The Mass Ave. Project, Inc. and a Badass Boddhisatva

The Mass Ave. Project, Inc. and a Badass Boddhisatva

by Joanne Arnold 

It’s a cold, drizzly day in Boston. The COVID pandemic has just begun and Justin Downey and his sister sit in his car in the industrial wasteland known as Mass Ave.
He is remembering when she was a baby and they found themselves alone in the middle of the night. He’d climb into her crib at six years old trying to console her one year old cries. Awkwardly changing her diaper. Covering her with a blanket and sleeping next to her to soothe her.
He recalls how they were eventually taken to live in different households. How they maintained a connection despite that separation. How his drug addiction took off. How it led to jail and prison. And then how her own addiction took off.
‘We were both fighting epic battles for our lives.”
Now Justin finds himself on more stable ground. But today his sister is dope sick and needs money.
‘If I can give her $50.00 and help save a shred of her dignity, I will. I know she’ll buy heroin. I don’t judge.’ 

She sees his copy of The Bhagavad Gita on the dashboard and picks it up. This epic scripture from Vedic Literature, a dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and Lord Krishna has deep meaning for Justin, having discovered it several years before as he struggled in his own difficult recovery.
‘I never experienced a work of literature that spoke so clearly of love, service and kindness.’
Flipping through the pages she asked Justin to read a passage out loud.
She sat silently. As he reads he notices a tear roll down her face.
Then she says ‘I gotta’ go.’ 

Exiting his car she walks directly into the open air drug market of Mass Ave., a.k.a.Methadone Mile. 

It’s a chaotic scene. People are selling drugs. Stopping at a red light you are likely to see someone shooting heroin. Smoking meth. You’ll see women selling their bodies. There are people in full blown psychosis. Fentanyl, a synthetic drug 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and short acting, has people screaming at things no one else can see. 

‘What you’re seeing on Mass Ave is a culmination of the sex trade, the prison industrial complex and big pharma. The Unholy Trinity. It can’t be any clearer. It’s all happening in front of a jail, in front of a methadone clinic, in front of a hospital. What does that say to people? This is what the Buddhists refer to as The Realm of Hungry Ghosts. You are surrounded by brokenness, psychosis, sadness and trauma.” 

“It’s a cycle” Justin continues.”People are homeless. They commit petty crime. They overdose. They are rushed to the ER and revived only to walk straight back into the drug market with no resources to change. You no longer call a dealer and there’s no more of that shadowy behavior meeting them. Nope. It’s right out in the open. And regular working class people trying to get to the hospital are passing through this along with gang members, prostitutes and drug addicts.” 

As resources dried up throughout the state the homeless poured into Boston. Shelters were limiting capacity. Detox’s were shutting down. Now there are tent cities on the sidewalk. Cars traveling at high speeds entering the ramps to the interstate were colliding with these inhabitants. They were getting hit and killed. So the area is now surrounded by fences covered with tarps further isolating it. Inside the fence is a tent staffed by a nurse assisting in overdose prevention. 

“There’s people dying on the street. Girls are being pimped out and smashed up by gangs. There’s human trafficking. Men are being murdered. This is a dark street. This isn’t just people shootin’ drugs. It’s a whole community where flesh and crime are currency.” 

A lot of the people here are the remains to be seen of Justin’s generation and former neighborhood.
“This is the end of the road. The culmination of poverty, crime and drugs. When you’ve been a drug addict for years on the street and been able to keep yourself high from various scams and in and out of jail and detox and it all runs out? And you’re not dead? You’re on Mass Ave.” 

As a kid Justin could walk down a single street in his South Boston neighborhood and see 15-20 people he knew well. Today walking from one end of Southie to another he won’t encounter a single person he recognizes. Gentrification has pushed out those residents and replaced them with people who have no tie to the community. 

As Justin describes it, “We are exiled from our own neighborhood.” 

“ Now my old neighbors have no community. How do people behave when they have no community? Isolated. Depressed. Sad. What do people turn to when they feel this way? They turn to drugs and alcohol. What does turning to drugs and alcohol do? Nullifies pain. It leads to more drugs and alcohol. Which leads to bigger problems. It leads to prison. Incarceration. It leads to selling your body on the street corner.” 

Justin volunteers by distributing donations from Mass Ave. Project, Inc., a non-profit organization created by Justin, Jimmy Bradley, Missey Kane, Ali Fitzpatrick, Carlo Sacoccio and Danny Mack with a mission to supply essential items and support to people living, and dying, on Mass Ave. 

“I don’t always understand love.” Justin states. “But I understand devotional service to people. I understand how to show up for people even if my own life is crazy. This act of showing up to the homeless population down here has become an intimate spiritual experience.” 

“You’d be amazed at the conversations you’ll have with the homeless population down here. I’m amazed at watching how kind they are to one another. I can hand somebody a pile of blankets and they’ll hand them out to everybody else and not keep a blanket for themselves. This person has f**king nothing. Would YOU give away the last blanket when you don’t have one? 

I often ask their name. They look at me dumbfounded and start crying. Because nobody ever asks. That’s a spiritual experience. A spiritual practice. I don’t know how that doesn’t awake something inside us.
I show up for my sister, of course. But I show up for other peoples’ sisters, brothers and families. Everybody there was a child at one time. They were somebody’s child not knowing what they were coming into the world to face. They’ve been ground up, dropped down, spit out and are basically a puddle on the street. And there’s nobody there to pick them up.” 

“The Boston I grew up in was very racially segregated. Black communities. White communities. Spanish communities. Nobody liked each other. Everybody seemed to hate each other equally. But today everyones neighborhood has been affected. South Boston was a white Irish Catholic neighborhood. South End is traditionally a black neighborhood. Both areas have been gentrified. So the remnants of both these neighborhoods wind up on Mass Ave.”
What may have surprised Justin years ago but he celebrates today, is the working relationship Mass Ave. Project, Inc. has developed with South End Roxbury Community Partnership with Leon Rivera, Dominigos DaRosa, Yahaira Lopez and William Cordero, a group demanding action from the City of Boston related to the escalating concerns of Methadone Mile.
“Tent cities? People dying on city sidewalks? Gutters that you can shovel needles into garbage bags from? How is this NOT a public health crisis? 

But Justin, the badass boddhisatva, returns to his own personal mission.
“I want to flood this area with loving kindness. I’m not crying out to politicians to come change Mass. Ave. I’m calling upon the hearts and minds of people to think differently. I’m in love with this street and I’m not walking away from it. If I can do anything for one person to get out of there, it makes it all worth it to me.” 

“I honor myself in the darkness. I honor myself in the light. When you do that you become a living channel. I feel god within me. If I feel god within me I cannot deny its existence in other people.” 

