Colin (00:00:06):
Hi, welcome to Sober Banter.

Colin (00:00:08):
I'm Colin.

Colin (00:00:09):
And I'm Rachel.

Colin (00:00:10):
And today our guest is... My name is Waylon and I'm an alcoholic.

Colin (00:00:14):
How about that?

Colin (00:00:14):
Okay.

Rachel (00:00:15):
I'm Rachel and I'm an alcoholic.

Colin (00:00:16):
I'm also an alcoholic named Colin.

Colin (00:00:20):
What was your...

Rachel (00:00:23):
What was your anonymous joke?

Colin (00:00:26):
It still hasn't happened organically yet.

Colin (00:00:28):
I wanted to be like, when I'm around old friends and they're like, oh, you don't drink anymore?

Colin (00:00:32):
What are you in AA?

Colin (00:00:33):
And I'd just be like, only anonymously.

Colin (00:00:36):
But I've never been able to say it organically.

Colin (00:00:38):
Or I'll never tell, right?

Waylon (00:00:41):
I'm in a secret club.

Waylon (00:00:42):
I usually do that.

Waylon (00:00:43):
I'm in a secret club that I can't talk about.

Waylon (00:00:46):
And that creates so much mystery,

Waylon (00:00:49):
actually,

Waylon (00:00:49):
for some sober folks that they're like,

Waylon (00:00:52):
what is this secret club?

Waylon (00:00:54):
And I'm like, I can't tell you.

Waylon (00:00:56):
You can only get yourself in there by your own actions.

Rachel (00:01:00):
It's a club I never knew I would...

Rachel (00:01:05):
want to be a part of.

Rachel (00:01:06):
My grandma and grandpa both went through AA, and I really thought I'd be the exception.

Rachel (00:01:12):
I don't think I had a choice once alcohol went in my body.

Rachel (00:01:15):
You were a legacy, basically.

Rachel (00:01:19):
The legacy.

Rachel (00:01:19):
We were talking about being the creative, and my farthest I went was high school newspaper.

Rachel (00:01:26):
And I was freshman.

Rachel (00:01:28):
The teacher was like, this is a dying...

Waylon (00:01:33):
industry oh my gosh and you being that in 2012 imagine now imagine if you will 1997

Waylon (00:01:40):
I think it was 1997

Waylon (00:01:46):
And I'm 19.

Waylon (00:01:49):
There was a flood in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Waylon (00:01:52):
I'll just set the tone here a little bit.

Waylon (00:01:56):
And so Grand Forks,

Waylon (00:01:57):
North Dakota,

Waylon (00:01:59):
in 1997,

Waylon (00:01:59):
April 1997,

Waylon (00:01:59):
the entire city of Grand Forks got evacuated.

Waylon (00:02:07):
I don't know if y'all are familiar with this,

Waylon (00:02:09):
but it's kind of tied to that Red River of the North,

Waylon (00:02:12):
right?

Waylon (00:02:12):
The Red River that flows up north.

Waylon (00:02:14):
You guys are in Texas, right?

Waylon (00:02:16):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:02:17):
I have family and grapevine, right?

Waylon (00:02:19):
Just to give a little perspective.

Waylon (00:02:22):
I know exactly.

Waylon (00:02:23):
That's why I said it.

Waylon (00:02:23):
Cause I'm like, Hey, I know, I know the lay of the land.

Waylon (00:02:28):
Okay.

Waylon (00:02:28):
For perspective.

Waylon (00:02:29):
And we can, we, we can totally use this.

Waylon (00:02:31):
My uncle stays at the wind star casino and then we'll drive down to the track to

Waylon (00:02:38):
watch the race there.

Waylon (00:02:40):
Or he'll drive from Tallaker all the way down to the stadium there,

Waylon (00:02:45):
the AT&T Stadium where those big football guys play.

Waylon (00:02:49):
And that guy,

Waylon (00:02:49):
Jerry Jones,

Waylon (00:02:50):
where he owns that stadium over there,

Waylon (00:02:52):
got some oil money and all that good stuff.

Waylon (00:02:54):
Beautiful.

Waylon (00:02:55):
Anyway, so that's part of my story, right?

Waylon (00:02:57):
That's part of my story here is I'm tied to all that stuff.

Waylon (00:03:02):
I'm tied to the oil in North Dakota.

Waylon (00:03:05):
There was a flood in North Dakota in 1997 where this angel investor or this angel

Waylon (00:03:11):
something or another,

Waylon (00:03:12):
Joan Kroc,

Waylon (00:03:13):
like the owner of McDonald's,

Waylon (00:03:15):
Joan Kroc gifted every resident of Grand Forks,

Waylon (00:03:19):
North Dakota.

Waylon (00:03:21):
I think it was like $500 or $1,500.

Waylon (00:03:23):
I can't remember.

Waylon (00:03:23):
Anyways, this was the late 1900s, children.

Waylon (00:03:32):
So it was a really different time, right?

Waylon (00:03:36):
Newspapers actually really existed still.

Waylon (00:03:38):
And the internet had not taken off the way it had taken off.

Waylon (00:03:42):
So Twitter wasn't really Twitter.

Waylon (00:03:45):
Facebook wasn't really Facebook.

Waylon (00:03:47):
These things had not even really just being formed at this time.

Waylon (00:03:53):
Amazon just moved into Grand Forks at the time in 1997.

Waylon (00:03:58):
So they acquired Acme Electric Tool Crib of the North.

Waylon (00:04:02):
as one of their first acquisitions.

Waylon (00:04:04):
And that was a supply chain store.

Waylon (00:04:08):
So anyways,

Waylon (00:04:08):
why I'm telling you this,

Waylon (00:04:09):
why I'm going way back in my memory banks is because newspapers,

Waylon (00:04:13):
journalism,

Waylon (00:04:14):
all of that stuff has been a part of my life.

Waylon (00:04:17):
I was 14 when I got my first byline,

Waylon (00:04:19):
so I can relate with you in the high school newspapers thing.

Waylon (00:04:23):
And then in 95, when I was graduating from high school,

Waylon (00:04:29):
I said, we should start a newspaper here for the high school.

Waylon (00:04:33):
And that same, the same ideas or the same BS that your teacher gave you.

Waylon (00:04:38):
Oh, it's going to cost that cost.

Waylon (00:04:43):
Maybe he was paying out of his pocket because look at us now where Department of

Waylon (00:04:47):
Education is near destruction.

Waylon (00:04:51):
You know,

Waylon (00:04:51):
you guys are living in beautiful Texas where I'll just leave it nicely,

Waylon (00:04:56):
kind of tie a nice little bow on the fact that journalism was a big part of my life.

Waylon (00:05:03):
And so these podcasts and my voice and being able to share these ideas and these stories,

Waylon (00:05:10):
very personal stories.

Waylon (00:05:15):
is really what i do but i don't know how to get paid for that anymore because of my

Waylon (00:05:20):
alcoholism and because of my adhd which i just got diagnosed with recently

Waylon (00:05:25):
literally like this week so this is a big this week yeah yeah yeah wow i can share

Waylon (00:05:32):
the details with you if you'd like right so i was like how do you feel well i'll be

Waylon (00:05:38):
honest

Waylon (00:05:40):
Well, I didn't.

Waylon (00:05:41):
I've been struggling with this for 20 years.

Waylon (00:05:44):
How did no one post this exactly?

Waylon (00:05:46):
How come there was no community support for a guy who was fumbling and his community,

Waylon (00:05:53):
his tribe,

Waylon (00:05:53):
right?

Waylon (00:05:54):
I'm going to use that too.

Waylon (00:05:55):
We can get into that because Seth Godin is one of my favorite authors that I just

Waylon (00:05:59):
started to feel like I wanted to vomit after I saw him talking about a tribe

Waylon (00:06:04):
because that's a real thing in American Indian culture.

Waylon (00:06:07):
communities okay yeah we're small we're small we're barely two million in statistics

Waylon (00:06:15):
We don't even register as black, white, or Asian.

Waylon (00:06:18):
We register as something else.

Waylon (00:06:20):
We don't get a voice, right?

Waylon (00:06:21):
We don't get those voices like y'all do, right?

