 Mix with the heart of a lion, I'ma keep giving my all cause that's just who I am. Robert Kearns and I Recover Loud. Welcome to another episode of Recover Loud. A TV talk show dedicated to ending the stigma of substance use disorder. Presented by Recovery on the Road, a Facebook group that Lori and I started in June of 2020. We started the group to help provide connection, support, and resources to as many people as we could reach. Throughout the years, we've done as much as we can, partnering with different organizations, and helping out where we can. As part of our travels, we got to meet Robert Kearns at Bangor. Welcome to the show. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. My recovery journey wasn't easy, but every bit of it was worth it. For seven months, I was homeless, living in my car. In order for me to stay on my path, I had options. I could have moved home, back to the neighborhood where I was from, stayed with my friends, and gone back to the same lifestyle. Instead, I stayed in an area where I knew nobody, and kept to myself, focused on getting better. It was the first time in my life I was ever really homeless. Though for many years, I couldn't afford rent and would stay with family and friends. I never really considered that homeless until later on when I realized I didn't have any options. My only options at that time were to use the people around me. And being homeless, living in my car, really humbled me. And I got to see what it was like for people who suffer out there on a regular basis. Robert Kearns is somebody who helps those people. He calls in our neighbors without walls, and he's done lots of great things. So I'm glad to have Robert here and look forward to what he has to share with us. Robert, can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing today? The different organizations that you're a part of and what you do on a regular basis? I created the People's Streetlight Outreach in 2020, in March. And it was a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And what happened in Bangor is a lot of people got cast out into the streets because of the shelters closing and limited spacing to have people inside. So what we did is we turned our attention to feeding people and helping people get supplies to survive living outside. And in doing so, we found out a lot of people suffered from drug disorder and mental health issues. And we started delving into tackling those issues for people where initially we were just trying to bring people food. Yeah, and it's really important, though, the work you're doing because, as you said, people had to figure out how to stay alive. Survival mode. My whole time using, I lived in survival mode. And having organizations like yours doing the work that's necessary, I didn't know about them before. I don't know if there was programs before you started it on Bangor, but when I was living in my car, it would have been great to know that somebody was out there and could have given me a meal because I didn't always have money to feed myself. I didn't have friends, supportive friends in this area to really provide those needed supports and the resources. So I appreciate all you do. And I think getting that message out there that you're out on the streets doing this hard work is pretty important. So can you tell us what you do on a daily basis? Where are you going? What did you do? Yeah, we tried to go down to the local bus hub because that's where everyone goes through every day and we try to bring a meal down there every day at noon. And we have a website like you do that we inform people. Now what we do is we come down with a meal and give you a bunch of information for dessert. I'm working on the largest interactive Google map that has every resource that's available to someone and eventually the state, but we're working on Bangor, Penobscot County, and we're going to have recovery on the road, of course. But what we do is we come down there with food and while we're there, I try to help people get into those services for mental health and opiates and drug addiction treatment and housing. Because I do believe in a housing first model because I've been homeless and I know what it's like to be homeless and it was in the last year and like you were saying, your story is so familiar because I wasn't homeless until I was sober and I started dealing with life on its terms and realizing that I was really slacking on a lot of things and I'll be honest, I thought I had it going on. You know, I really did, but it's snowballs and then learning to live is what I had to do because being a good person and being positive really wasn't enough. I had to relearn how to live and when I encounter these people that are homeless, our neighbors without walls, I see that they have learning how to live from a very darker place than I was and I just had to do something to help them. So Penobscot County Cares is an organization I'm very passionate about. I support all the shelters in town and the warming shelters that have opened up in Bangor. Like you said, when I first started this, there was AA and NA and it was really hard. We fight these battles in a closet where we were using and drinking everything so behind closed doors and to say I recovered loudly is pretty quiet because I ruffle feathers. You know, I said tell it like it is and some people don't want to hear it but I'm educating them because I've had people two years ago tell me I'm crazy that are right by my side now because they see what I see and it's these websites where I can go live and show you what's going on with the permission of the people that I'm with and I never, you know, I try to stick to not giving up anyone's anonymity unless they're willing. Nowadays we are willing to recover loud and say it proud, I want to live. Exactly. And by recovering loud, you know, I do feel that that's keeping me alive. And, you