Daniel Hearn Sharing and Caring Hard Knox Talks

The Addiction Podcast Point of no Return.

Hey, everybody.

Thank you for joining us today on the addiction podcast Point of no Return.

I will tell you that the story that is coming up is not for the faint of heart, so be prepared for that.

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Daniel Hearn, thanks for being with us today, Mr. Podcaster on our podcast.

Thank you for being with us today.

Yeah, well, thanks for having me.

I know that I've been putting feelers out towards you guys for a couple of years now, and I know that, you know, big wheels turn slow and all that.

So I'm, I'm glad that we finally aligned and I'm happy to be here and hopefully we can share some hope with your community today.

I love it because that's the whole purpose, is to have people hear your story and go, wow, if he can get clean and sober, I can.

Or my son can, or my husband or my father or somebody I know who's addicted can get clean and sober.

So that's the whole purpose.

Yeah, Daniel.

Because we know that you know people who listen to podcasts and you probably know this as well, they don't necessarily listen to the whole thing.

So start us off with a bang.

Like, how bad did your situation get with your addiction?

Hello, I'm Joni Siegel, the host of the addiction podcast.

In 2022, over 100,000 people died from drug and alcohol abuse, and that number is growing daily.

Fentanyl poisoning, pot, cocaine, heroin, and even psychedelics and alcohol all contribute to this crisis.

While we're bombarded with promotions from thousands of rehabs.

Newborns are born addicted, and the majority of homeless people struggle with drug addiction.

Drug dealers exploit online resources to sell to teens, and antidepressant use is spiraling out of control.

This podcast features brutally honest guest interviews, revealing harsh realities and offering hope and solutions through stories.

We don't sugarcoat anything.

Guests speak raw and real.

More importantly, you'll find inspiration to understand, overcome, and achieve recovery, whether for yourself or to help others.

Some within your own family, many among your friends or associates.

Whether you're seeking help or just a glimmer of hope, our podcast equips you with the latest insights to confront this generational battle.

Many listeners tell us they want to join the fight, but do not have the time or money to act, lobby, or just help.

If that's you, go to www.patreon.com the addictionpodcast and see how you can help.

Well, on my darkest days, I mean, my son was apprehended.

I was near homeless.

I'd gone from business owner to.

To dumpster diver, addicted to meth, addicted to fentanyl.

My.

My son's mother, Donna, who we will be hearing from in a future episode.

She left the family home after our son was apprehended.

She ended up homeless, on the street, using IV drugs, tied up with gangsters in an extremely domestically violent relationship.

I found myself being held hostage.

I got locked under my house and left to find my way out.

And on one fateful day, I decided to live a safer way.

Wow.

Yeah, I would say that.

Yeah, that would be a rock bottom.

Yeah.

Is that a bang?

Yeah, I like it.

It works for me.

So, Daniel, just a little bit about your background.

Like, when did you get started with drugs and, or alcohol?

How did you start?

Yeah, well, you know, it wasn't something that I, that I necessarily grew up around in the home.

By the time I came around and was old enough to start having memories, my, my father had put the plug in the jug.

He found his way into Alcoholics Anonymous.

He was a very staunch program guy.

So.

So I grew up going to AA meetings.

You know, I was, I was the kid in the back playing the games and running around outside and.

But something about that didn't really stick to me.

It, you know, I was hearing the stories, but they weren't landing.

That was somebody else.

Right.

Like, that wasn't me.

And did you.

Did you.

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

I try not to do that.

But did.

Did it.

Did you understand at that point that it Was something your father needed to do, or was it just someplace he took you once a week and you got to play?

I mean, I. I had some understanding, but.

But as far as how badly he needed it and why he needed it, I. I didn't.

I didn't have any, you know, because I didn't witness his rock bottom.

I wasn't around for when things were bad between him and my mother, so.

But I.

But I do know.

And my mother tells the story that she found him, like, how they met.

She found him under a bar room table.

So, you know, the history is there.

And now that I'm old enough to understand it, it makes perfect sense that I went down the.

The trail that I did.

Even.

Even though my mother is an addictions counselor, she's now retired, but we'll talk a little bit more about that later.

But when I was around 10 or 11 years old, I started asking my father questions.

I became curious because I was hearing stories at school.

You know, living in small towns, drinking is on the forefront, right?

And a lot of my friends were being exposed to that, and they were drinking, and they were laughing about it on Monday and talking about all the wild stories and all the fun they had.

And so I would go home and I would ask my dad, like, well, what does beer taste like?

And what does.

What does vodka taste like?

And eventually he started to get angry with me.

