Podcast: Randy Grimes - Tackling Stigma & Spreading a Message of Hope & Healing [#21]
A former NFL center, Randy Grimes lived as everyone’s all-American—with a successful 10-year career for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a beautiful and devoted college-sweetheart-turned-wife, and two healthy children. But pain took over, and the prescription pills used to treat chronic injuries eventually led to playing in blackouts. When Randy’s career ended, the pills continued—feeding an opioid addiction that would last 20+ years and erode his identity, health, and family. When addiction claimed the life of a close friend, Randy finally found the courage to raise his hand and ask for help. This single decision reclaimed Randy’s life.
Randy found himself having blackouts and waking up with no memory of the game he’d played that afternoon. In spite of this, he was named NFL Man of the Year for his team.
After leaving the NFL, Randy’s life slid further off center. Without football, he lost his identity, life playbook, and locker room family. In its place, he gained a raging addiction that lasted 20 years and stole nearly everything.
Today, Randy is a motivational speaker for Tour de force Speakers and founder of Pro Athletes in Recovery, which provides resources to athletes and others to receive the help they so desperately need. Along with treatment resources, Pro Athletes in Recovery provides aftercare for those who need it.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dave Closson: In prevention, we are all leaders, whether you're leading a nationwide prevention initiative, facilitating statewide prevention community, or coalition coordinator, or a one person shop, you are a prevention leader. How we show up and how we engage with others to create positive change, takes all types of leadership.
So sit back and enjoy these conversations with your fellow prevention leaders from across the globe. They're sharing their lessons learned, best practices, and strategies for success.
Welcome to episode 21 of the Prevention Leaders Podcast. I'm your host, Dave Closson. So honored to have you all with us today. In today's episode, let's talk about the elephant in the room. Well, a lot of rooms, stigma. Stigma is toxic. No matter how many times we say it, we hear it and repeat. The truth is often ignored.
Addiction is a disease. Those who suffer from substance, mental, or behavioral issues are often misjudged by society. Even when their circumstances surrounding these illnesses are out of their control. Today, I've got the honor of speaking with somebody who has done that been there and is now on a mission to tackle the stigma of addiction and mental illness.
His message is one that says even when the world seems to be yours, there's room to fall. And even when that world seems to slip away, there is hope. Randy is a 10 year veteran of the NFL and the founder of Professional Athletes in Recovery and an author of a brand new book and bestseller Off Center.
Randy shares his personal and riveting story of having it all playing the sport. He loved losing almost everything and ultimately finding redemption and hope. Ahh, without further ado, Randy it is an honor. Thank you for joining me on this episode.
Randy Grimes: Thank you so much for having me as what a great opportunity, huh?
Dave Closson: Oh man. I am just thrilled to be chatting with you. For the listeners, I first met Randy back at the drug-free America. Foundation's ninth annual summit. He was on stage sharing his story and I was in the audience and there were, there were moments where his story resonated so much with me that. I got a little choked up and my eyeballs wanted to sweat a little bit, cause it took me back there.
Uh, so I knew I just had to connect with this fellow and, and talk with him
Thank you very much.
Hey, thank you for doing what you're doing. Um, for our listeners though. Can we just start let's let them know a little bit about who the man is. The man, Randy Grimes.
Randy Grimes: The man. Wow. Well, I was, uh, I'm an east Texas kid, boy, you know, uh, football, football, wasn't religion, religion was religion, but football was a close second growing up.
My whole family was involved with it in one way or the other. I had a brother who was older and. Just as good as I was. He went off to play at Southern Arkansas and, uh, uh, everything just kind of revolved around football and, you know, seems like football came easy for me. It's not something I had to work real hard at.
You know, it was just, it came, it came easy. I had a, a great high school career. I could have gone and played anywhere. And back then it was the Southwest conference, you know, now, now it's the big 12. I could've gone to SMU, Arkansas, Texas Tech, Texas A and M. All those great schools. And I chose Baylor. I wanted to play for a coach Grant Taff, and, um, and I had a sister there too, and being the good Baptist that I was, I wanted to make my mama proud, you know, going to a big Baptist university.
