Cheri Garcia: Hustling for Second Chances (And Cornbread) (Pt 1)

Published Jul 11, 2023, 4:05 AM

Cheri used to be gripped by meth and alcohol. Even during her own struggles with addiction, she helped formerly incarcerated Americans get jobs. Today, Cheri’s been sober for 4.5 years and her second chance staffing agency Cornbread Hustle hired more than 1,000 returning citizens last year. 

You can call your drug dealer, you can call your dope dealer and get back in the game, or you can call corn Bread Hustle. It's up to you. But you will know about Cornbread Hustle before you get out of prison. And if we don't have a job for you, we know how to help you find a job. We can help you.

Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and I'm a football coach in inner City Memphis. And the last part unintentionally led to an oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and nice suits talking big words that nobody understands on seeing in a box, but rather by an army of normal folks, US, just you and me saying hey, I can help. That's what Sherry Garcia, the voice we just heard is done. Sherry is the founder of Cornbread Hustle, a second chance staffing agency that has helped over one thousand returning citizens get jobs just last year, and it's a for profit company. Sherry's incredible work is inspired by an incredible amount of pain and redemption that she's experienced. I cannot wait for you to meet her right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. Sherry Garcia lives in Dallas, Texas, and she flew to us in Memphis in January around some ice storms we had and a week after Tyree Nichols was brutally murdered by four Memphis police officers.

Garcia, what's up, Hey, how's it going.

It's going good. I'm so glad that you made it. Yeah, I had a little plain trouble.

M h. All that ice. We're scared, No, of course, I'm not scared. You know what I am scared of, though, being stuck out here and not getting back home.

That's a good place to be stuck. That's a good place.

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, we can talk about some some current events. We're not supposed to timestamp this, but I'm sure you, like everybody else in the country, saw the beating by the five Memphis policemen of an innocent man. How'dout strike you?

I mean, just like any other any other videos that we see of the same thing. Happening over and over and over again in our country. It's painful, it's horrible, but you're right, your city really handled it well. I thought whenever I saw the date that I was coming in, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be flying into a war zone.

Nope, no war zone. You know why, I believe it's because instead of him hauling around, the city fired the officers and then within a week press charges on all of them. They didn't hide behind anything, and they did the right thing, and maybe that's an imprint for social justice without social destruction.

Yeah. I think the swift action is definitely because if there was no swift action, then we might see something different.

Yeah. I mean, if you watch the video, there's really not much to question exactly. Well, at any rate, the city didn't burn because we have some disenfranchised people who said the city's trying to do right in a god awful situation, and they certainly protested, which is their right, but they didn't burn our city down, and for that I'm really thankful, and frankly I'm proud of my town me too. So if you get stuck here day, it's nothing of the world.

Okay, maybe maybe I can just enjoy myself for an extra day here.

That's it. If you have to, if I have to, that's right. So we're going to talk about corn Bread Hustle in a little bit, which is a great name. By the way, my nickname in high school is Cornbread.

Tell me why.

Because I played football and during two a days, two days as you practice and then you take off for about an hour and a half lunch, and then you have your second practice to practice in a day, two a days, and everybody bring their lunch, and Mama always cook southern, so it was always country fried steak or fried chicken or soul food or whatever with green beans or greens, and there's always she always cooked skillet corn bread and we never ate it all. So she would always wrap up the corn bread in a loomin fluol, usually half a pie, and I would take and that's what I would I would eat corn bread and buttermilk for launch it two a days. And candidly, the black guys on the team thought that was hilarious because everyone saw a white guy like that, and they nicknamed me Cornbread.

So do you know how I came up with my company name?

No?

Almost a similar story. Everyone thought it was hilarious because when I'd come in and visit in the prisons to volunteer, I would eat like I wasn't gonna eat again. They'd be like, dang, Sherry, what's going.

On in prison? Like that? Yes, so you like prison food?

Okay. So everyone always was like, how do you like prison food? It's because in the world, I'm always on a low carb diet. I was always dieting, but it was one of those things, well, I'm in prison, So I'd just load up on carbs while I was in prison because it was the easiest justification for me. So that's why they were So have you ever seen the movie Life?

