In this episode of the Joe Rooz Show, Joe welcomes guest Andy Campbell, an inspirational author and resilient survivor who has faced numerous life-altering challenges. Andy shares his journey of overcoming childhood sexual abuse, bullying, the loss of his mother, estrangement from his father, battling stage four pancreatic cancer, and the tragic loss of his youngest son to suicide. The conversation delves into Andy's personal experiences, his philosophical outlook on life, and the therapeutic methods he has embraced, such as EMDR, to process trauma and find healing.
Joe and Andy discuss the importance of creating memories with family, the impact of philosophical readings on mental health, and Andy's core beliefs that have guided him through adversity. They also touch on the significance of not giving up and the value of life, encouraging listeners to find strength and purpose even in the darkest times. The episode concludes with a promise to continue exploring Andy's 15 core beliefs in a future discussion.
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(00:01:11) Introduction and Show Overview
(00:08:55) Guest Introduction: Andy Campbell
(00:09:51) Personal Stories and Philosophies
(00:17:37) Family and Creating Memories
(00:20:43) Sharing Life Experiences
(00:26:56) Childhood and Early Challenges
(00:31:36) Cancer Diagnosis and Battle
(00:45:42) Coping with Loss: Son's Suicide
(00:52:27) Therapy and Healing
(01:15:17) Core Beliefs and Life Lessons
- Wayne Rankin
- Rosanna Rankin
[00:01:12]
Unknown:
Alright. Hey, folks. Welcome to another Monday night here at the asylum best quality talk radio we could muster. Doing the very best we can to bring you the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the blustering. This is the Joe Russo. And it folks, it is great to be with you here on another beautiful Monday night. And, we got a packed week ahead of us. We have guests just about every night this week. So you'll get to hear more of that and less of my stuff as we go on through and I see that our guest is already checked on in and waiting in the waiting room.
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And I am a shareholder in Rumble, so it helps me out in always. Alright. So that said, rumble.com/premium. Use promo code studio for $10 off your Rumble premium subscription. Alright. Well, with all of that said and done, we are going to welcome our guest today. We are bringing into the show our guest, Andy Campbell. Andy Campbell is a resilient survivor and inspirational author who has overcome numerous life altering challenges, a victim of childhood sexual abuse, bullying, the loss of his mother in early age, and the eventual estrangement from his father, his battle with stage four pancreatic cancer, and the loss of his youngest son to suicide. Folks, I'd like to welcome Andy Campbell. Andy, thanks for being with us. Us. Hey, Joe. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. That it is it's it's really great to to be able to have the chance to sit down and talk to you. I was reading over your your information, your bio, and, man, I'm telling you, your your your story really resonates.
And, that's why I really wanted to get you on, and I'm glad you jumped on here as early as you possibly could, and that was fantastic. I really appreciate that. Yeah. Well, I'm very grateful for the opportunity to talk to you, Joe. Well, Andy, so for for folks that are meeting you for the first time, tell us something about you that might surprise people, like like a hobby, a quirky little habit, you know, just something that doesn't fit the serious author image.
[00:10:07] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, I tell people that I am, part Muskogee Indian and part Scotch Irish. So, I would not suggest giving me a cheap whiskey and a cheap firearm at the same time. We'll have a good time, but I can't promise where we'll end up sleeping.
[00:10:25] Unknown:
You go. So so you're a whiskey guy?
[00:10:28] Unknown:
Yeah. What do you like? What's it?
[00:10:31] Unknown:
Say that again? What do you like?
[00:10:33] Unknown:
Which way? Well, you know, I, I was diagnosed about seven years ago with pancreatic cancer, stage four pancreatic cancer. So I have given up, my heavier partying days, but when I still drink, it is,
[00:10:48] Unknown:
Jaeger with water back. Oh, okay. That's cool. That's that. I I I I like Jaeger. I'm not I'm not a big fan of Jaeger. I had too many bad experiences with Jaeger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, my my go to right now is I love I love, I love bourbons. So, I I I love my Paul Sutton bottled in bond, which is a fantastic bourbon. I like my 1792, Elijah Craig. If I'm if I'm, if I'm gonna have a nice cigar, I'm gonna pick a nice Elijah Craig to pair with it. And, one of my go tos that I tell everybody, is and I just recently found this, that's why I keep on going to it. It's, the, the Camacho Triple Maduro Mhmm. Which is a beautiful smoke. I mean, absolutely beautiful smoke. It's it's it's strong. It'll it'll knock you down.
Yeah. Without a doubt, it'll knock you down on its own. But you you pair that with the nice Elijah Craig toasted barrel. Oh, my goodness. You're talking about something.
[00:11:42] Unknown:
You know, life is short, man. You've got to, you've got to enjoy the things in this life that you can. No day is guaranteed, and if you can find something that you enjoy, you could take a few little pleasures out of the day. It's absolutely worth it. You should do that. I agree. I absolutely agree. And, Now see, though, I bet you still from time to time cough, and I drink Jaeger, and I never cough. So a lot of people say it's like cough syrup. It is. It's just like coughing. I don't have a problem with coughing. Yeah. I cough I cough more from the cigar though. So Yeah. Well, say take a shot of Jaeger and the cough goes straight away, man. I have to try that. For sure. Yeah. Absolutely for sure.
[00:12:20] Unknown:
Let's let's see. Let's see. There there was a question I had for you talking about philosophy. As a as a deep philosopher, you know, you you get some pretty deep thoughts about life. And we're gonna talk we're gonna get into some of that stuff as we go on with with with the conversation here. But, you're I know so so you're a former a former, Jaeger guy, coffee person? You like coffee, tea?
[00:12:48] Unknown:
You know, I I drink coffee for ages, and then, one of my physicians got me to try green tea, which I hate. But I found a green tea, a matcha ceremony of green tea. And I didn't know you did this to green tea because I just drink coffee. But, it turns out that you can whisk it. The Japanese whisk it. Really? And it turns it into, like, this frothy. It's almost like, like a, turns it into, like, something you get from Starbucks, like a frothy, like, latte or something. Right? It's really kinda strange. But, so I've had to, I've given up, coffee.
And now I guess I'm just getting older in life and with some of the things I've been through. You know, the green tea works for me now. It's very strange. I I hated it for years, but I tell you, I did one time, did a ten day water only fast. And I think your taste buds just change after something like that. Because when I came out of that, I hated I used to hate, chocolate. I hated dark chocolate. I didn't like, even milk chocolate. But when I came out of that fast, and for probably five years now, all I can eat is dark chocolate. So I think along the way, my taste buds have kind of adapted to, the different lifestyle that I've had to adopt. And so, you know I know, Jamie. Now it's not coffee. Although, I used to love coffee. I have I do the cold I do the French press, you know. So I I got into the whole thing of, like, you know, actually making your coffee down to how many seconds it was timed in the French press to get to Yeah. You know, the cup, have the sediment in the bottom of the I mean, I I really enjoyed just, making the coffee. The whole process of it. Yeah. Yeah. The whole process. Yeah. But
[00:14:36] Unknown:
now I'm on the green tea, and maybe that'll change in six or eight months. Who knows? You never know. Well, you you go through a change every seven years, they say. So Yeah. Well, there you go. But, I have a French press too, and I I don't use it as much.
[00:14:47] Unknown:
But That's kind of a pain, actually. You know, it's kind of a pain. If you want if you want coffee, like, right now Yeah. It's kind of a pain. You know? Oh, for sure. For sure. I went to it because, like, you know, there's so much stuff with, like, additives. You know? And so, you know, just the different kinds of filters and and aluminum and aluminum foil and tinfoil and all this stuff. So I tried the French press to kinda get it try to get as natural of just natural coffee flavor as I could. Yeah. I like it. It just takes extra time. Yeah. Which isn't always bad. You know, like I said, if you're not in a rush for it, you you know, that's fine. I mean, if you if you want a whole the whole experience, probably nice to do that, like, at a dinner date kind of thing. Yeah. No. I I I used it to force myself to slow down. Okay. So, you know, it would, it it makes you wait, you know, one minute to steep it, four minutes to let it soak, you know. Like, you Oh, I got it. You can't really rush it, you know. You gotta do it. That's true. That's very true. I, I I never like you, I never had a taste for green tea. I hated green tea, you know, my my whole life.
[00:15:49] Unknown:
And, I didn't start drinking green tea until I came down with COVID. And and I caught COVID early on. You know? And Yeah. And, because my regular job, I work in a nursing facility, and it was it was throughout the entire nursing facility. And part of my job is dealing with biohazard material. So, you know, even no matter how much you were masked up and covered head to toe, you still got it. And, so, the only thing that I was actually able to drink I couldn't drink coffee. It tasted horrible. I couldn't drink water. I just couldn't couldn't handle it. So I started drinking green tea, but I would mix it with, I I I would use, fresh, sorry. Well, fresh lime and, and and raw organic honey.
Yeah. And that's how I would drink it. And it stayed with me for a while. Like, I I still have it every now and then. I'm kind of fading off of it now, but Yeah. But, you know, it it was good. And then like you with the chocolate, like, I never liked dark chocolate ever. I I if you offered, I would not even I would fake it. You know? Just I would take it, pretend to eat it, and, you know, that was great. Yeah. No. I can't I can't have milk chocolate anymore. I I don't like it. It just doesn't taste right to me. And the only thing I like is now it's a dark chocolate. So so, yeah. So, yeah. Your taste buds do change, you know, whether it's through illness or whether it's through just, you know, changing a lifestyle and changing a Yeah. And the way, you know, because of illness and whatnot. But, when I was reading your bio, I noticed that you you talk a lot about you mentioned your children and that you, you know, you try to be you try to be involved in in in their life, completely as more as much as you can.
What's one of the what's one of your favorite ways of spending time with the kids, and and, you know, and the family and just being dad and not author Andy?
[00:17:38] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, when they were much younger, my wife talked me into we live along the coast in South Carolina, and my wife talked me into buying a boat. I I didn't really wanna buy a boat. I certainly didn't wanna buy the boat we bought, but it turned out to be the right decision. And, you know, I think it's one of the things that I I look back on, and I really think, wow, those were because you don't know how things are gonna turn out. Right? So, like, you gotta take those times. You gotta kinda make the time when you don't have it, because you don't know how long life itself is gonna last. You don't really know what's coming around the corner.
And I think, spending time in a way that was enjoyable Mhmm. To them and that was enjoyable to me. And I think that was a time on the boat. They still they're still very much into being on the water. And, I think I just look back at those days, and I think that was I think the idea behind it was you you need ways to create memories. Mhmm. And in our way in our world and around the area where we live, one of the ways to do that is to have a boat and spend time on the water. And so we did. And I think that was that afforded a lot of connection, memories, some good, some funny, some, you know, difficult, but it was, it was all we did it all pretty much as a family. It was a family thing that we did. All six of us were on the boat. And, you know, we took trips on the boat, and we went to, Jason went we'd go up and down the intercoastal Waterway, and we'd go, you know, as far north as Wilmington and down to Hilton Head or Savannah. And, you know, we just had great times. And I think, you know, whatever way that a father can, spend time and be in a position not to just dictate, but to show, and to be in a position to show instruction as much as give it, I think, I think those are
[00:19:57] Unknown:
those are times well worth the effort. Yeah. I I could agree with you. Now, obviously, you know, you're a smart guy. You could tell just by talking to you this these couple of minutes so far. And some of the things you've said, you know, there's a there's a lot of wisdom in that perspective. That there truly really is. And I and a a lot of that comes from life experience. Like I said, I've read your profile, your your bio, and, some of the things that I read in there, you know, were were were pretty intense. You know, just in the very brief things that you mentioned, you know, you didn't go into great detail on it, obviously, but, it's pretty intense experiences that you went through.
And, you know, we I wanna get into that a little bit with you at some point. But before we do that, where how did you get to the point where you feel where you felt that you were ready to share, the experiences that you went through with the world?
[00:20:54] Unknown:
It was a, it was a process. You know, I mean, it it it took time to get there. As we go through some of that, what I'm about to say, it'll probably make more sense. But one of my physicians, had told me several times that, hey. You need to you need to write a book about, this topic. And, you know, what had happened was I had I'd ended up kind of, reaching a place where I was just physically and mentally exhausted, and I had paid for twenty years for a benefit at work where I could take a leave of absence. Mhmm. And, so I'm not much of a quitter. So I had to struggle through that, but I'd I'd really the business that I work in had been through some changes, and, some peep you know, I've had to we've been through some LRs, some limited restructurings at the time, and so I had to lay some people off. And it was just I'd kinda come to the end of my rope, and I was like, you know, I don't wanna leave the company. I enjoy what I'm doing. I think it's better, you know, just kinda physically and mentally exhausted from some of the things I've said we'll talk about. But during that time, after I you know, the first third you know, the first fifteen days or so, you wonder why that you would take any time off. And then, and then you realize how exhausted you are, so you fall asleep for a couple of weeks.
And then, you know, after a while of doing stuff, you kinda get bored because you're used to working all the time and, doing things. But it wasn't quite time for me to go back. And so one day I don't know why one day I sat down, and I thought, well, I should write something down. I'll just kinda start. And I have these, 15 what I call it 15 core they're my 15 core beliefs. And, I had written them down over time. I'm kind of a visual thinker. So when you say words, I see pictures. I don't really, like, process that. I just everything you say turns into a picture for me. Okay. That I have a habit of, like, looking up into the right a lot because when I'm listening or when I'm speaking, I'm actually painting a picture or trying to verbalize a picture. And so it's just, I I had a little bit of time, and I thought, well, I don't wanna write a book about these experiences directly because that to me would be kind of, you know, in some ways depressing.
But I could probably take the core beliefs that I have, and I could write something about that. You know? Like, maybe that would be, maybe that would be something that people could you know, if they've if they've been through difficult times, or were going through a difficult time, they could maybe, use some of these ideas that I've written down, that would help them. These core beliefs helped me. They kept me alive and kept me moving forward at different times. And so I wrote down, and and one thing led to another. And after a few weeks, I had a book and, you know, got a got a, editor, and, she was kind enough to tell me I didn't actually have a book that it needed to be written better. And so she she did, and I did, and she instructed me. And now we worked on it for another few weeks. And, so then I had a book, and then I was like, I don't know what to do with that. You know? Like, I've I did it, and then there was nothing to do with it. And, one day, somebody suggested or the I don't know. Somebody suggested, you know, they're like, why don't you do a podcast? I don't I don't do a podcast. I don't that's not my thing. I don't really I can't see myself doing that. And they said, we'll go on a podcast.
