Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - At 13 Dan got his hands on a 6-pack of beer and he was hooked. Dan would later go on to struggle with opiates and meth.

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

From a young age, Dan was fascinated with alcohol, and all of his questions were answered when he got his hands on his first 6-pack of beer. Dan struggled to fit in growing up and switched friend groups from time to time. Over the years, Dan would lose custody of his son and the woman of his dreams. On February 12th, Dan's mother sat him down and urged him to rediscover his true self for the sake of himself and his son. Dan had the understanding for anything to work out, he would have to be sober. On that same day February 12th, 2017, Dan made a decision that would change his life's direction, and this is his story on the Sober Motivation Podcast. --------------- 👉 Follow Dan on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/hardknoxtalks/ 👉 More information on Soberlink: www.soberlink.com/recover 👉 Follow Sober Motivation on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sobermotivation/ 👉 Support the show here: buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation 👉 Download the SoberBuddy App: https://soberbuddy.app.link/motivation

Welcome to Season 3 of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible, inspiring, and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible one story at a time. Let's go. From a young age, Dan was fascinated with alcohol, and all of his questions were answered when he got his hands on his first six pack of beer. Dan struggled to fit in growing up and switching friend groups from time to time.

Over the years, Dan would lose custody of his son and the woman. of his dreams. On February 12, Dan's mother sat him down and urged him to rediscover his true self for the sake of himself and his son. Dan had the understanding for anything to work out. He would have to be sober. On that exact day, February 12, 2017, Dan made a decision that would change his life's direction. And this is his story on the Sober Motivation podcast. How's it going, everyone? Welcome back to another episode. Look, the holidays are coming up. They're going to be here soon, really before we know it. This time of year seems to really fly by.

Moving into the holidays and working on your sobriety, it's really important to have support. Have a community of people you can lean on and people that can help you see what's truly possible. Over at Sober Buddy, it's incredible that we're hosting 40 plus support groups a month. So there's lots of variety for you to pick through and jump in on the groups that you can make. But it's really incredible to be able to get the support. with so many people that find sober buddies share the same message. And things became much easier and made a heck of a lot more sense once they became part of a community. So if you feel like you're spinning your tires and you could use some support, some community, and some connection,

check out Sober Buddy today. Your SoborBuddy.com or search your favorite app store. Look for the little blue guy. And I'll hope to see you in a meeting soon. Getting sober is a lifestyle change. And sometimes a little technology can help. Imagine a breathalyzer that works like a habit tracker for sobriety. Soberlink helps you replace bad habits with healthy ones.

Weighing less than a pound and as compact as a sunglass case, Soberlink devices have built-in facial recognition, tamper detection, and advanced reporting, which is just another way of saying it'll keep you honest. On top of all that, results are sent instantly to loved ones to help you stay accountable. Go after your goals. Visit soberlink.com slash recover to sign up and receive $50 off your device. Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. today, we've got Daniel Unmanageable with us. Dan, how are you? What's up, Brad? Good to be here.

Things are well. Good, man. How we start every episode is the same. What was it like for you growing up? For me growing up, and this is, in retrospect, for me growing up was a relentless pursuit of my own power. I remember from a very young age feeling that I needed to be something other than what I was. and not having grown up around active alcoholism or active addiction, it was surprising to my dad that I was so infatuated with the thought of getting drunk. I would always be asking him, what is beer tastes like? What does vodka taste like? What's it like to be drunk?

And he would get aggravated, say what dad's. Why do you want to know all these things? Because my dad did have his struggles with alcohol, and he did identify it as an alcoholic, but he had put the plug in the jug a long time before I came along. There's a part of me that does think that I was born into this because I would go to family reunions and people would be drinking casually. And I would be the only kid in the room that was like trying to sneak a beer and trying to get bottoms on all the cups and stuff like that. But when I turned 13, I finally got my hands on what I'd been seeking.

I got my hands on a six pack. And man, like my first drunk was a blackout. There was no testing the waters. There was no concern for my own well-being. I had no inclination to think that something bad might happen. I thought that this was all good. And this was going to show me what I need. needed to see. This was going to make me who I was supposed to be. And I woke up the next morning

after that blackout and I was soaked at piss and my pants were across the room. They were also soaked in piss. You'd think that something like that would be a bit of a wake up call. Or maybe this ain't all it's cracked up to be. But the first thing I did on Monday morning was go to school and brag about it. Having felt like now I fit in with the kids who I thought were powerful, right? For as long as I can remember, I always had admiration for the kids that seemingly had no rules, that seemingly had no nobody seeing over them, no authority. I thought that was power. I was like, wow, they don't listen to nobody.

They can do whatever they want. And they're getting chased by the cops and they're throwing crab apples at police officers and doing all the things. And that's what I thought. They were tough. They were getting in fights. I thought that's power. That conjured fear inside of me.

And I thought that fear being conjured was power coming from them. Yeah. Take us back, though, Dan. Take us back. So where did you grow up? What was it like for you? At home. Did you have any siblings too? I do have siblings. I was, so I was born in Regina Saskatchewan. I spent the first eight years of my life in a small town called Indian Head

Saskatchewan. And from that point on, we bounced all over the province. My dad was always looking for the next place. And now that I'm older, I can relate to that, always in a hurry to get somewhere, not even really sure why. But I ended up back in Indian Head. And that's where my, that's where my drinking career started. And growing up at home, my dad worked a lot. lot. My mom worked a lot. I don't remember having a whole lot of fond memories of family experience. Of course, there's Christmas and there's things like that. But I remember my parents being tired. I remember my parents laying on the couch and watching TV and making supper and just not having anything left for me. And I don't blame them for that. That's just what I remember. So and my siblings

that I had, by the time I come along, I had half siblings, two brothers and his sister. And they were already grown and mostly out of the house. I do remember at a very young age, my sister and my brother on their way out, onto their own. So I grew up as mostly an only child. So yeah. I moved to what we here in Saskatchewan call the big city of Saskatoon. A big city. The big app. Shiny lights. Yeah. And by that time, I'd done some experimenting with marijuana and stuff like that. And what it happened was like my parents divorced when I was 12 and I remember being in the room and my dad was standing at the door leaving and my mom was standing beside me and they made me choose in that moment they made me choose at 12 years old who do you want to live with with them both standing there

and I chose to stay with my mom for a while until things weren't going the way that I wanted them to go. I had again I had rules I had boundaries and the people that I wanted to hang out with didn't have those things. They were out doing whatever the hell they wanted. And I was mad at my mom for that. Then I thought I would all move with my dad. And then we bounced around and ended up back in Indian head. Wouldn't you know what he had rules too? When I did end up moving to Saskatoon, it was to move back with my mother. And I've been in Saskatoon ever since. But it wasn't long after I moved to Saskatoon that I started selling weed. The world opened up to me in a small town. There's only so many clicks, right? There's only so many places where you can attempt to fit in.

