Episode 12 : Fixing me, a story of rehabilitation

Better Weather podcast

Brandon returns to the Better Weather podcast with stories of his past two years dealing with the highs and lows of his battle with mental health. A journey that began after episode 11, a decision to enter rehab, and ultimately a path to salvation and self love. Follow with me as I try to share this human experience, and hopefuly you can relate in some way.

Welcome back to the Better Weather podcast. It is your host, Brandon Leith. Been a little bit for some of you if you're following along. Last episode was episode 11 with Ella Kasiba. Right now we're starting episode 12. If you're paying attention to the dates, you'll notice that it's been some little bit of time. Last episode we recorded June 7th, 2021 with Ella and today is September 23rd, 2023. So I feel like I owe you an explanation. I feel like I owe it to this podcast if the reason I started it was to really be open and vulnerable. When I talk about mental health and my journey through that, and truth be told, during that period of this podcast, probably episodes 5 through 11, things weren't going great. The podcast was helping. I was able to talk about things and that's that's a really a a great part of this. It's kind of like therapy for myself, but sometimes that therapy isn't quite enough.

I've gone through a journey with trying out antidepressants, I would say unsuccessfully for the most part. I think up to this point, I'd probably tried five or six of them and that's a pretty big undertaking because the ramp up. On these medicines is kind of a little little bit of time, time, days or so to kind of really feel what's going on. Then you kind of assess how you feel and then if it's not great, you can take some medications for side effects or just take that, take that medicine down and try a new one. It's a very long, drawn out process and it's very hard on an individual. I was kind of going through this during that middle part of the podcast and adding more medicines on for the side effects that I was experiencing and I was slowly crumbling and so I just want to talk about that. I want to talk about where I had to go, what kind of happened. I'll be back here definitely for several episodes because I have a whole lot of things to tell you guys and I'm honestly really excited to tell you about it. The stories are probably going to be a little bit dark leading up to it, but but I promise you, we're leading up to a great ending. So let's just kind of jump into it.

These Ssri's were making my life fall to pieces. I was becoming to the point where I was unable to work. My job was becoming incredibly difficult for me to even just regularly function. I couldn't organize tasks in my day. For a lot of you that have been listening along, you know, I kind of work in the corporate world. I own a CrossFit gym and I kind of do both throughout the day. Obviously I have a lot of help. My wife helps tremendously with the gym, but still, it's a pretty long day and it doesn't allow for a whole lot of free time. Now, is it all bad? No. I work remote. I'm not complaining, but I probably am doing too much. Well, throw in these medicines. Throw in the lack of sleep that I was getting from these medicines. My legs were going crazy. I was having restless leg syndrome which was making me wake up almost every hour, every single night. So that lack of sleep was just building and building and simultaneously I was using cannabis. As a lot of you know, I talk a lot about how open I am with my use of that and and interest honestly in in using it as a medicine. Now during this time, I was really using it as any way to make myself sleep by. That's the only way I can describe it and it it was helping for that. And then I would notice during the day I would have these huge crying bouts where I would cry like 3 * a day uncontrollably. I would sleep to maybe just make it all end. I would just force myself to kind of lay down. And

then when I needed to kind of focus, I found that cannabis was helping with that. It would it would kind of calm things down for whatever reason. And I know if you if you don't really subscribe to that, I can understand how crazy that sounds. But, I mean, anybody could attest to it. They could see how I could actually function. Now, was that healthy? Probably not. It's definitely not something I even wanted to do. It got to the point where I didn't even want to do that. I just didn't know what else to do. I was just, I was like screaming for help. And it was the only thing that would make me kind of function for that 30 minutes or 45 minutes that it would last. Well, work was starting to start, starting to take notice. Management was like, hey, what's going on with Brandon? And it was becoming harder to hide it from them. Well, that slowly started to spill into my kids even starting to notice. Leslie's obviously very involved in noticing and doing her best to try to understand it, but it it's it's it's almost too much for anyone to kind of deal with. When it comes to the point where I was at, it was becoming harder to hide it from the kids. They were starting to notice. My friends were starting to notice. I was canceling plans. I was just acting. I was acting odd and you could see it on people's faces, and there's nothing worse than when people can see it because you start to kind of feel crazy. And I'm just sitting there and all of this guilt is just building because here I am fixing to leave Leslie is the way I wasn't. I wasn't thinking about her leaving me there. I was thinking about leaving her with all of these responsibilities

and in my chaos brain, understanding that if the roles were reversed, I don't think that I could handle it.