And I'm sure that was from a place of concern, knowing what I know now, but he was like, why do you want to know that?

You know?

And.

And I didn't really have a solid answer for him other than I was hearing stories from school.

So.

When I turned 13, though, the opportunity finally presented itself.

I was.

Went for a sleepover at a friend's house, and we.

We got someone to get us some beer.

And my first drunk was a blackout.

There was no.

No concern at all.

I wasn't worried about consequences.

I. I cracked those beers, and I drank them as fast as I could.

And you went from zero to 60 in an evening?

Yeah, you know, and I woke up the next morning, you know, and not.

Not to be too graphic, but it is what it is, right?

Like, I woke up the next morning soaked in my own urine.

My pants were across the room, also soaked.

The bed I was in was soaked.

Everything was wet.

And, you know, his parents were upstairs the whole night.

I'm certain that we weren't just sitting down there quiet, you know, so nothing was said about it.

And I went to school, you know, and.

And this speaks to the level of the insanity that I was already engaging with and bragged about it.

You know, you.

You would, you would think that having that experience and waking up in that state would be like a wake up call.

Like, oh, maybe this isn't as fun as I thought.

As I thought it would be.

But to me, it felt like a badge of honor because now I can.

I have a story that equals the stories that I'm hearing with school.

Oh, yeah.

I blacked out and, you know, all.

Of this stuff blacked out and I wet my bed.

Yeah.

And I don't know, like, I was.

I thought I was proud of that.

I understand.

I understand.

So did you then.

So then how did it progress from there?

Because, I mean, at that point you're only 13 and was it just pretty much alcohol for a while or how did it progress?

Yeah, well, it was.

My life immediately became about Friday night.

You know, my whole week was spent trying to scrape up enough money to get a mickey on Friday night and try to do it all over again.

When I turned about 14 or 15, that's when I was introduced to marijuana and hash oil.

And the insanity around that is that, like, after the first time I did it, I didn't like it anymore.

Like, it made me anxious.

I didn't like the way that it, you know, it.

Like, I would literally be sitting in the corner rigid with anxiety.

I don't know if you've ever been there before or not, but it was something that I kept thinking I could do better.

You know, every time I got some, I like, well, maybe I'll only have one puff or maybe I'll smoke it this way or that way or whatever.

And every time it was the same result.

Paralyzed with anxiety.

And I just kept doing it and doing it.

Yep.

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Yeah, and from there.

Yeah.

And so when I, when I turned 16, I moved from the small town I was living in to a bigger city where I currently am now.

I stayed, it's Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

And everything became more abundant, you know, and I never fit in in the town that I lived in.

I was always trying to hang out with the rough crowd because I perceived that as, as freedom.

I perceived that as power.

Right?

They didn't have to listen to nobody.

They showed up to school whenever wanted.

I mean, that seemed like a, like a, like a life that I wanted.

But I, but I never really fit.

I was, I was a small little, you know, like small little white kid with big glasses and a weird haircut.

So I, I didn't fit the mold and as a result I got bullied often.

I got taken advantage of often.

But when I came to Saskatoon, the, the diversity of people that were around me.

I mean, now I'm going to a school that has 1500 people in it, right?

So I, there was a lot more people for me to, to choose a friend group from.

And I, im immediately gravitated towards the potheads.

And I wasn't as interested in drinking anymore.

But again, the insanity of it all, I would.

I started smoking morning, noon, night, before school, at school, after school.

And each time I did, I would find that anxiety again.

So I wasn't even enjoying myself.

But for whatever reason I needed to escape what I thought I was.

And at that point I really didn't even know, right?

So when I was, I would say around 17 years old, oh, I might have to do a retake here.

So I graduated high school and I immediately started going to work.

I got a job welding and of course in the trades.

We know there's no shortage of substances to, to talk about and to experiment with.

And I think by the time I was 21, I was introduced to cocaine.

I tried crystal meth.

And that became, that became home for me.

You know, it gave me what I needed to, to be social to.

I never really had much luck with women in my younger years.

For, for whatever reason, I found myself feeling rejected, isolated, hanging out with the rough.

Cr.

Wasn't.

I wasn't the toughest guy in the room.

You know, I wasn't the.

The most handsome or whatever the case is, the most chivalrous, whatever that is.

But the.

The cocaine and the meth, they sort of.

They sort of removed that.

And now I felt like I was the most interesting guy in the room, you know?

So I got into welding school.

I.

And I.

And I was successful in it.

I became a journeyman welder, and I would.

I went up north welding.

I don't know.

Where are you from, by the way?

Well, I'm a military brat, so I lived all around.

