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How Addiction, Recovery, and a PHD Built a New Life with Dr. Zach Miller · Finding New Waters

0:00
Now it's very different with the fentanyl, right?
0:02
They don't get 345 chances sometimes.
0:05
So I started studying that in what I was really interested in
0:10
was health insurance. Does is health insurance a
0:14
predictor of repeated non fatal overdoses?
0:17
So my entire topic came to be, you know, looking at people with
0:23
opioid use disorder in Florida who have experienced at least
0:27
one non fatal overdose. Does the severity of anxiety,
0:32
severity of depression, and the type of health insurance they
0:35
have predict the frequency? All right.
0:39
Welcome, everybody. My name is Bea Reeves.
0:42
I'm the Director of Business Development at New Waters
0:44
Recovery, sitting here with our CEO, Justin McClendon.
0:47
And our special guest today is now Doctor Zach Miller, who
0:53
recently completed his PhD. And welcome, Zach.
0:59
Thank you, super glad to be here.
1:03
So yeah, man, what? What?
1:05
Exactly what? What exactly do you do and where
1:07
do you do it? Well, I mean I definitely do a
1:11
lot of different things, wear a lot of hats, but my main hat is
1:17
Co founder of Solutions Healthcare.
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That's our parent company. We have 3 current locations.
1:24
We are all levels of care detox res PHP with housing in Central
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Florida and we're currently in the process of licensing our 4th
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program. So I would say by the end of
1:41
this year, we'll be right around 200 beds.
1:46
Wow, wow. How did you how did you find
1:50
yourself into this line of work? Man, you know, I talk about this
1:57
sparingly over the years and, and every time I think back on
2:00
it, the story definitely changes a little bit.
2:02
You know, it's like hindsight's 2020 and the narrative shifts
2:07
the further I get down the road. Really, when I look back, it it,
2:11
if I'm honest, complete happenstance.
2:15
You know, it's just one of those things where the universe kind
2:19
of threw me into this situation and for whatever reason, in
2:24
spite of myself, I was able to capitalize on some opportunity.
2:29
When you go all the way back, I had, this was in 2009, I had it.
2:37
The the irony is I have never been to actual like real
2:40
treatment like as we have it now.
2:43
You know, like my extend of treatment was like the 10 month
2:46
work camps. So I went to this one in
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Asheville called first at Blue Ridge free to go to you work six
2:55
days a week for room and board. You're in a 8 by 10 room with
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eight other dudes, you know, and and that that was just normal.
3:04
No therapy. You're lucky to get to some kind
3:08
of support meeting in the community, right.
3:10
The line would be 80 people long and only 15 would get to go.
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So it wasn't really like treatment.
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It was more of like you don't have anywhere else to go and you
3:23
don't really want to be homeless, right.
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So that this is an option. So I went there and I actually
3:28
did pretty good. You know, I, I, I did pretty
3:31
good and I have been to some other little treatment type
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things like it's funny, I went to my first IOP when I was 12
3:39
years old. I got caught with marijuana in
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school with my best friend and neither one of us would rat each
3:46
other out. So they made us go complete this
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little community IOP. But it was 212 year olds in a,
3:55
in a room with a bunch of like 30 year old men, you know?
3:59
But anyways, I'm ADD I'll skip around.
4:01
So I had been introduced and when I was in the military, I
4:06
got a couple DU is and and I got an honorable discharge.
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But they pushed me out on my re enlistment and they made me do
4:13
like a little alcohol class, like a 40 hour class to check
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the box right to cover their liability.
4:20
But my first kind of treatment was this first at Blue Ridge
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Place. And you know what, I did pretty
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well there. I mean, I made it 5 months.
4:27
Five months for me was a lot. That would probably the longest
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I had ever been sober since I was introduced to opioids when I
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was about 1314 years old. And I was an IV opioid person at
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14, right? It was very, very quick
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progression for me. And then kind of once you go
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there, you never really go back, right?
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It's, it's one of those things and, and if you've experienced
4:51
that, you know what I'm talking about.
4:53
So it was really fast for me. So I'm in this place, you know,
4:58
and I'm doing pretty good. I'm, you know, I'm doing what
5:01
they ask. I like structure.
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Military was good for me too. I like structure, right?
5:05
I do, I, I, I hate structure, but I thrive in structure, if
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that makes sense. So I, and, and I think there's a
5:13
lot of men out there that can associate with that.
5:18
So I end up meeting this girl, right?
5:20
And of course, we all know how that story goes.
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So I end up getting kicked out of this place.
5:26
We don't have to go too much into details about that.
5:28
We know what happened, right? I got kicked out of this place
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and I'm homeless in Asheville in 2009.
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And at that time there was like this crazy winter there.
