How to Listen:
Guest Links:
Book recommendations:
Dreamseller: An Addiction Memoir by Brendon Novak https://amzn.to/2UMjGNS
American Fix: Inside the Opioid Addiction Crisis – and How to End It by Ryan Hampton https://amzn.to/3hplAvG
Aiming High: How a Prominent Sports and Celebrity Agent Hit Bottom at the Top by Darren Prince https://amzn.to/366gDCw
Favorite Quote: To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. – Lao Tzu
What I wish I knew: How important service is. To advocate for others.
Please Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, and now YouTube!
Be sure to follow me on Instagram too! @odaatpodcast and @arlinaallen
Transcript:
Ed, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Arlina. It’s my pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
So we’re going to talk a little bit about prison reform, maybe some solutions, like if you’ve ever had legal issues, maybe some things that you can do for employment and how to deal with family and all that stuff. How does that sound?
Sounds great.
I know you’re an expert. I do want to talk about your book, too. It’s called my addiction and recovery. So that’ll be we’ll talk a little bit about that as well. What’s it about?
A, it’s maybe not the most creative title, but that it tells the story. And it’s a means of not only telling my story, but doing so in a way that advocates for others who are walking similar pathways as I the same way so many remarkable women and men helped me by sharing those stories. That’s what I’m trying to do. Just pass it along.
That’s a beautiful thing. Thank you so much for doing that. It’s it’s desperately needed. I feel like people when they share their story, it helps others to not feel as alone, or maybe help resolve some of that shame and stigma around addiction. It just don’t you find that it’s kind of fascinating that in this day and age, there’s still so much stigma around addiction.
Absolutely. And it’s so important what you say Arlina. To me, the goal in recovery, at least for me, the way I was taught is not to stay sober. The goal is not to quit drinking, it’s not to quit drugs, it’s not to leave our addictive behavior behind us. That is one critical key important step along our pathway. Our goal is to lead our best lives. That’s our goal in recovery, whether it’s in the form of spirituality, or service, or self improvement, or some combination of the three or some other means of living our best life. That is our goal in recovery is to live our best life, the way we accomplish that. And one way we accomplish that is by hearing the stories of others, is so important, what you say, every story we hear, gives us a little piece to our own puzzle. I think of it as like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, living our best life. It’s like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. We hear another person’s story, we get a little piece. Sometimes it’s an edge piece. Sometimes it’s a corner piece, you know, you’ve assembled the jigsaw puzzle, and you get that corner piece with the edge. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And sometimes the only piece we get is a little bit of blue sky, or green grass. But that’s fine. We we never we generally don’t hear one single story and get our entire picture or entire puzzle. We keep listening to stories, we keep telling our own story. So many amazing women and men tell their stories, they’ve given me so many pieces to my puzzle. And here I am, on your wonderful show talking to you and your amazing audience and giving back in some small way. It’s a great thing.
There’s your humility is is inspiring. You do great work as well. So I’m thank you so much for sharing that. I love that idea about the puzzle pieces. You know, and and I’m glad you wrote the book because we’ll be able to talk a little bit about the highlights today. But it’s very, it’s great to hear the whole story to all the there’s so much and there’s not, we’re not gonna be able to cover hit all the highlights and get to the depths of what your story in, you know, 30 minutes or less. The book will be really important to you. I know there’s lots of solutions in there, which is really what we’re all looking for some solutions. Before we jump into that I love doing this little lightning round if you’re in typically don’t feel rushed, because I tend to ask questions and drag it out. But if your game will play the lightning round. I’ve been looking forward to it. Yeah, absolutely. That’s right. You’re super prepared. That’s awesome. Okay, so you probably already know what I’m gonna ask what’s your favorite recovery book?
My favorite recovery book when I was in early recovery. There was a book, Anna David wrote with Tom Sizemore I forget the exact title. But it was Tom Sizemore who’s a well known actor. And he overcame devastating addiction incarceration. He telling his story along with a book called dream seller by Brandon Novak, who is doing a lot of work if you’ve heard of it. Okay. Great. And they you know, as we were saying just a few minutes ago, when they shared their stories, they led me to other authors like Mary Karr, Elizabeth Ward soul who unfortunately passed away not too long ago. more books by Anna David. Augusten Burroughs certainly Ryan Hampton, Deron Prince, friend of mine, oxy nanavati who overcame addiction. All of them share their stories and books. And again, like we were saying before they inspire me to do some small part by sharing my story. So those are some of the books.
That’s amazing. Um, funny you should mention Anna David and Darrin Prince, both were guests on my show. Did you know that already?
