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Addiction & Family Intervention with Mike Laverde · Surviving Me

• 0:13
  Dai: hey butterflies, and welcome back to another healing chapter of Surviving Me, the space where we have honest conversations about healing, growth, and all the messy parts in between.
• 0:23
  Dai: Today, we're talking about something that affects so many people, but don't always get discussed from every perspective, which is addiction.
• 0:31
  Dai: When we talk about addiction, we often focus on a person who's struggling, their pain, their recovery, their journey.
• 0:37
  Dai: But what about the people who love them, the parents, their partners, their siblings, and even their children who are trying to hold everything together while quietly falling apart themselves?
• 0:47
  Dai: How do you continue loving someone without losing yourself in the process?
• 0:50
  Dai: Where is the line between helping and enabling?
• 0:53
  Dai: And how do you begin healing when a person you love may not be ready to?
• 0:58
  Dai: Joining me today is Mike Laverde, founder of Family First Intervention.
• 1:02
  Dai: Mike's journeys into this work begin with a family intervention in 2005, which ultimately led him to leave a career in finance and dedicate his life to helping families navigate addiction in 2009.
• 1:14
  Dai: He founded Family First Intervention, challenging ideas that families should simply wait for their loved ones to hit rock bottom before taking actions.
• 1:23
  Dai: His work centers on helping families regain their voice, establish healthy boundaries, and recognize that their healing matters too.
• 1:30
  Dai: Mike, welcome to Surviving Me.
• 1:32
  Dai: Thank you so much for being here.
• 1:34
  Dai: Thank you for having me.
• 1:35
  Dai: I appreciate being here.
• 1:37
  Dai: Of course.
• 1:38
  Dai: So before we get into everything, I'd love for you to share a little about yourself and what led you to the work you're doing today.
• 1:46
  Mike Laverde: Sure thing.
• 1:47
  Mike Laverde: Thanks.
• 1:47
  Mike Laverde: I'm the owner and founder of Family First Intervention, and you said, I originally worked in finance.
• 1:53
  Mike Laverde: I have my undergrad in finance, and I worked for a phone company called Ameritech, in Chicago, and then I was pulled on site to Arthur Andersen, the Big Five accounting firm, and I did that for a while.
• 2:05
  Mike Laverde: And then we had an issue in our family.
• 2:07
  Mike Laverde: They struggled for many years.
• 2:09
  Mike Laverde: Nobody knew what to do, and everybody just kept telling them, "They have to want it, and they gotta hit bottom."
• 2:14
  Mike Laverde: And finally, my mother said, what about us?"
• 2:17
  Mike Laverde: And pulled in an interventionist and changed our entire lives.
• 2:21
  Mike Laverde: And I went back to school.
• 2:24
  Mike Laverde: I got my Master's of Science in Addiction Studies and Counseling, and became a certified intervention professional, worked for another intervention organization, the one that actually helped our family, and then started Family First and actually in '08, incorporated in
• 2:38
  Mike Laverde: Illinois in 2009, and now we're nationwide and we service all 50 states.
• 2:43
  Dai: We just got back from Alaska, and I love what I do That is amazing.
• 2:48
  Dai: What a journey.
• 2:49
  Dai: What a journey.
• 2:50
  Dai: Yeah.
• 2:51
  Dai: So jumping right into the first section, which is the reality of addiction.
• 2:55
  Dai: I think addiction is one of those things people can have strong opinions about without necessarily understanding what's happening underneath the surface.
• 3:03
  Mike Laverde: So I wanna start by unpacking some of those misconceptions.
• 3:07
  Mike Laverde: What do you think people misunderstand most about addiction, especially when it comes to why someone continues using even when they're hurting themselves or the people they love?
• 3:18
  Mike Laverde: A lot of people think it's a moral dilemma that can be solved through the power of choice and willpower.
• 3:22
  Mike Laverde: A lot of people don't understand that the person is not having a problem with drugs, they have a problem with themselves- and drugs are the solution, and then become physically addicted.
• 3:32
  Mike Laverde: They need to start looking at this as the chronic progressive and fatal illness that it is, and not just something that isn't.
• 3:38
  Mike Laverde: That's the only- fatal illness in the world that families act and believe the things that they do in regards to getting somebody help.
• 3:46
  Mike Laverde: 'Cause there's no other fatal illness in the world that families would sit back idle, paralyzed the way that they do with addiction.
• 3:53
  Mike Laverde: So it just, it paralyzes both sides, right?
• 3:55
  Mike Laverde: The user and the family, and I think the biggest misconception is the one that I have...
• 4:00
  Mike Laverde: The the whole reason why I changed my career is because the two things that are completely false is they have to want it, and they have to hit bottom, which are both completely false, period.
• 4:15
  Mike Laverde: Oh,
• 4:16
  Dai: That's interesting, because that's literally all you hear when you think about addiction.
• 4:20
  Dai: That's what people tell you.
• 4:21
  Dai: "Oh, no, you can't help them, 'cause they have to want it."
• 4:23
  Dai: That's literally the first thing people say.
• 4:25
  Dai: So it's funny that you say that is completely false.
• 4:29
  Dai: It's ridiculous Wow.
• 4:32
  Dai: Okay, so do you think addiction changes the entire family dynamic even when only one person is actively struggling with substance abuse?
• 4:41
  Mike Laverde: 100%.
• 4:42
  Mike Laverde: It's a trickle-down effect.
• 4:43
  Mike Laverde: It's called family systems theory.