________________________________________________________________________

Justin Downey is a Union Pipefitter currently completing a Yoga Teacher Training Course and volunteering for The Mass Ave. Project, Inc.
He can be contacted on Facebook, Justin Downey or venmo Justin Downey @jtd617 

If you’d like to learn more, or become involved see The Mass. Ave. Project, Inc. on Facebook.
Donation centers include CHAKRA POWER YOGA, owned by Nicole Burrill and WITHOUT LIMITS RECOVERY owned by Maggie Bradley and Jimmy Bradley. Note: Justin’s sister is presently in a residential rehab program. 

'We're trying to find that innocent part of ourselves again. Before the world twisted us into what trauma twists you into..."

'We're trying to find that innocent part of ourselves again. Before the world twisted us into what trauma twists you into. You know it's a return to innocence and it's a return to being childlike again before these f***ing things come in and reshape and turn you into the f***ing Joker. And that's what it was turning me into. I started getting feelings of hope.'
- Justin Downey

An excerpt from Trauma, Addiction and the Greatest Life Cheat
https://www.joannearnold.com/posts/trauma-addiction-and-the-greatest-life-cheat-a-conversation-with-justin-downey

An excerpt from Trauma, Addiction and The Greatest Life Cheat...

An excerpt from Trauma, Addiction and The Greatest Life Cheat.
'I want these two women to be kind to me. You know, this one woman who brings me blueberry muffins and gave me a book, that’s you Joanne, and the other one, Margo Walsh, who yells at me but I know she likes me. I want this little semblance of kindness I get around 5:30-6:00 in the morning. So, I can’t beat the f**k outta’ this person. I’m not kidding. This is seriously what was going on in my mind. I wanted people to be nice to me for once. And because I knew how good it made me feel, I'm going to learn how to do this for other people.'
-Justin Downey

https://www.joannearnold.com/posts/trauma-addiction-and-the-greatest-life-cheat-a-conversation-with-justin-downey

'You don't allow people to get close to you even though you f***ing really want people to be close to you...'

'You don't allow people to get close to you even though you f***ing really want people to be close to you. And when I hear people saying... saying, ‘ I f***ing hate people.’ , I say to myself no, no, no. You love people so much it f***ing hurts you. That's the truth behind it.
Trauma wants us isolated. Wants us alone. The opposite of isolation is solitude. We have to stop being isolated but we need solitude. There's a big difference in the two. You have to connect with people. You have to find your tribe.' -Justin Downey

An excerpt from an interview titled: TRAUMA, ADDICTION AND THE GREATEST LIFE CHEAT. Justin shares his personal experiences of prison, rehab and recovery ...the highs and lows. It will take you from the prison cell to the yoga mat.

available in its entirety at

https://www.joannearnold.com/posts/trauma-addiction-and-the-greatest-life-cheat-a-conversation-with-justin-downey

'So the f***ing thing that trauma did, which was to make me hate people so much...ended up being the rescuer of me. It was people....'

'So the f***ing thing that trauma did, which was to make me hate people so much...ended up being the rescuer of me. It was people. I was like, this is a f***** up lesson. The thing I hate the most is what ends up returning myself to me. Wicked ironic.' -Justin Downey

Excerpt from TRAUMA, ADDICTION AND THE GREATEST LIFE CHEAT: An Interview with Justin Downey
© Joanne Arnold
From trauma, violence and hate to hot yoga, goldendoodles and chanting.Thank you for sharing your honesty and insights Justin Downey.

The entire interview is available at:
https://www.joannearnold.com/posts/trauma-addiction-and-the-greatest-life-cheat-a-conversation-with-justin-downey

Trauma, Addiction and The Greatest Life Cheat : A conversation with Justin Downey.

I met Justin 3 years ago in a little parking lot in Portland, Maine when he arrived for the 6 AM meetup for Maineworks, a B Corp employing only felons and drug addicts in recovery. My role at MaineWorks was as witness and photographer to their morning circle process.

Justin’s intensity was immediately obvious and embodied. My first thought was ‘He’s gonna’ kill himself. Or, ‘he’s gonna kill all of us.’ Simultaneously, there was a great sense of light emitting from him. To stand before him felt like standing before a bed of white hot coals. 

He was not the average MaineWorks recruit, in that he was not a twenty something just out of rehab or detox for profound substance abuse disorder. In his thirties, he was from the Old Colony Projects of South Boston and raised in the Whitey Bulger era. He had served serious time including years in solitary. When he began to quote Dostoyevsky, Carl Jung and William Butler Yeats amongst others he had my full attention. What I didn’t know at that time was the level of commitment he showed up with, to forge a new life. He was determined to put the battered bricks together in a new way. 

He was a warrior well established in the Art of War. This was at least, my supposition. In his struggle one could sense that he was becoming a spiritual warrior. To this end I took the chance of offering him a copy of The Bhagavad Gita. Justin reminded me of the ancient warrior Arjuna, dismayed and lost on the battlefield, where he engages in conversation with Lord Krishna about the nature of life. 

When I handed the book to him I remember two things. One: The feeling of ‘I’m gonna die.’ Two: His crystal clear, ice blue eyes shone in unfathomable gratitude that shook me.

The following conversation took place on May 6 2020 in the midst of the Covid19 shutdown when he was temporarily laid off from his job as a union welder for Pipefitters Local 537. This is his voice exploring the relationship of trauma to his journey from prison, through rehab and re entry. These are strictly his opinions. I believe his insights serve us well to consider. 

Note:
The Bhagavad Gita , often referred to as The Gita is a 700 verse Hindu scripture. The Gita’s call for selfless action inspired many leaders including Mahatma Ghandi.

The Plymouth House Is a 12 Step Retreat located in Plymouth, New Hampshire focused on giving addicts, alcoholics and their families a new way to live. www.plymouthhouse.com

MaineWorks is an innovative employment company with a social mission: to dignify the experience for people facing real barriers to workforce entry including people recovering from substance abuse disorder and people with felony convictions. Margo Walsh is the founder. www.maineworks.us

Please visit: Boston Accent Lesson with Matt Damon on YouTube. Justin’s voice is pure South Boston and liberally peppered with the F bomb. For these purposes it is written as f***, with it’s derivatives f***ed and f***ing.
If the use of this word offends you, please do not read the interview.

Trauma, Addiction and The Greatest Life Cheat : A conversation with Justin Downey.

Justin: For me, trauma is the great disconnector. Because the thing that happens with a lot of traumatized people is isolation. Right? There's a big difference between solitude and isolation. Solitude is needed for growth. Isolation is the ultimate f***ing killer of the human spirit. Big, big difference between the two. Isolation usually comes from a place of shame or maybe the person believes, and I know I certainly did, I thought that I was so f****** evil and twisted that I needed to protect people from me. 