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It's snow to foot iced and then snowed another foot and I had
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this little car. It was like this $400.00 car and
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it did it only had third gear. It's super funny.
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Anybody that knows me when I first got sober to remember this
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car, you couldn't start it uphill and Asheville's in the
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mountains. So it and it had no reverse.
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So everywhere I parked, I had to make sure that I can get out and
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at least be flat because it, it would not start uphill.
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So I was living in this car in an IHOP parking lot and I
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randomly meandered my way into this support meeting in the
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community. And I met this guy named Kevin,
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who's still a friend of mine today, who gave me a free place
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to stay, right? He was like, Hey, you really
6:21
want to be sober? And I'm like, I don't want to be
6:24
homeless, you know, like I, I didn't want to be sober, but I
6:27
didn't want to be homeless, right?
6:28
It was cold outside. And so he gave me a place to
6:31
stay. And that was kind of my
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introduction because the requirement was that I engage in
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his community. And looking back on it, I think
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that's about the most he could have asked of me in that moment
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that I would have said yes to because I, I kind of choose the
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harder way of life versus putting these rules on me, you
6:52
know? So looking back, it was, it was
6:55
divine for sure how it all happened, that happenstance.
6:58
And then if you ask me how did I get into this field, I had a
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fifth DUI that I had to go home to and I was looking at 12
7:07
months, right? They were going to give me an
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habitual offender. You know, I was going to do 8
7:12
months in prison. I go home, I said in court all
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day, they release me another crazy thing, right?
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And I end up moving back to Asheville and I'm sleeping on my
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sponsors futon in this little 300 square foot round debt
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because I, I knew if I had stayed back home in Sanford, I,
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I wouldn't have made it. And I kind of, I wanted it,
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right? There was this little part of me
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that kind of wanted this different life.
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I had been introduced to this different way of living that I,
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I didn't know existed before this time.
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And and it was intriguing, right?
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I wasn't all in yet, but I was intrigued enough to kind of go
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back. So I literally, I'm looking for
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a job. And before I had to the military
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and then I was a welder. I did industrial construction.
8:01
I traveled around the country and did power plants and Hardy
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board plants and things like that.
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So my skill set wasn't really Asheville.
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I didn't have an Asheville skill set, right?
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Asheville is you're drinking lattes or you're serving lattes,
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right? I wasn't, I wasn't very service
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type. I was missing my front teeth.
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You know, I looked rough. I had all these shoddy tattoos.
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Yeah. I didn't look the best.
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And so I literally looked on Craigslist and I found this job
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working wilderness therapy with adolescence.
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And I had heard about it, you know, I didn't know enough about
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it and I gave it, I went and interviewed for it and I got the
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job and I fell in love. I, you know, that was like the
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first time I had been around master level therapist that
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loved what they did. And I watched these 1617 year
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old boys change and I could really relate to that
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opportunity that I didn't have at that age.
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And you know, the rest is kind of history, just one foot in
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front of the other, capitalizing on opportunities.
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You know, I had a GED, right? I've been out of school since
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the 8th grade. I went to 9th grade, but that
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was when I got out was 9th grade and I got a GED and went into
9:19
the the Coast Guard at 17. So I started school back because
9:25
I knew a GDGED wasn't going to cut it and I knew that I had the
9:31
business part already. Just logically that makes sense
9:34
to me. It's easy.
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But I knew I needed the clinical component if I ever wanted to
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really do anything in this field.
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So I started chopping away at the credits, you know, 1 by 1.
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And then, you know, Fast forward 15 years later and I literally
9:49
just completed my PhD last week. It was accepted and which is a
9:54
pretty big deal, you know, but at the same time, I'm like,
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what's next? What's next?
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So that's the story in about four minutes.
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Well, you sounds great. Nicely, that's amazing.
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Yeah, it is amazing. Congratulations, by the way, on
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the PhD that's that's huge. One of the hardest things I ever
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did, honestly. I.
10:15
Believe it. How long did it take you to do
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the extra just the PhD piece? I did it so fast because I'm
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very blessed right now with time and when I I had this really
10:27
great in in in terrible quality that when I hyper focus on
10:31
something, it's all I can see and I I lose a lot of other
10:35
things around me in those moments, but I can accomplish
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like amazing things. So my professor has been a
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chair, that's what you call, for 19 years.
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And she said that I am the fastest student she had ever
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had. I did it in 11 months start to
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finish and that's 140 page dissertation.
10:57
Wow, that's unbelievable. That is amazing.
11:00
That's amazing. Well, Zach, the way the way I've
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met you. Go ahead.
11:05
No, you go ahead on here. Well, I was just going to say
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that I'm very passionate about what I was writing about, you
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know, and what I realized in my residencies is that people that
11:16
weren't very invested in their topic, right?