Handling the daytoday with the kids and work and just not having your person there and her being under all of this stress,

it it made it so difficult because I knew that although I was going to be going through a lot, being here, she was going to be going through just as much. She didn't have the luxury of escaping all the daily stressors. She now had to take on 100% of our responsibilities. And at the same time knowing that your partner is struggling so much and there's nothing you can do to help. And and that sat with me. And to this day, it's something that I think about daily, The amount of strength and compassion and love that she had to have

to get us through this dark period of time in our lives. And to this day, I'm so forever grateful for her for that. It really culminate. One of the biggest things that it really culminated with is a friend of mine and his wife had a baby and that baby passed away at birth

and he's a great friend of mine. The funeral was coming up. We were obviously set to go, and this was probably two days before the event that I'll fix and talk about happened. I I just completely crumbled

and I felt so ashamed that I couldn't be there for my friend in his time of need. And I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for that. But I just couldn't go. One day went by that next day was a complete nightmare. And then the following day I could tell Leslie had something on her mind and she wanted to talk to me and she said, hey, I want you to sit down, I want to talk to you about something and and I could almost feel what she was fixing to tell me, she said, Brandon, I don't know how to help right now. I need help helping you and I think we're going to have to put you in a a mental health facility for a period of time and hearing that is for me. It was just so soul crushing. I don't know how else to describe it. Even though I was going through a lot of turmoil. I guess you still don't think you're at that point and and to hear that that is on the table was just I I felt a fell to pieces because you're immediately thinking, hey I don't want to go do this. How am I going to deal with work? People are going to find out how am I going to explain this to my kids? But at the same time, I didn't want to put this on my family anymore. And I knew the only thing I could do was say yes, I I'm going to have to go to rehab. So yeah, that's where that's where I had to go. Now. I wasn't there the entire time. Obviously I I didn't just get out by any means. But I do want to tell

you that story about what that that was like. It was a great experience. I I say great it it was it it saved me. Was it a great experience. Now you're going to hear a lot about those details. I just wanted to use this first episode back to just tell you that story.

So here we go. Let's start packing. So I have to originally kind of figure out a how long am I planning on and going to do this. I think in the very beginning, the way this was set up, this we, Leslie had found a place that was towards, I'm in the Austin area, this was kind of out towards San Antonio. I'm thinking about mentioning the place because I it it did, it was it was an amazing place. So I'm still debating on whether I want to do that or not. But she had researched it because they had a couple of key things. It was what they call a dual treatment facility. So at this particular place, they treat

mental health and then they also treat alcohol and narcotics. So they offer training classes, therapy, a couple of specialized therapy for mental health as well, which was really interesting, which is why Leslie kind of found this place. And the plans they offered were a 30 day, a 60 day and a 90 day, just depending upon how long you needed to stay. Now, I could exit this place at any time and that was a huge thing for me is I didn't want to be held somewhere. I wanted to be there on my own free will. But at the same time, when you're going to this place, you're kind of there under the assumption that you can't just walk off the premises, You know, a conversation needs to be had. So I start packing. You know, I'm packing for 30 days trying to think of what do you take to this place? You know what, what am I, what am I going to be doing? What am I going to be wearing? Why am I even concerned about that? It would the whole thing was kind of a blur to be quite honest with you

attacking snacks and food like you're going to on vacation

and your stomach is just turning because you know this day is approaching you know three days away. I know that this is coming up so I have to make some phone calls. I have to actually call my work talk to my boss and and and that went better than you would have expected. Fortunately, working for a corporation like this, there are plans in place for people that need help in this way and I'm very thankful for that. My boss was incredibly understanding. There's plans offered that you can kind of keep your your your pay and not have to worry about that for that short period of time. So I'm so thankful to God for that and so thankful for that company for that. So the day came and I said goodbye to the kids. The night before they had stayed at another their grandparents house because I didn't want them to be there that day that I left.

And I'd sat there the night before and I'd written some notes to them for them to read while I was gone. Just, you know, something for them to not now Remember Me by, but just, you know,

something for them to have every day. And that final goodbye with him was was was so heart wrenching,

you know, they knew I was going to get help. I don't think they quite understood exactly what it was, but yeah, that was that was rough.

The next day, the morning of. It's just dumb as it is. I didn't know what else to do. I remember sitting outside and and trying to escape because I knew at least maybe, maybe smoking one last joint would would calm me down. And I remember how sad that was sitting outside my backyard waiting to do that and the drive quite like an hour and a half drive and it seemed like one of the longest drives of my life.

And you I can remember my stomach just turning as we were getting closer and closer

not knowing what was ahead of me and and we pull into this place and and kind of describing it I I it was we're in Central Texas and so this place was not like your fancy LA rehab that you're you might be thinking of this was more like think of like a summer camp as a kid if you ever did that where out here just amongst the cedar trees but it's like log cabin kind of set up I I guess you could say just a bunch of different buildings spread out throughout this like like like a summer camp out in the woods kind of set up I guess you're the best way to describe it but it was not a summer camp actually funny story is the place used to be a camp for kids I think Boy Scouts or something along those lines and then now it's a now it's a rehab facility so

we pulled up and we're sitting outside and this is right when you know COVID was still still pretty crazy I guess you could say. So they came out and they were going to give me my COVID test, the one and only COVID test I think I've taken since the pandemic started.

So they swabbed me and went inside. And that was kind of my last few moments with Leslie, and she didn't really know what I was going to be going into. Antidepressants are wild. It's weird that when you start taking them, you know, the goal is obviously to make some sort of change, but it's wild to see when your brain is making that change. It's almost like you don't even realize it's happening and and I found myself with several of different medicines just becoming someone that I didn't even know.

And it's weird because you slowly start to lose your sense of self because it's almost constantly trying to change or evolve. And

it became so frustrating and scary, honestly, just feeling like you're not in the right body, if that makes sense.

