Latest / Conversations with Cumberland Heights / Friendship in Recovery: Nico Doorn & Dr. Nick Hayes | Conversations with Cumberland Heights | Ep 32

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Friendship in Recovery: Nico Doorn & Dr. Nick Hayes | Conversations with Cumberland Heights | Ep 32 · Conversations with Cumberland Heights

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  We're live.
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  Hey, how's it going? Nico Doorn.
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  I think Ryan.
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  Nico's our first, second time guest.
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  Wow. Long time listener and first time caller.
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  No. Second time. Welcome back.
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  I can't remember when we initially did that, but that was a while ago.
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  We always get great feedback about your episode, but, Nico Dorn,
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  welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.
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  So for those that don't know, you introduce you.
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  Who are you and what do you do for work?
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  Well, who I am.
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  I like to think that my goal as a person is to build healing communities.
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  So how that kind of relates to what we're doing here is,
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  We met. I got started with.
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  How did we share?
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  Sure.
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  So, like, I was trying to figure out who I was,
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  how to be happy, how to do this recovery thing.
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  And then we became friends, and we found out about this whole
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  collegiate recovery world, which I think sent us both on quite a journey.
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  And so that was kind of where I shifted from being like a person
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  on my own to a person among people was in my collegiate recovery experience.
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  And I wanted to take that into my career, which was kind of heading down the
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  trajectory of substance use treatment and recovery services and stuff like that.
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  And, I was specifically,
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  passionate about young people because of my own experience.
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  And then I met Bob Ferguson, who is my partner, and
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  I guess you could say, boss, who happens to be sitting in the room and, he's.
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  We met him a long time ago.
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  We met?
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  We're talking over a decade ago right now.
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  Decade plus.
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  And, you know, he shared that passion for specifically collegiate recovery,
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  but really just showing people in recovery
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  that you can have a bigger life than you thought and a life
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  beyond your wildest dreams.
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  And so, we got together and this is back in 2016, 2017
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  and came up with the concept for what was then Alpha 180,
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  which is now Alpha Behavioral Health, which is, variety of services these days,
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  helping teens, young adults in their families just transition
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  through all of the challenges of adolescence, mental
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  health, substance use, and just on into an awesome life.
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  Like we get to lead.
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  So, you know, there's a very esoteric answer to your question,
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  but what I do day to day is just make sure that alpha behav,
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  alpha behavioral health, runs well, helps people get better.
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  And like I said at the beginning, at the end of the day, like,
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  has that community, family feel for our team, for our clients?
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  So what we do, do you remember, like our first week in college together?
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  I bet I remember.
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  Go ahead, go ahead.
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  Because this is a story.
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  Jay always gets up.
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  He always, he always has lots of commentary about the podcast.
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  And one of the things he's like, stop telling the same stories
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  over and over again.
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  This is a new story, Jay.
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  I think I'm in this field because of you.
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  Really?
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  Do you remember when we were
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  in the human sciences building and it was like a very.
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  We had, ironically enough, one of the joys, about our shared
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  experiences that we really had the college like a very classic college experience
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  in a nontraditional way.
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  I mean, we we did all the things.
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  But do you remember the day when we, like, had to go in
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  and they had tables set up and you, like, picked your major like,
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  you know, eat like very old school style, like you went up to a table
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  and they, like, wrote your name down with a pencil.
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  Do you remember what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah. In orientation.
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  And I would like
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  Nico is like, well, I'm going to do this addiction centric undergrad degree.
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  And I was like, well, then I have to do it, you know, like
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  that's how I was making decisions at that time.
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  So, well, that goes that goes to my point about community.
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  And like, I, it's such a, you know, it's a, it's a word people love to throw out.
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  But like, that is my conceptual ization of what we're trying to give.
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  People in recovery like to go from being one person to being a part of a group.
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  And like, you can do that.
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  You can feel a part of as a college student, you can feel a part
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  of as an addiction professional, like whatever that identity is like.
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  It just needs to be a good, healthy one.
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  And what's so cool about our college experience is like,
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  I had no clue how to be a college student, and you had no clue
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  how to be a good college student. True.
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  And and like we were living this one lifestyle
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  like, you know, sober living in meetings and then from one day to the next,
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  it's like, all right, we got to get up at seven and go to this class tomorrow.
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  And so you just put on that hat and you're like that guy.
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  Yeah.
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  And it's just really cool how like, especially between us.
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  Like, we can give each other
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  aspects of our identity that we don't even have yet,
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  but we can give it to each other, if that makes sense.
