Hey there, Super Soberheroes! Today's episode features the remarkable Jim G, sharing his experience, strength, and hope with over four decades of sobriety.
Steve's Gratitude:
Jim's Interview:
Friend Jim on Facebook @ James-John Salvatore Gigliello or on Instagram @dr_gruff_daddy
Follow us everywhere @gayapodcast and join our Patreon community for exclusive post show and uncut content!
Hey there, Super Soberheroes! Today's episode features the remarkable Jim G, sharing his experience, strength, and hope with over four decades of sobriety.
Steve's Gratitude:
Jim's Interview:
Friend Jim on Facebook @ James-John Salvatore Gigliello or on Instagram @dr_gruff_daddy
Follow us everywhere @gayapodcast and join our Patreon community for exclusive post show and uncut content!
Hey there, super Sober Heroes, it's your host, sober Steve, the podcast guy, fucking in today, one day at a time, with 1,012 days sober. And today we have a very special guest, jim Jean, who has over four decades of sobriety and is living proof that getting sober is just the beginning. I consider him a sober hero not only because of his success, but because of his resilience, his strength and the way he held nothing back at all during our interview, and I am very happy to share it with all of you in a moment. But first I also want to share that I am grateful for not just one, but two opportunities to share my experience in new ways. This past weekend I have shared my recovery journey, my sobriety journey, on here multiple times, as well as also in meetings and other places Subriety as well as my podcasting journey, or two things that I talk about on the regular. And this past weekend I got the opportunity this past Saturday to talk with also youth, which is a youth organization for the queer youth in town in Sarasota and Bradenton. That's a safe space for them to come for after school and weekend programming and events and to build a community of their own where it's safe and welcoming. I've been volunteering there recently and I had the privilege of being asked to talk with them in their youth leadership program about what leadership looks like, and so I shared a little bit about what my experience in corporate leadership looked like over the past decade, as well as starting my entrepreneurial ship this past fall into winter, and it was really rewarding. I didn't need a chance to talk with them about the coaching concepts, about the masks or the personas that we kind of wear out in public.
Speaker 1:I know that a lot of us alcoholics can relate to wearing that perfectionist mask out where places we go, trying to be perfect Other common masks that we might wear. The expert, you know, the person who knows the answer to everything or can always be counted on if they're the perfection or the hero, and so the was the person who can do everything on their own and doesn't need that community. And it got really exciting as the kids started sharing. You know the masks that they find themselves wearing on a daily basis, like the everything is fine mask that they wear when they don't feel like they're fine and they don't feel like they can share it with their, their family or their school, and the perfect child mask that they often find themselves having to wear and it was great getting to hear how they talk about how having places like also youth and having guests like me come in help them kind of know that it's okay to find these safe spaces to let their masks down and to just be their authentic selves and they can come in and they can experiment with their gender and their pronouns and their sexuality and like a safe environment where it's just talking it out with peers who won't judge them and adults who won't judge them. And it's been fun being a part of it and I'm glad that I had that honor.
Speaker 1:And then I went from right from that to the following day. On Sunday my pastor, pastor Dan, asked me to talk at Storyteller Sunday. Our church once a month has the pastor interview to members of the congregation up on stage to kind of share their story with the rest of the community. Being that I'm newer to the congregation, I was invited on Friday. Of course I said yes because I never turned up or turned down a service opportunity of any sort and it was really inspiring getting to chance to do that.
Speaker 1:I am working on getting the audio, so if I do, you best believe that it either will be a bonus episode for everyone or, at the very least, a patron episode, but it was a great opportunity getting to share my story with this congregation that's ended up meaning so much to me in such a short amount of time. So I'm very thankful that, after spending so much time talking about my podcasting journey or my sobriety journey, that I got a chance to talk about my leadership journey and my religious journey, which are like two journeys that I never thought I'd really be sharing about, but both of them the people and the audiences that heard them got a lot out of it and it felt real good sharing, so I'm grateful for that. That was a great experience. But enough about me. I will let you all get over to the show because, as I mentioned earlier, jim was a joy to interview, so I'm very excited to share that with you and everyone else.
Speaker 1:Here is Jim G in my interview with him. Hey there, listeners and viewers, it's Steve here today with Dr James Giggly. Hello, hi, james, hello, and why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners and viewers?
