Beneath The Surface Podcast --Ep. 2 -- Healing Can Be Messy

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Beneath the Surface, the space where silence speaks, healing breathes. I'm your host, Danny Francois, and today we're diving deep, not into the polished answers or the highlighted reels, but into the raw, unfiltered layers of what it means to be human. This podcast is for the ones who feel too much, for the ones who've been told to get over it, for the ones still learning to stay present in a world that moves too damn fast. Here we're talking about mental health. We talk about relationship, the ones builds us, breaks us, and teaches us. We talk about stigmas, the quiet shame, the cultural silence, and the inherent weight. And we talk about the healing, not the Instagram version, but the messy, nonlinear, whole-wretching kind version. So today on this segment, we are going to be talking about the— how healing can be messy. Healing isn't always a straight line. It's a spiral, a stumble, a slow unraveling of everything we thought we had to hide. Sometimes it looks like progress, sometimes it looks like relapse, and sometimes it looks like sitting in your car at 2 AM wondering if you're still worth saving. Today we're talking about a sensitive topic, and I'm not a doctor. I don't say or do or pronounce anything. This is just all raw. Today we're talking about addiction, not just the substance but the story behind it, the pain it numbs, the identity it distorts, and the strength it takes to choose life again. I want to introduce someone, a good friend of mine, who whose story lives beneath the surface, someone who's walked through the fire and found a way to breathe again. They battle addiction, face the stigma, and now use their voice to help find others in similar situations and also to help them with whatever they're going through. Today, let's welcome Bailey.

Hi. Hello. Thanks for having me.

So Bailey, I know it's been a while, um, and I know we talked on the side and we talked about briefly about your story, and I just wanted to invite you on and have you tell others about your story of addiction and how you overcame it.

Yeah, uh, thanks. I, uh, I love opportunities to be able to share my story. Um, I know that— oh, I hope that in some way, even just listening to someone else's story, it can help someone else on their journey, um, you know, whether they're struggling with addiction, active addiction, or hoping or working towards getting clean. So I really like— I feel like that's a big part of me these days, um, because of who, you know, how young I was when, when my story started. So, uh, should I just dive right in?

Yeah, go ahead. Uh, we're all ears.

Awesome. So this week for this, we got to take it all the way back to when I was 15, over 20 years ago, actually, which is an insane age to even think of. My story starts, unfortunately, with an illness that I was affected with. It is a very rare blood disease, actually. Lemierre syndrome. There have been about 60 cases, I think, since the 1960s. So it's literally like a one in a million disease. I was in the hospital for 2 weeks. I won't go into too much detail about that, but I was in the hospital for 2 weeks and a day. I was 15 years old, literally on my deathbed, almost died. And then the doctors were able to help me make a full recovery. And thankfully I can never contract that again. But unfortunately, when I left the hospital, life just did not feel the same. It did not. It was not the life of a 15-year-old anymore. Um, that was so traumatic being in the hospital that I didn't know what to do or how to act normal anymore. I didn't know how to go back to normal. My, my normal in the hospital for so long had been, you know, waking up every couple of hours, being poked and prodded at, Thankfully, at least I had my health. But because of what had happened to me in the hospital, I was failing in almost every other aspect of my life— school, family, friends, relationships— because again, I just was holding on to that trauma and didn't know how to process it. So again, I was healthy. I got my first job. My parents thought that maybe me getting a job would help me. Get back on track, be able to see the positive in life, you know, keep myself busy, you know, idle hands kind of thing. Unfortunately, that was the worst mistake ever because the job that I took, I got a job working at Sonic and I was hanging out with a bunch of people who were way older than me. I was a carhop and a barista at Sonic. Um, and, you know, it started really slow. We, you know, smoked some, some weed in the back on our breaks and stuff like that. And I thought it was cool because I'm like 15 hanging out with all these adults. And, you know, of course at the time, you know, haha, weed, getting high, whatever. But then it, it morphed into something different. My— the longer I was there, the closer, the more comfortable my managers, um, got with sharing their other extracurricular activities with me. Um, so this is a really fucked up, gross, dark story about grooming, drug addiction, sexual assault. I just want to go ahead and say that, um, before I dive into it any further. Um, it started with, uh, cocaine. Um, so I went straight from smoking weed for my first time to trying cocaine in the bathroom at my job with a 30-year-old man, which at the time, again, seemed cool. Teenagers do stupid shit like that all the time. Obviously in retrospect, not fucking cool. So I, you know, it had gone on for a few months. It, you know, it started with just, you know, a few hits here, a few hits there, only when I was at work, only when they had it and were willing to offer it. Up until that point, I hadn't really paid for anything. That I was consuming. But then it turned into parties on the weekends when we weren't working together, we were partying together, which turned into doing what I guess currently is called Molly. But back in the day they were beans for me. Molly, I guess, is like the pure form, but these beans were fucked up and cut with all sorts of shit. I remember specifically one of them telling me, because I was scared, I was like, can't you die from this? Again, 15 years old. Yeah. He's like, no, uh, he's like, if you take one and you don't die from it, you're perfectly safe to take them anytime. And, you know, I really took that as law because, again, he was older than me. Obviously he knew better, uh, than I did. So I tried my first bean. Um, it was so like— I don't want to say it was incredible, but it took me away from the trauma that I carried with me every day. Like, it— I don't know, it just— yeah, that's how it started, as an escape, you know what I mean? It started as a casual thing and then it turned into, wow, I can use this to escape the reality that I live in, you know? I'm— I suck at everything in life right now because I can't recover. I can't mentally, you know, tackle this issue by myself. Um, so kind of—

