Estil Wallace, CEO of Cornerstone Healing Center, interviews Billy Gregg of Choose Hope Interventions
Watch as they discuss Coddling, Enabling, and Intervention: Some hard truths when it comes to helping loved ones into recovery.
Transcript and Video provided by Estil Wallace, CEO | Cornerstone Healing Center
Billy Gregg:
You put me on the spot.
Estil Wallace:
What does HIPAA stand for?
Billy Gregg:
Health Information Protection Portability Act.
Estil Wallace:
What does portability mean?
Billy Gregg:
Portability means the exchange of information.
Estil Wallace:
All right. Looks like we are rolling right into another episode of the Nameless Recovery Show. Today, my esteemed colleague, my famed heralded, revered and feared guest, none other than interventionist, Billy Gregg.
Billy Gregg:
Yay.
Estil Wallace:
Hi, Billy.
Billy Gregg:
Hi, Estil. Thanks for having me.
Estil Wallace:
Thank you for being here. You’re an interventionist.
Billy Gregg:
Yes, sir.
Estil Wallace:
You work with drug addicts all the time.
Billy Gregg:
Actually, I work with their families all the time.
Estil Wallace:
Work with a lot of families.
Billy Gregg:
The reality of intervention is that 80% to 90% of that is all family work. I don’t interface with the addict a whole lot. I don’t even get to meet them until I’ve already spent 30 to 40 hours preparing the family. That might be a little bit over the mark, but if I have the time to really spend with a family to prepare them, then there’s quite a bit of time brought up. I don’t even get to meet them until the day of the intervention.
Billy Gregg:
My first real time with them is on the drive or on the flight to treatment. Sometimes they just pull their hoodie over the head and close it up, and cross their arms and pretend like they’re not there. Sometimes they become very agreeable. I call it the special sauce, the intervention, when I’m sharing it with families, because I get to see a part that they never see, and it’s the first taste of what’s treatment like? What do I have to expect? If they’ve never been to treatment before, that’s my favorite one, because they’re terrified, and I’m checking in with them like, “How’s your anxiety level, one out of 10?” “It’s about a seven or an eight.” “Okay, let’s do some deep breathing. Let’s talk about something else. Let me tell you about the amazing people you’re going to meet in treatment. The first five seconds, you’re going to look at them and go, “I don’t like these people, and about four days later, you’re going to go, I’m finally home. You’re going to make some of the best friends you’ve ever made.”
Estil Wallace:
I wish I had been intervened on. That sounds magical.
Billy Gregg:
So not magical. Well, you didn’t need an intervention apparently, because you’re-
Estil Wallace:
Apparently, yeah. I got sober in Durango Jail.
Billy Gregg:
That’s an intervention.
Estil Wallace:
I guess. I was definitely separated from drugs and alcohol against my will.
Billy Gregg:
The families who need a professional to step in is because they’re stuck in a cycle. Now, that professional stepping in sometimes is the penal system stepping in and going, “Okay, you’re off the streets because you’re a danger.” Then families will have this great idea of, “Well, if they go to treatment, maybe they can avoid jail time.”
Billy Gregg:
Suddenly, they’re not worried about their kid going to treatment, they’d rather go to treatment than jail. But prior to that, they’re like, “None of my kids need to go to treatment.” As the great John Southworth used to say, he called it the three Ls; legal, liver, lover. One of those things is going to come into your world and screw things up royally, and you’re going to have to look at your using.
Estil Wallace:
It’s pretty good.
Billy Gregg:
He was right. Lover being loved ones. My attempt to tackle the dynamics of the family to figure out where’s the kid get money from? Who’s making up the excuses? Who covers for them? Who tells their secrets to them? How does he have power over this family? Dismantle that power matrix so that they’re no longer monkeys in their circus, in the attic circus. That’s a humbling phrase when families are going bonkers, and I’m like this because you’re a monkey in his circus. I literally will say that. They’re like, “I don’t want to be a monkey anymore.” But we addicts, wield power over our family with-
Estil Wallace:
If I can interrupt you, that’s probably one of the big paradigm shifts is when you’re working with a family and helping them take the red pill, to understand like, dude, you’ve been a huge contributing factor to this for a long time. That’s probably hard to see at first.
Billy Gregg:
For the family to see?
Estil Wallace:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Billy Gregg:
If I’m doing my job well, I don’t have to be the one that brings it out. I’ve coached that truth out of other family members to come to the table and admit their fault and confront their loved ones in the things that they haven’t been doing or have been doing has been assisting the addiction. I come from… My family day is usually two parts. First, in order to understand how an intervention works… Excuse me, in order to understand why they work, you have to understand addiction.
Billy Gregg:
Addiction, at the end of the day causes us to be binary thinkers. We’re avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. Everything comes secondary to that. Interventions are very uncomfortable situations. If I can create-
Estil Wallace:
Fuck, yeah.
Billy Gregg:
if I can create enough discomfort then their response to seek relief, to seek pleasure. Really, at the end of addiction, we’re not seeking pleasure, we’re seeking relief. Their relief, hopefully, because I’m stacking the deck is to say yes to treatment.
Estil Wallace:
You’re not a comforter, you’re a discomforter.
Billy Gregg:
I think it’s an old Erickson quote, but my friend Pat Medford used to say it all the time, “We’re here to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” The addict is very comfortable, they got all the power. The family is very uncomfortable. In order to change the-
Estil Wallace:
Watching a loved one die right in front of them.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah, and doing all they can to prevent that when in reality, they’re preventative measures are what’s fueling the tank further down the road. But every family is a little bit different. Whatever that matrix is, if they can understand the very simple pain, pleasure, dynamic, then they really can understand why the letter is so important.
Billy Gregg:
The letters go down this cascading trail, this journey from the past to the present; happier times, good times, connection, love, experiences, and then what addiction has taken from them and where addiction has taken them now, hopefully is creating that discomfort. It’s already there, I’m just mining it. I’m taking an opportunity to mine that discomfort that’s already there.
Billy Gregg:
The hard part usually isn’t… Sometimes I’ll say to families, “I could get my daughter to convince your loved one to go to treatment on the right day.” I say, “Getting them there is not really the biggest issue. The biggest metric of intervention is has the family made a commitment to change their behaviors?”