Waylon (00:06:24):
In Texas, we don't get to amplify.

Waylon (00:06:27):
And I have to cling on to folks like yourselves because love is real.

Waylon (00:06:32):
Love is powerful, red and blue.

Waylon (00:06:34):
I'm looking at your colors, right?

Waylon (00:06:36):
You guys are balanced and I love that.

Waylon (00:06:38):
Oh, wow.

Rachel (00:06:39):
That was not a purpose.

Waylon (00:06:41):
I know.

Waylon (00:06:41):
No, it's okay.

Waylon (00:06:42):
It's the planet.

Waylon (00:06:43):
It's the way,

Waylon (00:06:44):
that's what I'm trying to speak to you on is there's bigger things happening in the universe,

Waylon (00:06:51):
right?

Waylon (00:06:52):
And us individuals who can actually share our wisdom,

Waylon (00:06:56):
we can share our knowledge,

Waylon (00:06:57):
we can share our experience,

Waylon (00:06:59):
strength,

Waylon (00:06:59):
and hope with one another to stay sober,

Waylon (00:07:02):
right?

Waylon (00:07:02):
To tie it back to that sobriety piece, right?

Waylon (00:07:05):
Because we are bantering about sobriety.

Waylon (00:07:08):
And I think that's a big key.

Rachel (00:07:11):
I was going to...

Rachel (00:07:13):
I didn't seek to get diagnosed with ADHD.

Rachel (00:07:16):
It was my last ditch effort of not wanting to give up alcohol.

Rachel (00:07:21):
I'm like, I'm obviously mentally ill.

Rachel (00:07:24):
The drinking is not the problem.

Rachel (00:07:25):
The drugging is not the problem.

Rachel (00:07:26):
And I wasn't honest about either.

Rachel (00:07:27):
I was like, I need to see a psychiatrist.

Rachel (00:07:30):
It's my mental health.

Rachel (00:07:31):
And it was by seeing a psychiatrist who ended up help getting me sober because he

Rachel (00:07:38):
put me on Naltrexone because he told me if I really was drinking,

Rachel (00:07:41):
like I said,

Rachel (00:07:42):
This wouldn't really affect me.

Rachel (00:07:43):
And of course I'm sitting there really struggling, taking pills, not taking pills.

Rachel (00:07:47):
And we found out I had ADHD.

Rachel (00:07:50):
The reason I'd asked about the relief is when I heard I'd been struggling with that

Rachel (00:07:56):
my whole life,

Rachel (00:07:57):
it just felt like it makes sense why I struggled even in writing because I would start,

Rachel (00:08:01):
stop,

Rachel (00:08:01):
start,

Rachel (00:08:01):
stop,

Rachel (00:08:02):
start,

Rachel (00:08:02):
stop.

Rachel (00:08:02):
I have lots of beginnings.

Rachel (00:08:04):
I have millions of beginnings everywhere and some middles.

Rachel (00:08:07):
It's putting it together I extremely struggle with.

Rachel (00:08:10):
But when I feel a little scatterbrained, I at least feel like I'm not broken.

Rachel (00:08:15):
This is something I've had my whole life and I've just,

Rachel (00:08:18):
now I'm learning,

Rachel (00:08:19):
okay,

Rachel (00:08:19):
there's actually some tools or things that I can use to deal with it.

Waylon (00:08:22):
It was a lot of ups and downs and I'll just take you there, right?

Waylon (00:08:25):
I'll take you there because literally it was a Zoom call like this.

Waylon (00:08:30):
And I was supposed to go in, but my ADHD was like, do I go in?

Waylon (00:08:35):
I should be there by now.

Waylon (00:08:37):
Oh, so I checked in with my therapist.

Waylon (00:08:41):
I sent an email and I said, should I be on my way over there?

Waylon (00:08:44):
And then she was like, you're okay.

Waylon (00:08:47):
Here's the link.

Waylon (00:08:47):
You can jump on a Zoom call.

Waylon (00:08:50):
And so I'm like, oh, thank God.

Waylon (00:08:51):
So I felt better.

Waylon (00:08:53):
Usually that's going to trigger a lot of different stuff that's going to keep me like that.

Waylon (00:09:00):
I'm going through Wayland's sheets here.

Waylon (00:09:03):
If I have the sheet here and this is Wayland's stuff,

Waylon (00:09:06):
this is the analysis,

Waylon (00:09:07):
this is the evaluation report.

Waylon (00:09:10):
I saw so much of my mess.

Waylon (00:09:15):
So much of that starts and stops.

Waylon (00:09:17):
I actually have a poem called Starts and Stops.

Waylon (00:09:22):
So this is kismet.

Waylon (00:09:24):
This is supposed to be happening.

Waylon (00:09:26):
I'm supposed to be having a conversation with two great individuals from Texas, right?

Waylon (00:09:33):
Because I have friends in Deep Ellum, right?

Waylon (00:09:35):
I have friends in Panther City.

Waylon (00:09:39):
I have friends in Holt.

Waylon (00:09:41):
I have people all over this place, right?

Waylon (00:09:44):
And some of them I met in a crazy room.

Waylon (00:09:47):
Little, they used to be smoke-filled rooms.

Waylon (00:09:50):
And so I just kind of want to maybe even take a step back into one of the first

Waylon (00:09:57):
times I went to treatment.

Waylon (00:10:01):
Because I don't know if any of you went to treatment, but I'm a low-bottom junkie.

Colin (00:10:06):
Take us through that because our perspective is we never went to rehab or treatment.

Colin (00:10:12):
I'm a low bottom drunk.

Colin (00:10:13):
You guys are just babies.

Waylon (00:10:14):
You guys are just,

Rachel (00:10:16):
I don't think I was low bottom,

Rachel (00:10:18):
but you know,

Rachel (00:10:19):
my life,

Rachel (00:10:19):
I mean,

Rachel (00:10:20):
I wanted to take my life.

Rachel (00:10:21):
It was again, I'm mentally ill.

Waylon (00:10:23):
And that's normal, right?

Waylon (00:10:25):
That's our new normal.

Waylon (00:10:26):
Everyone is mentally ill in this country.

Waylon (00:10:30):
That's why we glorify a cannibal.

Waylon (00:10:32):
Jeffrey Dahmer, Netflix.

Waylon (00:10:34):
It's in front of us all the time.

Waylon (00:10:36):
We can't get it out of it.

Waylon (00:10:39):
And glorification of murder.

Waylon (00:10:42):
We're insane.

Waylon (00:10:43):
Even high level.

Waylon (00:10:45):
We're pushing for the death penalty in the federal sector of things.

Waylon (00:10:50):
So that's glorified.

Waylon (00:10:51):
That's going to be televised.

Waylon (00:10:53):
They need ratings.

Waylon (00:10:56):
We need ratings.

Waylon (00:10:57):
Your sober banter needs ratings.

Waylon (00:11:00):
So you can edit that,

Waylon (00:11:02):
but I kind of want to just say that little piece right there is true,

Waylon (00:11:08):
firm,

Waylon (00:11:08):
honest,

Waylon (00:11:09):
kind of.

Waylon (00:11:09):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:11:10):
But it's a sickness and we all want to be ill.

Waylon (00:11:13):
Yeah.

Rachel (00:11:14):
i was gonna say the whole mission of this is share that we recover share real

Rachel (00:11:18):
authentic stories share we got sober on the same day and we've stayed sober i don't

Colin (00:11:23):
know how well and there's also we believe there's no one right way to be sober

Colin (00:11:28):
because we've met a few people or been in a few rooms where they're convinced that

Colin (00:11:32):
there's only one way to do it i don't believe that i think

Colin (00:11:36):
Everyone's their own individual and finds their own path.

Colin (00:11:39):
But there's more than one ways to get sober.

Colin (00:11:42):
And I want people to know that who are struggling.