11:19
They just kind of chose this topic because they thought it
11:22
was a good topic. They really struggled in the
11:26
process. And the people that knew what
11:29
they wanted to study it, it seemed like it was a lot easier
11:33
for them, if that makes sense. It does.
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It's also interesting because you said something I related
11:39
relate to a lot is I hate structure, but I also thrive in
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it, you know, But before I got sober, I had no discipline.
11:47
You know, when I was in school, I mean, there was structure and
11:50
I did well in school. But when I got to college and,
11:52
you know, basically when I was, you know, 18 and up until I got
11:55
sober, the structure wasn't really there and I didn't really
11:58
thrive necessarily. But then after getting sober, I
12:01
have structure that is some self-imposed, some, you know,
12:05
imposed by the, you know, sponsorship, whatever it is.
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And I do well in structure, but also, you know, theoretically
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I'm opposed to it, but I do well in it.
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But it sounds like with the PhD, you didn't even really need the
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structure and you did it faster than anybody this woman's ever
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seen. Is that is that accurate?
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Yeah, yes. But I would also say that if you
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would have asked me to do this ten years ago, I wouldn't have
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been able to do it in that way right now.
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I I don't, I don't need really structure in my life today to
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complete tasks that I wanted to, you know what I mean?
12:45
10 years ago, very, very different 15 years ago today, if
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I want to come, if I want to figure something out, I just, I
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have this drive that can kind and sometimes I can't always
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click it on either, right? It'll click on without me
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wanting it to click on. But once it's on, it's like, I
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can't stop it. You know, and I'll tell you
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this, the hardest part about a dissertation is there is no
13:10
structure. You know that, that the colleges
13:12
don't care, right? You're in this dissertation
13:16
course and, you know, you might talk to your chair once every
13:21
two or three weeks, but it's on you, right?
13:25
You're either working on it or you're not, right?
13:27
Like we all know universities are big business now, right?
13:30
And that's a whole nother topic. But they don't care if it takes
13:34
you three years, right? They're just collecting their
13:36
quarterly checks, you know? And so that to me, I knew I was
13:41
paying $1500 a month to be in this class, so that that money
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is just ticking by. And that bothers me, right?
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So I want to get the most out of it.
13:54
I hear you. What was your topic?
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So it evolved to many times I wanted to start I looked at so
14:01
the problem this the social problem.
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You start with the problem right?
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What is the social problem? The social problem is the opioid
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crisis, the opioid epidemic, whatever you want to call it
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because that's me right 19992000 introduced to the Oxycontin's in
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trailer park North Carolina, right.
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It's like that show dope sick, except the mountains is in the
14:22
middle of North Carolina. Like that's the town I grew up
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in. And so I've always from an
14:28
academia perspective, been tied to that process, that opioid
14:34
crisis. And so I I've studied it
14:36
throughout my college career in in many different ways.
14:40
So I knew I wanted to do it on that.
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And then when I started digging, I kind of fell in love with this
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population of people that is the repeated non fatal overdoses,
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right? Like we all know those guys who
14:55
have or, or gals who have 7-8 non fatal overdoses.
15:00
And I'm one of those people, right?
15:01
I've overdosed 5 * 2 of them. I was hospitalized.
15:05
Three of them I wasn't. So I, I, I was one of those
15:09
people in, in that time. But now it's very different with
15:12
the fentanyl, right? They don't get 345 chances
15:15
sometimes. So I started studying that in
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what I was really interested in was health insurance.
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Does is health insurance a predictor of repeated non fatal
15:27
overdoses? So my entire topic came to be,
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you know, looking at people with opioid use disorder in Florida
15:36
who have experienced at least one non fatal overdose.
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Does the severity of anxiety, severity of depression, and the
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type of health insurance they have predict the frequency?
15:50
Right. So what we did was we looked at
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their severity of anxiety, their severity of depression, and then
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I separated their insurance into 4 categories and then I did a
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logistical regression analysis to does that predict how many
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non fatal overdoses they have? What was the what was the
16:13
outcome or the conclusion regarding the insurance?
16:15
I'm really interested to hear this.
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Now I got to read this thing. It's it's man, I'll tell you
16:20
like I'm lucky with my outcomes because sometimes you put all
16:23
this work in and then your outcomes are like garbage,
16:26
right? Like, because it's real world,
16:28
right, Like it's real world outcomes.
16:31
It's not, you know, doctored in any way, like a lot of academic
16:36
journals out there, right? They'll, they'll kind of pick
16:39
what they want. So, you know, I was a little
16:42
scared when I ran my analysis. I found that depression in my
16:46
population, in my population. So let's start there, right?
