Crazy

[Jaunty Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome, everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting and the Kenosha County Substance Abuse Coalition. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: About a year ago, we talked to Michael Rebellino about his terrific novel Clean. Well, he's followed that book up with a new novel, Crazy, a story that deals with the challenges of recovery, mental health, and families.

Mike: Michael is a civil engineer and a writer, creative, fabulous writer. Welcome back, Michael.

Michael: Thanks, Mike. I appreciate you having me back. I'm excited to be here.

Mike: Well, another great book. And for those of you who missed the original podcast, go back and look for it. It's, it's really good. But you're, in your novel, we'll start there.

Mike: In your first novel, Clean, that we talked about, it chronicled, and it's a novel, right? Semi autobiographical, I think we said?

Michael: Right. Yeah. Based on true events. Yeah. But it's a novel.

Mike: And it chronicled the trials and tribulations of Cameron and his struggle to recover from alcoholism and drug addiction.

Mike: And your current novel picks up Cameron about five years into recovery, right?

Michael: Right. Yeah, I jumped ahead about four years or so in Cameron's recovery journey. I wanted to leave it to the reader's imagination to fill in that gap. Recovery is one of those things that. While, yeah, there are certainly commonalities and things I would say are true of everyone's recovery to some degree, it can also be highly subjective in some ways.

Michael: So I think it's both objective and subjective which is just one of the many tensions that Cameron wrestles with in Crazy. But yeah, anyway, I like the idea of skipping ahead. In his recovery, in order to avoid, you know, potentially laying out what could be seen as this prescriptive means and methods of recovery, like this is the way recovery should be because this is the way it was for Cameron.

Michael: This is how he did it. This is what it looks like. And if yours doesn't look like this, then you won't stay sober. Because I never appreciated when people did that to me in my own recovery journey, so I wanted to steer well clear of that and skipping ahead seemed like a pretty good way to do it.

Mike: Well, time is interesting because I think I told you in your first novel, you know, as I read it it took a while before I realized, oh my gosh! Only a year has passed, like it seemed like so much happened, and now you fill it, you, you skip five years, and I think that's an important five years, right? So this like Clean, Crazy is kind of a diary of sorts. It's the thoughts of Cameron, right?

Michael: Yeah, definitely. One of my main goals when I'm writing is to try to make the reader feel something.

Michael: And I find that I'm able to do that most effectively when I just immerse the reader in the inner world of the narrator, which makes my books end up feeling very much like diaries. And they are diaries to some extent. I mean, Cameron's inner world is based on my own. You know, there's a war going on in our minds.

Michael: This is especially the case for people in recovery. But I believe it's true for everyone and the stakes are pretty high. So yeah, I I like highlighting this inner battle in my books, to let people know they're not alone in this fight, there's not something wrong with them. We all experience this.

Michael: And I also like to sort of include things through. Cameron's working through that battle that, you know, kind of highlights some things that have helped me in my own battle and just helping me win that battle at times. And, you know, with the hope that that might, might help somebody else.

Mike: Yeah, well, I don't think this will be a huge spoiler because you address it real quickly in the book.

Mike: But when I first picked it up, I thought we were going to be talking about Cameron's inner struggles with his own mental health. And real quickly in the book, you realize, Oh!, he's coping with his dad's mental illness and coping with his dad. And you use a line That I believe needs to be discussed hugely, and we've had a number of podcasts on this.

Mike: One of the lines you use is, my dad's on more drugs than I ever was before I got sober. (chuckle)

Mike: So we treat mental illness with medications and they switch his drugs up big time, right? Recovering and the point of that is recovering folks encounter drugs all the time, Michael.

Michael: Yeah, they're everywhere.

Mike: Well, and a little later, while exasperated, Cameron knows that if he dips into his dad's stash, his own anxiety will be temporarily disappear.

Mike: How vigilant, that's the inner struggle, right? For Cameron. You've got to be vigilant in your recovery.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, that's a huge part of it. I can only speak for myself here, but I was fortunately several years into my recovery before I encountered prescription pills, which was my drug of choice.

