Suicide Prevention Sat - Drugs, Alcohol, & Mental Health

And then it says, poof, you are live. Oh my goodness, he's just gonna be a pain in the neck about all this. Um, really? Are you done already? We're early. Like, I had like 30 seconds, so I'm just gonna pretend I still got 30 seconds. All right, so hold on, I'm trying to decide if my dog is gonna lie down or if I need to get up and let him out because the clickety-clackety, which I'm sure you hear Ready to go? I'll be right back. Just hold on. We'll start in a minute. Come on, get out of here. Go on, dog. Shoo. Go chase bunnies. The bunnies, the bunnies. All right, we have lots of bunnies. Okie-dokies. So, all right, here we are. It's really 9 o'clock now, so I'll start officially. Hi everyone. It is Suicide Prevention Saturday. Today is July 16th. It's Saturday and it's 9:00 PM Eastern in case you're lost or you're like me where sometimes we don't even know what day it is. Now here's the problem with that. Those of you watching the replay, I have no idea what day it is for you guys. So y'all are going to have to figure that out on your own. All right. Uh, what are we doing? We are doing Sew Sampler on Saturday. Why are we doing Suicide Prevention Saturday? Because as gun owners, we need to tell people 2 out of every 3 gun deaths are suicides. If we're looking to save lives, we need to start talking about the mental health crisis that we have here in America. And imagine how many lives we could save, um, if we actually focus on mental health for America as a whole. Because one of the things I've been realizing is when I've looked at violence prevention Mental health is actually one of those things. Uh, hello, Mr. White, nice to have you here. Um, so suicide prevention, mental health, being able to talk about it. I had students this morning because it's Saturday, I teach on Saturday, and I told them about this tonight, and the lady asked me, she's like, oh, how did you get through being suicidal as a teen? Since we talked about that last night, um, or last night. Yeah, see that day thing? Even those now, even those of you not watching replay, that was a week ago. They were talking about me being suicidal as a teen. And, uh, how did I get through it? And the really short answer was going to group therapy, understanding that I was not alone, which is probably one of the main reasons that I pop on here every night When on Saturdays, all of a sudden I get really tired at like 7:30. I'm like, can I just go to sleep? The answer is no. I must be here for y'all. And I need to be here for me, cuz this is a service that I provide for whoever happens to check in. So people like Tara. Oh, I started to watch your— Tara has Tara Smith Kitchen. She has her own channel. And I started to watch her last one that she's put up Yesterday, I think I only got into 3 minutes before I realized I had to hop on here. I'm really hoping it's the garlic soup. That's what I really hope is there. So, um, oh, did I click on that? So sorry. All right, uh, I'll try to let DJ click on things as we go. So last week we talked about why was I suicidal. This week, because some of the things I mentioned last week were addiction, both alcohol and drug addiction. Um, that's what we're going to talk about. Back to mental health. Why do we need to talk about it? Because nobody wants to talk about it because it's ugly, and nobody thinks they have a problem, and if they admit they have a problem, then they have to go get help, and nobody wants to get help because nobody wants to get labeled. And it's this horrible spiral that just gets worse and worse and worse. Uh, I was at a family birthday party today, my uncle's 70th birthday. Uh, one of my uncles turned 70 back in 2020 and didn't get to have a party, so we were celebrating his. And then another uncle turned 70 today— well, not today, but soon. Um, and so we're celebrating his. But we were talking about how hard it is to deal with mental health. Nobody wants to talk about it. And the thing that I thought was really funny at the party is that, uh, one of the ladies I was talking to was saying how The folks that don't go for help that probably really need it are the ones that we have to be the most afraid of. So, oh my goodness, sorry. I'm just checking and I just saw that Tara's been dealing with COVID this week. She and I were talking garlic soup earlier this week and now she's making more garlic soup because I don't know about y'all, but when I was a child, my mom would feed me garlic and cheese and sprout sandwiches. When I had a cold. And I gotta tell you, it wipes that stuff right out. So for those of you who like natural antibiotics, raw garlic, just so we're clear, is one of the best. I don't know what happens after you cook