• 4:45
  Mike Laverde: The substance user creates chaos and drama- the enabler reacts to it, and then everybody else in the family suffers as they take on maladaptive, unhealthy roles to cope with the stress and the anxiety of what's happening up at
• 4:59
  Mike Laverde: the top.
• 4:59
  Mike Laverde: Your enabler starts the trickle-down effect of dysfunction, and the whole family implodes, but they don't see it.
• 5:05
  Mike Laverde: They think that what they're doing is not it's not affecting anybody or anything, and families are as unwell as the substance user.
• 5:12
  Mike Laverde: They're all acting out generational family of origin dysfunction and reacting to the substance user at the top.
• 5:18
  Dai: It's just a mess.
• 5:19
  Dai: Absolutely.
• 5:20
  Dai: Wow.
• 5:21
  Dai: Yeah.
• 5:22
  Dai: Yeah, and it's funny that you even talk about enabling 'cause that jumps right into the second section, which is when love becomes enabling.
• 5:29
  Dai: So that brings me to something I think so many people struggle with because when you love somebody, your first instinct is usually to help them, of course.
• 5:35
  Mike Laverde: But sometimes we don't realize that the way we're helping might actually not be helping.
• 5:40
  Mike Laverde: I think a lot of families struggle with knowing the difference between helping someone and enabling them.
• 5:45
  Mike Laverde: So how can someone recognize when their love and support may actually be contributing to the cycle?
• 5:51
  Mike Laverde: First of all, if the addict's happy with you, you're probably the enabler, right?
• 5:55
  Mike Laverde: If they're not, you probably aren't.
• 5:57
  Mike Laverde: Enabling goes against the science.
• 5:59
  Mike Laverde: It goes against the clinical protocol, the stages of change.
• 6:02
  Mike Laverde: The stages of change state in the contemplation stage, and I don't wanna get all clinical on people, but I'm gonna show all the enablers that they're actually hurting their loved one, and it goes against evidence-based protocol, is that
• 6:13
  Mike Laverde: the intended patient must acquire ambivalence, and that means to see both sides of the argument.
• 6:19
  Mike Laverde: In other words, if the consequences of what they're doing are not greater than the benefits of what they're achieving and what they're doing, the person will not move forward and get ahead and make a change.
• 6:31
  Mike Laverde: That's why they have to want help.
• 6:33
  Mike Laverde: Even if that were true, why would anybody want help when the enabler is preventing them from moving through the stages of change?
• 6:40
  Mike Laverde: To fix it, we have to shut down the enabler and provide care or, and allow consequences and accountability to set into the substance user so that they have to get help.
• 6:52
  Mike Laverde: They all want help.
• 6:53
  Mike Laverde: That's why they're using.
• 6:54
  Mike Laverde: That's inherent in every substance user.
• 6:56
  Mike Laverde: They're picking up drugs and alcohol because they don't like the way they feel.
• 6:59
  Dai: They want help by way of a chemical solution.
• 7:01
  Dai: Why don't they have to get help?
• 7:03
  Dai: 'Cause the enabler's preventing it Wow.
• 7:07
  Dai: Period Wow, And it's the period a different perspective, for sure.
• 7:10
  Dai: But it's the clinical accurate perspective that everybody doesn't understand, and the therapist who tell you the opposite need to go back to school and reread that section of their book.
• 7:20
  Dai: So why is it sometimes so difficult for families to establish boundaries even when they know those boundaries are necessary?
• 7:28
  Dai: That's a great question, Day.
• 7:30
  Dai: Behavior is not defined by behavior itself.
• 7:32
  Dai: It's defined by a reward system.
• 7:34
  Dai: My 11-year-old twins know what enabling does for an addict.
• 7:37
  Mike Laverde: Wow.
• 7:38
  Mike Laverde: The question is what is the enabler getting from the enabling?
• 7:40
  Mike Laverde: The enabling's an addiction too.
• 7:42
  Mike Laverde: They're addicted to they have a purpose.
• 7:44
  Mike Laverde: They have a role of being needed.
• 7:45
  Mike Laverde: They're being their friend.
• 7:46
  Mike Laverde: They're preventing chaos.
• 7:48
  Mike Laverde: They think the enabling is helping, but it's not, it's hurting.
• 7:51
  Mike Laverde: So it's not about what is the enabling doing for the intended patient, it's why is the enabler doing this knowing that it isn't right?
• 7:59
  Mike Laverde: Because whether I as a professional tell them or anybody tells them a, a homeless man on the street would be like, "Yeah, you shouldn't be doing that."
• 8:06
  Mike Laverde: Everybody knows that, but the enabler still does it because they get something from it that supersedes knowing that.
• 8:15
  Mike Laverde: What is that enabler getting that is so great that they knowingly harm their loved one by providing comfort to a situation that only gets better by way of consequences and accountability?
• 8:26
  Mike Laverde: That's the deeper psychological question that we have to help families with.
• 8:30
  Mike Laverde: And when we crack that code with them, the light bulbs go off and they start doing things differently.
• 8:34
  Dai: But until then, they're literally preventing their loved one from getting better.
• 8:40
  Dai: Even though they want help, they don't have to get it.
• 8:44
  Dai: That's true.
• 8:45
  Dai: So in a sense, how can someone support a loved one through addiction without sacrificing their own mental and emotional wellbeing?
• 8:56
  Dai: Detachment, healthy boundaries, accountability.
• 8:58
  Mike Laverde: Listen, if you wanna go get high.
