EP 1:20 Doing the Work in Recovery with Brian

The first times I was in therapy, I was never so honest. And this time, I was suffocating in that mask. And I wanted to be real.

Welcome to the After Meth Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Dallas Bragg, a former crystal meth addict, now sobriety coach. Join me on my mission to increase awareness around the epidemic of crystal meth among the gay male population. And create a repository of resources for current and past addicts, as well as, and especially for their loved ones. This is The Aftermath. Trigger warning: this podcast will contain discussions pertaining to drug and alcohol misuse. If you feel triggered to use or relapse, please call SAMHSA's National Hotline at 1-800-662-HELP. Also, if you are new in your sobriety journey and you feel like you could be triggered by discussions around drug, alcohol, and sex misuse, please do not listen to this podcast. All right, now on with the show. Hey y'all, this episode is going to have some delays in it. I just wanted to kind of warn you up front. There were some internet issues the day that we recorded this, and so sometimes Brian will say something and it takes me more than enough time to respond. That's what's going on. We tried to edit them out the best we could. I know it's annoying, but the content of the podcast is so good I wanted to leave it. All right, have fun. Okay, welcome back to the After Meth Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Dallas Bragg, which you have probably heard several times in the intro already. But I am excited today to have, uh, Brian Banks, a former meth addict, now podcaster, now All-around fun guy to talk to us today about his story. But before I do, I want you to listen up if you are enjoying this podcast. And I know that you are because I'm getting messages literally on a day-to-day basis. I just heard from someone who was out of town on a business trip, and that's usually when he relapses. Instead of relapsing, he listened to this fucking podcast. And stayed sober. I heard from another guy who was in the midst of heading to a party and the podcast came on. He heard some of the podcast, turned around and went home. This is why we're doing what we're doing. And this is why I need you to like, share, comment, review, rate, put this podcast out. to as much people as you can, to your social, your social media network, your family, your friends, whoever. Because we— the more you do that, the more it gets in front of people who could— it's a matter of life and death. It's a matter of sober and recovered. It is important for you to help me get the word out about this podcast. Thank you very much. Now we can start. We can start talking. How are you doing today, Brian?

I'm doing really well. I'm doing really well. I want to first thank you for having me on your podcast, and you were also a guest on mine. Um, this is a really cool opportunity, and I gotta say, I am grateful for people like you in the community doing good things and big things. I'm really excited about what you're doing here, and I'm excited for the guys who are tuning in and learning. tips and tricks and things to help them stay on this road to a really better life. So first, I want to acknowledge you and all the work that you're doing. I think that's amazing.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I really do. I really do. And, you know, um, we've talked about in your podcast about not turning everything into me, uh, but I will say, um, those, that kind of feedback that you just gave me and the kind of feedback I just mentioned from from the guys. That's been my— that's— I've turning that into my currency. You know, we all want to be abundant and we want to get financially free. And how do I manifest abundance? I'm using that as dollars right now. And I'm just putting all of that in my bank and I receive it. And thank you for that. Thank you for building me up today.

And I think it really— I mean, it's the truth. You're doing some good. You're doing big things for the the universe and the community.

So thank you. Thank you. So we start here on the podcast with a wellness check-in. So I just wanted to check in with you. How are you doing? How is your well-being today?

It's good today. It's, it's really good today. Yeah, it's been really good lately. Um, I've been in therapy doing the work. Um, yeah, it's been a good year so far. I'm learning a lot and growing A lot right now, taking life easy and quiet and really getting in touch with who I am.

Hmm. Well, let's just start there. How about it? Let's just skip around and start there because therapy, what do you get out of therapy? What's, what's the, what's the draw for you and what has it done?

Well, I, the first time I did therapy, well, when I first came out, My parents put me in therapy. It was very brief, but it was—I had a great experience. The therapist was kind to me and just took me through the basics of how to be safe coming out. Then, when my last relationship was ending, I got into therapy, into couples therapy with him, which we were not gonna stay together. But the therapist encouraged me to come back and said she saw me just right on the brink of. Some big things that she feels like she could help me out. She's you know, and she acknowledged I'd read so many self-help books and done so much self-help after I got off meth and became a dad that she said, "You know so much about this, but sometimes you get to a place that you can't quite see the whole picture for being in the middle of it." And um.

Yeah.

So I did some major work then. That was 15 years ago. And then this past year I got back into therapy with my partner, but we took care of a friend last year that died with cancer. We took care of him for a whole year and being by his bedside. And I was literally taking him to cancer treatments sometimes 5 days a week, 7 hours a day. And I didn't realize what a toll it was taking on me until he was gone and I didn't have that. To do, and I had to get quiet and reflect. And in the midst of all that, I cheated on my partner. And I love him so much. We have the most amazing relationship. But there were things I had not dealt with, and one of those was the constant need for validation from other people. And you know, we had gotten to this point to where if he ignored me or did anything, it felt invalidating. And Yeah, I did. And I haven't really even said that on my podcast. So there you go. That's, that's how this one started is I cheated and I wanted to find out why, what was wrong with me, what was not healed. And I've been on that journey.

