Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker B: This episode takes you on an extraordinary journey with someone who went from rock bottom to becoming a powerful force for change.
Today, you're going to hear truths about addiction recovery and the remarkable transformation that's possible even from the darkest places. It's a conversation about change and how you see resilience and the human capacity for growth.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. I just want to say up front, I appreciate you listening to my new adventure, Relationship Restoration Radio, where we explore transformation, resilience, and connection.
My guest today is Elwood Dasher. Elwood is a friend and a man with nearly 35 years of sobriety who is dedicating his life to helping people suffering from addiction. His transition from, as he puts it, running from the cops to becoming one is an incredible story. Elwood works with the Municipal Police Department and the County Prosecutor’s office, bringing a progressive approach that emphasizes rehabilitation alongside public safety. As a certified recovery specialist and many other mental health certifications, he provides interventions, transportation to and from treatment, and coaching. Before his work in Recovery, Elwood spent 26 years as a leader with Fortune 500 companies, where he managed teams of up to 145 people.
So please join me in welcoming a man who truly embodies resilience and the power of transformation, Elwood Dasher.
Hey, Elwood, I want to hear about your hitting rock bottom. How many years ago was that?
[00:01:54] Speaker A: 30. Almost 35.
[00:01:56] Speaker C: 35 years ago.
Yeah. And, you know, just. Yeah, because you're just such a story of resiliency and how you've changed your life around in a major way.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: It wasn't me, but, yeah. Yeah, I was part of it, though. I was there. I was there.
[00:02:13] Speaker C: There.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: I was being led. Yeah.
[00:02:16] Speaker C: Well, so who do you give credit to?
[00:02:19] Speaker A: I give credit to the ancestors, and I give credit to my mom and the God she prayed to and, you know, whatever driving force of the universe that guided me at this time. My. My guardian angel being my brother who passed away when I was 6, 7, back in 1972.
There's been incidences that were really obvious that he had been a guiding force in my life and saved me in a few jams, which is crazy. God, for lack of. Better of a lack of words.
[00:03:00] Speaker C: That's important for people to hear that because not every. You know, not everybody has a God.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Yeah, man.
[00:03:07] Speaker C: So what do you say to those people who don't have a God?
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Hey, let's pray to something.
You know, it's. I say I'm. I'm still learning. And. And that's what I like. The only thing I like about this day and time is that there's so much more information out there than. Yeah, than the misinformation or the false information we were taught to believe in childhood.
You know, we often say, you know, we were misinformed by misinformed people that were misinformed by misinformed people.
And coming from a culture of. By culture that was totally lost, stolen and made to be forgotten, being misinformed came real easy because that was on purpose, right? To not have a history, that have a language, not have a culture. So it was easy through the generations to adapt dogmatic beliefs, right?
And we still none of us know the truth. We really don't know if this is our left hand on the right hand could actually be our left foot and right foot. We really don't know. Right. Because it's just information passed down. That's just my little philosophies and take on life. So I learned now, and especially through working on myself through spiritual Principles, through the 12 step program I belong to, that the spiritual journey is much freer or more beneficial than the dogmatic religions out there. Doing the right thing for the right reason, treating people like you want to be treated and all that kind of good stuff and realizing that there is. We come from something, something greater than us to define what it is. You know, I believe that one of my, one of my beliefs is God is a black woman.
First form of life was found in, you know, what continent. And then I don't believe that a woman came from nobody's rib. It's never been done ever before. So that's a hell of a magic act. Life begins in the womb and comes through through the woman. So that's a strong belief of mine there know. And living in a country that takes women's rights, women didn't have the right to vote until night with 1940s, couldn't sit up at bars. Men could only go in front of a bar and couldn't make decisions on their own. Couldn't purchase stuff without husband's permissions. And, and I think and you to see that in today's time with like this presidency back when Hillary Clinton was running, they will never let a woman be the leader of this country. And that's because of some old dogmatic beliefs that man is in control. Part of the false information we were all taught, right. Some of them y'all getting a tangent about what I believe and stuff. So I don't really want to go there. But, you know, tell me about your.
[00:06:34] Speaker C: Early life because I know your mom. You, you mentioned your mom as being a very.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Mom's the greatest woman to ever walk this planet.
[00:06:40] Speaker C: Yeah. Tell me about your childhood a little bit.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: My childhood, I'm okay. I'm the baby of seven from my mother. He had seven children, three different men, two husbands and then my dad. Very close knit family my mother comes from. My mother was one of 13 children.
Nine daughters my grandmother had. I am the baby, the last.
My grandmother's 50th grandchild. Wow. Right. I have first cousins that are early to mid-90s, my first cousins. So I come from a very large family. My family was pretty well known in the town. I grew up in this little suburb and called Perth Amboy the city by the bay. And it was really large, pretty known family. And I mean my immediate family, like I said, there was seven of us. I'm the baby and I'm the one who looked different. I look like my mother's twin and everybody else a little darker. Their hair was a little coarser. I had this little curly hair and stuff. So I was always called names. I was called Puerto Rican and half breed, all kind of. Mailman was my dad, the milkman was my dad.
You look like your dad.
There's more racism within the black culture than it is from the outside cultures, I tell you. But anyway, but, but loving my brothers and sisters would do anything for me and I for them. I mean, we were very close still to this day. And my dad had some previous children and me and my one brother was very close. Him and my brother, they're the same age. Him and my brother, both my brothers. But him and my, my maternal brother were the same age and they went to school together. And then one day, boom, here I came. And they all looked at each other like, what the we supposed to do with him? What'd that make us now? You know? And, but they really loved me. And my fraternal sister always shunned me, you know, just believed everything my mother told her. I don't know. We came from the projects. My mother fought hard to get out. So I really didn't see a lot of that. We was very poor on welfare to begin to see. We got a job with the New Jersey Bell, was the telephone company at the time. Became a supervisor and did good and we moved. It was like we were like the, the Jeffersons. We moved on up. Moved out of roach and rat infested house into brand new apartment that was newly constructed. I was always clean.