Right now we live in Florida.

But I. Oh, yeah, yeah.

But my dad was in the air force, so we moved around.

Okay.

Well, in.

In.

In Canada, there's a.

Northern Saskatchewan in northern Alberta.

And there's a lot of mine sites up there.

There's mines all over this place.

But I started going up north to weld because the money's really great up there.

And by this time, I was using crystal meth and I was using cocaine pretty habitually, actually.

But the thing that I noticed was that when I would go to these places to work where drugs were rampant because there was a lot of money and a lot of men isolated up in these camps.

Uh, but I. I had no desire to use.

It's like as soon as I got out of that social situation, that social environment that I.

That I thought that I belonged in, I. I didn't need to use anymore.

And.

And it's not that I. I was.

Just gonna say I think that that's fascinating because I was gonna ask you a question.

Welding can be kind of a dangerous profession, I think.

And to be actively using drugs while also dealing with blowtorches.

I don't know.

You're making me nervous, Daniel.

Maybe that's why I use drugs so much.

Okay, but.

So.

So you didn't want to use when you went on the trips.

It's.

It's interesting.

Maybe that was part of it.

You knew you needed to be aware.

Well, no, and I don't think that was it really, because I was welding in Saskatoon long before I, like, got my journeyman ticket and went up north.

Right.

And I.

We would.

We would smoke weed and do all of the things right in the shop during break time, you know, And.

And if we're talking about the dangers of welding, let's not forget high voltage Tony.

160, 200Amps.

That'll.

That'll get.

That'll wake you up.

I'm just saying I don't want you to be mentally impaired.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well.

Well, thankfully for both of us, then I'm.

I'm not in that space anymore.

I survived myself, fair enough.

So.

But, yeah, so when I.

When I got out of that social environment, it wasn't that I had to even try to not use, like, the.

The desire to use just fell off the map for me.

And I would go.

Yeah.

And I would go up to work, and I would mind my own business.

I would work hard.

They had a beautiful facility up there for us to stay in, so I would go to the gym.

I learned to play the guitar.

I even wrote some music, you know, but as soon as I would come home, like, I would already be making plans on the way home, like, I would be calling the dealer, you know, and when I got home, it was.

It was full on partying, women, going to the bar, all kinds of things.

Wow.

So I had bought a house by this time, so, of course the party would go to my house after the bar.

And in 2008, I. I met Donna.

Yeah, the love.

The love of my life.

And, you know, it was interesting that the things that I found appealing about her, they weren't the attributes that have brought us back together and kept us together.

What I knew about her at the time was, first thing, she was hot.

So I loved her at the time.

That's all it took.

Yep.

You know, but the second thing was, is that she liked to party as much as I did.

Now, at that time, she hadn't dove to the depths that I was currently living in.

I was.

I was very much a functioning addict at this time, particularly when I came home.

So shortly after that, after we met, there was a massive layoff.

This was 2008.

And anybody who's listening from Canada who's as old as I am will probably remember because 1500 tradesmen, mass exodus from Fort McMurray.

And.

And by this time, I had recognized that it was a pattern.

I'd recognize that as soon as I leave town, the desire to use just melts away.

Like, it's not even a thought on my mind.

And in fact, I don't even remember looking forward to using when I got home, when I was up there, that's how far off of the radar it went for me.

But by this time, I had noticed.

And I remember on the drive home after being laid off, knowing that I wasn't leaving town anymore, I'm like, I'm in trouble.

Right?

And.

And.

And, you know, I was right.

As soon as.

As soon as I got home, Donna And I got together again.

I introduced her to meth.

And that's something that I've, I've learned to make peace with.

But we jumped off a cliff together, metaphorically.

I, I started a welding company and, and honestly it was going really great for, for a while and then I got, I started to get sicker and sicker into my disease, into my disorder and I thought that maybe I could manufacture meth.

And so Donna and I, you know, Donna worked in the, in the legal profession for a lot of years so she could clean up good.

She knew, she had those working in lawyers offices, she knew good language and she had nice professional clothing.

So we would get dressed up and we went to different suppliers in town and we bought this chemical and that chemical and we went and bought this equipment and that equipment and I, I did my best.

I did my best, but I'm a welder, not a chemist.

So looking back now, very, very fortunately so that I, I never actually pulled it off because I was trying to manufacture on a very large scale.

I was, I was convinced that I was going to break bad and never have to work for the man ever again.

So, so back to welding.

I went after a number of months and everybody knew, like, I don't know how I didn't get caught.

Like I had a full on lab in my garage.

Wow.

Yeah.

You look like you wanted to jump in there.

No, I was just.