Yeah?

Sure, remember the scene where they got in a riot over some corn bread.

Yeah.

So they would always always always say to me, hey, Sherry, you're gonna eat your corn bread? Like they'd continuously make fun of me for how fast I was eating and always wanting seconds, and so whenever I decided to start the company, I was like, okay, cornbread dot com not available, and I was thinking of all kinds of different combinations. I was like cornbread inspiration, that's lame. Like I was like, no, okay, corn bread and then hustle Hustle came to mind. I was like, Cornbread Hustle, I'm going for it. Domain available, I'm buying it.

It's perfect. It's a prison name. Well I was never in prison, but my nickname was Cornbread. In fact, there are I'm fifty four years old and there are people that I will see out around town that I played with and against when I was a freshman sophomore and they do not know my name. They still call me corn Bread. So it's a thing.

And you know, there was a lot of business mentors that said to me, Sherry, you were going to be selling to HR professionals. Are you sure that you want a name like Cornbread Hustle.

They were missing the point. You're gonna remember Cornbread Hustle.

Not only are they going to remember it, but my population were the people that I'm serving. So I was like, look, it'd be great if the HR people come along and give me money, which I needed. So back then I wasn't very bit, Thank god. Back then, I was drinking still, so I wasn't thinking it all the way through, but I had the right intentions in the right heart where I was like, I'm serving my people corporate. My people love corn bread hustle.

So here's the deal. Nobody has any idea what we're talking about right now. So we've got to unpack all this.

Okay, it's going to be a lot to unpact.

So first, tell me where you grew up, tell me about Sherry the kid. Where'd you grow up? What was your what was your what was your growing up experience?

I had a really rate growing up experience, great neighborhood. My parents where in the colony, the Colony, Texas, so just a suburb right outside of Dallas. Got it and my parents were amazing. I didn't lack for anything. We had a great house. I was a very inventive, creative child. I had business ideas starting from second grade, going door to door selling little bookmarks that I made. I also invented a peanut butter slash maple syrup type. Well it is disgusting and so well. I thought it was disgusting and weird that my mom smeared peanut butter on her pancakes then poured syrup on it. I wasn't interested in that, but since she was doing a two part process, I had the idea to mix it together and package it up and try it. And so I went door to door trying to serve my sale.

What sandwich was?

Well, I'm just gonna guess, since we're on this topic, it must be peanut butter and maple sandwich.

Peanut butter and banana. Oh really, peanut butter and banana sandwiches. And then they fried them. Wow?

Yeah, my grandma disgusting them. My grandma, My grandma used to beat us marshmallow cream and peanut butter.

That's disgusted too. So anyway, the peanut butter and syrup could not have gone well. I cannot fathom that doing well. But the point is you grew up with a mom and dad at home and in a nice neighborhood, going to nice schools, and you were inventive and entrepreneur at a young age. And then you got on meth. Now, how's that work?

And then you got on mess?

Well I would understand that.

Yeah. So I actually don't share this story very often, and I've never shared it on bigger platforms, but I'll do it today.

Good good.

I feel like i'd be forced anyway.

Well, I mean, let's let's just you know, we're normal folks, right, you're not you're not a you're not a politician, and we all have struggles. And to hear so far, you painted a Norman Rockwell painting with peanut butter and maple syrup and the colony and everything else, and somehow that turned into meth and you're gonna have to connect the dots.

Yeah, Well, what's really difficult for me is I don't have a problem sharing my own struggles and things that I did in my own choices. I'm such a daddy's girl, and it was my daddy that indirectly introduced me to meth.

And well, it sounds like your mom and dad were married.

Right they were, So let me back it all the way up. Yeah, mom and dad are married. They did start fighting a little more often, and things at home weren't very peachy, but it just seemed like normal, you know, lightly toxic family issues. One day, I was across the street at a friend's house. He was an older kid who had already dropped out of high school. He was kind of the bad kid. But I was across the street at his house.

