Latest / Finding New Waters / Transforming Lives: A Journey of Recovery and Family Intervention with Sam Davis and Darryl Rodgers

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Transforming Lives: A Journey of Recovery and Family Intervention with Sam Davis and Darryl Rodgers · Finding New Waters

0:00
What is desperation? What is surrender, right?
0:02
We talk about surrender. We talk about desperation.
0:06
I know for me and for countless others that I know in a process,
0:10
when you're giving up, you have to surrender old ideas.
0:13
You have to surrender old beliefs.
0:15
You have to surrender old habits.
0:18
That is no different than surrendering when you're an army
0:22
in a war. In combat, surrender is
0:26
surrender. I have never yet seen through
0:29
history, and I love history, where an army or country
0:33
surrendered until they were desperate.
0:37
That's a great point. Exactly.
0:39
So desperation is required in order to surrender to at the
0:46
time such a foreign concept is recovery.
0:50
You know how foreign that is to to us that that our brain is
0:54
telling us that if we don't have that substance in the next two
0:57
minutes, we're going to die? All right.
1:23
Well, welcome to another version of finding new waters.
1:29
I am sitting here today with Sam Winston Davis, who is an
1:32
interventionist, and Darryl Rogers, who is a family recovery
1:37
coach, and I'm glad to have both of them here.
1:41
I recently, I met Sam kind of over the phone.
1:45
Few months ago we were working on a case together and we hadn't
1:47
met in person. And then I had the opportunity
1:50
to have lunch with him recently. And while we were talking, I
1:52
thought he would be a great guest for our podcast.
1:55
And in our conversation before we met in person, he had told me
1:58
about Darrell. And so I had Darrell come in one
2:01
night and do a tour and have and come to our family group, which
2:06
we do on Wednesday nights. And then he came back because he
2:08
had never met Sam in person today to have lunch and do a
2:12
tour. And then we roped.
2:14
Darrell and to be on this podcast with Sam.
2:16
So anyway, I'm going to shut up for a second and I'll start with
2:19
Sam. Just tell us a little bit about
2:21
what you do. Well, I'm an interventionist,
2:25
and what that means is a lot of people think it means that we
2:28
come in with sabers rattling loaded for bear, ready to just
2:33
wrangle up their loved one, say some profound words and haul
2:36
them off, Or either yell at them, scream at them, point
2:38
fingers, tell them they're an alcoholic and they suck and they
2:41
need to go to treatment. That's what happened to me, but.
2:46
That. But that's not what an
2:48
interventionist does. That's not what an intervention
2:50
is. I'm there to guide families and
2:53
and provide strategy and options and a path for them to follow
2:58
and to bounce things off of and to to to really just lean on and
3:04
and and talk them out of the trees and and just keep them on
3:07
the path as best I can and help them guide them through this
3:11
rocky road of of addiction. You know, it's when we're all
3:15
emotionally wrapped up into something we can't see things
3:18
very clearly. So you need someone that can
3:20
that's not emotionally attached to sit there and kind of talk
3:23
you through it. And that's what we do.
3:25
We do in person and there's nothing I'd rather be doing when
3:28
I'm sitting in a family's living room needing a, you know?
3:32
I hear you and I love that feeling of feeling like I'm not
3:36
working and I catch myself sometimes and I because I feel
3:39
like I'm not working, I'm overcome with a little bit of
3:41
anxiety. Because it's a familiar feeling
3:43
from, you know, about 5 1/2 years ago I had that very same
3:47
feeling, but it was because I wasn't working and I was
3:49
supposed to be. But this doesn't feel like work
3:51
because I love doing it. What about you?
3:53
What do you do, Darrell? So like you said, I'm a family
3:56
recovery coach and my primary role is helping families
4:01
understand what their proper role is in the recovery process.
4:07
I think that. A lot of times parents, there's
4:13
some enabling behaviors, rescuing behaviors, things like
4:17
that, that they that they fall into.
4:19
And that's a normal thing. I mean, it's normal when your
4:22
child is in trouble that you want to help, but there are
4:26
right ways to help and and ways to help that aren't so good.
4:30
They aren't healthy for for the person who is dealing with the
4:35
addiction or for the family. And so I helped them work on
4:39
that and provide some accountability.
4:44
Thank you. Would you mind sharing with us
4:46
how you found yourself in this, in this world, so to speak?
4:50
Yeah, so I made my own mistakes in that, in that arena.
4:53
And so parents can and I don't mind sharing those and parents
4:57
can learn from that. And my oldest of two boys,
5:02
Chase, died in 2014 in a drug impaired wreck.
5:07
After struggling with addiction for about a year and a half and
5:11
I began doing prevention. I wrote a book and that came out
5:14
2015, began doing drug prevention, speaking after that
5:18
and just was looking for other ways to help families.
5:20
And it was actually interventionist that directed me
5:24
towards pal, which is parents of addicted loved ones.
5:27
It's a peer support group for parents that have a child that
5:31
is addicted to drugs or alcohol and so.
5:35
Through the Through my volunteering with Pal, I learned
5:37
a lot about what families need in terms of education around
5:44
dealing with their addicted son or daughter.