Wow.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

And you made me think of Breaking Bad, the TV show.

It's a popular one.

Yeah.

The men in my family.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I'm, I'm not, I'm No Walter.

I see.

Yeah.

And not even a Jesse.

So, so I went back to welding and I, I changed the skyline in the city that I live in.

Like I'm, I'm, I'm a good welder.

I can, I'm good at building things.

And then one night it was discovered that Donna had a.

A loved one that used OxyContin for, for pain management and, and properly, this, this wasn't something that they were, that they were dependent on for any other reason than to manage the quality of their life.

So before you know it, Donna and I are over there and Donna's complaining about back pain and how Tylenol doesn't touch it.

And of course this person wanted their loved one to feel better.

And, and that's how we started with oxycontin.

And I'll tell you, when we tried that, when I tried that, I was home.

I was home.

You know, the people everybody wants To.

To feel better.

This.

This isn't an addiction thing.

This is.

This is a human condition thing.

And if you look around, whatever, wherever you're listening to this from, and if you look around, there's.

There's nothing that you won't see that isn't a direct result of someone trying to feel better.

And that goes down to the car you might be sitting in, the glasses on your face, the paint on the wall.

Everybody's trying to be okay, and they're taking steps towards doing that.

Yep.

When I.

When I took that first hit, everything was okay.

Hmm.

Everything was okay.

And it wasn't long before I couldn't.

Before our loved one couldn't supply us anymore.

They're like, look, we need this for pain.

We can't give it all to you.

Yep.

So we did what we had to do.

There was some doctor shopping, some prescription forging.

There was this, there was that.

You know, because we were.

We were still trusted in our community at this time.

Eventually that all dried up and.

And we.

We ended up finding these green Oxy 80s on the street.

At least that's what we thought they were at the time.

Right.

Right.

This was.

This was before everybody knew what they were.

We thought we were getting oxy 80s and we thought that for a while.

What we know now is that that was fentanyl.

Right.

And we're.

And we're lucky to be alive.

Yes, you are.

Because we, like, our habit exploded.

And I stopped showing up to work because I didn't have to do anything to feel better.

I could lay on the couch and smoke cigarettes and do rails and watch Judge Judy and everything felt just fine.

Right.

You know, and eventually the phone stopped ringing and we were spending upwards of a thousand dollars a day on fentanyl, you know, and Donna was working at the time and just.

Well, you know how it goes.

It's.

Yep.

It just gets worse and worse.

And my business failed and I got a job trying to make ends meet, and I lost that.

And then one day I came home and Donna curled up on the couch beside me, and with all of the love and tenderness she could muster, she said, I'm pregnant.

Wow.

Now, for people that are in a good way, like people that are productive in their life and have healthy habits and healthy mechanisms to deal with whatever, that's shocking, life changing news for them.

Right.

For two people that are seemingly hopelessly addicted to fentanyl and a lot of it, that's.

That's.

We thought that was bad news.

That's terrifying.

Terrifying.

Yeah.

So we had the conversation.

Right.

That, that, that I feel like most people in our position would, are we gonna, are we gonna keep it?

Are we gonna, are we gonna quit?

What are we, what are we gonna do?

And, but by the grace of something bigger than me, we decided that we were going to keep it and we were going to take steps towards wellness.

And we tried to quit on our own very briefly and it didn't work.

And we'd slip and we'd slide.

And it was only a couple of weeks went by where we're like, you know what we need, we need help.

We need help with this.

So we ended up in the methadone clinic and the doctor there was very sympathetic to what we were going through and he saw that there's still hope here.

You know, there's still hope and there always is still hope.

If you're still breathing, there's still hope.

Right.

So we, we got on the program and we.

Our life stabilized.

I was able to work and Donna was able to, to take care of herself at home and prepare and do the nesting and all the things that pregnant women do, you know, and, and life seemed to find some level of normalcy.

But we leaned on the medication.

We didn't do any of the work that, that, that is so important when we're talking about dealing with our traumas and our addictions.

Yeah.

I mean, right, wrong or indifferent, you substituted one drug for another.

Yeah, that, that's safe to say.

You know, I can't, I can't argue with that.

But at the time we didn't, we didn't see that.

You know, the only, the only meetings that we went to at that time, Narcotics Anonymous, we would use before the meeting, we would go to the meeting and then we would use after and then be like, oh, we're doing good.

You know, like so, so our baby was born, our little boy, he was born without the need for maintenance, which, you know, but by the grace of something bigger than me.

Yep.

And, and life continued on and it got really real.

You know, you, you, you think that you can prepare for a child coming into the world, but there's, there's nothing that can prepare you.

