Ryan's Story: A Journey from Isolation to Recovery

In this episode, Ryan tells his powerful story of addiction and recovery. He opens up about the struggles he faced, the moments of despair, and his journey into community. Through his story, you will gain a deeper understanding of the challenges of addiction and the impact of compassion, connection, and faith in building a new life. With subject matter expert David Consoli, a PhD neuroscientist, we explore the connections between addiction and the brain. This heartfelt conversation highlights the devastating effects of addiction on morale, community, and the brain. Join us for Ryan’s heartfelt story of the beautiful change recovery brought in his life.  

Transcript

Full Episode: Unseen Atlanta, Season 1 Episode 2
 

Ryan: I was sitting in my room. I had a gallon of vodka. I was going to either finish that bottle and drink myself to death, or I was going to fix it and get help. I wasn't afraid to die. I was more afraid to live.  

Rachel Reynolds: Welcome to Unseen Atlanta, an Atlanta Mission podcast, where we shine the light on some of the city's toughest issues. 

We do this by sharing information. True stories from real people who've experienced homelessness and addiction. We also bring you insights from subject matter experts who can give some context to some of these issues. I'm your host, Rachel Reynolds.  

Jonathan Miller: And I'm Jonathan Miller, your co host.  

Rachel Reynolds: And today we're going to be talking to Ryan. 

He really, I feel like, like, got us into the headspace of what it was like, um, to be somebody who's experiencing addiction. And he talks a lot about the isolation and the loneliness of that.  

Jonathan Miller: Yeah, and in addition to Ryan's story, we're going to be talking to, uh, Dr. David Consoli. Who's going to be our subject matter expert. 

He's going to dive into the brain science behind addiction.  

Rachel Reynolds: I think this is a really special episode. This is one that I'm super excited for you to hear because it talks about how addiction, it's not just something you can turn off and on. It's really a disease and it rewires your brain, but that doesn't have to be your story. 

And I think that's what David talks so much about is that there is an opportunity for us to retrain our brain.  

Jonathan Miller: Yeah, and that's what, uh, Ryan discovers.  

Rachel Reynolds: It is. 
 

We're so happy to have you here today. So tell us a little bit about you, where you're from growing up.  

Ryan: Well, my dad was in the military, so we started off in Southern California. While I was born in Seattle, we were in Southern California for a little while. My mom Got sick and passed away. So I went back to live with my dad in Seattle for a few years. 

Rachel Reynolds: How old were you when she passed away?  

Ryan: Nine or 10.  

Rachel Reynolds: Okay.  
 

Ryan: And then we moved here in, we moved to Georgia in 93 ish.  

Rachel Reynolds: Do you have any siblings?  

Ryan: I have one sister and then I have a half brother and half sister at home.  

Rachel Reynolds: So did your dad get remarried when he moved to Georgia?  

Ryan: He did.  

Rachel Reynolds: Okay. So what was your childhood like? 

I mean, obviously, your mom died really young.  

Ryan: My childhood was chaotic. My mom was battling addiction, too. So she was struggling with bills and paying for everything, so we didn't stay in one place very long. She had a stroke at 29, so it ended up passing away, I guess, because of, because of it. She just didn't wake up one day after it. 

She was recovering, and it was probably four or five months afterwards. She just didn't wake up. Wow. So, not really sure what the causes of that were, but it was, her health was because of drugs and alcohol. It kind of runs through my family. In every direction. Like grandparents,  

Jonathan Miller: aunts, uncles,  

Ryan: cousins. Yeah, everybody. 

So  

Rachel Reynolds: it was just like a part of life for you?  

Ryan: Yeah, and I didn't, I mean, I knew when I was younger that it was bad and it was wrong. And I was kind of an anti, you know, when I was in high school I was the one that was like, you should never smoke cigarettes, you should never drink. And then one night I did. 

And that was the end of that. So what,  

Jonathan Miller: what  
 

Ryan: happened to get you to that point? It was, it was a party that I was at that got me started.  

Rachel Reynolds: Were you in Georgia at the time? I was. Okay.  

Ryan: I went to high school in Alpharetta.  

Rachel Reynolds: So did your dad struggle with addiction at all?  

Ryan: He did.  

Rachel Reynolds: Okay. So it was, it was both, like you had it from all sides. 

I did. Okay. So your life was always kind of riddled with?  

Ryan: I, it was, it, I saw it everywhere.  

Rachel Reynolds: What was it like as a kid seeing that?  

Ryan: I've been told I kind of had to grow up early. I've been learning a lot about that. Just being at the Potter's house, the responsibilities that I, that I would take on or felt like I had to take on sometimes. 

Can you give  

Jonathan Miller: us  
 

Ryan: an  

Jonathan Miller: example?  
 

Ryan: Um, getting a job early. I've been working since I was 13. Um, I didn't like having to ask for everything or wait. I went to high school in a pretty wealthy area. All my friends were driving to work. Mercedes and BMWs to school, and I didn't have a car until I was 18, and I bought my first car. 

I had to work for everything. What was your first job? Um, working at Foot Locker.  

Rachel Reynolds: Oh, that's fun.  

Ryan: But, you know, for three hours a night, because that was legally all we were allowed to do. And then it was roofing houses right after that, under the table, because you're definitely not allowed to do that.  

Jonathan Miller: Yeah. 
 

Rachel Reynolds: Did you feel like you had to do that? to help provide for your family?  

Ryan: Sometimes.  

Rachel Reynolds: Okay.  
 

Ryan: Sometimes. Um. There was just  

Rachel Reynolds: a lot of instability in the family. It  

Ryan: was. Yeah. My dad would be gone a lot. He worked a lot. And then, you know, he was doing whatever he was doing. So, I had to. So, you were on  

Rachel Reynolds: your own.  
 

Ryan: Most of the time. 

Rachel Reynolds: Did you feel lonely?  

Ryan: No, I, I've been with a woman since I was 16. So my ex wife and I got together when I was 16, uh, and I was with her for eight years, nine years. So, and then I've, I've been in like three long term relationships.  

Rachel Reynolds: So you're in Georgia, you are in high school and that's when you start dabbling in drugs. 

It was around,  

Ryan: it was around.  

