Head Inside Mental Health
Todd Weatherly, Therapeutic Consultant and behavioral health expert hosts #Head-Inside Mental Health featuring conversations about mental health and substance use treatment with experts from across the country sharing their thoughts and insights on the world of behavioral health care.
Head Inside Mental Health
Embracing Sobriety and Transformation with B Reeves
B Reeves takes us on a walk through his personal journey in recovery, revealing the raw yet rewarding path to sobriety. Growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina, B faced early exposure to substances, which set the stage for years of struggle. As B opens up about the "gift of desperation" leading to his pivotal moment of seeking help in 2018, listeners gain insight into the complex layers of addiction and the profound transformation that can occur when one commits to a life of sobriety.
In discussing the intersection of personal recovery and professional work, B addresses the critical importance of maintaining separate identities and heartfelt connections to personal recovery. He shares insights into the risks of complacency and the vital role of sustaining recovery practices like prayer, meditation, and community involvement. As we explore the journey of living recovery, B's story underscores the significance of embracing a lifestyle of awareness and continuous growth. Through his experiences, we are reminded of the profound impact of living one's recovery practice, fostering resilience, and nurturing a sense of well-being and faith.
Hello folks and welcome back to Mental Health Matters. On WPBM 1037, the Voice of Asheville independent commercial-free radio, I'm Todd Weatherly, your host, therapeutic consultant, behavioral health expert. With me today I have a colleague and friend and fellow golfer, mr B Reeves. He is the Director of Business Development at New Waters Recovery, a detox and mental health assessment center for individuals seeking relief from addiction and mental health disorders there in Raleigh, north Carolina. He was born there in Raleigh, north Carolina Boy.
Speaker 1:Once again, I'm not from far away Greensboro, myself very active in the local recovery community. A graduate of UNC Wilmington with his degree in history, he survived several lifetimes in his recovery journey seeking geographical cures I love that term in Charleston, london, new York, before moving back to Raleigh in 2009 and getting sober in 2018. That's a long journey there. Following pre-sobriety stints as a gossip columnist, working on film sets and software sales, bill B finally found his calling in the treatment world. Before coming to New Waters, he served as National Clinical Liaison for Pyramid Healthcare and that's when we met which has programs around the country, but several right here in Western North Carolina. B welcome to the show, sir.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Todd.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Thank you, pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, you and I have known each other a little bit. Um, I, I I'm not going to talk about our golf game. Yours is better than mine, but I, you know, I'm glad to be your muse for your best golf game. I just want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're definitely my. Good luck, charm Right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. But you know I thought that you and I you and I we've trucked in a lot of the same territory. I might be a little older than you are, but you know, being in recovery in in this community like being and being a person who, who you know, struggled with addiction and then found his way through a recovery. You know a pretty, uh, I'm sure, your story. I mean nine years. If you got back to the Raleigh area and it took nine years before you truly became sober, I mean that's, that's a lot of haunts, uh, in our area, and I know what the resources look like in our area. I know what the resources look like in Greensboro and Chapel Hill and Raleigh, durham and and and across the Piedmont, um, and I can say that during the time when you were getting sober they were not that many you know what I mean Like there weren't places. So I mean I I kind of love to know if you're willing to share.
Speaker 1:What is, what does that? What did your recovery journey look like in the Piedmont of North Carolina when, when you know, treatment just wasn't as available as we see it today? What is it? What is it? What was your journey look like? What are the? What are the secrets? What? How did you find your way through?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm happy to share that with you and again, thank you for giving me the opportunity to and before, in case I forget that last part of your question, the secret for me was a gift of desperation, the gift of desperation, and so I hope I never forget how desperate and miserable I was the day I walked into a treatment center in Greensboro June 27th 2018. But yeah, I mean, like most people, it was a rocky road and didn't get there on the wings of victory, but it started. You know, I was born in Raleigh and had a great life, had everything I needed and pretty much everything I ever wanted and, you know, definitely had a happy childhood and loving parents. And you know they got divorced when I was eight and I look back on it, not because it was some Kramer versus Kramer thing, but I, you know they did. They got divorced when I was eight and I look back on it, not because it was some Kramer versus Kramer thing.