5:47
How'd you get into this line of work, man?
5:49
I did a lot of cocaine, took a lot of methadone, smoked a lot
5:53
of weed and a lot of pills. You know, that's how that
5:57
happened. I had been to several treatment
6:01
programs. My family didn't really know
6:03
what to do with me and I knew that I was created to be
6:06
something different than a bottomed out crackhead.
6:10
I had no idea how to figure that out or how to make that happen.
6:15
My family stepped in and got the education they needed, began to
6:19
take action, fired me from the decision making as best they
6:22
could with an interventionist, which was very effective, and I
6:25
ended up in longterm, truly individualized care.
6:30
And when I left there, I knew that the message that I had
6:34
received and the transformation that I had made, I knew then
6:37
that there was a lot of families that needed some support, that
6:41
needed a true message, that needed hope and needed a path.
6:46
And it was just something in me. It wasn't of me, but it was in
6:51
me because I'm, you know, as an addicted individual.
6:54
I was very selfish, selfcentered person, and I can still be very
6:57
selfish and selfcentered. So that's why I know that it was
6:59
something within me, not of me, that that is just laid this in
7:04
my lap who was like is what was supposed to happen.
7:08
And I went and got trained and that was 12 years ago and hung
7:12
out my little shingle and been doing it ever since.
7:15
That's awesome. I remember when we talked, I was
7:17
asking you what you know. I don't know too much about him.
7:20
I'm not an interventionist. I work with interventionists
7:22
like yourself. But I know I'm speaking.
7:26
I'm confident. I'm speaking for lots of people
7:28
who will hopefully hear and see this.
7:30
They sort of see the what they see on TV and it's only that
7:34
surprise and I asked you kind of what you do and you seem to have
7:39
your own kind of methodology that combines.
7:41
Can you talk a little bit about that, about, yeah, I mean,
7:44
there's the Invitational model of intervention and then there's
7:48
the more classic surprise model of intervention.
7:51
I like to combine the two. Now.
7:53
Most of the time on my interventions they're on a need
7:56
to know basis and right then and there the individual doesn't
8:00
need to know. That's for their own good.
8:01
That's not like we're trying to be deceiving or lying or
8:07
anything. Like it's just a flat out.
8:08
They're on a need to know basis and right now they don't need to
8:11
know. That's a large majority of them.
8:13
But if I can find an opportunity to weave in an invitation
8:18
without outright saying, hey, we'd like you to come over next
8:22
Wednesday evening and discuss your heroin problem, you know,
8:26
or discuss your drinking problem with the rest of us and our
8:30
family issue. We don't really outright say
8:34
that, but if we can wiggle in an invitation, we'll do that.
8:38
I'm doing a session where the individual is was invited into
8:43
the process and I've done that several times.
8:46
We'll invite them into the process and will slow the role
8:50
of an intervention sometimes that's more so really for the
8:53
family. A family is it's it's it's very
8:55
fearful of what an intervention would entail which fears a big
8:58
liar fears fantasy is going to show you worst case scenario but
9:02
we have to meet the families where they are and where their
9:04
willingness and and and to set boundaries and hold boundaries
9:07
because you don't want them to set a boundary that they're not
9:09
going to hold right. So we'll we'll do sessions with
9:13
them an hour at a time that we've we're moving a lot of
9:15
people to treatment without having to do that formal sit
9:18
down intervention. Now nothing takes the place of
9:22
that. There's a magic.
9:23
When the family sits down, their family's scared to death.
9:26
They're always worried that their loved ones going to run
9:28
out and kill themselves or they're going to get angry and
9:30
run off, that they're going to get violent.
9:32
All of these things that their fear tells them right.
9:36
What it really is, is a very magical moment.
9:38
It's a very powerful experience that no one in that living room
9:41
or wherever you're having the Intervention will ever forget.
9:45
I never forget them. I may lose track after years of
9:49
or may slip my mind. But if that family calls me to
9:52
update me or just say Merry Christmas or whatever, which
9:54
happens a lot and they say their name and and you know so many
9:58
years ago today you stepped in, it'll come right back to me.
10:01
They're extremely powerful experiences.
10:03
That's a it's an it's a place where families come in with love
10:07
and support, but firm and direct and honest, honest communication
10:12
in a kind and loving way. And also direct.
10:15
It's it's it's so powerful. I just I can't explain it well
10:19
enough how powerful of an experience it is.
10:23
What? What?
10:24
At what point in your is a family recovery coach do you get
10:31
to a point where you realize, hey, you know you're not holding
10:34
boundaries as a as a family unit?
10:36
I think you may need to talk to somebody like Sam.
10:39
I mean if you had any experience like that you could talk about?
10:42
Yeah, I see. Well, I see parents get hung up
10:47
on the decision making process a lot, You know, where they're
10:51
just overcome with fear and they need some help making that
10:59
decision to either to give their child, you know, and an option
11:05
either go to treatment and we'll pay for it or you're going to
11:07
have to pack your bags and move out.
11:09
And I mean, I've seen situations where.