I met my wife the very first day of school, our freshman year. We got married after our junior year. And, you know, things were just going great. I had a great college career. I was drafted in the second round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I was the 45th player selected in 1983. And, um, you know, things were going great.
There was no indication of all at all at what lot ahead for me. And, uh, No. I remember loading up that, that U-Haul with what little we had at Baylor in our, in our little, uh, duplex. We lived in and, and, uh, heading out I-10 east to Tampa, Florida to start, uh, my career in professional football to start our family and, uh, Things were great.
And I remember when I got to the Buc Place, that was, that was the name of our locker room. Uh, there in Tampa. I had a locker next to him. This is my rookie year, and this is before training camp and he just started, we were just in a mini camp right after the draft. And I had a locker right next to Lee Roy Selmon and Lee Roy Selmon was that first great all pro football player that I had watched on Sundays, you know, for the last few years.
And he was at first just great relationship with somebody that I admired, you know, somebody that was an idol to me. And the first thing I learned from Lee Roy from our mini talks that we have. Was it, football was, the ball was no longer a game? You know, now it was a job. And the second thing I learned from Lee Roy was you do whatever you have to, to stay out on that field because if you're not out there in your position, somebody else was going to be, and I was not going to let that happen.
And I'm sure Lee Roy didn't mean to take handfuls of pain pills every day to practice through the, the injuries and the nicks and, and, and, and different things that are going on physically and to play through those same things. I'm sure he didn't mean that, but that, that's what I was willing to do. You know, I want it to be or, or ways that I justified it, or I wanted to be the best center that ever played the game.
You know, I wanted to, I wanted that next big contract. I wanted to be all pro and be a pro bowler. I wanted to feed my family. You know, these are ways that I justified it. And you know, also because I was getting it from the team doctors, you know, the team trainers, I was getting it from teammates. We had a drug safe that was in the middle of the training room that was never locked.
So you could just go get what you wanted. Uh, So those were ways that I justified it and, and, you know, and then the crazy thing about it is in the eight years that this was going on eight and a half years as this was going on, nobody ever came up to me and said, Randy, why aren't you slurring your words?
Or Randy, why are you late for practice every day? Or Randy? Why are you nodding off in meetings? Or why are you the last to leave the building every night and pills are missing out of the drug safe? Nobody ever asked me those questions because I was always playing good. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
You know? So that was just, um, that was the culture back in the eighties and early nineties, you know, I call it kind of that north Dallas 40, if you've ever seen that movie kind of that whole. Where, you know, you take that shot or you, you take those pills or you do whatever you have to, to say out on the field.
And I never expected to take what I was calling a necessary evil into my private life. And after I retired, you know, the injuries just kept getting worse. The tolerance to the medication just kept getting higher. I needed more and more pills all the time and life was spinning out of control when I didn't have those trainers and team doctors and teammates.
And, uh, you know, basically it was, I didn't have that locker room anymore. I didn't have that comradery. I didn't have that accountability. I didn't have that playbook to look at anymore. You know, when, when, when Sam Wyche was my last coach and when he fired me, I knew I was done because I'd gotten hurt the second half of that last season.
Um, and I couldn't even try out for anybody else, but I remember just raking everything out of my locker into a black trash bag and walking out the back door and Randy Grimes, the football player didn't exist anymore. And that was just throwing gasoline on an already raging dumpster fire. That was that necessary evil.
You know that that was a full-blown addiction. And I struggled for many years after I left the game, trying to figure out who I was and where do I fit in and how can I contribute? And what's my role now, because only thing I knew was putting on that uniform every day or looking at that playbook.
Dave Closson: That was beautiful.
Beautiful with that, that identity piece, you know, trying to, to figure out, you know, Randy, Grimes the football player you said was, was no more. And that, that struggle of figuring out who you are, who you want to be. Yeah, I actually think you said throwing gasoline on a dumpster fire. That really hit me a lot too.
When I got back from Iraq, I was struggling with posttraumatic stress and didn't even know I had suffered a traumatic brain injury because they really weren't talking about traumatic brain injuries back then. And I had all of the symptoms and struggles and jumping right back into college. I just wanted to fit in.
