WMH Season 3 Ep 10: Man Enough to Take Care of Your Mental Health
This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Season 3, Episode 10 which you can watch and listen to here:
Katie: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Watching Mental Health, and I am super excited because this is a very special episode today watching Mental Health. We're going to be sitting down with standup comedian Jeremy H. Flores, who is also my husband for an honest, unfiltered conversation about what it really means to set boundaries, navigate drinking culture, and to care for your mental health as a man in society today. So Jeremy's going to be opening up a little bit more about his personal journey and then also because of his background, talk about humor, honesty, and the hard conversations that he's had along his path. And so I'm really, again, so excited. This is such a special episode. So with that, I want to bring Jeremy Flores to the stage!
Jeremy: Hello.
Katie: Hi, and welcome to Watching Mental Health!
Jeremy: Thank you for having me.
Katie: I'm so excited to have you. And we've talked about this for a couple years now, about the idea of you coming on and talking a little bit about your story, and so I'm just glad that we're finally doing it. So with that, I'm going to ask you the same first question that I ask all of my guests, and that is to just tell me a little bit more about yourself and who you are.
Jeremy: Okay. I'm, my name's Jeremy Flores. I'm a 53-year-old man here living in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm married to you and yeah, we'll get into this later, but I used to have a pretty big problem with drinking over the course of the years, and it was a lot of work, but we went on the road to recovery. So it was quite the journey and I'm excited to talk about it.
Katie: Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about the journey I've been on. I've been with the journey, I think, or on the journey with you for our relationship. We've been together 11 years, over 11 years, and I've seen you really grow, and not just with drinking, but with your mental health in general. So yeah. So talk to us a little bit about the journey and what happened over these last 10 years to really help you get on, as you say, the road to recovery.
Jeremy: Well, basically what happened was that, it's kind of hard to explain. Ever since high school teenage years, it was kind of socially that I grew up in a small town. I grew up in Barstow, California, and we would go out and drink after we got off work or after, not so much after school, but later on in life in the twenties it kind of started happening more and it just became a single part of my daily routine. It was routine to go out after work, whatever we did golfing. It was just part of what we did. And eventually it became an addiction to where it started affecting my life. And over the year, it was just the same, repetitive, not moving forward. I was kind of stuck in my life and I could not move forward because of it. And then one day after countless years of hangovers and not knowing what I'm doing with my life, I sat down with myself and just came to the realization that something has to change. It's either one or the other. It can't be both. So something has to change,
Katie: And it took a while for that to happen, and that's normal. A lot of people really struggle, I think with their addictions. And actually in some ways you're abnormal because I knew that you always wanted to make that change. So I was with you along the journey even during tough times, right? I knew that you really wanted it, but then once that flip switched in your head, you never went back. And I think a lot of people struggle with daily wanting to drink still or daily, that kind of addiction. But you are a little bit different in that once you finally did make that switch, it seems like your head is clearer.
Jeremy: Yeah. So let me start by telling everybody, I'm almost three years of not drinking. I had quit before for a period of a year or two, but this time was different just due to the fact that I really wanted it. I saw that I was sick of being embarrassed for myself, and honestly, the physical part of it changed. I went from being able to go drink and then the next day be okay to where it got to the point where I was kind of not remembering some things or the headaches were longer and just different. The physiology of the hangover was changing. I was not moving forward. So I told myself, I was like, what is it that I have to do? So I threw the kitchen sink at it. I mean, I got therapist immediately. I got a therapist immediately, and I joined AA and I said, whatever this takes, I'm going to do it. And that's what I did.
Katie: And it's impressive for me to see from the side because you did it. You are a very social person. Anyone who knows you, knows that you're a standup comedian. You're used to being out there, you're used to being in bars in places where drinks are served. And it's like when you stopped drinking, you were surrounded by people who were still drinking and you still needed to go out and socialize and see these people. You have friends that still drink all the time. So talk to me about that. How was that for you three years ago? How was that for you now?
Jeremy: So it was kind of weird because when I first decided to do this, the therapist was the big deal because I started going to her once a week and I was going to AA pretty much every day for the first 90 days or whatever. I went every day. Then it backed off to every other day and stuff just because my business, my entertainment and everything started getting busy. Once I took out just some of the negatives in my life, the positives just jumped into full force almost immediately. So I actually had to kind of balance that and learn how to accept successful things happening. But when you said about going to bars and stuff, of course I do stand up. That's a drinking environment. What I kind of did was I kind of picked a drink. I love soda water, so soda water with lime, with splash of some sort of juice or something, or just the soda water. But I made that my drink so that I knew that when I went into a bar, I wasn't craving a beer, I wasn't craving liquor, it was just that's my drink and that's what I go to. And then every day after that, I would reiterate the fact that don't you feel good being able to wake up in the morning without the problems that you had before? You can get up at five 30 in the morning and start your day. Whereas half the people that were at that bar definitely not feeling good and definitely not getting up that early. So I think I started learning how to enjoy the moment of getting up and feeling good and then making plans for the day, the day before.