16:50
And the population that I have, which was around 100 people, is
16:56
depression was not a predictor. Anxiety was not significantly
17:03
sufficient, you know, but it was, it was very close.
17:06
It was right over the the line is .05 and anxiety was like .064
17:12
like it was very, very close. But insurance was bam bam bam
17:17
right? It was a statistically
17:20
significant. And then so I ran a post hoc
17:23
analysis which kind of broke each insurance carrier down and
17:27
all of them were except one were significant.
17:31
And basically I broke them down into 4 categories, uninsured,
17:35
Medicaid, Obamacare, marketplace, right, same thing.
17:40
And then private employer, right.
17:43
So like your Cigna use your Aetna's, you know, all those the
17:46
jihad. So, and what I found was if you
17:51
have the one of the most interesting findings is the
17:54
better your insurance, the less non fatal overdoses you have on
17:59
average, right. And then here's the really weird
18:03
part is that if you have Medicaid, on average you have
18:07
9.96 non fatal overdoses. That's crazy. 10 non fatal
18:12
overdoses. If you're uninsured, your
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average is only 6. Marketplace was like 2.6 and
18:21
private insurance was like 1.8. Don't quote me on those, but
18:25
they're they're very, very close.
18:29
So the conclusion is if people have insurance, they're more
18:32
likely to play with fire because they think they can go sort of
18:36
reset and do it all over again. Is that kind of what the
18:38
conclusion? Is so the better insurance you
18:42
have, the less the the least number of non fatal overdoses
18:48
you have. So it insinuates a lot of
18:51
things, right? Can it prove anything
18:53
specifically? No more research needs to be
18:55
done, but it opens the door and and I discussed that in my
18:59
chapter 2 the the literature review.
19:01
The problem is there's very little research out there on
19:06
commercial insurance. It's like non existent because
19:09
those are private companies. They they keep that data very
19:12
close. They don't let people run
19:16
studies on it, right. But Medicaid, that is federal
19:19
dollars. So that is public data.
19:21
You, you can go access that data set right now for free.
19:24
So there's all these studies on Medicaid populations, but
19:29
there's no studies comparing outcomes for the Medicaid
19:34
population and the commercial insurance side.
19:37
So what mine says if it insinuates that that more than
19:42
likely quality of care is better, which will then lead to
19:47
a least number of non fatal overdoses, right?
19:52
That's one of the insinuations. Another is if you have Medicaid,
19:57
more than likely your severity of addiction is probably higher.
20:01
And then because I did Florida, Florida is not an expansion
20:05
state in Medicaid dollars, right?
20:07
We're very RedState. We don't take the expansion
20:10
money when they did the parity back in 2017.
20:14
So that's why Medicaid pays so much lower here, which probably
20:18
leads to the lower quality of care, which then leads to.
20:22
The higher number of non fatal overdoses.
20:26
Very interesting. Yeah, that is very interesting
20:30
yeah. I mean, you're, I feel like we
20:32
could do the, we should do that. We should have you come back,
20:35
Zach, we're going to do another one straight on insert insurance
20:38
because when we eat, breathe and sleep this stuff and you know,
20:42
it's, it is, it's always been very interesting to me.
20:45
As you said, there's, there's just not a lot of research out
20:47
there that puts, you know, insurance and, and, you know,
20:52
efficacy and, you know, the correlations between insurance
20:56
and certain outcomes under the microscope.
21:00
So I get really excited when we start talking about this stuff,
21:02
man. So that's awesome.
21:03
I'm glad that you were able to contribute to, to the, you know,
21:07
Bank of insurance, Bank of data that we have out there.
21:11
Man, I'd love to read it. Can you send us?
21:13
Do you mind send us the link for the?
21:14
Is there somewhere we can check out the dissertation?
21:17
Yes. So yes, I can send it to you.
21:21
It'll be like another two or three days before it's public,
21:24
but I paid the extra money to have it public.
21:27
I'm just waiting for them to send the link.
21:30
That's cool man, I look forward to checking it out.
21:33
That's really cool. What do you other than enhancing
21:36
your already, you know, your professional life as it is?
21:39
What do you plan to to do with the PhD?
21:43
Make people call me Doctor, right?
21:47
Like Bill Cosby. You know, at the end of the day,
21:50
people ask me all the time or like teachers or classmates or
21:54
whatever, like, why are you doing this?
21:55
And I mean, one vanity, right? Like it just the sake of doing
22:03
it and knowing that it's the top that I could possibly get,
22:07
right? Like less than 2% of the world
22:09
hold a PhD, right? So there's that and then #2 is
22:14
like, you know, the goal is to, to eventually sell our business,
22:18
right? Anybody that that opens in our
22:20
field, your goal is to is to sell.
22:22
It's definitely a cell industry down the road.
