Latest / Finding New Waters / Unlocking the Crisis: A Deep Dive into Health Literacy, Trauma, and Substance Abuse with Laura Kunz

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Unlocking the Crisis: A Deep Dive into Health Literacy, Trauma, and Substance Abuse with Laura Kunz · Finding New Waters

• 0:00
  As behavioral healthcare providers, it's absolutely a our
• 0:03
  responsibility and a very big one to share not just our
• 0:07
  resources on oh, here's new waters and this is what we do in
• 0:11
  a in an elevator pitch, but to have the specific information.
• 0:14
  I mean, Graham, when you sent me the list of what you guys are
• 0:17
  providing in that assessment, I I didn't care.
• 0:20
  They didn't have the logo on it yet.
• 0:22
  I've sent that to people because that's what they want to know.
• 0:25
  They need to know that to send their loved one here, or to send
• 0:29
  their client here, or to send, and that's all that matters.
• 0:55
  Good afternoon. My name is Graham Durgey and I'm
• 0:57
  the founder and CEO of New Waters Recovery in Raleigh, NC
• 1:01
  Welcome to our weekly podcast, Finding New Waters.
• 1:04
  Our goal in creating Finding New Waters is to provide a resource
• 1:07
  for families to help navigate the complexities of supporting a
• 1:10
  loved 1 struggling with substance use or mental health.
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  When we find ourselves in crisis due to one of these issues, most
• 1:16
  people have no idea where to turn.
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  We hope to shed some light onto what is often the darkest hour
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  for many families. Laura Coons began working in the
• 1:22
  field of behavioral healthcare in 2009.
• 1:25
  Over the past 14 years, she's worked in various business
• 1:28
  development and leadership roles while representing several of
• 1:30
  the nation's top treatment providers.
• 1:32
  She's built partnerships with respect to professionals and
• 1:35
  organizations inside and outside of the behavioral health
• 1:37
  industry. She's helped thousands of
• 1:39
  individuals and families in need and is a dedicated mental health
• 1:42
  advocate. In 2015, she founded in a
• 1:45
  support group for parents of addicted children in her
• 1:48
  hometown in Cincinnati, OH, called Parents Helping Parents.
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  She then served on the WCPO Heroin Task Force, where she
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  where she authored several published articles on the opiate
• 1:58
  epidemic and its effects within communities.
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  In 2017, Laura Co presented with the captain of Palm Beach County
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  Fire Rescue to the International Downtown Association, educating
• 2:08
  city leaders across the world on community solutions to the
• 2:11
  opiate crisis. In 2020, Laura became the
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  founder and cochair of Jupiter Recovery Day, a local mental
• 2:18
  health awareness initiative. As a result, Laura was
• 2:20
  recognized in 2021 by the Palm Beach County Moms Collective as
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  a Palm Beach County Superhero. In addition to her community
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  work, Laura's founded and led several successful behavioral
• 2:31
  healthcare networking groups, one of which is heading into its
• 2:34
  9th consecutive year. For the last eight years, Laura
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  has proudly represented Futures Recovery Healthcare, a highly
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  respected behavioral healthcare provider located in Tequesta,
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  FL. Currently, she overseas external
• 2:46
  relations and key partnerships on behalf of Futures and was
• 2:49
  recently named Vice President of their newly launched sister
• 2:51
  company Spearance. Laura has an education and
• 2:55
  organizational leadership from the University of Cincinnati and
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  Penn State World Campus. She consistently participates in
• 3:01
  leadership and emotional health workshops in order to practice
• 3:04
  what she preaches. As a mental healthcare leader,
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  Laura strongly believes its selfawareness and proactive
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  mental health are vital in the creation and maintenance of a
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  healthy and productive workplace.
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  So welcome Laura. It is so nice to have you here
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  and and obviously we've got a lot of deep connections and have
• 3:19
  known each other for years. So so nice to have you on the
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  podcast today and and welcome to Finding New Waters.
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  Thanks for having me. Of course.
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  And we've got Dr. Hong here as well who's our, our Medical
• 3:31
  Director here at New Waters Recovery.
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  Hi, doctor. Good to meet you, Laura.
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  Good to be here with you. Nice.
• 3:37
  To meet you. Fantastic.
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  An honor. So Laura, I wanted to kind of
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  start today and and just kind of give us a little bit of
• 3:44
  background and how did you get into this field?
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  I find it always very interesting to understand, you
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  know, how people found their way into the behavioral health and
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  mental health field because it's just not something that a lot of
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  people seek out. Oh, absolutely.
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  I I always love knowing that about people as well.
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  And. And yeah, my, my story is pretty
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  nontraditional. I didn't seek this.
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  I didn't go to school for this. I sort of landed here and and
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  connected with it. So I back in 2008.
