Hello, and welcome to the very Borealis experience.

Today, I'm very excited to introduce you to James Olsen. He

has been through the 12 step program, he has been struggling

with addiction for quite some time and was able to recover

now. And he will share his story from the sweet and very painful

beginnings when he was a school kid, and also share his mission

in helping and supporting others now, it is very dear to me to

speak to people who have gone through that, because I feel

there's a deep need in society, to see that addiction is not a

choice. Addiction is a symptom. And we have to go down to the

root and heal trauma. Thank you so much for listening. James

Olsen, here with you on the Borealis Experience podcast.

Awesome. Well, thank you. Yeah, it was it was good to meet you

and see that we kind of had similar interests, kind of

helping others that are struggling in certain ways and

trying to

I guess better themselves or grow. So yeah,

I was, I guess a little background of me is

I

for most of my earlier part of life, I struggled with addiction

and alcoholism.

It was

a very destructive force in my life and

had a negative fallout on my on me personally, and

especially relationships to family, friends, girlfriends,

things of that nature, children, that was probably the driving

force was my relationship with my children, too change

ultimately changing in look at pre covering or, or, or changing

the way that my life was

looking for a new path was the fact that that

I was letting down my children as a father. So that was the

driving force.

I've ultimately what happened was I I ended up joining 12 Step

programs, things like AAA

and AAA which is necrotic synonymous ca cocaine anonymous

with things of that nature i i use the

gamut of of drugs and alcohol in when I was in my addiction using

stages. And so I can definitely utilize a lot of different

groups.

And, yeah, it's

not to blow my own horn or anything, but I feel like

it was successful. Not that I'm finished in any way but but the

transition from the way it used to be to what it is now is

definitely a huge positive gain or or growth or or advantage as

to what it used to be, it's no longer the way it used to be.

And I definitely owe those programs and the principles and

the ideals that they teach kind of in how to live in those

programs to the reasoning near the factor that my life has

gotten better. And I've been able to grow in these these ways

in these situations. And yeah, if

I did part of that those things are that I share my story and

and tell you what, what it used to be like to show that I was

there to what happened, knowing what was the changing the

transition that took place, and then what it's like now

and so to start that, you know

what it used to be like was it was not good.

To say the least it was the was part it was it was rough.

And part of the stories that that it really started early. It

was a long before you ever

took my first drink or my first drug or my, you know, in

it was probably the establishment of a low low self

esteem or or low sense of self value. And those were those

created long before I ever suffered from any sort of

addiction or alcoholism or anything of those negative it

was

kind of surroundings and coping with surroundings coping with,

with things that that projected ideas of, of less than

part of that story is that I suffered from dyslexia. So it

was just I just wasn't able to

read or process

words, or I didn't have a problem with speech I had a

problem with with reading literal reading part it didn't.

I watched the in school kids around me be able to do with the

ease. And it wasn't like that, for me, it was very hard and

extremely confusing. And I couldn't figure it out, and I

just couldn't grasp. And then

it was so hard that I just gave up.

But

sorry about that I'm using my phone. So whenever I get a call,

it picks me

up. So we were what happened was it was it was so hard in school

to actually read. And

as anybody knows, reading is a fundamental part of education.

Like that's, you need that cool to go forward in education. So

when you when you don't have that, what it does is, is it

creates a question why? Why is this hard for me when it's easy

for everyone else? I must be let me know. And I think it's small

children. And when we don't fit into boxes, that everyone else

seems to, it creates an idea that that I'm less than, I'm not

good enough. It's just a natural place that our young brains take

us, we we somehow see ourselves as an is established, what it

did was establish

a poor sense of self in which wasn't, so whether it was just,

I was built different than than others, you know, and it's a

very common thing to I think they said one out of five has

dyslexia.

But

they ate a another kind of weird stat is that

over 50% of males incarcerated in like, the

juvenile males incarcerated, over 50% of them have dyslexia.