What you're doing hanging out with him?

He had a younger brother as well, and my brother and my brother's friends with that younger brother. So it was yeah, it was just the kid's next door and we were always over there. Yeah, neighborhood stuff. Were you I was at that time, I would say around sixteen years old, yeah, maybe getting into seventeen. I think I was sixteen at that time, so.

A teenager, yeah, and trying to figure it all out.

Probably, Oh I had it all figured out.

Uh, of course, not bad. I forgot.

Yeah.

Remember Okay, so you're at the neighbor's house.

And your teenager and he was like, hey, you know your dad smokes, right, And I was like, smokes. My dad makes fun of my mom for smoking, like he calls cigarettes cancer sticks. There's no way and he was like nope. And I was like, well, I know it's not weed because my dad's like totally anti drug. My dad was a strict dad that was pretty religious, and so he wouldn't even allow me, Like they had pajama day at school in elementary school, and he raised hell over that because he didn't want his daughter to be in front of boys in pajamas. So my dad was always pretty straight laced, and so I was like, smoke, So what do you mean? He was like ice, and I was like ice, what's ice? And he was like, you know, meth? And I was like no, I don't. I had no idea what that was. And I was like, there's no way my dad's doing drugs. There's absolutely no way. And he was like, Sherry, look out the window. It's eleven o'clock at night and your dad's mowing the lawn. He's on math.

Oh my gosh, is that true?

Yeah? And I was like he always does that and he was like, that's my point. And I was like what, And it.

Was how does a guy like that end up on meth?

He tried it one day? Well I can, Well, I'll fast forward whenever I get to that. I guess we shouldn't fast forward yet because I found out later how he ended up on meth. I mean the same way that. So drug addiction doesn't discriminate. My dad had a lot of unresolved trauma. He was an amazing dad, and he had a beautiful wife and he had beautiful kids. But my dad walked in on his dad. His dad killed himself and my dad found him.

Oh god.

He hung himself and was an alcoholic. So addiction was in my dad's DNA even though my dad had no interest in drugs or alcohol. My dad, you know, he partied every once in a while, like at family barbecues, and sometimes he'd get a little tipsy. But my dad was a real straight lace guy. But he was just he was struggling at work. He worked a really it was a telecom type job, and it was an overnight job where he was trying to stay awake and a friend had suggested to him that he could try something to stay awake because my dad was like, man, how are you staying awake? How are you getting all this work done? And he let my dad try it. My dad was instantly hooked. And so that is, yeah, it is. And so whenever I heard about, you know, this guy, he's telling me my dad smokes meth, which, by the way, this guy knew my dad smoked meth because he was my dad's drug dealer, the neighbor. I know. Yes, So I was like, me, some, is.

Your dad really cutting the grass at eleven o'clock at night?

Yes?

He was good lord, yeah, okay, yeah, okay.

But I was like, okay, he's just weird, you know. And this is a very hard for me to I because I love my dad so much, and I've grieved his death so much because he died recently, So of course that's why I never came out with the story. My dad was my best friend, and yeah, you didn't want to hurt him. I didn't want to hurt him, and he was still living and then right at his passing, of course, I only wanted to remember the good things about him. Sure, and I wanted him to, you know, have a better legacy than the dad that got his daughter on meth. And he just to be clear, he never got me on meth. I heard he was doing it, so I wanted to go find it, because.

Well, you were hanging out at his dealer's house. You didn't have to look far.

I didn't have to look far. But the dealer, being the person of integrity that he is, he wouldn't let me be the first to try it from him. So he told me I need to go find it first, try it, and then I can come back and buy it from him.

Oh what a chivalrous, what a fine young man.

I will say that he's sober today and doing really amazing, and we've reconnected and we've had discussions.

