Episode #26: Co-host Shequila Hoye...growing up without a mother, stopping the cycle of generational substance abuse, accidental overdose, the stages of personal change, depression, love queries aftermath, and being better off as a foster child.

There is so much adhesive hardship in life, aka trauma. Within this vibrant episode, my dear gal pal Shequila and I discuss substance abuse, poor mental health, and more. Shequila knows the all-consuming grip of addiction too-too well, having witnessed her mother's struggle with abusing heroin and other substances for three decades. She shouldered the role of caregiver to her four younger siblings while still a child herself, then found interludes of refuge at her grandmother's apartment in the Allied Drive neighborhood of Madison Wisconsin, where Shequila spent time with 15 other grandchildren. 

Shequila and I have known each other for more than a dozen years and last November, her and I joined forces to present a communal exposition panel on substance abuse at Garver Feed Mill in Madison, the full-length live recording which you can find within podcast #24, two episodes prior to this one. With over 100 community sisters and brothers in attendance, that Garver event was spectacularly informative. Please give it a listen. 

After being honorably discharged from the United States Navy because of an injury, Shequila went on to earn her master’s degree in social work and is currently employed as an intensive outpatient and transition therapist. Shequila helped launch Madison's ‘CARES’ team in 2021, providing an alternative response to behavioral health-related 911 calls. While working to break down barriers to mental health care, she soldiers on toward a Doctorate in Social Work. 

Tragically at 20 years young, Shequila’s youngest brother Michael died of an accidental drug overdose in the most ridiculous manner. Also here within episode 26, we land on the topics of helplessness and hopelessness for a while, as well as conversing what it does to us fundamentally to grow up without a mother. I ask Shequila about her family’s most dysfunctional dynamic, the question arising somewhat because Shequila’s parents were both 15 years old when they had her.

Shequila fires back to me with the query of what used to make me happy, but no longer does. She then questions the relationship between taking care of others, meaning our acts of kindness and service, aligned with who we ourselves are. Shequila charges me to contemplate the difference between love and addiction, asking me what I learned about love from my parents. 

Shequila masterfully explains to me the condition of ‘abandonment trauma’, meaning parental wounds, and here specifically, ‘mother wounds’. What do mothers do for their offspring anyway, and when growing up without one, why do we often face the world ourselves to provide others the care we missed? Additionally…being without but still yearning for a home. And being without but still desiring access to nurturing support and comforts. 

I raise the scenario of fearing my clinically insane mother, awhile avoiding the indoors, and specifically the fright of being trapped behind school walls. Shequila shares her scariest life experience…the terror of being left at the park all day while in care of her younger siblings, when she was eight years old. Not going into detail, but Shequila mentions the times her mom overdosed at home, and I riddle Shequila why she chose social work, I wonder about the toll that the line of work extracts from her, and inquire if she has any regrets in life.

Shequila shares her confusion after being discharged from the Navy, and I ask her what she thinks holds her back from her best life right now. 

The book:
Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict?: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within
by Roger Ray Bird
ISBN 979-8218286651
Available on Amazon for $11

Roger's social directory: HERE

The complete CHAPTER TWO  audio recording, read by Roger.
CHAPTER ONE can be found in the previous pod episode #23.

Chapter Two excerpt:

(a poem) Mirror-Mirror Why Do You Hate Me So?

Yes I see, yes Mirror I see the glass is clear yes I see…

Yet Mirror, why always same-same the seeing?

 Storm clouds shower thy under-roof’s nest

Sans shelter, sans safety, sans calm

A rare outing, apart thy guardian’s wing

Some sunshine sprinkles atop thou’s madness

Near here, only near here my dear, fear the mere moment

No-no, oh no, no-no-no, I hear thine momma bird’s song a calling…

 Mirror please, I hunger hearing no more

Mirror please, now cut off these ears

Mirror please, I seek seeing no more

Mirror please, forever fog thy darkness

Please Mirror please now forever blind these eyes.

Some Nests No Home

Once collected from Detroit, still occupying our first Baltimore area Hillsdale Road haunted home, after a while the bat-shit-crazy mother bird then nothing but gone from our family forever-n-ever institutionalized…bye-bye mommy, father bird removed his wedding ring for finality and we fled that damn monster house. Veritably, BigBird did what he believed right, both protecting us from our mother’s insanity, while himself adjusting course to attend night school for another five years. The resulting edginess flooding my father seemed unbearable, even to me as a young ignorant seventh-year child. He was by far away more than home, and even when around, BigBird yelled into my perceived ears more than he spoke. 

The wobbliness followed wherever I went, me invariantly unsteady within my own shoes.

