Episode 2 – Who is A. Reason? Part 2 of 2

Transcript

Aaron Reason:
Hey, guys. Welcome back to A Reason To Live, episode two. I am your host, Aaron Reason. I’m here with my producer, Michael Whitlock.

Michael Whitlock:
Hello.

Aaron Reason:
And let’s get you over to our sponsor real quick, and then we’ll come back and I’ll start telling the second half of my story.

Michael Whitlock:
The uplifting portion.

Aaron Reason:
The uplifting portion.

Michael Whitlock:
All righty.

Speaker 3:
Located in Anderson, Indiana, Bridges of Hope is a detox and residential treatment facility assisting those experiencing alcohol and substance abuse addiction. Our treatment philosophy is based on a comprehensive and integrated approach to addressing all issues related to substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health issues.
Addiction treatment at Bridges of Hope can guide you safely through withdrawal from drugs and alcohol, and teach you important skills that help you achieve long-term recovery. Client care is our highest priority, and we offer our clients all-inclusive treatment services. Our ultimate goal is to identify the challenges, concerns, and problems related to substance use and mental health disorders to provide professional clinical treatment to all of our patients. For more information on our services, visit us at Bhoperehab.com or call 844 449 6392.

Aaron Reason:
Hey, guys. This is Aaron Reason again. All right, Michael. So I think I left off last episode. That was a cliffhanger, wasn’t it?

Michael Whitlock:
It was a bummer is what it was.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
So I’m…

Aaron Reason:
Wa wa wa.

Michael Whitlock:
Excited to hear, I mean, I already know this story because you’ve obviously shared it with me. But knowing you, I’m glad that we know that this is going to trend in a positive direction.

Aaron Reason:
It is. It does get a little bit worse. Just when you think it can’t get worse than this.

Michael Whitlock:
That’s okay. It’s not going to end on a negative note. It’s going to end on a positive note.

Aaron Reason:
That’s right.

Michael Whitlock:
Okay.

Aaron Reason:
That’s right. Yeah. We’ll get there. That’s the journey, we will get there eventually. So I’m pretty much down now. I’m manically depressed. I just found my friend overdosed. I’d found his body, and I’m waiting on this warrant to be executed to come pick me up and take me back to jail. So this is how that played out.
I’d been checking a website every day where I could see when the warrant was coming out, and I actually saw that morning the warrant had came out, and so I knew it was just a matter of time before the cops came. I didn’t have any heroin on this particular morning, and I went to my neighbor’s house and I started drinking. I won’t go into grave detail on this story, but I do want to get the gist of it out.

Michael Whitlock:
And I just want to ask a question because I want to understand the addict’s brain. Okay?

Aaron Reason:
Mm-hmm.

Michael Whitlock:
When you know that you are facing time and you know from past experience that we talked about being dope sick, that you’re going to go through withdrawal, right? Do you feel like you need to score before you get locked up just to help kind of survive?

Aaron Reason:
Absolutely.

Michael Whitlock:
Yeah.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah, absolutely. You just want to prolong it. You want to prolong it as much as you possibly can.

Michael Whitlock:
Yeah.

Aaron Reason:
Because you know the end’s coming soon. And that day I knew the end was coming and it just wasn’t in the cards for me to score anything that day, unfortunately.

Michael Whitlock:
Oh.

Aaron Reason:
And so when I would get sick, what I would do was I would start drinking. And so I was drinking with a neighbor. I had neighbors on both sides of the place I was staying at, and I went to one neighbor’s house and drank in the morning. And then that afternoon I went to the other neighbor’s house. And when I went to my other neighbor’s house, he had a gun there and I kept trying to get access to this gun.
I was really suicidal at this point, and I started sending out some pretty cryptic texts to my family members, basically saying my goodbyes, asking for forgiveness. And what happened was basically the word got out around my family, they all started communicating. I’m not a hundred percent sure on this, but I’m pretty certain one of them called the cops on me just out of protection and love and caring for me.

Michael Whitlock:
Sure.