And so, I did. And I kinda found that talking about some of these things, not to relive them, but in a way that, by being transparent about them, it it helped me in the sense that it gave me a perspective that maybe by discussing them in kind of an open way, it would help somebody else. And that was really, kind of the thing that opened the door to talking about it and deciding to share was was really just the idea that maybe there's other people that it would benefit to hear that, yeah, I've I've been through some some stuff, and you may wanna quit today, but you don't have to quit today. Right. You know? So I would suggest you don't quit today. And, you know, so it kinda became a, a thing of, you know, one thing led to another, and then folks like yourself would would read about would read the bio, and they'd be like, you know what? Let's talk about it. And then I so I kind of just started talking about it, talking about these different things. And and it kinda gave me some hope and some encouragement to know that other people might be encouraged and helped by the discussions.
[00:26:12] Unknown:
Yeah. That then, again, that's that's one of the reasons why when I was reading your bio that it it kinda, you know, grabbed my attention because, you know, I everybody has something that they deal with. I deal with depression. I deal with PTSD. You know, I've I've dealt with suicidal thoughts and, you know, attempts. I've attempted, you know, it's a long story, but I'm we're not gonna get into that right now. But No. You know what? Thank god it didn't work out. No. Yeah. No. Praise the lord for that. And and that's, you know, that's that's the main thing.
But, so so some of the aspects of what your your bio said is that's what really attracted me, you know, to to invite you on the show. But, question, that came to mind as you were talking. So so what was your childhood like?
[00:27:00] Unknown:
You know, it's it's I would say there it took me a while to be able to look back and think of some things that were enjoyable, that were positive about it. For a long time, there was just a lot of, negative thoughts about it. My parents, we came from very poor background in South Alabama. They were, my grandparents, my father until he went in the service, they were row crop farmers. And, my grandfather until he died was a row crop farmer, and couple of his children followed in his footsteps. But, they were they were very poor. My mother came from a very poor, fam family.
And they decided that they did not want to live in poverty in South Alabama anymore, so they would do whatever it took to get out of that. Okay. And at that time, in the early sixties, that meant, travel and and, you know, moving. There there was no Gulf Coast revival at that time. Right? It was just there was nothing. And, you know, ultimately, what that meant was that, both my parents worked, and they worked full time and more. My father traveled almost every week from the time I was jeez. I don't know. From the time I was probably three or four until I was 15 or 16 until he he he ended up, becoming disabled.
But, he traveled five days a week. You know? I I probably knew him. All total, maybe I would see maybe twelve hours a week, you know, eight hours a week, something like that. My mother worked full time. So what it did was it left me alone most of the time. Right? I mean, when I came back from school, I was alone. When I got up and went to school, I was alone. I had I've got a brother, but, he's eight years older than me. And so I was just I just kinda grew up alone. And, you know, you can get into a lot of stuff when you're alone that much. And one of the things that happened to me was that, I was groomed by, by a neighbor and ended up being, sexually abused for a period of time, and then by a couple of other people also.
[00:29:11] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:29:13] Unknown:
And, of course, that's not a good way to get started off in life, from an early age. So that just leads to a lot of lot of other difficulties. That's true.
[00:29:22] Unknown:
I couldn't even imagine.
[00:29:24] Unknown:
Yeah. It's, but, you know, I I you know, I you just move on. I had a couple of other, difficult experiences, when I was probably 11 or 12. A psychopath tried to kill me by beating my skull in with a steel pipe and Oh my god. You know, just you just I mean, I had look. If if I were a three legged one eyed dog that was f, you'd call me Lucky. Okay? That that would be my dog name would be Lucky. And, you know, and then my my mother headed at what we later found was a a genetic mutation, but her mother and then she and three of her sisters, all died from breast cancer. My mother was diagnosed at 42 and died at 53. So you kinda roll out of one thing into the next thing into watching your mother die over eleven years to cancer. Although I will say, watching her struggle against cancer for eleven years is really how I learned to live. Like, she taught me that, she loved being alive. And, you know, when you have somebody that has a passion for being alive and a determination to live, you end up with, you know, kind of that carrying forward. So I would say it was, you know, it was a little bit of a rocky start to life.
[00:30:46] Unknown:
And that's I think that's an absolute understatement. That's an absolute understatement. But, but you made it through that, and that's that's the main thing. And, you know, you're here now to talk about it, and your experiences are definitely gonna be able to help others, which is what you were here to do. You know? I I I firmly believe I mean, look, I I would be remiss in saying that I did not party like a rock star. Okay? Like, I mean, I
[00:31:11] Unknown:
there there's very little that you will come across. I never shot heroin, but, there's very few things that you'll come across that I did not do, to either find enjoyment or numb the pain. So, I mean, you don't get out of these things unscathed. I I don't know why I never wanted to I don't think I ever, at that time, wanted to, end my life. And probably because my mother I'd seen my mother go through the cancer thing. She just had such a passion for living. Right. You know? So I I tended more toward the, numb the pain and, do what you can to enjoy life part of things, which probably is how I ended up with pancreatic cancer.
[00:31:57] Unknown:
Right. And, you know, that that's a that's a great segue into my next question. I I wanted to ask you, you know, being diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, I mean, it it wasn't like you you caught it early. Right? It it was you you caught it at stage four.
[00:32:13] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. It is spread to my liver. It was kind of a actually founded by, you know, serendipity, happenstance, luck, whatever you say, whatever it was. I've been having some stomach issues, which I attributed to, you know, I I I drank a pretty good bit, and, you know, I ate terrible. And, you know, I was just, I was having, yeah, I was run you know, doing my business full time for children and, and still, spending some weekend time, you know, as they got older and went off and kinda had their own things to do. Right. You know, I kind of got back into, dealing with things my own way. And so I'd had this stomach pain, and my mother died at 53. And for some reason, I had it in my head that I wouldn't live past 53, which probably, you know, why I wasn't I was kinda throwing caution to the wind.
But I don't know why I just had it in my head. I was gonna die at 53. And so, I was 50. I just turned 53, and I started having a stomach pain. And my wife's like, you need to go to the doctor. I was like, I'm not going to the doctor. I'm not going to the doctor because I'm pretty sure I'm gonna die. So I'm not going to the doctor. And she, stayed on me about it, said it was silly, and I should just go to the doctor. So I did. And, he tried a couple of things and said, look, man. I wanna send you for an ultrasound because I think you got a gallstone. I think that's all. I think you got a gallstone. And so I went the next day and got an ultrasound, and I could tell by the text face something wasn't right. Yeah. But they won't tell you what it is. And then later that day, I got a call that said, hey, man. We found, lesions on your liver. Need you to go get an MRI.
So the next day, I went and got an MRI. And, I remember when I was waiting on the results to come back, the my physician messaged me and, you know, check-in how am I doing, and I said, well, you know, I know liver cancer is bad, man. But, you know, let's look on the bright side. At least it's not pancreatic cancer. And it was about three hours later, the result came back, and it's like, actually, it's pancreatic cancer. Oh, man. And, but I was again, I was blessed. It didn't get to my lymph nodes. It had gone from the pancreas to the liver, you know, through the natural connections of those two organs. And, and then it turned out that I had the same I had the the same genetic mutation. It's called a BRCA one, BRCA one mutation that, a lot of, if you're a female and you have a BRCA one mutation or you have a BRCA one or two mutation, it's like a seventy five percent chance that you'll have breast cancer. Okay. And I've been checked for prostate cancer for years because my mother had cancer. So I just thought, you know, see, you know, it'll be prostate cancer. That's what happens to me, and it'll be prostate cancer.
But, nope, it showed up as, it showed up as pancreatic cancer.
[00:35:19] Unknown:
I think we lost, Andy. Alright. Well, until we get this fixed, we are talking with Andy Campbell, and we're just getting into this really great conversation about, we're frozen altogether. Let's fix this altogether right now. I can't, man. Not sure what happened there. We froze up, and I lost you. And, but, we're back. Alright. Right on. We were in a good spot too, man. It was Yeah.
[00:37:06] Unknown:
Put y'all back in, man. Well,
[00:37:08] Unknown:
let's see. You so you were talking about, you know, the positive you know, thinking about maybe it could be prostate cancer and and Yeah.
[00:37:18] Unknown:
Yeah. But it turned out to be pancreatic cancer. So, you know, there you go. Got pancreatic cancer, man. And, then the journey really begins.
[00:37:28] Unknown:
And and, like, so at that particular moment when you got that diagnosis, like, what was that? What was the first thing that went through your mind?
[00:37:39] Unknown:
Man, I think it was, I don't know what the first thing was. I'm pretty sure it was just, complete terror. You know, I'd seen my mother, fight her way through breast cancer and her sisters and and other people with difficult cancers. And, you know, I I mean, like, it was just known, like, pancreatic cancer, you were gonna die. You know, like and it was gonna be a painful death. So, you know, I I don't remember the thing I thought. I do remember falling apart like a baby. And, you know, like the doc said, give me some medicine to, you know, some, like, tranquilizers to get me to calm down, you know. So and and it took a I mean, it it really took, like, a day or two before I could really comprehend what they were saying. You know? Like, I'd I'd I'd gone from maybe I have a gallstone to forty eight hours later, you know, stage four pancreatic cancer, you know.
And then I kinda got my feet up under me again and and went for a PET scan. And they determined that it wasn't in my lymph nodes, but it was pretty extensive. Went in for a biopsy, and, the GI doc came back and said, look, man. I don't know how you felt this thing. I don't even know why you're here because it's everywhere, but it's nowhere you should know about it. But you're about ninety days from what it would have really killed you, like, pretty quick. But, he said it's pretty bad. You know? But it it but it's not around anything that would cause you pain or cause you a liver problem. You know? And, and so then I went, this I had to go get a port, put in my chest, you know, the the IV port that they put in so you can get chemo and all that stuff without burning your veins.
And, and what I do remember one thing I remember very clearly was the first day I went to chemo, my wife drove me. She's very upset. And as I got out of the car, I told her I said, look. Do your best not to worry. I was built for this. I was built for this. Wow. I don't know why I thought, because I thought that's, like, the stupidest thing you could say. On the other hand, it's been seven years this August. And, while they'll never say that I'm in remission, for the last four and a half years, there's been no visible sign of disease on the CT scans. So my tumor numbers are normal, and, they can't see the disease on the scans.
So I'm doing pretty well. Well, that's great.
[00:40:30] Unknown:
That is that's that's fantastic. And that's, yeah, that's a miracle in itself, you know, because most most of the time when you hear about pancreatic cancer, especially a stage four cancer, you know, that's that's like a I I hate to sound cruel, but that's like a death sentence right there. No. It is a death sentence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, one of the doctors told me, and I think this is true. He said, look, everybody's gonna die.
[00:40:51] Unknown:
You just happen you know, like, if the whole population had to walk across a busy street, a busy, you know, traffic street, everybody would know they would you know, like, if death were getting hit by a car, everyone would kinda know that they were gonna die. You just happen to know the make, model, and serial number of the car that's going to kill you. I was like, well, yeah, that's one way to look at it. That that is a crazy way to look at it. Yeah. But Yeah. But he's like, you just happen to know which one which car it's gonna be. Yeah. But but it makes sense, though. You know? Yeah. About that. It really does make sense. Yeah. And then I just got busy. I mean, I had a I had a fan I still have a fantastic physician, general physician. You know, he's just insatiably curious. And, you know, he everything he suggested that I try, I did.
And, you know, I did. I've done and still do a lot of things, man. You know? I've I've I'm a I'm a big believer that, you know, we were lied to about in the in the mythologies, in the horror mythologies, you know, because there's always like, there's a silver bullet that kills a werewolf. There's a stake through the heart that that kills, you know, vampire. And so everybody's looking for these one this one thing that'll do the trick. And I just don't believe there is one silver bullet that kills this monster. I think it's, you gotta do I think you know, look. I do I have I have kind of a four pronged approach, to cancer. Not saying it works for everybody, but I believe this is what I've observed in myself.
And that is, you have to you have to work on your spiritual health, your energy health, your mental health, and your phys and your and your bodily health. And, those are the four things I focus on. And then I apply those four things, in in three actions. So my strategy for cancer was kinda, based on taking three actions. One, give myself the energy to get through the treatments and the side effects and have the energy to actually stay in the fight. Mhmm. The second one was, do my best to cut off the energies of cancer cells. Cancer cells only know they're defective. They only know how to do two things. They know how to consume energy and replicate, which is how they turn into tumors. They just replicate uncontrollably.
Right. And so the second one was do your best to cut off their food supply. Change their environment. Make it, make it hard for them to have something to have the energy to replicate. And then the third one was, do everything, that I can to weaken the cancer cells so that the standard of care or the trial treatments or the supplements, whatever it is, weaken the cancer cells so they're more likely to die. You know? Don't don't give them an edge. And those are the three things that I focused on, that I have focused on. And and, so when the when my physician came to me and said, hey, man. This is gonna sound kind of off the wall, but, you know, there's a lot of research that shows that when you're going through chemotherapy, if you do acupuncture, it helps with, you know, releasing toxins out of your body and, can help with giving you the energy to keep doing the chemotherapy. A lot of studies out showing that it's very beneficial. Would you consider? I was like, yeah. I'll do that.
He came back to me in a couple weeks and said, hey, man. There's a you know, I know this is gonna get, like you know, let's get a little further out on the edge, but, you know, you got pancreatic cancer. So there's a lot of stuff out there, a lot of research now about guided imagery. Would you do guided imagery? Because, it shows that it helps people's prognosis as they go through cancer treatment. I was like, yeah. I'll do guided imagery. And so I just started stacking. You know? I just started stacking up, you know, get do what I could to get myself energy physically and, mentally to be able to stay in the fight and then, kinda take the defensive approach of cutting off as much as I could the, energy supplies to the cancer and then go offensive on doing my best to weaken them. Mhmm. So that, you know, when the big guns came up, from the standard of care and the trial and the, you know, and the other trial medications that, the cancer would be too weak to resist.
