The Hopeful Journey of Addiction Recovery and Community Support: Carolyn Delaney

And today I'm very fortunate to have in the studio with me Carolyn Delaney, who is the founder of Journey Enterprises. Thanks for coming in today. Thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here. Well, I'm really happy that you're here. You've actually had talk about journeys. Let's start with what is Journey Enterprises, but then I really want to talk more about you. Sure. So Journey Enterprises is a media company on a mission to make recovery from addiction more visible to more people and more places. We really want the conversation to be more accessible, approachable. We believe that visible recovery will save lives. And how did you get to be interested in this? Well, it's an interesting story because it started, it actually started in 1990, probably in the nineties is when the name Journey is from, I got sober in 1993. So my path to recovery was, sorry, I just need a minute. So I got sober in 93. So I'm a woman in long-term recovery. My path leading up to getting sober was a decade of trying to stop drinking alcohol and doing drugs without really understanding that there was nothing in there that I could control. I ended up on the streets of Portland as a homeless gutter drunk is really where my path led me and had two children. So I had two kiddos, and in 1991, the state stepped in for the first time. In 92, they stepped in again. I ended up in a 12 step program, and I went to rehab in November of 92 is when I went to rehab. So Crossroads of Maine and Wyndham. And it was there that I learned that I have this disease of addiction that I can't control with my own head. And it was really almost a moment of horror when I realized that there was nothing I physically could do to stop myself from picking up that first drink. And my early steps into recovery was a rehab and then a women's halfway house called Voia House, and then a transitional residence called Macaulay Residence. And it was at Macaulay that I got my kiddos back. So when I was in Macaulay from 93 and 94, I was the first alcoholic there. And they knew that as a woman in early recovery with no life skills and no parenting skills, that I really needed a lot of support around me. And I got my kids back, I got an apartment, I bought a house, I got married. I've just had this amazing second bonus life that I really didn't think was possible, I really didn't think was possible. So fast forward 25 years, I've been in large it. I managed large IT departments my entire professional career. And in 2017 is when the first seed was planted, literally for Journey. And it was a dream, a dream like a sleeping dream. It was about this newsletter from the nineties that I was a desktop publisher for on a Macintosh, which was really new in those days. And I had a dream about the banner on the top of the newsletter, completely out of the blue. I had my own consulting business. I was doing data integration and automation is my jam. And completely out of the blue, I had this dream. And from that dream, amazing things have unfolded over the last seven years. And Journey Enterprises is kind of the birth of that. I think what you're describing and modeling is so crucial to moving to a new place of our understanding of substance abuse disorder. I mean, the stigma around substance use and substance abuse and the people that have this disease is so difficult to overcome. I mean, it's so easy to make assumptions Who these people are because these people are not these people. These people are us. And I think that to be able to tell that story and to be able to say, listen, this isn't somebody that you don't recognize. This is your sister, your neighbor, your mother, your grandmother can happen at any age. It can happen to any person, and it can have really a devastating impact on any life or series of life around It. Right, exactly. Exactly. And I thought when I started Journey, the reason I started Journey is because there are so many, 12, there are so many recovery programs out there, millions of beautiful stories about people reclaiming their lives and healing the damage, done a lot of damage, repairing relationships and being engaged community members. But we look, we're neighbors and your tellers and your waitresses and your bankers, and we we're everywhere. And that was the story initially that I really set out to tell with Journey was to lift up and amplify these stories and the programs and the resources. Because in media, so this was 2019, so this wasn't that long ago, but really all we saw in the news was the overdose deaths. That's all we were seeing. And there was this group of us that were like, wait a minute. There's another side of that that is not the only way through this addiction. And so when I started Journey, I thought that I was going to be met with a lot of stigma. And really my experience has been a handful of people that have been really interesting conversations. What I've come to see for myself is that so many people are affected, so many people are affected and that it's really, it's a lack of understanding and a lack of awareness. And some people think everybody knows. Everybody knows everybody doesn't know. I've met people who seriously legitimately don't know that AA is free. Shocking. Shocking. So my first year with Journey, I was only met with two people that said no to my magazine when I was out doing distribution. And my experience was that people were affected. People had a person. That's what I would hear. Yeah. My and quiet, quiet. And that actually gave me a lot of hope is the fact that we don't need to create a new digital, blah, blah, blah. We just really need to lift up the solutions that are already here. We don't need a new drug to figure out how to stop the problem. It's that people are just unaware of those solutions. And I think part of that, I see this in large events where I'm a speaker. When you say the word addiction, you see that energy that creates automatically. You see these, they're like shoulders come up, right? Because the word addiction brings, because we're humans and not robots, that it brings up somebody, somebody close, somebody