Kerry Paradis on Battling Addiction for Family and Future

In this compelling episode of "Conversations with Rich Bennett," sponsored by "Rage Against Addiction," Rich and Wendy Beck sit down with Kerry Paradis to explore her poignant and inspiring journey of recovery from alcoholism. Kerry shares her raw and honest story, starting with her early struggles, the impact of growing up with a bipolar and alcoholic mother, and the cascade of challenges that led her to confront her own addiction. She details the turning points in her life, including the heart-wrenching decision to seek help and the transformative experience of rehabilitation.

Kerry's narrative is a testament to the power of resilience, the
importance of support systems, and the possibility of redemption and change.
Her journey also shines a light on the invaluable role of organizations like
"Rage Against Addiction," which provides essential support and
resources to individuals and families battling addiction.

Listeners will hear Kerry discuss the crucial steps she took
toward recovery, her dedication to her family, and her commitment to helping
others facing similar battles. This episode not only offers an intimate look
into the challenges of overcoming addiction but also serves as a beacon of hope
for anyone struggling, emphasizing that recovery is possible and that the
future can indeed be bright.

"Kerry Paradis on Battling Addiction for Family and
Future" is more than just a podcast episode—it's an emotional journey that
underscores the s

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Rage Against Addiction is a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting addicts and their famili

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Transcript

Rich Bennett 0:00
Thanks for joining the conversation. I am sitting here, of course, with my lovely co-host, Wendy Beck. Hello. So we have a very special guest. We have Carrie Paradise. 

Kerry Paradis 0:09
Hi. How are. 

Wendy Beck 0:10
You? So welcome. Thank you for coming. 

Kerry Paradis 0:13
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate. 

Wendy Beck 0:14
It. Sure. This is awesome. I wanted to get you on our radio talk episode because we have been crossing paths lately. And so in the nonprofit world, we work closely with other nonprofits. Bridge has nonprofits that fund us and ACR, which we talk about, you know, often on the show. You are a peer there. That's correct. So you're a peer and you're in recovery. I am. And I think that we'll start with that. Okay. Tell us a little bit about your journey. 

Kerry Paradis 0:51
Sure. No problem. So I've been sober for two and a half years. I have a sponsor and I walk other women through the program. I have two daughters, Lana and Aria. One is 11, and Aria's nine years old. And my husband's name is Chad. We, you know, we're in it, you know, doing our thing and, you know, raising our daughters. And things were going really well for a while until they weren't. You know, a lot of people like to talk about, you know, 

how they got where they are, you know, And if they're not talking about they're not growing. You know, some people have a really hard time with with, you know, getting all that trauma and stuff out. But for me, you know, when I came down to the end there, that it wasn't an option not to talk about it. So I grew up in a home. My mother was bipolar. Is bipolar. I'm sorry, I say that was past tense. Like she's not alive anymore. I grew up in a home with my mom and dad and my half brother. My brother, my dad sort of raised my brother when he was two years old. So he was basically just like my brother. He's seven years older than me. He's 50 and he lives in Tennessee and he no longer talks to my mom. And it's been probably about 13 years since he's spoken to her. Wow. 

Rich Bennett 2:10
Wow. 

Kerry Paradis 2:12
Yeah. So growing up was really hard with my mom. She was not present. She never was at my soccer games or was never that mom that I was always hoping to have. Like girlfriends of mine had like, moms that they were really close with. And I just did not have that with my mom. Thankfully, I had an incredible father and I'm extremely close with him, and I'm still close with him to this day. But my mom put our family through a lot and. 

Wendy Beck 2:37
She untreated bipolar. Yeah. Okay. 

Rich Bennett 2:40
Oh. 

Kerry Paradis 2:41
Yeah. She was untreated bipolar. We tried to get her to get on the right medication. We tried to get her to go to rehab. She had a couple, you know, you know, things that you push down. Like as you go through your life, you know, you push down these things and, you know, when you start to realize, you know, stuff about yourself and go into therapy, those things come up. And that's what had to happen for for me to realize where I need to be now, you know? And it was really hard. But there were there were things that, you know, when I went to rehab that I had completely forgotten about, and I had a wonderful therapist, Eileen Thompson, who, you know, walked me through some trauma therapy. And it was probably one of the best decisions that I had made. It was it was really hard for me to go to rehab and leave my daughters. But where I was at, like, it just it was one of the things that had to happen, Right. 

Wendy Beck 3:29
Can I ask, was it alcohol? Yeah, okay. It was alcohol, Yeah. 

Kerry Paradis 3:33
So my mom was a full blown alcoholic. She was untreated. Bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression. Oh, my God. And yeah, it was it was tough. There was a couple of incidences. You know, I'm not going to go down the whole, you know, road here. But there was a couple situations where, you know, I remember I was seven years old, coming back from my uncle's house with my best friend. And my dad had taken us swimming and we came home and there was an ambulance in front of the house and I was sitting on the top step and my brother was protecting me and I saw all these pills under the door and she was being carried out on a stretcher in front of me. And that's something you don't forget as a child, you know, And that has stuck with me. But there were other things that happened when I was a child, and I didn't understand why my brother was the way he was until I started working on that trauma therapy. My brother was just trying to protect me as a child, as his sister. And I didn't realize that until I went to this trauma therapy and we did brain spotting. I don't know if you've heard of that before. 

Wendy Beck 4:29
But is that like EMDR? 

Kerry Paradis 4:31
Yeah, it's similar to that. 

Wendy Beck 4:32
You know, Tell me about brain spotting because. 

Kerry Paradis 4:35
Yeah, sure. It's so you follow like a pendulum thing and you put these headphones on and it's like noise canceling headphones, but it's like a heartbeat you can hear. And then your therapist is talking to you and walking you through things that have happened to you in your past. And I thought the whole thing was going to be about, you know, my mom. And it's actually was about my brother and I couldn't believe it. And you're really tired after you do it, like you're exhausted. It really was something. Yeah. So it made me realize a lot of things. And I actually went up calling my brother after that and thanking him because, you know, when I'm a kid, I'm thinking he's just being annoying. Like what his. 

Wendy Beck 5:08
What he was protecting. 

Kerry Paradis 5:09
He was just trying to protect me from my mom. So, you know, she she tried to jump out of the car on 695 and commit suicide. I feel terrible to my friends. My friends never wanted to come over my house because my mom was always so mean. 

Wendy Beck 5:23
How is she today? Can I ask, is she treated? 

Kerry Paradis 5:26
No, she's not. She's actually in Florida. And there was a point where she was homeless. She's not homeless anymore. But and I will get to that. What happened to my parents? So, you know, you know, growing up was really hard being in that house. So I never wanted to be home. So I was you know, as soon as I could start working, I started work and I was 12 years old. I started selling Baltimore Sun papers door to door in seventh courts. I made really good money doing that. Yeah, that didn't show my age. Selling papers, selling newspapers great. 

Wendy Beck 6:00
At 12 and 12. 

Kerry Paradis 6:02
But I made really good money. And then, you know, when I was 14, I got a job at Chick-Fil-A, and then my best friend and I, Rachel, we started working at Pizza Hut and like, we were like, ran that Pizza Hut like a Perry hall across from the Silver Spring Mining Company. We were 15 and you could work there because they didn't serve alcohol. So we waited tables from 15 to 18. And then as soon as we were 18, we started working in the restaurant business, serving, you know, alcohol and stuff. And it was good money, you know. So I was always working. I was never home. I was always with my friends. And obviously what comes with that is you're a can get wrapped up in the wrong friends and so, you know, I was there. I started drinking when I was 13 years old, you know, running away from home because I never wanted to be home. I'm out with my friends all the time. And I, you know, of course, you want to date the popular boys, you know. So of course I want to try to start dating them. And that was a you know, that was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. Really. And then, you know, here I am. And I found those. Here I am trying to fix them like I was trying to fix my mom. Right, Right. And they got to want it, right. You know, that way, you know, if you don't want it, they're not going to they're not going to do it. You know? And, uh, pretty narcissistic behaviors. The guys I dated, you know, some of them had a really good heart. And there was this one guy, you know, who really cared for me, but he had drug addiction. And I tried to fix that, you know, And here I am just feeding his habit, you know, trying to make it better. And there was just a whole long road of just all kinds of situations. And it wound up ending. He actually got my car stolen. He went down to the city to well, actually, he called me and asked me to borrow my car. I was living in Ocean City. I would wait tables down there in the summertime. I worked at Phillips Crab House and he asked to borrow my car and I was down there and I was like, I mean, yeah, my car is at my dad's house, just like, go pick it up from my parent's house. And he goes over there and my dad's like two weeks later, like, you know, he never brought that car back. And I was like, What? And my dad's like, he never brought the car back. He borrowed your car. And I was like, Dad, it's been like two weeks. I'm like, down the beach. So why didn't you tell me? So, like, I had to come back home in my car, like, was in the impound lot. It got stolen and he sold it, you know, for drugs. And I Yeah, it was a whole thing. And I did get my car back, and I hated my car after that because was a brand new car and it had like cigarette burn holes all in it. And people were living out of the car was. 