know, when we decided to do this show because we're not TV people Lori and I, we didn't know anything about what was going on when we came to the studio but an opportunity was presented to me where I can reach, you know, more people and, you know, when I started the Facebook group originally it was started to share our recovery journey with our friends and family because I felt, you know, and it was part of my stinking thinking I felt me sharing my joy and my excitement about my recovery was annoying to some people so I started the group just as a way to share that and when it reached a hundred people you know, I had a tear in my eye because there was a hundred people that wanted to share in that journey and then I started seeing people that I had never heard of before and people from Germany, people from England and people from France and South America were joining the group and it was during the pandemic and it showed me that people were starving for connection, you know, in a time when connection wasn't possible and you mentioned the anonymous programs and, you know, they've done a lot of good for a lot of years but what I found in my own journey was I didn't know anything about it because everybody was anonymous and, you know, and I understand and believe their philosophy, you know, to get started but at some point I had to break free from that and I had to start telling people that, you know, these meetings are Wednesday night you know, you can go there at 7 o'clock you can call this person and they'll help you because I didn't know who to call and who to talk to before so having somebody to tell me who was available, you know, like where these meetings were and how to get to recovery you know, that made the difference for me so if I can make the difference for anybody else by getting out there and saying, you know, this is how you do it or this is how I did it and maybe it'll work for you and telling you about every possible program out there because I want to save a life I don't come from a childhood of any trauma or anything like that I was raised by hippies so it started out as a pretty good time and, you know, I would go see the Grateful Dead and have a little fun and stuff, you know it's smoke grass but once I met alcohol I met my new girl and I fell right in love with alcohol and you know, I always thought that if I could keep things functioning that it was okay and then I was a follower to the party like I was the lead singer of the band so it would seem like I was the leader of the party but really a lot of people brought stuff to me and I was an adventurer and I tried anything and that got me in some deep trouble heroin anything that came around I tried it and I realized now that I'm allergic to it and I can't do any of that stuff I overdosed twice when there wasn't Narcan and thank goodness I had people around me that back in the day they put you in the shower poured water all over you and ice and all your friends saw you naked and you were embarrassed and if you survived you were very lucky and I'm very fortunate to have survived the two that I did because that was from Fentanyl but that was before there was this Fentanyl they're creating now it was out of a patch I was drinking it right out of a patch which sounds insanity to me and when I think about the things I've done I think that's, I'm talking about somebody else because I am, that's not me anymore because I had been prescribed it before it did seem so scary to me you know, I was kind of like oh okay I know what that does I know how that will affect me I know I can handle it and then in October of 2018 I had my last overdose we didn't have Narcan there was no Food Samaritan law you know so it was understood that if one of our friends falls out you know we do what we can and then we walk away I was grateful that I was able to walk out you know by the grace of God I came out of that room on my own and you know now I'm on my mission to help others you know speaking of Narcan a couple years ago when I first met you I got to train you in distributing Narcan I've given you a couple hundred doses to hand out can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing in the neighborhood to spread awareness and share that resource well I can say that Narcan you've saved at least one or two lives there's some convenience stores in Bangor that I would supply and I know that they've stood two or three people up and a couple of them are still on a sober journey which I'll be honest if I can save one person I'm golden but saving dozens is just a miracle and I thank you for training me for Narcan I mean when I first heard about the needle exchanges and Narcan and all that I was just as stubborn as everyone else even though I'm an addict I thought you're going to handle all this stuff out you know and cookers and all that and I just I've been educated by this experience of doing the People's Streetlight Outreach I know so much more now than I did as an addict and then getting sober going through all the programs and all that I had so much in my toolbox but I didn't figure it out until the last couple years about what's really going on to me and Narcan saves lives I 100% think it should be everybody should have it you know even if someone has a nasty taste in their mouth about it all you should have it around because some day it'll be one of your relatives and you could save their life and what a gift in Bar Harbor in this park you know I was listening to the scanner I heard there's an overdose somewhere it's right on the grass next to me and these guys had already given six intervenous and I came over my backpack and just started slinging Narcan through the air and he hadn't come around and the Narcan you gave me brought him around and I look over the police and ambulance are running up and we had already gotten it done goosebumps I bawled my eyes out you know because it was