And so it's not a complicated strategy, but that's that's kind of what I've employed in cancer.
[00:45:29] Unknown:
Wow. And then, of course, while you're you're you're battling cancer, you you you you face probably the worst nightmare any parent could possibly experience, and that was you lost your youngest son to suicide.
[00:45:43] Unknown:
Yeah. That's a that's a bad one, man. I am, I have come I have come to realize over the years, never say it can't be worse, because it actually can be. So and and whatever is worse than that, I don't wanna find out. So I don't I don't ever say it it can't be worse, but that's a bad one, man. Yeah. He was 18, when he died, and, we had worked with him for years to for him not to make that decision. And one day, four years ago, he did, and I found him the the morning after.
[00:46:28] Unknown:
I I, you know, I have a son myself who's 24 25 now, and I I couldn't even imagine what it must have felt like.
[00:46:40] Unknown:
I'll tell you, man. We we knew he told us when he was nine years old that he didn't think he wanted to live. He didn't believe it. Nine years old. He didn't have access to the Internet. We had a reasonably happy family. He had no he didn't know anyone if he ever committed suicide. He didn't know anyone who knew anyone who had committed suicide. But he was he you know, highly intelligent logical people tend to see the world in black and white. And, you know, I think he was, he was extremely, well adapted to picking up new languages, like his grandfather. He could, you know, he had been he could have chosen, you know, Vietnamese. He could have chosen Arabic, his language of, or Mandarin, but his language, his language of preference was Latin. He's not he's not Catholic. Never been to Italy, But Latin was his preference.
And but before he died, it took him about a I'd say, you know, six months to become, a writer of Latin and probably, you know, within twelve, fourteen months, he was fluent in speaking and writing Latin. He was just but the downside to that was that, things were black and white to him. And, you know, early in life, he had decided, because we spent a lot of years talking about it, that, it was apparent to him that a human was born, then they struggled, and then they died. So what was the point of going through the middle part if you were just gonna end up at the same place? And so you you learn to have a lot of philosophical conversations about that in an attempt to convince someone, not to, take an irreversible action.
But, he read a lot. He loved the the Greek classics. He loved all the classics. He read the Bible cover to cover, more than once. But he also read, which looking back on it, I don't think this is a very a very positive philosopher to spend your time with if you're dealing with suicidal ideation. He read Nietzsche.
[00:49:01] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:49:02] Unknown:
And, he really enjoyed Marcus Aurelius' diaries. And I think if you're in a good place mentally, you can have a philosophical argument with Nietzsche, you know, not literally, but, you know, with people about his philosophy. And if you're in a good place mentally, you can read Marcus Aurelius' diaries and realize that he probably never meant for any of that to be read by somebody else of the private diary he was writing to himself. He's lots of diary. And but if you're not in a great place and you read Nietzsche and you read, you read Mark's Aurelius' words, and the philosophy of the stoics, it's it's very easy to slide into a place where, you know, everything is chaos and entropy is, inevitable.
Mhmm. And it is only stoic to accept death. And so, you know, like, pretty quickly those philosophies can kinda roll into a position where, you know, it it it almost justifies terminating your own life. And I think in, in in many ways, my son, he dealt obviously with, you know, I think a mental illness and, depression, and you start stacking those things on top of it. And eventually, you get someone who's not afraid to literally pull the trigger. Yeah. And,
[00:50:32] Unknown:
you know, I I I like I said, I can't I could I couldn't even imagine what it what it would be like to have to go through that. And the simple fact that you were dealing with that that type of a loss while fighting your own survival, fighting for your own survival, it that just it just I I know I know that you, at some point, you went out to seek some some professional help. You got some therapy. What types of what types of therapy did you did you seek out?
[00:51:06] Unknown:
Yeah. The can't the cancer really took a deep backseat. Like, it was there wasn't a back seat. Like, it was in the back of the bus. It moved way back on the priority list. I was and I still do every four months ago, to, to see the oncologist and and and, do the trial thing at the University of Pennsylvania that I've been in now for probably five years, maybe maybe almost six. So, you know, the I I kinda had to turn all those any concern any worries and things I had, I had to give over to, like, them. And I have a wonderful oncologist. And at one point, she told me she said, you don't actually know enough about what to look for, and I do. So if you'll give it to me, I'll worry about all that.
And, you go take care of business. And so I did. I just had to kinda leave that with her. And then I spent a lot of time not focused on cancer, but focused on my wife went into a deep depression. I thought I was gonna lose her after my son's suicide. And but, she was able to pull through that. Our our family physician helped her tremendously. And and our therapist, I ended up, initially, after, my son's death, we, you know, I think part of it is you gotta you gotta just face these things head on and and, and start doing something about it. Right? Like, I'm I don't I don't like having things done to me. I'd rather do something about the thing. And, so the first thing we did was, I found a grief counselor who dealt with, you know, one of her special specialties was dealing with the people who had lost loved ones to suicide. And we spent some time, with her, and that was, all of it was extremely helpful because, I mean, what the hell do you do when, you know, when your 18 year old decides to kill himself? You know? Like, you don't you don't know what to do. And it and one of the things I was gonna mention earlier was even if you have like, we had had these discussions for years, and so you think you're preparing yourself in a way for the the possibility.
But that is a that's just like a lie you tell yourself because, when it happens, you are in no way no way prepared for that. So I spent a lot of time my focus was on, he has three siblings, and, his name's Heston Walker Campbell. And Heston had three siblings, still does, a a brother that's, 16 older. So that was devastating for him. And then, his two sisters who lost their youngest brother, and it was devastating to them. Each of them had similarities in, you know, in unique ways. And, obviously, there's a sibling connection there. And so my focus really for probably the first two years was, not so much on myself, but on just, you know, doing the best I could to keep everyone else from, you know, falling apart or coming apart. And, but during that time, I'd heard about a therapy called EMDR.
I don't know if you've heard of EMDR. Actually, I have. Yeah. That's Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. For people who don't know, it's called eye movement desensit desensitization, re I can't remember what the r is, but it's, like, reprocessing. Eye movement desensitization. Anyway, you'd I found somebody who did this EMDR thing, and, that was kind of I needed something to do, man, to get, you know, to get some of this stuff off of me. You know? And I needed some place where it wasn't about, where, you know, where the therapist helped me not focus on everybody else, but kinda focus on what, you know, what what I was going through. And, EMDR probably, you know, is the most painful and yet the, the best therapeutic thing I've ever been through.
It's never good, man, when, you know, like, we've talked a little bit about some of the stuff. And but you're sitting with this therapist, and she was a godson man at the time. She was just, like, the perfect person, at the time, for us. And so they take out a legal pad, You know? Like, this is not a good thing. When they do they take out the legal pad and start making notes, and she's, like, making notes of all the things that we need to deal with through this process. Right? Yeah. And, then she turns the page on the legal pad, and she keeps writing down things that we need to process. And then she turns the page again.
You know, she's writing. And I thought, I was like, hey. You know, at three, we just like, you need to take a break. Okay? Like, we we need to take a break. And so, she starts to tell me what EMDR is, and I tell her there's no way in hell I'm doing EMDR. Like, when she explains to me what it is, I'm like, I'm not reliving this stuff. And she's got all this stuff because I I I was focused on Heston's death. You know? Like, that's where I thought we were gonna focus. And she's like, well, we are. But you got all these stuff, like, all these other things. And she's explaining to me how, you know, from these other, events, your brain builds a pathway and it starts associating all these emotions with it and it kinda gets stopped up.
The the pathway gets blocked and then all these other things start, you know, like, building up inside this pathway. And so it's it's just not good mentally, and you're having all these emotional reactions that you can't really explain and yada yada yada. And, so so that's great, man, but I'm not going back and digging up all those bones. Like, that's not happening. Like, we can focus on Heston, but I'm not going back to like, all the way back to sexual abuse. Like, I'm like, that stuff's I've got that dealt with. Don't worry about it. And, she told me that I had not had it dealt with and that, I I kinda feel like that song where it's like the you know, my friend wrote, David Allen Coe says, you know, my friend said he written the greatest country song ever, and I told him had not written the greatest country song ever. And that's kinda how I felt she was telling me. You know? It's like I was like she's like, well, you actually haven't dealt with that.
And, so she told me what it was gonna be like. She said, look. I think it's gonna take us about twenty, maybe twenty four hours to go through this. And, and, it'll it'll change your life if you'll do it. And I said, twenty four hours. Batman, there's no effing way that's not happening. I'm not I'm not doing that. And, then she said, the one thing that made me decide to do it. She said, Andy, here's how this works. You can spend twenty four hours, which is one day of your life, thinking about these things, and we'll process them. We'll use this specific technique, and your life will be better. Right. And we will do that in basically less than the time of one lunar of of of of one day.
Or you can deal with it every day, every minute of every day for the rest of your life. And I'm like, that doesn't sound good. No. So we started, and, I will say that, you know, was kind of the beginning of, a turnaround for me in my life. And it helped me I mean, I can talk about Heston now without, breaking down and, normally, breaking down and, and crying or going into some, deep depression. And I can think about him. I can talk about, the sexual abuse. I can talk about the losses I've had. I can, you know, talk to you about, you know, the cancer treatments, and and I can do that in a way that, allows me to hopefully give some confidence and some encouragement to other people.
And I couldn't do that if I hadn't if I hadn't been through that, you know, that particular type of, a processing, therapy, whatever you wanna call it. Some people don't like to talk about therapy. So, you know, whatever you wanna call it. But basically confronting those events, you know, facing them down and working to not let them, you know, ruin the rest of my effing life.
[00:59:45] Unknown:
Was there, like, a specific point during the during the, oh, yeah, the therapy that through through the EMDR that, that you realized that things were starting to shift for you, or or was it just something that even though you finished the 40 the twenty four hours that it's you were still in a way kinda working your way through it?
[01:00:04] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I think I'm still kind of working my way, you know, through it. You know, probably the I would say probably by this. I don't know in which one of the early sessions it was, but she had me relive the day that I found him Mhmm. Like, that morning. And so, you know, for for people who haven't been through EMDR, some some people do it slightly differently. But the general notion is, you know, they give you these things that are in your fingertips between your thumb and your first two fingers that buzz. And, so it's like a sensory vibration buzzing thing. Mhmm. And then they put a headset on you, and they have this sound, this tone.
And the tone and the buzzing alternate, you know, left, right, left, right, left, right, slightly different timing for the and then you go back and you kind of remember and walk through these events that have been, you know, difficult, that have left their mark. And and the idea, I guess, behind it is that by by remembering it in a way that your mind is distracted by this by the sensory, by the perception of the sound and the and the and the, you know, tactile parts that that are vibrating in your fingertips, you end up building a new neural pathway for that memory that's not associated with the emotion of the first time it occurred. So you're kinda building a you know, you're detouring around the, you know, around the landslide. Right? Like, they got a landslide and roadblock, you're detouring this other way.
And so, the first time that I really thought, man, this there might be something there really might be something as processed. She had me walk back through the morning that I found my son. I she had me walk through. And the reason I can talk about it now is because I went through this process. And so I I I I remember having a very bad feeling about things. There were some things that had happened the day before. I didn't think it was gonna get to this point. My wife thought it might, but I didn't think so. But by the next morning, I had this very bad feeling about it.
I went up to his room. His door was locked, and you didn't answer, without my wife knowing about it, you know, to try to keep it from her because by then, my heart was kinda pounding, and I was like, fuck. Sorry for that. That's right. Something something might be really wrong. You know? Walked back downstairs, went to the garage, got a screwdriver, came back in, forced the door open, and opened the door, looked to the left, called him, didn't hear an answer, looked to the left, looked straight ahead, didn't see anything, and I knew it was gonna be bad. I looked to the right, and I found him, laying on the floor.
When I when I first went through EMDR to walk through all those steps, I had to go through man, it probably took seven or eight tries because at each step, everything went blank. You know, the first time I went up to his door, I couldn't see his door. Then I went downstairs, but I couldn't find the toolbox. Then, you know, I'd I'd go back to she was like, we gotta go back through it again. And I'd go back through it again. And this time, I would find the screwdriver, and I'd walk back up the stairs, but my hands wouldn't move toward the door.
And then we do it again, and I could I could get the door open. Or I could unlock the door, but then the door wouldn't open. And it was probably two or three times she would have me go through. I couldn't get the door open. It just would not move. And she would say, you have to sit there, stare at the door until it opens. And, man, you know, like, that that's pretty painful. I don't know what language I can use here, but that's pretty painful shit. You know? Say what you gotta say. Yeah. And and then so we did it again. And then, and the whole time, man, my heart is pounding. You know? I'm kinda sweating a little bit, and finally, the door opens.
And so, you know, she's like, let's let's go through it again. The door is open now, and I would go through it again. I'd walk downstairs, walk back up the stairs. Door would open, but this time now the room was just completely black. It was black. I couldn't see anything. And I knew that wasn't right. You know? Like, it's weird. Like, I'm going through it. I've got my eyes closed. I've got these sounds going off in my head, and and and I get the door open. But everything's black. It's just dark. And I knew that wasn't the case because it was in the morning, and there were two big windows in his room, and it was full of light when I opened that door. I know. I remembered that, but in this, like, process, I couldn't see it. Like, it was everything in the room was dark.
So we do it again, and we do it again. And finally, I open the door, and there's light in the room. And then I can see the left part of the room. And finally, I got to the point where I would go through it, and I would find him again. Okay. And that's the moment that I knew the day afterwards because that was exhausting, man. I was like I think I went home and slept for, like, six hours, just straight, like, from that and then slept the whole night. When I woke up the next day, I realized I could think about it without breaking down into a puddle of tears. Right? Like, I didn't just start bawling. I didn't, you know, I didn't have that, just that I mean, it was it was still painful. It still is to this day.
I still get teary eyed. I cry about it from time to time, but I don't have that just that like, I can talk to you about it. Right. And the only that that was the moment when I thought, damn, she might be right. You know? Maybe and so then I got interested in, like, well, what other stuff can I get off my back? Like, if I could walk through that and I can now talk about Heston and finding him, as painful as it is, I'm not I'm not breaking down right now. So, like, that's like, how did I get to that point? Is are there other things I could do? And so we just started walking backwards and walking backwards and walking backwards. And, you know, I'm not a big talk therapy person. I don't I don't like talk therapy.
