Shouting Into the Darkness

[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 from the State of Wisconsin's Dose of Reality: Real Talks, reminding you that opioids are powerful drugs, and that one pill can kill.

Mike: I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: Matthew Laughrin wrote the book we're gonna talk about today while incarcerated. On March 1st, 2009, Matthew woke to a police tactical team bursting into his home. He was arrested for the fatal drug overdose of a teenage girl who had died in his house the previous evening while he was asleep.

Mike: His memoir, "Shouting into the Darkness: Life as a Mentally Ill Drug Addict in the 21st Century", chronicles the decisions and missteps that Matthew took that led to that day. Matthew is in recovery. Welcome Matthew, glad you could join us.

Matthew: Thanks for having me, Mike.

Mike: Your book is gripping. We'll get into the details in a bit, but you wrote the book while you were in prison.

Mike: If you count, how long have you been in recovery? Because I know you can use in prison.

Matthew: Yes, you can use in prison. And I've been clean of opioids now since 2009.

Mike: Wow!

Matthew: However, when I was released from prison I hadn't prepared for the... I didn't anticipate the advent of smartphones and all the technology, and all the discord with my family, and it just, it, and so I used the coping mechanisms that I'd learned in the past, and I relapsed. And but I got that under cover very quickly because I was like, "I can't do this. I'm on parole, first of all, so that's not gonna work." And yeah. So I decided that, I can't go back down that route.

Matthew: So I've been clean since 2001 when I was released.

Mike: Wow. That's, actually that statement is pretty ... You mean 2021?

Matthew: Oh, excuse me. Yes, 2021. Yeah, sorry about that.

Mike: That statement you just made is pretty amazing. 'Cause anybody who reads your book, and it's pretty stark, the fact that you were able to recognize and then get back, 'cause that goes against the what you write in the book where every time you came under stress you, you used.

Mike: So good for you.

Matthew: Yes. It was the change that I made when I was in prison and I worked on myself a lot when I was incarcerated.

Mike: Yeah. You get right to the point in the book, man. There's no hesitation in the first chapter.

Matthew: Yeah.

Mike: Like a lot of people I've talked to and worked with over the years, you started using really early.

Mike: And you first used heroin at what, 17?

Matthew: Yes, correct. My drug use had started a little earlier than that when I was 13 or 14 with marijuana and alcohol and cigarettes. But I didn't use heroin until I was 17. By that time, I was so thoroughly entrenched in the drug lifestyle, however, that I didn't see the hazards in what's another drug coming into my life, you have all these drugs that you come across when you're using, and I did not anticipate heroin's... the way it would interact with my brain, because some people will use a drug and they'll be like they don't like it, or it's not for them.

Matthew: The first time I used heroin, I felt like something akin to love. It was like, like the emotions of love, like, where I felt like this warmth wash over me, and it was really, it really took me. I was at a vulnerable period in my time. I was, not doing well mentally, and it did.

Matthew: It took over my life, and it took me down very quickly, as you write. I'm sure you would.

Mike: Yeah. You write, and I'll look at the quote. You said you underestimated heroin, and I was ... I read that, I thought heck, you were 17. Was that just the naive 17-year-old or the typical invulnerable nothing can hurt me 17-year-old?

Matthew: I think that it was a combination of both. You throw the young malleable mind in there, and then you throw the naivety. And then my naivety stemmed, I think, because because of the normalization of the drug use around me, you know? I didn't see it as a great leap in a bad direction.

Matthew: I saw it as just another selection on the buffet, if you will, so it was very difficult time.

Mike: And you were, in order to afford it, like a lot of young people.

Matthew: Yeah.

Mike: You thought you'd start selling stuff too, right?

Matthew: Yep. Correct. I was selling drugs to basically feed my own habit.

Mike: Did you break a lot of promises? A lot of the kids I've worked with over the years who go, "Okay. I'm gonna do a little weed, but I'm not gonna do this," or, "I'm gonna do this," and then they cross those lines quickly, right?

Matthew: I actually never really gave much thought to... (laughs)

Mike: (laughs)

Matthew: To like what other thing, other substances would come into my life, 'cause I didn't anticipate them.