I, I was, I thought folks would perceive me as this, this crazy war veteran, post-traumatic stress, he's broken, he's out there. All I wanted to do was fit in, but to the point where I lost my own identity and I didn't know who I was, and that just took my, my drinking and stretched out that struggle even longer and longer and longer.
So I feel you on that identity piece, I do.
Yeah,
Randy Grimes: and it happens a lot, you know, I call it transitional trauma, you know, and they said trauma is, is, is the root of all addiction. But you know, it's not just athletes. It's first responders, it's veterans. It's, it's people that retire, you know, it's college kids who graduated from college and can't find a job, you know, it's that transitional piece.
You know, we as Americans, we don't do well with change. And unfortunately, a lot of the times, the first thing we do is medicate those feelings.
Dave Closson: When it comes to, to reconnecting with your, your identity, what did, what did that look like for you?
Randy Grimes: I think it was a matter of rediscovering who I was, you know, and what, what my potential and talents were, uh, you know, it wasn't until 20 years later while I was in rehab that I finally grieved the death of Randy Grimes a football player, you know, and, and that was a real thing.
I didn't even realize it, you know, all those years of substance abuse and all the destruction I caused as a result of. You know, it wasn't until professional therapy got involved, that I really grieved the death of that person. And I let that thing go and I moved on and rediscovered myself through recovery.
You know, people ask me all the time, what I miss most about football and it's not the game. I miss the locker room, you know, I miss the comradery. I miss, uh, the fellowship, the brotherhood, uh, I missed being with people. Like-minded people that had been to those same places that I've been, who sweated with me and cried with me and laugh with me and bled with me.
You know, those that's what I miss. But that's what I've found in recovery is a new locker room and a new playbook.
Dave Closson: All of my military veterans that are listening are nodding right along with the, uh, they might not miss the combat patrols or the hurry up and wait or embrace the suck, but it was the guys, the soldiers, the downtime, the ride in the back of the deuce and a half out to the range, cracking jokes with each. Um, just that, that comradery
Randy Grimes: Calling on each other.
And that's why even now I love putting veterans and first responders together with athletes as they go through those recovery process in a, in a treatment environment, treatment center environment, because they're so good with each other, you know, they're like they do call each other out. They see right through the BS and, um, you know, it's a beautiful thing to watch.
Dave Closson: It is that, that together is better.
I mean, it is got to have that support.
Let's talk a little bit more, I'm curious about the impact of culture or the perception of those, those cultural norms and how that played into your story or is still playing into your story.
Randy Grimes: Can you define that a little more?
Dave Closson: Yes, absolutely. So for me, returning back to college campus, after my deployment, my perception of the norms, the culture, the college environment is drinking. Going up to the bars weekend, starts on Wednesday. Now some might say Thursday, depends on who ya are. My perception of that culture help drive or guide my behavior, my desire to fit in like, well, if I think that's the norm, I should do that because then I'll fit in.
I'll be normal. Um, but then also with the military, the embrace, the suck, the, I was army infantry. You don't cry in the infantry. You're just a bullet stopper. I can remember the day I got hit with the IED and got blown up. That was when I had my traumatic brain injury, but we didn't know it, but the culture was brush yourself off.
You're good. You're good. Okay. I was back out on the troll that very next day and the cultures around that, in that sense.
Randy Grimes: Yeah. And you know what I feel. I feel so inadequate talking about my addiction and professional football, and here you guys are out there and that's real life and death stuff, you know, I mean, what you guys went through and, and once you still go through, you know, internally.
It's so much more impactful and powerful than anything that I went through on the football field, but it's funny how it all leads us to the same place. You know, it all leads us to that really dark, uh, deep pit. And, uh, you know, like I said, I played in an era where it was pretty much acceptable, you know, pain pills, uh, pain shots, steroids, all the different things was, was pretty, pretty acceptable back then.
You know, I also played in an era where we beat the hell out of each other all week, and hopefully there was enough left in the tank to play on Sunday. That was also the mentality that if you don't practice art, you're not going to play hard. You know, that kind of, that bear Bryant BS junk junction boys kind of stuff.