Katie: Oh yeah, that's smart. So you mentioned a few really powerful tools, making plans for the future ahead, giving yourself positive reinforcement that next morning. I think that when people quit smoking cigarettes, they have to constantly give themselves that positive reinforcement. That can be such a challenge. And I know that you also experienced that challenge of quitting cigarettes, and you said yourself that quitting cigarettes was 10 times harder than quitting drinking.
Jeremy: To me, it was like a thousand times harder. I never even started smoking until I was like 35, which is weird. I hated it. But just because I bartended for so long, I guess a secondhand smoke, it actually, it made me crave. And eventually I started smoking. But that was another thing, like with aa, when I would go into aa, I would see people in AA and immediately afterwards go outside and start smoking, which I get it. But in my life, for my journey, my thing was I am going to not substitute one bad habit with another. So anytime I felt like smoking, I would go home and eat something or I would go home and watch a movie. I would literally white knuckle it to go. If I felt like smoking, I would get a glass of water or I would go for a walk. I mean, it got to that point where I had to replace it with something positive. And then eventually that becomes a habit replacing your problems with better habits.
And I'm not saying it's the easiest thing in the world to do. It is definitely not. It took me a while to quit smoking after I quit drinking. I tried to be reasonable about this, and honestly, the therapist helped me out with a lot of this. I didn't just go in this alone. I tried to use every tool that was available to me.
Katie: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Back to tools, you built up your support system, you put restrictions in place, you went to aa, I saw you do that. And yeah, I mean when it was time for you to stop and when you did it successfully was when you did it for yourself. And I knew that right at that time had kind of stepped back. It was like, you need to come to that Jesus moment. And you did. And it was really powerful to see. And I like that you keep bringing up therapy that the therapist was a really big step. I had really talked about that a lot. Therapy has really helped me in my life when I've struggled. And I think that that was a good adjustment. But as a man going to therapy, that's something that's not really talked about as much. And I just want to talk about that a little bit more about going into therapy. Did you tell your guy friends, right? Was there judgment? Was there internal judgment? And then how was it finding a therapist? Are you okay with a female therapist? Talk to me a little bit more about your therapy journey.
Jeremy: So it's funny you say that because you mentioned, were you worried about what your peers felt towards you? And I do stand up, so I wasn't worried about anything like that. I don't worry about opinions when it comes to just being on stage, teaches you that I was more concerned with my actual physical health. So if my friends were by me, they were by me. But I've had the same handful of friends I've had since I was a kid. So I knew they were going to be by me. Some of my friends struggle way more than I do,
Katie: And they went into therapy.
Jeremy: I’ve had a couple, but some of 'em are still struggling a little bit. But like I said, my life was in a continuous cycle. It was go out, get plastered, gamble, lose money, do make horrible decisions, and then figure out a way to fix it, then fix it, and then just a repetitive, repetitive cycle. So basically after 53 years of age on this earth, it was like, I don't want this anymore. So that desire became more, and being with you, the mental health, it was actually a blessing in disguise because I saw that, hey, there are sources out there, and you actually brought it up to me that maybe you should see a therapist. And at first I was kind of like, but it got to the point where I would've did anything just to be out of that rut. I mean, I really would've, I would've done anything to get out of that rut. So I decided that I wanted a female therapist just because the more opposite to me, the better. She could look at me and I could look at her from a 100% different aspect. No bro code there or anything like that. You know what I mean? I knew she was going to be 100% unbiased
In her opinions, everything. The therapists, I wanted that because I knew they were specialized in tools or things to think about instead of, because my therapist was specialized in addiction, she said a lot of alcohol, but a lot of narcotics too. And of course that's a, well, I can't say it's more of a physical addiction, but that can get pretty hardcore. So I just wanted, every time she gave me a tool or something to think about or work on, it really did work. And I got lucky. I didn't have to go through a bunch of therapists. I pretty much was latched on and everything she said really worked in ways of thinking about stuff. I have a lot of issues, my parents and stuff. And it was a whole different, it almost felt like everything was going away that was bad, that my purpose for drinking was kind of being understood and being released slowly. Slowly. Yeah, I mean, I think I did therapy for almost a year and a half. It was over a year, and honestly, it was the best thing I can say I've never done.