And I didn't fit into any of them. What was that like? What was that like not feeling like you're fitting in anywhere or just not fitting into these social circles? It was hard. I didn't know any other way. I wanted to find a place where I was accepted. And looking back now, I can see that the kids that came from what you might call like healthy homes with stable parents and things like that, I wasn't interested in hanging out with them. I thought they were square and boring and weak. So I did what I had what I thought I had to do, which was get drunk on Friday night, make a mess of myself, like the people I wanted to hang out with. And I thought that was normal. What about the one thing with your folks there, right?

Because, man, it's so common in stories I hear on the show about people who, and later in life struggle with some form of addiction or something that they share that story of divorced parents. And I'm just picturing in my mind here, you're sitting there, the doors maybe open or somebody's going to walk out of that soon. And you're being faced with this decision about who you're going to be living with, at least until you decide differently. Is that how these situations play out? All of them, of course, are going to be different. But it's interesting to me in a sense that it played out like that fast. It was just like, okay, this is it.

And you need to decide right here and now because my bags are packed and I'm gone. That's how I remember it. But I knew that they weren't happy together at that time as as much as a 12-year-old can know. Because there was yelling. There was never any violence that I can look back on. It wasn't happy. So I wasn't entirely surprised. but I was even at 12 years old, I was really surprised that was laid on me.

And my dad was, the door was open. My dad was standing at the door walking out and I was made to choose. So, yeah, I hope that's not how it always plays out. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I'm sure it's, I think like you said to, there's probably stuff going on beforehand and maybe at 12 to pick up on everything. And understand, I think the entire concept of it is probably a bit difficult.

But in that moment, it probably made maybe the. most sense it did. Hey, this is done and things are going to look a little bit different going forward. So you get into drinking at 13, you're like a lot of people refer to it as I'm home. Yeah, I'm home now and things make sense. And the big thing for alcohol too is that, and especially smoking weed too in high school and stuff, is that we're going to find our social group because we're able to connect with people and I was anyway, able to connect with people on that level. We had nothing else really in common. But we could start there. That was a good entry. point other than a lot of my peers were like celebrating their academic success or they were on the

football team or they were on the soccer team and they had their communities and i never i tried out for the soccer team in like grade eight and i was getting in a lot of trouble then to in school suspension out school suspension so i was probably more of a liability than an asset for the soccer team i wasn't a very good soccer player but this is the whole story is that i was the only person to get cut from making the team never forget that my mom picked me up after that day and I just blew, I just didn't even pay any attention to it. I just blew it off. Yeah, it's not a big deal.

But then when I look back, it was like one of the very first times in my life, I put myself out there to try something. Like, yeah, let's see what, if I can make any sense of this. And then it's boom. And it's not, I like how you mention that too about. It stuff isn't necessarily other people's fault. Even with your folks and how things played out, it's not their fault. But the different situations we react inside.

And I think that trauma starts to build. And for me, it started to build earlier. And the whole thing with trauma is interesting, too, because I, for a long time, thought it would be these big, massive events. But then it was like little. Yeah, exactly. But it was what I figured out years later is that it's these little things of rejection. And that was my story of my life. It was rejection after rejection.

And then what I'm trying to get out here, Dan, is that once I found my crew with the drinking and the drugs, I belong somewhere. And I, even though I knew I came from a good home and it wasn't part of my upbringing, I knew it was wrong. But I would rather belong somewhere and do it wrong than not belong and do it right. Yeah. And for me, I had different circles of friends that I developed over. And all basically was built around the same thing. But it was interesting.

I was always the one that was bouncing around, right? I had this circle of friends over here and they grew up together. They are solid together. And then I had this circle of friends over here. And they were always the same. And I was always the one that was bouncing around in between them, right? Because as soon, I felt like as soon as somebody really started to get to know me in that group, that scared me. And maybe it was me having an opportunity to get to know myself is what really scared.

Because for some reason, for as long as I can remember, I've been trying to get away from me. And in Saskatoon, I had more and more opportunities to do that. So when I did manage to graduate high school, that's 53 average. Like I just, I didn't care, man. And the only reason I got a 53 average is because I really liked mechanics. And I got like a 99% mechanics. Everything else was like, whoa, the board. Yeah, is that all it takes in Saskatchewan to graduate high school above a 50?

What is that? What are you saying? Just wondering. I'm just wondering that. Back then it did. Yeah. I don't know what the benchmark is now, but back in 19 or whenever that was all those years ago, maybe they're just like, you know what, Dan, this isn't for you.

We'll see you. We'll see you, Dan. there's the door and make sure it doesn't hit you on the way out. It was the same for me, man, for school. I didn't have one fiber of my body that was interested in schooling. And that was tough, man. That was tough for me because that's what I felt a lot of stuff was based off of. You heard it over and over, right?

You go, you do on high school by junior year. Everybody's applying for college. They're getting accepted at colleges. They're sharing their letters. They're getting scholarships. They're doing well. They're plugged in. And here I am.

But at the time, You feel like just an outsider, right? It just reinforces, I think, what I personally already believed about myself. They're not worth too much. You may as well just my way of acceptance was just being a class clown. I get people laughing and to get people sacrificing my own self-respect and everything else. And that's what you thought was powerful, getting a reaction, right? Yeah.