Speaker 2:But I, you know, started manipulating to get what I wanted, whether that was material things or love and attention and affection, and kind of carried that through into my drinking and using.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, when I'm not spiritually fit today it can kind of creep into my life, but it's usually um tamped down pretty quickly at this point. But, but you know, it still rears its ugly head, um. But I, uh, you know, I experimented with drinking and smoking weed when I was in eighth grade and then I went to boarding school as a freshman in high school and started drinking as much as I could there, which was not that often. But that's where I first time I remember having that sensation of being warm and getting drunk and like the, when I really felt like that freedom from when, you know, when I'm from drinking Um. But the really important part about that year is I didn't do well academically my my first semester, and this was 1991, going into 1992, and doctors were, you know, add, and ADHD was a relatively new term and they're like oh you must have ADD or ADHD.
Speaker 2:And I was prescribed Ritalin and I was very ashamed of you know, because when I was a kid and growing up it was like if people with the spastic kids took Ritalin and I was like, oh my God, I got, I'm taking Ritalin. And some seniors who live next door to me I was a freshman knocked on my door and said, hey, I heard you've got Ritalin. And I was like, no, what do you mean? And they said, we know you have it, just bring it in here. And they crushed it up and snorted it and I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:I'm the cool guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. That never became my thing, but it was from that moment forward.
Speaker 2:The door was what's that? The door opened, the door opened and being prescribed a Ritalin, and then that was eventually Adderall and my mood and mine were kind of chemically altered for 27 years, from 14 to 41, until I got sober. You know that again, it wasn't my drug of choice, but it was like I always had it, you know, and then eventually I would use it to trade for other drugs and to sell it and abuse it. I never took it really as as prescribed, but then I, you know, I went to, I did well there but then I kind of was, you know, naughty and they told me I couldn't come back and I went to a different boarding school and I used the services of somebody who I would say is probably one of your predecessors, who was an ed consultant here in Raleigh, who helped my family, my mom.
Speaker 2:We went on like a last minute find another boarding school toward the summer of, I guess, 1993. And I went to another boarding school in Connecticut, great school, all boys, most beautiful campus ever in Connecticut. Great school, all boys, most beautiful campus ever. But from that moment on, that's when I, when I look back, that's when I knew that I was never satisfied with where I was in life, I was always like I got a case of the supposed to, I'm supposed to be at this other place, I would be, I should be, I would have, could have, should have. And then you know, when I look back, that's when I kind of started drinking and using at and over things to kind of cover up some, you know, perceived inadequacy or something that you know basically just yeah, and so that kind of.
Speaker 2:I took that with me to college and then immediately failed out of college because I never went to class and the only way I knew how to deal with it was to drink and denial. And you know I wouldn't go to class for two weeks, get a 0.0 because I was too lazy or, you know, incompetent to go drop the class. So I'd spend the rest of the semester knowing that my parents were about to find out, pretending I was still in school and the only way I knew how to handle was to drink and do drugs. And so that was just sort of continued when I was 22. So I got two DUIs when I was 20, back to back about two months apart. I'd gotten drinking tickets and open container and you know all kinds of stuff, and I was still just. You know I was very manipulative back to that and would still convince my parents I would do better this semester.