I felt so out of control. I I, I I wish I could really put it into words. I was becoming this person that I didn't even know. I was having constant like panic attack moments where you'd feel like your whole body is on fire and you're just, you're just shaking and you just don't know you want to escape. Like I'd find myself just walking around the house at a super fast pace, just in such a state of confusion and not knowing how to make it stop. You'd wake up in the morning and you would almost sense it. You could tell hey, this day is not going to be good

and it just would set the tone for the entire day. And it's so defeating to wake up in the morning and just feel this, you know, wet blanket of chaos, I guess just laying over you. You don't even want to get out of bed

because it's like it's futile. Like there's nothing that you're going to do to change it.

And you become

such a different person inside. And your family and friends, they see you and they see that same Brandon, but they something's off

and all. And all I wanted to do was just put on this, this, this face so I could trick everybody, I guess. But you can only do that for so long. And it's really, it was really starting to show.

I I would find myself at a point where I was so tired of Leslie seeing me that way, because I could just feel how scared she was to to see me wear this on my face, this feeling of despair.

And so I would leave. I would leave the house. I would just drive around, which probably wasn't the safest thing to do in the world, but it was almost like I was physically running away from my problems. My problems were in my head, but that was the only thing that I could think to do.

And I just felt so bad for Leslie. Just you don't. That's that's your person. We've been together since high school

and all of the sudden I'm a different person.

And not only am I a different person, I am. I'm not able to even function as this new person. Leslie almost had to take on a mothering role for me, which is something that we're still working on, because she was put into this position where she had no choice but to almost treat me like one of the kids. Because I was. I was honestly way more of a handful than the our our teenage kids. I was worse than a toddler.

It was one of the most helpless feelings I think I've ever felt, and dealing with that as a man, you just go into this shame cycle because this is not how a man is supposed to act. It shouldn't be just crying all the time. It was absolutely insane. But it came became so normal. I mean, half the time my eyes were bloodshot and I didn't know if it was because of the weed or because of me crying. It just became kind of a normal look to me.

We had had a quick tour of the facility a few days before, so I actually got to go out there and see it. Nothing really soaked in. They come back. I can see them coming out to tell me that I'm free of COVID. Actually, the one time I was hoping I got COVID right.

And I could just remember looking at Leslie just like with such defeat, just like you feel like you really let a lot of people down. And, you know, a lot of it was caused by some of the medicines and things that I couldn't control. But at the same time, you still felt a lot of responsibility, especially as the the man of the household, the dad, the owner of the gym, the guy who's always smiling, the guy who always talks about on podcasts about mental health. And here you are in front of her rehab facility. Yeah, it's it's weird. I'm I'm just it as I'm taught, this is the first time I've really talked about it out loud. And it's just, it's taking me right back to it, which is, it was weird. It's probably good, but it's weird nonetheless. So bear with me here a little bit. I give Les that final hug, like I don't ever want to let go. And they take me inside and they're nice people. They're super nice people. They sit me down in this front room and the first thing I have to do is go and pee in a cup because we've got to see, you know what, what's in your system. I've never been arrested before, so I've never really had to have someone physically stand there and watch me pee into a cup.

But it was pretty rough. I mean, I know that sounds dumb, but it's it really started to soak in. I think there, because that was my first intro into this place, was what was was being treated like I was a a prisoner, I guess you could say. You know what? So we go in, they assign you to your room and the first few days and a rehabilitation for most people, they do detox. So you're in a room solo and those first few days you're not really expected to do a whole lot. A lot of people in there are detoxing off of alcohol, heroin, pills, pretty much the same thing, as we know now,

but they're not really required to do a whole lot. And I was kind of treated the same way, which it was really fortunate because I knew ultimately I was going to get a roommate assigned to me. This whole situation was crazy anyway. But to be also thrown in with another person, and I know this is horrible to say, but you're like, this is another addict, you know, whatever they're addicted to. But I, you know, I don't want another to be dealing with another unstable person. That's kind of the way I was looking at it when I went in. The goal originally was to get off all my medications or you know, right off the bat. And we kind of started that immediately. So when I went in, they asked you what medicines you're on. You get to see a psychiatrist, They can throw some suggestions out there for things that they think might help you. And I wish I could remember the name of the medicine I did take while I was there. It was a very, I think it was almost like an over the counter thing for anxiety and I would take that in the evenings. But other than that, the goal was to get all the medicine out of my system. I I was pretty much at a point where I was like, this is not not working for me. And while I'm in here, I want to use this as a time to detox off of. Because what better place to get off than the place where you don't have to worry about anything else in life. But at the same time, I'm also just coming off cold Turkey, essentially, which if you've ever done that before, it's it's a little little challenging. It's not not the easiest thing in the world,

but that's what we were going to do. So let's talk a little bit about the routine so you can know what what it's like. Those first few days after I, I went through these this what they call detox process where you just kind of meander around for the first few days, meet some people. You kind of walk to the classes that you're going to be going through in the mornings when you wake up, you kind of go out into this main kind of lobby area where there is a TV in there and they do play the news in the morning, but that's pretty much the only exposure to TV you have. Also, I failed to mention this earlier. You had to obviously leave your phone with outside, so let's have my phone, No access to that, no access to computer. So you can't really do anything outside looking at that or reading a newspaper if they bring in the newspaper. But they have this schedule board at the top. It's a TV in this lobby. When you walk in, it kind of has your name as well as everyone else in the facility, and it shows your schedule. So you checked out in the morning, You have your coffee that's sitting out there. You can go grab a cup of coffee. Coffee is over at 1:00 PM. No coffee and rehab after 1:00 PM. For whatever reason, they don't want you all jacked up.

