Survive & Thrive

[Jaunty Guitar Music]

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

Mike: Some people have a clear lane as they move through life, others run a hurdle race. Can you tell the Olympics were just over? I've always admired people who run the hurdle race and then take the time to help others with their own hurdles.

Mike: I'm pleased to have as our guest today, Tim Decorah. Tim is a coach, teacher, husband, father, grandfather, and mentor. He's a former University of Wisconsin Platteville basketball player who played under Hall of Fame coach Bo Ryan. He also has had hurdles in his life, and that's what we're going to talk about today.

Mike: Tim will also be the keynote speaker at the 2024 Alcohol Policy Seminar, October 7th and 8th in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Mike: Good morning, Tim. How are you?

Tim: Good morning. I'm inspired.

Mike: Oh, that's nice. That's nice.

Tim: This has been on my calendar for a while and, and yeah, today is finally here and I get to, get to yeah, chat and inspiration all over.

Mike: Let's talk a little bit about the spot you get to in your life. You grew up in South Central Wisconsin, right? And you had a ton of athletic success.

Tim: Yeah, I would say so. I mean the newspaper clippings and all of that stuff would say so. But I just, I mean, I, it gave me an opportunity to just get out there and do what I love to do.

Tim: And I would have done it in front of thousands of people. I would have done it well, up until high school, just in the driveway or at the court. So it really didn't matter, but no, I from what I understand yeah.

Mike: You didn't get any NIL money back in the day, did you?

Tim: No. I wish I would've. That's always been a joke with some of the other players we played against and got to know in the old WSUC, it's called the WIAC, now the WIAC and used to be a joke. You know what, what did Coach Ryan get you? And we're like, what do you mean? We just got some, you know, free meal once in a while, free game meal and we got nothing.

Tim: What? No, we, yeah, coach was great about you know, you're getting an education and an occasional free pregame meal and that was paid for. We did all the work to get that free meal too.

Mike: Yeah. Well, you know the reason I bring that up is because when you experience success, some people think, never think you could be dealing with anxiety, mental health or substance use issues.

Mike: And that's not true.

Tim: No, I mean, for years, and I've talked about this now. Seems it comes up quite a bit. How'd you deal with that? How'd you do that? I just put a facade up or put a mask on that. Today I'm Tim, the high school student. Today I'm Tim, the basketball or football player or even better yet, let me just sit in the back of the room and hopefully nobody notices me.

Tim: And that's the way I pretty much approach life. I tried to stay out of the limelight, but being in athletics that's kind of hard to do unless you're playing at the orphanage where it's just the rest of us orphanage kids and there's no parents in the crowd, but.

Tim: That wasn't, that wasn't the case in high school.

Mike: You know, one of the reasons I like doing this, you're not alone. I've had several people on the podcast. You didn't get diagnosed, right? You have generalized anxiety disorder, and you didn't get diagnosed until 2021.

Tim: Yeah. It so that kind of leads me into the three words that saved my life. And it kind of goes back to mid December of 2021. I said the three words that would ultimately, I think, save my life. And I had two coworkers that came to my house being as a teacher. I had, I'd missed a couple of days.

Tim: I'd missed a bunch of days at school. And I was sitting in my, probably a chair, like I'm sitting in right now with my face in my hands. Asking what, why, why is this happening to me? Why and how come? And all of a sudden it was interrupted by a knock on the door and my doorbell ringing and I quick crept over to the window and I looked out and I saw it was my two co workers.

Tim: And I immediately went back to the chair I was sitting in, and for the first time in about a week and a half, my prayers were answered. I was saying, please make them go away. Make them go away. I don't want to see them. And sure enough, I heard two car doors slam, two cars started, and they left. First time in a week and a half that my prayers had been answered.

Tim: And then I don't know what it was divine intervention. I picked up my phone and I hit the last call received. And it was one of my coworkers to find out if I was home and I hit the send button and it rang and I said, hello, I'm here. Those weren't the three words. I said, the three words I said were, I need help.

Tim: And they turned their cars around and I don't know if it was 5 or 10 minutes, but they came back. I opened the door, we hugged it out. And they were there for really only one reason. They cared about me and what was going on. They didn't say, if you don't get this thing straightened out you're gonna lose your job, you're gonna, you know, this is, this, these are all things that are going to happen.