so kind of it was like your home away from home kind of thing. Away from the BS, away from the drama, everything that's piling on. So you kind of like escaped from it.

Yeah. And even though I knew what I was doing wasn't healthy, wasn't a healthy way of coping, it was the only way— it was the only coping mechanism that had been offered to me. Um, you know, my parents didn't offer therapy. You know, they were supportive. I'm not trying to say they were horrible people, but they could only do so much. So I, you know, I turned to these drugs and used them as therapy. And I would go, you know, it started, you know, doing one bean here or there on a weekend, and then it morphed into this full-blown addiction where, you know, I'm finally— I'm spending my own money on these drugs now. I'm bringing my own drugs with me to work. Um, I'm doing bumps in the bathroom. I'm going to parties on the weekends with them. I'm taking way too many beans. I'm getting way too high. I am, you know, rolling for way longer than I originally was. I just kept getting deeper and deeper into it without— I guess it— I didn't even realize how bad it had gotten either because I was just having so much fun ignoring, you know, everything. I fucking hated myself. I hated how I looked. I hated the everything. So this was just a way for me to, you know, cope. And it got really bad, you know. I literally was willing to try anything. I— goddamn, some of this is like hard to fucking— hard to talk about. Any bean anybody brought me, I trusted it. Um, I remember, I know that, uh, in the beginning they weren't horribly laced with stuff, but towards the end, the colors of the beans— I don't know if you have much experience with drugs in that aspect, but the colors of them started changing and getting darker. And I should have known then that it was cut with heavier stuff, um, like heroin and other— um, sorry, hang on. I thought I was ready to do this. Um, take your time. Yeah, so, um, one night, um, this was like— this was, this was months into it, um, 6 months at least. I had been partying every weekend. I don't know how I had managed to hide my drug addiction from my parents for as long as I had. But I was back at a house party again with all of these older men who were my managers at work. I— they brought these, these black— they were black. They didn't have anything printed on them. Usually when we would buy them, they would have like a naked lady or something like a stamp in them. They were easily identifiable— Supermans, different stuff like that. But these were just They were just black, just black pills. And I was a drug addict at that point. What was I going to do, say no? I mean, you put it in my face, I'm gonna take it. Um, I mean, and up until that point too, I had tried doing it all sorts of different ways. I had taken pills orally. I had done something called parachuting, where you crush them up and put them in a piece of toilet paper and put them up your butt. Um, literally, like, I'm pretty sure at a certain point, like, now in retrospect, I don't think I realized then But in retrospect, the more I've thought about it and recovered from it and processed what I did to myself and what happened to me, I think I was actively trying to kill myself. So I was open to doing more and more and taking, you know, bigger risks. But the bad— like when it started getting really bad and when I was able to notice even through the act of addiction that it was bad was the night when they brought those black ones. Um, I started with 2. I remember, you know, it started out, it was fine, everything was totally normal. Um, I took, I took 2 more a few hours later into the night. Obviously, like, when you're on drugs, you don't realize how much time is passing. So to me, it felt like it had been a few hours, but it could have been 30 minutes for all I know. It could have been a day at that point because we, we were inside, lights off, windows were blocked. You know, we playing with our light sticks and warm blankets and stuff. So I took more, and that was, that was when it, like, it, it's so weird because, like, it was like a movie. Everything was slow motion, and, like, there were trails, and it was like, it just started to feel ominous and fucking scary. And I started feeling tired, which is like very, um, not normal for beans. Those are uppers. They make you want to party all night. You don't want to stop until fucking sunrise.

