Dawn Taylor| 09/10/2023

Transcript

Dawn Taylor



I am your host, Dawn Taylor, and today we are going to talk to Max. Max is a personal trainer. He is a dad to a dog. He's like, “Dad? Wait a second.” He is two and a half years alcohol free. He's had a few lapses with some cannabis, but he's working on that. We are going to dive into life. We are going to dive into where this all started, where this all came from, and really dig into this topic of the fact that alcohol does not discriminate based on your appearance or based on what is showing up on the outside, right? What's going on behind closed doors can be so different. But we're also going to go a little bit deeper on this into what is really going on behind the scenes. He is also a fitness coach that for over 13 years he's owned his own company. He's a partner in a company and he does life coaching within that. So, if you want to contact him like normal, you know that you need to go check out the show notes. We're going to have all of his contact information there and how you can get a hold of him also with any resources we're going to talk about in the show. But let's dive right in. Welcome to the show, Max.

Max Larocque

Thank you so much for having me, Dawn. I'm excited. It's been a while since I've been on a podcast.

Dawn Taylor

I was so excited when you were recommended to me because I know this is a topic that people want to talk about. I don't know anyone who does not have someone in their life who is an addict or who was an addict or has dealt with addiction or they are themselves. And I think there's such negative light attached to it, but also just such a lack of understanding and knowing around the whole topic. So, let's dive in. I know I said we're going to just dive right into this. So, let's start with what happened to even guide you to have an addiction. Let's start there. 

Max Larocque

So growing up, my dad was an RCMP officer and he really strived to move up the ranks as fast as he could, which obviously worked out well. My dad was a great provider, and in his interpretation of fatherhood, as long as he was a good financial provider, then that meant that he was a phenomenal parent. So, by no means is there any sort of blame or anything along the lines towards my parents, but the moves and the instability and the things that came with transferring across province to province, all across Canada, I think I moved seven times before I was twelve, was a lot. A lot, yeah, it's definitely festered into a lot of trust issues and things like that. Just because of the fact that I basically had no choice as a kid, if I wanted to stay somewhere, it didn't really matter. We were up and moving and I really had no say in the matter. So there was an aspect of that that was definitely underlying when I first started using cannabis, and a large part of it was kind of also, I can swear right, Dawn?

Dawn Taylor

Oh, 100%

Max Larocque

Perfect. Quick disclosure on that. I do use the word “fuck” a lot.

Dawn Taylor

I'm very okay with that word. And this podcast is rated R, so anyone listening, If you're really going to struggle with that word, it's just a word, keep listening because you need this information. 

Max Larocque

And you know what? I do like to disclose that too. And I've softened up my views on this in the last couple of years because I understand that, again, if your only interpretation of the word “fuck” was from your parent, caregiver, loved one was super angry, maybe that meant something bad was going to happen, then I can understand why people think that the word “fuck” is such a bad word. 

Dawn Taylor 

Absolutely. 

Max Larocque

But to me, it's just a filler word. So if it comes out, I'm not going to apologize. But I do like to give that forewarning just because I've had people misconstrue my messages. Like, “Wow, he's very angry. Why is he so agitated?” And it's really not that. It's just simply that, it's a word that comes out on a very frequent basis, and if I'm passionate about what I'm talking about, it's going to come out more. So, full disclosure, we'll get that one out of the way. But as mentioned with my original usage of cannabis, it was definitely a “fuck you” towards my dad. Because of the fact that my dad started with the RCMP at such a young age, he had a very skewed perception of, to a certain degree, life, because it was a very “This is how I did it, and this is how you're going to do it, and this is how we do it.” And there was a part of me that very much from a resentful standpoint, was kind of like, “Well, fuck you. I'm going to smoke weed, and I'm going to prove to you that I can be successful and I can be this and I can be that.” Just in spite of him. So that definitely stemmed that. Obviously, it escalated quite quickly into full on cannabis and alcohol addiction. So, kind of bit me in the ass a little bit, you could say

Dawn Taylor

it does that. 

Max Larocque

Yeah. So dad was kind of right in certain ways. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah, we won't tell him that. We won't tell him that. So, let's dive into that for a second and just backtrack a minute because I know someone is listening who's like, “Hey, wait a sec, I've moved my kids a million times.” I don't think it's always that it's moving kids a million times is the problem. It's the structure and the certainty that a lot of kids, especially actually need, and they all function very different with it. It's understanding that and then figuring out how to get them some support in that. But you had mentioned that you struggled with the trust as well, and so where did that come from? 

Max Larocque

So, there was two moves specifically, one of which when we moved to Ottawa, we were supposed to be in Ottawa for good. And this was after our fifth move and fast forward a few years, there was some issues within my parents’ relationship, there was some infidelity and we up and moved from Ottawa to Edmonton as sort of a preventative measure or like, I guess sort of like an ultimatum. So that was a huge component because that was the first time that we moved somewhere and it was like, “Okay, we're buying a nice house, make good friends, we're going to be here for good.” And then to have that totally taken up from under you. Between that and then other things in childhood, it definitely created a lot of distrust within anyone who was above me. And I definitely do have sort of like a seniority complex in that sense too. There's a reason I am my own boss and have been for over a decade because I do not do well with, I guess, authoritative or authoritative measures. When people try to tell me what to do and how to do it. It's probably something that could be addressed on my end to some degree, but that definitely played a huge role in it. And then in terms of the trust side of things. So this is kind of a fucked up situation where my parents don't actually know that my dad had affairs. This is, like, 20 years ago. And so just in terms of my actual my own relationships, friendships, business relationships, partnerships, things like that, I've just always struggled with trust because of the fact that I've seen what it does to families, what it does to me, what it did to me, I should say, as a whole. And growing up in an environment that doesn't necessarily know how to communicate or express the quote-unquote negative emotions or the big emotions we can call them, and then also creating and setting boundaries. I was never actually modeled how to do any of that, so just a lot of things that happened over time and then didn't really know how to process any of that. And then that's where I just kind of leaned into addiction as I got older, because it was much easier to just numb out the world than it was to actually deal with learning how to sit with my negative and or big emotions. I don't really like to call them negative. It's just more or less that was what I was taught, was that they were negative, right? They were bad emotions. They're big emotions. 

Dawn Taylor

Okay, let's pause on that for a second. Sorry for interrupting. How true is that, though? That we've been taught that all, and it's not positive or negative, good or bad, right? But it's like, all of your negative, big emotions, that's bad. Right? Like, we've been so taught that with part of that, though, even in your childhood and how you were raised and all that, the fact that everything was very black and white. 

Max Larocque

Yeah. Right or wrong, very almost kind of military-esque, like, this is how you do it. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. 

Max Larocque

No other way around it. This is black or white, and life just simply is not black or white.

Dawn Taylor

Never.

Max Larocque

In any way, shape or form.

Dawn Taylor

No, never has been.

Max Larocque

Especially nowadays. I think it's becoming more popularized. But just the discussion about people pleasing and how, again, as long as everyone around me is happy, then that's all that matters. And I was listening to one of your podcasts, and you guys were talking about “The Body Keeps the Score”. That was a really eye-opening book for me to read, too. My mom actually has crohn's, and being able to piece together some things from a timeline standpoint, it kind of scared me to the point where I was like, “Okay, there's some things that need to be addressed here that have clearly been underlying the service for a long period of time.” So, yeah, that was a pretty eye-opening book, to be honest. I think everyone should read that book at some point in their life.