Colin (00:11:44):
And that's why we have a lot of guests on it and you because I'm interested to hear

Colin (00:11:48):
your story because everyone is different and how they found

Rachel (00:11:54):
their end goal but I should have gone to treatment I really do believe that like I

Rachel (00:11:58):
had severe DT and I had a two-year-old that was the only reason I probably didn't

Rachel (00:12:03):
look at going to treatment and because I went to AA I squeezed that desire chip so

Rachel (00:12:08):
hard I swear it imprinted my hand because I didn't know what else to do I was like

Rachel (00:12:12):
all they told me don't drink till the next meeting tomorrow and I was like okay

Rachel (00:12:17):
I actually thought you, if I would have drank, I wouldn't have been allowed back.

Rachel (00:12:21):
I thought I had to not drink to be able to go back.

Rachel (00:12:23):
And the room felt so, there was something I wanted so badly.

Rachel (00:12:29):
But looking back, the amount I was drinking handles.

Rachel (00:12:32):
I mean, we were drinking 24-7.

Rachel (00:12:33):
We don't have to obsess about that anymore.

Waylon (00:12:37):
Isn't that a beautiful thing that we don't have to obsess about that anymore?

Waylon (00:12:40):
Because that's kind of where I start to really think that, yeah, war stories is one thing.

Waylon (00:12:47):
And that's not what I would go to the rooms for, right?

Waylon (00:12:49):
That's not what I would go to the rooms for.

Waylon (00:12:51):
I would go for the experience,

Waylon (00:12:54):
the strength and the hope and for the template and that our format where we started

Waylon (00:13:00):
off with a prayer,

Waylon (00:13:01):
you know,

Waylon (00:13:02):
and non-secular and all that stuff can,

Waylon (00:13:05):
whatever,

Waylon (00:13:05):
right?

Waylon (00:13:06):
It's getting really weird to the point where if I say I want to pray in my own way,

Waylon (00:13:15):
It's going to get scary here pretty soon because our beliefs are being challenged, right?

Waylon (00:13:20):
Our freedoms are being challenged, actually.

Waylon (00:13:23):
And so that freedom that I got from this book that was written in the 30s,

Waylon (00:13:31):
And for a writer, I feel like I'm a writer because all of this just comes pouring out of me.

Waylon (00:13:37):
I've been sitting and talking with you beautiful individuals and everything that

Waylon (00:13:44):
we're talking about,

Waylon (00:13:45):
all the flow,

Waylon (00:13:46):
all of everything that's happening is beautiful.

Waylon (00:13:51):
And I think that's got the power of those rooms.

Waylon (00:13:56):
And if we think of it this way,

Waylon (00:13:59):
Sure, we didn't open up this with a prayer.

Waylon (00:14:01):
And that's okay.

Waylon (00:14:04):
We're trying to create a little bit of a message, right?

Waylon (00:14:07):
We're trying to carry a message in our own personal ways.

Waylon (00:14:11):
And when I saw that y'all wanted to visit with me about my personal journey and how

Waylon (00:14:16):
I sobered up,

Waylon (00:14:17):
right?

Waylon (00:14:18):
That, to me, felt really good because I need to share my story, right?

Waylon (00:14:24):
There's some real...

Waylon (00:14:26):
gifts that we can share with one another and the rest of the world and so i think

Waylon (00:14:30):
that's the high point of conversation i want to hear about how many times you've

Rachel (00:14:37):
done treatment not treatment but what was your first time and with bill man he uses

Rachel (00:14:42):
i had to look up so many words i had a hard time reading it to be honest it gets

Waylon (00:14:46):
kind of old scripture like wise like when it's god inspired the impetus behind it

Waylon (00:14:51):
and they try to be

Waylon (00:14:55):
a little god of our understanding and so it gives us our own little possession of

Waylon (00:14:59):
how we understand creator and for me it's creator there's no way that I woke myself

Waylon (00:15:08):
up this morning when at the time I woke up this morning with the thought that I

Waylon (00:15:13):
woke up this morning with there's something powerful about something greater than

Waylon (00:15:21):
ourselves and so

Waylon (00:15:24):
That's where it all really started to come to fruition for me because I learned how

Waylon (00:15:30):
to read at two years old,

Waylon (00:15:31):
but it wasn't my first language.

Waylon (00:15:33):
Hidadza was my first language.

Waylon (00:15:34):
And so English got thrown in front of me.

Waylon (00:15:36):
And so I understood English only because the formulation of language in my mind was

Waylon (00:15:44):
actually a non-English language.

Waylon (00:15:46):
So I'm able to understand those structures of English

Waylon (00:15:50):
I had a lot of difficulty doing that because it didn't make sense because my

Waylon (00:15:55):
language is a living language.

Waylon (00:15:56):
It's not dead like English is, right?

Waylon (00:15:59):
And so verb, subject, parvo, it just makes me feel grossed out, right?

Waylon (00:16:05):
Because it's colonization at a very high level, right?

Waylon (00:16:10):
It's a psychological operation to make us feel like we need to be rugged individuals,

Waylon (00:16:17):
like you'd said,

Waylon (00:16:19):
And so when I try to talk about high bottom drunks, you know, and how even with our

Waylon (00:16:30):
Inferiority, superiority complexes, we're egotists.

Waylon (00:16:36):
Alcoholics are egotistical people.

Waylon (00:16:38):
We're selfish, self-seeking, self-serving.

Waylon (00:16:41):
We want it all for ourselves, right?

Waylon (00:16:43):
Until we realize, oh shit, we're not the only people in the world like this.

Waylon (00:16:47):
There's a whole group of people that act like us and we're all in the same room now.

Waylon (00:16:55):
So at first I started taking other people's inventory because I'm grandiose.

Waylon (00:17:01):
I'm a fucking alcoholic, you guys.

Waylon (00:17:03):
I am an alcoholic.

Waylon (00:17:04):
I learned to identify myself in the rooms as an alcoholic named Waylon.

Waylon (00:17:11):
I'm an alcoholic named Waylon because that is who I am.

Waylon (00:17:16):
First, I'm an alcoholic.

Waylon (00:17:18):
Then I'm Waylon because the two cannot exist apart from one another.

Waylon (00:17:25):
It's that ego, right?

Waylon (00:17:26):
It's ego-driven, egocentrism, and then flattening of the ego, right?

Waylon (00:17:32):
And then having it based on Christian ideals, the Orthodox group, going into the history of

Rachel (00:17:37):
Yeah, that's Thatcher who carried the message to Bill.

Rachel (00:17:40):
And that's what Bill and Bob didn't like.

Rachel (00:17:42):
They can't do the whole church part of it, but they did see that change in Ebby.

Rachel (00:17:47):
And so that's where you have the birth of AA.

Waylon (00:17:50):
And for a long time, because like yourself, Rachel, you didn't want to be an alcoholic.

Waylon (00:17:57):
You wanted to justify the fuck out of not being an alcoholic because I'm normal.

Waylon (00:18:02):
I can drink.

Waylon (00:18:03):
It's not the drink.

Waylon (00:18:05):
It's got to be something else.

Rachel (00:18:06):
I would brag, like, I'm an alcoholic.

Rachel (00:18:08):
I'll drink you under the table.

Rachel (00:18:09):
But I wasn't saying it in...

Rachel (00:18:11):
The way that the first time I said it with tears down my face.

Waylon (00:18:15):
Oh, that point of pride.

Waylon (00:18:18):
The surrender part.

Rachel (00:18:19):
I felt relieved, though, too, because when I walked in the rooms that first day, there was hope.

Rachel (00:18:24):
And I had one lady tell me the most profound thing.

Rachel (00:18:28):
And she said, no, you don't have to drink again.

Rachel (00:18:30):
Like you have permission to not take another drink.

Rachel (00:18:35):
And at that point, I didn't have a choice.

Rachel (00:18:37):
I had to drink.

Rachel (00:18:38):
And so when I heard that I had that power back and she's like,

Rachel (00:18:40):
you hang on to this little chip,

Rachel (00:18:42):
you keep coming back.

Rachel (00:18:45):
And that's what I did.

Rachel (00:18:50):
But yeah, I used to brag like, yeah, of course I'm alcoholic.

Rachel (00:18:53):
I can drink you under the table.

Rachel (00:18:55):
I come from a long line of alcoholism and...

Waylon (00:18:58):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:18:59):
Well, see, yeah, that's my pedigree.

