Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Dr. Janet Claymore, Duane Ross
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00066A
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00:10 Welcome to Celebrating Life In Recovery!
00:12 Do you ever wonder in your own life, in your own recovery 00:15 if God has a plan for you? 00:17 I do not even wonder anymore. 00:19 Come into the café and see what I mean by that, 00:21 it is so cool. 00:49 It is so cool that you joined us today in the café. 00:51 I have got some friends here 00:54 from the Holbrook Indian school. 00:56 It was one of the funnest places that I have been. 00:59 We did a week of prayer. 01:01 These kids changed my life, definitely the staff and what 01:06 God was doing in their life was amazing. 01:08 Then I got to meet a couple of people and hear their 01:13 individual stories and I wanted to share that with you today. 01:16 I want to go right into that. 01:17 And Heppy I want to say thank you for being on the program. 01:20 Thank you, thank you for inviting me. 01:22 Your story just won my heart, first your wife won my heart, 01:26 then I got to meet you and hear the rest of the story. 01:29 It was amazing, so I would like to start right off. 01:32 Usually I have a teaching segment first, but I would like 01:36 to start right off and just ask you to walk us through 01:40 where you came from, who you are, 01:42 and what stepped you into recovery? 01:46 Basically I came from a family of educators and I grew 01:53 up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. 01:55 Early on I got lost in cigarettes and alcohol. 02:01 That took me down a road of about 23 years of drinking, 02:07 and longer than that for cigarettes. 02:09 When you say early on, what are you talking about early on? 02:13 I started at about 13. 02:15 Okay because for some of us, like I remember smoking my first 02:19 cigarette at 11, I started drinking shortly after that. 02:22 For some of us it is, when you say early it is early. 02:25 This is my life. 02:27 It was early back then, but now it is not quite as early. 02:33 I think what it really became was that towards the end of my 02:40 23 years of being a drunk, I was drinking to six packs of 02:46 beer a day and blacking out. 02:49 In the meantime having a wife and six kids and working. 02:56 I was a teacher at the time, still am a teacher. 02:59 Finally I came to a community where they were trying 03:03 to look at their individual members in a community 03:08 and sober them up. 03:09 I happened to be the business manager at the school 03:13 at the time. 03:14 A good friend of mine who is the chairman of the board 03:20 focused on me and simply told me Duane you either go 03:26 down the road or you get help. 03:27 Did you know at that time that everybody around you knew 03:31 you are an alcoholic? 03:32 No I didn't, I just thought that it was entertaining for 03:37 me to go out and have fun and get little beer. 03:41 Totally blackout? 03:43 Every time I drank I blacked out, every time, even starting 03:48 with the first time when I started at 13 years old. 03:50 So he told you that day you either get help? 03:55 Get help or go down the road. 03:57 I think it was a big relief. 03:59 I knew there was something going on but because nobody 04:05 really questioned me. 04:07 I was a teacher, a business manager and was always someone 04:11 that people looked up to. 04:13 Oh he doesn't have that problem? 04:15 Maybe it was always because I was always moving around a 04:20 lot. Which we call in the alcoholic's term, geographic 04:24 change. I always managed to be one step ahead of everybody. 04:28 In my addiction I moved every three months so I know 04:31 exactly what you are saying about that, 04:33 but there is going to be some people that a 04:35 geographical move in their addiction they do not know 04:37 what you are talking about so can you explain that? 04:39 Sure I'll give it a crack. 04:42 Geographic change for an alcoholic is when they move to 04:49 a certain community and they're doing a pretty good job. 04:55 They work hard and they establish their accredibility in 05:00 everything in the community. 05:01 Maybe the first paycheck they are okay and they keep on 05:07 working real hard. 05:08 The second one or the third one they decide that they 05:12 have been there long enough, 05:13 maybe I will go out and party tonight. 05:15 So I go out, and the party starts at, we get paid on 05:19 Thursday afternoon, party starts Friday afternoon and it 05:24 will go until Sunday night or early Monday morning. 05:27 By that time you are really sick, 05:30 hanging over in other words. 05:33 So you call your boss and tell him you are really sick today, 05:36 I can't come in and they believe you. 05:38 So they let you off, so they let you off for better than 05:43 maybe three or four weeks in a row. 05:44 Then they would finally start saying, 05:45 there is something wrong with you. 05:47 On Monday's! 05:49 on Monday, why are you always missing payday Mondays? 05:53 You know it is not every Monday. 