So it's a very formidable

part that I just don't know if it's been addressed or not, you

know, that that you're sent into a system where, where

you have to read to be a part of it. And then when you can't,

you're kind of left at the wayside. Yeah, you're set up for

failure as a result. Yeah, yeah. As a result, you you really,

it's it, it creates beliefs and whether you know, subconsciously

or not, it really affects people. And yeah, so that's kind

of one of the genesis of of you know, my my

bike poor path choices, I guess, was definitely the some of the

ideals that I believed in back then. And so, but I'm a big

believer with every negative there's positive and part of

that positive was I had to I couldn't give up and so what I

ended up doing was I ended up figuring out how to

figure things out without reading you know, where you

would look at a newspaper instructions and you know,

gather the information I had to gather information in other

ways. A lot of it was pitchers a lot of it was watching others

what they were doing.

So it made me hyper

aware of, of others my surroundings, it may mean you

know, I wasn't able to like just look at a sign and know what it

is the information on it. I had to find other ways to gather

information.

And to this day, it serves me well. It's definitely an

advantage that I have, you know, it's a kind of a blessing in

disguise in the hardship but yeah,

so yeah, it's it's also

And you know that to be able to see those advantages in the in

the hardship is definitely a byproduct of

the attitude that I need to possess to get better from my,

from my addiction in my, I need to find the positives and in

situations or gratitude, a lot of people see it as gratitude,

it's a fundamental part to living a positive life is having

gratitude.

So to go for, you know, and I guess, to continue with my story

I went on to,

I think is every young teenager drinking and partying and

experimenting, and from the get go.

I liked how it made me feel, I had felt that way, all of a

sudden, I wasn't worried about feeling less than I wasn't

worried that you're better than me, I wasn't worried that you

were whatever, you know, I could I felt equal to you, for the

first time. The problem is, is not not ever naturally feeling

that I went overboard with it. So it was never, I was never a

good I never had

any sort of self control when it came to drinking or partying. It

was this feels good, I need more, give me all of it, like,

Don't ever make it stop. And that that just led me down a

definite,

you know,

a rabbit hole that I couldn't get myself out of. And it

continued

straight from when my first time to, to actually buy my first

time going into a treatment center. And that was one of that

the ages of I think 20 or 21. I can't remember but around that

area around that time.

And I went in that I was dating a girl at the time. And she she

had approached my parents and said, you know James has a

problem. He's, you know, I think his drinking is out of control.

What can we do about it? My dad was a nurse at the time, he

looked into it and found me a treatment center.

This was all done without me knowing.

I think I came home for like a Sunday dinner one time and my

girlfriend and my parents basically added

intervention on me and said, Hey, you got to probably that,

you know, your dad's set up this this facility that you need to

go to and spend a couple of weeks there and address this.

This out of control drinking your You're ruining everything.

You know, and thank God that I had a loving family that did

something like that. Yeah. And

so you know, it.

I went off, I did the treatment who would think it was a three

week treatment. It was in Claire's home.

And I sobered up.

I I quit drinking I grabbed on I liked what they talked about,

like, you know,

I, I wanted to change I could see, you know, I could see that

I needed to change. But

I just didn't know enough about addiction and the fact that

wanting to change isn't enough, that scene, the problem isn't

enough that I need to do the ideas you need to commit to a

new way of life. And that means, you know, at any cost, it has to

become the most important thing in your life.

So

when I got out of the treatment center, I, I

I tried to change everything like

I was still in the blame blaming I, I'm in the wrong city. I'm

with the wrong girl. If I had got the wrong job. So I changed

all those things thinking that that if I change those things,

then I I would know I just had to you know I speak of it. Like

I tried everything. I just had the comp nation. So I needed to

adjust everything around me, and then I would become better. So I

moved to a different town. I broke up with that girl. I got

another job. And for a while it worked. But the problem was it

was I was still there. I was the problem. And I just changed

things around me without changing myself. Yeah. So I

think I stayed sober for

what a year.

So

think a little bit over a year maybe, and

get started hanging out with new people started, you know,

these new people in the new town a, I think a factor of somebody

that's struggling is we attract like minded people. So if you

once again, they ended up with people.

Well, that wasn't us.

