gAy A: The Queer Sober Hero Show

Stay Strong, Do Good, Be Brave ft. Adam S

• Steve Bennet-Martin • Season 2 • Episode 45

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Steve:

Hey there, Super Sober Heroes! It's Steve, host of GA, and we're here today with Adam. I am here today, grateful for 1, 316 days sober and so excited to finally get a chance to talk to Adam after following each other on Instagram for so long and becoming friends. Nice to see you! it's been quite a journey for you to get here, but why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners?

Adam:

Sure. My name's Adam, and I am just celebrating four months. We had planned to do this a while back, and then I had a relapse, and needed some more field research, as they say. and just being able to have enough time to come back and have this journey finally come into fruition is a nice moment.

Steve:

Excellent.

Adam:

It's still pretty terrible.

Steve:

All right. Excellent. Sounds good. We're glad you're back and we're glad you're here today to be able to talk about all the exciting things going on in your life. But why don't we start with what makes you most excited about being sober?

Adam:

Sure. I think right now the thing that makes me most excited about being sober is the thing that I used to dread about being sober, and that's connection and communication For so long I resisted that completely, and now it's been the magic thing for me, and it's been the thing that really has shined a light on my recovery this time, and as much as people said connection is the opposite of addiction I would just roll my eyes and be like yeah, get away from me. And as queer people, especially we grow up so isolated, I feel at least I did. And you stay in that closet and you stay so othered. And for me, the journey was. getting to this place where I allowed others in and now it's, I'm building this really beautiful community and the connection is really a wonderful part of things.

Steve:

Yeah. I love that. I am always a huge advocate of connection and I talk about it on the podcast all the time. What I've learned in the past couple months especially. They're there and I'm there for my friends when they need me, but me asking for help when things are challenging, that's a little bit more difficult for me to do.

Adam:

that's been a big thing for me this time as well as actually utilizing them. the big change for me has been recognizing that I can make the call when I'm at like a two in crisis. I can't really do it when I'm at an eight But I can do it when I'm at a two. So like a big change has been recognizing at a two that like, okay, I'm getting a little Something. And dealing with it then, and making those calls then, so then it gets back down to a zero and that's made a huge difference for me.

Steve:

Yeah, I can imagine. And with community being so important, what would you say is making you most excited about being a member of the queer community today?

Adam:

For me, being a member of the queer community today is all about authenticity which was something I was lacking for a long time. I was somebody who wore a lot of masks, so who I was when I was with my family was one person. Who I was at work was a different person. Who I was when I was with queer people was a different person. And then that's what made recovery so challenging as well as there wasn't really an authentic me. So when I stopped using, I had no idea who I was. And so finally to have an authentic version of myself that I've fallen quite in love with and has been such a joy and such a gift. To have that person be so queer and affirming, and then to be able to then go back and make those connections that I was talking about with other queer people with trans people. Non queer people as well, but to be authentically queer, authentically myself has been a really embracing part of this journey. One of my favorite Disney movies is Frozen 2. And there's a part of that where Elsa she sings a song called Show Yourself, and in that she's, Talks about you are the one you've been waiting for all of your life, and that's what this moment feels for me, and that's what this moment of queerness feels like for me as well.

Steve:

That's awesome, and I'm so glad you've got to this point. Why don't you give us the, not Cliff's notes, Adam's notes of what your journey was like with how you got here.

Adam:

so I've been working toward recovery for about four years and it's been very tumultuous. My story is one of a lot of relapse and That's been really hard, and it's also been the biggest blessing of my life. I was talking with some friends the other day about how I'm really blessed by my addiction because without the addiction, I would have stayed depressed, traumatized full of PTSD, full of all these things that I would have kept my head in the sand about my entire life and never changed, never realized there was an issue, but I needed that addiction to come along and shake me up. And So to end here let's go back to the beginning. I'm from Massachusetts and an all American family literal white picket fence, golden retriever I have a brother two parents who were married and everything was very typical all American, Around four years old, I remember realizing there was something about myself that I needed to hide. And it wasn't until recently that I realized how messed up that is, that at four years old, to have that knowledge, you needed to hide something. And of course that's being gay which I didn't have language for a long time. I needed to find language for it, and I didn't really know what was going on So I'd come home and watch Talk shows so I'd watch like Rikki Lake and Oprah and like whatever the theme was that day would be like my boyfriend's cheating on me And I'm like that's not it and then one day on Rikki Lake it was I'm a gay teen and I was like oh my god That's it. That's me That's how I figured it out. So then, yeah, I was going through life and I came out when I was 14 to a very embracing reaction. I was fortunate when I started high school, I was in a very liberal environment and everything was pretty embracing at that point. And everything was going well. Okay, I thought and I started drinking in high school socially and then It wasn't until I was in my mid twenties that crystal meth entered the picture I had been promiscuous pretty much throughout my teens, which I think is a pretty typical gay teen experience when you're missing out on kind of these milestone markers that most teens have and so I was introduced to me not as Crystal Meth, it was introduced to me as Tina, which at the time I didn't question, it was introduced in a way that They said it's just like poppers. And I ended up trying crystal meth before I tried pot. It was that kind of naive. And from the first time I tried it, it was the first time in my life I felt like the voices that are always so persistently in my head just stopped and quieted. And for me, that was such a huge deal to feel that freedom. And yeah, it quickly became this thing that was a problem. And I tried it like once every year and then it became every six months, then every three months, then just really spiraled really quickly. And then in 2017 I was seeing someone off and on and it was a pretty tumultuous relationship. And he ended up committing suicide. And when that happened I really spiraled. And at that point I moved to injecting which really just spiraled things completely out of control for me. Then that started a year of just complete chaos and near estrangement from my family and I went to a psych ward at one point. I went to a detox at one point. That was a horrific experience. And then I just quit cold turkey and stayed quit for two and a half years. I met someone, I got engaged, I got like a dream job, dream car, dream apartment. Everything was amazing, going well. And then COVID happened. And when COVID happened I got to a point in COVID where like my drinking really started to uptick as well. And so I stopped drinking during COVID. And when I stopped drinking, that was the, cause I'd stopped using crystal meth two and a half years before, but when I stopped drinking, that was the first time in my life that I had no substance whatsoever. And so that was the first time that it was like, Oh, what is this? I don't like this one bit. And in that lack of substance in that void, I started to realize that the relationship I was in was not A healthy relationship in any capacity and that I was not in a really great headspace whatsoever. And it was a point in my life where I had everything I'd ever wanted. And it meant nothing to me. And it felt so empty to me. And I kept coming home from work at nine o'clock at night. And I would just sit in the driveway for 15 minutes because I didn't want to go into my dream life. it was insane. And then I ended up relapsing on crystal meth three months after I stopped drinking because it became too much for me. and like I said, I was cold turkey. I had no solution. I had no answer to any of it. And I relapsed on crystal meth. And it was also my partner at the time, my fiance told me if I ever relapsed or if I ever cheated on him, he would leave me. And so I was like, okay. Promise. And that's how I got out of that relationship. And I really needed out of that relationship at that point. And to someone who was so emotionally crippled at the time the thought of do I have the adult conversation? Or do I relapse and blow up everything in my life? It was a pretty easy option for me. I'm going to obviously relapse. And then it started this really just 4 year, the past 4 year journey of in and out of rehabs, so many rehabs and so many relapses, just breaking my family's heart again and again, And finding my way to the steps and finding my way to a version of myself that I now am and starting to heal little by little and I'm grateful for each relapse because they taught me a little bit each time, and I'm a big believer in relapse is not a reset it really is a cumulative process, and it really does teach you, and it really does add up, and it's not something to be ashamed of in the end. It's something that is meant to teach you in the end. Everything happens for a reason and every single relapse is something that I learned from. Do I wish I could have learned it in a shorter amount of time Absolutely. But it takes what it takes and for me it took the exact amount of time.

Steve:

And what would you say shifted four months ago that was different than the previous attempts or tries?

Adam:

Yeah, I think 2024 was the magical year for me. My relapses Severely went down and the relapses I did have in 2024 were one time use it. They were like, just like I used and then immediately was like, this is not who I want to be anymore. And I got help. And that was a big shift. It used to be like fuck it. And just, throw in the towel and go on a bender and burn my life to the ground. I can keep building. But also the other thing that happened was people kept saying to me throughout this whole thing, Oh, maybe you haven't had enough pain. You haven't had enough pain. And I assure you, I had enough pain. The thing I hadn't had enough of is joy. I hadn't had joy in so long. And what happened last year was I started experiencing joy. I started meeting people and I started to get that connection I spoke about earlier. And people came into my life who really filled that cup and filled my heart. And I met some really Kindred spirits in my last rehabs that really connected with me and who I talk with every day. and I needed those connections again. It was a point where the scales had finally shifted enough that I started to experience that joy again, which I had been so depleted of for so long. And yeah, so that's been a big shift for me. But then the other thing that's happened this time that has not happened any other time is that I was willing to do everything differently. For me, that included finally recognizing that the apps are a huge problem for me, and I have never been able to get CrystalMath without the apps that's how I get it every time it's always my downfall, but then After a month or two of recovery, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go on Grindr because that's the perfect place to find a date. I'm just using it to find a date. And it's the lies our addiction tells us You don't go on Grindr for a date. Hello.

Steve:

Grindr profiles, like looking for just friends.