Aaron Reason:
And so the cops came to serve the warrant, and but what happened was when they told them that I might have a weapon, they went ahead and brought the SWAT team.

Michael Whitlock:
Oh.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah. Yeah. They brought in the big guns. And I saw the cops coming in to the residence where I was staying at, and immediately I took off running. A long story short, I resisted arrest to the fullest extent. It was a chaotic scene. I basically took off in some woods, hid out for a couple of hours. And I ended up making my way back in to, it was a trailer park, I was living in real, real classy joint, Michael.

Michael Whitlock:
Right.

Aaron Reason:
And after a couple of hours I thought the cops had dispersed, I actually hid in a deer stand, that somehow I’d found a deer stand in these woods.

Michael Whitlock:
Wow.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah, it was fantastic. It was raining too, so that was really cool. I was soaking wet, drunk. And when I go back into this trailer court, I go to my neighbor’s house and he lets me in and I go in. And I’m honestly kind of elated that I got away from the cops. I got this feeling of just pure joy. I’m like, “Man, I got away from him. Finally, I escaped it.” And I’m calling my brother on the phone and I’m [inaudible 00:06:02]

Michael Whitlock:
You’re pretty cooked on alcohol, right?

Aaron Reason:
Oh yeah, I’m…

Michael Whitlock:
Okay.

Aaron Reason:
I am trash at this point. And my neighbor had a bunch of [inaudible 00:06:11] of peach brandy. I don’t know if you’ve ever drank that.

Michael Whitlock:
Yeah.

Aaron Reason:
But I’ll tell you what, it’s…

Michael Whitlock:
Can’t say I have.

Aaron Reason:
It is disgusting and it just gets worse the longer you drink it. So I’m drinking peach brandy, chain-smoking cigarettes because I know I’m going to jail soon. And I’m talking to my brother on the phone and he’s like, “Well, they haven’t stopped looking for you. Just so you know. They actually set a command post up at mom’s trailer.”

Michael Whitlock:
Whoa.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah. And, “They’re still looking for you.” So he said, “Just go to sleep and I will bail you out in the morning.” That’s not what happened though. I did not go to sleep, Michael. They overheard me talking about, bragging about how I’d gotten away from them and how I felt like Harrison Ford in the Fugitive, and they started beating on my neighbor’s door. And in life, in my life, I’ve made some very poor decisions.
And in this moment, I made one of the poorest decisions I’ve ever made. They started beating on my neighbor’s door. And at first he wasn’t going to open the door. After they knocked one of his windows out and he knew they were coming in, he went to get the door. And in that moment, all I wanted to do was I wanted the cops to shoot me and kill me. And I thought I could commit suicide by cop. And so what I did was I put him in a choke hold and acted like I had a weapon on him. And started…

Michael Whitlock:
Oh my goodness.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah. And started screaming at the cops, that everybody get back I was going to blow his brains out. At this point, I’m just, I am absolutely obliterated. Luckily, the cops did not shoot me with a gun. They did shoot me with a gun, just not with bullets. They shot me with a taser gun, electrocuted me, and they beat me up pretty good. And then I went to jail. Now what I would’ve been facing had I willingly just gave myself up, was a three-year prison sentence. In that stupid split decision though that I did that, I actually went from facing three years to 50 years.

Michael Whitlock:
Oh my goodness.

Aaron Reason:
I was charged with nine felonies. Yeah. Terrible decision. So I go to jail, I’m beat up. I’m beat up pretty good, and I’ve been tased and I’m hungover and I’m dope sick. And now I’m looking at all this time and I just didn’t think it’d get any worse. But it keeps getting worse.
Just stay tuned, you guys, just when you think it’s going to get better, just hold on, let me get through this, the worst part now, and then we’ll get to the good stuff. And so I go to jail. My father passes away a month after I’m in jail. Five months later, my mom unexpectedly passes away. Now when I talked in the beginning of the episode one, I talked about God putting the right people in my life at the right time.

Michael Whitlock:
Right. Right.

