(Ep.69) The Fentanyl Crisis

Chuck: 0:10

Hey, welcome back to another episode of let's Just Talk About it podcast. I'm your host, chuck, and if you're here for the first time, this platform was created to give genuine people just like you an opportunity to share a portion of your life's journey. So, with that being said, I'm excited to have special guests, mental health therapists and Telisa Randle on with me today when she shares her experience with losing her older brother to an overdose of fentanyl. So, you don't want to miss this informative conversation, because it will definitely give you some insight into this fentanyl crisis. As a matter of fact, do me a favor go and grab your husband, your wife, your children, or even call a friend and gather around to listen to my conversation with Lisa or let's just talk about it podcast. Hey, let's jump right in. Welcome back to another episode of let's Just Talk About it podcast. Today, I have special guest Ms Telisa Randle on with me, so thank you so much, lisa, for being a part of this episode on let's Just Talk About it podcast.

Telisa Randle: 1:13

Hey, how are you today Doing? All right.

Chuck: 1:15

How about?

Telisa Randle: 1:15

you. I am doing well, just up this morning, just getting some things done, my normal daily routine, so I'm definitely going to be going out and a little bit doing some self care.

Chuck: 1:25

Got you, I love to jump right into my interviews Telisa to have those genuine conversations with genuine people just like yourself, to share a portion of your life's journey, because I believe everybody has their own unique journey Some are good and some are not so good, but we all have our own unique stories to share. So, first of all, I want to ask you where you from.

Telisa Randle: 1:46

I am from Chicago, illinois, deep south side of Chicago, educated at university. I have three educations in the city of Chicago, such as my associates degree from Kennedy King Junior College and my bachelor's from Chicago State University, and also my master's in clinical mental health from Chicago State University.

Chuck: 2:05

Wow.

Telisa Randle: 2:06

And I'm now currently in the process of my PhD, but that's at Capella University.

Chuck: 2:11

Wow, shout out to you. Thank you, wow, take me to Chicago. Never been there. So how was the atmosphere in Chicago? The culture?

Telisa Randle: 2:20

Well, you know, as a child growing up in Chicago, things have changed a lot since I was a child. When I was a child, I never thought about, or was never employed in us as children, about the dangers of the cultures in certain areas in Chicago. So we was doing things like hopscotch, jump rope, hide and go see red light, green light Real fun. We had the fire hydrants real fun stuff. The hydrants when it was real hot outside. We go and we turn the hydrogen on and running around in the water. But what those swimming pools or anything like that? For us the fire hydrant was our swimming pool, wow, and we did a lot of stuff that still was a cultural from farming and stuff like that in the city of Chicago. Things have changed since then so I never saw no real trauma from other people in the community or anything like that as a child. I didn't start seeing that stuff until I got older.

Chuck: 3:08

Wow, so you're from Chicago, but you live in Virginia now, so how did that transition happen?

Telisa Randle: 3:15

And what happened, what brought me here to Virginia beaches? Because I joined the Navy and when I joined the Navy I became an engine man and so, as an engine man in the military of Virginia and because this is the state in which there is over 85% of it is military, so we have a tendency for them, from the Navy, to end up in Virginia at some point.

Chuck: 3:35

Wow.

Telisa Randle: 3:36

And just depending on what the rating is, sometimes you can end up in Virginia and just be here, and you know, because Virginia has such beautiful beaches and stuff like that, I was attracted to that portion of Virginia Beach. So I didn't even really look at my service in the military. I looked at it as getting off of work and going hanging out at the beach. Wow.

Chuck: 3:54

I reached out to you because I saw you on the news. Something happened that you was talking about on the news that caught my attention and I reached out to you and you responded. Let's talk about that situation, why you were on the news.

Telisa Randle: 4:07

Oh yeah, I was on the news because my brother was one of the victims. That was on the news back in August in regards to the fentanyl poisoning, so he was one of the victim of it and when they reached out to me to let me know about that, you know it's pretty devastating for me because he and I had a relationship that we have brought from Chicago because he followed and came over here to Virginia after I was here for so long and I ended up just being here and having a family here and being married and still in active duty of it, and he wanted to relocate and come here and so he came and you said he fit no poison. Yes, he was one of the victims on the beach that was on the news that passed away from the fentanyl poisoning, and what brought it to the attention of the community is because it was at the time that I was told. I was told at first it was three, then it went to five and then it went to seven that they found that they found, and they all with their distance of each other, like maybe blocks within blocks of each other. So it's considered to be a homicide case in which they're working on right now to try to find out who actually target these individuals down there on the beach and why it had to happen.