So I bet you have had quote discussions and now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first, we're now offering premium memberships for the Army of Normal Folks for ten bucks a month. You receive special benefits such as being invited to a private yearly call with other Premium members and me access to monthly Ask Me Anything episodes, and occasional bonus audio. If you're interested in this, I hope you go to normal Folks dot us and click on Premium. But guys, that's really not what it's about. You get all that cool stuff, and we're going to provide all that stuff. But the truth is we're trying to grow the Army of Normal Folks and have a greater impact on the country, and with the premium memberships, we can fuel our marketing efforts to grow it. This podcast speaked at number ten on Apple's podcast chart and all of the US, which is absolutely crazy, and it's not about me. It's about the guests and it's about you. So we've decided to set an exciting new goal of trying to be on Apple's Top Shows chart for our entire first year, which will mean more at Tension, more listeners, more Army members, and most importantly more impact. But we need you as always, So go to normal Folks dot us and click on Premium if you're down to help. If not, just keep listening. We'll be right back. You go out on the street and find some myth to try, because your dad's doing it, so I'm trying to connect those. I mean, honestly, you're sixteen or seventeen. You had to know myth was not good.

So well the I mean I was a cheerleader at the time, and I was told it could make me lose weight. I was sold.

Oh my goodness, I.

Was sold on that alone.

So you found it. And I assume if your grandfather was addictive, and clearly your father's addictive, you have some of that same genetic predisposition for an addiction.

Yeah, I ended up finding it. It's not hard. I was working at a golden career and all I did was go to the back and ask a couple of guys if they knew anybody who had it. I mean, at that was it. I know a lot of people when they think of meth, they think about people who like pick their face and are out on the street and super skinny. There are a lot of people that you may not even realize that you interact with every day that are functional meth addicts and using and going to work every single day.

Well, I just also had a thought that I don't know that I'm ever going to eat at a Golden Coral again.

Now, well, I don't know if you can. I think they're like going out of business, periers. I think COVID killed.

But you can understand why there are people running around eating their seventeenth plate that the match status might have methan.

Okay, well, let's say I could have found it at I hoop at Dinny. I could. What I'm telling you is you can find myth anywhere you want.

I get it. I'm playing, and so you win, got some meth. You tried it, you got hooked, and now you're dads. Dealer is your dealer who happens to be the guy across the street who's a friend of your brothers. I mean, this is like all really close to home.

Yeah, So I tried it, and I did it every single day for two years from the day I tried it?

Are you kidding me?

Except for one day. And the only reason why I remember that day so vividly is because I was sick as a dog. I only didn't do meth because I had a stomach bug and I was.

Oh it was withdrawals, it was yourself.

I was just sick.

So you're in high school as a cheerleader doing meth.

Yes for real, for real? Yeah, that's putting it in my drink on the way to school. They had just built a brand new QT and they did a year of free slushies, So that was part I know, that was that was what I did. I'd stop and get a slushy and drop a couple of shards of meth into my slushie. And I mean, I shouldn't even be talking about this so lightly. That's horrible. It was really horrible. Looking back, like it's allowed me looking back and seeing it as well, that's it does allow me to give myself a lot of grace for how much I've stumbled in being an adult and becoming an alcoholic and like all the other toxic behaviors that I had that I had to undo and peel the onion back on.

Yeah, but it's not where we start, right, that's where we finish.

Yeah.

So I'm thinking about your mom. She had to have known your dad was doing math.

So that's another interesting thing that I've never ever talked about on any platform ever. My dad had fallen out of a vehicle and he was in a coma for several months because he got ran over by another car. He was in a brief Yeah, he was in a car, and we were making funeral arrangements because he wasn't expected to make it. I bear, I don't remember much of it because I was only like five years old or younger. But my mom was thinking that all his erretic behavior. She kept taking him to like brain specialists and they'd go to therapy, and she was trying to nobody in the whole family believe that somebody like my dad would ever do drugs. So it was like it wasn't even like at the top of the list as a possibility. It was like a there's no way. My mom did end up leave. All the behavior and him not paying the mortgage and the money disappearing though, that was the reason for the divorce. And so when they divorced, I told my brother, I'm going to go live with Dad, you stay with mom. Of course, if my mom knew at that time that my dad was absolutely positively using meth. Then I'm sure she would have tried to stop me from going to live with him, but I was older than fifteen years old and able to make my decision on which parent I wanted to live with.