Um, so you knew something, you knew something was up. You were just— something was, something was not right about these, these versions of the beans that you were taking.

So yeah, yeah, I had realized, I think, at a point that I probably had just been poisoned. Um, So I snuck away into a bedroom and laid down. I covered my head with the pillow and, you know, sunk into the blanket. It felt like I literally, like, just melted into the bed. Obviously, you know, under the influence, so I'm feeling extra sensory. And I don't know how long I laid there for. I think I fell asleep for a while. Could have been 10 minutes. It could have been an hour. One of my managers came in, checked on me, asked how I was doing. I told him I wasn't feeling great, um, and then another one of my managers came in, asked the same thing. They're acting really concerned, and, um, they— one of them laid on the bed with me to rub my shoulders, rub my head, see if, you know, you know, anything like that would help me. And I'm not sure if I had given them the wrong impression or if— I still, like, I'm foggy on a lot of those memories, like how I connect the dots because of the drug use. I don't want to sit here and say, oh, it was my fault, but I can't say for certain, um, that I didn't give them the wrong impression. Um, I was laying in bed with a grown man, with two grown men rubbing on me under the influence of drugs, and, um, one thing led to another, and, um, they're on top of me. Um, I do know I, I at least tried to say no and fight back. Um, again, I think a lot of that is still blocked out of my memory, my brain trying to protect me from it. But I knew what was— I was coherent enough to know what was happening and to know that I didn't want it to be happening that way. Previously, before this night, we had, you know, been getting comfortable with each other, um, you know, doing, you know, back massages, making out, stuff like that. Um, so I don't know if, if they had ill intent in their souls, um, or if they just thought that this was their chance, you know, I had opened the door, something like that. Um, but it, um It left me— when it was done, it left me, uh, really fucking confused. Again, I am, uh, 15 years old. I hadn't had sex until that point in my life, so it left me feeling really confused. Um, I got— I remember back then, back then I called a taxi. I called a taxi home because I was scared to call my mom. Um, I went home. I snuck in through the laundry room door and crawled into my bed. My sister was there sleeping peacefully like a sweet baby angel. She was always so perfect. She got straight A's. She never did anything fucking wrong. Nothing bad ever happened to her. And I remember I was just laying there. I was looking at her. I'm like, fuck, man. What did I do with my fucking life? I'm going to cry. You know, just regretting all of my life's choices. Not just because that had happened to me that night, but because that was the realization that I was, you know, I was like, I've gone too far. You know, this isn't healthy. I'm going to kill myself. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, I knew that it could only end, you know, badly. By then the sun was rising and I— it was raining that morning. My parents were up. They always woke up really early, sunrise. They were watching, you know, the news, looking at the weather. There might have been like a hurricane or a tropical storm, something coming through the area, but I know it was raining. I got up out of bed. I went to the bathroom. I'm in the bathroom. Obviously the drugs still haven't worn off yet because I'm hallucinating at this point. Um, which means that it was cut with other stuff. I still— I will never be sure what those, um, pills were cut with that night. Um, but I was hallucinating on the toilet. There was a bubble man. I think about him all the time. Like, I try to— I try to ask myself, like, try to figure out in my brain what— what did the bubble man represent, if anything, uh, other than just my insanity, you know. He was just floating there in the bathroom. I was trying to do a poo, couldn't because of the drugs. Came out of the bathroom, laid on the couch and tried my hardest to act normal. I was like, they'll never know. My parents, you know, they grew up in the '70s. I should have known better. Right? They probably had their fair share of drug use. I'm not 100% sure. My mom's never been completely open with me about that. My mom asked me if I wanted some breakfast. I agreed. I sat at the table with them, and I'm sitting across from my mom, and she looks at me. She's like, you're high. Like, it wasn't even a question. Like, she knew it, and I knew it too. And my stepdad, Papa, that's what I call him, was there also. We all knew it. There was no denying it. Um, and that, like, that, those two words literally was, that was the beginning of my, of my healing journey. And, um, like, you know, some people, I know, I, I'm lucky. I didn't, I didn't struggle to get clean after. I'll, I'll go into detail on how my parents literally saved my fucking life. Um, I know that I'm one of the lucky ones. I had a support system, I had a desire, and I'm also really fucking stubborn, and when I make a fucking decision, I stick with it. So once I— once me and my parents, you know, we— I knew that I wanted to be clean too, okay? So my mom loaded me up in the car, she brought me over to my dad's house. My parents were divorced, um, brought me over to my dad's house, talked about the thing. They all went over, you know, options, treatment facilities. You know, whatever. We ultimately decided, they ultimately decided, they did not give me any say. They told me to shut the fuck up. You have already done enough. I mean, if you think about it from my mom's perspective, her daughter, her 15-year-old daughter had almost died in the hospital just, you know, 8 months ago. And now she's in active addiction, clearly coming home fucking high as fuck. You know, so I understand, I understand the way she responded to me, and it was necessary. I would have done the same thing if it was my daughter. Um, but my, my uncle, my mom's brother, um, was currently in a halfway house recovering from heroin, a heroin addiction of all things. Um, and was getting ready to be able to fully move back in with his wife and their 3 kids, my cousins. Um, literally, like, it was within a week's time that it— all of these things. It was so weird. It was like— I don't want to say divine intervention, like, at all, because I don't, I don't personally subscribe to, uh, that belief system, but it could not have been more perfect timing for me, uh, to start my journey to recovery. Um, so it was not—

