The Unseen Shield: Officer Davin's Raw Tale of Addiction, Trauma, and Recovery in Law Enforcement

Jerry Dean Lund: 0:15

Welcome to today's episode of Enduring the Badge Podcast. I'm host Jerry Dean Lund and if you haven't already done so, please take out your phone and hit that subscribe button. I don't want you to miss an upcoming episode. And hey, while your phone's out, please give us a rating and review. On whichever platform you listen to this podcast on, such as iTunes, apple Podcasts and Spotify. It helps this podcast grow and the reason why, when this gets positive ratings and reviews, those platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify show this to other people that never listened to this podcast before, and that allows our podcast to grow and make a more of an impact on other people's lives. So if you would do that, I would appreciate that from the bottom of my heart.

Davin Cole: 0:53

Alright, welcome to Enduring the Badge Podcast. My very special guest today is Dave and Cole. How are you doing, dave? I'm doing great, Jerry. How are you? I'm doing awesome. Thank you for being my first guest on season six. Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is going to be a great story, dave. You're really open and honest about your story of addiction and being in the police force while you've struggled with some addiction, and so let's talk a little bit about yourself and then we'll dive into your story. Sure. So I've raised in San Francisco, worked for the San Francisco Police Department Originally. I worked for the Sheriff's Department for four years my big brother was there already and then. But I always wanted to work in the PDs. San Francisco is kind of unique. It's one city and one county so there's really no rural San Francisco. It's the city and it's the county. So the Sheriff's Department there is more a traditional correctional department. You work the jails, you can work some of the county facilities like the general hospital or city hall. There really wasn't much patrol activity and that was kind of my heart and soul on what I wanted to do. So PD wasn't hiring but once they started hiring, put in for the application, got hired by the police department, got in there, kind of the. I like telling the stories straight out get out of the academy. I went through a modified academy because I'd already been through the academy once. Get to my first assignment day one. Get there. Two hours into my first shift on my first day, call comes out of a lady with a knife. Any suicide. My training officer and I. We get out there and there she is with a knife coming right at us and I'm thinking I'm two hours into my shift I'm going to shoot somebody. It's crazy. Luckily she was Spanish speaker. I'm now a fluent Spanish speaker because my wife my wife is from El Salvador, but back then I didn't know a lick of Spanish. Fortunately, spanish speakers showed up and got her to drop the knife. I don't know. I guess that kind of for dictated what the rest of my career was going to be like. It was in my. From there, yeah, I started my training at one of the busiest stations in the city. I did my probation at the second busiest, just as busy, so the station. While I'm probation there, my partner and I got into a car chase with a paroliet. Large Chase gets off of the freeway, gives off the freeway surface streets. Eventually the guy wipes out inside of this parking lot. We think he's going to foot the veil. We jump out of our cars. I'm standing by my open car door. The next thing I know, the guy comes right at me, boom, crushes me in between my car and his car, shots, fired. That was my first, first OIS. Yeah, I'll say it before. I've said it before, I'll say it again. My father looks out for cops and idiots and I happen to be both. So how I didn't get hurt, I think because my door was open. I got mainly pushed into the car instead of like squished between them. And back then we got yelled at by the sergeant for shooting at a car, even though we were with it in policy because my life was in danger. There still was the policy that you weren't supposed to shoot at a moving vehicle. So that was the first response was getting yelled at why are you shooting at the car? And then it was yeah, come back to work tomorrow, you'll get time off for that. You got a shooting big deal. What you got? A little bruise on your arm. Suck it up, buttercup. And that's how it was. And I'd already kind of learned in my life, just through childhood stuff, that I like to put things that I call my junk drawer. I just if I don't want to think about it, boom, I just shove it in the junk drawer and I don't have to think about it anymore. And I thought, hey, that's great, I'm going to be a great cop, I'm going to be a deal with all this crap. I'm going to see, I just shove it in my junk drawer. That's kind of how it went. A couple of years down the road I was working. A plane flows getting a gang duty. My partner and I, we go into a park. A bunch of gang members in there. The hear is coming. They take off running. We turn the corner and there's a guy waiting for us with a shotgun. He shoots the shotgun again. Missed us 15 feet away I think, because it was bird shot. Just luck he gets acquitted in court because I didn't see him with the shotgun. My partner saw him. I was focused on selling, else, yeah, the jury's in San Francisco to have their own issues. But you know, it's just typical career of a cop. He was busy. A couple more shootings, not that I was involved in, but I was on scene four. I just thought I'm dealing well with this. I never had any typical PTSD. I wasn't having nightmares. I wasn't having a night in. Startle reflex is none of that. I just thought I'm doing great with this. Eventually my ideal job had been to get into the K9 unit. I had worked in a local retail chain, a big department store. The K9 unit used to come in there and train. I used to think, man, that's the job I want to do right there. I want to work with the dog. I got pretty lucky. It used to be a long waiting list but I just happened to hit it after five years in. So I got into the K9 unit. About five years into the unit, unfortunately, our sergeant, 42 years old, the highest of a massive heart attack. I'm talking about the stresses of our job. We lose our sergeant. He was the trainer, me and another officer. We love the unit. So we're like, hey, we'll take over the training. So I took over the lead position. I was in charge of all the purchasing, training of the dogs, training new officers. So one day we're doing a scenario and it wasn't even bite work, it was really just obedience. We called it tactical obedience. If you put the word tactical in front of it it makes it sound really cool and really important. Anyway, it was a movement, core movement of obedience from positions of cover. So there was some training, other training stuff going on that I didn't know was happening with the dog. I probably would have modified the training for this particular dog. But at one point I'm standing behind a tree and the dog comes around, didn't even see him coming, comes up behind me, latches onto my calf and just starts doing the prey shake. And I didn't even see him come, but I just felt like a lightning bolt had hit me in my calf and I'm just, first I'm yelling, get him off. I realized the more I'm yelling the more the dog's getting jacked up. So I just bite my tongue, hold on the officer comes, gets him off really quick. And funny thing is, the first thing I'm really mad is because he ripped my brand new uniform pants. I was like are you kidding me? He's wearing 80 dollar pants. Come on, and I roll up my pant leg. And I'm not kidding you, jerry. There's like a golf ball-sized hole in my calf. You could see when I got to the hospital. You could see the calf muscle. I mean, it was a really bad bite. The other side, there's probably like a peanut-sized hole. The matching hole is from his jaws coming around it. So you know they clean it up. They send me home with some antibiotics, pain meds. Three days later I got to get out of the house and get stir crazy. I talked my wife into taking me and the girls down to the beach and get out of the car. My wife looks down at my leg. She's like your leg looks really swollen. I look down and I'm like, ooh, that kind of does look bad. So I call down to workers' comp and I'm like, hey, you know, it's just there getting treated for this dog bite and it's swollen. They're like is it warm to the touch? I'm like, yeah, is it pink? Yeah, you need to go to this nearest ER right now. Bring up and go to the ER. Get to the hospital. Doctor looks at it. He goes oh, you're going to be here for a while. Turned out I had a pretty bad infection. I was in the hospital for seven days. I'm there about three or four days in. They're having a hard time getting the infection to go away. And I asked the doctor. I'm like, hey, you know, I don't have mercy.

