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Jul 3
  • Written By Scott Drochelman

    • #191 – Jeannine Coulter

    Jeannine Coulter

    Living In A Doghouse To Owning Her Own Fitness Studio

    Jeannine Coulter’s story is a powerful and inspiring journey of transformation and redemption. For fifteen years, Jeannine battled with addiction, leading to multiple arrests, homelessness, finally spending her last days of shooting meth and heroin in a literal doghouse before getting sober in January of 2015. 

    Less than three weeks after getting sober, she started teaching at a fitness studio that would transform her life and eventually bought that same studio at four years sober. Business exploded during Jeannine’s ownership and she recently sold it for double what she paid for it, sparking her interest in entrepreneurship and creating a community. 

    Jeannine is on a mission to help addicts transform their deepest pain and shame into meaning, purpose, and gratitude. Jeannine’s message is clear: addicts in active addiction should never feel left behind. 

    Today, Jeannine is a successful entrepreneur, and co-host of the recovery podcast, “Chasing Heroine.”

    Episode Resources

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    Episode Transcript

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Coming up on this episode of The Courage to Change, sponsored by Lionrock.life.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    So I had a San Diego Reader, which is like a free crossword puzzle, smoking meth, shooting heroin, shooting meth. I had a compact with a light on it so I could pick my face in the dark, because I was one of those meth picker people. I remember thinking like, I am 34, living in a doghouse, hoping I don’t get murdered by a chainsaw. This is my life, like this happened.

    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 Jeannine Coulter. Jeannine’s story is a powerful and inspiring journey of transformation and redemption. For 15 years, Jeannine battled with addiction, leading to multiple arrests, homelessness, finally spending her last days of shooting meth and heroin in a literal doghouse before getting sober in January of 2015. Less than three weeks after getting sober, she started teaching at a fitness studio that would transform her life and eventually bought that same studio at four years sober.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Her business exploded during Jeannine’s ownership, and she recently sold it for double what she paid for it, sparking her interest in entrepreneurship and creating a community. Jeannine is on a mission to help addicts transform their deepest pain and shame into meaning, purpose, and gratitude. Jeannine’s message is clear, addicts in active addiction should never feel left behind. Today, Jeannine is a successful entrepreneur and co-host of the Recovery Podcast, Chasing Heroine.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Friends, so much fun doing this episode, Jeannine is awesome and I related a lot to her story as you’ll hear, she has some great lines that I believe will stick with all of us. Jeannine grew up with a relatively happy life, happy family, had all the opportunities and never saw herself ending up where she did. So I think it’s important to remember that addiction comes to find people who don’t always have the crazy trauma stories. It can happen to anyone at any time, and Jeannine is a perfect example of that. I hope you get a good laugh and lots of wisdom and inspiration from this episode. Without further ado, I give you Jeannine Coulter. Let’s do this.

    Speaker 2:

    You are listening to The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast. We are 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.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Jeannine, thank you so much for being here.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Thank you.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I feel like we have a lot of fun, relatable things in our story, but the first thing I want to talk about is that you lived in a doghouse. So tell me about you living in a doghouse for real.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    It was actually the last time that I got clean. So I had tried to get clean for years and years and years and years and years. Used for 15 years and had been trying off and on, off and on, off and on. So my thing was, I would live in a sober living and I would be using, and I could fake a pee test, easily.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Why did you like that?

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Using while I was still there?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. I’d never understood why people wanted to get loaded while going to meetings or living with that pressure.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Yeah, so I think that’s a good question. Because I went to meetings a lot too, while I was using. I think, well, so for one thing, I was homeless unless I was in a sober living, I was homeless, so it was a place for me to live, right? I’d been homeless for a long time, and so typically the sober living was where I had landed because somebody allowed me to go there or I’d gotten kicked out of a program. So I was homeless staying there. But really, honestly, and this is why it’s a good question, I really wanted to be clean. I wanted to be sober and couldn’t, like my sponsor always says, the last stage of using, or I’m sure other people say this is using against your will. I was using against my will in the end, a lot.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I didn’t want to be doing it anymore. But then there’s also the selfish side of an addict that is, well, I want to still do what I want to do and be here. I had been in that homeless jail cycle for five years, so the idea of living in a house was nowhere near something I could do. I was not going to be living in an apartment using. I’d been in this stages for five years. I didn’t have an ID, I hadn’t worked. I didn’t have a car. So state run, funded sober livings is where I would land. Then I was just using also, often I was strung out too on heroin, meaning, right if I didn’t use, I would get sick. I was always trying to detox. I was always trying to get ahold of suboxone, and my plan was always to kick, and then it would just get away from me somehow.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    In fact I say, often suboxone would just end up being a charge, it would be a possession charge because I would end up getting arrested with my suboxone, and so I’ve got all these suboxone charges and I’d be telling the cops like, no, I was trying to kick, but forget it. So I was in this sober living and I had been using and passing their pee test, and I have this way to pass a pee test that is foolproof. They’ve actually changed policies at several of the sober livings and rehabs I was in to beat the way that I was beating the test.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yes girl, innovative.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    That’s what my mom said. When I told my mom what I was doing, and I used to share it. Then I realized, okay, I don’t need to be giving addicts any ideas, so I’m not going to share my method anymore. Also, you can probably figure it out. With a woman it’s not that hard. So my mom was like, if only you would use your innovative powers for good and not evil.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Exactly. Love this. Okay, so you were innovative.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    So [inaudible 00:05:56] in a sober living. Yes, innovative, right? Using daily, clearly strung out, haven’t paid that month’s rent yet. They had just let me live there and I was supposed to be getting a job and pay rent, and that wasn’t happening, obviously. It was New Year’s Eve of 2014, so about to go into 2015. I was at a Chili’s, I think, with a friend of mine. So I had this friend that I had used with. He was actually my first connection, my first drug dealer. He’d gotten raided and gone to prison and done two years, got out and he was clean when he got out and was hanging out with me and kind of trying to help me. So he’d taken me out to dinner on New Year’s Eve, and while I was there, the owner of the sober living called me and she was like, so, Jeannine, you left some heroin here on the bathroom sink.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    You can’t come back tonight. I was standing in the bar of this Chili’s or whatever, and I was like, you don’t know that’s mine. That’s circumstantial evidence, man. Eight other women live there. We’re all in recovery, man, you don’t know that’s mine. Meanwhile, I’m thinking, did I leave heroin on the sink?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. That’s what I was thinking too.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I need that. Yeah, I need that. Did I do that? But I’m sure I did. I also would get sloppy sometimes. I would leave a cellophane somewhere, and so it’s reasonable that I had done it. She said, well, that’s true, but we’re pretty sure it’s yours. Everyone else is here. I said, I passed a drug test for you this morning. You don’t know that’s mine, which I had. She said, well, that’s true. You did pass a drug test this morning and I don’t know how you’re doing that, but all the other girls are here and they’re all pretty sure it’s yours, and I’m pretty sure it’s yours.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    So I tell you what, if you can bring me a blood test that says that you’re clean, I’ll support you. No one had ever asked me for a blood test before and to her in the moment, I went, fine, I’ll do it tomorrow. We get off the phone and I didn’t even have a… They used to give you in California or maybe everywhere, they would give you a flip phone when you got out of jail. So I had my flip phone. I get off the phone. My friend ended up getting me a hotel room that night, and he was sitting with me in the motel room and I was like, hey, give me your phone because he had a iPhone. I was like, give me your phone. I need to look up the logo for Tri-City Hospital, which is the hospital here. I said, I need to look up the logo and I need to see what this blood test looks like, and I’m going to forward this document.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Do they still have Kinkos? Because I’ve actually forged a medical document before in LA a long time ago, I could do this. I just need to see what it looks like, blah, blah, blah, blah. He just sat there staring at me and he kind of backed me up, no matter what and he wasn’t, he was just sitting there staring at me. I remember I went, okay, don’t look at me like that. What do you want me to do? I can’t kick outside. I had one suboxone that had had a bite taken out of it in a cigarette cellophane from a friend. I had a half a chewed up suboxone, and I said, I have a suboxone. I was going to get clean, but I can’t kick outside. I can’t be dope sick on the streets. I don’t want to forge a blood test.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    She’s making me, she’s making me forge a document. I don’t want to forge a document. What am I supposed to do? He said, well, you could get clean. I remember I sat down on the bed across from him, and obviously people had said stuff like that to me before. It’d been 15 years of this bullshit from me. But for some reason in that moment, it just hit me. I literally sank onto the bed across from him, and I thought, my God, I am working so hard to have the worst life possible with all my mac-

