Special Series: Journey of Recovery – Interview with Bryan German

The Journey of Recovery interview series highlights the stories of Montanans with lived experiences of trauma, substance use and mental health struggles and who are on the path of recovery. These interviews share how people can move forward and empower others to do the same.

In this episode, Mountain Pacific’s Sarah Byrnes discusses with Bryan German his experience with the correctional system and what he is doing to help support others on their journey of recovery by valuing the person and not defining them by past actions.

Transcript

Sarah Byrnes: 0:00

Announcer, one chapter does not define a person's whole story. Welcome to our journey of recovery series where we talk with Montanans who have lived experience of trauma, substance use and struggles with mental health, about where they are now the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA defines recovery as a process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self directed life and strive to reach their full potential. Join us to learn about community members in recovery as they share their story and the steps they are taking to help others on their journey. So, thank you so much for doing this for us. We really appreciate doing these interviews, and I'm excited to be here. So, do you mind starting just by introducing yourself?

Bryan German: 0:54

Yeah. I mean, that always feels like an awkward proposition to me. My name is Bryan German, but how do I like quickly describe who I am. I live in Missoula. I work at Best Buy in the Geek Squad, repairing computers. I live at home with my wife, which is a big thing, because for so long I didn't, into that a little bit later, I guess. But got a new motorcycle you know, get last year. I love riding that around.

Sarah Byrnes: 1:25

That's cool, yeah, yeah,

Bryan German: 1:27

yeah, super. I can't believe I got to be what, 48 without ever riding a motorcycle. And I'm following last year, and when I went out on first ride, I was like, I can't believe I didn't do this my whole life.

Sarah Byrnes: 1:40

Well, I've still never done that. So one, I guess one for the bucket list, right? Yeah. So what kind of topics do you enjoy discussing, if when you meet new people,

Bryan German: 1:54

I don't usually go into meeting new people with, like, a list of things talk about. That's something I've never been I guess good at like scripts in that way, I went through a period of life where I lived by scripts, and now I've, like, tried to, like, dismantle that part of my life. So I go in and just try to interact and see, see what comes up, and ask them questions. And I'm always super interested to meet new people and and get past the small talk. I don't engage in small talk, and I just try to, as quickly as I can, just get into the real gritty, you know, of who are you, or what do we have in common? And how can we have, like, an authentic, deeper interaction than than some small talk.

Sarah Byrnes: 2:32

Yeah. So, no, weather. What's up with the weather for you kind of talk?

Bryan German: 2:37

Not, not usually, yeah, every starts with that, yeah, yeah. What's up with the weather? Or, hey, things are crazy right now. Or, hey, you know what? I mean, just wherever based off of where I am, but it's super like, context dependent, like where I am. You know, it's the conversations I get into with clients at work who are coming in with their computer, and we just start off with talking about what's going on with the computer, and then quickly get into talking about their last trip to Germany or Ireland, or, you know, all the dogs that they raise or whatever, because I just try to get past just that instant was in front of me.

Sarah Byrnes: 3:12

Yeah, and I'm sure, with being the Geek Squad, if you see people who are having trouble with their computer, you hear a lot of stories about, I don't want to lose these documents, or I don't want to lose these pictures or so I Yeah, I'm sure it goes, it can go deep quick or get right to what they were really hoping to retrieve, if they're having issues. I know I've done that before.

Bryan German: 3:32

Yeah, I would think everybody has right. I mean, technology fails us in so many ways. It's they're powerful tools, but they could be, you know, misused, or fail at the wrong time and but hope. Most heartbreaking story I had was I had a client one time who she had pictures of her dead husband on her computer, but she kept using the computer after getting warnings that the drive was failing, and so when it finally wouldn't turn on anymore, she came into us wanting us to fix it. And I'm like, there's there's no fixing this. I am so sorry. And I sat with her and tried to offer my condolences that I could well, she cried a little bit, you know, but,

Sarah Byrnes: 4:09

yeah, I have, I have a phone that stopped working. Had all the pictures of my, my only child as a baby, good. Fortunately for me, I was able to back. I had it backed up, and I didn't even know. So thank goodness. My sister was a tech for the cell phone company we used, and she had set that up for me. But, yeah, I can't imagine just losing it all was like, but it sounds like you like the more authentic connection than just, yeah, just like, what's going on on the surface?

