Nick Middaugh
Appearances
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And then all of a sudden, I found myself at 275. And I can understand. It gave me a different appreciation for being fit. And I can also understand how hard it is to get that weight off for people.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
because you get up there and then you're just, you look in the mirror and you're like, Oh my God, like I used to be this fit kid who would go into burning buildings or I'd, you know, cut somebody out of a car or whatever it might be. And, uh, now I'm like fat, I'm out of shape. I've run out of breath real easy, you know, going upstairs and shit like that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, but the process to, you know, really start getting that weight off is, um, I had like intermittent periods of sobriety.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah, it is. No, I, um, like I said, you know, I was raised in this environment where like my parents were, especially as I got older, they're really trying to steer us away from, you know, the path of alcohol and drugs and stuff like that. You know, telling us like, Hey, you know, you can go out and have some drinks at a party, but be safe, be smart. Don't drink too much.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
You know, don't let it become a habit. And, uh, you know, especially like growing up in church and in the middle of nowhere in Michigan, like there's a lot of that, um, you know, drugs are bad. Alcohol is not good.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I don't think that's just, but, um, so I knew, you know, uh, I knew that it probably wasn't the best path to walk, but I was in such a state of victimhood. Um, you know, at a, at a certain point, even though it was wrong, it was like the conscious effort to to just drink. And then once you get to a certain point, you're addicted.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And there's a lot of things that changes, I think, with you physiologically as well as like mentally. Just once you're addicted, like your mental health you know, it gets different and you find different ways to kind of justify the continuance of that dependency.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And that was me hook, line, and sinker. I couldn't go a day without drinking. Would you have physical symptoms if you did? Not in that short of a turnaround. Maybe a little bit. I'd get like a headache at worst. There really wasn't a whole lot of periods in my life where, you know, I went without it. You know, now when I did have a few brief stints of sobriety, maybe it was like a week,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
or a couple days, I tell myself, I'm gonna stop drinking, I'm not gonna go back, this is a problem, I've gained all this weight, I'm not good to my family when I'm drinking all the time. Do you ever wake up super hungover, like I'm never drinking again?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yep. Yep. Yep. About 12 hours. I'd be back in the checkout lane getting more stuff.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And the hangover, like, especially after you get sober, like, you realize just how shitty you feel every day for years. And then you're like, wow, I don't have to, like, run to the bathroom or guzzle a bunch of water to feel normal or deal with this headache.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, I told myself that all the time. Yeah, but when did it stick? When it stuck, it was probably shortly before my second boy was born in 2021. I ended up quitting about a month after he was born, September 9th. And I had just had enough.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
You know, I realized at some point before that, and I mean, my story, you've got suicide, you've got suicide attempts, you've got this addiction, you've got all sorts of trauma, you've got the childhood stuff, and I've got the stuff that I went through as an adult. And just really poor mental health. But essentially around that time, like I realized like, hey, I need to be, you know,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I need to be the dad that I want to be, and in order to do that, I need to be the man that, you know, is on top of the mountain that I claim I have something in common with when I'm really just a walking hypocrite.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Right, right. But, yeah, I mean— I wanted it bad enough. I wanted it more than anything in my life to just be sober.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, it was super difficult. Did it get easier as time went on? It has. So sitting here now, I'm a little over three years sober from alcohol. I mean, it was rough at first. I mean, headaches, shakes, just.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, irritable. And then you have this whole other, you know, aside from the physical symptoms, you have this whole other aspect of like. Now I have to cope with life like a normal person does.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. And there's no retreat. And, you know, I can't just shut things off. So now I got to figure out how to do this. And, you know, on top of that, just the normal daily stresses of life, raising kids, you know, working a job, whatever. There's all this trauma that I've been burying, you know, in the bottom of a bottle for so long. So now I got to work on that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
you know, now that's confronting me and I have nothing to soften the blow, so to speak.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. So, um, on the outside, my childhood is awesome. It's great. Um, wonderful family, wonderful parents, um, kind of idyllic, like slow country upbringing in the middle of nowhere in the thumb of Michigan. Um, You said the thumb of Michigan?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And I got to do the Michigander thing real quick. So if you're in Michigan.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And you don't know. Nobody knows. Where you're from. You pull out the old hand. Yeah. And you say, hey, man, I'm from like right over here.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
From what I've heard, and I have no idea because I'm from there, so how can I even tell? But from what I've heard, we put a lot of emphasis on our vowels over there.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah, and that's really what it was because – and it's weird to talk about because my experience is – You know, kind of like I ended up connecting with Seth, who was on here recently, and talking about, you know, some of this stuff a little bit.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, it's incredible, his story. Being able to do what he does, considering all of that, because the key difference between, obviously, not to compare anything, but he didn't have a home where he could from listening to a story, uh, where he can kind of retreat.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. And for me, you know, I think one of the main reasons why, even though I went off the path and became an alcoholic and went through all this stuff, one of the core reasons why I'm still here and I'm not a statistic is because I had a home full of love that I could go back to. Um, so yeah, My earliest childhood memories are that of sexual abuse.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
When I think about, you know, when I look back and I look at my childhood and like my earliest memories, there's, you know, being a kid playing with my parents. And then right next to that, there's being in a closet with a kid around my age, receiving oral sex and then having to provide oral From a kid about your age? About my age, yeah. Holy shit.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
A little bit bigger than me, a little intimidating. He was my first best friend.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, it started there. Okay. So little kid me, you know, literally this was like the very first friend that I had.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Neighbors. Yeah. Mom and dad were friends with his mom and dad.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And we spent a lot of time because of the close proximity and the closeness in age. He has several siblings. I have my brother and we kind of were bracketed in that age group.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Best I can tell from what I can remember, I was either four or five.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So the fun part about this is like I have not talked to him. I haven't talked to his family. That's something that I might do in the future.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, so that's kind of what I've arrived to just based on, you know, the research proposal I wrote during college and, um, whatever written in the book and just kind of like trying to understand this issue more is that's obviously, you know, shocker. That's not normal little kid behavior, but,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. You've got a couple of different kind of perpetrator classes. CSA is defined in part by anybody that you know, a minor either receiving unwanted touches or exposure to sexual themes, um, by another minor or an adult. So the, what he did essentially, um, is a product of the grooming behavior that I am sure that he was undergoing. That's what I was going to say.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
There's no doubt in my mind, especially with the grooming behavior that spilled over onto me that kept me quiet, there's no doubt in my mind that he was being sexually abused. None whatsoever. And you'll actually find a lot of times, well, maybe not a lot of times, but
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
the way that I think about it is you kind of have like these two branches out and, you know, this, I'm not an expert, you know, I'm just a survivor who went through it and then did some reading and, you know, I was trying to raise awareness, but you have, um, kids who are being sexually abused and perhaps they don't know what's wrong.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So then this is kind of the outcome is you have them doing it to other kids, whether they're younger or, um, you know, as his first friend, as his best friend, he, probably thought it was something that we would do. Um, if you try to look back in like little kid mind, but, and then I guess, but little kid mind is not necessarily tooled in the sexual direction like that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. So whoever was doing it to him, um, I think the reason why he knew how to do it to me first and then get me to do it to him was because that's probably what was happening to him, I think. Is the book out? It is. It's on Kindle or Amazon.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, a little bit. I've taken some precautions to not expose them because here's the thing. I don't blame him necessarily. What he did, I think, set me on a path that really messed with my mental health and everything over the years. But at the end of the day, he's a victim. You don't know that, actually. I don't, but that's my assumption is that somebody was doing this to him.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. No. And I don't, I don't reference him by name. I leave out a lot of details. I would even, um, point, obviously there's people out there that are going to sleuth, but, um, I've, I've tried to be very careful with leaving out some identifying details because I don't have any oil against him. Um,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I've thought about, you know, I'm kind of at this at this point in my journey of like healing from all of this stuff. I've had the thought of maybe talking to him. And it's just a very it's a little bit daunting. And there's like a push and pull as to whether or not I should. I don't know. It's just kind of. I don't think there's a wrong answer. Yeah. And I don't know.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I mean, is it necessary for my healing or like what's my motivation to do it? You know, is where I'm kind of stuck. Because I've reached a point where this stuff bothers me a lot less than it used to. I've gone to therapy. I'm continuing to go to therapy. I'm putting this book out. I'm trying to raise awareness. I've taken this stuff and I'm trying to walk a path of
