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Voices for Voices®
Voices for Voices® is the #1 ranked podcast where people turn to for expert mental health, recovery and career advancement intelligence.
Our Voices for Voices® podcast is all about teaching you insanely actionable techniques to help you prosper, grow yourself worth and personal brand.
So, if you are a high achiever or someone who wants more out of life, whether mentally, physically or spiritually, make sure you subscribe to our podcast right now!
As you can see, the Voices for Voices® podcast publishes episodes that focus on case studies, real life examples, actionable tips and "in the trenches" reports and interviews from subscribers like you.
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Voices for Voices®
From Dreams to Despair: Kelly Nagy's Battle with Addiction and Path to Recovery | Episode 148
From Dreams to Despair: Kelly Nagy's Battle with Addiction and Path to Recovery | Episode 148
Chapter Markers
0:01 Journey Through Substance Abuse and Recovery
13:48 Trapped in Addiction
How did a woman with a stable childhood, dreams of becoming a meteorologist, and a knack for public speaking find herself caught in the dark grasp of addiction? Join us as Kelly Nagy takes us through the intense and emotional journey that followed the birth of her first son, Phillip. From the onset of crippling anxiety and panic attacks to the dangerous spiral into substance abuse, Kelly bravely shares the darkest chapters of her life. Discover the raw reality of how her initial trust in prescribed medications like Klonopin led her down a path of heavy drinking and risky behaviors, ultimately endangering herself and those around her.
Kelly’s story is not just about the struggle but also about the painful realizations and the profound impact addiction had on her family and herself. This episode is a heartfelt recounting of how addiction can erode a person's sense of control and reliability. Listen as Kelly reflects on nights of competitive drinking, the lack of medical guidance, and the shifting perception of what 'normal' became for her. This compelling narrative sets the stage for the next part of her journey, where she begins to find her way to recovery and dedicates herself to helping others facing similar battles. Join us for a story of resilience, honesty, and hope.
Voices for Voices® is the #1 ranked podcast where people turn to for expert mental health, recovery and career advancement intelligence.
Our Voices for Voices® podcast is all about teaching you insanely actionable techniques to help you prosper, grow your self worth and personal brand.
So, if you are a high achiever or someone who wants more out of life, whether mentally, physically or spiritually, make sure you subscribe to our podcast right now!
As you can see, the Voices for Voices® podcast publishes episodes that focus on case studies, real life examples, actionable tips and "in the trenches" reports and interviews from subscribers like you.
If that sounds like something that could help you grow personally or professionally, then make sure to join me by subscribing!
—
Thanks for watching!
Support Voices for Voices®: https://venmo.com/u/voicesforvoices
#Newepisode #newpodcastalert #podcastseries #podcastcommunity #voicesforvoicespodcast #addictionrecoveryjourney #AddictionRecovery #MentalHealth #AddictionAwareness #Hope
Welcome to this episode of Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes. Today our guest is joining us in studio and the topic we're going to touch on a couple different topics, so this is going to be part one of so episode part one, and then there'll be a second episode to follow next week that you'll be able to catch, but this episode is going to be around substances, substance abuse, the ramifications, consequences that can come from that, and then our second episode will be coming full circle of how our guest took her experience, her experiences plural and is coming out on the other side and now helping others. So we'll get started and welcome Kelly Nagy to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, thanks for joining us. Starting, I guess, at the beginning, grew up in kind of a normal fashion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I grew up, I would say, in a very normal childhood. I had mom and dad still together. My father passed away but they were together my whole childhood. I was the oldest. I have a sister that is a year and a half younger and then I have a brother that is four years younger. We grew up. We grew up in Bedford. I did sports, I did band, I did fairly well in school.
Speaker 2:A lot of friends you know in the area was back in the time when you could actually go outside and play and come home when the lights came on and all that good stuff. To my knowledge, none of my friends or anything ever had an issue with like smoking or drinking or anything like that. We grew up in a very sheltered lifestyle because back in the late 70s, early 80s, you didn't hear a lot about addiction. You didn't hear a lot about people with mental health issues, substance issues. I mean. We had a very, very normal childhood, which was amazing because nowadays, you know, people are raised by grandparents or by sisters or aunts or whatever. So mine was very normal. I graduated in 1991 from Bedford High School and went on to Kent State. I was going to do meteorology and then.
