- Major funding for the series I Am More Than, was provided by Caring for Denver Foundation, additional support for this program was provided by the Colorado Health Foundation and Demi Fun.

♪ (Music playing) ♪ - I do think often when people see me they probably see like you know a liberal soy boy punk rock weirdo and that's fairly accurate, the one difference I wish people noticed is I do live completely sober and I am a person in recovery, my name is Ronnie.

I feel like I'm coming into my power, I never thought I would be a feeling I would be having at this stage of life.

Who I am as a human is a massive question.

A person in recovery, a person who loves living in Denver, and a partner.

And what I do for work is I am a state certified addiction technician and I also have what's known as recovery coach training in the addiction treatment field.

What I do is essentially help other people struggling with addiction trying to heal and get better and learn new coping skills and hobbies and behaviors to help them grow and change and live a better life.

The way my family and close friends would describe me is someone who's broken the cycle, I was raised by parents who were in their struggles with addiction but I still had a good childhood.

My mom was 18 when she had me, and they were really into punk rock culture so that's kind of my first exposure to that too.

They've impacted me both in really good ways, and in some tragic ways.

My mom was a really creative person, again she loved punk rock and horror movies and all the stuff which was really strange I think or unconventional to be exposed to at such a young age which it all checks out now right?

My mom had a heroin addiction and my dad was a terrible alcoholic, and even when you're super young you know that something's not right.

I did not understand it, you know, like what was happening until I got into my teens and basically drank and used from ages 14 to 23.

I think my younger self you know was never proud of what I was doing and just did not know what else to do.

I was seeking some escape and some thrills, and maybe just doing what I was kind of shown by my parents whether or not I interpreted it as that.

♪ (Music playing) ♪ So my mom passed away when I was 18 from an overdose, and my response to that was to just shut down.

I isolated myself, smoked meth, I loved my mom, and I think I carried that pain for a long time, probably still a little bit today, like I struggle to really let people in and let myself be close to people.

It took me a long time to really like to just sit with or accept and move on.

Much later my dad's passing away mostly like by heart issues, but definitely exasperated by his alcoholism I was not close to my dad.

Shortly before my dad passed away I had kind of made the decision to get over what resentments I had with my dad and his drinking.

I just decided to let it go and decided to show up and repair my relationship the best I can.

And he ended up passing away like right after I made that decision.

And when he passed away, unlike how I dealt with my mom I knew that I had to show up.

Obviously I still carry both those deaths with me, and they are part of why I like working in treatment, part of the purpose like can I make some meaning out of their experiences on top of my own?

My journey to sobriety oh my gosh where do I begin?

It started when I was 18, when I was 18 I was living in the valley still San Fernando Valley in California, and I was technically homeless, and abusing meth and anything else I could get my hands on, I had a friend who found his way to sober living in Santa Barbara first, and he called me one day and was like hey you are all [bleep] up I'm in this beautiful place called Santa Barbara getting sober I'm going to take a Greyhound and come pick you up tomorrow or something.

I was just lost.

I don't know I was without purpose and probably depressed definitely but did not recognize it as such because I was too busy numbing or distracting our feeling.

I wasn't even really aware of treatment settings like the one I am working in today, that sober living in AA is what got me sober.

At some point I left and I'm a meth addict not alcoholic I'm just going to drink.

Very quickly my alcoholism was out-of-control.

I was an alcoholic and I think that will be true for most people.

I was scared for like the future that I saw my mom had already died with drug addiction, I did not want to be like her or a lot of the other people I had grown up around, something happened when I was 23 just a very messy night that I ended up waking up in the drunk tank and I had like a full moment of clarity, or as I like to think about it too sometimes I decided to take a stand.

I think I had just enough hope, and desperation to make a change.

I like to say that being sober did not suddenly make me a very happy and insightful person.

I was still kind of struggling and being lost in all that, I began to work at that sober living that I had spent so much time in.

I started getting burned out in the environment, so I decided to just leave the job, also leave California, because I just wanted a big change.

I moved to Colorado.

