Addiction, Suicide and Recovery: A Deep Dive into Mental Health w/ Josh Zurawski

In this episode, I interview Josh Zurawski who opens up about his family dynamics, his childhood, and his personal struggles with mental health. We navigate through his life, dipping into his brother's addiction and loss, which paints a clear picture of the ripple effects that addiction and mental health issues can have on families.

This isn't just a story of addiction and loss; it's also a story of resilience and the power of familial bonds. Through Josh's eyes, we get to experience the process of healing, the importance of mental health awareness, and the struggle of balancing personal responsibilities with his inherent role as the oldest sibling in the family. He discusses his experience with anxiety and panic attacks, his family's grief, and how they came together in the face of adversity, proving that there's strength in vulnerability and unity.

As we close this heartfelt conversation, we touch on the importance of mental health awareness, volunteering, and providing a supportive and non-judgmental environment for those dealing with mental health issues. Josh sheds light on the need for open conversations around men's mental health and different coping mechanisms. His experiences and insights offer a stark reminder of the compassion and understanding required when dealing with mental health and addiction. Tune in, listen, and allow Josh's journey to enlighten and inspire you.

Transcript

0:00:13 - Speaker 1
Hi, welcome to another episode of Unturned Stones. Today my guest is Josh Jarowski. Josh is a friend that I met through a running group when we me and my wife started running with some people at the WAC. And recently me and him have had some deep conversations about mental health from him kind of being aware of me doing this project here, working on creating this podcast. So I asked him to come down, sit down with me and have a little conversation about his own journey through mental health and some background that he's dealt with. So, josh, just kind of start the podcast. Can you give people a little bit of information about yourself, a little bit about your history? 

0:00:47 - Speaker 2
I'm Josh Jarowski, 43, married, have one kid he's 17, ready to graduate high school this year. I work in I work at Amazon as operations management after leaving 17 years of pharmacy. But hobby is fitness definitely, but more so the last couple of years, actually the last 10, 12 years I've done a lot of charity work and also really done things for mental health and I feel it's a good cause. I feel that there's a lot. It's a clearing issue, society today that is not covered and I feel that the I think mental health amongst men in society today is kind of looked over, starting to get a little, starting to get a little attention. But I think way too many people suffer from it and it's a consistent issue that we have today. 

0:01:57 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I completely agree. That's obviously like a big reason why I started this podcast is because I want to shed more light on it myself because of the mental health struggles I've had and the mental health struggles I hear other men having, that just really go with them talked about. But, like you said, it is becoming more mainstream for people to be able to talk about it more openly. But I still think there's such a big category of men in the middle right who like aren't. I feel like it's still a little taboo to talk about it. Sure, so to kind of just like open up a little bit about your past and kind of your family and stuff Growing up as a like, what would your childhood like were your parents together? 

0:02:33 - Speaker 2
Yeah, so there was five of us kids. I was the oldest, the youngest was 10 years younger than I, was Danny. So five of us kids growing up parents together. They're still together. It's 84, so almost 40 years Next year for 40 years for them. But you know typical five kid family household, a lot of stuff going on, a lot of things in motion. Childhood was good but it was very family knit, very close. You grew up in Franklin area, correct? We initially grew up in South Milwaukee, love to Franklin in 92. 

0:03:19 - Speaker 1
That's worked ever since. So you've been a Midwest boy your whole life. Yep, yeah, okay. So what was the dynamic for your family growing up, you know, with the five kids? So the youngest is what's your brother? You said Danny, right, danny. And then there's another brother and two sisters Yep. 

0:03:39 - Speaker 2
So Danny was the youngest, and then it was Jenny, then Brian, then Nicole and then myself. Okay, so, being the oldest, it was almost like, you know, both parents were working. So we were always, you know, we always were together. All five of us kids were always together, always hanging out, always doing stuff. Obviously, nicole and I would be watching the kids during the day when my parents were at work, you know, especially when we got home from school. You know we had our grandfather living with us for a while too. That helped out as well. But really the bond of my siblings and I were having strong ever since we were young, my mother's side, her family, she was one of nine, and there was a lot of. It wasn't very pleasant, Like there was a lot of fighting, infighting amongst them. So we never wanted to be like that. We wanted to be very close. Nits have each other's backs, you know be a really close family. 

0:04:48 - Speaker 1
So you kind of had a little bit of a parental role, obviously, but like you still kind of were like a had to take care of somebody. Younger siblings as because I think your difference is big enough for, like, if you were in high school. They're obviously very young and probably were dependent on you for some stuff that both parents were working and sometimes you kind of were the only you know. You or your older sister were maybe the only ones around to like do something with them at the moment. So you kind of took on like a pretty yeah, we'd always. 

0:05:13 - Speaker 2
We'd always watch them with my parents. You know they rarely went out and did stuff. It was more, you know, in-home stuff, it was more family. Growing up, you know, we we didn't really go on vacations, we really didn't do stuff like that, because we, you know, there's five kids in a family and we got to take care of each other and we just got to make sure that. You know, we grew up doing the right things. 

0:05:35 - Speaker 1
So what was life for you then, like after high school? Were you still living at home? Did you go off anywhere after high school? 

0:05:41 - Speaker 2
No, I after high school I took a year off just to see what I really wanted to do and then I roll, this was right around the time. So I graduated in 98. Went back to school in 99, kind of general studies was MATC, was just like okay, you know. Then I went into fire science which took the, took the program there, didn't, couldn't really find a job, got into business management, okay, and that's where I kind of that kind of took off. I know it was kind of sporadic with schooling. I took so many classes because of working and whatever. I moved out of my parents' house around 23 with a couple of roommates, left me on a couple of apartments and stuff. I was a Canadian one at school, wound up going to school, transferring to the Lakeland College, finishing on the degrees there, wound up with, you know, associates in fire science. Turned the business management into associate, went, went to a bachelor's with a double major in HR. 

0:06:54 - Speaker 1
When you moved out, when you were 23,. Was that? Was it hard for you like to leave your family, like your, your siblings, because you were very close with them, especially the young ones. Was that difficult for you? 

0:07:03 - Speaker 2
That was especially the younger ones. It was really kind of, you know, like it was just weird right, you had them all. You were with them your entire childhood. You grew up together, you did stuff together, you played together, you guys had your, you had everybody had her friends. But we had a lot of friends that were down the street from us and a lot of families down the streets and we all had, and they had a couple of kids and you know, we kind of paired up with their similar ages and such. So moving out was was kind of different. But I got, you know, get used to it after a while and being on your own and you know, life goes on. And next thing, you know, my sister, she moves out. My brother, he moved out. And he, my middle brother, brian, moved out when he was 18. Like he was destined to move out. He wanted his own freedom, he wanted his own, you know. So, yeah, that was that was different. But it took a while for it to adjust, you know, especially with our the homodynamics. 

0:08:04 - Speaker 1
So you know, you always hear about how, like the whole, like oldest, youngest, middle child syndrome. I mean it's like it's it's a tale as old as mankind and it's, I think, as true as anything that could ever be said. It really is a thing. How much did you see that in your own family, like the whole middle child, younger child, all the child syndrome Because obviously we talked a little bit about yourself that feeling of responsibility for your younger siblings, which is a very common thing for the oldest? How did you see that behavior for like the middle children and then the youngest children? 

0:08:36 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a thing like growing up, right, so you're watching all for you know your younger siblings the middle child felt, you know, almost victimized at times because the youngest would, you know, kind of like get away with stuff or whatnot. And it definitely played out and it definitely kind of I don't think it really transpired into adulthood so much. I think once everybody started moving out and getting more independent on their own, everybody started really kind of like growing up and those kind of those kind of roles dissipated. 

0:09:09 - Speaker 1
Okay, okay. So then, when did you meet your wife and get married? 

0:09:17 - Speaker 2
So actually I met her. I used to kind of a kind of crazy. So we used to work. I used to work at McDonald's for a long time, like when I started when I was 14, like off of 76 and Ross, and she worked in Waterford for the same order, and then she got transferred to our store, okay, so we first started working there. She started, she got transferred like later on, like as we go older. Then, when I worked at UPS in 2001, I started out at UPS. She worked at UPS as well, right, so we saw each other, whatnot. We're going to get together a little bit at McDonald's. And then we worked at kind of like worked at UPS together for a while. We started seeing each other. 

I really started like dating in 2003. She was living she was actually living at the time up in Brown Deer and it was driving back and forth to Waterford and UPS and all this other such and I had this apartment in Oak Creek. Ups was in Oak Creek, it was a lot closer drive. So I said, hey, why don't you just move on? And then we were together for five, six years. We had our son in 2006. Just by chance, we found this townhouse in Franklin. This townhouse was like basically just a basic townhouse. We needed a lot of upgrades but the owner of the time didn't want the money. And whatever? 2008,. 

We went through some struggles. We figured that you know, we might need a little time apart. So I was continuing on a school. She was still working two jobs, but this time, 2008,. We both left McDonald's back in like 2005, 2006. She worked at what was called Prescriptions Plus. I was working at UPS and I was looking for a different job At the time while going to school. It would be kind of flexible. Hey, why don't you become a driver at Prescriptions Plus, right? Okay, so I started driving for Prescriptions Plus. It was a very family based, very like homegrown environments. The owner was absolutely fantastic, Took care of the family. If you worked hard for a visa, take care, right. So we wound up working there. It made things a little weird when we kind of split up a little bit in 2008. But you know, we still were very professional. We're always professional with whatever you know, when we worked at UPS, when we worked McDonald's. So we've worked together more than we have in our life. That's just kind of weird. 

Yeah, that's a solid situation Right and I she's still at Prescriptions Plus, as well as her sister. Her sister's always worked with us as well. Her younger sister has worked there even longer than we were there. But so, yeah, spending 17 years in one place, like that you know, and then everybody else spending almost 20, like they're almost 20. Kind of crazy. But anyway, 2008, we just had a few differences Nothing bad, nothing horrible. We didn't. There's never no fighting or whatever. Like a lot of typical couples, we actually were more like best friends and that's kind of where it remained for a couple of years. 

But as I lived out of my own, I'm going to school 2009,. I'm taking Aiden to the park. It was right after a nice stormy night. I mean, it was stormy and I'm like man, I really don't want to take them. I really don't want to go. 