Speaker 2:And you know I went from a big university to community college in North Carolina State, always like saying it'll be different this time. You know, kind of like a geographical cure. You know, like I'm in a new school, new place, it'll be fine, um, and that never really changed. And then I um this same lady who helped me find the other boarding school. My mom came home one night when I was either living at home or just at home. I was 22 and found like Xanax, bars and money everywhere and she was like, oh, I was passed out under the pool table Right Out and called this lady, you know, and my dad. My parents were, you know, co-parenting while they're both divorced and remarried and just my dad was like I don't think he needs to go to rehab, let's figure something out. So I went on this um walkabout with this Crow Indian guy in the Bob Marshall National Forest and Glacier during October and November and we just walked and talked for three weeks.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't really like a 12 step thing to get me sober. It just was like kind of jerked me out of life. You know, I remember one night we were sitting by a fire and it was so cold and wet and we were walking through rivers and creeks and just the two of us trailblazing, making camp, cooking dinner and talking, and I didn't want to be there. But I, you know, I was participating. And I remember one night standing by the fire and it was shivering, and then, you know, the fire gets roaring and then after a little while, you know, I was able to take a layer off, take a hat off, take my gloves off, and then there's a breeze, put it back on. He looked at me and he said you know, it's a lot easier to stay warm than to get warm.
Speaker 2:And I was like okay, and I just sort of noted that and there was some part of me that knew that that would come back and play later in my life. So anyway, that kind of jerked me out of life, kind of rattled my cage enough to get me to kind of get it together long enough, went back to school, eventually graduated from UNCW, did really well when I went back, you know, I could never really do both. I couldn't have much of a social life and an academic life. So I went back to school, graduated when I was 25. Buckled down.
Speaker 1:What's that Buckled down?
Speaker 2:Yeah, buckled down and just you know, I didn't have a lot of distractions because most of my friends had already graduated and we're living in New York and San Francisco and DC or whatever, and Lana and I was just graduating, you know, and I I did a year abroad, moved back to London, worked for this newspaper as a gossip columnist. So I was like, and then I start, like this friend of my dad's somehow got me an interview working for the evening standard there. It was sort of like the page six of England and I went and covered, like you know, society, parties and events and interviewed Robert Downey Jr, john hurt, I mean all sorts of people was crazy, but like it was. That's when this phase of my life started. It was like this is for you and you and you and you, um, because it looked like I was doing something and it looked cool, but I was really just like kind of scared to really try anything and just drinking heavily and do it. You know anything to change the way I felt, um, and then I uh, lived in New York for a while and worked in film and again it was like it sounded like I was doing, like really doing all this cool stuff. I worked on the Sopranos for one day, but I have a credit for working on the Sopranos and Law and Order.
Speaker 2:I mean, some stuff was bigger than others, but in general I was kind of miserable, you know, and I lived in New York with all these people who were investment bankers making all this money and I was kind of like had this facade of I work in the film industry, which I did, but I was afraid to really try. I dressed it up as afraid of success, a fear of success, but it was really fear of everything, especially failure. And then my brother was sick and I used his excuse to come. His illness is an excuse to come back to Raleigh. But it was really like I just kind of failed out of New York, the same way I failed out of the University of Georgia and NC State.
Speaker 2:I was just sort of pretty University of Georgia and NC State. I was just sort of pretty. I was pretty helpless back then, you know, and I never wanted any help, but I sure did want handouts. So I was still calling my parents all the time like I need money for this and that, and you know I would make up some story, some sob story. I needed it for insurance or something that was an emergency, but you know, it was really just to support my lifestyle, which was, you know, pretty debaucherous, um and get back to.
Speaker 2:Raleigh yeah, it's hell. Yeah, it's expensive. Yeah, yeah, living in New York is, uh, you know, half employed, addict, alcoholic is is an expensive way to live, or try to live. It's not much of a life really. I mean, I'm not one of those people who had no fun out there. Believe me, I had plenty of fun. But the longer I'm sober, the more I realized that most of that fun was really manufactured fun.
Speaker 1:I had to have this just right and that just right, and show up at this party and be here and drink that and stay up late with these people and yes it's a you know better in pictures kind of model of life, right?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it's funny you mentioned that part of it because when I went, I went to see fish in New York when I was six months, sober, you know, and there's a whole story behind that. But I went and I had a great time and one of my friends asked me what was it like being sober at fish? And my biggest takeaway was not the you know, listen to the music sober, or it was that I got there before, into the seats before the show started, had fun, danced around, remembered everything was. You know, I was with my friends who were not maniacs.
Speaker 1:You had your balloons on.