Oh, I love this. Let me just stop for a second because one thing that we talk about, one thing that we talk about a lot Is nothing in life is personal, right? If you read Don Miguel Ruiz's Four Agreements, one of the Four Agreements, the rules of life is nothing is personal. You cheated in your relationship, but you didn't find every reason why it was his fault. You took responsibility for it and realizing that it had nothing to do with him, right? It was you. It wasn't personal against—

Yeah. Yes. And I knew that from the beginning. I've always been a person that when I got off meth, um, I always find a way to blame me first. It doesn't mean what other people do to me is not somehow wrong or doesn't give them a free pass to do things to me, but first I have to give you a ticket into my life and give you access to my life for you to be able to do those things to me. So the first gate is me. And if I have allowed you in, especially if I've seen red flags from you, and I have seen things from you that I know good and well that you're not a good person, or you're not capable of caring in this way, and then I expect you to care and you don't care. The first gate was me because I brought you in. I gave you access. And I think that's one thing that as gay men, we give access to so many people because we want to connect and we want to feel a connection. So we're just fucking giving tickets to everybody to our little shit show. And yeah, so yes, the first person was me. When he found out that night, my initial thought— he saw a text— was to lie. To protect myself. And as soon as I saw him, I love this man so much. As soon as I saw him, I said, I did it. Yes, I did it. I'm— I did it. And that's all I could just repeating. I did it.

Oh.

And I knew I couldn't lie because it was already eating me up that I had done it.

Yeah.

And he wanted to know what he wanted, all these details. He wanted like all the details. And I, I just had to be honest with him and tell him, I don't, I don't know the details at this point. I don't even know why I've done it. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I have to figure it out. And, um, it was challenging, but today we are intimately stronger than we've been in the last 9 years. And I am learning to be vulnerable and authentic. And it has, it has been a terrible thing that I hurt him, but it has been amazing what it's done for us in our relationship. I hate he had to hurt for us to get here, but yeah, life's good right now. It's weird. I say all that, but life is really fucking good.

I love that. And how far into your recovery, how long were you sober when that happened?

It's been 20 years. So—

Oh, okay. Yeah, it's— I mean, when that—

when you— My son is 19. I quit the year before he was born.

No, how far into your recovery was it when you cheated? When you had this experience?

With my partner now?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

20 years. Yeah. Okay. So I had done the work on that. But you know, that's the thing you learn in therapy and Doing the work is—it's like a set of stairs, and you get to all these different steps. And sometimes you get on this step or this place spiritually and mentally. And sometimes I feel like the universe throws you a little test to go: Are you ready to move on? And I've seen my whole life as going to the next level, getting to the—it's not a game. It's not, and I'm not competitive with it. But I can feel myself. release the last step when I get there. And when I get to this new place, but every time I think I'm there, there's a test to see. And, um, this test is authenticity. This test is, can I be the real me? And I am learning that I really struggle with being honest and being myself because I have been—

Really?

This person I've created for so many years to be likable. I've been professional, like I had lots of professional success. I have the big nice house. I have a nice car. I have the relationship that looks so good on Instagram. I have all that.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I wasn't fulfilled. And the key is none of those things were for me. They were for what other people thought about me, and now I'm at this really cool place that it's it's about my spot in the universe. It's about being real. It's about attracting real people. It's it's really kind of a beautiful thing. It's a lot of people have fallen away for sure during this during this healing. A lot of friends that got used to the old me, you know, I have had to release because they didn't sign up to be friends with the real me. And I have to accept that. Like I sold them, I sold them a lie and it doesn't make them bad. It just means they didn't come into an agreement with an authentic version of myself. And now that's the only version I want to be. Hmm.

Interesting. And what does that look like on a day-to-day basis? What kind of deliberate choices do you have to make to ensure that you're aligned with your true self? But not only that is my client, the people that listen to this and my clients coming out of addiction, they have no idea who they are. They've never been. They not only didn't, they didn't create their identity. Their life created it for them. And so now they're faced with this, who am I without my addiction? Who am I without my trauma? How do I even be a real person? So what, I mean, what is the process that you've taken to even discern who you are authentically?

You know, the biggest key to the real me for myself is I'm gay. Um, I don't know if all of your people are gay or— um, but one of them—

99%.

Gay men. Yeah, well, gay men at a very young age, and I would say it's one of the reasons for the higher rates of addiction, is we learn To foreclose on our identity when we're little. Every time we're called a sissy, every time— for me it was, oh, you walk like a girl, stop acting like that. I would see my parents' face when I would walk across the room because I knew I was too effeminate and I was bringing shame to them. So what I did was I learned to walk different. I learned to change my voice.

Yeah.

