 

Jenifer (00:10:56):
Oh, that makes sense.

 

Matt (00:10:57):
Because it was advertising to kids.

 

Jenifer (00:10:59):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:11:00):
And so they made flavored vapes and it's like stuff like that happened.It's like kids, the most vulnerable people in our society come up to people and say, "Hey, oh my gosh, that smells so good." I only vape because they taste good.

 

Jenifer (00:11:16):
Yeah, I couldn't lie to her.

 

Matt (00:11:17):
I mean, how are you going to lie?

 

Jenifer (00:11:19):
I feel like I should say no, but man, truth.

 

Matt (00:11:24):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:11:25):
I'm a truth teller. And I tell the truth way too much and too bluntly, like all of my lie. That's why I'm scared to come on this podcast.

 

Matt (00:11:33):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:11:34):
I was like, no, no, because I'm in a position to be professional. And like I told you, if I can't be just out of the gate authentic and just tell my truth, but I can do that. You can know that I'm going to be authentic and tell the truth.

 

Matt (00:11:51):
Well, here's the thing.

 

Jenifer (00:11:52):
If you interact with me.

 

Matt (00:11:55):
You text. I knew you were trying to get out of it. I knew it.

 

Jenifer (00:11:59):
Twice.

 

Matt (00:11:59):
Yeah. The reality is the fear around telling the truth publicly is bonkers to me. Crazy.

 

Jenifer (00:12:09):
I said that word the other day, bonkers. It's great. I loved it.

 

Matt (00:12:13):
Isn't it?

 

Jenifer (00:12:13):
Yeah. Bring that word back.

 

Matt (00:12:15):
Yeah. Yeah. It is though, right? Yeah. The fact that people fear the truth publicly is a testament to where we're at in the industry, right? It's like people understand fundamentally that there is so much crazy shit going on that they're scared to come out of something like this. And think about it. It's like the reach of this podcast ... Who do you think is listening to this podcast?

 

Jenifer (00:12:42):
People in recovery.

 

Matt (00:12:43):
Yeah. People in recovery, at least people who are recovery adjacent,

 

Jenifer (00:12:51):
They all know. Or curious.

 

Matt (00:12:53):
Yeah. So all the messaging that I get is people that are in recovery.

 

Jenifer (00:12:59):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:12:59):
Yeah. And so it's like, I'm sure they already know. I'm not ... Trust me, I hope everybody in the world listens to it one day, but the reality is right now and the way that most people who are aware of the treatment field and what's going on are already disenfranchised with it enough where it's like when they hear something, they're all just going, "Yeah, whatever." I don't think that the people that are going to listen, I don't know.

 

Jenifer (00:13:37):
You never know. I just want truly with my story, for somebody to relate and just be like, "Yep, I felt that way."

 

Matt (00:13:50):
You're a 12 stepper, right?

 

Jenifer (00:13:52):
Yep.

 

Matt (00:13:53):
Oh, that's right.

 

Jenifer (00:13:54):
Yeah. And that was a struggle even to disclose that because we are told we don't. So I was just going to say I work a program of recovery, but I do work the 12 steps.

 

Matt (00:14:09):
So that whole anonymity thing, I've been looking into that a little bit again around what was the point? The point back then was they didn't want somebody's reputation to fuck up their reputation. That was why back then it was so important because it was really like in the test run, the trial phases of what was going on, they were having massive success, but they wanted the anonymity piece not to protect us, but to protect the program.

 

Jenifer (00:14:43):
Right. Yeah. If somebody couldn't stay sober, then they didn't want them to be affiliated with, "Hey, this doesn't work."

 

Matt (00:14:52):
Right. And so the reality is now today, everybody is one or two degrees of separation away from an active addict. Everybody knows somebody that's suffering from this.

 

Jenifer (00:15:07):
Absolutely. Which is why I think we could market to anyone.

 

Matt (00:15:13):
Yeah, no,

 

Jenifer (00:15:14):
For sure. I was at the tire shop and I'm like, "Hey, sorry, these are hurting." No, you're good. Yeah. He's like, "Yeah, my cousin," or whatever. It's like who?

 

Matt (00:15:24):
Yeah. Everybody knows somebody. Everybody's affected by this. And if one or two degrees, there's 320 million people in this country and everybody is that close to an addict, that's a lot of people and the majority of them have some kind of awareness at least or just straight up knowledge of what the program is. And statistics don't lie. Everybody understands what the reality of it is today. It's a different program than it was a hundred years ago.

 

Jenifer (00:16:02):
Yep. It has advanced. We do have more awareness around mental health. So with that being said, I'm okay disclosing that just for the better good of the people to let them know it does work. I have been sober since April 2nd of 2016, and I do take it very seriously. I don't do everything that I'm supposed to do every day. I've found this sweet spot of what works, and that's meditation, speaking with another ... I mean, entrenched with people in recovery. They are my life, like my bestie. We do things sober. We go out dancing together. So I'm not just a lamo person in recovery and thumping the book, which is great. And I do find that if you stick to what they tell you to stick to, chances are you're going to be successful. And that's my story. So I did want to at least say that.

 

(00:17:12):
It is possible. And if I can do it, you can do it because, man, I was stuck for a long time,

 

Matt (00:17:19):
Years. The efficacy of the program is not hinged upon the meetings. It's really in the book, at least from my understanding and my experience. From other vantage points though, it's like I by no means think that it's other people's fault why people can't stay sober. It's my fault why I couldn't stay sober. It's X's fault because that person can stay sober. A lot of people have different experiences in recovery around this. Actually, do you know what Sober AF is?

 

Jenifer (00:18:02):
No, but I am.

 

Matt (00:18:05):
Sober AF.

 

Jenifer (00:18:06):
It's an entity?

 

Matt (00:18:09):
It is an entity. So what they do is they go to sporting events and concerts and they're all sober. I think two years ago they had 2000 tickets to a Rockies game and took 2000 sober people to a game.

 

Jenifer (00:18:27):
So it's like Phoenix.

 

Matt (00:18:28):
Kind of, but it's strictly concerts and sporting events.

 

Jenifer (00:18:32):
Okay, cool.

 

Matt (00:18:32):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:18:33):
So the Houston Texans are having an event coming up. I don't know that I'm going because I'm the opposite of sporty. So I would literally just go to wear the gear. I'm that girl.

 

Matt (00:18:46):
Oh my gosh.

 

Jenifer (00:18:47):
Yeah. And I totally am okay with it.

 

Matt (00:18:49):
Yeah. I'm not a sports event. I don't watch football. I don't watch baseball. I will go to the games, but I love basketball. I'm like five five.

 

Jenifer (00:19:02):
I played basketball.

 

Matt (00:19:03):
I did too. I was tall for my age until I was 12 and then everybody blew past me and then I didn't grow anymore.

 

Jenifer (00:19:10):
Yeah. I am almost 5'1".

 

Matt (00:19:13):
Pretty tall.

 

Jenifer (00:19:14):
I'm pretty tall.

 

Matt (00:19:15):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:19:16):
Yep. And feisty.

 

Matt (00:19:18):
Yeah. So

 

Jenifer (00:19:20):
The things or what they say about short people is right. I have to use tongues to get up, higher things in my apartment.

 

Matt (00:19:27):
Oh, God made me sure on purpose.

 

Jenifer (00:19:29):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:19:30):
Yeah. Can you imagine if I was six foot? Yeah. I would be a fucking problem. I'd be a major problem. I already am a problem,

 

Jenifer (00:19:39):
But ... I mean, every time I go into a location or a business and I think about you because I'm like, "Oh man, I want to vape in there." And you're just like, "I just ask them." You just don't care.

 

Matt (00:19:54):
Yeah. Well, I mean-

 

Jenifer (00:19:56):
I like that though. I look up to you for that because

 

Matt (00:20:00):
Well, you're also 5'1".

 

Jenifer (00:20:02):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:20:02):
So you look up to me for that too.

 

Jenifer (00:20:05):
Literally. We overuse that word.

 

Matt (00:20:08):
Literally. Yeah. I actually used it correctly right there. But anyway, Sober AF.

 

Jenifer (00:20:14):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:20:15):
The guy who started, his name's Duke. He lives in Colorado. It's massive though. I think it's in every state. They just had a massive thing out and it was the Kentucky LSU game or it was some game

 

(00:20:29):
And they flew a bunch of people out there, went to the game. And the whole point of it though is a lot of people, especially young people, have a problem with like, "I'm 21, how am I going to have fun for the rest of my life? How am I going to do this? " The reality is a lot of people do it. A lot of people do it and never even think about it because they're not alcoholics or addicts. And so my brother, my brother goes to dinner, it's me, Dr. Shah, Annette and Scott and Jericho. And Jericho's like a total normie and he orders some drink or whatever and takes ultimately maybe four sips of it and then just leaves it there. And we're all looking at him like, "What the fuck?"

 

Jenifer (00:21:15):
Yeah. My ex- boyfriend, like six or seven years ago, we went on a cruise, didn't buy the alcohol package because that's stupid. I'm sober, but he had one pina colada by the pool, left half. And I'm like, "I need you to finish that.

 

Matt (00:21:32):
Yeah. Yeah. It feels weird.

 

Jenifer (00:21:34):
It's upsetting me.

 

Matt (00:21:36):
I don't drink. I haven't drank in over a decade and probably longer than that, definitely longer than that. And so I'm Asian, I'm Vietnamese and then a bunch of other shit. But I have that Asian allergy to alcohol. We get red and puffy and super uncomfortable.

 

Jenifer (00:21:56):
Red and puffy.

 

Matt (00:21:57):
Yeah. Red and puffy.

 

Jenifer (00:21:58):
My sister-in-law gets like that. She still drinks. No, she's a whitie.

 

Matt (00:22:04):
Wow.

 

Jenifer (00:22:05):
But I mean, a lot of people get that flushed, really, really flushed.

 

Matt (00:22:11):
No, no. This is something different.

 

Jenifer (00:22:12):
You get puffy.

 

Matt (00:22:13):
This is painful.

 

Jenifer (00:22:15):
Oh.

 

Matt (00:22:15):
Yeah. It doesn't feel good. Oh. So when I started drinking in high school, so first off, I started doing drugs before I ever drank and it was easier to access than- It's crazy. So crazy to sound to say that it's like it was much easier for me to get crack and weed than it was to buy alcohol because you got to be 21. But when I started drinking in high school, it was like beer and you had to drink so much of it. It was so gross. I don't get how people enjoy the taste of alcohol. Even upfront, it's like you had to develop that taste so gross. And then I kind of put all this together way later in my life where I was like, no wonder I became such a crazy drug addict. I hate drinking.

 

Jenifer (00:23:09):
Well, my son started smoking weed in high school. I found out later on.

 

Matt (00:23:18):
Were you sober already?

 

Jenifer (00:23:22):
I don't think I was sober when I found out he was smoking weed, but he's like, the first time I did it was I was a freshman. I'm like, "Gat, dang, Hunter." But I think he still smokes daily. But anyway, he's like, "Mom, do you understand the hard drugs that I could get and do? I need you to be happy that I'm just smoking weed." And I'm like, "That's fair. I guess that's fair." But now he's grown. He's grown, grown. So there's literally nothing I can say.

 

Matt (00:23:52):
I don't know what the high school environment is like. I know you guys have sober high schools here.

 

Jenifer (00:23:59):
I didn't know that either.

 

Matt (00:24:00):
Yeah, there's sober high schools here, but the environment that I was in high school ... Okay, so there was a daycare for the students at my high school and- That's crazy. There were heroin dealers in the student body and they sold everything else too, but I didn't have to go far to find heroin when I was a kid.

 

Jenifer (00:24:25):
Yeah, that's concerning. I had a potential client's mom call me yesterday.

 

Matt (00:24:32):
Potential client

 

Jenifer (00:24:33):
Mom. She's 19, the client. Oh. Her mom is a nurse.

 

Matt (00:24:40):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (00:24:42):
The daughter snorted a line of cocaine. It was fentanyl, OD'd, and was dead. She just had this God moment, the mom, and she's checked the Ring camera and she was gone. But they obviously resuscitated, revived her. But yeah, it's terrifying.

