Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Jason & Rachael Bickal
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR00079B
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00:14 Welcome back! Now I am going to introduce Jason,
00:18 but I want to know did you guys meet during that time? 00:21 When you get kicked out, you trying to do the whole AA thing 00:25 your trying to do recovery, did you meet then? 00:28 I would straight into sober living home. 00:30 - what is that? Sober living home is for people who 00:35 need a safe environment to stay sober. 00:37 You have rules, you have chores - that's the first thing 00:40 I was going to say, is how did you do that? 00:42 Because you have rules, you have chores, you have to get up 00:45 at a certain time. - it's called minimum. 00:49 I did the minimum of everything I had to do. 00:51 Then I met him in AA meeting. 00:54 - so you were in recovery then when you met her? 00:57 Um Hum! - So talk about, a little bit who you are so we 01:00 can figure out who you are as a couple now. 01:02 Because I love the fact, we all have our stuff and we 01:06 come into a relationship and think okay, 01:08 it should work out, right? 01:10 Yeah, 01:14 nobody told me that you've got baggage to bring with 01:17 you too, so I started about the same age as her. 01:23 11 or 12, I had alcoholic behavior before I was an 01:29 alcoholic, my family was fine. 01:33 My mom had a couple marriages, my step dad during my 01:38 teenage years tried to teach me how to be a man. 01:41 I was rebelling, I rebelled against his authority and 01:46 I didn't want to have nothing to do with that, I would 01:48 rather go to my thing, and I did that. 01:50 A lot of drinking, more drugs and drinking at first. 01:55 - where was your biological dad? 01:58 He left my mom when she was six months pregnant with me. 02:02 The only picture I had of him with his high school year 02:05 book, his swim team picture. 02:08 - to this day? Finally at age 30, I was a couple years 02:12 sober four years sober, somewhere in there. 02:15 My mom gave me an e-mail address and I e-mailed him a 02:18 couple times, he told me he was too young to have 02:22 grandkids, I told him he had grandkids, he cut it right there 02:23 - he was like I don't want to see you or meet them? 02:28 He really had no interest and I try to spark it up a 02:31 couple years ago, and I was already over it, 02:35 like okay whatever man. 02:36 So when you were a teen you had stepfathers? 02:38 My step dad, there with him I had worked for him and he 02:42 had his own business, I would steal from him to get 02:45 loaded and stuff. 02:47 I was doing meth when it was still speed during the 80s. 02:53 I could see two meth addicts watching, it was what? 02:58 I didn't know that. 03:00 We look different I guess but I don't know what, 03:02 I'm not that old but that is how it was. 03:07 I didn't graduate high school, I finished but was 15 and 03:10 credits short, I was shaken everyone's hand as they went 03:13 into the Stadium to graduate and I'll see you at the party. 03:17 It was my party I was by myself in the backyard, 03:21 or hidden in my car somewhere in a parking lot. 03:23 That is just how it was. 03:25 A lot of hallucinogenics, - so you jumped out of reality 03:30 into I just want to be out of reality? 03:32 Oh a lot, a lot and I don't know, 03:36 art was my thing, it was what I did 03:38 I drew, I would get high and I would draw. 03:41 I had some co-dependent teachers that would let me 03:47 hide out in the corner of their class during the day so 03:50 I would stay out of trouble, but for the most part 03:52 I didn't really care about anything that was going on. 03:56 So when I first heard about you, I heard you had a tattoo 04:01 shop, did you start that right after high school? 04:03 No, I didn't get into tattooing until about 6 and 1/2, 04:11 7 years ago, it was one of those, 04:13 I always wanted to things you know, but as I got older 04:18 I became a barroom dreamer. 04:20 You know you sit on the barstools and I was going to do 04:22 everything, - I love it, when you talk about that, 04:26 somebody smoking weed, sitting on the couch or in the bar 04:29 and you are just thinking, I'm going to, let's invent this. 04:32 I'm going to do this and have this kind of business. 