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The Real Reason Alcohol Addiction is Harder to Treat · Harder Than Life

• 0:00
  Everybody thinks opiates are the number one issue. Alcohol is 50% of all the people at every age group that come into recovery unplugged. Are you guys using ketamine treatment for those, the PTSD stuff? Yes. How's it working? Fantastic. TMS with ketamine, with the right therapy for people with severe depression, anxiety, OCD. We have data nationally and internationally on why that works.
• 0:23
  You wanna save somebody's life. If they have two choices, choice A, you go to some therapy and then you may or may not live or die if you relapse or choice B, you take a shot or a medication that's gonna keep you clean and sober for 30 days and you learn how to be clean and sober and you do that for three to six months and then wean off of it, there is no downside. And so I've always been a big proponent of the right medication for the right person with the right plan. People are now giving better quality information
• 0:52
  to the AI than they were a human. And when we ask why, because we started doing that, they're not being judged. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel where addiction isn't a problem anymore. I 100% agree. Andrew Sossin is a powerhouse entrepreneur and the visionary co-founder and CEO of Recovery Unplugged, a national network of treatment centers using music as medicine.
• 1:21
  Andrew, welcome, man. You're the first guest in the new studio. I had to take a second, take it all in, and I'm really happy that you were patient. We worked out the kinks. It looks great. Producer did a great job. Behind the scenes, it takes a lot of work, but it's a lot like recovery. As I'm reviewing notes, I'm like, wow, you've helped over 20,000 people get sober with the power of music, but that wasn't always your path.
• 1:48
  What happened that made you say, I'm opening a treatment center? We were talking about this before it started. What happened? Yeah. So, you know, for me, definitely not what I thought I'd be doing with my life. Grew up here in South Florida and, you know, was in the insurance business for many years, call center business for many years, and had several family members and friends in and out of treatment. And it came to a point where I was literally at a Tony Robbins event in Fiji.
• 2:15
  And I made a joke that it would be cheaper for me to open up a treatment center for my friends and family than keep paying for other ones. The gentleman that I was with, Marshall Geiser, said, well, you know, we're at a Tony event. We can't say something and not do it. I don't know, you know, how to do this. And he said, you know, have somebody that's been in the field for a long time. There's a doctor, a psychiatrist, and there's a gentleman that wanted to utilize music as a catalyst for evidence-based therapy. We had a meeting and I said, look.
• 2:46
  We'll open it up. I'll help start it. I'll fund it. I'll make it happen. I said, but we have to bring my family and friends there first because they're the worst. And if we can help them, we can help anybody. Did he just say his family's the worst? My wife's family. And so, you know.
• 3:02
  And I love them. And if I look at today, you know, that was almost 13 years ago. We opened up 12 years ago. And, you know, our family members who are public about their stories, my mother-in-law over 12 years, you know, clean and sober, thank God. Several of other family members and friends that are doing well today. And what started as true pain that we were dealing with.
• 3:27
  You know, people in and out of jail, people just doing bad things. And I was just waiting for the call that they were going to die. And now they're thriving, living great lives, having families of their own. And that led to us opening up our facility here in South Florida, which then led to Austin, Texas, Nashville, Tennessee, Charleston, South Carolina, Washington, D.C., and as of last week, New Jersey, South Jersey. And yeah, over 20,000 people now have been through our program successfully.
• 3:56
  That's remarkable. I don't believe any there are coincidences. What were you doing at that Tony Robbins event?
• 4:02
  I've been part of the Tony world for 25 years. I drank the Kool-Aid. I say it's good Kool-Aid when I was a kid. And I've actually brought over 250 of our Recovery Unplugged employees through Tony Robbins' program. And according to Tony's team, over 1,200 people that I personally brought through the UPW, Unleash Power Within, and the Date with Destiny program. And so, you know, for me, I've always tried to take a week every year of my life to...
• 4:32
  and go to something, I've done work with Jack Canfield as well and Esther Hicks, but Tony's been the go-to over the years and then recently with Sean Calgary and I'm blinded, which I've really enjoyed learning from. But at that time, I wanted to take the time to go again, work on myself, work on myself, work on myself, work on myself because I knew that the better I am in my own life, the more I'm gonna be able to help people. Even before recovery unplugged.
• 5:01
  I wanted to help people. And the joke, which I think you'll find humorous, most people do, I've walked on fire 19 times with Tony.
• 5:10
  Never been hurt. But of the last 19 barbecues I had, the last one almost killed me. I was in a barbecue explosion four years ago, first degree, second degree, third degree burns on my feet. I don't wear flip-flops because it's cool in Fort Lauderdale. I do it because my feet still have nerve damage. And so I tell people, firewalking at the right place, Tony Robbins, is safe and empowering and barbecuing can be dangerous.
• 5:34
  And then as I'm seeing you here, you have your arm messed up too. What happened here? What's going on? You know, sometimes I, my mind is 25 and we'll stay that way. My body sometimes reacts differently. I took my kids on a trip to Africa this summer. I try and do cool things with my family and friends over my life. And we were zip lining 3,000 feet in the air in Grabo, Africa, and my arm just snapped.
• 6:01
  Nothing actually broke but me. Had to tie my arm to my body. We were only on the third of 12 zip lines. But you kept going. Had to. No other way down. So you just, you know, use your mind, tie my arm to my body, go down eight more zip lines, then drive three hours and then fly 18 hours home for surgery. And it's life. You know, it's like everything else. You have a plan. Things happen. You adjust and you keep moving forward.
• 6:27
  You just said the secret to life. But yet, when we go back to recovery, and I'm like you, you're not in recovery. Do you actually drink? Rarely, but I do. Okay. What you just said is exactly what everybody needs to know. It's the cheat code. We got a couple of young guys here shooting social media behind it.
