 and welcome to another episode of Recover Loud. I'm your host, Mike Paddleford, and I Recover Loud. Today, I'm going to sit down with my friend, Brett Martell, from the kindness collective of Maine in Lewiston. -♪ It's all right, yeah, that's just who I am... -♪ Today's episode of Recover Loud, we're talking with Brett Martell from the kindness collective of Maine. Welcome to the show, Brett. Thanks for coming. Hey, Mike, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm grateful to be here today and to have the opportunity to recover loud with you. I do want to take a quick second. I want to thank the people in my life that have supported me to this point. I couldn't have done it without you. Mom, Dad, Jamie, Sharla, my daughters, Madison and Ella. You guys are the reason that I stay after it every day, and I just want you to know that you're the source of my strength, so thank you guys very much. I owe it all to you. You know, love and support can take us pretty far. And to have that structure and that support behind you, that's pretty special. My recovery, I had to start out and earn all of that. You know, I had burned most of the bridges, but I still had a family that loved being cared. And, you know, I had to earn their support, and I'm grateful for where I'm at today with them. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, how your struggle started? What did that look like for you? Well, I had had a knee operation. I blew my knee out doing masonry work, and I had gotten, after operation, I'd gotten a prescription for OxyContin. And it worked great on the pain, and it felt good, too. And then I was exposed just to that feeling, and then it slowly grew. It was just partying and drinking in my 20s, and slowly got more and more into the pain medicine aspect of it kind of taking over. And I managed to get clean. I went through an IOP program, and I got out. I was renting a house. I had a dog. I was seeing my daughter on a regular basis, and I was walking down the street one day in Auburn, and I was the victim of a violent crime. I was run down by a motorist, and I was run over in the street. It cost me to almost lose my left leg. So when I'm laying there, and I realize you just pretty much landed yourself a pain prescription, a pain script for the rest of your life. You'll never have to look for it again. It'll be given to you. And in hindsight, I don't even know that man anymore. It was definitely addict thought. And when you're in that active addiction, your brain doesn't work the way that it should and the way that it does, your priorities are skewed and your thought process is almost unrelatable to a lot of people. And so when I look back on that, I realize just how far I had to come, and it also is encouraging to know how far I've come since then, because it's something that I still deal with on a daily basis. It still gives me a lot of pain, but I've found a way to use other tools to get around it, whether that's elevating it using ice. I'd be profaned, making sure that I'm not doing too much and I'm pacing myself. You said that was what, about 12 years ago, that injury? Yep. And then how bad did it get after that? Well, at one point, I was on 210 milligrams of oxy a day. I had 30 milligram tablets, and I was getting seven of them a day. They were prescribing you. Prescribed to me, yep. And I would go in and tell them that I was in agony or tear up or explain to them that they had no idea what it was like to live every day in that kind of pain. And again, like you said, I'd be out in two weeks, and then I'd be scrambling in the street, trying to make up for it. And the worst part of it, I have to say, is I got to a point where, well, like I mentioned, the first time after my knee surgery, I enjoyed the feeling when I took the medicine. Once you get to a certain point, you're not even enjoying it. You're fighting off the sick. You're fighting off the withdrawal. You're trying to get to zero, because you spend so much time in withdrawal or the anxiety associated with the withdrawal or not knowing where your next fix is going to come from that it was all encompassing from the minute I woke up to the minute I went to sleep and everywhere in between. So yeah, so when we're in that, it's even hard to focus on anything else. We can't repair relationships. We can't advance our careers. We can't because our focus isn't where it needs to be. And really, until we stop using or finding a way to stop using, our minds are fogged and sick. And everything that we decide to do is based on the idea coming from our sick brains. So, how did you get out of it? It was a long battle. A lot of ups and downs, a lot of two steps forward, three steps back, but staying at it. I had a really good reason in my daughter, Madison, before I met my stepdaughter, Ella, but I always wanted it. I always wanted to do better. Unfortunately, I got to a point where I even lost faith in myself because I had let my family down so many times. They had put faith in me, and I made them regret it by proving them wrong. And so it was hard for me to even have faith in myself. I had started to believe that the version of me that I was was who I am. And slowly but surely, I started to fight my way out of it. I was able to transfer to Suboxone treatment, which helped a lot, and that got me away from the opiates. But I really wasn't using the Suboxone like I was supposed to either. I still, it was still the actions, the thoughts, and the behaviors of someone that was an addiction. I just had transferred it to Suboxone. It was readily available. I felt like I wasn't doing so bad. It was almost justifying to myself. But it was really, when I moved north, I moved to Augusta, and I wanted to just get away from the people, places and things that I had come so accustomed to. I threw away my cell phone that had all of my contacts in it and my everything. And I just wanted