FROM DARKNESS TO LIFE
Season 7, Episode 1 — Cody
Host: Poncho
Guest: Cody
Duration: 00:48:06

Content note: This episode contains candid discussion of substance use, grief, suicide, a suicide attempt, and overdose.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] CODY: The will is there. You know, like I said, the human spirit is the most powerful thing I've ever encountered. And, you know, just never quit quitting.

[00:00:12] PRODUCTION: [Music]

[00:00:16] NARRATOR: From Darkness to Life contains the real stories of individuals who found their way out of the darkness caused by mental health challenges and substance abuse. If these stories resonate with you, and you or someone you love need help and don't know where to turn, Our Collective Journey is here for you. Please reach out when you're ready at ourcollectivejourney.ca or on Facebook at Our Collective Journey.

[00:00:38] PONCHO: And welcome to another episode of From Darkness to Life, broadcasting from the historic Monarch Theatre, Downtown Medicine Hat. I'm your host, Poncho, and today we are sitting down with a man, I guess, whose life has taken him through some well, incredibly dark places, and I think into a purpose that he never could imagine. My guest today is Cody. Cody, thanks for being here.

[00:01:04] CODY: Yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:01:05] PONCHO: How are you feeling? It's okay if you're a little nervous, it's okay if you're a little anxious on a scale of three to 13, where you're sitting at today.

[00:01:13] CODY: Yeah, I don't know, probably like a seven.

[00:01:18] PONCHO: About a seven? All right, I like the honesty, because what we're gonna get into is some pretty dark stuff, but there's a lot of positivity at the end of this as well, you know? So I just want to explain, describe a little bit about some of your life, you built a successful career as a master electrician, you were a part owner of a family business, you're in Medicine Hat, and from the outside, from anybody that struggled, life looked solid, life looked normal.

[00:01:46] CODY: That's right, yeah.

[00:01:47] PONCHO: Underneath, there was a lot of grief, there was a lot of trauma, there was addiction, there was pain, and ultimately that would bring you to what you described as your personal rock bottom.

[00:01:59] CODY: That's correct, yeah.

[00:02:00] PONCHO: You know, you survived a suicide attempt, relapses, you know, you found lasting recovery, ultimately.

[00:02:11] CODY: Finally, yeah.

[00:02:12] PONCHO: You know, and since then, you've dedicated your life to helping others and helping find their own path out of addiction and out of the dark. And today you are starting to become an addictions counselor, that's still the path.

[00:02:28] CODY: You bet.

[00:02:29] PONCHO: So you work at the Medicine Hat Recovery Centre, and you use both your lived experience and your artwork to help others heal. So Cody, if this is okay with you, we're gonna talk about addiction, and we're gonna talk about mental health, and grief, and suicide, and recovery, and most of all, we're gonna talk hope. And for those of you listening, if any of these subjects are difficult for you, just please take care while listening. When people meet you today, they see someone helping others in recovery. Let's start with this. What don't they see about the Cody from five or six years ago?

[00:03:13] CODY: It's actually kind of funny because I was having this conversation with one of the ladies that I worked with the other day is, you know, the people that I have met in the last couple of years while working at the recovery center have never seen that version of me before. And that's, it blows my mind because I was that version for all of my adult life until just about turning 40. So, you know, I know that that person exists. I know what that person did.

[00:03:43] PONCHO: And is that person still there?

[00:03:45] CODY: In some respects, I mean, we're talking to Cody 2.0 here, right? This is the updated, this is the new and improved version. Yeah, he's definitely still there. You know, I've got to acknowledge the fact that the person that I was brought me to the person that I am today. And without him, there would be no me, right? So, yeah, he's still there.

[00:04:14] PONCHO: And does he come up every once? Does the old Cody, is he still a threat? Does he still wonder, is he gonna come to the forefront or you like, and like you said, you know, if it wasn't for the old Cody, there wouldn't be an improved Cody.

[00:04:26] CODY: You know, there's, you know, in recovery, we're always one bad decision away from being right back where we were, right? Picking up right where we left off. So, yeah, he's still there, you know? But I've learned through just investing in my recovery that I can sit at the table with this thing, but just not let him eat, right? If that makes sense.

[00:04:50] PONCHO: Yeah, it does, it does. So let's carry on that. Let's take that one step further. Before addiction and before recovery became such a huge part of your story, who was Cody? What did your life look like?

[00:05:05] CODY: Oh gosh, it was a long time ago. I mean.

[00:05:07] PONCHO: How long ago?

[00:05:08] CODY: You know, I like a lot of kids in the 90s, you know, while growing up in the 80s and 90s, you know, started drinking, experimenting with pot, that kind of thing when I was 15 years old. You know, for me, I kinda grabbed another gear pretty quickly. And by the time I was 17 in high school, I was experiencing with heart or experimenting with harder drugs, ecstasy, cocaine, that kind of things.

[00:05:37] PONCHO: Right.

[00:05:37] CODY: Yeah.

