Sharing Our Stories - Michael Carragher

[00:00:00] The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in the following program belong solely to the host and guest and do not necessarily reflect those of this radio station. Our parent company, advertisers or affiliates. Welcome to Sharing Our Stories. We share stories of support for individuals in recovery

[00:00:15] from substance misuse and mental health related issues. There are numerous pathways to recovery and each week we welcome powerful leaders and role models who have struggled in drug and or alcohol addiction have found a pathway to recovery and who thrive as positive community members

[00:00:29] with an ongoing vision of success. Join us as we share our experiences, strength and hope. When the world says give up, hope whispers, try it one more time. Hi, welcome back to Sharing Our Stories. Thank you for being here.

[00:00:42] My name is Slim along with Nani and Tomas Hernandez. And this program is all about addiction and recovery. We bring in folks who have dealt with addiction to drugs and or alcohol and they come in, they talk about that addiction and their recovery

[00:00:57] because we want to share that, yes, we do recover. This program is brought to you by Tribe Recovery Homes. We've got a great guest in but before we get to our guests, Michael C from Colorado, by the way, I gotta say what's up to Tomas man?

[00:01:11] Cause I ain't seen you in, I swear it's at least two weeks. And now you're on the phone. Now you're on the phone. I'm on, I'm on the phone. You're always working. I have to, okay. Before I give Tomas a hard time about being on the phone,

[00:01:24] he's got two phones with him cause he is constantly working for people in recovery. So I give him a hard time about, you're on the phone, you're on the phone. But honestly, like when he's on the phone, he is helping people here in the mile high

[00:01:36] and in Las Vegas too. So stop giving you a hard time. My apologies. I appreciate it. No, no, I was just giving the guys over in Las Vegas my link, they haven't really seen the show of stuff that I do.

[00:01:48] So I just gave them the link so they could check it out. Shout out to T and Matt, Matt did some amazing photos. You met Matt, one with the big beard. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Awesome guy. It's a guy smoker. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:01:59] There was a lot of Patrick and Luigi and all them showed up. So it was pretty awesome to see those guys over there and I enjoy them a lot every day. So mile high, what Tomas is mentioning is we did, we just did the grand opening

[00:02:13] of tribe recovery homes in Las Vegas two weeks ago. Yeah. And how's the first two weeks been? Oh man, it's still a lot of work. Yeah, yeah. So you know the smoke clears and the lights, camera actions done and everybody's kind of feeling like,

[00:02:27] oh now we gotta go to work. So contracts are coming in a little bit better but we have to clean up the gigantic mess that we made. I mean, we had about an average of about 120 to 150 people on average came through. I think we clocked about 375

[00:02:43] that showed up that day coming through. For the grand opening. Yeah, you know, that's just off the shirts that we gave away about 375 shirts. You know what I mean? So 400 shirts, so give or take. You bring that down a couple of people have doubles.

[00:02:57] I got a question for you. What is the first two weeks like in starting a recovery center? You know, this time it was a little bit. What is the work that's going into it? You know, the first two weeks is like when I first started tribe ever

[00:03:10] in the sober homes was just, we were just putting paint on apartments and finding furniture. You know, it's just like, it's the same thing that matches in Vegas you know what the abyss looks like. Are they gonna come? Where are they gonna come from?

[00:03:30] Getting to know the, it's basically the gel of the employees that are out there. You know what I mean? It's getting them to be on deck with each other because we have a couple of people from different states. One from Denver, one from Indiana

[00:03:45] and then we have our family from Las Vegas. So all of them working together. And then we come in and out from Denver it's making that one family as a whole. So it's been, it's been a, it's interesting to watch to keep everybody you know on that page.

[00:04:03] That's a lot of clerical work right now. So what's going on? Yeah exactly. So in the future how many people like when you get your first home going how many people do you expect to help in like the first 90 days? First 90 days I mean

[00:04:14] we have the outpatient treatment center so you know we're shooting you know we're gonna outgrow that space really quickly and we're looking for a lot of therapists. So you know that range I couldn't give you an exact number it's gonna be with at least

[00:04:25] over 100 people that we're gonna serve. Nice. Easily you know intake at least that much. We'll see what the fits are because you know that's also we're a new brand there we're a pre and post incarceration company. So it's not like we're gonna turn away help to people

[00:04:41] but you know we're gonna refer back to the organizations that take some of the different populations that we don't serve. You know what I mean? So you know. And you're serving like you said primarily people that have been incarcerated. Yeah so we're mainly focusing on those vendors

[00:04:59] to send us people you know not just like open up with a sign at the general public and say come in you need. You're not advertising on the strip hey you've got an addiction problem besides gambling come see us. Yeah. We're talking about people that are locked up

[00:05:12] in the Nevada correctional system. Yeah we've been pretty strategic on who our points of entry are. Just like Denver you know. You know what I tell them is like the other day everybody got a little frustrated. I said this is not a Vegas thing

[00:05:26] it's not a Denver thing this is a tribe thing this is a God thing. You know this is we stick to the script we stick to what tribe does. We stick to that we're gonna be okay we start trying to silo it in different states.

[00:05:37] You know this is a brand of recovery that we do. We do it well and that's it that's all this is God's company. This ain't nobody else's company I'm just a guy that has the size of the signature on it.

[00:05:48] You know what I mean we're doing God's work we've picked our lane we're doing it very well and we need Denver just as much as we need Vegas Vegas needs us just as much as Denver. You know so if you get

[00:05:58] you know it's like a it's like any NA room that you're in or AA room or anything like that. You can go anywhere in the country and you feel connectivity right? Because it's the same literature. It's the same concept. The same program. Same traditions everything.