But I began every morning doing some walks. I'd wake up at 6:00 AM and this type of therapy that I was going to be doing there at this facility is called TMS. Some of you guys might have heard of that. It's starting to gain a little bit more popularity. TMS stands for transcranial magnetic stimulation and what it is is a series of magnetic like balls which they put on your head in different areas of your head. So on your right side, your left side, then on the frontal area where your frontal lobe is, what it does is it sends these magnetic like pulses. It sounds like it's shocking you. That's the sound it sounds like and it really feels like someone's just tapping on your head. It's not painful, but I wouldn't say it's the most comfortable thing in the world. But they offer that there and they've been offering, they've been doing a lot of studies with people with CTE, seeing how it stimulates a lot of these nerve cells in your brain. So they started off that this one at this particular place is individual transcranial, so it's ITMS. So what they do in the beginning is they do a brain scan, they check out this brain scan and then they use their scientific whatever to decide what kind of pulses, the level of magnetic pulses or stimulation that they're going to apply to this. So that was really interesting to get that apparently the my brain scan, I wish I could remember the actual way to describe it, but my frontal lobe was just like flat. Things weren't looking great and they could definitely see some areas where this could possibly help. And there's been a lot of great stories behind this. I do encourage you guys, if you're kind of interested in this TMS transcranial magnetic stimulation. Look it up, There's a whole lot of stuff about it. It's not just crazy hippie stuff,

but in the mornings they requested that I get out and I go on walks in the morning when the moon is still out to get the blue lights. Good for your eyes. It's also really great for sleep. I didn't really understand that helps with your sleep rhythms, doing that in the mornings. So part of my goal every morning was to get up, go on these walks, be outside, get this blue light. So I would take my little coffee and I would go on these walks every single morning and I would walk through this kind of like trails through these cedar trees and I would do it every morning. One morning when I was walking through, I came up upon this Chapel like area in the woods. There was this giant cross, and it was made out of like a cedar tree. And then surrounding it in like a horseshoe shape was these little rocks. And on each of them it had an inscription. And so I walked over and I started reading them. And there's also like benches, like a Chapel would be just in the middle of the woods, like a bunch of crazy people set it up or something. It's very, but it was super peaceful for whatever reason. But on these rocks, you'd see a name and you'd see a birth date and you'd see a death date. And every one of these was a, you know, a makeshift gravestone for every person that had come into that facility and then later passed after leaving. So that was pretty shocking to see because the ages of some of these people were just so young. I mean, you're seeing 16 year old kids, but all the way up to 80 year olds. I mean, it's just, it was just, it was very weird, but I would go out there every morning and I would just sit there and I'm not a religious person that, you know, you guys know this. I'm really, I don't talk about it that much, but I've never really had much of A spiritual side. I do. I do enjoy going to church with my wife, but I never really got this feeling of God. And and I want to say that on this podcast because you're going to see, as this story kind of unfolds that change just a little bit. But I always find myself out sitting in this Chapel every single morning for whatever reason, and I would find so much peace from it. There'd be always an owl out there. I don't see too many owls, but there was an owl out

there, just always Putin. And at that early morning. And I just, I don't know. I would come out there and I started journaling a lot. I'm always loved writing. And so part of my morning routine would be able to journal. I'd be able to escape through that. But I also wanted to document everything about what this was going to entail.

So I'd go out there and I would write. And then after a couple of days, there's these young kids that were there. So I'll start talking about some of the people that are there. I can't really mention any names, but there are some, some key. The key people that I met there, this facility had males and females. They were separated, it's Coed. They have a women's dorm, I guess you would say, and then a men's and then a bunch of other buildings where all these classes are held because the classes you go with their Coed classes. So you're all kind of intermingled, but you're separated in the evenings.

There were two young kids in there that really kind of gravitated towards me for whatever reason. I don't know if it was the tattoos or my clothes. Whatever it was, they thought I was cool. These are young,

probably 1718 year old kids I guess, face tattoos, ratchet tattoos all over their body. You could tell they've been they've, they've seen some stuff in there, younger. I guess their life didn't live the cleanest life, I guess. Well, they're in rehab. So what are you going to do? One of them, little Brandon and the other one, we'll just call them Slim. They would follow me out. It would almost annoy me sometimes because I wanted to just kind of have these easy walks by myself. But they they they saw me doing, hey, can we can we join you? They want to start drinking coffee and they wanted to walk with me every morning. So we kind of talked about, you know, their history, their experience with drugs, with drugs. Excuse me, with drugs,

pills, friends that they have lost it. It's hearing some of these stories from some of these people is just heartbreaking. But they would join me on those walks every single morning and and I kind of grew a liking to them and throughout classes they would always find themselves in the same classes that I was. So it was kind of, it was kind of fun to have, you know, some little, I guess, friends, some some fans. I guess you could sit in there.

