EP 81: Fiercely Sober With Fiercely Meghan

When I texted you that day, literally after like two months, I just figured out who you were again. I was like, okay, we found her. She's a real person. I wasn't on a meth tangent again, like fucking pretending that I'm scheduling people that aren't there. So what are you doing in Austin? This. You came here for this? I came here for this, and I also spoke at a way out last night at a recovery bonfire that they had. I work with Felicia at Sport Clips and our home office is here. So I'm in Austin probably four times a year at this point. And I recently started my own business. I still work with Felicia, but I recently am trying to get my business off the ground. And, you know, I love being part of the recovery community, but anything I can do for more like visibility is, you know, what I want to do. Here we are. Here we are. Yeah. Is this your first podcast? No. No. I've done like four or five at this point. Do you know Kevin Lanning? No. Rise Above with Kevin Lanning. It's a recovery-based podcast out of Florida. That was my most recent one. Okay. Then I did one at home in Connecticut as well. And I'm a hairstylist, so I've been on a couple of podcasts in the hairstylist community as well. How is the recovery community in Connecticut? Not as amazing as it is here. Is it? I'll tell you that. This is, I mean, what I experienced last night was fabulous. And I've gone to meetings in this area when I traveled here for work before, more so in Georgetown because that's where the home office is. But, yeah, what I experienced last night was phenomenal. I'm not saying the recovery community isn't great in Connecticut because the recovery community is great no matter where you go. But, like, every single person that I spoke to last night, it's very clear just in the way that they speak, the kind of program that they work. And that's not always the case where I'm from. where i'm from like whenever i go back home i'm near i'm from southeast texas okay from bider which is near louisiana really close and whenever i go back home i always tell my wife i'm like i'm gonna catch a meeting while i'm down here and there's just fucking not there there should be a lot of meetings for back home yeah there's a lot of drugs there yeah there's just not a lot of meetings there like in like you have to go 25 minutes away for a meeting or you got to go fucking the opposite way it's like man it's it's crazy that there's just like here there's a meeting on every fucking corner yeah really that's true yeah that is true i don't necessarily have to go far for a meeting but i have to be like just real aware of people to make sure that i'm not surrounding myself with somebody who's still kind of an asshole you know what i mean like somebody who's not doing the work i guess you know somebody's yeah showing up to meetings but like not doing anything else. So. I get that. Yeah. Surround, trying to not surround yourself with assholes is like 30% of life. It really is. Yeah. I mean, it's like a good chunk of it. And I'm not here to judge. And then you have the undercover assholes. Oh yeah. Right. Right. I'm not here to judge, but I can assess and, you know, decide whether I want somebody in my circle. Am I an asshole? I don't know yet. I'll let you know at the end, actually. You're not that good at assessing. Just saying. We need to talk a little more before I make that assessment. I don't know. You're kind of pushing towards it. Yeah. Like, so far, that question, asshole. If you had to ask, you're already on the fucking list. You would know if you weren't. I don't know. I'm just kidding. Oh, boy. This is a lovely neighborhood. So this is your house? This is it. It's beautiful. Thank you. Yeah. With brick walls as soon as you walk into the home. It's just. What's funny is when salespeople come by, they're like, oh, you have a podcast? And so I'm like, yeah, go subscribe. Yeah. Then come back and talk about what you're trying to sell. Yeah. Motherfucker, you should have already known. You know what? You should trip them out and be like, yeah, dude, you want to come in? We're about to film. Yeah, right. You should have come sit down on the couch. Yeah, come on in. But before we get started, take your shirt off. He'd be like, what? I said take your shirt off. All right? Yeah, that'd be cool. That'd be awesome. I'm going to try it next time. Do it. See how it goes, man. I always try and freak out salesmen. Yeah. I walk up to my door. And you live close by? In Pflugerville. Okay. Closer to, she's been to my house. nice yeah several times by the way i want to get a want to get some shirts made for my nieces she's in georgia's band university of georgia and um her uh section had all like started following me and like now they're reaching out and they're like hey so i kind of want to get them some shirts made and i'm going to make it easy just like extra larges for every one of them but it's going to be like red and black because that's university of georgia i'm gonna try and and get them to like do stuff on our that'd be dope yeah that'd be super cool but get them to wear it during a game they can't do that i know they got i mean the you know the band people they dress up like fucking captain crunch you know to play their horns or whatever bro ut's band fucking gets on it yeah dude all i mean they get on it they're they're all insane we used to we were going to the ut volleyball games my daughter plays volleyball so i brought her i would bring her and in some of her teammates to every game and uh they would have the swim team show up it but the swim team would stand on well they stand on they stand they switch they switch sides of courts but when the ut uh swim team is on the opponent's side they would fucking strip down to just their skibbies like they're serving as these dudes are all in their speedos it was fucking great nice yeah felicia this is the first time you've been here right no i'm saying like in the studio right oh yeah i mean i've watched your year Yeah, but this is a live one. This is long overdue for you. I know. I mean, we need to. You're like, it's real. It's real. We need to get Tyler over here. Tyler? Tyler Walker. He's Arnie Malone. Yeah, he already did it. I get him and your husband mixed up? Connor. Connor. Connor Groom. So, Connor is, I don't know. he would maybe almost need to come and watch somebody do it um connor gets like stage fright yeah and so we actually this was four years ago but he we did a baby dedication for our daughter yeah and i mean i was okay so connor and i got pregnant we'd only known each other a month we got pregnant yeah we got married in four months you know it's great well after judy was so i had seen a little bit of his stage fright, but not to the extent that I saw it at this time. So Baby Dedication, they're recording us doing a video that they're going to play at church. Connor, like earlier that day, had this beautiful speech. And I'm like, hell yeah, like he's the leader of our family. He's going to lead it. Yeah. He read it to me. Thank God I have a really good memory because he froze. Yeah. So I'm sitting there and they're asking questions and he's like sitting there and he can't talk. And this was just with that. So it's not in front of a. I did. Okay. And I'm like. I don't know what to live on that piece of paper. And I try to remember. I kind of got it. But it would have been a lot more better if you would have remembered what he said. I kind of do the same thing, though. Like, if you get me in front of a group of people, like, I'll start to be like. Yeah. So. Hi. He has grown since then. You know, I mean, he is five years sober now. Yeah. He was like a year and coming off Xanax. Yeah. His whole life has changed. So. I think that he could. I think that he could, you know, do this. Yeah. I think still in his head he is that scared at it that can't be in front of the crowd. I'd love to have him on because when we were chopping it up at the house, he's a good dude. He's a really good guy. He's really great. He has a great story. Yeah. I've heard his story is insane. Yeah. I heard it's really good. Yeah. Yeah, he has a great story. So, I don't know. Maybe he's going to listen to it. Yeah. I'll convince him. I think I have his number. I think I do. But I don't know why. Even back when they've been around each other, I always get Tyler and Connor mixed up. I don't know why that is. And I'm sorry I didn't remember you either. No, you're totally fine. So when I met you, I had a bad pink hair. What an asshole. It was not the shade I wanted. Yeah. So I bet he was neon pink hair. Yeah. He's definitely mortified to now. But that's probably why. He's probably like shocked. I'm surprised. It was pretty bad. Nice. I'm actually surprised maybe you didn't read that. No, it was pretty bad. But yeah, you should definitely try to get comments. I would love that. Yeah, that'd be super cool. We good, Rad? So is this live? oh yeah we've been recording the whole time yeah right yeah but it's coming this will come out in a couple weeks okay yeah so we filmed one yesterday we have one out now that just came out but we'll be releasing the other one and then you will go after that perfect so we'll let you know we'll keep you yeah in the loop sounds good on how it all goes but that's actually a pretty quick turnaround it's usually you know in my experience of a couple that i've done it's been like six weeks two months well we're finding we found that out too just by going on other people's They're filming like three or four in a day every week, and then it's just like. Yesterday at the gym asked me in December to go on their podcast. I said, sure, wait in like a week, two weeks. He said, oh, it'll be like in April. I'm like, fuck, okay. If I remember. Send me a text, brother. I got you. Just let me know ahead of time. So, Red, do we need to clap? Let's do it. Do I have to clap? Of course you do. Yeah. We're not going to be the only clappers out here. Wow. My clap was just a little slower. That's all. It's like a slow clap. It's definitely. There was definitely some slowness of all three of us. Don't make fun. All right. And just like that, we are back to another episode of Two Addicts and a Moron. We have a very special guest in the house today. Came a long way. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, Connecticut is in the motherfucking building. Megan Blanchett, everybody. Hi. Happy to be here. Hey, yeah, you came so far. I did. From a very small state. A very cold state. Although you are rivaling us for cold right now. It's been freezing the past couple days. Look, we do it big here in Texas. You know, we are the opposite of Connecticut, kind of in every way. Yes, that is correct. Yeah. So thank you so much for coming down. Thanks for having me. This is kind of crazy. It always like shocks me when people come far and wide. They're like come on our and sit down with our dumb asses. It's like the best thing ever. It's like really humbling. So we really appreciate that. Shoe game is strong. Thank you. We've heard that you have one hell of a story. Thank you. Yeah. So we're going to get into that right now. Okay. Perfect. So let's start with how long have you been sober? um i my sobriety day is december 31st of 2019 so i just celebrated six years okay hey let's go nice that's the day off from you no december 19th december 31st 31st yes mine's january 1st oh nice not 2019 so you decided to get not high anymore on see i i you i had one more day I'm fucking doing it big tonight. Yeah. I'm getting fucking smashed. I actually. I don't remember shit. I did not. That's not when I got sober, technically. I got sober in June of 2015, but I had an incident, which I will talk about, with some medication, which is when my sobriety date changed. Okay. So I have been in recovery since June 4th of 2015, but my sobriety has not been continuous, so my date is in 2019. I got you. Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll get into that in a minute, but that sounds interesting. Yeah. But what was the DOC for you? I'm a heroin addict. Okay. Yeah. All right. About really anything. Yeah, yeah. You know. Like a lot of people kind of say that. There's very few that are like, what's your drink of choice? Meth. But with some people, it's like, what you got? Yeah, exactly. I can dump it. Did you smoke it? Shoot it? What did you do? I am an IV user. IV user. I started, you know, I mean, it started in high school, right, with, you know, I started smoking weed. Then I started drinking and then I started doing a little bit of cocaine, maybe some ecstasy here and there. And then hallucinogens every once in a while. And then it, you know, my disease progressed into IV heroin use in my early 20s. Okay. So where would you say that your active addiction started? Oh, gosh. Well, for me, my addiction, I believe that I was born with it, the disease, right? Both my parents suffer from this disease as well. So I do believe that it is hereditary for this addict and alcoholic. but really when my life started to become unmanageable and things started to really get out of control around 18 19 and then I would have like periods of manageability but they it always led to much less manageability and much more wild and out of control until I hit my breaking point okay it was so standardly progressive pretty much yeah I mean you know Like I said, so I'm an only child, and both of my parents, like I said, have had this disease. And, you know, my father, he's a friend of Bill's. He's in recovery. He's been sober for about 20 years now. My parents got divorced when I was five, and, you know, my mom unfortunately never did find sobriety. You know, we lost her in July of 2024. Yeah. Thank you. um not as a direct result of this disease she had cancer um but at a certain point she you know she just couldn't take care of herself because she was drinking a lot she was smoking a lot and she wasn't able to do what the doctors were asking her to do and at one point i think that she just kind of gave up because she kind of stopped taking all of her medication um she fell and broke her hip then she got pneumonia and that's ultimately what took her out so you know alcoholism did not directly kill her um but it played a role in my mind you know how old was she 66 okay yeah that that hip thing man that's a i know that's gotten a lot better here kind of over the last like 15 20 years with repairing a hip but i remember like before that where it was like somebody fell and broke their hip and they were old that was like well a lot of clients that we have at our job we we were in sales and most of our clients are retired 70 80 90 and when they break their hip like it's it's normally a 50 50 shot if they're if they make it or not yeah it's tough my mom's 75 and she broke her broke i don't mean to laugh sorry mom she broke her hand the other day and i was like how'd you break your hand she's like well i was standing on the bed trying to hang a curtain. I'm like, you're 75. Why the fuck were you hanging? What do you mean? Yeah, I said, she said, well, I needed to hang the curtain because it matched my bedspread. I said, who the fuck's going to see your curtain? Yeah. Like, who are you bringing in that room? Nobody. Okay, so why didn't you just wait for somebody? Sometimes you just like shit, dude. Yeah. Like, I mean. And I told her, I said, you're too old to be standing. So she fell off her bed. Oh, no. Bounced off her bed and hit the dresser. Man, you're a piece of shit, dude. You're just like laughing and get your mom's visit. I love you, mom. Poor thing. No, that's awful. This is like the world's worst son right here. So let me tell you this great story about my mom breaking her hand. Now you know who the asshole is. All right. So how long were you in active addiction then? So, well, I took my first drink pretty young. How young? 13. Yeah. I mean, you know, I hear some people's stories and it's like five. No, I was 13. But being the child of alcoholics, I always said that's not going to be me. So I like, you're going to laugh. You guys have D.A.R.E. here. Oh, yeah. Like in fifth grade. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. Real good program. Remember when they used to carry like the board that had all the baggies of all the drugs on it? I don't remember that. I don't remember that. Oh, they don't. In Connecticut, they used to carry, it was like a poster board. And they, you know, it was for educational purposes. Oh, they educated the shit out of you, I bet. I don't know why that just popped into my head, but they did. He had this poster board. But anyway, in the fifth grade, in my entire town, like out of all the fifth graders in my entire town of Southington, Connecticut, I'm originally from Bristol, but I was in Southington at the time. I was living in Southington. And of all of the fifth graders, I won the DARE medal. All right. Like the, you know, they present it to the child who has been the best student of D.A.R.E. for the entirety of fifth grade. And that was me. Congratulations. Which is very ironic. Yeah. Thank you so much. I wish I still had that thing. I do not have it anymore. It'd be neat to find out, like, all the kids that won that medal. Yeah. Like, did it work? Yeah. Did it help them going forward? No. Or were they like, yeah, then I started smoking crack. Right. Well, and that's exactly what happened. So I, not in the fifth grade, but I, I took my first drink when I was 13. Um, I had gone through a breakup and you know how tough breakups are when you're 13. Like it was, it was really rough. My friends were drinking. Yeah. My friends were drinking and you know, so I, I drank that night, but I kind of hated it. It was awful. Yeah. Um, so it was a while before I did again, really when I started drinking and smoking weed on a regular basis and like dabbling in cocaine and ecstasy, I was around 17. Okay. And I got sober aside from, you know, the medication reset of my date, my relapse. I got sober when I was 30. So about 13 years inactive. That doesn't mean I was doing heroin that whole time. I wasn't. That was from age 22 to 30. So about eight years doing heroin. When you were doing heroin? Yeah. Man, that's what I mean. We had a young lady on yesterday. Her mom was dealing with it. But it all came to a head for her when she was 12. And I always think about that age, like that 11, 12, 13-year-old. It's such an impressionable time, man. Like, it's such an important time. It is. You're weird. Like, you're awkward. You're trying to find your tribes. And, like, tribes are mean. Like, some tribes are not cool. And others are doing their drinking. And it's much easier to go fit in over there. than it would be with the others, right? I will actually die on this hill. As far as adolescence goes, like, you know, birth to 18, middle school is the worst. Oh, yeah. It's the absolute worst because in my experience, the kids were the meanest. I was one of the only sixth graders that had hit puberty early. So I developed early, which meant all the little boys loved me, which meant all the little girls hated me. Which is so much worse. I mean, boys, we're stupid. And girls, you guys remember shit from the fifth grade. You're like, you told me I had an ugly dress. So I'm like, bitch, we're fucking 45 years old now. Like, you're holding this grudge right now? My wife will be like, yeah, I don't like her. Like, why? She reminds me of this girl I went to third grade with. I'm like, you don't fucking know the girl. Not even applicable anymore. Because she reminds you of someone from long ago. You're like, fuck her. Yeah. Well, you know, some of those wounds run deep. You know what I mean? Well, look, you guys are so much more emotionally evolved than dudes. Like, dudes are just not a whole lot happening up here. I know. I know. It's not a secret. But, no, I mean, listen, you know, as a child, it's difficult in middle school. um but you know as a girl that was disliked by other girls it was really tough because they're you know you're starting to have relationships what are these relationships even in middle school you're holding hands and maybe pecking each other on the lips after school with everyone watching but like um you know when one's little boyfriend would develop a crush on me I was public enemy number one yeah you know what I mean um not to say that I was this like gorgeous amazing I was awkward as heck yeah but I had boobs yeah and so that was the only requirement for the little boys to really like me. I mean, not a whole lot changes. As we get older, that's just, you know, that's the height of our emotional development there. It's like, she's got nice boobs. I like her. Yeah! I mean, it never really goes away. No, it doesn't. So talk about your journey into when did you realize that you had a problem? when was it that like you specifically yeah understood it when i understood it i was probably around i was in my early 20s uh the first time that i found aa i was in my early 20s um you know i wasn't ready for it so i didn't stay um did you go on your own or no well so my dad was already in oh and my dad uh so did he drink or did he do other stuff too i mean he did but like in the 70s so what was he doing like acid and weed like it wasn't you know yeah he didn't do anything um more advanced than that i got you alcohol is pretty advanced alcohol is very i'll make it i'll die on that yeah i agree didn't they do quaaludes yeah that was whatever the he might have i don't know i don't know he was a hippie yeah whatever the hippies were doing my dad was doing um so you know when i i graduated from high school and i went to i'm a cosmetologist Like I said, I'm a hairstylist. So I went to hairdressing school and that was really just one big party, you know, and I don't remember much. But I have always been intelligent and I've always tested well. It's it's a gift that I was given to be, you know, a person that is able to take standardized tests well. So when I graduated from hair school, I was able to pass my boards, even though I don't remember much of school at this point. but I was able to pass my state boards and I got my first job. In that first job, you know, I'm 18, 19. I am, you know, drinking a lot. I'm smoking weed. I might be doing some cocaine sometimes, but like things weren't really unmanageable yet. I moved to Boston when I was 21. My best friend was in college there and she asked me to move there to live with her for a year, for her senior year of college. And so I did. I moved up to Boston, you know, and I brought because I can do hair anywhere. Right. So I moved up there. And that was the point where things started to really get out of control. I didn't start thinking that there was an issue until towards the end of my year in Boston. But during that year, I was partying a lot. I was I had a job, but I was stealing from that job to support my habit. Um, I was, you know, doing things on the weekends. My, my best friend at the time, she was going to school to be a publicist. Okay. And so as a result of that, we were friends with all of the, the rappers in Boston, the DJs, the, you know, cause that the world that she was trying to break into in her career And um you know So we did a lot of partying with those people and and I did a lot of really just kind of nasty stuff like in order to get what I wanted I ended up using my body to get what I wanted, embarrassing her, embarrassing myself, you know, finding the one person at the party that I knew had what I wanted and then not leaving them alone until I got what I wanted. Um, you know, and, and so that's when things really started to, And I had gotten my first credit card. Oh, boy. You know, cash advances were a thing. I was like, oh, free money. It wasn't free money at all. But, you know, I was just, I thought I was living the life. But really, stuff was going downhill fast for me. So after she moved out of the apartment, she moved to New York to start her career. We still had three months left on the lease. So I stayed in Boston. And that was right around the time that I found my first meeting. because my dad called me one night it's like a tuesday night um and i am one whole gallon of carlo rossi sangria deep at this point by myself on a tuesday night it was gorgeous stuff is awful oh my god i'm having heartburn right now i'm thinking about it and um you know so my dad and my dad knew that i was wasted he was like you know mag have you ever thought about like maybe going to a meeting i was like i don't need a meeting dad what are you talking about like i'm fine i'm 21 this sounds supposed to be um but then when i thought about it you know i was like i'll give it a whirl it's working for my dad you know so i'll give it a whirl um but i just i just was not ready uh at that point to to do anything about it what were your feelings like in that meeting can you remember that i mean i identified with some of the stuff that some people some people said for sure um but i was like i'm not as bad as these people yeah like at all like my life you You know, I mean, really, you know, I'm doing okay. These people are telling stories that are blowing my mind. Like, I'm doing all right, you know. So I – and I did actually end up getting a sponsor too, which was wild. And she – I remember her cat had just had a litter of kittens. Nice. So she gave me a kitten, which was great. You know, but I didn't get anything from her besides the kitten. Like, you know, not that she wasn't a great person in recovery and a resource at that point. I just wasn't ready to receive anything besides a kitten at that point in time. Okay. I mean, if she had like 13 kittens to give away, you took one off her hands. I got one. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. What was the kitten's name? So initially the kitten's name was Bella. Okay. Because I was told it was a girl. And then it grew a little balls. And then Bella had a little incident with the recliner where her little leg got stuck underneath it. And so I had to take her to the vet. um and they said what's this cat's name and i said bella and they said those are balls and i said oh okay well uh let's stick with a b b b brutus okay i changed it to brutus you went from the most feminine name on the planet to like the most masculine name i changed it's brutus yeah so his name was brutus after that that's cool yeah uh-huh all right uh-huh and uh how many times did you have to go to treatment to I had to go to treatment um in my recovery but I did not in Boston okay um when I moved back from Boston uh you know things were I moved back in with my dad uh so I'm living with my dad at this point and um you know things were just okay I mean I wasn't things were not wildly out of control um but I was I was dating somebody and that ended horribly um you know just because and uh his sister always really liked me the guy that i was dating you know it was kind of the worst um and so his sister always really liked me so she was like you know what i have this friend and i really think that you guys would like each other a lot and you know so why don't you guys you know get coffee or something so i did i went out with this guy his name was eric and i got coffee with him and um we hit it off man we hit it off right away so we start dating um like i said i'm still living with my dad at this point but i'm starting to like stay at his house on the weekends and things like that yeah he calls me one day and he says hey i'm not going to be home from work until late tonight so can you go let the dog out and you know i'm still partying at this point you know i'm i'm still um at least smoking weed every day i'm drinking quite a bit but you know like i said things are kind of manageable he calls me he said hey will you go let the dog out and i said yeah sure so i go and i let the dog out and i notice that there are shot glasses of water on the coffee table i was like that's shot glasses of water shot glasses full of water yeah and i was like that's really weird and then i saw the empty wax baggies of heroin in the trash and i put two and two together that those shot glasses full of water were for injecting right like it was for shooting up you know and uh so i called him and i i'm at his house and i had let the dog out i called him and i said hey um unfortunately you know i cannot date you like there's just absolutely no way that i can continue on with this because um you know i knew myself i knew that this was extremely dangerous for me like the red flags were going off the alarm bells were going off um but you know so i said i can't do this and he immediately was like i'm to come home right now i need to talk to you and i said okay so he comes home and he sits me down and he says i've been wanting to stop for a while but i love you we've been two weeks okay at this point but we know i know what a relationship in active addiction looks like this sounds like me anytime i've ever been high yeah gosh man this is the one right here we've been together for two weeks do you want to go half on a baby like do you want to you know you want to go half on a baby yeah yeah this sounds like every this is drug relationship i've ever had exactly so you know things were moving quickly um and you know i think he might have already asked me to marry him at that point we're like two weeks in you know but he said hey you know uh he came home and he said i've been wanting to quit for a while and he said i just i love you so i'm gonna stop for you and i said that's the kindest thing thank you so much i really appreciate that i can't believe you're gonna stop for me wow you must really love me yeah the reality of of being an active addiction is that i cannot stop for anybody right i just can't it doesn't mean he didn't mean it when he said it yeah um you know it just means that it was impossible right but i believed him he believed himself um but he didn't stop and so eventually you know um i started with sniffing it and uh and i said i'm never i'm not gonna shoot it i'm never gonna shoot it yeah but then the day came when I was ready to shoot it and he told me, no, you know, I'm not going to do that for you. Cause I didn't know the mechanics of it. I didn't know how to, how to do that. Um, but he told me no. And I said, well, if you don't do it for me, I'll find someone who will. Um, cause I wanted it. And you know, so I do not blame Eric in any way, shape or form for anything that has happened in my life for, you know, my choice to start using heroin. That was my choice. I was an adult. Um, he just happened to be there when it happened. Yeah. And knew what he was doing. Yeah. Exactly. knowledge and exactly exactly um and i i use eric's name uh because you know we were together for a few years of really drug-fueled nasty awful stuff um he owned a house when i met him um that was given to him by his mother you know it's the house he grew up in she ended up running away with a boyfriend down to florida or something and she just kind of passed the house to him and um you know we lost that house it was foreclosed on um we lost all of our belongings uh we were the only thing we had left was a pickup truck so we were scrapping we were doing scrap metal for money um and uh you know we got an apartment a very cheap apartment on the third floor and some in an apartment building in in bristol connecticut and uh you know we were very very much delinquent on rent um by the time we left there and you know we had the electricity had been turned off um and it was off for like three months and it was the middle of the summer and it was just so freaking gross up there it was so awful but every day it was just wake up go get a front then go get some metal bring it back to the scrapyard get some money go pick up enough dope to hopefully get us through that night and into the next morning but there's never any left in the morning you know what i mean like it's just it's not how it works or it's not how worked for me um so you know and then the same cycle every single day yeah isn't it crazy like the things that you go through in addiction like now when I look back at it like there was plenty of times like where my water was shut off and I'd go turn it back on and then the city would come turn it back off and put a lock on it because I turn it back on or like our electricity I had gas for my gas was out for over 18 months and when i went to have it turned back on they wouldn't even turn it back on the city had to come inspect it because they said if it turns if we just turn it on it might have a leak or something yeah but like looking back i used to give my daughter cold showers and cold baths but it's something i would never do today like if our electricity went out right now i'd be like what the fuck is going on and i'd get it turned back on but back then it was like well at least i still got some dope not really a big deal but it's it's crazy how you prioritize your day based on getting high you know i've seen a thing the other day it said um don't let a you've never seen you've never seen a drug addict say i don't have enough i don't have any money today i can't get high today they figure out a way never how to get high yes and it's crazy the things that we prioritize like wake up get a front go get some scrap metal try to buy make a little bit of money to be able to buy some and make it through the next day like that's that's what our day was yeah and the money that we made scrapping there was never like buy food there was never like yeah you know what i mean there was none of that it was a pack of cigarettes um two if we were lucky um you know maybe a mcdouble but first came the dough and then And everything else, you know, came behind it. Yeah, we have the 7-Eleven here that did two slices of pizza and a fucking fountain drink for $3. Yeah. That's like – Perfect. That's the greatest thing for anybody that's a drug addict. Uh-huh. It's perfect. Yeah. It's perfect. You know, today in recovery, there's a deli right near my house, and they do – when you go in there and you buy a sandwich or you buy something, you know, from them, they have this little board. where people will buy an extra sandwich or whatever, and then they put the little pieces of paper on the board so that people who are homeless, people who are struggling, people who are – That's a really good idea. Can come in and take one off the board and get what they need. And every time I go into Enfield Deli, I do that. That's a really good idea. Because I would have been so grateful for something like that back then. Especially like a sandwich too. Imagine. like instead of a mcdouble and i have been changing up yeah yeah i have been in there when he and i want to correctly say the name it's enfield produce not enfield deli but when um i've been in there when somebody comes in and grabs a ticket and gives it to him and i can i mean i can we can spot each other right so i know that this person is an addict right came in grabbed a ticket handed it to him and he talked to them just like they were anybody else yeah you know what i mean he carried on a conversation with them he asked them all the specifics they wanted on their sandwich Like he treated them like a human being, like any other human being, the same way he was treating me. And I just thought, wow, this is great. I wonder if he had or if he had a problem sometime. Or if he knew somebody in his family. Yeah, it's possible. That's awesome. What's the place called? It's called Enfield Produce. I live in Enfield, Connecticut now. So it's called Enfield Produce. It's right on Enfield Street. Shout out to Enfield Produce. Yeah. you're doing amazing work that's a great thing yeah it's fabulous sorry for pausing your story there no that's okay i wanted to make sure to shout that out because it's yeah because back then i would have been really really grateful for something like that yeah um you know so we're we're just going and doing every day i mean and like when i tell you i might have been showering once a month yeah like i'm telling you it was bad it was so bad and like i there was one point where I had ended up in detox, you know, because I ended up in detox multiple times throughout this journey. It was one point that I ended up in detox and I had this like, my skin was all discolored on my chest and on my upper arms. It wasn't red. It didn't hurt. It was just a different color. And I was like, am I getting vitiligo? Like what's happening with me? Like it's, you know, and when I went into detox, you know, they looked at my skin and they were like, we're going to take a better look at that. And they looked, I had a fungus. All right. I had a fungus on my skin and I had to have a special shampoo and the whole, you know, like body wash, whatever thing, you know, and I was able to use that because I was in detox. Um, but yeah, that's the kind of stuff that was happening for me. I remember, you know, sometimes we would be really, whether, you know, something would happen where we weren't able to scrap that day or we weren't able to, you know, get, have money that day. Um, we would end up finding somebody that had suboxone and we would take a suboxone, you know, um, cause buying one suboxone for each of us is way cheaper than buying enough dope we need to be off sick right yeah so you'd end up buying a suboxone and wouldn't you know it every time that happened we would always like come into some money right yeah and then shit because now you're gonna get sick can't do it or you can't do it right so um i we would get suboxone and when we would come into money on those days you know still got to get fucked up yeah so we would end up get buying