Speaker 2:I did. I went to the yellow balloon.
Speaker 2:You know during the day in New York and I went to the yellow balloon, you know, right during the day in new york and I went to the set break. You know fellowship meetings, but what the real takeaway was, kind of what you just said, is I didn't have, I didn't feel obligated to make sure that my friend from raleigh was going to meet my friend. That I met, you know, when I was traveling in europe because he's so cool and he'll love this guy and just trying to control everything, trying to make sure that the scene is just right and it was just present with the people I was with. I was going to hear the music, you know that's why I was there Not to go, try to be like the Mr Party Planner and control everything. You know and obviously like not being a mess and spending all my money and being hung over and probably you know the expense of a relationship or a job or something. You know. That's those consequences weren't there either.
Speaker 1:There's benefits, right, but you, the benefit you got wasn't none. You know, it wasn't the fact that there weren't consequences on the end of it, it was a positive benefit to just bear witness to.
Speaker 2:I got to be in this experience and I enjoyed myself and I didn't need to do any of these things and I didn't need to, you know, facade my life to others exactly, exactly, and there's a there's a line in the big book that talks about how we tried to be the director and the lighting guy instead of just being an actor and just doing our part. You know, and I was always trying to manipulate and control and get everybody. All you know, and just it was such a relief to not deal with that. So, back I moved back to Raleigh and I had some jobs. I worked in advertising and I would like, you know, not show up after a family friend got me this really coveted job at this amazing ad agency and, just you know, threw that away and then the only way I could handle that was to drink and then sleep all day and drink and do drugs and sleep all day. Um, and that was a pattern for the next eight years about of like I then I'd managed to get, I was really good at getting jobs, but doing the actual work and keeping it, that was another matter altogether.
Speaker 2:Um, my dad got diagnosed with cancer in 2017. My brother, by the way, who's doing great now. I mean, he had two forms of cancer at the time when I used his illness as an excuse to come back to Raleigh. But anyway, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. I was very sad about that, but the sort of overriding feeling about it was nobody can question me while I self-medicate, and so I just thought that I had a carte blanche, airtight excuse to just drink and do drugs and spent the next basically from June to June, from 17 to 18, while my dad was sick and then eventually died just taking boatloads of pills, and then my drug of choice became painkillers and, uh, dad died at the end of february of 2018. Um, you know, and I was just. You know, I was. I loved my dad. We had the same name. We're very similar. We're, you know, uncomfortably close at times, but I was also.
Speaker 2:I was so sick with my disease that, like I was, it's really all I could care about was myself at that time, unfortunately, and and so I was things just didn't get any better, and then my brother had come to town twice to go through some of my dad's stuff, and I just lied to him one time and another time. I just completely missed it. I went to bed on a Saturday night and woke up on Monday and people knew I was struggling. And then he came to town one more, one other time. We had dinner and I kind of told him what was going on. And then about two days later the shark started circling. People started asking me for my insurance information and you know I always say I was probably about 12 hours away from an intervention and my mom said there's a bed for you at place in greensboro. We both know I try not to name treatment centers, but I had, I'll name it because it's awesome and I've been sober since I went to fellowship hall.
Speaker 2:It's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we, we both know fellowship hall and celebrate their successes and gladly, there is a resource in greensboro. It's one of the few that you can rely on, so exactly totally cool about having them be you. You know, show up in the interview, but you had a good experience at fellowship hall and you came out of there in 2019. Is that right?
Speaker 2:So I went there June 27th 2018. And it wasn't my idea, but I went the night I got there, I got on my knees and wept and said God, what have you done to me? And then for three days I was like I'm leaving tomorrow, I'm leaving tomorrow. And then I was like I'm leaving tomorrow, I'm leaving tomorrow. And then I was like, all right, I'm not gonna leave. How can I make this go by fast?