[00:05:37] PONCHO: Right. So a teenager, you were still doing this. So this started when you were 15. How long did this carry? How long did you live this kind of life?

[00:05:46] CODY: Well, I thought I lived it rather well, rather functioning for.

[00:05:54] PONCHO: And did you think you were normal? Do you think that you were living a life just like everybody else was, everybody else your age was? Do you think they were doing the same things that you were?

[00:06:01] CODY: In the rooms that I was in, I was no different than anyone else. You know, I partied as much, you know, kind of a weekend warrior binge user for all of my 20s, almost all of my 30s. You know, and like I said, in the rooms that I was in, I was no different than anyone else, right? So I didn't realize that I was in all the wrong rooms.

[00:06:30] PONCHO: So you didn't see it as a big deal. You just saw it as just a normal part of life. So looking back, who you are now, when you look back, were there warning signs that something wasn't right beneath the surface?

[00:06:42] CODY: Oh yeah, yeah, big time. Yeah, you know, you can only kind of connect the dots of our life looking backwards, right?

[00:06:46] PONCHO: Hindsight's always 20-20, yes.

[00:06:48] CODY: Always, and yeah, I mean, the warning signs were in my teens, right? Like, you know, I can pinpoint the moments, actually, when I was 19 years old, had something happened to me and a friend of mine that, you know, I've been able to, through lots of therapy and things like that, and through treatment, that that was kind of the TSN turning point, as they call it, right, that kind of my substance use went from being recreational into being a coping mechanism, right? So from that point on, yeah, so.

[00:07:28] PONCHO: And did you have, you know, you say, you know, you abused a lot of illicit substances. Was there a go-to that it always turned to? Did it start with booze? Then it went up from there?

[00:07:39] CODY: Yeah, like it started with booze and weed for sure. Sure. Then went into psychedelics a little bit. But, yeah, for me, what really got me and got its hooks in me was the chemical drugs. Did a lot of ecstasy and that sort of thing in high school, shortly after high school, but crack cocaine was like my go-to that was, that was the one that stayed.

[00:08:06] PONCHO: When did it catch up to you?

[00:08:11] CODY: It really got out of hand in my mid to late thirties. 2020 specifically is when it's, you know, the wheels fall right off the whole thing. Right around the time COVID hit. Yeah, yeah, so. And then after 2020, I mean, you know, for myself, you know, and not to downplay the effects of COVID on the entire planet, but for myself and our group of friends. You know, we, you know, starting at the end of May in 2020, for me, lost my best friend of 33 years to suicide. And then after him, it was just, it seemed like it was every two to three weeks we were losing somebody else over and over and over. And that just perpetuated my drug use.

[00:09:01] PONCHO: Yeah, I was reading your bio to say I was gobsmacked is an understatement when you said you've lost 23 friends and family over the course of five years.

[00:09:14] CODY: Yeah, that's just since 2020. That's, yeah, a little, well, probably less than half throughout my lifetime. So yeah, I've been probably been to almost 60 funerals. I haven't been to have that many weddings in my life. So yeah, it was a real tough go there for a while.

[00:09:37] PONCHO: So how, I can't imagine. So let me ask you this, how does all of that loss in anyone's personal life begin to change? How does that change you as a person? Because I think you have one of two options. You can either stay on the path that you were, or you can see that as a wake up call, or was there a little bit of A and B? Was there a little bit of all of the above in there for you?

[00:10:02] CODY: It was definitely A and B. I mean, it was, you know, my drug use had always been a coping mechanism. Like I said, I didn't know that that's what it was at the time. But, you know, after May of 2020, you know, these are my best friend, right? And the wounds from that loss wouldn't even begin to close before the next one and the next one. And just got so desensitized and numb to it, right? Because it just kept happening that it, we were kind of living our lives like we were waiting for the other shoe to drop all of the time, right? Terrified to answer the phone, right? Because any time somebody called, it was always bad news, it seemed. And for myself, I couldn't deal with it. Like I, the only way that I knew since, like I said, since I was 19 years old, was to numb it and just dissociate.

[00:11:04] PONCHO: So things went worse. So you're losing, you lost your best friend, you're losing family members, you're losing more of your friends. And this isn't the wake up call for you yet. This is still the point where, you know what, I'm just gonna be an ostrich in the sand and bury my head in this case, you know, substances and just pretend it doesn't exist. How did that change your world when one person experiences so much loss?

[00:11:27] CODY: It changed everything. I mean, it's, a lot of us kind of consider that period of time, it's separated as the before and the after now, right? You know, before 2020 was one version of life and from 2020 since it's, everything's been different.

[00:11:46] PONCHO: So in 2020, how did you see your future? Did you see your future? Did you like, do you see yourself alive 10, 15 years down the road? Did you see yourself ending up as your best friend? Did these thoughts occur to you?

