The Recovered Life Show

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[Announcer]
You're listening to The Recovered Life Show, the show that helps people in recovery live their best recovered lives. And here is your host, Damon Frank.

[Damon Frank]
And welcome back to The Recovered Life Show. I am so glad that you are joining us today. We have a very special episode.

I have a guest on today that has taken two paths, one of recovery and one healing in the mental health area. And this is something that's not talked about a lot. And I was so, so, so thrilled that he was able to join us today.

I'd like to welcome you guys to the show. Cecil Gailey Jr. and Cecil is a professional peer support specialist and also with a lot of recovery under his belt and also has suffered from addiction and schizophrenia simultaneously. And I'm so glad, Cecil, that you're on the show to kind of talk about this, because a lot of people struggle with this and they don't have answers.

So thank you so much for coming on.

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
Well, thanks for having me today. I appreciate it.

[Damon Frank]
Thank you. I want to dive right into this, Cecil, because a lot of people don't understand. You know, they understand addiction.

Maybe they've had a friend or family member that has addiction, so they've seen it, but they don't really know about schizophrenia. They don't know what schizophrenia is. They don't know the signs and symptoms of it.

And you have going through both, both these paths at the same time. Can you kind of describe to everybody, you know, what is schizophrenia and, you know, a little bit about your story?

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
So schizophrenia, you know, schizophrenia for me is, you know, I, I guess I got to go into a little bit of my story first. So I was addicted, I was addicted. In my addiction, I started hearing things, seeing things that weren't there, thinking things that weren't true, and finally got to the point in my addiction that I just couldn't even use anymore.

And blessing or no blessing, the schizophrenia is what kind of, kind of stopped me in my addiction, stopped me in my track for my addiction. But it was, you know, the schizophrenia for me is I had visual and audio hallucinations. I would believe things that weren't, you know, the norm, you know, the norm, like maybe hearing messages coming to the TV, talking to me, the radio, thinking that I remember I would think that celebrities are coming to my house, my daughter would be like, no dad, Britney Spears isn't coming over tomorrow, you know, and so it became real destructive in my life to the point I couldn't function.

[Damon Frank]
So, and you know, you're going through, you were trying to get sober at this time, right? So it's like probably thinking like, or you're an active addiction. You're thinking, well, it's just the, it's just the drugs and alcohol.

It's not anything. Is that, is that your train of thought?

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
Well, it is. That is what I thought. I thought, well, it was, it was my addiction, it was my addiction to drugs and alcohol.

And like I said, the addiction, the addiction caused me to, or the schizophrenia caused me to quit using. And then lo and behold, the symptoms of schizophrenia didn't go away. They got worse and worse and worse to the point that I was three years sober off of off of substances before I got any treatment at all for my mental health.

Because I kept thinking it would go away. And I, you know, I, you know, I don't know how much people know about schizophrenia, but I didn't believe I had. I didn't believe there was at points.

I didn't believe there was anything wrong with me. I just thought God, he started talking to me along the way, along the way somewhere, you know, and I found it real odd that God would choose me with my addiction to be the guy he's going to reveal all his darkest secrets to. So, um, so that, that's kind of my path.

I took, uh, my path to recovery for mental health was a little different. I got in some trouble and ended up going through, uh, I don't know if people are familiar with what a specialty court is, but I was, uh, instead of, instead of going to prison or going to jail, I was diverted through a specialty court where I first started getting treatment for my, uh, for my mental illness. And that's when, that's when my life really changed and started coming together with all the different, different things that I learned in that program.

And then I've continued to learn to, to, you know, for the last, uh, 20 years, you know, it's, it's been a, it's been a journey.

[Damon Frank]
So you, you know what, you know what I loved about your story? And I met you on Tik TOK on our Tik TOK live. And what I loved about your story is that you really shine a light on co-occurring disorders and addiction recovery in the path is different sometimes.

And I think one of the problem problems that we've had is there's a lack of understanding, I think in 12 step programs and, and, and sometimes in therapeutic situations that the past sometimes is different for people who also have a co-occurring disorder. Can you get into that a little bit? Because I think this is very important.

It's like, are they done simultaneously? Because a lot of people say, well, I'm going to deal with the co-occurring disorder, and then I'm going to deal with the addiction, or I'm going to deal with the addiction, but not the co-occurring disorder. Can you tell us how is it different?

Then somebody who doesn't have a co-occurring disorder.

