 I recovered, I recovered, I recovered, I recovered, I recovered Let's go I'm on a journey to discover the truth Living life and recovery is lovely You got the power in you Surround yourself with positive energy Judges hitting people with provocative penalties Need to make a change, advocate to change the laws Through the people that it's not insane When you stand behind the cause I'm here to speak about the pain Recovered loud to normalize the disease That's been killing all my friends Hit my family, the time is now To let it all go and recover loud The benefit is healthy people, family and friends They never have to overdose Ever again, never have to plead out To a lesser defense, I'm proud to say that I recover loud I never thought I could, but I'm so proud that I discovered how To live my life again, controlling my own destiny I needed recovery, I still needed desperately Addiction never defined my identity I recovered loud here to tell my own story I recover proud, save a life of like 40 I recover loud, yeah, I recover loud I recover loud, yeah, I recover loud I recover loud here to tell my own story I recover proud, save a life of like 40 I recover loud, yeah, I recover loud I recover loud, yeah, I recover loud I recover, I recover loud I recover, I recover loud I recover, I recover loud, I recover, I recover loud. Hi, welcome to another episode of Recover Loud. I'm your host, Mike Paddleford, and I Recover Loud. Tonight's guest is my friend and director of Recover Loud, Ryan LaMere. Ryan, it's really great to have you as the director of the show. I think you're doing some great work, and I appreciate you wanting to share your story. You're in recovery. How long has it been? 5,219 days today. Yeah, and that's an amazingly high number. And, you know, many people out there keep track of how many days they've been doing it. You know, we do it one day at a time, and those days add up. So, how many years is that? Fourteen and some months, sir. Yeah. So, when you went into recovery, you know, what was your life like before that? What did that look like? Well, when I went in to recovery mode, my first daughter was about to be born. It was actually like her due date, August 1st, 2008. And so it was like a frantic kind of thing, you know, and we were living downstate. And my wife is from Arista County and had more supportive family from her side up here, you know, and down there. We didn't really have too much for support. So just kind of leaving that and coming up to Arista County was like my way of getting away. So that's kind of when I entered into recovery, August 1st, 2008. And I did it by using, I guess, other substances as a crutch, you know. I would still smoke cigarettes and drink, and I smoked weed and stuff. And I felt like, in 2008, there wasn't a lot of talk about arm reduction then. But when you look back at it, it's exactly kind of like what it was. Not knowing, but feeling like, hey, if I cut this other stuff out of my life, you know, and I just do this, I think that's a lot better. You know, that was my outlook, kind of how I looked at it. Yeah, and of course, I mean, it's really difficult to just stop using every coping skill that you're used to using, that you've got in the habit of using. And for a lot of people, you know, the only thing they know that helps them get through. So to cut everything out at once, you know, is pretty difficult. So the idea of arm reduction is to make a positive change towards sobriety, possibly, if that's what you want to do. So you're able to stop doing the things that were going to kill you, you know, and start to live your life again. What was your life during use like? Use for me kind of started, I mean, I guess in middle school would be the first time I ever really did anything between, well, even further back. Fourth grade tried my first cigarette, nine, ten years old, something like that. A friend of mine at school said, you know, thought cigarettes are cool. I mean, my mother smoked cigarettes. I didn't really, I wasn't one way or the other on it. He said, hey man, let's hang out after school and smoke some cigarettes. I'm like, hey man, that'd be pretty cool, you know, my mother smokes, his mother smokes, you know, that kind of thing. Right. And yeah, then in between seventh and eighth grade, I remember drinking for the first time, a ridiculous amount. From there on, it wasn't like an all the time thing. But yeah, you know, in the eighth grade and ninth grade, I ended up through high school, a lot of drinking. And I got to smoking weed, going into ninth grade. Yeah, I actually remember, I moved to Caribou from Massachusetts, my freshman year. And at the end of my freshman, it was March, actually, of 1991, I moved here. And, you know, I didn't make a lot of friends right away, but towards the end of the year, during finals, you know, one of the other kids looked at me and said, you want to go to the cake party this weekend. And, you know, because I had drank before, you know, I felt this is my chance to make friends, to fit in with all of these other people who grew up together. You know, so yeah, I get that. You know, the... Yeah, I moved around a lot, too. I was a kid, almost every year I'd be at a different school. Until I got to, like, the sixth grade, where we kind of settled in one place. But all up until that, you know, and then getting there was kind of a similar thing. Like, I didn't know any of those people, so I had to make friends. And I was kind of trying to be like, you know, the cool kid, do whatever. Yeah, be the chameleon and try to find a group that accepts you. You know, and that's what we look for, we look for acceptance. So where would it be growing up that you would actually call home? Uh, well, I mean, I grew up, you know, in southern