I learned to Change everything about me that was not acceptable in the world. When really the key to who I was, I was the most weird and wonderful and beautiful fucking little kid that had ever been created. I was so unique, and I manipulated everything about that perfect person and changed it so that the world would let me fit in. The difference. And fitting in and belonging is huge because fitting in, all you got to do is change everything about yourself so that the people around you will let you be in the group. That does not mean belonging. Belonging is when you are 100% you and you're still in the group. You're in the group when you mess up, you're in the group no matter what, you belong.

Mm-hmm.

But I spent my whole life trying to fit in. I lived like a politician because I said the right things, and my friends over here got to hear me curse a lot and tell dirty jokes. And on the professional side, they would never imagine I would say those things. And at this age, I'm like, "Fuck it! I'm gonna put it all in one room." You get so tired of splitting. I think they call it in psychology when. You've split yourself into little pieces. I know when I was doing meth, like I had my meth friends, then I had my gay friends who thought meth was gross. And then I had my family and then I had my church and there was a different version of me in every one of those rooms. But nobody got to see the complete picture. I didn't allow it. I was splitting for all these people and, you know, in some ways for my own safety and To protect myself from being bullied and the pain. I was bullied a lot as a kid. A lot.

Yeah.

Even to the point of on the playground one day, the boys all got together and I was sitting where the bus pumps are, where the buses filled up with fuel. And they made fun of me every day. Like I couldn't go to the bathroom without them spitting on me or— and that day they poured the fuel over my head. And somebody said they had a match and they were going to set me on fire. And I had my best friend. She was a half Mexican girl, half white, beautiful girl that all the boys liked. But she was— she loved me. She was my best friend. And she ran to get help that day and maybe saved my life. I don't know. It was such a blur, which was not even the worst part. The worst part was that the school nurse came out, took off all my clothes in front of everybody because she had to get the fuel off me. And she begins to wash me with detergent they had in the school. And, um, because I was burning, it was so hot outside. And I had just endured so much of that and thought that it didn't affect me. But This past year, I realized it all affected me. I was so damaged. I did not trust that my partner really loved me.

Mm-hmm.

In therapy one day, the therapist said, do you think he loves you? And I went, I don't know. She said, be honest. And I went, I don't think anybody loves me. And I really didn't. And it's because if you made one invalidating gesture to me, then I didn't think you loved me. So I was still out seeking that attention. And that's, that's how I ended up cheating. Like, and it was just compounded from my whole life. It led me to doing drugs and Being numb because when I was high, I felt strong and tough, and nobody could hurt me. It actually got me into trafficking and selling drugs. I never went to jail, but my dad had money. He owned a business, and so you know some of the cartel guys trusted to hand me a large. load because they knew my dad would take care of it if, if I ever got into trouble. And it made me feel powerful. It made me feel strong. Yeah. And when you're holding the bag, everybody's your friend.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. No bullying then.

No. And everybody thought I was so cool. Yeah. Right. Right.

Wow. Wow. So let me ask you, you talked about fitting in and belonging. So where is it that you can now be 100% Brian without any fear, you know, unconditionally Brian, unapologetically? Where do you find that now?

Everywhere. Ah, I don't worry about it anymore. I love that answer. Every, every room I fucking go to, They're going to get me, as much of me as I know. I mean, there have been times in therapy that I've been talking to my therapist and one day I'm talking to her and I just stopped. I said, I don't really know if I'm lying to you so that you'll like me or if what I just told you is real. Wow. And she was like, that's interesting. Well, let's explore it. And I've really had to, I had to start going, did I mean that when I said that? Was that so that they would like me? Was I trying to impress her? And it, the first times I was in therapy, I was never so honest. And this time I, I was suffocating in that mask and I wanted to be real. So yeah, she just laughs at me now because— Just little realizations. Of tapping into that inner child, because the key to who you are is in that kid.

That's right.

And you gotta— you can't fix the wounded child. The child is wounded. And so many people want to go back and fix him.

Yeah.

You can't fix him. You need to connect to him. And the hardest part for me is getting that little boy inside me, that perfect weird little fucker. to come out is he's got to trust me. And I'm learning to build a trust relationship with that child inside me. Um, I had a friend the other day that hurt my feelings. Sounds silly to get your feelings hurt at 44 years old, but she hurt my feelings. And, and then I kind of made a joke about it. I wasn't real blunt with her, but she said, oh, did I hurt your feelings? And I was like, Well, hell no, bitch. You didn't hurt my feelings. And I just went on with my day. The next day I had to call her because I was on the treadmill that morning and I heard that little voice in me that spoke to me a few times lately say, why did you tell her it didn't hurt my feelings when it hurt my feelings?

Yeah.

