Burk Jackson: Person of the Week

Burk Jackson is a New Mexico-based photographer, writer, life coach, and entrepreneur with over 30 years of sobriety. A passionate advocate for connection in recovery, he is the founder of RecoveryBridge, an app helping people find support and community. He believes deeply that we do not recover in isolation.

www.RecoveryBridge.app

Q. If you are in recovery, what was your drug(s) of choice and when is your sobriety date?

A. I am in recovery, and my sobriety date is October 20th, 1994. My only real drug of choice, looking back, was “More”; it didn’t really matter what it was as long as I could get more of it.  It’s also played out in my recovery and all the distractions that I’ve had in my life — whatever I could find to anesthetize myself with at different points in my life — sex, money, clothes, shoes, cars, boats, watches, anything to distract me.  It’s been a painful lesson to learn that none of those things will fix me, but also the best lesson I could have gotten.

Having grown up in recovery since I was 23, I’ve made lots of mistakes and had plenty of lessons in my time, and most of them have taught me something valuable, in retrospect at least.

Q. Is there anything special in your sobriety toolkit that helps keep you sober?

A. I would say that connection is the single biggest piece of recovery that has kept me sober all these years. Whether it’s going to a meeting, talking to my sponsor, or connecting with friends, all the most valuable work I’ve done has sprung out of my connection to people and my higher power. I truly believe that we do not recover in isolation.

Q. Where are you from and where do you reside now?

A. I grew up in many different places, being the child of an alcoholic and manic-depressive mom, so I have lived in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, California, and Oregon in my life.   I was born in Oklahoma, and I currently reside in New Mexico.

Q. What is one word you would use to describe yourself?

A. Compassionate.

Q. Describe how you came to your “rock bottom” point.

A. My rock bottom moment did not happen after a series of huge blowouts or a litany of horrible decisions over a short period of time. It happened sitting in a jail cell in Addison, Texas, on October 19th, 1994.

I’d been arrested in three states over three years for three different substances and kept finding myself in these situations, wondering what I’d done to have this happen to me.

That evening, I had what I would consider to be the closest to a “God Shot” moment in my recovery. This little voice came to me and said, “If you don’t change something, you’re gonna grow old in a cell just like this”. I got out of jail that night, bailed out by a girlfriend, had two beers once I got back to her place, and that was it. I woke up the next day and knew I had to come back to AA.  The rest, as they say, is history…

Q. If you ever retire, would you prefer to live by the ocean, lake, river, mountaintop, desert, or penthouse?

A. By the ocean in a small beach town with good recovery.  I lived in Mexico for a while a few years ago, and it taught me what’s important and what’s just fluff. I don’t need much to be happy, and that’s become more and more evident as I get older — happiness doesn’t come from things, it comes from being alright with myself and surrounding myself with good people.

Q. How do you measure success?

A. I’ve looked at this rubric many different times in my life, and I’ve found that I’m most happy in my life when I’m able to help others in some way or another.  I ran a small nonprofit years ago, and while it was taxing in many ways, I loved helping people in the way that we did. 

My latest project sprang out of that same need — I kept seeing people online in different types of recovery wanting to connect with people but not having a viable means beyond social media to do so. I built RecoveryBridge as a way for someone looking for a connection to find someone who’s willing to listen and be present, as well as a way for those who have been in recovery to give back and help others in a meaningful way.

Q. What is your biggest pet peeve?

A. When people don’t pay attention or care about how their behavioral choices affect others.  It seems like we’re so much more wrapped up in whatever is happening in our own lives that we’ve lost the ability to be understanding of how we impact others in our day-to-day lives.

Q. If you had an extra million dollars, which charity would you donate it to?

A. It’s funny because I was having a conversation similar to this last week. I was telling a good friend that when I win the lottery, I’d still be doing what I’m doing now.

Frankly, I would figure out a way to get RecoveryBridge out to more people efficiently and compellingly.  After that, I would donate whatever is left over to make all animal shelters into “no-kill” shelters or, at least, find one shelter that I could make a notable impact on and donate there.

Q. If you could give advice to your younger self what would it be?

A. This poem —

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~ Misattributed to Mark Twain

I have “Dream Explore Discover” tattooed on my ribs to remind me that the world is much bigger than whatever I imagine it to be, and that experience is the utmost thing in life.

Q. Who made you feel seen growing up?

A. I was raised in a time and place when many people had housekeepers, and we were no different. My mom was so preoccupied with her own issues that she didn’t have much time to raise me, so I was looked after by a wonderful woman named Patty Grayson.  She is a 4’10” powerhouse of a woman who took care of me in ways that I only understood after having children and being an adult. She was there the day I came home from the hospital as a newborn, and was a steady fixture in my life until I went away for treatment at the age of seventeen.  We are still in touch and she’s the closest thing I still have to a family of origin. I call her on most holidays and her birthday to tell her that I love and appreciate her for all she did, especially in those chaotic moments when I needed someone to be there.

Q. What do you love most about living sober?

A. I love the fact that I’m not detached from the things happening both within me and around me. Some days it’s challenging, but most days I’m grateful that I can live fully and completely in each moment and with every person that I come in contact with. There truly is no filter on life when we’re truly present. 

The other things I frequently share that I’m grateful for the ability to change. If I hadn’t gotten sober and changed pretty much everything in the last three decades, I believe that I’d be destined for a life of “pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.”