I did not know. Deron Prince is a friend of mine and I wasn’t aware he’s doing so much incredible work. He’s amazing. Yeah. David’s a superstar. She’s Yeah, she really
is. Yeah. Yeah, she got a that book that she wrote for Tom Sizemore was a New York Times bestseller. So she’s amazing.
Um, by some miracle I got out of there, I think it’s called. Oh, is that by some miracle I got out of there. It’s a remarkable story.
I’m gonna leave links in the show notes to all these books. I am obsessed with books. I have almost 130 titles on my from audible. It’s great. anything worth doing is worth overdoing. I like that. Um, do you have a favorite quote or mantra that you live by?
The one that springs to mind is to the mind that is still the universe surrenders. Hmm.
That’s a good one. That’s all about meditation. Right? Exactly. That’s
about to. Another one I like is, it’s better to conquer oneself than to win 1000 battles. That’s a great one that carried me through a lot of challenging situations in recovery. It’s attributed to the Buddha, but I think it’s kind of been changed somewhere along the line. Nevertheless, to me, it’s a great mantra.
Okay, better to conquer oneself than
to win 1000 battles. So you know, if I if I can overcome my resentments, yeah, it’s better to conquer my own resentments. It’s better to conquer my lack of gratitude. It’s better for me to conquer my own selfishness and self centeredness, all these things, which were the root problems of my addiction, it’s better to conquer those and to go out there and win some battle against the outside world, but a win 1000 battles against the inside world. And that leads I believe, to that still mind that notes he was talking about?
Yeah, still mind that’s very difficult to achieve. I have found. I’m in the middle of a meditation challenge 30 day meditation chat. And you know why I did it is because I was having such a hard time submitting to the silence, the silence, I’m an achievement junkie, you know, I’m a doer, you know, and so silencing the mind is challenging for me. So I set up this 30 day meditation challenge, because I’ll do for others what I will do for myself. So by holding this space for others, I also benefit and finally am able to submit.
That is wonderful. I think with meditation, the way I was taught was that it’s something whereby if we do it every day, we are going to get better. We can’t not improve. If we meditate every day, it’s like going to the gym, and doing bicep curls. Yeah, if we go to the gym every day and do bicep curls, assuming we get proper nutrition and enough rest, our arms are going to get bigger, or more defined. They can’t not you know, our arms have to respond to those bicep curls that we do daily. With meditation. It’s very similar. If we practice every day, if we did our dedicate ourselves to a daily practice, we have to improve. It’s just, it’s just the way the universe works. That’s how I got
law of cause and effect.
law of cause and effect. Perfect.
Love that. Very good. Do you have a regular self care recovery, routine self care practice?
Absolutely. Meditation has been the one constant since I got since I put the meth pipe and the rest of it behind me back in 2007. There’s been other things you know, nutrition. I’ve focused on nutrition that’s come and go and various forms of meditation has been the one thing that I’ve stayed with. Today I meditate. These days, I meditate an hour every day, half hour in the morning and half hour in the evening, and he split it up. I like that. I split it up in the morning, the the half hour around in the morning is gone. So I do a half hour in the morning, and then I do 215 minutes in the evening, because my mind is more restless in the evening. So I split it up. Now I’ll tell you, that half hour in the morning seems seems a lot shorter than those 15 minutes in the mail. It’s so true what you say about about the mind and the stillness. As far as self care. Meditation is one daily practice. I do other daily practices. I’ve been into cold exposure. Okay, I live in Massachusetts every day since November. I’ve been going into a river nearby. I haven’t missed the day since nobody stream or the ocean or something. Yeah, it’s a it’s an incredible way to the science behind co COVID-19 Here’s your Yeah, a lot of benefits of producing human growth hormone and the certainly the immune and circulatory systems. I found that no matter what our daily practices might be, in terms of self care, it’s so important to maintain some form of daily practice, right? Those are our foundation. When the inevitable storms of self doubt, worry, insecurity when those inevitable storms sail us. It’s those daily practices that create our foundation. We have that firm foundation, I’ll go Go ahead.
Oh, no, I’m sorry to interrupt. I was just gonna say, I love how you frame it with the context of mitigating the self doubt. And you know, the reason we do a self care practice is to mitigate like the normal natural stresses of daily life. That’s why we do it and maintain that emotional sobriety and emotion management type stuff. That’s why we do it.
That’s why I do it. It grounds us It reminds us who we are, brings us back to the structure of our life and brings us back to the patterns of health and self love and, and transformation that we undergo through the course of recovery. These daily practices, it said that foundation
of self love, so important, you can’t hate yourself better. That’s right. Um, what’s one thing you wish you knew when you first got sober?
