E.62 Recovery, Sobriety, And Climbing With Rachel Fletcher

On episode 62, we chat with Rachel Fletcher about recovery, sobriety, and climbing mountains. Rachel shares her story of recovery and how she has gone from losing her dad to suicide at age 5, to a fulfilling life of recovery and climbing mountains. We discuss also her tattoo shop, her treatment center "Moving Mountains Recovery", and the modalities used to help individuals who attend. We also discuss the importance of peer support and our own individual growth.

Rachel Fletcher has been in recovery for over 5 years. She owns a large tattoo studio in South Florida, and is the community liaison for Moving Mountains Recovery. She is also an avid Rock climber who advocates for its benefits with your recovery and mental health.

Her website can be found here . Her email is mailto:rachel@movingmountainsrecovery.com.Moving Mountains Recovery can be reached at (888) 594-4925.     

She also run a climbing page called "climbingwithb00bs" that can be found here .

Transcript

Steve Bisson: 0:01

Hi and welcome to finding your way through therapy. I am your host, Steve Bisson. I'm an author and mental health counselor. Are you curious about therapy? Do you feel there is a lot of mystery about there? Do you wonder what your therapist is doing and why? The goal of this podcast is to make therapy and psychology accessible to all by using real language and straight to the point discussions. This podcast wants to remind you to take care of your mental health, just like you would your physical health. therapy should not be intimidating. It should be a great way to better help. I will demystify what happens in counseling, discuss topics related to mental health and discussions you can have what your theories, I also want to introduce psychology in everyday life. As I feel most of our lives are enmeshed in psychology. I want to introduce the subtle and not so subtle ways psychology plays a factor in our lives. It will be my own mix of thoughts as well as special guests. So join me on this discovery of therapy and psychology. Hi, and welcome to episode 62 of finding your way through therapy. I am Stevie so if you haven't listened to Episode 61 yet, please do so Catherine DeMonte. And I talked about shadow work, which is very interesting and something that I think everyone should do. But episode 62 is another subject that's really near and dear to my heart, which is sobriety and recovery. I haven't really talked about it in a full episode since probably episode five with David Pisano. I know that me and Pat rice and other guests have talked about it here and there about recovery and sobriety but haven't dedicated a full episode to it. And Rachel Fletcher is someone that reached out to me via LinkedIn. She was listening to my podcasts fairly regularly, which is cool. And I appreciate that and she is the community liaison at moving mountains recovery. Rachel has been in recovery herself for over five years. She also owns a tattoo studio in South Florida. And she is also an avid rock climber. She believes that rock climbing can bring benefits for your recovery and your mental health. She also has other ventures that she does on social media. And I'm hoping that she will talk about that. And I figured I'd give you the title. It's called claiming with boobs. So I figured that would catch your ear. And here is the interview. Well, Hi, and welcome to finding your way through therapy. We're on Episode 62, the last one of the season. And I guess I kept the best for last. We're also on YouTube on episode 12. So that hopefully you can get on YouTube. Check that out. I hope you all do. But it's interesting because I love working with recovery. I've been working with it for about 23 years. And professionally. If my family is listening, cover your ears for a second when my own family 47 years. I do love the subject and I haven't done it enough on my podcast. So Rachel, you know, reached out to me on LinkedIn. And it was kind of weird, because I'm you know, sometimes you get people reaching out. But she was like, Oh, I like your podcast, I would love to be a guest. You seem to know a lot about recovery. So I'm like, I want to have another conversation about recovery. And I was gonna wait them next season. And I'm like, No, I need to start it now. So Rachel Fletcher. Welcome to finding your way

Rachel Fletcher: 3:16

through. Hi. I can't believe I'm the last one on the on the season. I didn't know that I feel special.