Rachel Reynolds: I  
 

Ryan: mean, my environment at home never really led to it. I never, I never saw it at home. It wasn't like  

Rachel Reynolds: But you knew it was there. You always knew it was there, but you didn't see it? It  

Ryan: was. My dad never I saw it a lot with my mom. I saw a lot of abuse, a lot of really ugly Um, destructive stuff when I was younger. 

Okay. When I was older, I didn't see as much of it. It was more of like the social aspect of it when I was around it. My dad never really brought it around me. He would do that stuff outside of the house. I never saw it from him. Okay. So So you  

Rachel Reynolds: started using when you were  

Ryan: Sixteen. Sixteen. Ish.  

Rachel Reynolds: And then, how, like, it spiraled? 

Ryan: And then it just, I think I really spiraled when Alcohol had become a major part of my life when I had gotten married. When my son was born, my wife quit drinking, quit doing, you know, smoking marijuana, all that stuff.  

Rachel Reynolds: She's the one you were 16? Right. Okay, so you guys got together at 16. When did you get married? 

Ryan: When I was 20 One. Okay. So you guys  

Rachel Reynolds: were both doing stuff together.  

Ryan: Yeah.  

Rachel Reynolds: Okay.  
 

Ryan: Yeah. We did like experimental stuff in high school, but nothing for more than, you know, once or twice or like legitimately experimental. Like it wasn't a habit or anything. And she could stop drinking whenever she wanted. It wasn't a, she, she It was a dependence for me. 

I would make these promises, I'm not going to do it tonight, so it started in our relationship a lot. Okay. And it caused problems. I ended up moving to Florida and I became an operating partner of a bar down there. Um, and that was a free pass to drink.  

Rachel Reynolds: Right. All day,  

Ryan: every day, and nobody could tell me otherwise. 

Wow. I would, I would drink from nine o'clock in the morning until one o'clock at night when I got done. It just became, it became ingrained in everything that I did. It was a part of my business. It literally was like what I was paid to do all day long. Um, golf tournaments, everywhere we went, the cocktail hours, like it just became everything. 

So my relationship, I worked open to close for like two years, a hundred hours a week for about two years. I would go home to see my son. I would change, take a shower, I would leave a server or a bartender in charge just so I could go home and freshen up for the night. I felt like I had to be there all the time. 

I don't know, looking back on it, I feel like I was making excuses to not be home and kind of push away all my responsibilities.  

Rachel Reynolds: How old was your son at the time?  

Ryan: Um, he was four, almost four when we got, when I, when I ended up leaving. So our relationship imploded and I, I ran back to Atlanta. I came back to Atlanta and I thought we were going to take a break and I was going to work on it and fix it. 

And she told me when I left, if you leave, you're not coming back. Um, and I came back down to Florida to visit for a while and I just continued to go downhill. I started working at BMW, making a lot of money with no responsibility other than the money I was sending home.  

Rachel Reynolds: Why do you think you always, like, ran back to your addiction? 

Ryan: I don't know.  

Rachel Reynolds: Like, what do you think it was?  

Ryan: I don't know. I've tried to figure that out since I've been, I've been on this last, this journey for the last year and a half, and, and I can't figure it out. nailed down one specific reason other than I didn't want to feel the way that I was feeling. And for whatever you feeling, for whatever, I don't know. 

It, that's, that's the interesting thing. It's, it's such a, it's a combination of a lot of different things all the time. And it's not one thing that causes it. It was never like, Oh, I'm sad today, so I'm going to go drink or, Oh, I'm happy. It was whatever it was. Um, it was a lot of self sabotage now that I look at it and I've had time to talk about it with counselors and stuff. 

It's like every time I achieved any sort of success or happiness, I would just crap all over it.  

Rachel Reynolds: Did you feel like you didn't deserve those things?  

Ryan: A lot of times, a lot of times it felt, everything always felt temporary to me. There was always something in the back of my mind that said I was going to mess it up. 

Rachel Reynolds: Oh, interesting. Well, I, I wondered. I'm not, I'm not, obviously I'm not a counselor, not your therapist, but it sounds like your home life was a little bit like that.  

Ryan: A lot of it was. And so in, in this process, I've learned that I got a lot of that temporariness was from, my life was temporary. Everything was temporary. 

My living arrangements, my relationships, you know, everything, nothing lasted very long. So even losing  

Rachel Reynolds: your mom at such a young age, yeah.  

Ryan: And I, I never really dealt with that either. I felt like I did. I always thought I was very stoic and I, I handled it really well. In actuality, I just didn't deal with it at all. 

So it appeared that way, but I really didn't deal with it. And I don't, I'm not saying that I've, I've dealt with it now. I'm not really sure how you post, you know, how you, how you do that after the fact.  

Rachel Reynolds: Well, how does a 10 year old deal with their mom? Dying in a chaotic environment, you know, my  

Ryan: sister is still battling with it and it was 30 years ago Yeah, and it still is something that troubles her to this day. 

Yeah, and I'm not sure how you get over something like that You know it makes me really uncomfortable and people close to me tell me that somebody that they know has passed because I don't know how to I don't you know saying I'm sorry is the polite thing to say But are you because you don't I mean, you're sorry that it happened, but that's about all you can say. 

Jonathan Miller: Yeah Yeah  
 

Ryan: So when did you,  

Jonathan Miller: um, realize you had a problem and you needed to get help?  

Ryan: June of last year, I was sitting in my room and I had a gallon of vodka and I just quit my job. Um, and I felt like if I didn't do something, Right then that I was going to either finish that bottle and drink myself to death or I was going to fix it and get help and try to figure out why I don't care about myself enough to stop doing what I'm doing to say that I felt helpless and depressed is like it doesn't touch the way that I felt like I I didn't even care enough to think about suicide. 

I just was hoping I was going to drink enough to not wake up. But I didn't want to do that to the people around me. I wasn't afraid to die, I was more afraid to live. And it was like, I had made so many mistakes and treated, you know, I have a son that I wasn't a father to I gave up on a marriage that didn't deserve for me to give up on and it was alcohol. 

I had just diluted who I was as a person. I didn't know who I was anymore. That's all I did that I lived to just drink away that pain of of the failure and regret and all this when it starts to build up and it snowballs to a point where yeah, It feels like there's no way to get out of it. There's no, like, I've taken away every part of me that makes me a man and just washed it away with alcohol. 