Why didn't you tell her so she won't do that to me? And it was that little kid in me speaking up and I had to call her and say, I'm so sorry. I lied to you yesterday. When you said that to me initially, it did hurt my feelings and I didn't handle it in a mature way. I joked it off, but the truth is my feelings were hurt. Wow. And, um, it opened the door for a really cool conversation with her. It was uncomfortable at first.

And you have— sure. But you've invested in Surrounding yourself with the type of people who can have that kind of conversation, right?

I have, but I will say that I'm also willing. I'm willing to release people too, and I'm willing to be alone if that's what it takes. Yeah, because I want I want real people in my life. I've learned a lot of lessons. My house has always been. The house that throws a pool party with 75 people. My house is. We always had the most fun get-togethers with lots of strangers that I didn't even know, like, would show up at my house for these big parties at Thanksgiving and Christmas and in the summertime in our pool. We haven't done that this year. Usually we've had 4 by now. But just realizing I was not doing it for them. I wanted people to like me.

Yeah. Yeah. I think what you're saying has to be underscored here. And I get the, probably the one of the number one questions I'm getting right now is where do I start? Where do I start? How do I start? I can't afford therapy or whatever. It starts with An analysis of everything. Take a day and stop and pause before everything you think or not think. Well, after the thoughts come out, everything you do, because everything we do is infused with the consciousness you have in it. So here's an example. I post a selfie. Did I put— why did I post this selfie? Did I post it to see how many likes I can get, to see what kind of validation I can get? Or did I post it because I'm proud of my progress? Why did you post that? That is the number one— what you're saying, that is the number one way to begin understanding how, when am I being authentic and who am I really? Am I an attention whore or am I to the point where I'm, I am proud of myself and I'm okay with, with who I am? But everything that you're doing through, even in, if you just take a day, And and ask yourself, what is the motivation behind it? That's where you can start.

You don't have to say, well, I can't afford. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's okay if you're an attention whore. Be in a be a proud attention whore. Tap into that. Say that. Right. Like be fucking real about it. Don't be an attention whore and then tell yourself, oh, I'm just proud of my progress. Bitch. Like exactly. Tell the truth. Yes. The first step I think is. Learning to tell the truth. Yeah. Tell yourself, tell you why, tell yourself why it's your fault. And then keep journal that, like get the noise out, like get to the bottom of it. One of the things I do when I journal is I may start my journal with, I don't really want to fucking journal today. Yes. My toe hurts. I hate that I had to water the flowers at this time. I mean, just rambling and rambling until suddenly. The real shit starts coming out. First, I got to get rid of the noise, and most of the things we tell ourselves in the beginning is noise. It's a lie. Yeah, like yeah, don't be ashamed of being the attention whore. Yes, own it. Yeah, because it's not going to change until you own it. Yeah, right, exactly.

But analyze why you're doing it first so that you know that it's not just. Because, and like you're saying, and, and not denying it, um, the journaling part. I'm so glad that you're bringing up everything here. We could probably be on here for 2 hours. But to start a journal, again, that's the question is, I don't know where to start. I don't know how to journal. Just start writing. Just like Brian said, just start writing. I don't know what to write and I don't really want to write anything. There's something about pen to paper that begins getting the noise from out of here, out of here, out of here. Onto the paper and you begin to— things come up. You begin to— your nervous system starts talking. You are— things are coming out, realizations about yourself, thoughts that you didn't know you had, but the noise begins to quiet and get somewhere else. It's a purging process.

Yes. It's peeling off all the facade every time of your thoughts because I know For a long time, I hated to sit alone with myself because the thoughts would drive me crazy. And it's like I just couldn't get comfortable and my head would hurt from so much going on. And I will say the days I journal and the weeks I'm really good at it, it's so cool to sit and have quiet and notice the quiet in my own head. Because I got the noise out and that's something my therapist this time has been really working. I use my, I was writing everything down. Um, now I will lay in the bathtub with my cell phone because there's a journal app that—

Yeah.

Even if you write 3 sentences, you are 3 sentences less noise in your head. Just from those 3 sentences. Some days it will, I will, you know, start and it will just bubble out and go forever. And some days there's, some days it's all positive things. And I have found that as I journal and get the stupid shit out, get the noise out, some days my journal starts with, fuck that bitch.

Yeah.

And before it's over, I'm like, I'm so grateful that this person has been brought to me, that this person— it's funny how my fuck that bitch turns into gratitude by the end, because I really got to take the layers off and figure out why this bitch is here, why she's in my life, why she's— yeah. Journaling has been a cool bridge.