I think there comes a time when you need to stop fucking talking about it and just do something about it. I agree. But this but EMDR was something to do. You know? Like, it was like, I was I was actively participating in that. And so that's the moment when I realized the EMDR was was it was a real deal.
[01:06:49] Unknown:
And it worked for you, which is the main thing.
[01:06:51] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, they got they they they got it, originally started doing it. They developed it at the, I don't know if it was the VA or a hospital in Maryland, but it was basically for Vietnam vets that came back that they were struggling in the eighties. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I see. I
[01:07:07] Unknown:
about I don't know. Maybe it was a month, maybe two months ago, I had, I had a couple of guests on the show that were, EMDR
[01:07:16] Unknown:
administrators, I guess. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right on. And,
[01:07:20] Unknown:
I had up up to that point, I had not heard of it, you know. And and Yeah. So so it was it was a very, very interesting conversation that we had about it. And, you know, the whole idea that, you know, you can you can, you know, reprocess these traumatic memories and work your way through them. I thought it was absolutely fascinating. And, again, when I saw that in your in your bio that you that you were involved with that too, that, again, you know, it was like, wow. Okay. I I want more information about this. I'm I'm trying to, I'm trying to learn about it because I'm I'm contemplating, you know, doing it doing something like that for myself with the with the things that I'm I'm dealing with.
My audience has heard this story many times. I'm not gonna go into all the detail with it, but in a very, very, very short period of time, I wanna say within a year and a half, my dad passed away, my grandmother passed away, My dog passed away while I was up burying my grandmother in New York, came back, caught my wife cheating on me on my birthday, just a couple of months after that, and then, and then my mom passed away a couple of months after that. And all all You got it stacked up, man. All of that happened within a year and a half.
[01:08:31] Unknown:
Yeah. I look. I you know, I am not a believer in prescribed, you know, like, what works for one person will work for another. That's a that's a big part of, you know, my core beliefs and and, and the stuff I have on my website about cancer. And, I'm not a believer that you can really like, we're all unique individuals. Right? Like, I think we were all individually created and designed. And and so
[01:08:56] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:08:57] Unknown:
I think probably the best that, I think this is actually where Western medicine really falls down is where I was trying to find the silver bullet where I was trying to get that patentable thing. And so it needs to be, like, the one thing that'll solve the problem. And, really, what you need is, like, 20 different things to solve the problem. Nobody nobody else except for, except for Western medicine decides that everything is a nail because we're bringing a hammer because that's what we can get patented, and that's what we make money on. So everything from here on out is a nail. And so when I say this about EMDR, I I I I want I wanna say it, and I I want you to take it that way. I don't know like, I would never say prescribe, like, hey. You know, this, this is absolutely the, you know, the fix or something. But what I would say is I hope that my describing to you a a a situation like finding my son and the ability to process through that using EMDR and get to the point where I can I can accept what has happened, although I don't want to? I can accept what's happened and start to find some some genuine happiness in every now and then joy.
I I attribute a large portion of that to, to EMDR. And so, you know, when you when you list off a a list of, you know, a a a series of events like that, I would tell you that, you know, it can be, it can be an exhausting and and sometimes a bit of a painful process. But I think my has been that the outcome
[01:10:45] Unknown:
is worth it. Yeah. It's worth the effort. Yeah. I I agree with you. I mean, I it's, you know, in in trying to process all that stuff on my own, I I I definitely went down some some bad pathways. And, one of the one of the the the lingering issues that I have right now is getting close to anybody else. And Oh, yeah. You know, so it's like the wall the wall is up, and, you know, it takes a lot to get around that wall. And as soon as somebody gets around that wall, I start building another one.
[01:11:16] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I understand. Well and by the way, that's actually logical. You know? You know, I think our our survival instincts kick in. Yeah. And, you know, you you know, you wouldn't let a saber tooth tiger come back in the house. You know? I mean, like, that'd be like, yeah. We're gonna build a little wall here to keep the tigers out. You know? I mean, all these things are these things are they are logical. They're natural. You know, outcomes of these kinds of events. But, you know, the question becomes that they're they're a natural outcome, but are they the best thing for us? And I think they're not the best thing for us. And, look. I mean, you know, it takes a lot of courage just to think about it.
You know, I would say I would say, you know, you know, test it and see, you know, give it a couple of three, sessions and, you know, drink a lot of water and don't do anything or think about anything the day after, you know, the night of or the day after. Give it, like, you know, thirty six hours and then, and then, you know, see how you feel about things. But Yeah. You know, that's one thing they told me when I first started. They're like, hey, don't go home and think about this stuff. Okay? Because, you know, like, you're gonna bring it all up, and it's gonna be fresh in your mind, and then you're gonna start trying to think about it. We don't want you to think about it on your own. You're only supposed to think about it here. So find something to distract yourself, but not alcohol, not weed, and not Coke. Okay? I find something else to distract you with it. And, Well, that's why I'm doing podcasts. Yeah. Exact exactly right. I mean, you know, something's gotta take the place. Yeah. There you go. And and, so yeah. I mean but it is, yeah. I look. I I've done some I've done a number of other things as well. I think there's a there's a really good series of books. I can't remember the guy's name, but one of them is called The Emotion Code.
That's really good books. Got another one called The Body. All of it really is about, you know, how do you work your way through these emotions from these very real events? And the emotions are natural responses, but they kinda get stuck. Right? They kinda get stuck in your head, or they get stuck in, you know, like, you know, if you ever read a book called The Body Keeps Score, you know, some people believe it gets stuck in, like, in in actually in your body. And so, you know, after I went through the thing with Hestan, I just kinda became a fan of getting rid of that shit. You know? Like, so, you know, then it became like, alright. What do I gotta go through to get rid of that?
[01:14:04] Unknown:
Yeah. That makes sense. So, so did the 15 core beliefs that you came up with come out of the EMDR, or was that something that you've been working on already?
[01:14:18] Unknown:
Yeah. No. I I had, I've been collecting them over. I don't so I like I said, I see pictures, like, you know, you say a word, you say a series of words, a few sentences, I start to build a picture out of it. Mhmm. And, so there came a point where I don't know when I was I was much younger and probably because of some of the stuff I've been through. You know, you get down to kind of a low point, and I was thinking, though, you know, like, my ancestors, I came from a pretty poor background. Like, they had, like, they had nothing, man. Like, you know, they didn't have indoor plumbing. They didn't have toilet paper. Women didn't have sanitary products. Like, they fucking racked up and made it. You know? Like, they just did it. And so, like, you know, like, how how can I, like, how can I be like that? And so, like, I I I started thinking about, like, what would it take for them to do, like, to survive?
And what I came up with six words. And what I think I observed from my ancestors was that, the six words were honor, bridge, determination, perseverance, wisdom, and success. And so I have three I have three word the first three on my right arm, the last three on my left arm, and, just, I decided to have them, inked on one day because I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and see those words to remind me. And the idea behind it was this. I think what I observed was that when my ancestors were successful, they had started with an honorable intent. They started with an honorable action.
And if they if they did the honorable thing, when difficulties came, it gave them courage to continue. Mhmm. And if you showed if they displayed courage over and over again, then that was determination. And, you know, if you see people who do even small courageous things over and over again, you'll say, oh, that that person's determined. You know, that's just a determined son of a bitch right there. And so and if you do determination, if you show determination over and over again, people will say, well, that's per that's perseverance. Like, that that person just hears. They persist. They persevere. Well, it's just being determined enough times that people go, well, he's just not gonna go away. He's persistent. Right.
And and so if you persist long enough, if you can persevere, then you will have my grandfather used to say experience is what you get just after you needed it. And so if you if you persist long enough, then you will have experiences. You will get experiences. And while you may not become wise, experience makes you wiser. And so you get wisdom. Mhmm. You may not become wise, but you get wisdom. Right. And wisdom, if Solomon is the story of Solomon is correct, then wisdom is the foundation of success. Right? Like with who Solomon traded everything else for wisdom so he could have everything else. So so I thought, well, that's that's a that's a pretty good set of foundational principles to work on. You know, I'll I'll I'll kind of rely on those.
And as I went along, I would I would observe things either myself or another people, where they would get knocked down or they would get knocked backwards, so they'd have bad news. And, and then I I would I would observe these things that I've had either helped me or helped them, and I would write them down. And so they you know, eventually, I wrote down 15 things. And I each time I would write one down, I would kind of adopt that as a core belief. I'd be like, okay. I'm on that. That's gonna be central to how I deal with things. At least it's gonna be aspirational. I'm gonna intend to deal with things that way.
And so I just kept writing them down until I got to 15. And when I got to 15, I was like, I'm not writing down anymore. Anything else I learned has to come under one of these 15. And so that was the 15 core beliefs. Wow.
[01:18:25] Unknown:
Now, so starting with no one outruns the universe. Yeah. So after everything that you've been through, how did you how did you come to, I guess, embrace, if that's the right word, acceptance rather than, you know, you know, let rage take over?
[01:18:48] Unknown:
Yes. So I'd so, look, I I believe in a creator. I believe the universe was created. I believe it was designed with with with obviously I mean, there's physics and quantum physics and mechanics and you know, but, you know, for me, the the the more straightforward way to think about it is the universe is built on certain principles and it provides guardrails. And you, you know, you get outside those guardrails, you're gonna crash. You stay inside the guardrails, you might get bumped around, but you're not gonna crash. And, you know, so no one outruns the universe means don't be so arrogant that you think you figured out something the universe, you know, decided or been designed into it. You're not that, you know, effing smart. Okay? And so I'm talking to me, not you. I'm saying, like, hey, Andy. You're not that you're not that smart.
Because every time I realized that every time I thought I was smarter, than either the universe or, you know, everybody else. It turned out that I actually wasn't. You know? The reason that I you know? So, anyway, it was like, hey, man. Just why don't why don't you just try to be humble and and accept that? Okay? You are a part of a larger thing. Mhmm. I believe each individual is an invaluable part of the universe. They are an invaluable thread in the fabric of the universe, but you're a thread. You're not the universe itself. Okay? You're you're you're not this, Andy, you're not the center of the universe. Okay? You're a thread in the universe. You're extremely important. Your life is valuable.
But, you know, let's face it. The universe is bigger than you. And, you know, and so I think it applies in a lot of different ways. You know? I mean, you know, you've heard stories about somebody who you know, they'll they'll they'll have murdered somebody and they'll, you know, it'll be like they got away with it. But, like, thirty years later, they're just like, I can never outrun, you know, what I did. Like, they you know, and some people are sociopaths or psychopaths, and they don't have conscience. Okay. Fine. Set them to the side. But there's other people who do things, and you think they might have gotten away with it. You know, they don't ever get away with it. You don't outrun the universe, man. The universe works a certain way. And, you know, companies don't lie on your financials and don't make up shit, man. I mean, you know, you're not just straight up understand what your financial situation is because the universe has a way of bringing it out into the public domain.
And so, yeah, that one was a big one for me, mainly from just early years of thinking that I was smart enough to do to do whatever I wanted to do, and I had it all figured out. And the universe would kind of pop me in the head with one of the guardrails, and sometimes I go through the guardrail and intend on doing it my own way, and I'd crash and burn. And so it's just, it's a reminder to me, don't be that arrogant. Okay? Keep, you know, you there are certain principles that you should live by. You can be smart, but you're not smarter than what God created.
[01:21:47] Unknown:
Amen to that. I I I can agree with that. I I can totally agree with it. So I'm I'm looking at the clock here and we are way over the hour. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, because I I would like to actually go through some of these these, these 15 cores, but we're not gonna have time to get through all that. But, how about this? How about we, how about we get together again? Maybe, maybe sometime next week. You let me know, what works for you, and we'll we'll go through the whole Podmash thing, and we'll we'll pick it up there. We'll go through the 15 core beliefs and we'll talk more about that. So in the meantime, so Andy, where can people find your book and what can people take away from your story?
[01:22:27] Unknown:
Yeah. You can find the book on Amazon. You can go to the, you know, just go to the main search bar and type in Andy Campbell. And, it should be one of the the first or second, you know, search that pops up. Or you can go to my website, askandycampbell.com, and, you can catch a link there to it. What I'd like people to take away from, you know, all of this is, one, you are invaluable. Your life is valuable. Your purpose is valuable. Even if you don't you could live your whole life and die, a natural causes and not know what your purpose is, but you have one. It may just not be you know, your purpose may be, the impact that it makes to someone else's. I don't know. But I do know that every human life is valuable.
You should not terminate your own life before your time because, to me, I think one of the things that I'm very, pleased with is that at no point in my life did I take, the opportunity away from God to move the universe in my favor. And eventually, I think some things moved in my favor. So the one thing I want people to be left with is don't quit. Do not quit.
[01:23:38] Unknown:
Amen to that. Alright, folks. So what we'll do is we'll make sure we have all of your information in the show notes so people can track you down. I think I got your website address also, already in the show notes for the audio. I just gotta add it to the video stuff. And, so folks, Andy Campbell. Andy, thank you so much. And don't forget, let's, let's get something scheduled for next week. If you have the time, so we can come back and and, finish talking about the 15 core principles. Because, I have some of them here and some notes that I have, and and they they are really I mean, each one of them is gonna we could spend quite a bit of time on each one of these things. Yeah. They are great. So, Andy, I really do appreciate you taking your time out tonight to be with us. Thank you so very much, and, you know, my thought my prayers are with you as as you go through these these things, and I'm really happy to see that things were are working out, on the upswing for you. And, I wish you all the success with your book, and, can't wait to talk to you again, brother.
[01:24:30] Unknown:
Thanks very much, man. I appreciate it. And the gratitude is all mine for the opportunity to share with you. I really do appreciate that. Alright, folks. So Andy Campbell, again, thank you so much.