22:25
And and like I love teaching, right?
22:28
Like I probably have 20,000 hours of group hours and I enjoy
22:33
that psycho educational component.
22:36
So maybe, you know, in my next life, I go and I teach at a
22:40
Community College. I don't think I'd ever want to
22:42
be like a tenure professor and put up with the bureaucracy and
22:45
hypocrisy of academia. But I think I would enjoy
22:49
teaching like an abnormal psychology class, you know, in a
22:52
small university or something, you know, And I definitely, I
22:55
want to write a book, you know? And so a lot of these things you
22:59
got to, you don't have to have your PhD to do it, but it helps,
23:04
right? So there's a couple reasons, but
23:06
at the end of the day, vanity is probably the top.
23:09
Right. Well, I appreciate you being so
23:12
honest about that. I get it.
23:14
It'd be nice to have those letters.
23:16
No question about it. That's.
23:18
Cool. That's very cool.
23:20
What I was saying earlier, the way we met is I didn't.
23:24
So you had been the previous clinical director and a part
23:28
owner of my first job in the field and you had recently gone
23:33
to Florida and opened up a treatment center with another
23:35
guy, your current partner, Justin, correct?
23:38
Yes, correct. And, and so the first time we
23:41
actually met was over Zoom when we were talking about working
23:44
together just from two different treatment centers.
23:46
And then I've had the pleasure of meeting you and seeing you a
23:49
few times a year in person at different events.
23:53
And it's just been a really cool thing to see, you know, somebody
23:57
who was sort of, you know, not I wasn't not a predecessor because
24:01
I didn't have the same role, but a little bit, you know, I got to
24:03
the to the, to the treatment center where you had just left
24:06
and then getting to work together and then be able to see
24:09
you. And then in the meantime, you
24:11
know, learn a little bit about you.
24:12
And you know, like you've told me, you're like, Hey, I'm just,
24:14
I'm from Sanford and I, you know, you told me your a little
24:17
bit of your story, what you shared with us today.
24:18
And then, you know, I mean, I remember first when, because I
24:21
knew your name and knew your role, and then when I first met
24:23
you. Like this guy's the clinical?
24:25
Director. And then and then just getting
24:28
to know you, I was like, this guy's like a, just a diamond in
24:32
the rough. And then here you are, you know,
24:33
a few years later with your PhD. And that's what, you know, I
24:37
mean, I've always liked you, but part of the reason I wanted to
24:40
have you on here is just because it's just such an unbelievable
24:43
story and a true story of what can be accomplished when we
24:48
change, when all we have to do is change everything, you know.
24:53
And so I just wanted to say thank you for being a great
24:56
example to people, you know, not just in our field, but in in
24:59
this world to show what can be done, you know, with, with with
25:04
turning it over and, and, and working in the confines of some
25:07
structure, you know, through recovery and just that what can
25:10
be achieved. And so tell us a little bit
25:15
about, you know, kind of what how you got, you know, I know
25:19
there's a guy we both have worked for and or with who
25:22
you've mentioned before as a mentor and kind of how he helps
25:25
you along that path. Talk about Chad.
25:28
Yeah, yeah, man, I've been so blessed.
25:31
Oh my God. I, I mean, in reality, right,
25:34
Like when I, when I step back, because I do a lot of like
25:40
introspective thinking, right? I'm an overthinker.
25:44
So I, you know, I, I, I, I think a lot and I, I, I've looked back
25:49
over my life many times, especially, I mean, I feel like,
25:52
I, I feel like about every five years we kind of enter a new
25:56
period in our lives and everybody that, that timeline is
25:59
a little bit different. Maybe they get stuck or they
26:02
Fast forward through a part, but really about every five years
26:05
we're turning over like a new component of our life.
26:09
And when I look back, I, I've been so blessed to be surrounded
26:15
with the right people. And this is something I preach
26:19
anytime I get to run groups or anything like that.
26:22
Like I, I have this group that I run that's called plus 1 -, 1,
26:27
right? And it, and it's an interesting
26:29
concept. There's nothing I created,
26:31
right? I mean, I kind of coined the
26:33
plus 1 -, 1, but it, but it's just like the laws of
26:36
attraction, right? Show me your 5 closest friends.
26:39
I'll show you your future. So when I look at my own life,
26:44
really all I did was internally understood this idea plus 1 - 1
26:50
And what that means is this right?
26:51
Say I got a group of people that are like, and, and, and will
26:55
hear this every now and then. They'll be like, oh, I just keep
26:58
getting the same people in my life, or I keep getting the same
27:02
relationships or I keep getting the same jobs or my friends keep
27:06
screwing me over. What?
27:07
Whatever the narrative is, right?
