 I better myself when I'm all in. I got the mind of a broke man. Make sure the heart of a lot. My name's Randy Beard, and I recover loud. Hi, and welcome to Recover Loud, a TV talk show dedicated to ending the stigma of substance abuse. By sharing our hope, experience, resources, and stories of amazing comebacks, we recover loud. I'm Mike Paddleford, and I recover loud. Today's show is discussing how we change the narrative in recovery. Early on in recovery, I was told I had to change people, places, and things in order to stay clean. But a lot of the things I used to do to get my substances is something I enjoyed. One thing I used to do was go out in the woods and pick fiddleheads. And I would spend all day out in the woods to get as many as I could so I could sell them that night. And no matter how many I picked that day, I would wake up the next morning, broke, and sick, and needing to start over. So in my recovery, it was really hard for me to decide what I like to do. And really, once we get into recovery, we have to reinvent ourselves. Because now we don't have that to fall on. So I did find that I enjoy picking fiddleheads. So I wanted to continue that. But this time I didn't need that money. I was able to build up some funds, and I went out and I bought some kayaks. So today I get to go down and kayak the rivers, spend a day on an island, have lunch with my wife, and really enjoy the experience. And the desire to pick as many as I can is still there, but it's not required. I don't have to meet a certain amount so that I can provide what I need for the day. So Randy, you mentioned being unhoused and giving back and being an advocate for the unhoused. So what are some of the things you do today to help that community? At least once a week I try to go down to, I'm from Portland. I'm a seventh generation Cumberland County guy. And I was unhoused at Oxford Street and Preble Street. And I tried to go back there. And like during the summer, whenever it's hot, me and my group would raise money. And we'd buy water, ice creams, food, whatever it takes. And now that it's cold, like just this morning, we're actually running a warming center with a few different organizations that we've all come together. And we all pitched in and got a bunch of brand new gloves, brand new hats, brand new socks, backpacks, food, coffee, donuts, just whatever we could to get the people off the street because these temperatures, people are going to die from it. And somebody has to do something because ever since COVID broke out, there's no longer day shelters. And people don't let people into public places anymore. So there's no place for these people to go. And it's sadly going to cause a lot of deaths. Yeah, yeah, that's some important work. We actually stopped in earlier today and took some video of the warming shelter. And it was full. I was surprised, but that just goes to show how many people need that service. So I personally appreciate you doing that and helping the people out there who need that service. I will say too that when we started doing this, today we've had the Rest Center in Lewiston's running one, AARP and Augusta, they're running one. So a bunch of different cities are now seeing that this is a necessity and recovery's becoming big in Maine because sadly it's, we're like the sixth worst overdose rate in the United States per capita. Yeah, and as you just mentioned, it's a lot of the recovery community is running these shelters today. People that have been through it. Yeah, and that's important. When you mentioned changing the narrative earlier, do you have a similar situation where you were somewhere and today you're able to go back and it's different for you? I can honestly say much like you, my substance abuse disorder was tenfold and it was a 35 year addiction and I didn't have the will to go out and work for my money. I did everything that was wrong in life. I stole, I hustled, I sold drugs, I did whatever it took to make sure I was high. Yeah, and that's important because there's a lot of ugly truths to addiction. And unless we face the ugly truths, then we're not gonna fix it. And I'm an open book now. There was days that I would laying on the sidewalk because I was so sick that I couldn't get myself up on the sidewalk and my face was two or three inches from my own vial and I didn't care and all I could do was lay there and moan until I had something to fix my sickness. Yeah, and when we're in that active addiction phase, a lot of times we feel hopeless. It feels like there's no way out. In my situation, I didn't know anybody in recovery but what was it that led you into recovery? Can you tell us that? I can, if I get emotional, I'm sorry. It was my daughter's birthday and I was gonna take her to Bingo and I'm not a Bingo player but it's something she enjoys. There was no way I was gonna go sit there for three hours or not, be high. So I stopped on the way so I could get high before I went and some random person found me in my vehicle three or four hours later and gave me CPR until the EMTs got there and then he just walked away. Never wanted to be his name, nothing, he just left. And the EMTs will narkate me multiple times and when I woke up, the EMTs said he'd never seen somebody so gone come back and at