And there's nobody that's ever going to listen to. The backstory or the context of what got me here and I have to accept that like I've I have to accept all of these Decisions that I've made and and try to do it and live today right now The way that I should be and try not to live that way And it's it's a that's probably the hardest thing about this is the acceptance And they talk about forgiving yourself. 

And I mean, that sounds good, but I don't know if I'm ever really going to be able to fully do that. I can operate in a place where I know that I'm going to be doing the right thing today, but I can't, it almost feels like I excuse it if I forgive it. And I know that's not right. And my, my counselor is like, that's not the way that works. 

You know, I can forgive other people much quicker than I can forgive myself.  

Jonathan Miller: So you're sitting, you're sitting in, in your room with a scowl on your face. And you're making, you're trying to make this decision. Um, I was  

Ryan: drinking so much that I couldn't even, I couldn't even stand up. Like not because I was intoxicated because my body was seizing so much. 

And like, I couldn't even go and go and use the restroom because I would, I was, when I would go to the liquor store, I couldn't put my pen in my, my, Card. My body was giving up. My liver was shutting down. I was getting yellow. Um, it was, it was bad. I had to have fluid drained off my abdomen because I was suffocating. 

My liver wasn't processing fluids anymore. It was wild. So how'd you end up? I still wouldn't stop. I went to the liquor store after I went to the emergency room. That's how insane I was.  

Rachel Reynolds: So how did you end up at the Potter's house?  

Ryan: I went to that  

Rachel Reynolds: day to the Potter's house. I went to detox.  

Ryan: Well, I went to detox the next day in Atlanta at St. 

Jude and I started looking for places that I could go that were free. And I talked to Ms. Camille and she was really, really cool and really helpful and answered all the million times I'd called cause I was there for seven days. So I had, I had to, yeah, when I was at detox, I had to, I wanted to find somewhere. 

Where I could go and I didn't know where that was  

Rachel Reynolds: and it sounds like you didn't want somewhere You didn't have the resources to go. No.  

Ryan: No, I didn't know. I just quit my job.  

Rachel Reynolds: Yeah,  
 

Ryan: I Had a few hundred dollars in my bank account  

Jonathan Miller: So during this time you have a son and your ex at the time, but they're in Florida. 

They're right You just quit your job. Is there anyone else in your life? In close proximity like a friend who's like, hey, you Encouraging you towards my dad.  

Ryan: My dad. My dad has been my dad and I are my dad and my sister are the only family I really have. Um, I don't talk to my mom's family. It's just not a group of, so my dad really, he, he saw me through my worst and has been encouraging. 

Rachel Reynolds: Is he in recovery?  

Ryan: No,  

Rachel Reynolds: no. Okay. Oh, but he, he thought you needed it.  

Ryan: Oh yeah.  

Rachel Reynolds: Okay.  
 

Ryan: Oh yeah. He's, he's been in, he's been in AA before,  

Rachel Reynolds: but  
 

Ryan: he can, he can moderate his stuff a lot better than I can. So he's perfectly fine.  

Rachel Reynolds: So how were the, so the seven days of detox, then did you go directly into Potter's house? I  

Ryan: went right there. 

I sure did.  

Rachel Reynolds: How did you feel? How were you feeling at the time?  

Ryan: It was overwhelming because it's one year when you're in a, in a condition like that emotionally, it was like my life was starting and ending at the same time. It was really bizarre because I didn't know what I was leaving behind, but I didn't know what I was looking forward to either. 

Like I was leaving, um, I was, it was a really weird limbo space I was in, but I remember, I've been there for a year and a half and a lot of things get blurry, but the first day that I was there I remember like it was yesterday. I remember every single moment of it, um, pulling onto the property, seeing the property, all the guys that were there. 

Who,  

Rachel Reynolds: how did you get there?  

Ryan: My sister.  

Rachel Reynolds: She dropped you off?  

Ryan: Yep.  

Rachel Reynolds: So you pulled onto the property, were you expecting it to be like a farm?  

Ryan: I don't know what I was expecting. It was overwhelming. You couldn't smoke. And that was a, that was jarring because especially when I was drinking really heavily, smoking was my, the next thing I did. 

Yeah. So that, that actually, I was able to get over that. Had I not come here, I wouldn't have been able to quit. And cause I just couldn't, I mean, it's like drinking, it's like, why don't you just stop? Well, that's easy to say it was much harder to do when you have a brain like mine. So that was one of the first initial things emotionally I had to like adjust to because it was like you're really aggravated and you're You know, yeah, but One of the most significant parts of this entire process for me is the people that have been in my path, good and bad, have made this process for me what it was. 

And up to the very first roommate I had. To the task that I was put on, which was in the kitchen where I was comfortable because I've worked in kitchens for a long time. Then I was put on landscaping, which I've been doing for a long time lately. Can you share like a story? Yeah.  

Rachel Reynolds: Tell us about that. Yeah. 

Ryan: Well, my roommate, uh, Brian, for example, he, when I first got there, he, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what the rooms were going to be like, you know, all these things are running through my mind. Did you have  

Rachel Reynolds: a roommate in Detox? I did have a roommate.  

Ryan: No. Okay, so you're by yourself. Yeah. And then you  

Rachel Reynolds: go to a roommate. 

Ryan: Right. In a relatively small room. Oh, yeah.  

Rachel Reynolds: Yeah, yeah. They're  

Ryan: small.  

Rachel Reynolds: Yeah.  
 

Ryan: I equate it to like a college dorm. Yeah. But smaller, with more crap piled into it. And this six foot eight dude pops over the cabinet and I'm like, Hey, what's up man? I was like, how do you like it here? He's like, better than jail. 

You're like, okay, that's our  

Rachel Reynolds: bar. He'd been there for,  

Ryan: I think he was two months in.  

Rachel Reynolds: Okay, better than Jay. And he's just,  

Ryan: uh, And I said, okay, well, that's a good start. And he was really friendly, offered to show me around. He was a chef in the restaurant business, so we automatically had some stuff in common. 

Okay. And he was like real tolerant of my, cause I'm, I'm real spastic and like I'm at a 10 all the time. It's taking me a lot to sit still right now.  

