Andrew in Arizona

[00:00:00] I'm like 130 pounds. I'm all fucking sucked up. Obviously, you know, a drug addict. I was just sobbing to these people. Like in between tears and sobs, I was explaining what was going on. And they were like, they're like, just go inside.

[00:00:37] Hey there, my name is Sean and this is Suicide Noted. On this podcast, I talk with suicide attempt survivors and ideators so that we can hear their stories. Every year around the world, millions of people try to take their own lives and we almost never talk about it. We certainly don't talk about it enough. And when we do talk about it, most of us, well, we're not very good at it.

[00:00:56] So one of my goals with this podcast is to have more conversations and hopefully better conversations with attempt survivors in large part to help more people in more places hopefully feel a little less shitty and a little less alone. Now, if you are a suicide attempt survivor and you'd like to talk, please reach out. Our email is hello at suicidenoted.com and I would really, really love to talk with you.

[00:01:16] You can check the show notes to learn more about this podcast, including our membership, the Noted Network podcast training, ways in which you can support us with a one-time donation. And to our awesome and loyal audience, we've got another listeners meeting on Sunday, April 27th at 2 p.m. Eastern. I hope you can make it, learn more in the show notes. Would really love to meet you and talk with you and hear about you. So come if you can.

[00:01:43] And finally, we are talking about suicide on this podcast. My guests and I don't typically hold back. So please take that into account before you listen or as you listen. But I do hope you listen because there's so much to learn. Today, I'm talking with Andrew. Andrew lives in Arizona and he is a suicide attempt survivor. Andrew, I got to just tell the audience what I'm looking at right now. Is that cool? Yeah.

[00:02:08] Andrew's sitting on a couch, a blackish couch, white off-white wall behind him. He's got a big fucking beard. Of course he does because all the cool people have beards. He's got, he's tatted up on the arms. I'm really curious about that stuff. I think he's vaping and he's drinking a big old Dos Equis. Am I right? You are a hundred percent correct. The mango chelada.

[00:02:30] The mango chelada in one hand, the vape in the other. And we're going to talk about, let me ask you this question. How many times have you had a conversation like the one we're probably going to have? I think I've had this conversation three times in total. That's not nothing.

[00:02:47] Yeah. One was with my therapist that I currently see. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. I appreciate you having me on. You know, I listen to you kind of regularly. I like hearing other people's stories. Yeah. It makes me not feel as alone. You know what I mean?

[00:03:04] How many people know, or perhaps the better question is how many people would be surprised to know that Andrew listens to a podcast where people just talk about suicide attempts and stuff around that? Would there be like, would that be weird for people? Surprising? No, it really wouldn't. Everybody knows I've got a really, really dark past. Hey, let's not fuck around here, Andrew. Why don't we just bang out the memoir title right now? If you have it, if not, it's my job. I'll get it done by the end of our conversation. Do you have one?

[00:03:34] All right. Constant state of worst case scenario. Yeah. Like you haven't thought about this a little bit after listening to the podcast. Yeah. All I'm doing now is having this conversation with you to see if this is the right memoir title. That's like my main thing. Let me just start off with the standard question of how many suicide attempts or near attempts do you have?

[00:03:55] Few active attempts, but for a long time, I honestly hoped I was just going to fucking overdose and it wasn't going to be my problem anymore. Passive suicidal is what my therapist told me it was called. Where does the story start?

[00:04:09] My father was murdered when I was six years old. That's where my history starts. My father was murdered by his brother in 1999. Long story short, my uncle smacked him in the back of the head and knocked him out with a rock or an oar or something like that while they were canoeing and drowned him in a river in Dubois, Wyoming.

[00:04:30] He killed three people that we know of and got away with all three of them. My grandfather ended up greasing some palms to look the other way as to what happened. And a lot of the family members have said, oh, you know, we saw it coming. And I'm like, why the fuck didn't you guys do anything? But passes in the past. The first time I actually ever thought about suicide was a few months later after my dad was killed. That six years old was the first time that I even I didn't even know what suicide was.

[00:04:57] And my mom had been taking me to a grief counselor because, you know, obviously that was a traumatic incident. The first grief counselor I had was decent. And then we ended up switching. I got this older woman and she was really cold. I asked the six year old if he had ever had thoughts of suicide. And I asked what suicide was. I didn't know that worked.

[00:05:20] She said, it's where you kill yourself. And I went, no. And I got in the car with my mom. I was all proud of myself. I was like, mom, I figured out what we can do. She goes, what? I was like, we can all commit suicide and we can be together with dad again. My mom turned around the most angry look I've ever seen on that woman's face. She was like, where did you hear that? I was like, oh, the counselor told me about it.

[00:05:42] She went in there and I could hear my mom. I was still in the car. My mom went into this office and I could hear my mom screaming at her and never saw that counselor again. But now I'm not pointing fingers here at the counselor, but I'm wondering, was that a seed that was planted? The idea that you don't have to be alive. I'm wondering, too, if that hadn't been planted so young, would I have thought about it heavily at such a young age? In elementary school, I thought about it because I wanted to be with my dad again.

[00:06:12] In art class, I was always drawing my mom, my dad, and myself and my sister's graves to the point where the school had to intervene. That's why I said constant state of worst case scenario. It's been like that literally my whole life. Looking at you, I'm thinking, what, late 20s, early 30s? Yeah, 31. From that day to today, that potential memoir title is accurate, right?

[00:06:40] Constant state of, are you constantly in this vigilant, almost like, what if, plan B, plan C type? Constantly? Always. Always. I'm always on guard. I don't have a lot of friends. I don't stay in contact with a lot of family. I've kind of isolated myself from a lot of people. The only people that were constantly in my life for a long time were people that I was actively using drugs with when I was in active addiction.

[00:07:09] There were other people that were just as broken as me. That makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense because if I don't let people in, that's fewer people that can do something to me in the future that will break that trust bond. The flip side, of course, is fewer people to love, fewer people to be loved. I do that shit too, bro. And it makes complete sense to do it. I'm not fucking crazy. I'm being smart about it, but there's a cost.

