Ep. 34 - Karl Muehter
Jan 17, 2021
All stories of substance abuse are the same...except they’re different. That’s true for Karl Muehter, our guest on the Behavioral Corner this time. Karl’s ten years sober through hard work and the help of his faithful companion, Bosco, his dog.
It’s a story Disney might have made up, but it’s all true. Join us on the Corner.
A dog and the man he rescued rebuild their lives in South Jersey
— The sun was setting on the day after Christmas, and the tawny-colored dog that rescued Karl Muehter seized the moment. Bosco leaped atop a big, wide tree stump and stood still above the other dogs, much to the delight of all the people in the Gloucester Township dog park, particularly Muehter.
“You’re the king, Bosco,” Muehter, 57, said. “You’re the mayor of this place.”
Minutes later, Muehter put a North Face vest on Bosco, then a blanket normally used to warm horses. Bosco stepped into the back of a small trailer connected to a recumbent bike Muehter pedals to tow his beloved dog around. Unlike most dogs and owners, Muehter and Bosco had a 5-mile bicycle trip back home in near-freezing temps.
Muehter and Bosco make this 10-mile round-trip together, every day, because they have a relationship unlike most others. Even a hit-and-run driver that plowed into them last year couldn’t stop the two. Muehter credits Bosco with helping him lose 60 pounds, for being a reinforcement in the lifelong battle to be sober.
“We both came along for each other at the right time,” Muehter said.
Muehter, a Clementon, Camden County resident, didn’t adopt Bosco at the worst time in his life, but it was a lonely period. He had been separated from his second wife, and a dog he owned for many years, another rescue, had been put to sleep. Unable to drive after multiple license suspensions, Muehter had always used bicycles to get to a train station so he could get to Camden, where he works as a behavioral health counselor. In 2016, he started volunteering at the Animal Adoption Center in Lindenwold, near the station.
“I was just so sad,” he said.
Bosco, whose real name is Bosque, is a terrier mix who came to New Jersey via Georgia. He was malnourished and, according to Muehter, had “ringworm, roundworm, and heartworms.” Medication for heartworms is hard on dogs, and Bosco needed a quiet place to recover. Muehter, who lived alone, said “yes.”
It wasn’t a fairy-tale introduction. Bosco defecated on the kitchen floor, then started gnawing on the door frames and eating furniture. Bosco settled down and soon Muehter ignored the adoption center’s calls to return him.
“I told them I wanted to keep him and went down there and adopted him,” he said.
Vanessa Leidy, the kennel manager, said she and other workers there saw Muehter perk up around Bosco, immediately. They had a good feeling the dog wouldn’t be back.
“He was definitely a lot happier, a lot more talkative and outgoing,” Leidy said. “He seemed to see the world through different eyes.”
Muehter grew up in Ocean County and said he started self-medicating depression with alcohol when he was 12. As he grew older, Muehter continued to use alcohol and narcotics as a salve, but it made life worse. He spent time in jail and mental health facilities and lost his driver’s license for nearly four decades. He’ll be able to drive again when he’s 62, and he’s saving for a car.
After quitting drugs, Muehter earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Atlantic County in 1994. He said he couldn’t get into law school, so he decided to go into peer and mental health counseling. Muehter gave up alcohol for good in 2011.
“Alcohol is what got me in the most trouble,” he said.
Last year, Muehter took Bosco on a flight to Oregon to visit the oldest of his two sons. They’ve also taken trains to the Poconos. He said a bus to the Timber Creek Dog Park would take two hours, but the bicycle cuts that time in half.
“I really need him with me. I’m not right when I’m not with him,” Muehter said. “He saved me from the depression. I was grasping when I volunteered at the shelter.”
On Super Bowl weekend, in February, a motorist hit Muehter and Bosco in Gloucester Township during their commute to the dog park. Muehter said there was no warning, no screeching brakes. When Muehter pulled himself up from the asphalt, the bike and the trailer were mangled. The driver fled. Bosco was gone.
“I was running around crying and yelling ‘Bosco,’” Muehter recalled. “It was awful.”