Though a shaky roof teetered overhead, I felt relegated apart from any shelter, and far-far from whatsoever warmth or support. Maybe I was just being weak, a wimp, a little fucking biddy crybaby bird, IDK. With the familiar sheets of bitchboy downgrading rain pelting me, finding nowhere secured nor space zoned calm, I fled, I ran. 

I ran fear filled and resentful

I ran then fell then ran til lost, castaway adrift and underbelly exposed 

I saw, I saw only slightly…I saw only darkened skies

Darkened skies, darkened skies as the bare warm noontime sun shone 

Not running to get un-lost

Not fueled by hope

Not desperate to find 

Nor frantic to be found

Again fleeing the frights

Again eluding the yelling

Again pissed off mad I was, atmospherically disregarded

Again, again this catastrophic unsteadiness

I relied on nothing, I turned to no one but mine some the paltry resource crumbs

I sought shelter, I coveted comfort, yet still running, yet still lost 

I then froze, I then froze and I hardened, I hardened cold like stone

I hardened cold like stone, immediately then the chipping away began

My self-belief fractured, factually crumbled, my-self succumbed to nothingness

Unbothered the nothingness, unbothered the skip-over, worthless even the bother

Worthless the breath, worthless the existence, this slur worthless the worry 

Worthless…worthless to a lesser degree than even muddied parking lot gravel. 

The book:
Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict?: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within
by Roger Ray Bird
ISBN 979-8218286651
Available on Amazon for $11

Roger's social directory: HERE

Over 100 friends packed the room, and in excess of 250 joined the FB livestream.   

Without discussion, we sit amidst an opioid and fentanyl epidemic. National suicide rates have reached true crisis levels. Alas, addiction and poor mental health casts their anguish upon us all. Eager to transcend the torment, chiefly we lack the comprehension of where or how to begin. Realities of outpacing the suffering lingers as a far-off fantasy, and a wealth of us are convinced there is no way out. Join author Roger Ray Bird and a cast of Bright Sparks for a demystification of the self-destruction. Roger shares his personal experiences as a user and drug dealer in Baltimore, and reads from his new book Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict? 

Bright Spark cast:

Shequila Hoye knows the all-consuming grip of addiction, having witnessed her mother's struggle for over two decades. Shequila shouldered the role of caregiver to her younger siblings while still a child herself. Her grandmother's apartment in the Allied Drive neighborhood, where she spent time with 15 other grandchildren, became a refuge for her. After being honorably discharged from the United States Navy, Shequila went on to earn her Master’s Degree in Social Work. Horrifically in 2020, her 20-year-old brother died of an accidental overdose. Shequila helped launch Madison's CARES team in 2021, providing an alternative response to behavioral health-related 911 calls. While working to break down barriers to mental health care, she soldiers on toward a Doctorate in Social Work.

Michelle Kullmann lost her son Cade Reddington to a single-pill fentanyl poisoning in 2021. As a dynamic mother and 30-plus years spent in the Madison business community, Michelle utilizes her learned experiences to advocate for fentanyl poisoning awareness and harm reduction. Michelle spreads critical information gained since Cade's passing on the opioid and fentanyl paradox so fellow families can learn from her family's tragedy and hopefully save lives. #forever18 #onepillcankill

Laura Bird is a Milwaukee native, and now lives in Madison with her husband, three teenagers, and small dog. She’s a middle grade author, an ambassador for the Wisconsin Book Festival, a board member for the Madison Public Library Foundation, and co-founder of the Great Midwest Book Group. She also freelances for BRAVA Magazine. 

 Tyler “TJ” Schmidt was an average Milwaukee teenager until drugs slithered into his world. After the U.S. government dramatically restricted pharmaceutical OxyContin pill production, Tyler switched to heroin. While partying inside his freshman college dorm room, TJ’s visiting uncle died of a drug overdose, and Tyler served prison time after being charged under the Len Bias law. Then however doubly tragic, in 2020 Tyler’s girlfriend died from drugs. Surviving multiple overdoses and several stays in rehab facilities himself, Tyler is now three and a half years clean, and aims to make his life purpose helping others find their path away from addiction. 

Roger Ray Bird forfeited his mother to a Maryland mental hospital when he was four, and began abusing drugs at age 12. At 16 Roger became a national statistic, high school dropout. After surviving two overdoses, then exhausting a 13-year addiction, he traded drugs for a professional mountainbike race career. Following 20 years at Trek Bicycles, Roger now mentors young adults and their parents struggling with addiction.