Rich Bennett 8:24
Stolen. 

Kerry Paradis 8:26
And it was a real mess. He said he got lost and got out to use the payphone, but that's right. Basically sold the car for drugs. But you know, to each his own. But, you know, I continued down that path of trying to like be there for him and fix things. And that was my final straw. Once that happened, I was done. I was like, okay, that's it. I'm focusing on myself. 

Wendy Beck 8:47
And how old were you at this? 

Kerry Paradis 8:49
I was 20. Okay. And so for two years, I really did focus on myself. You know, I still drink and and partying and having fun. But I was my life was manageable at that point. Right? I could still manage my life. And then I met my husband at 22 years old, 

and it was good. He was, you know, very grounded person. He's not an alcoholic. He's a normie, whatever you want to say. And. 

Wendy Beck 9:12
Norm Yeah, that's what that's what they say. Yeah. He's a. 

Kerry Paradis 9:15
Normie. Yeah. Okay. That's what they say. Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 9:18
It's kind of like, you know, like a muggle or what? Harry Potter. Like a mogul, like the people who are not like witches. 

Kerry Paradis 9:27
And I never watched Harry Potter either. Oh, God, I know. 

Rich Bennett 9:30
But. But you know what a mug is. 

Kerry Paradis 9:32
No, I don't. I just know a nobody. 

Wendy Beck 9:34
Who's not like if you're if you're a witch or a wizard, you have, you know, that's what you are. But if you don't have that, you're a muggle. So that's like a normie. Sorry, I don't mean to diverge on that, but yeah, so. 

Kerry Paradis 9:48
I. 

Rich Bennett 9:48
Model. 

Kerry Paradis 9:50
My husband is a normie, like he doesn't have any issues with drinking and drugging and, you know, we want to in a house together. We lived in Abingdon, we had a townhouse. We lived there for about 14 years. I had my first daughter, Alana, when I was 30, and my second daughter Aria, when I was 32. And things were really good. Things were good. You know, your mom, your young mom having these babies. And I just loved it. 

Rich Bennett 10:14
Were you still drinking at that time? 

Kerry Paradis 10:15
Not nothing. Like I, you know, maybe over a weekend or something, you know, I'm breastfeeding and all that. So it's pretty like, you know, grounded with everything. Okay. And I I've been a photographer in Harvard County for 15 years, so I do the newborn photography. So I was able to still do newborn photography because I had a studio I would set up in my home at the time. So like my husband would be working from home and he could keep an eye on the baby and I could do the newborn shoot during, you know, this time at home. And it worked out really well. And then when we had our second child, Aria, she was born with Asperger's and childhood apraxia. 

Rich Bennett 10:51
So what's the second one? 

Kerry Paradis 10:53
Childhood a proxy is like a major speech delay for a child because she was like 19 months old. I wasn't talking. Right. And so I know you're not supposed to compare your kids, but there was, you know, two girls and. Right. 

Wendy Beck 11:04
Girls certainly point of reference at that point. 

Kerry Paradis 11:06
Yeah. Girls talk. 

Rich Bennett 11:07
It's natural. 

Kerry Paradis 11:08
Yeah. And I just knew something wasn't right and she would get really angry because she couldn't communicate. And we just had a gut feeling, you know, your parental instincts, you know, it's like you kind of just go with your gut. So we had gotten her tested, and then she got into the ChildFund program and we started doing, you know, private speech therapy. And then we did the child find and then, you know, later she was diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger's. So, yeah, we're now we got a little bit of a different thing here. Now. We have some other stuff on our plate, you know, And it was very, very hard for for my husband and I and and our family, you know, it was really hard on us. 

Rich Bennett 11:43
And I bet hard for your other daughters. 

Kerry Paradis 11:46
Well, it was really hard for her. She and she is everyone who knows my people who know my daughter, Alana, she is just an incredible little girl. She's an old soul and she's got patience, So much patience and she's so good with her sister. I like my husband. I are very, very fortunate to have a lot of be her sister. She really is. But yeah, we you know, when when things started getting like, you know, a little rocky and things were getting hard and, you know, you're dealing with, you know, my whole entire body was taken, Ari, to therapy. I mean, from 9:00 in the morning to 4:00 in the afternoon, that was my whole Friday. But I had to do that. You know, I wasn't going to be like my mom. You know, my mom was so absent and I refused to do that. And I really do believe, like, God gave me two girls for a reason, right? I thought to be a mom of all boys, and here I am with these two girls. So I was like, I'm I'm going to really knock this at a park. I'm going to be a really great model, these girls, you know? And so we wanted better schools for our daughter. So we moved to Boston and then, you know, nothing really ever turns out like it seems. You know, you have this idea of how things are going to be. But that's not. 

Rich Bennett 12:48
Never the case. 

Kerry Paradis 12:49
Never the. 

Rich Bennett 12:49
Case. Very unlikely. 

Kerry Paradis 12:51
So we moved to Boston, had a house built in Hamilton Reserve and Co that happened. And so now we have this big house payment and we have our daughters in not going to school because school was closed and I had to close my photography business, my studio on Main Street, and I had just opened it. So just opened. So I opened it March 6th. They had like the Bella Alliance and everybody came down like we did a ribbon cutting. It was incredible. And I had it closed March 18th. Oh, so here I am with this like, you know, rent payment. You know, I got to close this place, this beautiful studio. My husband and his best friend run in, went and renovated this whole place. It was absolutely gorgeous. It had a waiting room. It's right next to Corbett boot camps on Main Street. It had, like, the glass panel windows. There's a florist there now. And, you know, you put all that money and you're renting and you're we walked away and we had to walk away from it. And it was devastating. 

Wendy Beck 13:50
That's stressful. 

Kerry Paradis 13:51
So stressful. So here I am. I got this new house. I'm not working now because I had to close because I can't take pictures because of COVID. And my daughters are home and I'm home schooling my my kids. And listen, I give teachers credit because I am not a teacher, okay? Not at all. I could never be a teacher right to each his own. Some people could never be a newborn photographer. I could never be a teacher. Everyone's got their things right. Well, that was horrible for me. So my husband, he works from home, so his life never changed. And I was. 

Wendy Beck 14:19
Horrible for a lot. 

Kerry Paradis 14:20
Everyone. 

Wendy Beck 14:21
Yeah, it was. I'm not. I'm not trying. No, it was hard. It was. It was bad. No, we had teenagers and they were supposed to be doing what they were doing, what they were supposed to be doing either. 

Kerry Paradis 14:31
And I do feel like kids suffered the most out of. 

Wendy Beck 14:34
Oh, they're still suffering. 

Kerry Paradis 14:36
Yeah. Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 14:36
Still suffer. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. This gender or sexual. 

Rich Bennett 14:39
Activity was taken away from them. 

Wendy Beck 14:41
Is going to come on the other side of it and they're going to be able to tell how bad their story about it because I don't even think that they realized it when they were in the thick of it. 

Rich Bennett 14:51
I think a lot of them still don't. 

Wendy Beck 14:52
You know, I mean, my daughter, she's 18. I mean, we ended up she never even went back to school. 

Kerry Paradis 14:57
I have a lot of girlfriends who have the same. 

Wendy Beck 15:00
Thing she did online and they never went back. Just. 