so it wasn't like a divine intervention, but it was kind of like an aha moment kind of thing?

Like, yeah, I mean, who better to help me with my recovery rather than going into a recovery center and it being, you know, it following me for the rest of my life on my medical records? And, um, then my uncle, who literally just did— he just finished his journey. Um, so my parents loaded me up and brought me down to my uncle's house. They lived South Florida in a little town called Rotunda. I didn't know fucking anybody there. I was still fucking high. These drugs took at least 5 days to wear out of my system. Again, that's how I know they were cut with something that was insane. Usually, you know, you do beans, 12 hours, you, you know, and you're, you're usually good. But these ones affected me for days. I was um, on my way down to— it was like an hour and a half drive. I was, I was sobering up, so I have better memories of that part. Um, you know, I got there, I said hi to my cousins. You know, I had a, um, one cousin was older, he was 17. My cousin— I had another cousin my age, and then there was the third one was 11, I think. So, um, it was really— they already all knew why I was there, and I feel like I like, in retrospect too, when I think about it, I wonder if I took something from my youngest cousin because she shouldn't have necessarily been exposed to, um, someone in active addiction and recovery, I guess. Um, but, um, yeah, they brought me down there and they fucking made really strict rules. They made me go grocery shopping and build a list of, um dinners, I did chores. I was literally their live-in maid. Um, I did everything. It kept me busy. Um, they didn't let me make any phone calls. I was able to call my parents, uh, but they had to be staying there and watching me. Literally, it was like I was in a fucking recovery center, but just without all of the negative, um, you know, things that follow actually going into recovery. And like I said, I know, I know, I know I'm lucky because mine, mine was easy. But I swear to God, when I was there for 2 weeks, 2 and a half weeks, and when all was said and done, my mom came picked me up. I swear to God, I was a new fucking person. I had a new look on life. I wanted to see my friends. I wanted to go back to school. I wanted to see my fucking sister, my stepsister. I wanted, you know, my brother, my little brother. I want to go back home and see my dog. Like, I felt like a totally different fucking person. And I swear to God, that that one tiny little decision that my mom made right then to send me down to my uncle's quite literally saved my life. If they wouldn't have done that, if they wouldn't have caught me on those drugs that morning, I would have, um, I probably would have, would have died or currently still been in active addiction to this day, right? Um, I can't say that life has been perfect since then, obviously, because of the trauma associated with it, uh, with the hospital stay and what happened to me at the parties. I've lived with depression and anxiety my whole life because of it. I started to lean on alcohol when I got a little bit older. That was only— it was like a year. I drank a lot. Um, but I woke up one morning sick as fuck. I was like, I'm never gonna drink again. And I know most people are like, they say that in jest, they're like, haha, and then by the end of the night they're drinking again, you know, they're like, one won't hurt me. But again, I'm a stubborn fucking ass, um, and I meant it, and I meant it. So I stopped drinking alcohol too, and I have been completely sober since then, aside from the occasional— I use, I use marijuana medicinally, and I occasionally do mushrooms to keep my mind open and accepting. But other than that, I never touched beans. I never touched coke. My parents got the men that were involved in getting me hooked on drugs, grooming. And sexually assaulting me, arrested. Um, and I think when they got arrested, it like, that was, that was another click for me. That was another click for me. It really felt like I could finally like, like move on from it. You know what I mean? And like, I still, I, I, it's funny cuz I'll joke with our friend, uh, our friend, and, um, you know, tell her that I'm still in active addiction, uh, because I do still think about cocaine every single day of my fucking life. I don't know if I think about it because I want to do it, if I miss those times, if I'm still trying to connect the dots on, you know, like the memories, how things went, you know, how things happened, because I don't— I truly do not remember a lot of it, um, but, uh, I, I don't actually struggle with my sobriety and haven't since I left my uncle's house that day, um, and since I decided to not drink alcohol. My dad, again, he's a functioning alcoholic. That was also, you know, a driving factor to, you know, making me want to stay sober from alcohol also. But I am 36— I'll be 37 in December, so What's that, 17 years off of hard drugs and 15— I think I stopped counting, honestly. I think that's where I'm at, 15 years sober from alcohol. I gauge my alcohol because it, it was right around— it was right before I got pregnant, um, with my daughter that I decided I didn't want to drink anymore. And I, uh, so I gate— that's, that's, that's my gauge. So, um, but yeah, look at me now. Um, I am an advocate for anybody. I've never actually needed to go to like, um, AA meetings, but I have been an advocate for people that need them, but you know, that need support, uh, but don't want to go in an official like, um, AA setting or NA setting. Um, I have made tons of friends who are also sober, um, and we all keep each other, you know, tip-top. I know everybody's journey is different, so some people struggle, some people struggle more than others, um, some not so much, some only struggle when, you know, times are tough, uh, but I, um, I don't know. I, I don't fucking know. I can— I think I can attribute 100% of my sobriety to being a stubborn fucking ass. And once I decide I either want to do or don't want to do something, I'm not going to do it, or I am going to, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