Speaker 2:And I thought about being a kid in church and when a hymn was being sung, if I picked up the hymnal and sang along, it went by fast and I could sit down again. But if I just stood there like this, it would take forever. So I just applied that to being in treatment and I was like I might even learn, even learn something. It went by fast. I did learn something, which was my way of doing things got me there and, more importantly, I started feeling better physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally. And I just came out of there like completely on fire for recovery and started going to meetings right away. And, like you know, they told me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I went to like 130 in 90 days and got a sponsor and worked the steps and started sponsoring guys and just have kept at it ever since.
Speaker 2:And then I you know it's funny I've been to treatment and was there for 28 days, saw that there were therapists and doctors and nurses and recovery advocates and staff. It never occurred to me that there needed to be people out there talking about this place and so I had an opportunity to work for Pyramid about two years into my sobriety and it's like wait. So the job is. I like travel and go to conferences, get to play some golf and talk about recovery. Yeah, I think that's interesting. I think I'll try that. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:Say more about that. Um, like I, you know it. It sounds like you lived a life and and, whatever your work environment was and and your period of time being, you know, using drugs and not being sober, they were enmeshed with one another, Right, yeah, and now that a practice for you, it sounds like, is to make sure that your work life, which is still very much connected to your value system.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Because you and I have talked many times, in some cases at length, about recovery and how much you believe in it, how much you want to advocate for it. Your, you know how much you believe in it, how much you want to advocate for it, but to keep it separate from you know, this kind of healthy life balance is also a critical element for you, for your recovery, and I, honestly, for all honestly, life balance is really critical for all of us, whether we're in that specific kind of recovery or not, I believe. But how did you make that determination? Where is the perspective from that caused you to kind of set that boundary for yourself? Where does that live in your recovery journey?
Speaker 2:That's a great question and I don't remember exactly who said this to me first, but it was more than one person. But when I started working in the field four and a half years ago late summer 2020, somebody said to me do not let this be your recovery. When I started working in this field, and I just I got it. I just I knew what he meant. I didn't need any more explanation. And so I just look at this that I try to always say you know, I treat my, my recovery and my job Like I work at Sears, like I have my job, and then I and I have and I have my recovery, because if I, if I start, if my meeting starts slacking, if I stop calling people in, you know, I work in the field, it's fine.
Speaker 1:If I miss this, don't do this.
Speaker 2:Exactly Cause that's my job, that is my. I get paid to do that, you know. And it's actually a really interesting question because I was at um. This was during COVID, when I was interviewing for my first job in the field and I was going to this meeting at this guy's house. I actually saw him pick up 30 years.
Speaker 2:Uh, monday night his wife would cook us these meals and I was right at two years sober, when we were reading this book called Steps and Stories by this famous AA guy named Sandy Beach. And there was a part in there about in the seventies when treatment centers were becoming more and more prevalent, about what does the alcoholic do? Is it okay for somebody to work in that field? And I was like, oh my God, I hadn't told these people I was even interviewing yet. And fortunately, you know, they said, yeah, as long as you know it's called a two-hatter, you got your hat, your recovery 12-step hat, and then your job hat, you know, and so I just have always made a really concerted effort to keep them separate. But, like you said, the values are in the ash and that's fine. But when I but if I say, hey, well, you know, I don't need to go to this meeting tonight because I would pick somebody up at the airport last night, that's. That's when it gets slippery sticky sticky sticky.
Speaker 2:Because, I mean, I'm always moving towards a drink or away from one, you know, and so that's just how it is. And I mean, you know, I hope that I never forget that and like I'm glad you just asked me to explain it, because the more I do talk about it, the less chance there is that I'm going to forget it, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you this and I've got a theory Um, I'm not in recovery. My friend myself, um, for that is to say that I never went to treatment. I wouldn't necessarily put myself in a normie category. People who know my story. I sold LSD to my English teacher and we all went to the who concert when I was 17 years old. So I'm not quite a normie. I didn't have to go through a treatment experience in order to find my way to what I would call a sober and well-balanced life. Some days are better than others, right.