• 9:00
  Mike Laverde: Just leave these people alone.
• 9:02
  Mike Laverde: You know what I mean?
• 9:02
  Mike Laverde: you gotta know that you did everything you could to stop it, because the other thing they don't teach therapists, and the other thing I didn't read in my textbooks, but I've I've learned from counseling intervening on over 6,000
• 9:12
  Mike Laverde: addicts and alcoholics, and God knows how many in session, is addiction at its core is the weaponization of pain.
• 9:20
  Mike Laverde: They're hurting the people who they think are the cause of the pain that they have to medicate, whether real or perceived.
• 9:26
  Mike Laverde: Whether it's generational family of origin dysfunction, there's a family cover-up, there's a lack of affirmation.
• 9:33
  Mike Laverde: There's something in that family in which that substance user is harboring deep resentment and hostility and finger-pointing at those people that love them the most, so that mom or dad may or the whoever makes up with it by
• 9:46
  Mike Laverde: enabling, and the whole system implodes.
• 9:49
  Mike Laverde: So it's every time the heroin addict sticks the needle in his arm, he's trying to hurt somebody.
• 9:53
  Mike Laverde: It's like Bill Wilson in Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 9:56
  Mike Laverde: We drink poison waiting for the other person to die.
• 10:01
  Mike Laverde: Okay.
• 10:02
  Mike Laverde: And this doesn't come from textbooks.
• 10:04
  Mike Laverde: This comes from working with Illinois Department of Correction inmates.
• 10:08
  Mike Laverde: 6,000 interventions and God knows how many thousands of people in therapy, and every single one of them, when you say this to, it's like you nailed it.
• 10:16
  Mike Laverde: But therapists and families don't wanna believe that or teach that or say that.
• 10:20
  Mike Laverde: That's what's at its core, that's what's happening.
• 10:23
  Mike Laverde: Hurting people hurt other people- Yes
• 10:25
  Dai: and that substance user is in pain, and at the time of their addiction before they're sober, they can't own that what they're doing is their fault.
• 10:34
  Dai: They have to blame everybody else for their problems.
• 10:36
  Dai: It's called the fourth step of Alcoholics Anonymous.
• 10:39
  Dai: It's about what did I do to put myself in this situation and not blame other people for the problems that they have.
• 10:46
  Dai: It's about ownership and accountability, period.
• 10:49
  Dai: Which a lot of people tends to have problems with.
• 10:53
  Dai: Taking accountability is hard Yeah the average person, so imagine how much harder it would be for a person that's addicted.
• 11:00
  Dai: 100%.
• 11:01
  Dai: The guilt and the shame that my mother had, thinking that she caused this, not because she thought she did, but because the, the person in the family with the addiction convinced her that she was.
• 11:11
  Dai: it's the, and the more the addict and the alcoholic makes you believe that you are full of guilt and shame and that you did this, and if not for you, they wouldn't be this way, the more you start
• 11:21
  Dai: to believe it.
• 11:21
  Dai: If every day you wake up and say, "I'm a horrible person," you're gonna eventually think you're a horrible person.
• 11:26
  Dai: Exactly.
• 11:27
  Dai: Exactly.
• 11:28
  Dai: The power of the tongue is so real.
• 11:30
  Dai: It really is.
• 11:31
  Dai: Yeah, that whole, "Sticks and stones could break my bones, but names will never hurt me," yeah, they gotta stop that too.
• 11:35
  Dai: Yeah.
• 11:36
  Dai: Yes.
• 11:37
  Dai: That is not true, 'cause words do hurt.
• 11:42
  Dai: they hurt.
• 11:42
  Dai: Listen, you, I'd rather get beat up physically than tortured mentally.
• 11:46
  Dai: Yes, 'cause words stick with you.
• 11:49
  Dai: Bruises heal.
• 11:50
  Dai: Bruises heal.
• 11:51
  Dai: But words stick.
• 11:52
  Dai: Bruises heal.
• 11:53
  Dai: Look at what social media is doing to young kids.
• 11:55
  Dai: It's like, "I'm fat, I'm ugly."
• 11:57
  Dai: It's like, "No, you ain't."
• 11:58
  Dai: But social media says you are, Exactly it's insane.
• 12:01
  Dai: If you keep believing that this is the way it is, you're gonna keep believing that this is the way that it is.
• 12:06
  Dai: Exactly.
• 12:07
  Dai: Perfectly said.
• 12:08
  Dai: That was perfectly said.
• 12:09
  Dai: Jumping into section three, which is the emotional weight on families.
• 12:13
  Dai: Something I really want to make space for in this conversation is the emotional toll addiction can have on families, because sometimes the people trying to help keep everything together are the ones who don't realize how much they're hurting.
• 12:23
  Mike Laverde: So how do families begin healing from the resentment, guilt, broken trust, or exhaustion that can develop over time?
• 12:31
  Mike Laverde: The first thing we gotta do is shut down the chaos and the drama, right?
• 12:34
  Mike Laverde: When we intervene, we take the person to treatment, and now the family can start thinking straight.
• 12:39
  Mike Laverde: You cannot function in the middle of a fire.
• 12:42
  Mike Laverde: You gotta put the fire out and then look at the damage.
• 12:45
  Mike Laverde: And families are going through so much torture.
• 12:48
  Mike Laverde: When somebody is addicted or even mentally ill- those unhealthy family roles develop.
• 12:53
  Mike Laverde: You just, you have everybody fighting each other.