I was so f***ing unpredictable. I was like a f***ing monster. My body would sound this dread alarm. Danger. Danger. Danger. And my body would just go. And then this really scary thing started happening to me at a young age. I didn't have any remorse about what I was doing. When something would happen I was able to exact some retribution. It felt completely justifiable. But it set me on this path. I wanted people to feel my pain. I wanted people to feel the wrath I felt and that they had created a f***ing monster. It was human beings that created this. I wasn’t born like this. I knew that I was a very sensitive child and very open. But something happened and I lost that and now they were going to get what they created. And I'm not going to have any feelings over that whatsoever. No one apologized to me so I'm not going to apologize to anyone for it. Right? And I just started consuming people. Women just became objects of sex and pleasure to me. Men became objects of physical destruction right? And I didn't feel a f***ing thing for anybody unless I was either f***ing it or trying to kill it. And those lines start to get kind of blurry and when you do that to people for years you're basically living on an animalistic plane. And there's some part of our brain likes being in a primal state. I think that's where I make that correlation of trauma and violence and everything else. Your brain, certain parts of your brain, really like that rush. 

And when I started on this path of getting well in this world, for the first time in my life, I wasn't numbing myself out with drugs. 

Joanne: How did this happen? Was that just a conscious decision you made? You have shared publicly that heroin addiction was part of your life for years. 

Justin: Yes. 18 years. 

About heroin addiction and that amount of time? One: Usually people don't live that long with that lifestyle. They don't make it that long. Two: People don't usually bounce back because if you've been shooting heroin for 18 years you have f***ing hardwired the brain. Your endorphins are dependent on opioids. 

I honestly just wasn’t interested in paying the consequences anymore.I’m definitely not interested in going back to jail or prison. But it has nothing to do with guilt. I can put guilt right out of my mind. I can easily live with myself through anything. It really has to do with wanting to leave a good legacy behind. 

I don’t know what happens after here but I can tell you while I am here I want my life to be something I can look in the mirror at the end of the day and be proud of. It can be a testament for having gone down the darkest roads and finding my way out of that muck and mire. It can be a testament to the War on Darkness it took to come out of that. I want to help people learn to be okay when things are not okay. I don’t feel okay a lot. I definitely don’t feel okay a lot. It’s a huge deal to feel okay. And I want to help people because people helped me and I really do believe in reciprocity. 

Heroin winds up being the only thing that can comfort any of the pain of trauma. It's the ultimate pain killer. So you take that away and you're left with a raw open wound on top of all these childhood traumas. I had experienced sexual abuse as a kid. And my mother got sick with HIV and died of AIDS. My aunt died of an overdose. My cousin too. My two uncles caught life sentences for murder. One uncle did 15 years, got out and died.These are the guys that raised me. I got taken away from my mom when I was six and sent to live with my grandparents, aunts and uncles on H Street in South Boston. Then all my friends f***ing died. Suicides. Murders or going away for murder. I have what you call compound trauma. The one thing I saw, the underlying theme, was that they all died with this torture in them. 

I had a ton of people try and help me. A ton. To help somebody it's 50-50. Timing has to be right and self motivation has to be there. You have to be self-motivated enough to want to change. 

I was in prison and this guy started corresponding with me. He was friends with my aunt who I was really close to, who passed away from an overdose. He started to tell me about this place in New Hampshire, The Plymouth House. He started telling me to go there and he would put together a f***ing plan for me and would get me in there when I was released. But I was skeptical. You know what I mean? I knew people who had been there though and I knew they make you do intense work on yourself, and this and that, but I knew what I was up against. I'm not an idiot. I'm a pretty self aware person. I knew that if you take the drugs away from me I knew I was going to be f***ed. I was not interested when he first offered this. I didn't want to dig through my stuff. I knew this was not going to be easy. 

The heroin didn't take pain away anymore. So, you think it's going to be easy without that? 

I'd been in prison I think three years when he started this correspondence. He left the brochure of the place. I started looking at the picture on it. It was in the mountains. And there was serene scenery of green hills and this little nice house and I'm thinking to myself what the f*** is my scenery going to look like when I get out of here? If I don't take this opportunity it's going to be project hallways. 

It's going to be f***ing destitute. It's going to be crime scenes. My scenery is going to be police stations. It’s gonna be another prison if I don’t die. And I said to myself, Well, I would like to get some new scenery. I think I just need to get some new scenery. Maybe I start f***ing... feeling. 

I don’t know...yoga, hiking, spiritual work? 

F***, I thought, this is like a Club Med for Degenerates. So, I want to go there. I'm a degenerate. And I want to be okay. I don't know how I'm going to do it but I definitely want to be okay somehow at some point in my f***ing life. I went there for 30 days and they started telling me about places and locations they have connections with like Portland, Maine, and this and that. I didn't know what kind of path this was going to lead me on but I started to do this work. 

All the step work and writing assignments. F***ing writing assignments. It was all based on AA. 

I’m sitting in these f***ing rooms with people who are doing the same exact assignments as I am doing. They're talking about how f***ing* great they're feeling and saying ‘I feel blessed.’ and ‘I'm walking with God.’ and I'm like, ‘Are they giving out Methadone in this f***ing place?’ Because they ain’t giving me my dose in the morning. I'm not feeling like this. The majority of the people maybe were just saying it because they wanted to sound a certain way? I don’t know. I was very vocal. I knew immediately. I said this is a much bigger issue than addiction for me. I know I'm a f***ing heroin addict. But I know this is a trauma issue. I knew I had to dig into this s*** again. 

I know exercise works for me. Silence works for me. I started doing yoga at the Plymouth House too and that was what I felt the most there. I was doing yoga every single morning there and that was what I longed for. But when they would start getting into those f***ing* groups, I'd be like ‘I'm going to my room.’ 

They have these really nice grounds and I would run every f***ing morning. I must have looked like a freak show. Because I came right from prison to this place. I had been in prison for three and a half years at that point. Worked out everyday and everybody else there, other than me, no bullshit, had come straight from detox or off the street. My body was extremely healthy and in extremely good shape. My mind was f***ed. Right? But these other people, their bodies were f***ed from heroin. So here I am. I'm the f***ing guy at 4:30 in the morning f***ing running 9 miles around the place. Doing f***ing burpees in the yard. Doing push-ups. Doing Army crawls across the f***ing grass. And then I'm in yoga. I must have looked like a f***ing lunatic. They definitely confronted me on it. They said, ’You look like a f***ing nut job. You work out more by 7:30 in the morning then we could in a week! 

It's the only f***ing thing I knew how to do to keep me in some state of normalcy and as soon as I was done with that I'm f***ing out in Mars again. My mind was so f***ing far gone. I couldn't stay present. I couldn't read a f***ing paragraph in a book without forgetting what I just read. I was f***ed. The only time I felt one pointed was during meditation and in my physical exercise. So I made that my recovery base along with reading the Bhagavad Gita. It really helped me focus on my connection to God. I grew up Catholic. Everything is christian-based. The 12 steps are even christian-based. And that God just doesn't work for me. It just doesn't. You know the Gita really works for me because it was more your own psyche being your connection to God. I mean it wasn't this outer source. It's you being your own source of God. 