Bryan German: 4:39

Yeah, yeah, I do. And part of that's just, you know, my narrative versions, but part of it too is just after the things that I've gone through in my life, after living in a certain period of your life, just completely superficial, you know, and then pretending to be somebody for everybody else. I have noticed. Desire to be that way anymore? Yeah, I went a little too far the other way, I'm sure, based on people uncomfortable a little bit sometimes, but not generally. Most people are willing to be their authentic selves if they trust that you're being your authentic self. You know, they don't want to be tricked into giving away their secrets if you're not putting anything on the line. But,

Sarah Byrnes: 5:18

yeah, your honesty gives them permission, kind of thing. Like, they can be honest too. I'm like, as a fellow neurodivergent, I 100% understand that, like, just cut through it all. What would you say your long term goals are? Or short long term goals? It doesn't have to be like, you don't need to have a two year plan. Like,

Bryan German: 5:40

well, yeah, thanks for qualifying that little bit. Right now we're looking at buying house. We made an offer on house a few weeks ago, and it didn't work out because, you know, we felt like they were asking way more than than a house is worth, and we were willing to put some work into it, so we were willing to get into it a certain price point. But it was cool. That was cool. That was the first time that we're putting off our own house. And hopefully sometime in the next, you know, three to nine months, we'll, we'll buy one and move in and have our own place.

Sarah Byrnes: 6:09

I hope you get a chance to get that house. That's, that's awesome. That's a great thing to do. Yeah, what are other or do you have any other certain topics you enjoy discussing? Like, is there I get you said you work for the Geek Squad, like, do you like tech? Do you like to, like, talk about tech or something else.

Bryan German: 6:25

I mean I do. Yeah, yeah. We talk about that a lot. I work with a lot of my coworkers, a lot of my coworkers little bit younger, but, I mean, we all talk about Minecraft. Everybody loves Minecraft. So I can get a little lost in that game sometimes, but talk about that. Or, you know, sometimes other new games that are coming out, they all play D and D, and I haven't played that for a long time, so I don't have a whole lot to talk about, as far as that goes, but that or new apps, or how the computers work. I mean, it's, yeah, a lot about a lot about tech. But I've also worked in construction recently, too, so we'll talk about that. And I always cook and bring leftovers. And so I talked to them about food that I eat, and I always try to get people to try it. Hey, we just made this. You want to try this? Give them a bite. You know,

Sarah Byrnes: 7:05

I'm like, you'd be my favorite coworker. I love that. I worked in a lot of places where there was a kitchen right by and i You always make friends with the chef. You always make friends with a chef. Smart guy, yeah, well, that's awesome. I was like, there's a lot of going on with AI and tech and, I mean, all of that stuff right now too. So that's pretty cool. Do you have any like, recent accomplishments you want to share anything like that, other than trying to buy a house? I mean, that's awesome. Just getting through that process.

Bryan German: 7:32

That's a big thing. It's a little stressful. We're trying to pay off debt at the same time, so we started looking earlier than we can actually afford to move in, but it's good to get out there, see what's on the market, and start moving in that direction. I have been involved with a group we meet in Helena about once a month at the Department of Corrections and talk about issues related to to correctional policy and about how they deal with with offenders. We are getting ready to go into Deer Lodge this weekend to teach two seminars about wellness, recovery action plans. So we're gonna bring that to the guys. And really cool, yeah, yeah, and hopefully give some some guys, some just common sense tools that will allow them to figure out who they want to be, who they are, as their best selves, and then just work towards that and not put like she big expectations about understanding this or that, but just common sense approach.

