Section Yellow – One Game At A Time

[Upbeat Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting, the Kenosha County Substance Use Disorder Coalition, and by a grant by the state of Wisconsin's Dose of Reality Real Talks, reminding you that opioids are powerful drugs and that one pill can kill. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: There's a phrase, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. That means follow the customs and traditions of the places you're visiting or the group you're with. Just how does that apply when discussing tailgating? Or the drinking traditions at a place like, oh, I don't know, Green Bay's Lambeau Field. Our guest today, John Plageman, thought there needed to be a place for those who were recovering or just didn't wanna drink alcohol at places like concerts and ballparks.

Mike: He and a few others organized Section Yellow, a sober oasis among the suds.

Mike: Welcome John.

John: Hey, thank you, Mike.

Mike: I'm so glad you're with me. Okay. If I have this right, correct me if I'm wrong, but the idea of a sober spot had its beginnings for you out of all places, a Phish concert.

John: Yes. So my sobriety date is February 15th, 2009.

John: And I didn't wanna lose what I enjoyed so much, and that is music and sports.

Mike: Sure.

John: And when I got sober and when Phish, it was interesting because Trey Anastasio, the league guitarist, actually found recovery about a year before I did. Not saying that we have any parallel lines, but Phish was on hiatus for about, oh four or five years. And Trey had to go through, if you ever look it up, Trey had to go through drug court and he got into in his own recovery. And then the band came reunited and came back and it was like, I cannot miss this. I am not gonna miss this playing at Alpine Valley. And then I got how can I do that?

John: I don't know, because Alpine is such... if you want the epicenter of alcohol and drug abuse there's a few places in Wisconsin that are like the central. Lambeau Field absolutely is one. Alpine Valley is definitely in the top five.

Mike: Yep.

John: And my mind just went back to all my memories of, attending concerts at Alpine in the late eighties and throughout the nineties and two thousands.

John: And I'm like hold on a second. There's the Wharf Rats who is a sober group for the Grateful Dead.

John: And, Phish is Grateful Dead 2.0, it's my generation's jam band, I would say. And I'm like, I wonder if Phish has the same thing of a sober like group that I could connect with.

John: And sure enough they do. They have a group called the Phellowship, but instead of an F everything's a joke with Phish lore and it's with a Ph. That's how I found them.

Mike: Well, That fills an influence right there with the Ph, right?

John: Yeah, most definitely.

Mike: So I have to ask you, because when I work with people who are newly recovering this is one of the questions I ask all the time.

John: Yep.

Mike: How did you, I understand your trepidation. How did you handle the... 'Cause even though there might be a sober group of people there, there are numerous sites, smells.

John: Oh yeah.

Mike: And triggers at events like that. So how did you negotiate those and how did you handle it?

John: I'll remember this. So I found my recovery in Fond du Lac, and there's a men's home there called the Blandine House, and I didn't go through there, but I was like a stepchild.

John: I hung out there a lot. They had meetings. And where I'm going with this is I addressed this with my sponsor. My sponsor actually asked me to talk to the director there, Jim. And I'll always remember this quote, Jim, we sat down and I'm justifying and rationalizing and doing everything that I'm doing to going, I have this, you know, and he goes this is where the rubber meets the road.

John: Kind of like kicking you out of the nest. Either you're gonna make it or you're not. When I went to that show, I went with a friend who was, we all have him, especially early in recovery, is a supportive friend. Would I say he's the sober ally? I don't know because he smoked and drank in front of me.

John: But it was, in that circumstance, it was nice to have because my friend looked like a cop. And I look like your traditional kind of hippie, granola Phish fan. And when when we went to the show, I didn't bring any, I didn't have any drugs. I didn't have, I had soda. I had Stewart's Grape Soda. One of my favorite sodas by the way.

John: And when we were in the show, everybody was offering me joints and weed. And I'm like I'm sober. And I passed it to 'em. He took all the, he was my buffer and I white knuckled it. I absolutely white knuckled it.

Mike: Yeah.

John: And I didn't find the Phellowship in the first set.

John: So Phish plays two sets and then there's a set break of about 45 minutes. And I remember I had another friend that I met online who was from Minneapolis, and him and I are like, he was white knuckling it too. He was early in sobriety. We both didn't have more than six months a piece. And I'm like, let's go up to the top of the hill and see if we can find this Phellowship.