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Turning it into something positive, I'm not sure if that means I need to have a conversation with them or not. Yeah, that's a fair point. You know, I don't know. How long did it continue for? Well, there was multiple instances, instances just like that. Yeah. And for the most part, I didn't I don't think I repressed. Some of it I straight up just didn't repress.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I mean, sometimes kids go through this stuff, they repress it, and then it pops up in adulthood, and they're like, holy shit, this happened to me. For me, there's a good season of this abuse happening that I just remember in vivid detail, and I always did. How long did it continue, though? Best I can tell, probably a year. Okay. I don't know how many occurrences. Do you remember why it stopped?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I do. And I go through, in the book, the reason why I said reader discretion advised is because I talk about this stuff explicit.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. I explicitly detail it. Um, at one point I, I have this memory and I kind of put it in the book. Um, Standing next to the sink with my mom, and I'm like a little kid, and I end up being scared that she's going to find this out, this stuff. But little kid me knows that what's happening is wrong. It makes me feel gross. I don't like it.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
There's a pit in my stomach, and I don't understand these feelings at the time, but I just know it's not right, and it's not good, and it doesn't make me feel good.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And, uh, so little kid me, you know, I'm like standing, I'm standing at the sink next to my mom and I'm trying to think of a way, like I can ask her like how to make this stop without revealing the secret because, because of the grooming and everything, like what this boy was parroting to me was like, your mom and dad aren't going to love you if they find out, you know, you're not going to be able to.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
This is from a five-year-old? Yeah. Fuck. I don't even think I could talk when I was five. Yeah. No, it's. um damning and that's that's kind of that's the nature of this issue is it's just evil um so i'm standing next to my mom at the sink and i remember asking her i'm like hey if this boy's doing something that if he's playing a game i don't want to play like how do i get him to stop and
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
She's like, well, just tell him you don't want to play anymore. And I'm like, OK, you know, like wipe my forehead like she didn't find out. OK, like this, maybe this can can get it to stop. And I remember on one specific hangout day or whatever occasion, I'm upstairs and he goes down to his pants and he's saying, hey, I want pee pee time. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. And.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
He says no fair, my house, my rules, like all these little kid phrases to negotiate, I guess. And I said, well, then I'm going to go home. And then after that, like I remember he would still chide me sometimes to try to get it to happen. And I just didn't. I was like, no. And, you know, talking about this in hindsight, you can kind of, you can apply a lot of like understanding.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
But at the time, like I'm just a little kid. You know, I don't really, I don't understand the gravity of what's going on. I'm just like, I don't want to do this anymore.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
What's that? It stopped him. Yeah. It stopped him though. Yeah.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Did he have any other close male friends? Um, people he hung out with like you. I think he had a few. Um,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, and that's part of that other push-pull to go and talk to him is because what if somebody else in the community is under threat? And to be clear, I'm not saying that he is like this today. I don't know. But, you know, is it continuing? Or did he go down the path that I went down where it was like, This is fucked up. This is wrong. I don't know.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So there's some answers there that I would like, but, you know, again, I'm just kind of in this place where do I really want to have that conversation or not? And I think I'm leaning towards yes, but I don't know. You know, I can see the fruits of it, get answers. pick his brain, see what was going on. Maybe there's some justice there.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
If the person who was doing it to him is still out there in a life.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Just that portion. So again, close proximity. Yeah. family friends um the part of the story that's i mean there's a few aspects of it that are kind of dark but um i ended up growing up with this kid as friends um you know trying to think back to before i was a preteen or a teenager
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I didn't always like hanging out with him and I had other friends that I preferred hanging out with because like we would hang out and there's this elephant in the room and we never talk about it. The little kids, I still don't understand what's going on other than I desperately don't want anyone to find out. So. Yeah, I ended up working for that family on their farm.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And I'm in this close proximity with him growing up as friends up until I'm like in high school. And around, I think, puberty, I really started to get angry. Like I really hated him. Didn't want to be with him, around him. Didn't want to hang out with him. Um, but there was almost like this pressure there because of, you know, my parents being friends with his parents, like to hang out.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And, uh, eventually, you know, like some circumstances changes, change that, um, we'll just say there was some proximity changes because I don't, again, you know, I'm not trying to expose who they are and whatnot. Um, And I didn't have to hang out with them as much, you know, so I kind of went my own way.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And then when I graduated high school, I split them, moved out, moved to Saginaw, um, was no longer anywhere near that area. So, you know, going home to me, you know, that's why I titled the book like suffering silences. And it's not just about me, but it's about male survivors in general. But, um, I was in a position where this shit was playing through my head every day and.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I didn't feel like I could tell anybody. And then I'm also, like, forced to hang out with my abuser. And so when I go back home now, it's like a weird feeling of going back to this place of, well, here's this trauma, but also, like, here's this beautiful home I grew up in.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So my mom and dad never found out. I ended up telling them two years ago. So I was reticent, meaning so completely silent. Reticence, just for the listeners, is a term we use for the duration between the abuse and disclosure.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Right. So, uh, around that period of my life, um, I'd been sober for a year and I went to therapy for, you know, I found this therapist initially when, um, I was trying to process some of the trauma and went through, uh, working at spread apartment of public safety as an officer.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And I kind of casually mentioned to her, you know, because I'm going to school for social work and I'm doing this therapy. And I kind of casually mentioned to her, I'm like, hey, you know, I have this shit that happened to me as a kid. And, you know, I'd kind of like to work through that at some point. But like right now, let's just focus on service related stuff.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And so I got through that and then we started to unpack what happened to me as a child. And there was some conversations about disclosure to my mom and dad. And around the same time, I was writing this research proposal into male CSA. And I just kind of saw it as this necessary path, I guess, that I needed to get to.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
To jump back just a second, growing up, I kind of played this game in my head related to the CSA where I'd set this
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
game this setting um i'd be the protagonist i'd be telling my mom and dad what happened essentially and i'd run out all the different reactions um like this almost like a simulation of like what i thought could happen what might happen if i told them you know at varying stages of my life and i played this game for years so when we were talking about in therapy it just seemed like something i wanted to get to um
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So ended up having a conversation with a family member who was vulnerable enough to share her story of abuse with me. Thank you, Stephanie. And I ended up from there disclosing to my older brother. And from there, he was kind of like the trial run because there was a lot of fear associated with even just telling him.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. And we can get into the kind of the fears associated with disclosure. But a few months later, I ended up kind of typing up this letter, like feverishly and trying to figure out like, what's the best way to try to disclose something like this. And so I go through several editions of this letter. And I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to take a letter up there with me.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And I'm going to give it to them. We can have a conversation, they can read it, because I wasn't sure if I was going to be emotionally stable enough to talk.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Smart. Because I wanted to be able to like give them this sensitive, loving delivery. And I wanted to come across a certain way and I just wasn't sure I'd be able to talk. you know, because of the emotions and whatnot.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, yeah, I ended up giving him a letter and, um, had him read it. And, um, we had a conversation. It was, uh, it was rough because as I, as I got older, like going into adulthood, um, Because, you know, as a little kid, I had this fear of people finding out because I thought I wouldn't be loved. I thought I wouldn't have a family, like all that stuff.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, those fears evolved into, at some point, like, I don't want to hurt my mom and dad with this coming to them years and years later. And I realize now that that fear is, you know, silly, but that's, as an abuse survivor, that's kind of like some of the stuff you think about is what keeps you reticent. at one point I decided like, I'm just going to live with this.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I'll just take you to the grave. Like, I don't have to tell anybody.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Would you have wanted your kids to do that? No, no. And I think that's also part of what is a motivator. First kid was born when I was 21.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Right. Well, and that's the thing too, is looking back, like, So my daughter's about to turn two. And we have three kids. They're awesome. I love them to death.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, no. I was not prepared to be a dad, to say the very least.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Right. Yeah. There's there's pretty big like for me, there's a if it definitely felt different, like being a new dad again at like 26 when my daughter was born versus A sloppy drunk at 21. And I don't know if that's just because we already had two kids at that point or just because I had finally matured enough to be ready. Both could be true. But I've been winging this shit for years.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, my brother gave me a book. It's called What to Expect When You're Expecting.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I didn't read it. Yeah. Which is kind of shitty, but I guess at the time I was just like, eh, I'm just going to see how this goes. Which, to be clear, I'm like, hey, go read books if you think it helps you. I don't know.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, my mom tried to read through it and Um, I was sitting on the couch kind of across from her. Um, and my dad was like next to me.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