[00:07:31] How do you get through, and I know it's a constant state of worst case scenario moving forward, but like elementary, junior high school, how do we summarize all that muck? I was heavily bullied in the second grade. It was right after Columbine. It was about a year after Columbine. I had a bunch of kids that were making fun of me because my dad had died two years ago, and I threatened to bring a gun to school. I didn't really understand what I was saying. I was just trying to get them off of me. I didn't know what Columbine was at that time.

[00:07:59] I didn't know that that had happened. It turned into a whole fiasco where they were wanting to expel me from the district and all this kind of stuff. And my mom was like, you have kids making fun of him because his dad's fucking dead. When he finally snaps and says something, this is your response. Get rid of the kid, not get rid of the problem. Got it. And she was getting ready to lawyer up. She spun it to where like, I'll sue the whole fucking district if I have to. Your mom is like vicious, man. She is. She had to be.

[00:08:28] Where did you grow up? What state? Phoenix, Arizona. I've always lived out here. And that's where you live now? Yep. I live in the far west valley of Phoenix now. Now you look like to be not a small guy, maybe hard to bully. No, I lost quite a bit of weight the last couple of years. I was 5'10", 260 pounds when I was a structural iron worker.

[00:08:52] Going into high school, I was like 5'1", and probably 140 pounds. Sophomore year, I was about 180 pounds and 5'2". I was always short and round. That's not the memoir title. No, no. It could be, but you never know. That's why I'm pitching it, because it could be, but I figured you were going to nix that one. All right. But hey, let me throw them out, and you never know what might stick.

[00:09:18] So Arizona, you lose your dad. Mom's a badass. Bullied through school, public school. Always. I got kicked out in eighth grade because I got caught with weed. So my mom put me into a charter school because she thought, oh, there'll be less drugs there. And sure, there was less cocaine and weed there, but pill everywhere. Everybody had pills.

[00:09:42] I think I was 12 or 13. I got bullied to the point where I had my arm broken in two places. It broke both the bones right across here, and my forearm was folded in half. And that's when I got introduced to drugs. To the drugs, one question that has been swirling in my head. You in second grade, you said that things were so bad that you thought about bringing a gun to school. Yeah.

[00:10:09] At seven or eight years old, did you have a gun, and did you know how to use a gun, or was this just fantasy? It was just fantasy. I had never fired a firearm at that point. I'd never even held one. You have guns, yeah? I have plenty. I was an armed guard for a long time. My stepdad, he taught me how to shoot. He was a cop out here for 22 years. So he taught me in middle school how to properly handle a firearm, how to shoot him, how to clean him, everything like that. So it is part of the

[00:10:38] culture out here in Arizona. When you got hurt, and then you went to that other school, and you got introduced to drugs, and I know that becomes a pretty big part of your life based on what you shared. Is that also around the time your mom gets remarried? So my dad died in 99, I think it was 2002, when she met my stepdad. I was still pretty young. He was an all right dude. Him and I still don't see eye to eye because he was a cop, I was a criminal.

[00:11:04] We were always butting heads, but last couple of years, we've been on decent terms, but there was 20 plus years before that where we weren't on good terms. And in eighth grade, was it you get introduced to drugs and start using? Yep. So when I got my arm broken, obviously I had to go to the hospital and they gave me a gigantic shot of morphine. And that was the first time since my dad had been killed that I actually

[00:11:27] felt happy and calm and relaxed. And I was like, oh, this is amazing. I was abusing opiates at 12 or 13. I didn't smoke weed till I was 17. Okay. So it was not long after you started with the pills that you tried. Tell me about that. I had had a dog for a long time. That dog saved me from my first suicide attempt at 14. I was tired

[00:11:51] of being bullied. I was tired of always being in this constant emotional turmoil. You know, for at that point, eight years, I cried myself to sleep every night. I missed my dad. That role model that you need when you're that young. I had taken my dog on a walk and I had a really long leash. At that point, I had already been thinking about taking some action. I found a tree. Mind you,

[00:12:17] I was too fat. I couldn't fucking climb a tree. So I found a tree with some lower branches, tied it up to the tree, tied it to myself. And I was like, I'll just die by strangulation, tied it around my neck, lean forward, let it catch me. I was there for, I don't know how long, because sense of time was a little warped, felt like hours. It could have been a few minutes. I'm not entirely sure, but it was to the point, like, it started to feel like my eyes were going to pop out of my head. My dog came up and he just nudged me and I gave him a couple of pets, told him it was

[00:12:46] going to be okay and basically said goodbye. And he started just crying and then just laid down next to me. Like he wasn't going to leave me there. His cries got to me. I was like, you know what? That dog had a rough enough life before I got him. I don't need to make it any rougher. So I just kind of stood myself back up. Like I said, I was just leaning forward with it strangling me, untied it from my neck, untied it from the tree, walked back like it had never happened. But me and that dog were

[00:13:11] inseparable. I didn't tell anybody that I was going to do it. I didn't reach out. I was just like, nah, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. Got back home, had dinner with my mom, went to bed that night. But it was always in my mind. I was like, I could have. No, kind of weird to come close to death like that and then be, you know, eating dinner, going to bed, going to school, hanging out with your dog. Is it, is that weird? Looking back on it? Yeah. I just thought it was like a normal Tuesday or some shit.

[00:13:36] And at that point too, I was also, I self-harmed a lot and not like a lot of people where, you know, they would do it on their wrists. I did it in places you couldn't see. My legs were all cut up because I always wore jeans. I never wore shorts. I never went to pools or anything like that. You were wearing jeans in July and August in Phoenix? Yeah, I still do. When you lived out here for 30 years, you kind of just get used to it. Like I don't own a single pair of shorts. I only own jeans.

[00:14:04] Okay. That's fascinating. Are you a big drinker? Not a heavy drinker, but I had to quit smoking weed for my job. I won't say where I work, but I do work in aviation and aerospace. They pass tests regularly. I have my tall can and then I have, I usually have like a rum and Coke or something like that right before I go to bed, knock myself out. I don't drink a whole lot because it brings out my addictive personality.