Steve Bisson: 3:22

Well, the good news is that means like if your numbers are high really quickly become the most popular episodes. The bad news is you got a lot of time to catch up. So. But recovery is something that I to me. We don't talk about enough. Number one. Yeah. Number two. I think that the last time I talked about was like that, I guess as episode 62. It was like a year ago. Yeah, it was with David besar. No. And I want to talk about it more because if to me mental health substance use is what 95% length. I think that I have told people before bad rice talks about it sometimes too. And we're working together. And I've said this and most people don't like what I say but I've only met one straight drunk in my whole entire life. Like he was just a drunk. He wasn't mentally ill. There was no depression. He was just a straight drunk. And people are like, Oh, that's terrible. I'm like, No, it's not. It's reality. Because usually it's the other stuff. But anyway, Rachel, I'm not going to take over because I wanted this to be about more about you. So welcome, as I said, and how about you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Rachel Fletcher: 4:25

Hi. Okay, so my name is Rachel Rachel Fletcher. I myself am in recovery. I got sober March 27 2017. So I recently kicked five years. Thank you. I do a few things. I always say that I'm kind of a strange person. So i i co own a tattoo shop in South Florida, a large studio with about 13 artists. And I love that work. And then I've also when I got sober I wanted to work in treatment. I knew that and the day I had a year I applied for a job and I I started as a behavioral health technician. And I worked my way up. And I've worked various positions. Now I'm a community liaison for moving mountains recovery, which I'll get into what that is, later on. And then I'm also an avid rock climber, which is like my, it's my whole world. It's my everything. And I incorporate the climbing and pretty much all that I do. And like recovery with mental health. I run like a funny page with two of my friends called climbing with boobs, which was a name that I came up with because I was like, I was like, Sex sells people. And like, I can't tell you how many people are probably going to click on this because of the name. And then they realize it's just three girls who are climbing and it kind of bleed on the whole, like, female empowerment. But ever since we started the page on Tik Tok, which I was anti Tik Tok, because I'm 29. So I'm a little after that generation. And the first video we got had like 20 million views. So we grew. Yeah, we overnight like grew and had like 50,000 followers on it, which was kind of wild. And now we'd like continue to grow. And people reach out to us all the time. They're like, Oh, you guys are the reason why I started climbing a lot of young girls too. So it's been like a positive thing. And I try to always tie back in, like, why I climb, which is really cool.

Steve Bisson: 6:28

Well, it's kind of I was laughing when you said that, because when I sit here, I send the disclosure stuff to everyone. It's not a secret. And then you sent to me a very interesting video with that. About climbing, so I was like, Yeah, I know, I know who I'm dealing with. That's my that's my folks. I appreciate that. So just wanted to make sure I mentioned that.

Rachel Fletcher: 6:51

Yes, a nice climbing vid. Yeah, very humorous. And like on my page on the page, like we make fun of lots of I think I think humor is a really good coping tool. Well, maybe it's

Steve Bisson: 7:04

a good question to ask with the humor, because I think that for me, that's when people ask me, you know, they, I don't know why it's been a subject for many people recently. But what's your passion? What do you do? Well, you this way, though, right? And I'm like, if you're able to laugh about it doesn't have to be your passion. You just need to be able to laugh. Do you feel that that's like, kind of like, goes with a lot of different things, including sobriety, mountain climbing? I mean, just about everything. Do you think that that plays a factor in all that?

Rachel Fletcher: 7:32

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I have a thing that I say when I usually it's after I say, a really messed up joke about something that most people wouldn't laugh about. I say, well, if I'm not laughing, then I'm crying. You know, like, for me, that has always been a tool, I probably came more into play. It's like a child. Growing up in a dysfunctional home, I learned to cope with laughing and everything, but feel like climbing definitely brings a level of enjoyment in my life. And it's fun. It's super fun.

Steve Bisson: 8:08

But I think the other day, if you ever have a chance, and I I like to plug my own show to Episode 49, I talk about dark humor and the importance of it. So I think that for me, when you're not able to laugh even about dark stuff, you're basically kind of like screwing yourself over. Absolutely. We're on the same page yet again. So how does a journey go from CO owning a tattoo shop, to now owning a treatment center to incorporate in climbing and all that? I mean, if you said that, like if you gave that as a writing tool in a class, right, make these three work together? Go. Most people be like, What the hell's wrong with this?