Kerry Paradis 15:03
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. No, it's and it's terrible. And like you said, the social aspect of it and like, you know. 

Wendy Beck 15:09
And when they don't go back then they, they miss out on all that social socialization that teenagers are supposed to have in the normal sense. So now we've got isolation, we've got anxiety, we've got depression. It's all there. 

Kerry Paradis 15:21
But it's all there. No. And I mean, like with Ari, with having the Asperger's, you know, that social shouldn't have that, you know. So here are all those services since she was 19 months old. Now she's five, six years old. And she just now she's got no services. She's not going to school. She doesn't everything's closed. She doesn't have any of her services. So it's like all that we did early intervention on purpose to make sure she was going to be on track for kindergarten. It was like. 

Wendy Beck 15:43
And then did you have to teach kindergarten? 

Kerry Paradis 15:45
And then I had to teach kindergarten. 

Wendy Beck 15:47
And a funny thing about that is my mom had to teach my nephew kindergarten. And I did witness it a little bit. 

Kerry Paradis 15:53
Oh, my dad was horrible. 

Wendy Beck 15:55
That must have been really bad. 

Kerry Paradis 15:56
Yeah. And God bless Miss Nancy from Youth Benefit. She was is the best kindergarten teacher to. Oh, really? Yeah, she's wonderful. 

Wendy Beck 16:04
What grade is she in now? 

Kerry Paradis 16:06
Aria is now in fourth grade. 

Wendy Beck 16:08
Okay, He's in third. 

Kerry Paradis 16:09
Okay, so she goes to open Bible Christian Academy. 

Wendy Beck 16:11
Oh, okay. I know exactly where that is. Yeah. Yeah, We went that route a little bit for my daughter. When she didn't go back, I tried to. We tried different things, and then we ended up with the one line pen foster. But yeah, you. 

Kerry Paradis 16:24
Know, but I have a lot of kids. I know a lot of kids that were in high school that did that. You know, I couldn't wait to get my kids back in the school. You know, they're social butterflies. They need to be around that, you know, especially for Aria, right? Because, you know, if you don't, you don't feel comfortable in that. You got to get them used to it, right? You don't want to just have her isolated. And it was really hard. 

Wendy Beck 16:41
How was your drinking at this time? 

Kerry Paradis 16:43
Like so my drinking, you know, really started to accelerate. Right? Right. So this is you know, I got I had a closed my studio. I'm homeschooling my daughters now. I find out my dad is leaving my mother after 40 years of marriage. 

Rich Bennett 16:58
Oh, jeez. 

Kerry Paradis 17:00
My mom tried to threaten my dad and tell him that she was going to shoot him. Um. Mm. And my dad said, That's it. Yeah, right. Gave her the car, the condo and left and. Yeah, what a mess. But my final straw actually was putting my dog down. I had to put my dog down in December of 2020, and he was my first baby. His name was Kito and he was 15, and it destroyed me. And we had vets come to the home to put him down. And after that, I just I left Dr. Shannon. I wasn't If it was Dr. Shannon. 

Rich Bennett 17:31
Okay. 

Kerry Paradis 17:32
I don't know if it was because we've had to do another. We had another pet, right? Just recently we had to put down. So I'm trying to think of the different. 

Rich Bennett 17:40
It's just it's nice when they can actually come inside your house and do that because you can see. 

Kerry Paradis 17:44
It is really nice. You know, as during COVID, they wanted me to wear a face mask, by the way, my home put my dog down. I mean, I mean, you want to talk. 

Rich Bennett 17:51
About weird. 

Kerry Paradis 17:52
Weird, emotional. Everything was happening here, right? I mean, it was just terrible. And so that was it for me that really just pretty much just set me off the edge. And then I was drinking and, you know, being, you know, 40 years old, especially for women, the alcoholism just progresses so quickly. Right. Men seem to kind of, you know, be able to like I don't want to say control it, but they're not, as you know, a woman. It just takes over so quickly. Your appearance, your anxiety or depression. I mean, there were days where I couldn't get out of bed. There were you know, my anxiety would be so ramped up that I just couldn't even get out of bed. I mean, it was terrible. And my daughters were seeing all this, right? 

Rich Bennett 18:29
Yeah. What was it that you were drinking? 

Kerry Paradis 18:31
Oh, Tito's. Oh, get a little tightness in your life. 

F1 S4 18:34
But 

a. 

Kerry Paradis 18:37
Little. 

Wendy Beck 18:37
Like, Oh. 

Rich Bennett 18:39
That's the worst point. How much were you drinking? 

Kerry Paradis 18:41
I was drinking every 2 hours at the end. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 18:44
So was probably going through a couple of bottles a day. 

Kerry Paradis 18:47
I would. 

Well, you know, I'm like a Costco shopper, so I would get, like, a handle. A Tito's right. 

Rich Bennett 18:55
Oh, she's. Wow. 

Kerry Paradis 18:58
Yeah, it was bad. It was real bad. And, like, I can't even believe that that took over me like that, Right? Like, I always like to party and drink. People know that. People know that about Carrie Paradise. Well, Carrie Burger people know that. They know that. But I was always a party and always like to have a good time. But this was like something I could never even imagined. It just took over me so quickly and it was terrifying. I was getting sick, I was dry heaving, I was shaking like I couldn't even I couldn't function unless I had a drink. It was that it got to, you know. 

Wendy Beck 19:25
How long did that did that time last? 

Kerry Paradis 19:28
I would probably say like 8 to 9 months. Oh, wow. Where Yeah, where it was to the point where it was like that. You know, I would have like a couple of weeks or I'd have like, you know, two weeks. I would be good and then I would get right back into it, you know, and I'd go right back to where I left off. Like, I'm like, Oh, well, I haven't drank. It'll be okay. And then I would drink and then it right where I left off, it would take me right back to where I was. And, you know, the thing that was really, really scary is I didn't care. I didn't care if you were messing with my drinking, I don't. I would have done anything. I was hiding bottles. I was hiding bottles in my closet. I was I would never put alcohol in my water bottle for the gym. I was putting alcohol in my. I would never do that. Yeah, I am. 

Wendy Beck 20:11
I am the ex-wife of an alcoholic. So, like, I lived on the other side of that. Yeah, I always use this little reference. I said I had an alcoholic husband, heroin on a heroin addict daughter, and a little one that I was trying to potty train all at the same time. 

Kerry Paradis 20:28
I can't imagine. 

Wendy Beck 20:30
Now. So yeah, the whole like hiding of. 

Kerry Paradis 20:33
Yeah. So that was. 

Wendy Beck 20:34
How did your husband react to that? 

Kerry Paradis 20:38
Yeah. I mean, it was really hard for my husband, right? I mean, you know, he has always been there for me. We've been together 20 years, so it was really hard. But, you know, I'll tell you, you know, his support, he just wanted me to get better for the kids. You know, he knew I wanted to be a good mom. He knew that wasn't me. You know, He knew that my addiction had taken over. That wasn't me. You know, It's a disease, you know, And that's what a lot of people don't understand. Alcoholism is a disease. It's like you are allergic to alcohol. And that's not we're not just saying that to make people feel bad or better or whatever you want to say. Alcoholism is a disease and it takes over When you have when you're an alcoholic, it takes over your mind like it does in a normie, like a normie. It doesn't do that like. 

Rich Bennett 21:17
Dr. Jekyll and Mr.. 

Kerry Paradis 21:18
Hyde. When you have that first drink, that's all you're thinking about. How can I get my next drink? And it takes over. And it's been it's insane. I mean, I've. 

Wendy Beck 21:25
Lived it to not personally like to me, but seeing it and it's it is very hard. And I know because I experienced it on the other side that it is a disease because that person that you know and love, you just can't imagine why they're acting the way that they are. So I get it. 

Kerry Paradis 21:42
Yeah. And it was you know, it broke my heart to do that. But at the same time, my addiction was more important at that point. You know, I had to feed my addiction because I couldn't function. I was so sick, you know? Right. And I, you know, had a couple like, hospital visits. Harford Crisis Center. I did a couple. You know, detox can't be in front of my children like this. I got to go detox. There was a time where my daughter walked up in my and walked in to my walk in closet, and I was drinking. And she went in to run and told her dad, which, you know, she should. And then of course, he came up and they pulled all the hoodies down off the top of the shelf and there's all these bottles and I'm like. 