Aaron Reason:
And I’ll touch on that a little bit more. So and in the midst of this, the plea bargains I was getting from the courts, I was looking at about 30 years. They were offering 30 to 20 year sentence, which at that time meant I would have to serve half of that in the Department of Corrections. So I’m looking at 15, 10 to 15 years probably on these charges.

Michael Whitlock:
What I’ve learned also is that people that are in the justice system suddenly become really good at math.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah. Yeah, because…

Michael Whitlock:
Because you hear certain [inaudible 00:09:38]

Aaron Reason:
You know your days.

Michael Whitlock:
And then how much time that really means and…

Aaron Reason:
Right. Right.

Michael Whitlock:
What good behavior and so.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
Yeah.

Aaron Reason:
And honestly, at this point in my life, I’m just, I’m miserable. I’m 32 years old, I’m thinking to myself like, “Man, I’m about to go away for 10 or 15 years and the future is just looking grim.” And then God put somebody in my life, he was an attorney. And this is the first attorney I’ve ever had in the criminal justice system that absolutely fought for me tooth and nail.
The first thing he came and talked to me about was, “Aaron, what would you accept as a plea bargain?” And I told him what I was willing to take, and a month later he came back with that plea bargain. And not only that, just the genuineness of this person, not even as an attorney, but as a human being. He came up to the jail weekly and pulled me out to see me, not even to talk about my case, just to make sure that I was okay, because he knew everything that I’d gone through.

Michael Whitlock:
Just a good human being.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah, just…

Michael Whitlock:
Okay.

Aaron Reason:
Just a good dude, man. Just a good dude. And so I went to court and he fought for me. And I went from looking at 15 to 20 years to, he got it down to an 11-year sentence, and I only had to serve six in prison, which was half of that.
So I did another three years. And when I got out, life was a lot different then, right? I didn’t have my mom and dad’s to go to. I wasn’t able to use their car to go job search. Life got real. And I really fell back on, I had a victim’s mindset and I really fell into, “Man, I’ve got to sell drugs to try to come up to be able to get money for a car.”

Michael Whitlock:
That was your quick fix?

Aaron Reason:
That was my quick fix to everything. That was my solution. I was staying at a homeless shelter and getting eaten alive by bedbugs and just, I was miserable and it was the dead of winter. I’m walking to for jobs and looking for jobs in the cold winter and just.

Michael Whitlock:
Is this where, you hear about people will commit crimes because they’re almost more comfortable in prison once they get out? It sounds like, I’m sure there was no bedbugs in prison. I’m sure they do treat that.

Aaron Reason:
Right. Yeah, no.

Michael Whitlock:
And so you’re cold, you’re broke, you’re…

Aaron Reason:
Man, just down and out.

Michael Whitlock:
It had to have crushed your mind.

Aaron Reason:
Oh, yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
At least you knew how to survive on the inside, right? Yeah.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah, absolutely. And that was the mindset. I got to a place, it’s crazy, I got to this place where prison wasn’t even really a consequence anymore because I knew I could do the time. Right? I mean, I’ve been through it so many different times. I just accepted that. It’s just kind of like we were talking about acceptance earlier on today.
I accepted the wrong things in my life and it absolutely paralyzed me. And so just to kind of run through the next few years and what they went like, I started selling drugs and I was always on probation or parole and I just kept failing drug screens and they would send me back to prison. I went back to prison so fast one time, Michael, I went back in 57 days and they sent me right back to the same prison I was in.And I was joking with the guys in there and was like, “Yeah, I was trying to start a show called 60 Days Out, but I didn’t make it, I only lasted 57.”

Michael Whitlock:
Wow.

Aaron Reason:
And so I got out, I ended up doing five prison sentences. So let me get to this point where I talk to you about this last incarceration that I had. Okay? Before I do that though, let’s get a word from our sponsor in real quick, and then once we do that, I’ll come back and I promise we’re getting to the good part, guys.