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  Well first of all my background is sales and marketing and I was
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  in the residential real estate industry prior to relocating to
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  South Florida in 2008. I I at that time I was working
• 4:29
  for a water company. So we sold stainless steel and
• 4:34
  reverse osmosis water systems to healthcare, you know, large
• 4:38
  healthcare systems, hotels and back then you know we were one
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  of the only companies that we know of doing it.
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  Now these machines are everywhere, but someone in my
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  office said, you know, this rehab industry is really getting
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  big down here and you know somebody should be calling on
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  these treatment centers. I had no frame of reference at
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  all for for treatment centers. Oddly enough.
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  You know, no coincidences. I I myself had found recovery
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  about a year prior, but I had not gone to treatment.
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  I found a recovery some support group that I've really connected
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  with and fell in love with and did not really know much about
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  treatment at all, but had some connection to recovery.
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  So I said I'll do it and I called on a newly opened center
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  in Delray Beach, FL and through selling them several of these
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  machines, the owner offered me a marketing position.
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  And you know, I I remember, I remember saying to him how would
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  you market this? I I I did not get it.
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  It didn't connect at all. So I said you know, no thank
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  you, I'm happy with what I'm doing and about a month later I
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  just, I don't know, I I remembered the offer and I I
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  called him back and I said I'd like to learn more about that.
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  So I ended up taking the, I ended up taking the position and
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  it was right at the beginning of the boom of of the industry in
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  South Florida and back then you know people that were in a
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  business development role didn't didn't look like me.
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  It was a lot of I would say middle-aged to older males.
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  I no idea what I was getting into in any sense of it, you
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  know but had the the the connection to recovery and the
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  and the commitment to learn. So you know from from then I've
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  been, I've been very blessed and about a year and a half later I
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  I found my way to a nationally recognized company that had four
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  locations across the US, was very well respected and I worked
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  on a team of people that just absolutely blew my mind.
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  In order to even get that position I had to write a 32
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  page business plan to interview and they put, they put me in
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  front of their executive team, flew me up to Nashville, put me
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  in front of their executive team and and I got the job.
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  So, so that's how I stayed in the field.
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  I would say I was, I was blessed to to find my way to really
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  quality providers right away. And I've been blessed my career
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  to to stay on that trajectory. I might steal that I like that.
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  Right In a 32 page business plan for your interview.
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  Sounds sounds like you could get some good info out of that.
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  It's that's interesting. Yeah, but PowerPoint and
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  everything. That's awesome.
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  That's awesome. So you know and and I've just
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  seen you grow and I knew you back then right when you when
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  you obviously entered a recovery and and we've been you know very
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  close ever since then and it's been pretty amazing to see you
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  grow through this entire process and have children and and just
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  you know build this amazing life and.
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  And when I think about you too and I always say this to people
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  when they're like, oh, you know, Laura Coons and it's just, I
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  feel like you've you're one of the most genuine people I know
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  and just such an open, warm heart.
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  And I think that comes forth in the work that you do and that's
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  why you're so good at what you do, right and.
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  Because this is hard work that we do we're you know it's 24/7
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  365 I mean we're answering the phone no matter what and and
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  when people need help we're there to help them and and it
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  doesn't matter if we're you know out with their family and having
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  a Family Day we we we pick up the phone.
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  So you know I think that it takes a special person to do
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  what what you're doing and but also I think that like not
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  everybody operates the way that you do and you're so
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  collaborative and. You know when people need
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  resources or this or that. I mean, you always go above and
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  beyond to make sure that you're you're really connecting people
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  with the best possible resources, which is awesome.
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  Yeah. You know, I will say in addition
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  to working for great organizations throughout my
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  career, I've had great mentors throughout my career that I've
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  really, I've really tried to attach myself and only stay
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  attached to those that I admire what they have and I admire how
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  they operate. And you know, I remember I was
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  actually an executive coach that I had probably four or five
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  years ago now, really hammer. And she had a clinical
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  background and she had own treatment centers and she
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  hammered it into me like Laura, This is only about the patient
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  only, nothing else, Anything else.
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  She said stop the dinners, stop the marketing materials, stop it
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  all. Like it's only about the
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  patient. So that really not not to say
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  the work I've done prior wasn't that, but it really just you
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  know took it to the next level of of commitment.
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  Absolutely. Well and so kind of changed
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  shifting gears a little bit, I'd love to kind of go into you know
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  some of the work you do at Futures and maybe tell us a
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  little bit about you know futures and in general and and
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  you know obviously we here at New Waters work with you guys
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  quite a bit. We send a lot of clients down
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  down to y'all and and it's a fantastic program so.
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  You know the the goal really of this podcast is to to provide
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  resources to families, right? And and I think this is a great
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  resource that people need to know about.
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  Oh, thank you. Yeah.
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  Well, you know, I've personally been at Futures for for eight
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  years. I found a really good home there
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  because there's a really serious commitment to excellence there.
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  And and everything that we do, they do not cut corners.