• 12:56
  Mike Laverde: And families just, every minute, every thought is They don't know who they're getting each day.
• 13:01
  Mike Laverde: Who, from each other.
• 13:02
  Mike Laverde: What are they gonna be like today?
• 13:03
  Mike Laverde: Your whole life is just consumed by what is today gonna be, and not in a good way.
• 13:09
  Mike Laverde: You got mom sleeping with her purse under her pillow.
• 13:11
  Mike Laverde: You got mom and dad fighting.
• 13:13
  Mike Laverde: You got the other kids not wanting to bring the grandkids over.
• 13:16
  Dai: You got holidays canceled.
• 13:18
  Dai: You got missing money.
• 13:19
  Dai: It's just who wants to live like that?
• 13:22
  Dai: As my son, is the next phone call gonna be the call from the county coroner that they're dead?
• 13:27
  Dai: Are they gonna overdose?
• 13:29
  Dai: Are they gonna get a bad batch?
• 13:30
  Dai: They got fentanyl on everything.
• 13:32
  Dai: It's that is just no way to live.
• 13:35
  Dai: It's not.
• 13:36
  Dai: It's truly not.
• 13:37
  Dai: So is it possible for a family to begin healing even if their loved one isn't ready to seek help yet?
• 13:44
  Dai: 100%.
• 13:45
  Dai: We do it every day.
• 13:46
  Dai: Not everybody accepts help, even though majority do.
• 13:49
  Dai: Families can get better.
• 13:50
  Dai: It's called the CRAFT model.
• 13:51
  Dai: It's called detachment.
• 13:53
  Mike Laverde: It's called Co-Dependencies Anonymous.
• 13:55
  Mike Laverde: It's called knowing that you did everything you could to stop it.
• 13:57
  Mike Laverde: It's like if your loved one has cancer and you do nothing, you're probably gonna feel horrible about it, but if your family member dies of cancer and you guys know you did everything you could to save them, not
• 14:07
  Mike Laverde: that is ever will be easy, but it's gonna feel a little better for you.
• 14:10
  Mike Laverde: The families have to know that even if there's things that they've done that may have caused the problems- they paid for them and then some.
• 14:17
  Mike Laverde: They don't have to sit around believing that they are the reason why this is, and that's what I'm saying.
• 14:22
  Mike Laverde: We gotta wait for them to hit bottom?
• 14:24
  Dai: Why, who says so?
• 14:26
  Dai: Why can't the family do something when they've hit their bottom?
• 14:29
  Dai: That's a great question, actually.
• 14:31
  Dai: Do you know how selfish it is for a therapist to say, "No, you gotta wait"?
• 14:36
  Dai: Yeah.
• 14:36
  Dai: Who says?
• 14:38
  Dai: do you know how disrespectful that is for anybody to tell a mother whose son is shooting fentanyl that you gotta wait for them to either die or end up in prison, or for them to just come to consciousness?
• 14:51
  Dai: What if mom's at the bottom, she can't do anything?
• 14:55
  Dai: Come on now.
• 14:56
  Dai: And honestly, when you put it that way, I could see why families would feel like helpless or just I don't know, at they wit's end, but feeling like they can't be at that wit's end because that person is
• 15:06
  Dai: not at that wit's end yet.
• 15:07
  Dai: But no, 'cause who gonna take care of you?
• 15:10
  Dai: How you gonna help them if you can't pour from an empty cup, basically.
• 15:13
  Dai: But Day, here's the deeper problem.
• 15:16
  Dai: People wanna hear what's fitting their ultimate narrative.
• 15:22
  Dai: And a mom who truly doesn't wanna give up her role as an enabler, who is sickly codependent, wants to hear there's nothing she can do.
• 15:33
  Mike Laverde: That's the sick twist in all of this, right?
• 15:35
  Mike Laverde: It's just like AI.
• 15:36
  Mike Laverde: The reason it's destroying therapy is because people aren't looking for a solution.
• 15:42
  Mike Laverde: They're looking for validation, and they're and they search and search until they ultimately end up with something that tells them what they ultimately really want.
• 15:51
  Mike Laverde: And when a mom who doesn't wanna give up her role as a caretaker and doesn't wanna give up her role of being needed and who wants to avoid the confrontation, who's riddled with guilt and shame, and I come
• 16:01
  Mike Laverde: in and say, "Oh mom, don't worry, just sit back and do nothing 'cause you can't," in a sick family systems theory way, that's what she wants to hear.
• 16:10
  Mike Laverde: That's why it works.
• 16:12
  Mike Laverde: But it doesn't help.
• 16:14
  Mike Laverde: Wow.
• 16:15
  Mike Laverde: Does that make sense?
• 16:16
  Mike Laverde: It actually does when you put It should that way.
• 16:19
  Mike Laverde: It makes a whole lot of sense.
• 16:21
  Mike Laverde: It makes a whole lot of sense.
• 16:22
  Mike Laverde: Because the families that hire us that don't care about that, they don't care about, "I ain't waiting for him.
• 16:27
  Mike Laverde: I'm done."
• 16:28
  Dai: That's what they truly want.
• 16:30
  Dai: That theory goes out the window.
• 16:32
  Dai: That theory only works if this isn't what you want exactly that.
• 16:38
  Dai: Exactly that.
• 16:40
  Dai: So jumping into section four, which is intervention, recovery, and rebuilding trust, I wanna talk about intervention because I think the word itself can feel intimidating, and a lot of what people know about intervention comes from television, and I
• 16:53
  Dai: and I imagine the reality could look very different.