Michael Whitlock:
All right, sounds good.
Speaker 4:
At the Indiana Community Addiction Network, we offer the new standard in medication assisted treatment. So if you’re ready to put substance abuse behind you, we’re here to help. We are a local family-owned center who will create an individualized physician-led care plan to help you reach sobriety.
At ICAN, we treat your addiction based on your unique needs and have full addiction treatment programs. Get started on recovery today. Call ICAN now to speak to an advisor at 888 635 1470, or visit us at addictionsnetwork.com.

Aaron Reason:
Hey, guys. We’re back. This is Aaron Reason, with A Reason To Live here with my producer, Michael Whitlock. And so to try to continue my story, in those times where I was struggling and I was homeless and I was just had a victim’s mindset, my older brother that I talked about earlier in the episodes, he ended up overdosing and passing away. And I’d gone back to prison on my fifth incarceration. And also my cousin that was also an addict ended up passing away too.

Michael Whitlock:
Wow.

Aaron Reason:
And so when I got out this last time, it was the same situation. Right? And now I don’t even have my brother to console in and confide in. And I don’t think I’ve ever, in my life felt so alone than in that time. And throughout this thing, I’d been married to a woman, she was in addiction as well, and we just had this really toxic relationship. And so she and I were back together and I was just back at it again, off to the races again.
But once again, God putting the right people in my life. And honestly, I never thought I would say it about a parole officer, but I would say that God put this parole officer in my life. And so here’s what happened. This is what changed, and this is where life starts getting good. So I’m out of my prison for the fifth time, I’m facing a parole violation already.
This is when COVID had hit. And from a drug addicts perspective, it was fantastic news because I didn’t have to report and see my parole officer. But I was using heavily and I had drugs, I had everything. I was making money. I wasn’t doing too bad, but I was absolutely miserable. And I got to this place where I was so defeated and I was so tired of living that way.
And something somebody had told me in recovery stuck out to me. And this is what they had said. They said, “You know, Aaron, you’re only one right decision away from changing everything. You just have to figure out what that right decision is, man.”

Michael Whitlock:
How impactful.

Aaron Reason:
It really is. It’s a simple statement. And so my answer to that would be my right decision came in the form of calling my parole officer and being completely transparent with him. And now I was really high when I made this phone call, just be honest, but.

Michael Whitlock:
And it probably doesn’t happen most days. I mean…

Aaron Reason:
Yeah. I’d never done that before. And I just called him and I said, “Listen, this is what I’m doing. I’m selling drugs. I’m doing the same thing that I’ve always done, and I’m surrounded by a lot of bad people and I feel like death is just right around the corner for me, and I don’t want to die. I’m sick of living this life. And when we first met, you told me that you would help me.”

Michael Whitlock:
This is the exact definition of a cry for help.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
Okay.

Aaron Reason:
It really was. And I said, “Man, I know you could send me back to prison, but I’m asking you to help me.” And he said, “All right, man. You come turn yourself in, and I’ll get you the help that you need.” And I was like, “Well, listen, here’s the thing, I don’t really turn myself in. Let’s not get too carried away, but I’m going to tell you where I’m at and you can come and arrest me.”
And so the cops came about three days later and I went to jail and thus began my recovery journey. At that time, I was intravenously using fentanyl, methamphetamines. I was also taking Xanax on a daily basis, and I was drinking vodka throughout the day. So my detox was very, very extreme, very hard. It was five days of not eating at all, throwing up consistently through the night, restless legs, sleepless nights.
My parole officer came to the jail and saw me and said, “Man, you look like shit.” And I was like, “Thanks, man.” And he was like, “But I’m going to get you the help that you need.” So he released me. I went to rehab. I did 21 days in rehab. And the people in that rehab, God put those people in my life too. And for the first time, I had enough humility to finally start listening to what people said.
And I had this opportunity in front of me, and I knew that I was done. I just knew it in my heart and I knew what I wanted, but I had no idea how I would get there. And so I listened to them though. They told me I should go to a halfway house and I went to a halfway house. And at that halfway house, they told me that I needed to get a sponsor and work the steps.
And I worked a 12 step program. And I’d saw a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in years, and I saw how good he was doing, and I couldn’t believe how much his life had absolutely turned around and it made me want it that much more. And so I listened to him. And he taught me what he did to get sober, and I just did what he did, and I became invested in this.
And at one point he’d made the comment to me, and I always joked that he probably saw this on a bumper sticker or something, because he’s not really that intelligent of a guy. He said, “You know, everybody’s trying to figure out the secret to life, man. I’ll tell you what it is, it’s serving others.” And that really stuck with me. And so I started doing all these things that I’d never done before. I started feeling good about myself.