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  They reinvest in the programming and that that's something that I
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  can continue to stand behind and and deliver us as a resource to
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  people. So you know we're 105 bed duly
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  licensed behavioral healthcare provider.
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  We treat adults 18 and over. We are blessed to have a
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  beautiful 9 acre campus in Tequesta, FL, about 1/4 mile
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  from the coast, from the ocean. And it's a really solid
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  community. So people coming to futures are
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  introduced to a really solid recovery community, which I
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  think is important. I think it's similar in Raleigh.
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  I think that's so important for where the locations of these
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  centers are, is there, You know, it's a lot of people, it's their
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  first introduction to any of this.
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  So to have that supportive community that you know the
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  meetings are either coming in or they're going out to the
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  meetings, that's important as well.
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  But the big thing with futures is we provided holistic care
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  before that really became a big thing.
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  And you know having that clinical, medical and Wellness
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  piece is essential. And like I said, we have the,
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  the resources to back that up, meaning the the different types
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  of services that are offered at futures, the individualization
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  that we do, I think those are all the things that stand out.
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  We also have four different programs within those 105 beds
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  which especially after COVID has been a game changer for us
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  feeling like we're really fulfilling our mission.
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  We're duly licensed treat both primary substance use and mental
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  health disorders. So you know in addition to that
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  core program that we've always had that treats you know dual
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  diagnosis, but the primary substance use disorder, we also
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  have on our second floor primary mental health program for
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  somebody with or without substance use or even a history
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  of substance use. On our third floor we have the
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  concierge Wellness program which is that small, intimate, more
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  private setting for a higher net worth, higher achieving
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  individual that has a completely different set of needs than the
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  average individual walking around.
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  So, you know, like I said, I think having that diversity of
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  programming also is something that makes us, makes us
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  exceptional. So Laura, how do people find out
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  about treatment resources when they don't know what is going
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  on? And part of the the background
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  for this question is a lot about my own personal experience.
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  So I'm I'm a psychiatrist. I've been practicing for 20
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  years and up until my my deep dive into the world of addiction
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  medicine with New Waters Recovery.
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  Even at many other addiction focused facilities, we really
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  thought about detox. And then you'll go back to
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  outpatient. And like and we just normalize
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  the idea that you'll do detox, outpatient relapse and you'll
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  just stay in that cycle. And the ethos for a lot of
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  people is you just have to go through it a certain number of
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  times and eventually you'll find your way.
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  But my experience working with the amazing Africa team here at
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  New Waters is that's not true. You know, if you if you detox.
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  And you have a solid aftercare plan that involves a deep dive
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  at the residential level. Your chances of long term
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  success are much greater, actually.
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  But I feel like this is almost like a secret, like not that
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  many people know about it. And if other people wanted to
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  find their way to a place like Futures, like, what's some
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  advice you could give them on how to learn about all the
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  amazing resources that are actually out there?
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  Is it? Is it a secret or is it just
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  that? Families don't want to address
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  like the magnitude of the situation.
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  Right. That's a good question.
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  You know, and they think, OK, we're just going to cut these,
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  we're going to cut this corner and you know, we're going to try
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  this way because it's the easier, softer way.
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  And if that doesn't work, then we'll take your suggestions,
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  right, right. And you know, eventually that
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  that ends up being the situation where we have somebody come back
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  to, you know, third time we're like.
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  You know, we can't really take you back after this because
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  we're kind of part of the problem at that point, right?
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  And you're not taking suggestions, You're not taking
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  our our aftercare, you know, planning seriously.
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  So, you know, what are we really doing here, you know?
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  And we run into that a lot here, but I'd love to hear your, your
• 14:59
  thoughts on that too. Oh yeah, absolutely.
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  Well, you know, I, I also think that historically this pocket of
• 15:09
  of healthcare was not always seen as healthcare.
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  You know, so in any other healthcare sector you're going
• 15:18
  to your network and you're asking for recommendations and
• 15:21
  you're asking for referrals of who's done good work of who
• 15:24
  knows who. But you know, especially part of
• 15:26
  2020 we had such a massive stigma that has been, you know,
• 15:31
  the roof has been blown off of it because of COVID.
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  Although in my experience the roof was blown off of the mental
• 15:37
  health health stigma, we still have one with substance use
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  disorders, you know, So it in all my work now with with the
• 15:45
  new company, even my outreach for futures, I really do
• 15:48
  emphasize that mental health piece just to open the
• 15:51
  conversation, to get people to to hear me and to not have that
• 15:56
  that guard up and all the stigma that comes with talking about
• 15:58
  substance use disorders. So I guess my answer to that is
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  I encourage so many people to to go to their network and ask
• 16:10
  questions, stay away from the Internet.
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  To this day, that's still my recommendation.
