Episode 127

[Music] hey everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of Finding Peaks Yours Truly Chris Burns founder and CEO Peaks recovery centers grateful today to be joined by an amazing friend in long-term recovery in a Peaks alumni Austin pelster so great to have you sir hey it’s a pleasure to be here an amazing breed’s amazing with it there so definitely a balance scale sitting here with yeah yeah man it’s just been a pleasure you know we’re we’re in the process of us getting close to celebrating 10 years so having you back out four years of recovery you know you were here in 2020 it’s just been exceptional having you around connecting with chef and so many of the other folks that you spent quality time with in your stay with us yeah it’s been been great getting some catch up with everybody and and the amazing things seeing around the facility there like you guys have been busy I I’ve been I spent the last four years keeping myself clean and I come back and look at all this and go God this could have been a cakewalk wow yeah I mean the the new the new trail head everything going on there plus having the old houses like it’s out of this world the abilities that the you you were set so free with things that you can do and knowing the new programs that have come in just the uh with mental health help with uh with raiki with the magnet stuff you were talking about wow there’s so many cool things there yeah I love that when we were torn Austin around today you know the new facilities built and he was here in 2020 when we were just preconstruction zoning everything and so for him to really be able to see it real time and walk through there was a was a real gift for him and a gift for everybody to see him and get to celebrate and I think that’s where we’ll start in the show Austin just picked up four years you know when when you came into Peaks or maybe even prior to Peaks did you ever think you know that was going to be a part of your existence or did you think that was possible you know there was a a good long spell and a good long drinking career where I thought I’m like everyone I just drink a lot you know it it is what it is I go to the bar you know these guys are throwing them back I’m throwing them back all the same balanced action watch of functioning alcoholics there people were making their way to work the next morning or going home to the wife and kids didn’t get to see a whole lot of the behind the scenes and really didn’t want to do a whole lot of the math I ignored the homework because behind the scenes I was seeing couples who were getting divorced I was seing people who were transitioning jobs like they just got promotions but I think they might have softened the blow on what they were really saying the repercussions of that so it camouflaged itself to me and I never really thought that I had such a problem now I did stare across the bar and be that guy he’s drinking a lot you that at least I’m not that dude yeah been there and I know from the other side of the bar they were looking across and going at least I’m not that dude and here I am and I mean not to prove my guidance counsel or WR or anything but yeah eventually I knew something was going to have to make changes and through a lot of years and watching a lot of friends do a lot of Peaks and valleys in their own lives and watching people literally drink themselves to death and we did did their their wakes and their funerals and we mourned and had our sorrows and our celebrations for them and we did them all at the bar like those those signs should have been you know right in front of you like the coyote know mother trying to say what are you doing here but that didn’t ring a bell either you know it’s you know somebody dies oh crap set him up somebody gets out of the hospital hey pal want to drink and we continued in that process but never thought internally and never thought on my own that you know maybe there was some
her all the apologies in the world she’s Beyond step work and the apologies that I owe her like I should buy her a house and a new life and then stay the hell out of it cuz she’s ear ined that you know she got in my face when we were at the bar right before I had made my way to Peaks you know really shortly before and called me out on my heavy drink but all also started calling me out that my eyes were changing colors and she’d had some drinks in her so she was a little more vocal a little more animated than a normal intervention style crowd would have been sure but she was trauma informed yeah but she stay she got right up in my grill about it and I’m sitting there taking shots you know I’m fine don’t I’m tired and worn the hell out you know every excuse possible well as that escalated that day she ended up getting 86 from the bar for making a scene while they kept serving me the guy who’s jaising his eyes yellow who looks like hammered [  ] that poor girl I owe her so many apologies but that’s also part of the the camouflage you know why are they still serving me if I’m a problem right what and I never really thought about it until I woke up that magic morning June 18th 2020 and went and looked in the mirror and saw The Simpsons but they weren’t on TV it was me I was that color that was some scary [  ] thought maybe I could have looked back at all those times before where co-workers called me out girlfriends called me out parents called me out no no they were just being