You Are Not Alone: A Powerful Story of Addiction, Suicide, Faith, and Recovery with Kate Parson

0:00If you've ever worked with someone who creates chaos, plays the victim, and blames everyone else, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Adam Holbrook.

0:20Welcome to the Managing Difficult People podcast. My name is Adam Holbrook and I am your host. The reason I started the Managing Difficult People podcast was I was noticing that the world was so divided. There's so many different perspectives out there. People couldn't lead themselves well. People couldn't lead other people well. And I said to myself, what if we can create a place where people can go, where they can talk about how they can lead themselves better, how they can lead other people better? It's not about being a pushover or pretending bad behavior is okay. It's about showing up more authentically and with more emotional intelligence.

1:04Today on the podcast, I have Kate Parsons. Now, I met Kate in Chattanooga, Tennessee at the Pass to Recovery conference that she was running. And as I began to find out more and more about Kate, I realized that she had a story of her own. And it's most amazing to me that some of the people that have the hardest struggles in life are the ones that are most impactful in this world. And that's why I'm so grateful that Kate Parsons is here today on the Managing Difficult People podcast. Kate Parsons serves as a faith-based coordinator for Southeast Tennessee and Hamilton County Coalition, where she helps equip communities with training and resources around mental health, substance use disorder, recovery, and trauma-informed care.

2:04As a certified peer recovery specialist and recovery coach, Kate blends professional experience with lived experience to foster connection, reduce stigma, and point people toward hope. She's a certified facilitator for WRAP, Bridges, Stride, and NAMI in our own voice, and has presented at conferences and events across the United States. Kate also serves in several leadership roles, including Vice President of the Tennessee Mental Health Consumers Association Board of Directors, Vice Chair of the City of Chattanooga Office of Family Empowerment Advisory Board, and Board Member of the Fannie Mae Crumson Foundation.

2:52Please welcome to the studio, Kate Parsons. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited that you're here. Kate, I know that you've struggled in your own life and now you're serving and impacting so many people around the world. Can you maybe take us through that journey of your mental health and your substance use disorder? Yeah, I actually can. I feel like that's one of the greatest parts of my job is that I get to talk about my story and see how I can help others. I struggled from a young age. I had wonderful parents. I had a wonderful childhood, but I did experience trauma. And I did have a genetic illness that made me incredibly small, incredibly tiny.

3:39And so I kind of always felt like an outsider. Like I never was the same age or size as my peers. And I just always felt like something was missing. And the first time I tried alcohol, that thing wasn't missing anymore. I was accepted and I felt pretty and I felt popular and I felt like all the things that an adolescent kid wants to feel. And eventually that drinking led into pills and then the pills led into cocaine. And so I ended up going to treatment for the first time when I was 16 years old for a cocaine use disorder. And thankfully, it went well. Thankfully, my parents changed schools. They changed locations.

4:19You know, we moved. There were so many things they did to remove me from that situation, which I think is the main reason that I stayed sober for a number of years following that. I will say that my mental health didn't get any better when I stopped using the substances, though. I had a suicide attempt at 17. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and it's taken me pretty much the rest of my life to figure out those two things, how I can manage my substance use disorder and how I can manage my mental illness. Kate, let's talk about, I've been suicidal and I was there on the edge too. And some people, number one, don't understand how this could be the stigma around mental health and how we could get to that point in life.

5:07Maybe talk about that life that you had at that point leading up to your suicide attempt and the stigma around mental health? There was so much stigma. So as I said, I had loving, supportive parents. But when I received my bipolar diagnosis, my mother told me not to tell anyone. And I know that she was trying to protect me. She wanted to make sure that people wouldn't look at me differently. But as a young person, what I took was this is something I need to be embarrassed of. This is something I don't need to talk about to people, even though that wasn't her intent. that's what I got out of it.