John: And you're supposed to look for the yellow balloons. And we couldn't find it. We couldn't find it at all. And out of kind of disgust and despair going, oh man, I don't know if I can do a second set of this stuff. I was ready to leave.

Mike: Right.

John: I was ready to go. I'm going back to the car and I'm just gonna call my sponsor and just sit there and be done.

John: (laughs) And right before we were ready to go down and I'm like, 90% going, I'm gonna walk down the hill. I'm gonna hit my spot. The moment that first song comes on, if I'm not feeling it, I'm out. That was my plan. And, i'm like, let me buy you a soda. And so I bought a round of sodas for him and I, and as we approached that area, I saw one yellow balloon and it was around the corner.

John: And then the, just all the anxiety and worry, frustration, anger, all the negative feelings just flew away. Just flew away because I knew I had family, I knew I was home. I knew that I could stay here if I needed to, and I had like-minded folk. And it was the most amazing feeling that I had in my recovery journey.

Mike: And let me guess, they were smiling, laughing, and having fun.

John: Oh, yeah. And here's the best part. So at the end of the meeting, and I've never seen this happen again at another table that I've attended. They did a sobriety countdown and I was one of the youngest.

Mike: Oh!

John: But to see all that time.

Mike: Yeah.

John: There was at least 80, possibly a hundred people there.

Mike: Awesome.

John: And I was blown away. I was expecting like three, and there's all this time and people had decades of time. And it was amazing. It's going, wait a second. I think I can do this.

Mike: And then you guys, you weren't alone, but you were right at the head of the line.

Mike: You started it at, of all places Lambeau Field.

John: Yeah.

Mike: How did that come about?

John: So there's music and then there's the Green Bay Packers.

Mike: (laughs)

John: God, family, and the Green Bay Packers, and then probably music. Diehard fan. And, I was living in Fond du Lac at the time. I moved up to Green Bay, started a family, got married.

John: And ironically, I'm gonna try to make this short 'cause this is an interesting journey. So I have about three generations of Packer fans. If you see where I'm sitting right now, you'd be like, yep, you're an addict and alcoholic. I can see that because what do you do with all the money that you have?

John: You know that this newfound money. I'm not gonna put it in the IRA, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna buy memorabilia. So I have a ton of memorabilia, but my cousin Peter as I got sober, he messaged me. He has three season tickets and he goes, John, I live in L.A. If I'm gonna go to a game, I can always access tickets and would you be willing to manage these?

John: And I said absolutely I would. 'Cause these were my uncle and my aunt's tickets when Lambeau Field was first created and my aunt was sober, my cousin Peter was sober. I found out I'm not the only black sheep in the family (laughs)

Mike: Yeah.

John: When I found out that our family traits, our addiction and mental health, it made me feel like, okay, I'm normal because this is natural. Like I, I believe it's genetic and environmental, but genetic most definitely. And so I'm living in Green Bay. I now have season tickets and I'm going to games. And now I've been a social worker for 25 plus years. And I'm on the Brown County Coalition Alcohol and Drug Coalition for Change.

John: Which is all the major, you have Bellin, you have Aurora, you have Purvey, you have Libertas, Willow Creek all the major Brown County Health Department, Brown County Community Treatment Center. And it was a coalition of handshakes and lunchtime, networking. Okay. And I had this one woman named Laura who was somebody at Bellon, still touched base with her today.

John: She's like a mentor. Great person, loves action. And I go, Hey Laura I'm gonna be working this table at Alpine Valley. And this is 2019 at Alpine Valley. And for this band called Phish. She didn't know what Phish was, she barely knew what the Grateful Dead was. So me explaining this of what this is, and I'm going, you know what if we did this at Lambeau?

John: And she's John, I love that idea. Two people and a table. How? It's not impeding, we're not asking for a wing of sober, we're not asking for a section, even though we call it section yellow, but it's not a section of Lambeau. We're not taking away anything. We're trying to be, our thumbprint is minimal.

John: It really is a traction rather than promotion, even though we do have advertising and stuff now, but that's the growth of all this. So that's how it started. . I always say this to myself. All the best ideas are discussed and generated before and after the real meeting.

Mike: Oh, absolutely.

John: It's all like little just happenstance conversations, and then it's no, we could do that.

Mike: And the packers were open to it, right?

John: Yes. And I'm gonna walk gingerly with you 'cause I love our relationship with the Packers and Lambeau Field.

John: You need to know somebody.