And. So there was a lot of injuries that were sustained during the week. And I never understood that mentality, you know, uh, the new collective bargaining agreement that the guys have now, they hardly ever put on the pads. They never practice hard during the week. And as a result, guys are having longer careers, there's fewer injuries and, uh, But I always look back and think, you know, that had a lot to do with cutting my career shorter than it should have been on boards where the injuries that I sustained with my own teammates.
But, um, you know, with me, it was after, after grieving that death of Randy Grimes, the football player. For me, it was a matter of just accountability. You know, I needed to stay accountable to somebody every day, somebody every day needed to see my eyes and hear my voice. And, um, you know, I just needed that for a really long time.
Even at 49 years old, I was 49 when I got sober and I had a family, I had kids in college. I had a daughter that was married. Uh, And I, I needed all that to get over this thing.
Dave Closson: Can we just touch on that dark place and only really just setting the foundation for your growth and your new mission?
Randy Grimes: Well, I can remember, uh, the perfect storm was coming together and the summer of 2009. And I'd lost a very good friend that I played right next to for many years, he was my right guard, and his name was Tom McHale.
And he was out there doing the exact same thing I was doing. And that was self-medicating his entries he got while he played in the league. And one morning he just didn't wake up. Um, my daughter wouldn't let me come around my first grandchild because I wasn't fit to be around her new baby. Uh, my wife was leaving me because she, couldn't not that she didn't love me, but she just couldn't sit by and watch me continue to kill myself every day. Uh, I'd had a series of seizures as a result of a benzodiazepine and wasn't. So I was having all these health concerns and, and trips to the emergency room and hospital stays and, and, and car wrecks.
And, you know, just by the grace of God, I never killed anybody because I had a seizure as a result of withdrawal. Um, so that perfect storm was all coming together and that's when I found. Put up my hand and asked for help, my wife was willing to make one more phone call for me that summer, because she was so tired of the I'm sorry.
He's and, and, um, you're overreacting, you know how I would, I would turn it back on her and make it, you know, make, make it, her, her issue. And she, but she was willing to make one more call and whoever she talked to at the league office in New York, on park avenue, you know, back then they didn't have anything for former, uh, retired players.
And whoever she talked to that day knew somebody who knew somebody. And that's how I got on that airplane to Fort Lauderdale, September 22nd, 2009. But, uh, You know, and I pulled up to that treatment center. I was leaning against the door of this old, dirty black beat up town car. And, um, I was so sick, man.
I, I just remember being so sick and somebody opened the door from the outside and I just kind of fell out of it. And I had about another 30 or 40 feet to get through the door of the, uh, of the center there. And I just crawled on all fours, and nobody helped me. Nobody helped me get a. But, you know, uh, looking back, I always say that crawling through that door that night was my greatest accomplishment.
You know, even over mine, birth of my children, my, my, uh, my marriage, my all they football accolades that I got and honors and stuff. My greatest accomplishment was crawling through the door because if I don't do that, that night, if I don't crawl through that, everything else was for nothing.
Dave Closson: I'm just picturing that and speechless and yeah. Thank you for sharing that. And you know, one of your quotes actually comes to mind as a good segue. Um, it's "I prayed that God would open up the doors of heaven and let me. Instead, he opened up the gates of hell and let me out."
Randy Grimes: That's where I was, man.
That's where that deep dark place is. You know, I can remember laying on the floor and this was, this was also that summer of 2009. I can remember laying on the floor of the house that I just lost in foreclosure as a result of the addiction. The new owners weren't going to take it over for another 90 days.
So we had all the furniture moved now, and I can remember laying in the floor. And all I had was a blanket and a little box TV that was sat on the floor too. Cause all the furniture was gone. The utilities were off, and I can remember laying on that floor and thinking, you know, I'm a, I'm a former. All American, you know, I'm a former pro bowl or, um, I'm married my sweetheart college cheerleader dream girl, you know, I've got two great kids at the time.
I had a grandkid, a grandchild that was just born. I can remember thinking all this stuff and here I am laying in the floor. Basically, abandoned house with no utilities, no car, no job, no money. How did it get there? How did it get there so quick? And, um, but that was, that was the deepest, darkest place.
Dave Closson: But you, you found strength and you found hope and you kept hope.
What, what did that, that journey to, to you, to who you, this man is sitting here before me today. What did that look like?