I had I thought about this question. It was harder to think of what I didn’t think of things that I didn’t. I think, if there’s one thing that I wish I had known it was, how to better immerse myself in a role of advocacy, right from the get go advocating for others. That is the way that my spiritual connection manifests itself in the material world. I think that, to me, one of the greatest stories of advocacy is Jesus. That the story of Jesus is of a person who advocated for the sick, the poor, who stood up against oppression and tyranny. Jesus made great sacrifices on behalf of others, he paid a terrible price. And according to this story, he got a reward. reward is, you know, his reward. The story is similar to that of the Buddha. Right, the Buddha left the life of opulence and comfort, in order to go out along the pathway that show the others how to break free from suffering and sorrow. And while I’m certainly not a theological expert, these stories are very real to me. Insofar as when I think of my, my, let’s say more Earthbound heroes, people like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, their lives to me, to me personally are a little bit less of a spiritual nature. And by that I mean, I can hold people like Jesus and the Buddha here with me right now. Jesus and Buddha are here. They’re in my life. They’re real. They exist on a day to day, whereas Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, astounding human beings that they were, I read their books, and I learned about their lives, they guide me that way. Whereas Jesus and the Buddha, there’s a spiritual nature and they’re here with me today. The point is, it underscores the importance of spirituality, me in recovery, like, like the Dalai Lama said, the best religion is the one that makes the practitioner the best person, right, the most compassionate, the most giving the most empathetic. To me, that’s so that rings so true in recovery. The best form of recovery is the one that makes us as the person that is the person in recovery is the best person. And so I can look at Jesus Buddha, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, a host of others, Mary Karr, Anna David, you know, people who are with us today. Look at them, and the examples they put forth an advocate, myself in my own way, on behalf of others, just like so many incredible women and men have done before me and who are right here today in the form and their spiritual form. So I guess, the, that what I wish I had known was how to better connect my spiritual pathway to being a more effective advocate here in the material world.
Right? No, I love that, you know, services, for me like a cornerstone of recovery, you know, as I am of service to others, you know, I tend to be more forgiving of others than I am of myself. But you know, there’s this idea that we can’t escape the same measuring stick that we judge others by. So when I’m in service and when I’m advocating for others, You know, I, I change, it changes my mind about my judgments, you know, and I tend to be more compassionate. And as I’m more compassionate with others I’m it’s, I’m better able to give it to myself. So I love the idea of service and spirituality and thank you for bringing up all those amazing teachers. While switching gears, what do you do for fun for fun
advocacy through self expression, through creative self expression, I’m learning how to better and better advocate for others. And how that looks is I get up every day before dawn. Most days I’m up four o’clock in the morning 430 in the morning doing my meditation, strong cup of green tea and then I move on to an even stronger cup of coffee. I’m an I’m an author. I write my story I write articles, I’ll write in ways that tell my story. And also advocate like we were saying before, advocate for others to tell their stories as well. It’s a very creative process. It’s a fun process. It’s something I really enjoyed my dream. Since I’ve been a little kid was to be an author. It was always my dream it got derailed by my by my drug addiction. To be able to express myself creatively also advocating for others while living out my dream is it’s a fun, beautiful thing. I think the other thing too, I recently moved from the majestic fantastic city of San Francisco to a beautiful, remarkable small town here in Massachusetts. So communing with nature, there are bunny rabbits and bald eagles and chipmunks and fish and all kinds of nevermind the nevermind the the verdant green, of the foliage we have out here. And of course, the people, the people where I live are incredible. They’re amazing people to the fun that communing with nature is really finding getting back to my roots. Having grown up here as a kid. That’s a lot of fun.
You know, what’s interesting is almost everybody that I talked to when I asked about fun people talk about being in nature. Really almost. Yeah, almost everyone I talked to you. First it’s like, fun. What is this fun thing you speak of? But it’s always nature. It’s amazing. Yeah, I love that. Um, and it was so interesting to hear you talk about you know, your your writing is being fun. And but it was derailed. Have you heard of a Ryan Holiday? He wrote a book called the obstacle is the way?
Yes, I’ve read that. And I’ve read at least one other of his books,
because like, ego is the enemy. Great. He’s a great, he’s a really good author. But it was. So it reminded me when he talked about how your writing was derailed at all, like the obstacle is the way like, I always thought that, you know, my life was over when I realized that I had addiction issues and that I wasn’t going to be able to have fun anymore. So I thought, but it turned out that you know, addiction was like the best first thing that ever happened to me It gave my life purpose and meaning. Right. And it’s almost that’s kind of what came up for me when you’re talking about how your writing was derailed. But because look at you now, you know, the whole experience that you had has led you has you know defined? I don’t know if it’s defined your writing. I don’t know if that’s a fair statement. But certainly this book has been all about that experience, which is going to help so many people.