judgy yeah I love that too and I that’s what I wanted to you know we’re chatting a little bit before the show but I think that’s a great overarching view of things is like the bottom can be whenever we decide to stop digging oh yeah we can Elevate that bottom today I think sometimes people see stories like yours or mine or some of your friends and are like I don’t have that maybe you can highlight for people when you started to feel like like you needed something to show up in this world to have or add value absolutely so the social Norm is what really really drove it and I was working in an industry that was all food and beverage and I was the buyer for wine I was the buyer for booze I was the presenter I was the wine tasting guy at 10: a.m. so for me it was kind of yeah you know no big deals but I was scheduling these and I even had employees pull pull do you really want to schedule a wine tasting at 10: a.m. and to me it’s like yeah it’s [  ] normal right what what’s so big about throwing back some breakfast Shard day and I never really caught the signs on those and you know there there was a lot a lot of big warning signs but I just ignored all the signs of the road and kept speeding now the rock bottom piece you know Rock Bottom doesn’t have to be a solid slab of granite you know Rock Bottom could be where you’re just starting to hit those pebbles at the bottom of the drain and go why the hell am I down here or maybe your toes just barely touched it and you’re treading water but you know that that Rock Bottom is below you yeah and the ability to learn and be educated enough just in normal societal Norms or have the balls to listen yeah because that’s really what it is it’s easier to push it aside y That Rock Bottom could be on the shallow end of the pool yeah yeah exactly and and we want to highlight that for people today it’s like let’s let’s Elevate that let’s not wait for some of these huge huge life-changing events to find our clearly what it is today our mental health and our mental equinity you know because often times it’s the booze come up and they serve a purpose because I’m struggling with you know my anxiety or my depression or my allergies or whatever it is and it fills this like oh man I can kind of talk to this person now I can do these things and so looking at it from the mental health side of things is like we can we can catch this thing far before you have to go that deep exactly you know when you look at like a a a bottle of Tylenol or a bottle of ibuprofen you know there’s a dosing WR on there and it says not to exceed not to do this not to do that and it really talks about what you should and shouldn’t do with it it’s it’s a regulated thing but you look at a bottle of booze it doesn’t say right it says 32 ounces of now my back won’t hurt right and so you’re self-medicating on that but you don’t have prescription on it and we see this with more than booze we see it with weed you know the California sober that is so popular out here in Colorado let’s go colado yeah wo yeah puff puff oh oops oops but there’s no dosing on it there’s no you know this is what it takes to make the the pain go away and it might take a minute to kick in it’s a delayed reaction you know or you know delayed what do they call them the delayed extended release yeah delayed release uh tablets of a leave or whatever okay yeah that’s not booze Bo boots it’s a fast acting do it now now my back doesn’t hurt but it also wears off just as fast so keeping the level up you’re self-medicating here and you’re not doing it with anything more than what really is a drug frankly it works pretty well like a [  ] charm man yes that’s the problem I’ll tell you what after after I got my uh my regular fix my uh my four down to start the start the evening out my back didn’t hurt my head felt clean um I was ready to be social my anxiety’s disappeared life was a cakewalk hell yeah let’s do a couple more because I got more friends showing up that girl looks pretty nice over there I want that liquid courage you throw them down because this is the medicine that’s working for me when really that medicine is what’s killing me yeah right and it’s hard to get enough of something that almost works yeah Gabor mate said it best what do you think what what was like when you look back at your experience I know we chatted a little bit yesterday but what was kind of the toughest part because we’ve been talking a lot lately I had the Reconstruction guys on a few months ago we’ve been talking a little bit about a part of recovery that’s been missed a little and it and it does take a little bit of grit does take a little bit of fight and it takes some Champions around you to enfor form that but can you think back you know as we were on campus earlier can you think back to some inflection points it’s like you talk about it a lot with people that you help you say now you’ve done the first hardest thing now you’re G to do the toughest thing which is the work the the work the work is the hardest thing and it’s work it’s a four-letter word you know it [  ] was already taken so we got to call it work yeah and it doesn’t have to be hard work though I mean there are some moments where you really have to apply yourself you don’t have have to think of it as hard because you’re stepping from one piece of life to the next and sure there’s transitional things in there that hurt and there’s times where you don’t want to go and do