F1 S4 22:16
Oh. 

Kerry Paradis 22:17
Got to have the bag, right. You know, there's no coming back from that. And then that was it. And so we were supposed to go visit my dad. So this was in 2021. We were just to go visit my dad. That happened around in July or June timeframe with the bottles and go in Harford Crisis. And now we all know Carrey's got there's a problem here. I'm fully aware. My family is aware. My husband's family were. Everyone knows that Carrie's drinking. Not okay. Carrie is not okay. She's anything but fine. Thanks. And, you know, that would be one of my things. Like my husband's like, Are you okay? And I'd be out drunk and be like, I'm fine, you know? Yeah, no, I'm fine. 

F1 S4 22:54
I'll let anything. 

Wendy Beck 22:55
But fine, Right? 

Kerry Paradis 22:56
I remember when we went to rehab, me and this girl, Christina, she was my roommate. We would say, like, Good morning, how are you? And we're fine or something. And we'd be like, We can't say fine. We're not saying fine. So then we would start. Like as we got into the program, we started doing the rehab. We'd be like, I'm great. Today is going to be a great day. And we would say anything but fine. And I carried that on as I started work like the recovery community, you know, like how, you know, you're not fine. But we're not saying that work. 

Wendy Beck 23:20
Doesn't fine me something like. 

Kerry Paradis 23:22
I think it's. 

Wendy Beck 23:23
Yeah, there's. 

Kerry Paradis 23:24
Yeah, it's now it's like yeah. 

Wendy Beck 23:26
It's like I'll, I'll come up with it. You're right. Yeah it is. It's not fine. It's the actual like what it stands for. 

Kerry Paradis 23:34
But yeah, you look at. Yeah. Look it up. I can, Yeah. So I had a couple of visits to the Harvard Crisis Center. You know, obviously at this point, my husband is very upset, and we're supposed to take a road trip with our kids to Florida, and we're going to end the road trip and see my father, and he's like, We are not going to Florida. And I was like, I want to see my dad so bad. I'll do whatever I have to do to not see my dad too, so I can so I can go visit my father. And he says, Don't drink for a month. And I was thinking for a long time and I'm like, Fine. So I did. And I know that it sounds so silly to, like, be excited that I didn't drink for a whole month, but I quit drinking for an entire month on my own. And for people who are an alcoholic, they know that that is very hard to do. And so I didn't drink. The whole month of July. We went to Florida and we got to see my dad and we did. And we had an incredible vacation. We did the whole west coast of Florida, and we ended with my father. Well, my dad is you know, my dad is a normie, but my dad does like to drink beers. And I hadn't seen him. And I'm drinking beers with my dad. And here I am with my dad drinking beers. 

Wendy Beck 24:38
You invited it back. 

Kerry Paradis 24:40
You Pandora's box. And so when we got back from vacation, you know, Kerry's vacation didn't want to end. Kerry still on her vacation because I started it right back up again. And I was right back to where I left off. And I remember I was supposed to, you know, get the kids or doing something. I was like, there's no way. And I, I didn't even drink that much in the morning. And I was intoxicated so quickly. I drove to Hartford Crisis Center. I was so intoxicated they wouldn't take me. They sent me to Upper Chesapeake Hospital. I went in there on a Tuesday and I woke up on a Thursday. So I was in an alcohol induced coma and I lost two days of my life and I had an alcohol level of 0.43 and Y. 

Wendy Beck 25:22
And you don't even remember drinking. 

Kerry Paradis 25:24
And don't remember any. I don't remember the ambulance, you know, I don't remember any of this. Like, how can you not remember going in it? 

Wendy Beck 25:29
And you drove there. 

Kerry Paradis 25:30
And I drove there. Yeah. Yeah. It's not something I'm proud of. 

Wendy Beck 25:33
No, no, no, no, no. That I'm just. 

Kerry Paradis 25:34
I don't need. 

Rich Bennett 25:35
The crisis center. But the ambulance took it from the crisis center to. 

Kerry Paradis 25:38
Yeah, And when I share my story, I say, you know, it's not something I'm proud of. No, no, no, no, no, not at all. You know, I mean, I could have my kids were, you know. Well, thank. 

Wendy Beck 25:47
Goodness that you did go and you got help because I don't know if you would have survived had. 

Kerry Paradis 25:51
Yeah, there was a lot of things that happened, you know, that were really bad. You know, I was in a really bad spot, you know, And I was calling people and pleading for help. And I knew I needed help and I wanted help. I just didn't know where to get it right. And that's a problem because there's no resources. People don't really know where to go, Right. So that's why ACR is like such a wonderful, you know, program, because that we can help people get the resources that they need. But I went right bed to bed. Right? They don't want to they don't want to send me home. Right. I got that. I'm going to go drink some Cheetos. Right. I got to they're sending me right to rehab. So I went bed to bed from Upper Chesapeake to Harbor of Grays. And just want to say that. I just want to say there was this wonderful woman, Stephanie, and she knows who she is who would be there as a peer coach at Harvard Crisis Center. And when I got to the hospital, I had a couple visits at the hospital and she was there those times as well. And when I first went into Hartford Crisis Center, I remember sitting on the end of the bed and I was detoxing and I was terrified. It was my first time there. And she said, you know, this isn't going to end well for you. And I was like, Why? What do you drink? You know, being so nasty? Right, Right. You know? And she's like, Well, I used to drink bourbon, but I'm sober for seven years. And I'm thinking in my head, I'm thinking, Well, I drink Tito's. I'm way better than her alcohol. 

Wendy Beck 27:06
Her that. Yeah, I've heard that. 

Kerry Paradis 27:08
And I kind of know the problem. She's drinking bourbon. I'm drinking Tito's. I'm good. This is what I'm doing. Wow, You're right. Yeah. In that crazy. 

Rich Bennett 27:14
Crazy. Yeah, it is insanity. 

Kerry Paradis 27:16
It's really. It's insanity. 

Wendy Beck 27:17
Well, and they also like that It's also very relevant for people who do drugs and people who do alcohol. They think one is better. 

Rich Bennett 27:23
Better than the other. Yeah. 

Kerry Paradis 27:25
Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, I did plenty of drug. 

Rich Bennett 27:28
And alcohol content no matter. 

Kerry Paradis 27:30
What, but alcohol took. 

Wendy Beck 27:31
Over. And alcohol's legal. 

Rich Bennett 27:33
Yeah. 

Kerry Paradis 27:33
Yeah. They make it a little too accessible. Really. It's, it's like the cool whatever. 

Wendy Beck 27:38
If you're pro pendency to it. 

Kerry Paradis 27:40
You're not doing anything without alcohol nowadays. I mean you're going to a first birthday party, they got alcohol, you know, but you know. 

Rich Bennett 27:46
Well look, during COVID, oh yeah, they went to liquor stores to stay open. 

Wendy Beck 27:50
Well, they had to because people would have did detoxing. Yeah, they could. You imagine? 

Kerry Paradis 27:56
No, I was there. No, I can't imagine. 

Rich Bennett 27:59
But yeah, if you look at you know, you look at our country, the history of our country, what happened back in the thirties. 

Wendy Beck 28:05
Prohibition. 

Rich Bennett 28:06
Right. So they weren't worried about getting rid of alcohol then. 

So when we have a crisis like the pandemic, I think it would have been important not you wouldn't need alcohol in it. Some of your restaurants need to stay open, but they didn't really need the alcohol either. 

Wendy Beck 28:25
I don't know. I feel like a lot of people would have gotten really sick. You know, you're literally dangerous to be on. 

Rich Bennett 28:31
Could you. 

Wendy Beck 28:31
Look, people would have been dying and now you're. 

Rich Bennett 28:33
You're right. Yeah. But in the same insane case. Yeah, I think it would have hurt a lot of people. But in the same case, I think it also did hurt a lot of people because I think that more people started drinking less. 

Wendy Beck 28:46
That is a possibility for sure. Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 28:49
You know, because. 

Kerry Paradis 28:50
I know that that was. Yeah. Yeah. And still are drinking. Honest. Yeah. I mean, you know. 