Sarah Byrnes: 8:36

Yeah, I always say to my daughter, you know, small steps, just keep moving forward. So just as long as we can keep doing it, that's how we get to school in the morning. Like that's everything. Is that just that program, just for people in the correctional system, or is it going to be more widely done?

Bryan German: 8:54

So what what we're doing, the initiative we're working on, is just for the guys who are inside. Hopefully we'd like to set up some peer mentoring so as they go to transition to the outside, if I have some more support. But rap itself is a larger program that deals with people in in recovery, throughout throughout the country, and a couple of different places in a couple of different countries. I'm not sure where it is internationally, but I know it's it's been around. It's a national organization, the advocates for human potential. They publish the documents and do the trainings and certify people. And you know what rep stands for? I wasn't sure. Yeah, wellness, Recovery Action Plan.

Sarah Byrnes: 9:33

Oh, awesome. Yeah, that's just like you were saying to go there and just kind of give them those tools. Did you have any tools that you learned about or the ones that were most useful for you that you're going to share?

Bryan German: 9:46

The crazy thing is that I didn't know anything about rap back in the day, but a lot of what it does translates into and I think aligns with a lot of people's experience, because it is such a common sense based approach. But it goes beyond that to do. A couple other tenants are to treat people with unconditional high regard, you know. And so when you treat people as if you value them, and when you show that you actually do value them, then they tend to want to live up to that, you know. They tend to want to be worthy of that, and they treat you in the same way. And so that kind of approach is different than you can see in a lot of different places in the world. And so I think it's valuable in and of itself for me, my my wellness and my my journey was really just made possible and bolstered at so many points just by the relationships that I made with the relationships that I made with the people that I was around, and just being able to, like literally, talk about whatever it was that was going on in our life and what we were struggling with, and how things from our past drove us and to just be able to talk in a safe space with people that You know cared about you, that didn't judge you, that that that allowed me to recover myself in a way that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. And so to have that, and to to treat people like they're the expert on themselves, right? Like you don't, you don't need to have somebody explain to you the finer details of these, you know, philosophical or psychological theories, in order to get a better understanding of yourself, if you just have a common sense approach, have conversations with people that care about you, that have a little bit of insight. You value their insight. You can talk freely about what you're going through. I don't know that you really need a whole heck of a lot more.

Sarah Byrnes: 11:39

Yeah, just the experience of living and like going through life just knowing yourself too. Yeah, I get that that sounds like a powerful tool for people to accept themselves, is to have someone else also mirror that too, that you're you're being accepted into safe space, like you said, where there's a huge thing, oh yeah, I was gonna say, where there's any influential people who kind of brought that to you. Did you have some mentors?

Bryan German: 12:04

I did, yeah, we were, we were mentoring each other because we were just trying to figure it all out. So so my my story is that I committed a violent crime in 1998 and I went to prison for almost 20 years, and so my wellness and my recovery was in an institutional setting, and so being around other people who had similar experiences to mine, we were all just trying to figure out how to not be the same people that we had been in the past, you know, and and it's crazy to say that, but because most of the people that I know weren't unhinged, they went through some some shit and had bad responses to that, you know what I mean. And so the the judgment that you get when you when you talk about those kind of things, are that things that you see people's people's reactions because they don't have a context. Most people don't have a context for understanding that, or for being able to respond with anything other than fear to that. That kind of discussion. We all went through groups at different times, different kind of group therapies, and talked about those kinds of things. I had a lot of different programs over the years that they would bring to try to to try to fix people who are broken, you know, and some of that is, is valuable, absolutely something that can be gained from from those kinds of programs. Is, was it valuable? Definitely. But just honestly, being around people who have that same kind of an approach that just wanted to be better, that was it. They just wanted to be better people and and well, well into it to work and talk about whatever they were going through in their struggle to get to move in that direction. And you always have the end goal in mind, like, hey, I want to get out of prison and stay out, which is, is part of it. But that that drive to to just not be the person that I was is huge.