Rachel Reynolds: I wake  
 

Ryan: up that way. I'm just, I'm just, I'm constantly going and moving and tapping. So yeah. He, uh, he was just really accommodating of that. Like, he never really gave me a hard time about it. 

He just kind of let me vent. I remember I came back, somebody told me I was gonna have to wait for water, like one of the other clients, and I, it pissed me off. I was hot, and I was like, I can't believe this dude is telling me, and I go back to the room, and I'm just like, blah, blah, blah, and he's like, it'll be okay. 

It's gonna be fine. So there's been a lot of people like that that I've encountered.  

Rachel Reynolds: Was this your first time going through a recovery program?  

Ryan: I'd been to one before. Okay. Um, it was six months.  

Rachel Reynolds: No, how long ago had it been?  

Ryan: Like a year before that.  

Rachel Reynolds: Okay, so this is your second time trying recovery out.  

Ryan: And I realized now, the first time I was there, I was just trying to go back to work. 

I wanted to just dry out, sober up, and I was going to go back to work and everything was going to be fine. Right. And I was going to figure out myself emotionally later. I was, I just needed to stop drinking for a minute.  

Jonathan Miller: So what was the difference this time?  

Ryan: The difference now was I wanted to figure out what was making me feel like I had to feel different. 

Like I've stopped trying to figure out what, what feelings I was having and, and work through them. I'm not going to stop having them. It's what I do about them when I'm having them. So I'm going to be pissed off. I'm going to be happy. I'm going to be sad. I'm going to be in a relationship. I'm going to break up. 

You know, all of those things are going to happen. What I do about them in the space in between is, is what has been my downfall. And I think alcohol has allowed me to just not process that stuff. So it's not the emotions that I'm, I'm trying to achieve. It's what I'm trying to just ignore. I've used the excuse that, you know, it calms me down, you know, I'll smoke marijuana cause it'll even me out. 

Cause I'm always just wound up when really I just need to figure out, just learn how to be myself and just deal with that part. I don't need to change it. I don't need a chemical to change that.  

Rachel Reynolds: Did you ever feel like you could totally be yourself growing up?  

Ryan: No, no, and I think the first time I, I, when I started drinking, it was like, I felt like I was a better version of myself. 

The problem is you never get back to that. And it was a delusion to begin with, because I was not a better version of myself. I don't remember the first time I drank. I have other people's memories of what I did, but I don't have one of it because I was blacked out. Um, and that's the case a lot of times, you know,  

Rachel Reynolds: did anyone in your life, you know, have 

Ryan: I don't remember my ex wife specifically saying that, but she treated me that way. She treated me like I was.  

Rachel Reynolds: But it didn't sound like you had that really with your parents growing up.  

Ryan: No. No, I wasn't very close with my mom at all. My mom was abused a lot. I remember, um, I tried to protect her a lot. So I took some, I was collateral damage. 

Um, and some, you know, a lot of the incidents, but um, then when I was older, I just, I wasn't very, I'm a lot closer to my dad now that I'm older, but when I was younger, I wasn't. And it was a lot of just independence on my, on my own. Like I moved out when I was 17 cause I knew it all. You couldn't tell me anything when I left. 

Rachel Reynolds: Well, it sounds like you had to. It sounds like a survival.  

Ryan: I lived in a hotel for, I lived in a hotel for a year until I was old enough to sign a lease on an apartment. Wow. I had a full time job, I had to drop out, um, because I, I dropped out temporarily because I had to pay bills, so I had to work full time, but then I went back to an accredited, um, homeschool so I could get my diploma, but most homeschools, you can't get into college with them, so I had to take an accredited course to where I could get back into college, so I was able to do that. 

Yeah. I went back temporarily.  

Jonathan Miller: So I'm, I'm really curious, going back to discovering who you are, can you tell us Who is Ryan?  

Rachel Reynolds: Yeah.  
 

Ryan: That's a great question. I think I'm a lot more loving than I've ever been. Um, consider myself. I'm, I'm very, I'm very judgmental. I know all the negative parts and that's the kind of stuff that I, that I've focused on for a long time. 

So I'm, I'm judgmental and impatient and I've really been working on being more tolerant of people because of the patients and stuff that I was shown here and the tolerance that people have with me and for who I am, it really has made me think about how I treat people and, and I'm not. Yeah, but I'm definitely a lot more aware of what I give off and how I make people feel, which is something I haven't really cared about before. 

And I realized that now, like, leaving my ex wife and, and, you know, Just not giving a damn about other people. And just that lack of empathy. I never, I realized, I thought I was in a survival mode all the time so I could justify my behavior and it really is not justifiable. I would rather be in a place where I can be helpful and nice and be the guy that you call if you need anything and not to be the one you're afraid of. 

Or the one you don't want to call because he's going to give you a hard time, or I'm still going to do that but I want to help you when I do it, you know. Do it from a loving place and not from a place of judgment or, or hate. Like, it's, I'm trying to find that part of me cause that's, it's so much easier that way. 

I've learned that it's, it's not just like, It takes so much energy to be negative and I'm just trying to be positive and even in negative situations find that positivity  

Rachel Reynolds: Hey, nothing like living with like over a hundred guys to make you talk.  

Ryan: Well, yes So that's like a  

Rachel Reynolds: crash course in it, right? Oh,  

Ryan: yeah, there's been a lot of positive people Yeah, every single personality that I have conflict with has come across my path. 

Oh,  

Rachel Reynolds: I'm sure from isn't that how it works? Right  

Ryan: from the beginning.  

Rachel Reynolds: So tell us about um What have been some of the influential things of your time at Potter's House?  

Ryan: I would say, you know, being put on, on landscaping, the task that I was on. was really cool. It was a lot of responsibility. I was able to do a lot. 

Um, I felt proud of it. It gave me something that did. I didn't feel like I was just being given an assignment just to keep me busy. I was doing something that I felt like I was good at, that I enjoyed doing, that I had guys working with me, that, You know, I could help and teach and, you know, learn valuable skills that a lot of these guys, if they've never worked before, could take some of that stuff and take it on somewhere. 

So I just felt like I had a purpose for a little while. Going into leadership was, was really, really good for me. It gave me a lot more time. The program itself is a year. You do five months and then four months. six months or so, you do five months in like the clinical part of it. And then you do the six months working. 