Once you can become your own source of God other people are all God. We're all god. That's what really spoke to me. 

Trauma makes your own psyche a built-in enemy. Imagine your mind as a separate entity, like another person that you're stuck with all day long. This person is small enough to sit right here on your shoulder comfortably and they 

never fall off no matter what you do. They’re just stuck with you all day and all night. And all day long they’re like FUCK YOU.YOU SUCK. YOU’RE A PIECE OH SHIT. I HATE YOU. YOU HATE THIS PERSON. FUCK THIS PERSON. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. All day long. I’d want to rip that motherf***er off my shoulder and break his neck if I got stuck with somebody like that for 20 seconds. But that's how our minds are equipped to work against us. So, I understood I have a built-in enemy. My mind is telling me that every single person is a threat. What am I supposed to do? So I mostly I just lived this f***ing solitude existence for the last 10 years locked up. 

I come out, every locked up guy is f***ing wanting to be out free, and I come out here, and now this is the first time I ever considered in my mind to do the right thing. So, I'll try and do the right thing with no knowledge of how to do the right thing. I'm f***ing 36 years old. I never, since I was 12 years old, had NOT committed crime. 12 years old. At 12 I was selling drugs. At 12 I was stealing cars. At 12 I was breaking into houses. I started using heroin at 16 years old. I had no f***ing idea. And now I come to this conclusion that I'm done with drugs. I ain't doing this no more. I got to do the right thing. How the f*** do you do that with no knowledge of how to? This is the first time I've come out of prison now with my mind made up. I'm definitely going to do the right thing at all cost. I'm like, I have no idea how to be a kind, loving, productive person. My life just hasn't allowed me to be that. It's not that I don't want to be. It's just my life didn't allow me. Now you take me from prison which is a hate factory and transport me to f***ing cream puff recovery community in Portland, Maine. I was like, what the f*** are these people talking about? What the f*** are ammends? I f***ing have to say sorry for everything I ever did? I got to go to these meetings every f***ing day? Every f***ing day? 

But now that I was done with The Plymouth House and living in Portland, Maine I loved what I did with Maineworks. At least with the morning fire part, but then I had to go to work. I got to do this for 12 f***ing dollars an hour? And this guy has just f***ing yelled at me at a job Margo (MaineWorks founder) got me and the only reason I'm not bashing his head in with a shovel right now is because this lady Margo was just nice to me first thing in the morning. So I want her to be nice again to me tomorrow. I can't hit this guy on the head with a f***ing shovel right now because he snapped at me. That's the only thing I know how to do. Destroy everything in my path. 

I want these two women to be kind to me. You know, this one woman who brings me blueberry muffins and gave me a book, that’s you Joanne, and the other one, Margo, who yells at me but I know she likes me. I want this little semblance of kindness I get around 5:30-6:00 in the morning. So, I can’t beat the fuck outta’ this person. I’m not kidding. This is seriously what was going on in my mind. I wanted people to be nice to me for once. And because I knew how good it made me feel, I'm going to learn how to do this for other people. 

Because nobody should ever have to be this f***ing strong in life. Nobody. I've had mornings I wake up and say ‘How the f*** am I not going to kill myself today? How? I have no idea how I won't commit suicide or homicide today. Give me one reason, one f***ing reason. I catch a lot of depth out of little things. I always have. It can be one f***ing small reason why I would not end someone's life or blow my head off and be done with this. And when I got to Portland these little things kept happening every f***ing day. These little pieces in the morning. And it always started at MaineWorks for me. Every morning. It was an interaction with you or an interaction with Margo or with one of the other guys. Something had me hanging on every day. Human connection is really, really important for people with trauma. 

I hated every single job Margo got me. But I liked how nice she was to me in the morning. And I liked how nice you were to me in the morning so I kept coming back. From there I would get out of work and go to the gym by myself. I’d go to yoga alone. I’d listen to music. I'd listen to spiritual talks. All by myself. It was like I was de -fracking machine. This don't serve me. This don't serve me. This don't serve me. I spent a lot of time in isolation but I always started my day off with you guys. It was the human connection part. 

I’d go to the Eastern prom on a December morning and go plunge myself into the ocean like a f***ing lunatic and everybody walking by saying, ‘Wow. This guy’s fucked. Who's this guy? He's crying on the beach in a bathing suit in December.’ But that cold plunge would still my mind. I knew my brain was getting rewired. I don’t know how I started making these connections but I knew. Something was happening and if I'm getting emotional I know some type of disarmament is going on. And I don't know exactly what it is. Whatever it was it was good. I knew it was making me a better person. And I knew I was calming down and the war got quelled a little bit. Not all. Not even a lot. But a little. And a little was better than none. I started looking forward to things and my mind wasn’t telling me to kill myself or ‘Kill this person’. My mind was saying I really want to get down to that morning MaineWorks fire, introduce myself to everybody and maybe Joanne will tell me to get some book that I’ll read ‘cuz she’s got lots of knowledge. Maybe Margo could give me a little bit of motherly love she gives off. I haven't had that since my mother died. 

I came into contact with the homeless community in Portland with Mike and other guys there and I started noticing in Mike when he’d look at me. Like wow I'm making a difference in his day. And that was the first time that kind of connection happened for me and that felt good. Okay so. Here I am, I’m comforting this guy and this guy's been through a f*** ton just like me. Just like I have, right? He's been through everything I have and he's a f***ing mess. But somehow my presence is comforting to this guy. I'm not going to change his life. Mike isn't even going to stop shooting heroin. Mike's not getting off the f***ing streets. But my presence is comforting to him. You know what I mean? And I'm not judging Mike. I don't give a f*** if Mike never stops shooting heroin. I do. But I don't. Obviously I want him to stop. But I don't care if he does. As long as my presence is comforting to Mike that's all that really matters. At the end of the day somebody’s presence comforting me, to quell my f***ing war for a moment, is all that matters. Mike's war is quelled. It might not make a difference in the day or the outcome of the day but for a moment, a split- second that war is f***ing still. And you return to a silent center of yourself. An innocent part of yourself and that's the journey with trauma. We're trying to find that innocent part of ourselves again. Before the world twist twisted us into what trauma twists you into. You know it's a return to innocence and it's a return to being childlike again before these f***ing things come in and reshape and turn you into the f***ing Joker. And that's what it was turning me into. I started getting feelings of hope. I was looking for people to guide me. 