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  But I always welcome that conversation of how people find
• 16:18
  the treatment provider because it shouldn't be any different of
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  how you find your Primary Health, you know, your primary
• 16:23
  doctor. You're asking people that you
• 16:25
  know, you're talking about it. You know, it's it's what we've
• 16:28
  done in our own brains with with stigma, which is why it doesn't
• 16:32
  work that way always. Totally.
• 16:37
  Yeah. And when people do call the
• 16:39
  number, and I think that's one thing I'm really just like
• 16:41
  excited about the podcast is we can just say go to the website,
• 16:45
  call the admissions phone like any good treatment center will.
• 16:50
  If if it's not a good fit for that center, they will help you
• 16:52
  go to another place. So call any admissions line,
• 16:55
  they will help you, which is outrageous to me because I
• 16:58
  didn't know that this was such a widely available resource.
• 17:02
  It seems hidden, but it's actually just right there in
• 17:05
  front of all of us and. I think the podcast is just an
• 17:08
  opportunity to tell people. Google it.
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  Call the number if it's not a good fit.
• 17:13
  The good program will help you find another program like you
• 17:16
  got nothing to lose by by reaching out.
• 17:19
  But that's the key. A good program will help you
• 17:21
  find another program, right. You'd have to make sure that
• 17:25
  you're calling a good program because, you know, yeah, we on a
• 17:28
  daily basis, we're just not a fit for people.
• 17:30
  But I don't get off the phone and say.
• 17:32
  Sorry, wish you luck. It's OK.
• 17:34
  Here's four other resources that are probably going to work
• 17:36
  better for you. And if that doesn't work, give
• 17:39
  me a call back, you know? Absolutely, absolutely, yes.
• 17:41
  And it's important. And Graham, with what you and I
• 17:45
  have done all these years too, it's so nice to know somebody at
• 17:48
  that program to connect somebody to you know 100% being able to
• 17:52
  being able to speak to it and having those resources in your
• 17:56
  arsenal that you that you know that you've asked questions
• 17:59
  about that you're, you know paying attention to the work
• 18:02
  that they're doing. Not just you like their logo or
• 18:05
  you met somebody at a conference or you, you know, you're asking
• 18:08
  questions about those other providers and being responsible
• 18:12
  about it and really making the most specific and appropriate
• 18:17
  referral that you can. We talk about that all the time
• 18:20
  at AT Futures. I talked to my colleagues about
• 18:23
  that at Futures our outreach team, that if your conversations
• 18:28
  not focused on the specifics of what we're doing at Futures,
• 18:32
  it's the wrong conversation. People need to know who to refer
• 18:37
  here. Sometimes they get one chance.
• 18:40
  Also the professionals who are referring to programs like ours,
• 18:45
  those families are hiring them and they're investing a lot of
• 18:48
  time, a lot of money and a lot of hope that they are, they're
• 18:53
  sending their loved one to the right place.
• 18:54
  So I think as behavioral healthcare providers, it's
• 18:58
  absolutely a our responsibility and a very big one to share not
• 19:04
  just our resources on oh, here's new waters and this is what we
• 19:07
  do in a in an elevator pitch, but to have the specific
• 19:10
  information. I mean, Graham, when you sent me
• 19:13
  the list of what you guys are providing in that assessment, I
• 19:16
  didn't care. They didn't have the logo on it
• 19:18
  yet. I've sent that to people because
• 19:19
  that's what they want to know. They need to know that to to
• 19:24
  send their loved one here, or to send their client here, or to
• 19:27
  send and that's all that matters.
• 19:30
  Yeah, yeah, 100%, yeah. Yeah, it is.
• 19:35
  It's powerful, you know, work that we do and it's, it's
• 19:38
  taxing, it's draining and you know, but it's amazing when you
• 19:42
  see that light turn back on in people's eyes, you know, there's
• 19:45
  nothing better than that. So you know, and that's why kind
• 19:48
  of the alumni work is so cool too, because we can see the
• 19:51
  clients come back and we can see them, you know?
• 19:53
  Living their life again and have this new lease on life and it
• 19:56
  makes it all worth it. All those late nights.
• 19:59
  Oh, my gosh, totally. But I would love to, you know,
• 20:03
  talk a little bit about experience and this is you know,
• 20:07
  your new venture that that you've really launched at
• 20:10
  Futures and and it's a little bit different than than kind of
• 20:14
  the typical treatment that we talked about on on this podcast.
• 20:17
  So I would love to, but I think it's amazing benefit for
• 20:20
  corporations and and companies and all that.
• 20:22
  So let's talk a little bit about that too.
• 20:24
  Yeah, no, I appreciate that. You know, Spirits, it was
• 20:28
  launched earlier this year. It is a sister company to
• 20:32
  Futures. So Futures is family owned by a
• 20:36
  family office and you know they're they have a history in
• 20:41
  the military housing and and off campus student housing space.
• 20:45
  And at one point I believe they were the largest owners of off
• 20:47
  campus military housing and student housing and they would
• 20:50
  specialize in you know, building those large properties, you know
• 20:55
  luxury and and and nice for for the lower cost.
