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Forging health in the
unregulated drug crisis
through real f**king talk.
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SEASON 4
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"Season 4 Sampler" is now available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and at tradespodcast.com/s4-ep7. PLEASE SHARE!
The Season 4 Sampler lets you get a bit of each episode:
1) Anthony’s Story
2) Constructive Coercion Pt 1 – Dr. Jeremy Milloy
3) The New PPE (C. Michael Kinsella’s Story)
4) 100 Good-bye’s with Dr. Nicole Anders
5) James’ Story (Pain BC)
6) Constructive Coercion Pt 2 – Jeremy Milloy
While Season 4 spanned a wide variety of expertise and geography, the themes of pain, loss, grief and hope tell the story of every worker and every family in the Off the Clock Toolbox Talk family.
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James Boseley grew up in rough and tumble rural Alberta. Pain or having an IV plugged into his arm was no reason to stop working. Dealing with pain on a daily chronic basis, James’ mental health rapidly deteriorated to where he was considering suicide.
Because of his severe pain, James left Alberta to haul disposal bins in BC for half of what he was making in AB. Here James was injured again, breaking and tearing multiple hard and soft tissues throughout his body. With James’ high pain tolerance the medical system downplayed his injury. Not only did he not receive appropriate medical treatment, but he was shamed and discouraged from voicing his pain. James had to fight tooth & nail for his basic benefits at Worksafe. Despite acknowledging the severity of James’ injuries, Worksafe only treated a fraction of the injuries and denied the rest. Being off work for years, James didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer, and ended up living in squalor, creating even more challenges for his healing journey. Adding to his long list of injuries, James was psychologically devastated when he was told he should just be thankful that he has what he has.
Karen, James and Trevor discuss the additional emotional injury that occurs when our physical injuries aren’t validated and treated. They discuss the additional injury that service providers add by putting the burden of wellness back onto the client when the injury doesn’t heal at first treatment.
James ties up with his excitement at the Pain & Trades program he is developing at https://painbc.ca/ . He can be contacted at James.Boseley@painbc.ca
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Dr. Jeremy Milloy tells us about constructive coercion: a concept created in the 1960's and 70's from concerns that Vietnam veterans would return from war unable to navigate the workplace due to opioid addiction. Industry leaders believed that people (primarily men) would be incentivized to get treatment through the workplace in order to keep their jobs. Assessment of who had problematic substance use then fell on worksite foreman to identify who needed to be sent to see a counsellor and go into treatment.
Employers and workers then began this complex, codependent relationship that we now call extended benefits. If the employee comes forward asking for help, the employer has a duty to support the employee. But if the employee gets caught with a positive drug test, then they are fired and no longer have access to recovery benefits. The only way to access affordable treatment is through the employer, but workers feel obligated to hide their drug use so the employer can continue to be profitable.
The story becomes even more convoluted when we look at drug testing at remote work camps. Jeremy refers to the dance of drug testing as theater where only capitalism wins by creating a drug testing industry and fake urine industry. But neither the employer nor the worker benefit from the practice of drug testing. Furthermore the entire drug testing practice completely ignores the issues of pain and trauma that underlie the vast majority of substance use and employee wellness.
Dr. Jeremy Milloy says, " Constructive coercion proceeds from a story that work and problematic substance use are disconnected... rather than acknowledging that drugs are helping people meet the demands of the job... The call is coming from inside the house."
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Constructive Coercion Is a Thing features scholar Dr. Jeremy Milloy who studies the history of how we got to have the kind of workplaces we have (good and bad). His work is motivated by the fact that our jobs have a such a huge effect on our lives, our identities, our health, and our life outcomes.
Jeremy’s original work started by studying the concept of violence in the workplace, specifically how seemingly average humans get to the point where they ‘go postal’. And while Jeremy did discover a number of under-reported obvious violence such as shootings and stabbings, he also discovered that workplace violence was much more subtle. His original work targeted North America’s auto manufacturing industry, but the parallels of his findings are widespread across all workers, including construction trades. Themes of hazing, ‘paying your dues’ and enforcing codes of conduct after hours in places like the bar are prevalent amongst most workers, blue collar, hospitality, transportation, everywhere.