04:34 I was going to play baseball, and I was going to soup up 04:41 cars, I was going to be a tattoo artist, and I was going 04:44 to do all these things you know. 04:45 Some days I was going to be an Air Force pilot. 04:48 - it depended on what the drug was. 04:51 What ever I needed to be that day, I could be that. 04:56 At about 19 or 20 the drugs stopped working. 04:59 What's interesting about that dreamer, it does beat down 05:04 the depression and the reality of what is happening 05:07 around you, the fact that you are in a bar again and have 05:09 been here every day for the last three months, 05:11 it's like it beats down that depression or reality. 05:16 The best idea I got was to finally get a job in a bar. 05:20 If I'm going to be there, I might as well get paid to be 05:23 there and the problem was my alcoholism took me to 05:27 a point where instead of me kicking people out, 05:29 I'm getting kicked out. 05:31 The dollar night and people are buying me drinks so now 05:34 the bouncer is totally sloshed, so away you have to go. 05:38 The guys I work with are you have to go home. 05:40 It wasn't pleasant, I don't really have any woo hoo 05:47 moments to talk about when I was drinking and stuff. 05:51 I have a couple good kids out of that whole deal. 05:55 I was married in my early 20s. 06:00 There is a couple, you know I have moments where there 06:08 was a moment of clarity in my drinking and when 06:14 I met my first wife. 06:18 She had a four-month-old and we had the party house 06:24 and everybody came to our house and everybody drank at 06:26 our house and she would come over with this kid. 06:28 It was like there is a kid in the house, this is our 06:32 house and something in the back my head was like 06:35 you can't drink tonight. 06:37 - You have to make sure that this kid is alright. 06:39 Right, so she ends up drinking and passed out, 06:41 everybody in the house is passed out and I'm with 06:42 a little four-month-old kid and I have no idea how 06:46 to take care of it. 06:48 I'm trying to mix formula and change diapers all night. 06:50 It's funny because I can even see that, it's adorable. 06:56 What is incredible is that your heart is coming 07:00 out for this kid, saying someone has to make 07:02 sure this kid is safe. 07:04 I mean you are a protector at heart. 07:07 I, yeah - unlike my father. - thanks honey. 07:14 What I think were a lot of folks is that we tend to judge 07:18 addicts not realizing that every addict has a story, 07:23 every addict has a heart, and every addict has those 07:26 gifting that would have been developed had somebody had 07:30 been normal around them growing up. 07:31 They pop through even at the drug houses when you said 07:35 you had a drug house. 07:37 I have lived in those houses and you always had different 07:40 people and their gifting this would show through, 07:42 even through all the craziness, all the addicts, 07:43 they could be slamming drugs and cutting on themselves 07:46 and yet their hearts shows through. 07:50 There has been more times like that, there has been those 07:53 intervals where I would clean up, even as a teenager. 07:55 I would get involved in church and whatever and do things 07:59 there and when that was gone I was just back to what I know. 08:04 That's how it's been my whole life. 08:09 - so this person had passed out and you were holding on 08:12 the baby at what point did you say I think I should marry 08:15 her? I love that to, it's like we, what were we thinking? 08:20 And sad part is I don't even know if I loved her enough to 08:25 marry her, but I loved the baby, I fell in love with that 08:28 little girl and she is 16 now. 08:29 Is a phenomenal student and on occasion I get e-mails 08:33 and that is cool. 08:35 We ended up getting married in Vegas and she went 08:40 upstairs to smoke some heroin, I went downstairs 08:43 to drink and Gamble and that was that. 08:46 She is pregnant with our son and she ends up leaving 08:53 after a month, we got home and in a month it was over. 08:56 Basically we were still married but we weren't together. 08:59 - and your son stayed with you? 09:01 No she was still pregnant with him and running the 09:07 streets doing her thing, I'm drinking more and homeless. 