this work because the old job was easier but that work and it it’s tough and it’s accountability is probably the number one thing to keep you driven in your job you go to a regular job you get a review okay and sometimes you have to generate your own review and then give it to your boss and then you compare notes and and you think you’re horrible at something and they’re going actually you’re really good at that but you’re pissed poor at this one you thought you were good at right so the accountabilities that are in there and building that core around you you can’t do it on your own and a lot of people try to do it on their own all the way from trying to detox on their own from my friend Nick who tried that he’s not with us anymore yeah um he didn’t try to medically detox and do it the right way and bring himself down he had a seizure on his couch and died very very young man tragic story lifelong alcoholic yeah and he had he had the ways to get out he never asked for help could we have pinpointed it for him yeah and that’s an accountability I like to bring into life now for sure so not just within myself but within everyone around I see that when I when I was at Peaks today looking the accountability is there from not only a therapist or not only from an owner or from chef but it’s from everywhere like you sign engagement around every corner with everyone there wasn’t a figure walking through being a a CEO just you know going to my office it was full Engagement full asking how you doing across the board I heard probably waiting listening for response yeah yeah I heard how are you doing probably a dozen times before we got out of the lunchroom from different people across the board full check-in and that’s that accountability needs to make its way outside the doors too and you you do that by finding AA groups you do that by finding na groups or finding a Dharma group or just a group of random Joe’s are going to sit and have coffee on Sunday morning it might be a golf club I don’t know you will yeah CU that’s your job that’s part of that work is you go out and you find that group to hold you accountable I have the D team yeah that’s what I was going to ask you next man it’s not on the list but let’s talk a little bit about the D team and what that means to you because the single greatest recovery tool I had certainly in my first year was the people around me was the community that informed my every existence and well I was everything with them and really I felt absent without and so you developed just a incredible friend group that is in the community doing great you guys meet up all the time you keep each other maybe talk to them a little bit about that relationship you found at Peak yeah and it’s amazing so six of us all checked in at the same time um within about I think it was like eight hours of Total time of checkin and the six of us all check in and we’re all six from different walks of life well walks or staggers or whatever I mean some of them came in a little hot too but if I mean if you’d have put us all six at a bar maybe three of us would have turned out out being friends from any which side You’ have never put it all together into one but we made a good Bond right there being the the brand new six all people around like hey what are you in for drinking dumbass what do you think I’m here for you all the awkward conversation then it generated more and more and more growth some of some of them stuck around for the fast 30 and got out and went on and started getting life lived and doing well uh there’s schmoes like me who stuck around for 97 days best summer camp ever yeah I I know I’m not the longest but damn it it was I think great I mean you look back like it up there there’s not a lot of times people in this world will check into a a community or treatment program and you’re seen valued and heard around every corner H yeah and we’ll we’ll touch on that a little bit too just some of the internal uh things that I jumped in with while I was there but this dteam group and we called ourselves the D team because of detox where we met that’s I wonder that yeah and we’re still in contact every day there’s a text there’s something that comes through every day out of this group and they’re always right there and a lot of times it’s dirty stories or silly [  ] but then if somebody needs something or they’re celebrating something it’s right there and it’s support it’s the hey I [  ] up or hey I just hit four years happy birthday you know it was Gary’s birthday yesterday you know that was all over it and this Core Group sticks together we try to get out and meet each other whenever we can because we’re not all localized together we got a couple of them down here in the springs we got Washington State North Carolina Kentucky you know uh other end of the state too over in Grand junk that’s right we got people everywhere so it’s not like hey come on over and watch the game yeah but when we can we do and it’s great because it’s almost like they were they never weren’t by your side now they’re just physically sitting here yeah you know one of them picked me up at the airport we managed to have a bite to eat and that’s the only time I’m going to see him while I’m down here because he’s busy he’s got things going on but also knew like hey man I’m in town like dude where you at at the airport just dropped off a rental I’m on my way that’s so cool and that’s the tightness that we