Wendy Beck 28:55
It's never going to go. 

Rich Bennett 28:56
The younger ones. 

Wendy Beck 28:57
Addiction is not going to go away whether we take it away or not. So, I mean, that's that's a whole nother conversation. 

Rich Bennett 29:05
Yes, ma'am. I'm so. 

Wendy Beck 29:07
Sorry. No, it's all good. 

Kerry Paradis 29:09
No. So, yeah, we you know, what am I going to do here, right? I mean, I was in a coma. I wake up here, Stephanie, right there, right. I wake up and there's, like, these white lights. I think I'm, like, in heaven or something. I don't even know what has happened to me. And Stephanie, it was like, you believe me now. So after all those little things, I would see this girl. 

Wendy Beck 29:29
I think I know who she is. Yeah, you do. Okay. 

Kerry Paradis 29:31
Yeah, She was like an angel. And I said, you know, you helped me get sober, and she was like, You did it on your own. Like, she's just so sweet, Such a kind soul. Right? You know, I'll be forever grateful for her, because that was something really special there. You know, God put her in my life for a reason. So, yeah, I went to Harbor Grace. Incredible treatment. I loved everything about it. It was a great program. You know, my way didn't work. You know, like I said earlier, like, you know, my way was not working. And I'm at this point, I'm going to surrender. Can you please help me? And I just listen to everything they had to tell me because I almost died. And I'm like, listen, my daughters almost lost their mother. You know. 

Rich Bennett 30:04
You don't want that. 

Kerry Paradis 30:05
This is very serious. You know, everything I said, I wasn't going to be happy. I was like, I'm not going to be like my mother. I turned into my mother. There was times where I would look in the mirror, you know, I would be like, I'm turning into my mother and I would still go drink to detox. I would literally still drink because I would be so sick by the sink looking in the mirror, so depressed and so anxiety ridden. And I would still go and drink. And, you know, I like to share this part of my story because, you know, when I stopped drinking those anxieties and those depressions went away, you know, and a lot of people are feeding that anxiety and depression with alcohol and it's just making it worse and worse and worse. And me and I got to the point where I would be in bed for days. I mean, I would never I do not even have that type of personality, you know? I mean, my trainer, she knew something was up cause I'm skipping the gym that does not carry. She would always be here. She knew something was going on, you know? And, you know, you know, the people who are in your corner, you know, because they really come out and they're there for you when things get right. Well, what has it lost? Well, crazy. Yeah. So I had a great I had a great experience at Harbor Grace. I trusted the process. I listened to everything my therapist, Eileen, told me. I did the trauma therapy. You know, I really worked really hard on myself. You know, I looked at myself in the mirror. I was in here blaming everybody else. I was. It was me. I was the problem. And that's what you have to realize. You know, once you realize that and you accept it, you connect you, you're able to move forward. And I didn't have anything to hide at this point. You know, I had let everything out. I had shared my story at Harbor of Grace. But when I called my dad when I was in rehab, I called my father and my dad was like, you know, I wasn't going to tell you this because you're in rehab and I don't want to upset you. And I said, Well, that's fine. I appreciate that, Dad. I said, I've been really working on myself here, so I'm feeling a lot better about things. But I do want you to know, like when I leave here, I'm not going to talk to Mom anymore. I'm not having a relationship with her anymore. And my dad's like, You know what? That's good. Your mother's a piece of shit. You know what happened? I told her that you were in rehab for alcoholism. And you know what she said the first words out of your mother's mouth were, Where's that check she owes me. 

Rich Bennett 32:12
Was. 

Kerry Paradis 32:13
Like. 

Wendy Beck 32:14
Well, she's sick. 

Rich Bennett 32:15
Yeah, Yeah, I know, But still, so. 

Kerry Paradis 32:18
So that check that she's asking about, let me tell you what that's for. My mom went and got a DUI in Florida and I bailed her out of jail and my dad gave me a 1500 dollars check in case she skipped her court date. So I had this money just holding on to it in case she didn't get her caught. Nobody knew anything about her court if she went to court. So he or she, as you went to court, may never told my father. And here I am in August in rehab. So I told my therapist that. And such a toxic, toxic relationship. I wrote her a letter that my therapist read it, my husband read it. I put the check in there and I mail it to her. And this year will be four years since I've spoken to my mother and spoken to her, she hasn't seen her grandkids. You don't. 

Wendy Beck 32:56
Even know if she's okay or you. 

Kerry Paradis 32:57
Don't know my dad. You know, he still sees her. Okay. 

Rich Bennett 33:01
But she hasn't gotten help. You know. 

Kerry Paradis 33:03
Just think anything's wrong with her still. You know, It's all like, yeah, that's it. 

Wendy Beck 33:07
Well, and that's where the healing begins when you take your own power back. And then. 

Kerry Paradis 33:12
Her. I mean, we're talking, like, for generations, like her mom's mom, like my grandmother, and then my great grandmother and then my great, great grandmother and my grandfather. So her father, but my grandfather, my mother's dad, he did die in recovery. He was 40 years sober, you know, And I can do it right. You know, God knows that right here. He's going to give you his toughest battles to astonish old soldiers, right? I'm going to I'm going to beat this thing. I have to for my kids, for myself, like, I cannot do this. And my mom just couldn't get it. She just couldn't do it. And I was like, I'm not going to be that. I'm not there's no way I'm going to be like my mother. I have to change that. And, you know, it was it was a lot of work, I'll be honest with you. But it was so worth it. Like the life I live now, you know, they say all these clichés and life beyond your wildest dreams. But no, it really is. I mean, it's more than I could ever have dreamed of. 

Wendy Beck 34:01
And one of the things that I've noticed being involved with the recovery community is that they are so grateful. They are so grateful for the lives that they have today. And honestly, it's amazing because, you know, the normies that I hang out with, they don't have a visible gratitude about much. I'm not saying that people are not happy and have good lives and do good things, but I feel like the recovery community has that. They're grateful for just the life that they have and they don't have to be a millionaire or rich or having the career of their lifetime. They're just like living, And I've always. 

Rich Bennett 34:40
Been right there. 

Wendy Beck 34:41
I've always been so impressed. And I always tell the ladies at our houses, you know, you guys are superheroes and you are my hero. Because on the flip side, my daughter never got there. So, you know, I was healed and a lot of my grief was healed through the recovery houses that we have for the women. Just getting to know them and seeing them on the other side has been extremely rewarding for me. 

Kerry Paradis 35:05
Yeah, I mean, and that's exactly I like working in the recovery field, right? I mean, I worked at Harbor Grace after I was sober six months. I came on there as a CIA. I worked there for a year and a half, and then I started working at CHA Hope Foundation and ACR. Right. And, you know, we're all feeding off of this, right? I'm feeding off of them. They're feeding off of me. And like, this is keeping me sober. And I just see this whole other life. I feel so genuine. I, I feel so connected. I'm it's like a whole nother thing for me. You know, you really start to realize who you are, you know, and what you want out of life, you know? And I do want a more simple life. And those things aren't as important to me like they were when I was in my position, because when I was in my addiction, it was all about the mask, right? Putting on that mask. And I don't have to do that now because I'm open and honest with myself and I don't have anything to hide anymore. Cats out the bag. I remember when I got out of rehab, I had to take my daughters to the bathroom as my daughter's first day of school. I missed my daughter's first soccer tournament out of state. My mother had missed my first tournament out of state. So this was like a whole thing was a disaster and rehab. But when I got out, I had to walk my kids to the bus stop. And in our neighborhood, there's like, you know, 25 kids. The bus stops, all the moms and stuff for everyone. Parents are all there. And I had two options, you know, walked that bus with my head high or with my head low. And I walked I decided, you know what? I'm going to take the high road here. I'm going to walk with my head held high. 

Rich Bennett 36:23
Good. 

Kerry Paradis 36:24
Then I get to the bus stop. I got both. My daughter's in my hand and one of the mothers says, You look like you lost a lot of weight. And I said, Well, that's what happens when you don't drink after 28 days. 

Rich Bennett 36:32
Well. 