Be A Guest: 9:28

Do I.

Davin Cole: 9:29

He's like no, no, no, but it is a bad infection.

Be A Guest: 9:32

I'm not going to lose my leg, am I?

Davin Cole: 9:35

Well, you know, let's not worry about that right now. No wrong answer, doctor, you're supposed to give me like a solid no. That's what I wanted to hear. The infection did clear up. I was off duty for about three months, put back light duty, but I'm about seven months into it and I'm, you know, the pain's there. The pain was bad. I mean, it was hard to walk. You know, I still wasn't full duty and I'm, you know, calling the doctor's office to get a refill and I talked to the doctor and, like you know, hey, and I'm still in a lot of pain.

Jerry Dean Lund: 10:11

You know why isn't the pain going away.

Davin Cole: 10:13

He's like you know that was a really, really bad bite because it's probably a good year before you start to have some relief from the pain. So that's a bit of a gut check. It's kind of like ah, all right, all right, that's okay. So year goes by, year and a half, luckily I get. I asked for a new pain manager because, as the pain manager I was using was like an hour commute to the city where I work as opposed to where I lived. So I asked one for closer to home. Fortunately it was Stanford Hospital, which was good for me because I have a really good program, got a pain manager there. Now I'm about I'm a good two, a little bit over two years, still having pain, still taking the pain meds, seeing the neurologist. What had happened was there's scar tissue, when it healed, was impinging the nerves in my leg and it was this nerve bundle, the same one that goes to your sciatic. So I'd have pain in my leg, it would go up my back, it would go down my arm. So you know, there's good days, there's bad days and our department policy was, you know, I couldn't take any of the opioids eight hours before shift, so I could usually make it through a full shift. And if I couldn't, you know I had a good boss. He just like hey, just either go to the office, put yourself out, admin, you know, can't. You can't be out on the street, but you can sit in the office and do paperwork, or just go home for the day. But I'm sitting there talking to the neurologist and you know I asked him. I go hey, you know what's my long-term prognosis? It doesn't seem like it's getting better. And you know he looks at me with all seriousness. He goes you know, this is, this is probably, this is probably going to be as good as it gets for you. I'll tell you, I'm not ashamed of it. I went out to my car. I sat there for about 10 minutes in tears. I'm just thinking this is my life, this chronic pain, just waking up in pain, going to bed in pain, and I I mean, I'm not going to lie, I enjoy taking the pain beds, but I didn't want to be on them Like I, this. I didn't want this to be the rest of my life and I don't know if I was addicted yet then. But I definitely did not want to take a minute and I did try to stop a couple of times gotten big trouble from my pain manager. You know, when she told me that you could die from trying to go cold turkey off of pain meds, I kind of convinced me I'm not going to do that anymore. But fast forward. My pain manager, she was great. She got me into a surgeon. They normally they're hesitant to go in and try to clean off the scar tissue because they cut you open and they can create even worse scar tissue. But they had come up with the method of getting in there, cleaning it out and protecting the nerves. So I go through the surgery and, man, 95% of the pain is gone. I'm just ecstatic. I couldn't believe I was. So I mean again, I'm in tears. I'm hugging the doctor, I'm kissing her, I'm loving her, I'm telling her this is the best thing in the world. And my pain manager is like, okay, we're going to wean you off, we're just going to be slow wean off. So it's going to take about three months. I'm going to be a little by little like, okay, this is great. As I'm getting down to that, those final weeks, I'm realizing I don't want to stop taking these. I'm missing it. I'm missing that feeling. Like I'm getting depressed, I'm not having that. It's funny, and I've talked to other people who've had opioid addictions. I actually had more energy on the opioids because I didn't take it to get droopy and, you know, like a typical opioid person or like the fentanyl users are bent over and half passed out. It just it got me, it made me feel good and I felt more energetic. And that was at the same time that workers comp said okay, you know we're going to close out your case. You're healed. They did the surgery. We're going to transfer you back to your. You know we're going to close out your case. So I close out my case and I go back to my regular doctor and he'll bless his soul. It's very easy. I don't blame anybody in the medical profession because I was a good bullshitter. And he's like hey, how's your leg doing? I go oh, horrible, still hurts. I go they closed my case. And workers comps, I can't go to a pay manager. I'm like, oh, okay, how much are they giving you? Oh, right, back up to the dose I was at before they weaned me down. He goes yeah, no problem. And so he started writing the prescriptions for me and back then you could get a refill up to 10 days in advance. So even if I was going over, you know so, I had a 30 day refill. If I was knocking them out in 20 days, it didn't matter, I just had my refill ready to go. But, as you know, the laws changed and all the opioid addictions came out and all the issues. They started changing the laws and it eventually got to it where you could only refill the day before your prescription was over. So on the 29th day, that's when I started having trouble, that's when I was like, yeah, what am?