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    That’s so accurate.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    With all my machinations and bullshit to pass these tests so I can keep ruining my life. I remember thinking, I mean, I guess I could do that, but I wasn’t ready that night. I still had some dope with me. So I spent the night there, and then the next day I had no, I didn’t know where to go.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    So I called a connect of mine and I was like, yeah, man, I don’t know where I’m going to go. I got kicked out of my sober living. I don’t know where I’m going to go. He said, well, I have a place you can stay. I said, where? He said, you can stay in the doghouse in my backyard. I was like, really? Are you sure? He was like, sure. I was like, that is awesome. Thank you. Good. I’ll be right there. My buddy, of course did not want to take me to the doghouse, but he did. So he pulled up into this little alley, he let me in through the fence, and it was actually [inaudible 00:09:36], it was a little bit bigger than a doghouse. It was a little shed, like a corrugated iron shed, and there was a futon on the ground and his dog would go in and out of there.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    So he let the dog inside and let me stay in the shed. I stayed there for three nights. There was a padlock on the outside and he padlocked me in at night and not so that I would escape though, he was a friend of mine. You know how it is in the drug world. He was like, my good buddy looking out for me. His wife lived in the main house with him, and he had let someone live there once before. This was a known story in our little area. She had tried to basically assault her with a running chainsaw and had chased her down the street of this neighborhood. So the first or second night I was there, that was one of the realizations that I was sitting there thinking. So I had a San Diego Reader, which is a free crossword puzzle, smoking meth, shooting heroin, shooting meth.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I had a compact with a light on it so I could pick my face in the dark because I was one of those meth picker people. I remember thinking, I am 34, living in a doghouse, hoping I don’t get murdered by a chainsaw. This is my life, this happened. The second night he actually let somebody in with me, which was really scary. He opened the door and let somebody in at two in the morning, this guy. He was kind of trying to sit with me on the little bed, but there was a little chair too. He came in and he was like, can I sit with you? I said, no. I just turned away and kept doing my crossword puzzle, and he was trying to sit on the thing and I was just scooting over. Then he finally sat on the other side, and eventually I looked up and he was on his phone playing games on his phone.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    After I don’t know how long, maybe an hour and a half, my buddy came and let him out. I just heard them talking. Later it occurred to me that, because soliciting wasn’t one of the things that I did when I was using, I would steal things from Walmart, Home Depot and pretend I ran out of gas. I had all these stupid dope fiend hustles, but soliciting wasn’t one of them, right? Prostituting wasn’t one of them. I realized later, a month or so later, I was like, oh, I think I was supposed to sleep with that guy in exchange for being in the doghouse, maybe. Maybe another woman would’ve known that, but I didn’t know, so I was just ignoring him. The second to last night that I was there, or the last night that I was there, and there was all these miracles that started happening in my recovery, right? And this is one of them.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    So I had this really good friend who is a marine, and he’d been my roommate before. He would go to Afghanistan and come back and we would live together sometimes. The further I fell into heroin use, we weren’t living together anymore when he came back, but he would always check on me and usually I’d be in rehab. He called me and said, hey, I am back. I’m in 29 Palms, which is a base two hours away from where I am in San Diego. What are you doing? I said, I am living in a doghouse in Oceanside, and I think I’m going to die and I think I’m going to die. He went, okay, if I come get you, will you come with me? I had robbed him before. There was a whole other time, years before this where he’d gone to pick me up and I said I was going with him and I saw cash in his wallet.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I was like, hey, before I go, I just need to buy some suboxone. Can you drive me to get some suboxone? He was like, sure, how much is it? I said, 20 bucks. He opened and I saw more twenties, and I was like, or 60, 60 actually. He was like, okay. Gave me the money and I just ran and never went back. A buddy of mine told me later, he saw him just in his truck driving up and down the streets looking for me, and I had run away. So I’d stolen a PlayStation from him, and this was now years later, and he said, if I come get you, will you come with me? I said, yes, I’ll go with you. There was a Burger King nearby, right near that doghouse.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    The next morning, it was a Sunday, and I walked to the Burger King to meet him. I called my mom who lives here. She was on her way to church, and she came and stopped by to see me at the Burger King. I wanted five bucks for a pack of cigarettes, and she wouldn’t even give me five bucks, which is something that I always share because I think she got to a point with me where she was, right? She ended up finding a really good balance, I think, between making me know that I was loved and emotionally supported without giving me anything. Again, same thing though, that attitude, I was like, you won’t even give me five bucks. So he’s coming all the way here from 29 Palms to save my life, and he’s going to have to buy me cigarettes.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Thanks a lot, mom. Everybody’s having to take care of me. She brought me a Clif bar and some vitamin C tablets and said, I’m sorry, honey. Good luck, honey. I hope this works for you. He came and picked me up from the parking lot in this Burger King, because they made me leave, because I was clearly a homeless person. So I was waiting for him outside, and he picked me up and I went to his house and I kicked heroin for the last time. I brought a little bit of dope with me and I had that chewed up suboxone.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    So it lasted for two days. Then for your audience listening, that’s opiate addicts, your heroin addict, you have to wait some period of time for you take your suboxone. So I did, ate my half chewed up suboxone, drank for another 10 days because I was really sick from kicking, which everybody always thinks is really weird, that I was able to drink while I was kicking, but for whatever reason, basically I would just do it until I passed out. Then January 15th, 2015, I put the bottle down and that’s been that. So I just had eight years and that’s the doghouse story. So the dog was my last use.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I love it. I love it. So I’m assuming that when you were a little girl and all the little girls were talking in school about what they wanted to be when they grew up, you were like, I want to be a heroin addict and a drug addict.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    One hundred percent.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Right?