[00:12:00] CODY: I had lost all sense of hope. Like I, anything that I had planned forward in my life because at this point, you know, by the middle of 2020, I had lost my job in the family business, right? Because I was using every day, all day, you know, I was isolating, I was lying and BSing my way through the days.

[00:12:33] PONCHO: Well, and you know what, and this is something that comes up a lot as, you know, someone that, you know, anybody in recovery or anybody that's going through addiction, we become amazing liars to the point of where we convince ourselves that, you know, we have our lives under control, right? And so still on the outside, everything looked normal at this point?

[00:12:55] CODY: No, I'm sure there was piles of screaming red flags to everyone around me, but I mean, I think it's most addicts and alcoholics know, you know, we're usually the last ones to acknowledge that we have a problem, even if we know somewhere that we do, right? It's, you know, it's that acceptance piece that we-

[00:13:13] PONCHO: So did you talk to anyone about the grief that you were going through, or were you mostly carrying it alone, thinking that you could get by, that you were gonna be okay?

[00:13:22] CODY: At that point, no, like I hadn't talked to a counselor, I hadn't talked to, you know, I had, my mom had been very, very supportive, you know, done everything she could, and then some, you know, to try to help me, but I really shut down. Like I realized that I never developed any type of coping mechanisms, never any type of resilience, never any, anything, never any adult skill to be able to handle this kind of thing, until I got to a point where, you know, the loss kept happening and kept compounding that by the end of 2020, I didn't see any way out, other than to take my life. And after being surrounded by suicide all year long, and multiple times before 2020, you know, seeing what it was doing to the families in our friend group, I somehow convinced myself that, you know, I needed to make it look like an overdose, because somehow that would justify it and make it easier on my family. If I went out that way.

[00:14:38] PONCHO: So you're planning out, like so many of us have done. When you said, I can't take it anymore, I'm just gonna end it.

[00:14:44] CODY: Yeah, and that was December, December 2nd, 2020, the day after my mom's birthday, the day before my brother's birthday. So I'm just like, yeah. Not sure why that seemed like a good idea at the time, but at the time, it was the only way to stop feeling like the depth of this pain.

[00:15:06] PONCHO: You didn't wanna feel it anymore.

[00:15:08] CODY: I just, I couldn't.

[00:15:08] PONCHO: You couldn't?

[00:15:09] CODY: I couldn't, I just, I remember my mom coming to my house one day and I was curled up on my bed and I was sobbing and she just came and wrapped her arms around me. And all I remember saying is just like, I can't do this anymore.

[00:15:26] PONCHO: Did she know about your addiction problem?

[00:15:28] CODY: Yes. Back then she did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she, I mean, her and my whole family, like they've known, but I think they kind of knew they can only do so much, right? But yeah, it was, I'm very grateful that when I did attempt to take my life that I've never been so glad to fail at something in my life.

[00:15:57] PONCHO: So that ended up being the greatest blessing And what was your plan, by the way? What was your idea?

[00:16:07] CODY: Well, I went and bought $1,000 of my drug of choice and got it in me in less than two hours. And I'm not sure exactly what happened. I was by myself, it was the middle of the night. Assuming I probably had a seizure because I woke up on the floor about 16 hours later in my bedroom from the last moment that I remember, so.

[00:16:29] PONCHO: And then what happened?

[00:16:31] CODY: Then I got up and then I called my mom and started to get real with everything that was going on. And that was the first moment, honestly, in my adult life that I remember being completely honest with where I was.

[00:16:46] PONCHO: And what did that feel like? Was it terrifying?

[00:16:49] CODY: It was absolutely terrifying, but it was the first time in, I don't know how long that I actually felt a little bit of hope.

[00:16:59] PONCHO: You've used the phrase rock bottom when you talk about your lived experience. Was that moment rock bottom for you?

[00:17:07] CODY: A hundred percent, yeah, a hundred percent.

[00:17:11] PONCHO: So what did that look and feel like just not to you, but to your friends, to your family?

[00:17:18] CODY: Well, that was a moment that I didn't talk about much with my friends at the time. I mean, everyone was dealing with a lot. Yeah. You know, like I said, I gave my mother a call and she was the first to kind of come over and say, okay, you know, like.

[00:17:34] PONCHO: Were you and your mom always close or you were?

[00:17:37] CODY: Very much, yeah.

[00:17:37] PONCHO: And you're still close?

[00:17:38] CODY: Yeah, yeah, she's my best buddy.

[00:17:41] PONCHO: Yeah, that makes me smile, makes you smile too. Yeah, mention your mom and your face lights right up. I'd love to see that.

[00:17:48] CODY: Yeah, she's an angel on earth for me, I'll tell you that much.

[00:17:50] PONCHO: So she never gave up on you?

[00:17:52] CODY: No, she's the only one pretty much, yeah.

[00:17:54] PONCHO: Is that right?

[00:17:55] CODY: Yeah.

[00:17:55] PONCHO: Yeah, the love of a mother. So addiction, how did that become part of the way that you coped with everything that you were carrying?