Be A Guest: 15:21

I going to do.

Davin Cole: 15:22

So you do what any other addict does. I'm not going to buy it off of the street because I'm a cop. I'm not going to do that. So you start wheeling and dealing. You strike up conversations with guys and gals that got hurt. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm on pain meds and they're great. Oh, I hate to be mine. They make me sick. You want them? Oh yeah, I'll take them, they're great for this. Yeah, it's amazing. I was like, oh, this is easy. And then my mom my mom was on high doses of opioids for some stuff she was. I always have extra. You're my baby boy, come over anytime if you want some, all right. So I always had someone or somewhere I could I can get some extra pills from. And then fast forward to a couple of years ago. I would say, let's see as the rest. Two years ago so I'd say at least five or six years ago I knew I was addicted. I'd added alcohol onto it. You know the two V's Vicodin and vodka. Why not? If one V's not good enough, the second one's definitely going to make it better. But I still in my mind kept telling me so yeah, I'm addicted, but I only do it at night. Like I never used it work, I never took Vicodin. I was adamant. I was like I'm not going to use it on the shift, but I'll definitely drop a card and go home early. So hey, I'm going to take four hours of vacation. And once I moved up to the dentist's position I had to ask myself permission to go home. So it was easy. I was like, oh all right, well, I'm in charge tonight and just tell the sergeant hey, I'm going to put a card in for four hours of vacation Go home. So I started taking my bike and decided I didn't have to take it to work and as soon as I got home just go sneaking in the bedroom. Because I was a sneaky drunk. And I thought my wife did know. But she knew I would drink at night and I never drank vodka during the day, even though my day's off. I just wanted to drink at night. My therapist showed me where that's come from. She knew, she suspected about the opioids. She would find prescription bottles every once in a while and I could have answered oh, you know, we did all that walking the other day my leg was really hurting and I just asked for a re-gulp from the doctor. But she knew about the vodka and the drinking. My daughter's that was the hard part was, I didn't think, my daughter's new. They're 17 and 26 now Back then they're 13 and 14 and 23 and 24. I thought they didn't know. And when they told me that they knew all along, that was the hard part of the putt, that was the hard part of the pill, of the swallow, that took a lot out of me. So the depression really was kicking in too. I was getting tired of it. I didn't want to be addicted anymore. And the sad part was my agency. I worked for the services police department. They have a great employee assistance program, one of the most robust in the country. You could call anytime, asked for help without any repercussions, and I just couldn't do it. You know, I just kept telling myself no, I'm going to fix myself.

Be A Guest: 18:40

I don't go to anyone else for help.