A motorist who witnessed the accident found Bosco, unscathed. Muehter believes the force of the accident launched him out of the trailer and terrified him.
“He didn’t have a scratch on him,” Muehter said. “It must have been a miracle because that thing was crushed.”
Muehter said he bruised his back, but said he refused medical treatment because he didn’t have automobile insurance. No arrests have been made.
Neighbors in Clementon and residents along Muehter’s route in Gloucester Township had grown accustomed to the unusual site of Bosco in the trailer and the smile it brought them. When news spread through Facebook groups that the two had been hit by a car, locals raised money to get them back on the road.
“It was so sad. This guy obviously loves his dog,” Gloucester Township resident Samantha Flynn said. “We always seem to use social media for drama and negative things, so I figured why not do something useful. I posted a status and we raised like $1,200 in 48 hours.”
Muehter said he was shocked by all the attention he received after the accident. He’s since upgraded his bicycle, rebuilt a cart for Bosco with blinking lights on it. It’s hard to miss, day or night. Muehter said Bosco was nervous to get back in his cart, after the crash, but his jitters have gone away.
“I’m here in rain, sleet, snow, you name it,” Muehter said as he unlocked his bicycle outside Timber Creek Dog Park. “It’s the least I can do for him.”
Ep. 34 - Karl Muehter Podcast Transcript
The Behavioral Corner
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano. And this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us, as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and wellbeing. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner, please hang around a while.
Steve Martorano
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Behavioral Corner. My name is Steve Martorano and this what we do here, we hang on a corner, we sit on the stoop, we run into really interesting people who have great stories to tell. Very often on the Behavioral Corner, we like to reach out to people who have had difficulties with substances, alcohol, drugs, whatever, paid the price for that, and made their way out of the other end of that process. We like to remind people of this because, in spite of the fact that substance abuse and alcoholism are a major and huge problem in this country, millions of people get sober, millions literally get over and live productive lives. It's very important to remind people that's possible. So that's why we reach out to folks. We call it a kind of Voices in recovery. But it's just people who are managing their lives really well. And that's who we have with us today. Karl Muehter. I came across Karl's story in the newspaper. It's a fascinating one. It's kind of like a Disney movie. But I'll explain that a little later. Karl joins us to tell us about his struggles with substance abuse, and how he's living a productive and full life right now. Karl, thanks for joining us on the Corner.
Karl Muehter
Well, thanks for having me.
Steve Martorano
Tell us a bit about sugar. 57 years old. You were raised were in South Jersey?
Karl Muehter
Ocean County, which I mean, some people consider central but I would consider a part of South Jersey.
Steve Martorano
Yeah. Tell us about your brothers and sisters. What's your family life like?
Karl Muehter
I was one out of four children. The youngest, two boys and two girls, my brother being the oldest and my sisters being middle. Grew up in a town called Brick Town. Next to Point Pleasant borough, which is next to Point Pleasant Beach.
Steve Martorano
Yeah.
Karl Muehter
Growing up in Brick Town. We were on split sessions in school because they didn't have a lot of money for the school budget and they want to build schools right away. We had a lot of retirement committees that would go by the busload and vote down schools. So I guess early on getting really introduced to alcohol, I think it was 10 the first time I drank some wine on my refrigerator and never said anything to anybody but I didn't like its effects. So I really didn't drink till I guess 13 when my sister had some neighborhood kids in and we took these bottles that my parents had in the closet and put them on ice. They're little airplane bottles, a whole collection of them. So that was like the first time and different ways we would drink in the morning because it was before school and we're on split sessions. We wouldn't go in till 12 o'clock. So we'd have all these kids in my parent's house. And we would drink. And that's how it really to drinking started. I mean, I had other problems with you know, not getting along in school. I used to cut school probably before I drank and I had some problems with depression. So drinking sort of like, you know, grabbed hold of me. I liked it.