Part One of the conversation winds up as we begin talking specifically about substance use in the trades, and Jeremy brings up the concept of Constructive Coercion that was utilized in the 1980’s, as it was thought it would motivate workers to stay off harmful drugs.
To find out more about constructive coercion, catch "Constructive Coercion Is A Thing Part 2" which is being released on November 18, 2024.
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C. Michael Kinsella talks about how he owes his whole life to his Red Seal. When school wasn’t working out in junior high, Michael went straight into construction at the ripe old age of fourteen.
After an overdose at age sixteen, Michael found a father figure in the construction industry and formed a chosen family around him. Michael and co-host Trevor discuss the value of the family they both found on work sites. And its from that family perspective that The New PPE works; teaching and normalizing care for other humans from within the construction family.
Trevor and Michael share some of the physical and psychological stressors of the industry, and the toll it takes on a person and their biological family. And substance use is a regular part of that life. Michael talks about how he learned how to behave at work, with his own physical, social and mental health. He encourages other tradespeople to foster a culture of wellness and humanity amongst their crews as well.
Michael encourages everyone to check out www.thenewppe.org and start demanding that every work site.
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When psychologist, Dr. Nicole Anders, lost her beloved brother Cody to overdose, she navigated her grief through writing daily love letters to Cody. Her book, One Hundred Goodbyes is a collection of those love letters, bridging the personal and clinical dimensions of her grief.
Nicole discusses that she frequently talks with her kids about their Uncle Cody. She suggests answering questions about a loved one’s overdose factually, but also keeping the answers simple for young children. She says when kids are older, discuss that their loved one took a medicine and didn’t know what was in it. Co-host Daniel emphasizes the centrality of people taking a substance and not knowing what’s in it, and how this drug poisoning crisis is entirely preventable.
Nicole coaches that grief doesn’t make sense, but our brains continually wrestle with it. In her own bargaining stage of grief, she wishes she would have been more loving in her interactions with Cody. In her humanity, even though she’s a psychologist, she wishes she would have dropped her judgement and frustration and just listened to Cody more. She now utilizes the phrase “how human of you” to disarm her own shame, and the shame of others she works with.
The conversation wraps up talking about the importance of person-first language so we see the human in front of us and don’t identify them by one particular struggle.
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Anthony shares his story of growing up in a family of tradesmen where hard work and thick money were at the center of their way of being. And with the hard work came hard substance use.
As a teen, addicted to alcohol and cocaine, Anthony went to his parents to ask for help when he realized he was in more trouble than he could handle. His father’s solution was to send him to Fort McMurray where Anthony’s cowboy lifestyle cemented in. After decades of remote work, burning down one town and moving on to the next, Anthony found himself alone and using dangerous opiates. With a six month old child now in his life, he realized he had to do something different and reached out to an aunt who helped him get into recovery.
Anthony’s recovery experience was not straightforward, and he feels that after one year of recovery, he was just beginning to thaw out from decades of substance use. It took several years for him to figure out how to start living his life. Anthony discovered his son was in foster care at two years of age and knew he had to do the right thing and break the cycle of inter-generational trauma. He took some parenting courses and did more personal work so he could be a better father. Anthony and his mother were able to gain custody of his son, and Anthony continues to learn and grow beyond the harmful patterns he learned from his dad and uncles, creating a better life for himself and his son.
SEASON 3
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The Season 3 Sampler lets you get a bite of each episode:
1. Shawn's Story
2. Aeris' Story Part 1
3. Jason's Story
4. Superintendent Summit
5. Losing Someone to Overdose
6. CSO Shane's Story
7. Aeris's Story Part 2
Covering lots of really tough stuff, and emerging with our humanity intact, this sampler is all about connecting to each others' stories.
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"Aeris’s Story - Part 2" picks up where Aeris is just coming back to reality after being in a coma for approximately one month. His steadfast family helps him slowly recover from kidney, liver and brain damage. Advocating on his behalf, his family asks the doctors for a pain specialist as they believe Aeris consumed poisoned drug supply because he was attempting to self-medicate his pain from multiple surgeries and ongoing complex medical diagnoses.