Kerry Paradis 36:34
They're already going to say whatever they're going to say and it doesn't matter. And if you're going to fault me for trying to make my life better and do better for my children and take care of my health, I don't want you to be my friend anyway, you know? So just make that real clear because you're going to already you're going to you're going to own it or. 

Wendy Beck 36:47
Your people are ignorant to to addiction. And they think that, you know, because somebody is struggling, they're not human. And I honestly, you know, there's a lot of discrimination when it comes to that. You know, in the health care, people who are addicts go to get treatment and they think they're like pills, shopping. And there's just there's just this whole undercurrent. And, you know, I do feel that in Bel Air, specifically the recovery community is so great and we have made such a difference in the past ten years from the time I started Rage till Today that this is a recovery community that is thriving and people want to come here for recovery. 

Kerry Paradis 37:31
Absolutely. 

Wendy Beck 37:32
That's absolutely amazing. So it just. 

Kerry Paradis 37:34
I see it's. 

Wendy Beck 37:35
Just a matter of, you know, build it and they will come. They do. They're trying to. 

Kerry Paradis 37:39
Yeah, yeah. And if they're in other counties, they're trying to come to Hartford County. Yeah. Because it is you're absolutely right. Carver County is a very strong recovery community. So grateful to be a part of that. You know, it's a whole nother door has opened for me, you know, And I just want to try to help as many people as possible. 

Wendy Beck 37:54
So you have your peer certification. 

Kerry Paradis 37:57
So I have. Yup, my peer certification. So peer recovery coach. And then I do peer recovery coaching throughout Harford County with all the sober living homes, as you know, because I work with Rage and so I work for ACR. So what we do is we do funding for people to go to rehab or we do funding for people to go to sober living and then I go throughout the community and work with the women if they need help with finding a job, if they need rides to meetings, they just want to talk. You know, if I want to you know, they want to hear my story and help them kind of get back to where they need to be because, you know, they're coming fresh out of rehab to a sober living, you know, And that's it's a huge change in people, especially for people who've never done it before. You know, and they need to have support. And so we're there for them to show them that we're there to support them for whatever need, even if they needed a ride or they need an Uber or they need, you know, to get to a job interview or whatever it may be, we're here to help them in any way we can, you know, And that's what makes it so wonderful because Linda Williams has just done such an incredible job with ACR and growing that and having us out there, you know, working, you know, face to face. I mean, I'm going to go in today sister's house and take in the girls job hunting this afternoon. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 39:11
You bet. 

Kerry Paradis 39:12
Yeah, I love it. I absolutely love my job. And like you said, like, you know, I'm a workaholic. If you're working hard, there's not work. This isn't work. This is nothing. You know, you're working a lot. I'm like, Oh, no, no, I'm not working. 

Wendy Beck 39:23
That's kind of how I feel. 

Kerry Paradis 39:24
I work at helping people. 

Wendy Beck 39:26
It's like, this is like urban, where you put, you know, you take your pain and you make turn it into purpose. You are living your best life. 

Kerry Paradis 39:33
Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, and it stinks that that took me 40 years to realize that. Right. But you know what? It wasn't part of my journey. You know, some of these girls I do see, and I've said this before and I've said this to a couple of people in the recovery field is I do see that shift with younger people like before. You know, people were getting sober, older. Right. But now there's. 

Wendy Beck 39:52
A very large young, young. 

Kerry Paradis 39:54
Very like a. 

Wendy Beck 39:55
Lot of the women in our houses. 

Kerry Paradis 39:56
Yes. I mean, we have 32. 

Wendy Beck 39:57
Years, we have 18 year olds. We have one that just turned 21. Yeah. In a recovery house. And, you know, but the the interesting part, too, is that we also have women who are 70. Yeah. So you have this. Yeah, it's it again it doesn't discriminate but they're seeing like the younger women get to see like look if I don't get this together, this is going to be me. 

Kerry Paradis 40:20
It's going to be. 

Wendy Beck 40:20
Great when I'm 60 and when I'm 17, and that's what. 

Kerry Paradis 40:22
I tell them. I said, I wish I could get it when I was 22 years old. Don't be me. Don't be 40. You should be really proud of yourself that you're here, you know, because what happens, You're young, right? I mean, I was 22 at one point. I remember how that was right. Always. Do you care what people think? And all this stuff is like, I don't care what people think. I'm 40 years old and I'm just trying to save my life and worry about me and my family. And as long as I'm taking care of me, everything else is going to fall in place. And that's what the thing how you mentioned earlier about, you know, with people, you know, not not understanding like, okay, that person is struggling like it's okay not to be okay. It's okay. Yeah, we're all we all got issues. We all got problems. 

Rich Bennett 40:56
And people are not perfect. 

Kerry Paradis 40:57
No one's perfect. And anyone who's acting like they are and they got it all together, they got more problems. And all this, I mean, really, Right? Right. I mean, come on. 

Wendy Beck 41:04
You know, it's okay. Society will lie to you. And then who. 

Kerry Paradis 41:07
Doesn't have problems after COVID? I mean, come on. 

Rich Bennett 41:09
Even before. 

Wendy Beck 41:10
You have a problem, we. 

Kerry Paradis 41:11
All for go. Everyone. Everyone has issues, and it's okay. And you know what it is? It's okay to talk about it. 

Rich Bennett 41:17
Thank you for saying that. It is because and there are a lot of people that still believe it's not okay to talk about. 

Kerry Paradis 41:25
Got to talk about it. If I would have never shared it. Harbor of Grace and told Eilene everything I've been through, I would never be sitting right right now. 

Rich Bennett 41:31
I would be that from you telling your story, you're helping other people. 

Kerry Paradis 41:34
Yeah. And that's what I'm hoping. 

Rich Bennett 41:36
And I mean, that's I think that has I'm just grateful that more people are talking about it about a lot of things. 

Kerry Paradis 41:48
It needs. It needs to be talked about. 

Rich Bennett 41:49
Yeah, absolutely. 

Kerry Paradis 41:50
You know, back in the olden days, you know, people didn't talk about things and where did that get you right. Mhm. 

Wendy Beck 41:55
Right. Yeah. Let's talk about dirty little secret. You know the you know you have the, the house where you know there's the, the family that has the woman that's the alcoholic and no one wants to talk about it, you know, and she doesn't even know what she can do to help herself because that was one of the reasons why I started rage was because I had a daughter and I realized and I didn't know at first what was going on, but there was I did not know what to do for her. There were no resources. So like for me, I was just like, okay, I'm going to start building safety nets. Like, I don't know, like anything about this. I mean, ACR was in existence at the time. However, it wasn't something that I knew about and just it just was it. And how would I know? I was in a situation where, you know, she was up to whatever she was up to with the friends that she was with. And I was, you know, the mom who was, you know, basically knocking on the door saying, hey, we have a problem. And everyone was closing the door on me. Not my kid, not my kid. I don't want to hear about it. It's growing pains. It's this and that to the point where when it wasn't, I was just like, okay, now what? You know? So that's when I, you know, I started the organization and then I met other people in the community and like Linda, who was actually we're related, which we didn't know which, huh? Yeah, She's my cousin. Yeah. 

Kerry Paradis 43:16
Oh, really? 

Wendy Beck 43:17
Oh, yeah. So, you know, it's just kind of funny how like, what a small world it can be. You you knew that we talked about it when she was here before, huh? 

Rich Bennett 43:25
Yeah, you did? 

Kerry Paradis 43:26
Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 43:26
Well. 

F1 S4 43:27
Maybe not. 

Rich Bennett 43:30
Carrie, I have to ask you this, because you mentioned, you know, especially during COVID, when you started drinking again, how was your one daughter that saw you in the closet and went and told your husband? But now that you're in recovery, how are your daughters? 

Kerry Paradis 43:46
Her Awesome. 

Rich Bennett 43:47
Are they. 

Kerry Paradis 43:48
Okay? There was this one time we were you know, it's hard. You know, you get put back into those situations where, you know, the community and everyone's drinking and it's tough. Right? Right. You know, and and that's what made me kind of start revival for recovery. So when I was there, you know, some of the moms were just dancing and being silly. And I would have been right up there with those moms. Right. And I had I was having a hard time and I was over there drinking my sparkling water, you know, And I told my husband, I said, I'm having a hard time with this. And he said, you want to leave? I said, No, I don't want to do that to my kids. You know, I can get through what I can do. I'll be all right. And I told my sponsor, right. So that's like number one thing people don't do, right? They don't let anyone know that they were going to drink or drug. Right. But I listen to the people who helped me get where I was. And first thing you want to do is tell somebody. So I told my husband and I told my sponsor, I do now. Two people know. 

