Sunday Serenity

Good Sunday evening, Cadre Sphere. It's good to be with you. My name is Jason Lennox. I am your resident recovery champion here on the Cadre app. And what that means is I'm a person in recovery. I've been in recovery coming up on 14 years. This December will be 14 years. So I'm here to talk to you as a person again, recovery champion just means not that I am the recovery champion, but I'm a champion in recovery for recovery with recovery here to talk about recovery and mental health and well being and just how they all interact and kind of overall health.

And I'm excited. This is the second time I've come to you in September, which is my favorite month of the year for several reasons, but primarily because it is national recovery month. There's just so much going on in the recovery community. I also love the weather as we start to get a little mix of cool nights, but also still warm days. And so, yeah, I just love, love, love September. And I talked a little bit last week, asked one question, and that was what was the one thing I thought was, good evening.

Speak wonder. It's always great to see you here. The question I asked is, what is if I had to answer one thing that I think is most critical to recovery, I said, community. And again, I talked about this community and how we, you know, we get to engage in, you know, all the things that we do throughout this month. So I want to. Good evening, Luke, as well. I want to share a little bit tonight about another question. Jules, good evening to you, too. A question that I used to ask, and I actually shared a little bit of this on social media, but the question I asked myself when I got into.

There we are. Luke, love to see you here, man. When I got into recovery, the real question for me at 24 years old was, what am I going to do to have fun and am I actually going to live this life forever? I had a guy who was driving me around a little bit, and he had been in recovery for some time. And the question I asked him was, do you mean there's nothing that would ever have you go back to that old lifestyle? And he said, nothing. So he asked me, would you? And I said, well, I mean, what if the world was ending?

Wouldn't you just want to go out with a bang? So I just didn't really understand this long term idea of recovery. But more importantly, I didn't know how I was going to have fun. That was the question I asked, what am I going to do that's fun? Because I'm 24 years old, and I, fun, as relative as it was, only ever consisted of drinking and using drugs. And it wasn't really fun at the end, but it was the only way I could feel a little bit okay. And so I didn't. I didn't have any concept of how life would be okay without it.

So, again, I'm asking myself, what am I going to do for fun in recovery? And people would say, oh, recovery is so much better, but that's hard to comprehend if you don't have the experience, right? And so I remember leaving the halfway house I was at one day, it was a weekend, and I walked over to my cousin's, who was about two blocks away. He's a guy I hung out with well before into my addiction. He'd struggled. He also helped me a lot. So, you know, both sides of the coin. And I remember walking down in the basement, and all I could smell was the smell of strong marijuana.

And he and my brother were down there. And I remember walking back up the stairs and out that door as fast as I could and back to the halfway house terrified. I was shaking. I was sweating. I thought, like, I was on the edge of going back. My point there is I thought I could go back and do all the same things that I would do and hang out with the people that I would hang out with, because they would all understand and they would accommodate. That wasn't the case. So I learned my lesson from that.

And I sat at that halfway house every weekend after, and I watched other people go home and go back to their own environments. And I just remember this feeling of, like, it was depressing. It was this doom and gloom. Like, what is life actually going to be like? It feels so boring and empty. But I was watching the other people that were leaving, and some of them weren't coming back because they would get caught up and they would return to use and things of that sort. And I listened to my intuition, and I stayed there, and I would go over and hang out at the AA club on the weekends.

But again, I'm asking myself, what is going to be fun? Because I was 24, and I got to tell you, my friends at 24 were not playing spades and drinking coffee on Friday night and Saturday night. So I just had to create a new routine. Now I want to just share. This is what I did on social media is the way in which I thought about this. I was reflecting a little bit, what is recovery? What am I doing? How's it been going? What was the summer like? I actually had to document this. I don't do this much, so bear with me.

