Sharing Our Stories - Sheri Blosser

[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.

[00:00:08] Our parent company, advertisers, or affiliates. Welcome to sharing our stories.

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

[00:00:18] There are numerous pathways to recovery, and each week we welcome powerful leaders and role models who. And if you are suffering an addiction, so that you can see us and know, hey, you can get just to where we are too, recovery can happen for you. So welcome to the program. Yes, yes, this is gonna be a, well, personally, this is an amazing, amazing experience for me. In May 2013, I was in a program called Stout Street,

[00:01:42] and my old behavior's got ahead of me,

[00:01:45] and I got myself kicked everything and I'm damn near Athel, Athel, Athel, well you guys hear me on the radio all the time. But damn near Athel, and you know I got a lot of politics, prison politics, tendencies and a lot of confusion and a lot of stuff and she was very patient with me and she's loved me and had my back this whole time. And you know what I've learned today, I just want to let everybody know, I learned from

[00:03:01] Sherry Blosser.

[00:03:02] I learned how to run sober living homes by just mimicking what she did.

[00:03:08] That's where I learned that from. Yeah, so I ever guy you had in the sober living ever, you know, we I think we had two or three girls houses and I I'm a tomboy. I like to play with boys and softball and all this stuff The girls just wanted to die each other's hair and fight and I was like I need boys It's opening a boys house. We worked really hard. We got it open. It had mustache

[00:05:26] impacted us. So to shine on it, they're married three participants from that program have mortgages, have families, have jobs, and it saved our life. So if you're wondering if sober living works,

[00:05:32] I just, I could go on and on about how many people share you saved. But to the impact of that level,

[00:05:37] to where I'm at, like Robert Peasley, he has his own program too, what this does, this is not a

[00:05:43] competition thing, this is a family thing. This is us sticking together and riding it out and

[00:06:44] around the people that you know go around a new different way of life and I opened up my mind and it was hard to open up my heart and open up my spirituality but I got it from

[00:06:51] sober living you know treatment centers are temporary I own treatment centers I always

[00:06:55] tell people this is a temporary thing sober living is where you're going to find yourself

[00:06:58] because you're out there in the community you know what I mean and that's and that's

[00:07:02] what Sherry is given to the state of if you go to Aurora sober living, you have no choice, because she's going to slap you in the culture or make the dog lay with you at three in the morning. That's in your house or something. Exactly. Get you out of that bed somehow. Yeah, you know, it's been an awesome journey. I loved the idea of sober living so much.

[00:08:22] And the program that I was in,

[00:08:25] I thought it was a great idea,

[00:08:26] but I feel like addicts and alcoholics and I have, you know, God used them in their life as another, you know, anchor in this community to help save lives. You know, not only just as like Tumas and Peasley, who will like do so, we're living as well, that's awesome. But to see other women and men sponsor and take, you know, people under their wing, I mean, they'll work, you know,

[00:09:40] their 40 hour plus a week job.

[00:09:42] And then when they get home,

[00:09:43] deal with their family and deal with husband

[00:09:45] and deal with and meet sponsors

[00:09:47] just to pay forward what's given. to the church. To the church, they will. And just something like that, I was like, no, I mean, my mom wouldn't even give me the keys to her house. I don't know. You know what I mean? The whole church. Yeah, a whole church. And I could get there early and make coffee and set up the chairs and pick the speakers. And that meant the whole world to me. You know, on a Wednesday at a church, like you couldn't catch me on a Sunday at a church

[00:11:01] if you're gonna give me $100 in a bottle.

[00:11:04] Right.

[00:11:05] So I don't know, maybe.

[00:11:06] $100 in a bottle.

[00:11:07] Well, you wanna take the bottle, so much opportunity to do the most amazing things. I want to ask you a question. What's great about her, too? I remember the last day I was in her program, right? Yeah, I went straight to atheist. I didn't care about nothing. And I got myself kicked out because of my attitude. So like I've told people on the radio before, I've got kicked out of every program and now I own programs. It's funny. But I seen her the next day out at the meeting.

[00:12:22] And she made sure she sat right next to me

[00:12:23] and gave me a hug.

[00:12:24] And she told me that she loved me.

[00:12:26] And if I got my stuff back together,

[00:12:27] I was always welcome to come back. So this is not like a rental or a housing first situation or anything like that. This is truly the beds are just there to create a family and a culture. And if you don't know how to buy into that, you're going to learn because you have people like Sherry Blosser out there because that meant the world to me because in that conversation, it was just, yeah, I just, I had a six months of recovery and and all the things that God removes from our character defects scared me for you. At that point, you were pretty open-minded though. And so I think you just needed someone that could hear you, meet you where you were at, you know what I mean? And that's what it's all about.

[00:15:02] There's no way that I could stay sober

[00:15:04] if I wasn't around like-minded people.