09:11 Because my mom, I love my mother, she decided what I was 09:16 doing was destroying her as well and she said you 09:19 have two weeks in the house and I'm moving. 09:20 So she packed all her stuff and left me some food and left. 09:24 She went off to live her life without dying in my tornado 09:28 basically. - when you say that, I'm glad you 09:33 said that because you are giving mothers and fathers 09:36 permission to say that sometimes you have to do that. 09:38 As much as that is hurting your child, is literally going 09:44 to stand them up in the long run. 09:46 It did, she would continue to let me come back, 09:50 and never let me hit bottom, the term they used was 09:55 she was loving me to death. 09:57 She would be like I have to go, I'm leaving you. 10:00 So was like nobody's there. 10:02 I moved into an industrial complex that turned into 10:06 a rehearsal studio, so I thought I was cool. 10:08 I'm definitely cool now because I was working with 10:11 a local band in California and they paid me $35 a night 10:16 and half the drink tickets, because when I was drunk 10:19 I could lift heavy stuff and that was basically my job, 10:22 moving the equipment and protect the girlfriends. 10:24 A time or two I come out of a blackouts with a mic stand 10:28 in my hand chasing somebody down the alley. 10:30 They just laughed and thought it was great, you're doing 10:33 a great job, the way to go. 10:34 Here have a beer. 10:37 Picked up a DUI and 97, it was no big deal really because 10:41 my drinking, when I'm supposed to blow. 08 the legal limit, 10:46 that's normal, I'm waking up and putting that stuff in my 10:52 body to be normal, not to get drunk, not to have fun 10:59 anymore, I'm drinking at this point, after 13 years, 11:01 I'm drinking for normal, I just want to be normal. 11:06 My father would drink just so he wouldn't tremor so much 11:07 while he brushed his teeth, He couldn't hold a glass 11:10 of liquid because he would shake it right out. 11:13 I understand that is when this is not fun anymore. 11:17 And it wasn't, I had small moments with Ha, Ha, Ha, 11:21 but for the most part it wasn't fun. 11:26 My drinking it ruined a lot of things, 11:30 it wrecked my life. - it robbed you. 11:34 It really did and I got that DUI and am locked up in the 11:37 jailhouse in orange county and they let me out. 11:40 I put my car over a fire hydrant and I was trying to get 11:45 off a fire hydrant with the guys in my car and the water 11:48 is coming up, so I'm soaked from toe to chest. 11:51 They got me in the car and take me over to the house, 11:55 they didn't have any jumpsuits so I spent the night in 11:58 wet clothes and that was fine until they let me out in six in 12:00 the morning and I have to walk 2 and 1/2 miles back to 12:03 my studio, my kingdom. 12:07 Of course I have to call mommy, I've got a DUI and as 12:11 I'm talking to her at 6:30 in the morning I'm cracking 12:14 a beer, and then I'm opening another one. 12:16 But that's not the problem, the road was wet and that's 12:19 what happened, that was the insanity that was going on 12:22 in my life for that period of time. 12:25 And for any alcoholic or anybody that is in the lifestyle 12:27 that are watching, we do say it was the road, or it is 12:32 this or it is that, or a had three and I should have 12:35 had two, I mean we just rationalized the whole thing. 12:40 A lot of times, it was a lot of that. 12:44 Right after that my son was born, he was born addicted 12:48 to heroin. - were you there when he was born? 12:53 Yeah I was half hour into a pass out after a night 12:57 of drinking, and I had no license so I had to call my 13:00 neighbor who I was drinking with and he took me 50 miles 13:04 down the road to the hospital. 13:07 What is hard about seeing a baby addicted to heroin is 13:10 everything hurts them, I mean their skin hurts. 13:14 They are already going through withdrawals and where you 13:17 should see this incredible baby laying against do you see 13:20 this addict going through withdrawals. 13:22 It was that night, I can't really tell you, I don't 13:25 remember much, I just remember there were a lot of 13:28 problems and my mom was on her way down. 13:30 It was just rough, it was rough, I lived a horrid 13:40 lifestyle in my opinion. 