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Sep 7
  • Written By Ashley Jo Brewer

    • #118 – Charlie Gray

    #118 - Charlie Gray

    How Penning a Memoir Helped a Gay Man Find Recovery After Attending 54 Rehab Facilities

    Charlie Gray is a mid-30’s, white, gay man living in Midwest America. For years he suffered as a high-functioning alcoholic experiencing chronic relapse. On July 8, 2020, Charlie entered sobriety and began penning his memoir as part of his healing process – At Least I’m Not The Frog: A Zany Memoir of Alcoholism & Recovery.

    His book begins shortly after he graduated from Drury University at the age of twenty-two, bright-eyed, hopeful, and eager to become an Academy-Award winning actor. At the time, he was ravenous for experience, which he found, albeit not quite as he anticipated. Wandering from corporate banking to global travel, always with a bottle of vodka in tow, Charlie became privy to the glittering underbelly of an addictive lifestyle. Fearing this was his ultimate fate, he fled to a series of no less than 54 rehabs, detoxes, and psychiatric wards – all of which is recollected in his book. 

    At Least I’m Not The Frog is currently trending on Amazon’s Hot New Releases in the substance abuse category. 

    Charlie resides in his quaint hometown in Missouri, with his family, friends, and cat, Klaus. These days, he can usually be found searching for epic, inspiring moments or updating his blog on maintaining sobriety and clarity, aptly titled At Least I’m Not The Frog II.

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    Episode Transcript

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Coming up on this episode of the Courage to Change.

    Charlie Gray:

    I started to learn what detoxes were, that they could be separate from going to rehab, but you could also get excuses from them to not be fired from your job. I started to understand how that process worked. Yes, use the system. That’s what I did. I thought, “You know what, I’ll go on a six to 10-day bender, and I’ll go to work some of these days. But on the last couple of days, I won’t go to work, I’ll drink really hardcore, then I’ll go to detox.” Detox will say, “Hey, yeah, he was real f’ed up these last few days. Just forgive him.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Hello, beautiful people. Welcome to The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast. My name is Ashley Loeb Blassingame, and I am your host. Today, we have Charlie Gray. Charlie is a mid 30s gay man living in the Midwest. For years, he suffered as a high-functioning alcoholic experiencing chronic relapse.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    On July 8 of 2020, Charlie entered sobriety and began penning his memoir as part of his healing process. At Least I’m Not the Frog: A Zany Memoir of Alcoholism & Recovery. His book begins shortly after graduating from Drury University at the age of 22, bright eyed, hopeful and eager to become an Academy Award winning actor.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    At the time, he was ravenous for experience, which he found, albeit not quite what he anticipated. Wandering from corporate banking to global travel always with a bottle of vodka and toe, Charlie became privy to the glittering underbelly of an addictive lifestyle.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Fearing This was his ultimate fate, he fled to a series of no less than 54 rehabs, detoxes and psychiatric wards, all of which is recollected in his book. At Least I’m Not the Frog is currently trending on Amazon’s hot new releases in the substance abuse category.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Charlie resides in his quaint hometown in Missouri with his family, friends and cat, Klaus. These days, he can usually be found searching for epic, inspiring moments or updating his blog on maintaining sobriety and clarity, aptly titled, At Least I’m Not the Frog 2.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh, my goodness, this is one of those. I had so much fun. Charlie is a hoot, and 54 different programs. 54. I mean, that blows many of us, all of us out of the water. And it’s a really incredible story about not giving up, continuing to fall on your face and getting up again until something changes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Charlie got sober during the pandemic. We talk about that. We talk about his loss of his mother early on when he was 13. And we talk about what it feels like to have alcohol calling to you in your head towards the end of the episode. So, I hope you enjoy this. I hope it is informative and fun, and I’ll see you at the end. All right, Episode 118. Let’s do this.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You’re listening to The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast. We’re a community of recovering people who have overcome the odds and found the courage to change. Each week, we share stories of recovery from substance abuse, eating disorders, grief and loss, childhood trauma and other life-changing experiences. Come join us no matter where you are on your recovery journey.

    Charlie Gray:

    Haircut? I think it’s my best haircut.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    It’s your best haircut?

    Charlie Gray:

    Ever.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Ever.

    Charlie Gray:

    The expression, yeah, the red shirt, it’s great.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh, man. I’m feeling like you got to bring it back. There’s like wisps in the front. Okay.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So, tell me this photo. What is happening? You have the most beautiful blue eyes. What is happening in this photo where you look like you’re headed into the Spanish Inquisition and somebody, maybe a jailer, decided to shave your head but they missed a few spots as they were going quickly to get you to your interrogation.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. Let’s use that story. That’s a better story.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay, good. Or you’re a sheep being sheared, and I don’t know. I could go on. I could continue this. What actually happened?

    Charlie Gray:

    Well, Ashley, it was a lot of drugs and some booze.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Amen to that.

    Charlie Gray:

    The classic. Yeah. No, it’s great. It was my best friend from college. We were on the back porch of my fraternity house and just real … Can I cuss on this?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, you can.

    Charlie Gray:

    Right on. We were just really f’ed up, dude. Like really f’ed up. And I had this play coming up and we had to shave my head and we were just like, “F it, it doesn’t open for like three days. Be free, be yourself. Let’s do this.” And so it was …

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So, you just left all the areas that wanted to still hang in there before the show date?

    Charlie Gray:

    I think she was just honestly trying to do a good job and then we just had to make up that we were like free Bohemians. Yeah, no.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    [crosstalk 00:05:44].

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. There was a lot of weed and alcohol, I know, definitely, involved. I think at some point, it was just more important to smoke the blunt than it was to finish even my head.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Like finish the haircut. Yeah, I get that. I get that. I feel that very deeply, and I appreciate it. Such a great photo. You got sober for the last time. I’m just saying it’s for the last time because it is for the last time, aren’t we, right?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes, ma’am.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yes, ma’am. That’s right.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes, ma’am.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay. So, you got sober in 2020.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes, amidst the pandemic. I’ve seen there was another podcast that you had of someone that spoke about that. Yeah, right in the middle. That’s when I got sober.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So, 2020. As someone who is 15 years sober, here’s what’s going through my head. I’m like, “Oh my god, if there was ever a time to be drinking, it will be a worldwide pandemic while I’m locked in my house with my three year old twins and my husband.”

    Charlie Gray:

    One would think.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    In my head space. Then I talked to these people who get sober like yourself during 2020 and they’re like, “I knew I had to stop. This was my time to stop.” So, I find it very interesting and enlightening that in my head, a worldwide pandemic, the first thing I thought was like, “Well, shit, what else do you do? There’s no coping skill for this.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    And then all these people who were like, “Now is the time because I can’t go on this way by myself.” What was your mindset that got you to think that this is the right time, this is my bottom?

    Charlie Gray:

    For me, it happened in the middle of the pandemic, really, in July. I had drank some in the pandemic, not as a coping mechanism to deal with that. For me, that was a peripheral thing. I was still so self-absorbed in my alcoholism that it was a happening around me, but I wasn’t exactly conscious of it. I didn’t become aware of it until I became sober.

    Charlie Gray:

    So, I didn’t have that sort of pull. I had a pull of 10 years of it’s all I knew and did. I was so tired of being crushed by it that finally, I was able to have this moment where I woke up one morning in late June, and I just knew that I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t have it in me. I was so broken. I had nothing around me. And for whatever reason, my higher power was able to just get in that day and really kind of get its hooks in me.

    Charlie Gray:

    I did relapse after that. I had this glorious epiphany, and then I ran to the bottle a couple days. That was my last … A couple of days later. That was my last relapse, and it was just terrible. I cried getting the vodka. I cried drinking the vodka. It wasn’t able to do for me what it had done before. I could not achieve a blackout. I knew what I was doing. I was aware of the depravity in my life, and I couldn’t get away from it.

