Matt: What’s up, everybody? This is Matt and Greg with Project Unbroken. And today we want to talk a little bit about the point in addiction when you know your life is becoming unmanageable, when you basically make the decision to start working your way out of it. When did you know like, “All right, I got to change this. I got to fix this?” Was there a certain situation or circumstance or event?
Greg: Yeah, there was a few times, definitely, leading up to when I actually really did know, or that I thought I knew I was ready. Maybe I get on suboxone and this is like I’m going to quit. And then, eventually, methadone. But my bam-moment was when I found out my son was on the way. I’ve been methadone clean for about … I hadn’t taken heroin for about a year. And I found out that my son was on the way and from there was like bam. Right away I knew like I think it was a difference between well, I think I’m going to quit between it’s like I’m done. That’s it. There’s a switch where I kind of put it on. It’s like it’s not an option anymore.
And actually, the next day I went to the methadone clinic and I immediately told them I want to start detoxing. And that’s where I got my plan placed to start slowly detoxing off methadone. From that day forward I knew I was done, that was it.
Matt: I think that that moment that like that you said bam, like that, that is probably the most powerful and important moment somebody that is getting ready to start their recovery can every experience because it’s almost, I mean, it’s almost was definitely a relief. It was at least for me because when you’re going through your addiction, there’s a constant … You know what you’re doing is basically ruining your life.
Greg: But you keep tricking yourself, tricking yourself, tricking yourself, tricking yourself.
Matt: You’re lying to yourself. And it’s I don’t think anybody out there who’s going through it or who was going through it can argue with that. You know what it is. You rationalize things with yourself. Well, I’ll wean myself off slowly. I’ll only do nine bags, whatever it is. But when you hit that moment, and I don’t know if … maybe that’s what some people talk about as being rock bottom when it’s just like … I don’t know. But there’s this specific moment and it’s just really powerful. And the sense of relief also comes with knowing that you’re going to struggle. Like you know it’s like it’s not going to be a walk in the park. It’s not like all right, I’m done with this.
Greg: But when you know I feel like you can kind of prepare yourself.
Matt: Absolutely.
Greg: I know it’s coming and when it gets there. Like when I went through my methadone detox, I had already made that decision, I’m done. And then I did a two-year detox and I have a video specifically on that. But when I got to the end like I’d already gone through almost a two-year detox at that point and I was like all right, this is the end. I’m going to struggle. I know I’m going to go through some struggle but I’m prepared. I prepared for this for two years. I set my mind, I’m done. I put two years of work into this so I’m not going back, you know what I mean?
So, I mean, what was your moment would you say where you were like I’m done. Like what was that kind of switch for you?
Matt: Well, you were there. But mine … and I don’t know if you know this or not, mine was not really self-induced. I was out one night and I mentioned before I used to really drinking, heroin, that combination was my drug of choice. And I went out one night and I was really drunk. And for some reason, I was living at my mom’s at the time. I took she had a rental car. And I took it out and got home, I guess passed out. Got up, went to work the next day. And she called me. She was like come home, like we’re going to get drug tested. I was like, “What is going on?” I guess I was so drunk, I left basically drug paraphernalia all over her car.
Greg: I’m just laughing because I remember you telling me that story. You said you were so drunk, you walked in the house with your pants down.
Matt: My pants falling off. Oh, my God, dude. That was about rock bottom. And then on top of it, for her to wake up the next day and see heroin bags all over her car, that was bad. But it was that. It was at that point where I was show is over.
Greg: You know what? I remember you getting that call when you’re in a box truck making deliveries for whoever you used to work. And you were like, “Gee, shit, that’s it. I’m done.”
Matt: Yeah.
Greg: And I remember thinking like, “Shit,” because I wasn’t at that point yet. I don’t want this to be done. But I knew a big change was coming but I don’t think I was ready at that time.
Matt: I knew immediately because she was … and my family was starting to see something’s up. Something’s going on. Just my behavior … you can start to notice. And I think there are a lot of signs that are already there but this was where I was like the proof, it’s … this is it.
Greg: So what did that do for you as far as like … what changes did you make from there? Why was that so important? How did that change everything?
Matt: Because I think for me, it kind of laid it all out on the table. There was no hiding it. There was no more me being able to lie and being like, “Oh, no, that’s was my buddies drugs.” Because that happened a few times and at first … I think they knew that I was lying but it was like, “All right, let’s see what’s happening here.”
But at this point, I think I was also ready to be done with it. I mean, I remember we had a friend who was a little bit further along in their drug addiction and Greg and I actually had a business. And this kid, he wanted to see it. It was all good. We brought him in the place and kind of showed him around what we were doing. And said, he was like, “I’m really jealous that you guys are able to do this.” He was like, “I just feel like everything that I tried to do relationships, work, money, family, finance, everything,” he was like, “just slips through my fingers.”
And I was like, “Just, whatever, can’t you get your shit together.” But it did. That business just crumbled apart. We were like, “I don’t know what happened.” Your life just … everything, all your energy goes towards your drug addiction and everything else just starts to suffer. And I saw it happening, I saw my relationship starting to suffer and I saw myself being different.
And this all kind of came to a head at once and I was like, “All right, I got it. I want to be done with this.” And that was just a catalyst where … and we talk before about how one of my big tools with getting clean was the accountability thing. So now I was able to tell my parents or anybody in my support system like, “Hey, if you see me acting up, slap a drug test on me.”
Greg: That’s huge.
Matt: And that was a really big part of it. And I don’t know if that ever would have happened without that catalyst moment, I guess.
Greg: Yeah, it’s pretty cool how [inaudible 00:07:03] just kind of had different circumstances for that. We said mine was kind of more self and dude, yours was putting accountability out there and that’s huge.
Matt: Yeah.
Greg: But I think for both of us, it’s a decision that you’re like this life’s over. I’m done with this life. I guess you could say I had fun. Really, most of it wasn’t fun. It’s maybe fun for a little bit and then it turned into a whole lot of not fun. But I went through this stage and this stage is over. For it’s look, I’m having a child, I’m moving on and I’m going to start improving my life and moving to the next step. I’m going to learn from this, make myself better which is what we did.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that in itself is a really important lesson for anybody out there who again, is in recovery who’s trying to start to road to recovery. You have to just in your mind just understand the further you get away from your addition, the better life gets. I know it’s really hard to kind of make that break but in my mind, from the moment that switch went off I was like, “All right, this is over. Now I want to go here. I want to be living clean. I don’t want to be reliant on any drugs or any other substance for that matter and I just need to start working my way there.”
When you know where you want to go, it’s easy to kind of get on that path. You just have to … you do have to really want it.
Greg: Yep, yep.
Matt: But I guess, that will cover today’s topic. Thank you for watching, guys. If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover, leave us a comment or check us out on project.broken.com. Hit us up on the contact section. Again, our whole goal for this is to have an interactive experience with you guys and just provide as much value as we can just from our experience and what worked for us and what didn’t work for us.
Greg: Yeah. All right, have a good one, everyone.
Matt: See you.
