gAy A: The Queer Sober Hero Show
gAy A delivers inspiring stories about queer people in sobriety who are achieving amazing feats in their recovery, proving that we are all LGBTQIA+ sober heroes.
If you are looking for a safe space where all queer people, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, age, length of sober time, or method of recovery are valid, this is the sober show for you. If you are sober, you are a hero!
This show is not affiliated with any program or institution, so you will hear stories from alcoholics and addicts where people mention getting sober using recovery methods such as rehabilitation, both inpatient and outpatient rehabs, sober living, hospitals, and some of us who got sober at home on our own. Guests may mention twelve step programs like AA, CMA, SMART Recovery, or other methods, while accepting that no one answer is perfect for everyone.
This podcast will provide valuable insights for any interested in learning more about queer recovery, from those of us with years or even decades of recovery under their belt, to people just beginning their sobriety journey, to even the sober curious or friends and family of alcoholics and addicts.
Each week, host Sober Steve the Podcast Guy tries to answer the following questions in various formats and with different perspectives:
· How do I get and stay sober in the queer community?
· Can you have fun while being sober and gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, or queer?
· What does a sober life as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community look like?
· Where do sober gay and queer people hang out?
· How can I have good sex sober?
· What are tips and tricks for early sobriety?
· How can I get unstuck or out of this rut in my recovery?
· How will my life change if I get sober?
· Can you be queer and sober and happy?
· How can I untangle sex and alcohol and drugs?
gAy A: The Queer Sober Hero Show
No Fighting in the Life Boat with James Sweasy (#190)
**Episode Highlights Include**
- **Identify, Don't Compare:** How focusing on our similarities rather than our differences helps keep us connected and sober!
- **Finding Value in Sobriety:** You need to value your sobriety to recovery as a whole person and keep an open mind!
- **Finding Value in Yourself:** James shares just how much he went through and how he came out the other side believing in his own value.
- **And Much More! **
**Where to Find Us:**
- James Sweasy's Website
- James on Facebook
- James on IG 🟢
- gAy A on IG 🟢
- gAy A everywhere else 🖇️
Tell a friend to listen today!! Until next time, stay sober!
I work in recovery. I talk to people every day and I'm trying to get them to start their new journey, their new life, and they don't see any value in it. What I mean by that is people will tell me all the time they'll say, hey man, I tried the 12 steps, it didn't work. I say, okay, can you recite all 12 steps right now and tell me how you used them today? I would like to hear that so I can help you try to figure out what's not working. And they go no, I can't. I go, wait a minute, so hold on. You mean to tell me you can recite all of the lyrics to your favorite rap artist or country artist right now, album for album, song for song, and probably go on for hours. You can recite all of that right now without looking at a lyric sheet, but you can't recite to me 12 sentences that'll save your life because you don't see any value in it.
Speaker 2:Hey there, sober heroes, it's Dr Dallas Bragg from the Aftermath Podcast. I created this podcast to bring awareness to the crystal meth epidemic and for resources for the loved ones of meth addicts. Check out episode six, where I talk to Ignacio. He is the executive director of the nonprofit Controlling Chemsex. It's an organization out of London offering free counseling to gay men struggling with addiction, especially crystal meth. You are listening to Gay A, the Queer Sober Hero Show, and here is your host, the one and the only Sober Steve, the podcast guy.
Speaker 3:Hey there, super sober heroes, it's your host, sober Steve, the podcast guy, here with 1063 Days Sober and today I am grateful for my expanding sobriety community. In addition to that, I am also very excited to share with you my interview today with James Sweezy. He is an amazing guy who had a very powerful share and had a lot of great things to say about tips and tricks for staying sober and how to live an awesome sober life. I definitely think that he fits into the sober hero category, and I'm sure you will too. But, yes, recently had the privilege of being on the Sobriety Diaries podcast with podcast Nate, and it was a great chance to be on the other side of the mic and be asked some questions that I either haven't been asked before, I haven't really thought on, one of which I want to expound upon today with all of you, because when I was on with Nate, we talked about what it was like when I entered recovery, with how I was ready to compare myself out of the rooms rather than identify with people's feelings, and so what it was like having queer spaces versus non queer spaces and how my view of that has evolved over my sobriety. But, yes, back in the beginning of my early day counting.
