Latest / Recovering Out Loud / What’s Changing in Addiction Recovery? Addiction Counsellor on RAAM Clinics, Harm Reduction, and Healing

Transcript

What’s Changing in Addiction Recovery? Addiction Counsellor on RAAM Clinics, Harm Reduction, and Healing · Recovering Out Loud

• 0:00
  Hello everybody, welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud.
• 0:04
  Today we're honored to have for the second time, JP Jay is the
• 0:09
  Director at the Recovery Place Toronto Sober Houses for Men and
• 0:13
  a dedicated therapist with Jax Toronto.
• 0:16
  Jay brings unparalleled compassion and 40 years of
• 0:20
  expertise to the world of addiction recovery.
• 0:22
  In this episode, we dive deep into the realities of addiction,
• 0:26
  exploring its impact, the cycle of dependency, and the
• 0:29
  transformative power of recovery.
• 0:31
  Jay shares more personal stories, insights on maintaining
• 0:34
  composure in the face of challenges, and the importance
• 0:38
  of community and purpose and sobriety.
• 0:40
  We also discussed the state of addiction treatment in Canada,
• 0:43
  including advancements like Rapid Access Addiction medicine
• 0:46
  clinics and harm reduction strategies.
• 0:49
  Get ready for an honest, inspiring conversation with a
• 0:52
  true role model and friend. If you or someone you love is
• 0:56
  suffering with mental health or addiction, please reach out.
• 0:59
  Go to jackstoronto.org, JACS, toronto.org or the
• 1:06
  recoveryplace.ca for more help. Enjoy the show.
• 1:30
  I was giving Jane 100 bucks in the grocery store, I said.
• 1:34
  And there was an older woman behind us and I looked at Jane
• 1:37
  and looked at the woman and said that was great.
• 1:39
  Last night. She didn't get it for about 5
• 1:43
  seconds. And you're so bad.
• 1:47
  That's funny. That's hilarious.
• 1:51
  Right now. The the the proper etiquette
• 1:53
  when you answer a phone and you're on speaker is immediately
• 1:57
  I'm on say hey, I'm on speaker, my wife sitting here.
• 2:00
  Or nowadays when you're in the car, that's the worst way.
• 2:02
  I I always tell people and I said he was doing that to me and
• 2:05
  I said don't do that like. He's pissed.
• 2:08
  Yeah, I'm pissed. Yeah.
• 2:11
  I never know what somebody else say, right?
• 2:12
  Yeah, I used to have guys. I just shot a guy last night.
• 2:15
  What's happened? What's up with you?
• 2:16
  You're. Like, yeah, I'm in the courtroom
• 2:19
  right now. I'm on a charge the.
• 2:22
  Judge is listening. It's all good, Jay.
• 2:26
  Thanks so much for coming back down and we really appreciate
• 2:29
  you. We wanted to get this back up
• 2:31
  with Caleb and we got kicked out early last time.
• 2:33
  I had a million more questions for you and I got a lot of
• 2:37
  feedback to saying that that was one of the better episodes.
• 2:40
  So we appreciate you coming down.
• 2:42
  I don't know if they were saying that because I wasn't in it or
• 2:45
  because you're so handsome, but they they really like that
• 2:47
  episode. Probably a little both.
• 2:50
  Oh man. I was overshadowing Anthony.
• 2:52
  Yeah, no, it was good. We had a good time.
• 2:54
  I I really enjoyed it and I'm enjoying this podcast, like we
• 2:57
  said last time. But you know, I, I had a million
• 3:01
  stories before. Oh, I remember what I was going
• 3:03
  to say in the bathroom at this place that we do the thing.
• 3:06
  I don't know if you've ever seen it.
• 3:07
  There's a sign on the wall and it's so sarcastic and
• 3:10
  condescending. I love it.
• 3:11
  It's like, thank you for not peeing all over the toilet seat
• 3:15
  and keeping it clean. And every time I read that, I
• 3:17
  always think about him because we were in rehab one time and he
• 3:20
  was telling the story about how he sat on the toilet seat,
• 3:24
  remember, And someone pissed all over the toilet seat and you
• 3:26
  jumped right into the shower after and it like ruined your
• 3:28
  week. Dude.
• 3:30
  That was like a funny. I'll never forget that.
• 3:31
  It seems to happen to you all. Yeah, if you do that, you're a
• 3:35
  piece of shit. Yeah, literally like it takes 5
• 3:37
  seconds to just grab a bit, throw the paper, wipe it off and
• 3:39
  I'm lazy with those things. But like, you know, thank you to
• 3:42
  my mom for raising me red, I guess.
• 3:44
  But like, do not piss on the toilet seat even if you're in
• 3:46
  Walmart. Like clean it up someone's.
• 3:48
  Got nothing? Yeah.
• 3:49
  Nothing worse than sitting on a wet toilet seat.
• 3:51
  You know what? Why?
• 3:52
  It's wet. You know why?
• 3:53
  Like, you know why? No.
• 3:54
  One's crying on it, no. No, nobody splashed was.
• 3:57
  Actually with the sinks, like all the way on the other side.
• 4:01
  Oh, that's awesome. That's why you never leave your
• 4:03
  shampoo and and at the Y in the shower.
• 4:05
  You never know what's going to be in there.
• 4:07
  Are you thinking about that? I thank.
• 4:09
  You or don't use someone else's shampoo, Yeah, Yeah, right.
• 4:12
  Yeah, that's sick. Actually, quick story before we
• 4:15
  get into it, I, I at a place I worked where you have cross
• 4:18
  shifts, right? So you'll come in for 10 hours.
• 4:19
  Yeah. And then at night time the same
• 4:21
  guy, you know you're doing this for 14 days straight, right?
• 4:23
  And there was a fight between the two guys and it was simple,
• 4:26
  something simple overtaking someone shampoo, right?
• 4:28
  Because we all shared lockers and he's becoming, this was the
• 4:31
  opposite crew. One of the guys on my crew put
• 4:34
  piss in his shampoo bottle, right?
• 4:36
  And he told me he did it, but I didn't believe him.
• 4:37
  I'm like, just the way you took the thing and pissed in it.
• 4:39
  Sure. Shit.
• 4:41
  The next day, the guy was waiting.
• 4:43
  He was waiting in the parking lot for us.
• 4:45
  And he said who the fuck pissed in that shampoo bottle?
• 4:48
  Because it went all over my hair.
• 4:49
  Oh. My God.
• 4:50
  So yeah, you would know right away.
• 4:51
  Yeah, you would know. He's very different.
• 4:53
  Unless you have like a illness or something, yeah.
• 4:56
  Yeah, we get that once in a while in the recovery house.
• 4:59
  Somebody got their they going to do a urine screen and you know,
• 5:02
  we look in and they've got a bottle of shampoo and they're
• 5:04
  pouring it into the urine bottle.
• 5:07
  I'm clean. What's going on there?
• 5:09
  What about the first time you had to do a piss test at Jay's
• 5:12
  house? Oh yeah, tell that story.
• 5:14
  So I went, I went 3-3 months of rehab and you do a urine screen
• 5:18
  like once a week or whatever. But they they witness you do the
• 5:21
  urine screen, they watch you right, Take your pants.
• 5:22
  Off for that reason exactly right, Yeah.
• 5:24
  Right. Because as addicts were pretty
• 5:26
  sneaky people. So yeah.
• 5:28
  So it's like my second day out of rehab.
• 5:29
  I'm at Jay's place and I go to do my urine screen and the
• 5:33
  counselor gives me the copper in the room and I just pull my
• 5:35
  back. Right in front.
• 5:37
  Of them, I think I remember somebody telling me you or
• 5:40
  somebody else tell him that in the in the office, in the
• 5:42
  counselor's office, right? He was like whoa, whoa.
• 5:45
  He said in the office he's. Like pull your pants up and I'm
• 5:49
  like, whoa, you. Trust me.
• 5:51
  Nobody trust me like that. It's true nobody trusts me
• 5:54
  Tuesday so that that's. Awesome, very glad you didn't
• 5:58
  have to do a #2 in the. Yeah, we're taking fecal
• 6:02
  samples. Now.
• 6:04
  It's a new drug screening. Yeah, rectal, rectal exams.
• 6:08
  Oh. Man, all right, Jay, tell us.
• 6:13
  I was curious to get your thought on this.
• 6:15
  What, in your opinion, what is addiction?
• 6:21
  Well, different, different definitions of it.
• 6:24
  The DSM defines it one way, you know, medical model defines it
• 6:30
  another way, but I think basically a physical dependency
• 6:36
  on a substance, emotional dependency on a substance or a
• 6:41
  behavior that when you stop doing it, there's symptomatic
• 6:47
  withdrawal effects, something around that.
