You Don't Have to Live This Way, with Chris Howe

SUMMARY
Chris Howe, a firefighter and co-owner of 12 Mile Tattoo, shares his story of recovery and how he uses his experiences to help others. He emphasizes the importance of vulnerability and connection in healing and highlights the value of lived experience in supporting others. Chris also discusses the challenges he has faced in his firefighting career and his commitment to helping individuals overcome addiction and live meaningful lives. In this part of the conversation, Chris Howe and Kim Rapach discuss the importance of finding hope and support in community. They also delve into the impact of childhood and family dynamics on personal struggles. Chris shares his experience of using music and substance abuse as a means of escape. He reflects on his search for change and reinvention, as well as the power of vulnerability and connection in his recovery journey. The conversation concludes with a discussion on overcoming negative beliefs and embracing a new path. In this conversation, Chris Howe shares his journey of finding community in firefighting, struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction, and seeking validation and acceptance. He opens up about the pressure to hide weakness and the role he played as the party guy. Chris talks about hitting rock bottom and attempting suicide multiple times before finding hope and recovery. He emphasizes the importance of sharing his story and helping others. Chris also discusses his ongoing struggle with mental health and PTSD and the daily practices he engages in to maintain self-acceptance and self-love. He offers a message of hope to those who may be in a dark place.

TAKEAWAYS
-Vulnerability and connection are essential in healing and supporting others.
-Lived experience can be a powerful tool in helping individuals overcome challenges.
-Community and multiple sources of support are crucial in the recovery process.
-Therapy and professional help are valuable, but relatability and shared experiences can provide unique insights and understanding. Finding a supportive community can provide hope and inspiration in times of grief and adversity.
-Childhood experiences and family dynamics can have a profound impact on personal struggles and coping mechanisms.
-Substance abuse and other forms of escape may temporarily alleviate pain, but they do not address the underlying issues.
-Embracing vulnerability and connecting with others who have similar experiences can be transformative in the recovery process.

CONNECT
-Chris Howe
https://www.instagram.com/_chris_howe_/
https://www.instagram.com/authenticadversity/

-Kim Rapach
kimrapach.com
[e-mail]
https://www.instagram.com/kimrapach/

CHAPTERS
00:00
Introduction to Chris Howe
05:40
Technical Difficulties
08:03
Podcast Editing
10:18
The Work of Warriors
12:14
Chris's Background and Ventures
15:08
Chris's Firefighting Career and Mental Health Injury
22:02
The Importance of Relating and Community
27:52
Finding Hope in Community
34:15
The Impact of Childhood and Family
38:14
Escaping Through Music and Substance Abuse
44:28
The Search for Change and Reinvention
53:06
The Power of Vulnerability and Connection
01:01:16
Overcoming Negative Beliefs and Embracing Recovery
01:08:10
Struggles and Realizations in the Journey
01:09:34
Finding Community in Firefighting
01:10:34
Struggling with Alcoholism and Drug Addiction
01:11:59
Seeking Validation and Acceptance
01:13:24
The Pressure to Hide Weakness
01:14:19
Becoming the Party Guy
01:15:16
Living Two Separate Lives
01:16:39
Hitting Rock Bottom and Attempting Suicide
01:19:06
Finding Hope and Recovery
01:23:22
Becoming Teachable and Relating to Others
01:25:16
Sharing His Story and Helping Others
01:29:26
Struggling with Mental Health and PTSD
01:36:09
Taking Care of Himself and Setting Boundaries
01:44:25
Daily Practices for Self-Acceptance and Self-Love
01:51:46
Offering Hope to Those in Darkness

Creators & Guests

Guest

Chris Howe

Chris Howe’s journey toward recovery from addiction began on January 2, 2011. His desire to help others led him to found a residential addiction treatment centre for men in St. Catharines, Ontario. Chris also speaks publicly about addiction and hosts the Authentic Adversity podcast, which focuses on addiction, recovery, and related topics.

What is The Work of Warriors?

A warrior is defined as one who is in conflict and sacrifices themselves for the
good of others. Sadly, in the entertainment industry, and the world of
entrepreneurship, this perspective is dangerous. To stay alive, amidst our
struggles, we must first fight for ourselves and then fight for the masses. My
name is Kim Rapach and I am an integrative coach on a mission to end celebrity
suicide. My life’s work is to help entrepreneurs and entertainers escape the
darkness that often accompanies high levels of success. What an honor it is to
have crucial conversations around entertainment, entrepreneurship, and mental
health. “The Work of Warriors” is a series of brave conversations with talented
entertainers, and entrepreneurs who are not only using their gifts to make the
world a better place, they are modeling mental wellness in ways that inspire
others. For our purpose of bringing healing to the world, a warrior’s task is to take
great care of themselves, so they may take great care of others. The work of a
warrior, for us, is someone who has radical self-acceptance and uses their gifts to
make a profound impact on the world. If we are going to have a positive impact
on the entertainment industry, we need to do THREE things: 1. Normalize candid
conversations around mental health 2. Redefine success so that it aligns with
mental wellness 3. Engage with each other from a place of self-love, and healthy
boundaries When we fight for ourselves, we heal the world. Therefore, the world
needs more people who are willing to fight for themselves. As warriors on the
front lines, it is our greatest hope that these conversations will inspire high
achievers to care well for themselves and ask for help when they need it.
Together, we are all warriors, redefining mental health as mental wellness, and
healing the world, one warrior at a time. SPECIAL NOTE To all entertainers,
without all of you, we have nothing. Sincerely, thank you for your work, for using
your gifts to heal the world. If you are struggling, please reach out to your local
community resources, or call the National Suicide Hotline, 988.

Kim Rapach (00:01.174)
Hello everyone. I'm excited to introduce today's guest, Chris Howe. Chris is a firefighter and a fire chief. And while that may seem a little different than the guests we've had on previously, I was drawn to Chris and his content on Instagram when snippets of his podcast called the Authentic Adversity Podcast, when snippets of that started coming through on my feed,

I was really drawn to his voice, his message, his interview style, and more importantly, most importantly, his vulnerability. Chris is the owner of Lakeside Recovery in Canada, a treatment center. He is a co-owner of

Kim Rapach (01:10.966)
He is the co-owner of 12 Mile Tattoo, a business he co-owns with his talented wife,

Kim Rapach (01:31.822)
Chris is the co-owner of 12 Mile Tattoo with his talented wife and tattoo artist. Be sure to check that out.

Kim Rapach (01:46.162)
And Chris has been sober since 2011 and is using his story to bring hope to others. If you watch his Instagram reels, if you watch his podcast snippets, if you listen to the podcast, you will very clearly hear that Chris is the poster child of a warrior. He is fighting for himself and his life and his health and his wellness.

and he's using his experience to help others. Help me welcome. Don't help me welcome, this isn't live.

I'm excited to hear more about Chris's story. And so I'm excited to introduce to you Chris Howe.

Kim Rapach (02:40.014)
Ahem.

Kim Rapach (03:21.876)
Oh, there you are.

Kim Rapach (03:50.454)
Hey Chris!

Chris Howe (05:40.337)
Hello. How are you?

Kim Rapach (05:41.59)
Hi.

Kim Rapach (05:45.299)
Oh, I can't hear you, hold on.

Do you have this word depending on what program you're on? Let's see, can I try now? Oh, there we go. Yeah, I just want to turn it up a little bit.

Chris Howe (05:53.173)
Do I have the... Yeah, can you hear me?

Chris Howe (05:58.973)
Yeah, sure.

Chris Howe (06:02.953)
Yeah, how's that?

Kim Rapach (06:04.45)
That's better, let's try this. I'm hitting some buttons on my end too, hold on. Oh, here we go.

Kim Rapach (06:14.318)
Try that. No. Oh, that was good. Okay. That's coming through my speakers. There we go. Oh, you do. Okay. Maybe it just took a second.

Chris Howe (06:16.213)
How does this sound now?

I got a, that's a real, so I get a real echo from that. Oh no, wait, it's gone, it's gone. I'm good. Yeah, Riverside's like that, so I use it too. And yeah, sometimes I notice it's like, it lags a little bit.

Kim Rapach (06:38.886)
Yeah, you just have to kind of wait and allow that awkward pause, I think. Accord silent. And so you look really blurry to me right now. And at first, when I first started this, I started to panic, but, um, I realized it comes through just fine on the other end. So.

Chris Howe (06:42.585)
Yeah for sure. For sure. Definitely.

Chris Howe (06:51.105)
Hmm It does yeah, are you recording already I guess right Yeah, I find that As soon as I click record and it does a little countdown then I the guest gets very grainy Yeah, but I just I mean you look fine. Like you look you look good on my end. So Hopefully it corrects itself somewhere in the in the

Kim Rapach (06:58.378)
Yep.

Kim Rapach (07:09.718)
Okay.

Kim Rapach (07:16.18)
Okay.

Kim Rapach (07:19.87)
It always does. It's, it's like, you have to leave it open, um, until it finishes downloading. And then when it comes through, it's like, wow, you can't even tell. The first few that I did where that happened, I was, you can kind of tell. I was like, uh, I don't know if this is going to work. I'm just going to let them keep talking. And then it came through just fine. So it's just a riverside thing. Hopefully they, you know, they fix it, but whatever it takes to get it done.

Chris Howe (07:21.269)
Yeah.

Chris Howe (07:29.115)
Yeah, for sure.

Chris Howe (07:37.794)
Yeah. Yep.

Chris Howe (07:43.409)
It would be great because I recorded one, I recorded an episode yesterday with a girl in California and I could barely see her like it was lagging. It was like I, she was cutting in and out and I was like, Oh my God, is this going to be a wash? Like, do I have to do this over again? And I don't know if it was her, her wifi or whatever. And then I played it back and it's seamless and it looks great. So it's really weird. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (07:59.79)
Ahem.

Kim Rapach (08:03.37)
Yeah. Right. And I love how you can just edit everything out. So.

Chris Howe (08:09.669)
Yeah, I don't even I need to learn how to do that. I don't do my own editing. I just I send it off to somebody because I feel like a dinosaur with technology. So but it's something that's on my list of things to learn because I cost me a lot of money to get people to do that. And if I could be doing it myself, because I don't make any money from the podcast. So.

Kim Rapach (08:13.6)
Okay.

Kim Rapach (08:20.95)
Gotcha.

Kim Rapach (08:28.798)
Really? Well, that's what I'm doing too. I'm not making any money. This is fun. This is a way to spread hope, but I'm not, you know, I'm a coach too, but also I just don't feel like I'm in a place where I want to invest that because it's brand new. How many episodes do you have?

Chris Howe (08:38.804)
Yeah.

Chris Howe (08:49.097)
Mm-hmm.

