Introduction and Episode Announcements

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 800

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's September 25, 2017, and we're very excited to bring to you another live Mormon Stories podcast. I should note at the top of the hour that I'm receiving word that Gret Palmer may have passed away. I don't have final confirmation of that, but his face, I'm getting word of that from others. And his Facebook page is basically saying, in remembrance of the late Grant Palmer.

John Dehlin [00:01:07] So, you know, hold off before you for sure conclude that in fact, Grant has passed. But whether or not he's passed, our love and our thoughts go to Grant Palmer and his family. And if indeed he has passed, we just want Grant you to know that we love you and we appreciate you. We're thinking of you.

John Dehlin [00:01:30] In Grant's final lunch that I had with him about a month ago, he told me that I asked him what he thought about Heaven, what would happen in heaven. He said he wasn't scared to die. He was eager to be reunited with his first wife, Heaven, who he misses and loves. And he said that he thinks that in heaven he'll be a teacher of the gospel of Christ. He'll be a gardener because he loves gardening. And he'll be able to take care of pigeons because he loves taking care of pigeons. And Grant, if you have passed, I hope you get your wishes. I hope they all come true and many more.

John Dehlin [00:02:06] But much love to you, Grant Palmer. Regardless. Today on Mormon Stories Podcast, we are going to be continuing our series on drug addiction or opiate addiction and recovery. And I'm very excited to have Graham as our guest. And we're going to be talking to Graham in just a second about his story of how he came to use harder drugs and how he experienced addiction as a Mormon and his battle with recovery. Before we turn to that, I'm going to just make a couple quick announcements.

John Dehlin [00:02:52] October 27th, we're going to be having a workshop in Salt Lake City on finding spirituality and improving mental health during a faith crisis. It'll be in Utah County. It's a one day workshop and it's the first time we're going to try this one day workshop thing where you don't have to worry about finding babysitters necessarily for the evening or finding a place to stay overnight. We're going to try and do a full one day workshop.

John Dehlin [00:03:16] October 27th. We're also doing a half day workshop in Utah county on Nov. 17, dealing with healthy relationships that can include marriages, mixed faith marriages, Communicating with believing, family and friends, emotional intimacy, etc. So we're experimenting with these smaller workshops based on demand.

John Dehlin [00:03:37] So also November 19th, 9th and 10th, we'll be doing a full workshop for Mormon stories in the San Francisco Bay Area. And we're accepting nominations for events in 2018. So please email us@mormonstoriesmail.com if you want us to hold an event in your area. And then finally, for those interested, of course, we have our cruise to the Bahamas October 24 through 28. In the fall of 2018, our heartfelt love and support go to all those impacted by the hurricanes in the Caribbean. And if for some reason our plans change, we'll let you know. But those are our events and that is our.

Welcome to Graham

John Dehlin [00:04:19] Now it's time for our interview with Graham. For those of you who have tuned in live, we have 40 people who have tuned in so far. We want to welcome you to this episode. The reason why we do live interviews and broadcast them is so that we can get support interaction. We can make these interviews interactive with others.

John Dehlin [00:04:43] If any of you have questions about addiction or opiate addiction, drug addiction, if you have questions for Graham, if you have comments or feedback about recovery, we would love for you to post your questions, post your comments and we can incorporate them into this interview.

John Dehlin [00:04:59] That would be great. And so without any further ado, we want to welcome Graham to this podcast. So, Graham, thanks so much for joining us.

Graham [00:05:11] Thanks for having me, John.

Graham's Mormon Childhood and Faith

John Dehlin [00:05:14] Okay, so for our listeners, this is part two in our series. We've already done one interview. It's going to be released in the next few days. Graham, you're gonna be the second interview. So maybe if you can, how would you feel about starting with just a little bit about your Mormon story? Kind of your Mormon upbringing. To what extent was it a normal Mormon upbringing or not a normal Mormon upbringing?

Graham [00:05:38] Yeah, so I would consider my upbringing pretty, pretty typical, pretty straight laced Mormon. We went to church every Sunday for all three hours and it was never a question of whether we are or we're not going to go to church. It was just what happened and we're all happy to do it. I attended Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and was always super active in that program, you know, in my youth at least. And there was about as straight edge Mormon as you would consider someone. Caffeinated sodas were never, never a thing in our household.

John Dehlin [00:06:31] Okay, so kind of an orthodox upbringing, would you say?

Graham [00:06:36] Yeah, I'd say pretty orthodox. We never did anything other than church on Sundays. My parents would never work on Sundays, wouldn't watch movies other than those Book of Mormon animated series pretty much was the only entertainment on Sundays.

John Dehlin [00:07:02] What state, what state were you raised in?

Graham [00:07:03] Mostly state. Southern California is where I was raised.

John Dehlin [00:07:09] Okay, talk about your, you know, love for the church. Did you love it, did you hate it, did you like it? Sort of. In your childhood and teen years, what did the church mean to you personally?

Graham [00:07:23] So it was, it was just who I was. It was all I knew. My whole kind of basis of how I viewed the world was church oriented. I always identified myself as the Mormon kid because I was in a place where there I was in Utah, was in Idaho. It was fairly sparse, Mormon wise.

Graham [00:07:59] It wasn't like I was the only one. In my school we had maybe a hundred people, maybe 100 people. Yeah, who are Mormons in my school. But in my group of friends, I was the Mormon kid and my friends knew that and they knew that I didn't drink coffee and tea. They never really asked why and they never asked about it kind of thing.

Graham [00:08:26] I think it was a big part of how I viewed myself and how I viewed my future too. Going on a mission was just something that was going to happen. It wasn't a question of am I going to do it, am I not going to do it as well when I turn 19, that's what will happen.

John Dehlin [00:08:49] Right. What did you have? Do you feel like you had a testimony growing up and if so, what was your testimony based on and what were your favorite parts about being a Mormon?

Graham [00:09:02] I did have a testimony. It wasn't something I ever thought twice about as a pretty shy kid. So I was never the type to go up on fast and testimony day and bear my testimony. But it, I never questioned the doctrine of the church. That was just. It wasn't even a thought to question it, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:09:31] Sure. What did prayer mean to you?

Graham [00:09:42] You know, our family always prayed before meals and we prayed before we go on road trips. And I'd say I was probably pretty good about praying before I go to bed kind of thing. And I thought I knew as a kid that someone was listening to me. That was. It was. I don't know. I know I keep saying this, but like questioning it was so far out of the realm of like even a thought, like that was just how it was.

John Dehlin [00:10:24] So did you kind of take comfort and belief in God that you had a loving heavenly father who took care of you kind of thing?

Graham [00:10:34] Yeah, it made life gave a format to my life and it gave. It gave hope of happy and long life because I saw people at church living happy and fulfilling lives in the church. I saw. I saw it as the whole concept of eternal life and, like, reaching that goal sounded awesome. Like, I don't know why anyone wouldn't want that.

John Dehlin [00:11:16] Yeah, sure. What were your favorite parts about being Mormon?

Graham [00:11:27] You know, I had some. My best friend growing up was Mormon. He lived around the corner from me, and I was. I think he was probably in a different. At some point, I moved, and we were in different wards. But my closest friend was this Mormon kid, and he remained close friends with me for long time. So I had that kind of social connection, at least when I was young, to the church. And I enjoyed scouting. I enjoyed campouts, and I enjoyed scout camp. It was, I guess, more the social aspects I enjoyed as a younger kid.

John Dehlin [00:12:18] Social aspects. Okay. Did your ward feel like a family to you?

Graham [00:12:27] So, I mean, I. I'd say so. I had some from about the time I was, let me think, probably about 9 or 10 years old. I was in the same ward up until the time I graduated high school. And the ward I was in was a. Had a smaller group of youth. It was kind of a lot of older couples with fairly limited youth kind of people my age, at least. I think that may have changed a little bit in recent years. More young people moved in.

John Dehlin [00:13:10] Okay.

Graham [00:13:13] So I. Yeah.

Early Drug Experimentation as a Mormon

John Dehlin [00:13:17] So talk about how in the world you would start using. Using drugs as a Mormon kid that kind of was in a family that didn't even allow caffeine or use caffeine and who kind of really believed in the church and would never question it. How does that happen?