Speaker 1:But the theory that I have, having worked with a lot of individuals and been in the field for a while, about, you know folks who are in recovery. I see this marker that happens and the marker is right around three years. You know the recovery. You know we've got these markers right. Three months, six months a year. Everybody, you know everybody says like it's your 13 months. More people relapse on their year anniversary than any other time in recovery. So you got to make it 13 months. But then there are plenty of people out there who go three years, five years, even 10 years, and end up relapsing. And I see three years a lot, but I've seen the others as well, and what I notice is a lot of those people will pick up a role that is recovery involved. Maybe they're working in the field, maybe they're doing a group, maybe they become a speaker for AA meeting, whatever it is. They're involving themselves in recovery work, not just their own personal recovery, and then they start to identify with it. It's like, oh, I'm a person who does these things right, and I'd love your insight about this, because what I think is being a person with a master's in education from an education standpoint, the best way to learn anything is to teach it. You want to really thoroughly learn something, then teach it, and so what these individuals will do is they'll get inside of recovery work and they'll start to teach it and they'll start to advocate or they'll be a sponsor or they'll do any of the number of things and they learn recovery in 12 steps or whatever model that they're using. They'll learn their recovery and their recovery model incredibly well.
Speaker 1:And then I think that they reach the intellectual end of what recovery is. And unless you have a spiritual connection, a connection that lives in your heart to your own personal recovery, this intellectual connection and this intellectual work that you've done around it, learning what it is advocating for it, preaching it, etc. Will not live without the spiritual connection, without a heart-based connection, and what they end up doing is they end up relapsing, you know, and they end up, or they fall off somewhere and then they do some of the same things. They seek geographical, you know solutions to their recovery, or they seek relationship solutions to their recovery oh, it's my wife and I've gotten divorced and that was the reason I needed to. You know, whatever it is, solutions to their recovery. Or they seek relationship solutions to the recovery oh, it's, my wife and I've gotten divorced and that was the reason I need to do whatever it is.
Speaker 1:But I've seen this a lot and I'm I'm wondering for a person who's far more steeped in recovery and has what I would say is an incredibly insightful boundary that you've set for your own recovery what do you? Do you see that as well? Do you have a theory about it that's maybe nuanced from mine? What would you say about individuals who end up with three, four, five, 10 years of recovery but relapse? What do you think is going on there for those individuals?
Speaker 1:And then on the other side of that is what is the secret to long term recovery.
Speaker 2:You just said it without saying it, what the secret is for me. So the start of it, we started this conversation, I said the secret, in case I forget to bring to come back to it, is the gift of desperation, that to get it going. And so one thing I didn't tell you about when I was at Fellowship Hall, after I started participating and started going by fast, hearing what I needed to hear, feeling better in every way physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally I was getting out of the shower one day and I felt, didn't hear, but I felt a voice tell me I was going to be successful. And I didn't take that to mean like I'm going to be rich and famous, I just was like overcome with absolute, like I just felt enveloped in in faith that I was going to be all right. And I don't mean religious faith necessarily, I just mean like I felt I was. I just felt a voice, felt a voice telling me I was going to be successful. I don't know how else to say it. That's what happened. So then I would call that a spiritual experience. So I had a spiritual experience. Getting out of the shower that day. A few days later I did get on my knees, the same God I'd said what have you done to me? When I got there crying, I said, god, thank you for saving me. So then, so I had a spiritual experience getting out of the shower at fellowship hall, spiritual experience getting out of the shower at fellowship hall. But since then I can, I've had and continue to have a spiritual awakening of the educational variety, meaning over time, by continuing to do all the stuff I've been doing now every day.
Speaker 2:For you know, I'm coming up on seven years where I pray in the morning on my knees at night, meditate twice a day, go to meetings, talk to people in recovery, do readings, do inventory, send gratitude lists, do service work. I have a sponsor, a sponsor guys, and just trying to live a principled life, you know, 24-7. You know it doesn't always happen, but I'm always trying to, because it's pretty easy for me to behave myself for an hour at a meeting or at work, to, because it's pretty easy for me to behave myself for an hour at a meeting or at work, or but out in the wild, you know, with restaurants and flight attendants and people who can typically, historically, you know, get me upset, try to still live a principled life. But my point is, and to answer your question is, I think, if anything, I don't know so much about the three-year mark, necessarily, or five or ten.