And

I kind of graduated, I wasn't drinking, but all of a sudden,

in the big city, and being a small town kids, I was

introduced to these these drugs and that kind of lifestyle. And

once again, I felt something that I was longing for the

acceptance and kind of feeling good about myself. And

I went pretty wild with that.

I guess the differences with

drinking and from going to drugging is is that

it's, it gets financially hefty quick with drugs, the money adds

up fast. Drinking, it doesn't seem to do that. You go to the

bar, have a,

you know, a long, drawn out night, and you might have spent

100 bucks

a night of drugging, we're talking you can rack up 1000s.

It's not even the same ballgame. And so I ran into financing

problems quick. And in order to solve those, I found somebody

that was willing to let me sell, sell their drugs for them to pay

for my own.

And

the problem is, is I'm an addict that I have no manage no money

management skills, and I got into problems in that situation

as well. But those are really big problems. And I had some

scary people that I owed some scary numbers to, and

how to desperation.

So this would have been, I guess,

almost a 10 year span.

And so I believe I was just under 30. When I, I

was in a pretty scary situation. Basically.

Some people came to me, and they met business and said, you this

is the number that you owe us. And you have this amount of time

to pay and left it at that. And I knew what they meant that my

number was up unless I got this, this money to them.

And

I was I was scared, because

I kind of went

prude and just a dark place. It was like, Well,

I'm not gonna let them take me out. I'll take myself. I ended

up standing on the edge of a bridge and was trying to get the

guts to basically throw myself off this bridge. And I couldn't

do it. I was. I was a wimp.

And thank God for it. But I returned to my apartment. I was

dating that girl at the time. I broke down and told her what had

happened and what I just come back from. And she told me she

was from Lethbridge as well. She took me to Lethbridge. And

I think it was a couple of days after that she went Lethbridge

and ended up in our living your parents living room and they sat

me down and said, you know, this girl our daughter's told us what

is going on with you. And we want to help you we're willing

to lend you this money to get you out of this situation. But

here's the contract track withdrawn, withdrawn up. And it

states that you're gonna pay us back all this money in this

amount of time. And that part of the contract is you're gonna go

to treatment again, and you're gonna get clean and sober.

And so, you know, I signed him absolutely, I'll definitely do

that. I'm open to that. So I signed you know, signed in and

got these these people off my back and went to treatment again

once again, and

it was a great good experience but the problem was I didn't do

it for myself. I did it to a piece that wasn't really in the

mind state to to fix to fix me for me.

And

so I would I went and did you know and I sobered up. But then

to pay back the money that you know, her parents had led me. I

went back to those guys and started selling again, but I was

using

so

I, you know, I started selling drugs again

made the money back really fast. Like it was a world of

difference when, you know, when I'm not high not using.

I was I was really good at. And but the problem is I'm back in

that life

around those people I paid, I paid those I paid their parents

off, like, in a quarter of the time that I was did a lot and me

too.

But I was back to that life. And

again, once again, it led me down the same road, I ended up

using again. And kind of, I never went back to the

problematic or the chaos that I was once at but I was definitely

in.

I wasn't I wasn't

I wasn't living a healthy lifestyle, let's just say that.

It was still a lot of turmoil, a lot of a lot of heartbreak a lot

of, you know, just

just rough times. And

yeah, I've tried it. You know, I, like I said it was trying to

figure out the combination and like, what can I do? How can I

make it better? What am I missing? What's what's not

lining up? They just couldn't put the pieces together. And,

and I ended up meeting this girl. And

she really believed that she believed me when I couldn't

believe myself. That was super attractive that I don't think I

was attracted to her as much as I was attracted the way that she

saw me or felt about men and and so it was she was someone that

he knew from from my using life, and she had got herself clean.

And part of the deal was do you want to date me? You need to get

take care of this problem and get clean and sober. And so I

did. I quit that I got rid of the drugs. But I continued to

drink. And I wasn't good at drinking either. But I tried to

maintain it. And so we started we ended up starting a family I

did marry her. We started the family and I I just kept

throwing things at this this this problem I would get I would

get this woman's gonna fix it. No, she didn't fix it. I'm still

having issues in my drink. Well, I'm gonna get a good career, I

did that. And I tried to you know, that didn't help. I still

was having issues with my my drinking in my party.