[00:15:06] And today I wanna live a life in recovery It wouldn't have been long before I either got my fourth DUI and spent a lot of time in jail or ended up dead or killing myself. I was absolutely miserable. It wasn't even living. It was just surviving. So that's the ultimate question for the interview. And, Slam, if you want to, if you want to, if you want to, if you want to bounce in with

[00:16:21] it, I'm sure that all the listeners really would like to know.

[00:16:26] So where did it start?

[00:16:27] How did it snap in? Yeah, I know. And that started for me. I noticed that I had a really addictive personality. You know what I mean? Like if I started getting into basketball, it wasn't just that I like played basketball. It was that I had to like be the one to organize the sneakers and pass out the balls. And like I had to be this like basketball

[00:17:41] and I wore headbands every day for five months

[00:17:43] and like basketball, you know, and I thought it was just me and I had no idea how many people actually loved me that I was just, I was also killing and it broke my heart. So, you know, they were pretty ghost. They didn't know how to deal with it. They offered some solutions, but I was, you know, and I was interested,

[00:19:03] but I had to give up complete control, which I wasn't willing to do.

[00:20:04] I was like, no one was giving me any kids. I was just like, okay.

[00:20:06] You know what I'm saying?

[00:20:07] Yeah, I was like, no one's telling me.

[00:20:09] Who is a live sentence?

[00:20:10] There's like 20 people in a thing.

[00:20:12] For 60 days, she was like, oh my God.

[00:20:15] I was just like, this is it.

[00:20:17] I got sober for no reason because I'm an Italian gentleman.

[00:20:20] So yeah, but no.

[00:20:22] I am.

[00:20:22] You know, and so I was starting to actually,

[00:20:25] from my, I didn't have a lot of consequences.

[00:20:27] You know what I needed to do until, you know, they scooted out the door in 30 seconds and then I would party until four in the morning, sleep a couple hours and do it again. And I did that for years and I have no idea

[00:21:40] how I got away with that.

[00:21:42] It was, I mean, it was just, it's just so sick

[00:21:47] when I look back at it now. and the whole deal, cops were on their way for all of our screaming, as usual, cops were at my house for me and Brynn screaming every other day. I mean, just the chaos and disaster of my life. And at this point, I was pretty broken and I knew I was looking in jail. My anxiety was so bad. I was suicidal. I was just done.

[00:23:00] I was just defeated completely.

[00:23:03] And my defeat didn't look like homelessness or bankruptcy

[00:23:08] or any of those things. You know, like what kind of trick is this? They stole the bull table. Yeah, I was like wait a second, I don't see a part pen or anything. And so I was like absolutely not. I'm out of here. Called my girlfriend who, you know, would come and cosign anything. I mean, if she had cared about me at all, she would have talked to me and is staying and said she was trying to find me to get me out.

[00:24:22] You know what I mean? It was just sick in itself.

[00:24:25] But I had a counselor as I wasriety and I was stepped up as house manager. I don't know if it was based off. I have no idea. I don't know why they chose me. They're just like, she looks good. And I was like, okay. I have no idea why I was chosen to be the house manager so fresh, but I was. And so all of a sudden I had this like responsibility to take

[00:25:43] care of these other women. And I was, I had no idea what I was doing. one of your good ideas again. Let's not do it. Let's not. And I'm like no this is like a real good one. And he's like yeah you've said that. And so I got that first house and I opened it up for women. I kept kicking booty on my recovery. I went to a meeting every single day. I found a sponsor who

[00:27:00] I don't there's no way I'd be sitting here today about to be taken away. I was looking at nine months. And I didn't even ask, but my family and friends all met me at the court date. And 30, 40 people prayed in front of that courtroom for me. And so when I went in, the judge was like crying. And he's like, I've never seen anything like that. And I'm like, me neither.

[00:28:21] I'm like, this is recovery.

[00:28:22] We made a joke, but we were all desperate.

[00:28:24] We had nowhere else to go.

[00:28:25] So we were making plans to what we could do I was more ask your dad and choose more. No, you know what I mean? Choose the string hand. And so I think they were a little bit scared to lose their compassionate little teddy bear. Well, I mean, I would say it more like this. You kept us accountable to sponsors. Like my first sponsor that ever gave a damn about me. Like you remember when I was talking to you about Dennis?

[00:29:41] Yeah.

[00:29:41] You know what I mean?

[00:29:42] I had to pick somebody because I couldn't find anybody.

[00:29:44] And I finally found him and the conversations that we had,

[00:29:47] it's not about what does he have. We had a loss that, you know, everybody would have been out in Malacala. A couple people would have left. Things would have happened and it would have been disarray and it would have been our main high up crew, me and Peasley, everybody, Brandy, everybody trying to put things pieces together and re-imulate you. And that just wasn't what we were going to go for that day. We had to make sure that the judge understood that you've saved a bunch of lives and we

[00:31:03] needed you.