Davin Cole: 18:43

And I think the other thing was I didn't know what I didn't, I couldn't visualize sobriety. A picture was never drawn for me, and that's one of the things that I do in my public speaking is really push what sobriety looks like. But I just couldn't do it and so I didn't. I didn't ask for help and I just continued along like that and as I got down to my last I say easily the last seven, six, seven months, before, you know, I was arrested the suicidal thoughts were coming and they're strong, you know I. You know I didn't want to commit suicide and I told myself I wouldn't do that to my kids and I didn't want to leave them with that legacy. I know the children of parents commit suicide, have a higher rate of suicide. So I started planning it out of. You know I'll make it look like an accident. There's, there's a road nearby where I live where there's a lot of accidents. It's actually called devil's slide and people crash there a lot. And so that was my plan. Was you know what? I'm just going to drive off the cliff and they'll just think it was a bad accident, because dad tends to drive a little fast sometimes and you know, he's probably coming back from one of his heights. It was a pain in tension and so it was starting to get to the planning phase where I think I'm going to have to do this. Because I can't. I tried to stop on my own. I tried, I told myself if I stop drinking then I'll be able to stop the pills. But the most I made it was maybe three weeks of not drinking. But there was always a correlation If I was running out of pills that went right back to the bottle, so that you know, it was kind of like the sliding scale the more of the pills I had, the less of the alcohol I would want. The less of the pills I had, the more of the alcohol I would want. So one one was filling in for the other. So up to that day, you know, november 5th, go to work in the morning, normal shift. I was already planning to take my mom for lunch that afternoon, so I was going to take a couple hours of vacation, took off, would go see my mom. I was getting ready to leave. We were going to go to a wedding in Mexico and so we were going to go away that weekend. But I had one pill left and my refill wasn't due for another week and a half. I thought, oh, mom will have some. My mom's stronger, so I don't have to take as many. Well, mom didn't have any. And I'm now thinking what am I going to do? And I'm driving home and I'm just like in a panic. I have one pill and I leave in two days. That's right. When the withdrawal really starts to kick in, the first two days aren't too bad. That third day starts to get bad. I'm thinking I'm going to be on a plane with trolls. I mean, what am I going to do? And I was scared to buy. You know, I was like, can I just buy some on Craigslist or something? But what if I get fentanyl? How am I going to know it's not fentanyl? And it just the only thing I thought it was. You know what? I just go rob a pharmacy. I just go in or go out or have a pharmacy. This will get me over. And you know what? After this I'm gonna get help. If this is how long I'm not gonna go get help and I need these pills. I can't go through with trolls. We're playing robbery in the world. I left my car like a block away. I Walked in the pharmacy, the same pharmacy that I've used before. I wasn't currently using it, but I've gone there before mile from my house in the city that I live in and A small department, it's not like they're busy. Walk in, give them a note. I see the pharmacist on the phone calling 911. I see her. I see her Peking up looking at me, given a description, and I still just stand there, I just wait and they give me nine bottles, nine bottles of Norco, which is the opioids I took. So I grabbed the bag, I go outside the store, I start jogging towards my car Please roll up. And that was it. And I first, second there. I thought I'm running, but I, kind of like Half-assed, ran across the street and they're like we're gonna tase you and I was just like hey, that was it, I was done. Yeah, I lay down. As soon as they handcuffed me, I'm like, hey, I'm an off-duty cop. And so they, they cuffed me, add a gun on me. I my plan had been. I told myself okay, if the cops show up, I'm just gonna shoot myself, because I'm not gonna let my family see me go through this. I'd rather just kill myself and end up in jail but the cops show up. I'm gonna kill myself Paraly talking some officers Afterwards that I've since actually been invited by the department that arrested me and they've invited me to come give them a talk On addiction and mental health. I was just at the station yesterday, talked to the captain, so that was I was pretty powerful for me that they wanted me to come and talk to them. But yeah, they told me that. You know, they didn't know I was armed. But after they reviewed their body worn cameras I actually did reach for my gun twice. I don't remember, I don't know what stopped me and I think God's hand just came down and said no, you're gonna get through this. I was pretty much a train wreck. You know I bolted my eyes out in the back of that car all the way to the station, all the way until I got booked into the county jail. Even at the county jail, you know they put me in a cell by myself for obvious reasons, grabbed the phone cord like two separate occasions and wrapped it around my neck. It's like I'm just gonna hang myself in the cell and did it. You know I'm glad I did it, bailed out, got home my wife they couldn't get a hold of me. For the first couple hours they didn't know where I was. My wife was convinced that I killed myself because she couldn't. It made no sense. I dropped my daughter off it At cheer practice and I was supposed to go grocery shopping and then come home. So she couldn't figure out like why is he not home? So she's like he finally did it, he finally killed himself. But then I had to call her from jail and like I'm arrested and you know I couldn't tell her over the phone why. So she's in a panic and then you know she finally bales me out. At four in the morning I have to sit down and tell my wife and my daughters what happened. And Something I didn't realize until I went into my first, the first 30-day treatment, was that I couldn't tell my story in the first person. So my wife had told me this afterwards that when I told my daughters I told it in the third person. I said your dad Went into a pharmacy and your dad robbed it because your dad has an addiction. I couldn't say I did it and I continued that description even when I was in in the, in the living facility, the treatment facility. The therapist up there's. Like you know, you only talk about this in the third person. I didn't realize I was doing it, but it was the shame, you know, on the guilt that I had initially. So you know, I get bailed out and the next morning my department they do, you know they came the next day, suspended me without pay, took my badge, my gun, took all my firearms under California has a red flag law so I was suicidal, like hey, we're taking all your weapons. But then the next morning, so okay, we're taking up to the treatment facility that everybody here uses they, they did their best, they wanted to cover me for 30 days. You know, even though they suspended me without pay, they're like, hey, we're gonna put you on family leave for your 30-day treatment. And then after that, you know, you have