The book:
Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict?: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within
by Roger Ray Bird
ISBN 979-8218286651
Available on Amazon for $11

Roger's social directory: HERE

A read-aloud of chapter one from the new book. Partial text:

My scars represent my best lessons…my stumbles hurt me, while teach me. 

Growing into the learned weathering of up’s and downs, aka residing in the middle, this my greatest challenge awhile my greatest opportunity. I try, I really try, I try to remain honest that even when low, an up period is on its way coming to me, fricking always.

With or without placement of middle, we all do it our way. No other way is available to us except our way. Our way is the correct way for us, aka there is no wrong way, aka there is no wrong way…there is no…wrong…way.

During a bumble, I try to hold on and keep from making my down any worse. During a down, using my finest emotional shovel I dig to my deepest place of best try, to start shaking the hard thing, or least avoid giving the hard thing more power over me. 

To arrive at the bottom of my best try well, if able to act, even whilst bleeding…if able to rise, even whilst broken…maybe I can begin, if willing. If willing, if willing…if I can try, if I can start, I most certainly initiate movement, and quite possibly maybe movement in the direction of betterment, aka less down. I just need to try, I just need to try and start.

This rollercoaster ride, a puzzle.

This puzzle a game, this puzzle game called life.

Rollercoasters are designed to shock and scare. 

Puzzles do not include directions, no directions exist for puzzles, just start. 

Games never include certain and definable outcomes and if so, it’s not a game.

Life comes with no owner’s manual, only to learn that life is a rollercoaster puzzle game.

Retaining the known that up periods always follow down periods, I land in a better place.

A better place where I feel safer, warmer, and grow a little stronger. 

A better place, a better place instead of remaining stuck within the turmoil. 

A better place than the tumultuous untruths of Whatever, Why bother, and Why me?  

A better place, confident and reassured I am not the only one hurting. 

A better place, confident and reassured I am not doing it wrong as once thought.

This rollercoaster puzzle life game, I am not doing it wrong.

I am not doing it wrong, there is no wrong way, there is no wrong way, there is no…wrong…way. 

There is no wrong way rather just play the game, just start, futz with the puzzle pieces until they begin to fit together, hah…then hang on, it’s gonna be a hell of a ride, sometimes shocking, sometimes scary, but remember, it was designed that way.

 ~

Querying my darling daughter Birdy’s formidable unknowing, these my bare all writings are for her, my lovely Lauren. Revealing a plethora of never before recognized truths concerning my addiction, I also dedicate this ramble to my son Travis aka Boyd awhile you my preciouses, you my beloved sisters and brothers of the world. 

Sharing these here my lived knowings, I try to help. Help locate a sunnier path, or least shake the damn shadow. Help to find, see and embrace the straight-up factual possibility…it…is…possible you can do it, you can do it, I know it, you really-really can, I fucking know it, I know it deep in my heart, you are strong-stronger than you even realize, I believe in you, I am fighting for you and I love you.

The book:
Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict?: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within
by Roger Ray Bird
ISBN 979-8218286651
Available on Amazon for $11

Roger's social directory: HERE

Attempting to begin my life anew, I recognized the biggest challenge is overcoming the worst parts of myself. Beginning to claw my way up and out of that shitty hell, I found the need to silence the defeating voice in my head and go, just go.

Dissecting the value of friends in my life, I also share a reading from my new book Daddy Why Were You A Drug Addict: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within.

I share insightful details concerning the six foreword authors of the book, and our shared vision of trying to live a sustainable life. Please give it a listen. Please share this episode with anyone interested in tales of survival, or depression, or drug addiction, or alcoholism.

AUDIO READING:

Jellyfished

The first person I met only seconds after pulling over in Colorado for a brief unplanned hangry bird lunchbreak, unplanned because I thought to be traveling further west to Telluride, was a burly mountainbike riding dude named Paul Jankauskas, alongside his behemoth golden retriever mountain dog, Marmot. Although I found Paul to be gruff, I quickly learned he was a legitimate bespoke craftsman beyond scale, and one of Paul’s ventures was operating his minuscule but hyper-high-end bike shop in the heart of Vail’s retail village, Custom Wheel Building. Paul teased a summer session full-time bike mechanic job in front of me within minutes of our first meet-up that December, and the following Spring I was working for Paul inside his tiny ultra-cool shop. 

Often my primary orientation was just stay out of Paul’s grumpy way, while spending joy-filled minutes between tasks playing with Marmot, who arrived to work with his hooman every single day. Paul’s wife Joanne was a gem of a sweetheart, and stopped by the bike shop now and then to bring Paul lunch. Marmot was such a darling boy, albeit an absolute monster…he had the biggest head I have ever seen on any retriever-type dog. I affectionately nicknamed Marmot thy darling Woolley The Mammoth.