Waylon (00:19:01):
I was trying to qualify myself in the room.

Waylon (00:19:04):
Qualify, yeah.

Waylon (00:19:05):
Oh, yeah.

Waylon (00:19:06):
Not realizing.

Waylon (00:19:07):
Wait a minute.

Waylon (00:19:10):
I'm in denial about this, right?

Waylon (00:19:11):
And I have a whole group of people that is trying to convince me about something

Waylon (00:19:16):
that I'm in denial about.

Waylon (00:19:18):
But then it has to be that self-realization, right?

Waylon (00:19:20):
And then we crack open, right?

Waylon (00:19:22):
That busting open of realization of, oh, my God.

Waylon (00:19:29):
Oh, my God.

Waylon (00:19:30):
And then looking at ourselves.

Waylon (00:19:32):
And that's just what?

Waylon (00:19:33):
That's like step one.

Waylon (00:19:35):
Because we haven't even got to the look at ourself, the true look at ourself.

Waylon (00:19:41):
Step four.

Waylon (00:19:43):
Step five, telling somebody else.

Waylon (00:19:45):
Yeah, it fucking is.

Waylon (00:19:46):
That's hard.

Waylon (00:19:48):
Nobody wants to do that.

Waylon (00:19:49):
Who wants to do that?

Waylon (00:19:49):
Who wants to take a close self-examination at yourself?

Waylon (00:19:53):
Who wants to inventory themselves?

Waylon (00:19:55):
Nobody.

Waylon (00:19:56):
I don't think anybody does.

Rachel (00:19:58):
No, but it was hard.

Rachel (00:19:59):
And I had to go multiple times of writing my fourth step, keeping it continuous.

Rachel (00:20:04):
But my sponsor told me,

Rachel (00:20:07):
You get to be as honest and as free as you want to be.

Rachel (00:20:10):
So you can be as honest.

Rachel (00:20:12):
You can hold back as much as you want to hold back, but you get to be as free as you want to be.

Rachel (00:20:17):
And I want to be free.

Rachel (00:20:18):
So I want to go as deep as I can.

Rachel (00:20:21):
And now I'm trying to get my A on there.

Rachel (00:20:23):
Exactly.

Rachel (00:20:23):
Yes.

Rachel (00:20:23):
But I wanted to be free.

(00:20:25):
And she's like,

Rachel (00:20:29):
You're as sick as your secrets.

Rachel (00:20:31):
And I remember even one hour after when I'm,

Rachel (00:20:34):
you know,

Rachel (00:20:34):
told to go reflect and think,

Rachel (00:20:36):
Oh my God,

Rachel (00:20:36):
I forgot.

Rachel (00:20:37):
And she's like,

Rachel (00:20:38):
Hey,

Rachel (00:20:38):
listen,

Rachel (00:20:39):
it's,

Rachel (00:20:40):
if things pop up,

Rachel (00:20:41):
she's like,

Rachel (00:20:41):
as long as you didn't hold something with back on purpose,

Rachel (00:20:43):
like you're,

Rachel (00:20:44):
we're like,

Rachel (00:20:44):
I'm not going to share this one thing from my fourth step.

Rachel (00:20:48):
Like things are going to pop back up.

Rachel (00:20:49):
You know, it's,

Rachel (00:20:51):
being intentional when you're trying to do your inventory.

Rachel (00:20:56):
Because what we learn, you don't graduate.

Rachel (00:20:58):
It's a continuous inventory.

Waylon (00:20:59):
Yeah, 10, 11, 10, 11, 12.

Rachel (00:21:01):
There's every single day.

Waylon (00:21:02):
Yeah, yeah.

Waylon (00:21:04):
We got to keep keeping ourselves in check like that is something that...

Waylon (00:21:09):
that I had a really difficult time doing because going back to the evaluation report,

Waylon (00:21:14):
the evaluation report says that Waylon has problems with executive functions.

Waylon (00:21:19):
So I can't carry out processes and tasks because there's a block.

Waylon (00:21:25):
That block happens to me.

Waylon (00:21:27):
And then once that block starts happening, then I start getting hyper.

Waylon (00:21:33):
I start getting, oh, the disease, the uneasiness takes over.

Waylon (00:21:41):
And then it makes me impulsive.

Waylon (00:21:43):
And then once my impulsive behavior gets triggered, fuck, it's too fucking late by then.

Waylon (00:21:48):
And so relapse, relapse was something that I was...

Waylon (00:21:57):
obsessed with,

Waylon (00:21:58):
I think,

Waylon (00:21:58):
at some point,

Waylon (00:21:59):
because the starts and stops,

Waylon (00:22:01):
the frequent starts and stops,

Waylon (00:22:03):
the,

Waylon (00:22:04):
oh,

Waylon (00:22:04):
I'm sober,

Waylon (00:22:05):
I got this now.

Waylon (00:22:08):
And then I can drink again real quick.

Waylon (00:22:11):
And then I'm going to sneak it.

Waylon (00:22:11):
I'm going to sneak it because I told everybody I'd quit drinking.

Waylon (00:22:15):
So I'm going to have to sneak this one.

Waylon (00:22:17):
I'm going to have to go somewhere.

Waylon (00:22:18):
I have to take off somewhere and go hide.

Waylon (00:22:21):
Month later, where's Waylon at, right?

Waylon (00:22:25):
Waking up, hearing, waking up to knocks on the hotel room door.

Waylon (00:22:30):
Waking up to just shit ton of cans in front of me because I drink a lot of beer

Waylon (00:22:36):
because I couldn't drink whiskey.

Waylon (00:22:40):
But I could eventually, right?

Waylon (00:22:41):
Eventually we graduate, right?

Waylon (00:22:43):
Graduate up.

Waylon (00:22:44):
I'm kind of giving you like the Rapid City, like Indian drunk, right?

Waylon (00:22:50):
Because I was hanging around a bunch of Native Americans, Lakota people, my heritage, right?

Waylon (00:22:56):
My heritage.

Waylon (00:22:58):
It's a heritage.

Waylon (00:22:59):
And we are Americans.

Waylon (00:23:01):
We're indigenous to the Americas.

Waylon (00:23:03):
Just want to say that much because you guys are based in Texas.

Waylon (00:23:07):
And philosophy.

Waylon (00:23:08):
right?

Waylon (00:23:09):
We go back to the Oxford group a little bit, and here's my ADHD jumping in.

Waylon (00:23:14):
Going back to the Oxford group and the Christian ideals, right?

Waylon (00:23:19):
And then Ebi, and I can't remember if it was Bill or Bob,

Waylon (00:23:24):
who were, I don't know about that God stuff.

Rachel (00:23:28):
Bob got sent by his wife to Oxford,

Rachel (00:23:31):
and Bill went because of Ebby,

Rachel (00:23:32):
and they both kind of split off and had coffee,

Rachel (00:23:35):
and they were like,

Rachel (00:23:36):
I don't know about all this.

Rachel (00:23:37):
That's what I mean.

Waylon (00:23:39):
That's what I meant.

Waylon (00:23:40):
Yeah, that's what I meant.

Rachel (00:23:40):
It's actually, yeah, both Bill and Bob.

Waylon (00:23:42):
And then Ebby was the third.

Waylon (00:23:45):
Yeah, because Ebby comes back, and then they have it.

Rachel (00:23:48):
But Ebby couldn't stay sober.

Rachel (00:23:49):
He relapsed.

Rachel (00:23:49):
You talk about resentments.

Rachel (00:23:52):
ebby had a resentment that he was not part of the creation of the big book because

Rachel (00:23:57):
he carried the message to bill but he was never considered creator that's

Rachel (00:24:01):
speculation i'm not saying i know that for sure but if you look at well maybe he

Waylon (00:24:06):
was indian you know indians and how do indians react to this perspective okay not

Waylon (00:24:13):
in iwo jima when they raised the flag at iwo jima

Waylon (00:24:18):
Are you guys familiar with the first individual,

Waylon (00:24:21):
a soldier,

Waylon (00:24:21):
a United States Marine by the name of Ira Hayes?

Waylon (00:24:24):
I was like, I'm terrible with history.