Sarah Byrnes: 14:07

Yeah, I'm sure, like you were saying, like, circumstances play a huge role in a lot of choices that people make. Doesn't always mean that somebody coming out of you doesn't have that experience, they don't know what choice they would have made, you know, and in any situation. And, yeah, that's and it sounds like there's a lot of self awareness going on too. I mean, if you're talking to each other about it, just peer to peer, working through it. That's that takes a lot of self awareness. And I know that's something that can be a little more rare nowadays.

Bryan German: 14:38

It can be, yeah, but ironically, I've always found for myself. I've always found more of that with people who have been through something in life, who have been through addiction and are working on their recovery, who have made a mistake, been incarcerated, and are trying to, trying to grow as people and so that kind of self awareness, that kind. Of just trying to be a better person, trying to make choices that matter for the right reasons, that that kind of intentionality, it requires having suffered through something in order to, like, really keep that a slow burn for for a lifetime. I think,

Sarah Byrnes: 15:21

yeah, you saying that intentionality, that sounds like you being involved in rap is a huge part of your like, recovery as well, just wanting to do that give back to help other people.

Bryan German: 15:35

Yeah, yeah. We started. WRAP is a recent thing, but we started, like, a year and a half ago, we decided that we were going to go into the facilities and just talk to people who were there, just to try to, as inspire a sense of hope, just share them. You know, the hope that that got a lot of us through. And so there was a gap from about 20 people that got together, and we decided that that would be a good thing. And so we've gone in with groups of anywhere from from two to, you know, little more than a dozen, into what, you know, the men's facility in Deer Lodge. We've been up to Shelby. We end up the juvenile facility in Pine hills and in Mile city, to the women's prison in Billings. And just go to into those places and just try to talk to people about, about what, about what works for us and and why we were able to be successful and stay, stay clean and sober on the streets, stay, you know, crime free on the streets. Whatever, you know, whatever the issues were, just even to to heal from, from whatever traumas that we've been through in our lives. And so it's really pretty cool to see some of the impact that can be made that way. One of my favorite places to go is pine hills, you know, because there's a lot of, a lot of young men there that you know are struggling to just to grow up. You know, how do when you're, you know, 12 to 18, that's, that's a fraught time period, no matter what. But you take it to that, whatever trauma they've been through, whatever bad decisions they are made, and how that affected them, and how they responded to that. And, yeah, one of one of the guys in our group, he he likes to take them fishing. He goes down there, and the management there lets them take a couple of them out fishing, and they just go out fish and talk about stuff that guys talk about when they're doing that, you know. And for, yeah, yeah, for some, some young man who grew up with, maybe with or without fathers, but definitely, not necessarily with a good male role model, to be able to just kind of have that experience is, it's pretty cool. He loves it.

Sarah Byrnes: 17:39

That sounds awesome. That sounds like a great initiative. I mean, going in all those places and just sharing your story, like this worked for me. I know a lot of people say, like, you know, not everything works the same for everybody, so you've got to find your own kind of path. But knowing what's worked for other people really helps, kind of helps other people figure out what, what they can do for themselves, too, yeah,

Bryan German: 18:02

yeah. It puts it under context, and just lets you even know that as possible, right? Like you don't know it's possible unless you see other people succeed. I know that when you're sitting in an institution and, you know, you see so many people coming back and so many people not getting an opportunity to get out, then it can be pretty hopeless, you know, but to just have that kind of message hopefully will make a difference for some people, and it has the some of the comments that we get are pretty cool.