March Madness was on, but he's three years old, he wants to go to the park, park trip and back of our apartment, so we're playing. There's this little divot. I slip my leg, slips out, I snap my leg toward my ACL, some MCL, pcl. I had to get back to my apartment. I'm kind of holding on. Hey, aiden, come here holding on to him and another person helped us kind of get back because I'm like limping, but wound up tearing all the cartilage in my knee as well. So here I am. My knee is the size of like this right and I'm like holy cow. I call my boss at work. I'm like, hey, I'm not sure what really happened here. I got to go to the doctor. I'm not sure. I don't think I'm going to come in tomorrow. He had some kind of conference in Madison or something. It was called WALA. It was like a pharmacy's goal there. It's just kind of like a promote company, promote the systems, the products, the whole deal. Right, he wasn't happy at the time but wound up completely tearing up my knee. Well, I spent a lot of time at home that year with Aiden because I couldn't really do much. 

Just forward a little bit 2010,. I'm kind of like taking care of myself. I wasn't really involved much with the family School Aiden right, taking care of my knee, physical therapy, just even bending my knee, getting things right, was like a lot of time. 2010, start to find out that things, things are a little uneasy. Right, youngest brother is doing so. Well, I have suspicions but I can't really prove anything. I'm not spending as much time at home. Kind of gone for a while. 

Well, 2010 holiday season was the first time. I kind of figured like, uh-oh, something to get right, because I really didn't see them. Cell phones were kind of basic at the time, right, you had to flip phone, you're texting with the four characters just to get a couple words out. Hey, how's it going? It's been set up like three seconds. That you do now takes you like 30 seconds, right? So that year I kind of holiday season, I kind of figured something to get right. We get into next year and it's. You know, I'm trying to make some kind of contact with this and that, but I feel like there's a problem brewing. Okay, at this time I started causing a little. I felt like I caused a little tension within the family. 

0:16:41 - Speaker 1
Okay, Would your mom and dad tell you that he wasn't also reaching out for that? 

0:16:47 - Speaker 2
They really didn't say much because I don't think they really, I really don't think they actually knew what the root cause was at the time. Okay, because he went to, went to alternative school. He didn't do well in high school. He wasn't very sociable so he was kind of shy, didn't really kind of reach out and make friends, so it was uneasy for him there and you know it wasn't doing the best like when he was in a regular high school in Franklin, went to alternative school and it really you know, sort of piecing things together. He was spending a lot of time away from the house, from my gathering, you know, I don't my sister's the time and my brother, you know he, my brother was, you know he was getting ready to get married to his wife. Okay, my sister was in a relationship, got out of a relationship and that's a fantastic guy that she's married to now, you know. I mean, so everybody has all these things in motion and he's, he's at home, right. 

0:18:00 - Speaker 1
So this is like 2010. So he was he had just graduated, or that was kind of like was he 18, 19, like, just graduated in high school? 

0:18:07 - Speaker 2
No, when he graduated, he graduated like 2008 or 2009. Okay, so this was, I mean, 2008,. Was he's 10 years younger than I am, so you know he's had a job. But he kind of went through different jobs, kind of finding his way, you know a little bit right, and he talked about maybe going to the military. And then this is well, that's when we've kind of found out, like during the holiday season, kind of found out, like, okay, he has some stuff going on here, right, he got into he must have got into just a bad crowd. 

And you know, I remember one particular July 4th we July 4th, we always get together with the family and we'd have a cookout and just listen to some music and just have a good time. Right, that was standard all growing up. And he was the president hey, where's well he's at this front, okay, uh, parents and I didn't. I was like what the heck? You know what I mean? Like something's going on here, we need to, we need to intervene here, like let's cut this off and who? Right, like I didn't, I didn't know what was really transpiring, how big this thing would really get. But you know, I was kind of irritated by it. Parents, we had a disagreement, I left. I mean, I remember that clearly to this day because I was like man, something just isn't right. 2011 turns out like no, back in rehab, right, he was getting into pills and opiates, things that just were, you know like. I remember coming over one time. I see it just visiting my parents and just looking at him and he's just, he's just glazed. I'm like, oh my gosh. 

0:20:08 - Speaker 1
So this is really during that time period where the opiate prescription issue was like booming early 2010, 2011. It was like Oxycodone was on the streets everywhere and it was being overprescribed. So that was right around that period, yeah. 

0:20:24 - Speaker 2
And I honestly think so. I blew up my knee in 2009, right April 9th, 2009. And I remember him coming over one day and I think this was going on since the end of high school, kind of going on for a while, but it was kind of like nobody really knew about it because it wasn't really full blown yet. It was kind of, you know, I look at my prescriptions and I have been always against that Like I didn't feel right, I didn't like taking pills, I didn't like taking painkillers and like taking none of that stuff because I didn't feel right. And I'm like what the hell? I mean like he was at my house and then he left to go with his friends and I'm like all right, either I'm losing here, but I have not taken this money. It looked like there's some gone. Can't prove it because, like, did I have an accurate count of how many? I've not, but because I barely took any and it just seemed that the bottle was a little bit lower. Right, I told my mom right away like hey, listen, I'm not making any accusations, but this is like maybe you must count to this, maybe so, maybe so. However, let's keep in mind this right 2011,. 

There was a couple of whether it was me, whether it was my sister, my parents. We took them to different places. You know he'd do good for a while. Come off it, you know, and every time you come off it we'd have a conversation. We'd talk about it, you know, and be a positive conversation. I do remember like the last time I remember it was 2011, right around Christmas, I said, hey, danny, let's go Christmas shopping. I know you don't have much money, you know. I said, well, we can hang out, we'll take Eaton with us. And you know Eaton was five time right. It was clear as day that this sediment rains on my head all the time and I think about this all the time. That looked me dead in the eyes as I'm driving from our parents. I said he said, josh, if I had to go back in that place again, I'm just gonna end my life because I can't do this. 

And I was just like, hey, come on, don't think that way. Like you know, I tried to be positive, but I'm gonna sit back in my head. I'm like, all right, is he really serious? Because a lot of people say, but a lot of people do it At this point he'd been to rehab. 

0:22:57 - Speaker 1
Like how many times did you say At least three to four, okay, at least, okay. And it wasn't always the same place that he was alluding to in that comment, that he didn't want to go back to the exact same place. 

0:23:10 - Speaker 2
No, it wasn't the same place. We tried a couple different places. From what I recall, one place I really did not like because I didn't feel like, because of where I was, that basically you get out of it and there'd be people trying to sell it to me. Yeah, yeah, one of those kind of areas. So Christmas shopping, you know all this and that and it seemed like everything was getting better January 2012. I think it was like January 11. And that's when it got to a million people which was like MY. So our dog dies, our family dog dies. Okay, this is our dog, willow. 

Willow was a little. I actually rescued Willow little side store here, rescued Willow from off of like 68th and Ross, which is right down the road from where I'm at, like this little park. Right, my uncle and I were working at America at the time and just a little side gig I was doing with UPS after West McDonald's or before West McDonald's. The first time we saw a bunch of kids throwing rocks at puppies and my uncle like he's like a six foot three dude. Right, he was a hair farmer. He had long hair, just tied up. He was, you know, he got out of this truck and he started like, and the kids, you know, just like, scattered like roaches, right. So we grabbed, nobody was claiming these dogs, so he grabbed one, I grabbed one, somebody else wouldn't grab one, right, there was like six or seven boxer puppies, so we had a boxer. We took them home, got a little shot, got her all the shots, the whole deal, right? Well, she always walked with a limp because of where the kids were throwing stones at her, throwing the rocks at her. You know, the leg was just wall, right. 

Well, during times when Danny was struggling, he was really really close with Willow, like he would, you know, when my parents were at work, he would take care of her, he would make sure that. You know, she goes out this night and she was getting older at that time, right, this was. We rescued her from the park in 2000, 99, 2000. So 10, 11, 12 years old boxer, right, and you can tell she was, she was, her eyes were. You know you should barely see the whole deal, but she was still. She was probably one of the best dogs. You know, even to today. 

I'm like man, that was a good dog, like always by your side, and that was his resting point, that was his like go-to right. Everybody needs something, whether it was a friend, family, girlfriend, whatever right, everybody needs something. He was hanging out with this one girl for a while and she seemed to keep him like unpaced, you know, but things didn't work out. He grabbed her, took her to the dog. After the dog died, it was almost it seemed like rather quickly, like it was just a downward spiral, like you know, and during the time, like I think my sister would reach, my sister would reach out to my brother, reach out to him, you know, everybody would try to try to with it every day, right, no, but reach out to him, talk to him, see him, whatever right. 

A couple months later, you know, we fast-forward to the day everything happened, may 2nd 2012,. Just normal day. Okay, I'm at work. I guess I sent out for to go visit this one. Hey, I need you to go to stop at this one facility, whatever. Blah, blah, blah. We need to go pick up this prescription quincellating for opiates, right, the patients in pain, they need it. 

Okay, this was roughly 2 PM, I guess I sent out, maybe 2.15. I'm driving and I could, I could clear this day. I can remember the exact spots, you know I'm right off of like 79, close to 76 national, between 76 and 79 national, and I I feel like this sick pain in my stomach, like it was almost like somebody kicked me. This time, no joke, I looked at the clock in my car 234 PM. I don't think myself, uh-uh, what the heck? I got the prescription. 

I come back, I get a phone call. My sister is bawling. This is probably 3, 312, 312 PM, maybe 313. Only because I always constantly look at the clock, especially when I was at work, just to fit 10 frames to put reschedules and everything else. Uh, my sister bawling, okay, and he's gone. What he? He just, he just committed suicide. Like, right, whole world, just upside down and in the back of my head. 

I almost, it was almost like it's almost like I knew, it's almost like I knew something was going to give way, something was going to happen. And I obviously right, I go, I grab my stuff, I ran like I didn't even. I said nobody, I just I just walked out of the building and left. And my boss is calling me. The guy that I work with is texting me like what are you doing? What's going on? You know why are you leaving? Whatever, right, nothing, nothing. 

So I'm on my way down to my parents' house, I nearly get I nearly rear end somebody, something nearly rear ends me. I had to pull over for a few minutes just to like holy cow. I called one of my relatives at the time who I was really close with and I was like I, I came, I can't even come out my mouth right now, but Danny's gone, right, I get there. Well, we got the, we got the police, we got the paramedics, we got the corners. They're pulling them out, like we're all there, everybody's, everybody's, just in in, just in tears, everybody's, just like everybody's. 