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Dallas here. Are you tired of stacking up the white chips? 12 steps hasn't worked for you. Been to treatment several times, feeling pretty hopeless. If you're asking yourself, will I ever be able to get past relapse? Will I ever be able to string together a substantial amount of sober time? I'm here to tell you that oftentimes the answer to relapse is a slight shift in perception. Actually, any growth in life— spiritual, mental, emotional. It's one perception shift after the other. I'm giving away my free 28-day Reframing Relapse online course to help you shift your perceptions about your addiction, your relapse, and yourself. This 28-day program has daily journal prompts, guided meditations, and 2 free 30-minute coaching sessions with yours truly. At the end of this 28 days, you will look at relapse through a different lens and change the course of your addiction cycle. I promise you. That I could give your money back, but I'm not charging you anything. If you're interested, the link will be in the show notes, and I look forward to seeing you there. Yes, perfect. It's so therapeutic. Um, and I have to plug my— I have to plug my journaling masterclass. If you're interested, I have a journaling masterclass, and I'll put the link in the notes where you can— we can talk about how to set your journal up, tips and tricks like, like we're talking about here. But just the fact of, if you don't want to take the class, but just start, just start writing something. Uh, I promise you, you won't regret it. Um, and Brian is a perfect example of that. Um, you know, I— my big trigger that I've shared on the show a lot of times is not being accepted by the cool gays, right? Or this rejection wound that I have. And I just moved to a new city. And I moved to a new city and I was like, you know what, I'm going to get involved. I know I don't go to any Pride thing anywhere in Charlotte. I'm going to go here. I went to Queer Fest, you know, the first night. I moved in Saturday morning. I went to Queer Fest Saturday night. And I injected myself into this crowd. Let me tell you, I made friends. I had phone numbers of these lesbians, took me under their wing and they were introducing me to all these people. And I noticed that there was this queen bee kind of walking around who knew everybody, right? And I was like, I bet I need to know him, her. And then I saw him walk over and hug and kiss, like I could tell they were partners, this person, and I looked and fuck, it was this guy from my past in Charlotte. Who I hated. He hated me. We had this terrible past. I mean, the things that I did were— the things that I did and I said were things that I had, you know, tried to get over. And I was like, no, I spiraled. I just spiraled out of control on this because I thought, of all people, of all things, I'm trying to get away from my past. And there my past stands. Not only there, but He is the the gay here. You could tell, you know, that you could tell there was some kind of little hierarchy going on, whether they like it or not. And so I I went to my journal. I mean, that's that's that's been my theory. I went to my journal and I started out like you're saying, fuck that bitch, and also fuck my life. You know, like what? You know, and so I but by the time I got finished, I kind of understood. That no matter where you move, it's not going to matter. There's going to be that trigger until you get the fuck through this and stop comparing yourself and stop thinking you have to have the graces of the top gays in the community, right? And I worked through that. I wrote through it. And I always ask myself, how can I see this differently? That's my big journal question. How can I see this situation differently? And then I saw it differently. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to come out of my comfort zone and I'm going to go to this person. And so I went to him and he couldn't even remember. He didn't remember who I was. And so we had this really fun, funny conversation. He, you know, he was in, he told me where to, some places to go, some people to meet. And it just turned out to be this huge healing for me, just melted away so much. And if I, if I hadn't went to my journal, if I hadn't have grown so much, I would have just sat in that, that misery. And I would have felt sorry for myself and probably not even gone to any other Pride events.

Well, that's, that's really cool. Isn't it funny how I do find with journaling, with meditation, with any of those moments that you get quiet, I have these Crazy realizations. I have these really impactful moments with the inner child. I have almost vision-like moments when I've been good to get quiet and get alone. But yeah, I mean, journal— I mean, you just gotta— but that's the thing with journaling is nobody's reading it. You can just fucking be real. Yeah. And it's funny, the more noise you get out, the more real it gets. And, um, yeah, it's, it really does help with the noise, but yeah, that's kind of where this year has been about. Um, I had a moment where I sat on the side of the road after my partner found out what I'd done. I didn't know if he was going to stay. He didn't know if he was going to stay. He was really hurt.

Right.

And I was carrying the burden of How badly I had hurt him, and and you know he was going through his own like what does this mean? And he was literally asking himself why does this make me so mad? It's not like we haven't played with other people as a couple. It's not like that we don't know about each other's pasts, but this hurt him, and he's exploring why he's hurt so bad. I'm exploring why did I just do this, and. Yeah, I was sitting on the side of the road one day and I felt so sorry for myself. I was really having a pity party, which is unusual for me to do because I'm a just jump up and get it done. And I'm crying so loud thinking about being sexually abused as a child and being bullied as a child and all these things. And I just really thought, this is not fucking fair. And I'm crying. I look up, I'm beating the steering wheel, and 2 deer are standing in front of the car. And both of them are like, fucking human. I just started laughing. And I was like, you know what, Brian? It's, it's not your fault. Things were done to you. It's your responsibility now. If you want to fix it, if you don't want to fix it, don't fix it. Be damaged. Never have a real— Right. Relationship, if that's what you want. It's your choice. And it wasn't a shame thing, but learning to love myself in a way that is a verb, like learning to love myself in action. You know, I had a therapist once say, do you love yourself? And we went through this and I finally went, yeah, I'm not like that kind of crazy. I love myself. And she goes, hmm. And then after some hypnosis one day, she goes, when's the last time you ate a bag of chips and then told yourself, it's okay, you'll do better tomorrow? She said, when's the last time you picked up a bag of chips to eat it and thought, put this down, you're just bored, your feelings are hurt, you're not hungry? She said, when is the last time you've told yourself, you've been in this bed long enough, like, let's get out and walk? She said, literally love yourself like you do your child. Like, take the actions. Be— sometimes love is tough. Sometimes love is gentle. It's, it can never be the same all the time.