[01:24:39] Unknown:
Alright. Alright. Well, alright, folks. Well, we're gonna call it a night here at this point. Just gonna go feed the kids. I hear them scratching at the door. Alright. So with that said, don't forget to head over to our website, joeroos.com. Send us over a question, comment, care, concern that you might have, and, let us know what you think, and give us some feedback on the interviews we've been having. Really excited about that. Alright, folks. Shout outs to our executive producer, Wayne and Rosanna Rankin. Shout out to our producer, anonymous Angela. Thank you guys for everything that you all do. Folks, don't forget also, to check us out on the alexjonesstore.com/joe.
Get yourself some vitamins and supplements. Alright, folks. Make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride, and we'll see you tomorrow night. Good night. Goodbye.
Alright. Hey, folks. Welcome to another Monday night here at the asylum best quality talk radio we could muster. Doing the very best we can to bring you the best quality talk radio we could muster without all the blustering. This is the Joe Russo. And it folks, it is great to be with you here on another beautiful Monday night. And, we got a packed week ahead of us. We have guests just about every night this week. So you'll get to hear more of that and less of my stuff as we go on through and I see that our guest is already checked on in and waiting in the waiting room.
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And I am a shareholder in Rumble, so it helps me out in always. Alright. So that said, rumble.com/premium. Use promo code studio for $10 off your Rumble premium subscription. Alright. Well, with all of that said and done, we are going to welcome our guest today. We are bringing into the show our guest, Andy Campbell. Andy Campbell is a resilient survivor and inspirational author who has overcome numerous life altering challenges, a victim of childhood sexual abuse, bullying, the loss of his mother in early age, and the eventual estrangement from his father, his battle with stage four pancreatic cancer, and the loss of his youngest son to suicide. Folks, I'd like to welcome Andy Campbell. Andy, thanks for being with us. Us. Hey, Joe. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. That it is it's it's really great to to be able to have the chance to sit down and talk to you. I was reading over your your information, your bio, and, man, I'm telling you, your your your story really resonates.
And, that's why I really wanted to get you on, and I'm glad you jumped on here as early as you possibly could, and that was fantastic. I really appreciate that. Yeah. Well, I'm very grateful for the opportunity to talk to you, Joe. Well, Andy, so for for folks that are meeting you for the first time, tell us something about you that might surprise people, like like a hobby, a quirky little habit, you know, just something that doesn't fit the serious author image.
[00:10:07] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, I tell people that I am, part Muskogee Indian and part Scotch Irish. So, I would not suggest giving me a cheap whiskey and a cheap firearm at the same time. We'll have a good time, but I can't promise where we'll end up sleeping.
[00:10:25] Unknown:
You go. So so you're a whiskey guy?
[00:10:28] Unknown:
Yeah. What do you like? What's it?
[00:10:31] Unknown:
Say that again? What do you like?
[00:10:33] Unknown:
Which way? Well, you know, I, I was diagnosed about seven years ago with pancreatic cancer, stage four pancreatic cancer. So I have given up, my heavier partying days, but when I still drink, it is,
[00:10:48] Unknown:
Jaeger with water back. Oh, okay. That's cool. That's that. I I I I like Jaeger. I'm not I'm not a big fan of Jaeger. I had too many bad experiences with Jaeger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, my my go to right now is I love I love, I love bourbons. So, I I I love my Paul Sutton bottled in bond, which is a fantastic bourbon. I like my 1792, Elijah Craig. If I'm if I'm, if I'm gonna have a nice cigar, I'm gonna pick a nice Elijah Craig to pair with it. And, one of my go tos that I tell everybody, is and I just recently found this, that's why I keep on going to it. It's, the, the Camacho Triple Maduro Mhmm. Which is a beautiful smoke. I mean, absolutely beautiful smoke. It's it's it's strong. It'll it'll knock you down.
Yeah. Without a doubt, it'll knock you down on its own. But you you pair that with the nice Elijah Craig toasted barrel. Oh, my goodness. You're talking about something.
[00:11:42] Unknown:
You know, life is short, man. You've got to, you've got to enjoy the things in this life that you can. No day is guaranteed, and if you can find something that you enjoy, you could take a few little pleasures out of the day. It's absolutely worth it. You should do that. I agree. I absolutely agree. And, Now see, though, I bet you still from time to time cough, and I drink Jaeger, and I never cough. So a lot of people say it's like cough syrup. It is. It's just like coughing. I don't have a problem with coughing. Yeah. I cough I cough more from the cigar though. So Yeah. Well, say take a shot of Jaeger and the cough goes straight away, man. I have to try that. For sure. Yeah. Absolutely for sure.
[00:12:20] Unknown:
Let's let's see. Let's see. There there was a question I had for you talking about philosophy. As a as a deep philosopher, you know, you you get some pretty deep thoughts about life. And we're gonna talk we're gonna get into some of that stuff as we go on with with with the conversation here. But, you're I know so so you're a former a former, Jaeger guy, coffee person? You like coffee, tea?
[00:12:48] Unknown:
You know, I I drink coffee for ages, and then, one of my physicians got me to try green tea, which I hate. But I found a green tea, a matcha ceremony of green tea. And I didn't know you did this to green tea because I just drink coffee. But, it turns out that you can whisk it. The Japanese whisk it. Really? And it turns it into, like, this frothy. It's almost like, like a, turns it into, like, something you get from Starbucks, like a frothy, like, latte or something. Right? It's really kinda strange. But, so I've had to, I've given up, coffee.
And now I guess I'm just getting older in life and with some of the things I've been through. You know, the green tea works for me now. It's very strange. I I hated it for years, but I tell you, I did one time, did a ten day water only fast. And I think your taste buds just change after something like that. Because when I came out of that, I hated I used to hate, chocolate. I hated dark chocolate. I didn't like, even milk chocolate. But when I came out of that fast, and for probably five years now, all I can eat is dark chocolate. So I think along the way, my taste buds have kind of adapted to, the different lifestyle that I've had to adopt. And so, you know I know, Jamie. Now it's not coffee. Although, I used to love coffee. I have I do the cold I do the French press, you know. So I I got into the whole thing of, like, you know, actually making your coffee down to how many seconds it was timed in the French press to get to Yeah. You know, the cup, have the sediment in the bottom of the I mean, I I really enjoyed just, making the coffee. The whole process of it. Yeah. Yeah. The whole process. Yeah. But
[00:14:36] Unknown:
now I'm on the green tea, and maybe that'll change in six or eight months. Who knows? You never know. Well, you you go through a change every seven years, they say. So Yeah. Well, there you go. But, I have a French press too, and I I don't use it as much.
[00:14:47] Unknown:
But That's kind of a pain, actually. You know, it's kind of a pain. If you want if you want coffee, like, right now Yeah. It's kind of a pain. You know? Oh, for sure. For sure. I went to it because, like, you know, there's so much stuff with, like, additives. You know? And so, you know, just the different kinds of filters and and aluminum and aluminum foil and tinfoil and all this stuff. So I tried the French press to kinda get it try to get as natural of just natural coffee flavor as I could. Yeah. I like it. It just takes extra time. Yeah. Which isn't always bad. You know, like I said, if you're not in a rush for it, you you know, that's fine. I mean, if you if you want a whole the whole experience, probably nice to do that, like, at a dinner date kind of thing. Yeah. No. I I I used it to force myself to slow down. Okay. So, you know, it would, it it makes you wait, you know, one minute to steep it, four minutes to let it soak, you know. Like, you Oh, I got it. You can't really rush it, you know. You gotta do it. That's true. That's very true. I, I I never like you, I never had a taste for green tea. I hated green tea, you know, my my whole life.
[00:15:49] Unknown:
And, I didn't start drinking green tea until I came down with COVID. And and I caught COVID early on. You know? And Yeah. And, because my regular job, I work in a nursing facility, and it was it was throughout the entire nursing facility. And part of my job is dealing with biohazard material. So, you know, even no matter how much you were masked up and covered head to toe, you still got it. And, so, the only thing that I was actually able to drink I couldn't drink coffee. It tasted horrible. I couldn't drink water. I just couldn't couldn't handle it. So I started drinking green tea, but I would mix it with, I I I would use, fresh, sorry. Well, fresh lime and, and and raw organic honey.
Yeah. And that's how I would drink it. And it stayed with me for a while. Like, I I still have it every now and then. I'm kind of fading off of it now, but Yeah. But, you know, it it was good. And then like you with the chocolate, like, I never liked dark chocolate ever. I I if you offered, I would not even I would fake it. You know? Just I would take it, pretend to eat it, and, you know, that was great. Yeah. No. I can't I can't have milk chocolate anymore. I I don't like it. It just doesn't taste right to me. And the only thing I like is now it's a dark chocolate. So so, yeah. So, yeah. Your taste buds do change, you know, whether it's through illness or whether it's through just, you know, changing a lifestyle and changing a Yeah. And the way, you know, because of illness and whatnot. But, when I was reading your bio, I noticed that you you talk a lot about you mentioned your children and that you, you know, you try to be you try to be involved in in in their life, completely as more as much as you can.
What's one of the what's one of your favorite ways of spending time with the kids, and and, you know, and the family and just being dad and not author Andy?
[00:17:38] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, when they were much younger, my wife talked me into we live along the coast in South Carolina, and my wife talked me into buying a boat. I I didn't really wanna buy a boat. I certainly didn't wanna buy the boat we bought, but it turned out to be the right decision. And, you know, I think it's one of the things that I I look back on, and I really think, wow, those were because you don't know how things are gonna turn out. Right? So, like, you gotta take those times. You gotta kinda make the time when you don't have it, because you don't know how long life itself is gonna last. You don't really know what's coming around the corner.
And I think, spending time in a way that was enjoyable Mhmm. To them and that was enjoyable to me. And I think that was a time on the boat. They still they're still very much into being on the water. And, I think I just look back at those days, and I think that was I think the idea behind it was you you need ways to create memories. Mhmm. And in our way in our world and around the area where we live, one of the ways to do that is to have a boat and spend time on the water. And so we did. And I think that was that afforded a lot of connection, memories, some good, some funny, some, you know, difficult, but it was, it was all we did it all pretty much as a family. It was a family thing that we did. All six of us were on the boat. And, you know, we took trips on the boat, and we went to, Jason went we'd go up and down the intercoastal Waterway, and we'd go, you know, as far north as Wilmington and down to Hilton Head or Savannah. And, you know, we just had great times. And I think, you know, whatever way that a father can, spend time and be in a position not to just dictate, but to show, and to be in a position to show instruction as much as give it, I think, I think those are
[00:19:57] Unknown:
those are times well worth the effort. Yeah. I I could agree with you. Now, obviously, you know, you're a smart guy. You could tell just by talking to you this these couple of minutes so far. And some of the things you've said, you know, there's a there's a lot of wisdom in that perspective. That there truly really is. And I and a a lot of that comes from life experience. Like I said, I've read your profile, your your bio, and, some of the things that I read in there, you know, were were were pretty intense. You know, just in the very brief things that you mentioned, you know, you didn't go into great detail on it, obviously, but, it's pretty intense experiences that you went through.
And, you know, we I wanna get into that a little bit with you at some point. But before we do that, where how did you get to the point where you feel where you felt that you were ready to share, the experiences that you went through with the world?
[00:20:54] Unknown:
It was a, it was a process. You know, I mean, it it it took time to get there. As we go through some of that, what I'm about to say, it'll probably make more sense. But one of my physicians, had told me several times that, hey. You need to you need to write a book about, this topic. And, you know, what had happened was I had I'd ended up kind of, reaching a place where I was just physically and mentally exhausted, and I had paid for twenty years for a benefit at work where I could take a leave of absence. Mhmm. And, so I'm not much of a quitter. So I had to struggle through that, but I'd I'd really the business that I work in had been through some changes, and, some peep you know, I've had to we've been through some LRs, some limited restructurings at the time, and so I had to lay some people off. And it was just I'd kinda come to the end of my rope, and I was like, you know, I don't wanna leave the company. I enjoy what I'm doing. I think it's better, you know, just kinda physically and mentally exhausted from some of the things I've said we'll talk about. But during that time, after I you know, the first third you know, the first fifteen days or so, you wonder why that you would take any time off. And then, and then you realize how exhausted you are, so you fall asleep for a couple of weeks.
And then, you know, after a while of doing stuff, you kinda get bored because you're used to working all the time and, doing things. But it wasn't quite time for me to go back. And so one day I don't know why one day I sat down, and I thought, well, I should write something down. I'll just kinda start. And I have these, 15 what I call it 15 core they're my 15 core beliefs. And, I had written them down over time. I'm kind of a visual thinker. So when you say words, I see pictures. I don't really, like, process that. I just everything you say turns into a picture for me. Okay. That I have a habit of, like, looking up into the right a lot because when I'm listening or when I'm speaking, I'm actually painting a picture or trying to verbalize a picture. And so it's just, I I had a little bit of time, and I thought, well, I don't wanna write a book about these experiences directly because that to me would be kind of, you know, in some ways depressing.
But I could probably take the core beliefs that I have, and I could write something about that. You know? Like, maybe that would be, maybe that would be something that people could you know, if they've if they've been through difficult times, or were going through a difficult time, they could maybe, use some of these ideas that I've written down, that would help them. These core beliefs helped me. They kept me alive and kept me moving forward at different times. And so I wrote down, and and one thing led to another. And after a few weeks, I had a book and, you know, got a got a, editor, and, she was kind enough to tell me I didn't actually have a book that it needed to be written better. And so she she did, and I did, and she instructed me. And now we worked on it for another few weeks. And, so then I had a book, and then I was like, I don't know what to do with that. You know? Like, I've I did it, and then there was nothing to do with it. And, one day, somebody suggested or the I don't know. Somebody suggested, you know, they're like, why don't you do a podcast? I don't I don't do a podcast. I don't that's not my thing. I don't really I can't see myself doing that. And they said, we'll go on a podcast.
And so, I did. And I kinda found that talking about some of these things, not to relive them, but in a way that, by being transparent about them, it it helped me in the sense that it gave me a perspective that maybe by discussing them in kind of an open way, it would help somebody else. And that was really, kind of the thing that opened the door to talking about it and deciding to share was was really just the idea that maybe there's other people that it would benefit to hear that, yeah, I've I've been through some some stuff, and you may wanna quit today, but you don't have to quit today. Right. You know? So I would suggest you don't quit today. And, you know, so it kinda became a, a thing of, you know, one thing led to another, and then folks like yourself would would read about would read the bio, and they'd be like, you know what? Let's talk about it. And then I so I kind of just started talking about it, talking about these different things. And and it kinda gave me some hope and some encouragement to know that other people might be encouraged and helped by the discussions.