Tim: And they would have been bad, but they said things that were good. We've got some phone numbers. We've got some people you can talk to and you need to get some help. And from that point on life has led me to really being on the Mike McGowan show podcast and doing some other podcasts and writing a book and doing keynote speaking throughout the Midwest.

Tim: And all because I said three words. I need help. And it's changed my, well, it's really, it's saved my life in the beginning. And then it's changed my life physically, mentally, emotionally. And really, professionally, it's really taken off from here.

Mike: Well, okay. From your teenage years to the age of 52, and that's when, 2021, right?

Mike: That's a long time, Tim. What did you think was, like, what did you tell yourself was going on?

Tim: I always thought that my racing heart, just feeling like I was amped up, ready to go, that served a purpose when I was in high school and when I was in college. And even when I was coaching in my early years of teaching and coaching, that served a purpose.

Tim: I felt ready to go. I felt energized. But then once some of those things, I didn't need to use it in that particular sense of real life experiences. I wondered why I had those things and I went in and I got looked over by my doctor and said, I think you have high blood pressure. Not, I think, you do have high blood pressure.

Tim: So I said, okay, my mom had that. I had it. It's genetic. Those are the cards I dealt. No problem. And I was, I was taken in the beginning one Medicaid, not one med a day. Then it was two. And then in the very end, it was three and it was bordering on being unmanageable. But the funny thing is, is when I started to get some of these coping strategies and getting in a better mind physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, I went from taking three down to two.

Tim: And then they said down to, we got to get you off of this because your blood pressure is too low. And really for about the last 970 odd days, I have not had to take any medications to help with the anxiety or certainly help with the high blood pressure. Partly because I think the anxiety was causing a majority of it, if not all of it.

Mike: I read that when Coach Ryan was asked to describe you, he described you as steady. That couldn't have been how it always felt though.

Tim: No. I mean, one of the places that I could be steady was when it involved sports in school. I had routine. I had a time that I needed to be there. And then once you entered the floor, it's time to forget.

Tim: And Coach Ryan would say this a little bit once in a while. He'd say, all right, we're going to leave all of our problems and things going on right now at the door. And then when you come in here, it's time to you know, work on basketball and your part on the team. And so that was great for me where I could be involved in routine and I knew what was coming up and there was my opportunity also to really, check...

Tim: I could leave my anxiety. I could leave my insomnia. I could leave my high blood pressure and all of those things at the door. And now I was just Tim, the basketball player and a member of the team. And then unfortunately had to pick that stuff up as I would leave practice and some of those feelings of unease, impatient, overwhelmed, fear, panic would be there waiting for me. And I didn't know how to manage that. So being steady at practice was easy to do. Being steady in life was hard and at times unmanageable.

Mike: Well, and you and I are guys, and we come from the suck it up generation, too.

Tim: (laugh) Oh, yeah. Tough it out, rub some dirt on it.

Tim: We don't talk about that. Toughen up. Oh, yeah. I mean, I got a load of those that do not really no longer have much of a place in our world, in our society, which I will be ready for because I've had to evolve with all of the 32 years of teaching and coaching. I've had to learn to evolve at the time, so I'm ready to go out into the world.

Mike: Yeah. You're also a member of the Ho Chunk Nation. Are there cultural considerations to bringing issues up?

Tim: Yeah, I mean, it goes right along with being male or being the man of the house or being the big brother. You have to suck it up because you know what, that's what men do. And I think that's comes from our long line of traditions of the men went out and hunted and gathered and the women stayed and did the women's stuff.

Tim: And when it was time to go and do battle. You wanted to be a warrior. You wanted to be the guy that went to battle and did all the stuff to protect your family, to feed your family. And you didn't have time for a mental illness or you didn't have time to grieve or cry. And I had to suppress probably just like a lot of men alive today in our age bracket that we've had, we had to suppress those things and keep them at bay.

Tim: That December, I think December, 2020 thing at 21, I think it just busted. I couldn't suppress it anymore, and I'm glad it happened because I'm here today to talk about how I've been able to cope and the strategies that I use.

Mike: Well, and when you talk about that, you story tell, and you know, as a teacher, you're probably a good storyteller, right?

Mike: And that's also part of your cultural heritage.

Tim: Yeah, I mean, I guess I didn't think about that until you just said that. I'm not as good a storyteller as the social studies and the history guys and girls are. They can tell some great stories. But yeah, I tend to share some stories, but yeah, you're right.