And Look at me now, I'm fucking sweet baby angel, fully alive, right? I hope that wasn't too much detail or too little detail.

No, no, no, no, I, I feel like, I feel like it was perfect. I mean, it's kind of like your mentality is like kind of all or nothing kind of thing, and I think it's good to have that mentality, especially when it comes to like, in your case, addiction. And it's like, if I want it, like, you're, you're a go-getter. So if If someone says like, you need to do this, and it's just like, all right, bet, give me a couple of minutes, I'll learn how to do it and then I'll do it.

Literally, as soon as someone tells me I can't do something, I swear to God I'll make it my life's mission to prove them wrong. You know what I mean? And like, again, driving factor, you know, I know, like, maybe not when I was 15. I hadn't seen anybody else in active addiction and didn't know how hard the struggle is to stay clean. But now I know how hard it was and I I don't know, I, I don't want to say that I'm like the best recovery or anything like that, obviously, but I got very lucky to have a support system. It was literally right place, right time, everything. And, and because of who I am as a person, that also contributed to it working effectively and helping me detox and stay the fuck off of them. And now I don't even know friends who do that shit anymore. I don't hang out with people who do, who, you know, I mean, I do have, I have, there are, we're all adults here, you know, people do their, people do their thing, they have their own vices, whatever. But because of where I'm at in my journey now, and it's just so normal, and this is just what my life is now, I, I don't judge. I offer help if somebody wants it. Um, I don't want to overstep my boundary. If somebody comes to me and says, hey, uh, help, I'm struggling with my active addiction, I will absolutely be there to support them. But I don't want them to feel like because I'm sober they can't live their fucking life, you know what I mean? I'm not— I'm not the judgy type. Obviously I wish better for, you know, the people around me who may or may not be using, um, even if it's just recreationally, occasionally, whatever, um, even if it doesn't seem to be like destroying their life the way mine was. Um, but, uh, same with alcohol. I have no problem being around people who are drinking. Um, I have no problem. I'll go to the bars and hang out with my friends. I'll do karaoke or listen to, you know, music and dance, whatever, play pool. Um, and, you know, all— everybody knows that I'm there if they, if they need any support or a reason to stay sober or get sober or continue to stay sober, however. Um, One of my good friends— I don't remember when it was, I swear. I had— I was already on my journey. I must have been 5 years into it. Um, he said, he said, only takes one sip to go back down to zero days. And like, oh, cut me deep. It cut me so deep because the days, the days matter, you know what I mean? At a certain point you have so many of them, you're like, oh my fucking God, all I want to do is hold on to my days, you know?

Yeah.