some coke or buying some crack or buying you know whatever we could get our hands on dust yeah you know dust was a wild ride um i don't know if you've ever done angel dust before never no i've been around people that it's a combination of um pcp and embalming fluid yeah and so it is wild um it is a very strange feeling but whatever we could do you know to get fucked up um and i remember one of those times that i went to detox during this time of my life um you know once you're an iv user at least for me i wanted to iv everything Yeah. So when we would get cocaine, I would shoot it. When we would get – now, shooting crack is a very difficult thing to do. So it's a chemical process, it turns out. You have to, like – you have to break it down. So you can use either lemon juice or vinegar. Not that I advocate anyone doing this. This is a hard – do not do this. Don't be taking notes. Do not do this. But you can use lemon juice. You can use vinegar. You can break it down into a liquid so that it's then injectable. One of the times that I went to detox, I had this like huge – You're shooting lemon juice or vinegar in your body? Yes, because that's what you use to break it down. Did that hurt? Not if you got the vein, but if you missed, it hurt a lot. Yeah. We had a young lady. We won't say her name. We won't say her name. She missed her vein. She broke a needle off. Oh, that's bad. And she had to go to the emergency room and get it taken out. She talked about it on our podcast. yeah yeah so i go to detox i have a very large abscess on my arm at this point it's one of the times that i was like i'm fucking done i'm going to detox so i go to detox and i have this huge abscess on my arm and they're looking at it it wasn't like a traditional abscess yeah um and they're looking at it and they're going what is that so i'm explaining to him like well the poor doctor i'm explaining to him well you know when you shoot crack you got to break it down with vinegar and that's what i did and i missed the vein and so this has been here for like a week and he was like vinegar and i was like yeah and he goes have you ever like he's trying to explain it to me have you ever marinated a piece of meat in like a vinegar based marinade i guess sure he goes you know how the outside turns brown i was like yeah i guess he goes you're cooking your arm You're literally cooking the meat of your arm right now with the vinegar. So thank God I went to detox because I probably would have lost my arm at that point in time. Oh, man. You know, when I hit the vein, it was fine, but I missed that time, and I almost paid dearly for it. Yeah, it was wild. And, I mean, it's not funny now, but it's wild. It is. You know. Like, listening to this story right now, I'm going to time out here. It's crazy to me that you're talking about shooting crack. Yeah. And the thing that I'm most concerned about is that it's vinegar and lemon juice going inside of your arm. I'm like, ah, no, not lemon juice. It just sounds like it burns like a motherfucker. Do what you want. Like, geez, Louise. Not vinegar and lemon juice. What are we doing? Yeah. No, it's wild. That is, that's insane. Well, so Motley Crue, like the band, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were all IV users for a long time. And I'll never when they're talking about like on the back end when it was starting to get real dark, like, yeah, Nikki and Tommy, they were they were injecting Jack Daniels. Yeah. And they were like, we could just fucking drink it. Like, but we're little we're like, but we're just putting it right into the vein. He's like, dude, yeast or whatever is like, we're just hammering it inside of us. it's not so i mean i i guess that's kind of common once you start injecting there's like really no yeah the feeling of that is different than yeah i mean it's the same type of high but it's very different than when i snorted it or when i you know did any other type of administration whether i took an opiate painkiller yeah it's very very different it's instant it's a lot stronger so you just kind of you know as an addict i just adapted that philosophy to everything like i just want everything to be instant and really strong yeah you know that was the reason i never started shooting meth yeah i snorted it at first and then i started shooting it and then i did a bunch of hot rails that was the way that i always did it and i would give people shots of it but i would never do one myself because i seen and i read about it i was i mean when you're on drugs you read a lot of shit on the internet especially on meth and it said what i read it said like your serotonin levels the highest they go to is like 150 and that's when you come and that when you shoot meth they go to like 3 000 what now yeah i don't know how true that is that's i read it and i was like never doing that because i will never stop yeah like if you tell me that that feeling would go to 3 000 and i used to see people that would shoot it and then just have an orgasm right there on the spot and be like yeah i'm never doing that i'm glad that i didn't know that yeah oh man Like real glad. Yeah. Because if I did, I would have been seeking it out. Meth is not very prevalent where I'm from. Really? It's just not. It's around, I guess, but like I have never done it. Oh, really? It just in the north, I guess, or maybe it's just where I'm from in Connecticut. Like, you know, there's a lot of people doing a lot of other things. I think heroin is bigger up there than most. Probably heroin and crack. Yeah, crack. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. um you know so i'm in and out of detox and i'm doing you know all kinds of crazy stuff i've got fungus on my skin i've got abscesses on my arm i mean things are just wild cooking my arm meat yeah yeah yikes yikes i remember i told my best friend that story and she was like i wish you hadn't told me that yeah you know because i'm not gonna lie i kind of wish you didn't tell me that like right now i'm over here me and radu looking at each other like like the normal people of the of the crew geez louise well here's the thing if there's anybody that listens to or watches this podcast that has ever done anything like that you're not alone yeah well that's why i told 100 percent like i mean that's what we do this for yeah you know exactly and um and that's different that's different than anything we've ever had told here before. Uh, so talk about your way into treatment where it's stuck. Yeah. So I got, um, you know, I had more years of just nasty, disgusting. I ended up breaking up with Eric, um, into detox and, uh, you know, cause we were, we had both been arrested. We're both, we both have records at this point. Um, so I break up with him because I need to get sober. Like I need to do something. So I go to detox with every intention of actually getting sober. And unfortunately, you know, just didn't work out because when I was an IOP intensive outpatient after leaving Eric and going through detox, I met another guy. And, you know, we were going to save each other's lives because his drug of choice was different than mine. And so we were going to do real great things together. And unfortunately, we did not. So that was just a few more years. I ended up moving down to Florida where there was meth, but I just had the wherewithal. Like, opiates are my thing, so I just never really, you know, did it. And then the time that it stuck for me, this is 2015. My addiction has progressed to a point where I am living back in Connecticut in Bristol, which is my hometown. um and uh i am living in a tent community in a tent um because i had i had bounced from house to house to friend's couch to friend's couch and you know everybody loved me but like there you know i burned every single bridge either i stole from them or i did drugs in front of their kids or i you know what i mean like it was just not you know i mean not directly in front of them but like was intoxicated in the house and their kids are there and you know what i mean um And, you know, so I just, you know, I couldn't find any place to stay. I'm still with the guy that I went to Florida with. We moved back together. And, you know, but I just, I'm walking down the street. I'm walking back to my tent. I haven't showered in a week. I, you know, probably hadn't eaten since the day before. I am considering listening for the next car that's coming and jumping in front of it. because I can't imagine living like this for one more second. And there's a helpline in Connecticut. I'm sure every state has something similar, but in Connecticut it's 2-1-1. So you pick up the phone and you call 2-1-1 and there are people there. It's like a non-emergency emergency line. And they have help for people who need to get into treatment or need to get into – and I had never done a rehab. I'd done detox a million times, but I had never done a rehab. So at that point I made the call. I got into a detox facility and then I went to rehab. I just was so sick and tired of being fucking sick and tired. Like I just couldn't, I was, I was ready. And I, I believe that there was the intervention of a higher power at that point as well. That made me ready, you know? Cause I mean, you know, listen, I could have fallen through the trap door on that rock bottom and hit further deeper down rock bottoms. I've seen it happen. You know, I had never been to prison. I had never, you know, killed someone either directly or indirectly as a result of my addiction. Like there are other, you know, things that could have happened. But those are all yets for me, right? Like I haven't done that yet, but let me pick up, you know, a drink or smoke a joint or, you know, and I'll get there. Give me time. You know what I mean? So that's when I was ready. Yeah. I was ready. So I went to this inpatient rehab, 28 days. Wouldn't you know it? I met a guy. Hey, wouldn't you know it? Fucking guys, man. Everywhere I go, I meet a guy. What are the worst? You know, I met this guy, and oh, my God. I use Eric's name, the guy that I started using heroin with, because unfortunately he died as a result of this disease. You know, he overdosed and passed away shortly after we broke up. um and i didn't leave that man because i didn't love him i left him i mean i loved him as much as a very broken toxic drug adult person could love another person um you know um but i i knew that i was gonna die if i stayed with him and so when we broke up i then met the next one who i won't name because he's still alive um but you know that's the one i moved to florida with and things got really toxic and it was just awful but for me i always needed to be in a relationship like i had to be because i was so afraid of being alone i had this like you know idea in my head or this belief in my in my soul that unless a man wanted me i wasn't worth anything um and so you know that was my measure of whether or not i was worthy of anything um so of course somebody paid attention to me when I got to rehab And even though I had absolutely zero business paying any attention to this man he was far older than me His street name was Batman. Sweet. Listen, it was wild. It was a wild time to be alive. You know, but I remember one day, you know, my relationship with a higher power has not been linear. like I didn't come in believing that God could save me um I didn't come in to recovery believing that like you know my higher power was one that was loving and forgiving and kind it was like stand sit kneel you're going to hell punishing you know uh that was my experience as a child and so um but I remember we had a pastor come into the rehab facility one day and I was like hey I know I need a relationship with God but like I don't know how to do that he was like well you just you gotta pray just pray and it doesn't have to be like formal prayers but you just got to talk to god so i i did i i got on my knees that night in my in my bedroom and i um i asked for god to relieve me of the obsession with this man because there was some level of me that knew that it was going to take me out and this is batman this is batman okay so i mean that's a good start right This guy's name is Batman. Can you please relieve me of being obsessed with a dude? Name fucking Batman. When you met this guy and he said, just call me Batman. Like, did that not, like, throw up any red flags? Oh, the red flags were red flagging. They really were. The red flags were. There were many reasons that the red flags were red flagging. You know, it wasn't just the street name of Batman. Call me