Sherry, that means that your dad was using math and you're in high school living with him using math. Correct, Oh gosh, we're using math with him.

No, so we never crossed that boundary. Thank god.

I did you both know each other was using it?

Yes?

Wow, Yes, that is phenomenal that you know, stories like that typically lead to complete destruction. It did well, but you stopped. How you know?

I was always a very ambitious person, very inventive. Like I said, creative. I was on the cheerleading team. I had even created. I started my first company while I was in high school. It was called Shot of Style. It was a photography studio. I was doing senior picks and charging the parents money. And this was like before I know, this was while on meth slash, before I got on MEDS. I was just it's weird. It's hard to remember. If it was let's see before, No, it was during. It was during meth. I started taking pictures because I had worked at glamour shots while I was heavy in my meth addiction.

Did the other kids' parents not know? Was this like the biggest secret on earth? Or did your friends know? I mean, I remember high school. It wasn't that long ago, and high school kids know what other high school kids are doing typically.

And that's something I have to live with all the time every day, is the people that I introduced to it and what it did to them.

Wow, that's a hell of a burden.

And yes, parents did know, and rumor or mills did happen. And I did get kicked off the cheerleading team because I got evicted from my apartment because of weed. Actually, so I was just thankful that I got kicked off the cheerleading team for having weed. I was like, okay, well sure, you know.

Wow.

So I was very quickly going from being a respected person in school that made decent grades and played sports too. I was the kid that the parents said, don't go to her house. You can't go to her house.

You know what's interesting is not ten minutes ago I asked you to tell me about the way you came up, and you said, oh, it was great. It was a wonderful house. It was in the I think you said the colony in Dallas, everything's great, yet you were dealing with math and getting kicked out of off And I mean it even makes your story to me more remarkable because very few people will overcome an adolescent situation like that one. So again, what made you stop?

So I just I kept a lot of people who have used meth can relate to this feeling. But there were a lot of times that I because once meth takes over your life and your life sucks, like your whole life becomes like you're a slave to the drug. You wait, gripped, You're gripped.

I've heard I've heard addicts say it's it's it's got me gripped.

Yes, So it can start out as something that Wow, I did like ten flips down the football field. This made me better at cheerleading. Wow, I've lost fifteen pounds in one week. This is amazing. Wow. I stayed up all and just finish this paper and got an A on it. So people don't start drugs because it negatively affects them and keep doing them, Like who's going to keep doing drugs that didn't feel good or didn't give a result? So it was giving me results, but then once it gripped me, and once I was I mean getting kicked. I had an apartment while I was in high school. That's growing up fast. That's some fast growing up. So getting evicted from me, Why did you have an apartment because I wanted to live on my own and my dad co signed on it for me.

Wow.

Yeah, I just wanted to do my own thing, and I'm sure he was just fine with that. You know, we both kind of wanted to do our own thing. So I just I spent a lot of time doing the whole fleshing the meth down the toilet or stomping the pipe and saying I'm done. But what would happen is I would face my four thirty credit score, no car, no money, like facing all those feelings. What meth does really well is numb feelings. Meth makes you feel like you can be like President of the United States tomorrow and your crap doesn't stink and you feel no feelings.

We'll be right back. There's a meth problem throughout the center of our country. There's a meth problem everywhere, but there's an especially egregious meth problem in a lot of rural areas and places like West Virginia and Kentucky and Ohio and east to Sea, and I'm sure it's everywhere, but I'm just I'm aware of those, and it's largely people who've been left behind by the factory in the town shutting down or the mill in the town shutting down, in very little prospects and hearing you, I guess I can see being a high school kid from a real rural area who really doesn't have the money or prospects that's maybe you know, lower to middle income and not much going on, and meth being the only thing that makes them feel good at first. I mean, is do you see that? I mean, is that right?