And And that really— not that I wasn't struggling, but I've been able to share that little piece of advice or some, you know, whatever with other people that have reached out for support, you know, on their journeys. And I don't know, I just— I'm really thankful for the— I don't want this to sound weird, but I'm thankful for the experience. Living through, living through it, because it gives me that, um, much more understanding. Um, you know, I, I understand, you know, you never know what's going on in people's brains or why they're— I don't think anybody starts, uh, an addiction and wants it to, you know, get out of hand and consume their fucking life, obviously. Um, you know, it's just like alcohol to me. Um, shit sucks and you want to get high to escape it. And I fully understand, um, how people make it there, you know. But it's the recovery part that's the hardest, when you realize that you've hit that rock bottom, you know, and you don't know where you lit— you're like, I literally can't get any more fucked up at this, you know. Like, you're questioning your own fucking sanity and decisions. You're like, how did I— how did I get to this fucking point, you know? Right, right. Um, but yeah, no, I'm thankful. I'm thankful for the experience. I'm thankful for my support system. I am thankful that I, um, am still alive. Yeah, through all of it and have managed to survive. Your depression's just a bitch. Okay. And makes me, makes me think funny things sometimes, you know? Um, I'm not, I'm definitely not perfect. It has not been a perfect journey. I think I struggle more now though with my depression and anxiety than I ever did. Um, with my recovery. And I hope that doesn't sound, make me sound like pretentious or, or anything like that. I know, I know recovery is not easy. It's not easy like that for everybody. Um, but it's like, I really, I relate it like, you know, like, you know, people, they give their birthing stories. Some women are in, you know, labor for 18 fucking hours. Yeah. And others sneeze and ta-da, there's a baby. Yeah. And to me it's the same way. I got lucky and my recovery was, was easy. There wasn't really ever a struggle. Once I detoxed off the drugs. I stopped hanging out with grown men. Um, it just wasn't there anymore, and it wasn't an option. And it, um, I, uh, it just made it easier for me. And I know that, like, I know that's not always the case for, for, for other people in active addiction or trying to recover.

And I guess that's like— and that's kind of like the purpose of this episode where we were saying that healing can be messy. Yeah, but, but if you put in the time and the effort, then, and especially like with the strong support system like you had with your family, then it's definitely possible to, to get on that road of recovery and basically make that quick action decision. Like, I don't want to do this anymore. And it's an eye-opener. It's a, it's basically like, basically splash water in your face. You're like, holy shit, like, how did I end up here? Like, I need to get better, not only for myself, but for my family, for my friends, for people that are close to me. And I guess like some, some things that like I want to know, or even our— some of our listeners want to know, is like, what do you wish people understood about addiction and healing? Like, like the stigmas, like the stigmas behind it, like or just in general?

The only thing I can say is fuck, drugs are fun, okay? Drugs are easy to get a hold of these days. They've all— they've always been easy. They're— it's easy to fall into that cycle. It's easy to get caught up in it and, you know, think that it's harmless at first. But if you don't maintain some level of self-control, um, it can get bad. I mean, especially depending on your personality. I have a very addictive personality. Um, you give me anything, a hobby even, I'm gonna get addicted to it. Um, so it really just, it varies from person to person. And I, you know, I know there is a lot of stigma around, um, you know, drug users and stuff like that. Uh, I, I actually hate the way the world sees people in active addiction, they clearly need help or support in some way. Um, you know, they're lacking, you know, family or friends that care about them, or maybe they've pushed everybody away. Again, it's hard to say, you know, you never know what anybody, you know, any one person's situation is like. Um, but the stigma around it is, it's not fair to me because I think If you look around outside, and you can see that we live in an imperfect world, and it's really not fucking hard to make the decision to use drugs to escape it, you know what I mean? I mean, it's the same as alcohol. I mean, and alcohol is so widely accepted, like it's just a normal thing. You can be, you know, you can abuse and become addicted to alcohol just the same. Um, just because it's legal and you can buy it with an ID in a store doesn't make it any more healthy or better of an addiction than someone who's actively, you know, in a heroin addiction or, or, uh, any other, you know, meth, any of these things, you know. I mean, it's easy. You get, you get caught up with the wrong people, peer pressure, life, you know, environmental things around you. It's easy to, to get caught up and forget, you know, how who— your health or your own, you know, mental is important, you know. To me, I used it literally to escape so I could ignore it, because the idea of going through years of therapy and sitting and connecting all these dots and stuff like that, you know, processing the trauma of me being in the hospital, like, it was so much easier to just get fucking high and ignore that and pretend like it just never happened. So, um, I personally didn't really experience any, any stigma surrounding my drug use. I was with everybody. I was with people who were doing it. Um, um, but I know that, that, that can be isolating. Um, and, you know, make you not feel great. Um, it's really hard because like sometimes, you know, people will be like, oh, tough love is how you get people to, to be sober. But also sometimes You know, I think just being gentle and kind and understanding helps too, you know. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes being non-judgmental and accepting, um, someone's where they're at on their journey, you know, is enough, you know, or can at least be the, the first step for, for someone on, you know, on their road to recovery.

So I was going to say, like, if someone was listening to this podcast episode, right, and they're in the middle of an addiction right now what's like the first step that you would give them that they can take in that step of healing, like in, in that step of recovery? Like, if you had any advice to give them?