[00:18:08] CODY: Well, it's, yeah, like I said, I went through something with a buddy of mine when we were 19 and it just, you know, it's at one point in time and this is, you know, a common thread that we hear through a lot of people with addiction is, you know, at some point, it was the answer. You know, it might not have been the right answer, but it was the answer to the feelings that we were going through at the time, right?

[00:18:37] PONCHO: You would never have to wake up and feel any of that ever again. You would never have to put your family through any of that ever again. Your friends wouldn't have to deal with that ever again. I get it, I've been there.

[00:18:45] CODY: Yeah, so, yeah, and it just seemed like the answer, you know, and, you know, unless you've been in that, that place of, you know, like for me, for me, despair is even deeper than hopelessness. Like for me, I just identify that moment in my life as despair and I, it's impossible. I think it's very unique probably to every single person that has been in it, but if you've been there, I think you get it, right? Like it's-

[00:19:18] PONCHO: You know, I mean, everybody's story might be a little different, but those moments of despair, hopelessness, it's beyond exhausting.

[00:19:28] CODY: Yeah, like it's-

[00:19:29] PONCHO: You have no energy to even deal with it anymore. You don't wanna deal with it anymore.

[00:19:33] CODY: Yeah, like how do you claw your way out of a place that is black all around you, right? Like it's-

[00:19:40] PONCHO: But you did.

[00:19:42] CODY: That's where that piece of hope comes in.

[00:19:44] PONCHO: But you did, you did just that. And so Rock Bottom, December of 2020, that was a turning point for you.

[00:19:51] CODY: Yeah.

[00:19:52] PONCHO: Looking back today, what do you wish people understood about where your mind was then during that time?

[00:20:00] CODY: You know, the one thing that I would hope people would take away is that, you know, the human spirit is powerful, right? And, you know, it's, you know, life can be debilitating, you know, to every single one of us, whether you are experiencing substance use disorder or not, you know, the great equalizer in life is the fact that we are all connected, we all feel the same types of emotions, right? You know, some of us on a larger swinging scale of it. But, you know, I would hope that, you know, that people can understand that you can build resilience from seemingly nothing or what you would feel is seemingly nothing. And you can use the power of the human spirit to get yourself to wherever you need to go, right? You just have to wanna do it. And...

[00:20:58] PONCHO: It's easy to sit back and do nothing.

[00:21:01] CODY: Yeah.

[00:21:01] PONCHO: I mean, if everything good in the world required no effort, every single one of us would be living the perfect life. But a lot of things, a lot of good things don't come easy. It takes a lot of work, a lot, a lot of work. I just thought of something and it goes back to your suicide attempt and your survival. What was the emotional reality of realizing that you were still here? Was it relief? Was it an awakening? Was it, Frick, I can't even do this right.

[00:21:32] CODY: I think it was a little bit all of that, Poncho, because I, like I said, I remember waking up hours and hours later on my floor and obviously being disoriented. I'm not sure what happened, to be honest. You know, I kinda quickly put the pieces back together and, you know, it was, there was-

[00:21:56] PONCHO: Was there confusion? Was there gratitude? Was there anger?

[00:21:59] CODY: There was confusion, but there was almost this moment of clarity where it's just like, okay, like the shit ends now, right? And like I said, for the first time in a long time, I knew what I had to do, right? I made that call to my mom. I said, you know, like, I need help. You know, I gotta figure something out right now. And she was over right away and-

[00:22:24] PONCHO: So you realized you wanted to live. You realize there's a part of you that, you know, to keep hope alive.

[00:22:30] CODY: Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing about hope, right? Like even when it's completely, you're drowning in despair. Like it takes a grain of hope to cut through the dark. And that, for me, was all it took.

[00:22:44] PONCHO: Why do you think it's so hard for, why do you think it's so difficult to ask for help? Right, because I mean, from the age of 15 through 30, half of your life until that point had been just a wild, wild ride and not necessarily in a good way, you know, and it's not just you, Cody, because we all have problems asking for help. At least I know I did.

[00:23:06] CODY: Yeah, like I think it's woven into us, the society and culture and family dynamics and all sorts of different things. I know, you know, being a 43-year-old man, you know, it was very frowned upon, very, very wrong for a man to show vulnerability, you know, to show weakness. Especially our generation, right? Yes, yeah.

[00:23:29] PONCHO: You know, I mean, we were brought up in that realm where what makes a man a man? Well, number one, you don't talk about your feelings. Yeah, man up, right? Number one, you don't show emotion.

[00:23:40] CODY: Yeah, right.

[00:23:41] PONCHO: Number three, you just deal with whatever comes your way and you move on. Life doesn't work that way.

[00:23:45] CODY: No, sooner or later, you keep stuffing those skeletons and those issues and that pain and that heartache and all that into the closet. And at some point, something's going to happen to release it all. And whether you like it or not, more often than not, it's all gonna come out at once. That's what my experience has been, so.