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
So I think for me, one of the biggest differences is that, uh, I, you know, I was put on, uh, medication for my, for my schizophrenia and, and at the same time, I was going through, uh, what would be known as an IOP intensive outpatient for my drugs and alcohol. And a lot of times I think I've seen it. I've seen it happen just in what I do day to day.

There are some of those programs that don't necessarily believe that you should be taking anything at all, you know? And so, um, and, and then a lot of cognitive behavior therapy and intertwined with my drug and alcohol, and I call it education, the IOP is more about education, I think, you know, and getting the, getting some dry time, which I already had the dry time, but it was educating me on my addiction. And so, you know, when all of a sudden then I had to be educated on my schizophrenia on, you know, I wanted to know what caused it, what the cause and effect was, and I tried different medications along the way.

So, uh, you know, I finally hit on one that worked well for me.

[Damon Frank]
Did you feel at all that there was a stigma, uh, with the recovery community? Did you just feel that people just didn't understand it? Oh, I mean, were there people?

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
Yeah, I think there's definitely, I think there's, yeah, I think there's definitely a stigma. Um, there, there are some of those hardcore, uh, post steppers out there. They don't think you should do anything, you know, besides maybe smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, you know, you shouldn't be taking, you shouldn't be taking drug for your mental health.

And I've even seen it in people I work with, they'll get into programs and I won't get into what programs they are or anything, but they, they think there's other ways around it that you can just, just, you know, you can just do like a cognitive behavior therapy and maybe some people can't, I'm not one of those people, uh, my day-to-day life and my best recovery is, is, is with the medication I take for my schizophrenia.

And that helps me be symptom-free for my schizophrenia, which in turn allows me to work my program or recovery for addiction, you know?

[Damon Frank]
You know what, I love, I love that you're shining a light on this because there is, you know, I have run into this in 12 step groups where, um, you know, I remember back, you know, years ago, I, I had ended up sponsoring somebody in a 12 step group that, um, you know, had bipolar disorder and there was such a, you know, it's co-occurring disorder and, and, you know, it's, and it's common. You, you will, you will find people that come into the rooms, uh, that, that have this and, you know, I had to kind of educate myself on it because I realized that even sometimes the mode of, uh, communication and self-care and, you know, what was a little different when I was dealing with this person that I had to, I had to be aware that other things were going on. So when we were talking about things like honesty, and we were talking about things like making amends and stuff, the approach was a little, it was the same.

It was the same as everybody else was doing, but sometimes the pace was a little bit different and the timing was a little bit different.

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
Yeah, I would agree. I would, I would agree with that. You know, I had something that happened to me, you know, where I was going through both, uh, both treatments at the same time, just intertwined the whole program I was in was intertwined with mental health and addiction recovery.

But at one point I, I went off the, went off my medications a few years in with, with the help of my prescriber, because I wanted to see if, see if I had healed and whether that, whether the schizophrenia was still there. I'm a long story short, a year later, I ended up having to go back on medications and still take them to this day. But at that point, someone called, called when my symptoms came back, my schizophrenia, someone said, well, you relapsed.

And I thought, no, I didn't realize my symptoms came back because I associated that term relapse is that I had done something wrong, you know, and, uh, I haven't done anything wrong. It's just, my symptoms happen to come back.

[Damon Frank]
You know, I said, which is different, right? Because for mental health, it's not like an abstinence thing. We, we kind of know in addiction recovery, if we're, if we're doing the deal, if we're not drinking and using, but it's not that way, right?

With mental health, it's not that way. You will have symptoms arise that you have to treat. And then sometimes the symptoms will go away.

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
Yeah. And in my day in life, I see people, you know, maybe aren't quite as lucky and I'll consider myself lucky that I, I pretty much live a symptom free life as long as I take my medication. But I know people that I have good, I have a good friend and, um, they have their medications, but working from time to time, and it isn't through no fault of theirs and they have to go in and get a med adjustment adjustment, you know, and, and, you know, and it's a little different with alcohol and you know, if you're putting it in your body, you know, you're going to get, you're going to have, you're in a relapse, you know, that's just where you're at. But sometimes through no fault, no fault of our own, when we're in, we're in dealing with the co-occurring disorder, which, you know, like I said, my schizophrenia, no fault of my own, I could become actively symptomatic again tomorrow and, you know, that's no fault of my own, but sometimes I think.

The two programs, you know, they don't differentiate sometimes. I've seen that happen. You know, you must've, you must've did, you must've did something wrong.