That's a, that's a really hard one because I feel like any advice that I'm going to be able to say right now is going to be stereotypical shit that you hear all the fucking time at recovery centers or, you know, from your family members or friends who just don't understand Um, so what I'm gonna say is, um, it can get better if you want it to. If you want it to. Um, yeah, I mean, some people, some people want to choose drugs and they just want to keep doing them and they don't feel like they want to get clean. And, and, and I think in that, in that, uh, in that aspect, we should offer them a clean and safe environment to to do it. I like the needle swaps, you know, people getting certified in Narcan delivery and carrying Narcan just in case. You know, we can only do what we can do. It does require some participation from them on their part. But the first step is— no, I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that.

That's so—

That's like so— to me, that is like someone who's never been in active addiction, you know what I mean? That's like easy way of say, oh, you're sad, just don't be sad. Like, you don't understand depression, you don't understand drug use if that's how you're saying to fix it, you know what I mean? But you have to hit that point in your life, whether it takes you 3 months into your drug addiction or 3 years, you know what I mean? You have to hit that point before you're willing to participate in your own recovery.

So when you were talking about like when your parents made that decision to like basically pack you up and move you to your uncle's house for that little bit, um, kind of like an eye-opening experience, how long were you there for? Like, was it like just like that one day, or was it like a week, a couple months?

No, I was there for like 2 and a half weeks, I think. Um, and for the first 5 days I was there, I was still actively detoxing. Um, I was still hallucinating. Uh, I remember my cousins wanted to watch It, and I have always been terrified of clowns. Um, but I laid in bed and, you know, because that was what, you know, that was what my parents and my uncle wanted— my aunt and uncle wanted from the experience was for me to spend more time with you know, kids my age, um, doing things that kids my age do, not drugs, you know what I mean? So on top of, on top of, you know, cooking and cleaning and doing the grocery shopping and, and all this stuff, you know, they had a pool and, and they— my cousins had a gigantic California king-size bed that we'd all roll around in and watch movies and hang out. It was like a really positive experience, but I was still actively detoxing for at least the first 5 days. I I was falling asleep one night. I like vividly remember this, and it's so crazy because a lot of my memories are not this vivid, but we had just finished watching It. Scared the fuck out of me. Oh my God, I still to this day have not watched the new, the new It. I won't do it. I'm not like— I don't feel like I'm as terrified of clowns now, but I, I feel like I'm gonna associate it with the trauma of that just because I watched that movie when I was, you know, in recovery. Um, but I remember It literally felt like somebody was— I'm laying in the bed and it literally felt like someone stepped up onto the bed and put one leg over and one leg here and was standing over me, kind of like I was still high and someone was doing glow sticks over me. I opened my eyes expecting to see glow sticks because I felt a presence there, you know what I mean? There was, there was, there was something there. Um, I opened my eyes and and there was nothing there. Um, I never did see the Bubble Man again. I never did see him again. But, um, I was very sick. I, you know, was waking up in the middle of the night, active cold sweats, um, you know, uh, throwing up, didn't want to eat. Oh my God, I was so skinny and so gross looking because of the drugs that I had chosen to do anyways make you not want to eat, take care of yourself. They're uppers, you know what I mean? I'm partying, I'm dancing all night long, I'm not thinking about fucking dinner, you know what I mean? So, um, that was another thing too, looking at myself and just like literally coming face to face with the monster that I had literally created, you know what I mean? Or participate in creating. Um, I didn't want to— I— and like, I— when I was in the hospital, I had lost a lot of fucking weight because I was really sick in the hospital too. So I was already very skinny for, you know, my age and height. You know, I was very underweight because of that. And then jumping right into an addiction of uppers and continuing to not take care of myself. I fucking barely drank water. I feel like I lived off of like, you know, cherry limeades from Sonic. Um, I, I just looked fucking gross and I wouldn't have taken it from anybody else. If anybody else was like, you look fucking nasty, you look like a fucking druggie, or anything, I would not have listened to them. But the only person who can judge me is me. And right, I promise you, there's nothing you can say to me that I haven't said 6 inches from a mirror. And I fucking, like, I laid into myself. I looked at myself, I'm like, this is fucking filthy, gross, dude. Like, your siblings are seeing you like this, your family is seeing you like this, your cousins, you know. Like, it's just ugly. And not— and I don't— I don't— I want to say that in a way where I'm saying that people in active addiction are ugly or anything like that, but there are physical, physical characteristics that I just didn't— I didn't want to continue experiencing anymore. Um, and that was, that was a, that was a big one. But yeah, I was there for about 2 and a half weeks. My, um, I was fully detoxed, didn't touch anything. And now when I got back home, it wasn't all hunky-dory, like I could just return back to normal, obviously. Um, I was just there to detox rather than going to a, like, a facility, um, like a rehab center. So my parents picked me up once my uncle was convinced that I was fully clean off of the drugs. And then from there, I was like grounded all the fucking time. I couldn't go anywhere. If I wanted to go somewhere, my parents had to come with me, or like there were very specific rules and regulations, which of course at the time, by then I was, you know, 16, 16 and a half, maybe whatever, somewhere around there. Um, at the time that was annoying because I want to get back to being a normal teenager, you know what I mean? Go and hang out with my friends, go to the roller skating rink, stuff like that. But I fully understood why, you know, why they were being strict. They were trying to protect me and My parents might not be perfect, and my relationship with my parents has not been perfect since then either, um, but I swear to God, they, um, that one thing I'll never ever take from them. They, they knew exactly how to approach that situation, and with the support of my other family members, my cousins, my siblings, um, I managed to make it through the worst of it. And it's like, it's crazy because once I got back to my uncle's house, I don't even remember thinking about doing drugs at all ever again. I don't think they even crossed my mind, um, until I was like an adult when somebody offered me mushrooms. I was like, I've never done those, is that weird? Um, you know, but that— whatever, that's a totally different topic. Um, but I literally for years did not— I didn't even— I didn't even think about it. I just wanted to go back to being a fucking a kid and finish out the rest of my teenage years. And, you know, I don't know, man. I got— it's so crazy because like, it's wild how it literally just like, it was just a switch. I was addicted to drugs and then, and then I wasn't addicted to drugs. And I might not even be the, like, the best person to be the authority or give any advice on this because I didn't I didn't struggle in the way that I know most people do with their, with their addiction or their recovery.