13:42 I was separated from everybody and everything. 13:44 We were in there for a couple of days and I got to go 13:48 back to Andrews mom, his grandmother's house and I got 13:58 to spend about an hour with him and then I left. 14:00 She went her way with him, I don't remember seeing him 14:05 much for the first couple months and I got a knock on my 14:08 door and there she was and she says here's your kid, 14:11 I can't take care of him anymore because of her disease. 14:16 So one more time at picked up the phone, like mommy 14:18 I need to come home. 14:20 She is like, I don't know, I've got a baby and 14:22 she was like come home. 14:27 Was that a turning point for you? Did you know at that 14:30 point you were not going to, no! 14:32 I wasn't done. - isn't that crazy, we are so crazy in 14:34 our addictions and to me that breaks my heart because 14:38 I know the addiction is so huge that nothing overrides 14:41 it until we are done. 14:43 Like with your letter, were done and I'm having to say 14:45 goodbye, but you weren't done yet? 14:47 No, I was getting there, but what it did is it gave me 14:51 permission to keep going now, because my mom would take 14:54 care of him, he was really sick. 14:56 She to her credit did so much for him. 15:03 She basically nursed him back to physical contact, 15:06 because he wasn't a touchy baby, he would cry. 15:10 She would just hold him until he stopped crying. 15:12 I have taken kids to do volunteer work with drug babies, 15:15 and it hurts them so bad that they cannot be held, 15:18 you cannot nurture them, you can't sing to them, 15:21 you can't coo to them, the thing she would do to normal 15:23 babies because they are in so much pain. 15:26 He wasn't touched, so he didn't know what the physical 15:30 contact was, and I continued drinking and I had 15:33 a job at a bagel shop. 15:34 My boss would keep me employed because I would take him 15:37 out on pay night. - you gave him permission to drink? 15:43 He kept me employed because I would buy, I'm buying, 15:47 we would go. 15:51 I ended up in that school ten and they tell me don't drink 15:54 and we are going to teach you about alcoholism and stuff and 15:57 I didn't want anything to do that, so I continued to drink 16:01 and I decided I wasn't going to. 16:05 At Columbus Day in 97 was the last time in jail. 16:08 It wasn't for really anything but I didn't have a light 16:12 on my bike, I didn't get arrested for cool things I got 16:15 arrested for dumb stuff like I got a ticket because I 16:18 didn't have my dog's license and it went to warrant. 16:20 It was like look at me, and you couldn't totally brag on. 16:24 Everybody was don't worry you'll be out in no time. 16:27 Even the first I went to jail I told them I was insane. 16:31 I was like suicidal and they sent me to the state 16:34 hospital because I was so scared. 16:35 I spent my whole life in fear and I drank to mask that. 16:39 So I'm trying to stay sober, it's January of 97 and 16:43 we go to this bar with my boss. 16:45 The gal behind the bar is a friend of ours and I'm like 16:48 I'm not drinking tonight. 16:50 She said if you're in this bar you drink and I say give 16:53 me half a beer, and that is the last thing I remember 16:56 until the beginning of March. 16:58 Basically came to at an AA meeting, sitting with a person 17:03 who was elbowing me, did you hear that, did you hear 17:05 that, it sounds like you, I was caught. 17:07 I was caught, like oh man they got me. 17:10 Because I wasn't done, to this day I think we call it 17:16 a brass knuckle bottom, I think God had to knock me out 17:18 to get me here, that's my feeling on the matter. 17:22 It was the only way I was going to get here. 17:25 We use that a lot, God putting you on the fast track 17:30 or knocking you out, but you don't mean that, 17:33 but looking back it felt like that. 17:34 It feels like that was the only thing, - that in His 17:39 mercy, - yeah, thank you for grace because here I am 17:43 where it is going to save my life. 17:45 I was trying to back up into the corner, I'm like I'm 17:48 caught but I can still get out of here, what got it my 17:51 way was another man at Alcoholics Anonymous. 