27:09
And that's all it is. It's just a story, right, that
27:11
we tell ourselves, but kind of I'll be like, OK, perfect time
27:15
plus 1 - 1 and I'll pull out a board and I'll say what is
27:18
everything that makes up who we are?
27:21
Let's go and list like our physical appearance, our
27:23
education, our values, our family of origin, our substance
27:29
abuse issues, our non issues, our mental health, our ability
27:33
to earn, our characteristic, you know, our level of humor, blah
27:37
blah blah blah blah. Right?
27:38
Like what are all these things we can think of that kind of
27:43
make up a person? And then let's go and have some
27:47
introspection and, and look and say, OK, let me grade myself on
27:52
a level on, on a one to 10 scale of each one of these, right?
27:57
And then take a look at that. And, and I think then we average
28:02
those all together and we get our number, right.
28:05
And so I, I usually piss a lot of people off in the group cuz
28:07
I'll be like, what do you think your number is zero to 10, you
28:11
know, and I'll have people telling me 8-9, I'm a 10, you
28:15
know, and all. And I, they're setting in a
28:17
substance abuse treatment center with no car, no job, and nowhere
28:21
to live. And they're a freaking 10.
28:24
Like this is the story they're telling themselves.
28:27
They're an 8 1/2, you know, and they're 75 lbs overweight, no
28:33
job, no education, no ability to learn.
28:36
And their family hasn't spoken to them in nine months, right?
28:40
And this is, this is, this is an issue, I think as a therapist
28:44
and as a person, right? And, and, and I'm getting to the
28:47
point of, of my own life be in a second.
28:49
But it, this is the lens in which got me to where I am,
28:53
right? And it happened organically.
28:56
So we'll kind of go through and I'll say none of you are above a
29:00
four. If you're sitting in this group
29:02
on a Wednesday at 10 AM in the morning, you're not above a
29:06
four. And then we talked about math,
29:09
right? Math is very simple, right?
29:11
The math ain't math in on your 9.5, right?
29:15
If we go through and we list all these things out, right, you're
29:19
going to have some low scores. And then we talked about the law
29:22
of averages. I'm in a math class.
29:25
I have 5 tests, right? On my first Test, I get an 82nd.
29:29
I get an 83rd. I get a 34th.
29:32
I get a 95th, I get an 80. The teacher tells me I can
29:36
retake one of those tests. Which one am I going to do?
29:40
Right, the 30. Why?
29:42
Because if I turn a 30 into a 60, it's better than turning an
29:46
80 into a 90 for my average, right?
29:50
So I think a lot of people come into treatment and, and not even
29:54
people in treatment, I think just people I meet day-to-day,
29:57
right? A lot of people love to focus on
30:00
the things they're already good at, right?
30:04
When there's very little bandwidth there to of growth,
30:07
there's very little area of growth versus taking an accurate
30:12
account of where I'm at in this moment, not where I was three
30:17
years ago, not where I think I'm going to be in four or five
30:20
years, right? Where am I at today on each one
30:24
of these components, right? And then pick three of my lowest
30:28
ones and go work on them, right? And then if I give myself six
30:34
months and I do that with some vigor, right?
30:39
And some, and then I learned to be efficient and effective over
30:42
time, I'm going to increase that score.
30:45
And so the whole point of plus 1 -, 1 is if I'm a five, I am only
30:51
going to attract fours to sixes. That's it.
30:56
Maybe I can trick an 8 for a couple weeks.
31:00
And we see this with our sober living guys, right?
31:03
They have no money, no education, no car, and they'll
31:06
get some nurse on Tinder to take them out to dinner and even pick
31:10
them up from the house. But how long does that last?
31:14
Right? And it and if it does last,
31:17
what's her number, right? Yeah, she might have a good job
31:21
in an apartment, but she made she probably bipolar 1 and
31:24
doesn't like to take her meds, right?
31:25
Or, or whatever the issue might be.
31:27
My point is we attract this plus 1 -, 1 this is our friendships,
31:33
this is our jobs, right? If I'm A5, I can't go get a nine
31:38
job, right? I'm going to get a four to six
31:41
job. So and then in our personal and
31:44
intimate relationships. So for whatever reason, I kind
31:48
of figured this out early. Hence my education, right?
31:52
I'm good at a lot of things. I have high into my intelligence
31:55
is very high, right? Like it's that part is not an
32:00
issue. The part is I never put time
32:01
into going to college. So when I got sober, I seen that
32:05
right. I don't need to go to the gym.
32:07
I'm already physically fit. I need to go to school, you
32:11
know, I don't need to do this. I already know how to do that.
32:14
I need to go learn this or our focus on this.