You would never Know, you know, the house was like that because my mother was immaculate. She was a disciplinarian with love. You got your ass beat when it was time to get your ass beat. It wasn't no sit in the corner, wasn't no, we're gonna take this away from you. You're gonna get this beaten.
That was it. And. But, man, my mom was so great. She taught me so much. She was my first God, first high power, first teacher, first leader.
My mom was bad. She was only 5 foot nothing and would fight anybody. She beat up people. I remember she beat up. I always tell the story, man. I was these twins, right? About five or six, And I had a fight with these twins, Alberto and Alfredo.
And I was getting them too. I had one in the headlock, other one, pow, pow. Somebody went and told their mom.
Their mom came and hit me on her arm with a strap and wolf me up. Wel. So I went home and told mama.
My mom put a trench coat on, grabbed my father's belt. Now imagine back then, my father WORE A size 42 belt, man.
Had that belt around her race, where'd she live. Walked over to the house, pointed. She walked right in that lady house, grabbed her by hit and beat her in with the belt buckle. Don't you ever touch my son. That's that mother I had. You ain't touch your children. It's old school.
He was great, but she taught me a lot of values, you know, I got clean in the program. It talks about avoid people, places and things, all this kind of stuff. My mother instilled all that to me. Treat people like you want to be treated. She taught me all that. I went astray. So I can't say it was anything to do with that.
Why? Because I had all them principles in my life. I was taught all that. He always taught me to polite. To this day, even my grandkids and my daughter would always say, why you say hi to everybody? Why you? But that's what I was taught, you know. I was taught everybody with a smile, even your enemy. So I still try to instill that into them, you know.
So anyway, growing up was different. I grew up in a small town. My family was known. My brothers. My oldest brother was having a family so he didn't have to go to Vietnam. My other brother was cool street thug, and everybody knew me. But as him, he was Dash. I was little Dash. My sisters, they were all known. My one sister was. Was into karate and basketball, very well known. She beat up half the men in town. And I Was pretty good, you know, I was in karate. I would know, people know. And I was a little skinny, but I never backed down from a fight. And in my house, you couldn't even if you came up with your ass kicked, you better have been in the fight, you know, it was not like you better not run. You better be no punk. Then you got beat up worse at home, so. And I took some serious asshole for my brother and sister. So all in love growing up. That was then. It was 60s, you know, everything was black power movement and everything. I'm light skinned with this straight hair. And so I had to be extra black, extra cool, you know, extra down, you know. And so I grew up like that. I was very popular, very well known because of my siblings. I seen this movie, I think I was 12. We had a movie theater in town. Didn't ask you for id. You paid your dollar. You went to the movies, right?
So I went to see the movie.
It was called the Mac.
Starred Max Julian and Richard Pryor. And it was about a pimp. And I found my calling.
I came home, I'm a little kid now, third grade.
Told my mother, I know what I want to be when I grow up.
What are you gonna be? I said, I want to be a pimp.
So I want to be a pimp.
You know what a pimp is? I said, yeah, my pimp cell hoes.
She said, okay, nothing wrong with that. I'll tell you what you do. You go to school every day and you learn everything there is.
So you could be an educated pimp. And your hoes don't teach you out your money. My mom was smart, man. Anything get you go to school.
I did that. So, okay, beginning of school come teachers asking everybody, tommy, when you grow up, I'm gonna be a fireman like my dad.
Susie, what you want me to grow? I want to be a nurse. I want to be a veterinarian.
Elwood, we'll be a girl. I'll be a pimp.
My mother sent me school to be an educated pimp.
Wait right here. She ran out the class come back. I will come outside. Had every teacher on that floor asking me what I want to be when I grew up, right?
Because of that movie. Today, that's till this day, that's still my favorite movie of all time, the Mac.
So that's probably what started me off of being cool, being a pretty boy lady. I love ladies.
I love the street life that was appealing to me. My one brother, I talked about, he. My half brother, he was playing Football, going to college. My other brother was raising a family. But my other brother was cool on the streets. I had a cousin. My cousin was very athletic. He could have went pro, but instead he chased the ladies in a fast life. And that was appealing to me. I wanted to be like him. He was so charismatic and very well mannered, always well groomed. And anywhere he went, he'd walk into a place he'd never been and leave with like three or four women. I thought that was amazing, and that's what I wanted to do. Then growing up, you know, I started getting high early because, you know, I hung out with older people. I was. I was accepted by older people. So by age 8, you know, I was digging wine and, and smoking weed and all that. And it was cool because everyone, even the older heads would see me, oh, he's cool. That's a little dash. That's okay. You know, he's good, you know, so it was always like that and.
[00:15:07] Speaker C: 8 years old.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: Elwood. Yeah, at 8. I started getting high at 8.
[00:15:11] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Smoking weed and drinking wine, drinking alcohol and stuff, you know, by the time I was in freshman in high school, I was selling weed, doing masculines and two and all second all locker room and all that good stuff. And that was what, 79, 80 by 81 when Freebasin came popular. 82, I think I was a junior in high school doing a little bit of that. You know, that's when it was always a rich man's drug, cocaine here and. And that started it. Then once I. Then I. First in senior year, I think I did a little taste of freebase and stuff, but I was doing more coke. Coke and dope, stuff like that. While I'm still maintaining this clean cut. I was. I was academically excelled. I was an honoral student. I was until I got to high school. And then I learned that if you tell Maria how cute she was, she do your homework for you.
So I learned, became a great manipulator and used people as a.
Even me and teachers. I had teachers that would bring me stuff, bring me sneakers and stuff from my husband's sporting goods store. And it was crazy. But anyway, so I got through school like that.
I started working in high school. I was working at a hospital as a lab technician, actually, where I met my wife today.
And.
And that was crazy that that was this. That's the story. I can't even tell. I don't need to think statues. Limitations are up for all the. I did.
[00:16:51] Speaker C: That's all right.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: I'm just saying.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: Can you take it back to the moment you decided to turn your life around?