Michael: By that time, I had enough recovery under my belt to be able to be around them without taking any, but if it had happened earlier on, I'm not sure what would have happened. Which isn't to say I was immune just because I had a couple of years under my belt. It does get easier over time, but it's still not easy, you know. (chuckle) But yeah, I attribute it to the grace and protection of God that I was able to go as long as I did in my recovery before I encountered pills.

Michael: Alcohol, second drug of choice though. And that's a completely different story because it's virtually impossible to avoid. (chuckle)

Mike: Yeah, it's everywhere. Oh, I thought what was interesting about that is you did space the novel five years in the future. Was that an active decision then because he was going to be around pills?

Mike: Like, what if it would have been a year after Cameron got sober?

Michael: Yeah, it might've looked much different. You know, it was, again, Cameron is based on me and my own experiences. And that was the way it played out for me. So I felt like I could tell the most captivating story if I did it that way.

Michael: But. Yeah, again, sort of leaving it to the reader's imagination to figure out and read between the lines like how he was able to be around those pills and still stay sober. And will he be able to do that? I mean, that's sort of something that's unclear early on in the book, so definitely should read.

Michael: Read it. See what happens.

Mike: Yeah. Well, you know, when, when Cameron is dealing with his dad, watching a family member go through a mental illness is heartbreaking.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. It's a lot of things for Cameron and heartbreaking is certainly near the top of that list.

Mike: Well, I wonder how many people are as close to breaking down as Cameron's dad, cause he goes from functional to non functional in the snap of a finger.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, it feels like overnight. And yeah, I mean, you see the statistics and hear about the effects every day, but yeah, we are not well as a society. So I would imagine a large portion of the population is close to breaking down or dealing with some sort of mental health issue or anxiety or addiction or certainly know somebody who is.

Michael: So yeah, it's everywhere.

Mike: Well, how do we help people maintain their sense of dignity? When declining. Or going through mental illness?

Michael: Yeah, that's a great question. I think part of it is just continuing to talk about it, because even though it is so prevalent, and almost normalized these days, there's still stigma, and just a lot of misunderstanding in general around mental illness.

Michael: Cameron's dad, for example, he's ashamed and embarrassed to talk about what's going on with him. But then isolation and keeping it to himself only makes it worse. And part of that's a generational thing, I think, but part of it is certainly the stigma that, that still exists around mental health issues.

Michael: This idea that they're categorically different than physical health issues, which might be true in some cases, but definitely isn't true across the board. And, you know, the mental healthcare system also doesn't always help the cause. And I know it's overburdened and these people are doing their best and I'm very grateful for all the people that work in healthcare, but I think the main thing I'm trying to say is that for, you know, as advanced as we are, there's still so much we don't know about the human mind and body.

Michael: So, maybe we should try to be more humble and not treat people that are dealing with mental health issues as if they're less than because, you know, it can happen to anybody.

Mike: You know, do we do that because we're afraid? It's our own fragility that we're protecting?

Michael: That could definitely be part of it.

Michael: And I think it's just easier that way to throw somebody in a box that you can then just set aside and not have to deal with or interact with and you can just kind of keep it moving and almost ignore it because you don't understand it and you don't want to take the time to try to understand it.

Mike: Cameron's dad says and I'm sure other people can relate to this. I really did. Cause my dad went through a huge substance use issues. In fact, that's how he died. But I, I should have counted in the book the number of times Cameron's dad says to Cameron, yeah, well, this isn't going to work. (laugh)

Michael: ( laugh) Yeah.

Michael: That's one of his favorite lines. And it's funny because Cameron at first, you know, is like, totally ignoring this comment because he doesn't think there's any substance behind it. But then the more he hears it, and the more he's around it, he starts to question it inside. Like, well, is this gonna work?

Michael: And is some of the stuff my dad's saying actually true? So there's definitely that tension throughout the book as well.

Mike: You know, when you're a kid, you know, you grow up and you have a parent and then one day you turn around and this happens in everybody's life and it happens in your novel. And if I could, you put a haiku in the part of your book and I just want to read it.

Mike: And then have you talk about it, right? It's a quick one. And this is the haiku. Child becomes parent. Parent becomes child again. A spring flower dies.