• 20:58
  And so when they decided they have, you know, they have a real
• 21:03
  passion for Wellness and for recovery as a family.
• 21:08
  It was something that was very important to them to go help
• 21:11
  people and so they launched Futures, which is under their is
• 21:16
  GMH Ventures. So they have that, you know the
• 21:19
  the GMH communities and then they have GMH Ventures now.
• 21:22
  So we're under the Ventures umbrella and Futures is is
• 21:27
  currently their only facility. It's they've owned and operated
• 21:30
  it for 11 years. And like I said, they've done it
• 21:33
  well. That's just their commitment to
• 21:35
  excellence. That's how they built their
• 21:37
  reputation in the military housing and and still the
• 21:40
  reputation in the off campus student housing spaces, their
• 21:43
  commitment to excellence. So they brought that into the
• 21:47
  behavioral health healthcare space.
• 21:49
  And you know, a couple years ago our owner and and founder Mike
• 21:54
  Holloway, who's who's my boss, started to gain interest in.
• 22:01
  In employers and what employers were doing on the behavioral
• 22:04
  healthcare side, and this was through a futures lens because
• 22:09
  you know, they've owned and operated these other companies
• 22:12
  and they're phenomenal business owners and understand that whole
• 22:15
  world. And the fact that there was such
• 22:16
  a disconnect between the corporate world and behavioral
• 22:20
  healthcare. And to the point of what we were
• 22:22
  talking about earlier, the fact that there's such a disconnect
• 22:24
  between the world and behavioral healthcare, you know, we just
• 22:28
  kind of have this little bubble. You know, was fascinating to
• 22:33
  him. So you know really primarily he
• 22:35
  and I, a few others, but primarily he and I started to do
• 22:39
  a lot of outreach into corporate America, talking to larger
• 22:43
  organizations, talking to to C Suites at you know small, medium
• 22:48
  and and large companies and learning what their current
• 22:52
  solutions were now. Right, about a year into that
• 22:57
  and we had contracted with a few we you know for futures, but the
• 23:02
  utilization is just really so low in terms of our levels of
• 23:07
  care for for employers. A great way to look at it as
• 23:10
  this a recent study last year and from what I've seen all the
• 23:14
  research and development for this, these are the numbers
• 23:16
  across the board, but 25% of the average employer employee base
• 23:24
  is. Is in need of clinical services
• 23:27
  of some level. So that's outpatient up to
• 23:31
  residential up to acute care. 75% need the subclinical
• 23:38
  support, they need Wellness services, they need education,
• 23:41
  they need prevention from that 25% that need clinical support.
• 23:47
  There's 25% of those that will actually.
• 23:52
  In a critical situation and need a resource like a detox or need
• 23:56
  a resource like you know an acute care facility if it's
• 24:00
  mental health. So that's generally how it still
• 24:03
  looks. So prior to COVID and all the
• 24:09
  research we were doing, then you would see companies having a
• 24:12
  solution for that 25%. They would have an EAP which
• 24:17
  provides. Outpatient clinical services.
• 24:20
  They can make recommendations to the higher level of care, but
• 24:24
  most were not investing in that other 75%.
• 24:27
  The stigma was still alive and well.
• 24:30
  We just need to stop the bleeding on the spending side
• 24:32
  when somebody does have a chronic issue, same with any
• 24:36
  other chronic healthcare issue. And employers looking at that,
• 24:39
  they're identifying centers of excellence, say heart
• 24:42
  conditions, diabetes. They're just trying to stop.
• 24:45
  The financial bleeding of their healthcare plan for the
• 24:49
  individuals who have those chronic conditions.
• 24:52
  COVID, hit and most of these and most of these corporations are
• 24:55
  all self funded plans and these are large corporations.
• 24:59
  So obviously that's a little bit of a different animal, you know
• 25:02
  in those situations very much they.
• 25:04
  Can write their ticket in terms of what their healthcare looks
• 25:07
  like to employees. But there was such a disconnect
• 25:12
  between our world and still is, but we're getting there, you
• 25:15
  know and and what they were offering to employees.
• 25:19
  So COVID hits and it it was so interesting because we were
• 25:23
  already a year into this, you know year and a half into this
• 25:26
  when 2020 came around. So 2020 comes around and it
• 25:30
  became a completely different conversation with the employers
• 25:34
  and organizations we were talking to prior because.
• 25:37
  Mental health became the thing that every employer knew they
• 25:41
  needed to offer. We then saw the great
• 25:43
  resignation come in and you know, so you've got people
• 25:47
  resigning due to burnout. You have a whole new generation
• 25:51
  of employees, rock star employees coming out of colleges
• 25:55
  that are saying what are these employee benefits look like?
• 25:57
  I want to be taken care of. I want work life balance.
• 26:01
  I what are you doing for mental health?
• 26:03
  This whole new generation is very.