Speaker 2:Well, my name is. I prefer being called Jim.
Speaker 1:Jim.
Speaker 2:I think having a PhD makes me special in the fact that I jumped through a lot of hoops.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:It separates people who have PhDs from those who don't. I stuck it out.
Speaker 1:There you go. Excellent. Well, Jim, why don't you introduce yourself Then? Tell us a little bit about how you, how we found each other.
Speaker 2:Wow. I'm on a number of Facebook groups pertaining to AA. That's always been my drug of choice is booze. I tell people all the time that I've got 60,000 dealers in the United States and I can do it legally. I don't have to call up my dealer for crystal at three o'clock in the morning. I can simply go to the nearest publics and get whatever I want. It makes things a lot easier that way, because it seems that in our society, when you're drunk and you're fun, it's okay. If you're doing crystal meth or you're doing benzos or you're doing pills or you're doing mainlining, you know injecting oh my God, he's injecting, he's doing it. Oh, he's drunk, that's okay, let it go. I don't think he's much fun when he's drunk. Give him some more. So I never had any issue, except I was very young, when I was 13, when I started 14. And that's a funny story how it got started. It's really actually very funny.
Speaker 2:My uncle used to work on a liquor truck Like capital liquors and, I don't think companies in existence anymore and he used to drive the truck and every now and then a couple of cases would disappear.
Speaker 2:And I don't know how they got into my mother's house. I was only 12, 13 years old and it was all this liquor. And you know, I see people drinking that were adults and they seem to be having fun. They're goofing, they're having a lampshade on the head, dancing on the table. I thought I want to have some fun and it started like that, innocently and because there was so much booze. Nothing was ever missed. I mean, it was a substantial amount and here's the funny thing my parents did not drink.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 2:No, they saved it for when we had parties and we had gatherings all the time at my, we lived in an apartment in Brooklyn and there were gatherings. You know my birthday, christmas, new Years, so, people, you know what would you like to drink? Would you like champagne? Would you like a cocktail? Yeah, it was that type of thing. It was very, very middle America, very normal to do. As I said, my father tea toddler, mother tea toddler. I don't know where the hell I came from. I don't even think it was the milkman, because by that point we weren't getting milk delivered anymore.
Speaker 2:But, we did when I was very young. I don't, I don't, I don't know if that's an important part of the story, to figure out where it came from. It just came and I liked the feeling, and so by the time I was 13, 14, 15, up to 16, is when I came out of the closet. Actually, I flew out of the closet. I was never ashamed to be who I was. My mother was the one that actually told me one day we're in the store Because you know she, I was the only child and she always took me shopping with her and she said you know something she says. I always notice that when we're going on the cash out, the checkout line, you never look at the girls, you're always looking at the guys. And I went you are absolutely right, I am looking at the guys. She said to me you're not one of them.
Speaker 1:I says I don't know what is them.
Speaker 2:I was a very I should say arrogant, precocious forward, because my mother taught me to be that way. She wasn't very religious, she wasn't very spiritual. So it was like, yeah, I said you got it right, ma I like looking at the boys. I don't like that Because I hope to have grandchildren one day. And she said you're the only one. I says, well, I don't think that's gonna happen, because back then we didn't have marriage, equality, transgender peoples, you know, switching genders. We didn't do any of that.
Speaker 2:So it was like you were a guy, you were a guy, you were a girl, you were a girl. It was that simple. So that's basically my coming out story, and because of that I used to hang out in the village. I used to take the D train. I used to take the R train from Union Street to decalb, switch over to the D and then go to West Fort Street, and then I'd walk over to Christopher Street and I was home. I was with people who understood me. Nobody made fun of me. I was underage. So another funny story I used to get into the bars because you had to be in a company by an adult, which at that time it was either 18 or 21. So I promised the guys sexual favors if they let me in, and of course I was so cute.
Speaker 2:And they let me in. And then, when I got into the bar, I'd run away because I didn't want to go to bed with these guys, I just wanted to get in, and the drinking continued there. So that's my, that's my beginnings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean I hear so many stories about how it oftentimes coming out in the places that you go, or gay bars, no matter how young or old you are when that comes, and that you know we all start because it's fun. When did it change from being fun to having problems?