11:14
The child is living at home in their 30s and right on, you
11:19
know, and still using drugs and there's no there no changes
11:23
taking place and that's not good for the parents, not good for
11:27
the for the child. And so, you know, it's really
11:31
about helping them make that decision to take some action and
11:37
and make a change. Yeah, I mean, both of you have
11:40
mentioned fear and both of you. Think of us at Boundaries, and
11:45
that's something that we talk about all the time in recovery,
11:49
all the time. On this podcast I talk about all
11:50
the time in my personal life and recovery.
11:53
And you know, I just talk about the creating of is one thing.
11:58
It's kind of like when somebody asks for help, that's that's
12:01
great, but then it's really all about the receiving of the help
12:06
and then it's then the same thing with the boundaries.
12:09
And it's not for me to ever say what those boundaries are for a
12:11
family. And I'm, you know, again, I'm
12:12
not an interventionist, but I do have these conversations on a,
12:15
you know, very basic level of creating the boundaries.
12:18
But then the next, the real magic is in the sticking to the
12:21
boundaries. Can you talk a little bit about
12:23
kind of on how you advise families on what those
12:26
boundaries are and you know, what the degrees of boundaries
12:30
are? Well, I can tell you that when
12:33
we first start working with the family, we're not coming out of
12:36
the gate saying hey, you're going to tell them to you know
12:39
it's this or the highway because you look at boundary A boundary
12:45
like a muscle it has to be exercised and you just can't go
12:48
start dead lifting £1000, you got to start off a little
12:51
lightweight. So when it just when someone
12:55
there's a lot of misinformation, right, or misunderstanding
12:59
around an intervention because we've gotten a lot of calls
13:01
through the years where they'll call and say can you be here
13:03
this afternoon and intervene and it really doesn't work that way.
13:07
We want time to plan with the family and strategize and I like
13:10
to get them started on the intervention process starts as
13:14
soon as they engage us. We want them to start exercising
13:18
that boundary muscle on a little smaller scale, right.
13:21
Get the feel of it, feel the weight a little bit, you know,
13:25
feel figure out how it feels in your body right.
13:28
And express that boundary and and watch how all of that fear
13:32
that you had around setting that boundary didn't come true.
13:36
Starts building some confidence and then set another boundary
13:39
and another boundary. Plus we want the individual to
13:41
know when we walk in on them. The day of the intervention, did
13:45
the loved one that they they have sensed already that some
13:48
things have changed with the family.
13:50
So this is not just something that they're pulling today, you
13:53
know, just another thing like they're serious.
13:56
My family is very serious about this.
14:00
That's interesting because I've never heard it expressed like
14:02
that that kind of, you know, leading like building up to you
14:05
know, when working the muscle. Because that's such a great
14:07
point. If all of a sudden these people
14:10
who have just been enabling and enabling and they don't mean to.
14:13
You know, my parents certainly didn't mean to.
14:14
My parents are great and I should sort of retract my
14:16
statement. They didn't look at me and point
14:17
a finger and say you're an alcoholic, you suck.
14:19
They were worried sick and crying and sad and doing just
14:22
couldn't figure out what was wrong with me and I was, you
14:24
know, I was probably going to be intervened upon soon, but I I
14:28
went willingly but. But the the The Who have been
14:32
enabling and giving and bailing out, you know, and then all of a
14:36
sudden one day they're just supposed to do a complete 180
14:38
and say you're cut off, we're done.
14:41
You know is this or the highway like you said?
14:43
That's a great point. I've never heard it said like
14:45
that like with the, you know, one little thing, no, we're not
14:47
going to do this one thing that you're asking for.
14:49
So just to kind of plant the seed that things are changing,
14:53
that the wheels are in motion that we are we are changing as a
14:56
family union because that's something that people.
14:59
I talk to families every day about this.
15:02
A lot of them see it as as a sentence and a punishment for
15:06
them. They're like, what?
15:07
Why my kid or my husband or my wife, they're the one who has.
15:12
They have the problem. Why do I have to change my ways,
15:15
you know, and what I've learned in my personal recovery and and
15:19
in this in working in this field?
15:21
Is that it's a it's a kind of a gift for the families too, even.
15:24
They don't have to go through what I went through and what you
15:27
went through to be, you know, active Alcoholics and addicts to
15:30
get help and get better. You know, these families, in
15:34
going through this process with you and with you, they don't
15:36
only get to help their son or their daughter or whatever loved
15:39
one it is, but they get to start healing themselves, you know?
15:43
So then, one very simple yet very profound experience is to
15:49
begin with, no. Yeah, it's a complete sentence,
15:52
complete sentence. And we'll find ourselves wanting
15:55
to justify why we're saying no because internally it has
15:58
nothing to do with them. It's about us.
16:01
But just know. Right.
16:03
And just getting through that fear.
16:04
Feel that? Yeah.
16:05
Feel with that set that sit with it.
16:08
Notice through the experience that the skies aren't parting
16:12
and the earth isn't crumbling and your loved one is maybe a
16:16
little angry, but you're still surviving and so are they,
16:19
right? Yeah, you be have to.