I have, um, 26 maybe?

Kim Rapach (08:56.83)
Okay, so you're on a good role.

Chris Howe (09:00.133)
I have like 50 in like saved I have 50 done but I don't they're just not out yet. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (09:07.551)
Right, right. The editing is pretty user friendly for new podcasters, I feel like, but in all fairness, I do have, and my camera does that, it clicks off and on, it's just what it is, I need a new one. But I have an 18 year old son who is an editor, he's a filmmaker and an editor, so he came in and showed me, and just showed me how to do it, and how to cut them and splice them, and it just took some practice, but they have some really great

Chris Howe (09:19.216)
Yeah.

Chris Howe (09:24.742)
Oh, sweet.

Chris Howe (09:29.423)
Uhhh...

Yeah.

Kim Rapach (09:35.766)
tutorials in Riverside, so.

Chris Howe (09:37.577)
Yeah, I should take the time. And by the time I actually take the time to do that, my 10 year old son will be that 18 year old that can fill me in. So.

Kim Rapach (09:48.686)
He's probably already able to show you now. They're so dead savvy. Yeah, it's like, oh, here, I'll figure this out. Well, okay, welcome, Chris. I'm so excited. Welcome to the work of warriors. I'm not sure how much you know about the work of warriors, but essentially I am on a mission to end celebrity suicide. A question I get a lot is why celebrities? And it's...

Chris Howe (09:52.146)
I would not be surprised. He could figure it out for sure for sure.

Chris Howe (10:02.522)
Yeah, thanks, I appreciate it.

Chris Howe (10:12.914)
Okay.

Chris Howe (10:16.978)
Yep.

Kim Rapach (10:18.614)
for a couple reasons. One, it's the biggest platform. Anybody who is in front of us on a screen, and we say entertainment industry, but really I think that applies to social media, TikTok, even Instagram. We're consuming from, whether we consider ourselves influencers or not, I know you and I do not consider ourselves influencers. I know, but we are put, it is.

Chris Howe (10:21.971)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (10:39.513)
I hate that term. Yeah. It's so pompous. It seems like such an arrogant thing to call yourself. Like I have influence over the world, you know?

Kim Rapach (10:48.714)
Right, right. I feel like I just want to bring hope, right? And so, but I also recognize that when anybody is in front, you know, when we're on a screen, when we're putting ourselves out there, it's, you know, we are hoping to have a positive impact. And so that's really the reason why the industry, plus I have a lot of personal experience in the industry, I have a lot of friends, I have some heartache.

Chris Howe (10:59.678)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (11:14.101)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (11:16.338)
And so out of that pain has come this mission, but also I think there's a false narrative that if we have a bunch of followers, if we're on the big screen or the big stage or winning awards, that is the key to happiness. And you know as well as I do, not even being in the industry, that's not the answer. And so there's many reasons for that. And when your content, the snippets from your podcast came across my feed,

Chris Howe (11:23.412)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (11:35.241)
for sure.

Chris Howe (11:45.502)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (11:47.495)
I was drawn to your voice, and I was drawn to your interview style, and then your story, and just how vulnerable. I think that's the most important piece, and the thing I was drawn to the most was your willingness to share your story, to be vulnerable. You got this cool look, this cool vibe, and also this amazing story and this gift of vulnerability that I think draws people in.

Chris Howe (11:49.294)
Oh, thank you.

Chris Howe (11:53.15)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (12:00.811)
Ahem.

Chris Howe (12:08.266)
Hehehe

Kim Rapach (12:14.902)
you know, everyone can benefit from. And also I think there's a strong message for men, given the conditioning that we put men through of the exterior that they have to have and you know, how they're supposed to present to the world. And I just, I felt like I was just drawn to how you bring your story forward. So I'm really grateful that you're, you know, just willing to sit down and chat today and share a bit of your story. I'm wondering if you would just kind of start with, you know,

Chris Howe (12:27.017)
Definitely, yeah.

Chris Howe (12:41.269)
Yeah, for sure.

Kim Rapach (12:45.25)
just a bit of who you are and what you have going on. I know you have, you know, you're co-owning a tattoo shop with your talented wife. I looked at her work and she's amazing. So yeah, it was like, sure. Her art is, I was telling my husband, like it's like these beautiful, like anywhere from like, what would seem almost like familiar cartoons all the way to these elaborate, full detailed, you know.

Chris Howe (12:53.217)
Mm-hmm. She's insane. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Howe (13:10.462)
Yeah.

Kim Rapach (13:13.574)
I mean, I don't know how much people are creating, but I was looking and just taking it all in and she's very talented, so.

Chris Howe (13:18.469)
She's insanely talented. I so that's yeah, that's one of the things I do. So I own it's called 12 mile tattoo with her. And like one of my favorite pastimes is just to lay on the couch and watch her design tattoos, because watching an artist mind work is something that because I don't have one. I don't think like that. And so to watch it go from her head out through a pen or pencil and.

And then the next day, see it tattooed on somebody's skin with these bright, vibrant colors. And it's just, it's phenomenal. And she's the most talented woman I've met on so many levels. So it's a pleasure to watch her work. It's a pleasure to share my life with her. And we've got her son, my stepson, he's just been a blessing for.

For me, for sure. But that's one of the things I do. I also own a men's addiction treatment facility. It's called Lakeside Recovery, and we do recovery from addictions of all sorts. So it doesn't matter. It could be gambling, it could be sex, it could be social media, drugs, alcohol, whatever. But we cover it all.

One of the big things that we do with Lakeside is we incorporate a lot of physical fitness. We do combat sports, we do yoga, mindfulness, meditation. We've got a ton of professionals that come in and help the guys. And it's been, I mean, for me, that's where my passion lies in helping others overcome addiction and move forward in a meaningful and purposeful life.

And then, and then, so the last thing I'll mention is my full-time job. And, um, I'm a captain with the city of Niagara Falls, uh, fire department. Um, currently I'm not working. Um, I'm eight years away from retirement. Um, I'm not working because of a mental health injury, a PTSD claim that, um, that has really shifted my life. Um, and.

Chris Howe (15:37.541)
I'm not gonna say that I'm never gonna go back to work. I don't know what that looks like as far as treatment in the future. I've been off for a few years now and I have been to inpatient treatment, outpatient treatment. I currently work with a psychologist weekly. I've done a ton of different programs and I'm constantly, for me, because I'm in recovery from addictions and then 10 years later I got diagnosed with this PTSD.

um, and, and severe end of the scale for PTSD as well. I, um, I'm, I'm a little bit obsessive about learning about recovery and recovery from anything, right? Recovery from an injury, recovery from mental health injury cover from, uh, addiction, any of that stuff. Um, I see it as, um, so, so multifaceted. Like I think all of us are, uh, we have addictive tendencies and some of us.

Put those tendencies in even certain things that are positive. They could be positive things, but we do it as we do it almost addictively and It brings us negative results. And so I've really I do everything I can to Keep current and updated and you know for my own recovery, but as well to share with the guys at Lakeside recovery because

Experiential learning is, in my opinion, the best learning when it comes to this sort of thing, right? So I've been through a lot. And if I can save someone else a little bit of heartache or heartbreak, if I can make it possible for somebody to not have to go to a lower rock bottom than they're already at, then that's my mission in life, right? Like I want, and I can do that through my experience and imparting the knowledge that I've gained through

you know, 13 years of addiction recovery. Excuse me. I can pull on examples, real life stuff. And you know, that to me, there's no better feeling to me than to help another human being overcome adversity or a challenge in life and watch them thrive in the recovery from that and also be a part of their recovery, right? One of the things with the fire department, and I say this,

Chris Howe (18:05.605)
to people when they ask, like, you know, why don't, why don't, because I don't love my job as a firefighter. I never really loved it. I mean, it's a great job, and it's a super meaningful, purposeful job, but I never had the drive that some people that I work with have. I was good at it, but what I didn't like about it is that you would go, so there's a problem, we go to the problem, we fix the problem.

and we close the door and we never see from those people, we never see or hear from those people again. And I'm always left with this lingering question of like, I wonder how they're doing, I wonder how that turned out. But with addiction recovery, I get to be a part of somebody's life and I get to like walk through these processes with them. And really, I mean, I learn a lot from somebody that I help as well, right? So it's very interactive and very, I stay.

emotionally connected with people that way. And that's what I crave in my life is emotional connection. So sorry, that was a long answer.

Kim Rapach (19:07.57)
Yeah, that's what was, no, it was a beautiful answer. And I have so many thoughts and questions. I think I'll probably go a little backwards. But when you were talking about the follow through and wondering what happened to those people, that was the word that came forward, right, was connection. And I do think that is one thing that most humans have in common is that we crave authentic connection. And so that makes perfect sense to me.

Chris Howe (19:23.947)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Chris Howe (19:33.162)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (19:36.054)
Um, but what I was thinking about Chris is, um, when you were talking about, you know, um, wanting to help people wanting to help them not hit a lower level, um, you know, I used to be a therapist and reinvented myself as a coach for similar reasons, wanting, you know, really to have an impact with people who are willing to do that work.

Chris Howe (19:52.105)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (19:57.031)
Okay?

Kim Rapach (20:03.638)
you know, and you were talking about being in recovery. And I think anybody who's studying or doing any kind of self awareness work, healing work, I think we're all in recovery from something. And so I share that it's not, there's those people in recovery. It's like, if you're human, you're likely recovering from something. You may or may not be ready to look at it, but we're all recovering from something. And it's part of this podcast is to normalize that human experience.

Chris Howe (20:03.84)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (20:15.581)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Chris Howe (20:23.893)
For sure.

Chris Howe (20:33.568)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (20:34.994)
Um, and so thank you, you know, just for, for B, you know, for saying that, because I feel like we're really in alignment with that. And then to take that to kind of a different level, when you came across my feed, I heard someone who sounded like a professional in the mental health industry. And so I was like, who, who is this person? You know, who's Chris? And when I started to realize like, Oh, this isn't someone who is

Chris Howe (20:41.281)
for sure.

Chris Howe (20:56.114)
Okay.

Chris Howe (21:00.699)
Oh, thank you.

Kim Rapach (21:04.386)
trained as in a professional stance, but clearly is doing so much work. It's so obvious. And I really do believe that we as humans can help each other heal. I don't think it only comes from therapists. I think it comes from people who have come out of the darkness, who are willing to help other people via their own lived, like you said, your lived experience.

Chris Howe (21:13.578)
Thank you.

Chris Howe (21:26.068)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (21:33.438)
And that's really powerful. And I hope people can hear that. Therapy gets a lot of still in 2023, it will be 2024 when this is released, but in 2024 therapy still gets a bad rap. And there are great therapists and there are also not great therapists. And so I think if we can connect as humans based on our lived experiences and we can say, yeah, I've been there too, or me too, or here's what worked for me.