During winters I relied on my day job working for big boss Otto at his Spruce Saddle mid-mountain restaurant for a paycheck, a complementary season ski pass, and free food when on the clock. Winter evenings I was employed at an exotic ski boot fitting shop next to Paul’s bike store, working for the masterful Don Lamson at his Boot Lab.

Come summertime I realized the need for a second job to pay bills and frankly, it had to be a foodservice job. Lacking adequate funds to feed my face at home, I was then a cook at the local Pizza Hut franchise after concluding work at Paul’s bike shop.

My sophomore year working for Paul, I had raced my mountainbike tons the year before, spending many hours behind the windshield with Dave Turner and Mike Kloser carpooling to mountainbike events all over the state. But two months earlier at my most recent race, I broke my collarbone. Still waffling on turning pro although I was beating multiple card-carrying professionals every weekend, I struggled somedays to keep pointing forward with my racing aspirations beyond expert class, and lately struggled slightly to even maintain my mood. Coming off my broken collarbone I was trying to rally my front facing mojo and get back on the road with Dave and Mike. I found the endeavor of racing and the potential it held for me was perhaps the only at-time thing capable of saving me from my most vicious inescapable enemy.

I was trying, I was really trying to stand taller than my pain,

The book:
Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict?: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within
by Roger Ray Bird
ISBN 979-8218286651
Available on Amazon for $11

Roger's social directory: HERE

Coach Sarah and I discuss the might of the written word…and what about the value of our stories shared anyway? Both regarding the writer awhile the reader, we consider the realities of publishing our life’s experiences…personal and professional.

How to do it…self-publish, hybrid publishing, or working with a formal publisher? What happens after writing for weeks or even years, you realize the need to either start over or re-write the lost sort-out of your most burdensome inner trauma?

Sarah and I cross paths with our juxtaposed youthful reading and writing experience.
 
We discuss…when we write, how much we write, jacket or no jacket, working online and offline, and writing in big chunks of time away from home or squirreled away during private quiet minutes adjacent to all our daily distractions. I touch on my massively inward journey, keeping score and the process of it all. 

After 6.49 hours of writing per day on average for two and a half years, and sometimes writing 10, 12, or even 18 hours at a time, I explain my commitment alongside my sacrifice to accomplish the task. 

We chase our tails a bit over the notion of personal pain and trauma processing on paper, versus after the fact.

In summary, we both agree on the critical nature of reading aloud, and working with programs utilizing Read Aloud functionality. Finally, how about the on-the-shelf publishing…printing small or large runs…print it first, or record the audio book first, and why? 

The emotional content runs deep as we share our experiences of actually writing a book versus not writing a book, and the chore of not only writing, but publishing, and bringing our works forward to the world. 

The book:
Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict?: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within
by Roger Ray Bird
ISBN 979-8218286651
Available on Amazon for $11

Roger's social directory: HERE

Stuck? Needing change? Wanting a new life. Well then, how?

Here I get real. Hyper-F'ing real and bare all. I hold back nothing.

Is it possible to get something else out of life...is it possible...is it really?

Could I try something different? Could I even f*cking try to try?

The book:
Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict?: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within
by Roger Ray Bird
ISBN 979-8218286651
Available on Amazon for $11

Roger's social directory: HERE

Charles won conference three times as a wrestler in high school and went on to wrestle in college. He graduated with a management degree from University of Wisconsin and achieved success in corporate America before getting divorced and experiencing homelessness.

Charles, aka Pops, is an amazing thinker and speaker, explaining how he was always a planner in life but after being twice incarcerated and then living outdoors, he had to learn to just roll with it. 

My mother was clinically insane and homeless most of her life. I was a drug addict for 13 years in Baltimore City so I have a slight perspective to speak with Charles candidly, about trying to maintain his sanity amidst the 100-person homeless tent city encampment in Madison, Wisconsin.  

As an educated, outspoken, and traveled black man in America, Charles offers incredible insight into the absolute love for his daughters, his commitment to mindfulness, and a person trying to lead by example despite the local powers to be taking advantage of him.

Charles speaks of his need to try and do better and rise above the Jim Crow laws of racial injustice, trying to control his behavior and his response to an incessant challenge from the mass incarceration system of the black man in America. 

We touch on how Dane County Wisconsin makes it illegal to be homeless and despite most everything taken away from him, Charles has remained sober for 10 years and has not surrendered to the hardcore drug use running wild in the local homeless community. 

We also speak of Charles saving three lives this year, his self-appointed role of first responder in his homeless community, and how his attempt to help save lives by trying to prevent drug overdoses is also illegal. A great conversation and one I am honored to be part of. 