32:18
And, and I think taking an accurate reflection and, and
32:22
I'll also say that the people that I got surrounded with, I
32:27
would say some of the, the, the community support programs out
32:33
there, they're one of those places where plus 1 -, 1 doesn't
32:37
always exist, right? Like you, you can have a friend
32:40
that is well beyond your number in those places.
32:44
And I think that helped me a lot is be, you know, attracting
32:49
myself to people that were would be traditionally way out of my
32:54
number, you know, and growing into that.
32:56
I mean, it's like golf, right? If I go play with three terrible
33:00
people, I'm probably not going to shoot my best round, right?
33:04
But if I go play with three scratch golfers, I'm probably
33:07
going to play pretty good. I think that's life too.
33:11
And I think that a lot of my success is dedicated to the
33:15
people that I was able to surround myself with.
33:18
Kevin Short early on, Doctor Brack Jeffries, right?
33:22
This dude was the first guy who ever said I think you'd be a bad
33:27
ass clinician Dude, you know, let's go.
33:29
Let me help you get your C SAC. Like I see something in you,
33:32
your ability to to relay and and and kind of talk to people in in
33:36
words they might not hear before instrumental in my decision to
33:41
go the clinical route. Chad Husted right like that dude
33:45
was the first guy outside of the the community support groups
33:50
that was like, hey, man, I see something in you, right, Like
33:54
it's not normal, right? Like come over here, listen to
33:56
what I have to say. You know, let me let me show
33:59
you. I would not be successful in
34:02
Florida had I left real recovery when we sold and tried to come
34:07
to Florida and start what I started.
34:11
I I I think I would have fell sharply on my face if I hadn't
34:17
had that three years with Chad. You know what I mean?
34:21
I don't think, I don't think we would have been nearly as
34:24
successful as we had without that, that time with that
34:27
mentor. And, you know, I've had a lot of
34:30
other, I've been very blessed in the people I've been able to
34:34
surround myself with, you know, over the years.
34:40
I hear that's, I've never heard it explained like that about the
34:43
plus 1 -, 1, but that does make all the sense in the world.
34:46
I like that. Yeah.
34:48
I mean, we, you know, we can out kick our coverage and, you know,
34:52
for lack of a better word, trick some woman, you know, to into
34:57
our orbit. But eventually, you know, the,
34:59
the, you know, the, the mass comes off at some point.
35:04
That's really that's, that's such a great way to look at
35:06
things. And, you know, and I've heard
35:09
what you said said in kind of different ways, but not that
35:11
part. So I, I appreciate that, yeah.
35:15
Yeah. Yeah, I really like that.
35:17
It's crazy. So, and I'd be, I'd be curious.
35:22
So how did so I know you mentioned when you kind of run
35:24
this group that, you know, people kind of get upset when
35:27
you're questioning that they're not nines and 10s when that's
35:30
what they're kind of identifying with.
35:31
How does that land with them though?
35:33
When you when you deliver the the kind of punchline if you
35:36
will, do people kind of get on board with that or what's the
35:39
typical response that you see? The people that were nines and
35:43
10s are apologizing afterwards, right?
35:46
Like they're like, you know, like it's like that.
35:52
But. Then the problem is 30 minutes
35:56
later, they think they're nines and 10s again, right?
35:58
And this is, this is part of our, this is part of our
36:01
industry though, man. This is what we tell people,
36:03
right? We tell people they're way
36:05
better than they are. And it's one of the faulty
36:08
components of Sud treatment. You know, in in a sense, right?
36:14
Kumbaya. Listen, Kumbaya talk about how
36:16
great it is. Yeah, yeah.
36:19
And talk about how great it's, it's right.
36:21
You're exactly right. And as you said that, so I'm a
36:24
clinician myself and you know, I do a lot of administrative stuff
36:28
and now, but, you know, spent many, many years in the
36:30
trenches, you know, working with working with individuals
36:33
clinically. And as you mentioned that I kind
36:35
of had a flashback to, I couldn't tell you how many
36:37
groups it was just kind of like, it still is almost a running
36:40
joke, right? And I'm sure Zach, you can
36:42
attest to this as well. But you got you got a group, you
36:45
run in a group, there's some good stuff happening.
36:48
You know, a lot of spiritual movement tears are being shed.
36:52
You know, people are, are present and they're, they're
36:54
being real and they're being raw about what they want out of
36:56
life. And then exactly what you said,
36:58
you know, they get done, they walk out to the, to the smoking
37:01
pit and like, you know, they're dropping F bombs and they're
37:05
like, they're right, exactly back to how they were before we
37:07
had that group. And I think there's a couple of
37:09
things you could take away from that.
37:11
One is that like, like you said, unfortunately, like I think this
37:14
is a shortcoming. The other thing is that it, it
37:18
takes a lot of practice, you know what I mean?