• 6:50
  That's a really good, that's a really good short description of
• 6:52
  it. I was looking at the cycle of
• 6:54
  addiction today and you know, that circle.
• 6:57
  And I think what I've come to realize what separates me from,
• 7:00
  you know, my friend, the guy that's not an addict, is that
• 7:04
  that stage. I think it's 3:00 to 4:00 or
• 7:06
  4:00 to 5:00 where it's, you know, I think it's dependence or
• 7:11
  like you said, tolerance to addiction.
• 7:14
  There's like that when it starts to affect someone's life, they
• 7:16
  can't show up for work, their health starts to decline.
• 7:19
  They they go, whoa, whoa, I better stop this.
• 7:22
  And we don't like, I don't know what that's about, right?
• 7:24
  Like I have no idea. When I get into that stage, it's
• 7:27
  like, how do I keep going? How do I, you know, how do I,
• 7:30
  how do I do this so that I can not affect my health so badly
• 7:34
  or, or somewhat show up or it'll be different this time, which is
• 7:38
  what we talked about. I think there's a, you know,
• 7:40
  when you look at that cycle of dependency or no cycle of, of
• 7:45
  use really, you know, the social experimental social use, misuse
• 7:50
  or overuse, abuse and dependency and the difference that I always
• 7:55
  see between people who are abusing drugs and alcohol and
• 7:58
  people who are dependent on drugs and alcohol.
• 8:00
  You say to somebody who's abusing drugs and alcohol,
• 8:03
  something like, you know, if you keep using, you're going to have
• 8:07
  these consequences, you know, and the person who's abusing can
• 8:12
  say things like, oh, wow, I don't want that to happen.
• 8:15
  I'm going to cut back or I'm going to stop.
• 8:17
  A dependent person says, oh, wow, I better get really stoned
• 8:21
  tomorrow. That's going to hurt.
• 8:22
  You know, that's a good, that's a good way to look.
• 8:24
  At there's a failed solution. They call it in.
• 8:27
  Yeah. When you were saying the first
• 8:29
  description to make what it makes me think, I'll use an easy
• 8:31
  example as my brother, my brother, he drinks like, not an
• 8:35
  alcoholic, he drinks. But like, you know, on his
• 8:37
  weekends, whatever, he'll go out and party and he'll get drunk
• 8:41
  and he'll wake up the next morning and then he'll be
• 8:45
  normal, right. For me, if I do that, I lose my
• 8:48
  house, I lose my truck. My family doesn't want to talk
• 8:52
  to me, right. And it's like, to a certain
• 8:53
  degree, like pisses me off. It's like, I wish I could do
• 8:56
  that and be so-called normal, which I hate that word normal,
• 8:59
  but like, you know what I mean? Yeah, but for me, and even with
• 9:02
  recreational drug use, which sounds very absurd, but there is
• 9:05
  people that go out there on weekends occasionally and they
• 9:08
  do a bit of cocaine and, you know, they're not supposed to do
• 9:11
  it, but they do it. They don't mess their
• 9:12
  relationships up. They don't lose their homes for
• 9:15
  me. I could not do that right.
• 9:16
  Yeah. And that's what separates me
• 9:18
  from the normal. Person, they always say it's
• 9:20
  like fun, fun with problems and then just straight problems.
• 9:25
  Right. Yeah, right.
• 9:26
  Cuz I experienced that. It's like they say at the
• 9:28
  beginning. It was fun at the beginning,
• 9:30
  right? But I was in addiction for about
• 9:32
  5 years and it was about manageable for about 3 months.
• 9:35
  And then the, the other four, four years and whatever months,
• 9:39
  that's lots of math for me to do.
• 9:40
  But the other rest of the time I was like already starting to, to
• 9:43
  fall behind on bills. And then I'd sell one thing and
• 9:46
  then I would sell another thing. And then at the end of it, I had
• 9:48
  two T-shirts, a pair of socks and a headache.
• 9:51
  That's about all I had, right. So it's it sucks, but that's.
• 9:54
  One of the agencies I work at, Hamish, the guy who started the,
• 9:59
  yeah, started the agency, would say pleasure, passion and
• 10:04
  purpose. You know, in the beginning, it's
• 10:06
  pleasurable. We developed this love
• 10:09
  relationship with it, and then it becomes our purpose.
• 10:12
  You know, we're just, you know, finding we Ways and Means to get
• 10:16
  more. That's all we think of, yeah.
• 10:18
  That's it. Yeah.
• 10:19
  I just shared this at the at the house meeting.
• 10:21
  Like they, they asked me to tell my story.
• 10:23
  I remember the one part of my story I told was, and I said
• 10:25
  this all my podcasts as well, is when I told my parents about
• 10:29
  like how bad my addiction was. And they're like, they asked me,
• 10:34
  Caleb, why do you do drugs? This is like a week or so before
• 10:37
  I went into rehab, not even a few days.
• 10:38
  And I said like, listen, like I will before they asked me that
• 10:41
  question for years. Now it's like I just do drugs to
• 10:43
  party sometimes. Like I don't do drugs every day.
• 10:45
  Like, you know, I'd lie to them. But what I told them that day
• 10:48
  was, listen, I wake up every single day and I feel so fucked
• 10:52
  up if I don't do drugs. This conversation that me and
• 10:55
  you were having right now, we're having it because I just got
• 10:57
  high 20 minutes ago and I'm able to feel normal right now to talk
• 11:00
  to you. That's it.
• 11:01
  Like I said, I feel not normal with drugs, like medically,
• 11:04
  emotionally, every way. I feel horrible without them.
• 11:06
  And I remember my parents usually always had something to
• 11:09
  say after I had said something because it was usually stupid.
• 11:11
  But that was like the first time I just like was honest and just
• 11:14
  described how I felt. And they were like, they're
• 11:16
  broken hearted, right? But they were just, like, blown
• 11:19
  away by, like, holy crap. Like, we can't help you.
• 11:22
  Yeah, you know, we're going to try something else.
• 11:24
  Yeah, you need, you need professional help.
• 11:26
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
• 11:28
  What in what in your opinion is recovery then?
• 11:31
  Like what? What is recovery?
• 11:35
  You know, I think, well, first of all, I think it's stopping,
• 11:40
  you know, stopping the use. So you're stopping the level of
• 11:42
  harm that's being caused. You know, you're, and you're
• 11:45
  putting yourself at lower risk for ongoing health concerns.
• 11:51
  There's kind of stages to recover, you know, stages to it.
• 11:55
  So, you know, there's a, usually there's a, a mounting crisis of
• 11:59
  some kind. You know, someone's overdosed,
• 12:02
  Caleb is saying losing, you know, friendships, you know,
• 12:06
  suspensions at work, families, you know, distancing themselves
• 12:10
  or friends or distancing themselves.
• 12:12
  You're starting to borrow money. Whatever's going on, there's
• 12:15
  some kind of event or crisis that kind of catapults the
• 12:19
  person into that next stage of, OK, what do I do?
• 12:22
  You know, there's a model called stages of change, which is pre
• 12:26
  contemplation. Other people see the problem.
• 12:29
  You don't contemplation. I know I have a problem.
• 12:33
  I don't want to do anything about it.
• 12:35
  Planning, I know I have a problem.
• 12:37
  I want to do something about it and I'm looking at what the
• 12:40
  options are. Outpatient intensive programs,
• 12:42
  inpatient psychotherapist, therapist, 12 step programs,
• 12:47
  then action. And that's usually where we see
• 12:49
  people actually making some fundamental changes in their
• 12:54
  life. They stopped using, they put
• 12:56
  themselves at low risk. They're starting to eat better,
• 12:59
  sleep better. Maybe they're on medication that
• 13:03
  will help them, like an opiate reduction medication or an
• 13:07
  antagonist. They might have gone to a
• 13:09
  treatment center, could be a number of different
• 13:12
  interventions. And then there's maintenance,
• 13:15
  which is I'm maintaining where I'm at, which puts me at low
• 13:20
  risk for ongoing health concerns.
• 13:22
  Right. Yeah.
• 13:23
  And then during that stages, there's also relapses and things
• 13:28
  like that, lapses, you know, slips, Yeah.
• 13:32
  What would you say is when guys come into your house and when
• 13:35
  you're when you're counseling, what's kind of a common theme
• 13:38
  that you say see in successful people like people that that put
• 13:42
  together a lot of time or a long amount of time sober?
• 13:46
  That's a great question. Yeah, what's like the common
• 13:48
  thread? I think a a couple of things
• 13:51
  come to mind. One thing is that they develop
• 13:55
  meaning and purpose in their life.
• 13:57
  They wake up, you know, they're not sitting around the house all
• 14:00
  day in their pyjamas. You know, they've got somewhere
• 14:02
  to go, something to do that kind of gives their life a certain
• 14:06
  quality right that they didn't have before.
• 14:10
  The other thing is, is joining being a member of a community.
