These Things Happen: A Journey of Addiction, Recovery, Acceptance, and Surrender.

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:04] Michael Eon, author of These Things Happen, a new upcoming book, which is coming out on the 19th of this month, September 2023. Welcome to the podcast.

Michael Eon [00:16] Thanks for having me, Dr. Leeds. It’s good to meet you.

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:19] It’s nice to meet you. So I read this book and I loved it. People are really going to love this book when they get it. And it’s even for people who have no interest in addiction or alcoholism or recovery, it’s a great story. It’s just it really had me on the edge of my seat. I just wanted to see what’s going to happen next to each of the characters. And, you know, I kind of feel like I know them. And interestingly, I was I’ve been back and forth to Brooklyn a lot lately […] And so just reading through it, a lot of I think the whole thing takes place in Brooklyn. And a lot of the street names and locations were familiar and the trains and stations and things like that. So I kind of had a feeling for it just for my, because when I’m, when I’m there, I don’t, I try not to take a car or take the train. I try to walk everywhere. So you see all the churches and all the people in the street and just wonder like, you know, who are these people that live in these brownstones and apartments and go to these churches and things. So it was really, for me, it was a great story. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about like what, how did this come about? What made you decide to write this and what went into it?

Michael Eon [01:28] Well, I started, basically, I’m an alcoholic and an addict. And as part of my recovery in the 12-step program of AA, I went through the steps and I started doing my writing in step four, which is the moral inventory piece. And, of course, I had a ton of resentments. And as I was as I as I was writing all that down, I started to remember all these different things from from the past and my childhood. And what I would start doing on the side is journaling these kind of memory stories of things that had actually happened. And of course, there was a lot of anger and rage in that at the time because I was in a place where I hadn’t done the recovery work, but I was abstinent. So that can be a precarious place to exist. And my wife got a hold of some of them and she was like, wow, you should write a book. You should put these into a book. And I started thinking about that and I crafted a more of an experimental story. It was about a guy kind of trapped in a prison of his own making. So he’s kind of trapped in his own head and it was this conversation between him and a voice. And I was told as I started to get down the road with that was real experimental and probably not the traditional way. Novels are written and that I should try and bring it closer to more popular fiction. And that’s how it evolved. So it took a lot of, it went through a lot of iterations to get to the point to where it is now in terms of a final book. But it is based on a lot of experience that I had, both in active addiction and in recovery. So I think it can be helpful to, you know, not just an addict or an alcoholic or someone who knows, you know, someone like that, but to anyone. I mean, the principles that are outlined in the book by various characters who are in recovery are, you know, anybody can benefit from. So I’m looking forward to its release.

Dr. Mark Leeds [04:01] Yeah. Yeah. And I can imagine a lot of people going into recovery and getting, you know, becoming abstinent, getting the drugs and the alcohol out of their system. They kind of wake up and see how things are around them. And I can imagine a person having resentments and being angry. And it’s not totally unjustified, you know, families and other people can really contribute. And, you know, you show that in the story, you know, the sickness of a family and, you know, someone growing up as a child and developing a, an addiction along the way, you know, that it’s, you can see like, look what the parents did to them, look at how they were treated, you know, and that’s, you know, I can imagine like that must be a difficult thing for someone to say like, you know, what was your part in this? What did, what did you do wrong? Or, you know, what, I mean, how does someone come to terms with that? Like, you know, when you feel like it was other people?