I had to ask myself, What was the time in my life that I felt the best?’ And aside from the situation and surroundings, I have to be 100% honest with you, it was prison. Why did I feel like that in prison? I was going to bed early. I was waking up early. I'm starting my day off with silence. There's nothing quieter than a cell block at 5:30 a.m. in the f***ing morning. Let me put it this way. Do you want to be the first guy to wake everybody up when you're in an environment with a bunch of lunatic animals? Prison is mostly a f*** ton of quiet time. And a ton of boredom. And that threat of violence is always looking underneath. 

So I'm going to bed early. I'm waking up early. I don't have any kind of distractions. I have no phone to check text messages. I don't have a girl lying next to me. I'd have my morning coffee at my little desk in a jail cell. It’s cold and I’m staring at the wall. I feel one pointed. 

So my day starts off with this meditation. And I feel good. In an hour of opening my eyes I'm eating a meal. After that I'm exercising. I'm starting my day off with push-ups - getting my body pumped. My body and my mind are becoming a cohesive unit. Then I take a little nap. I wake up. I read for 3 hours. I put the book down. I put my earbuds in and I'm listening to music. 

Guys come out of prison looking like a million bucks. Not just because of the work outs. They're eating. They're reading and nourishing their minds. Whether you’re conscious or unconscious you’re making Psyche Spiritual connections within yourself when you're reduced to having nothing. 

I got out and now all these people are telling me you got to write in a notebook and make 9000 amends and help everyone who comes into your past and you got to do this bleeding heart routine. And I thought to myself I don't even know if I'm a good person. Go out and help somebody? If I'm going to do that I got to be gentle. I'm not going to do it otherwise. I feel like an idiot and the whole time I've got this f***ing dread alarm going off in my body. I just wanted to kill them all. So I had to get back to what worked well for me and I had to find out my prison routine works great for me out here. The only difference is - I have to go to work. I start my day off with silence. Have my coffee. Have a healthy meal. Get my body moving first and foremost. Get that half hour a day before I hit the calamity and confusion. Where I can be present with anything that arises in me. I've had many healing experiences in my quiet time in the morning. I'm crying for no reason. I literally don't know why I'm crying. No idea what the f*** is going on. But tears are coming down. It happens in public too where I start crying for no reason and I think I must look like a crazy person. Like why is this giant tattooed 210 pound guy that could rip my head off, why is he crying. And we don't want to approach him because he'll probably kill us. 

The majority of this bounce- back- to- myself has been darker than actually going through what I went through. The veil is lifted and it hits you in the heart and in the mind. And you have to come into deep intimate contact with these painful experiences again. And what exactly they did to you. You have to look at yourself through a lens of non judgement. I had to admit, Wow. I'm pretty f***ing selfish. I'm a pretty f***ed up person. My morals are fucking twisted and the way I look at the world is f***ing horrible. The way I look at people sucks. And why am I a moody f*** all the time and why do I hate everything all the time? That ends up being such a weight to carry around. When that hate gets lifted out of your heart you feel it in your body. My body feels gentle for the first time in my life and I feel like I can breathe and I'm not walking around f***ing on edge. 

I can't tell you how many times earlier on this path I’d be sitting having a conversation with somebody and I'm doing the basic human stuff. I'm smiling at this person. But the whole time my mind was saying kill this person. And now I'm supposedly walking the spiritual path and I'm of God or whatever God is, right? I'm on this walk on this journey and I'm trying to learn how to be compassionate and this and that and my mind is literally saying kill this person. I'm like, this is confusing. What is going on here? I'd be sitting there meditating and I'd have these long drawn-out fantasies about how nice I'm going to be when I am enlightened and these long sexual fantasies and I’d look like I'm meditating but I'm a complete prisoner of my mind the whole time. It's confusing. It's very painful. It's more painful than the actual experience of what I went through because when I was going through that it was all based on reactions. I had to do what I had to do to survive. It's when you step back after surviving and you look back at the depth of what you've experienced. It's like, holy s*** why the f*** did I react like that? What the f*** did I put into this person's heart? 

I caused my kids pain because I don't even know how to be a fucking father. He’s a teenager and I haven't seen him since he was seven or eight years old. I know what that did to me as a kid. I just did the same exact thing to my son. How the f*** do I fix that? 

I firmly believe that life is a three-fold journey of resilience, wisdom and love. That's all it is. We are here to be broken. We are here to suffer. We are here to accumulate wisdom to get us out of suffering while remaining conscientious of pain and to love other suffering people and ourselves. And that's the reason we're here. 

Wisdom is a gift to be passed on to people. So someone passes wisdom on to me. I put wisdom into action. Action changes behavior but it all turns to wisdom. You become calmer. You become more loving because of wisdom. A lot of power in wisdom. Our job is to teach other people wisdom. If I am teaching other people wisdom I'm loving them. And you establish that really deep connection. 

Adversity of pain.That's the biggest uniter of people. Nothing will unite two people more than that. I have had numerous instances of one-time interactions with people through healing ceremony. I'll never see this person again, but they said something to me or put me on to something that stopped me in my tracks and you're forever bonded because they shared vulnerability with you and they shared pain with you. And those two things will melt through any f***ing hardness. I've seen the hardest motherf***ers, and I've been a prick myself, but when someone's vulnerable with their raw honesty, just raw f***ing vulnerability, we soften. That person is etched into you forever. They are to me anyways. And I'm a cynical prick. It is all a spiritual experience. 

The things that excite me now are like Bhakti yoga. I'm on f***ing Google looking up Vedic chants. Because Vedic chants speak to me. If anyone ever told me 10 years ago that I'd be sitting in my house chanting OM with a Goldendoodle at my side I'd be like, right. I wanted to be that guy in Walpole with an eyepatch and a big scar down his face, missing teeth and just soaked in blood all day. That's what I had wanted to be. But these are the things that motivate me now. That keep me in a state of motivation. That state of motivation is so essential. 

Pain gets very comfortable for people. The thing is most people don't consciously know they're doing it. I did it for years. When you're in pain you look for more painful things to mask the pain you're going through. So, maybe you're having this feeling and gone looking for heroin and now to get your next high on heroin you're looking to do robbery to make money. And now you want cheap thrills and sex. All that f***ing s*** kills you inside. People in that lifestyle and those behaviors don't feel good about themselves. So you're in this constant state of living like a barbarian and you don't know how it can be different. You might have an aunt like I had, but how the f*** do you get out of it? You have to learn to feel the pain. And to die into the abyss. The abyss is really, really terrifying. I was just kind of made for the abyss. 

If anyone is reading this sees something that's stoked some curiosity in them, by all means reach out to me. Message me. If you live far away from me, make some f***ing time to come see me. Or I'll come see you. And we'll sit down as two human beings and we'll put our phones away. No distractions. We just dig. And maybe I help you. Maybe you help me. Maybe me going to help someone else really helps me. I don't have to wait to meet the Pope to have a spiritual experience. 