I just wanted to fit in for sure. Yeah. And if that's the way I had to do it, like, all goes back, I sacrificed a lot of my own character, my own personal things I grew up with learning to just have a place to exist. And then he just felt worse. Where do you go? You got to go to college and get a good job and start a family and live the American dream or the Canadian dream, which however you want to drum it up.

And I just knew that was so far impossibility for me at the time. So yeah, you go through high school, you graduate high school. You're into mechanics, which is incredible. I had a Mustang too. You had a Mustang? A 95. 95 Cobra. 84.

84. Wow. Yeah. What made you think? I look like a 94 guy? No, I used to rent. I used to rent a buddy of mine. He had a 94 cobra, 95 cobra, and I used to rent it from him.

He gotten impaired, driving impaired, so he lost his license, and I was in a really bad spot. So we worked out this deal that I would pay the insurance. I'd pay him 100 bucks a week, and then I would get the oil changed. So that's why I was just thinking of the cobra. No, and I built that thing into a monster, too. Like, by the time I was done with it, it was a twin turbo 315. Winser, fuel injected, intercooled, like, oh, it was crazy, man, by the time I was done with it.

Yeah, yeah. But when I graduated high school, I immediately went to work as a welder. And it was an opportunity that just fell in my lap. Of course, my mom was saying, oh, education and do this. But she also knew the value in the trade. And not to say that there's not education involved in the trades. There's a pile of it. But that's where I chose to go.

And so that's what I did for the next 16 years. I got my interprovincial journeyman when I was 24. And by that time, I'd already started to dabble in harder substances. I'll never forget my first line of cocaine. I don't know if anybody ever forgets their first line of cocaine, but it was one of those things where it felt like I'd arrived. Like, this is it. This is what I've been looking for.

So now just drinking and smoking weeds not enough. Now, if Friday night doesn't include a couple of grams of Coke or whatever, then my weekends ruined and legit, ruined. I would be at home feeling sorry for myself if I couldn't get what I needed to get to be to be where I thought I needed to be. And I never felt like I fit in at the bars. Why, it's interesting to go to the bar. I had to get drunk to feel comfortable enough to go to the bar.

And that's where I'd go like every night of the week when I wasn't working. To the bar. Yeah. And I had some success as a welder. I ended up working up north, northern Alberta, northern Saskatchew. And I even went up to Northwest Territories for a while, working out a diamond mine. And what I'd noticed, and I bought a car, bought a house, things were good. But what I noticed was that when I would go up north, when I would go away from that social life that I'd built,

I wouldn't drink. I wouldn't use. And not because I had to tell myself, I couldn't, not because I was scared that I would have an accident and piss positive and lose my job. I just genuinely did not want to. And I didn't even notice at first. I didn't even notice that I could go up north for three weeks and not use and not drink and not even fantasize or want to. Yeah.

So in 2008, I don't know, late 2007, I met the woman of my dreams. And she checked all the boxes, man. And one of the things that was noteworthy that we noticed between each other was not only were we both successful. We both had jobs. We owned houses. We owned cars. We had pets. We outwardly, we looked amazing.

But we could also use together. There was also that there was that inhibition there in that relationship where I didn't have to hide my drug use from her. And she didn't have to hide it from me. Every night was a case of beer and some weed. And then I was already using meth at this time and unbeknownst to her, like on our very first date. I was high on meth, and she'd never tried meth before. So it just started to get a little worse and a little worse. And then in 2008, I got laid off from my job up north.

There was this massive layoff. And it were so many tradesmen were sent home. And by that time, I'd noticed the pattern. I'd notice, wow, like I can come up here for 20 days and not even consider using it. I'd eat healthy. I'd play my guitar, learn new songs, go to the gym, work like a savage, show up to work, do good work. And when I go back to Saskatoon, it's just a mess. as drunk as I can get as high as I can get as fast as I can get.

And when I was driving back to Saskatoon after that layoff, I knew I was in trouble because not only had I met this woman who was just, like she was beautiful, she was smart, she was compassionate, she was all the things, all the things that you want to be seen around. And her and I just went off a cliff together. I started a welding company. I had some success. And then it just got real heavy.

There was a point where I even tried to mass, methamphetamine production, I got sick of working. And I bought like eight worth of lab glass and thousands of dollars. Like I was trying my best to break that. Oh yeah. Holy shit. If I'd got to talk with that shit, I'd still be in jail, man. Wait. Yeah. Yeah. It comes to that type of stuff sometimes. So what's going on? So at this time in your life, too, had you been in other relationships before with other people? I had, but I had to hide my usage from them. Okay. One in particular where we could drink together on weekends and that was fine. But she's didn't like marijuana. She didn't like hard drugs. So every time I did all that stuff, I was hiding.

And it got to a place where I was like, I was going for walks at night and trying to hide it from her. And in the end, it just did not work out. And not because of just that. Like she didn't leave me or anything. I think it was a mutual break. I don't remember, man. That's, that's off in the ether somewhere. Yeah, but that's hard to keep up. It's really hard to keep things going. When you're doing that, if the other person's not about it, too, you get laid off from the job. You got some extra time on your hands then and things really pick up there. In the mess, too, how? What does the meth use look like? Is that taken number one if you had to go like one, two, three, like the meth is pushing everything else aside?

Yeah. It wasn't long after, after her and I got together that it took precedence over everything. We stopped going out. We stopped communicating with our circles of friends. We stopped. And it was just all about her and I because like we checked each other's boxes, right? Like it was everything that we wanted. We could just have this little life with our pets.

And life was what I thought was good. but then one night and by the way the meth production didn't work out as good as the welder as I was a terrible meth chef

so all of that money was for naught and you know what honestly thank God like what would have happened if I had like pounds and pounds of meth sitting around

yeah that that could have been a whole other problem what did you end up doing with it all do you bring it to Value Village oh yeah you just bring it

to Value Village hey there's decorative whatever yeah put this on your mantle the giant extractors and glass I don't even know

what the hell but no it's just I don't even even really know, man, what happened to all of it. It just depleted itself. And some of the things I hung on to until I got sober and then I took as an opportunity or maybe a ritual to smash it all into pieces. What do you sell lab glass to?