Michael Eon [04:55] Yeah, that’s a great point, because I remember when I was going through the process of writing on those resentments and I got to, you know, what we call the turnaround section where we forget about what the other person did. And we look at what our part was. And, you know, I need to go through each one of these and say, where am I being selfish, dishonest and self-seeking? And it’s like I’m like how could I be selfish what did I do to have that happen to me and the issue is for me what it all came down to is first of all I got to forget about what the other person did because it’s swooning inside of me since I’m a child I got to get it out of me I have no drugs or alcohol to kill the pain anymore and I’m either going to go back out or I’m going to try and give this a real effort. So that’s the first thing. And the second thing is I have to realize that I have no bottom line for me was that, you know, I can’t control what other people do. I mean, in a sense, I wasn’t just powerless over alcohol and drugs. I was powerless over people, places and things. I mean, I had no tools to deal with life on life’s terms. And I had to say to myself, and of course, as we know, in the fourth step, we realize that everything is driven by fear, fear that I thought I didn’t have when I got there. But obviously, everything for me is driven by fear. And for me, it was, you know, self centered fear, fear of losing something I already had or not getting something I feel I deserved. And I had to come to terms with the fact that I can’t control everything. And this fear of trying to make sure the world is the way I want it to be, you know, is irrational. It only leads to futility because your expectations are always high and you’re always let down. So I had to let go of all that. I had to, you know, make amends to the people that I blamed for everything wrong in my life, you know, by basically telling them, hey, I blamed you for everything and I’m sorry because, you know, they’re all we’re all human beings trying to make our way. And we all have, especially as a kid, as a child, you don’t realize that your parents had their own childhoods, their own struggles, their own ways of dealing with things or not being able to deal with things. And, you know, just by virtue of the fact that they’re my parents, you know, I thought they owed me. But the reality is we’re all just trying to make our way. And if I don’t understand that and forgive that, then it’s just going to swill inside of me and it’s going to cause me to go back out and drink.

Dr. Mark Leeds [07:55] Yeah. If you were in a meeting and there was discussion about God and a higher power and someone were to ask you, say someone had a parent sick and dying from cancer. And they said, why would God cure or treat my addiction, but not cure or treat my parents’ cancer?

Michael Eon [08:18] Yeah. I mean, for me, it’s always been, I’m not of the belief that God allows or doesn’t allow things. You know, because like you just said, that would mean for me that why did he do this for me, but not for someone else? And I can’t imagine any kind of higher power or God or anything that could operate that way personally. That’s my personal belief. I had always believed in a power greater than myself. But this idea of a personal God was always an obstacle for me. And really, the way I view the steps and the way it asks for me to trust and rely on a power greater than myself is a lot about me staying out of my own way, trying to not interject myself into the universe, to let the universe play out as it should. And to kind of create this relationship with this entity. You know, in the back of the big book, there’s a spiritual appendix, and it refers to a higher power as an unsuspected inner resource in all of us. And that’s what I try and identify with, that kind of intuitive thought or that sixth sense. Sense. You know, I try it, you know, it’s not a religious program, and I don’t view it as a religious program. And I don’t, I try to really, you know, I use the terms when I’m in meetings. I use the term of higher power and not God, because I know immediately people, you know, don’t want anything to do with that. Sometimes, because of the way they’re brought up into religion and things like that. But for me, it’s a power source, and a combination of that combination of the knowledge that I gained from the fourth step in knowing who I am, and how I, what character defects I have, and how I can understand to, you know, to deal with those. And, you know, it’s a combination of all these things that enables me to deal with life, you know, on life’s terms. And it’s honestly, for me, it’s been a blessing. Because I’ve gotten so I went in for my drinking, and I stayed for my thinking. And I, you know, I, people don’t people don’t people who used to know me have no idea who I am today, because it’s just such a 180 degree difference.

Dr. Mark Leeds [11:03] Yeah yeah that’s an incredible thing when people go into recovery and you meet them later on and don’t even recognize recognize who they are it’s like a whole different person and conversations are on a different level and it’s really incredible yeah so I think one of the one topic that came up and that topic of god does come up in the book and it is really interesting, you know, how different characters deal with that. And I think also another subject that comes up several times is surrender. And, you know, that kind of makes me think of like, you know, some patients I’ve worked with where they’ve been in recovery before. They’ve had years of time going to AA and being very involved in the program. And now they’re back in active addiction. And, you know, they’ve kind of feel like they’ve tried everything. They’ve been to the best of therapists. They’ve tried all the best medical treatments. They’ve been there. They’ve done everything. And, you know, now it’s like, you know, they’re kind of they want they know that they have to stop. They know that something has to change, but they just don’t really believe that anything can work because they’ve been everywhere, tried everything. You know, how does that tie in with surrender maybe or like what does surrender mean? And like what could a person what might someone say to a person like that where they just feel like nothing is going to help them?