it. Hello, Mr. Gary. Okay, so addiction. What causes addiction? Well, guess what I did? I pulled up some stuff in the screen that I want to share with you guys. And then I always remember after I do this, I have to make it bigger. Ooh, what in the heck? Hold on. Well, I don't want y'all to go into like craziness. Um, I'm gonna stop sharing that and try that again. And when I say— oh, sorry, that's not what I want to do either. And people say I look like I've got my stuff together. Hold on, let me try this share screen thing again. Okay, that works better. I still didn't make it big, but you know, I'll get there, 'cause size does matter. Here's one of the things. What I did is pulled up a couple things that say what causes addiction. Guess what it is? Believe it or not, it's kind of the same thing, right? Addiction is complex chronic disease that affects the brain and occurs due to many different underlying causes. Now, scientific research around the world continues to identify various risk factors. Such as genetics and environment, which contribute to the development of addiction. However, the causes of addiction are still not fully understood. Now I have more than one that basically says exactly the same thing, is that no, they really don't know. We do know some people are, um, predisposed due to biology. Oh, what else? Psychology and social culture. Like, if you grew up somewhere where everyone around you is using drugs and it's okay, you're more likely to think it's okay. Mother's— not mad, what is the other thing? What's it called? The thing they teach— dare. Something. I don't even know what D.A.R.E. stands for anymore, but drugs are really evil. I don't know, I'm not sure, we're gonna make that up tonight. So, um, drugs are really evil, that's gonna be the new D.A.R.E. acronym, at least in my head now. And I'm pretty sure that is not what it actually says. So D.A.R.E. says don't do drugs, which is lovely if you're one of those rule-following kind of people. You need a message like that says don't do drugs. Having grown up with drugs around me a lot, with lots of very high-functioning people who use lots of drugs, uh, one of the things I warn my children is drugs are fun, right? There is not a single person who ever tried a drug— acid, pot, speed, meth, coke, whatever your whatever you would think of. Um, sorry, DJ is saving, saving me so I don't just have drugs are really evil in my head. So DARE is Drug Abuse Resistance Education, which like I said, I didn't know. So, but he's also putting up all of these banners, and so then I remembered, oh, I should put my little thing up. So drugs are fun. And that's the truth of the matter. Drugs mess with your chemistry and make it so you are enjoying stuff that you maybe couldn't without the drugs. Alcohol, no different. Alcohol does your chemical system and changes stuff so that you feel differently. And this is why drug abuse and alcohol abuse are so easy to be, or are easy to get addicted to. And this is where I believe, regardless of how complex the issue is, that mental health and understanding how to deal with stress is going to help people overall. Ah, G Webs, nice to see you, sir, and you are welcome. All right, so drug abuse, mental health, alcohol abuse, same issue. What is mental health? 'Cause what is that? Well, we all have different ways of dealing with stress. And to me, if I'm gonna take care of my mental health, it's about how I deal with stress. The more tools that I have to deal with stress, the better I can deal with stress, right? If you're a mechanic and you have one wrench and one screwdriver. How good of a mechanic can you truly be? You can unscrew one type of screwdriver. Maybe you've got a flathead, maybe you've got a Phillips, don't know. And you've only got a half-inch socket. Now to be fair, you can do a lot with those two tools. However, if you can open up drawer after drawer after drawer of screwdrivers, maybe you've got an impact wrench on top of having both metric and, you know, those other weird people, um, imperial wrenches in your box, then you have better opportunities. So mental health, understanding how to deal with stress, I think that's number one because most people I know who have gotten into drugs and drugs have taken care of their lives is very similar to suicide in that when we have a stressful situation, one of the things we talk about suicide is a permanent problem to a temporary— a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Drugs and alcohol are the same thing. Let's say I'm stressed out because, I don't know, oh, before I got on here, I whacked my elbow really hard on my thing. And I was saying not nice words. Yeah, so like, like Tara says, right? Oops, sorry, DJ and I are both picking up your stuff at the same