5:41So I think that's a big reason why my mental illness went unaddressed for such a long time. Because I don't think that even though I was sober for a long time, I was not taking care of myself and my mental health. Kate, with me, nobody knew about it, right? Nobody knew. I put it in a box. I shoved it under the bed. And I left it there for 15 years. Nobody knew about it. But then one day I felt like I can just ignore it my whole life and it would just go away. But it always stayed with me. And then when I finally started to talk about it, I started to feel better. But then I also was able to connect with other people that were actually going through the exact same thing.

6:25And I was able to help and inspire them. And I know that that's what you're doing as well. Can you talk about that? Yeah, absolutely. I teach suicide prevention. I've taught that for a long time and I incorporate evidence-based information with my own personal story. And what a lot of people relate to is the fact that I didn't really want to die. I just didn't think I could keep going anymore. I just needed something else. And so I just last week took a CIS training, which is applied suicide intervention skills. So that's actually how you intervene when someone discloses that they are considering ending their life.

7:01and that is another powerful tool that I have in my pocket to help other people. But I think what you said is just it. I think talking to each other and kind of normalizing those feelings will help break that stigma. We had 27 people in our class total and they had us complete anonymous surveys and the majority of the class had experiences where they felt suicidal before. Some it was passive, you know, thinking about driving your car off the road and then some were very much more active where they made attempts. But I think that just showed us, you know, that this is a universal problem that all of us are going to deal with in some way or another.

7:37Now, is this something that goes away for our listeners listening? Right. So you've had this experience and I know that there was a relapse involved, too. And is this something that is always on the forefront with people that have mental illness? or is this something that we can push away or is it something that's always on the forefront? I think it's gonna be different for everyone, but I don't think that we should push it away because I did the same thing you did. I was 17 when I had my attempt and I didn't tell anyone. I did not make it public. I didn't address it. And I think that it would have done a lot better for me and for other people had I actually done that.

8:18Yeah. Yeah, so many times in our depression, our mental illness and our substance abuse, we lock it in the closet. We pretend that we're going to be okay. And when you finally release it, it's just like the best feeling in the world. You feel like you're just giving back and you feel like you're helping so many other people because there's so many people that are struggling out there in life. And sometimes we feel like we have to be tough and we have to go through life and everyone is struggling in that places. And I know that sometimes we can go through years and years and life will be great.

8:51And then I know you had a relapse during the COVID-19 outbreak. And I think that we all struggled with it. But if there was a like underlining issue before that COVID-19 really had a major impact on how we can show up for our families and how we can show up for others. What happened through that relapse that you had during the COVID period? So after I was 17 and got out of that, out of my suicide attempt and out of treatment, I went about, I say 15 to 20 years with sobriety. However, I wasn't in recovery. And I like to make that distinction because I was sober. I wasn't using substances, but I was still just as broken as I was when I was using them because I never addressed that underlying issue.

9:44So for me, it is an all of my life thing because after relapsing, after 20 years, it was never in the back of my mind that this was going to happen. I had almost convinced myself that I didn't have a substance use disorder and that I was just a child when that happened and that I wasn't at risk. But when I went through my struggles during the pandemic, I was experiencing some loneliness. I was experiencing a divorce, some deaths in the family. And I feel like I tried to do everything right, but it just didn't work. I tried to do everything right, but nothing worked. And I feel the same way when I was in that spot.

10:23I was trying so hard to be this person, but it wasn't the person that I wanted to be. And I wasn't able to live the person that I wanted to become. And I think that's so powerful that you can recognize that what happened? What was that rock bottom moment? Because for me, it was that suicide day for me. And when I was there, and then when my dad called me that night, and he told me he loved me that night, to me, that changed everything. I hung up the phone with him and he hadn't told me he loved me in years. I listened to that moment over and over again while I was in the car that night. And I said to myself, it's foreign to me that I actually want to kill myself right now.