Graham [00:13:37] So I've tried to spend, you know, some time looking back and trying to figure out where my earliest. Where that kind of earliest thought kind of crept into my life. And it basically revolved around about my junior year in High School, 16, 17 years old or so. And I was kind of somewhat dating, but not dating this Mormon girl. That ended poorly, to say the least. And from that point, I kind of didn't want anything to do with Mormonism. Like, in that. In that breakup, I kind of shunned everything that she stood for. And, you know, it was my first pseudo relationship as a kid. I was young and thought I was in love with this girl, and, you know, it. That first breakup's always pretty tough on a kid when they're trying to figure out who they are in life. And later high school years are pretty formative in a kid's life, I think.

John Dehlin [00:15:05] Sure. So are you saying the breakup kind of caused you to Question your faith a little bit or.

Graham [00:15:16] It led me to not necessarily question the faith. I still believed it, but didn't want to practice it. Okay, so I still went to church all the time and still completely believed it, but found ways to. Justify in my own head that well, I could still believe it and try weed or try drinking. So there's a lot of mess going on in my head at that time.

John Dehlin [00:15:55] Okay, so you, so you started, did you start with alcohol, did you start with smoking? Or did you start with just actual, actual drugs?

Graham [00:16:08] So really the first I had taken opiates maybe around 15 or 16 after a surgery I had a sinus surgery because I pretty prone to sinus infections. And I, from what I recall, I generally took them as prescribed, but I also enjoyed it. They feel good, but it was never anything that I was kind of seeking out. So really the first thing I tried was smoking weed. And that was during my senior year of high school, a little after I turned 18 years old.

John Dehlin [00:16:56] What was that like to try marijuana as a devout, believing Mormon?

Graham [00:17:06] So I guess between 16 and 18 years old, I kind of started being a little more rebellious in my actions. Sneaking out at night with friends, not doing drugs or anything, but wandering around town or driving around to the beach at 2am so just dumb things that all kind of just light up to being slightly more rebellious. And the next logical step was trying marijuana. And that was, you know, at the time it didn't seem like that big of a deal because, you know, I had been doing all these little rebellious things kind of leading up to that for the, a couple years prior. So it wasn't this big. There just wasn't a whole lot of guilt associated with it like I kind of expected there to be. It was as well that happened and that's that.

John Dehlin [00:18:30] Sure. And did. So did, did you find that, you know, what role did the marijuana play for you?

Graham [00:18:41] So at first it was, it was just fun, it was recreational, it was something to do with my high school friends on weekends. It came to also somewhere in that 16 to 18 year old range, I started having panic attacks serious enough to the point where I ended up seeing a psychiatrist to see what they wanted to do.

Graham [00:19:18] And I was prescribed, I believe, Ativan at first, which is a Benzo. It's like Xanax, but a little bit longer lasting. And it's kind of designed for anxiety and panic attacks. So I was taking that kind of irregularly for a couple of years as needed. And at some point I stopped taking that and using marijuana seemed to be just as effective in kind of helping mediate panic attacks.

Graham [00:19:59] So it became less recreational and more like. I know I said this in jest before, but it's more medicinal than recreational. And in California at the time, that was a legitimate and legal use for marijuana. In my mind, a safer alternative to some of those prescription medications, too.

John Dehlin [00:20:34] Okay. And so that was around what age that you started taking it medicinally?

Graham [00:20:42] Around about 18 to 19. So senior year of high school and then kind of leading into college.

John Dehlin [00:20:54] And did you hide it from your parents or did they know or.

Graham [00:21:00] So I did my best to hide it. There was one time that they found out. I forgot who. Some friend of a friend of mine, I think, casually mentioned to them that they knew I was smoking weed. So they brought that up to me, and it was awful. And I went to go confess to my bishop at the time, because that's what you do. But I also didn't stop smoking weed after I confessed to my bishop. So it was more of a gesture of getting my parents off my back than it was actually feeling bad and repentance about it.

John Dehlin [00:22:01] Okay. Do you. Some people say that marijuana isn't addictive, and I don't claim to totally understand what that might mean or not mean. What would your response to that sort of be? What was it like for you? Did you find it to be addictive? Not addictive? What would you say?

Graham [00:22:27] I. That's a fuzzy area, because myself, I wouldn't consider it to be, you know, addictive. I didn't find myself addicted to it. But I've also met people who've had serious problems as a result of using it too much. So it's. It's tough to put a blanket statement on it, like marijuana activists tend to do, that it's not addictive, because really anything can be addictive in a way. It's just how you use it and when you use it and why you use it and how you manage your life around using it.

John Dehlin [00:23:19] And what. And if you would have described why you're using it and how often you're using it, what would it be at that time? At that time?

Graham [00:23:29] At that time, I would say it was basically for medicinal use.

John Dehlin [00:23:42] Just the chronic.

Graham [00:23:42] The chronic pain. Chronic pain, for just anxiety, really. And it helped me sleep at night. I've had sleep issues for a long time, so it also helped me get to sleep at night.

John Dehlin [00:23:57] Okay. All right, so. And again, I'm guessing it didn't affect your belief, still stayed strong. You just weren't as into the church and you felt okay, you know, using a little bit. Is that. Is that fair to say?

Graham [00:24:19] Yeah, my beliefs. The truth of the Church wasn't a question still at that point, you know, that the foundational claims of truth, claims of the Church were still as true as they ever had been in my mind.

John Dehlin [00:24:37] Okay.

Graham [00:24:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:41] And did you feel a lot of guilt?

Graham [00:24:42] Justification? In my head, I think, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:44] How'd you justify it?

Graham [00:24:49] At least with the marijuana, I justified it as being. As being medicine. And since a doctor prescribed it to me in a way, it was not illegal. And I felt that within the Church's guidelines, you know, I had kind of tried the standard medicine that a doctor would give you, and that wasn't great for me. So I tried an alternative medicine for a doctor, and I thought, you know, if. If it's legal and a doctor saying it's okay, I should be able to do it within the realm of the church.

John Dehlin [00:25:29] Cool. I think that's still true today. I think, as I understand that there are Mormons everywhere that are using medical marijuana to treat some sort of condition, and their bishops are fine with it. So I don't think medicinal marijuana in 2017 is considered against the word of wisdom by the LDS Church. That's my impression. Is that your impression?

Graham [00:25:54] I mean, it makes sense within the framework of the Church, I think. Yeah, I would say that it should be okay. It makes sense to me. That would be okay.

John Dehlin [00:26:07] Yeah. Because what's the difference between marijuana and some big pharma chemical drug that you're using for whatever reason? It's all different ways to Medicaid, right?

Graham [00:26:18] Yeah. There's tons of ways to treat the same ailment and whatever works.

John Dehlin [00:26:26] So tell me, Graham, how you progressed from medicinal use to sort of the use of hard drugs and addiction? And then talk about maybe if BYU mission service fell in the middle there at.

Graham [00:26:46] Yes. So up until. So, yeah, all the way. Okay. After high school, I went to BYU for my freshman year. And up and up all through freshman year, marijuana and alcohol were the only things that I had tried or used, I believe.

Graham [00:27:17] Yeah. So my mindset towards the Church didn't really change during my beginning of my time at BYU, at least then I turned 19 at the beginning of my kind of fall in my freshman year, so near the beginning.

Graham [00:27:42] And my parents kind of started asking about turning in my papers and getting ready to go on a mission. They were aware at least a little bit of my drug use in high school. They didn't know anything else was still going on.

Graham [00:28:05] So I ended up talking with a therapist at BYU to kind of help flesh out my thoughts and figure out how I should bring this up with my parents, that I wasn't gonna go on a mission. So we kind of worked through some things. At some point, I let them know that I couldn't justify teaching people something that I didn't live and something that I wasn't 100% sure about.

Graham [00:28:51] So it. So it was this kind of conversation with my parents, mostly over email, I believe, while I was at byu, kind of trying to flush these things out with them. And. Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't pretty for a while.

John Dehlin [00:29:18] Meaning your parents weren't very happy.