[00:06:13] It's the same thing with business. If you want to have a successful business you've got to have that. Tribe is what you're saying is tribe is gonna be the same in Vegas as it is here in Denver. Exactly you know you don't try to

[00:06:22] expand to California same goal. Exactly you don't reinvent that process but what's great about it is if you go to conference and recovery what we're producing it's about culture. I could walk into a meeting anywhere in the country

[00:06:36] and get a hug and a greeting from the same people that we're gonna do read the same paperwork. It's the same thing everywhere. If I need a cigarette, if I'm gonna go to the same Denny's village in and the same in a different town.

[00:06:49] You know there's a meeting after a meeting. I'm still gonna raise my hand who has more than a year God willing every day one day at a time. You know it's the same concept where we go from and it's a beautiful thing if you keep those.

[00:07:02] That's one thing that's great about a recovery organization is keeping the concepts that I've learned and that's what's made me I believe a good businessman is keeping the concepts of recovery has got me really far. Using that mold in that brand

[00:07:21] that I've been taught to reinvent my life and then knighting that into a business it's second to none because it just keeps everything really simple and you can really concentrate. I think the pathway of recovery is the story of all of our guests that come through

[00:07:40] and where they are today. Absolutely. Before we get to our guests what we're gonna do in just a moment I just wanna say thank you to you Tamas and to you Nani for the work that you guys do with Tribe Recovery.

[00:07:49] Malhi if you wanna learn more about them go to triberecoveryhomes.com. Let's get to our guests because that's what this program is all about. We bring in a guest to share in their story, their addiction, their recovery because we hope that by sharing these stories

[00:08:04] that somebody out there it'll relate to them it will help them, it will give them the inspiration to begin that pathway to their recovery or if you're a friend or family member you can understand them a little bit more and maybe help them be there by their side

[00:08:18] in their recovery. So welcome to our guests Michael C from Colorado. Welcome, welcome, welcome Michael. Thank you for being here. Thank you Slim for the awesome introduction. Really am a little nervous to be here today. Don't be nervous. Don't be nervous. You've got Flamehead right next to you.

[00:08:36] He will protect you. All right, you got Nani right here. So keep me back if I'm like what are you doing? It'll be my common voice in the corner, cool. All right, no this is a real safe environment for you and we thank you for being here

[00:08:47] and we're gonna turn the program over to you. This is your show from here on. Right on. And we wanna thank you for being our guests. Malhi, our guest Michael C from Colorado here on Sharing Our Stories. Awesome man. Well I just wanna actually thank you guys

[00:09:01] for actually inviting me over here to tell my story. Some that I've never done before. But one thing that kept ringing in my head from narcotics anonymous meetings was if somebody asks you to speak, you don't get to say no. So hopefully I wanna share my story

[00:09:21] and hopefully somebody could relate as I once did to somebody else who I heard their story and just a little nervous about it. Just because I don't want somebody, my boss or somebody to hear the, hear something that makes them judge me about it.

[00:09:38] So I just wanna say if you do know me, don't judge me for my past please. Just judge me for what I'm doing in my life today. All right. You know what, Lemmy and I do interrupt just how Slim says.

[00:09:53] I'm known of you and I know your household, I know your kids. There's nothing you need to apologize for. You're one hell of a person, one hell of a father, one hell of a husband and the things that you've done.

[00:10:04] There's nobody in this world you need to fill beneath for the story you're about to tell. I just want the community to know that, that you are the comeback story and there's nobody in this world could validate any judgment towards you. Right on man.

[00:10:20] Put that on the radio, put that right out there. Appreciate it, number love. All right man, well I just, I don't know any other way to tell a story than to start at the beginning and middle and then end it.

[00:10:32] I was born 1989, New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was born to two just amazing parents. My mom, just an awesome, awesome individual just a badass on her own right. She was civil rights activist in her younger years so I always grew up with Cesar Chavez

[00:10:54] and Karki Gonzalez and she always had a big Che Guevara thing on the wall and she was just passionate about it. Environmentalist, she was just a protest kicking uranium companies out of New Mexico for the environment and she just, just all around EMT driver, ambulance driver, firefighter.

[00:11:13] She was just an amazing person man. My dad, equally badass, ran to her in New Mexico. One of the last real cowboys who just like live on the land and sleep in a tent and live in a cabin with no electricity or water

[00:11:29] and just a wood burning stove. So he's an interesting individual himself. I had a really good childhood. I was raised in the mountains of New Mexico till about, till I was about eight. We just hunted and fish, we had chickens, gardens, horses, beautiful land where natural springs

[00:11:53] would just come out the side of the mountain and it was like a little paradise there man. So I mean, I just, I couldn't complain. It was awesome. Around eight years old my parents split up. You know, they just, they couldn't make it work

[00:12:06] so my mother moved to Alamosa where we had some family. Had a cousin up there, some aunties, my grandma and we moved to Alamosa. So we'd go back and forth dad's house in the summers, mom's house in the, you know, in the school year

[00:12:24] and things went on like that for, you know till we were teenagers. That's kind of where, you know, we started stealing my dad's weed cause he was a big old piehead and you know, getting into that whole scene started off with weed. Never really liked it that much

[00:12:41] but I still continuously smoke it for some reason. And then I had an older cousin, his name was Isaac. He was a cool guy, just toxic personality, you know. He'd walk in the room and just life of the party. Contagious laugh and everybody loved him to death.

[00:13:04] I loved him to death. I looked up to him as, you know as somebody I wanted to be, I thought he was awesome but he was involved in pills is what ended up happening. You know, and that was the oxy cotton days.

[00:13:24] And that's kind of where things started to go south, man. I was able to pick up basically a bunch of oxys for next to nothing. I'd go get him to him and he would just love him, you know and he thought I was cool

[00:13:42] and that's really what I wanted, man. I just wanted, I loved the attention. I loved being that guy, you know. It gave me something that, you know maybe I guess it made me feel more valuable cause I've always been a person who's like,

[00:13:59] you know, a little self-conscious man. I'm skinny, you know, I never felt comfortable in my own skin, you know. It just, you know, it's just the way it went. So I started getting involved with them just kind of selling them at first till one day.