Speaker 3:I, as many or all of you, know that my 12-step program is AA and that's what I used to get sober. And when I started I was very skeptical as many people are about a lot of the preconceived notions I had about what 12-step meetings might be like. I thought it was going to be a whole bunch of old white dudes in the basement smoking cigarettes and talking about how great it was back in the olden days. And sure, there are meetings like that that exist, but those are not the ones that I go to. And we talked about that. How, when I first started off in recovery, I needed a very queer, very diverse, very young, very progressive, like-minded group of peers that look like me and talk like me and shared like me. And we even, like in the meetings that I went to, like, change some of the verbiage to make sure that it was like people instead of being gendered and making sure that everyone was safe and welcomed. And those are the type of spaces that I got sober in and I remember early on in recovery trying to go to a couple different meetings and if it didn't feel as safe safe as that meeting did like I wouldn't stay, because at that point in my early recovery I was so ready to run not necessarily to drinking, but I was looking for excuses and I was looking for ways to compare myself out, and so having the people who were like, mindedminded and like me was something that I not only wanted, but something I really needed.
Speaker 3:In early sobriety and as I worked on myself and my program and my steps with my sponsor, my view of sobriety has always been pretty progressive, with the way that I accept all routes of sobriety, but also just the fact that I can go to different meetings and they can have a gendered version, or it could be a meeting of a whole bunch of old white dudes and I'm not going to automatically shut down and tune it out and think who cares? What do they have to say? I can get the message now, wherever I go. If someone is sober and wants to talk with me about sobriety, they don't have to be queer, they don't have to be young, they don't have to have a certain amount of time, they don't have to look a certain amount of way. I will talk about my recovery with anyone, whether you're sober or not, that wants to have an open, honest conversation about it.
Speaker 3:But that's one beautiful thing I've learned about my recovery. That was radical at first the idea that I can go to any meeting and hear something that I need to hear and feel better, or that I could go to any group of sober people and here's something I need to hear has been really powerful to learn and embrace, because it's helped me realize that in the grand scheme of even outside of a and 12 step relationships, but out in the real world, that is not really about what makes us all different. It's about what we all have in common and that's that most of us, each day, are doing our best on this earth to just get through it, the best that we can, without, you know, with doing the most little, the littlest harm to other people as we possibly can. And are we always successful at that? Unfortunately not. But are we as a whole, as a humanity, like, hopefully, doing our best? I like to think so. I know that I am each day trying to do more help and healing in the world than I do hurt, and that's what it's about.
Speaker 3:And so that is leading a good lead-in into my episode with James, because he is a amazing advocate and ally for the queer community. So he is another example of a guest that I'm having on. I've had on others in the past, jeff who are allies that do a lot of amazing work for us, that even if they do not personally identify as LGBTQIA+, they definitely are sober heroes for our queer community and for the world at large. And so with that I will let you head on over to my interview with James. Enjoy. Hey there. Super sober heroes. It's Steve here with James Sweezy. Thanks for coming on, james.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here and I'm looking forward to it. Man, fire away my friend.
Speaker 3:Excellent. Well, what would you say is your favorite part of being sober today?
Speaker 1:It has to be my family. I have to tell you, my wife Elena and I we met in a homeless shelter 11 years ago, right, and contrary to what everybody believes, we did not date the first year that we met there. Okay, you know, they tell you to stay out of relationships. It wasn't that I was trying to stay out of a relationship, she just wasn't having it. So the full disclaimer I would have dated her if I could have. But anyway, we started dating when we had this discussion about how she could not have kids and I said, oh me, neither. Right, and that was just an assumption. It wasn't told by a doctor or anything. It's like look, I've tried in past relationships, there's absolutely a very huge chance that I should have kids, right, but I don't believe I can, or whatever. And then it wasn't long after that, maybe 30 days after that conversation that we had about we can't have kids, we're, if we're going to date, we're just going to have to deal with it or adopt one day, that kind of thing she popped up and said I'm pregnant, you know. And then we were pregnant for nine months and had my first daughter, ashlyn Sweezy.
Speaker 1:And then, short time after that, I come home and Ashlyn is sitting there holding a note in her hand my one-year-old right it's holding a note in her hand. Oh, she was one at the time. But she's holding a note in her hand that says I pull it out, I open it. It says, daddy, I'm going to be a big sister. And I looked over to my what's now? My wife and I was like well, what are we talking about? She's like I got. I didn't think that I would ever be employable. I didn't think that I would get opportunities to be a family man and a productive member of the community the way I am today and every day. Man, I just wake up and I look at my girls, I look at my daughters and my wife and think unbelievable, absolutely the favorite thing.