I literally look at this, like I'm going to meet a child of God. I'm meeting someone who may have some enlightenment that I don't have. And I want that knowledge. I want that wisdom. So I've got to go on this journey. Then you get there and you have these raw moments with people and that's spiritual experience. You can have them all the time. And that's the beauty behind this journey. You can literally have these moments with people all the f***ing time. You just have to be willing to sacrifice time and be vulnerable. Let the guards down. Let the ego go. I want to sit down and just get quiet with someone in quiet scenery. Maybe I hand you off to a friend for more information. Maybe Ayahuasca speaks to you and you want to know my experience with plant medicine. And when I tell you about it I hand you off to someone who knows more and, boom. You're on another journey and that's the beauty. It's people meeting people. Connecting. Connecting. Connecting. 

I had to say, I want to be f***ing better. I don't want this s*** to define me. Yeah, I went through all this f***ing horrible s*** but it's not going to kill me. I'm going to overcome it. I don't know how. I don't know how long it's going to take. And I'm dealing with all the residuals from it. I'm a f***ing lunatic. But I'm going to figure this the f*** out and it means I'm going to have to go out on a journey and meet people with ideas better than me and I have to be soft. I'm just a person that has gotten beat the fuck down. And I'm here. I had no idea what the f*** I was doing. None. And people were like ’ Try this.’ And I was like ‘Okay.’ If someone told me to bash my head on a wall three times and that would put me in a transcendent state I would need brain surgery by now. Cuz I would have done anything some people told me to do to get okay because of my pain level. I didn't want to stay the same anymore. The fear of staying the same has to outweigh the fear of change. 

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks with Arjuna about how we're going to keep recycling into the sorrow until we figure it out. Listen. I don't want to recycle here anymore. I just want to go. When I go I want to be with source. And whatever that source is I want my soul to align with it and be on a plane of love that makes sense of why I have experienced this and all other lifetimes of sorrow. And I hope this is the last one. I really do. Because this is not f***ing fun. (laughter) I'm not having a great time here. But I'm here until the bell rings. 

In the Gita, Krishna describes to Arjuna that we're here to become a superior person. And the superior person isn't this beam of light. It's a beam of wisdom. How many times does Krishna mention wisdom in the Gita? He talks about wisdom. Wisdom. Wisdom. Wisdom blossoms love. Wisdom is the ultimate remover of pain. So that's what I got out of the Gita and I think my favorite part of that book is when Arjuna cries out to Krishna to reveal his form. And Krishna reveals his form. And Arjuna, he sees that he is everything. That everything is source and maybe it says to him in his mind, ‘Well you know. This might be it. We might not go anywhere. What if this is it?’ If this is it then we only get one shot at experiencing heaven here. I've already experienced hell. I want to know what heaven feels like. I start getting little snippets of it and it always ends up, is always in the form of another human being that gives it to me. So the f***ing thing that trauma did, which was to make me hate people so much...ended up being the rescuer of me. It was people. I was like, this is a f***** up lesson. The thing I hate the most is what ends up returning myself to me. Wicked ironic. 

I still get that thought in my head like I f***ing hate everybody. I'm not like some f***ing yoga master here. But it goes out of my head quick. That's an ultimate lesson. Because even though that thought has never left my mind entirely, I really don't hate anybody. 

We're talking about people who have addictions, violent tendencies, sexual proclivities and disconnection from other people. You don't allow people to get close to you even though you f***ing really want people to be close to you. And when I hear people saying, saying ‘ I f***ing hate people.’, I say to myself no, no, no. You love people so much it f***in hurts you. That's the truth behind it. 

Trauma wants us isolated. Wants us alone. The opposite of isolation is solitude. We have to stop being isolated but we need solitude. There's a big difference in the two. You have to connect with people. You have to find your tribe. 

The spiritual modality of yoga, plant medicine, Wim Hof Method, really remove the trauma very deeply from my body. And that's a journey with trauma that people have to make their own connections. It's very, very deeply embedded in our body. These traumatic experiences are not just in our subconscious mind. They go into us cellularly. They go into our muscular system. Into our skeletal system. Into everything. And you have to literally wring it out. Yoga is a good way to bring it out. Wim Hof cold water therapy is too. Not fun, but great way to wring it out. Ayahuasca. These ancient ways have been passed down for thousands of years. Meditation. Yoga breathing. Pranayama. Ayurvedic breathwork. Shamans. Going into spiritual Realms. Transcendent States. These have been passed on for thousands and thousands of years for a reason. They work. 

When I wake up in the morning I say meditate, Justin. Breathe. Drink some water. Take your vitamins. Have a cup of coffee. Get quiet. Connect with some literature. On your way to work listen to a spiritual talk or two. Get your mind working right. While I'm at work, while I'm welding, I'm constantly plugging into Krishna Das. I'll look at your page and I'll see pictures of Maineworks or Margo or guys I was there with and it brings back these moments back for me. When I get out of work I'm saying to myself What is Justin going to do? I'm definitely not going to sit down on the couch and feel sorry for myself and numb myself out with whatever. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to go get my endorphins pumping. I'm going to go to yoga. When I get my brain fired up I'm going to feed my brain all the natural s*** we have inside and that is what wrings the trauma out. 

So it's very much in our body. It's not talked about enough. You turned me onto it, THE BODY KEEPS HE SCORE by Besser Van der Kolk, M.D. . A great book to read to understand exactly what trauma does to you on a physical level. 

The average alcoholic drug addict is very highly traumatized person though and yes sometimes they are able to physically put down the drink. But if they don't address the trauma, guess what? It comes out in other areas. 

For me trauma and addiction are linked but are two completely separate entities. Yes, trauma is the cause of a lot of addiction. But remove the drugs? The person is still a traumatized person.. These things always stay with you. They never go completely away. But you can remove them enough from your psyche and physical body so you can go live a productive life. But you have to literally learn the body. Learn the mind and you have to make that psyche spiritual connection. That 18 inch journey. Head to heart. It's the hardest and longest f***ing journey you'll ever walk in your life. But it's absolutely essential to healing from trauma. If you don't make that connection you're going to stay in a perpetual cycle of torture and soft torment. It's impossible to stay happy all the time. It's not ever going to happen. But the best thing it’s done for me is that I absolutely 110% know under any condition I am always okay. That's a huge moment for me. You're always okay. And you're not in the ER. You’re all stitched up. You're not in the OR anymore. You're eating ice cream with a f***ing big bandage on you. And a morphine drip (laughter). And your yoga is your morphine drip. Every time I’m feeling crazy instead of hitting the morphine drip I want to go to yoga instead. That's how my mind's working now. Or I need to go connect with nature or I need to go drink some Ayahuasca with my female 

Shaman beautiful friend that I've made. She returns me to myself. Or I need to connect with you or I need to sit down and have a connection with Kelly my girlfriend and talk. We need to have good communication. That's what helps me. 