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As rod buster Aeris Finch refers to partway through his story, his struggle really began at age 11, when he lost his older brother to an MDMA accident. But some of the effects of that trauma didn’t emerge until he began experimenting with substances himself as a teenager. Another layer of complexity emerged when Aeris developed painful and debilitating Crohn’s disease while working rebar as young adult. While Aeris’s description of his day-to-day existence with Crohn’s is graphic, it highlights the desperation of ridiculous circumstances that many tradespeople with extreme stressors have to navigate while trying to meet the grueling demands of physically intensive labour.
The stakes rise yet again in Aeris’s story as he desperately clings to the company he works for, doing everything he can to provide for his new family, and in the midst of trying to find some brief relief, comes into toxic drug supply, and stops breathing for long enough that for all intents and purposes, he is brain-dead. Remarkably kept alive for weeks by machines and medical interventions, Aeris survives against medical prognosis. We leave Part 1 as Aeris emerges from his coma and begins to return to reality from intense brain swelling. But the story is only half over. Listen to Aeris’s Story Part 2 to find out what happened next as Aeris tries to recover from hypoxic brain injury from drug poisoning.
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Superintendent Summit features in-depth discussion about how to lead work sites in a day where all our crews are affected by mental health and overdose (drug poisoning). From their own experiences, Superintendents Duncan Jordan and Trevor Botkin together with CSO Shane Seawell discuss many of the factors that have to be juggled between the demands of the business and the wellness of the crews; both ends have to be balanced to produce profit and have a crew healthy enough to produce the profit. Duncan and Trevor discuss that a super’s job is not to be a psychologist or counsellor. But when they can build a crew where people feel seen and heard, where the super is perceived as approachable by crew members, when crew members see themselves as invested in the physical and mental safety of the worksite, then striking the balance between profit and wellness becomes attainable. The development of these social skills, however, are not typically afforded to a superintendent; it often happens through a super’s personal journey or recovery. And that’s difficult to facilitate as an active Superintendent.
Duncan emphasizes the importance of education in all things safety – physical on site safety, safety with drug use, and safety with one’s mental health. Duncan gets personal and tells us how he tries to educate folks through the story of loved ones he’s lost to suicide. Trevor shares that he’s also lost beloved crew members to suicide as well. They agree that these losses drive them to take an extra moment with crew members, friends and family, even when there’s so much on their plate. Co-host Karen ties it up with a feeling that project participants have expressed before, that all these beloved people we’ve lost in construction, that perhaps its their energy that carries us forward in the work we do, to create a world where people can talk about these things, where previous generations could not.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, 988 is Canada’s suicide crisis line. You can call by yourself, 24/7, or you can call together with a buddy. Many of us in the Off the Clock Toolbox Talk community know these feelings and are sending out our love and hope to you.
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CSO Shane Sewell (different than Shayne’s Story) takes us on his heart’s journey from an 8-year-old with an invisible disability and an abusive parent, to an adult inner life that was continually erupting with low self esteem and feeling like he wasn’t good enough. Shane relates to many with tales of public school failure, difficulty fitting in, and eventually living a life that centred around substance use. Shane’s unconscious trauma responses, that outwardly appeared in his drug and alcohol use, caused the loss of his first marriage and brought him to a place where he couldn’t even carry on basic life functioning. With no other options, he entered treatment at Maple Ridge Treatment Centre and began putting the pieces back together. Eventually Shane found a new partner whom he credits with helping him recover. Together they had a daughter, and Shane began noticing that he was doing all the same things to his family that his dad had done to him. A return visit to Maple Ridge Treatment Centre gave Shane the tools and recovery capital he needed to build a life that had meaning for him. He found that meaning by helping others through his work as a CSO, which feeds his soul as much as it feeds his family.
Thank-you, Shane, for helping us understand through our hearts, which sometimes work better than our brains.
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Jason White, electrician and former rock star hopeful, shares his story of substance use, addiction, and the sharp turn that snatched him out of a sinking darkness, showing him a better way of being. Like many people’s stories contain powerful moments of change, Jason’s includes a moment of divine intervention, followed up by an unlikely confirmation days later that played out on a tour bus in stopped traffic in the middle of the Trans Canada Highway.
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If you've been looking for relatable, non-invasive support after losing someone to overdose (drug poisoning), you've found it. Holding heartbreak in one hand and inspiration to take action in the other, Kale Moth and Julie Cochrane explore life after losing their loved one to overdose.