Speaker 3:That is awesome. Yeah, I know that there was a lot I used to tell myself like, oh, I'll never be able to do that, and sobriety has changed a lot of that for me. How would you say you're?
Speaker 1:an ally to the queer community, and where does that fit into everything for you? Oh man, how am I an ally Like? How am I not right? I got to tell you I'm a lot of things in this world and my sexual preference is one small little piece of it. Right, I'm a lot of other things. I feel the same way about you. I feel the same way about your audience. I don't particularly lead with my sexual preference whenever I'm talking to you or anybody else or anything like that. I understand there is a need for people to do that, because in the recovery community you can get into certain types of housing. We house people based on compatibility, not necessarily gender identity, and that helps lower suicide rates. I understand that. But as far as being an ally, if you're an LGBTQIA person, right. If you're queer, you're self-describing as queer.
Speaker 1:That used to be a bad word. I used to not be allowed to say that Okay. But if you're part of that community, you're needed and I look at you as just another human being sitting right across from me, right? You know the sayings in recovery no fighting in the lifeboat. I can't stand it the different factions of especially when you get to the recovery community like. I'm a 12 step guy, right, and I'm going to tell you right now I can't stand about half of the 12 step community. No offense, I'm not supposed to act like that, right, I'm partially joking, kind of. But there is all of these different factions that start popping up and we look for the differences in one another to point out the difference. I'm different than you because of this, and now let's argue about it. I'm just going to look at the similarities.
Speaker 1:When I was first starting in my recovery, first of all, I've never cared about another person's sexual preference. I think it's one of the conversations that if you're not queer, you need to stay out of it, unless you're invited to the conversation. In my opinion and we were working in South Florida, one of my first jobs in addiction recovery and there's a place down there I hope you don't mind me plugging it's called Inspire Recovery. She's wonderful, right? Donna is her name, and that's where I learned that piece where they housed based on compatibility, not sex or gender identity. It's just can you get along with this person? Right? And they knew, as in most places, that sexual activity was going to happen, right? But rather than punish for it and kick people out and this and that at least back in this time this is eight years ago they said let's have a conversation about it and what's appropriate for when and why. Not right, as opposed to you're kicked out because of that right and going through a training with them. They will actually go around to other treatment centers and train you to help people and just give you info. And some of the info that they gave us was that even giving a person let's say somebody comes in and says, okay, I'm, I'm trans, right the first reaction of people that are trying to be supportive in many cases is to be like, okay, we'll give you your own room, maybe we can do that and Inspire Recovery come and tell you no, now you're treating them differently. So if you want to be friendly and you want to house based on compatibility, the center that I got sober at, it's a large free center, it's called the Healing Place. Here in Louisville, kentucky, they do the same thing and I just really started to look at it. And then, if it lowers suicide rates, and may, I'm all for it.
Speaker 1:And whoever's listening to this, whoever does listen to this you and I are the same right. We have the same problem and the same solution, maybe with different trauma. Okay, I'm not going to pretend to understand what it's like to grow up to what you call it. Coming out right and telling your family about it has got to be devastating, devastating. It's gonna be hard. Okay, I'm not gonna pretend to know what that's like, but I've got some other trauma and stuff I've been through that probably made me feel very similar.
Speaker 1:I was not happy with who I am. Okay, I was very insecure about a number of things, very insecure about how I look. I couldn't get along around crowds. I'm a heterosexual male. I didn't know how to talk to a female right. Right, I have trauma, but if I'm just saying it's something directly to your audience man, you matter, I care about you and you and I have the same problem and in my opinion, we have the same solution, with different trauma. We can start by not drinking and not using right now, and then we can go through these processes by which we clean house, do an inventory, we start to look at our own behavior. I go through the steps all the time with people and I'm like whenever you get into six and seven, you get into these character defects and the shortcomings and this, and that it doesn't say anything about gender identity or what your sexual preference is. Matter of fact, if you're a guy, it's just God alone can judge your sexual conduct.