[00:17:00] Speaker A: No, that's when it got really crazy. That's when I started. Really started doing a lot. And then, yeah, like I said, I was free basin, but then crack came and I was smoking 100 miles an hour. I. I remember when I went to detox, some of the old timers said, damn, you smoked that that long? That's amazing because, you know, it was taking people down within a year. And I went to that sip, like seven years. Wow. And so then I went from this clean cut guy to a guy who. My hair was all long and like, not this look straggly. I wore this. I was known for never wearing the same pair of pants twice in 30 days, right? Never. I was always sharp. And they would say, man, I remember when Dash. Never see him in the same clothes twice. I ain't had the same pants on for two weeks. You know, I shared this story when I was at a conference a couple weeks ago. Last night I remember the police telling me, we should have locked your ass up years ago. We might have saved your life. Now it looks like you're gonna die, you little junkie.
That's when I know about the language now, how important the language is. We use, especially in the field of helping people. That language can be very detrimental to somebody psyche, you know, but sometimes you are what you say you are and you are what you believe, you know?
And that was one of the things that got me looking. And then my mom. My mom called me a disappointment.
She sucked her teeth better than anybody I know. You're such a disappointment. And I was the one that was supposed to go to college, graduate from college and all that other shit, and which I didn't. So when she said that, that's the way my life ever went. I tried numerous times to try to get clean. Like my literature says, the literature in the program I belong to. I tried all kind of things, but it wasn't until I was ready. And I finally one day had enough, drove myself to detox.
Nobody believed me. I walked away from the table full of coke. And that never happened in my life.
And I drove myself in. I put my. And it was hard. I worked at that hospital for years. And so I was shamed. And the head of ER had walked through. God rest his soul. Steve Jaman. What's up, El?
Oh, no. I need help. I was embarrassed. So ashamed. He said, you know, to be embarrassed of. I got a meeting. I'll be back out. So I'm sitting There he called me in, he walked by. He did like this. And I was in inside, and he was looking at me. Fast forwarding to years later doing 12 step calls in recovery. I'd be in that detox, in that hospital ER trying to get somebody help for hours before they got seen. I was minute. So professional courtesy, divine intervention, whatever you want to call it. So I did that, did my little stint in the detox, got in there. Friend of mine I knew from the streets was in there, so I still had to be me.
Thank God he was discharged the next day. And I could let my hair down and just ask for help and be. Oh. With my mother's son. Anyway, went into there, the detox, got out, went to outpatient program that my employer had.
I did that. I was good two weeks, and I was clean two weeks because I was only doing it just to prove that I could stop for 30 days, you know, make my mom, everybody happy.
So two weeks. All right, cool. So told my girlfriend at the time, come on, let's go celebrate.
We went to eat dinner, and I was like, you know, I can have a beer long. I don't do cocaine no more. You sure? As he said, I said, yeah, I don't do coke and a beer. Another beer. Next thing you know, I had some absolute straight up. You sure? Yeah.
Left there, went to the local bar, hunging out. See a friend of mine. Oh, you want to smoke a joint? I told the girl, yeah, I'm just gonna smoke this joint. I'll be all right. But the joint was what we used to call rulers back then. It was weed with cooked up coke inside.
And so I smoked. Then I was like, that's it, man. Took her home, and I was back to smoking. That only lasted day. The following day I went, told this guy that was my sponsor said, go to meeting and raise your hand. I did that. And that was March 2, 1990. I've been clean ever since, going on 35 years.
[00:21:32] Speaker C: So. Amazing.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that was crazy. And that was a. You know, a lot happened in that time, too.
Took a long time to mature. And even being clean, I was one of those clean and crazy kind of people for a while. But, you know, I jumped into the fellowship with both feet. I did everything they say do. I got heavily involved. I got involved in H. And I got involved in service work. I got involved helping people. Like I said, 12 step calls.
Very involved in. I helped start. Start a lot of groups. So. But early on, we. We fought hard for what we believed in. You know, that's what worked for me and my friends, that I had developed that within in their program, that we took it seriously because we knew like we. There was no other way. There was no how. We were, like it says, in a hopeless dilemma. So there was something that worked that helped us get a. A new way of life. Not one of them to say I got another life. I don't believe in that. I didn't die, but I got a new way of life. You know, I learned. I put the drugs down and. And follow some steps and. And I got a new way of life. And I. I bought into the program where it says you can only keep what you have by giving it away.
And so to this day, I still do that.
I believe that. That I was spared so I can help somebody else, you know, if I can, so can you type of thing. I was involved in conventions. I was on the board of trustees for conventions.
I deliver a lot, helping the fellowship grow. And it has grown immensely in not only my town, but in the state of New Jersey pretty much throughout the country and throughout the world.
So. And. And. And by doing that, I became. I don't know if I was productive member of society. That's what I became. And I became a parent. And my daughter was born after I had a year clean. So she never seen me use. She seen me crazy, and she seen me completely out of my mind.
She's heard a lot of stories about me. But it's good because I took her to meetings early on. I told her who I was. I never hid my past from her, so she knew who I really was. Then when she was in the girls gal she's meeting and people their mother's name. You're Elwood's daughter? Oh, my mom. She's like, daddy, who else?
[00:24:07] Speaker C: That's no s. And your mom, how did she.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: My mom, when I finally got clean, she had such an exhale moment. And I remember she always wanted me to have this black onyx ring with my initial on, but she didn't trust me to get me one. So even in my yearbook picture, I took it with my brothers on. So instead of an E, it was a D. And I just told everybody was for my last name. And I got a year clean. She bought me that black onyx ring.
I think now it's time for you to have this.
My initial on in a diamond.
[00:24:46] Speaker C: How'd that feel?
[00:24:47] Speaker A: It was great, man. It was great. Four years later, my mom. I lost my mom. And so she had got her son back for four years and her and my dad, my. My dad was a big robust guy, country boy, Hands like catcher mist like sandpaper.