05:55 Once you get over that point, then you start missing 05:59 every Monday and they really start catching on to you 06:04 and say if you don't get help you have to leave us. 06:09 But I would actually beat them to it, 06:11 I would leave before they fired me. 06:13 You were talking to so many people with the disease of 06:17 alcoholism that, that is a lifestyle of a ton of addicts. 06:21 Yes it is, it is a disease that we do not know 06:25 that we are sick. 06:27 You can start seeing it in somebody's eyes, you can see in 06:29 their eyes that the respect they had from you yesterday 06:32 is starting to get less and less and less. 06:35 So when you said, I was ahead of them, I was one step 06:38 ahead of them and would move before. 06:40 Pulling everybody, all the kids. 06:43 Yes! Your wife? Yes! 06:45 fooling not only my children and my wife, 06:48 I was fooling the children I was working with because I 06:52 was an elementary teacher. 06:53 My children in the classroom used to take care of me. 06:58 In what way? 07:00 Making the classroom quiet so he wouldn't get disturbed 07:07 because there was a lot of noise in the classroom. 07:09 They were making sure that... 07:12 like if you were hung over and had a headache they would be 07:15 quieter that day? 07:17 That's right, yes. 07:18 So they started to enable your addiction 07:20 as well as your family? 07:24 Yes and that really was one of the things I was looking at 07:28 when I started to realize I needed to do something about my 07:32 own addiction and I became terrified to the fact that I did 07:37 not know how to do that. 07:38 I didn't want to be honest enough to ask for help. 07:41 So can we stop there Heppy for a minute? 07:44 When you say terrified, all the sudden I understand that I 07:47 have this issue, all the sudden I want to take that next step 07:51 but I do not know, what is the next step? 07:53 I don't know how to survive without this. 07:55 I have been drinking for so long I don't know what my life 07:58 would be, I don't know even what the first step is. 08:02 How do I do this? 08:04 Yeah, and so when the school board chairman, I wasn't really 08:11 the one that was being picked on because he wanted to clean 08:17 up his community of all the alcoholics in the community. 08:23 Let me just say that when I see somebody do that, 08:26 their heart is in a good place. 08:28 I'm not wanting to kick everybody out, is there any way 08:32 that we can help each other? 08:34 Is there any way that I can step in and say somebody 08:37 has to have the courage to stand up and walk away 08:39 from this addiction, that is huge! 08:43 And I became the third member in the community to sober up. 08:49 What was the addiction rate in that community? 08:52 We had about 85% unemployment. 08:59 The addiction rate was probably 90%. 09:06 So with that community we started a process in which we 09:12 started sobering up the men and women so that they could 09:17 give clear direction to their children and their community. 09:23 And to become useful members of society. 09:28 I think when I realized that was what you were saying the 09:32 first time I heard your story I just said I love you. 09:35 I love you because it took lot of courage to say okay 09:38 I am willing to start to stand up and I'm terrified. 09:41 So what did look like as you stood up? 09:46 It looks like a lonely hill to climb. 09:53 The first day I got back from treatment. 09:57 So you went into a facility? 10:00 I went into a outpatient treatment and at 10:04 that time it was two weeks. 10:05 That was in May, by the end of May I came back. 10:11 Right below the house there was a ball field. 10:14 A softball game was going on so I went around the corner to 10:18 watch the ballgame and one of my friends came up the hill 10:21 carrying a Budweiser bottle. 10:24 He said Hap here have a drink. 10:27 I said thank you it took it open it up and 10:28 poured it out in front of him. 10:33 That's huge! 10:34 When you said that when you took it I thought, 10:36 Oh don't open it. 10:38 I took it and opened it up and poured it out in front of him, 10:40 from that point on no one offered me a drink. 10:44 I had some brother-in-laws who came over and visited and 10:48 used my kids as an excuse to visit and they would bring 10:52 cases of beer and I let them come in the first time. 10:55 The second time they came I said no you can't come. 10:58 You can come and see your nephews and nieces when you are 11:01 sober and so they quit coming. 11:05 So let's stop for a minute because I want to ask you, 11:07 you went into treatment what was, 11:09 did you go through withdrawals? 11:11 What was it like for you? 11:12 Because for some people it can get really crazy from 11:15 alcohol withdrawals, you are delusional and shaky and 11:18 tremors, and all those kind of things. 11:20 I didn't go through any of those for some reason. 11:25 Good for you! 11:27 When I first started drinking I only drink 2 or 3 cans 11:32 of beer and I would blackout. 11:33 So there was something going on with me that I couldn't 11:37 handle alcohol and that happened all the way through 11:40 my drinking process. 11:46 Other than being really hung over and nervous lot, 11:51 but that was about it. 11:52 So physically the treatment center wasn't about physical 11:56 withdrawal, it was definitely getting used to living your 12:00 life without alcohol and drugs. 