16:22
You can have all the information, but you need to
16:24
have an experience. I can sit on the phone with
16:27
somebody for 12 hours a day talking about an intervention
16:31
and talking about this and talking about that, but it's you
16:34
have to, you have to experience it.
16:37
And it's really not something you want to just dive right into
16:40
the intervention day. You want to have the experiences
16:43
leading up to it. They build on each other.
16:46
And so when you're when you're prepping for an intervention and
16:48
they can go from. A month out to what's What's
16:54
That? Kind of the What's the time?
16:56
Average times about 5 days, but it's we're seeing some more
17:02
complicated cases. We're seeing some more complex
17:08
family systems, multiple substance use disorder, family
17:13
members, lots of trauma. COVID hadn't helped.
17:18
So I'm. I am.
17:21
I can only speak for me. I am.
17:23
I don't know about other interventionists.
17:25
It's starting to be a little bit of longer process of the of the
17:31
coaching and the prep work and the understanding and all of
17:35
that, you know. What I'll start with you what in
17:39
terms of just substance, what what do you see the most?
17:45
In terms of. Like my.
17:48
Darryl, my son is on. Yeah, that's interesting.
17:54
When first started it was opioids a lot and now a lot of
18:02
parents coming to me, it's marijuana is the main issue.
18:06
It is. I think it's the increase in the
18:08
potency of the marijuana that's out there now and and and
18:13
obviously different. Forms.
18:15
You know, if you're smoking dabs or some other wax extracts, you
18:20
can really high THC content, then yeah, a lot of issues with
18:25
that. Do you include D8 and D9 in
18:28
that? Yeah.
18:29
And you know, when I first started hearing about Delta 8,
18:32
parents in my group were telling me, you know, their children
18:37
were experienced. When I say children, you know,
18:40
teenagers, young adults obviously, but they're
18:42
experiencing. Some psychosis issues around
18:48
Delta 8 and when they when they first started talking about
18:51
Delta 8, they were ahead of me. I was like what what are you
18:54
talking about? I had to start doing my research
18:56
on Delta 8, you know, but but yeah, and I think a lot of
19:01
people who are, there are people that that I hear about who are
19:08
trying to recover, you know and and maybe they've been to
19:11
treatment and. And they're staying off of their
19:17
substance. That's their go to.
19:19
That's their primary substance. But then they kind of think,
19:23
well, Delta 8, you know, that's not so bad.
19:25
And besides, it's legal. And so they'll go start
19:28
experimenting with that a little bit and, you know, just
19:31
something to take the edge off. And I don't know.
19:34
I mean, it'd be better if they were just completely sober, you
19:39
know? But.
19:42
I mean, if you're a parent, would you know you'd rather they
19:45
would be smoking Delta 8 than than shooting up heroin or
19:49
something like that? Sure, you know for sure, but
19:50
that. But it's there's this myth that
19:54
you know marijuana, even though it's not legal in North
19:57
Carolina, it's legal in so many states.
19:59
It's been normalized for so long that.
20:02
The general consensus is is harmless.
20:04
Yeah. And it's absolutely.
20:05
Not harmless? Yeah that's correct.
20:07
And like you said the dab and the oil that you know that makes
20:09
it so much more potent with the real withdrawal effects of that
20:13
and D8 and D9 causing full on psychosis.
20:17
And so it's funny though because that that argument, but you
20:20
know, it's it's basically it's legal or you know because the
20:23
the D8 and D9 can be bought into you know a gas station but
20:28
soaking beer and wine and booze, Nobody really says that's
20:32
harmless. You know what about you?
20:33
What do you, what do you see the most of in your interventions in
20:36
terms of substance? Man, what is flooding the news
20:39
channels and social media and everything is fentanyl, right?
20:43
We hear that everywhere and it's killing people.
20:45
Is very dangerous drug and there's a lot of and it's a bad
20:47
thing, horrible. But in my experience, what I'm
20:51
seeing the most of, I certainly get the fentanyl cases and the
20:55
Xanax and the cocaine. And I get all of those, But by
21:00
far it's marijuana and alcohol. Yeah, here it's, I mean I was
21:07
sure that we were going to see, you know, probably like 60-40,
21:10
if not, you know, 6040 alcohol, 40% drugs, mainly opiates,
21:15
specifically fentanyl. And we get, like you're saying
21:18
we get all that, but it's mostly mostly, you know, 80 to 90% of
21:23
people here are here for alcohol.
21:26
We have plenty of benzos and we get people here just from D8 and
21:31
weed and all that, but it's mostly alcohol.
21:33
I mean, it's still keying alcohol.
21:36
I wanted to change gears for one second because y'all met.
21:41
We all need to talk about how y'all met each other in this
21:44
modern way. I'm sitting there scrolling
21:47
TikTok. This handsome fellow pops up,
21:51
starts talking about a message that resonated with me, spoke my
21:55
language, and a lot of people don't understand how how big
22:00
sober TikTok is and recovery TikTok and everybody thinks it's
22:05
about, you know, kids dancing and doing silly challenges and
22:09
things like that. I started putting out some
22:11
content about a year and a half ago, and I like being creative.