to get away. And that's when I met my girlfriend, Charlotte, and my stepdaughter, Ella. And when I started dating her and spending more time with her and being around people that needed me and needing to behave in a way that was conducive to being around a family, really started to change my thoughts and behaviors and actions. So I'd say that that was the stepping off point to my real recovery. So when you first met Charlotte, did you have much to offer her? I don't know what she saw in me, Mike. She has been a blessing for me, her family, our daughter, Ella. I didn't think so. And she saw something and... Now, did she knew about your substance use? She did, I was honest with her. If it's one thing that's always been consistent with Charlotte and I is that it's been 100% honesty from the beginning. My past, as when I was doing, I told her about being worse than I was when she met me. And I just wanted to know exactly what she was getting into, especially once we started getting more serious and we started spending time together and I was spending more time around Ella. I felt like she had the right to know that. And you know, there's something to be said for a woman who sees you in that position and chooses to love you through it. And I know you've described it to me as the driving force to your decisions and how you got to where you are today. So what was it about that relationship that made the difference? If detox and rehabs didn't work before, why was it the love from Charlotte that got you here? She put a faith in me that I didn't have in myself. I love you, Charlotte. Thank you. But she trusted me and I had done so much letting people down in my life that I didn't expect anyone to put faith in me anymore. My family loved me. My family would never turn their backs on me but I had also lost their trust for very good reason. And so it had been a long time since someone put that unadulterated faith in trust in me and I wasn't gonna let that down. And not only was I not gonna let it down but it made me wanna do more. It made me wanna make her right. And it made me wanna be the best version of myself that I could be, I wanted to be the version of me that she saw already, you know? And that's to me, that's an amazing story because we go through our times using just wanting acceptance, wanting people to love us for who we are right now. Because we don't know if we can get to where we deserve the love. So I've been in the position before too that support, encouragement and love and we don't feel like we deserve it. And then when we get it and we can accept it and really use that to move forward, that's a powerful love. It is, I had just done so much hurting and causing pain that I used to be, for a while I was resentful. I was like, you know, my family, when they learned that I couldn't be trusted to borrow money or to be alone in the house or to lie to my parents when they'd ask me or at family functions where I'd be under the influence. You know, I had done so much damage. I had told so many lies that that resentment was gone. They were right for the way that they felt. And they always loved me but I couldn't be trusted and I didn't resent them for that anymore. I felt like I had well earned that. And so I had almost gotten to the point where I didn't know if I'd ever have that unconditional trust and love from someone again. And to feel that was just so powerful and strong and that doesn't mean that she supported everything I did or every decision that I made. It was just this wonderful balance of you know you're better than that, cut the crap. But I'm here for you and I love you and I know that you're better than this. You need to know that you're better than this. Yeah, she's a powerful lady. And you know, due to that unconditional love and support here you are today and you're giving back to the community. So you started the kindness collective of Maine. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, so after Charlotte and I had been together for a couple years we were living together. I'm raising Ella as though she's my own. I love her with all my heart. I love Madison with all my heart. My girls are my everything. So I had gotten a chance to do a little bit of volunteer work at a place that my mom was volunteering and I really got inspired by the people that I met. Specifically some of the veterans that I see struggling on the streets, people that have risked their lives. So I really got inspired and I decided to start the kindness collective of Maine and it was just based on kindness. It didn't really have a laser focus on one particular issue or something that I wanted to address. It was just, I had mentioned some of the mistakes I had made in bridges I've burned in the past and I can't go back and fix those individual mistakes. I can't go back and right certain wrongs to certain people. What I wanted to do was try and just even out the karmic scale you call it. I wanna put some good back into the world for some of the damage that I've done. I also wanted to be a good example for my daughters and teach them that kindness and selflessness and community service are important traits to have and important things to do to help others. So can you tell us some of the things that you've been able to do through your non-profit? Yeah, so we started what's called, it's called Greater Goods, it's our free-tail store. So it's set up like a thrift store and we've worked a lot with domestic violence survivors and people that have been in sex trafficking. So we don't have the kind of funding that takes people and gets them into housing. So once they've got housing, we focus on the things that turn a house into a home. So we do toys for kids, clothing, small appliances, decor, tablecloths, furniture, anything that we can. So we really try to help people build their lives back and get into situations where they're self-sustaining and