It is a game changer.

I told my daughters in law that it is a game changer.

Like it is no longer allowed you and your husband.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a game changer.

Whatever lens you have on the world pre child is gone.

Yeah, that's right.

You know, and there's, there was those moments where like our life is over, you know, the, the level of excitement just changed.

And the challenges, let me tell you, like even to this day, the challenges that I have raising these children is incredible.

How many do you have now?

I have, there's two.

I have two.

Yeah.

And how old are they now?

Greatest teachers.

One, I have a seven year old girl and an 11 year old boy.

And the 11 year old boy is the one that I'm currently talking about now.

I got it.

Okay.

Yeah, I interrupted you go ahead.

No, that's fine, that's fine.

I appreciate it.

I can take a breath.

Maybe I'll have a drink of water.

Give me one second here.

I'm feeling a little parched.

It's okay.

This is actually good because I'm going to be, we're going to be delivering keynotes in November and I'm a little rusty, so there you go.

Yeah.

So you have a, you have a baby and now the game is completely different.

So what happened after that?

Well, we tried to continue on again.

We were leaning on our medication and, and, and, and stable.

Right.

Like we don't have any desire to use or anything like that.

Working.

Donna, staying at home, taking care of the baby, taking care of herself.

And then one night about, I think about six months in the, the conversation happened like, you know, we're doing pretty good.

We never really had a problem with cocaine.

You know, we know, we knew that our neighbor sold it.

So, you know, let's celebrate, you know, we've earned this.

We've worked hard.

Maybe you've heard that before.

You look at you.

I, I mean, I get it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and it's not like, you know, this isn't the only time that that story's been told.

So, and, and whatever you thought would happen did.

We did it one night.

And then, well, we'll do this once a week, you know, and so we did that for a couple weeks and oh, well, let's do it twice.

And oh, this week was really hard.

Let's do it.

And, and before you knew it, we were using every day.

And our, our dealer friend across the street had more of a conscience than we did because he was, he, he was yelling at me like, look what you're doing.

Do you know you spent $350 this week on cocaine?

You know, and eventually he, he cut us off because he, he didn't want to be a part of that.

He saw our life, he saw what we'd gone through and how things were and coming back and getting better.

So we didn't have another cocaine connection.

So.

But we did have a meth connection.

So now we're on the, we're on the methadone program and we're using method and we're failing drug tests.

And at that time when you failed a drug test, you.

You got kicked off the program.

So we got rapidly tapered off of the methadone and continued our lives using meth.

And that's when things really started to get dark.

I lost my job.

I developed sores on my face.

I was being belligerent to people at work.

I was misrepresenting my, my company and losing them clients and stealing copper, stealing whatever I could.

And when I, I lost my job, I, I decided that, you know what, maybe I'll start a recycling company.

So, so now I'm dumpster diving.

And you know, and then the level of insanity is here is like, I'm thinking like, well, what if I can get contracts with these companies so that I'm the only one that can go into their dumpster and get their recyclables?

And, you know, I look back at that now as an entrepreneur and I'm like, you know, maybe that's not an awful idea.

Maybe, however, when you're showing up looking like I looked, I don't think anyone's going to want to look at that contract.

So at this point, yeah, right.

And at this point, so now I've, I've, you know, my license is revoked because I didn't renew it, basically.

And so I'm driving without a license.

I'm driving without registration.

I'm nodding out at the wheel.

I'm crashing into buildings because I'm nodding out.

I'm.

One night I did, I played ping pong down, down my street and smashed into a car on this side and bounced and smashed into the car on the other side and then just went and parked in my driveway like nothing happened.

And I had all the colors of every paint that, of the cars that I like.

I don't know how I didn't get caught for that, you know, so eventually all my vehicles are gone.

The heat is turned off in the house.

Donna is in the house going more and more into psychosis because I'm detaching more and more from her and the reality of our, of our situation.

The house is filling up with garbage because I bring home everything that's shiny.

You know, it doesn't matter if it has value or not.

Even, even the litter box stopped getting changed.

The cats were just using the upstairs as the litter box.

So we just didn't go up there and Bad.

Meantime, you have a baby.

Yeah.

Yeah.

By this time, he's about two, two and a half, so he's running around in diapers.

And we have a space cordoned off in the house where we.

We called it the compound, where it was just the space.

It had a baby gate on each side, and this is where he could be safe.

Outside of that, there was broken glass, There was torn apart electronics.

There was all the bad things.

And bad people started coming around.

We'd skirted gang involvement this whole time, up until.

Up until now, because I'd run into some people that.