Speaker 2:This is where my story is very different than most people. It was always fun, I liked it, I was popular, people like to be around. Because I'm very much an introvert, I'm single. I won't go up to a guy, no matter how attracted I am to, I just want and maybe that's why I'm still single, and I've been single a long time. I am not a very aggressive, assertive person when it comes to that. I'm very shy and to my detriment. But when I had a couple of drinks in me, I was the life of the party. I was the guy with the lampshade dancing on the bar. That's how I got involved in porn escorting, modeling, dancing. He's drunk, buzzed, whatever name you want to call it. And funny I want.
Speaker 2:I remember the very first time, the very first time I was on. I was in college. I was going from my house, taking the train to DeKalb Avenue to go to Long Island University to take a summer course. So I was on my way back. I took my. You know I went for 10 weeks. So I was on my way back home.
Speaker 2:So I'm waiting on DeKalb Avenue and I had to go to the bathroom. I had to use the restroom and I thought I'm never going to make it home Because the subway only came every 10 or 15 minutes. It was not a rush hour, so I was near the you know, waiting for somebody to come out because the bathroom was locked. So this guy comes up to me out of the clear blue and he goes. You know, you're hot and I'm like oh, thank you, I didn't think anything of it. He goes I'll give you 50 bucks, just stand there and look pretty. Let's go in the bathroom. I said you'll give me 50 bucks to stand and look pretty in the bathroom Now mind you this was a long time ago, so it's not the way it is now.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, you want me to stand in the bathroom with you and you're going to give me 50 bucks to stand there and look pretty. He said, no, you have to drop your pants. I said, oh. So I'm like, well, I'm doing anything back to you, sweetheart. And he goes, not asking you to. You're a hot thing, just stand there. You know all that dark fur on your chest and you've got all that facial hair. Just stand there, drop your pants and let me do my work. And I said Joe gonna pay me. He gave me a $50 bill. He goes now. Do you believe me? So I went into the bathroom with him and I thought I got off and I didn't have to do anything.
Speaker 1:What the hell's wrong what?
Speaker 2:So I thought maybe I could do this again. So I would, normally because my classes were in the evening, so I'd normally wait by the bathroom at the same subway stop on DeKalb Avenue, and not every time, but every so often a guy would come and say you looking pretty, Do you think maybe I could do this? Yeah, I says it'll cost you 50 bucks, Is that all? I'll give you 75 if you have intercost with me. I said now, God's honest truth, what's intercourse? What are you talking about? Well, he goes, you would put your in my. I said do you want me to put that in there? I said that's dirty. He said no, I'm cleaned out. I said you're cleaned out. I'm hearing all these terms at 16 years old. That never heard before. So I'm like, oh, oh, that's what you did. Okay, yeah, we could do that, but I want my money up front.
Speaker 2:I paid for two semesters worth of books, Remember. Everything was a lot cheaper back then. So I'm like I could probably pay my tuition doing this, and I'm not gonna. You could probably find out what school I went to, but, boy, if they ever found out, but again it was a long time ago I'm like, hey, what the hell. So I did and it got bigger and bigger and bigger and that's how they scouted me. A porn director, producer, porn scout was asking would you be interested? That's when the drinking really got serious, because I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it unless I was buzzed. The escorting I wasn't, because I had just come out of class and it was like maybe nine, 10 o'clock at night and I was going home on the one of those trains, that's right, the DRAN local at that time.
Speaker 2:So I'd be waiting for the train and I'd say I'm gonna stand by the bathroom hoping I get lucky or I can make some money. But the escorting I mean the porn was a totally different bag of shells because I had to perform and the only way I could perform is when I'm buzzed. I couldn't be drunk drunk because it wouldn't. We didn't have, we did not have the blue pills, we did not have the injections, because there's an injection you can put in your penis called Trimax, which is what they use now, and it'll stay erect for eight hours. But we didn't have that then, and so we had what they called fluffers. We had a couple of guys in the corner and when we couldn't maintain that erection we had a guy come from the side that we thought was attractive to get us hard again. And we didn't have all these fancy stores to have the rings and the this and the that. We simply took a shoelace off the sneaker, tied it around our goods and that kept us hard A shoelace.
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess that that would work, but I never would have thought of that.