have that’s the beauty that we have and that’s it that’s something I never certainly when I was coming into treatment I didn’t think as a young person like oh I’m going to be here to inform it and entrench lifelong relationships but when you spend quality time with individuals intimate authentic time with individuals even if it is just 30 days you know I went into the Meadows for five days and they were like you’re going to get three to five years of talk therapy in the next five days so I’d imagine in these bonds there there’s so lock Tight cuz before you know our relationships are fleeing they’re coming and going and it sounds like you and your buddies and I know them all man these are entrenched lifelong relationships absolutely yeah I mean and we’re tight and I know one of them keeps us a little quiet to the rest of their friends you know it’s I know these guys it’s about as far as it goes others of like dude if I get married you’re in so yeah it is it is a tight core group and I I I think with what I see new over there on the facility too it’s going to help generate a lot of that because you’re seeing that kind of when you showed me the the U shape of progression going through the new building and how this group is going to come in and start experiencing the beginning of their recovery here together and then yep and then they’re going to move over here together for the most part but probably in a good success rate and transition and transition until they’re out the door being that functioning amazing member of society they knew they could be yeah and those bonds are going to stick and go because now it’s like graduating you know know kindergarten and then first grade second grade Etc completely present you know for the experience or more present than I had been in my whole life yeah and it keeps them balanced and helping each other too so you’re they’re already putting accountability together and that’s kind of that same core we had with the D team is we were all starting out at the same time on our adventure and so that accountability was each other like how you doing on this to do this meeting yet play with this yet yeah I love that man you guys came out was it was it 2022 2020 oh 2022 came out for the reunion yeah uh did a reunion out here in 2022 in October and we’re at a ridiculous mansion and we didn’t trash it because we were sober man if we if we’ have been drinking that place that grand piano would have been sitting upstairs that’s so funny it would too oh such a nice great room there was beautiful in there yeah it was we got everybody together had some other friends in um some former Peaks Associates too um they stopped by hung out and swapped some stories it was great you were you were over there that was so much fun yeah Bobby was over there we got I love being a part of that man long term and you guys actually want to come back and you want to celebrate with the people that it all started with it’s it’s very connecting and satiating and quite frankly it’s it’s why we do what we do absolutely and and I think you know don’t don’t get don’t get me wrong here it costs money to go to treatment we all know that and insurance thank God it exists I know you guys took care of me for my last month that was there um I believe that was full scholarship on there I don’t think you had anything that was buildable that’s a different story but there’s also the giving back and kind kind of like step 12 where you’re getting back out there and you’re being of service I like to push mine in the direction of the place that helped me get there to start with and I know the majority of it was internal for me but damn it it took Direction it took help yeah and as much as I can give back to PE the more I can be here you know I’m here today um the more I can be here the more I can do even if it’s just jumping on something online it’s giving back and helping build a process that I know works and being a part of other successes even if I can’t be in the room with them if I can be there in spirit if I can tell a story if I can share a slideshow they see this they see things we filmed previously whatever we can do to help because that’s what we’re here for we’re here for each other as much as we’re here for ourselves yeah yeah it’s a beautiful thing man and I like to I mean I called Austin three weeks ago I was like hey can you come to Colorado for a week he’s like you know what man I’m going to take a week of PTO this week let me just move it I’ll be there he arrived before I even got back from my vacation you like he was here he’s like what are we doing boss you know ready to go man let’s check it let’s go let’s go man I’m ready Spike want to chase some cars let’s do it and I feel that like um that loving recovery support from you on the peak side and even with you know people that you didn’t know in the facility today I could tell just from an energetic perspective it was just like it was connecting it was supportive it was Hey and you know what these people are walking through so there’s nobody better to kind of guide them or inform that or speak to it than somebody who’s been in their shoes yeah absolutely and I I would love to do more of them you know um from a from a client perspective you know a lot of people that you have working there now were actually attending Peaks as somebody who needed help yeah and they’ve taken that same side and now they’re they have this opportunity