beautiful and I still contact with this person I'm on him on Messenger you know and he's still fighting that journey because it's silly as it is sometimes you can stand right up and get the scariest time of your life and go right back out and it just it's painful to watch we're just sharing valuable resources and information you know I belong to some Facebook groups that do not allow me to post and to me that's absurd and those are some of the the stigmas that we're running into one of your groups is a scanner page and I know that when an overdose happens and you bring it up there's all kinds of opinions two sides of the coin on that scanner page about addiction yeah and I mean it shows societies and what are some of the things some of the other kinds of stigma that you see out there and what do you try to do to stop it well the website that I run has 37,000 people you know from all over and like you say some of them are from other countries but the opinions are both sides of the aisle and what I try to do is educate those I try to educate everybody from what I know because we are all different and we all think different and we also all react differently to recovery and drug addiction so it's such a complicated issue really that how can you really fault someone for their own opinion unless it's insanity I don't tolerate the word junkie at all I don't tolerate talking down to anyone that's suffering such a serious illness and I used to get really mad really mad and especially early in my recovery I'd get so mad and I'd get in these fights with people where we'd be meeting each other places and getting mad at each other about recovery that doesn't help anyone and now I just try to engage lightly and just keep the information come and let people know because I've been educated and we have brought people around that would have told me you are crazy to put so much time and effort helping your neighbors without walls you know some people tell me those same people wouldn't help you back and guess what they have they've helped me back more than they know and they don't even know it that this work has kept me alive you know I really think if I hadn't started doing this work I'd be gone you know for almost 20 years I knew using substances as a coping mechanism that was all I had if the power got shut off I got high if I got fired from a job I got high I probably lost the job from getting high I've done it same thing but then it became a celebration when I got a job I got high and kids birthdays Ash Wednesday, whatever it was a daily need it went from a way to escape to a way to celebrate to a way to wake up and then a way to go to bed and people are still out there going through these same things that we went through before and I know when I was going through it I was hopeless I didn't know that there was a way out I didn't know that there were people in recovery that were willing to help me employ me in the right direction and then guide me through the process and then befriend me afterwards a lot of things that people think about when it comes time you know it's always about I have to go away to rehab I have to give up everything I'm doing right now I have to give up my friends, my family my job, all the things that I know I've got right now but I promise you if you start considering the things that you can gain by giving up substances by changing your friends by changing your habits by changing the process because once recovery happens it's not going to go perfect as I said I was homeless for about 8 months living in my car, staying at rest areas on the highway I would drive to Massachusetts just for a different place to sleep at night but it was still better than any day I was using and because I stayed on the journey because I didn't give any get high things got better and it kept getting better and I'm on a journey of self-betterment on a daily basis giving up the drugs didn't make me a great person either I was still as much a jerk as I was when I was using but the recovery process made me into who I am today and I'm not perfect today but I'm going to keep going and I'll never be perfect but I'm going to keep going and Robert, so what drives you today in this recovery journey and helping people? Just seeing my friends and neighbors in pain I see myself and I'm so happy now I wanted to live by example and I was thinking that would be enough but I'm not that handsome so it didn't work out so I need to spread the information so that people know that okay, relapse, let's try this again never giving up never giving up on someone I think is building these friendships and like I said with like 40,000 people on these sites I know a couple thousand of them are pretty good friends of mine that we met through this process and I keep track of them the best I can in the city of Bangor and all these organizations the Bangor Area Recovery Network two years ago I have city counselors calling our neighbors without walls neighbors without walls because I didn't like hearing them referring them to just the homeless and I've had sharps containers put in all over Bangor I put that pressure on and they put every one of them exactly where I put on a map where they should put them because I know where I'm finding them there's drop boxes all over town we're just trying to facilitate everyone to do better and keep the city clean as well because you have to take into consideration the neighborhood's opinion whether you like it or not and so we've tried to soften those edges a little bit we moved our food program away from downtown one park over and we renamed it the People's Park and it's our own park and it's away from the bus hub and there's some congestion and there's restaurants over there they're not trying to have someone hand out food so I get that and we try to facilitate we work well with the police department to a certain extent and the fire department is