• 6:43
  Life's going to hit you. That's why it's called harder than life. Life's going to get hard. You're going to get punched in the mouth. It's how quickly and how much and the resiliency that you've built up to move into the next phase and just keep going saying you hit like a bitch. My favorite quote comes from Rocky Balboa or Rocky VI depending on people's view. It ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you could get hit.
• 7:08
  get up and keep moving forward. And I was fortunate to meet Stallone, you know, and talk to him about that. After my accident, when I was in the hospital, was in the burn unit for a month and home for many months, wasn't able to walk. And I probably have watched, you know, the Rocky movies hundreds of times. But that point, and there's been multiple times, I'm sure in your life, my life, anybody's life, especially people coming through Recovery Unplugged, you know, that it's,
• 7:37
  Just keep moving forward. You show up, you move forward, no matter how slow. Everybody thinks, especially when you're young. I have teenage boys, 17, 15, my daughter's 11, and I have young people that work with us. And I was like that too, and I don't know how you were, but it was always like, we got to do this. It's all about moving forward. You don't have to run. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
• 8:03
  What did I just write down? You just jarred me on something. Something about be quick,
• 8:12
  Don't be in a hurry. You'll miss something and make mistakes. What we're forgetting is that it's the journey that's the part. It's not hurry up and run and then all of a sudden, miraculously, we're going to be happy. There's a real quick on that. There's a quote. In 2003, my friend, my co-founder of Recovery Unplugged said to me, Andrew, he's 20 years older than me, life is a journey, not a destination.
• 8:40
  And I wrote it down, but I put it in front of me. 2003. When I started Recovery Unplugged, my partner is Richie Supa. Richie was a touring member of Aerosmith for 30 years. Richie wrote the song, Amazing, the chorus. Life is a journey, not a destination. So depending on your view of God, the universe, I literally had a quote written on my desk for 10 years and then met the person that wrote the quote that created Recovery Unplugged.
• 9:04
  That's awesome. When we, before we hit record, we were talking about recovery and what it means. And those of you that are new to the Heart and Life Nation, it's, you know, this is the one decision away from changing your life. Ed Milet says it all the time. One decision. And you're the one person. I was, I'm the one, I made the one decision and I'm the one person that stopped the cycle of abuse. The one decision I made was to quit drinking. And it wasn't, people are like, how much were you drinking? And it wasn't.
• 9:30
  It really wasn't the drinking. It was never about the drinking. I say all that to say this. Every time I tell somebody,
• 9:38
  I don't drink. It elicits an amazing conversation. Like if you told them you don't do drugs, it's the only bad thing for you that you have to explain why you don't do it. But having said all that, since you're in the business, people that listen to this, they're entrepreneurs, they're young men trying to be better, they're successful people trying to be significant. When does somebody have to look at their alcohol consumption?
• 10:05
  The joke I said previous to COVID was, if you have a drink on a Saturday night, you're probably okay. If you're drinking on Tuesday, you should call me. On a Tuesday? And then COVID hit. And then people were home drinking every day. Oh, my God. That just became such a... It literally is like, let's just follow in the footsteps. It was just such a norm, day drinking. Yeah.
• 10:27
  That was not good for America. And it's also something, you know, talking about drinking, a lot of people, and this happens every day, even this week I was talking with somebody, and the assumption, because of the opiate crisis, which is real, and it's horrible...
• 10:42
  20,000 people. We keep a lot of data. We've been looking at data. I love data. Since the day we started Recovery Unplugged, we understood, my business partner, who I told you it's his birthday today, Rob, 60th birthday and 20-year sober date, he's always been a data guy. And so since we started this,
• 10:59
  The idea was, how do we make what we're doing better? And how do we help people better? And so one of the data points, which I think is very interesting, is 12 years, 20,000 people. Everybody thinks opiates are the number one issue. And they are an issue. But no matter where we are, East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, alcohol is 50% of all the people at every age group that come into Recovery Unplugged. 50% every age group.
• 11:23
  Every socioeconomic demographic, men, women. So it's very interesting because we deal with opiates. We deal with other drugs as well. And then we also have, as of last year, right down the street here in Fort Lauderdale, a facility that deals with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and trauma for people not abusing drugs and alcohol. But on the drugs and alcohol side, it's 50% alcohol across the board. Are you guys using, I'm gonna go back to the alcohol in a second, but are you guys using ketamine treatment for those, the PTSD and stuff? Yes. How's it working? Fantastic.
• 11:52
  I've heard about this. When done, and I want to preface this, like everything else, if you self-diagnose and self-prescribe yourself medicine, it is terrifying to me to hear people, especially when I was in Austin. I go to Austin a lot with our facility and everybody's on a microdose. And I'm like, okay. Okay.
• 12:14
  I am not against anything that potentially could work if it's done in the right way that has had clinical trials with a psychiatrist. But if you decide today, I'm going to take this and tomorrow I'm going to take that, it's not going to work. So with ketamine, I will say that we've had extreme success with both ketamine and TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is a 10 minute, um,
• 12:35
  session where it's basically like a dentist chair with a cap on your head and it sends a wave to your prefrontal cortex, which if you have severe depression, OCD, anxiety, or addiction is not working correctly. So we've been doing this. I was one of the first people- OCD. Hold on. I just heard that. Really? I was one of the first people in America to get a machine.
• 12:57
  10 years too early before insurance covered it. I went and paid for it myself. I flew to the manufacturer. I was trying to help a different family member at the time, which it did help. And now there's TMS facilities everywhere. So TMS with ketamine, with the right therapy for people with severe depression, anxiety, OCD. We have data, not just ourselves, but nationally and internationally on why that works. What's the data?
• 13:24
  I read it was something in the 90 percentile. So what I've seen is 67% effective? 60 to 7 or 67? 67% effective. And I know the joke today with my kids are all going to joke. 67. Yeah. I'm so sick of it. Not why I said that, but that's the data that I've read recently. Whereas in SS, and again, I believe that medication can work, but medications are like 32% effective. Yeah.