• 16:56
  Mike Laverde: So when families hear the word intervention, they often picture confrontation or ultimatums.
• 17:02
  Mike Laverde: What does a healthy, effective intervention actually look like?
• 17:06
  Mike Laverde: And thank you for saying that, because this isn't the A&E show, this isn't the episode of The Sopranos where they beat Chrissy up.
• 17:13
  Mike Laverde: That's not what's happening there.
• 17:14
  Mike Laverde: This isn't Family Guy.
• 17:15
  Mike Laverde: This is real.
• 17:17
  Mike Laverde: Intervention is actually a clinical instrument that we use every day as clinicians.
• 17:23
  Mike Laverde: It is an action taken to address a problem or behavior and to achieve a goal of improving the problem or behavior.
• 17:30
  Mike Laverde: It is not a confrontational approach.
• 17:33
  Mike Laverde: It's not sending in some guy in recovery to give your son a 12-step call speech for 10 grand, 'cause those guys are out there.
• 17:39
  Mike Laverde: They got a great gift of gab, but they're not fixing anything.
• 17:42
  Mike Laverde: It's about helping the family have self-awareness.
• 17:47
  Mike Laverde: It's about family education, the SAFE program that I offer, that's exactly what that acronym stands for, but we really do those things.
• 17:54
  Mike Laverde: And it's about helping families regardless even if the other person on the other side doesn't want it, and it is a loving, caring approach.
• 18:02
  Mike Laverde: There's no guilting, there's no shaming, there's no knife fights.
• 18:05
  Mike Laverde: We're not bringing out the brass knuckles.
• 18:07
  Mike Laverde: It is a conversation between a group of people who are affected and somebody who needs help, and at the end of that meeting, they either are gonna go to treatment or they will have chosen to continue to get
• 18:18
  Mike Laverde: high.
• 18:19
  Mike Laverde: And in doing so, the family then can set healthy boundaries.
• 18:22
  Mike Laverde: We don't do tough love.
• 18:24
  Mike Laverde: Tough love is, those are ultimatums.
• 18:26
  Mike Laverde: That's, "Get the hell out of my house."
• 18:27
  Mike Laverde: We don't do that.
• 18:28
  Mike Laverde: It's, "We're taking you somewhere else, and we're gonna provide everything for you."
• 18:33
  Mike Laverde: And if you're living in mom and dad's house, tough love is, "Get the hell out of here."
• 18:37
  Mike Laverde: Yeah.
• 18:38
  Mike Laverde: An intervention is, "This person is gonna take you to a place that's even nicer than this to help you get better."
• 18:44
  Mike Laverde: When that person refuses it, we don't kick them out.
• 18:48
  Mike Laverde: They leave on their own.
• 18:49
  Mike Laverde: It's on them.
• 18:50
  Mike Laverde: We flip the entire narrative.
• 18:52
  Mike Laverde: We pass the accountability torch to its rightful owner because up until that moment, the family's carrying the burden.
• 18:58
  Mike Laverde: I own a home.
• 18:59
  Mike Laverde: I'm married with two kids.
• 19:00
  Mike Laverde: I pay for it, my wife and I.
• 19:02
  Mike Laverde: If I had wealthy parents that paid for everything and they called me up one day and said, "Hey, you, Lisa, and the girls gotta move," what am I gonna say?
• 19:09
  Mike Laverde: No?
• 19:10
  Mike Laverde: I have no choice.
• 19:11
  Mike Laverde: I either go homeless in the streets with my kids or I take the new place they give me.
• 19:15
  Dai: It's the same concept.
• 19:17
  Dai: Yeah.
• 19:17
  Dai: I am held accountable to that, and families forget they have that same power.
• 19:23
  Dai: Yeah.
• 19:24
  Dai: That is true.
• 19:25
  Dai: That is very true.
• 19:27
  Dai: I ain't out here lying to you, I can tell you that.
• 19:29
  Dai: That definitely put a whole different perspective on intervention.
• 19:34
  Dai: 'Cause like I said, when you do think about intervention, you do think about it seems scary and like confrontation, and a lot of people avoid confrontation.
• 19:43
  Dai: So Yeah people are avoiding confrontation, why would that be something they go looking for if they, if that's what they believe intervention is?
• 19:50
  Dai: But when you put it that way, it make it seem like intervention is actually nothing like that at all.
• 19:55
  Dai: It's nothing.
• 19:56
  Dai: It's nothing like that.
• 19:57
  Dai: Now, will the addict or the alcoholic try to, create more chaos and drama and yell and scream?
• 20:02
  Mike Laverde: It's gonna happen.
• 20:04
  Mike Laverde: But the difference between us and a family is we're not the family.
• 20:08
  Mike Laverde: We don't react to the chaos and the drama, and we understand that anger is a secondary emotion.
• 20:13
  Mike Laverde: Fear is the first.
• 20:14
  Mike Laverde: I don't care if you're Jon Jones from the UFC.
• 20:17
  Mike Laverde: You're angry, you're scared somewhere.
• 20:19
  Mike Laverde: There's a fear somewhere if you're angry.
• 20:21
  Mike Laverde: So we don't come at the person and handle their anger.
• 20:25
  Mike Laverde: We come at it and we address the fear behind it, and we bring them down.
• 20:30
  Mike Laverde: And then the letters.