you've read about, somebody you've heard about a loved one, some type of a human being is connected to that story. And depending on your relationship with that, someone energy gets created and emotion gets created. So in a room of a hundred people now, everybody's like, right, you've got all these emotion you're setting in. And because of the stigma, nobody wants to talk about it. So in the room, I can see it, I can see it, it's palpable where there's almost this, I can't breathe kind of emotion. So I just have everyone take a deep breath. And I like, okay, I just call it out for what it is. Like, okay, we just connected. Everybody's sitting in some big emotion. Let's just everybody take a deep breath. I learned this in rehab, it parasympathetic something or other gets like, okay, let's all breathe and you know, can see the shoulders come down. Because even the word stigma, people will, there's a reaction to that. But when we can call out the emotion and we can keep talking, my goal is to make people a little bit more curious and a little bit more inquisitive. Like, oh, we don't have to have the conversation be about is it a disease? Is it nature? Is it nurture it? Is it the reason around it? But if we can just generate enough curiosity around the solutions, then because of the power of media and social media, every single human being has an opportunity to amplify something. And the more curious people get, the more people understand what's available. Our goal is that they amplify that hope, that the word stigma, you start seeing it more and more. If the only experience people had with alcoholism and addiction was me climbing out of a gutter in 91, of course, right? Of course there's judgment and stigma and all this other stuff. That's the very visible consequences of active addiction. What we don't see often and when journey started is the benefits of recovery. We don't see that beyond the handcuffs or beyond the next stage in those things. In the recovery process, we don't see that because some people are scared. I worked with the same people for 20 years, and I never told people I was in recovery. I told five people in 20 years that were outside of the recovery rooms because I was afraid. And I think stigma is fueled by silence and fear and personal experiences. So with the magazine, because we're out in communities, we're at the tire dealerships, we're at car dealerships, we're in nail salons and hair salons, and we're just out in community saying treatment works, recovery is possible. And that there's hope, help and support available and all. Because one way to combat stigma is education. One of the things that I find very appealing about what you're describing is what we often hear are the things to avoid and the reasons not to, I guess have an issue with addiction. We don't want to lose our children because it's all the things that we're running from. But what you're describing is a running or walking or strolling or whatever, toward towards you're saying, we're going to move to a position of strength and we're going to show you that this is possible and it is going to be a journey, and it isn't going to require effort and it will be lifelong, but it's out there. It's so easy to try to deal with the avoidance. Well, easy, not always easy, but fear and anger and frustration, those get you so far. But the energy needed to actually positively move forward is much, much greater. It can be such a long-term process. Yes, I love that. And I really love the highlighting of moving towards instead of a way. And I think that's the power of, honestly, the 12 step community. I'm a 12 step baby, and is that when people share their stories and that they come from the same kind of place, like the dark night of the soul, for those that know what that is, they know other people have experienced it too. When you talk about it in an open and honest way, and you see, I've been there, that type of relate to a story. And then you hear about them on the other side of that dark night and the things that their lives have become after that spot, that until you hear it in a room where you trust the speaker and the messenger, you don't even know it exists. You don't even know it exists. But I think that's the benefit of the 12. Thank God I'm a 12 stepper because my world, my experience with addiction, my experience with life in general was very, very minimal. The fact that I am an alcoholic and a drug addict exposed me to a world that I never knew could be possible for someone like me, a woman like me, a mom like me. But when I hear other people talking about, yeah, I was there and now I'm over here. I'm like, oh, maybe it's maybe me too. Maybe it's possible for me too. We have one of the sayings in our programs is, yet you're eligible too. And I always heard it in my early days as you're eligible too for being arrested while drunk, been there, jail been there, you're eligible too for that stuff. That hasn't happened. But at some point along the ways I saw that you're eligible too. Is that life better than you can even imagine it. I remember meeting with a woman, I was four months away from a drink, and I was on this Cloud nine, which is what happens when you start putting crap in your body and you start getting a clearer head. And she listened to how happy I was, and she said, said, oh, this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can enjoy it, enjoy it. But without that exposure to what's possible, there's no compelling vision of a future for someone like me without being in a space where people are honestly sharing their lives. And I think when you come through the hell of that, there's someone in front of you that is sharing a compelling vision for what's possible for you too, for me too. So I love that moving towards instead of away from, and that's what we do with Journey. We are no drama, no trauma, no triggers. We are all about the hope. And really our goal with every single issue in the magazine is really that people put it down and say that there's a compelling vision of maybe that's possible for me too. I Like the idea of yet as a word also because it's more of that growth mindset. It's more of that kind of