Tim: Anytime there's some kind of ritualistic thing, a powwow, a funeral, a death, there's a lot of stories that get told. A lot of times there's a lot of stories about, remember when you did this, and then it would lead to a lot of storytelling. And, I think when I was growing up, I remember there being a lot of laughter, but now that I look back on it, there was a lot of laughter for a couple of reasons.

Tim: Number one, the stories were good, but number two, we'd rather be laughing together than maybe being at home where there was stuff going on that we had to deal with. So I remember a lot of laughter and a lot of storytelling and, and yeah, I try to share as much as I can in my keynote presentations.

Tim: So that people can take away something from it, and then hopefully hear, Yeah, he's, he's just like me. Same person, different story, but it's essentially the same.

Mike: How did you learn to cope?

Tim: I, again, it took me until that December where I started to look... I had to first of all find out what my triggers for my anxiety were.

Tim: And for me, it was my wife being gone. My wife being gone was very similar to when my mom... I was raised by a single parent when I was up through eight or nine years old, it was just my mom and I, but we also lived with my great grandma and my great uncle. And you know how people are, kids are, they're there, they love their mom.

Tim: And whenever she would leave and it was often because she was a young parent, I was born and she was 18. And so when I was three or four years old, she's 21 or 22. And I tell this in my story, my keynote presentations that she was doing stuff as a 21 or 22 year old that we all did. We work, we go out and hang out with our friends, go to movies.

Tim: But she was also with a child and she still continued to do those things because I don't think she knew any better. And oftentimes I was left at home with my great grandmother and I've asked people, listen, my pre keynote presentations. I said, how many of you would, would your parents leave you at home with a grandma or a great grandmother?

Tim: And most people say, yes. Now as a parent, would you leave your child at home with a great grandmother that has Parkinson's? And nobody raises hand. I was left at home with my great grandmother who had Parkinson's. So that was tough to deal with. And then of course, when my mom would leave, I would get anxious and wonder, when is she coming home?

Tim: Why did she leave? How come she doesn't stay here? That all started coming up when my wife took a new job in the early 2000s where she would leave and all of a sudden I'm turned into a four or five year old kid wondering when my wife is going to come home and where is she and why isn't she, is she okay?

Tim: And a lot of those same things came back and that's where I started to really see my anxiety take off.

Mike: So you're aware of the thoughts, but you're not expressing them.

Tim: I was aware of the thoughts. I was dreaded when she would have to go, when she said, I've got a work thing, work function.

Tim: If I'm a normal person who doesn't have anxiety or mental illness, oh yeah, fine, go ahead. Hey, we'll see you later. That wasn't the case. All of these emotions that I felt when I was a youngster came flooding back and I didn't know how to shut them off. I didn't know how to turn them off. I didn't have any of the coping skills that I do now.

Tim: Back in the early 2000s, I resorted to what worked. And for me, that was, I chose to use alcohol. And that's where my choosing to use alcohol as a coping skill started to gradually increase over the years. And that's the only thing I knew what to do. It instantly for me worked and I joke now that it's still jokingly in the bottom of my backpack as a coping skill, but I've got 15 or 20 coping skills on top of that, that I will never have to go to that, but it does work in moderation.

Tim: It does work, but. After a while, you kind of forget about moderation and you're only concerned about making the anxiety and those feelings stop and go away. And for me, unfortunately that worked.

Mike: You know, if you think about having all of those feelings, and then, you know, you said Coach Ryan would say, we leave it at the door, focus on this.

Mike: Well, when you're working as hard as you were on a college basketball floor, and I've watched some of his practices, so (laugh) you're, you can't think about anything else because you're beat. But where are the role models for the other coping strategies in the bag. People don't talk about this, Tim, right?

Mike: They don't say, well, if working yourself into exhaustion doesn't work, here's another one you might want to try. Here's another one you might want to try. Where'd you pick them up?

Tim: Well, that was part of the 2021 December and then spilling into January of 2022. I knew that I also had an issue with alcohol.

Tim: I had quit in 2014 and lived essentially seven years of really being alcohol free with some slips in there. And I finally had to ask the question. I think I want to also address this anxiety and the psychologist and psychiatrist that I was working with, they said, tell me more.

Tim: And for the first time, I think ever, I got honest with those questions about how often do you feel like this? How often do you not sleep at night et cetera, et cetera. And I started answering those questions truthfully without putting on the mask, without putting up the facade that everything is okay and being in denial mode, I decided to admit some things that were going on and then lo and behold.