And they said the moment I finally said I had a problem, I went to detox. He cried like a baby.
So happy. I have really loving and caring parents. I really did. I was truly blessed. My father scared a lot of people, but they didn't know him. He. He was a marshmallow. Inside he was just a gentle giant. See, unless you made a man, then forget about it.
So, yeah, they both were.
My mother was really happy.
My dad was too. And then my mom's passed. I moved in back home with my dad.
And then I was able to buy a home. I bought my home and brought my dad in with me. And he made him comfortable before he passed. He had.
He had our own home. I owned a home. My mother. My mother had owned a home, but we had to sell it. She got real sick in there. Found out she got real sick. And the next door neighbor said, he told us to get your mom out that house. The last six women of that house died in that house.
And then I remember because the house was behind my grammar school. And I remember when I was. Then it brought me back. Yo, this was the haunted house. We used to call that house. The haunted house.
Believe in that. But that what we call that house.
So we got out of there. But my mother lived the dream. She came from in welfare and food stamps. My mother was born during the Great Depression. They were getting ready to eat her, you know, 1926, they thought she was a piece of chicken. And.
And so becoming a homeowner. So that was like. That was, you know, that was, that was, that was a great. And she, all of us did, all her children did. All her children became homeowners. The so called American dream, which is a nightmare because you never own anything as long as pay taxes to this country. They own you.
You can pay your house off in 30 years or 15 years, but you miss a tax payment, you will lose that home. So you never own it. That's the way it is. No matter what income level you are, don't pay them taxes and see who owns your house.
Right.
So anyway, so that was that. So that was, you know, and then, since then, I just, you know, life was good. I mean, became a parent. I moved around, got a pretty good job with, with just a high school education. I became a supervisor and a leader at a Fortune 500 company. A lot of things happened. And today for the police department, whoever thought, I mean, yeah, that was. Police were not My friend, I had nothing good about police. They never treated me nice. I got busted in the head and caught all kind of niggers and shit. And. And then this week my chief announced his retirement. No. And that was devastating because he's the only reason I really like cops now.
He's the one who talked me into doing this. Where is it? Other side.
He's got. He's moving on to greener pastures and I'm not mad at him for that, but it's just like, yo, that's my dude. You know, he helped me a lot. It talked me into doing this and. Which is crazy. My background is manufacturing. I am a supervisor, I am a manager and I am a leader, which I miss. I don't miss the headache, the stress. Being a manager brought me a lot of stress and I didn't know it at the time. I suffered from cluster headaches and find out most of that had came from. They could never diagnose it. But finally a lot of it came from stress. After left the job, first time I ever had anxiety was because of that was a few years ago, right before the end of my career in management. I always thought that was something for rich white folks because in our community you didn't go to. You didn't for one, you couldn't afford treatment. But it wasn't even available or talked about. So I wind up doing that and found out I had a panic attack and suffered from the stress of the job. And actually my manager told me to go home and go on the eap. And I called the EAP and he told me to go on this website. And it was a whole website designed for people who stress out managers on their job. So these companies and corporations know what they do. You would not pay tens of thousands of dollars for software if you didn't know you needed it because you were causing burnout and stress and anxiety to your managers. And then they go to the doctors and they put them on goofball pills that make them more up. Had a manager in there that I. I just really wanted to take him out. That's all I thought about when I looked at him. And it caused me to have a panic attack because that's not who I had become while being out. Then I went, I put in, I went back, I was out for a little while, went back to work. I put in for a position that I was overqualified for. And all the people even the director of that department had told me to put in there because, you know, that was my other background and they turned me down and said I didn't have a degree. And this was the lateral, this was the lateral promotion, the same company.
So after that I was just like. So he won't let me advance, right?
So another guy used to work there, he left, he went somewhere, he told me about it. I wanted more money, but I wasn't healthy yet. I didn't know that. And I went there and stuff happened and I stressed out again and I was out of work, but because it was Pennsylvania, I wasn't there long enough for fmi. Lady let me go some home, I'm unemployed, blah blah blah. Have nothing coming in because Pennsylvania wouldn't let me collect because I wasn't there long enough. I gotta. Had some savings, but I was blowing through that. And here we go again. I'm going through foreclosure again. That I went through in 08 when I got laid off from General Motors.
But I didn't stress this time. I didn't all at the same time. I met this guy in the program, young kid, good kid, friended him. He asked me to a coworker I worked for it said he wanted me to come speak at this thing in Washington D.C. it was international Recovery Day or something. And I went down there and I spoke at the Recovery Day for organization called C4. And Rick Hallstrom, right.
And he talked to me right away and, and started inviting me to come up to this conference he owned up in Cape Cod Symposiums. And I would go to that. And my friend, I guess he was just out there crazy, this kid. And they, he would be clean when we went up. And they thought that I was like the next best thing to slice bread because I can get this kid clean. And he took a liking to me and said I should be in the field. And I met people like this young lady named Diana, other people, Sam and Judith Landau. I met some key people and pretty big known names in the recovery business.
And so this guy Rick really wanted me involved. And then, you know, had a vision. It didn't come to light. It's a shame, but he's like, oh, we really need you. What you. He says, look around, look around this conference. What do you see?
He liked my answer. He said, no. You see a bunch of rich white men running this. There's no diversity. Which I found out is true. And I tried to get some jobs in there and it's, it's very cliquish. But anyway, another story, but it got me on a different path. So then Covet came fast forward To. And I got let go from this job, but. And after that, I was out of work for a while, but I was still going through the trainings that these people had afforded me to do. That was all scholarship, thank God. And Covid hit and I had just finished my training for interventionalists and also recovery specialists through the recovery. What's that?
[00:33:04] Speaker C: International Recovery Institute.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: International Recovery Institute, that's right. Oh, my God. Drew a blank. And I did all that. And then Covet came and it was like crazy. But Judith Landau had gave me some work to do from home. Thank God for her. Friend of mine, who I got clean with was doing something in the county that I live in. They had a. Another recovery coach through C CAR training. Oh, you want to come today? I know you've been doing it. I was like, sure, I got nothing else to do. And I did that. And then they hired me to work for the prosecutor's office as a peer recovery specialist. And going out on calls with law enforcement. Law enforcement. If somebody OD'd, if they knocked them, I would go out on the call and get them any treatment.