the time I was street smart and I knew I had a lot of drugs and paraphernalia on my person so I signed myself out of the ambulance and when I did, I opened the door and there was a policeman there and he said if you're not going to the hospital you're going to jail and I went to jail and I had a lot of charges from a lot of years. They were never able to catch up with me and even though I had money to bail myself out they wouldn't let me because they had to wait till they globalized all my charges and I detoxed on a jail room floor because at the time they weren't giving any, they gave me Benadryl I think and it was the worst feeling I've ever had in my life and but the worst part was with today's technology nobody knows anybody's phone number and I had my phone but it was dead so when I got arrested I didn't know what my daughter's phone number was and then once I went into this pod they wouldn't let me back out to get my phone and I was never able to call my daughter for six months and she knew I was of my addiction and that I was homeless and my daughter had to come to the realization that I might have been dead. Yeah, yeah that's tough. So how soon was it after that that you were able to contact your daughter? It took six months and the only reason I was able to was because I had to make her the power of my attorney so she can go get my money out of the bank to be able to come and get me out of jail and get a lawyer and stuff and I was never able to get a lawyer I was stuck there. And I was too sick to do anything about it. So when you got out of jail you had detoxed you were in there for six months. But that's where it starts to get good. When I was and I'm proud of that when I was laying on that floor I swore even though I had a 35 year duration I would never be back there. I was placed on probation and I was doing a bed to bed where I was going right from jail right to a sober house and I was on the bus going over to the sober house and I just happened to make a Facebook account and the first thing that popped up was an apartment and I called the guy and he said if you got the money you can move in right now and I went up there and it's in Wyndham and I didn't have a license so I was up in the woods I had no way to get into town and I still live there today almost three years later it's a beautiful place I'm right on the river I get to go fishing I have my dog it's everything I need for my peace of mind and it was just perfect you know it just fell into place and then I went to probation and my probation officer suggested I should take the recovery coach class which at the time I was just doing to make myself look good in front of the probation officer but I did and I was worried that I was going to be the only person with substance use disorder I thought it was going to be a bunch of college kids and professionals who would look down at me but I got into the class and it was everybody was just like me and me and one of the people that were in the class my friend Ryan really hit it off because they were putting us in breakout rooms in the Zoom and me and Ryan kept getting matched up and we have a lot in common we actually saved the same overdose date so we hit it off and when I ended up becoming a recovery coach I decided it was right around end of February last year and a good friend of mine overdosed on fentanyl laced Xanax and it was like a third week of February and we decided we were going to host a BlackBloom event up on Monroe Hill which is on March 6th which is National Overdose Awareness Day and we started out with six people that day in our group and within a week we had 500 people in the group we had 483 names of people who overdosed and we had, well I'm actually wearing this here but we had shirts made with people who had passed away because of overdoses and we had 500 BlackBlooms made and now we're at 11 months to group turns a year next month and we have 2400 people in the group Yeah, it's amazing I actually, I met you at BlackBloom at the BlackBloom event Yeah, you went and you know I had seen it on Facebook and joined your group and just seeing the connection that was being provided and Lorraine and I drove down recovery on the road we were getting ourselves around the state and you know trying to visit these events and I appreciate you putting that event on I remember when we met it, we hit it off right off Yeah, yeah and it was such a touching event you know I remember there was a family there they were holding a big poster of their son and you know I was drawn to them and I walked over and introduced myself and I said, you know I'm sorry for your loss do you mind telling me about your son? She knows and it was just an amazing time so you know thank you for doing that are you planning another one this year? We are and this year we actually, we're planning on two we're gonna be doing one in Augusta where we're gonna wait to release all the details once we have them finalized but we're gonna be doing the same thing that's going to be up on Monjoy Hill this year so we're excited about that and that last year for me to be sitting here doing this now because when I ran the streets as being a hustler you don't put yourself out there so and this just started and like we had every news station