Speaker 2:I went to early childhood education and, you know, had a great life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's good to know for our viewers and our listeners that, and even myself, of sometimes having assumptions of well, things in a negative light start very early, that they can happen at any point and, as we'll find out in a little bit, you know how that really resulted in that addiction. What did you want to do, I guess, when you finished school? What was the thing that said? You know so my goal was.
Speaker 2:I remember sitting in my guidance counselor's office when I was 16 years old and they give you that question what do you want to do the rest of your life? And at 16, you have no idea what you want to do. So I'm looking out the window and I see the sunshine. I'm like I want to do the weather, I want to be a meteorologist, and so that's what I went off to school to do. I'd always loved children. I had babysat, I had nannied. So part of me wanted to teach preschool also. So once I got to Kent State and realized you needed more science than I thought you would need for meteorology, I just wanted to be on TV. I went back and I continued early childhood education. My goal I wanted to do preschool, or pre-K was my specialty. And so I, about 20, 21 years old, I'm like this is what I want. This is what I want to do the rest of my life is teach.
Speaker 1:And I know one of the big things that individuals throughout the course of life run into is you know those, those fears and public speaking and being in front of a camera, in front of a group of people. How did that come easy to you, or can you explain to somebody who?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for me. So growing up, when I was in fourth grade, they had this great theater program it was called Kids on Broadway and you had to be fourth grade and up because you had later night rehearsals and stuff and they figured that was an okay age to be out past 9 o'clock. So for me, being in front of people and playing another part came very naturally, Because pretending to be somebody else versus yourself sometimes is a lot easier. So I didn't have a whole lot of trouble with public speaking at that point in my life. I guess my advice would be just have fun with it, Be confident.
Speaker 2:Nobody knows your lines like in theater, or what you have to say Never let them see you sweat and if you make a mistake just keep going. So for me it's just you have to say Never let him see you sweat and if you make a mistake just keep going. So for me it's just you know, a confidence. You know I had the confidence when I was younger and that has really helped me for my job today and just moving forward with everything.
Speaker 1:And I think that's helpful and any line of work is just be confident, be yourself and not to really worry as much what others are going to think, because even the most successful or well-liked entertainer still has people that don't like them. So I think that's something to really help is helpful.
Speaker 2:I always say my life got so much simpler when I stopped caring what other people thought about me. I'm like, I like myself and I like where I've been and I like where I'm going and I'm me. So if that doesn't fit into your equation, I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, excellent, so we can transition to transition to. You got married, had your first son, phillip, and the anxiety that came with it out of it, I don't know if you had panic attacks prior to that or that was.
Speaker 2:We look back when I was younger my mom and I, because I'd always been an anxious child.
Speaker 2:I always feared going to school sometimes because, oh my gosh, what if I felt sick or what if this happened. So I was always an anxious child and I remember at a very young age my mom had me talking to a counselor I think it was somewhere in Solon. Actually, I didn't care for it. I felt very uncomfortable because it was an older gentleman who at times would say things that weren't very appropriate to a younger girl, and so told my mom that we obviously nixed that counseling, and so for me I'm like every time she would say let's try somebody else. That fear was in my head.
Speaker 2:So I got married, I had my son Philip, I was finishing my master's degree for education and and all of a sudden I started getting these feelings, like my heart would beat, I'd be sweaty, I'd feel nauseous and the feeling would not go away, like I really thought I was having a heart attack or something, which turns out it was anxiety and panic attacks. So I went to my doctor and told her what I was going through, and she recommended Xanax for me. Now, I had no idea what Xanax was, other than take a pill, it's going to make you feel better. She didn't educate me on. You know, don't stop taking it, it's very addicting, none of that. So you know it said once a day, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I took it. Never once did they say maybe maybe you should see somebody or maybe there's other solutions, like exercise or whatever that looks like. So for me I was doing exactly what my doctor said to do and you know it worked for maybe eight or nine years.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that's a long time. I mean it is, I mean I function completely normal.
Speaker 2:I knew I had that pill if I needed it. Unfortunately, you know, your body builds up a resistance to a certain dosage, so then they up the dosage to. It kept taking it, taking it, taking it. And then I had my second child, jack, when I was 26 years old. It went away a little bit, because, you know, you have this new child, but then postpartum depression came into play and I went back to my doctor and I said, hey, this is what's going on with this, what can I do? That's when they switched me to Klonopin. So Xanax is fast acting, takes care of everything where Klonopin kind of keep you even keeled throughout the day. So it gives you that same resolution. It just lasts longer.