It has Have you heard the story of the butterfly, the hiker, the person’s hiking through the woods, you familiar with this story? It’s a great story. What is it the person a person’s hiking through the woods and comes upon a butterfly escaping from its cocoon, and the butterfly is struggling and struggling and fighting to free itself from from its cocoon. The hiker takes out a knife and starts to cut the cocoon thinking that will help the butterfly the hiker has the best intentions. Yet what the hiker is doing is actually harming that creature because it’s the struggle to free itself from the cocoon that gives the butterflies beautiful wings and their strength. The analogy is that we as people in recovery are very much like that butterfly we struggle to be suffered, we put ourselves and others through terrible trials and challenges. Yet today in recovery, we each day get more and more like that butterfly spreading our beautiful wings flying, living our lives. And when we were when we were caterpillars, so to speak, life seemed pretty good. You know, we were munching on grass and we were crawling around and the sun was shining life seemed pretty good as a caterpillar. And we were forced to go through that that struggle, that credible challenge of escaping cocoon and wow look at what life is now as I would never want to go back to being a caterpillar. Now that I’m a butterfly But I like that analogy for recovery.
I like it to I don’t know if you can see behind me those of you watching the butterfly Blimey. Yeah. I love the idea of transformation. I love the idea of going into the cocoon, and searching within and the transformation that happens within and then of course, the struggle to break free is very symbolic. Thank you for sharing that story. Course, listen, I’m sorry, go ahead.
Oh, I was just gonna say, you know, addiction, as we know, addiction has a purpose. Yeah, usually, or at least I found for me, and probably for many others. Addiction has a purpose, our goal and recovery is to uncover that purpose. And that’s, you know, that, then we get that freedom of living their best life. However, the purpose, good points, as I said, in my case, addiction puts me on pathways I otherwise would never have undertaken, I never would have been a person concerned with spirituality, I never would have pursued a path of advocacy on behalf of others, where I not have been addicted to drugs. That that purpose, Dixon’s purpose for me was to push myself along that spiritual pathway for every person in recovery, she or he probably has a different purpose behind the addiction, if we can uncover that purpose. If we can transform it to our advantage, and hopefully the benefit of others, then we make meaning. And we make, we give meaning to something that otherwise seems meaningless and chaotic, which is the addiction that we went through.
Yeah, all that pain and suffering. I love that idea that we can use, you know, our, our past to help others. How about we spend a few minutes talking a little bit about, you know, how how you bought here, you know, I’m always curious about people’s family of origin, because I feel like our childhood will set the stage for everything. You know, how we see ourselves, what we, you know, how our value, what we think we’re capable of what we’re worth, so I would love to hear a little bit about your recovery journey, like where it started and how we got here.
Of course, well, I usually start by saying, I went from being arrested by the FBI to being recognized with a Community Service Award by the FBI director. Wow. Yeah, it speaks to the blessings that we can we can bring to ourselves and recovery that we can pass along to others. To get back to your question. I grew up in idyllic small town, Massachusetts, surrounded by wonderful people. My parents were both college professors. They’re retired now, among the other blessings they gave to me. To me, the most important one was they instilled in me a love of reading. From a very early age. I mean, Arlina had a picture my home without books, is like to picture my childhood home without a roof, or floorboards. No books was such an important part of my life. I loved the feeling of escape into fantasy worlds, I would come home from the library, or almost a character of a little kid with a stack of books almost too high to see over. I just love those books. The I what kind of happened was alone with my love of reading. I was also very sensitive. As a kid I would cry easily in school when the teachers yelled, or the school bus driver would pull over to the side of the road when the kids got too rowdy. I was uncoordinated. couldn’t compete in sports, or in gym class Arlina, where I went to junior high in high school, reading, crying and being uncoordinated. Not exactly a campaign platform upon which one might run for class president, right. Although some of the first feelings of accomplishment and confidence I had came from reading, I remember in my English class, the teacher called me to the front of the room to read allow a story I had written. I read my story and afterwards the same bully who punched me in the stomach out on the playground, came up to me in English class in class me on the shoulder and congratulations and told me he liked the story. Reading was one of the first ways I felt a sense of accomplishment. And guess what the second way was that I felt a sense of accomplishment. Right? Drinking 14 years old drunk for the first time at my aunt’s wedding, off off leaving the reception with you know, all my family surrounded by loving family but wanting no part of the family instead with that pro going bottle of champagne. My cousin in a little apartment off to the side watching a porno movie. And that, you know, was to me the top of the world that feeling that I belonged. You know, I belong it was I don’t remember you know, I can remember so many details. I remember The remember so many details about year when I have that day when I was 14 years old. It wasn’t, you know the feeling of being intoxicated. That was great. But even better was that feeling of acceptance from a very early age, I made those strong bonds of association between intoxication and feelings of acceptance. I went on to become a very heavy drinker at 16 years of age, having escaped from or I saw it as an escape. Where I was at in my life. from a small town in Ashburn, in Massachusetts, where I grew up, the town was called Ashburn ham. So it’s a wonderful town. I left that town moved to the big city of San Francisco, 16 years old, getting drunk on royal gate vodka, almost every night of the week. It’s that feeling of freedom meeting, you know, making friends, people from other countries were my friends, people just to me, this is very exotic, very new and just some remarkable sense of freedom. And right there all the time. Along with that freedom was that bottle of oil gave vodka almost all the time. You know, at the end of every night, there was that royal gate vodka from they’re in college and was on to cocaine became a very heavy cocaine user, marijuana, ecstasy, dabbling in LSD, methamphetamine and got heavy into meth later on in life in college I missed I dabbled in math, anything that could take me out of myself. Like you’re never in college, telling a lot of lies about myself making up stories about how I had gotten in these fistfights and defended the honor of women and played on the football team. None of those things ever happened.