22:16
I feel like I. I had stifled that for so many
22:19
years and the longer I'm sober the more I'm authentic me and I
22:26
don't make apologies for that and and it goes along with that
22:29
internal drive of there was a there was a message to be given
22:33
so I started putting out some short form content on TikTok
22:37
and. Grew pretty well and and then
22:39
I've just met him on TikTok, we got the message and back and
22:42
forth and all. So yeah, that's.
22:44
Then here we are. Yeah.
22:45
Well, and as you were telling me, just made me think, I mean,
22:48
you know, we're all, you know, we all work in this, you know,
22:53
called an industry. I feel dirty sometimes calling
22:55
that, but it is. And but I was just thinking, you
22:57
know, I wonder how many, you know, bankers would be like,
23:01
hey, why don't you know, you come.
23:03
They're just the collaboration. Unless it's for absolute profit.
23:07
We don't find that in anywhere else.
23:09
I don't think, you know, I mean we just, you know, we just all
23:11
want to help people and it's it's a beautiful thing to see
23:15
people find each other in these. You know as far as I can tell
23:18
none of us are teenage girls. And yet TikTok, you know,
23:23
brought us together here today. And you know another I'm I'm
23:27
looking at your hat says for the people who can't see us Rule 62,
23:33
tell them what tell them about. Rule 62 This one came from
23:35
TikTok. I fell out of Georgia.
23:37
Sent it up to me. I think it's from Georgia hat
23:39
company and he was in sobriety, he said sent it with a note and
23:44
said, hey, I've been digging your message and your content,
23:47
here's your hat. And I'm making for some people
23:49
that are sober, Rule 62 means don't take yourself so damn
23:53
seriously. And I have to, you know, when I
23:55
wear it, it's not wearing. As much outward as when I'm
24:00
looking in the mirror in the morning, looking in the mirror
24:02
when I'm getting dressed is like, man, don't take yourself
24:04
so damn seriously. You know, you're really not all
24:06
that important. And let's just go along with the
24:08
flow of things today. Yeah, I need, I need to see
24:11
that. I need to hear that every day in
24:12
my life. And so you tell me a little bit
24:16
about what you do locally, like on a day-to-day.
24:19
I mean, you have you have a day job, right?
24:23
Nope. Tell me, tell me about what you
24:26
do on. Your so actually you know I when
24:28
I what brought me to this area I was a pilot I flew for I flew
24:32
for American Eagle and I flew the commuter airline right here
24:37
out of Raleigh and I flew Apache helicopters in the Army National
24:41
Guard. When I'm when we first moved
24:43
here, I wanted to be close to the airport, so moved into Kerry
24:47
and so and we've been here ever since.
24:51
But I've owned several small businesses over the years and
24:55
you know, when my son died, I wrote a book about his life.
24:58
And then I started getting some opportunities to do some
25:01
speaking, public speaking. So I started doing drug
25:04
prevention speaking and I still do that, but I started working
25:11
with the parents in the PAL group on a volunteer basis and.
25:16
I'm also, I'm on the board for North Carolina Mothers Against
25:19
Drunk Drivers. I mean against drunk driving.
25:22
Let me get that right, against drunk driving.
25:23
Not against drunk drivers. So I'm on their board and and I
25:29
do some speaking for them. And so that, you know, I was
25:31
just doing some of the volunteer work and just realizing that
25:36
parents, a lot of parents need a lot more than just that one.
25:42
Meeting of a peer support Group One night a week that they need
25:45
more accountability. They need a structure that helps
25:49
them move forward in the family family recovery process.
25:53
So I'm launching a online group coaching program for families
26:01
for parents who need the. To help understanding their role
26:08
in the in the family recovery process and then having that
26:11
accountability. Like I said, they need they
26:13
always tell parents that, you know, they don't have any
26:19
control over what their son or daughter does, but they give
26:24
their son or daughter their best opportunity to recover when they
26:29
work on themselves, when they work on their own.
26:32
Personal development, their own personal growth, their own
26:34
spiritual growth, their own self-care.
26:38
When they work on that, they're putting their child in the best
26:41
position they can to recover. Love it.
26:45
What? So you being an interventionist
26:49
and somebody in recovery, what do you see?
26:52
Like just as what are, what are we doing wrong?
26:56
What can we be doing better as just, I mean there's one thing
26:59
you mentioned earlier that I want you to touch on, but if
27:02
there's anything else, but you know, so we need to be more
27:05
connecting, not as much selling, is that right, Expand on that,
27:10
yeah. You Google treatment.
27:14
Drug treatment? Google it.
27:15
Bad idea by the way. Horrible idea, right?
27:18
Just Google it. You'll see.
27:20
Right. Healing Pines by the seashore.
27:23
The tranquility life of serenity Springs, of the hope of love.
27:27
You know they can handle all of your needs.
27:30
They'll say you've got the We handle cocaine addiction, we
27:33
have a methadone tracker, methamphetamine track, we have a
27:38
marijuana track, all these different tracks, right.
27:42
There's too much selling and not enough connection because I can
27:45
tell you what's going on from my eyes.