Mike: Yeah.

Matthew: You don't anticipate someone bringing cocaine over until it's right in front of you, and I guess I don't recall if I made any of those promises. I very well may have, don't get me wrong, but I don't recall having made any of those, swearing off, " I'll never use that that, that's where I draw the line." I didn't really have a line, it was more just the lifestyle and everything that I was doing at that time was just, it just was just part of it, it was just a different factor in an already messed up lifestyle.

Mike: Yeah, your peer group shrank too, right? Shrank in one way and then expanded in another.

Matthew: Yes. Very accurate. Yeah, the friends that I'd had at that time when I started using, my friends from high school and so forth, I started losing a lot of those relationships and those connections, and some of those connections were fraught because perhaps, like they started using a different drug and went in a different direction, my friend or whatever, or this friend or that friend did. But yes, my old friends shed away, and then I started to be included or finding inclusion at least amongst a group of heroin addicts.

Mike: Maybe you didn't think of it this way, maybe in hindsight you do now, but you caught a break when your mom called the cops on you. And unless you wrote it differently, I was impressed that when you went to intake, when you didn't seem to lie to the cops. You just told them, or at least the first time.

Matthew: Yeah. I didn't really see the point of lying to them at the time. My secret was out. I'd been caught in possession of heroin. I didn't really see the point of trying to diminish that. I was aware that now as a felon and so forth, a felon heroin possession case on my record, that I would be faced with a lot of hurdles in life, and I was very disgruntled and angry and I was feeling very misunderstood at the time, of course.

Mike: Yeah.

Matthew: But I did not see the point in lying to the police officers, intake officers, or anyone.

Mike: You don't talk a lot about it in your book, but the little that you do, I thought it was interesting 'cause you did a really nice job of articulating what your mom was feeling, which I think a lot of parents do.

Mike: She felt a combination of fear. She's afraid you would die or be killed, and also guilt for turning you in. So she was going back and forth.

Matthew: Yes. And her ambivalence is so understandable now when I look back at it in hindsight because you know, as a single mom she didn't really have somebody else, a partner to rely on to try to enforce her rules when she was around and wasn't around.

Matthew: So she was just desperate to get me help, and she didn't have anyone to confide in really about how to do this or anything. How to get your son help when he's addicted to heroin is, can be very a tricky question. And so she called the cops. But I see that now that was just a mixture of, that came out of a feeling of hopelessness that she just must have felt.

Matthew: And I don't hold any grudges against her for that, of course. She's my mom. I love her, of course. But it, I just knew that her decision basically was now throwing me into a system that my friends had been through. I had older friends who had already been to jail and stuff, so I'd heard about it, and I was like, "Oh, nuts. This is not gonna be good." You know at that time in my life.

Mike: And like most first time offenders, even though not first time criminals, right? But as a first time offender, you got an option and so you're right, they allowed you to go to rehab. (laughs) But Matthew, when I read it I just started laughing. Rehab was a week long. Were you even detoxed by the time the week ended? (laughs)

Matthew: I was detoxing from my prescription drugs when I got in there, so I was like detoxing from Xanax and the opioids and stuff at the same time, and it was ridiculous... to me that was the court ordered rehab they sent me to, and that was all that they would offer.

Matthew: 'Cause I was under my mom's insurance at the time, so that's all they would pay for.

Mike: Yeah.

Matthew: A week, 10-day programs. Like I'd say maybe 90% of the other patients in there were court-ordered for a week, sometimes a two-week program. And I was just sitting around like there was this one gentleman I remember, and he had a 30-day program, and everyone was like, "Wow, he must have really good insurance."

Mike: (laughs)

Matthew: And that speaks to the system or the sieve. As Meg Kissinger aptly named it, where people fall through. It doesn't work for everyone. You can't get treatment in a week.

Mike: No.

Matthew: And then the courts are upset that you're, that you can't stop using.

Matthew: And it's like you gave me a real weekend of treatment, and I'm supposed to cease. That's supposed to alter 17 years of, whatever, or whatever years I had before that of, mental health issues and addiction and, all that. It's like that's not gonna change it.