Chuck: 5:25

Got you? Wow, fentanyl is a major subject right now, that people are overdosing from fentanyl, and I think we don't do enough conversation about it. So that's pretty much what I want to talk about today. Is that what fentanyl is doing? Because so many people are losing family members today from it. So take us through that moment of what you went through, you know, because you never know who's listening. Sometimes we feel like we're by ourselves alone and we're the only ones going through that. So just talk about that whole thing that you went through during that time that you lost your brother.

Telisa Randle: 5:56

Well, first of all, I always tell people, as a professional, that every person that's addicted to drugs has a story, and they are individually unique to their story. And so my brother was never a fentanyl person, he was never a heroin person. His choice of drugs was crack cocaine. He's never been one to smoke cigarettes, he's never been one to drink beer, and it was at an earlier age. He fell out a window and had to go in the hospital and had to go to therapy and had to take painkillers and stuff like that, which is pretty questioning as to man. How did he ended up being crack cocaine instead of opioids? Because opioids is tied to pain and pain deals. But from my perspective, pain is pain and when there's pain in your body, whatever helps that pain is what you really want to use all the time to help that pain. So maybe I'm thinking maybe that crack cocaine was just his choice because of that and he was a DJ, so it wasn't that hard for him to find the culture of where he can find what he needs. So those are things that I kept in mind as his sister over the years and the things that he talked to me about because we had personal relationship with each other. As far as him trying to recover from it and putting himself into rehab, so those were all choices of his own. He didn't have to get threatened into going into it. Those are all choices. So right. So it was a clear thing in my mind to say, okay, he doesn't really want to be here. Who am I, who are we to turn our back on and what he really wants to help and he needs to help, and so, and because he was my brother and I loved him he was the oldest so I wanted to see him get through it.

Chuck: 7:39

Yeah, so you said he wanted to get off, but it was a struggle there. Yeah, I think it was a struggle.

Telisa Randle: 7:45

It just had too much control over him and you know, fentanyl is extremely a potent synthetic opioid.

Chuck: 7:51

Yeah, talk about it yeah.

Telisa Randle: 7:53

And when you mix it with other drugs like heroin or cocaine, without the person's knowledge you know you have no information as to how this can affect that person.

Chuck: 8:04

Yeah.

Telisa Randle: 8:05

And yet you still, you still do that. You know what I'm saying. Oh, I mean, you can say it from a perspective as with opioids, heroin, putting heroin and mix and that and all that stuff like that. So we see that over the years heroin still remained and people have survived from it. So the sellers of it may see it from a perspective of non death for the most part. But fentanyl is different. It's a death. Yeah, it's a actual murder, you know. And for someone to still continue to mix that stuff and put that stuff in there, it's hard to take in for them not to be guilty of that and not to have self-awareness that they are potentially ending lives.

Chuck: 8:49

So let me ask you this how do you cope with that of the loss of your brother? How do you get through that moment? You know what I mean of dealing with that.

Telisa Randle: 8:57

Well, first of all, me individually speaking from my own perspective, is that I had to get to a place with my brother's reality of his addiction, and I have those reality, talk with him, emphasizing to him how this can affect not just him but me as his sister, and his family, you know. And so and there were days that both of us was in tears over the fact that it was hard for him to let it go he was being very real, he was being very transparent. You know, he wasn't with me, he wasn't masking his feelings, you know what I'm saying. He was really being open to what he was really feeling about this and so and I was grateful to be able to have that realness from him and not that beat around the bush and talk around the corner, across the street, and three blocks over you know, to be able to go straight at it with him and to really understand what he was really going through as an individual being addicted to drugs. You know, because it's such a complex and it's a combination of the environment, psychological factors and sometimes genetic, because that's another thing why people end up on drugs. Sometimes it could be genetically connected to them.

Chuck: 10:15

So when you say that genetically connected, talk about that.