Michael Whitlock:
So step one for you, not in the 12 steps sense, but…

Aaron Reason:
Right.

Michael Whitlock:
Step one for you was surrendering.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
And then after you have some acceptance, you learn about serving others.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
And so this is truly what got me excited about your story, because I’ve seen what you look like on this side.

Aaron Reason:
Right. Right. Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
I see the way you serve others.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
The way that you relate to people at our facility. You truly lead with words of wisdom, with love and compassion. You know when people are truly ready to give it all up and put in the work. And that’s a phrase that I’ve heard here so much is put in the work.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
Those are the people that we have identified that are over the lifestyle, that are really wanting to get away from it. They know that it is going to be work, but it’s worth it to them.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
They don’t want to feel like crap anymore and in this endless cycle and the overdoses and everything. And when I was young, overdose meant death. When people say that someone overdosed, that was the death sentence.

Aaron Reason:
Right.

Michael Whitlock:
And now people are overdosing sometimes multiple times because of this wonderful evil substance called Narcan.

Aaron Reason:
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
It’s wonderful in the sense that it’s saving lives, it’s horrible in the sense that people rely on it to be able to go back to using again because they’re like, they feel safe.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah. That one.

Michael Whitlock:
And it’s not a guarantee.

Aaron Reason:
It’s definitely not.

Michael Whitlock:
It’s a Hail Mary. And we’re very thankful that Narcan exists, don’t get me wrong. But at the same time, it’s very scary that people rely on this as a safety net.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
And so why don’t you touch on a little more of this journey?

Aaron Reason:
Yeah. So I started, it’s the wins that kept me going. I started winning in life. And I hadn’t done that in a long time.

Michael Whitlock:
Yeah.

Aaron Reason:
I remember I got my license back and I got a car. And ironically where I bought the car at, I actually drove past the prison that I’d just been housed in. And I was driving past the prison. In that moment, I had such a level of gratitude in my heart that I just started crying because I was finally winning and I was finally doing good. I got off parole. I actually completed parole for the first time in my life.

Michael Whitlock:
Yeah.

Aaron Reason:
I hadn’t been off of probation or parole since I was literally 17 years old.

Michael Whitlock:
Wow.

Aaron Reason:
And at this point, I’m 40 years old. And you know that they, I graduated from the halfway house that I was in, and I was doing so well they asked me to stay on and be a manager of one of the three-quarter houses that they had where I was going to transition into. And so I did that, I did that for a year. And in my recovery journey, in my mind, I always think more.
And what I mean by that is, what more can I do? And so I connected with a church, a local church, and I started serving at that church too. I didn’t just stay in recovery. I really want to be of service wherever I can be. And my relationship with God strengthened and it built. And I didn’t overwhelm myself with trying to be perfect. Right?
We talk in the programs about having a higher power, and for me, that was just being submissive to something greater than myself and believing in that. And things really started falling into place. I say, God put the right people in my life. I think God put my sponsor in my life. I think God put my sponsor’s family in my life because they are such good people. They have literally adopted me, and they call me their son. I go there for Christmas and all the holidays. And they’ve just enveloped.

Michael Whitlock:
A second family for you.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And they enveloped me in love and they loved me. And that was a big part of what I was missing. And there was times where I needed to do some work, some inner reflection. And when I did that, I didn’t like the person that I saw, and there was a good man inside of me. And I just was like, how do I get that out? How do I become this better man? And I say that prayer every single morning. I actually pray that every morning. I say, “God, help me be a better man today than I was yesterday.”