Estil Wallace:
Somebody watching this, I know exactly what you mean when you’re talking about making a commitment to changing behaviors, but just for the benefit of anybody who might be watching us that doesn’t understand how addiction engulfs the life of the sufferer, or is maybe involved in that and isn’t seeing what you’re talking about right off the bat. Can you explain the commitment to changing… If I’m a family member, we’re talking about my kid-
Billy Gregg:
Right, it sounds abstract. So, what’s the concrete thing-
Estil Wallace:
What’s the commitment that I have to make? I’m ready to do this, to help my kid get sober. He’s the one that has to do the work, he’s the who’s all fucked up. What’s my commitment?
Billy Gregg:
It’s different for every person depending upon the type of role they play in their family. The enabler has to learn how to embrace their discomfort, because the primary enabler is the most selfish in the group, almost more selfish than the addict themselves. They are not… Ultimately, at the end of the day, they’re not trying to save their addict, they’re trying to save themselves from the anxiety that they can’t endure and they have no tools for on their own. By saving the addict, they’re relieving themselves of their anxiety. At the end of the day, it’s selfish, it’s self-centered. It’s not about them, it’s about me. Their acting out that anxiety is pushing their addict further down into their addiction-
Estil Wallace:
Yes, their addict just happens to be the perfect target for that emotion, for that behavior.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah. Well, because the addiction also increases anxiety. Families who… It goes along the lines of identified patient syndrome. Our family would be just great if Estil can get his shit together, right?
Estil Wallace:
I’m the identified patient.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah. One of the things I introduce to the family is you’re all the patient. This isn’t an Estil problem, this isn’t a Johnny problem, this isn’t a Cindy problem, this is a family problem. Your son or daughter is the fever to the family’s cold. You might get rid of the fever, but you still have a cold. Just because they go to treatment doesn’t mean that we don’t have a lot to work on.
Billy Gregg:
As an interventionist, it’s really a fun place because what my job is, is to really coach and push them down the field. I’m standing on the sidelines. I’m not the therapist to do the therapy. I want them to get a therapist if they don’t have one. If they have one, start using them, start being honest or telling the truth.
Billy Gregg:
Back to the question of, what is the changing of behaviors? I center it around three very simple things that I learned years ago, doing adolescent care. Honesty in all aspects, open-mindedness and willingness. Those three things. I’ll ask a family member, “Are you being honest with me right now? Are you open-minded to different solutions? Are you willing to accept feedback and coaching around things that are uncomfortable to do and do them even if you’re uncomfortable?” Because the litmus test for the behaviors that they need to change are the ones that are the most uncomfortable to look at, right?
Billy Gregg:
If you’re uncomfortable, we’re probably getting somewhere. So, go get your therapist. It’s not uncommon for the primary enabler to seek more intensive care, maybe an outpatient program or an inpatient program or because of COVID, we’ve opened up a whole realm of services that you can get without even leaving your bedroom. You can just open up your laptop and you can do workshops now. There’s a couple of programs that have done five day intensives around family dynamics, codependency and trauma, and they’re doing them online now. The objectionable issues that families usually have is, well, I can’t afford it, I can’t leave, I can’t leave work. We’re like, “I got a solution for that. You can do it at night and it’s only going to cost you like 500 bucks.”
Billy Gregg:
Boiling it down to the really simple things is enablers usually are providing them a place to stay, money. You know what, I got to dial backwards for a second. I don’t like the word enabler. It’s unfortunately part of our lexicon, and I frequently catch myself using it.
Estil Wallace:
Sure.
Billy Gregg:
I’m not one of those people that likes to coddle dysfunction by changing the words to be less uncomfortable. But I think it really is very daunting. Initially with families, I don’t get into the whole, the enabling word. I try to avoid it because it’s a hot button issue for them, unless they bring it up. What I do talk about is your parenting style. We’re talking about the parent child dynamic right now, rather than the spouse or child parent dynamic.
Billy Gregg:
The parenting skills you’re currently using with your 30 year old is appropriate for a nine year old.
Estil Wallace:
Because that’s where they’re at.
Billy Gregg:
Right.
Estil Wallace:
That’s all new to people that are just entering.
Billy Gregg:
They usually say, they behave that way, so I have to respond this way.
Estil Wallace:
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah. I’m like, “No, actually, the more you treat them like they’re nine, they’re going to act like they’re nine. When’s the best time to plant a tree?
Estil Wallace:
Not to mention they spend most of the time getting fucked up instead of growing through the right times.
Billy Gregg:
Right. I say, “What’s the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago? Well, let’s the second best time? Right now. So, let’s plant a tree, and that tree is going to be an adult tomorrow.” We’re not gradiating into adulthood, we’re flicking a switch, because we don’t grow without there being pain, discomfort.
Estil Wallace:
I think physical fitness and spiritual fitness are very akin to each other. I like the alignment of those two in parallel. I asked guys, you know what I like about resistance training? It’s hard. It’s resistance training, I’m fighting against something. When you fight against things you’re stronger. When you fight resistance, you get stronger. These things aren’t easy. If they were, everybody would do them.
Billy Gregg:
Right.
Estil Wallace:
Drugs and alcohol are not bad. Drugs and alcohol inherently are not bad, they’re fucking awesome.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah.
Estil Wallace:
That’s part of the problem. They feed into this ability for me to just stick my head in the sand permanently, and then you start stacking on all the things that I don’t do and all the gaps left in life. God forbid you start stacking on some trauma. Yeah, there’s no way I’m going to get sober, I even attempted. I’m like a wild animal with my food. It’s like, “What the fuck are you threatening me for?”
Billy Gregg:
What you just said about resistance training is really interesting, because of the way our brains eventually devolve into that binary pleasure seeking, pain avoiding, is we don’t have much resilience, unless it’s something to do with getting high or drunk.
Estil Wallace:
In that respect, we’re acting like cockroaches. We just keep going no matter what, against all odds.
Billy Gregg:
I think it was Sandy Beach that used to say, the old speaker from California. He would say, “Put a six pack of beer on the top of a mountain on Catalina Island and tell a drunk and withdrawals, it’s over there. They’ll figure out a way to get over there. If it has to swim, they’ll swim. They’ll climb up to the top.”