So in Colorado I was trying different jobs in different industries trying to find where I fit the thought process to come work in treatment, was not so much in those terms it was not like I had a thought where I was like I just want to give back you know what I've got, or received, you know demonstrate my lifestyle, I wish it were more like that, it was recognizing that I'm feeling this nagging in my chest or something I'm sober and working but for some reason still unhappy, and I can't figure out how to fix that, but I would think back to that time when I worked in that massive sober living sober living home that did feel like chaos at times I was certainly not as skilled a communicator or patient or mentor whatever at that time, I just knew that when I worked at that place I was proud.

The answer just seemed to be like well maybe I need to fill it back with that working in recovery.

And I feel good about it, I like to speak about it, other people seem to be stoked about it, so that kind of reaffirms that for me and what's been interesting for me and my journey in treatment is I came back in these like roles that require less education and that kind of stuff so I was working as a house manager and tech, and more like the detox of the inpatient side of things and as I continue to work, people continue to be like hey you seem to be really good at that, you should take this to the next level.

And you know we offer educational reimbursement, so I'm actually back in school for the first time in like a decade, middle aged, which feels a bit strange.

My goal is to be a therapist, the patients they seem to connect more with people that have struggled in the same way they have.

The role that therapy has played in my mental health journey is I have not done enough of it, and I think everybody should be in therapy at least once in their life.

I think what therapy has done for me is help me realize that like my life has been hard, and that's okay.

You know I think most people have gone through difficult upbringings, America has like a lot of individualistic culture and a tendency to like tell people in general you know that like we should not affirm our feelings or whatever get over it move forward, toughen up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and I think that stuff is really damaging I think we see that a lot in our parents or generations before us.

Alright this is almost more stressful.

You know?

I am more competent and speaking than I am.

So.

Therapy has helped me recognize my traumas which in turn has helped me kind of understand myself better today, and you know some of my behaviors and some of my you know how I treat my relationships.

A day in the life of Ronnie winding down, this is funny, it's literally a question that is asked of patients as part of what we call a biopsychosocial assessment.

Which is a whole other conversation, you are looking at their hobbies and interest and self-care routines if they even have any, often times is not really an that's maybe what is leading them to misuse but now that I am asked the question what is my self-care and what do I do to wind down, essentially I don't think I think about it as much as I ask it, but transparency is a big thing for me, you know there's a line you hear a lot in recovery or AA or twelve-step circles are secrets keep us sick, not that I have any dark secrets these days, but just being honest and open and vulnerable either in my relationships or you know in a work setting as much as appropriate, I think that helps with my mental health just feeling seen.

I do love video games, I know that's kind of a stock answer these days, but yeah a lot of times winding down for me just means coming home, bothering my cats, eat some food if I've had a particularly tough day my go to relaxation meal is tofu and veggie pho.

Also it's a high energy activity so it doesn't feel like winding down to most people but I love going to shows, especially punk rock and hard-core shows, that stuff.

Somehow the adrenaline and the high energy actually brings me down.

Hard-core I think has always been very socially conscious, so you know a big part of social work is advocacy, I think hard-core has always had a culture of that as well.

Even though it's a place where you might get hit in the face it does still seem like a safe space for you to know any person of any culture or identity to attend and participate in.

I'm vegetarian, sometimes I try to be vegan.

I'm not great at it.

Hard-core exposed me to those ideals, when I was very young, also you know I'm in recovery, I can also identify as being straight edge.

Which is also another punk rock subculture or a hard-core subculture, that abstains from drinking and using nicotine and that kind of stuff.

Not through the route of recovery, but usually just as a philosophy of like this stuff sucks, and I don't want to do it.

I want to live clear headed and experience the world.

And so once I actually began to get sober, hard-core and straight edge gave me an additional I guess community to identify with.

Recovery is also framed as a struggle, and it does feel that way for a lot of people like oh it's hard to be sober, it's hard to let go of my addictive tendencies.

But engaging with the straight edge community allowed me to have the sense that like again that stuff sucks, this has ruined this has taken both my parents and many other people that I know and love.

Like this is awful I want nothing to do with it.