[00:14:15] How's the same go? You sit in the barber chair long enough, you get a haircut, you know what I mean? And ended up using oxys. I think the first time I did it threw up, said nope. Never doing that again.

[00:14:28] About two days went by and I did it again. And that initial use, man, I felt calm and I felt whole and everything I said was funny. I was confident, you know. And that's just kind of the effect it had on me.

[00:14:48] It gave me a feeling where I was, you know I think I felt like I figured it out. Like this is what I could do and this is gonna fill all the holes in my life, right? It just, it gave me that comfort. So I did that.

[00:15:05] I fell into pills. I was always buying and selling and moving and I don't think I've ever put more effort into something in my life. Just catalog everything. This guy gets his script on this day. This guy gets his script on this day.

[00:15:19] If I moved this for this much and da da da da da and I could get high for free basically. And it just became a whole, it consumed my life, right? I was in high school at this time. I ended up getting my girlfriend at the time pregnant

[00:15:38] around 18. So and a high school, we're both in addiction kind of together, you know, we were just in it. We're doing it. She got, you know, she cleaned up while she was pregnant. I just kept using the whole time because I'm now so like that.

[00:15:56] But, you know, just the way it went. We ended up having our daughter in 2008. You know, I'd work a job still heavily involved in pills. Kind of have her do the hustling and the running around

[00:16:14] while I was at work and then I'd do the same thing at night. It was just a constant, you know, party man. But I would tell myself, well, we have a place. I have a job. My kid has diapers and formula and everything.

[00:16:30] So I'm not doing too bad is what I would tell myself using through all this. And it was fun, man. It was a party. I just, you know, everybody would come by. I love being that guy. We'd all get high. We'd all get drunk.

[00:16:42] We just chill and having a great time in my opinion at the time. And then it was a couple of years of that. 2000, it was Christmas 2009 Christmas Day. We had actually, we went to my mom's house for Christmas. And my mother was my world, man.

[00:17:08] She was just so such an amazing person. Like I said earlier, I just, she was always there for me. The person I could call if I was ever going through anything, you know, she'd never have judgment on me. She always had the right words.

[00:17:20] You know, it wasn't uncommon for her for me to go over there. All my friends are hanging out with my mom and she's given one of her passionate speeches. You know, she's just a beautiful soul. But that Christmas, she couldn't really wake up.

[00:17:34] She didn't have energy to get up and open presence. And she went to the doctor. We knew something was wrong. And she had told us that she got diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. And about a month later, she died.

[00:17:58] And it just had a profound effect on me, you know, to watch her go like that. And from that point, any fun when I was using, it was gone. I wasn't using to have fun. I was using to numb the pain, you know? Progressively worse, increased everything.

[00:18:25] I mean, I was stopped showing up to work because I was getting so high. I thought I could just hustle my way out of it. I mean, my baby's mother, we broke up because just things went south. I moved back into my mom's house with my little brother,

[00:18:41] who we, I mean, we've been in addiction together our whole lives. You know, we started at the same time and I moved back in with him and we just started hustling. We just started doing, you know, making moves and picking up moving it here and moving it there.

[00:18:59] And we ended up, we were just little kids, man. We couldn't really handle the mortgage of my mom's house. We couldn't, you know, pay the bills properly. We're just too far gone. Things were getting pretty hot in Alamosa. So my baby's mother decided to move to New Mexico

[00:19:21] with my daughter. She wanted to clean her life up. So I said, you know what? Alamosa didn't work out for us. I say we just cut our losses here. I tell my little brother this, let's just cut our losses here and let's move to New Mexico, man.

[00:19:36] We'll start over. We'll get a place in Espanola, New Mexico where, you know, we could just kind of even out and go through, start again basically. It's a low rider town. Yeah, low rider capital of the world. And then the funny thing is about Espanola

[00:19:54] is it's not just the low rider capital of the world. It's the heroin capital of the world. There's more heroin addicts there than per capita than anyone else in the world, right? I did some outreach out there. Yeah, man. So that's where we went.

[00:20:11] And it was just pills at this point, man. It was just oxys. We're just doing that. I told myself, at least it's not heroin. But I think we all know how that story plays out. It just goes at progressives pretty soon.

[00:20:24] We couldn't get oxys and it just turned into heroin. So we just started, well, we moved down there. We had the thought, right, that we're gonna clean our lives up, get our life together. I think that lasted less than a day. You know, we were sick down there.

[00:20:43] It took us about a day to find somebody to sell it to us. So we moved on from that. And we just started going hard in Espanola. Finally, somebody, a friend we were hanging out with was like, man, you guys need to get on methadone.

[00:20:59] I think that would really help you guys out. Woke up one morning, went and got on the methadone clinic and loved it, right? It was just high dose of methadone every single day. I knew that if I had my $10, I didn't have to spend hundreds search

[00:21:16] and time searching for it. I just knew if I had $10, I'd get my dose and I'd be good for the day. And in my mind, you could just use on methadone. You could drink on methadone. You could, you know, it's not gonna,

[00:21:29] you're not gonna die is what I told myself. So that's what we did. We just got on methadone, kept doing that for years, couple years, it brought a little bit of stability to my life because I was able to get a job at Chili's.

[00:21:44] You know, so I'd work and we'd party and have my kid over and everything was like, you know, I kind of felt it was a little bit balanced. You thought you were functioning? I thought I was functioning, exactly. Yeah, I was like, you know what?

[00:21:57] This isn't so bad. I'll just stay on this forever. But again, my baby's mom, she didn't wanna live in New Mexico. So she says, let's, she's gonna move with her sister up here to Denver. And I was like, you know what man, I'm all for that.

[00:22:14] So she moved up here to Denver. I followed with her and same deal. I remember I was crossing the state line at the border and I said, this is gonna be a new beginning, right? I'm not gonna, I'm gonna get off methadone. I'm not gonna use heroin anymore.