Billy Gregg:
We’ve got amazing resilience. Unfortunately, our motivators are pretty messed up. I’m going to flip the interview, how do you get a bunch of addicts to go do resistance training? How does that happen? There’s got to be some guys like, “I’ll do cardio but I’m not doing resistance training. I’m not-“
Estil Wallace:
To be fair, not 100% of our clients do 100% of the resistance training 100% of the time. To be fair, we’re not beating people with canes over here, “Lift, damn you.” But, there’s a big push. On the medical side, we make sure they’re in fit enough condition to exercise. We work with a trainer, a certified personal trainer. He and the doc work hand in hand, make sure that the person is… We’re not going to kill a guy by having them lift weights. As long as that’s the case, then you’re going to fucking lift weights today. You’re going to do some things that are uncomfortable.
Estil Wallace:
Things like yoga and weight training, all you have to do is run a Google search, and you will see the never ending list of benefits, both psychologically and physically. I won’t bore you with why yoga and weight training is good for you. What’s amazing, what I think about it is really this thing you can do emotionally, because yoga… I’m going to stand up here for this weird thing. But Yoga is a good example. You get a guy who’s maybe never done yoga, or maybe once or something with his girlfriend or something, but he’s not into it. He is uncomfortable, he is detoxing off fentanyl, so, he’s very uncomfortable. He just got done with you. He’s been beat up on every front. Now, he’s in with a bunch of people he doesn’t know. Now, he’s in our yoga studio, and he’s doing this. He’s trying to hold a tree pose. And he’s going, “This is so fucking stupid. I can’t believe I’m here. I should just fucking leave. I can’t do this. I can’t believe I did this [inaudible 00:18:57] I should just fucking leave, I should just fucking go right now.
Estil Wallace:
Next thing you know, an hour goes by and internally he goes, “I survived. I just survived an uncomfortable hour. I don’t really know if I feel any better for that, but I don’t feel any worse.” What he’s done… By the time he’s completed 24 hours with us, which more or less is like that, all fucking day long, he’s starting to string together a succession of wins. By wins, I mean sitting through, leaning into, and in optimal cases, finding resolution and healing from uncomfortable experiences one after another, until those uncomfortable experiences become regular.
Estil Wallace:
By the time you get out of here, most guys are like, “I like yoga and weight training.” Because it’s good. It’s good for you. They like to meditate, they like to go to meetings. They like to-
Billy Gregg:
I imagine though that because you’re not sending them to the gym by themselves, they’re doing this as a group-
Estil Wallace:
Because of COVID, we’re doing it here. We’re literally doing it here.
Billy Gregg:
The community is built not just about being honest, but also pushing past our physical limits every day?
Estil Wallace:
Yep, five days a week.
Billy Gregg:
I’ve got this kid, we’re planning this intervention. I’m not joking, and it’s a really tough kid, because mom’s anxiety is through the roof. Mom moved from another state to Arizona to be near him, simply because if something went wrong, her journey from her house to his place was shorter. Even though he never calls her, except to get money and he won’t show up for the money, just PayPal it to me, I’m fine.
Billy Gregg:
He doesn’t have a bond with his family, except mom and mom’s not trustworthy around the enabling. In family systems theory, we’ve got the alcoholic and the co-alcoholic and you’ve got the hero and the scapegoat and the lost child, and the mascot. You get all these roles going on? Well in a family of say four, this is a family of four, and they’re a blended family on top of it. The firstborn, who’s part of the step family is also a highly special needs guy, who has pushed through all of his discomfort to be a successful human being.
Estil Wallace:
Rad.
Billy Gregg:
Totally rad.
Estil Wallace:
Fucking rockstar.
Billy Gregg:
But you’ve got this kid who can’t stop drinking and playing video games all day long. He’s not bonded. So, dad has been the hero this kid’s whole life, and mom’s been the amazing nurturer his whole life, and his stepbrother has been this overcomer his whole life. Where’s he at? Totally lost.
Estil Wallace:
Totally isolated.
Billy Gregg:
He’s more connected to people on Halo, or whatever… Call of Duty actually, I think it was, his game dejure is. Then he has to his own family and dad is saying, “How do we intervene on this guy?” There’s different attachment approaches that you can make, but it’s a very different intervention. It takes longer, it’s not a one night stand, it’s very intensive and it takes a lot of maneuvering and a lot of trust with the family. Usually, takes two or three meetings to get it culminated. It’s relationship building type thing.
Billy Gregg:
The point I’m getting to is this, is you got a kid who’s got no attachments to anyone except for the comptroller in his hand and the tequila bottle on the counter. How does he do in a program like this? Because I’m thinking what you’re describing, because the reason why I said it, is this dad literally said, “This kid has zero wins in his column.”
Estil Wallace:
It’d be exactly the way he described treatment. You’re going to walk in you’re going to go, “This isn’t for me.” Then in four or five days you’re going to be like, “I’m home.” That’s how it is.
Billy Gregg:
Is there therapeutic Call of Duty?
Estil Wallace:
No. The therapy is to get away from video games. It’s not that video games are inherently bad, but they’re one more way to escape, stick my head in the sand not grow, and not be challenged. Dude, let me ask you this, you’ve been sober 31 years.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah, July 17th was my 31st anniversary.
Estil Wallace:
You were young when you got sober because you don’t look that old to be sober that long.
Billy Gregg:
No, I’m 49. I have an interesting story. My dad was a minister growing up, and that’s an interesting family dynamic to begin with.
Estil Wallace:
Sure.
Billy Gregg:
We’re also a blended family. My half brother and sister from my mom’s first marriage were considerably older. I was always very… I’m definitely a mama’s boy. I was pretty tight with my mom. I was always at my mom’s heels. But I aspired to be like my dad. The way that I pictured my dad growing up; funny, charismatic. He could connect to strangers in ways that… It was a gift. The guy had a gift to connect with absolute strangers.
Billy Gregg:
He wasn’t a salesman. The guy never sold a thing in his life. He was a knuckle busting monkey wrench guy. He was a mechanic his whole life. Got into being a preacher and discovered that he was exceptional at it, except for the whole part where you have to live this disciplined life. He missed that part. I had this picture of who he was, and I wanted to be like that. My goal was to be a minister and take over his church someday, and go on into that.
Billy Gregg:
That was the fantasy version of the family and the dynamics that we’re going to work out. The reality of it was I was… Earliest I can tell was nine years old when I first started to think about not being on the planet anymore. My first thought of suicide was in my closet covered with a basket of dirty clothes and stuffed animals at nine years old and sitting in there for most of the day and no one noticing that I wasn’t around and feeling like I don’t matter, I don’t exist, why am I alive? That’s the first cogent memory that I have.