I hate it.

I hate this stuff, I hate what it's done to people I love, I hate some of the people who brought me around, I don't want this, I don't want to be like people, I want to be like these people.

Rather than being ashamed or being shy or bashful about the fact that I don't drink or use, they have used it to empower themselves.

Only one of my tattoos has meaning, it's actually for mom.

So it's this one right here, and it's because she had a little bat silhouette so when she passed away, I just figured I would get the same tattoo, but bigger.

Yeah.

♪ (Music playing) ♪ - The existence of straight edge always fascinated me, so when I was little and really getting into punk rock before I got into drugs and alcoholism, my dad had a Minor Threat CD.

At this time I was reading these lyrics about this philosophy of not drinking or using, knowing that my parents do you know, so something about that kind of stuck with me and I was already fascinated by this crazy aggressive music that was almost like counterculture to the counterculture.

Hard-core and straight edge kinda gave me another place to like to be sober, but I think what I liked about it is it felt a little less like dorky to me in a way.

No shade to AA but it was like oh like this is a place where you can go and sobriety it's not a response to something that you have a weakness to, like I feel like the straight edge philosophy is like you are sober, because you are strong.

That being said you know, so much of this has been framed around sobriety and that kind of stuff, I still identify as an addict.

I live a lot and I still feel a lot of addictive tendencies in my brain.

I think it's just the way my brain has developed and other people have too, so I do have to manage my addictive tendencies pretty often to when it comes to video games or spending money, or eating junk food, that pull is still there sometimes I can channel it into a positive direction trying to do that was school lately, I obsess endlessly over it which has got me good grades thankfully, so sometimes you can channel addiction into a positive direction but I think even sobriety you have to be mindful of that.

- So double X's, is that a straight edge thing?

- Just X in general okay so the history of it, do you know like when you go to a show or venue or bar if you are under 21 they draw X on your hand?

Yeah.

So a lot of that culture started in late 80s, so you will see if you look at all those 80s hard-core straight edge records like almost every album cover or even the cover on the back will have a live shot you'll see the band or singer will have like a sharpie X on their hands.

They call it being X'ed up.

Describing my life in color, purple and gold feel loud and vibrant, they feel energized and also beautiful, they are not colors I would assign to my life in the past, I think they are both just very striking and a little less traditional.

♪ (Music playing) ♪ So from my painting here, going into it I was more interested in like texture, and shapes, instead of a setting, objects, anything like that, but I wanted something kind of aggressive or strong so that's why I went with the animal teeth, monster teeth, I put these exes in the corner to give it some visual symmetry but I'm also fond of X's as they are seen pretty often in hard-core culture, and I chose the word invigorate to kind of connect with or to put on this painting I think I wanted the whole thing to represent strength or power or aggression, I feel like this is a good word or value to think about or approach life with, I think we should often find ways to invigorate ourselves, or find people or things that invigorate us, and I think we also need to invigorate each other and empower each other being in each other's corner, and build everybody up.

Going into this, it was pretty stressful for some reason.

I didn't know I was struggling to decide what I wanted to communicate, what I identified or connected with, what I wanted to portray.

But it's been a very mindful experience kind of doing all this even before the shooting and thinking about all this, what I want to do, what I want to represent, how I want to represent myself, what am I going to speak about?

Ultimately I had a really good time, I enjoyed speaking a lot about this stuff, I enjoyed having a platform to speak about sobriety which is really important to me obviously, and hard-core culture, which we don't hear talked about a lot on mainstream platforms.

So ultimately I'm proud of how I got through this and what I got to say and show and it's been good.

♪ (Music playing) ♪ Thinking back to when we last met and did the painting and all that what I really enjoyed about the experience was it felt really affirming I chose that word invigorate it's not a word I ever really carried with me before but it came to me in the moment because we were talking a lot about recovery and again the philosophy of recovery and like pulling other people up, I guess my hope is that somebody might see that word invigorate and can either take it for yourself or take it in a way as a call to action I guess.

And feel empowered by that idea.

♪ (Music playing) ♪