024 - Jaron Stanton

“There’s no way around “through it.”

Jaron Stanton from small town, Ohio joins us from Pinnacle Peak Recovery to talk about his journey and the gifts that led him to where he is. He talks about adjusting his perception and approach to his origin story, his recovery from alcoholism, and striving to be the gift of a solution available for someone that doesn’t know there are solutions. Enjoy.

The Illuminate Recovery Podcast is about Mental Health, Mental Illness, and Addiction Recovery. Shining light on ways to cope, manage, and inspire. Beyond the self care we discuss, you may need the help of a licensed professional. Curt Neider and Shelley Mangum are a part of Illuminate Billing Advocates. They are committed to helping better the industry and adding value to the lives of listeners by sharing tools, insights, and success stories of those who are working on their mental health.

https://anchor.fm/illuminaterecoverypodcast/episodes/024---Jaron-Stanton-e10konl

Transcript (no grammar): there's no way around through it geron stanton from small town ohio joins us from pinnacle peak recovery in arizona to talk about his journey and the gifts that led him to where he is he talks about adjusting his perception and approach to his origin story his recovery from alcoholism and striving to be the gift of a solution available for someone that doesn't know there are solutions enjoy welcome to the illuminate recovery podcast we shed light on mental health issues mental illness and addiction recovery ways to cope manage and inspire beyond the self-care we will discuss you may need the help of a licensed professional my name is kurt neider i'm a husband a father entrepreneur a handyman and a student of life i avoid conflict i deflect with humor and i'm fascinated by the human experience and i'm shelley mangum i am a clinical mental health counselor and my favorite role of all times is grandma i am a seeker of truth and i feel like life should be approached with tremendous curiosity i ask the dumb questions i fill in the gaps the illuminate recovery podcast is brought to you by illuminate billing advocates make billing and collection simple with leader in substance abuse and mental health billing services verification and analysis of benefits pre-authorizations utilization management accurate claim submission and management denial and appeal management and industry-leading reporting improve your practice's cash flow and your ability to help your clients with eliminate billing advocates today we were with jaron stratton and geron he works in recovery and as an addiction advocate i love adki pitts he's also a community outreach with pinnacle peak recovery in arizona geron being a person in recovery himself has personally experienced the overwhelming hopelessness associated with addiction increasing the awareness of recovery and providing tools for others in recovery is his way of giving back the greatest gift he was given he is tremendously grateful for the gift of recovery jaren thanks for joining me today thank you so much for having me shelly and that was a that was an awesome introduction um and i'm really grateful to be here well i'm excited to talk with you i always have such a great time in these podcast episodes and i i think i learn as much as anybody else does so it's such a great platform to just share our stories and talk about you know the journeys that we're all on and we'll be on for the rest of our lives that's awesome and catching up with you uh about what you have going on and why the podcast exists is really inspirational thank you i appreciate that and something that we ought to share now that you've brought that up with the listeners is you know illuminate is in the background right we do billing and authorizations and we advocate for people that are in treatment and and we usually stay in the background and as a as a clinical mental health therapist i really love connecting with people and i wanted a way that we could reach out to the community and be more involved and thus the evolution of our podcast that's awesome so it's great to hear stories and you know just meet new people and and learn from them and and on that note um it might be valuable to know kind of some of your background where how you ended up in this industry and you know anything back there that you want to share with us anything back there so there is man um so my story is this and if if anyone's ever heard me share before so my story i grew up in a small town in ohio um we to a family with uh my dad was a paranoid schizophrenic um my mother is in recovery she has four years now but growing up was in alcoholism um and we all in my point of view did the best we could with what we were given um a series of events that was really outside of my control and uh the reason i call it in my biography my bio a gift is because it seems i can't look back and pinpoint what it is duran did to get into recovery um i knew the work it took once i got here but the series of events that happened for me to get here was very much a gift and given to me um and what i try to repay as often as i can and what i mean by that is is um many people don't leave that small town that i grew up in especially someone like me who was raised in a lot of fear and um i'm not someone who would ever venture out and make a go at it in a new city um a friend of mine moved out here told me that it was a better way of living i was reaching burning almost every bridge i could when i was back home through alcoholism uh alcohol was my drug of choice and in a blackout one night i agreed to move out here uh he bought me the plane ticket and i