Speaker 2:Shoelace. It was very effective. I have been known to do that with a couple of guys, except that if the shoelace is really long, like four or five feet, you know, with the big lace sneakers and make sure you get the flat one, not the round. The round lace is no good, the flat and you get four or five feet of that. You can tie the guy's hands to his boys and you can kill two birds with one stone actually, if they like to be tied up. But that's a whole other story. So that's how I got involved in porn.
Speaker 2:I was always drunk and they were very willing. Jim, what do you want? My two favorite drinks were Long Island Ice Tea and rum and coke, but it had to be Jamaican vanilla rum and they made sure that they had that for me. A couple of other guys would do mushrooms and you know, back then the drugs wouldn't have fentanyl and flock and crystal meth. It was basically uppers downers mushrooms, speed booze, pot pot was useless for me. I would put me to sleep. You give me pot, we're not doing any movie. So I made over the years 16 movies and I made one sober, just to see if it's something I still wanted to do and didn't want to, but the escorting I kept up with. The money was too good to give up and I was still hot.
Speaker 2:I was still hot at the time.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, I mean, when did sobriety then become part of your journey?
Speaker 2:April 2nd 1980.
Speaker 1:OK, tell me what happened then oh.
Speaker 2:Now this went. This is when it became not fun. This is March Thirty first, 30th Again, I don't remember Exact. I was raped. I was in the city, blacked out by this point. Mind you, the drinking had progressed to blacking out liver problems, memory problems.
Speaker 1:Mind you, I'm 25, 26.
Speaker 2:You know I'm not. You know we just saw the Wendy Williams expose with the drinking and how she's getting issues with her memory. I was in my 20s. I wasn't in my 60s like she was she is. So if you think that you can't have problems when you're in your 20s because you drank too much, think again. So I was in the city, I was in the village, as I always was. That's, that was my place.
Speaker 2:And the next thing I remember I was on the train heading back to Brooklyn. I don't know how I got there, the I knew something was wrong because I was actively bleeding right through my pants and it was still cold out of the end of March. It wasn't frigid, but you know, I reached, I went like this and reached down and I went, oh my God. And I didn't panic because it was 435 in the morning and I thought I can't tell my mother and father I can't, I can't. I was living alone, I can't do this. So I thought, shut up, it'll go away. Thankfully, because I was young, it did. I don't know if that happened now what would happen, but it was really, really difficult and I thought I could have died. They could, whoever, to this day. I don't know who did it, them him, whomever. I thought they could have killed me. They could have killed me. I don't know how I got on the subway. I don't know who paid for my token. I know nothing.
Speaker 2:Now, mind you, there was a string of that before, because I used to get into Studio 54 for free. I used to go to Studio 54. I used to go to the St the biggest clubs in New York. I used to get in. I was, I was in a list of because I was a porn actor and because I sold my body. Am I proud of that? No, and I sold my body because I didn't think I was good enough, I didn't think I was hot, I didn't think I was attractive. So I thought, hey, all these guys are going to want me. They would follow me down the street, on Christopher Street. They'd follow me. I want to get with you. You know, do to me what you did in that scene. You know, let's do this, let's do that. You're so hot. I would leave my husband for you, I would leave my boyfriend for you.
Speaker 2:I took advantage of all of that and I broke up so many relationships because I had sex with these guys that were involved and I went back and told the boyfriends when I would see them on the street in the village the wreckage that I caused. It was awful. You know, when they say tornado, they don't do it justice. It was earthquake For me. It was an earthquake because I swallowed up as many people as I could and I didn't give up help. I didn't care what I did. I didn't care for myself and I certainly didn't care for you. So that rape was my coming to Jesus moment. I thought I could die here and I didn't wanna die as much as I didn't care about myself. I didn't wanna die because I was my parents' only child and I thought they lost their son in 1949. I had a brother that died way before I was born and I said they can't lose another one, I'm an adult, he was only six. They would not survive it. I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 2:And I dried out by myself because at that time there were no rehab centers. The Betty Floyd Clinic, which was the first one, was founded in October of 1982. I was already two and a half years sober, so I was from before the clinics and the rehabs and what they did to you and this frightened me the most. What they did to you once you got into that state that you were in a stupor, they put you in a psychiatric hospital. That scared the living shit out of me. I don't know why it frightened me because I figured once they got me in there, they were gonna keep me there and they were gonna find excuses never to let me out and I thought I'd be there for the rest of my life. Seriously, that scared me Not enough to stop, but it scared me enough to be careful.