What am I reading? Uh, and, uh, she, she kept looking at me and she just, um, was broken. And, uh, that felt very much like I was pulling this knife out of my chest and shoving it into hers. And she's in between sobs. She's, uh, saying like, can you just talk? Like, I can't, I can't read this.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Right. And my dad's silent. He's reading it, but I can see his eyes are wet. And, uh, the conversation becomes a glossed over description of what happened to me because I didn't want to give them the full detail. Why?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I don't, I think probably like selfishly, not selfishly, it's not the right word, but I guess in my mind, I wanted to spare them of like the explicit detail of the actual sexual acts and stuff like that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I can see myself being like, no, no, you can't. I mean, you'd probably want to know.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. So kind of describing what happened to them, and then they're asking me when would it happen, where would it happen, how long did it continue, when did it stop, Is there anything that they could do to help me? And it was more this moment of, like, we're all crying, and I'm trying to comfort them. And they're asking me, you know, am I OK now?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And certain games would start, like, what could we have done different, which doesn't give you any kind of reward playing those games. And ultimately, you know, it was super emotionally raw conversation. And all of the fears I had associated with that conversation were completely false. They embraced me. How it could have gone. Yeah. Yeah. Like how it could have gone.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Like, would they see me different? Would they? You know, the little childhood fears that would still ping up of like, oh, they wouldn't love me if they knew and stuff like that completely melted away.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot of, uh, you know, sometimes I fluctuate between like negative self-talk and like positive self-talk. So. Yeah. But that's called being human. Yeah. Right. Right. Um, so yeah, from, from there it went to, uh, you know, what can we do now? And, um, you know, being somebody who this happened to, I didn't, and, and I held onto it for so long.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I was reticent for so long, just in silence. Um, There was no immediate justice. What actions can you take that late in the game? I guess was my thought. And I focused on telling them, like, hey, this is traumatic probably for you guys. And considering you never knew, I imagine there's all sorts of feelings of, and again, this is just, I'm not an expert or anything, but I imagine
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
when a parent gets confronted with that two decades after it happened, um, they probably feel like they messed up somewhere. Probably feel like they missed something that didn't protect you.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I was like, man, I was checking in my hotel. I'm like, man, these mountains are going to look really cool when I wake up. But right now, nothing.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, encourage them to go get therapy if they need it. You know, it's going to take time to process this. It's an old monster for me. It's brand new for you guys. How did they receive that? Pretty well. They actually took that advice. They went and saw a therapist and started getting the gears moving towards a healing process instead of remaining stagnant.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I mean, I've always had a pretty good relationship with my mom and dad. I think it allowed me to kind of be myself a lot more. I didn't feel like I was hiding something around them all the time. So it knocked down a few barriers in that regard. Did they ever express a desire to go talk to that kid's parents? They're kind of on the fence like I am. They want to, but something my mom says is like,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
She wants to go talk to him, but she's so emotionally charged about it still that she doesn't think it would be like beneficial and probably just be some kind of fight argument.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
He's kind of right there with my mom. My dad's not a super emotional dude. That checks out. I should say, like, he's a Navy veteran. So he's a dude? Yeah, he's a dude. He's a Navy veteran, just goes to work, comes home, doesn't express too much emotion. I know he has emotions. You know, he's given me some words of wisdom and displayed emotions when I need it.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
But for the most part, he just kind of, like, operates, you know? Yeah. Does his thing, goes to work, comes home, spends time with the grandkids. OK. But he wrote the foreword. I asked him to write the foreword to my book, and he obliged. And something that he said was in there was his perspective on what happened. and how surprised he was that it could happen out in a community like that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
One of the studies I quote, uh, in the book is, um, It's exactly that. It's only in like 7% of cases the abuser doesn't know the victim. So 93% of the time it's mom, dad, sibling, cousin, neighbor, football coach, teacher, somebody in the church. I think the more current – there's a little bit of a dispute I think about the actual – Occurrence rate.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And to be clear, like I write specifically about like the male cohort of CSA victims.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. So in that cohort though, you have like an occurrence rate that's suggested between one and six to one and four. For men or women?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
16% maybe. So when you combine that with like, hey, the average reticence of 20 years, you have a issue that I believe is far too rampant because fucking 16 to 25% is huge of our young men that are going through.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And the average among them is, you know, they're not going to say shit for 20 years if they disclose it all. God, human beings can be so horrible to each other. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a disgusting issue that, you know, I don't. I think the first step towards really trying to combat it is it takes dudes being vulnerable enough to get out there and talk about it.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Man, it's hard to... And I kind of go into that a little bit in the book. And it's hard because... It's really a wolf among sheep issue. I mean, these are people with trust and access. You might love them, and it turns out they're doing this kind of thing. Well, that's what they need, though, is trust and access. Right, yeah.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And I think, honestly, beyond awareness, I think a lot of it falls on the parents to try to cultivate an environment where they're vulnerable enough. Don't talk at them about these kind of things. And again, I'm not a professional. I don't have my degree yet. I'm strictly talking from a survivor perspective who has young kids, all right? I'm sure there's better guidance out there.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
But cultivating an environment where your son feels comfortable, knows for a fact that they can come to you about this kind of thing, having the right kind of conversations that are age appropriate about what your friends should be doing and what they can't be doing regarding whether it's touches or seeing you naked or whatever it might be is a good first foot forward.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Right, exactly. I still believed in Santa Claus when I was that age.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
appropriate versus inappropriate safe behavior versus threatening or dangerous behavior do you need to check in with your kids every time they have a plate like i don't know the answer to this right right because the slippery slope of that too is like you want to let your kids be kids and you know you can't be too vigilant otherwise they're not gonna be kids you know if you're you're sitting them down at four and you're saying hey you know you're talking to them about
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
You know, their friends shouldn't be giving them oral or touching them. I don't think they're going to understand what that is. No, they won't. So that's part of the struggle, too, is, like, you have to try to navigate how you're going to have those conversations with your kids in order to protect them. And, you know, in the book, like, I just encourage people, like, hey, just be vigilant.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Try to be vigilant with your kids. Have the conversations when it's appropriate. And just don't, you know, don't overly trust anybody, whether it's your kid's friends or it's people that are responsible for supervising your kids. Yeah. You know.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, it's in your perimeter. So you've got to figure out how to shove it out. I don't know. I mean, truth be told, those are some good immediate actions, good steps. And from there, to actually try to mitigate and stop this issue, I'm sure there's people out there smarter than me that are still trying to figure that out.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, and what you're going up against is the grooming behavior of an abuser who is conducting trauma against a child that challenges their psychological development, psychosocial development, and it's instilling this intense fear of anybody ever finding out. You know, so you're working against the grooming. It's tough. I mean.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Right. Yeah. And I don't think it, you know, trying to think about what state he was in, I don't know. But I think he probably thought this was a normal thing to do with a friend. Um, where would he have learned that from the abuser, whoever was abusing him?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