Mike: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

John: You need to know somebody. So even though we had Bellin, and Bellin's got their own entrance. It didn't officially go through yet. It took a priest. A priest, because if Green Bay and Wisconsin towns, the priest knows everybody.

Mike: Yes, they do.

John: And Father Paul. 'Cause everybody hangs out at the ADRC. We have a little coffee cafe. And he came up to me as I was coming into work and he is like, how's that section thing going for you? And I'm like we haven't really heard back from them. We had one meeting and he's lemme make a phone call.

John: And then he reached out to Russell Ball's wife, Diana Ball. If it wasn't for her, we would've never gotten this off the ground. So Russell Ball is the chief CFO of the Packers. And she sat down with me and we talked for an hour or so, and she's John, I love this idea. Let me make a call.

John: And then within that week I was in Lambeau Field with Jennifer Ark and with Keith Cronin. And Jennifer walked us around and said, are you good here? And I said. Yeah, it was right by the men's bathroom. We're still there. We're right by the men's bathroom. I said, I don't care where we are, we're in Lambeau.

John: I'm like, done. And she's okay, we'll have a table and two chairs there for you.

Mike: And you alluded to it before, but for those who don't know, why do we name it Section Yellow?

John: Yellow balloons and yellow represents sobriety in the jam band world. So if you go to any type of jam bands, 90% of the time they're gonna have a sober group, and the yellow balloons are what's attracts you to them.

John: And so I'm like, okay, we're gonna use yellow. And then with my history at Lambeau is when you're going to Lambeau, you always ask people, where are you sitting? You say what section you are? You don't really say the row or anything. You say, I'm in section, my seats are in 126, so hence Section Yellow.

John: It's a spoof on the term because if you don't do two minutes of research, you think we took over part of the bowl at Lambeau and people get all upset over it.

Mike: Then what happens at the beginning of the fourth quarter?

John: Oh, okay. This just, this was not planned. Good ideas to come unplanned and spontaneous.

John: So the first game we had was 2019 against the Raiders. And we had the table, we had two chairs, and I'm bringing in balloons 'cause we're gonna show off like what I'm accustomed to. You're gonna put up balloons everywhere so people can find us. When a balloon pops inside the concourse at Lambeau Field, sounds like a gunshot going on.

Mike: (laughs) Oh geez.

John: We didn't really wanna ruin our welcome on the first game. So I'm like, balloons go away. They go all go away. And now I'm like, geez, we spend about $40 on 500 biodegradable balloons. And I'm like, what are we gonna do with all these balloons? I don't need all these yellow balloons.

John: I'm like, hold on a second. Fourth quarter, they stopped serving alcohol. That's Section Yellow's quarter. Give 'em away. Give 'em away to people that are sober, give 'em away that are people that are sober allies, or have a loved one that's sober. Give 'em away to people that may have lost somebody and they wanna release a balloon.

John: Now they're not helium, they're blowing up with their breath. So you gotta have a good wind in order for it to go somewhere. When it gets cold, then it goes straight down.

Mike: Yeah.

John: But we've made the jumbotron many times. We've made live television 'cause everybody will tape it and send it. We've made it onto the field and the crowd goes nuts.

John: The funny part was we did do that without the blessing of the Packers. And then when The Today Show did a piece on us. It must have been like 2021, 2022. And they're like, we really love this yellow balloon tradition that you started at Lambeau. And I'm like, hold on to that. I gotta ask, I gotta ask mom and dad tell 'em what we were doing and we did.

John: And they understood it. And they had their safety engineers look at it and we ended up getting their blessing. And we currently, 'cause whenever we do this, there's always one person that goes, it's a harm to the environment. We use biodegradable balloons.

John: They don't leave Lambeau, they don't float away outside Lambeau. It's just like a like your soda or beer cup that everybody picks up afterwards.

Mike: I think that's great. One of my pet peeves, I'm so glad you said you've been on the jumbotron and tv. 'Cause one of my pet peeves living in Wisconsin is every time they show a game, who do they show?

Mike: It's the big guys who are intoxicated with their shirts off and it's under 12 degrees, right?

John: Yeah.

Mike: And they make a joke about it. And that's the perception people have of our state, of the state of things here. And there is a large community of people who are sober. How many people do you number now?

John: We are probably in the 2500. With our Facebook group and we're trying to reach more. Next season we will be in Minneapolis with the Vikings and we're working with fans in the Eagles and the Bills. So there are... so differentiate from this, there are stadiums that have family sections.