Hmm.

It's okay to be tough on yourself when you need to get yourself motivated, but at the same sense, like, you have to be gentle and have some compassion for yourself too. I know, like, especially with addiction, when people fuck up, when they relapse, they— shame is what got you into addiction.

That's right.

And now you add more shame on top of it. Sometimes it's okay to get alone and say, hey, you messed up. You're gonna do better. Like, we're gonna stop right now. And loving yourself through that, I think, was one of the things I had to learn even back then. First thing I had to learn was just quit making excuses for it. Quit looking for reasons to use. I mean, same way I eat, like, you know, if you hurt my feelings, I'm going straight to the refrigerator. So it's, it's a thing with me. Like food makes me feel better.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What you're talking about loving yourself. There's a big question that I get, and I'm sure the listeners are— some of the listeners get really upset and overwhelmed about how— what does that mean? How do I love myself? Like, how did you get there?

Well, first, I think remembering who I was and that the best example of who I was was that child. So Did hypnosis one day, and she kept asking me, did I love myself? And then in this hypnosis, she snaps her fingers and she tells me I'm in a void, a black space that I can't see anything around me. And she snaps her fingers again and she says, now you see a light come on in the distance and it's your child. Okay. At that time, my child was 8. And she said, move towards him, get close to his face. And all this is my imagination during hypnosis. And she's like, nose to nose. What do his eyes do when his feelings are hurt? What do his eyebrows do when he's excited? What do the corners of his mouth do? And I'm studying this kid's face because I know it so well.

Yeah.

She snaps her fingers again and she goes, that's not your child. That's you. You're 8 years old. What are you so upset about? Uh, all this shit starts bubbling out. Like nobody's, nobody's protecting me. Nobody's listening to me. Like that was around the time that I was, um, a friend of the family started abusing me and on top of already being bullied and—

Yeah.

It was in that moment that I connected with this child because the therapist made me get loud and she said, I want you to imagine grabbing his hand and tell him to hush. Be quiet now. And I'm like, this kid is crying, like, and it's me. And she's like, tell him to calm down. You're Grayson's dad. That's my son's name, she said. And you're going to protect him and nobody's going to hurt him. There's no reason for him to throw this tantrum. And I had never learned to self-regulate. I had never learned to calm myself down in relationships. If you hurt my feelings, I was going for the throat. Like I was gonna call you every terrible thing I could. I was gonna throw things. I was gonna curse. Um, which is so funny that I was even that person, cuz after that day, most of that stopped. And when I sat up, she goes, that's what I meant. Do you love yourself? And I went home and I put a picture of myself. At that age on my cell phone lock screen, and when I would feel those feelings come up, when I would get my feelings hurt, when I would get angry, I would pick up my phone, tap the screen, and I'd go, "Calm down. I got you. There's no reason for you to be upset. Just breathe." Yeah. And I would talk myself through it, and I would literally start parenting that little kid and teaching him how to calm down and feel safe because. That acting out is just you not feeling safe as a child. You act fucking crazy, and then your mama's dragging you out of Walmart by your feet. So I had to learn to get that kid to calm down and get him to trust me that I would protect him and I would not let people hurt me. So it's been a lot of deep learning. Of reconnecting with that child. Yeah, and I know that's going to be the first step for people is inner child work. You know, the first step is getting honest. Yeah, yeah, it's not the first step, but it's important.

And if you if you're listening to this podcast, you may want to rewind and listen to everything he just said again. Because inner child work, inner child work, when you, when you're triggered today, whatever age you are, like for me, I'm 47. If I'm triggered today by an alpha male person who's authoritative and they come off annoying and it triggers me, I feel it right here in my gut. That's not him. That's my inner child. feeling the same way as I did as a 7-year-old with my dad.

Yeah.

Because the nervous system doesn't understand linear time. The nervous system classifies an emotion. And in this moment at 47, I'm feeling that same emotion I did then. And that's the trigger. Your body's trying to keep you safe. That inner child needs— and it doesn't even— it's not that complicated. It's what you're saying, Brian. It just needs you to be there. What did you need at 7? What did that, that you didn't, weren't getting? Someone to say you're safe. Like you're saying, you're safe. I've got you. I'm here for you.

Yeah, that was, I had a moment not too long ago. I was on the treadmill and I had been meditating and everything. And again, I hear this little voice in me say, why won't you teach me to play ball?