Estil Wallace:
That’s pretty gnarly, deep and dark thought for a nine year old.
Billy Gregg:
For a nine year old.
Estil Wallace:
That’s pretty heavy, bro.
Billy Gregg:
Of course that memory gets stuffed, and then in public, I was just like my dad. I was outgoing, energetic, talk to anybody, funny, silly, whatever, extroverted, outgoing, intelligent enough to get by in whatever I needed to do. Aspiring to be the quintessential preacher’s kid. Because I’ll tell you what, you get a license to do a lot of stuff when you’re a preacher’s kid. You get away with stuff. Even though I wasn’t trying to get away with stuff, I learned very early on that I could do no wrong, somebody’s going to cover for me if I did something bad. It didn’t have to be my family covering for me, I had people outside in the community covering for me. They weren’t calling my mom and dad and saying, “Hey, guess what I saw Billy doing?”
Estil Wallace:
Where’d you grew up, here?
Billy Gregg:
Born in Flagstaff. My dad took a job up in North Central California near a town, Modesto. Then that’s where he started his first church. Then somewhere around seven, he got a job running a church in Blythe, California. We moved from beautiful, green, temperate, Central California to Hell-
Estil Wallace:
Blythe.
Billy Gregg:
To Blythe. I never forgave him for that. Even though I loved the heat, I’m a total desert rat. It was my first experience of being taken away from things that were super familiar and safe and taken somewhere where I didn’t feel familiar or ever feel safe. An attachment was really hard for me. I was very attached to my little friends. At seven years old, I still can remember most of their names and the things that we did.
Estil Wallace:
Well, shit. Yeah.
Billy Gregg:
Right? Then somewhere after seven, things gets really choppy and really weird, and my friends rotate year after year after year after year. The tribe that you hang out with, that changed a lot. But I’m in Blythe, and the timeframe is still kind of foggy, but sometimes I’m thinking it’s as early as 11 or as late as 13. I just peg it down to around 12 years old is when a neighborhood kid that was my buddy’s older brother was a loner, and we’re literally at the bus stop, and he asked if I wanted to get high after school, and I said, Yes. Without-
Estil Wallace:
Like Earl Hightower, I absolutely do-
Billy Gregg:
Yeah, exactly.
Estil Wallace:
… to whatever he said.
Billy Gregg:
I didn’t [inaudible 00:29:45] Didn’t think about saying no. The entire day, all I did was think about it, until we got home, and I’m like, “Dude, are we doing that?” He’s like, “Oh, yeah.” As you were saying earlier, drugs are amazing. It was the first time feeling okay, feeling normal, anxiety gone, depression gone, at peace, happy. It turned this off.
Billy Gregg:
That’s where the ball got rolling. Fast forward through just about every drug on the planet.
Estil Wallace:
Sure, sure. Where did you get sober?
Billy Gregg:
Three guys, the summer before our senior year, three of the guys that I ran with, they weren’t my best friends I often call them that, but they became very good friends but they weren’t best friends at the time. They were just guys that either sold drugs with, or did drugs with, or drink with, they all go to rehab, and they come back and they look amazing. Their families are happy, and they’re happy and they’re driving cars and have nice clothes and everything looks pristine and perfect.
Billy Gregg:
I wanted something that they had. A few months into our senior year of high school, they do an intervention on me.
Estil Wallace:
Fuck yeah.
Billy Gregg:
It was the idea of my buddy Sean. It was Sean, Ken and Mike. Sean’s like, “Let’s do an intervention.” There was this guy in our hom town, named Rodolfo big, huge Mexican guy with a Mexican Afro, always wore, just like this, actually. He was your token drug and alcohol counselor for all the adolescents. All of them in town. If you ever got arrested, you had to go to Rodolfo’s office and you had to do the weekly meetings and IOP and all that check off the boxes. We’d all been through his office at least once, because we’d all been arrested at least once.
Billy Gregg:
Rodolfo was a known entity. Never frightening, never scary, always welcoming. His tagline was, “So, I heard you’ve been going through some changes, man.”
Estil Wallace:
It’s good. I like that.
Billy Gregg:
He would open you up, and you get to talking. They got him to host this intervention and without getting too far into the details, because I’ll get into minutiae if you let me. I say no while saying yes, at the same time. I’m curious about what they’re offering. I’m in contemplation.
Estil Wallace:
Sober curious. There’s a lot of sober curious people out there.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah. I was very curious, because they appeared happy. I hadn’t been… The drugs hadn’t kept me happy. We were just surviving at this point. There’s a lot of other certain situations that came into play where I started going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and there was a lady named Diane Haywood and her husband, Bill Haywood, both are passed away now. But they were big time people in Narcotics Anonymous, and they moved to my town. They were hosting meetings at their house and they were sponsoring everyone.
Billy Gregg:
They had… Bill’s story was in the back of the basic text. He was a big deal. Diane was crazy intuitive. She’s a short little redheaded Irish lady from Boston, loud, obnoxious, told the truth, said the word fuck a lot.
Estil Wallace:
I like her already.
Billy Gregg:
She was adorable. I hated her because I was keeping secrets, and she was reading my mail from across the room. But her shares, each time she would open her mouth, she went through a first step every single time. She would tell her story about getting clean, and keeping her mouth shut and not saying a word her first year and doing what she was told and being humble. That was her shtick. I just remember her saying that same thing, she would get into other stuff, but she would always start off every share with that thing.
Billy Gregg:
One day, she was just like, “Every time I say that, I’m talking to you. You need to get busy with your sponsor.” At a meeting at her and Bill’s house, it was a step study, and it’s on the fourth step, and it’s my turn to share because we’re going around a circle, and Diane just politely, very gently and politely says, “Billy, how about you just take the cotton out of your ears and stuff it in your mouth because you’ve never done a fourth step.” I got my feelings hurt.
Billy Gregg:
Of course, I never went back to another meeting. So, sober curious became I’m going to show you guys that I don’t need you.
Estil Wallace:
I’ve been around the 12 step recovery world long enough to have heard people say that they’ve heard that phrase or they knew someone that used that phrase, but I’m young enough that I’ve never actually heard anybody say that-
Billy Gregg:
Somebody actually said it to me.
Estil Wallace:
That’s amazing. Nobody’s ever said that to me. People were always like, “They used to tell me.” I’m like, “Oh, cool. I hope somebody tells me that-
Billy Gregg:
Diane said it-
Estil Wallace:
… nobody has.