to, you have to retire. I was like, yeah, no, that's I understand, had 31 years in I'd, I had the years, I had the service, I had the age. So In my 30 days the city attorney denied the family leave. So you know, I was able to Backdate my retirement to the day after my arrest. Hit the front page, it was all over the place. Hit the front page, it was all over the news. That was the hard part, actually, my first morning at the At the. The facility that I was at is first responder competent, but it is open to all civilians but it is. It's a really nice. It's up in Napa Valley, it's a really nice place. But you know, I get up there Friday afternoon. I'm just kind of by myself Saturday morning and walk in to go get my breakfast. They got the news on, like you do not? I walk in and what stories right there. Yeah, there's my face on the big screen TV, yeah, and I'm just like turn right back around, go right back to my room, and you know that's. The other thing is I didn't have a Understanding of these facilities. I just my thought is it's gonna be a bunch of burned out, drunk addicts, angry people. I Think I was in my room for about 20 minutes when about there was four people in my door and they're like no, you're not gonna sit in your room and cry and be by yourself, you're gonna face this, come on, let's go. And they all took me out to the track when they just walked with me. They go talk, don't talk, we're here. And they surrounded themselves people I didn't even know and none of them were first responders. There was an officer from my department up there at the time but he was getting ready to go out the next day, so you kind of had other stuff going on. But you know that's the other thing that I promote is that these, these, when you get the right treatment facility, man, you're gonna heal. It's 30 days is not enough but it's a great 30 days of human. So then I spent the next year not knowing what was gonna happen with my case. There was a lot of back and forth with the district attorney. You know the. He's returning in the county. You know he understood. You know my addiction. I Ironically my last five years of my department, the last three of which I was the lieutenant in charge of our homeless outreach and our drug and Deflection program, where we divert people who have substance abuse issues from low-level crimes into alternative programs, which was as. That was hard for me because I'd go out there and, you know, encourage my officers or myself and and work with people to get them into these programs. And then I'd go home and look Myself in the mirror and be like what a hypocrite you are. You get these people into a program and these are hardcore drug people. These are guys have been in and out of prison and I'm talking a sweet game about how great they should get sober and then I'm going home popping pills and drinking alcohol, you know. And I was like why can't I help myself? You know I'm helping these guys but I'm not helping myself. Now that kind of added to the misery and the depression. So fast forward to Christmas the last year, december 23rd, my attorney's like You're going to jail, you're not going to prison, but you get the county jail time and your court dates on the 23rd and you're gonna be taken into custody. I'm like two days before Christmas. He's like the other than a prison. The judge is willing to give you probation, but you're gonna have to serve in a year in county jail. So I went there still grasping hope that the judge would See Christmas as a you know little Christmas cheer and not. But she's, she's that with me. Do year in the county jail. Our county only does 50% time. So I did six months. That's six months was in protective custody. So I spent 23 and a half hours in my cell every day. But, man, I grew. I had already told myself I'm not gonna let this beat me down, I'm not gonna sit there in my cell and and waste this this time. And I discovered a lot about myself. You know, I think one of the first things was I realized that I was a lot stronger than I had led myself to believe. I had always had a lot of self-doubt. You know, people are always like, oh, you'll be a great boss, you'll be a great sergeant, you'll be a great lieutenant. I was like you know, you know I'll be okay. Are you so good at this? You know, how can you so strong? And you know, and I got through it and I came out of there and I was like it sucked. You know, recommend jail for anybody. But you know, I got through it and I didn't waste my time in there. You know, right, the other inmates treated me with respect because I was respectful to them. I didn't pretend like I was coming in. There's somebody who's better. I was very open with my story. All the deputies I told him my story from day one I go. If you guys want to know what happened, I'll tell you exactly what happened. The inmates there's no steeper. They knew who the cop was as soon as they was in the newspaper the next days and Then the newspaper they give out in the jail, there's my picture, a slightly newspaper under my door I swear open up page to. There's my picture. Like this is ever gonna end. But you know, because I think mainly just because I was open with them and I was willing to talk and they would tell me their stories. And you know I made it. I made it through it's six months in our county isn't really that bad. So you know it could have been way worse. Yeah, so that that was my story. That's you know where I am now. Yeah, that's, uh, that's a lot to go through In your career, right, you start off kind of sounds like very fast and furious in a lot of in a lot of ways, but you know, that's, that's your story and how it like a lot of it about how it affected you. But can we talk about how it affected, like how that affect your family and your, your children, going through all that for for years? Right, yeah, can you explain some of the like, the effect on them? Yeah, you know, like said my my girls knew about it. They knew about the alcohol the whole time. You know, and that's a lie a lot of us who have substance abuse issues tell ourselves when we have families that they don't know. Um, we've had talks about it. My old it's has told me that I treated her differently during those years of my addiction, and I did. I thought I was the same dad. I thought I was the same caring, loving dad who's always there at school events, never missed anything. You know they call you know functioning addict. You know I wasn't a drunk passed out in the couch at home. You know I was going to family events. I was going to school events. I, I thought I was still being that. You know I deal dad. She said, no, dad, you weren't, you weren't the same dad. You would snap at me for no reason. You would be distant. Sometimes, you know, at night I would need help with my homework and you, just you weren't there. You were in your room. You said you had stuff to do and I realized, yeah, because I was in my room drunk Watching Netflix, you know, and just wasn't there for him and my wife. You know we're we're about to hit 28 years of marriage. You know it had put a strain on our marriage, you know, and in the last two years I'd still have been rough. It hasn't been an easy recovery. Throw this. I mean, I got out on father's day this year. It's still fresh, it's still fresh, um. But something that happened recently that really got me going was you know, when you're retired