27:48
When you look at the success rates of treatment center, we
27:50
were talking about this earlier today and it's been coming up
27:52
for the last couple of days. When you look at success rates
27:56
of sometimes that they range what 3 to 15% success rate,
28:02
right? And we have the public, and I'm
28:05
not. I don't mean to sound like I'm
28:07
putting all of this on the population in the public, but we
28:11
have to own our role in that. If you're looking at at 3 to 18%
28:17
or three to 13, three to 15, whatever it is, either one of
28:20
them are low. None of them are acceptable.
28:22
You've got a population of people where I want to go out on
28:25
a limb I don't have the research about.
28:27
I don't only go by my experiences of what I've seen in
28:30
the last 12 years and what is self reported to me from
28:32
families is that 90% of the families out here and
28:36
individuals that are in treatment and families that put
28:39
them in treatment have don't really know.
28:44
Down at the level necessary internally why their loved one
28:48
is in treatment. They think that it's just to
28:51
learn how to cure them of drug addiction, to cure them of
28:54
alcoholism or teach them how to say no.
28:57
And they don't know the role they can play in their recovery
29:02
through boundaries. So they you have 90% of FAM of
29:07
the public? Doesn't know really why they're
29:10
in treatment or why they sent their loved one the treatment
29:13
you and but they're saying treatment centers are horrible
29:16
which there's a lot of bad players but there's bad players
29:20
in every industry yet the industry has an overall better
29:23
success like plumbing has some bad players in it but I'm pretty
29:26
sure that they can fix your fix your leak.
29:29
You call a plumber 100% of the time more than likely, right?
29:33
Well, there's good there's lots of great addiction treatment
29:36
around the country. The people are saying, well
29:40
these success rates suck. Well, if you can lower the
29:44
number of families, the percentage of families that that
29:47
don't know really why they're loved when or they're sending
29:51
their love when the treatment or while they're in treatment, if
29:53
you can lower that, you're going to increase those success rates.
29:56
It's we had the treatment industry needs to take some
29:58
ownership and hey, how are we? How are we giving information to
30:02
the public? We're doing too much selling and
30:06
not enough connecting and the the public needs to recognize
30:09
and be more aware of, hey, the more educated we get, the more
30:13
boundaries that we set and the more we utilize our family
30:15
power, the more success we're going to see.
30:17
And I love them when they go to treatment.
30:19
I think about these stats a lot because they're not good and I
30:23
want and I would love to hear y'all's thoughts on this.
30:26
Part of this is just my own personal take on this is while
30:29
it's it's a it couldn't be it's it's a great thing that the
30:34
stigma is pretty much removed from addiction and and
30:39
alcoholism, you know, I mean it's not like.
30:41
But is it though? Well, but is it though?
30:43
Because pretty much. Because you know, you hear when
30:46
people are snapping at the industry talking about treatment
30:49
programs or run by you'll see some of these, some of these
30:52
articles come out and and I find it alarming because they they
30:57
appear to and they. They're they're screaming that
31:00
they're advocating for the poor, sick and suffering addicted
31:03
individual. And then they'll get in there in
31:04
the same breath and say that treatment centers are run by
31:07
former addicts. And they say it in a shaming
31:10
way, like that's a bad thing. I know recovering addicted
31:14
individuals that are flying your loved one across the country in
31:16
an airplane. I know recovered individuals
31:20
that are operating on your son or operating on your grandmother
31:23
in hospital. Yeah, I mean there's no one I
31:26
trust more than somebody in recovery.
31:28
No. But what I, but I will retract
31:31
pretty much this thing has been removed, but it's way less than
31:34
it was, you know, 50 years ago or more.
31:38
But let's say and I don't want to mention the specific type of
31:42
recovery that I'm in but we can guess what it is You know that
31:45
was founded in 1935 and the the odds then and the stats then the
31:52
the chances of recovery were were triple what they are now.
31:56
And I wonder if part of it is because now it's so socially
32:01
acceptable to to be you know to go to treatment and that there
32:05
you know that it's not it just did the shame of that is
32:08
lessened. Not saying it's gone the stigma
32:10
is not gone but it's it's way it's lessened by you know
32:14
significantly and the fact that it's so accepted.
32:17
I wonder if it there's not the severity of needing help that
32:23
there used to be when people would get to that level when
32:25
they did find sobriety and recovery.
32:28
But now it's that's why we see so many people that are in and
32:30
out frequent Flyers we call them in these places.
32:32
You know and I just wonder if that has something to do with it
32:35
where it's it's a good thing that the stigma has been
32:38
lessened so much but yet it's so acceptable to go to treatment
32:41
that it's not doesn't seem like that big a deal anymore.
32:44
Am I? Am I crazy to think that?
32:49
That's a tough one. Yeah.
32:50
I mean, there there's sort of a balance, you know, there that we
32:53
need to strike. Yeah.
32:58
I mean, I I think you may be on to something there.
33:06
My views have changed. You know since.
33:09
You know when? When, my son.
33:12
When I first found out he had a problem, you know, I was very
33:15
judgmental of of people who had a drug or alcohol problem, I
33:19
didn't understand. And certainly I would say that
33:24
the stigma has been reduced. I see both sides of it.
