SP 288: Don Cummins - The Prison Within and Breaking Free
Explicit content warning
11/03/20 • 77 min
In 2011, Don Cummins was homeless, desperate to get high, and had already served 20 years in prison for bank robberies. Not only suffering from mental health issues, addiction, and incarceration, the court had also declared him insane. Willing to do anything to escape from reality, he went to any lengths to not feel discomfort from the trauma he experienced and abuse he suffered.
From the age of 10 Don started to get high, and by the age of 13 was committed to a program, never to live at home again. The rest of his teenage years were spent in youth homes, juvenile detention centers, and at the age of 16, Don was sentenced to prison as an adult.
As the years went on, the drugs only got harder, and the prison sentenced only got longer. Reaching a bottom, Don faced the choice to attempt suicide or reach out for help. Facing an awakening while sitting in his prison cell at the age of 23, he realized the pattern of his denial state and the inability to see the truth. Years later at the age of 39, Don decided to begin working through resentment, anger, fear, and reached out for help and began putting in the work.
From being isolated and alone, Don began experiencing deep friendships and connections. From not knowing how to be loved, he ended up meeting the love of his life, and from being jobless, he went back to school and became a software developer that integrates with banks.
With an incredible self-transformation, Don’s story is a testament to overcoming adversity, overcoming obstacles, and finding freedom. Today, Don Cummins is an author and speaker whose passion is to spread the message that regardless of anyone’s background or life situation, absolutely anyone can overcome their obstacles and have the life they dream of.
Don lives in Florida with his wife Brianna and his two boys Levi and Finley. While he’s not hanging out with his family or working on a project, he’s riding his bike and playing guitar.
For the show notes and links for this episode go to theshairpodcast.com/288.
***
Explore the Alcohol-Free Lifestyle and Feel Better Now!
Join the SHAIR Recovery Community and live alcohol-free - theshairpodcast.com/join-the-src.
***
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For more information and a FREE consultation go to omarpinto.com/coaching.
In 2011, Don Cummins was homeless, desperate to get high, and had already served 20 years in prison for bank robberies. Not only suffering from mental health issues, addiction, and incarceration, the court had also declared him insane. Willing to do anything to escape from reality, he went to any lengths to not feel discomfort from the trauma he experienced and abuse he suffered.
From the age of 10 Don started to get high, and by the age of 13 was committed to a program, never to live at home again. The rest of his teenage years were spent in youth homes, juvenile detention centers, and at the age of 16, Don was sentenced to prison as an adult.
As the years went on, the drugs only got harder, and the prison sentenced only got longer. Reaching a bottom, Don faced the choice to attempt suicide or reach out for help. Facing an awakening while sitting in his prison cell at the age of 23, he realized the pattern of his denial state and the inability to see the truth. Years later at the age of 39, Don decided to begin working through resentment, anger, fear, and reached out for help and began putting in the work.
From being isolated and alone, Don began experiencing deep friendships and connections. From not knowing how to be loved, he ended up meeting the love of his life, and from being jobless, he went back to school and became a software developer that integrates with banks.
With an incredible self-transformation, Don’s story is a testament to overcoming adversity, overcoming obstacles, and finding freedom. Today, Don Cummins is an author and speaker whose passion is to spread the message that regardless of anyone’s background or life situation, absolutely anyone can overcome their obstacles and have the life they dream of.
Don lives in Florida with his wife Brianna and his two boys Levi and Finley. While he’s not hanging out with his family or working on a project, he’s riding his bike and playing guitar.
For the show notes and links for this episode go to theshairpodcast.com/288.
***
Explore the Alcohol-Free Lifestyle and Feel Better Now!
Join the SHAIR Recovery Community and live alcohol-free - theshairpodcast.com/join-the-src.
***
Get 1-on-1 Life Coaching with Omar Pinto!
For more information and a FREE consultation go to omarpinto.com/coaching.
Previous Episode
SRC 011: Learning to Love and Forgive Yourself – Recovery Coaching
With addiction comes lies, deceit, and betrayal. However, with recovery can come the looming after effects of guilt, shame, and regret. When we get sober, we must learn to love, forgive ourselves, and make peace with our past.
Acknowledging the mistakes we’ve made and moving forward is often easier said than done. Forgiving ourselves requires empathy, compassion, loving, and understanding. It also requires us to accept that forgiveness is a choice.
How to Forgive Yourself
In addition, many of us can hold onto our past mistakes that we feel are not forgivable. We live in fear of forgetting the hurt. Reliving and replaying these feelings over again, we re-traumatize ourselves. However, forgiving does not mean forgetting and staying in this pattern can get us stuck and create a risk for relapse. Learning to love and forgive ourselves is essential to our personal growth, sobriety, and success.
In this week’s SHAIR Recovery Coaching call, the group helped Dustyn who is facing the wreckage of his past. Feeling shame, guilt, anger, and frustration, he’s stuck in self-remorse and self-hatred from his past action in addiction. How do we learn to love and forgive ourselves? The group helps Dustyn put together a step-by-step action plan to begin the healing process of making peace with the past and most importantly, ourselves.
In this week’s Recovery Coaching call, you’ll learn:
- What a “win” journal is and how to create one
- Practical steps to take to begin forgiving ourselves
- How to begin to repair the damage of the past to reconstruct our life
- How to distinguish between our behavior and our true selves
For the show notes and links for this episode go to theshairpodcast.com/011.
***
Explore the Alcohol-Free Lifestyle and Feel Better Now!
Join the SHAIR Recovery Community and live alcohol-free - theshairpodcast.com/join-the-src.
***
Get 1-on-1 Life Coaching with Omar Pinto!
For more information and a FREE consultation go to omarpinto.com/coaching.
Next Episode
SRC 012: Inner Child Work and Reparenting – Recovery Coaching
For anyone looking to heal from past hurts, inner child work and reparenting is crucial. No matter what we do in our lives, we're trying to feel something. When we don't feel secure and confident within ourselves, we can find ourselves acting out with maladaptive behaviors caused by underlying hurts. Whether we know it or not, we spend years abusing ourselves and people around us, repeating patterns, and when we struggle with addiction can get caught in a cycle of chronic relapse. Oftentimes, it's these underlying hurts that have us wanting to be acknowledged, seen, and valued. Some of these issues can only be addressed with inner child work and reparenting ourselves.
In today’s SHAIR Recovery Coaching call, the group helped Angie. Struggling with asking a woman to become her sponsor, she’s committed to her recovery but feels unsure of herself to ask for help. The group also helped Lynne. Struggling to find long-term sobriety, she finds herself relapsing time and time again. The group helps her find empowerment by changing the scope of her recovery language and takes her back to a time in childhood where she found the need to escape and soothe herself.
In this recovery coaching episode you will learn:
How to effectively get in touch with our inner child
A reparenting exercise we can all repeat to ourselves to find compassion and empathy.
Why inner child work is crucial to recovery.
How the language we use can influence our relapse process
For the show notes and links for this episode go to theshairpodcast.com/012.
***
Explore the Alcohol-Free Lifestyle and Feel Better Now!
Join the SHAIR Recovery Community and live alcohol-free - theshairpodcast.com/join-the-src.
***
Get 1-on-1 Life Coaching with Omar Pinto!
For more information and a FREE consultation go to omarpinto.com/coaching.
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