Speaker 2:I know that there are all sorts of observations about people, you know if they get five and then, like you see, a lot of people pick up five, but not many six, seven, eight, nine, a lot of 10, but I just think it's pretty simple People, people stop doing what worked for them in those early years when they were on fire for for recovery, and they just over time, they complacent and rest on their laurels and then they think, especially, the best way to, you know, trick ourselves into thinking we're okay is to work in a field where we talk about this stuff all day anyway. But this is the job, not our purpose, you know, right, that's the difference, I think.
Speaker 1:Well, you got to live your practice. Yeah, you know, like you know, it's true for people in mental health recovery as well, even if they don't have substances involved. It's like you've got to live your recovery. You've got a lifestyle practice. Now you've got a condition to manage and care for. Um, you got to be cognizant of it, you got to be educated about it. You got to take. You know you have to have an engaged role in the life practice that is your recovery and your long-term health and well-being. I would say that statement's true of anybody.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:The older we get, eventually we all end up with some kind of condition we have to manage. The leading cause of death is life, and so somewhere in your life you're going to deal with something to deal.
Speaker 1:You're going to deal with something challenging and you're going to deal with something that requires you to adjust your lifestyle and it's just, it's just a fact of life that comes along. I think that you know individuals such as yourself who who end up in you know a a bad way around substances and may do that for a period of time. Have that visit them unfairly. It visits them earlier than you should have it visit you. You know you should get, you know I I I'll say that I got my my 20s to kind of be blueless, right and without too many hard consequences, thank goodness, because there could have been some but there weren't, and I'm grateful for that. And you know, for a person who has to find recovery in their early 20s, that is that's a hard, that's a hard nut to crack, it's a hard card to pull and I think that it requires you to gain insight about your life and your practices and who you are as a person. I think it's very hard for them to to have to. I mean, your early 20s is this time when you're you're like working on your identity and who am I as a person and everything else, and then you're like slapped with something that basically will compromise all the work you're doing to try and grow up and become mature and do all those things and identify who you are and throws you off, and if you successfully navigate recovery in early life, like you're, a person who's faced some lessons that most people wait till they're in their thirties or forties to face, um, so I I mean, you know I'm I'm always impressed with those guys, the trick that I think there is to it and it kind of circles back to this theme that we're talking about and you see it in these guys and I think it's something that you know without saying it. I've always respected and appreciated about you, but there are a lot of forgive me for this term, but there are a lot of cliche recovery guys out there. Yeah, you know um, and you know there are two or three types Um, some of them revolve around too many tattoos. You know and, and, and you know I. I also and I'd love to I want to hear your feedback about this as well. I see a lot of people in recovery who will advertise their number of years in recovery. You see it on Facebook. It's been years, etc. Etc. And I get that. That's an accomplishment. I really do and I appreciate it. I also feel like there's a, there's a. There's a very subtle but slippery slope there in identifying with a count and identifying with a. You know a status that revolves around whether it's the number of years you've been in recovery or or other piece of it.
Speaker 1:Um, that if part of your recovery starts to live outside of you as an evidentiary kind of model, and you start to put your recovery outside of you, you run the risk of losing this personal connection to it. And you know, I had a friend of mine he called it metaphysical ghosting, which I think is a fascinating term, and he said you know, you'll, you'll, you'll do something that's personal development wise, and you'll get to this place and your ego slide right on in there and be like, hey, look at me, I'm the greatest guy in the world, look what I did. And the moment you start to do that, you start to lose the connection to the real purpose of the thing that you did and the journey that's ahead of you, because that journey never ends right. Your journey in recovery will be for the rest of your life. Your journey in personal development and growth, hopefully, should you choose to accept it, should be for the rest of your life. It's not something that you finish.
