isn't good. It's not what you're supposed to be, or what you deserve to be feeling. When you're using, and when you're drinking? You know what that's going to bring. It's going to bring a sense of comfort and feeling fine - for a little while. But then what? It's right back to where you were. And more, it's going to bring on destruction, and more destruction over the long term. With the pandemic, people have been isolated physically and psychologically, and now they're getting out, in some cases for the first time in a long while. What are some of the steps that you've taken to protect against those temptations? It's three things. One, my faith. Two, you know movie trailers, right? Trailers get you pumped up. [My wife] Dawn and I (pictured right) are huge Marvel fans, and every time a new Marvel trailer comes out, I send it to her. Well, I have a movie trailer I play constantly. That movie trailer is the movie of my life, using. In treatment, we called it "Play the Tape Back." And when I play the tape back, that's all I need to see — I don't want to go down that road. And the third thing that I use is…it's my wife. She came back to me. She came back. Once she asked me what would make me want to go back to using. Nothing. I look at what I had, and what I have, and there's no comparison. Not a damn thing. And if there's something or someone, anything that makes you feel love or loved - even when you think you don't deserve it, when you know you don't deserve it - then you focus on that.
How has your personal journey impacted your professional endeavors?
Through Beaucoup Boil, through Step With Soul, and also even through my marriage and my family, I'm turning pain into purpose. Now that the fog has lifted, I just pray that I can continue to feed both of those ministries. Because that's what they are. Beaucoup Boil and Step With Soul? They're ministries. Cooking feels good, and the food tastes good, but I'm more about how is this impacting you in conversations and giving you an authentic experience?
It's all about creation and making people feel good and impacting the community.
This is an excerpt of a longer interview. Visit RacismUnveiled.org for more.
This story is part of the Racism Unveiled digital storytelling project with generous funding from the Otto Bremer Trust, HealthPartners, and the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation.
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