• 14:14
  And I think that's why 12 step programs are so successful
• 14:18
  because it gives people or SMART Recovery or, you know, any of
• 14:22
  those groups that that have that commonality of, you know, we all
• 14:27
  have these problems. How do we get through it
• 14:29
  together? So meaning and purpose and, and
• 14:32
  belonging, a sense of belonging. And it doesn't really have to
• 14:35
  be, you know, necessarily addiction focused.
• 14:38
  You know, it could be a church group, it could be, I don't
• 14:41
  know, you're going to the gym. Yoga yoga's like, yeah.
• 14:45
  It could be anything, as long as, you know, I, I, I am a big
• 14:49
  advocate of joining groups that do look at the healing process
• 14:54
  around addiction. So aftercare programs,
• 14:56
  outpatient programs, because you have like minded individuals,
• 15:01
  right? Whereas you're going to church,
• 15:03
  the focus is on something else. It's great.
• 15:05
  It's spiritual and I think that spirituality plays a big part.
• 15:09
  You know, we get out of that self centeredness, we start
• 15:11
  thinking about other people more, you know, and how we can
• 15:14
  kind of help each other. Yeah.
• 15:16
  It reminds me of the analogy of it's like we're all survivors of
• 15:20
  the Titanic. Yeah.
• 15:21
  You know, we've all kind of been through this, like, massive
• 15:26
  event together. And, you know, you know, when
• 15:28
  you go into like recovery meetings or places where other
• 15:31
  people are recovering and have had addiction or alcohol issues,
• 15:34
  you kind of just everyone's like, hey, you get that nod.
• 15:37
  It's like, I know, I know what it's like.
• 15:39
  You see the new guy come in or the New Girl come in and you're
• 15:42
  just like, they're shaking and they're scared and they're
• 15:44
  hopeless. And you're just like, like, I
• 15:46
  know, you know, I know what it's like.
• 15:48
  But like to the whole successful thing, it's something I've seen
• 15:51
  too now living in sober homes and seeing people go out and
• 15:54
  seeing people you've. Seen both sides.
• 15:56
  I don't have success. I think if you're someone that
• 15:58
  wakes up and like you said, stays in your room, doesn't do a
• 16:01
  whole lot, doesn't have much purpose and purpose doesn't mean
• 16:04
  you're going out there to change the world.
• 16:05
  Purpose just means like maybe you're looking for a job, you
• 16:07
  know, you have some obligations, some passion.
• 16:11
  Basically, if you're sitting in your room all day or sitting at
• 16:13
  home all day watching TV, the only difference between that and
• 16:16
  what you were like in addiction is you're not high.
• 16:18
  Because I remember for my worst parts of my addiction, like I
• 16:22
  just sat in my my house isolation, isolated myself and,
• 16:26
  and got high. So, like, I think one of the
• 16:29
  most dangerous things for addicts, it's boredom.
• 16:32
  Yeah. You know, when you get too much
• 16:34
  time in your head, you, you're in yourself, That is when bad
• 16:38
  things start to happen, Right. And.
• 16:41
  I'm sorry. Go ahead.
• 16:43
  No, I think I, I, I, I mentioned a lot of the same things when
• 16:46
  I'm on this podcast, but it's because they work.
• 16:48
  They they work. But that's what I do.
• 16:51
  Like the second I'm in my room just like right now for the last
• 16:54
  week, I've had a little bit of free time.
• 16:55
  I'm between jobs and like, if I'm thinking if something's
• 16:59
  going on in my life and I'm in my head thinking about what I
• 17:01
  should do about it, I call someone.
• 17:03
  Yeah. Because if I don't do that, like
• 17:05
  I'm still such an idiot in so many ways.
• 17:07
  And I'm very open and honest to say that because.
• 17:09
  And if I, if I don't think I'm an idiot, and that's from people
• 17:12
  telling me like, no, you've got some work to do.
• 17:13
  If I think and I do what I think I should do, like 30 minutes
• 17:16
  ago, what just happened I explained to you is we won't get
• 17:18
  it on here. But if I would have done what I
• 17:19
  thought I should do, right, I would probably be hospitalized.
• 17:23
  Hospitalized. In the in the police station.
• 17:25
  Or in the police station, right. Like, and that's just what my
• 17:27
  instincts it tells me to do, right.
• 17:28
  But I had a friend with me and I just I was never someone who did
• 17:33
  what someone like. I never took advice.
• 17:35
  Yeah. You know, I never if you told me
• 17:37
  to go left, I was not going left.
• 17:38
  I was going right and never was never coming back, right.
• 17:41
  But now you know, just not doing doing my own will all the time.
• 17:45
  I like to think of it as like, it's like, it's like I'm, you
• 17:48
  know, presenting to an audience of me's.
• 17:50
  It's like a bunch of me, yeah, I'm like, and everyone's just
• 17:53
  like, yeah, great idea, do it, do it right.
• 17:55
  That's what happens when I'm in my room by myself.
• 17:57
  I noticed that to be especially true when I was in treatment
• 17:59
  this last time with you. Every single time I was in my
• 18:02
  room watching TVI was miserable. The place sucked, time was never
• 18:07
  going to come. Like the time was never passing.
• 18:09
  Miserable with a capital M, by the way.
• 18:12
  He he would attest to it and then every time without fail,
• 18:15
  every time I would just go into the room, the big room, we
• 18:19
  called it at the treatment center with, with all the other
• 18:21
  addicts and people, counsellors. It's like I was just like in
• 18:24
  another world. I was connected.
• 18:26
  I was happy. I was, you know, I wasn't wasn't
• 18:28
  so bad. The trans center.
• 18:29
  I was recovering right. I think there's a, there's a
• 18:32
  couple of things that come to mind.
• 18:34
  An addict alone is an addict and bad company, you know, because
• 18:38
  as, as you know, as addicts, we're walking up a down
• 18:42
  escalator, you know, if we just stop, you know, our, our old
• 18:46
  thinking kicks in. Oh, I should go get high.
• 18:49
  I should go do this. I should go do that.
• 18:51
  That'll because we're pleasure seekers.
• 18:53
  You know, our pleasure center is going.
• 18:55
  I want to be happier, you know, I need some something out here
• 18:58
  that's going to be, it's going to be food.
• 19:00
  It's going to be a relationship, not even a relationship.
• 19:03
  It's going to be sex. You know, something will make me
• 19:06
  happy. And the other one is get out of
• 19:08
  your head. There's no adult supervision in
• 19:09
  there, right, Which is true. We have such immature attitudes
• 19:13
  and, and thoughts about our life, you know, that we need, we
• 19:17
  need intervention, you know, and that's why aftercare and 12 step
• 19:21
  programs and friends and recovery are beautiful because
• 19:24
  they can tell us, hey, what's up with you, Caleb?
• 19:27
  You're not quite right. You look like you're off in
• 19:30
  space somewhere and we need that.
• 19:34
  I have a question for you, Jay. So for someone, you've been in
• 19:36
  this program for a long time, you've been around addicts for a
• 19:38
  long time and like I've been around a lot of people now, like
• 19:42
  in the recovery industry, we'll call it.
• 19:43
  And like you're by far one of the most compassionate people.
• 19:47
  And I mean that because like I and I truly mean that because
• 19:49
  you've been doing it for such a long time now, you know what I
• 19:51
  mean? Like I could say for myself, for
• 19:53
  the first two months I was a lot nicer and I'm getting less
• 19:55
  nicer. Like every.
• 19:56
  Single day? Are you getting jaded?
• 19:59
  Right, so it's it's like compelling to see someone like
• 20:02
  yourself has been doing it for so long and you still continue
• 20:05
  to do that right Like it may I see it all the time with you and
• 20:08
  I'm not just trying to like. Blow your spot up.
• 20:10
  You're you're a great guy when it comes to recovery.
• 20:11
  But my question is like, do you ever get in?
• 20:15
  Like, you run a soap, you run sober homes.
• 20:17
  So you're dealing constantly with drama just, you know, and
• 20:22
  like, not normal drama, like, you know, drug addict drama.
• 20:25
  Like, you know, we do some pretty messed up things at
• 20:27
  times. Do you ever get to, like, do you
• 20:30
  ever like, lose your patience with these people?
• 20:32
  Oh, yeah. And and.
• 20:33
  How do? You with that guy, See, you
• 20:35
  can't see him. He's off camera.
• 20:37
  Jake, shout out Jake. Shout out to Jake.
• 20:40
  He may have saved your life today.
• 20:42
  But like, just what, what do you do?
• 20:44
  Like, because I think that's a coping mechanism that like I
• 20:46
  could like things happen in my life and my I freak out, I get
• 20:49
  mad. But for you, like how do you
• 20:50
  just stay so calm because you are such a calm, cool, collected
• 20:53
  guy? Like I, I've seen some
• 20:55
  situations that I've dealt with first hand now with guys
• 20:57
  relapsing, things happening and I call you, I call Jay and I'm
• 21:01
  expecting Jay to go like holy shit, call the ambulance, call
• 21:04
  the cops, get on an airplane. Over.
