The Season 3 Sampler lets you get a bite of each episode:
1. Shawn's Story
2. Aeris' Story Part 1
3. Jason's Story
4. Superintendent Summit
5. Losing Someone to Overdose
6. CSO Shane's Story
7. Aeris's Story Part 2

Covering lots of really tough stuff, and emerging with our humanity intact, this sampler is all about connecting to each others' stories.

Off The Clock Toolbox Talk
Men forging health in the unregulated drug crisis, through real f**king talk.
Learn more about the podcast series at TradesPodcast.com.

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Aeris’s Story Part 2 picks up where Aeris is just coming back to reality after being in a coma for a month. His steadfast family helps him slowly recover from kidney, liver and brain damage. Advocating on his behalf, his family asks the doctors for a pain specialist as they believe Aeris consumed poisoned drug supply because he was attempting to self medicate his pain from multiple surgeries and ongoing complex medical diagnoses. With the prevailing assumptions about people who access unregulated drug supply, instead of a pain specialist, Aeris is given an addictions doctor. While Aeris has minimal intellectual functioning as his brain is still swollen and recovering, instead of supporting him with his pain management, the healthcare system coerces him into going on OAT (Opioid Agonist Treatment) that effectively causes him to become dependent on opioids that don’t actually address his pain. So as Aeris fights to regain his intellectual capacity and day to day functioning in his life, by virtue of what OAT is, he is now also dependent on opioids again and he is daily humiliated by a doctor who refuses to take him or his family at their word. Because Aeris is willing to do anything and everything he can to recover, to be there for his kids and family, he tolerates this inhumane treatment from the medical system for over a year.

Eventually Aeris becomes well enough that he’s able to self advocate to find another more trauma-informed doctor who supports Aeris to manage his own Suboxone tapering, and Aeris is able to fully recover, including recovery of dignity. Between ongoing Crohn’s and other health issues that have emerged due to Crohn’s, Aeris’s rebar days come to a mutually agreeable end. While Aeris is feeling lost without his rod busting crew, an opportunity to become a drug testing specialist with Mountainside Harm Reduction emerges where Aeris is able to utilize all his personal and family experiences with substances, and give other folks the supports that he rarely found. https://mtnsidesociety.ca/

“Be kind to that person on the street… you don’t know what they're dealing with… and sometimes one moment of kindness could honestly save a life… Do the best to advocate yourself, or do your best because I know it can be really hard... Get your drugs checked!” – Aeris Finch

Off The Clock Toolbox Talk
Men forging health in the unregulated drug crisis, through real f**king talk.
Learn more about the podcast series at TradesPodcast.com.

Please give us your honest feedback by completing our anonymous survey at tradespodcast.com.
You'll be given the opportunity to enter our monthly draw for a $200 grocery card.
Thanks for supporting Off The Clock Toolbox Talk.

As rod buster Aeris Finch refers to partway through his story, his struggle really began at age 11, when he lost his older brother to an MDMA accident. But some of the effects of that trauma didn’t emerge until he began experimenting with substances himself as a teenager. Another layer of complexity emerged when Aeris developed painful and debilitating Crohn’s disease while working rebar as young adult. While Aeris’s description of his day-to-day existence with Crohn’s is graphic, it highlights the desperation of ridiculous circumstances that many tradespeople with extreme stressors have to navigate while trying to meet the grueling demands of physically intensive labour.

The stakes rise yet again in Aeris’s story as he desperately clings to the company he works for, doing everything he can to provide for his new family, and in the midst of trying to find some brief relief, comes into toxic drug supply, and stops breathing for long enough that for all intents and purposes, he is brain-dead. Remarkably kept alive for weeks by machines and medical interventions, Aeris survives against medical prognosis. We leave Part 1 as Aeris emerges from his coma and begins to return to reality from intense brain swelling. But the story is only half over. Listen to Aeris’s Story Part 2 to find out what happened next as Aeris tries to recover from hypoxic brain injury from drug poisoning.