Wendy Beck 44:33
Immediately you have support. 

Kerry Paradis 44:34
People know that I'm having a situation, right? So their eyes are on me. There's no sneaking off into the bathroom and throwing back some. Right? Not happening. Right? So we get home that night. My my daughter had no idea I was having a hard time with any of this. Right. She's having fun with all her friends at the end of the school year pool party. Everything's great, right? We get home that night, we're brushing our teeth, and my daughter looks at me and she says, Mom, I just want you to know how proud I am of you. Your mom. Yeah. That you weren't one of those moms up there making a fool of yourself. And I'm so grateful that you're sober. And I was like, That was it? 

Wendy Beck 45:04
Well, that's the one thing we pay a ten year. 

Kerry Paradis 45:06
Old at the time. She's 11. 

Wendy Beck 45:07
Now. They know. 

Kerry Paradis 45:08
She knows. Yeah, she's. She'll. She'll write me cards and be like, Mom, you can do anything. You got sober. You know my mommy. I love you so much. My younger daughter, Ari, I love you so much. I'm so glad you're sober. Like they know because they knew how I was before. And now I'm here. Present. Do you know you were going to go to ice cream? You know, before I was like, I, you know, ice cream. I'm half loaded. I don't want to go anywhere. You want to go to Target? I'm ready to go to Target. And because I'm not half shitfaced, you know, sorry to say shitfaced. 

Rich Bennett 45:31
Well, that's okay. You're you're fine. 

Wendy Beck 45:33
That's okay. We're we're going. 

Rich Bennett 45:34
There's no filters. 

Wendy Beck 45:37
So that kind of brings us up to speed to, like, what you're doing now. I mean, you are a peer, but you have this, like you said, revival for recovery. And what is that? 

Kerry Paradis 45:45
Yeah. So basically, you know, you know, ACR, we're hoping to move forward and have like a community center for people. But, you know, in the meantime, whether it's how small it is, I know it doesn't even bother, you know, mind me like, I'll just do it out of where my I have my photography studio, right. You know, I have a photography through by Harvard Gymnastics just to kind of get people together. So my idea of it is it's called revival for recovery come as you are. It's a nonprofit. I just set it up this past January. We've had a couple events. The first event was in October or actually it was in September during recovery month, and the community came together so incredibly for me, like I had just never experienced something like that. I mean, like Silver Spring Mining Company, Vagabond Newberry Donuts, Coffee, Coffee, Mama. Amish people just donated every. 

Rich Bennett 46:38
Right. 

Kerry Paradis 46:38
And the whole event was free. I didn't charge anybody anything. We had it up at Stone View Farm. It was in September. It was a beautiful day. I mean, the weather was perfect. It was a incredible and we had speakers that we had two speakers share and, you know, experience, strength and hope. I had a deejay. I had a photo booth. I mean, we went all out and everyone donated their services. A woman that owns 

the store and Twig Dawn did all the flowers. People just were just incredible for for this event. And I couldn't believe it. Well, 60 people came out for that event, right? September. It's beautiful. So, you know, holidays are really hard, you know, especially when being in recovery. So we were like, hey, you know, revival forever. Let's get another event together for the community. Let's bring everybody together after the holidays. Right? So it's I'm not probably doing any more events in January. Maybe I'll do it 

in February after football. So want to be in like playoff football, the Ravens playoff football right. Snowing and it's icy. Right. 80 people came out. I couldn't believe it. We had it all. We had it at the Great Hall over there, right where my photography studio is by Harvard Gymnastics of a Whitaker Mill. And people came out. I couldn't believe it. I we had four speakers. 

Wendy Beck 47:54
I think a lot of our women went there. 

Kerry Paradis 47:55
It was. Yeah, they were. Oh, yeah. Rachel was there. Yeah, yeah, Abby was there. Yeah. We the community. It was just amazing. You know, we had different vendors there. We have different people from like, you know, the, you know, same with the event in September, like we have people throughout the recovery. People have their table set up for all the resources. Like you come here and you're going to if you're looking for something, we're going to try to help you get that, you know, good. And yeah, we have like fast Eddie's caterer it same thing, you know, Dawn and Silver Spring. Everyone came together again and we did a whole thing and we had four speakers. We had a deejay, and then we did Raffles. This time we had Ravel baskets like it was. So I'm thinking, you know, why is that going to bad, right? I mean, you can throw an event like that and January dawns, you know, playoff football in the snow and 80 people come out. I can't imagine when we have our next event. So we're our next event is in May, May 19th. We're going to do a run walk starting at it's like at the manpower trail where like the clear dundrum comes down and we're going to have the I have a mocktail trailer that I use. 

Wendy Beck 48:56
Right. That's what I was going to ask next about the beer. 

Kerry Paradis 48:58
And how that's set up. We're going to do some speakers there. We'll have donuts and coffee for everybody. It's a free event. You don't have to pay. I just want people to come together as the community and grow and know that they're not the only ones. Because I remember when I got out of rehab, you have nowhere to go. You get right back into your neighborhood, you get put right back into your community. People have so many things going through divorce, children, who's got a child, who's, you know, who's got custody of the kids? Screw it, I'm drinking again. I'm drug and I can't handle this stress. But if these people have a safe place to come, I want them to be able to come to a revival for recovery. And eventually it would be like a place where you could come and you can get therapy, you can come meet your sponsor, you can get detox, you can come and you can grab a coffee. You know, you can sit and read a book, a safe place for you to come where other people in the community are all gathered. And on the left side of the facility, I want to have a focus area for families so we can go out as far as families, other children in, you know, other parents in recovery with children that have, you know, parents like that. We're all together as a community. We can go kayaking, whitewater rafting. We can book these trips together and go with the recovery community as different families. And you can all hang out with people in recovery because people who are in recovery love hanging out with people in recovery. 

Wendy Beck 50:10
Yeah, right. Yeah. 

Kerry Paradis 50:11
And really just bringing it all together because it is okay not to be okay, you know, And I really want people to understand that there are people there that want to be hanging out with you. There's that you're you're fine. You just got you haven't found your people yet, you know, and I know those people are out there and I just want to try to bring them all together to make something like a really special place for them. But for now, we kind of have it like, you know, mobile doing a couple of things out of the studio. You know, getting the word out. 

Rich Bennett 50:35
I building it all. 

Kerry Paradis 50:37
Building it up, you know, just, you know, trying to just do what I can, you know, for for now until, you know, I get to where it needs to be. So I have a horse trailer that we renovated and we made it into a mobile mocktail bar. So I do different recovery events. We do nonalcoholic like healthy drinks. Okay. Okay. We're not doing, like, daiquiris or anything. We're doing like, much. 

Wendy Beck 51:01
More like green smoothies and that kind of stuff. 

Kerry Paradis 51:03
So it's more probably like, like club soda, fresh blueberries, blackberries. We do like a green tea drink. It's got peaches in it. It's really good. And they're all fresh made with fruit and they're healthy. You know, it's not like, you know, a banana, you know, pina colada, banana dagger, you know, triggering like. Yeah, yeah. It's just like, it's just really like a kind of like a sparkling water with fruit and we just kind of make it, like, special. So you feel, you know what I mean? So you can feel like you're having it? Yeah. I mean, that's what I do on a Friday night. I have kombucha and I have my sparkling water. So I have. 

Rich Bennett 51:36
What? 

Kerry Paradis 51:36
Kombucha? 

Rich Bennett 51:38
What is that? 

Kerry Paradis 51:39
It's like a probiotic drink and, yeah, like a lot of enzyme. I don't. 

Wendy Beck 51:42
Think it tastes. 