Even as an adult in college, I was still that little kid, afraid to stand up for himself on the playground against the schoolyard bullies. The lying the stories, I would tell myself the meaningless encounters with women, and certainly the drinking and the cocaine and the rest. All of it was way too to make myself into something I thought I wished I could be. As we know, in recovery, as I have been taught, drugs are not our problem. Drugs are not our problem. Drugs are our attempt at a solution. My problem was me. And I hated myself and I, I was a prisoner of my own failure. I was a prisoner of a failure to pursue my dream of being an author. I’ve always believed that and I write about this in my book, that for addicted people is often that conflict of dreams versus goals. You know, for most people that are the same a woman has a dream of owning a business. So her goal is to own a business. A man’s dream is to run a marathon so his goal is to become a marathon runner. For us in recovery or for struggling addiction, often our dreams are things like to feel normal. Our dreams are things like to feel comfortable in our own skin. Our dreams are things like to just be okay with myself. Those are our dreams yet for whatever reasons we pursue goals, college education, the homeownership careers, there’s nothing wrong with any of those things. Nothing wrong but no no career. For a few careers few few goals such as homeownership are going to get us to our dream of feeling normal. For me, that’s how it was I wanted to feel normal. My dream was to be an author. Instead, I pursued goals. A company called Genentech is a great company. They were the number one best firm in America to work for, according to Fortune magazine. They hired me they gave me a career treating me very well. I achieved goals like becoming an amateur kickboxer. I would compete in the kickboxing ring. I own the home I got a lot of help from my parents, but I owned a home I wrote a BMW motorcycle, you know, all these things are goals. There’s nothing wrong with any of them. Yet they were never going to get me to my dream of becoming an author. They were never going to get me to that place of liking myself loving myself feeling warmer. All through the course of these these goals that I was achieving all through college all through Genentech all through the homeownership all through the rest. I was using massive amounts of alcohol, cocaine and finally for the last devastating 11 years of my addiction. methamphetamine went from snorting math to smoking it. That’s when things really took a dive. The This is why I developed my methamphetamine psychosis, believing that the FBI had architected a vast conspiracy against me. Because when I had gone to Bangkok, Thailand I inadvertently befriended one of the 911 hijackers, who was actually an undercover operative posing as a hijacker, and therefore I knew too much and it was Arlina I could go on and on and on with the convoluted nature of these conspiracy theories. They were as real to me as this conversation you and I are having that my life was I was that kid carrying home stacks of books from the library, yet in a very twisted demented way, I had made a fantasy world my reality through my methamphetamine, psychosis, psychosis, and all the sudden, here I am now I’m a person no longer does. The kid picked on in school yard here I’m a person the vast vast importance in my mind. In my mind, the entire FBI and the Department of Defense and the CIA and my family and genetic and everyone is involved in this conspiracy against me because I’m so important because I have the, the I hold the secret to the 911 the truth behind 911. And again, this is all seen through the lens of my methamphetamine psychosis. I used to carry a loaded 357 pistol almost everywhere I went, I would show up at the FBI offices high on meth asking for help or demanding an end to the FBI surveillance that I thought was being conducted against me.