Sarah Byrnes: 18:30

That's awesome. So when people learn about your lived experience, is there anything that you kind of notice, or reactions that you notice that you get,

Bryan German: 18:41

I know, yeah, there's, there's a few different kinds. I guess you can break them down into categories. One is like, no way you you don't look like you would have enough, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. I mean, I appreciate that, but you can't always judge by, you know, what you see right in front, right? And you know, the other one is, is, you can see, there's a lot of times there's a look of, oh my God, Who am I talking to? Who? Who is this in front of me? You know, what? What's gonna happen? Are they gonna are they gonna freak out on me? Are they gonna act weird or, you know, or are they like the ones that I saw on, you know, 90 days in, or, I forget what all the mother prison shows are. I never watched any of them. You know,

Sarah Byrnes: 19:21

all I could think of was scared straight when you're talking about the kids. And I was like, I don't know. I

Bryan German: 19:24

Oh yeah, yeah. We had so we had, I grew up in in don't know how I feel about that, but Washington state, and we had some people come from they had been to the jails out there, and they came to our high school when I was a teenager, and we were supposed to all hang out in the in the cafeteria, and listen to them, I differ a little bit. And then, you know, my friends step off and because it just, it doesn't hit that way, you know, right? Because, to me, it just lacks, there's no real connection. You know what? I mean, it's like, yeah, you need to act right, or you're gonna Yeah. And that's, I don't know. I don't think that's a good way to reach people,

Sarah Byrnes: 19:59

yeah. I can see that like there wasn't that's not a peer, that's somebody coming in and saying, don't do what I did. I mean, and as a as a parent, I personally know that doesn't work for my kids. So, oh, yeah.

Bryan German: 20:14

Oh, are we down to the parent? Or you're like, you're gonna get in trouble. And you're like, okay, yes, sometimes you're worse, but not very often.

Sarah Byrnes: 20:22

So looking back, is there anything that kind of spurred your want to go into recovery, or that process of recovery?

Bryan German: 20:31

I mean, just a sense of desperation, you know? I mean, there are some choices you can make and some things that you can do that can get you to a point in your life where you don't see a way out. And you can run from that sense of feeling lost or trapped or that helplessness, but you can only run for so long. I just got to a certain point where I couldn't do that, you know, and I wasn't crazy out running the streets, doing wild stuff. You know, I was mostly tame. And what got me into into my situation, was not like some some stories, right, right? It was enough, right, yeah, but seeing how it affected my family, and the fact that, you know, my family, after I got sentenced, they were, they were right there with me, you know. And they that the pain that I saw on them, seeing, you know, I watched my son grow up in a visiting room, you know, and have my daughter's mom not want to have contact with me, and also I didn't even get to talk to my daughter until after she was 18, really. So the pain of seeing how my actions affected them was a big thing, and to see that they still had help from me even in those hopeless circumstances, I think you know, those two things together, the the desperation that I felt, but the the fact that they were still willing to be there, providing whatever support they could. You know, I was as a teenager. You know, I had, I had two kids before I was 19, and I never felt like I could actually be a father, because my relationship with my father was broad, and so to see that just them, just being there, was making a difference for me, made me kind of realize that I didn't have to worry so much about whether or not I could be a father. I just had to be there, and then to see how that's played out over time is pretty incredible experience. You know, I've had a good relationship with both of my children now, and they're both married. My son bought a house last year, and we have a great relationship and that, you know, I want to say more than anything else, but my relationship with my wife is up there too, and my relationship is with all my family. But those are, those are my success stories, more than anything else, being able to spend time with them and be there for them from those big moments and for them to know that even though I couldn't be there for most of their life, that that I wanted to and to it to accept any kind of love for me is is incredible, given the circumstances, that's remarkable. They're, they're great kids.

Sarah Byrnes: 23:26

That's amazing. Yeah, I was gonna say it sounded like you had at least some some people with a as a support network for you too, when you went in, yeah, where you were in that situation. And I know that it's not always rare, but maybe you don't know until you get there that you have people that are willing to support you.