you find things to do. I like to cook and bake. So my daughter had some of her cheer friends over and I'd made some pastries with some cream and fruit and gave it to her friends. They're, oh, that's so good. Tell your dad we loved them and we have the recipe. Then, a couple of days later, I made some banana bread, chocolate chip cookies and then my wife has this sourdough starter and I made some fagashia. So they were having there. Every year they do a Thanksgiving with all the girls from Richard team and she was like, dad, all my friends want you to make the fagashia for the friends, friends giving. I was like, oh, my wife, I go. You know, I feel like my youngest is finally proud of me again and it really gave me. Second it just it made me feel good about myself, you know, because I put them through a lot and it took a. I know now it took a toll on them and obviously the arrested and having dad in jail for six months and you know I live in a smaller city I mean it's all the parents of her friends no, I mean, I was on the news, it's not a secret, and they've all been great about no one said, oh, you can't go to the coal's house anymore. They've all been super supportive, you know, and again, I'm open to anybody. I mean I'll tell perfect strangers in the store about my story. Sometimes I was like you don't need to share that much, but I just feel sharing if somebody hears my story and it helps them, it's worthwhile. You know it's. And it's cathartic for me too, because every time I tell the story, you know it. Just I feel a little bit more. Yeah. But you know, they're still. They still have moments, you know, and there's, you know, I did come out of jail and within the first week out of jail, I relapsed on the alcohol, I just everything. I came out of jail and it was like this big collapse of I can't believe. I just came out of jail and for some reason, I went to the bottle and I was like no, all right, that's it, I'm done with this. This is stupid. What am I thinking? You know, part of me kept telling myself alcohol is never the problem, it's the bills, you know, and I'd be able to go back to being able to drink like that. That's unfortunately, that's just. I'm not gonna be able to enjoy beer anymore and I'm fine with that. I'm perfectly fine with that. It's true, it's right, it's the it's trigger. Either one is gonna trigger the other. Right To go hand in hand. Exactly, and why would I do that to my family again? I'm not. I'm not gonna put them through that. I'm not gonna put my wife through that, you know. And therapy's been good. It's been good for me, it's been good for them, and. But I think you know anyone out there who is currently addicted to something or going through something your family knows. Trust me, they know I mean, I don't. It's an easy lie to tell ourselves. We think we hide things. Well, we really don't. We really don't. Well, our first responders, we can hide things, great. I mean, we hired our emotions all the time. So we right, we go up to the worst scenes possible Over 10, like it doesn't bother us. Yeah, of course, of course we do. Yeah, this definitely takes the toll on the family. Yeah, is it? That would be hard, right With your children, trying to gain that respect back and trust and all those things back and take time, but definitely powerful. You know healing, you know for them and I love how you're getting you know, finding your groove again right to get involved in their lives. Build that, that trust back up with them and find those those way in to their lives. I think we underestimate what our children go through as we're first responders, like how it affects them. I mean they're. We always say they're pretty smart, but then we may discredit that sometimes, by the way, like we think that they don't know what's going on in our, in our lives, at work and stuff like that. They're, they're always listening. They may not listen to do what we want them to do, but they're always listening. Right, they're always like picking up on stuff. No, they do and they I mean I don't know about yourself, but I know with me a lot of times I forgot that they worried about dad when he was at work. You know, when I was in the K9 unit, our K9 unit was attached to our SWAT team, so I was doing entries with our SWAT team all the time, you know, and I risked stuff and you know I was always like that. My wife was so happy when I got promoted, you know, and then when I got the lieutenants position, even the homeless outreach. She's like you're in an office, you have your own desk. You're like you just stay there. And I was like yeah. I like it. But yeah, you know, you forget that they worry about you too, you know. And you come home and you pretend like, yeah, I'm the big tough guy. I mean I handled things at work. It was no big deal, you know. I pretend like you know I won't tell them that. Oh yeah, we went after this murder suspect and my dog and I were the first one through the door. The guy was right there. I don't tell them those stories, but they feel it, you know, they know what's going on. They're not ignorant to the danger of our job, and so you know you got that and then you're gonna add in, you know, if you start to have mental health issues that you're not addressing, you know I do have I ended up, I do have PTSD Now. Now they call it PTSD it's a cumulative one. They've done more research now so it doesn't have to be that one singular traumatic event. It could be accumulation of all these events and then a lot of us I think most of us do throw it in our junk drawer. You know, and we may not have that one major event. You know where you know we're into shooting, or you go to a fire scene and a child dies or something that's very traumatic. It's just that all of it together and eventually your junk drawer is so full you can't shut it anymore. But you don't wanna go in there and start digging through it because you don't know what you're gonna find. You know, and you leave that unaddressed and then you find other ways to deal with it, whether it's taking alcohol or other types of behavior. And yeah, it's detrimental down the road and it does affect the families and then I guess I think sometimes they are the forgotten victims in this. We've talked about that before. Is that that's what happens in like in my case? All the attention suddenly was on dad. Oh, dad has an addiction problem. Dad needs treatment. Dad needs to go to this program. We forget that they're going through this too. They need help too. They needed to go through therapy, they needed to talk to someone. They needed their own programs. It's hard because for addiction, that's a very selfish thing. Then, unfortunately, when you're going through rehab and you're trying to heal yourself, you don't have the energy or time Again. Now you're neglecting your family again just by trying to help yourself. It's a hard cycle. It's really hard. I finally at that point now, okay, I'm still working on myself. I may not be working on myself, probably put me in my grave, but now I can finally work with them. I'm back to being at the games and watching my daughter cheer and volunteering at the school, and dad's got a new job. Things are just. It's great. The thing I want them to see is that, no matter what happens in your life, you could come back. This is the one moment in your life does not define you. That day does not define me. It took