But I did make some notes here. I usually just come and share straight from the heart and what comes, but I wanted to document from my social media post what my summer was actually like. Because I look back and I go. 14 years ago, if you would have answered my question with what will be fun with this, I wouldn't have believed you. So I'm going to tell you this, how my Minnesota summer just went the last three months. It started with our great founder and brilliant mind that is responsible for this app you have in your hands, Luke Wendtland.

And he called me on a Monday and said, look, tea wolves nuggets, they're playing. It's playoffs. We talked about going game tomorrow night. You want to go on booking tickets? And I thought, I got this and this and I thought about it, you know, within a couple minutes. Let's go. Overnight trip. We left Tuesday, left the office, got back in time to get back to the office Wednesday morning. It was 16, 18 hours, and it was one of the best 16, 18 hours I had had in a long time. Got to sit courtside and watch the.

Watch the game, got to see Denver. It was just a lot of fun. So that was kind of the beginning of. Of where this started. Then a week later, I took a trip out to California for the first time. I went to San Diego. Went and climbed a waterfall. Spent some good time with family. Golfing. Had just never been there. It was a beautiful weekend. Beautiful weekend. I ended up going out to Massachusetts then earlier in June, and happened to go to game two of the NBA Finals, also a kind of a last minute decision.

In fact, it was Sunday morning, the game is there, and my cousin goes, are we gonna go? And, well, it was a hard pill to swallow because it was a good chunk of change, but we did it as a once in a lifetime experience. So I got to spend a week out there with family, doing all this fun stuff. And I gotta tell you, that game two, nail biter sitting, the nosebleed seats, it didn't matter. That was one of the best experiences of my life. And I got back just in time to make another one of those last minute decisions and buy tickets on the floor to go see Morgan Wallen here, also with Luke, who's here with us, and again, responsible for this app.

One of the best concerts I've been to in a long time. Guy was so genuine, and I know there's a lot of controversy. He's done some things said some things, gotten himself into some hot water, but that was a blast. And I had several family graduations. My son, he turned 18 and graduated. That was phenomenal. My sweet little cousin Emma, who I love and adore, she graduated, so we got to do all that celebrating. Gosh, Canterbury, to go see the fireworks, got to see some family from Arizona do a recovery night, medallion night.

July, I got to go back to the east coast, which is where I got this shirt. John Lennon made this thing famous. And, you know, I got to take. Spontaneity is wonderful and I have a lot of it, and I'm grateful for that. But for six or seven years, I used to go to this trip on my own in July or August. And then I brought a cousin of mine, and next thing you know, we brought two cousins and then two more. We had twelve people out there one year. This last year we had six. My little cousins, Emma, Sophie, and so we got to go to New Hampshire.

We stayed in New Hampshire, got to go to the beaches, we got to do Boston tours, Fenway, the duck boat, down to New York City, where we got to tour the island. We got to go one of the observatories, the ice cream museum, 911, ride in taxis, ride through Central park, all the things in that one little trip. And, you know, it might be the last one. So I got back to have a fun weekend with my family here in Hopkins. And then I went to Colorado, and a ten day trip there and three days down in the springs with some Minnesota family who just happened to be there.

Four days in Denver for a conference with my national speakers association people, and three days up north with my Colorado family, ironically, the sister of the cousin I first mentioned in the beginning. So anyway, packed that full, got back, ended up quitting my corporate job. So that was kind of a whirlwind of a week, just like launching into something special. Then took another trip out to the east coast to spend time with my aunts who needed some extra love and time there. And that's always such gratifying and fulfilling time for me.

And then came back and did a one week trip up to Hackensack, Minnesota, for the family event that we do every year, about 40 of us that go up there. It's a tradition we had when we were kids. It was always my favorite time of year. My grandpa would just get this whole resort and take us all up there. And then he passed away, and he hadn't been doing it for ten years. Anyway, we talked about it and I went and found one and now, I've been doing the same thing, and this is the 7th year we've done that.