Michael: Yeah, that's, you know, the natural, somewhat ironic cycle of life. And, you know, like you mentioned, a lot of people experience this transition. And it's obviously exaggerated and more dramatic in the case of dealing with mental illness, like Cameron is with his father.

Michael: You know, at this point in the story, he's mourning the loss of his dad to mental illness.

Michael: And, you know, back to your earlier question, it's extremely heartbreaking for him, but he can't even sit in it and process it and grieve through this process because he's forced to step up and function like the parent in the relationship.

Michael: Which is very weird and uncomfortable and almost feels like a sort of line in the sand for him that once he steps across like nothing will ever be the same again, and it sounds sort of depressing. But you know, even though flowers die they return the following year and there's beauty and hope and goodness in that. You just got to dig a little bit to find it sometimes. (chuckle)

Mike: Well, and Michael, who's ready for that?

Mike: I mean, how (chuckle) all going to go through it at some point, right, where our parent becomes older, and if it's not mental illness, it could be dementia. If it's not dementia, it could just become fragility, and we all go through it, but who prepares the child to become the parent, yet it happens to almost all of us?

Michael: Yeah, I mean, there's no way, in my opinion, to adequately prepare for what (chuckle), for what it's like when it actually happens. It's like one of those things like having kids, I imagine.

Mike: Yes, yes.

Michael: And you can read all about it, but until it happens to you, you don't really understand or know what it's like (chuckle).

Mike: No, I tell a story about bringing my oldest child home from the hospital and changing his first diaper and seeing something I, I didn't know what it was (laugh). And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm exactly 12 hours into parenting and I'm already over my head. So.

Michael: (laugh) Sounds about right.

Mike: Yeah. That is what it's like.

Mike: You know, at the time he's dealing with this, Cameron's own mental health. Isn't the best.

Michael: No, it is not. But in other ways, I think it could be argued that, that it is. Cause yeah, there are certainly times when Cameron feels further gone than his dad, but he's simultaneously like navigating these complex situations and handling things and figuring things out.

Michael: And at least from an external perspective, it seems like he's in a highly functioning and stable place. So yeah, he's sort of forced to wrestle with his own mental health throughout the book. And you know, through dealing with his dad's, it forces him to take a closer look at his own and he draws quite conflicting conclusions along the way.

Michael: You know, what does it look like for him to be mentally healthy in the first place on a normal day? And then what about when he's dealing with this extremely intense situation that's pushing him way out of his comfort zone, testing him in every way imaginable, bringing up all this stuff from his past, forcing him to deal with it, threatening his sobriety even, and, you know, everything else.

Michael: So, you know, what does mental health look like? I don't think it's always quite as clear as we may think or expect or hope that it would be.

Mike: Well, and do you think that, and maybe he's not, he or we are not that aware at the time, but he, how can you avoid thinking to yourself, This is me 20, 30 years down the road.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, sometimes throughout the book, the action is so intense and jam packed and there's so many things that need done and figured out that he doesn't really have time to reflect about the past or the future but when he does have, you know, quieter times that certainly comes up and he's scared because yeah, this is happening to my dad.

Michael: It happened overnight. Is this going to happen to me one day when I wake up in the future? You know, it's the whole nature versus nurture conversation, right? Like, are you born with addiction and mental health issues or do you develop them? Is it both? Like, maybe you're born with a predisposition and then it may or may not manifest depending on your external circumstances and the influences and different things you're exposed to.

Michael: And then, you know, what role do our choices play in the matter? And there's certainly a wide range of addiction and mental health issues. And you know, there's certainly not a clean black and white answer to predict what's going to happen. Which makes this question even scarier for Cameron as he does contemplate his own potential mental health future.

Mike: Well, and again, everything you just mentioned, all those questions would make great conversation topics for people and their support system. And we just don't talk about it, you know,

Michael: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's scary to talk about, you know, but.

Mike: You know, there's a great metaphor for recovery in the middle of the book when Cameron is in his dad's or his childhood home and his dad's in the hospital again, right?

Mike: So Cameron's alone in the house and going through the house in the basement. And all the thoughts and memories, and what are those thoughts and memories? What do you do with those when you're alone in recovery?

Michael: Yeah, you know, we're talking about that war going on in our minds. And our thoughts and memories are sort of the weapons with which that war is fought.