Steve Martorano
Yeah. Let me ask you a question about so you got yourself a typical middle-class family. You got brothers and sisters. And you sound like a lot of young kids who start experimenting with this and that at an early age, and then it accelerates it seems like it accelerated very quickly for you. But you said you were treated early on for depression. Well, you're not happy?
Karl Muehter
I wasn't treated for depression, but I had problems in school, like, remedial in the beginning because I didn't pay attention and stuff like that. Now, I was never big on school. Like I said, a cut school early on like third grade or cut school.
Steve Martorano
Really? What about your siblings? Were they similarly rebellious and trouble?
Karl Muehter
Um, yeah, but not any more than usual back then. You know, I was just like, worse than everybody else.
Steve Martorano
So I'm no longer shocked people tell me they had their first drink at 10 or 11. I've heard it even younger than that. But it accelerates for you. I know that. Tell us what that progression was like from early drinking to where you wound up in substance abuse.
Karl Muehter
Well, I had like minor brushes with the law with my drinking - being young, being out on the street, you know with my friends. They busted, I think, 16 times for underage drinking by my 16th birthday.
Steve Martorano
16 times?
Karl Muehter
Yeah. So, you know, I had to go to rehab and stuff. They forced me to go to rehab when I was a kid because again, I was a juvenile, you know. And I think, though, the first time as an adult, just before that I was on probation for basically a fight that I got had gotten into subs on probation. And they ordered me to go to this rehab. So go to rehab, and I had just turned 18. And then from the fight, I had lost money. So when I turned 18, I had this lawsuit money, and I bought a car with it. And then I started getting into trouble with the car before I even got my license. I lost my license for two and a half years before I even got it.
Steve Martorano
Congratulations. That's a new one. So your early experience with classic treatment for alcoholism. Was that court-ordered? You weren't voluntarily looking for help, right
Karl Muehter
No.
Steve Martorano
Yeah. So take us through the progression. I know it didn't stop with alcohol, unfortunately. Right?
Karl Muehter
Well, you know, I did other drugs and stuff back then but was mainly alcohol, marijuana, sometimes some mescaline, blotter, LSD, and a lot of that going around. But for the most part, it was drinking and getting in trouble driving and drinking.
Steve Martorano
Right. So you had a problem primarily with alcohol?
Karl Muehter
Yeah.
Steve Martorano
How long did you have that problem before you went? This was a problem.
Karl Muehter
So I guess, like 1989, when I was splitting with my first wife, and she ended up her parents bought her a house out of state, and I couldn't really fight that, you know, buying a house for my two kids. You know, they moved up there. And I kind of like lost, you know, not really lost my rights to my kids. But there were 300 miles away. No, it was kind of hard to visit, to say the least. So, you know, I was basically bouncing from girlfriend to girlfriend when I was young back then. And I got into a lot of trouble. I got my third DWI, got some 1990, something like that. I think 12 times on a revolt list. That got me for.
Steve Martorano
I'm sorry, on what kind of list?
Karl Muehter
Driving on a revoke list like...
Steve Martorano
Oh, a revoke list.
Karl Muehter
12 times - I think it was - something like that.
Steve Martorano
Can I stop you for a second and ask your question? I don't think I've ever asked anybody before. someone like yourself who's a heavy drinker? Even if at that point, you didn't think you were an alcoholic? Right? You knew you were a heavy drinker. Why did you keep getting in an automobile? Did you think every time you got an automobile, and you were inebriated, that you could handle it? Or do you just not care?
Karl Muehter
Well, it was more like because I drank so often. I'm trying to have a job so to do because I worked on boats, I did all kinds of stuff. I worked in lumberyards. So I guess you can say that in order for me to drive I would have alcohol in my system before I drove I wouldn't necessarily be drunk by my standards, but I wouldn't be by state standards.
Steve Martorano
Ah, yeah. So when the drink? That's a great answer. When the drinking problem becomes as chronic as it was, the person drinking doesn't really think of themselves as I'm getting. I'm going to get drunk. There's sort of an abbreviated more or less the whole time is that so you get a car you drive and you always get You're lucky. Did we have any accidents?