Michael Eon [12:23] Yeah, I mean, you know, the paradox of the 12 step program is that, you know, in surrender, you actually find power, you know, you actually find the power to deal with, to deal with life. And that’s because, you know, in that surrender, I’m giving, you know, I’m removing my self will from the from from the, you know, from what’s happening. You know, I’m allowing, you know, I use the term God or universe or higher power, force, light, whatever, whatever you want to call it interchangeably. But it’s allowing things to play out the way that they should without my, you know, without without me trying to manipulate what I want out of it. And so surrender for me is not just, you know, surrendering to the to my powerless over alcohol and drugs, but it’s, you know, surrendering to people, places and things, you know, to that idea that I mean, let me put it this way. My whole my whole worldview before I went into recovery was trying to fit the world into me as opposed to trying to fit myself into the world as it is. And like I said, that only leads to expectations that are never met. It’s just it’s just a terrible it’s a it’s a it’s a terrible place to be. And I had to hit an emotional rock bottom in sobriety. You know, there’s a term that’s used occasionally called stark raving sober. I mean, I was stark raving sober. I was abstinent. I was going to meetings, but I was but I, you know, I heard someone say when I was in this place in this, you know, in this place of stark raving sobriety. And I heard someone say, you know, the real definition of insanity is joining a 12 step program and not doing the 12 steps. And I when I heard that, it hit me because it was like I didn’t think, you know, I was trying to pick and choose what I wanted. And I feel that for me, because I worked so hard and because I hit such a despair in sobriety emotionally, that I was basically willing to accept what I was being told and to and to give myself the opportunity to do what other people had done who seemed happy, joyous, free, serene, saying, you know, that it was either going to be that or I was going to go back out. And God knows if I was going to get back, you know, come back and get get back in if I was going to make it out alive. So it was like I had to I had to give it a chance, but I had to get to that point in sobriety where I was where, you know, where things were horrible. I mean, I came closer to losing my family, to losing my business, financial ruin, all these different things in sobriety than I ever – I came closer in sobriety than I had when I was active. Because when I was active, I, you know, it was just like, I wasn’t present. And, you know, I wasn’t bothering anybody. I wasn’t, you know, destroying lives like I did when I when I got sober. And I was like the same person, the same angry, hateful person causing destruction wherever I went, because I wanted things my way. And so it’s hard because my opinion is that is that it’s not that the 12 step program doesn’t work. It’s that the person doesn’t work. You know, I mean, I’ve seen people who where it’s worked phenomenally. And I’ve seen people who are just in denial of the fact that they’re either an addict or an alcoholic or that, you know, they can just come to meetings and not drink and that everything’s going to be OK. For me, that wasn’t enough. You know, I needed to do the step work. I needed to become a useful human being. I need to pay it forward, which is part of the reason why I wrote this book, honestly, to give people, you know, show people what it was like and what happened and what it can be like and have tools to help people deal. Because like I said earlier, I think I think the principles of the 12 steps can apply to everybody, not just addicts. You know, everybody. The thing with like the fourth step, for example, what a what a novel idea. Forget about what the other person did and look at yourself. Look at what your part was. You know, I don’t think the majority of people today ever point that, you know, that light at themselves. You know, there was a saying I used to hear at meetings. I haven’t heard it in a while. So put down the put down the microscope and pick up the mirror, pick up a mirror, you know, like stop analyzing and judging and condemning what everybody else is doing, every little thing they’re doing and look at yourself, you know. And I think that’s a huge I think that’s a huge thing for anybody to do is because, you know, my wife used to say, and I don’t know where she got it, probably Dr. Phil or something. I don’t know. But it was like, you know, would you rather be right or would you rather be happy? You know, we’ve all heard that. And I was the one that always wanted to be right. And so what I may have been right a lot but it was but inside it was destroying me and I you know and I didn’t realize how badly it was destroying me that philosophy that attitude today I’d rather be happy you know and I let things go and I like in surrender there is there is strength you know that’s that’s my experience yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [18:30] Yeah that’s it does make sense that the steps and that way of thinking and way of living could help people even beyond addiction. And I remember I interviewed another author a while back on the podcast, and she had said something, and I think there’s a lot of different ways this could be interpreted. She said, the program, and it wasn’t AA, it was an AA-derived program, still using the big book and the 12 steps. But she said the program is about not being learning not to be a doormat. And there’s so many ways you could interpret that. And, you know, I just right away thought, yeah, not letting everybody walk all over me and tell me what to do. And I think a lot of people that, you know, you know what you were meant to be in life, or some version of what you were meant to be in life. And this is something that comes up in the book, a theme in the book of, you know, that your family might shape you into something else. They push you in the direction they want you to go. And one day you wake up, like maybe you’re like 50 years old or something. You’re like, that’s not what I was meant to do. And hopefully sooner than that. But that seems to be a part of it also. And also like what you’re saying, the principles. And I think the first step, the principles are being an open mindedness, being open minded, like, wow, what’s my part in this? What could I do? And being honest and being willing to do something about it.