That knew how to.

Knew where to get copper, knew all the things.

So I started doing thefts, and that's where I. I met some really bad people.

And I invited them into my home, and they started coming around a lot.

And Donna, her.

Her resentment towards me for completely detaching was.

Was reaching a fever pitch.

I would come into the house.

There would be food thrown all over the place.

You could tell that obviously.

Obviously, she was raging around in here.

I would come in, she would be passed out under the table crying, or there would be knives stabbed into things.

There would be.

She would think that there are bugs in her hair trying to get into her eyes.

They were in the drywall.

She would take blowtorches and cleanse the counter and burn the counter before she made food.

It was.

It was bad.

And I was just as bad.

I was in the garage using my welding skills to build a little motorbike, and.

Which I pulled off, by the way, with a little Briggs and Stratton engine.

And I built a little trailer so that I could go around and do my dumpster diving, right?

And, like, I drove past all kinds of cops on this little.

Little pocket bike almost with no helmet.

Like, the.

The soles were worn out of my shoes because I didn't have brakes.

And.

And I'm sure the police were just looking the other way because I was too much paperwork or something, you know, so.

So that was.

That's where.

That's what we had become.

Okay.

And is that the house you're in now?

No.

Oh, okay.

I thought you said here.

And I was.

I was worried.

Yeah.

No, no, no.

Sorry.

This is.

This is definitely a different home now.

We'll get there.

And one of these people, one person that was coming around, he was.

Donna knew him from high school.

You know, it's.

It's a city, but it's not that big.

And they became friends.

And.

And in my psychosis, I'm like, oh, good.

Donna finally has Someone to talk to so that I can go into the garage and rip VCRs apart.

And they became close.

And one day I walked in and they were laying on the floor together, and I didn't still.

I stepped over them, and I went and watched tv.

Just completely detached from the reality.

And then one day, there was a knock on the door.

And when Donna opened the door, there was two social workers standing there.

They sort of forced their way in, and they looked around the house, and they saw the chaos, and they saw the garbage and the cat feces and all of the things.

And then they called the police.

And now there's two policemen standing in our living room looking around at the chaos, seeing it a thousand times before.

They were cracking some jokes and laughing, and it's like they were on coffee breakfast.

And then we got the news that they were apprehending our son.

And Donna collapsed.

Her life shattered.

And as they took my son out of our front door, three years old, the last thing I handed him was his favorite stuffy puppy.

That puppy had been with him since he was born.

That was his.

His guardian of dreams, His.

His catcher of a million tears.

And.

And on that day, Puppy was more qualified to watch over him than I was.

And off they went.

Wow.

To remember that, I. I got this tattoo on my arm.

Oh.

So.

So that's Puppy and Graydon, your son?

Yep, that's Puppy watching over Graydon.

Just to remind me.

But.

So here's a tough question for you.

So was that enough to get you to be clean and sober, or did it progress even further?

Nope.

Okay.

When the door closed and Donna was crumpled on the floor, completely broken and screaming, I stepped over her.

I went to the garage, and I got high, and I worked on the bike.

Okay.

Yep.

So what was your point of no return?

So we.

Two weeks later, Donna left this.

This man that had come into her life and that befriended her.

He.

He knew the language.

He'd been system involved.

He knew all the right things to say, saying, I can help you do this.

I can.

I can.

You.

I have a place that you can stay, because you can't stay here.

The ministry won't allow you.

And.

And.

And he was right.

The Ministry would not allow her to stay in that home.

And if there was hope, to see our son again.

So on December 16th of 2016, she left me for a violent, murderous gangster.

And within 24 hours, she was homeless.

And within a few days, she was using intravenous drugs.

And they didn't stay gone.

They kept coming back.

To the house.

There was a night I got held hostage.

This is what we're talking about here.

With an axe to my throat in my bathroom.

There was another night that he locked me in the pit under my house and left me there to fend for myself.

And he started doing real awful things to Donna.

And I'll let you.

I'll.

I'll let her share that part of that story, okay?

And eventually, I ran out of things to steal.

Eventually, the.

The novelty of harassing me and torturing me and all of this wore off.

And it got real quiet.

The house was cold.

There was no heat.

Even the friends that I had, that I used with stopped coming around because they were so scared of the person Donna was with.

And one day, my mom, she came to the house because she got so scared.

I was calling her at all hours of the day and night, being like, mom, they're watching me.

Mom, they're outside telling me what lights are on in my house.

They want to kill me.

And she kept saying, dan, have you.

Have you had enough yet?

She said, dan, lock your door.