• 21:07
  Here, fly to a different country.
• 21:08
  That's what I'm expecting you to say, but you're just so like,
• 21:12
  you're so good about everything and you're not judgmental
• 21:15
  Serenity, you know, I'll be thinking this guy's an idiot.
• 21:18
  You're like, it's OK. He just needs to do this, this
• 21:20
  and this, and it'll all be OK. Like how do you just keep that
• 21:22
  kind of composure all the time? I don't know.
• 21:24
  You know what, I don't really know.
• 21:26
  I think they some parts I think sometimes desensitized to it
• 21:30
  like it's just all normal. Yeah, I guess it's like somebody
• 21:34
  who works in a morgue and sees dead bodies all the time.
• 21:37
  And like if I saw one, I'd be like, Oh my God, you know, But
• 21:40
  that person, it's like every day you have to to think, you know,
• 21:44
  the recovery houses are very different than treatment
• 21:47
  centers. Treatment centers, you're
• 21:49
  getting people that are, you know, like their moods are up
• 21:52
  and down, like yo yos, you know, they're, they're in withdrawal,
• 21:55
  they're self loathing, they're shame, guilt, fears, anxiety
• 21:59
  worries with us. Everybody's coming.
• 22:01
  You know, they've got 30 days. Maybe maybe they don't have
• 22:04
  their maybe you know, they've just came in off the street, but
• 22:07
  it's somebody that we've know that we've worked with, like our
• 22:10
  good friend over here. But you basically know what the
• 22:13
  person's about and you know that they've got a good heart.
• 22:17
  You know that they're, you know, they're can't.
• 22:19
  You've seen that. I've seen that, you know, I've
• 22:21
  talked to them on the phone before they come in.
• 22:24
  They've told me what their, their aspirations are, where
• 22:27
  they'd like to go with their goals are.
• 22:29
  And I guess, you know, when, when things don't go well, when
• 22:33
  somebody, you know, I don't know what somebody hears of a
• 22:36
  friend's death or, you know, their world gets rocked in some
• 22:40
  way. You know, I try to think, you
• 22:43
  know what? They're just doing the best they
• 22:45
  can right now. And I'm going to treat them with
• 22:48
  as much love, kindness and respect as I would want to be
• 22:52
  treated myself if I was offside, you know?
• 22:57
  And I think that's basically the best way, you know, the best
• 23:00
  thing we could do with people because, you know, I think
• 23:02
  ultimately we all feel like we, we all want to be cared about,
• 23:06
  you know? And when somebody's really
• 23:08
  offside, they're not feeling like they can care for
• 23:11
  themselves. So we have to show them that
• 23:14
  they're worth being cared for. Yeah.
• 23:16
  Love them until they can love themselves.
• 23:18
  Yeah, exactly 100. That's the the whole message I
• 23:20
  heard when I was going to recover.
• 23:23
  You know the recovery program people did that.
• 23:25
  For me and they continue to do that just.
• 23:26
  Give me a hug. I remember when I had a couple
• 23:29
  months of sobriety and I was in treatment still and like
• 23:31
  someone, someone come into the like they were doing their detox
• 23:35
  right and they were like just annoying me.
• 23:39
  I was just like, this person's an idiot or this or that.
• 23:42
  So that night I had a counseling session and I told my counselor,
• 23:45
  I'm like, I'm about to lose my mind on this individual.
• 23:47
  And he laughed. And he said, listen, man, he's
• 23:49
  like, do you not remember the big gigantic bag of shit you
• 23:53
  walked into this treatment center with?
• 23:54
  He's like, like take a break. Like take a chopo.
• 23:56
  And I thought just that simple message hit me up.
• 23:59
  Like, that's very true. And that's one of my biggest
• 24:00
  problems is like, I forget, right?
• 24:02
  And when you think like, OK, like that could easily be me.
• 24:05
  And I remember you said those words to me.
• 24:07
  I think it was when I called you about one of our friends had a
• 24:10
  slip. And, you know, you just, I said
• 24:12
  like, hey, man, you said that could be me.
• 24:14
  That could be you, right? And when you really look at it
• 24:16
  like that, it's like, OK, right. Because my first reaction is to
• 24:18
  just judge the situation, judge the person.
• 24:21
  It's this, this and this. But who really knows, right?
• 24:23
  Yeah, We're all the same at the end of the day when it comes to
• 24:25
  our disease of addiction. And is it, You know, it's sad to
• 24:28
  see. That's the biggest thing for me.
• 24:29
  I get sad when I see someone. That's one of the toughest parts
• 24:32
  about a sober home for me is you build such good connections with
• 24:35
  these guys. You know what I mean?
• 24:36
  Such good bonds and connections. You're living with them.
• 24:38
  And then, you know, you're on this great path, everything is
• 24:41
  going great. And then within, you know, six
• 24:44
  hours, you. Know that's what powerless when
• 24:47
  they talk about being powerless in the recovery literally when
• 24:50
  you've invested so much time and effort in somebody and they've
• 24:54
  invested in you and just in the blink of an eye they're gone and
• 24:58
  the relationship is gone and you don't know if you'll ever see
• 25:01
  them again yeah but it's it's not like a friendship where 20
• 25:04
  years goes by and it's like you pick up right where you left off
• 25:07
  yeah you don't know what that person's gonna be like 2 days
• 25:10
  from now they're calling you for money yeah there's everything's
• 25:13
  great except you know can you give me 50 bucks that's.
• 25:16
  So true. One of my friends.
• 25:17
  That's all right. Now we live together for a
• 25:19
  month. We we come really close every
• 25:22
  night, right. And then he had left.
• 25:23
  I hadn't talked to him for about a week.
• 25:25
  And then we we talked on the phone and it was so different.
• 25:29
  Yeah, like it like we had such like a good bond and mesh when
• 25:32
  we talked to hung on person. But that conversation on the
• 25:34
  phone was like awkward. It was weird.
• 25:36
  I'm like, I don't have no idea who's.
• 25:37
  This guy, Yeah. Doctor Jacqueline.
• 25:39
  Mr. Hyde, Yeah. Doctor Jacqueline.
• 25:40
  Mr. Hyde, Yeah. Yeah, definitely, yeah.
• 25:44
  Yeah, something I really wanted to get into last time and I'm
• 25:46
  I'm happy you came back for this purpose alone.
• 25:49
  So I've been to three treatment centers now, 3 rehabs.
• 25:51
  Just interviewing staff about their families, Yeah, good.
• 25:55
  Just checking out yeah to give you feedback.
• 25:58
  My soul brain just got that joke.
• 26:00
  Yeah, I know. It took me a while too.
• 26:01
  I was like, this guy's too smart for me.
• 26:04
  Just to just to give you info on how good the treatment center
• 26:06
  is, of course. Yeah, I'm.
• 26:08
  I'm like one of those undercover food guys, you know?
• 26:11
  Nobody knows. I'm not actually an addict.
• 26:13
  Yeah, just checking the facilities.
• 26:15
  Yeah, just checking the. Facilities.
• 26:16
  Quick joke before you gave me this question.
• 26:18
  I heard this actually a couple weeks ago and at a different
• 26:20
  sober house. I was at a meeting, right?
• 26:22
  And someone, I guess, got caught doing drugs in the bathroom,
• 26:24
  right? So.
• 26:26
  How unusual is that? Yeah, ever happened before?
• 26:28
  So the owner of the house, he says, listen, he's like, if
• 26:31
  anyone's going going to do a science project in the bathroom,
• 26:35
  he said. That's a no, no, he said.
• 26:36
  Research gets done outside, he said.
• 26:39
  That should be a sign on the wall, yeah.
• 26:41
  He said no science projects in the bathroom, all the
• 26:43
  researchers outside. For those who don't know, we
• 26:46
  call it doing more research when we go back out, right?
• 26:48
  Yeah, it's it'll be different this time, this insanity.
• 26:50
  There's a treatment center in Israel.
• 26:53
  They've got a sign outside. It says diamond, Diamond
• 26:55
  polishers, Right. And what they, what the guy's
• 26:59
  saying is, you know, you come in here as a rough stone and we
• 27:02
  Polish you up and you become, you know, yeah, yeah.
• 27:05
  So I've been to three rehabs, 2 in the United States and 1:00
• 27:09
  here in Canada. I wanted to get your opinion on
• 27:12
  kind of the state of our society, Canadian society
• 27:16
  specifically, you know, the structure, the infrastructure
• 27:19
  that we have as a, as a country, maybe as a province of Ontario
• 27:22
  OR city or what, Like what, what do you think about the way
• 27:26
  things are run now? And you know, I found out later
• 27:29
  that the reason I was sent to the US, the real reason I was
• 27:32
  sent to the US is because it was harder for me to escape and go
• 27:35
  back. And I was like, oh, that makes
• 27:36
  sense. Maybe where?