Rachel Fletcher: 8:52

You know what, like, I mean, when you're saying it out loud, and like the only way that that happened with some extra universal power, just also having a sense of humor about everything. When I got sober, I had absolutely nothing to be honest, I came into treatment. It was my second time. So I experienced what relapse feels like. But my second time, I own nothing, I didn't have $1 to my name, I treated every person that worked in the treatment center as some sort of like shaman with like wisdom to give me whether they were my therapist, the nurse or just attack and I took suggestions and I kind of ran with it. But I got to sober living when I got out. I was 24 So I really needed to learn how to honestly be a contributing member of society like I didn't know how to be an adult at all. I use my entire

Steve Bisson: 9:48

just for some of people who may not know what Sober Living Oh, yeah, they just want to

Rachel Fletcher: 9:53

sober living. So sober living is it's kind of like a bridge between Leaving treatment starting this period of sobriety to being completely on your own, it gives you this extra level of accountability. So I lived in this sober living, that had about 12 Women in it, there was two beds in each room. So you kind of in this like dormitory style of living, all walks of life, all ages, different people in different seasons of their life, but all with a common goal of we're getting sober, they drug test you weekly to kind of hold the accountability, they also usually do like a weekly meeting to see like, how is everyone doing? What, what goal are you working on. And they also do kind of funny things like they make you make your bed every morning. And that's something I do till this day. And it's weird, I feel like that little change in my behavior creates success. And they just start instilling these little things. And basically, you kind of get on your feet, I stayed for a year. And you have curfews and then as time goes on, and you start to build trust, and you and you, you see that, okay, this person is doing the right thing, and they start to let you like, take a pass to go for a weekend or stay somewhere. But it's like kind of this transition phase. Most people don't realize that recovery. Well, first off, it's so hard. And the success rate is so low. I think it's like 10%. But I don't even know if that's true, because in my opinion, I don't really think you can measure success and recovery. Like who's creating that, that that statistic? Are they following people for years after sobriety, you know, success, like staying sober for 90 days? And I honestly think success is not so like linear anymore. Like I don't think continuous sobriety means success. I think that like gaining some sort of lessons that add up.

Steve Bisson: 11:49

Now, before we go on, I want to just respond to that, too. Yeah, and the numbers are so random. In my opinion, I've worked with 9000 people. Plus in my career, I want to say that there's one person who got sober right away. Yeah, never relapse. That doesn't mean that we're in recovery. 100%. And I tell people like for me, success is not sobriety. Anyone can be sober, right? Recovery. Now, that's the hard work, recovery, and how do we measure recovery versus survive? But for me, really easy. Recovery is doing the work in order that the mental health work or substance abuse work in order to be successful in life. Sobriety just means you're not drinking or not using or not, whatever.

Rachel Fletcher: 12:34

abstaining. Yeah, I agree. So I don't know, the sober living provides, like an extra layer of, of support. Basically, it just taught me a lot of things. But I lived in sober living, and I being surrounded by a bunch of women, all with the same goal. I saw how other people were experiencing their journey of being sober. And I kind of found that was like, Okay, I see the things I don't want to do. That's really what I saw. I was like, Okay, I see a lot of people just kind of coasting by. And you said earlier, you were saying like it's a common, it's more popular now to be like, What are you passionate about? I've always kind of thought like that. I always ask people when they first meet them, what are you passionate about. And I wanted to not just be sober. The idea of being 24 and getting sober, felt like I was missing out or that like I was cutting my party shore that I would never have fun again, because my only experience of fun was going out with my friends having beers. I just had a disease that made me never be able to stop. I always took it too far. Until the point where it wasn't fun anymore. So getting sober. I wanted to like learn how to have fun. And I tell this a lot of the people that I mentor, that you can either look at this as, okay, I ruined my life. And now my funds over and now I'm just going to be sober and abstain. Or you can pretend that you're Julia Roberts in the movie, Eat, Pray, Love. And say that I'm divorcing. This is one metaphor, okay? You're divorcing from drugs and alcohol. And now you're going to find who you really are. Because that's the truth. You get sober and you don't know what you like, what you're into. You've only been doing the same thing for the last however long. And so I started to explore hobbies. And I, one of the first things I did was pick up a ukulele. And I taught myself how to play ukulele off of YouTube. And then I started playing open mics. And then from the open mics made me meet cool people. And then I met my husband. He's also in recovery. He has 10 years so he started his journey a little bit before me. Congratulations to him too. Yeah, he's awesome. He's a great person and then we've kind of started a life together still on my own journey of recovery. And when I met him, he was taking a tattoo apprenticeship. He had worked in the treatment industry for a long time. He did really well was really successful, but he was experiencing the burnout, which I'm sure you are familiar with. Right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Steve Bisson: 15:24

No, no, no. So helping people get sober. So rewarding, because people are so grateful for it.

Rachel Fletcher: 15:30

Now, the birth of burnout is real. And also, you know, in the mental health field, God, do we need to take care of ourselves.