Dawn Taylor

It is. And we will put the link in the show notes for sure. So what age did the pot you start?

Max Larocque

So not until I was 18, so actually it was after I graduated. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, wow. 

Max Larocque

Yeah, I had tried a few times when I was younger. I didn't really get stones, so to be honest, I thought it was like, I think I was doing it wrong. I probably wasn't inhaling it, whatever it was, but I was just like, “Well, this is stupid. I don't even see why people would do this.” And then, fast forward, I ended up having an injury with my hand and one of my friends had bought a bong. So, for anyone who has smoked cannabis before, if you've ever smoked a bong, it's a pretty intense way of doing it. And if you smoke a bong, you're probably going to get pretty high. So I did, and that was kind of the first time I was like, “Oh, wow, this is nice.” I can just totally numb out pretty much everything on command. It was less detrimental than drinking at that period of time, too, because of the fact that I could easily be a functioning stoner. I could smoke all evening long, go to work the next day, really had no issues. It wasn't the same as being hungover and things like that. And then down the road, that led into the combination of the two to be a functioning alcoholic at that point. So I could drink less, smoke more, and then still be able to function the next day. 

Dawn Taylor

So how long did that go on for before you realized it was a problem?

Max Larocque

About a decade, basically from 18 to 28. 

Dawn Taylor

Wow. 

Max Larcoque

Yeah. And it got progressively worse. There was periods of time, three to six month windows where it wasn't as excessive. Predominantly in the drinking, I smoked pretty much, I bet you, over a ten year span, I probably didn't smoke for 50 to 60 days of that entire ten years. 

Dawn Taylor

Wow.

Max Larocque

Yeah. And the only reason why was basically I was on vacation and couldn't find it. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. Which is crazy. So were the people around you knowing there was a problem, or

was there just an avoidance of “Well, okay.” So, multiple parts of this right? It’s an avoidance because they don't want to deal with it, but also because there's such a socially acceptable level of being stoned and drinking these days that were they even realizing it was such an issue? 

Max Larocque

Yeah. I mean, that definitely fed into it. I would say very much so to who you surround yourself with going to end up really dictating how you actually, what the choices that you do and don't make on a regular basis. So if everyone around you is smoking, you don't want to be the odd one out. Because that is one thing, is when you do cut alcohol out at the age of 28 or 30, whatever age you decide to do that at, you do become ostracized in our society. Unfortunately. It is slowly beginning to change, but that was definitely a huge component of it, and especially from the ages of 18 to 28, you're almost a weirdo if you don't drink and smoke. Right? It's almost more of the question of, like, 

Why don't you drink? That's weird. Right. I still get that today. At the age of 33, after two and a half years of not drinking, you still get people like, “Why don't you drink?”

Dawn Taylor

I get it all the time. Personally, I did not ever smoke or drink, but that was due to control issues. Right. Where you wanted to take control, so you did that. I was the polar opposite, where, having dealt with sexual abuse and all kinds of trauma in my own childhood, I was like, “Nobody will ever take control over me. And that's even a substance.” So even to this day, it's hilarious. I have like my one cup of coffee in the morning and I will all of a sudden randomly decide I'm not having coffee for a week just to prove that I'm not addicted to it. Do you know what I mean? There's still that “Nothing will control me in that way.” It's quite funny to me. So I never did all through high school and I 100% struggled with friends partially for that reason, and didn't get invited to things and didn't get taken out to things. As an adult. I'm talking like in my thirties and forties, I have been bullied by relatives for not drinking at events.

Max Larocque

Yeah, it's crazy. 

Dawn Taylor

I'm personally bullied and I'm just like, what? 

Max Larocque

I'm personally not a huge fan of Christmas and or big holidays like that because essentially it's just a big drunk fest. And again, being the odd one out of the family that doesn't drink, it's not the most enjoyable time, to be 

Dawn Taylor

Totally. No, not at all. And so yeah, I know that feeling. A drink once in a while when people are like and then they almost make fun of me because I'm having a drink and I'm just like, “Oh my word, you guys.”

Max Larocque

Well, see, and a big part for me too, and I've said this on other podcasts, I was kind of like a chameleon. And going back to the sort of the instability of moving all the time was that I got really good at making friends, but it was mainly around the fact that I was just a people pleaser and I put everyone else ahead of me and whatever I felt because I could fit in with any crowd. It just so happened that as I got older, I happened to fall into the crowd that was excessively drinking, excessively smoking, and because I didn't want to be ostracized and I didn't want to be that odd one out, it's like, well, I'm just going to keep on doing it and then next thing you know, they don't know what you're doing behind closed doors, right? So, if they're only smoking in a social situation, it seems normal. Well, if you don't know that when you guys leave, I'm going to continue to drink and smoke, that's more of a problem than they actually perceive or they actually see. So that was a big part of it. I would say the worst age of my drinking was 25 and that was because I had just moved out from a friend's house. So that was the first time living by myself. Like totally, totally by myself. So there was no, I guess, extra eyes on me even just from whether they would say anything or not. Nobody was acting. It was just the fact that I was behind closed doors and I had full choice and full autonomy to do whatever it was I wanted to do behind closed doors. 

Dawn Taylor

So, on the outside looking in, what would I have seen had I met you? So you've been two and a half years sober. Had I met you, say, five years ago, what would I have seen?

Max Larocque

Absolutely no difference. From the outside looking in. To be honest, when I came out publicly, everyone was shocked. My parents were shocked when I came out. Everyone was shocked because I was so good at putting on the front. And my biggest thing was, especially being in the fitness industry, was I commonly felt like I was kind of on a pedestal, and as long as I looked a certain way, then no one would ever see anything was wrong. Right? I drove the BMW, I had a nice haircut. I've been in the gym since I was 14 years old. So, if someone looks that way and they have their Starbucks in hand each day, and they have their BMW and they had their stupid, expensive haircut, you wouldn't think anything was wrong. And that was my whole, I guess, objective behind that, was to make sure that no one would have ever thought twice about it. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. So when did it finally come to a head? What was the moment that you were like, “I might be in trouble.”

Max Larocque

So I was 30 years old. I was actually with my ex-girlfriend, and that was predominantly what prompted even the thought of looking inward and actually considering, like, “Hey, how much do I drink on a weekly basis? How much do I smoke on a weekly basis?” So we had just gotten my now-dog Lucy together, and she was definitely pushing in the direction of wanting kids pretty quickly. We hadn't been together for that long, for the record. So, there was a lot of pressure going from a lot of different directions. And at that point in time, I was about $40,000 in debt. I hadn't told her any of this because there was so much shame around the debt that that's when I first started thinking, like, okay, like, I hadn't even said this to her verbally. This was just in my own head was that, like, okay, she wants to have a family. I'm $40,000 debt. Haven't told her about it. “There is zero fucking chance in hell that I am bringing a kid into this world where I'm already swimming in debt.” I can't smoke, eat, socialize, or do just about anything unless I drink or smoke. Like, thankfully, I had some sort of subconscious awareness of no, fucking pump the brakes. You do not need to bring a kid in this world because this will just exacerbate all of the issues that you're currently dealing with. The issues that you're avoiding right now, they're going to blow the fuck up if you bring a kid. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, Max, come on. Yeah, that would have been the best thing for you to do, insert sarcasm here. 