successful again. And a lot of that is just building, I wanna put that reward of hard work into them almost like Charlotte did into me because I know that a lot of the clients that we face are struggling emotionally with where they're at in their life and they may not feel as successful as they want to, but I know that they've got that drive to get there. So I wanna give them some of that unconditional support, some of the stuff that's gonna make them feel good about whether it's going to work every day or staying in treatment or just if it boils down to that small point of using or not, whether it's getting by a minute at a time or a day at a time or a month at a time. So when you come into your home, you'll have a place to sit and a way to cook a meal and some things that you look around and you say, okay, I've got something here and I wanna preserve it. I wanna keep fighting towards it and I don't have to come home every day and be reminded of how difficult my situation is. Yeah, and one of the things when I was using everything I had, I gave away, sold it, got it stolen, gave it away. I didn't put any value into the things that I had. You know, Lori and I, we've been married over 22 years and when we went into, when we left for detox and rehab, there was 19 years worth of accumulating stuff and the previous year and a half, we'd pretty much given up almost everything. For the stuff that we'd acquired over that time, we had nothing to show for it. When we restarted in Auburn, it was from scratch, and every little piece that we acquired and added to our home felt like an accomplishment because we lived so long without and now we have stuff that we have. Those small kitchen appliances, I laugh every time I think of it because there's not enough counter space now for all these little trinkets that she likes to... It's a nice problem to have. And you're out there providing that and that feeling of accomplishment that people get from having those things, keeping them, even if they never use them. When you work and you get a little bit of money and not every dollar is being flushed down a habit or a high or a fix or whatever, I like that the things that I spend my money on are still there the next day. I get, we got a nice TV, like a 54 inch, 56 inch TV, whatever it is and we get up the next morning and it's not been sold. It's still on the wall, I can still watch it. My daughter gets up and turns on her little cartoons or whatever and it's just, it's nice. We upgrade our furniture in the living room and we're taking pride in the way that our house looks and things that never mattered. I needed a place to crash and like something in the fridge but then it was just all the money would go to the addiction and it's nice to build things and to have things and for them to still be there. Another thing that I developed, and this is something I may not have seen coming when I was in my active addiction, excuse me, but I started to develop this attitude I was very, very thankful for my sobriety. Once I got a grasp on that, I never wanted not being an addict to be my crowning achievement. Exactly. I had more to offer. I had been through the toughest battle that I'd ever been through. We've lost a lot of good friends and a lot of good people to the same battle that you and I have been so blessed to come out the other side of. For today. Yeah, for today. Exactly and I never say recovered. I never say not an addict. I'm always an addict in recovery and I never realized the importance of that until I actually was sound in my recovery because it's still a battle every day. I don't fight the urge to go out and use every day but I know that everything I do every day is still to be in recovery and to stay in that active recovery. So I never, what I've decided in part of the kindness collective is that I wasn't gonna let beating addiction or for today or for gaining control of my life to be that crowning achievement. I wanted to, I knew that there was someone in me that was battle tested that had fought the fight that had been through some of the ugliest, toughest situations that a person can be faced with in addiction and I'm still here. So I wanna put my hand out and help others along the way. I wanna be there to, like I said, provide some of that support, that love that I felt and that was the reason that I was able to finally take that next step. So like I take a lot of pride in coaching my daughter's sports teams and that's something that fills me with joy and pride. What's it like now? You get to coach their teams? Yeah, well, my daughter plays pretty, my oldest plays pretty competitively. She's on a school team. She's on a travel team and she's been playing for quite a few years now and so I don't coach that team. That's a little above my pay grade at this point which is fine. I'm happy to be that supportive parent and be the loudest in the crowd but I have been blessed with the opportunity this year to coach Little Week for Ella. So I'll be doing the 8U softball team. I just went and picked up all our gear earlier this week. My living room is the hottest mess of buckets of softballs and bats and helmets piled up all over the place. So it's another good problem to have. I was just gonna say that. And I'm really excited to do that but anytime that I can spend on a sports field that I'm happy with, I grew up playing baseball my whole life, football my whole life. I played lacrosse. So sports have always been a big thing in my family. The Patriots are a second religion for us. Go Pats. Go Pats. It's just a never ending source of happiness and I don't wanna say accomplishment because I haven't made it yet but to know that like you had mentioned, you can't go to the field until you get what you're waiting for and then you can go and do that job is to know where my priorities lie now and to know that I don't have to serve those two masters at the same