 

Matt (00:25:05):
Yeah. I talk about this all the time around the introduction of fentanyl and how dangerous it is. Whenever we test people here and they're positive for anything, we send it to the lab because what if there's fentanyl in it and you don't ... Most people don't know. And once again, it's like the amount of people that are dying from smoking weed because it's been cross-contaminated is ... The fact that it happens at all is crazy, but it happens with regularity.

 

Jenifer (00:25:42):
Yeah. I had that conversation with my son because I'm like, "It's cool that you smoke because you're grown, but you do understand that that's there." And he's like, "Yeah, of course." So he gets his from ... He said she's in an office like this, a lawyer or some kind of professional. He's like, "I go and get it from there." I'm like, "It's crazy, man." I just couldn't even fool with it.

 

Matt (00:26:15):
Yeah. My brother called me. He listened to one of these episodes and he called me. He was like, "What if I buy it from a shop?" I was like, "Yeah, if you look at who owns the shops, especially in California, this is what he was talking about. It was in California. It's like it is more regulated, but look at the owners of the shops and follow the money back to who invested and where they're getting the stuff." And there is a high likelihood still that the government oversight, as far as that goes, is still very relaxed. And a lot of the quality control in the marijuana industry is self-reported. All of the testing that happens in it is questionable. They're mostly testing for purity and for purity and how potent it is, and they're testing X amount out of however many pounds.

 

Jenifer (00:27:22):
I'm amazed. I talked to another one yesterday and DOC was alcohol, Xanax, K2 and fentanyl. People still smoking K2? That stuff would make you nuts.

 

Matt (00:27:37):
Yeah. Have you seen how they made it? How they make it?

 

Jenifer (00:27:41):
No, but I can't believe that they ... That's the bath salts, right?

 

Matt (00:27:45):
No.

 

Jenifer (00:27:45):
Oh, no.

 

Matt (00:27:46):
Bath salts is a little different, but it's the same concept. They spray these ... It's like a plant material. I don't know if it's weed really. It's not weed. It's a plant material, but they spray it with the chemicals that get you high on it. So it's like you could literally probably take that bottle, throw in the microwave, it'll probably crystal up and then you can snort it. There's nothing natural about ... When I started doing real drugs, I went to heroin immediately. And this was in 2000 and ... How old am I? This was in 2006 when I started doing heroin and there was that big thing going around where it was like, we're all supporting the Taliban. And my girlfriend at the time, I don't even know why this ... So my girlfriend at the time, her dad had a conversation with me about it and I don't remember how he found out or knew or whatever, but he was like, "Oh, it's natural.

 

(00:28:55):
You just got to be careful." No, heroin.

 

Jenifer (00:28:57):
I mean, yeah.

 

Matt (00:28:58):
I was like, thinking about it now, that was a grown adult telling me, "Well, it's better than meth." And when I heard it, I was like, "Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Oh yeah, I would never do that. "

 

Jenifer (00:29:14):
Well, the K2 thing, I had a friend and her husband started smoking it and absolutely lost his mind. He's not in his kids' lives. He's gone to another dimension.

 

Matt (00:29:29):
I've never done it myself because I was like, "Man, why would I do that? I can smoke weed."

 

Jenifer (00:29:36):
Yeah, if you're going to. I was like, God.

 

Matt (00:29:38):
Anyway. What's really crazy is Kratom stuff.

 

Jenifer (00:29:42):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:29:44):
Kratom and the seven hydroxy, Dr. Shah is detoxing people

 

Jenifer (00:29:51):
At the hospital.

 

Matt (00:29:51):
Yeah. In the ICU.

 

Jenifer (00:29:53):
Yeah. Amy told me that he's detoxing the first three days in ICU because they're so sick.

 

Matt (00:29:59):
Yeah. And it isn't Just one every now and then. They had three clients come in last week for Kratom Detox.

 

Jenifer (00:30:06):
Yeah. And professionals, it just does not.

 

Matt (00:30:13):
Everyone. Yeah. And they don't care. Have you seen that TikTok that's going around about that girl, that drink, a drink felt really weird or whatever and looked in the fine print of the ingredients and it said there was Kratom in it? No advertising for it. No.

 

Jenifer (00:30:30):
Mm-mm. Yeah. That's terrifying.

 

Matt (00:30:31):
Yeah. Drink a health drink. Not like a monster, not some energy drink. It was some health. It was a-

 

Jenifer (00:30:43):
Like a smoothie or something?

 

Matt (00:30:44):
No, no, no. It was like a canned ... I'll show it to you later. It was like a canned health drink. They've got these ... I don't know.

 

Jenifer (00:30:52):
Yeah. Dr. Boone did a presentation on ... He called them Vape Shop Villains, but that was included. It's just an educational thing at the ... What was that? The EAP, the monthly thing. And it was pretty enlightening.

 

Matt (00:31:12):
How are you getting your vapes?

 

Jenifer (00:31:14):
On

 

Matt (00:31:17):
Oh, let's edit that out.

 

Jenifer (00:31:21):
Oh, we can't do that.

 

Matt (00:31:22):
No, I'm sure we can. But the problem is it's illegal to sell flavored vapes in Texas now. There was some law that passed on September 1st. What they did was there was a bunch of laws that they changed and then they snuck a bunch of language in there around THCA and Chinese components in the vapes. If there's any Chinese components in the vapes, you cannot sell that brand. So now there's literally one brand that they're selling.

 

Jenifer (00:31:57):
So I'm breaking the law.

 

Matt (00:31:58):
No.

 

Jenifer (00:31:58):
They're breaking the law.

 

Matt (00:31:59):
They're breaking the law.

 

Jenifer (00:32:00):
I'm just subscribing to it.

 

Matt (00:32:01):
And it's just in Texas. So if you're buying it from out of Texas, it's fine. So people are going to start buying stuff online again. But yeah, I went and bought this on September ... No, October 3rd. And the guy was like, "Oh, you're still selling qll this stuff?" He was like, "No, that's free." I was like, "Really? Yeah, yeah. Those are free. You got to buy the charger." I'm like, "Well, how much is the charger?" He said 38 bucks.

 

Jenifer (00:32:35):
It's so funny how we will do a workaround.

 

Matt (00:32:38):
Yeah, no. I was like, "Oh, okay." So I was like, "Well, give me three." And he was like, "Okay, you got to buy the charger." I was like, "Okay, well, how much is the charger?"

 

Jenifer (00:32:47):
I'm like, "I'm in. " I'm such a addict still. Still, there's a ways to go.

 

Matt (00:32:54):
I was like-

 

Jenifer (00:32:55):
I still do some Amazon. I overshop a little bit, overdue caffeine. I need another coffee. I ain't all the way cooked yet.

 

Matt (00:33:06):
Coffee's interesting. I drank coffee every day for a month last winter, and I don't drink coffee. I just don't. That was the most coffee I've drank.

 

Jenifer (00:33:15):
Was it a test experiment?

 

Matt (00:33:16):
No, it was just so good. I was snowboarding in Colorado and it was freezing. And so we went inside. The guy that I was with ordered coffee. Yeah. And I was like, okay, what sounds really good? It was the peppermint mocha from Starbucks. Oh my God. I drank it for every day for a month. I was like, "This got to stop."

 

Jenifer (00:33:39):
Why? It's expensive.

 

Matt (00:33:40):
Well, I'm caffeine sensitive.

 

Jenifer (00:33:46):
Well, I was going to ask you this morning if you wanted one, but I was kind of running late.

 

Matt (00:33:50):
Yeah, no, I don't drink caffeine. And I think a lot of it does have to do with the situation that I was raised. I was raised Mormon and I just never drank caffeinated drinks like that. We drank soda, but it was like I never drank heavily caffeinated drinks. And then I never drank coffee until I was an adult in prison and everybody drinks coffee in prison.

 

Jenifer (00:34:12):
Yeah, my wasband converted to Mormonism.

 

Matt (00:34:15):
Wow.

 

Jenifer (00:34:16):
Yeah. And then when he got to me, he was so confused Because he never really felt like he would ever be accepted truly.

 

Matt (00:34:28):
In the church?

 

Jenifer (00:34:30):
Even though he had converted, his fiance was before me.

 

Matt (00:34:33):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:34:34):
He was engaged.

 

Matt (00:34:35):
Oh yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:34:35):
And yeah, he went through a spiritual crisis because he was so like, "I don't know what I just did." And he wanted to drink coffee and he'd like tattoos and he just never felt like he would be accepted. But anyway, it was interesting. So I learned a bit about it, but I'm definitely not. I'm

 

Matt (00:34:55):
Going to finish this story really quick.

 

Jenifer (00:34:56):
Oh, okay. I'm always like, "Squirrel."

 

Matt (00:34:59):
I asked him, oh, he's like, "Oh yeah, they're free." I was like, "Okay, give me three." He was like, "But you got to buy these chargers." Three

 

Jenifer (00:35:05):
Chargers?

 

Matt (00:35:06):
They're like three chargers, the 38 bucks each. I was like, "Okay, can I just leave the chargers here?" He's like, "No, you're buying the charger."

 

Jenifer (00:35:13):
Yeah. Oh. Just to be clear.

 

Matt (00:35:15):
Yeah. Okay. So they always find a workaround. And I was like, okay, so what happens if ... Because they're always sending undercover cops into smoke shop. Do you ever watch those TikToks or those videos? No. They send undercovers into those places all the time to see if you're selling drugs or selling anything illegally.

 

Jenifer (00:35:32):
That's good.

 

Matt (00:35:33):
Yeah. I mean, it is good. So I asked him, "What happens if you get arrested?" He was like, "My boss told me that he bailed me out. " Okay. Yeah. Okay. The thing about Texas is the amount of bail that it costs to get out of jail here compared to California, I've had million dollar bails. In California? Yeah. Like me personally, I've had a million dollar bail. And I was like, what? Dude, it was for assault with a deadly weapon, but still it's like you get out of jail here for 500 bucks all the time in Texas.

 

Jenifer (00:36:09):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:36:09):
Or at least in Harris County.

 

Jenifer (00:36:11):
I mean, let's be reasonable. They don't want you in jail. They don't want to pay for you.

 

Matt (00:36:15):
There's that. And there's also these theories around ... Have you heard ... Well, that would get really political, but have you heard all of the bail conspiracy theories around they want people to bail out because then when you commit a crime again, you get a bail on bail crime and then it just blows your criminal convictions up. It's really crazy. And then you'll never get bail again. If you commit a crime while in bail, it's impossible to get bail again, at least in California. But I keep hearing these stories about this dude was on bail. He bailed out five times and then they finally sent him to prison.

 

Jenifer (00:36:53):
That? How many times did you go to jail?

 

Matt (00:36:57):
Arrested or spent more than a month?

 

Jenifer (00:37:00):
No. How many times have you been arrested?

 

Matt (00:37:02):
40 something times. Yeah. There was a year I was getting arrested every other week.

 

Jenifer (00:37:08):
You're like, "Here we go again."

 

Matt (00:37:10):
Yeah. No, a lot of it was like, "Okay, good."

 

Jenifer (00:37:14):
Yeah?

 

Matt (00:37:14):
Yeah, it was relief. There's drugs in jail, but it was like the streets were so hectic. I was like, okay, this is ... I'd rather be in there for a couple days right now.

 

Jenifer (00:37:24):
I spent two nights in jail.

 

Matt (00:37:26):
Yeah. That was about the average time it took me to go to a cell.

 

Jenifer (00:37:32):
Yeah, it was not for me, man. It was terrifying. It was cold. Don't recommend it.

 

Matt (00:37:38):
It's very cold in jail.

 

Jenifer (00:37:39):
And the food was terrible booty.

 

Matt (00:37:41):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:37:42):
It was bad. When I got home and I still think about it, I am so grateful for my bed and I will get in there and-

 

Matt (00:37:54):
When was this? When did you get arrested?

 

Jenifer (00:37:56):
2014.

 

Matt (00:37:57):
And you still think about it?

 

Jenifer (00:37:58):
Still think about it.