didn't know how plane ticket works again i don't travel so i was like you can't refund it i have to go uh i pack up half a bag of clothes i come to arizona and live in his living room um i get a job he eventually moves back home and i'm out here alone and what that gave me was because what i was doing in uh in addiction was i'm surrounding myself with people who did the same thing as me um birds of a feather uh flocked together and i i started off when i was young with a crowd of people who were heavy into academics and eventually realized that my solution to this life because i i didn't have the coping mechanisms necessary to be okay with alcohol and i needed people who would drink like i did so i signed myself with them but when he moved back home it was just me i had landed a job at the real estate school in uh in old town scottsdale and i no one was drinking like i was so so it became a little more evident that i had a problem and and i knew i had a problem early on but i had never in my life shell yet i mean this seen a solution to anything whether that's mental illness whether that's addiction i've never had a walking example of somebody saying yeah i used to drink like that too and in some scenarios quite the opposite um due to uh the amount that i was drinking my anxiety was heightened obviously so i'd go and see a psychiatrist and say hey why do i feel like i'm drowning when i'm awake um and i disclosed in an honest way what my drinking habits were and he said to me said uh i don't know why i don't understand why people drink and i felt very much alone in what i was going through um what i try to be now so i got i was given this i got lucky i was planted a seed about the the program that i got sober in when i was 21 and there was nothing about a solution it was about the fun there and the program and when i decided to walk to that program someone i had met one of the very few people i knew in arizona was sitting in there and remained um anonymous and i five minutes five and a half years later i'm still here um i don't want that i would like to be what i what i was not given which is someone who has a solution to what people are going through and to say hey hey man me too maybe we can do this together and uh the gift was given to me and i just keep trying to give it back wow that's an incredible story and i you know i mean i always like to put myself in in someone's shoes right so i'm thinking you're growing up with a schizophrenic father and a mom who's dealing with alcoholism as well your models you know didn't exactly give you the the tools and coping mechanisms that were healthy and would allow you to figure out how to thrive oh almost none shelly um i uh i want to play the victim here um so uh sometimes quite the contrary in the in the sense that um i don't know so my my dad was a paranoid schizophrenic he used the bible to manipulate uh myself and my brothers into believing my mother was a witch a very literal one um so there's a lot of fear involved in that he taught us that uh spiritual warfare was real so i'd wake up with a nightmare and he'd say yeah that's real uh and i go back to bed i lived with it i wore fear like skin as far as coping mechanisms um it was beyond seen that's what i had be unseen so you're hiding everywhere you go you want to fall under the radar and and and not be seen by anyone exactly um in in what that was uh validated for me because my mom was your good son um if you john doesn't ask for anything he's a good son um my my little brother's 10 years younger than us he very much became our responsibility uh jaron gave up social events to watch his little brother because he's a good brother all of these things were validated to never express the way i felt um and show up for others and be a good good son and good brother yeah so i'm gonna go back to your models were anything but vibrant and healthy and you know let's live life to the fullest and i'm looking at you right now and we just had a little bit of a conversation before we started and it and there is nothing that i that i picked up that said you know jiran is backwards geron came from a little town and he was in a world of hurt there i don't see any of that which tells me there's quite a recovery story there there is so um man so the recovery story i had i i got into recovery um alcoholism is the elephant in the room it's um i wanted things out of this life that i couldn't obtain while drinking and it became more and more evident the more times i've got i got arrested jobs i've lost and so on and um i end up getting sober remaining accident and working this program um in the same house that i was drinking in with the same friends who were still drinking um but i believed in what it was that i believed that they had used this to live a life better than what they explained in their story similar to what i just told you uh still i'm still incredibly difficult though i believe it worked for you i'm unsure if it would work for me um someone i i called a sponsor who was given to me and i started meeting with this man and it was much different than the role models um that i that i remember growing up which was you don't trust them the other shoe is going to drop and something negative is going to happen so what i would do is i would run um try to be unseen he'd call me about doing the work that he had for me i said hey man didn't do it it was a busy week it's like oh it's okay i'll show up and we'll do it together that's not what i wanted to hear um and this man did this all the way as long as i needed him to um he did it as long as i needed him to and the funny thing about this is i was just talking to a