Graham [00:29:23] Yeah. I must have told them that. I also wasn't planning on coming back to BYU somewhere in there, which is also another big blow, because they don't. That was my plan. Go on a mission, come back to byu, and then graduate. My parents had both graduated from byu, and I had a sister who attended byu, graduated byu. So it was just that that was the expectation within the church. That was the expectation of my life. That's all I knew, and that's all I. Even then, when I was questioning whether I wanted to live the teachings of the church, I never thought what the alternative would be for my life. So I never thought what it might be like to not go on a mission. My life plan basically ended at mission and byu, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:30:34] So in other words, you've been planning your whole life to do BYU mission and then career afterwards, but now that BYU and mission didn't happen, you're stuck just wondering if you had a future and what that might be. Is that what you're saying?

Graham [00:30:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. That's basically it.

John Dehlin [00:30:57] Oh, go ahead.

Graham [00:30:58] Yeah,

John Dehlin [00:31:01] Real quick. A lot of Mormon youth experience severe guilt and shame as teens and adults for either masturbation or sexual activity in some way or, you know, making mistakes. And then, of course, I can imagine that deciding not to go on a mission and dropping out of BYU would bring you a lot of shame and guilt, potentially. Talk about the role of shame and guilt in your Mormon life. You know, all along the way, from your teen years up, did you. Were you racked with shame and guilt up through your BYU years or not? And then did your decision not to go to BYU and on a mission caused a lot of shame and guilt?

Graham [00:31:51] So as. So as a kid, you know, the only thing that I ever recall feeling guilty of doing was masturbating. Like, that was. That was the only thing that in my younger years, my Behavior that was out of line with the church and wasn't the, you know, all I knew about anything sexual at all was that it was forbidden and it's gonna ruin your life and it's addictive and it's unhealthy and it's awful.

Graham [00:32:40] So it was, it was me fighting with, well this is awesome, why isn't this okay versus I'm gonna spend eternity in outer darkness because of it. So it was something that at least probably through middle school, early high school was something I was ashamed of really is probably the right word for it.

Graham [00:33:17] If anyone asked, I would never admit to, to masturbating because that's. I just viewed it as everyone knew I was Mormon and everyone knew that I wasn't supposed to be doing that. But I just never, never thought outside of the Mormon bubble. I never thought that well this is probably healthy and okay, like everyone probably does this.

Graham [00:33:51] It was always associated with the negative emotions and not it was associated with out of the norm. It wasn't something that a good Mormon should do was what's going through my mind.

John Dehlin [00:34:07] Sure, but not tormented like you wouldn't. It wouldn't be accurate maybe for you to say that that early drug use was in some way to medicate the guilt and shame that Mormonism gave you. That was what our first interviewee sort of, you know, along with having been sexually abused. It sounds like guilt and shame wasn't a source of massive torment and pain and anguish for you through your BYU time.

Graham [00:34:36] I wouldn't say it was. No, it was more. It was more either acting out against and least in the first case that early ex girlfriend or is acting out against, you know, my, my parents are acting out against later on another ex girlfriend. So it was less associated with guilt or trying to medicate the guilt and more associated with rebellion.

Leaving BYU and Escalating Drug Use

John Dehlin [00:35:14] Okay, so talk about how you went from leaving BYU to sort of and not going on admission to trying the harder drugs and then drug addiction. How did that progress?

Graham [00:35:27] So when I left byu, I moved back to San Diego with a Mormon ish friend of mine who was also no longer practicing Mormon. And me and him and some friends got an apartment together down in Southern California. And it was five or six of us in a two bedroom apartment. It was basically weed and alcohol all the time. And eventually that kind of led to experimenting with things. Like probably the next thing I tried after that was either cocaine or LSD would have been all during that time in that apartment. It was all recreational. It was all. Someone would get a hold of it and we'd try it once and that's it. Or we'd. Yeah. So it was all recreational at first. It was all a big party and it was all fun. It was all, you know, harmless in our thought.

John Dehlin [00:36:48] Sure, yeah. Cocaine is a pretty serious step, right?

Graham [00:36:58] I thought, growing up, I thought cocaine was awful and terrible and the worst thing out there. And eventually I convinced myself that it was just another party drug. It was just like smoking weed or having a drink, which it's not. It's fairly, fairly serious in terms of, you know, addiction potential. And there's always danger in illegal drugs because you never know what. You never know what you're getting. You never know where it came from. So that, that was probably the next big step was justifying that.

John Dehlin [00:37:45] And you hear about. So you would say, looking back,

Graham [00:37:50] well,

John Dehlin [00:37:51] first of all, some people like to say that marijuana is a gateway drug. And then others are insistent that marijuana is not a gateway drug. What would you say in your experience, would you say marijuana became for you a slippery slope that led to the harder drugs?

Graham [00:38:15] For myself, I wouldn't say so after byu, at the beginning of the time in our apartment back in Southern California, I eventually stopped smoking weed, pretty much. I still drank and still tried other things, but I didn't stop smoking weed because it wasn't working or I didn't like it, or I. It was curiosity and it was, it was fun. We just never really thought ahead. I wouldn't say for me that it was gateway drug. No weed dealer ever offered me heroin.

John Dehlin [00:39:11] But like, as it's sort of like, well, I'll try marijuana and wow, it makes me feel really good. Makes you want to try other things. What about from that perspective?

Graham [00:39:26] I mean, I, yes, I could see some of that in myself. I think a lot of it also had to do with the. My change in perspective of how I viewed marijuana from being a Mormon who thought smoking was the worst thing in the world to kind of realizing that marijuana is really not that bad for most people. So kind of realizing that the church and the DARE drug programs in middle school were all way overblowing the effects and the consequences of using marijuana. Well, if they weren't that truthful about marijuana, why should I trust them on the other things? So, yeah, marijuana was fun. It was great. And curiosity led me to, you know, experiment in a way.

John Dehlin [00:40:36] So cocaine and LSD I do have, I know that in the post Mormon community, experiments with hallucinogens like LSD or mushrooms, that's something that I see with some frequency. Is that Again, is that something? So it sounds like you're saying cocaine was not good. Is that fair to say that you think cocaine is just a flat out mistake or not?

Graham [00:41:10] For me, someone with anxiety and panic problems to begin with probably wasn't a good idea to, you know, meddling something that's gonna likely make all of that worse.

John Dehlin [00:41:25] What about just the addictive, what about just the addictive properties of it, the danger of it?

Graham [00:41:33] I think that anxiety, it gave me negated any positive effects that it might have had. So yeah, I was scared before, but I also wasn't worried that I would enjoy it enough to be addicted to it.

John Dehlin [00:41:53] Okay, so for you, you're saying cocaine wasn't addictive?

Graham [00:41:57] For me, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:59] If you, if you had adult children and they're like, dad, should I try it or not, what would you say? It's up to you, or would you say stay away?

Graham [00:42:10] I mean, I wouldn't condone breaking the law, but I also wouldn't call the cops on them if they said they had done that.

John Dehlin [00:42:22] I guess I'm just saying, having been through this, I'm guessing there's going to be some things where you're like, you know what, it depends on the situation and then other things you're just going to say, nope, stay away from that. It's bad. I'm not hearing you say that for cocaine or lsd. Is that true?

Graham [00:42:43] I mean, I wouldn't be happy and I wouldn't condone anyone using cocaine. I think that's a lot more of a slippery slope than marijuana or hallucinogens can be. Okay, so I definitely, that's in a different class than some others.

John Dehlin [00:43:06] So for you there's a place maybe for medical or responsible marijuana or even hallucinogenic use. Cocaine sort of outside the realm of what you feel like is likely going to be a good experience for people.

Graham [00:43:24] Yeah, it's, that's definitely in a different category, outside the realm of helpful or, you know, kind of brush it off kind of thing.

John Dehlin [00:43:37] So tell us how it advanced after, after LSD and cocaine.

Graham [00:43:43] So there was, you know, a handful of occasions when I would have tried ecstasy, but that was also, I put in the same category as cocaine. It was fine, but it wasn't life changing and I wouldn't condone it for anyone else.

Graham [00:44:10] So I lived in that apartment with all those people for about a little over a year. And I guess I should probably clarify during all that year time I was working at least one full time job. So none of my drug use at all ever Got in the way of living my life and paying my rent and working 40 to 60, 60 hours a week.