Steve Bisson: 15:39

Yeah. Well, the self care is like a checkbox that we never do. We journal,

Rachel Fletcher: 15:43

it's not a requirement to also take care of ourselves. And I've, honestly, I've experienced some people working in treatment that are sicker than the patient sometimes.

Steve Bisson: 15:56

Yeah. Well, that's unfortunately very common.

Rachel Fletcher: 15:59

Yeah, totally. So he was experiencing the burnout. And he was I'll do this art thing. I'm going to see where that goes. So he was taking on this apprenticeship and that that was fun apprenticeships are there a lot of work, it's basically working for free for like a year, and you earn the ability to learn they I think for the first nine months, he didn't even touch a tattoo machine. And through that, I was still working in treatment, I worked through various positions I did, I was a tech, which I feel like is one of the hardest jobs because you actually spend the most time with the clients. Interesting, because you're the least qualified, you're usually hired based on the fact that you were once a drug addict. He's now. Right, but you learn a lot, you learn a lot, I learned a lot about crisis and how to deal with them, I learned how to convince people to save their own lives. Because it's not when the client is that clinical in group with the therapist is when the client wants to leave and run away. Nope, it's at three in the morning, when there's nobody there with this tech who was a year sober. And that's the person that's going to convince you, hey, you shouldn't leave, you should stay. I really got really good at that. And I worked in alumni, which is all about community, provide support. Following up with people, when they leave, I ran a lot of events, just for people that stayed sober. And I also ran a 24/7 hotline for people to call in this treatment center has been open for 15 years. So they had their alumni lists were insane. I got all sorts of calls from positive ones to negative ones to ones where a guy would have to go I've had to call like the suicide hotline for people calling in during a call themselves, all sorts of situations that experience in that position. And then I wanted to do case management because I thought, Okay, this is a job where less about feelings, and it's more about just doing paperwork. But in reality, it was interesting, because I feel like the clients can't differentiate that you are not a therapist. As a case manager. Yeah, well,

Steve Bisson: 18:11

I'll tell you one thing, my couple of good news, if there's a suicide hotline, and I want to plug this not 988 instead of the long number that used to be 988, across the country in the United States of America. So hopefully other countries will be doing that soon enough. Canada is looking into it. One of the plug that number will make any money, just want to make sure. But I think that it's also when you are so desperate, everyone is more of an expert than you. Yeah. So what if I if I'm hurting because I'm wigging out because of the side effects of not drinking or having opioids issues or whatever, it doesn't matter what it is. Even if the person is the less trained to talk to me, you always feel like they will know better, right? Because you're all you know, you see yourself as off up. But I think that that's what happens. And unfortunately, I think that the best part of my job ever was to work on a crisis team where they taught me for an hour how to handle the phones and an hour to handle the software and they're like, Oh, you're good. Suicide Hotline. And off to the races. And guess what, but that was the best training I ever got because I like you can't fake real store really can do I wish they would tray. Can you train a little bit more? Yes, of course. And I'm not putting that saying that we shouldn't train. But at the same time, I think that being a tech, you're able to also kind of like go get some extra help if needed. But it's also the best training ground because part of it is sometimes going but I've been there to

Rachel Fletcher: 19:42

intuition. Right. I've seen people who have that intuition who don't tell you either got it or you don't probably like you were taught the software then you were on the phones you were either gonna sink or swim.

Steve Bisson: 19:57

Right but I think it's not intuition for me, I think Not intuition, I should say it shouldn't be over thought that should be intuition. For me like one of the things that I've always loved about working with people in early recovery and sobriety, they're like, you don't mince words. I'm like, why would I mince words? You know, once I'm over rehearsed, bullshit answer you want reality true. And I think that sometimes when people, they have to have some training, but sometimes it's better to just go, oh, fuck, I don't know what I would do if I were you. And that's just a genuine answer that the other person is like, wow, someone else would be stuck if I was like that. So they I don't know. For me, there's a little bit of intuition and also meeting a client. Where is that that's very,

Rachel Fletcher: 20:37

I love meeting people where they're at. I love that. I felt like people kept thinking I was a therapist, and then they'd end up Trump trauma dumping on me.

Steve Bisson: 20:49

Yeah, the trauma stuff I like to give to the expert. I get it.