Michael Whitlock:
Yeah.

Aaron Reason:
Well, what does that entail? Right? What does that look like? It means doing the work like you were just talking about. It means going out. Even when I don’t want to do things, I do it. I give my lead. I share my testimony. I try to help other addicts. And I left the job that I was at because I really felt like I was being called to pursue something else.
Because God had put another guy in my life that I’d met on my recovery journey, and he’d started working here at this rehab. And you know what? He wanted to bring me on and was like, “I think you’d be great here.” And he believed in me. And so he put his neck out there and got me a job here. And so I started working in the recovery field, man. And I cannot say enough about this place and the people here and how the people here love me.

Michael Whitlock:
And I truly believe this when I say this, that there has to be something comforting for a person walking through these doors on one of their worst days ever, knowing that there are people in recovery working here that have done the work and walked back out the door in a positive way. They’ve succeeded. Because a person like me that doesn’t know, I’m just spouting textbook knowledge or whatever.

Aaron Reason:
Right. Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
And it’s like, yeah, you’re saying this because you’re paid to say this or whatever, but you know that it’s really possible. You’ve shown that it’s possible to succeed, to be healthy, to recover, and to fight this awful thing that we call addiction. And that street cred, if you will, that offers some street cred to these people that like, wow, a success story. Maybe they can give me some pointers.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
That’s why I love that we have people here that have successfully navigated recovery and come and defeated these demons, and now they’re here providing service, helping people put in the work.

Aaron Reason:
Yeah.

Michael Whitlock:
So.

Aaron Reason:
Definitely. God has surrounded me with such good people, and just my church family, my sponsor and his family, my work family here. I’m also involved, as funny as this sounds, I actually teach a class at the local jail here now. The same jail that housed me for so many years, I go back, I get to walk back in there. I’m part of the chaplaincy program there, and I get to teach recovery, a recovery bible study up there. How are these doors opened? Why were they open for me?

Michael Whitlock:
Yeah.

Aaron Reason:
And I think that for me, a lot of this is just being a vessel. Right? And I think that some addicts miss the mark in the sense that they don’t understand this is a spiritual journey that we’re on. And honestly, I didn’t get that either for a long time. And it took a lot of people dying around me to realize the importance of life.I mean, it took a lot of death for me to see what life is really about.

Michael Whitlock:
Yeah.

Aaron Reason:
And it’s we’re all on this spiritual journey. And what can I do? What more can I do every day to try to leave a good mark and leave a good mark on people? I hope I make an impact here every day. I hope that I continuously reach out and I continuously grow because that’s the goal, right? To continue to grow.

Michael Whitlock:
So as promised, we have ended on a positive note in Aaron’s story.

Aaron Reason:
Told you so.

Michael Whitlock:
It didn’t sound good there for a while.

Aaron Reason:
Man.

Michael Whitlock:
But I’m happy to sit right beside you and work on this podcast together. I think we can do some real good here, sending some messages of love and hope and inspiration. Let them know why we’re in the business, why we work at a facility that is helping people because it’s needed. It’s really bad out there.

Aaron Reason:
Absolutely.

Michael Whitlock:
And it takes all of us working together. So this is going to wrap up episode two. And the future is wide open. We’ve got some guests lined up that share some of their stories, some experts about some of the different treatment options out there. And really looking forward to building an audience and sharing this story. So stay tuned for episode three of A Reason To Live with our fantastic host, Aaron Reason.

Aaron Reason:
Aaron Reason. Thanks, guys. Hey, guys. This is Aaron Reason again. Just want to thank you guys for listening to episode two. Glad we ended it on a positive note. I just want to thank our sponsors for making this thing happen for us, Bridges of Hope and Indiana Community Addiction Network. We really appreciate all the effort they’ve put into this.

Michael Whitlock:
And that’s a wrap for episode two. We’re super excited and thank you for joining us. Look for episode three, which will be out soon, and we’ll see you next time.