Documentary: From isolation to community: Recovery retreat

Brut America

"I could have missed it all."  One in six American adults have a substance use disorder. Brut filmmakers Leo Hamelin and Eleonore Finkelstein visited a retreat to uncover their stories of recovery and hope.

Transcript

00:00I'm going to light this for my sister and my dad who did not get the help that

00:10they needed and they died a year ago. So that's for them.

00:21My name is Ken, I'm a person in sustained recovery. My name is Lucas. My name is

00:25Kristen, I'm an alcoholic. I'm Renata, I'm a woman in recovery. I'm John, I've been

00:30in recovery for two years now. This is the first time I've ever done anything

00:34like this. I'm really grateful to be here, to be around friends, and to be

00:39comfortable in my own skin because it was a long time that I wasn't.

00:43This is our sixth Adventure Weekend. What I find out is that we're more alike than we are

00:58different. The situations may not be exactly the same, but there's so many

01:02commonalities between us. So whatever you want to do, there's a ton of

01:05activities. If you want to just, if this is your weekend to sleep and just

01:08recharge that way, then you can do that as well. But I'd encourage you to

01:12be involved if you can. I'm probably not nearly as far along in my sobriety as

01:18the rest of you guys and I'm super like self-conscious about that. Anytime

01:22someone asks me like how is my sobriety going, I'm like it sucks, I hate it, this

01:26is awful. And I guess I was acting that way and it was manifesting as aggression

01:31because I guess I just really wanted people to like see my pain, but I wasn't

01:35like expressing it properly. So I'm ready to not be so resistant and hopefully

01:42soon when people ask me how it's going, I can genuinely say like it's good, it's

01:45going well. Early sobriety, it does suck. Yeah. You know, it does suck because also

01:50you're feeling things that you've never, I short-circuited feeling those

01:55things. So like to go through them and you know sometimes sober, son of a bitch,

01:59everything's real. The catalyst for my substance abuse was the death of a very

02:05close friend of mine. She was an addict also and never really got the help that

02:09she needed. I've been kind of on the path towards recovery, but it hasn't been

02:16going great. I've had a lot of relapses along the way. I've felt a lot of anger

02:20and feeling like I'm kind of forced to give up this thing that was like the

02:24only thing that made me feel okay and now I don't have that, but I know that

02:27there's other ways to kind of get that feeling without needing a crutch. So I

02:33got kicked out of the Navy, which sent me like spiraling out of control. I knew

02:38that I was up to no good as soon as I got home, so I made sure that I pushed my

02:42loved ones as far away as possible. I like got kicked out of where I was

02:47living, so I didn't have people checking up on me. My friends were all annoyed with

02:49me. I just kept everybody very distant, so it was, it was very isolating, but I

02:56chose it and then I couldn't like get back, I guess. I really wanted to keep my

03:07personal health, honestly, very secret. Addiction is one of the characteristics

03:14of it is isolation. There's some orange in, they're wild. How long have you been

03:32doing your own thing, like living on your own and like? I've been on my own since nine.

03:37My parents were neglectful. They didn't, they weren't parents at all.

03:45They were just there doing their own thing, you know, drugs and stuff. When I

03:49was 18 and I downed a half a bottle of vodka, and that was the start. That was the

03:55start, but also I should have died that night. I drank every single day from the

04:00minute I woke up in the morning until I passed out. It was really, really bad.