friend of mine about this is the way that these scenarios play out is i show up i take the action the results are very much and many times out of my hands um so i i show up i'm i'm doing this work with this gentleman um and the lights the lights begin to turn on in the sense of the resentments that i hold i was listening to what mj was saying yesterday my experience because these again i don't have the tools or the understanding of the way anything's operating i operate out of anger i operate people to blame um and i remember him talking about my side of the street in the resentments and the anger being the poison i drink trying to hurt you and i just learned this and um i call the eye the irs because there was a tax situation going on and i started yelling at this guy on the phone and he was like okay sir and hung up and it clicked for me he doesn't care and this happens for him very often and for me i sat with it for hours and those lessons i was learning coupled with the experience began to change the way i was thinking and acting um and you and the experiences that i would give i was given due to the program of recovery this is an ongoing thing um i i worked this program um i just recently started getting into therapy um for me there's a lot of pain in recovery similar to what mj was talking about and it's a heck of a motivator i have a choice at that point at that point i pick up these seeds that are planted for me for what i hear people say work for them they talk about emdl dr they talk about uh therapy and for me i will i do these things kicking and screaming uh many of these things because i'll tell you this is the only way to do it and other people explain different avenues to solutions to problems where they've been where i've been and it usually takes me a few months and quite a bit of pain but i pick those up and i've been willing to do them as i go um it's it's a really cool experience oh my goodness okay so i gotta this isn't really a tangent but it's an interesting question because i hear you talking about you you've been in recovery for how long uh five and a half years five and a half years and you're just starting the therapeutic process of recovery and and i hear you talk about it being painful and you're going kicking and screaming the whole way i remember sitting and i have my own recovery you know not necessarily from alcohol and and addiction so but we i think everybody comes with a story and and i remember sitting in a in a group one time and thinking i want to go back to where i don't feel and where i don't have to know what my emotions are so i can hide from it or or i don't have to feel it but at some point there comes a time where you go this hurts but it's going to hurt less if i pull the band-aid off and uncover it and figure it out are you there yet it's a it's an ongoing process so with uh what i tried to do and this is full transparency too so when when i first got into the program that got me sober and saved my life i did everything i could do to take a spiritual bypass around the emotional side of it that's what took me four years to try uh to go to therapy the passing of my father um and this is another thing about what what showed up for me and the timing when willingness meets opportunity for me to take that next step it was working at a company where i was a case manager being trained by therapists and me telling them about uh my grievances with what it was they were doing and the fact that uh there was other ways and they're like john that's and they loved me through it and they explained to me that emotions are a vital process to living and you're going to have them uh so i print off this emotions wheel man this was about a year and a half ago it was kind of embarrassing right i put off this emotions wheel and i start to identify the emotions i'm having through nightly journaling and um the uh what i wanted to do again this is uh the there's no way around through it that's what i tried to do when i was drinking was escape from the way that i was feeling in um and and i didn't in in what's given to me now are tools to walk through it but there's no way but through the pain and what i tried to do um was and this is what i'm learning too so i've been in emdr for the last roughly a year and a few months now and um it's been an amazing experience but and there's no but except for the fact that the the kicker is i get the tools to walk through what i've ran from my entire life and there's no shortcut to that emdr is an interesting process i'm trained in it and i've worked with it and what i've found and you tell me if you've experienced this as well as it it really for me once i understood it and had enough of that of that work behind the emdr that i realized i had the answers within myself i knew what they were i just had to go find them and i needed somebody to help me do that is that i can see you shaking your head going that's exactly right it's it's always that too and i used to uh again i'm a very stubborn individual and many people there's only so the people who like my therapist my sponsor the people in in uh in in recovery field that plant seeds for me that i i look back on and i'm like that really helped all guide us to the answers that are always within and many people myself especially did not want to hear that and what i would say is don't give me that yoda stuff what do i need to do to feel better and it's like jeron only you have the answers i simply guide you to the water you choose to drink or not and yes that's been my experience with the mdr well i want to slap the person that tells me that because i don't want to have to take that