But I did 10 months in leadership before I started working. So once I graduated, I was still in the program for another four months.  

Rachel Reynolds: How has the clinical side of it helped you?  

Ryan: Just talking to people that don't judge my story that just listen when, you know, I, I knew, um, You know, when I go talk to my counselor, I knew that I could say whatever I was, I could be completely honest and he would be honest with me, you know, my advocate, anybody that I encountered, I never felt like I was being pandered to or, or it was generic. 

It was always a unique situation to me. They knew that, cause I knew half the time I'm being ridiculous. You know, if I, when I was upset about something. Um, which was a lot because you're very  

Rachel Reynolds: self aware.  
 

Ryan: It's well, I have, I have, you know, when you're, I have a lot of time to think about what I'm doing too. 

And I do reflect on my behavior a lot. Yeah. Um, and I'm not, I, I'm not ashamed of it. You know, I'm so I have had to apologize a lot. And one of my goals since I've been here is to make the frequency of my apologies less or the need for them. So  

Rachel Reynolds: that's a good goal.  

Ryan: I know that i'm gonna be me. I don't want to change who I am I don't want to hurt your feelings in the process. 

I don't want to regret my behavior in the process That's been the biggest thing that i've i've noticed that i'm trying the most and is and there's been times at work Where this, it shows me why it's good that we have this little practice session to, to go to work while we're still in this kind of, you know, sterile work, uh, environment. 

So we kind of practice being a normal person because I realized I haven't been a normal person in 20 years. Everything I do has been just clouded.  

Jonathan Miller: Yeah. So, um, Ryan, I'm just really curious, what was it like to share your story for the first time with your counselor, whoever it was?  

Ryan: Freeing. It was, it was really nice. 

Was that the first time you've ever shared your story or who you were? In, in depth like that, probably. What's that  

Rachel Reynolds: part of the program called again, where you have to write it out?  

Ryan: Amends.  

Rachel Reynolds: Amends. Okay.  

Ryan: Amends. You have to write  

Rachel Reynolds: out the full story, correct?  

Ryan: Well, uh, well that you're, that's called houses. 

Rachel Reynolds: Houses. Okay.  

Ryan: Houses is your life story broken into houses. Different increments of years and that's part of the program that is part of the program that part No, I had never done that way and that was one of the most Unique experiences I've ever had. It was really overwhelming and it was a much more emotional than I thought it was going to be. 

Somebody told me that how freeing it was when you wiped it off the board because you have to write it all out and then you present it in front of a class of 40 people and it's nerve wracking. It's, it's really nerve wracking because you're telling everybody all of your stuff and then they get to sit there and critique you and ask you questions and it was good. 

It was really good. I didn't, I felt like I had gotten out like who I, who I am. This is me on a board in writing for all of you to see and ask me questions about. It was good.  

Jonathan Miller: And you talked about amends. Can you tell us what amends are?  

Ryan: Amends are a process that you go through and basically list all the people that you've wronged. 

You physically write a letter and then you decide whether you want to do it verbally, mail it to them, you can take it to the cross, you can burn it. However you want to process that letter, but you need to, you need to address what you've done. And it's not an apology, it's basically an acknowledgement and a commitment to not do those things again. 

because we've all apologized in the, in the program. I, we, by the other, other clients there, we, apologies, don't mean much coming from us anymore. Mm. So the amends is basically just saying, look, I, I know what I did and this is what I, this is what I know I did, and this is the things that, these are the things that I'm not gonna do anymore. 

Rachel Reynolds: That's powerful.  

Ryan: Yeah. And it's up to them whether they want to receive that or not. That's the other part of that. That's the vulnerability because a lot of people tell you to go somewhere and they don't want to hear it. And that's the hard part is because you have to decide. Do I, is this an emotional thing that I want to open up? 

Cause the chances of being denied are pretty high. Can  

Jonathan Miller: you going back to your story? I'm just thinking about that moment. You were just sitting in your room with a gallon of vodka and you must've felt Isolated. Um, can you tell us a little bit of what it's like to, to feel unseen, to be isolated to, to not have a community around you? 

Ryan: That night's really hard to explain. I, I felt if it were a movie, I would've been. on a theater stage and not one single person been in there. It like my, my little room felt huge and there was no, there was nobody in it. I had my phone at my disposal. I had a computer, I had, you know, people outside, but it was all just blurry. 

I, I couldn't, There wasn't anybody. And like I said, loneliness and desperation are not even, they don't even touch. I haven't been able to find a fairly articulate person. I can't find words to describe the way that I felt there. I didn't care if I died, I didn't care that I died. But I didn't, I knew that I didn't want to. 

But if I did, it was like this weird, I was like, I could reach down and take the bottle or I could leave it until the morning and hopefully I'd live until the morning and I could try to do something. And it was like I was battling that back and forth, back and forth.  

Rachel Reynolds: Do you feel bizarre, lonely, and isolated anymore? 

Ryan: No. No. Um, I have a lot of guys around me that I can talk to. I feel like it's easier for me to talk to about stuff, things that I'm, that were really difficult and I was ashamed of. Yeah. I just thought I shamed to be me. So I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't I didn't have anything to talk about. 

What was I gonna talk about? Right. What did you do today? Well, I sat in my room tried to drink myself to death That's not a conversation starter that anybody wants to have, you know, where do you work? I quit my job because I'm such an alcoholic that I can't shake enough. I'm shaking so bad that I can't work Like I wasn't a person anymore. 

I was just drinking to survive Because I felt like I was going to die if I didn't, but I was going to die if I kept drinking. It was either way. I was losing. I lost in everything that I did.  

Rachel Reynolds: Is, is being in a community of guys who've experienced that helpful?  

Ryan: Very much so. It doesn't feel, you don't feel so much, so judged with everything all the time. 

Rachel Reynolds: Yeah. It's got to feel like a, almost like a relief.  

Ryan: It does. Very much. Very much. What does the future look like for you? I'm really hopeful that I'm going to be able to experience life and its problems and be, and not run to a chemical to change the way that I feel about it. I'm accepting the fact that emotions are going to have, you know, I'm going to have emotions, they're going to happen. 