• 13:53
  Run through it again. What are the PTSD, OCD? What were the things for kind of – because, guys, I want you to understand this. I've done a lot of research. I believe this works. What are the – Anxiety. Diagnosis? Anxiety. Depression. OCD. Uh-huh. And addiction.
• 14:09
  An addiction. Now, there is no one size fits all. Oh, not at all. So I've always believed that for some people, they need to be, just take a step back, talking about alcohol and talking about opiates. We have been a very big proponent of Vivitrol, Naltrexone. Now there's commercials. I was doing this 12 years ago where people were writing blogs about us like, oh, Recovery Unplugged, they're just replacing one drug with another. No, we know that if you want to get- You're doing something right because haters are yelling at you.
• 14:38
  Always. But if you want to do something and you want to save somebody's life, if they have two choices, choice A, you go to some therapy and then you may or may not live or die if you relapse. Or choice B, you take a shot or a medication that's going to keep you clean and sober for 30 days. That's what it does. The shot allows you to not get high or drunk for the 30 days and you learn how to be clean and sober. And you do that for three to six months and then wean off of it.
• 15:05
  There is no downside. And so I've always been a big proponent of the right medication for the right person with the right plan. There is no, everybody takes this or everybody does that. And so I'll go back to your question on ketamine. If you have somebody that's got severe depression, right? Where they can't get out of bed, where they're suicidal and they get the right protocol in place for them, it may be that they need 10 sessions. But somebody else,
• 15:31
  that may be the same age, may have the same issues, may have had the same traumas, they need 20 sessions. There is, so we've always believed in individualized care and that's the challenge I have with a lot of people in the industry that they try and make everything cookie cutter. They try and make everybody do the same thing. It's the world, it's the world, if you think about it. My next question is gonna dovetail right off of that because not only do people like cookie cutter,
• 15:58
  They like quick and easy. Right when you said that, I'm thinking of semaglutide. It's, hey, if you're morbidly obese and you've really tried everything to lose weight, take the shot. It's better than that. We can fix anything but death. But it goes back to we like cookie cutter, but we also like easy. I'm going to throw this out there and you take it wherever you want. How, if I'm...
• 16:22
  a casual drinker, my audience is a casual drinker, and they just don't want to drink anymore, but they can't.
• 16:30
  Can they fast track to coming in and get ketamine treatment to figure out why they drink? Because it's never about the alcohol. Can they come in to you and say, hey, instead of doing all this other treatment, I just want to do ketamine? I mean, obviously, I've fast tracked a couple of sessions and therapy and talk and whatnot. But if they just say, I want, I'm trying to express a lot of people up to go to their addiction.
• 16:55
  I will answer that, that they need to meet with a trained professional. Preface it. That will diagnose the situation correctly. And I will say that for somebody that is an occasional, right? And I want to preface this. An occasional drinker, because if you're drinking every day,
• 17:15
  You need to detox. And if you detox on your own from out, the most dangerous thing, the most dangerous thing that everybody needs to know to detox from on your own is alcohol. You could detox from heroin, crack, meth, alcohol.
• 17:30
  All no problem. You literally can lock yourself in a room for a couple days. It'll be rough, but you can do it. Alcohol, you can get DTs, seizures, and die. So I tell people, I am a very big believer in medical detox for people that are truly abusing alcohol. Now, that being said, we have seen success both with my program and other programs throughout the country on intensive outpatient therapy for people that are occasional, right? So this person that is, you know...
• 17:57
  On the weekends going out too much, they just want to figure out how to refocus their life and make alcohol not part of it or other things as well. That's precisely who I'm talking about. Right. But it's every weekend. Correct. Every weekend. They go out and they've had a few too many and they regret their decisions because that's the people that listen to this show. Right.
• 18:15
  People that absolutely don't drink, and then there's the people that have every weekend, they have a few. So yes, we have seen success with IOP, Intensive Outpatient Therapy, where they, again, if you're not drinking Monday through Friday, but you're a weekend warrior, right? Then your body, right, isn't dependent on something and needs a true solution.
• 18:34
  you know, uh, uh, detox. And in those situations, I've seen tremendous success. I have a friend, uh, he texted me the other day. He is now six months sober. Um, you know, and, and so he was able to do this, you know, because of that was the, the, the situation. And so that's where, again, the challenge is you have somebody that like will lie to themselves and,
• 18:57
  Oh, that's why I asked you that question. I only have one drink a day, but on the weekend, I'm a warrior. No, no, you have a problem. Okay, whether you agree to it or not. If you have a drink every day- That's why the first step is admitting you have a problem. Correct. But to me, it's like today, in 2025, almost over 20, there are so many more resources
• 19:18
  There were so many great online, individual, local programs throughout the country. Back when we started, we weren't even in network with the insurance companies. They didn't want to pay for this. Now, I'm in network with every major insurance company. So no matter who you are and where you are, you want a high-end, private-pay company.
• 19:39
  You know, program, there's that. You have insurance, you want it to cover it, there's that. There's no, in my opinion, there is no excuse for anyone to say they can't afford to take care of their challenges. Because it's all covered now. Same thing with the weight. They're covering all the weight loss drugs now. Finally, they're getting with it. I will tell you that it's the best money I've ever spent. Because you will make more money.
• 20:02
  being sober and solemn mind than you will. I've doubled profit. I now have two houses when I had one. I have three. Everything got better with that one choice. I also read a statistic, and maybe I heard it from Jordan Peterson, that is it 81% of all murders or even violent crimes, I think it was even that big, have alcohol-related.
• 20:27
  I don't know that statistic. I don't know what it is, but it- It wouldn't surprise me. I mean, look, when I was younger, I used to have friends, and fast forward, all successful that, oh, we're much more into smoking weed than drinking. And they'd always say it's much safer, it's healthier, and nobody that's high is gonna commit a crime. Correct.
