Sharing Our Stories - Karry Matlock

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[00:00:11] Welcome to Sharing Our Stories.

[00:00:12] We share stories of support for individuals in recovery from substance misuse and mental

[00:00:17] health-related issues.

[00:00:18] There are numerous pathways to recovery, and each week we welcome powerful leaders and

[00:00:22] role models who have struggled in drug and or alcohol addiction, have found a pathway I love sharing and recovery with you. That was sincere. I believed it. Okay. I received it. Thank you. We're bought in. Totally. Thanks man. So it's good to see you back from doing tribes in city. How's everything in Vegas? It's good man. As you know, it's the same thing as when we started in

[00:01:41] Denver.

[00:01:42] It's the same repetitious things.

[00:01:43] It's part of business.

[00:01:45] This time I see it coming because it's

[00:01:48] You're an expert now. So, but there's a definite animal there that the world works upon. So the only way to do it is either you can cry about it and never do anything and just rest on your laurels and sit with a group of people and say, damn the man. Or you can get to know the infrastructure and the man and play in the arenas that would probably make you mad half the time

[00:03:00] or inspire you or whatever,

[00:03:02] and try to figure out how to make things work

[00:03:04] for a person to walk out of incarceration

[00:03:06] or out of a tent or off the streets where you can actually go a different direction. Let's do it now. Let's not wait until you're sitting in a hole somewhere this close to death or been, you know, chronically homeless for so long because everybody just kind of walked over you. And those people need help. I'm not bad-mouthing those programs, but what Tribe does is like, hey man, you still got a fighting shot.

[00:04:22] You can get off parole, you can get off probation,

[00:04:24] you can get off supervisor release.

[00:04:25] You can look at this case, right?

[00:04:26] Let's go ahead and let's look at it frontwards and something that I wanted to point out for Tribe that sometimes I think that message gets missed by people listening and watching what Tribe Recovery Homes does. Mau Hi, I think it's time that we introduce our guest. He is Kerry Madlock from Colorado Springs, and he is, as you heard, a Tribe alumni.

[00:05:41] Congratulations on your recovery.

[00:05:44] It's the only thing I ever graduated.

[00:05:47] Oh, man. to the first drug, which for me was nicotine, and it is a drug. There's plenty of science that speaks to the fact that if you can just really stop using nicotine, that 75% addicts just don't ever return to active addiction. So when I quit, that went out the window too. But I started smoking cigarettes,

[00:07:00] about six, seven years old with my sister,

[00:07:03] and we had watched my stepfather at the time

[00:08:02] the bathroom would make you smoke a pack like me? Oh no, they'd help me down and make me eat them.

[00:08:06] Yeah?

[00:08:06] I had to do a whole pack of Benson Hodges.

[00:08:09] Oh yeah, these were Winchester cigars.

[00:08:11] All right.

[00:08:12] You like them?

[00:08:14] You like them?

[00:08:15] Yeah.

[00:08:16] Let's see how much.

[00:08:17] They turn you green smoke at them

[00:08:19] so you can imagine what they do.

[00:08:21] When they shove a half a pack of them down your throat.

[00:08:26] But, you know. This is your brain on drugs. And it would sizzle and at the end, it would have that guy running from the cops. And at the bottom, it would always say, nobody ever said they wanted to be a junkie when they grew up. You know, and I always thought, I remember clear as day as we sit here, I always thought I'll never be a junkie. You know, fast forward about four years, five years,

[00:09:40] you know, and I was running with all the older cats.

[00:09:43] Well, this time my mother had been, you know,

[00:09:45] incarcerated for, you know. They lured me down to the creek with the promise of some marijuana and some new tennis shoes, you know. And I followed them down there,

[00:11:00] and the next thing I know I'm waking up, you know,

[00:11:03] naked next to a creek, you know,

[00:11:06] split open all over my head. it's the one thing that if you don't get rid of in your life, it'll drag you to the bottom and bring you to the grave. You know, so I toyed around with a few ways to make money, but you know, I was a good carpenter, but I couldn't stay sober enough to adhere to a job,

[00:12:20] you know, so I run into some guys that sold drugs

[00:12:25] and ran drugs on the other side of the border you're a man, but if you don't have anything to judge what being a man or what a good person is on, you really just go with what you know. And what I knew was drug dealers and gangsters and thugs. And so that's what I kind of leaned towards and I thought it would get me out. And it only drug me, you know,

[00:13:41] deeper and deeper to the bottom.