Hmm.

Remember I told you I was a sissy? Like, yeah, I was left-handed. I was a sissy and I had an astigmatism. So things were not working out for me. And I didn't find out most of, like, I didn't get glasses until my 30s. Um, so if you tossed keys at me, I squealed like a girl and hit the floor. Like, don't throw things at me. I can't catch a ball. I can't throw a ball. And that day I thought, Why didn't I learn to play ball? Because I was afraid some redneck boy was going to laugh at me and tell me I threw like a girl. And I called some friends to come and teach me to throw a ball. I wanted to learn. I did really good too. Just connecting in those brave ways this year has been really cool to, to say, you know, I want to learn to play ball. I'm 44. I'm not too old.

Yeah. And that's right.

I went and bought my first, my first catching mitt, which was weird. You know, the 16-year-old that had to help me. Thank God she was a lesbian and she was so excited for me.

But yeah, she showed me how to oil it up and tie it.

Yeah, it was, it was really funny. But yeah, I mean, I love that. I wanted to learn. Yeah. Podcasting. Yeah. Same thing with my podcast is one of those. Yeah. I didn't know how to do it, but yeah, I'm learning and I fumble and I talk about myself too much when I interrupt people too much, but I'm learning. I'm just being me.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a segue. Um, do you want to talk about what Why did you start this podcast? What is it about? It's called Raging Heart On, right? Yes. Which is funny when you sent me the link, you, it came across Raging Heart On.

Raging Heart On, because I read the book, The Velvet Rage. And, um, yeah, I've always wanted to interview people, ask questions. When I was a little kid, I thought I was going to be Oprah. And this year was all about trying things. It was, It was giving myself space to learn things because I have been successful once I got off meth. Because I mean, back then I had my car repossessed. I had, I mean, I'd be hitting the pipe while they were rolling down the street with my car.

Yeah.

And over the years I built a very successful business in the salon, left that, got into real estate. You know, my first house was like a $67,000 house. I was so young and, you know, in real estate, I start trading houses and really like was successful in everybody's eyes. But honestly, a lot of that stuff came easy to me. Um, and I was scared to try things I would fail at. I hated technology. So I started this project with the podcast. First it was an idea. And I know one of my TikTok videos was the day that I tried to record the first time.

Oh.

I was really, um, feeling small that day. I was really struggling with my confidence and the little monsters in my head telling me, why are you even doing this? Like, what are you trying to prove? You know, just coming at me hard. And I went outside and recorded the video and I'm like, do you ever just feel small? Like you just can't do it? And I've always had great ideas. But my follow-through sucks because I'm not always the best at following through because that's where I could fail. I guess I just want to give people ideas and then run with it. But, um, this little idea, I've been proud of it. I have posted about it. I've been vulnerable about it. And it's really starting to take off, like with listeners and it's starting to take off. I just want people to share their stories, especially people in the gay community. Like, where'd you come from? I know I had you on before, like it'll be coming out in a couple of weeks. And yeah, we all started a different place. So many of us started in church, but, um, it's, it's really interesting to hear people's stories because my story is not going to impact everybody. And sometimes it's your story that a person needs to hear. Um, just to keep going, just to keep living, or to not just to keep going. That's the fucking basics. That's the bare minimum is to live, is the bare minimum. I want to live like I want to be happy. I want to have joy. I want to figure out what things I love. I want to explore what I'm curious about. Curiosity is amazing.

Yeah.

I want to be curious.

Yeah, curiosity instead of condemnation.

Yeah, like I want to be curious about art. I want to be— yes, but I don't necessarily want to be like a nerd about art. So don't fucking come at me because I don't know who the artist is. I just think the painting's pretty. I like kitty cats, whatever. Like, be real.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what, what you're describing to me is what I talk about on my channel and in my blog is self-actualized recovery. Self-actualization is the act of every day uncovering more of your full potential, living your full potential, moving beyond attachment of I'm an addict. You know, it's not a life sentence. You're, you're living, you're healing.

Yeah.

Every day I can tell you are on this, you are on a fucking journey right now. And it's beautiful to hear and to listen and to watch. And thank you for sharing that.

Thank you for having me. Like, I really am. And it is, I hate to brag about it, but life is really good. This has been my slowest year in real estate. So it's not sales, it's not money. It's way more beautiful than that. It's yeah. It feels so good to connect with that little, that little fucker. Yeah, yeah. Beautiful little kid. Key.

It's the key, right? Yeah. Yeah. Because many of us, the only time we let him come out is when we were high. It was the only time we let him play. Yes.

And you know, here's the thing people talk about: I can't connect with other people. I can't make friends. You can't. You can only connect with the world outside. Of you, as deeply as you have connected with yourself. Sure, you can throw a party and have 75 people at your house, but connecting—that's different. You first have to figure out who you are to be able to connect with other people, and shallow connections will not feel the same anymore. The more you connect with yourself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Before we, before we end, uh, of course I want to have you tell us how to find you, but could you quickly tell us, um, not your story of how you got into meth, but how you got out of it? What was the, what was the decision point there, um, for those that are on the brink, for those who are searching for ways to get out of the grips of Tina? What would you say was your turning point and what advice would you give them?