[00:14:31] I have to limit myself and it took me a long time to even be able to sit down and have a drink. There was a period of like four years where I didn't touch alcohol because I was afraid of a relapse. 12-step language, once an addict, always an addict, I think. But how long were you actively an addict, if that makes sense? Yeah. Actively using from about the time I was 12 or 13 until just before I turned 26. I got clean May 25th, 2018.

[00:14:59] How old were you for the other active, big, major attempt? 25. Between 14 and 25, those two attempts, how often are you thinking about it? Daily. Daily planning or telling, hmm, I can just ride my car or truck off the road or like what kind of stuff is that? What does that mean? Just I put myself in situations to where maybe I'll get hurt. Maybe I'll walk away with a good

[00:15:23] story. When I was 18, I had a 2006 GT Mustang and I never drove under 90. It didn't matter what road I was on because if I went out, I went out and it would look like I just lost control. So if I did lose control and I died, oh well. If I decided to, you know, run into a concrete barrier, it would look like I just lost control of the car. Maybe. They can see like brakes, brake marks and shit.

[00:15:52] Yeah. At 18, I didn't know that. I was just like, yeah, you know, if I just lose control and steer into the wall, nobody will be none the wiser. I actually wrecked that car too. And I walked away from that unscathed. I didn't even, I wasn't even wearing a seatbelt. The paramedics were like, you know, if you hadn't been wearing your seatbelt, you would have died. And I'm like, joke's on you. Right. I didn't tell him I wasn't wearing a seatbelt, but like I never wore a seatbelt. I drive at a hundred

[00:16:17] miles an hour. I didn't really care. I was always just like actively risk taking. Constant state of worst case scenario. Yeah. You know, when you have no friends and the people that you go to school with always talk shit to you, you know, dumbest one in the class, but a charter school that, that means something if you're the dumbest one. Never felt like I belonged anywhere. I didn't, I think I had three friends in high school. Nobody else wanted much to do with me. I was just the weird kid with

[00:16:45] the screaming music and I never got invited anywhere. I never went on a date all throughout high school, anything like that. So I was just like, eh, fuck it. Like nobody's going to miss me when something happens. However, I was looking at it at the time. So daily, daily ideating, frequent drug use, but you're working, right? You mentioned that you were doing some work, uh, throughout your twenties. From like 16 to 19, I worked in restaurants. Um, I'd always wanted to be a chef. I was working

[00:17:13] in restaurants, but it just wasn't paying what I needed because I was trying to get out of my mom's house, you know, cause she had all these rules about, you know, you can't do drugs. And I was like, fuck that. So I ended up getting my armed security license from 19 to 24. I worked at an armed security either as my full-time job or for several years when I got into welding, I would

[00:17:39] work at a shop during the day, go home, sleep for a couple of hours. And then I'd go work at a couple of strip clubs as an armed guard at night. So I was working two jobs. My main job was able to cover all my bills, my food, everything like that. And then my night job covered my drug habit. I was always working. I always held a job. I was one of those drug addicts to where I could just, I could, I'd show up for work every day. I was never late. I'd work overtime because if I worked

[00:18:07] overtime, everything like that, that was just more money for drugs. I would get tipped in cocaine multiple times a night. So I'd come home with an eight ball and go to the shop and I'd snort all day at work, go home, relax for a couple of hours and then go snort all night. I was doing gram and a half to two grams of coke a day. You can weld on coke? Yeah, I did. I mean, it probably wasn't the best option, but you know, I, if I got the shakes,

[00:18:33] I was just like, Oh look, I have a built-in whip. I didn't have to move and make my whipping motion. I could just hold my hand as steady as I could. And my shakes would, would do it for me. So when I, when I was an armed guard, that was another reason I got into that. I was like, you know what? I'll either make it home or I'll get killed. I worked in some of the worst neighborhoods in Phoenix, like the absolute worst neighborhoods, gang infested neighborhoods. I would go stick my fucking

[00:18:57] face in there, you know, hope for the best, but if not, Oh, well, are you at any point during this time getting any kind of help? Nope. I thought help was for weak people. I mean, also like not only weak people, like, I don't think, I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, like you didn't want help. Yeah. I wanted to burn out. Here's a weird question. I know that you try again at 25. I'm going to ask you about that. But in those 10 or so years, right. Which sound really, really hard. What stops you from trying

[00:19:24] again? I didn't want that to put that on my mom. I stuck around for my mom. Sorry. My, my service dog is hitting on me right now. Oh, I love when dogs come into the zoom view. What kind of dog is that? Uh, she is a McNabb pit bull mix. Oh, you guys look tight. Yeah, we are. She, I got her trained as a psychiatric service animal. So when she starts to sense like my heart rate going up or any type of

[00:19:50] emotional distress, uh, the first thing that she does is she comes and gets in front of me, uh, you know, kind of let me know like, Hey, you're all right. If I start getting more emotional, she'll start pawing at me. Focus on me, not on the bat. Focus on me, not on the bat. Oh man, I love this creature. Well, I know you got clean and I know you have that dog. So at some point you reached out for help, but we're gonna, we're gonna get that in a little bit, but I'm wondering, she came over. Were you in distress? I was starting to feel it a little bit when I started talking about my mom.

[00:20:17] That's always a, uh, a spot. That was the only reason I didn't just blow my head off was I didn't want her to get that call that I killed myself. It would be better if she got a call, I was in an accident or I'd been shot at work versus he shot himself. So, but at 25, you try again. Yep. About eight months prior, I had met the absolute love of my life. I had met the most

[00:20:42] amazing woman that I've ever met to this day. And she made me want to be better. You know, she knew I had a little bit of a drug problem. I never brought dope to her house, but for the first time I felt something other than pain and suffering and sorrow. I felt something for once in my life and I had cleaned up my act for a while because I saw a future with this girl. I never saw

[00:21:08] a future ever in my life. I assumed I was going to be dead by the time I was 25. So when she came into my life, I was like, I have got to do better. Like I can't do this. So I, I quit doing coke. I quit doing pills. I still smoked a little weed, but she smoked too. So it was, it was all right. On January 2nd, 2018, I showed up for work and we was just a boring ass day. We were just doing