time. I'll stop clicking, I promise. Drugs, alcohol makes the numbness go away when you don't want to feel anything, but instead you're numb, right? So what happens is you are Feeling stressed, overwhelmed, you take a sip of your vodka— not a vodka, just water, because hydration is good for your brain— but you take a sip of your vodka or tequila, and all of a sudden, oh, my stress is not so bad. Now, that was a chemical solution to an emotional problem, and this is where drugs and alcohol will create a dependency. Whereas, as we've talked about before, our physiology, right? One of the things, one of the things I deal with with my students all the time is they're really tense because they're handling a gun for the first time. It is really scary, and they're like this, like literally. I have to get them to get their shoulders out of their ears. Their hands get to go down to their belly buttons. And I have them take a deep breath. That's it. Am I using drugs? No. Am I using chemicals? Yes. Yes, I am. I'm using their physiology to be able to get them to relax. That breath, the oxygen to your brain helps you to relax. Smokers, y'all know this. I mean, beyond the nicotine and the addiction, all of that, but that breath that makes you feel better. Now you throw some chemicals on there— weed, cigarettes, whatever— now you've got a double, double dipping. But the chemicals that you're using can be found naturally. So breath is one, physiology is another. I'm freaked out. I'm insecure, I'm neurotic, I'm emotional. That's what I think it was Tony Robbins who gave me that. Um, sorry DJ, I promise I'm not actually picking on you, um, being a smoker. But anyway, um, freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. That's what his definition of when a woman says— when you ask a woman how is she and she says fine, that's where freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional So anyway, if I've got all that emotional going on because I'm a girl, whatever is stressing me out, I'm not making enough money, all of these things, my choices are chemicals, or do I put more tools in my toolbox? I think mental health is putting all of those tools into your toolbox. So what do I know? Everyone's toolbox is gonna be unique, um, and my toolbox is not gonna look like your toolbox. My toolbox has— oh wait, let me show you. My toolbox has this dude, Dean Graziosi. Go look him up, he's pretty cool. My toolbox has Ed Mylett, also amazing, amazing stories on his YouTube channel. My toolbox also has Kathy Jackson, who wrote The Cornered Cat, and she starts talking about different ways we deal with stress as a former police officer. My toolbox has Zen, Zen bow, Zen arrow. My toolbox has meditation, working on meditation, and we're on YouTube right now, right? There's 5 million meditations you can find. There are ones that suck because they don't resonate with you, and there are ones that are actually going to be good. That's one possibility— meditation. Uh, the link in this— yeah, so Facebook, it's up there, uh, YouTube, it's down there, uh, is another video you can watch about how your brain can be helped. So addiction, we have lots of types. It's not just drug and alcohol. It's smoking. I had forgotten about that one altogether until, you know, DJ decided he has to have smokers. Who's a smoker? But yes, I forgot about smoking as an addiction. Some people, weirdos, are addicted to a clean house. Like they get antsy and distressed when their house is not just so. Me, I realize what an oasis it is when our house is clean, 'cause that does not happen much. Ritual is a huge thing, without a doubt. Smokers, for example, one of the things I can think of— I don't have anything really small enough. This is one of my current addictions because when I get my migraines, but like when smokers take their pack out and they smack it on their hand, the serotonin, the melatonin, serotonin The happy chemicals start going in their heads already, right? 'Cause they're getting ready to open that brand new pack that they just packed in and they feel better. So what is addiction? Addiction is getting stuff because you have no better tools in your toolbox. That's really the short version. Is it genetic? Possibly. It's just like everything else, right? There's no hard and fast answers to any of it. There's things that they know. For me, with my mom being alcoholic and my dad being a drug addict, I am most likely easily disposed to becoming one of those two. Now, one of two things can happen when that happens. I follow in their footsteps and go down that road because it's easy for me. Like, I could be an amazing alcoholic. I can drink till I throw up and not have a hangover the next day. And yes, I've done this and I know this through experience. So