Speaker 1:So when I did my-step, whenever we got to sexual conduct, my sponsor said I want you to sit down and write out your sexual story. I said what do you want to do with it after that? He's like nothing. I'm going to sit you in a chair right there and you're going to have a conversation with your higher power about it, because I'm not allowed to judge you on it. Same over here want to.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, that's the long way of me telling y'all like man, we're all in the life boat together, right? Yeah, I love it, and as my podcast has grown, my views on that have grown, because when I got sober, I really was still very close-minded to a lot of things and I was ready to compare myself out of the rooms almost, and so it was finding the queer spaces that worked for me to get started. But now I can go to a meeting, like you said, because we all have the same goal, which is to stay sober and to help each other stay sober, and so, as I've learned that lesson I've been bringing on occasionally, you know people that are allies, or you know that have amazing messages, like yours, so why don't we jump right into it, then and tell us a little bit about your road to sobriety?
Speaker 1:Sure, your audience and I have the same problem, same solution. In my opinion, others need outside help. There are certain types of medication, all that. I don't want to generalize everything, but same problem, same solution. I use narcotics and alcohol to change the way I feel because I don't like something, I don't like me, I don't like you, I don't like the environment around me. So the only solution I had was to use drugs or alcohol to change the way I feel.
Speaker 1:Now, when I look back on me younger, me in high school and things of that nature, right, I always tell this story about man. I could not get along. I did not like authority, I did not like teachers. I did still don't like people telling me what to do. That's like a fat. You know what I mean. But, man, I tell you what. You put me in a room full of people, particularly females I'm a heterosexual male, right, but even just guys. You put me in another room full of guys. They're all full. I'm 100% sure that all of you all know exactly what you're talking about and the moment I open my mouth I'm going to make a fool of myself, right, I just lack the confidence. All the guys in high school and this and that they're either the football team. I cannot play sports. I don't know anything about sports, I don't follow them. I couldn't walk into a group of ladies and use my personality to get their attention or talk to them and be likable in any type of way. But man, that car. And then it goes. The first time you smoked weed behind the gym, that crowd. To the first time you're out and somebody says, hey, my parents have this bourbon in there in the in the bar over here, let's go drink some. I start hanging around with those people. So now I'm not hanging out around the cheerleaders in the football, no more.
Speaker 1:I went and sought out my people and I learned very early on that if you can get your hands on alcohol and marijuana is where it started, which grew into cocaine, opiates, ecstasy, all that but if you can get your hands on it now you all have a reason to like me, you know, and I finally found a way that I could fit in. I could walk into a room. Now I have something to talk about, I feel important, all of you all like me, and I feel needed. Okay. So that started a process by which I always put a disclaimer out there. I'm the worst drug dealer probably in the history of the planet. I'm not very good at it, but I was able to get a discount. That's the way I always describe my drug dealing times, cause I did I.
Speaker 1:My first felony was for trafficking. My only felony was for trafficking narcotics. When I was 19 years old I got caught in Kentucky. It's over eight ounces under five pounds is one of the measurements they use. I got caught with over eight ounces under five pounds, which was felony trafficking. Right, but that quickly escalated into trying cocaine out in the clubs. And then, of course, I always wanted to know where do I get more? Where do I get bigger quantities? I always wanted to buy in bulk, because walking in and selling it it's not that it was this big moneymaker man, it made me feel important, it gave me purpose and so, yeah, that's pretty much how all that started.
Speaker 1:And the weekend warrior drinking every weekend when I go out. I did pretty well for myself and I went to college and I did okay. I should say that it took me a long time to get through college, but I did okay. Business-wise, I started a concrete company and a landscaping business when I was in my 20s. I built my first house in my 20s, which quickly became the party spot.
Speaker 1:And at some point, right as I just moved into that house, I'd been out partying, drinking, doing cocaine, this and that I'm driving in this little Toyota pickup truck I owned that, I used to run my little business and I'm just flying down this road and this lady in a big black Expedition pulls right out in front of me just right, and I slammed into her. I mean, t-bone didn't have a seatbelt on face goes through the windshield, truck end over end, into a ditch next to the road and threw me out. Okay, the only thing I really remember other than seeing her truck pop up and knowing everything went wrong, that's all I remember. Seeing the truck pop up in front of me and I knew I was going to hit it. And the next thing I remember, I'm laying in a ditch looking up and it was her. It was the lady that was driving. She was crying and saying I'm sorry, right, and there was ambulances there and they were loading me to an ambulance and taking me off to the hospital.