and newspaper there and they all wanted to talk to me and I was like Ryan you go do this I'm not doing that and I'm sitting here now doing this to see the complete 180 since that time it's miraculous and I made a promise to every person that came that day I would not let these people be forgotten and I would be their voice and we would recover loud and say their names loud and until I get called to go to my next life I will be their voice, I will I'm gonna be the voice for the people we've lost the ones that are living with substance use disorder now and future generations I call it the three Ls, living lost and later Yeah, yeah because we know there's probably never gonna be a cure for this you know there is a new vaccine that I noticed they're working on now which is something great and hopefully they can come through with that and it's able to help many people but in the meantime we wanna keep as many people alive as possible today and I don't mean to chime in but right now with because of COVID there's not a lot of nurses because a lot of nurses lost their jobs because of the COVID shots so it's very detrimental to people in our situation because all the detox places are closing because they don't have funding or they don't have staff and I personally, I'm a 51 year old freshman in college I've gone back to school and I'm taking high risk management and psychology and I'm gonna give everything back to the community free person that was really inspiring to me Jesse Harvey rest in peace he, when I was homeless he come down and he got me into seeing a psychologist which I never would have done and that helped open me up and just him doing that showed and he did that all out of the kindness of his heart and because that one guy saved me that day that was my goal if I can save one person and get even with the house and I'm happy and now I preach that to my group I tell that there's 2,400 of us if 2,400 of us can all save one person there's 2,400 people that we saved and sadly there's gonna be what 130,000 overdoses nationally this year yeah unfortunately we keep hitting new highs with the overdose rates I just want to mention the name of your group Recover Together yes it's on Facebook you can join the group it's all one word it's recover the number two and then G-E-T-H-E-R so recover together yeah and everybody's welcome we only have one rule that we really stand by and the only thing we discriminate against is hate yeah and we open to all pathways whether you're 25 years clean or if you're 25 seconds clean absolutely and we don't knock anything we're self-funded we're not a non-profit sadly but we're not because every cent we get we get, we turn back to helping say Michael you call up and say I have a person who needs a U-Haul truck unloading which we're going through now I'll put it out to my group and we don't, not any of us have anything we're not rich but 20, 30 people throwing $5 each we cover it yeah we put multiple people into sober how living paid the first week or two a rent we paid single moms heat bills we between the different people we adopted 17 families for Christmas we help people fresh out of prison get them into a safer environment where most people get out of prison they don't have anywhere to go we get them set up we get them to fundamentals to survive to start a phone, clothes, place to go, food and it's just all stuff that we're all recovering addicts and we know how hard it is to make it past that and for the people who are at the point where we are past that part hopefully I mean it's gonna be a continuous battle the rest of my life but I wanna get back and it helps me stay in my recovery by getting back exactly and I'm proud of that fact that I do it yeah and you know that's exactly what changing the narrative is all about you know you were unhoused you were on the streets you were suffering and now today you're doing everything you can to get back and I for want to appreciate that and I know the rest of the community the recovery community in Maine appreciates that I don't know what that was that was I will say though in our group I don't I call myself the lucky guy who gets to be the messenger it's us Michael you're right along on that journey your wife Lori in our group I think we have 37 different groups in our group now I mean we are all and I'll go into this I'm part main rap the recovery advocacy projects I I was selling drugs on the streets three years ago and eleven months ago I had state representatives come up to me and say hey you know we want you to go to Las Vegas and learn about the opiate issues and help come back and educate where'd that come from right you know where did it and I was all dead against it but I went and the people I met the things I learned and it's just amazing a whirlwind I've gone through in eleven months yeah I I remember when you came back from from uh... Vegas the fire that was lit under you and uh... you know it's only the community that's benefited since then you know so uh... you know it's it's it's a pleasure to talk to you it's a pleasure to have you here it's a pleasure to find out all the things that you're offering to the community you know you're doing great things and uh... it's important for us to share that with everybody and uh... we