Worlds upside down. You know what I mean. Like everybody, it's just holy cow. What just happened? How could this happen? Right, you know. And what's the first thing everybody thinks If I could, only, if I could only done more, if I did the best instead of this. My parents, you know, just just besides them, just beside them, you know there's not enough hug, I love you to go around to just even comprehend, like, what was happening. Right, we're there. You know, my dad is probably he's a man of few words. He really is like. He doesn't really talk much. He's a man of few words and like I've never seen him just like his emotions just hit the floor. Right From that point forward it was like, okay, my parents shut down. 

And at the time I didn't understand it. I'm like, guys, you got four kids, you got four, you know and I never said that to them because I'm like they're going through a lot and just the parents, at the time I didn't understand myself. I was just like they got grandkids, they got four of their kids, they got a tough no, no, no, I understand, no, I understand what, what they're thinking, what they're going through, and you know, and holy cow, like man, what's what's going on? Right? So, like, like I said, my mom has a big family. She wasn't very close with a lot of them because a lot of them, you know a lot of people, just they go their own ways, they have their own families. 

There was some bickering on the sides. I mean, we always get together for Christmas and it was. It was great when we were kids, with all the family. Just, everybody, too many, too much, because there's decide that side, whatever, right, yeah, they literally shut down. So here we are my sisters are a wreck, brothers are a wreck. You know what? My brother and Danny had a very good relationship at times and then a very distant relationship at times where they didn't get along right. All brothers do yeah, right, and this, this hit my middle brother hard, like hit him hard. So all of the you know the arrangements, you know this and that right, all of a sudden it was almost like an influx. 

You know, I felt a lot of pressure coming to me, like, oh, you're the oldest, you need to stay strong, you need to be the one you need to, okay, try to be positive, try to be, you know, kind of help everybody else out, right. I remember my the owner of the pharmacy at the funeral pulled me to the side. He said, jack, you've done really well with this. I I'm just, you know, can't believe how well you've done with this. You got to stay strong. All these people are looking at you. All the people are counting on you to be strong. Okay, you know, and I was, I was like to him, looked up to him. He had a good business sense. He knew I was going to school for business. We had a very good relationship, right, he knew I were like you took care of the family, right, he was good to us all. Okay, so I was like, okay, well, sisters both sisters have. You know, they really don't tell me all these, but I think I think one or both of them may have talked to a therapist afterwards about all the stuff going on and what, what happened and such. Okay, so here we are, I'm doing well all the way through, maybe the end of summer, maybe a little sooner, maybe around June, july, may, august. 

All of a sudden it's like my body freaked out, you know, recovering from the knee surgery. You know, fitness has always been huge in me, right, so recovering from the knee surgery, getting back to where it was being lean, being fit, you know, doing more was just keeping that. You know, keeping that mantra going was always huge for me. I started having just absolute, terrifying episodes of, like panic attacks. Right, there was nights I'd go home and go home and just, and working out was helping, but it wasn't enough. There's nights I'd go home and after just thinking about everything because people were reaching out to you, you know, I would even have, like, some of my cousins sending me just nasty, nasty, nasty messages, like on Facebook Messenger, like how could you let this happen? You were the oldest, you know, you didn't tell anybody about anything and look what happened to us and just like nasty stuff. Like we even said that stuff right. 

0:35:01 - Speaker 1
Yeah, especially in a situation like this. 

0:35:03 - Speaker 2
Sit down, point finger you're not gonna, you're not gonna invite us to the field. You were never close with them. All that stuff built in. I would actually go home, I would sit, I would actually get in the shower and I would just break down, just, you know, blow my eyes out and just think, man, you know what? What the heck man? You know what was supposed to happen. You know we're all close growing up. We're supposed to be together, remain together, have families together. You know, bring our kids around each other and live life and live life good. 

So all those thoughts were raised, but panic attacks were just it was getting too much. Like I didn't want to go. I didn't go see a therapist, I didn't talk to anybody, I talked to a few people. So my close friends, they took me out to a different place. We just kind of hang out, just kind of de-stress, relax, you know. 

But it got to the point where I was at work one day and my vision would just go like haywire where I couldn't even focus on anything. My heart would be racing through my chest, I would be driving and I would actually my palms would be sweating so bad, like it would be in the car, and I think myself I'd have all these thoughts of like impending to drive up the cliff. You're going to do this, you're going to do that, right, and I am just like, okay, I need to. So I go see this doctor, who's actually a pastor now. He's a fantastic person and he said you have a brain injury. Let's put you on a low grade antidepressant. Okay, I wasn't really thrilled with it at first. It took me a while. He took me a couple times to go to the doctor to actually convince me, because I was not. Even though I worked at a pharmacy, I was not like I don't feel that there should be a pill for everything. Right, yeah, went on this antidepressant surgery and generic zoloft Okay, check it out. A lot of people actively prescribed it. Hasta See you. Havevivis Okay, I felt like I had electricity in my veins. It helped for a little bit, but now I started gaining weight. I gained like 35 pounds and it was like you know, you made all these gains. 

You came back from an injury, this, that the other, and it started. Some of the side effects started curving, right, I wasn't having to panic as much, like maybe times when I'd be sitting at work in my chair. I had this nice comfy chair, maybe I could make a computer and something would just. It would just be a trigger, something would just trigger it. And next thing, I could barely breathe, heart beating through the roof. Right, you know, I drank some water, avoided caffeine, avoided a lot of alcohol, the whole deal. Nothing was like nothing's worked. 

Finally things started to seem to calm down. I wasn't myself. And then I knew it wasn't myself because everybody was telling me, like, ever since you've been on these meds, man, you just you're not yourself, you're just not, you're just very somber, you're very, you know. And I knew I had to get off these meds. Like, I knew I had to figure out some way, something had to give way, you know. 

And I did a lot of meditation before everything happened. I really kind of focused, like for a while. I didn't do it because I was just so much going on in my brain, even though I probably should have, I would have helped with time. But afterwards, you know, I started doing it, I started meditating more, started getting, you know, taking deep breaths, trying to calm my body down, like sticking on my fitness schedule, whatever. So, you know, it's kind of up and down for a few months with it, you know. 

But, as I said, like this, this took a toll, like I'm my middle brother, a lot right, and it took a toll on my sister. It took a toll on everybody. Like everybody, my parents were still, during this time, still withdrawn, like they didn't want to get together for functions, they didn't want to do stuff Rightfully so and like, at the time, I didn't understand. I was kind of like, come on, we need to. All you know, it'll be good for them. It's some things that they want to come to, some things they want to do. You know, it is tough, tough seeing them in that moment, tough seeing them just the way they felt. Right, I think, one of the biggest things moving forward with every family function. You know, as kids we were, you know, we said I love you to your parents, they said it to us, but it wasn't as much right. So, moving forward, I think the focus was on, you know, especially with my siblings hey, mahat, tell me, love them. You know, keep them going, because to the day there's repercussions, you know, to this day there's still. You know, like, july 4th is my Danny's birthday. So July 4th, naturally, is we get together. It's not always the easiest right. 

So 2013,. I'm still dealing with stuff. I'm still dealing with the medication. I'm still on the medication, still getting weight. Fitness schedule is kind of on and off. Siblings are still kind of going through it. They're having a hard time. Okay, everyone had a hard time. It was just something we could never foresee in our family, because we were so close, because we looked after each other, because we had each other's back and, yeah, we fought all siblings do but we had the bond of siblings that every family should, which not a lot of families do right. 

So 2013, 2014 comes, you know, aiden's trying to get a little older. So now Aiden gets to see from his mumps similar situation. His uncle, who's same age as mine, has been with heroin for 20. So Aiden's saying like, okay, look, you didn't understand because you were young with Uncle Danny, but now you know mom's brother has, you know, has these things going. 

0:41:56 - Speaker 1
In 2012,. Aiden would have been like 6th 2014. He'd have been like closer to 8th Probably started really kind of coming to grips with reality, like a little more in that age. 

0:42:07 - Speaker 2
Yeah, her brother at the time was, I think he was in jail at the time and he got out like 2015, 2016, when Aiden started like 8, 9, 10 years old, when he started really kind of like grasping what's really going on. You know my niece, amelia we're going to see what's going on. She was in his plug. She works at the cops and once I got ice cream quick cops but she was 4 when everything happened with Danny, so she really ingressed either. But now they both kind of like now they're both teenagers and in high school they kind of like are seeing like all this stuff, you know, kind of like, hey, let's not get into these situations, let's make sure we're doing the right things, because we don't want to wind up, you know, going on this path, right? So Aiden starts seeing it from his uncle's side, on his mom's side, her brother and you know, one thing I appreciate about it Aiden's parents is they've always been real blunt about it, like, look, can he get in trouble again? Okay, he did this, this and that. Aiden, don't you ever get into trouble like that. Right, they also were. They've also been a huge help throughout the whole time, right, any time we ever needed, like then the ticket and they take him for a weekend, they go on a trip, but he got exposed to like, hey, these are the things we can't be doing due to those situations we can right. So everybody's starting to heal, probably 5, 6 years later. So now we're pushing 2016, 2017. Everybody's starting to heal. 

My brother, brian. He now has three kids Okay, him and his wife two, but anyways, I'm going to have to pick that for just. You know, he didn't get all the while to stuff. 

0:44:12 - Speaker 1
For the most part, Alcohol was becoming his coping strategy. 

0:44:18 - Speaker 2
Yes, you know a lot of things were going on in his life. I feel like you know he used that as a coping mechanism and I believe 2018, maybe we're up north in Los Cabin, way off the beaten path by Hurley Mercer, and got a text this mile long text from his wife saying I got a DUI and he's doing silly things Like, okay, let's be awake. Apart from him, I think for a while it was, I don't think like. I think he didn't talk about, like my brother, brian, I don't feel like I felt like at times he talked about his emotions and what he was feeling, what he was thinking, what he was going on, right. Other times, I feel like he just never. He just kind of closed up. Like you know, the next couple years escalated, right. So I bought my house in 2018. You know, just had all these different changes, all these different things going on. We're going on trips, we're doing this, we're doing that. Okay, brian has his family, has two kids, his two boys. Oh, let's remind to 2015. 2015, we were at one of his kids' birthday parties. His wife, greg Hale just fantastic, right. Always been supportive of him, always been she's stronger, fated, good mother, greg Hale. You know her parents sold. 

Brian and Chelsea had a house in West Dallas when they started having kids. They sold the house, they moved into apartments. So they had child care expenses okay, and they wanted to save some costs. What not? Okay, well, people that really helped us during this time. Chelsea thought he was very supportive. He was very helpful with everything that happened with Danny, this and this and this. A way to find that. 