33:32
I see both sides of it. And it's hard to say, you know,
33:36
is that playing into people? You know, maybe.
33:41
It is so much more acceptable now.
33:43
I don't know. I can't really answer that
33:45
definitively. Yeah, I mean, I just.
33:47
What do you think? Well, I can tell, you know, and
33:50
when this thing first kicked off in 1935, I mean, it was hard to
33:54
get to the grocery store. In 1935, there were grocery
33:57
stores all over the country. Yeah, you know what I mean?
34:00
It wasn't a comfortable ride. It was, you know, it was 1935.
34:04
This thing that you're talking about just was just created.
34:07
It wasn't everywhere. It wasn't broadcast everywhere.
34:11
Judges weren't sending people to it.
34:13
There weren't treatment centers in every town.
34:15
Yeah, there were sanitariums. And the sanitarium was not a
34:18
place you really wanted to go. This sounds cool.
34:21
Kind of sounds like aquarium, right?
34:23
Which is cool. But a sanitarium, my friend, is
34:26
not a comfortable place, right? Yeah.
34:29
So none of that was good. And then you went to find your
34:32
butt in a seat at one of those meetings from the 30s to the.
34:37
The 60s or whatever, there was some desperation on your part.
34:42
To seek out that meeting and go in there and sit down, there was
34:45
some desperation. I think desperation is the key.
34:47
Yeah, well. Because now you can just wave
34:50
your hands. Whoa.
34:52
Going to treatment, you know, that's.
34:53
Great, the judge says. Hey, or sentence you to sentence
34:57
me. What?
34:59
You know the judge from the judge that but that but you're
35:01
that's a great point there's it's more accessible and it's
35:04
more you know it might be more acceptable but yes that it's not
35:07
like you people don't have the bottoms have been rising as well
35:12
whether and and it's not always up to the person what that
35:14
bottom is like I mean kind of what we all do too that as far
35:18
as I know there weren't real interventions then there were 12
35:21
steppers going to 12 step people but not you know there wasn't
35:24
there just weren't so many places to go and so many and the
35:28
accessibility of not just booze but you know now I mean online I
35:36
mean people can be have a pharmacy in their house and you
35:39
know 24 hours but anyway I just think about those stats because
35:44
they're they're they're not good and but you're but you're right
35:47
and it was such a smaller sample size too back then.
35:51
And you think about it like you walk into a meeting today at the
35:55
end of that mean, this is just for an example.
35:56
This is one example, maybe a weird example, but I'm going to
35:58
throw it out there. Walk into a meeting today.
36:01
At the end of the meeting, you circle up and you sing.
36:03
You say the Serenity Prayer, and everybody just kind of sings it
36:06
off, right, Grammy? The Serenity accepted things.
36:08
I cannot change the courage to change the things I can.
36:10
And we all seem to do this and the willingness to know the
36:14
difference. And then we go on.
36:18
It's like this thing in the meetings today.
36:21
It's just become so. What's the word I'm looking for?
36:25
Desensitized, Yeah, like transactional a little.
36:27
Bit, yeah, yeah, like it's just something that we're doing
36:29
probably back in the day. They're saying, hey, you want a
36:32
little bit of serenity to get you through until the next
36:35
meeting so you're not jumping out of a window or jumping in
36:39
front of a bus or suck starting a 12 gauge.
36:42
You know, if you want to be granted a little bit of
36:44
serenity, hey, maybe you need to really sit in silence in the
36:47
morning before you get cranking up.
36:50
And say to accept the things I cannot change.
36:53
And then you sit there for a little while and try to figure
36:55
out what are the things that you cannot change.
36:58
And then after you've done that, young man, you're going to want
37:00
to sit there for a little bit, the courage to change the things
37:03
I can. And you're going to want to sit
37:04
there and think about what can I change.
37:07
And then you're going to really be seeking through the day the
37:10
wisdom to know the difference. See, that's some action that was
37:12
put in the that. That's action steps.
37:15
And back in the day, when you couple that with some more
37:18
desperation that people had back then, right, You're going to get
37:22
better results. And I'm glad.
37:24
I'm glad you brought up desperation too.
37:26
Because all of this, to me, what I see, what really gets people
37:33
to get to make a change is the God gift of desperation.
37:37
You know, because we can lead a horse to water and we can have
37:41
interventions and and we can get them there, you know, and like
37:44
I, you know, it wasn't. And I tell people this all the
37:46
time, we can go get sober for anybody, but we can only stay
37:49
that we have way for ourselves. And I don't think I don't see a
37:53
lot of people finding lasting recovery without desperation.
37:58
That gift of desperation, you know, I hope I never forget how
38:00
desperate I was, you know? What is desperation?
38:03
What is surrender, right? We talk about surrender.
38:05
We talk about desperation. I know for me and for countless
38:10
others that I know in a process when you're giving up.
38:13
You have to surrender old ideas. You have to surrender old
38:16
beliefs. You have to surrender old
38:18
habits. That is no different than
38:22
surrendering when you're an army in a war or in combat.
38:27
Surrender is surrender. I have never yet seen through
38:31
history, and I love history, where an army or a country
38:35
surrendered until they were desperate.