17:53 He was twice my size and 10 times louder than I am 17:56 and he got my attention. 17:58 There was a lot of profanity and he was bigger than my 18:03 head, so what the drinking did for me he was doing 18:07 verbally and basically put me in his car. 18:10 He said we are going to meetings and that is what I did. 18:14 He became your lifeline for awhile. 18:16 Yeah, he was my sponsor, my first sponsor and basically 18:20 he was the person that to I looked. 18:22 I could physically see, feel and know that God is 18:27 operating in your life, I know 18:29 He can do something in life. 18:31 That man taught me how to help other alcoholics. 18:36 We'd go to detoxes and I would be seven-day sober 18:40 and they would be six-say sober 18:42 and tell me to talk about getting them another day. 18:48 Usually we break for questions, but I don't want to do 18:50 that today because I want to stay with this and we don't 18:53 have a lot of time. 18:54 So I wanted to say that you're not only in a 12 step 18:58 program, you have decided I'm going to do it. 19:01 Maybe the guy in front of you is deciding that you're going 19:04 to get into the car and keep doing this and all that stuff. 19:07 I wish people could find that in a church setting but a lot 19:10 of times they cannot, but in AA somebody will stay right 19:12 with you until you are safe. 19:15 Or whatever that means to them, and that is where you 19:18 guys met, is in the meetings. 19:21 I just see this craziness across the room. 19:25 I see someone and say you know. 19:28 Well it's funny, seriously how we met it was this meeting in 19:32 California, a huge meeting, you had to show up an hour 19:35 earlier or you weren't getting a seat. 19:37 It was huge and there was one seat open and 19:42 it was right next to me. 19:44 This man happened to sit in that seat, and me being the 19:48 awesome person that I am I made fun of him. 19:52 - what did she say to you? 19:53 I had a work phone that was all beat up, 19:55 and she says that the pretty ghetto phone. 19:59 I said, I have a job you know, - He was rude to me. 20:04 He was rude to me, so I was instantly in love, 20:06 because I was still very sick. Love at first insult. 20:10 That is funny - but I has swore off woman, I was done. 20:13 I was going to be a single dad, because I had my kids by 20:17 this time, and if I was to be a single dad for the rest 20:21 of my life, then that's how it would be. 20:23 Then we get to this meeting and my friend is sitting in 20:26 the other seat and actually I was going to sit next to 20:29 him, little did I know that my wife was going 20:32 to be sitting next to me. 20:35 It was amazing. - you know what really is tough? 20:39 Your testimony of what happens from this point on is so 20:44 Rich and we only have like six minutes. 20:49 I hate that, so you guys get married. 20:54 Whoever can say this the fastest, is that it was not 20:59 easy, you guys were still crazy, acting out, and all that 21:03 stuff before God finally got a hold of you and taught you 21:07 to love, that has only been within the last how long? 21:11 Three months maybe, yeah it wasn't easy, 21:16 marriage was not easy, I only had six months 21:18 of sobriety, and I was 19, he had two kids full-time 21:26 our home was not a good home. 21:29 It was not a healthy home. 21:30 - everybody had their garbage still? 21:32 Yes, very much so. He always felt like he was useless. 21:36 He felt not good enough. I constantly felt unwanted 21:40 an unloved, our home was a bad home. 21:45 God was nowhere in it, we talked about God, 21:48 and we thought we had this relationship with Him, 21:50 and we accepted Him, but there was no God in our home. 21:56 I know that not long ago, you met my Pastor. 21:59 He is an awesome guy, and he convinced you, first of all 22:04 I want to know how you got to his place and that he 22:07 convinced you to allow God into those deeper hurts. 22:10 I want you to talk a little bit about that because that 22:13 is where the real healing comes from. 22:14 It is like when you say God, about that shame I have, 22:18 all that rejection I have come so talk about that. 22:22 Well he left something on the computer and I thought it 22:29 was mine and I went to go check it and he was having an 22:36 emotional affair with another woman. 