So the morphine drip is no longer there. Actually, I have to have a new morphine drip. But one that makes me feel good. Has no nasty side effects. And that's what breathwork and yoga does. I can get high on my own breathing. Basically I learned how, and I was doing it naturally in my own physical body, to get high. And I don't have to go to jail. It's pretty great. I can hit all the same receptors and I don't have to pay any of the consequences for it. It's like the greatest life cheat. 

To read a previous interview with Justin Downey, please see:

Have you heard sheltering in place referred to as Solitary? April 2020 Interview with Justin Downey

Follow Up to April 2020 Interview

'I firmly believe that life is a three-fold journey of resilience, wisdom and love. That's all it is...'

'I firmly believe that life is a three-fold journey of resilience, wisdom and love. That's all it is. We are here to be broken. We are here to suffer. We are here to accumulate wisdom to get us out of suffering while remaining conscientious of pain and to love other suffering people and ourselves. And that's the reason we're here.' -Justin Downey

from a recent interview titled: TRAUMA, ADDICTION AND THE GREATEST LIFE CHEAT which will be available in full at www.joannearnold.com

Thank you Justin Downey for your deeply personal reflections and very vulnerable insights. It is a journey from innocence to incarceration and complex trauma, violence, crime and hate...to hot yoga, golden doodles and love. Who knew?

Follow up to April 2020 interview with Justin Downey

Justin: This was an absolute hell ride. I wish I could tell you it only happened this once but I also did a separate 9 month stint in solitary and three different 6 month stints. I wasn’t a victim here, I want to be clear on that. I knowingly and willingly attacked guards and inmates. I won’t apologize for not coming down with Stockholm Syndrome. Trust me, for that environment and the mentality there I did what I had to do.

I told myself long before I went to prison as a survivor of childhood traumas that I’d never let anyone hurt me and that I’d defend myself at all costs even if I have to suffer terribly. I’ll not just survive I’ll also show people what happens if you try and hurt me.
All that being said what I didn’t know was that this experience made me confront my shadow and ask myself ‘Am I a f * * kin’ animal or am I a loving person?’

Through deep picking apart of my psyche I realized there was a deeply wounded child inside me that birthed a vicious man. It wasn’t that I was heartless. I was created so I can be recreated. Fearless work on myself upon release, working with yogis, meditation, helping people ( anyone ), vedic texts, drinking ayahuasca with shamans is what it took because I wanted to live so f * * kin’ bad. It was, and is, an incredible passion I have to love life. To feel its’ pulse; to wake myself up; to pick up the broken pieces of other people. Hate put me in a darker hole than this experience in solitary ever did. Only love was my freedom. Deep, hard passionate ferocious love.

-Justin Downey April 2020 Follow up to his interview.

To read part 1 of the interview, please click here.

Timely message for me two years later.

Timely message for me two years later.

Memory from April 17th, 2018, with Justin Downey and Margo Walsh at MaineWorks:

What will we build when everything we know has been torn down, when we recognize we cannot just rebuild what has been...because that didn't serve us well. How do we put the bricks back in a different way?

To read an April 2020 interview with Justin Downey, please see https://www.joannearnold.com/posts/have-you-heard-sheltering-in-place-referred-to-as-solitary-might-want-to-read-this and https://www.joannearnold.com/posts/follow-up-to-april-2020-interview-with-justin-downey

Have you heard Sheltering-In-Place referred to as Solitary? Might want to read this.

An Interview with Justin Downey April 2020

I recently heard someone make reference to Shelter-In-Place as being in Solitary. I thought I'd ask someone who has actually been in solitary for his view of life during Covid19. The result is an interview with Justin Downey, originally from South Boston. I met Justin when he became a MaineWorks employee several years ago. It may be a tough reality check of a read for some folks but Justin reveals some powerful lessons learned on 10 Block.

Justin can speak from a place of facing his deepest, darkest shadows. A man identified with vicious brutality is today a bodhisattva of sorts. If he can emerge from the dark violence of his past maybe we can too. I think his words help all of us to do the same. To face our own shadows. It's not always polite, nor easy, but his words can help launch our own self investigations with the hope of a ferociously loving outcome.

Me: How, if at all, is our current situation with Covid19 like being in solitary? What did solitary teach you? What can it teach us as we isolate ourselves during the Covid19 Pandemic?

Tell me about Walpole and your time in solitary.

Note: Walpole Maximum Security Prison is under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Department of Correction, located in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

Justin: I was in Walpole 10 Block. It’s an isolation unit. There have been books written about it and documentaries too. It was the first prison implementing extended isolation. To break up gangs. Prison isolation tactics are based on Walpole 10 block. I was on the unit for one year. It’s located in a sub basement. There are no windows. There is no light in your cell other than a ‘bug light’, a dim light that buzzes constantly. It’s on all the time. But ironically it’s always dark. A single cell is smaller than a regular cell. If you start with your back against the wall, side to side it’s 5 paces. That’s foot to foot. You can almost touch both walls. From the back to the bars is 7 paces. There’s a stainless steel toilet 8”-10” off the ground. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday you get out for a total of 45 minutes. This includes a shower while handcuffed and time in an outside recreation cage 15’ by 15’. You’re alone to pace or do pushups and stuff. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday you never leave the cell. You can’t see other inmates because your cell doesn’t face other cells. They’re all side by side so you wind up having conversations with people you can’t see.

You’re not allowed to receive canteen while you’re on the block and you’re restricted to a 1500 calorie per day diet. Your meal comes with a juice or milk container, like kid size, that you have to hold onto to use for water. No cup is provided.

They’d bring in a cart of books every two weeks. You get to pick one or two. Books were allowed to be sent in courtesy my aunt who picked some for me and she would get some I asked for. You got two twenty minute calls a week. They’d wheel a phone in on a cart. You had to hope the person you’re calling is available. Three weeks can go by without a call picked up. Only 5 people can be linked to your account. I had my aunt and two friends.

Hygiene was almost nonexistent. The shower with cuffs wasn’t much. No shaving. You’d lose weight. Your skin becomes translucent and people without mental health would lose more of it.

I was in one full year. Some guys had been in for 5 years and longer. If there was a crime committed while on the block there was no lawyer. No judge. You were brought in front of a jury of guards and a sentence was implemented. No fair shake. Guys would lose their minds. Get restless. They’d throw piss or feces or become violent. They’d do anything to be touched. To provoke a response. To interact. Then they’d be maced. The guards would do a forced extraction and then they’d increase the isolation. They’d attach a solid metal door to the bars of the cell. Shut the light off. For 4-5 days at a time. Couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

After the 4 or 5 days they’d crack open your door and hurl an insult...to provoke a response. The inmate would say something like ‘FUCK YOU!’ and they’d justify continuing the isolation as a result. 7-8 guards would come in with full tactical gear with mace and force you to react. The entire cell block is affected by that gas. They’d beat the hell out of you ’til you’d submit. Handcuff you. Then beat the hell out of you again. Then you were left. It was an eerie deep silence. You could feel the pain and hatred in the air. It wasn’t a nurturing silence.