me a while to learn that. I really had to get over that. That did not define me. I was one moment out of my life, the bad decision, with some bad stuff going on. But that is not who I am. That's just part of the whole. It's not the thumb of the thumb. I want them to know that too. Listen, no matter what happens in your life, and even the great things the great things in your life also don't define you. That's why you got to keep growing and keep moving and keep going forward. I just started taking Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It's almost like you're 58, bro. What are you thinking? I'm like what am I going to do? I'm 58. I can't do anything anymore. Some 20-year-old wants to flip me and break my hip. Oh well, but yeah, I'm not going to sit back and not do anything. I want to keep growing. Do you think maybe things would have been different through your career and maybe not got addicted and stuff like that If you had that junk drawer, if you would have kept that junk drawer, of stuffing those things in that junk drawer to a minimum, or maybe just not even started just stuffing down things, maybe seeking some therapy in the beginning or just dealing with some of that stuff? And she said I know it's just thinking, it's human nature. I don't know anybody that just deals with everything as it comes to them. You shove it in the drawer and you're going I'm going to deal with that later, but later and it really never happens because it's never a convenient time to deal with all the shit and stuff stuffed in there. It's just right you don't want to go in there and, like you said, you don't want to go in there and dig out all that stuff and relive it and do it again. So maybe in the beginning is just maybe as a goal is maybe someone new in the service or someone hasn't been in the service for a long time Maybe start digging out that junk drawer so it doesn't pile up, or you just like I don't think I can come back from all this, right, all this stuff that is stuffed in the drawer. No, you're right, I think and I think this is something in the first responder community and I think we're starting to see some changes but we don't process. We have debriefs. You know, like in our department there's a critical incident, we'll debrief it for one or two days but then we don't do it anymore. We don't debrief further down the road or we don't debrief, like I said, the cumulative stuff, you know, just the constant DVs or things. So I'm one, I'm a big believer in therapy. I used to be kind of like well, what do I need to go to therapy for? This person isn't going to understand what I've been through. They're not going to understand what cops go through or what firefighters go through. But I think if you do get a culturally competent one and I've been through I've seen a therapist who's never worked with first responders, who was great, I mean she just she understood, because she was really good, because she listened, and I also I've heard horse stories of people going. I told my therapist this and they're like what you did that and they're just like aghast. I think that's where the culturally competent ones do come in hand. But I think you don't need to be you know, I want to use the word broken, but you don't need to feel like you're at that point where you need therapy to go to a therapist. I think if you just feel like you need to talk things out, there's nothing wrong with it. But I'm also and this is something I've played with this is, you know, I like AA groups. I think the AA program is great. It wasn't particular for me. I found that processing and talking to a therapist was really, really helped me more through my through my addiction and through my recovery, and so and that's what I found is is that you know, I've been through two 30 day programs and I did a right. After my first 30 day program I did a 90 day outpatient. That's what they want you to transition into. I found I got the most out of the processing groups. We just talked, you know, and I would love to see that for first responders, would love to see groups where it doesn't necessarily have to be about a substance abuse issue or something, but we just process like, hey, how's everybody doing this week? Yeah, I went to this house for the third time. It just, you know, to be able to talk it out and I don't like this. You know the safe space thing. But there is something to the point of having a place that you can go to and you could speak with like minded people who do the job you do and not have it turn into a BS session or some war story session. It's really it's got to be controlled, but you just to be able to process and just be able to talk things out, cause you buying really quick. You're not the only one feeling that way and that's that's cathartic too, cause then you go oh God, I'm not alone, it's like because we've had this for so long. You know, I came in in the 89 is when I started, and then, right in the middle of the crack wars and everything was going on and everything, like I said earlier, was suck it up, butter cup, do this and that, and that was the Yep, yep. Then if I felt that way, I'm kind of weak. So maybe I'm not. I don't want to feel that way and that's where you start sticking in that jump door. But that was a myth. It's been a myth since day one. It's never been that case and I think having something like that place for first responders, just regular processing, it doesn't have to be something specific, just someplace to talk. That's not at a bar taking down shots, alcohol, but it was a place to talk. Yeah, and there's a place to talk. I think another good recommendation is journaling Brighten things down, getting that out of your thoughts on the paper, help you process quite a bit of things and just kind of go back a little bit talking about these regular check-ins and stuff like that and not to let our drunk drawer build up. But statistically, first responders have a super high rate of childhood trauma. So we go into this field. You have a high rate of childhood trauma. I mean that means it can mean a lot of different things. But then you start seeing all these things the adding to that trauma. So I think my personal opinion is from year one of your career, six months in, you start seeing a therapist and you start building that relationship when you think nothing's going on because you will have a strong relationship when you finally realize that there's been something going on the whole entire time. But if you start seeing a therapist this is my belief you start like you are not going to shove as much stuff down into the junk drawer or shove it down. You're going to be able to process it and have this longer, healthier career and healthier I mean both mental health and physical health right, because those go hand in hand. So we, as first responders, have to start taking that proactive step instead of being reactive, right? So what we're trained to do is be pretty reactive people. But we have to be proactive. Yeah, no, you're right. And a lot of the tools that they give you in recovery and they give you when you're going through the PTSD, the stuff that you should be doing day one out of the academy mindfulness and practice, being present and things like that. These are all great tools and, like you said, journaling. In fact, I'm a big believer in meditation. Five years ago I spent, you know, my mom was a