Michael Eon [19:55] Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, one of the main factors, I mean, when I first came into recovery, and I heard talk about fear, I would sit there and say, you know, I have no fear. I don’t know what these people are talking about. But like I said earlier, for me, you know, if I’m being honest with myself, because like open-mindedness, honesty is huge. You know, that to thine own self be true. Because, you know, I have a healthy respect for my mind, because my mind is not necessarily my friend. You know, I don’t know how I’m using that term. But it’s that part of me that denies, that justifies, that rationalizes, that makes things sound better than they are, that makes me do things that I know I shouldn’t be doing. And, you know, I treat that as almost a separate entity because I have to have control over that because for all my life, it controlled me. And, you know, it led to anger and resentment and, you know, blame blaming everyone and everything for all my problems. And, you know, it’s just. You know, I’m not saying that’s why I drank and drugged. That’s part of it. I mean, the other part of it is that I was I don’t know how if technically if I’m born that way or what. But I know that when I put a substance into me that is mind altering, I want more of it. I love the feeling. And when I don’t have it, I’m obsessing about getting it. And, you know, and it’s that combination of that and maybe environmental factors that, you know, led me into addiction that became uncontrollable for most of my life, you know. And it’s a terrible place to be where where you’re, you know, you can’t live with it and you can’t live without it. You know, I mean, that’s that’s where I ended up and hit a rock bottom. And it’s I can’t even, you know, someone who doesn’t, you know, who hasn’t been there. It’s really hard to explain what it’s the absolute worst place to be. And I had to do something about it. So. It’s crazy.

Dr. Mark Leeds [22:17] What do you think about forgiveness? You know, there’s some some people that say it’s been scientifically studied and demonstrated that being able to forgive everybody in your life, that is actually physiologically beneficial, you know, that your brain is able to get into like an alpha state, apparently. That’s the study they did, you know, if you forgive everybody, which is not an easy thing to do. Is forgiveness part of the program or is that something separate?

Michael Eon [22:45] Yeah, no, I mean, it is. It’s a huge part in terms of making amends, you know. And like I said, I think I said earlier, when I was doing that step work, I held my family members and my father, for example, responsible for everything that went wrong in my life. And to be able to sit down with him and say, hey, you know, I blamed you for everything. You know, I don’t know if you know it or not, but I blamed you for all of my problems, everything that went wrong with me, why I didn’t go down the career path I wanted. Why this? Why that? And I’m sorry. You know, I’m sorry for that. And he kind of looked like shocked. And I don’t think I think he had an inkling of understanding, but I don’t think he knew the full extent. And we had the best conversation we’d ever had after that. And, you know, he said, though, you know, he appreciated it all that, you know, he I said, you can you know, you can not be the way that you are. You can change if you want to. And he said, no, I’m too old to change. And I said, if you cared enough, I think you could change, you know. And but we had a relationship is great now. But previously, my mindset, the vast majority of my life was I will never have peace until this man is dead and buried in the ground. You know, I mean, that was that was where I lived emotionally, mentally for the vast majority of my life. So I think it has a lot of truth, that study that you’re referring to, because, you know, I felt I felt a ton lighter after that. Just from that conversation, let alone all the other ones, you know. But the goal today is just to not create new wreckage, to keep my side of the street clean and to try and, you know, pay back what was freely given to me, you know. So I go to meetings every day and I sponsor other men and take them through the steps. And, you know, honestly, it’s surreal to even think about and have these, you know, hear these words come out of my mouth. But it’s been a blessing for me. And, you know, I’m very grateful.