[00:26:12] Unknown:
Yeah. That then, again, that's that's one of the reasons why when I was reading your bio that it it kinda, you know, grabbed my attention because, you know, I everybody has something that they deal with. I deal with depression. I deal with PTSD. You know, I've I've dealt with suicidal thoughts and, you know, attempts. I've attempted, you know, it's a long story, but I'm we're not gonna get into that right now. But No. You know what? Thank god it didn't work out. No. Yeah. No. Praise the lord for that. And and that's, you know, that's that's the main thing.
But, so so some of the aspects of what your your bio said is that's what really attracted me, you know, to to invite you on the show. But, question, that came to mind as you were talking. So so what was your childhood like?
[00:27:00] Unknown:
You know, it's it's I would say there it took me a while to be able to look back and think of some things that were enjoyable, that were positive about it. For a long time, there was just a lot of, negative thoughts about it. My parents, we came from very poor background in South Alabama. They were, my grandparents, my father until he went in the service, they were row crop farmers. And, my grandfather until he died was a row crop farmer, and couple of his children followed in his footsteps. But, they were they were very poor. My mother came from a very poor, fam family.
And they decided that they did not want to live in poverty in South Alabama anymore, so they would do whatever it took to get out of that. Okay. And at that time, in the early sixties, that meant, travel and and, you know, moving. There there was no Gulf Coast revival at that time. Right? It was just there was nothing. And, you know, ultimately, what that meant was that, both my parents worked, and they worked full time and more. My father traveled almost every week from the time I was jeez. I don't know. From the time I was probably three or four until I was 15 or 16 until he he he ended up, becoming disabled.
But, he traveled five days a week. You know? I I probably knew him. All total, maybe I would see maybe twelve hours a week, you know, eight hours a week, something like that. My mother worked full time. So what it did was it left me alone most of the time. Right? I mean, when I came back from school, I was alone. When I got up and went to school, I was alone. I had I've got a brother, but, he's eight years older than me. And so I was just I just kinda grew up alone. And, you know, you can get into a lot of stuff when you're alone that much. And one of the things that happened to me was that, I was groomed by, by a neighbor and ended up being, sexually abused for a period of time, and then by a couple of other people also.
[00:29:11] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:29:13] Unknown:
And, of course, that's not a good way to get started off in life, from an early age. So that just leads to a lot of lot of other difficulties. That's true.
[00:29:22] Unknown:
I couldn't even imagine.
[00:29:24] Unknown:
Yeah. It's, but, you know, I I you know, I you just move on. I had a couple of other, difficult experiences, when I was probably 11 or 12. A psychopath tried to kill me by beating my skull in with a steel pipe and Oh my god. You know, just you just I mean, I had look. If if I were a three legged one eyed dog that was f, you'd call me Lucky. Okay? That that would be my dog name would be Lucky. And, you know, and then my my mother headed at what we later found was a a genetic mutation, but her mother and then she and three of her sisters, all died from breast cancer. My mother was diagnosed at 42 and died at 53. So you kinda roll out of one thing into the next thing into watching your mother die over eleven years to cancer. Although I will say, watching her struggle against cancer for eleven years is really how I learned to live. Like, she taught me that, she loved being alive. And, you know, when you have somebody that has a passion for being alive and a determination to live, you end up with, you know, kind of that carrying forward. So I would say it was, you know, it was a little bit of a rocky start to life.
[00:30:46] Unknown:
And that's I think that's an absolute understatement. That's an absolute understatement. But, but you made it through that, and that's that's the main thing. And, you know, you're here now to talk about it, and your experiences are definitely gonna be able to help others, which is what you were here to do. You know? I I I firmly believe I mean, look, I I would be remiss in saying that I did not party like a rock star. Okay? Like, I mean, I
[00:31:11] Unknown:
there there's very little that you will come across. I never shot heroin, but, there's very few things that you'll come across that I did not do, to either find enjoyment or numb the pain. So, I mean, you don't get out of these things unscathed. I I don't know why I never wanted to I don't think I ever, at that time, wanted to, end my life. And probably because my mother I'd seen my mother go through the cancer thing. She just had such a passion for living. Right. You know? So I I tended more toward the, numb the pain and, do what you can to enjoy life part of things, which probably is how I ended up with pancreatic cancer.
[00:31:57] Unknown:
Right. And, you know, that that's a that's a great segue into my next question. I I wanted to ask you, you know, being diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, I mean, it it wasn't like you you caught it early. Right? It it was you you caught it at stage four.
[00:32:13] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. It is spread to my liver. It was kind of a actually founded by, you know, serendipity, happenstance, luck, whatever you say, whatever it was. I've been having some stomach issues, which I attributed to, you know, I I I drank a pretty good bit, and, you know, I ate terrible. And, you know, I was just, I was having, yeah, I was run you know, doing my business full time for children and, and still, spending some weekend time, you know, as they got older and went off and kinda had their own things to do. Right. You know, I kind of got back into, dealing with things my own way. And so I'd had this stomach pain, and my mother died at 53. And for some reason, I had it in my head that I wouldn't live past 53, which probably, you know, why I wasn't I was kinda throwing caution to the wind.
But I don't know why I just had it in my head. I was gonna die at 53. And so, I was 50. I just turned 53, and I started having a stomach pain. And my wife's like, you need to go to the doctor. I was like, I'm not going to the doctor. I'm not going to the doctor because I'm pretty sure I'm gonna die. So I'm not going to the doctor. And she, stayed on me about it, said it was silly, and I should just go to the doctor. So I did. And, he tried a couple of things and said, look, man. I wanna send you for an ultrasound because I think you got a gallstone. I think that's all. I think you got a gallstone. And so I went the next day and got an ultrasound, and I could tell by the text face something wasn't right. Yeah. But they won't tell you what it is. And then later that day, I got a call that said, hey, man. We found, lesions on your liver. Need you to go get an MRI.
So the next day, I went and got an MRI. And, I remember when I was waiting on the results to come back, the my physician messaged me and, you know, check-in how am I doing, and I said, well, you know, I know liver cancer is bad, man. But, you know, let's look on the bright side. At least it's not pancreatic cancer. And it was about three hours later, the result came back, and it's like, actually, it's pancreatic cancer. Oh, man. And, but I was again, I was blessed. It didn't get to my lymph nodes. It had gone from the pancreas to the liver, you know, through the natural connections of those two organs. And, and then it turned out that I had the same I had the the same genetic mutation. It's called a BRCA one, BRCA one mutation that, a lot of, if you're a female and you have a BRCA one mutation or you have a BRCA one or two mutation, it's like a seventy five percent chance that you'll have breast cancer. Okay. And I've been checked for prostate cancer for years because my mother had cancer. So I just thought, you know, see, you know, it'll be prostate cancer. That's what happens to me, and it'll be prostate cancer.
But, nope, it showed up as, it showed up as pancreatic cancer.
[00:35:19] Unknown:
I think we lost, Andy. Alright. Well, until we get this fixed, we are talking with Andy Campbell, and we're just getting into this really great conversation about, we're frozen altogether. Let's fix this altogether right now. I can't, man. Not sure what happened there. We froze up, and I lost you. And, but, we're back. Alright. Right on. We were in a good spot too, man. It was Yeah.
[00:37:06] Unknown:
Put y'all back in, man. Well,
[00:37:08] Unknown:
let's see. You so you were talking about, you know, the positive you know, thinking about maybe it could be prostate cancer and and Yeah.
[00:37:18] Unknown:
Yeah. But it turned out to be pancreatic cancer. So, you know, there you go. Got pancreatic cancer, man. And, then the journey really begins.
[00:37:28] Unknown:
And and, like, so at that particular moment when you got that diagnosis, like, what was that? What was the first thing that went through your mind?
[00:37:39] Unknown:
Man, I think it was, I don't know what the first thing was. I'm pretty sure it was just, complete terror. You know, I'd seen my mother, fight her way through breast cancer and her sisters and and other people with difficult cancers. And, you know, I I mean, like, it was just known, like, pancreatic cancer, you were gonna die. You know, like and it was gonna be a painful death. So, you know, I I don't remember the thing I thought. I do remember falling apart like a baby. And, you know, like the doc said, give me some medicine to, you know, some, like, tranquilizers to get me to calm down, you know. So and and it took a I mean, it it really took, like, a day or two before I could really comprehend what they were saying. You know? Like, I'd I'd I'd gone from maybe I have a gallstone to forty eight hours later, you know, stage four pancreatic cancer, you know.
And then I kinda got my feet up under me again and and went for a PET scan. And they determined that it wasn't in my lymph nodes, but it was pretty extensive. Went in for a biopsy, and, the GI doc came back and said, look, man. I don't know how you felt this thing. I don't even know why you're here because it's everywhere, but it's nowhere you should know about it. But you're about ninety days from what it would have really killed you, like, pretty quick. But, he said it's pretty bad. You know? But it it but it's not around anything that would cause you pain or cause you a liver problem. You know? And, and so then I went, this I had to go get a port, put in my chest, you know, the the IV port that they put in so you can get chemo and all that stuff without burning your veins.
And, and what I do remember one thing I remember very clearly was the first day I went to chemo, my wife drove me. She's very upset. And as I got out of the car, I told her I said, look. Do your best not to worry. I was built for this. I was built for this. Wow. I don't know why I thought, because I thought that's, like, the stupidest thing you could say. On the other hand, it's been seven years this August. And, while they'll never say that I'm in remission, for the last four and a half years, there's been no visible sign of disease on the CT scans. So my tumor numbers are normal, and, they can't see the disease on the scans.
So I'm doing pretty well. Well, that's great.
[00:40:30] Unknown:
That is that's that's fantastic. And that's, yeah, that's a miracle in itself, you know, because most most of the time when you hear about pancreatic cancer, especially a stage four cancer, you know, that's that's like a I I hate to sound cruel, but that's like a death sentence right there. No. It is a death sentence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, one of the doctors told me, and I think this is true. He said, look, everybody's gonna die.
[00:40:51] Unknown:
You just happen you know, like, if the whole population had to walk across a busy street, a busy, you know, traffic street, everybody would know they would you know, like, if death were getting hit by a car, everyone would kinda know that they were gonna die. You just happen to know the make, model, and serial number of the car that's going to kill you. I was like, well, yeah, that's one way to look at it. That that is a crazy way to look at it. Yeah. But Yeah. But he's like, you just happen to know which one which car it's gonna be. Yeah. But but it makes sense, though. You know? Yeah. About that. It really does make sense. Yeah. And then I just got busy. I mean, I had a I had a fan I still have a fantastic physician, general physician. You know, he's just insatiably curious. And, you know, he everything he suggested that I try, I did.
And, you know, I did. I've done and still do a lot of things, man. You know? I've I've I'm a I'm a big believer that, you know, we were lied to about in the in the mythologies, in the horror mythologies, you know, because there's always like, there's a silver bullet that kills a werewolf. There's a stake through the heart that that kills, you know, vampire. And so everybody's looking for these one this one thing that'll do the trick. And I just don't believe there is one silver bullet that kills this monster. I think it's, you gotta do I think you know, look. I do I have I have kind of a four pronged approach, to cancer. Not saying it works for everybody, but I believe this is what I've observed in myself.
And that is, you have to you have to work on your spiritual health, your energy health, your mental health, and your phys and your and your bodily health. And, those are the four things I focus on. And then I apply those four things, in in three actions. So my strategy for cancer was kinda, based on taking three actions. One, give myself the energy to get through the treatments and the side effects and have the energy to actually stay in the fight. Mhmm. The second one was, do my best to cut off the energies of cancer cells. Cancer cells only know they're defective. They only know how to do two things. They know how to consume energy and replicate, which is how they turn into tumors. They just replicate uncontrollably.
Right. And so the second one was do your best to cut off their food supply. Change their environment. Make it, make it hard for them to have something to have the energy to replicate. And then the third one was, do everything, that I can to weaken the cancer cells so that the standard of care or the trial treatments or the supplements, whatever it is, weaken the cancer cells so they're more likely to die. You know? Don't don't give them an edge. And those are the three things that I focused on, that I have focused on. And and, so when the when my physician came to me and said, hey, man. This is gonna sound kind of off the wall, but, you know, there's a lot of research that shows that when you're going through chemotherapy, if you do acupuncture, it helps with, you know, releasing toxins out of your body and, can help with giving you the energy to keep doing the chemotherapy. A lot of studies out showing that it's very beneficial. Would you consider? I was like, yeah. I'll do that.
He came back to me in a couple weeks and said, hey, man. There's a you know, I know this is gonna get, like you know, let's get a little further out on the edge, but, you know, you got pancreatic cancer. So there's a lot of stuff out there, a lot of research now about guided imagery. Would you do guided imagery? Because, it shows that it helps people's prognosis as they go through cancer treatment. I was like, yeah. I'll do guided imagery. And so I just started stacking. You know? I just started stacking up, you know, get do what I could to get myself energy physically and, mentally to be able to stay in the fight and then, kinda take the defensive approach of cutting off as much as I could the, energy supplies to the cancer and then go offensive on doing my best to weaken them. Mhmm. So that, you know, when the big guns came up, from the standard of care and the trial and the, you know, and the other trial medications that, the cancer would be too weak to resist.
And so it's not a complicated strategy, but that's that's kind of what I've employed in cancer.
[00:45:29] Unknown:
Wow. And then, of course, while you're you're you're battling cancer, you you you you face probably the worst nightmare any parent could possibly experience, and that was you lost your youngest son to suicide.
[00:45:43] Unknown:
Yeah. That's a that's a bad one, man. I am, I have come I have come to realize over the years, never say it can't be worse, because it actually can be. So and and whatever is worse than that, I don't wanna find out. So I don't I don't ever say it it can't be worse, but that's a bad one, man. Yeah. He was 18, when he died, and, we had worked with him for years to for him not to make that decision. And one day, four years ago, he did, and I found him the the morning after.