Max Larocque

Yeah. So, thankfully, whatever. I don't know. Again, subconscious part of me that just had the awareness to know because, I mean, a lot of people get themselves in these situations that, “Let's just have a kid and it'll get better.” No, it fucking won't. “Let's just get married and it'll get better.” No, it fucking won't. Whatever issues that you're avoiding right now are not just going to dissipate and go away. They're going to, by adding more problems, get worse and worse and worse and worse. And then if you do have children, you're not going to have the energy and or capacity to actually deal with your own shit, I think is a very commonly overlooked thing before having children, in my personal opinion, which will probably piss some people off, but that's okay.

Dawn Taylor

This is the words I use, “In my humble yet correct opinion.” Feel free to use that.

Max Larocque

Yeah, exactly. My opinion is my opinion. You're going to hate me. I've pissed off more than enough people in the last two and a half years. It's okay. 

Dawn Taylor

No, I don't think much different on that. And I get in trouble with that, too. Yeah. Fix your shit before you pass it on to everyone else in your world. 

Max Larocque

I know there can't be an actual test for it, but there should be one.

Dawn Taylor

Okay. You and my husband should talk about that. Quick side note, his line is always that everyone should be fixed upon birth and you should have to actually just go to a doctor's office to sign a piece of paper saying you're ready to have a kid. Even if there's no test, even if there's no one's going to stop you, you actually have to book an appointment and go. So it just pauses you in the moment to be like, “Is this actually what we want?”

Max Larocque

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor

That's always been his thing. And everyone gets mad at him for it. He's standing by it.

Max Larocque

I'd have to say, I agree with your husband. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. You just reminded me of him. That's awesome. So you realize that this is a no go. So what shifted there? Because you are not, I'm guessing, currently with that girlfriend and you don't have kids, or else you just haven't told me. 

Max Larocque

No. And also, I do have ADHD, so if I ever go on a tangent and then forget to come back, bring me back in and I'll be the same. 

Dawn Taylor

It's okay. 

Max Larcoque

Yeah. So that's what prompted that. And so this was April of 2020. So we had just basically gone into lockdown. Oh, gosh, five and a half weeks prior kind of thing. So we had just shut down our previous location for the first time, the first lockdown. And this was like in that first six weeks of COVID where no one had a fucking clue what was going on. 

Dawn Taylor

Nobody did. 

Max Larocque

Everything was changing. So, like, I still remember when the NBA, the NHL, everything like that closed down, where it was like, oh, shit, this is serious. This is a pretty big thing. And then again, fast forward, and it just was COVID. But at the time, I've been wanting to transition my business to somewhat online at that point in time. And when COVID hit, it was actually a really good time to do so because it was like, well, I'm making my $2,000 a month here on CERB, which has not really taken me too far here, especially when I'm $40,000 secretly in debt. So, now is the time. So, I actually hired a coach at that point in time for business coaching because I just had zero idea how to actually get myself online from a position of business. I already had an Instagram following and things like that. So, I hired a coach. And the first 60 days of that program was predominantly life coaching and sort of like looking at yourself first, because if you're going to put yourself online, one, it's quite exhausting. B, if you put out a fake persona of yourself online, it is inevitable that you will burn out in a very short period of time, 

Dawn Taylor

Not gonna work. 

Max Larocque

Because there's no way you can have this persona of who you are and then actually be yourself. So that was when I really started looking at how much am I drinking on a week to week basis. And this is where it's tough too, because with cannabis addiction, it gets very much downplayed. It's like, “Oh, it's just weed. You can't be addicted to weed.” Like, shut the fuck up. You can be addicted to just about anything, whether it be substance and or non substance addiction. Second of all, with alcohol, again, especially within that age demographic, it's like, “No, man, you're fine. You just like to drink, okay?” And people would downplay it over and over and over again. And it wasn't until I actually sat with it and it's like, okay, I'm breaking this down. So I'm drinking anywhere between, like, six and eight ounces of scotch a night, drinking between or smoking between one and two joints a night. So if I add this up, that's like over a 40 ounce of scotch a week. And that's just me. That's not including, like, if I went to my ex-girlfriend's parents for dinner and had some wine, if I went to my parents house, had some wine or some beers, that was just me. And then actually putting this on paper and seeing the numerical value attached to that, where I was like, “Holy fuck, I'm drinking a 40 plus a week and smoking about a quarter ounce of weed a week.” Yeah, okay. Of course there's people out there that have it worse, but it's not a competition of who has it, who doesn't have it worse. And I had that kind of fixated in my head that I would downplay the own severity of my own problem because it was like, “Oh, well, so and so does this, and so and so does. At least I'm not doing cocaine all the time. That was how I would try to kind of justify it in my head.” 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. 

Max Larcoque

And so for me, when I wrote I actually wrote a post about it one day, and it was just the first time that I had actually acknowledged that I had a problem with it, and I hadn't posted it publicly again. I was still with my ex at the time, and quick story on that was that I wrote this post when she was at work, and she got home that day and I showed it to her. And that was the first time that I actually sat with the fact that I classified myself as an alcoholic and then we won't go too far in details of that because it's just a long blown-up story, but basically, her grandfather had pretty much killed himself with alcohol and so when I brought this to light with my own issues with drinking, it was like, “well, you're not an alcohol-alcoholic because you don't drink to the point where you're pissing your pants every night.” So that really fucked with my head, because I just wrote this piece. Yeah, I just wrote out this story, essentially, of my life and what I was actually dealing with. To then have the person next to me basically invalidate that completely and say that I'm being dramatic. This isn't as bad as I'm making it seem because of XYZ, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, that really fucked with my head. And then again, long story short, I ended up posting it publicly because I got her, I guess, permission, you can say. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah.

Max Larocque 

But then that caused a whole fucking shit show of issues within our relationship. Her family tried to get involved and tried to say also that I didn't have problems, and yada, yada, yada. So, yeah, that blew up, and then we split in November of 2020. I took Lucy full-time, and that was the main reason why I got sober, was Lucy. So, she was the reason that I got sober and stayed. Again, not sober, but alcohol-free for the duration that it has been. So, yeah, Lucy was kind of the main driver because we had got her in August of 2020. And then that's when those thoughts started to come out more frequently and then once we split, that was when the responsibility was fully on me to take care of her and anything that happened to her or anything that happened to me was my responsibility, and I had to take control of that.

Dawn Taylor

Okay, I have so many thoughts on this. Number one is people, stop gaslighting people when they say what they're feeling and what they're going through. 

Max Larocque

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor

I had this conversation this morning with someone talking about trauma and how one person's trauma will resonate in their body and sit within the same as somebody else's that would be nothing. Right? Where you can look from the outside and be like, “Oh, no, that's on a scale, and this one's way worse than that one.” But your perspective is your truth is your reality, right? It's yours. And that is how you feel if someone says to you, like, “Hey, I'm struggling with this.” or “I think that I might be an alcoholic.” or, “Hey, I think I might be an addict.” or, “Hey, I think I need support in this.” Can we actually start stepping up as humanity and as society and be like, “Okay, if this is a problem, maybe I don't deem it a problem, but you do, so that means it's important.”

Max Larocque

Exactly. And from a severity standpoint, is everyone has a different tolerance to everything, right? In terms of how you tolerate stress, how you tolerate your alcohol, your drugs, your whatever avoidance techniques you're using, we all have different tolerances for it. 

Dawn Taylor

All of us. All of us.

Max Larocque

We all tolerate trauma differently too. So depending on our upbringing 100%, the age that it happened, the communication we had with our parents and our caregivers, were we able to actually decompress some of that trauma and process some of that trauma at a young age? Or was it something that just sat there and then festered over time, then became a severe addiction, whatever it may be? So, everyone's different. Gabor Mate uses the big T, little T analogy, but it's like, again, trauma is your trauma. No one needs to understand it and no one needs to feel it the way you do. If you believe what it is, then it is.