Mike: Yeah.

John: Which are over Miller Park, or excuse me, and American Family Field.

John: I love that section. The 200s right behind home plate.

John: Those ushers keep that tight. There's no, you can't walk through that with beer. I've seen 'em, you gotta go around. And would that be awesome at Lambeau? Yes, but it's not today. We're about awareness and planting the seed of sobriety. You brought up a great point, Mike.

John: I don't hate it, but I strongly dislike our stereotype.

Mike: Yeah.

John: When I was younger, yes, I would drink you under the table. I went to University of Wisconsin Whitewater. I would say that college even has more of a drinking problem than UW Madison. Don't know why, but we used to... (laughs) It was bad when I went there.

John: And I wanna normalize sobriety in Wisconsin culture. If you say you're sober to somebody, it's like an affliction. It's like wearing the Scarlet letter. It's what happened? You know what, why? Something went wrong in your life and for the most part, yeah, we had some crap that had to go wrong, but you don't have to pat me on the head either or give me any type of sympathy. Just normalize sobriety that hey, it's okay because, and this is tailgating 'cause I've been there. Tailgating is like revisiting high school.

John: There's so much peer pressure that if you say, you know what, I'm only gonna have a beer. I gotta drive home. I got family now, this or that would be like, come on man, this is Lambeau Field, you can't do. It's just the shtick of fandom that we have at Lambeau and there are a lot of people there. And what we also wanna incorporate is there are a lot of people that don't drink just because they don't drink.

John: It's not like they had to go down to this road of hell and back to find recovery.

John: They're just sober because they want to be sober.

Mike: When I tell people, John, when I do presentations and I tell people or I ask them, what percentage of the American adult population doesn't drink? And they say I don't know 3%. And I tell 'em it, it's close to 40%. They go, what? What? Now p eople don't believe it because that's how underground not drinking is.

Mike: Are you seeing also more young people come.

John: Yes.

Mike: Into the group because younger people are drinking less as a generation than previous generations.

John: It is interesting that here's one of the beauty things that, that we have working the table. This is the magic of the table. I get goosebumps when I talk about it.

John: Every time a volunteer works the table, or at least in my experience when I've worked the table, there will be a younger person coming there for the first time at Lambeau that looks like a deer in headlights, and their spouse or their friend or supportive person will nudge 'em going, Hey, that's that section yellow thing.

John: And then you'll be like, oh, I don't know if I wanna go up there. And then they push 'em up. And then we're all like, we give 'em a virtual hug, and if they want a hug, we'll give 'em a hug. We wanna welcome them and make them feel at home and just as comfortable as possible because Lambeau Field just has such a strong reputation of drinking and around the title town district.

John: We don't hate on drinking. We don't. We want people to be safe. That's our main thing, but we also want that, let people know there is an alternative.

Mike: And for the recovering population, learning to have fun without chemicals, is a task. And I've worked with so many recovering people. At what age did you begin to drink, John?

Mike: I didn't even ask you that.

John: Started probably like my first sip of beer, dad playing softball, sneaking beers out of the adult cooler.

Mike: Yeah.

John: So I would say about 12, 13. But I started getting drunk in eighth grade to freshman year.

Mike: Yeah. So learning to navigate a social situation or to have fun without a supplement is a recovery task. Not easily learned.

John: And I wasn't raised on that.

Mike: No.

John: I was raised in a drinking culture. My dad's side is German, my mom's side is Irish. Everything we did had alcohol. You had the adult cooler and the kids cooler. And the adult cooler was always beer and then there was always a bar.

John: That's the interesting thing when you meet with people that come from a different state or a different country here, is that they get like. You guys drink around everything.

Mike: Yes, that's true.

John: I'm like, yeah, we do.

Mike: Yeah.

John: We do.

Mike: If you choose not to you, you're right, you do seem like a pariah sometimes.

Mike: Like, where do I fit in?

John: You get that odd look. I remember this. I take my parents out. We like to go to supper clubs. That's a staple of Wisconsin. I love supper clubs and we'll take the drive. That's the whole purpose of a supper club. You take about an hour drive or so, find a new spot. And we went down to, and I'm gonna say it, we went down to Roepke's.

John: And that's in the Chilton area. And we went there early, like at four o'clock and it was still packed 'cause we wanted to beat the rush, but so was all the other old, older folks. And I just remember the bartender there would not stop, not hazing us, but he's I make the best old fashions.