Maine. The Tri-City area, which is like Bitterford, Sokka, Oluja Beach, is where I moved around when I was a lot younger. A lot of family there. And then my mother and stepfather moved to Arundel, which is basically the Kennybunk same zip code. Yeah, just next to the water. But I lived there from sixth grade onward until my mother had moved away after I moved out. So I spent a lot of my time there. I went to Kennybunk High School. I was in a bundle school from sixth grade onward. So that's why I've met a lot of my friends and did a lot of my exploratory, you know, usages. And a lot of it, like I said, was drinking to begin with. So did you have a lot of police involvement in your life? Not a lot. I mean, it was all for stupid stuff, you know. Not showing up to court or not paying fines was the biggest thing. Some driving without a license at OEY in 2007. So there's the drinking part of everything, you know. But most of my police involvement was little. I did spend some time in there for, you know, saying I was somebody else one time when I got pulled over and drunk. You know, saying I was somebody else, a friend of mine I knew. And, you know, so that severed ties with that friend, you know, when he found out about that, obviously, that's part of the burning bridges along the way. Oh, yeah. We do some crazy stuff. Yeah. But no, I mean, I did spend some time in jail. I got a possession charge in 2007. So 2006-07 was a rough time for me. I spent some time in York County Jail, Hamilton County Jail, but never too, for too long. And then right back to the same stuff, you know. Yeah. And, you know, I myself, I've been to prison when I was 19. I did 10 months in prison. And that was really my first experience, the first time I was ever arrested. And it led to a prison sentence. And I was 19. And, you know, I'd like to say that I was kind of scared straight out because, you know, I didn't get in trouble as I grew up. But once I got into substances, you know, the risk is always there. Yeah. So even though you didn't get caught, didn't spend much time in jail after that, were you still doing risky things? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did a lot of risky stuff. My, you know, my ascension to using the heart of drugs took a little while. You know, like I said, cigarettes early on and alcohol, and it wasn't until senior year, I started experimenting with other things like mushrooms and MDMA, cocaine, stuff like that. Pretty quickly went to that. And obviously still drinking and everything like that. So I usually say from 1718 onward to about 23, it's a lot of things that were questionable. There's a short time frame, but I did a lot of things. I burned a lot of bridges with people that I probably shouldn't have. And I did a lot of things, didn't always get caught, you know. So there's definitely times I look back now, things that I did then. I'm like, I'm damn lucky that something didn't happen because I could have been in there 10 months, a few years. Some of the stuff that I did to get by, if you'd have it, whatever thing, you know, live this certain lifestyle or whatever. Yeah, and, you know, my whole point with that is, you know, the risk, we never really consider that. I mean, we always know it's there. But we're not going to stop doing what we have to do. And I always say that, you know, the use led to us doing these things, and then these things led to us using, you know what I mean? So sometimes we get high and we do stupid stuff, or sometimes we have to do things in order to get high. You know, but there's just a lot of stuff that goes on. When I was 18, kind of fresh out of high school, in that summer, I linked up with a guy who was pretty big in Maine, making music at the time and showed him some of my beats and he introduced me to his manager and he saw me as a management deal and then it was kind of, it was a downhill spiral from there because the guy who was a manager, little did I know, was into coke and drinking and all he was doing, you know? And so was I. So it was like when we linked up, it was just like a tornado and it spiraled really quickly into about, so that was like 2003 by 2005, 2006. That's when I was starting to get arrested. Things were really bad. But in that timeframe, we were at the studio every day, every other day, or we're running to get drugs and we're trying to flip stuff for money and it was just always living that lifestyle and like sleeping on the couch, sleeping in Deering Oaks Park. Like I'd sleep wherever, people's front entryways. Like in Portland, just walk up and down the street till I find an entryway and go in it. You know, apartment's important. Sometimes they got the entryway to get it downstairs or an upstairs apartment and they might not be locked or laundry rooms I've been in. I mean, I'd do whatever. And it was all because all I was living for was, was the drugs or drinking and just keeping the party going at that point. That was what was around me. Like that's what I surrounded myself with. Like I was like, if I keep certain artists, I know they're into doing drugs, I'm gonna keep them around, keep them around so I could use them however I wanted to use them for my own personal benefit. It wasn't because, you know, yeah it was cool to make music and everything at that time, but I wish that I wasn't doing that because the connections would have been more real, you know? Yeah, and you know, I was kind of the same way. I had a business going, taking care of four ghost houses and I used to hire people that I knew used so that I didn't have to hide it. And you know, the other thing was I could get away with, you know, giving them a little bit of stuff to pay them for the day instead of having to spend my money. Yeah. You know, and so where did your, your