 

Matt (00:37:59):
That's interesting.

 

Jenifer (00:38:00):
It's like gratitude, man.

 

Matt (00:38:01):
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I became so desensitized to that whole process and bending over in front of cops and just crazy stuff that it's like I am less grateful about the jail stuff and more grateful about the streets stuff that I'm not out there doing what I was doing.

 

Jenifer (00:38:22):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:38:23):
Obviously, I was the youngest person on my first prison yard. I was the youngest person on that yard. And I was married really young too. I was married ... I was 19. I was just barely 19 when I got married the first time. And so I became really, really desensitized. Also, I had a lot of fun in jail all the time.

 

Jenifer (00:38:50):
Yeah?

 

Matt (00:38:51):
Yeah. And that happens, right? People get institutionalized. I wasn't institutionalized, but I have had situations where on the streets I'd be like, jail is so much easier than this. This is way more complicated, way harder, and more dangerous than jail. And when I started having those thoughts, I really was like, "My head's fucked up.

 

Jenifer (00:39:20):
Yeah. Life that can be hard.

 

Matt (00:39:24):
Yeah. Yeah. It's about as hard as you make it though, I think.

 

Jenifer (00:39:28):
Yeah. And it's the perspective on it.

 

Matt (00:39:31):
Yeah. It always blows me away the things that get people to change, right? The things that get people sober, the things that ... There are come to God moments where it's like, this thing happened and I had had enough and it was like I went to jail for two nights. How did people get that? How did people get those things? And it was like, I have had every negative consequence for doing drugs and it was never enough to stop.

 

Jenifer (00:40:04):
Well, by the time I got to treatment, I mean, I was at an emotional, spiritual, everything bottom, plus I had all the consequences and it was like a perfect storm for me to get sober. But in 2014, working as a dialysis nurse, going in a separation from my husband, worked a night shift, which I never did, but I had prayed for help. I really did want to stop what I was doing because I'm like, "This is not good."

 

Matt (00:40:41):
And were you like blackout drinking? Drinking on the job?

 

Jenifer (00:40:43):
Back out drinking. Not drinking on the job.

 

Matt (00:40:46):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (00:40:46):
I'd be hungover. So technically, you know I was above- Oh

 

Matt (00:40:51):
Yeah, you were definitely- You were still under the influence of alcohol.

 

Jenifer (00:40:54):
Yes.

 

Matt (00:40:55):
You just weren't drinking at work.

 

Jenifer (00:40:58):
I mean, I would be toe up that next day. But anyway, when I worked a night shift, I prayed for help, worked a night shift. I remember I was isolating and drinking at home and my friends were like, "You're single, separated, you're just drinking at home. Let's go out. Let's let your hair down." So I was like, "Fine, we'll go out for karaoke tonight." And I was wearing red scrubs. I drank. I remember what I had actually. I mean, my tolerance was high, but I do remember every drink I had and I remember driving home and I wrecked big time. Definitely the way that my life looked was completely different. And it was like in that moment I knew-

 

Matt (00:41:52):
Did you get a DUI?

 

Jenifer (00:41:54):
I got an intoxication assault, serious bodily injury.

 

Matt (00:41:57):
Oh my gosh.

 

Jenifer (00:41:58):
Third degree felony.

 

Matt (00:42:00):
Yeah. So people go to prison for that in California.

 

Jenifer (00:42:03):
I was facing two to 10 years in prison. And I remember the headlines, 36-year-old female, college station female, intoxic assault. So I was just like, oh my God. So yeah, they didn't care that I was a nurse. They didn't care. They're like, "Ma'am, they did my field sobriety test."

 

Matt (00:42:22):
Did you do that? No, I'm a nurse. Did you do that?

 

Jenifer (00:42:24):
No.

 

Matt (00:42:25):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (00:42:25):
I mean, I'm definitely a goody two shoes. Always high achiever, perfectionist, good in school. I was good in school, but I don't remember nothing. My brain has been impacted. But anyway.

 

Matt (00:42:40):
I don't think school wasn't engineered in a way that you were supposed to remember much.

 

Jenifer (00:42:48):
I just remember to get the good grade.

 

Matt (00:42:50):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:42:50):
And if I made a 98, I'm like, "Excuse me, ma'am, what did I miss?" I was such a perfectionist.

 

Matt (00:42:57):
Really?

 

Jenifer (00:42:57):
Straight A student. Yeah. But anyway, they didn't care about that. They didn't care about my accolades or anything. They're like, "You broke the law." And they treated me like a criminal and I was.

 

Matt (00:43:08):
Somebody got hurt.

 

Jenifer (00:43:10):
She got hurt.

 

Matt (00:43:11):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:43:12):
26-year-old girl from Guatemala, waitress at freaking Saltgrass. I'll never forget. But she didn't speak English. She got out. She was speaking Spanish and she broke her arm. So I broke her arm with my car. I pulled out in front of her and she T-boned me. Brand new car, I made one payment, but anyway, field sobriety test. And I just remember they always said, "Don't blow. You don't blow." And so they're like, "Blow in this? " And I was like, "No, I refused." Because that's all I knew about the law. Don't blow. They're like, "We don't care if you blow or not. We're going to get your blood." You hurt a woman. So I was in the ER, they drew my blood. I was on camera. Yeah, my BAC was 0.17 at 3:00 AM.

 

Matt (00:44:01):
Well, you're a small person.

 

Jenifer (00:44:02):
I wrecked at 1:00 AM.

 

Matt (00:44:03):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:44:04):
And so by three, it was 0.17.

 

Matt (00:44:06):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (00:44:08):
And that also bumped it up to a higher charge because I was over 0.15.

 

Matt (00:44:13):
Wait a minute. Is it 0.1 or 0.015?

 

Jenifer (00:44:16):
It's 0.08. So I was 0.15, which is greater than 0.8. Okay. So yeah, I was over that 0.15, which is the next level. Yeah, my life changed forever. And the funny thing is that didn't get me sober.

 

Matt (00:44:33):
I was going to ask you.

 

Jenifer (00:44:34):
That didn't get me sober.

 

Matt (00:44:35):
Did you lose your license? Did that whole

 

Jenifer (00:44:36):
Yeah, for six months. And my alcoholic mom, sorry, mom, she was very, very bad at that time. She was driving me around.

 

Matt (00:44:50):
Drunk.

 

Jenifer (00:44:52):
Yeah. I'm like, how are we winning here? But life was a mess. It was just a mess. I was poor, definitely paycheck to paycheck. Now I'm facing all these spines, but I wasn't taking accountability. My friends were saying, "Jen, man, doctors, nurses, they drink and drive all the time. You just got just unlucky." You were just unlucky. People do.

 

Matt (00:45:18):
Yeah. All

 

Jenifer (00:45:18):
Of that. I mean, imagine in our field, if we could drink, we would because that's what we do. We develop relationships and that's one way to develop relationships is drinking and being social. But now we just have a hell of coffee.

 

Matt (00:45:36):
Yeah, a lot of people do. Or they drink gallons of rockstar and monster.

 

Jenifer (00:45:41):
Yeah. Yep. But it took me about a year and a half playing with the law. I had a breathalyzer for four and a half years.That's a long time. But I mean, I would drink. I had it down to a science. I'm like, okay, if I stopped drinking my 7:00 PM, because I worked 4:00 AM to 1:00 PM. I worked some serious ... It was in the middle of the night going to work. But yeah, I would just pray that I would be okay to drive my car and it got bad. So finally, my son at 17 was like, "F you. I can't stand you. I'm leaving." So he went to come live with my brother who drinks excessively. I'm not going to diagnose.

 

Matt (00:46:27):
Like a family thing.

 

Jenifer (00:46:28):
As a family thing.

 

Matt (00:46:29):
Definitely a family thing.

 

Jenifer (00:46:30):
And generation after generation after generation. So why did I think I'd be any different? And I despised them. I was like, "I can't stand you, mom. For drinking the way that you drink, you're so irresponsible." And I just was never going to be that person. And I absolutely became an alcoholic. And that was my coping mechanism. I had no coping mechanisms at all. Coming into treatment, I was like, "What?" I was just like, "What?" I just heard so many things that I needed to hear and it just all made sense, but I was just wide awake, ready to hear by the time ... So at the final straw was life ... I'd suffered all the consequences. I was just kind of tired of running, tired of praying and blowing in my breathalyzer. And I just decided when I was drunk that I'm just going to end it. I'm just going to take my life. So that's what I tried to do with all my pills.

 

Matt (00:47:33):
Yeah. What were they?

 

Jenifer (00:47:38):
Freaking stupid. Phentermine, because I always say I've been dieting since 1979. Now I take tirzepatide. Just it's the easier, softer way. You're so funny. I'm still always trying to be the easier, softer way.

 

Matt (00:47:53):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:47:55):
But yeah, in sobriety, for my total weight when I was a drunk, I was like 185, 125.

 

Matt (00:48:03):
185 at 5'1".

 

Jenifer (00:48:05):
I was up.

 

Matt (00:48:07):
Yeah. You got pictures? Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:48:09):
It's insane. So sobriety's good. Even though it's tirzepatide, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I'm on here to say I don't care. I like it. But I've just been maintaining for two years on tirzepatide, just taking maintenance.

 

Matt (00:48:24):
Have you seen the studies that they've done around tirzepatide and alcoholism?

 

Jenifer (00:48:28):
I don't want to know. What? In your alcoholism?

 

Matt (00:48:32):
No, no, no. I just read the outcome. I don't understand why, and I should probably look into this, but GLP-1s shut that part of your brain off that craves alcohol.

 

Jenifer (00:48:45):
It makes sense.

 

Matt (00:48:47):
And so they're having massive-

 

Jenifer (00:48:51):
Success?

 

Matt (00:48:51):
Well, they're not treating it with that, but they're getting all this feedback that says like, "Hey, a bunch of people that are in recovery are reporting that they are no longer obsessing over alcohol and they're-

 

Jenifer (00:49:05):
Food, that whole people in recovery still having issues with food is real.

 

Matt (00:49:10):
Oh yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:49:12):
We see ... I know someone very close to me. Eating disorder is active. It's like she's just cross-addicted, Which I mean, I don't know.

 

Matt (00:49:24):
Which is one of the deadliest addictions. We're actually going to do a Halloween special on sugar and diabetes.

 

Jenifer (00:49:32):
Yeah. Oh, well, what else did I take? So phentermine, which is literal amphetamine. So I would take phentermine in the morning, kick butt at work. I mean, I will perform. I'm doing all this stuff. Oh, sure. I was the best nurse ever.

 

Matt (00:49:50):
Amazing focus.

 

Jenifer (00:49:51):
Yeah. I was hyper focused. Yeah. "What do you need? Yes, I can help you.

 

Matt (00:49:55):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:49:56):
And then I would come down with alcohol in the evening. So I took all my phentermine, cholesterol medicine, Wellbutrin, because with the major depressive disorder, I was diagnosed about 19, 20, 21. I don't know. I just struggled with it, but I mean, I'm drinking alcohol. So how do I really know what is what?

 

Matt (00:50:16):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (00:50:17):
It's insane.

 

Matt (00:50:18):
So when did you start drinking?

 

Jenifer (00:50:20):
16.

 

Matt (00:50:21):
Okay. You got diagnosed four or five, six years later. Major depressive, or just chronic depression?

 

Jenifer (00:50:30):
Probably, I don't know. I don't think I asked them, but I think just depression. And then major depressive came over the last 10 years.

 

Matt (00:50:43):
Okay. Are you still on medication?

 

Jenifer (00:50:46):
Yes. And see, that's the thing, being a nurse, I'm going to titrate. I'm going to talk my way into what I want, think I know what is best for me still. Speaking with my providers, I'm like, "We've tried this. Can we try this? " Just manipulating. And I think that I don't want to take meds for the rest of my life.That's where I always get, and that's what puts me in danger because my first four years of sobriety, I took nothing. And I was like, "It's a miracle. I'm healed." But no, I'm resigned to the fact that I might have to take something and that sucks because who wants to take a pill?

 

Matt (00:51:27):
Yeah. So you know who Dr. Shah is and his whole presentation, do you identify with that?