[00:46:28] Unknown:
I I, you know, I have a son myself who's 24 25 now, and I I couldn't even imagine what it must have felt like.
[00:46:40] Unknown:
I'll tell you, man. We we knew he told us when he was nine years old that he didn't think he wanted to live. He didn't believe it. Nine years old. He didn't have access to the Internet. We had a reasonably happy family. He had no he didn't know anyone if he ever committed suicide. He didn't know anyone who knew anyone who had committed suicide. But he was he you know, highly intelligent logical people tend to see the world in black and white. And, you know, I think he was, he was extremely, well adapted to picking up new languages, like his grandfather. He could, you know, he had been he could have chosen, you know, Vietnamese. He could have chosen Arabic, his language of, or Mandarin, but his language, his language of preference was Latin. He's not he's not Catholic. Never been to Italy, But Latin was his preference.
And but before he died, it took him about a I'd say, you know, six months to become, a writer of Latin and probably, you know, within twelve, fourteen months, he was fluent in speaking and writing Latin. He was just but the downside to that was that, things were black and white to him. And, you know, early in life, he had decided, because we spent a lot of years talking about it, that, it was apparent to him that a human was born, then they struggled, and then they died. So what was the point of going through the middle part if you were just gonna end up at the same place? And so you you learn to have a lot of philosophical conversations about that in an attempt to convince someone, not to, take an irreversible action.
But, he read a lot. He loved the the Greek classics. He loved all the classics. He read the Bible cover to cover, more than once. But he also read, which looking back on it, I don't think this is a very a very positive philosopher to spend your time with if you're dealing with suicidal ideation. He read Nietzsche.
[00:49:01] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:49:02] Unknown:
And, he really enjoyed Marcus Aurelius' diaries. And I think if you're in a good place mentally, you can have a philosophical argument with Nietzsche, you know, not literally, but, you know, with people about his philosophy. And if you're in a good place mentally, you can read Marcus Aurelius' diaries and realize that he probably never meant for any of that to be read by somebody else of the private diary he was writing to himself. He's lots of diary. And but if you're not in a great place and you read Nietzsche and you read, you read Mark's Aurelius' words, and the philosophy of the stoics, it's it's very easy to slide into a place where, you know, everything is chaos and entropy is, inevitable.
Mhmm. And it is only stoic to accept death. And so, you know, like, pretty quickly those philosophies can kinda roll into a position where, you know, it it it almost justifies terminating your own life. And I think in, in in many ways, my son, he dealt obviously with, you know, I think a mental illness and, depression, and you start stacking those things on top of it. And eventually, you get someone who's not afraid to literally pull the trigger. Yeah. And,
[00:50:32] Unknown:
you know, I I I like I said, I can't I could I couldn't even imagine what it what it would be like to have to go through that. And the simple fact that you were dealing with that that type of a loss while fighting your own survival, fighting for your own survival, it that just it just I I know I know that you, at some point, you went out to seek some some professional help. You got some therapy. What types of what types of therapy did you did you seek out?
[00:51:06] Unknown:
Yeah. The can't the cancer really took a deep backseat. Like, it was there wasn't a back seat. Like, it was in the back of the bus. It moved way back on the priority list. I was and I still do every four months ago, to, to see the oncologist and and and, do the trial thing at the University of Pennsylvania that I've been in now for probably five years, maybe maybe almost six. So, you know, the I I kinda had to turn all those any concern any worries and things I had, I had to give over to, like, them. And I have a wonderful oncologist. And at one point, she told me she said, you don't actually know enough about what to look for, and I do. So if you'll give it to me, I'll worry about all that.
And, you go take care of business. And so I did. I just had to kinda leave that with her. And then I spent a lot of time not focused on cancer, but focused on my wife went into a deep depression. I thought I was gonna lose her after my son's suicide. And but, she was able to pull through that. Our our family physician helped her tremendously. And and our therapist, I ended up, initially, after, my son's death, we, you know, I think part of it is you gotta you gotta just face these things head on and and, and start doing something about it. Right? Like, I'm I don't I don't like having things done to me. I'd rather do something about the thing. And, so the first thing we did was, I found a grief counselor who dealt with, you know, one of her special specialties was dealing with the people who had lost loved ones to suicide. And we spent some time, with her, and that was, all of it was extremely helpful because, I mean, what the hell do you do when, you know, when your 18 year old decides to kill himself? You know? Like, you don't you don't know what to do. And it and one of the things I was gonna mention earlier was even if you have like, we had had these discussions for years, and so you think you're preparing yourself in a way for the the possibility.
But that is a that's just like a lie you tell yourself because, when it happens, you are in no way no way prepared for that. So I spent a lot of time my focus was on, he has three siblings, and, his name's Heston Walker Campbell. And Heston had three siblings, still does, a a brother that's, 16 older. So that was devastating for him. And then, his two sisters who lost their youngest brother, and it was devastating to them. Each of them had similarities in, you know, in unique ways. And, obviously, there's a sibling connection there. And so my focus really for probably the first two years was, not so much on myself, but on just, you know, doing the best I could to keep everyone else from, you know, falling apart or coming apart. And, but during that time, I'd heard about a therapy called EMDR.
I don't know if you've heard of EMDR. Actually, I have. Yeah. That's Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. For people who don't know, it's called eye movement desensit desensitization, re I can't remember what the r is, but it's, like, reprocessing. Eye movement desensitization. Anyway, you'd I found somebody who did this EMDR thing, and, that was kind of I needed something to do, man, to get, you know, to get some of this stuff off of me. You know? And I needed some place where it wasn't about, where, you know, where the therapist helped me not focus on everybody else, but kinda focus on what, you know, what what I was going through. And, EMDR probably, you know, is the most painful and yet the, the best therapeutic thing I've ever been through.
It's never good, man, when, you know, like, we've talked a little bit about some of the stuff. And but you're sitting with this therapist, and she was a godson man at the time. She was just, like, the perfect person, at the time, for us. And so they take out a legal pad, You know? Like, this is not a good thing. When they do they take out the legal pad and start making notes, and she's, like, making notes of all the things that we need to deal with through this process. Right? Yeah. And, then she turns the page on the legal pad, and she keeps writing down things that we need to process. And then she turns the page again.
You know, she's writing. And I thought, I was like, hey. You know, at three, we just like, you need to take a break. Okay? Like, we we need to take a break. And so, she starts to tell me what EMDR is, and I tell her there's no way in hell I'm doing EMDR. Like, when she explains to me what it is, I'm like, I'm not reliving this stuff. And she's got all this stuff because I I I was focused on Heston's death. You know? Like, that's where I thought we were gonna focus. And she's like, well, we are. But you got all these stuff, like, all these other things. And she's explaining to me how, you know, from these other, events, your brain builds a pathway and it starts associating all these emotions with it and it kinda gets stopped up.
The the pathway gets blocked and then all these other things start, you know, like, building up inside this pathway. And so it's it's just not good mentally, and you're having all these emotional reactions that you can't really explain and yada yada yada. And, so so that's great, man, but I'm not going back and digging up all those bones. Like, that's not happening. Like, we can focus on Heston, but I'm not going back to like, all the way back to sexual abuse. Like, I'm like, that stuff's I've got that dealt with. Don't worry about it. And, she told me that I had not had it dealt with and that, I I kinda feel like that song where it's like the you know, my friend wrote, David Allen Coe says, you know, my friend said he written the greatest country song ever, and I told him had not written the greatest country song ever. And that's kinda how I felt she was telling me. You know? It's like I was like she's like, well, you actually haven't dealt with that.
And, so she told me what it was gonna be like. She said, look. I think it's gonna take us about twenty, maybe twenty four hours to go through this. And, and, it'll it'll change your life if you'll do it. And I said, twenty four hours. Batman, there's no effing way that's not happening. I'm not I'm not doing that. And, then she said, the one thing that made me decide to do it. She said, Andy, here's how this works. You can spend twenty four hours, which is one day of your life, thinking about these things, and we'll process them. We'll use this specific technique, and your life will be better. Right. And we will do that in basically less than the time of one lunar of of of of one day.
Or you can deal with it every day, every minute of every day for the rest of your life. And I'm like, that doesn't sound good. No. So we started, and, I will say that, you know, was kind of the beginning of, a turnaround for me in my life. And it helped me I mean, I can talk about Heston now without, breaking down and, normally, breaking down and, and crying or going into some, deep depression. And I can think about him. I can talk about, the sexual abuse. I can talk about the losses I've had. I can, you know, talk to you about, you know, the cancer treatments, and and I can do that in a way that, allows me to hopefully give some confidence and some encouragement to other people.
And I couldn't do that if I hadn't if I hadn't been through that, you know, that particular type of, a processing, therapy, whatever you wanna call it. Some people don't like to talk about therapy. So, you know, whatever you wanna call it. But basically confronting those events, you know, facing them down and working to not let them, you know, ruin the rest of my effing life.
[00:59:45] Unknown:
Was there, like, a specific point during the during the, oh, yeah, the therapy that through through the EMDR that, that you realized that things were starting to shift for you, or or was it just something that even though you finished the 40 the twenty four hours that it's you were still in a way kinda working your way through it?
[01:00:04] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I think I'm still kind of working my way, you know, through it. You know, probably the I would say probably by this. I don't know in which one of the early sessions it was, but she had me relive the day that I found him Mhmm. Like, that morning. And so, you know, for for people who haven't been through EMDR, some some people do it slightly differently. But the general notion is, you know, they give you these things that are in your fingertips between your thumb and your first two fingers that buzz. And, so it's like a sensory vibration buzzing thing. Mhmm. And then they put a headset on you, and they have this sound, this tone.
And the tone and the buzzing alternate, you know, left, right, left, right, left, right, slightly different timing for the and then you go back and you kind of remember and walk through these events that have been, you know, difficult, that have left their mark. And and the idea, I guess, behind it is that by by remembering it in a way that your mind is distracted by this by the sensory, by the perception of the sound and the and the and the, you know, tactile parts that that are vibrating in your fingertips, you end up building a new neural pathway for that memory that's not associated with the emotion of the first time it occurred. So you're kinda building a you know, you're detouring around the, you know, around the landslide. Right? Like, they got a landslide and roadblock, you're detouring this other way.
And so, the first time that I really thought, man, this there might be something there really might be something as processed. She had me walk back through the morning that I found my son. I she had me walk through. And the reason I can talk about it now is because I went through this process. And so I I I I remember having a very bad feeling about things. There were some things that had happened the day before. I didn't think it was gonna get to this point. My wife thought it might, but I didn't think so. But by the next morning, I had this very bad feeling about it.
I went up to his room. His door was locked, and you didn't answer, without my wife knowing about it, you know, to try to keep it from her because by then, my heart was kinda pounding, and I was like, fuck. Sorry for that. That's right. Something something might be really wrong. You know? Walked back downstairs, went to the garage, got a screwdriver, came back in, forced the door open, and opened the door, looked to the left, called him, didn't hear an answer, looked to the left, looked straight ahead, didn't see anything, and I knew it was gonna be bad. I looked to the right, and I found him, laying on the floor.
When I when I first went through EMDR to walk through all those steps, I had to go through man, it probably took seven or eight tries because at each step, everything went blank. You know, the first time I went up to his door, I couldn't see his door. Then I went downstairs, but I couldn't find the toolbox. Then, you know, I'd I'd go back to she was like, we gotta go back through it again. And I'd go back through it again. And this time, I would find the screwdriver, and I'd walk back up the stairs, but my hands wouldn't move toward the door.
And then we do it again, and I could I could get the door open. Or I could unlock the door, but then the door wouldn't open. And it was probably two or three times she would have me go through. I couldn't get the door open. It just would not move. And she would say, you have to sit there, stare at the door until it opens. And, man, you know, like, that that's pretty painful. I don't know what language I can use here, but that's pretty painful shit. You know? Say what you gotta say. Yeah. And and then so we did it again. And then, and the whole time, man, my heart is pounding. You know? I'm kinda sweating a little bit, and finally, the door opens.
And so, you know, she's like, let's let's go through it again. The door is open now, and I would go through it again. I'd walk downstairs, walk back up the stairs. Door would open, but this time now the room was just completely black. It was black. I couldn't see anything. And I knew that wasn't right. You know? Like, it's weird. Like, I'm going through it. I've got my eyes closed. I've got these sounds going off in my head, and and and I get the door open. But everything's black. It's just dark. And I knew that wasn't the case because it was in the morning, and there were two big windows in his room, and it was full of light when I opened that door. I know. I remembered that, but in this, like, process, I couldn't see it. Like, it was everything in the room was dark.
So we do it again, and we do it again. And finally, I open the door, and there's light in the room. And then I can see the left part of the room. And finally, I got to the point where I would go through it, and I would find him again. Okay. And that's the moment that I knew the day afterwards because that was exhausting, man. I was like I think I went home and slept for, like, six hours, just straight, like, from that and then slept the whole night. When I woke up the next day, I realized I could think about it without breaking down into a puddle of tears. Right? Like, I didn't just start bawling. I didn't, you know, I didn't have that, just that I mean, it was it was still painful. It still is to this day.
I still get teary eyed. I cry about it from time to time, but I don't have that just that like, I can talk to you about it. Right. And the only that that was the moment when I thought, damn, she might be right. You know? Maybe and so then I got interested in, like, well, what other stuff can I get off my back? Like, if I could walk through that and I can now talk about Heston and finding him, as painful as it is, I'm not I'm not breaking down right now. So, like, that's like, how did I get to that point? Is are there other things I could do? And so we just started walking backwards and walking backwards and walking backwards. And, you know, I'm not a big talk therapy person. I don't I don't like talk therapy.
I think there comes a time when you need to stop fucking talking about it and just do something about it. I agree. But this but EMDR was something to do. You know? Like, it was like, I was I was actively participating in that. And so that's the moment when I realized the EMDR was was it was a real deal.
[01:06:49] Unknown:
And it worked for you, which is the main thing.