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Of course, of course.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Is that how that happens?

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Well, I think we all do, right?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Right. Yeah, absolutely. I was like, I really want to tear my life and everyone in it to the ground.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    You know what, actually, it’s funny that you say that because so no, that’s certainly not what I wanted, right? Actually, I did really well academically. I got great SAT scores. I did really well in school. I had this amazing family and parents are still married or they were still married, they divorced later, but they were married when I was growing up. My dad’s a pilot. My mom’s a social worker, she was the youth minister at my church, this amazing family. But I did want to be all of these grandiose things. I wanted to be the first woman president. I wanted to be an actress, I wanted to be a lawyer, all these things. But the lawyer thing was pretty in reach because I debated and I was going to go to law school. So it’s funny that you say that because one of the bigger realizations that I ever had was at about 90 days, I was turning 35 and I was at my sober living and a different sober living.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I couldn’t go back to that one, obviously. There was one sober living left that would let me live there. So I was turning 35 and I hit 90 days, and I was on the couch in this sober living and had nothing. I remember thinking and you know how it is, it was my birthday and I was really bummed out and everybody around me was like, yeah, but you’re clean man. You know what I mean? You’re clean. I remember thinking, yeah, that’s not really doing it for me this time though, because I’m 35. If you could go back and find Jeannine in high school, walking down the hallway with my two friends, Aaron and Elizabeth who have both gone on to become wildly successful homeowners, married, whatever, one of them is actually a lawyer. If the ghost of Christmas future had floated into that hallway and been like, Jeannine, stop right there.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Do you want to see where you’re going to be at 35 years old? I would’ve been like, totally, I’m sure I’m going to be married and live in a mansion and be rich and be famous. I don’t know for what. But yeah, show me. If the ghost of Christmas future had been like, yeah, well actually none of that shits going to happen. But what you will have going for you that day is you’ll be 90 days off of heroin, which for you will be a massive achievement at that point in your life. I would’ve been horrified and been like, you’re on the wrong side of the high school. This is the AP wing. You should be on the other side of the high school. No, certainly it’s not what I wanted.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    It strangely makes me emotional because I always say I’m same way. I was honor student and I had great grades and very ambitious and all the things and went to grade schools. My parents are married, all the things. It makes me emotional just thinking about that because I know what that feels like where you’re sitting there going, everyone I grew up with is in a totally different place. I think you had this too, where we are the best at being the worst.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Yeah. Right. There’s no pain like going on Facebook, right? On someone else’s phone and seeing your friends’ are getting married. You know what I mean? Getting married and buying houses, and I’m a homeless junkie and I was as smart as any one of them. But like you just said there’s an AA speaker named Earl Hightower and he says, we have the opportunity to marvel at the ordinary because all of those ordinary things that you just said about, we have such an immense gratitude for. That’s why for me, I’m so grateful actually that I was a heroin addict in particular, in particular because I was a coke addict and an alcoholic for many, many years before I started doing heroin, heroin forced me to pick a side. In that moment, after I had that thought about my birthday, I was doing this gratitude meditation outside at my shitty, I thought sober living.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    As soon as I was done with the meditation, I remember opening my eyes and there was a really nice view there from my sober living. I was overwhelmed with this feeling of not being dope sick, not being dope sick. This is a pain that leads to a gratitude specifically for heroin addicts and opiate addicts. We always at least have no matter what is going on, not being dope sick, not needing $20 just to breathe is such a gift every day. I was overwhelmed with not being dope sick. I didn’t have to go get 20 bucks. Then I realized this view was really beautiful. I thought, well, that view didn’t just get there because I’d lived in that sober living twice before and got kicked out both times for selling dope on the property. I realized that view didn’t just get there.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I just hadn’t been able to see it before. I realized, did my heroin addiction make me more grateful? Because that’s always been there. I just couldn’t see it. But right now, because I feel so good about not being dope sick, I’m able to see this and everything for me really shifted after that. But it’s that, it’s we get to marvel at the ordinary. I also used to think that, and this was such a hard lesson for me to learn. One of the things I say in my classes that I teach because I’m in fitness, I’ll say, if you want a hard life, do the easy things. You want a easy life, do the hard things.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I look at someone like my father who has done everything right and raised he’s family and bought a house and went to grad school, and all that’s hard to do. What I was doing was easy. The easy things create such a harder life. But you’re right. I don’t know if you feel this way, sometimes I still feel like it’s fading a bit now around the… I’ve got eight years now, but I still can remember walking around with my bag, walking from bus stop to bus stop. Those memories are still so close and they sometimes still feel more me than having a car and driving places. You know what I mean? It’s so close.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, I love that you brought that up. So I have that in different ways where I feel like, I think it’s… Some of it is imposter syndrome where I am out with… I went to grad school and I was with all these people who theoretically I’m as smart as, but they have lived a totally different life and I feel like they don’t know me even though they know who I am today and all, that there’s this piece of me that always wants to jump out and fuck everything up. Some of it’s addiction, but some of it’s just like a wild child that’s there. It comes out in different ways. As I’ve gotten older, it is an interesting feeling to still have that, have the wild child that’s not quite as deviant, but also with the deviance mixed piece, the addiction piece, and not outwardly have any of that. It’s weird. It feels weird. I sometimes feel like I need something to make it authentic to how I feel on the inside.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Has that manifested for you in any, like behaviorally, in sobriety? Has that manifested for you, especially in the early days?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, in the early days, I did a lot of weird, crazy things. I made sure that my ordinary life included a lot of really adrenaline producing, jumping out of planes, bungee jumping.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Interesting, okay.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I had a friend who is super into the S & M world, and I would go to these [inaudible 00:21:11] and check it out and-

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Like dungeons and stuff? Like sex clubs?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Whoa. I’ve never been to one of those. Whoa.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    It turns out that it’s-

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Ashley.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I know, it’s really not my thing, but I definitely was there dressing the part and whatever. So doing all that stuff, doing this kind of crazy things that I’ve done in my life, they’re important. I have a lot less of that now that I have little kids. It is an interesting piece of me that I don’t express that much, that I did in my early sobriety that I don’t anymore. I don’t really know how to express that in a way that makes a lot of sense at this stage. I mean, I think I’m still looking for it. What about you?