• 27:37
  Where am I? Yeah.
• 27:38
  It's just it was and. Where's my passport?
• 27:42
  And yeah, why don't these people, why aren't these people
• 27:44
  saying, hey, I don't understand. Yeah.
• 27:46
  Then then I've, you know, it's funny because that actually
• 27:48
  happened when I went to Canada, the Canadian 1.
• 27:50
  I actually left and I went back. So it makes sense to me now.
• 27:54
  To make you feel better, my parents, when they brought me to
• 27:56
  rehab, they picked me up. I slept in a vehicle.
• 27:58
  I, I fell asleep and I woke up 13 hours away from my house and
• 28:01
  my parents. Like, you're not going home,
• 28:02
  buddy. You're staying right here.
• 28:04
  Took a couple bus rides and Ubers to get back home.
• 28:06
  You don't have Uber where you're from so you're you're screwed.
• 28:09
  Yeah, we had somebody, they woke up in Georgia in the mountains
• 28:13
  and they turned to their their father, I think he was, and
• 28:15
  said, where am I? And the father said I'm not
• 28:18
  telling you. That's the worst hangover ever,
• 28:21
  right? Yeah.
• 28:21
  Yeah. Oh my God.
• 28:22
  So what do you think about the way the way things are right now
• 28:25
  as a? That's actually a good question.
• 28:27
  Yeah, I, I think we've come a long way in the last, I don't
• 28:30
  know, 10-15 years, especially around, well, the whole model
• 28:35
  of, of, of addiction treatment and mental health really the
• 28:39
  greater, you know, kind of model of mental health has moved from
• 28:44
  kind of an institutional model to, I think that would be called
• 28:48
  like a multidisciplinary model, which means, you know, we're,
• 28:52
  we're not institutionalizing as many people.
• 28:55
  We're, we're doing more keeping people in their communities, you
• 29:00
  know, having smaller inpatient and outpatient programs.
• 29:04
  At one time, let's say in the 50s, mental health was treated,
• 29:09
  you were shipped off, you know, to, you know, some, you know,
• 29:14
  asylum, right? You were taken off the street
• 29:16
  and you know, you were dealt with in whatever way they were
• 29:20
  dealing with it. I think they called back the
• 29:23
  dipsomania. Was alcoholism back back in the
• 29:27
  dipsomania? Yeah.
• 29:30
  But today, you know, we've moved away from that model.
• 29:33
  They've closed up a lot of the asylums that were around
• 29:38
  Lakeshore Psychiatric Institute would be Midland Haronia calling
• 29:43
  a Aurelia had had a big, you know, mental health facility up
• 29:49
  there. So they've closed most of those
• 29:51
  and the local hospitals have opened up with smaller
• 29:55
  psychiatric units. And I think what's gone on, in
• 30:00
  around the 60s, we started coming out with more
• 30:03
  psychotropic medications like Valium for anxiety and
• 30:07
  antipsychotic medication, stelazine and chlorpromazine,
• 30:12
  things like that. Although not great.
• 30:14
  Listen, we've come a long way. It's been, you know, 60-70 years
• 30:18
  since then or 5060 years. The medications have gotten
• 30:22
  better. So people go into these units in
• 30:26
  the hospitals, they get stabilized after two weeks,
• 30:28
  they're on medication, they're functioning better.
• 30:31
  Their, their their quality of life has improved and they're
• 30:34
  going back out into the community and they're becoming,
• 30:37
  you know, their quality of life is better, right?
• 30:39
  So I think that's the model we've moved to with addiction as
• 30:42
  well, where there's a lot of harm reduction strategies that
• 30:46
  have come out, the needle exchange programs, things like
• 30:50
  that. Naltrexone, naloxone, you know,
• 30:55
  everybody can get access to naloxone.
• 30:58
  That was a big one. Now, you know, before it was,
• 31:00
  you know, present your ID and it was, you know, they, they
• 31:03
  removed a lot of the barriers for, you know, you getting help
• 31:07
  for your friend, you know, everybody's got, you know,
• 31:10
  that's out with opiates now has naloxone kits, you know, and
• 31:14
  they're, they're antagonists. They, they bring them out
• 31:17
  immediately out of an overdose, right?
• 31:20
  Like within. Our treatment center gave
• 31:23
  everyone a free one on the way out.
• 31:24
  I still have it in my car. Yeah, Naltrexone, a longer
• 31:28
  acting naloxone for people that are drinking alcohol or it
• 31:33
  reduces the cravings around it or somebody's on naltrexone,
• 31:39
  they might be on, I think it's called, I can't remember Rivia
• 31:42
  or something, but it's a shot, a depot shot A1 month shot, right
• 31:47
  and. So that's called the sublocade.
• 31:49
  Sublocade. Yeah, yeah.
• 31:51
  So if they're taking that, then they're good for almost a month.
• 31:54
  Yeah, right. If they use something, they'll
• 31:56
  be in precipitated withdrawal or some you know, it's not fun.
• 32:00
  No, it's not. Yeah, I'll tell you funny quick
• 32:03
  story. I was, I was trying to pick up
• 32:05
  drugs one day, right. And I had used the day before.
• 32:08
  So the way these drugs work, Suboxone anyways, right.
• 32:11
  If you've like, you can't be on any other drugs but Suboxone.
• 32:14
  And also you'll get like aggressively sick.
• 32:16
  So other opiates. Yeah, Other opiates, right.
• 32:19
  Yeah. So I'd use it within the last 24
• 32:21
  hours. And I'd went to someone who I
• 32:22
  knew who had Suboxone and I always heard about him like that
• 32:25
  kind of sounds like a fun drug. Never tried it before.
• 32:27
  Should be a great time. So I went to him, bag this guy
• 32:30
  for his medication, you know, like a sick person.
• 32:33
  And I was, and he gave me some. Yeah, he gave me some.
• 32:35
  I went home, I took it. And then within 30 minutes, I'm
• 32:38
  sitting on my couch waiting to get high, right?
• 32:40
  And then I just felt like the biggest urge to puke ever.
• 32:43
  And I spent the next like 8 hours, like it was like not like
• 32:46
  it was long, like 8 hours puking and puking and puking.
• 32:49
  And then I thought this guy would like, thought he like lied
• 32:51
  to me or something. But then he told me, bro, you
• 32:53
  didn't tell me you were doing other drugs.
• 32:54
  And I'm like, what? And it's an anti antagonist.
• 32:56
  So it's meant to keep you off everything else, right?
• 32:59
  I believe in. I believe those actually may
• 33:01
  help someone if you know. Yeah, so they came out with
• 33:04
  subutext of 15 years ago or something in the States.
• 33:08
  We did some testing here with it and I think what they found was
• 33:11
  it could be abused. So they married naltrexone with
• 33:15
  it. So we got Suboxone, right.
• 33:18
  So it's, it's the subutext is an opiate replacement that binds to
• 33:26
  the neurotransmitter walls, right.
• 33:28
  And then it let's go. So it's not like methadone where
• 33:31
  it fills it up and then just stays there until it's
• 33:34
  metabolized. It bounces around, right.
• 33:37
  So you don't get as an intense high.
• 33:40
  Yeah, yeah. And they married it with
• 33:44
  naltrexone so that you can't use other, you know, or you
• 33:47
  supposedly you can't use other things.
• 33:49
  I think probably some people. Have found a way.
• 33:51
  Yeah, you know, there's always. Not to get, you know, pretty
• 33:54
  resourceful. You have to get, like, too
• 33:55
  political about it. But I can share my experience.
• 33:57
  When I use methadone, I was still able to use other drugs.
• 33:59
  Yeah. And, like, methadone still got
• 34:01
  me very high, Right. So.
• 34:04
  Yeah, but you know, everything's got a place.
• 34:08
  Yeah, you're on methadone as a place, Naltrexone, naloxone for
• 34:14
  Sublocade. I, I know a few people back home
• 34:16
  that are, you know, they've been on this stuff for 30-40 years.
• 34:19
  And not to make anyone's situation harder or easier, but
• 34:22
  like for me, I had four or five years using opiates.
• 34:24
  It would be easier for someone who's been using it for 40 years
• 34:27
  and their body is like deathly sick if they don't have it right
• 34:31
  now. That person who is say let's say
• 34:32
  they're 65 years old, they got five years left to work until
• 34:35
  they're done retiring. Is it worth them not being able
• 34:39
  to wake up in the morning, go to work this drink, if that's all
• 34:41
  they're taking, If they're taking that, they're dosed.
