Speaker 1: I won't let my body outly outway everything that I'm
Speaker 1: made do, won't spend my life trying to change. I'm
Speaker 1: learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know who every part of me
Speaker 1: it is beautiful and then will always out way if
Speaker 1: you feel it with joys in there, she'll love to
Speaker 1: the boom. I am there. Let's say good day and
Speaker 1: time did you and die out? Happy Saturday? Outweg fam
Speaker 1: amy here and my guest today is Patrick Custer, and
Speaker 1: he is on to talk about, well a little bit
Speaker 1: of your own journey, Patrick, but then what you're doing
Speaker 1: to help others that are in recovery or maybe even
Speaker 1: just struggling and wondering. What is this process of recovery
Speaker 1: even look like? Is there help out there? Am I alone?
Speaker 1: Because I feel like that's one of the most daunting
Speaker 1: things when you are going through something. For me, in
Speaker 1: particular with my eating disorder, some of the thoughts and
Speaker 1: actions that would take place in my mind and then
Speaker 1: that I would do, I think, Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: can't ever tell anybody about this. This is crazy? Am
Speaker 1: I the only one? So Patrick's here to remind us
Speaker 1: we are not alone. Oh my gosh, you just hit
Speaker 1: you know, so many, so many things, you know, talking
Speaker 1: about shame and guilt being such strong drivers for us
Speaker 1: from such a young age, both societally and and I
Speaker 1: think naturally, it just it just it is there. And
Speaker 1: whether you know, I know a little bit about your story,
Speaker 1: and I'll compare contrast for me. I know, I ended
Speaker 1: up meeting and getting like addressing seriously at an early
Speaker 1: age my medicators and so quickly to just kind of
Speaker 1: try and put it in a nutshell. I look back
Speaker 1: as a child. I grew up in a southern family
Speaker 1: where everything you know, food is everything, everything surrounds food.
Speaker 1: When you know, we we all get it. I was
Speaker 1: in sports, I was active. I never really thought about food,
Speaker 1: I mean other than like I liked it and I
Speaker 1: ate it, and nothing was you know, I didn't correlate
Speaker 1: to my body. And then I started to hit a
Speaker 1: something weird and puberty and I got chubby. I remember
Speaker 1: just the shame and guilt that fell all over me,
Speaker 1: both internally but from social reinforcement. So at this time
Speaker 1: I'm a gay man. I wasn't out then, raised a
Speaker 1: super conservative family. So at the time I'm trying to
Speaker 1: fit into this mold what I think I'm supposed to be,
Speaker 1: which is like a supermasculine manly man play sports. And
Speaker 1: so my story is very interesting to talk about body
Speaker 1: image body dysmorphia from an early age where this is
Speaker 1: the role that I was felt like I was dealt
Speaker 1: and this is what I was trying to play. Right,
Speaker 1: So from a very early on, I didn't know like
Speaker 1: I battled over eating and body image issues at that
Speaker 1: point then came along I don't even remember what introduced
Speaker 1: to me, but like over exercise and then dieting. So
Speaker 1: these were my earliest medicators food than exercise, than restricting.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I went to college that that
Speaker 1: I really got exposed to some more extreme measures. Drugs
Speaker 1: and alcohol played a huge role, and ultimately I had
Speaker 1: to seek help for all of it because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I was trying to control how
Speaker 1: my body looked, how I felt, the peace within myself.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of us in twelve step programming,
Speaker 1: which I am actively, you know, we call it, we
Speaker 1: referred to it as the is um, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's not just one thing, and for me it has
Speaker 1: been just like a bounce around of you name it,
Speaker 1: all kinds of things medicating behaviors and so you know,
Speaker 1: when it comes to sobriety from addiction, from chemical addiction,
Speaker 1: alcohol and drugs, I've been sober. The February will be uh,
Speaker 1: twelve years. That's awesome. I want to stop and acknowledge that,
Speaker 1: because that's I mean, that's amazing. A good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: I just celebrated twelve years a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and yeah, she was like, it's my sober birthday. Hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is exciting, And it's interesting how those birthdays end up.
Speaker 1: They end up being less about me and more about
Speaker 1: other people and showing the way, like you get at
Speaker 1: the longer and longer. I'm fortunate enough to you know,
Speaker 1: hold on to sober time and stay healthy. Well that's
Speaker 1: part of recovery anyways, using your story and then also
Speaker 1: being in a twelve step program, having you know your
Speaker 1: sponsor and then sponsors. That's how you say right to
Speaker 1: the other way sponsors and sponsors. Yeah, and then you're motivated.
Speaker 1: You're out there, you're serving others. I feel like services
Speaker 1: a big part of that, taking it off of you
Speaker 1: and on to other people. And I remember my mom
Speaker 1: telling me that early on in college when I was
Speaker 1: really struggling with my eating disorder, and she said, uh,
Speaker 1: could you just go falling here somewhere or do something.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was her way of saying that to me.