Bryan German: 23:45

Yeah, yeah. I saw that in a lot of my friends' lives, you know, where they were running the streets, doing whatever they were doing, feeling like they were totally on their own. And then they get into that situation and and realize that, oh, there is some family members who still want to support you, and we're trying to support you all along where you all along where you couldn't see it, couldn't accept that from

Sarah Byrnes: 24:05

Yeah, and I'm sure that's powerful too, to know that you know, even if you're accepting, like I messed up and somebody's there for you at that same time too. So yeah, I just think that support system so important. So with the work that you do now, do you still have a support system that you lean on?

Bryan German: 24:26

Oh, it's hard, because most of my support, or not, most of my support system, but my, I guess, the support system that had a context for me, you know, who had shared similar experiences with me, those guys, there's they're still inside, and some of them, we never get out. And so having that leave that behind and come out to a world that is is mostly foreign. You know, even though I'm going on the family, it's that's a disorienting process. You know, I do have some some friends, mostly ones who were on that. Committee with me and Helena that I can reach out to sometimes, and we can, we can have good conversations together and be a good support for each other. We're trying to build out a little bit more than it has been, because it's been a little sporadic. But for the most part, when you get out of prison, they want you to leave all of that behind, yeah, and in large part, you know, those, those guys were responsible for, for me being able to find a better sense of myself and to, you know, really come to my senses. You know, yeah, it couldn't have happened without the support of my family. But at the same time, it couldn't happen without the support of my peers. So, um, are

Sarah Byrnes: 25:43

there any support services that you used when you were trying to re acclimate, or anything that helped you?

Bryan German: 25:50

Um, yeah, I went through the pre release here in Missoula, and that was I thought I didn't need it because I had family support. You know? Yeah, I was like, I just want to go home. Why are you making me go to pre release. But in hindsight, as I and as I was going through the process, really, I was glad for those kind of safeguards and that kind of support, because they they make sure that you do some things that that just kind of makes sense as you're going through that big of a transition. They want you to talk to a counselor at least six times. You know, if you have addiction issues, they want you to go to AA or NA. They want you to see an addictions counselor, if that's what you need. They want you to just address whatever your issues are, whatever they they think is going to put you at risk. They want you to address that head on, and then they like have safeguards as you become more financially stable. So I mean, that was, that was a good thing for me to go through that kind of a transition. Absolutely. I went to some AA and or, yeah, some AA, some NA meetings while I was going through there. But for me, my journey has been more about recovering a sense of wellness than actually recovering from an addiction to a substance. And so while I can have conversations, and I hold a lot in common with people who are recovering from addiction to substances, my journey is been, I guess, a little bit different than some of that, because, like, I smoked a little bit of weed when I was in high school and just after that, but I didn't battle with some of the other substances that some people get drawn into. And I wasn't out long enough. I don't know if I would have, if I was, you know, if I hadn't known a prison but that wasn't the main driver of my host of issues. Yeah, that makes sense.

Sarah Byrnes: 27:42

It does make sense. Yeah, for sure. I mean, like your mental health and wellness, like you were saying, is also really important, just quality of life, too. So trying to make sure that getting that point, that's pretty it's pretty amazing that you're on that journey. And thank you for sharing. Well, thank you. Is there anything else that you'd want to share with us, just about being in recovery, or what? How people you know, people you were saying, people reacted in these different ways. But honestly, for me, people are people, and I've always said that, so I'm like, Just treat people like you would. Treat yourself. Hopefully, that's good way, good way, though, with respect. Yeah. So is there anything other things you'd want to say to somebody who is meeting someone in recovery for the first time, or just in general, to the community?

Bryan German: 28:35

To me, it comes back to something that we had talked about earlier, that if you go into those kind of interactions, just being honest with yourself and being open and honest with the other person, I mean, that's the only way to really interact with people in general, right? I think when interacting with people, if you're honest, you have to attribute them better intentions than you sometimes want to you know, because most people are trying their best to do their best, and sometimes that might not look very good to you, but you don't always have a context for what is behind whatever somebody is going through at any point in time, I have had a great response From a number of people at work who have known about my circumstance before. I knew that they knew, you know, and then and got a chance to come to terms with that themselves, and then later on, I find out that they know we have conversations about that, and is it has changed for the better how they interact with me. And so that kind of understanding that you can have from just having honest interactions with people is, is as revolutionary, really?