Katie: Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. And I mean, we did have really honest hard conversations around therapy. I brought up therapy a few times, many times, I think before you were able to find one. We spent six months searching for one. Once you finally came to me and said, Hey, I think that I want to do this. It took us months until we found one, and we actually went outside of your insurance to do that because your insurance wasn't providing proper lists of real therapists, which happens all the time. And so for me as your loved one, it was really powerful for me because when you're in someone's circle and you're trying to explain what they're doing that they can fix or you're trying to give them a different perspective, it can be hard to do that when you're in their circle. So for me, being your wife, your girlfriend at the time, I couldn't give you the same advice that the therapist could give you and make you think in the same way because I'm too emotionally attached. And I felt that
Jeremy: Correct. And that's another thing too. One of the points I wanted to make that you just said is, I know you're in the mental health, but you put a lot of things in perspective too. So I remember, I believe the therapist was $80 a week or $75 a week or something. And at the time, because of my problems, we kind of couldn't afford that. But when I put it in perspective as I'm not drinking anymore, which $7,500 would be nightly, 200,000 gambling. So when you put that in perspective, it's like, okay, I'll never forget the first week of doing this. The first week of doing it, I'll never forget the first day I sat in AA and then I had the therapist that afternoon for the first time. That was the first night I was able to sleep all night long for eight hours. I slept after that day. That was the first time in years that I never woke up because I was literally at peace that I had given up to
Katie: You let go and let God, you were like, I'm surrendering to this.
Jeremy: Yeah, surrendering is the perfect word. I am surrendering, which they talk about a lot in aa, but it was like, I am surrendering. I can only go up from here.
Katie: And you did. Right. And you mentioned that before you went so far up. It was almost overwhelming at first. And that's scary, I think for people are who do stop the addiction or the cycle who do get into help, and then suddenly their life starts looking a little better for some people that can really freak them out.
Jeremy: Yes. Well, one of the things that happened was I started getting more clients more than I had ever had. And it kept me so busy that I only had time in the morning to go to the aa, and then I would start my day. And it felt great because it was like, okay, the thing I committed to is out of the way, then I can go to the gym or something. I think I used to go the gym after. Immediately after I did that, I went to the gym, I would be home. I went to the seven o'clock meetings in the morning. So I went to seven o'clock meeting, we were done at eight, went to the gym home by nine 30, boom, let's accomplish stuff.
Katie: And
Jeremy: Then it was just, I started doing that every day because I couldn't be out much past nine because the phone would start ringing and it was like, wow, man, this is how it's supposed to be. I remember I would watch the TV in the morning after being hung over or coming home after being out all night drinking and seeing people going to work and stuff, and really remembering, looking over and saying, God, I wish I was that normal. I wish that was me. Those people are lucky. They don't owe a thousand dollars right now. They don't owe $4,000 right now to anything. They're up getting to work. Those are the thoughts I had. And literally within a month, in a month of putting one foot in front of the other, that's all I said, just one foot in front of the other do not go backwards no matter what. One foot in front of the other, it immediately changed within a month. It was kind of incredible. It was almost unbelievable.
Katie: Yeah. Yeah. That's scary. And I saw you walk through that, but like you said, you kept putting one foot in front of the other. And now here we are. So you said you're three years now almost
Jeremy: In October. Our anniversary, we three years. And that's another thing, you and I were stagnant. We were just going through the motions. If you had to help me out, it was just kind of becoming repetitive for you. And then after all this, we got married a year later, literally a year, a year and a half after I started this. We got married, I quit drinking on our anniversary. And I'll never forget, we went a wedding by Lake Havasu in Parker, Arizona, and it was all my childhood friends, and they were drinking smash drinking. And I remember I didn't want it. I didn't want it. I didn't say like, oh, I'll start tomorrow. My friends are here. I was just so done. And that's the sad thing is that some people never get to the point before it's too late where they say, I'm done.
Katie: Yeah. And that's hard. It's hard to see loved ones do that. I think I'm lucky that I got to see you come out the other side. In many ways, I
Jeremy: Think I'm lucky that you got to wouldn't be sitting here right now anymore.
Katie: No, no. I mean, that's true. We wouldn't be, and that's important. It's important for both of us to keep working on ourselves and to keep working on our mental health, not only for us, but for each other and for the life that we build together. And so I'm really grateful for our life. But so let's talk a little bit about boundaries. Kind of brought up a lot of boundaries that you've put in place over these last years. It was the boundaries that you put in place that really helped, I think, journey to your recovery journey to be more successful. But these days, I mean, we really do have some boundaries. We aren't going out to the bars very much anymore, are we? We're waking up at five, six in the morning. We're doing adult things, which is weird to me, but we're doing it together. And so talk to me a little bit about how that felt for you about putting some of these boundaries in place.