• 26:06
  Caught on mental health, which is amazing, you know.
• 26:09
  And they will ask and they have no problem asking for what they
• 26:12
  want. They're they're not shy.
• 26:16
  Nope. And.
• 26:17
  They're really putting the the pressure on and and forcing the
• 26:20
  hand of employers to to to create a more broad solution and
• 26:27
  look at that other 75% so. The evolution has gone like
• 26:33
  this. So it started.
• 26:35
  You've got the EAP's and they're focusing on that 25.
• 26:38
  Then you see the rise of these companies that are fairly
• 26:42
  comparable to spirits and they're offering digital
• 26:47
  solutions. You've got Silicon Valley rushed
• 26:49
  into this space years ago, not years ago, but four or five
• 26:53
  years ago and and a few more, you know, during COVID.
• 26:57
  And you know, they're bringing behavioral healthcare experts on
• 27:01
  to to build out their programming.
• 27:03
  But it really became then a digital because if you're
• 27:07
  offering an employee benefit, it's to a large group.
• 27:13
  Not always you know, you've got small, medium and large
• 27:16
  companies, but the solution needs to to be able to, excuse
• 27:20
  me, service a large group. You know and we know what we do
• 27:24
  at quality for the clinical side, you know that's that's not
• 27:27
  done at a low cost. I mean there's a cost to good
• 27:32
  healthcare. So you know the digital, the
• 27:34
  rise of the digital era in this in this space then took off and
• 27:39
  still and still exists and now we're seeing the conversations
• 27:43
  shift more. Here's an interesting statistic.
• 27:46
  So several studies at the end of last year as well showed.
• 27:51
  That now we have 90% of employers who have expanded
• 27:56
  services for behavioral health and mental health for their
• 27:58
  employees. But then you still have what it
• 28:01
  was around 30% of employees saying they're they don't feel
• 28:05
  any more support from their employers.
• 28:07
  So you have the employers who put in the effort.
• 28:11
  But, but you know that's because the the 75% of them aren't going
• 28:16
  to utilize the therapy that's being offered.
• 28:19
  You know they're they're not there, they're not there yet.
• 28:22
  They either don't need it, they don't understand it.
• 28:25
  They'll call once and it's their first experience with it and
• 28:29
  it's too uncomfortable for them. It's something we really take
• 28:33
  for granted in the behavioral healthcare space that we
• 28:36
  understand this terminology that we are comfortable getting
• 28:39
  vulnerable that we are. The majority of of the world is
• 28:43
  not. So you know experience was
• 28:47
  created to to bridge that gap. It was created for that 75%, you
• 28:54
  know the subclinical services with our behavioral healthcare
• 28:58
  expertise and infused in that. So it's a digital platform that
• 29:02
  they can access as part of their benefits, correct, with a
• 29:06
  library of seminars or you know, to talk us through like what's
• 29:13
  actually part of the service. Yeah, so.
• 29:17
  We have we have 8 products total experience, but we have 3 core
• 29:21
  products. It's our virtual mental
• 29:23
  wellbeing library. So that's over 100 educational
• 29:28
  modules on various cutting edge mental health topics like
• 29:34
  family. You guys all created PTS.
• 29:37
  C or trauma. So you know, we're the sister
• 29:41
  company of Futures and we have all of this wonderful talent and
• 29:45
  passion and expertise at Futures, not just in our
• 29:49
  fulltime employees, but in our network and our contractors and
• 29:52
  our. So we tapped that and they have
• 29:56
  helped us create this incredible library that, you know, the part
• 30:02
  of that 75% of the population would watch a video on a topic
• 30:06
  like PTSD or trauma. And better understand what they
• 30:10
  might need. Really, the goal is
• 30:12
  self-awareness, the goal is empowerment and the goal is
• 30:16
  motivating them towards action. Whatever that might look like
• 30:19
  for them. Yeah, love it.
• 30:24
  Yeah. Our other two products are the
• 30:26
  family educational webinars and support sessions we have.
• 30:30
  You know, like I said, this amazing.
• 30:33
  These amazing resources at Futures with family support
• 30:36
  experts that have done this for 30 plus years and it's their
• 30:40
  life's work and their passion. And so to be able to package
• 30:43
  that and really take the best of the best and feed that to the
• 30:49
  employee base, that's that's what we do.
• 30:51
  So they're offered weekly to the employers that sign on and the
• 30:54
  employees can come in, and it's a webinar, so it's confidential.
• 30:59
  And we're giving them our best, the best of the best of
• 31:02
  behavioral healthcare, you know of what we've learned and what
• 31:06
  our our spirits team knows and just trying to effect change.
• 31:11
  The final are you know similar we do the live and recorded
• 31:15
  webinars so we strategically choose topics that we know most
• 31:21
  employees sitting at the average company are are dealing with.