[00:22:30] I'm not gonna use anything anymore and I'm gonna, you know, clean my life up. And then that lasted for about a day. You know, I get up here, I started drinking real heavily, real, real heavily. I stopped using heroin, probably just

[00:22:51] cause I couldn't get it up here, you know? But I did away with it. I stopped using that. Living up here in Denver, things started looking kinda good for a while. I was working and then I think I started lowering my dose to try to get off methadone

[00:23:09] and I missed my dose one day. And a friend of mine had said, well, I could get you some, I don't know, some kind of pill or something to take the withdrawals away. And I was like, all right, we go to his house

[00:23:22] and they all bust out meth, you know? And everybody just starts using meth. Think I tried it, you know, I had done it before but I started using it at that point. Hated it and then about a week went by, you know?

[00:23:39] Called him back up, amen, can you get some more of that? And it just, my addictive personality, I just like to, you know, go from one thing to the next. If I wasn't feeling high enough, I just wanted to get high on something.

[00:23:54] The thing about the drug community is it's real, it's real welcoming, right? It's easy to make friends. You could just go around people and you have that in common and all of a sudden your buddies and I had a little friend base that I didn't have in Denver.

[00:24:10] All of a sudden just became my little meth friend base. So I was living in my apartment, still going to work every day, getting high at night and I was able to function decently well when I was just on methadone in heroin.

[00:24:27] But the meth, it really, you know, it put my mind for, it put it in a spin. People in work started noticing, started screwing things up and being late every single day and finally they had enough of it. Just, I just ended up quitting.

[00:24:49] But I'd go home and still had a house full of meth addicts starting to trap out my apartment little by little. You know, I had some friends, they had about 13 stolen cars in the parking lot. Started selling it at that point to try to support my habit

[00:25:06] and pay my bills and everything. I mean, it just went really south during that time. So I ended up moving out of that apartment. I got another place, just kind of like an in-house drug dealer at one of my friend's house. She let me stay there for free

[00:25:25] and had a good little routine going where I would just sell enough to get high, buy my, you know, to make a little money and get high. And then I met Melissa. She, I don't know if she wants me to say it too much.

[00:25:44] She was my drug dealer, right? She knew it was coming. She knew it was coming. All right, yeah. And she, I mean she- That's your wife. That's my wife. Bing, bing, bing. That's my wife, yeah. Dun, dun, dun.

[00:26:01] Yeah, but for some reason she thought I was pretty cool. I think she pulled up with like a mutual friend of ours. And I had asked her, the mutual friend was big into stolen cars and I didn't like that kind of sh**.

[00:26:13] So I was like, is this a G-Ride? You know, is this a G-Wip? And she was like, no, this is my car. And I was like, okay, cool. I guess she thought, you know, that guy kind of has a little brain to him at least.

[00:26:24] So we started hanging out. We started, you know, staying in hotels and doing the whole hotel thing. You know, selling drugs in hotels and this, that and the other. And I'd have my kid sometime. She would have her kid sometime.

[00:26:39] So we try to butter up and get a better place and get five star hotels. And we try to paint this facade, right? That we were decent parents and we're just going through some tough times. And you know, we keep it pretty low key around the children.

[00:26:52] But I mean ultimately all we were doing was just running a muck. And it got, you know, it got pretty bad. I ended up, we were at a hotel and I go to do a deal in the parking lot. And I sell to this chick.

[00:27:13] She jumps out the car. I jump out the car and just 14 Denver police officers walk up to us. Just turns out that they were doing stings that day at all the hotels around that area. So I get to go to jail with about 90 other people

[00:27:27] and sit in the holding cell in Denver County for, you know, I think it was like 36 hours straight. Thank God that that happened by the way. I'll tell you guys here a little bit why. But yeah, I got popped. I got on probation.

[00:27:42] That was the first time you got... That was the first time I got popped doing something major. You know, I'd been to jail before man. I got, you know, a bunch of warrants for, you know, stealing, boosting, little things like that.

[00:27:55] And kind of just kind of been able to skate away without ever getting any, you know, serious felony charges or anything like that. But that one was serious. That was a serious felony charge for distribution. And I mean, one of the times

[00:28:13] this kind of plays into the story, but one of the times I was in jail, I was sitting with a guy in there that I knew. And we're talking about so-and-so, man. He's just messing up. And so-and-so is just doing bad. And so-and-so was doing really well

[00:28:26] until he started getting high again, you know. And we were just sitting there. We came to the conclusion, man, that... It's such a simple thing. All you have to do is stop using drugs, right? If you just stop using, it sounds like a simple task,

[00:28:44] but it's so hard and complicated for somebody to actually achieve, right? And that was, you know, one time and that plays into the story in the future. So I ended up getting popped in Denver, and I got put on probation. And we ended up getting a house.

[00:29:04] Thank God we got out of the hotels. We ended up getting a house and Melissa got pregnant, right? And then once again, you know, she was able to just stay clean and cause I'm a dirt bag, I just stayed using, you know, the whole time.

[00:29:20] We kind of searched out a house in Swansia, you know, with the mentality of, oh, people don't call the cops in Swansia. It will be good to kind of conduct our business there. Just silly way of thinking. That's what we did. And then Melissa had my daughter, Lily,

[00:29:41] beautiful little baby. She was just an amazing kid from, you know, from birth. She'd just smile all the damn time. She was just so happy. And drugs and relationships, man, they just never mix, you know? So me and Melissa, we started fighting a lot

[00:29:59] at each other's throats every minute of the day. And it just got, it got really bad and dark. She, well, she had enough of my sh**, I think, you know, and she kind of just gave me the boot. But right before she did,

[00:30:16] she ended up getting caught on some old warrants or something and she ended up in jail. 30, for 30 days. Right before she went to jail, we hadn't paid our light bill in a couple months. Power got shut off.