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Ironworker, Shawn Underhill, joins Daniel and Karen to talk about his journey through problematic substance use and addiction. From Shawn’s early days smoking pot as a teen in his first construction job, to navigating problematic substance use in camps up north, to using to get through pain, grief, and exhaustion, Shawn demonstrates how recovery is anything but a straight line. Daniel and Shawn discuss how, on average, most people addicted to opioids struggle with that addiction for 15 years, but they do recover, even though it typically takes multiple attempts.
The recurring theme of Shawn’s story is his mom’s constant voice, in her life and death, urging Shawn to access help at Fraser House Society (the host organization of this podcast). And every time he returned, he grew more and more, adding to his toolbox, ultimately creating a life of beauty that he loves.
Shawn’s counsellor, Sam, jumps in at the end and Shawn and Sam give us some insight on what the first few weeks of counselling are like, and what its like to begin the counselling journey. Shawn closes out with a poem he wrote at a very dark time, to cultivate hope for us all.
Off The Clock Toolbox Talk
Men forging health in the unregulated drug crisis, through real f**king talk.
Learn more about the podcast series at TradesPodcast.com.
SEASON 2
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The Off The Clock Toolbox Talk Season 2 Sampler serves up select appetizers from Season 2 episodes, combined with house-style transitional music to keep your groove on throughout your day.
The Season 2 Sampler features (in order):
1. Kayle’s Story - Kale Moth, Trevor Botkin
2. Squishy Meat Bags (I Don’t Have Trauma. You Have Trauma) – Jason White, Jonas Watkins, Sabine Sasakura, Karen Janzen
3. Psychedelic Surprise – Mike Mathers, Daniel Snyder
4. Shayne’s Story: The Aftershow – Shayne Taylor, Trevor Botkin, Karen Janzen
5. Rig Life (And Other Tough Work Sites) – Kale Moth, Trevor Botkin
6. Curious AF – Mike Mathers, Daniel Snyder
7. Shayne’s Story: The Aftershow – Shayne Taylor, Trevor Botkin, Karen Janzen
8. Ditch the Tough: Keep the Love – Kat Wahamaa, Daniel Snyder
9. Random Recovery Talk – Kale Moth, Trevor Botkin, Karen Janzen
Special thanks to the BC Sand Stone & Gravel Association for inviting Off the Clock Toolbox Talk to the BCSSGA Conference, and for standing behind our tradespeople in the drug poisoning crisis.
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The conversation continues as Trevor, Shayne and Karen discuss ‘safety is behavioral’; these life-wisdom conversations need to happen in-person, breathing and sharing energy together, preferred where apps, lectures, and protocols fall short. Karen and Trevor confirm this same thread from the Random Recovery Talk episode https://www.tradespodcast.com/s2-ep5 where it emerged that recovery is leadership of self to recruit help. Recovery is not done in isolation; it requires a relational context with other humans, referred to as 'co-regulation'. And recovery is spiritual—however you connect with something meaningful outside yourself.
Shayne creates the metaphor of a toolkit; whatever recovery path you’re on, you’re gathering tools along the way with every experience to put into your toolkit. And we need to access those tools on a regular basis.
Trevor and Shayne discuss the power of Shayne’s confession that “The first lie I ever told myself is that I’m okay,” meaning all the things that brew consciously and subconsciously for years leading up to catastrophic blow-up. The group discuss the difficulties of recruiting help, yet it’s pivotal to moving forward in our own well-being.
The conversation ties up with Shayne’s suggestion of changing the terminology of “rock bottom” to “the point of return”.
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Shayne Taylor, Corporate Director of HSE at The Gisborne Group joins Karen and guest co-host, Trevor Botkin, to talk about his personal experiences with mental health and substance use. Uniquely, Shayne’s adulthood career path fluctuated between the construction trades and psychological care supports in mental health and substance use services, while his own binge drinking, substance use and associated harms carried on for decades. Shayne’s experiences in these two radically different fields ultimately led him to safety work in construction where he’s now a strong advocate for meeting regular people where they’re at, opening the door to better quality of life through human connection.
This episode contains mention of childhood sexual abuse, explicit drug use, and description of an overdose experience.
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Continuing the conversation from “Curious AF”, Daniel and Karen talk with Mike Mathers who demystifies psychedelic therapy and the incredible results of clinical trials ongoing amidst a grey psychedelic market in Canada. Mike warns against covertly accessing psychedelics without clinical supports as psychedelics release undigested emotions that can be terrifying and even damaging if the user has spent a lot of time and effort avoiding undigested emotions that they didn’t know that they had.