Or I think that because I had I mean meth landed right in my I mean, my family had it all. I think drug addiction can get anybody, and if you have a lot of unresolved trauma, and especially people who live in the inner cities and are in toxic families, they're definitely going to probably let that drug grip them quicker than sing and bele yes, absolutely avoiding the feelings that you have to deal with, Like there's That's why I did create a twelve week starting Over program inside prisons, and that whole program is about understanding boundaries, understanding codependency, understanding toxic relationships. Because I can give you a job all day long, I can pet your head and tell you everything's gonna be okay. I can hand you a bunch of money, I can give you shelter, I can give you a car, But you're gonna lose all of that if you haven't learned how to process your feelings, or if you haven't learned how to live in sobriety while being accountable and changing your life. It's hard. And one of the gifts that I have because of my experience is because people ask all the time, like, if you could change anything, would you? I mean, I don't want to live it again. I'd say just kill me. Put a gun to my head instead, just kill me if you're going to make me go live it again. But I don't want to change a thing, because I don't think I would have had the ability to have this gift of making people feel good while holding them accountable. Not many leaders can do that. It's usually one or the other, well, and one's enabling and one is shaming.

Right well, certainly experience has giving you a very unique set of tools and a toolbox to do the things you're doing now. So again, I still don't know why you got off math or how you got off Math. What did that? I you stomp the pipe? You threw it down the toilet, But I gotta.

I had a lot of arrests. My arrests were always frivolous. It was for driving on the wrong side of a divided highway because I was But I never got my car searched. And the times that I did get my I just got lucky. Simply put, I never got caught with meth, so I never got charged with a possession. I never got a felony.

But you driving on the wrong side of the road.

Because I had a work You also never died, I know, because I had so. I had tons of warrants. In fact, I don't want to say this. I probably have a warrant in Memphis, Tennessee for a long time ago. I just told you the last time. If they still and I'm happy to pay that ticket and make the amends. Okay, So Memphis, Yes, I will pay my ticket, just so don't make me sit in jail first.

Oh my god, So how many times have you been arrested?

Oh my gosh, I can't so. I think the number of times I've been arrested is around the fourteen fourteen time mark.

But when we say arrested, did that mean jail time or I'm.

Always always a night in jail and so very privileged, very lucky. I never did any prison time that I cannot relate to the people that I serve on the basis of spending time in prison.

But where I stand the booking process. You understand the fear, you understand.

I understand the prison in your own mind of hating yourself or running from something and chasing something and being addicted and not meeting your potential. I understand. I understand that there's no reason I shouldn't be in prison for the rest of my life right now. My last arrest, which happened five years ago, was a DWI and I was so drunk that I had to go back to the police station the next day and ask what city my car was in so I could have killed myself or someone else. Somebody called nine to one one and said that I was swerving so badly that I was going to hurt someone. Of course I was angry for a very long time that somebody would snitch me out. But now that I'm in they probably absolutely did. Back then, I probably would have rather died. That's how bad my life was looking at that point. I was that drunk pretty much in the middle of the day.

Were you I was? So?

I was the CEO of Cornbread Hustle at that time. So I am four years sober from alcohol, but I started Cornbread Hustle six years ago.

Oh my gosh, yeah, we got so.

Success is not linear, my friend.

But yours is extraordinarily nonlinear. I know, So you got off meth, but you replaced it with alcohol. I mean, is that right?

Yep, that's about it. That's that's to make a long story very short.

Okay, So here's we keep it, and so I know.

You keep So how I got off meth, by the way, it was just arrest after arrest, after arrest, I'd go like thirty days without doing meth, and then I'd relapse. And both times that I relapsed after thirty days sober, something bad happened. The first time I ended up stealing, I was at a drug dealer's house and I stole a whole bunch of methadone, and I tried to take a bunch of it to help me sleep because I just wanted to do a little bit of meth to stay up. I took a whole bunch of it, and I thought I was gonna die. Literally, I was so sick. I mean my stomach was pumping itself.

Sure, I mean you were a drug addict.

Oh yeah, I mean I mean I still am if you put drugs in front of me. So I'll always be a drug addict and an alcoholic and I have to remember that.