Matthew: And so that was a very big reason why I wrote this book, Shouting into the Darkness. I wanted to provide a story that, that those who fell through the holes in the sieve, not the system, could relate to. Because given the dismal rates of treatment and so forth, let's face it, they're like, most people who go to treatment end up using again, sadly.

Matthew: It's just an unfortunate fact, and that's part of recovery too, to relapse.

Mike: Yes.

Matthew: But I wrote this book, so that I could, so that I could show something for them to relate to so that they didn't feel like their case was hopeless, that they read my, that they read my story and they say, "You know what? This guy, his case was hopeless," "but he made it".

Mike: And you were. You were hopeless. It comes across in the book. Like every time you got another shot, you thought to yourself it comes across, that, "Okay thanks for giving me another shot, but I'm gonna go back to using anyway."

Mike: I didn't get the sense that you were ever like gung ho for not using.

Matthew: Yes, and that is accurate 100%. I wasn't ready to get clean yet. I didn't wanna get clean yet. And that's an unfortunate fact that we deal with in this drug war and this addiction thing, is that if somebody doesn't wanna get clean, no amount of treatment's gonna be able to make them do that, or at least I haven't seen a treatment program long enough yet. So it's really unfortunate. It's really unfortunate. But yeah so with the lack of these treatment resources being extended or something, I just feel as though that, yeah, at that time I didn't wanna use, and I feel like harm reduction is where we should be focusing our attention. Because I feel like giving an addict, that, those extra months maybe, or maybe it's an extra year or two, or whatever, or however long it is. The addict has to come to the realization that they don't wanna use 'cause it's dysfunctional and it's messing up their life.

Matthew: And a lot of times that they unfortunately pass away or something before they come to that realization. And I feel like if we're gonna treat addiction as a disease or as an illness, we should be trying to help these people live longer so that they can, not, I'm not saying giving them drugs or anything like that, but just make sure that they're safe long enough, so that they can decide that they wanna come to a point in their life that they wanna get treatment.

Mike: You said something to me before we started that a lot of people don't know, which is when you go to prison, I think people assume that everything is available to you. But you said, you told me that substance use disorder treatment isn't available until generally when, if you're incarcerated?

Matthew: It's generally not until, unless you have a very short sentence. My sentence was 13 years, so it's generally you have to have five years or less on your sentence to take part in their programs. And I didn't make it to that point, as we spoke 'cause by the time I had five years or less on my sentence, COVID hit and they shut the programs down.

Mike: So you did it on your own.

Matthew: Yes. Exactly. And I took those leaps in the right direction by reassessing my situation. I was 23 years old when I got to prison, and I looked and I was trying to think, you know- What can I do that will serve me to get out of this lifestyle and this the, these bad decision-makings and all sort, and that I can do now that will affect me upon my release?

Matthew: So I chose to read every book I could, and educate myself, and try to teach myself how to write narrative nonfiction, and it was difficult at first. I had a GED when I went in there, and I don't even remember taking the GED test, so that just goes to show my level of education at that time.

Matthew: But I started reading voraciously, and it really helped me, bring a peace of mind and I think some semblance of control and power  over my life to start writing.

Mike: Yeah. You're minimizing a little bit there. I'm gonna go through a little list I wrote down, okay?

Mike: Arrest, jail, overdose, another overdose, related heart attack at a young age, a brain injury, coma, deaths of friends, numerous loss. Okay, looking back, you had stroke. Is there anything that you think would have derailed that train before you ended up getting arrested?

Matthew: I think that in tandem with my drug addiction, more focus could have been put on my mental illness.

Mike: Which was?

Matthew: Because... which is depression, generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, panic attacks, which I don't really have anymore. I have those under control, but I do suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and that's a big one.

Mike: Okay, I cringe.

Mike: Doing what I've done for a living I cringe, 'cause I assumed, you don't go into detail what you were assessed. When did they finally diagnose you correctly, get you on the right meds? 'Cause it seemed like you kept going to doctors, psychiatrists, and they kept giving you stuff that if, I hope it's all right to say, instead of taking, you crushed and snorted. So.