Michael: In a sense they can be helpful or harmful. They can be damaging or healing. They can keep us in bondage or lead us to freedom. Depending on what we do with them and how we respond to them, because, you know, you can't always control the thoughts or the memories that are popping into your head, but we do have a choice in terms of how we respond.

Michael: And you know, too much isolation and introspection I think is dangerous, but it's also important that we. In recovery and people in general, learn how to be alone and how to self reflect in healthy and productive ways. You know, especially for people in recovery, feeling all those feelings and thinking all these thoughts, it's very scary and uncomfortable.

Michael: And you know, you've gotten so used to numbing out and escaping and repressing and ignoring things. And now you got to deal with them. And it's an adventure. (laugh)

Mike: Well, it is. And then I wasn't surprised that in part of the book, Cameron and his dad started talking about the book of Job in the Bible. (chuckle)

Mike: You know, speaking of trials and tribulations, do you think that everybody in their lives at times feels like Job just laying with boils and hot ashes?

Michael: Yes. Yeah. I mean, I know I have. And yeah, just when he thinks he's lost everything, he loses something else or something else happens to him.

Michael: He just can't catch a break. And then, yeah, his so called friends are basically trying to convince him that it's his fault. And he starts feeling sorry for himself and demanding that like, God, tell me why I'm suffering. Take this away from me. I don't deserve this. And, and God is silent for a while. And, so yeah, Job's sitting there feeling completely, utterly alone, helpless and I imagine a lot of people have found themselves in similar situations, but it's not the end of the story.

Michael: And I'd highly recommend you go and read Job for yourself if you have not, because it is a great book. A lot of wisdom in it.

Mike: Yeah, there is. You know, when, going back to the basement, when he starts cleaning out the basement after the sale of the house, which is also something that everybody goes through, he finds his grandpa's old war stuff, dad's record album collection, for those of you who are younger, look that up, and he and his brother's action figures and toys.

Mike: There's a lot of lives in people's basements, right? And, Michael, I think I said this to you off the air. I can see where your novels could be used as a discussion tool in either book clubs. Or recovery groups. Has anybody ever told you that?

Michael: I believe Clean, my first novel, is being used in a recovery group back in my hometown, Canton, Ohio.

Michael: And it might have been used in a book club or two. But yeah, I do think my books lend themselves well to discussion because I try to jam pack a lot in there, even though it might not seem like it because they read really quickly and it's easy to miss stuff. But yeah, it's always interesting to me to, you know, hear what sticks out to different people.

Michael: And I hope my books are used more and more as a discussion tool in the future. You know, there's addiction and mental health issues, they're widespread, ever present topics. And the more we talk about them and destigmatize them, I think the more hope there is for finding solutions.

Mike: Well, you know, I had on a lady named Jeannie Chang a while back, just a little while ago, and she was talking about how K-Dramas, Korean dramas, can be used in therapy as a discussion tool.

Mike: Well, the same is true of prose and fiction, right? Yeah, even semi autobiographical, where you read a passage and then it's so much easier to talk about Cameron than it would be to talk about ourselves sometimes.

Michael: Yeah, and I think the diary feel of them sort of forces things to the surface. If a reader can relate to something Cameron's going through, even if they couldn't put it in the words themselves, they can see it right here on the page and be like, Oh, that happens to me too.

Michael: Or, Oh, I can relate to that. And then, yeah, discussion can, you know, happen from there.

Mike: Well, one of the recurring themes in the book and one that I know is going to stimulate discussion and thought among recovering people is the whole idea of pills in the dresser. There's pills in the dresser.

Mike: Cameron knows where the pills are. How much sobriety does it take before using again is not front and center?

Michael: Yeah, that's a hard question. You know, even after he had been sober for five years, there's still this temptation. And, you know, there's a line in the book that says something like holding those pills in his hand makes that time feel like an illusion.

Michael: And, you know, he's one split second decision away from going back to day one. So five years in and he's still one day away. So, you know, I think it's always one day at a time.

Mike: Yeah, I had a discussion the other day with my dearest closest person. And she was saying.