amazing and I just think everyone's coming around to this new way of thinking that we can make a difference but we have to do it all together we can save lives but all together we can take all this information and make one heck of a dent in a big wound that's across this whole country you know I've seen the progress that you've made in Bangor and I mean it's quite impressive honestly and you know it's a great example of how one person can make a huge difference and there's a thousand people behind me making me like I'm just the game show host there's a million people behind the scene like these guys and without those supports I'm dead in the water and a lot of those people would be like helping and not feel the same way about the treatment as much as they're worried about homeless people so I'm getting in there sharing these informations with people with what I would say is like the older generation and I don't mean to say it in any direction it really needs to be educated nobody's a throwaway we never give up on anyone we never give anybody away I don't care who they are if your heart's beating I'm here for you I've just gone through in the past 30 or 40 days dealing with my mental health because I'm sober I've been doing this for three years now but I still had serious anxiety and depression I don't know why because life is amazing and so I just started taking an herbal supplement and it made a complete difference it's called Cama but it's a everyone that's out here helping we are all going through a lot too it's actually very taxing on you to go through this and see everyone go through this pain and absorb it and try to give back it's heavy you know that it's very heavy so loving people where they're at today providing options and resources that's the way to do it that's the way people can make that decision and get the help that they need and knowing that there's all these other programs out there different options different opportunities different programs, different paths they've all helped somebody otherwise they wouldn't be there that's true so if that's something that's going to help you to get to where you want to be I'll be there chairing you is there anything you're working on right now that might be coming up in the future? what we would really like to do is solidify our 501C3 right now we're a nonprofit corporation in the state of Maine but we're not registered with the federal government yet so I'm going to pay a bunch of taxes but we would like to get our 501C3 our intentions was to open the largest shelter in town the largest food pantry the largest clothing distribution and just really amp it up but all those services are already out and about in Bangor so what we're going to do is liaise on and get with these other organizations and find out how we can all resource together instead of just stretching ourselves to the limit because there's thousands of us but there's just me on the boots on the ground I have some people joining me here and there it's pretty fleeting but we would like to just get back to win the meals and get as much information as we can so that when someone comes to Bangor they say I don't have and I can help them with housing that drug treatment piece mental health I shoot right from the hip I'll tell someone you don't look good if you're up for it we could really make a difference in your life and it's up to you and we can offer and borrow and plead but it all comes down to that person if you're not ready you're not ready because like I said I went through AA for years couple bad relationships getting kicked out of one place to another I was always able to get that next department until this past couple of years when I ended up homeless but it was just a nightmare but you'd think somewhere along the way I would have took that advice that I was actually giving other people but there was no pivotal moment where I quit drinking I just said I'm not drinking anymore on October 15th 2018 well if someone's in the Bangor area what we'd love to do is have someone prepare a meal and come down with me and help me serve people and get to know the process and bring more people abroad but we also have our streetlight people streetlight outreach facebook page and like once a week we do a facebook fundraiser for $400 which covers $50 a day for 8 days so I know there's not 8 days in a week but that extra covers which costs a lot more than $50 a day to do this and then I'll have people come and bring me boxes of food and I put it in our pantry and we build a meal there's a lot of bakes eating but we bring a hot meal and the way someone could help really bring our people streetlight outreach facebook page and look for cues to pitch in Lori and I have joined you a couple of times I wish we were closer to Bangor we'd definitely be there more often because we see the interaction that you have the effect you're having on the people that come and we did come up in the summer time when there was a larger crowd of people and it's great to see the number dwindle I've always said that I would love to have nobody I'd like to show up there with food for 100 and no one's there thanks Robert I love seeing you I'm so happy you made it down today and keep doing what you're doing because you are making a difference that's it from Bangtown to P-town that's what I was saying this morning thanks for watching another episode of Recover Loud please remember if you're struggling or if you know somebody that's struggling we'd much rather talk you through a situation than read about your untimely death tomorrow Recover Loud everybody always reminding me that I'm not alone and even when I'm scared and my feet are frozen you help me keep it going like a semi-colon so imma follow your steps follow the way up on my faith in you and walk on the waves and if I stumble a bit and fall on my face you come and save me with all of your grace thank god