EP 65: Caroline: The Woman Who Came Back Stronger!

Disclaimer. At Two Addicts in the Moron, we discuss personal stories of addiction with the intention of being educational, relatable, and inspirational. The views and experiences shared are those of individuals involved are not meant to glorify or condone any illegal or harmful behavior. This content is for educational purposes only and is not intended as professional advice. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, we strongly encourage you seek help from a qualified professional or support service. So when I left the room today, I bent over and I opened my butt cheeks. Am I good? Okay. I opened my butt cheeks for Destiny to see my asshole. And when I do that, I do it all the time. And she never looks away. It's always like just the face that she makes is, oh my God. And what were you saying? What does it look like, baby? It's fascinating to me because usually the butthole is dark. Like just the part around the butthole that has like four different rings of darkness, right? Like where? You got rings. It's like the Saturn rings. Doesn't tell your age like a tree. I don't know what he does because the parts where his butt cheeks touches, you can see like a dark gray ring. And then a little closer and it's a darker gray. And then the butthole is just black. I mean, it looks like this shit stains his ass. Which it feels like she's describing to me as like in Star Wars when they go into warp speed. You know, like just wow. I've never seen Star Wars. Shame on you. I never have either. I'm not even one. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Yeah. The Al 1, 2, 3. How many does it take, baby? And is it Harry? He's like I shaved it and I was like, I said I'm a close friend. You missed a spot. I said in a quote, you know, David said, um, this chick was saying, oh, I just found out the guys don't shave their ass. And this guy goes, he who cleans his house is expecting visitors. And I was like, that is a good thing. I expect visitors like, I'm going to shave it. Well, then come do it for me. Whatever, dude. You don't love me like you say. You don't even fuck about me. Let me turn that air condition on. Oh, yes. I love AC. Hey, that's a constant battle in my house because everybody's always so cold, but my AC stays at 68. And if you touch it, we're fighting. Well, then fighting. I would imagine now, especially with what you have going on in the hormone world. It's even worse because usually I'll settle at like 69, but it has to go down. It has to go down a degree now. My kids are like, mom, it's so cold. I'm like, I'm sweating. Yeah. I'm a cold natured person. Yeah. And here over the couple of days ago, they see in my house. Are the fans OK? Oh, I would die. There's no Saturday. Oh, there's no way. Not in Texas. AC went out in my house on Saturday. Oh, and so it happened Saturday night. We figured it out Saturday night. And so we had, I mean, we had a knuckle up and just they turn out some fans. You're better than me because I'd be like, we're going to a hotel. Yeah. And I'm like, but I'm a cold natured person. I mean, you see me at work. I'm have a jacket on the other time up there. I'm just like, I'm that kind of guy where it's like, this is going to suck, but it's going to suck less for me. Yeah. So my son's like that, too. He wears jeans and hoodies year round. And I'm like, why? She wears hoodies all the fucking time. I'm like, you are crazy. I don't understand it at all. He's kind of like a movie. I guess that's why he's like, it's the style. I'm like, they brought Jinko's back. Did you all know that? Yes. My son was wearing Jinko's the other day. And I was like, oh, my God, where did you get those? He's like Amazon. I'm like, I have no idea or whatever. Yeah. I had no idea. They're back, man. They are with with like a vengeance. I'm like, okay. He threw all these other. Remember the jeans that were really wide at the bottom? They were just no, no, no, like they were. They're like skater. Like, okay. Think like MC Hammer. I got you. Like baggy, like 90s style like cheese, but don't crimp around your. Yeah. No crimping. Like they just heard straight. Elephant pants. I got you. I got you. So they're like, they're, they're back, back. The other day he had one. He had a black pair on it. Had a mushroom on the butt. I'm like, man, going back, back, man, back, back with the jeans. I'm like, oh, okay. But he likes him. Whatever. He's his own person. I think they're terrible, but whatever. I did. If I let my target dress, she'll come out with some random shit. Yeah. And like when it was just me, I was like, cool, you look great. But now that Destiny's here, Destiny's like, you can't let her go out like that. Like we're going to church and she has stains on her shirt, on her pants and shit. And I'm like, Helen, you got to change. And she's like getting her to change is like another 20 minutes cause she's going to bitch for 15 of it. Yeah. My daughter's the same way. Yeah. And it's a, yeah. So we get to church and we're like, she's like, bring me to kid church. Now you're not going to kid church today cause we don't have time to get you in kid church. You got to go with us. And then after she sits through the adult church with us, it's like, she's never coming back to adult church. We're going to fucking kid church for now. Yeah. That's funny. That's so funny. Well, we're back. We're back to another episode of two addicts and a moron been a little while. It's weird whenever we do like two in a week to a, yeah, two in a row. Cause I miss y'all. Yeah. And we see each other every day. And I miss you. You're my sunset. My sunrise dude. You really are. Nice. You're my son. It's a bromance. Yeah. It is. It's horrible. This is as much of a bromance as you'll ever come across is between me and this one. As much of a bromance without two guys fucking. It's not that part. Well, we've done that before. We've never kissed. Yeah. Cause that's just intimate bullshit. We have never done that. Mom, dad. Yeah. I promise. Never done that. Anyway, we're back to another episode of two more on, uh, Miss Caroline. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming. I'm super stoked. Are you? Very stoked. Very stoked. I love, I love this kind of stuff. Yeah. Sharon educating. Yeah. Have you ever watched us before? I did. I actually watched that episode on the way here. Um, cause my, my fiance was driving me cause I, I cannot drive in Austin and get some anxiety and he was like, I want to hear. And I'm like, okay. So we watched, um, I don't, uh, what was her name? I think it was Ashley. Ashley Horton. Oh, Ashley Horton. That's the one I sent you. Yes. You did. Yes. You sent it to me. Um, and man, I was like, this is that, that her story hit pretty close to home for me. Yeah. Really close to home. Yeah. When I talked to you, I told you, I said, I'm going to send you a story that kind of something that you'll probably relate a little bit to. Yeah. I thought that was it. Yeah. Very, very. And I loved that she works in recovery. She said she was a recovery coach and I was like, man, right on like that's those comeback stories. Those are always the best. Yeah. Her is one of like the ones that stands out to me all and it'll always stand out to me. Yeah. Yeah. Um, just her, her arc of a story and where she is now and how strong she was in a recovery when things were going on is, um, that, that's one that is always going to be up there for me when she said that she was checking in this over living with her basket of pretty much everything she owned and she got the call from CPS that, Hey, we're taking your the rest of your kids away. Mm hmm. That's a part right there where you either fucking are going to man up or you're going to give up and most people are going to say, fuck this. Mm hmm. I don't know that I could have manned up right there. Yeah. So that would have been a good fuck this moment for me, but she didn't. And she's been sober ever since and the best part about it was she said, when my kids come and find me, they'll find a sober mom that can actually do for them rather than a mom that can't. Yeah. And that's that part will always stand out for me when she said that. Yeah, man. That was, that was intense. That was an intense thing to hear. And it's like, you don't know what you're made of. I get until something like that happens to you, you know, and for her to really know what she's made of now, like moving forward. Yeah. It was like always kind of a beautiful thing to me that always when you make it out of something that was designed to break you and you come out of that it changes. It changes everything and you just, you don't know how strong you are until you're strong and I related to her a lot in that because I had, I had CPS with my kids out of my home and it was, I never thought that that was going to happen to me. I never in a million years, if you would have told me at 20, Hey, in 10 years, this is going to happen. Your kids are going to be gone. You're going to be an addict. You're going to go to prison. Your husband's going to pass away and you're going to not have access to your children. They put me on a no contact order. I would have, I would have bet my life that you were full of shit. Yeah. I would have been, I'd be dead today because I would have put my life on it and I did not man up in that moment. It broke me for a small period of time. Well, that's what I was going to say. It didn't all the way. 99% of people are going to break right there. It did, it did it. It didn't. Yeah, it did. And you know, when I was, I would always tell people, man, my house cannot function without me. If they removed mom, everybody will fall apart. But really what it was is they removed everybody and mom fell apart because I had nothing. I didn't, I didn't know what to do. And I have four kids. My oldest son is 17. My middle son is 13. He'll be 14 in September and my daughter's 10 and I have a daughter with my husband that passed away and she is, she's five. She'll be six this coming January and I haven't seen her since she was 18 months old and that when you go from being mom every single day and then something traumatic happens and it's taken away. What do you do? What do you do? I had no idea how to function. So I did everything but function. I left my house. I took off. I weighed 90 pounds by the time I got arrested and I just, I quit my job and I went, I was on the streets and when I say on the streets, I'm talking. I was on the streets like, and I've never lived that before. I didn't, I didn't know what that was. But you know, I used to sleep. So I work, I used to work at this place in New Bromphols and I used to do office management and there was like a little, you know, the dumpsters like, and they have like this metal thing around it. I used to camp out back there with my dog because I, at least I could, at least I knew that I had a job the next day. Even if I was going in high, even if I was not sleeping, at least I know I had a job. So I would, I would sleep back there if I had nowhere else to go. And I know weird way you have four walls. Yep. The HC. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, and I know a way. Hey, it was shelter. Try to be funny in that moment. No, it's true. I didn't even have a gate right there. No, it's true. And it's, it's sad because in my addict mentality in my brain, I'm like, at least I'm not under a bridge on the I 35, you know, but, you know, 35s right there. Yeah. And I just as well could have been and it's, it wasn't any better. It's crazy that things would justify. Oh yeah. Like I can justify any of my behavior when I'm using. Yeah. Oh, anything. Because I can always, I'm always going to compare it to something that's worse. Well, at least I'm not there. Oh yeah. And then when I get to that place, I'm like, well, at least I'm not over there. Oh yeah. It's like, I can always compare it. Like when I had no water, well, I can turn it back on and they won't realize that it's turned on for at least three days. Right. And then I can take cold showers like a mother. I can't now, but back then I could take cold showers. Like no big deal. I didn't even mind giving my daughter bats in cold showers. Yeah. Like, you know, like that, that was like not a big deal to me. I never, my electricity went out. Yeah. As long as I have a phone with a battery, I can make it for a while. Oh yeah. My heat was turned off. Our gas and my house was turned off for 18 months. And when I try to get it turned back on, they wouldn't just turn it back on. They have to send somebody out to check to make sure there's no leaks. That's how long I had no heat and no hot water. It wasn't, but that was like, well, at least I got a house. Right. It's not terrible. Yeah. Right. It's crazy that things would justify. I do. I remember the first time somebody called me a junkie and I was like, excuse me. And I'm like, at least I'm not like this person and she's like, you know, tying off and she's like, and this guy's weighing out my shit. And I'm like, well, do you have a point? And he's like, you're a junkie. And I'm like, no, I'm not. I was, I was junkie. Yeah. I was so offended though. I will never forget that moment. I was like, oh my God, how dare him? But he was calling it like he sees it. Yeah. Yeah. I had a cop tell me I was a meth addict and I was, I was like, how dare you? Yeah. How dare you judge me? Terrible. Crazy. But we were there. Yeah. That's what we were. So what was your DOC? Man, my DOC is opiates. And I had it. I was fentanyl. Really? It was fentanyl and it was my fentanyl use was so bad that the heroin wasn't strong enough for me. But it was a good like second. If I couldn't, if I couldn't get my fentanyl, I was definitely going to go for the heroin. Um, but I was an opportunist. If I, I was willing to try everything. Yeah. And opportunists like if the opportunity presented itself, guess what? I'm taking it and I will never forget. I'll never forget. Um, one thing I've done is I've been really honest with my kids, uh, about everything. So I had one person say to me, well, I'm going to tell the kids everything you've done and like, what, they said that to me one time and I'm like, all right, time for me and my kids to have a conversation. Yeah. And I've been really open. I don't lie to them. I tell them the truth. I mean, within like word appropriate, of course, but my, my 13 year old was like, mom, so you, what drugs have you done? And I'm like, assume I've done all of them, all of them, every drug. He was like, even crack. And I was like, well, actually not crack. That's like the one thing I've never tried everything else though. Check, check, check. Check mark. Well, I think it's so important to be on it when your kids are the right age. Yeah. Uh, that's something that you, you know, Kalen's mom and that's something that we battled with at the beginning because I'm very open with Kalen. Yep. And she feels like, well, she's too young. And I have to explain to her like the world that you and I grew up in is not the same world today. Like these kids, I'm in rooms with kids that started when they were eight and nine years old. Yep. Right. And it's insane. And they didn't just start drinking alcohol. Some of them were doing cocaine when they were eight and nine years old. And I know that with, I'm a big believer that with what we went through, we need to educate our kids about it because why would we go through what we went through and not talk to, not have them prepared. Right. So when the opportunity presents itself to them, they know they're educated on it and they're like, no, fuck that. And keep an open line of communication. So it's not an, if it presents, it's a win. When it does. I will. We have, my kids know that if that, when that comes up, I want them to be comfortable enough to come to me and be like, Hey, mom, this is, this is what they, this is what it is. And I have full confidence that they do that they will do that. And I'm really grateful for that. But that has only come with being extremely open with them. Sure. Um, and cause there was, when I went to prison, I did not see my children for two years. Yeah. Um, I didn't want them to see me in prison. I didn't want them to come visit me and their dad was really, um, he was very supportive when I was, um, gone. He is the only reason I was able to keep such an open line of communication. I mean, I probably called him every single day. Cause when you're in a situation like that, you cling to anything that you can. Um, but, uh, they were same thing. We struggled with, well, they're not, it's not appropriate for you to tell them X, Y and Z. And I'm like, well, if I'm, I'm their parent and I went through this, what is appropriate for me to tell them? Because they're in school right now. And I remember it was at 2000 and I want to say 17. I get an email from the junior high and they found two bags of methamphetamines on the school. And I'm like, well, if this is going on, I'm going to, I'm going to educate my kids. One of the only two bags either. Those are just the ones they found. Right. And I'm like, they were in the hallway. Yeah. And I'm like, this is in sixth grade. These kids are in sixth and seventh grade. And I'm like, this is the world we live in now. I mean, it's not, it wasn't like that when we were growing up. So yes, you just, you have to be open with them. And when I got home, my, um, I mean, I've been home for, I got TDC wanted to test me because they released me on December 30th of 2022. And I'm like, which was a Friday and I'm like, oh, you sons of bitches. I'm, you know, it's, it's New Year's. I was good though. I was chill. Um, but that's when I got home and it, uh, I saw them immediately. Um, I started getting them immediately, but they, they were cute. They wanted to know they're at this point, my son's a sophomore in high school. You know, Mike is in junior high and you know, Brooklyn was a little long. She was like eight. Um, but you, you got to just tell them, got to tell them the truth. And they know they know, they know what happened. They know that, you know, their stepdad died. They know that I got really, really sick. Minceley it broke me. Um, but I, and I got in trouble. Started breaking the law. You break the law, you go to jail. And, um, did he care how can I, can I ask you anything? I'm an open book. How did he, how did he pass away? Uh, so my husband, he passed away September 22nd of 2020 from a methamphetamine overdose. Whoa. I've never heard of that. I've never heard of that. It's a very rare. In fact, when I was told this, I, um, I was like, what? It's, you can't do that. But yeah, a cardiac arrest. I didn't know that. Cause I used to tell people, I can't overdose on that. I've seen it. And it was my own eyes. I still tell people that. Nope. It's inaccurate. I've never heard of that before. It's rare cause usually when you, you know, you're doing too much, you're going to over amp and pass out. Right. Um, but he, he didn't, uh, he passed away in our home. Um, I'll never, so I have a little memory lapse. I have about a week, Blake out from this. Uh, so, okay. September, it was September 22nd. Um, what year? 2020. Okay. So, uh, coming up on five years ago, um, it was my friend's birthday and we were all hanging out, having a good time at night. The night's coming to an end and I'm not fully aware of the, um, extent of his drug use at this point, cause I'm not in active addiction. I'm more of like a party party girl. Like I'm going to hang out with my friends and I'm going to party with you, but as far as like full blown, like I'm an addict. Yeah. I wasn't there yet. Um, and I'm making excuses cause now that I've been through the addiction and I got sober and I work in recovery. Um, I understand a lot more than I did that. And I was making a lot of excuses for this man. Um, but you know, night's over and I'm laying on the couch and he's in the room and I just hear like this like loud noise and I'm like living a house full of boys and one little girl and I'm thinking, okay, he broke something. And so I'm yelling, Hey, are you good? And he didn't answer me. I got up and he was on the floor and I performed probably about 12 and a half minutes of CPR before EMS got there. And the last thing I really remember, I was so exhausted. I'm a little thing. Um, usually I, I stand, I'm five, five and I weigh about one 30 max and he was six one and weighed about 220 pounds. And so he's just a big guy. A big dude. And, um, I'm been CPR on first stage certified since I was 19 years old. It's a lot different when you have to put it into, I can only imagine. You can only imagine. And I'm, you know, I'm freaking out. And this is where my relationship with God wavered because nobody prayed harder than me that day. Nobody, nobody prayed harder than me. I was begging. I was willing to sign a deal with the devil if it wouldn't have let that happen. And, um, so I'm, you know, I was so tired when EMS got up, I have a big, big rottweiler and I'm like, okay, I got to get the dog cause I don't want them to like not come in here cause the dog, I stood up, passed out. Um, I went and I was out of there and I remember like EMS, I opened my eyes. EMS is over me and I look over and I see the, they have the defibrillator on him and I just see his chest go up once and they said, hit him again and went up again. And then I don't remember anything. I don't know how I got to the hospital. I don't know after the hospital. I have really splotchy memory for like the next week. Cause at this point I'm like, Oh my God, like he's gone. My kids are gone. Everything is like spiraling out of control and I'm, is that when your kids got taken? So my kids were, um, so it's all of this happened right around the same time. Um, CPS is already on my ass. Uh, this is another adjacent story. Um, CPS is on my ass because I go, I open, I go to CPS for help. Cause at this point, my husband who passed away, he has a drinking problem. Really bad one. Um, he got 3DWIs in a year. Um, I'm paying the lawyer bills. I'm cleaning up the mess. I'm pregnant. We have a newborn and I'm like, I'm at my wit's end. His, uh, in his mom is, it's, he's on, she's unhelpful because her child is not doing any of those things and I'm crazy. Um, so I go to CPS and I'm like, I need your help with this. Um, I made a mistake there because my husband's mother was a special investigator, supervisor, case worker for CPS. So I go in and I make this and I'm like, I need help and I open this case myself. They, um, hair follicle test, all of us. Meanwhile, everybody with the last name of Dwarpland comes back clean, but I come to find out that my husband who passed away was smoking dope in front of my baby while I was at work. And so she pops dirty. Um, he pops dirty. Me and my, the other kids were clean, have clean hair, but because she popped dirty, CPS comes and pulls my kids out and all of this, it's like a domino. It all happens around the same time. Um, so that's, and that's the last time I saw my daughter. Whoa. That's the last time I saw my daughter. Um, I'm fine. I fight CPS for years. I'm still, I, I lost in, uh, I came back to court. I had a binge warrant. My husband passed away on September 22nd, 2020. I get arrested on October 22nd of 2020 and it's steady arrest after arrest. After I was arrested 13 times in two months by, by Hayes County. Um, what, what were the, were they all just drug related? No, no, I'm, no, not all drug related. There was like two drug related, um, an assault, uh, stealing, breaking I was out of there. You were just, just like, fuck it. Yep. I went on some fuck the world shit and I was doing the most and I just, I kept getting into trouble and I keep getting into trouble in my county, which really sucks. I've really never been, and guess where I had to parole home to. So when I get pulled over that first time, the cops like, hello, Caroline. I'm like, damn it. He's like, get out of the car. I'm like, shit. All right. Um, but yeah, so 13, 13 arrests. Um, the first time I ever have to spend the time in jail, I spend four months there. It's fucking impressive. 