Well, I'm gonna have kids that threw kids at it. And the thing

was, is that did that I tried to I thought that if I

checked off all the boxes to what society said is successful,

then I would be I would be fixed. So I kept checking them

off, I got married, I had kids, we bought the house, we bought

all the toys. The problem was is that I was still sick. I was

still I was still troubled, I was still I never fixed. It's

like

you know, it's like putting a band aid over a bullet.

It's just not going to get better. Right? You're you're not

doing you, you gotta go to the source of the problem. I was the

source. So ultimately, what ended up happening was, you

know, we were together for 14 years, we had four kids together

and then and then I, I imploded again, I never, I never

addressed the actual problem. The problem was me. And I ended

up getting it was, you know, I think I put together three years

I like my drinking got to a point where she was like, You

need to stop drink, or I'm leaving. I'm like, okay, and I

think I put together three years of just like, Will, but I was an

awful person who was miserable. Did that's how I knew I had a

problem.

It wasn't actually drinking because when I took the drinking

away, then I became a very miserable person. Like the

problems didn't go away just because they, you know, I'm the

problem. Until I fix me that it almost gets bailed drinking and

drugging was a symptom of my problem. Yes, those kinds of

that was kind of the cure to my problem. Yes, whenever I drank

or use drugs, yes, I saw better, right. But the problem is that,

that that cured to me or my issue that I felt using those

drugs that cure and being another additional problem to

the problem.

And so,

you know, when I lost, I lost my marriage. I lost my kid. You

know, I just wasn't a fit father. I was

She wasn't allowed to see my kids. I ended up losing my job,

I was working in a coal coal mine offering huge trucks. And I

had a safety infraction. And they ended up having to do a

urine test on me. And

it didn't turn out good. I think I identified four different

substances in my urine on that test may end up losing my job.

Part of the stipulation of losing my job was that

I could go, I could just be done with them or address the problem

and go and go to what is called an addiction analysis. That is a

company that they send you to they have a psychologist and

nurse and an addiction specialists speak with you kind

of interview and see if you have addiction problems, or if you

were just, this is a one one and done type thing. You know, they

want to know if you have the addiction personality. Well, the

problem was that a been through treatment twice already. I knew

what they were looking for. I spoke their language. I

understood what they were trying to look for Simpson, and I was

going to just bullshitted my way through. I was gonna say I went

to a party. I was having a rough night. And I these guys offered

me this stuff, and I did it.

I don't do it. Normally, I've never done it. I just I was

gonna lie, and I was gonna get off the hook.

So

I think it was a Tuesday. It was a long weekend. And I made an

appointment after the long weekend to go that Tuesday to

Calgary and get this this addiction analysis done. My plan

was I was going to bullshitted my way through

and kind of get them off my back. Well, that weekend was

also my son's birthday party in Lethbridge on Saturday. And so I

went down early, a friend of mine in in Lethbridge had said

why don't you come over? I was I was NBC was working in BC. So

he said come early, we'll you know, we'll have a host party.

And then

you can go to your son's birthday, and do whatever.

So I came that Thursday night. And I didn't leave that house

till Monday morning. I miss my son's fifth birthday party. And

it devastated me I was I was it rocked me pretty hard. And I was

tired.

I was tired of being a disappointment. And I

disappointed my son.

So as a result of that,

I changed my mind. I was like I'm gonna go to this. I'm going

to this addiction analysis tomorrow. And I'm going to tell

them everything, I'm going to be honest. And let the chips fall

where they may. I'll just I need change.

And I knew enough that that

being honest, was the doorway to that. And so when I went out

there,

I just told him the truth about what was going on my life. And

they, they all kind of looked at me and said, You You're you're,

you've got a problem. You're a classic addict.