Dawn Taylor

Well. And I've had people in the past say, like, “I feel almost guilty for doing this work, I feel guilty for spending this money, I feel guilty for taking this resource from somebody else who needs it more.” And it's like, “Whoa, no.”

Max Larocque

And it's interesting.

Dawn Taylor

Worse or better or easier or harder? Like, no.

Max Larocque

I always mixed up guilty and shame, too, and I'm sure you are very well versed in this, where it's like they feel guilty. Is it they feel guilty or is it like they feel shame around it. And is it like the shame that's actually preventing them from wanting to work through it and work on it and talk about it and actually bring it to light? 

Dawn Taylor

Well. And even the definition right, where it's like, guilty is like, I did something bad. Shame. Shame is like, I am bad. Like, me as the person I am bad. Right? And so really breaking that down. So then you get a dog, or you have your dog, and now this is what helps you get sober. But was this just part of getting sober? Or was it actually like, no, now you have to do some recovery work on what got you there in the first place. 

Max Larocque

So fast forward two and a half years to today, tthat's where I am now. So I actually recorded a podcast episode about this a couple of months ago, and it was me coming to terms with the fact that I had just transferred addictions to work. So, I had transferred all of my addictive tendencies to work and building my businesses. And I just used that as an avoidance tactic to actually sitting with those big emotions that we talked about. And this is one that is also super-layered because of the fact that we live in a society that actually promotes workaholism and celebrates workaholism. Even though it's taking away from your family, it's taking away from your physical health, it's taking away from your mental health, it's taking away from the relationship you could be building with your children, it's taking away from a lot of things. But because we live in a society that says, oh, my God, you make 200,000 a year, like, you are so successful. Well, define successful. If I make $200,000 a year but my wife hates me, my kids think I'm a shitty dad, and my physical health is declining rapidly, am I successful? 

Dawn Taylor

Okay, let's just talk about that for a sec. Because this is a thing, so I've often talked about it, and I've. like. working with clients that have been in recovery, is when they talk about the fact that you do need to go home and not be with the same people, right? So that you're surrounded by it. So that you're surrounded, not surrounded by the drugs, you're not surrounded by the alcohol, and you have a new life to look forward to, right. But you have to find new people. I've often thought I can't imagine being the person coming out of rehab and pretty much being told, I have to go home and live a completely different life while still struggling with the fact that I'm trying to stay off of drugs and alcohol and all of these things, right. But, anytime I've worked with somebody who's addicted to food, addicted to work, addicted to shopping, addicted to these things, it is so hard because these are things that are required of us on a daily basis, right? You can't actually get through life without eating. You can't totally get through life without ever having a job and working, right? So then we transfer addictions to something that is actually just socially acceptable. It can be just as addicting.

Max Larcoque

I know. And it's such an interesting conversation of like, healthy addiction versus addiction or unhealthy versus healthy addiction. And a common thing you'll see is exercise, right? Where people all the time from drug and or alcohol use into exercise and all of a sudden you develop orthorexia where any food that's not, quote unquote, healthy food is then now deemed as bad food. And if you don't exercise seven days a week, then all these bad things are going to happen where it's like, again, you're just transferring addiction. So I'm not going to say that. Of course, exercise addiction as a whole is definitely better for you than slamming a bottle of Jack Daniels every night. For sure. I'm not going to deny that. However, it still goes to show that there's underlying either emotional scars, trauma, insecurities, self worth issues that have not been addressed because you're just, again, switching to exercise, which is a super common one. I always, kind of people who run like Ironman and Triathlons, where I'm like, “What are you running from?” Literally and figuratively, what are you running from? No one fucking wants to run that much who hasn't had some unresolved shit. 

Dawn Taylor

I love that because I think it all the time and just don't say it 

Max Larocque

Oh, you want to fucking swim 20 miles a week and run 100 and bike 200? Why? What are you running from that is making you want to do that? Now? I know there's definitely, I was dating a girl who ran Ironman and a lot of it was sort of reclaiming herself and reclaiming her power. She was actually a psychologist, so, again, very well versed and also has done a lot of her own inner work as well. So that was how she had done it. But I would argue that she's a pretty small percentage of people who are actively running and training for Ironman and marathons and things that are extreme to that nature. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah, no, I can see that. So how did you overcome so we're going to backtrack to you, two and half years. How did you overcome the addiction and did you have any support in doing that? 

Max Larocque

Um, well, if we're backtracking two and a half years, I would say I didn't overcome the addiction. I just white-knuckled it and just cut it completely raw. I just full-on cold turkey, stopped smoking weed and drinking alcohol. December 1, 2020. And like I said, just completely white-knuckled it, which worked for a period of time, but it didn't really work. Again, it worked for the period of time that I was able to white-knuckle it. But the thing is, you can't white-knuckle sobriety for that long. And this is which we'll get into later, the sobriety versus recovery conversation. December 1, 2020 hit, I had publicly stated I'm stopping drinking alcohol as a way to have the accountability with that, because, truthfully, as much as my family was supportive, they just don't get it. And they're also I have two older sisters, love them, love my entire family, but all very stubborn, hard headed individuals that really have no desire to have these types of conversations at all. And so I am definitely the outlier of my family. So, again, they were supportive. This is also, we're just about to go into the third wave of lockdowns here in Alberta. So really, any support that I did have was predominantly online because of the fact that I was secluded, which for that period of time actually worked out well. Truthfully, because of the fact that everything was shut down. Even if I wanted to go to a restaurant and drink or a bar and drink and whatever everything was for that period of time, it actually worked out well. I think it was December 13 that we went into the lockdown for the third time. And one of the things that I did as a way to not only have a layer of accountability, but to also start growing my online audience, to start coaching more people online, was that I said that I was going to do, the house that I was living at the time was living with some friends shortly after my breakup, and they actually had, like, a little basement gym. And so what I did was I went live every single morning at 09:00 A.m. For I think it was like two and a half months straight, because it was like, if I don't show up at 09:00 am tomorrow, probably for a reason. So I had stated it out loud that I was going to be doing a live workout each and every day. Everyone was already at home on lockdown anyway. So I was like, “Hey, well, I'm doing something positive for the community. It's a way to have that accountability for myself. It's a way to grow an online presence and audience. I'll make a little challenge out of it.” kind of thing. Whoever wins the challenge will get some free personal training whenever the gyms open up, whenever they do open up. Um, fast forward one week. It's now, December 20. We found out that we lost our current lease of the gym that we were at because fucking everything up. So that was the worst night in early sobriety ever because it was just like fucking just literally one thing after the other. In hindsight, it all worked out very well because it gave me enough time to actually establish an online presence. But basically from December 1, 2020 to about February 2021, it was pretty much just white-knuckle it. I worked out excessively. Definitely transferred to exercise, worked my ass off, posted every single day, went live every single day. Basically, did anything I could to distract myself in a more positive way to white-knuckle it and actually avoid a lot of the big feelings I was feeling for the first time in my entire life because that was the reality behind it. It was like, as an adult, since I'd been smoking and drinking since I was 18, I hadn't felt any of those emotions before. And for anyone who does cut substance in any way, shape or form, they're fucking scary the first little bit. They're fucking scary when you've never actually sat with some of these emotions before.