Chris Howe (21:37.194)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (21:44.007)
Right.

Chris Howe (21:47.655)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (22:02.498)
Here's my hand, let me, you know, I'll just sit with you. Sometimes just being with someone and listening to them without judgment is the most healing thing we can offer somebody. And it doesn't take a degree.

Chris Howe (22:02.709)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (22:13.153)
100%. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And something that I found out about my recovery or how I really, how I learned and how I did not learn. So I just to for context, I was introduced to the rooms of recovery at 22 years old. I bounced in and out of those rooms for about 10 years. Really relapsing, you know, and trying again, relapse, try again, relapse, try again.

When I went into those rooms, I always looked at people with judgment and I compared myself. And I didn't understand, well, why am I not getting it? Why do they have this lasting sobriety? And I can't do it. I can't do it. And when I finally, at 32 years old, when I was finally, I'll say when I was finally ready to accept recovery, I realized that I needed to relate to people, not to compare.

and I needed connection with people, not judgment. And what I really needed was open, honest willingness to say, I have a problem, and I need you to show me how to live. And because that person who I would ask, or any of the people in the room who had more time in recovery or more experience in recovery than me, because they had...

walked the same path as me and walked through it and now we're on the other side living this happy meaningful spiritual life I thought well that that's the person I want to listen to because they've jumped the same hurdles that I've had to jump and they have they have jumped successfully the hurdles that I will have to jump in early recovery and moving forward and I guess that's the sponsor type of

type of role, right? Like we look to people who have successfully walked that path and we want to hang out with the winners, right? We want to hang out with the people who have something that we look at and we say, I want a piece of that. I want a piece of that freedom and happiness that they have. And so connection and community are two of the biggest things. If you don't have those things, if I don't have those things, I should say, I don't have recovery.

Kim Rapach (24:36.791)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (24:38.409)
I don't, I'm on thin ice if I don't have those two things. And so, yeah, and I will say this, like I saw therapists, I used my employee assistance program at work, I saw, sorry, I saw, yes, I saw therapists, psychotherapists, psychologists, whoever I could talk to and,

Kim Rapach (24:41.902)
Thanks for watching!

Chris Howe (25:08.293)
And that was wonderful. But lingering in the back of my mind, I always thought, does this person really know where I've been? Does this person really know the path that I've walked? I know that they've learned it from a book. And I can appreciate that. And I know there's a lot to be learned. And educating somebody in therapy is amazing. But there has to be a piece of lived experience that they can tie into it. Because...

Kim Rapach (25:21.914)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (25:38.021)
I know when I work with somebody, the most engagement I can find with a person is when I can relate a story, when they're telling me about a problem they have and I say, listen, this is what happened to me. It's not the same problem, but it's very similar. This is what happened to me. This is the steps that I was given by somebody who had walked this path before to overcome this problem and do it in a tactful and morally sound way.

Kim Rapach (26:07.15)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (26:08.025)
and to stay in alignment with my values. And this is the result. And so when I say that to somebody that's dealing with a problem, well, they perk up because they think, I'm assuming they think, he's been there, he's done this, he's, you know. And so with a therapist, if they haven't, you know, and oftentimes I believe that therapists can't really bring in their own examples. So there is that like, that professional

line, sort of imaginary line that's drawn. So that piece is somewhat missing in the therapist-client relationship. So I think that having a therapist, a sponsor, or not even, it doesn't need to be a sponsor, but a mentor in life. Somebody that's just living a healthy, meaningful life that you look at and say, this is what I aspire to be. He's got, or she's got, what I want in life. So let me walk beside this person, and eventually we're gonna

Or sorry, it would be let me walk behind this person and eventually we're gonna be walking beside each other. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (27:12.018)
Right. Sure. I love that so much. And I love what you said, like that imaginary line, like in the therapy office between the therapist and the client, because while it's built for protection for both parties, it does create a bit of a division and a bit of a hierarchy. And, and, and us and them, it's, it's me and you instead of us. And so I, you know, and it again, it be very beneficial.

Chris Howe (27:19.968)
Yeah.

Chris Howe (27:23.605)
for sure.

Chris Howe (27:28.213)
Definitely.

Kim Rapach (27:37.186)
But I think also having, like you said, community, having multiple people, having more than one person, having whatever it takes for you to be well, you are worth. I don't care if it takes a team of 10 people. If that's what it takes, that's what you're worth. There's no judgment. When you were talking about being able to look at someone else in the recovery process, it also reminded me, while I'm not in that specific process, I remember

Chris Howe (27:47.146)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (27:52.03)
And that's great. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (28:07.158)
Ironically, it was 2011. That's your sobriety year, right? That was the year that my dad passed. Even though he had been sick and I knew it was coming, it annihilated me. I remember the only thing that kept me going. I had a child, I had a wonderful husband, but I just thought it was going to take me out. I didn't know how I was going to survive that depth of grief. It was people who had lost their dads that I looked around, and I saw them playing with their kids.

Chris Howe (28:11.537)
Yes it is, yeah.

Mm.

Chris Howe (28:19.847)
Yeah

Chris Howe (28:33.425)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (28:36.646)
smiling and, you know, living and I was like, okay, it can be done. I don't know how, but they were in those darkest moments, they were the example of hope. And I think, again, no matter what we're wrestling with, that's what we need. We need to be with other people who've walked just a few steps ahead. And as an example of there is hope, there is emotional freedom, there is joy, you know, there is

Chris Howe (28:47.489)
for sure.

Chris Howe (28:57.694)
Yeah.

Chris Howe (29:04.513)
for sure.

Kim Rapach (29:05.366)
beauty on the other side of this really dark space.

Chris Howe (29:08.153)
I love that. Yeah, I love that. And I, I couldn't have said it any better. I really think there is a community for everybody. It doesn't it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be, you know, yes, okay, I belong to recovery communities and stuff. But yeah, there's grief community, excuse me, communities and meetings, there's meetings for like, which whatever.

issue or ailment that somebody may have, there's a community for that person. And that's exactly what it is. It's to look around and gather pieces of hope, looking at people that are further along in the process that can assure you and reassure you that it's not always going to hurt this much. It's not always going to be this bad. There is life after whichever, you know, whatever, insert the issue.

There is life after this and it can be really a beautiful process to go through that with other people, with a community. You get friends that are connected with you on a level like none other because anybody that's gone through adversity in life with another person or a group

Kim Rapach (30:20.087)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (30:27.861)
forms a bond and it's you're not trying but it just happens there's a bond that you form and it just cannot be broken you've been through you've been through some either scary dark or difficult times sometimes all of those things but when you've done that as a group as a community with help from another person that you that you know I think for me knowing

I can't do this on my own. I need community. And when you've been through that, it's just like these people are your friends for life. No matter how much time passes, no matter how much distance geographically there is between you, you're just connected. And I love that. That's something that, it just makes me so happy. And I, even with, you know, talking to other people, like I've had podcast guests on my podcast that, you know, they...

they tell their story to me and I feel like I've lived through it with them. And we connect on an emotional level and we stay friends. There's so many people that I get to go and now I've got a destination. Go and visit so and so who's been a guest on the podcast. And you really do. You form bonds through talking about these things openly and honestly and not being...

Kim Rapach (31:27.385)
Hmm.

Chris Howe (31:50.407)
afraid of being judged by others, right?

Kim Rapach (31:53.158)
Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, normalize the conversation. And I think, you know, it is so terrifying when you are wrestling with whatever level of darkness, whether it's, you know, addiction or suicidal ideation, or grief, whatever it is, betrayal. It's terrifying when you look out and you see people who you know, don't understand, it's lonely. And so

Chris Howe (31:57.714)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (32:13.246)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (32:19.241)
Right. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (32:22.09)
you know, the antidote to that is community, is people who've walked a few steps ahead of you. And it is, it's medicine, I think. I feel like it's healing, where you can sit with someone who you don't have to over explain to, you don't have to go through all the details with if you don't want to. And if you want to, someone won't judge you. And I think that's so powerful. And the other thing, Chris, too, is I think what I love that we're talking about is,

Chris Howe (32:31.285)
for sure.

Chris Howe (32:42.364)
Yeah.

Kim Rapach (32:50.282)
You know, when you back when you said there's a community for everything, no matter what you're wrestling with. And I just think it's so important, can we normalize the conversation that you're human and you're alive. And to be here to love to live our life is also going to involve suffering. And I would I just I long for the day where there's no longer an us and them. Right? There's not

Chris Howe (32:54.889)
Yes.

Chris Howe (33:08.095)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (33:15.36)
Right.

Kim Rapach (33:16.662)
And this is honestly one of my, you know, personal and professional reasons for, um, leaving the traditional medical model of therapy, because I don't believe that there's those people with mental health issues and those people without, I think we all have mental health and just like with our physical health, we have varying degrees of where our strengths and our weaknesses are, and I think they're, you know, obviously very closely tied to our life experience.

Chris Howe (33:25.514)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (33:38.729)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (33:46.646)
But as with physical health, there are so many things we can do to build upon our wellness. And so I focus on mental wellness. I certainly, you know, I still think mental illness exists, but I think it's a false, a far smaller percentage than what we are currently in belief of, if that makes sense. I don't think I'm wording that right. But I think all of us have, I just think wellness is available for us.

Chris Howe (34:06.695)
Yeah.

Chris Howe (34:10.805)
I think I know what you mean. Yeah.

Chris Howe (34:15.757)
Mm-hmm. Well, I, sorry. No, I was.

Kim Rapach (34:16.702)
And we have to go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just going to say wellness is available, but we have to fight for ourselves. Um, and so then I was just going to say, I would love to hear, you know, a bit of your story and where you've come from and how you learn to fight for yourself.

Chris Howe (34:32.213)
For sure. Yeah, definitely. So I grew up, I'm from just outside of Toronto up in Ontario, Canada. I grew up in a household that was very cold. It was judgmental. My mom suffered with her mental health that was, and so she is somebody that never would, never was willing to look at the problem.

highly, highly intelligent woman. Like, but, so she thinks, she's always said, she's always thought she knows better. And it's done nothing but harm her and everybody around her. So in my childhood, I was scared of my mom. There was a lot of emotional and verbal abuse and you know, sometimes physical abuse as well.

My dad was a business guy. He was kind of coming and going. He had his own stuff as well. So I didn't really feel like I had a very stable household as a child and both parents were working. They were busy and they were young parents. So something I always say, I was taught as a, because there was a lot of stuff going on behind closed doors that was...

quite embarrassing and stuff that my family didn't want our neighbors to know about or anybody. This message has always been driven home to me that what happens behind closed doors stays behind closed doors. You don't talk about it. Suck it up. Be a man. Walk it off. Whatever. This is life. Life's not easy. It's hard.