I, you know, for many times I'd said, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm not going to do that anymore. And then I would do it again, of course. And it usually didn't last long. But when I found out I was going to be a dad and it was time, I just knew that I would have to change playmates, change playgrounds, change everything. But I think what it was is it was worth it to me that time to do it. If it meant losing every friend, if it meant whatever it meant, I had to be done because I was so depressed and I just felt like such a failure. I'd lost everything. And that time was the first time I was honest with myself. Said, this is— I actually remember sitting and telling myself, this is not going to be easy. So when it gets hard, remember, it was supposed to be hard. And the first few days I hurt and ached. And after I finally woke up, because, you know, when you first stop, you sleep for 3 days.

Right.

And I will say that's one of the things that stop people from Getting clean is a lot of times you can't afford 3 days off work.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

But you gotta get to that point of it being worth it. And I got honest with myself. I told the people around me that were not meth users. I told them what I was doing, uh, built some accountability around myself. Yeah, it— I put myself in jeopardy that I knew if I didn't do it, a lot of people would know about it. Whereas I tried to hide my drug use before, this time I wanted everybody to know what I was attempting. Yes, I got everybody involved.

Great honesty.

Yeah, it's all about— everything is honesty. Like, yeah. Every step I take has something to do with the truth. Like every level I get to, the truth is somehow key to all of it.

Mm-hmm. Yep. I love it. I love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. What have I missed? Is there anything that I didn't ask you about that you would want to mention?

Well, in the third grade, I'm just kidding. Yeah. I said, well, in the third grade, I was just kidding though. Um, no, I think, you know, you wish, I wish you could just lay it all out and sometimes it's hard to describe what is going on internally. And I hope I've described at least some part of this that resonates and somebody can go, okay, I get that. I understand that. Because. You know, this whole universe is a classroom and we're all teachers to other people. Some of us knuckleheads like me back in the day, I only learned by messing up myself, but I'm learning to listen to others now and learn lessons without having to live through them. And that's kind of cool.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the thing about gratitude, the gratitude is so big in the recovery industry. And it's good to be grateful for the sunshine and grateful for the good things. But when we get to the point where we can be grateful for the challenges, to me, that's the big growth because the challenges are there. The challenges are there to teach you and make you— like I heard this phrase, if you like, you know how parents would say, you don't stop crying, I'm gonna give you something to cry about. Yes. Well, the universe says, if you're not grateful, I'm going to give you something to be grateful about. And so what happens is we go through addiction. It's a highly individualized curriculum. We go through it to be better on the other side, to uncover that latent potential that's hiding under there, that healing. It's just our path. And if we can somehow be grateful for the challenge as much as we are the Happy, skippy things. That's the real growth too.

Oh yeah, and just being able to ask, okay, what is this trying to teach me? Yes. I have to ask myself that on the road a lot because I'm—that's the only place you'll see me get mad and competitive is on the road. I love to win. Oh yeah. And I have to go, what is what's this bitch trying to teach me today? And so yeah, I'm grateful for her. Yeah, yeah.

I love it. I love it. Okay, so where can we find you? What's your handles and all that?

Um, the Raging Heart On Podcast. So you can find me on TikTok, Raging Heart On, and you can find me by email. Like, if you watch the podcast and you maybe want to share your story, you can find me ragingheartonpodcast@gmail.com. Um, yeah, just look for the Raging Heart On Podcast. You're going to see a rainbow heart. And yeah, we're everywhere. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, all of our, all of my, I say our, like I've got a 12-person team working. It's not, it's me. And well, you're supposed to say, yeah, I'm so used to doing that in other businesses, but yeah. Um, yeah, you can on YouTube. I post all the interviews on YouTube also.

So yeah. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Your podcast. I mean, for those of you that You know, it's fun, it's light, but it's like you said, it's raw, it's uncensored. There's, you know, it's a different vibe, but it's a great vibe. So thank you. Yeah, we're— wow. Thank you so much for sharing. You just— you— I mean, I could talk to you probably another 3 hours. You're hitting everything. It's great. I love to see it. And thank you for sharing.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah. All right. And for you, those of you that want to connect, we do have a Facebook page. It's The Aftermath. We have a website, theaftermath.net. We have a, uh, we're going to have with this podcast and with every podcast, we have a study guide that comes out the day the podcast comes out. You also can access the study guide. It'll have a summary of the episode, journal prompts, reflective questions, and a chance to dialogue with me about what you learned. And what you'd like to see more on the podcast. So get involved with that. You can find that at drdallasbragg.com as well. That being said, have a great day. We will see you next time.