Speaker 2:I never drove from the village to Brooklyn. I took the train because you can't arrest me for being on a subway, drunk On the New York subway system at four o'clock in the morning when the bars closed. Everybody who was on the train was drunk women, guys, young kids, older people. So they don't arrest you for that. They will put you in a hospital till you dry out. But that night, that specific night, when I went home, I slept. I just remember being sick to my stomach and having the bucket. My mother knew I was drunk, but that was okay. I was drunk, that's okay. I was drunk.
Speaker 2:I was doing what every young guy with lots of testosterone does gets into fights, gets laid drinks perfectly normal. And I had been going to meetings since October of 1979, but I kept relapsing every couple of days. Then I became a joke. One of the guys and I went to straight meetings. There were no LGBT meetings in 79 that I knew of, and so I'd go to these meetings and there was only one a day and everybody was smoking Marlboro Reds because that's when you could smoke indoors.
Speaker 2:It was still cold in New York at the end of March and some guy who knew me said to me for such a smart young man, jim, you live your life Really stupid, you're stupid. So you know the old adage of doing the same thing over and over again, expecting the different results, is insanity. He said to me no, it's not insanity and I'll tell you why, my young man. I said why is that, mike? I said Mike, why is that? He says you know why? Because if you go around saying you're insane, it takes a responsibility off of you. Oh, I was drunk, I was insane, I was out of my mind. He goes bullshit. You knew exactly what you were doing, you knew exactly about what you wanted to drink. You knew exactly where to go to get guys to buy you some. You were very manipulative. You weren't insane, he said. Insanity isn't doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. It's stupidity. You're stupid. So the name sort of stuck.
Speaker 2:I was stupid and I was known in the bars as Top Shelf Jimmy, because under the delusion as we love to manipulate our truth so we can drink I was well, wait a minute. The Long Island Ice Teas were like 13, 14 bucks. I said give me what's up there. How did I do that? I was a dancer at the bars on the bar, barefoot. Obviously you can't do that anymore, but back then I'd been my underwear and I would dip my testicles into their drinks and say now you can suck on my nuts, but that could cost you a couple of drinks. So I'd get my drinks that way. I never paid for drinks, never. I wasn't stupid, so that's why it's it's me You're not paying for drinks. You know exactly what you're doing. You know how to manipulate these older guys to get them to do exactly what you wanna do. And that's what I did. And I would dance on the bars until four o'clock and I probably think that's probably what happened the night. I got raked because I was dancing on the bars. Pretty consistently.
Speaker 2:The porn was sporadic, the escorting I had to walk down to the West Side Highway and remember, because I was escorting in the street getting into strange cars, I was dead ass sober Because I thought you ain't gonna roll me, man. You ain't gonna roll me Because if you try that I'm gonna kick your ass in the car, bitch. You ain't rolling me, this is my money. I made it fair and square. Try and take it away from me. You're going underground six feet bitch. So I was sober. So the escorting was never a trigger, was the porn. So it had to have been again. To the best of my recollection, it had to have been.
Speaker 2:I was dancing at one of the bars, on the bar and making money, and somebody took me home of one of those little seedy hotels on the West Side in the village. It was very seedy back then and I guess that's where it must have happened Again. I don't know, but you know something. If in the sound of my voice somebody recognizes this story, I wanna thank you for doing what you did. You saved my life Because I don't know what would have happened had I not gotten raped. You were the reason that my life changed and I wanna thank you, whoever you are, or whoever you were, or if there was more than one, you saved my life and I wanna thank you from the bottom of my heart because you forced me to look at myself in a way I didn't wanna look.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being so vulnerable. With that I mean, this traumatic experience happens, but it's acts as a wake up call. How did your life change after that moment, with your sobriety?
Speaker 2:Well, the relapses just stopped. The wall was up. That was it. That was it. As I said, the biggest problem that I had and I hear this from people who use meth a lot you have to separate the sex from the drug. So for me to be the life of the party, I had to be buzzed, you know, and I had to. Yeah, man, I'll just fuck your ass real good, come on, come on, the Italian-Middle Eastern guy will do your ass good because I got a big one. So that all stopped. So what you just heard from me, I would never say to somebody, although I'd probably get some action. But no, that's not the way. I want action.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say I'm sure one or two listeners perked up.