04:05I've gone to church drinking. I've gone to their school functions. It's not like

04:11our behavior is ever excusable, right, but like we were sick. What was like your

04:17realization moment when you wanted to stop drinking? I was working at Amazon

04:24and I wanted to die. I was drinking heavily every night when I got home. I

04:31was getting high at work. I was thinking about jumping off the balcony because I

04:36would work on the third or fourth floor and I had a panic attack. I had a severe

04:41panic attack and I ended up in the hospital. It's the most extreme things,

04:45but like there's that wake-up call. It's that like I cannot go on living in this

04:50pain, but I also don't know like there's other options. I was like not living and

04:54then when I was 28 I got into recovery and then it was like my life started. So

04:59I always say my life started at 28 and now I've been sober for two and a half

05:04years. Yeah, life's great. Life's good. I could remember an assumption of someone

05:12with alcohol use disorder is sort of a disheveled person drinking liquor out of

05:16a bag. When actually these people could look like me and I think I look pretty

05:24well put together today by me showing up and just being who I am, I hope that that

05:29eliminates stigma because we can look like anyone. I felt that I was in a way

05:39protecting the people that I love from all of the negativity that I was feeling,

05:42but I've realized recently that people care and they want to help and to push

05:46that away, like it's selfish to do that.

05:51The loved ones in my life also get a lot out of offering the help. When you're in

05:56active addiction, I don't know, you just feel so isolated or you isolated

06:00yourself. The key actually is like the community.

06:06It helps you to know that you're not alone and it's people of all different

06:13age groups, but a lot of the time they're just going through the same struggles

06:16that you're going through. It helps you like be reassured that you're on the

06:26right path. I've realized I really need people, like I love people. It doesn't have to be

06:33focused on sobriety and recovering stuff, it's just like being a person, like

06:36talking to everybody, getting to know them, hanging out, laughing, but there

06:39always is that layer of like we can get like very real. Well I'm four and a half

06:46years sober, so I think this is my fourth year. Awesome. Yeah, nice, it's a good fit.

06:53Tell Honey Badger she's a good dog and if anything happens to me, I leave Jake

06:59with all my debt. I'm not going nearly that high, we are not going that high.

07:08I've never done this before.

07:10Oh, that's so much fun.

07:12Okay.

07:14You got this.

07:16I know.

07:18Are you getting ready? No.

07:20Because you look ready. No.

07:22I'm not ready.

07:24Alright, let's take three more steps.

07:26Okay, stop, stop it!

07:28Stop!

07:35I handle most of my bad days now by reaching out to someone, by talking to someone.

07:46We're going to move on to the meditation.

07:50Allow your eyes to gently close.

07:53Allow your breathing to be natural.

07:58Doing things alone is not, it's not healthy. We were meant to be around the fire.

08:08There's a reason why our ancestors came down from the caves and came around the fire,

08:13because we need each other.

08:16Right now, I'm sitting here, there's a bird, like, you know, a nice fire, good company,

08:24and, like, everything's fine right now.

08:28I'm around people that care about me.

08:30I care about them.

08:32I know we're going to eat s'mores later.

08:36Who's got it better than us?

08:40And I could have missed it all.

08:42I could have missed it all.

08:46When I, like, started treatment,

08:48I was so, like,

08:50I know everyone always says, like, I was so broken.

08:52Like, I was so not a person,

08:54and I didn't want to be.

08:56And one thing I really remember is

08:58that first month, PHP, the inpatient,

09:00there was another housemate,

09:02and me and him were talking one night,

09:04and he, at one point, had, like,

09:06I think it was two or three years of sobriety

09:08and then relapsed, and that's why he was there.

09:10And I remember staying up late with him,

09:12talking, and I was, like, picking his brain.

09:14I was like, what was it like?

09:16Like, I couldn't, I was trying to understand what that would be like,

09:18to have, like, two, three, I was like,

09:20what was it like?

09:22I hadn't had more than a few days,

09:24and I don't even know how many years at that point.

09:28He was like,

09:30it felt like freedom.

09:32I get what he says now.

09:40It's okay to feel pain

09:42and to suffer.

09:44It's a human thing. We all do.

09:46It's fine

09:48to, like,

09:50be vulnerable, be open,

09:52get comfortable being uncomfortable.

09:54It's better

09:56on the other side.

09:58It's clearer.

10:00It's happier.

10:02It's...

10:04It's great.

10:16You

10:20You

10:22You

10:24You

10:26You

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