Let's start you off, but you need to go and find a meeting in

your hometown. Can I Can I add something that so they found out

that you're an addict, and they made you feel shitty on top of

that, or were they somewhat compassionate?

They were compassionate, but they didn't hide the truth of

it. It was they were blood.

They were we've This is a classic addiction behavior.

We need to set up a, a

process to address this.

And so the first thing they told me to do is to go home, find a

meeting, go and start using these utilizing these meetings.

And I I went home and I was mad I didn't want to I got to these,

you know after treatment dates said you should try to find a

meeting and go to the meeting. And I was I just didn't see the

value in it. One of their most common

feelings are identifications with personal identification,

like how you identify yourself as an addict or an alcoholic, is

I'm different. I'm different. I'm different.

You know, example is the Ask any addict? Do you follow the speed

limit? 90% of them say no, that's for the rest of the

world. I'm a good driver, I drive way over the days, that's

for the people that don't know how to drive. I'm different. I

do I do it to say, then you say,

when you take Tylenol, how many do you take? Do you take the

recommended dose? Now? I know what I can use. I think that's

not good enough. I take six. You know, like, that's, that's our

attitude. And it's very common in addicts. And it's just, we

just don't we are unwilling to

get into this box. Because we've identified that those boxes

never work. We're never big. Yeah. So it's it's fundamental

in us that we don't identify with anybody else's controls.

Those are the rest of the population. We're different. We

do it our own way. And it's it, it will kill us that that I that

idea. Yes. And that fundamental way of seeing ourselves

differently, ultimately will kill us. Can I add some because,

yes, but your baby brain, your brain was not developed back

then when you entered school system, your baby brain was

destroyed, your confidence was destroyed, and you were shown

up, you don't fit in. So of course, you

run through life, knowing and feeling that you don't fit in.

So this has to be addressed. And it's natural, that addicts feel

that way because they will have made felt that way when they

were still growing their brain cells. So it's like, Absolutely,

ah,

and the worst part of both society is unless you learn the

climate, because society is built these boxes everywhere.

employment, education systems, financial systems, unless you

figure out how to get into make yourself fit in these boxes,

because they're everywhere. You're just not going to fit

into society, and not fitting into society is a hard way to

live. Oh, yeah. And is just going to appropriate behaviors

like addiction. Yeah, that's how I function. You have to wait, I

don't know.

Yeah, I don't fit into society. But so this is what I do. As an

as an entrepreneur.

I use alcohol I use drugs to to feel like I fit in.

So it's an idea that that

and I guess the beautiful part about a 12 step program is it is

it's a box.

And until you figure out how to fit into their parameters, or

live this way of life, it's not gonna work.

But they teach you how to climb in and, and give you a slow

entry, whereas usually,

society doesn't take their time with that. But that's one of the

fundamental parts of a 12 step program is learning how to adapt

to principles and ways of living.

And

one of the biggest fundamentals is living life on life's terms.

That's a hard idea to wrap around. But it's one of the

fundamentals of a 12 step program is accepting life for

the way it is.

Letting it letting it be, not always having to change it.

Because I have a real

a real addiction to, I call it genes in things. I just things I

tweak things to fit me. I never fit the situation I liked it. I

like to adjust things or, or tweak things that that it fits

my wants and desires. I don't fix my wants and desires to fix

things naturally. But what I've learned through these programs

is how to adjust myself to fit in to situations and ideals and

things of that nature. And then that's really helped me a lot.

And is there also a part in the program where it is about self

acceptance and finding your core again, starting to love

Have yourself or is it again, too much? Maybe trying to fit in

and to please and to,

to adapt instead of going inside and see, hey, this is how

beautiful and unique I am. And this is what I can bring to the

table like, do they bring you back to yourself to do they just

want to get back in? Well, we have, it's funny that you bring

that up, we have monitors seeing in some of these groups, and

it's that we are, we're fatally unique.

That's our problem. We're so so unique, that it's killing us.

So we don't really, it's, we have to be careful with that.

Okay, and I'll, I'll tell you why.

Sorry,

is that we won't follow these simple steps. Because we're so

unique, we need to change them to fit us.