Billy Gregg:
Later she made amends because she knew she hurt my feelings and that was not her intention at all. We met up many, many years later, and she remembered the moment, it was right after her husband died, Bill died. But that’s a whole nother story. I was going about and I wasn’t really clean and sober at the time, I was drinking, I was using every kind of over the counter something. I wasn’t going to see Chewy anymore. That’s how I was cool with it.
Estil Wallace:
I 100% identify, for many years to me, sobriety was represented by marijuana and malt liquor only.
Billy Gregg:
Right. The intervention work because it got me to really thinking about things. Did I go to treatment? No. Did I start exposing myself to 12 step recovery? Yes. I went to a meeting every week, sometimes a couple of times a week, and they were very safe because they were in the back room of an old bank, and it was always candlelight. Every meeting in town was candlelight.
Estil Wallace:
It’s pretty dope.
Billy Gregg:
It was really weird. I loved it. I like fire. I could stare at that shit all day. Of course, I don’t last very long trying to prove everybody wrong that I don’t have a problem with alcohol. I have a problem with all that other stuff.
Estil Wallace:
Oh, you’re one of those.
Billy Gregg:
Well, I’m 18, I don’t want to lose the right to drink on my 21st birthday.
Estil Wallace:
That’s young.
Billy Gregg:
I don’t want to lose drinking through college. I don’t want to lose the right to drink, period. If I admit, I’m fucked, and I didn’t want to be fucked.
Estil Wallace:
I love when people have five sobriety dates.
Billy Gregg:
Right.
Estil Wallace:
One for pills, one for alcohol, one for-
Billy Gregg:
That’s an interesting journey. I’ve never been that way. I’ve never been that way. In fact, in my drinking binge leading up to me going to treatment, if I was around other people and drunk, I was trying to get them to get me high. Luckily, that never happened, but I was trying, and there’s a lot of dynamics there because when you start going to NA meetings in my hometown, everybody calls you a narc. So, nobody was willing to give me anything.
Estil Wallace:
Don’t fucking say shit to Billy, he’s been-
Billy Gregg:
Exactly, he’s been to meetings. But my bottom was a succession of nights of blackout drinking and each night… Basically, I couldn’t shut the lunatic off. I had enough of Diane Haywood’s voice in my head and her husband, Bill in my head to really mess with my drinking. Because she basically outlined what it was. Cravings, inability to consistently abstain and to continue drinking despite consequences. She just nailed that on me over and over and over and over, and I knew it. Every night it was a convincing thing. There were some nights where I didn’t drink but the two I planned on drinking.
Billy Gregg:
Then July 16th, after several successions of nights of just… It was really, really bad. This was something that I didn’t remember for many years, but I’d come to this realization that… Remember the movie Taxi Driver?
Estil Wallace:
Yeah.
Billy Gregg:
Where he is standing in front of the mirror, “Are you talking to me?” He’s playing that out. I actually did that with the shotgun that I grew up… My dad gave me a shotgun when I was 10.
Estil Wallace:
That’s a great gift.
Billy Gregg:
Fantastic. I go dove hunt before school. It was not uncommon. During this period of time, my world’s crumbling.
Estil Wallace:
Is this in Blythe?
Billy Gregg:
This is Blythe. My world is coming-
Estil Wallace:
10 year old Billy wondering around at seven o’clock in the morning with a shotgun.
Billy Gregg:
Well, I didn’t get to go out at 10. At 10, I got my license, at 12, 13, 14 my dad and I… I was on the front of the car, I was on the hood of the car shooting doves driving down riverbank dirt roads. Some of my best memories were he and I sitting in a blind waiting for doves to come over the brush line. I hated dove, by the way. I just like killing them.
Estil Wallace:
You were bonding with your dad.
Billy Gregg:
It was bonding, right?
Estil Wallace:
It’s a dude shit, you got guns and stuff.
Billy Gregg:
We get to blow stuff, rip heads off things. It was fantastic. I was doing everything I could that week to control the drinking that Diane was proving to me that I couldn’t, the Diane in my head. I had this existential moment. I’ve only heard one other person ever describe this from the podium. There’s a guy out in Palm Desert who’s three times my age. With all the concentrated effort I had in my head to not continue to go back to the fridge and get more beer, I kept physically getting up off my chair and going to get more beer. I could not stop my body from going to get more beer.
Billy Gregg:
That was very surreal. How come I can’t stop my body from going to get more beer? So, I’m going to blow my brains out because the drinking is not working, the lunatic is still going on.
Estil Wallace:
One of the one of the three guys that brought meetings in Durango Jail when I heard the message, he said, “I thought it was my bike.” He’s like, “I’m not going to smoke crack today, and I would get on the bicycle and instead of home, the bike would just take me to the crack house.”
Billy Gregg:
Take me right to the crack house, right? Fucking bike. That’s funny. I’m going to blow my brains out. It’s not working, I can’t shut the lunatic off. I feel guilty for everything that’s ever happened in the entire world. I’m just an absolute train wreck. I wake up the next morning, and I’m processing this, I’m doing this. I distinctly remember Benny Hill on TV, and that stupid song. Do you ever watch Benny Hill? You have no idea what I’m talking about. Benny Hill was a very sexually inappropriate comedian that was on HBO way back in a day, and he had this stupid intro song. The song used to trigger the hell out of me for years.
Billy Gregg:
I pass out, I go to sleep, and I go from sweating, panting, my heart rate’s up, I got a gun in my mouth. I got the hammer back. I got my thumb on the trigger guard. I know what it’s tasting like in the top of my tongue. I know what the front sight feels like against the roof. I’m going through all of this, and I wake up the next morning.
Billy Gregg:
Really weird. I hadn’t had enough to drink to really pass out. I woke up sitting in my chair, in tidy-whities, with this cocked loaded shotgun in my lap and terrified. First time terrified. I throw on some clothes, jumped in the car, drove down to Rodolfo’s office. He was off that day, it was a Monday. This old guy, John, who drove a Pontiac Fiero and he had a license plate ALKY. I’ll never forget this guy, A-L-K-Y. He had been sober in 12 steps for years.