You don't just put that shit on Kijiji, man. No, man. Yeah, that's a good question. I have no idea. So you're getting into a story there about one night. Right. So one night, Donna and I are at home. Oh, and this is Donna, by the way, the woman of my dreams to this day.

And we had a rough patch there and we're going to talk about that. But she hurts her back. And we learn that a loved one has access, has oxycontin for pain, right? Legitimate use for this stuff. So wouldn't you know, we're over at this person's house and we're, oh, Donna's back is so sore. And of course, not knowing anything about the dangers of this medication. Of course he wants to help. So now we have oxy and we love oxy.

We learned that's it, man. That's the warm, fuzzy blanket. Oh, wait, so your back started hurting as well then. Yes. No. I didn't say that. This was all Donna's back that was hurting. And I was just along for the ride.

So you get, okay. Yeah. So you get the, you get introduced. This is your first introduction to anything opiates? A couple times before when it showed up, I would try it. But nothing really stuck. I didn't really need to chase it. But this is a different situation now.

This is, I'm not out searching anymore for the one. I'm not out searching for that, that elusive. social life that I thought was so important. Now, I'm nested in with this woman who I really care a lot about. And we both took a liking to it. And it wasn't long before, before this person couldn't supply us anymore. It's not like they had a massive supply that they didn't need. And before you know, we're out seeking. And what we saw it, we found. And what we thought was oxycontin. And everybody knows this now. We were getting the shady 80s. The green beans. It was fentanyl. And we had no idea for the longest time, too, like years of us using. We had no idea it was fentanyl. We were always getting it from the same place. And even though I would go, man, like these pills are way stronger than these ones and they look the same. And he would say, it's not like they're making them in a bathtub. And I'm like, okay. But looking back now, yes, they probably were making them in a bathtub. Once we found them, that gave me the feeling that I'd been searching for, that feeling of fulfillment, that feeling of meaning, the feeling that everything was okay, that I was comfortable.

in my own skin. And very quickly, nothing else mattered. Nothing else mattered, including Don. I would just lay on the couch and feel okay all day long. Watch Judge Judy. And my welding company burned to the ground. I stopped showing up. And when I did show up, I wasn't doing good work.

And the phone stopped ringing. Yeah. And so you guys both got into it like that. And then the meth and everything else is out the window. This is number one. Yeah, it's interesting how I, in your story anyway, it's things are taking the place of the thing before. What was it like for the meth?

Does the meth deliver that same escape, that same numbness, that same euphoric thing as opiates? It's different. For me, it was like that removed inhibition for me. It gave me the energy to do things. But other than that, I can't really define why we shifted to opioids over stimulants. But it was something that just, it just happened. And the company burnt down and I got a job working for a welding company in town.

And I wasn't doing great because I was using fentanyl on job sites and in the bathroom and all of that. And then one day I came home and something was different. I sat on the couch and Donna curled up beside me. And with all of the tenderness and understanding and compassion that she could, she told me she was pregnant. And that's shocking on a good day for people who are in a good place. place in their life. Like that is a life-changing statement, realization. Now for two people who are heavily addicted to fentanyl and heavily, like we were burning through $1,000 a day on fentanyl. Wow. That's bad news. So we sat with it and we talked about all of the options and the only

option that we could live with was getting sober and being parents. It's the only thing that would let us go to sleep at night. So we tried for a little while and we couldn't do it on our own, like a thousand times before. You get to day three on opioid withdrawal and holy shit, man, buckle up. That's tough. So we ended up on the methadone program. And it worked. I did what it was supposed to do. It took away the cravings. We were able to find some stability in our lives. I was able to hold down a job and show up to work and be a decent human and not be doapsic all the time. And life carried on. Donna stayed home took care of herself. We didn't do any of the work, though. We just did the medication and let it coast. Our son was born happy. Born healthy.

There was some complications at his birth, but that's a whole other story. But in the big scheme of things, he was born healthy. And we went home and life carried on and we're parents now and it's scary and it's hard. And about six months in, and I forget whose idea it was, probably mine, because I was always the instigator and all this shit. I said, why don't we get some cocaine? We're doing so good. Coke was never our problem. And off we went almost immediately. It was one time, then it was once a week, then it was twice a week.

and then it was every night and then it was meth. We started pissing dirty on our drug screens, so we got kicked off the methadone program, and off we went. You couldn't have a urine with drugs in it on the methadone program? At that time, yeah. Oh, okay. I remember I did the methadone thing too. I can relate to 110% though because I went to this clinic.

I went in the U.S. so it was really different. You had to pay $12 a day cash. Go there, they call you in by a number. They had a little speaker. never forget this place. They had a little speaker in the waiting room. They'd call your number. You'd go back. Man, at the time, I couldn't quit. I couldn't quit drinking. And I was doing cocaine too. So I'd have urine with the cocaine in it. But they used to breathalize me every morning when I get the methadone. Sometimes I wouldn't be able to get it. And then I would just have to be sick

because it's a whole, the story behind it's just madness. But it's been interesting how you can get penalized for displaying symptoms of the disorder you're there to get help for. Yeah. I think what they explained to me it was the safety aspect, right? They didn't want to bear responsibility for something happening to me. I get it, but yeah, it is now I think we've come a long way from then and how it was. And this was a private clinic too. They were allowed to make their own sort of rules about who they wanted to be part of it. But the whole thing that stood out to me there is the work, right? Because they had this, they had these group counseling sessions you were supposed to go to. And I just wanted to get the method. And so I never went to these group counseling. Then they'd be

Like, you have to go to him because we can kick you off if you don't. I'd be like, why I have to work? And I can relate to that so much because throughout the program then anyway, and I haven't been really around it now. And maybe things have changed in that sense. But there wasn't really a big push to really do much else. It was like they were satisfied with earning the $12 or getting the $12 every day, sending you on your way. And it's not their fault, though.