responsibility on you mean it's my job to make me feel good don't tell me that i know um and yeah that that's been my experience and the answers are always within and more more gets revealed um i have no delusion that i'll be a perfect person able to navigate things with uh with perfection i just do the best i can with the tools that i'm giving and i continue to learn forever yeah totally which is a great journey right to be able to learn and grow forever because yeah i'm with you i will never be perfect a matter of fact sometimes i'm going to do it wrong just so i can learn from my wrong right i'm wondering as your dad passed away did that i mean i'm thinking about the dynamic with your dad and i don't know exactly what it was like but if i had to guess i would say that there were expectations and you wanted to please your dad and that when he passed away that may have i'm wondering if that freed you up from some of those things that you grew up with that kept you kind of tied down did you experience that at all i believe it did not and i'll i'll explain a couple a couple um scenarios that happened i i i tend to send uh sharon in stories that uh kind of get to the point of what i'm what i'm talking about and so i i start working with a group of individuals who are uh geared towards the recovering of interpersonal relationships and family specifically what gets us all there are not being able to function in relationships so bad as well and what they told me to do is um because i tell them the story this the the sob story of what occurred with with my father and there they asked me what i wanted from him and the truth of what i wanted from him was to be his son uh for him to be my be my dad and uh what they what they at told me to do what they suggested that i do was be that without the contingency that he would be anything but who he is um so i would call him i would uh check in the towards the later ends of his life uh it didn't he was he was getting worse i mean this is untreated schizophrenia he had since he was a kid because i asked his sister um so i would let him speak while i don't know did the dishes or something and then i would go back when i'd go back home i'd go go and visit him for as long as i could tolerate and try to be the son that i wanted to be for him and the cool part about that is i was able to um based off the suggestions of these same people i was able to make amends to him where i i didn't understand why i would do that um because again i'm the victim here i'm the victim so i make amends to him um and i make amends because i used him as an excuse to to do the things i did if you were raised like i was if you had the father like i was then of course you would be where i was too and i use that to drink and i use that to burn relationships to the ground i mean that isn't on him and uh i made that amends to him um his response was i'm sorry for the mother i chose for you so it wasn't a positive response that wasn't my experience but i look back and this is hindsight i have a uh a small sample size of what happens when you of what i did and what they did so my brothers my little brother is an absolute perfectionist so he graduated with a 4.0 he i think he varsity letter 12 times yeah so all four years all three sports is he graduates uh next week from from college he did all the things that i may have had the delusion that maybe if i did those things i would have achieved the love of my father and i watched him go through that and put trophies in front of dad and that wasn't it either i watched my older brother um go back and he did what i wanted to do too was demand justice for the the the the teachings that you gave us that caused us so much harm and turmoil to this point of yelling and when dad passed um my older brother regretted that decision i look back on the text messages that i had for him and it was always i love you regardless of whatever he said to me and i showed up and tried my best to be the son i could be and when he passed i was able to show up for my brothers um in a way that i would have never been able to do if it wasn't for a program of recovery um i was able to i was able to let him go um and with that that also led me to the the emotional the emotional work is yes it's a long-winded answer to your question yes it did well it's not though because it's so it's so complicated and it's so embedded right it's intertwined with relationships and with you know these interactions that you had with your dad and this fear base and control and you're gonna you know in hard places without doing recovery you're gonna want to repeat all those patterns so what i heard you say is you can have a healthy relationship with your brothers now despite what happened when you're a kid because you did take responsibility and you did say this is up to me and you let go of some of that pain yeah it's cool it's very cool it's i love to hear people who can evolve and get past because there's a ton of wounds there you've been in recovery for a year you figure you've got maybe 10 more left at least so it's it's funny because when i started it i was like okay what's the plan of action so i fully understand emotions and get past this past trauma and i realized um i don't know um a couple months ago i was like oh i just do this now this is something i do this is just part of our day-to-day life because i mean i still right i'm never gonna stop improving and and working through stuff and and then when you have these aha moments you go oh i was doing that i could do that better i don't want to say i was doing it wrong but there's better ways to do that and i can see that now but it's