Dawn Taylor

Can we also say, though? As a man, even just as a man in general, men aren't taught to have emotions.

Max Larocque

We aren't. 

Dawn Taylor

And it's seen as weak, and it's seen as pathetic, and it's seen as all of these things. So did that play into that at all? Where it's like, oh, shit, there's feels. If you were watching the video right now, he literally just got uncomfortable and had to shift and adjust himself, as I said that.

Max Larocuque

Oh no, not with my ADHD. So for me, it was like so my dad, again, was an RCMP officer. He specialized in bloodstain pattern analysis, which, short term way of describing that my dad was CSI. So my dad saw the worst of the worst of the worst. My dad literally saw mutilated children, dead bodies on a regular basis. 

Dawn Taylor

Like, horrible. 

Max Larocque

Yeah, horrible. Like the worst of the worst. So my dad, when I first got sober and I told my parents and I sit them down and I told them what had been happening for the last decade, my dad's exact words were, if I've seen a fucking shrink five times. And I remember looking at me being like, “Do you not think it's kind of fucked up that me at the age of 30 has seen a, quote unquote, fucking shrink more than you have, and you have literally seen the worst of the worst of the worst. Does that not seem a little fucked up to you?” And it was just, whoa. When me and my brothers were kids, we didn't talk about things and we just learned to not talk about anything, really? So that was a huge proponent of it. And I know that I'm very sensitive and I'm much more accepting of my sensitivity now because of the fact that you were labeled as, like, weak or quote unquote, you were a pussy growing up. Not to offend people, but that's a word that was common. 

Dawn Taylor

No, but that was the language back then.

Max Larocque

That was a very common word. Especially like I was born in 1990, so I'm 33. So very much like late 90s, early 2000s, things were much less, how do I describe it? 

Dawn Taylor

Politically correct. 

Max Larocque

Yes. 100%. 

Dawn Taylor

And I think you have to be a 90s baby born in 1980. I lived through even the 80s. 

Max Larocque

You get it.

Dawn Taylor

Nothing politically correct in the 80s. Yeah. Anyone born after 2000. I think it is definitely different.

Max Larocque

Yes, it is. Of a different world. Even just in terms of cell phones and things like that. Like, just everything about it is way different. So, again, very much I was a hockey player, so even more so you don't talk about that kind of shit, hockey pussy if you do. So, I'm much more accepting of the fact that I am super sensitive now. And I don't look at it as, like, a weakness now. I actually look at it as a way to be able to actually develop more relationships, especially with the clients that I work with online and from a coaching standpoint was if I didn't have that sensitivity and I guess empathic powers tha,t we could say, that I wouldn't be able to connect with people on the level that I do. And I know a large part of me staying sober and this is very much I don't really agree with a lot of the stuff that comes from AA. There's definitely aspects of it that work for people. And again, not to say it doesn't work, but it has helped thousands, it's also not helped even more and I think- 

Dawn Taylor

Damaged so many people. 

Max Larocque

I think that's a thing that they tend to downplay is the fact that you just end up retraumatizing a lot of people with the approach that they take. And that's actually what my psychologist said. Like, the white knuckle approach of like, yeah, it works for a period of time and depending on what your rock bottom looks like, maybe you do need that white knuckle approach for a little bit. Maybe just to kick the substance, just to get out of your system enough to actually create more bandwidth totally to actually work on yourself, then it can work. So that was a huge component of that was just, again, the discomfort with actually being able to feel and address these emotions. And because of the fact that I grew up with the, I guess, male presence being predominantly there as a provider, that's what I shifted into. So, as I started transitioning online and growing more online, my entire life for the last two and a bit years has revolved around work, work, work. And it was my birthday this year, so April 2023, that I was in Canmore, and I lapsed with weed, and then the floodgates opened again. So, for me, it's like, once I start, I just don't stop. And for me, I don't know how familiar you are with Gabor Mate. And Gabor Mate, I love his work. That guy is the man. But it's that question of it's not why the addiction, but why the pain. The last two and a half years has been the most financially lucrative years of my entire life. Businesses. My businesses are doing phenomenally well. So it's like, why the fuck do I keep going back to numb out using weed if my life is as good as it is?

Dawn Taylor

What's your answer for that?

Max Larcoque

That's what I'm in therapy for right now. So we're definitely working through some things that I don't really have the answer for right now, to be entirely honest with you. We're working through some pretty big emotions with that and just some big things that happen. So I'm doing EMDR twice a month right now and then I've actually recently started doing breath work once a month. A client of mine from two years prior, she's a hypnotherapist, and she's doing breath work seminars now. So she's coming to my gym once a month and doing breath work seminars. So between the somatic central nervous system work, that is the kind of brought up with the breath work, combining that with the EMDR, it's been a fucking heavy two months, to say the least. Yeah, you kind of say I'm like balls deep in the actual, in the work of it healing right now. So, truthfully, there's a lot of things that even the realization that I had just, it's funny because I've talked about sobriety versus recovery on podcasts before, but never realized that hypocritically, I was doing the same thing, but I was using work as my outlet. And then once I slipped with weed again, it was like, look, obviously, if things are going as well as they are financially, I'm the happiest I've ever been. I'm the most stable I've ever been. Why do I keep going back to my drug of choice, which is cannabis? 

Dawn Taylor

So, talk to me about this recovery versus sobriety, so that people fully understand it.

Max Larocque

So, when you look at sobriety, sobriety, in my opinion, is just the fact that you don't use substance, so you don't drink, you don't smoke, you don't use in any way, shape, or form. That doesn't mean you're healed or you are actually taking care of your shit. Because I learned this by doing a little bit of AA, and then actually a lot of it was too was seeing it in Facebook groups, so quickly going back to early sobriety with COVID was like, I was joining Facebook groups because there was a lot of Facebook groups that were predominantly about, like, addiction, addiction recovery, alcoholism, blah, blah, blah, blah. And seeing the toxicity in some of those groups was, like, extremely eye opening to the point where it was, you know, introduce yourself to the group, blah, blah, blah, blah. Remember literally having people be like, smoked weed for fucking ten years. Like, okay, I did heroin for 13 years. And it's like, “Okay, I didn't realize this was a competition of who had the more severe addiction and not.” and that was early on. I was like, “That's fucked up.” Just weird way. And that was the sort of distinction between sobriety versus recovery. Whereas sobriety, okay, you don't use substance, but that doesn't mean that you've actually done any sort of work on yourself. Oh, you're sober, but you still cheat on your wife. Interesting, you're sober, but you still neglect your children. Interesting, you're sober, but you still neglect your physical health. Interesting, you're sober, but you closet binge eat every day, multiple times a week, whatever it may be. It's like, okay, so you're sober from substance. That doesn't mean that you've addressed any of the actual underlying issues, whether it be a self-worth issue, which predominantly is something that I'm working through right now, is the lack of self worth. And I think lack of self-worth definitely drives a lot of addiction in our day and age. But, so the distinction is, for me, my interpretation of recovery is where you're actively taking the steps to be an active participant in your recovery. So, whether that be through CBT therapy, talk therapy, EMDR, hypno, like, whatever is going to float your boat. If you want to go do Reiki, you want to go do energy healing, you want to go do a little bit of this, a little bit of that, I don't give a fuck. As long as you're doing something that aligns with you that is going to actually get you to the root cause of why you have this pain in the first place, that in my opinion, and again, that's just my opinion, so take it or leave it. But in my opinion, that's when someone is actually in recovery is when they are taking the action steps to be and stay sober.

