Welcome back.
Welcome back to the grapevine.
We are in the studio.
We're on a good, nice, clean studio here in the grapevine.
The Truth Radio 1017 Studios.
This is, we're gonna have a really good segment today.
A really good segment.
And we're gonna pick some grapes too.
So, I'm gonna get right to it because we don't got a lot of time.
And I wish we had a lot of time, like at least five, six hours.
We ain't got that much time because everybody needs to go to sleep.
But welcome to The Truth, the award-winning.
1017 the truth radio and I Before we begin today's gonna be a different type of show and I want you to want you all to sit up for this because We got a lot to talk about on this on this show in this short amount of time We're gonna talk about what's broken in this city Today I got somebody in this building that doesn't just talk about it
but she is about it.
15 years addiction, 11 plus years sober.
And instead of just quiet healing and moving on with her life, she built some mottos, three sober living homes, a behavior health clinic.
Am I wrong?
No, you're not wrong in a harm reduction agency as well.
And a harm reduction agency as well.
And that number could always go up because there's need in our city.
There's need in our communities.
There's also need in the state, the country, internationally.
There's need everywhere for that.
In particular, black residents are dying.
at a alarming rate.
So it's double the rate of white residents.
Absolutely.
What we're seeing is that although there is a decline in drug overdose deaths, it doesn't hold true with our black and brown communities.
There's still a huge disparity of overdose deaths within our communities.
So we have on our to formally introduce
My guest we have to hear Molly and Byron your last name Thompson Thompson And I'm happy I'm excited that we're we're doing this Interview because Because accidents, you know, this is not an accident this is something that has been
You've been raised to do this.
In essence, I would believe so because I come from a very strong family of bringing community involvement.
That has always been the background of my family.
First off, I'd like to thank you Manon for inviting me to come to the grapevine and to be able to spread some awareness.
to the world of substance use, recovery, harm reduction, and fitness.
I invited Byron Thompson on because not only, so we do harm reduction, we do sober living, and we do behavioral health, but when you come into recovery, you have to learn yourself again.
You have to find out what
you like and what you don't like.
You are essentially a new person.
Okay.
And then you also have to learn how to relive life.
Yeah.
Soberly.
So the family events, concerts, sports events, you probably did it inebriated.
And that's what made it so fun.
So you thought.
But you have to learn how to do those things in a sober frame of mind.
And the Phoenix Milwaukee, Byron Thompson, that is what they teach.
That is what they promote.
And so I'll hand it over to Byron so he can give you a little background about what the Phoenix Milwaukee does.
Tell me.
Thank you for having me.
And
this is a
conversation.
So you're a
man,
look.
Yeah.
OK.
Well, really like.
It's an honor to be on the show
and
to talk about this
and
to, you know, be talking about it with a great partner of the Phoenix, which is Simone's house in Tahira.
I mean, we're like, you know, just as she said, you know, she brings the people in, shelters them, detoxes, gets the
drugs and
stuff out of their system.
And we work hand in hand because, you know, once they get that,
you know, once they get, you know, some roof over their head and, you know, Friday comes around and paycheck comes around and life comes around, then that's where we come in.
You know, what am I going to do on Friday night?
How am I going to reach, you know what I mean?
I mean, as a person myself in long-term recovery, I thought life was over 25 years ago when I wasn't going to be able to get a check, go to the bar, play some hoop, smoking weed.
I mean, all this stuff was just programmed into me.
And I was like, what am I going to do?
You
said 25 years.
25 years, yeah.
September 13th will be 26 years of sobriety right here in Milwaukee.
And I got sober right where I got high on Chambers and Holton.
And I end up just making a decision to get sober and do it right here in Milwaukee.
So I'm definitely talking about something I know about and finding something, you know,
Everything must change when you get into this lifestyle.
Everything must change.
Your friends, your associates, where you go, what you do, but it also helps you rediscover some of the loves that you have.
I forgot when I was out there using that I was also kind of a pretty good basketball player.
I like to, you know, I'm still social, still fun, but I need to be around like-minded people, people that's on the way positive.
And I think that's what the Phoenix does.
We provide...
you know, an alternative to the partying lifestyle.
And we do it, you know, the Bucks game, the Brewers game.
We take people to their first Bucks game, their first Brewer game, their first sober tailgate.
We make that experience for people and we do it for free.
Tell me about the sober, the sober conscious sober living movement that you all are spearheading.
Because you don't you'd never I've heard I've heard about it and I do it because I'm sober.
But you first started hearing about it in maybe about six years ago, ultimately on a national scale from me.
That's from my perspective, right?
But I'm sure it's been there forever.
But in Milwaukee.