It's such a perverse fucking issue too. It's just really what you have is you have a class of... You know, when I was kind of like gearing up for the paper and the book and everything, I was going through a lot of different studies and reading some articles and stuff like that. And your perpetrator class is... while there's a few different types, a lot of times they're serial in nature.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
That makes sense. You're doing this to multiple people, multiple kids. If you look at Seth's story with the guy that groomed him and everything, this trauma, I think, the childhood sexual abuse creates a cascading effect
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
where you have victims, and I don't know Seth's story beyond what he shared here and the conversations I've had with him, but I speculate that the encounter he had with the 15-year-old that he talked about, that they went through CSA, I would imagine that that's kind of how this can continue. That's what the cascading effect is, abuser,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
does sexual shit to a kid abuses them grooms them um is manipulating the shit out of them that kid goes and does it with somebody else his age or younger right and that's kind of one way that this goes and then I think what you have on the opposite end um because you know CSA is profoundly traumatizing to kids based on like the literature that I present in the book like
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, it shatters their perception of what normal is. You're talking, exactly, and you're talking about anxiety, depression. You're talking about the development of PTSD at some point. PTSD is common among male survivors of CSA. How could it not be? And you're like, it fucks you up as a kid.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And so you either end up perpetrating the behavior, and again, I'm not an expert, but this is what I'm speculating, is you end up continuing the behavior to somebody else Or you end up on this path, kind of like me, where it's like, that was really fucked up. I don't like that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And wherever you go from that branch, I mean, if you're able to get through without having brushes with substance abuse or anything like that, kind of like Seth did, then great. But a lot of times you have male survivors that... they become alcoholics. I think some of the stats that I had in the research prop, they're like 11.1 times more likely to become intravenous drug users.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I mean, you're more, you're more likely across the board for substance use development.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Right. Yeah. And then if you add that to, you have an abusive home, I mean, it's just, it's such a damning issue. And to kind of get back to it, like, Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how you stop that necessarily. You test to see if a shotgun fits in their mouth. Pretty much, yeah.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, and that's the thing, too, is as a survivor of this shit, knowing that somebody probably preyed on him and that's how this happened to me. Um, you can test the shotgun in their mouth too. I mean, in an ideal world, uh, where firing squads are real. Oh no, you don't need a firing squad. This is just one person. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Obviously deputized by whatever authority would allow you to do this. Right. Yeah. Um, I think there's been cases where, uh, I think it was in Texas, like some dude's daughter got like
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
What do you want to chat about? Uh, the main thing is, you know, they got a book coming out, suffering and silence, male childhood, sexual abuse, survivorship, um,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And I mean, I've also found that a lot of people have that book title too, but yeah, at least on Amazon, it seems like it, but did you consider, and I'm asking these questions.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
No. And I, and that's something too, like as a, you know, as somebody who goes through CSA, when you have kids, I mean, I think everybody fears their kids having something like that happen to them.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, so when I, when I talk about, um, when we talked about disclosure earlier, I wanted to say like, I went 19 years without saying anything. And then I told my wife when my, um, oldest boy started walking. So as a new dad, I'm sitting there and I'm watching him walk and I'm like, Oh my God. Um, this is my number one fear. You know, this should happen. Could it not be?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And, uh, you know, some of the research that I've done suggests that, um,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
men in particular regarding this issue have like a difficult time um maintaining relationships and especially when they step into a parental role they have a lot of fear around approaching that topic because it happened to them and those relational struggles can really dampen your ability to be a parent in my case when you're sloppy drunk it just adds to it but um
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
You know, you fast forward to eventually I told my mom and dad four years later, but with my kids, my seven-year-old recently had a piece of paper sent home kind of discussing some of those issues. From the school? From the school, yeah. Really? Yeah.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Not really. Um, to be completely frank with you, I didn't even look at what the other titles were. I was just like, this sounds good. This is kind of the theme and went with it. Are you self publishing?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
It goes over, you know, like, hey, nobody should want to see you naked. Adults shouldn't be trying to get you to keep secrets. And it was a good little bit of information. So me and him had that discussion with that paper in hand and it helped. But as somebody who went through it, I had a more developed conversation with him after that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And the main thing that I told him was, hey, you know, no matter what happens to you or no matter what you do, You can come to me with anything. I love you beyond measure. There is nothing that could ever happen to you that would change that. What if he was collecting human heads in jars? I'd be visiting him in prison. Would you turn him in? Depends. What kind of heads are we talking?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, it is. But yeah, so that's kind of the conversation I have with him, and then it's a lot of conversations between... Me and my wife about what to look out for.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, as your kids grow, you know, like something I write about a little bit, it's like innately you lose proximity. Therefore, you lose some ability to protect them as they grow.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Um, Honestly, I mean, the, the book started, I mean, when I really started writing it at some point, um, I decided to keep a journal for my kids and that's kind of like what this, and I'll get into why it's like what the process is, but it began as a journal for my kids.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, yeah. He's already, I mean, he calls me bro sometimes. They're picking up all these little phrases from his friends at school. When he calls you bro, just say back to him, hey, man, don't be sus.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Because he's like, bro, that's sus. You know, he says stuff like that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
It's very giving. Yeah. He's, he's awesome though. Um, that little dude, you know, to kind of get back to like how this shaped my life and, and Marky, um, my oldest is a big part of that because having a kid at 21 and running through, run away from this trauma, like there's a few different things in my story that I could spend some time on that,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
came after this abuse um I mean man it was just a miserable time like I started having I didn't realize it at the time but you know again I'm thinking about this abuse all all the time every day um as a kid and going into high school like I started having this really intense chest pain and didn't really understand why.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Like, at first I thought I was dying, but, you know, it was a little bit dramatic. Yeah, but what did you know? I mean, you're a young kid. Right, and, you know... I just... We're in a period now where mental health is more discussed, and it's more— For sure.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, less stigma about it. Social workers in high schools and whatnot, with the school apparatus out there trying to identify things and provide resources, and that's cool. But when I was in high school, I just didn't know what was happening. And I would be in class—
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So yeah, man, I mean, I'd just be in class and I'd be like, so, and also part of the story is like, I was born with degenerative hearing loss and tinnitus and You were born with tinnitus? Yeah, I was born with it. It's the first I've heard of that. That sucks. Yeah. Yeah. Due to the, um, it was like nerve damage during childbirth or whatever. Um, I wear hearing aids, they're called lyrics.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And then as I kind of progressed professionally, like it became almost like, well, Hey, you know, I've kind of, you know, I've been an alcoholic, I've got the CSA stuff. I've been through some trauma and service. Like, why don't I turn this instead into a memoir? And then I can kind of like hope somebody that will, you know, read it can get something out of it. When did you start journaling?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, and they, they sit next to your eardrum. Can't see them. It enables me to hear. But, um, Can you Bluetooth to your phone? No, I can't.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. No. Um, when I get annoyed with my kids, I just shut them off. I just, not really, but it's a method. If I really want to get some good sleep, I do it with my hearing aids off.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, at this stage of the game, because it's a continual loss, um, I'm not sure what the actual reading was. Probably not much. Yeah, not good. Like 50%.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
You know, Michael, why don't you pull up Lyric hearing aids just so people can see them because they're actually really cool.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Oh, yeah, yep. And, I mean, you start out, like, they don't let you put those things in yourself because you can hurt yourself. Yeah. But I've been wearing them for a good decade now.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Fair enough. Yeah, so... I had this like, but of course, you know, so I started wearing hearing aids when we might as well just get into it. So I started wearing hearing aids as a young kid. I got it pretty early on. So I had like this big bulky, like green hearing aid. How'd that work out for you as a kid? I thought it was the shit until I went to school.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, so, like, I was wearing this hearing aid and kind of getting made fun of, and then, like, it progressed to the point where I needed two hearing aids. What did they call you? Well, a very prominent one I can remember was Goldilocks because, you know, I don't have any hair now, but back in the day, I used to... To try to overcome and hide the dual hearing aid action, I grew my hair out.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And as a kid, I had super blonde hair. So then they started calling me Goldilocks.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Probably specifically to my kids would have been like 2018. I initially started journaling kind of like in therapy around like 2015, 2016.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Just a lot of like... If I didn't hear anything, they'd be like, what? You know, like deaf kid, like that kind of stuff.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I'd be careful, though. I mean, your dad was a nom, wasn't he?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