Speaker 1:My face went through the windshield. It ripped my lower, my lip, right here off of my mandible. You can pull my lip down and see my jawbone. I had glass. It took them hours to fit the glass. You're not up close to me right now, but I have all these little scars everywhere around here. And then my lip on this side of my, on the left side of my face my lip doesn't move right here very well, where my teeth went through my lip.
Speaker 1:Telling you all this because that's when I was introduced to opiates. Okay, I was in that horrible accident. They wrapped my face up and put all these bandages on me and I have now what I call my paperwork right. I have MRIs, I have images, pictures, police reports and all that to prove that I was in this horrible accident that ripped my face apart. I need those pills, you feel me. Accident that ripped my face apart, I need those pills, you feel me.
Speaker 1:So they gave me a bottle of Watson 540s, right, and I remember going back and taking them for the pain to go away. But then pain pills acted differently on me. I know some people will do opiates, use opiates and nod off, catch a nod, that kind of thing. I don't do that. It's the opposite effect on me when I take painkillers. I will clean this entire house top to bottom. I will go out and mow the grass. You know what I mean. Yeah, you get what I'm saying. It gives me this energy burst where, now, remember, I was telling you like walking into those situations with those people, with those, wherever it was a crowd of people where I didn't feel like I fit in. Now I was Superman. I take those. I had everything in the world to say. I was high, I probably looked like an idiot I'm sure I did but I learned to use those pills to make my life fun. That's what it came down to. I felt like I was having a good time.
Speaker 1:I remember taking one Lortab in the morning and it would last me all day, right, and I would just go and go and go. I'd be at the construction company. I'd be wheelbarrowing, shoveling gravel, just having everybody's. Oh my God, this guy, he works nonstop. You know, I remember thinking like we should give these pills to everybody. We would have the most productive company ever on the planet Everybody, because it makes you feel so good. I didn't know the dangers of them at the time.
Speaker 1:Then it became where I could take one in the morning and then it'd start to wear off. So by the time I got home at night I'd have to take another one. So I'd take one in the morning, one at night. Then, as my tolerance built, I would have one in the morning, one in the afternoon, one at night. Then I would take two in the morning, two, two and two, three, three and three. Two in the morning, two, two and two, three, three and three, five, five and five, 10, 10,.
Speaker 1:Have any of you ever take 10 in the morning, 10 in the afternoon, two at 10 at night? I've taken 30 to 40 painkillers a day to maintenance, my opiate habit, okay, and these are Watson 540s, the Lortab, 10s and eventually. But I had my paperwork, okay, this is where I could walk into doctors and say look at this stack of paperwork, look at my face, look what happened to me my neck, my back, all this. You know, I've herniated disc, I need this medicine right. And back in the day, you know, 13, 14 years ago, that worked. They would just throw a bottle of pills at you. They don't do that anymore and I would eventually spiral out of control.
Speaker 3:And so you have these papers that help kind of make it okay, and they're giving you the pills as you're increasing your dosage. When did it become a problem that needed to be addressed?
Speaker 1:So I could not stay sober. I ended up in downtown Louisville, kentucky, in this little shotgun house where they rented rooms to people, and I rented one of the rooms, right, and my mom rented one of the rooms. You see, she almost lied to y'all. I made it sound like I had money right there. You know what I mean. But my mom rented one of the rooms and let me stay in it and it wasn't long before I was back on. You couldn't get the pills, no more, so I started using heroin.
Speaker 1:I started experimenting with heroin. I started using it, snorting it, occasionally injecting it, and I drank every day and always had a story for my mother. And what I was doing was I was calling my grandmother, who lived in Tampa the first time. I would call her several times a week with a sob story and she would wire me three, four or five hundred dollars at a time. And one of the darkest parts of that this part of my story anyway that I did is I knew at the time that my grandmother was struggling with Alzheimer's, so I could call her and ask her to wire me three or $400. And I knew she wouldn't remember doing it a couple days later and I could call her again and ask and she would just do it. Now she would just do it anyway, but I knew what was going on with her and I manipulated that. And that's where my alcoholism took me was to manipulating my grandmother's Alzheimer's to make sure I could get more money to continue my opiate addiction and alcoholism.