No, I get that part. Let me say it a different way. You were a active, practicing drug addict and not just someone who I mean this was your life.

Yes, it was my entire life for a couple of years.

The strength I have addicts in my family and none of them have been able to kick it. The strength, the internal fortitude you have to be for yours completely alcohol and drug free after having been basically an addict since you were sixteen or seventeen year olds in high school. Is I mean, it just says a lot about you, and that's a story unto itself. We keep referencing corn Brad Hustle, so we have to we have to tie that together. Tell me about why and how at the very beginning. Not what you're doing now we'll unpack that, but why and how at the very beginning.

So you asked what got me off meth? It was just the same reason I got off alcohol, trying to quit for a little bit. It sucked quitting, but then realizing relapsing sucked worse. The second time I relapsed, I was in the back of a cop car.

And how is that possible? Oh god, there's another story. You were in the back of a cop car, and then you really I.

Ended up in the back of a cop.

Okay, good god, you said the second time. I'm like, no, would you have it in your sock and decide to get high in the back of a car?

Oh gosh, you don't want to be high on meth going to jail.

But note to listeners, yes, don't take math if you're going to jail. It's terrible. Okay, go ahead.

Most people know that if you got a say in it.

Most people don't know that because drug addicts may know that, but most people don't know.

Okay, you're right. Sometimes I forget how privileged I am to know everything about the drug world. Anyways, I ended up going to relapse, met up with some old friends and they looked strung out. They must have been on a bender. And I show up in my little cheerleading bow and cute clothes. I'm like, hey, guys, what's up. I'm going to do some math because again, I was like a month or a month and a half sober, and I just I wanted to do enough just to get motivated to fix my life. That is a problem with a lot of people. There's two problems of people that I see that get off meth and come out of prison or get off meth at all. We have this idea that we can do just a little to jump start either losing weight you can gain a lot of weight getting off meth obviously, or to jump start getting back on track with like finding a job or facing.

The problem is you walk right back into the grip.

That is the problem. So they ended up getting in some gosh some brawl in the front yard. There was some kind of trailer trash brawl. I can't remember what happened. Some lady comes screaming like a banshee and it's a big, big old fight in the front yard and somebody calls the cops, the cops show up, and the cops take everyone's ID. I ended up being the only one arrested because you had a warrant, because I had a warrant. So all the times I got arrested, it was because I had a warrant. It was never because I got caught with the drugs, but because of the way everyone was behaving and the erratic behavior, and cops aren't stupid. On the way to the police station or to jail, they were like, hey, you're the least likely person we thought we were going to arrest tonight, and they basically just I'll never forget like that. You know, people come in your life and plant seeds and say things and you put it in your back pocket and you're like, bo way do yeah, And so he just said, do you want to look like those people? Because you don't right now. I hope you know that, Like, it's very obvious that you're new to this and if you want to keep going down this road, that's how you're gonna look.

Which means you look like you're eighty five when you're thirty. In your teeth, a rotten out of your head.

Pretty much is what he was implying, And so it wasn't really his words or him threatening that I'm gonna look like an old lady at thirty.

Mister pad.

It was more of the fact that, man, it really did suck being sober for that month or so, but it sucked a lot worse writing in a cop card to jail and starting all over again. So that was the moment that I really realized that no matter what, meth isn't going to solve my problems, and I'm just going to have to walk this tough road to get better.

That concludes Part one of our conversation with Sherry Garcia, and I hope you'll listen to part two that's now available. Her redemption story is just getting started. But if you don't, make sure you join the Army of Normal Folks at normal Folks dot us and sign up to become a member of our movement. It only takes committing to doing one new thing this year to help others, And there will be a ton of awesome ideas on this podcast when the folks for featuring. Some of them may resonate with you deeply and others may not at all, and that's okay. We're all called to do different things with our different talents, but by signing up, you receive a weekly email and short episode summaris in case you happen to miss an episode, or maybe you prefer just reading about our incredible guests. Together, guys, we can change country, but it starts with you. I'll see you guys in Part two.