They were built for everybody else. And that's our biggest

problem is that we never followed any of anything to

code, we've always tweaked them a little bit to fit our wants

and needs. Because we were, we see ourselves as unique. That's

the only way we identify. But it's not. So

sorry, I'm getting my phone's blown up. So what it's not that,

that we don't love ourselves, what we're taught is how to love

ourselves properly.

Because what we used to do is anything that felt good, we

thought we loved ourselves by getting it, I thought loving

myself was taking myself out for $100 meal, taking my

self to us. That's what's up. Self love, if you really analyze

it,

is about the long game and not the immediate case. And what I

mean by that is saying no to that pizza, because you know,

it's going to make you feel like shit, you know, the fact that

you can't get in your pants, two weeks down the road.

Or it's going to make you feel good right now. But it's not

going to make you feel good in the long run. That that that

bland, please the meal, rather, is a better way to do this.

Because in the long run, it's going to pay off or not buying

that new pair of shoes. Because you you need to save up and have

some savings and feel financially independent. You

know, you don't really need that. But it'll make you feel

good right now. But all like the long run, it's not going to it

would make you feel better to have that that amount in your

bank account, where if something did happen, you know that you

have, you have a lifeline to to address it. You know, those it

those are the ideas of the principles that we need to live

by, you know that that

it's more important to show up every day than showing up for a

week lots. You know, it's it's like going to the gym. If you go

to the gym, and you hit the gym, once a month like crazy and you

lift hard and you go hard for three hours.

And then the guy that went every day for half an hour. That guy

that went for half an hour every day and you went once a month

and worked really hard. He's gonna have better results every

single time. Yeah. And that's part of like, showing up to life

every day. And just get doing the best you can do. If even if

it's a little bit every day is borough going to the results are

going to be way better than if you show up once a week and go

hard. Yes, it's about consistency. And that's, that's

that's where true. That's that's actual self love is doing the

hard things because you know, it's better for you not doing

what feels good. And I think a lot of people get confused on

that.

No, totally right. And so, it's definitely you know, it's it's

one of those things where

it's a GH you got to buy into it. This is a box that will save

your life. You just have to buy into it and give it your all and

my life has definitely changed for the better because I figured

out how to live life on life's terms on a daily basis.

I just, it's something I work at.

And I've picked up these tools and, and if anybody is

struggling with anything like this and wants to get a hold of

me and wants to learn about these things and is interested

in changing their lives in a positive way, I'll leave my

number with you and they can contact you. And I'm always

hoping to talk with people and in helping, it's one of the

one of the beliefs we have is that the only way that we keep

what we have is by giving it away. And that just means being

a helpful hand. And so yeah, so yeah, if, if any of your

listeners want to get a hold of me, I'll let them know that they

can get the whole year and I'll leave my name and numbers here.

And they can definitely get a get a hold of me, I'm willing to

help. Thank you so much, James, like, I feel you went so deep

with your story. And the so very relatable for for everybody is

who's listening here. And you are unique, you are incredibly

unique. And I know if you continue on that journey, you

can help so many more people, because counseling and

psychotherapist is good. But those people sometimes didn't

went through the struggle, and you did go through.

So you meet people on the same level and you take their hand

and walk the way together with them.

And this is just Yeah. Endlessly precious. Thank you so much for

your time.

Thank you for Yes, talking with me. Yeah, and I feel we have so

much more to talk. If you feel the same. We can make it a

second episode sometime soon.

Absolutely. For now, I'll be editing this, I will post it on

my Facebook and you feel free to spread it around and have it too

and we'll add your phone number and your name. Yeah. Thank you

so much.

Hey, guys and girls. I hope you enjoyed this episode with James

Olsen and myself. Feel free to reach out to me if you want his

phone number if you want to connect with him. You can also

connect with me on Facebook or Instagram. And yeah, we can help

you out or you can help other people out and spreading this

message around and making other people feel less lonely. make

other people feel okay with this situation and as hopeless as it

feels. There's people out there who can and want to support you

on your journey. Thank you for listening to the Borealis

experience.