learning based approach, which is, it might not be there now, but I'm just not there yet. Yeah, Exactly. It's just all part of the process that you haven't closed any doors on yourself necessarily. There's always that opportunity that exists to do something differently. Yes. And I think with being in recovery, I'm surrounded by people who've been there before me. So even starting a business, there are people in recovery that have started their own businesses, so that I trust the messenger, I trust the messenger. So there's always that when we stop dying, that we can start living and that life can be very different than just not hurting. I think that with the opiates these days, thank God I got sober before that. Thank God. It's just awful. It's awful to watch. And there's just such a lack of understanding about the drugs, and it's not that people are getting high and woo-hoo, like smoking a joint at the dead concert. It's like when they stop using drugs, every single nerve ending in their body screams out for a thousand kinds of pain that if you can't know what that's like, thank God, thank God you don't know what that's like because it's awful. It's awful. And for those that have no experience with what that's like, some people can lean into the science and there's brain scans. There's a whole science aspect that some people can lean into science once they become aware of it. But you have to get past that. We see this with our events. You have to get past that initial stigma, judgment, drain on the humanity and the state. There's this ick right there. Once you can get past that first hurdle and start, for some people it's science. For other people, it's compassion. They connect to somebody. Some people just never, you'll never be able to change your mind. You'll just never be able to change your mind. But I believe the more we educate people on the science that we have today, that's the, I'll go off on a little soapbox. That's the worst part about it, is that we have brain scans that prove the science behind addiction and alcoholism that we didn't have in the nineties or the eighties. We have modern technology has allowed us to understand what is going on for the human body around this topic. And yet we don't use the advancements in communication and social media and media and marketing and publishing to lift up that information and tell people, tell people. It's not like, here's your brain, here's your brain on drugs. It's like scientifically and X-ray of your brain. In this issue of Journey Magazine, we actually have an article about the brain science. It's from a PhD, the recovery answers.org. This is their world. And our hope with our media company is to lift that really important and valuable information up and put it in places that can help people connect to that information. So we're in the jails and the prisons and recovery centers and with community members who just think they're broken. They just think they're broken. And we use everything we can to put that out there, put that out there because there's so much lack of understanding. I agree with you. I think that there are still people who believe that there's some sort of moral lacking in an individual who is choosing to use, whereas choice is so much more physiologic. I mean, it's like your psyche has to move your body towards something that it just needs physiologically. And I don't think that people really quite understand the level to which that is true. I also think structurally in our society now, I believe it's become more attractive to consider. I don't know what some people are. They've now called it the sober lifestyle. I'm sober curious, which I think, I mean, it's just a rebranding of what has been going on for a long time. But I think the ubiquity of glass of wine equals happiness or social events means using these substances. I think that has kind of convinced many people for a very long time that if you don't do these things, then somehow you're missing out. And also, I mean, as somebody, I choose not to drink alcohol, and that's just a choice I make. It doesn't really matter Why. Then I'm in a situation and people are like, oh, you don't drink. Why? I am like, well, I don't know. Why don't you drink coffee? Isn't it okay to make that choice no matter what my reasoning is? I think that's become more accepted now than it once was. But isn't that strange that we judge people for not partaking in a substance that for some of us would be fine too, and for other of us, maybe it's not so fine. Right. And around many things, right? Around many things, sugar. Sure. Sugar. And I guess part of the work is being a human for me is to be able to, like you said, be okay with just saying, yeah, it's not for me. And be okay with that and letting go of the look or the questioning, or let me buy you something that you might like and maybe you just haven't had the right drink. That actually happened to me one time. And just being okay with not caring and being really solid in how I maintain my own value system. That can be really tricky depending on how I take care of myself. Honestly, for me, I believe that I have so many, so things between me and that very first drink. So many things. I had nothing between one and two. I really believe that if I were to pick up a drink, all of my filters would be down. So I use everything I can between me and that, and that's my responsibility. I really believe that I do my part and the universe does their part. But I think what, I don't go to war against the alcohol industry or tobacco or any of that, but one of the things that I constantly have to breathe through is alcohol that is served in gumball containers. For young ones, I think that they just keep marketing it. They're like this big, and they're right on the counter, and I just breathe through that. I just breathe through that because I know that they're targeting young ones. The earlier the better. And I think prevention, pain, I think regardless of whatever stage that is, whether it's alcohol, drugs, sugar, isolate, all these things that where the human psyche finds some kind of comfort in and it becomes harmful for them that the conversation can help with that at every stage. I was listening to one of your podcasts and it was, I can't remember who it was with, but it was about having one solid human in your life, one person that you can trust. And whether that's an adult for a child or an adult, for an adult that having community or a single model of being able to say something really hard is how as humans, we can combat that advertising. We could step away from that. And I've been in me, I've been in business events where when I first started Journey, I was in a women's, a mastermind group of women professionals. I had a consulting business, and we went around the table and there was eight of us there. And then when they got to me, I was the last one, I said, I'm a drug addict. I'm an alcoholic. I'm starting this thing. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I believe that visible recovery will save lives and I'm just going to start this business. And then two other women opened up. It was fascinating. Sometimes all it takes is one person to be real in a situation like that where it becomes okay, it becomes okay to have a conversation. I think with what I've seen at the Chambers and the Rotaries is that I have to say who I have to say why I'm there, which is a drug addict and alcoholic. I have no problem with. The terminology for myself, to me is really important. And I think it gives permission to people to talk to me after the fact. I think that the more visibility we have, we'll attract people who may need to be attracted to someone who can say, I'm an alcoholic. You never know. You never know who's in the room. You never know who is really, really struggling and just needs to connect with someone they know has been there on a real, even if it's a surfacey level, it never is. Honestly. It never is. It never stays at the thank you for sharing the walks out to my car. There's always a hug. It's a weird thing right after Covid, there's always a hug, but with the magazine and the media, we do, we engagements, we are out in communities. We were at the Blueberry Festival in Matthias, not a place You commonly talk about addiction, right? We are there with safe drug disposal. We're there for prevention, we're there with Narcan, we're there with our magazine. We're there to have the conversation. And I can see how people's shoulders drop a little bit because hope out there. Hope out there. So I see when you go to a restaurant and you're like, no wine list, I don't need that. That actually gives permission to other people. If you're with another couple and they'll be like, yeah, I don't need to drink tonight. No wine for me. Or one of the things that I love to do is I love to go to restaurants and say, wow, look at that special drink that's made just for me, that has no alcohol in it and it tastes great. I'm always so appreciative of the things that somebody has taken the time to put together to taste that little special something so I can celebrate too. Yes. And that means a lot. It means a lot. And more and more are doing that. Have you noticed that more? Yes. More and more restaurants are really encouraging inclusivity and serving all of their community members. And that's with drinks that are really in the fancy glasses with really interesting combinations of liquid that don't include alcohol. Don't include alcohol. And the more I believe, the more we see that, the more we will see that, right? There's going to be this. That wasn't true 20 years ago. That wasn't even true probably five years ago. It's only in this sober, curious, sober interested. I think Covid did a lot to fuel all of this desire to really look at not drinking, not drinking when we go out. So I think that hopefully we'll see more and more. It's all over the place really. In one of our issues of journey. We did this article about, there's 14 football stadiums that have a yellow section for sober people. 14 of them. The Patriots have a yellow section for people, they, they might actually call it their sober section. I'd have to reread the story, but it's for people who want to enjoy an event without alcohol. Fascinating. And they're all season tickets at the Patriots isn't, this isn't affect a small portion of our population. If 14 football owners are saying, this is important to us, it's an important topic. And the more we see that, the more we will see that. I really believe it. I didn't know yellow was like the topic. That's the color, the yellow section. They have 'em at concerts, they have 'em with footballs, they have football people, theaters. It's starting. And I think the more that we can say thank you to the restaurant that provides that, or thank you to the Patriots or thank you to the concert that offers that opportunity, the more that they'll see that we're serving a population of people that's important to us, the more that we'll do that, this ripple effect that will start to spread this. How do we be more inclusive regardless of why people stop drinking regardless of why. But to be able to enjoy an event without having alcohol spilled on me. That's a thank you, I didn't realize that. And so I find that fascinating. And I also am very grateful to organizations that make that choice. But I liken it to the non-smoking section. I mean, for such a long time, everything was, and people who were not born before a certain time will never know what I'm talking But first of all, everywhere with smoking. And then we got small non-smoking sections. And of course you sit in a non-smoking section, it's right next to the smoking section, so You're on a plane, and the next row back would be the smoking section on a plate. Yes, people, this did happen. It was a few years, but then eventually it came to a place where it's like, oh, well actually maybe we should be primarily or entirely, and I don't want to stigmatize the people who choose to smoke. That's not the point. The point is that if you're choosing to do something and make something available over here, actually there is going to be an effect to the people over here who may not choose to do that. So how do you strike that Balance? Right? Right. And there are also, what do they call, like sober cafes in New York and Boston and places where