    Jeannine Coulter:

    So I was just thinking while you were saying that. I didn’t really have that looking for the risky stuff, did I? You know what I did. This was something I would do that commonly, but I did this before. I was really bad with using as well because I personally believe that I had these addict tendencies in me from the jump, that kind of thing. This is so… I don’t talk about this often. I would go after married men before I was using and my first time in rehab when I like this, not this last round, but the one prior to it, I was like dating this married dude and he was a gangster and his wife was a gangster and she would’ve killed me.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    That seems like a terrible idea.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Yeah. She would’ve killed me. It’s a terrible idea. So that kind of stuff, the physical riskiness, in fact, my mom actually suggested that at one point in my journey. She was like, [inaudible 00:22:40] I’m going to tell her that you said that. She was like, maybe you should jump out of airplanes. It’s like you’re looking for adrenaline. She actually suggested that at one point when I was looking for ways to get clean. You know what I think I do though, and this is huge. I drink really extreme pre-workout and it’s got a ton of caffeine in it, and I do incredibly difficult workouts, and I think that’s what it is for me, which I guess is in a way, that’s a healthy way that it kind of manifested.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yes, no, it is.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I think that’s what I do.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    It’s the thing you see, it’s the thing we have, that’s like the extreme part. Where we see something we like and we just hunt it into the ground, down into the burrow and into the center of the earth.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    You know what though? I think that that’s our secret weapon. This is why I think that being an addict is such a superpower. There’s a debate now, I don’t know how you feel about this, but there’s a debate now about the word addict, and some people don’t want to identify that way in 12 step, and I get that. But to me, I think the reason I have no problem with that is because to me, addict is such a positive word, and it probably wasn’t before, but it is now. I’m like, I’m a dope fiend. I’m so proud of it. It’s the best thing about me, being left-handed, like my dad and being a drug addict are my favorite things about me. You know what I mean?

    Jeannine Coulter:

    To me, it’s such a good thing. I mean, because I was able to leverage that into, I’m addicted to work, I’m addicted to teaching, I’m addicted to now the podcast that I do, and I funneled all of that into… So I had taught spin prior to getting strung out on heroin, then throughout my heroin use, I would get clean for a little bit and get a job teaching spin, and then of course I’d get strung out and lose it. So I was still doing that all the time. When I came back from that sober living, I got a job. I started teaching spin again at 19 days at this studio. I was taking [inaudible 00:24:18].

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh my God, okay, for people who don’t know, for anyone who isn’t, has not experienced opiate withdrawal, especially a long term, teaching spin at 19 days is truly asinine.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    You are the first person that’s interviewed me that has understood that. I mean, maybe they have, they just didn’t catch it because I’m used to saying. It was actually [inaudible 00:24:44].

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    My butt hole was still on fire. Girl, I’m not sitting on a spin bike.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    It was half spin, half bar. Now to be fair, so this particular run…

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Literally nothing fair about that.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Right. Well, okay. This particular run had been three months, and then prior to that, I’d had some clean time. So after using daily grams of meth and heroin, IV use for a year, I went to a detox. I was dog sick still at 19 days. In fact, at 12 days I escaped and came back because I was still super, super sick. So after that particular one, I don’t think I could have done this. This time I’d had six months, used for a week, three months, used for three months, and now we’re here. So I was definitely strung out. I was sick at my friend’s house. I was very sick and I threw up. So I auditioned for this place. The one good thing I had done, and this is just so crazy how this turned around fate wise in my life, right before I went to the doghouse, I jumped on Craigslist at my sober living because I was trying to get a job even though I was strung out.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I saw somebody looking for a spin and bar teacher in Encinitas, which was like by bus 30 minutes away. I emailed this person and said, hey, yeah, because I’ve got a great resume, I taught at the Beverly Hills Country Club. I taught at all these fancy places and she scheduled me for an audition, which I of course couldn’t make because I was strung out. But I actually texted her that day and said I couldn’t make it, which I normally wouldn’t do. So I forget all about this, go to the doghouse a week later, get back from the doghouse. I’m at this sober living, and I was like, man, I need a job. Oh, I wonder if that chick will audition me again. She seemed cool. So I email her back and I’m like, hey, her name is Jana.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I said, Jana, I’m back. I had made something up and I said, can I audition for you again? She was like, sure, yeah, come down. So I audition and they wanted me to start a class that was half spin, half bar, which I thought was ridiculous. I didn’t think that that was a good combination at all, but I agreed of course. So when I taught the spin and then the bar was in a second room, I actually went to throw up, my first day. She is now, that same studio at four years, I bought that studio from her and owned it, owned it for three years, sold it for double, and we’ve doubled the valuation of the studio because I think we’re drug addicts like me and my husband both, and he’s a brilliant carpenter. So we were able to move outside, sold it, and now she and I actually worked together again at another studio and she still has that original email I sent her and she now… She was in my wedding and talk about, she went to RISD.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    She’s from this amazing family and she was one of the first people I really started to open up to about my background and she was so nonjudgmental about it and now we work together again. She owns a studio. I’m the general manager. I’ve actually, I don’t think I’ve ever shared that before. I did not think at all when I was out at my friend’s house when I was homeless, I was so fucking lost. I had no friends. My mom wouldn’t even give me anything other than vitamin C. You know what I mean? Everybody was done with my bullshit. Everybody was done with my bullshit. Everybody in North County, San Diego knew me. I was always lying and using [inaudible 00:27:33] sober livings. Everybody hated me. I was a gross doping too. I’d use your needle if you [inaudible 00:27:37], you know what I mean? I’m picking my face, bleeding on your stuff.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    People would say to my boyfriend that I had for a little while, they’d be like, get her out of here. Within addicts, there’s a hierarchy and inside the meth addicts, the people that pick and can’t hit, I couldn’t find a vein. Even within addiction of the hierarchy, I was the lowest of the low. When I was out there, if I could have known that eight years later, I’d be sitting here with a Mac and a microphone and telling you that the girl that I had just emailed ended up being in my wedding and I bought a business from her. I can’t tell me that, but I can tell someone listening that. It blows my mind that it worked.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    That’s the thing is that, I was talking to a woman who said, we get well at the crossroad of out of ideas and out of options, and our ideas are fucking amazing. The ones we have while we’re using are, I mean, absolutely. I was like you, would use other people’s needles, but I didn’t want to get a disease, right? So what did I do? I wrote my name first and last on my syringes in Sharpie, so that when I came into contact with law enforcement and was telling them, no, sir, I do not know whose those are, and all of them were labeled like a middle school sweatshirt.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    That is amazing.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    My idea was… It didn’t occur to me that number one, no addict is going to not use my syringes just because I wrote my name on them.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    We don’t care. You’re right, because I feel like sometimes people, that needle sharing thing, sometimes people don’t understand, you don’t care. In fact, there was a guy that I was using with an older dude, and I wanted to use his needle because mine broke. He was like, I have Hep C dude. I lied. Actually, I don’t know if I lied or not, I might’ve had it by then. I said, I do too. He was like, really? Because you’ve never said that. I was like, well, we’ve never talked about Hep C. To my knowledge, I didn’t have it. I ended up getting it probably that day, now thank God for us, now there’s Mavyret and I was cured of it at about the three-year mark, but I didn’t know-