[00:21:34] inventory, counting sheets of metal, having to get every sheet of metal accounted for in our shop. And I saw one of my coworkers that I was working with, old school white boy, been out of prison for like six months. He was just buzzing around the shop. And I was like, fuck it. One line isn't going to kill me. So I went up to him and I was like, Hey, let me get that bag. And he was like, you can't handle this. You don't want this. You can't handle this. I was like, man, give me that

[00:21:58] shit. And I went to the J. John and I looked at him like, fuck. Like it was, it looked like the shittiest coke I had ever seen in my life. So I crushed up like a two inch line on my phone. Cause I was like, if I'm going to do this shitty coke, I'm going to need a lot of it. And I railed it and my face melted off. And I felt the most amazing wave of euphoria come over my body. It was real old school biker methamphetamines. It was the old school,

[00:22:26] like P2P dope from the eighties and nineties. And I came out and I was like, what the fuck was that? And he was like, that's that good dope. And I was like, Oh shit. And I was high for three days off of that line. I did not sleep for three days. I was up and going. I was like, well, you know, maybe I can keep this under control. So I was trying to balance my addiction and not let this girl know. They say, don't do meth once they're, they're fucking right. It'd be okay. I was instantly

[00:22:53] addicted. Yeah. It was insane. March of 2018. So about three months in, I apparently got sloppy. I didn't learn this until 2021. I didn't learn what had happened in the moment. What had happened was gone to work one day and then I didn't see her, hear her, hear from her anything for three days. And then I just get a text that she can't do this right now. We're done. I get a text while I'm at

[00:23:20] work and I'm like, what in the fuck? What did I do? And she was just non-receptive. I asked her, I was like, what can I do? Like I went and saw her a couple of days later as I had some shit at her house. I was like, what is going on? And she was just like, I can't do this. I can't do that. That's all she would tell me was she couldn't do this. And I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I already lost the one person that's ever made me feel this way. I just went down the hole. I had a bag of meth in my car. At this point, like I had already hated myself for doing meth.

[00:23:50] I wanted to get clean, but I was so far addicted that I, it, I, it didn't seem possible, but I, I made a deal with God in the parking lot of her apartment before I went in and I went, if she doesn't walk away from me, I will never touch this shit again. If she walks away from me, I'm going to come and tell you to go fuck yourself personal. So I got in my car after we had split up, I went off the rails. I just started, I started snorting. I was just like, I'm going to burn out.

[00:24:16] I'm going to overdose. It's just a matter of when. One of my buddies at that time, he had found somebody who was selling perk thirties for way cheap. And I was like, all right, you know what? Fuck it. Like why not throw some opiates in here too? So I started speed balling every day. Just to be clear, speed balling is when you're doing an upper and a downer together. Yep. This was right around the time that fentanyl was making its way into the States. So the reason that the pills were so cheap is because they were the fentanyl pills.

[00:24:47] So I was doing meth and fentanyl. I'm not going to lie. It was a lot of fun. I had given up at that point. So I was like, I'm just going to run it. I didn't have enough money. Like my lease was coming up. My rent was getting increased. I was like, I'm not going to have a place to live. And I had a roommate at the time and I was just like, you know what? Fuck it. And I had like eight of these pills and I just started crushing them up one night. I'm fucking done. I'm done. I snorted

[00:25:11] seven of them. And when I was going to do the seventh one, I don't know how to describe it, but this overwhelming feeling. And I almost heard a voice tell me, if you do this pill, you're going to overdose. I railed it. And I kind of just sat there on my bed and I started to feel the wave of the high coming on. And I just laid back. And I remember everything started shaking. And I was like, what in the fuck? In my mind at that moment, I was like, is there a fucking

[00:25:40] earthquake? We don't get earthquakes in Arizona. And then I woke up two days later in my bed. I was still there. I had done so much meth that day that my heart rate wasn't dropping low enough for me to actually die. Meth saved your life. Yeah. I'm one of the only people that can say meth saved my life. Andrew, maybe memoir title? I like that better because nobody can really say that. Yeah. I like that because yeah, meth saved my life that night.

[00:26:07] Unbelievable, bro. So you're not dead. You're on your bed. I'm not trying to be like fucking Dr. Seuss here, but this shit happens to rhyme. That's a mind fuck though, no? I was pissed. And I was just like, you fucking piece of shit loser. You can't even kill your fucking self. I got up. As soon as I tried to stand up, I hadn't had opiates for a few days. I don't know exactly how long I was out, but it had been long enough to where withdrawals were

[00:26:34] starting to kick in. And I was like, fuck, why does everything hurt? And I went in the bathroom to take a piss and I just started puking my guts out. Oh, fuck. Now you're going to start withdrawing. I was just sitting there with my own clear headed thoughts. They always talk about that moment of clarity. I always thought that was absolute bullshit, but I had this 10 minute window to where I was just like, you can't keep doing this shit. And I thought about my mom and I thought

[00:27:02] about my grandma and I thought about everybody who would have been so fucking disappointed in me that I had overdosed and killed myself. And I was just at that crossroads. I chose not to get high anymore. I made it through the physical withdrawals. I did coke a handful of times after that because I was still dealing with some shit. So this was in April of 2018. But the reason that

[00:27:30] my clean date is May 25th, 2018 was I got high a couple of times after that on coke. But I gave up the meth, I gave up the pills, the opiates. I gave up all of that shit. May 25th, 2018 is the last time you've done drugs other than weed. Yeah. I'm going to be seven years this year. You go to NA? I did. But my problem with NA, AA, all of those things, it was just so many people not taking

[00:27:59] fucking responsibility. Nobody put a needle in your arm. Nobody put the bottle to your mouth. Nobody held a gun to your head. You fucking did it on your own. It seemed like it was just too many whining people blaming their addictions on everything except their own self. Wait, so how did you get clean? Did you just do it on your own after that? I did. That's wow. And I've had doctors tell me that they're like, do you realize that detoxing by yourself like that

[00:28:26] could have killed you? I've always told them. I'm like, you know what? It might have killed me, but I would have fucking died clean. You think you're going to die clean? Yeah. I don't ever see myself going back to that lifestyle. One of the biggest reasons I went through the withdrawals the way that I did was I wanted to feel that full effect of the sickness. So if I ever thought about doing shit again, I could think back to how sick I was. It was bad.