• 20:31
  Mike Laverde: We don't do the whole letter like on the television show of, "And then you stole all the presents under the Christmas tree."
• 20:36
  Mike Laverde: We don't do that.
• 20:38
  Mike Laverde: We don't do that.
• 20:39
  Mike Laverde: We don't rub you.
• 20:40
  Mike Laverde: We...
• 20:40
  Mike Laverde: The dog knows it pooped on the rug.
• 20:42
  Mike Laverde: You don't have to rub its nose in it.
• 20:44
  Mike Laverde: It knows.
• 20:45
  Mike Laverde: We don't do that.
• 20:46
  Mike Laverde: We're not rubbing faces in the dirt.
• 20:47
  Mike Laverde: These people are broken souls.
• 20:49
  Mike Laverde: They're beautiful people.
• 20:51
  Mike Laverde: They're wonderful people.
• 20:52
  Mike Laverde: They have trauma.
• 20:53
  Mike Laverde: They're hurting.
• 20:54
  Mike Laverde: They're dying inside.
• 20:55
  Mike Laverde: What, are we gonna come in and beat them and rough them up emotionally?
• 20:58
  Mike Laverde: We don't do that.
• 20:59
  Mike Laverde: This isn't A&E.
• 21:01
  Mike Laverde: Yes.
• 21:01
  Mike Laverde: That's like kicking somebody when they down.
• 21:03
  Mike Laverde: It's the worst thing you could ever do, for real.
• 21:05
  Mike Laverde: You're down.
• 21:05
  Mike Laverde: You don't stomp on them.
• 21:06
  Dai: They know why we're there.
• 21:08
  Dai: Exactly that.
• 21:09
  Dai: Exactly that.
• 21:10
  Dai: They do.
• 21:12
  Dai: Wow.
• 21:12
  Dai: So jumping into section five, which is healing beyond addiction.
• 21:16
  Dai: One thing I learned through having these conversations is that healing doesn't necessarily begin and end at the same time for everyone involved.
• 21:23
  Dai: Just because someone enters recovery doesn't mean all the pain, fear, or uncertainty immediately disappears.
• 21:29
  Mike Laverde: So when someone enters recovery, what are some of the challenges families may not be prepared for?
• 21:36
  Mike Laverde: Families think they're immediately sober.
• 21:37
  Mike Laverde: "Hey, Mike he can't do the intervention.
• 21:39
  Mike Laverde: They haven't used for three days, they're sober."
• 21:41
  Mike Laverde: They're not sober.
• 21:42
  Mike Laverde: They're abstinent.
• 21:44
  Mike Laverde: They haven't used.
• 21:45
  Mike Laverde: They could pass a drug test.
• 21:46
  Mike Laverde: Congratulations, they're still sick.
• 21:48
  Mike Laverde: Families think that the intervention's over, they're in treatment, they could let their guard down.
• 21:52
  Mike Laverde: Not true.
• 21:53
  Mike Laverde: The reason people use must be addressed.
• 21:55
  Mike Laverde: Sure, there's a physical addiction, I get that.
• 21:58
  Mike Laverde: That's detox.
• 21:59
  Mike Laverde: Detox is five days, recovery is a lifetime.
• 22:02
  Mike Laverde: Don't forget that.
• 22:03
  Mike Laverde: And when people relapse, it's because they were sober.
• 22:06
  Mike Laverde: When people were abstinent and pick up, they resume.
• 22:10
  Mike Laverde: So when somebody gets to treatment, they actually get worse, and so does the family.
• 22:16
  Mike Laverde: So they're gonna get worse because now they gotta look in the mirror, carrying the load of their pain with no substances to mask it, and now the family's dysfunctional system is now trying to find its way back to
• 22:31
  Mike Laverde: a healthy environment, and the silence is killing them.
• 22:34
  Mike Laverde: You know the most amazing thing, Day, is when we do interventions and the person says no.
• 22:40
  Mike Laverde: The aftercare with those clients' families is challenging, but not overly challenging.
• 22:46
  Mike Laverde: When the person says yes, those people go berserk.
• 22:51
  Mike Laverde: Wow.
• 22:52
  Mike Laverde: Because we've taken away their purpose.
• 22:55
  Mike Laverde: We have disrupted their dysfunctional lifestyle and family role adoption.
• 23:01
  Dai: It's astonishing when you look at it.
• 23:03
  Dai: Now, that's not all families, but when people accept help and then gets real quiet in that family and there's no longer anything else to talk about, and you gotta now look in the mirror and make changes nobody likes
• 23:16
  Dai: change.
• 23:17
  Dai: I don't care if it's good.
• 23:19
  Dai: Exactly that.
• 23:20
  Dai: Change is hard.
• 23:21
  Dai: Exactly.
• 23:23
  Dai: So it's like basically they, they get so used to living in dysfunction that when the dysfunction starts clearing, they're like, "What do we do?..
• 23:30
  Dai: And then some of them just recreate the dysfunction in a way.
• 23:33
  Dai: It reminds me of the movie Shawshank Redemption.
• 23:37
  Dai: The best line in the movie is when they're sitting out there in the prison yard and Brooks is getting paroled after 50 years, and Morgan Freeman says, "These walls are funny.
• 23:50
  Dai: At first you hate them, and then you get used to them.
• 23:54
  Dai: As enough time passes, it gets so you depend on them."
• 23:58
  Dai: When I worked at my internship and all of my clients were Illinois Department of Corrections- the longer they were incarcerated, the more they wanted to go back.