[Damon Frank]
Well, you didn't do anything wrong, you know, to do this. Your dog is going crazy. Your dog is agreeing with you.

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
My dog's going crazy. Cause I'm talking or I'm the only one in the house right now. And I'm, I'm sitting here thinking, I wish the dogs would not be there.

[Damon Frank]
Guys, just for you joining us on the audio version of this, the dogs are also participating in this and we're fine. Cause we're big dog lovers at recovered life. You know, when we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about this, about how you, you successfully use 12 step groups, how you successfully personal achievement, uh, things and, uh, you know, therapy or whatever that might be with your co-occurring disorder, like how that works.

And I, and I love that you tapped on Cecil, that the language I think needs to change, and that's why I'm so glad that you're, you're coming on here and talking about like the thing that you just shared about this person telling you relapse that can have some serious ramifications for you in your addiction recovery, if you believed that and it's ridiculous. Like, and so I want to dive in new about like, how do you do it? How do you navigate?

So if you're there and you have a co-occurring disorder, whether it is schizophrenia, uh, bipolar disorder, BPD, any of the depression, any of this stuff, how do you navigate? We're going to really get into how you do it. Cecil, cause you've done it for two decades.

Very, very successfully. So after this break, we're going to come back and we're going to dive into that topic. Hold tight.

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[Speaker 5]
Step out of the shadows into the light, find your tomorrow, start the fight. Covered life TV, see the change, living your best life.

[Announcer]
You're listening to the recovered life show. The show that helps people in recovery live their best recovered lives.

[Damon Frank]
And we're back. I'm talking with Cecil Gailey, Jr. He has been so kind to come on here. He is a professional peer support specialist and also has gone down the path of healing from addiction and schizophrenia.

Let's dive into this. Let's dive into this Cecil, because we were talking a little bit about how to use the 12 step groups. How to use, um, therapy and things like that when you have a co-occurring disorder, because you might have people that are trying to help you, or you might have people that are telling you things that maybe don't fit in well with the other types of healing that you're doing from co-occurring disorders.

How did you do that? Cause you've done it for 20 years, very successfully.

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
So, you know, for me, um, I did a lot of 12 step stuff before I ever got any real recovery. Um, I, I do a little bit of it now. Not much because of the simple fact I, and what I do from day to day keeps me in the recovery realm.

And plus I, I done so much, so much treatment on the, on the, on cognitive behavior therapy, which is when you go in and if you change the way you think about something, it changes the emotion that's related to it. But I can't, I can't tell you this. I think it's more common to see people nowadays, if I go to a 12 step meeting that have a co-occurring disorder, then back in the early days, the early days that, you know, people didn't want to talk about you, you were, you were another breed, you weren't, uh, you almost weren't welcome at the meetings.

You know, if, if you disclosed, if you disclosed you, if I literally, if in the early days, if I had to went and I did 12 step from the time I was a teenager up until just before, you know, I pretty active in it up until just before I actually got clean. Um, and if you disclosed in the early days, you had schizophrenia or bipolar or something like that, you almost were shunned in a, in a lot of ways. There was always, there was always going to be exceptions to that.

There was going to be people that, you know, understood, wanted to know more about it or would come to you on the side and say, Hey, you know, I'm, I, I've got that going on too. And I think it's a lot more common than people want to, people want to, uh, give credit for, but you know, 12 step was good for me. It's not active in my life.

This to this right now, this day, I'm not, I'm not an active member of any 12 step group, um, good or bad either, either way. But I, I have, you know, I live my life now. I'm trying to, uh, trying to live off to enjoy, join, celebrate some of the fruits of my labor, you know, and not get, not get, not get stuck in that spot.

Uh, I tried to give back. And like I said, occasionally I go on, usually it's to go with someone that I'm working with or someone that maybe needs a hand, you know, needs a hand and getting to a meeting or something like that.

[Damon Frank]
So, yeah, I mean, I think also working in recovery, you're seeing this so much. Um, you know, what do you think the biggest misconception is? Um, with, with, with people who are diagnosed, because I think the panic probably of knowing that, like, you know, we always call this with, um, you know, Al-Anon and AA, they called them double winners, right?

Like, Oh, you have to go to Al-Anon and AA, but, but some people now are triple winners, right? So they have a co-occurring disorder. They have all these things going on.