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh, they’re curing it now.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Oh yeah, you can cure Hep C. Yes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Interferon.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    No, interferon they don’t do anymore because interferon only had a 75% chance of working. It was like chemo. It was really intense. No, there are now eight weeks or 12 week treatments. It’s like a pill in the morning, a pill at night, a pill in the evenings, and it cures Hep C now.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Wow, that’s amazing. I didn’t know that.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Yeah, so for anyone listening, that was a bad day for me. Despite those choices, I was at this program and I had refused to get tested for HIV because I just had this feeling that I had it. I just did. I was like, dude, I have it. I know I have it. I just knew and Hep C I didn’t think about, I wasn’t that worried about, and I got tested for both, called my mom outside the little office and I was like, hey, if I have HIV, I’m just leaving right now. Just so you know I’m not going to live. She was like, okay, well why don’t you wait until they talk to you? I was like, fine, but I’m just telling you right now I’m a leave. She was like, okay. Went back in the room and I did not have HIV and I had this gut feeling I had it.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    In fact, again, at 18 months it plagued me and I thought maybe they had just missed it. I got tested again and didn’t have it. I’ve spoken with other people that felt that way too. So for anyone that’s listening, if you have this [inaudible 00:30:56] weird feeling you have it. Yeah, because I was going to prison programs and stuff, everyone had Hep C and it was really treated like it wasn’t a big deal. So I never really cared. But then when they told me I had it, and this was before there was a known cure, this was in 2014, they were doing research on it, and I knew I had probably voluntarily just done it. That was a tough day. But they cure it now. There are several different pills that will cure it now and you can get it. I did it with my free health insurance. I did it for free.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    What was it for you? I get a lot of parents who listen to this who have either teenagers or adult children and what they can’t wrap their mind… They have kids like us and they don’t understand what happened. They don’t understand how we went from caring about grades to using needles. Why do you think that trajectory happened for you?

    Jeannine Coulter:

    So I’ve obviously thought about this a lot. The best definition of rock bottom I ever heard is, when your circumstances degrade faster than you can lower your standards.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh my God, I love that.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Right. Because-

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh, I love that.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    When they degrade just a little. I was sharing with my boyfriend first. I’m just sharing with him, right? I started heroin, I started smoking, right?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Right. [inaudible 00:32:10] I mean opium, it’s natural and [inaudible 00:32:13].

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Totally, yeah. I mean there’s like a million. I’m not doing it every day, whatever. I also heard somebody else say this recently too, that there’s a very big difference between a physical bottom and an emotional bottom. The physical bottom for me, there really wasn’t one. The doghouse wasn’t even the worst position I’d ever been in to be honest.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Hundred percent.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    But spiritually, there must have just been something different finally about that time. So for me, I will say, so I kind of like two theories on this. So I believe that I always had these qualities of addiction in me because I can remember the things that we learned, the rules don’t apply to me. I was always kind of trying to take the easy way out and I was young and I got good grades, and so you couldn’t see it.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    But I remember when I was a kid, not cheating on tests or anything, but taking the easy way out, thinking things didn’t really apply to me. Rules didn’t apply to me. Even when I was in high school, I would be super late every day for school, really, really late, and I was so obnoxious. I would go to Chick-fil-A every morning anyways and get a giant coke and a buttered biscuit super late and then drive up onto, there was this big sidewalk in front of my high school, drive up onto the curb in the high school, onto the sidewalk, run inside because my homeroom was right there, run inside at the bell, sit there for 10 minutes, get in my car, leave, go to Dunkin’ Donuts, come back, park in the handicap spot to run to gym. After gym, I would finally actually park my car. You’re not supposed to do any of that.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    That’s really obnoxious. I wasn’t using them and none of my friends would’ve done that. That’s kind of how I acted. To me, those are all added qualities. I mean, they’re also qualities of being a teenager, but that’s a little more extreme. None of my friends were doing that stuff. So I think I had those tendencies anyways, and then I will say that, so I think that I would’ve ended up dependent maybe on alcohol instead later in life, if I’d gone the law school route, maybe not heroin if I’d done that whole thing. But I will say with me, when I was a senior in high school, my parents did split up and it was really, really surprising. I wasn’t expecting it. My brother wasn’t expecting it, and my whole world did really, really crumble and I got really very, very, very sad.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Looking back, I think I had a year long nervous breakdown. When I was 17 and 18, I had already gotten into this really good college, early admission. I was on my way, there was no going back on that. I mean there probably would’ve been, my parents are really supportive, understanding people. If I had said, hey, I’m going to take a year and go to community college, I probably could have, it wasn’t even on my radar to maybe, to do something like that. So I went and I just couldn’t even go to school. It was just the saddest I’ve ever… To this day, including being homeless on heroin, that year was the saddest I’ve ever been in my life. My dad and I are super close and I was just so sad and I would drink a beer here and there prior to that.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I did smoke cigarettes because I thought that looked cool. I did smoke, but I didn’t really smoking weed or drinking. I didn’t really like being out of control in any real way. Then after that happened, I very consciously kind of took a wrecking ball to my life and thought. I just remember having this overwhelming feeling of feeling tricked. The life you sold me, you’re not even doing, what am I doing? I’ve been doing the hard stuff for the easy life and look at you two idiots. I’m not doing any of this anymore. I just took a wrecking ball to my life and I started with my academics and quit going to school. When I was up there, I went to DC, a college in Washington DC, left DC, went to University of Georgia, same thing, and I did coke for the first time in Athens, Georgia, which is where UGA is.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    When I did cocaine for the first time, people in meetings, in 12 step meetings will talk about drinking alcohol for the first time and they’re like, the first time I drank, I knew, I did not feel that way with alcohol. I didn’t like being buzzed, but the first time I did coke, I remember thinking like, oh, I can do this. If this is how you all feel, I can do life like this. I can’t do it that other way, but I could do this. I think it just took me out of this depression, I’d been feeling about my family and then I chased that, but it still didn’t derail my life. It was years before it derailed my life, but I also want to make it really, really clear that it was unrelated to my parents’ choices what I was doing because lots of people’s parents get divorced and they don’t end up shooting heroin.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    My brother didn’t. I have a brother, he didn’t end up shooting heroin. He didn’t do great. He drank too much too, but he did end up shooting heroin, you know what I mean? He’s got a great job. Combine that with, I moved to LA to try to be an actress because I didn’t want to go to college, and so I thought that being a famous actress would be easier than going to a 9:00 AM econ class. So I moved to LA, was very disappointed for a long time that I didn’t finish college. I had a guest on my show say once that someone chasing stimulants, the feeling behind that is that they can’t believe where their life is at. There’s this feeling of this can’t be my life, and that’s who goes after stimulants. He’s got this whole theory on-