 

Jenifer (00:51:38):
So community?

 

Matt (00:51:40):
No. The cycling mood disorder.

 

Jenifer (00:51:42):
Oh. I don't know. I really don't know. Of course, I think I'm different, but I think mine starts with situational, but I don't know. I mean, I will say that last year when I was going through that, my sponsor is 42 years sober or was. I broke up with her since then, but she really gave me a hard time because I was on Prozac at that time. And she's like, "You're just manipulating and you shouldn't need a pill if you work the program." And so it made me feel like trash. And I'm like, "Is she right?" I don't know. I don't know if there's the ... I believe there's a chemical component and I've watched many things on it. What's his name? Stanford, Very popular podcast.

 

Matt (00:52:49):
He's a professor at Stanford?

 

Jenifer (00:52:51):
He was. Very popular podcaster. Anyway, he talked about depression and how physicians truly don't even know how to treat it. There's different mechanisms and each drug does something different and they just kind of throw the pill at it because they don't know. And so going through all these years of intermittent depression, because I'm not all the time just like hate lie, but last year I was suicidal and that's very concerning. My brain told me that I don't want to be here. I had those thoughts, the ruminating thoughts, and that's when I took action. So I did EMDR, psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, and my primary doctor. We're all working together and I'm super stable, but I had to freaking take meds. So I had to break up with that idea that just the program can fix it.

 

Matt (00:53:55):
Yeah. So there is things that happen based on personal preference in the program that really shock me sometimes. That's one of them. I don't know what her background is, but it probably wasn't anything medical.

 

Jenifer (00:54:14):
Oh, she's a freaking ICU nurse and her ... I mean, she's highly educated.

 

Matt (00:54:19):
That's so crazy.

 

Jenifer (00:54:20):
But guess what? She said her spiritual awakening came when she was 29 years sober.

 

Matt (00:54:26):
29 years sober.

 

Jenifer (00:54:27):
And I'm eight years sober at the time going through this crisis. And I'm like, "Well, it's not too late for me, bro." I'm right on time which is part of my message is just because you've got some years of sobriety doesn't mean that your journey is over or that because you haven't had some crazy spiritual awakening that it won't come.

 

Matt (00:55:00):
I mean, 29 years, she had to wait that long. That almost seems, at least for what I was going through, that is way too long.

 

Jenifer (00:55:11):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:55:13):
I needed that shit pretty fast.

 

Jenifer (00:55:15):
I've had multiple spiritual experiences.

 

Matt (00:55:18):
Yeah. I mean, spiritual experiences, I think most people could have on a daily basis. Spiritual awakening, at least from what I understand about a spiritual awakening is a full psychic change. And those are an experience for sure. But there's a triggering process that it's a cascading event that a bunch of ... Basically your whole perspective on life changes because of this experience.

 

Jenifer (00:55:47):
And I've had a spiritual awakening, but one of my sponsors, I'm a sponsor. I've had several mentors, but I also believe that that was right for me. I don't have the story of, I've had a sponsor for nine and a half years. That's great if that works for you and that's your story. But another one of mentors or sponsors told me once you've had a spiritual awakening, it doesn't go away. And that hasn't been my experience.

 

Matt (00:56:16):
No, doesn't even sound right.

 

Jenifer (00:56:18):
I've had a spiritual awakening. The sun's brighter, the birds are louder and chirpier. Definitely I would say that one of the best parts of my sobriety when I was working at ... I managed the Legacy House for a year and a half and worked as a nurse, but being in with the people coming into the home and just welcoming them and showing them how to have fun and sobriety and how sobriety looks, that was a good part of my sobriety. So four years was a good part, but every part is good as long as I'm sober. I mean, truly just coming here this morning and watching the sunrise, I'm just thinking, "Man, part of my favorite part of the day is sunrise sunset." And I was thinking about it. One of the reasons why is it's predictable when the world is unpredictable. I can count on that because sometimes people suck and you can't count on them. And they say in the program, expectations will jack you up, if not your sobriety.

 

Matt (00:57:27):
Number one offender, right? Yeah. I got TikTok last night for the first time ever.

 

Jenifer (00:57:34):
What? Yeah. I don't use it. I try not to.

 

Matt (00:57:37):
So I'm using it around the podcast, just posting stuff on there. But I liked one sunset video and it's like nothing but sunsets now.

 

Jenifer (00:57:47):
But that's cool though, because your jam, it can predict and give you your jam.

 

Matt (00:57:53):
I mean-

 

Jenifer (00:57:54):
It's smart.

 

Matt (00:57:55):
So I have a different experience with sunsets and sunrises because I was awake for so many sunrises. It was so crazy. And then in San Diego, it's almost always overcast in the morning. And so it'd just be like everything just kind of got brighter when I wanted everything to get darker. But yeah, I have experienced so many tragic sunrises. It's been really crazy. And so now I'm driving, I left my house at like 6:50 and I was like, oh my gosh, what? Oh yeah, it's October. It's like almost the end of October. And I was like, this is really crazy. It was like the first sunrise that I had seen like that at least, realizing that I was witnessing another sunrise. I was like, oh no. My life is significantly different. Not oh no, but it was like, oh my gosh. It

 

Jenifer (00:59:00):
Was beautiful this morning.

 

Matt (00:59:02):
It was crazy. Most things in Texas from my point of view is like, at least in Houston, it's like flat, constantly humid. And I'm like, come from beautiful San Diego, paradise.

 

Jenifer (00:59:17):
Are you going to go back?

 

Matt (00:59:19):
To live?

 

Jenifer (00:59:19):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:59:20):
To live?

 

Jenifer (00:59:21):
Yeah.

 

Matt (00:59:23):
Probably not. I'm about to have another baby.

 

Jenifer (00:59:26):
I know, like soon.

 

Matt (00:59:27):
Yeah. Which I'm bracing myself for because this will be my third daughter. The first I had in that marriage when I was 19, but we lost her. And then my next daughter, I was in prison or in jail looking at going to prison, so I wasn't there for the birth. So this will be my first kid that I've been there for the delivery.

 

Jenifer (00:59:55):
It's going to be amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I would have had a better experience, and I was looking for that with my husband, but it didn't happen.The medical profession is kind of jacked up. Which y'all were talking about on your podcast too, with you and Andy.

 

Matt (01:00:19):
Yeah, we talk about it all the time for sure.

 

Jenifer (01:00:20):
Me being a nurse, I'm like, it is hard to find a good provider, a good therapist. It just takes time. You have to be very patient.

 

Matt (01:00:25):
Have you seen the Jill and Karen episode?

 

Jenifer (01:00:27):
No. I didn't see it. Is it posted?

 

Matt (01:00:30):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:00:32):
I'll check it out because I definitely love and adore them.

 

Matt (01:00:35):
Jill talks about her experience trying to get into treatment. I was like-

 

Jenifer (01:00:39):
Yeah, actually I did see the excerpt.

 

Matt (01:00:41):
Yeah, yeah. The short?

 

Jenifer (01:00:43):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:00:43):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:00:45):
But one of the doctors, the OB- GYN, he looked at me and said, "You're going to have as many babies as you want. " Don't tell people that, that are struggling with infertility. Stupid. Negligent.

 

Matt (01:01:00):
What was the idea behind that?

 

Jenifer (01:01:03):
That he thought he could fix me. Ego.

 

Matt (01:01:06):
Oh yeah. Doctor, God complex.

 

Jenifer (01:01:08):
Yeah.

 

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

 

Jenifer (01:01:09):
Yeah. But I mean, that was jacked up. Just negligence. I think he got his license taken away.

 

Matt (01:01:19):
Male OB/GYNs creep me out.

 

Jenifer (01:01:22):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:01:22):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:01:24):
Yeah. There's many of them.

 

Matt (01:01:25):
I know. But I've never actually met one, but the whole idea around it, I saw a movie. This is why it's because I saw a movie and it was this really handsome, Hollywood handsome, plastic with great hair. And it was this OBGYN. And the lady was ... What movie was this? Anyway, she was in the stirrups and the husband was sitting behind the stirrups and the doctor was talking about it and I was like, "Oh, these guys are creeps." And ever since then, it's just been male OBGYNs or creeps.

 

Jenifer (01:02:01):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:02:02):
But he was a fertility doctor, right?

 

Jenifer (01:02:05):
This one that I saw?

 

Matt (01:02:06):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:02:07):
He was a small town gynecologist that actually started doing plastic surgery.

 

Matt (01:02:12):
Sounds even crazier.

 

Jenifer (01:02:14):
Creepy? That's not your specialty, my friend.

 

Matt (01:02:17):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:02:18):
But it's like money. Money is the thing.

 

Matt (01:02:22):
The medical profession is interesting because it's connected to so many other industries. There's the pharmaceutical industry, the treatment industry. You can call the plastic surgery industry the medical industry, but it's really something totally different.

 

Jenifer (01:02:39):
Ooh. So part of my experience with the depression last year, I started seeing an energy healer. So Eastern medicine.

 

Matt (01:02:48):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:02:49):
With Western medicine. I'm telling you, I was willing to do anything just like when I got sober. I was willing to do whatever I needed to do. And that's what Recovery has taught me is like, dude, stay open. And so anyway, it was a wonderful experience.

 

Matt (01:03:02):
Was it?

 

Jenifer (01:03:03):
Yes. I mean, weird, totally different than what we know or understand. And it was magical.

 

Matt (01:03:13):
Yeah. I mean, that stuff's been happening for thousands of years. Medical advances, like Western medicine is a very new thing.

 

Jenifer (01:03:20):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:03:20):
They're still like-

 

Jenifer (01:03:22):
But we're so cocky about it. I can fix you.

 

Matt (01:03:24):
You'll

 

Jenifer (01:03:25):
Have as many children as you want. Whatever.

 

Matt (01:03:28):
Dude, I just heard this story about a patent. They developed a medication that can heal cancer, but the medication was so expensive that they just stopped developing it. It was $50 million of treatment at the test phase. And so the developers of the drug were like, "Nobody's ever going to buy this. " So they just stopped making it. And it was like all those different patents that you hear about where it's free energy or the cure for cancer, the cure for AIDS or whatever, but it's so expensive that ... How is something that small so expensive? It blows my mind.

 

Jenifer (01:04:14):
But that just tells you, I mean, the conspiracy is that they've had a cure for cancer all along and we're all dying.

 

Matt (01:04:20):
Yeah. Well, okay. So the sugar industry.

 

Jenifer (01:04:24):
That's what I was going to say is that I saw a meme yesterday. It's like sugar is the devil and sugar makes cancer.

 

Matt (01:04:32):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:04:33):
But I had blueberry pie last night. I can't stop.

 

Matt (01:04:40):
The whole cholesterol scam and sugar.

 

Jenifer (01:04:44):
Well, I'm going tomorrow or Thursday for my cholesterol is 225. I'm like, God dang it. They're going to put me on something.

 

Matt (01:04:54):
How?

 

Jenifer (01:04:56):
Diet.

 

Matt (01:04:57):
Diet. What do you eat?

 

Jenifer (01:04:58):
I pretty much eat what I want once a day.

 

Matt (01:05:02):
What you want once a day. Oh, that's right. You're on

 

Jenifer (01:05:04):
A GLP-1. Once a day. But I don't eat a lot.

 

Matt (01:05:07):
Calorie-wise, how many calories

 

Jenifer (01:05:10):
Who knows? I would say like 15.

 

Matt (01:05:13):
1,500 in one meal?

 

Jenifer (01:05:15):
No. I mean, I'll eat what I want for the meal and maybe have a snack.

 

Matt (01:05:19):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (01:05:20):
And my coffee.

 

Matt (01:05:20):
This right here is exactly what people talk about when the negatives of GLP-1s. What happens when you get off?

 

Jenifer (01:05:28):
It's bad.

 

Matt (01:05:29):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:05:30):
I gain like six pounds in two weeks.

 

Matt (01:05:33):
No, that's actually not that bad.

 

Jenifer (01:05:34):
So no, there needs to be a come to the Lord intervention with my diet and I need to get active.