Waylon (00:24:27):
And that's the problem with America is that they're afraid of their history.

Rachel (00:24:30):
I'm not afraid.

Rachel (00:24:31):
I'm just bad at it.

Waylon (00:24:32):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:24:33):
And that's okay.

Waylon (00:24:33):
That's okay.

Waylon (00:24:34):
It's called guilt.

Waylon (00:24:35):
It's called internalized oppression.

Waylon (00:24:36):
All right.

Waylon (00:24:37):
Let's swallow that right now because we're trying to stay sober through all of this.

Waylon (00:24:41):
And we're trying to stay alive.

Waylon (00:24:43):
Honestly.

Waylon (00:24:44):
Huh?

Waylon (00:24:45):
Genocide.

Waylon (00:24:46):
A culture.

Waylon (00:24:47):
Killed.

Waylon (00:24:48):
America, the beautiful.

Waylon (00:24:50):
We're all Americans now.

Waylon (00:24:52):
We don't want to think about our history because it's hurtful.

Waylon (00:24:56):
It's harmful.

Waylon (00:24:57):
Oh, big fucking deal.

Waylon (00:24:58):
Guess what?

Waylon (00:24:58):
We've had to be here.

Waylon (00:25:00):
My grandmother, her name is Annie Wittborn.

Waylon (00:25:03):
Smith.

Waylon (00:25:05):
Smith.

Waylon (00:25:06):
But her real name is Hawkwoman.

Waylon (00:25:08):
Her dad's name was Chester.

Waylon (00:25:09):
I don't know what Chester's...

Waylon (00:25:11):
Indian name was but his dad's Indian name was long tail means mountain lion so

Waylon (00:25:18):
these are our beliefs that we hold self-evident these are truths to me right so I

Waylon (00:25:25):
won't get weird on you guys a little bit because we were talking about beliefs and

Waylon (00:25:28):
then you got shameful with that love shirt on you got shameful of your history and

Waylon (00:25:35):
Because you're an American here.

Waylon (00:25:36):
You're a Jewish American now.

Waylon (00:25:38):
And I hope you're not a Zionist because Zionism is kind of a sick thought, right?

Waylon (00:25:43):
And it kind of ties into that whole issue where there was a Holocaust.

Waylon (00:25:48):
I'm not a Holocaust denier, but I am a genocide survivor.

Waylon (00:25:54):
So that's our tie right there.

Waylon (00:25:57):
Judeo-Christianism.

Waylon (00:25:58):
Judeo-Christianity today now.

Waylon (00:26:01):
Christian nationalism, right?

Waylon (00:26:03):
Greg Abbott.

Waylon (00:26:07):
Tries to be a disability guy now too, right?

Waylon (00:26:09):
I don't know.

Waylon (00:26:09):
There's something where he was standing and then now he's in a wheelchair.

Waylon (00:26:13):
And so I'm like, I have a disability now.

Waylon (00:26:16):
I just discovered a disability in myself, right?

Waylon (00:26:21):
I don't know about you, but when I drank, I'd blink out.

Waylon (00:26:23):
Okay.

Waylon (00:26:25):
And I'd do some shit that I did not remember.

Waylon (00:26:27):
And then I'd wake up the next day and people would be telling me,

Waylon (00:26:31):
holy fuck,

Waylon (00:26:32):
bro,

Waylon (00:26:32):
did you know what you did?

Waylon (00:26:33):
You jumped out of a window.

Waylon (00:26:35):
Holy fuck, bro, did you know what you did?

Waylon (00:26:36):
You climbed on top of the roof of the car and you scared the fuck out of us.

Waylon (00:26:41):
Holy shit, bro.

Waylon (00:26:42):
Story after story after story of that.

Waylon (00:26:44):
And that's not normal behavior, right?

Waylon (00:26:50):
And it's risky.

Waylon (00:26:53):
And some people might even call it borderline.

Waylon (00:26:55):
You were talking about your psychological stuff.

Waylon (00:26:59):
When I was 18, I'm an Indian kid in North Dakota.

Waylon (00:27:04):
And North Dakota can be summed up as the Mississippi of the North.

Waylon (00:27:12):
And as brown people there, they couldn't lynch us, but they could throw us in jails.

Waylon (00:27:18):
Okay, so that system of oppression, loud and clear, loud and clear.

Waylon (00:27:25):
And I'm indigenous.

Waylon (00:27:25):
This is my land y'all are on, North Dakotans.

Waylon (00:27:29):
We predate that North Dakota 1889 century code bullshit.

Waylon (00:27:36):
1851, Treaty of 1851 was how our lands were established.

Waylon (00:27:40):
Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is where I grew up.

Waylon (00:27:43):
Mandarin, North Dakota, to be very specific.

Waylon (00:27:46):
My auntie and uncle moved to Fort Worth, Texas because of a policy called relocation.

Waylon (00:27:53):
United States policy.

Waylon (00:27:55):
That was the policy of the federal government to send Indians to different cities

Waylon (00:27:59):
so they could assimilate.

Waylon (00:28:00):
The survivors of a genocide had government funding to continue their life,

Waylon (00:28:07):
but they had to be Americans in order to continue it.

Waylon (00:28:11):
which is fine.

Waylon (00:28:12):
We're moving towards that direction again now where we all have to erase our

Waylon (00:28:15):
identities and we have to just become Americans,

Waylon (00:28:19):
which is fine.

Waylon (00:28:20):
I can play that mask.

Waylon (00:28:21):
I can play that role.

Waylon (00:28:22):
I identify with all kinds of Americans in this country,

Waylon (00:28:26):
Jews,

Waylon (00:28:28):
non-Jews,

Waylon (00:28:30):
indigenous,

Waylon (00:28:31):
non-indigenous,

Waylon (00:28:33):
right?

Waylon (00:28:35):
And I try not to offend, but I'm Gen X.

Waylon (00:28:42):
And we have a different role in society today, us Gen Xers.

Waylon (00:28:51):
We have to bridge generations.

Waylon (00:28:53):
Okay, because those boomers don't know shit.

Waylon (00:28:59):
And all those young kids, millennials, I think they call them, they know everything.

Waylon (00:29:05):
Holy smokes, they know everything.

Waylon (00:29:07):
They know so much.

Waylon (00:29:09):
That they're going to save the world.

Waylon (00:29:10):
And they're going to tell us guys to shut up.

Waylon (00:29:13):
So I want to get out of the way.

Waylon (00:29:14):
Let those kids take over.

Waylon (00:29:16):
Because that's what a bridge does.

Waylon (00:29:18):
I just serve as a conduit.

Waylon (00:29:20):
Between generations.

Waylon (00:29:22):
Because I can remember.

Waylon (00:29:25):
Looking at a calendar.

Waylon (00:29:26):
And it said 1982 on it.

Waylon (00:29:27):
That's how good my memory used to be.

Waylon (00:29:32):
But then alcohol.

Waylon (00:29:34):
Got introduced to my system.

Waylon (00:29:35):
When I was about 10 or 11.

Waylon (00:29:36):
Maybe 11 or 12 actually.

Waylon (00:29:39):
maybe earlier than that even, right?

Waylon (00:29:41):
Because I was bouncing off the walls and they did not know what to do with Wayland at that time.

Waylon (00:29:46):
And I was a little kid, toddler in diapers sometimes.

Waylon (00:29:50):
Some of my uncles would put...

Waylon (00:29:52):
alcohol in a cap and give it to me and see what would happen to me.

Rachel (00:29:56):
So our quick kind of backstory is that when I say we went to that same meeting that night,

Rachel (00:30:02):
we haven't had a drink since that same night.

Rachel (00:30:04):
He wasn't so AA.

Rachel (00:30:06):
He wanted to be like, well, I don't quite know.

Colin (00:30:09):
That's a dyslexic for you.

Colin (00:30:11):
Like there's a lot of reading already.

Colin (00:30:15):
We can't make it single digits.

Colin (00:30:18):
We got to go double digits.

Rachel (00:30:20):
And thankfully I had a great sponsor that said your, his step work is none of your business.

Rachel (00:30:27):
You have your sobriety is your business, but he's my husband.