But there were also a lot of regulars in there, which was very interesting to see because there's people in there that know the layout, they know how to work the system. A lot of people that were at this particular place actually were railroad workers, which is a very old statement to say they're railroad workers. But the railroad has a plan there. So they send a lot of those people there. And it sounds like a pretty good deal at you. You kind of learn more stories about some people and some people kind of just go there just to get away. I kind of found which is very interesting, but you know, whatever floats your boat. And I always thought, you know, when talking to some of these people while you're in there, it's interesting to see because I noticed that there weren't a lot of people in there that were there for mental health. A lot of them were for drugs and alcohol, and over time, after they deep fighting, it hard to deal with the fact that they were able to leave their addiction outside and mine I brought in. I guess that's probably a very selfish way of explaining that. But I felt like I was struggling so much in there as I was detoxing off of the depressants and still having my brain just telling me all of these negative things over and over again, just reinforcing that.

And then here were these people that once they did go through the detox process, they seemed to be handling it okay. And and that's probably very judgmental for me to say, but I think that's that's where my brain was at there. I think I'll just be honest with you. And so that's what I that's where I was thinking. But every morning after these walks would come back, we would have a little morning routine where the kind of leader of the facility which we called him coach, interesting enough he was a very, very fit guy. He's the owner of the of the facility and his wife very fit woman. He actually ran a lot of the athletic classes there. They have like APE thing there which was great for me as as a as a big CrossFit guy. I really wanted a place to kind of be able to have that outlet to work out and fortunately they offered that and he's very excited to have us use it. So that was really great. But we'd have these little morning meetings, we'd go around the room, we read a prayer, there's a lot of Alcoholics Anonymous

books, quotes, a lot of that materials. What we would go over. You'd also talk about what you were thankful for every day. And and you would have to do this in this giant circle of probably 60 people.

And it was so I hate doing things like that. I hate talking in front of people like that. You wouldn't think so with the being on a podcast, but in front of people that was. And especially in that situation, the last thing you want to do is share things that you're happy about in rehab. But I noticed over the course of about a week in there that practice was, I was just looking forward to it. I would be like, oh, this is a great one to bring up tomorrow. I started to really kind of latch on to that for whatever reason. I don't know why we'd have these morning meetings and then we would break and we would start to go to our individual classes. And when you're in there, you kind of required to go to NA, which is Narcotics Anonymous, a A, which is Alcoholics Anonymous and go through those programs. Some of you might be familiar with those. If you're not the 12 steps you're you're really going through that. I think it's very helpful to a lot of people and I even found that taking out the word alcohol and replacing it with you know, the effects that I would have or the the causes of my depression and things like that really made a lot of the material work for me. You would also have individualized therapy, which is great. We would do things like EMDR therapy, which was really very interesting. You're essentially holding some paddles in your hand. You kind the the therapist leads you into almost this kind of trance like state and you're able to almost access traumas or or or things from your past without having them affect you too much. You almost dissociate from them, I guess you would say.

So I really look forward to that. We also had my ITMS session, so those were pretty cool. So I kind of explained what that was. It was a huge break for my day because you would actually get to leave these classes and you would go sit, you know, talk to these, the the nice, the nice pretty girls at the ITMS place. I get to walk in there and say hello to them. You'd have to drink a little pineapple juice to get your sugars up to do it too, which I was corny enough. I look forward to that every day. But you'd go into this room and you sit in this giant almost like a dentist chair, and the room is like neon colored. It's it's real chill. There's music playing, there's incense or whatever it was burning. And then there's this TV with probably just like drone footage of Indonesia or Switzerland or whatever it might be. It's one of those kind of videos that's super calming and then has this great music behind it. And so you would sit in this chair, you'd lay back, they put this thing on your brain, on your head, and it would start to go to work doing this tapping thing. And you just try to zone out, just watching this relaxing drone footage with this music. And it's almost meditative in a way.

But I also was you, you would almost have this placebo effect of, oh, this something's happening. I'm doing something, something positive is is working.

And so that was giving me this little bit of confidence, this little boost in my step every day and kind of keeping me, keeping me there. The only contact with the outside world I really had was through the phone signups that you have in this facility every single day. So every morning I say this, you'd wake up and you would ask the front desk, hey, when are you going to put out the phone signup? And I learned this very quickly once I got there. The phone signup has put out at like 10:00 right on the dot, not nine. Fifty 9:10 AM and you rush to it. It's this Excel spreadsheet they print out and then it's got 15 minute blocks starting right then and then ending at probably 10:00 PM I believe. Maybe 11:00 PM and you get to sign up for two. You get 215 minutes shots to make a phone call and hope somebody answers. And I later found out you're also in this facility with a bunch of addicts and some people don't give a **** about the time on the phone at all. And So what you find out is if someone decides to use 20 minutes instead of 15, you lose 5 and you know **** you. Essentially is what I found out. It happened to me very regularly and it made for a very stressful day because that's you look so forward to that phone call.