[00:28:52] It was the absolute worst. This is going to get a little fucking graphic. I couldn't even make it to the bathroom on time, half the time. It felt like somebody had shattered all of my bones and filled them with sand and glass. So just standing up and trying to take a step was pure fucking agony. When you're dope sick, you can't keep anything down. You got the shits like no other. So for a couple of days, I just slept in the bathtub because that was all the distance I could move was from the

[00:29:20] bathtub to the toilet. I ended up coming clean to my boss at the time. The shop that I was working in, I had a really solid foreman. And I owe him my life because he believed in me. I walked up to him and I was like, dude, I need help. And he goes, what do you need help with? Did you fuck up another job? And I was like, no, can we please just go talk in the office? And I told him everything. I told him absolutely everything. He went, okay, I will help you. If you actually want help,

[00:29:49] I'm going to help you, but you're going to do this my way. And I was like, what the hell does that mean? He was one of those Christian people that had been involved in the church since he was born. He had never drank alcohol. He had never smoked a cigarette. He had never done drugs. Only ever was with his wife after marriage, all that kind of shit. And he told me to go and check out this church. And I just laughed at him. I was like, dude, you tried to push this on me before. That's

[00:30:17] not going to work. And he goes, I want you to take a chance on this. And I promise you, you won't regret it. He told me where to go. And he goes, and I'm going to quiz you on Monday. I said, okay. So I went and I sat in this parking lot for probably half hour, 45 minutes, debating on even if I should go inside. And I was just chain smoking cigarettes. This couple comes up to me and they go, hey, good morning. And I just gave them one of those. They took a couple of steps and then they turned around and they walked over to me and they went,

[00:30:47] God told me to tell you it's okay. And you're going to be okay. And I just broke down in front of these two complete strangers. And these people just looked at me and they're like, what is going on? Because at this point, I'm like 130 pounds. I'm all fucking sucked up. Obviously, a drug addict. I was just sobbing to these people. In between tears and sobs, I was explaining what was going on. And they were like, just go inside. My biggest thing was,

[00:31:17] I look how I do. I'm covered in tattoos. I've got my ears stretched. At the time, I had my head shaved. I was like the skinhead looking dude. I walked in and the first person I saw was one of the lead pastors and he had a Celtic cross tattooed on his head. And I went, okay, if he can be a pastor here, I can be here. I sat down. The whole message was all about forgiving yourself for the past because you have a future. I sat in the very back of this

[00:31:44] church and I was just crying. And I had a couple people come up there like, are you okay? And I'm like, this is for me today. I started going every Sunday after that. I started getting involved in that church. I developed a group there. I got baptized in September of 2018. I turned my life around and I'm one of those real cases of what God does in people's lives. I believe he saved me

[00:32:10] because I have a purpose, that my story is supposed to help people. If I had asked you in January of 2018 about God, what would you have said? I would have said he is an evil, evil person. He exists, but he's evil because of everything that I had been through in my life. A handful of months later, not the same response. No, a handful of months later, it was, he saved my life.

[00:32:38] You had a few things. You had a dog that saved your life, a foreman that saved your life. You had some people and things come into your life, it sounds like. I did. And at that point, all it took was the phrase, I need help, was actively saying, I need help and not just saying it, but meaning it and following through. It doesn't sound like somebody that wants to die. I'm not there anymore. Now it's more of a, I have a purpose and my purpose hasn't been fulfilled yet.

[00:33:05] Do you know what the purpose is? You just shared about talking about it and probably you wouldn't even be here talking to me, I bet. Yeah. I, I think my purpose is that my story is going to help somebody at some point in life throughout my life. My story is going to help somebody. They're going to be able to save themselves from where they're living. They're going to hear what I have to say, and they're going to get help and they're going to pull themselves out of it. And I think that's why I'm still here. I think that's why I survived.

[00:33:35] And even if it helps one person, not more than one, we'll never know this, but like, let's say it's just one. That's enough for you. Legitimately that just one. If my story saves one person, that's fulfilling enough because that's one person who heard what I had to say and chose life and chose a second chance over killing themselves. If I had asked you, let's say in your teen years, early to mid twenties. Now I realized

[00:34:01] at that time, you probably tell me if I'm wrong, wouldn't have thought talking about your life could save somebody. There's a tough one. It's like, would you have even given a shit back then? Even if I told you it could save someone's life. Probably not. Yeah. Because at that point it felt like everybody was out to get me. The fewer people around, the better is probably what I would have said. Cause I was pretty dark and pretty cynical. Now being through everything I've been through, it's entirely different. You know, I, I share

[00:34:30] my story. I, I have no problem sharing my story. A couple of years ago, I had an experience where this guy came up to me and you know, I, I have some ink on me that ties me to my old life. And he was one in the same. And he was like, look, man, I'm trying to get some food before I go into detox. And I was, I was at a quick trip. And he goes, can I wash your windows on your, on your truck? Would you be willing to get me something to eat? I was like, yeah, absolutely, man. I asked him what he wanted and he was there with a

[00:34:57] girl and I was like, what about her? She was like, no, I'm fine. I'm like, when was the last time you ate? She told me it'd been like a day or two. So I went in and I grabbed food for them. I grabbed something for myself, popped the tailgate down on my truck. And I sat there with them and I listened to their stories. I listened to how they got there because they were homeless drug addicts. I listened to them and I talked to them for probably two and a half hours because they were waiting for their entries to detox. And it was right across the

[00:35:24] street from this detox facility. And I sat there and I talked with them and I listened to them and I shared my story and I prayed for them. And this grown ass man who had lived one hell of a life just broke down crying. And I gave him a hug and told him, you know, God loves you and I love you. And I want you to know you're strong enough to do this. And I wrote some information for when he got out of detox, where to go, you know, help him with a job, help him get into a sober living,

[00:35:54] all this kind of stuff. I don't know what happened to him, but I do that regularly. You know, I'll sit down and I'll talk to these people because a lot of them just want to be treated like humans. They want that connection. Some of these people, you know, they don't hear anything positive about themselves. I don't want to say street preach because that's not the right term, but I'll sit down and I'll talk with them, help them out. I'll buy them food and I'll sit there as long as they want somebody to talk to, I will sit there. Especially I think about

[00:36:23] those two that I sat on my tailgate with. I think about them a lot and just kind of wonder what happened to them. Now that your feelings about God has really profoundly changed. When you look back when you were crushing the seventh pill or in that 10 minute window of clarity, do you think that was God at all in either of those instances? A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I think he kept me alive to save somebody down the line. I don't know who it's going to be.