13 and two months. I know it's like a record. That's a lot of arrests. You gotta think when you get arrested, you sit in there for a day or two, sometimes three days, like you're getting out and saying, fuck, here we go again. Yep. Same, like, like this, they're not having any of my shit anymore. They're literally opening the door and they're like, get in the car. And I'm like, damn, okay. And at this point, like none of my eye batting and my. What is working anymore? It's not. No shit anymore. They're like, no, at first it was doing me some favors, but no, at that 13 time. And when I got arrested that last time, I pretty girl shit goes out the window. It goes out the window, especially when you're declining. Like if you see. I just can't get this out. Like, you know, that saying fool me once. Yeah. Shame on me. Decline is so great. Shame on you. It is. But it's like fool me 12 times. Yep. And then the drug use is like taken away from you a little bit. Right. They put up, so I'm fighting CPS because at the time when I'm like, all right, I got to go to prison. I know I'm signing for some time. I'm like, I still got to be fighting for my, I'm still trying to fight for my kids because now I'm on my mind starting to get clear. Well, I have to go to trial and they put all 13 of those mug shots up. And they're like, is this you, Caroline? And I'm like, yes. And by that 13th one, I'm like, oh my God. I'm like, my face is sunken in. I weigh 90 pounds. I'm like, it was. Don't look healthy at all. I could in who the hell was I fooling? Because if you would ask me that day, I would have been like, I'm looking great. I'm looking so good. I'm killing it. I got my T.R. on. I haven't slept in three days, but I'm totally fine. Like you. I was not. Yeah. I look bad, real bad. But when I go back and look at pictures now, like when I would go to work, like I would always put the the eye shit, right? Concealer. Yeah, I would always put the concealer was important for me. And I'd be like, I look good and fucking great. But when I look back at pictures now, like there's no doubt. Like I used to think when I would be at work, like these motherfuckers just hate me. Like they're always fucking. They're sorry, motherfuckers. Victim mentality. But now when I look, it's like, wow, like I look terrible. I know. Like when I used to go pick up my daughter, I would never look her mom in the eyes because because her mom would know. Yeah. I can't give you eye contact. And that's something that I can do now with anybody. I give you eye contact because I'm not worried about you're not freaking out. Oh, my pupils too big and my sweating. Do I got eye circle? Yeah. No, I was the same way. I I don't know who I thought I was fooling, but I thought I was, I was. And that's the biggest thing. And like I I there was no bigger victim in this world but me. And it I had everybody to blame. And I just it was everybody else's fault, except for mine. And when you're fighting CPS, meanwhile, this all of this stuff was going down right in the middle of COVID. So it's it was a more difficult CPS. They give you things you have to do. They're like, you have to do this. If you would just let us know that you have a problem, we could help go to treatment. Caroline, go to treatment and you will not lose your kids. Did I was not going to admit to any state official that I had a problem because then they would be me coming and saying it and it would make it so much more real. So I was denying, denying, denying, denying and I'm getting arrested, getting arrested, getting arrested. I haven't seen my kids. There was a two week period where I didn't even know where my kids were because they put me on a no contact order. And it was this is when you were locked up. So this was all. So all of this happened in like literally I'm not even kidding, like a three month period. Because I'm thinking like if if I can't see my daughter and I don't know where she's at, like that's the worst thing you can do to me in my right. Yeah, it was it's catch twenty two. No, I'm not saying that my addiction didn't cause it. Right. That's not what I'm saying. But if you're trying to like fucking really put me in a bad place, yeah, then that's putting me in the fucking worst place that you can possibly do it. I agree 100 percent. And there's got to be a better way to do somebody. Oh, I'm on a mission. Let me tell you. Doing them like that. Yeah, no, I agree. Yes, no, and that is in CPS is notorious. They do more damage to families by doing it their way. Then by just there's little things that can be changed. That would be helpful. Yeah. A no contact order. That's extreme. I was a full time mom and you pulled my kids out of my house and now I don't know where my baby is who's in diapers. Yeah. What? And, you know, you're telling me to get sober and then I can have access to my kids, but I can't get sober because I can't deal with the pain of not having access to my kids. So it's a catch 22 and it's like a ping pong ball. There's got to be like a supervised visit type shit. So I got those a little bit later, which were immediately taken from me like around my like fourth or fifth arrest, which, you know, hindsight, I'm like, OK, you know, I needed I needed to get my shit together. So I understand the protocols that are in place by the state. I don't agree with all of them. And I think that things can be done different. I mean, they're wanting me to do this whole like family plan. And, you know, this, that, and they give you they give you a year to get this done. And then you get an extension like an 18 months extension one time, but a judge has to like approve it. I did. I got that extension, but I'm in prison at this point. And I'm like, what do you guys think? There's parenting classes in here. Yeah. You guys think there's trauma counseling in here. I'm in a I'm in a penitentiary. Like there's there's none of this shit in here. How am I supposed to do this? And so when I go to trial and my lawyers tell me, like, you're going to lose, Caroline. And I'm like, how am I going to lose all of this stuff that was happening to me? My husband passed away right in front of my face. My kids were taken. I lost my freedom. I lost my name. And when you lose your name and you replace it with a number, that strips a whole whole different thing away from you, your identity. Like, how could people know that all of this stuff was happening? And yes, I was making bad decisions, but they're not going to convict me. And he's like, they're going to convict you. You're you're going to lose your daughter. And at this point, I'd already got gotten my other three kids. My other three kids, they were severed out of my case. So now I'm only fighting for my youngest daughter, whose mom works for CPS, whose grandmother works for CPS. I was fighting a losing battle. I wasn't going to win no matter what. But I remember getting up there on that stand and I was like, I'm not asking for you to give me my daughter back. What I'm asking is to have some sort of relationship with her. So when I get home, I can fix all the things that I broke. Yeah, that's fair. Right. That's so they said, no, terminated rights terminated. Um, and that was like, that I've had three, like three big pivotal moments where I was like, God does not exist. One was when my husband died. I couldn't understand why a loving gosh, just God would take this 34 year old man away, causing me to spiral, causing my daughter to never know her father or even hear the sound of his voice ever. Um, my kids were, I couldn't understand. Mm hmm. Um, and then I'm, you know, I'm going to prison and I'm like, why is this happening to me? Why God are you? How, why is this happening to me? I'm not like this, isn't me. Um, and then I, I, one more, I have one more prayer and I'm in that cell waiting for my verdict to come back and I'm like, God, please, please don't let them take my daughter from me. Please don't let me feel that daughter gone. And so I was, I was so mad. Oh, I was so mad. I'm like, don't come at me with no freaking self-help bullshit. Don't come at me with no religion. I don't want to hear shit. Cause I know that that's crap. It's not real. And I was not paying attention to the other parts that were really important where God did have my back and I was not paying attention. Yeah. Um, I had a suicide attempt in 2020. Yeah. I was going to say, can you talk about that? Cause that's very important. I will. Um, so this is the first time that I should have been paying attention, but I didn't realize until I was, you know, already a year into TTC. Uh, I had a suicide attempt in 2020. And, um, cause I, I, you lose hope when all of this stuff, you don't know, I don't, nobody's equipped to deal with that. No, I get it. Nobody. And, um, I had no hope and I, I went and I went to go see my plug and I was driving and mind you, I live in a very small town and I was 45 minutes away from my home. Almost on the border of Buta and into a different county into like the South Austin area. Um, and I remember I picked up what I needed and I just was going to, you know, take, take these pills and I was just going to go to bed. And by the time I got home, these pills would hit and I could go in my bed and I could go to sleep and I could not just not wake up. Yeah. Well, I'm driving and these things hit me. I think probably the amount I took, um, but they hit me really quick. And I remember I was driving and I started to nod and I remember having the thought, okay, Caroline, you do not want to kill anybody else. Like just get off the road. And so I pulled over in a gas station and I pulled up to the gas pump and my foot was on the brake. My car was in drive and I passed out. Um, I was found unresponsive. I had no heartbeat and I wasn't breathing by a police officer who was pulling up next to me to just fill up his cruiser. Wasn't looking for me. Nothing. Um, I had enough to put me away for a few Mandels. I had paraphernalia drugs in excess. Um, and he didn't charge me with anything and he saved my life. And that cop was a cop that responded to the night. My husband passed away to my home. And this was after your husband. This was after, okay. And, uh, he put me on a three day cycle and that three day cycle turned into a 10 day cycle. Um, but he didn't charge me and he saved my life. And that, that is God. That's a God moment that you can't argue that. That's what you would call divine intervention. And I wasn't paying attention to that, that part at the time. Um, yeah. When those things happened to me, I just thought, I just got lucky. I got you. Got lucky. There's, there's no such thing as that. There's no such thing as luck. If you were supposed to be dead, you'd be dead. Yeah. You know? Um, so it's, it's things like that. It's moments that I reflect on and I didn't even know that until I'm going through trial and I'm hearing all of this stuff in my trial and I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like what? It, what's happening? I still don't know where that cop is. I, I've, I've asked for my discovery. I want to know it cause I just, I would love to give him a hug and thank him because he said, he saved my life in more ways than one that day. He probably saved other people's life that day too. He did. He sure did. He sure did. Cause I, my car was in drive and my foot was on the brake. It was a little kid who walked across and your foot came off. I could have drove right into that gas station. So many things, so many things. And, uh, it was just that's, that's a miracle. Um, but I wasn't ready to see that. Uh, and I'm still like, I'm still angry cause after this point I go to a psych hospital and then I get arrested like 10 more times. And then I know I'm going to TDC and I signed for four years and then my daughter is gone. I'm, and then I, and then to top it all off, I get denied my first parole. And I'm like, what's, what is going on? Why I'm, I'm, my convictions are they're white collar crimes of fraud in, uh, or turn, he got a drop down to a tampering and then failure to appear. They gave me four years for that. So I'm like, they're on minimal shit. And I never got in trouble in TDC. So I don't understand why I don't, I do not accept this answer. I call my lawyer and I'm like, you better fix this now. And he's like, you have 18 months to jail. You're stuck. And I didn't really understand that when I was signed on that dotted line, but. So I lose it. I lose it, but that is the day that, um, I asked God, that was my last prayer. I went into my cell and I'm crying and I'm like, I got to do this for a whole another year. I'm not going to make it. I'm not strong enough for this. I, I was like, God, please. I stopped praying for him to fix it. I stopped praying for him to get me out. I stopped praying for selfish things. And instead I prayed for a sign and I said, please just, can you please give me the strength to get through this? Cause I don't know what to do and I can't live like this anymore. I went to bed that night. And, um, so I'm already, this is already going into a year and a half after my husband passed away. Um, I jumped about him often, but it was always so weird cause he never spoke to me in my dream ever. Yeah. Not a word. It was the weirdest thing. And I'd always remember waking up and like, we were moving my friend, Ashley. And like, he wasn't talking to me. Why wasn't he