Dr. Mark Leeds [25:15] Do you think like were you open minded to some extent or did you do you feel like you had the capability of being open minded ahead of time? Like, do you think because it does sometimes seem like there’s people that, you know, like you said, like your father, like maybe that person just is never going to get it. And but do you think everybody has the potential to be open minded and say, wow, maybe these people are right. Maybe I do need to look at myself or try something different or think about things in a different way.

Michael Eon [25:43] You know, I think a lot of a lot of what we do as human beings in terms of changing is. Is pain motivated, despair motivated. And I, you know, I had had my share of that and I became open minded to it. But when someone spends most of their life creating wreckage and isn’t held accountable for it and gets away with it and doesn’t necessarily understand what they’re doing or how they’re treating people or things to that effect, then I don’t see how they could be open-minded. You know, so the best that we can do on the other side is just try and be an example, you know, of what could be. And, you know, it’s this whole idea of attraction, you know, not promotion. And but so I think it depends on the person and I think it depends greatly on you know how they’re how they’re how they’re how they truly feel their life is and whether they think they need to or not you know

Dr. Mark Leeds [27:02] Yeah yeah so in a way you know going down relatively quickly like of a person who, say, has a really bad drinking problem and binge drinking, and they don’t really last that long in the world of drinking. They just drink way too much, and they end up hopefully in recovery and discover the program, as opposed to someone who might be what they call now a gray area drinker, someone that maybe binges occasionally or just drinks too much, but it never gets them to that point. It almost seems worse to be in that gray area drinking situation. I mean, they, you know, may never get a DUI or may never destroy their life or lose their job, but the, that kind of gradual, you know, maybe they just never reached the potential of what they could have been, or they never really opened their mind or opened their eyes to what’s possible because they just have, you know, and, you know, I look around, I see a lot of people like that, you know, they’re just always having a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, and maybe they take medication to sleep and things like that, but not to the level of where someone could clearly point them out and say you’re an addict or an alcoholic but they’re just kind of in that gray area long term

Michael Eon [28:10] Yeah I mean that’s a great point because that’s that I’m sure there are a lot of people like that and it’s like it’s like that’s where the honesty you know like the honesty piece comes in about about like really how is how do you think your life really is, you know, like how, you know, you know, so you may not be a full blown addict yet, or you may not be, but you’re not, you know, necessarily, you know, spiritually fulfilled and sane and serene. And it’s like, you know, you’re, where is the motivation to change or do something? You know, it’s a, it’s a hard place to be. And I think, again, that’s where, you know the fact that like with podcast all of this communication about all these things now you know we have much more than just tv and film and books I think it’s huge especially when people talk and people listen you know because that’s when people you know we need more of that so that people can say hey you know maybe I should do that or maybe I do need to look at that Or maybe, you know, you know, because that’s a huge that’s a huge area of people who, you know, aren’t forced into recovery because of their addiction or and despair or something happens or whatever, but still need still still have, you know, a you know, some form of spiritual disease where, you know, they’re just not fulfilled and life is just not what it could be. And that’s where, you know, I think that there’s a lot of solutions out there. I think one of the best things that people we can do is let people know that there is hope and there is there are available therapies and books and professionals, you know, to help. But you gotta, it’s up to the person, it’s up to the individual to make that, you know, that first step when they’re in that zone of, you know, not being a full addict or alcoholic and, you know, not necessarily being happy. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Leeds [30:36] Yeah. And I love the podcast format. Like if I, […] I would just have all I would need is YouTube and a podcast app. And I’d had everything I need there. But anyway, so, yeah, I really, you know, somebody looks at your book and said, oh, it’s a recovery book. You know, it’s not just that. It’s way more than that. It really is kind of like, you know, you walk by one of these apartments and see in the window and the kitchen is lit up and you see the family. And you wonder, like, what’s going on in there? Who are those people? And it kind of and I also saw it in my head as I was reading as a movie, like, you know, […] And just the stories and the characters are incredibly like you just get to know the people. And then when it’s over, […] and at the end of it I felt kind of sad I still think that like wow I wish I could be back in that world and with those people again and I kind of feel like that finishing your book like I kind of miss all those all those people and I almost wish it was like an ongoing thing like a ongoing series like what happens next to them yeah it really felt like I was in a like I was watching the television show as I was reading it so

Michael Eon [31:58] Yeah 70s and the 90s there definitely is room for another book, a follow-up, you know?