Batman. Yeah, just call me Batman. Okay. Are we going to Gotham? Like, what are we doing? you know but i the bat signal was the bat signal was blinking yeah you know and i knew that this was bad and so um i but i you know so i got on my knees and i i asked whoever was listening to please relieve me of the obsession of this man um and the next morning you know in re i'm in a co-ed rehab and you are not supposed to have any kind of like intimate relationship in a co-ed rehab like it is highly frowned upon and they kick you out yeah they kick you out so the next morning they caught us kissing and they kicked me out they kicked me out of rehab now they did not kick me out into the street i'm going to give them that they uh you know they kicked me into a waiting facility for my next bed at the intermediate program that i was headed to um so and they kicked me out and not him because he was there on jail diversion so it would have been a lot more paperwork to kick him i was there on my own accord right so it would have been a lot more paperwork to kick him out so they kicked me out kept him um and and that i now realize in retrospect was god relieving me of the obsession right like that was god doing for me what i couldn't do for me you know because i would have followed that man to the end of the earth even though i had no business doing so right right um so and i have no idea what happened to him i don't know if he's still you know in the batmobile to ride in the street i have no idea he's definitely not yeah he's not That guy does not have a Batmobile. You know what's funny is we go do karaoke every week. Do you? Nice. And there's a guy that goes to the karaoke place that we go to, and he goes by Batman. No shit. Like when they call him up to stage. I wonder if that's like. I don't think so. This guy's, I mean, last I knew he was in Connecticut. You want to go try some karaoke? No, thank you. No, thank you. I could live the rest of my life never seeing that man again, and I would be okay. And so when you said he went by Batman, that's why I lost my shit because this guy literally goes to karaoke. And when he goes on the stage, it says Batman. No way. That's awesome. Yeah. You know, maybe they're maybe they're everywhere. Who knows? Who knows? I mean, every Gotham needs a Batman. Did he wear a cape? Absolutely not. No. So that's I mean, that's a very cool way of looking at that. Yeah, well, you know, I was saved in that moment. And in that moment, I also decided that, like, I needed to spend some time by myself. Did you realize? So you realized that in the moment? I did. You didn't realize, like, oh, shit, like, they just broke us up or anything like that? Oh, I was terrified. Yeah, okay. Well, they said, we're kicking you out. And I said, what do you mean? I got to know where to go. I live in a tent. What do you mean? Like, where am I going? Where am I going? Yeah. You know, and then they told me that I was going to be going down to the other house. And I was mortified. I think I was more mortified that I thought I was in trouble than of actually, like, losing contact with this man. Yeah. You know what I mean? Look, you lived in a tent. I was fine. Where am I going? Right? So they sent me down to this other facility and, you know, but at this other facility I had a mentor, someone who worked there. And, you know, they said they were also in recovery. And they said, you know, the suggestion is a year to, you know, not, like, be with anybody in a romantic way. and I said you know yeah I can do that and they said yeah I would like for you to try five years and I said five years that's a lot but I also knew that I was so terrified of being alone and I knew that I had to conquer that fear because I wanted to be a whole person by myself I didn't want to have to like need anybody else you know um so he said you know I would like for you to give me five years and I said I'll give you three but I did I did give him three I stayed single for three years. And in that three years, I figured out who I was. I figured out what made me tick. I figured out what my needs and wants were out of this life without being influenced by anybody else that I was trying to please in a romantic relationship. And that was huge for me. That was really huge for me. But I'm in this, in this facility and I am, you know, they, they're bringing in outside meetings. At a certain point we got outside passes to go to outside meetings. So I find a sponsor and I start working the steps. And I went from an intensive inpatient program to an intermediate program into a six-month halfway house. And after the halfway house, I moved into a women's sober house. And then after that, I got an apartment with another female in program. And at that point, we're at about three years, and that is when I met my current boyfriend, who's wonderful and amazing and so kind. I actually almost broke up with him when I first started dating him because he was too nice. Yeah. He was too nice. He was too gentle, and he was too nice, and he was too kind. The green flags were green flagging with him a little too hard. You were like, hold on a second. This is not how this is going to happen. Way too many green flags going on here. No, but, you know, he was so nice. And I was like, because I'm used to, here's the thing about toxic addiction relationships. Yeah, the lows are really low. They're on the ground. Sometimes you're getting hit. Sometimes, you know, there's a lot of screaming going on. Like the lows are low. But the highs are also really high. Yeah. And so I went from this to this. Yeah. Right? That's how it is currently. And, you know, it's wild. But this is very nice. Yeah. And I like it a lot, you know, now. But initially I was like, I don't know, he's too nice. I don't think I can do this. He felt so safe to me. But I met him and then I moved in with him. But, yeah, I mean, being in recovery, I ended up finding my footing in AA. um and the reason for that is because you know that's where i found the person that i wanted to be my sponsor yeah um you know uh i had i tried all kinds of different meetings um but the person had what i wanted that i wanted to sponsor me was was you know in the rooms of aaa so that's where i ended up and you know i worked the steps and um you know my life was going really really well like I got a job. I have actually had the same job since I started in recovery. So about 10 years now. But I have, you know, gotten promotions and moved up in the company over that time. And, you know, it's, it's just been an absolutely beautiful ride. That doesn't mean that sometimes it doesn't fucking suck. Yeah, because it does. Life gets lifey, man. Life, life's, you know, life, life, life, life's, but there is nothing today that I couldn't make a thousand times worse by picking up a drink or a drug for sure like no matter how bad it is i'm an only child and i was always really close to my mom yeah she had her battles with alcohol but like you know we were always really tight and my mom always managed to keep her life somewhat together you know like never ended up in a tent you know always had a home and a job and you know all that and you know so and we always had a relationship that was really really close and you know i thought for sure like when i got sober i had one reservation and it was if my mom dies i don't know if i'm gonna be able to go through that yeah you know um but i was because i you know because of my higher power because of the people around me because i was surrounded by so much love yeah um and because i knew that there was absolute like i could have made it a thousand times worse by picking up in that moment you know let me ask you this because me and my boat there's a few people at work that in recovery and we always joke about if we started using again how long it would take before we burned our life to the ground and i i probably mine's probably two months yeah i think it's two months before i went through all my money before i lost my house and fucking lost everything so if you started using again how quick would you burn how quickly do you think it would burn to the ground um i would say probably about the same two three months yeah something like that i mean i own a home today yeah um you know i just started my own business um you know i i am still in the same job that i've always been in because my business is not lucrative enough for me to quit that other job right um you know not that i would necessarily want to but you know i i have you know this beautiful life today as a result of this program and of god and you know all of that um but it would not take me long at all because i truly believe that even though I'm sober, my disease is still progressing. Sure. It's still ramping up. Yeah. Right. In behind the scenes. That's a good way of looking at it. You know, this is a progressive illness. So like, even though I don't have a drink or a drug in my hand, doesn't mean my disease isn't getting worse every day because it is. So I think that I would go from zero to zero to a hundred real fucking quick. Yeah. If I were to pick up today. Same. So talk about this stumble. Yeah. I want to, because it sounded like you were pretty strong. in your sobriety and then you said an injury it wasn't an injury it was a it was a surgery it was an elective surgery so um when i was 29 my front tooth broke off completely just broke off in my mouth uh because i didn't take care of myself like i said i showered once a month i had a fungus like i was i brushing my teeth absolutely not and so my teeth were rotting out of my head yeah um and so um i had my front tooth break off when i was 29 and at that point there were some of them were so bad that they ended up pulling out i don't know eight of them at that point and i got a partial denture um and when i got that partial denture i was told that you know your bones are going to recede like where you have no more teeth your teeth is what holds those bones down in your mouth right so your bones are going to recede over time and you know whatever so i i get this denture and you know i'm like whatever i have dentures i'm not even 30 years old i have dentures it's fine. But I was still in active addiction at that point. Um, so in 2019 I had been sober for almost five years. Um, I had a great job. I had built a relationship with my dad again. Um, I'm in this great relationship. I had just moved in with my boyfriend. Um, you know, we dated for about a year and a half before we moved in together, which was wild for me. I'm like, Oh, a week left move in, you know? Um, but you know, I'm, I'm doing everything right. I'm working my program. I'm sponsoring women. I have a sponsor. I'm going to a lot of meetings. Like I'm doing everything that i was supposed to be doing and uh i decided that i wanted to get implants a full top of implants um because the bones are receding and my dentist at the time told me that the more your bones recede if you ever want to get implants later in life we may have to take bone from your hip and put it in your mouth and it's going to be a much larger more extensive surgery so like maybe sooner rather than later so i've built a relationship with my dad at this point he's willing to co-sign for the loan because it's 30 grand to get this done yeah it's a lot of money a lot of money so he's willing to co-sign for the loan for me and uh so i get my teeth done now this surgery my dentist told me you're going to need painkillers and i said i can't take painkillers like i'm in recovery i refuse to do that i won't do it she said you're going to need them and i said yeah but you know and and a lot of people are like oh i know you know you don't need them here's here's what the surgery was they pulled out the last five teeth that i had in the top of my mouth they cut my gums right down the center all the way around they grinded down all those bones until they were level they inserted uh posts for screws post holes for screws they sewed my gums back together over top of that and then screwed my uh teeth in on top of that that sounds more awful than shooting lemon juice inside of your arm yeah yeah it was really bad it was an 11 hour surgery yeah that's rough um that i was awake for because anesthesia was an extra five grand and i didn't have that what so you were awake during the process awake i was i remember my boyfriend the place where i got this done was like real close to our house so he had dropped me off that morning he left um he came back because they told him it was gonna be like three hours so he came back three