talking to me? Well, I got asked God, I asked him to give me strength and I asked him for a sign and I went to bed that night and I remember closing my eyes and this is. It was, it was real. It was as real as me sitting here talking to y'all. Um, I had my head on his shoulder. He was driving my mom's crappy Ford focus for whatever reason. And, uh, I could feel him. I could smell him. And I remember I picked my head up and I looked at him and I put my head back down and he said, Hey baby. And I said, Hey, and I said, I miss you. And he was like, well, I miss you too. And I told him, I said, I just want to see, just let me see you. I'm sorry. I might cry a little bit. Cause that's all right. We do it all the time. We're probably going to cry with you. Yeah. We'll be in the pocket. If you were. I told him, uh, I, I, I want to see you. I can't do this without you. And he was like, well, you can't see me anymore, babe. And I was like, but I want to, and he was like, well, if you want to see me, just close your eyes and remember right now. And I was like, nope, it's not good enough. I want to see you like this. And I, oh God, I remember grabbing his arm and I could feel his, his arm and I could smell him and I could, I touched his face and it was, I didn't know in my dream, I thought I was going crazy and I was like, but I can't, I can't do this without you. And he was like, yes, you can. And I want you to know that everything is going to be okay. That you're going to be okay. And then I love you. And I remember asking him, I said, well, what am I supposed to do without you? And he said, you do what you do best, baby. And you go out there and you teach. And I had no idea what he meant. And I remember waking up so suddenly and I was like, I could still smell him and I could still hear his voice was ringing in my ear and I could still feel him. And I thought I was losing it. And that is, that is the day that I decided that I was no longer going to be a victim and I needed to fix my life. And so, and I'm still in prison. And so I, uh, I start going to the library and I start reading everything I can on positive psychology and how I can change my negative thought process and my thinking into positive. And I soak up everything that makes sense. And I start doing these little things. Um, gratitude list, gratitude list. So important. Um, but I did it, I did it before bed. And here's the trick to a gratitude list. You got to be grateful for things that you think you shouldn't be grateful for. And so one of the things that goes on my gratitude list every day is my husband's mother because she did, she took my baby. She took my baby from me. And, um, that's a pain that I will feel forever. Uh, but my daughter is so loved. She's so loved and she's so taken care of and she's provided for it. She's happy. You know, and as a mother, like what more could I want for my child? And so she goes number one on my gratitude list every single day, every single day. Um, and that was a hard thing to like train my brain to do. Because I'm, I'm still, I have resent and I'm angry. I haven't seen my, she's, she'll be six. And I haven't seen her and I don't know. I, if I passed her an HB, I wouldn't even know it. You know, um, but I'm just, I'm so grateful to her because even though her, what she did, would I have done anything different? If I was her and my son had just died of a drug overdose and then your daughter in law is going crazy and getting arrested, would I really have acted any differently? She did what she thought was best. She did what she thought she needed to do to help my daughter in. You know, I'm grateful because I couldn't take care of my kids for a while. Um, but at least she's not bouncing in foster care and at least she's not going from place to place or getting, you know, molested or neglected or abused. So I, she's, she's number one. She's also number one on my resentful list, but that's okay. Yeah. She's number one, but that's, you know, and, and that's okay. You know, cause my daughter, um, I'm so grateful to my, to my first husband, my kid's father, because, um, he's kept my, all four of my kids with a relationship. And so one day my little girl, she's going to come find me and she's going to want to know who I am. And, um, it'll be early because she has my other, I have custody of my other kids. Yeah. Um, and they're going to tell her about me and there she's going to want to know. And when she knocks on my door and she wants to know, I'll be ready. Yeah. I'll be ready. And, um, I'll tell my mother-in-law, thank you. And who's to say that, you know, the prayers that you put out there won't change your mother-in-law's mind. I hope so. To help her. I hope so. So you know what? It's, it's time to give you that chance. I hope so. And I don't, um, have you reached out to her or you can't? I can't. You can't reach out to the mother-in-law either. No, um, I tried a couple of times when I was in TDC, like just, you know, writing her letters, like, please, like, you don't understand, like, I'm not trying to take Braylon from you. I'm not trying to take her, but don't close the book on my relationship with her because I deserve to know her too. And even today, I wouldn't, um, I think there's like a seven year period where when you get your rights term, you can go and you can appeal it and do all this stuff. And even if I did that, and then the state was like, here you go, you can have your kid back. I wouldn't rip her out of her only environment. She's known for six years. She was 18 months when she was taken from me. I would not disrupt her. But I would humbly ask that there's some sort of like, let me visit her. Yeah. You know, let me see her at least. Um, and that's it. Will you keep on the path that you're doing with what you're doing? Yeah. And God will work all that out. I, I, I know, I know that like 100% to be true. The way that we are, we want it right now. Right now. Fucking yesterday. Um, and sometimes that's how God humbles. That's how he humbles me. Is I'm a big believer that he'll give me back everything that I need, not everything that I want, right? But it's going to be on his own time too. That's right. It's his bull. Sucks sometimes. A lot of times. Does, but is, uh, if, if, if prison and recovery has taught me one thing, it's patience. And, um, you know, I'm probably going to lose 13 years with my daughter, but I'm going to gain 40. I'm going to gain it at some point. Mm hmm. Um, I just think that, um, I mean, I'm listening to the story and I'm glad that you said what you said at the end of it, which is I don't, I don't think I would have done anything different because I don't know that I would have either. And I was just me being honest with you. You wouldn't, but the, but the person sitting here now, you're ready for that. You're ready. And so take that from a moron and what that's worth. But, uh, but the work that you're going to continue to do and you're going to continue to do on your own and you're going to continue to do with your other children, it's only going to prepare you even better every single day. And I know that's probably sucks to hear. No, I appreciate it. But the, but that is the reality. And I think I feel like that day will come sooner to you than you think. I really hope so. And that's all I'm trying to do. I promise once I started to like, you know, these things happen not to me, but a big part because of me. Sure. My husband passed away because he was an addict and he did not get help. Yeah. And we know that. That is the risk rerun as addicts. Yeah. Um, I went to jail because I was breaking the law. A lot. All this. Yeah. All the time. Constantly. Yeah. Pulling me over. Yeah. That's why. And that is, I mean, it doesn't matter why I was in the state of mind I was in, or was there and I was breaking the law. I went to prison. Right. You know, I lost my rights to my daughter because I was not fit to be a mother at that point in my life. And I, um, you see, somebody, I have, I have clients asking me all the time, well, like, wouldn't you want to go back and redo it? I'm like, I would not go back and redo a second of it because everything that happened was supposed to happen because now I'm here and I use everything that I went through in the last, you know, seven years. And, um, I use it as a, I try to help people now. I want to be part of the solution and not the problem. You know, and, um, it's any, and you can do it. I tell people that you're all going to think I'm crazy, but it's not what do you want to do? Caroline? Well, I want to change the world. And I know you are a dreamer. Well, why? Why is that such a big dream? Because all I have to do, I have to help one person. One person has to hear something that sticks with them forever. And then that person takes that and applies it to another person and that sticks. And it applies to that. And that's how people change people. And that's how you change the world. And it's like a domino effect. And that's something that I want to be part of. You know, like I want to do that. I want to leave the world in a better place than when I came into it because my babies have to grow up here. Yeah. You know? Yeah. That's something, uh, I would, my favorite quote that I heard in rehab, as I say it on this podcast a lot is forgiveness has given up the hope that the past could have been any different. So when people are always like, well, if you could go back and change it, I wouldn't, because who's to say that no matter if I did everything right, that it still wouldn't have happened the same way, because that's the way that God intended it for it to happen. That's right. Right. So I can't go back and change it. And when I heard that, cause I used to live in the should of, could of would us and they kept me in my addiction forever. Because man, if I could have done this, if I should have done this, or I still be married, I'd still have my cars and my house and all this stuff. And until I, when I heard that quote in rehab, I was like, that makes so much sense. Yep. What if it was supposed to be that way? What if, even if I would have done everything right, everything still would have happened for the reason, because that's the way that God wanted my life to go. So I could go and take that and go help other people through it. And I think that's the reason that we go through this. Now, people that watch this will be, well, you put yourself through that. Fuck yes, we did. Yes, we did. But the reason that we kept going through it is because we were, we were in a bad place and mental health is a huge deal. But now we're, we're equipped with what that feels like. And we're equipped to go help the next person that's going through it or before they start going through it. That's right. And that's like, isn't that, isn't that the 10th step? Yeah. The 12th step, your, your service work paying it forward. And, um, that's, there's already such a, there's not enough education behind addiction and mental health as it is. And we have this big, we have a huge neon sign already with society where losers were criminals, were addicts, were street walkers, were bad parents, were this, were that, but really, um, we're, we're totally normal. And addiction doesn't really care what you are. They know who you are. Who you are. It doesn't matter. It's going to take you. I mean, it's going to take you. I was, I was a preschool teacher for seven years. I was a wife. Uh, I was with my first husband, 17 years. We had a mortgage and this and of that. And all of that went away. And in the blink of an eye, it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Addiction will take you. And I remember one of my clients, I was, I was doing a 12th, I was doing an A meeting one day and, um, he was like, I just, I just want to be normal Caroline. And I was like, I'll stop you right there. What is normal? Let, tell me what that means to you, because let me tell you what normal in society standards are. 86% of America deals with addiction in some form, whether it's sex or food or drugs or gambling or shopping, which is where I'm at right now. But, um, we 86% yeah, that's a over half. That's over 75% of us. That's the normal. And so the people who are, you know, normies are, they're not normies at all. They're the not normal. So people, cause it'd be addiction can make you ashamed and so can mental health. Um, but it shouldn't because you have, if you don't speak up, if we don't speak up, then nobody else is going to have the balls to speak up. You