And then the assistant prosecutor, we hit it all. And I kept saying, look, I need work. I can't do this much longer. I might have to go back to work. No, no.
There's this organization that's opening up down here in Burlington. Go for that. So you could be close and hopefully we'll find something for you. So I did that.
That position was full, but we said, we got one opening up at a brand new facility, blah, blah, blah, and it's at a police station up in Lawrence. I went to that. The main lieutenant was real cool. That's my. Who's my chief now that's retiring. And we hit it off and I helped them with some stuff and they thought I was pretty good, so they kept me on.
But it was hard because I haven't made that little bit of money since I was like my first job at the hospital, right? It was like, I can't do this. I got a mortgage to pay.
So him and the chief offered me another position as a code enforcement officer part time.
So I was doing that, working both jobs. My old was working 12 hour shifts every day, blah, blah, blah. But still wasn't making no money. So I look, I gotta leave this. If I leave this, this other organization, can I keep the code job? He's like, sure, with no problem. They opened a recovery center right by my house. And I became a coordinator there part time, right? Me and the same guy that we Went to the training together.
My friend Rich and I was doing that for a few months, kind of liked it was. But then he called me into work. The chief at the time and the director of public works offered me a full time code enforcement job. So I was like, okay, what's the particulars still the money was like benefits, you need benefits. You don't have the benefits. It's the pension after 10. 10 years. Yeah. I'm not telling you what to do. I came home, I told my wife and she's like, take the job, we'll be all right. We've been surviving so far but I'm used to a few commas in my pay. Right.
There was no commas.
And so I took it. But at the same time that my lieutenant became the chief and he was really likes what I was doing with the prosecutor's office and he likes, you know, he's telling the chief at the time look what Elwood's doing. We loot, we should be using him. He's all over Facebook with Bronson county prosecutor on his chest and blah blah blah.
So he really wanted to have me do something other than the inspector job.
And then he's like, he had a bright, he became chief and he had a bright idea to send me to. He wanted me to go to police academy. I could do more with you. And I'm like, I'm 58 years old kid. I go, no police academy. I don't be no damn cop. Working along with you is cool. I'm cool with that now. Anyway, he sold me a good, he sold me a good song and I went and year and couple months later I am a class one. I've been a class one officer now for over a year.
I still do my peer recovery specialist work with prosecutor's office and township I live in.
I'm still training, I'm still coaching, I'm still staying clean. I'm still involved in a limited capacity in the fellowship.
Got five grandchildren and life's pretty good. It's hard though because I still want to go back to the big money.
And then after getting this news the other day, I'm like, I'm not too old to get back into manufacturing but my health has been so great in the last few years. So I really know that health, health is wealth. Where I started with the dollar amount and I'm good me and my mortgage is paid, it's paid on time all the time. I go at least two vacations a year which is the struggle. But we go and you know I eat steak. I don't eat Omaha steaks no more. Little thin ones from the Acme. But it's still steak, right?
My grandkids are spoiled as hell.
[00:37:51] Speaker C: If you could meet your younger self, what would you say?
[00:37:54] Speaker A: Read.
I never. I didn't read my brother that. I said my guardian angel used to take me to the library and read to me, right? And then after he passed, I was never interested in reading. I can listen now. I I in high academics classes, but mine was from listening and common sense.
I'd read enough to pass the test, but I never retained it after that. But if you tell me something, I'll never forget it.
That's how I survived to this day. So I would tell my younger self, take the book home. Don't put it in a locker. One of the girls you knew that had a locker close to the class, I would just go in the locker and get my book for class and then put it back in that locker. Never brought them home. So that's one thing I would do different. I wouldn't change nothing in my life. I am who I am because of the path that I chose or was chosen for me. I don't have no idea. But the path I was on got me to where I am today. I believe that for sure. So if I did anything different, I would have read just to be more knowledgeable of things around me. I'd still be me. I'd still be. I would have went through everything. I went through the drugs, the women, the.
When I say women, I was never. I was a womanized, but never disrespectful. Never, never put my hands on a lady. None of that. I always joke when I died and probably say, you, sorry, but not because of, like, harm. Harm, you know? No more than a breakup, you know what I mean?
So I don't mean it in that way, but I wouldn't change nothing.
[00:39:27] Speaker C: A bunch of heartbroken women, you mean?
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Yeah. I wouldn't change the drugs. I wouldn't change the age. I wouldn't. I mean, that was my path. I mean, I wish I would have been more athletic. I wish I'd have had more ability, more talent. But that wasn't my gift.
I love sports and I suck at sports. I love music, and I can't carry a note in a Samsonite suitcase.
[00:39:52] Speaker C: What's a book or song or person that inspires you?
[00:39:55] Speaker A: Music in general inspires me. Jazz, funk, I can put on a George Clinton record, who I went to see last night, Uncle George. And I can just get Lost in that or, or any Grover Washington Jr. I can get into Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, I can get into all that and I can get into any funk music and I can just be okay with what's going on in the world.
So music inspires me, spirituality inspires me. I have a. I feel more connected with the universe spiritually now as I grow older and realize that religion is just dogmatic and man made and information stolen from hieroglyphics and turned around to fit somebody's evil mind or the power for greed and power. I'm totally away from them. Not a religious person by any means, but I'm a spiritual person and I do believe that there is a God.
[00:40:56] Speaker C: What do you do every day to.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: I thank I. What I do every day is I thank the God that I serve and understand every day. And usually that's the God within me.
It's the God that I am, the God that I was born to be and I, and I go by that. And I treat people with dignity, respect. Even people I know have hatred in their heart towards me. I will greet them, hello, how you doing? And at the end of the day I feel okay. I sleep pretty good with that.