Mike discloses his experiences of video game and cannabis addiction as a numbing response to the undigested emotions he had from divorce and loss of connection with his three young children. Mike articulates that when we can’t face painful feelings, they don’t die, they turn into zombies. Psychedelics are medicines of grief and love and help us face the painful feelings, and give us a chance to process them, arriving at self-forgiveness, ultimately allowing ourselves to move forward and grow. Mike points out how its important to “build a Temple of Regret” and visit it often, not to ruminate in the past, but to look, eyes wide open with curiosity, at how past painful experiences have hurt us, and then use that information to help us grow and move into meaning and our calling in life.
Like Karen, you too might be surprised at the unexpected gems and hacks around trauma and unwanted emotions in this episode of Off the Clock Toolbox Talk.
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Therapist Mike Mathers joins Daniel and Karen to talk about his new book coming out in 2024, Curious AF. Mike sets us up to understand how the human mind operates as a social entity that needs to belong to a group, and influences us to operate to avoid shame, particularly childhood shame that we can’t even remember, but that our subconscious still accesses to inform our daily thoughts & decisions.
Mike talks about his common friend who is always there for him, “I’m a Fucking Idiot”, and how we have a relationship with “I’m a Fucking Idiot” and we don’t even know it. Daniel asks if all addictions are driven by shame. Mike says he calls shame “unconscious unworthiness”. He draws a link to feelings as data that provide information about our lives and what’s missing in terms of emotional regulation, social connection and meaning and purpose.
Mike goes on to explain that the antidote to shame is to get curious about it using “I wonder…” questions, whose answer doesn’t matter because you can’t be judgmental and curious at the same time. Curiosity changes what's going on in our mind and body and gets us out of shame.
Follow along with Karen who gets “therapized” in this episode. Early listener reviews have characterized Curious AF as a free half hour of damn good therapy.
Find Mike Mathers and information about his book, Curious AF, at https://www.wellnessevolved.ca.
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Trevor, Kale and Karen drift through some random conversation on subtle aspects of the recovery journey. Kale discusses that recovery isn’t easy, but as you begin to feed yourself, you get strong AF. Trevor remembers how tied he was to his negative identities as a tradesman. Kale shares the energy that is brought to him when he opens his heart to the opportunities that recovery brings, even in the hours right before recording the podcast. Trevor remembers searching out recovery stories when he knew he needed to get off the ride but didn’t know how. He acknowledges that we just need to talk more openly with each other about what’s really going on, and what we’re learning and understanding as men.
Karen shares her emotional expertise: that emotions are just there to help you figure out what’s going on, and what to do about it. Trevor reflects on his frequently asked question, “if we’re so fucking tough, why can’t we talk about our feelings?”
The group discusses Johann Hari’s quote, “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection,” connection to self and others, and wtf is self love? And how do you get it? Trevor brings in the role of spirituality [not religion] in understanding self love.
Karen adds her post-conversation thoughts that recovery is actually about leadership of self. Recovery is social; we don’t recover in isolation. Recovery is vulnerability that transforms into leadership.
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Daniel chats with podcast project partner, Kat Wahamaa from Mom’s Stop the Harm about losing her twenty-five year old son Joseph to the unregulated drug crisis, and about the unintentional and intentional harms that are taking place in Canada, from decision makers in Ottawa to families sitting around their tables at home. Kat points out how the drug poisoning crisis is traumatizing an entire generation of children whose parents have been killed by unregulated drugs, including Joseph’s two young sons.
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An expanded part of Kale’s Story, Trevor Botkin and Kale Moth discuss the specifics of working on an oil rig and other tough work sites. Belonging and paychecks pull us in. Identity and pride in hard work keep us there. Kale says, “That much time spent with the same 4 or 5 guys… you’re spending more time with them than your actual family. That group almost becomes your family… You get a full-time job, and a part-time relationship. And you just gotta understand, that’s the way its going to be.” Trevor talks about the guilt he had about his family getting the table scraps of his life and energy, but the balance was his family had all the shiny things they needed. Trevor describes an oil patch colleague who struggles with the extreme change of culture between spending time on his crew and coming home to his wife.