    Charlie Gray:

    July 8, I just thought, “Well, then we have to be done with that. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but we have to be done with that.” And that’s when I really started to look at myself and forgive myself. And a couple months later, the writing happened and it was through writing about the 10 years, 11. It was really 12, but we’ll call it 11. We’ll just call it 11 and be good with it, all right?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Every sentence, the years in Greece.

    Charlie Gray:

    I know, it gets worst.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    They’re 13, but it could have been 14.

    Charlie Gray:

    Listen, it is probably 20. No, it was 11 toxic years. And in writing about that, I was able to … From like a bird’s eye view, the first time see it and be like, “Oh, yeah, okay, duh. Of course, you drank. You had no coping skills and no guidance and no help. Of course, you drink.”

    Charlie Gray:

    And I stopped condemning myself through the writing process, and I found myself, I healed and I was so thankful. When I was finished, I thought, “Even if absolutely nothing comes from this, what it has given me is just the most beautiful renewal on life.” I didn’t know that, that was something I could have. I honestly believed it was something that I would never have. I thought that I was always going to relapse and just end up like my grandfather and die at a pretty young age of cirrhosis, and it would be pretty f’ing awful.

    Charlie Gray:

    I had come to terms with that. What I had not come to terms with was getting sober writing a book and this happening. So, this is just like, “I don’t know, man. It’s insane and it’s beautiful.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Wild, right?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. And I’m so thankful.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    One thing is you like … I always say I’m a slow learner, because I went to a lot of treatment centers. But you my friend.

    Charlie Gray:

    Just a few. Just a few.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You might be a real slow learner, because you went to 54 different programs.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. Yeah, I did.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I’m just going to say you get a round of applause for that, because that takes some work.

    Charlie Gray:

    F’ing A, man.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    That takes some work. I’m impressed you had time to drink between programs.

    Charlie Gray:

    I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that a lot, actually. And you would be surprised, but this little gay boy can throw it down in a few days, man.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I believe it.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh my god, it’s a lot. It’s a lot.

    Charlie Gray:

    It’s a lot. Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    It’s a lot. Yeah. You grew up in Missouri?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay. And you knew your whole life that you were gay. How long? When do you first remember thinking, “I’m attracted to boys, or there’s something different.” Any of the thoughts? When do you first remember?

    Charlie Gray:

    This is my favorite question, and this is a question that I have answered, really, since I was 18 when I came out. I love this question, because it opens up the opportunity to talk about being gay and what that means and how gay people identify.

    Charlie Gray:

    I was very fortunate to be a product of the ’90s, so it wasn’t … I grew up in a culture where it wasn’t as scary. I knew from a very early age. What I like to say is the first time that you noticed a boy or a girl, whatever that may have been, or look like for you, at that age, I was noticing a boy. And I knew that I was different. I knew that there was this stigma around it, but I also knew that it was okay.

    Charlie Gray:

    If I want to take a therapeutical view of it, I had enough love and support as a child to know that I was okay in how I was. And it was never something I shied away from. I very much embrace it. I just wasn’t in an area where I could just be gay.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Missouri just doesn’t have the … Doesn’t scream.

    Charlie Gray:

    No. [crosstalk 00:13:07].

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Doesn’t scream open gays. Yeah. No.

    Charlie Gray:

    No. There is a lot more love and support than you’d think, but especially back in the early 2000s, it wasn’t like it is now. And when I went to college and I came out at 18, I was like, “No more, I am free now. I shall be gay.” They had always been there. I’d always known it. I had never thought of it as my identifying or defining feature.

    Charlie Gray:

    So, later in life, when I would come across this and especially when I was trying to act. I have a gay voice. I have a higher voice. I’m not a manly man. When I would be confronted with that, I would be like, “This is so strange to me. I am so much more than just gay.” But that’s just because I had always known it, always. That’s a really long answer for a very simple question.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    No, it’s a great answer. You have some trauma, early trauma around age 13 that probably is more identifying than being gay.

    Charlie Gray:

    Definitely.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Can you tell us a bit about that?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, definitely. A couple weeks after I had turned 13, my mother passed away. She had a seizure at our house and just a series of days that progressed to a stroke, which ultimately left her without any brain waves, and then she passed away. So, it happened so quickly, and right before that stroke hit, my sister and dad and I were coming back from seeing a movie. And I talk about this some in my memoir, how I didn’t want my … What I walked in on and saw was her having that stroke and it was very graphic and scarring, and that image will never leave me.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah.

    Charlie Gray:

    A lot of things happened in that moment, though. It’s a very surreal moment. It gives me goosebumps anytime I talk about it. I knew that I didn’t want my sister to see that. She could not see that. She was too young, so I shielded her from that. But I think I also, in that moment, was like, “Okay, something really bad is happening, and you now have to grow up.”

    Charlie Gray:

    The feeling of being a parent would come a little bit later a couple months after mom died, but the foundation of that feeling was that day. And I think that day rocked me. I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t know it for many years, but through a lot of therapy, I can look back and say that it really affected me. It really scarred me.

    Charlie Gray:

    For a long time, I felt like it was an insult to my mom to be like, “No, you die and f me up.” I didn’t want her to feel that way or think that, or what have I done. Anyways, it was hard for me to cope with that. And I did turn to substances pretty early on. Sex and substances and drugs, and then quickly corrected my behavior once I saw how that impacted my sister, and the sense of parentification that I had developed over a course of the few months after mom dying.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    What’s the age difference between you and …

    Charlie Gray:

    Like six years and nine months, almost seven years. Yeah. She would have been seven when all this was happening. She just turned seven, I was 13. I don’t know what it is, the age difference. Well say around seven. Math was never my strong suit.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    She was young. Do we know why mom had a seizure? Or had that happened before? Was this related to anything or just total tragic?

    Charlie Gray:

    Total blindside. We found out like a year or so later in conversations that she had slipped and fallen like maybe a week or a couple weeks before that, so I’m sure that, that led up to it. But initially, no, we had no idea.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Like mom is totally fine, and then she’s not fine.

    Charlie Gray:

    And then she’s not fine, and she’s gone, and it was a four day process. It rocked our world. It rocked my dad’s world. They had met when they were 16. He had fallen in love with her and told his best friend like, “I’m going to marry this woman.” I think he had just seen her from behind at that point too. So, that was his whole world. Yeah, it doesn’t sound as good, as romantic as I wanted it.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I’m like, “Yeah.”

    Charlie Gray:

    [crosstalk 00:17:20] great, thank you. Thank you.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    That’s romantic.

    Charlie Gray:

    Turn that moment.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I love it. I’ll take it.

    Charlie Gray:

    I’m so sorry, dad.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I hope my husband says that about me.

    Charlie Gray:

    Right. She look good from behind. No, anyways. It was hard for him. He had loved her for more than half of his life, and so we were all just rocked by that, man. We didn’t emotionally heal from it for years.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. I mean, when I think about it from being the perspective of being a mother, for what it’s worth, I have two little boys. And if I died, I would expect that, that would f them up. Whether I chose to or not, my expectation … I would, of course, not want that to happen, but the expectation … Frankly, if it didn’t f them up …

    Charlie Gray:

    You’d be a little offended.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    If I didn’t f them up, I was really doing something wrong, right?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. Like, “What the f. Okay.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. Like, “Shit, do you know how many times I wiped your ass?”

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    No, but I mean, you … I think I can understand that guilt of saying like, “I don’t want to put this on her,” but also at the same time, frankly, that’s a really normal reaction to losing a parent, particularly at such a pivotal moment in that way, so shocking. Yeah, I would imagine that it was super difficult for your dad and that the home life completely shifted as you were all trying to figure that out. Did you have a first drink in that timeframe?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes. I had a first drink. A couple months after my mom died, I befriended this girl down the street. And I make it clear in my writing too that I do not put my actions on this friend. This is not me saying, “Oh, I met her, and then this shit up.” No, I know that I did this, and I was most likely the instigator. She was just an outlet for my anger, and my fear, and my grief.