Graham [00:44:47] So it never interfered with my personal life. It never interfered with my work life. So that's probably an important clarification to make at least for that year of my life. And at the end of that, I moved to Northern California and decided to go back to school.

Graham [00:45:19] So I had left, you know, all those Southern California friends and moved up with some family in Northern California. And by then I was not smoking weed at all. And I was drinking. I wouldn't say regularly, but I was drinking a couple times a week. Maybe.

Graham [00:45:57] This would have been right around the time I. Probably shortly after I turned 20. So it's still not legal for me to drink at the time. Yeah, so I went to school in Northern California and didn't really have any friends up there. I had family up there, but.

Graham [00:46:28] And once I kind of delved back into schoolwork, even the drinking took a backseat for a little bit. Just because I needed to focus on school. I was going to school full time at some point I got a job on top of that.

Graham [00:46:51] So there wasn't a whole lot of time to be messing around with drinking or drugs. So the first year up in San Francisco is pretty mild, I'd say. And it would have been at some point while I was up there. I had been dating this girl from Southern California since the end of high school.

Graham [00:47:28] And at some point while I was up there, we broke up. And I didn't take that too well. So this was kind of a. Probably another big turning point. I'd say at that time I was 21. So, yeah, I'd been there about a year. We broke up.

Graham [00:48:02] It had been a three year relationship and I was not ready for it to end. And I kind of lashed out by drinking heavily and kind of stopped taking care of my health. And that resulted in me getting fairly sick and ending up in the hospital a handful of times while I was up in San Francisco.

Graham [00:48:31] So I guess part of the story here is that I have a disease called cystic fibrosis, which is a lung disease and a digestive disease. And it makes me prone to lung infections and sickness in general a lot more than your average person.

Graham [00:49:00] So I stopped taking care of my lungs and ended up in the hospital again with lung infection, sinus infections. And at some point in there I was prescribed some sort of opiate, Trying to think what it was it would have been.

Graham [00:49:29] I think it was. I think it was oxycodone. Really low Dose, but a pretty serious opiate for headaches. At least that's what I was taking them for. Yeah. So this was all. Yeah. Where was I? So, yeah, I wasn't taking care of myself. Wasn't.

Graham [00:50:04] I wouldn't say I was trying to make myself sick, but I also just didn't care anymore. Like, I enjoyed being drunk at class or at work. I enjoyed taking opiates at work or in class. So my school performance started slipping a little bit.

Graham [00:50:36] I stopped showing up to some classes, and I stopped doing work for classes. And it was all just this combination of working too much, being sick, and not caring that all kind of piled up all at once while I was living up there in San Francisco.

Graham [00:51:05] Yeah. So I guess. So. I guess so. In relation to the church at this point. I remember that when I first moved up there, my parents must have transferred my records to whatever ward I was living up there because I started getting calls from home teachers or elders quorum or someone at some point and inviting me to church. And there was. I forgot his name. Reese. I don't know. He's Bob Reese.

John Dehlin [00:51:53] Bob Reese. Bob Reese, yeah.

Graham [00:51:54] Yeah. I think he was in my. He was in my ward boundaries up there. And I met with him a couple times just because he knew that I told him that I was not really into the church anymore. I didn't buy into it. And I met with him a couple times, and he was kind of an interesting guy to talk to, but I also kind of brushed him off because I just didn't want to deal with the church at this point. Like, I hadn't really questioned the truth of the church, and I had thought about it, but I just shut it out of my life. Just to kind of give a little bit of reference for where my Mormon brain is at during all of this. Yeah.

From Occasional Opiate Use to Addiction

John Dehlin [00:53:01] And so how did things go from just occasional opiate use to addiction? And what was that like for you?

Graham [00:53:12] So for a while, I really disliked opiates. Kind of all through high school. I mean, they were. It felt good, but I never overly enjoyed them. They made me feel weird. They made me feel kind of nauseous. So at some point, something kind of switched in my outlook, and I realized that if I.

Graham [00:53:48] Instead of just eating the pill, if I wanted to crush it up and snort it or something else, then it actually felt pretty good. So it started with that prescription for the headaches. And eventually my doctor said that she didn't want to prescribe that anymore because it was dangerous.

Graham [00:54:14] And I think this is probably fairly common in the addiction community. But I decided that heroin was cheaper and, you know, theoretically stronger than buying pills on the street. And I found a guy and started using heroin. And this would have been when I was about.

Graham [00:54:52] 21 or so, probably tail end of 21. And it, even at that time, the jump from taking pills to using heroin didn't seem like that big of a progression to me. In my mind at the time, they had been such little like tiny steps leading up to that in my life that changing from snorting opiate pills to using heroin was just another tiny progression.

Graham [00:55:31] So I think that kind of might have mitigated any kind of guilt or shame that you, you know, one might think that be associated with that because there's all these little concessions along the way. You know, if I did this, well, you know, this isn't that different. If I did that, this really isn't that much different.

John Dehlin [00:56:00] That's kind of the slippery slope idea, right? That's kind of. Yeah, slippery slope, right. It's just little steps.

Graham [00:56:09] Yeah. And that's really what, what played out in my life. I didn't notice at the time because I just wasn't paying attention. I wasn't even considering that. That's a thought. You know, looking back at it was kind of this slow progression into something I never thought I would be.

Graham [00:56:36] You know, once, once heroin came into my life, I never like that my focus shifted to that. Only like that's what I was going to be doing. That's how I'm gonna spend my time, that's how I'm gonna spend my money.

Graham [00:56:56] Because it was so much easier to do that than to deal with feeling sad about a breakup or being stressed about school or about being irritated and getting sick all the time. Any worry, any anxiety, any fear I might have had about anything took a backseat.

Graham [00:57:25] So it gave me this narrow minded focus and it, in a weird way, it gave me a purpose and it gave me, it gave me an identity again, really. Now all that time I'd been kind of. I had been the Mormon kid when I was young, or I had been the kid with CF or I've been, you know, the kid who smokes weed all the time. Or then it, I found this identity that I enjoyed and it turned into, well, this is what my life is now. And I was okay with that. In a.

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 801

John Dehlin [00:00:29] So I'm guessing. I'm guessing looking back now, you'd say that was not good, that it was just stay away from heroin because it takes over. Is that fair to say?

Graham [00:00:44] Oh, yeah. It's. You know, it's. Heroin is a scary one because you don't know if you're gonna be one of those people who's gonna get stuck, who's really gonna like it. And if you are one of those people, it's a hard hole to dig yourself out of. And there are people who use heroin or try heroin and never get addicted. They hate it. It's the worst. But it's such a huge gamble to take. There's no. Yeah, there's no place for that in experimentation, I think.

How Heroin Took Over Daily Life

John Dehlin [00:01:39] Okay, so how did heroin start negatively affecting your life day to day? What. How did it become kind of out of control, bad? What happened?

Graham [00:01:53] So, you know, it turned from very quickly. It turned from, you know, smoking it a couple times a day, or, sorry, a couple times a week, to smoking it every day. And at the beginning, there was never. I don't know why, but I wasn't scared of getting addicted to it because I had thought that, you know, once I took my first hit, I'd be addicted and I'd be stuck, and I'd be doing it all day, every day.

Graham [00:02:34] That wasn't how it turned out. It was a slow build up to eventually realizing too late that I was stuck. So, you know, it made me stop caring about, you know, again, keeping my lungs healthy. So I was back in the hospital a lot.

Graham [00:03:02] I was missing work, and I was sometimes ditching work to go buy drugs. And any money that I had or could get my hands on or could beg for at a gas station was being spent on drugs, on heroin.

Graham [00:03:34] So it slowly, you know, took over my finances and it took over my work life and it took over my health. And there became a point when I kind of realized that and got scared almost because I didn't. I didn't know what to do.

Graham [00:04:02] I didn't have money. I didn't have anyone to turn to. I didn't know if I wanted to keep going to school. And so I was kind of stuck. Like, I hit a wall where I didn't. I just didn't know what to do next.

Graham [00:04:32] And at some point, I was talking to someone who knew that I was using heroin and kind of told them what was going on, and they suggested that maybe I stop, which seems reasonable, but, you know, that the thought of stopping didn't cross my mind. It Was just, well, how am I going to keep using but continue on with my life? Was the question in my head.