And that's okay. I can be sad. I can be mad. I can be happy. I can be all of these things and not add extra stuff to it because nothing good has ever, ever come from it. Ever. Ever.  

Rachel Reynolds: Are you in contact with your son?  

Ryan: Not yet. I hope to be. Yeah. That was one of those amends. I kind of made an indirect amends to her before I came here, and she told me in a very long text message that she didn't want to be a part of my recovery. 

Um, sorry. And I, I respect that. I, you know, I, that's a, that's something I hope. Um, I hope he wants to talk to me someday, but right now he doesn't.  

Rachel Reynolds: Well, I mean, what you're what you're what you've done for him and the trajectory of your life. It's totally changed. So that's this is what you can do.  

Ryan: Yep. Yep. 

Yep. I'm and you know, I need to be the best version of my if he does decide to if he makes that decision that he wants to talk to me one day, I want to be the best person that I can be when he when he makes that. So but if he doesn't, then I have to accept that also.  

Rachel Reynolds: So the future is looking. You have a job. 

Ryan: I'm very, very excited about my future. A year and a half ago it was live or die.  

Rachel Reynolds: Yeah.  
 

Ryan: And now it's like I have so many things that are options right now. So much life. I have a great job that I could stay at. Um, I want to get my CDL and travel and make myself valuable that way. And I can get a job anywhere, live anywhere. 

Move. I can, there's so many things I can do. I have a business plan for a different, um, trucking company down the road, you know, retirement investments, things that I never even can invest in money. I was just trying to pay my cell phone bill, you know, and I was checking stocks before I came in here and not that I've invested a lot, just, you know, a little bit, but that's sort of exciting enough to watch it go up and down. 

It's, it's, it's a whole  

Rachel Reynolds: new life.  
 

Ryan: It's a completely different life. If you would have told me I would have been sitting in this room doing this a year and a half ago, I would have been like, you are insane. There's no way I would do that. Um, I'm happy a lot. A  

Rachel Reynolds: lot of transformations happen. A lot. I can  

Ryan: sleep. 

I haven't been able, I've had insomnia for 10, 20 years. And I just thought it was something that I had. It was really just the emotional turmoil, you know, and sleeping pills and alcohol and all that stuff. I didn't sleep for a long time. But I sleep at night when I get home I go to sleep and I wake up and I haven't Wow, it's awesome It's  

Rachel Reynolds: like the little things like that that you didn't like you don't think about or you didn't think about  

Ryan: I had just accepted So much misery that I just thought that I was gonna live that way forever. 

This  

Jonathan Miller: is normal  
 

Ryan: I didn't know that I could feel like this.  

Rachel Reynolds: Yeah,  
 

Ryan: you know, it's it's awesome. It's it's It's great.  

Rachel Reynolds: Well one last question for you is A lot of the people that are listening to this will probably have somebody, um, maybe that's struggling with addiction. What would you tell someone? Um, how, how can they take the first step? 

What should they do?  

Ryan: Be encouraging and be patient. It's, it's really hard to When you, when you make the decision to be sober and be clean and stop addiction, it's, it seems impossible. But if, if you just keep Keep being supportive and being patient. Eventually, hopefully they'll see what they need to do. 

Rachel Reynolds: What about someone who's dealing with addiction? How do they take that first step?  

Ryan: You just have to do it. You just have to do it. It's scary, but the consequences of not doing it are misery and death. It is scary, but it's worth it. Every second of it's worth it. Every single second. It's been worth all of the struggle. 

Rachel Reynolds: Wow. Well, thank you. Thanks for sharing your story. Thank you. Thanks for being so generous with your story. I hope that the listeners, you were able to really just, Ryan has so much joy. And when he talks about what life was like a year and a half ago, he didn't have that. Um, that's, I think what stuck out the most to me is like seeing you sitting here today. 

I, it just, I can't imagine that place you were in a year and a half  

Jonathan Miller: ago. And I love, um, you Just what you were saying about discovering yourself. You know, alcohol and drugs sort of masked who you were, and now you get to learn who Ryan is. Right. You're in the process of discovery, and that's, that's exciting to me. 

Rachel Reynolds: It is. And even, I think the thing that really struck me about your story was you describing the space you were in that day of, you can't, you don't even have words to describe it.  

You don't have  

Rachel Reynolds: words to describe the, the amount of loneliness, the amount of isolation. And then as you drive up to the Potter's house, you meet your roommate for the first time popping over the, um, yeah, the cabinet, just like how community has really. 

Come around you and how that's such a part of your story now. So we hope you guys enjoyed Ryan's story as much as we enjoyed Ryan's story. Stay tuned to hear from our subject matter expert who talks about recovery and isolation and how community is so much a part of that. Wow, Jonathan, that was such an incredible story that we just heard. 

We are going to move into speaking to an expert on this. We have Dr. David Consoli with us, who is here to shine a little light on this, the neuroscience behind addiction. Hi, welcome.  

David Consoli: Hi, thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here.  

Rachel Reynolds: Oh, well we're, the pleasure is all ours. So tell us a little bit, give us a little bit about you, David, and kind of what you do. 

David Consoli: Yeah, so I am a neuroscientist, PhD neuroscientist, um, I studied, uh, cellular and molecular neuroscience, um, at Vanderbilt, um, did a couple research projects in the Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research, which was very, um, cool and memorable for me, getting to do some, like, electrophysiology on, on the rig is what we call it. 

I am so confused already. Oh, man. There's so many big words. All in, like, you know, the intricacies of what, you know. What causes addiction on a very small micro scale and so since then since my studies I have transitioned into consulting work and I got to do a couple projects for the NIH Helping combat the opioid crisis. 

And what's the NIH? National Institute of Health. So we're not  

Rachel Reynolds: gonna make you explain any of the other words Yeah,  

Jonathan Miller: he has a PhD. It took him a long time.  

Rachel Reynolds: Jonathan, can you translate that to me?  

Jonathan Miller: I'm the interpreter. Anyway, David, could you just help us understand? I think a lot of us, when we think about addiction and we're thinking about, you know, Um, bad choices. 

Someone's making repeated bad choices. Help us understand the brain science behind the cycle of addiction and why it's so hard to break that cycle.  

David Consoli: Yeah, absolutely. Addiction, I will say is one of the most complex diseases, uh, in neurological diseases that are being studied. It is. Influenced by so many different factors, right? 