Adam:

Yeah. And you're like, no, you're not. You're there for networking. Okay. and being willing to make changes. And so when I got out of rehab, this last time I put a. I'm a pretty organized person. So I put together a 12 page document for my family. And I was like, these are the changes I'm willing to make this time. And if you're willing to get behind me and support me on this, let's do it. And that's what we did. And I sold my car instead of going to sober living in the city that I was living in. I moved to the family lake house and which is in the middle of nowhere. I got a burner phone, which doesn't have access to apps. I had very limited internet connection. I really gave myself very little wiggle room to find my way to crystal. And that's what I needed as I started this time. And I needed to be willing to do all the things that I did not want to do. I needed to remove all of those and I needed to tell all my secrets and I did. And I said these are, this is the way I get the things. This is what I'm going to go through. This is what I'm going to experience. This is what I need. And even now, like once I started reintegrating to having a phone again, like I have a blocker on my, an app blocker on my app that like my parents have access to it. And so like I can't access porn sites. I can't access apps that are going to be destructive for me. And is it forever? No, I'm going to have more autonomy as I go through, but it's for a season certainly. And it's what I need to get to the point I need to be at. It's been, like, recognizing that I'm at a point where I just need to stay in the threshold and wait. And in the past, I've gotten a little bit of time, and then BOOM! I've run. And I haven't been ready to run yet. And I've been at this point where I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna just stay in the threshold and heal and wait.

Steve:

That's awesome. And I love how it is such like a different experience than mine where like in my sobriety, like I waited in the recovery room after getting sober for way longer than I need to and like I was healed and I could have started running and I was afraid to go walking because it seemed like it was scary outside the rooms. And like in the past like year and a half like that's where my recovery shifted so like I have had the opposite experience so it's good having people like you share, you got to learn how to walk before you can run I guess.

Adam:

And that's the point I'm getting to now is I do feel that gut taking over of telling me like, okay, now you're ready. And I'm getting to a point in transition again, where I'm going to start to move back to the city where I usually do my living and leave the woods and take some of the training wheels off. and now I'm at a point where I can trust that gut instinct and that's been huge for me too, is recognizing that gut instinct has always been there and every time I ignored it, it got me in trouble. And so now trusting it implicitly is important.

Steve:

Yeah. Cause I definitely was at times in my active addiction, mix up my gut instinct and the devil on my shoulder and I would just be like the devil on my should is my gut instinct. And they're one and the same, and I'll just listen to whatever sounds more fun. And learning in sobriety that it is different and that you can trust your gut again is really cool. And what would you say of all the different ways that you've learned how to stay sober, what's a word, like a phrase or a saying that has really stuck with you?

Adam:

Yeah. So my mantra is stay strong, do good, be brave and. That's something that I sign off every letter with, I have it tattooed and it encompasses everything for me. it talks about resilience, which is a huge thing for me, it talks about service, it talks about, just, endurance, and

Steve:

you decided to write about your recovery. have you always wanted to write and then it was a matter of finding the what? Or was it the recovery and then you decided to write about it, which came first?

Adam:

So my career before was theater and theater education. I was a director and an educator and an actor and that was my career. since I was 12, theater has been such a massive part of my life. it's how I processed emotion. It's how I process the world. it's really how I identified myself. addiction really took that career from me once that was stripped from me, I didn't have a way to process anymore. I'd always dabbled in writing, but I didn't really have time to devote to it because I was so devoted to theater. as I began to recover and began the work of recovering I dove into writing as a way to process that. it became this. Not replacement, but this other thing that I found out I could do. And it served the same niche as theater, where it helped me process emotions. It became this really cathartic thing. And as I've gone through the past four years, it's helped me navigate the past four years. And it's helped me assess where I want to go and make sense of the present. along the way I started writing a memoir. at one point it was narratively structured where it had interjections of poems and meditations and lyrics and things like that, but then I cut all those out I still really liked them, so I assembled all those in a shorter volume, I've actually just published that so that's very exciting called Trudge, The Road to Happy Destiny.

Steve:

So if someone wanted to find you, connect with you, and find your book and everything that you're doing how would they do that?

Adam:

Sure, so the book Trudge the Road to Happy Destiny Parables, Prose, and Meditations on Addiction and the Journey to Recovery is on Amazon for paperback and kindle. my memoir, Adam and Everything, is coming out in March and will be on Amazon as well. And you can also find me on Instagram as at Adam Schuller writes, and Schuller is S C H U L E R.

Steve:

thank you so much, Adam, it's been a pleasure.

Adam:

I appreciate it.

Steve:

Yeah, and thank you listeners for tuning in to another episode of gay a make sure you follow wherever you're listening So you can get these new episodes when they come out every thursday until that time stay sober friends

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