    Charlie Gray:

    She was having a rough time in her life, so we were just combustible together. And it’s like, “Yeah, let’s drink. Let’s do drugs. Let’s vandalize our teacher’s Jeep. Let’s have sex unprotected.” Like, “What the f, bro, you’re gay.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yes. Talk about a f you, right? “I’m denying that I’m gay. I’m just going to go against …

    Charlie Gray:

    Strange time.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. “I’m going to just go against everything.”

    PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [0:19:58]

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. I was broken. I was broken. I was just broken. And then one day, my sister, I noticed that she looked … Oh, it makes me so emotional. I noticed that she looked really lost. And I was like, “Oh, now this is your fault. You’ve been running amok, all f’ed up. Well, her mom died too.” That fixed me for a hot minute, and I did not touch anything. I didn’t have the desire to. I completely switched tracks. I was like, “Okay, I am not going to be the f up that has devastated the rest of his life because his mother died. I am going to be something.”

    Charlie Gray:

    So, I set out on that trajectory. My alcoholism was so surprising when it just crushed that in my early 20s, but I was never coping. That’s not coping, either. That’s just a classic response as well to like, “Oh, now I shall be perfect, and I shall assume her spot, and I will cook and I will clean and I will make sure my sister is emotionally well.” And I couldn’t do any of that, because I was 13 and 14 and 15 years old. It was just a mess.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You were doing the best [crosstalk 00:21:13].

    Charlie Gray:

    I was doing the best I could.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, with what you had. It’s interesting. I have two younger sisters. When I was in treatment, by the time I ended up in treatment, I was so shut down, I would use dissociation as a coping mechanism. And when I got to treatment, one of the only ways I could connect to my feelings was putting my sister in my shoes. My younger sisters, thinking, if …

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I would talk to the therapist, and he would say, “Can you see how horrible this is that, that happened to you?” And I’m like, “No, it’s not really a big deal,” or whatever. And they would say, “Okay, pretend it’s your sister that this happened to.” And I would sob, just absolutely … For the better part of a year, I had to do therapy as if all my life happened to my sister, because it was the only way I could connect.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    And when I think about that, because that’s what you’re describing, we have this, we love and care so deeply for our family, our loved ones, our siblings, that if harm, any of those thoughts, whether it’s us or other people coming to them, we can connect to that. But we have this hatred of ourselves or this distraction, or whatever you want to call it, this hole that if it’s us, it’s all self destruct, it’s all disconnect. There’s no connection there.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    And really interesting, we can be really … It tells us how specifically the brain says, “I’m going to connect to this and I’m not going to connect to this.” Because it’s happening simultaneously.

    Charlie Gray:

    Without you knowing.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. You’re just like, “Okay, I’ll just focus.” It’s embarrassing honestly at this point, but I remember thinking that I was stepping into a parent role and that I was helping them. Things like showing them how to use alcohol and drugs in a safe way with me, like some other shit.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, responsible.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh god.

    Charlie Gray:

    I did it with my sister too. Yeah, I get it.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    And I’m like, “Wow, it’s really …” In my head, I am stepping into that parent role and trying to take care of them. The actuality of it is that it’s just hot ass, I mean, literally, just complete shit show. Our brains are operating. You can see when you look back, it’s like, “This is the best I could do at the time.” You can see the intention.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    But as we start using longer and longer, I feel like that intention, that visibility, the visibility of the intention starts to slip away. And we’re not able to participate in anything that’s even approximating looking like we give a shit.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Right?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So, you go off to college and you worked in … You were a Broadway actor, right?

    Charlie Gray:

    Oh god, I wish. No, I was trained. Yes, let’s use that as my blurb.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You were trained. Yeah, exactly. You’re trained …

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, by an actor that was on Broadway for many years in the ’70s and ’80s. And I went to a school here in Missouri, in Springfield called Drury University. And he had just recently moved back to Springfield. His wife had been on Broadway as well. So, they were just like the real deal, legit stage actors. And I just thought I’ve spent four years being trained by this man, of course, everyone is going to want me. I tried to act for about a year and a half, it didn’t work out. And I started working at a bank because you have to do something at some point. You have to have a pay check.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    The bank has money, so …

    Charlie Gray:

    And the bank has money. Yeah. I’ll go get their money. Yeah. [crosstalk 00:25:06].

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You’re like, “If I can’t be an actor, I’m going to be, go to the bank.”

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, I’m just going to go to the bank and be the best damn banker there is. No, yeah, I did. And I did really well in that environment, but it wasn’t what I was cut out for. It’s not what fed my soul.

    Charlie Gray:

    The drinking started really bad after college. It got really bad when the acting career did not work out. And then as soon as I stepped into the bank, man, it was just like drinking every night, drinking in the morning, drinking in the afternoon so that I’m not shaken, so that I can function. And I survived that way for years, and it was terrible. I got into a relationship with another alcoholic, and he was just terrible as well.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    We have to drop in this 54 treatment center thing. When did you go to your first treatment center? We’ll just map that shit out.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. [crosstalk 00:26:14].

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay. You go to college, right? How old are you now?

    Charlie Gray:

    I just turned 35 last June. I can walk you through it. You want me to walk you through, because girl, it’s confusing as shit. I know.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh, yeah. Hit me with all the thoughts. Let’s do this.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay. He met a guy, he went in a banker.

    Charlie Gray:

    He’s giving me too much information.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I’m like, “Where’s the time? You’re not that old.” Maybe he went for a day and then left. Yeah. How did you start going to treatment?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, great story. Here we go. Settle in everyone, I’m going to take you on a journey.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Settle in. Take us. Yes.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. I went to my first treatment center in 2013. I had been to …

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    13, where are you in life?

    Charlie Gray:

    In life? I am with a boy. Actually, I had just broken up with a boy. So, I had been working at the bank, at corporate in downtown Kansas City. Met the boy, he’s great, he’s a drunk, perfect. Let’s do drugs too, because that’s smart.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    No, that’s a really good bonding exercise.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. Oh, he’s so great.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay. So, you’re a few years out of college here.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. Few years out of college here, about 24, 25, 26 is whenever. It was just so bad in the bank for those years, and I get … I’m doing a lot of drugs, drinking a lot, left the job at the bank, just living at the apartment with him and this other friend of his and I decided, “This is terrible. This is not what was supposed to happen. I should call my cousin in Oregon who has been through treatment and knows about this, and she can tell me what to do, and I’m going to fly out there. That’s perfect.” So, I go out to Oregon all f’ed up. And I get there and she helps me get into a treatment center, so that was my …

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    And can’t get sober before you go to treatment.

    Charlie Gray:

    No. I actually told her, “I had to go to a detox before I could get into this treatment center, of course, because that’s how it works.” I didn’t know at the time. I now can tell you f’ing everything, but I didn’t know at the time.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I run a treatment center, you could probably tell me more.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, I know a lot of shit, man. I remember telling her on the way to the detox like, “They won’t admit me if I come in sober. We’ve got to stop and get a pint.” So, that’s what we did, and that was my first experience with treatment. It was pretty, pretty gruesome. It was like 30 guys living in this really small … It wasn’t very small, but it was this house, essentially. And there was like three or four of us to our room. It was a lot of old educational videos from the ’80s and ’90s, and we washed a lot of cars. That’s what we did.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Always helpful.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, always hurtful.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    For getting sober.