No, but I mean, I think, and the thing is, like, even though every person's recovery story is different, I think it still needs to be heard, and I think it still needs to be talked about because like everybody's path is kind of different. It's not all linear, it's not straightforward. It's just like we all go in different wavelengths and different rides, kind of like a roller coaster. Some has loop-de-loops, some has like straight shots up there, and then it drops down. Like, it just, it just depends.

But I mean, the big one for me that helps contribute to staying clean and, and knowing that I'm on the right path is my two beautiful baby children. Um, I, uh, my daughter is the age now where I was when I had an active cocaine addiction. Um, and she won't even sneak into the movie theaters, okay? Um, so somewhere, somewhere I did something right, uh, by myself and by them. And like, I remember when she turned 15, the day I was like, oh my fucking God, she made it, she's here, you know what I mean? Yeah, she did it. Hasn't touched a cigarette, hasn't touched a weed, doesn't even have boyfriends. Like, I'm like, how did something so messy that I experienced in my life end up being the thing that I needed to actually be a good fucking mom to my kids and a good example to them, you know what I mean? Um, so they're, they're, they're, they're a big reason why I continue to stay clean and why it just, it's not even an option. My kids have never— there, as long as my kids have been alive, there has never been any alcohol in my house. And like, that is such a huge thing because I know, you know, parents drink casually, they have some beers on Sunday while they're watching football and stuff like that. And again, I'm not judging, people can drink responsibly, you know what I mean? But just that one thing alone right there, I feel like I've done a good thing by my kids by not, by not having to expose them to that, you know, or feeling necessary, you know, like it. Um, they keep me alive too. They help me, you know, when I'm struggling with my depression. Uh, you know, the little sweet face.

That's awesome. That's, that's— it's— I, I don't want to lie to you, I was kind of tearing up a little bit when you were telling your story and the whole recovery and everything.

I'm surprised I didn't actually cry.

But no, I mean, I think, I think this was good, and I do appreciate you taking time to speak to us because—

for listening. It feels good to like get this out, you know. I only talked about like my full story, you know, a few times with people very close to me people, you know, that longtime friends, you know. So, so being able to talk about, you know, this story is— it, it's— that's a coping mechanism, you know. That's coping for me too. It helps me, you know, uh, know that I'm still on the right path and that my journey has at least, you know, inspired other people in various stages of their life, in or outside of addiction. And I, I love being able to share that um, with everybody.

Well, your story is a reminder that healing isn't perfection. It's about being present. It's about being— it's about showing up even when it hurts. And it's about choosing yourself again and again and again, even when you think that you don't deserve it. You do. To anyone who's listening who struggle with this, who struggle with mental health in general, this space is for you. You are not broken, you are becoming. And until next time, stay curious, stay kind, and keep listening beneath the surface. I'm Danny Francois, and this is Bailey, and thanks again for having me. Thanks for joining us.