[01:06:51] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, they got they they they got it, originally started doing it. They developed it at the, I don't know if it was the VA or a hospital in Maryland, but it was basically for Vietnam vets that came back that they were struggling in the eighties. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I see. I
[01:07:07] Unknown:
about I don't know. Maybe it was a month, maybe two months ago, I had, I had a couple of guests on the show that were, EMDR
[01:07:16] Unknown:
administrators, I guess. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right on. And,
[01:07:20] Unknown:
I had up up to that point, I had not heard of it, you know. And and Yeah. So so it was it was a very, very interesting conversation that we had about it. And, you know, the whole idea that, you know, you can you can, you know, reprocess these traumatic memories and work your way through them. I thought it was absolutely fascinating. And, again, when I saw that in your in your bio that you that you were involved with that too, that, again, you know, it was like, wow. Okay. I I want more information about this. I'm I'm trying to, I'm trying to learn about it because I'm I'm contemplating, you know, doing it doing something like that for myself with the with the things that I'm I'm dealing with.
My audience has heard this story many times. I'm not gonna go into all the detail with it, but in a very, very, very short period of time, I wanna say within a year and a half, my dad passed away, my grandmother passed away, My dog passed away while I was up burying my grandmother in New York, came back, caught my wife cheating on me on my birthday, just a couple of months after that, and then, and then my mom passed away a couple of months after that. And all all You got it stacked up, man. All of that happened within a year and a half.
[01:08:31] Unknown:
Yeah. I look. I you know, I am not a believer in prescribed, you know, like, what works for one person will work for another. That's a that's a big part of, you know, my core beliefs and and, and the stuff I have on my website about cancer. And, I'm not a believer that you can really like, we're all unique individuals. Right? Like, I think we were all individually created and designed. And and so
[01:08:56] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:08:57] Unknown:
I think probably the best that, I think this is actually where Western medicine really falls down is where I was trying to find the silver bullet where I was trying to get that patentable thing. And so it needs to be, like, the one thing that'll solve the problem. And, really, what you need is, like, 20 different things to solve the problem. Nobody nobody else except for, except for Western medicine decides that everything is a nail because we're bringing a hammer because that's what we can get patented, and that's what we make money on. So everything from here on out is a nail. And so when I say this about EMDR, I I I I want I wanna say it, and I I want you to take it that way. I don't know like, I would never say prescribe, like, hey. You know, this, this is absolutely the, you know, the fix or something. But what I would say is I hope that my describing to you a a a situation like finding my son and the ability to process through that using EMDR and get to the point where I can I can accept what has happened, although I don't want to? I can accept what's happened and start to find some some genuine happiness in every now and then joy.
I I attribute a large portion of that to, to EMDR. And so, you know, when you when you list off a a list of, you know, a a a series of events like that, I would tell you that, you know, it can be, it can be an exhausting and and sometimes a bit of a painful process. But I think my has been that the outcome
[01:10:45] Unknown:
is worth it. Yeah. It's worth the effort. Yeah. I I agree with you. I mean, I it's, you know, in in trying to process all that stuff on my own, I I I definitely went down some some bad pathways. And, one of the one of the the the lingering issues that I have right now is getting close to anybody else. And Oh, yeah. You know, so it's like the wall the wall is up, and, you know, it takes a lot to get around that wall. And as soon as somebody gets around that wall, I start building another one.
[01:11:16] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I understand. Well and by the way, that's actually logical. You know? You know, I think our our survival instincts kick in. Yeah. And, you know, you you know, you wouldn't let a saber tooth tiger come back in the house. You know? I mean, like, that'd be like, yeah. We're gonna build a little wall here to keep the tigers out. You know? I mean, all these things are these things are they are logical. They're natural. You know, outcomes of these kinds of events. But, you know, the question becomes that they're they're a natural outcome, but are they the best thing for us? And I think they're not the best thing for us. And, look. I mean, you know, it takes a lot of courage just to think about it.
You know, I would say I would say, you know, you know, test it and see, you know, give it a couple of three, sessions and, you know, drink a lot of water and don't do anything or think about anything the day after, you know, the night of or the day after. Give it, like, you know, thirty six hours and then, and then, you know, see how you feel about things. But Yeah. You know, that's one thing they told me when I first started. They're like, hey, don't go home and think about this stuff. Okay? Because, you know, like, you're gonna bring it all up, and it's gonna be fresh in your mind, and then you're gonna start trying to think about it. We don't want you to think about it on your own. You're only supposed to think about it here. So find something to distract yourself, but not alcohol, not weed, and not Coke. Okay? I find something else to distract you with it. And, Well, that's why I'm doing podcasts. Yeah. Exact exactly right. I mean, you know, something's gotta take the place. Yeah. There you go. And and, so yeah. I mean but it is, yeah. I look. I I've done some I've done a number of other things as well. I think there's a there's a really good series of books. I can't remember the guy's name, but one of them is called The Emotion Code.
That's really good books. Got another one called The Body. All of it really is about, you know, how do you work your way through these emotions from these very real events? And the emotions are natural responses, but they kinda get stuck. Right? They kinda get stuck in your head, or they get stuck in, you know, like, you know, if you ever read a book called The Body Keeps Score, you know, some people believe it gets stuck in, like, in in actually in your body. And so, you know, after I went through the thing with Hestan, I just kinda became a fan of getting rid of that shit. You know? Like, so, you know, then it became like, alright. What do I gotta go through to get rid of that?
[01:14:04] Unknown:
Yeah. That makes sense. So, so did the 15 core beliefs that you came up with come out of the EMDR, or was that something that you've been working on already?
[01:14:18] Unknown:
Yeah. No. I I had, I've been collecting them over. I don't so I like I said, I see pictures, like, you know, you say a word, you say a series of words, a few sentences, I start to build a picture out of it. Mhmm. And, so there came a point where I don't know when I was I was much younger and probably because of some of the stuff I've been through. You know, you get down to kind of a low point, and I was thinking, though, you know, like, my ancestors, I came from a pretty poor background. Like, they had, like, they had nothing, man. Like, you know, they didn't have indoor plumbing. They didn't have toilet paper. Women didn't have sanitary products. Like, they fucking racked up and made it. You know? Like, they just did it. And so, like, you know, like, how how can I, like, how can I be like that? And so, like, I I I started thinking about, like, what would it take for them to do, like, to survive?
And what I came up with six words. And what I think I observed from my ancestors was that, the six words were honor, bridge, determination, perseverance, wisdom, and success. And so I have three I have three word the first three on my right arm, the last three on my left arm, and, just, I decided to have them, inked on one day because I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and see those words to remind me. And the idea behind it was this. I think what I observed was that when my ancestors were successful, they had started with an honorable intent. They started with an honorable action.
And if they if they did the honorable thing, when difficulties came, it gave them courage to continue. Mhmm. And if you showed if they displayed courage over and over again, then that was determination. And, you know, if you see people who do even small courageous things over and over again, you'll say, oh, that that person's determined. You know, that's just a determined son of a bitch right there. And so and if you do determination, if you show determination over and over again, people will say, well, that's per that's perseverance. Like, that that person just hears. They persist. They persevere. Well, it's just being determined enough times that people go, well, he's just not gonna go away. He's persistent. Right.
And and so if you persist long enough, if you can persevere, then you will have my grandfather used to say experience is what you get just after you needed it. And so if you if you persist long enough, then you will have experiences. You will get experiences. And while you may not become wise, experience makes you wiser. And so you get wisdom. Mhmm. You may not become wise, but you get wisdom. Right. And wisdom, if Solomon is the story of Solomon is correct, then wisdom is the foundation of success. Right? Like with who Solomon traded everything else for wisdom so he could have everything else. So so I thought, well, that's that's a that's a pretty good set of foundational principles to work on. You know, I'll I'll I'll kind of rely on those.
And as I went along, I would I would observe things either myself or another people, where they would get knocked down or they would get knocked backwards, so they'd have bad news. And, and then I I would I would observe these things that I've had either helped me or helped them, and I would write them down. And so they you know, eventually, I wrote down 15 things. And I each time I would write one down, I would kind of adopt that as a core belief. I'd be like, okay. I'm on that. That's gonna be central to how I deal with things. At least it's gonna be aspirational. I'm gonna intend to deal with things that way.
And so I just kept writing them down until I got to 15. And when I got to 15, I was like, I'm not writing down anymore. Anything else I learned has to come under one of these 15. And so that was the 15 core beliefs. Wow.
[01:18:25] Unknown:
Now, so starting with no one outruns the universe. Yeah. So after everything that you've been through, how did you how did you come to, I guess, embrace, if that's the right word, acceptance rather than, you know, you know, let rage take over?
[01:18:48] Unknown:
Yes. So I'd so, look, I I believe in a creator. I believe the universe was created. I believe it was designed with with with obviously I mean, there's physics and quantum physics and mechanics and you know, but, you know, for me, the the the more straightforward way to think about it is the universe is built on certain principles and it provides guardrails. And you, you know, you get outside those guardrails, you're gonna crash. You stay inside the guardrails, you might get bumped around, but you're not gonna crash. And, you know, so no one outruns the universe means don't be so arrogant that you think you figured out something the universe, you know, decided or been designed into it. You're not that, you know, effing smart. Okay? And so I'm talking to me, not you. I'm saying, like, hey, Andy. You're not that you're not that smart.
Because every time I realized that every time I thought I was smarter, than either the universe or, you know, everybody else. It turned out that I actually wasn't. You know? The reason that I you know? So, anyway, it was like, hey, man. Just why don't why don't you just try to be humble and and accept that? Okay? You are a part of a larger thing. Mhmm. I believe each individual is an invaluable part of the universe. They are an invaluable thread in the fabric of the universe, but you're a thread. You're not the universe itself. Okay? You're you're you're not this, Andy, you're not the center of the universe. Okay? You're a thread in the universe. You're extremely important. Your life is valuable.
But, you know, let's face it. The universe is bigger than you. And, you know, and so I think it applies in a lot of different ways. You know? I mean, you know, you've heard stories about somebody who you know, they'll they'll they'll have murdered somebody and they'll, you know, it'll be like they got away with it. But, like, thirty years later, they're just like, I can never outrun, you know, what I did. Like, they you know, and some people are sociopaths or psychopaths, and they don't have conscience. Okay. Fine. Set them to the side. But there's other people who do things, and you think they might have gotten away with it. You know, they don't ever get away with it. You don't outrun the universe, man. The universe works a certain way. And, you know, companies don't lie on your financials and don't make up shit, man. I mean, you know, you're not just straight up understand what your financial situation is because the universe has a way of bringing it out into the public domain.
And so, yeah, that one was a big one for me, mainly from just early years of thinking that I was smart enough to do to do whatever I wanted to do, and I had it all figured out. And the universe would kind of pop me in the head with one of the guardrails, and sometimes I go through the guardrail and intend on doing it my own way, and I'd crash and burn. And so it's just, it's a reminder to me, don't be that arrogant. Okay? Keep, you know, you there are certain principles that you should live by. You can be smart, but you're not smarter than what God created.
[01:21:47] Unknown:
Amen to that. I I I can agree with that. I I can totally agree with it. So I'm I'm looking at the clock here and we are way over the hour. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, because I I would like to actually go through some of these these, these 15 cores, but we're not gonna have time to get through all that. But, how about this? How about we, how about we get together again? Maybe, maybe sometime next week. You let me know, what works for you, and we'll we'll go through the whole Podmash thing, and we'll we'll pick it up there. We'll go through the 15 core beliefs and we'll talk more about that. So in the meantime, so Andy, where can people find your book and what can people take away from your story?
[01:22:27] Unknown:
Yeah. You can find the book on Amazon. You can go to the, you know, just go to the main search bar and type in Andy Campbell. And, it should be one of the the first or second, you know, search that pops up. Or you can go to my website, askandycampbell.com, and, you can catch a link there to it. What I'd like people to take away from, you know, all of this is, one, you are invaluable. Your life is valuable. Your purpose is valuable. Even if you don't you could live your whole life and die, a natural causes and not know what your purpose is, but you have one. It may just not be you know, your purpose may be, the impact that it makes to someone else's. I don't know. But I do know that every human life is valuable.
You should not terminate your own life before your time because, to me, I think one of the things that I'm very, pleased with is that at no point in my life did I take, the opportunity away from God to move the universe in my favor. And eventually, I think some things moved in my favor. So the one thing I want people to be left with is don't quit. Do not quit.
[01:23:38] Unknown:
Amen to that. Alright, folks. So what we'll do is we'll make sure we have all of your information in the show notes so people can track you down. I think I got your website address also, already in the show notes for the audio. I just gotta add it to the video stuff. And, so folks, Andy Campbell. Andy, thank you so much. And don't forget, let's, let's get something scheduled for next week. If you have the time, so we can come back and and, finish talking about the 15 core principles. Because, I have some of them here and some notes that I have, and and they they are really I mean, each one of them is gonna we could spend quite a bit of time on each one of these things. Yeah. They are great. So, Andy, I really do appreciate you taking your time out tonight to be with us. Thank you so very much, and, you know, my thought my prayers are with you as as you go through these these things, and I'm really happy to see that things were are working out, on the upswing for you. And, I wish you all the success with your book, and, can't wait to talk to you again, brother.
[01:24:30] Unknown:
Thanks very much, man. I appreciate it. And the gratitude is all mine for the opportunity to share with you. I really do appreciate that. Alright, folks. So Andy Campbell, again, thank you so much.
[01:24:39] Unknown:
Alright. Alright. Well, alright, folks. Well, we're gonna call it a night here at this point. Just gonna go feed the kids. I hear them scratching at the door. Alright. So with that said, don't forget to head over to our website, joeroos.com. Send us over a question, comment, care, concern that you might have, and, let us know what you think, and give us some feedback on the interviews we've been having. Really excited about that. Alright, folks. Shout outs to our executive producer, Wayne and Rosanna Rankin. Shout out to our producer, anonymous Angela. Thank you guys for everything that you all do. Folks, don't forget also, to check us out on the alexjonesstore.com/joe.
Get yourself some vitamins and supplements. Alright, folks. Make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride, and we'll see you tomorrow night. Good night. Goodbye.
Introduction and Show Overview
Guest Introduction: Andy Campbell
Personal Stories and Philosophies
Family and Creating Memories
Sharing Life Experiences
Childhood and Early Challenges
Cancer Diagnosis and Battle
Coping with Loss: Son's Suicide
Therapy and Healing
Core Beliefs and Life Lessons