But yeah, so like not like pretty topical stuff like these days, but as a kid, it was like really a bummer. It's rough. And especially because like I had this CSA going on. So like I was already having like. Yeah, you were already having super malleables. I was already vulnerable. And so naturally I ended up deciding not to wear them at all after about sixth grade. And the agreement was,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
with my parents and I was if you can keep your grades up, then you don't have to wear them.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yep, yeah. So AB student. Probably could have done better with the hearing aids because there was a few occasions where I misheard the assignment. But kept my grades up and didn't have to wear them. And at some point along the lines, I mean. Did you ever take a music class? Music? Yeah.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
The initial attempt was all therapeutic. Do you find that it helped? I think it does. I think it did for me because in a way you can kind of like put all your feelings out on the page, disassociate, come back and reread it. And there's something about that process that you can kind of like separate from those emotions a little bit, I think.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
They would have to pull it away from you for being too excited.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
yeah so are you looking up over there right now i don't know he's scheming something just trying not to listen to you yeah uh that'd be rough not being able to hear a music class yeah it was it was interesting to navigate for sure and um you know part of my story is like i want to focus on you know not just the csa but
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
you know, what I've kind of accomplished since it, and which, you know, I'm entirely average and everything, but.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Because, you know, just because in the grand scheme of things, I've heard you talk about like post-traumatic growth and you know, you can go that way. It's not necessarily easy or just like you said, you can go down the other path. And for me, you know, With the CSA, with the disability, for as long as I can remember, again, my dad was in the military.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I got a lot of family members that were in. So for as long as I can remember, I wanted to be in the Army. That's just how it was. What would you have done? So I actually um when I went to enlist I went to go 13 Fox. I have no idea what that is. Cav Scout.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I think the recruiter told me it was fire support specialist. I was a recruiter so I dream.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
There's a good chance he lied to me. But knowing what I know now listening to a podcast like this, it's like... Fire support specialist.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Fire support specialist. Yeah, so that's what it was. Okay. Fire support specialist. And so I tried to enlist in high school. And I think part of that was like... this desire to be somebody who could protect himself and others stemming from the trauma.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, yeah. So that was like what I was going to do. So parents signed for me early because I was 17 at the time. And so I'm going to like future soldier training or whatever with the recruiter, and we're doing things. Do you have like lasers and stuff?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, no, literally. Starship troopers. We would either sit in his recruiting station with like all the other army recruits. And he would just teach us stuff about the Army, or we would go do, like, PT. On one occasion, we did, like, a simulated helicopter crash. Did you guys actually have a helicopter? Uh-uh. No. Okay. No, we literally walked out onto some state land. Sounds very realistic.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And he's like, okay, here's what we're doing. And, you know, this is the middle of the summer. It's hot. Mosquitoes are out. And he's like, where are your PTs? So, like, I wore my gym shorts to cut off or something like that. And we go out in the woods, and we're just getting ate the fuck up by mosquitoes the entire time.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And so he's like, all right, here's what we're doing. Simulated helicopter crash. You're hurt. You're hurt. You have to carry her. And we just went walking through the woods. And I was like, OK, this is interesting.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't. So anyways, um, but I'm also picking up like all the army swag I can, I can carry home. So like shirts, bags, all that stuff. But, um, I ended up going to maps and I scare, I score a three on a hearing test. And yeah, the old booth doesn't lie. Right. Yeah. And well, dude, it was like, I put the headphones on and, and I have tinnitus.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So like I had a hard time anyways, and I'm deaf. So I'm like trying to press the button and I press in the wrong.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
cadence or whatever too many times so then it yells at you yeah so then you're more deaf yeah and uh yeah they the booth doesn't lie no the longer the short of it is uh i ended up getting um disqualified yeah so i uh super bummed because that's like what my dream was and then uh fortunately um i kind of had this epiphany that i need a plan b
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And I had been neglecting school cause I'm like, ah, school, whatever. I'll go in the army. I'll do college later. Like whatever. Um, but I'm like, how can I serve in a different way now that I can't serve in the army? And a couple weeks after I got the DQ, I was on the local fire department at 17. Had to go get screening. My mom and dad had to sign.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And then because I was going to turn 18 during training, they're going to welcome me on. just a little small town rural department, middle of nowhere. They didn't care about the hearing stuff? No. Did you tell them? Um, no. So what happened after, so what happened after, uh, I got DQ'd is my mom took me to this place called Hearing Consultants in Sterling Heights.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, I'm not entirely sure. I mean, I think it is kind of subjective, like you said, um, for me, particularly like when I was writing the book, I'd go back and look because at first, you know, I was like, Oh, I should maybe include some of these journal entries or whatever. And then, like, sometimes it's just interesting to go back and look at, like, what my thought process was over the years.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
to go and try out these lyrics these hearing aids and um i got them and was like since i hadn't been wearing hearing aids since like sixth grade i was like it had to be life-changing yeah it was crazy because like i could remember being able to hear better with the hearing aids but like going six years without them yeah it's a long stretch um i realized me i'm like yeah no i didn't get in i can't hear anything um so i got those and then
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I was like, can I be a firefighter with these in, you know, and they were like, yeah, we have cops that use them. We have fire EMS, all that stuff. I'm like, okay, cool. You know, so I didn't even mention the fire department. I just showed up with them in, um, and went through firefighter one and which cool part of that in Michigan. I don't know if they do it anywhere else.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Cause the fire departments across the U S are all just different depending on what they're doing and whatnot. But Um, got to do like ice water rescue training, which was like super cool. Um, I was pretty smart half the year, probably where you guys live. Um, yeah, well, yeah, yeah.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, you'd be surprised how many people that are from Michigan that die out in like, um, like ice fishing stuff, ice fishing and like, so what usually gets them?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. And, and I'm in that camp. Um, my brother is not, I don't listen. I know walleye tastes good and it's like a staple of our state, but like, I'm just not. Can you just walk out there? Uh, yeah, yeah. You can walk, put up a tent, drill a hole, sit in here and, you know, get a little buddy.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. I've never, like I've, you know, growing up out in the middle of nowhere in Michigan, like you, you know, my family hunted, we all fished. So that's just kind of like what, what you do. Um, it's a decent part of the culture, but, uh, yeah, man. Um, I forgot where I was going with all that, but. Oh, you're talking about the fire department, your journey into the fire department. Yeah.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So like I get through training and, you know, at a young age, 18, and I'm not saying training was anything crazy. Like you're just learning, um, fire stuff. Um, but, uh, You know, start rolling up to medical calls, start going to fires. My first fire that I went to was in the middle of January. It was like 18 degrees out. Big barn fire. It was like a massive shed with a haymow in it. A what?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So a haymow is, it's like where you stack all your hay bales inside of a barn or a structure.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Big stack. Yeah, I could see how that would burn. Apparently, so this is crazy. I don't, it's crazy. But if you stack your hay and some of it is wet.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. With, like, particular concern to, like, all the years I spent drinking, like, what those journal entries look like versus, like, just kind of next to varying life events, you know.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
It'll start itself on fire. So yeah, the fire that popped my fire cherry was out in- Freezing weather with a hangmail that just would not go out in this massive shed, sheet metal barn. And we were out there for like eight hours just getting after it. So it was like really cool. It's really fun.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Like a lot of people, I feel like when they talk about their fire experience, like 90% of the job, like if you're there to do it and you have a desire to do it, it's fun. You know, it might suck. It's physically demanding, whatever. That's true then in job clarity. Right, yeah. But, you know, there's that 10% of, like, the shit that you're going to see, you know, that's going to bother you.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And so there was a little bit of that when I was 18. But then, you know, when I moved out, I got onto the Saginaw Township Fire Department Station 1. Saginaw is probably similar to Kellisfell. Size-wise? Yeah, size-wise, yeah. Um, and there it was every day, every other day, um, going to a call, whether it's car wreck, false alarm, smoke, actual fire, stuff like that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, so I found myself like trying to serve in this other way and I ended up picking, that's kind of like when I picked up my PTSD diagnosis is I was kind of going to these things and When I look back, I can see that it was more the childhood trauma that was influencing a lot of these behaviors that I was getting, like the drinking. I had a lot of anger.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I got diagnosed with clinical anger issues at 19. The nightmares, the general irritability. In hindsight, I think a lot of it was coming from the CSA. I didn't feel comfortable disclosing it. I was still under like, I'm just going to live this in secret. Um, but I went to a therapist and so that I started seeing therapy for like fire related. So I talk about the fire related things.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, and ultimately it just didn't change any kind of like the course of my life after that. Um, because I wasn't targeting the real issue. Not that that's not to say I wasn't seeing death or, um,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