Graham [00:05:13] So, yeah, eventually I made a decision that I needed to stop. So I went to an emergency room one night and told them that I had been using heroin and that I would like to be admitted to the hospital so that I could go through withdrawals and get out of my system and continue on with my life.

Hitting Rock Bottom and Seeking Recovery

John Dehlin [00:05:43] Did you have to hit rock bottom before you pursued that?

Graham [00:05:52] Rock bottom is. A tough term and I think it gets, you know, in, in the recovery world, they have people say that you have to hit rock bottom before you'll ever have a chance of getting sober. But everyone's bottom looks. Everyone's rock bottom looks different.

Graham [00:06:23] Some people spend 20 years living on the streets and that's their rock bottom. Some people, a family member, die because of drugs and that's their bottom. But my, you know, my life wasn't sustainable. And that's really all I needed to kind of snap out of it and realize that something needed to change.

Graham [00:06:51] Like I couldn't keep up the life I was living any longer. So it wasn't that I was homeless, it wasn't that I hadn't. That I'd been fired from my job. I was broke and I had. Wasn't on great terms with my parents. I was on okay terms, but I was sick. My lungs were falling apart. I think I was probably in the two months leading up to when I check myself into that er, I was hospitalized for lung infections six or eight times for up to sometimes, you know, a week. The longest ones were two weeks.

Graham [00:07:50] So I wasn't doing well and I wasn't taking care of myself. I might have, you know, had some serious longer term consequences had I kept going. But for me, I didn't need that homelessness. I didn't need. My catalyst into changing, was just that realization that I couldn't sustain it.

John Dehlin [00:08:29] So how many, how many months or years ago was that?

Graham [00:08:33] So that was. I left. I left Northern California. Like January of 2014. So about three and a half years ago. A little over three and a half years. Yeah. So that was. January was the first time that I, that I went to that ER and I told him I was on heroin and to, you know, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what you did at this point. I didn't know that people go to rehab to deal with this. Like, I knew it in the back of my mind, but I never made the connection that that might have to be What I was going to do.

Graham [00:09:25] I didn't really realize that. This kind of sounds naive saying out loud, but I didn't realize I'd have to tell my parents that I was using hard drugs. But when I was 22, I'm on my parents health insurance. Of course they're gonna have to know that I'm in a hospital or somewhere trying to seek treatment for drug addiction.

Graham [00:10:04] Actually, let me rephrase that. They don't have to know because I'm an adult and I'm 18 and I could have not told them. I could have gotten away with not telling them. But the dynamic with my parents at the time, they knew something was wrong, me telling them was the next step. That makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:10:25] Totally. So did you move home at that point?

Graham [00:10:30] Yeah, so I actually. So I went to the er. They. I was in the hospital for maybe three days and I went to a detox facility in Northern California for about three or four more days just to clean out my system pretty much. And it was basically as bare bones of a rehab detox. You could imagine there were, it was an old, I think it was like a farm that they would send, used to send inmates or prisoners out to, to like work release kind of thing. So it was a couple of trailers. One trailer had 20 beds for guys to sleep in, another trailer had 20 beds for girls to sleep in. And then it was basically sweat it out and let the drug get out of your system kind of facility.

John Dehlin [00:11:51] Now I've heard that people can die in that detox process, that it's one of the most painful, terrible things ever and that it can take a long time. So what I heard you say is that it was just a few days. It wouldn't be accurate to say that you can detox from heroin in a few days. Right.

Graham [00:12:15] So there are basically two, only two major drugs that you can die from. The withdrawals alone. One of them being alcohol and the other one being benzos like Xanax or Ativan. Those two, since the drugs themselves are depressants, so they suppress your emotions and your body functions and they, you're, you know what that is? Okay, yeah. So the opposite happens when you stop taking them. So instead of being slow and lethargic and your kind of nerves and muscles being relaxed, you run the risk of having seizures, which are really, really dangerous if you're not monitored by medical staff.

Graham [00:13:21] So this particular facility, they required that you be evaluated at an ER first to make sure that you're not at risk of having seizures at the facility. So that's why I stayed the three days in the hospital or three, four days, whatever that was.

Graham [00:13:46] And they, they weren't worried about that with heroin because heroin withdrawals are really, really uncomfortable. And it's basically like the worst flu you ever had for a week. But they're not gonna kill you.

John Dehlin [00:14:06] Okay.

Graham [00:14:07] And so, I mean, it feels awful, it's really, really uncomfortable, but it's basically something you just have to wait out. There's, there are ways to kind of mitigate the withdrawal effects, but you kind of just have to, it's a time thing, wait for your system to clean out and the medicine or the drug doesn't stay in your system that long. Three, four days, a week tops. And your system's basically cleared it out. It just takes time for all your kind of bodily functions to return back to normal. Kind of realize that you're not going to be giving it that drug anymore.

John Dehlin [00:15:06] Okay, so was that the end of your experiences with drugs? I know that sometimes there are certain drugs that they give you to help you with heroin recovery. Do you know about those drugs and were they a part of your recovery up to this point? They were.

Graham [00:15:32] What are they called the first time around? They were. So there's Suboxone and Subutex or Naltrexone are all kind of variants of an opiate blocker is basically what they are. So they prevent you from getting high if you try to use heroin.

Graham [00:15:59] But they also, some of them have an opiate like chemical in them that connects to the opiate receptors in your brain. So it doesn't really get you high, but it also helps mitigate the withdrawal symptoms. So if you were to be taking the Naltrexone and still try to take heroin or other opiates, your brain would reject it. Nothing would happen. It wouldn't work.

Graham [00:16:36] So this first time around of treatment for me, I didn't use those because it just, it didn't seem like it was necessary at that point. Later on in my, in my use after another treatment attempt, I did use them, but yeah, that was a couple years later after that first round.

Relapse and the Long Road to Sobriety

John Dehlin [00:17:10] So how, how long was it before you relapsed after that first attempt at recovery?

Graham [00:17:19] So, so I moved to Southern California and moved and did a three week treatment program that was a, it's called a PHP or partial hospitalization program. What that means is you're basically at the facility from 7am to 6pm all day, then you go home at night and sleep and come back the next day.

Graham [00:17:53] So I did that for Three weeks while living at my parents again. And it was, I think so after that three weeks I went to a sober living house, a halfway house, whatever the common term is. And it was while I was at that house that I started drinking again.

Graham [00:18:21] Because in my mind I had kind of separated it out, my heroin use from my alcohol use, like they were, you know, I figured if I was addicted to heroin, I could probably still use alcohol and not have any issues, which wasn't the case. And I knew it was against the rules to drink in the sober living house, obviously, because that's not sobriety.

Graham [00:18:53] So that lasted about, I think I didn't drink the first month there. Sometime during the second month I was there, I believe I started drinking. And kind of due to the fact that I had to hide it from the people there.

Graham [00:19:19] And we were breathalyzed every single night. So it was really, it almost like trying to drink in that environment made me drink in an alcoholic manner. Having to hide it, having to lie about it, having to squirm around breathalyzer tests.

Graham [00:19:45] And. Eventually there was a day and I was drinking too much and I knew that I wouldn't be able to go back to the house that night and pass the breathalyzer. And so I just didn't go back to the house.

Graham [00:20:06] I called my parents and told them, I'm like, I've been drinking, I'm not sure what to do. We kind of came to this conclusion, which was probably a bad idea at the time, but I was also starting to get a lung infection again. And they're like, well, would you like to tell your sober house that you've been drinking or do you want to go to the hospital and deal with this lung infection and not tell them so. And they left that up to me. You know, maybe I brought up the idea, but I ended up deciding that I wasn't going to tell my sober house that I had been drinking.

Graham [00:20:59] So I was in the hospital for a week, got back to the sober house and started drinking again. And a week later it happened again. And at that point I was like, yeah, this just isn't gonna happen. I can't stay at the sober house, I can't keep doing this.

Graham [00:21:16] So I crashed in my parents house and called the house manager the next morning and told them what I did and went that night to pack up all my stuff, which is real, real awkward. I gotta say. That's one of the biggest moments of shame I ever felt. Probably having to walk back into the house with, you know, people you've Been living with for two months, three months, probably two months at that point.