Speaker 2:Perked up when I said that. But you know, if that interests you, I'm single so I can hook up with you. So I am single and I am available. But that wasn't who I was as a person and I was treating people like crap because I felt I was crap. But when I got sober there was no more relapsing. If I don't remember if there was 90, 90, 90 meetings and 90 days. I don't remember hearing that. And another thing we did not have the daily reflections. There were no daily reflections until 1996.
Speaker 1:Wow, those are more recent then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the 12 and 12 was there, but I didn't do that In fact. Oh, this is my version of the big book, if you look just the way it's indented Alcoholics Anonymous. This was written, this was given to me at that meeting and it was written in 1955 with the 16th edition, 16th printing in 1976. I don't have the third or the fourth edition. This is my go-to. This is the second edition and if you look at the pages they're brownish yellow, so that will give you an idea of how much I've used it. And I still have my chip. It's in the other room I still have my chip from. Would it be okay for me to run and get the chip?
Speaker 2:Because I don't have to. This is that's Bill W, solid bronze, and on the other side I'll read it it says rarely have we seen anyone fail who has thoroughly followed our path. This chip has been with me for almost 44 years, so I keep it with me in a little sleep and I have my 42nd, 42nd anniversary, beautiful. And now that's 43. This is 42. You can hold it in a certain yeah, got it Nice.
Speaker 2:So I keep these with me to remind me this is not something that goes away, this is something that stays with you the rest of your life, and two thirds of my life I've been sober. So I am, as I said when I was, you know, wanted to show you the. I was able to separate sex from booze. It took me nine or 10 months to separate Because I felt that the only way I could perform, the only way people guys would like me, the only way that people guys would think I was hot, was to be drunk, and so separating that was not easy. I was afraid to have sex because I was afraid somebody would say let's go to a bar. Let's go to a bar? Oh, you can have one. I get this all the time. You can have one. A thousand is too many and one is never enough. Yeah, so maybe I don't drink. In fact, I had an experience last year.
Speaker 2:I go to my favorite coffee shop, which is right next to a nightclub slash bar called hunters, here in Wilton Manors. This younger man came out buzzed, put down two drinks in front of me and said this is for you, daddy. You're such a fucking hot man so I wanted to get you these. Mind you, I had no idea who he was and I said why would you give an alcoholic two drinks? He looked at me and he goes. I am so sorry, oh my God. Well, I'm in recovery too. So I simply looked at him very innocently and I said apparently it's not working. Then he's proceeds to tell me well, I go to the 545 meeting, but I just go there for the hot guys and to pick up guys like you so they can take me home and fuck me. I thought don't react, think about what you want to say and respond. So I said well, there's nothing wrong with wanting to have sex, nothing, you're single. Nothing wrong with you like getting fucked. Good for you. However, we're at a meeting trying to recover from a disease and your only motivation is to get laid with hot guys.
Speaker 2:So the drinking that you're doing tonight, do you think that's a good idea? Do you have to take? Do you need a cab home? No, no, I live in the neighborhood. I said do you really want to do this?
Speaker 2:So, after talking for a half hour, he took the both drinks, emptied them out into the parking lot. He goes, I'm going to go home. You're right, I have a problem and so I gave him my number. Never heard from him, but I gave him my number and I said you can talk to me. I said because you're worth having a good life, you're worthy of a good life. You don't need to do this, you don't need to run away, you don't need to be something that you're not, because people will love you for who you are, as you are. They love you now as somebody who's drinking too excess. They're going to love you when you don't drink. They're probably going to like you better. He started crying and I talked to a lot of people because I feel it's important to pay it forward, because I had wonderful, wonderful men that have since died.
Speaker 2:Many of them were my age back then and the other bunch that died were those who have AIDS. I lost everybody. Remember I got sober in 1980 and the AIDS crisis really began in 81, 82. But I'll go on record as saying that, even though the virus was discovered in 1981 of June, people were dying of this in the 70s, when I was escorting and hitting the streets of the village, a lot of those poor kids, those escorts that didn't have a place to go, were getting chaos, lesions and pneumonia and dying. It just wasn't reported. So I can tell you for a fact that the crisis may have officially started in 81, 82.