And on that day, she showed up, and she took me for lunch, and she bought me a beer, and she sat me down, and she started making plans.

She started saying things like, you know what, Dan?

You need to go back up north.

You need to get a job.

You need to get your.

You know, your housing stable.

Dan, you need to.

To save up some money.

You need to be a dad, Dan.

And she started saying all these things like, you need to do this, you need to do that.

You need to do this.

And I'm drinking my beer, and I put it down, and I looked at her, and I said, mom, don't I need to get sober first?

And the look in her eyes changed, and she said, yes.

And she pulled out a form from her purse, and that form was all filled out.

It may have even had a date on it.

And she slid it across the table to me, looking at me in the eyes, and she handed me a pen as though to say, son, you are loved.

And I signed that paper that day.

Twelve days later, on February 12, 2017, I walked through the detox doors.

And I haven't used a substance in a problematic way since that day.

Wow.

What does that mean, though, when you say you haven't used it in a problematic way?

What does that mean?

So I have done some healing work with psilocybin.

Okay.

So with some psychedelics in ceremony and things like that.

So I. I just want to stay true to that, you know, like I've been clean and sober for almost nine years.

Right.

But when I say substances, to me, that's a medicine.

I got it.

But.

But that's why I say it like that.

I got it.

Okay.

I got it.

So how.

So I know we'll talk to Donna, and so we'll find out more about your relationship.

And I know you guys obviously got back together because she was sitting behind you when we talked before the podcast, but how did you.

How did you then get into podcasting and what happened to your life after you got clean?

Well, I mean, after I got clean, it was a whole, like, it was wild.

Did you get your son back?

Well, yeah.

Yeah, I did.

Yeah.

So I.

When I got out of treatment, you know, I asked my mom again, because she knew all the language, she knew the phone numbers.

She had professional relationships.

She was able to get a few professional courtesies afforded to her.

So she did all of that for me.

She made it all happen.

But when I got out of treatment and I, I, you know, she said, you know, now you need to go to the ministry and talk to the social worker, and you need to get into sober living, and you need to do this, and you need to go to meetings and all that.

And I said, cool, mom, can I have a ride?

She's like, no.

She took me to the pawn shop and she bought me a bike as though to say, pedal your ass, boy.

And I think to this day, that might be the greatest gift that she ever gave me.

Right?

Is that gift of accountability.

Yeah.

Like, I did that.

I went to the ministry, I went to the meetings.

So.

And life became.

Started to become good.

You know, I went.

I started to get visits with my son, and, you know, he's three years old, and we're sitting in this supervised visit with the social worker taking notes and all that.

And those visits started getting closer and closer together.

And then I started getting overnights in the sober living house that I was living in.

So he would come and stay overnight, and then he would stay for a weekend.

And then in.

In July of 2017, not even six months after I got sober, I was awarded full intern custody of my son.

Oh, wow.

And him and I have been walking this road to recovery together, like, ever.

Ever since, every day.

You know, now he's.

He's 11.

He was 4, 3 at the time.

You know, and it hasn't been perfect.

I haven't been the best father.

Like, we have this.

You know, it's just leaving it there would maybe paint, like, this big rainbow picture but that was the beginning of the struggle.

No.

If you can introduce me to a perfect father, I will give you a bunch of money.

I've never seen one, but it sounds.

Like I will tell you you're lying.

You were.

Yeah, exactly.

You were on the upswing, which is.

Which is amazing.

And, yeah, very, very cool.

Did you go back to welding?

Are you still doing that?

I tried.

I tried to go back to welding, but it just didn't feel right.

So, you know, Donna.

And then 18 months later, Donna came back into recovery.

Okay.

She.

She had gotten pregnant through an act of violence.

Okay.

And being a pregnant woman in crisis affords you more resources, and she took full advantage of that.

Again, I'll let her tell that part of the story.

She came back.

We tried to be amicable.

The.

The resentment, for me, it was.

It was.

It was too soon.

We had too much healing to do.

We wanted different things.

We ended up in family court, and, like, let me tell you, like, I.

Through everything that I've told you, I haven't felt suicidal through any of that.

Wow.

Until family court, because they drudged up every little thing.

They twisted every little truth, every little lie.

And that went on for two years before we finally landed on 50.

50 Custody.

So now we have to see each other every Friday.

Right, Right.

And that.

And at first, it was real hard, you know, and then she.

One day, she invited me to.

To hang out and have a coffee.

So slowly, over time, we started to repair that relationship.

And.

And at the time, we never.

I never had any inkling of.

Of hope that Or.

Or even desire for us to get back together.

I mean, things went way too sideways, so.

But eventually we became friends.