Telisa Randle: 10:20

Well, what research is showing that sometimes if you are addicted to drugs and the mom and dad both together are addicted to drugs or want to snack a holi one, it increases your chances of becoming genetically addicted to drugs. And so the world doesn't give pre. You know how world give pre assessments to determine what can happen to you in the future, but drug addiction is not one of them. Who goes anywhere to say, hey, I want to do a drug addicted personality assessment to determine whether if I can become a drug addict or not. You don't do that in the world, but there is assessments out there that you can't take. So you know, yeah, based upon research, there is assessments you can take and you answer those assessment questions and you score on those assessment questions and based upon your answering those questions in your score, it gives you a scale of what the potentiality of you becoming addicted to drugs. But the world don't do that. That comes after you addicted to drugs, yeah.

Chuck: 11:17

Yeah, yeah, because there's so many reasons. Like you said, your brother, it could be prescription pills. It can start from there. It can start from somebody just trying it out. It can start from so many places of why people do it and then you know it gets in your system. And I guess sometimes we go through life, everybody goes through situations in life and I believe that that's what some people reach for. Is that some people reach for eating, some people reach for other things to cope with the pain of going through things.

Telisa Randle: 11:46

Right, right, yeah, those are all called what we call coping mechanisms Got you Okay. Yeah, based upon whatever trauma they've been through, what they have exposed themselves to or took the risk of becoming a part of. You know, I was talking to someone the other day that said that they was watching something and I cannot quite remember, I'm going to do the research on it for myself but they were saying that they compare the deaths of fentanyl against three of the wars in which our country has been through and they said more people die from fentanyl within.

Chuck: 12:20

A.

Telisa Randle: 12:22

I think they say within a year to a three year time, which is exceed how many people died from wars, from the three major wars, and so I got to research that, because that is a powerful thing to say you know, because in wars we lost a lot of people in wars. But to compare it against people who died in fentanyl and saying the fentanyl numbers were higher than that is a serious perspective for America to really want to reach out and share their stories and raise the awareness.

Chuck: 12:54

Could you relate to chemical warfare or something like that?

Telisa Randle: 12:58

Yeah, well, that's what the wars are about.

Chuck: 13:01

Chemical warfare yeah.

Telisa Randle: 13:02

Yeah, wow, we're talking about Vietnam, agent Orange and the stuff that was in the air when our soldiers was out there in these different countries. And I was like man, I have to do research on that, because that is deep to hear somebody say that they talked about that, but I haven't had the chance to do the research on it Just to get the proven facts about it. But it was a conversation that someone bestowed upon me when we were talking.

Chuck: 13:31

Wow. So let me ask you this what would you say if you had a chance and I hope this is not going too deep what would you say to your brother right now if you had a chance to?

Telisa Randle: 13:43

To be honest with you, to be transparent with you. I think I've kind of exhausted all the avenues that I can share with him as far as communication is concerned and one of the things I did say when I met with the news was that I had started saying to myself he's going to have to age out of this. You know what I'm saying. He's going to have to get to the place where he's too old of and he's tired of it. And he started saying those things to me in the past couple of months before his passing. Is that says I'm tired? And when he was saying those things to me, I remember saying in my head he's beginning to age out of this, he's getting tired of the aftermath of it, he's getting tired of living like this, he's getting tired of being isolated like this. The confusion of it for me was is this a thank you God moment or is this a? You know, it's difficult to try to put where that feeling I was having on the inside of me. When he just came to me and he said it he's just tired of it. He was getting ready to go on to rehab. He said he was going to take it serious this time and he just said it out of nowhere. It's not like I walked up to him and say, hey, you ready yet, what you doing, how you living. You know it wasn't one of those type of things. He just came out and just said, yeah, we were just sitting there. He was just like sis, I'm really getting tired of it. I'm just in so much pain and I don't know what to do about this pain, and but I'm tired of it. He said I go to the emergency room, and you know, and I go to the doctors, and you know, and you know he was saying all that. So you know it gave me some insight on whether, if this is something that that's enjoyable to him or not. It may start that way for some people, but it never ends that way. It never ends that way, at some point at some point, and that's where the aging out thing has set itself inside of me. You know, I don't know if other people think that way, I don't know if that's the way my mom thought or anything like that. I just know that's the way I was thinking Wow.

Chuck: 15:45

Some people feel like could I have did something better? Could I have did something more to help? You know, do you feel that sometimes, that you feel like you could have did better or something more, because some people go through that guilt type of thing?