Off The Clock Toolbox Talk
Men forging health in the unregulated drug crisis, through real f**king talk.
Learn more about the podcast series at TradesPodcast.com.

Please give us your honest feedback by completing our anonymous survey at tradespodcast.com.
You'll be given the opportunity to enter our monthly draw for a $200 grocery card.
Thanks for supporting Off The Clock Toolbox Talk.

Superintendent Summit features in-depth discussion about how to lead work sites in a day where all our crews are affected by mental health and overdose (drug poisoning). From their own experiences, Superintendents Duncan Jordan and Trevor Botkin together with CSO Shane Sewell discuss many of the factors that have to be juggled between the demands of the business and the wellness of the crews; both ends have to be balanced to produce profit and have a crew healthy enough to produce the profit. Duncan and Trevor discuss that a super’s job is not to be a psychologist or counsellor. But when they can build a crew where people feel seen and heard, where the super is perceived as approachable by crew members, when crew members see themselves as invested in the physical and mental safety of the worksite, then striking the balance between profit and wellness becomes attainable. The development of these social skills, however, are not typically afforded to a superintendent; it often happens through a super’s personal journey or recovery. And that’s difficult to facilitate as an active Superintendent.

Duncan emphasizes the importance of education in all things safety – physical on site safety, safety with drug use, and safety with one’s mental health. Duncan gets personal and tells us how he tries to educate folks through the story of loved ones he’s lost to suicide. Trevor shares that he’s also lost beloved crew members to suicide as well. They agree that these losses drive them to take an extra moment with crew members, friends and family, even when there’s so much on their plate. Co-host Karen ties it up with a feeling that project participants have expressed before, that all these beloved people we’ve lost in construction, that perhaps its their energy that carries us forward in the work we do, to create a world where people can talk about these things, where previous generations could not.

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, 988 is Canada’s suicide crisis line. You can call by yourself, 24/7, or you can call together with a buddy. Many of us in the Off the Clock Toolbox Talk community know these feelings and are sending out our love and hope to you.

Off The Clock Toolbox Talk
Men forging health in the unregulated drug crisis, through real f**king talk.
Learn more about the podcast series at TradesPodcast.com.

Please give us your honest feedback by completing our anonymous survey at tradespodcast.com.
You'll be given the opportunity to enter our monthly draw for a $200 grocery card.
Thanks for supporting Off The Clock Toolbox Talk.

CSO Shane Sewell (different than Shayne’s Story) takes us on his heart’s journey from an 8-year-old with an invisible disability and an abusive parent, to an adult inner life that was continually erupting with low self esteem and feeling like he wasn’t good enough. Shane relates to many with tales of public school failure, difficulty fitting in, and eventually living a life that centred around substance use. Shane’s unconscious trauma responses, that outwardly appeared in his drug and alcohol use, caused the loss of his first marriage and brought him to a place where he couldn’t even carry on basic life functioning. With no other options, he entered treatment at Maple Ridge Treatment Centre and began putting the pieces back together. Eventually Shane found a new partner whom he credits with helping him recover. Together they had a daughter, and Shane began noticing that he was doing all the same things to his family that his dad had done to him. A return visit to Maple Ridge Treatment Centre gave Shane the tools and recovery capital he needed to build a life that had meaning for him. He found that meaning by helping others through his work as a CSO, which feeds his soul as much as it feeds his family.

Thank-you, Shane, for helping us understand through our hearts, which sometimes work better than our brains.

Off The Clock Toolbox Talk
Men forging health in the unregulated drug crisis, through real f**king talk.
Learn more about the podcast series at TradesPodcast.com.

Please give us your honest feedback by completing our anonymous survey at tradespodcast.com.
You'll be given the opportunity to enter our monthly draw for a $200 grocery card.
Thanks for supporting Off The Clock Toolbox Talk.