[00:24:05] PONCHO: So you hit rock bottom, you come to, you wake up, you realize you're still on planet earth and you reach out for help. And you reach out to your mother. And what happens after that? You go to treatment?

[00:24:21] CODY: Yeah, so kind of get online. It was kind of funny because mom comes over with all of these papers, right? So she had already been researching recovery centers and options and stuff, sort of behind the scenes. So she was prepared for this conversation. And yeah, but.

[00:24:39] PONCHO: And were you, I mean, she knew this conversation hopefully was gonna come. Did you know it was gonna happen?

[00:24:48] CODY: No, no, and yes, I guess. I mean, I think when I was at the point where I was ready to end it and I attempted to end it, that was me knowing that if I didn't take that easy way out that I was going to have to deal with this. Something was gonna have to change. You know, and the thought of that scared me more than checking out and ending my life, which probably doesn't make any sense to a lot of people.

[00:25:22] PONCHO: Well, no, but it's, humans are creatures of, I don't wanna say routine, but for half of your life, you knew what your life was. And now you're waking up, an awakening, an enlightening, and you have a whole bunch of choices ahead of you, hopefully your choice is positive choice, but you don't know how that's gonna play out. So yeah, that equally is terrifying, but a different kind of terrifying, but a terrifying in a good way.

[00:25:43] CODY: Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:45] PONCHO: So you go to treatment? The first time.

[00:25:48] CODY: Yeah, because it didn't stick.

[00:25:50] PONCHO: It didn't stick, no.

[00:25:52] CODY: But I mean, I was fortunate. Like I went out to Vancouver Island, to Victoria for treatment. And, you know, it was, yeah, so December 2nd was kind of the day I had my survival of suicide, I guess you could say. And then by that evening, Mom and I were on the phone, sending emails. And then by the next day, I was, you know, we had picked a centre and I was on the waiting list, ended up getting shortlisted. And I was out there by January 5th, so.

[00:26:28] PONCHO: Why do you think it didn't stick? What's the difference, I guess, between wanting recovery and being ready for recovery?

[00:26:39] CODY: Yeah, so I tell this to as many people as I can down at the recovery center. Just, you know, if I can impart any of my own experience, right, is, you know, when I came out of treatment, the first time, I was there for nine weeks. And when I came out, like I was 10 feet tall and bulletproof, right? Like I had.

[00:27:01] PONCHO: You were ready.

[00:27:01] CODY: I had this, what I thought was just this doctorate on mental health, right? I had these binders. I had all of this information. I was gonna come home and save the world, right?

[00:27:09] PONCHO: You had a new set of skills. You had a new outlook on life, a new attitude. You were ready. You were like, bring it.

[00:27:14] CODY: Yeah, like I was, you know, born again, walking on water, right? Like I just felt invincible. Yeah. What I didn't realize was after, you know, all of the stuff that I, the work I'd done on myself, you know, the real deep trauma, PTSD, CPTSD work, all of this stuff, working on the addiction, working on the underlying issues of the addiction was, the one thing I didn't catch was managing my expectations of what life would be like when I got home. What I didn't realize is that my life was still smoldering for me, burning it down. The old version of Cody was still there waiting for you. Yeah, all like the version that everyone back home, the last time they had saw me, like I was still that person, right? They weren't there for all of the education, for all of the work, for all of the therapy and all of that. Like, you know, they didn't see any of that growth, right?

[00:28:11] PONCHO: And did people know that you were in treatment the first time or was it like Cody just disappeared for a while?

[00:28:16] CODY: My family knew. You know, my close friends knew. Yeah.

[00:28:19] PONCHO: How did your friends react? Because I'm going to assume that a lot of your friends then shared in a lot of the same pastimes that you did before recovery.

[00:28:27] CODY: Yeah, a lot of them were very supportive. You know, some, you know, stopped by my house just to make sure that I was still doing good in between, you know, while I was waiting to go to treatment, that sort of thing. So, you know, others had to be, you know, carefully sort of disconnected out of my life. You had to purge some friends out of your life.

[00:28:52] PONCHO: Unfortunately, but fortunately for you, for your own good, you know, for your own benefit.

[00:28:58] CODY: Yeah, like I really had to break my life back down to basics. Like I, for me, like I got rid of all social media. I reset my phone to like factory settings. I had my kids numbers and my parents numbers, my brother, and that was it. And then I slowly started building my life back from the inside out, you know, instead of taking everything in, kind of doing it on my terms. But like I said, when I got back from treatment, the first time I didn't realize the amount of work that it was going to take to repair those relationships. And, you know, had one incident and falling up with a family member, that was just like, you know, if you think I'm doing this, I'm just going to go do this and middle fingers in the air. And that was like maybe two months after I got back from treatment. And then I was-

[00:29:50] PONCHO: So about two months. So this is early 2021 now?

[00:29:52] CODY: Early 2021, yeah.

[00:29:54] PONCHO: So two months sober?

[00:29:55] CODY: Yeah.