I'm thinking I could be a rock star alcoholic if I really wanted to. As far as drugs, sure, why not? Who doesn't want to go faster, better, quicker? Cocaine, speed, all of those things. There's reasons people get addicted because The result initially is awesome. Uh, the long-term result, however, is usually not so great. We have thieves in our neighborhood. We live out in the country, it's really quiet, all of that. But drug addiction, alcohol addiction turns you into someone who you were not before you started all of that. So what does this all have to do with suicide prevention? Well, because it goes back to mental health. What does mental health have to do with drug addiction? Well, the people who didn't have any other way to deal with their problem, whether it was physical pain, you know, we've got the opioid problem, and no one taught them how to deal with that. The pain, the pain in my elbow was very extreme 30 minutes ago. I turned off my camera so if DJ came in, he wouldn't hear me yelling and screaming and saying not nice words. But then I have to remember, what would I do if I was taking some care of someone else? And it's like, oh, I would take a breath. And I did that, and that kind of made it a little better. Still burning, still doesn't go away. Remembering that pain is temporary— this too helps you move on in that no matter what it is If it's a death in the family, if it's a breakup, if it is losing a job, who knows? It's temporary. And remembering that it's temporary helps to lower your stress level. So what am I saying? Could we solve all the problems of the world if we focused on mental health? We wouldn't have suicide, we wouldn't have addiction, we'd have happier people. Yeah, kind of, I am. Is there one size fits all for what that looks like? Absolutely not. The therapist that works for me is not necessarily gonna be a therapist that works for you. And this is why, if any of you are watching and you've gone to a therapist and they sucked, please don't give up on all possibilities of therapy because you have to be willing to put the time in to find who works for you. So, um, Yeah, so wait a second, what am I reading? Sorry, uh, predestination, really tough. Nature and nurture angling together. Yeah, and this is where, you know, there's a, um, book, what's it called, uh, Chaos Theory, I think that's what it's called, I could be wrong, where it talks about children are not generally actually, uh predisposed to be who or what their parents are. It seems as though each generation flip-flops. So I'm just gonna go with politics because gee, that's always so much fun to talk about. If your parents are Democrats, there's a good chance you turn to Republican and you have kids and they turn into Democrats, right? So just because you're an alcoholic or maybe you're a wife beater, because it's another thing, what children see, that nature-nurture part of it, the nurture part of it, one of two things happen. When a child sees a parent being beaten, they swear they would never do that, and unfortunately, because they focus on the beating portion of things, they tend to repeat the cycle because they never focused on what they wanted to do instead. So children who are abused as children tend to continue the cycle. Some are able to break the cycle, like for right now, as far as I know, I've broken the cycle of alcoholism and drug abuse, at least in my immediate family. And I warn my children that we have that in our gene pool, So just what I just told you guys, don't start because it is fun when you start, it's just not fun when you become an addict. And I think that's one of the things DARE does not do a good job of. So, oh yeah, so Chaos Theory, yes, um, but there's a book. I'm not— I wasn't talking about Chaos Theory specifically. Um, I'm trying to think it— I'll maybe for next week I will figure that all out. So anyway, there we have it. Mental health, suicide prevention, violence prevention, addiction prevention. Mental health is super important. So with that, I believe maybe— not that I know where he is, but I believe barbecue's starting up in, um, 8 minutes. Or is he not? I don't remember. I know things are changing over on the barbecue channel. And when I say barbecue channel, I mean Guns and Barbecue. So, yeah. So, I mean, Tara, again, long line of addicts and alcoholics. It's hard to break the cycle because if you watch everyone around you drinking and drugging, it's part of your normal. This is where— oh yeah. So there is no barbecue tonight. Now I know. When you see people around you drinking and drugging on a regular basis, it is your normal. And this is where when people say, oh, it's common sense, I'm like, no, no, no, no, your idea of common sense is not the same as mine because