Sarah Byrnes: 29:47

Yeah, that sounds awesome, like just, have just asked the question, be respectful. But ask the question,

Bryan German: 29:52

yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah. And, you know, there are some people that are reserved for me. There's not really. Be any questions that I feel like are off limits, and so you'll get a certain type of response from me, some people might feel like, especially if they feel like you're judging them. I think that's the only time that people are generally closed off. If you can ask questions and interact with people in a way that that truly is non judgmental, then it totally changes everything about how you interact with people, yeah?

Sarah Byrnes: 30:23

So, just people being open to learning about someone else's experience. Yeah, I'm always, I'm always about, you know, don't, don't knock someone for their small victories too, because it could be big for them, but it might seem small, but it's big. And I, I feel like that comes from my neurodivergence. But, uh, yeah. Just assess. Sometimes my brain needs, needs to celebrate all the small things. So I totally get that, yeah, and

Bryan German: 30:48

you gotta remind yourself as that is okay, and anything necessary to celebrate those things sometimes, because you get to have it such a habit of judging yourself, you know, according to other people's standards. And if I mean, does bullshit, right? Yeah, but yeah, you can go through your life doing that, and there's, there's no reason for it. It just sets you up, right?

Sarah Byrnes: 31:09

Yeah, yep. It's all about, for me, it's about the humanizing. It's everyone's human. Everyone people just recognizing, like you said, just come talk to you. And some people might not be comfortable with that, but ask the question, and if they say no, just respect their No. That's my Yeah, that's my take on that. So

Bryan German: 31:28

yeah, I think it's so hard a lot of times to deal with other people on their own terms. I mean, it's not high for me, because that's like now my default mode, but a lot of people struggle with that, and it's, it's weird, because I didn't think that that was going to be the issue when I was growing up. You know, yet, most people would have such a difficult time just accepting people on their own terms and dealing with them, or not dealing with them, but interacting with them in a way it reflects that, you know,

Sarah Byrnes: 31:58

yes, I know that's definitely hard for people like just just saying, accept the No. I know that's hard for a lot of people to accept the No, so yeah, but I'm hoping this is going to be an impactful thing to share with the community and just everyone at large, and knowing all the good stuff like you're doing with the group that you're in and and introducing rap, and how impactful those things can be, just that human interaction and that peer to peer, just talking it out, yeah. And there, I don't, there shouldn't be any shame or stigma or like, anything associated with that, because we, all our brains, are complex, man and just trying to talk it out, that's a good thing.

Bryan German: 32:41

Yeah, yeah. And most people live going through stuff, you know, yeah, we all have stuff, right? And there's no reason to like try to keep that hidden, or, yeah, to use the word stigmatized, yep, that's just the common human experience. If it's a common human experience, why do we gotta like, try to sweep it under the rug or pretend to get us up in the fist, or any of that, you know, yeah. And so that's a big part of one of the big wins about us being able to take rap into the facilities and hopefully set up some peer mentoring, is to if we can get the the system to recognize that that people in institutions can help each other and be a support for each other, and to like, like formally accept that and have space, hold space for that. I think that's going to be a big win and and I I think that that's possible. It's going to take a little bit more work, but I think it's possible, and I'm glad to be working on that.

Sarah Byrnes: 33:42

Well, I'm rooting for you. That sounds awesome, yeah, like you said, don't need to cut off your support network. Like, like you were saying, like, those are impactful relationships too. So,

Unknown: 33:53

all right. Well, thank you. Great to share. That's okay, no worries. All right. Well, have a great one. Yeah, you too.