• 24:08
  Dai: Because the fear of their life ahead of them was too overwhelming.
• 24:11
  Dai: They knew prison.
• 24:12
  Dai: I'm not talking about somebody with a six-month sentence.
• 24:15
  Dai: But you get these guys in there 10, 12, 14 years.
• 24:19
  Dai: I saw them sabotage their parole on purpose.
• 24:22
  Dai: I saw it.
• 24:23
  Dai: 'Cause it's scary.
• 24:24
  Dai: You're darn it is.
• 24:25
  Dai: You gotta rediscover yourself.
• 24:28
  Dai: Exactly, when you live this way for that long, you don't know how to live any other way.
• 24:33
  Dai: You don't even think you deserve it.
• 24:35
  Dai: You can't even comprehend a better life that you deserve.
• 24:38
  Dai: And that role that you've taken on owns you, and it doesn't have to.
• 24:43
  Dai: Doesn't have to own you or define you unless you want it to.
• 24:46
  Dai: Exactly.
• 24:48
  Dai: So what does healing look like when the outcome isn't what the family hoped or prayed for?
• 24:54
  Mike Laverde: It's a great question because what are they really hoping for?
• 24:57
  Mike Laverde: I've had some families that, they go off the rails when they say yes, and they're at peace when they say no.
• 25:03
  Mike Laverde: I've seen it.
• 25:04
  Mike Laverde: Again, it's what is their narrative?
• 25:06
  Mike Laverde: What do they ultimately want?
• 25:07
  Mike Laverde: How sick is the dysfunction of what they really desire?
• 25:11
  Mike Laverde: Now, I do believe at my core they all don't want this to happen.
• 25:16
  Mike Laverde: And they didn't ask for this, but it has.
• 25:18
  Mike Laverde: So what is it that they want?
• 25:20
  Mike Laverde: Do they truly want a healthy family again?
• 25:23
  Mike Laverde: Do they just wanna keep the person alive?
• 25:26
  Mike Laverde: Nobody's gonna ever tell me the truth of how they really feel and what it is that they want.
• 25:30
  Mike Laverde: I've worked with plenty of people where I'm convinced they were not interested in the person getting better.
• 25:36
  Mike Laverde: Now, the majority of them do, but not without a fight on the other end of, questioning us and, "Did we do the right thing?"
• 25:43
  Mike Laverde: And, just, wanting to go pick your loved up from treatment early and re-enabling when they get home.
• 25:48
  Mike Laverde: Sometimes families just can't help themselves.
• 25:51
  Mike Laverde: Yeah.
• 25:52
  Mike Laverde: Unfortunately, literally.
• 25:54
  Mike Laverde: but we try to help everybody.
• 25:55
  Mike Laverde: I know I'm pretty direct, but finance pays more than this, I assure you.
• 26:00
  Mike Laverde: And I do this because I love it and people do get better.
• 26:06
  Mike Laverde: But, families lie as much as their loved ones, and don't ever forget that.
• 26:11
  Dai: And probably don't even realize it, though.
• 26:14
  Dai: No, they, most of them don't actually, 'cause they're in a maladaptive, flooded state.
• 26:18
  Dai: It's almost like that Seinfeld episode where George or Jerry says to George, George, it's not a lie if you believe it."
• 26:26
  Dai: And it's insane and it's not meant to be funny, but it's I remember when I was in graduate school, one of my professors, Professor Golding, said, "How many in here believe addicts and alcoholics lie?"
• 26:35
  Dai: And the whole class raises their hand and he's like, "You're all wrong."
• 26:38
  Dai: And we're like, "What is he talking about?"
• 26:39
  Dai: It's like, how is it a lie to them if that is their reality?
• 26:44
  Dai: And that hit me.
• 26:45
  Dai: I had to think about that, 'cause he was right.
• 26:46
  Dai: Now, they are lying, he made that clear.
• 26:49
  Dai: But if they believe what they're saying in a flooded, dysfunctional state, are they lying?
• 26:58
  Dai: It's tough.
• 26:59
  Dai: It's tough.
• 27:00
  Dai: It's real tough.
• 27:02
  Dai: Wow.
• 27:02
  Dai: That was...
• 27:03
  Dai: Wow.
• 27:04
  Dai: That question alone just really had me rethinking it, 'cause yes even though it is a lie, we know it's a lie, but if this person truly believes that whatever they're saying or whatever they believing in, is it really
• 27:17
  Dai: a lie to them?
• 27:20
  Dai: If a mom truly believes in her core that giving her son money and providing shelter is keeping him alive, even though she's lying to herself and everybody and the neighbors tells her otherwise, if she at her core of
• 27:34
  Dai: dysfunction believes it, is she lying?
• 27:39
  Dai: You know what I mean?
• 27:40
  Dai: It's a double-edged sword..
• 27:42
  Dai: Families are, I don't like to use the word sick 'cause it sounds derogatory, like I'm beating them up.
• 27:46
  Dai: Families are unwell too.
• 27:49
  Dai: And they need as much if not more help than their loved one, and they're never on the same page.
• 27:55
  Dai: Dad says, "Kick him out."
• 27:57
  Dai: Mom says, "No."
• 27:58
  Dai: The brother, the perfectionist hero brother, and it's just, it, there's the martyr.
• 28:03
  Dai: It's just such a mess, Day.
• 28:05
  Dai: An intervention is not about talking somebody into rehab.
• 28:11
  Dai: It's about sorting out the mess.