hours later and i don't know this i only know this because he told me the story he came back and he asked them if they were done and they were like no we're not done if you want to have a seat you can but it might be a little while um yet so he sits down in the waiting room and all he can hear is me screaming in the back oh my god and he's like megan i had to go home i had to go home because if i sat there and continued to listen to you scream i was going to come back there and like punch the dentist in the face for making you I had to go home. And listen, I was given laughing gas, but you can't be on laughing gas for 11 hours. Yeah, that's a lot of laughing. There were periods of time where I couldn't be. Anyway, it was a really bad surgery. My face was huge for weeks. I couldn't eat solid food for six months. It was wild. So she told me I was going to need painkillers, and she was not wrong. I did. Yeah. But before this, I did all the work. I wrote a letter to my higher power. I talked to my sponsor. I set up a plan. I did all of the things, you know, like I talked to other people in recovery about like, you know, what, how am I going to do this? And so I developed a plan and I'm enacting this plan. My boyfriend is not an opiate addict in any way, shape or form. So I said, will you hold these pills and give them to me as prescribed? And he said, yes, I will do that for you. I said, you got to hide them, put them somewhere that I don't know where they are. Yes, I will do that. so um i have the surgery i start on the painkillers i'm taking now they're they're fives it's not like they're crazy right they're perk fives he gives me one at a time the bottle said i could take one to two for as needed for pain he gives me one at a time every four hours and um about three days in you know december 31st well it was a couple days before that because it happened twice about three days in when he gave me the one i like put it underneath something and waited for him to give me the next one um my intention was to feel something right in the moment i didn't even realize like because the bottle said i could take two so my attic brain rationalized this by saying the bottle side you could take two and you don't want to ask him for two because then that would be weird and like you don't want him to suspect anything so like really you're still taking the mass prescribed so wait for him to give you the next one and then you can take the two but you never have to tell anybody because the bottle says you can take two and so it's fine you know so i rationalized this in my brain and that happened twice um about two weeks after uh the it happened the second time the medication's gone you know about two weeks after it happened the second time i'm in therapy and i just like casually mentioned it to my therapist my therapist was also a person in recovery she was like have you told your sponsor that i was like it's weird why would why would i tell my sponsor that why would i tell my sponsor that i did that i took it as prescribed what do you mean she goes maybe maybe tell your sponsor like i was in such denial about it you know uh maybe tell your sponsor so i did um and i said i have to reset my date don't i she was like listen i'm not going to tell you what you have to do she said um you know you did take it as prescribed but also what were your motives she said so i'm going to give you the option like you could talk to 100 people in program 50 of them will say you don't have to change your date because you didn't pick up a drink and because you didn't take it outside the bounds of the prescription 50 will say you absolutely do because of your motives and because you were trying to feel something yeah um so you know i hemmed and hawed about it for a couple of days i was talking to another alcoholic about it and she said to me she looked right at my face i'll never forget this she said do you want to do it feels good or do you want to do it feels right fuck yeah so i reset my date because it felt right you know what i mean it felt right and i was so scared like what's my disease gonna try to get away with next time if i if i sweep this under the rug and act like it's cool right right well kudos to you thank you big deal thank you uh that's i mean like i know i had hernia surgery and i was like i'm not taking anything and it was the worst pain that I've ever went through like fucking it was in creek because they put a mesh in my stomach I never realized how much you use your core to like get up and things like that and it was fucking terrible but I know that if I would have done any if I would have taken the prescription the way that I wanted to take the prescription it would have been 100 to feel something yeah so i did the same thing i had destiny hold it for me and just give me a half i didn't even take the full i was like just give me and it sucked it was terrible but i won't lie whenever she gave me that half i was like i wasn't saving that son of bitch i was like i'll take this motherfucker it didn't hurt so bad yeah but yeah kudos to you well i appreciate that that's a real big deal yeah i mean i honestly i mean i'm i'm listening to it i don't even know that I mean, again, you got to do what feels right for you in that moment. But I don't know that I would have reset the thing based on what you're telling me. Yeah. And Normie here, moron guy, just like outside. Because you went into that doing all the work, preparing yourself for what was going to happen and how it was going to happen. Got the boyfriend. Kudos to him, too. because him hiding all of that stuff and making sure that it's going to you in the proper way. I mean, you went into that with a full understanding of where it could go. And you came out of it kind of in the same spot, just my perspective again. but you got to do what you got to do in that moment right absolutely and uh your guys's disease is is a wild one so uh so it's probably very necessary again being a normie guy yeah and that that's really cool though that you were able to to make it through that because what you just described to me was awful yeah it was really really awful it sounds awful yeah i I will tell you that like, and I appreciate that so much. I, you know, it's funny. Like I said, you know, my relationship with a power greater than me or a higher power, what some people choose to call God or, you know, whatever that is, has always kind of waxed and waned. Yeah. Um, that's when my relationship to my creator got a lot stronger and I will tell you, and that's because I am a literal bottom of the barrel, homeless junkie. And the fact that I did feel something when I took those two, the fact that I did feel something, the fact that I made it two weeks before telling anybody about it and then like – and that I did not end up in a tent community with a needle in my arm, that was a miracle that was not performed by me. Yeah. That's it. Because me, that's exactly where I would have ended up, right? So the fact that everything like went down the way that it did, you know, I won't say that that it didn't get worse because of my strength, because that's impossible. You know, I don't I mean, I believe that I'm a strong woman. But when it comes to my disease, the disease was awake. And there is no reason that I shouldn't have ended up in a gutter somewhere. But I didn't. Yeah, you know, you know, I did. You know, I did. You went over there and did one of those things. Yeah, I did. In the tybernation. I did. And I will tell you, you know, Daryl, my boyfriend was absolutely phenomenal through that. And it's not the only time that he's been phenomenal with something. You know, there was a period of time where I wasn't sleeping really well. And, you know, he is we'll call him a normie for the sake of argument. He's really kind of California sober. Yeah. And, you know, which was difficult for me at first. And I had to do a lot of work on before I like actually agreed to date him. Right. Because I knew it was dangerous for me. I have tried to just keep weed before. And unfortunately, you know, someone was like, hey, do you want to smoke some crack? And I was like, fuck yeah. Like, you know, there comes to a point where it's just not enough, right? But, you know, so he partakes, and it's legal in Connecticut, so I can say that. But I, you know, I don't. I choose to abstain from all things. And there was a period of time that I wasn't sleeping really well, and I was taking CBD. He was also taking CBD, but his CBD had a lot of THC in it, right? So they were next to each other in the fridge. I go to take mine one day and I take it and I'm sitting on the couch and I'm on the phone with a sponsee. Now, this was before the medication incident. This was like a couple of years before that when I had just moved in with him or no, when we had just started dating. And I'm on the phone with a sponsee and I'm like, like my mouth started getting real dry. And I was like, oh, no. so and then i look up at the screen of the tv and like it's weird yeah you know and i was like oh oh no so i hang up with my sponsee i go to the fridge i look at the bottles fuck i took the wrong one i took the wrong one i took his now how much did i really take i don't know a very little bit but for me who has absolutely zero tolerance and hasn't had a drug in years um i am high yeah at this point like i am high yeah you're floating yeah i am floating so i immediately call my sponsor and I was like oh my god I don't know what to do I'm high but I'm high by accident and I didn't mean to and I don't know what to do and she was like hey hey hey hey did you do it on purpose and I said no and she said when you realized it was happening did you go and take more no okay sit down on the couch tell Daryl what happened so that he's aware right because you're freaking out sit down on the couch and just relax you're gonna be okay yeah man and I said okay so I sit down on the couch and now I've talked to my sponsor you know I've told Daryl what's going on so now I'm like kind of relaxing a little bit because like I know that like you know I'm going to be okay so I look at him and I'm like hey do you want to play a video game yeah and he was like yeah sure so um you know we start playing a video game and I'm like trying to giggle with him I'm trying to laugh with him he's sitting there like this he's like completely stone-faced um you know so eventually I end up going to bed or whatever and I wake up the next day and I'm talking to him And I'm like, babe, like your dream is to have a girl who will like get high with you and play video games with you. And like, you know, you had that for just for one day yesterday. And, you know, you didn't like, you know, you wouldn't even laugh with me. And he looks right at me and he goes, babe, I love you. And I did not want you to associate it with having a good time. So I refuse to give you a good time. That's cool. And I said, what are you doing for the rest of your life? Because that was such a kind thing. Like that was so loving. Yeah. You know, he really is the best. He really is. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. I was about to say, I was like, man, if I was sponsored, like grab a pineapple Fanta and a fucking bag of Cheetos and turn on the Matrix and let's fucking go. Like you're here. Just fucking ride it out. I will tell you that I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. I don't either. My I used to love it. I always said, like, if I didn't need heroin to be well, weed would have been my drug of choice. You know, I used to love it. but I did not like it this time. Well, you didn't get so different. Weed's the scariest drug for me. Yeah. Is it like, even when you were in active addiction, like you, I mean, really, it sends me to fucking weird bill. And like, I was talking, you know, what's funny is we went and played Frisbee golf today. And two of the guys that went with us I was like me and destiny were sitting there I was like man someone smoking I can smell it And it was them right And they like oh my God I so sorry We didn't know. I said, no, I don't give a shit. It doesn't bother me at all. Right. Like if you – now, you start smoking meth around me. I haven't been around that yet. Right. You're not desensitized to that. But all the other stuff, no big deal. I've seen people do coke around me or at a party that I was at. It doesn't bother me. but um they were like do you you don't smoke or i said no i said that shit sends me into like i'll be like if i smoke i'll think we're having a conversation but we're really not and i'll be like so so what about that yellow bird you were talking about you'll be like what fucking bird i'm like that bird we were just talking about like four minutes like it just things happen in my mind that really don't happen and then it just makes me sit there and be like are you fucking with me like are we just talked about a bird no weed is has always since i was a teenager weed has always been the drug that just sends me into fucking weirdville and it scares the shit out of me still does for me too like i don't do it at all either yeah i really want to real bad like i want it to be the thing that is like like my brothers and shit they're like that they'll get together and they're having the time of their life, man. And I'm like, you put that shit in me, and I am paranoid. Like, I'm having arguments about what kind of human being I am. Like, I'm like, hey, you're a good guy. This side's like, no, you're not. You're the worst dad on the planet. I'm like, no. That's how it is for some people. It's so fucking – like, I get so paranoid. I just freak out. So I wish I could do it. I wish it was something that was awesome. but it's not awesome not for me yeah not for me so i definitely sympathize with you in that moment because if i would have done the same thing i'd be like yeah yeah i will say though that that was also a blessing in disguise and a miracle that was not performed by me because before that i was romanticizing it i was romanticizing it i was like oh man i wish i could just you know smoke with him and just you know watch a movie whatever yeah um and after that happened no interest anymore You know what I mean? I was not romanticizing it anymore. So that was a gift. God, yeah. You know? You want to play around? Here you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to read the right label? Let's go. And I will say that after that, I said, you know what? So that y'all separate them in the fridge now? After that, I decided that I would find sleep without CBD. Yeah. I have not taken it since. Yeah. I just, it was too close for comfort. It was scary. You know, and even when you take it, even when it doesn't have, you know, a high concentration of weed in it, even when there's no way it's going to get you high, it still tastes like Like I had no business. Yeah, the CBD gummies I take to go to sleep, I make sure they don't have any tea. But they still taste like they do. They do. And they still smell like they do. It's weird. And the different colors, different colors smell more like it than other colors. Yeah, so I always, whenever I'm about to eat them, and I've already, I'm always reading the label again, like, fuck, this really smells like weed. Yeah. But I always get the ones that are just CBD. Yeah, where I live, you know, I mean, listen, I could buy CBD at the gas station. It's like the wild, wild west out there with that shit. You don't know what's in it when you buy it at the gas station. So I was getting it at the dispensary because it's very regulated, right? But in order for you to get it at the dispensary, there's a minute amount. Like I'm talking I could drink the whole bottle and not get high, but there is a little bit in there in the one that I was using at that time. So talk about life now, sober. Well, let's get into that in a second. I want to talk about your business. You have a business that's going on. What is that? What are you doing? So I am a founder of a business. All right. The founder of my own brand. It is called Fiercely Megan LLC. Okay. And I am a public speaker, a group facilitator, and a retreat facilitator. I am very fortunate that with the company that I work for now, I was – every year they like to spotlight somebody and let them do a keynote speech at our national huddle, which is about 3,000 people. So it's a conference that we do every year. And I was very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to share my story, a much more watered-down version than the one I heard today, but to share my story at our national huddle because I was chosen to be the one to do that. So I gave this keynote speech. It was about 20 minutes in front of about 3,000 people, and it was the greatest 20 minutes of my entire life. It was just phenomenal. Some people get really nervous with public speaking. I get energized. I absolutely love it. You know, I also am a person who I teach for a living. I'm an educator. Even though I am a hairstylist, I teach haircutting classes. I teach leadership training. I, you know, have been providing franchise support to businesses, small business owners and managers for years. So, you know, but I also as being a person in recovery and being a person who's really into like therapy and healing from trauma and emotional intelligence and all of that stuff. You know, I truly believe that like what I would like to do is be able to give away what has been freely given to me. I have been taught that throughout my recovery, but not just to the recovery community, to anybody who is interested in healing, to anybody who is interested in, you know, having more peace in their life, to anybody who wants it, anybody who wants to do the work, you know, so emotional intelligence is sort of the center of it. But I can translate that into anything as far as leadership conferences, things like that, or, you know, even if you're doing like smaller things, women's groups, business groups, things like that, because I truly believe that bringing emotional intelligence and, you know, sort of the things that I have learned in recovery into anything uh will make it much more successful than it already is um you know and and that's something that is just has been a dream of mine and it's funny i was in a meeting and i told my story you know we speak i was being a speaker at a meeting and uh somebody came up to me after and said hey you're a great storyteller and i said oh thank you so much i really appreciate that she said uh i ended up talking to her for a little bit she's the sweetest woman And she was in this business. She owned a successful speaker bureau in Connecticut for like 40 years. She's retired now, but she offered to mentor me. So I started working with her. And yeah, so we officially launched in August of this past year. I have my first official speaking gig this coming week. I'm very, very excited about it. It's a very small gig, but I'm so grateful for it. And it's my very first one. It is at the Bloomfield Public Library in Connecticut. They have a night event series for the adult-like programming. And so I'll be doing that this coming Thursday. Very exciting. Nice. Yeah. That's awesome. So it's really good. And, you know, so that's the business that I just started. You can find me at fiercelymegan.com. I am on all the socials. But whether it be my website or any one of my social medias, there's a link either in my bio or on the website. It's at the bottom that'll take you to all of my socials and or the website, depending on where you are. OK, well, what's your social? What are your social? So the social that I'm on the most is TikTok and that's at Megan Blanchett. But the social that I am or my other socials are Facebook, which is Megan Blanchett as well. On Instagram, I am at fiercely Megan. And then on LinkedIn, I'm also Megan Blanchett. Yeah. So but I'm pretty active on TikTok. I have been doing TikToks for a few years now. I don't have a very large following, maybe almost 5,000 people. It's not a ton, but I do. That's a decent size. It's decent. It is decent. And I'm so grateful for my following. They're incredible. But I do, like, get ready with me, makeup content, things like that, you know, tutorials, product reviews, things like that. But now I also use that platform to talk about the things that I have learned, like, while I'm doing my makeup, right? Yeah. So. Yeah. So we got the next Mel Robbins here. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That would be incredible. Dude, that lady is cool. She's amazing. She was actually a keynote speaker at one of our yearly conferences, like before she really, really blew up. And she just knocked my socks off, man. She's fantastic. Man. So I didn't even know who that was. And I still don't. I'm a comedian. Yeah, that's because you're dumb. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, I'm just kidding. I love you. The only reason I learned about her was I'm a huge comedy guy and like podcast comedy, comics that I like. yeah and Burt Kreischer the dude who takes his shirt off I love him to death but he's a booze hound he drinks a ton yeah and he had her on instead of his buddy who was normally on with him and just listening to her talk and walk him through like his fears and like he's kind of reached this point where drinking is his identity yeah you know like where goes out to bars after his gigs and buying out the bars and he it's kind of legendary the type of shit that he's doing as far as drinking goes yeah but having her on and like kind of them talking through that and not this pushy way and him just going oh my god oh my god i do that dude that's totally me like it was it was really cool so then i just started following her and like listening to her on everything she's pretty fabulous yeah i like her a lot but yeah something like that you know i mean i don't need To be the next Mel Robbins. I do know who she is. You do? The only reason I know is because she's in front of us on Apple Podcasts for education. She's number one every fucking week. Well, yeah. She deserves to be. If we ever get above her, I'm going to be pissed. We've gotten number five or number six. That's fabulous. She's number one. She's a blonde-headed lady. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't about to cuss her, but great following. We love you, Mel Robbins. Yeah, we love you, Mel Robbins. couldn't hurt to say that yeah just drop a spot or two we don't we don't deserve that we don't deserve that like it's number one every single week she is for education very very i mean i don't if you've never listened to her she's just she's really really good at relating uh to people and helping them to see themselves like that's what she does you know what i mean um and that is you know the same along the same vein of the the kind of work that i she does in a very short period of time too oh my gosh she gets right to the fucking point but it's like the the short clips yeah like i mean i've watched her in long form too but watching her in the short i'm like that was like the most important fucking like 30 seconds of my life yeah like yeah it's crazy but like all bullshit aside i said that because I kind of see a little bit of you in her or her in you. I really think that you've got something to you. I appreciate that. I think you really need to get out there. She's number one today. We're number eight. She's number one. Listen, eight is freaking amazing, though. Congratulations on that. That is wonderful. Appreciate it. It's so weird. That's the weirdest thing ever. It is. It's really cool, and I really appreciate that you said that. My dad always says, you know, you got that special something, Mike. He's my dad. You know, like he's supposed to say that, you know. Right. But to hear somebody else say it is really cool. So I appreciate that very much. Thank you. Have you ever considered doing a podcast? I have. Stop. You just need to. Well, here's the thing. I just launched a business, and I also have a very full-time job where I travel for a living. It doesn't take that long. But every way that you can get your business and yourself back out there. Yeah. And with the podcast, you know the way the program is is we're supposed to pay it forward and give it back anyways. Absolutely. And what better way than for you to have different people come on in Connecticut. That's true. Where you said that the recovery community is not what it is like in Austin. That's something that you could add to it out there. Absolutely. You do not have to make brick walls and cameras and lights. You don't have to. Get someone that's been meth for 10 years. I was on a great podcast. They'll put this bitch up in two days. I was on a great podcast and there was an iPhone inside of a circle thing and it turned out great. I mean, it was great. Yeah. And it was just a wall and you don't have to do anything. You just have to have the content and the thing that people are going to want to listen to. And you have that in spades. Well, thank you. You do have that in spades. I appreciate that. We're not always, not everybody who comes on, we're