Kerry Paradis 51:43
Good. Oh, okay. You got to get the right one. I was making that stuff, and he did a really good job. He had, like, a blueberry blackberry one. Yeah. So? So we've done some different events and we've done, you know, lots of events throughout the recovery community. We'll just bring the trailer and we'll just set up shop. And we did the softball for sobriety. We did, um, we've done the Boston firehouse. We went up there, we've handed out drinks and flowers for Mother's Day. So, you know, being a part of the community and getting that out there, let them know, like, this is okay. It's it's really special. We relaunch the trailer, the Mobile Mocktail bar, April of last year. So I kind of missed some of that, you know, beginning of spring marketing. But now, you know, getting the word out, you know, February this year. So hopefully that, you know, we'll get to even do more events this year and then I rent it, you know, it can be rented. So know doing the photography like people can rent the trailer for their bar for a wedding or whatever they write it for, you know, But for me in the recovery feel like I just like to take that and kind of give back to the community any way I can. And it's really cool. And my daughters love it. And then I'm sure like a family affair. And it's really it's really, really cute. It's yeah. 

Wendy Beck 52:53
I did see I guess I did see you at the software for sobriety as well. But I didn't I didn't get a mocktail. 

Rich Bennett 53:00
Yeah. The thing is, there's this trailer. There's so many, like Christmas time, there's so many places you can go set up and do the hot cocoa and stuff. Yeah, different types of hot cocoa. 

Kerry Paradis 53:09
Yeah, we did that. I did that for the, for my photography for my Christmas mini session. So we had that. We had hot chocolate. We did we used it as a like a prop, you know. Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 53:20
It's cute. Yeah. Thank you. I saw it. Thank you. Yeah. 

Kerry Paradis 53:24
How are you? What are you thinking about the next event you're having. You can use it. Let me know. 

Rich Bennett 53:29
Oh, I'm thinking of all kinds of. 

Wendy Beck 53:31
Well, how can everybody thinking about it, You know, finding out about revival for recovery Or if they want. 

Kerry Paradis 53:37
They can visit our website. It's revival for recovery, dawg. And then the trailer is just unique trailer events dot com but you know, you can just reach out to me and I can help Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 53:51
So is revival for recovery a nonprofit? Yes, it is. Okay, so you guys are five one. I do. Nice. Awesome. But this. 

Wendy Beck 54:00
Is the trailer and. 

Kerry Paradis 54:01
I got two donations. 

Wendy Beck 54:02
The ACR. I show special is the is the trailer part of the nonprofit? Yes. Okay. 

Kerry Paradis 54:10
Yeah. So like this event that we're doing and made the trailer will be there. You know it just wasn't at the winter one because it was winter and we're all inside of a wedding venue. But the other one, we had it all set up with mocktails and we were doing donuts and snacks and stuff out of it. Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 54:24
That's cool. 

Kerry Paradis 54:24
Yeah, it was. It was. 

Rich Bennett 54:25
I'm hungry now. 

Wendy Beck 54:27
I'm hungry to. 

Kerry Paradis 54:29
Have a. 

Rich Bennett 54:29
Day, but I have a big Silver Spring. Mine is. 

Wendy Beck 54:33
Going to bring us, like. 

Rich Bennett 54:34
Spring beef and dumplings. 

Kerry Paradis 54:35
Oh, yeah. That's so funny. I thought Silver Spring. So she my company. 

Wendy Beck 54:40
Oh, yeah. My mom just went there to get that. I would not. 

Kerry Paradis 54:43
I managed there for seven years. I worked. Really I did. I worked the. 

Rich Bennett 54:47
Watering. 

Kerry Paradis 54:47
Hole. I started in Terre Haute, but I actually opened their Hunt Valley store when they first opened. 

Rich Bennett 54:52
Okay, we got to talk about. 

Kerry Paradis 54:53
How we got here. 

Wendy Beck 54:55
But the Hunt Valley is not there, so they don't. 

Kerry Paradis 54:57
Have that anymore. They have the Perry Home Valley location. Yeah. Yeah. Which is all they need. And I still talk to Gary. Gary knows I'm in recovery and there's they were always so good to me. They came to my wedding. They were really good, really good people. They always took good care of me. You know, Gary is the hockey player. 

Rich Bennett 55:15
The Go ahead. 

Wendy Beck 55:16
No, I'm just watching you as your wheels are turning. 

Rich Bennett 55:19
I'm afraid I told you I know her from some. Well. 

Wendy Beck 55:22
Obviously, you've been, you know, in the same circles for, you know, probably bypassing each other over the years. Yeah, it's probably, you know. 

Rich Bennett 55:30
Well. 

Wendy Beck 55:31
I was with the Avenger because he was a deejay, right? Yeah. So you did weddings and you did weddings, so, you know, it's. 

Kerry Paradis 55:37
Yeah, for sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. But yeah. So the next event is May 19th for Revival for Recovery is going to be a run walk and then we'll have two speakers and have some donuts and coffee afterwards and I'm just looking forward to just trying to help as many people as I can. Really, honestly. 

Rich Bennett 55:53
You already are. 

Kerry Paradis 55:54
Really grateful that you guys had me here today. Yeah. You know, get the word out there that it's okay not to be okay and to talk about whatever's on your mind. You know, that's why the peer coaching is so important, because, you know, you can kind of find in someone you know, and sit and talk with them all. 

Wendy Beck 56:10
And these add on services are really important for, you know, especially in a recovery house. You know, they're they're going through so much and just to have you know, they have to network, they have to find a sponsor. They have to do that. But like being a peer and having the peers come into the house, you know, I don't know if you guys announce that you're coming or you just stop by. You know, I don't know how that works. 

Kerry Paradis 56:30
No, we announce it. 

Wendy Beck 56:31
Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying, like, you know, you're always going to hit someone at some point in their day and, you know, you don't know. 

Kerry Paradis 56:39
Where they're. 

Wendy Beck 56:39
At. Yeah, that's exactly right. That and the peer profession, I think, is just beginning. I think that that's going to be something that is really important. 

Rich Bennett 56:51
It already is. 

Wendy Beck 56:52
Well, it is. I mean, and the billable services and that type of stuff is I think it's going to catapult eventually. 

Kerry Paradis 57:00
I agree. 

Wendy Beck 57:00
Yeah. Yeah, it is. I did the class. I didn't get certified because I'm not in recovery. So I just wanted to like, get all the info. Yeah. And it is, it, it's awesome. It's a very good training. I think anybody should go through it. 

Kerry Paradis 57:13
And it's good for people who are in recovery to get a job in that field because they have experienced it. 

Wendy Beck 57:19
So like I think it's a great stepping stone and I and I do feel like there is a level of burnout that can happen for them. But I've seen so many people that have been in a recovery house and then they do the peer certification and then they they they move on. You know, it's like part of their progression because they're living in it. And I feel like sometimes they're ready to to move on to something else as time goes on. But for others, it really just helps them like, you know, like Rachel, she she's she's amazing. All those women. 

Kerry Paradis 57:51
She's amazing. She is. 

Wendy Beck 57:53
Yeah. 

Kerry Paradis 57:54
I'm a huge fan. I was texting her this morning. You know, I'm just going to these girls out and look for jobs this afternoon. You know, anything I need to tell them? I was like, I need my meeting. I said, I'm doing this podcast. I'll come pick you up and we'll go there and look for some jobs. Yeah, Yeah, of course. 

Wendy Beck 58:07
I think because we do have a couple of new people. Yes. Yeah. 

Kerry Paradis 58:10
Yep. Yes, you. 

Wendy Beck 58:11
Do. I know. I do know what's going on, but I'm like, I'm focused. 

Rich Bennett 58:16
I. 

Wendy Beck 58:17
I'm here today, right? 

Rich Bennett 58:19
I yeah, you were actually early. 

Wendy Beck 58:22
I'm always on time and I might be a little fashionably late from time to time, but. 

Kerry Paradis 58:29
He's getting excited. You? 

Rich Bennett 58:31
Oh, I'm not saying anything. 

Wendy Beck 58:34
Like this is going to be a long day for me today. This weekend? 

Rich Bennett 58:37
Yeah. Oh. 

Kerry Paradis 58:38
Yeah. We're doing. 

Wendy Beck 58:40
Well. Thank you. 

Kerry Paradis 58:41
Thank you. Thank you. 

Rich Bennett 58:42
Yes, definitely. Thank you.