[00:31:04] You know, and that's what we do today.

[00:31:05] What's great about the courtrooms is they're listening to us now because we go into drones You may not be mad enough to not answer the phone of them, but I'm gonna do it. So that's my business because that's what I was taught in recovery to keep that phone on. And to keep going. Yeah. You know? I imagine if I had enough helps you, you've helped thousands of people. You know what I mean? And so on and so on. And I thought it was actually really cool.

[00:32:20] I mean, these judges were just sentencing people

[00:32:22] to incarceration and not offering them,

[00:32:25] not offering them any sort of solution at all. of sobriety and jail with a bunch of people that were not in recovery. So I made myself a little ghetto cake. She learned quick. I learned the cake to my second year. It's like this one girl took the other wig and taught me some cool gangster cake. So I learned the ghetto cake. She wasn't a man on the pillows all day. No, she's maybe a cake. She's maybe a cake. So it was kind of cool over to God, I was able to let a lot go. You know what I mean? I don't care what people think anymore and I don't care what, you know, cruddy things the day has to come. I feel like, to say a whole statement is gonna be really hard for me because there's a lot that I feel.

[00:35:01] You got time?

[00:35:02] Just I want the audience to know.

[00:35:05] I just want the audience to know that

[00:36:01] what my weird brain convinced me of. We can give them, if they're laid on any type of program fees,

[00:36:06] to pay off $100 your program for you,

[00:36:08] you have to be filmed to do yoga.

[00:36:09] And we'll just sit there and laugh and drink coffee.

[00:36:11] It just flaps.

[00:36:13] I make it like our little five hits.

[00:36:14] I don't think we do that.

[00:36:16] I don't think we do that.

[00:36:19] It's not OK.

[00:36:20] It's just a joke, guys.

[00:36:21] Don't take it like, oh my god, did you hear what he said?

[00:36:23] We better move out today.

[00:36:24] We're going to do yoga.

[00:36:26] No, I'm just kidding. said my best thinking will talk me out of going to a meeting, not meeting my sponsor, kicking him out, not paying that bill, all the things that benefit myself you know what I mean? When I can live in God's will and live in recovery it's just such a different life. It's like how can I be of service? I need

[00:37:40] to get up and hit that meeting. I have that appointment. I don't want to be

[00:37:43] late too. You just show up different. the benefit of that is just unreal. You know what I mean? I'm just so used to the fighting and the screaming from my previous toxic relationship

[00:39:00] and it's like I remember getting into my first new one

[00:39:03] and I was upset about something and I'm screaming

[00:39:05] and she looked at me and she's like,

[00:39:06] why are you yelling?

[00:39:07] And I'm like, it. Yeah. Yeah. That's all. That's all Facebook facade. You know what I mean? We have people that still die. We have family members that get sick. But all of those things,

[00:40:22] you know, with those responsibilities, you know, it's always been that if you have that recovery

[00:41:24] few years and he had relapsed and he thought he could do the same amount but his tolerance was different from that sobriety and one shot took him out and

[00:41:27] it was absolutely heartbreaking because I got to see this kid just grow for two

[00:41:33] years and kill it in life and create this life that I wanted. It was he had a

[00:41:38] daughter and a fiance and it was amazing and it all went away with one shot and

[00:41:44] it almost motivated me even more from that at McDonald's. I was like, here's Big Time guy I vomited with the McDonald's outfit. Come here, let's have a four X shirt for me. I got a conversation about humbleness. Come here. I was like, come on.

[00:43:00] Oh, yeah.

[00:43:01] Yeah.

[00:43:02] Yeah.

[00:43:03] I was like, where's my happy mail?

[00:43:05] Yeah, I go.

[00:43:06] You're there all day.

[00:43:07] You didn't think of me at all. It's just oiling it, it's late. We sit in the garage and hotbox the whole place, drinking energy drinks and chatted out of his stuff that I brought back in McDonald's. I mean, what kind of guy would say up till three in the morning working on another person's car that he doesn't even know? Yeah. That's what recovery does. That's what this community has. Yeah, I remember my dad let me have the truck. She wouldn't let me drive because I had a license. So, Chad had a license. So, my dad got us on the insurance.

[00:44:20] So, Chad drove the truck, my dad's truck,

[00:44:22] and I sat shotgun and that's how me and Chad

[00:44:24] got our first job.

[00:44:26] Nice.

[00:44:26] And that's how that family...

[00:44:27] And I had no idea about this.