Matthew: Yes, and that's correct, and I think that maybe doctors' awareness wasn't as... they weren't as aware of the addictive nature of some of the drugs that they were prescribing at that time. Like Xanax, for instance, was a big one. I'd been prescribed it since I was like 15, 16 was when I got my first prescription to Xanax, the guy who prescribed it was a gentleman who I was seeing for because I had been caught with a juvenile possession of marijuana ticket. So they made me go to treatment and see a guy, and this guy prescribed me to Xanax. And I went on it and I took Xanax. Xanax was one of the most difficult drugs I've ever had to detox from.

Mike: That's what they say about it too, right?

Matthew: I mean literally having grand mal seizures in the county jail every day. And just waking up with blood and falling out and having emergency pers- you know, medical stuff on the floor and all, because the, those medications that I was getting that were supposed to help me quit using pot happened to be really addictive,

Mike: Yeah.

Matthew: And a high potential for abuse.

Mike: And you couldn't have been the only one, because as you say in your book, when you were dealing, there were no end of people that were willing to sell you pills that they were prescribed.

Matthew: Yes. There was definitely a massive amount of prescription pills floating around that time.

Mike: Yeah.

Matthew: Around 2006, 2007, 2008. I could literally get whatever prescription or drug I knew just by... and that wasn't even a rare thing.

Mike: Yeah.

Matthew: I felt like everyone around me knew how to get these drugs, it was just a... people would share the names of different doctors that would prescribe stuff, and go in there, and it was just, it was a disaster.

Matthew: It really was bad. And a lot of my friends ended up going to that same doctor that I went to and getting different prescriptions for stuff like Xanax or other benzodiazepines or, forms of and uppers, Ritalin, Adderall or whatever. And it was really just a free-for-all with everyone had always had bottles of pills.

Mike: And this is ultimately what you ended up getting convicted for, were got your hands on stuff that you didn't even know what it would do in combination with other stuff, like a lot of people, right?

Matthew: Yes, correct. The first time I was introduced to Suboxone, I was told that it wasn't an opiate, and that it was like an opiate, but it was like a better, more improved version of a methadone.

Matthew: And I'd been on methadone, and I knew methadone was rough, so I just, I was curious, so I took half a tablet or whatever, and it didn't get me high. It felt different, but, I don't know. It was just, it was the weirdest thing.

Mike: Well, one, you swallowed it. (laughs)

Matthew: Yeah.

Mike: Instead of putting it under your tongue. But did you end up having a stroke because you combined it with something else?

Matthew: Oh, the Suboxone?

Mike: Yeah. You took two things that ended up with a stroke, I think.

Matthew: Yes. When I was 19 years old, I had been doing cocaine. It was the night of my release from a rehab, in fact.

Matthew: I'd just gotten released from a rehab, and I was doing cocaine, 19 years old. And I don't know due to the brain injury that I suffered from this incident, I don't really remember why I took 200 milligrams of morphine. I don't really know, 'cause I knew that was a lethal dose at that time in my life, so I don't understand if that maybe was maybe, me coming down from the cocaine and the dopamine leaving my system, me getting really depressed, and maybe I took those 'cause I was upset at myself for relapsing.

Matthew: Or maybe it was just I couldn't really see myself thinking that 200 milligrams of morphine would keep me alive, but, if I took it, but. But I did take it. I took those pills of morphine down with that cocaine, and I suffered a cocaine induced heart attack and a brain injury. I was in the hospital for the next two months having to learn how to walk, talk and all that again.

Mike: One of the times you're contemplative, you say that you realized you had made a string of bad decisions clearly, right? And I am always curious about this.

Mike: At what point did you know... Okay, it's easy to see in hindsight, right? Oh, man, I made some bad decisions.

Matthew: Yeah.

Mike: How do you know, oops, this could be a bad decision? How long did it take you before you could see it in the headlights rather than the rear view mirror?