There's physiological factors. There's psychological factors. There's social factors There's environmental factors and all of these things sort of influence the you know, progression of does it of addiction as a disease? It's even like a little nuanced right to think about addiction as a disease. It's been so stigmatized as something Um, that is more influenced by, you know, someone's willpower or their ability to choose things. 

And what we're learning about addiction is that it's so much more. Like other diseases, like cancer, where there's like different levels of severity, um, and how the brain responds to, um, drugs and substances over the course of someone's progression through addiction, it can get more and more severe without intervention in the early stages. 

And so, on the brain level, right, there's, there's kind of a variety of routes we can go. Would love to know what you're like most interested in hearing about. And I'm like, did you  

Rachel Reynolds: see what I just settled in? Because I heard you say brain level. So I was like, okay, buckle up.  

Jonathan Miller: Rachel's in for it. Yeah. Well, what really stood out to me from what you just said, um, really goes back to when we talk about homelessness and addiction, and we, we talk to people about what causes someone to be in homelessness. 

It's never just that one thing. It's such a layered and complex issue. And there's a lot of things going on. It's It's not really a choice, correct me if I'm wrong, but the more severe addiction gets in someone's life, the less agency they have to choose, right? Absolutely.  

David Consoli: Yeah.  
 

Rachel Reynolds: Yeah. What's actually going on in your brain? 

David Consoli: Yeah. So am I  

Rachel Reynolds: oversimplifying it? No, not  

David Consoli: at all. And it is, it is very complicated, but I hope, you know, for our listeners too, like you can understand it on a level that's very impactful. So there's sort of two like primary brain regions that are, influenced by addiction that we could say or substance use disorder. 

And, um, the first is the limbic system. The limbic system is sort of responsible for your survival instinct. So the limbic system is actually composed of three different brain areas. And we won't, we won't go any deeper than that. But if you think about The hippocampus, you might have heard of the hippocampus, right? 

It's associated with learning and memory. So that's a big part of, of your survival instinct. There's  

Jonathan Miller: going to be a quiz after this episode for our  

David Consoli: listeners. No. Yeah. And then there's the basal ganglia, which is responsible for the reward systems. That's probably the one that we're going to talk the most about today. 

There's also the amygdala, which is sort of a, Responsible for your stress response, how you respond to stress and how you respond to trauma. And so, when you're thinking about those three things in the context of survival, and in the context of people experiencing homelessness, you can imagine how disrupting each of those things sort of limits your ability to control your trauma. 

Um, your use of, of substances and it becomes less of a, of a burden upon the user to do that. It makes it so much more natural and easy for them to go back to using. The second brain area that's super involved and influenced by addiction is the prefrontal cortex. Sort of what separates us from, from animals, right? 

It gives us this higher level of thinking and, uh, this ability to control our impulses. And so, Between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex, disrupting each of those areas is what sort of leads to this, this cascading effect of addiction, falling further and further into the severity of addiction. 

Jonathan Miller: So when someone is using, correct me if I'm wrong, their brain is being rewired. with these drugs and substances,  

David Consoli: right? Yeah, absolutely. So if you want to talk about the reward system a little bit, right? In the basal ganglia, this is sort of like the, the central hub of Reward and behavior. And when it comes to our survival instinct, which I'm going to keep going back to survival instinct because in substance use disorder, uh, you're, these drugs are sort of hijacking that survival instinct, right? 

And so in an ideal world without, you know, Imagine that, you know, you're, you're going about your day and you're forming habits and you're doing things, you know, like eating and getting water and shelter and, um, being social, all of these things that contribute to our survival process. survivability as a species, all of those things require reward to reinforce that behavior. 

And so in an ideal world, that's sort of the process, right? You're doing these things that are helping improve our survivability. Your brain releases dopamine, which is sort of the reward part. Um, in the basal ganglia, right? And that reward reinforces each of those behaviors so that you're more likely to seek food, shelter, social interaction. 

Um, and that's, that's how people, you know, that aren't addicted to substances go about their day and enjoy the rewards. Now, when you throw in any type of, of trauma or situation that could, you know, Influence someone to want to use you sort of disrupted that that part of it, right? Because someone is then seeking relief as a reward and so they turn to Substances and when they do that it it hijacks that circuitry it will release it, you know, depending on the type of drug There's all kind of different mechanisms of how it influences The euphoria that's associated with a high but when You The brain experiences those, those highs, those euphorias and levels that are 10 times what's more natural. 

Your body rewires to think, okay, now those survival instincts are all pointed to the drugs. And instead of seeking food, shelter, and social interaction, your body is now trained, I need the drugs to experience those things. And it's associated with all of those behaviors. And so, you know, Your body is like, okay, you know, the environment that I was in when I was doing drugs, the process of getting to the drugs, all of those things are repeatedly reinforced in order to cause ultimately, you know, addiction. 

And it becomes like a survival instinct  

Jonathan Miller: to go back to that.  

David Consoli: Yeah, absolutely. And That's kind of what's, what's scary and very difficult for, for people. That's where the, the crux of it being a disease comes from, right? It's, it's no longer a, a control of, of willpower, right? Your, your brain has been wired to, uh, depend on the drugs and the substances as, as a means of seeking that reward. 

Rachel Reynolds: Yeah. Is it even possible? Like, that's what I'm thinking. Like when you're explaining this, is it even possible for willpower to overpower that?  

David Consoli: Yeah, and that's, that's what's really cool about the brain, right? If, um, we want to talk about recovery a little bit, right? One of the biggest misunderstandings, sort of, in neuroscience in the past couple decades, um, was that the brain doesn't change after, you know, Even your late 20s like that your brain is fully developed and it doesn't form new neurons and it doesn't form new connections That is not true at all. 

It's sort of been debunked, right? The brain is is constantly forming new connections building new neurons every single day The biggest factor is time and so for people who want to be recovering there's a lot of hope especially in the research field like there's all kinds of treatments and Things that are coming out of research that are helping people recover better, make it easier for recovery because it can target some of these areas that have been affected, you know, through the progression of addiction severity. 

Jonathan Miller: Um, I'm really curious when we're talking about the brain rewiring as people are using drugs and alcohol, when is the brain rewired enough that it becomes? becomes addiction where we say, Hey, the brain has altered enough. We've gotten to a place where we're not dependent.  