[00:44:28] This is the things that they would do behind my back. I'm not having like- Falseed ceiling. Gorgeous. Gonna be in the girls house, all that stuff. But I- But I always would have backed it. Yeah, we were. I had to do the girls. I had to do the girlies there. Yeah, I, um, that was a beautiful home. And then we got yelled at cause we were like screaming, bumping music to like all the functions there. So she's like, it had it. You guys turn your music down and park on the right side of the street.

[00:45:40] I'm like, our first house in the HOA.

[00:45:44] I'm like, this will be interesting.

[00:45:45] We'll see what happens here.

[00:45:46] And the boys, we invite them over Call him or not by Columbia Middle School. That was a cool house. Yeah They just and I get to do that like as a mom You know what I mean your sister showing up so like she's really pretty so she's like the Miss Parker of recovery So every guy would be out there like she's mowing the lawn again. I'm like just leave sure She was putting herself through college

[00:47:04] To do the lawns during the summer He's sober, that sounds terrible. It's a blessing for me. And so she loved it and she ended up with a spoon and went back and became a counselor and opened her own counseling service, ended up marrying a man who's in recovery, having a child. Yeah, that's great. It's crazy. But you gotta contest it that, because your sister, we don't know the dynamics

[00:48:20] between them, she's crying, her sister's crying.

[00:48:23] Like they feel everything.

[00:48:24] So it's like, so it's just, she got to live that,

[00:48:27] she got to feed off of that This is not, they don't even really know that council don't make that kind of money. For one, but for two is they don't really know it. They just want to help people, but with your sister, that's not the case, because she lived every day with it with you. She was at every house meeting with us, every party, every funeral, every time that we were doing just like, why are you here on a Tuesday? I don't know, I'm just sitting here.

[00:49:40] You know what I mean?

[00:49:40] And those are those things that are feeding off that.

[00:49:44] So if you're thinking about getting in the field,

[00:49:45] yes, we do need more people to help.

[00:49:47] But being in it first year in recovery being around you, maybe into a beast. Like, I don't know what you helped turn on, but I still have that fire every day. There's nobody that can turn out that fire.

[00:51:01] I've got so inspired to be a better version of myself,

[00:51:05] even when I want to quit.

[00:51:06] Like right now, I'm it. I totally get it. I want to kind of wear them backwards. Do like the criss-caws. You know what I mean? Yeah. Those are great. Yeah. No, I completely understand. And I've gotten the same way. Yeah. You know what I mean? I've gotten complacent and God, they're just great. They're great, man. And they look comfortable. Yeah,

[00:52:21] you're a pop lock in any second now. They're great. But no, and I'm had that before. And so I really rely on my colleagues. I still work every Sunday with a sponsor doing my steps. I do, I have a lot, you know, I've done a lot of work, but I feel like I have a lot to do still. Yeah, this was great about 12 steps as we, this last year was a lot. Yeah, and this last year was a lot for me. So I think that this round of 12 steps

[00:53:41] is gonna be really good for me.

[00:53:43] You know, going through my four step

[00:53:44] and I know for a fact I have some immense make

[00:53:47] and you know, I fall, I'm a ghost town. And I just, yeah. You know what I mean? Those are those things. I gotta keep it real and make sure that I keep connection to home, keep connection. I mean, what's beautiful is now I have friends all over. Like LA is like the recovery mecca. Vegas is huge for me, but as soon as I touch down in LA, my boy Corey is right there with like a million recovery people. You know, the first thing we do within 10 minutes,

[00:55:01] I get there, Corey's either at a speaker meeting

[00:55:03] or he's at this or he's at that.

[00:55:05] You know, I went the seed for so many other people to follow behind you in their recovery. And I can't even imagine what those people are gonna do. You know what I mean? And like I said, it's not always gonna be so believing. Even if I walked away today and said I wanted to be the french fry flipper at McDonald's, it would still be really important to me to have sponsorses.

[00:56:22] I don't know if I can keep what I have unless I give it away.

[00:56:25] So you don't have to flip the french fries,

[00:56:26] but one thing is it's not even,

[00:56:28] you know what broke my help you find what you need. I already get enough text of like she ate my cheese. So I'm gonna not do that. But yeah, one of the very cool things that we just said is we had this app created. That's specifically for not only alumni, people currently in the program and people that wanna connect with us. It's rare so we're living and has our events on there.

[00:59:02] You can connect with us on there.

[00:59:03] If you're looking for a meeting,

[00:59:05] it's just a good way for the community to find sponsors, Google Aurora's sober living homes. Our guest today is Sherry Blosser. That's S-H-E-R-I-B-L-O-S-S-E-R. If you want to hunt her down, even though she didn't get out of her phone number, you probably can find it now. But Sherry Blosser, Aurora's sober living homes, please Google them. If you are looking for a place for yourself, a friend or a family member, we're here for you.

[01:00:22] And if she can't help you, I guarantee you she will put you in touch with someone who can, because that's what we're all about here.