progressive it's not like you're going to arrive right and it could one of the cool and i'll share this moment i had an emdr when i closed a a core memory with my father specifically was my thought process wasn't in he wasn't able to communicate this because my experiences is i wasn't able to communicate my emotions in an honest way or even see my part in anything that was going on i was wholeheartedly a victim the entire my entire life so if you asked me it was them it was them it was them um so for me to explain to you my part in any scenario didn't exist until recovery happened he never got it so what i would always perceive is when he would decide to leave it was as if i was nothing like it's easy to walk away right and when i um in the core memory is a memory of him walking out of the door and i was getting really into attachment theory reading at this point and uh learning about the avoidance style that in no matter it if you leave ex if you leave you still have the physiological reaction internally that causes pain and suffering after talking to uh my estranged aunt on his side she was like he loved you boys so much that came to the realization that it wasn't easy for him to do that he was simply a sick man um yeah well and he it is interesting to see and be able to see your dad which i'm assuming you do is he did the best that he could with what he had and he was not well and so to expect that you know all of the you know the relationship problems that you had with your dad are going to be healed because you've done your work they're not because that wasn't well but when you can realize he still did the best that he could and he gave you what he could it frees you from that dynamic and you can move on in recovery exactly and it's funny i start my uh i i did a share a couple weeks ago and i kind of sum it up uh the dysfunction if you will from the from the family and then i i follow with and we all did the best we could with what we what we were given um and i believe that right when you look at people like you know i don't like what just happened but we all did the best we could it changes the way you see that dynamic and you can deal with it more on facts instead of emotion right exactly like we're all doing the best we can everybody wants a good outcome and let's try again with some different parameters so duron with you in in in recovery did you do recovery at pinnacle peak so i did not actually so this and this is this is this is the the truth of it is i grew up in poverty um i i talk about this gift that was given to me it's a statistical anomaly i the fact that i moved out to arizona the fact that i'm sober over five years the fact that i walked to a meeting um and stayed are all statistical anomalies and and what i'd like to call those more are miracles and gifts that are given to me um what i am so it's funny uh pinnacle peak recovery is the one of the first jobs i had in recovery uh i believe i had nine months or a year when i started and i have many of the the friends from that house i was house managing at who just picked up four years uh sober in there really a large part of of um of my life and what uh i'll say here and there's still a large part of my life but i believe in what pinnacle peak does and what i want to do is be the person that i did not have which is knowing that recovery that rehabilitation in a safe space to get that and work towards recovery is an option because all i knew was i was poor uh they don't provide uh rehab to poor people um and that's all i knew so i never sought and i love that the way you talk about this support network that you have around you and it and it's like these are the guys that did recovery with you and that's who you that's that's how you kind of gathered together and those who were able to maintain this sobriety or were serious about that tell me how that support network works for you and how do you use that to you know to stay sober and to continue on that journey it's ev it's everything i've ever wanted there's a lot of people that talk about um using your last the bottom as something that to fear and look back on and sustain your recovery remember that last drug for me it was when i was drinking i was seeking what they was being sold in commercials about the connection with other people that i couldn't seem to get where i was um and when i drank sometimes i felt a little bit closer because all we needed to drink do is drink to connect the the network of people in recovery is my entire life and i didn't do it on purpose it's it's the people that will be in my wedding it's the people that will uh uh it's it's everything to me it's it's the people that reach out to me on my birthday um when i didn't have that before it's the people where i show up for them when my dad passed it's the people that were there for me with that happen um and what happens is this the ripple effects of recovery and so then the the network of recovery my fellowship is everything to me it's the family that that i didn't have growing up um the ripple effect of that is that my family gets a version of me from the things i'm taught from that from that network of individuals to be passed on to them so when my dad passed they got someone who could show up and tell them that everything is going to be okay and entrust me with that process because of what was given to me from that network and that that's it's the most important thing in my life it's powerful okay this might be a little too personal and you tell me if it is but are you do you have a significant other at this point you don't i do not and so you haven't even i mean you're like i need to figure out how