Lia M's Narrative: A Tale of Addiction, Recovery and Self-Identity Discovery

Join us on a remarkable journey with Lia, as she courageously shares her battles with addiction and her transformative transition journey. We traverse the landscapes of Lia's life, exploring the interplay of identity, sexuality, and the struggle to stay sober. Lia's candid account paints a vivid picture of her life in Scranton, built on the foundation of recovery, and how an initial reluctance to change led to a life-altering transformation.

We journey through Lia's childhood, uncovering her rejection of religion, shaped by her parents' divorce and her mother's involvement in the People Power Revolution, also known as the EDSA Revolution, her father's professional success, and tales of her grandfather's accomplishments ignited the go-getter within her. From here, we take a cerebral detour into the realm of mathematics, considering how its concepts can help us comprehend the universe and reality, interweaving Eric Weinstein's dismay with the stagnation of physics in quantum theory.

Lia's struggle with sobriety, her efforts to make friends in recovery, and the challenges faced in an all-male facility provide an enlightening perspective on addiction and recovery. Judgment due to her gender identity, her desire for a female sponsor, and the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics (not without risk) in understanding the self all form crucial elements of her narrative. This conversation with Lia is a deep dive into the realities of identity, addiction, and recovery, offering inspiration and hope for listeners on similar journeys.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:53

Pills and powders oh my Lines and powders and pills oh my, oh my. Hello and thanks again for listening to another episode of All Better. I'm your host, joe Van Wee. Today's guest is my friend, leah McPherson. Leah grew up outside of the District of Columbia and comes here today to tell us a story of coming to terms with addiction being a profound coping mechanism while exploring the ups and downs of adolescent life coming into your identity, your own sexuality and your gender. Leah speaks to the process and the emotional journey of transitioning and she also tells us today how profound her life is in Scranton, and the most could be an unlikely place to have a meaningful life, not from I myself or Leah. Leah's entire life in Scranton is built on the foundation of recovery and this story's common and I don't think a lot of people from Scranton know this is happening in many ways. So I'm really excited for you to hear her story and what a wonderful addition to our area she has become. Let's meet Leah. Ok, leah, thank you for coming on.

Speaker 2: 2:50

Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to this all week, really. Yeah, I like talking. I like people listening to me talk.

Speaker 1: 2:58

And I like talking to you and I don't think we get to talk enough as much as I would enjoy. From the first time I met you I would say it's two years now- yeah, it's been about two years.

Speaker 2: 3:09

So I moved to Scranton like December 17 of 2021 from DC and probably I met you like a solid like month to a month and a half after I moved here.

Speaker 1: 3:23

I went right up to you and I know I tell the story a little bit when we're around, but it was. I felt compelled, yeah, I felt a duty. When I go to AA and I hear especially young intellectual, intellectual person speak that they're either an atheist, anti-theist or God's not relevant, I immediately swarm them so they don't get attacked.

Speaker 2: 3:48

Yeah, yeah, I don't know if you remember this. He told me when we met you like get, like had a whole thing and, to be honest, like I wasn't ready to hear almost anything you said. You said like you were telling me stuff that like now, thinking back, when it makes a lot of sense, it was like consciousness is like a unique thing and it's like unique to the human experience and like the universe is like inherently chaotic and that's OK and all the stuff like now you know somebody's been sober for close to a year is very interesting stuff. But at the time I remember thinking like, ok, like whatever, this guy's just trying to get me to believe in Jesus, jesus At Jesus, yeah. And then at the end you're like, just by the way, for the record, you want to be careful talking like that at meetings because you might get attacked.

Speaker 1: 4:32

Yeah, and which is fine. When you're young you get a fun meeting. But I wasn't sure, if I didn't know what you were like emotionally stably, that that could hurt.

Speaker 2: 4:42

Yeah, I, yeah, I had been. I, by that point, I had been an A member for let's see here. So it was 2021. I went to cheer for the first time. So, yeah, I'd been an A member for you know, a little bit over a year and a half, yeah, and I had had basically no success. And the reason why I had no success is because, oh, wait, ok, so I've been a member of a 12 step fellowship. You can, you can do some math this is one that is but I'm press ready and films guys. But I I'd been, I'd been attending 12 step meetings for a couple of years and I'd had a little success. Because people have been telling me about I, I was unwilling to change. Like some people only do the fellowship and some people only do the steps and they don't do both and then they just end up not succeeding. I was doing none of it, I was I.

Speaker 2: 5:34

I firmly believe that the root of my addiction was the other problems in my life. You know, like I'll say right now, you know my name is Leah, you see her pronouns on transgender and openly so, and anyone who asked a morning to tell them all about that. And that was bothering me and have been bothering me for years and I didn't really know what to do about it. And I live with polar disorder which, for the future, when the character and fitness board of the you know Pennsylvania bar hears this, I am medicated and stable and I have been now for a long time, but I thought that I needed professional help.

Speaker 2: 6:13

I thought I needed, you know, like psychiatrist and therapist and all these things to like tease out was wrong in my brain, but in reality it's like I'm a drunk like anyone else, like what I needed was was to perform psychic surgery on my own mind, with the help of others and God, and put together a life that was that was worth living. So I wasn't going to listen to anyone. Getting sober and screen was interesting. I never thought I'd wind up in screen. No one does you know. I mean he wants to wind up the center of the universe.

Speaker 2: 6:40

It's it's crazy man, I never wanted to be in Scranton. I just, you know, suddenly I realized I'd been here for like four or five months and I hadn't used and that was not something that had happened before and I basically made the judgment call that I wasn't going to walk away from that because it was too high of a risk. You know, staying in Scranton was a low risk, high reward situation and those are the best kinds of investments to make, right?

Speaker 1: 7:08

So yeah, and that's the rational approach of, initially, to wanting to save your life from an addiction which got severe.

Speaker 2: 7:18

Oh yeah, no, I was, yeah, and I was, I was, I almost died quite regularly.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Well, let's start somewhere linear for a little bit. Well, we'll dance around, talk about whatever we want, but where are you from?

Speaker 2: 7:31

Where did you grow up? So I grew up in a place called Fairfax, virginia, which is the same county. It is a county that contains Langley, which is where the CIA is in, and I've been moving around my whole life. So I mean, since I turned about 18, I started like really getting mobile, and so because of that, I have had to explain where Fairfax is, and I always tell people it's the area where the CIA is in, it's 30 minutes from Washington DC or it's it's where McLean is. Various people know it for different things, but it's it is. It is a very ethnically diverse suburb of the DC area. It is socioeconomically diverse as well, and it is when you say that, what is that?

Speaker 1: 8:20

There's different socioeconomic populations, because I always envision those areas as you know suburbanites, white, highly educated like stooches for the government.