11:10It didn't even seem like just a few moments ago, I was going to do it. I was going to drive my car. And then all of a sudden that moment, and I believe that God had definitely something to do with that moment where my dad called me at that moment. But what was it for you? And what was that rock bottom moment? And after that suicide attempt, was it like the next day it went away? Walk us through that. No, no. So actually, I have had two attempts in my life. And when I was 17, when I went through that attempt afterwards, it was a whole lot of trial and error with medications, with different therapists, different psychiatrists.

11:48My parents were really active in my mental health and trying to get me the help that I needed. the anxiety stayed for a really long time after that I didn't have the suicidal thoughts actively for a really long time until I went through my relapse again during the pandemic and then I started having those feelings again and I think ultimately it was because of several things one of the things was I had distanced myself from God from my faith I had felt betrayed I had felt let down. I felt alone. And another thing was I distanced myself from my friends because I didn't want to hang out with people who weren't using because it made me feel bad about using substances.

12:27So I, yeah, I put myself in this tiny little box and it just kept getting worse and worse for me. So you're using the substances at home by yourself. Oh yeah. I was using pretty much throughout the day on a daily basis. And I had a high level job for a company. And eventually, I thought that I was hiding it so well. And I think I did for a really long time. But then, you know, the weight loss started happening, where I was, you know, extremely skinny, I wasn't really eating, they could tell I was a little more jumpy than usual. And one day, my boss and the manager brought me in the office and said, we're concerned about you, we think that you have a drug problem.

13:06And we want to give you a paid month off to get yourself together, which, yeah, which is amazing opportunity. But when my brain wasn't ready for that yet, I was still, you know, in complete survival mode. And so I took that as I have four weeks to continue to party where I don't have to go to work. And I think a lot of people, yeah, a lot of people can relate to that. It's just, you don't have your prefrontal cortex online because your brain has kind of been hijacked by that addiction. So you can't really make the choices that you know are correct in the choices that you want to make. So about three weeks in to that four-week period, I said, okay, well, I better go to treatment or I'm going to lose my job.

13:48I better do something with this time. And my boyfriend attempted to take me to a local treatment center and I had a complete meltdown when I got there and I had to be sedated. And so I didn't end up staying. And eventually I'm getting to my rock bottom too, by the way. So after I left there, I went to my boyfriend's house and I just laid down for what seemed to be a really long time. And when I woke up, he was there with my sister and they both had a list of treatment centers that they wanted me to look at and go to. And I think between the two of them, they had noticed what I had been going through and it's very out of the norm.

14:24You know, like I was having welfare checks called on me by my friends and family because I wasn't showing up for work. I wasn't answering my phone. My kidneys started to shut down, I had this constant ominous feeling that I was going to die. And everywhere I went, I stopped driving completely. I didn't want to look outside. I was hallucinating. I was paranoid. And I didn't really even want to stop using at that point, but I knew that something had to happen. So that's when I finally agreed to go to treatment. But even when I went, I wouldn't say that I went very excitedly. You know, I didn't really go with a whole lot of hopes or intentions that it would work.

15:00I just knew I needed something before it killed me. And so do you think that you were actually ready for treatment? It took. I don't know if anybody's ever ready. I know that some people want it more than others. And I wanted to go back to my regular life and I wanted to go back to my job and my family. But I can't tell you that I really wanted to stop at that point. I didn't think that I had that. I wasn't ready. You went to therapy. And how long were you in therapy for? So I was actually in treatment in Philly, in Philadelphia, and then I went to treatment in New Jersey. And the whole thing was a little over a month long.

15:42And that's how I ended up getting sober. And eventually that led me back to my relationship with God, too. Wow. And that's like a whole other section I want to talk about with God. But after you get back from therapy after a month, what's the new routine like? Because you're going back to the same places, the same routine that you were, and maybe the alcohol and drugs routine. Like, how do you break free from that? So I was working an AA program, Alcoholics Anonymous, at that time. And they tell you to go to, after treatment, you go to 90 meetings in 90 days. And I've always been a bit of an overachiever.