• 28:14
  Dai: Getting down to the bottom of why this problem is really here, starting from the beginning in a sense.
• 28:19
  Dai: It's 'Cause it comes from somewhere it's a factory reboot.
• 28:23
  Dai: Yes.
• 28:24
  Dai: That's a perfect way to put it.
• 28:26
  Dai: That's a perfect way to put it.
• 28:27
  Dai: I love stuff like this.
• 28:28
  Dai: I really do.
• 28:30
  Dai: So before we close, for anyone listening who might be going through this right now.
• 28:35
  Mike Laverde: If we could speak directly to someone who's exhausted from trying to save a person they love, what would you want them to understand about love, responsibility and their own healing?
• 28:46
  Mike Laverde: You don't have to live this way unless you want to, and if the fear of addressing this is greater than the fear of the way you're living, buckle up.
• 28:58
  Dai: You're in for a long ride Wow.
• 29:02
  Dai: It was very straight to the point, very direct, and I love it.
• 29:05
  Dai: I love directness, just give it to me straight, and I feel like that's exactly what you just did.
• 29:11
  Dai: I give it to people straight every day.
• 29:13
  Dai: One of my favorite lines, I don't know if you've ever seen that movie Molly's Game.
• 29:16
  Dai: Did you ever see it?
• 29:18
  Dai: No, I don't think so.
• 29:19
  Dai: I'm not gonna get into it, but Kevin Costner's the dad and Molly's the daughter, and she did something bad, and she's got court the next day, and he's a psychologist.
• 29:28
  Dai: He says, "Molly, I'm gonna do something for you that people have been wanting therapists to do for 100 years.
• 29:33
  Dai: I'm gonna give you the answers.
• 29:35
  Dai: I'm gonna sum up three years of therapy in three questions."
• 29:38
  Dai: And that's who I am.
• 29:40
  Dai: It's like I'm not looking to therapize you for two years, asking you at every session, "How does that make you feel?"
• 29:45
  Dai: I'm gonna tell you what you're doing wrong.
• 29:46
  Dai: And if you don't like it, I respect you, but you are doing it wrong.
• 29:50
  Dai: Exactly that.
• 29:51
  Dai: And honestly, all you can really do with people like that is respect it.
• 29:55
  Dai: 'Cause you either gonna it- Yes or you not, but either way, you still heard it.
• 29:59
  Dai: Truth hurts all the time.
• 30:01
  Dai: I Yes I've been hurt by the truth before.
• 30:02
  Dai: I'm not immune to this because I do what I do.
• 30:05
  Dai: I've been hurt many times in my life.
• 30:07
  Dai: and the truth hurts.
• 30:09
  Dai: It does.
• 30:09
  Dai: People don't wanna hear the truth.
• 30:10
  Dai: And, if you're offended by the truth of this, you may wanna look at that.
• 30:15
  Dai: Because I don't know about you, but any time I'm disturbed, there's something wrong with me.
• 30:21
  Dai: Yes.
• 30:22
  Dai: Yes, something is, yes, something's wrong internally that you may need to look deeper into.
• 30:28
  Dai: And people don't like doing that because it's scary and, like you said, some stuff hurt to even realize, but it keeps you in a certain way that you may need to get out of if only you address the
• 30:39
  Dai: actual problem.
• 30:40
  Dai: So yeah.
• 30:41
  Dai: Correct.
• 30:41
  Dai: I agree.
• 30:42
  Dai: I totally agree.
• 30:44
  Dai: Mike, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing your knowledge and your perspective and the work you're doing to help families navigate something that can feel incredibly overwhelming.
• 30:52
  Mike Laverde: Before I get into the actual closing, is there anything that you would like to promote for the listeners or my butterflies as I like to call them?
• 31:00
  Mike Laverde: I got a book coming out on Amazon on October 29th.
• 31:04
  Mike Laverde: It's called The Safe Family Recovery Intervention Program book.
• 31:07
  Mike Laverde: It'll be available in hard copy and e-book, and you can find me at family-intervention.com and call me anytime.
• 31:15
  Dai: And if you ever need anything, let me know, and if there's anything I could do for you I'll email you after that.
• 31:19
  Dai: We could exchange numbers and stay in touch.
• 31:22
  Dai: Love that.
• 31:23
  Dai: I think one of the biggest things I hope people take away from this conversation is that loving someone through addiction doesn't mean you have to abandon yourself in the process.
• 31:31
  Dai: You can love someone and still have boundaries, and you can want the absolute best for them and recognize that their recovery isn't something you can control, and you can begin your own healing even when their journey looks different
• 31:42
  Dai: from what you hope.
• 31:44
  Dai: And to my butterflies listening, I want to leave you with this.
• 31:47
  Dai: Sometimes we become so focused on helping the people we love survive that we forget we're trying to survive, too.
• 31:54
  Dai: But your feelings matter, your peace matters, your healing matters, and choosing yourself doesn't mean you stop loving someone else.
• 32:01
  Dai: It simply means you remember that you're worthy of the same love and care.
• 32:04
  Dai: Thank you for spending another healing chapter with me, and remember, this is a space where we meet you where you are and we walk with you to where you're going.
• 32:13
  Dai: As I always say, no matter what page or feeling you're on, you're not alone and you're not behind.
• 32:17
  Dai: Keep going through it, keep growing through it, and keep glowing through it, and I will see y'all next episode
• 32:26
  I've battled the silence, I've wrestled the shame Faced all my demons and called them by For sure it's deeper