Speaker 2: 8:33

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:33

The movie idea of Fairfax Langley. When you say it's socioeconomically, is there pockets of poverty there?

Speaker 2: 8:44

It depends on where you go in Scranton but like, for example, in Anondale, if you go on Americana Drive, like there's, like you will find like lots of narcotics I grew up in and there are definitely schools like Anondale High School, where my sister goes is famous for, is famous for, for, for lots of violence and stuff like that. I had a. I had one of my suppliers when I was 17, got shot in the chest and killed in the woods somewhere. But yeah, on the whole it's predominantly upwardly mobile people. You know, I'm Asian, I'm half Asian, my mother's Filipino, my father's white and yeah, I mean it is a. It is a great place to grow up. If you will, you will, you will go. You will grow up in Fairfax, virginia, and then move somewhere for college and be absolutely shocked.

Speaker 2: 9:36

The lack of good Asian food, the, the pop. I think it's like I would need to look at the census numbers but I think it's like 20 percent Asian. Yeah, there's a solid grouping of people. I mean poverty, I mean there's not like extreme poverty. I mean you know some parts of inner city DC, you know, if you go to Anacostia, that are in Filipino culture.

Speaker 1: 9:55

It's just just for someone maybe who doesn't understand. It's predominantly the Filipinos I knew are always kind of Catholic.

Speaker 2: 10:02

Oh, yeah, no, yeah, no, 100 percent. My mother is deeply Catholic, I mean. So my mother has stopped going to church and I asked her why at one point and she said she didn't want to go to a church that rejected her child, and and that's really cool to me. I personally don't care. A lot of my friends in screen are Catholics and I think that that's really cool.

Speaker 2: 10:23

I went to Catholic school growing up until about the second grade and then I basically I was having a lot of problems in school for years. I told the story. They got kicked out of Catholic school, which is like really sexy, but like what really happened was is that it was? It was the schools in Fairfax Virginia are good enough that they're extremely good through some of the best public schools in the country. I mean Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, which, for the record, I did not get into, is in Fairfax Virginia and and it is a good place and the schools are good, and so a Catholic school has to really have a lot to offer in order to justify its existence, and the Catholic community and the Catholic school that I went to, the parochial school that I went to, was not particularly.

Speaker 2: 11:12

I mean, it was academically okay, I mean, but they didn't have any gifted or talented programs which of course, a genius like me would have to go to. I'm not actually that smart, that was a joke, but they, you know, and so really the only reason to be there was for the Catholicism. So my parents kept me there until I got through my first communion so I didn't have to do after school classes, because if you're in Catholic school you do religion class, which is what educates you on the whole thing. I've had a fascination with Catholicism my whole life. I care a lot about Catholicism. I've had a fascination with Christianity my whole life. I don't know why. I think it's probably a way to reconcile some issues.

Speaker 1: 11:51

I think it's very fascinating for a child's mind because early on you have to have some conceptual of death that grows from either violent depictions of a crucifixion being, you know, one of the hallmarks of Catholicism where that's one of our icons the idea that there's a realm that's untangible, unreachable by our senses, but it's somehow operating for our souls, somehow we're the subjects of this divine story. It's so appealing, it's a very appealing thing to wanna understand or never understand.

Speaker 2: 12:28

Yeah, I mean it's. Yeah, I mean, I think the. I mean the basic idea. So I ended up reading the New Testament sometime in high school, just out of curiosity, and the main theory I got was it's the story of this dirty, homeless man that wanders the desert. He's got the hippie version of it.

Speaker 2: 12:47

Yeah, he's like yeah, jesus Christ, he's this hippie that walks around the desert with 12 disciples and he goes around, he tells people, you know it's like, don't worry too much about how bad things are right now. Focus on caring about other people and I promise you that you will be more than rewarded in heaven. That's a good takeaway, you know, and I think that's a really fascinating idea. You know, I mean Christianity. I mean like, if you look at, I mean so I was an anarchist for a long time and if you look at, I was never a good anarchist. I did like zero mutual aid. I just sat on web forums and talked God damn lazy anarchists. Yeah, anarchists are the worst, but Christian anarchism I mean the basic. I mean Christ literally says like the meek, chilling hair at the earth. You know, I mean Christ says we're gonna. So I have no issues with Christianity.

Speaker 1: 13:34

Well, that's it. There's a caveat Meek is really often misunderstood as weak and meek the word. It means the people who have no representation, the people that the world stopped advocating for or culture stopped having a voice for. They will inherit the earth, and I think that's really interesting because it's not weakness. It doesn't seem like Christ even cares about weakness. It's almost an intolerable attribute of most people. But the meek people who haven't had representation, who have received injustice.

Speaker 1: 14:11

I wanna talk in one lens, if you're comfortable with this. Sure, yeah. When did you first recognize sexuality rise up in you? And for most you know my friends, it was early. And how did it relate to the Catholicism? Did you feel a disconnect? And when did that start to happen? That, be it religion or the people around you, didn't understand what maybe you were relating to.

Speaker 2: 14:39

So I also realized that I liked boys, and realized that I also liked boys and realized that I was a woman Well past when I decided that I didn't, that the Bible was not gonna be the scripture, but I wish I ran my life. So when I was about probably I would say eight or nine, like really young, I more or less decided that I was gonna take the rebellious position and not believe in God, and I was pretty Milton about it. It didn't make sense to me. I mean, despite the fact that I was fascinated by Catholicism and the pomp and circumstance of mass and the consumption of the Eucharist, of course, was beautiful to me, I think that there was just a lot of stuff that in my head wasn't adding up, and you know the stuff that for an eight or nine year old doesn't add up.

Speaker 2: 15:25

You know what I mean. Like this is clearly bread, it tastes like bread. This is not the body of my savior. You know what I mean. Or or a way, it's a wise, a human sacrifice, the reason I can get into heaven. And you know, like these kinds of like basic, like childish questions about like wise, and I asked them in a religion class and I was basically told that, yeah, you're gonna go to hell.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Well, you sound lucky, because to disregard it in that logical sense, it's not matching with a part of the empirical world here. Yeah, no, I don't what you relieve yourself of. What I wanna say is some people aren't able to do it at that age, and what will happen is an identity of shame will rise up.

Speaker 2: 16:02

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:03

Are you feeling a conflict there, Like and what would that? Looking back at it now as an adult and you're stable and you have a good sense of yourself, what was going on? That would have been conflicted for an eight or nine year old Like, how would you describe that to someone?

Speaker 2: 16:19

I, you know, so you know I I don't I mean I don't really know about the conflict because, you know, just growing up I was, you know, like you know my folks, my folks are amazing, they're great people, but you know, like there's, you know, they got divorced when I was 15, so you can like do the math as to like stuff that was happening around the time when I was eight or nine and and and I definitely I just I always had to be different and I thought that and I grew up on stories and my mother you know, for those of you who are familiar with the Filipino history, my mother marched in the Edzer Revolution against the Marcos regime. Give a little summary of that.