Rachel (00:30:30):
We live because it does not matter what saved our marriages.

Rachel (00:30:34):
Like when we talk about the steps and we,

Rachel (00:30:37):
now I can learn through this,

Rachel (00:30:39):
you know,

Rachel (00:30:40):
Hey,

Rachel (00:30:41):
this is what makes me mad.

Rachel (00:30:43):
This is how I react.

Rachel (00:30:45):
I'm in charge of my reactions.

Rachel (00:30:46):
OK, like I don't get to say when you do the dishes that way, you make me angry.

Rachel (00:30:51):
No, you do the dishes how you do the dishes.

Rachel (00:30:53):
I get angry because of something that's in my problem.

Rachel (00:30:56):
And when we were able to break that down,

Rachel (00:30:59):
when things happening around the house or in our lives,

Rachel (00:31:01):
like,

Rachel (00:31:01):
hey,

Rachel (00:31:02):
we can stop.

Rachel (00:31:03):
Can we do a quick inventory check?

Rachel (00:31:06):
Here's the problem.

Rachel (00:31:08):
It's not your fault.

Rachel (00:31:09):
I'm telling you my inventory how I feel.

Rachel (00:31:13):
What can we do to try and get rid of that resentment?

Rachel (00:31:18):
And how did this book that Bill and Bob created has saved my marriage?

Waylon (00:31:24):
Oh my God.

Waylon (00:31:25):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:31:25):
No, I, yes.

Waylon (00:31:27):
I,

Waylon (00:31:27):
there's so many things that I,

Waylon (00:31:28):
that,

Waylon (00:31:29):
that were hitting with me as you were speaking,

Waylon (00:31:31):
because like real,

Waylon (00:31:32):
like my first real sponsor,

Waylon (00:31:35):
my first real sponsor.

Waylon (00:31:36):
And I say my first real sponsor,

Waylon (00:31:38):
because he's actually the one who really had enough patience to,

Waylon (00:31:43):
to actually wait, pause, and then tell me how to go through it.

Waylon (00:31:50):
And he had no knowledge of ADHD.

Waylon (00:31:53):
I had no knowledge that I had ADHD at the time,

Waylon (00:31:55):
but he had enough patience and love and tolerance.

Waylon (00:31:59):
Oh my God.

Waylon (00:32:01):
But it was so funny because at times when his patience and tolerance got tested,

Waylon (00:32:06):
he sent me to priests.

Waylon (00:32:07):
He sent me to a Catholic priest.

Waylon (00:32:09):
He sent me to Orthodox, a Russian Orthodox priest.

Waylon (00:32:12):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:32:12):
And the Russian Orthodox priest was the one who actually reached me at some point

Waylon (00:32:18):
because he had to,

Waylon (00:32:19):
I was stuck in my identity and I was stuck in,

Waylon (00:32:24):
it's you guys' fault that I'm fucking even alcoholic because you guys fed us to alcohol.

Waylon (00:32:31):
You guys had this whole fucking bullshit thing where wine is sacred now?

Waylon (00:32:40):
It's a belief system.

Waylon (00:32:40):
We didn't have sacred, any wine or anything fermented that was sacred to us.

Waylon (00:32:46):
We have herbs.

Waylon (00:32:48):
We have a plant that fucks some people up.

Waylon (00:32:52):
We won't get into that.

Waylon (00:32:54):
But ergo fungus,

Waylon (00:32:56):
right,

Waylon (00:32:57):
is something that is a part of the burning bush incident that everybody leaves out

Waylon (00:33:05):
because Bill is hanging out with like Ken Kesey people,

Waylon (00:33:09):
dude.

Waylon (00:33:09):
You know, and Ken Kesey was a merry fucking prankster and used LSD to free his mind.

Waylon (00:33:15):
Nobody wants to hear about that, though.

Waylon (00:33:17):
We always have to talk about Abby.

Waylon (00:33:18):
We always have to talk about orthodox and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all that bullshit.

Rachel (00:33:23):
I try to give Bill grace on some of the after parts.

Rachel (00:33:27):
I don't.

Rachel (00:33:27):
I try.

Waylon (00:33:28):
Because it was ego.

Waylon (00:33:29):
It was ego.

Waylon (00:33:30):
It was ego.

Waylon (00:33:31):
I mean, yeah, he asked for a drink on his deathbed.

Rachel (00:33:33):
I know.

Rachel (00:33:33):
It's 80 years ago.

Waylon (00:33:34):
Here we are now, still talking about these fuckers.

Waylon (00:33:37):
Why?

Waylon (00:33:38):
Why?

Waylon (00:33:40):
Because we're just trying to stay sober, right?

Waylon (00:33:42):
We're trying to stay sober.

Waylon (00:33:43):
They were God-given or something like that, right?

Waylon (00:33:47):
Just like the framers of our constitution.

Waylon (00:33:49):
So anyways, decolonization was something where I got stuck, right?

Waylon (00:33:52):
And it took a Russian Orthodox priest and his caller to say, Waylon, I'm an alcoholic too.

Waylon (00:34:03):
Literally, that's how he said it.

Waylon (00:34:05):
I'm an alcoholic too.

Waylon (00:34:06):
And he pointed to his caller.

Waylon (00:34:09):
Waylon, I'm an alcoholic.

Waylon (00:34:12):
Father, I'm an Indian.

Waylon (00:34:16):
Black robes, missionaries, colonization, Catholicism, belief systems, imposition, right?

Waylon (00:34:26):
But I'm just an alcoholic named Waylon.

Waylon (00:34:29):
I got to let go of all of that that weighs me down to stay sober.

Waylon (00:34:34):
Otherwise, all that that weighs me down turns into another drink.

Waylon (00:34:41):
And I never knew how to turn this into a lead, right?

Waylon (00:34:48):
Because I never understood opening up, beginning, middle, end.

Waylon (00:34:57):
Because I always opened up.

Waylon (00:34:59):
I started and I stopped.

Waylon (00:35:02):
I started and I stopped.

Waylon (00:35:03):
I never had an in-between middle ground where I could breathe.

Waylon (00:35:09):
Where I could feel that love.

Waylon (00:35:15):
Where I could stretch like I'm in a yoga class, right?

Waylon (00:35:24):
And feel the beauty of all the beauty around us that's everywhere around us.

Waylon (00:35:30):
And I feel warmth in one hand and I feel cool in the other.

Waylon (00:35:34):
Right now, as I'm speaking to you both.

Waylon (00:35:37):
And so that wisdom,

Waylon (00:35:39):
that knowledge,

Waylon (00:35:40):
that love,

Waylon (00:35:40):
that energy,

Waylon (00:35:41):
that God moment,

Waylon (00:35:43):
it's about all I have to say about that right there.

Waylon (00:35:46):
And that beauty and that wisdom is way inside of me.

Waylon (00:35:51):
And that's creator as I understand that.

Waylon (00:35:54):
I don't need a book to tell me I'm better than other people.

Waylon (00:36:02):
So it's kind of neat.

Waylon (00:36:04):
It's kind of beautiful.

Waylon (00:36:07):
But it's my experience, my strength, my hope.

Waylon (00:36:11):
I got to experience treatment as a senior in high school.

Waylon (00:36:17):
I was 16 years old when I went to treatment my first time.

Waylon (00:36:22):
It was September 1994.

Waylon (00:36:25):
And I went in and I told my high school principal that I didn't feel like I wanted

Waylon (00:36:33):
to be here anymore.

Waylon (00:36:38):
And she said, we have somewhere we can take you.

Waylon (00:36:43):
They're going to help you.

Waylon (00:36:45):
Do you want to go?

Waylon (00:36:47):
Yeah, let's go.

Waylon (00:36:49):
I need the help.

Waylon (00:36:51):
I ended up in a psych ward for 72 hours.

Waylon (00:36:57):
And the psych ward said, you're not suicidal.

Waylon (00:37:03):
We're pretty sure you're an alcoholic.

Waylon (00:37:06):
So we're going to put you in treatment for 28 days.

Waylon (00:37:10):
And this was September 1994.

Waylon (00:37:12):
I think I got out around October, November 1994.