situations that are just rotten yeah you were treating the symptoms not the root cause yeah yeah um and what did i do as a young firefighter who um was kind of just clinging to this victimhood as i went and drank over it instead of actually really talking about i mean i talked about it in therapy but i was still like if i had a bad call i just go home drink
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
The drink of choice... I'm going to get made fun of, I'm sure, but... It's potential. At first, I mean, I should probably preface this with like... There's no preface.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, and I isolated a lot, you know, with, with male survivors of CSA, like isolationism is kind of a coping mechanism. Um, you know, at the time, that's what you think you need to do in order to protect yourself. And I think it manifests, um, at least it did for me, um, in adulthood where like, dude, when I moved out, like I wasn't going to see my friends.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Like I'd come home every once in a while, visit my parents. I'd hang out with my boy, Freddie. Um, it's my cousin and, uh, we were tight growing up. So I'd hang out with him. But otherwise, like I go to college, didn't make any friends college.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, so I met my wife shortly after I graduated high school. She was a senior. Um, it's a year behind me and, uh, Yeah, I mean.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
All the time. All the time. And, you know, part of the story is also, like, I am the protagonist and I am the antagonist. you know, I'm both, I'm, I was such a, like my, my wife. So to give you an idea of like what my wife was coming from, like, I don't want to get too deep into it because, um, it's in the past and everything's better now, but she did not have like an ideal childhood.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, there's a lot of substance abuse involved with, uh, her dad and, um, some other things that she went through her and her little brother. And, uh, So when she met me and we became romantic and we're dating and got into a relationship, like I was in a spiral of just like drinking and like poor mental health. And she didn't want me to do it. And like an absolute piece of shit, I just ignored her.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And she stayed though. And she stayed. My wife, you know, throughout all of this, like she's an absolute rock star. I don't. I have done enough that should have driven her away. Did she ever give you an ultimatum? A few times, yeah. Yeah. But when I was still drinking and still in this state of subscribing to a victim mentality, I was narcissistic and manipulative.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
She would give me an ultimatum, and I would find a way to manipulate it to where she couldn't do that. We went through, you know, plenty of seasons where she would be like, hey, you need to stop or else I'm leaving, you know. And I'd get better for a little bit and then I'd go right back to it. Yeah. That's the most insidious type. So. Yeah, so we met, and I ended up moving.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Fast forward a few years, we're in a relationship. We'd been on and off constantly because I was just a piece of shit, and she would dump me. She dumped me several times up until we got solid. And I go from being on the fire department to now I'm working corrections and doing adult corrections at a minimum security.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
and moved to Bay city, um, which is just town over from Saginaw in Michigan and same size, whatnot. Um, and she moves in with me and I'm still drinking and on the outside, dude, I'm like listening to, um, or rather like trying to be kind of like all these dudes that have podcasts now that like, I'm trying to emulate, right. So like Jocko, you know, like extreme ownership and like,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
discipline and getting after it and trying to spin it where like hey i'm serving but like i'm not um i'm not letting this trauma like get the best of me or whatever and like trying to like this this really odd and confusing just hypocritical path did you know you were lying to yourself at the time
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
internally yeah because i'd go back and i'd drink i'd be a piece of shit to my wife um my girlfriend at the time um but on the outside i'm trying to like showcase this dude who's like strong and doing these things the alpha male if you will yeah the alpha male right yeah yeah uh Meanwhile, living as a Class C, like, car carrier, but... What does that mean?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, you got an alpha male, you got a beta, Charlie, you know, or C or whatever.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Okay. So, yeah. Turn 21, I go from adult corrections to juvenile corrections. And still just drinking. I fucked on, I mean, six, seven Milwaukee bests and four shots every night, put on all that weight. And it's like undermining my ability to do the job, work in juvie and completely shattering like my self image, which I always struggled with anyway. So now I'm fat. So now it's worse.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
You get a tall boy. Back in my day, back when I was drinking a lot, you could get it for like a dollar six.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
What am I going to do? Am I going to get better or am I just going to keep drinking to drown all those emotions? Um, the answer was drink more, you know, so I'm still drinking. And, uh, you know, I should mention, I had a moment where I went to a power, I went to a work party, um, and I'm hanging out with them and we're all drinking and having a good time.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And I'd done that with them a few times before, but, uh, that particular party was after I went to a call with the PI where, uh, or a pin in, um, for the folks listening. That means you've got to cut somebody out of a car. That person happened to be dead, so it was a fatality and a PI. The passenger was stuck in the front seat with his dead buddy. So what did I do?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, in this period of my life, it was let's get drunk. Oh, there's a party tonight. I'll just get drunk anyways. So then I'd do the awesome thing that I used to do, which was I'm going to get drunk and tell everybody about it at the party and get sympathy and enjoy the social benefit of that. And got blackout drunk. Don't remember anything after absolutely crushing it, playing some pong.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Is that being ping pong? No, just pong. Just throwing ping pong balls back and forth, trying to get into the cup. Oh, beer pong.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Fair enough. Fair enough. Crushing it, playing beer pong. And I wake up, and I'm in a different shirt. And I'm like, oh, that's fucking weird. Okay, whatever. And I leave, I'm super hungover and I'm in a different shirt and things are weird. So I split and I get a bunch of texts from friends who are at the party.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And the gist of it is, one of them woke up while I was actively choking on my own puke in the middle of the night. Tipped me over, probably saved my life. And they took care of me. I don't remember any of it. And my attitude at the time was, and we can get into later, trying to separate who you were versus who you are now and how important that is. But my answer at the time was,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
What led you into that? So I think like any troubled kid, um, I mean, maybe not any, but there's a certain amount of, I think, people out there, like when they have something happen to them when they're a child, they're more predisposed to just trying to check out.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, I should have just died anyways. Like, whatever. And it was super, super fucking immature. But so anyways, like, you know, me and my wife, we're living in Bay City. She moves in with me, and my first is born. I'm going to do this juvenile corrections thing, and I'm still just on this fucking negative path. And, you know, one night... I think it was before I started working for STPS.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
But I'm getting sauced up on the couch, which was kind of the norm. I was saying that I'm staying up just in case Marky wakes up. But really, I just wanted to stay up by myself and get drunk, which usually that's what the norm was. And I wasn't drinking with anybody. There was no reason to celebrate, even though I gave myself every reason to be like, oh, today was shitty? Let's drink.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Oh, today was great? Let's celebrate. Like, there's no fucking celebration going on. It's just drinking.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, like you said, that time you considered yourself to be an alcoholic, so... And, you know, later on in the night, I'm super sauced, and, like, I'm thinking about this fucking childhood sexual abuse, and I'm thinking about... Things in my adult life and, you know, my self-image is just gone. And I'm like just in the pits of fucking just mental hell.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And so I kind of stumble over into the kitchen and I pull out a kitchen knife and I put it to my left elbow, the crook in my left elbow rather. And I'm like, this is it. I'm just going to fucking do it.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
While my oldest child is asleep in the bedroom just down the hall, and my wife is in her bed, and that's the point that I had arrived to with my own choices and this victim mentality and just not being well. And I'm like sobbing. And I kind of stopped that shit. And I'm super drunk. And, uh... I start getting, like, mad, like I'm gonna will myself into this. Like, just thinking, like, this is it.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
They don't deserve me. Or I don't deserve them, rather. Um, I'm a piece of shit dad. I'm not a good partner. This shit happened to me when I was a kid. Um... I'm just gonna end it, you know? And, uh... Fortunately, you know, out of nowhere, like my wife comes up behind me and I didn't hear her come up. I didn't anything like that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Now, for me, just trying to check out was I always had this infatuation with being at a party, being the guy that drinks, kind of numbing myself up. At some point in high school, as I was kind of running away from what happened to me as a kid, it became more of a conscious effort that I'm like, hey, I'm going to go hang out with my boy, Freddie, and I'm going to get drunk.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