• 20:46
  Now, that's not exactly true. But you're still running from something. You're still masking. You're masking something. But from the statistic of, you know, violent crimes, you know, I would say probably less from other things than alcohol. I tell people that all the time because in Michigan, cannabis is legal. So I'm like, if you're going to choose one, choose weed. But...
• 21:06
  Until you address what's going on in your head, it's going to repeat. What we won't repair, we repeat. Until recently, we didn't see many people coming into treatment for cannabis. What's happened now, though, is that you have these 18 to 24-year-old, mostly males,
• 21:27
  that have psychological problems, that don't understand, you and I, or most people know if they take a shot or they drink a beer, what's going to happen. And what's happening today with the extreme potency of marijuana, right, is you have somebody that doesn't know the difference between a 10 milligram gummy and a 100 milligram gummy and they're getting psychosis.
• 21:49
  from 100 milligram gummy and ending up in one of my facilities. It's happened multiple times this year, this year. And they're all younger men and they're trying to mask something. So to me, listen, I know plenty of people that, you know, can use medical marijuana because they have chronic pain and it works. I have other people that use it to mask the fact of their challenges. And all I would say is, you know, today people don't understand what's in it.
• 22:16
  And if you don't understand what's in it, you could do serious harm. And that's one of the challenges we've seen. Along with the number one thing that I've seen in the last six months, again, the same age group, 18, 24-year-old men. I've had more calls for people that have had gambling issues in the last six months than my life. And that's something that, you know, I'm concerned with. I really am because you have the access. You just said cannabis is legal in Michigan. It's on every corner.
• 22:46
  Remember when we were younger, you couldn't bet that was illegal. You couldn't smoke weed. That was illegal. Now it's all legal. And it's everywhere. You turn on. There's 35 apps you can go gamble on now. Correct. And so my view of that is my belief is more libertarian. So the challenge is that you're going to have the next, I believe, decade of
• 23:13
  A real challenge, it's going to be sad. Because people are going to have to understand what they're doing and they don't yet. Especially young men. Ugh.
• 23:22
  And women as well. But with the amount of data that's available now, I don't understand that. But I believe people, I'm 46 years old, so people my age aren't having the same amount of challenge because, you know, we all were used to, you know, at least my friends, calling a bookie when we were younger, legal or not. So, like, gambling isn't something that's so new and exciting. No. And people know how to control it for some people.
• 23:46
  Andrew, this is a remarkable conversation. As you're striking me, I forgot to throw in there that you were talking about the detox with alcohol. Man, I went through it. I remember it was yesterday, and we're coming up on seven years. I only remember because I quit on New Year's because it was an accident. I didn't mean to quit. I think it was my whole life has been an accident, but that has been somebody guiding me. So...
• 24:08
  I believe that whatever you believe in, whether it's God, source, energy, higher power, keeps sending you that lesson until you learn it. And some people don't learn it until it's too late. My father died at 46 from alcohol and drugs. And you thought, you think I would learn, but knew I went another 20 years. I'm like, it ain't going to get me. I just got sick and tired. Everything you're saying is so spot on. And I just went right through it like the buffalo, man. I remember...
• 24:37
  The feelings, I remember laying on the couch going, what is going on? Why is my body revolting? I probably should've gone to the doctor, but I just- Well, luckily you were able to get through that. Some people can. Some people have real physical challenges, or like I said, seizures, DTs, heart issues. But the fact that you got through it, I mean, has been the best thing from what I could tell. It's happened. Do you have a good story besides your family? Or use your family. What's the best story of somebody coming into your treatment centers?
• 25:04
  and being at their rock bottom and then now. Oh sure. This one's easy actually, because it was last week and he's public about his story. I would never break anybody's head. All the people I talk about speak about their own thing. So last week I got to go to a wedding. I went to the most Austin, Texas wedding you could go to. Wait, wait, what does that mean? It was a 1970s themed wedding in a bowling alley.
• 25:29
  That sounds like Detroit. So that was an Austin wedding. And so Jason, so Jason's story is to me, you know, the epitome of just people that, everybody gave up on Jason. His mom never didn't, but everybody else did. Jason had been to 19 treatment centers. 19. He had coded, he had OD'd and coded multiple times. He would have given every chance in the world and they said, this is it, like you're done.
• 25:58
  And then I got the call from his godfather, Doc. Doc had called Richie and then Naomi and me. And so he said, listen, can you please help Jason? This is his last chance. If he doesn't get this now, he's going to die. 19 treatment centers. Jason came in, you know, tough kid, tattoos, knew everything, you know, wanted to leave, you know, tried to figure out how to get out of the first day. Ended up going through the program successfully. Yeah.
• 26:28
  graduating from the program, coming back to work for us as a tech, going back to school. He just celebrated nine years clean. And Jason had done, I mean, he had tried to figure out how to die more than most people I've ever met. And he met a girl at Recovery Unplugged. They both ended up working together for us. And they got married last week.
• 26:53
  And so, you know, to me, to see Jason go from where he was, just, you know, literally somebody that like would rob me in a second to one of my, I consider him a close friend, you know, to see what he's been able to overcome from decades of true, you know, heroin abuse to when he went back to school,
• 27:16
  And he works with our marketing and video, does a video. He's done most of our commercials we've done. But the coolest thing for Jason last year was he gets the call from Doc and says, hey, we need extra help on Kiss's final tour for the documentary. So he sends me a picture on the jet.
• 27:36
  There's only eight people on the jet, nine including him, the four members of KISS with each of their handlers and Jason. And he sent the picture to me and his mom. And it was just like this kid was he was dead. Yeah.