Speaker 1:So eventually, you know the story. I think we've all been there. You bought them out. Everybody stops enabling you, al and I got a hold of my mother, stopped the enabling. I'm living in this shotgun apartment in downtown Louisville and I'm calling my mom asking her for money. She eventually stopped doing it. My own mother told me. She said, son, I love you, I just don't like you. She said you're not going to do this to us anymore and they gave me an option. My mom calls me and says, hey, your aunt's out there. She will drive you to that place and get you some help and if you go do it, I will help you when you get done it. Okay, and I said I didn't have the other choice. It was freezing outside. It was January of 2013 in Louisville, kentucky, there was a foot of snow on the ground, it was miserable outside.
Speaker 1:I chose to get in that car and go to the healing place because I was hungry and the heat was on. I did not choose to go because I wanted to be a better man, a better son, stop manipulating, lying, cheating and using narcotics. I went because I had no other option and I went down there and checked into that homeless shelter, slash recovery program, right. And I remember pulling up out front and a guy had a badge on that said security, on his necklace, on his lanyard, and I was like, pulled up out front. I said, hey, man, do you work here? And I remember he goes well, no, I live here. And I remember thinking like, who says that? Who does that? How did you just admit that you live here at this dump, right At this homeless shelter? It's not actually a dump, by the way, but was just my. But I was like, how do you admit that you live here? I had no humility about me at all, right. So I checked into the detox unit there and it was concrete brick walls and the four foot high walls in between the beds. So there's two beds, a four foot high wall, two beds. So all 50 of us are having beds or were in there together. Non-medical detox they give you no medicine. You get a blanket, a big book and they had food. You know, unsweet tea, and whatever food they were making that day is what you had. So I didn't have any other choice. I stayed there.
Speaker 1:At the time I was a cigarette smoker that's another thing I'm free from. I haven't used nicotine in years but at the time I was smoking cigarettes and I was standing outside in this little area they call it the dugout right when people sit out there and you just smoke and talk while you're going through these withdrawals. Well, I'm standing out there smoking. And they came outside and said, hey, if you guys have been here more than 24 hours, you now have to leave detox and walk across the street and go to a 12-step recovery meeting. Right, I was like, okay, I'll go whatever, I'm bored. I was like, okay, I'll go whatever I'm bored. I was a little dope, sick, but I was like you know what, I'll get out of this room and head across the street. So I'm walking out through the cigarette out, I'm walking back through the building and this lady I love this lady. Her name is miss Pam. I give her a shout out every time I speak about my story.
Speaker 1:Miss Pam was standing there at the D, at the desk and the detox, and as I'm walking by asking the detox, and as I'm walking by, she says hey, you one, 23,. That was my bed number, Sweezy. She said go make your bed. And I paused and looked at her crazy. I was like lady, it stinks in here. Okay, that dude on the floor is naked. They brought this dude in in handcuffs. I'm throwing up. This is a night.
Speaker 1:Why would I make my bed? I was dead serious. Why? She said what are you here for?
Speaker 1:And I said well, I would like to have my family back, my car back, my job back, some friends, maybe a house, maybe a condo on the beach one day, I think you know. And she's like okay, big baller. She said you want all of that responsibility, but you won't make your own bed. And I was like damn it, man, you got me Just. It just deflated me in that moment. Then she hit me with the coldest thing I've ever heard in my life. You don't hear this in private treatment much. She said if you don't like it, you can leave. The door is not locked. We didn't invite you here. Nobody called you and begged you to come here. So go Beat it.
Speaker 1:In that moment, man, just in that moment when I got called out she's right, I only made my bed when I was going to have a young lady over. So I'm already know our friends were coming over. I spray a bunch of cologne around and vacuum up real quick, try to make the apartment smell good or whatever, and in that moment, man, it just hit me. I was like damn it, nobody's coming to save you. Mom's done, dad's done. They cut my grandmother off, wouldn't let her talk to me, and that was it. It was me and a homeless shelter. That's all I had. And that place right there. That's also where I would meet what's now my wife, elena. So yeah, that's the, that's the the short of it, to be honest. Right there. But then you know we would. We would then embark on. I walked across the street, I met a sponsor and I started my 12-step recovery that's awesome.
Speaker 3:Well and then. Well, thank you for for sharing that so vulnerably and openly knowing like that. Obviously, some things have changed with recovery over the years, but a lot of it stayed the same. What, would you say, are tips that you use when you were starting off in recovery that are still true today.