Randy Grimes: Took a lot of hard work. It took a lot of really good people who care about me and, and, and people that are. Had been to the same places that I'd been, you know, and, uh, it took a real community.
And, um, the difference is though, is that I engaged, you know, when I crawled in that door that night, I finally was given the gift of desperation and I was desperate. And, uh, you know, I did, I had a couple surgeries while I was in treatment. I had my right knee replaced. I had my left knee worked on, I had some neck surgery and, um, all those, I came into treatment with a plan to get out of some of the pain that I was in.
But Dave, I remember sitting at a picnic table. It was what I was going to come in and I was going to detox for a month. They were going to take it really slow because of all the seizures that I had. I'm just going to detox for a month. I was going to go off and have these surgeries. I was going to come back and detox from the hospital meds.
And then I was going to go off and, and work on those underlying issues that made me do what I did. But I remember two weeks into, oh, two weeks after crawling in the door that night, it was still in the detox phase. I was sitting at a picnic table in the middle of the treatment center campus. You know, for some reason I would get up every morning, I had a big spiral notebook, and I would just kinda write down what was going on around me, how I was feeling.
Um, and, and I don't know why, because I'm not a big driver, but for some reason it just made me feel better. And this particular morning it was 8 :45. It was 15 minutes before the first group was going to start. I was sitting at this picnic table and I was sobbing uncontrollably. I could not get a handle all myself, you know, I couldn't get myself under control and I can't imagine what a 290-pound man looks like sobbing in the middle of a treatment center to the rest of the clients.
I just couldn't get a grip on myself because for the first time in 20 plus years, I was having to deal with life on life's terms, sober, you know, and thinking about the here I was in West Palm Beach, and I was thinking about all the destruction that I left back in Houston with my family, my reputation, my finances, in my employment.
And. It was overwhelming, but it was also at that very second, that all that was going on and I was sobbing and all these, these, these feelings going on, it was like somebody came up behind me and draped a warm quilt around my shoulder. And I, and I say quilt because I remember feeling weight and warmth, on me at that picnic table that morning at 8: 45.
And it was. Also, at that very second, first of all, I was overwhelmed with confidence that I could do this, which was something that, that I didn't think I had. You know, I've struggled with that, that whole two weeks leading up to that, I had this overwhelming sense of confidence, but also had this overwhelming sense of
I needed to make it all mean something, you know, everything that I put everybody through, everything that I'd done with back home with mine, like I said, my reputation at all, I had to make it all mean something. And that was kind of the birth of, uh, athletes in recovery right there. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, you know, but I knew that I had to make it mean something.
And I knew I had a lot of work to do on myself first, but also knew that there was a lot of guys out there that I'd played with and against who were struggling in silence, just like me. And, and it's with that same mentality that you talked about, you know, that warrior mentality where, and, and this how we were raised by our dads, because they were raised like that.
But you big boys don't cry. And, uh, you, you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off and you get back in the huddle or you get back in the fight, you know, that mentality that, that kept people from raising their hands and asking for help.
Dave Closson: I'm just picturing that, that picnic table there in the middle of that treatment center in.
Randy Grimes: That was my burning Bush moment. That was my spiritual awakening to recovery right there. And you know, the cool thing about it is, you know, I got to pass that picnic table all the time for many years after this, you know, but that's where it all came together for me.
Dave Closson: And the little sidebar for the listeners journaling.
If you're not a writer, I just journaled just a brain dump with just got to get stuff out. And actually, it's really helped me too. One of the things my dad told me before I went to Iraq, he said, take this journal and write down at the end of a bad day, a heavy day. Just go ahead and write down.
Whatever's on your mind. Whatever's on your heart. And I still had that, and I was in a, a bummed out dark place and I pulled that out and just started writing. It is powerful. It is.
Randy Grimes: Yeah.
Dave Closson: Yeah. And so I got to share with you if you're not a Simon Sinek fan is start with why. Um, I really work to clarify my why behind just who I am and how I live and it's to live and share a life of continued growth so that we can all overcome adversity and live a fulfilling life.
But it's that live and share. That that really, to me makes a big difference because just like you said, we've got to share our stories because there's other folks going through this same types of adversity, same types of challenges. Let them know that they're not alone.