Graham [00:21:52] And kind of this feeling of letting them down and lying to them, and they know that you were lying to them. And so it was. Yeah, that was a tough time. And my parents weren't happy, obviously. So they basically said, I have two days to find another treatment, another rehab to go to, or they would pick one and drop me off.

Graham [00:22:33] So I ended up going to this other treatment facility in Southern California. Again, this one was a inpatient treatment, which means everyone was living at the facility 24 7. So it was a little more intense than my first time around.

Graham [00:23:06] And I really did not want to be there. I wasn't happy that I just wasn't in a good headspace to be dealing with, trying to get sober again. Like, I was discouraged and I was annoyed, and I felt like I was being forced there.

Graham [00:23:29] So, yeah, it all got off on the wrong foot. And I lasted there about two weeks, and I got another lung infection and I was in the hospital. So I left the treatment facility, went to a hospital for about two weeks.

Graham [00:23:52] And when I went back to the treatment place, I decided that I had stuck my cell phone in is what I did. And I decided that I was going to find some way to get drugs to the rehab.

Graham [00:24:09] So I did. And a couple of us at the treatment facility were on board, and we lasted about a day, and the counselor found out and we all got kicked out. So I was going into. Going into it with a bad attitude, not wanting to be there, surrounding myself with the other people who didn't want to be there. So it just wasn't promising from the beginning, like, it was bound to probably not go so well.

John Dehlin [00:24:53] So talk to us about. If you were to try your best to summarize sort of how things progressed from that point until now, how would you kind of summarize the path of addiction, recovery, relapse for you?

Graham [00:25:16] So it was. It was a bumpy road up until about two years ago now. I moved to Texas, which is where my parents live. And, you know, there was periods where I was clean for a while. There was periods when I'd use and then get caught. There was one more treatment attempt in there.

Graham [00:25:48] That was the time around where I tried the naltrexone. Didn't work so well for me, and kind of all came to a climax in about November of 2015, which was about two years after I moved to Texas, which.

Graham [00:26:19] Kind of heroin was in and out of the picture. But alcohol was the big issue. I was drinking probably the biggest. Yeah, this is about the climax of things. I was drinking every day, all day. I was drinking at work and my parents pretty much knew that something was going on. They knew that I wasn't my normal self and I was getting worried about my alcohol use. And so I called a friend of mine who is a nurse and told her kind of my symptoms and that I thought I might be addicted to it. I might, that I would like to stop and I'm worried about seizures and whatnot.

Graham [00:27:18] And she said, call your parents or I'm calling them, like this isn't worth dying over. And so my parents did. I. I think she actually ended up calling my parents and I went to treatment for the last time, November of 2015 here in Texas and has.

Graham [00:27:55] Yeah. Effective enough that I'm still sober today. So that was, that was the last treatment attempt kind of after all the, after the mess of the alcohol issue. So from that treatment I went to another sober living house here in Texas and lived there for about a year, a little over a year, and made some good friends there.

Graham [00:28:33] And. Yeah, why don't we go into more kind of the recovery details of all that and what led up to sobriety today? Yeah, okay. So the house had a pretty. The treatment I went to was a really good program, one of the best in the nation.

Graham [00:29:06] It's typically a month of inpatient and then three months of outpatient, which five days a week for I think three or four hours a day. So I did all that and I was living in a sober living home.

Graham [00:29:23] So I kind of really just entrenched my whole life in this community of sober people. I had never been a big fan of AA for a number of reasons, but I attended meetings because that was a requirement of the sober living house I was at.

Graham [00:29:51] And I got a sponsor and I worked some of the steps. Yeah, I think the biggest help was surrounding myself with sober people and people who were like minded and who knew what I went through and a very non judgmental crowd in general because we've all, they've all been there and they know what it's like. And you know, to the Mormon world, my behavior seems extreme, but to the AA world, to the recovery world, pretty average.

Graham [00:30:43] So it's nice to not be. I'm not the outsider, I'm not the outcast, I'm not the. It was a group to identify with and. Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:07] So for you, aa, are you saying AA was helpful?

Graham [00:31:12] I'm not saying that AA was helpful, but living at a sober living home in General with just a bunch of sober people all around was helpful.

John Dehlin [00:31:23] Okay.

Graham [00:31:26] And I'm not a huge fan of the 12 steps, the AA program, just because of their heavy reliance on God and prayer. And it just didn't work for me, especially coming out of time when I was trying to avoid anything religious. I didn't want to jump back into relying on, relying on a higher power to save me from my addiction. And it works for a lot of people. It just didn't jive with my head at the time. And you know, there are a lot of people in recovery who don't believe in God and they have, you know, dedicated groups for atheists or agnostic. So people make it work. Just this wasn't for me, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:32:43] Sure. So being in this recovery house was a real important key to your recovery?

Graham [00:32:51] Yeah, I think it was, you know, having having friends and like getting out of my own head and getting out of my own isolation and not having to hide, you know, my past from people makes life so much easier. It'll just eliminate so much stress. And you have. A group of people who are there to help you when you're down and you're there to help people when they're down. And that's, that's what kind of the basis of AA was from the beginning. It was started as a group of people helping other people to stay sober and have people who you're accountable to and have people you could be honest with. So I, and some people find that within AA meetings. For me, I found that within my sober living house.

John Dehlin [00:34:03] Got it. And so when did you leave that?

Graham [00:34:09] So there were some management changes probably end of 2016 at that sober house and the new owners were pretty much using it to make money off the people who were living there. So it got to be not the best environment for me to be in. I left January, probably January of this year, beginning of this year, and I'm now back at my parents house for the time being.

John Dehlin [00:34:58] And if you, I'm guessing that relapse is common, you know, you've done some treatment and recovery. How do you. Well, first of all, you've kind of explained to us what made the difference with this most recent treatment that you received. How do you even assess your own future as it relates to recovery or relapse or can you.

Graham [00:35:32] For me, it hasn't been an easy road and it's been a bumpy road and relapse, like you said, is common among a lot of people. But it's hard to think of where my future might Be in terms of recovery in five years.

Graham [00:35:55] Of course, I hope that I'm not addicted to heroin again. That's the ideal. But I know that relapse is so common among people that if. If it were to happen, I don't know, I mean, I'm doing whatever I can now, the best I can to not make that happen.

Graham [00:36:30] But I think for a lot of people, they need to realize that, you know, for everyone, one slip up isn't the end of the road. And the AA program likes to paint that. Once slip up or if you have a binge on something that you failed and that you're back to square one and you have to start over.

Graham [00:37:01] And I think that can be discouraging to a lot of people because accidents are gonna happen and slip ups are gonna happen, but it's about what you do on the tail end of that that really matters. So, of course, hoping that I'm not gonna relapse.

Graham [00:37:27] And of course, if I have kids or a family one day, I wouldn't promote drug use. But I also wouldn't make it as big of a taboo as it was in my early life. I think the all or nothing, the black and white view of drugs that is kind of presented by somewhat by the church, but also by, you know, the DARE programs and the government and things of that nature are more harmful than good in terms of kind of realistic education about drugs.

Graham [00:38:25] So I think having an honest education is, you know, figure out as much as you can about things without, you know, without glorifying it, which is, you know, tough to do because it's hard to tell kids, hey, don't smoke weed when you're a kid because it might be bad for you or it might be addicting or don't do this drug or that drug without them knowing, like, the science behind what addiction is and what the actual drugs do. And, you know, knowing that it's not the end of the world if someone makes a mistake, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:39:14] Sure it does. This is probably an impossible question to answer, but if. If someone were to say to you if you could go back to your orthodox Mormon days before you ever tried drugs and just lived the word of wisdom and remained kind of faithful to the church versus what you've been through now, do you even feel like you can answer that with any meaningful response either way?

Graham [00:39:52] My answer would be that if I had the choice, I wouldn't go back. You know, I am. Am happy with who I am today. And I know that my Mormon upbringing and my experiences in life and my relationships with people and my breakups and my drug use and my.

Graham [00:40:20] Even all the negative things that happened in my life make me who I am today. I'm happy with who I am today. So I wouldn't want to change that. I wouldn't want to change. I'm so happy with what I know today and, like, kind of where I am, at least mentally, that I wouldn't trade my experience for, I guess, kind of the ease of being a young orthodox Mormon.