[00:29:55] PONCHO: And the thing is when you're in a treatment center, everybody's going through the same thing. They have their own personal story, but they're still learning the same set skills. But then you head back out into the real world. And like you said, you know, that smoldering, that, you know, that version of you that had set everything on fire, that still had to be contended with. Was that a part of the reason why you think you might've relapsed?

[00:30:19] CODY: For sure, for sure. I mean, it's, you know, when you're in an inpatient treatment facility, it's, you know, I like to call it sort of the bubble, right? Yeah. You know, like you are in a safe space. You're surrounded by safe people, right? You know, everything there from morning to night, from the, you know, the second you open your eyes is recovery oriented, right? So it's easy to stay clean there. It's easy to double down and commit with both feet, right? When you're in that situation, right? But when you're coming home to familiar environments, a familiar home where you're used to using, you've got relationships that are still triggering that might set you off, which is what happened to me. You know, it's realizing that you can have all of the education in the world, right? But if you don't put that into practice, right? I mean, in order to be someone you've never been, you've got to do things you've never done, right? Like that's just-

[00:31:15] PONCHO: You have to relearn who you are. You have to relearn new skills and you have to get these skills to stick to become a habit. And that did happen for you, but it didn't happen for a while.

[00:31:23] CODY: That's right.

[00:31:24] PONCHO: So you relapsed for almost three years.

[00:31:27] CODY: Yeah, and two years.

[00:31:28] PONCHO: Two years, two years, yeah.

[00:31:29] CODY: And I, you know, at the end of 2021, I moved up to Calgary for a year, you know, thinking a change of environments would help me out. But I mean, again, like we just said, right? Like you can't-

[00:31:44] PONCHO: You can't run from your problems. They, you know, and God knows you've all tried, but they will find you sooner and or later.

[00:31:50] CODY: That's right. I mean, you take the same person with you when you get in the car, right? Like so.

[00:31:53] PONCHO: Yeah. So, okay. So this is where the podcast gets really good. We've talked the dark. This is where we're going to start to talk, you know, from darkness to life, the life part. What changed in 2023 that made your recovery stick?

[00:32:10] CODY: Well, when I went back to treatment for the second time, I knew where I went wrong. I knew where the wheels fell off the bus, you know? I knew what I had to focus on in that next nine weeks. I went back to the same place. And yeah, like I went in both feet, not just in treatment, but, you know, decided to live recovery, right? You know, live with that growth mindset, you know? And yeah, my rec therapist out there, my second day there recognized me from the first time I was there. And he gave me this challenge, this habit creating challenge that he'd been working on. And it was just a, it was a 28 day sort of life reset to kind of rebuild your life from scratch. And just like basics, right? Like get out of bed, make your bed first thing, right? Drink two glasses of water. And then what was the kicker for me that has changed everything was a morning gratitude practice. And I, I'll be the first to admit, I would have laughed at you if-

[00:33:24] PONCHO: It seems so simple, but it's so effective, isn't it?

[00:33:27] CODY: It's unbelievable. Like I never thought of myself as someone that would, you know, be waking up and writing in a journal every morning. And that's how it started, you know? His challenge was, you know, for 28 days, five things you're grateful for in the morning, five things you're grateful for at night, then reflect on something that didn't quite go well, how you handled it, right? But for those 28 days, you cannot repeat the same thing twice, right? So then at the end of a month, you've got 280 things that are going right, right? And-

[00:34:01] PONCHO: And at the same time, you're learning new habits.

[00:34:03] CODY: Yeah, right. And it's, you know, being like, for me, I've got ADHD, right? I've got all of the acronyms, right? All the things. So self-discipline, very difficult for me. You know, I'm an instant gratification type of person, right? And so having a structured morning, structured evening, you know, then the bookends of your day are good, right? Things can kind of all go to hell in the hand basket in between, but the bookends of your day are good, right? And you find out pretty quick, you know, and that's the thing that I've learned about gratitude is that it does, like, you can physically feel those neural pathways rewiring over time. You know, four years ago, the only thoughts in my mind were just kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself. And it was just on repeat, like a broken record. Like those are the only two words that I heard in my mind for the longest time and-

[00:35:01] PONCHO: And your subconscious believes that. Your subconscious, you convince yourself that this is what you need to do. And there's so, but then conversely, there's a flip side to that point. You think positive things or next, yeah.

[00:35:12] CODY: That's the thing, like, I feel like I default to the positive now and it's wild, right? Like it's absolutely wild. Cause I used to be, oh, bad things coming through these or this or that, right? And now it's like, what is this trying to teach me? What can I learn from this? You know, and it's that's, I can't tell you when it happened, but that's become my default and it is unbelievable.

[00:35:35] PONCHO: I love it. So you bring that up and I see that smile again, kind of like when you were talking about your mom. Did you have to grieve the old Cody? Did you have to grieve the old version, the version that was burning down? Did you have to finally put old Cody to bed and say never again before you can make recovery stick?