Rachel Fletcher: 20:54

It's so funny, because I tell my clinical director now we're really close friends. Do you mean me to pretend to be a therapist? No, all the clinicians that listen to this are like, don't say that. I went to school a long time. No, I'm sick. I was like I cuz I was like, sometimes I would talk to a client. And I'd be like, you know, I'm not the therapist. Right. I'm here to locate your FMLA. Right. So I was doing that my husband finished just had to apprenticeship he's had chewing. I was experienced some of the burnout because also did you work in a treatment facility? Ever?

Steve Bisson: 21:30

No, I never did actually. I I sent them the treatment. Yeah.

Rachel Fletcher: 21:33

So yeah. So the case manager also with the therapist, assistant in a way, so I was working crazy hours, and it was no break. And I was feeling the burnout. So we were like, let's just do a dramatic family change. And we partnered with another couple longtime tattooers with like, 20 years. I actually sent have sent her your podcast that you did recently on the entrepreneurship. Yes, we both. Were listening to it. Because God did that. Speak to my heart. And I didn't know like a peer group like that existed. But we decided to start this business. And you open a tattoo studio, and it was we've been open for almost two years. But we opened in the pandemic, but we were in Florida. So our governor doesn't acknowledge COVID. So it didn't really affect our work. Although we were very extra like safe and careful wearing masks, we still tried to kind of reverse it. We've been really successful, which is really cool. What was interesting about switching to running a tattoo shop out of four owners, I'm the only one that doesn't have to so I do all the boring finances and QuickBooks and payroll. So the artists can do what artists do you know, the admin? Yeah, case management, right? It just flowed right over. I had this weird moment where I thought, okay, when I was a case manager, I was working in detox, I dealt with a lot of those first week or two of someone getting sober coming up the drugs. I've seen a lot of things, right, right. And I thought, Okay, I'm gonna get a break, I'm gonna be able to breathe. And what I realized was, oh, everyone in the world has mental health. I was like, I thought that I was seeking treatment to take a break. And then I was like, Oh, my customers, you know, my artists, they all have stuff that they need to go see. Go to therapy for Guide, which I would just sent and I had the intuition then to like, manage people manage personalities. And it was really interesting. Although tattooing is really fun. It's fun. Well,

Steve Bisson: 23:51

I think that it's true, though. But I think that the tattoo artists, people tattooing, hairdressers, they're all like honorary therapists.

Rachel Fletcher: 24:00

Oh, people think that they are I hear all the time. So people call him when they want tattoos. And they'll literally say, Oh, my blah, blah, blah, just passed away. And I want to get this tattoo to commemorate them. And it will be like such a fresh trauma for them. And in my head, I'm like, to they know that we are not therapists. We're something like these people. They're artists, and they're great people, but they're they have no background in mental health whatsoever. But people see them as some form of therapy. They see tattooing as some form of therapy. I've seen people crying in the tattoo chair while they're getting tattooed, because it's some sort of like, almost like closure trauma release for them. Yeah. And it's, it's pretty interesting to see but yeah, they're like unpaid therapists. Well, they're paid but they're not paid to keep everything

Steve Bisson: 24:54

correct, but I will always give props to my tattoo artist, my hairdressers that I know and barber shops need to listen. They're sitting in a chair and they just want to fill the blanks in. Oh, so true. But you mentioned something I want to go back to you said, you know, for me, the mind body spirit connection is so. So you you talked about mental health, everyone has mental health issues? Well, for me personally, I agree with that. 100% Some people would say no, just crazy people do. So I'm in therapy, I've been in therapy proudly for 15 years give or take at this point. Not every week, not like sometimes every week, sometimes not doesn't matter. But judging. I'm just saying that's what I do. Have you ever been in therapy, because that's finding your way through therapy is really about hey,

Rachel Fletcher: 25:42

how are ya for and how good. So I absolutely have i i don't even know if this is a real word. But I always say I'm very therapist. I don't think it is.

Steve Bisson: 25:53

You know what? I've heard it so many times on this podcast, I think I just copyright copyright.