[00:41:29] Speaker C: Do you pray?
[00:41:30] Speaker A: I pray every day. I don't believe I have to get on my knees. That's some old wife. Still, you can pray right now. I can pray subconsciously while I'm talking to you. I can be having a conversation with, with the spirit world. But yeah, I pray every night and I'm in my bed. I don't get down. I wait till I'm in the bed and I'll have my conversations. I need to have and ask for things I think are appropriate to ask for and pray for other people that ask me for prayers like I'm not one of them. Like even on social media if somebody's going through something and if I hit, I'll pray for you. I actually pray for them, you know, I'm not one of them that just talks and praying hands or something and go on about my day. I'll add them in my prayer at night, you know.
[00:42:13] Speaker C: So what's the, what's a one message that you want everyone listening to walk away with today?
[00:42:19] Speaker A: First message is have respect for your fellow man and treat somebody like you want to be treated. And I believe in that and see the person for who they are. I'm not going to say don't see color because we all see color, otherwise we wouldn't have different colors, but see that person for the person they are for, for their spirit, for their soul. Because that's what it's all about. I mean this is death's. It's just a box that keeps our soul. So no matter what it looks like, it's, it's what gets comes out the heart that you need to see. So I believe in treating people like you want to be treated and treat people with respect. And I think we go a long way. I think this world will be a much better place. That's not what we've been taught to do. So until people can get past their dogmatic upbringings and, and think for themselves, we're going to be stuck where we are with violence and hatred and bigotry. And it's never going to go anywhere because it's still taught. So before I shut up and turn it back over to you, it's taught. It's lurk behavior. And that's what people don't want to get with, is learn behavior. Hatred is learned behavior. Grandpa teaches it to his son, who teaches it to his son and it goes on and on and it's still going on today. Same it's with race, it's with stigma, with, with drug addiction and alcoholics. That's where the name calling comes from and that's where the language needs to be changed. That's what junkie, no good for nothing drug addicts and all that come from. Instead of a person suffering, you know, instead of it's, it's, it's taught, it's learned behavior. Same thing like in the police department. They, that was learned behavior. You know, I have a chief now that is die man teach such diversity and compassion for people. I, I, I never knew that was possible until I seen it firsthand, you know, and it got his bad eggs in it, I'm quite sure too. So I think that's going to be a real hurt to that community that hopefully the next person can don't fill his shoes but somehow walk in his footprints. I think that would help because he's done a lot for that and, and that's why I really respect that guy. I, I'd go back to back in a bar fight with this dude any day.
[00:44:41] Speaker C: Where could people contact you, Elwood, because you have your, you know, you, you have this job but you also.
Can you be hired as like a recovery coach privately?
[00:44:51] Speaker A: I sure can. They can go on-envision.com yeah.
[00:44:56] Speaker C: What are some of the services that you provide?
[00:45:00] Speaker A: Coaching. Provide coaching. Transportation if need be. If somebody needs to be transported to and from rehab or any Treatment facility. I can't say counseling because I'm not, I'm not licensed counselor, but I am a certified peer recovery specialist and a certified peer recovery coach. I am also a mental health first dater. I continue every day to grow in that field. Was in a ethics refresher for two days yesterday and on Tuesday. I am currently also in training for the county. I work in Mercer county as a trauma response technician. So I will be that part of the trauma response team. Wow. So yeah, I'm available. Huh.
And I offer, I got big ears. I offer these ears to people to talk to if need be, if nothing else.
[00:45:59] Speaker C: And so yeah, that's really awesome.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: I still 100% defend my fellowship, but I'm more open to whatever works for you.
I'm not 100% into this new harm reduction many pathways and you're in recovery. When you say you are, are. I'm. I mean I have to for my work, my personal recovery. If you come into the fellowship, I'm not with that you're using. I don't give a what you say.
But you know, as far as it's work, if that's what it takes to get you to the next level, that's fine. You know, that's what they're paying me to do. But I believe in total abstinence. I don't believe in. It's just the way I came up in the program for 35 years, you.
[00:46:43] Speaker C: Know, you know, you got California sober and you've got, you know, this sort of, you know, harm reduction way where anybody can call and you and I.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: Have met people at this thing we used to go to that run businesses, rehabs and stuff and can't stay clean. So they push that harm reduction so they can still do some boxing and Vivitol and run their business instead of just not using.
And we know that. And so that helped to push it. And you know, and the pharmacies are pushing now because people got hip to taking the opioids and stuff, right? And so they're not making billions of dollars off of that anymore. So let's push these other pills out to help get them off them drugs but keep them hooked on these drugs. So let's push the Vivitol, let's push this Suboxone and let's give the doctors the same type of under the calendar checks they were getting for writing prescriptions for the other drugs. So it's a vicious cycle that we're gonna, it's never going to stop. Just like I seen an Interview maybe interviewing I think I actually did to pull up that place Kensington in Pennsylvania. And they interviewed a guy there who has all these big swords from the new drugs.
And they asked him, well what can they do if the government or anybody steps in? What can they do if he said nothing? Because if you get rid of this drug, there's another one coming. George Clinton always says that there's more profit in pretending you're stopping it than selling it. And that is a fact. If you listen, really internalize that the war on drugs. Okay.
[00:48:27] Speaker C: You know you, you've sponsored people from like a different walks of life. Like people who are, who grew up differently than you did. Let's just say probably from a life of privilege.
Where do you see where maybe there's a weakness in the way they were brought up in this life of privilege that is not helping them with their recovery.
[00:48:45] Speaker A: The life of privilege. As far as anybody in addiction now your privilege might you get slapped on the wrist if you're caught with drugs as privileged. Right. Cops would, especially back in the day. Even now, depending on where you're at, privilege is their.
They can go to the top rehabs, they have insurance, they don't have to go to the rehab that their staff is like not the greatest because they can't afford to pay them because they take Medicaid. So they can go to the certain lodges and all these other fancy name places that still going to send them to a 12 step fellowship when they get out.
[00:49:28] Speaker C: Do you think those places work?