Billy Gregg:
I walked in and I said, “Where’s Rodolfo?” “He’s off?” I said, “Great. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, I need to get to treatment as soon as possible.” That’s five days later, I was walking in to Lost Heads Ranch in Dessert Hot Springs, California. There’s a whole series of rally weird events that led up to my admission that happened throughout my treatment experience, that without those experiences being chained together and me realizing God was helping me from the day I take my last drink, I know that he just spock pinch, go to sleep. You’re not going to make it through tonight if you don’t go to sleep right now.
Billy Gregg:
To certain things that happened, and I won’t get into it because it’ll make a very long podcast. I walked into treatment having no money, no understanding of how treatment’s paid for. I had great insurance, but the recovery house they sent me to was a mom and pop 12 step immersion. No medical, no insurance. By the time they figured out that I hadn’t paid for my stay, I’d already bonded with everybody. I was on day five. I went from fuck you, to yes. They’re like-
Estil Wallace:
Have you guys seen this? I know there’s other people like me-
Billy Gregg:
Right. I’m home. 30% of the guys are all convicts. I’m hanging out with people I’ve never hung out with in my lifetime, and I’m loving these people, and I’m feeling good. They’re like, “Dude, if you don’t… How are you paying for this?” They ended up scholarshiping me.
Estil Wallace:
That’s so good.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah. If certain questions had been answered, I would have never made it there. I would have started my journey in some spin dry.
Estil Wallace:
I have a tough question for you.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah.
Estil Wallace:
But it’s one that I think is important. When what happened to you happened, and I don’t mean externally, because the stuff that happened externally, give or take is the same stuff that happens externally to alcoholics and drug addicts, all over the world who have the same experience. Like alcoholics and drug addicts they drink and use until they die, except when they don’t, and they get sober and they don’t just stop drinking. Stories like yours, you didn’t just stop drinking when you’re 18 and go on to live a normal life without alcohol. You have gone on to lead an extraordinary life. You’ve been picking up a breadcrumb trail, unraveling the mystery for a long time-
Billy Gregg:
For a long time, sure. I get where you’re going. Yeah.
Estil Wallace:
I like that you’re not shy about using the word God. What the fuck happens inside of a person where they go from like, “I am so dysfunctional, I’m not good for myself or anyone around me.” To becoming this person who is hot on the spiritual trail. What is that? It seems to work-
Billy Gregg:
How much time do we have? A series of events that was happening along with Ken and Mike and Sean intervening on me, there was Dr. Ken Richardson and Mr. Ken Scott, they ran the Counseling Center at my high school. They saw some quality in me that I couldn’t see. They had seen me a lot in that office because the numerous times I’ve been arrested and thrown out of school, eventually when you get back into school, you got to go to the counseling center a lot. Eventually got a job in there.
Billy Gregg:
Ken Scott particular took a liking to me and he decided that he was going to expose me to the counseling field. He got me some training in pure counseling. This is 1988-
Estil Wallace:
Which is [inaudible 00:48:50] ’88?
Billy Gregg:
’89.
Estil Wallace:
’89, okay.
Billy Gregg:
He gets me training. All these different things happen and here I am, my life is a mess, and this double life I’m leading over here. Now, I’m actually having peer counseling sessions with other students in the counseling center, and I’m loving it. I’m digging it. It’s all codependent crap, but I’m connecting with people in ways that I’d never had.
Billy Gregg:
I hit bottom, and I feel like a huge disappointment. I go have dinner with Mr. Scott, and he was so proud of me. He was so happy. I’m like, “You’re finally getting the help. You’re going to change lives.” I got a bug when I worked with those two guys, Dr. Stedman and Mr. Scott. Some of those skills that they trained me, I went on a five day training for this peer counseling gig. We still use those in school now. They’re very simple reflective listening and all those conversation skills. I’m sitting with a woman-
Estil Wallace:
Weird NLP stuff.
Billy Gregg:
Hub?
Estil Wallace:
Weird NLP stuff.
Billy Gregg:
Yes. I’m sitting on the front step of the women’s dorm at Lost Heads Recovery Ranch.
Estil Wallace:
Lost Heads?
Billy Gregg:
At the time, it was called Lost Heads because at one time it was a functioning cattle ranch, and they always lost cattle.
Estil Wallace:
Heads of cattle, got it.
Billy Gregg:
Heads of cattle. It was also a brothel at one time, which is perfect, more character. Carol is in her 40s, I’m 18 and Carol’s devastated, she got some bad news and I walked Carol through it. She turns to me and she goes, “You’re fucking 18, and you just walked me through something I’ve never been able to do. God’s got something in store for you.” That was that, bing! Because I was asking myself the question walking into rehab like, the next person closest to my age was 26. 18 year olds didn’t go to big grown up rehab back then, not very often.
Estil Wallace:
I was 26 when I got sober and I was one of the youngest around in my whole circle 16 years ago.
Billy Gregg:
I’m like, why did I get to be so fucked up so young? This sucks, but I’m glad I got a solution, and I’m really hungry for some sort of purpose, because I have no measurable skills. I have nothing moving forward in life. I have no idea. I know how to flip burgers and fill up gas tanks. That’s my skill set or mow grass.
Billy Gregg:
But Carol’s saying that really resonated with me in a way that maybe all of these things fall in place haven’t been by an accident, and I was trying my best to be an atheist at the time, by the way, my one requirement for treatment-
Estil Wallace:
[inaudible 00:52:19]
Billy Gregg:
Yeah. My one requirement when I told John to get me treatment is don’t send me to a Christian program. I can’t go to faith-based program. That was my only objection. I don’t care where you send me, just as long as they’re not talking about Jesus, I’m good. I caught this bug, and fast forward. I get out of treatment, and I’m running into my executive director at meetings, because why? Because I’m going to meetings where he lives so I can run into him. I’m bugging him for a job. I’m bugging him for a job. Finally, one day, another series of events where they needed to hire somebody right away to cover the overnight shift, and I said I’ll do it.
Estil Wallace:
Director, pick me.
Billy Gregg:
I’ll do it. I can stay awake, I’m a great night owl. Total lies. I could not stay awake to save my life. That got me in the door. That’s always been my understanding of, I let you get this miserable this fast because I’ve got a job for you. I spent my first 10 years… After working at the rehab, I got sober, I came out to Arizona, and I worked in adolescent care for about 11 years straight. Then went from there, that’s how I ended up at GateHouse working with the 17 to 27 year olds, because I’ve got all the psychiatric background, all this had lesson work under my belt. All the safety stuff and all this family stuff. I had a great clinical director that got me involved in doing family work when I was 21, and doing all this family training all these years.