[00:30:32] We were behind on the rent, so we were looking at eviction. And all of a sudden I'm stuck with, you know, this beautiful little kid with no lights, no rent, you know, nothing in this depressing house, you know, sitting here hooked on drugs

[00:30:49] that I cannot stop using, you know, to save my life. I'm on probation, he's telling me, you know, you got to stop or you're gonna go to prison. And I couldn't fail to have a UA, dark house, no rent paid, Melissa's in prison.

[00:31:10] And I have this beautiful little baby. And for some reason, man, she's still smiling at me. You know? It's just beautiful little soul who loves me to death for reasons I can't even fathom that at that point I said, I don't wanna do this again.

[00:31:24] I don't wanna put another kid through this. I gotta do better for myself, you know? I just have to. Still wasn't the end of my run. Still, you know, went out, Melissa ended up getting out of jail, you know?

[00:31:41] And she said, all right, man, you got to go. Took my backpack. Put all my stuff in a storage shed up in Thornton. I had like two boxes and a duffle bag left my name after it was all said and done.

[00:31:58] Went to my house and I'll never forget it. My probation officer called me and he's like, all right, October 13th, you got to go to rehab. There's no other option, that's where you're gonna go. And I was like, all right, let's just, whatever, let's do it.

[00:32:15] So it was Friday the 13th, October 2017. And my buddy said, he's like, man, this might be the last time you ever use, you know? And in my head I had been using every day for 14 years. Maybe if you don't count jail time, maybe seven, 10 days clean, you know?

[00:32:37] So I've been on something every single day for 14 years. In my mind, I couldn't fathom what sobriety was like. I couldn't, it just didn't make sense to me. You know, so when he said that, it was kind of a depressing thing

[00:32:54] because I felt like, and I don't think this is it. So Melissa, cause she's awesome and we were even going through all this stuff. She still came and picked me up and took me to rehab. And I probation officer said, get there at 1030.

[00:33:12] If you're not there by 1030, you're going, you're done. So I got there exactly at 1030, you know? Walked in with my duffel bag to TRT at Denver Cares. And I was, you know, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't have any faith in rehab.

[00:33:30] All my friends that came out of rehab, they ended up just getting high again. I kind of had this vision in my head from watching like celebrity rehab when I was a kid. You know, they go to like some nice cushy rehab, you know?

[00:33:45] And it's like has pools in it and things. That's kind of what I envisioned in my head. Palm trees. No, palm trees, right? Yeah, they all sit and smoke in the corner, like talk and like have that little affectation of their voice.

[00:33:58] That's how I had it in my head, right? And like, it's not that. At Denver Cares, it's half, it's half detox. Denver scares. Yeah man, it's half detox, half rehab, right? So it's a transitional thing right then and there. You're walking in, you see all these drunks,

[00:34:23] you hear them banging on the walls when you're in the street or when you're in, when you're trying to sleep and they're in the drunk tanks. Boom, boom, boom, you know? It was pretty intense. So thank God that's where I got sent

[00:34:38] because that's actually, that's exactly what I needed to see man. I walked in there, I slept for two weeks straight. I was so just, you know, my soul was tired and I was just malnourished and everything that goes along with it.

[00:34:55] And I would just sleep, I'd wake up, I'd eat, I'd go back to sleep. My buddy that I went in there with man, he shook me one day and he's like, bro, you gotta start coming to these meetings because if you don't start coming to these meetings

[00:35:08] they're gonna kick you out. You have to do them and get a signature on it. All right, whatever. So I started going to these meetings, right? A, A, N, N, A and C, A. It was only 20 feet from my bunk and just showed up there.

[00:35:24] And some profound happened like, I just, you start hearing, and it sounds cliche, right? But you start hearing all this stuff. Keep coming back. It works if you work it. You know, I had little faith in rehab but these people are saying that it works.

[00:35:45] If you work it, what does that mean? How do I work it? You know, well, you gotta do this, this and this and this and this. Yeah. So I just, the repetitiveness, I'd show up there every day. Somebody else would say some impactful things.

[00:35:59] I'm like, you know what, maybe, maybe this will work. And then some guys showed up. He told basically my same story. And I saw him leave in a Corvette, you know? And I was like, there's no way, dude.

[00:36:14] And you could tell he told the grimy side of life, you know, stuff that I've been through repeatedly and he rolls off in a Corvette. All right, let's give this a try, right? So started going to meetings every single day. They said, what do you,

[00:36:33] they said, well, you do 90 and 90, right? I said, what's 90 and 90? You do 90 meetings in 90 days. I was like, no, I'm not gonna do 90 meetings in 90 days. You know, you break it down, you got so many hours that I used to dedicate to my addiction every single day.

[00:36:53] I could put an hour aside each day for my recovery, right? So I said, all right, I'll do that. I went and got a sponsor. My sponsor, he told me, do three things, show up for work, show up for your family and show up for your recovery.

[00:37:12] All right, keep it simple. Just do those three things and you'll be all right. I was like, all right. And I had to learn to dumb myself down a little bit to accept that I didn't know anything. You know, I became Forrest Gump,

[00:37:24] you know when he's getting yelled at by the drill sergeant and he goes, what is your sole purpose in this army, Gump, to do whatever you tell me to, sir? That's what I did. Whatever you tell me to, man, I'll do it. And that's what he did.

[00:37:38] I just kept it up. I heard this guy say once, he was like, when I got clean, that same guy in the Corvette, he said, when I got clean, man, things started lining up for me, right? They started just lining up over a little bit of time

[00:37:58] and my life just, you know, I don't know how else to say it, then things lining up. And I remember thinking, yeah, maybe happened for you, but it's not gonna happen for me. I don't have that kind of luck.

[00:38:13] So I got a job right across the street selling AT&T tele-sales, I hated it to death, but it was a job. I had to wake up at eight o'clock in the morning, which was extremely hard because I couldn't get up before noon, you know?

[00:38:27] So that kind of broke me into it a little bit. And then I started thinking kind of about my future, you know, like, well, I don't wanna do cold calls AT&T anymore. I don't wanna work at Chili's and I wanna work, you know, warehouses or whatever.