    Charlie Gray:

    Right. Wash those cars, you’ll never drink again. That was my first experience with treatment. So I was like, “Well, f that. Not doing that.” Little did I know. And I didn’t for many years. I didn’t do anything. I just drank and drank and drank and drank. And around 16, 17, I started to learn what detoxes were, that they could be separate from going to rehab, but you can also get excuses from them to not be fired from your job. I started to understand how that process worked. Yes, use the system.

    Charlie Gray:

    So, that’s what I did. I thought, “You know what, I’ll go on a six to 10-day bender, and I’ll go to work some of these days. But on the last couple of days, I won’t go to work, I’ll drink really hardcore, then I’ll go to detox.” Detox will say, “Hey, yeah, he was real f’ed up these last few days. Just forgive him.” And they did for whatever reason.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    “Just forgive him.”

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. And they always did. I don’t know. A perpetuated cycle.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Sorry, I just want to make sure I have this correct. You have a job. You go on a 10-day bender. The last few days, you don’t go to work. You go to detox before getting it approved?

    Charlie Gray:

    Before getting …

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Do you go to work and say, “I have to go to detox?”

    Charlie Gray:

    No.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay. You go to detox, and then detox calls work and says, “You f’ed up and hired this guy who needs detox every week?”

    Charlie Gray:

    And now you’re stuck with him.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. Now, you’re stuck with him because the laws protect him.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So anyway, long story short. “Charlie is in detox, and he’ll be back to work next week. Aren’t you excited?” That kind of thing?

    Charlie Gray:

    Very much. Yes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay. And then who pays for this detox?

    Charlie Gray:

    My insurance.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Naturally. Okay. How often were you hitting up the detox spa?

    Charlie Gray:

    The detox spa. It varied based on the year. At my worst, I was going every one to two months. At my best, I was going every four to six months.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    One to two months?

    Charlie Gray:

    Sometimes two in a month. Yeah. Especially when I was living in … Later in my life when I was living in Kansas City and I had access to this one detox facility … Because I was constantly manipulating when I was in these facilities. Wasn’t I? I was constantly feeding them a line of bullshit so earnestly and so effortlessly after a while that I tricked them into being on my side, when they should not have been, but they didn’t know. I knew all the right things to say and do. So, yeah, when I showed up … And it’s also money in their pocket. Let’s be real. But anyways …

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Well, you’re a Broadway trained actor.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes. I had some skills to grow down.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You had some skills. Not your fault that you had to use them in the detox center.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. I mean, it was just a sad life too. What a sad f’ing life, bro, and that’s why I had to rise above it. But that’s not where we’re at, we’re out here at the detox center.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    We’re still down. We’re still down below.

    Charlie Gray:

    We’re still down right now. Yeah. That was the deal, man, is get them on your side, and it did work out. Because if you have your employers and everyone thinking that like, “This poor guy. Oh my god.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Is that really what they thought?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    They really felt badly for you?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, man.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    They weren’t like, “Oh my god?”

    Charlie Gray:

    Probably behind closed doors, my managers were like, “What the f?” But to my face, yeah, no.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. I think the real question that everybody wants to know is, who’s your insurance?

    Charlie Gray:

    Several. Which one do you want? Do you want to know where you can go with it? Yeah, all of that.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I would like to know how you went twice a month and that your insurance just covered that.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. And I would go without insurance too. Let’s be real. There were times in my life when I didn’t have insurance, and you run the risk of racking up those medical bills. I didn’t care.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    What did your drinking look like? When you’d go hard in the paint, what did that … Were you having DTs coming off of them? Was this like you were drinking a gallon of vodka a day? What did that look like for you?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes. At the height of my drinking, what I maintained for several years was about a gallon every day and a half. I’d have to re-up about every day and a half. And so, drinking that way got me to the point of atrophying, not really being able to function, having to be in the ICU.

    Charlie Gray:

    That was the height. That was the worst, but what I maintained for most of the time, we’re talking about a pint to a pint and a half a day. And then when I would go hard would be probably a fifth. There were two kind of levels. There was when I was at my absolute worst, and then there’s where my sweet spot where I lived most of my life. Yeah. A lot of vodka.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yes. A lot of vodka. How many places do you think you went before you started to go, have the seeds started get planted of some of this stuff like, “Maybe I have a problem?” Is there a point at which you’re not ready, but you understand that you have a real problem?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes. I knew pretty much from 2013 and that first time going into treatment, I knew that there was a problem. What I didn’t know and couldn’t see at the time and for many years is that I was Never willing to do the work. I could acknowledge that there was an issue with my drinking, and I could explain to you my thought patterns and why there was an issue with my drinking.

    Charlie Gray:

    What I could not do is once I got out of detox or out of a treatment center was say, “Hey, rather than fall back on these piss poor coping responses that I’ve developed, I’ll instead go to a meeting, I’ll instead journal, I’ll instead call.” I never did any of that I just didn’t do the work. I didn’t care for a portion of it, I’m sure. It was always there. I always knew it. I did not act on it until really the end of 2019 is when I really was like, “Okay, there’s something shifting in me, I feel different.:” And then that kind of snowballed into the sober date in 2020, but it’s been there for …

    Charlie Gray:

    I think what I say in the book is it had been in the back of my mind the whole time, I just never wanted to tether myself to it, because then it became real. And as long as I wasn’t tethered, then it wasn’t real. I didn’t have to acknowledge it, I didn’t have to deal with it, really deal with it. I could go to these places, and it looked like I was, but I never really had to do the work until I wanted to save my soul and I did the work.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Right. It’s funny what it takes for us to enact these things that are relatively … God forbid, you say like, “That made it real.” The 54 treatment centers that don’t make it real, but going to meetings, that shit will make it … Our brains just operate so differently and interestingly, and often conveniently. It convinces us this is the narrative that works for us.

    Charlie Gray:

    Oh, yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    The coping skills thing is huge. I don’t know about you, but for me, I had to act my way into new thinking. I could not think my way into new acting, personally. I know that’s not the case for everybody. Which kind of direction did you go in with that in terms of getting these new coping skills?

    Charlie Gray:

    What I did, I would say I don’t think I acted. I think I just finally surrendered and then implemented everything I had been taught. Because you see, what you get from 54 treatment centers is an amazing knowledge of therapeutic tools, and both scientific and holistic.

    Charlie Gray:

    What I had to do was just be like, “You have had access to this insane amount of knowledge, do something with it. Implement it on yourself.” That’s what I did. I just thought, “Okay, I’ve been told long enough of if I’m starting to feel this way, or if I’m starting to lean this way, here’s A, B, C, and D that I can try, that I can go through before I have to fall to the bottle.”

    Charlie Gray:

    That’s really what I did for the first time was just use the huge f’ing tool bag I’d been carrying around but never opened. I finally cracked that bitch open, and she told me a few things, and did a few things, and it worked, and I was bolstered by that. I thought, “Oh, wait, I can do this. I never think that I could, so let me try this, and then I’ll try that. Hey, this is working. Whoa, shit is real, dude. You can get sober.” And that’s just kind of how it went for me.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    One thing I’m working on now in my recovery is trying … I like to overwhelm everything myself, everything, everyone, all things. And one thing I’m working on is if I want to make a change, I’m implementing one change, and then focusing really hard on that as opposed to trying to change all these things about all these coping mechanisms. I know that some people, they quit everything at once, and then boom, they’re off to the races. I still had to smoke for a while and I still had to do these things. What did that look like for you with your coping skills? Did you do a bunch at once? Did you do one at a time? How did you implement them into your life?

    Charlie Gray:

    In the very beginning, in those first three or four weeks of getting sober this last July in 2020, July 8, 2020, I had to try everything. I had to distract myself with everything. So, if it was listening to music and journaling for 30 minutes so that I wouldn’t drink, but then I became antsy because I couldn’t do that. Then it was call somebody, then I’m going to do that.