Speaker 1:What is your take on that? What is your take on the kind of this evidentiary model of recovery? I've been this long. I'm not saying that picking up chips is it, but like advertising it to the world, what are your thoughts on that? Maybe I'm off about this. I'd love to hear somebody.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a great question. It's a you know, it's a topic that gets talked about in the recovery community for sure, and my personal take on it is I never do that. I don't ever post anniversaries. If I had to say why, I think you know superstition would be up there as part of the reason, but also also you know, well, it's exactly.
Speaker 2:And the reason there's the second a and all these programs for anonymous is not just so people for personal anonymity, so somebody you know can go be in recovery and secret. That's kind of a, that's part of it. But the real original reason for the anonymity piece is if I go out there bragging on Instagram and Facebook that I've got X amount of years of sobriety and everybody sees it and then I relapse, what does that say about recovery? That's the original reason for the anonymity, along with the fact that they knew that this was going to be such a big deal that they didn't have enough people to actually help everybody who needed help. So that's why the anonymous piece was there those two main reasons and kind of took on another form of that personal anonymity later.
Speaker 2:But the one positive side to it I would say is especially people who do have solid recovery is that we wouldn't have this conversation about Facebook unless it existed. And the thing is, since it does exist, people who went to high school with somebody and they and this guy's struggling and he sees it, he's somebody who went to high school with. It's been sober for 15 years. He might be like, holy shit, that guy was a maniac. Let me call him and see what he did to get better. You know that's the one positive. But my overall is I personally don't do it. I keep my anonymity sacred other than you know through work. I mean, look, everybody knows I'm sober because of work, but I don't personally post milestones and things like that. I do try to respect the confidentiality or the, the sacredness of the anonymity of, of the of being in recovery.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I, you know it's kind of your, it's your secret and in in those, in those intimate secrets that live with you and thank you for you know I'm honored and I thank you for sharing your story but, like these secrets that live within you. They're part of your power, and when you overshare them, it's not that you shouldn't share them right, but when you overshare them, or you, you or even you market them right yeah, well, it's an attention thing sometimes.
Speaker 1:Let's be honest I mean some people, yeah, I mean like totally yeah, yeah, but they lose their power exactly and and I, I think that that's, that's a power.
Speaker 1:You shouldn't mess with you. You know what I mean. Um, well, you know, b, I tell you, man, you're um, I hadn't gotten a chance to hear, at least to this level of the recovery story that you have to share, and I'm honored that you would share it. I think it's a, you know, once again, I I'm just impressed with people's very beautiful stories that involve, you know, struggle and tragedy and triumph, um, uh, and involve, you know, struggle and tragedy and triumph.
Speaker 1:And but you know, I think that the people that, especially the ones I've invited onto the show, the people that I choose to spend time with when, whenever we're, you know, kind of circling the same area If you're in this area I'll try to find you we try to spend some time together is that they live in recovery with this humility. There's a genuineness, there's a humility to it, there's a. You know it's my story. I don't need it to be special, but it's mine kind of approach to this. I don't need it to be special, but it's mine kind of approach to this, and I think that you're walking that walk, I sure, and I I appreciate the fact that you do that. I also appreciate the very strong work that you're doing in the field.
Speaker 1:And I want to thank you for yeah, I want to thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, thank you, and I don't know if you'll put info out there, but if anybody ever just needs help with somebody in recovery, I'm always available. You can give them my cell phone number. I don't know how you handle that, but I'll link off the.
Speaker 1:You know New Waters, recovery and your profile and everything else on the when I posted on the interwebs, but this has been WPVM 1037, the voice of Asheville Mental Health Matters. I'm Todd Weatherly, your host today here with Mr B Reeves B thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 2:Todd, thank you so much. Great to see you and thank you for all that you do.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Talk to you soon. Bye. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found the elite. I found. Thank you, I'm so lonely and lost in here. Bye. I feel so lonely and lost in here. I need to find my way home. I feel so lonely and lost in here. I need to find my way home. Find my way home.