[00:49:30] Speaker A: They do to a certain extent.
Everybody that works in a rehab ain't qualified to work in rehab. I think they need to have more peer support.
Because you went to school and read a book and got a degree don't mean you know shit about the nature of addiction.
I think that needs to be lived experience that gets across a lot better.
So yeah, they do work and some people just need to get away for a couple days more than the three day detox. Some people do need that just mentally to think that they're away.
And so that helps. The difference is, like I said, is the level of care. But as far as being privileged and non privileged with addiction, addiction does not discriminate.
It doesn't care if you come from park Avenue or park bench. It wants you to suffer and it wants you dead.
Doesn't care. It does not discriminate. Doesn't care if you white, black, brown, purple, polka dot.
Doesn't care if you have five commas in your income or just one decimal point. It doesn't Care. And that's the main message. It does not discriminate. That's why I hate that society. Society and different.
What we bring into fellowships and rehabs is still our beliefs. And that causes separation.
Where it's one addict helping another should just be enough. One drunk helping another should be enough.
But I remember being meetings me and my friend, he passed and we went to go to this meeting one night years ago, years ago. And he said, he has two meetings, one upstairs, one downstairs. So which one you going? He said, well, the black meeting downstairs, white meeting upstairs. I said, well, I'm going upstairs. He said, yeah, come on, let's go.
What's the difference? Why is it a black meeting, white meeting? When I lived in Tennessee, they had two different conventions.
White convention. I said, I heard there's a convention, right? I said, oh man, I'm going to convention. Oh man, that's the white convention. I said, I'm going to the convention. And when I was in that meeting, ethical meeting on ethics yesterday, and I said, you know, the bias is acting about bias and stuff. I says, I've had that happen recently. You know, I went out on a call to help somebody and they were so busy with racial slurs. I just told the cop, you need to call somebody else to help them. Because I'm not.
Obviously they only want my help.
So I'm at the age now, I don't have to put up with that no more. I'm here to help you. If you don't want to help because of the way I Look, well, here's $20. Go get high. I'm not wasting my time because of what you, you know. And my track record for getting people into rehab is pretty high. I'm pretty good at what I do, you know, So I don't care what, what you look like when you come to me. But obviously that did. So that's. And that's a shame that that's where we're still at to this day. I'll come eat at your house any day, and you're welcome to mine. See, I don't get that. Don't mean to me the class cast system sucks still. But that's what we, we were taught in this country. This, this country was based on.
And it's the same because there's no difference. The money has no difference in the person who needs seeking help. And that's what said. But the only thing it does cause is the level of care, and that sucks. And being a recovery coach who's out here trying to get Part of my job is to get people into treatment and can't get them into treatment because they have no insurance. And the places that take no insurance are hard to get into. And there's, and then they have all kind of stipulations on what drug, what drug you take, what drug they detox.
[00:53:33] Speaker C: And that's crazy.
[00:53:35] Speaker A: The system itself is really flawed. And they keep, I mean, they pumping money into it because they got to show they're pumping money into it to keep putting out all these grants. And you know, hey, I'm grateful for the grants. That's what pays my salary.
[00:53:48] Speaker C: But yeah, but those, those grants that are just for opioids. So if somebody's on crack, they, you can't get them in.
[00:53:56] Speaker A: You don't have. Everything has fentanyl in it now. So they got to do is say they got, you know, they're smoking crack in fentanyl and that's how I get them in. It's not a real big lie because if you test it, it's probably more. Fentanyl is coke. But it's sad that we're at that level.
It's sad because all the money's being is right now the grants or the opioid grants. And they say you can detox yourself off of cocaine. I could never did it. I wouldn't have got clean if I didn't go to detox. Whether it was mental, whether it was just three days off the street, but it's three days to make you look at yourself for what you're doing. If it's not, if it's not physical, if you say it's not physical, okay, fine, get them off the street for three days, get them in the bed, give them a meal, pump them with some vitamin B12 and some lithium like you did me, you know, get them a little healthier so they can take them to a couple meetings in them three days and see if they can identify with somebody else. Don't say went out detoxing them and we're killing people and it's sad. I mean, I sat one time usually when I, when I used to do the 24 hour call. And usually it takes me no more than an hour to get somebody in treatment. Usually no more. I sat with this one man for three and a half hours and I couldn't find him, nowhere to go because he was smoking crack. And that's before fentanyl was really big to say anything about that, you know.
And so I found him a few outpatient places he could go to, but he still had to go home. And you know, once, once you come down or once you get that call of the wild again, you know when you, when you've got to wait another day or two to seek help. One thing with this stuff, if the person says they want help, you got to get them help that day. Because the next day their mind is somewhere else. I don't know what to do. I don't know the answer to that. Everything is so corrupt and I don't know. It's so. And it's bad.
It's bad. Like you look at these. The stuff that's out there now, not just the fentanyl that they blaming on coming across the border, but that other stuff, that ammo tranquilizer.
[00:56:01] Speaker C: Yeah, you showed me pictures of that. That's pretty sick.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: It's. It's horrible. It's horrible. What do you do? People say, well, why would they do that on purpose? They think they're doing one drug that's cut with another drug and then the body gets used to it like any other drug. Then you. And you crave it and it gets in your system. What do you want me to tell you? Your brain says, give me more. They can't find out what causes cluster headaches in people.
You know, for years I got treated. It was, I was just an experiment. That's why they call it practicing medicine. But they have no clue. It's sad, but we can keep trying. If we get one person into treatment, then we did good. It's. I think we talked about this. Now the big thing, not just New Jersey, it's, you know, the attorney general's office was coming from the state, which is coming from the federal government. This, this new initiative called the rise, right. They want a mental health person to go out on every call.