Waylon (00:37:22):
And over half of our high school class, this was the first time I got sober, right?

Waylon (00:37:28):
The half of our high school class ended up going to, all of us ended up going to treatment.

Waylon (00:37:33):
This was on a reservation.

Waylon (00:37:35):
It was a mixed community.

Waylon (00:37:37):
So it was half white, half Indian.

Waylon (00:37:39):
And some of us were half white, half Indian.

Waylon (00:37:44):
So it's a mixed community, right?

Waylon (00:37:47):
So there was love there in that community.

Waylon (00:37:48):
A lot of love, secret love sometimes too.

Waylon (00:37:57):
It's a small community, right?

Waylon (00:37:58):
It's a rural area.

Waylon (00:37:59):
So I have,

Waylon (00:38:03):
I won't get into that.

Colin (00:38:04):
Yeah.

Colin (00:38:04):
In a small community like that and kind of hear about smaller towns,

Colin (00:38:08):
people just drink earlier because there's nothing really else to do.

Colin (00:38:14):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:38:14):
And that's bullshit.

Waylon (00:38:15):
That's lack of imagination.

Waylon (00:38:16):
That's lack of imagination.

Waylon (00:38:18):
That's lack of creativity.

Waylon (00:38:20):
Right.

Waylon (00:38:20):
And I wasn't gifted and talented for fuck's sake.

Waylon (00:38:23):
So I'm embarrassed by that.

Waylon (00:38:25):
But I'm also like, those are the tools.

Waylon (00:38:27):
Those are the only tools we had.

Waylon (00:38:29):
Scott, when you were dyslexic in school, did you have to go to class?

Waylon (00:38:33):
Did you tell anybody that you had a little bit of an issue?

Waylon (00:38:36):
Thank you.

Rachel (00:38:38):
They saw the letters backwards, the numbers backwards.

Rachel (00:38:40):
It was very early.

Rachel (00:38:42):
Yes.

Rachel (00:38:42):
And now he works for that hospital that helped him.

Rachel (00:38:46):
And so it's kind of serendipitous.

Colin (00:38:48):
Full circle.

Colin (00:38:48):
Yeah.

Colin (00:38:49):
So I work for a hospital that does.

Colin (00:38:52):
It's for children.

Colin (00:38:52):
Yeah.

Colin (00:38:53):
A children's hospital in Dallas that does a lot of great work.

Colin (00:38:56):
And it's all run on donations and charities.

Colin (00:38:59):
So the people that go there don't have to pay for anything if they can't afford it.

Rachel (00:39:03):
And it's more like prosthetics or dyslexia or like... Yeah, scoliosis, club feet.

Colin (00:39:10):
They coined the term dyslexia and helped pioneer the tutoring for it.

Colin (00:39:16):
The Shriners.

Waylon (00:39:17):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:39:18):
Chem Temple is the temple that put on our Shrine Circus in North Dakota.

Waylon (00:39:24):
Oh.

Waylon (00:39:24):
Okay.

Waylon (00:39:25):
So that's the connection we have to the Shriners there.

Waylon (00:39:27):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:39:29):
Which is different, which is a little bit of a disconnect, but I'm also like...

Waylon (00:39:33):
but they make money.

Waylon (00:39:34):
I mean, they raise funds that way.

Colin (00:39:36):
Yeah.

Colin (00:39:37):
Interesting crowd of gentlemen, but they raise a lot of money.

Colin (00:39:41):
And it was always those dudes in the derbies and the little tassels.

(00:39:44):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:39:45):
I'm like, what the fuck is that?

Waylon (00:39:48):
What is that?

Waylon (00:39:49):
You know, I was a kid curious saying, what is that?

Waylon (00:39:52):
And then I'm an adult taking my kids to this circus.

Waylon (00:39:57):
And then I started having that PETA moment where I'm like, Oh, this is animal abuse.

Waylon (00:40:01):
Actually.

Waylon (00:40:03):
How can they justify this?

Waylon (00:40:05):
Oh, yeah, that's right.

Waylon (00:40:06):
Abuse is a way of life for them.

Waylon (00:40:08):
So that's how they justify it.

Waylon (00:40:11):
And so that's why I'm like, oh, shit.

Waylon (00:40:13):
Yeah, this is a really big disconnect.

Waylon (00:40:15):
Because we lived with the earth.

Waylon (00:40:17):
We didn't want to control it.

Waylon (00:40:19):
We don't want to be in charge of it.

Waylon (00:40:21):
We lived with it in harmony.

Waylon (00:40:23):
And we appreciated it.

Waylon (00:40:24):
And we knew that we had enough land that there was going to be an abundance for everybody.

Waylon (00:40:32):
I believe it was the Onondagas.

Waylon (00:40:34):
And I might butcher that.

Waylon (00:40:35):
We have to go back to,

Waylon (00:40:37):
I think it's the Five Nation Confederacy,

Waylon (00:40:40):
Six Nation Confederacy,

Waylon (00:40:41):
one of those confederacies,

Waylon (00:40:43):
of which are the framers of the Constitution used to make the Constitution.

Waylon (00:40:50):
But the philosophy was one dish, one spoon.

Waylon (00:40:53):
There's enough for everybody.

Waylon (00:40:57):
There's enough for everybody.

Waylon (00:41:01):
One dish, one spoon.

Waylon (00:41:04):
Not the cow jumped over the moon.

Waylon (00:41:07):
A real fucking story.

Waylon (00:41:08):
A real oral history.

Waylon (00:41:11):
Okay?

Waylon (00:41:13):
Not written down like the Talmud or the Torah or the Quran or the Bible.

Waylon (00:41:20):
Oral history.

Waylon (00:41:23):
And there were whole people who were entire records.

Waylon (00:41:32):
not just books, people with wisdom and knowledge and experience.

Waylon (00:41:40):
And if we can kind of keep that, keep just the remnants of that, right?

Waylon (00:41:45):
Just those little tiny specks of that beautiful history.

Waylon (00:41:49):
And we can reach each other with this story, right?

Waylon (00:41:52):
We can reach one another with these stories, our experience, our strength, our hope, right?

Waylon (00:41:57):
by golly, we just might be onto something, right?

Waylon (00:42:00):
Because we were able to sit, and I was able to focus, and I thank you folks for that, right?

Waylon (00:42:06):
For this past hour,

Waylon (00:42:07):
I've been able to sit and focus on a topic,

Waylon (00:42:09):
a single topic of sobriety,

Waylon (00:42:12):
but I went all over to a bunch of different areas,

Waylon (00:42:17):
right?

Waylon (00:42:17):
I went all, jumped all over the place.

Waylon (00:42:21):
Because yeah, it's inclusive, right?

Waylon (00:42:24):
Sobriety is inclusive.

Waylon (00:42:30):
Just like the rest of us have to be inclusive, right?

Waylon (00:42:36):
But that inclusion can be changed a little bit.

Waylon (00:42:40):
We can change those words, right?

Waylon (00:42:45):
We're word mongers.

Waylon (00:42:47):
We have thesauruses.

Waylon (00:42:49):
We can change the verbiage a little bit to match the policies that are in place in

Waylon (00:42:55):
motion right now.

Waylon (00:42:55):
We can reclaim our identities too in that framework.

Waylon (00:42:59):
So Hidatsa Heritage is something I've really been pushing for and championing.

Waylon (00:43:06):
There was a couple questions you had on your intake form that made me wonder about

Waylon (00:43:11):
what do I want to plug shamelessly?

Waylon (00:43:15):
And it's Hidatsa Heritage.

Waylon (00:43:17):
Because the Heritage Foundation wants to solidify American heritage.

Waylon (00:43:23):
And I'm going to weave in the fabric of my culture, my heritage,

Waylon (00:43:31):
with two people in Texas this morning in a good way.

Waylon (00:43:37):
His creator gave that thought to me.

Waylon (00:43:39):
Thank you.

Rachel (00:43:39):
Like, and we're going to put that link in the show notes.

Waylon (00:43:41):
Well, here's, here's the deal.

Waylon (00:43:43):
Heritage Foundation is kind of dark.

Waylon (00:43:45):
Their philosophy is anti everybody except for conservatives.