Speaker 2:For me, I mean, that worked great. I'd never had an issue with it, took it the same functioned absolutely normal. One thing I'd look back on is the emotions were frozen Like I never I would have like. Why am I not crying at this movie? Or why am I not super, super happy? Why don't I feel that emotion? And I never understood that until when I became sober. You know, you learn a whole different thing. But I always tell people I said so. My drug of choice came from my doctor. Should I have asked more questions about it? Should I have talked to the pharmacy more about it? And I always say you only know what you know. And what I knew was to take this once a day, don't stop taking it, follow up with your doctor every six months and go from there. So I was educated on it, but not educated enough to maybe prevent this addiction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and panic attacks, I think, and anxiety, I know, for me kind of came out of nowhere too, and and some people close, some people not so close, they would say, oh, you just need to go for a walk, you need to do this, you need to do that, just Google what to do if you're stressed and can you just talk about how the panic attacks that they do. Last, I like to equate it to in my mind take the most nervous you've been as a person and it doesn't go away. It's kind of like 24-7, where you're at this peak level, like you said, heart rates rising, thinking you're in a heart attack. My cell also ended up in an emergency room thinking the same exact thing. So I ended up in an emergency room thinking the same exact thing, and I think that that's helpful to just explain the panic attack, how you went from not having them to when you had them that, like you said, you're always at that oh my gosh level.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So even though I was taking the Xanax and the Klonopin, I would still have them, because that's not like the end-all end-all for stuff like that. So I remember any little situation I would go into that wasn't home, I was already in my head oh my God, this is going to happen. And when I was at work it happened. And when I was teaching it happened, and I would try just to let the feeling go without really noticing or making aware of what was going on to other people. It would stay and it would just consume, I mean, everything over me. I would try to breathe, I would tell myself like this is going to pass, you're okay, and stuff like that, and sometimes I could get out of my head and other times I could not get out of my head.
Speaker 2:For me, I didn't want it to interfere like with teaching. I didn't want to interfere with my kids, because at this point I have a son that is middle school. My son, Jack, seven years younger, is in elementary school and I am that parent that would volunteer for this and carpool and all that good stuff, and so for me setting up a routine, so I know what was happening every single day worked for me. Did that prevent them? Absolutely not because I was still on the medication, but it helped me mentally like, okay, this is going to happen next, this is going to happen next. But then I'd wake up in the middle of the night and have them.
Speaker 2:At one point I was staying at home Like I didn't want to go out. You know what if this happened there? And for me exercise helped to an extent. I've always been a runner since I was 13 years old and I could go out and run maybe when that feeling was coming on. But you know, when you're in a classroom or you're at a kid's event, you can't just be like hold on a minute panic attack.
Speaker 2:I'm out of here you can't just go out and run. So I didn't learn tools to deal with it until later on in my life. But at that point, breathing, trying to talk myself out of it, know it's going to be okay. You know those are the best things I could do at that point in some exercise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I catch on when you mentioned, you know, when you stopped worrying about what other people thought that was huge for you. When you were, let's say, starting the Xanax journey and the Klonopin, could others notice that in you notice that you were taking some? Did they ask you?
Speaker 2:So yes and no, yes and no. I thought I was being as normal as possible. The Xanax phase you know my family knew I was taking it. I had some friends who knew I was taking it Obviously my employers. I had to because they drug test and if something came up like that I wanted to them know. You have your prescriptions so they can see it.
Speaker 2:But as I moved along through the Klonopin phase I started drinking. So I would go out with a group of friends and I'm that girl, I'm very competitive. So if I had a shot, somebody's like I bet you can't have two. Bet Now I have two, now I have four. And I remember going home some nights like how did I even get home? I remember coming home one night my son Jack is sleeping it's like 2, 3 in the morning and I'm walking in to make sure he's okay. I'm trying to be okay for him and I thought you know he thought this was normal. You know mom coming home this late and this is fine because she's always up the next day teaching or whatever that looks like.
Speaker 2:But I believe the more I got into that addiction in my mid to late 30s, the more people started to notice some behaviors changing. I wasn't as reliable. I was always tired. I was a little more irritable, you know, because of that, because I was tired, I thought overcompensating to volunteer and all this nobody would notice. Nobody noticed. But when I look back I realized I was there but not there, if that makes any sort of sense. I was just kind of walking through all the steps of life and when I got arrested my family was like we could tell something was wrong Because your behaviors changed, your mannerism changed. Even though you tried to act normal, you weren't normal yeah, but the drinking.