Speaker 2: 16:58

So, more or less, there was a. There was a military dictator that was supported by the United States, named Marcos, who was in charge of the Philippines for a decade or two, and there was a. There was a guy named Benigno Aquino, who goes by Nino Aquino he's dead now which I'll get to in a minute.

Speaker 2: 17:16

And he, he had a heart problem. He was the leader of the opposition. He would never admit that he was the leader of the opposition, but he was the leader of the opposition and he had a heart problem. And it became like a big international scuffle that the Filipino, that the, the supposed freely elected leader of the Philippines, was letting some, was letting his main political opponent die of a heart disease in prison, and so he was flowing the United States. And Nino Aquino got to the United States and more or less said like okay, like I'm, I'm staying here. You know what I mean. Like I'm not, like I'm not leaving, I'm defecting to the United States. And so he did. I was granted asylum.

Speaker 2: 17:47

I believe Some of this history might be a little bit incorrect, but the presidential election came up and and Nino Aquino decided that he was going to go to the Philippines to stand for election, and so he boarded a plane you know it was international press in the plane and and they touched down and he was pulled off the plane by quote unquote communists and shot in the head in front of the international press.

Speaker 2: 18:10

And and then his wife, corey Aquino, who eventually became president of the Philippines, stood for basically said, like you know, like I'm gonna stand for election in place of my husband, and she did. And the elections were done and and they were actually verified by the by the Catholic church, interestingly enough and they were, and it was clear to the election's faked, marcos had lost the election. It was. It was immediately clear that basically every municipality in the Philippines outside of the Alocos region that Marcos had lost and but the regime was claiming that he had stayed, that he had won, and so there was a series of revolutions on the street of the ETSA revolution that my mother marched in in the 80s or 90s. Again, my history is not so good. This is all like stuff that I'm like we're counting from what my mother told me over this over several years of my life.

Speaker 1: 19:02

And yeah, and she would have been a young woman risking her life, yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:06

Yeah, and I'll get in front of tanks and shit and it's really cool. And I grew up on stories like that and I grew up on stories of my grandfather who is like one of my favorite people who told me all about, like you know, it's like fighting for, like you know, I grew up with a lot of people who were go-getters that made their stay by being different. You know my father as well. He was a lawyer. He had a rough, rough time growing up and it was difficult for him and he succeeded and he fought and he became an extremely successful lawyer. He still is an extremely successful lawyer by, I guess, in like the traditional sense of like prestige and power. He was at his peak earlier. He's pretty successful, pretty successful and so and pretty successful. And so I grew up on that.

Speaker 2: 19:43

And so I was going into school when I was young and I was ready to set the world on fire and I go to Catholic school and the first institution I was introduced to was the Catholic Church and I said that's the one I'm going to fucking fight against. And so I became an atheist and I read Richard Dawkins and I read Christopher Hitchens and like eight or nine, truly honestly, I read these books. I mean, I was a. God of Illusion was a foundational text from. God of Illusion was a foundational text from my existence. It really mattered to me and I decided that I was going to be an atheist. I decided that I was going to be an atheist. I discovered the attraction of men. It was kind of something that always was there. I just didn't know that I had a word for it. I lost my Virginia to a man when I was 13. He was also 13. There was nothing strange there. Oh, chris, yeah, just scare me. Yeah, he was also 13.

Speaker 2: 20:28

It was just a regular yeah, regular occurrence and I just existed my life like that and I had no problems with it. I would occasionally see it with men. I would never tell anyone about it. I was deathly afraid of people like thinking about me differently, which no one ever gave me the message. I hung out with the queer kids in high school. That was my friend group. It was the queer theater kids. My parents regularly told me that it was OK to be gay. And no, my school was very accepting. There was, I mean, the gay straight line to my school, which I was not a member of, of course, had like 100 members. And what year is this?

Speaker 1: 21:06

I was probably.

Speaker 2: 21:07

I was in high school from 26.

Speaker 2: 21:09

2015 through 2019. 2015 through 2019. And so I had no, but I had, like told myself a message that I was not going to get involved in that. And then I kind of always knew there's something off gender wise, which is the main reason why I had such difficulty understanding the sexuality, because I didn't feel attracted to men as a male. I felt attracted to men as a woman. I didn't really know how to express that or talk about that in a way that was like sane and sober, and nobody was talking about that, no, 2016. It was just.

Speaker 2: 21:39

I mean, I had a lot of trans friends. I mean I was, I was, I was a pretty rough case. I mean, you know, I used to go to a lot of shows in DC and punk shows. I love punk rock and I, you know, I would shave my head and like, wear like Fred Perry polos and suspenders and like Doc Martens, and, and eventually I had this one friend who is still my best friend to this day and he sat me down and he's a trans man and he said, uh, hey, like you got to stop. Like you know, like we all know, that there's something not quite normal about you. You can't like no one believes this act you're putting on for us right now. Just stop take off the boots, go wear a band t-shirt like please, love a God, stop saying hateful things to me. I have no obligation to do this for you right now, but you need to stop and uh, and I said, okay, I'll stop that. And and and I did, and I became like way more accepting over the course of several years.

Speaker 2: 22:35

But, uh, this is the joke reason I decided that I was going to transition because I knew I was transferred, like that was just. That was just a basic, basic thing. I didn't really know what that meant, but I knew that that was something. But my decision to transition really, um, by the time I was like a junior in high school, I was starting to call like LGBT hotlines and asking for help and they'd be like, well, young lady, I'm like I'm not a lady, fuck you.

Speaker 2: 22:55

And that would hang up the phone and you know what I mean. And I would just go nuts and and, uh and uh. And probably I mean like, look, I'm not look as a member of a, of a fellowship, as someone who identifies as stone cold sober except for nicotine and caffeine. I don't endorse doing this if you have an identity crisis related to your gender, but it really helped me. Um, I took a heroic dose of magic mushrooms, um and uh, and I and, and something about that made it so abundantly clear for me that I was not a dude and I was never going to be a dude, and that's how the world was going to work.

Speaker 1: 23:32

Well, let's talk exactly about that, If you would, and first with keep in mind someone who has not tripped, or maybe an audience that might look at it as a a narcotic.

Speaker 2: 23:46

Oh, it's an narcotic for sure.

Speaker 1: 23:47

It is well not, not essentially. This is what I mean by that. It's an ethio gym, it's a hallucinogenic and it's a psychedelic, and you don't hallucinate. You have a different perception.

Speaker 2: 24:01

Yeah, yeah, this is definitely easy.