16:19So I was like, I'm going to go to more than 90 meetings in 90 days. And so for the first, I want to say, six months after leaving treatment, I didn't work because I had lost my job. And thankfully, I had parents who could support me during that time. So I got to focus that six months completely on my recovery. So I spent that entire six months just learning about my disease, learning about myself, learning how I can better support myself and the people around me. And I spent so much time in the rooms with other people who are struggling like I was. All right, let's talk about God, because I know you've always had a relationship with God.

16:54I know you had a relationship with God when you were younger, and is it that you lost that relationship when you were doing substance abuse and alcohol, or did you just put God on the back burner? I put God on the back burner for 20 years, knowing all the prayers and doing everything and not recognizing what I needed to do daily. What was it for you, Kate? I feel like even though I've known God my whole life, I didn't feel like I had that close, intimate relationship with God that I do now. so growing up it was you know I have to do this right thing so I can you know be this good person and be this great citizen and it never was about a relationship with me and him and by the time I relapsed you know I felt completely alone I felt distant from him so much so that when I was in treatment and they were telling you you have to figure out a program to do when you leave I said okay well I'll stay sober but I'm not going to do a program because AA, NA all of them require are you admitting you had a higher power?

17:52And I wasn't ready to do that. And in that moment, one of my techs from the treatment center came and grabbed my hands. I still remember it to this day. And she said, you're getting hung up on the higher power part on the God part of that. She said, my higher power is one of my friends who passed away from overdose. And that's who she talked to. And her name was Becca. And so as she's holding my hand, she said, you can borrow Becca until you find your own. And about a year long, I prayed to someone named Becca. Every time something good happened, every time something bad happened, I would talk to Becca.

18:26And eventually, over time, I realized that that was God the whole time. And it just took an unconventional door to be opened for me to get that relationship back. Kate, so what I'm hearing right here, because this is so key because this is my path, very similar path to this was I didn't know how to speak to God. I didn't know how I was supposed to be. I would pray. I would do the, you know, all of the prayers that I was supposed to do because I was supposed to do it, but it wasn't the relationship with God. And now what you're telling me is that you're talking to Becca who had passed away from substance abuse disorder but in reality you were really talking to god as a friend you were talking to god as a person that instead of somebody that is that you had to impress or somebody that you had to do all of the right things so you can be in the kingdom of god right and now you're just talking to him as a normal person wow now what does that routine look like for you right now And my talking with God?

19:35Yeah. It's constant. So much so that every time I pull into my apartment and, you know, I get a good spot, I always say, oh, wow, thank you, God. Thank you for that parking spot. And every time I don't get one, I say, oh, gosh, okay, thank you for this opportunity to get some exercise while I walk to my apartment. Yeah, I thankfully have the relationship now that I'm not struggling and striving to get his approval because now I know I had it all along. He knew all the mistakes that I was going to make. He knew my relapse was going to happen. He knew my suicidal thoughts were going to happen and he still loved me anyway through it all.

20:09So I feel like I had to stop the performative part of my relationship with God. And now it's just a true, you know, like a father. So do you church or is it? No, I do not. I do not. But that's just because with my job, I'm in churches almost every single day. So I have the opportunity to connect in that way. But yeah, mine's a little bit more personal, I would say. I love it. And I don't think that there is a right or wrong way. It's what works for you. You know, I recently started reading the Bible a little bit more. I want to connect to the Bible. I love being able to talk to God on my morning walks.

20:45And when I had Pastor Kyle on a few weeks ago, what he said to me was just the most amazing thing. He was like, you do everything with God. It's not like you have your prayer. And that's what I was doing. I was having my prayer. And after I was prayer, I was leaving God there. And then I was moving on in my life. And what you're saying and what Kyle was saying to me is that God doesn't leave you. He stays with you the entire day and you do everything through him. And I just love how you connect that as well. That is such a great, great thing. Now, one thing that I learned about, Kate, is that before you needed faith, you needed safety.