Dawn Taylor

I've always looked at it as the recovery, like recovery is you're actually working to recover from what caused it in the first place. Right? At like a very basic, basic standpoint. So can I ask, where are you at in your sobriety right now?

Max Larcoque

So I am three weeks sober right now. 

Dawn Taylor

Nice! 

Max Larocque

Three weeks sober. Like officially, officially sober. Sober for three weeks. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. 

Max Larocque

I feel better now. Two weeks ago. It sucks because when you cut weed, especially, one of the biggest things is like, you don't sleep. So you definitely to go through pretty bad wave of insomnia. Your appetite goes to shit, especially if you start, this is an interesting discussion, too, is like weed addiction. When people try to downplay it, it's like, “Oh, no, I'm not addicted. I'm not addicted. It's just weed.” And it's like, okay, how much of your daily food intake is when you're stoned? 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, interesting. 

Max Larocque

Interesting. I actually eat about 95% of my daily food intake, if not more, when I'm stoned. Yeah. Okay, so let's unravel this a little bit more. You may think weed is not an addiction, but if you can't eat food without weed, now, it's that combination of, like, there is the weed addiction. There's also the underlying disordered, eating and or eating disorder as a whole that hasn't been addressed. And one thing I talk about is, like, reverse engineering addiction. So when people try to downplay, I'm not addicted to weed. “Can you go a week without it? Can you sleep without it? Can you eat without it? Can you socialize without it? Is it affecting your finances, which is then affecting other areas? Everything.” You start to unravel it and kind of reverse engineer it, and it's like, “Oh, shit, I'm financially stressed, but I'm smoking $100 a week worth of weed.” Well, okay. Are you also making good decisions when you smoke weed? Are you eating good, healthy food on a regular basis, or are you skip adding shitty food, which costs way more money, which is then furthering your financial stress? And that's where I don't know if you've read the book Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lemke, if you haven't, highly recommend it. It's a phenomenal book, but she does a really good job of breaking down the dopamine pathways. And when you're chasing dopamine and you typically don't just stop at one thing. So, for a lot of people when they smoke weed, they get that massive rush of dopamine. Well, eventually that starts to crash. And depending on your tolerance of weed, if you smoke weed for a long time, your tolerance is here and then it crashes pretty quickly. So, okay, what are we going to get that back up? Either going to smoke more weed or you're going to mix in some alcohol. You're going to mix in some porn. You're going to mix in a whole bunch of ticks. You're going to gamble. You're going to online gamble. You're going to online shop. You're going to do pretty much anything you can to get as much dopamine in your system as possible. And what's really interesting is she uses an analogy of, like, a seesaw. So if you spend, let's say, the hours of 05:00 P.m. Is the time you go to bed in this massive dopamine overdrive, when you wake up, wake up at homeostasis, you wake up in a dopamine deficient state. For anyone who's not familiar with dopamine, it's one of the neurotransmitters that provides motivation. It gives us drive. It gives us incentive to do things and accomplish things well. This is where addiction is such a bitch because a lot of the times and I'm sure someone will resonate with this when you're in addiction, there's very often that when you're high or drunk, whatever it is, you have these thoughts of like, “I don't want to do this anymore. I hate this. I hate that I do this, I hate doing it.” In general, that's when dopamine is high, when dopamine is low. So when you wake up, first thing in the morning in a dopamine deficient state, so your drive, your motivation, your desire to do pretty much fucking anything positive for yourself that day is starting way behind the eight ball. So, that's where do you think if you're starting in this dopamine deficient state, do you think you're going to have the, I guess, like awareness or the capability to make good choices that day?

Dawn Taylor

Well, you've also fried out the coping mechanism, portions of your brain with the drugs and alcohol.

Max Larocque

Exactly. So now you got to start chasing real dopamine, and real dopamine is not nearly as satisfying. Yeah, exogenous dopamine, I guess we can look at it, right? There are definitely ways, like cold showers, a hard workout, anything like that, that does promote that. But at the same time, if that's not part of your day to day life right now, who the fuck wants to hop on a cold shower first thing in the morning? Like, truthfully, it sucks. It sucks for a reason. Because there is that pain-pleasure balance, which she also uses the same sort of seesaw analogy for. But it's super interesting when you start looking at things like that. And that's why when people say like, “Oh, weed is not addiction or addictive, my phone's not addictive.” it's like, again, can you not use that substance and or non-substance addiction for a few days, for a week, for two weeks?

Dawn Taylor

Oh, gosh, even an hour. For some people.

Max Larocque

Nowadays with social media, it's like you see people freak, like they're in the Starbucks line and they literally can't wait 35 seconds for their coffee without looking at their phone because they're so either A, addict to their phone or B, insecure in their own skin that, God forbid I have a conversation with a human being beside me. I'll just put my face down and just look at my phone, pay attention to anyone around me. That's a whole different other topic. People are weird after COVID.

Dawn Taylor

People haven't recovered super hot, we'll put it that way. Yeah, they haven't recovered at their finest. So for someone listening who's like, “Oh shit, I think I might be in addiction.” What is your number one recommendation or even your top couple recommendations on where they can start? 

Max Larocque

I mean, the big biggest thing is awareness of the fact that you are struggling with addiction in the first place or awareness of the fact that you are struggling in some way, shape or form. Whether you want to label it as addiction or not. I know some people think of addiction as such a negative, harsh connotation. If you don't want to label it as addiction, that's fine, but label it that, it's something that needs to be addressed because it is taking away from other areas of my life. Andrew Huberman has a really interesting definition of addiction and it's basically the narrowing of your pleasures. So, when you start to ask yourself these questions is you know, weed, for example, is like, okay, do you spend the majority of like, thinking about when you're going to get high, how you're going to get high, the process of that, what does that look like to you? So, then you've actually lost sight of other things in your life that actually you did derive pleasure from. Because now, unless you're stoned, you don't even like doing those things anymore. And that is addiction in a nutshell where when you are an addiction, that's all you focus on and you'll still do those activities. But I got to get stoned first. That's a big one. I got to get stoned and then I'll go watch the movie, then I'll go do this, then I'll go to that, and it's like, how about we just take that away a little bit? In Dopamine Nation, she's got a really good acronym for kind of bringing light to addiction can't remember to come completely. But the D stands for distance. So actually creating distance from the addiction as a whole. So whether that be, let's say, weed, for example, I know when I first cut it, I had to throw out my bongs. I had to throw out all my papers. I had to throw out all the paraphernalia that went with the addiction. Because if I had it in my house, well, even if I don't have the weed in my house, I'll just drive down the street to a weed store, buy weed, because I still have papers, I still have a bowl, I still have all of these things that I can quickly access to get stoned. So, distance is really important, objectives where you actually objectively look at that. And that's kind of the whole reverse engineering thing. So you keep saying you're stressed about finances. Well, how much is weed costing you? Right? And starting to create objective, looking at sort of data around that of like, where is this helping me and where is this hurting me? So you can create a list. And that's really eye opening for people, too, because commonly the negatives will drastically outweigh the positives. And that's where it kind of gives you that insight of looking at it logically than less emotionally. Especially when you're in addiction, you will find any way possible to justify why you should smoke, 

Dawn Taylor

Always.

Max Larocque

Why you need to smoke, why you deserve to smoke. And it's just like, again, that's your monkey the whole monkey mind thing of like, that's your monkey mind telling you that because of course the monkey mind wants that. Dopamine you've? You've used that substance for how long now? Of course, your monkey mind tell you that you deserve this or you need this, or you want this. So, creating distance is big. Can't remember the rest of the acronym, but again, super good book.