Tim: I was given this diagnosis of we think you have what's called GAD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder. So what we need to do is we need to start investigating, researching where and why this starts. Then once you know that, and once you can feel those feelings come back, then you can start to practice some breathing techniques.

Tim: For me I'm a very spiritual I have a lot of faith. Started to do a lot of praying. But the one thing I never did was I didn't meditate and I was told this, I believe it that when you pray, you are talking to your higher power. For me, that's God. But when you meditate and you're not talking, now you're listening and things can come in there and you start to notice a lot more things that I didn't before.

Tim: Breathing techniques, self talk, I do a lot of self talk where I talk myself out of these feelings. I just do some grounding techniques where I look in my room and I see, okay, there's a refrigerator. What can I smell? What can I hear? What can I feel? What can I taste? And some of those things kind of felt hokey when I heard them before weren't, yeah, no, I'm not going to do that.

Tim: But for me, they work. And probably the biggest thing that I've done in the last 970 odd days is I journal morning and night. And that's really been the biggest thing that I think has been the key to my success is, is knowing my goals for the day, knowing how I feel, and then also being grateful for the things I have, and then reporting on that at night and did I accomplish those things.

Tim: That has, I think, alone been the biggest biggest item that has helped me just stay mentally, physically, emotionally strong.

Mike: Helps your blood pressure, too.

Tim: Helps my blood pressure, too, exactly.

Mike: Well, you know, you're a coach, teacher, mentor, speaker, and soon to be author. So you have an opportunity to also influence others.

Mike: You must enjoy that.

Tim: I do. I'm telling you, every time I've spoken, it doesn't matter where, if it's at a high school, if it's at a college or university, small business, I've done a couple of nursing homes gigs. And it's amazing. I'll have anywhere to a half a dozen to a dozen people will come up and talk to me afterward.

Tim: And they tell me they're still experiencing this and they've never heard these things before. And I'm going to try it. I've had people reach out to me on Facebook and say, Hey, I read your article and I want to just let you know that you've inspired me. I made a call to my doctor. I'm going to go and get help.

Tim: And really one of the saddest things I think that I've heard is that when I speak to high school kids and they come and tell me, I take care of my little brother or sister now, just like you do, I'm the only one, I'm playing the role of the parent. I struggled to get to practice on time.

Tim: And I wonder if I'm going to get picked up to go home. And when I hear stories of kids who are dealing with that stuff right now, I just, I just tell them to stick it out, hang in, stay in the fight and things will get better, but stay involved with your team, stay involved with others because they have the.

Tim: They have the coping skills, but really they have the care, coaches care, teachers care you know, hang in there. It'll, it'll get better. But when, when they tell me that they're going through that stuff now, it's, it's kind of heart wrenching, a little heartbreaking sometimes.

Mike: Yeah. But you know, what they just did is something that you and I didn't do.

Mike: They bring it up. And so they're only about three decades ahead of the rest of us.

Tim: Three decades. I like that. I like your math. So what the other thing I talked about in my, and I usually end my keynote presentation with this, is really the biggest...

Tim: What deleted a lot of the anxiety for me was in March of 2022. My mom passed away in 1997 of probably anxiety, depression, PTSD, mental trauma, and alcohol, alcohol complications with her alcoholism. What happened in March is that I decided to go to her grave site. And I wanted to make amends for the last 10 years of my life.

Tim: And I just said, I want to apologize for not being the best son I could be in the last 10 years of your life, because that's when you probably needed me. I also want to forgive you for what I thought was being a bad parent. And I just said I'm alive today because of what you did do. So you were a good parent.

Tim: And I want to forgive you for what I thought was being a bad parent. And I had a spiritual experience that day. I try to quantify it and I say 40 percent of my anxiety and whatever else left my head poured out onto the ground. Trees didn't move. Lightning didn't strike. But something happened that day.

Tim: It was a spiritual experience that I get tingles now when I talk about it. But now when I have a anxiety inducing moment, it has somewhere to go in my brain. It has somewhere to go, and I can deal with it, and I can it has somewhere to go. Before, it didn't have anywhere to go, and it would go in, and then, boom, chaos would create.