Speaker 1: 24:03

The world differently in and there's, you know, treasure troves in the last seven years of the, the clinical and the therapeutic benefits for certain people. And this does not go without high risk of psilocybin, ketamine, MDMA for trauma, PTSD and addiction. I was on ketamine treatments actually one point in my life, yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:27

So what do you? How would you describe it? And really really try to generalize it so someone could understand the experience of eating mag magic mushrooms, and that's psilocybin. Give someone, maybe who's experiencing depression or crisis a different perspective on the nature of self, or what you are calling an identity or your personality.

Speaker 2: 24:52

Yeah. So I think probably the thing to visit is first like, like, um, what is a personality? You know, I learned this in psychology like a year ago and I was taking psychology at college and they basically were like a, you know, psychology personality is the collection of things. Um, it's a conjunction.

Speaker 1: 25:09

It's a collection.

Speaker 2: 25:10

It's a collection of things, and, but the important part of the definition is that it's what distinguishes you from everyone else, right? So, for example, it is a human component that I have a heart that beats. That's not part of my personality, because we all have that, and also it doesn't exist in my mind, right? I feel joy sometimes and that's pretty good. I feel joy quite a bit, but in general, I feel joy Like I just experience joy. That's not part of my personality, even though it exists in my mind, because everyone has that, right. Um, uh, the fact that I enjoy origami because it lets me visualize geometry, is part of my personality. That's part of personality because it distinguishes me from other people. This is an example. You like origami? I do, yeah, I do like origami. I love origami. Um, I uh. Yeah, I'm like the most stereotypical Asian I've ever lived. I'm a math major. I'm a math major, I'm a math tutor, I make origami, I'm terrible at driving, like the list goes on. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 26:03

It's, it's, it's rough but um you buy $700 jeans. Yeah, well, I used to wear.

Speaker 2: 26:09

I used to wear express jeans and then I discovered that the Amazon sells skinny black jeans for like 20 bucks, so I stopped now with those. But um yeah, so I would say let's start with personality. The other thing is like, if we get to like kind of this, like ontological discussion about like what is essence or inessences, you know, like like what is, like what is what is, I'm not going to get it.

Speaker 1: 26:28

It's like what is it? Let's table being essence and shroded your for a second. Yeah, but what is?

Speaker 2: 26:35

what is what is shrewd Like, what do magic mushrooms is going to call mushrooms.

Speaker 1: 26:39

Jesus. So how do they?

Speaker 2: 26:40

have this. I felt so strongly the things that differentiated me from other people, like I could see so clearly I remember. So I had a girlfriend at the time, um, and we, uh, I had a girlfriend at the time and she was, she was, you know, it was the relationship ended poorly. That's not really what I'm talking about here, but, um, we decided that for our sixth anniversary which, for high schoolers, a big deal, you know what I mean this is, this is hugely important that we're going to go on anniversary. And so we went to this place called to Bruce Knoblake, um, in August, at the height of the Perseid meteor shower, and, uh, we waited, we took, we consumed our, our dose, and, and, and walked, and, and she had like a really beautiful experience. What I remember, um, was this a high dose.

Speaker 1: 27:25

Like, maybe probably like an eighth and eighth.

Speaker 2: 27:27

Okay, so it's a moderate dose, like a pretty, like you know, it was like you're going to have visuals.

Speaker 2: 27:32

You're going to have overwhelming sensations, yeah, yeah, it just just regular. And and I remember distinctly um she, uh, you know, um she lent it was cold because it was. We were up in the mountains and she lent me her. Um, she lent me her jacket and she commented that it she felt like she, she felt like she, she was funny that she was lining her jacket to her boyfriend and I said that was cool. And as we were walking, I told her I think I might be having some thoughts about gender and of course, I said it like I was on magic mushrooms and she said, oh, is she?

Speaker 2: 28:02

and when she said the word she to address me, um, it was like I felt like an entire experience go over my entire body and uh, and I don't like anyone anything that ever in the same sense, because it was so abundantly clear to me it was going on. Cause for a long time I had been denying all of those thoughts because mostly cause I knew it would make my life hard, and the truth is it has made my life harder.

Speaker 1: 28:26

And how would you um establish and explain to someone who may not understand the that the effects of psilocybin, like some potency, compromise you, that this wasn't the effect of the drug, that this would have be, um, you know an experience of yourself because of the drug?

Speaker 2: 30:39

How would you it was it had become? I mean, I think the thing that psilocybin gave me was that it was very difficult to lie to myself anymore. Okay, that's a really interesting description it was really difficult to lie to myself, and so this is like on the gender stuff. I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I had to be I. I became obvious to me what was going on in my head.

Speaker 1: 30:59

And out of my own curiosity. Um, when you were dating this, this girl and it sounds like a a meaningful relationship for even high school that you would you would reveal this to word and trust. How did you relate to the gender while dating a female? How would you describe that to someone who didn't understand?

Speaker 2: 31:17

Uh, you know, like my friends have always. When I came out of the closet um a couple of years ago, my friend joked to me you know, it makes a lot of sense now that you've only ever dated bisexual women. Wow.

Speaker 1: 31:27

Okay.

Speaker 2: 31:30

It is true. It's true, I've never had a relationship last longer than two weeks with anyone that wasn't bisexual. You know what I mean. I have a girlfriend now and that's obvious, and she's bisexual. You know what I mean. It's it's just never come up. You know, I've always dated bisexual people and, uh, and I think that there was probably there's probably some like pretty basic like fact about myself hidden in there somewhere. Yeah, and I mean um, yeah, I know I basically only ever date. Yeah, and uh, we had a very like, I guess, if you want to like phrase it that way really like um, like, uh, like homosexual relationship almost, and the way we interact with each other. That whole relationship, by the way, for public record, um, was very meaningful and very fun, um, but it was very sick. I mean, I was an active alcoholic, um, and I said didn't think that I'm not proud of it, I'm not going to repeat on on hair but um, she, uh, yeah, no, definitely, definitely. It was not I, I, it's the amends I'll never get to make is what I phrase it because because uh she's

Speaker 2: 32:31

basically said you're still alive, well, yeah, but she's basically said, like, please never contact me again, and I think the best thing I can do for her is to, you know, never contact her again. So I uh so, but um, yeah, the amends will never make in the 12 step program that should not be named Um, but uh, yeah. And she, uh, yeah, no, but yeah, no, um, and then, um, that journey kind of progressed by the time. So I was at 18 at the time. I don't know, it must have been 17. Um, and then I just decided to stay in the closet because, again, like it was going to make my life hard. I mean, this was 2017 and you know, the world's changed a lot in 2017 and now, and um, I, I admire the bravery of my transgender siblings that were out of the closet in that period, before Obergefell VHODGES. I'm so, so, unbelievably proud of those people for what they did for me. Um, but I'm not a trailblazer.

Speaker 1: 33:24

Well, let me see what do you mean? Siblings, you're, you're brothers, and sisters.