to have close relationships but you haven't gone there right well so well that's that's the funny thing is uh where the pain is located is where i dive most into to research and figure out what's going on so i was lucky enough goodness gracious so what happened was was i in early recovery i was unable to connect with other people um and my sponsor told me he said jaron you're doing this you're doing the step work you're doing the service well you're missing the element of that fellowship and that network i just explained to you which was so important to me he's right so i went to a meeting and uh attempted to build this network with no no idea how to connect with other people right uh and what i found was a long-term relationship with a girl who i dated from first two and a half years of my recovery um man still still i was talking to my therapist about this yesterday uh the best girl i've ever dated in my life and what happened what happened with that was was um we seemed to uh i don't wanna we we we seem to grow apart there's complications there um she she she was i mean she was amazing i had nothing bad to say about her my thought process was was this there's a lot of things i didn't know um my thought processes was was when infatuation faded that must mean we fall out of love i didn't know the average length of time someone stays infatuated is two years and then after that you gotta actively show up in a way that uh you can make a decision to show up and there's a lot of things i didn't know so we just parted ways and then i've been in the dating world and it's horrible yeah it's hard and those kind of relationships like if you look at the maslow's hierarchy of needs like that's at the top to be able to have this relationship that's you know healthy and connected and where you show up and but you don't depend on them to make you who you are and make you happy and right that takes time and you didn't have that modeled for you so you're like going at this the first time you you know i suspect like the rest of us you're gonna get it wrong a few times yes and um and i agree and um i am actively that's specifically so what i did was um you're probably familiar with attachment theory right okay so what i did was was sought out because i'm doing emdr with my therapist and in the way it feels when attaching with people granted i probably shouldn't be attaching with um what just became very difficult and it's a work in progress yeah well that's why they say you know if you're in heavy recovery you shouldn't be in a relationship because that's hard it's very difficult and it's also what drives a lot of people back to their drug of choice right right and that's why i say i got really lucky because and this is not something i advocate for but for yeah the first three years two and a half of the three years i was in a relationship with someone living with her yeah that makes it it's a challenge it really is but still a beautiful experience it really was where so i'm thinking about attachment theory and i'm actually listening to daniel siegel do you know dr daniel siegel's work i i don't and that's okay because there's lots of people lots of attachment theory stuff out there but he's specifically one of the sections of this it's called the neurobiology of we and i i found the audio online i think it's only in an audio that you can get it but daniel siegel is is a psychiatrist and he does adolescence but and he just he talks about attachment theory and he gives you you know the hand model of the brain and how everything's connected and it's pretty incredible the way he puts it together i have to listen to it you know maybe a hundred times before it really starts to make sense but he has just great knowledge around that so i thought you might enjoy that i is it did he write the so it's only an audio book correct this one is just an audio like he's just recorded talking about it he does have books he has books on adolescents he has books on he has several um mindsight is one of his books that's really incredible the way he goes into the mind to do trauma therapy is really there's some similarities to emdr but he just talks about it and and looks at it different awesome i'm definitely going to look into him he's not as entertaining as brene brown but but he's good he's really good good so let me ask you um about you say you really love pinnacle peak and the work that they do and i know that you also love providing people with recovery tools what would you say the number i don't know give me one or two or three of your top tools of recovery my top tools of recovery what do you [Music] what do you mean exactly yeah so when i'm thinking you know there's a there's tools to recovery that you would utilize or that i would utilize for for one is the support network you talked about how important the support network is what are other activities or skills that people would engage in that would be like up at the top to be successful at recovery successful at recovery mine um so the the support network for sure um a spiritual practice which works for you um and i would say therapy something i suggest definitely awesome as far as tools are concerned there um and i kinda wanna i wanna share something so this is uh this is a really cool experience i had recently so i um i have a friend who reached out to me and this is uh she was asking me about uh psychiatry and i've been through all the phases of recovery where um i just opened up to therapy last year right and then there's uh psychiatry and um it's a it's a taboo subject and in some circles of recovery right and i've really been able to expand my network through