So it, that was the end of the summer. It's like we come back on Labor Day and here we're bumping into September and national recovery month. So I think I just talked for about six minutes of, and just, by the way, just a milestone or kind of the traveling type events that happen this summer. There's so much more here in the state of Minnesota, and a Minnesota summer is just a beautiful time to be here. But it was so packed. And I look back and go, how did that happen in three months? Recovery is how that happened.

And even though I was concerned about how I would have fun in recovery, being in recovery has actually shown me how to have fun. Because what I used to do and what I used to think was, was really just making myself feel okay in the moment, in the environments that I was in, because that was always my problem. Not fun or lack of fun. It's just I didn't feel comfortable in environments and with people and substances took that away, and so it felt like I was free. Now I'm in recovery. I've learned how to address the things that tortured me for so long.

I've healed some of those wounds, so now I know how to live that free, and I still have all the things. I still am a human being, and I still deal with things just like we all do. But to look back and go, wow, that was it. Three months of a bunch of firsts, maybe a couple only time ever scenarios, and just all that time packed with family, I had so much fun. But guess what? Recovery has taught me to be a person that creates that fun, to be a Luke, to be adjacent, to be somebody who says, we're going to do this, and I'm going to take somebody with me because I know that this is an experience that we'll remember forever, and it's always better when we're doing these things together.

So I am over just going on and on here because I'm so excited and happy to look back and reflect on that and to know that that's what will continue and happy to share with you because I know that's a real question for so many people, especially early in recovery. How am I going to do this thing? What kind of fun is there without the bottle, without the drug? Because that's the only thing that we ever know. Oftentimes. I'm here to tell you, if you just listen to any of those seven minutes that I've been talking about this, it's, um.

There's fun to be had and way more, way more. I was so isolated and I had so much solitude, even though I had people around me. I don't think I left southern Minnesota until 2014. And when I started doing that, I started seeing the world going. How have I missed this? How have I missed the Colorado's, the Californias, the Massachusetts, the oceans, the Mexicos, the Costa Ricas, all these places? I was missing out on all of that, thinking that that was the fun. And now I know from, again, nearly 14 years of experience that there's so, so much more out there, and I'm only experiencing the beginning.

I'm a firm believer that this life and recovery gets better and better and better, and the fun gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and our lives get bigger and bigger and bigger to the point where we get to do what I'm talking about, which is create these experiences for other people to be a person who can say, you know what? I will make sure that our family has this trip. I will make sure I take six of us out to the east coast. And it's just an honor and a privilege to be able to do that. And I know not everybody has that ability, but strive for it.

I love it. And thank you. Speak wonder. I'm glad this has been meaningful because it's so meaningful to me. This is a hole that fills so many of our lives, we just don't know what it's going to look like. I just told you three months. I have more fun than I did in all 24 years. That led up to the time when I. When I found recovery. So I appreciate you saying that, Jules. Yes, the world is a wonderful place to visit. And again, I'm just beginning. I mean, I've seen about three or four different countries, and I just can't even imagine.

But I'm so excited to have a life of recovery, to be excited about it, and to be able to know that what's ahead is better than what's happened so far. And what's happened so far has been a blast. So I'm going to close up here, but I really appreciate you all joining. Love having this Sunday serenity with you, especially when it gets me going like this. It's recovery month, and I'm going to keep going in recovery month and always, but this is a special time of year, and some reflection and things like that really bring out the juice and what we have in this world and what's available to us.

So grateful for you all being here. Look forward to having you all again next week. Hope you all have wonderful weeks. It looks like we're still going to have another week of summer weather in Minnesota, if you will, in the eighties. So hopefully, you can get out and enjoy that, or enjoy it wherever you are. And just remember, there is so much fun. There's so much fun out there, and it doesn't feel like it, and that's not always easy to understand. But if you can get a little bit of the energy that I just gave, just believe that I'm telling the truth and that what I say is real.

And someday, hopefully, you can find that in yourselves and or you can share with me. We're all learning from each other. So have wonderful weeks, and we'll see you back next week. See you later, Cadre crew. Have a good one.