• 27:48
  And now he's literally filming Kiss's final show. And then last week he got married, him and Gabby. It was amazing. It was amazing about dad. I sat next to my business partner. I said, look, this business has been rough to us. I joke that I get paid in spirit. I'm a spiritual billionaire. Financially, it's a rough business. Wait, isn't that enough? Our spiritual billions do not allow, I can't pay people's paycheck every week with it.
• 28:16
  But for me, it is enough because I'm at a wedding last week. Jason and Gabby got married. There were five couples. And you can have a whole different discussion on when you're at treatment and people getting together. But there were five couples that met at Recovery Unplugged that are married. One with a new beautiful three-month-old baby. And so I said to Rob, like, listen, man, this is why.
• 28:38
  We did what we did. And all of the challenges we've had, you know, fighting insurance companies, almost going out of business twice, just trying to do the right thing. Seeing those people there last week, you know, and the story of where Jason was. And each of them, each of those people that are couples. You know, one of the things I'm most proud of, of the people that were at the wedding, is that of our leadership team.
• 29:04
  10 of them were recovery unplugged patients nine and 10 years ago. And now they're running divisions. Now they have dozens of employees. And these were all people that, you know, were on their last leg. It's remarkable. What you're doing,
• 29:22
  And the riches will come. You just keep going. Oh, you know that. I mean, there's so many questions that we have about health, but we're just on such a good roll. You keep going. People are going to understand, especially with the cannabis getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Unfortunately, our society rewards and puts people on a pedestal. That's why I drank. I drank because when I drank, I was king. Yeah.
• 29:50
  And everybody, I was searching for love. And I just, I wanted everybody to love me. And I didn't love myself. And it just was. First and foremost. And when I drank, I loved me. Everybody loved me. Oh, in your mind. Yeah. Until I didn't. And, you know, it.
• 30:11
  Everything in my life, I want everybody to hear me when I say this. Everything in my life is a thousand times better. Now I love me. I don't need anything or anybody or any external stimuli to enjoy. I'm just so full of gratitude right now just hearing that story. And I want to ask you, what stuck this time? 19 times. What was it? Was it the love?
• 30:39
  So for him, he connected with the music.
• 30:45
  And so he's not a musician. 99% of people who come to Recovery Unplugged are not musicians. And this is something I didn't understand when we first started. I have no musical ability. Just to be clear, I'm not a singer. You would be both. Now, I've been around music. Ironically, I started a record label in college. I managed multiple artists when I was in college. And then when I got in the insurance business, I actually created the niche of doing insurance for rappers. Because 20 years ago, every rapper you could think of did not have insurance. Health insurance? Life insurance.
• 31:14
  And so I was around music my whole life, but I have no musical ability. And so what we realized for everybody, now, yes, we have musicians that, you know, we have a contract with the Grammy Foundation and the Sims Foundation. We work with some musicians, but 99% of our clients are not musicians. What we realized was very early on, and this is the basis of everything that we do, and multiple people, people used to say, when so-and-so treatment center copied you, are you upset? I go, no. No.
• 31:40
  I hope they work. Because there are enough people that need help and not enough places to help them. But what we realized is we use music as a catalyst for evidence-based therapy. So we use music to break down defenses and build rapport. And why did Jason and everybody else, why have we had the success rate? Note right here, Nova Southeast University has done an eight-year...
• 32:01
  nine-year outcome study now on why what we're doing works 50, over 50%, 50.3% of the time, people are staying clean and sober longer than one year that have been through my program. And that's better than anything else third-party verified in America. Why is that? Are we so special? No. No.
• 32:18
  Do we care more than everybody else? Maybe. But we are able to connect people through lyrics, vibrations, and beats. So when somebody's detoxing, we still prescribe them out of antivallium. But instead of 20 milligrams, they get 10 milligrams. And we literally put them in a room, sound and frequency room, to calm their bodies down. So they're able to get the medication so they don't go into a seizure. But they're also able to stay somewhat coherent so they can start working on themselves.
• 32:46
  And so one of the first things, so today's Friday. Every Friday, and I invite you when you're here, we have a concert at every one of our facilities called Feel Good Friday for our clients. And we allow guests to come in. And we do a one and a half hour session where we bring them up through the power of music, different curated songs, some famous songs, some songs that were written by Richie and other people that are with us, and we bring them up. But the most important group that we do
• 33:13
  It's called Open Mic. And it's where people write the lyrics of their life and they present it to the group. We don't allow any guests. It's a very private setting. And survey after survey, 10,000 people have said this is the most powerful thing they've ever done. And they don't sing it. Some people do. One guy pretended he was an ESPN broadcaster and did it like a broadcast. But this is a therapeutic thing.
• 33:40
  session where they're able to convey who they were, who they are, who they want to be. And it's just extremely incredible in how we bring the power of music in every form of it and different types of music to the table.
• 34:00
  I'm just shaking. It's just remarkable. I imagine as I'm thinking, I was listening to every word you said, and I was thinking about how it's working. It totally gets into their subconscious and just disarms them and takes down that wall. That's it. It's like meditation. It's freaking. But you, it's subliminal. That's the word I'm looking for. That's what it is. That's freaking brilliant. I'm going to tell you a story of my life. I don't care. I share it. I wrote two books about it. So this is what my song would be.
• 34:27
  I faced 60 years in prison, received this a year, served four months. Here's what I learned. My sister saved my life during a birthday beating from my mother. I was drowned by my stepfather and somehow lived. My stepfather had nine drunk driving arrests. But this would be my song. I'm not even halfway through it. I walked in on my father shooting up heroin and barely ever saw him after that. I had a gun pointed at me three times, shot at once. We used to ship 40 pounds of weed monthly from Mexico.
• 34:58
  I put my mother's paramour in a hospital at 16 after he stalked us for eight years. It just goes on and on, on and on and on. This is my story. So there's no wonder why I drank.