Dawn Taylor

We'll post it in the show notes. 

Max Larocque

Yeah, and I think part of it too is just the education that comes from that book as a whole. Because if you can understand how your brain works a little bit more, it'll allow you, I guess more, just insight to addiction as a whole and how you can create barriers with it and things of that nature that can be super, super helpful. A big thing she talks about too, which again, I think I didn't mention this with AA, but radical honesty, right? Being radically fucking uncomfortably honest with what you're doing behind closed doors. Because that is the reality is even if you have a close network of friends that are there to support you, help you, they're living with you and they sleep in your room with you. 

Dawn Taylor

Totally. They have no idea what you're actually doing. 

Max Larocque

And even then, how many people have closet addictions that are just going to go to the bathroom really quickly and buck a line of coke and it's like people don't necessarily know that all the time. S,o only you know what you do behind closed doors. So again, whether that be harder drugs, whether weed, alcohol, food, like, porn, online dating, whatever distraction that you're trying to use, you have to be uncomfortably honest with yourself about the situation at hand.

Dawn Taylor

Well, then I'd say from there, if you need support, right, reach out. Family, like, go to AA, go to rehab, talk to your medical doctors, do the work.

Max Larocque

Being open minded to various ways, that can help you, right? And a lot of people, older generation has it. “Well, if you're going to get sober, you have to go to AA.” Don't. You could read books, you can just do online. You can do anything to get sober. And that's the big thing, too, is like, do whatever the fuck. That's why I use the example like, you want to go to Reiki, you want to go to this. Do whatever feels right for you. That's going to keep you on the track of recovery, because it doesn't matter. Well, my dad went to AA and it worked for him. Who cares if it's not going to work for you because you don't align with the messaging in AA? Find something and be open-minded things, that's going to work for you. 

Dawn Taylor

Well, I know for myself, for other health stuff, I do a lot of IV therapy, and one of the ones I do is NAD. And that's used in rehab facilities because it regenerates your cells so often. I'm sitting in a room with people that are recovering addicts. Because they heard about it and it's made the biggest difference. And it's an IV therapy. You don't know. So ask for help, ask for support, ask the questions.

Max Larocque

And that is the cool part of the world we live in is there's never been more resources than there currently are.

Dawn Taylor

No, they're everywhere. And 1s there's a few positives that came out of COVID and one of them I've often said is it got people to start searching for stuff, right? Because we were on lockdown. All of a sudden, online business was available. All of a sudden it's like, “Hey, wait, I want to try a weird treatment that I heard about or I read about, and I'm going to Google it and try to figure out where someone is in the world that does that.” And it's created a community outside of our community.

Yeah, in a very different way, and not just through video games.

Max Larocque

Well, I've said this before, too, and this was funny because this was one of the first takeaways from my first session back in EMDR was like and my psychologist did not use these words, but this is my interpretation of it, but slow the fuck down if you find you're someone that you are always on the go. And again, this is where the whole non-substance versus substance addiction talks in about, okay, so you play on three different rec leagues. You have this hobby, this hobby, this hobby, this hobby, this hobby. If you're someone that does not allow any time to just sort of sit with yourself, that in itself is a problem. And so what COVID was good for was the fact that it actually forced everyone to slow down. Now, the sad reality of that is that for certain people, a lot of addiction for a large demographic of the population, it actually, actually furthered addiction. It furthered abuse, it furthered all kinds of things as well. But again, it all kind of ties back to like when you slow down, you can actually sit with these things and understand like, “Oh, there is some big emotions under the surface that I didn't even know about because I'm just so fucking busy.” And that's where, again, workaholism is such a common one, right, of like, I work, work, and then people perceive me as successful because all I do is work. But you come home every night and you're miserable and you just feel the need to scroll social media for hours and live your life through other people's life. Are you that successful? Or define successful.

Dawn Taylor

And to some people, yeah, but 100% you need to look at it and define it. Max. I always ask a few fun questions at the end, unless I forget because that's just who I am. and the people in my world laugh at that. And so. I'm going to ask you a few fun questions before I let you go and get back to your amazing career you have. And for anyone listening, if you want to find Max, we're going to have his info in the the show notes so you can find those. So, quick silly question is, what is the secret guilty way that you decompress? Come on, you know, it's Real House Five, so I'm just kidding. It might be. 

Max Larocque

Hell's Kitchen is a terrible, trash TV show that I actually, for some reason, I don't know why, but I love that show. Hell's Kitchen. Just awful. It's so bad. But I don't know why, but it's entertaining. 

Dawn Taylor

It really is. 

Max Larocque

You know what? That's an interesting question, to be totally honest. I know we're kind of keeping it lighter here, but that is thing with recovery is you have to start trying things to see what you enjoy, because the reality is, I did things to fit in for the majority of my adult life. So I'm trying new things where I'm rock climbing. I'm doing different activities to be like, what do I actually enjoy doing? I'm not just doing things to fit in 

Dawn Taylor

Outside of orkin pot everyone else's hobbies. 

Max Larocque

That was my life forever. So I'm just doing a lot of experimenting with that. I mean, I spend the majority of my free time with my dog, to be blatantly, honestly, honest. But, yeah, I mean. Guilty pleasure would probably be like Hell's Kitchen, something like Light, like that. I still do work a lot. Like, as mentioned, I'm definitely working through that or working on that, kind of, as we speak. So I don't have a great answer for that because 

Dawn Taylor

That's okay. 

Max Larocque

A lot of my decompression truthfully is, like, reading got a real big bookshelf over there that I got built not. But yeah. So I find it fascinating. And again, a large part of that, too, is just because it helps me connect with people on a different level. Yeah, I love reading. That's probably a guilty pleasure of mine.

Dawn Taylor

Awesome. I like it. How would you describe yourself in one sentence?

Max Larocque

Right now? The word of the day at my session last week with my psychologist was agitated.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, interesting thing.

Max Larocque

Yeah. And it's not the most positive word, for sure, but that's like genuinely speaking, just in terms of where I'm at with my own recovery 

Dawn Taylor

Right now in life. You're an agitator. 

Max Larocque

Genuinely speaking. Three weeks, completely sober. Wouldn't say I'm proud of that being the word that I would describe myself, but that is probably the most accurate word to describe myself. And my family as a whole is just constantly and consistently agitated with every little thing. And that's not the word that I want to describe myself with. Hence, me being, as mentioned earlier, balls deep in the working on myself. A season of my life, we can call it.

Dawn Taylor

You know what, on behalf of myself and everyone listening, though, I want to say congratulations.

Max Larocque

Thank you very much for that.

Dawn Taylor

I've overcome some drugs myself, and mine was a medically induced drug addiction, but I was eating 25 percocet a day and 40 milligrams of BuTrans patch for nine months. And so, again, yeah, had a pretty good addiction going on and totally medically-induced, but I had to come off of it in order to have a surgery and stay off of it. And I cold turkeyed. And I know how hard that was. And I know how hard it was to stay off of it and to stay in recovery even to this day. I have days. And so, congratulations.

Max Larocque

Well, thank you. I was going to say, if you don't mind me asking, what was your three months like of that?