Jason White, electrician and former rock star hopeful, shares his story of substance use, addiction, and the sharp turn that snatched him out of a sinking darkness, showing him a better way of being. Like many people’s stories contain powerful moments of change, Jason’s includes a moment of divine intervention, followed up by an unlikely confirmation days later that played out on a tour bus in stopped traffic in the middle of the Trans Canada Highway. With a film crew on board the tour bus, you can still watch this music video that captured the moment and catch a glimpse of Jason at this point in his life at https://youtu.be/o1__RgU7WD4?si=46jZipiNpJSpuxm6

Jason ties up his story with heartfelt outreach to other men who are struggling with mental health and substance use. Jason also reflects on losing a family member to suicide, encouraging men to find someone around them they can talk to, and encouraging foremen and other leaders to be that guy who asks others how its really going.

Special thanks to https://www.nightelect.com/ for supporting this episode and OTCTBT!

Off The Clock Toolbox Talk
Men forging health in the unregulated drug crisis, through real f**king talk.
Learn more about the podcast series at TradesPodcast.com.

Please give us your honest feedback by completing our anonymous survey at tradespodcast.com.
You'll be given the opportunity to enter our monthly draw for a $200 grocery card.
Thanks for supporting Off The Clock Toolbox Talk.

If you've been looking for relatable, non-invasive support after losing someone to overdose (drug poisoning), you've found it. Holding heartbreak in one hand and inspiration to take action in the other, Kale Moth and Julie Cochrane explore life after losing their loved one to overdose.

Kale talks about the increasing crisis in Saskatchewan where he works, having lost 23 co-workers in the last 6 years. Julie talks about her professional practice, as a hypnotherapist, inspired to bring timely and effective services to young men who are suffering from their own pain, loss, and mental health issues.

Julie quickly transitions into her grief journey where she just needed to take action, to learn and prevent other families from going through the suffering her family has. From the surreal moments the police showed up at their door, to seeing the overdose crisis being politically weaponized, this episode meaningfully moves through the personal tragedy, the what-if's, stigma, and how we move forward, together.

Resources mentioned in this episode are Mom's Stop the Harm, Holding Hope group for people supporting a loved one using substances https://www.momsstoptheharm.com/holding-hope-support-groups AND Healing Hearts for families who have had a death from drug poisoning https://www.momsstoptheharm.com/healing-hearts-groups. Julie can also be contacted at Julie@JulieCochrane.com

Off The Clock Toolbox Talk
Men forging health in the unregulated drug crisis, through real f**king talk.
Learn more about the podcast series at TradesPodcast.com.

Please give us your honest feedback by completing our anonymous survey at tradespodcast.com.
You'll be given the opportunity to enter our monthly draw for a $200 grocery card.
Thanks for supporting Off The Clock Toolbox Talk.

Ironworker, Shawn Underhill, joins Daniel and Karen to talk about his journey through problematic substance use and addiction. From Shawn’s early days smoking pot as a teen in his first construction job, to navigating problematic substance use in camps up north, to using to get through pain, grief, and exhaustion, Shawn demonstrates how recovery is anything but a straight line. Daniel and Shawn discuss how, on average, most people addicted to opioids struggle with that addiction for 15 years, but they do recover, even though it typically takes multiple attempts.

The recurring theme of Shawn’s story is his mom’s constant voice, in her life and death, urging Shawn to access help at Fraser House Society (the host organization of this podcast). And every time he returned, he grew more and more, adding to his toolbox, ultimately creating a life of beauty that he loves.

Shawn’s counsellor, Sam, jumps in at the end and Shawn and Sam give us some insight on what the first few weeks of counselling are like, and what its like to begin the counselling journey. Shawn closes out with a poem he wrote at a very dark time, to cultivate hope for us all.

Off The Clock Toolbox Talk
Men forging health in the unregulated drug crisis, through real f**king talk.
Learn more about the podcast series at TradesPodcast.com.

Please give us your honest feedback by completing our anonymous survey at tradespodcast.com.
You'll be given the opportunity to enter our monthly draw for a $200 grocery card.
Thanks for supporting Off The Clock Toolbox Talk.