One day I was at Donaldson, he called me. He was like hey, I got some bandages. David shook his leg. What I'm thinking myself. I'm like first my brother is dealing with his brother, so our brother, and then now his father. I'm not sure I didn't get many details on the cause of it. David was always super nice to me, super helpful, always good shoulder to talk about things. Good, dude, never, never thought, never thought that Donaldson was on his agenda. Never thought that it was anywhere remote in that vicinity, right, he was so positive with everybody, talked to everybody, tried to help you figure things out. Hey, am I going to help you out? I'm going to help you out? No idea. 

So now, within a span of three years, we got two people, okay. So now they moved into from this apartment. They moved with mom to help her out and she does it. She saw what happened with us. She definitely does it. My parents are trying to be supportive, still dealing with their own wounds. Right, I'm like what the heck? What's going on here? This is two people in three years that are like closely we see at age what cookouts and family gatherings almost no way From there. I feel like kind of closed up a little bit. Right. He has a couple kids, you know. His wife's going for stuff, mother-in-law going for stuff. 

0:48:42 - Speaker 1
My gosh At this point. He had to obviously be a big rock for Chelsea because she's just lost her dad to suicide and yeah, so any emotion that he might have been having about his own family and his brother passing away and his brother's suicide obviously now all of a sudden they even get shot further back. Because he had to be a rock for Chelsea and the kids, because the kids just lost their grandpa. 

0:49:05 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it was. The kids were younger. I don't think they understood at the time. So I think Zach was like three or four. Jordan was just one, maybe a year. 

0:49:22 - Speaker 1
Yeah, Stressful ages for Chelsea just in general as a family young kids. 

0:49:31 - Speaker 2
So real like holy kind of like you know. So everybody's kind of pouring out support, right. So you know, I don't think Brian really talked about it much, right, and just they just kept building the DUI in 2017, right in the year 2017, and then so 28, or yeah, 27, 28,. You know he had all these things in place. Okay, maybe he's drinking, got a control of his innocence, things or ask like right, and it got got kind of crazy. You know he was. 

I would see him less and less. You know I'd want to talk to him. Sometimes he'd go sometimes. You know this and that. You know it was just kind of like hit or miss. Sometimes when I knew he was doing well, we were talking like almost every day. He'd call me every day. Hey, I was going how's work today? You know this happened, but you know what can you do? You know he'd work a different job, a different schedule, whatever works his place, you know, and now we're kind of building up, building up, building up Him and him and Chelsea kind of we're at odds. He gets an apartment. I think the apartment just really did like that was just huge, like living by himself. 

0:51:04 - Speaker 1
Yeah, this was 2018, 2019. Yeah, he was 20, 10, 2020, around 2021. 

0:51:18 - Speaker 2
But he here, he is like and you can just tell the building right, and I don't, you know he's, he's at functions. He's at functions. He's not there very long. You know, kind of leaving. We're kind of getting rid of his health he's. You know he's got a little late. You know I tried to get him to go to the gym but, you know, at the job he was working at, he had a schedule that lasted for a couple weeks. 

Right, you know, I knew there was something going on there. We went to Green Bay to watch Packers practice. He had to go back to the car for something. There he was like sitting in the car with his kids Come on, man, we used to sit in the car for a while. We're supposed to be here to watch practice Brought eight and brought both of his sons. So I knew there was something going on. 

But it really turned for the worst this past, like how he sees him going into this year. Right, he, he had a couple episodes where he just, you know, he knew his mental health was off. He thought it was kind of inadequate, kind of. You know, I was supposed to be supporting my family. I was supposed to be doing this, this, this, I mean okay. Well, let's get you back to that, let's put you back. You know this, whatever and sometimes it wasn't always as popular, like as a conversation like, look man, let's we got to get back on the right path. Okay, sometimes tough love is the best love, right? Yeah, and I definitely owe some tough love at times, Because sometimes that's what people need. You know you can't sugarcoat everything and be but oh, he, or time, like I said, either the time where he just leaves functions. It'd just be like you know, okay, why do you have to leave so early? Right, what is the up going on? He has to lose by his self. He has nothing going on. He's going to hit all the stuff that's cooked for work. You're doing it, we're doing it. 

This year he had a close call, he, we and as a family, we just kind of like decided, like we all got together and like, look, enough is enough. Before day or two before everything happened, I called my mom and I was like, mom, something at right, something is just not right. I was like we need to get a hold of him. I said nobody's heard from him in a couple of days. We need to get a hold of him, see what's going on, because I don't think he's in a very good place. 

He's been open about his mental health. He's been open about how he struggles with mental health, especially the last couple years, you know, but using alcohol as a crutch, right, so there's awareness for him. He was aware, like he knew his mental health was waning and he knew that he has some things to work on, like he was self-worth, you know, and he talked to a few people and whatnot. But I think the alcohol, the addiction, took over right this year was just, you know, here we are about running. On a Saturday I got a phone call like hey, brian's going to the ER, what? Yeah, he can't even fit in a function. Like he's like all his bodily functions were just like like he could barely even, like he could barely just like stand without even, you know, like he had no control over his volume. He had no control, like things were shutting down on him. He gets into the ER, you know, and we knew, I mean, we knew like he was kind of hard headed. He knew what he had mental health issues. He knew he was working on him. You know he told us he wasn't really drinking, that he was in a dangerous situation. Like how you can tell somebody that like, amen, you know he goes into, he goes into ER and it's kind of a scary. He goes into IED. You take him out, gets better. Then I get a phone call from him late spring, still kind of cold outside. 

I'm off this Friday morning. I'm sitting at home dogs Dogs woke me up. I'm sitting there, I'm watch TV, drinks of coffee very much, and as you pick me up, this is like 641. Pick you up when you at, at this park. What are you doing in a park at 640 am? That sounds really like weird. Got pulled over my plates. Got pulled over here plates, are you sure? And he was really in a panic. Yeah, I can't pull me over, right, what Got pulled me over cuz my plates? Like I get dressed here. But I just woke up. Two minutes later I go upstairs on my contacts, put clothes on. Hey, where are you? Dude? You gotta give me like a few minutes, right, I will be there in like what five or ten minutes? Two minutes later, hey, are you anybody? 

yet I'm gonna get something right, you know I mean like try to make a song, really, really coy, really whatever I Get there, there's two squad cars. Mind you, the Chelsea was on a girls trip down in Florida. All the girls got together. They went on this trip, join your time. I'm not calling it, I'm like no, I'm gonna take care of this. I Got there two, two, two squads, one cops in this club, better cops standing out there. I Pull in. I got in the car. Is this your car? When I drove. Yet I'm like officers, like that's your brother and I looked at and he's like he has a door open and his passenger door open. He's just, he looks to shoveled, he looks homeless. I'm honest, that's the best way to scramb. He looks homeless, to shoveled, like his beard is just, like he hasn't trimmed his beard in months, like he hasn't even like Maybe just got done working a 12 hour shift. I Know he wasn't working at the time. 

0:57:50 - Speaker 1
I didn't have a job in time. 

0:57:51 - Speaker 2
Oh boy, is this your brother? Take a step, your brother is home. You need to add this up. Take care, take him. You lived on a rope. He told me a little in a room. Yeah, the parks that I found willow at, that's where he was at. You need to take him home. You need to watch him. 

He didn't talk to him, he didn't get him. Some help has to happen. He's like he reason. I can give a DUI, but here we go, I'm not gonna ruin his life. He's going through some things. You need to help him out. You need to take her, get him some help. You have to Take me to your house. 

Let him sold around, follow him home. I will be waiting. And he like was like dead, like dead in the eye. Well, you're gonna be waiting. Okay, take him to my house. Find you when I get, when he gets in my car. The cop actually told him like as as I pulled up, go sit in this. I Get in my car and I, I sit down and all you smell. All you smell is just like you just smell Like the alcohol coming out. Its course. Okay, you were drinking. No, right, you kidding me. Okay, we're gonna go to my house. 

Oh my god, oh, whatever I tell you to get to my house, except in the coach, first thing you talk about will say much, not a good mental state. You know we started talking about mental health we should talk about you know all the things that transpired challenges he has as a Brian and you got three kids, some, right, that is. That isn't like. That isn't like a sign that like you need to get together, like you need to pull through this, right, if anybody's in your corner, anybody knows that you can do it. It's me, right. I've been supportive view three years. You know you may be beat me a basketball once and only once, but I'm support, right, you know I've sort of if you always in bed as a kid, right, though it's got him like because he always had a good make-a-shoot. He was always a good jump shooter, right, so you can always knock him down. 

But I was like something just kind of built, just kind of bake it in. Yeah, all right, you know what? One of my guy going when you drop me off enough for a while and actually I'm kind of hungry, so you're gonna go with me, because I'm gonna go with me. So took him. We went to big apple bagels or a fair place to go to, right, it's us down like he went to go on, I don't need to go, I'm not hungry, doesn't matter. If you're hungry, I'm getting food. I'm hungry, you come with me. 

Next we come back. Sit there. He's getting agitated. Finally, it's about four or five hours there Friday and late because not in picture my day off. But good, finally I drive home. Like around noon I got take him to his car, I'll see you later. No, no, I'm following you home. Why? We mean you know why. You know why, start driving. He drives, sure shit. There's a cop sitting off to the side as we pass. I was like holy cow, like if I let him do, we got nailed again. Yeah, follow him home. Gets his house. He's angry. 

I'm talking for a few days and answer my call. Finally once again like can't get home. Mommy talked to Brian not for a few days, came in dead work arguing in the phone about something. Oh boy, you know, nikki, you talk to daddy you talk about. Well, hello, brian. Finally was like the next day. My mom says on the phone like look, he didn't sound red on the phone, like he sound like he was drinking. She said look, either you take yourself to the hospital, get yourself checked in. Well, we're coming to get you and we're gonna check you in. Sure enough, you can see the hospital. His BAC was like around point three. Oh, he was literally up just like pounding away right drinking mall liquor it's like they're in those four or five hours that he was at your house. 

1:02:32 - Speaker 1
When you pick them up that day, he was probably going through withdrawal. I started getting agitated cuz that's probably a long period for him not have been drinking. Oh yeah, or get some kind of alcohol in the system like so we knew, we knew, so that went on. 