12:02 How about your kids? because now they have seen you their 12:04 whole life as a drinker. 12:07 We can go back to when I was drinking with my children. 12:11 When I would get paid I would go cash my check. 12:16 My oldest son was about 13 or 14 and I would give him 12:23 my paycheck because we needed to know that they had groceries 12:28 and things that they needed. 12:30 So on Saturday mornings we would go to town and would buy 12:36 groceries and take them to the movies, which usually in the 12:42 movies dad would pass out. 12:43 But the kids had all the money and that was okay. 12:47 Then they would drive me home again. 12:50 So when dad came back from treatment I told my oldest son 12:54 it is time for now for me to be the father of the family. 12:58 You need to be a child again, and that was scary. 13:02 He doesn't know how! He doesn't know how. 13:04 I told my oldest daughter, 13:07 because by that time I was divorced and had all the kids, 13:11 you are not the mother anymore. 13:14 That was really scary to both of my older two children that 13:20 became mom and dad in the family. 13:22 I couldn't handle it, I did not know how to be. 13:26 That is where a lots of alcoholic families are that the 13:28 kids take the role of parenting. 13:30 The oldest kids become a mom and dad in the family, 13:34 because mom and dad don't know how to parent them, 13:37 they don't know how to take care of them. 13:39 That is why moms and dads lose themselves in alcohol or 13:46 drugs because it is scary thing being a parent, 13:50 especially when you are young. 13:51 My first child was born I was 19 so I grew up with him. 13:59 He is now 45 and he is a 14:01 grand parent himself. 14:06 Did any of your kids get involved in alcohol and drugs? 14:09 Every one of them. 14:10 Because that is what they knew? Yeah! 14:12 That is what they saw and that is what they always enjoyed 14:16 because when I had sobered up about two or three years 14:21 after that my second daughter said to dad, 14:24 I've really liked you when you were drinking. 14:27 I said why? 14:28 You used to drive us in the ditch and go all over the place 14:32 and I thought that was cool. 14:33 That was fun! Exciting! 14:35 When I was drinking I would do that and I didn't know how to 14:40 answer her so I left it. 14:45 Let me just ask you now as you are stepping into recovery 14:48 for a lot of us we then start looking at the fact that the 14:53 fallout from my drinking and drugging is that every one of 14:57 my children are using and I am having to watch the heartbreak 15:01 of their broken relationships, 15:03 of their bringing children into those relationships, 15:06 so what did that feel like as a man to say this is my legacy, 15:13 this is my heritage? 15:16 Looking at that as the person that was responsible for giving 15:22 that kind of role model to my children, deep inside of me I 15:29 can't amend that, but I can ask them for forgiveness. 15:33 That I have done and they have forgiven me. 15:39 Not only for being a drunk, 15:42 but also for divorcing their mother. 15:44 Up rooting them from schools and moving them all over. 15:48 All the time! 15:49 It wasn't until 2003 that they have all now quit drinking. 15:59 Which is really something that I can't even express. 16:04 It is like it happened overnight. 16:07 I was at your house and I looked at the family portraits, 16:12 and the pictures on the wall. 16:13 You are showing me everybody and their recovery and it was 16:19 like I could see the incredible, almost a gratefulness to 16:24 God that you have blessed my family and kept 16:28 Your hand on my family. 16:29 Yes He has! 16:31 You know what I want to ask you too is that you step into 16:33 recovery, you go into treatment, you change everything 16:36 and your family comes out of that. 16:37 We are very much a Christian show, where did God come in? 16:42 I know that you are not raised a Christian but now are. 16:47 So where do God come in to your life? 16:50 God came into my life probably back in 2000. 17:00 He started tugging on my shirt sleeve and saying, 17:05 Hey, what about Me? 17:06 Hey I want you to do this? 17:09 This is after recovery? 17:12 This is after recovery I recovered from alcohol in 1980, 17:18 this is 20 years later. 17:20 I know that you are married to an incredible woman, Janet. 17:25 Was Janet a part of your life by then? 17:29 Janet and I got married back in 1980. 17:34 So I am going to bring her on the program. 17:36 We are going to go ahead and take a break. 17:38 I like to come back and bring Heppy's wife because 17:43 there was one lot of things happening in his life prior 17:46 to meeting God and he got into recovery, but I think it 17:50 is really tough to know the whole story unless 17:53 you ask somebody's wife. 17:54 No, you will hear the whole story and get the full picture 17:57 of what their walk look like. 17:58 So we are going to take a break and we are going to come 18:01 back and you will meet his wife and you will be blessed. 18:03 I'm telling you. 18:04 We will be right back! |
Revised 2014-12-17