Karl Muehter
No, I mean, at least three times that I got stopped. Wasn't even stopped that was actually stopped in the car sleeping. So they got me three times when I was sleeping for my DWI, three times or so you know. But I got other times I got one time The last time I got in trouble. I was pulled over and I was getting water for a car because it was overheating. And I went to the liquor store and came back and that was the last time. for drinking.
Steve Martorano
You went to the liquor store for the water to...
Karl Muehter
The car wasn't drivable. So it's a liquor store and I got something to drink and it came back to the car. And then they arrested me. I got in the car and the cops came I closed and closed the locks on the car. And they opened up my bottle I started drinking it and they started yelling at me and said open a door. So, I opened the door up. I get out. So when I went to court for that, they said it was the intent. I wasn't even, you know, like, I wasn't even driving. There were no keys in the ignition or anything like that. Yeah. It was intense. So they took my life that was the last time they took it was 16 years.
Steve Martorano
16 years? So you're pretty much you're 57 years old, you pretty much a pedestrian these days. You're not driving a car a lot. Is that right?
Karl Muehter
No, I lost my license for 37 and a half years total. But I did have a period of sobriety from my first period of sobriety was from 1990 through 94. When I quit drinking, I actually went from a high school dropout, essentially to a college graduate. And things didn't work out when we started. So I hadn't been sober before.
Steve Martorano
Yeah. During that period when you got yourself together, what? How did you do that?
Karl Muehter
Well, I had a job. And I was working in an ice skating rink. And the boss said to me said, If you come into work one more time drunk, you're fired, you have to quit drinking. So this is the last time I'm going to tell you. And I was working, I guess about a year. And so true to my word. I said I promise I won't drink. And then I started going to AA and that's when it progressed. I actually had one semester in college before that, but you know, that was in between my bouts of drinking. I did it right. But you know, when I got my GED in April when I was 18 before my class graduated out of high school education, you know, basically just slip of paper for you know, from the state.
Steve Martorano
Yeah, yeah. But so, AA is not strictly speaking a treatment for alcoholism. It's a support group. You had no formal treatment in either outpatient or residential for alcoholism. Is that right?
Karl Muehter
No, no.
Steve Martorano
You just stop drinking. Oh, you have been in treatment?
Karl Muehter
Yeah, about I've been to about three.
Steve Martorano
Okay, well, tell me about that experience. Why did the ones that didn't take what happened?
Karl Muehter
Well, I really never had my horn into when I went to him is usually to get out of going to jail or something to that effect.
Steve Martorano
So they were yet you were always there because you gotta stay out of jail. Right?
Karl Muehter
Right. Exactly. For the driving stuff.
Steve Martorano
Yeah, so what about AA that appealed to you that kept you sober for was it like being together with people or what you were hearing? How did AA help you?
Karl Muehter
Well, the first time around, I guess I was going for about six months. And I met this woman and I started dating. I was dating her for seven years. But the first four I was sober last three I wasn't. We weren't living together or anything like that. But I graduated from college and applied to 13 law schools and started getting shot down one by one. And before that, I was in DC and seeing all these kids going through an internship in DC, and I've seen all these kids going out drinking and having a good time. And I'm like, Well, you know, I want to go party. I don't even care anymore. So I went out and partied. But I finished up down here and that graduated from Stockton, but I came home, and I started hitting the booze really hard after quitting for you know, four years, I started hitting the booze really hard. And then I started hitting hard drugs like cocaine, and I did some heroin. I hung out with the wrong kind of people.
Steve Martorano
Mm-hmm. Have you ever been diagnosed as having any underlying mental health issues?
Karl Muehter
I started getting treated in 94. But I was still drinking. So it wasn't really working. I guess you could say
Steve Martorano
What were you being treated for depression?
Karl Muehter
Yeah. for depression.
Steve Martorano
And anxiety. Were you on medication at that point, as well?
Karl Muehter
Yeah. My first bout was the system as far as my mental health I was going to the community mental health system up in Mom's County when I was living up there for a year. I had an apartment up there. The police I think it was Long Branch police pick me up I passed out on somebody's front lawn and they ended up they put me in this room with a straight jacket on that was like my first introduction to the system. It wasn't good.