they have, I don't think they call 'em bars, they call them something, but it's just a venue where they serve drinks that are not made with alcohol, where there's dancing and bands and live music and coffee shops, they, they're popping up all over the country as a way for people to have kind of a third space to go, that's not work, that's not home. It's called a third space. And to enjoy an outing or an event without that, actually, I don't even know if it's without, as much as it is welcoming, being more inclusive of those that choose not to drink for whatever reason or that for whatever reason, but there's a movement towards the more healthier lifestyle that excludes alcohol. We don't do a lot of that in the magazine because our focus, because of our distribution, our goal is really to lift up and amplify the resources and coming from people that most of us are, I would say half of us are in recovery, not all in recovery, but is that we have an opportunity to share a message to people who know that we've been there. So we're a little more trusted. But I think that, I can tell you, the person who's sitting in prison right now for drugs has no idea about the yellow section at the Patriots. There's no awareness of all of the society that is now shifting to this more inclusive, more welcoming message to the masses. I think that with journey, I hope we'll see more signaling. I know we'll see more signaling. I have an event coming up at Colby College to talk to some students of there, the healthcare students. One of the questions that often comes up with healthcare providers and also others that are interested in what we're doing is what can we do? What can we do? And I think for the people that are people facing, I'm not sure how to say that, but is, you don't have to ask them directly, do you have a problem with alcohol? But if you put up a poster that talks about finding help, anti-stigma posters that are really that message, how important it is to be able to ask for help and resources, that type of signaling is so valuable. And I was thinking, I went to my PCP or my person and they're like, are you safe at home? I don't know how many, I'm guessing it's requirement that they have to ask that, but okay, is that what would probably help me more is like a domestic violence poster that I can look at quietly with the phone and take a picture of the QR code. That would probably help me more than some random person asking me if I'm safe at home, if there are firearms at home. I am guessing that's all required. They've been asking me every time I go in now. But I guess that signaling probably would probably be more helpful to the person who is not feeling safe at home, because if they're not feeling safe at home, they're certainly not going to feel safe with some random person coming in for three minutes. Just my thought. I completely agree with you. So the more we signal, the more we get to amplify hope, the more people that talk about recovery, and the more people say, I'm choosing to not drink here, the more people will, I believe they'll create a ripple effect. This is our, I brought you one for, oh, I love it. Amplify hope. Yes. Is that, and I have it pointing towards me because I believe every human being has an opportunity to do it. Then when people become aware of the type of hope that they could amplify, that could actually save lives, we're hoping they'll choose to do that. We hope they'll choose to amplify messaging that reduces stigma, sends a signal to others that it's okay to ask for help. That we've been there, we survived, and there's an amazing life on the other side that that's the type of messaging that we'd like to see more people do with the magazine. With this issue that's coming out next week, we have this, it's our first type of new thing in our magazine, and it's called Burger Glue. And it's a poster. It's an anti-stigma Narcan poster that you can rip off the magazine and hang up on your wall. And it's our first attempt at trying to extend the amplification for other people to help us, because the magazines stick around forever and we want them to be able to hang something up. So this is our first attempt at that, but we know that people pass it along and everybody knows somebody, and that the more we for journey, we keep our focus on amplifying the hope and resources and personal stories, and that more people will Live. One of the things that you mentioned is your children early on, And having recently spoken with Rebecca Hoffman about intergenerational impact, it really strikes me that what you were doing for yourself was also something that was going to impact others around you and in particular, the next generation in your family, your children. Absolutely. Yeah, and I think that there's so many layers to it. There's at the time, providing a physical and safe home, which obviously you move to that place with them, but then there's also the modeling of moving towards something different and taking on something new. And I know you've done that not only through working with your own recovery, but also starting a magazine a little later in your life and deciding, okay, I wasn't there yet, and now I'm at this new stage and I'm, I'm going to keep moving forward. And I think that that's so important for people around us, but specifically our Kids. Yes, absolutely. I know my kids' lives were saved because of Macaulay residents. Macaulay is a multi-generational. I mean, it affects ripples, right? But my kids have seen, I always felt like I was this far ahead of my kids on the maturity scale, trying to figure out this far ahead. But I was a single mom for 10 years and trying to balance two small kids. I was 30 years old. I bought a house and I was sober, thank God, because of the community. I had this community of mamas around me that helped me get through what being a single mother in early recovery looks like. And at each stage. So in 2000 is when I, I went from junior developer, like eight people down from a CEO in a call center to director of it in one week. So junior developer learning at the speed of light in an environment where I'm just soaking it all into, everybody got laid off above me, mas