Randy Grimes: The first things I learned about recovery is that you've got to, you gotta give it away in order to keep it.
Dave Closson: Well, you mentioned athletes in recovery. Let's talk about. Tell me more. What, what is athletes in recovery?
Randy Grimes: Well, it's, like I said, when I came into treatment, there was no resources out there for former NFL players. So, uh, I started after I did a ton of work on myself and now, we're talking about a year later, you know, uh, I started working with the NFL, the NFL formed a, uh, an organization called the player care foundation.
And we started going out and sharing our story and, and, and, and, uh, let people know that there was resources and funding available for gas. Cause a lot of the guys that, that I was talking to and lost everything, you know, they, they had completely gone through their finances. They had no insurance. And usually, broken marriages or broken homes.
And, uh, those sorts of the counter guys that, that I was dealing with guya that had played in the league for many years. And, um, as soon as I started telling my story, you man, they started coming out of the woodwork. You know, they realized they weren't alone, that they weren't the only ones out there struggling with this.
And, um, you know, over the last 11 years, 11 and a half years, we've been able to help hundreds and hundreds of former NFL players. but pro athletes in recovery was designed to just be a bridge between that player and resources. And, um, you know, we w yeah, we were helping people get into treatment. And eventually, someday I would love to help everybody get into treatment, you know, raise that kind of money.
But, but that's, that's what it is right now. Yeah. Not just for former NFL players, but major league baseball got involved with it. I started working with the baseball assistance team, and the NHL and NBA, and pretty much Dave, every sport you can think of that has an organization that supports their former players, uh, whether it's, uh, the jockey guild, you know, uh, whether it's MMA fighters, whether it's PGA or the, uh, or.
Or the, the WTA, the women's tennis association, you know. We work with all those because, you know, it's, we all have the same issues. It's yeah. We have chronic pain. We self-medicate that chronic pain because that's how we got through our careers. But it's also that we don't have that uniform to put on anymore. That racket to pick up or that horse to Mount, you know, and.
But also, don't want to box myself in and say that, uh, only a pro athletes, that recovery only works with athletes. We work with everybody and, uh, you know, one of my favorite sayings is that when families get well and addicts me, And I think that we're not going to legislate our way out of this pandemic, uh, this, uh, drug addiction pandemic.
We're not going to arrest our way out of it, but we can educate our way out of it. And, uh, so also pro athletes that recovery does a lot of education, a lot of speaking in schools, a lot of town hall meetings. And, and, uh, so that's the purpose of that is. Just kind of spread the word that there is help and there's hope out there
Dave Closson: that that family component is a beautiful, powerful component as well.
I'm glad you, you brought that up because another one of your quotes that I had just pulled and grabbed and held on. Was that "my family is an earlier version of heaven, full of forgiveness. And we're life begins, and love never ends." Just beautiful, just beautiful.
Randy Grimes: And it took my whole family and, and, you know, the.
The book off center was a family project, but it was also a healing process for the Grimes family. So, it was already served its purpose, whether I sell the copy or not, but everybody in my family that was affected by it, which was everybody, you know, they had a platform in it. They had a piece in it. And, uh, so that's what I'm most proud about.
And it's, it really did accomplish that.
Dave Closson: Tell me more about the book.
Randy Grimes: The book is, um, is a three-year labor of love. That's for sure. You know, the, the COVID pandemic didn't help any, but, uh, no, I poured my heart out into 234 pages. And so did my family. And, uh, as I'm telling my story, uh, everything that we've talked about today through the eyes of, of an intervention that's going on, and the reason I wanted to do that, because I wanted people to see the different characters.
That are involved in the family unit. You know, you've got the classic enablers, the classic codependents, you've got the ones that, that, uh, don't believe the disease model and think it's a moral failing, you know, you've got, uh, those with stigma, uh, that, that don't want to deal with it. They think that if they just don't acknowledge it, it will go.
So, you've got there's something for everybody in this book, and I'm really proud of the way it turned out and the reviews have been awesome. You can, you can get to it by going to amazon.com or you can just go to offcenterthebook.com and it'll, it'll throw up a link that you can, uh, that you can buy the book on, but I'm really proud of it.