Graham [00:41:00] I know life is hard and life is sad and life is challenging, but that's the point. I am so much a better person today than I was when I was a child. Now, from. A Mormon view, you know, my.

Graham [00:41:42] I've tried to look at my life today as if I were still Mormon and what I thought about someone who did drugs while I was a kid. Does that make sense? Like me trying to look at myself from my younger self.

Graham [00:42:03] And, you know, my life may seem like it was a mess for a long time and that I was out of control, which I was. And it was a mess, but it was my mess. And we learned from our messes.

Graham [00:42:20] And I'd rather make a mistake and learn more, never make a mistake and not learn. So building up experiences in my life, positive and negative, build our personalities and build our view of the world and build our view of other people.

Graham [00:42:48] And as long as we're progressing in a direction that we want to progress, which I'd say I am at this point, and we should be okay with ourselves. And I think that was a hard thing for me to learn, to realize that my mistakes and my accomplishments are part of what make me who I am today. And there's no reason to be ashamed of that. There's no reason to hide that from people, as hard as it may be sometimes.

John Dehlin [00:43:24] Where do you. Where do you stand today? Church wise to whatever you're comfortable sharing, whatever you're comfortable.

Graham [00:43:35] Yeah, Church isn't for me. It doesn't work with my life, and it doesn't work with the way I think my parents and my little sister are still very active and believing, and I think that's awesome. You know, it works for them. And I'm happy. My little sisters got back from a mission and she loved it. And I ended up probably the first time I'd been to church in a long time when she got back and gave her homecoming talk and sacrament meeting. I got to go see that, you know, and it was cool. And I like being able to support my family and the things that they Do I see no reason to talk down or think bad of them because they believe something different? It works for some people and it doesn't work for other people and it just doesn't work for me.

Reflecting on Faith and Leaving the Church

John Dehlin [00:44:47] Do you miss the church in your life at all? Are there things you miss about it?

Graham [00:45:01] So I, growing up, so in high school, majority of my close group of friends were not Mormon. I had my non Mormon friends and I had my Mormon friends and my closest friends were the non Mormons. So I never really lost a whole lot of kind of the close social connections. Like we were good friends and it was nice to have that at church. And. I mean, the scouting program was fun and going to EFY was a blast and. But those, those aren't experiences that in my mind can't be replicated outside of the church. So if I wanted to go on a camp out with friends, I could go on a camp out with friends and it's great if I need. See, I just don't see in my life. Any aspects that can't be replicated, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:46:17] What about this idea that if you believe really hard in the church again and really obey the commandments and follow, you won't fall off the straight and narrow, you won't relapse because you're holding on to like something that's true and sure and solid and that has really high standards. Have you ever just been, man, life's been so hard. I just want a path that I can close my eyes and follow and hold onto the iron rod and it'll keep me safe. Has that ever even been tempting?

Graham [00:46:58] I mean, it was so comforting to be a youth in the church and have that framework for my life and to have answers to my questions and to know what to do if I made a mistake. Having that guidebook on life is.

Graham [00:47:28] Having it and then not having it is really, really difficult. So, you know, there came that point basically after byu where that, that framework to my life got lost. We talked about this and I kind of struggled to find something else to fill that void.

Graham [00:47:53] So. So I think it's important for me now. I'm still struggling to find my direction in life. I don't know if that's the right way to phrase it, but putting together a plan for my future, something that's really difficult for me because I just don't have a super solid framework for, I guess, what I want out of life.

Graham [00:48:26] I had 18 years with the church framework of what I want out of life, and now I'm 25. Yeah. I'm 25. I still trying to figure out how to create structure in my life. And I think having that structure is really important for me. To not fall back into the isolation and fall back into, you know, depression or anxiety issues, and to have that purpose and to have that goal and have focus in life.

John Dehlin [00:49:12] So that's another. That's another argument for returning to church and even returning to orthodoxy. It gives you an identity, a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning. You know what you want and need. You know what your life's supposed to be about. You're supposed to get married, have kids, get a good job, serve in the church. Does that just. That stuff. Does that ever make you want to go back? Because it's kind of a. It's kind of a path that works for a lot of people that really plugs all those holes that you're saying you're still trying to figure out how to fill.

Graham [00:49:48] I mean, it sounds nice on the surface, but I don't know. Okay, we'll see if this analogy makes sense. Once you know how a magician does a trick, it's hard to unsee how the trick is done. So kind of going, my kind of post Mormon life compared to my Mormon life, it's hard, if not near impossible for me to, knowing what I know now, to go back to that mindset. My view on life is worlds away from what Mormon view on life is. I wouldn't consider myself. An atheist, but I also wouldn't say that I believe in the Christian God. So it sounds nice on the surface, but it. I just don't think I could ever feel right about it living my life that way.

John Dehlin [00:51:20] Kind of. Once you've. Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. Once the genie's out of the bottle, you can't get it back in. Is that what you're saying?

Graham [00:51:31] Yeah. Yeah, it's. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:38] And. And even if you could, I guess I've already asked you this, but I'll ask you one more time. If you could, would you want to? I think you've already told me no. You wouldn't.

Graham [00:51:54] Yeah. Even if. Yeah, I just wouldn't. I wouldn't undo what I've done.

John Dehlin [00:52:02] Yeah.

Graham [00:52:03] I try not to live my life with regrets.

Advice on Addiction, Recovery, and the Future

John Dehlin [00:52:10] Okay, so just to kind of close, I first want to thank you so much for your candor and your honesty and your willingness to share. I'm going to just ask you a few, give you a couple audiences, and let you say something to each audience, just to kind of summarize for anyone who's considering drug use before they've sort of even started marijuana or any. Or alcohol or any of that sort of stuff. There's a lot of post Mormons out there or liberal or questioning or transitioning Mormons that are like, okay, I don't believe in the word of wisdom necessarily anymore. And there's a big beautiful world out there of things to try. What advice or thoughts would you give to them as a beginning group?

Graham [00:52:56] If you're not in a stable place, mentally or emotionally, then it's not worth it. Can either add fuel to the fire in a positive light or a negative light. And if you're in a bad place, then it might exacerbate the bad. So it's a risk and it's something you gotta weigh against how you foresee your life. But educate yourself on drugs and addiction as much as you can from varieties of sources because you never know where you might end up if you slip down the wrong path.

John Dehlin [00:53:46] Would you be able to say, just stay away forever, it's too dangerous. Or if not, what keeps you from being able to say that?

Graham [00:53:57] I think saying that would be similar to the just say no war on drugs view, the church view. And I think it's really unhealthy and unrealistic for most people. I tried the just say no approach. Look where we are today. So it's, I think having, I think again it goes back to education. Like, know what you're getting into and don't be ashamed if you realize you're falling down the wrong slope. There's always people to help. There's always someone who's going to know more than you about something.

John Dehlin [00:55:01] That was my next question. For someone who's fallen in, how do you get. How do you get out before it's too late?

Graham [00:55:08] So, You know, realizing that there are options out there that you know, if you're over 18 and you could tell your doctor in confidence and they aren't allowed to tell your parents. So if you're ashamed or scared of telling parents that you've been using drugs, that you've been experimenting with marijuana or something, now going to a doctor or a therapist are people who are legally obligated to keep confidence. So just realizing that there are resources out there and that people are out there to help, you know, telling my parents was really, really hard at first, but if I hadn't done it, if I tried to go down the path by myself, I don't know. So have there's options? I guess that's. That's the answer is that there's always someone who could help you.

John Dehlin [00:56:30] So reach out to a professional or a close loved one.

Graham [00:56:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:35] Even if you're sad or embarrassed or scared.

Graham [00:56:40] Yeah. It's so much better to be embarrassed about telling someone you've been using drugs than for you to die as a result of using them and being too ashamed to admit it. It's just not worth your life.

John Dehlin [00:57:05] If you know someone who is addicted to drugs or alcohol, how in the world can you help versus just stand, stand by and watch them suffer or perish, you know, without feeling helpless? Basically, how can, how can we help our loved ones who are. How do we identify it and then how do we help?