[00:35:53] CODY: I think that period of relapse between 2021 and 2023 was my version of grieving for that person. If that makes any sense, right? Cause you know, I was at a point where I could no longer convince myself that I didn't know any better, right? Because I had already been to nine weeks of treatment. I knew the tools. I had my relapse prevention plan, you know, on my refrigerator door. So like I couldn't excuse it, you know, tell myself I was blessed by ignorance for not knowing what I was doing, right? Because I did, right? You know, and it's, you know, I'm stubborn and you know, I just, I kind of grieve that version of myself kicking and screaming and using. And, but when it was time, it was time and-

[00:36:49] PONCHO: You made that stubbornness a good thing.

[00:36:51] CODY: Yeah.

[00:36:52] PONCHO: A positive thing. So let's talk about the positives in your life. Let's talk about service. Let's talk about purpose. What point did you realize that your story, that your pain could become your purpose?

[00:37:05] CODY: Well, yeah, again, like when I was in treatment, the facility that I was at was phenomenal. Like just what every, every member of the staff from the director of the building down to the janitorial staff and everyone in between was in recovery. Like it was a beautiful place, right? And my addictions counselor there had the same drug of choice as me. He was a stimulant user turned counselor. And it just, the way that he talked to me, right? And was able to connect with me on a human level, but also on an addict's level as well, was just like-

[00:37:44] PONCHO: Because your counselor had been there.

[00:37:46] CODY: Yeah. And so I was just like, well, like this is, this is pretty rad, right?

[00:37:51] PONCHO: Did it feel almost like going, holy, I'm not the only one that's ever felt like this. There's other people out there that have gone, what I've gone through.

[00:38:00] CODY: That's exactly right, right? Yeah, addiction is such an isolating disease, right? And we can get so caught up in the fact that, this is, what was me, this is only happening to me. Why is everything against me when it's, it really, really, really isn't even if it feels that way. So to understand that there are other people all across our beautiful country that have pulled themselves out of the fire and like they say, gone back with water to help somebody else, for me, that was, it was, I don't know.

[00:38:33] PONCHO: Well, it was life-changing for you. I mean, it had such an impact on you that you're helping people who are walking paths that you've walked yourself.

[00:38:40] CODY: Exactly, yeah.

[00:38:41] PONCHO: So what does lived experience allow you to bring to those conversations that textbooks can't reach? I guess the fact that you can relate would be a big part of it.

[00:38:54] CODY: Yeah, yeah, being able to relate, being able to have that conversation, the empathy that comes with understanding how those dark emotions feel, right? And honestly, the look on somebody's face when you're talking to them, right? You look them in the eyes and you say, you know what, like, I get it. My story might not be your story, but I have felt that, right? And those emotions, that's the equalizer, right? The story's going to be different, right?

[00:39:22] PONCHO: Yeah.

[00:39:22] CODY: But the emotions of it, you know, the guilt, the shame, there's the ugly grossness that alcoholism and drug addiction or any addiction brings to the table, right? And to have somebody say, I've been there, is a weight off of both your shoulders.

[00:39:42] PONCHO: Yeah.

[00:39:43] CODY: Because it takes that isolation, it makes it a lot less heavy.

[00:39:47] PONCHO: And I think it allows hope. And, you know, allow some light to come into your life. And through recovery, you also found a creative outlet through art.

[00:40:00] CODY: Yeah, funny thing about that is, yeah, like when I get, again, in treatment and, you know, I'll say that to death, but I mean, that place saved my life and so many things I learned about myself there. Yeah. We're doing an art therapy class, right? And I, when I was younger, when I was a kid, you know, I used to like to draw on sketch.

[00:40:18] PONCHO: Okay, I was going to ask what kind of art, so sketching, drawing, okay, all right.

[00:40:22] CODY: Yeah, and then, you know, obviously addiction kind of forced its way in between myself and that became my only hobby.

[00:40:31] PONCHO: So does that, and does that allow you to, I guess, express things that words sometimes can't?

[00:40:37] CODY: A hundred percent, yeah. Yeah, like when I picked up a pencil for the first time, I sitting down in the art class and you looked over it by the art therapist and I said, well, who knew you could get better at something after not doing it for 23 years, right? And yeah, so it's kind of evolved into different types of artwork that I like to do now.

[00:40:58] PONCHO: And do people that, you know, and people that you don't know, do they see one of your pieces and your work? And when they do, what do you hope that they feel?

[00:41:07] CODY: Yeah, well, I've got a piece hanging up in the recovery center right now, which is pretty cool. It's actually, yeah, I'll show you a picture after, but yeah, it's a hand kind of reaching up and it has the word hope and just kind of says always within reach. So it's, you know, there was a group actually at the recovery center, when they would walk past it, they would all, and it's my hand, right?

[00:41:27] PONCHO: Sure.

[00:41:28] CODY: And they would put their hand on it before they walked in the room, which is just like for me.