• 35:10
  But that is just by saying that and being able to say that without feeling and healing it. That's what it's all about. That's why we drink people. It's because I don't want to feel that feeling. And I'm telling you, feeling is healing. Sit in that. And I just was talking to my producer today about my central nervous system. And they're still a part of me.
• 35:32
  that is craving the chaos, that craves this craziness that my life was. I mean, I walked in, my mother stabbed my stepfather. I mean, and it was all around alcohol.
• 35:45
  They were running from something, and the easiest path is right straight into it. So your work is remarkable. But into that, you know, one of the things to talk a moment about where I see the future and how to leverage the fact that not everyone could come. So we have 11 people.
• 36:02
  treatment centers right i have detox centers residential facilities and outpatient centers but what i realized about two years ago was a lot of people cannot for financial reasons even if insurance covers they can't leave and go somewhere and so you always need the detox setting no matter what i believe that i still do and you still need a human for that but one of the things that when i was trying to figure out is how do i help that person that you just described and
• 36:29
  that still craves the feeling of the chaos, has the challenge with the drugs or alcohol, and how do we help that person from home?
• 36:39
  Ketamine. Wait, what? Ketamine. Well, no. No, that's a temporary. I know, I'm just kidding. That's a fix to get you out of the immediate craving. But how do you fix somebody or help somebody long-term? And so one of the things we did is we started looking at and we started doing Zoom in Tentive Outpatient. And it's doing great. I have over...
• 36:59
  250 people a day doing intensive outpatient therapy on Zoom. And that's good. And it's great. And we took it a step further. And we partnered with a company called Good Thoughts. And what they created was an AR VR therapy platform where you have human therapists, human people in a virtual world. Where you can now take that scenario where you could go as an avatar with your...
• 37:25
  alcoholic family member in a virtual world and process that with a therapist. So, so we're the testing ground for it at recovery unplugged. Been testing it for the last 18 months. And as of, uh,
• 37:42
  November 1st, a couple weeks ago, just started utilizing it in, they just started utilizing multiple treatment centers. And so where I see the benefit, I already know the benefit of that, but the scalability of that is, you know, I've helped 20,000 people, thank God, and after this month, 20,000, 600. I believe we could have 20,000 people a day. Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:04
  you know, getting that therapy in those virtual worlds that may be afraid of people seeing who they are in a Zoom, may be afraid of who they are in person, but will go as an avatar of who they believe they are, who they want to be. It's funny. I'm looking at my producer and he's kind of zoned out because he doesn't know what this is. This is wild. This is...
• 38:28
  Part of the treatment that really broke me loose from ever wanting the cravings was EMDR and hypnotherapy. And in both instances, I'm looking right at you because I want the audience to understand this. In both instances, you go and recreate the situation that hurt you the most and you try to apply reason to it.
• 38:58
  And one of the most traumatic experiences I had was on my birthday, which is coming up, my mother beating me. And I'm not just talking to normal beating. She almost killed me. Gouged my eye out and was punching me in the face with everything she had. And for years, I was wondering. I was drinking the poison and expecting her to die. And I had a conversation, a virtual conversation with her under hypnotherapy and, again, an EMDR. Almost broke the computer. I did this during...
• 39:28
  COVID. And the lady's like, we have to break. I'm like, why? She's like, because you're going to snap. So I had the conversation with my mother. I'm like, why would you do that? And you know what I assigned to it? This is the only logic I could put to it. It's a tough world. We just talked about it. It's a tough world. And I'm going to make you a tough SOB. And right when I said that, right when I did that,
• 39:48
  and the EMDR therapy, it felt like the whole weight of the world came up. So what you're saying with AR and VR, is you can do that, but I can see it, and I don't have to get in that meditative state.
• 40:00
  It is brilliant. And I will tell you, I own a national AI cybersecurity technology company. We will back you in any way, shape, or form to take that to the next level. Anything we can do technology-wise to help that, because that will help millions. I believe it will. Because if I had that back in the time, if I had that back in the day...
• 40:25
  I would have sped up my recovery because I didn't know that was a year and a half into, into my, uh, not drinking. I'll call it sobriety that that happened. And it was insane.
• 40:36
  And I had to keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it. How many people have done that so far? So again, we just started beta testing it this past year. First, it took a year to build. Yeah. And then, you know, technology. But it's going to go quick. Well, so the development company that was helping build it, that was backed by some big Silicon Valley people, ran out of money and went bankrupt. So that put us on delay because we had outside developers, got that problem fixed. And then we started beta testing it in our Austin facility.
• 41:06
  Of course, in Austin. And then we have, and then So Good Thoughts has other treatment centers as well that is using it as well. So, you know, over the last six months, the reactions, and again, we wanted to look at demographics. Demographics.
• 41:21
  Men, women, 25 year olds to 65 year olds, right? And at first, you think, okay, is the younger population gonna be the best for this? And it's really today, every person, right? Whether you're 25 or 65, you know how to use your iPhone, you know how to use your Samsung, you know how to use Zoom. So it's actually quite easy.
• 41:43
  We thought there'd be a technological barrier. There's not. We've had such a positive reaction to this. Obviously, changing the settings. So the first settings was just a regular treatment center room.
• 41:59
  And we have groups. We're doing this in groups and individual. And now they built, you want to go to therapy on Mount Kilimanjaro? You want to go to therapy on Fiji? You want to go to therapy on the moon. And you have these real life settings where you could take people to wherever...
• 42:16
  they believe their happy place could be, and then change those settings for them. But what I found most interesting and potentially beneficial is these experiential therapeutic settings. So Thanksgiving's next week. So we built a Thanksgiving setting where you go to Thanksgiving, you have the drunk family member, uncle, you have the annoying sibling, you have the overbearing father. Like these stereotypes, each person's different.