to give back to be part of the process and help teach and maintain others and work with them and I love that aspect I wish you guys were in Kentucky I know or Wyoming or Wyoming crack open that Wyoming door let’s go I know that’d be so cool well in support of you know the Peaks mission and vision which is to save lives through quality of care and or to save lives and disrupt the industry through quality of care what would you say to somebody who’s the phone’s sitting right there and they have a million pound block of Shame on top of them and they’re on the fence I don’t know if this is for me I don’t know if this is I don’t know if this is something I can do I don’t know if recovery is possible four years oh my God he’s probably lying you know what do you say to that person who’s really vulnerable right now and sitting in that fox hole with nobody so this this way is enough I can sit here and do these things with it but when you put it here and you know that if I pick that up and push send on a button that’s for treatment a lot of people think [  ] I’m giving uph but you’re not you stopped giving up yeah so you can take all that weight and the [  ] that’s on top of it and swipe it aside because even when you call that number you don’t have to be like yeah I need to check in yeah I’m [  ] up I need to go right I’m a drunk I’m a piece of [ __ ] Etc no you can call and be like hey I think I might have a problem can you tell me how your process works and somebody from the admission side and a lot of them have been part of the program from the other side too somebody from admissions would be like yeah man we understand so what’s going on tell me a little bit more yeah here’s what we offer here’s what we could probably work with do you want me to see if I can pre-qualify you do you want to open a Gateway for it or do you just want info do you want me to shoot you a call back tomorrow and they open the door for for it and they still have the ability to make their own decision to to put themselves in the yes I want help and now they have a friend that’s going to help them make that decision and it’s not just Peaks you can call your buddies next door you can walk into any AA spot a lot of people don’t know this one there’s an app out there called meeting guide throw it on your phone and no matter where you’re at you drop in the zip code it’ll tell you what meetings are where at what time in that zip code yeah what’s really cool about that too is it’s like 12 stepper or not there’s people who care yeah and they’re in recovery and what I love about that 12ep Fellowship is it’s everywhere everywhere every country every I don’t know about I’m sure they got an anut 100% I’m will to bet there’s somebody down the station
going the promises yep exactly well I it just been really amazing having the opportunity to connect with you over the last couple of days and I kind of wanted to wrap up the show with you know my favorite college basketball coach of all of all time Jimmy Bano right North Carolina State national champs went in against Houston Houston was the number one seed nearly undefeated Keem elijahwan Clyde Drexler um by lamama Jama they were all but a shoe in to win the title and this guy came in I think he was seated it was an upper seat six or something six or seven and he came in and he beat that team and one of his famous quotes was don’t give up don’t ever give up and when I think about your story and I think about some of these very intense inflection points it reminds me of that quote and you’re one of those people that and it’s not like today at four years sober you don’t have complications from the decisions you made in the past you keep showing up and you don’t give up no matter what how do you do that day by day every day but with confidence yeah so once you’ve won a title and for me it was walking in the door and knowing that I had 14 days without a drink and I was going to go put some help behind me and make things happen once you win that first title you know what victory feels like and that first title might just be the picking up the phone it might be tapping the neighbor on the shoulder but you know what victory feels like now because you made that first piece of it so the never giving up I could have laid down and given up quick and easy it have taken nothing it probably would have taken two more drinks Y and that in fact I’ve seen people run off campus and go drink for far less harsh news than you received three days into your stay yeah I mean I had a billy Ru score that hit uh 29 I believe is what it was 27 29 was all the hell the way up there and that that’s death I mean most people that’s death but I didn’t let my mental capacity hit that and that’s a huge thing about it too is I told myself and I had the support that we’re going to make it through this we’re going to figure this out because I’m not going to be another statistic like that and here we are you know four years later but you don’t give up and even when you even moving along into it you know I don’t have a a beautiful coin sit on my my wallet right now it’s a half ounce Troy silver if you want to mug me later with with a Roman numeral four on it because I gave up I did quit drinking I definitely quit the [  ] out of that but I never gave up because if I gave up I’d be dead so earning that and continuing to win that Victory every year it’s another championship every year it’s another another time to