Speaker 2: 33:28

No, I mean like the general, okay, in a poetic way I'm so grateful to my transgender brothers, my transgender siblings, who were brave enough and strong enough to unashamedly be themselves in the world. It was not okay with them being themselves, Um, but I was unable to do that. Look, I'm not a trailblazer. Um, I, I'm not, I'm not, I, I, I. I was unwilling to do that, and so I got to college and, um, I started um getting into other narcotics and I started getting into drinking and I started getting into other things that were not so great.

Speaker 1: 34:04

Well, before we go. We go in there and we know that's an addiction story. What's the second story that was happened in there? The mind, that's not a acknowledging itself as an addict, because I know you have passion for curiosity, knowledge, you're, you're a real intellectual.

Speaker 1: 34:24

Thank you and what was going on in the brain that you could not achieve when it comes to say what your interests are math and then how did you have to just hedge and say addictions could wipe this out? How was that happening? Because were you really sincere and curious about an academic life then and addiction really took it away. Is that?

Speaker 2: 34:49

how did that happen? I desperately. I mean, if you asked me what I was gonna do at the age of 18, the day I first went to I was 19, actually the day I went to the University of Minnesota I would have told you I wanted to get a BS in economics and that I was going to then go on to apply to the JD PhD program at the University of Michigan and that I was PhD economics and I was then going to become one of the greatest legal minds to ever live. And I bounced around a lot as to what I wanted to do, but in general I wanted to be academically involved. I still want to be academically involved. I think a lot of people describe, especially like academics, describe addictions like the Achilles' Healians, like they have all these skill and talent and strength and but they smoke too much weed or shoot too much heroin or whatever and that's gonna kill them. And it's kind of like this tragically poetically artistic thing that's gonna kill you because of your predictions.

Speaker 2: 35:49

You know, what I mean, but for me it was just that I genuinely thought when I was getting into weed it was gonna make me more intellectual because I had so many interesting thoughts while smoking it. Maybe it can for a period yeah, I can and look. If anyone listening can get those beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thoughts from casual narcotics use, it's fine. It's just that for me, it became abundantly clear that any narcotics use was going to result within a couple of weeks and what I really like to do, which is I was a stimulant addict.

Speaker 1: 36:24

And there's a distinction, and I know you know, because you're treating some severe pain that's unresolved or articulated.

Speaker 2: 36:30

Yeah, I was angry. I was angry and the scary thing is that, if you asked me the time when I was angry about it, I had no idea. I didn't like how the world treated me. I didn't like how my friends treated me, even though they were treating me amazing. I desperately wanted to be somebody else. I felt a lot of shame and a lot of guilt, like so much shame and so much guilt about that relationship I was just telling you about with that woman and I'm not gonna say her name, by the way. I think that'd be wrong to do so.

Speaker 2: 37:02

And I just hated myself and I thought that I was like a fundamentally bad person. And when I put the stem in my mouth and put the lighter to the stem and I inhaled, all that went away and it was a cheap trick, right? Cause I never was normal. I mean I never had the ability. I mean I write poetry. I've been writing poetry since I was 13 years old, starting around the age of 16 when I got into narcotics, I literally wrote like two poems. In the next six years I now write three or four poems a night.

Speaker 2: 37:37

You know what I mean? Cause I have a connection to myself and a connection to that pain and a connection to the anger, cause I was experiencing a lot of pain when I was using, but I didn't have a connection to the pain, I just knew I was in pain. I didn't know what was coming from and therapists tried hundreds of times like tease it out and me, like what happened? And people thought like, oh my God, you must have been sexually assaulted as a child, or your mother hit you or and the truth is or you know stuff like that, like these horrific, traumatic events, and that must have fueled this. You know well-mannered Asian kid from Fairfax County to go off and do. Everything that I did with them and relates to drug use, and the truth is none of that happened. I, just I. My relationship to reality is really poor. I couldn't tell what was real was not real. Yeah, I was really angry.

Speaker 2: 38:29

I lived with bipolar disorder and refused to take my medication cause I thought it would take away my edge. By the way, I haven't missed a dose of my meds in like a year and I care about them a lot. But yeah, no, I had. I thought that my, I had a really high opinion of myself sometimes and a really low opinion of myself other times and I was in a lot of pain and and then add to that a bunch of resentments against the world and, you know, add on to that a lot of fear. I was so afraid, I was so scared and so angry which I think almost anyone who comes on here and talks about the drug use will say that they were so scared and so angry. And I was so scared and so so angry and and I I found a solution in in narcotics use, that I used narcotics and that was. That's more or less why.

Speaker 1: 39:18

And the gender stuff was like obviously a huge part of it the gender is, is is like so you I think people always tend to think this the more severe an addiction, the high the acuity of acuity of trauma and that being, you know, a line item of violence, severe neglect and maybe even had trauma or something of that nature. But what isn't disregarded is neglect, not receiving enough love that you were built and needed brain development for. And it's not that there wasn't love, any kind of neglect or thinking. Love only came from validation or competition.

Speaker 2: 39:58

Yeah, I would say the latter is a better description. Like I thought, like like I had, I had, I had to learn that people didn't need to tell me why I was great every day to feel good about myself. And yeah, I, just I, and you know for me, I found like, so I mean, what ended up being the solution was was working, was working the steps and taking them seriously. Yeah, that's what changed my life. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 40:23

So Well, let's, let's get into, let's take a slow walk towards that Cause it didn't happen immediately. No, no, it didn't. I just summarized being around treatment, a wonderful place to live, where you start to develop relationships. When did that evolve or grow into? Oh, there's a serious solution to this versus relief.

Speaker 2: 40:46

So I went to my first 12 step meeting. I'm not an NA member, so I can happily say it was NA I made, which is probably why I didn't stay sober. But I and it was like this big room and and there was this lady. It was a celebration meeting and there was this lady who came up and see, she said that she had 38 years clean. And that was unfathomable to me because and I came up to her after the meeting, I told her that she still smelled like crack. I was like I don't believe you, Like you're not, like you don't have 38 years sober, You're full of it. And she were. You Did she really? Or what? No, she was for sure 38 years sober. Like, looking back on it, she was for sure.

Speaker 1: 41:29

You smell like crack. I've never seen someone accused of smelling like crack.

Speaker 2: 41:34

I look, it doesn't really stick to you. Anyways, it was just, I mean, and she was like, she looked at me and she said you're a sick one, aren't you? Yeah, I mean, and I was like, oh shit, yeah, no, but look, I mean, I think that I think that for me, I had a serious interest in a. I didn't want to have anything to do with a because I was an atheist and I'd read on Reddit when I was 12 that you can't be an atheist and be an AA, which is untrue, which is untrue, which is patently untrue. If anyone is listening, I'm not a member of a compressed radio and films, but but, but you can't be an, a member and and and be an atheist.