When I go back, it's not their fault. They did have something and I didn't even choose to do that. So if they would have had more, if I didn't do the basics, I probably wouldn't have showed up for more. You know what I mean? I just, it was in a tough spot, but I could relate with you that and then to see where it goes. You get back into doing the cocaine and then that progresses quickly to meth. How do you feel when you get? Because this is a tough spot.

A lot of us find ourselves in. We've had some abstinence or something, however we want to draw it up. And then you go back to the way things where we tell ourselves all this stuff, Dan, it's going to be different this time. I'm not going to end up back where I was. I'm going to. We set all these, I like to think of it as a bowling lane and we put the bumpers up. I'm going to set all these bumpers up. I might go a little bit wobbly, but the bumpers are there and I won't completely fall off.

And then we often find ourselves right back to where we were and maybe worse. What does that feel like to go to get back into it and when you start to realize, yeah, we're stuck again? It's a feeling of hopelessness and a feeling of letting yourself down. You said this. It's like the analogy I use sometimes. why is it okay to come home to a messy house? I come home to my messy house and I can live with that. But if somebody else comes home to my house, now I'm feeling guilt. I'm feeling why isn't my house clean? This person's judging me and all of that. That's what I would do to myself when I would fall off.

Why can't I do this? Why? And oh, it's not so bad yet. And then suddenly my whole life is about it again. And at this time, we've got a child at home. That's not a joke. It doesn't get much more serious than that. And it wasn't too long where I'd become unemployable. Like I had sores all over my face. I wouldn't shower. I wouldn't show up for a week at a time with the most ridiculous excuse. I think I milked a flat tire for a week once. I could take a cab to work at the time.

It's like, $10, you can get a cab. But I was like, no, I'm working on this here flat tire for an entire week in Saskatoon, where there's an abundance of services available. So eventually, they just couldn't handle it anymore. I was ruining their reputation. I was being shitty to customers and stuff like that. So they ended up having to let me go. And from there, I'd had enough as far as trying to live a responsible life.

So I turned to dumpster diving. And that's where I stayed for two years. And I had these ideas in my head. Oh, yeah, this is going to be a successful recycling company. And I'm going to get contracts signed with all these big businesses where I'll have exclusive access to their dumpsters. And it's just, holy cow. And maybe that isn't a terrible idea. I don't, maybe it could work, but not in the state I was in.

I'll tell you that much. That's wild, Dan. It's so interesting that I've been thinking about the progression recently, just between my own ears, about how this all takes place. And a lot of the stories recently I've heard this common theme is that we end up in this moderation or trying to moderate sort of phase. And then quickly after the moderation phase, when that fails, because we're not seeking help or support.

Next, we move into this acceptance phase, which is. which I think is the scariest place to be, is to where we just accept that, hey, this is my life. I'm going to be addicted and I am addicted. And yeah, I've just come to accept that this is the way things will be for me. And that's what it was like to in my story.

And when I got there, then yeah, what you just don't see things the same. Consequences just hit. I just got to this spot too. And then maybe you could relate to that about, yeah, I just kind of, I'm just going with the flow. I know this is not right.

I know I could be doing something. else, but this is the way it is. And I'm tired of trying to fight what I know I need to do because I can't move that way. So I'm just going to submit to this is my life. And I'll just try to make the best of it. And that's what I did. And I always like, it was a part of me that always knew that what I was doing wasn't permanent. And I remember lots of times where I would be like heading out to the garage to use or whatever. And I'm still at this time, still living in the house that I had purchased. This was still my home. And Donna was living with me. And I'd be going out to the garage to escape, right?

That's something that I did was I checked out on Donna. I checked out on her. And I'd be going out to the grad and I'm like, man, I got to quit this shit. But not today. And I would, that would make me feel good. Oh, it's not today though, but I do need to quit. So there was definitely like a realization that I was hoping that this isn't their way the rest of my life is going to go.

So the house fills up with garbage. I smashed all the vehicles. And Donna would tell me, don't drive. You've been up for three days. You don't need to drive. You don't even have a license anymore. vehicles aren't registered. Please don't drive.

And I would. And I'd be like, I have to go dumpster diving so that we have money for whatever. And all I was doing was getting enough money to stay up all night and buy the drugs that I needed to stay up all night to get the scrap that I needed to get the drugs to get the to stay up all night. It just was an endless cycle. Yeah. Oh, is that what? So that's what you were doing with the dumpsters then. You did look for scrap metal cans and throwaways.

And copper and electric motors and insulated wire and all of these things. held some kind of value, right? By the pound, 50 cents a pound, dollar, whatever, aluminum, you know, whatever I could get my hands on. They ever ask you, where are you? I mean, some days I did pretty good. I remember this one time I came across this pile of scrap that was filled with copper bars.

I was like, holy shit. And that's what really hooked me. It was that one score. Like that one score I found like thousands of dollars worth of copper and on the side of the street. And from that point on, I was like every night. I was like out there trying to find it again. Yeah.

Did they ever ask you where you came up with all the items from? No, it was early in the game. Now I think it's probably changed a bit because I know a lot of people get pinged. I think the copper yards are like pawn shops. You probably got to show them something now because it became a heavy thing. Yeah, that's so that kind of got you hooked onto it, right, that you could make this happen. And that's anybody, I've always heard this, anybody who struggles with gambling, the worst doggone thing is to win, right?

Because if you get that win, you then you get programmed in a sense to think it's going to happen over and over again. So you're doing this. That must have just been a chaotic existence in a sense. sense? It was. Every night was, it was just desperation. Yeah. And it turned from dumpsters to theft.

And I never really got super heavy into the theft thing. I preferred not to, but like I would be siphoning gas to get fuel for the car. And eventually they all got smashed. I ended up being a welder and having a welding shop in my garage behind my house. I built a little mini motorcycle with a five horse Briggs and Stratton engine. And I built a trailer for this little mini motorcycle. And I just drove it. I just drove it.