Tim: I'd be in anxiety panic mode. Now, I can process that, and there's someplace for it to go. So, I recommend at the end of my presentations, Hey, if you have an opportunity to make amends with a friend, a colleague. a sibling, a parent, and they're still alive, do it. It'll be great for you, and it may also be great for them.

Tim: And it will do you some good. It can't hurt. And I've had a few people respond that they, they did that. And it, and it helped them tremendously. But I think that's hard to do.

Mike: It is.

Tim: It was hard to do when my mom was alive. And I often think that if I would have did it, maybe she would still be alive today.

Tim: But the bottom line is I felt better after it and I've tried to quantify it. My number says 40 percent of my anxiety left me and now there's some place for anything else to come back in.

Mike: Tim, you just answered my last four questions about the impact that you have. You must see, even the people that don't come up and talk to you. When you talk and share stuff like that, you must see in their faces a recognition that they just got something. You don't know what, but you got through.

Tim: Yeah. I've taken the time now when I first started, I was a little jittery and a little nervous, but now that I've done this about three dozen times, I start, things have slowed down. It's just like basketball. Beginning of the season, running around, and you don't know anything, but then by the end of the season, everything is slowed down, and you can start to feel, and I can see people nodding their head.

Tim: They got it. And then they reinforce that by coming up and saying, thank you for sharing your story. And then they also say, are you writing a book? And, and when I tell them, well, when I first heard that, I laughed preposterously because I'm such a horrible, I was a horrible English student but I heard that enough times.

Tim: So yeah, I just said, yeah, I'm writing a book, but the book has been therapeutic for me. Because I was able to go back into time and find out when and where these things started so that I knew what my triggers were and I can look for them. And that's a coping skill, too, is I can, I went back in the past I said, okay when did I start feeling these feelings?

Tim: And now I can anticipate when they come so I can start to deal with them before they happen. But the book has really been more therapeutic for me, and then I, you know, whenever it's done and whenever it comes out, I hope it's entertaining and also therapeutic for people who read it.

Mike: And if you're listening, we'll put a link to Tim's stuff on the end of this podcast, so for speaking, if you want, would like him to speak.

Mike: And also when the book is published, I have no doubt you'll upload it to that.

Tim: Oh, yeah. Well, hopefully it'll be on Amazon. Hopefully it'll be on all of those different places. And hopefully I'm doing some signing of the books. And Mike McGowan will get a free signed book. And, of course I know about the you know promotional marketing thing.

Tim: I got the Survive and Thrive back there. I got my, my website address. So I wanted to make sure I took care of that. But yes, I would love to come in and speak and share my story, I think, is the most, that's what grasps and pulls people in, because a lot of them can now relate. And really, somebody said, what's the biggest thing that you get out of these things?

Tim: Or what do other people get? They see me face to face. Now there is a person who is exactly like me, versus when they see it on a YouTube channel, a TED Talk, or when they see it on TV, hey, this kid, this person suffers from anxiety and depression. I'm right there in front of them in real life and can relate and then the coping skills are the other thing.

Tim: And I talked about my journal being able to let people have those things and then hopefully help them along their journey cause it's been a journey and it's not easy. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. But it's hard work and I've got to keep doing it every day.

Mike: It's great. Tim, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us today. It, it's so, so helpful. And for those of you who would like to hear him speak, I believe the conference that you're speaking at, I know the conference you're speaking at is available virtually, and we'll put a link to that as well.

Mike: I'll see you there. I'm going to be there. Sounds great. And when you said the game slowed down for you in speaking, I've experienced that speaking, but I never did in basketball, which is probably the difference in our two careers. Right there.

Tim: (laugh) Well, yeah, college was a little bit faster. High school, yeah, it really slowed down.

Tim: And I think that's the other thing Is you know, slow down in life. It's that quote from a great philosopher, Ferris Bueller. He says, if you don't slow down, you're going to miss a lot of stuff. And I'm misquoting him, but he said something to that effect, that if you don't slow down, you're going to miss something.

Tim: And so this, yeah, addressing my anxiety has slowed down life, and I can really appreciate the sun in my face, the smell of flowers. I was more wrapped up in how I felt, but now I can experience those things.

Mike: That's great. Well, maybe you and I can stand up and get the entire conference to sing Twist and Shout and do a little Ferris Bueller walk off.

Mike: For those of you who are listening, you know, you're welcome to listen anytime you're able to. Until we talk to you again, stay safe and wherever you can, like Tim, make a difference.