Mike: How recently in her group, several long time recovering people came to meetings and said, I drank again, I used again, and that rocks you if you're into recovery, and you say, wow, somebody with 20, 30 years in. Uses again.

Michael: Yeah.

Mike: Holy moly.

Michael: Yeah, it's certainly scary and yeah, we're never immune and it's definitely, I mean, it's a shame that it, it sometimes takes hearing things like that to sort of reinvigorate and motivate us to get more vigilant in our recovery if we've sort of gotten lax or complacent.

Michael: But yeah, it's a lifelong disease. So recovery is a lifelong process, you know.

Mike: You know, I was a loved one with both my parents. Being addicted and going through a bunch of stuff and I wasn't sure Michael about my mom's recovery until she and we went through a really really difficult life event and she didn't drink during that time.

Mike: Does the same apply to Cameron going through his dad's mental illness?

Michael: I think so. I mean, it's hard and confusing and challenging and questionable as it is at times going through something like his dad's mental illness does have the power to inspire more confidence in. In his own recovery journey for both himself and for others in his life.

Michael: You know, even though I do think it's always one day at a time and we're never immune, like we've talked about going through big things like this and staying sober. We're huge for my own recovery journey and continue to be, and, you know, especially you've lost most people's trust that care about you and that, you know, are hoping for the best, but don't believe a word you say early on. And going through big things like this, you can show them that like, okay, I'm trying to walk out what I'm saying I'm going to do here.

Michael: And you know, not that it, not that it takes a big thing to cause somebody to relapse because it's often little things that can set me off more than big things. Sometimes there's no reason at all. It's pretty wild. But yeah, to your question, certainly think big things have a lot of power and potential.

Mike: Well, and you can only apologize so much to so many people, right? Like at what point do you stop apologizing for your past mistakes?

Michael: Yeah, I mean, I know that happened to me and I was just like, okay, yeah, I get why you don't believe a word I say, so I'm gonna show you that I'm serious about this. (chuckle)

Mike: My mom kept apologizing to me forever and ever.

Mike: And I finally said to her one day, Mom, I've now known you longer sober than I have when you were using. And it shook her because she's like, I don't think it occurred to her. And I said, stop apologizing, even for things you don't even remember, stop apologizing.

Mike: Recovery from anything is miraculous, isn't it?

Michael: I believe it's nothing short of a miracle that, yeah, I'm alive and sober today, that you hear about people that are getting and staying sober all the time. For as widespread as addiction is, there's certainly a lot of recovering people as well. And yeah, I believe it's a miracle that my dad, who Cam's dad in the book is based on, is doing as well as he is today after everything he went through with his own mental health.

Michael: So yeah, no matter what kind of suffering we find ourselves in, I believe there's always hope, and recovery from anything certainly feels miraculous to me when you're going through it.

Mike: Well, I really enjoy talking to you, so I gotta ask you as we close this, what's next? You got to be working on something.

Mike: You're a writer and you're good at it. So I know you've got to be writing something.

Michael: Well, I appreciate that. I have some ideas, but nothing too deep into the works at this point. My wife and I just bought a house. So we're moving in tomorrow, actually. So been busy at work. So yeah, I haven't had a ton of time to hash out the next idea, but definitely plan on continuing to write books.

Mike: (chuckle) Okay, wait, wait, you're moving tomorrow and you took time to do this today?

Michael: Yeah, of course!

Mike: Well, I don't know, I should let you go real quick then. Or maybe, or maybe not, maybe if you can avoid putting things in boxes, that'd be all right.

Michael: Yeah, I'm enjoying being able to procrastinate on the packing stuff.

Mike: Yeah, whatever you do, I look forward to reading it and I think as you enter your next stage of life, I'm sure you'll reflect on it as brilliantly and creatively as your two previous novels. Thanks, Michael, for doing this.

Michael: Yeah. Thank you. Mike.

Mike: And let me hold it up for those of you who are on YouTube, right?

Mike: This is the book. It's terrific. It's on Amazon. You can buy Clean with it as well. I, I, I can't recommend it more highly. And you know that there's links to both of those things to Michael's website and access to his books through there.

Mike: And so for those of you who are listening, you know the routine, please listen in next time if you're able to. Until then stay safe, be patient and remember that real change takes time.