I spent I burned through my life savings, sold my home spent all the proceeds on strip clubs, electronics that I would tear apart looking for hidden surveillance devices. I’d smash holes in the drywall in the drywall looking for microphones and cameras. To my to my deep and utter shame. I had this beautiful dog is on the cover of my book. I would I would I would basically abuse my dog. I wouldn’t neglect my dog I would take out my my poor choices on my dog I would leave him home alone while I would go out partying at the strip clubs and and scoring my methamphetamine. My life from from the idyllic childhood and they all do the opportunities society gave me got me to a place where I lost the dog. The dog went on to a much better place. By the way the dog is adopted by a family with a small child and he ended up doing really well add me Ed didn’t end up doing so well in the short term in 2007. After after four or so years of this methamphetamine psychosis hearing the disembodied voices that would constantly threaten to kidnap and torture me to death and they were sent by the FBI, FBI these disembodied voices. I ended up in this little flophouse hotel with a sink in the corner where I would ash my cigarettes, wash my clothes, urinate, hadn’t showered, and brush my teeth and months. I was nowhere near employable. I might the sum total of my material possessions was about six things. I had this grimy, filthy black baseball jacket these filthy trousers Converse shoes held together with duct tape that I own that tuxedo. That’s ridiculous. It’s because I worked at the strip clubs and the strip clubs treated me well as employee but they fired me for for for you know, they the strip clubs treat me well and I made them pay for it. If you know what I mean, showing up hi stealing from them. But I wore the tuxedo around town one night in October 2007. I found myself in a fancy downtown hotel, I’d left my flophouse hotel and gone to a downtown fancy hotel, waiting for people to leave an unfinished drink at the bar so I could pick up that drink and knock it back myself. Within that in that hotel, there was a ballroom in the ballroom a wedding reception was taking place. I figured you know what, I’m going to crash the wedding reception. I’m going to get a drink. I’m going to get something to eat. Maybe they’ll mistake me for groomsmen because my tuxedo I was. Yeah, these and as you said some pie. It’s somewhere in my mind. I think I probably went back to when I was 14 years old at that wedding reception drunk for the first time. On that October night in 2007. At some level, it occurred to me that in the previous years leading up to that night, I’d been invited to five weddings. 10 of my closest friends. One couple had asked me to serve as their best man Arlina out of those five weddings that I was invited two of my closest friends. Do you know how many I showed up to? Zero, not one. And that October night 2007 with my filthy tux Tito in that hotel ballroom where a stranger’s wedding reception was taking place. At some level, I realized just how much I had heard, not only myself, but those closest to me. I went back to my my little hotel room, there was a little bit of math left in my pipe, there was a little bit of a joint that I said, I smoked it all. I haven’t done that since I got into recovery. A long time I bounced in and out of rehab. Leading up to that night, I got into recovery The next day, maybe two days later. I haven’t gone back since.
Amazing. So that moment that you were at the wedding that was sort of like your, your spiritual awakening, your moment of clarity, so to speak.
That was definitely a moment of clarity. The I think it took a process of going in out of rehab. I’ve been to rehab a couple times already. It got to a point that they say that recovery. I was told that recovery. It’s not for people who want it. It’s not even for people who need it. It’s for people who are willing to do the work now. Yeah, yeah. And I found that I’ve since found through the course of my reading and other teaching me that maybe you know, recovery is different for different people. But for me, that was absolutely true. When I was ready to do the very hard work, and I never so you know, on that night in October 2007, I began going to 12 step meetings. I would COVID 1234, sometimes 512 step meetings a day. I got a job working in a at a Christmas tree lot. Me. You know, I hear I would I’d worked in my past I worked at Stanford University. I worked for Genentech, you know, I mentioned that in a company the number one best firm in America and here I am working at a Christmas tree lot tying tying cars, time, Christmas trees to the tops of cars for tips. I, I began an intense spiritual pursuit I would spend time with from Hari Krishna has to the Hasidic Jews, to the to the Hindu spiritual texts and everywhere in between so many wonderful teachers, so many incredible people passed along their spiritual teachings to me, I became an all along as through the process of recovery. One thing that really was impressed upon me was the value of facing my fears. I had a lot of fear. I discovered that just because you’re done with drugs, doesn’t mean drugs are done with you. That was something that I it was true in my life because the methamphetamine psychosis, it didn’t stop the day I quit meth. I continued to experience a lot of a lot of paranoia. A lot of fear about the FBI SWAT team coming to kick down my door, hearing disembodied voices. And these things continued for years and years after I got after I left the math behind me. They fortunately incredible people of a spiritual nature, people, many of them I write about in my book, people showed me the value that they took me into their families, even though I’d been a total stranger to them and had just gotten off a terrible methamphetamine run. Shortly before I met these individuals, they brought me into their families. They showed me the value of community service. they instilled in me confidence in myself. They believed in me until I could believe in myself. They taught me they gave me a confidence to start overcoming my fears. A couple of things I did was I joined Toastmasters organization, which if you don’t know is the member. Oh, cool. Okay, great. Well, that’s why that’s one reason you’re so well spoken because you’ve done Toastmasters. They serve and when I went to Toastmasters, I found that I could take the my forms of self expression that I put forth in 12 step meetings, and I could I could temper them and tailor them so as to make them a value to people outside of recovery. Being a Toastmasters community, I started becoming comfortable. Speaking about my experiences speaking about the wonderful women and men who inspired me to life transformation. I could speak about the lessons that were imparting upon me, outside of the recovery community, the recovery community was amazing. They still are. Now I learned so now I’m starting to become an advocate. You know, as I’m going through Toastmasters. I started speaking about my incarceration. I was incarcerated relatively briefly, only a couple of months when I was actively using meth through the Toastmasters community, I got. I learned sharts start sharing my story I joined a remarkable organization a nonprofit called defy ventures Are people who deliver entrepreneur and employment training to currently and formerly incarcerated men and women. The fire was founded by just an astonishing woman named Catherine hope. She left a career in venture capital a lucrative career to work with incarcerated persons. Katherine hope Hoke and her defi ventures family allowed me to go through their program, they instilled in me their entrepreneur training program, they instilled in me the value of being of service, as did others. I was at the time I found the fi, I’ve been working back in a biotech firm, the firm treated me very, very well, I was earning the equivalent of a six figure salary. I would sit in my little cubicle all day thinking about suicide.