• 42:46
  But you literally get to go to that Thanksgiving in the virtual world for two months with your therapist before you actually show up in person. So by the time you show up in person, you've already processed how to react. You've already realized why you're not gonna run out and take a drink or go buy a drug. And so that's what we've been able to do just in the last six months in our testing and very excited in 2026 on being able to take that
• 43:14
  to the next level with multiple centers and people. Well, you just told the aftereffect of what I just said. I would assume, and I'm sure that this is accurate, is I could have sent you pictures of my mother and they could VR it and I could have an actual virtual conversation. That is correct. Yeah.
• 43:34
  And so the one thing I want to make clear with that is because there's so much negative talk about AI therapists, and I don't believe we're there yet. I do not. But with Good Thoughts, they have it. It's human therapists with human people in a virtual world. So using the virtual world setting, but you have a human therapist and a human person. And what they also did, which was amazing, is…
• 43:56
  The only AI that's involved is taking the notes for the therapist so the therapist can actually be present. One of the greatest things, in my opinion, with psychiatry and psychology with AI is that if I've looked at the last 12 years, the biggest challenge we've had, we have amazing, truly, truly incredible therapists at Recovery Unplugged. But –
• 44:20
  Taking notes is difficult. And if you don't take the right notes, A, you can't, you know, bill the insurance. If you can't bill the insurance, you can't get paid. So the greatest thing, in my opinion, on the AI side is the ability to have the notes properly transcribed so the therapist knows how to deal with you and they can actually get paid for their session and continue to do good work. And so that's something that's been, again, taking what's needed for therapy and using technology correctly.
• 44:49
  I want to go into the AI a little deeper because of the negativity. The one person that committed suicide and that actually went viral. I'm sure there's more, but I want to get into that. Before I do that, what do we have to do? What has to happen? Do you have actual numbers? Because I asked you and you're a numbers guy. You didn't tell me any numbers.
• 45:06
  Like how many people have taken the treatment and how many- It's only been in beta. It's going live with treatment centers. Literally this month, there's two treatment centers other than Recovery Unplugged that just implemented it with small groups. And the goal is to have the model for Good Thoughts. It's not direct to consumer. It's only through mental health facilities and behavioral health facilities. Do you have this? At Recovery Unplugged? Yes. I want to see it. Can I see it? Okay, 100%.
• 45:31
  Because I want to do a, I'll do a solo episode on Thursdays of just talking just about my experience in there. Because it's wild. I want to see it. We can set that up for you for sure. And then the goal for early 2026 is to get, you know, 100 different treatment centers around the country to utilize this with their groups. What needs to be true for the, I don't want to say government, but for the governing body to say, yes, this is an approved treatment. It already is. It's already approved and it's covered by insurance. So it's just a technology. It's just a distribution now. Yeah.
• 46:01
  Guys, this is... I've never... I'm so excited about AI. I give you your intel. This actually makes me very excited. This could actually positively impact hundreds of thousands of people's lives. Like...
• 46:15
  very quickly. And that's where I'm excited because my goal when I started recovery and plug was to save the lives of my friends and family. And then it was, I want to save a thousand lives. And then I was at another seminar with Tony and okay, I mean, I wrote 10,000 lives. I thought that was crazy 10 years ago. And now I've said 20,000 lives. And now, you know, I want that number to be a hundred thousand and then a million. And we're going to keep going. And, you know, one day at a time, one person at a time.
• 46:37
  I see a world where we have a different issue and this isn't it. The addiction isn't it. I'm a part of a face addiction now. It's a charity. I'm on the board. And I've learned more in the last year than face addiction now. Okay. And it's wild. We have one called Face the Music Foundation. Oh, that's really cool. We'll have to compare notes. But I can see a light at the end of the tunnel where addiction isn't a problem anymore.
• 47:06
  I 100% agree. We're not there yet. Wow. We are Friday. So what's this feel good Friday? And how does that work in all this stuff?
• 47:17
  So when we first started Recovery Unplugged, we wanted to make sure that, you know, most, when we first started, right, most clients would really go crazy on the weekends. And would start on Fridays. So we wanted people to go into the weekend where they used to be consuming massive amounts of drugs and alcohol, feeling good without them.
• 47:38
  And so we started doing these Feel Good Friday concerts, which are interactive as well. And that's where when people leave, and you'll come as a guest, and you'll see. Yeah. By the end of that 90 minutes, you are feeling high from the power of music. I forgot to bring that up. I touched on it earlier.
• 48:03
  I have learned to create the exact high that I was chasing with drugs and alcohol by sitting here. I felt it. The high that I was chasing, I felt it several times when you were telling me those recovery stories. Because I just...
• 48:22
  And it's just remarkable. And I just, I allow myself. Because it wasn't safe when I was a child. Obviously, with all the chaos, it wasn't safe to be happy and to let your emotions... But that's the key. You just said the key to it all. You allowed yourself to feel it. Receive the feeling. And people don't do that. I am so, right now, it's just to be energized through my body. So that is...
• 48:47
  That's really good. We kind of got off that AI, and I want to go back to it. What happened...
• 48:52
  You're in the business. What happened with that? The one that made viral about they used AI and it told them to kill themselves. What happened specifically just to clear up the end? I don't know the specifics of the case. I only read the story. I wasn't there. I don't know what asked. Obviously, you already had somebody that had a predisposition to severe psychological issues.
• 49:18
  And then that person should have been getting human help, in my opinion. And I don't know the prompt that it was asked. I do know that there is a lot of amazing, great, life-saving uses for AI throughout healthcare and throughout psychology and psychiatry. And that one is horrible and they need to fix it because, let's think about this.