1:02:46 - Speaker 2
The right he we wouldn't want to, like he was. He had some complication in hospital, went through withdrawals, were like what, you're not leaving here unless, like, we're gonna make a decision as a family because we are not gonna go through this again, we are not gonna see. You know, something happened to you and next thing you know your wife's gonna have three kids that she's raising on her own. Okay, and he, like I don't think he at first, you know, like the decision like can't it took his keys. You know, we actually I talked to the nurse on my eye, I need his keys, we need to get, we need to see what's in his car. And it was getting bad. Like said he could not control his, like his bodily function right, so he's in a hospital a little bit longer than anticipated, some complications to liver, gallbladder, different train. Finally, we came together and said, oh, look, man, we love you. We want to make sure that you are on the right path. We want you to take care of your mental health. We want you to take care of all the things that nobody to take care of. I want you to live long, have a good life with your three kids. Like I want you to be there for him, right, so does so does your wife. So, as a family, everybody wants you to. You gotta take care of this, right, we basically made a decision that he's going into this, this place, that you can definitely leave if he wants to. But it's more of a Christian based facility and you know they. They were highly touted as success rates 95%. He's now then for four and a half five months. He has lost almost 80 pounds. His mental health is his night and day because he's clean, he's sober. I mean, we're seeing a person we have not seen in over 10 years. 

Right, like, after going through all the trauma and heartache with Danny, I wake up every morning like I thank God that we got him in time because he was on a collision course. Like, honestly, the people in the hospital told him like you didn't have much time left, man, you probably wouldn't drink yourself till you're done. Oh wait. So I think every morning I wake up I thank God that he's still with us, his kid to go see him all the time. The relationship between his kids and his wife, it's just so much better, right, his faith has has been renewed. 

You know, and I think over the last people growing up we were always like told to go to church and this and this mess because of our schedules, because my parents were so much like we didn't go as much. We went a couple times a year. Maybe sometimes we went during the year, we did close month. But I think now, going through what we went through, seeing all the heartache, seeing on the tromb, going through all the anxiety, going through all the just dealing with everything people throwing at us, whether it's job changes, whether it's families, you know all the stuff of COVID, I mean everything over the last decade plus, I think all of us, like our faith has been renewed. You know my, you know my sisters have boy, you know they've been going to church a lot, more or less five to seven years. My one sister is always gone. 

You know, but I think we've all kind of like been renewed. And now my brother, who you know, before he, when he was going through his issues, you know he's always were of like he was more original God, how can God protect you? And this and that, and you know that's all the same, right, but now his, this whole program is faith. It's like really kind of renewed things, right. One thing that we have always done for my brother, danny, and I've gone almost every year is you see me where this bracelet spruce has been taken off, like usually I knew in every year I usually change our year, but the second week, second week in October, it's usually right after, right after we'll peck run the next day is it's called out of darkness and it's all about people like suicide, awareness, mental health issues, being people, like giving people up, I mean. So I've been doing that since 2013, when some of Danny's friends, some of his long-term friends who talked to me all the time, when I, when I hired at the pharmacy for a driver for some time, couple of like one of the one I worked at Amazon with for a little short bit, but they, you know, they're totally focused one rid of wrote a book, totally focused on the kind of stuff. But we do this walk every year and, you know, just creates awareness again, I don't think mental health is talked about enough. I think a society especially for men I know it's more prevalent now you want people to speak out, you want people to talk, especially our veterans, special PTSD, you know I mean, but you want all these people to talk out, speak out. But I don't think, you know, a lot of people do a lot. They were so not comfortable. So this kind of kind of raised awareness, just gonna walk. 

I'm also so at Amazon. I'm a part of a couple affinity groups. One of the affinity groups is a mental health awareness and next month is like a mental health, a huge thing for mental health. September 9th we had a suicide awareness. We have all these things planned. We're putting all this stuff together. We're we're gonna have like a brochure, a booth. 

You know maybe I'll go up there and talk and give some outward, you know basis of what I've been through. You know everything from the feeling, all the pressures on me to the panic attacks. So working through that, you know seeing her family member commit suicide to another. You know my other brother going through mental health issues and what he's taken on. You know me, I mean think about it, like think about my parents right now. Right now, I think, when Brian went into this facility or before Brian went into this facility, they're like, you know, almost like, oh my gosh, here we go again, right, but I think now they have a renewed purpose, like in a renewed hope. They both sound so much better, like talking to them is just so much better. It's just, it's just, it's just crazy that just a transformation from you know all the way down here to you know, to actually having good, positive conversation, you know letting organic conversations flow and not being closed off and sheltered, and I mean so it can happen. 

1:10:40 - Speaker 1
I really appreciate you sharing. You know that that whole story from from Danny all the way through Brian was kind of happened. I mean, that's, that's a lot. That's a lot for anybody to deal with, let alone process and try to move forward with. I have so many questions for you and, like the first ones, that comes to mind is obviously now mental health. We're very prevalent in your life. You're aware of it, men's mental health, especially the fact that you see, you've seen men in your life who struggle to deal, deal with and get past it. Luckily and I don't even want to say luckily, you know, through the fact that you guys came together with your family. You guys made sure Brian wasn't able to get past it and you guys were there to support him. But when you're, did any mental health stuff ever come up? When you're a kid, did you ever see struggles when your kids, he struggles in your brothers, indications that someday that they could be dealing with these types of situations honestly with them. 

1:11:35 - Speaker 2
No, I think, I think, and I think a lot of people struggle as teens. We first went to Franklin like I never felt, like I personally didn't feel like I felt like I fit. It was just a difference every set of kids, difference of color. Like it took me a while to adjust, like I was kind of closed off for myself, like I didn't want to talk to anybody. If I felt like you know, I don't know if like I like personally ever ruggled, but I think we've all had times and I think a lot of people go through life where they have an episode they just yeah, they, they assume it's such like a one-off and it goes away. 

1:12:18 - Speaker 1
But I think a lot of people can get through their whole life honestly, a lot of times like never really discussing that to help and just like bearing down on it and dealing with it the rest of your life. But it's to me it's not. It's sometimes it's not about that like, yeah, you can deal with it quietly and you can. Maybe you can deal with it quietly and you can have your own little solutions for and get through the whole. But about increasing your quality of life, yes, about living a life that feels fulfilled, that feels more open, where you're not always sheltering your feelings from the world, because that's just the way you learn to do it, especially for, I mean, I think man grown up in the 80s and 90s and the early 2000s before some of this stuff really came up. So for you, you went to high school in the 90s. 

At that point mental health was not talked about. Verb to be a seer in high school in the 90s and maybe be going through some episode. Yeah, adhd, some that kind of stuff kind of became prevalent in the 90s, that a lot of that lore, but depression and anxiety, it was just hope to deal with it. Right, there's vets who went to NAMM and fought and came, you know, came back and you came to deal with your anxiety. Then you're being a pussy. You know what it was this like? Propagated message of like just be masculine and deal with at work. For women. 

1:13:35 - Speaker 2
It was accepted, maybe talked about it more, and I think especially on my mom's side, right, so my dad's side he was only child, okay, so my mom's side there was, you can see, you can see instances over time. You know, our grandfather on my mom's side had epilepsy. Okay, he had nine kids, nine. And oh man he, when he, when he got epilepsy, like you know, I don't know what he was thinking because I was only four years old when he passed, but he started what he's already do. He started drink a lot. Right, he started drinking a lot because you know who knows, here I am at home, I'm having this health issue, my wife's working, we got nine kids, some of our house, but we got keep us back. 

Then you didn't talk about that kind of stuff. You were if you were a man. You took care of the responsibilities you provided, you did what you needed to do. You did talk about your feelings. You move forward, right, and that's kind of how couple of my uncles I turned out to. Couple my uncles have had. This has flare ups and issues they've came to light over the last couple years. Both what they do, they relied on alcohol. Right, it's your fallback now if I just take a drink let's have a drink what happened? 

1:15:11 - Speaker 1
if I'm relying, stop learning how to deal with your emotions, right. 

1:15:16 - Speaker 2
So I think society has adapted, you know, starting to really change that, from we don't talk about it, we don't, we'll see it's, it is where it is, just deal with it move forward to okay, let's let's talk about because we need to talk about that, because, you know, not every everybody's built it, not everybody is the same. Yeah, I mean like what triggers one person may treat us. I mean that's right, yeah, right, you know some people struggle with okay, job, money providing for your family, doesn't this right? All these hierarchical things that supposed to be taken care of by some people struggle with that. People, don't person, I mean. So are we coming around as a society now? Yes, but is there a lot of work to do? 

1:16:17 - Speaker 1
absolutely yes yes, in the last few years we've seen like almost a bit of like an overcorrection of it. Right, we're like feelings became the main thing that people talk about and sometimes people like got to be a little too much talking about feelings because there was such a harsh correction for how bad some of this stuff was years ago and how, like now it's coming out that this we need to talk about not the whole thing matters, and I think it's coming back to like a better center now where you need to talk about things that everybody's the same. Some, some men just do handle the mental health better, but you can even argue the ones who think they're handling it fine probably still would benefit from talking about it more. Not everybody needs to go see a therapist just to be able to deal with the mental health. Sometimes I think men just need to talk amongst themselves for things to feel better. 

Not that they need to seek professional help, but the amount of people out there that have vices that they fall to on a day-to-day basis, whether it's drinking, whether it's smoking, whether it is drug use well there's. It's even exercise. You know some people can exercise too much because that's how to deal with their stress, and that can be. It's. It's one of those things where it's a vice that can be beneficial and it could be positive, but it could also be negative. It would in itself, too, that you beat your body up, you cause yourself pain that you have to deal with for years to come. You can hurt your knee, hurt your back, hurt your neck, whatever it is these things but, like there, there needs to be more tools available to men to learn how to deal with them, and I think we're seeing that more and more now. 

But, like during select with Danny, did you feel like there was any opportunity? Not even opportunity. But like, did he ever have any tools that he used outside of drugs that you know grown up as a kid? Did he have hobbies that he ever, like, enjoyed? 

1:18:16 - Speaker 2
yeah, I mean he played, I mean he did various things, so we went on, so we don't play basketball or shot the football all around under what ever right he didn't have, like he played video games, but he didn't have any like outside, like sports, rec leagues or anything that he was really interested in. You know, I probably not speaking for him, I probably couldn't speak for him, but I would probably feel like you probably think that he wasn't, like you know, the athlete type me. 