• 34:43
  Because last time on one of the episodes, I kind of talked
• 34:46
  pretty harsh on methadone and it was just because it threw a
• 34:48
  pretty good curveball in my life, right?
• 34:50
  But that's my personal problem. I'm a drug addict and I'm the
• 34:52
  one who let it ruin my my bit, my life.
• 34:55
  But for that person who actually might need it and it's helping
• 34:58
  them get through their day, they're just using their dose,
• 35:01
  you know, that's prescribed to them by a professional doctor.
• 35:03
  OK, I could see how that helps someone, but for someone like
• 35:07
  myself who was using it with other, I was using it to get
• 35:10
  high. Yeah, you know, Yeah, taking
• 35:12
  multiple of. Them and they're, you know, I've
• 35:14
  got lots of friends who've been on at 30-40 years and it just
• 35:18
  gave them a quality of life they, they could escape from
• 35:22
  that buying and ripping and running and you know, that
• 35:25
  street scene, you know, and, and we know so many people, you
• 35:28
  know, our, our friend, we can't, you can't see him, but he's over
• 35:32
  there just came off of methadone and you know, we celebrate.
• 35:35
  Yeah, you know, because he's not in liquid handcuffs.
• 35:38
  And I don't think. People, but but it gave, let me
• 35:40
  sorry, but it gave him a quality of life that he couldn't get
• 35:45
  without it, you know, and and through that been able to go to
• 35:48
  school, been able to work, have healthier relationships with his
• 35:52
  family and and friends, been able to sit in a, you know,
• 35:55
  maybe a 12 step meeting or or other kinds of meetings and help
• 35:59
  other people. So you know it, like you said,
• 36:02
  it has its place, but it can also be abused, right?
• 36:06
  And for someone who can get off that or any drug, to be honest,
• 36:08
  but like we're going to use methadone specifically, like
• 36:10
  that is such, that's a huge milestone.
• 36:13
  And someone's like that's big. I've been through it personally
• 36:15
  and it's so hard to do because it's like it's almost like a you
• 36:20
  can rationalize in your head like oh, it's a prescribed.
• 36:22
  Drug by the doctor. I did that a lot.
• 36:24
  Right, Like same like I don't understand how people who smoke
• 36:28
  pot and are Alcoholics like it's so easy for you to just you go
• 36:31
  to a gas station and it's right there, right.
• 36:34
  So like. Yeah, but ever you know, you can
• 36:36
  say that about look at all the money in the bank.
• 36:39
  You know, like I saw them, they brought out stacks.
• 36:42
  Why wouldn't I take? 50s and hundreds, Yeah.
• 36:44
  And I said to myself, can can I have some of that?
• 36:47
  You know? Well, no.
• 36:49
  Sometimes when you have a conversation with a therapist,
• 36:52
  they just make you feel. But you know what they do is
• 36:54
  they bring a mirror around and all your sessions and they just
• 36:57
  hold the mirror up. And that's recovery, though,
• 36:59
  don't we always? Say we pray you see yourself
• 37:02
  walk through the door. Yeah, You know, you see that
• 37:04
  guy, that sick and suffering addict that you were once.
• 37:08
  Yeah, you know, and now you're like a couple of steps ahead of
• 37:11
  them and you either look down on them and say, Oh my God, you
• 37:15
  know what a what a terrible situation that guy's in, you
• 37:18
  know, or you look at them and say, Oh my God, I remember when
• 37:20
  somebody else helped me. Yeah, it's like somebody reached
• 37:23
  down and and gave me a hand, you know, and that's what really
• 37:27
  true recovery is about, is helping the next guy.
• 37:30
  It's like play it forward. It's like having.
• 37:32
  Empathy versus sympathy, right? Yeah.
• 37:34
  Like, you know, I, I, that's a good point.
• 37:36
  I've been in their shoes. I've been in their shoes versus
• 37:38
  Wow, you're pretty bad off, man. Like, I'm going to go hang out
• 37:41
  with my friends and drive my Ferrari while you, yeah, you
• 37:44
  know, walk to the bus. Right.
• 37:46
  Yeah, I got a. Question for you.
• 37:48
  And we talked about this before. So like for So what we're
• 37:51
  talking about like the state of like the recovery in our country
• 37:53
  and stuff. So for me, it's still really new
• 37:56
  because I'm new to Toronto. But like the, the addiction and
• 37:59
  mental health scene in Toronto is quite large.
• 38:01
  Now for the person that's like currently homeless on the side
• 38:05
  of the street using drugs, what is like the best, How do you
• 38:08
  help that kind of person? Because like that person and the
• 38:11
  way I'm asking these questions, because I was like, granted a
• 38:14
  beautiful opportunity to go to treatment center.
• 38:16
  I had everything like land on my lap.
• 38:17
  That person's not going to have that opportunity land on their
• 38:20
  lap, right? Nine times out of 10 anyways.
• 38:23
  And so for the person that doesn't have that like what like
• 38:26
  what does Canada or Ontario or the city, what needs to be done
• 38:30
  to help those, what's the answer?
• 38:31
  And that's a very loaded question.
• 38:33
  So I, I, well, I think it's a good question.
• 38:35
  I. Think, you know, the
• 38:36
  government's poured in a lot of money into outreach St. outreach
• 38:39
  work, you know, we've, we've, you know, not enough, you know,
• 38:43
  as far as homelessness goes, but you have to kind of think, OK,
• 38:46
  what's the priority with this person?
• 38:48
  They're living on the streets. They're using drugs and alcohol
• 38:51
  in a way that probably helps them forget that they're living
• 38:55
  on the streets. Or maybe they been to the
• 38:57
  shelter system and they were abused and there was some
• 39:00
  violence or something else happened.
• 39:01
  They would rather live on the street, you know.
• 39:05
  But we do have, you know, we, I think the government's pumped in
• 39:08
  about $30 million. I can't remember 32,000,000.
• 39:12
  I think it was 2023-2024. And they pumped in another 20
• 39:18
  million into beds, more bed spaces in treatment centers and
• 39:23
  and sober houses. And that's to get more people
• 39:27
  off the street, give them more opportunity to move forward.
• 39:31
  But I think when we're talking about, you know, people that are
• 39:33
  living homelessness, you know, marginalized populations, youth,
• 39:38
  Indigenous populations, single mothers, things like that, we're
• 39:43
  doing better than we were. There's more programming.
• 39:47
  There's a program that started during the pandemic, Better
• 39:50
  Help, I think it was called, and it's for kids, I think 16 to 25,
• 39:56
  free counseling, virtual counseling, you know, we never
• 39:59
  had something like that before. There's so many more.
• 40:04
  The ARAM clinics, rapid access Addiction, I've been to those
• 40:07
  personally. They're great.
• 40:08
  You know, I think back like. 15 years ago when I heard they had
• 40:12
  the first pilot studies, I think there were six or seven of them
• 40:16
  in the country. I think Ontario I think has 60
• 40:19
  now in the hospital system. It's amazing.
• 40:21
  So removing those blocks and barriers to getting help was a
• 40:25
  big deal, a really big deal. You know, where you had to, you
• 40:29
  know, call, you know, a place, put your name on a list, do an
• 40:32
  intake, you know, go down to another intake or you know,
• 40:36
  whatever, make an appointment, see the doctor, all that kind of
• 40:39
  stuff. Now walk into a hospital.
• 40:41
  You seeing, like I said, the multidisciplinary team, you're
• 40:44
  going to see an addiction physician, you're going to see a
• 40:47
  social worker, you're going to see a nurse practitioner, you're
• 40:49
  going to see a nurse, you're going to see an addiction
• 40:51
  counselor. And you can go back as many
• 40:54
  times as you want, basically. And what their job is, is to get
• 40:58
  you into the right type of help according to your level of
• 41:02
  motivation and what you're using and what will be, we'll say the
• 41:07
  biggest bang for it's the buck kind of thing.
• 41:09
  You know, can you take time off? Where are you working?
• 41:13
  You know, can you take time off work?
• 41:15
  Are you afraid that you're going to lose your housing?
• 41:19
  You know, all kinds of problems, you know, for people, it's a
• 41:22
  multifaceted issue. And having these teams so
• 41:26
  readily available, I think it's been miraculous.
• 41:29
  I think the States has been looking at our model, you know,
• 41:33
  introducing our model as well. I want to comment on the RAM.
• 41:36
  Clinics because I thought that that was a flawless experience.
• 41:39
  So RAM is it stands for Rapid addiction, a rapid access
• 41:44
  addiction. Medicine or medicine?
• 41:46
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rapid.
• 41:48
  Addiction Access. Addiction Medicine.
• 41:50
  Anyways, they have virtual as well as in person.