21:29You needed people willing to meet you where you were without judgment. That's such a powerful statement. What does that mean? What does that actually look like? Wow. So I think everybody needs that when we're in a dark place. Nobody needs, you know, that judgment. I think that, and I tell the churches that I work with now, that if somebody in that moment back when I was struggling would have come up to me and said, Jesus is the only way that you're going to get sober. I wouldn't have gotten sober because I wasn't ready to hear that yet. But because someone opened that unconventional door for me and said, you know, you can build this over time, that changed my experience there.

22:11And so a lot of times when we say we want to meet people where they are, we say that, But what we really mean by that is we want to meet you where you are as long as where you are is where we want you to be. Or where you are is exactly what we were hoping for. Instead of actually getting down there with that person and saying, okay, I don't know, you know, I can't fix this for you, but I can walk alongside you with this. You know, I can tell you my experience. And you are living those words too because this Paths to Recovery conference that you run, I think it's four different pathways, right?

22:43Right. Because we recognize that we all get there differently. We all get there differently. And when you had the conference, I was most attracted to the faith based track because that was the track that I was trying to figure out the most. And that's why I'm so grateful that you had those four tracks. You talk to us about those four tracks in your past recovery conference, because we all get there differently. And if we try to push God on somebody and they're not ready, there's a medical track. What tell us about those tracks? Absolutely. So the first one is the medical or clinical track, and that's for substance abuse counselors and other medical professionals that are going to be working with people in recovery.

23:22The next, so they get CEUs for that. The next track would be the community track, and that's more for 12-step groups. So I'm thinking Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, also local nonprofits, you know, that those people, it would matter and be included in that as well. The next one was the faith-based, which is where I lived as well because I work in that realm. And that's for Celebrate Recoveries. That's for faith leaders. So many people will go to their faith leader and say, I have this problem before they'll go to their doctor and say it. So that's why I love working with faith leaders because I feel like I can equip them to better handle someone like me.

23:59And then the last track was the prevention track because a lot of people don't think about prevention as recovery, but it's really pre-recovery. If we can get them before they start using, then that'll stop the cycle. Wow. That's so great. It was such an amazing conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And I think it's every, what month was that in? May. Every May, right? Now, I got a question because I hear this a lot. People talk to me privately offline and they say, my son, my loved one is using, my family member is using, and I don't know what to do. Family members, friends, it could be church community members.

24:44How do you help someone battling addiction, but they don't know how to help them? That is the question. I mean, there's so much that goes into it. I would lean on recovery capital, which is the sum of the resources inside you and around you that can help you stay sober. So if you think about you have a loved one who's trying to beat this addiction, once they stop using the substance, they're still going to go back to all the same problems and all the same situations that they were in before. And sometimes now they're going to have even less resources because most people leave treatment without a job.

25:17Most people leave treatment without a recovery community, without those supports. So I would tell a family member to look at the situation and the environment around your loved one and make sure that everything is supporting their recovery. Do they have to be ready? Because you said earlier that you weren't ready and you kind of got, I remember reading something that you were kind of pushed in there by your boyfriend and pushed in there by a family member. Do you have to be ready? I think it's different for everyone. I can say that it worked for me and I wasn't what I considered ready. So I don't know.

25:49I know there has to be willingness from the individual. There has to be accountability from the individual. There has to be a desire to change because otherwise none of it will work. So those things have to be there, but I don't know if there's ever a ready stage. What about the emotions the family is going through? Because I'm sure you firsthand have heard your boyfriend, your family members talking about what they went through while you were struggling with this. What a piece of advice would you say to them? I would say to hold on and to be kind. You know, over the last 20 years or so, things have kind of changed in the way we approach addiction.

26:24But a lot of times people, especially parents, still consider tough love. And if you do something nice, you're enabling. But in all actuality, you're preventing relapse. You know, my mom being able to support me during those first six months after my treatment by giving me a place to live, she was preventing my relapse because she was taking, you know, helping me with that. I had spiritual support from different churches and different groups. A lot of people don't even have basic resources that they need, like an ID or a social security card or birth certificate. So help your loved one get all the things that they need to succeed.