1:18:48 - Speaker 1
You know it's like when you're telling the story. One thing that like pops in my mind is how, when something really tragic like that happens, you said everybody wants to say what could we have done differently. You want to point fingers and blame others or blame yourself for not doing more. You know, all these years later, looking back on the situation, do you see that like you could only do so much to affect somebody else's mental health without them yes, having to like? It's almost like this. They have to accept the idea in their own mind to decide that I want to change. Because you can't like change somebody's daily behaviors for them. You can give them inspiration and you can try to guide them. But looking back, do you see how, like you tried to help daddy, but there's probably only so much you could do, or your sisters or your brothers could do, or your mom or dad could do? 

1:19:37 - Speaker 2
personally speaking, it took me a long time to get past that, and I was you get past it, but to accept that there's only so much I could have done right, that is everybody's, you know, and everybody else. 

I wish I would have done this. I'm gonna show it down that. We'll show it right. Okay, but you did what you could. It took me a long time. You know, like I said, there'll be times where I just break down in the shower and then, because I would think, like holy cow, I was with him last Saturday, you know, if he would have at my house instead of going here, or I would have took him there. But I'm next. But that, really that starts weighing on your mental health and, quite frankly, it's really not feasible for you to do that Like. You can't think of that way, and that was one of the hardest things for all of us to really accept is that we did what we could, we were helpful, we were supportive, we gave him this tough a lot of times, but we're also fair and we also like wanted to see him get better and in a lot of ways it was up to him, like, just like Annie's brother, I can't play on. Many times he said, oh, I'm better now, I'll never do it again, this and this and this. Next thing, you know, another incident happens Right when he gets in some kind of trouble or he does this or does that. We've heard it, we need to see it, and it sounds kind of hard. Is he still struggling? I haven't heard much about it lately. I believe he has a. Generally, what happens is what just from just from what I've seen over the last 10 years, you know, when someone who is struggling has that person or animal like you know, danny had Willow and Willow was that was the thing that she kept him going. She kept took her to go outside, he walked with her, was always by him, kept going, okay, or he was seeing that one girl that he was seeing, that he was really good friends with. They hung out a lot, they did stuff together, took his mind off that kind of stuff, you know, and at times, like Kenny's, had different girlfriends. When he has the girlfriend it takes away from, keeps him on the straight and narrow, it's when he doesn't, it's when you know, like when you're by yourself, when you're not with somebody, when you're not, have that fall back that person or thing to help you with. I mean one person I used to work with at the pharmacy. It was a recovering alcoholic and he looked at me when, after everything happened, he's like Josh, there's not much more you could have done. You did with this. You could. But once you remember this, he's like and this is true as day, this will change. 

Addiction. Addiction is addiction. The addiction may change. So you may go from alcohol to not drink all coffee and I was like his game, like you would drink coffee all the time. This is what keeps me going. He's like coffee and working, making sure that I'm taking care of my father and doing this system. That's what keeps me going. He's like otherwise you go back to the neighbors. He's like addiction change. The shiny new object may change, but the addiction doesn't change. He's like, if you think about it, we all kind of have addiction somewhere. He's like you go to the gym five, six days a week. Is there a kind of addiction? You have a routine every morning to drink coffee. One pound. Addiction is like. The addiction may change. It's just what your addiction is. 

1:23:37 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, that's very, that's a very profound advice or information to that at 100%. Believe it's true. We're all addicted to something in a form or another. Some of us just struggle with it in different ways. Others and some of us struggle more intensely than others and it's real fortunate with somebody like can get so off their path that they don't know how to get back on it, and then their addiction does take over everything. Because I think most people out there yeah, you're right, they're addicted to something they're just able to kind of almost pull it back. Pull it back I drink too much coffee, I try to not drink as much, or they put smoking cigarettes and they use nicotine patches, but then eventually they still want to get a cigarette. But some people don't know how to pull it back because they don't have that mechanism, they never train that mechanism to pull it back, and some people just can't stop. 

1:24:33 - Speaker 2
Like, right, you get going or something, and you find that joy, that almost high. Right, we run, right, we've been on and runs. For the first couple of miles I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel like a sloth, I can't even find my rhythm. And the next thing, you know, you hit your rhythm and you're going. And then the next 10 miles are easy. We've done that. Everybody has that where they, you know. And some people just can't stop once they get started. 

I mean, do I think that, whether it was my brother, my brother's or Annie's brother, do I feel that that was her intention? Like, hey, I'm going to do this, absolutely not, absolutely not. It's almost like you're looking for something to help you cope with an issue. Right, yeah, and that's where you know, I'm talking about it. Some people just feel silly talking about it. Like, hey, you know, I want to talk to them, because some people may perceive them as, oh, come on, man, shut the hell up. Like what, what? And that's some people's responses. But I think as a society, we need to move past that. Hey, you know, listen, you're struggling with this. Well, maybe you know, maybe you can talk to this person. Or hey, this is what I found useful for the situation. Maybe you can help. Right, and you know, so many people struggle with that kind of stuff where they just don't want to speak out because they don't want to sound silly or any less of a man or any you know any type of way that would make them deem them like furious. Yeah. 

1:26:17 - Speaker 1
So, with your brother, brian, you guys ultimately got him to go to this, this place, where he's now been clean for four or five months. As much as you guys pushed him, he obviously also wanted to do it himself, because he made the decision that, yeah, I will go. 

1:26:33 - Speaker 2
Well, it was either his family, or like either his family and his health run the line or you know he knew that a course that was not, you know, feasible, like he knew that he his come on, you know you could even keep on trolling bodily functions, right, yeah, that's when you're, that's bad. You know your liver is shutting down, your go-butter shutting down, like different body parts are shutting down, right, you know. And now, like I said, it's just a whole different person that you know. The change has just been absolutely incredible. I mean, there's so much now, there's so much joy, you know, like getting together with him, like seeing him in all of our family there, you know, it just brings, it brings tears of joy to all, like all of us, when we see him, just because of what has happened, all those happened, all those transpired, you know him getting better, losing the weight, his health's getting better, the relationships are getting better. It's good. 

1:27:42 - Speaker 1
Yeah. 

1:27:45 - Speaker 2
It's like one thing, that, one thing that really I don't think people think about. When a person is struggling with addiction, struggling with mental health, is the ripple effect not just with that person, with you, but throughout the family. Right what? And his brother was struggling with stuff. You know there was times where she was buried in heart like that, who cares? He's still your brother. How can you say who cares? You know there was times that she was very compassionate, like well, it's this mess, okay, well, you just said this last week. What were? 

1:28:25 - Speaker 1
we at here. 

1:28:28 - Speaker 2
And it really causes a lot of stress. You know, people like each other, all in the families. Anytime in a, you know, a situation with addiction or mental health comes up, there is always friction between the family members. These spreads because now you got people that are supportive or not supportive. You got people that are. You know, yes, they want to see them do well, but think together and do it. Now they don't work with that. Yeah, I mean so. Anytime when a situation comes up, it's a ripple effect throughout the family. It puts a lot of stress, anxiety, different emotions, different things going on. 

Right, and what would he call me that one day, friday, I was just like we need to, this has to be the final straw, and two weeks later he winds up in it. Right, I mean, like you just don't know when you know and I've always come out, man, he's to get together. I mean he needs to take the step. Like I don't want to be, you know, I don't want his wife to be a widow because he's not taking care of his health. You know, and people perceive different things. Well, you got to be more supportive, or even sure. You know we can be a supportive. We also got to really guide and make sure these sticks. 

And that's really why, like, we came together as a family and said look, you're going here, you're going to get better, we're going to help you get better, we're going to support you and we're going to be, you know, we're going to be in your hundred, in your quarter, 110%, but this is what you need to do because you are on a collision course with your life. That's it. And as I'm taking back his it was at first he also realized like, okay, I need this help, I need to work on my health. I need to do that, otherwise you're just going to have a head through the family because some people say, oh, he's fine when I'm doing what he has to do. You'll have other people say, no, we need to do. The system is because there's a lot of stress in the family, a lot. 

1:30:54 - Speaker 1
Well, it's hard because everybody has got their own thing going on, especially as people have their own families going on and it's you know, a sibling is. They're so close to you and they can have so much love for them. But you can also take them for granted because you, you know you're going to have so much. I mean, life is hard. Life is intrinsically hard. You have to get up every day to take care of yourself. You have to try to be a good person for the people around you. You have to you stop the dope provided to survive, you have to put a roof over your head. You have to make sure there's a meal to eat. If you have kids and a wife, then you also have to make sure that they're doing all right. 

There's all these things to life that make it hard. That, like the idea that you're also having to take care of others, that it's hard for you not to take them for granted because they've been around since you were young, that that that can weigh on you, that, like you, you want to do more. You have your own shit going on period, and I imagine those situations. It's you know with your brother, that it was hard and at times to be like man, like you got to. I got to take care of Aiden. Right now Aiden needs me, but then man, my brother, needs me. How do you split your time? How do you possibly get up every day and try to give a hundred percent of yourself to both people, because you feel like if you don't give a hundred percent then you're not doing enough? Sure, but you know so. Like that must have been a very hard balance for you to play with, but then also play with your other siblings and your mom and your dad. 

1:32:18 - Speaker 2
Right, that was really. You know how much time do you allocate to that, right? So, with the whole Danny situation, like it was a lot tougher because you knew like she was in deep right, you knew that there was, you know, you knew something was going on. But you, you know, you know I found stuff before, like at my house, and I mean so like I knew, like what he was doing and obviously he's not going to just admit it or, if you know, one time we talked about it but you know, getting the help, keeping it, but devoting that time to help him. But also, you know, even small, do you want a to see that stuff at a small age? Because what happens if he has some stuff on him? What happens? Did he drop some stuff? What happens if Aiden gets ahold of that? Because Aiden's three, right, all these things, okay, do you want him over there when he goes over there? This should be a conversation when Aiden's not there. Aiden's three, he's not going to understand that stuff right now. Weakly, gets older and talking about that. 

Right, that was a major like thing in my head all the time because, you know, when I was living on a creek over there, I was not even two miles from my parents. I was three miles from my parents. He can come over every time he wanted to. Sometimes he just randomly show up, Sometimes he would you know. But when he's at your house, what does he do? I mean, every time he goes into the bathroom, what is it? I mean all these things go through it. How much time are you allocating to that and how much time are you allocating to your family? You know it's like a juggling act and you just go base off. You know, for me it was just more of like, okay, what needs to happen here? You know what I mean. Yeah, all right, he's going to bed. I can talk to him now, I can use that time with him, or, you know, because sometimes he'll stop over for two minutes and he'll just like leave, and so, yeah, definitely a juggling act. 