Think about suicide, I would think I didn’t want to die necessarily, but I really didn’t want to live. And it was only because of spiritual beliefs about the afterlife that were instilled in me that I didn’t take my life. My early meditation teachers taught me that were I to commit suicide, I would have to go backwards through many lifetimes. speaks. Yeah. And it’s, you know, they, because of the because of my, because of the compassion, and the love these teachers had for me, I was able to accept their beliefs. And that I’m sure is the only reason I didn’t take my life and those terrible days of depression, following my putting away the meth pipe for good. Right.
mentioned, I’m sorry to interrupt your flow, but you mentioned doing 12 step work and you know, combined with the spiritual teachers, how long you know, the beginning is very hard for a lot of people I know the people that are listening, but are like in that beginning stage, how long did it take you to start feeling normal again, and start feeling like you belonged? Again, still happening today? It’s an ongoing process, ongoing, ongoing process. And that’s okay. Right?
Oh, it’s absolutely okay. Yeah, it’s a beautiful process. You know, someday, it’s like I heard a good analogy. Recently, it’s like, standing on the beach, when a wave hits us wave comes in, and we can either stand up against the wave, and almost certainly get knocked over or we can lie down and let the wave take us. That’s a great analogy. But and the analogy is that there are days that those waves come in the waves of self doubt, the wave self remorse, the waves of resentments. And it gets better and better every day. And the more I learn, through my meditation, and through my spiritual practice, to kind of lie down and go along with those waves, the better and better it gets. So as to how long it might take to feel normal. I think normal is a constantly shifting concept. I don’t know that, you know, I searched so long for feelings of normality when I was using drugs. And now I think that, you know, maybe there is no normal, it may be the, maybe it’s the, you know, the only the only constant is change. And the the spiritual pursuit is one of long climb up a mountain. When we may not reach the mountaintop, in this lifetime, you know, the mountaintop is there, I think the the analogy, the analogy I’d like to use is, is that of climbing a mountain, the there are many paths, perhaps going up a mountain. And some paths are straight and run and wide and not very steep. Other paths are twisting and turning. And sometimes those paths go down. And we can’t even see the top of the mountain because there’s branches and leaves above us. No matter what path we’re on, we always know that we always know in general, where the mountain top is. The always know that if we stay on our path, whether we’re on a solitary path, or whether we’re on a path with others, we keep on that we will get to our mountaintop. That’s why spirituality is so important, is that spiritual, very little of the material nature is going to be strong enough for those of us in recovery to keep us on that path. Right? We need to think of the spiritual we’ve had think we’ve most many of us to recover. We’ve had we’ve had so many things of material nature, we’re good at achieving things. We’re good at making money, we’re good at jobs, we’re good at any number of things. But we’ve learned through the court we many of us have thrown away much more of material nature than we ever earned while we were in recovery. The flip side and it’s a beautiful flip side is that when we are able to grasp on to things of the spiritual nature and pursue them, they by so far Eclipse things material nature,
that that is the truth. I know that for sure. Maybe normal is a poor choice of words that you know, I recognize that you know, even today, you know, in the midst of struggles that there’s always moments If peace, right and i think at the end of the day, that’s what I was always looking for, I wanted that sense of belonging that he talked about, like I always, you know, didn’t, I was just like you like didn’t feel like I belonged or anything and but finding moments of peace finding those moments of connection like finding a new normal, right, the recovery communities have provided me with a new normal. So that’s Yeah, a new normal is important, but that recognizing moments of peace through spiritual principles, I think is really important to
peace and finding what’s truly important. Very little. My sponsor has a great saying you never see a u haul following a hearse. There was nothing we didn’t take. Yeah, you can’t take anything with you. The, you know, for me, the other thing I did was, along with Toastmasters right around the same time, I discovered something called Croft Mugu.