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  Right.
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  What you're reminding me of
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  outside of psychology 101, and when you and Austin Brown
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  cheated on that exam,
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  well, what really happened was there was no bonus on this exam.
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  But somehow two of my classmates
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  and good friends in recovery got a bonus because their answers were so great.
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  Which has stuck with me. Makes sense.
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  Bobby, right? Like it's stuck with me
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  in my in the context of who I am and how unfair that was.
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  Because I'm a perpetual victim.
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  Moving on.
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  And you've moved on.
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  I've moved on. I've let it go. But,
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  one of the things that you're
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  reminding me of is starting this work
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  and the beauty of community and early days in treatment
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  and like, for those interested, maybe in getting into this work and
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  being at an early stage of recovery is how flexible
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  this field is for you based on where you are.
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  Talk about that because you've had quite an evolution.
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  I mean, really in a lot of ways you with Bobby, you're an entrepreneur.
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  You know, those skills aren't really taught in school.
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  But before that, you had other experiences in our field.
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  So kind of yeah, hit us with the highlights.
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  And this is one of my like, and,
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  odd position of being reached out to from time to time by people that are,
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  you know, thinking about getting a certain degree or joining this field.
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  And I think in my experience, like there's a lot of misconceptions
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  about being pigeonholed in a certain place.
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  And, you know, obviously there are like trajectories that you can stick with.
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  However, like, I've always found this field to be so dynamic in terms
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  of like the opportunities that it provides.
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  And so for me, like, you know, as just a sober person
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  with no professional experience, I still had something to offer
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  as a residential tech or something like that.
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  Like, that was my first job.
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  The two of us, you know, weekend text, night texts.
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  And that kind of led me
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  to think about the more clinical route.
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  And so it didn't take me too long to personally decide, like, I don't
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  necessarily want to do therapy and provide the direct care for my whole career.
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  I was really interested in that for a while, but I identified early.
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  Like, I'll probably not want to do that for 45 years.
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  So in that case, you do kind of have to look at a more business route
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  or a more clinical route to some extent.
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  And for me personally, I decided to continue my education
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  along a clinical route.
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  Got a degree in counseling.
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  And I am not a practicing clinician in any way.
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  I don't have a clinical license or anything like that.
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  Even though I got the degree for it, and I personally have never regretted that
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  because what I think is really cool about the recovery field is like all that
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  clinical experience, all my experience about group dynamic and psychology and
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  and human development and all of that stuff applies
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  not only to the services we provide, but also to leadership
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  skills and to team development and things like that.
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  So I think knowing a lot about how humans work is great for leaders.
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  But then to your point, like, I've had to learn a ton
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  about business and finance,
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  and I'm not sure I would have gotten much of it in school either, necessarily,
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  but I certainly didn't bring any of that with me.
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  And so, so now today, like
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  for sure, what I do
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  at being in the recovery field is unique,
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  but in some ways, like it could be something
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  totally different because I'm like just learning about business now.
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  I'm learning about economics and how you develop a service and how you market it.
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  And so, you know, yeah, all that stuff. So
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  of course, like it's still in the recovery field, but now I have to learn
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  how to put that business hat on, how to look through different, glasses
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  sometimes, you know, managing a construction project.
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  A couple for the first time in my career, like, you know, stuff like that.
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  And I absolutely love that.
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  I think that this field really does allow, you know,
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  hard work and talent and creativity to rise up.
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  Like, if you're creative, there's an opportunity, and yeah, I also like that
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  I can be a part of what, in essence, is kind of like a family small operation.
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  Or of course, there's large scale behavioral health.
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  So I love that about this field.
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  I'm going to get personal
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  about yourself.
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  No, of course not.
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  I I'm proud of you.
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  I felt some emotion as you were sharing, but I pulled it together.
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  Although, maybe I should just let it rip.
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  But one of the things that's cool, one of the dreams you've always had,
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  you know, and we've known each other our entire recoveries.
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  Although you got clean and sober before me,
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  I'm quick to remind you that it's about quality, not quantity.
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  Setting that aside,
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  you always had a dream to have an impact on people's lives.
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  And having gone alongside the
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  because I'm alpha behavioral health number one, volunteer first.
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  And having seen
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  you, you're an operator today,
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  you know, and I think if we would have unpacked
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  everything that has happened along the way,
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  you know, building a brand, rebranding, building a team over and over again,
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  starting a family, having multiple kids, getting married, moving
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  treatments, intensives.