Dr. Mark Leeds [32:09] Oh, yeah, yeah, and just that, you know, life in Brooklyn, life in New York is fascinating, and how it’s different from, you know, like, I’m in South Florida, and, like, everything is so spread out, like, you can’t go anywhere without getting in a car, you know, there’s no good public transportation, and everything is all so far away and spread out, And it’s like a whole different life, like where you’re in the neighborhood and everything is all like in walking distance sort of, you know, and everything’s kind of old and it’s been there forever. And, you know, so, yeah, it’s really it’s a great book, but it is also like a great book for someone who wants to who does want to learn about recovery and not just by going to a meeting or opening up a book. And, you know, it’s a great story that kind of gradually, gently introduces a lot of important things. And it doesn’t jump right in and say recovery is great. You know, everything is great. You know, it does question things you do. In fact, I wasn’t even sure. And a lot of at a lot of points like, you know, if I were to if I were to stop the book like partway through and talk to you, I might think like maybe you don’t like the 12 steps or a, you know, maybe you’re like anti recovery. I’m not really sure. So you really do have to get into the whole story and see it from all different points of view.

Michael Eon [33:24] Yeah, because, I mean, you know, the different characters, you know, have different viewpoints, you know, and that’s what that’s what is great is that over over time and over these damaged personal relationships, you know, things evolve and the thinking of the main character in particular evolves. And so yeah it’s kind of showing you know all the different angles all the different opinions or perceptions or sides of the whole situation and you know and the brooklyn setting you know and especially in the 70s where it’s like half the book takes place you know a lot going on in new york city in the 70s and I tried to weave a lot of that in there. And, you know, you know, so you get, you have, you have trauma inside the home and then you also have trauma outside the home in terms of the son of Sam and everything else going on. And, but yet, like you said, the neighborhood is like one family. It’s like a family. It’s like a living organism, an entity. And so there’s, there’s, you know, there’s a lot of great and there’s, you know, a lot of conflict and challenge. And it obviously makes for a good story.

Dr. Mark Leeds [34:41] Yeah. And I think addiction is pervasive. Like even if someone isn’t, you know, you might not be holding a bottle in your hand or a bag of heroin or fentanyl or whatever, but, you know, maybe someone’s like looking at their phone, like, oh, let me see how many likes I got on Instagram this morning or, you know, or whatever. I mean, you know, a pack of cigarettes. I mean, addiction is everywhere. So, you know, I think we all could use to hear this story and to read this story.

Michael Eon [35:07] Exactly. It is everywhere. I mean, any any there’s so many things that light up that pleasure center in the brain today and so easy to get to get hooked on things that it doesn’t it doesn’t need to come from, you know, a psychoactive substance or alcohol. You know it’s everywhere like you said I mean can be work can be shopping can be you know not just the typical things it can be social media phones you know yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [35:41] Kids playing video games and buying stuff in the game and whatever and yeah they have psychologists that are working hard to make sure those games are as addictive as possible

Michael Eon [35:51] Yeah it’s kind of this it’s like an epidemic really.

Dr. Mark Leeds [35:56] Yeah. So, yeah. So what would be the best way, is this book available for pre-order?

Michael Eon [36:01] It’s available for pre-order on wherever you buy books, Amazon, obviously Barnes and Noble bookshop.org. It’s everywhere. It’s coming out on the 19th and yeah.

Dr. Mark Leeds [36:18] Okay. And do you have a, do you have a website that people can visit to go directly?

Michael Eon [36:23] It’s located at michaeleonauthor.com. M-I-C-H-A-E-L-E-O-N author.com.

Dr. Mark Leeds [36:33] Okay, great, great. And yeah, I recommend everyone go visit and definitely pre-order the book and read it. Yeah, I just love this book. It was really great. I hope it does turn into a TV show or a movie because that would be great. And is there going to be an audio book also?

Michael Eon [36:48] There will be an audio book. Audio book, e-book, paperback, yep.

Dr. Mark Leeds [36:52] Yeah, this would work great as an audiobook in the car, just listening to a little bit every day. So, yeah, Michael, thank you again for joining me today.

Michael Eon [37:00] Thank you, Dr. Leeds. It’s been a pleasure.