22:39 - you had these huge rejection issues. 22:43 Oh yeah, huge, and to me I told him because it was the 22:47 emotional that I needed so much, I told him he could 22:51 sleep with a thousand women and it would not hurt me 22:55 as much as the emotional affair did. 22:57 Because he said things to her that he hadn't said to me 23:01 in years and I wanted a divorce and I told him that. 23:06 He convinced me to go see Joe. 23:11 Joe, how did you? - a friend of mine had worked with 23:17 him before and he said I didn't finish but maybe you can, 23:21 here is his number and I called him. 23:22 He was grumpy on the phone, whatever, and I was like I 23:26 don't know if this guy can help but we ended up going. 23:30 It was amazing to be in a place where this guy is looking 23:34 at us and we are telling him stuff that we have never 23:37 told anybody because our hearts were so locked up, 23:41 even in our marriage, and I had pulled out so far in the 23:45 marriage and she was more of a poker. 23:49 We just locked up our hearts from each other. 23:53 What's interesting, and I wish we had more time. 23:57 What's interesting is for Joe, he will never look at the 24:00 event, what happened and what the hurt was, or what was 24:03 on the computer screen, he wants to know what did your 24:07 heart feel. - oh yes. - go ahead. 24:10 That is where I found out, through my very first 24:14 childhood memory, I felt unwanted and unloved. 24:18 All through my life every single thing that ever happened to 24:21 me, was unwanted an unloved. 24:23 Uh huh, never good enough for me, less than. 24:27 Again what's interesting is when you allow God to come in 24:31 and be the healer, be the counselor. 24:34 A lot of people say we don't need to go to those places, 24:38 but if I constantly go to the unloved and unwanted, 24:41 if I constantly go to the never good enough I'm going to 24:45 put everybody in my life to validate that until somebody 24:48 says that's not true. 24:50 In God's eyes you are wanted, you are wanted more than 24:53 you know, more than you can receive right now. 24:56 So what you had to do sitting there with this Pastor, 25:00 is to allow God to convince you that I want you. 25:04 I love you. - well I got to see his pain. 25:07 Here all this time I thought he was just a shell of a human 25:12 being that I finally got to see his pain. 25:16 I mean I said some mean things to him, I was not a nice 25:19 person and new in my sobriety, especially when this 25:22 happened I said some, I told him our five-years 25:25 marriage meant nothing to me. 25:27 So you were feeling never good enough? 25:30 - so I pulled back more. - the more he pulled back 25:34 the more I yelled, the more I got angry, 25:36 the more insults. - when you finally saw his pain, 25:39 what did you feel for him? 25:43 Love, compassion, I just felt compassion and about the 25:52 healing, when I was going through my bitterness, 25:54 my bitterness that I had to feel free from, I actually 26:00 felt compassion for my first stepfather that molested me 26:05 and beaten me, I felt compassion for that man. 26:08 - and forgiveness? - and forgiveness, yes. 26:10 So what the devil meant destroy you with, you are 26:13 reclaiming and actually going in and allowing 26:17 God to bring healing. 26:18 We are going to go ahead and take a break and then we are 26:20 going to come back and I would like you to stay with me 26:23 during the close because I think a lot of people are 26:25 afraid of going to those places to heal. 26:28 I know, I watched you one day when you walked out of 26:32 there clean with no shame and the joy that you had when 26:36 you walked into my house I was like, I wish that 26:40 everybody could get that. 26:41 If you are brave enough, if you trusted God enough, 26:45 or even just someone enough to say I want to heal. 26:49 I want to go through this, I don't want to carry this my 26:51 whole life, then recovery makes sense. 26:56 You can't get that in 12 step group, you can't get that 27:00 anywhere but from God. 27:02 And I don't want to knock any 12 step groups, 27:04 but you really can't get that anywhere but from God. 27:07 We are going to be right back and you have to stay with 27:10 us because this is the good part. |
Revised 2014-12-17