• 49:45
  All of the AIs are trained by humans. So how many mistakes do humans make? A minute. So think about that on the scale of your, you're giving a large language model, an entire mindset, and then expecting it to always be perfect. Now it's gonna be better than humans soon, but it's not there yet. And so what I've always said is, and what I say now, just like with Good Thoughts, we have human therapists, human people, virtual world,
• 50:14
  The AI takes the notes. So anytime you go to any doctor now, any doctor for anything, they have an AI, most likely, if they're in the 21st century, taking the notes. And it's their job to read those notes and make sure that they are done correctly. But I will tell you, just from what I've seen myself,
• 50:37
  I have a lot more faith and I love all of the people that, you know, jot notes for doctors over the years, but they've got 9,000 things going on. They're worried about their kids. They're worried about whatever may going on. The AI taking the notes is still better today, in my opinion, than it was in all of history of humans taking it. That being said, there's no such thing as anything that's foolproof yet. And so,
• 51:02
  I would say for people that are asking, if you have a true medical issue, ask a doctor. You could then look up information, but what happened with that kid was horrible. What I would say, my own experience is, one of the things we've tried to do is be more efficient, right? We're in network with every major insurance company. Our margins are very low, but our goal is to save more lives. So I have to figure out how to be more efficient. One of the reasons, one of the things that we looked at was, I have a 24-hour life savings center.
• 51:31
  which I've had for years, 24-7, 365, day and night. Somebody calls us, 80% of the people that call Recovery Unplugged, I can't even help. But we find help for them, right? They're in a different state, they can't come to us, whatever. So we looked at...
• 51:47
  two dozen different models of how to get better help in our call center. And just very recently, over the last several months, we worked with a company, RVK AI, that developed for behavioral health, a call center agent. It's done over 30,000 calls that were fed into it that we are now able to utilize that can answer a call
• 52:13
  figure out what's going on with somebody and get a human on the phone to help them. Where in the past, if I have 30 full-time people and you have somebody calling to sell something and somebody calling the wrong number, if you miss that one call, that can be somebody's life. So the AI is actually allowing us to talk to people that need help.
• 52:34
  Is it also self-fulfilling where it's analyzing the responses and re-putting it? Oh, yes. It answers the call. It gets the information. It verifies the insurance. And it can do a pre-screen now. Yeah. And then talk them down a little bit if it's a big issue. So I love the movie Interstellar. And in the movie Interstellar, Matthew McConaughey changes the humor level on the robot multiple times. And so what we were able to do is change the empathy level.
• 53:03
  So now when somebody calls up and says, I'm smoking crack, I'm shooting heroin, I'm drinking at nine in the morning, it doesn't yell at them and it doesn't say good job. Or, oh my God. It talks to them like a human. Yeah, better than a human. Yes, and the other thing that we just realized over the last 10,000 calls was during the pre-screen, humans, people are now giving better quality information
• 53:29
  to the AI than they were human. And when we ask why, because we started doing that, they're not being judged. And they're not under the pressure. And so even the person that's loving and caring and empathetic, that's not judging, you feel judged. But when you're talking to a robot,
• 53:46
  that sounds like a human, you don't feel judged. Exactly. Now, there's a lot more work that needs to be done with this. And so we're extremely careful, and I'm keeping every person, human, you know, that we have staying with us employed. But if we're able to use that technology, just like we're able to use the AI to take the notes for the therapist, so they can be better therapists, now we're using the AI to help with the calls to do better work in our call center.
• 54:11
  By the way, that AI Notes, I use it. I've been using it for a long time. It's gotten so much better. Use it in business, guys, because a lot of people follow us for business. We're talking about addiction today, but I don't get paid for this. They're not back in the show, but we use Plot AI, and it works really.
• 54:28
  well it's and i've put some ai on the back end of that to make it oh every time you do a meeting now if you don't have a note taker yeah you're missing the boat oh and then i we do action so it does it'll take if i say hey make sure and follow up with andrew to set that meeting it'll go set the meeting for me yes it's wild so if you're not using it look into it reach out to me email me i'll tell you the whole story but are you allowed to give out the number yet or is anybody can call that number
• 54:53
  For that AI agent to get connected to a human or...
• 54:59
  It sounded like it was a national thing. Well, so they're working with lots of different companies. For us, you know, for Recovery Unplugged, if anybody needs help, they go to recoveryunplugged.com or Carl. That's what I want. 800-55-REHAB. 800-55-REHAB. Yes. Okay. But, you know, and we have, like I said, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If we can't help you, somebody will...
• 55:27
  And we will continue to do that because that's what I believe our mission is. Is to, you know, each person. What I realized, not just at the wedding last week with my own family early on, was when you helped.
• 55:41
  somebody recover and help save that person's life, you are not affecting just them. You are affecting dozens of people within their family, their friends, their circle. And then to fast forward today to see the people that are running divisions of our company and others that have left to start their own companies. It's truly incredible, the ripple effect that we've been able to create.
• 56:05
  Remarkable. Last question and I'll get you out of here. What's you've said your favorite song is Don't Stop Believing. And I love that because it's just such an uplifting song. A lot of people feel like they're hopeless and there's nothing they can do. So what keeps you believing today?
• 56:23
  Seeing the stories like Jason, seeing my family members, seeing, you know, people coming to my house for dinner that were going to die, that are alive today because of what we've done. You know, unfortunately, not everybody's made it.
• 56:38
  I've had friends along the way that haven't made it. We all have. But we've had a lot more that have made it. And they haven't just made it. These were people that were barely getting by and in hospitals ODing that are now thriving, living amazing lives. And I...
• 56:54
  You see it once or twice. You see it thousands of times. You know it's possible. And I think that the one thing that people could take away, whether it's, you know, your own personal challenges or, you know, for people starting a business, not all of them are going to succeed. But if you keep moving forward, you will succeed. Oh, yeah. In whatever it is that you're doing. Never give up. That's it.
• 57:15
  I always like the acronym for hope help one person every day. And you're doing a great job, Andrew. Thanks for being here on the hundred life show. It's great to meet you. I cannot wait to see this VR stuff, man. Thank you. Oh, I'm going to get your other arm. Good to see you. Thanks man. Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Seagull supporters.
• 57:33
  Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with. Delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.