26:59You know, help them get connected to the recovery community. Help them get connected to a faith group that they align with. Help them have friends. Help them get a job that enriches them and, you know, it makes them feel good about themselves. We can't just focus on dropping the substance. We have to focus on all the other things, too. You said the first time you were in recovery, you didn't go to AA consistently after that. And then now the second time after your relapse, you're consistently going to AA every day? Or what does that routine look like for you now? For a long time, I did for the first few years.

27:35Now with my job, I have the pleasure of attending AA and NA and Celebrate Recovery and all different types of meetings. I host all recovery meetings, which is kind of an open forum for anyone, regardless of their beliefs. So I don't have a specific home group anymore, but I do get my time in and I do get to have that fellowship with my people. And Kate, somebody is listening to this podcast right now and they're struggling with addiction. They're struggling with substance abuse disorder. They're struggling with mental health, maybe suicidal. And maybe it's gone on too long. what should you say to them?

28:13How can we lead them better? I would say, hold on. I would say it gets better. That requires action, but it definitely does. And your life is worth getting better for. Your health is worth getting better for. Even if you don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, even if you don't think that you can make your way out of this, I promise you that you can reach out because somebody cares about you. I care about you and I haven't even met you yet. And whoever's listening to this, I do. So reach out to someone because there are people who are purely in this to help others. Because they may not have the family support.

28:50They may not have the loved one's support. But as I dive into when I was in the darkest places in my life, someone asked me, wasn't there somebody that you could have reached out to? and I started really diving into that and I started thinking and I said my uncle I could have reached out to my uncle because he understood where I was in my life with my business just spiraling making me work all the time and I feel like he could have helped me but I didn't know how to reach out to him I was scared to reach out to him I didn't want him to be able to judge me in that moment and I really think that it would have benefited me I know it would have benefited me if I would have just picked up the phone and reached out to him and said I need help but that was vulnerable and that was scary for me so you do believe it because I believe that somebody in each one of our families is there for you and to support you and if not who should they contact that is perfect I was going to mention this I would say because not everyone does have that family connection.

29:56So I would say 988. 988 is the 911 for mental health. So anyone in any state can call 988 and they can speak to a qualified professional that's in their region that can help them. And just full disclosure, I called for myself about a year and a half ago. My recovery was going great. I was doing great, but I was just struggling with something that I couldn't get over. And I called not because I was feeling suicidal, but because I didn't think I could ask anyone or talk to anyone. And I called and that professional helped me within a matter of, I want to say we were on the phone probably an hour.

30:31And it felt so good just to talk about what was going on. And they helped me realize that, you know, this isn't something that's going to throw me back into relapse. This isn't something that's going to be challenging for a really long time. They kind of gave me the tools and the plan to move forward. So I encouraged calling 988 to everyone. 988. Now, question. Some people may think that they're going to be recorded. Is this completely private? How does that work? It is private. I've never had anyone, you know, release anything about me from that. But another thing that's really important is I think people are scared to call because they think that the police are going to come or they think that they're going to, you know, get locked in a padded white room.

31:13And that's not the case. The majority of 988 calls don't end in hospitalization. They ask really important questions such as, you know, how long have you been feeling this way? Do you have a plan to end your life? What is that plan? You know, and they go into all those things deeper. And if they feel at that point, and you feel that you need treatment, they will connect you to it. But there are a lot of situations where that isn't how that phone call ends. wow i mean what a story you're so educated i'm so grateful that you're here so after you've kind of been through all this darkness you said to yourself i am going to not only work for other people i'm going to create other alliances and coalitions with the state of tennessee how does that work in your brain you just say one day you know what you know who needs us the entire state and i know what you've done is you can just snap your fingers this is what who i am and what I do, but your list, this is years and years of hard work and building and giving back to the community.