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Like who [inaudible 00:36:52] for what.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Yes, and what’s going on there. If that’s true, which in my case it would’ve been, I was in LA and I wasn’t an actress yet, of course, because I wasn’t really, you know what I mean? Again, I didn’t want to play by the rules. It’s very hard to get in SAG. The Screen Actor Guild’s really hard, but you can do it, but you have to do extra work. It’s a whole thing and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to get something called Taft-Hartley, which is almost impossible. The last person to get Taft-Hartley was probably Marilyn Monroe. They don’t have to do it anymore, but I thought I would be the next one to get Taft.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    What I mainly want to say is that it’s not my parents’ fault. If anything, the life they gave me I think is why I was successful in sobriety later because I knew what that looked like and I could come back to it and it blows my mind when people without our background get clean. I’m like, how did you even know what life was supposed to look like if your parents were smoking meth with you in the house when you were five? How do you… That really amazes me.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, I have two comments on this. One is that I think cocaine is the gateway drug. Then cocaine is the drug that… My bottom was with heroin, but cocaine convinced me that this was okay and functional and a good time and glamorous. The other piece that you talked about, which I think is really, really, really important is you talked about the best part about you is that you’re an addict, and I want to reframe that. The piece of us that you’re talking about is our ability to hyper focus, what many call like obsessive compulsive, right? Hyper focus and then drive as heartbeat, just so singularly focused at that we just lock on and we just drive at it and ignore the noise, ignore the hits coming left and right, whatever. It’s just this singular focus and that singular focus is very helpful if you are focused on something positive and very bad if you are focused on something negative.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    When we talk about being a drug addict or being an addict, what we’re saying is, there’s a part of us that needs something very badly and we always need to be deciding what it is. I will always have a thing in me that needs something very badly and I can either be part of the decision making process. I can either decide that it’s going to be spin class and I’m going to drink these caffeinated whatever. I can either decide that I want to be at the meeting where we decide what we’re going to hit or I can let it do what it’s going to do, and then it’s going to be whatever it’s going to be, and I’m along for the ride.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    That has always been there since I was a kid and for many years it would be locked onto different things. Then eventually the need for relief was so intense that my lock became on this easy relief. What I think people don’t understand about when they’re watching the kid who becomes the addict gets addicted. How they were this amazing student, they were this amazing football player, they were this amazing whatever. What they’re missing is that part of what made them so amazingly focused on that thing was the same thing that’s making them so amazingly focused on the drugs and alcohol.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Wow. Yeah. No, I love that. I think that’s so true because if you noticed how many addicts, I feel like most addicts were, they excelled at something. A lot of them were athletes. My husband was an amazing soccer player until he got injured and picked up Oxycontin and he was a driven athlete. I debated in high school and I was really, really good. One of the things I try to share when I do speak at meetings and stuff, we usually have some piece of us like that. You said that there’s some real talent there, typically if it’s been nurtured in the right setting, obviously. But you’re right, that thing that’s driving you to do that, that everybody remembers you as is still driving you now. But I think what you just said is cool too, because that could be a way to determine whether or not the new obsession is good or bad. Do I have a choice in this obsession.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You’re going to be drawn to things and there are going to be things that you maybe would love to obsess on. There are things I would love to obsess on that it isn’t in me. I can’t direct it in that direction, but the mistake I see people making and the one I’ve made in recovery is to think that it’s gone or to think that you should be super balanced with everything. You are not. It’s good for you to try because then you’ll land somewhere in a good range. But rest assured that if you are not paying attention to that drive for relief and for satisfaction, whatever, you can either be a passenger on the train or you could be in the driver’s seat. I’ve been both and it’s just part of who I am.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    That’s interesting. I really like that. I think that that’s true. I think that’s true. I mean, that’s how I ended up owning that studio. I was obsessed with that studio. I’m still obsessed. I’m obsessed with numbers. The numbers. I have class later today and I’m like, I wonder how many people are signed up. I’m obsessed with it and my podcast numbers now too. In fact, another friend of mine hosts a podcast that’s super, probably the popular addiction recovery podcast, the big one, and he is obsessed with his numbers too, which was kind of cool to hear because I assumed it was just me. Then he was like, oh no, I check every day. I’m obsessed. I was like, okay, cool. So we’re all out here in this together. If you don’t nurture it and recognize it that yeah, it could take over in some other direction and I can’t either. Like I eat horribly. That’s one of the reasons why I work out so much. Most people in fitness eat really well. I don’t, I don’t at all.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Really?

    Jeannine Coulter:

    No, I eat cheeseburger. This is where my addiction is still alive and well. Chocolate every single night, burgers, so there’s my addiction coming, that’s not super healthy.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    There’s so much to the process, and I think that’s part of why when I hear people talk about just detoxing and then going back to their life and not doing any recovery or any program or anything, I don’t care what it is, any type of recovery, I feel really scared for them because this is so much more than putting down the drugs and alcohol.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I don’t know what you did therapeutically. I did therapy later. Probably should have done it sooner. That’s certainly a part of it is that, and you know what’s interesting is that I always think, until I started doing my show, I always thought I didn’t have any trauma. Nobody ever hurt me. You know what I mean? I never got in two fights with girls. I never got assaulted. I don’t have any trauma. Then I’ve learned from interviewing experts, there’s all sorts of trauma to be found. The divorce was traumatic and I never wanted to say that because I love my parents and they were doing the best they could. But I interviewed somebody once, Britt Frank, she’s the author of the book, The Science of Stuck. She’s great. She said, trauma is just anything that’s too much, too fast, too soon. That can be traumatic to someone in any setting.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    That change for me was too much, too fast, too soon. There is more trauma than I realized, even if it wasn’t outwardly something that we would think, because that word has become loaded over time. I did this interesting, it was this holistic healing thing recently where they do Reiki over you and then she does energy work. Out here in California, there’s a lot of that kind of thing. To some extent I believe in it and I was wanting to try it. I was selling my studio and it was hard, and as she was going through my body and I have all eight years, she was asking me to feel parts of my body and talk about what was going on there. It was so interesting because it was all still related to my addiction. I would feel my feet hurt and she was like, okay, why?

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I was like, from walking to the bus and I was like, that’s weird. Why do I still care about that? That was so long ago. Then something else would come up. I don’t want to trigger anybody here, but if you shoot meth, there’s like a physical response sometimes. It was weird. It was coming out of my body eight years later, and I realized after that incident that there was still was… there was a lot of trauma that gets left there. I mean, you’re right. It doesn’t just go away when we put down the drugs and alcohol.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    If you are using for an extended period of time in an extreme way, whether you had trauma or mental health struggles before, you best believe you picked it up.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Yes. Yeah, exactly.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I mean it’s just that, and I think that’s actually part of the struggle is that you go out into this world, particularly if you’re female and you start to use and you’re going to just accumulate trauma left and right. I’m including sexual assault, but not necessarily. There’s a lot of other traumatic stuff that goes on when you’re doing that for any extended period of time. When I see people who’ve been using for 10 years, they’ve been out. That’s one of the things I’m thinking about, not about their childhood, about how much trauma they’ve accumulated while they’ve been out there. Every day that they’re out there, [inaudible 00:45:24] moment that they’re in a homeless camp or whatever they’re doing, they’re accruing trauma. You have to break through that layer. The original trauma you’re not even going to get to. We got to break through this huge layer, and that is the value of getting out of it as soon as possible. More so than your childhood stuff.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    That’s true. All of those experience start, when he let the guy in that night. Nothing happened, but the fear, I mean, I was so loaded. I didn’t notice at the time, but I’m sure me was… I was really, obviously, because I remember it very clear. I remember what he looked like. He had tattoos on his eyelids, which really freaked me out. I was like, ugh.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    [inaudible 00:46:01] shed with him that’s locked.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I was in a shed padlocked from the outside.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. No.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Nothing happened in that moment. But even just that moment happening is traumatic.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. Oh, hundred percent.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    So what do you think is the best way out of that in early recovery?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    So I think you first have to get the drugs and alcohol out and give your brain some time to heal. Your brain doesn’t start to heal, really your brain doesn’t start to come back online until 60 days after clean time. Then your impulse control, the impulse control part of your brain starts to come back online. That doesn’t mean it’s online, it means it starts to come back online. The first year you have a ton of brain healing to do that is necessary in order for you to start thinking through all these things and staying close to other people who are recovering.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I mean, it’s really the stuff we talk about. Once you have some stability, you feel some stability, you have some community, there are a lot of therapies depending on what you’ve been through that are highly effective. For me, I had some trauma in sobriety and I used EMDR on a very… An event, EMDR on an event for me. I’ve done EMDR on childhood stuff. It was medium. I think you just have to do it for a really long time. Consistency is not my bag, but on an event, it was extremely effective. Then I’ve done some other modalities working through, for me, very disconnected from my body. So doing a lot of things that connect me to how I’m feeling. Sounds very trite, but yoga and-