David Consoli: What's kind of tricky about that question is that the current model for substance use disorder is actually a couple of different levels of severity, almost, almost as if it was cancer. 

So there's like stage one severity, there's stage two severity. And it's sort of whether you're meeting these, these different criteria. One of them is, is like. Whether it's risky use, right? There's another one that's like physical dependence. So each of these, each of these criteria, you know, whether you're checking each of these boxes and in your use is what someone would use to, a doctor would use to diagnose someone with a certain severity of addiction. 

And the highest severity is sort of considered addiction. But what's great is that no matter your severity and In the addiction, you know, disease progression, you know, early intervention is sort of one of the best, the best ways to stop it before it progresses too, too far. And the farther, the farther more severe it gets, the, you know, the more work that it's going to take to, to crawl out of it. 

Rachel Reynolds: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about relapse?  

David Consoli: Yeah. The struggle is that, you know, your, your brain has, has all of these connections and, Luckily, because of our prefrontal cortex, which we talked about a little bit, right, you have this, this impulse control that can kick in, um, which is, which is really powerful for you to, you know, to overcome the, the subconscious feelings and drivers that lead you towards, you know, relapse in substance. 

use again. What's so difficult about relapse too is that, you know, a lot of times, especially for people experiencing homelessness, right, they may go back to their previous environment after having completed a program or something. And when they go back to their environment, right, their brain recognizes all of these cues in their environment that used to say, we're about to use. 

And it's very difficult for Uh, that impulse control to kick in and to know that, but, you know, knowing that those signals are coming from your brain, you know, and how it was wired is also a really powerful influencer in your ability to avoid relapse, right? If people just know, Oh, of course, I'm experiencing this phenomenon. 

My brain is telling me, you know, that. I need to go back and use, but there's power  

Rachel Reynolds: in that knowing.  

David Consoli: Yeah. And I, I don't have to, I, I have the mind power. I've been trained for this. I have completed the program. And, you know, if I, if I were to go back to that environment and have to go back to that environment, like I can, I can be strong and know that, you know, I can overcome this because of my prefrontal cortex. 

Well, and that's a  

Rachel Reynolds: lot of the guys that we talked to up at the Potter's house. They talk a lot about how. In our program, there's a, there's a clinical side that they do some classes around what it actually does to your brain. And they said that that's one of the most empowering things for them is understanding that it is a disease, what it does to their brain. 

So that they can, they feel more equipped to know about it than just say, stop doing it.  

David Consoli: Yeah. And I think too, like the, the guilt that a lot of people feel like that it's all on themselves, you know, to, to do it alone. And that's a big part of the recovery process too, right? Is, is building this, these new habits, these new habits of social community and support that ultimately can, can help you resist the urge to relapse and those types of things. 

So.  

Jonathan Miller: And so while we're talking about recovery, how does the brain heal and is it possible for someone to fully?  

David Consoli: Yeah, I think, um, stories like the stories that, um, we've heard so far, I think, are really powerful demonstrations of the power of the brain to heal. Um, and the research continues to show that the brain is, is capable of healing. 

Um, and again, the, the biggest factor really comes down to time. And so the further, the further away you get from, you know, your. your initial use or your trauma, the better your chances are of fully healing and recovering. It's called neuroplasticity, which you might've heard of before. Our boss loves  

Rachel Reynolds: to talk about neuroplasticity. 

Yeah. Loves it.  

David Consoli: And it's, it's the, it's the, the hot, sexy word in neuroscience at the time, right? Everybody loves it. It talks about neuroplasticity and it's because your, your brain and as it, as it heals is capable of, of building new receptors, new connections, um, and strengthening the ones that are most important. 

And so if you're forming these habits and building this community, all of that is building towards your recovery long term.  

Rachel Reynolds: Wow. I feel like this was so inspiring. Insightful. Well, it plays so well into all the stories that we've, we're, we're, we hear, we're hearing is that, um, recovery is possible. 

Absolutely. Not only from a brain science, but from a heart perspective as well. Yeah. Um, so. And from  

David Consoli: a disease perspective. And from a disease perspective.  

Rachel Reynolds: I think that's, it's, you know, even, you know, once an addict, always an addict. And it, it, sometimes it feels very daunting of like, we can't change. It's not going to get better. 

And so it's really encouraging to hear that from, um, your perspective. So thank you so much for being here with us today. Yeah. so much. I feel like we went to school. Yeah. I hope all of our listeners feel like they went to school, but I really hope that, um, you got so much out of what David had to share with us, um, about how the brain works and why it's so important for people who are in the midst of their addiction to get help because it is possible with time, all of the resources that we have for them to get better. 

Yeah. It can change.  

Jonathan Miller: Absolutely.  
 

Rachel Reynolds: I feel empowered that my brain can change.  

Jonathan Miller: Yeah. That's encouraging. So I do.  

Rachel Reynolds: I'm like, okay, how, of course, everything, how does it pertain to me? How are we going to move forward with this? I'm like, yes, I can get smarter. So we hope you enjoyed this episode today and please keep listening as we bring you even more insights into some of these issues. 

We'll see you next time.  

Tensley Almand: Thank you so much for listening and engaging with these challenging yet vital conversations about mental health. Take care. addiction, homelessness, and trauma in our city. Facing these issues head on is how we ignite real transformation in Atlanta. Thank you to our season sponsor, the Scott Pryor Law Group. 

The transformation you've heard wouldn't be possible without incredible partners like the Scott Pryor Law Group, personal injury and accident attorneys. Their compassion and dedication to our community fuels stories of transformation just like these. If you are injured in a semi truck or car accident, call the Scott Pryor Law Group. 

As a U. S. Marine, we fight and win for you. Our clients are family for life. We handle all types of injuries. You focus on healing, and we handle the rest. Now, if today's episode inspired you to take the next step, we would love to invite you to join the work that God is doing here. There are two really impactful ways for you to get involved. 

First, you can give financially to help us continue the work you heard about today. Second, you can volunteer your time by serving at one of our campuses. You can find all the ways to give and get involved at atlantamission. org. Thank you again for being part of this journey. Please join us next time as we uncover more powerful stories and transformation.