• 31:25
  You know, they might not know it and their employer might not
• 31:27
  know it, but we know it because, you know, we see it walk through
• 31:30
  our door 20 years later when it's not educated and prevented.
• 31:35
  So, you know, we strategically choose choose those topics with
• 31:39
  some Wellness and general workplace mental health topics
• 31:43
  mixed in. Yeah, yeah.
• 31:46
  I think that's so great. What I see with insurance
• 31:49
  companies is they. They think that health is the
• 31:53
  absence of disease, right? And so anything less than a
• 31:58
  diagnostic disease is not a problem.
• 32:01
  But this is like strange thinking because you have to
• 32:05
  believe that disease spontaneously comes out of
• 32:08
  nowhere, but it's probably been brewing over decades and decades
• 32:13
  and then finally becomes clinical.
• 32:15
  I'm very similar to what we do in in addiction medicine.
• 32:19
  You know, is your if you drink one serving a day, is this an
• 32:22
  alcohol use disorder? Like technically probably no.
• 32:26
  But for some reason when it gets to six, is this a problem?
• 32:31
  Probably 12, definitely, right. And but how did you get to 12?
• 32:36
  Like what was going on in the years of your life before you
• 32:39
  got to that moment? And the insurance companies,
• 32:41
  they don't have any interest in doing things for you when you're
• 32:45
  in the one at 5 range, right? But once it's six or more Okay,
• 32:50
  you know maybe now we'll start to pay for visits, maybe now
• 32:52
  we'll start to pay for treatment.
• 32:54
  And so this is like your 75% here who's not really clinically
• 32:59
  clinical, but but eventually they're going to become that 25%
• 33:04
  came from the 75%, so why not? Do things preventatively, yeah.
• 33:11
  That's such a great example for that, and actually one of our
• 33:14
  most popular videos in the library is sober curiosity and
• 33:18
  mindful drinking. Because if you think about it,
• 33:20
  the average person doesn't have the terminology to talk about
• 33:25
  what they might be going through, what they might be
• 33:27
  pondering, what they might be worrying about.
• 33:32
  You know that a loved one has has a gambling problem, but they
• 33:35
  have. You know they're they can Google
• 33:37
  but you know really hearing it from a clinician that's you know
• 33:41
  done treated thousands of people with with gambling.
• 33:45
  So it's it's reaching them and giving them the language to talk
• 33:49
  about it to even know what they need.
• 33:52
  So if they're tapping you know say they're they're then going
• 33:56
  and tapping their network and saying hey I, I, I actually do
• 33:59
  think that I need therapy for this.
• 34:01
  Do you know anybody you know? Most people don't even know what
• 34:04
  the this is. Right.
• 34:06
  Right. And and even once you do
• 34:08
  therapy, what is a good therapist?
• 34:11
  Like? How do I make the most of my
• 34:13
  time with the therapist? So, like, in general, my sense
• 34:15
  of things is health literacy in general is so low, right?
• 34:20
  I mean, we we talked about at the beginning.
• 34:22
  You know what? Not only is it hard to find good
• 34:25
  healthcare, many people are in denial that they need it, right?
• 34:28
  So they normalize, they minimize their problems.
• 34:32
  And a lot of it is actually. They don't even know.
• 34:34
  Like, they don't know that this is this behavior is actually a
• 34:40
  really big red flag that five years, 10 years down the line,
• 34:43
  they're gonna have a huge health problem, like a huge health
• 34:47
  crisis that then leads to them calling the number and going for
• 34:51
  detox and going to residential. So, like, why not increase the
• 34:55
  health literacy of people so that they don't have all this
• 34:59
  suffering, all this loss them. Like, I I was watching an
• 35:03
  interview with Peter Atia. Yeah, I just wrote this
• 35:05
  incredible book called Outlive and it sounds.
• 35:09
  Like he went to residential treatment for family abortion
• 35:13
  trauma in his 40s, and he says that it saved his life.
• 35:19
  Like he said I would. I would have died had I not gone
• 35:21
  to done that residential treatment for my family, forging
• 35:24
  trauma. But he didn't know that it was
• 35:27
  an issue for decades. Like, he didn't know until he
• 35:31
  had a major crisis in life. And a lot of people don't even
• 35:34
  know that you can go to treatment for something like
• 35:36
  that, right? I mean literacy.
• 35:38
  Is so low. Yeah.
• 35:40
  And you talk about like onsite and the work that they do and
• 35:43
  and you know we all I think all have our own experiences at
• 35:46
  onsite and and you know and it's just an incredible tool and
• 35:50
  resource and that just people don't really know about.
• 35:52
  Like you know you can go and do an incredible five day trauma
• 35:54
  workshop and and come out you know a different person.
• 35:58
  You know, that's absolutely. Absolutely.
• 36:01
  So, you know, it's it's powerful stuff.
• 36:03
  Yeah, I mean. Honestly, like, I get really
• 36:06
  excited when our clients decide to go to futures.