32:12Can you share how this whole process has transpired? Yes. So I knew after leaving my treatment that I wanted to help other people, that I wanted to be of service. And I ended up going to work as a SOAR specialist, which is a national model for helping people who are currently experiencing homelessness or they're unhoused. I would go into those encampments and help them get social security and disability benefits. And in that, you know, that homelessness overlaps quite a bit with substance use disorder and mental illness. So in that role, I got to help people, got to see people when they were at their lowest.

32:48But in that moment, like in that experience, I realized that my heart was just a little too tender for that one-on-one work like that. And I ended up going to work for the Office of Faith-based Initiatives. And that's what I get to do now. So I don't really work one-on-one as much anymore. I get to train different faith groups on addiction, mental illness, trauma-informed care, suicide prevention, ACEs, and so many other things. And I think that's the biggest joy that I get is giving back in that way when I go to these congregations and these ministries and I get to give them more tools to help support the people they love.

33:23Wow. Was that first volunteering for, you went into where, for housing for the homeless those people and you said, you know, I want to help them be able to get these funds that they're entitled to. You just said, I'm going to walk in there and be able to give back that one day. I ended, I took it as a job. It wasn't a volunteer gig, but having said that I would do it again as a volunteer gig now, because I feel like I'm a different person now. I'm a little bit stronger and I could help that because as I said, housing overlaps with the mental illness and the addiction issues so much. If somebody wants to give back, where would you suggest that they get started?

33:58it? I would suggest contacting your local anti-drug coalition. Most of the time, there will be an anti-drug coalition somewhere near you, and they desperately need volunteers. They desperately need financing. They need so much help from the community, and they're the ones that are boots on the ground doing the hard work and keeping people safe. So I would definitely say, suggest to follow your coalition. Wow. I mean, I feel like we've covered so much in so little amount of time. It's been such a pleasure having you here. Now, Kate, I want to ask you, well, first of all, audience members, if you have a question for Kate Parsons, you can go on the managing difficult people, podcast.com, and you can ask a voice question right there.

34:42And I will forward it right directly to Kate and Kate, would you be kind enough to answer that via audio as well? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And Kate, how can people get a hold of you and what should they contact you for? Because I know that you're doing a lot under your umbrella right now. Who are you looking to be with and how can we connect to you? So right now I focus on the state of Tennessee. So if they live within the state of Tennessee and they're a faith group or they're a ministry or congregation, they need any kind of resources, they can contact me at my email address, which is kate.parsons at hccoalition.org.

35:23And I'll make sure I time one more time for our listeners. Yes, it's kate.parsons at hccoalition.org. Yes, that's the best way to reach me. You can also look up the state's website, the Tennessee Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, and you can learn more about what we do. Wow. Kate, do you have anything else you'd like to say before we end our today's our episode. I wanted to say thank you because of your, I listened to your speech or your presentation about managing difficult people. And I went into it thinking I was going to learn how to manage other people. And then I realized, oh, I'm the difficult one because I do, I've always, you know, I'm on a real schedule and I have to be organized and I have to be meticulous.

36:10And so I always thought that people who didn't do that were difficult. But after hearing you, I realized that that is difficult for a lot of people to put up with somebody like who does that. So I just wanted to say thank you because that really gave me a chance to dig a little bit deeper into my own recovery and see where I could improve on that. Thank you. I love speaking about difficult people because I'm a recovery difficult person. Sometimes I'm actually still difficult, but I realized that we're sometimes ourselves are the most difficult people and we can't change other people. what we can and have the power to change ourselves.

36:43And that's what changes everything around us. Kate, I want us so grateful that you came out today. So thankful that you came out. Thank you so much for being on the Managing Difficult People podcast. Till next time. We'll see you guys. Thanks for joining us today.

37:02So that's it for today's episode of the Managing Difficult People podcast. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or iTunes wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a$10 ,000 private VIP day with Adam Holbrook himself. Be sure to head on over to managingdifficultpeoplepodcast.com and pick up a free copy of Adam's gift and join us on the next episode.

37:42Let's go.