You all are at the the spirit of.
this entire sober conscious, sober living movement.
Tell me, tell me how did that get started?
Well, I can speak from my perspective.
I've been in recovery for 14 years now from opioids and my motto has always been, and I know, Manon, you've seen me in addiction.
You saw me through that phase and I want everyone to always know I'm going to recover.
as loudly as I was when I was in addiction, because I need people to understand that recovery is possible.
For me, when I was ready to recover, I didn't know where I could go to begin that process.
And ultimately it led me into incarceration.
And that's where I became sober.
See, I already had the mindset that I want it to become so, but I just didn't know how to do it.
And unfortunately, Jill provided that space for me, or fortunately it did, because had that not happened, I may not be sitting before you today as the founder of some odds house.
Once you come into sobriety, like Byron said, you have to.
You have to change.
It's it's that trifecta area, your mind, body and spirit.
They all go hand in hand.
You have to change that mindset.
You have to learn to love your body and yourself again.
You have to change and grow within your own spirituality, knowing that something greater than yourself saved you.
Yeah.
And knowing that you have the power to go back out there to let people know.
that they also have the power to change their life if that's what they want to do.
But once you change your life, it doesn't mean that not that you come into sobriety, you have to be boring.
If you know me, I love
to laugh.
I love fun.
So when I was introduced to the Phoenix, it was a no brainer for me.
You know, it's because it's like, I love music.
Let's
do this.
And the first experience for me was sober fest.
Now sober fest is going into a sixth year
and
I've been around this is going on my third year of sober fast Yeah, and sober fast is the largest sober concert here in Milwaukee County.
Wow.
I venture to say Wisconsin
And
What sober fest is it's all of the recovery community coming together at the pier market part
listening to some great music, eating some great food and just networking and having fun.
How and we have a few seconds before we hit our first break, but how important is instant gratification in this whole scheme of things?
Because having an instant hit can change your life.
in many different forms.
You know, you can shoot a basketball and that's that instant bang that hit.
And then you have an instant high, which could bring you up and then way back down.
And then you kind of want to go back up again.
How important is it to work through those barriers of instant gratification?
When we come back.
I wanted to go there.
We can go there when we come back.
Welcome back to the grapevine.
I was about to say something real life.
This is my this is my poetry now welcome back to the grapevine.
I'm your host Monon Sabir And we are about to pick some more grapes look to here mollick and Byron Thompson to here mollick is the founder of some mods house and Byron Thompson is also the founder of my right now I'm actually senior manager senior manager.
Yeah with the Phoenix of the Phoenix and We're talking
Sober living and I wanted to ask you a question to your, um, and this is for knowledge for the folks that are around us.
Uh, your parents were married for how long?
I got to, I have to mention this.
I
don't think they make marriages like that anymore.
that?
It would be
a blessing.
to
You know how rare that is?
I think we as individuals actually give up too easily on our relationships.
We don't work through the tough stuff.
Over 50 years, for
What did you both learn?
This is a dual question.
When looking at their prosperity and struggles and also triumphs up to death, right?
What did you learn moving through your addictions?
and you looked at your parents like, that's, there's something there, right?
What was there that kept you, what was there in their relationship that kept you going?
For me, first off, compromise is essential in a relationship.
You know, there's gonna be a give and there's gonna be a take.
My mom was always,
that loving, nurturing, listening ear that you could tell her anything and she will help you problem-solve through that.
My dad, you know, I was raised in a very strict household.
That makes two of
us.
There's for me, and this may be why it's so hard for me to maintain a relationship.
There are direct roles I was raised in.
that a man does and a woman does,
is just my background and my upbringing.
Not saying it, whether it's right or it's wrong, but this is how I was raised.
And even though...
I felt that my dad was very, very strong.
I couldn't do anything.
Anybody who was raised around us, I couldn't sit on the porch.
I was the first girl.
I was like, oh, no.
No, no,
They're going to say like, oh, no, you are not going to talk to my child.
You are not talking to my daughter.
So I couldn't get off the porch.
No, I couldn't.
And as an adult, I understand it.
As an adult, I now understand the values and the beliefs that my parents instilled in me.
those were those were the roots that
put
me up out of addiction.
They were they were right all along, actually.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's what we found out.
Absolutely.
And I'm going to say this even through my father being very strict.
He's always been my Superman.
Oh, yeah.
the one man I know I can call at any point in time of my life.
Yeah, and he's gonna show up.
Yeah, and If he say something he means it
I thought it was gonna be turned to be this whole rosy picturesque scene No, he might make it a little ugly.
I mean or it might not be ugly might be real rosy, but it's not it's not the way
You put it is the way he connected with God in order to make sure that things happen that way.