    Jeannine Coulter:

    No like somatic therapy.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Somatic therapy. Like all these different things. So starting to learn how to say no, all these things happened for me in recovery, but I had to be in the middle of a group of recovering people so that they could help me figure this out. Then I added in the professional services as we were going, as things got more complicated, if people want to find you, they want to go get sweaty with you, they want to find your podcast, where can they find you Jeannine?

    Jeannine Coulter:

    They can find me at Chasing Heroine across all platforms. It’s heroin with an E. So obviously there’s the play on the word chasing heroin, because I feel like chasing heroin brought me to my inner highest self, if you will. So Chasing Heroine on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, that’s the name of my podcast as well.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Awesome. Thank you so, so much for being here. This was so much fun. I really, really enjoy talking to you.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Me too. In fact, I’d like to have you as a… Do you guest on other people’s shows too, right?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    I would love to get you on my show if you’re interested.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Absolutely [inaudible 00:48:40].

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Okay, perfect.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    We can schedule it.

    Jeannine Coulter:

    Yes, thank you so, so much for having me.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Thank you. That’s awesome. So yesterday you used my pity party trick.

    Scott Drochelman:

    I did do the pity party trick. We’ll get to, I swear we’ll get to Jeannine in just a second. I’m glad you asked about that because I think it’s a really cool trick and not one that people had recommended for me before. So I was having a rough week. I had just dumb stuff. I had kid stuff going on and health stuff going on, and mental health is just not great. It was obvious to me, it may be probably to you, you know me pretty well at this point, but I was having a really rough day. We were trying to do some recording and I was like, man, I just can’t, I can’t get out of this. You’re like, well do a pity party. She said, you were like, I tell this to my sponsees sometimes, but just pick an amount of time and then decide that you’re going to let it in for that amount of time and then you’re going to be done.

    Scott Drochelman:

    I picked the evening. From that moment, I kind of threw out all the plans for the evening and I was like, I had been thinking about what I was going to fix for dinner and all this stuff, and I was like, nope, we’re getting cheeseburgers and we’re going to plop down in front of the TV and we’re going to watch a show. I’m not even going to watch the show. I’m going to play on my phone while I eat my cheeseburger, and then I’m going to lay down on the ground for a little bit and feel sorry for myself, even though I have no right to, and that’s the part that I think I’ve been prone to fight a lot, is just like, oh, people have it worse. Your problems are nothing compared to other people. You of all people should know all the things that could be happening in your life.

    Scott Drochelman:

    So I won’t let it in oftentimes, but it was a really, really helpful tool. Sometimes I would do the thing where I would just eat a bunch of crap and do nothing in the day, but I still wouldn’t let it in. I wouldn’t let myself feel sorry in that moment or feel like it was hard. Sometimes I think that’s a benefit, but I think to your point and what you’re very nicely and gently pointing out is that by just refusing to let it in at all, it was causing me way more distress than just saying, okay, the evening, we’re going to let it in and still know all the things intellectually like people have it much worse, but yeah, no, I appreciate it. It was a great tool. You ever use the pity party or you just offer it up.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I just offer. No, I use it. So for people listening, the pity party is you basically pick a period of time, like Scott said, and it can be a day, it can be an hour, it can be in the evening as you did, and you just lean into feeling sorry for yourself or whatever the pity, the self-pity thing is, and you pick a time when it’s going to end. It’s going to end at whatever time you set an alarm, whenever and when it’s done, it’s done. You are done with your pity party. But when you’re having it, throw a fucking rager and the thing, okay, so here’s how I came to this. Here’s how I came to this. I don’t even remember. Someone probably told me. The pity party is this and it’s for people like us who basically, if you feel sorry for yourself all the time, you’re probably not in the group.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You’re probably not in this group of people where this is extraordinarily helpful. But if you’re like us, where we constantly are like, yeah, but you have it so good. You don’t even know real problems. You have all this privilege and you [inaudible 00:52:02] all the things. Our brain is literally telling us that our pain is so unacceptable. Frankly, how dare we even feel pain, like fucking loser, Ashley, pull it… How can you even feel pain? How do you even do that? You are disgusting. The pity party thing, I was like, it really came up around my addiction where I was feeling extremely sorry for myself about all the behavioral changes I needed to make and all the like, well, I have to give up smoking.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I have to give up sleeping around. I have to give up drugs and alcohol. I have to give up sugar and flour and [inaudible 00:52:41] and joy and dairy and [inaudible 00:52:43] and whatever. I was just like, oh my God, this is out of control. I feel extremely sorry for myself and sitting in that, yeah, it does suck that you have addiction and that is hard. You did go through some hard shit and you know what, feel sorry for yourself. But if it had a beginning, a middle, and an end, then it didn’t get out of control and I let the feelings out. What I thought I was doing by shaming the feelings away, literally, shaming it-

    Scott Drochelman:

    I had a stick. I had a big stick that I was just whacking them with.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. It’s like [inaudible 00:53:25]. Yeah. What I thought I was doing by telling myself that I was not allowed to feel bad, not allowed to feel sorry for myself because my life was good. What I thought I was doing was getting rid of the feelings. But what I was really doing was just masking them and leaving them there to fester. What I love about the pity party is I just let it go, jam out with your clam out, whatever, whatever it is.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You just partying it up.

    Scott Drochelman:

    Jam out with your clam out.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Never heard of that one. It’s really one of my favorites. Let your pity party rage, wow, all of the images that all of us are experiencing right now. I want to apologize. It’s okay to feel sorry for yourself for hearing this. You let them all out and then strangely, they leave and it’s much, much easier to move on from there. But you got to pick a time, man. You got to pick a time. So just to have your party and then move on from your party, and every now and again, you’re going to need to have a little party. It’s just the way it goes.

    Scott Drochelman:

    I love it. I love it.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I’m really glad it worked for you.