Matthew: I think that happened when I was in Green Bay and I was making those decisions I spoke of where I was reading books like I said, Chaucer, and just Count of Monte Cristo.

Matthew: And I was reading them just for the sake of educating myself, and the feedback I was getting from my family was so great. They were so surprised that I'd opted out of the traditional prison life and had chosen to to dedicate my time to prison and to educating myself and learning how to write, and writing a book.

Matthew: They, and so I think that their support of my decisions and so forth at that time was a big help to me. Big reassurance that I was making good decisions.

Mike: Do you feel like you now have been correctly diagnosed and are on the meds that you need in order to be able to function?

Matthew: I do. I do. I do. Depression meds are difficult 'cause SSRIs don't work for a lot of people and so forth, and I am on an SSRI. So I do get depressed, but I feel like my coping mechanisms are much, much much more improved now. Like now I'll just read or I'll write or I'll work on whatever book, story I'm writing at the time.

Matthew: Whereas in the past I'd just go right to the drugs, right to the drugs every time, every freaking time, and I'd... It's just like a just like that mouse that can't stop, in those little tests they do. Like the mouse that can't stop drinking the cocaine out of the little dripper until it just dies.

Matthew: That was me. I was that little mouse.

Mike: You dedicate the book to your mom. Bridges are always burned when you do stuff, make bad decisions, and I'm certain you lost relationships along the way. But your mom continued to encourage you in hope.

Matthew: Yes. Yes. My mom is a very special woman.

Matthew: She is. She has had faith in me when I didn't have faith in myself. She's had hope for me when I was hopeless. And, she really has been that rock that I've relied on throughout my life, for support, emotional support, mental support, and she's always been there for me, and I really appreciate that.

Matthew: And I really appreciate that especially given the tumultuousness of our relationship when I was growing up. We didn't have a good relationship. We had a relationship when I was, like, a little kid, but as soon as I hit teenage years, our relationship became really nasty for a while.

Matthew: So I'm really grateful that she was able to forgive me for my decisions and for my poor decisions, and support me in my good decisions.

Mike: I mean- I know you had a different relationship with your dad. How is it now?

Matthew: My relationship with my father is good now. I do talk to him and see him on a regular basis.

Matthew: He's doing a lot better. He's been... He actually just got finished with a stem cell transplant for a cancer diagnosis. So he's fighting cancer right now, but he's doing it and he's doing it sober, which is crazy because I haven't seen him do things sober in a long time, my whole life practically, basically.

Matthew: Yeah. So to see him now and the changes in him, it shows that even if you are in your 50s or your 60s, you can still change. And the change and that hope, that, that's still available to you. My dad did it. I've done it. It's out there. It's out there.

Matthew: You just gotta really, you just gotta really go out there and find it. It's really left a lot on the person.

Mike: I wanna, as long as you're talking about relationships and seeing people I have to ask you this, 'cause you didn't move back into the same neighborhood where you had all those connections, but you're close.

Mike: You're not that far away, so you've had, even though some time went between the time you were, went into prison and got out, do you ever see people? Do you ever come across circumstances where you go, "Ooh, I remember this neighborhood. I remember this dude."

Matthew: Yeah. Yeah, the feeling of driving through the east side of Milwaukee after my incarceration was surreal, but it wasn't, I don't run into people as much.

Matthew: It's just the memories of all the people that I knew who are now passed away.

Mike: Yeah, there's a lot of it.

Matthew: Who have now passed away. Because after I was incarcerated, a few years later, the fentanyl came out and the fentanyl epidemic or, and the opioid epidemic- ... or whatever one that was, and that really hit my friend base hard.

Matthew: I've lost more friends than I can count, literally. It's just like I can't count them all.

Mike: Matthew, early on when we did these podcasts, and I bet, anybody who listens to these regularly is not even listening to this. I interviewed a guy who was in, he's in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Mike: And he told a story that I think you could relate to with that. He said that at one point when he decided not to use anymore, he was in a limo, and he said something got passed around, right? And when it got to him, I said, "How'd you handle that?" He goes, "I just said I'm good," and didn't use it.