The book:
Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict?: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within
by Roger Ray Bird
ISBN 979-8218286651
Available on Amazon for $11

Roger's social directory: HERE

This one goes deep and fast: addiction, recovery, overdose, and self-reinvention. 

TJ and I are both addicts and share some of our experiences. 

Comparing ourselves to ourselves, not others. Find our purpose, our personal truths, some blabber about striving, competing, and the balance between inner freedom and gaining acceptance to fuel our dirty ego. 

Keeping up with the Joneses, working towards our true potential versus getting snagged by our worst self. Learning life lessons through experimentation, righteousness, rigidness, self-sabotage, heroin, meth, coke, acid, pills, pot and alcohol.

Quitter, us as low-life piece of shit humans, homelessness, large L for Loser, and me as a high-school dropout. Staying comfortable in the pain and misery of life. Drug rehab and drug recovery. My 32-year clean time versus TJ’s 6-months clean. 

Why do we use, why are we addicts? Putting forth our best effort to make a difference in the world. Being ok with rejection. We are free to be who we want to be, so why don’t we do it? Finding the courage and willingness to change. 

Sporting the perm mullet, poetry, writing, meditation, mindfulness, finding community, finding our own personal path and all the glorious possibilities in front of us. 

The book:
Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict?: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within
by Roger Ray Bird
ISBN 979-8218286651
Available on Amazon for $11

Roger's social directory: HERE

I am engaged in a battle to make my own life. 

We all are. 

I attempt to live more like I desire, and less like I do not. 

We all do. 

Our frightening memories haunt us, we bleed quarts from past pains. The chain of yesterday is incarcerating, dragging the weight of days gone by with us wherever we go. 

Maybe we are teetering precariously, clinging to the thought of scary and doubtful tomorrows.

Perhaps engulfed, overwhelmed and part-time breathless, held down and trapped within the shallow but deadly drowning pool of our here and now hopelessness.

Even if believing we have already given up, thinking our life is done but we forgot to tell anyone, if breath even begrudgingly still swirls through our chest, it’s not over.

We all struggle with something, fucking all of us. 

We all pain. We all suffer, with all sorts of shit. 

Stuff we dislike. Stuff we fear. Stuff we doubt. 

Stuff we have. Stuff we don’t. 

Stuff we want. Stuff we want to shed. 

Stuff making life harder than we think life should be.  

And we suffer with all sorts of random self-imposed worry and stress in between. 

Life is hard. Life pain is harder.  

Yes, pain rains harder for some than others. But less hard or harder, still hard. 

Struggle is struggle and there is no measurement for pain. 

We process our own shit and position it along our own relative hardship scale.

We cannot associate our trauma in comparison to another human trauma.

Said before and echoing slightly, all pain is local.

After the hardest parts of life settle, moments of relief arrive, always. 

After a stretch of good times, periods of pain and stress visit us, to be sure. 

Life goes up and down, down and up, always, like clouds afront the bright sun.

All of us are stuck to something, something with more control over us than we have over it. Either shooting dope or exercising or working too much or watching sports or judging or the act of worrying itself. If unable to turn it off and walk away at will, aka if unable to control our anxiety or behavior, I call this stickiness addiction. We all have something clinging to us, scratching us, biting us, or eluding us, and maybe all of it simultaneously. 

Suffering remains as ever-present. Growing into the learned weathering of up’s and downs, residing in the middle, is my greatest challenge awhile my greatest opportunity. I try to remain certain even when low, an up period is on its way coming to me, always. 

With or without placement of middle, we do it our way.

No other way is available to us except our way.

Our way is the correct way for us, aka there is no wrong way.

Aka there is no wrong way. 

There is no wrong way.

This rollercoaster ride, a puzzle. This puzzle a game, this puzzle game called life. 

Rollercoasters are designed to shock and scare. 

Puzzles do not include directions. No directions exist for puzzles, just start.

Games never include a certain and definable outcome and if so, it’s not a game.

Life comes with no owner’s manual, only to learn life is a rollercoaster puzzle game. 

The rollercoaster puzzle life game, I am not doing it wrong.

There is no wrong way.

But rather, just play the game.

Just futz with the puzzle pieces until they begin to fit together.

And hang on, it’s gonna be a hell of a ride, sometimes shocking, sometimes scary, but remember, it was

The book:
Daddy, Why Were You A Drug Addict?: Winning the War Amid My Angel and Devil Within
by Roger Ray Bird
ISBN 979-8218286651
Available on Amazon for $11

Roger's social directory: HERE