Chris Howe (36:21.009)
I wasn't necessarily a hard kid. I was an emotional kid. And so I didn't know how to let that emotion out. I didn't know where it was safe to talk about the things that I wanted to talk about or needed to talk about. So from an early age, I just learned that, you hide your feelings and you make it look good on the exterior. My mom cared about grades. She wanted me to do well. Like I said, she was a...

You know, she was a highly intelligent woman. She had a great job working for the government. And she wanted my brother and I to excel in school the way she did. She didn't care for us. You know, she didn't care that we had a social life or not. She didn't care if we were accepted by our peers or anything like that. It was more about, you know, what's the grade. And when you didn't make the grade, there was consequences. There was issues.

I remember going to my friend's houses and so like for me, I would, when I would encounter my mom, she might be a loving, caring mother one minute and then if I went to use the bathroom and came back, she was the complete opposite to me. Like I didn't know which version of my mom I was going to get at any given time. And she tried her best. I know she did. I know she's not a bad person. She just has a lot of stuff that's gone unchecked for her.

Um, I felt like, I felt like it was a very cold household where I was always walking on eggshells. And so when I'd go to other people's houses, I'd feel this warmth and this cohesive family unit that I couldn't figure out, like, what is this feeling that I get here? What is this? Like, I don't understand. And it was love that I was feeling was connection that I was feeling. I'd hear people talking about like, you know, how was school? What was your day? Like, how did that feel? And these kinds of things. And I never wanted to go home. I was just very like,

This is, this feels nice. I just don't, and I don't, I can't label it. I don't know what that is, but whatever it is in this household just feels right. I want to stay here. And then I go home and it'd be, again, the atmosphere that I was used to. So moving through school and that sort of thing, I couldn't really bring friends to my house because I was scared and nervous about what my mom might do or how she might act. And

Chris Howe (38:41.673)
But again, I kept it all inside. I made it look good to everybody else that we were a happy family and never brought up any concerns with anybody. When I was seven years old, I had an experience with a female caregiver and I was sort of, I guess coerced to be involved in some sexual acts that I shouldn't have been.

And I didn't know at seven years old, I didn't know what that meant. I really felt like at that time, my childhood was sort of like stolen from me. And I couldn't make sense of it. But then again, by this caregiver, I was told, she said, this is our little secret. You don't talk about this. This is between us. And so again, there's that narrative of like, don't talk about your feelings, keep it in. This is a secret. This is special between us.

you know, it's really disturbing to think about, but it happens so much, right? And especially, you know, a lot of men don't really talk about that. But it happens to a lot of us. So moving through, you know, as I said, I was very anxious, I was very, I had dark thoughts and I had very negative, depressive sort of like bouts where I just,

didn't want to, I didn't feel I belonged anywhere. I wanted, I lived in my imagination. I found like music, like I found punk rock music when I was, you know, probably eight years old and eight or nine years old, my older cousin was hanging out with a bunch of skinheads and punks and that sort of thing. And she, she would come and watch us and play us music. And I was like, I felt, that's where I felt like I could escape. I felt like I had an escape in music and in that sort of culture, because

There was no judgment and it was like, kind of this like, in your face, I don't care what you think, you know, judge me if you want. And I liked it. It was energetic, it was dangerous. It was like, there was something there for me that I could really hold onto and I'd lose myself in the music. That's what it was, yeah, for sure, for sure. And I found in like a lot of the music, they were screaming what I couldn't say myself.

Kim Rapach (40:54.163)
It sounds like really strong armor.

Chris Howe (41:06.897)
you know, and I found like that's my voice. Like these be these singers are saying what I am feeling. And yeah, it was, it was something to hide behind. It was my little escape. I'd lose myself in my imagination with music. And you know, if I fast forward to the first time I, you know, the first time I drank, I was about 13 years old. And I always mention this, because the first time I drank,

blackout drunk. I tried it. I liked it. With every drink that I had, I felt my emotions that I was holding just washing away. You know, I felt like I was my anxieties, my fears, my guilt, my shame, my remorse, all of these things they were just washed away with every drink and I didn't feel like I was harboring any feelings. It was just like everything felt light, everything felt easy. It was my escape. It was a much more

tangible escape to me than music was because I felt like my body was not in reality and I hated my reality So I got blackout drunk the first drunk the first time I drank and I've never known how to drink differently I've always drank to excess. I've never so I've always drank alcoholically and I've always drank for an escape I never I didn't drink because I like I like the taste of it I drank because I wanted to escape what I was going through at the time

and I wanted the effect. And something that I noticed, and which I didn't have in my life at that time, was that the next day I woke up, big chunk of my night was missing for me. And I had people laughing and joking and telling stories, and you were so funny last night, I couldn't believe you said this and did this, and I said, oh, it doesn't sound like me, but you know what it sounded like? The make-believe version of me that I wanted the world to see. And people...

Kim Rapach (43:02.512)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (43:05.173)
people liked it and said, come back to the party. They were older kids, right? Come back to a party next weekend. And so I did that. And eventually, drugs would come into the picture. And the same thing that I got from alcohol, I got from drugs. And people, it was just groups of people were accepting me for the way I was when I was under the influence. And that brought me community, connection, all those things that we talked about earlier.

it checked those boxes for me where they otherwise weren't checked when I was sober. So my high school days, like my Monday to Friday, I was just daydreaming about what kind of trouble we can get into on the weekend. I started playing in bands and stuff like that for free drinks. We always had free drinks, free drugs, free...

You know, it was exciting, it was fun, and it supported our habits. I found that as time went on, it wasn't a Monday to Friday where I was daydreaming about it. I was like, Monday, Tuesday, I was daydreaming about Friday, but then I made Wednesday my new Friday. And so I was picking up the frequency and the amount that I was ingesting of both drugs and alcohol.

You know, I did some things in high school where I tried geographical cures. Like I tried to move to another, actually, country. Dropped out of high school for a semester, moved somewhere, and realized that's not, you know, I took myself with me. I took all my problems with me. I can't outrun this addiction. And that was at 17 years old. And I knew that I had...

I knew that I had an addiction. I couldn't say it out loud, but I knew to myself. I'm an addict, I'm an alcoholic, I have a problem. I don't drink like normal people. I am a problem drinker, I'm a problem user.

Kim Rapach (45:16.03)
And you were 17.

Chris Howe (45:17.837)
Yeah, yeah, I was 17. And yeah, so I came back home. I tried, you know, I was, for me, by the time I was 18 or 19, I became an IV drug user. I was, there was something about that that, I don't know, it seems romantic to me, it seemed at the beginning, right? It was.

It was a different group of people. It was exciting. It was new. It was a little more dangerous. And constantly searching for those things. But in the time that, you know, as I was doing that, I noticed that people, like all the people that at one point were excited to see me at the party. And, you know, I was invited to everything. I wasn't really getting invited to things. I'd show up and people kind of rolled their eyes. And it was, to me, I felt the disconnect.

Kim Rapach (46:06.016)
Mm.

Chris Howe (46:11.357)
And so I would find different groups of friends where that was acceptable. And, you know, I'd make up a reason why I, you know, I don't hang out with these people anymore because they're, you know, whatever it is, they're, they're boring. They're this, they're that. Um, but really they didn't want to be, they didn't want to have anything to do with me and I don't blame them. Um, uh, I, again, after high school, I moved around a whole bunch, moved down to the Caribbean. I moved to Toronto, um, like into like downtown to the city. Um, just trying to.

I was trying to re-situate myself and think, okay, here's my reset. I'm gonna reset. I can be Chris, just Chris. I don't have to be Chris the alcoholic, Chris the addict or Chris the problem. I could just be Chris. And I'd go somewhere and I had that opportunity to be Chris, but I didn't do anything about my problems. I didn't address any of my addictions. And I didn't even know that was possible. I didn't know it was actually possible to...

fix these things. I thought just, you know, if I go to this new place, nobody will know my past, nobody will know my story. I can just reinvent myself. And, you know, I might work for a week or two and then eventually, okay, well, I'm back to my old, you know, my old self because yeah, I hadn't done any work on myself. I was expecting a change of scenery to fix all my problems. And like, how naive is that, right?

But that's what you do when you're desperate for change and you're not willing to ask for help because again, you're told, and I'm still this narrative in my head of like, don't share your feelings and especially at that time, I'll say I've always been, I've been smaller. I was smaller than a lot of the kids my own age, but I did hang out with a lot of older people. So I always felt exceptionally smaller.

And I felt that I had to act crazy, I had to look crazy, I had to do certain things to create this bigger version of myself and what that was trying to, and this is like, I mean a problem that.

Chris Howe (48:25.941)
Men have

Chris Howe (48:55.705)
Our idea of masculinity is so warped that we're, especially at a young age, we're almost taught and we think that we need to be so disconnected with ourselves that it's very dangerous. It brings us a lot of problems and a lot of pain and suffering and heartache and heartbreak in that.

Kim Rapach (49:23.938)
Can I just say thank you for saying that? Thank you so much for addressing that. You know, as a human, as a wife, as the mother of a son, you know, I'm very, very passionate and very in alignment because even when you were talking about your mom and you learned in your family of origin that it wasn't safe to talk about your feelings, my thought was, and you've got society affirming that every direction that you turn. And so it's embodied.

Chris Howe (49:27.33)
Oh of course.

Chris Howe (49:51.105)
for sure. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (49:53.73)
this vulnerability is weakness. And also I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, but my thoughts, you know, I've just studied this, but you know, my perspective is it's, you said it's dangerous. It's dangerous to condition boys and men this way. And also I think men and boys learn that if you don't do all those things hard and tough and strong and, you know, disconnected from your true self, it literally is dangerous.

There are many men who learned very quickly. If I don't take on this persona, I'm gonna get my ass kicked.

Chris Howe (50:32.602)
Mm-hmm. Or that mask of sort of masculinity drives them to the point of, you know, doing, taking, you know, taking themself off the planet because they don't they don't feel they, you know, they can they measure up to the expectation and that sort of thing. Right. And to me, I mean, OK, so. I like the idea of

Kim Rapach (50:47.894)
Yeah.

Chris Howe (51:01.701)
not just men, but anybody having strength. I think that we should all be strong, but strength doesn't look the way my father and grandfather and, you know, it doesn't look, it's a different picture of strength. And strength comes, for me, my strength comes from vulnerability, openness, honesty, no fear of judgment.