Yeah, I heard all my life I was higher headed.
You heard that too.
Come on, man.
My dad was a law enforcement officer.
You know what I'm
saying?
So like you couldn't do nothing.
I mean, he didn't believe not one word because he worked with, you know.
Guys
the time gas who lied all the time.
So I'm five years six years old He got a light bulb over my head asking me questions.
No, it didn't happen like that.
That ain't the way Interrogations began early, but I would say that What I learned from my parents was that Things that I glorified things that I watched on TV and at the movies
the flashiness and stuff like that, that I was super drawn to the guys in the neighborhood who had to this and that,
you know?
I mean, my parents' kind of consistency was never celebrated.
I never saw that at the theater,
you know,
getting up, going over every day, coming home, staying with your family, taking care of your, you know, I never, you know, all the people that I was seeing, they looked like us on the screens when I was growing up.
was hustling and doing, and I didn't even need to do that, but I wanted to
do that.
I
mean, they were bringing that home to us, but we was wanting to, you know, struggle,
you know what I mean?
Because that was more exciting, and consistency is something that I didn't get until I got into recovery, like, hey, I gotta do this every day.
This is not just 30 days, this is my whole lifestyle.
Don't rush because this is a lifetime.
I got to do this every single day and that brings me to like
It took a lot of work it took a lot of work
because I did a lot of questionable things and things that I was raised to not do.
And for me, it wasn't just me having my parents relearn me or be able to trust me again.
That was huge, right?
also my siblings, right?
But then also my community.
Because before I fell into addiction,
I worked in a community.
And I did questionable things as a leader in a community, right?
So it was major for me to not only regain the trust of my family, but also the trust of the community.
And that's part of the reason why I go so hard, because I need the community to understand.
that I understand the depths of what I did, and I'm willing to reinvest
the community that I once tore down.
Yeah.
I would say that, um, you know, it, uh, you talk about instant gratification, it doesn't come, that trust doesn't come back instantly.
And I remember a time when I was a pyramid walkie, I'm originally from Chicago, um, that I went back home and
And I was dressed real nice.
I don't know how much clean time I had had, but I was really walking in, my chest pumped out.
And I thought I had made it, and my dad was like, no man.
We seen this movie before, you know what I mean?
And he really kind of shot me down, and I was really like, damn, I'm not there yet.
And I never went back to him again trying to
I just let the time, I let the time
pass when I had made it and he came to me and was like, man, I see you, you know,
you're doing it.
You're doing, you know, but I never rushed back into him and tried to like impress.
I just waited, you know, I just kept my head down and worked until it was evident that I was on the right path.
So
That it's easier Living in recovery is easier than living in addiction.
I tell you living in recovery So much easier than living in addiction.
I was addicted to opioids.
So that was a physical sickness.
Yeah, if I didn't have
If I didn't have that substance, I was physically sick.
Every bone in my body hurt.
I couldn't get up and prepare my children for school because I wasn't too much pain.
I got to figure out how to get some money and how to get the substance.
All of those different things and all of this plotting and scheming.
Oh, my
My oldest daughter did.
My oldest daughter did.
And I thought I had did the best thing.
by allowing her at six to go and live with her father.
She did that for about five years.
But what came from that?
Because I had two younger children was that she felt a sense of abandonment.
She asked, you have them.
Why didn't you keep me?
I thought I was doing the best thing because I was struggling.
I mean, literally struggling and.
She and I have to work through that through counseling and we still work through that.
Because I love my children.
Outside of my parents helping me, I've been a single mother
on my
line.
So I'm blessed to have such great and wonderful parents and such a supportive family.
I'll tell you something that they don't tell you.
the secret benefits of sobriety, you know?
The things that you don't, you know, you just trying to get your car back and your job back and your house back and one of the greatest things that I didn't realize that was gonna come with sobriety was just being there, you know, just being available for your family, you know?
You know, somebody is definitely gonna pass away.
Somebody is gonna need,
they gonna need you to just go pick somebody up from the airport.
And we can get in touch with Byron.
His number's good.
My mom used to tell me, she used to write my phone number in pencil because of all of the moves I was making, moving from side to side of town, getting put out of this and this and that, and just my instability.
And so when I was needed,
Dad
got sick in
2017.
They just called me and said, Byron, we need you to come.
And I had a job that had been working
and they gave me
time to go.
But I didn't think about all of that when I was just trying to get stuff back.
Availability is just a super blessing.
And I also know where my car is and all that.
You know what I mean?
You know what I mean?
They're
not coming to take my stuff.
Like they always were back when we were out there.
They're not
coming to take my stuff or I'm not trying to
sell my stuff.
I never did
that
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