I didn't care. Cops would drive right past me, and I swear they looked the other way because I bet you I would have been a pile of paperwork for them. So it's like, it was out of control, man. So I would go and I would do these rounds. And anyways, bad people started showing up very unwell. And again, Donna was like, we have a child at home and who I'd also completely checked out on. It was now two or three years old. And she begged she's down.

Don't bring these people around. These are dangerous people. And I wouldn't hear it. And I got dark, feel dark. On November 30th of 2016, there was a knock at the door. And it was two social workers. And they came into the home and they looked around. They looked at the state that we were in, which was very obvious that we were struggling.

We were both extremely unkept. The house was filled to the top with garbage. And there's a three-year-old little boy in the midst of all this chaos. And they called the police. and the police showed up. They looked around. They had a laugh. They thought this was funny.

And they apprehended our three-year-old son. And I'll never forget when he was walking out the door, I handed him his favorite stuffy, his best little bud from births, always every bedtime, every wherever my son went, this stuffy was sure to go. His name was puppy. And on that day, the last thing I handed him

on his way out the door in the arms of a smiling social worker was puppy. His guardian of dreams. and his catcher of a million tears went to watch over him where I couldn't. And it went black 16 days later after several conversations with the ministry, unbeknownst to me, they told her, you can't stay there if you ever hope to see your son again. And you can't go to your parents because your son is at your parents.

So the two places where she perceived things to be safe, where she saw that there might be a solution to this challenge, had been taken away from her without an alternative. They said, we don't have anything for you, but you can't stay there. So one of the people that had started coming around, gang member, murderer, rapist, talked to her and said, I can help you. You can stay at my mom's house, and I know the ministry, and I know the mechanisms, and I know all the things to do. And without an alternative, she accepted.

And on December 16th of 2016, she left. She left the home to a life on the street, where in immediately, all promises that were made had been revoked. And she ended up in an extremely violent relationship and absolutely horrific things happened. And they didn't stay gone. This person would send me text messages and make death threats.

And there was a night where I was held hostage in the bathroom of my own house with an axe to my throat. And when I had nothing left to steal, when I had nothing emotionally, physically, spiritually left for him to sap out of me, It got quiet, real quiet.

My home was in the last stages of foreclosure. All my vehicles were gone. All of the people I considered friends were too afraid to come over because they were scared of this guy that Donna was now with. Donna had become his property. The heat was turned off in the house. Did you know that if you don't pay your heating bill in Saskatchewan for over a year, they come and take the meter off your house?

They just cap it. Really? I didn't know that. They didn't get a phone call saying, hey, you guys are struggling. Can we help you in some way? None of that. Trade'smen showed up and took the meter off my house. Have a nice day.

So one day, my mom, my mom's been in the addictions field in Saskatchewan. She served for 40 years. And a lot of those years was in private practice as an addictions counselor and a substance use professional. She comes to the door and all of her professional capacity unbeknownst to me at this time. Now, at this point, I'd been like, I hadn't shaved or showered or anything for weeks and weeks. I didn't even take my boots off until I couldn't handle the slimy feeling anymore. I had given up all hope on life. It was just autopilot.

You know what that saying in the program just for today? That was me. I needed meth just for today. That's as far as I could see. And she takes me out for lunch. And I can't imagine how I must have smelled. There were a couple of times where family members would show up at my door and their faces would go white when I would answer

because it was just I was a dead man walking. And she sits me down at the table. And I believe she bought me a beer. I can't remember that clearly. But she starts plotting. She starts scheming with me. She's, Dan, you need to go back up north. Like, you need to find some stability.

You did good up there. You need to save some money. You need to get your house out of this mess that it's in. You need to work with the ministry and get your son back in your life. And all of these things she was saying. And I stopped her. I stopped her. And I said, mom, don't I need to get sober first?

And she went into complete autopilot. This is it. And she reached into her purse and she pulled out a form. And the form was all filled out. She had filled out that entire form. and she sat it down on the table and she gave me a pen and she said sign right there and I did 10 days later I walked through the doors of detox stuff 10 days later I walked through the detox doors that was February 12th 2017 I haven't used drugs in a problematic way since that day wow that was the day that my mom Jedi mind tricked me she made me say it she made me say it she knows she knew that if she said dan you need to go to detox I'd have pushed in so she She said everything except that, and she allowed me to fill in the blank.

And it worked. Wow, that's so powerful to get to that spot. She probably just was over the moon with joy at that point. But that's so true. That's the thing is I heard on one of the episodes, my buddy Pete and I share this all the time because this always comes up in so many stories. The alcoholic, for lack of different terms for right here, only gets sober when it's their idea. And that's where it makes a big difference is that we've got to come to that conclusion ourselves

and get some support right after that. But that's incredible. That's what day was that again? February 12th, 2017, 926 AM was the last drink I ever took. Wow. And what have things been like since? So you go to the detox. So run us through what the heck it's been like since, right? Because in the story there too, your son is apprehended to. Donna's out of the picture. I think there's still the communication there to an extent. It sounds like the other part of it, Dan. I'm sure it goes a lot deeper than that. But the part you shared there, that's intense, heavy stuff. man. How do you begin in the program? And I try not to talk about the program too much. I don't like to end in any way. But they say you got to surrender to a power greater than yourself. And maybe that's true. But in the beginning, I had to surrender to a power other than myself. And I was filled to the top with rage, man, like resentment and rage. Because at the time, I didn't see my part in any of it.

And even if I did see it, oh, I can say, oh, I wasn't there for Donna. I stepped out of the relationship. I could say those things. That was lip service because I didn't feel it. I didn't feel it and understand it at any sort of deep level. So in my heart, I was so angry that she left. And like she was still out. There was no communication between us. She was out.

She was on the street. I would hear rumors of the horrific things that were happening to her out there. And every once in a while, she'd show up in a shelter and things like that. But I basically, I did what I was told to do. I said, Mom, what do I? I don't know how to live. I don't know how to live. What do I do I even, you know, and she says, go here, go there, go whatever, and do all the things that she deal with the ministry and go to meetings and do the things.