know what I'm saying? Like, especially with kids nowadays, everybody's weird. Yeah. Everybody's not normal. Yeah. Every single per like me, you, you, you, everybody is not normal in their own way. Right. It's just the way it is. Whether you deal with this addiction thing or you don't and odds are you do in some form or fashion, whether you're closeted about it or not, like most people hide it. Well, that's the thing is that what separates you guys from the normies, right? Is the veil that is able to be kept over them. They're able to keep the hot water on. They're able to not get arrested 13 times in like a period of four days. Yeah. But you know what I'm saying? Like that, that's what, but that doesn't make it any less of an addiction. That just means you're better at hiding it. And that is, let me tell you something that is harder to do sometimes. It's got to be exhausting. It is. Cause you know, you're, we make a living out of lying and the biggest person we lie to ourselves, we think it's really everybody else. It's really our freaking selves. Cause we think that we can get this shit under control. We have no control over it. It will take you. Um, and it's, it's just, I worry about that with my kids because I'm a numbers person. Um, I love numbers. I'm going to, if you can put that shit on a piece of paper and I can see what a percentage is like what I'm there all day, I can understand that shit. And, um, I have four kids and I'm pregnant with my fifth and statistically speaking, I was going to wait until the end of it. I am pregnant with my fifth and statistically speaking, three in a half of my children are going to struggle with addiction and mental health and go through the system. And so what, what am I going to do with that piece of information now that I know that I can educate my kids? I can forbid my kids, which is crazy. Um, usually makes rebellious children makes you want to do it more. Yeah. Um, or I can be a solid example and, um, a, not just an example, but a support system for when these situations come up and keep a veil out from, that's right. I want to buy to my children and tell them that the world's made of rainbows and sun shines because that's not true. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's just, it's not accurate. Um, and you know, he, they will be faced with this kind of stuff. They will be in it. So my main goal is keep an open line of communication with my kids and pray that I've done a good enough job as an example. And as a parent, I, my kids don't really get in trouble, um, especially if they're honest with me, cause I don't want them to fear telling me something. Right. Yeah. I mean, um, I think I'm going to brag for a second cause my 17 year old son, he got a girlfriend and she was, I was a little nervous at first cause she was 19 and he was 17. Yeah, buddy. My son was terrified to tell him, his dad, I knew like two months before his, his dad knew, and he's like, mom, you're not going to tell dad, right? And I'm like, no, I am not going to tell your dad. Um, and you know, I just, I keep that, I keep that inside. And I'm like, thank you. Cause that, and then when he started, become sexually active, guess who got to know? I did. And he's 17, you know, kids don't want to talk their moms about that, but my kids feel comfortable enough to come to me and talks about, you know, uncomfortable shit that teenagers don't want to talk to the parents about, but I get those, I get those conversations and that's how I know. I'm like, okay, you might have done a lot of crazy shit and you might have fucked up there for a little bit, but you're, you're doing good. You're, you're doing okay. And I'm not going to do everything perfect. Yeah. Um, but I'm going to do the best that I know how to do. You know, that's something, uh, my daughter will come to me about anything. And I've had talks with her mom about this where she's not as comfortable going to mom to talk to her about, like her mom will call me and say, Hey, so she talked to you about this, or she talked to destiny about this. And she should be talking to me about that. And I'm like, you're right. She should, but she doesn't feel comfortable talking to you about that. Yeah. Because you don't think it's time to talk to her about certain stuff. And you need to change that because it's time to talk to her about whatever she wants to talk about. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and I told her, like, be grateful that I have a fiance that's willing to sit our daughter down and have those conversations because. Look, when Kaelin starts going through a lot of, I don't want to hear some of that shit. Right. I'm going to thank God I have destiny here. Yeah. I don't want to hear about your period. Yeah. I don't want to know anything about that. Are, you know, there's, but I think it's so important that they're able to come to you, at least yesterday, right? And it is, and you know, I always tell Kaelin, Kaelin's like, dad, we're, are we not going to tell mom? And the rule for me is only if your mom asks, I'm not going to go give the information, but I'm not lying to your mom either. Cause I'm scared of your mom. That's it. That's a good rule. So if she asks, she'll be like, dad, do we have to tell mom only if she asks? Yeah. If she doesn't ask, we don't have to tell her shit. Yeah. But if she asks, we have to tell her. Yeah. And she's like, all right, cool. Yeah. That's a good rule. I should add that. I usually say, I'm not going to tell your dad as long as you're not hurting yourself or anybody else. And then, you know, whatever you want to talk, because it trusts is important. Yeah. Trust is so important. I have those same conversations with the kids dad. They're like, it's a little bit harder. I have a little bit, it goes a little bit differently because my kids don't talk to them about anything. So when these things are coming up and I'm like, oh my gosh, I got to talk to your dad, they're like, Caroline, you're a liar. And I'm like, are you telling me my kids are lying to me? Like what? They don't want to tell you this stuff. Like why don't they want to examine that? Yeah. Um, but we're sometimes we're too judge, judgemental. Yeah. Sometimes I don't feel like they can trust us or they can't talk to us about anything. Right. Right. Are they going to worry about a reaction? Yeah. And that's what I told her mom. I said, you are nine year olds worried that you're going to judge her on certain stuff and she can't worry about that ever. Yes. No, not all at all. And her mom's phenomenal. But there's some things that she's, I think because she hasn't went through addiction, right? And she hasn't like, there's a lot of things that she hasn't went through. Right. That she just doesn't think that it happens out there. The way that it does. Oh, yeah. Like they live in, um, Lakeway, right? One of the richest school districts in this area. Right. So she thinks that kids over there aren't doing drugs in middle school. And I'm like, you're a fucking outside of your mind because those kids have the resources for it. I was about to say it probably happens more. And a lot of those kids parents aren't in town because they're off being CEOs and shit like that. So you better believe that, you know, she's an elementary now when she moves up to six and seventh grade, there's going to be drugs in there. Oh yeah. That I guarantee you. And then, you know, here comes the boy factor and, you know, I worry about my daughter a lot with like body image issues, you know, she's, she'll be in seventh grade next year or sixth grade. And, um, she's starting to get like, she's starting to become a woman and it's freaking her out. And I don't ever become a one. It's right around the corner. Her sis. So, um, my husband, my ex-husband, he, um, had a baby in between our second and our third. So she has a sister from my ex-husband who's a year older and she already started her period and my daughter's freaking out. And she's like, mom, what if this happens to me? And I'm like, well, you're 10. She's like, well, she's 11. The sister's 11. Yeah. I'm like, it's, it's, you know, coming around, around the corner. And, um, I just, I worry, I hope I've done a good job of, uh, giving my kids at least the confidence to where they don't aren't, aren't going to suffer with like the self-esteem stuff. Um, we all hope. We, I know. And I'm a really strong light. I'm very strong minded and I really don't care what people think of me. And like it's, um, I wear like everything that I've wear, like a badge of honor. And I talk about it openly and freely. And it's, uh, I just, it sucks because mental health with teenagers is something that's not addressed as much as it should be. And, um, I just, I, I, every day I'm checking in with my kids. I'm like, are you good? How are you? What are you feeling today? I'm going to, I, cause I want to know. I want them to be able to check in with me. Um, well, that's something that like they never talked about whenever we were growing up, right? It's total silence. The addiction thing really wasn't a big deal either. Like it was like, say no to drugs. They had dare and that kept us away. Yeah. Like what? We remember, uh, was it puffed the crime? What was McGruff the crime dog? Oh yeah. The McGruff the crime dog. The crime dog. Yep. And then they had the frog when I was like five that fucking said, say no to cigarettes. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, but like it's not anything that like counselors, there's not enough counselors in schools. Right. They have like one counselor for a thousand kids or whatever. Yeah. That's insane. It's not, it's not effective or if it's not effective in a, but there's so much that that's the reason more people, like we need more of you out there to go and tell your story and be honest about it. I know there's a lot of, like you can see people on the wall right behind you. There's a lot of everybody in there's recovered. Most of those people go and tell their story. Some of them and, and everybody's different. And if that's okay, some of the, some people get sober and they go and have a great life. Yeah. And that's good too. That's awesome to say that's okay. That's okay too. I'm a big believer that when God pulls you out of the fire, you go back in and pull more people out. Right. And that's what God did for us. Yep. And that's the way that I can pay God back for all those times that I didn't think he was beside me, that when I look back now, I should have a criminal record. Yeah. I should have lost my daughter. Yeah. I should, I probably would have fucking, there's many times where I could have drove and killed people. And those are times there's cops pulled me over and checked me. I had stuff on me every single time. They just never found it. Yeah. And those are times where I'm like, there's no question to me about God, because God saved me every single time and he still saves me to this day. Let's change the world too. I mean, changing the world. Like everybody's own world is around them. Right. Mm hmm. Every single in their face. Yeah. Every single individual out there has their own world. Mm hmm. When you go help somebody, you just change the world for that person. Yeah. Right there. Right. If they end up getting their shit together and going out and reaching the other end and living a productive life because of what you are saying to them. You just change the world. Yeah. You changed a world. Yeah. You know. Mm hmm. And that's all that's really important. That means you probably changed your kids world. Yeah. That means that people have changed the world. You changed a little universe. That's something you can't put a price tag on. You can. And it's, I will never forget the first client that he, I had to, so I'm a blocker and if you try to leave rehab, I'm coming in and I have a pretty, I'm pretty good at it. Like I've never, I had two people leave treatment on me and one of them came back the next day and the other one came back six hours later. So it doesn't count. Yeah. They came back. Um, but I'll never forget it. I had to block him the whole 90 days he was there. He was just, it was mental health. He was always upset. Um, but the night before he discharged, cause I liked to work a second shift, uh, schedule. So I was coming in the afternoon and leaving at like 11. Yeah. Um, but he came and he pulled me aside and he was like, Caroline, and he just starts crying. He's like, I wanted to tell you thank you cause you saved my