big hippie, she was a big pot-smoking hippie, and there goes some of my childhood trauma, but you know that was hippie. So I'm shocked every chance I get and I'll meditate. You know I'll do some yoga. I'll do different things. I'll practice mindfulness. I go on my hikes, I unplug. You know I love listening to podcasts, but there are times on my hikes like, no, you know, I want to be here, I want to pay attention to what's going on. Yeah, and I would love, I would love to see these tools given in the academy. I would love to see a whole section of the academy, whether it's a fire academy, police academy, what not? Where you're starting to. You're giving these tools from the get-go, like this is going to be a block of instruction, like once a week, we're just going to sit in a room. I remember we had a, you know, I remember we had an instructor and that one day after defensive tactics I remember he had us all lay down on the mats and he was big into the martial arts and now kind of funny how it popped up. But I remember him having us lay down and pretend like we're in the sun and we're on ice cube and we're melting and I felt really relaxed. But I remember some of the guys were going what kind of crap was that? I was weird and I was like now I look back, kind of that's the stuff we should be getting and reinforced and it should be an everyday thing. But we don't, because people say shit like that and then as a and probably as a defense mechanism, because they don't want to be like soft and embrace that. But I mean, even if you're outside, exterior is a super big, hard ass. Most people are not a super big, hard ass. They still have those soft spots and stuff like that. They just don't want to show them in front of people. So things like saying stuff like that is like oh yeah, what's up? Bullshit. Well, that's the stuff like you said, that's supposed to be and will help you if you, if you practice something, mindfulness or some degree of, like mental health care practices. I guess you know. Yeah, it's going to help. There. I did hear of one academy. I don't know where it's at, but I think they have this. They're starting off on a strong foot. They do two weeks of mental health training before the start of the academy. Really. Yeah, which I think is awesome. Yes, because setting that you're right, setting kind of the standard already, and then you're, you know, you can teach you for two weeks how to deal with the mental health aspect of being an officer, and then right, then we're going to start you up to the police academy and we're going to review these things, and then you're going to go into your career and you're going to have all these tools which you wouldn't have had if we didn't do the two weeks before the academy, because there's never time to do this portion of training. Yeah, they always say that, but there's time, you know there's time and money it's. You know. I talk about that a lot Like, well, how much are you spending? How much did you lose on me? Yeah, you know, and as much as I feel I was productive, you lost productivity on me, you know. I mean I was at the. I mean I feel like I was at the pinnacle career Everyone says I was. I mean I was in a position that was very I was never the person. My goal was never to promote up to a chief of police or you know I just initially started to promote just the less near retirement and I wanted a bigger retirement check. But you know, I came to a position in my career though I was very well connected. I was very well connected with city halls, very well connected with the board of supervisors, meeting with politicians, and you know it's the money's there. You got to show people like it's one or the other, like you have. It's funny. You know you'll have a budget for lawsuits because you know you have to pay these lawsuits. Well, what if you knew you didn't have to pay that much in lawsuits, if you took care of the mental health of your officers and they're less likely to maybe have misconduct or use excessive force. You know that's money saved, it's. It's hard to convince people that they don't, for whatever reason they don't want to see it, you know. You know, like any training, it's well, we don't have the money for the training. Well, you're paying one way or the other without this training. So if you're not addressing this and there's any police leaders out there and fire leaders out there, you're paying for this one way or the other. You're paying. If you don't have a program in place, you don't. And if you don't have someplace where your members ask for help, you're paying for it in another way. You just not seeing the numbers on a piece of paper, but you're paying for it. It's costing you money and it's money that could be well spent on human lives and human being. Well, I think you know one way right. sick time would be one thing you could look at, like you write lawsuits could be looked at. What about just the general service to the public? Yeah, right, you're right. I mean it's hard to quantify in a financial way of like, what are you saving, right, by investing in this person? Well, they all know that they cost them to uniform them, you know, train them, fto, all these things. They know those hard costs. But you got to maybe add some, maybe some fluff in there to like take care of them and fluff them there to like take care of the mental health aspect of things. David, like how can people like follow your, reach out to you or whatever, if they have any questions? So the best ways to reach out to me? On LinkedIn. You could also reach at me at contact David Cole at Gmail. I do public speaking, so I will come out to your department. I will work around your schedule. I could design my talk for whatever timeframe you have. I want the first responder community to know that A you can ask for help. The strongest thing you could ever do is to ask for help and there are people out there to help you and that, whatever you're going through now, you could get through it and you will get through it. And I am a cautionary tale and I'm not saying I was some gift to God of police work, but the number one thing I heard from my fellow officers after all, this was like crap. If it could happen to you and it could happen to anybody. I mean, nobody knew. Nobody knew. In my department my, I guess, as a lieutenant I had a captain. We had lunch every single day together. He didn't know. He was like man. If I'd known I would have helped you. So, yeah, reach out to me on LinkedIn. That's the best way and I'm here to help anybody, anytime, anytime. Yeah, thank you, david, for extending that offer. You know to help people and I appreciate you, so I'm telling your story today and thank you for once again for being on. Thank you again for having me, Jay. I really appreciate it.

Be A Guest: 56:52

Yeah, thank you. Thanks again for listening. Don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you access your podcast. If you know someone that would be great on the show, please get a hold of our host, jerry Dean Lund, through the Instagram handles at Jerry fire and fuel or at enduring the badge podcast, also by visiting the show's website, enduring the badge podcastcom for additional methods of contact and up to date information regarding the show. Remember, the views in a pinning express during the show solely represent those of our hosts and the current episodes guest.