And I called it Friends on Fridays.

Right?

Because, like, that was transition day.

So we would come in, and then we would have supper together and just give the kids an inkling of what a family could look like.

Right.

So that they.

They know what to look for in the world.

Right.

And then Covid hit, and Donna was legally the only person that I was allowed to see.

Wow.

Creator has his ways.

Okay.

You guys are forced together pretty much.

You know, because, like, everybody wants human connection.

And even then, we weren't.

We were still friends.

And, you know, it was.

But when Covet hit, that was when I decided that I. I should start a podcast.

Yeah.

So I was in school at the time.

I was going to be a safety practitioner because I decided I didn't want to be a welder anymore.

And when I launched the podcast, like, very quickly, school became my side hustle.

And then in less than a year, I dropped out of school, and I've been podcasting full time ever since.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And it was two.

Nope, go ahead.

Oh, you go ahead.

Okay.

So.

And, you know, about.

About two years into it, you know, we were have.

Donna and I were having our friends on Friday's thing, and the kids were bouncing around on the couch and being loud, and she said to me, she's like, look at what you're doing.

You know, like, look.

Look at this.

Like, we.

Like, you got a studio in.

In your house, man.

Like, how did you even do that?

And she said, she.

The notion she put forward was like, I feel like I'm.

I'm making.

I'm not making the right decision here.

Like, I'm not moving forward in my life.

And I said, well, why don't you start a podcast?

You have a gnarly, gnarly story.

What an excellent foundation to build a platform on, you know, and she's.

And she thought about it, and the next day she called me.

She's like, yeah, let's do it.

And I was blown away, because when you.

When, you know, Donna, you know, like, I'm the loud one.

I'm the boisterous one that gets everyone's attention.

Hey, look over here.

And she's like.

She's like the ladybug that's under the leaves doing really all important work.

So.

So we did.

We started a podcast for her.

It's not.

We don't run it anymore, but it's called Phoenix Fire.

You can find it on the hard Knocks Talks YouTube channel if you so desire.

And after that first episode where her and I came together, worked together to bring healing to our community, I had a realization, I think.

And I think maybe we both did, you know, like, maybe we aren't what we were.

Maybe I'm not the guy that completely detached and.

And left her for the wolves, and maybe she's not the person that.

That left me and did all that awful things, you know?

And after that, that first show, I said, you know, this is going to be very strange if we walk down this road and we aren't together.

And.

And.

And her neck almost broke.

She was like, wait, what?

What?

And after some conversation that day, we decided to.

To reconcile.

She brought a beautiful little girl into.

Into my life who.

Who.

Who needed a dad.

And, you know, as a family, we've been walking this road to recovery since that day.

Wow.

I think that's great.

I think that's a great Story.

I mean, you.

Yeah, and I always like to encourage the listeners.

You know, I figure if Daniel and Donna can get through this and make it to where they are today, then so can you.

How do people find your podcast, Daniel?

You can find me on YouTube.

Hard knockstalks.com we also have a podcast.

Let me start over.

Okay.

I mean, you.

You can find us everywhere.

You give us a Google search, we'll pop up.

But, yeah, our main poll is on YouTube.

Hard Knocks talks, your addiction podcast.

And for those people who can't.

Sorry, Daniel.

For those people who cannot see the video, Hard Knocks is Knox.

Hard Knocks Talks.

T A L K S. Just so you know.

Thank you so much.

Awesome.

Well, thank you for being on the podcast.

I'm looking forward to talking to Donna.

And, yeah, keep fighting the good fight.

You're doing great.

And thank you for sharing your story.

Not everybody wants to share their story in addiction, and I do understand that, and I don't judge it.

But I do so appreciate when someone such as yourself who has been through what you have been through are willing to share that with others.

I think it's important, and there's a lot more to share.

And, yeah, if you all want to learn more, come find me.

Okay.

It's Hard Knocks.

K N O X Talks.

Thank you, Daniel.

Thanks, Joanie.

Thank you for listening today.

That was quite the interview.

And after we stopped recording, Daniel proceeded to tell me that there was way more that he could have shared with us.

So maybe we'll do another podcast with him in the future.

But you can listen to his podcast, and my guess is you can hear a lot more about his and his life and Donna's life and how they have navigated sobriety with being parents and back together and all of that.

Once again, the podcast is Hard Knox Talks.

And Knox is K N O X.

Have a great week.

We'll be back with another interview.

You have been listening to the Addiction.

Podcast, Point of no return.

For more information, reach out to us on Facebook or go to www.the addictionpodcast.com.

Our email is the addiction podcastahoo.com.