Being able to tell someone, being able to share my emotions, whether they're good, bad, or indifferent, but being able to name those emotions and talk about them instead of somebody saying, hey, how you doing? And I say, good, fine. Today I'm exhausted. I'm happy. You don't even mean I'm grateful today. There's things that, there's language that I can use today that I think is a lot stronger.

than this stoic, and there's nothing wrong with stoicism, but real stoicism, right? But this stoic, I've got something to say, but I can't get it from my brain out my mouth because I'm too worried about what you think, and I'm too worried about being perceived as weak. And in my recovery, and I'll get there, but in my recovery, I've found...

Kim Rapach (52:03.022)
Sure. Right. Amen.

Chris Howe (52:27.833)
My biggest strength, my greatest strength is my vulnerability, is my willingness to share with another human being all my pitfalls, my wins, my losses, my, you know, whatever it is. Humanity, yeah. And so, and-

Kim Rapach (52:42.89)
your humanity. Yeah. I got a little I got a little misty there for a second. It was just I really felt that it was like what you're saying is so powerful. And I just I don't want to miss saying that this is feels probably pretty natural at this point for you. And it's what you know, because you know what you know what you know. But it's also very powerful. And

Chris Howe (52:50.722)
Oh, perfect.

Chris Howe (53:06.258)
Yes.

Kim Rapach (53:10.594)
message we all need to hear. And it's this is where the power is because it's changing lives, it's adding value, it's adding safety, it's adding security, it's adding connection to a world where it's really freaking hard to be human. So again, I just want to say thank you.

Chris Howe (53:20.586)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (53:27.597)
Well, for sure. And I appreciate that. And I think what it boils down to is people being able to be comfortable in their own skin, whatever that may look like. And, you know, when I was in my early 20s and still in active addiction, I guess I could tie this back into the story a little bit. You know, I was getting covered in tattoos. I was doing steroids. I was like I was doing everything I could to make myself look.

this is the wrong word, but like more manly or more or more like scarier, bigger, tougher. And I wasn't that I wasn't those things. I was in my own right, I guess. But I wasn't I was trying to all I cared about was your perception of me. I didn't even care about my perception of me because I really didn't like myself very much the way I was. And I did a lot of damage to my body that way. And I probably.

you know, as far as like the tattoos, I always thought, I mean, I thought it was a great expression of art, but also I wanted it to be something where somebody looked at me and said, okay, do I really wanna talk to this guy? Is this guy gonna, is there gonna be an issue here? Because back then, like I grew up in the 80s and 90s and it wasn't as common, like you can't go, it wasn't like you go to Starbucks and you see tattoos all over somebody's hands and neck the way you do today, right?

It wasn't accepted the way it was. And my grandfather had a ton of tattoos. He was a Navy guy in World War II. And I just, he was kind of the guy that I looked at. He was that toxic male figure that I looked at as like, that's a real man. You know, he's hard, he fights, he drinks, he was abusive, he was like all these terrible things. But in my eyes, that was the...

That was the version, that was a picture of a man. You know, he was like a, yeah, I don't know. Like he liked, he was always on horses. He was like a cowboy type of guy. Like he, there was all these legends of him fighting and all these things. And I wanted, I thought that's what I have to look like. That's what I have to, that's what I have to be to, that's what a man looks like, you know? And he wasn't a, this, mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (55:48.054)
All along that way, I feel like that, you know, if that's what that looks like, and that's what I have to make myself that in itself in its own right, reinforces this, I'm not worthy. I'm not enough.

Chris Howe (56:00.113)
Yeah, well, and that is my, I guess you could call it my core negative value or my core negative thought that I've had my entire life. And that's something that I work on still today is that unworthiness. I'm not worthy, I'm not enough, and I'm not enough for whoever's in front of me at the time. that negative core Belief that I that I carried through life was that yeah, I wasn't I was I wasn't worthy and I wasn't enough and For me that's Kind of that's bitten me a lot in relationships. It's it's hurt me in Professionally

with what I did for work or do for work. But mainly what it's done, or what it really drove was my...

Chris Howe (01:02:24.173)
my need and want to just like disappear. And that came in the form of drugs and alcohol. So it was, you know, because I didn't feel like I was enough when I was sober, when I got intoxicated, and as I mentioned before, like I had, it was, I felt like I was, that's when I was comfortable in my own skin and that's when I could.

That's when I could act like myself. And, you know, I don't want to say, because I've done a lot of really ridiculous and hurtful things when I was under the influence. And that's not, that was maybe, that was myself, I guess, at the time or what I was really feeling because I didn't like myself. In fact, I loathed myself. I hated myself. Today, that's not the case. But back then, when I got drunk, I got to tell you,

I get to tell anybody how I actually felt. I get to act how I felt. And I didn't fear any consequences because I was either in a blackout or the alcohol or drugs, whatever I was ingesting, most, usually both, had my inhibitions so low that I didn't care if you punched me in the mouth for saying something, well, whatever. I'll deal with the pain of that tomorrow.

Yeah, but yeah, if I can maybe go back to the story, just, you know, I'll say this, like I was introduced to the rooms of recovery at 22 years old by somebody who saw in me a problem before I was willing to admit to another human being that I had a problem. You know, he caught me at a desperate time and he brought me to my first meeting.

at 22 years old and you know, I felt in that meeting that I walked into the same feeling that I felt when I went to my friend's houses As a child and you know, I identified it earlier as love but it was connection. It was happiness. It was Community it was so yeah It was they loved each other and what they loved even more was living sober together like living a life sober together and enjoying like

Kim Rapach (01:04:32.94)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (01:04:50.741)
being a part of that together. And that was the tie that bonded them all, was we're all working as hard as we can today for another day of sobriety, and if I can do something to help you get another 24 hours, then let me know, because if I help you, that helps me, and we both get through that 24 hours together. But.

Um, you know, I walked into that room and I compared myself to everybody. I judged everybody. Um, I didn't relate to anybody. I, I named every reason why I didn't belong in that room and neglected to, um, I neglected to identify the reasons I did belong in that room. And, and I think, you know, the reasons I did belong in that room, the list was a lot longer than the reasons I didn't. But.

You know, I made the reason that I didn't paramount because, you know, hey, I'm the youngest guy in the room. I haven't like wrecked a car yet. I haven't lost a marriage. I haven't got fired from a job. I haven't got this, all these things I haven't. And every time I'd say that, you know, and at the time, you know, I haven't been thrown in jail. I hadn't been, you know, all these things. And the guy who brought me to the meeting, every time I would say I hadn't, he just ended with one word. He'd say, yet. He said, you haven't yet. He's like, you keep going the way you're going. All those things will happen to you.

You will be that guy on the street that's eating out of a garbage can. You will be that guy behind bars. You will be that guy wrecking cars. You will be that guy on the run from the cops. That will be you if you don't stop now. Don't let yourself get there. You don't have to get you don't have to hit that bottom. They've hit that bottom for you. Now, you know, that's where you're going. Let's let's cut. Let's let's cut it off here. And he always tell me, you know.

He was a low bottom drunk, meaning that he had to hit a very low bottom, a very low, low. And he's like, if I could have. If I could have found recovery as a high bottom drunk or a high bottom addict, I would be so grateful because it would have saved me so much pain and suffering. And he's like, right now, you can be a high bottom, a high. You can have a high bottom. It's a bottom for you right now, but you don't have to go any lower. And.

Kim Rapach (01:06:57.186)
Hmm.

Chris Howe (01:07:12.593)
You know, me being the stubborn, know it all, also like just not wanting to, really not open to suggestion or open to, I have my interpretation of things and I wasn't willing to listen to yours. So I had to prove it to myself that, you know, and I think when I went back out, you know, I'm out of states over for two weeks or something and I went back out.

My idea was let me prove him wrong. But looking back at it, you know, so I tried this over 10 years. I tried this about 50 or 60 times. I go try to get sober and then I run out and I'd say, I'm going to prove I would approve all these people wrong. I can drink like a normal person or I can use like a normal person or I'm not like them. Let me show let me show them that I'm better than that. But really what I was doing looking back at it today is

is proving to myself that I was exactly like them. Right? I had all the, all the, all the isms that they had, you know, I shared with them. And, and, and so I, I started to, those things that hadn't happened to me yet started to happen to me. And in the process, I mean, I had also gotten out of a job there and I went back to school and I had become a paramedic.

Kim Rapach (01:08:17.645)
Thank you.

Chris Howe (01:08:39.333)
I was no good at it. And quite honestly, I cheated my way through school and I got on the road and realized, oh my God, this is real. These are people's lives in my hand and I didn't really achieve the things that I have a diploma for. And so I realized, and I'm grateful that I realized that because it would have been like me to say like, well, I can still do it or whatever, but.

Kim Rapach (01:08:57.015)
Hmm

Chris Howe (01:09:09.305)
I realized that I wanted to do something else. And so with that experience, a little bit of experience in the emergency service, people said, well, you could either be a cop or a firefighter. And I don't have the personality to be a cop. Plus at the time I was a criminal and I was hanging out with a lot of criminals. I was doing terrible things, definitely not in line with my life. And I used to kind of joke about it. And I'd say like, I can't be a cop. I'll be busting my friends every day. And so...

Kim Rapach (01:09:34.943)
Hmm

Chris Howe (01:09:37.545)
Firefighter was the thing that I thought, okay, well, I can go to school. I moved down to Texas. I went to school there for firefighting and I liked it. I found community in that. I liked the fact that it was a group of people doing it with one common goal. So like there's the fire. Here's 30 of you. You guys all have a job and a role to play in this, but you're going to put this out, save.

whatever property that you can or lives that you can. And at the end of the day, we've done this together as a group. I liked that, I felt safer than being in an ambulance with me and one partner where somebody's life is literally in your hands. And I did, I found that community. And what I also found in that profession is a lot of heavy drinkers. And...

Kim Rapach (01:10:21.967)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (01:10:34.557)
So something that I noticed, well actually, I'll tell you about my first day at work first. I got a job in Niagara Falls. You know, I was happy because I got to live near family and that sort of thing. And to me, being a firefighter was like, okay, I get to put this uniform on and I'm no longer this like, this messed up kid. I'm now, I've got a big boy job. It's a job where people...

I thought people would respect me just because I had the uniform on. I thought, wow, I have a badge in my wallet. How cool is that? And I thought, this is it. This is it for me. I get to be, this is what will convince people that I'm no longer a problem. I can be a part of a solution now. And it also checked that, and I hate to say it again, but that man card.

it checked that box of here I was, the little kid who got pushed around and kicked around as a child. Now I get to do a job that is this typical male dominated, somewhat supposed to be tough guy job. And it's not, I found out very quickly. But I thought to me that checked that box for me. And I thought, well,

You know, I remember thinking my grandfather would be really proud of me, the guy who was very toxic, but who I looked up to as a child. And so the first day I went into work, I so I felt different right off the bat. I had a lot more tattoos than anybody. What? I nobody had tattoos. I had a bunch on my arm and, you know, I didn't have any of my hands or my neck at the time. And so my my.