She's not right next to me, but I hear her voice behind me and she's like, oh, my God, what are you doing? She's like, oh, my God, Nick, what are you doing? And I turn and I'm the best thing I can muster. So like immediately she's here. Now I'm crying. And so the best thing I can muster at the time was you stay the fuck away from me. which is like nice one Shakespeare.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, and, uh, she's like, is that how you want us to find you? Is that how you want your son to find you? You know, she could have split. She could have, it could went, you know, I don't know, but she, uh, she took a step forward and she said that, and I fucking dropped the knife in the sink and just collapsed, you know, crying. And, uh,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
You know, there's moments in your life where, at least in mine, I can look back and I'm like, this should have been what broke me out. This should have been the moment where I like self-actualized.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Well, so, you know, Didn't go to therapy after that. I kind of cut back on my drinking a little bit, but I was still just getting sauced every night. Just maintenance drinking.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Well, to be clear, too, like I should say, if you can drink and you can have fun, like go do it. Like, I'm not going to stop you. I have nothing against that. No. I can't. I don't stop. I need it.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so from that point, I mean, I kind of drank less, but, you know, still going down this path of service or whatever, I'm doing corrections, and then eventually I end up quitting because corrections is fucking, like, kid corrections at least. Those people are seriously underpaid, and they're dealing with a lot of shit. Yeah, I bet. And I was sick of it.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So I went from there to getting hired by STPS, and I had a brief stint of sobriety in there that probably, like, lasted about six months. And this is something like when I talk to other people that have been recovering from alcoholism, they're trying to get sober. It's easy for me to say like, oh, eventually I just ended up stopping. But that's not the truth.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Like the truth of the matter is like throughout all those years of drinking, like I wanted to quit. I knew I wasn't on the right path, but I just didn't have the strength of the gumption to get through it and have the self-control. Um, chances are, if you try to quit drinking, you're going to quit for a period or try to, and then you're gonna end up right back where you're at.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
But, um, the important thing there is like, for me later on, after I finally got sober, uh, I had to realize there was no moderation for me. There is no date where I'm like, Oh, eventually I can have a drink and it'll be fine. That's important. And what broke me from that initial sobriety was I was hanging out with my dad and my brother. And, uh, I'm like, I could have a beer or two months later.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I'm back to drinking heavy every night. Um, what's kept you on the path the last three and a half years, honestly had to realize that I deserve a better life than getting drunk every day. Um, The crazy thing is you would think because you have kids and because you have a wife that those are going to be your reasons enough. Like you're going to, oh, she'd have a kid now.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And maybe that's the case for a lot of people. I don't know. But for me, I was just so fucking broken and subscribed to this victim mentality that I didn't – they just weren't enough of a reason for me to quit.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I like survivor more than victim. But that's also kind of a term where you're like, you're kind of identifying with, I guess, what happened to you and like, you're going to classify yourself by it.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I see somebody that's trying to stay on the path. You know, I don't see myself as, I don't see myself as who I was as a drunk. I don't see myself as the little kid. Um, I see somebody who's grown enough at least most days. Some days I just, you know, look in the mirror. I'm like, God, you gotta lose some weight or you're a piece of shit. You're like, you did this.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
How you doing? Um, me again. Hi. Uh, get after it. But, um, yeah, dude. Uh, it's a lot more positive these days. And what started with that, what kept me sober was I had to love myself enough because I didn't love myself for years because of the abuse, because of the choices I was making as an alcoholic.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Like there was a lot of guilt and shame associated with that, especially because like I was just stabbing people in the heart left and right to love me. They're my friends. They wanted nothing, nothing but to help me and support me. and I just was not a good dude during that period of my life. So, you know, I had to realize, like, I don't deserve this.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Chiefly, I had to do this for me because then I can be better for my wife. I can be better for my kids, but it's got to start with me. And part of my, you know, I don't disagree with any one given way to get sober, like, As long as it's not hurting somebody else, like if it keeps you sober, fucking do it. I would agree. I'm a fan of that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And yeah, like I just, I had to read, like I had to come to a place where like, I have to do this for me. Like, it has to be me because people are going to die, jobs are going to be temporary, or they might come and go. If I do it for my wife, what happens if we get divorced one day? Well, that was my main reason to get sober, so now what am I going to do?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And I mean, sure. There's some of it that was just fun, you know, like it started out that way, I think, but I was raised in, um, like a Christian conservative household, um, And my parents made a very, like, conscious effort to steer us away from the path of, like, alcohol and drugs and stuff like that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Am I going to fall back into it, or do I have the gumption to get through now that my main reason to getting sober is gone? What do you think is the main risk to your sobriety now? Honestly... I don't know because it's gotten a lot easier to say no. It's just still there some days. And – It's going to be there every day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's – there's a constant level.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. I have my kind of method of dealing with it now. Like, you know, sometimes if I really get the urge to drink, I go buy like a bag of candy instead. Like just a little shit like that sometimes, too.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I was doing pretty good. And then, you know, for some reason I just fell off these last like month or two. It's all right. Just another opportunity to get back on. My boy Brian, it's funny, we were joking a while back, like I was getting like really fit and everything. And then he goes, you start going the opposite direction.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I think the biggest risk honestly is just any given time of grief or um just real struggle is when the it starts getting more whether it's financial or you know me and my wife have had our ups and downs we're just like any married couple like we have issues I've done a lot of negative shit in our relationship she's nothing but a saint for sticking by but um and supporting me but uh
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
everyday stress and anything significant in our relationships, it's like it drives you towards that, you know, drives the needle that way. And for me, fortunately, with my sobriety now and with what started back on September 9th, although, you know, three years ago, I just had this will and this gumption that, like, I'm not going to fucking drink. Good. I'm going to find anything else to do.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I don't want to be because like, and I talk about it a little bit in the book because, you know, I go through CSA and then I tell my story of like substance use and the suicide, suicidal attempt and the ideation and this journey. And I have been able to kind of take that ground in my mind.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
against this version of me that's super out of shape and he's just a sloppy drunk who's just a piece of shit to his kids, to his wife. And all I need to do, and I'm not saying it's easy, but what helps me a lot is I've been able to separate myself from that version of myself. And all it takes is a little visit down memory lane.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And sobriety ain't going to fix, you know, sobriety didn't fix my marriage. It didn't fix my relationship.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, You know, I do want to say this too. I really appreciate you having me on here. I've been nothing but a fan for years. So it's like super surreal even sitting in here. To meet Michael, I understand.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
What is Michael to you? I guess, is he like just hired help?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
They did, but as a kid, if they did, we didn't see it, me and my brother. Interesting. There was a handful of occasions at deer camp where I'd see my dad drink a little bit, but if we did see him drink, it was that or on vacation, and it was very minimal. What was his drink of choice? Samuel Adams. He's an IPA guy.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. And I, you know, I think that's like a huge barrier for people like newly sober people. Some of those challenges is like, Hey, you've got to like, you got to understand, like, just because you get sober doesn't mean people are going to like you.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. And it's hard to, it's hard to square because, you know, I'll give you an example of something that happened when I was a drunk that, um, came up after I got sober and I didn't even realize that. And it's taken some healing, um, and some work on both me and my wife's part. But, um, at some point, uh, my wife was pregnant, um, a couple of years after my oldest was born and,
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
She came out, I was like sitting in front of the TV, just drinking, like had the day off. It was late enough, started drinking. And she came out and told me like, hey, I miscarried. And my answer at the time to that was, I'm just going to get drunk. And went on. I mean, I completely memory hold that with how much I was drinking. And once I got sober, that was something that she told me about.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And part of the struggle of getting here and trying to be sober and walking a better path, going to therapy, being a better human being, is I had to square with myself that level of just being a wretched human being. Because she went through that shit alone while I went and got drunk. It's rough. It's rough. One advice I can give you is just to face it head on. Yeah.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I mean, you've got to have those conversations. You've got to start trying to put fire on all those bridges you burnt. And some people aren't going to. I don't know if that's a good analogy.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you what, like you're standing outside of a structure fire, at least for me, like the house that's fully developed and you're getting your hoses out and you're getting ready to do whatever you got to do. There's a certain beauty to fire. But then also you're like, oh shit, this is somebody's house. Like, this is like, this is terrible, you know?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