    Charlie Gray:

    In the beginning, I had to do f’ing everything to just stay away from the bottle. Because for me, it’s really the first five weeks. If I can make that first five weeks, then we can start to maybe make some work. And I felt like this time after I made really that first month and a half and I looked around and I thought, “Okay, you’ve come this far, you’ve done this 3,000 times. What are we going to do differently that will keep you sober?”

    Charlie Gray:

    And that’s when it very much became for me about implementing, yes, one thing at a time. Focus on one change. When you wake up in the morning, what is the one goal you have for today? Let’s accomplish that, and then we can move on to the next.

    Charlie Gray:

    And then a couple months after that, I was able to sit down and write a five-year plan of like what I wanted to accomplish. That very much now breaks it down for me. Just one thing at a time, just take the next step forward, and I’ll eventually get to where I want to be.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Did you use a 12-step program or any other kind of recovery support?

    Charlie Gray:

    I have used a lot of 12-step. I am a very, very indoctrinated in 12-step. I have worked the steps. In my past, I have worked the steps to four or five. and then this time getting sober, I have not worked them with a sponsor, but I’ve pulled from them what I’ve needed.

    Charlie Gray:

    I read the big book a lot. I read the back of the big book a lot. It gave me much more … What’s the word I’m looking for? It just lifted my spirits so much. Reading that back of the book, I always thought, “Why do we pay so much attention to the first one?” It’s 164, right?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

    Charlie Gray:

    “Why do we pay so much attention to that?” And we don’t really spend, or I couldn’t ever find in all my travels and meetings, ones that were like, “We’re just going to work on the back of the book for a year.” Rather than do the … I’m on a tangent here. That was kind of my program was very 12-step based, but not your traditional, I’m going to get a sponsor, I’m going to go through the 12-steps. I had done that, it didn’t seem to work out well for me, but that does not mean I think that it does not work. I think it works wonders. I am a huge advocate for … The anonymous is what I call them because I love NA, I love CA, and I love AA. I love them.

    PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [0:42:05]

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. Me as well. Stay tuned to hear more in just a moment. I want to interrupt this episode to have a short little discussion about support groups. And there is no better person to talk to about this than my production coordinator, Ashley Jo Brewer, AJB, if you will. AJB, hi.

    Ashley Jo Brewer:

    Hi.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay. You’re a big fan of community, you attend community support group meetings. Why? Why should people care?

    Ashley Jo Brewer:

    I absolutely love community, because it creates the community. And I know that sounds funny, but it truly provides a space for anyone and everyone, no matter what they are going through.

    Ashley Jo Brewer:

    Just to give you an example, I invited or told a friend about community because she was really struggling with binge eating disorder and had gone to many different groups and felt shunned or not accepted, or it wasn’t a place for her. And at community, she found a place, because in community meetings, we don’t care what the substance is or what the struggle is. Everyone is accepted no matter where they are in life, no matter what they are recovering from. And I think that’s what’s beautiful about community.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh, I love it. Yes. I 100% agree with you that the value is that you don’t have to know what your problem is, what your struggle is ,what you want to give up or not give up, or whether you’re abstinent or whether you’re stopping, whatever it is. You are welcome, and you are welcome in this place, and it’s a great place to discover the answers to all the questions that you’re looking for in a community and have that support. And it’s free to anyone.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You go to Lionrock.life, and there is a tab with community meetings. There are different days, different times, different subjects. There’s even a cooking group called Community Table. There are so many different options, something out there for everyone.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So, I highly recommend maybe after you listen to this, if you are looking for more community in your life, more friends, more support, please, please go check out community Lionrock.life. Click that community tab.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    For people who are listening, who may be a family member who has a loved one who has gone through a lot of treatment centers and they’re like what … I think about it. I don’t know if you think about this way too, but maybe you put your little sister actually. Maybe that would be good.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Think about it from the perspective of I think about it with my kids. I’m helping them get into treatment and they keep relapsing, and how frustrating and defeating that would feel. And yet, you are an example of how all these treatment centers that … Frankly, I’m an example. I didn’t get in. I didn’t do quite the amount that you did. Impressive. I’m still sub 10.

    Charlie Gray:

    Well, shit.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, I know. I know. Next life.

    Charlie Gray:

    Next life. Goals.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Goals. Life goals. How does a family member think about … I guess it’s a two part question. How does a family member think about what is going on in your head? What does it sound like in your head when you get out of treatment and you don’t want to take a drink, but you do want to take a drink? But you don’t want to take a drink, and you do want to take a drink and you end up drinking.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    And then the other half of that question is, what hope maybe both of us can come up with something? Can we give family members who are struggling with the relapses and struggling to find hope, struggling to not give up on their loved ones when they aren’t getting it every time, et cetera?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes, this is a great question for me, because I have had these conversations with my family recently, and being sober, of learning what did it do to you when I was on this insane journey where I was gone sometimes for a week or two on end. No one would know where I was at or what was going on.

    Charlie Gray:

    When you’re the alcoholic or the addict, you never in that moment of your active addiction are thinking, “What are the ripple effects of my actions?” And I could get into the science of the brain and why we behave the way we do, but that’s a whole nother topic. But it’s because when you’re in the moment, your priority set is I’ve got to get f’ed up. If I don’t get f’ed up, I won’t live.

    Charlie Gray:

    We’ve heard addicts and alcoholics say that, but we don’t really know what that means. How can that make sense? How can you let all of this fall to the wayside just because you’ve got to get f’ed up? And I’m hoping that through my story, I explained that it’s so much bigger than just my processing in this moment.

    Charlie Gray:

    My processing in this moment is so distorted because of everything that built it, because of what happened to me and the mechanisms that I created along the way. And to get myself out of that is not an overnight process. And for some of us, it takes a long time, it takes a lot of help, and it is very frustrating, and it seems like you’re not making any progress.

    Charlie Gray:

    But if that individual continues to get up and try to do something, for a moment, all they may know that’s good and right is to relapse, go to a meeting, go to a detox, go to a treatment facility. At least I’m doing something. I’m crying out for help. At least I’m doing that. That’s not easy to swallow for someone that’s not going through it. It’s like, “You’ve been there, just get your shit together.” That’s just not life. That’s our expectations that we are projecting onto life of what we want for that individual.

    Charlie Gray:

    I did have an opportunity in a treatment center in Utah to actually speak to a whole group of family members. We were doing a family session, and I felt like the family members were really ganging up on this one patient, because they had stumbled quite a bit. And I thought multiple family members were taking their frustrations out on their own individual on this one person. So, I was like, “It’s very important that you stand up for this person, but it’s very important that you do not insult or demean the family members, because what they’re going through is just as hard as what you’re going through, it’s just different.”

    Charlie Gray:

    So, that’s what I tried to help them see was like you have to, in your mind, break it away and realize that this person is not doing this to you. They’re not doing this for you. They’re just working with what the tools that they have, and they’re not very good tools. So, you’ll need to stand with them rather than kind of get caught up in your own frustration of how you want the situation to play out.

    Charlie Gray:

    For my sister, it was really hard because she felt very alone when I was going to all these centers. That’s the reality of it as well is there’s going to be … There is no magic answer that I can give, or meeting that we can go to say that life is tough, and it’s going to be really rough and you’re going to hurt people. But as long as you’re trying, as long as you continue to move forward, celebrate that. Yeah. Kind of a zigzag answer, but …

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    What did it sound like for you when you’d get out of treatment and you’d be sober for a period of time, or not even a period, but you’d get on treatment with all the resolve, and then it happened again? I like to try to describe this for people or have this description out there for people, and it’s different what mine sounds like maybe than your sounds like. What did it sound like, that voice that takes you to that drink? What was it telling you?

    Charlie Gray:

    Well, it was my life partner, wasn’t it? I mean, I had the one boyfriend and that was about it. And for the rest of the time, I was in a relationship with vodka, so it had seduced me. And it would creep up as soon as I left that treatment center of just rationalize your way out of it, or just do it. Or there would seemingly be no thought, but that would just be me tricking myself into getting myself to the liquor store.