Rachel Fletcher: 25:58

Okay, I'm staring pies or I'm institutionalized. So obviously, which treatment which treatment is. It's like sober school, it's like therapy school you're in when you're in partial care level of treatment. You are in clinical hours, usually from 9am to 3pm. That's six hours of therapy a day, whether that be group therapy, individual sessions weekly. And then they usually have a bunch of different ambulatory services. I've done that I did that for my last stint. I did, I think I was 45 days in treatment. And they say that the longer you're in treatment, the higher chance of success that you have. after that. I wasn't in therapy. I just worked 12 Step programs. And I kind of was just focusing on recovery. I always pursued my hobby thing that I was saying, I was breaking Julia Roberts figuring out what I loved. That's where rock climbing came into things. But my next therapy experience was I was three years sober. And I was about to get married. It was a month before I was married. And I was a stable human being. And then all of a sudden, I became almost like mentally unhinged. It was very weird. I left my dad when I was five. to suicide. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, it's okay. And it's funny when I was in treatment, and I was early sobriety, I had, like I said, all those clinical hours of groups, right. But what did I talk about? I talked about some media things that were going on my life, a lot of it was really petty stuff, that didn't really matter. And I think that's where I was at the time. And now, how trauma works. I think there's that book that says trauma that's in the body right at that click clinically. No offense, it goes over my head, and are you gonna pull it down?

Steve Bisson: 27:55

No, that's, yeah, I'm gonna pull it up. Because I will say what I, I've said this before on the podcast, I'll say it again. So this is the Bible of

Rachel Fletcher: 28:07

for us. I can't read it. I have to read it in chunks.

Steve Bisson: 28:12

But not only that, it's, there's a medical Bible somewhere about medical, I have no interest in reading that. Because I'll go to the doctor and he read it. And that's a great thing, or she, and she's going to take care of me. So for me, I say that this book, when people say, Oh, it's to me, that's my Bible. But that does not mean that it's accessible to everyone, not the deck, but just because that's how it is. So it is a good book. But most of my clients and most of my email aren't gonna read it. And even my colleagues sometimes like that's dense, and I'm like, it's so 10. It's so it's great reading. I mean, it is.

Rachel Fletcher: 28:48

And the premise is like what I understand so what how I see it is that basically, I had this actual huge traumatic event of losing my father to suicide, and probably attributed to why I use drugs and alcohol to cope with that trauma, disassociate from it, to feel a relief from this pain that was very, very deep. And the wedding, the moment the father moment where he's supposed to walk me down the aisle that triggered that. It was like all of a sudden, this volcano erupt, and it could not hold any longer. Now, looking back, did I see evidence of the trauma playing throughout my whole life of my in my sobriety, three years, I had so many triggers, I was so insecure, total abandonment issues that like showed up for me all through that time that I had not healed that trauma. It wasn't until I three years sober, were strong enough to deal with it. And so I got a trauma therapist, and I was like, This is not a great time for me. I'm getting married but I want to do this, I want to I want to do this work, let's dive in. And because I am a, I was a 12 step person, when I have a problem, it's like, I want to Google steps on how to fix it. I hate googling how to forgive, because it just says, you just forgive, you know, like, no, I need to know. I didn't know what to do. And that's what he did for me. He he we did in depth work for about six months, and I realized so much about myself and I honestly, I heal that wound, I help people. First off, I make a lot of jokes about being a part of the the dead dad club, because I have to. But do I pry yearly about it, of course, like, it's always a loss, there's nothing like losing a parent. But the triggers that came from that trauma, I've worked on them, my self esteem is so much higher, I no longer have this internal story of that I'm worth leaving, right, which was huge. That was my first experience with therapy, I don't think I could have handled that in my first year of sobriety, either.

Steve Bisson: 31:07

Hi, I'm just taking a quick break of this interview, to let you know that I've truly enjoyed doing 60 Plus episodes of finding your way through therapy. And I just want to remind you that when we're doing these podcasts, it's a labor of love. And what I mean by that is that there's not much revenue, it takes time, it takes money, and you need to distribute it and things like that. So one of the things that I was hoping to talk to you about is being able to help me out, you can always give a review, which is always beneficial. But more than that, I really want you to go to buy me a coffee.com backslash Steve B sub. And the reason why I want you to go there is that you can give a donation of any kind to support this podcast that you hopefully have gotten a lot from. And any type of amount will be beneficial for me. And I just want to make sure that you can support me by doing so. And let's get back to the interview. Well, there's so many things that I want to jump off of that because there's a lot of points that you made here. The first point is for me, I tell people that you never get over trauma, you get through it. Right. I will never ever make it disappear. I do a lot of trauma work. And people like oh, I just don't want to think about it. I'm like, Okay, well go see a magician that thinks that can do that. Because I am not doing that for you. And people get sometimes offended by that. But I'm like no, like I again, not the same way you lost your dad, but I lost my dad to name the cancer. He probably had it. And I saw him suffer tremendously for three weeks. And it was terrible. Do I cry every dime? I talk about my dad? No, I'm not crying right now. There was no guarantee. I wouldn't tell by the way. I feel you. So I tell people like I went through it. But my dad's memory will never go away and seeing that it'll never go away. It's the same thing with mental health. It's the same thing with some substance use people. Like I just don't want to think about substances anymore. I just don't want to drink. I know I never want to think about a drink again. I'm like, Okay, let me go get the magic wand. Now work out. No, it's going to happen except that it's going to be there instead of trying to avoid avoid, avoid avoid. Yeah, so that's the first thing I really want to mention. So the trauma work I congratulate you on that, um, it's hard work to do to trauma work.