[00:36:51] I really don't. That's the weird thing is you never know who it's going to be. No. Do you remember you said, of course you do, you said it, that if the girl, the woman, wasn't going to continue, you were going to take the drugs. And I think the words were like, I'm going to meet God and tell him fuck you personally or something like that. Yeah. I was going to tell him to go fuck himself. Yeah. Tell God to go fuck himself personally. Now you probably wouldn't, I'm guessing?

[00:37:18] No, I'd thank him. I'd thank him for saving me, giving me a second chance at life. What happened with the girl? So what actually happened, the reason why she left was I had gotten sloppy and I had dropped a bag of crystal in her bedroom. And it was a week after she had found out she was pregnant with my child. So sorry, this one's going to get me a little, uh, yeah, it's going to, you don't got to talk about it if you don't want to. It's all right. It's just, uh, that was hard to hear her and I

[00:37:45] are still really close to this day. I'm lucky that, you know, she's still in my life because she's one of the very few people in this world that I wholeheartedly trust. Not easy to find. No, it's not. She's actually one of the people who knows I'm doing this today because I talked to her about it. She's a solid person. A hundred percent lucky to have her in my life, even though we're not romantically involved any longer. She is still a hundred percent, hands down my best friend. And if I were to call her at two o'clock in the morning and say,

[00:38:14] I got a bag in my hand and I'm fucking done. She would drive 130 miles an hour to get over here and sit with me and work through everything. What is with the two of you driving over a hundred miles an hour? Would you go the fucking speed limit? My God, it's so hard about taking your foot off the fucking pedal. I still race cars to this day. Like I really do. I'm in a car club and everything. Like we do huge

[00:38:40] club runs all over the state. You know, I still have that, but I take it a little bit easier these days. You know, I learned how to handle the car, not to let the car handle you. Super sensitive question. Probably would have brought it up if you wanted to, but she was pregnant. Yeah. Unfortunately, um, a couple of weeks after everything, everything got to her and she miscarried.

[00:39:03] That one hurt. That one hurt a lot because not only did I cause all this damage because of my drug use, she had to go through that alone. And that's not something she deserved to have. She didn't deserve that at all. One of my biggest regrets to this day is she had to go through that alone. And I asked her, you know, why she didn't tell me then because I didn't find out until 2021 or 2022. And we, we had a conversation and I was like, why didn't you tell me? And she was like,

[00:39:31] what was I going to do? Tell my meth addicted ex-boyfriend that I was, that I was pregnant and all of this happened. She was like, I was more worried about what it was going to do to you. I get it. I still feel awful that she had to deal with that on her own. What's interesting is that after going through all of that, getting clean, finding God, clearly you're in a much better place. It wasn't that long ago that you're looking for something

[00:39:57] online or on your phone with the word suicide in it. So I discovered you in 2022. At that point, I was having a lot of problems in my marriage. Hold up, hold up. I was married. So after the woman we've referenced, the one who's your, one of your best friends, you met somebody else, you got married. Now you're divorced. We were having a lot of issues in our marriage. She serial fucking cheated. Uh, we had three deaths

[00:40:25] in the family back to back to back, like three deaths in three months. I was over, over fucking well. It's not a good feeling to be that, that overwhelmed is in November of 2022. Yeah. November, 2022, my sister-in-law was going into alcohol detox at a hospital, ended up having a seizure falling out of the hospital bed, knacked the back of her head

[00:40:49] on the railing on the way down, had an aneurysm on her brainstem and she ended up dying. They had to take her off life support. And that, that was rough. She spent a week or so in a coma. Uh, you just watch the brain activity go to zero. So they made the decision to take her off life support, donate her organs. So she saved a handful of people at her death, which was something that

[00:41:12] the family was able to get some solace in. In January of 2023, my grandmother passed away extremely suddenly. I had talked to her the previous day and she said she was going to a doctor's appointment within 24 hours. She was dead. She had a aortic aneurysm in her stomach. They said, even with surgery at her age, we'd be able to say goodbye, but she'd be in so much

[00:41:38] excruciating pain. It was one of those, do you want to put her through all of this just so you have the chance to say goodbye? Or do you want to let her go? And the family made a decision, do the best thing and let her go. Seven days to the day after that, my ex-wife lost her father to lung cancer and leukemia. He died exactly seven days afterwards. So just back to back to back

[00:42:02] shit store. I was more looking for other people who had survived suicide attempts rather than wanting to take my own life. I wanted to hear other people's stories just to give me some kind of fucking hope at the end of the day. Something to fucking hang on to. And that's how I ended up finding you. After the first, I can't remember what the first one I listened to was, but I was like, oh shit, these are real people, real survivors, real people that had been through shit.

[00:42:29] I'm not alone in the fact that I just keep getting slammed. I keep getting slammed. It helped a lot. It helped me know that there was a community of people that had felt the same way as me and they're still choosing life. So I need to still choose life. There's not a lot of people who want to sit down and talk with real survivors, not just ask them the same bullshit ass questions. You get more

[00:42:55] in depth. You want to know the whole backstory because sometimes people just have a bad couple of months. Sometimes people have a bad fucking life and you sit down and you listen to the whole story of it. You actually listen and you pay attention to what people say. You wouldn't think it would be that hard to find that, would you? It shouldn't be that hard to find. Right. That's what I'm saying. Come on. Listening for two years, probably on and off.