put on there right now four four rings baby yeah four time champ yeah I’m feeling pretty good right now dribbling the ball out do Brady I’m going to out to you name one here I come and it’s not just not just an individual sport though it’s an everybody’s sport because I can go to parties I can go be around friends who are living life the same way that they do that I used to and yeah there’s Cravings there’s Temptations hell yeah there is but I know if I don’t practice that day and I don’t maintain my ability within this then I’m going to lose and not get that next championship and I’m gonna earn it and keep damn earning it that is better stated than I ever could have I’ve been talking a lot lately about mental health victories you know picking up the phone could be a victory more victories we get the more confident we get and engaging in those risky uh opportunities if you will and one of the things I point out in mental health victories is being self fish isn’t a bad thing as long as you’re not a complete jerk about it right most recently I was at work MH and sitting and I’m getting ready to help coach a a new hire with some stuff they were working on and a supervisor came up and tapped me on the shoulder and asked to talk to me in a conference room that never goes good right yeah I was like [  ] what kind how big of a box do I need to get my stuff out of here and she said PL someone said hey I have a task that only you can do I’m thinking what in the hell is this like we got a room full of qualif individuals one of our new hires just got a call over lunch that her sponsor had passed away from an OD so holy [  ] her support system went back into using and died said I’ve already talked to her and said I have somebody on site who would be okay talking to you and she’s agreed and like okay so went over and had a chat with her I didn’t save her day right I didn’t take her out of any Darkness didn’t realive somebody who had made a horrible decision but it made her feel better to have somebody to relate to and it made me feel better that’s my selfish part it made me feel [  ] great that I could sit there with her and know how to talk to her about these things and work with her and I’m not a I’m not a CA trained person don’t need to be but I am somebody who’s been through the Gambit and being able to say you know yeah remember we’re celebrating life here you know what’s our next step and we we got her a plan we got her a plan for the day you know she’s clean and she wanted to make sure she didn’t [  ] up because of emotion right so we got her a plan we jumped on that meeting Guy app we found one on her way home from work she could bump right into hey guys [  ] day you know and not a person in those rooms is going to go oh yeah whatever or really come on in let’s talk about it that’s the beautiful story of not only your recovery but the the opportunity we have walking through a program like Peaks is like this ripple effect that you have in community that’s just one person the other day yeah you know like and nobody at face value would have ever given you the opportunity to help anyone and here we are in my opinion changing the world one day at a time grateful to do it with you yeah it’s a butterfly effect too because you gave me the ability to put myself in a good spot you helped coach me through it everybody there took the reins and helped drive me from near death death I was dead yeah to being where I am now and I learned a lot of things and I get to spread that wealth I get to share it it’s it’s not big secrets either it’s just hey I got you and that’s probably going to transition somewhere else and continue and continue continue and hopefully you know from the addiction side in recovery but also the mental health side you know [  ] sucks yeah we all know that everybody has problems from the richest person in the world to the poorest person in the dirt everybody has problems and understanding that you can work your problems that’s that’s where life enriches itself and that problem could be anything could be finances because you had to go to Peaks no you had to take the time off from work everything else covered insurance but it could be anything it could be [  ] relationships who knows there’s a million things out there but knowing how to work with them and making the balance in there and it could be the easiest things that maybe you just can’t get over what if you’re afraid of the dark sounds silly to a lot of people right but it messes up your sleep skyle which messes up your day-to-day function so even if it sounds as simple as that it can be worked with and helped yeah because the implications of one little piece that you just can’t get worked right can go on so far too so the work is there the process is there and you guys are supplying a lot of that and I know you’re partnered with a lot of other folks that are out there and it’s a community and it’s a beautiful Community yeah man it’s been so nice having you back in and you know four years removed just seeing the progression not only in you and your story and your community but aligning that with Peaks and walking with you man it’s been an absolute pleasure and you know for the folks out there that are on the fence or don’t know what to do remember there’s a mental health Victory right there may you have it now and remember you’re worth it you’re valuable don’t give up don’t ever give up until next time peace [Music] you