Speaker 1:Oh, man, you know, a suggestion for a newcomer or a tip that's held true. I'll tell you what, man, I always tell this story, or kind of tell it in this way, because here's the thing People, in my opinion, don't stick and stay around the recovery community because you can't see the instant value in it. Now I work in recovery. I talk to people every day and I'm trying to get them to start their new journey, their new life, and they don't see any value in it. What I mean by that is people will tell me all the time they'll say, hey, man, I tried the 12 steps, it didn't work. I say, ok, can you recite all 12 steps right now and tell me how you use them today? I would like to hear that so I can help you try to figure out what's not working. And they go no, I can't, I go, wait a minute. So hold on. You mean to tell me you can recite all of the lyrics to your favorite rap artist or country artist right now, album for album, song for song, and probably go on for hours. You can recite all of that right now without looking at a lyric sheet, but you can't recite to me 12 sentences that'll save your life because you don't see any value in it. If I told you right now that I would give you a million dollars tomorrow in cash if you had all 12 of those sentences memorized, you wouldn't get a wink of sleep. Nothing, because now you see value in it. You would pop up tomorrow and go.
Speaker 1:Step one we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable. Two came to believe. You know what I'm saying? Just bam, bam bam. Sentence after sentence, you would spit it out. Right, don't lie to yourself. You know we look around and say oh, I tried. See, that's a lie. You're lying to yourself. A program is a set of instructions meant to bring about a desired result, right? So we're going to follow this set of instructions, the 12 steps which are meant to bring about a desired result, which is recovery, to gain stuff back lost, stolen or given away. Okay, remember, go look up the definitions of words like that. Now you're light years ahead of me. That was sitting in there saying I'm powerless over the disease and I was wrong.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, I can relate to that because it was a couple of months in before, like if God were sought, and I was like I don't really know what that means. I thought like for the first couple of months that that meant like if he so chooses, and it's like no, you have to seek him. Like again, like I didn't think to question what I, what I thought I read, not looking up the words. So I love that advice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you got to remember too.
Speaker 1:Another bit of advice is that it says in the beginning of that, or it says in the beginning of the closing it says our book is meant to be suggestive.
Speaker 1:Only right, you go through it, you read, you learn and, just like I was telling some of your audience from the queer community or whatever before like, look, we have same problem, same solution. You and I might have different trauma, okay, but the 12 steps are going to guide you to ways to deal with your trauma. The 12, the 12 steps might not remove your trauma, but they're going to give you the courage to join the groups, like you were talking about where you found your group. You found the right people. It's going to give you the courage to walk through those doors and find those people. It's going to give you the courage to walk through those doors and find those people. It's going to give you the courage to talk to whoever you need to. It's going to show you how to walk down this path and, as long as you don't drink or get high, we get to wake up and fight again tomorrow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that, and if people wanted to find you, what would be the best way to connect?
Speaker 1:Oh, you could follow me. My name is James Sweezy. It's on the screen there. S-w-e-a-s-y. My Facebook page is just that. It just is James Sweezy, or my bigger Facebook page, the one that they call it a fan page. I hate thinking of it like that, but whatever, it's just my last name, sweezy, so go follow there. I post a lot of free recovery content. I post stuff from the gym. I'm on TikTok, instagram, all of that. So, yeah, everybody's welcome on my page. I don't discriminate or hate against anybody. I work in addiction recovery and we are abstinence programs, but I have a lot of people that follow me that are currently on Suboxone or methadone or whatever. Please come be a part of the community. I'd love to see your comments. I'd love to have your. I'll just, you know, join this journey together.
Speaker 3:All right, excellent. Well, thank you so much, james. It's been a pleasure. Thank you Back to you future, steve. Welcome back sober heroes. I hope you enjoyed my interview with James. He was a great guy, so make sure you follow him on all the socials, post some funny recovery related things as well as some great motivation and with that, also make sure you're following us wherever you're listening. I am at gay podcast. I am most active on Instagram, but I do have a presence on all of the social media, so wherever you'd like, you'll find more of this. I look forward to seeing you next week, because you'd certainly already follow this podcast wherever you're listening. So you'll get our new episode next week with Eric from Sobervation. Until then, stay sober friends.