[00:43:20] Now we're connecting because you just reached out and you scheduled this thing. So what changed that you now want to talk to me and then other people will hear it? I've gotten more open with it. And the biggest thing was a really close friend of mine. I hadn't told her all of this. I hadn't really told anybody the whole story. I'd always told bits and pieces,

[00:43:44] but I'd never really done the whole thing. Her and I sat down not too long ago. I gave her the full, this is what happened. I know she listens to a lot of podcasts. I don't know about this one specifically, but I didn't want her to find out about all of this through a fucking podcast and then go, why didn't you fucking tell me? It was one of those, I had to come clean to that person first.

[00:44:06] And it took me a long time to build up the courage to do that. My whole life that I had built crashed around me. Now I'm rebuilding again, which I'm fine with. I'm rebuilding on my own. It's me and my dog now. And I'm like, you know what? Maybe this is how it's supposed to be. I need to heal and do all this shit on my own. Part of my healing journey is I want to help other people. I want

[00:44:31] other people to know like there is hope. Shit will get better. Not it's going to be fucking rainbows and fucking unicorns better, but it'll get tolerable. Fucking rainbows and unicorns sound very overrated to me. If you were going through what you went through, let's say back in 23 into 24, and you were either on drugs or hadn't found the church. Certainly both. I'm going to guess you're not

[00:44:55] here. I have a weird thing that I believe, and it's you are meant to experience a certain amount of things in your life. So when you experience it is up to you and the decisions that you make, but you will experience those things in your life. So I feel like no matter what, I was going to go through it. And I'm glad it happened when I was stronger. If I hadn't had the church, if I hadn't, if I had still been on drugs, I probably would have gone through the whole overdose thing. I

[00:45:25] probably would have come out of it. I would be starting now from a clean date more recent. Around the time you found this podcast or points after, did you come close to trying again? I thought about relapsing. I wanted to not feel. It's more of what it was. It wasn't like, I want to die. It was just I wanted that momentary calmness that drugs would bring me.

[00:45:50] So it wasn't a death wish. It was a calm wish. Fortunately, the only thing I could find was fentanyl, and I wasn't trying to go back down that road. Out here in Phoenix, the fentanyl thing is out of control. At this point, the cops don't even do anything. I watched some dude sitting at a bus stop cooking up a shot of fent with a cop sitting in a parking lot looking at him. They don't give a shit. Does anyone else know we're talking other than your friend? I have one other friend that

[00:46:17] I've had for a long time. We used to self-harm together when we were younger. She's another really close friend of mine. She knows she's a survivor as well. So I talked to her about it, and they were both like, you know what? You've got one hell of a story. You might as well share it. I'm glad you did. I'm glad you are. Do you tend to be closer to women than men? Yeah. I have more girlfriends than guy friends, but I have a guy that I grew up with since we were

[00:46:46] 11 years old. Our lives parallel. He had gone through a divorce with a woman who had cheated on him and all this kind of stuff. So when I was going through it, they were like, you know what? We'll put you up for a week. Why don't you come out here on vacation? And I ended up going and spending time with them. He's been like a brother to me. I'm not close with a lot of people, but the few people I am close with, I'd say 70% are women.

[00:47:13] How many of those people or any humans know about either attempt? This is the first time I've talked about the attempt at 14. More people actually know about the more recent attempt at 25. When I had gone to that church, I told them everything. That I was an addict, I tried to kill myself, all this kind of stuff. When I got baptized, I was getting ready to walk up the stairs to go to the little baptism pool. One of my close friends who's a pastor there, he came up to me and he put his arm around me and he goes,

[00:47:41] hey man, I didn't tell you this because I really didn't want you to freak out and back out of this, but we're going to have you speak. And I'm like, what the fuck does that mean? And he goes, you have got to tell your story, man. So they had me talk about it. And I had a bunch of family members there. I didn't get too far into how it happened, everything like that. I just mentioned that I was a recent suicide attempt survivor. It was a really surreal experience

[00:48:08] to have that happen because I didn't plan on doing that. I wasn't going to tell a whole congregation of people that I tried to kill myself four months, six months prior, but I did it anyways. The lead pastor, he was like, what do you have to tell people that are in your shoes? He goes, because we don't just have the people here. We have our online community who are watching. What do you have to tell people? I was like, there's hope. There is hope. You have to ask for help. Give your life to God and I promise you, your life will change.

[00:48:38] The next week, some lady I had never seen before came up to me and she just hugged me. And I was like, do I know you? And she goes, no, you don't. But I was here last week. I saw your baptism. I have two kids that are in the web of addiction. You gave me hope that one day I will get my kids back. Thank you. It was a surreal experience to have somebody come up and say, thank you for giving me hope. When you've been nothing but a piece of shit your whole life and you have somebody

[00:49:06] come up and say that, I didn't know what to feel in that moment. I mean, granted, I hugged her back and I was like, someday you might have your kids back. I'm glad I'm able to give you that little bit of hope. And tell me about your dog. I ended up with her. Somebody dumped her at a dog park at 10 o'clock at night. My former roommate actually watched her. So I ended up having her trained after

[00:49:30] that because she took to me immediately. But I do seek help currently. I see a therapist twice a month. We kind of get into the nitty gritty about everything, even more than what I've told here. I'm just we're stretching the surface, man. You know, I was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder that plays into a lot of things. You know, I knew I had anxiety, but I got, you know,

[00:49:54] a real diagnosis as far as chronic anxiety disorder and bipolar depression. So, you know, having all of those things, you know, it kind of made a lot of things make sense. And I started getting EMDR therapy for my PTSD that really helped. I don't have the flashbacks like I used to. I mean, they still happen every now and then, but they don't happen as often. They're not as severe. Big meds?