[00:13:43] You know, there's not really too many old drug dealers

[00:13:47] out there that have go through this addiction, it's just they have the avenues and the people that care about them that will tell them to their face, they can help you, there is a place. I remember driving by these meetings

[00:15:02] from Narcotics Anonymous and AA meetings

[00:15:04] and making jokes about,

[00:15:06] rehabs for quitters, You know, I had a pretty good chance at maybe making something out of myself as one. Today, this morning, Mike, you're gonna end up as my cousin, amateur boxer. Passed away this morning. Oh, God rest his soul, man. Alcohol is a man, I just wanna give a shout out to Mikey, the rest of the family, my aunt Delfina, all everybody that's there.

[00:16:20] My cousin Jared actually died within 24 hours too.

[00:16:25] So wanted to let the family me, if you did either one of those things to me, you've got the same reaction to months, you know. And so usually it was a violent one. And so, you know, I had assaulted a dude at a party up at the man of two Mustangs football party. I was in the wrong, but I gave it to him and broke his face in about four

[00:17:41] or five spots and Dickie threw me out It's enough that it gets me up and doing the right thing on the next right thing every day. But the love of God and the love of my children,

[00:19:03] I never ever planned on having kids because I didn't know how to deal with it.

[00:19:05] All of them came along unannounced and unplanned,

[00:19:08] you know what I mean? and pride and joy right there. Anyway, she was about 10 or 11. So by 10 or 11, I had already offended so many times in front of her with my anger that a guy came to the house and walked in and she knew just by what she had heard out of me talking around her that this guy had it coming.

[00:20:22] And I remember thinking to myself,

[00:20:24] Kayla grabbed up all her siblings and her cousins

[00:20:28] and said, come Like, you know, a lot of stuff that we have in common

[00:21:40] is, you know, those things about sports, you know.

[00:21:43] I did boxing, but football was my thing.

[00:21:45] The day that I couldn't play again for a conscious age. And she actually spit on my floor, got out of the car, slammed the door and walked away. And I was so embarrassed by that, I just let her walk to school. You got it. And I had to wait. You know, she didn't talk to me for about a month and a half. And then I finally got the courage to go grab her up and say, hey, but then she articulated it in another way.

[00:23:03] It was a little more loving than the first time.

[00:23:06] But you know, I need to hear good stuff about me. Cause sometimes I forget to tell myself about stuff like that. You know, the stuff he's speaking of, you know,

[00:24:21] that integrity stuff, you know, when I came here,

[00:24:25] I came straight from the me straight out of bed. And it's the first sleep I got in 15 days and I'm looking around and I'm energized and different right away. And I had been praying for, I went to sleep and I called the nurses in like something, I had a knot and the nurses are going,

[00:25:41] we don't know what that is.

[00:25:43] And I'm like, I don't either,

[00:25:45] but am I having a blood clot?

[00:25:47] What's going on?

[00:25:48] I don't do it down here. You know, I lived in that town for 40 years You know as an addict I'm 48, but you know 40 years straight as an addict I can't go outside without running into somebody. I was a dealer as an addict I was a thug so I got a name and not a good one, you know, and so I just I couldn't get straight

[00:27:00] I couldn't get clean. So she sent me to a place called Pathfinder's recovery and

[00:28:01] It's hilarious. I can't do it.

[00:28:02] Yes, I can.

[00:28:03] You know, something's pushing her through the door

[00:28:05] and she keeps on doing it.

[00:28:06] So I'm glad that Jinder's the one that put her hand out

[00:28:08] because that woman, man.

[00:28:10] You can bottle that up.

[00:28:12] Tell me.

[00:28:12] She had heard I was at the 30 day house

[00:28:15] and my bed was jacked and I was in there

[00:28:17] and I was not doing well.

[00:28:18] I felt like I was back in a,

[00:28:20] I hadn't been to prison in 10 years at that point.

[00:28:22] And I was like, I'm not a convict anymore.

[00:28:25] I really felt like I'm not a convict.

[00:28:27] I'm an addict. I give you my word. Even when I was doing that, the only one I couldn't keep it to was myself. Yeah. Yeah. This is how it works out, right? Yeah. You know what I mean? So I told her I'll stay. She goes, give me your word. I said, I told you I'll stay. She said, I said, give me your word.

[00:29:40] I said, Ginger, if it kills me, I will stay.

[00:29:44] I give you my word today.

[00:29:46] She goes, you stay, you're gonna live.

[00:29:48] Here I am. you are and you're hearing this, hear me now, give yourself a chance. You know, it's, I promise you this, everything that you are been doing to get to watch this video, the misery that has been created in second, then I gotta learn how to win. You know what I mean? And I'm gonna fail again, and I'm gonna win again, and I'm gonna fail again, and that's recovery. And that's what's great about taking those street cred, street knowledge, the cred you can get rid of, the knowledge is impeccable.

[00:32:21] You know what I mean?

[00:32:23] Because what you have is you have critical thinking.