Jeremy: I hope the people that are watching it, I have a buddy named John Sheeley, and I've always respected him because he's a family man. He's grandfather now, we're the exact same age, and he's been a grandfather for a while, but he's always been one of the most responsible people I know, and I've always looked up to him. But anytime I would come into town for a show, he would make it or something. But then afterwards we're like, oh, we're going out drinking. And he was like, ah, I got to go home. And I always respected him for that. And he had this line that nothing good happens past nine o'clock at night in a bar. And he's moved that down to six 30 now. But he was so right. I, and I always kind of in the back of my head, kept that philosophy. I bring it up to him every time he tries to leave, even if I'm trying to get him to just go to dinner or something.
But that's how you'll always have people that'll say, Hey, let's go do this. Hey, let's go that. Hey, I need a favor. Hey, this and that. And for your own self, I learned that you got to, and I'm still at fault with this. I say, yes, I've gotten better. But I do say yes to a lot of things that I shouldn't, especially when it comes to business. Yeah, friends, people want stuff from you and for free or whatever, and it's like, but now I'm learning how to become more of a me first and then we'll go from there. Because my sanity, my time after this whole journey, I've learned that my time contributes to my sanity as well. So I can't overextend myself.
Or you start to go backwards and not saying I'll ever drink again. I just know I will never drink again. I don't want it. I never have. My golf game is better than it's ever been in its life. I play in a men's league now. I'm up teeing off at five 40 in the morning. Those are my guys. They drink afterwards. I don't. I have my soda, water, and breakfast. I mean, it's just, or Arnold Palmer or whatever it is. But those are the boundaries that eventually when you set boundaries, they become a habit, a good habit. And what this all boils down to is just making decisions that involve good habits, not staying out. I will stay out late and I hate it if I have to do a comedy show on the road and comedy shows start late. That's all there is to it. I had one this in two weeks on Fremont Street. I'm not going to get out of there until like 10 o'clock or whenever time it ends. But the thing is, what do I do after that? I go home. That's what my tools have taught me, that it is just automatic. I go home, I have things to do the next day.
Katie: Yeah, you do. You've made plans, right? And you do. I see you always making plans for the next day. You have reasons to be sober beyond just your wants. And I love what you said before, and I think that it's worth repeating because a lot of people think that it's wrong to put yourself first, and it's not wrong to put yourself first. People think it's, oh, it's a selfish bitch,
Jeremy: Sorry to you. But if you don't put yourself first, you cannot be there for the people you love. It is just like they say on an airplane with the mask. You put your mask on yourself first, then you handle the others. And that's just because you have to be the one in control. And you can't be in control if you're about outside. You have to control yourself. You can't love somebody until you love yourself. Plain and simple facts.
Katie:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And I've seen you personally experience some of these things, but I mean, you've always been a kind person with a good heart. And so I'm just so proud that now you are able to do the things that were always your dream. And I think that we fell in love over each other's dreams. I'll always tell people that we fell in love, spilling our hearts over our biggest dreams and supporting each other and telling each other, Hey, fuck yeah, that dream looks amazing. Go after it. Instead of saying, I dunno. So I am really just proud to see how far you've come and you not drinking, you putting those boundaries in place. What's made you successful and you're just going to continue to shine. So I'm just so proud of you, my sweetie. Bye. I appreciate that. But yeah,
Jeremy: I couldn't have done it without her. I'll tell you that right now. I could not have done it without her. And my family just loves her so much because she has always been the voice of reason.
Katie: Well, definitely. Yeah, I appreciate that. But I can be my own emotional self and you know that too, right? You've also helped me through my anxieties, helped me to get outside of my comfort zone and to walk in this world without fear. And so we've, I think both really been there for each other, for our dreams and for our mental health. And I think that's what relationships should be all about, is that support. And so again, just so glad that you joined the show today. Yay. Thank you
Jeremy: For having me. This is great.
Katie: Yeah. So we'll wrap up. Is there any other last minute thoughts that you have around drinking or men's health or men's mental health?
Jeremy: I say this to anybody that needs to hear it. If it's in your head that you need a change, go about getting that change and throw, like I said, throw everything at it. Just do it. Like Nike says, just do it. Make it happen. And not everything has to be bad.
Katie: That's right.
Jeremy: It can turn around on a dime. Like I said, it took me a month and I had been in the same rut for 20 years, 25 years.
Katie: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people think that, oh, they're too far gone. And you're never too far gone until you're gone. Right? Until you're actually physically gone. There is always a chance. There's always hope. So anyone who out there who's struggling, just keep that in mind. It's not too late for you. You matter. And I'm just so glad this is such a good episode. So thank you everyone for joining us. We're live every first and third Wednesday of the month, but the show is always posted on my websites afterwards. So you'll see our episode up by next Wednesday along my website, Katie rose wecter.com, Spotify, apple, YouTube, wherever you listen to podcasts. And with that, we will see you in just a couple weeks. We'll see you in July for our next episode of Watching Mental Health. Thanks everyone!