Those first few days, those phone calls were horrendous. I could not get through the phone call without breaking down, telling Leslie I think I'm going to have to leave. I can't do this. I think that first week, every day was that it was just me breaking down on the phone. But I needed it so much, and I could have called anybody. I used the two calls every day for the first probably 2 weeks, maybe even 3, to call less. I just wanted to hear her voice. It was the only comforting thing I could feel. And I felt so bad for breaking down every single time because she was trying to pick up the pieces at home. I mean, life was still moving on.

She's having to run the gym. She's having to deal with three kids, two giant German shepherds, the regular daily stuff that you have to deal with. She's not taking it on by herself and then also stressed out because she knows she can't help me and she knows I'm crumbling. But there were some good things about that place and it wasn't, it wasn't all just kind of nightmare. She kind of get into a groove after a period of time. You start to talk to people, you start to relate to people. And when I really started to do that, I I it got easier to accept the situation than I was in to let go of. Who's talking about you back home. Like where's crazy Brandon at Like what did he. He's in rehab. Like what? How? How is how ****** ** is he? Didn't he have a podcast before a mental. He's in rehab. Like you know all those things are running through your head. At the same time I'm worried that I'm going to get fired when I get out. I remember I was sitting in the

downstairs area 1 morning and one of the guys was like this was, you know, back in 21,

one of the guys was like, hey, you know who Jelly Roll is, the singer. And I was like, I think I heard of that rapper back in the day and he said don't check out the song. And so he played this video and it's the song saved me if you've ever heard it from Jelly Roll, who's really blown up as of late. But back then that video had just come out I believe, and he played it for me. And if you haven't heard the words, I encourage you to to to take a take a listen to that song today. Because it it, I felt like it described me and it spoke to me in so many ways. And so every morning I would try to find some way to play that video, because it really. It gave me hope, I guess, but it also was like, oh, you know, this this person kind of understands in a different way. Obviously, I think the leader is probably referencing a lot of different things. But to me, it spoke to me a lot and and it brought so much peace to me. Sundays at rehab were a little bit different. On Sundays you start every morning cleaning, which is great. You they have cleaning assignments. You clean the whole premises, the whole facility. And then after that you get your option to go to church proper, I guess, which is there. Or you can go to a spiritual class. I'm not sure how they, how they worded it exactly, but it was spirituality or something. It's people who don't want to go to the traditional route the first couple times. The first, first time. I chose that because I was like, I don't want to sit in church and rehab. That's just too much for me.

Let's go see what the spirituality class is. I walked in. They were playing flutes and I was like, this is bad decision for Brandon. So I I learned from that mistake and I started to to go to the church and it was basically just a group of people and essentially what they would do is they would play a few music videos mostly. If I could only imagine they would always lead it off with that, that the old timers in there, they would always bring that song up. Really got tired of hearing that. And then they would find it just a YouTube preacher. They find some sort of sermon that's online. Maybe it's a preacher that they know back home. Maybe it's just a very common Ted talk they wanted to listen to, which is fine by me. I didn't care.

One time when I was in there, they played this song by Corey Asbury and it's I'm sorry, Not Save Me. It's called Reckless Love. Sorry I was getting tricked up there for a second. It's called Reckless Love, and it's another song that I talk a lot about music, because that really was carrying me through. This song was about God directly, and it was the first time I had ever

been somewhere at my very lowest. And I think I was so open to anything at that point to help me.

And for whatever reason, that song came on and it just spoke right to my heart. Like God was talking to my heart not, but not like just somebody was just talking about my problems. It was like, you know someone else has got your back, man. There. There's there's something else here. Whether you want to believe it or see it or not. Something else is here. It was just as simple as that. And I didn't really feel like delving into it too much, but I just remember that that was so comforting to hear or to feel rather about 3 weeks in, Leslie was scheduled to actually come and do a visit. You can actually do an onsite visit. And I can remember the feelings leading up to that because I hadn't seen her.

And I knew, I don't know, they it it it was like it was like Christmas morning leading up to that. That's the kind of feeling you have just to see your rock again.

And there was also this fear of seeing somebody whose life had kind of gone on. And I know it's only been three weeks, but understand my mental state at the time. It seemed like three years. But she had come and we were going to do couples therapy and then we had a little bit of time to ourselves and that was going to be a kind of the trip she got to bring me some more food and stuff. But when she arrived,

man, God, it was like it was like the first time I ever saw her. I just remember holding her. I I just did not want to let go, but we started couples therapy that day and that was really interesting. I we had never done couples therapy before. You think that you you know somebody so well. Leslie and I've been together since we were in high school, essentially.

I'm 43 now. You don't think there's a whole lot to learn about somebody. And just that one session at Couples Therapy, we got to Leslie, got to talk about some things that she had been going through

without fear of me falling to pieces. We were in this controlled environment. I was starting to feel better. I'd been away from work, my phone smoking weed, all the stressors. Obviously I left a lot of good things, but all those stressors that were creating this almost callous on my body was removed for this period of time that I was in there. And after those three weeks, I could really start to feel it. You could feel your body calming down. You could feel the medicine leaving your body. And I was almost proud to show her, if that makes sense. So after therapy, we got the chance to to kind of sit there and talk for 45 minutes

and just kind of catch me up on things. It is so funny too, because right before we had left she had booked this like one of those poudoir shoots where you dress up in some sexy clothes.

And we had done it, which was very out of the ordinary for us to do.