John: And I'm like, no, I'm sober. I just want a soda. And my mom wants a water and my dad wants a pop and that's it. And he kept going and going. I'm like, hold on a second. It's okay. Not everybody drinks. So you get that from time to time and we're making progress. We really are. It's just communicating that sobriety is out there.

John: My children know what sobriety means.

John: That's insane. They've never seen, I'm blessed that my children's never seen dad drunk. Okay. Because I had 'em when I got in recovery and they know that I'm doing this sobriety thing with you. They know what Section Yellow is. I've had my kids volunteer at Section Yellow at Lambeau Field for family night.

John: And also when we do the the Blizzard game, the Green Bay Blizzard, 'cause we do that as well during those home games.

Mike: We should mention to people who don't live in Wisconsin, that supper clubs or restaurants where brandy, radishes, and celery go to die. So you have a, I don't wanna let you outta here without talking about this too.

Mike: You have a day job. You referenced that your social worker, but you work with a very specific population.

John: So I work at the Aging and Disability Resource Center. Of Brown County, there's ADRC in every county. And our target group is anyone, really anybody but anybody that's 60 and over. Anybody that's physically disabled or intellectually disabled.

John: If you know somebody, and we all do. I'm not gonna say struggling, but if you know somebody that is having challenges in the home and staying independent in the home, reach out to your local ADRC. We come out, we're a free, unbiased service. We just want to get you the information and resources that are out there.

John: And I love what I do.

Mike: I would think that your expertise, your personal expertise helps a lot too. One of the groups that is really underrepresented are the elderly who may be misusing chemicals or increasing their drinking or as their tolerance goes down, it can become an issue relatively quickly and one that people don't necessarily see.

John: This is what I've heard, may have seen it, but I couldn't confirm. Not evidence-based, but the fastest group to abuse alcohol, I don't wanna say alcoholism, but abuse, alcohol, are retirees. When every day becomes a Saturday. When every day turns into a Saturday and out of boredom or just to pass the time. You start drinking and then you're taking medication on top of it.

Mike: Yep. Yep.

John: And they don't realize that. So I know our coalition tries to get information out, especially during the holidays. 'Cause now you're getting out more, you're socializing more, you're day drinking more. You don't wanna get behind the wheel, you don't. You wanna know your limits. You just want to be informed to make those better choices.

Mike: John, you mentioned that winter holidays, loneliness, celebrations, they're all reasons that people give for drinking, but they're also reasons for comradery and sobriety.

John: Yeah, there are. One of the things that we're doing, not this Bears game 'cause it's a home game. But in two weeks against Denver, we're going to Changing Lanes, which is in Wrightstown.

John: It's a social club. They got bowling alleys, which is cool. Never been to a social club with bowling alleys. And we're gonna have a Packer game. It's gonna be, bring your best crockpot dish.

Mike: Awesome.

John: What better than to have a crockpot, everybody bringing their crockpots in their famous dish and let's get together and be sober and enjoy the game.

John: It was great. We did it. What about, oh, what game was it? See now, I can't remember. It was about two weeks or three weeks ago. It was a chili potluck. And it was amazing. And we need more of those outside social gatherings. With people in sobriety to number one, and this is my mantra, you're not alone, you're not alone in this.

John: And two, you have family. There is a new family out there for you. And it doesn't have to be through recovery clubs, even though we do it with some of our recovery clubs. But we also met at Stadium View. With Stadium View before the game, three hours before the game, we had a Section Yellow that was new to us this year, we partnered with Stadium View, which was great because we wanna normalize sobriety and let people know you can get outside.

John: Not everybody does AA's, some people does Smart Recovery, some people does Celebrate Recovery. Some people does their own path. Whatever it takes you to get sober. Know that we're out in the community having social events and creating what we call yellow spaces.

Mike: I think that's awesome. What a great way to end this.

Mike: For those of you who are listening who aren't in Wisconsin, you got an education today in where we live, right? From supper clubs, to bowling alleys, and crockpots. That hits our culture right there. John, thanks so much for what you've initiated and started. Thanks for sharing it.

Mike: You all know that there's links to Section Yellow and their Facebook page on the website. We hope for those of you listening, watching you find hope, joy, support, wherever you are. As always, thanks for listening. Be safe. Enjoy the party and look for the yellow balloons.