But, but yeah, no, like I had to, part of being sober is like, you gotta square that shit. So I hold myself to a higher standard and I'm just trying to improve and walk on that path and understand that, like, hey, I deserve to be sober at the end of the day. Because it's going to pay dividends to every aspect of my life, whether it's professional or it's relational or whatever it might be.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. And I think that's part of it. Like it really has to start with yourself, but also like once you get there, you realize like, I was nothing but a monster for my wife and my kid, and they don't deserve that shit.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, no. The best I could do is like Killian's or Voodoo Ranger.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So you can get it on Amazon. Kindle, it's enrolled in Kindle Select. So if you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read it for free. It's called Suffering in Silence, Male Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivorship. You can find me on Twitter, nmidaw018. Same as Instagram. I have a sub stack. It's called The Diary of a Male Survivor. Is that like a blog? Kind of. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
You know, if you want to support me, you want to support the mission, um, overall, like I'm going to be putting out things that are specific to kind of a survivor's experience there. Um, if you like fiction, I got, you know, there's, there's a link tree on my Twitter. You can, um, or X, uh, you can go check on my fiction on what pad. Um, I have a passion for that.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, overall, uh, so it's like a, I've realized now that it's kind of like one of those, it was a few things there, but, um, there's a lot of weird, weird shit on, on what pad nowadays. I didn't realize.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Is it an app? Yeah. It's like an app. You can get it as an app or you can visit the site and, um, it's for authors put out stories. It's free. Okay. Um, unless you're like paying to read, um, Um, I haven't done a whole lot of reading on there. So, uh, there's people that have like a premium associated with being able to read their stuff. My fiction's free. I do it for fun.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, aside from the nonfiction stuff, uh, My current fiction is it's actually zombie apocalypse. Oh, Jesus. Come on.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
If they are freshly turned, they're a little bit quick. But otherwise, they just walk. Like a trot? Kind of, yeah. Okay. Kind of, yeah.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah, there's a whole divide there. Like, are we talking George Romero zombies or we got, like, walking?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Those zombies happen. I'm fucking dead. That's just the end of it.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I would have thought you guys were straight Jack Daniels, like out of the bottle. There's a little bit of that, but the craft beer crowd is definitely a thing in Michigan. You go to places like Traverse City or up north, even west side of the state by Grand Rapids, they're big into craft beer. A lot of breweries out there. I just wanted like the fastest mechanism to get drunk.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Right. Yeah. Yeah. If you, if you don't mind, I'd like to say like one more thing about everything. Um, We didn't know what my final question was, so I didn't say we're done right now.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
What else you got? So I am a product of my support system. And not just that. I mean, obviously, it took a lot of gumption on my part to get through things. But had I not have my awesome friends, my family that has supported me through everything, my wife, I would not have gotten this far. And above everything else, what I'm trying to spread
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
regarding this issue is not only awareness, but to people who have gone through it or people who have been impacted by it, whether it was one of your kids or what have you. Your abuser does not hold true power over you. Your true power comes from you and what you do with your situation. You know, fortunately, I got sober.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
You know, I've enjoyed a decade of pursuing civil service, spanning fire, corrections, public safety, a federal contract. You know, and I've been able to, at some point during that, utilize it as fuel to better myself and try to better people around me. And that's where your true power comes from. You know, don't get into a game where, well, that's not the right way to say it, but
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Your abuser and your situation and your trauma would have you think that they hold the power over you and your life. And there's nothing that can change that. The reality of the situation is that shit is in you. You can unleash it and you can utilize it to fuel your life.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Use it as fuel, whether it's going to the fucking gym, it's talking to a therapist, it's disclosing your abuse, whatever it might be, putting down the bottle.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think another tool that we could use or another method is to try to shorten that reticence, you know? Um, Another way you can try to influence this issue is a rapid deployment of resources post-disclosure for the victim, but also swift fucking justice on the perp.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So if you're out there, man, and this shit happened to you as a kid and you're scared of your mom and dad finding out or your brother or your friends or whatever it might be, I promise you it's not going to be fucking easy. You're going to go through a lot of shit in disclosure. For me...
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
When I initially disclosed, there was relief, but then eventually, literally driving up for my parents that weekend, I felt like I just made the biggest mistake ever because I watched my mom crumble in front of me, and I watched my dad crying, and I've seen how that has changed their life.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So I'm not gonna tell you disclosure's fucking easy, it's not, but it is so much better than suffering in silence. It is so much better than trying to keep this shit a secret because you deserve healing. You deserve to be happy. You don't deserve to be stuck in this place where all you can think about is your trauma and the shit that happened to you as a kid. Like it is worth it to disclose.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
So if you're out there, you're living in silence, man, like I just hope. whether it's my story or it's Seth's or whoever, like I hope it breaks through and you, and you choose the path of healing and self betterment.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, like I said, I mean, you can, you can find me at all the things I kind of mentioned, you know, my handles and, and my site. I do have a website. It's nickmetaw.com. Okay. Um, there's a link there to go get the book. Uh, I'll put it all in the show notes too. I'll just have you send me all this stuff so I can put it in the notes.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I appreciate that. Um, I mean, yeah, just if you're out there and you're suffering, man, like you don't have to do it. There's a better path. So and I want to say, you know, again, thank you for this opportunity. I literally could not imagine, you know, even last year being here. Super stoked. It's really opening some doors and I really
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Um, if anybody's hiring, uh, what kind of job are you looking for? Uh, anything having to do with like, whether it's advocacy or going out and speaking, I'd like to get on the public speaking circuit, um, just to share my story.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And there's so much stuff like in my story that, um, we just didn't have time to get to today because there's, you know, um, whether it's the federal stuff or it's, you know, doing public safety and everything like that. Like, um, I'd love to get out there and actually share my story and, you know, see people and hopefully, um, make some impact in that way.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. Um, absolutely. And I think that is, it's super valuable, especially like, You know, I had somebody tell me, I was working this job, working with autistic children, doing ABA therapy at one point. And I was kind of telling one of my coworkers about all this stuff.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, I mean, well, there's the Milwaukee Best I would drink, but I'd also get those 99 apples or, like, 99 vodka-proof shooters or whatever.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And something that she said, which I don't really feel deserving of it, but something she said was, it takes people like you who are kind of like on the outside, like these tough dudes or whatever, like who put on uniforms and stuff, which I think is kind of funny to describe me that way. um, you know, to be vulnerable, um, to really make change and connect people.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
And I don't know if that's true or not, but, um, I think there's something to that, like people, you know, such as yourself, um, you know, that, uh, I know without a doubt, if I tried to reach across this table, he'd fucking end me in a second. You know what I mean?
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
That's fair. Yeah. But, uh, it really takes people speaking up. And, uh, I, I, I think you're right. You know, the more survivors and people out there that have been through this, like get out there and talk.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
No, it's like, hey, I'm going to take a shot, I'm going to drink half of this Milwaukee Best, and then I'm going to do another shot and then follow her up with some more beer. Dude, I ballooned from, I mean, when my alcoholism really took off was when I turned 21, naturally. Because before that, I was, like, relying on...
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
this network of buyers I had crafted out of like dudes I went to high school with, but were a few years ahead of me. And they also moved to Saginaw where I was living. So I'd like rotate through these people and.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah, they'd buy me booze. Yeah. Um, so from the age of like 19 on a 21, it was rare that I went a night without it. The only barrier to that was any money I might not have had or, um, just the simple fact I wasn't 21. Once I turned 21, um, I mean, there was no more barrier except for money. How much weight did you gain? I went from 185 to 275. That's what I'm talking about.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
I mean, right now, as I said, I'm at like 220. And I'm actually up a little bit from 210, thanks to the winter. Got to hibernate in Michigan. Um, I don't think that's true. No, it's not. But I like to think that it makes it easier when I go reach for the, for the kids fruit snacks at 3am.
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Episode 378 - Nick Middaugh
Yeah. Yeah. No. Um, that's a lot of weight. It was a lot. And you know, what comes with that too is, you know, as a kid, like I really had a lot of self-esteem issues and I was very self-conscious about, you know, even though I was always, I mean, after sixth grade, I was in sports, athletic, never really had a problem with weight. Um, was a firefighter, was in good shape.