But for some reason she was, she was feeling good about herself. And I was like, hell yeah, even though I was in a ****** state in my my brain right before I left. But those pictures had come back while I was gone. And she was, you know, after we kind of talked and and got past the emotional part. That was one of the things that she showed me and Oh my God, it was like, you know, it was, it was something that just made you just you smile so big. Which is it? Just because it just felt, I don't know, the sense of normalcy. Like, we don't have to just talk about this. Let's let's just stay here. Look at this. This is awesome. You know, they, I don't know. I for me, it was just this huge thing that kind of just brought the tension down, You know, Obviously I've been away from my wife for a long time too, so you can imagine.

But those 45 minutes went away pretty quick and she had to go again,

and that

this goodbye wasn't near as bad as the first one. But I can tell you just watching her drive off, standing there was was a little bit rough seeing that dust kick up. I know you're thinking, did did the kids come and no, no, they weren't going to come to that. I didn't want them to. I don't know if they were mentally prepared for that, but my routine there, it became pretty normal in the afternoons. I was I I kind of developed this relationship at the little CrossFit, or I kind of made it a CrossFit gym. It's just a regular gym with a bunch of barbells. And I would go in there and make up workouts on my own and people would start to see what I was doing and become interested and I would just fall into my normal coaching. And so I found a little bit of peace through coaching people through CrossFit and rehab, and that became a real great outlet for me. And it was nice too, because you're getting people that are Alcoholics and drug addicts and they're in there running, doing burpees and wall balls, smoking cigarettes outside before, which was insane. And it's another funny thing about being in rehab is they would do nicotine runs every Tuesday. And I remember them joking with me. All the guys would joke with me like, do you smoke? And I'm like, no, I'm a cross. I do cross, but I try not to. I mean, obviously cannabis is different, but like, you'll smoke before you leave here. And I was like, no, I don't think so, fellas,

but they would. I think everybody in that place smoke cigarettes from the people that were in the facility to the people who were the like armies, I guess she would say. That would kind of like the people that would make you stay in your room, etcetera, kind of the law, the law people. And then even the doctors were vaping and and nicotine everywhere. It's insane. But on Tuesdays you could go down to the front and you could put in your order for your cigarettes. And I I just, I I wanted some sort of escape. As weird as that is, I think I kind of fell into this Zen crowd. I was using those little nicotine zens and so that became a little treat that I would have while I was there. The food was phenomenal. I will say that they if if you like to eat healthy, which I I really was so nervous that I was going to start eating like trash because it's it's rehab and you're not going to be working out. That's what I thought. The food was phenomenal. You go to the cafeteria, you line up,

there's actually former residents at that rehab facility that actually work there now. So that that it's kind of cool to see that because you see how they're they want to give back and that was really nice to see. But you could also see that they're they're talking from experience and you just felt like, hey, you're one of us also. But you have some really interesting conversations with these people that you really hear some some really crazy stories, some really heartbreaking stories. They had a nice little pool outside. They would every now and then you would have this during some of the weeks if if you had great participation and things like that, you could do pool volleyball. So that was a fun thing to do throughout the throughout the day, throughout the week. You get to get this little opportunity to play pool volleyball with the squad so you can hang out. I have a little iPod that Leslie had downloaded some music for me so I could go out there and just sit in the sun and listen to some music every now and then when you have a little bit of free time. But most of your day is pretty, pretty structured to say the least. I think one of the more interesting things that I saw when I was in there is watching people have to detox, because you'd see new people come in while you're there and then you would also see people leave while you were there. And it was always a very weird vibe in the place because this kind of changeover of people would happen pretty often

and you would always hear stories about someone would mention a name and they're like, yeah, that person's coming back again. Or, you know, unfortunately that person ended up relapsing or OD ING. Unfortunately, there were a lot of those stories,

but I think of all the people that I all the types of detoxing that I saw when people would come in, whether it be, you know, any kind of drug you could think of. Even in the prescription world, alcohol was the worst to watch. Watching someone detox off of alcohol was you felt helpless for them. Just seeing them with the shakes, trying to get the fork to their mouth to eat and you're just like this is over booze the legal thing. This is insanity. It also pump you full of sugar too. That helps with the detoxing. So in the very beginning days, they're just flooding you with like Sour Patch Straws and Skittles and Gatorade. I never understood it in the beginning because they kept asking me if I want this and I'm like, y'all chill. I'm trying to get my **** together and you guys are just treating us like it's Halloween. But I understood. Then I started to understand that would help tremendously with them detox since they're always flooding these people with that stuff and they tried to create the an environment there that was as positive as it could be. I mean it it's hard when you're dealing with a group of addicts, but they did such a great job of really making you feel included. They really cared about when they're having you participate in these classes to tell your story, to really get down and kind of see, you know, what's really causing this, What are you using, you know, this or that to escape from. Let's really get down to that. And that was really huge for me. And and after being in there for a period of time, your your body's able to calm down or you can actually, like I said before, you can actually soak these things in. And I think that was a very important lesson for me to learn when it comes to therapy in general is that

I'll say this, it it when it comes to therapy or or religion, spirituality, if you're not in the place where you can be open enough to receive it, it's not going to work.