Speaker 1: It didn't register, of course at the time, but she
Speaker 1: was onto something. It was she was trying to get
Speaker 1: my brain to stop focusing on some of my things
Speaker 1: and focus on someone else to shift And obviously if
Speaker 1: you do that enough, it does help rewire the brain.
Speaker 1: But I love that you're talking about making it about
Speaker 1: others because that is part of the journey in staying
Speaker 1: in recovery. And I'll stop here and say, no matter
Speaker 1: what you're if you're you know, you identify that you're
Speaker 1: recovering from one thing, or you might need to recover
Speaker 1: from something. You know, everybody's got a different journey, different
Speaker 1: thing that they're recovering from, and different healing experiences, um
Speaker 1: and different things work for different people, but there are
Speaker 1: a lot of commonalities. One of them is connection. We
Speaker 1: know that. I'm gonna try and get his name right.
Speaker 1: The person who coined this phrase, Johan, I forget his
Speaker 1: last name. He was the initial person that talked about
Speaker 1: connection being the opposite of addiction or self medication and suffering.
Speaker 1: And we see that across the board, right and through
Speaker 1: that and under that umbrella is the connection of getting
Speaker 1: outside of ourselves through serving other people, saying that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm part of you, you're part of me, and you know,
Speaker 1: taking the focus off of myself. So I will say that,
Speaker 1: you know, the eating stuff for me has um and
Speaker 1: as I think you know, actually no matter what you're
Speaker 1: talking about, I mean, like it's very black and white
Speaker 1: with them addiction because I don't drink at all anymore,
Speaker 1: but we have to eat when we talk about process addictions,
Speaker 1: so you know, eating disorder is a process or eating
Speaker 1: is a process, and the addiction is whatever surrounding the
Speaker 1: that process. And for me, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: or though over exercising under intake. They're just complete restricting altogether,
Speaker 1: and I have to be careful every day to not
Speaker 1: fall into that trap because it's really really easy, as
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know as well. Yeah, and that's a
Speaker 1: good reminder for anybody listening that if you've made strides
Speaker 1: and you take a step back. It's such a good
Speaker 1: point that we can't eliminate food from our lives. You
Speaker 1: can try to remove yourself from alcohol and drugs by
Speaker 1: who you're surrounding yourself with, what you allow in your home,
Speaker 1: but food has to be allowed in the home. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that was something that was, you know, difficult. You couldn't
Speaker 1: just be like, okay, well I just won't have this.
Speaker 1: In fact, for me in recovery, I had to invite
Speaker 1: more food into my home. I had to start allowing
Speaker 1: more things that I used to not allow. And Patrick,
Speaker 1: and regards to your service to others, something that I
Speaker 1: want you to tell people about is the podcast that
Speaker 1: you're running, because I feel like that's another resource that
Speaker 1: people can check out and if they're wondering, like do
Speaker 1: I have something going on? I have these thoughts? What
Speaker 1: is orthorexia? Some of this stuff is new to people,
Speaker 1: this vocabulary or other addictions because oftentimes it may not
Speaker 1: just be one thing that you're using to numb out,
Speaker 1: like you said, the medicators. And I feel like your
Speaker 1: podcast to be an excellent resource for people, So tell
Speaker 1: us about it absolutely well. You can check on our
Speaker 1: website it's Rooted Recovery Stories dot com. That's rooted. Like
Speaker 1: we talked about keeping keeping people rooted in recovery and
Speaker 1: it's got kind of a unique story. We started out
Speaker 1: I work for Promises Behavioral Health. We own treatment centers
Speaker 1: across the country for mental health, addiction, sex, addiction, eating disorders.
Speaker 1: We treat all the things UM and our various treatment
Speaker 1: centers and UH I have the privilege of getting to
Speaker 1: oversee all of our aftercare programming so lifelong. We support
Speaker 1: our alumni afterwards when they go out and have to
Speaker 1: hit the real world and they're outside of the safe
Speaker 1: container that they've gotten the help they need in I
Speaker 1: myself have experienced at that's what helps get me on
Speaker 1: the track to health and safety. And you know, long
Speaker 1: term engagement meaning like two resources that are connecting us,
Speaker 1: are serving us, are serving the walk that we wanna do.
Speaker 1: You know, whatever you're talking about recovering from, we believe
Speaker 1: is the key to success. So this podcast came out
Speaker 1: from that as my life's kind of passion project. But
Speaker 1: it's a mission thing to serve the whole entire community.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be an alumni. And we talk
Speaker 1: about recovery from all types of adversity. And I say
Speaker 1: adversity because it's a very umbrella term that encompasses trauma,
Speaker 1: the full spectrum of the mental health issues, parents of
Speaker 1: children who have overdosed, people who literally are have experienced recovery,
Speaker 1: overdosed themselves, all the things that I named. We interview
Speaker 1: and talk about stories, what it was like for these people,
Speaker 1: and the resources that are available to help them. So
Speaker 1: I think that there can't be enough hope out there.