What do you, you know, can you talk about that fear? Because there's gotta be a lot of like fear, especially if people get sober first and feel all right, not that they totally have addiction figured out, recovery figured out, but they feel like, all right, I've just gotten my head above water now, and now I'm hit with this. It's like, forget about it.

How am I going to, how am I going to recover? Like, what would you tell those people?

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
Well, it's possible. And it's, it's, it's more likely to happen that you'll, you'll get some type of recovery from mental illness than not. I think the biggest misconception is it's like a death sentence.

If you, if you're diagnosed with schizophrenia, I think back in the day, and maybe even some to some aspect today with the, that people look at that as a death sentence and you're never going to, your life's never going to get any better and it's going to be, you're going to be stuck there. That's not true with the medications they have nowadays and the treatments they have and stuff, you are just as likely to be someone like me that's living their life to their fullest and, and it work in recovery, you know, as same recovery as I worked for my addiction work for my mental health. Um, I see it all the time.

I know people, I, I, I have good friends that maybe suffered from depression and stuff, and you know, they're not there anymore. I have a good friend that made many attempts in his life and he's not there anymore, and that's because of all the treatment and the different, uh, different things he's been through. But so I think the biggest misconception is that we don't, we don't recover.

We, that we can't recover, you know, and, and we do, and we will, you know, it's, it's no different than, it's no different than addiction recovery. If you put the work in, you'll get a result.

[Damon Frank]
You're you know what? I love that you're saying that. And thank you so much, Cecil, because I have to tell you, I heard that when I came in, you know, I didn't have a co-occurring disorder but I will tell you, I heard that with people who are struggling with co-occurring and they, and they would tell them double down, especially people with depression, double down, double down, and I think people read, and this is no discredit to, to the book of Alcox Anonymous, which I love and it saved my life.

But, but I will tell you a lot of people look at it and they see Bill's story and you know, Bill had depression, Bill talks about having depression in there. And you know, he never really got a handle on that. Although we had a physical substance recovery, he never really got that.

And I think a lot of people now with the knowledge are like, I don't want to live Bill's story. I don't want to be sober and miserable. I don't want to struggle with a co-occurring disorder, not treat it, not look at it.

You know? And I think the fear keeps people from exploring that. So you're saying that there's help out there.

There's a lot more people in recovery is what you're saying that really suffer from this.

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
Yeah. You know, maybe I'm jaded cause I work in the recovery field, but I see there's a lot of help out there. You know, as a person, you know, I think as a person, couldn't I always ask for it or are they ready for it?

No, but I think once you are ready for it, there's no lack of people willing to help you and that goes for addiction and that, that goes for mental, mental illness too. Um, I see it every day, every day. So.

[Damon Frank]
Absolutely. You know, in closing here, what would be the message Cecil for somebody who is suffering from this and just totally freaked out right now? Like they might've just gotten a diagnosis that they just did not know.

They just did not know they were going to get this or they are just starting to piece together. And look, Cecil and I are not doctors. So you're going out and doing that.

You know, uh, you, you have to consult the professional people who can do that. But there's people right now that are listening to this. We see him in the Tik TOK room all the time.

Cecil that they're grappling with this and they're like, you know, you know, what would be your message of somebody who's done this 20 years successfully? What, what would be your message to them?

[Cecil Gailey Jr.]
Well, I think first, first thing when you're first diagnosed, first diagnosed, don't freak out. No, that there is help out there. When you think there isn't or isn't, cause it's pretty devastating when you first start experiencing symptoms or you actually get the official diagnosis.

It can be totally devastating, but know that you can recover. You can recover from that as well as you can recover from like, if you've got a cancer diagnosis and they treat you for cancer, it's no different. It's no different at all with the medications and the, and the different type of counseling and different kinds of treatments you can get.

It's no different. Lots of people survive cancer and lots of people survive addiction and co-occurring disorders.

[Damon Frank]
Absolutely. I'm so glad that we were able to have you on today and really talk about, you know, hope that, that there is hope out there for people. And you're saying there is more, you know, there is a solution and that, and that's what I wanted to, you know, that's what I wanted to bring up here.

That it's not over. The journey is not over just because the, because you got this diagnosis. Cecil, thank you so much for coming on the show guys.

If you guys are a, um, a recovered life TV member or a Tik TOK, a subscriber, I'm going to be doing a little sit down right after the show. So he's going to hold on here after the show, all about more going a little bit more in depth for a couple minutes. So join us on Tik TOK and you can find out more about that and hear that there.

Cecil, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

[Speaker 3]
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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)