Kim Rapach (01:12:02.638)
Mm.

Kim Rapach (01:12:06.958)
Sure.

Chris Howe (01:12:28.753)
When I did my interview, I was dressed in a shirt and tie and nobody saw them. And then when I went the first day, they were like, Oh, I don't remember you. Um, I was called a disgrace to the uniform. I was, you know, said like, Oh, he should be immediately fired for having this thing. Those, those things. Um, we can't have him. He, we should force him to wear long sleeves at all times. There was all these things about it where people, people couldn't get past it. Um, I know that was 22 years ago or something now, but, um,

What I did notice though, the big thing that I noticed on my very first day was a senior firefighter coming up to the group of us who had just been hired. And he said, you know, he was on his way out, right? Like he was he was a 30 year vet veteran, you know, and he said, you know, you know, kind of like. Talking to us like an like an adult, talking to or like a man talking to a child. And it was like, you know, if I could if I could tell you guys one thing.

carry through the rest of your career, it's to never show your weakness around here. You get paid well to see things that other people don't have to see. You get paid well to experience things you don't that other people don't have to see. You don't talk about it. You suck it up. You walk it off. You be a man. All those same things that I've heard my entire life. And something that they that he I can't remember if it was him or somebody else with it. I got the message is that we don't talk about it. We laugh about it. Then we drink about it.

And those words were like deafening to me because I'm like, oh my God, here I am again in this like, you know, now again, I have to, I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict trying to hide that in a profession where heavy drinking is celebrated but alcoholic drinking is like a problem.

So I have to walk this very fine line of like, I wanna be the heavy drinker because, I looked different, I was smaller than the rest of the guys that I got hired with. I didn't have as much experience as the other guys. I felt less than lesser than, and of course, than my belief of myself that I wasn't worthy of that uniform. I wasn't man enough to do it in my mind at the time. And so I thought, well,

Chris Howe (01:14:47.053)
I guess my role in this career that I have is going to be the party guy, the heavy drinker. Because I saw everybody talk about, wow, you should see how much this guy can put back and he could drive home. It's no problem. It was this, I don't know, this celebrated thing when somebody can drink their face off but still somehow keep it together enough to get behind the wheel, which is so backwards.

But I tried to be that guy. I mean, I was an alcoholic, always have been. So that didn't last too long. I quickly got labeled the alcoholic. And no sooner that I was labeled the alcoholic, people found out that I was also using drugs. And I was kind of ostracized at work, rightfully so. I was taking advantage of sick time. I was like,

showing up under the influence. I was like a terrible, terrible employee, a terrible coworker, a terrible public servant. I was doing the city of Niagara Falls a huge disservice by putting that uniform on at the time. So I went a bunch of years, you know, trying to like, I was living two separate lives. Like on my days off, I was like this wild addict.

running around with criminals doing criminal stuff, acting like a, like, just, I was a problem. And then I put my uniform on and I'd act like everything was fine and like I was this upstanding citizen. And those two worlds just quickly collided. I got to a point in my career, in my, I guess, drinking and using career as well as my professional career.

Um, I, it was about eight years that I had on the job and I absolutely detested the, the thought of myself, the, like, I, I was to the point where I was like isolating. I had always my doors locked, my window, like my curtains drawn. Um, I lived in my basement basically, like, you know, just desperately like drinking, using chain, smoking, just like I was, I hated the sight of, uh, you know, sunlight or.

Chris Howe (01:17:08.945)
And I hated the sight of myself. Something I mentioned always when I do interviews is that I took down all the mirrors in my house because I couldn't stand to look at myself. And I couldn't stand who I had become. If I looked at myself in the mirror, I'd cry because I just, how could I let myself get to this point? In the last three years of my drinking and using, I attempted suicide three times.

To me, that's how bad it got, right? Like in my mind, things, I was not willing to do the work to change. I wasn't willing to do the, I knew those meetings existed because I'd gone there for 10 years in and out, bouncing in and out, relapsing, but I was only taking up a seat there. I wasn't learning anything. I wasn't, you know, again, I'll mention, I was comparing myself to everyone, you know,

to come up with reasons why this is not working for me. And so I knew, I had those visions of hope. I'd seen the people who said they had 20 years, 30 years sobriety, and I saw the laughing, smiling, joking, you know, just invigorated for life. You know, I saw all that in the rooms of recovery, but I still couldn't put myself there. And so things like...

things got that bad where I tried to commit suicide three times, unsuccessfully obviously, and thank God I was unsuccessful because I guess I needed to get to that point. And so in January 2nd, 2011, I had a plan that nothing in particular was going wrong, but all those things that I said hadn't happened to me yet were starting to happen.

And I started to realize like, I'm just, I'm wasting my life. This is, I am a waste of space and these, this, that negative core value that I had of not being worthy was like becoming a real reality to me. Not worthy of even life anymore. Like I shouldn't be walking around. And I,

Chris Howe (01:19:34.409)
Had the intention of that morning, doing, committing suicide, and a fourth and final attempt. I thought, this is it, I have to really go through with this. I can't live this way any longer. And I sat down with a pen and a piece of paper and I started to write out all the ways that I thought I could do it that would be, for me, I didn't wanna be found, I didn't want to hurt other people, I didn't want, although me not being here would-

certainly hurt a lot of people. I know that today. But in my mind, I had been to a lot of suicide calls. And I'll mention this too, during my eight years in working, I saw a lot of things that really started to build up and I wasn't talking about those things. And some of those things were suicide calls and overdose calls and that sort of thing that I saw myself in those people. I saw my, and I didn't want...

I didn't want for somebody to find me the way that I found people on the job, like where I found people who had committed suicide and I saw the family around and I saw the horrific after effects of something like that. Because that stuff stays with you. It's like there's a thickness to the air, there's a smell, there's a... It affects all your senses and it doesn't go away.

Um, you remember the look on people's faces. You remember the hysterical wife or husband or children. Like it's just, it was, it was a lot and I didn't want that for me. Um, and I was settling on possibly, you know, I, I live 20 minutes from the, from Niagara Falls and I thought that, you know, if I go over the falls, um, and that's, that happens a lot there, unfortunately. Um,

If I go over the falls, there's very little chance of me making it and there's very little chance of my body being ever found. That's just how it is there. At some point as I was writing this list and trying to circle these, like this is the one I'm going to do, I got hit with this wave of emotions and I was like, my God, are you seriously doing this right now? Are you seriously writing down, taking pen to paper and writing down these ways that you could do it?

Chris Howe (01:21:58.369)
take yourself off the planet and you haven't even given yourself a chance. You haven't even you haven't even become willing to do what those people in those rooms have done for themselves. And it was just like a wave of emotions that came over me. And I remembered all the people that I had said, I'm nothing like that guy. I'm nothing like her or him. You know, I remember the slogans on the walls and all the things I said, Oh, this is stupid. This is just nobody's going to buy into. Like, this is like hippie stuff like I get.

words aren't going to keep me sober. And, you know, and it just made sense to me all of a sudden. It hit me like a ton of bricks where it was like I dropped the pen, crumpled up that piece of paper. I got rid of it and I said, OK, one thing I got right. I can't live this way any longer. But the way I wanted to go out, I can't do it. I just can't do it because there was something in that moment that

I finally became teachable and finally became able to relate myself and my story to all the stories that I'd heard over that last 10 years of bouncing in and out of the rooms. And I just, it just made sense to me. I don't know how else to explain it. You know, some people will say it's a spiritual experience or whatever, but it just like, it was like the light bulb went off in my mind and, or went on rather, and said,

And something just said like, you're exactly like those people and that's where you need to be. So I went to the first meeting that I could find. And you know, I say this often, it was the same room that I had been going into for 10 years with a lot of the same people. And they'd always look at me like there was never any judgment. It was like, you're back. OK, amazing. You're back. Like, let's give it another go. And I went into that room and it just felt different. You know, I went in with a new set of eyes, ears.

Kim Rapach (01:23:26.358)
Mm.

Chris Howe (01:23:49.829)
you know, I, and a new open heart, I guess, if I, if I could, that's the best way I can explain it. And, and true willingness, like I was, I was finally able, able to sort of wave that white flag of surrender. And, you know, the first person that shook my hand, I, it was a guy, and I, and I shook his hand and, and you know, I started bawling my eyes out. I cried and I cried and he said, what's wrong? And I said,

this is what I was going to do just like five hours ago. I was planning my suicide and I'm here instead. And it was like there was not one person said, I can't believe you with everyone just said, you're in the right place. You came to the right place. We're so happy you're here. You know, you and I just so I joke about this sometimes because it was a discussion meeting where, you know, a discussion meeting where everybody, you know, everybody gets.

two or three minutes to share something about how their day is going or something about their recovery or, or a reading that we've done or whatever. And I didn't quite understand that I guess at the time or maybe I, I was just, I was so hysterical. And as I said, like I finally, um, in, in letting out my emotions, crying in front of another man, in fact, crying in front of a room full of strangers, um, but holding another man's hand, like shaking his hand, I wouldn't let it go. And I just cried and cried and he gave me a hug and

It was the release that I had been holding in for 32 years. Like I was 32 years old when that happened. Like, and I just, it was the release that I'd been holding in for all those years that was finally like, like the flood gates opened. Right. And, um, so, you know, I joke about this. I said, it's, it was a discussion meeting, but I made it my own speaker meeting, like I made it all about me. And I just kept talking and talking and these like,

amazing people around me saw that I was getting what I finally needed. They'd seen me come in and come and go for 10 years and then they saw me finally. I was just taking up a seat before I would never share. I would never talk. I might tell you my name but that's it. And I just was outpoured everything I could. And it was like it was like I was carrying a backpack in two suitcases full of rocks or stones or whatever you know anvils and

Chris Howe (01:26:15.021)
with every minute that passed, it was like one was being offloaded, one was being offloaded. I just felt like this, like I was like getting space in my body again, that I didn't have to hold this stuff in. And from that point on, I did nothing but go to the gym, like work out, like

learn what I could, learn what to feed my body, learn how to train my body, learn how to stay sober. So I was either with my sponsor, I was at a meeting or I was at like a retreat or I was in a book, a book, a self-help book or some sort of, you know, or I was with a therapist or I was at work. And when I went, you know, I started going back to work and I, I realized, you know, I was scared. I was very scared to tell everybody that I was sober.