Telisa Randle: 15:57

Yeah, Well, to be honest with you, the shock and the grief associated with the loss of a loved one, with substance abuse, especially with fentanyl, has this long lasting effect. Neurotherapy will be a process for me because the how I was affected after the shock, because I still am dealing with some of those after effect or patterns that I developed since the shock, and what I mean by that is one of the things that I do. That I've never done before is I look up in the ceiling when I'm talking. So that's what I mean when I say those patterns, the brainwaving patterns, and neuro therapy is something that I'm seeking out because it's in my brain. You know the effects of it is in my brain. And when I say I look up, a lot is because I lose focus real quickly now because I float. I keep floating and reliving and rethinking it. You know, in the middle of a conversation, even with you reliving it and rethinking it. You know I look up in the ceiling because I don't want to look at the person because it would take me away from my thoughts. And if I look at the person, it would, because it's a flesh and blood and it's a human being and it kind of sends my thought process into that shocking day. You know what I'm saying. So long term healing is something is what I mean when it comes to that shock and that grief.

Chuck: 17:19

I like what you said long term. First of all, you're an amazing person. You are an amazing person to Lisa to go through what you went through and you're able to talk about it. And the reason why I asked those questions is because I know for a fact this episode is going to help somebody.

Telisa Randle: 17:35

So you know, they know they're not alone, but somebody else is feeling these feelings with me, you know right and it's so important to have this self-awareness and to be on the other side of this for these families, you know, because these families they do go through that grief and guilt that you talked about earlier and they do have a long term effects. I mean, because even when I did the news interview both of them, you know people responded back to me and they said things such as I lost my brother 12 years ago, I lost my father 15 years ago, I lost my sister four years ago, and so that's a clear demonstration of the long term effects of have been in a life or living with loved ones who are addicted to drugs. And that's a perspective to take a look at the long term of it. Because, just as a therapist and as a researcher, my mind automatically floats to stuff like that, because I am a researcher and I just happen to be a substance abuse counselor and just happen to be a mental health counselor, so I'm able to put those perspectives in place for them, you know. So, yes, speaking out about my story, I believe, will help someone, you know, because there are families out there, there's, you know, mothers that's probably sitting there ready to end their life because that may have been their only child and so they have no other reason to be here on this earth. And if this conversation can help them by telling my story, I want them to go back and revisit those days and see it from the perspective of going through the transitioning and the repositioning of what they were going through in that addiction of their loved ones. Wow, don't look for the guilt of it or the blame of it. Look for the hope of it, that there was hope and there was love in there and there was someone who was really trying to get back to them. But the addiction was just a little bit too powerful for them and recognized that they were trying to get back to you, because my brother was trying to get back to us and I look at it from that perspective because he went to rehab. I think he maybe in his journey of this, maybe over 10 times he went to rehab and that's a demonstration of hope. Yeah, that you want to get better and somebody's praying for them to wake up and experience those things. But there is also blessings in it and to reposition that guilt and reposition that grief and look for the hope in it and look for the perspective of that can help you reposition yourself in your grief and help you be OK and have that type of closure.

Chuck: 20:30

Amazing conversation that needs to be had about this fit-and-all crisis that we're going through, and I just want families to know that you're not alone and that there are others that are going through the same situation, that we don't have to hide and cover it up, but this is really going on and I think conversations need to be had about this whole thing.

Telisa Randle: 20:53

All right and they should begin sharing their personal connections to that loved one who they lost, because it's a part of their healing to be able to explain that relationship and the impact that they had on them and their family. As far as because we know people from my professional and from being a counselor, like I said, each individual has their own story as to how they end up. I mean, like I have experienced clients who just had a caesarean and ended up on opioids. I had clients that got in a root canal that ended up on opioids. I had clients that were major car accidents that ended up on opioids. So everything is in what the stereotype is saying.

Chuck: 21:41

Got you.

Telisa Randle: 21:42

It's what I'm pointing out, and families should look at it from that perspective. And I know that this might affect some people, to hear me say it this way, because some people rather be in that hurt and be in that anger because that could be a safe zone for them, got you?

Chuck: 21:56

What would you say to families right now? What would you say if you ran into somebody who's going through that situation and they may have lost someone or may have not lost someone, but what would you say to them if you was able to just sit down with them right now to share something of encouragement with them?