• 41:53
  So I live in downtown Toronto. There was, I pulled it up on my
• 41:56
  phone one day because my third, my other therapist, Paulie shout
• 41:59
  out Paulie mentioned it to me and there was one at Saint
• 42:03
  Mike's hospital, right? So I walked there and I'm not
• 42:06
  even kidding. It was like the middle of the
• 42:07
  day. They have certain times you go
• 42:08
  in. I was probably I've never had an
• 42:10
  experience in a hospital like this before.
• 42:12
  It was probably an hour total in and out.
• 42:15
  They had, like you said, I saw three levels of care.
• 42:17
  I saw an intake coordinator and they're all qualified
• 42:20
  credentials. I saw doctor after that and they
• 42:23
  asked me a bunch of questions. I did a pee test.
• 42:25
  I lied about the, the pee test and I said that I wasn't doing
• 42:27
  any drugs. And then I was on Vyvanse.
• 42:29
  So I before I went to do the pee test, by the way, I'm probably
• 42:33
  gonna pop for amphetamines. And I felt good about being
• 42:36
  honest in that moment. But then you know, to your
• 42:38
  point, they gave me a bunch of resources, pamphlets, all this
• 42:41
  stuff of free therapy, free groups.
• 42:45
  They prescribed me medication. I think one of them was the
• 42:48
  naltrexone for the cravings. And it was in an hour I was in
• 42:52
  and out. So I showed out RAM clinics.
• 42:55
  You need help. I always link in the show notes
• 42:57
  after all the resources in Canada, when people say to me
• 43:00
  like there's nothing I can do, I don't have money, right?
• 43:03
  There are answers out there and you've beautifully articulated
• 43:07
  that there's answers. There is a solution out there,
• 43:10
  you just have to want to do it. There's I'll go through.
• 43:13
  Scrolling, looking at YouTube or whatever it is, and ads will pop
• 43:20
  up for treatment centers. And then I look at the comments.
• 43:23
  Comments will be, well, I can't afford these expensive luxury
• 43:27
  rehab centers. And always write in, you know
• 43:29
  what, call Comex Conex. Yeah, Conex is great.
• 43:32
  And here's the phone number. And it's a listing of all the
• 43:35
  mental health facilities, the beds in the province.
• 43:39
  It's a listing for gambling programs.
• 43:40
  It's a listing for all the addiction treatment centers and
• 43:45
  you get hooked up pretty quickly.
• 43:46
  You know, there is obviously we're in a social medicine, you
• 43:50
  know, in Canada, so there are weights.
• 43:55
  But that day's, you know, if today's February 5th and you
• 43:59
  know, my intake date for going into treatment is May 4th, May
• 44:04
  4th is going to come around whether I'm listed to go into
• 44:07
  treatment or not. Maybe by May 4th.
• 44:09
  I've gone to 50 meetings already, you know, and done 10
• 44:12
  other things. Maybe I haven't.
• 44:14
  And if I haven't, thank God there's a bed for me on May 4th.
• 44:17
  It's a great way. I really like.
• 44:19
  I liked how you were. Set like what you.
• 44:20
  Just said, because when I said that, I was expecting like
• 44:23
  almost a negative, like, oh, this needs to be fixed.
• 44:25
  This needs to be fixed. But because it's so easy to go
• 44:27
  up down the street, see a couple of people that are struggling
• 44:30
  homeless and it's like, oh man, they should be doing more.
• 44:32
  They should be doing anymore, but they are really doing a lot.
• 44:34
  I didn't know about this RAM clinic that was great That's
• 44:37
  that's great. That's really great and I mean
• 44:40
  it wish if we could go like this and help everybody Yeah, but
• 44:44
  it's well when. They say, they say.
• 44:46
  Treatment or recovery is for people that need it, not for
• 44:49
  people that want it. No, it's for people that want
• 44:53
  it. Yeah, I was gonna say, if it was
• 44:54
  for people that needed it, we'd have treatment centers the size
• 44:57
  of the Skydome, you know, and no one would have.
• 44:59
  That's right. The Roger Center.
• 45:00
  You're dating yourself there. The Roger.
• 45:05
  I love it, I just want to comment.
• 45:06
  Quickly on the the wait times too, because I had that
• 45:08
  experience too another reason why actually why I went to the
• 45:12
  states. It was private as well.
• 45:14
  But so 10 years ago, when my mom first started, you know, I
• 45:19
  remember like it was yesterday, she poor woman, like, she was.
• 45:22
  So she had no answers, right? And everywhere she called, every
• 45:27
  single person would say the same thing.
• 45:28
  He has to wanna come in, right? We can't accept somebody that.
• 45:31
  And she would lie on the phone and be like, no, he wants to.
• 45:33
  Yeah, he wants to. He wants to.
• 45:35
  And I definitely didn't. Right.
• 45:37
  Yeah. And she was at her wit's end.
• 45:39
  But were you telling your mom like, no, I'm not going?
• 45:40
  Yeah, no. No way.
• 45:41
  And then when I. Got kicked out, that was the
• 45:43
  only way I went and then like you I don't really have a prod
• 45:46
  use. Once in a while, yeah.
• 45:48
  Yeah, it's not that bad, Yeah. Right.
• 45:50
  So I remember 10 years ago, the wait times to get into like a
• 45:53
  Cam H Sure, yeah. You know, a public place where
• 45:56
  where something like four months, Yeah.
• 45:58
  You know, six months, 3-4 months.
• 46:00
  Yeah. And she was like, he's gonna be.
• 46:01
  Dead by that, Yeah, he keeps. Going the way he's going, right.
• 46:03
  So now I will say this, when my wife called this last time to
• 46:07
  try and get me in the wait time had reduced.
• 46:10
  They were still, you know, weeks out.
• 46:11
  But it it is getting better to your point and progress, not
• 46:15
  perfection, right. We're never going to be at a
• 46:16
  place that's perfect. I think one thing that we could
• 46:18
  do better, and I don't know if this is ever possible.
• 46:20
  I I'm a very, you know, I like pie in the sky ideas sometimes.
• 46:25
  But what I noticed when I went to the states is a lot of kids
• 46:28
  there had been there on their parents insurance.
• 46:31
  Insurance covers a lot of rehab in the state.
• 46:34
  It's hazeled in the one I went to, which is a great treatment
• 46:36
  center. Yeah.
• 46:36
  Do you ever think we'll get to a point like that in Canada?
• 46:39
  Well, insurance covers. I'm trying to.
• 46:41
  Remember insurance will cover part right?
• 46:44
  So they'll either cover the therapy part or the resident
• 46:48
  part and I can't remember which one they cover.
• 46:50
  I know with Homewood, a lot of insurance will cover, let's say,
• 46:55
  let's say it's $400.00 a day, they'll cover $200 a day of it.
• 47:00
  Some, some insurance does cover, you know, inpatient rehab.
• 47:04
  But you're right, the majority don't.
• 47:07
  They'll cover therapists, you know, and things like that.
• 47:11
  And then it's an allotted amount.
• 47:12
  Yeah, some companies like IF. You're working for like a a
• 47:16
  company that like a union, yes, right or like.
• 47:19
  Some of the. Companies that I work for in the
• 47:20
  mines. In the mines, I know of guys
• 47:23
  that were able to get time off work and they got to get sent to
• 47:26
  rehab, right? Which is amazing, right?
• 47:28
  Which is amazing. It's an amazing.
• 47:30
  Asset and perk to have on your job.
• 47:31
  But I mean, like you just said 5 minutes ago, you got to want it.
• 47:35
  There's a lot of people that need it that don't want it,
• 47:37
  right? And I wonder what the number
• 47:39
  would be on people who called to get into one of these rooms that
• 47:42
  never showed up. Probably a very high number,
• 47:44
  right? Yeah, I would think so.
• 47:46
  Next. Day.
• 47:46
  It's not so bad, yeah. It's sad.
• 47:49
  Well, that's the the. Nature of addiction.
• 47:51
  Right now, it's like in the moment, I have a crisis, you
• 47:54
  know, and I want help right now, this second, you know, and you
• 47:57
  talk to somebody two days later, oh, the crisis is adverted.
• 48:01
  You know, I got the money. I did.
• 48:03
  Yeah, I got the money or whatever's happened, right.
• 48:07
  And they've, they've been able to kind of like wiggle their way
• 48:10
  through that loophole. And but if it, you know, I
• 48:13
  always say addiction will raise its ugly head.
• 48:15
  If you've got a drug problem, alcohol problem, and you're
• 48:18
  entering that crisis, kind of, you know, mode of your life.
• 48:22
  And let's say you've been able to put the, the, the dragon to
• 48:26
  bed for a little while, it'll raise its head again, right?
• 48:29
  Unless we do something and there's lots, you know, there's
• 48:33
  lots to do, there's, there's lots of room to go.