I was very scared to say to all these people, I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict and now I'm sober. And I thought that they would judge me. And I for sure, 100% thought they're gonna see weakness in this and that guy told me, I can't show my weakness. They're gonna prey on me. And I don't know what happened. One day I was probably three or four months into recovery and I just went into the staff room and everybody was joking around with me. They're like, Chris, like.

so good to see like your skin doesn't look gray anymore. And like I can see the whites of your eyes. Like you're not bloodshot. You're like, you showed up on time every day this month and you actually came to work every day. They're like, what's going on with you? Like, why the change of heart? Like, what are you doing? Like, what's, you know, and they would joke about it. And finally, one day I was like, yeah, like I've just been going to these meetings and I'm, you know, I just, I need to tell you guys that like, I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict and,

And everybody starts laughing and then, and I was like, oh, they're, I just, they see this weakness. They're about to, and they're like, did you think we didn't know? Like they're laughing. They're like, finally, finally you said something. And so what I did notice is, what I found out is that a lot of people were talking about me, but not a lot of people were talking to me at work. So nobody ever came up to me and said, you know, we see this behavior, is there a problem? Can we?

Chris Howe (01:28:39.997)
Is there something we can do to help? It was just like, talk about me when I'm not in the room, I guess, or put me at stations that where management can't find me or see me. And I was a bit of a pariah, so they just tucked me away at different places. And anyways, they laughed and they said, yeah, we've been waiting for this. We thought either you were like, we thought you'd either get sober or an early death for you.

or you'd end up in jail somewhere. And they were right. They were right. I'm just grateful that my path was the one that, the one of sobriety and not the other two options.

I learned I had to go back to square one with work especially I had to go and ask some you know I was eight years on the job and I was asking like the brand new guys like hey can you teach me how to do the thing like catch a hydrant can you teach me how to do these things that are very basic things and I'd say to them like I was I was here for this stuff but I wasn't present for this stuff I was and I just started telling my story to these new guys and they you know and I thought to myself well I got a

I got to do some. So two things. I have to build myself back up from the ground up, which I was doing in all facets of my life. Well, the other thing is, I identified and I realized that I need to change that narrative for those guys coming in on the first day. I need to, I need to be the one that says, Hey, I was like, I was a terrible, like I said, I was a terrible public servant. I shouldn't have been a firefighter. I shouldn't still have this job. And I took everything for granted.

and thank God I'm still here in this job. But these are the mistakes I made. And I didn't talk to anybody about this stuff and I tried to put on this mask and I tried to act a certain way and behave a certain way. And for lack of a better term, it was bullshit. You know, it was, I was only fooling myself. And you know, I started to tell my story very openly and honestly, and my training division started like.

Chris Howe (01:30:54.421)
thought, wow, like, you need to you need to do this for like every shift. Like, let, let me make let us make a training evolution out of this, because people need to hear this. This is like, this is really good. Like, nobody's talking about this stuff. And then I got, um, I got noticed by some, some filmmakers that made a little short film about me and a company, a Canadian company that has treatment centers across Canada.

hired me on to do public speaking, where I went around to emergency service departments across Canada, and businesses, and all sorts of different places, just telling my story. And then they brought in a clinician to talk about what they could do as a treatment facility for an employee who was like I was. And so I became this sort of spokesperson for recovery. And it was like, it felt so good. I was making a little bit of money doing it, and I was.

I felt like, wow, this is really my place. And I felt like it was such a meaningful, purposeful way to live because I felt, I truly felt like I was making a difference in somebody's life and I was, and quite possibly saving a life or two in the, you know, in the process. And I'll say this, like I'm an addict of all sorts. I became a little bit addicted to talking about this stuff and to helping others. And...

For me, I took on too much. I took on a lot of sponsors. I took on a lot of other people's problems or issues and I felt like I could help. And I really wanted, truly, genuinely wanted to help people, but I started to neglect myself in this process of helping others. And it was quite ironic. I was going around talking about helping others or being...

being open and honest and talking about your feelings and sharing this and not bottling things up and as a public emergency service worker, a cop, a firefighter, a paramedic, military corrections, whatever it may be, we're gonna see stuff, but we need to get that stuff but we need to talk about it, we need to debrief, we need to really, really change that conversation in our departments because the old way just doesn't, the old model does not work anymore and we know better today.

Chris Howe (01:33:16.881)
Let's be the ones to make that change. So I'm going, it was ironic because I was going around sort of touting this message, but along the way I was losing a bit of myself and I was overwhelming myself with helping others. I was neglecting to fill my own cup up. Do you know what I mean? So I was just, I was emptying out everywhere. Like I was, but I wasn't going back to the place where I needed for myself. I wasn't.

The self-care piece was on the back burner because I felt like I was this like frontline worker for anybody who reached out for help. And then in my job, I found, even in recovery, like I did quite well after I built myself from the ground up, I became a captain at my work, which I thought never would be possible. I just didn't think I, again, not worthy, right?

And I got, I achieved those little accolades along the way. But I started to still, I wasn't taking care of myself. I was going to these calls and not talking about it. And I did for a while, but then I saw some things, one call in particular, it was an overdose death of a close friend of mine. And I didn't tell anybody I knew him. And he had been gone for a few days and it was not a very good scene.

Um, and I really, I started to notice that, um, I was having nightmares. I was having panic attacks. I was having, um, you know, I had met my, my now wife, but then girlfriend, um, and she'd say, you know, there's, uh, you're not, this isn't the guy I met. Like there's something going on. Like why, what's, what's up? And, you know, and I'd wake up in the middle of the night, like severe panic attacks where I'd be telling her like, you, you.

If this goes on for another two minutes, call me an ambulance. I'm going to like I need to I couldn't I couldn't handle it. It was. Debilitating and the nightmares were so vivid and my moods were like. You know, I what I look back at it and think now, and my wife and her kid had moved into the house and I look back at that time and I think, my God, that's what my mom was like.

Kim Rapach (01:35:17.271)
Yeah.

Chris Howe (01:35:39.701)
like mood swings, like crazy and just unpredictable. And I was like that for, excuse me, for a short period of time there. But I just was not, I wasn't walking my talk, I guess. I wasn't taking my own advice and like sharing this with another human being or talking about what's really going on. I just like, oh no, it's okay. I just, I'm really stressed. I've been like, I've got stuff going on and.

I'm sorry, I'll change and excuses. Until one day, I went to work and it was a night shift and it was about three or four a.m. And we got called out to a basement fire. And I hadn't had any of these panic attacks on a call, but I was the first truck in, and I was the captain of the truck. So I went in, I brought my guys downstairs and basement fires are.

because there's like foundations, right, that are concrete, so they're very, extremely hot and dangerous, because there's not a lot of space for the fumes to go or the heat to go. So we get down, I start walking down the stairs and I feel one of these panic attacks brewing, and I get to the bottom of the stairs and I have a full blown panic attack in a basement fire in all my gear on, and I'm the captain and I'm stuck.

I'm just in this stuck position. My guys, I can remember my guys saying like, come on, let's go, let's go. What's the problem here? And I didn't know how to answer it because I couldn't, I didn't want to tell them that I was having a panic attack or I didn't even know, I couldn't even put words together at that time. But when I kind of snapped out of it, I just wanted to rip all my gear off. I was so, I was beside myself. And

Kim Rapach (01:37:33.386)
Mm.

Chris Howe (01:37:35.045)
I made up a story and I went on the radio and I said my, I had an equipment malfunction and I needed to back out of the fire. Um, I, you know, I, and I said, Oh, it was my, my breathing apparatus and it wasn't really working and you know, somebody else had to go and do the job that we were sent in to do. Um, which is fine. But in my mind, um, two things. Now these panic attacks have, have gotten to a point where

I can't do the job that I was so proud of being able to do. And now I'm making up stories? Like that's not me in recovery. I'm making up lies about, you know, and some people after the fact have said to me, well, you didn't really make a story up. You did have an equipment malfunction, but the equipment was your brain, not your actual equipment that you were wearing. So I can kind of make peace with that in that way, but.

The next day I went and found a psychologist and I talked to a professional about what had gone on because I was scared. I thought, never have I been able to, physically not be able to see a job through, especially in recovery at work. And I just thought,

something's got to be up and you know I've had all these warning signs like I need to talk to somebody and they said and I was 10 years into recovery at this time so I had 10 years sobriety and talking to the therapist she said have you ever been tested for PTSD or anxiety and I said well no and it was an odd thing to say but I remember saying no I'm sober I'm 10 years clean like I don't have any of that stuff like I've taken care of all this stuff and

she's like, well, would you humor me and go through this testing and answer honestly? And I said, 100%. I'll try. But like I'm telling you right now, like I've been clean for 10 years. I've done the work. And that was like that was my major, my major malfunction. There was like in saying I've done the work because the work never ends. And so and I assume that she probably heard I've done the work and she thought, OK, perfect, this guy's he's a prime candidate.

Chris Howe (01:39:55.965)
So my test results came back as I sat on the severe end of the scale for PTSD and anxiety. They told me you can't go back to the I mean you can if you really want. But our professional opinion is that you don't go back to work until you get proper therapy for this and treatment. So I said OK. I don't. In my mind I was too. I was scared to go back to work. And so I didn't. You know I said.

I said, yeah, I'll go off work and I'll get treatment. Because recovery was exciting to me. I liked recovery. And so I thought, OK, here's, instead of looking at it as a big negative, I thought, well, here's a chance for me to get reinvigorated with recovery. And let me, like, this time I get to do it clear minded. And you know what I mean? I don't have to come off of drugs or alcohol. I go in and, you know, this is.

I got excited about the recovery from a mental health injury. So I did that. I went to a 14 week, a 14 week recovery program on the West Coast in British Columbia. So I did inpatient there. I did an outpatient program. I still currently, as I mentioned earlier, work with my therapist once a week. And I've done several other courses and that sort of thing.

You know, definitely on the, on well on my road to, to recovery, um, from this as well, but with a, with PTSD and going back to work, there's the, there's a real, um, the therapist, uh, there's boxes to check that they're not satisfied with yet. So I'm not back to work. Um, and I don't know if I will, but, uh, I'm super open to whatever, whatever comes my way, but, um, it, you know, I guess to sort of wrap it up.

My life today is amazing. You know, I get to be I get to be a good husband a loving father to my stepson I get to be involved and Present in All the things that my family does in a way that I've never been able to before I'm able to like, you know with the

Chris Howe (01:42:18.025)
the work that I continue to do. And as I said, like it's a never ending job, right? You're always gonna be learning and exploring new modalities of treatment or new facets of the treatment you're already in. And so that to me, I mean, it's exciting, it's fun, it's meaningful, hard work, but what's fun about it is that I see the fruits of my labor in what...

Kim Rapach (01:42:42.058)
Hmm?