[00:38:41] And so I was smoking outside an AA meeting and I kind of just mentioned, man, I wanna get into welding or something. And somebody, they're like, here, it's a free welding class called these people, right? Things lining up. And called the welding class.

[00:38:59] They said this is no welding class at all. I was like, all right, well what is it? They're like, it's pre-apprenticeship class to get into your electrical, your pipe fitting, sheet metal or plumbing apprenticeship. I said, cool, let's do that.

[00:39:16] So I went and took this one month class where they taught me all the basic math where I hadn't been in school for 10 years. I didn't remember any of it, even though it was decently good at math. They taught me that we go do,

[00:39:29] we do a little electrical one day, we do a little pipe fitting one day, we do a little plumbing one day, we do a little sheet metal the next day. And it was awesome. And then you get to pick which one you go into.

[00:39:38] So then I went and I showed up, apply, I finished that class on a Thursday. I went and applied at the electrical apprenticeship on Friday and then I had a job on Monday, and just went through it, man. Love it. It was so awesome.

[00:39:57] I couldn't believe that actually happened for me. I just, the feeling I had just walking into that first job site, man. It just seems like something real basic. But to me it was like, I was playing Kevin Gates, that song came up.

[00:40:14] Just felt like I came up in the world. I was just strolling in there. You know? On the bus, had this raggy tag little thing of tools. I don't have my license at the, I don't have my driver's license, which was a requirement to get into the apprenticeship.

[00:40:30] But I was like, man, I'm gonna try it. What are they gonna tell me? No, I could take no. I went and slapped my ID on the counter. Cool, welcome in. You're an apprentice now, you know? Lining up, right? Everything lined up.

[00:40:46] I walked into that first job site, man. And I just, I felt awesome, right? Not making much money, but I just knew it would go somewhere. My bosses, they didn't really like me at first. They're like, this kid's on the bus. Nobody takes the bus to these places.

[00:41:01] You know, he got some ragged tag little thing of tools and I just didn't let anything get to me. You know, if you need something, I'm on it. You know, if you need this, I'm on it, you know? I get there half hour early every day

[00:41:13] because I never wanted to be late. So eventually they started saying like, damn, man. Mike's eye, you know? He's cool. Desperation is the best power, right? Isn't it though? That gift of desperation, man. I just, I didn't, I just wanted to do better, you know?

[00:41:29] And just, once I got better, man, I said, this is how I'm gonna live. You know, this, I have to stay clean to live like this. And I did, man. I got into school. I was always really smart in high school and it's one of my biggest regrets

[00:41:45] to not apply myself, right? In school, I was great at it. And I would just do enough to pass my classes without even trying. If I would have applied myself, I probably would have got a lot farther in life. So the second time around, I said,

[00:42:01] I'm gonna apply myself to school, you know? I didn't miss any classes for like three years. I did my homework. I did it honestly, asked the teacher questions. I show up to every single class, you know? I was just, you know, I just made myself a promise.

[00:42:18] I'm not gonna mess up like that again. So we're working through school, working my job. And Melissa, she, you know, starts to notice that I'm not kind of just a, you know, little anymore. And she would come and drop Lily off in my apartment,

[00:42:39] you know, and, you know, so I could spend time with her. And, you know, we were kind of doing that little thing. And even though we couldn't stand each other a couple of months before that, you know, it just everything just rekindled, man.

[00:42:53] And, you know, she had been doing really well in her life and I had been doing really well in my life. And it just, we just reconnected, man. And it was on, we just, I left the mild apartment. We got a new place with, you know,

[00:43:08] we had it because we're horrible renters and whatnot and evictions, we had to find like a, you know, really call it private owner or whatever. Yeah, we had to find a private owner and maxed out. We got this massive house that we could barely afford

[00:43:23] and we're just sitting there scraping by, you know, and so broke as a first year apprentice that I, I had holes in my socks. I had a hole in like my big toe, right? And then my other sock had a hole in the little toe.

[00:43:37] So I just put them both together so I didn't have to have any holes in my socks in the cold, right? I put pajamas on underneath my, underneath my, underneath my clothes because it was just so bitter cold. We were working outside and, you know,

[00:43:52] it was just a rough go at it, but I was just determined. I was not going to quit, man. And then second year rolls around, I got a little bit of a raise, you know, third year rolls around a little bit of a raise right around third year.

[00:44:08] You know, as a third year apprentice, I started making a little bit more money and I remember my friend, we were talking about stocks, right? He's like, I invest in this and I invest in that

[00:44:21] and I just bought a house and it kind of just dawned on me how everything switched, right? It just, the people around me, like you're talking about stocks. You're talking about owning a house and this guy just went to Europe and da da da da da da da.

[00:44:37] You know, and just my circle around me had just elevated, right? And it just, it blew my mind. I'm like, I can't believe I'm sitting here in these kind of conversations with these kind of people. You know, it just, I just never would have thought it.

[00:44:52] My buddy, he told me, man, you need to invest in this Dogecoin, right? It was like a third of a cent, right? Things lining up. I bought like $10 of Dogecoin a couple years later. It was worth or like a year later is worth like three grand, right?

[00:45:09] On $10, it was insane, right? Boom, took the three grand, put it down on a down payment of our first house. It's just, it's great, man. And that's where we're kind of just sitting today. I have a house, I have my kids.

[00:45:29] I mean, you know, we got Melissa brand new car. I'm about to get my license back. I'm able to go get a truck and that's just the side effects, right? That's not what I'm solely after. That's just been the side effects of my recovery, you know?

[00:45:44] The real prize here for me is I have my family and I'm able to provide for them and I'm able to give them a good life. You know, one that I never really had, you know? I just, I get to play with my kid every night.

[00:46:01] You know, we do this, we just, we just invent these silly little games where, you know, I'll roll across, we got a Cali King mattress, right? And I'll just roll across the bed, like a log and she'll just jump over me. Right?