you and I did not have that same experience growing up, or family, or religion, or community, whether you're in church, not in church, out west, down here, you know, I go to Wyoming, nobody knows what a package store is. They know what a liquor store is, but they don't know what a package store is. I don't know, Midwest, you got pop here, you got soda. I don't know. There's so many things. All right, so Gary, what is it? Okay. All right. Now I know he probably just didn't want to make me stop, but I will stop at 9:30 anyway. But yeah, it's like what you learn. I mean, think about all the kids. Inner city, uh, gunshots around them all the time, guns are everywhere, yet there's laws against guns, so there shouldn't be guns everywhere. Um, yeah, um, so it's one of those, those things where it's like what's around you is your normal. Uh, Ed Mylett, yeah, one of the ones I was talking about here, he has— I wish I could think of her name, I'll maybe I'll post it in the next one, But he had a girl on that he did an interview with, and she was in the sex trade at age 4. Her first memory at age 4 was going into a hotel room, her mama telling her not to forget the envelope when she came out, and that was her normal. All the way through like 24, 25, where she finally tried to break free of that. And now she tells her story to help people understand it's very real. Um, it's— yeah, if you have the heart or the stomach to watch that interview, that's pretty crazy to do. So her normal was way different than my normal. I didn't get paid for anything that happened to me. So I, I jest because we deflect with humor, right? So, and here's the thing, like Mike's talking about 24/7 pain. He's got back problems. Like, I don't know what they are, but I just know that his back is in pain like all the time. And the challenge with, you know, one of the things that happened with my dad was that he would break things. Like one of the scars he has on his shoulder was that he was working a dude ranch. A foal kicked his shoulder out, and that was his first, like, major surgery. And I think he was 17 or 18 when that happened. And so he went into surgery, he got his drugs, and he was done with them. As time went on, he had other drugs that he was addicted to, but a lot of them or the ones you get legally from the doc. And I swear he would go into surgery just so he could get his pain meds after the fact. So yeah, finding that fine balance between looking for pain and finding it, um, because he was also a little bit of an adrenaline junkie for sure. But had he found other ways to heal himself, whether it was pain management, meditation, understanding how to physically Mentally detract, just distract yourself from the pain. There's lots of different ways. None of them are easy. They're all work. So, yeah, so pain meds don't work and vodka and you can sleep. Oh, add vodka and you can sleep. And right, and this is, this is the self-medication that the medical world is worried about everyone killing themselves because they don't have better options. Uh, like every other chemical in the world, some pain meds work for people. Oxycodone, right? That's one of the top ones, does great things for most people. They gave it to me after my C-section, it gave me a migraine headache. So it's like, here's something that helps everyone feel better but not me. So again, back to like the counseling thing, if you find something doesn't work for you, keep looking until you find something that does. All right, so we're going to Project Child Safe Parent Resources. Okay, I did not know that was there. I just know Project Child Safe as, um, locks for stuff. All right, that's it. I have talked way too much tonight. Um, next week, I don't know, I don't know what we're gonna talk about. So last week was why was I suicidal. This week is why is mental health so stinking important for everyone. And how it could make such a huge impact if we get more people to talk about it. So if you have an idea for next week's thing, go ahead and leave it in the comments. Oh wait, it is below for both Facebook and YouTube. I remember these things sometimes. If you don't, I will make something up next Saturday or sometime before that. All right, y'all, thank you for checking in. And I will see you all. Ooh, I gotta remember. Plug that Thursday night, 7:00 PM Eastern, my instructor interviews. And I think it's actually just going to be on YouTube this time. Uh, cause I have it up as a premiere and I'm not sure if I'm going to do it on Facebook or not. So definitely on YouTube. All right. 7:00 PM Eastern Thursday night, instructor interviews, Diana Muller. Yay, Di! Uh, you know, DC Project founder, um, is going to be my interviewee. All right. I'm really going to go now. Goodbye. Goodbye.