    Charlie Gray:

    What I would think, the reasoning behind my drinking so quickly after coming out of a facility was, one, rooted in the fact that I loved it. I loved it right back, and I wanted to be in that relationship, and I didn’t want that relationship to end. I just wanted to be better in that relationship. I wanted to be able to do it so badly for so long like other people, and I could not come to terms with the fact that you cannot do that, Charlie.

    Charlie Gray:

    That was probably the biggest, loudest voice is, “Yes, you can. Yes, you can. This time will be different.” It’s so cliche, but it’s so many of us. That’s how it is. As you get tricked into thinking that this is going to be the only thing that ever loves you back and that will ever consistently be there, so why would I step away from it? And that’s flawed thinking, but you don’t see that in the moment when your body and your mind are crying out for it. You know what I mean?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I do. Yeah, I do. When you’re so afraid of being abandoned and when that’s a part of your story, this thing that’s terrible that causes you to do terrible things, causes you to be terrible things, but it will never leave, it will always be there. That you have this relationship, this consistency that this substance brings you, that it makes you feel.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I mean, when we think about how when we’re in a relationship with another human being, that other human being creates a state of feeling for us. They change how we feel, and so does alcohol, so does drugs or insert whatever. And for me, one of the most devastating times in my life was when alcohol and drugs stopped showing up for me.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes, exactly. Because you become addicted to the chaos as well and you become addicted to the damage control. And it’s what you’ve built for your life, and it’s the only thing you know. So, in this crazy world, I know how to navigate that. Then my shame starts to fuel me, but you’re exactly right, the day comes, July 7, 2020, whenever … That doesn’t work anymore. What do you f’ing do now, dude?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. That’s so painful, because that’s the thing you’ve been … That’s part of what you’ve relied on, what you’ve been running from is like, “Well, at least this works. I do this and this happens. It’s a formula.” It works every time, except one day, it doesn’t work. One day, your brain doesn’t shut off. The K-f radio in your head is still as loud as ever, and it keeps going. I say like, “We hired alcohol to do a job for us and it stops working one day.”

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, it stops showing up.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    It’s devastating. Yeah. It’s devastating, because now, you really have no coping skills and you’re a complete shit show. That is just terrible. 2020, what is going on for you as … Are you paying attention to what’s going on in the world? Or are you so just encapsulated by your alcoholism that it’s like …

    Charlie Gray:

    On and off, I was paying attention. From about January to July 2020, there were pockets of sobriety for a couple of weeks where I was present, and I knew that something bad was happening, but I didn’t really realize the full extent of it until I completely became sober.

    Charlie Gray:

    I mean, I was working at Walmart in April of 2020 when they were just starting to enforce the mask mandate. And I remember thinking like, “Oh, this is weird,” but not investing any sort of time into it, because I was still white knuckling my identity and trying to stay sober. I was like, “Okay. Well, the world is just like me now. This is probably what’s going to happen. Everything is just going to fall apart, and then I can just …”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    F it.

    Charlie Gray:

    “F it. I’ll just start drinking again.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, right? That’s an interesting way to put it. The world is just like me now. That’s interesting.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, that’s how I felt. I was like, “This is perfect. Now, you guys know what the f I’ve been going through for 11 years.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    “I’ve been having an emotional pandemic, fers.”

    Charlie Gray:

    For over a decade.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh, god. Yeah. You’re like, “Yeah, well, at least you guys have masks.”

    Charlie Gray:

    I know. Cover that shit up. Mine is blaring right in front my face.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Exactly. Shit does not wash off.

    Charlie Gray:

    No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    There’s no sanitizer for this. You get sober in July of 2020. Congratulations. You at least have a year, right? Or almost a year?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Congratulation. Awesome.

    Charlie Gray:

    A little over a year. Yep.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Are you so focused on not drinking that you kind of blot out what’s going on in the world? Or is that affecting you at all?

    Charlie Gray:

    No, it didn’t. I was so focused on staying sober. And then I switched jobs in August to work for an RV dealership in my hometown. And I just became focused on just going to work, staying sober, kind of rebuilding the relationships with my family that I had just destroyed over the years and being back home with everyone. I was like, “This is such a great opportunity for me now to rebuild my life.”

    Charlie Gray:

    The awareness of the gravity didn’t hit me until I visited a friend in February of 2021. I became aware once I got sober that things were bad, but I didn’t realize until I visited him in 2021 just how devastating the disease was. And then I looked a little further because I thought to myself I was not paying attention to the news. I thought like, “I wonder if people are drinking more.” And then all you have to do is Google that, and there’s all this research. This was like in the middle …

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So much.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. It was insane. This was in the middle of me writing my book. And I was just like, “Oh, wow. I didn’t realize that the alcohol sales and the rate had gone up so much.” And then you hear about, I think, recently was the most overdoses that have ever been recorded.

    Charlie Gray:

    I knew that there were a lot of us out there hurting. I didn’t know that so many more began to hurt like us during the pandemic. That the pandemic really just ushered in a new opportunity for addiction to thrive, and it did. And so I was just like, “This is terrible. Now, you’re f’ing with my people.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, it did. It did. Young women, liver disease as a result of drinking, cirrhosis went up 50% during the pandemic.

    Charlie Gray:

    That’s insane.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Numbers with it are just truly unimaginable. At the time, I was on the news all the time as an addiction expert talking about what was going on, because people were … I was talking about alcohol sales, and cirrhosis, and overdoses and all this stuff. The amount of people who relapsed in our community who had …

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I knew a woman who I had known forever, yoga teacher, super cool, sober, 25 years, family, the whole gig, sponsored 50 women I had known in recovery, started drinking and died. I mean, things are just like, “What?” Inexplicable, except that this was going on.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    When I hear that people are getting sober during the pandemic, and I saw a lot of people through Lionrock getting sober. It’s amazing to me because it brings this other side to what I was seeing, because of what my life looked like. I went to a young people in AA conference and I spoke this last weekend in Tucson.

    Charlie Gray:

    Cool. Right on.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I felt very old with this young people conference.

    Charlie Gray:

    Oh, shit.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I met this woman there, Jill, shout out to Jill, who said she listens to the podcast every day to which she said, “I listen to you every day, and I immediately texted my husband and I said there are people out there who want to listen to me every day and he said they only have to listen for an hour.” I was like, “See?”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    But Jill was saying that she got sober during the pandemic and that she was saying that she used podcasts. She used podcasts as meetings and going to different meetings. And really just an interesting shift in mindset. My focus was on all the people we were losing, and all the instances of addiction coming up, but there was this whole other crew of you guys that were getting sober.

    Charlie Gray:

    That were coming in. Yeah. That were coming in. Yeah. I felt that too. I said that actually to my very close family a lot throughout the year, because we became more and more proud each month that we could celebrate. It was just like, “Oh, it would take a pandemic for you, Bob.” It’s what they call me is Bob. They’re like, “It would take a pandemic for you to get your shit together.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh god, that’s so good.

    Charlie Gray:

    And I’m like, “I know, it’s so crazy. Everyone is just falling apart. Here I am writing a book. Like, what?”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I love it.

    PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [1:00:29]

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes. I felt very honored. I knew how special that was, and I knew that, that was bigger than me, that I was able to have that moment that I had in late June and stay sober throughout all of this and have the capability really to sneak around and hide my drinking if I wanted to. To have to confront that and work with that was a very interesting challenge. I understood the gravity of what was happening for those of us that were getting sober during the pandemic. Yeah, it was cool.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Therapy changed the game for you. We always talk about doing the work, right? The work in your case, what did that look like?