[00:32:25] All of us score high on the charts on critical thinking. with misery and you will live in it, you know what I mean? And you will become part of it. And you won't, half the time, you won't even know that you're miserable. You know, you're just going through those daily routines of the misery from yesterday and the fall off from last night. And it's But you can get rid of it. You can throw that bag away. You can come into Narcotics Anonymous and you can admit to everything you've ever done and no one in that place will ever shun you or turn you away. They will give you a hug and ask you back. They'll give you a phone list till you call me tomorrow if you're feeling bad about this,

[00:35:00] you need to talk to somebody.

[00:35:02] And 24 hours a day, you can find somebody on the internet

[00:35:05] to go to a meeting, absolutely. You know that feeling? An hour. You know, yeah, it's gonna, something bad's about to happen.

[00:36:20] It's on its way.

[00:36:21] It's on its way, it's coming.

[00:36:23] You know what I mean?

[00:36:24] And that's that manifestation of that,

[00:36:25] but on the power. You see that, oh hi. You know somebody in recovery's right there. And they care for you. Exactly, she has a group text to everybody, oh hi, or she's a good individual. We love Nani. Individual one, you know what I mean? Then my sponsors and all that kind of stuff that recovery community, that's a whole manifestation of that whole process. Like people don't understand why that community's so tight.

[00:37:41] Like some people that would be normal,

[00:37:43] will be like, why are they hugging each other

[00:37:44] and saying they love you so much?

[00:37:45] It's weird, right?

[00:37:46] Yeah.

[00:37:47] No, that's that, purple, green. We are connected. We are all one. And so we don't get better without each other. And that's exactly what I love about the place. You know, I like to walk in there and I learned stuff from 19 year old kids coming in fresh off the street, fresh off of a hit. And they'll say some powerful knock me on

[00:39:02] the ground. You know what I mean? Stuff. Sorry. I did it all goes away at the top of that, shutting that door and going to the bar and having that one drink or going, you know, going and smoking a joint or any of that. It's all the same to me. I can't use anything responsibly ever again and I know that. Finally, it's coming. I can't do anything responsibly.

[00:40:20] I was telling Nani earlier, yeah, exactly.

[00:40:22] So I've accepted that I don't do anything responsibly.

[00:40:25] I just do it very repetitively and just the way California looks you know

[00:41:41] with the squares in the back you kind of have doors everywhere from the offices

[00:41:45] you invited me to his office and he had this big chest and it was so organized said they didn't get to see me either very much, you know what I mean? So they're gonna get to know me through those notebooks. At some point in time when I feel like I've evolved enough, I will let them share it, you know what I mean? But as of now, I just wanna say one thing too. Kayla, Caleb, Haley, Lacey Matlock,

[00:43:01] your father is so proud of you.

[00:43:04] This is all for you, baby girl, son.

[00:43:07] They say the first year is for us She's the one that picked my rehab from the last time. She picked it on her laptop. So yeah, every time I go get that key tag of mayo gets one. Yeah. Every time. And I got 10 of them for her. That's tight. I have to go on this 11, you know what I mean? So that right there, when people say, I'm doing it for my kids, let's make it clear.

[00:44:20] We're doing it for us so our kids can reap the benefits

[00:44:24] and feel the worth of me handing that to a mayo.

[00:44:27] A mayo knows that I've worked hard for me, So this guy Kenny puts all his money on the table. He's got like $247 some change. Starts clowning him. He still goes like that. And he goes, I'm going to thread the needle on you. He goes, you better be ready. He goes, Kenny, I'll give you one shot. Kenny puts his hands over his one shot. This guy won the Tommy Hern Classic. Like he's got over 500 amateur fights. This is my cousin. But now he's got the beer belly with the West Side backpack.

[00:45:41] Hit him with a five piece, knock Kenny straight out.

[00:45:44] Took his West Side backpack.

[00:45:45] And his money.

[00:45:46] Yeah, and they can

[00:47:01] weigh you down for a minute, you know. If you just do the work, trust the process,

[00:48:03] to be a human being again and not an animal. It's cool though, right?

[00:48:04] Because you know, like how we first started was,

[00:48:06] man, I didn't know what I was doing.

[00:48:07] I had four guys.

[00:48:08] Yeah.

[00:48:09] And we had an apartment.

[00:48:10] I couldn't tell.

[00:48:11] We had an apartment.

[00:48:12] We had an apartment, you know?

[00:48:14] We just put the place together and lived together.

[00:48:16] And then Dan was my using buddy.

[00:48:18] And I couldn't even work with him the first year

[00:48:21] because we had the same mentor.

[00:48:23] And he met me down the road when I got my two year coin.