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Self-identified squishy meat bags, Jason (guest co-host), Karen (host), and Jonas (OTCTBT Steering Committee member), discuss trauma with Registered Clinical Counsellor, Sabine Sasakura. (Go to 18:51 for the squishy meat bag context). Starting with trauma referenced in the Deconstructing Your Inner Asshole episode https://www.buzzsprout.com/2207100/13213723, and including the birth of children, the crew discuss how our daily lives are affected by trauma including what the fight/flight/freeze response looks like on a work site. They discuss anger and resentment. Karen lightbulbs at the given definition of resentment: when you’re mad because you didn’t make or keep your own boundaries. Sabine helps us understand how we subconsciously experience trauma when we’re working in a place that is inherently physically or socially dangerous. Jason identifies the foundation of anger: fear, and the group squirms a bit at the truth of it.
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Twenty-five year old Kale Moth tells his story of being swept away by life on an oil rig at the ripe old age of 18. With guest co-host Trevor Botkin, Kale explores what he thought it meant to be a man, and how his commitment to self and family rapidly deteriorated with the introduction of harder drugs that can be commonplace in the oil and gas industry.
Kale's deterioration led to loss of employment, and eventually loss of housing. In 2018 Kale remembers sitting in the McDonald's he frequented for free wifi, and getting the shocking news that his cousin, Cody, had passed away from drug poisoning. Eventually the Cody Anders Memorial Scholarship was established to help fund others access treatment, and Kale become the first recipient of the scholarship in his cousin's name.
SEASON 1
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Daniel and Karen discuss what our inner asshole looks and sounds like with special guest, Jason White from Nightingale Electrical. After setting up some safety parameters, we build the metaphor that our mind is like a nightclub with a bouncer that helps balance our thoughts and gives all parts of our experiences equal voice.
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Trevor Botkin tells his story of recovering out loud from the superintendent's office to using alone in a basement. We start our conversation discussing what, if any, of the various initiatives addressing substance use in the trades, would have made a difference to Trevor at the height his unregulated drug use. Trevor shares his mindset: his fear of being uncovered as an imposter, feeling defeat, lack of hope, and fearing the catastrophic loss of respect that was his only reason for being.
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Continuing the conversation from Part 1, Karen, Daniel and guest, Jason from Nightingale Electrical, talk about the seven forms inner asshole can take. We discuss the shame inner asshole imposes when we let him hide in the dark, which is true for most addictive behaviours, including porn addiction. We talk about how that imposed shame puts us into 4 states of stress: fight, flight, freeze and fawn, and when we're stuck in one of those 4 states, it negatively affects our well-being.
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Daniel and Karen discuss what our inner asshole looks and sounds like with special guest, Jason White from Nightingale Electrical. After setting up some safety parameters, we build the metaphor that our mind is like a nightclub with a bouncer that helps balance our thoughts and gives all parts of our experiences equal voice.
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Tylenol, beer, whiskey, cocaine, and many others! This is a safer using conversation like most of us have never had before. Harm Reduction Coordinator, Lianne Radmore, inspires us to think of our substance use differently and understand how we can (and do) access harm reduction principles in order to be safer with our substance use [of all types!].
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Colby and Greg join us to share what the Tailgate Toolkit is, and how its helping men in construction navigate the drug poisoning crisis. https://thetailgatetoolkit.ca. Greg shares his experiences hiding an opioid addiction that stemmed from a car accident, and how that brought him to helping other men as a Tailgate Toolkit Facilitator. Through talking about the current realities of substance use in the trades, and sharing his authentic story, Greg creates safety for men in Toolkit sessions to be able to share their stories of pain and loss.
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Picking up right where we left off in Building Hope Part 1, George and Daniel move into a discussion about harm reduction (taking care of ourselves) and Drug Use For Grown-ups by Carl Hart plus more.
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Therapist and Building Hope video producer, George Passmore, joins us to discuss the realities that motivated him and Building Hope partners to create the Building Hope YouTube video to begin dialogue on substance use in the trades.
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Host Daniel gives his take on the proposed trades podcast script and the script is immediately axed allowing Daniel and co-host Karen to dive deep into some of the real issues related to the drug poisoning crisis in the construction industry in British Columbia.
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