Telisa Randle: 22:14

I would encourage them to personalize the connection that they had with them and focus on the good things before this addiction and focus on the direction that they were going in. That was a good direction before these things happened and also kind of eliminate the stigma of it, because it's all stereotype for the most part, and don't be ashamed. Don't be ashamed. They were assigned to you, they were assigned to your family and their journey is a journey of testimony for you to help others. You know, sometimes we go through things and we don't know why. God put it in our way. Talk about it and we have to talk about those type of things that hinder us from being able to move on and to be able to get those type of closures, and maybe sometimes we have to look for the lesson in it. You know what I'm saying and don't blame ourselves and don't say I could have done it this way, I could have raised them that way. Because you know, as I gave the example earlier, that sometimes when you come from an addictive parents, both mother and father, that genetics portion of it is pretty powerful, just like when they say that if your mom has diabetes or cancer or high blood pressure, genetically you can have it. So it's time for prevention and so that can be a calling for you to the listener is go out there and tell the story, but also preach about prevention Got you Because our next generation needs that prevention piece and so to hear your story and hear you talk about can help your grandchild, can help your great-great-grandchild, can help your great-great-great-grandchild, so it can actually bring you and your family closer together, because everybody have their own thought process about this whole entire thing. It's like it's five of us, right, or it's four of us now, and all four of us have our different perspective on my brother.

Chuck: 24:05

Got you.

Telisa Randle: 24:06

And my mom has her perspective on my brother, my uncles and aunts have their perspective on my brother, our cousins have their perspectives on my brother's. So, yeah, talk about it, remove yourself from the guilt of it and look at the good things. But there were a lot of good things and the friends in the neighborhood who found out about this reached out to me and said, wow, now that is a shocker. Lavar is a good guy, he's a great influencer, and I remember when we were young and we was jumping up and down, I mean all that good stuff. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. They went straight to that. Wow, the good things. Yeah, yeah, the good things. So, you know, we can shift our grief and we can shift our loss to something that can be a positive. Like you know, even in my organization we have fundraisers in name of people that worked hard in our organization and has done great things in our organization, so we open scholarships for them. People do lots of things like that to show honor to the person that passed away, for whatever reason that they passed away, and so I would say, this is my healing, this is the part of my self care is to be able to talk about this, to be able to share his story and maybe, someday, maybe, create a scholarship and give to someone whose parents died of drug addiction. But they're prevailing, they're pushing for their persevering, you know, they're showing purpose and resiliency. So, yes, give them that $1,000 scholarship.

Chuck: 25:33

Wow, wow. So you saying we can turn it around.

Telisa Randle: 25:37

We can turn it around.

Chuck: 25:38

Got you. Wow, I hope this is the beginning of it.

Telisa Randle: 25:41

Yes, yes, this is definitely the beginning of it. I'm just going to move in a direction in which, you know, god leads me to move you have a lot of share. You know I'm not going to be embarrassed about it, yeah. You know I'm not going to hold back from it. One thing about having a higher power.

Chuck: 25:56

So I'm going to say it in that way Talk about it.

Telisa Randle: 25:59

Having a higher power and allowing that to be able to give you these experiences and these testimonies and turning them around to something that can help other people is very powerful, very powerful. And then giving people what the language is knowledge is power when it comes to this fentanyl. You have to have knowledge about this. We can't continue to be in denial. We have to start talking about this fentanyl. Fentanyl has been around for so long, but not to the public. It's only been in the emergency rooms, it only has been in the surgeries, and now it's made its way to the streets. And now it's a pandemic in my mind. How about that perspective? Because for it to get that big in numbers even though seven is not a big number that quickly, that's almost like the pandemic where it started out really slow. Then all of a sudden it hit the streets and then when it started, numbers started growing. And I'm going to just share and be transparent with you real quickly that my cousin that died two weeks before my brother was fentanyl. It was fentanyl, a fentanyl pill. He was trying to get a pain pill off the streets after being ran over a bi-hidden run and broke both his hips, and coming out of therapy he's looking for pain pills. They don't give him to you, no more at the certain amount of time because it's illegal for doctors to prescribe it. And then a year before that, a cousin of mine, he also died from fentanyl. My brother hit harder for me because I'm going through personal development with him as his sister. We're talking all the time, we're connecting all the time. He was coming over here sometime and cutting the grass, or if I need something, change the light bulb or something like that. That's a whole different ball game from the long-distance cousin that you don't really get to know, but they come from an uncle or yours and yet come from an auntie of yours or something like that. But just looking at the pandemic of it because that's what I'm speaking from a pandemic in your family Don't just stop with you. If you have a big family of 11 or 12, I mean, I got 14 uncles and aunties and they all have children. So thinking of it from that perspective, of how the earth is set up now and how things are opening up and giving it easy access for us to fall apart because we don't have any restraints within ourselves, we don't have no, no better, and we don't have no. Don't take that kind of risk because you might fall into this.