Estil Wallace:
GateHouse it’s not around anymore.
Billy Gregg:
Unfortunately not. It had a lot of managerial shortcomings that caused it to close, but dynamically, is one of the most amazing programs I’ve ever seen, heard of, or worked at.
Estil Wallace:
That’s where you got to know both Dave Johnson and Matt Brown.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah, Dave hired me.
Estil Wallace:
Who both speak very highly of you.
Billy Gregg:
Dave hired me. In fact, I had taken a break from the field. I was really burnt out in adolescent care. A buddy of mine was like, “Dude, I’m going to go sling cable for Cox, why don’t you come with me?” I was so cooked, I was so burnt. I said, “Cool, let’s go do that.” I do that for about six months and I’m like, “I am not cut out for this.” Climbing around in attics. I fell through some lady’s garage, and I’m so ADD. I’m dropping tools, I’m not cut out for the work.
Billy Gregg:
I do a Google search for young adult programs and I come across GateHouse. I’m like, “What the hell’s GateHouse? I’ve been around here for a while, I’ve never heard of GateHouse.” All these other programs on the list I’ve heard of, I don’t want to work at any of them. What’s this? I go to their website and I’m like, “Hey honey, I just found the next place I’m going to go work.”
Estil Wallace:
What year was this?
Billy Gregg:
It was the year my daughter was born. So, it was 2004.
Estil Wallace:
It’s the year I got sober.
Billy Gregg:
- I go out for a full day interview, a whole day. Show up at 8:00, plan to be here all day, and I did it. They said, “Come back tomorrow.” Did it again. I thought I made it through the gauntlet. Week after week, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. I was bugging Dave. I’m like, “Dude, I’d like to have a job before they find a medical cure for addiction. What’s going on here?” Finally, he’s like, “I have stubborn owners. They don’t like hiring people from the outside. In fact, I’m the first guy they ever hired that wasn’t already connected to the owners or the people that run it. You’re the only stranger we’ve ever considered, and it’s taking time because we don’t have the budget to pay you. We need you. We just don’t have the money yet.”
Billy Gregg:
I think it was nine months later when I finally got the job. They call me out for another interview and it’s with Matt Brown and he takes me down the Carolinas on the main stretch there and he’s like, “If you haven’t figured out I’m not interviewing you, I’m training you. You’re taking over my job, tomorrow.” That’s how it was at GateHouse. Here’s your clients, take care of them. It was, hit the ground running.
Billy Gregg:
Because Matt was running the family communications department. GateHouse’s way of constantly keeping a whole bunch of 17 to 28 year old kids from running down the street was to have a department which was one person in constant contact with the family doing many interventions every time you make the phone call. Every call was an intervention. Every call was laying a foundation for long term stay. Every call was confronting enabling, every call was confronting coddling, every one of them. Then figuring out how to tell them-
Estil Wallace:
You’re speaking my language right now. Confronting enabling, confronting coddling.
Billy Gregg:
It was a great job, and I had to do it for-
Estil Wallace:
It’s gladiator training for intervention work.
Billy Gregg:
Absolutely. Absolutely. It was at GateHouse that we all… The CEO was a lunatic, a wonderful guy with lots and lots of problems, but he was lunatic and he’d say, I got a kid whose family won’t stop enabling. I’m going to send you over here to do an intervention, and off we went. No training, no idea what we’re doing. Don’t fuck it up. Turn around, bring the guy back for treatment. That’s how we got… Most of the guys that were working in the department, they had all had an intervention. They had an idea of what they were doing. I was flying blind, I had no idea. I didn’t do a lot of those then, but I did a few of them, and I definitely caught the bug.
Billy Gregg:
But that was my favorite job. The family work and all the training id gotten in adolescent work, all fit in extremely well in the GateHouse matrix. There’s a lot of alumni and former staff and we have a Facebook page and every once in a while somebody will say something or post an old photo. We just collectively grieve its demise.
Estil Wallace:
That’s how I feel about the solution.
Billy Gregg:
Right?
Estil Wallace:
The old solution.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah.
Estil Wallace:
All right, here’s a question I ask most guests, what do drug addicts look like? In your mind, before you got into drug addicts [inaudible 00:59:20]
Billy Gregg:
That’s interesting. In my hometown, they drove low riders. They lived on the west side of town, in a little… Our town is very segregated to a degree. Even though it was like largely Latino during the harvest time… During the harvest time, everything, everything was very melting pot, but the west side was where the Latinos lived, and the south side was where the African Americans lived, and then the white folks lived on the north side, and all the hillbillies were scattered on the east side, and that’s where I lived.
Billy Gregg:
If you had asked me back then what does a drug addict look like? I would say, my drug dealer, he was the quintessential Mexican, dope dealing, driving a low rider, wife beater, dickey sagging, named Primo.
Estil Wallace:
Fucking love that guy.
Billy Gregg:
He was great.
Estil Wallace:
Fucking love that guy.
Billy Gregg:
He was great.
Estil Wallace:
I would drink 40s with that guy.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah. That’s what I would have thought of. But contrast that with my neighbor across the street, who was living at home with his elderly parents who had a quadriplegic dad that needed taking care of. I knew he was a drug addict, but he wasn’t like those other folks. He worked, he made money, he functioned.
Estil Wallace:
Strange dichotomy.
Billy Gregg:
He smoked weed every day, he liked to do tweak, he liked to do cocaine, he liked to pop… He was a little bit of everything.
Estil Wallace:
But he had no wife beater, nor a low rider.
Billy Gregg:
No, he drove a nice truck, and he kept things really under wraps so a lot of folks didn’t know. Everybody knew he was a pot smoker, but nobody knew that he was in trouble. He was my best friend. I went to work for him, he paid me in drugs. It was a great arrangement.
Estil Wallace:
It’s perfect.
Billy Gregg:
Perfect arrangement. What kind of moral aptitude gives a 12 year old a job and pays him with dope? I don’t know what that says about a guy but that’s what we do as addicts. I think about… There’s this conversation that often happens when I’m meeting with a family, and it’s the parents intervening on the kid. They start to talk about the kid’s friends.
Estil Wallace:
Oh, God. I know exactly where you’re going.
Billy Gregg:
His druggie friends.
Estil Wallace:
It’s like the government calling our enemies insurgents.