time cause you can't and there'll always be something that takes priority and it feels good now to know that my girls and my life and my recovery truly take priority in my life and sharing that with the community and trying to improve the community around me and the people in it and to offer that support. Truly being my top priority now is it keeps me busy every day but I wake up ready to go and excited to do it cause I know I'm making a difference or at least I hope I'm making a difference. To have purpose. Yeah, purpose. And isn't it great that, I mean recovery didn't give us mansions, it didn't give us yachts. Just give us normal life and we get to experience it. Gave me the chance to get up and bust my butt every day and I appreciate that. Yeah, and it's those little things that really make life worth living. And Brett, we've got to run but I just want to say thank you for what you're doing for the community. I want to thank Sharla for believing in you and helping you to get to where you're at today because without you giving back to the community, other people would be lacking and what you're doing is appreciated. It's making a difference. And I'm glad to know you. Well, thank you very much, Mike. I'm happy to know you too. I think you're doing something great here and recovering loud is something that we all should be proud of doing and we're a group of people that are going to be an asset to this community together and we don't need to do it quietly. We need to make sure that people know that we do recover. We do come back stronger and better and we are an asset and I'm proud to be part of this and thank you for having me. Absolutely. How can people get ahold of you at the Kindness Collective? You can find us on Facebook at the Kindness Collective of Maine. We just opened a brand new headquarters. We are getting settled. We will be back open offering services to the community within the next week or so. All of our contact information is on there. Also, kindnesscollectiveme at gmail.com. The emails come directly to me and we will be happy to reach back out to you as soon as we possibly can. So do you accept donations? We do. We accept donations in kind. Please reach out to us and we'd be happy to either arrange, pick up or to meet you for drop off. We have a GoFundMe page that you can find on our Facebook and we also accept volunteer time. We've got some new programs that we're looking to do so we wanna help people get to job interviews. So we're gonna be doing bus passes. We're gonna be getting people set up with job interview clothing. We're gonna provide transportation and also I'm working right now with a local barber to do haircuts one day a week so that we can get people feeling good. When you feel good, you look good. You do good. You get out there and you take more pride in yourself so we wanna get people primed and ready to go so that they can help improve their own situation. Hey guys, I'm Tee, the director of Recover Loud. Welcome to T-Talk. Basically, we're gonna check in and just tell us what we're thankful for this week and what we've accomplished and maybe a goal. And for me, I went back to work at Good Shepherd Food Bank and I recorded a documentary for them that I actually was paid for. So for me, that's amazing. And next week, I am coming up on my recovery coaching and I wanna do more volunteering if that's possible because I have no time already. But yeah, everything's going pretty great in my life. I'm thankful to be here. I relate to him a lot and I'm glad he was here. Congratulations for that. And it's glad to hear that you've got so much going your way right now. Thank you. It's good to be busy. It is. For me, I'm really excited about getting finally opened back up at our new headquarters at the kindness collective of Maine. We're located in Lewiston. And so we've got several new programs that we're gonna be rolling out for the community and we're really excited about that. Coaching starts this week. Our first game is in a couple of weeks so I gotta get these little eight-year-olds whipped into softball shape and ready to play their first game. And really thankful for the opportunity to have been here on Recover Loud. Thankful to have been invited. Thankful for having the opportunity to get up and fight the good fight every day. It's not guaranteed. Tomorrow's not guaranteed so I try to make the best out of each day and I'm thankful to have that opportunity. Even if it doesn't always go smoothly or perfectly, it's better than a lot of the alternatives. So I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for the opportunity to give back and I'm thankful every day for my sobriety. All right, guys, let us know. Maybe we can attend your first game and everyone have a nice Easter. Thank you for recovering loud with us. Have a good night. Thank you, bye-bye. You can watch Recover Loud on PMC Greater Portland's Channel 5, Thursday nights at seven o'clock. On Saturday nights at eight o'clock, we premiere our new episodes that we shoot Saturday morning. Find it on our YouTube channel. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay up to date on our latest releases. Next one. So every time I call, you pick up the phone in. Always reminding me that I'm not alone in. Even when I'm scared and my feet are frozen, you help me keep it going like a semi-colon. Even if I'm lost, you're helping me like the way. And even in the dark, you're always keeping me safe. And everything I've lost, don't compare to what I've gained. So no matter what it costs, yeah, I'll be willing to pay. Cause every time I call, you pick up the phone in. Always reminding me that I'm not alone in. Even when I'm scared and my feet are frozen, you help me keep it going like a semi-colon. So I'mma follow your steps for all of 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're gonna save me with all of your grace. Yeah, thank God.