[00:46:15] And she's just gotten so good at it that I just end up rolling back and forth for like, you know, hours because she's just so good at jumping over me. So I had to invent this other thing. It's crazy blind tiger

[00:46:27] where I just kind of close my eyes and then snatch her up in body slammer, right? I'm like, yeah. And I'm telling you, I don't have, that's like one of the most, it's like one of the most joyous things that I've ever done, dude.

[00:46:41] You know what I mean? We sit there and we laugh and she just has a great time. I just fill in my soul like, you know, this is fantastic. You know, this is a peaceful, beautiful life. And that's where I'm at. Peaceful, beautiful life.

[00:46:59] Yeah, peaceful, beautiful life, man. And that's where I come in. That's not to say that, you know, I haven't had to face any hard times in recovery as well, you know? One of the things that happened just a few months ago, my brother actually passed away

[00:47:18] from a hit and run in Alamosa. And I mean, it rocked me down to my core. We're always so close. We're all a year apart, you know? And I had to kind of take on the lead of everything. You know, I had to go down to Alamosa.

[00:47:40] I had to plan his funeral. I had to speak at his funeral for his eulogy. You know, it was just, it was something that was real rough but it kind of made me, I'm glad that I was able to at least do that for him. You know?

[00:47:56] Clear eyes. And I was able to be that person, you know? You know, we talk about it in tribe and just in general. Your recovery is your superpower. Anything can happen. The whole world could crash down on you. But as long as I'm sober and I'm clean,

[00:48:15] nothing can beat me. Yeah. Because I'm gonna figure it out. If I got a clear mind and clear shot. Yes, sir. I can sit down with concepts. I could call somebody in recovery. I could think about it and I make a plan. I'm gonna be okay.

[00:48:29] You don't matter what happened. Right, there's nothing I can't handle. You know, if I lost my job tomorrow and if I lost my house tomorrow and if everything just fell apart, there's this feeling where I don't have problems. I have situations, right?

[00:48:43] And I could handle it no matter what. I just have to stay clean. So, you know, going through that was, you know, it was so rough and it was hard. But I didn't use. I'm proud of you on that, because you know, everybody was pulling for you.

[00:48:59] You know, we're, everybody listening, we're pretty close with Mike and his wife. Actually, his wife is my prodigies. She took over my whole organization. Yeah, she's top dog at Tribe. The top dog at Tribe. And she's, you know, she's, they make it look easy,

[00:49:19] but the things that they would have to share that they've went through to get here took an amazing amount of hard work. There was not an inch of days off in that whole household to get there. And that's why we really enjoy Avenue on here.

[00:49:36] So people in recovery and the people that are listening understand that recovery is not just you get things. You got to be able to work hard. Right. You know, being an electrician is not easy. It's not easy. You know what I mean?

[00:49:49] Working for me is definitely not easy. Things definitely fell into place. For you, things fell into place, but they did. But I mean, I keep thinking, I wrote it now when you said your sponsor said you got to show up for three things,

[00:50:02] for work, for your family and for your recovery. And everything you said after you mentioned your sponsor saying that to you involved you showing up for things. You stand by that still to this day. You show up for things. Show up for things. Yep.

[00:50:18] And also your actions are the ground you stand on. Right? So it's, what are you doing? You know, people, nobody's coming to save you, man. You have to show up. You have to stand up. You have to beat the concrete. You have to go get it. Right?

[00:50:35] Nobody's gonna just, nobody's here to save you, man. You got to- We lost so much time using it. We broke so many hearts. We put a lot of family members on ledges and dropped them on their face. Right. And nobody trusts us.

[00:50:46] Still to the day, to the day, I will get stigmatized eight million ways this Sunday. I thought it was over, right? And then I walk up into Vegas and nobody knows me. And they reboot it again. Like I'm just this tattoo headed Mexican coming around.

[00:51:05] Like, you know, I feel like I got to walk around with my discovery and my audits from Medicaid with me. You know what I mean? Lysa, you're like, look, I got a picture with this such and such, you know? But no, I don't. You know what I mean?

[00:51:16] My work is gonna speak for it. And that's the way it is, but- Right. That's just a testimony to every day. And so the stigmatization of us is addicts in recovery with mental health and the way society views upon the people

[00:51:32] that have the issues that we've had in the past. But that's okay. If you're okay with embracing it and every day showing up is just like that tool bag. It's just like taking the bus. Cause you know what? People that don't really understand about apprenticeships.

[00:51:45] A lot of us don't even get the shot. They'll tell you to, they'll turn you around just because you don't have a license. That won't even let you take the bus to the site. You know what I mean? And that was that blessing like how everything lines up.

[00:51:58] Especially getting it from Denver scares. Like that place- I tell you what. We'll send you to, everybody will send you to Denver cares if you don't want to just wise up. Like, all right, we're dropping you off at Den. Do you want to go to detox?

[00:52:09] And we can take you due to a detox. Yeah. We're gonna take you to the iron doors. Well, I think if you don't want to act right. It was great for me, man. Cause I'd see, you know, I mean, you see these people, you know, and they're just,

[00:52:21] I hate to say it, but some people just seem too far gone. They just their wet brain that can't speak. They, you know, it's bad. And I would sit there and think, man, some of these people were exactly where I am today. That's my future.

[00:52:38] If I don't get my life together. Yeah. And yeah, jumping back to the apprenticeship, man. So like I started studying, like I said, I said I was going to give it my all this time. I just actually finished school five year apprenticeship in May during my last. Congratulations.

[00:52:58] Thank you. Thank you. During my last couple of weeks, I was sitting in class and I get a text message from the, from the teacher and he goes, hey man, I just want to let you know you're in the running for the Kennedy award.