Speaker 2: 42:08

But you know, it was interesting. I mean, the whole mystique of the idea that I could call a number at two in the morning and somebody would pick up and talk to me for no other reason than they cared about me was unique. I mean, that was a kind of love that I didn't think existed outside of a nuclear family and and intrigued me. It was really intriguing, and then I basically did no work towards it. I've had like six or seven sponsors in my life, so I bounced around a lot and I wasn't really willing to put the work in and I would get into treatment and look, I under treatment March 1st of 2020. I got sober October 5th of 2023. Sorry, 2022. Sorry, that would be in the future. Yes, october 5th. Yeah, I'm going to get sober October 5th of 2023. No, but I got sober October 5th of 2022.

Speaker 1: 43:01

This podcast was recorded in the past.

Speaker 2: 43:04

Yeah, yeah, Hell yeah, Um, but uh, I would get like two months and then I would go to CVS and I would buy you know DXM containing products and then I would drink them and then I would go back to the sober house. Is that Robo?

Speaker 1: 43:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:20

Yeah, yeah, I mean, my product of choice was five fluid ounce bottles of great flavored DELSA, but um real quick and we won't get lost.

Speaker 1: 43:30

What is the euphoria? It, but that comes with hard edgy side effects.

Speaker 2: 43:34

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1: 43:36

Yeah, it's rough, it's rough.

Speaker 2: 43:39

I mean it was, it was my drug of choice. Yeah, I mean like it was what I've done that morning Robo trip, yeah, I just, I enjoyed um the fundamental sense of the surreal that that gave me, and would that last long? Oh yeah, If you, I mean look okay, I'm a CS Republic record Do not.

Speaker 2: 43:55

No, it sounds like disassociation yeah, you dissociated and like they're. Like I'd put myself in this headspace where, like, everything felt like not real. I could like see the world from like any perspective I wanted, and I could close my eyes and like I'd live a thousand lives.

Speaker 1: 44:11

And I was like it's so dangerous with any other condition.

Speaker 2: 44:14

Yeah, I loved it. I loved it. It was so good, it was my favorite thing in the world, um, because it was like I, I mean I, I enjoyed that I literally would forget my name, like I would forget my name all the time, and like, and just like the sensory stuff, like it was. So it was, it was great, yeah, except for the part where it, like you know, destroyed my longterm memory and and you know, like I wasn't able to do anything, I mean, and stuff, I was kicked out of a cow to final for, for, for intoxication, which is like whatever, and um, it was rough. You know what I mean. Um, but yeah, no, I'd get like two months and then I would consume more DXM and then we'd get two months and then, eventually, the rehab.

Speaker 2: 44:54

I'd be like hey I got to go, I got to get out of here. I'm leaving today. And they'd be like, all right, please just just get out of here, like don't talk to us anymore. And I'd be like, all right, thanks. And I would, you know, scurry off to scurry off home, and then I would go on a usually some sort of like three months long hike and I'd get back into smoking weed and then I would eventually train wreck and then I would go into treatment again and then I would go back to California for treatment again at the same place, and they'd be like all right, well, you know, like you're ready this time, and like and and the gaps between me using we're getting shorter and shorter. Um, and I, I just had no interest and I didn't do any like, look, if you want to get so over. Like, do do things that sober people do work. The steps go to meetings. You know, make your bed, make your bed, I don't make my bed.

Speaker 2: 45:38

Um, but I was told yeah, you want, you want, you want to be sober, do sober things, you know. Make friends, um, getting sober. How hard was it to make friends? Uh, I am look, I don't mix it's drug addicts. Um, and I never did, and that was why I love DXM so much is because I didn't have to talk to a single junkie. I could just go to CVS and get my deal and leave, um, and that mattered to me a lot. That's what I care about, um, but uh, and that was huge for me.

Speaker 1: 46:10

Um, how hard was it to make friends when you arrived in recovery and you were. You were in sober living then, which was thick. There was a lot of heads there.

Speaker 2: 46:20

Uh, yeah, I so okay. So I've been, I've been to three different places and, uh, I've been to well more than that, but it's halfway houses, which is you know where, the, where the meat and potatoes of recovery happens, cause that's where you're put out and you're giving. You're giving enough responsibility that you can actually make a difference in your life. You know, treatment is just trying you out and giving you enough librae and so you don't shake yourself to death. That's a fair and nice description.

Speaker 1: 46:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:45

It's the meat and potatoes of what you do, um, and so I went to this place in California that will remain nameless and, um, that place was designed for the um, I guess what you would call in the sixties the clinically insane Um, and I was definitely of that variety. I mean it was all. I was having regular manic episodes, regular repressive episodes. I would sleep in bed for like seven, eight days and and it was really difficult to get sober around, like more or less like schizophrenic methodics, you know, I mean that was what it was. And then the other issue was is that like, look, I was, it was an all male facility. I've never been to a women's facility. It was an all male facility which was really hard for somebody like me that was internally struggling with the idea.

Speaker 2: 47:24

You know, I remember, at the facility in California was telling you, I remember saying to somebody that I wanted a female sponsor because I was transgender, and he basically called me a fucking snowflake, um and uh, and that guy sucked Um, but uh, you know, um, he was gay. No, he was, he was just uh, he was a staff member, he was just like I sucked, and it was fucking annoying as hell to hear he told me to stop finding reasons why it was too, too unique to get sober. Um, which is like I mean, look, I understand where that's coming from. I mean that that's that's the kind of comment where it's like somebody's listened to the Joe and Charlie tapes too many times and went to too many meetings with seven year olds and now they feel like they know everything about it, like that's the. That's the kind of person that makes that kind of comment the world gets. Which comment I was the comment about? Like two unique to get. It was like it was. It was bizarre.

Speaker 1: 48:14

It's, it's um, it's limited, it's tribalism. You know they get a little scared. A seems so oversimplified and generalized in those terms. I think a lot is missed for especially for people like yourself to be able to realize you have a seat here. You won't feel that in the Rust Belt at a small meeting. You don't always feel that way.

Speaker 2: 48:37

Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1: 48:39

It's usually a mirror of the predominant religion of that town. It's just being mirrored in the meeting.

Speaker 2: 48:45

But the thing that was difficult about there is that those that crowd was almost entirely shot out, to the point of like not being really able to form complete sentences.

Speaker 1: 48:54

And you're not going to can it's probably make your condition worse, right?