 

Matt (01:05:42):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:05:43):
But I'm just not there.

 

Matt (01:05:45):
I mean, they don't push the lifestyle change. Do you go to the-

 

Jenifer (01:05:49):
They say they do in the documentation when you're getting it.

 

Matt (01:05:52):
They don't.

 

Jenifer (01:05:52):
But they never counseled me.

 

Matt (01:05:54):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:05:55):
It's just all a scam.

 

Matt (01:05:57):
So are you going to a clinic or is it actually through your doctor?

 

Jenifer (01:06:01):
My physician.

 

Matt (01:06:02):
Okay. That's unheard of. Most people cannot get it through a doctor. They're going to these clinics.

 

Jenifer (01:06:09):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:06:10):
But I'm really interested in the GLP-1 world right now because of what they're finding out about the alcoholism thing.

 

Jenifer (01:06:19):
It does take the food noise away. Sometimes I don't even think about food. And when I don't have it, I'm starving, just ravenous. And I don't like that because I don't want to be overweight.

 

Matt (01:06:37):
Yeah, there's gyms.

 

Jenifer (01:06:38):
I know.

 

Matt (01:06:39):
You go. Do you go to the gym?

 

Jenifer (01:06:41):
Nope.

 

Matt (01:06:42):
Okay. There is ... Yeah. So- I

 

Jenifer (01:06:45):
Have two gym memberships. Well, I have one gym membership and my apartment gym is actually very nice and sufficient. And I've gone three times.

 

Matt (01:06:53):
Yeah. That is the problem.

 

Jenifer (01:06:55):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:06:56):
Right. But you got all these people that get on GLP-1s. They have massive success. They lose all this weight and they look great, they feel good or whatever, and then they get off of it and it's right back to it.

 

Jenifer (01:07:09):
I know. I got to get my life together.

 

Matt (01:07:11):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:07:12):
Coming right up. Me and old Steven went twice and we're like, yeah, we're doing it. And then I'll be

 

Matt (01:07:18):
... No, I hate the gym. I hate going to the gym. So I built one in my garage. And I'm in there. Now I'm in there a lot.

 

Jenifer (01:07:31):
I have a 600 square foot apartment.

 

Matt (01:07:33):
600.

 

Jenifer (01:07:34):
Can't have ... Yeah, but it suffices. It's a cute little thing and I'm like, that's all I need.

 

Matt (01:07:41):
How much is it?

 

Jenifer (01:07:42):
Freaking like 1,400 bucks.

 

Matt (01:07:45):
That is not bad.

 

Jenifer (01:07:47):
It is not bad because it is a nice one.

 

Matt (01:07:49):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:07:50):
For the price, but it is getting a little sketchy. I think other people are onto

 

Matt (01:07:55):
It. We had a ... What are those one room apartments called? Studio.

 

Jenifer (01:08:02):
Studio.

 

Matt (01:08:03):
We had a studio across the street from Peco Park in San Diego. It was 2,500 bucks a month for 250 square feet or something. Dude.

 

Jenifer (01:08:11):
Yeah. My son lives in one in Austin and he pays like 16, 1800 for a studio.

 

Matt (01:08:18):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:08:20):
Brand new, never lived in. There's perks. It's nice. But I mean, you're paying for that.

 

Matt (01:08:25):
It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, when I hear these prices, I saw a house the other day. So this house in California would've easily probably been $3 million, and it was like 750,000.

 

Jenifer (01:08:38):
Here? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Andrew Huberman is who it is. The podcaster or the professor. Yeah. I'm obsessed with him.

 

Matt (01:08:47):
The Huberman lab.

 

Jenifer (01:08:49):
He's so intelligent.

 

Matt (01:08:50):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:08:51):
But he talks a lot about food and what we eat and ... Yeah. But I could watch him. I could go into a hole and watch him. I would rather watch him than TikTok.

 

Matt (01:09:02):
Yeah. That's the whole long ... Oh my gosh, my arm's so sore. The whole long form versus short form content conversation is very interesting to me because people have lost their attention span completely. They cannot sit and focus on anything anymore. Kids, it's like blowing our ... It's fucking our shit up.

 

Jenifer (01:09:28):
Yeah. I'm really happy that Hunter was raised in the generation that- How old is he?

 

Matt (01:09:34):
My age,

 

Jenifer (01:09:34):
Right? He's 26.

 

Matt (01:09:35):
Oh.

 

Jenifer (01:09:36):
Didn't have an iPad stuck to his body. I

 

Matt (01:09:39):
Didn't even have a phone in high school.

 

Jenifer (01:09:42):
I think Hunter did, but I mean, I was very strict with him. I'm like, you're not ... Bedtime is nine, even in high school. I'm like, I just was strict with him, but he's freaking kick ass now.

 

Matt (01:09:57):
Yeah. I'm going through this right now where it's like, how are we going to raise these girls in today's day?

 

Jenifer (01:10:04):
Well, you look at my niece and they did start limiting her YouTube kids' time to one hour and she's cool with it. I hung out with her this weekend. So she was one when I got sober and she's like my little best friend. So I didn't have a daughter of my own, but God hooked me up with a niece.

 

Matt (01:10:23):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:10:23):
And it's like, it all works out. It really does.

 

Matt (01:10:26):
Yeah. I'm being punished with girls because of all the fucked up shit that I've done.

 

Jenifer (01:10:32):
I love her. I'm excited for you.

 

Matt (01:10:35):
I am too, actually. I am really bracing for ... I hear all of these girl dads talk about the births of their kids and I'm like, I hope that doesn't happen to me. I like the whole crying-

 

Jenifer (01:10:50):
Oh, you're going

 

Matt (01:10:51):
To cry. And I hope that does not happen.

 

Jenifer (01:10:54):
You enjoyed the sunrise.

 

Matt (01:10:55):
Crying is so uncomfortable for me.

 

Jenifer (01:10:58):
Dude, I hate being vulnerable.

 

Matt (01:11:00):
No, it isn't the vulnerable thing. It's the actual physical crying is very uncomfortable for me.

 

Jenifer (01:11:07):
They say it's really good for your soul.

 

Matt (01:11:09):
Well, I mean, so is pie, but that shit'll kill you.

 

Jenifer (01:11:11):
Pie, I'm dying because I don't even like pie.

 

Matt (01:11:15):
I love ... So Dutch apple pie, cherry pie, rhubarb pie, all cheesecakes.

 

Jenifer (01:11:23):
Sweet potato pie. I

 

Matt (01:11:24):
Don't like that.

 

Jenifer (01:11:25):
The only thing I like. We definitely couldn't hang.

 

Matt (01:11:28):
I don't like sweet potato.

 

Jenifer (01:11:29):
I like cake.

 

Matt (01:11:30):
Sweet potato fry. I love cake.

 

Jenifer (01:11:32):
Cake. I love cake. Cake over pie.

 

Matt (01:11:35):
No. I like the happy medium with the cheesecake.

 

Jenifer (01:11:39):
Dude.

 

Matt (01:11:41):
But you know what I do? I just eat the crust.

 

Jenifer (01:11:44):
I mean, it's tasty.

 

Matt (01:11:45):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:11:45):
So why don't you just eat graham crackers?

 

Matt (01:11:47):
Well, because you got to have a little bit of the cheesecake.

 

Jenifer (01:11:50):
See, I have nothing to say that's valuable. I can talk about cake over pie. That's why I didn't want to come on here either. I'm like, I have nothing other than my experience, which is my greatest possession.

 

Matt (01:12:02):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:12:04):
I have nothing of importance to say.

 

Matt (01:12:07):
That's all of us. We just talk shit. The only thing that I have of value is my story.

 

Jenifer (01:12:12):
Is it?

 

Matt (01:12:14):
Otherwise, you know what I'd be doing? I'd be holding a sign at a construction site, which is ... I was looking for that job when I came here, and that's how that whole relapse happened, is because I could not find a job in the ... The water table here is so low or so high, however you want to say it. They don't trench here. They do directional drilling. And so my job that I had doesn't even exist here. I was oiling for a machine, so I was in a trench telling them where to dig. They don't do that here. And so I was trying to get on an oil rig. That is a secret society, trying to get into ... I had no clue how difficult it was. I went to all those temp agencies that get you into that field or whatever. It was a nightmare.

 

Jenifer (01:13:05):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:13:05):
I mean,

 

Jenifer (01:13:05):
Months. Did Rachel talk about her husband being in that industry or that field?

 

Matt (01:13:09):
Yeah, yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:13:09):
Where's hers at?

 

Matt (01:13:11):
So we're about to be at the one a week.

 

Jenifer (01:13:16):
Okay.

 

Matt (01:13:17):
So- How

 

Jenifer (01:13:17):
Many of y'all have backlogged?

 

Matt (01:13:20):
That is a good question. I think I have 17 total recorded or 18 recorded. So I think there's seven, like 10, 10 backlogged. And I've got three this week, five next week.

 

Jenifer (01:13:35):
Are you enjoying it?

 

Matt (01:13:36):
I love it.

 

Jenifer (01:13:37):
You're good at it. You're easy to talk to. It's a gift. It's a good thing that you're not in the trench with the sign.

 

Matt (01:13:47):
I loved it though.

 

Jenifer (01:13:51):
Where you're at now is really cool.

 

Matt (01:13:55):
It is.

 

Jenifer (01:13:55):
And where I'm at now is really cool. And my story is that, yeah, there was that pain that motivated me to change and divine intervention and the fact that I was at a point where I'd had enough and I was willing to listen to anything you wanted me to do, like anything I would've done. And I still stay open.But yeah.

 

Matt (01:14:21):
Yeah. I mean, what it took to get here was insane.

 

Jenifer (01:14:27):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:14:29):
And I have talked about this a lot, so I'm sorry guys. But when people ask me, "What do you regret?" There was definitely times in my life where I regretted things or was living in regret, but now it's like all of those experiences that I had, they all taught me very valuable lessons ultimately in the backend. I made the same mistakes millions of times. I mean, probably millions of times it was the same exact shit happening. I was living a Groundhog's Day. By the time when I was homeless, by the time I was about to be arrested, I can't remember. I was also sleeping once or twice a week. So there were just months that would go by and it was just a complete blur. And I was also doing a lot of Xanax, so I just don't remember a lot of shit.

 

Jenifer (01:15:26):
Well, I really do think that alcohol has impacted my brain.

 

Matt (01:15:30):
That's a real-

 

Jenifer (01:15:31):
To a concerning point where I'm like, "I don't remember a lot.

 

Speaker 5 (01:15:38):
Did you get the shakes?

 

Jenifer (01:15:41):
No. Actually physically withdrawal? No. I didn't have an issue. Mine was more emotional.

 

Matt (01:15:48):
Gotcha.

 

Jenifer (01:15:50):
Yeah. I mean, physically it was nothing. I mean, I did have some insomnia, anxiety. That's pretty much it.

 

Matt (01:16:00):
How was it coming off of alcohol? Were you in everyday treatment? I

 

Jenifer (01:16:04):
Was in a psych ward, dude.

 

Matt (01:16:05):
You were on a psych ward?

 

Jenifer (01:16:06):
It sucked because I tried to fricking off myself, man.

 

Matt (01:16:10):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (01:16:10):
And they're like, "You know you're not going home."

 

Matt (01:16:13):
So you tried to overdose on a bunch of uppers, Wellbutrin and amphetamines and what else?

 

Jenifer (01:16:20):
Cholesterol.

 

Matt (01:16:21):
Cholesterol medication. Did that cause any complications?

 

Jenifer (01:16:25):
No. It's a miracle.

 

Matt (01:16:28):
Yeah. The cholesterol stuff that can cause complications, right? If you overdose on that.

 

Jenifer (01:16:33):
I mean, think about the Wellbutrin. It's amazing that my kidneys and liver are good.

 

Matt (01:16:38):
Yeah. Wellbutrin is a interesting ... You know why that was created to stop people from smoking

 

Jenifer (01:16:45):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:16:45):
And then they realized it made people feel happy. So go ahead and throw that on in there too.

 

Jenifer (01:16:52):
Yeah. I had to take Chantix to stop smoking cigarettes.