have to show that we do recover and we can be very important people in our communities yeah I mean I do a lot of different community things and outreach and uh... so Randy how much money are you making for all this stuff you're doing I take everything out of my own pocket I know you do and that's important you know uh... a lot of us in the recovery community we're doing it you know out of the kindness of our heart but what's your why why are you doing this why do you put in your own time your own money because I know what I've been through kids today they don't need to go through that now with the new drugs and fat garlic everything it's been a one killer of people under fifty it has to be stopped I've seen a thing the other day that said there's going to be more kids in junior high in the next two or three years that are raised by their grandparents than that are raised by their own parents and that that's a sad truth I missed out on most of my daughter's life because of my addiction and now my granddaughter is three years old she's almost exactly incoherent with my recovery and she's my best friend yeah yeah tell us a little bit about your relationship today with your daughter and your granddaughter I could not be actually I should have said that I could not be more proud of my daughter when I was homeless both her and both myself and her mother were both people with substance use disorder and mental illness and we were both unhoused my daughter would come down on holidays and often she could she would come down to the shelter not knowing I was going to be there but she would put together fifty bags out of her own pocket to people from the unhoused community she's going to become a nurse and she's the one who talked me into going to college and helping and giving back and she could have very easily hated me pushed me away and then as well not let me see my granddaughter and be jealous of my granddaughter because of the relationship I have with my granddaughter but she's not and I'm a strong believer that substance use disorder is a hereditary thing and I think my higher power that it skipped over and now hopefully we broke the cycle and my granddaughter won't have to deal with it so that's it I could not be more proud of where my daughter is for what she's been through and I'm sure she's saying the same thing about you Randy I'm sure she's proud you know you're doing some great things and you know you should be proud I am as a person especially a person somebody who deals with substance use disorder as well as being unhoused for as long as I was you get shunned in society you can look down at you get spit on you learn and you lose any self-dignity any feeling of self-contained and it's a hard thing to get that back and I am at a spot today where I am extremely proud of where I am I'm extremely proud of what I do so if anybody has a story they'd like to share regarding the Good Samaritan Law you know an experience where they've been either Narcan'd or we're too scared to call 911 uh... we we've heard a lot of stories already uh... lori and I are going to be working on a documentary discussing the Good Samaritan Law alright Randy I want to thank you again for coming here tonight I love you bro I love you too Randy uh... keep doing the things you do uh... you are making a difference and uh... I'm really proud of the things you're doing today uh... I'm glad to know that you're proud of yourself I'm glad to know you thanks Randy you're covered again bro you thank you 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 every time I fall you just pick me up say you was down a ride through the thickest mud can't you see helping me light your way and even in the dark you're always keeping me safe and everything I'll be willing to pack 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'ma 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 come and save me with all of your grace thank God the overdose my girlfriend found me in the house I was barely breathing her and my neighbor put me in the car and dropped me outside of the emergency room never told anybody just left me outside of the emergency room and took off and luckily someone found me and I woke up like three or four days later from being in a coma my name is Senator Chloe Maxman and I support the expansion of the Good Sam Law in Maine Expand Good Sam for me Expand Good Sam for me Expand Good Samaritan for me Text anyone, a person who in good faith is seeking medical advice for someone experiencing a drug related overdose or the person who is experiencing the drug related overdose yeah so the Expand Good Sam for me campaign has two really main goals right so the first goal is that we teach and educate our community members that the Good Samaritan law exists as currently is because it is a law and it's on the books and it does protect some people at the scene of an overdose and we want our community members to know that that is on the books so we're going to spend a lot of time educating folks on that law and also that it's not currently on the books as well as it could be the bill would expand it to cover everybody at the scene Expand Good Sam for me Expand Good Sam for me Expand Good Sam for me Expand Good Sam for me Expand Good Sam for us, we need it