Speaker 2:Definitely I'm not a drinker by trade. I hate alcohol. My dad was an alcoholic and I'm like I'm never gonna drink. But when you are under that addiction and you try something else, you're just gonna go, you know, overboard you know, I never did anything just under the radar was. It was always big, so yeah that sounds like me.
Speaker 1:I used my competitive spirit and some of the that ways as far as you know, drinking more, and I had a overdose on taking a core seed and pills. They ended up I ended up taking 32 because I was like, oh, you're taking 20. So I got to up it and it gets very dangerous very, very quickly yeah absolutely and you do things you don't normally wouldn't do.
Speaker 2:Like a couple circumstances. I remember I was out at a bar one night and I remember waking up the next day like why is there salt in my belly button? Oh my gosh, what happened that night? Or another occasion. I was driving and it was just 25 mile an hour road and I think I was going home at the time and I was really close with this one car and I bumped into it and I remember the cop coming. He's like well, have you been drinking? I'm like no, and I actually wasn't at that point. I I wasn't drinking that day and I'm like, yeah, the squirrel was chasing the cat across the street, so I had to avoid that. He looked at me. He's like so that's what happened.
Speaker 2:I look back now. I'm like I'm sure that's not what happened, but in my mind that's what I saw. Because you have all these images. You think you're never going to get in trouble, you think nobody's going to touch you, you're invincible. So just I look back now and I'm like, oh my God, did I actually believe that? You know the things that come out of your mouth? I remember once I went to my mom's to pick up my younger son. She's like Jack's not here today, he's still at school. No, no, no, no, mom, today's Wednesday. You know he goes to grandma's Kelly. It's Tuesday. Oh, so I went to the school. You know just that's how they could certainly tell things were not normal, because I used to be on top of everything and you know, slowly but surely, that world was colliding on me and it was scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was scary to feel out of control, but for me at that point in my life that was normal. That was normal, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the thing to key in on. It is kind of these new normals coming into play. What was normal five years ago or a year ago? I mean, we know we're going to evolve and change over time, yeah, but when we're talking about whether it's you know, substances or what, what have you that? When we, like you, said, once you start added drinking to uh, you know, take in klonopin and that just became that was the new normal, like okay, if I'm gonna go out, this is we're gonna do. I can't drink water like I'm with friends.
Speaker 2:I have to fit in and everything. And I was still taking everything the right way. I was still going to my doctor every three to six months and they would evaluate me. And is this still working? No, they'd up it and still nothing as far as. Maybe you should try this or maybe you should try this, you know, nothing else offered up. And I remember asking once like do you think I need counseling with this, or is there another way that I can get through these panic attacks or depression without being on medicine? Well, this is what's working for you right now. So let's not, you know, mess that up. I was like okay, you know, and my I think it was Giant Eagle was my pharmacy. And after a while they're like should you still be taking this? And I'm like my doctor said I should.
Speaker 2:You know, I didn't know you could doctor shop. I didn't know you could go to different pharmacies and get prescriptions filled. I had no idea, because where I grew up, none of that ever happened. You know, nobody ever did anything like that to my knowledge. So it was just very, very interesting the way this all played out. And I look back at that journey and I can be like why did you do that. Why did you do this?
Speaker 2:You know all this stuff, but that's my story, that's part of my life, and my son, my younger son, had affected the most because, with my drug using and with my drinking, I started stealing credit cards, I started writing bad checks, I started stealing identities and stuff like that. I obviously wasn't very good at it, but I started being like nobody, nobody's going to notice this, nobody's going to tell on me. And the thing is, I didn't need anything. I didn't need money. I didn't need all the stuff I thought I needed because I had a good life. I was married at that point and that person was working nights, days, so they were so oblivious to what was going on with me.
Speaker 2:It was probably my youngest son, because he was still at home, that noticed it the most. And you know, jack, I'm going out tonight. I'll be back about two in the morning. Okay, mom, I'll check in with you. Okay, you know he'd cry himself to sleep. I never knew that until I was on the other side of addiction. You don't realize at that moment how many people you are hurting when you're doing your thing.