All the guys reacted when any inmate was getting beat.

Then you were left in a restraint chair. In cuffs. You can’t move. No circulation. A face mask so you couldn’t spit. They’d leave you for 6-12 hours. A nurse came in periodically to check for a pulse.

The restraint caused intense pain in your extremities. Then they went numb. Guys would collapse when they were first released . They couldn’t stand up or walk. They’d get nerve damage. Their hands and feet just never worked right again.

If you got sick you got no care. Tooth extraction was the only solution to dental complaints. A couple of times when they were macing me thru the bars I’d pick up my food and start eating it to show them they had no effect on me. I’d just completely disassociate from the pain by channeling hate or become totally indifferent to being maced. I’d do the same when they would come in and it would be a fight. I’d never submit. They’d HAVE to beat me. I just was never going to give them the satisfaction of beating me. I’d even laugh while being held in those painful restraints. I had to own the situation and this was my way.

Some guys would sing. Some guys would provide a back beat for them. Some would tell stories to keep from going crazy. It wasn’t all positive. There was also psychological warfare. A guy would piss in one of those milk cartons, or fill it with sperm or feces and throw it at another prisoner. Or they’d kick the door of their cell at 3 AM. To fuck with everyone collectively. With an iron will they just wouldn’t stop. So that no one sleeps. Everyone’s screaming ‘We’re gonna kill you!’ and begin plotting one another’s death. If you developed an enemy while on the block and they returned to general population the prisoners would communicate and create trouble for your enemy out there.

Always fucking with one anothers’ minds.

Guys would rub feces all over themselves. All over the walls for attention. Negative attention. And they’d get it.

I had lots of altercations with the guards but I got along with prisoners.

I was a hard line racist. My next door cell mate was Izzy. A militant black Muslim. He came to his cell door and called to me ‘ White boy!’

I answered ‘Wassup?’

’You don’t like niggers?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Well, I don’t like white boys. But we in this together so we gotta get along.’

He turned out to be one of the funniest guys. We talked about hate. Became friendly. I was flipping out at the guards one day and he threw piss at them.

When I was in restraint he’d talk me through it.

He’d cover himself in shit to provoke the guards.

I joked with Izzy. That shit wasn’t gonna show up on his skin. We laughed. Might even call him a friend.

Routine was important. So was creating structure.

Exercise. Reading. Meditating. I’d count bricks in the wall.

I’d count the noodles in my meal. Anything to keep my mind sharp. I’d memorize the food menus that changed every two weeks. I’d try and memorize quotations. I’d rip the page out and use toothpaste to attach it to the wall to empower me.

I’d read a lot. Spirituality, psychology, philosophy, poetry....a James Patterson novel wasn’t gonna cut it. I’d leave there mentally.

The more tortuous the condition got, I was going to have control over it.

I would sink into silence. Not allow my emotions to overcome me. I sought equanimity. I’d read. I’d do street exercise programs. Pray. Hopefully there would be a guard who might leave a radio on at the end of the hall loud enough to hear.I liked digging into my psyche and pulling things out. There was a lot of soul searching and moral inventory.

When I got out and into a sober house the Step Program just wasn’t gonna help me. I knew this was a trauma issue and not an addiction issue.

The manager at the sober house didn’t like the way I made my bed. And went into my room and messed with it. I lost it. There was gonna be a bloodbath if they threw me out. I wasn’t gonna be out on the street.

We worked it out. I found my way to another sober house.

Me: So during the covid19 pandemic we are in confinement. What can people do?

Justin: Couples can make love. Talk. Make food together. Go on walks. Do relationship repair. Ask themselves why they’re together and whether they should stay together. People can meditate. Listen to deep talks. The internet can be used for more than social media and pornography. Go after spiritual people and think tanks. The mind is an asset. Examine your own inner engineering.

Create healthier food habits.

Try sinking into silence.

Observe your thinking patterns.

Learn breathing to co-regulate anxiety.

Self soothe with something other than tobacco and alcohol and drugs. Self medicate without all that stuff.

Individual consciousness leads to community consciousness. I hope it doesn’t return to business as usual. Or just stressing about what you can’t control.

People can dig into their hearts not numb their minds. They can use their minds properly in proper form.

Dig into great thinkers and leaders like Ram Dass, Thich Nhat Hanh, Robert Adams. Like Sri Ramana Mahrashi.

Use promoters of spirituality and breathing, pranayama and yoga to get in tune with your body and mind. Both separately and in correlation.

Stop eating cheese doodles and feeling sorry for yourself. Stop watching the news and conspiracy theories. We have buffoon and asshole leading us. Don’t get your information from him.

Practice gratitude.

Upon awakening list 5 things you are grateful for. Big or small.

Meditate on these.

It worked for me. And that’s another thing. You gotta figure out how your own brain is wired. Get high on your own supply.

Use breath work.

Have sex with your partner.

That’ll clear your head. Probably make you happier.

If you dig into individual consciousness you bring it out into the collective.

Work on individual consciousness to change social consciousness. Tell that to the cheese doodle eating #!&%@ watching MSNBC like it's god.

I was unwilling to be killed by my own life experiences.

I was a stubborn f*ck and I wouldn’t give any joy to people who wanted me to fail.

I’m gonna break them by doing well.

I was always going to have the upper hand psychologically even if they overwhelmed me physically. I’m the captain of my mind and soul, no matter what, in every and all situations. Nobody takes that away from me. Ever.

Justin Downey from South Boston is a card carrying member of Pipefitters Local 537, Boston, Massachusetts and is a proponent of psychedelic therapy, meditation and yoga amongst other spiritual practices. He has recovered from heroin addiction after having served time in several Massachusetts prisons.

Note: An addendum to this interview was published on April 19th. To read further, please visit Follow Up to April 2020 Interview with Justin Downey

Justin Downey preparing for a cold water swim in Maine ( 17 degrees F)...

Justin Downey preparing for a cold water swim in Maine ( 17 degrees F) and being interviewed by Sternman Productions at Falmouth Town Landing for an upcoming documentary of MAINEWORKS. 

Remember that day in February when the trees were covered in ice and I went for a swim?

Remember that day in February when the trees were covered in ice and I went for a swim? Yeah, me neither. But Justin Downey nailed it. Approximately 16 degrees. Falmouth Town Landing. I hesitate longer getting in the water in August than he did this morning.

Thank you JOURNEY Magazine, Carolyn Delaney, Brian Delaney and Alison Jones Webb for your recent article.

Thank you JOURNEY Magazine, Carolyn Delaney, Brian Delaney and Alison Jones Webb for your recent article. Thank you for what you all do to support the recovery community and our community at large. Most grateful. — with Justin Downey.