Speaker 2:But I can tell you for a fact as far back as 1975, I remember people oh, you know, joey died of pneumonia. But it wasn't pneumonia, it was pneumocystis, the HIV pneumonia. They just didn't say that, they just said oh yeah, joey died of pneumonia. Oh, mike had these bruises. You know, I think he was beaten up really badly by some trick that went bad. He wasn't beaten up. Those lesions, if you look up Kaposi's sarcoma, they look like bruises that somebody punched you Like. I had some blood work done on my arm and you can see it looked chaos, looks exactly like this, but much deeper and much bigger and except this is now fading away. They popped the vein when they took blood out of me because I take care of my health. So those lesions were not from getting hit, although that's what we were told. Oh yeah, steve got hit. You know, there's a trick going bad. You know, got to the hotel, god wasn't hit, he was having, he had AIDS, he was getting symptoms. This is as far back as 75.
Speaker 1:Go ahead and then you enter sobriety just before like or as this is happening. How did that go Like? How did that affect you, especially with? Were you still doing escorting? Yes, yes, so tell us what that was like. It's sober escorting during the epidemic.
Speaker 2:I was. You know, I was so fucking angry, but I was watching all these people die and I was watching all these goddamn Christians saying you got what you deserved. I love Christianity. I spit on the religion. I spit on it Because if you're gonna tell me that your God does this to people, he ain't no God of mind, that I want honey. My God is compassion and love. I says if your God is hatred, then it has no place in my life. What I did, you're gonna laugh. I only would hook up with men that were married to women. They had to be more careful. They certainly didn't want to bring AIDS home. So they would look at you and they'd say take your clothes off. And they'd look at you and go oh okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're hot, yeah, no marks. You've been sick. You haven't like they would do this little inventory, although it was meaningless because you could have the virus in you and not have any symptoms.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know you can look good but that don't mean crap. So I always passed the test because I didn't know it. But I didn't have it because the first test came out 1986. And I went for those tests and I came back negative and the test took two weeks and they, they, we all, a bunch of us, went to get tested at my doctor's office. Dr Kenneth Unger shared in square around the corner from the monster in the village. He was my doctor. I've got a good memory man and he said you're not positive. I mean that's impossible. What do you mean? I'm not positive? Do another test. The second positive. And I had had sex with people that had AIDS. I had their legs over my shoulders doing my things with the chaos, lesions right next to my face. I didn't get a thing, still don't have it.
Speaker 2:I'm a unicorn, as I like to call myself, because it's such a mystical, magical animal and it's very spiritual and I am. I am a spiritual person. I'm not religious. I don't believe there's a man with a white beard sitting in the sky going you're going to be 100. You're going to get hit by a car. You're going to get pregnant 16. You're going to get AIDS. You're going to get cancer and you're a baby and you're going to make six months and then you're going to get cancer. And God? No, I don't believe that Things are written and predestined the way they're supposed to happen.
Speaker 2:We have a choice that we can change certain things, that can change genetics. But I can change my habits. I can start. I still work out, I go to the gym four to five times a week and good shape, I take care of myself, I eat well, I sleep well, I sleep very well and I exercise and I have good sex based on sobriety, based on what I like. I'm not interested anymore in trying to make you like me. I'm more interested in this. If I like you way before it's, you have to like me. You have to want me. You have to want to go to bed with me because I'm worthless. You have, you have to think I'm hot. I'll do anything for you to think I'm hot. No, I'm not doing steroids. I'm not hurting my body. I'm not going to drink. I'm not using that. You know. Party and play. I'm not doing any of that stuff. I don't have to do that stuff. If I have to hurt myself to please you, then I'm not with the right person.
Speaker 1:I definitely agree. I know that that was big. I can relate to that because even before, when I was single and having sex, it was very much about like anything to like me, because I had no self worth or self value. And now, nowadays, the idea of having sex with someone else, it's like you get to have sex with me. It's not like I need to have sex so that I feel validated, but it's like a privilege to experience. You know the gym show or the Steve show and that you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm very happy to say at my age, I still have a very nice body. Do I have a nice body for a 25 year old? I'm not 25. I'm not 25. I have a nice body for me. I don't have a nice body because why? I want to look like Steve, I want to look like Bill, I want to look like Joe. The only one that's going to look at Steve Bill and Joe is Steve Bill and Joe. I have a nice body for Jim, and the equipment is still good and it still works and it still does what it's supposed to do. I'm grateful for that, and I don't need blue pills and I don't need injections.