Dawn Taylor

Of recovery? It was interesting because it was so I cold turkey dolphin for anyone listening who doesn't know, BuTrans is legalized heroin like, it's a patch that they give you typically in the hospital, if you like. My grandpa had Butran's patch when he was dying cancer, and he had, like, five different cancers, and it was in his bones. And so they had given him a small dosage of it. I think it was five milligrams. And I was on 40. Yeah. And it pretty much knocked him into a coma. I'm talking like I was on mass doses. I should have actually gone to rehab to come off of it. They put you into a medically-induced coma and I cold turkey. And so part of it was I'd gone on the meds and the drugs because I was in such excruciating pain, and I needed it till surgery because I was blacking out from pain and nothing touched the pain. It was so big. And so they were worried about my heart stopping from the pain level being too high. So they kept bumping up and bumping up and bumping up and bumping up what I was on, trying to get the pain under control, because they're like, “We can either deal with you coming off of drugs, or we can deal with you dying from a heart attack. We have to figure out how to keep you alive.” So when I finally got the surgery, I went cold turkey two weeks before surgery date, because I had to be two weeks clean so that they could put me back under to have surgery, and so those first three months were brutal because I was also recovering from a full radical hysterectomy and couldn't use painkillers and couldn't use anything, but the pain was gone. Like, the excruciating pain was gone. So I felt amazing, but I still would find myself in my car, driving around, determining if I was going to actually go find someone on the street to buy drugs from.

Max Larocque

And had you done a lot of, I guess, inner work leading up to that part of your life? 

Dawn Taylor

I had. So I had done a ton of work already at that point, and so it was interesting because it wasn't an emotional addiction, it was a physical addiction, but there was a weird shame attached to it. There was weird guilt attached to it. There was this lack of understanding attached to it, but also, like, “What the hell is this feeling?” And now I have to overcome this, and, oh, no, I write about it in my book, like, fully hallucinating, pulling out my hair, scraping the drywall off the walls. I was a solid ten days of that. Like, full hallucinations for 10, 12 days before I felt even human. 

Max Larocque

Holy shit. 

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. 

Max Larocque

That's wild. Well, thank you for sharing that. I wasn't sure if you want me to ask. 

Dawn Taylor

I don't know. No, I'm totally comfortable talking about it because mine wasn't people. And I think part of it is people do assume that most addiction comes from something hard that happened in someone's life and from a trauma. And it isn't always like, how many people out there are medically addicted to prescriptions, right? But then comes an emotional addiction in the middle of it. But also, there was a grieving process. I had to go to my grandpa's funeral like that. And I don't remember large portions of it. And I hid it from everyone. Nobody knew. People in my life didn't know. And so that was really hard. But then I still catch myself. And being brutally honest, I still catch myself some days. I was with someone a little while ago and they were taking T three’s or Percocet or something for something, and I saw them shake one out of that bottle. And if every ounce of my body didn't just be like, “Yes, I want that.” I think my husband was even there. And he kind of looked at me and I was like, “Fuck! Still?” It's been nine years. And I still had that moment of like, “Oh, but I wouldn't give for that.” Then I was like, no, because life is worth living, and I know I can't keep recovering from that. 

Max Larocque

Yeah, it goes to show the environmental triggers and just how like something huge, someone opening up a T Three bottle, how that can trigger that, and then just being aware of that when you are. I would say. in an early sobriety is super important. Because if there are certain environments that you should shouldn't be in, then do not fucking put yourself in them. 

Dawn Taylor

For me, it was like last fall, I had a double ear infection and I had to fly. And so I went to a walk-in clinic because the meds weren't working. And I was like, “Can I fly or am I going to rupture my eardrums?” And they were like, “Probably rupture. But here's like five things you can do to hopefully minimize it. But you're going to be in excruciating pain. We'll give you some meds to take care of it.” And he starts writing out a prescription for oxy, like, not even batting an eye because he knew the excruciating pain I was going to be in. And it took me a second. And I am very far into feeling very mentally healthy. And it took me a second where I was like, “No, sorry, I can't take that. But I'll get some Tylenol and Advil at a drugstore.” Yeah. And he was like, “Don, that's not going to be enough.” And I was like, “It'll be okay.”

Max Larocque

It'll be enough for you, right? 

Dawn Taylor

Like, it'll be enough for me. And I still probably won't even take that because meds scare me a little, right? But in those moments, right? And that, for me, was a moment where I was like, “Oh, okay, so if that still nine years later, could elicit that little muscle response of like, but it's only, like, five, I could probably just enjoy those for the next week.” Like, right? Even that, I was like, “Okay, do I need to make sure that I go with someone to a doctor's appointment?” Do I need to make sure that when I went to my pharmacist that day, I was like, “Can you please put a note on my file that I am not allowed to have hard narcotics?”

Max Larocque

Going to say it's almost crazy that they don't ask that first. They just don't even look into the history of things. Like you said, they don't got an eye. They just write the prescription. 

Dawn Taylor

Right? But for me, I was like, “Oh, I need to actually go do something about that, because that was a weird feel.” Right? And it doesn't happen often, but I think that people also need to be aware of that is someone could be sober for how many years? And that one split second that something happens and your whole body is like muscle memory, you're just like, “Oh, that would feel good.”

Max Larocque

And that's the interesting part with the central nervous system and just how responsive your central nervous system is. And that's important to be aware of what your body actually feels like in certain environments. 

Dawn Taylor

Totally. 

Max Larocque

Because then you can start paying attention to, you can call it your intuition, whatever, but it's like when you have that gut feeling, it's there for a reason. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, 100%. 

Max Larocque

And I've talked to people about that since, because I'm very vulnerable with my clients and stuff, too, on what I'm going through. And just like, if something pops up, it's like, no, I wasn't going to, but man, did I think about it, right? So let me walk you through how I processed it. And for me, and I would challenge you even three weeks in doing the same, is I made a list of all the things in my life I had to live for, right? People in my life that it was like, “No, I need to be able to look at that and put a value on that.” What does that actually look like for me of continuing to live, continuing to thrive, continuing to be happy, continuing to be sober, right? Continuing to work on my mental health? What is the value that I'm going to attach to that versus the value of doing the opposite.

Max Larocque

I know I've heard sort of the analogy of like, instead of looking at, what are you taking away? It's like, what are you gaining?

Dawn Taylor

Totally. Because if I look at it, what I'm taking away, I can justify the hell out of it. 

Max Larocque

Exactly. Right? 

Dawn Taylor

Always. 

Max Larocque

Exactly. So it's just putting that more positive spin to it, of, like, again, I'm gaining this, I'm gaining financial security, I'm gaining stability, I'm gaining control of myself, I'm gaining blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it may be. But taking that lens to it instead of just the deprivation side of things, of I'm losing 

Dawn Taylor

Totally. And, yeah, it's been interesting. So thank you. Thank you, Max, for joining us today. Thank you for hanging out, for being so vulnerable and open and honest, especially so quick into recovery. I'm smiling because I'm like, wow, you signed up to talk about this when you weren't even sober. And I love that. I love that, though, honestly, you don't have to be through it to talk about it. And I hope today even helped you to just have this conversation. And so for anyone listening, I hope that you heard something that can help you, support you, that gives you a little bit of insight. If nothing else, read a book and understand the people around you different. You're not alone. So join us again in two weeks for another amazing topic. Tell your friends. Share this with people, because I don't think we know anyone who has not been affected by addiction in some way, shape, or form. Guys, even your cell phones. Check out the show notes located at TheTaylorWay.ca. For more information and all of Max's contact info, subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you want to listen to your podcasts. And if you love the show, I would love it if you'd leave a rating or review. See you guys later.