The reviews have been awesome. And it's only been out since, uh, February the eighth.
Dave Closson: It already climbed to the bestseller list? Uh definitely worth a read. And I will put a link in the show notes for y'all as well. There'll be a handful of links in there. Um, but when you, you say that the book was a family project, uh, piqued my interest there. What do you mean by family project?
Randy Grimes: Well, everybody had a part in it. And my children wrote me letters while I was in treatment. And, uh, they were, they were pretty brutal, you know, because they had been through a lot and they had seen a lot, they were embarrassed, uh, a lot, uh, with their friends. They, they didn't understand. And, um, you know, they allowed me to print those, those letters in the book, but also.
You get to see what addiction looks like through the eyes of a 16-year-old, you know, through the eyes of a 21 year old or 23 year old who just got married and had a baby. You know, you get to see what it looks like. Uh, for my wife wanted view and everything that she went through. And sh and she'll be the first to admit that she even tried to hide it for a while, you know, uh, best she could.
She tried to protect the kids from it for a while. And, uh, so that's, that's the important piece is that I want families to read this book and, and know that that there's hope and help, but also that good strong boundaries are the one thing that all addicts and alcoholics respond to. And you've got to, you've got to have good, healthy, strong boundaries and maintain them.
Dave Closson: Wisdom passed down from my grandfather. Is that good fences make for good neighbors?
I think probably one of the reasons that for me personally, that I love the, the family component of both the book and athletes in recovery, that when I was deployed. Heaviest things on my mind and heart, even once I got back, I didn't realize how hard it was going to be on my family. I wasn't married.
Didn't have kids. I was just a college student, but my parents, my sister, I don't know that my mom slept more than an hour a night, the entire year that I was deployed. That that is just something I think folks tend to not think about as much as often as well. Cause it is, it is tough. My brothers-in-law is in the Navy deployed all the time.
My sister's basically a single mother for all of those deployment, those deployments as well. So, it family is ever so important.
Randy Grimes: Yeah. I can’t imagine what they went through.
Dave Closson: Well, we’ve talked about a lot, uh, folks, this was only a snippet of Randy's story and it is an amazing, powerful story.
And I encourage you all to go out and get that book. And Randy, you do speaking engagements as well. That correct?
Randy Grimes: And you can find me at randygrimesspeaks.com or just go onto proathletesinrecovery.org. You can find me there and hey, if you can't find me on social media, you're not trying very hard.
Cause I'm, I'm everywhere. I'm on Facebook. I'm on twitter, sober center 60, uh, LinkedIn of course Instagram, all that stuff. Uh, I'm, I'm available and I'm available for anybody and not only me, but my wife is available to her. She's a certified family, uh, addictions coach. And, you know, she loves that. She loves that role of working with families, you know, uh, just God and, and she's so good at telling people what she should've done.
You know, looking back now, hindsight is 2020, and she knows now what she should have done. But at the time, she didn't know, she didn't know who to call, what to say, you know how to react. And that's the kind of stuff that we need to share with families. You know? So, they're not, they're not in the dark and, and, you know, no matter where I speak, I could be speaking in a school and I could ask a, a Bleacher full of kids.
Uh, to raise their hand, if they've been affected by addiction, every hand will go up, you know, because this is a disease that affects everybody, every community. And, um, we've, we've got to continue to fight this thing.
Dave Closson: Absolutely.
So, to close out this episode, If you had a, a call to action, a message of hope.
Uh, if you're going to remember one thing, remember this, what would it be?
Randy Grimes: That it's okay to not be okay. No, it's okay to not be okay, but you've got to put your hand up and ask for help. There is hope and help out there, but you've got to engage.
Dave Closson: Wonderful. I'll second that right there with you. Wished I had known that and done that many years ago.
It's been an honor. It's been an honor and look forward to collaborating, partnering crossing paths, many times in the future.
Randy Grimes: I hope so and good luck with your future endeavors. I know you got some big things coming up, so thank you. I'm grateful for this this interview.
Dave Closson: That concludes this episode. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to hit the subscribe button and share this episode with a friend before you leave. And we look forward to seeing you on social media because prevention is better together. Together. We are stronger.