Waylon (00:43:52):
That's the difference between those 12 worlds concepts,

Waylon (00:43:54):
AA,

Waylon (00:43:56):
the foundations of AA tradition seven.

Waylon (00:44:01):
I would like to donate to that because that's the only way I see worlds working anymore,

Waylon (00:44:08):
is on donations.

Waylon (00:44:11):
Because we can't make money.

Waylon (00:44:12):
We can't make money.

Waylon (00:44:14):
Oh, but then the fat cat corporations can, right?

Waylon (00:44:17):
Which is fine.

Waylon (00:44:19):
I understand LLCs.

Waylon (00:44:21):
We won't get into that.

Waylon (00:44:22):
But I'm just trying to figure out here, seriously, how to help motherfuckers.

Waylon (00:44:26):
anymore like us marginalized peoples right i don't have as much as i should because

Waylon (00:44:35):
i was blocked from 88 blocked by adhd for the last 20 years okay i kind of started

Waylon (00:44:43):
this conversation with i was a journalist before my adhd my alcohol hasn't kicked

Waylon (00:44:49):
in and that held me down for 20 years

Waylon (00:44:53):
So now here I am kind of fumbling because I've been struggling with a disability

Waylon (00:44:59):
for 20 years that has not allowed me to stay employed.

Waylon (00:45:04):
So how does a donation-based service or donation-based whatever the hell it is,

Waylon (00:45:16):
how does that function?

Waylon (00:45:17):
And I'll take LA Russell as an example, right?

Waylon (00:45:20):
Because LA Russell does music.

Waylon (00:45:22):
I'll drop LA Russell because,

Waylon (00:45:24):
and I don't know if it's La Russell,

Waylon (00:45:26):
but I mean,

Waylon (00:45:26):
I think they're doing great work.

Waylon (00:45:27):
They're doing backyard stuff and it's really helpful,

Waylon (00:45:31):
but he has this page and a following on Instagram,

Waylon (00:45:35):
but he also has a bunch of donation links to his cash app.

Waylon (00:45:38):
And I'm like, how does that work for them?

Waylon (00:45:40):
How did they funnel that into

Waylon (00:45:43):
Like, I got to pay the rent this month, right?

Waylon (00:45:47):
And so I'm just trying to figure out what your mutual aid links would be so then I

Waylon (00:45:51):
could help you,

Waylon (00:45:52):
right?

Waylon (00:45:52):
And then in the process,

Waylon (00:45:53):
maybe down the road,

Waylon (00:45:56):
let's say I'm working for a nonprofit called Harvest of All First Nations.

Waylon (00:46:00):
Maybe we can say donate to Harvest of All First Nations.

Rachel (00:46:03):
Yeah, we're still figuring that out on our end.

Rachel (00:46:07):
And I have to keep refocusing that we've grown bigger of talking to all these great people.

Rachel (00:46:13):
And I'm like, oh my God, let's talk on the podcast.

Rachel (00:46:15):
But it started off just him and I very casual.

Rachel (00:46:18):
And right now,

Rachel (00:46:20):
my only goal is to get a job to where I can do this without asking people for a

Rachel (00:46:25):
Venmo or Cash App or whatever,

Rachel (00:46:27):
or a subscription.

Rachel (00:46:28):
God, that kills me.

Waylon (00:46:30):
And don't get me wrong.

Waylon (00:46:31):
Listen, I'm a journalist, right?

Waylon (00:46:33):
I stopped doing journalism because they couldn't fucking pay me what I needed to live.

Waylon (00:46:39):
Does that make sense?

Waylon (00:46:41):
Yeah, I know.

Waylon (00:46:41):
I was in South Dakota getting paid 13 a fucking hour for my brain work.

Waylon (00:46:47):
And that was it.

Waylon (00:46:47):
That was the best I could do.

Waylon (00:46:51):
So when I started seeing jobs for menial tasks getting way more than that,

Waylon (00:46:58):
I'm like, my fucking mind isn't even valued here.

Waylon (00:47:01):
Nobody's mind is valued unless you have a million dollars in the bank to begin with.

Rachel (00:47:07):
Yeah.

Rachel (00:47:07):
And so you're already starting off short.

Waylon (00:47:10):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:47:10):
So that's a poverty mindset right there.

Waylon (00:47:13):
And so I can help you shift out of that.

Waylon (00:47:17):
Literally.

Waylon (00:47:18):
But it takes a lot.

Waylon (00:47:21):
It takes a commitment of going to North Dakota in the summertime.

Waylon (00:47:25):
Yeah.

Waylon (00:47:28):
I'm talking about spirituality.

Waylon (00:47:30):
No, yeah.

Waylon (00:47:31):
Yeah, Sundance.

Waylon (00:47:33):
I do have nonprofits that I work with.

Waylon (00:47:36):
Medicine Butte is one of them.

Waylon (00:47:38):
Medicine Butte nonprofit up in North Dakota.

Waylon (00:47:41):
They're based in Newtown, PO Box 90.

Waylon (00:47:43):
They're trying to do some stuff.

Waylon (00:47:45):
I did mention Harvest of All First Nations.

Waylon (00:47:47):
I am working with them, trying to grow food here in Boulder County, Colorado.

Waylon (00:47:54):
Okay, so I'm a media guy, right?

Waylon (00:47:56):
I am a creative.

Waylon (00:47:58):
And that's what I gave to you guys today.

Waylon (00:47:59):
I gave you my creativity for an hour.

Waylon (00:48:05):
I'm not going to ask for anything from that,

Waylon (00:48:07):
but I am going to ask that if we can build together,

Waylon (00:48:11):
right,

Waylon (00:48:12):
from this point on.

Rachel (00:48:13):
And I know we've taken a lot of your time, and I appreciate it.

Waylon (00:48:17):
It was great having you.

Waylon (00:48:19):
One last thing.

Waylon (00:48:20):
What are your sobriety dates?

Rachel (00:48:22):
Same one, 11, 22, 21.

Rachel (00:48:22):
Mm-hmm.

Rachel (00:48:25):
Nice.

Colin (00:48:26):
So a little over three years in a few months.

Rachel (00:48:29):
And I have six hours on them.

Colin (00:48:31):
Yeah.

Colin (00:48:31):
I got a year on this last one.

(00:48:33):
10-24-2020.

Colin (00:48:33):
The day I woke up.

Colin (00:48:34):
That's impressive because that's like...

Rachel (00:48:45):
six months into covid and that was probably our heaviest time drinking is because

Rachel (00:48:50):
the world was shut down alcohol could get delivered to your front door and it was a

Rachel (00:48:56):
nightmare again we can say like that high bottom but if you looked in our house and

Rachel (00:49:00):
the way we took care of ourselves and alcohol was our master at that point yeah and

Rachel (00:49:07):
it was scary when we got sober because it's

Rachel (00:49:10):
How did we justify this?

Rachel (00:49:12):
And how did we justify having negative amounts in our bank account and selling off

Rachel (00:49:18):
like coins for our family to go buy a handle of Jameson?

Rachel (00:49:22):
But in the time it made perfect sense.

Waylon (00:49:25):
Yeah, in the moment.

Waylon (00:49:26):
Because you don't want to get the cheap shit, for sure.

Waylon (00:49:28):
Yeah, no.

Rachel (00:49:30):
And again, it's like the baffling.

Rachel (00:49:33):
I don't understand how I rationalized it.

Colin (00:49:38):
We barely use that couch anyways.

Colin (00:49:40):
Yeah, we don't need a couch.

Rachel (00:49:41):
You know what?

Rachel (00:49:42):
We have two couches.

Rachel (00:49:43):
We're going to sit on the floor.

Rachel (00:49:44):
We can do yoga.

Colin (00:49:45):
We can get yoga.

Colin (00:49:46):
Justify the... Yeah, no.

Waylon (00:49:56):
that's hey i mean we could do a whole other we could do a whole other discussion on

Rachel (00:49:59):
that i mean i just the feeling too it's that emptiness and now my heart is not not

Rachel (00:50:07):
empty just definitely a lot more full today we thank you for your time really

Rachel (00:50:12):
appreciate it have a great rest of your weekend