life. He was like, you have no idea. This is my seventh time in rehab. I would have never been successful if you weren't here to push me and show me that I could do it and I'm sitting on biting my tongue cause I ain't no bitch. And I'm not going to cry right now, but he's telling me this and I'm just like, I'm flooded with. I'm like, Oh my God, I went back to my office and I cried like a baby. Cause I'm like, I just saved that person's life. And that was the moment I knew. I was like, I'm never going to do anything different for the rest of my life. I'm never, I'm meant for, I'm meant to do this. And then it, I also, it put the, my husband told me, he said, go out there and teach. And I'm like, okay, I know what that meant now cause I'm, I'm out here and I'm, I'm, I'm going to teach, I'm going to teach you how to forgive yourself. If you can look in the mirror, be okay with yourself after all the shitty things that you've done, and we've done some shitty things and still be okay with it. And still love yourself after you're winning, bro. Put your feet on the floor and do a little bit better today than you did yesterday. If you do that every single day, winning. You can't lose. Can't lose. I have, we have a shirt. I need, we need to get some more of those ones that we made that quote on. It says, um, after addiction, find yourself, love yourself, forgive yourself and reinvent yourself. And the biggest person I had to forgive was me. I thought I had all these fucking hate feelings for everybody else. But then when I realized like my biggest resentment was against myself for all the shitty things that I did and all the times that didn't show up and all the lies and all the deceit and all that, when I was able to forgive myself, I was like, cool. It's like a weight. Yeah. Now. Okay. Cool. Now I can start loving myself again. Now I can find myself again and now I can go out and reinvent myself. Yeah. And, and that's, you know, that's what overcoming addiction and then going and helping the next person allows us to do. So you get sober in prison. I got sober in prison. I've never been to rehab. That's hard. That's gotta be. It's a lot, a lot. You can find it anywhere. Um, it's right around the corner. Um, and it comes in in the worst ways, you know, guards bring it in. Um, I went to maximum security penitentiary. I did not do small time. I signed on a four year sentence and I did half my time. Um, so I was, I was in there and there, um, but it is, it's everywhere. And it's not just addiction. There's sex and gambling and all the bad things that I've got us to there are in there and then you don't have things like, you know, recovery coaches or counselors or any meetings in yours. Did you all do AA or nothing like that? No, and that's like, so when I joined a program, after I had that, like, epiphany in that dream, I was like, okay, and I started like positive psychology. I'm like, well, I can't waste any time anymore. I went and applied for a program and it's called, it's called EWAP and it stands for empowering women out of prison. And it's, uh, it's a small business. You get it at the end of it. You get an entrepreneurship, small business degree from the university of Houston. It's actually quite wonderful. And the point of it is to rehabilitate the girls and to help them. So when you get out, um, they're not struggling with like finding jobs. It helps you create your own business. Um, and so in there, cause you don't, you don't have all of those things. Um, you also don't have a way to work. So your CPS services, which is something that I really needed. Uh, when I, my rights were terminated, they were not terminated based on abuse, neglect, or anything like that. They said, you did not work your CPS services. I was in prison because I cut that wasn't a reason. Yeah. They didn't care. But you know, um, so my, I graduated and I was in the top 10, 10 of my class and my business was a nonprofit program that I wanted to install in the prison systems. It's called the Bray program and it stands for bringing parental rights awareness to everyone. And it is a program for, um, women with a short sentence who have an open and active CPS case, get trauma addiction, um, or trauma and addiction counseling, life skills classes, and also have a, uh, go between for CPS. So you're able to have like contact visits with your children. Um, and the research that I did on this, it's like, it's, it's phenomenal. It could, and this is something that could be done, um, really easily. Um, I'm in school right now to get my LCDC. I want to become a counselor, but I have to do a ridiculous amount of like hours. Uh, right. And under the direction of a licensed, you know, therapist, but, um, if you could get people like me who's in school and have to do like service work and like, you know, practice under, you could get some, you could get five of me, which are in plenty and come in there and give these girls addiction counseling, give them trauma counseling for free. Cause I can't get paid. It's an internship. I can't get paid for my hours that I have to do. So I just small changes and this would dramatically reduce, um, their citizen rate, they wouldn't be coming in and out of prison and in a not a prison. It would lower the risk of, you know, terminating parental rights in Texas. It's a pro mom state, but we terminate parental rights as an alarming rate. It's alarming. Um, I think it was in 2015, 5,000, um, children's rights were terminated, uh, because of incarceration and their parents coming to incarceration. And in today, there are currently two day in the state of Texas loan, 45,870 children in state care. Over half of them will never go home for things that can be avoided. You know, so, um, that's what that was my, that was my business plan. And I am, I did graduate and right now, uh, a position opened up with them for a reentry program coordinator. So I'm in the works of trying to get on with that, but they're a nonprofit program or they're a nonprofit organization. And so I would love to do that. Love it. So fingers crossed. Well, they'd be lucky to have you. And we had a couple episodes. I would urge you to watch this one too, but Kendra urge everybody to watch that one. It was, it blew me away. I was two episodes ago and she's doing something very similar to what you're doing. She actually lives by you too. Yeah. She's out that way. He's out in the rompals area. Yeah. Y'all might, y'all might know each other. Yeah. He goes by cage and Kendra. I do not. I have not heard about her and I'm pretty, is she in the recovery community? Cause I'm pretty plugged over there. You need to look, you need to look her up, especially being that close. But, um, I think this should go for you and her specifically for what you guys have gone through and being in the position that you are now and you're already helping people. And she's doing the same thing. She's going to get her counseling license as well. She's already doing it. It's like, look, dude, I watched fucking Denzel Washington get a degree from like Harvard for what an honorary degree or something. It's like, obviously that shit can be passed out. Yeah. And don't be done online too, which is like, well, I know that you guys aren't really looking for like a free pass or anything like that. But if the point of that is like, if there's anybody who is well enough educated already to be able to do that with a license for it, it's someone like yourself and it's someone like Kendra, right? Who is trying to do it. It's like, there's, to me, it's fucking stupid that you have to go read a book to to counsel someone on what on the shit that you have just lived. Yeah. Incredible way. And I, because I work in recovery and I'm around, I'm around this. It's the school is so easy for me. I'm actually like, so funny story is there's something called club testing. And I'm looking into that because I already have my basics done and now it's like all of the other like stuff, but if I can test out, then I can get my license. And so it's just a little bit expensive, but I'm looking into that because there is, I don't know if she knows that it's called club testing. And if she's in school, it, it skips you all the way to the end. If you can pass that test, that's awesome. That's how it should be because there's a, there's one of our viewers, she reached out to me and she's like, Hey, I've never been an addict. I've never been homeless. I've never done any of that, but I'm going to school to be a counselor for addicts. Do you think that I can do it? And I said, I think anybody can do anything, but it's going to be very hard for people to relate to you because you've never done it. Yes. Agreed. I've never been to prison. So I can't sit here and tell somebody about what prison is because fuck, I've never been. Right. Like I would cry the first day I guarantee you as badass as I am, I would fucking get in there and. You're not that badass, but I mean. But like I've never been homeless. Right. I can't tell you what being homeless is about. I wouldn't fucking last out there. It's fucking 97 degrees outside right now. When I get my car in the air, it doesn't turn on immediately. I'm fucking hating life. Yeah, I couldn't do it. Yeah, I don't want to do it. I'm such a bitchy person when things don't line up. But but but I feel like you have to have that experience. Like my sponsor has to know something about meth. Right. If he's just an alcoholic, God bless him, but I've never been an alcoholic. So I can't talk to you about fucking smoking meth or shooting meth or fucking because you don't it's not going to make sense to you. Yeah, you have no idea. No, I mean, addiction. I don't know what a fucking hot real is. Yeah, addiction. How the heck fucking can save your day. Yeah, no, agreed. 100 percent. And you're right. Anybody can do this stuff, but are you going to want to go get your car fixed from somebody who has had hands on training or somebody who just passed a test online and is like, yep, I watched a YouTube video and now I'm going to, I'm a YouTube mechanic. I'm I'm I'm going to fix your radiator. Like, no, right. You're not you're not going to do that. I grew, I cut my teeth in the mechanic world and I will make this make sense. But I've worked around really, really great mechanics in my life. And there's a thing in the mechanic world, AC certified being master certified is like the top thing that you can do. The worst fucking mechanic I was ever around was an AC certified master tech because he didn't know his way around a fucking car. But he could read a book. Yeah. And he could take that test. And the best mechanic I have ever been around in my life was a dude who could not read or write a lick. Like he would bring me a work order and I couldn't read it. Like it was pictures of damn near. Like it was like I was like, I would have to go to him and I'm not trying to offend him. But I'm like, dude, I don't know what you're telling me here. Like so I would. And he was like, yeah, I need this, this, this and this. But the point of that is, is when that dude opened a hood on a car, he just fucking got it. Like in a way that the dude, he would be like, OK, it's not doing that. And there's not a fucking thing that he could read or write ever that's going to help him understand that any better. And that's what I'm saying is yourself, Kendra, who are looking at doing you guys can open that hood of a person and you're going to get it immediately. There's nothing that you're going to read or write or test that's going to teach you how to do that any better for them because you already had the experience, the long term trauma, addiction, loss of kids, Kendra, loss of kid in the worst fucking way you could lose a kid. If her son was murdered in front of her, that's terrible. He was five years old or four years old. And it was just like the bullet went through her. And she was shielding her. She was doing what you're supposed to do. Didn't work, right? She's come out on the other end of all of that. It's like there is nothing that you're going to sit in front of that lady or you and you guys are going to be able to immediately you start rowing the boat for them in the direction that they need to go. So that's just one of the worst things that happened to her. Right. I mean, like I said, listen to it. Yeah, I definitely will because I couldn't even imagine you're going to ball. You're like, I couldn't even cry in here when listening to it. I was crying. He wasn't here. Destiny was