[00:48:27] And he jumped in Las Vegas. You know, it's another park right there. It's the same thing as in Springs. It's the same thing in Denver. You know what I mean? It's the same communities. You know what I mean? But you know what? That together, that's that spice with tribes about.

[00:49:41] If you look past everything, right?

[00:49:47] The stereotypes, in buses, and doing everything. I could sit there and watch our whole community just rocking it in the morning. Or I could catch somebody that messed up the night before

[00:51:01] and take him back to the house.

[00:51:03] You know what I mean?

[00:51:04] I'm like, call somebody, yo, he's over here, man.

[00:52:04] all of that, you know what I mean? And fell off. But I was always real good at is just always kind of been my niche.

[00:52:06] And so when I come, I'm living in one of Thompson's houses do

[00:52:11] my do my nine months, 21, 22, it was, and I took a just a little

[00:52:17] I just, you know, I never had trouble finding work. But I

[00:52:21] didn't want something where I had to be in a lead position,

[00:52:24] because I had all these other things going on. And I was

[00:52:26] trying to get better. So I just, I'm gonna hold your feet to the fire here, what do you think you're worth? I told him, you know, when I gave it up last time, I was making on my own, you know, if I charged a person an hourly rate, it was no less than 60 bucks an hour. He goes, I'll give you 65. He said, I'll pay you every week,

[00:53:41] I'll take care of your travel,

[00:53:44] and I'll give you an extended stay apartment

[00:53:47] in every city that we visit. I collected them with, you know, they were all smoking pot and my son, he was drinking, you know what I mean? Maybe before I forget, before you get to Hawaii, remember a place called, I wanna give him a shout out, it's called Habilitat, it's in Kona. Yeah, Reno was telling me about that. Yeah, I do people sometimes, like, yeah, you're going to Paradise and they're real pain in the butt.

[00:55:00] You might get them to Kona

[00:55:01] and they're stuck on an island for two years.

[00:55:03] You know what I mean?

[00:55:06] But that place is a working program.

[00:55:08] Oh really? and you give it in and you come to a place that's therapeutic, you know, they sent me to a mansion. I'm not going to lie. I went from staying in my mother's back room of a one bedroom apartment in one of the worst parts of the city to a nine bedroom house with five, five bathrooms and chakuzzis. And it was beautiful, you know,

[00:56:20] it was therapeutic as it comes and you know, just, and not only that, you know,

[00:56:25] you know, if you go there and you put your foot forward and you let the people

[00:57:23] other people and I was working this job like I was telling Tomas and this kid came in chewing on his face at work and

[00:57:26] I went, oh God, I can't be around this guy.

[00:57:28] And I had to go to him and tell him the second day, look,

[00:57:31] dude, you're cool and I like you, but you're jacked and I'm

[00:57:35] in recovery and like, I can't be around you.

[00:57:38] You're too, you're gonna have to go.

[00:57:41] You're getting high, Jackie.

[00:57:44] I can't stand it anymore.

[00:58:45] And so I told him and he's been there and he's got 90 days. I'm sponsoring him. You know what I mean? Yeah, man.

[00:58:46] 90 days is huge!

[00:58:47] Yeah, 90 days is huge guys!

[00:58:49] If you're sitting there and you're listening you're going 90 days ain't nothing. 90 days is the hard part Jack.

[00:58:53] Yeah, 90 and 90?

[00:58:55] Yeah!

[00:58:55] 90 and 90, but it will save your life.

[00:58:58] Yeah.

[00:58:59] You know like if you're just coming in like they say sit down shut up.

[00:59:04] 90 days, 90 meals, 90 cigarettes.

[00:59:07] Yeah!

[00:59:07] That's how they're kind of like...

[00:59:09] That's right, brother. I like that quote. So that's going on my wall. I love that too. That's right. Um, time flies when we're talking recovery and there's never enough

[01:00:20] time to tell somebody stories.

[01:00:21] So I want to thank you for taking your time to be here.

[01:00:24] Anytime.

[01:00:25] Thank you for sharing with us.

[01:00:26] Thanks for having me.

[01:01:22] I used to take her to the job with me and she'd haggle my workers, you know,

[01:01:24] you better, this job looks terrible,

[01:01:26] my dad's gonna freak out, you know.

[01:01:28] You're missing that, you know,

[01:01:29] she'd tell them when she was a kid,

[01:01:30] so I'm so proud of her and I'm so glad

[01:01:32] you'll get to see her.

[01:01:33] The joys of recovery.

[01:01:34] Yeah.

[01:01:35] Yeah.

[01:01:36] Our guest has been Kerry Matlock from Colorado Springs.

[01:01:39] He is a tribe recovery alumni, 20 months, congratulations.

[01:01:45] Thank you guys.

[01:01:46] On the upcoming two years.

[01:01:47] Thank you.