Chuck: 28:39

You mentioned something powerful. You said it's in peel form.

Telisa Randle: 28:45

Yeah, because he had a peel, not my brother, my cousin had a peel, my other cousin had a peel as a PILL peel. So that means that it's not just showing up in power reform. Yeah right. And then the 13-year-old that was just smoking a joint, running away from home smoking a joint. You know what I'm saying. What I talk about sometime in counseling is I put out a penny I guess if it's a first time person come to me because that is something that was on the news I remember looking at you put that penny down there in front of them and then you show that president head, not the body shoulders, just the head and you say to them well, you look like you're about maybe, maybe 120, 130 pounds, maybe 150, 170, and they like, yeah, and I said this, much of fentanyl and whatever choice drug that you use and can kill you in 15 minutes. Wow, and I said that. I know that was hard to hear, but that's what substance abuse is about Talking about the hard stuff. The hard stuff. It's a technique that we use called motivational interviewing. So I'm always giving that definition. When I drop that penny Do you know what motivational interviewing is? And then drop that penny down there and then I say this is what motivational interviewing is. It's motivating you to have self-awareness that this can be your result if you don't fix this.

Chuck: 30:06

Wow, that's powerful and you're right educating people on it, because when you say appeal, I was like wow, because that's the first thing you think about is the powder reform, like you know. Yeah.

Telisa Randle: 30:20

Yeah Well, when they show it and they commercialize it, when they talk about it, they show it in the powder form. Yeah Well, they show it because you know, when they do it in the surgery, you know it's liquid because it's going through the IV. Wow, wow.

Chuck: 30:32

Take you out, just like that.

Telisa Randle: 30:34

Yeah, it took all of them out just like that, within hours of each other. It's like no remorse.

Chuck: 30:40

Yeah, great conversation. Wow, you're educating me, talisa, when I was doing that, it wasn't no such thing as fitting on, you know so. I've never heard of it either. Yeah, hearing this now and I think it's new to a lot of people you know.

Telisa Randle: 30:55

Yeah, even us as specialists, you know, because our focus is like our focus is on what's going on in our facility. So if my facility is all about Suboxone, and and and uh, opioids and you know, and heroin is the highest percentage of clients that come into our building. That's really what our focus is. But lately I had to ask the question out loud and say, hey, have we been getting a bunch of new clients that are fentanyl? And they like looking at like you know what 99.9% of our clients has been coming in here has been fentanyl 99.9%. I'm like what? And the other 1% is alcohol. That's serious.

Chuck: 31:35

So that's alcohol, and no of those other things is out the window. Now it's fitting on.

Telisa Randle: 31:40

That's the subject no, alcohol is still there. That's that. That's that one. I'll tell you that point 1% 1%, I got you. Yeah.

Chuck: 31:48

Yeah. But if you look at it from that perspective and that's just me being a little exaggerating about it, but the numbers are high- Right, so as we close out this conversation it's going to be many more conversations that come with Mr Lisa Randall, but as we close this one out, what would you say to the community or to the world abroad about this fentanyl and what we can do to begin to, you know, combat it?

Telisa Randle: 32:14

One of the biggest ways to combat it is through having knowledge knowledge about educational educational awareness, because that's that knowledge is powerful too, yeah, and making informed decisions, or rather, if you want to be a part of this fentanyl crisis or not. And, you know, also just having support to know that somebody loves you. And I always tell people when, especially when they talk to me about Christianity and God, I said, well, you know, god is not a respect of man, mm-hmm. You know, that's a motivation right there, mm-hmm, that only good things can come up good actions and only bad things can come up bad actions, yeah, so therefore, you got a choice between good or evil, mm-hmm, and you have to know the difference. And, as I said earlier, knowledge is a power, you know. And then, having a healthy living just do whatever it takes for you to be healthy, you know. Prioritize your physical and mental health, you know. Exercise proper nutrition, do some stretch management, check out those unhealthy coping mechanism of yours and flip those unhealthy coping mechanism into healthy coping mechanisms, because sometimes we don't know that we're walking around with unhealthy coping mechanisms. Wow, and that's that's. That's another slang language for triggers, that's good Things that would trigger us.

