Stronger than the Silence: The Road to Recovery Begins with a Voice

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:20]Oh, I never told anybody. No, I never told anybody. I fought that alone. And one of the biggest reasons for me being a peer was I would have given anything for somebody to talk to that might have understood it or at least listened.

[00:00:42]My story is not unique.

[00:00:57]I don't know how much it relates to my alcoholism, but I lost my father at a very young age.

[00:01:06]I had a lot of social issues when I was in high school. I had trouble making friends, trouble fitting in. And once I discovered alcohol, all that anxiety went away. Like all of a sudden, I had a great way of making new friends. But that carried into construction. I I got into the business and I was a 19-year-old kid working with 50, 60 year old guys who were they were rough people and they they they drink after work.

[00:01:29]That's what they do. So my way of fitting in was hanging out with these guys and just doing what they do. I feel sick every day, physically sick. Like I can't eat. I can't do this. I can't do that. And like, all right, there's something wrong with me. Like, do I have stomach cancer or something like that?

[00:01:45]Like say nothing of the two pints of vodka I was drinking every day. That couldn't have been the problem. It was there's something else wrong with me.

[00:01:52]started on the Tapenzy Bridge and I blew hot into a breathalyzer, you know, but that was like one of the first like really like, oh, there's something going on here. Basically, institution after institution, detox after detox, hospital stay after hospital stay. If I don't have the recovery, I don't have the job. You know, if I can't stay sober, I'm I'm just I'm just a liability.

[00:02:14]>> Painkillers after a while, they the fake ones, the good ones, the real ones, the what? It didn't matter. I had no money.

[00:02:21]I had no connections. I had no way to reup as it were. So I I just went through the withdrawals.

[00:02:31]>> Really really sick. I was 23 with pancreatitis. Like it was really dark. It was really dark.

[00:02:49]I just like opened my eyes one day and was like, "What the hell is happening?"

[00:02:53]You know, I'm in the house, the gas is off, the lights is off, uh, and I'm just messed up. I got no more drugs and I have to go to work.

[00:03:05]>> I would try to cut back, but I just kept on falling into the same routine. So my wife gave me the ultimatum like you need to do something about this now or you need to get out of the house because I don't want this around our kids and it hurt of course but I knew she was right. Um and I I had a great fear of losing my family. Uh so I picked up the phone and I called and said you guys have been talking about this since the day I got in like that you offer help this type of stuff. like I need I need someone to put me in the right direction.

[00:03:43]>> I often would think to myself what other people would think about a crane operator with a mental illness moving heavy pieces above their heads, >> being able to guide them to where they need to go. You know, I'm somebody that shares my own story and because I share that story.

[00:04:10]>> Yeah, me too.

[00:04:12]>> That's the most powerful thing I can do.

[00:04:14]>> Like, you know, I I'll be honest with you, I won't >> if someone was struggling with the voice in the headset, telling them that they that they're messed up and they're not good enough. I I said I would tell them to do what I did and reach out to me and talk to me because it's not true, right?

[00:04:32]Every day you spend in recovery is is is a is a better day than you spent your your best day when you were using when you were caught up in the grips. Bro, you good right where you at. Just don't use >> this woman who just, you know, was just there being herself, sharing her story, who was brave enough to share her dirty stuff that made me feel like maybe mine wasn't so dirty, you know? And um we we can recover. We can be different, you know. It's possible. It feels so impossible. and you just take some time because you're worthy of you're worthy of a good life. You know, >> a doctor, a psychologist, a therapist can all tell you something. But when I hear it from another addict who is living a life that I want to live, I believe him because I he tells me his story and it's a horrible story. I think there's a little bit more recognition on self-care rather than mental health. um telling somebody, you know, you're going to take Friday off because you're taking a long weekend with the family. People understand that. Um they don't understand I'm taking Friday off cuz I just need Friday off.

[00:05:41]>> Exercise become a big a big thing for me. It helps me a lot, you know, just doing doing sweating, doing hard stuff, choosing to do hard things. I found this person and I just did anything that he asked me to do. As I uh a piece of advice he gave me in the beginning was um you're not going to know what to do with yourself because you spent so much of your life drinking and it revolves around your life revolves around that right now. Like so you're going to have a lot of empty voids and not know what to do with them.

[00:06:13]Like here's my suggestion. Find some weird stuff to do. Like go get a pedicure. Go go go go go do plaster fun time with your kids. Like just do do stuff like that. Like it might feel weird and silly, but I guarantee you're gonna find things that you actually enjoy. To to this day, I still go get a pedicure once in a while.

[00:06:32]>> I work out almost almost every day. You know, do some kind of variety of exercise because when I choose to do hard things outside of work, everything that comes when I'm at work feels so much more manageable. You know, like I respect my body. I try to take care of it. I eat well. I pack my lunch. Like I'm big big on packing lunch, big on working out. I like to lift heavy weight. It makes me feel strong, you know, not just physically.

[00:06:56]>> I had to listen for once. I had to I had to step out of my own head and take someone else's advice.

[00:07:02]>> I've been a sheet metal worker since 1986. I've been peertopeer since 2020.

[00:07:07]So when you come to me and say, "Santiago, I need some help." Bro, I got you. I'm I'm like hugging you up and like, "Yo, let's do this." you know, how often do we see it and how often do we know it and we don't do anything about it. They see somebody that came out on the other end and here I am. You know, I never once in my life expected to be a business agent. Not once. I was a crane operator. I'm happy as a crane operator.

[00:07:33]Um, but here I am as a business agent.

[00:07:35]So, what I showed is even though I went through a mental illness issue in my life, I got through it. I pushed through it. I did the work and I was able to move up in my career, you know, to show that I'm vulnerable to be able to say this happened to me. It wasn't it wasn't fun. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't good.

[00:07:56]Just because you can't help your your family member or your loved one doesn't mean that there's not help for them. You know, it goes vice versa. Like just because one person can't hear you or just because one person you you know a person that you love isn't receiving your support doesn't mean that it's not it's not somewhere else.

[00:08:14]>> If you could help somebody for a day, if you could do that for a day, you say, "Oh man, this guy's got it rough." And they'd be like, "Oh man, this guy's got it rough." Right? You just understand people have problems. People have feelings just like you do.

[00:08:30]>> Guys and gals of construction don't want to hear about our hard hats. You know, we heard about it. We get it. We got to wear our hard hats. You know, let's let's have a real talk about it. I break into we call each other brother and sister. You don't let a brother or sister, >> you know, go to waste. The tough guy attitude is very attractive from the outside looking in, especially someone new, someone younger. It's like that's that's the way that's what you want.

[00:08:52]Like that's what's appealing about this job. But I'm not here to listen to your personal problems. We're here to work.

[00:08:58]It can't stay like that. It can't like we need to keep evolving. And I feel like it is.

[00:09:05]>> So what gives me hope is people that are doing things with inside the industry.

[00:09:11]>> I got to go back to that job. Stand on my own two feet. A sober woman. Where there is breath, there is hope. I believe that I get to be free. You know, I get to be free. I was so not free for so long.

[00:09:26]>> The more we talk about it, the more it normalizes. The more it normalizes, the less the stigma. It's all about branching out and trying something different. Stop doing the same thing that you've been doing forever cuz it's it's not going to change.

[00:09:38]>> If you ask, people will help you. And there's a lot of people who've been trained to help just like me. So, if you need help, reach out. That's what I want to say.