[00:50:22] I tried at one point when my ex-wife aborted my kid. Yeah, you heard that correctly. I ended up getting on, I think it was Zoloft for depression. I was at work and I was cutting some tubes and I just went, oh, I could stick this in my neck and got about halfway there and went, what the fuck? I went and checked myself into a mental health facility. I was just like, I need help. This is

[00:50:47] where I'm at. And they got me help. I was in there for a couple of days. You know, they wanted to make sure that the medication worked its way out of my system. And I was like, I had no intention on actually killing myself, but I got halfway to cutting my throat with a fucking angle grinder. And they were like, Jesus Christ, like you made the right call. So I didn't take any medications after that because they made me worse. That's interesting. So that short-term psych unit

[00:51:14] mental health facility was helpful. It was good. Great. Now I know you don't take meds, but if I gave you a pink and purple pill and that pill would allow you to go to sleep and not wake up and it's painless and no one knows the suicide, what would you do with that pill? I wouldn't take it. I have hope for a future. First time in a long time, I have hope for a future. You know, just because, you know, my marriage didn't work out just because, you know, things with this other girl didn't work out just because my life craft around me a bunch of times doesn't

[00:51:41] mean that I don't have a future. It might just be character building. So I actually, I I'm hopeful for a future at this point. Nice. I typically ask about myths or misconceptions you might want to dispel. Some of them have kind of come up as we talk, but are there any others you can think of that we didn't get to? Yeah. Getting help isn't weak. Getting help is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength. It really is because choosing to live is one of the hardest

[00:52:07] things that you can do, but it's worth it. You know, I've got some crazy stories. I've got a joke book that I'm working on. I found, I found humor through all of this. I didn't know I was talking to a fucking comedian here, Andrew in Arizona. Oh yeah. I, I, I'm working on it. I'm trying to get up the, uh, the courage to actually get on stage, but I've had quite a few people tell me they're like the way that you put some of this shit is fucking hilarious. I hope you do that, bro.

[00:52:36] I might, you might see me on stage one day. If I'm in North Carolina and you're in Arizona and I see you on stage, you have made it really big. I bet I'm going to make you a promise that if that ever happens and I see you on a stage, I won't be a heckler who says, Hey Andrew, tell them about the one where you tried to kill yourself. I'd appreciate that, but I'd probably find a way to fucking make a joke out of it. That would make you a, an elite comic. Can you stop? Thank you.

[00:53:03] Wait, Andrew, let everyone know you weren't just talking to me and you were talking to my dog. I was talking to my dog. She was chewing on a squeak toy. That was incredibly loud. You can you stop? That was his dog. What's your dog's name? Cora. I'm going to be a nerd here for a second. Like the legend of Cora from avatar, the last airbender. Other than your dog, occasionally racing, maybe your job. What else

[00:53:30] helps? I like adrenaline sports. I found that adrenaline is a great substitute for depression because you never feel more alive than when you have an adrenaline rush. An adrenaline rush releases all that dopamine and the happy chemicals and everything like that. That's why, you know, I, I joined a car club. I get to go out with a great group of people. You know, we get the adrenaline

[00:53:54] because we hit some of the twistiest roads in Arizona. We just go out and we just have an absolute blast. And it gives me a sense of community. And it's, it's a lot of fun for my 22nd birthday. I went and jumped out of an airplane because I had never done that before. So I went skydiving because I wanted to feel something. I was feeling extremely depressed. I had some bullshit with a shitty girlfriend at the time happened. And I was like, you know what? I want

[00:54:20] to go skydiving. I want to feel what that feels like. It felt great. Would I do it again? Fuck no. My final question, and then you can add anything else you want, of course, is what flavor is that vape? Cherry bomb. Nice. I was a two to four pack a day smoker for a long time. This has helped me. I don't think I've smoked a cigarette in three years. Whatever works. Whatever works. What else you got, Mr. Andrew out in AZ? That's about it. You know, if I can make it through all of this,

[00:54:50] other people should be able to make it too. I never looked down on people who have committed suicide. I've had a couple of friends commit suicide and I don't look down on them. I don't think anything less of them because they took that out. Sometimes life's too much for people, but I'm here. And as long as I'm here, I'm going to spread as much positivity as I can for the remainder of my life and help as many people as I can. Bad moments happen. Bad times happen. Sometimes they can

[00:55:17] feel never ending. Just because it feels never ending doesn't mean that it won't end. It just takes time. And the first thing you got to do is learn. And it's going to sound cliche as fuck and I don't care, but you have got to learn to love yourself first. This is going to sound probably dumber than shit. One thing that I have had to do, it felt so weird the first time I did it, and it still feels weird to this day. I look at myself in the mirror and I say, I love you.

[00:55:44] Once you love yourself, things will get easier. As long as you continue to hate yourself, it's just going to compound and compound. When you say those three words to yourself in the mirror, do you mean it? At first I didn't, but now I do. It's a good way to start your day. You hear those words. It doesn't matter that it's coming from yourself. At least you're hearing those three words every day. A lot of people like me, especially in addiction, it's a lack of love that brings them to an

[00:56:13] abundance of hate. Come back in a year and give me an update. You know what? I will do that. And I got to tell you, after hearing everything, I don't think I like Meth Saved My Life as the memoir title anymore. If you come up with something, let me know. I will. I feel incomplete without one. I appreciate you having a platform for people like me. What you're doing is phenomenal. It sounds crazy, but it's really not because a lot of people want to open up. They want to have

[00:56:42] that way. This way you can get your story out and also have that bit of anonymity. I have no idea who's going to hear this. If it's going to help them change their lives, if it's going to help them take some solace, I don't know. But I'm glad I had a platform to be able to come on and talk about this. And I'm glad I am so fucking weirdly the one to create it and keep doing it. Blows my mind.

[00:57:07] Yeah. Well, I appreciate you having me on, man. And I'll definitely come back in a year and have a follow-up with you. Sounds good, bro. I appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of that, Dos Equis. Oh, it's gone. Oh, it's gone. It's gone. Well, enjoy the rest of your day in West Phoenix. Thank you. I'll talk to you soon, man. Bye. Bye. As always, thanks so much for listening and all of your support. And special thanks to

[00:57:36] Andrew in Arizona. Thanks, Andrew. If you are a suicide attempt survivor and you'd like to talk, please reach out. Our email is hello at suicidenoted.com. And I would love to talk with you. Please check the show notes to learn more about this podcast, including our membership, how you can support the podcast with a one-time contribution, the Noted Network podcast training, and some other cool stuff. And of course, rating and reviewing the Suicide Noted Podcast really helps

[00:58:02] people find it. And we want more people to find it. And that is all for episode number 261. Stay strong. Do the best you can. I'll talk to you soon.