Q. What’s your concept of a Higher Power?

A. I’ve struggled over the past five or six years with my concept of a higher power watching everything that has been happening in our world, and how could a benevolent being allow such things to happen?  Then, a few weeks ago, a good friend in recovery was reading something, and the thought dawned on me, once again, to “Stop Fighting”, and that put things back into perspective for me.  Whether or not I believe in some omnipotent being in the clouds or GOD, meaning Group Of Drunks, that there is some higher power, and it wasn’t me, and that reinitiated my actions around a higher power.

Q. What is your Astrological sign?

A. Capricorn.

Q. Who is your favorite celebrity in recovery?

A. Anthony Hopkins, definitely. His candor and honesty have always been inspiring to me. The things that he has shared publicly about his recovery have resonated with me every time, and his experience of long-term sobriety has intrigued me in the best way.

Q. What books are you reading now?

A. I’m actually in a book study right now where we are reading Dr. Bob & The Good Oldtimers. It’s been entertaining and insightful to read about the life of a man who is, in my opinion, one of the unsung heroes of Alcoholics Anonymous. To see Dr. Bob through the eyes of many of the people who knew him and learned from him has been incredible. Bill gets a lot of credit for things in the early days of AA, but even Bill says that if he gets to heaven, it will be because of Dr. Bob and his spirituality.

Q. Which film have you watched the most?

A. The original Blade Runner is one of my favorite films of all time.  It was made during a time before CGI and digital special effects, the way we know them now, when they had to physically create what you saw in the movie.  The acting, the character development, the set design, the direction, everything in this movie was just the pinnacle of creativity.

Q. What book would you most like to see turned into a movie or TV show that hasn’t already been adapted?

A. It may sound trite, but I think The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho could be an incredible film if they could convey the book’s true message on screen. I read this book in my 20s and still think about it and how it shifted the way I look at life and how we choose to live it. I think I need to go back and read this one again…

Q. What is your favorite App?

A. Not to sound grandiose or self-important, but my favorite app is the one I’ve been building — RecoveryBridge.app. It’s designed to help people in recovery feel less alone and more connected to the support they need. It’s become my favorite because it’s the most meaningful thing I’ve ever worked on. Every feature I build, I’m thinking about a real person having a hard day — and hoping this makes it a little easier.

Q. What do you value most in a friendship?

A. I value candor and reciprocation in my friendships. People don’t need to show up in the same way that I do, but I need to know that they are doing what they can to be present and contribute to our relationship. I’m the friend who will call or text my friends out of the blue and tell them that I love them and that I’m thinking about them. I don’t need that back. I’ve tempered my expectations of people, but I do need to know that they’re present in whatever way works for them. I can accept a lot of things, but I can’t accept indifference.

Q. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

A. I don’t know if it was my “greatest accomplishment,” but I do consider being a father the single biggest role I’ve had in my life.  I certainly wasn’t perfect, by a long shot, but I loved my time being their dad and watching them grow up. We’ve had some challenging years, and I’m working in whatever way I can to build something new and different with my adult kids now. I miss them every day and do my best to approach the relationships I have with them without expectations

Q. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

A. This may not exactly answer the question, but if I could wake up tomorrow and have the TARDIS from Dr. Who, that would be amazing. To be able to go back and see some of the moments in history that have defined our civilization would be incredible. I’d also like to go forward in time to see what happens to us as things progress. The options of anywhere in space and time would be pretty cool.

Q. What is your biggest regret?

A. Back to being a father, I think my biggest regret was not knowing how quickly the time would pass and not nurturing every single second of those moments. In the midst of it all, I know I did my best to be their father and such, but I would go back and do even more, given the opportunity and what I know now.

Q. Which living person do you most despise?

A. Donald J. Trump — hands down, no questions asked…  He is the most vile, disgusting, narcissistic, dishonest, crude, arrogant, and self-absorbed human being I’ve ever had the displeasure of witnessing on this earth. He is willing to destroy our country and untold lives to enrich himself and placate his ego.

Q. What is something you are currently curious about?

A. I know lots of people talk about it right now, but I’m really curious how AI is going to affect us and our relationship with technology in our everyday lives. 

A few weeks ago, I started a conversation with ChatGPT about not wanting to snack late at night anymore.  Over the last two weeks, that conversation has morphed into being a place for my exercise, nutrition, and sleep issues to be addressed in a new and different way, which has been very interesting. 

Even if money were no object, I couldn’t hire someone to help me in those areas that would have more information and time than an AI would. It’s thrilling and a bit scary to think about how this will change so many things on a day-to-day basis for so many of us.  Whether you subscribe to it or not, it will change more things than we can currently imagine…

Q. When did you realize you were a grown-up?

A. Most days, I still don’t feel like a grown-up, at least in the way that I viewed adults when I was younger.  I used to think that adults had it all figured out, and now, as I’ve gotten older, I realize again and again that we’re all just figuring it out as we go along.  Being 55 now and being forced through situations beyond my control to look at my life and figure out things that I thought were done, it’s been interesting to see how I react and what’s important to me.  I would say that the thing I aspire to more than anything now is Freedom, freedom to do what inspires me and the freedom to help others.

Q. How important are your pets to you?

A. I had two dogs in my adult life for a timespan of 25 years or so between the two of them, and they were incredibly important to me. They told me about loving without expectation and how we can see life through the eyes of something other than ourselves.   Whenever I’m out in the world, dogs and cats seem to gravitate towards me in whatever situation I’m in. If I could take them all home with me, I’d be a happy man. I decided after my last dog passed that I wouldn’t have any more pets for a while. I need to sort out my own stuff and see where things take me before I can commit to another responsibility like that.