And I said, can you buy me a car? And she's like, no. She took me to the pawn shop and bought me a cheap little bike. She said, there you go. So here I am peddling around the metropolis of Saskatoon. And then I'm doing the things, man. Like I ain't arguing anymore. This ain't an argument. It's just, I'm going to meetings. I'm working with the ministry. I got into sober living. So now I'm in this sober living house. and I'm being held accountable. I have to do weekly drug tests for the ministry. I have to do mandatory meetings, whatever, case planning, all the things. I started getting access to my son. At first, it was supervised access. Every two weeks, I'd get two hours. And then it was every week, I'd get two hours on until I'm getting overnights.

And then on July 31st of 2017, I am awarded interim custody of my three-year-old son. And him and I have been walking this road together ever since. I say that I'm in recovery. It's not just me. It's us. We are in recovery. This is a family. And he's seen it all, man.

He's seen it all. And do I regret some of the things that I've said and did in my recovery, in my early recovery? And even to this day, of course. Find a parent out there who isn't guilty about some shit they did or said. But I did the best I could. I graduated the, it was called the Coming Home program, the sober living house I was in. And I graduated it and him and I move into an apartment. And now he's in, I'm a full time single dad.

That became who I am. Look at that young man doing so good in his sobriety, stepping up to the plate for his son. And that just became just who I was. Everybody knew my son, everybody in the rooms. And life was good, but I was still really angry. And looking back now, it was a defense mechanism for me, I believe, because I don't think I ever really stopped loving Donna.

I definitely checked out. And I definitely led her to believe. that I didn't give a shit about her. But it was easier at that point for me to hate. It was easier for me to hate than it was to love. It was less painful to hate. And one day, we come home from a camping trip and her dad shows up. And her dad says, Donna's back.

And you'd think I'd be happy to hear that. Oh, thank God. But I was angry. Because now my identity is being threatened again. The power that I've been seeking all my life, I was starting to find it. I was starting to think, this is it. This is who I am. and now Donna has come back

and now that's threatened. I'm not going to be the single dad anymore. People are not going to revere me and respect me because now I have to share my son and just selfish bullshit. And you know how it is healing. It's not easy. A vicious court battle erupted. We tried to be amicable, but we couldn't meet eye to eye. And a court battle raged on and let me tell you, despite all of the terrible things that I've been talking about today,

family court has been the most challenging part of my life so far. far. I never had thoughts of suicide until family. And that I was even in my addiction. I had never considered suicide until family court. Wow. Yeah. That raged on for two years. And in the end, we both got what we wanted anyways. I wanted drug tests from her and she wanted 50-50 custody. And the judge thought that were both great ideas. But we had two conniving lawyers that decided that making us fight as long as possible would be in their best interest. Yeah. So now we are friends on Fridays. No, not at the beginning. We weren't. Because we have to transition, right? Every Friday, I have to see her now. So at first, it was like very much guarded, very much, just take my son, give him a kiss, see you later, not really talking at all. But slowly that turned into something different where we would have conversations, Donna and I. And we became friends. We would talk to each other about our own struggles and things like that. And we would have supper at her house or supper at my house, usually her house, but she's a better cook than me. And she came back pregnant. So now there's this beautiful little girl in the mix as well. So she's got her daughter and now my son part time and she's doing the best that she can.

And I'm still judging the shit out of her every opportunity I get. She comes into recovery and I'm a staunch program person at this time. And I'm telling her, you got to do this and you got to do that. And if you don't do this, you're not in recovery and you might as well just die and all that fucking bullshit. Anyways, so now we're friends on Fridays. And then COVID hits and she becomes legally the only person that I can see in person. So our relationship started to deepen. And I was, I took a safety course.

I was going to be a safety guy when COVID struck. It's like, what am I going to do with my side? I can't just sit at home and stare at the walls. So I decided I was going to do that. And I got into it and it was terrifying. I didn't think I could learn nothing. I thought my brain was cooked. And a few months into that, the idea came to me out of the blue.

To this day, I don't know what the precursor to this thought was, but it was, you should start a podcast. And I looked around and I'm like, who said that? I barely know how to open a word document. And I'll never forget the day that I was walking, it was like a February morning in 2021. And I'm walking along the river. I've just gotten a little puppy.

And it was a beautiful day. The steam was coming off the river and the skies are blue. And the name came, said Hard Knocks Talks. And I stopped in my tracks and I cried. And I said thank you to whoever just gave this to me. because finally, after this lifelong pursuit of my own power, I had been given this thing. It was just like here, Dan,

like you can use this to make sense and to make use of all of the pain, of all of the struggle, of all of the confusion and the bullshit. This is what you can do with it. And on February 12th, my four years sober, February 12th, 2021, the very first episode of Hard Knocks Talks went live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch TV. And I was home. in real time present. And within a few months,

school became my side hustle. And I graduated with honors. I did good. I'm a safety practitioner now if I ever need to do that. Now I'm not even very big. Like I don't even think I had a thousand followers on Facebook and I'm getting sponsors and I'm getting grant funding.

I'm like, what the, I called this, I called up the treatment center here in Saskatchewan. And I said, you guys should sponsor me. And they said, send us a package.

And I said, what do you mean? I didn't even know his sponsorship back. And what are you talking about? Yeah. Hold on, hold on. Before you get too far,

what did you, what was your first episode? What the heck did that look like? Was it a guest? Yeah. Who's your first guest? His name's Dwayne Cameron. He's a family friend of ours.

He's been in recovery, I think 37 years now and he's an addiction counselor here in Saskatchewan. And it was just like, cringy, man. I look back on it now at the opening. I was like, we're here to take off the blinders around. It was just like,

oh, dude. And the thing, people still go back and watch it. because they hear about hard knocks. Oh, let's go start at episode one. It's like, oh, he's. But you get to see your progress. If you were still, if that was still your production,

then you might say, okay, we got, we got to do a little bit different here. But to see where you're at now compared to then, it's got to be a good feeling. And all the lives that you've been able to impact along the way, one of my favorite things about podcast, it is about doing any of this stuff is because we make the show and we do it all for the people.