Chris Howe (01:42:46.461)
what matters the most and that's the people under my roof, right? And the people that I get to help with Lakeside Recovery, I get to have conversations, do podcasts, stuff like this, and connect with amazing people as a result of just talking about this openly and honestly. And I think in my... In all the sort of...

ups and downs I've had in and out of recovery. I think that message, that message that rings true always is that, you know, a problem shared is a problem halved. And that like, if you keep it in, it's going to bubble over and it's going to hurt when it does, right? I've proved that to myself too many times to not wholeheartedly believe that that's the truth.

So today, you know, I think the most manly thing that I can do, the most masculine thing I can do is talk about how I feel, talk about the good times, the bad times and everything in between with, you know, in an unapologetic way where, you know, I don't have to worry about, I don't have to worry. It's my story and I own it, but I don't have to worry about what you think of me because I'm good with me today. And that to me is the most masculine thing that, that.

that a person can own is their own story and their own, to be comfortable in their own skin and comfortable and at peace with their past and sort of hopeful for the future, I guess.

Kim Rapach (01:44:25.631)
Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that so much. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I relate. Absolutely. I relate so much. I have, you know, I have a similar, you know, kind of dark night in Dark Soul of the Night kind of experience where that light bulb goes on. And that's where I learned like

Chris Howe (01:44:32.085)
Thanks for the opportunity.

Chris Howe (01:44:45.01)
Yeah.

Kim Rapach (01:44:48.118)
Oh, I have to really fight. And, you know, for you, you're talking about, you know, recovery from drugs and alcohol. And then when you talked about where you became kind of obsessed with talking about it and helping people, that was me as a therapist. I had done some really good work. I had healed through a lot of trauma. I was standing, I had a beautiful family and now I was over extending myself.

Chris Howe (01:44:50.516)
Yeah.

Chris Howe (01:45:01.62)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (01:45:12.022)
helping until I lost myself. And so I share that so deeply with you. And so thank you for, you know, for talking about that. What I'm wondering is what are your, you know, maybe top two or three things that you do, like what are your non-negotiables, you know, what do you do on a daily basis to not only stay sober, but to stay in this place of self-acceptance, self-love.

you know, being comfortable in your own skin and being able to enter the world from that place because it you know, it's powerful. So what do you do to I know, it doesn't always stay like that. Like we don't just get there and arrive. But how do you foster that regularly?

Chris Howe (01:45:53.537)
So my, I guess what I would call sort of my maintenance work on a daily is, so meditation is, meditation and self-reflect, excuse me, meditation and self-reflection are two things that I know for me,

Chris Howe (01:46:16.697)
There's never a negative result in either of those two. So when I do, when I'm in meditation or, you know, the after effects of meditation and the effects that carry through my day, whether it's one meditation or four or five meditations through the day, whatever I get to do, you know, it gives back so much and it keeps me grounded in this sort of like present time awareness. And that's, you know, that's a huge thing for me.

You know, the other thing, and this is not so much, I mean, I believe that the mind-body connection is so huge. So if I keep in physical fitness, and that doesn't necessarily mean going to the gym every day, but moving my body in a certain way, maybe it's stretching, maybe it's a rehabilitation day for me, or it's a, you know, something that, something that

gets the endorphins going, and also gives me a release. So for me, a lot of my, I use exercise often as a coping tool. So I'm like one of those weirdos who likes doing burpees. And so I know that like, if I'm going through a hard time, if I do a hundred burpees consecutively, it is hard enough work that I forget about everything else that's going on. I have to stay present in that moment of like,

Kim Rapach (01:47:30.73)
Mm.

Chris Howe (01:47:46.121)
let me just get through the next one, the next one, the next one, the next one. It's repetitive, it's somewhat meditative to me. But after I've never felt, I've never felt worse after doing 100 burpees than I did before. I'm in a better head space, I'm in a, I get to, it's my separation from the minutia of my day that might be bogging me down, and it gives me that separation to say,

Kim Rapach (01:48:02.03)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (01:48:13.281)
Thank you.

Chris Howe (01:48:16.209)
I did something physical for myself and good for you. Pat on the back, you are worthy of that. Like you were able to get through a grueling, something that's very difficult and something that a lot of people can't do as well. So it's a little win for me, but it also gives me that separation and that time to just be away from, like to step away from whatever's irking me or whatever's bogging me down, like I said at the time.

So when I go back to that issue or that problem that I might have had, I'm going at it with a bit more of a compassionate angle or empathetic angle where I'm not maybe stuck in the selfish, self-centered, all about me type of frustration or whatever it is, right? So those are two things that I do. I mean, I do a ton of other things and something else I'm gonna mention is that

A day doesn't go by that I don't talk to another alcoholic or another addict or another person that has, that is and may still be suffering with their mental health. And so to me that connection, if I, and hey, and I'm super lucky, my wife is in recovery as well. So I have a built-in support network, you know, under my roof, which is fantastic. And we get to pass those morals and values down to our son as well.

So those are some things for me that really are non-negotiables in my day. And they're things that...

If I don't have them, or if I don't check the boxes, like, you know, a couple of days I might be okay, but I know that it's gonna, those are my releases and my sort of little refuges. So after a few days of not having that, it's gonna start to bubble over again. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (01:50:16.938)
Yep. Yeah. I love the mind body connection. And I really believe, you know, I'm one that say, like, I'm not one to say mindset is everything. I think it's important. But it's not everything. And that physical piece, you know, it's just like doing therapy or doing, like trauma informed, like the trauma informed coaching that I do, right, you know, it is mind, body, spirit, it's, you know, whatever's coming up in your body is telling you the deep where the deeper roots are, right. But when you

Chris Howe (01:50:20.362)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (01:50:27.398)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Kim Rapach (01:50:44.726)
go through an experience that maybe you're afraid of, and you go through it and you don't die. You build resiliency. And so, for you it's burpees, for me it's weights. And it does train your brain that I am capable. I am resilient, I am powerful in healthy ways. And I don't have to run from my emotions. I don't have to try to bury it. And so it's all, I think it's all powerful. It's all part of it.

Chris Howe (01:50:51.661)
Mm hmm. Yeah, for sure.

Chris Howe (01:51:03.005)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (01:51:15.357)
Um...

Chris Howe (01:51:15.841)
Completely agree, yeah.

Kim Rapach (01:51:18.27)
The other question I want to ask you, I guess we can, well, I'll have one more after this, but this is the powerful one. You know, this podcast, your podcast, it's certainly not a replacement for mental health treatment, right. But also you and I want to normalize this vulnerability talking about our experiences, our lived experiences. If there were someone listening right now, who

Chris Howe (01:51:23.541)
Mm-hmm

Kim Rapach (01:51:46.794)
you know, maybe is in a place in that dark where you were when you were writing out how you could leave this planet. And you know, the day that I, you know, felt the same way, like, we know we've been there. We know we're not the last ones to go there. Somebody is there right now. If they were to hear this, what would be a word of hope that you would offer?

Chris Howe (01:51:55.421)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (01:52:09.261)
So the message that I tell that I would want that person to hear is that you simply don't have to live this way any longer, that there is a solution. And that solution requires wholehearted attention. And that solution was something I tell people in early recovery is that you can't walk into the woods.

for two months and expect to turn around and walk out in an hour. So we need to put in work. We put in work in our addiction in a negative way. We need to be willing to go to the same length and further that we were to get our drug of choice or our next drink or whatever it was for our recovery because...

When we're doing the work, our addiction is outside doing pushups, waiting for us to, waiting for a moment of weakness, right? We need to build the resiliency. We need to build the coping skills and fortify ourselves with the armor against a relapse or that sort of, you know, that dip in mental health or emotional health that may...

bring us back to a place that we're desperately not wanting to be in. But the main message, I kind of went off a little bit, but the main message is that, yes, you don't have to live that way any longer and there is a solution. However, that solution requires work from you. And something that I tell everybody is that the only thing you have to do in recovery alone is to walk through the room or walk through the door rather.

You have to ask for help and that's the only thing you have to do alone. Everything else, you'll have legions of people willing to help you, whether that's online, in person, through like message boards, whatever it is. There is a ton of people out there living happy, healthy lives that are well adjusted in recovery. And they're all, I don't know, any alcoholic or addict in recovery who is living in alignment with...

Chris Howe (01:54:27.029)
their recovery who's not 100% willing to help anybody reaching out for help. So I think that's a big thing is that the last thing or the only thing that you have to do alone is ask for help and everything else will get you, will help get you through there.

Kim Rapach (01:54:41.486)
Hmm. I love that. Thank you so much. You know, Chris, between the podcast and, you know, being a therapist for, you know, 10 plus years, gosh, I think man, but in 20 and you know, being a coach now and all the conversations I have been so fortunate to have. This is truly, truly one of my favorites. The work that you're doing is powerful. Like, yeah, it's powerful.

Chris Howe (01:54:43.45)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Howe (01:55:03.459)
Oh wow.

Kim Rapach (01:55:07.266)
and you have an amazing story and you have an amazing gift at sharing it. I feel like we could talk for hours. We both have dogs to get back to, so we can end here. I do want to, you know, if you could just tell our listeners, I just think it's powerful and you have a podcast that you didn't even talk about. How can people find you? What's the easiest way for people to connect with you?

Chris Howe (01:55:12.457)
Thank you.

Chris Howe (01:55:16.009)
For sure.

Yeah, definitely.

Chris Howe (01:55:31.206)
So as far as social media goes, it's Instagram, I guess. My personal Instagram is at underscore Chris, underscore how underscore, or you can visit the podcast Instagram. It has a bunch of clips. So you can see if it's something that you wanted to watch the long form version of, but that's at Authentic Adversity.

And then if you're interested at all, if you're in Ontario and interested in inpatient treatment, you can look at lakeside underscore recovery and that's our men's addiction treatment facility. So, and we're, again, we treat addictions of all kinds. So, yeah. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (01:56:16.022)
Yeah, that's amazing. Thank you so much for being here. You are definitely a warrior and have so much to offer and I just thank you for being you.

Chris Howe (01:56:27.525)
Well, thank you, Kim. It's an honor and a pleasure. And I'm so happy that you reached out and got us connected and got this going. And I'm really happy. And I hope that anybody listening or viewing that hears something in this, that the main thing is that I always want to be sure that I'm putting a message of hope out there for anybody who's still sick and suffering and willing and wanting for that.

that chance at a new and better life. So I hope it lands on the right ears. And you know, it usually does. That's the way that these things kind of go. So I really appreciate your time and thank you for having me.

Kim Rapach (01:57:08.494)
Absolutely. I look forward to staying connected. Thanks, Chris.

Chris Howe (01:57:11.466)
Definitely.