Speaker 1: We've got all kinds of things to entertain us. And binge.
Speaker 1: When we talk about binging, Oh my gosh, what a
Speaker 1: trigger word and a key you know thing we talked
Speaker 1: about right now. But like Netflix TV, we consume so
Speaker 1: much to just entertain ourselves. This is an outlet that
Speaker 1: we really put so much heart and soul into providing
Speaker 1: that is something to feed the soul. Oh. I love
Speaker 1: that feeding the soul. I know you give the website,
Speaker 1: but if they're just in their podcast browser, we're on everything,
Speaker 1: so you can watch it or stream it like via
Speaker 1: the regular podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Facebook, YouTube. Just
Speaker 1: search Rooted Recovery Stories and you'll find us. And I
Speaker 1: love that name, Rooted Recovery Stories. It's so good. Well, Patrick,
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing some of your story and then
Speaker 1: the message of connection and service and the reminder of hope,
Speaker 1: because I think that's what what we all need, because
Speaker 1: some ones that can just you just feel so overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by everything and you're like okay, and then you see
Speaker 1: it working for other people and and instead of saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish that could work for me, see those other
Speaker 1: people's recovery as as hope and encouragement to you, not
Speaker 1: discouragement because you're not there yet. Don't let those thoughts
Speaker 1: go into your head. If there's one thing I could say,
Speaker 1: it's just if people come into your path, don't let
Speaker 1: it let their recovery annoy you because you're not there yet.
Speaker 1: Feel like, oh wow, thank you God for showing me
Speaker 1: that person that's in recovery, because I know what it's
Speaker 1: like to be jealous of someone that's in recovery and
Speaker 1: you just wish you could be there. But you know, right,
Speaker 1: because we all wanted into gratification. I wanted insta gratification
Speaker 1: when I was living in my sickness, and I want
Speaker 1: instant gratification when I'm seeking healing. But I want if
Speaker 1: I could really quick, I wanted to add something that
Speaker 1: I feel like it's so important. There aren't enough men
Speaker 1: that are out there talking about their history or struggle
Speaker 1: with eating disorders. And I don't know if you would
Speaker 1: be surprised at this, but many people would be so
Speaker 1: surprised that it is a legit real thing. Whether you're gay, straight, trying, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's it affects everyone. It's no respecter of persons. And
Speaker 1: the compare and contrast for me when I was talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, you know, I grew up and wasn't living myself,
Speaker 1: tried living as a straight man for a long time,
Speaker 1: and a more masculine presence that was, you know, hiding
Speaker 1: things and doing sports and whatever. That body type for
Speaker 1: me was was way different. And then I, you know,
Speaker 1: move into my twenties and I'll just tell you the
Speaker 1: gay male world, you're either very very thin or super muscular,
Speaker 1: like those are two two of the most idolized body types.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know how to go to the zero
Speaker 1: body fat, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Channing Tatum, whatever realm, And so
Speaker 1: what was easiest for me was to slide into that
Speaker 1: rail thin category. So I just want to say that, like,
Speaker 1: if you are a male, you know, assist male transmail
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. And you're hearing this, don't let societal norms
Speaker 1: tell you that, oh, I'm just being healthy or going
Speaker 1: to at a gym trips. You know, I'm just following,
Speaker 1: you know whatever from Men's Health magazine. You know, this
Speaker 1: is totally different from what Amy's talking about and all
Speaker 1: that all that jazz. It hits all of us, and
Speaker 1: it's real. Yeah. No, it's um disguise like when we use.
Speaker 1: I used for a long time orthorexia for sure, under
Speaker 1: the guys of well, I'm having fertility issues and I
Speaker 1: read this one book that told me that if I
Speaker 1: eat this exact way that I'll be able to get pregnant.
Speaker 1: But really, I mean, yes, did I want to get pregnant, Absolutely,
Speaker 1: But did I love having eating that way as an
Speaker 1: excuse to tell myself because I knew some of my
Speaker 1: behaviors weren't normal. But I was like, well, that's okay,
Speaker 1: that's what this book told me that I needed for
Speaker 1: my fertility issues. And when I would be out with friends,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, oh, you don't want this or you
Speaker 1: don't want to eat this. I would be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get pregnant, and then that would shut
Speaker 1: everybody down and you might be like, oh, oh I
Speaker 1: saw this in Men's Men's Health. Oh well that's okay,
Speaker 1: no problem, it must be approved and totally good for you,
Speaker 1: So thank you for sharing that as well. And yeah,
Speaker 1: rooted recovery stories. I love it. Patrick, well, thank you.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we'll have to have you back on again.
Speaker 1: I love it. Thank you so much