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, it's pretty incredible just to see the things that you've accomplished.
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  Me, I'm really proud of you.
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  I appreciate that you were kind enough to say some stuff
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  like that last time, and I felt equally uncomfortable.
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  But, you know, it really has been a journey.
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  And, like, I don't know if I expressed it well previously, but my point about how,
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  like, you can give somebody
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  something you don't have, like this relationship between us has been so much
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  about that, where there's this unspoken like healthy competition
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  and desire to grow and we don't ever really have to talk about it.
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  We both just kind of know, like,
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  you do the right thing and you keep moving forward.
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  And, you know, the result of that over time is pretty badass.
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  And so, like, where I am today is, trying to get, like,
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  a flow and a balance with, like,
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  I try not to say the word balance because I get it.
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  It's not happening.
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  But, I have accomplished all this cool stuff,
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  and it remains difficult, and I'm still in the challenges of it.
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  And so
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  I have to always work on my relationship to that, like enjoying the challenge.
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  And then also, you know, getting to really, like,
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  celebrate the wins as they come.
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  But before, you know,
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  I feel like I was, out there, like, doing
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  some of the things that you just listed off, you were in there with your head
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  in a book and school done and working hard.
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  And so to be here to see you with your son,
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  the position that you're in, it's really, really cool to see for you, too,
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  because, you know, the joke was always like, my career was doing this.
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  You were just at tech doing here, and then all of a sudden you're like,
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  just rocket ship.
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  And, So anyways, man, really proud of you as well.
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  Yeah. I love you a lot.
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  Segue out of that, Nick.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, it is a little bit of a segue in that I was
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  I was going to ask you before you did that to me was just to talk about, like,
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  for those that are first getting introduced to recovery
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  and what it's about.
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  And I think,
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  you know, this real relationship that we've shared as we've grown up,
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  I mean, both of us have grown up in recovery.
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  You know, we were both very young.
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  We got clean and sober.
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  And so we've learned how to do all of life
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  in conference centers
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  and meeting in 12 step meetings and everywhere in between.
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  So when you think about behavioral health and where it is today and
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  speaking to the families and the young men that y'all are touching like,
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  gosh, I guess
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  what does your recovery tell you?
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  What would you tell them about those early steps in recovery
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  to provide some hope in terms of where they are kind of matched
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  with Alpha behavioral health?
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  I mean, the first thing is you don't have to be so afraid.
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  Like there's so much fear, understandable fear
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  when someone enters into this recovery process and that fear comes out
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  in all types of different ways, it can be resistance and anger.
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  It can be running away.
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  It can be parents being upset, whatever the case is.
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  And so at Alpha, because we work with teens,
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  young people in their families, like it can be a little bit more common,
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  that we're navigating some of the family dynamic stuff and that type of thing.
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  And so often I just want to tell a new mom
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  or a new guy like you to have nothing to worry about.
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  Like, it's really going to be okay.
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  These people really care.
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  Like they might mess up, they might make a mistake.
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  But there's no false pretense.
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  There's no ulterior motive.
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  Like, this whole thing is just existing for you.
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  For you.
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  Like new young man that just arrived here.
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  And for you, mom that's worried about it.
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  Like we're just here to help you.
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  And I promise, like, if you lean into this experience, there's a really good chance
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  that it's going to make your life better and you're going to feel happy.
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  And and so, you know, a big part of our job is just, you know,
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  putting ourselves in the shoes of understanding where they are
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  and that our job is to help build a bridge from that place to this new place.
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  And it can be really challenging.
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  But it's an interesting, product, so to speak,
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  and that you're selling a product that your customer doesn't understand.
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  They don't know they even want it.
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  And they're not sure how to get it.
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  And so that can make it that can perfect funnel.
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  Yeah. Yeah, it's a little bit challenging.
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  And they might think that they're buying a different product.
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  And, so anyways, I think that can create some challenges
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  because I know what we, what we can offer, which
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  of course they are, they can help create that.
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  But that community that we can offer, once you allow yourself to really
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  just be a part of it. It's pretty cool thing. Yeah.
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  Well, you.
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  Dawn, I love you, man. From the middle of my heart.
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  Love you too. Thanks for being here.
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  We're going to tag Niko and his contact and Alpha
• 15:12
  Behavioral Health in this episode, like we do every episode.
• 15:14
  Be sure to like, follow them. Subscribe.
• 15:16
  Thank you guys for listening.
• 15:17
  See you next time. Thanks.