1:34:20 - Speaker 1
One thing I wanted to ask you more about for sure, here was for you like. The first time you experienced a panic attack after your brother taking his life, did you know what was happening? No, they. 

1:34:35 - Speaker 2
They took me to the. They actually took me to the ER and I was actually at work at the time. This was August or September, maybe 2012. It took me to the ER. They tested me to see if I had a stroke. I was having a heart attack. My heart was beating through my chest Like I felt it was like 180 miles, like you know, 180 miles an hour. 

I like I felt it was just wailing on me right, didn't know what was happening. You know everybody kept saying just just breathe, just breathe. But it was like my, you know, like my airways were closing up, like I had to start, try to take deep breaths. But taking a deep, like a shallow breath was even difficult. So it'll be like I couldn't take that full breath in because it is just, my body was so tense and so like locked up, and that's what it's one thing like. 

When I went to my doctor, he's like man, you are so tense right now. He's like your shoulders, your back, everything was so like rock hard, tense. You know all that stress, it's just built up to the point where you're almost like in multiple, like you're not really moving freely because you are just so tight, right, barely breathes, the whole deal. Those are scary Like I never experienced it before. I never had anxiety before. I never had like a moments of when that was actually a thing, didn't know what it was. When I went to the ER they were like, yeah, they had a pretty good manic attack. That's where it was. Just try to get some rest, they'll go. Where are we going to Try to get some rest? Relaxation, don't think about things. Perfect, you just can't shut your brain off, right? Yeah, no way. 

1:36:34 - Speaker 1
Did they give you like a benzo at the time to try to calm you down, or no? 

1:36:38 - Speaker 2
I don't say I don't recall. I think I was just kind of like in a moment happened, like I don't know what was going on with me. I do know that there would be times where I would stand up and my blood pressure would like drop or I felt like I was in a faint. Or if I was on the road driving, like it would happen, I would feel like I was about to faint, but she was like eating in the car. That was like the scariest, yeah, because I was just like whoa and all I kept thinking was just in my head. I just have to tell myself like okay, panic attack, relax, deep breath, deep breath, breathe in, breathe out. It took a while for me to actually like not just word, how to do it, but actually like master it, conquer it, make sure that when I was breathing I was taking a deep breath in, relax, because otherwise it would just come. 

1:37:37 - Speaker 1
It was kind. Was that what got you into meditation, or were you meditating prior to that? I meditated prior. 

1:37:44 - Speaker 2
So part of it was because, you know, as kids we were I wouldn't say forced into Catholicism, but in a way we kind of were and I thought there was. You know, our church was good. We had this cool pope through, we had a big, big rule that services were great. But as a kid man, these services were boring. You know what I mean. And then I started learning. 

I started learning about, like Buddhist how relaxing Buddhists are their lifestyle, how meditation actually helps your body, how it can like your breathing, how you are really like in tune with your body. You know what I mean. So I started doing that beforehand. Around 2010 is when I really got. I started like, really started trying to meditate. So I'm in around 30. I started in my late teens, early 20s. I don't think I was very successful. I think I kind of mastered it and got better at it because it was kind of spotty. It wasn't. But when I started doing that, that's when, like, things started slowing down. Body started slowing down, thoughts racing thoughts, the heartbeat slowing the heartbeat slowing it up. That was the work. It took a while to do. It Took a while to master it, but once you did that, really kind of put things in perspective like do this and really do this, get past it. 

1:39:31 - Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a powerful tool once you practice it enough to learn how to use it In a moment. If you have not practiced it, it can feel very stupid to take a deep breath and just try what shut up, I'm having a panic attack, this is it. But once you have practiced it enough, you realize, oh man, taking those deep breaths and those long exhales literally slows your heart rate down and can go a long way. 

1:40:00 - Speaker 2
Recently. So anxiety hasn't been, it has not flared up. It didn't flare up from like 2015 to well 2020. When I lost my grip on it, which is going through a lot of stuff, covid the whole deal right when we were at Iron Bowl, I felt that that was tough because I was like we're running and we're trying to catch our breath. That was like that warning and it was cold. I'm like, okay, that was tough. 

1:40:36 - Speaker 1
Another point I want to ask them for you is you dealt the opposite in dealt with anxiety, you dealt with panic attacks. Did you ever feel any depression during that time as well? 

1:40:50 - Speaker 2
I honestly feel that depression is almost like baited in, right, because living with anxiety and the level of anxiety that I had and I can only speak for myself, but when people talk to me about anxiety especially people that I work with, family members, friends, a lot of the similar things that they're feeling like I'm like holy cow. I know exactly what you went through, right? One point I wanted to make is living with anxiety is almost like every minute of your day is consumed with that anxiety. Right, you are literally facing it every single minute of your day and it takes up the vast majority of your day because you're always taking a look. Okay, what if I get in front of these people? And also, I have a panic attack? Right, because I know if it had like right now at work, I have to get in front of people twice a day Once at the start of a shift, once after a first break and talk about whatever right, safety stuff, this, that, the other announcements, whatever, what, the shift is going, what you know, what if one of those things happened there? Now I've gotten to the point where that doesn't occur. I'm comfortable talking for everybody, but what if that would happen for a lot of people talking in front of other people or even just even a social setting like this is pushing your limits right. But living with anxiety every single minute of the day, like your life is consumed with it. And for several years I felt that, yes, my life was absolutely consumed with anxiety and that depression was almost like baked in because your, you know, your down on some aspect of your life is inadequate, whether it's a job, whether you're not making enough money, whether you didn't get that degree, whether you know saving for a house, your car, something always else goes wrong. All these things come up into that. Did I feel like I actually experienced full on depression? No, because I think the panic attacks just kind of gave me hyper focus on calming down, relaxing, thinking more positively. Right, and trying to take every day as a new day, living every day as a new day. 

You know, one common theme for me was all right, you have a son. He's X money years old. You need to be responsible for him. Right? He's your driving force. He's the one that's going to. You know you have a good, good relationship with him. You need to. You know you guys do a lot of stuff together. You need to be there for him. You need to do that. That was like the driving force for me to keep things going, to keep the positive thoughts going, keep looking ahead, keep seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and not focusing on. Just as you know, closed off, I got the blinders on because, in reality, that's what that's. What I feel that anxiety does is that you have the blinders on to a lot of things because you're dealing with so much internally that you're not seeing everything externally. 

1:44:22 - Speaker 1
So like you wouldn't. You wouldn't get into like such a pity and depth of sadness where you want to do nothing. You would instead kind of try to turn it around, say, even if you're feeling that very, very like deep depth of sadness over what happened, you would still try to find a way to like look forward and look at. I would try to. There's a purpose, there's a responsibility I still have to meet right now. So I'm not going to just let myself be sad and lay in bed all day, or I mean, you know, like your way of fighting it was to kind of always look at that responsibility and how to look forward. 

1:44:53 - Speaker 2
Right responsibility, looking at things like what do you have coming up, what happy things you have coming up, what good things you have coming up, because otherwise I probably would sit there and think about you know, oh, what was me? You know this happened, that happened, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean. I probably would do that. But looking ahead, trying to keep yourself going, trying to keep these thoughts going, trying to keep you know, I think once you learn what you're dealing with and how it can engulf your life, and how it can take over your life, and how every day is in a constant struggle, trying to get past that and master that and really kind of push forth is like your ultimate goal. Right, so that you don't deal with that anymore. 

1:45:40 - Speaker 1
Do you ever feel like you took for granted where your mental health was at prior to Danny Chessing? 

1:45:49 - Speaker 2
That's a great question, because I was probably as fragile and vulnerable as everybody else, and nothing was more. Nothing was more true when the day of the funeral and Richard Deoner came up to me and said, look, everybody's counting on you. You've done a fantastic job so far Like I can't believe how you're holding up with all this, but you need to keep going. You cannot give up. Right now. All these people count on you. Your family counts on you. Everybody in this place is looking up to you. Keep going, and like that, like internally, like consume me, like holy shit, like that was like one of the realest moments for me. 

Right, sure, I cried a lot in the shower, especially when you put on this good face all day, tried to be as straightforward and was positive for everybody and helped me or everybody else. So talking to my sisters on the phone, though, was just like that. That was traumatic. Talking to my sisters on the phone just about hey, I remember this about Danny. Hey, I was just talking to him about this, and we were planning on doing this, and we were looking at what we can do with this, this concert or this event, or talking to them. Talking to my brother on the phone. That's what killed me inside. 

1:47:27 - Speaker 1
There's this and I hope I get it right. I believe Billy Bob Thornton there's this interview because he lost a brother. I'm not, I can't remember what happened, why he lost his brother, but I remember him saying something along the lines of somebody wants to ask him if he felt like he would ever recover after losing his brother. And you know, he said this thing that, like it really taught me, which was he's like I'm. You know, I'm never gonna be the same. I'm always just gonna live with the sadness inside me. And what he had to learn to do was just to learn to live with that sadness. And you know, I imagine that's something that you've had to kind of learn to master yourself, because you never really move on from losing a sibling, because that's again, it's something that you, you grow up thinking it's almost there as a part of your life, and when they're not, you don't just move past it, you learn how to deal with it and accept it. I think that's the only way you move forward. 

1:48:27 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I'll tell you, may, 2nd, july, 5th, holidays, you know, even when I buy, you know, christmas presents from mom and dad, right, my mom is, she's always been a huge on, she always liked angels, right, I remember Billy, a statue is where this met. You know, when you, I was at recently at the fire site fire site theater and they have like these little stores you can find some of that like Nick-Tack stuff in there, right, and I looked at one and it has it had a cardinal on there and it was about losing someone and watching over you. You know, watching over you, you know being in heaven, and that's like that sadness will hit. It will just hit you like a ton of bricks, right, those days you just remember, would it Like? Now here we are 11 years later, okay, some something, always every year something, and on those days you remember something and it just it hits you. But you live with that sadness. You do. You don't experience what you experienced that day, but you remember positive things. 

You guys did you remember stuff growing up the Christmases we had all the fun we had, you know we used to. When my parents were once asleep. There'd be times when I got my car I'd take, I'd get all the kids, we'd sneak out of the house, we'd go to that 24 hour McDonald's get ice cream, you know, and they thought it was the coolest thing ever, right, they were all the brothers having to sneak out of the house at 11 o'clock in the night and we would. You know, it was usually like on a Sunday night because everybody went to bed early and this would sneak out. We'd come back later. Everybody was, you know. But you remember all those little things that you did, right, you remember all the positive experiences. But it hits you like a ton of bricks every time, every time. I mean sometimes it's just right here, right, talk about it, get kind of emotional, get a pause and kind of gather your thoughts. 