 

Matt (01:16:54):
Chantix.

 

Jenifer (01:16:55):
Chantix. Which is like black box now or something. I don't know why they committed ... I think people were suicidal and homicidal on it or something. And I don't even know that you can still get Chantix, but it worked for me.

 

Matt (01:17:11):
So this whole terminology around medications, how they talk about side effects or on- label, off-label, all this stuff, right? A doctor, I was listening to a podcast and this doctor was like, "Take everything that you know about medication, throw it out the door. There is no side effects of drugs. That is what they do. " I was like, "Oh, that makes so much sense." So whenever I hear some side effects might be da-da-da-da-da, it's like, oh, what they're really saying is that a lot of people are suicidal on this stuff.

 

Jenifer (01:17:42):
Yeah. As people report them, they get added.

 

Matt (01:17:47):
Well, I mean, dude, to get a drug FDA approved, there's a 14-year test trial process where you're going through, I think there's four trial phases and then they do the human phases. There's a lot of testing. They know. By the time it's a labeled product, they know what's up with it.

 

Jenifer (01:18:06):
Have you seen the documentary about medical devices and the process that they go through to get those approved?

 

Matt (01:18:13):
What is it called?

 

Jenifer (01:18:15):
I would have to Google it.

 

Matt (01:18:17):
We are developing a medical device right now.

 

Jenifer (01:18:19):
But you should watch it because they go off this old patent and they are able to push through in a faster process because they change one little perspective of it or something, but they're able to use it under this old patent. But basically the idea is that it may not be safe, but they're riding off the coattails of this original patent or whatever. So there's so many medical devices that are killing people. For example, the mesh that they use for hernias. So that original patent or whatever, they've

 

Matt (01:18:56):
Tweaked it a little bit.

 

Jenifer (01:18:58):
Tweaked it a little bit and it's killing people. There's so many. Google-

 

Matt (01:19:03):
The medical industry.

 

Jenifer (01:19:05):
Medical device documentary on Netflix. It was pretty enlightening and concerning.

 

Matt (01:19:11):
Yeah. I mean, a lot of the Wizard of Oz effect of the medical industry is crazy. The pharmaceutical industry mostly, but this guy, you seen this.

 

Jenifer (01:19:24):
Is that a pill?

 

Matt (01:19:25):
An Oxycontin. They used to hand this stuff out as collateral like you guys did, the reps. But yeah, they know they're hurting people, but they're like, "Yeah, but it's helping X amount of people. " There is that statistical okay. There's a statistical amount of people that I can hurt before it's not okay.

 

Jenifer (01:19:51):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:19:52):
It's like, wow, that's-

 

Jenifer (01:19:53):
Very sad. Yeah.

 

Matt (01:19:54):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:19:56):
Have you seen the movie Fun with Dick and Jane?

 

Matt (01:19:57):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:19:58):
Where he is like, "Statistics." That's a hard word. Anonymity. That's a stupid word. Statistics. Statistics.

 

Matt (01:20:08):
There used to be this ... When I was in high school, there was ... It's not juvenile, the internet used to be. Do you remember collegehumor.com or eBombs world?

 

Jenifer (01:20:18):
I remember eBombs.

 

Matt (01:20:19):
Okay. So college humor was the same thing, but it was just clips.It was just video clips. And then they got a soundboard and then there was sound clips that they had on there and it was a bunch of hard to pronounce words. And one of them was spatula. I guess people have a problem saying spatula.

 

Jenifer (01:20:37):
Spatula.

 

Matt (01:20:38):
Spatula.

 

Jenifer (01:20:39):
I like mispronouncing words just for fun.

 

Matt (01:20:41):
Really?

 

Jenifer (01:20:42):
My stepbrother used to say, Goodnight instead of goodnight because it's stupid the way we spell. And actually whenever I was teaching Hunter to read, I remember the English language is so hard to teach.

 

Matt (01:20:55):
Really?

 

Jenifer (01:20:55):
Because you're like, "Uh-oh, that's a sight word. Oh, that's another sight word." It is just what it is.

 

Matt (01:21:02):
What is a sight word? What does that mean?

 

Jenifer (01:21:03):
It's like despite the phonics, you just have to know it. Knight.

 

Matt (01:21:13):
Like K-N-I-G-H-T that knight?

 

Jenifer (01:21:15):
No, that and N-I-G-H-T.

 

Matt (01:21:17):
So the-

 

Jenifer (01:21:18):
See, we ain't talking about nothing.

 

Matt (01:21:20):
This is what it is, right?This is what we do.

 

Jenifer (01:21:23):
Oh, that's funny.

 

Matt (01:21:27):
Words are funny. So I've been going through this thing where it's like industry. Or a common greeting in the United States specifically is, how are you?

 

Jenifer (01:21:39):
But we don't listen for the response or we don't care about the response.

 

Matt (01:21:42):
We don't want the response. We don't really want the response. It's like colloquially how-

 

Jenifer (01:21:47):
That's a hard word.

 

Matt (01:21:51):
I don't even think I pronounce it. Colloquially? Yeah, colloquially.

 

Jenifer (01:21:55):
That's a stupid word.

 

Matt (01:21:58):
There should be easier words for sure.

 

Jenifer (01:22:00):
And there are, but if you want to sound intelligent, then we use bigger words.

 

Matt (01:22:03):
Well, I don't know what another word for that. In common tongue, I guess. Should look at the source here. Anyway.

 

Jenifer (01:22:12):
You don't need one.

 

Matt (01:22:16):
That's true.

 

Jenifer (01:22:18):
I grew up with encyclopedias.

 

Matt (01:22:20):
I just started using ChatGPT. It is amazing. I don't

 

Jenifer (01:22:24):
Know what I would do without it.

 

Matt (01:22:27):
It's so smart. It knows me already.

 

Jenifer (01:22:31):
I love it. It's like the best thing ever. But I grew up whenever we didn't have Google.

 

Matt (01:22:36):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:22:37):
I grew up without Google.

 

Matt (01:22:38):
Yeah. I mean, so most of my childhood was ... There was no Google when I was a kid.

 

Jenifer (01:22:46):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:22:47):
And then it was a thing when I was a teenager, I guess. We started really using it. But words, the amount of people that use words incorrectly-

 

Jenifer (01:22:58):
Astonishing.

 

Matt (01:22:59):
And then with the way that the rap industry has been infused into people's daily lives, we are the dumbest we have ever. We say things like deadass.

 

Jenifer (01:23:12):
Irregardless people say. And I'm like ...

 

Matt (01:23:15):
Irregardless. Yeah. It's

 

Jenifer (01:23:16):
Not a word.

 

Matt (01:23:17):
Yeah. It's like we're getting ... Have you seen idiocracy?

 

Jenifer (01:23:23):
Yes. Once a long time ago.

 

Matt (01:23:25):
Dude, I love that movie.

 

Jenifer (01:23:27):
I'll watch that again.

 

Matt (01:23:28):
We are heading there.

 

Jenifer (01:23:33):
I forget how to spell words because I'm always on my phone and my iPhone auto fixes it or auto corps.

 

Matt (01:23:38):
Do you remember a phone book worth of phone numbers?

 

Jenifer (01:23:42):
I was just telling Addie about that. I said, "You would have to know my mom and dad's name to be able to find me in the phone book." We have to look that up.

 

Matt (01:23:50):
I can rip a phone for that. She's never seen one.

 

Jenifer (01:23:52):
You can?

 

Matt (01:23:53):
Yeah. It's like a trick to it.

 

Jenifer (01:23:57):
There are no phone books.

 

Matt (01:23:58):
I know.

 

Jenifer (01:23:59):
How are you going to prove it?

 

Matt (01:24:02):
That is a good point. When I was in treatment for three years straight, we were living ... So the facility was an old Hilton. So it was a really nice old ... It was built for the 1985 Olympians to stay in, like a fountain in the lobby area and a whole jungle in the back with a lazy river and stuff. It was really cool. But they had a room full of phone books from back in the day.

 

Jenifer (01:24:29):
Yeah. I used to use them for our- It

 

Matt (01:24:32):
Was also in LA, so the phone books were massive. Were the phone books here big? They were probably pretty big too.

 

Jenifer (01:24:39):
i mean, I actually was raised in Brenham. Have you ever heard of that?

 

Matt (01:24:42):
Brenham.

 

Jenifer (01:24:43):
Brenham?

 

Matt (01:24:43):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:24:45):
And then-

 

Matt (01:24:46):
No clue where it's at, but-

 

Jenifer (01:24:47):
Raised my son in College Station and then I've been in Houston eight years.

 

Matt (01:24:49):
So is Brenham farther than College Station?

 

Jenifer (01:24:52):
Closer.

 

Matt (01:24:53):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (01:24:53):
Well, it's same. It's equidistant, but two different directions.

 

Matt (01:24:56):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (01:24:59):
That was a big word.

 

Matt (01:25:00):
I was about to say that. That was a pretty big word. Equidistant.

 

Jenifer (01:25:04):
I am such a nerd.

 

Matt (01:25:05):
We have lost all meaning to our language to the point where when I hear people talk, I'm like, "Do you even know what you're talking about? "

 

Jenifer (01:25:13):
Some people just talk to talk. And I'm like, just if you call me on the phone, give me bullets.

 

Matt (01:25:21):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:25:22):
And so of course, since God is funny, he gave me certain talkers in my life. Let's just say that.

 

Matt (01:25:29):
Yeah. I

 

Jenifer (01:25:29):
Don't want to point anybody out, but you're killing me is what you're doing softly.

 

Matt (01:25:35):
We have long conversations.

 

Jenifer (01:25:37):
Tell me short, fast. What are you calling me for? I love you very much.

 

Matt (01:25:42):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:25:43):
So I'd rather chop it up in person.

 

Matt (01:25:45):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:25:46):
I can sit with you and we can talk or we just not talk and just be hanging out, feeling the vibe. But I can't stand it. Especially people that repeat themselves. Just tell me one time. It just drives me crazy. It's a pet peeve.

 

Matt (01:26:03):
I've gotten to the point around what I'm doing now. I a lot of the times won't answer and I'll text you back for that exact reason. I end up on the phone for hours every day.

 

Jenifer (01:26:17):
Yeah, it's a lot. The phone is a lot in our field.

 

Matt (01:26:20):
Yeah. Some of the conversations that I have is so fucking pointless too.

 

Jenifer (01:26:26):
So you totally feel me.

 

Matt (01:26:28):
Well, I think everybody has the same point of view on ... So I learned this in prison. The point of a conversation is the exchange of information. And so when you get on the phone in prison, you have 15 minute increments. And when I was in prison the first couple of times, it was expensive. Phone calls were not free. Since COVID, phone calls have been made free across the nation, I think. But it would be like four bucks for a 15-minute call. And so somebody told me this, he was like, "Look, when you get on the phone in order to stop yourself from all this stress, when you get on the phone, exchange the information that you need to exchange, then get the fuck off the phone."

 

Jenifer (01:27:17):
Yeah. That made me think about when we used to have to pay for long distance.

 

Matt (01:27:23):
Those expensive phone bills that your parents got? Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:27:27):
I owed an amends because I remembered my friend's calling card number and I used it because I was in a pitch in my addiction and my crazy life. And I used their calling card number a few times. I'm like, I memorized it. The pound and everything, the key, was it the pin?

 

Matt (01:27:47):
Do you know how many people are not going to know what a calling card is?

 

Jenifer (01:27:49):
I know. It's so crazy.

 

Matt (01:27:51):
Yeah. Do you remember when it was like you had free nights and weekends, cell phone?

 

Jenifer (01:27:58):
Yeah. They got you.

 

Matt (01:28:00):
And it was like before that there was more expensive times to make calls.

 

Jenifer (01:28:06):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:28:07):
And if you didn't track that or minutes, if you went over on minutes, how expensive those extra minutes were.

 

Jenifer (01:28:14):
Yeah. People would be like, "I can't call you. I don't have any minutes."

 

Matt (01:28:17):
Yeah.Oh wow, that's so funny.