Graham [00:57:38] Those are. So the first one. How to identify it is probably the hardest question out there. It took me a while before I could even identify myself that I was using, like in an addictive manner. So it's, it's really case by case. I mean, there are some things that are pretty much beyond a doubt. They have a problem, but there's kind of a line in the middle of the playing field where what are those,

John Dehlin [00:58:17] what are the beyond the doubt symptoms?

Graham [00:58:24] You know, IV drug use is never, Is never gonna end well. Okay, I won't say never. It's probably not gonna end well if someone is stealing, if a loved one's stealing money from you, or if a loved one is pawning everything they own, if they're non functional, if they're sick, if they're.

Graham [00:58:57] I mean, a lot of people could kind of look at someone who's on heroin or meth and realize, yeah, they look like they have a problem, But yeah, the behavior is so varying among everyone. I think a lot of it starts with having an open relationship with your loved ones to begin with and having a forum where you can have an honest dialogue with if it's your close friends or if it's your family members.

Graham [00:59:39] So starting with that, I think is really important. You know, it. It just helps get rid of any of that worry of being ashamed to go tell someone. What was the second part of your question?

John Dehlin [01:00:02] I guess it was just how do you recognize someone struggling and then how do you help them versus standby helpless?

Graham [01:00:11] It's just pushing someone into treatment or forcing them to stop when they're not at a stable place. Might not end well. My second treatment, I was kind of forced into and it didn't end well. So showing love to the people you care about might have a problem is probably going to do more than a forced intervention in my Opinion.

John Dehlin [01:00:50] And that love would look like what. That type of love would look like. What?

Graham [01:01:03] Doing what you can to not enable their behavior, but also let them know that you're. See, that's another. Another really hard line where you're trying to help a loved one while also not, you know, providing too big of a safety net for them where there's nothing for them to lose if they continue to keep using drugs. So, yeah, so not. I don't know. That's.

John Dehlin [01:01:54] What is. What is. What does enabling look like? Tell us what enabling looks like.

Graham [01:02:01] So, I mean, it could be anywhere from knowing someone is using drugs and not saying something to financially supporting their habit, which I've seen in some cases. So it. You know, allowing them to continue to get away with bad behavior while someone's life is falling apart, if they're losing their job or if they're sick and in the hospital, if they're dying, and not. Not letting them know that you're there to help them. I don't know. Like, me and my parents kind of struggled finding that line for a while between them providing too much of a safety net and then kicking me out when I relapsed. But there needs to be boundaries, and there needs to be clearly defined boundaries. And I think that's another place where a professional needs to get involved. I think.

John Dehlin [01:03:30] Okay, that makes sense. What do you feel and think about your future and what would you say to give hope to others who are struggling or, you know, trying to heal and recover and move on? Talk about your future and give hope to others who are in this situation now or who will be?

Graham [01:04:03] You know, I have a positive view of my future. It used to be that all I saw was, you know, addiction and loneliness, but that. That faded away. So. I don't look at the rest of my life as a countdown to death.

Graham [01:04:31] You know, it's. I'm not kind of just. I try to do my best to not, you know, kind of let my life waste away as much as possible, which I kind of fell into for a while. So realizing that you're not alone and that, you know, everyone has someone who loves them.

Graham [01:05:08] And that's something that is hard to remember at times. But losing your life over drugs is never. Is never. It's just not something that needs to happen. And it's all too common kind of in the news today. It's.

Graham [01:05:40] Opiate addiction is on the rise, and it's scary. And there are a lot of people who know people or are addicted and don't know what to do or don't know that their use might turn into addiction someday. So. Yeah. What was the second part again?

John Dehlin [01:06:05] Just, I guess. What do you see for your future?

Graham [01:06:12] Yes. I mean, I. Haven't finished school. I put that on hold to deal with all the addiction stuff. It's something that is going to need to happen in the near future. I've never really seen myself as someone who would have kids.

Graham [01:06:43] I don't know why. It just never, never seemed like a part of my mentality for some reason. Yeah, I mean, just living my life without regrets and living my life in a way that I could go to bed at night knowing that I'm happy with the choices I made and that I'm not having to remember the lies I told. It's so much easier to not have to deal with webs of lies and dishonesty. And.

Graham [01:07:26] So I'm not, not worried about my future. I'm not worried about future relationships and I, You know, whatever happens, happens. And I'm kind of okay with wherever my life, you know, ends up. So I kind of, I try to take each day with a pretty, pretty light hearted approach to things and I don't, I don't dwell on my mistakes and I don't obsess about the future. And I think, you know, I'm happy and that's unhappy with being happy and I'm okay with that.

John Dehlin [01:08:21] Well, I love it. Well, Graham, I know that this is a really, really big problem. One last thing. Do you have any comments about the pharmaceutical industry and the availability of opiates and to what extent both big pharma and physicians are complicit in this what some describe as an epidemic.

Graham [01:08:51] So there's a lot of issues kind of surrounding doctors and, you know, pharmaceutical manufacturers. I think a lot of doctors don't have the proper training about how to prescribe medicine. Opiates and pain medicine for people who are in need of actual pain management, cancer patients or surgery or.

Graham [01:09:27] And it's hard, it's a hard thing to regulate because on one hand you don't want to be, you know, prescribing medication to an addict, but you also don't want to be taking away life saving medicine from people who need it.

Graham [01:09:52] I think there are a lot of doctors who are, maybe not a lot, but there are doctors out there who are taking advantage of the fact that opiates and other medications are really addictive and making tons of money off of the addictions of others.

Graham [01:10:14] But I don't know how, how one might properly regulate doctors Writing prescription because it's so between one person and the next. What makes one person an addict may not make the next person an addict. Everything is such a case by case basis that it's hard to legislate. I think things like opiate prescriptions or Xanax benzo prescriptions.

Graham [01:10:56] But clearly there is an issue somewhere. I mean, opiate overdoses have been on the rise in the past a lot in the past few years, but really in the past five or six years, I think. So I think a lot of that has to do with probably failed drug education and the failed drug treatment programs and a kind of a society that shames and incarcerates and criminalizes addicts instead of treating them with, for.

Graham [01:11:45] For their addiction. So a lot of it stems back to the war on drugs. I think that was that Reagan administration. Yep. If I'm not mistaken, wasn't he the just say no. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:12:01] Mostly most.

Graham [01:12:03] And he was pushing for a drug free society and that's not going to happen. And sending non violent criminals to jail is not going to help most people. So it's going to start from the bottom. It's going to start from re educating people and it's going to start by being honest about the effects of drugs and offering treatment options instead of jail and prison time. There's a big overhaul that needs to be done, I think. And it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be quick.

John Dehlin [01:12:53] Got it. All right. Well, Graham, it's so courageous as far as I'm concerned, for you to be willing to come publicly talk about your story, talk about how kind of it happened to you and most importantly to talk about how you got better and to encourage others. So thank you so much for being willing to share your story. Any final words of wisdom or hope you want to share with the audience.

Graham [01:13:22] I think that about wraps it up. Thanks for having me. It's been, it's been fun. I've enjoyed this. Thanks.

Closing Thanks and Farewell

John Dehlin [01:13:30] All right. Thanks so much, Graham. It's been great to have you. Thanks to all who tuned in live and who have been listening. We really appreciate it when people have questions and comments and support, it means the world. Want to thank everyone who supports Mormon Stories podcast. You can find us at MormonStories.org, please post comments or questions or feedback there. Want to thank everyone who donates to support Mormon stories to make it possible. Your donations are what keep us alive.

John Dehlin [01:13:59] We're transparent with our finances. We're a 501C3, which means your donations are tax deductible. So please consider supporting us if you can. And we'll do this as long as you're able to support us. But thanks again for everyone tuning in.

John Dehlin [01:14:15] If you have a story about addiction recovery that you think adds to the two stories we have already told, please feel free to reach out@mormonstoriesmail.com we would love to help you tell your story. And most importantly, we are just looking to help people find health and healing and joy in or outside of Mormonism. That is what we are about. So thanks again for everyone tuning in live.

John Dehlin [01:14:38] Please stay tuned for more episodes of Mormon Stories and we'll see you all again soon here on Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care, Graham. Thanks again.

Graham [01:14:46] Thanks John. Have a great one.

John Dehlin [01:14:47] Thanks everybody. Take care.

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