doing the filming that day. She was crying. I couldn't even do it. I was like, I was just shocked. And then like I went back to listen to it. And I'm just like, yeah, you should link up with her. I would love to because I mean, we got our number. I could not imagine that, you know, I. My daughter's, you know, with somebody else and I my heart breaks, but I couldn't imagine that. Yeah, right. Could not imagine that. But but the positivity that's in her positivity, that's in you. I mean, you guys are just spreading it. So we do need to wrap this up, but I do want to talk to you about the recovery process a little bit more and what life is like for you today. Oh, like, so let's start with recovery. You did that in prison. I did that in prison. You worked that 12 step program. No, I did not start working a program until I came home. Um, I just was doing like it smart recovery, which is like positive psychology, cognitive stuff, but I was doing that on my own. Not really like just flat. But so you're white knuckling it. It. Yes, I was, but it worked. And then when I got out, um, my friend, she was like, Hey, do you, do you need a job? And I was like, yep, you're doing right. I do. And she got me in at my recovery, uh, the, uh, place over there in Wimberley. And I just, I hit the ground running and, um, I started working the steps. I started to learn about big book and I'm not alcoholic either, but I love big book texts, um, probably my favorite. I'm gonna work in that. Yeah, I do. Um, but, uh, now I do that. And I was, um, that's, that's just I, what I do and life today is. It's just so great. You have a, you have this like veil over your eyes when you're in addiction and you're not happy and you're not this and you're not that. And when you get sober and you come out, um, it's, it's completely different. I mean, my kids are at home waiting for me right now. They're so, they're so sto. And they're, they're like, they couldn't be prouder of me. Yeah. Um, I'm getting married, you know, and I didn't think I was ever going to do that again and my fiance, he's wonderful. He's a normie, whatever you would call a normie. You know, 14% of the other small percentage. Um, but it's helpful for me because he, you know, I met him at my, uh, at my center I work at, I worked at and he's, uh, worked in mental health and addiction. He was there for six years and, but he's, he's totally normie, but he's, um, very understanding, very supportive of it. Um, and absolutely, I, I absolutely love him. He's, he's great. Um, he's never, I would hope so. He had, you have a baby inside of you right now. I do. I do. I am pregnant, but he, he's the first normal healthy relationship I've ever been in. Um, he has never yelled at me out of anger. He has never called me a fucking bitch. He has never, um, it's just. I didn't know that men like him existed. And then I get him and I'm like, I didn't know what to do with him at first. I'm like, what, this is not toxic enough for me. That's how destiny was with me. I was like, this is crazy. Like you love me. What? This isn't what love is. Um, and it took me a long time to like get on, get on board. Um, but he's, you know, I get breakfast in bed every weekend. I didn't even know men did that. And I'm like, what, he brings me to, I wake up and there's tacos in the bed. I'm like, oh my God. He's, he's so great. He has a little bit of a nerve. Why breakfast in bed? He's a little bit of an art. He loves Star Wars and like Lord of the Rings stuff. And you haven't watched Star Wars yet. No, I haven't. I'm with you on that. I've never seen it. Not even none. He, so we did, we tried to like, that man brings you breakfast in bed. You watch Star Wars with him immediately. I tried, but I'm just like, it's so boring. We got to watch all kinds of stupid shit that you ladies want to watch. Oh God. He likes my shit. He doesn't. He, he actually, cause I like murder shit and I'm like watching true crime. And he, he did tell you the other like, if it was a few weeks ago, he was like, baby, I'm going to need you to stop falling asleep with that shit on in the background because I wake up to like screaming. Destiny has me on criminal minds right now. Yeah. I've been watching the shit out of that. And we have, we're going on Dexter. Like he's never seen Dexter. And so we want rewatch it from start to finish. You watch a hundred. Are you, do you watch you? Oh, I love you. She's watched that like 500 fucking different time. Yep. Hunting is really good. Destiny will go through every season and then started over. I don't know how people do that. Like after four seasons, I'm like, I'm done with it. You, cause you learned stuff. You didn't know, you didn't catch it at first, but you got to rewatch it and you catch it again. And I'm like, Oh, okay. I'm like, I'm the same way. I love, I love that stuff. See, so something that you and destiny probably relate to and I'm going to. Destiny never had a good, healthy relationship either. Right. And then when we got together, I was already in recovery and it through it. It was crazy to her that I would open doors. Yeah. And pay for things. And like she was telling her brother, she was like, I think he's trying to buy me. And her brother's like, no, he just cares about you. Yep. So what a good guy does, he just cares about you. And she had went through like such bad relationships. Like she was trying to like get away from me. Right. And we're still together. She were engaged. We're going to get married. But something she used to always say is, I don't know why I had to go through all the other ones to get to you. And I always tell her because you wouldn't appreciate it. Me just like I had to go through some bad ones too. To realize like I'm the most loved I've ever been right now. Yes. And that's the reason we, that's the reason we go through the shit that we went through so we can get to, so we can be grateful for the smallest fucking things. Like the very smallest things. Yeah. So something she was telling me before you got here today, can I tell them about when you got re-arrested or can you tell that story? Which I, when, when you went in the first time, you were pretty much homeless, right? Yes. Yes. Okay. Can you retell it? Cause it's a great story. I, I just got out of County recently. I was there for 36 days. No fault of my own, but, um, yes. Okay. So I, you know, I made my second parole, not my first. I made my second parole. Um, I discharged successfully, I discharged early in J. It was either the end of January beginning of February. I was done. Well, on April. It's not on probation, not on parole. Nothing. Free. Okay. Um, but on April 10th, I'm recovering from my son's surgery with him at home and we get freaking knocking on the door from the popos and I'm like, oh my God, what's going on? Um, well, they tell me that I have some, I have violated parole and that they're here to pick me up. And mind you, they come in like seven deep in my 13 year old son and I'm like, oh my God, freaking out. I'm trying to tell them I'm not on parole anymore. What are you talking about? Anyways, push comes to shove. I go to jail and I'm, you know, I have to comply. And going to jail the other 13 times and going to TTC, I was, you know, I was grateful because I was bouncing around. I didn't know when my next meal was and I have a roof over my head, but going to jail this time only in County row. I was upset. I was crying every single day. I'm freaking out. And it was so hard because I have everything to lose now. Um, turns out cause once you're in the system, you're in the system and it's hard to get out of it, even when you get out of it. Yeah. Um, well, parole, the state of Texas, thank you, did a really weird thing. And they got information that was not connected to me, not had nothing to do with me. We weren't even the same race. And this file got mixed in with my file and they were still actively on parole. And that is why I got arrested. And you had to do 36 days for that. 36 days for this shit to get cleared. And I'm like, I almost waived my parole hearing cause I'm like, well, I don't need to have a parole hearing. And my fiance is like, no, baby, have your parole hearing. You need to be able to talk. And so I'm glad I did. I'm glad I listened to him because in my parole hearing, they're like, Oh, well you tested positive for cocaine. Oh, and you tested positive for meth. Oh, and you got arrested on this date. And oh, you got arrested on that date. And I'm like, none of that's true. What's going on? Stop. I had to stop them in the middle. And I was like, you need to reread my file. And they're like, Oh, Oh yeah. It looks like whoever made the file, got your file mixed up with somebody else's. And I'm like, Oh, what? This is a big mistake. Y'all. And I can't tell them that like they're fucking up because I'm the felon. I can't tell the state that they made a mistake. And I think you kind of can. If you're in that situation, I was so it was like, I get like, it's like $60 of compensation a day. So I get for a whole like life. I get, here's your $60 a day. And oh, by the way, I got a backhand and apology. They were like, Oh, well, you know, we've never seen this happen. So sorry, but you can go now after 36 days. And I'm pregnant in County Jail. I got arrested in front of my son. This looks really bad. Yeah. Like I was on busted. I went to give this recent time. Yes. I didn't even make it back to my cell after my mugshot in my fingerprints. I leave the cell, go get my fingerprints done, go get my mugshot. I come back to my cell immediately, pick up the phone to call my fiance. He's like, so you got on busted. Your baby daddy and his girlfriend are texting me. And I'm like, Oh my God, dude, I was just did this five minutes ago. I would immediately. And she's like, this is viral. And I'm like, Oh my God, it went viral. Why? Cause I work in recovery. It looks bad. It looks all bad. And so yeah, I just got out. So I got arrested on April 10th. I got out May. Oh, I was after Mother's Day. It was after so a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. I've only been out like two weeks. Yeah. So 36 days are just for them to give me a pat on the head and apology and tell me that I'm in title to $60 a day. For how long? For the 36 days. So what's that? 2400 minus 60. And I'm like, it's about 2180 bucks. Something like that. It's crazy. Right. Dude. I know. And I'm like, and I didn't sign it. Look, they were so like trying to, this was such a big mistake. I'm like, okay. So it was different person's name and everything, right? Yeah. No, not a different person's name, a different person's information that these people didn't read your name. Yes. It attached to my name. And when they were reading my file, they didn't read the notes that were in between what was going on. And it wasn't until I was like, you have to reread that. This is wrong. She was like, Oh, there's a note here that says that it may, I'm like, what if I didn't stop you right now? Would I be going back to prison? Yeah. Like what would be happening to me? Cause I'm in a gray area. I don't have a file with y'all because I'm not on parole. What? And that like, I was, I was expecting to just like sign a piece of paper or something. I come to find out the girl that my parole officer, the girl who came to see me originally when I got out, I'm calling parole and I'm like, am I good? Like what's going on? She's on leave. And I'm like, she just left me in print, left me in county jail. And meanwhile the guards in county, they don't want to fuck with me. They're like, are you serious? Well, everybody, you know, everybody that gets arrested is like, it's not me. You got a wrong person. And I, I've never been arrested outside my county. They really had the wrong person. Oh dude. And they were so rude to me. I remember the officer we were doing night checks. She came in and she looked at me. She was like, why the fuck are you back? And I'm like, look, I'm here on a mistake. And she was like, how many times have we heard that before from you? And it, it, I was upset. It made me cry that night. I'm under my blanket and I'm like, don't be a bitch, but I'm crying. Cause I'm like, holy shit. And what can I blame her really? Cause I was, she said whenever when she got arrested the first time. Yeah. When like she was homeless, I didn't have no job. I didn't fucking have nothing to eat. I was happy to go to prison. Yeah. Fuck yeah. I'm going to get to eat. She said this time with my good life, it was