Speaker 1:So regarding doctors, was this a psychiatrist or a general practitioner? Because that's what I ran into for the longest time of the general practitioner, I always want to for physicals, and so I thought that's just okay. If I'm feeling a certain way, I get an appointment, and I didn't know about the specialization so much. Can you explain maybe a little bit just how that was for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when I was in my 20s, after I had my first child, I went to my general practitioner, told them what was going on with me, and that person is what started recommending my Xanax and Klonopin. So as I move forward in life, I would just always go back to a general practitioner because that's who's giving me this stuff. I never thought about a psychiatrist. My sister is a psychologist and she explained psychiatry can recommend medications, but a rather psychologist cannot. They're just there to listen to you. So I took it upon myself to go and start talking to somebody who I interviewed, who I felt comfortable with, who is a female, because after that one experience I had, I was just like, yeah, so, but I would do that and I would still take the medication that my doctor gave me. And when I was talking to this lady, explaining to her about the medication, she was okay with it because it came from a doctor, it didn't come from any other place. So, and the more I got to know her and started talking to her and life was starting to crash down on me from my stealing and all that kind of stuff, she was like you might, you might want to go to a psychiatrist, you might want to go to a psychiatrist, you might want to talk to your doctor about getting you off of this stuff. You know all these different things and of course, I didn't listen. I'm like, nope, I'm talking to you and I'm doing this. I am doing the right thing.
Speaker 2:And I think the beginning of the end for me was in 2014. My dad had cancer and we knew it was going to eventually not be a positive thing. At the end, he decided at one point to go from quantity of life to quality of life, so he was at home at the end with hospice. I mean, they were fabulous. It couldn't be any more of a positive experience for a very negative outcome. You know outcome. But that night, when he passed away, I forgot to take my Klonopin. So I'm thinking, the next day you double up like penicillin or something, and then I'm like, oh, two feels better than one, you know.
Speaker 2:And just that was the beginning of this downfall that I had. Now I'm running out of medication and back then I thought I had the flu every month. I didn't know that was detoxing, you know, you only know what you know and I would wait to go back to my doctor. So for two weeks I had none of this stuff. I wasn't sleeping, I was sick, I was agitated. I started calling off work and everything and you know, going to friends' houses and oh there's some money. They won't notice that's gone. They won't notice that's gone, they're not going to tell on me.
Speaker 1:And it just started to snowball and snowball in my life and I think we touched on you had a bad experience with a counselor. I think it's to try to think of the words. But yeah, if you're going to talk to somebody and be as open and honest and upfront with them, you want them to kind of get you. There's times where you just need to vent. You can do that, and if you don't feel comfortable, look somewhere else.
Speaker 1:I think that's hard because I know from my experience like I got to explain this again, can't they just look into the records and see and I think that can be scary as well as if an individual is transitioning from the general practitioner to this psychiatrist or more more specialized that sometimes it takes quite a while to get in, and when you're especially it's been with the panic attacks and different things going on you feel like you're dying right. Then it's like I can't wait three months to get in and and that's what landed me in the hospital and I ended up going that way and it was a lot of money, even with insurance, and if I would have known some of the things I know now, then I would have started the journey a little bit earlier.
Speaker 2:There's a saying I use a lot you only know what you know, and all I knew was what my doctor had told me. Now, when I was seeing the psychologist near the end, before everything crashed down, I looked back and I wasn't being honest about everything. I would give her details in my life that were positive, I would throw in a little bit of the issues that I was having, but I would blame somebody else. I wasn't accountable. Well, I took that money because they owed me money, or I opened that credit card because they told me I couldn't use this one anymore. So I'm just going to do my own.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was babysitting a family at the time. Something came in the mail for a new credit card. Oh well, they'll never know if I fill it out with my information, you know, and it just. I was so dishonest, but I wouldn't be, as I wouldn't tell my psychologist all of that because I didn't want her to look down on me. And maybe if I was more forthcoming or more honest or anything, maybe my outcome would have been a little different. But now I'm so transparent with everything, I don't leave out a detail, and sometimes we're probably like you could have left that out, I'm afraid to, because of my past experiences and I you know, being accountable today but not accountable then has changed my life too, wow.
Speaker 1:So Well, we're at the end of this segment, so thank you for for joining us, kelly and and studio. We'll pick up for our viewers and listeners. Part two. You can check that out next week and that episode will be a circle around kind of the the crash and what events and experiences happened then, and then the full circle of you know helping others and how, how that makes you feel and inspire others. So thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and thank you, our listeners, our viewers of our Voices for Voices TV show and podcast, for all the support that you've given us, and we really appreciate it. So come back and join us for part two next week, and you can also check out our YouTube, apple anywhere you get podcasts, streaming content. You can get one of our 144, 145 episodes. So we're just continuing on episode. So we're just continuing on and with that goal of mine of wanting to help 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. So with your help, I think we can do it. So until next time, I am Justin Allen Hayes, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, and please be a voice for you or somebody in need.