37:20
And and it doesn't, I don't think that's just my opinion.
37:23
Doesn't mean that that group wasn't good, doesn't mean that
37:26
there wasn't some real stuff that was taking place there.
37:28
But they just don't have the skills yet to be able to have
37:31
that translate into what happens on the smoking Patty or when
37:36
they're walking down the pathway with their buddy or like
37:38
whatever it is, or what happens when they get back home in their
37:41
in their home environment. And I think that's just a, you
37:43
know, a testament to what what really works in recovery.
37:46
And that's consistently consistency, right?
37:49
Being honest, being real, making changes.
37:51
But we got to do that over a long period of time in order for
37:54
it to start sticking. Sorry, I'll get off.
37:56
No, I agree. I'll get off the podium now.
37:58
No, I agree. And also it's yeah.
38:02
And it's all, it's kind of another way of talking about a
38:05
fearless and searching moral inventory without the moral part
38:09
necessarily. But still, it's an honest
38:10
appraisal of what we're really like if, if we're willing to be
38:14
honest about it, to kind of get that score and say, hey, you
38:16
know what? Instead of hanging out with
38:18
these knuckleheads, maybe I can, I can't just go magically get a
38:23
whole new group of friends, but start maybe changing one
38:26
behavior that might leave to attracting other people, right?
38:29
And then all of a sudden we're A5 instead of a four.
38:31
So we can go. Yeah, I love that concept.
38:34
You know, a little bit higher. Stealing that Zach.
38:35
Yeah, me too. Yeah.
38:36
Man, it's yours, you know what I mean?
38:38
Like 100% like it's, I'm not saying anything that we don't
38:42
know. It's just different words.
38:44
And I kind of have that gift of, of using weird words and
38:47
metaphors. So it's all yours, you know?
38:51
Yeah, I love that. Appreciate that.
38:53
You ever read the Laws? What do you?
38:55
Either of y'all read that laws of the spirit?
38:58
No, I don't think so. I don't know.
39:00
Grab that, Dan Millman. It's it's.
39:03
It is. Dan Millman.
39:05
I love Dan Millman. Love and peaceful warrior saga,
39:08
right? Like, yeah.
39:09
Great book. Yeah, but he talks about when
39:12
you were talking about that group, right?
39:14
He, he use it in this book is just one giant metaphor, you
39:17
know, like laws of the spirit. And one of them he talks about
39:21
this green walnut, right? And and I literally, I used to
39:24
do this at real recovery. I would bring in a bunch of
39:27
green walnuts and hammers and I would try to have the clients
39:31
open a green walnut. I don't, I don't know if you've
39:34
ever attempted this, but it's physically impossible.
39:36
It's like a little rubber ball, right?
39:38
Like it, it will not open. You cannot open it with a
39:42
sledgehammer. Like it'll just go shoot off.
39:45
It's like rubbery. And I think those moments in
39:48
Group you're talking about, those are some of my, I've had
39:51
moments in Group like that surreal feeling where everything
39:55
slows down, where it's like the most present.
40:00
I mean, it's like a godly feeling, right?
40:02
Not like I'm God, but then like I'm with God.
40:05
Like this like surreal moment where everybody is present.
40:10
And I think those are our green walnuts for the clients.
40:13
Like they put them in their pocket and, and you know, maybe
40:17
six months, maybe three years, maybe 7 years down the road,
40:21
that green walnut will ripen. And what happens, it opens on
40:24
its own right? And something else happens in
40:27
their mind clicks to that group. And goes, fuck, that's what we
40:32
were talking about that day, you know, and I've had that
40:35
experience so many times over the last 15 years.
40:40
And sometimes it's a week later when it, when I get hit,
40:43
sometimes it's 5 minutes, sometimes it's two years, you
40:48
know, and I'll go, where was I when I had that?
40:51
I get it now, you know, like I, I understand.
40:55
So it's, it's a beautiful thing, psychology, you know, it's a.
40:59
Oh, you're beautiful. Absolutely.
41:01
I think that's a great place to to end it.
41:04
What? How do people find you and find
41:06
solutions, Zach? Yeah, I mean, so we are our
41:10
parent company solutions healthcare.
41:13
You can look at SHC dot Health on Instagram.
41:18
My Instagram handles better than I deserve 22.
41:21
I think I'm actually going to be changing that and starting a new
41:24
Instagram here soon. More will be revealed, but yeah,
41:28
we're out there. Solutions Healthcare Central
41:31
Florida. Need help.
41:33
Give me a call. Awesome, Zach.
41:36
Thank you so much, Justin. Thank you so much.
41:39
If you liked what you heard today or just want to know more,
41:42
give us a call on 9196708119 or visit us at
41:47
newwatersrecovery.com. Thank you.