 

Jenifer (01:28:19):
And how we texted before the iPhone, T9. T9. And we were on it, boy.

 

Matt (01:28:24):
Dude. Yeah. T9 was amazing. Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:28:29):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:28:29):
Those combinations. So when I got my first car, it was still T9 and you could way more easily text with T9 and drive than this now. It's like you have to-

 

Jenifer (01:28:42):
Because you just felt it?

 

Matt (01:28:44):
Yeah. It was like the muscle memory of a phone pad versus not remembering, but we have full on keyboards on our phones now.

 

Jenifer (01:28:53):
Yeah. I remember before I knew what Swipe was, I saw a girl doing it. I was like, "God, dang, she is texting fast." I didn't know there was Swipe. But I remember the first phone, the first picture that I saw somebody take on an iPhone, I was blown away

 

Matt (01:29:10):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:29:11):
The whole screen was a picture. And I'm like, "What?" It was that Hunter's baseball game. I was like, "Oh, wow."

 

Matt (01:29:19):
I went into prison and I had a chocolate, an LG chocolate. It slid up. Remember?

 

Jenifer (01:29:27):
I had a katana.

 

Matt (01:29:29):
Katana. I remember that.

 

Jenifer (01:29:29):
That was a bomb.

 

Matt (01:29:31):
It went like that. A

 

Jenifer (01:29:32):
Pink katana.

 

Matt (01:29:34):
So I went in, the world was one way. I came out, they had smartphones. It was a whole ... And I remember to this day, I don't remember the feeling, but I remember telling myself for months, "Do not forget this feeling. Something changed. The world changed while you were in prison. Something happened."

 

Jenifer (01:29:53):
And you were there three years?

 

Matt (01:29:54):
The first time, yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:29:57):
Man. Yeah. Hunter went to jail. 23 days.

 

Matt (01:30:01):
God damn.

 

Jenifer (01:30:03):
Little turd. And he called me every day. It's taken nine and a half years for our relationship to get better. But when he was in jail, don't you know he called me.

 

Matt (01:30:13):
Oh no. Yeah, for sure. He

 

Jenifer (01:30:14):
Called his mama.

 

Matt (01:30:15):
That is a common thing that everybody knows. The only people that are going to answer their phone for you when you go to jail is your mom. That is it.

 

Jenifer (01:30:22):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:30:22):
My mom didn't, but ...

 

Jenifer (01:30:24):
He read the whole Game of Thrones books. We sent him those.

 

Matt (01:30:28):
Wait, like all nine of them?

 

Jenifer (01:30:30):
I don't know. The set.

 

Matt (01:30:32):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:30:32):
But he's a reader. He's so smart. He's so smart.

 

Matt (01:30:40):
I got the bare minimum to go by in school. I hated school so much. But then I got to prison and I loved ... I've read hundreds of books, like hundreds of books, entire series. I read all of John Grisham's ... All of his entire, whatever that is, catalog of books in a month.

 

Jenifer (01:31:05):
Wow. A

 

Matt (01:31:05):
Couple months.

 

Jenifer (01:31:06):
Have you read Untethered Life?

 

Matt (01:31:08):
Untethered.

 

Jenifer (01:31:08):
Untethered Soul?

 

Matt (01:31:09):
No.

 

Jenifer (01:31:10):
It's pretty good.

 

Matt (01:31:11):
Who's it by?

 

Jenifer (01:31:12):
Michael Steven, maybe?

 

Matt (01:31:17):
It got to the point where I stopped. I would judge book. I read everything that I wanted to read and then I would not read because of the cover. So I stopped paying attention to the author and the title of the book. And so I've read, I don't know how many books that ... I don't know what they were called and I don't know who wrote it.

 

Jenifer (01:31:37):
Yeah. I think it's Michael Stevens. It's pretty good. It's pretty good.

 

Matt (01:31:41):
That sounds good.

 

Jenifer (01:31:41):
Talks about your brain and your thoughts and the observer and it just kind of trips you out. I had to read it three times. My mind was blown.

 

Matt (01:31:53):
You know what's really blew my mind the first time I read it. Do you believe in God?

 

Jenifer (01:31:58):
I do.

 

Matt (01:31:59):
Do you believe in ... Are you spiritual or do you believe in God?

 

Jenifer (01:32:04):
I am both.

 

Matt (01:32:06):
Okay. So Richard Dawkins is a biologist who's also an atheist, but he wrote a book called The God Delusion. And one of the most powerful ... One of the things that led me to God the most is one of the sentences in his books because my relationship with God is very unique, I think.

 

Jenifer (01:32:27):
I think so. Mine too.

 

Matt (01:32:30):
I think a lot of people think that, right?

 

Jenifer (01:32:33):
Yeah. Because it's your unique, personal ... I think it's supposed to be. Relationship.

 

Matt (01:32:37):
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's supposed to be. But just the way that things happen in my life ... Anyway.

 

Jenifer (01:32:44):
What was the line?

 

Matt (01:32:45):
There's no such thing as a Christian child. It was the first one that I was like, oh my gosh. Yeah, we're all inheriting our parents' beliefs. And then he said, "If there is a God, wouldn't he want me to be good for being good sake rather than out of fear of going to hell?"

 

Jenifer (01:33:02):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:33:02):
I was like, "Oh, okay. I think I know. " It put a lot of things in perspective because I was raised in a very religious situation and a lot of my life was lived out of fear and fear of punishment more than anything. I read that, first of all, this guy's an atheist, a genius. This guy's amazing. He's like an old British dude. Now he's this old British dude. Have you ever seen the Pixar short in front of a Bug's life? The old man that plays chess against himself?

 

Jenifer (01:33:40):
But they're so cute, aren't they? Yeah. The shorts.

 

Matt (01:33:43):
Yeah. Well, he looks like that guy. I'm going to show you.

 

Jenifer (01:33:47):
Okay.

 

Matt (01:33:48):
The guy has been in a bunch of Pixar shorts. They made a bunch of them about him.

 

Jenifer (01:33:54):
Have you seen the movie Up? I

 

Matt (01:33:56):
Still have not seen Up or what's the other one about the feelings?

 

Jenifer (01:34:00):
Oh, I didn't like that one.

 

Matt (01:34:02):
Yeah? Mm-mm. You're the first person that I've heard say that.

 

Jenifer (01:34:04):
I really didn't. But shoot, me and Hunter went to see the BFG in the theater when he was 18. I love Pixar movies. They're so cute. And funny. The adult humor in them is really cool too.

 

Matt (01:34:17):
Look at.

 

Jenifer (01:34:18):
Look at ... Oh, he is cute.

 

Matt (01:34:21):
That's what Richard ... So look, I want to show you Richard Dawkins.

 

Jenifer (01:34:24):
You need to watch BFG.

 

Matt (01:34:27):
BFG, what is that?

 

Jenifer (01:34:28):
Cute. The big friendly giant.

 

Matt (01:34:31):
Big friendly giant.

 

Jenifer (01:34:32):
Yeah.

 

(01:34:34):
Cute.

 

Matt (01:34:34):
Do they look like him?

 

Jenifer (01:34:35):
Yeah.

 

(01:34:37):
Anyway,

 

Matt (01:34:37):
This guy's a genius. And yeah, it was like this atheist was making a case for why God doesn't exist and it-

 

Jenifer (01:34:44):
Yeah. It brought you to Him.

 

Matt (01:34:45):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:34:46):
Well, I wasn't raised in church. I tried to go through church myself, but I was going to say it's cool how many things in recovery you learn and how many things you let go.

 

Matt (01:35:01):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:35:01):
Like the old ideas.

 

Matt (01:35:03):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:35:04):
Like you get to just drop them and it's so freeing.

 

Matt (01:35:08):
Yeah. It is much easier to learn something new than it is to unlearn something. But I've learned that through the process of learning new things, you very easily let things go.

 

Jenifer (01:35:20):
Yeah, absolutely.

 

Matt (01:35:22):
A lot of religious trauma. I don't know if I was traumatized religiously or not. I was part of a religion that is historically very traumatizing for people. Think about your ex, right? But I didn't have so much religious trauma more. It was like I had expectations. I had to fulfill these expectations because I understood this was what they really wanted. As long as I fulfilled my expectations right here, then I could do whatever I wanted. And also I'm the oldest of 10 kids, so it was very easy for me to not have parental oversight because they were really, really busy. Busy. Yeah. Not only making kids, but trying to take care of them too. So I was like, that is a lot of kids. So very early on, I tell people, I exhibited addict behavior as a child Because I was living these two different lives, especially as a teenager and I had more freedom and it was like I went to church. I think the first 13 years of my life, I missed church maybe once or twice. And then once I became a teenager, I still had to go to church. I went probably ... I still probably didn't miss very many Sundays, but outside of what I had going on at my family's house, I was doing the most. And when I was 16, I started staying out all night and it was like people would be like, "Don't you sleep?" And it's like, "Man, you have no idea what being at home is like right now. So I will sleep when I'm dead. I'm going to stay out here for as long as possible." And it was like across the freeway from my parents' house, there was this old office building that was closed, but there was a couple steps.

 

(01:37:10):
And so I would go there and fall asleep over there because I did not want to go home so bad, but I would skate and then just fall asleep there and then wake up and go back home for like 10 minutes. Yeah, it was crazy. But that was way before I ever had a drug problem. I was still doing drugs, but I didn't have a drug problem yet. Yeah. Actually, I probably did. My mind was preoccupied with the use of drugs mostly. Not really seeking drugs, but the use of drugs.

 

Jenifer (01:37:48):
It's like a whole lifestyle that you get addicted to.

 

Matt (01:37:52):
That was later on, yeah. But the lifestyle that I ended up falling into was so hectic. It was like gangs, drugs, Mexico was right there. So there was a lot of shit going on and it was much easier for me to let go of the lifestyle than a lot of other people. But I know a lot of people get way addicted to the lifestyle.

 

Jenifer (01:38:14):
Criminal too. Criminal lifestyle.

 

Matt (01:38:18):
Yeah. I mean, okay. So now I have to ... I avoid banks as much as possible because my wife has gotten into a bank with me before and she's like, "Dude, what are you thinking about? " Because I go in there and it's like, "Oh my gosh, this place is ... " Because banks are ... I think they have the working assumption that nobody's going to try to rob them,

 

Jenifer (01:38:45):
Right? I feel like they are hyper aware that that's a possibility.

 

Matt (01:38:51):
I know they think it's a possibility, but the amount of days that they are open versus the amount of times they get robbed, statistically, they're like, "Oh, I'm probably not getting robbed today." The average teller gets robbed if they ... This is what I heard. If they work as a bank teller for 10 years, they'll get robbed three times. Statistically, that is pretty darn good.

 

Jenifer (01:39:08):
That's pretty a lot.

 

Matt (01:39:11):
Oh, think about it. How many times-

 

Jenifer (01:39:13):
One time's too many for me.

 

Matt (01:39:15):
Well, nobody's hurting people in bank robberies anymore.

 

Jenifer (01:39:20):
I've seen too many movies.

 

Matt (01:39:22):
Yeah, for sure. Bank robberies are not what people think they are. They're walking in saying, "Give me the money." They're giving it to them and then they're just walking out. Yeah, it is illegal for them not to. Did you know that?

 

Jenifer (01:39:36):
Mm-mm.

 

Matt (01:39:37):
Yeah, it's federally insured money. So they have a bunch of SOP around, "We will not risk people's lives for this money. It isn't ours. It's insured. The federal government will give this it back." So they're like, "We cannot..." So many people are ... I am thoroughly convinced I was supposed to be born in the 1800s because I would've been such a great gangster.

 

Jenifer (01:40:09):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:40:09):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:40:09):
I think I should have been born in the 20s so I can dress like just pimp tight. You know how they used to dress like 28.

 

Matt (01:40:18):
What'd you call it? Pimped.

 

Jenifer (01:40:19):
Pimp tight.

 

Matt (01:40:20):
Pimp Tight. Yeah. Pimp tight.

 

Jenifer (01:40:22):
Pimpulicious. I mean, they just dressed you impressed every single day.

 

Matt (01:40:27):
Yeah. There was nothing else going on. Everybody was great at swing dancing too, right?