Steve Martorano
I guess not. Are you still on medication for depression and anxiety?
Karl Muehter
My brushes with being institutionalized were because of being suicidal. Like I swallowed my pills if found me in an alley that type of thing.
Steve Martorano
Right.
Karl Muehter
So, you know, I, you know, I did. I was on a bunch of different medications. But again, like I said most of them I was drinking with or was drinking shortly thereafter when I started taking them again, I'm in my head six months here and there where I didn't drink and I just took the psychotropic. But psychotropic didn't really work for me. Or they worked for a while and then it stopped work and you know.
Steve Martorano
And that was still too easy to go get self medicate, right? Yeah, we're hanging on the corner with Karl Muehter from South Jersey. Terrific story, I mean that you heard the grim details of when we come back and take a break. Here we come back, Karl brings us up to speed on where he is now leading a sober life. And he's kind of running buddy today, who it's a different kind of situation now. Behavioral Corner. Don't go away.
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Steve Martorano
So Karl, I always say this, during interviews like this, all stories of substance abuse are the same, except they're different. You know, we're going to get to the different part with you just now. You know, that's a pretty grim story. We've heard worse To tell you the truth. But it's pretty standard, a lot of trouble. Almost 10 years now, you're back on your feet. BA You said you got even in the midst of all the trouble you're managing to get an education. You work now in substance abuse counseling, correct?
Karl Muehter
Not really substance abuse counseling, I work in mental health, I work with homeless people.
Steve Martorano
How did that come about?
Karl Muehter
Wow. I didn't get treated, I either got treated for one or the other for mental health or substance abuse, I didn't really kind of do them together ever. But um, a lot of my recovery has to doesn't even have to do with substances. It has to do with getting your frame of mind right in the beginning. You can maintain drinking, but you can also lead to drinking and get the better of you and you don't do anything. You just lose all lack of motivation, do anything, or change your lot in life, so to speak.
Steve Martorano
Substance abuse is the outward manifestation of what's really going on. You can stop abusing apple and still have all kinds of problems because your heads not screwed on right.
Karl Muehter
Now your problems and still drink. I did that for a while.
Steve Martorano
Yeah, strange, isn't it?
Karl Muehter
Maybe 2002 on, I gave up all the drugs and I figured the drugs were my biggest problem. I can still drink if I managed it. That's what I did a drink every day after work. Or every time I got done doing advocacy work when I was on disability. I didn't let the alcohol take over that part of what I did in my life because I drank at night. But then again, you wake up in the morning and you have the hangover feeling your faces all flush. health-wise, it's not good.
Steve Martorano
When was the last time you had a drink?
Karl Muehter
2011.
Steve Martorano
2011.
Karl Muehter
Yeah
Steve Martorano
Well, you know what, in turn in anybody's terms, that's a successful run. Going over a decade. Congratulations. That's great. You know the other thing I've learned from talking to lots of people who have stories like yours is you can't judge the manner in which they got sober, however, they got sober is a valuable thing. It's to be praised and talked about. One of the things that are helped so many people in this, you know, a community of former abusers or family sometimes were your children. You have something that's helped you stay sober for the past couple of years. That's almost like a Disney movie. Tell us a story about a guy and his dog. Tell us a story about Basco and how you found him and what you've been through.
Karl Muehter
My second wife got into a domestic over money with her and I was drinking, I have my son here, and it was a disagreement over money and I was talking to my son about his securities and she bought it in said cash and securities to fix my teeth. And I just turned around and I looked at him sitting at the table with my son and I said before fix your teeth with his money. I'll kick him down your throat. So she...
Steve Martorano
Yeah, you should have learned by that point. You can't be saying things like that. Right?
Karl Muehter
So, I think I called her the "C" word the night before.
Steve Martorano
Yeah, it's not good. That's not a good idea either, Karl.