Speaker 2: 48:57

I was, I felt really, really, really lonely, um and I, I wanted to die every day, like that was something that wanted to happen. And and uh, they set me up with this therapist who's like a PhD in psychology from like Eastern Europe and she was like. She was like she had like a thick Eastern European accent. And that sounds like stolen grab. Yeah, she had like a thick bit and she she was like so dead in the mouth, y'all fabbity and I'd be like, oh my God, like Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2: 49:26

I was like I was like, holy shit, did I trip too hard? Am I now? I took so much DXM. I wound up in California with the hell's happening here. You know what I mean With the Germans. With the Germans, yeah, I'm here with the Germans, um, but yeah, no, I am. I got, yeah, and uh, and I got put there because I was in a rehab and I wouldn't stop burning myself with cigarettes and I was like not really all there. And so I am. I am all there now, by the way, for the character and fitness board that listens to this three years from now, I am all there now, but, um, I was not all there. It's they put me injury, men, and they put me in this place and and then, uh, I went there, I went to Hazel and Betty Ford because my parents could afford it, and, uh, and they kicked me out because I, um, um, I think we had a caller.

Speaker 1: 50:12

We were going to have a caller and then out the phone.

Speaker 2: 50:15

Um, but you know, I had to, um, you know, and then I went to another place in California and that place and being away from family was so difficult. I care about my family so much. I was so far away from my family. My family still lives in Fairfax, um, but no, I had a family. Yeah, no, I was in, I was in high school, I was in, I was in a and I wasn't really getting like intellectually stimulated, like, and so I was put in this place. That was like primarily like pretty, like hardcore narcotics addicts, like people who you know more or less were, were, were on like the end of the rope, um, and I was put there because the place I was at in California decided that I was my main issue, by the time I went back there for the second time, was not mental health and my main issue was that I was a raging drug addict. And so I was put in this place in California and it was a good place. It was a guy. I still talk to people from both places. They're good.

Speaker 1: 51:03

They're good places and I think that when that was identified as the primary thing to solve, first was your addiction.

Speaker 2: 51:09

Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't. I mean like nothing else is going to work. I mean like, was that the first time that happened? Yeah, that was the first time. Every other, per every other place that labeled me as a mental health case, and and then place I went in California and that was hard. I mean like I. I mean it was a very like machismo, like macho man atmosphere and people talk about like having sex with drunk girls and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 51:30

Brass yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:33

And I was like Jesus Christ and I eventually hated it there too. I also made no efforts to build a life in California. I didn't have a job, I didn't have a car, I lived off of what my parents gave me and I spent all my money on like energy drinks and cigarettes, and it's expensive. It's expensive. Energy drinks and cigarettes are expensive, and I and I I was just like California triple and from Scranton life.

Speaker 2: 51:57

I was just basically subsisting and and, and I had eventually decided that I was going to go home. I told my parents that I need to go the hell home, and so I went to hell home and so, and then I went on the Appalachian Trail because I love hiking. Hiking is amazing. It's like a super awesome experience.

Speaker 1: 52:12

Right, I use Apple orchard mountain chain.

Speaker 2: 52:14

Yep, and and yeah, so I went, I went on the Appalachian Trail and I hiked for a little bit, A little bit what's a little bit, because 300 miles, oh well, that's not a little bit, that's 60 miles, gets through your state.

Speaker 2: 52:32

It's like, it's like a little bit under three weeks and yeah, so I am. I you know, when hiking on the Appalachian Trail and I got back into weed because I decided that I needed to get back into weed. Um and uh and uh, yeah, I got making a weed and um, then I went back and then I, um, I turned. Something really important happened to me, um, deeply important happened to me, which is that I turned 21. Um, so I, of course, I decided I was going to celebrate being 21 with I was going to drink alcohol, and so I did Well real quick what was your relationship with alcohol?

Speaker 1: 53:14

Cause I didn't hear you describe a relationship with alcohol. Oh, I drank the whole time and was okay, all right, 42 ounce bottles of steer reserve.

Speaker 2: 53:22

That was my thing.

Speaker 1: 53:23

All right, and I didn't know, maybe you didn't even like alcohol until then.

Speaker 2: 53:27

No, I mean, I, I know alcohol. Alcohol was a huge part of my story. Um, it was never like a primary part of my story, but it was mostly. I just couldn't get it. You know, in this country it's it's actually way easier to get weed on age than you know. Strange Um, but yeah, no, I found, I found, yeah, and so I started, um, like drinking chronically, Um, and then I, uh, I started drinking chronically and then I had to go to treatment again.

Speaker 2: 53:49

So I went to this place in York and then I went to the sober house in DC and then I used again within a week because, again, like I was just, I basically decided that sobriety wasn't for me. I really wanted to make my life better, but I didn't fit with anyone. No one liked me, everyone hated me and I had no friends, and so I might as well get high. And so I went to a certain launch which, um, of all the places I went to, honestly probably fit in the most. It's kind of shameful to admit it. Um, that place is primarily inhabited by 16 year olds. Um, but those 16 year olds, um, you know, I didn't know how to be an adult and dated neither, and that was something that we could relate on Um and so.

Speaker 1: 54:31

I was really difficult and Dino Dino's amazing.

Speaker 2: 54:34

He's been Dino's amazing, dino's amazing, dino's amazing, and I, um, and I had to find he's been doing this a long time 20 years, 20 years.

Speaker 2: 54:42

He connects with kids fast and I had to find. I had to find new people and new places and new things and and I made this judgment call that I was going to build a life here. And I'm still here. I haven't left. I've been, uh, I'll have a year sober in a couple of weeks and, uh, I haven't left. I haven't left Scranton and I don't intend to. I'm probably going to. If I can, I would like to get into the university Scranton.

Speaker 1: 55:02

And when do you celebrate? Uh, you're celebrating a year. Soon. I get a year on October 5th. October 5th, I've been celebrating a year in that year. Let me describe what I've seen. Okay, I've I've gotten to hang out with you socially a couple of times and we have mutual friends. I've I've seen a person get, find a community here and also their curiosity explode, what's we could call a spiritual awakening. The first side effect of that, or a benefit, would be curiosity and be able to enter academics. Because you're an academic person, you're an intellectual, you, you have a bright mind and I think now that the condition of substance use disorder has been stabilized and you you could approach your mental health in a new, diligent, almost this ritual way to maintain any other issues. You're flourishing and you're interested in mathematics. Why are you drawn to mathematics?

Speaker 2: 56:07

Um, it is the language humans came up with to understand reality. Yeah, it is the logical underpinnings of the universe. I mean it is, and I think it's just like an. It's an interesting game. Um, it's really beautiful and I think that, um, the patterns that we see, I was told by YouTube video when I was 58, I was starting to get into math. I was told in basic terms that you don't don't do anything in math that doesn't seem intuitive. Yeah, and uh, I love, I love, I love, I love how intuitive it is, I love how interesting it is, I love how rigorous it is, I love how logical it is. You know, and I don't even know if I want to do something related to math.

Speaker 1: 56:45

I mean, currently, currently, what I'm going to school for is to be a math teacher, you describe math in a really interesting way, almost like a philosopher, because there was always this age old battle and some people lean really heavily in either direction. Does it, does math exist outside of mind? And and is it like a priori true? Yeah, wow, it's, it's, it's, it's an age old argument. I have an.