    Scott Drochelman:

    It did. It was really helpful actually. It’s really helpful. So that is a really good tactic. But I do, I’m kind of into this super pre-workout situation that Jeannine is talking about. To be honest, I haven’t jumped on that train and I was like, I want her energy.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Well, when energy drinks first came out, the sober, like the 12 step sober community, I’m not saying that people shotgunned energy drinks, but I’m not saying they didn’t. Okay. In a group setting. I don’t know. There was a lemonade one that I was okay with, but they had the drink called Redline, which is no longer on the market because I think it was causing heart attacks or some shit, it was some serious, but anyway, people use it in… I’m sure they did generally, but I only saw it in the sober community. People use it in the sober community before workouts, this Redline drink, and they would be hyped up. I’m just wondering when you say pre-workout, I think in order to get a colonoscopy, you got to drink the shit, right? It’s an important element. The way my brain works is truly, I can’t explain it, but that’s, colonoscopy is where it went.

    Scott Drochelman:

    So it’s like, okay, I’m trying to stay on the train. I don’t know where we’re going.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. Stay on the train. Look the train-

    Scott Drochelman:

    [inaudible 00:55:51] the dark forest. We’re in a dark forest.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    We’re in the dark forest. We went through this tiny tube.

    Scott Drochelman:

    The moonlight is gone. The moonlight’s gone. I can’t see anything.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    The bridge is rickety. Here we are. You’re on my train. So long and short, is that basically you’re just getting really caffeinated to work out. Is that a pre-workout or is that just heavy caffeine to do an activity, right?

    Scott Drochelman:

    Well, if you workout afterwards, then it’s a pre-workout Ashley.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Well, and if you do anything before a workout, it’s a pre-workout. Anything, literally.

    Scott Drochelman:

    Yeah. I love a sleeve of Oreos, pre-workout.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Exactly. So what are we really talking about?

    Scott Drochelman:

    Actually, I consider everything I ate the day before the workout, pre-workout as well.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Everything that happened before this workout is pre-workout. So what are we really talking about here? A pre-workout is part of the whole process, right? You cannot have a colonoscopy. I’m sorry, I have to just speak this-

    Scott Drochelman:

    Back on colonoscopy.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    You cannot have a colonoscopy without drinking the drink, you got to clean it out, okay. That’s a pre-colonoscopy.

    Scott Drochelman:

    This analogy does not hold up.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    It does. It absolutely does. Because if you took that drink any other time, you have to take it with the colonoscopy. But what we’re talking about is a cup of really strong coffee.

    Scott Drochelman:

    I have no idea what we’re talking [inaudible 00:57:16].

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Guys. No, it’s real.

    Scott Drochelman:

    This interview. I like the times where, when you’re watching, who watches tennis? People watch tennis, right? But if you’re watching that, and it’s a very even matchup where you’re just, you’re taking even turns. There’s long rallies happening where it’s [inaudible 00:57:33], you all both-

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Absolutely relate.

    Scott Drochelman:

    You all both.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I can’t stop relating. I feel like I’m over relating. Oh my God. When I watch tennis and there’s an even matchup-

    Scott Drochelman:

    You know how excited you get?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah, you get [inaudible 00:57:49].

    Scott Drochelman:

    All you tennis heads out there.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yeah. You [inaudible 00:57:53]. That’s really my audience if you think about it. It’s just like hardcore tennis racket people.

    Scott Drochelman:

    I’m literally trying to describe a conversation where it was very even and both you bringing energy-

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh, you’re relating this to the conversation?

    Scott Drochelman:

    Yes.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Wow. I didn’t even know where we were-

    Scott Drochelman:

    Pre-workout and colonoscopies.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Jesus. I’m sorry guys. It’s real rough in here right now.

    Scott Drochelman:

    It’s hard.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Okay. Okay. I’ll get [inaudible 00:58:18] concrete.

    Scott Drochelman:

    What I’m saying. What I’m saying is. You both had a lot of similar shared experience, so the energy for the conversation could build with each of you on either side because you had this shared experience and you could be like, oh yeah, that reminds me of this. Oh yeah, that reminds me of this. Oh yeah, this reminds me of this. Nobody had to take the wheel, nobody. It was just a real nice match for a tennis head like me.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Oh, Jesus.

    Scott Drochelman:

    I don’t even like tennis, I don’t why this became my personality.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I don’t like colonoscopies.

    Scott Drochelman:

    I don’t like it.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I don’t, I’ve never had one, but I’m ready. What was your favorite part of the interview?

    Scott Drochelman:

    I mean, I was there on the edge of my seat when she was getting the studio job 19 days into kicking heroin. I was like, I don’t even know all the things and I know that that’s a bad idea. I would not recommend such a thing in front of people. You not even-

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    I know.

    Scott Drochelman:

    Doing this in a private place when it all goes awry, you can have your horrible private moment, but you are literally leading a class of people doing that.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    A spin class, not just like a… On a spin class you’re also spinning.

    Scott Drochelman:

    Yeah, you are and yelling encouragements.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    And sweating. It’s not a good look to begin with. What’s funny, what I do, what it is funny, what went through my mind was how many times I’ve been in spin class and I’ve looked at the instructor who’s in really good shape and [inaudible 00:59:46] and they’re really excited and go, go, go, woo, woo woo. I’m like fuck this. I’m turning the resistance down, and I look at them and I’m thinking, they eat perfectly. I’m making up a whole story about how perfect their life is and how if I, whatever. I could look like that, and I should have blah, blah, blah, and whatever. I was picturing being in that class and thinking all those things. Meanwhile, she’s 19 days living in a… She literally was just living in a doghouse, and I bet every woman in there was like, man, I wish I had her arms or whatever.

    Scott Drochelman:

    She’s so thin, look at how trim she is.

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    She’s so thin. Yeah. Yeah. She probably eats so clean. What a wimp I am.

    Scott Drochelman:

    Oh man. Well, no, I love Jeannine’s story. I think you should check out her podcast Chasing Heroine, clever name. Heroine, like the female protagonist of a story. Check it out. Well, we’re rooting for you this week. We hope that if you need a pity party, you throw yourself a pity party. I wish that for you. It was very helpful for me. I would recommend it. If you don’t know who to reach out to, if you are stumped, please do reach out to us at podcast at Lionrock.life. We want to hear from you, the good, the bad, the ugly. We are interested in your story and interested in your success. Ashley, anything you want to leave the people with today?

    Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

    Yes. I want to leave you with a statement, which is, the pain is in the resistance, my friends. Keep that in the back of your mind as your mantra today. The pain is in the resistance. You got this. We’ll see you next time.

    Speaker 5:

    This podcast is sponsored by Lionrock.life. Lionrock.life is a diverse and supportive recovery community offering weekly over 70 online peer support meetings, useful recovery information, and entertaining content. Whether you’re newly sober, have many years in recovery, or you’re recovering from something other than drugs and alcohol, we have space for you. Visit www.lionrock.life today and enter promo code courage for one month of unlimited peer support meetings free. Find the joy in recovery at Lionrock.life.

    Scott Drochelman

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