working with psychiatrists and therapists and um she reached out to me and she was asking me about psychiatry and i shared with her my experience with this psychiatrist i met with and i told you about my experience previously i have a bad one where a psychiatrist told me i don't know why people drink and then i had an amazing one where um 30 minutes into a conversation with her i was like isn't it time for me to go so you can bill me and like write a script and that was not the way that she operated she's like john i really want to know what's going on and see what we can do to help you i give her the contact information and i get really passionate about this stuff so i'm telling her about my experience to the best of my ability about how great this was and if nothing is the answer as far as medication is concerned she'll tell you which is very important um i see her at a meeting tuesday and i promise this is the first time i ever saw this girl smile and um really smiled though and i was talking to her boyfriend about it i was like is she smiling and it's not just for her i think about there's a book i read about a gentleman who was paralyzed in his body um i can't remember the name of it but he was paralyzed and they thought he was brain dead forever and it goes through his recollection after he comes out of this um and he he says he remembers he gave up for years because he's just a vessel and he remembers the moment when a person walked past him uh while he was sitting in a car and looked at him in the eyes which he hadn't been looked at in a very long time and smiled at him in the hope that it gave him to eventually not to get out of it but the circumstances was it gave him hope to move on so the smile is for her so she feels better because of what she's working with the nurse practitioner but the ripple effects for the rest of us can't be measured wow which is true right and it comes right back to relationship is and daniel siegel i'll go back to this neurobiology of we talks about the resonance between people we're all connected and when someone walks into the room and smiles i might hate them but it doesn't matter it affects me right and it and it warms my heart and i'm like i hate you i don't want to be happy today but but it does affect us and impact us and so we can use that to impact other people's lives as well agree which i know you do it because i'm sitting here with you going geron's a great guy i like this guy thank you so much i uh i try my best not to get too poetic but i feel that way um because it's it's so much more than just me it's always it's always us and i don't always get to see the effects of the recovery so um i when i was when i was drinking i was sitting in uh on my friend's couch and i had a 40 in my hand and he had a family and i at this point in time i don't remember how old i was but i knew i had a problem with alcohol i just knew i couldn't stop and i saw his daughter run past and i started to cry because i realized that i i was going to miss out on life by surviving exclusively um and when he came back in the point of the story is is when the people show up because i have never heard of recovery i never heard of being vulnerable and saying you and asking for help when the people showed up and crying it i soak it back up and i go on as business as usual um i want to be the person that says i have been through things um you're not alone and if when you're ready for resources please ask me um i want to be the person i have and for everyone that i can and this job uh this this career specifically allows me to represent pinnacle peak which is a company i firmly believe in um because i know um who the owners are down through the employees there and um they're a large part of my community as well um and their character which is most important and the programs that we put on are something that i've seen recovery sustained out of so i believe in it but i also get to be somebody who meets with therapists and psychiatrists um there's not i've never had some bad experiences but i meet with these people and i get to determine if i would send my brother to you um and then i get to see the results of that sometimes like a girl smiling outside of a meeting um and i get to tell the psychiatrist that and um these are all things i get to do but um just trying to be what i what i i what an incredible story i mean i just you could teach me so much from where you've come from and i can see how much work you've already done and i can tell that you really love where you work and and what pinnacle peak is able to do for people or you wouldn't be there and i know that this work puts a smile on your face and and of course there's sadness when you can't save somebody or offer them because they won't they're not open to receive but i am undoubtedly sure that there are people that are going to want to reach out to you and if they do how can they reach you if they would like to reach me my my personal phone number is 567-938-7778 and please feel free to reach out to me for anything um that that's going to be drug and alcohol recovery anxiety depression co-occurring things reach out to me and ask me i will have a resource for you very cool jeron i want to have you on in a year from now so we can see what the next chapter of your life is gonna be and and where you're at then um i'm wondering do you are you a reader do you read books yes what's what's like one of your go-to books oh goodness gracious um uh emmett fox uh constructive thinking i haven't read that one so i get to add it to my list thank you please do that's fantastic sharon thank you for being with us today thank you so much