[00:53:12] Right. Kennedy award is the valid, valedictorian, you know, of the class. And he said, just do your best on this next test, man. I just want to let you know this is a great achievement. I was like, I never fathomed, you know, that I would,

[00:53:25] there's way, there's people way smarter than me. I don't even compare, you know, and that I was even in the running for it. That's awesome. Yeah. So I did, man. I slayed that last test and he came up to me and goes, hey bro, you got it.

[00:53:41] So turned out, top of the class 2023 from the DJ EATC training center. Yeah. So does that make you officially an electrician? Oh, I was officially an electrician before that. Yeah. You know, I got graduated to class. Right. I got, I got my license for it here. Right. Okay.

[00:54:00] Yeah. Officially done. You're a master, you're a master electrician. That's next. That's next. That's the next license is master electrician. Yeah. Master license. You can install the bath fan in my bathroom. Come on, bro. You're hired. I've been doing that. I've been doing that.

[00:54:17] I've been doing the cameras for tribe, man. Yeah, man. Oh man, those are. I don't do cameras. I just show up and I figured it out. I was like, oh. That's what we do with the whole thing, man. That's why I got Melissa there.

[00:54:29] Cause now, now they ain't gotta like, I gotta call them extra and wait, I'm the Mexican. I gotta call myself. Me and Dan, we had to put that stuff together ourselves. Now it's Melissa's headache. Like the other day she was like, can I, like don't even ask me.

[00:54:41] You're the boss. Go ahead. It's all you, all you buddy. See you later. Michael, you got anything you wanna share with somebody who might be in the first steps or their recovery or thinking about a recovery or suffering in their addiction? Well, I do. I don't know.

[00:54:57] I'm not trying to sound harsh or nothing, but it's my firm belief, right? It is not okay to waste your life on drugs and alcohol. It's not, it's unacceptable. And I'll tell you why it's unacceptable is because the massive amount of untapped potential

[00:55:16] in every single person out there that's wasted, right? I mean, it just, it's not okay, right? Like look at this man right here. He got clean and he built an empire. They should have murals of you downtown Denver, right? Probably in a couple of years, you know?

[00:55:34] You're like the Cesar Chavez of Denver, bro. You're helping the community elevate themselves, right? And bring up people from this addiction. Thank you. And that's what I would like to broadcast to people, man, is just get clean. Your family will love you. You know, you will love you.

[00:55:59] Your life will be better. You know, you'll have peace. You know what? That was the last thing that my dad said when I was high. He says, not okay for you to waste your talent. Yeah man. Talked about the farm because we have a similar life

[00:56:12] that my dad came from the farmlands. And he was like, I'll work my tail off to get you here. And it's not okay for you to be who you became. Right. I'm not gonna put up with it any longer. Yeah man.

[00:56:26] You know, that was all I needed to hear from a man like that, you know what I mean? And that's, you know, maybe our listeners right now can hear that, that it could resonate from you because it's really not a, from a place from sternness and being mean.

[00:56:39] It's a place from love. I do believe that's where you're bringing that from Mike. Yeah. It is. It's not okay to waste your life out there cause you've got so much potential out there. You know, like Nani Slim Ginger that's watching, Ginger's amazing man. She's, that girl's magic.

[00:56:58] Magic. Telling you, you know, the people that are in that, in that office just do amazing, amazing things. I could list off so many people in their hobby. Man, you know, Russ, Jeannie. Jeannie is just something off the chains. I mean, literally our computer record systems

[00:57:22] are gonna beta max off of our company because of what her and Ozzie have done in the last, we've only been with ECW for like four months. They thought we'd been with them for years and they're beta maxing off of what Jeannie's put together on that, on that.

[00:57:38] And that speaks to what you're saying. You know what I mean? I have no idea what you're under. What this means is that- Oh, it's gonna fall around too. So check it out. So like when you have a health record system, right?

[00:57:48] We changed it to a health record system. Jeannie is our data person that works under our clinical director. She has done so many different things with this program to make it streamlined and work so good that the actual developers of that programming has called us

[00:58:04] to beta max our model and our ideas off to make their programming better. You're a leader though. He just said you need a mural downtown. But that's Jeannie's work though. The whole crew, the tribe recovery mural needs to be coming down. All you guys. Yeah, it's crazy.

[00:58:22] Time has flown by. And I hate to say that we have to wrap up but that is where we were at. It is time for us to wrap up. And I wanna first say thank you so much to Michael C. from Colorado for being our guest.

[00:58:34] Thanks for having me. Congratulations for where you are in your life. Continue that hard work. Cause it's not easy. So continue that hard work. Those steps that your sponsor said, those three things that you need to keep going for. He said, where was it? Where was it?

[00:58:49] I had it on my notes here. You want me to tell you? You tell me cause I know you live by it. You gotta put three. Your family? Work family and your recovery. Show them up. Show up for work family and your recovery.

[00:59:00] Maybe that's Melissa's first shirt she needs to make. Show up for your raining in her position. Do you wanna make a tribe shirt like that man? Come on, come on. Yeah, yeah. All right. Michael C. from Colorado thank you so much. No pressure.

[00:59:12] Hi, this is sharing our stories. We will be back next week. This program is brought to you in part by caring for Denver. We wanna thank them for all the work that they do in the Mile High to make sure that you have access to recovery.

[00:59:25] And of course it is brought to you by Tribe Recovery Homes. And if you're looking for recovery here in the Mile High and you don't know where to start, go to triberecoveryhomes.com. We'll give them a call 72060TRIBE 72060TRIBE and if they can't help you

[00:59:41] they're gonna put you in contact with somebody who can cause that's what it's all about. Thank you to Nani Algilio. Say hi Nani. Hi. She was so left out today. She was absolutely left out. I came back with my big mouth. Thank you to Tremos Hernandez,

[00:59:56] the entire tribe recovery family. And once again thank you to our guest Michael C. From Colorado. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mile High you can check out this program at flowdamber.com at jammin1on15.com Please like share and subscribe.

[01:00:10] And we will see you again right here for another edition of sharing our stories.