• 36:08
  Because I know that they're going to do trauma work because
• 36:12
  that's to me, this is the root cause of it, all, right.
• 36:15
  They experienced something early in life that says it's not safe
• 36:17
  to be in reality and alcohol is a great way to unplug.
• 36:21
  And and that that core belief of, like, how do I be connected
• 36:26
  to reality safely? Like until you do that through
• 36:28
  trauma work, you know your chances that it's going to be so
• 36:32
  much harder. You know, why not go to the root
• 36:34
  of it all? Yeah, absolutely.
• 36:36
  And Rep it out. Where there is trauma, there is
• 36:39
  substance use, Doctor Hong usually says.
• 36:43
  And I think too like on that trauma piece, I mean people just
• 36:46
  don't really know what trauma is.
• 36:48
  They think, oh, they associate trauma with I was sexually
• 36:51
  abused or you know, all these horrific things that can happen
• 36:54
  to you. And.
• 36:55
  And that's not necessarily the case, right.
• 36:57
  It depends on, it could be something that somebody said to
• 36:59
  you and you internalized a certain way and it just affected
• 37:02
  you in in in a really negative way.
• 37:04
  And you know, there could be a million different things, right.
• 37:08
  So I think that like, you know, recalibrating people's
• 37:12
  understanding of what trauma is too, is it?
• 37:14
  Yes. You know there's no.
• 37:17
  Much power in the educational piece, you know, especially you
• 37:23
  know in the setting that we're doing in an experience where
• 37:26
  it's done, it's it's on demand and it's self-paced and it's
• 37:29
  done in the privacy of of you know, their own home or office.
• 37:33
  So it's. You know they're being able to
• 37:35
  either having that space to digest it.
• 37:37
  It's not being forced on them in a in a conversation.
• 37:40
  It's not you know I think that that matters to people giving
• 37:43
  people the autonomy to learn giving people the the space to
• 37:48
  learn it at their own pace and and plant those seeds.
• 37:51
  I mean, I think about it, what we do every day.
• 37:54
  Even at the levels of care at futures in in new waters and
• 37:58
  that's so much of what we're doing we're planting the seeds.
• 38:01
  But to your point, Dr. Ong, I mean, it gets to the point where
• 38:04
  you know somebody is so, so in it and so sick and so you know
• 38:10
  that I I love, I love your comment about not ignoring the
• 38:14
  the red flags. And anyway, yeah, it's just that
• 38:19
  it's. Like, we live in a world where
• 38:21
  it's normal to have 100 red flags in your daily life.
• 38:25
  And, oh, like, that's fine. Nice laugh, right?
• 38:28
  I was mistreated, disrespected by someone I work with.
• 38:33
  Like, oh, look, you know, welcome to, like, real life.
• 38:37
  Yeah, right. Grow up, you know, just deal
• 38:41
  with it shut. Up and do your job right, right.
• 38:42
  Don't ask questions, just do your job and and that's not
• 38:45
  sustainable to be in that environment.
• 38:48
  Yeah, I mean, I think. A lot of the challenge for like,
• 38:52
  our generation is not only like learning how to be healthy, but
• 38:55
  unlearning all of our dysfunctional understandings,
• 38:59
  like what is health? Because most people think like,
• 39:02
  if I don't have diabetes, I'm fine if I'm.
• 39:06
  If I'm depressed but I'm still going to work, I'm fine.
• 39:08
  A very common in men, right? So if I'm going to work, if I'm
• 39:12
  bringing home the paycheck, I'm good, right?
• 39:14
  Like that's all I need. But in the back of their mind,
• 39:18
  many men are thinking, am I the dad that I want to be 100% and I
• 39:22
  don't know how. You can be the dad you want to
• 39:23
  be. Unless you're being a healthy
• 39:25
  person, that's going to show your kids how to be healthy
• 39:28
  people such a solid. Point.
• 39:30
  Love that too. I love that.
• 39:33
  But we are coming up to the end of our time here.
• 39:36
  And so I wanted to and I think that's just a great, a great
• 39:39
  place to end it here. And we could talk for hours on
• 39:41
  this topic, but hopefully people got, you know, a couple little
• 39:44
  tidbits there that were helpful. And you know, Laura, thank you
• 39:48
  so much for having us. Now, do you want to just plug
• 39:50
  your website? You want to spell your website
• 39:52
  out so people can locate futures and spirits?
• 39:55
  Oh, that'd be great. Thank you.
• 39:56
  Yeah, it's www.futuresrecoveryhealthcare.com.
• 40:02
  And on the Spirit side, it's www.spiritswellness.com that's
• 40:07
  SPIRENCE. Fantastic.
• 40:13
  Thanks again for having us Doc. As always, thanks for having
• 40:17
  having me on and appreciate it. We'll we'll talk soon guys.
• 40:21
  Good to see you. Thank you.
• 40:23
  We'll. Talk soon.
• 40:24
  Bye now.