deal take you? Did you get some big record so make a bunch of money? Not really, I mean, I did some, I think I made some good music with some people along the way and stuff that some of it I could be proud of, you know? Yeah. But nothing that really ever materialized anything, you know? Yeah. I would be literally, at some point I would be in the studio, not even mine, just someone else's place, you know, I'm there taking over and I'm making beats and I'm only making beats so that I could get Coke, you know? Like I make a beat and I hit up the Coke dealer who would happen to be a rapper, you know? Yeah. Just made fire beats, like I got 10 on a CD right now, you give me like a gram or eight ball or whatever it was. Right. And he'd be like, all right, bring them over and then, you know, it was just, that was my lifestyle and that's how people viewed me. So, in that frame. Yeah, instead of the music it became about the drugs. Right. And, you know, when that's the focus of course you're not doing your best work, you know? You know, you don't care where it's leading you as long as it's leading you to the next hit, you know? So, last year when I came up for the Recover Loud acoustic event Ryan Page was up here speaking for me and you guys decided to shoot a video while he was here. Yeah. And that was the first time I really met you and I got to see your work. And so then this past summer, of course, when I decided to come to caribou you were the first person I thought of to help me direct this show. You know, so I've always appreciated that connection. You know, and the work that you do is really good. You're still making beats today. Oh, yeah. Working with artists. Yeah. Yeah. Like a lot more selective of what I do and who I work with, whatever. But I do, I still work with people. I like making music videos. That's kind of like my thing now. Because making music so long it's just not that it's boring but sometimes it gets stagnant. Yeah. So I got some cameras. That's how the song got started. I was asking around who's going to make music videos because I was asking for some artists in 2019 working with some people and they wanted to make music videos. You could do it, right? I'm like, I don't know. I don't have a camera or anything. So then I found someone who had a camera and I kind of took direction on videos that we went and shot and then I would take and edit the footage, you know. And then in 2020 or 2021-ish when the pandemic was going on I was like trying to expand what I was doing and I'm like, I'm going to get some cameras or I'm going to get a camera and I'm going to try to put together some of my own stuff and that's where it kind of sparked the whole video thing because looking on YouTube I was like, you know, watching people in the editing programs for videos and I was looking up how to do it like before I got the camera. I was like, do that like with everything. I was like, it's almost like editing music in a way. Like the way it's set up I'm like, it's almost just like editing music so it shouldn't be too much different and that really sold me. I'm like, that's it. I might as well get a camera and then the rest is history basically. I started making music videos like crazy. I think I made like 20 something now at this point. Yeah. Which is awesome because I mean it's one of my favorite things to do. So in the first season I was able to use music from my friend, the real young swag. I used it for the intro and the exit of the show and when we first got started up here Facebook was not a platform that I shared the show on last year. Facebook was added by you as an additional platform to share the show but there was an issue with copyright claims on the music because Facebook has difficulty doing that. So we were discussing it and you had told me real quick that you could use some of your beats for the intro and then the next day you said, I wrote a theme song. Right. And I was actually blown away. The idea of having our own song for the show I didn't think that was real. I never expected that. So I mean you've actually brought a lot to the show and just that gives me great appreciation for you and also your recovery and just listening to what you shared you're able to focus on the work now because it's not the drugs we're chasing. Right. You know. And I think you're doing great. Yeah. And the song was just like I was bummed out. That's how it came about. I was bummed out that we had to change it at all because I liked how it was too and I didn't want to you know I might have differences with Young Swag you know but I wanted to use the song. You know that. Yeah. And so I was like really bummed out and I'm like because I was like I could throw a beat on there and it will sound okay but if we actually take time to write something out and then once I started writing it it just flowed out you know. So I was happy to put it together and I was glad that it came together so quick. Yeah. It was a surprise. I never wrote a theme song for anything so it was totally new for me. Yeah. And to do it so quick you know on the spot you know a lot of music takes you know inspiration, creativity and sometimes we just don't I have a lot of that. I have a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It's brewing around all the time. Yeah. Yeah and it comes out in various ways and different things. It's not always like recording a song or making a beat or going taking photographs or recording a show which is all to me that's all art. Of course. Yeah. Everything is no matter what it's a digital art and I make flyers or I make composite photos that's one of my favorite things to do. Yeah. So when I first started the show it had nothing to do I had a message I didn't have any ability really or knowledge or skill on