1:50:48 - Speaker 1
And because you get lost in a moment, because you know you experience that, Do you ever find it hard to still kind of have to take that role of being like the oldest sibling and who does kind of take this responsibility of having a you know man up and gather everybody together and make sure everybody's okay? That like, does that ever weigh on you Actually? 

1:51:11 - Speaker 2
now, we know, because everybody's adults, everybody's in their. You know, all my siblings are in their 30s, so everybody kind of comes together and you know they'll reach out. Hey, how's it going this night? Hey, we're having a gathering and such and such a date, and so what we do we always have, it's always a good gathering. We always have fun, a lot of laughs, a lot of conversation. You know what I mean. 

1:51:36 - Speaker 1
Like with Brian recently, did you feel like that responsibility of making sure Brian was gonna be okay was it wasn't solely on you, but it means it was a shared responsibility between you and the rest of your family? 

1:51:49 - Speaker 2
Yeah, so some basis for that. So a lot of times when people talk to him and they may get into arguing with him, hey, can you talk to him Like he'll listen to you, he'll talk to you, whatever this man. So usually I'll have a conversation with him, ask him some questions. This is look, you wanna see it from both sides of the story. 

You don't wanna see it from you know one side like, hey, this is what's going on. This is what I'm asking, you know, ask him some questions. We have a good conversation, right. But now I think everybody's like just all in on him, his recovery, all in on him being better, you know and by me all in, not that nobody else wanted to see it before, but because of the strides he's made already, that they are everybody's just like pushing him forth or like I don't feel like I have to be the one. That's kind of like pushing ahead or being the sole person to talk to him. 

You know, because now he's communicative with everybody and you know when he sees us, he, you know he gives us a hug and tells us. You know he tells us he loves us and how much seeing him means. You know seeing him means to him and you know just the joy of seeing his kids, him, interact with his kids, and you can just tell like it's different now. It's special now. You know what I mean. His kids bring him so much joy. Now you know what I mean. And not to say that it didn't before, but I think before it was blinders. On right he's dealing with his own issue, so things may have not have been whatever, do you find yourself like with Aiden now? 

1:53:32 - Speaker 1
like, obviously, mental health being so prevalent in your life and the importance of it, I'm sure you make sure that Aiden's aware of that as well and that Aiden knows how important it is to be open about your mental health and to deal with problems head on as opposed to just pushing them off. Oh, are you glad that Aiden's able to see his uncle Brian go from struggling to getting better, to kind of give him this example of what that really means? 

1:54:01 - Speaker 2
I mean not that you want to see that, obviously. Yeah, I mean he saw that, no, a couple of times, right. 

1:54:07 - Speaker 1
Yeah. 

1:54:08 - Speaker 2
This gives him some building blocks like amen, let's make sure we're on a straight and narrow. Have fun in your life, live your life. But what's not getting to these situations? Because this is exactly what happens. Right, this is the kind of stuff that happens when you get involved in that kind of stuff. 

1:54:27 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean. Well, so many young kids are so guarded from these situations that happen, right, addiction, especially so many kids. Growing up as children, you know we're not aware of what addiction really means and what the depths of addiction can do. So for Aiden to have grown up with this and seen it in his own family, it really brings a sense of reality to life that lets you come to terms with things that you Not, that it's not better to deal with it when you're younger, but the younger you come to terms with the fact that life is a little ugly sometimes and it's not all rainbows and sunshine, and that there has to be an active effort to push life forward sometimes, right. 

So I'm sure that there can be a silver lining to that, in a sense that for him at this point he knows that, he understands that, I'm sure yeah him and I have some really good conversations. 

1:55:18 - Speaker 2
I know Annie and him have some really good conversations as well about what's transpiring with you know, with Uncle Kenny or Uncle Brian or you know how they got there, the situations right, and look, he's been. He said he's already told me he's like data. I went to what's this party there tonight by you know one of our friends house and you know they had this, this that they're he's like. I told him no, I'm not gonna do that, that's not, that's not me. You know, and they were, they were fine with it. 

He's like, but I don't want any other situation like in our family. You know he's, he's very cognizant of what you know, because I think the these situations have taken a lot out of me personally over the last 10 years. You know what I mean 11 years where it's like just taxing, mentally taxing, trying to live a normal life, trying to build a life, build a good life, and you know I mean so. I don't think he you know he's a good kid I don't think he you know well he won't try to get himself in all situations where it could lead to one of these occurrences. 

1:56:34 - Speaker 1
And it seems as though you've tried to give him a foundation too where, like I got me, he understands what mental health is. He will. He's seen people in the family and what, how, just how bad mental health can get to be outside of addiction itself. Just that mental health itself is something that can't be taken lightly. That you feel like he like that's something he's very that actively aware of like. If he feels like he knows what depression is, he knows what anxiety is, he knows what panic attacks are. 

1:57:06 - Speaker 2
Sure, Like, yeah, no, I, I fully believe so, because we've we've discussed at length, you know, I've told them how I felt at these different points in time, situations like, hey, here's what I experience. 

You know, here's a possibly the root cause of this right, and I've expressed to him numerous times like, hey, listen, if you ever feel like you need to talk about something you know you may not want to talk to me about it because you may feel it's kind of silly Talks about it anyway, because it's not worth harboring all these feelings for a long time and then any event happening or something, something bad happens. Like so he's cognizant of what we have talked about, what we've done, all the events and really trying to open up, you know, and he's kind of, he's kind of shy, like his mom. You know what I mean. They're kind of closed off at times. You know he's not anywhere near like extrovert, like extrovert like I am, but in the same sense, he knows like, okay, I can go talk to dad about this, because I know dad's not gonna judge me or sit there and yell at me for it. He's gonna talk to me about, you know, like someone that just wants to hear me out and see where I'm at. 

1:58:26 - Speaker 1
Through the past 11 years. You know you said that your dad. You saw him break down, but then you also saw him close off. Have you been able to have deep conversations with him about this stuff? 

1:58:40 - Speaker 2
Sometimes, you know it's. It's sometimes I don't like. You know him and I went to a concert last Thursday and we had a great time, you know, and the conversation flows, you know, and I think he's in a better place now. Sometimes it's kind of hard to get anything out of him. He'll just kind of, eh, but it's kind of hard to get stuff out of him at times. But I think now he's kind of opened up more to really talk about that kind of stuff and really talk about his feelings. You know, growing up he was very except he's a very quiet person, man of few words. You didn't really get to see his emotions fully until over the last probably 11, 12 years. 

1:59:27 - Speaker 1
Yeah, some. He's gone through some hard-left events here. 

1:59:31 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean I can't even imagine like being a parent, you know, barrier child. I mean that's just. I can't even fathom that. 

1:59:40 - Speaker 1
They all they say that's one of the hardest things that you could possibly go through and I, I couldn't even fathom what that actually means to say that. I mean, that's just it's just spoiled. 

Well, I really, really appreciate you coming on today. Absolutely, I'm looking at a story with me. I think there's there's so many things in there for so many people to relate to and understand. And especially, again, this is a man's mental health podcast and this is, to me, about men being able to hear these stories and realize that so many other guys go through so many similar things and just how bad it can be sometimes and how much we all need to kind of like, yeah, help each other out and be more willing to talk and accepting of these types of conversations, to that we don't all just walk around like holding this stuff in 100%. 

2:00:32 - Speaker 2
I mean, if you know, and my message, whether it's whether it's at work for these affinity groups or whether it's doing this walk or whether it's just in your normal everyday life is, if you are struggling, have a conversation and you don't have to broadcast it to the world. 

And if you want that closure, if you want that kind of respectability, you want that kind of close, have a conversation with one of your peers, one of your best friends, someone who you know will listen to you. It's worth having a conversation. I know personally, for me, you know, talking about it, talking about how everything that just consumed me and how I felt when everything was going on, especially like between 2012 and, you know, 2015, that was really the. You know, just having that conversation with people and really kind of like just opening up about it made so much, made it feel so much better. You know, having it all inside you just does not sit well and really causes a lot of stress on you. I mean, your mental health is just so important and so many people take it for. I'm like cramping. 

2:01:56 - Speaker 1
I mean. I think, men, we can be so like we think it's so counterintuitive that we talk about the shitty thing we're feeling that is going to make it feel better, but it does. 

2:02:05 - Speaker 2
It does make it feel better it does, because you find more people that actually relate to you. Yeah, that you are, and I think that's the stigma amongst men. Is that oofs like I'm dealing with that. But you know, this guy over here, you know I bet you John doesn't deal with that. He's just think I'm crazy for saying that. And how is he going to? Is he going to talk about that amongst our friends? And where are people going to look at me with that? No, man, I have that conversation because I guarantee you someone in your circle, in your friends group, in your family, in your church, wherever, are having the same thoughts, same feelings, and that you can only build a better bond and connect with people when you have those conversations, because it really helps. 

2:02:51 - Speaker 1
Yeah, have one hour of this time To kind of end the podcast. Is there any of these groups that you want to share with us? Is there anything that you'd want to share for people to tell them to like join, or you know any event for the people of part of it? 

2:03:03 - Speaker 2
Well, obviously I'm huge on the suicide awareness because of the whole situation with Danny. So there's out of the darkness walk, second weekend of October. They cover a lot of mental health there. I highly suggest that if even if you just want to check it out go take a look at it. There's a lot of good resources. They have a lot of good speakers that will come on stage and just give them a little about their situation and about their struggles. And I'm telling you like you're gonna hear the same, the similar, similar things than what we talked about today. I mean it's just, it's unparallel. I mean it's just, you just. But if you get yourself into another thing is if you get yourself into like a volunteer, if like a mental health group I mean not just only like doing this podcast, but like maybe volunteering your time handing out some pamphlets for one of these mental health groups create some more awareness. It only can help society. It only could help your friends, your family, the people you love and care about. 

2:04:11 - Speaker 1
I agree completely Well. Thank you again. I really appreciate you coming on this was great. And yeah, so if you guys enjoyed this, please subscribe to the podcast. More content will be coming out soon. Otherwise, thank you and have a great day. Aujourdа у нас dang на нении. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page