38:39
That's a great point, exactly. So desperation is required in
38:45
order to surrender to at the time such a foreign concept is
38:51
recovery. You know how foreign that is to
38:54
to us that that our brain is telling us that if we don't have
38:57
that substance in the next two minutes, we're going to die.
39:00
Even though that's not true. Our mind is is just about
39:03
telling us that and we're buying it hook, line and sinker.
39:07
It's like you're asking us to stop breathing air.
39:10
So in order for us to embrace that step requires surrender.
39:14
And that's really what an intervention is about to, is to
39:17
help create some desperation. As long as I got options I'm not
39:21
getting well. I don't care.
39:23
I don't care what how many massages I'm getting, how many
39:26
you know how long I'm going to be gone or or how little I'm
39:29
going to be gone, or what state I'm going to be in.
39:32
I'm not going, and I'm not going to get well if I don't.
39:34
If I perceive I have options to stay, what stay the same?
39:40
Man, I'm thinking about how how all of this applies to the
39:44
parents side of things, you know?
39:46
And he's talking about desperation.
39:53
When I tell people it's like, it's like when you have a child
39:56
that's addicted to drugs or alcohol.
40:01
It's like you have these butterflies in your in the pit
40:03
of your stomach. They never go away, never
40:06
completely go away. And you're always, there's
40:08
always this little fear in the back of your mind and just takes
40:12
1 little thing to trigger you really to really set you off.
40:15
Like the phone rings late at night and the first thing you
40:18
you've tried to suppress all these fears, right?
40:20
But the first thought that pops in your head is, is that the
40:24
police What do they want? You know, so but parents, that
40:32
desperation drives them to control, right?
40:35
And that's the one thing they have to get so desperate that
40:39
they realize they have, they don't have any control and they
40:42
have to give up those attempts at control.
40:47
And I use this visual of like an Archer and imagine that your
40:55
child is an arrow and you you place an arrow in the string and
40:59
the target that you're aiming at is kind of a general target in
41:01
that I just want them to be successful and happy you know
41:05
and and successful in terms of finding that thing that they
41:08
love to do and and being good at it and and you aim at that
41:14
target. You draw that area back and you
41:16
release that arrow with that string and guess what happens?
41:23
A lot of times their parents pull back and they get that area
41:25
back there. They find their anchor point and
41:28
they don't want to let go. And the longer you hang on,
41:31
guess what happens? Your muscles start to burn, you
41:33
start to quiver, you start to shake.
41:35
You don't get a smooth release. You're less likely to hit your
41:38
target. But that sensation of those
41:42
muscles burning that, to me that's that's like that's that
41:46
stress that parents are feeling when they're still trying to
41:48
hang on. Because there is this transition
41:50
process from childhood through the teenage years to adulthood.
41:55
And I don't know that anybody's really taught how to do that as
42:00
a parent. Especially when you have, when
42:02
your first child comes along and like they're going through the
42:04
teenage years and there's all this turbulence and you're
42:07
going, is that just what teenagers go through or or is
42:11
there something else going on here?
42:13
And a lot of times it's hard to tell.
42:14
Is it? Is it?
42:15
I was going through that with our with our son.
42:17
Is that is this is this just him going through his teenage years
42:22
or is he using drugs? And anyway, but but you know
42:28
they've got to get to that point where they're so desperate that
42:31
they are in in that they're coached up on this where they
42:34
can let go of that arrow and then it's in God's hands and and
42:40
your child's hands because that this area has a brain, right?
42:43
And it can go wherever it wants to go.
42:45
But yeah, a wind can come along and knock it off course or it
42:48
can hit a low hanging branch or whatever.
42:50
Different things can happen in that arrow along the way.
42:52
But it's not there's nothing you can do about it.
42:55
You it's up to that arrow and God at that point and you just
42:58
have to say, well, I did my bit. I did my part right and and now
43:03
the rest is up to them and is that trying to hang on is what
43:07
causes so many problems for families.
43:10
That's a great analogy and that whole, you know we're in the
43:14
footwork business not the results business and just you
43:16
know letting go and letting got to love that.
43:20
Anybody got any final thoughts? Oh shit.
43:26
I had a ton of them until you asked me.
43:30
Well, this is awesome. Y'all are great guests you it's
43:34
great to be here. I appreciate you inviting this
43:37
and. Yeah, yeah.
43:38
Thank you. Pretty fancy, so, yeah, well,
43:40
you know. This is about I was sitting
43:43
What's that show between 2:00? Fires between 2 fires and you
43:46
thought I was just going to insult you.
43:50
Come back for the 9:30 show, it gets a little.
43:51
Blue ooh yeah. All right, we will.
43:54
Like I said, we will put all your pertinent information and
43:57
post all your links and e-mail and contact information.
44:01
But anyway, just thank y'all both so much.
44:02
This was awesome. Man thanks for.
44:04
Having thank you for coming down.
44:05
Thanks for being on this with me too man.
44:07
Thank you. I appreciate you.
44:08
I appreciate you guys inviting me in.
44:10
Yeah. All right.