[00:41:32] PONCHO: That's got to be a pretty amazing feeling.

[00:41:35] CODY: Bring tears to my eyes, right? Because it was, you know, I try not to think a whole lot about the person that I was, but I do use it as a benchmark to measure where I am, right? And yeah, to go from that place to, you know, seeing something that I was able to create and put out in the world that actually, you know, was created from my own hope and can help transfer a little bit of that to somebody else's.

[00:42:02] PONCHO: And what gives you hope today? What does a good day look like in...

[00:42:08] CODY: Every day's a good day now, honestly, like this. I, Poncho, like I'll tell you, and God's honest truth, I cannot remember in the last three and a half years having a bad day. Like I, it would stand out to me now if I had just a real shit day, you know? But a good day for me is, you know, when I get to spend time with my kids, it was my daughter's 18th birthday last week. We had a family dinner at my mom and dad's yesterday, you know, and just being able to sit with my nieces and nephews, my daughter, my son, you know, and being able to be there, you know?

[00:42:52] PONCHO: Do you think they helped save your life without realizing it?

[00:42:57] CODY: For sure, yeah, for sure. I, my daughter, she wrote an essay last, at the end of her grade 12 year. She's actually in college same time as me right now, which is also pretty cool. Yeah, but she had like a directive from her teacher. The essay was on recovery of some kind. I don't know if it's like injury recovery, whatever, right? And she said, I wasn't really sure what I was gonna write at first, then she's like, or I could just write about my dad, right? And I asked her, you know, if she was okay with it to send me this essay, if she felt like it was something she wanted to share with me. So she did, and it took me hours to open up the file, because I was scared about what I would read. And she's just got it, she's got a beautiful way with words. So I mean, you know, the first portions of the essay that she wrote were, you know, how dad's addiction affected her and her brother, and you know how she, at that time, felt like I was choosing the drugs instead of them, right? And how she felt like when they were with me, that she was the parent to her younger brother, and it was heartbreaking. Like, I just bawled and cried, and you know, her and I have a very open and honest relationship, but-

[00:44:21] PONCHO: That must have been tough to read.

[00:44:23] CODY: Yeah, like that's just something that we haven't had that conversation, you know, like in that depth. So to read it from her perspective was heartbreaking, to say the least. But then as she goes on, you know, talked about how, you know, dad went to treatment, and then by the end of it, you know, she says, you know, now I, she says, I understand that, you know, addiction's a disease, and my dad wears his scars like a badge of honor, and it just, those, like, the tears totally shifted, right? And to understand that through that experience, even though I, if I could take anything back, it would be putting them through that, to know that now my daughter, through my mistakes, has learned her very own version of empathy through this disease, right? And, you know, she has seen what resilience looks like. You know, we talk so much in addiction of how addiction can be hereditary, right? But I don't think we talk nearly enough about the fact that resilience and recovery can also be passed down.

[00:45:29] PONCHO: Yeah, why not? Why couldn't it?

[00:45:31] CODY: Yeah, right, so that essay made me believe that that is something that I, through that pain, is able to pass on something positive to my kids, so.

[00:45:43] PONCHO: I have one final question for you, and I ask this to all of our guests. What message of hope do you want listeners of today's podcast to hear? If there's one thing that you could take away, if there was one statement that you could offer up to those listening that want help or are dealing with someone that's going through what you went through, what would that be?

[00:46:06] CODY: Just never quit quitting, I think. You know, the will is there. You know, like I said, the human spirit is the most powerful thing I've ever encountered. And, you know, just never quit quitting.

[00:46:24] PONCHO: Never quit quitting, and the power of the human spirit. Man, ain't that the truth? Cody, thank you for your honesty and your vulnerability, you know, and for sharing your journey with us. You know, there's gonna be people listening that are gonna hear this, and they're gonna see parts of themselves in your story. You know, and because that you were willing to speak so openly, you know, someone out there may decide to ask for help. So thank you so much for being a part of this, and thank you for joining us on From Darkness to Life, you know, and no matter, you know, where you find yourself today, you know, darkness never gets the final word, does it?

[00:47:07] CODY: No, it doesn't, it sure doesn't. No, thank you so much for having me.

[00:47:10] PONCHO: There's always help, there's always hope, and there's always a path forward. My name is Poncho, my guest today, Cody, we'll see you next time.

[00:47:18] CODY: Thank you so much.

[00:47:20] NARRATOR: From Darkness to Life is an Our Collective Journey podcast. These are the true stories of struggles and triumphs against addiction and mental health challenges. If these stories resonate with you, and you or someone you love need help and don't know where to turn, Our Collective Journey is here for you. Please consider supporting OCJ by visiting ourcollectivejourney.ca. All proceeds go to supporting the health and wellness of people in our community.

[00:47:47] NARRATOR: Hosted by Poncho; engineered, edited, and directed by Dave Cruickshank. From Darkness to Life is an Our Collective Journey exclusive. Thank you for listening.