    Charlie Gray:

    So for me, the work is very much it can kind of break down into just three things is a lot of CBT, DBT, and automatic thought records. A lot of automatic thought records.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay. So, for people who don’t know, CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy, and DBT is dialectical behavioral therapy. Those are types of therapy.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes. They’re much more focused on you’re having a thought that’s probably not a healthy thought for you. You’re probably going to do bad behavior action based on this thought. So, you’re just going to really kind of play this thought out, the pros and the cons. And then you’re going to react in a much more rational, calm manner by implementing the steps that these types of therapy presents you with.

    Charlie Gray:

    And then automatic thought records, yes, are just kind of where you’re forcing yourself in that moment to write it down so that you are in that moment, and you’re dealing with that shit. And then you get through it in that moment. Those saved me a lot. Meditation and just the sound of the singing bowl is another really big one.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Love it.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes. I just had a sound bath a couple weeks ago for the first time, and it was life changing. So, very much the going out into nature. I’m a country boy at heart, so just being out in the woods and listening to that, and the singing bowl, and just meditating was the second thing that really, really helped me.

    Charlie Gray:

    And then journaling, or writing, or fueling some sort of creative outlet. For me, it’s something artistic. For somebody else, it may be working on a car. Those three things are what I really had to do in order to get sober. And underpinning all of those, of course, was all of the knowledge I had gotten from SMART Recovery and from AA, and NA, and CA. SMART Recovery is just another type of therapy. It’s a more cerebral approach for addiction. I guess you could kind of say. It implements a lot of CBT and DBT.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. It’s a support group. It is free support group, SMART Recovery.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes, support. Yes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    It’s not religious, and there’s no type of religiosity in it at all, which is why some people often deviate from 12-step to SMART Recovery, and it’s available for free online if people are curious about SMART Recovery meetings.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes, it is. And so, those. I mean, I said, I think in the end of my book, I was like, “I just have to make a gumbo of all the shit I’ve learned.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Totally.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. That’s how I did it, but those three main things. Yeah, meditation is another thing that has just changed my life in so many ways. And I think I never thought I could do it. I’m just a boy from the sticks, and then here I am able to meditate. So, I think there’s kind of an aversion of being scared of it. But if you try it, it can really change your life.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You wrote a book in this time, it’s called At Least I’m Not the Frog: A Zany Memoir of Alcoholism & Recovery. What is at least I’m not the frog mean?

    Charlie Gray:

    All right.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh, in the boiling water?

    Charlie Gray:

    No. Well, at least I’m not that frog too. I don’t know about that frog, but I don’t want to be it either. No. It’s a story that I tell. I make you wait in the book, but I’ll break it down for you here.

    Charlie Gray:

    Basically, in about 2018, 2017, I can’t remember the exact date, I’d have to look in the book. But anyways, I had just gotten out of a psychiatric ward. I had just been arrested and faked the seizure to get into that psychiatric ward, and my car was impounded.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    As we do.

    Charlie Gray:

    As we do. As is natural.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yes, we do.

    Charlie Gray:

    Pitiful. Last day in March. Whatever month it was. But yeah, I had just all that had happened. I had driven home my busted ass car that still had the impound, like riding on the windshield home and I was sitting on my front porch smoking a cigarette with my aunt, [Trila 01:05:46], who’s just been my rock through all of this, and I was sitting beside her And I was like, “Oh my god, I just got a third DUI. I’m going to prison. Everything is f’ed. I can’t go to prison.”

    Charlie Gray:

    She was like quiet for a minute, and then she looked over. And underneath my car tire, there was this snake that was wrapped around this frog and it was eating it. And I just looked over at it and I was like, “Well, at least I’m not that frog.” And insane that I didn’t really think anything about it. I just really thought like that’s cool. Shit is really f’ed up for you, but you’re not dead. So, at least you’re not that frog.

    Charlie Gray:

    A year or so later, that would swim back to me when I was walking down the street. I was really inebriated on a number of substances, but I was trying to get back home to Clinton for this last time of when I got sober. And I was walking down the street and I was all bloody and gassed up and I had fallen off a bus. I was a shit show, man, as I regularly was for …

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    As we do.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, as we do. Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I had fallen off a bus, as we do.

    Charlie Gray:

    As we do. Yeah. That’s so great. Anyways. And thinking just how terrible I was and what a shitty person I was and how much I hated myself, that came back to me and was like, “Well, at least you’re not that frog.” In walking, I was like, “Okay, that’s right, boy. We got to get you somewhere for the night because you can’t be sleeping outside because shit is f’ed up in this world.”

    Charlie Gray:

    That moment was really meaningful to me. And then when I started writing, and I didn’t have the title, and then it just like … One morning I woke up and I was like, “Duh, you have a title, bro. And maybe that will make people look and be like, ‘What? What is a frog?'”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    It’s funny. At Least I’m Not the Frog is the pinch of hope that we might get. How low do you have to go for that to be … “Oh, hopeful.” Right?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You want to hear something inspirational?

    Charlie Gray:

    [crosstalk 01:07:58].

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    We have to find at least there’s still the opportunity for hope. That’s what that sounds like to me. That book is closed for the frog, and there’s tiny possibility of hope. And sometimes, it’s just finding … At least there’s maybe hope for me. This story is not over even when we think it’s over.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, even when you think that you’re just doomed.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, there’s just no way out of it.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah, that’s most likely not the case if you just keep trying.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. It’s funny. So many things in my life, I tell this to my sponsees. So many things in my life, I’m like, “Well, people always leave or things always …” These ideas that I’ve received over my lifetime, these maladaptive ideas.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I am relying on historical information about future or present people’s behavior. “Oh, people always leave me, or things always change.” In my head, I’m applying that to present and future. Well, except that things always work out, and that’s also historically accurate. But I tend to not apply that to the present and the future. I tend to not acknowledge, “Oh, Ashley, hey, wake the f up. Things have always worked out. They are always going to work out. Can you name an instance where things did not work out even when they went really, really badly?” Well, they did.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So, I have to remember to apply that historical information that I like to apply, which is people are always mean or boys are always this or blah-blah-blah. Also apply that it always works out even when I don’t know how it’s going to end or what’s going to happen. Because that’s my great … Every time I don’t know what’s going to happen, my assumption is that it’s going to be bad.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Right? If I don’t know what’s going to happen, if I don’t think I can predict what’s going to happen, it’s automatically that. It never occurs to me that if I don’t know what’s going to happen, it might be good. My brain is like, “Nope. The whole f’ing world. You don’t know what’s going to happen.” You get called into a meeting. Like, “Hey, Ashley, we need to talk. Can you talk at this time?” I am like, “Oh, I’m fired. I’m fired. Something bad happening.”

    Charlie Gray:

    I’m going to be broken on crack in a day.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    It never occurs to me something good might happen. So, I have had to really work on rewiring that and going, “Okay, if I’m going to apply historical knowledge, it needs to be accurate, which means that things always work out even when I think it’s the end of the world.” That’s one of those skills that has helped me to rely on the universe, a higher power, historical information, whatever you want to call it. Rely on and believe that it’s going to be okay even when my alcoholism, my heart, my blood pressure wants to tell me otherwise.

    Charlie Gray:

    No, exactly. You tell yourself, “I’m just being a realist. I’m just being prepared.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Totally.

    Charlie Gray:

    No, you can’t just throw out the good with the bad, just because the bad was really bad. That’s not how it works. Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Right. Like be accurate, bitch.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes. You’re just zoning in, and I do the same thing too. That’s what I always tell myself like, “Well, I’m very prepared.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, exactly.

    Charlie Gray:

    It’s like, “No, you’re just hyper focused on one thing.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    And just tell the truth.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, we’re just hyper. And when we focus on that, it gets more intense. And when we focus on the positive or the good, that gets more intense. It’s really a helpful thing to go, “Oh, I’m just scared, because I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I’m assuming it’s going to be bad.” What would happen if I assumed it was going to be good?