Chuck: 33:36

You're going into another conversation. That's good yeah.

Telisa Randle: 33:39

And if you are one who's suffered from this, look for someone to mentor you out of it. Look for another person that has recovered from this and utilize them as your mentor and say hey, how did you do it? Can you help me do it? I really just want to be out of this. And then community outreach and resources are a great way of to getting the awareness out there for yourself and getting the resources that is needed to help you prevent yourself from relapsing and also prevents yourself from becoming a part of the population of drug addiction and as as a person who's a recovery yourself, advocating. Advocating is important about understanding these policies and initiatives that can aim at reducing that abuse. You know I'm saying and also hearing your story and hearing how you have worked your way through to this many years of recovery and rehabilitation and you know and working your way and finding your hope and seeing your hope and getting yourself back to your mom you know what I'm saying and to a substance free life. You know, yeah, wow, because even as a therapist who've experienced this trauma, you know the modalities of my treatment is important for me to get back to myself as a professional, you know, because counter-transference is another conversation and it's real. And so what I'm doing for myself, for self-care, is I'm having neuro therapy, you know, because it helps regulate the emotions because I have all of a sudden cries out of nowhere. So that neuro therapy will help me regulate that. It will help me learn more about the traumatization of the death of my brother, because it's considered what we call the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress syndrome. So it's, you know, in how to manage those trauma responses that I will probably endure if I continue to be a substance abuse counselor. And then also reducing my stress, because now my coping mechanisms are at risk. You know, having a healthy coping mechanism and coping strategies and coping skills and self-awareness to reduce the stress is more is important. So neuro therapy is something that helps with that and gives me focus and gives me clarity and helps me in that grief area of my death of my brother. And the neuro therapy also it will improve my sleep, because I'm losing a lot of sleep because of it and you know the world loses a lot of sleep over a lot of things. But I'm just talking about me and in particular is that on and off sleeping that I am enduring and just creating a different approach to how I handle this grief from my brother, how I handle his death and how I respond to his death. And, you know, keeping that long-term treatment for myself. And you know, for the sake of my children, you know for the sake of my mom, for the sake of my other brothers and sisters, you know.

Chuck: 36:52

Wow. So it's like you're sacrificing to hold up for others.

Telisa Randle: 36:58

Right, right, sacrificing to hold up for other people. A holistic understanding of my needs Got you.

Chuck: 37:06

Got you. What an amazing conversation. I really appreciate you being on, ms Telisa Randle and having this conversation about fitness and what we need to do about it. So thank you so much and for this first conversation we're gonna have together. It's gonna be many more.

Telisa Randle: 37:24

I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure that this is something, that maybe this was something that was designed for me in my purpose, because I truly believe that I am in my purpose and in my purpose is to help others, absolutely Help others become better manageable with their mental health issues and also learning about the substance abuse portion of it and looking at it from a different perspective, focusing on those interventions and having a broader process of coping and healing.

Chuck: 37:56

Mm Got you. Thanks again, and I know for a fact this episode is gonna help somebody, somebody's family.

Telisa Randle: 38:04

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm yeah.

Chuck: 38:05

Absolutely. Thank you so much, talisa. You're welcome. Absolutely. Wow, what an amazing conversation. Shout out to my friend Talisa for having this dialogue with me. You know, one of the things that really stuck out to me, amongst many other things, was a courage to share her experience about the passing of her brother due to fentanyl. And there may be someone who's listening that may have a friend or family member that's struggling with the drug addiction, or it may be you. But after listening to this conversation, you realize now that you're not alone and that there's help out here, like Talisa Randle, who can help you through your process. So don't give up, because help is on the way, as always. Thank you so much for tuning in to let's Just Talk About it podcast and please check out my website. Just Google let's Just Talk About it podcastcom and then hit that subscribe button to receive all the new episodes every Friday. You can also find me on Facebook. Just type in Chuck L-J-T-A-I, which means let's Just Talk About it. So, as always, until next time, don't hold it in, but let's Just Talk About it. Talk to you soon.