Speaker 1:And you don't need a shoe strings.
Speaker 2:It's how guys all the time. You know something, baby boy If my dick doesn't work, it's not because I'm old. It's because my dick doesn't want you, and neither do I, because if I want you, my dick is going to get hard. So if my dick isn't getting hard, it's because you don't do it for me. Guys don't like to hear that. They like to make an excuse for well, it's because you're older. I said no, I said I can get it up, believe me. I just don't want to get it up with you, and that may sound arrogant, but you know something we addicts don't know our own worth.
Speaker 2:We don't know our worth. So we keep putting ourselves down and we keep putting ourselves in positions that make us feel like crap, and that's the reason to do that. You're worth being sober. You're worth everything on this earth. You are unique. You are a walking miracle. Many of us don't make it. You did that's because you're supposed to be here and you have work to do. So get off your ass, stop thinking about booze and do something for society. Do something for your community.
Speaker 1:Excellent advice. Well, thank you so much, Jim.
Speaker 2:And do you?
Speaker 2:have any other final thoughts for our listeners and viewers for now, yes, okay, always know that there are people out there that have gone through exactly what you've gone. Now the stories will be different. My story is very unique. There are not many guys in my situation that got where I got to get a PhD and all that stuff but we're all connected by addiction and you know something the fellowship saved my life. Those men saved my life and they can save your life, but you've got to give it a chance. It's not going to happen in a week, it may not happen in a month, it may not happen in a year, but you know what? If you keep coming back, it'll work. And even if you relapse, still come back, because every time you relapse, you learn something new about yourself, just like I did. I know different than you. If I can do this, you can do this.
Speaker 2:Get a good sense of who you are. Be proud of who you are. Don't let shame overtake your life. Never be shamed. You are enough. Please, above everything that I've said in this podcast, please remember you are enough. You are worthy of a good life and don't let anybody put you down for any reason. Be proud of being LGBT. Be proud of who you are and you know what I'm proud of being an alcoholic, because it's part of my story and I'm not throwing it under the covers anymore. Be proud of that, own it. Tell your story because you're going to help somebody else coming up after you, just the way I've been helping people for decades. So please don't give up.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Thank you so much, jim. You are an inspiration, or, as I call on the podcast, you are a sober hero, as are everyone listening. If someone listening wanted to connect with you, what would be the best way they can find you?
Speaker 2:My God, I'm all over the place like horseshoes I can be. You can find me on Facebook.
Speaker 1:Okay, I will put your Facebook information in the show notes so people can find you on Facebook.
Speaker 2:I know it's James John Salvatore Giggly Yellow and I'm on Instagram is scruff Doctor, dr Scruff Daddy, or Dr Daddy Scruff, dr, scruff Daddy? I think it is, and it's okay if you call me daddy, because I own the fact that I'm an older man. I'm not a kid, I'm not Steve's age, I'm not a baby, I'm not 25. I own who you are. Be proud of where you are in life. Don't let being gay make you feel ashamed for being older, for having wrinkles, for having gray hair. Be proud of that, because you know something, honey none of my friends made it, so you're not going to shame me because I'm older.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Well, thank you so much. I'm sure I'll have you back on for a topic episode real soon, but I want to make sure we've got to really get the full Jim experience. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Well, they really didn't get the full Jim experience, unless they're with me personally.
Speaker 1:Different kind of the podcast version of that.
Speaker 2:I'm open to that too. You can take the boy out of the porn actor, but you can't take the porn actor out of the board.
Speaker 1:Well, there we go. Well, we are after we stop recording this for the main episode, so we will do our patron episode. So let's see what happens over there In the meantime. Thank you so much, jim.
Speaker 2:Thank you Bye.
Speaker 1:And we're back. Thank you, listeners. I'd love to hear what you thought of this interview with Jim, as well as what's keeping you sober. Today, you can engage with us on all the socials at gay a podcast, and make sure to tune back in next week. Make sure you're following us wherever you're listening, so you get that notification next Thursday when the new episode lands. With JPG and Tim T, as they both come on to share how far they've come in their sobriety, you get to know two new stories as well, as they both share their relationship to physical fitness and sobriety as well. So two great interviews. I already had them, so I can attest to that, but it was really excited to share them with you next week as well. So until then, though, sober heroes, stay super and stay sober. Bye.