Billy Gregg:
Right.
Estil Wallace:
It dehumanizes, it stigmatizes, it separates, they’re not human.
Billy Gregg:
Not human. In fact, it’s probably their fault.
Estil Wallace:
It probably is their fault, fuckers.
Billy Gregg:
It’s probably is their fault.
Estil Wallace:
Why don’t you just go get them.
Billy Gregg:
I’ll say to a family, me and your kid are those guys.
Estil Wallace:
Right. That’s good.
Billy Gregg:
We are those guys. The guy that you just hired to get your kid on that’s-
Estil Wallace:
On the podcast page where this will be posted, it says, you look like a drug addict, and then I give a little caption under you. Drug addicts like everybody.
Billy Gregg:
That’s awesome. You mentioned last week the idea of stigma. I’m only 49, but I’ve been around long enough to know what stigma really was like, and it still was nowhere near what it used to be like when 12 steps started.
Estil Wallace:
That’s very different.
Billy Gregg:
If you had a watch, you weren’t a prospect, right? The stigma in the late ’80s, where the term recovering addict or recovering alcoholic really started to emerge, you didn’t tell your grandparents. If the nuclear family knew, obviously, they were okay, but you can’t tell anybody else.
Estil Wallace:
No, a lot of shame. You shame our family.
Billy Gregg:
What happened to Billy. He moved.
Estil Wallace:
He had his appendix out.
Billy Gregg:
He moved. He left town.
Estil Wallace:
He went to military.
Billy Gregg:
He got a great job out of town. He moved.
Estil Wallace:
Fucking anything but the truth.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah.
Estil Wallace:
I was raised by the silent generation, adopted my grandparents. They grew up during the depression. We talked about zero. I’m very familiar with that lifestyle.
Billy Gregg:
So, silence was-
Estil Wallace:
They’re called silent generation.
Billy Gregg:
Yeah. But I have to think about… I thought about the idea of stigma. There’s some people that I follow on social media and they’re big in the campaign against stigma. I see the point in some areas where like, if I have someone who their primary objection to getting help is the name that they may be given to the condition that brought them there, we’ve got problems. We have a problem with that dynamic, because am I supposed to call this person forever and never mention the A word the entire time? There’s times where I’m doing interventions. That’s not the time to confront. I’m not here to confront the addicts’ dysfunction except for the point where it gives them so uncomfortable, they have to get help.
Billy Gregg:
I’ll avoid the word addict the whole time if I need to. But-
Estil Wallace:
Whatever gets them through the door.
Billy Gregg:
Whatever gets them through the door, but at some point, we have to say-
Estil Wallace:
While they settle in. Like you said, once they get in, they settle in. They’re like, “This is fine. I’m an alcoholic, I’m an addict, whatever.” They get used to it pretty fast. But it keeps people out. It keeps people out, thinking that they’re different or that they’re fucked up, and that they’re damaged, that they’re broken.
Estil Wallace:
It’s heartbreaking to me that a single person that struggled with the same problems that you and I have struggled with now doesn’t find the incredible, deeply fulfilling purpose driven lives that we’ve found, because they’re fucking scared what somebody might think. Fuck that. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart.
Billy Gregg:
That’s why the necessity of some level of bottom has to occur because-
Estil Wallace:
They’re desperate then.
Billy Gregg:
The pain has to overwhelm the fear of what other people are going to think. There’s multiple fears, but that’s one of them, that’s a big one. What are other people going to think? I’ll tell you what, when I woke up and saw that shotgun, I didn’t give a fuck who thought anything. I wasn’t walking into John’s office and say, “Dude, I almost blew my brains out. Let’s go to help.” No, I walked in and said, “I’ve got a problem and we need to go to rehab.” They didn’t even ask me qualifying questions. Didn’t drop a drug test, nothing. There was the look on my face. “Okay, let’s go.”
Billy Gregg:
I don’t have to worry about any stigmas, and the last thing I was concerned about was whether or not I had to put a new middle name on my shit. I’m Bill, and I’m an alcoholic. It was actually the first time… It was the word that I used that allowed me to join the first club that I ever really belonged in, 12 step recovery. It was the only place where I could walk in anywhere in the world, and say, “I’m Billy, I’m an addict alcoholic.” I don’t have to say anything else. I’m at home, and I’ve been to a lot of meetings, a lot of different states, a few in Mexico, elsewhere. Even in Spanish, it’s fantastic.
Billy Gregg:
That was something I didn’t have growing up. As much as it hurts my family to know that I always felt like I was on the outside looking in, but that’s how it was, and that’s how it is for most of the folks I’m intervening. Really smart person once said, addiction is an illness of disconnection.
Estil Wallace:
You know what we should do? There’s a virus going around, we should all isolate, we should all stay away from each other-
Billy Gregg:
It is the craziest time because I think even… I realized, I was getting on a Zoom call this morning with a bunch of colleagues, and I got into that old, do I really want to do this? I think I’m just going to come up with an excuse. I caught myself going, “No, you need connection, and you’re making excuses to avoid connection. You need to show up for this.”
Estil Wallace:
It’s where I find comfort and challenge, right? It’s where I get accountability. I need to have this. That’s how we survive. I can’t stay sober, but we can.”
Billy Gregg:
That was the enduring message that Diane planted in my head. She constantly called it, this is a we program.
Estil Wallace:
It’s what it says on Karen’s office in the door.
Billy Gregg:
This is a we program. That morning, driving to Rodolfo’s office, I was utterly convinced that no matter what happened at the end of me getting help, I couldn’t do it without those people. Totally convinced. At 18, I’m convinced. I don’t understand how that happens, because I’ve been around long enough to watch people just battle that one out to amazing degrees of self-deprivation and self-degradation to avoid the we. There’s an old guy that used to go to the Birds of a Feather meeting before he died, he would always say, “We’re the lucky ones.”
Estil Wallace:
Well, man, I appreciate deeply the work that you do, both in your personal life and in your professional.
Billy Gregg:
You as well, Estil. I don’t know how we missed each other for as many years as we did, but I’m glad that we finally did.
Estil Wallace:
Me too. I’m telling you, I want to sit you down again sometime in the next few months, and we’ll go deeper.
Billy Gregg:
Cool.
Estil Wallace:
It’s great to have you, man.
Billy Gregg:
I’m in. Thanks, brother.
Estil Wallace:
All right, Billy, thank you.