going to be like, hey, man, let's start a podcast. But people who should were like – Yeah, we probably told about three different people. Yeah, you definitely should. In 80 episodes. I feel so special. Thank you. You really, really, really should. Thank you. So life today. Life today. Life today. What's it like being sober? I mean, you've talked about it spotty towards the end there. Sure, sure. Daryl. Daryl is – Daryl's great. Daryl's a G. He is. Sounds like he's a G. He is. Yeah, he is. He's a guy. He's fantastic. So Daryl and I are, of course, still together, hopefully, you know, planning on getting married at some point in the next few years. We last year or two years ago, April of 2024, we bought a house. Nice. Wild, you know. And like I said, it's not about stuff and things. But the girl who lived in a tent and didn't have a dollar to her name. This house is in my name. And that is insane to me. It is absolutely insane. So we bought a house. We, you know, life is really good. I'm still really active in the 12-step program that I'm in. You know, I still sponsor women. I still, you know, do a lot of that. I actually recently just came off of, I was on a board of directors, which was wild. um it was a a non-profit health care organization actually responsible for the rehab facilities that i was in um and when i was still in the halfway house uh the coo of intercommunity which is the name of this non-profit health care organization came in to get a haircut uh where i was working i'm just working in like a men's type salon yeah and uh at a sport clips actually and uh so he comes in to get a haircut and i'm like hey you're the guy that brings the sandwiches to the halfway house on monday nights and he was like how do you know that i was like i live in the halfway house and he was like shut up you do and i was like yeah i do so we're talking and he you know he's the coo of this organization um and i guess you know he was impressed with my marketing skills because i sold him like you know shampoo and a couple of different products before he left and um but he also said that they needed a voice for the client on the board you know they got doctors they got lawyers they got you know accountants they got all these people but they like somebody that had been through the programs that had get it that gets it in on the board um so i started that the first year 2016 a year after i got sober i started that um and then you can do three consecutive three-year terms um but then you turn out so uh but two years ago i was the vice chair and this past year i was the chairwoman of the board being called madam chair is very unsettling that's a weird title very weird um but they did it because you know they they knew how uncomfortable it made me but also they felt like i deserved that title yeah you know um and and you know i am it was extremely humbling uh to have that experience and i'm so grateful for it um and they gave me this like award you know at the gala in november um like a being a beacon of the community. It was just amazing. Um, things that Megan 10 years ago would have, could not even have conceived. Um, you know, but, but life is really good today. I mean, I, I am a person who is in constant, um, like I, I continue to do the work. Um, I go on retreat every 12 or every six months. So twice a year, a couple of my girlfriends that are in recovery as well, we go on the retreat and we work all 12 steps, short form, but we work all 12 steps over three days in an Airbnb. And we write, we read, then we write, then we share with each other. Um, and it's, it's really nice to, to do it every six months because then I'm only like cleaning up the wreckage of six months at a time and not like a lifetime. Right. Um, but it also keeps me with people who want to continue doing the work. Um, it keeps me at the center of the pack, as they say, um, you know, because, you know, they, they talk about program as if it's a, a pack, right. And if you stay at the center of the pack you won't be picked off but if i'm at the outside of the back you know just attending a meeting every once in a while not really talking to anybody like that's when i'm in danger of being picked off on the outside you know so um yeah i mean my life is amazing daryl is wonderful i have friends in my life that i would do anything for and would do anything for me um people want me around today which is wild yeah um you know because i went through years where nobody wanted me around um my stepfather had a surgery recently and you know or this was a few years ago now but the doctor looked at him and said you know to him and my mom because my mom didn't drive for the last like 10 years of her life and you know uh the doctor looked at him and was like well you know you're going to be put under so like when you leave after this surgery you're going to have to have somebody responsible pick you up and you know drive you home and he looked at my mother and said we better call megan to have somebody refer to me as the responsible one. Yeah. To have somebody refer to me as a person that they trust to show up. Um, that's a gift. Yeah. That's a gift. And that's what my life is like today. Um, I can burn out easily because I say yes to everything. Yeah. Right. Um, so this year is, is my year of saying yes to the things that fill my cup, but also being honest when I don't want to do something. That's what I'm working on this year. Um, it doesn't have to be a reason. It doesn't have to be, I don't, I don't have to come up with a lie. I have something else to do that day. So no, um, thank you but i think i'll pass that's it that's all i have to say right um i don't have to like over exert myself anymore um but yeah i just joined the chamber of commerce uh where i live trying to this is cool yeah i just joined the chamber of commerce in west hartford connecticut trying to build my build relationships right because you launch a business what do you got to do yeah um i'm not going to pay for marketing well i mean i paid to be on the chamber but like i'm not going to put all this marketing out there hire me as a speaker people don't know who i am I want to build relationships. I want to be of service to others. I want to help other people with their businesses because that's how relationships are built and that's how things get going. Right? So. You just listed off like 17 reasons why you should have a podcast. Like I'm being dead serious. You take an hour or even 30 minutes. Yeah. Get up there and talk. You're trying to talk in front of people. Get up there and talk in front of a microphone. I can do that. I do have a microphone. Well, let them see you. Let them hear you a little bit. And that's probably some of the best advertising you can do. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And listen, if I do real well, don't come for me. Okay? Don't come for you. Like you're coming for Mel Robbins. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? No. No, if you start doing really well, don't come for us. Please, please. Just give us a shout out. Yeah, just give us a shout out. Oh, always. but thanks for coming. Listen, this has been absolutely phenomenal. You guys are great. The whole, you know, my whole experience in Austin with the recovery community, but with everybody that I have come across has just been phenomenal. And I am just so grateful for the opportunity. I'm grateful to my friend for hooking me up with this opportunity. Hi, Felicia. She's sitting over there. Hi, Felicia. Felicia groom. Yeah. The shirts. I give you a shout out for the shirts. That's right. For shirts, for the sober house a way out so yeah way out the the grooms the walkers that's right yeah the many many things i do for the recovery community yeah yeah they're fabulous yeah and you're a normie like me yeah yeah yeah so but yeah no i'm just i'm so grateful to have been here and for you guys for giving me this opportunity um you know but also for just hanging with me that's all this is is a hang yeah you know it always trips me out when people come in here and say they're nervous like and i know it's a little intimidating because you come in and you look at cameras and lights and a board and stuff but it we've tried to make this a hang yeah it's really it feels like one much of anything so saying that is a huge compliment yeah to to me anyway that you felt after a few minutes of we're just hanging out here. We're just chopping it up. Just telling stories. That's it. Just wild stories. Not lemon juice or whatever. Cooking arms. I still like to go half on a baby. Yeah, dude. That's one of the greatest things I've ever heard. You want to go half on a baby? You want to go half on a baby? There was so many quotable things in your story. You want to go half on a baby? That will be a fucking clip. We're going to talk about cooking arms and we're going to talk about going halves I'm going half on a baby. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Because I've tried to go half on many babies. Yeah. Now that I think about it. Only made it to two, for me anyway. I feel like only addicts know the, like, you know, I've been with you for a week and we're talking about having kids. We've already moved in. We're talking about, you know what I mean? Like. Oh, I absolutely love this person. Yeah. This is. My whole heart. My whole soul. This is my soulmate. I will die. I will die for her. And I just met her yesterday. That's right. That's right. She's the one. You know? You should get. you want to go half on a baby on a shirt. Yeah. Felicia. I think. I would put one on a Two Addicts and a More on a shirt, but I would feel like we would be robbing it. If we never do it, we will put your name on it. Well, I appreciate that. We'll put that in quotes. You want to go half on a baby. I actually can't even take credit for it because that is something that someone said to me that I met, of course, in an IOP, and we fell in love immediately. That's what he said to me. Oh, wow. Like we were making out, and it was starting to go further, and he looks at me, and that's exactly what he said. And I said, yes, and that was it. Wow. Yeah. If only I knew that's all I've ever had to say to females. Yeah. Want to go have one of the babies? Yeah. Listen, things were wild back then, and I do not have kids. I am very fortunate that I don't have kids because they would be real messed up if I did. Well, not moving forward. Not moving forward. No. No. So maybe Daryl. Want to go half on a baby? Yeah. You know? I'm just saying. Go halfies. Yeah. Go half on a baby, Daryl. All right? It's time. Well, with that being said, I think we've got another one of the books here. And, again, appreciate you. And I know we're a long ways away, but if you're ever in town, swing by. We'd love to have you back here again. You need us to come out to Connecticut. I'm a huge Patriot fan. that's not far from you. Patriots won today, by the way. They beat the Texans. Go Patriots. Oof. Oh, we're not a Patriots fan. Not a Patriots fan. No. Who are you? Giants. That's terrible. No, you know what's terrible? The Patriots. The Giants. The fucking Giants are terrible. No, I'm actually not a huge football fan, but my dad is a huge Giants fan. My first words were actually, go Giants. It's his proudest moment of my life. He tells that story. So I'm a Giants fan, but I also like Boston as well. I like the Red Sox. I'm not a Yankees fan. I'm a Red Sox fan. Yeah. And I like the Celtics also. So, like, I'm not, you know, it's really just football that I have to go Giants, and that's because my dad is a diehard Giants fan. Mike's just pissed because only two Super Bowl losses were. Well, we lost to the Eagles, too. Oh, that's right. That's right. You did, but we actually took it twice. But, like, we lost to Eli Manning, and Eli Manning is no Tom Brady in any way, shape, or form. Took the soul right out of him. The two of the greatest catches that you'll ever see was against us, Mario Manningham. Yeah. And what was the other guy's name? David Tyree. David Tyree. Yep. Both Giants. Both Giants. That was God showing up for the Giants who couldn't show up for themselves. Probably was God showing up for my dad. Those are his greatest moments in life right there. Well, look, if you ever need us for anything, let us know. I appreciate it. And whenever you're in town, feel free to swing by. Same to you. And if you ever need a speaker. Let's do it. Just let me know. Yeah, let's go. Awesome. All right. Thank you. Well, we are out, ladies and gentlemen. Go Patriots. Go Giants. Sorry, Niners.