But I think I do it all for the people as much as I do it for myself. And I don't know if the people know that about people who do this type stuff. What about you? Yeah, of course. I love doing this. I love having. And another thing about it that I really love is the capacity to build relationships with people

you may not normally have access to. Like the relationships that I've been able to build in doing this. And of course I love it. You have to love what you do or you won't be able to keep doing it. Like I'm going to be coming in February. This will be three years that I've been doing this. Wow. If I didn't love it, there's no way.

And I know me. I know me. If there's something that I don't love doing, I will go to great lengths to not do it. Folding laundry. I'm not doing it. I am starting to do that now. Oh, well, that's good. I'm learning a lot about it.

And God, the story's not done yet. So I know we're running short on time. But so I start the podcast and I'm having success and I'm coming to the end of the school year and my mom's saying, what are you going to do for the for money over the summer? And I said, I'm in a podcast. And she said, yeah, that's not going to work. And I believed her. I did. And I'm thinking to myself, if it doesn't work, I'll just go and pump gas or something.

whatever until I can go back to school in the fall. But I did. I made it through the summer. Like I made it through the summer podcasting and with my kid and I were biking around Saskatoon and we're painting rocks and just doing fun things. Like I'm being a dad. And I got into school again in the fall. And in January of 2022, I looked at my analytics and I looked at the community coming up around me. I think I'd met you by that time. And I was starting to see some grow. Thank you by the way for your help along the way. I want to shout you out for that teaching me how to make a good meme and stuff. that. And yeah, we hate means now, but at the time, how far we've come, how far we've come. But I looked at all of these things and I looked at my bank account and the organization

supporting me and the people coming into my life and I'm like, you know what? I don't need a, I don't need a degree to do what I love to do. And on January 22nd of 2020, I dropped out of school and I've been podcasting full time ever since that day. Wow. Yeah. And it wasn't long after I had done that when Donna was coming over and dropping the kids off and we were having our Friday night thing that we do. And she's, and I don't remember her exact words, but the idea she left me with was like, Stan, look at what you're doing. Look at what you're doing and look at what I're doing. I don't feel like I'm like, the things that I'm doing aren't working for me. I'm just stagnant. I'm not moving forward. And I said, why don't she start a podcast? We got this streaming studio.

And she's like, no. So she did. She bought into it. She's like, yep. Okay, screw it. We're going to do it. And the courage it took her because she is not boisterous. She's coming into her voice now. But at the time, she's not boisterous. She's not like me. And I like to refer to it as the analogy I like to use as, I'm the bumblebee that's like bumping into your window, like trying to get your attention. And she's the ladybug that's underneath the leaves,

like just doing important things that not everyone knows about. So when she agreed to that and she found the courage to sit in this chair in front of these lights and go live, like going live is like a whole other level of courage and commitment and uncertainty. I knew that at that point something was different, not maybe necessarily. just with her, but in our willingness to work together for a common goal outside of parenting. And we sat in this very studio and we worked together that day. And after that day, I said to her,

I've been thinking about it a little bit for a while. I didn't even want to admit to it myself. But I like, I said, this is going to be really weird if we go down this road and we aren't together. And she's like, what? What? And it was that day that that we reconciled. And she brought this beautiful little girl into my life. And obviously herself, again, we've been building a life together. over a year and a half now, building this platform, raising this family, and healing on this road to recovery together. And it's turned into the most beautiful opportunities. I can't even begin to explain to you the gratitude that I feel for the opportunities that are coming our way. That's incredible, Dan. I'm so glad you ended up with Donna coming back into the picture and everything

like that. I think you did that on purpose, probably. The timing, right? It just worked out that way. And the ability to you guys doing the podcasting together and working together and just with both of your stories. So powerful, man, because you've been, went through a lot, like a lot, dude. And I know in this time, an hour seems overwhelming and it seems like a long time. But when you really get into it, an hour is just nothing. We're just scratching the surface barely here for what you shared to and how far you've come and how much you're offering hope for other people and help for other people. And it's incredible, dude.

It's thing, I remember the first time I saw you on Facebook. I don't know how I saw you on Facebook, but you had this studio. and I said, what the heck is this guy got going on? Like, he's got like ESPN slash like CNN inside of Facebook. And I think that's when I reached out and maybe made contact to be like, hey, this is pretty, this looks pretty doggone. Cool for what you're doing. And I was drawn to it and connected.

That's a lot of a lot of work. And it's just been cool to mingle back and forth over the years and how time flies and everybody grows. And it's, yeah, man, I just appreciate you and your support for, me and what I do and just freaking, you know, moving forward and just trying to make a difference, right? Yeah, and likewise, you know,

I mean, we could get all sappy and mushy here if we wanted. We'll spare the audience that, I think. And I just say, yeah, I'm also I'm grateful for the guidance that you've given me now. Maybe I've inspired you in some way, and I'm grateful for that, but definitely, like, the community that's coming up around me and like the people like you, like Justin from the Hope shot, Sonia

Johnson on Quinnstone, like all of these people, we're all coming together and we're all learning at the same time. None of us are doing it perfectly, but we all bring something to the table that holds value. And these people in my life now, they realize that they hold value. And that's a beautiful thing, man. That's a beautiful thing that you just can't can. Yeah, exactly.

Why don't we sign off with this question here, Dan? If somebody is listening to the show right now and they're struggling to get or stay sober, what would you like to say to them? Don't assume you know what your future holds. Do what's in front of you. Be where your hands are. There are things that work, and I know it's hard, and I know it's not perfect. and I know the life's not fair, but be where your hands are, do the next right thing,

and don't put expectations on your future because that will fuck you up. Beautiful, man. I love it, dude. Well, there it is. Another incredible episode, huge shout out. Huge thank you to Daniel Unmanageable from Hard Knocks Talks. Be sure to follow Dan on Instagram and Facebook at Hard Knocks Talks and send them a message if you enjoyed the episode. if some part of it was helpful for you or you could relate to any part of his story.

Thank you again, Dan. What an incredible share. I'll drop all Dan's info as well in the show notes of this episode and I'll see you on the next one.