• 48:36
  Like I worked for a place called Jax Toronto and we'll give Jax a
• 48:39
  shout out. And you know, one of the things
• 48:43
  that we started right from the day one was remove the blocks
• 48:46
  and barriers to getting help. You know, if you want help,
• 48:49
  call. We'll do an intake with you
• 48:53
  within 24 hours and you'll have a therapist calling you back or
• 48:56
  emailing you back for your first appointment within 48 hours.
• 49:01
  Because you're right, You know, Caleb, when you say people who
• 49:03
  they want help now, right? Not in, you know, a month from
• 49:07
  now and six months from now. You know, on the other hand,
• 49:10
  sure, get yourself on a wait list.
• 49:12
  But in the meantime, let's try everything we can to get you
• 49:16
  some kind of help and reduce the level of harm you're causing in
• 49:18
  your life. Yeah, 'cause I know right now.
• 49:21
  Like when I got to go to rehab, like my my, my father and my
• 49:26
  brother come to my house, whatever they asked me to go and
• 49:28
  I said OK, fine, I'll go. But like I give me like a day
• 49:31
  to, to get ready, right? I would have you would not have
• 49:33
  gone. Give me 3 weeks.
• 49:34
  Yeah, that's all I. Need right?
• 49:36
  This is it. I got stuff to do.
• 49:38
  And he said I'm. Giving you 20.
• 49:39
  Minutes to pack your bag. Yeah.
• 49:41
  And he was back. He ever did.
• 49:42
  And he was back in like. 13 minutes, right?
• 49:44
  But for those 13 minutes, I didn't pack a single thing.
• 49:46
  I sat there and I made love to my pipe.
• 49:49
  Yeah, right. That's what I that's what I did.
• 49:51
  Yeah. But so, like, it's so sad.
• 49:53
  That's me guys taking ketamine. Yeah, they.
• 49:55
  Walk in their bedroom to go pack.
• 49:57
  Forget what they why they walked into their bedroom.
• 50:00
  Come back out and go. I think I need a coffee.
• 50:02
  Where's your suitcase? Right.
• 50:04
  Oh, yeah. Oh, where are you?
• 50:06
  Yeah. And they go in their bedroom.
• 50:07
  You sit there on their bed with them and you're looking at them
• 50:10
  and they're walking around from closet to dresser to closet
• 50:14
  wondering why am I in my bedroom again.
• 50:17
  For us. I know people that watch.
• 50:18
  I've, I've even spoken to my mother about this, like, Oh my
• 50:21
  God. Like some of the jokes, like,
• 50:23
  but like, if you've lived this life and you've seen it,
• 50:24
  especially Jay, Jay's been doing this for, you know, you become
• 50:27
  desensitized. Yeah, Jay's been.
• 50:28
  Doing this since then it becomes.
• 50:29
  Funny. Yeah, you have to laugh.
• 50:31
  At some of the stupid things that we do, exactly half the
• 50:34
  time I'm laughing, it's. You get it, you get it.
• 50:37
  Right. Yeah, yeah.
• 50:38
  But yeah. Something we all have the same
• 50:40
  excuses, right? To make it serious for one more
• 50:42
  second, yeah. When it comes to the, to the
• 50:45
  aspect of waiting times and stuff, I think like if you told
• 50:47
  an addict like, OK, you got three weeks, it wouldn't be such
• 50:50
  a big deal to tell the addict that.
• 50:51
  But for the mother or the, the loved one, that's called
• 50:54
  lifetime. Well, they're in crisis, you
• 50:56
  know. They're so scared, you know,
• 50:58
  it's like, how do we? Mitigate that.
• 50:59
  Crisis, how do we calm, you know, people down a little bit
• 51:03
  and, and I think, you know, we give them a plan, you know, a
• 51:05
  plan of action that they could fall.
• 51:07
  OK, You know, a lot of people you don't want to do the initial
• 51:11
  assessment, I'll say, OK, well, you know, this is the wait time
• 51:14
  to get into a government facility.
• 51:16
  But why don't we do this? Why don't we get you on the wait
• 51:18
  list? We'll do the tools or whatever
• 51:20
  the intake process is, and in the meantime, let's try and do
• 51:24
  everything we can. You say that you're serious
• 51:26
  about it. Let's get you into some groups.
• 51:28
  Let's get you connected into some outpatient treatment in the
• 51:32
  meantime. And maybe that three months will
• 51:35
  come and go and you'll be doing amazing.
• 51:36
  But like I said, if you're not doing amazing, at least you have
• 51:39
  that bed, right, Jay? This is usually Anthony's.
• 51:42
  Part in the. Episode, he usually says this to
• 51:44
  every guest, but I'm going to steal, I'm going to steal the
• 51:46
  spotlight. I'm going to ask you this
• 51:47
  question if there is to one person that how do you E words
• 51:51
  is so perfectly everything but. If there's to the person that's
• 51:55
  out there, right? Now still suffering with
• 51:56
  addiction, hopeless. What would you say to that
• 52:00
  person? What a great question.
• 52:06
  You know, well, I'll tell. You something, there's a,
• 52:09
  there's. A rabbi named Abraham Tersti, he
• 52:11
  passed away, but we asked him that question, right?
• 52:14
  And we said one of the workshops that he came up to Toronto and
• 52:18
  did if you, you've got 60 days clean and you want to use you
• 52:25
  want to drink Lake Ontario, you know your, your alcohol craving
• 52:30
  is so vast, right? And he said something like, if
• 52:35
  using today is going to make tomorrow a better day, than go
• 52:39
  ahead because you can get through the battle of a day, you
• 52:42
  know, And I don't know anybody who's uses today that tomorrow
• 52:46
  is going to be a better day. They're going to feel worse.
• 52:49
  They'll feel more ashamed. They'll neglect their
• 52:51
  responsibilities. You know, there's a lot.
• 52:54
  Of different ways to answer. That question, but I think, you
• 52:57
  know, that was one way that kind of made sense to me.
• 53:00
  You know, the other one is never give up hope.
• 53:03
  You know, no matter how many rehab centers you've gone to, no
• 53:07
  matter how many people you've burned in your life, no matter
• 53:09
  how ashamed you feel of the things we've done, just don't
• 53:13
  give up hope. And they say hope stands for
• 53:16
  helping other people everywhere, right?
• 53:19
  Or everyday, right? And that's it.
• 53:21
  I think people like all of us, we help others, you know, we try
• 53:24
  to make, make our world a better place for somebody else so that
• 53:31
  we can, there's nothing better than seeing somebody else do
• 53:35
  well and know that you had a little bit of a hand in it.
• 53:38
  You know what a what a blessing that's so true to genuinely
• 53:42
  feel. Happy for someone?
• 53:44
  I was always envious and jealous when I seen someone doing good.
• 53:46
  But now when I see someone doing good, like makes me happy.
• 53:49
  Yeah, good for you. Wow.
• 53:51
  Cuz I remember when you weren't doing so well and then also too
• 53:54
  you're happy that. They're in your life.
• 53:56
  You're like, wow, this guy's in my life and I wanna do better
• 53:58
  too, right? Yeah, the.
• 54:01
  Quality of the relationships. Improves so much and that's
• 54:05
  where that spiritual component comes in thanks so much Jay, we.
• 54:09
  Appreciate you, buddy. Oh, great.
• 54:11
  I'm so happy to come. Down tonight you're yeah, you're
• 54:13
  a gem. It's.
• 54:14
  Cool to have fun. You're such like.
• 54:16
  AI know you don't like. When when people put you on, do
• 54:18
  it, do it. But like you're such.
• 54:20
  Like you're a role. Model to recovering addicts.
• 54:23
  And you're a very well known person.
• 54:24
  But like, you come anytime I see you lost.
• 54:26
  We're pretty close. Yeah.
• 54:27
  But anytime I see you, it's just like just talking to my buddy.
• 54:30
  You never, you never have a high ego.
• 54:32
  You never try and talk down to me.
• 54:34
  He's just like, just such a guy. You know that saying like you
• 54:37
  want what that person has. Well, I want what you have.
• 54:40
  That's nice. Thank you.
• 54:41
  What a what? A nice accolade.
• 54:43
  So yeah, put that up on the on the fridge, yeah.
• 54:46
  I want what you have. Your girlfriend, your car, your
• 54:49
  house with the Mazda, Yeah. Well, thanks for coming down,
• 54:52
  Jake. OK, thanks.
• 54:53
  Guys, thanks for having me. Thanks for listening.
• 54:55
  Please help. US grow the channel and like,
• 54:57
  share and subscribe for more content.
• 55:00
  The discussions and stories shared on this podcast are for
• 55:03
  informational and motivation purposes only.
• 55:05
  This content is not a substitute for professional medical advice,
• 55:09
  addiction treatment, or therapy. If you or someone you know is
• 55:12
  struggling with addiction, please consult A licensed
• 55:15
  physician, addiction specialist, or mental health professional.
• 55:19
  You are no longer alone.