Speaker 2: 57:10

I, I, I am, I don't care if it is or is it, um, I think it's it look bad, as bad, as bad as bad. You know it's. It's an interesting, it's an interesting um field of study. Well, the other part.

Speaker 1: 57:20

You said on the back end, if you're not interested in the philosophics of the semantics or the the kind of Wittgenstein argument of what comes first, I saw a podcast and I thought of you I was. You know who Eric Weinstein is.

Speaker 2: 57:34

No.

Speaker 1: 57:35

He's, uh, he's, he's a physics guy and he was on a podcast furious that physics went into quantum and hasn't returned back. That it's like called a loser. It's making no progress and what it's doing is diminishing our progress as humans in the technologies we actually need to become off-planet. So the fact that after Oppenheimer which would be, you know, a good mention because of the movie this year, but when when physics started to stop using real world applications rockets, splitting of atoms, nuclear energy um, you started going to the realm of quantum and theory and no, nothing has really been like you know, blown our tear back since then. Yeah, he's saying, if we don't call people to the real problems, how many times can we go to Mars? How many times a year? And we don't have any interplanetary physics, uh, physicists working anymore on real fucking problems. They're all working on fake, fake wavelength problems that are not making anything or technology or applications that we could use.

Speaker 2: 58:46

Yeah and and look, there's this difference between, like, pure and applied math. Um, I definitely know I'm an applied math kind of person. Um, uh, pure math is really interesting, though, because we find uses for it elsewhere. Yeah and like, look, math is like ever, with the exception of the arts. If it's not an art, in some way should it perform? Every field is quantitative.

Speaker 1: 59:09

Yeah, um and so that's what's interesting to me about math. Do you feel the same way about consciousness could be qualified Eventually?

Speaker 2: 59:20

I can't even say with any degree of certainty that you're conscious, so I try to not have opinions on consciousnesses that are oh, I am, I'm very much awake. You're just, you're just saying that, like, like the computer program that runs inside your skull is just saying that, like you could just be saying that.

Speaker 1: 59:34

That can be true, but, man, it's a great computer program.

Speaker 2: 59:36

It's a pretty cool computer program.

Speaker 1: 59:38

I mean, like I really I and I'm not being facetious, honestly you know, I think the majority of what I would call consciousness is a process that you feel a loose agency with, but it's not. It's not there to taste. The consciousness I mean is what is the taste of chocolate Like? There's something about experience.

Speaker 2: 59:57

What does the red look like?

Speaker 1: 59:59

Yeah, the experiential comp. Like you have to describe the consciousness you're talking about. I'm not talking about the consciousness of this relationship. I don't know if you're awake, but I do believe you and I believe pain in other people is real. Or I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing?

Speaker 2: 1:00:14

Well, yeah, practically. I mean practically speaking. Going off the assumption that everyone is conscious is probably a good idea. It's just that, like I mean, that's like practically speaking, it's the dignity of consciousness I now do.

Speaker 1: 1:00:26

they have there's I think there's levels of consciousness. Keegan, if you ever read these works, I'm going to give this to you after the podcast because I want to hear your thoughts, to talk about it. He gives a, he builds off of Maslow, maslow's hierarchy of needs. He wrote you know states of consciousness in a secular way and psychiatric way. The top one, instead of enlightenment, is called self actualization. Keegan expounds upon this about his own states of consciousness, of what he thinks enlightenment is to full agency, not everyone's operating at the same ones and we know that, and that could be unfair and it seems circumstantial. And that's where I kind of limit my beliefs and free will, which I talk about a lot because it's just interesting. So when you did say that I do think consciousness could be a bunch of little unique, audit, atomic processes that we almost still don't want, parasympathetic, your heart, your hair growing, that you're under the illusion that these are choices. They are not.

Speaker 2: 1:01:26

They are not happening. I'm not. I'm a pretty hard determinist. I'm not a search the imagination.

Speaker 1: 1:01:31

You have to be your mathematician.

Speaker 2: 1:01:33

Yeah, not that you can't be If two plus two always equals four.

Speaker 1: 1:01:37

What? Where is free will?

Speaker 2: 1:01:38

Yeah, where? Yeah, what does that mean? Yeah, will the four to a five.

Speaker 2: 1:01:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah will the four to a five? Yeah, yeah, no, I, I, I, yeah. I don't care about math right now. I mean, for me, my big like goal in life is to be helpful to other human beings, and so that's why right now, I'm pursuing my current. When I transfer, my goal will be to get a degree in math and education and then go off and either immediately from there to law school or be a be a high school teacher in math.

Speaker 1: 1:02:07

Wow, and you're tutoring right now.

Speaker 2: 1:02:09

Yeah, I work as a math tutor at a community college.

Speaker 2: 1:02:11

Yeah, what's that experience going like, oh, it's great, I love it. People come in and you know, and I like the community college atmosphere People come in and they they just really, really critically and really succinctly come in and they're like I don't, I'm not good at this yet and I really want to make my life better and I need to practice this class to make my life better. So can you help me? And I'm like, yeah, you know what I can share. I have a million to five strategies to help you because I care about you.

Speaker 1: 1:02:39

If you wanted to leave a party message to anyone who experiencing gender issues and addiction at the same time, because it seems to be happening and it's obvious. The numbers are there. It's disproportionate to oh yeah, trans people, that population you kind of make yourself available here locally to anyone who would need that resource, oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:03:03

If you're, if you are post up in Northeast Pennsylvania and you're a trainee, I will 100% give you a ride to any meeting that you want to go to. I will pick you up my cutest outfit and we will go to a meeting and I will buy you coffee and we will smoke cigarettes. And my parting message, if that's you, is hang on, because the world is slowly getting better and if we're brave enough to give it to him, it'll get better.

Speaker 1: 1:03:29

Well, scranton's getting better, and it's because of additions. Like you, I'm, I'm, I'm proud to be a friend, and you're one of the more interesting people I got to meet this year, so I'm I'm glad you came on. Is there something I should have asked that I didn't ask?

Speaker 2: 1:03:44

No, not particularly covered most of that you want to go crush a SIG.

Speaker 1: 1:03:48

Yes, please. All right, man. Thanks for coming up. Of course, I'd like to thank you for listening to another episode of All Better. You can find us on allbetterfm or listen to us on Apple Podcast, spotify, google Podcasts, stitcher, iheartradio and Alexa. Special thanks to our producer, john Edwards, and engineering company 570 Drone. Please like or subscribe to us on YouTube, facebook, instagram or Twitter and, if you're not, on social media, you're awesome. Looking forward to seeing you again. And remember, just because you're sober doesn't mean you're right.