Karl Muehter
But anyhow, she pulled me out of my house. So, okay, so it's like, well, this is war. So I got an attorney and they got me through to domestic. I said I'll move it back in the house when she's totally out. Because, you know, she's not paying the bills she needs so she needs to leave. So how much time does she need? They said, she said two months. So after two months, she's left and I took over the house had been here ever since.
Steve Martorano
This is a great dog story here. Where did the dog come into all that?
Karl Muehter
After she was out of the house? I was sad because I had to put my other dog down because he was sick when I went to adopt a dog.
Steve Martorano
At the animal shelter.
Karl Muehter
Yeah, they asked me if I would foster a dog. And they said we just got them from Georgia. And they said he needed to -- he needed somewhere quiet to stay. So he wouldn't get excited because...
Steve Martorano
They thought -- wait a minute -- they at the shelter, they thought your home would be the kind of quiet place the dog would need, right? How long ago?
Karl Muehter
That was back in 2016.
Steve Martorano
So you've had Basco for that long, and you still don't have a driver's license. Is that right? You just don't drive anymore? What's the deal?
Karl Muehter
Well, I tried to do some post-conviction release with an attorney to try to see if I get back earlier. But they never went anywhere with that. Because you know, you would even get the judges to reopen the cases. So I basically just have to wait it out.
Steve Martorano
And you wait it out and get around on a bicycle, right?
Karl Muehter
Yep.
Steve Martorano
This is how you came to the attention of the local newspaper. And we're out here the Philadelphia Inquirer. Because you and Bosco could be seen tooling around your town. You have a little carrier in the back of the bike that you take the dog around with you attracted the attention of the media. us as well. An amazing story. And then ironically, you get hit by a hit and run driver, you and the dog. We how seriously were you injured?
Karl Muehter
I have, um, I had spinal fusion back when I was like 20 years old for scoliosis. So any type of injury on my back, my whole back is basically thrown out of whack. I got bulging discs and stuff. So when I got hit -- the night I got hit. I just know from previous experience that if you don't carry auto insurance, they won't cover anything.
Steve Martorano
He actually wasn't your fault. I mean, you're on a bicycle. The guy hit you in right and leaves the scene of the accident, right?
Karl Muehter
Yeah, so you know, they call the paramedics when I was there, but I refuse treatment because I said I don't want to get stuck with the bill.
Steve Martorano
The dog was unfazed, right?
Karl Muehter
No. The cart that I had handled, broke apart and he must admit it went flying through the air because when I got up after I got run over I got up. The bicycle was like 10 feet behind me and 10 feet behind the bicycle was the car like it broke apart and it was no longer. Bosco! Bosco! I started yelling I was, I was crying basically.
Steve Martorano
Yeah, yeah. Let me ask you something. You've been sober for 10 years. You've had Bosco for would you say six? About six years now for people who knew your story? responded? They raised some money. So you at least the bike and the and the carrier back together? how helpful is a dog your dog in managing your sobriety? Does it help you?
Karl Muehter
I would say so. But you know, if I didn't have him, I would be volunteering. I'd be doing something you know, with my time, you know?
Steve Martorano
Where's the bicycle right now? Is the outside? Is he?
Karl Muehter
He's in a window. He is the sun right now.
Steve Martorano
He's looking at you. So you continue your work with the homeless keeping plugged into somebody and helping Where do you see yourself in the next couple of years?
Karl Muehter
Next couple of years. I'm just planning on maintaining want to have - my house and eventually get my license back. I don't know if I will be able for a car is that right now I couldn't really afford. So it depends. You know.
Steve Martorano
If you do get your license back. You'll never drive inebriated again. Right?
Karl Muehter
No, not at all.
Steve Martorano
Well, thanks so much for your time, your stories encouraging again. As I said, the details of these things are always grim. But we'd like to find people who manage the one way or another punch their way through to the other side. Man's got an education. He's helping the homeless and he's got a dog that they're devoted to each other. It's a great story. Karl Muehter, thanks for joining us on the Corner. We appreciate it.
Karl Muehter
Thank you. Take care.
The Behavioral Corner
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