like fucking the worst terrible everything. It was, it was like, I was a, I, people would have thought I was in there for the first, I'm crying every day, every day. And I'm like, I don't know what's happening. I'm on the phone. I'm, I'm like, get me out. I don't know what to do. Cool about it. Um, so I actually stopped working, um, at the center and I started doing more like service work stuff. So it was okay. But I was terrified that like this one on the internet and I'm like, my clients are never going to want to talk to me again. My sponsor out of there, like I was, I was really scared of like, this is going to affect me. And then they wanted to take me to the doctor for the baby. And I'm like, you better not take me in Hayes County. Don't you dare. Yeah. Don't you dare take me here. But it was, it was crazy. It was so crazy. Um, you know, the cool thing about recovery is most anybody that I've ever met is always very forgiving and very understanding. They are, they are your sponsors, your fucking, like all the people. It's, it's, there's never a whole lot of judgment. Yeah. It's more understanding. Yeah. Because that's insane. It is. And I'm trying to get this job with that nonprofit right now. So like she emails me and she's like, Hey, we thought of you. We, we'd really like, you know, to have it. And then she had two days later, she's like, well, why were you were re arrested, you know, on April 10th. And I'm like, you have paperwork saying that that shit was all wrong. Did they give you some paperwork? She showed up not even one. And I'm like, I have an email though. Cause she instead of calling me, oh dude, I had a paper trail. They were telling me. I had to heap my fiance had to go through my freaking iCloud account and get all the text messages, all the this, those, all the desk, all the time I checked in and he was like, it was terrible. You would have to lawyer up. I would think I don't, well, I'm not on parole anymore. So like I'm 36 days ago when I was in the mix, I'm like, I'm suing the state. I'm pissed. So in everybody, but now I'm out and I'm like, okay, well, I'm not, it's not a big deal anymore. I mean, it is a big deal because I, this shouldn't happen. That's a big deal. It's a huge, that's a big fucking deal. Like we're like, we're going to get that. I'm going for that $60 a day. I will get that. Oh, you get that. They're in, they're going to find every way not to give it to me though. I bet. Well, go get, go get your $60. I'm going to ask, um, it's not okay. I'm going to ask a lawyer that I know because you definitely need some kind of paperwork saying that that was all bullshit. At least they didn't give me anything when I left. Like anybody that asks you about it and you say that that was just a mistake. Yep. They're not going to believe me. They're not going to believe us just because of fucking who we are. Unfortunately. Yeah. No, I know. No matter how good you've been doing and how fucking great you are now that the old shit's always going to be like, well, yeah, how many times have you said this before? Exactly. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Um, I do have my little vague email that, um, I keep it's like starred saved and screenshot. Um, and it's just like, Hey, I really don't want this to happen again. Am I good to go? And so she responded with yes, good to go. That's all I got back from her. And I'm like, okay, well, that's all I get then. I'll talk to her. I'll talk to her tomorrow. Yeah. And I'll let you know what she says. So it was scary. So that literally just happened to me. That's insane. That literally just happened to me. And it does look bad because now my kid's dad and his girlfriend are like, we just want Caroline to do good. And my fiance is like, Oh my God, she's doing great. Like, but it looks bad. You know, looks really bad. Like when I got out of rehab, I was taking these drug tests, these hair fall tests. And they kept coming back bad. Yeah. They were coming back worse the next time and the next time until like six months. Oh yeah. So I went to this one place in the first time it just popped for meth. The next time it was for meth and Femine and Coke. I don't even know the last time I did Coke. Yeah. And then I was, I was asking the people like, why does it keep doing that? Like I'm not doing shit. And it's making my daughter's mom think this motherfucker is still using. And they said, well, different strands, whole different stuff. And I, on the last time that I went, I went to a completely different place. I was going to any lab, any lab. Yeah. And, and I've looked at reviews and they say like, that's not the place to go to. And I went to this other place and fucking clean on everything. Yep. The first time that I should. If you ever have to do that again, ask about a nail bed test. It's a lot more accurate than a hair follicle. And it goes back like a year and you can't misinterpret it. Yeah. It's a lot, it's a lot more effective. I mean, yeah, it was, it was terrible. So, well. Well, Caroline, thank you for coming in. Of course. You have an incredible fucking story. And it's not over. It's not over. Yeah, you, you got just getting, you're just getting cranked up. And we don't mean crank by crank, you know, you can find that anymore. Like these people don't even know. I think, I think this is our first pregnant lady. Am I, I haven't even had to pee this whole time. That's remarkable. Yeah. So, so your kiddo has been on a podcast. Yeah. Oh, yes. I can say that. So here's the thing. I think that we should have the baby come back. Yeah. Oh, I would love to bring the baby back. I do have to say that Micah is my funniest child. He said, if I didn't say that, that he wasn't giving me hell. So I had to throw that in there. Well, Micah, I don't believe you. I'm just going to say that out loud. What's up? He is my friend. The only way that, the only way that we can prove that is by you coming in here and seeing your chops, you know, that's all. Is that, is he the oldest? No, Mason's my oldest. He's probably my most innocent child. He's the middle, Micah's the middle one, but he, he is quite hilarious. He will roast you with no cap on that at all. No cap. No cap on that at all. Sky is the limit. Yeah. Sky is the limit. And he's, he's, I'm like, oh my God, he's, he's hilarious. He's also the one that loves me the most. He's my little, he's my mom's boy. What in your family did he drop you off in sleep? He did, but he's doing schoolwork. I insisted because he got behind. He didn't do a week of that. You just sat here. Yeah. He probably would have liked to, like to listen. Well, if you would have said that, like when you first got here, I would have said, bring his ass in here. Yeah. You kind of sat in here and listen. Okay. He probably would have loved that. He loves doing that. He's very, very, very supportive. And he loves hearing this. Every time I tell my story at a meeting, he's always, If you ever come back on, bring him. Yeah. I'd love to. He works, he's worked in recovery and mental health a long time. That's how I met him. He's, he is a normie, but he's, it's remarkable how much empathy he has for somebody who's never done drugs. Man's never even smoked cigarette. I blew my face in his face one time and he was like, Oh my God. You think he would come on? I know he would. Yeah. He'd love it. All right. Well, why don't we bring him on or bring both of you on? Yeah. Get you both in here a little bit. Yeah. That's great. I loved, I loved it. This is like, this is the stuff that I love to do now. This is why I don't limit myself to in a treatment center because I want it to, I wanted to think bigger, bigger. You still go to meetings too. Um, not as much as I should. Not as much as I should, but we should. Yes. We should hit, hit, hit a meeting. I'm down. All right. Let's go. Um, here's as long as I don't have my daughter, I can't bring my daughter to one. Okay. That's the rule that I made with her mom. That's fair. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. Yeah. But if I don't have my daughter, I have a rule that if anybody ever asked me to go to a meeting, we're going right now. Yeah. Because when someone, people at work do it all the people outside of it, they do it all the time. Like, Hey, do you still go to meetings? Maybe we should go to some one sometime and I'm like, let's go tonight. Yeah. How about tonight? Yeah. Because I always feel like if somebody is asking me out of the blue to go, that we should go. Yeah, you should. There's a small window. There's a small window of opportunity there. Yeah. But yeah, I'm down. Let's go. I'll go where you, I was in Wembley for rehab at Solstice. They don't have Solstice anymore. They don't know. But I love Wembley. Yeah. Like if I was going to move out somewhere, that's where I would have been fucking amazing. I, I mean, I've lived there my whole life, my whole life. That is my hometown. Um, I love it out there too. I'll have any Bronfles right now, but Wembley is my end goal. And goal for sure. So how do people find you? Facebook. You can find me on Facebook. Um, I do go by a different name. Um, also, you know, TikTok, TikTok stuff. Um, IGDM Instagram. I do have Instagram. I don't know what my name is on Instagram though, because I, I don't know what. You should be able to find it on my, on my Facebook. Um, I'm incognito. It's what is my name? Can I look at my phone really? Yeah. You can. Okay. You can do whatever you want. Like this. You're not in County anymore. You don't look at whatever the fuck you want. It's true. Okay. Hold on. My Instagram name is sweet Caroline 85. That is how you can find me on Instagram. Um, but yeah, so I do have to kind of stay incognito because I have clients who have tried to have a closer relationship with me than they should. So boundaries. So I do try to like, uh, as they should. I'm just kidding. That's, um, yeah, that's, that's, uh, it's hard sometimes. That's hot. Well, especially like when you work in recovery, like I went to an all guys rehab. If I went to a co-ed rehab, it would have helped me at all. Yeah. Because I would have been like trying to wife everybody up and trying to save all these other people. And I'm like, y'all rehab romances don't work out. I've never seen it work out every normal time. Um, they always are like, well, you and Caesar. And I'm like, that doesn't count. We were not in recovery. Right. Um, but they don't work out. But yeah, that's what they do as addicts. We get rid of one thing. Well, we're code and we clean to another. So that codependency, like when you went through your steps, you went through all your steps, right? Yes, all, but I did that like on my own and from like working in treatment. Yeah. So you learned a lot about yourself that you probably didn't know. I did. Oh, yes. I'm very self aware. Yeah. And those are, those are things that I never knew. Like I didn't know that I was codependent and like that I have all these different issues and I was like, holy shit, like all my relationships are the exact same. Yeah. So until they're not until they're not, they're not, I know, same. I have control issues. I fuck, I have the need to control everything. And when I can't, I, it freaks me out, but I can, I don't have control over anything. So that's what like was my biggest thing I had to learn. Yeah. None of us do. I know. I thought I controlled my addiction. Oh yeah. No, that's the biggest lie we tell ourselves. Biggest lie. Well, thank you so much for coming. Of course. I would get you into the bathroom. Yes, I do have to be because you are pregnant and we're going to get you back here. Yeah. Of course, anytime with your fiance. Yeah. And then when just saying, just saying Joey is a great name for a child boy or girl. I, when does this come out? When does this air? Tuesday, Tuesday. Okay. I'm having an agenda revealed tomorrow. So I am having a girl. I found that out Friday. I am having a girl. My kids don't know yet. My daughter is a beautiful girl. So I'm saying a name or after your boy. Stuella. Stuella. Yeah. Joey's stuella. Hey, there you go. Yeah. Well, thank you all so much for having me. I'll come back anytime. You're so happy. Then you got to sign the wall and we got to get some pictures. Oh, I get to sign the wall? Sweet. Yeah. And your fiance's still out here? I don't know if he's out. Tell him to come in, please. Yeah. If he's here, tell him to come in. We'll get pictures and shit. Like, good lord. All right. See you guys later. All right. Thank you. Bye.