    Charlie Gray:

    And how much more could I manifest if I just fed into that energy? Yes, that’s definitely something that I had to start tapping into as I became sober too. I was like, “Which wolf are you going to feed, boy? Are we going to tap into the positive energy and be hopeful and choose happiness and all of that? Or are we going to continue to feed this wolf that’s brought you nothing but death and destruction?”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Right. It’s funny how that’s a hard choice.

    Charlie Gray:

    And it was for years.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I know it is. I know it is.

    Charlie Gray:

    But now it’s like, “You silly, boy. Come on.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    When you’ve been drinking as hard as you were drinking, as hard as I was drinking, there is cognitive damage that happens that makes it difficult to make good decisions. And so, I do want to say that for people listening that there is data that shows in the first 60 days of someone, sobriety, who has been drinking heavily and using heavily that their brain is not starting to come back online until … In scans, the brain does not start to come back online till 60 days.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Again, that’s depending on how much you’re drinking, but let’s just assume. At best, it’s 30, and it is very, very difficult for people to control impulse. And so, you are working against a brain that has been hijacked. And there is an element of that piece and retraining your brain and some neuro damage that we have done.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So, I do want people to understand it’s not just like, “Oh, making a different decision.” Just make a different decision. There is neuroscience that shows that this is a difficult thing to do. As you’re sober longer, it becomes so much easier because your brain is less and less hijacked. But in the beginning, it’s really important to give yourself some grace, use some of those tools and understand that your brain is in a state of hijack, and we’re trying to undo that.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes. I love that you talk about that, Ashley, because I feel like those of us that are addicts and alcoholics, when we visit these treatment centers or these detox facilities, or whatever it is, we get a lot of explanation as to why our brains are doing the things we’re doing, but that doesn’t always translate to the family members or the friends that knowledge isn’t always passed on to them. So, it remains to them this conversation about choice. We need to find a way to get this information to them as well.

    Charlie Gray:

    There’s lots of resources, but it’s like, “How do you make them want to go look for it?” And I think it’s just about just talking about it. The more that it’s talked about, then the more people might be prone to look into what you’ve just said, because it is so important and that’s why when I said those first few weeks, I had to just … I was a live wire. I was an emotional live wire, because my brain was hijacked. And my brain was like, “We don’t know, this is not normal. No, I don’t know how to function like this.” But my heart and my soul was telling me like, “We just got to make it through, dude.”

    Charlie Gray:

    And that’s when you do … You have a lot of grace with yourself, and you have to be so forgiving that if that is where your intent lies, if you’re really trying to get sober and you relapse, you did not fail, you just relapsed, and now you just get back up and you try getting sober again. That was so important to me, to be honest and authentic in my story. I’m not going to give you this whole dissertation on how wonderful my life was when I got sober.

    Charlie Gray:

    I’m going to tell you in great detail about the 11 years I spent busted, broke, ashamed, because you need to hear that, that’s okay if that’s your story, too. Because you will get there as long as you’re trying and you have grace with yourself and you forgive yourself and you love yourself. And that’s not hard to do or learn either, but it can be attained even by the most depraved of us all, because I was.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, I love it. I love it. It’s so important. Just don’t stop trying.

    Charlie Gray:

    Don’t stop. Don’t stop.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Just don’t stop trying. You’re right. However busted you are. That has been my story in recovery, because guess what, I’m not an alcoholic now that I don’t have alcohol, right? I’m still this crazy ass bitch trying to get her shit together 15 years later, just it’s different things.

    Charlie Gray:

    I’m just not in a blackout right now.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. Totally.

    Charlie Gray:

    I can be a little more present.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Totally. No, I’m remember everything.

    Charlie Gray:

    But otherwise, I’m the same guy. Yeah.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. Don’t stop trying. Don’t give up. Fall down, you get back up again. You fall down, you get back. That takes courage and it takes perseverance. It is not easy, but that is the difference between the people who make it and the people who don’t is that some of us just will be damned if we’re going to stop trying. I think that’s your story. You just did not stop. You did not stop trying, and eventually it worked.

    Charlie Gray:

    Eventually. Yes, it worked. I think that saying that we hear so much in the AA rooms of everybody is ready at a different time. They just weren’t ready. When your time comes, you will be ready, but yeah, just keep trying.

    Charlie Gray:

    I used to not think that, that was true too. I used to hear that in the rooms. I’ve loved the rooms for years, but the rooms used to piss me off and frustrate me. Because I would be like, “Where is this shit? And you’ve only got four months sober, and what are you talking about how you feeling like this? And where is it for me?”

    Charlie Gray:

    Then you get over yourself and you learn that like, “No, it wasn’t your time.” Your time came. And when that time comes, you just be so excited that you cling to it and you grab a hold of it like you grab a hold of that pipe or that bottle or whatever. You go full force with your sobriety and repurpose that time that you spent busted.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. They say if you’re a real alcoholic, every real alcoholic gets a sobriety date, it’s just whether or not they’re alive to see it.

    Charlie Gray:

    Exactly.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So, where can people find your book?

    Charlie Gray:

    So, if you are interested in purchasing my memoir, you can go out to Amazon. And the easiest way is just to search At Least I’m Not the Frog, Charlie Gray. Or At Least I’m Not the Frog: A Zany Memoir of Alcoholism & Recovery.

    Charlie Gray:

    Right now, let me just check. It was trending number one new release in alcoholism and 12-step recovery. Yeah. And it looks like as of this recording, it is still trending number one in those. So, you can also get those lists and find it. Yep. But that’s where you would purchase it is on Amazon as an ebook or paperback. 2.99. Sorry.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    No, I was going to do the same thing. 2.99 for ebook, 8.99 paperback.

    Charlie Gray:

    Right on. Yes, perfect.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Do you have social media? Do people follow you? Or where can people contact you?

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes, you can follow me at Charlie Gray under my author page on Facebook, or you can go to atleastimnotthefrog.com and follow my blog there. That blog was started in June of this year, and so what that blog really follows and gives information on is I give a lot of information on sober living, on how to know if you’re checking out a legitimate sober living facility, because I’ve been through the wringer with sober living. I talk a lot about AA and NA. I talk a lot about how I’ve maintained my sobriety and clarity. So yeah, you can visit me there.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Awesome. Charlie is C-H-A-R-L-I-E and Gray is G-R-A-Y.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes, thank you. Thank you for specifying, because whenever you search on Amazon, it’s like, “Did you mean At Least I’m Not the Frog, Charlie Gray, G-R-E-Y?” And I’m like, “No, I did not.”

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    No, bitch.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yeah. I meant my name.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Alexa, you need to calm down right now. Awesome. Well, I enjoyed our time together. Thank you so much, and let’s stay in touch.

    Charlie Gray:

    Yes, definitely. This was amazing, Ashley. Thank you so much for what you do and your program and your content. And you’re so fun, this was … Yeah, this was amazing. So, I really appreciate you. Thank you for your time.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Thank you. This podcast is sponsored by Lionrock.life. Lionrock.life is a recovery community offering free online support group meetings, useful recovery information and entertainment. Visit www.lionrock.life to view the meeting schedule and find additional resources. Find the joy in recovery at Lionrock.life.

    PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [1:21:01]

    Ashley Jo Brewer

    Ashley Avatar

    Ashley Jo is one of the producers of The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast team. With over a decade of experience working with C-level executives and directing corporate training events, she brings extensive production experience to Lionrock. In early 2020, she made a significant career change and stepped into the realm of podcasting.

    Her recovery experience includes substance abuse, codependency, grief and loss, and sexual assault and trauma. Ashley Jo enjoys supporting others in recovery by connecting with people and being a leader. She shared her story in Season 3, Episode 92 of The Courage to Change.