Mike: And then he looked at me on the Zoom, and he goes, "Every one of those guys is dead." And he said, "I'm still making music." So that sounds like the story you just told about your old friends.

Matthew: Yes it unfortunately is because, like some of those, and I'm talking friends, like people I've known since childhood.

Matthew: Friends I've grew up with, people that were like brothers and, to me and so forth, and I've lost a lot of friends, and I know, but I know so many other people who've lost their whole friend base to this- ... so to this addiction. And it is difficult.

Mike: How are you, you're obviously rebuilding your life.

Matthew: Yes, totally.

Mike: How and what's next?

Matthew: Right now I am just promoting my book, just going on, just trying to talk about it, and raise awareness and give back to the recovery community a lot. So I've been doing readings of my book at recovery centers, and just talking to people about, with their problems with addiction.

Matthew: Trying to share some of my experiences and hope that something clicks in there, something they can relate to that will make them, more receptive to what I have to say. I went back to college and I got 60-some credits before I decided that I needed to promote this book now because I just had to do it. So I was studying English and I plan to continue that once I'm done. But I really like the idea of writing as a career, and so I'm writing a second book about my time in prison. And I plan on eventually writing a trilogy about my time before, during, and after prison.

Matthew: 'Cause I think that the reentry program, the process of reentry really needs a lot more focus on. I was released from prison and I was given a list of psychiatrists to call for my medications that I need or I'll go into seizures and stuff. And no one on the list was even still open.

Matthew: So I ended up having to go out there on my own and start calling around. And, it's just it's... The reentry, there is no reentry program from prison. It's basically just, you're done. It's time to leave. Hope you succeed.

Mike: And almost everybody gets out, so we really need to focus on making sure y'all don't go back in.

Matthew: Yes, and that is why I think the prison is such a rife ground for... There are just so many opportunities to help people during that time, 'cause you're sending people to prison. So they're out of the community. You're protecting the community and so forth.

Matthew: You're doing your job in that way. But the programs, they're just not there in prison, and the programs that they do have are very weak. Oftentimes they'll be held by a social worker who's been working in the DOC for the last 20 years. And it's that's not the right person to be teaching these people about AA, NA and helping them with their addictions.

Matthew: Because that social worker has whether they realize it or not, garnered some biases over the years. And I feel like those biases don't translate well into understanding other people's problems. And mental health treatment, it should also be a huge focus in prison 'cause after all, prisons are the new mental health facilities.

Matthew: We might as well treat the mentally ill before releasing them back into the public and then being like, "Oh, this person had this psychotic episode and flipped out and did this." That's because they couldn't get their medication when they were released from prison or so forth. And it's just like there are reasons that these things happen. They don't just happen in a vacuum, and I wish that, I really hope that I can shed light on these things, shed light on areas where improvement can be made. Shed light on areas where things can be done differently and with the same effectiveness.

Matthew: And I think that ultimately we will get some more programming. I don't know if it'll be in prison, but I think that the mental health, field has gotten a little better, I feel like with the way it addresses substance abuse and so forth over the last decade or so.

Matthew: And I hope to see those improvements continue because that is really what we need. 'Cause I just... every addict that I've met who couldn't stop and really knew that what they were doing was horrible and was gonna hurt them, were also suffering from mental illnesses that weren't being unaddressed.

Matthew: And sometimes these mental illnesses are so severe, schizophrenia, like seeing things, and they're just using just 'cause it's what's available to them for treatment. A coping mechanism. They don't have the right resources to be given the treatment that they do need.

Matthew: Medications, making sure that they get their medications on time. I feel like there's so much work to be done in this mental health field. So much work.

Mike: Excellent. Matthew, I'm so glad you're doing well. The book is gripping. The book is Shouting Into The Darkness: Life As A Mentally Ill Drug Addict In The 21st Century. It's available on Amazon. We put links to that at the end of the podcast. Matthew, thanks so much for sharing your story and for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Mike: And for those of you listening and watching, we hope that you make good decisions for yourself, and you experience the joy and the support that you need. For those of you listening and watching. As always, thanks. Be safe, and be well.