 

Jenifer (01:40:33):
You're like, there was nothing else going on. Yeah. I mean, this is just such a slow lifestyle.

 

Matt (01:40:39):
Have you noticed this whole trend that's happening in fashion where people are dressing sloppier on purpose?

 

Jenifer (01:40:45):
Yeah, like the oversized sweaters.

 

Matt (01:40:47):
The oversized clothes.

 

Jenifer (01:40:48):
The Birkenstocks.

 

Matt (01:40:49):
Distressed clothes. Is that what it's called? Yeah. Where they're like the factories or whoever's making it are purposefully fucking these clothes up.

 

Jenifer (01:40:59):
Yep. I mean, have you seen the documentaries on Fast Fashion?

 

Matt (01:41:03):
No.

 

Jenifer (01:41:04):
Like Sheen?

 

Matt (01:41:05):
No. Sheen?

 

Jenifer (01:41:06):
Shine, Sheen, Sheen. Everybody calls it

 

Matt (01:41:09):
Different. Oh, it's like a shoe store or something, right?

 

Jenifer (01:41:11):
No, it's just fast fashion period. H&M, how it's so cheap.

 

Matt (01:41:16):
Fashion Nova?

 

Jenifer (01:41:18):
Yeah. I mean, what's the other one? It's just like Temu. I mean, all those things that are super cheap.

 

Matt (01:41:29):
Tell me about it.

 

Jenifer (01:41:29):
And you can just wear them once, but there's a trash problem. Everything is so expendable. And so we just buy them because it's cheap. Wear it one time and then it goes into the landfill or to a donation thing. But we're drowning in our trash. It's bad.And the plastic, where does it go?

 

Matt (01:41:51):
That's all. So have you seen Wally?

 

Jenifer (01:41:54):
No.

 

Matt (01:41:55):
You haven't seen Wally? It's actually like Pixar movie.

 

Jenifer (01:41:58):
I do. I haven't seen one. I have a little

 

Matt (01:41:59):
Robot.

 

Jenifer (01:41:59):
I haven't seen it.

 

Matt (01:42:01):
Okay. You've got to see this movie. In this movie, we have so much trash on the earth that we're living in spaceships now and we're so lazy. Our skeletal structure shrunk and we are all 500 pounds. And we live in chairs and there's no life on earth anymore. It's just a giant trash heap. But when I was 24, I was living in San Bernardino, California. Do you know where that is?

 

Jenifer (01:42:32):
I do not.

 

Matt (01:42:33):
Okay. Well-

 

Jenifer (01:42:34):
I've heard of it. I don't know where it is in California.

 

Matt (01:42:36):
How have you heard of it?

 

Jenifer (01:42:37):
I don't know. You've heard of Houston.

 

Matt (01:42:40):
The fourth biggest city in the country.

 

Jenifer (01:42:43):
I've heard of San Bernardino.

 

Matt (01:42:45):
Yeah. San Bernardino is like ... Anyway, there is an Amazon cluster there. And this is 2015, so how old was I? 26. I was 26. Yeah. 2014, 2015, I was there. 2013, 14, 15. Okay. Anyway, Amazon has this return policy and then also they don't actually sell anything. They're basically drop shippers and they sell a service. You can send all your stuff to them, sell it, and then they ship it out, but they don't actually sell anything. And so they have these contracts where they have 30-day contracts. So people send them their stuff and then they have all of these buyback policies. Anyway, they started filling the landfills. All of that stuff that gets returned, they just throw it away. And so they started filling the landfills with electronics that are still working. People send stuff back for the dumbest reason.

 

Jenifer (01:43:51):
I do myself.

 

Matt (01:43:53):
Send stuff back for dumb reasons.

 

Jenifer (01:43:55):
I will buy five dresses.

 

Matt (01:43:58):
Oh, my wife's- Do you

 

Jenifer (01:44:00):
To try them on? In return, maybe all five, because they look like stupid.

 

Matt (01:44:09):
Is it like ... You just like buying things.

 

Jenifer (01:44:12):
I love it.

 

Matt (01:44:12):
Oh, yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:44:14):
Hey, so are you a returner?

 

Matt (01:44:17):
No.

 

Jenifer (01:44:18):
You will give it away.

 

Matt (01:44:19):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:44:20):
You'll be like, dude, I bought this. I can't return it.

 

Matt (01:44:22):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:44:22):
I'm like, that's $38.

 

Matt (01:44:24):
Yeah, I know.

 

Jenifer (01:44:26):
I'm getting my money back.

 

Matt (01:44:28):
Do you see all of just the random equipment that is not being used? All those cameras.

 

Jenifer (01:44:35):
Those are returns.

 

Matt (01:44:36):
No, I'm not going to return them. And they're probably just going to sit there now. This thing, this? This thing is so pointless.

 

Jenifer (01:44:46):
Was that a purifier?

 

Matt (01:44:47):
No, it is a air conditioner that you don't need to hook up to the wall, that it doesn't need to be a vent. And I tried so hard to find a non-vent AC unit that you don't need to put ice in. And I was like, oh, I found it. Right? You got to put ice in it. So now it just sits there.

 

Jenifer (01:45:09):
Was it from Amazon?

 

Matt (01:45:10):
No. No, that was the crazy part is like, I tried ... If anybody knows how to find one of those, it is a vent-free, ice-free AC unit. Let me know.

 

Jenifer (01:45:21):
Well, I would like a six-foot two wealthy, handsome man who knows how to country dance.

 

Matt (01:45:29):
You know where you should have gone was the Meninger event. There were probably-

 

Jenifer (01:45:33):
Why didn't you invite me? I didn't even know about it. That was for the elite.

 

Matt (01:45:37):
That was for the elite. I went there. I was like ... First of all, very cool.

 

Jenifer (01:45:42):
I need you to be on the lookout.

 

Matt (01:45:44):
They were all over the place. Yeah. Actually, does age matter?

 

Jenifer (01:45:50):
He can be up to 53.

 

Matt (01:45:52):
How young?

 

Jenifer (01:45:53):
35.

 

Matt (01:45:54):
35. Okay, this guy is ... I know a guy, genius, drives an Aston Martin, and he's super young.

 

Jenifer (01:46:04):
Will he dance with me?

 

Matt (01:46:06):
He owned his tux.

 

Jenifer (01:46:09):
Dude, so I'm on dating sites, right?

 

Matt (01:46:11):
That sucks.

 

Jenifer (01:46:13):
Nobody's going to come to my apartment and be like, "Ma'am, Jen, you're my girl." So you kind of have to be.

 

Matt (01:46:19):
I thought you had a boyfriend.

 

Jenifer (01:46:21):
No.

 

Matt (01:46:21):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (01:46:22):
I'm in single. That's why I got a dog.

 

Matt (01:46:24):
Right. Don't you have a guy?

 

Jenifer (01:46:27):
No.

 

Matt (01:46:27):
Okay.

 

Jenifer (01:46:28):
I date intermittently, but it's a whole thing. I was like, we can definitely talk about that. Dating and sobriety.

 

Matt (01:46:35):
Oh, so we are about to have a ... We're going to do a talking points episode, which I don't know how that's going to work out, but one of them is destructive sex in sobriety.

 

Jenifer (01:46:51):
Or no sex.

 

Matt (01:46:53):
Well, I don't know which one is obviously destructive sex, but no sex seems terrible too.

 

Jenifer (01:47:01):
Find the balance.

 

Matt (01:47:02):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:47:04):
It's worth talking about because I didn't date really for almost the first two years of my recovery because I had plenty to do. I stayed busy. I did go to the gym.

 

Matt (01:47:18):
That actually seems like a healthy decision. I mean, people talk about it all the time. It's like their sponsees are constantly relapsing, not because of anything other than-

 

Jenifer (01:47:29):
Finance and romance.

 

Matt (01:47:30):
Yeah. Yeah. Finance and romance, that's a good way to put it. But yeah, girls are like ... If I wasn't married, I'd be so fucked right now. Literally. Anyway.

 

Jenifer (01:47:45):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:47:45):
I need to put sounds on my soundpad.

 

Jenifer (01:47:48):
Yeah, you should.

 

Matt (01:47:49):
That would've been perfect right there.

 

Jenifer (01:47:51):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:47:51):
Anyway, yeah, dating. And so also you're dealing with a couple other things too. You are sober, you're not 22. And so the dating market is the most ... People have the most currency are middle-aged men and barely legal women.

 

Jenifer (01:48:12):
Yeah. But you know a Stable male mid- 40s isn't going to want a 22-year-old. You're going to want a life partner, but everybody says they want a life partner, but then they put up shenanigans on dating. It's crazy.

 

Matt (01:48:33):
Okay. I'm going to tell you something. From a man's perspective-

 

Jenifer (01:48:36):
Every man wants?

 

Matt (01:48:37):
Every man wants a 22-year-old. Maybe not for life, but at least for tonight. But they can't get out of that just for tonight thing. And so-

 

Jenifer (01:48:48):
Then they get stuck with the crazy. So my ex- husband actually married a woman 10 years old.

 

Matt (01:48:51):
It's 100% of women.

 

Jenifer (01:48:54):
You think so?

 

Matt (01:48:55):
Yeah.

 

Jenifer (01:48:55):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:48:56):
You guys are ruled by estrogen.

 

Jenifer (01:48:59):
Yeah.

 

Matt (01:49:01):
That is a drug. That is one of the most powerful drugs known to man.

 

Jenifer (01:49:06):
Yeah. Yep.

 

Matt (01:49:08):
So yeah. And it's like the thing that separates women from men emotionally is the estrogen factor. Think about menopausal women that their body starts to make that chemical change.

 

Jenifer (01:49:25):
Well, and testosterone. Women have testosterone too.

 

Matt (01:49:28):
Well, I mean, men have estrogen too.

 

Jenifer (01:49:31):
Well, so many people now have low or no testosterone because of our diet and lack of exercise.

 

Matt (01:49:40):
There was a girl that wrote a book, one of the weirdest ... It was about microplastics. Did you know that everybody ... The average person has a credit card worth of microplastics in their body?

 

Jenifer (01:49:53):
I believe it.

 

Matt (01:49:54):
Isn't that crazy? Anyway, but yeah, the effects of the hormonal imbalances because of our diet, specifically with young women and milk is the craziest one because you can see what's happening to them. When I was a kid, this was 20 years ago, we'll say. Let's see how am I ... Yeah, 20 years ago I was 15. Girls were in high school with adult men in my day and age. And so now it's like all of the hormonal crazy stuff that ... We're being manipulated and girls are now having women's bodies much younger and boys are becoming girls too. It's like we're being manipulated into the feminine. And now look, the world's upside down.

 

Jenifer (01:50:51):
The end. Yeah.

 

Matt (01:50:54):
The end.

 

Jenifer (01:50:55):
I do have to go. I have to be at the hospital.

 

Matt (01:51:00):
What time?

 

Jenifer (01:51:02):
I have food to pick up at 11:15, an hour away.

 

Matt (01:51:05):
Okay. You got to go. We can probably pick this up again.

 

Jenifer (01:51:12):
Okay.

 

Matt (01:51:13):
You got a couple more hours of this in you?

 

Jenifer (01:51:15):
Yeah. We ain't talking about nothing.

 

Matt (01:51:18):
I had fun.

 

Jenifer (01:51:19):
It was fun. You're easy to talk to, so it's fun. And I can-

 

Matt (01:51:23):
This is like one of our shorter in- person conversations.

 

Jenifer (01:51:26):
Yeah. Literally, that's all that. Yeah.

 

Matt (01:51:31):
Okay. I will let you go.

 

Jenifer (01:51:33):
Okay.

 

Matt (01:51:34):
Thank you for coming.

 

Jenifer (01:51:35):
Yeah, it's fun.

 

Matt (01:51:39):
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. Got a question for us? Leave a message or voicemail at mylastrelapse.com. If you're feeling overwhelmed or struggling, you don't have to face it alone. Reaching out for support is a sign of strength and help is always available. If you or anyone you know needs help, give us a call 24 hours a day at 888-691-8295.