And it took me being in that facility for these things to really start to unfold. For me, it taught me a lot about my use of cannabis and and how I used it to escape. I used it as medicine in the beginning, and I had in a positive way, and I started to use it as an escape.

And that was bad. But really it was like, hey, what are you escaping from, Brandon? What? What's the what's the cause of all this? Man,

it's amazing when you realize how much little stressors stack up and create this layer over your body that just builds and builds and builds and it's harder for things to penetrate that those layers. I was there for a total of five and a half, six weeks. It was life changing. It was life saving.

It's a nightmare. One of the things that really helped me so much, and I don't want to offend the story without telling this is you. Every now and then you receive mail, and to those of you that wrote me that knew where I was at, obviously, and took the time to do that, you'll never know

how much that meant to me and still means to me. If you ever know of anybody that's in one of these facilities or in jail or whatever it might be taking the time to write them anything

means so much, especially when you're cut off from so many things. I kind of had the option after a period of time to to make the assessment, to realize that after I think it was six weeks

that I'm at a place where I think that staying here any longer is not really going to benefit me anymore. I think I'm at a place where it's time to go. I think my at that point, my leave for work was kind of ending. There was only so much that they could do, so I didn't have a whole lot of options, but I also felt like I was in a good space at this point. Therapy had been helping, the daily therapy they were doing, the classes, the detoxing off the meds.

I felt good. I felt positive. I felt like I'm ready to take on the world again. And after talking about it with less than talking about it with a therapist, we decided, hey, it's time, it's it's time to to go.

And those last couple of days were just like butterflies. You're just like, Oh my God, it feels like I've been in there for a year, two years, three years. It's so crazy how that sounds and maybe that your people are rolling your eyes to that. But I was so used to my routine, and this was so opposite of that. But packing my stuff was just such a relief. Knowing that I did not have to come back to that place and knowing that I wasn't going to come back to that place. Saying goodbye to everybody was was more difficult than I thought it would be. Because

you're pretty sure that those relationships aren't going to stay. They they don't typically do.

You're just hoping that nobody comes back. You're just really hoping the best for these people because you you really, you really get to know know a lot of them. And I don't want to go into too many of the stories about them. So I'm going to kind of leave it.

I I think it's their stories to tell. But there were some really amazing people in there,

and they were able to have a little Facebook group for members that once you leave, you can kind of keep in touch, find out when they have certain classes. They have these meetings where they'll have people from the outside come back in and tell their entire history, their drug history, all their worst stories. They'll just kind of give the speech. And it was sometimes entertaining for some really great speakers,

but there's also invitations to do that on this Facebook group. So I I I joined it and it it was the first few weeks, it was great. I was still attending some of the the meetings on that group.

You'd kind of just phone in and do them remotely. But yeah, like probably

6-7 weeks after I left on that Facebook group, it popped up that my good buddy Little Brandon that would walk with me every morning had passed away of cardiac arrest and that that hit me so hard for some reason. It was just there was this young kid and this dumb young kid that had just ****** ** you know didn't have a great home life

was in this facility and and just trying to do his best, you know trying to participate in these classes, just wanting to to

get a good job and meet a meet a *** ***** is what he always say. And that was it. Just like that. He's another one of those gravestones in that Chapel out there now. But that was in a really weird way. It was a good reminder of

the fact that you can make a lot of these things better, but they're going to be a part of your life for a very long time and you and you really need to prepare yourself for that. But I kind of skipped over getting out. Leslie coming up and and picking me up was just this feeling. Oh God, it was so amazing when she pulled up and and I just had to walk out there and just hold her knowing that we were going to leave together this time and that things were better. It was so emotional to me. Just getting in the car and just driving off those premises is just like, it was just such a relief just seeing other trees on the way home. I made her pull into DQ. Dairy Queen, got me a Blizzard, knocked that out. That was a great, great foray back into the ****** eating when I was about to partake in

and oh man, the reunion with the kids pulling back into the house. Gosh Dang it, man. I was a mess. But at the same time, it was like this sense of knowing that you did something good this time. You took the time to better yourself. That was it made those hugs a lot better. I'll say that. So yeah, that's that's where I went. That's where episode 11 ended and Brandon began a different kind of journey.

But things don't stop there. Rehab fixed me in a lot of ways. A lot of things went so great after that. I started a new career, which is going fantastic, but this journey isn't without hiccups and I did experience some other things and it led me down some very interesting paths that I really am excited to talk to you guys about. It's a journey that includes self love, salvation, psychedelics, and we're going to talk about that a lot in the upcoming episodes as we kind of continue this journey.

I got away from doing this podcast, but I need it back because sharing is is really what helps me heal. I I have gotten messages from some of you. And I and I thank you guys so much for sending me messages periodically while I was away, You know, wondering where the podcast went or just saying, hey, Brandon, you gonna do another episode? Because that means so much to me because this, this, doing, this helps me out so much. But I'm glad you guys are here listening to it. I really do appreciate it. If you think someone can benefit from it, please feel free to share it because it helps me out as well. But I want to continue to tell my story

and I hope you guys find some value in it. So here's the next few episodes, guys it does pick up from here, does get a lot more positive. I know that was a heavy one to hit you off with, but I felt the need to tell that story. So until next time.