how to produce a show and you know Portland Media Center thankfully they have programs where you know they teach you the class and then they allow you to use studio. We didn't focus on you know the aesthetics of it it was you know let's get the message out there. So the second season you know you've brought that for us and you know it's made it a whole new show for our viewers the views are way up there. Well the most important thing is the message though I just like to present it you know like a more heartsy way if I can. And everybody likes opening a prettier box you know what I mean so you know that has helped us you know reach further because it's important to get the message out there you know I'm just I'm proud to be able to get it out there for people to hear. You've also been able to make the TV ads for us the commercials for our sponsors and you know that's something that another fun thing that I did that was something I've always wanted to try yeah and you know they come up great and they love it you know and you know we're always looking for more sponsors more opportunities to make ads yeah I love making ads so yeah the more I can make the better yeah and one thing if you go to cable station yeah you use the ad however you want yeah so it's you know a little different than the local stations where they make the commercial and you know it's theirs yeah they want to put on the YouTube, Facebook whatever it is yeah I mean free to do that yeah so if anybody's interested in sponsoring the show you know Ryan would be happy to come out to support recovery and by supporting Recover Loud they're actually supporting the recovery community here that we're trying to build so by bringing people together to share their stories here you know from around the county we're getting to see that people are recovering here whether they come together to do events as the rest of the state does or not you know there's plenty of people here that have found a path for families and to try to show the community that we are out here to touch on harm reduction too I mean you know it may not work for everybody that method of doing things some people are that's it I need to stop completely whatever I just know it worked for me because I went from doing hard drugs to I was smoking cigarettes drinking and doing weeds still right 2011 came along no more cigarettes you know and now I'm just you know medical marijuana so it's like that's all I do now and that's harm reduction to a T oh absolutely and I feel like maybe not everybody that works for but if we keep that open as an option and people are open to that especially medical marijuana or whatever suboxone methadone that kind of thing if that's helping people we'll live a normal healthy life there should be no argument against it in my opinion yeah the basis behind harm reduction is once you suffer fatal overdose there's 0% chance of recovery 0% so you know any positive step forward is going to keep you alive and recover a lot we share as many different paths to recover yours was you know a hard decision for an important event in your life and you change locations and you found support you know and that worked for you that doesn't necessarily work for everybody but for you you found what you needed I never had a treatment program or plan or anything my daughter was being born and this is what I can use to make the change yeah so that's basically what it was if that would have never happened I can't say what would have happened to me honestly and I'm sure the love of your wife helps obviously for a long time but she didn't even know that I had a problem with drugs it was four years into our relationship I finally told her and a lot of things started to click at that point and she'd never been around it you know so without her without my kids none of it would have been possible at all now probably you wouldn't be talking to me right now probably yeah be honest yeah and I'm glad I get to yeah same dreams of making music you know but their focus isn't quite there because they're stuck somewhere else you know is there anything you'd like to say to them um I would just probably say that you know if you are struggling um trying to make that decision just reach out it doesn't mean you have to commit to anything but if you reach out to somebody um they can offer some advice I think that's helpful because I know um you know I didn't reach out because no one ever said to yeah you know what I mean so if someone had said that reach out like you know you know she's not looking right for you right now you know yeah something ain't up or whatever if anyone would have said that I probably would have done it so I know that you know by doing this show and being able to have this platform people watch it and just maybe hearing that email and um I mean there's tons of resources not only in the county but in the state of Maine and as the days and weeks go by more and more resources are popping up more and more nonprofits more and more volunteers um are helping with everything so the stigma is still there you know it's there but it is there's ways that we're kind of eliminating it and it's going as well as I guess we could have expected tonight Ryan um I'm glad to have you on the show yeah I'm glad to be here you know and uh you know keep producing good work for us and you know I think we're going to go places oh yeah definitely um yeah so if you want to check out my work uh you can go over to alibiaudiomvisual.com we do weddings realty photos videography music videos event videos um I'll try anything and I got drones cameras whatever always looking to try new things and if you're into you want to check out the music head to obsteprofen.com and uh yeah 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