Which, if you’ve heard of it, okay. I’ve seen people do it. It’s very, like, it looks like dancing kinda right. It could be it depends upon maybe how you practice doing it.
It’s similar to martial arts. Right? Yeah, it looks like martial arts. It’s really a form of self defense. It’s intense physical. Practice. I took I got very immersed in Krav Maga to overcome my myself out to my feelings of physical threats. Going back to when I was a bullied kid. I pursued Krav Maga, I became an instructor. Wow. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it just so happened that one of my students was an FBI agent. Right. I taught I made it known. And along the way, I’d been doing many forms of community service, I’d become a volunteer first responder for the fire department and I’ve done volunteer work for the Red Cross to be of service. I made it known to my Krav Maga FBI student that I wish to serve the FBI in the same way I’d serve the fire department. He helped me organize and unarmed self defense training for the FBI SWAT team. Arlina, the very people I’d been so afraid of the FBI because they were the ones in my delusions that were going to kick down my door and drag me off. Now all of a sudden, I’m standing in front of the FBI SWAT team as their instructor. As soon as they it’s Yeah, it’s remarkable the blessings of recovery you
think about you bring about you? Yeah,
yeah. Your mind johal
CBA, conceive, believe achieve right? You can see what can conceive of and what we can believe and we can achieve. The I’m so grateful for the FBI. I’m so grateful to so many women and men in law enforcement. Because as an expression of appreciation for my training, self defense, the FBI nominated me to what’s called their citizens Academy. It’s a very selective program. They take people, mostly it’s people who are, in my case, I was out in California in Silicon Valley at the time so that the citizens Academy was mainly intended or a lot of the participants were tech workers who worked in security. There were also remarkable representatives of the Muslim community. There was there were two incredible women who advocate for youth, victims of sex trafficking. Other community servants, the FBI, so much to their credit, has the citizens Academy in order to demystify the FBI and create bridges of trust with various communities. I love it. Yeah, it’s a it’s a wonderful program. I’m still very involved with it as an alumni. In my case, thanks to the FBI. Thanks to thanks to law enforcement, various police departments who I’ve been allowed to volunteer with. Certainly, thanks to our sisters and brothers who are were incarcerated and are transforming their lives and who will allow me into their lives. Certainly, thanks to our sisters and brothers, overcoming histories of incarceration and took time to share their stories with me. I’m able to build bridges of trust between entities like the FBI and communities affected by incarceration and addiction. So much farther. It is
so important my father after he retired, taught ESL at at Elmwood, you might be familiar with them, this is your phone. Yeah, yeah, the bay area where I’m from, and he would say that most of the guys that were in there were there on drug related charges. So we as a country really need to change the way we deal with addicts. And I know that that’s a big passion of yours, where you know, where can people find out more about you? In the work you’re doing in case they need help or have questions for you, or want to work with you, how do people get ahold of you?
Go to my website. Thanks for asking, I’m here to help you reach out to me on www.ie www dot author, Ed cressy. I can spell that.
Have you spell your last name,
k r e, s, s y. And you guys, I
knew that.
I just sorry to cut you off. I’m so proud to announce this publicly, for the first time here on the odacc chat. By the time people are listening to this, it might be more publicly known. But we’ve been in the process of donating my book to incarcerated people. We donated 500 copies so far and Arlina, just this week, I had received approval from the state of California to donate my book to every prison library in California. There’s 123 total, I just shipped them out the other day. So soon 94,000 incarcerated people in California or many of them, hopefully most, if not all of them, will have one more access to one more resource to access recovery in my book. But we’re not stopping there. Our goal is to donate my book, to every state prison library in all the states plus the federal system. With the help of so many incredible women and men who have been with me on my journey and helped and assisted me to transform my life, I think we’ll get to that goal.
That is a beautiful goal to have. Thank you so much for all your work. Thank you for joining me today. On the podcast, I’m going to leave links to all these things in the show notes. So everything that you mentioned, from the books to the defy organization, well leave notes in the links in the show notes, so that people who need these resources will be able to access them. But gosh, you’re doing such great work. I know you’ve dedicated your life to serving others. And it’s such so so needed. So thank you so much for all the work that you’re doing. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. Right. Well, we’ll talk again real soon. And thanks so much for joining me. Thank you Arlina
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Leave a Reply