And I was doing that when I was working for one of these other companies. Right? Let's figure out what people need to go. So I said, I was at a training CIT training and crisis and defenses training. And I was talking to them. I said, yeah, man, how I get out? I want to be a screener, you know, you know, paper certified screener. Not just when I did it for xyz. Company A says, don't need. You need a master's degree. I said, you know, there's people out there doing this right now. They barely got out of high school. Yeah, yeah, we need to be. I said, okay, so now you're only going to use people with that. So now and then you're not calling the agencies like I Work for, you know, the recovery coaches. You're not current calling the other company that provide that because it came down from the attorney generals. You have to call this company, this hospital or whatever crisis center. So now the officer has to sit with this person for an hour, hour and a half till they get there to make the determination if they need to go to crisis or not, that you really need a master's degree for that.
So now Diana's house is being broken into, but she gotta wait because there's no cops available because two are sitting over here with this person waiting for the crisis person with the. The master's degree to show up.
[00:58:23] Speaker C: That's ridiculous.
[00:58:24] Speaker A: What a waste of time that you wasting on for law enforcement. That's needed somewhere else.
[00:58:28] Speaker C: Yeah. So we need more peer recovery specialists.
[00:58:32] Speaker A: You need that. But it's not just that anymore. You need them trained in mental health. You need peers, and they have it now, but they're not using it yet until they figure out there's a need to have. But you need them really trained. Right. You need them trained, and you need to pay them a decent salary because you get what you pay for.
I told you the story about when the transit was higher in peer recovery Special, and my name was at the. They called me, I was recommended, highly recommended, Right.
And they said, you're going to start off in. In Trenton. Trenton was one of the worst towns at one time, especially the train station. Right. And they said, you'll start off there as the peer recovery coach there, working along with the transit police. And I said, oh. Officer Furlong said, yeah, so I know I'm good. I've worked with him before. I said, real good guy. Loves, like, helping people.
But he said, yeah, you'll start off there and you'll be assisting them and. And then, you know how it works. You'll go to other transit stations and you'll train people and help them. And I'm like, oh, it's school, you know. They say, man, you come highly recommended by prosecutors and blah, blah, size. What's the compensation?
Well, you know, there's a lot that comes with it. There's some benefits, and I understand that. What's the compensation? He says, oh, it starts at 16. I said, stop. I will lose my home and everything I owe if I work for that kind of money. I said, no, thank you, good luck. I called up the people that referred me and said, listen, don't refer nobody else. You're going to get somebody killed.
I said, because you're only going to get what they pay for. No licensed person is going to work for 16 hours. No person with experience is going to work for $16. So you're going to get an unlicensed person with no experience to go work there. That is supposed to help the police cause more harm. If somebody is in full mental psychosis, this person dummy is going to go and approach them, probably get their hands on them. Now the officer has to go and you get what you pay for. You can't do that. You got to pay people you can call. You got a grant. Stop trying to pay yourself this big money, those that run that and pay the people boots on the ground.
Because you get what you pay for. So.
[01:01:01] Speaker C: But then they're not paying the actual people who are doing the work.
[01:01:05] Speaker A: It's horrible. It's horrible. It's horrible what they pay. And I've been doing it for a little while. I, I don't make much, but it's just a part time job so I can boost other than this job that don't pay.
So I gotta do it.
[01:01:20] Speaker C: I mean I think they should be paid as much if not more than nurses. I mean it's sort of a similar job.
[01:01:26] Speaker A: You remember when I was getting them calls and the person who, they lost half of their brain and I had to console the wife and I'm going into emergency rooms during COVID trying to talk to people and they got more plugs than an old solid state tv.
Then they're trying to talk and getting them into treatments and they're like what the, how you getting that in the er? Don't worry about. I get in er, you know, and I was making pennies.
[01:01:55] Speaker C: I think it's also the, the field of psychiatry. I have a friend who's a psychiatrist and he, he, he talked about going out to dinner with a surgeon, a plastic surgeon and, and his wife, both of their wives during dinner they, they each got calls to go to back to the hospital.
So they left their wives and they, and the plastic surgeon had to go fix a car accident victim's face or a hand or something like that and.
[01:02:23] Speaker A: Right.
[01:02:23] Speaker C: And my friend had to go talk somebody off ledge. You know, it was like about to commit suicide. The plastic surgeon came back a half an hour later. Like he just had to put a couple sutures in this hand and he probably made like five grand that night or more. And my friend the psychiatrist actually missed dinner. He was gone for three hours. Probably made like 2 or 300 bucks trying to talk off a ledge.
[01:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:02:52] Speaker C: A huge difference. Even, even for the doctors, you know.
[01:02:54] Speaker A: At that level, it is different. I want to ask you a question. In the work that you do and even with your philanthropy and everything, what do you see with the difference in privilege when it comes to addiction services?
[01:03:12] Speaker C: I don't. I think that the services are probably a lot better for the. For the. For the privileged.
But I wonder sometimes about, you know, taking people out of their environment and taking them to some, like, beautiful place, and then. But then they have to go back to their system, which hasn't changed. And sometimes that system is just too freaking hard. Even if it's a privileged lifestyle, there's a lot of triggers and there's a.
[01:03:41] Speaker A: Lot of peer pressure.
[01:03:43] Speaker C: Peer pressure.
[01:03:44] Speaker A: It's.
[01:03:45] Speaker C: It's a. It's a toxic system. So they go back into it.
[01:03:48] Speaker A: Denial in the family.
[01:03:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yeah. And so I think that even if you pay for really good services, I think that there's. I don't think the outcomes are that great.
[01:04:00] Speaker B: Before we wrap up, I'd like to thank Oliver Kiker for the jingle and Gwendolyn Christian for the backup support. Also, a quick reminder, these interviews are not a substitute for professional medical, legal, or psychological advice. Always consult with a qualified professional for any major decisions in your life. And thanks for joining me in exploring the connections that make us human and learning insights and strategies to help us build, heal, and nurture relationships, including, and especially the. The one with yourself. It's been an honor to share this time with you and to bring you conversations with some of the brightest minds who deserve more recognition. Remember, life's too short to take too seriously, so don't forget to hit that subscribe button, get outside, and let's continue this journey of life together. See you next time.