Rachel Fletcher: 33:22

It sucks. Hey, I did it. My husband was like, Are you going to tell them that the trauma work sucks. Like, yeah, it does it tell when we saw it, you got to do it.

Steve Bisson: 33:35

I think I had got to do it. I've had if I have never said this on the podcast, I gotta say right now. Some people like who get they come to me and I say okay, let's get you to treatment. Now. Like, oh, treatment is gonna make you feel better. Like now you're gonna suck for seven days and be mad. And they're like, What? Like, what you want me to lie to you? Oh, it's gonna

Unknown: 33:55

be great. There's light at the end of the tunnel, though. After? Yeah.

Steve Bisson: 33:59

But I felt like if you think it's going to be easy to sobriety, trauma, whatever. No, let's not, let's not play games. And I think that not deceiving our clients and people who patients or whatever we're calling him. I think it's important not to deceive them and tell them the truth. Yeah, I never tell people anything like, lie. Oh, you're gonna feel great. No, sometimes sobriety sucks. And the other thing too, is that you talked about not doing trauma work right away. I think we had a conversation prior to this. But I'm going to I'm going to share it out loud so that people can listen to it on the podcast. The first six months I tell people your brains jello. I'm just trying to make you survive and I'm just trying to make keep you sober for six months. So we talk about the cat having fleas are things that are very easy. I'm not going alright, let's talk about that trauma that you've had.

Unknown: 34:49

Just imagined.

Steve Bisson: 34:51

But a lot of people like don't get that especially family members. They call me up like you told me to take care of my son, daughter, whatever. And they're like, well If you're not working on anything, I'm like, I'm keeping them sober for six months, after six months, the brains kind of like mellowed out a little bit. And I can get some stuff done. Yeah, that's still going to be like six months down the road before we really do a lot of work. And a lot of people don't understand that. So I don't know we had a conversation beforehand. But you're right, sometimes, like the first few weeks is like, yes, matching socks works. No, no, no wear matching socks. That's

Rachel Fletcher: 35:25

yes, no meat or potatoes, right? Or a little bit.

Steve Bisson: 35:29

But what do you feel that that's another thing that people struggle with? Because at the beginning, they want to feel better right away. And then we're kind of like, we're just going to keep you alive. And we're going to keep you somewhat organized for the next six months.

Rachel Fletcher: 35:41

Yeah, I feel like we live in a society of instant gratification now.

Steve Bisson: 35:45

That's hence the the problems with sobriety. But anyway,

Rachel Fletcher: 35:49

yeah, yeah. I also have other experiences with therapy. So I'm just a very open minded individual, I will honestly try anything that seems like hey, you've tried it, I'll try it. I've had to rock climbing accidents, one that was not serious, but emotionally affected me one that was serious, but also emotionally affected me. The first one was an ankle sprain, when I first started sport climbing. For listeners that don't know what that is, that's when you're climbing a route. And it's bolted, usually every like four to 10 feet apart. And you're, you're clipping the rope as you go. So there's always this chance if you clipped into the last clip, and now you're two feet above it, and you're going to the next one, if you fall, you're gonna whip like you're going to literally drop mid air and, and whip. It's like, you've probably seen documentaries of it looks, it looks wild, it feels even

Steve Bisson: 36:47

while you whip into the rock, so to speak. Yeah, it's

Rachel Fletcher: 36:50

wild, too. I worked really hard. I sprained my ankle on the wall. I was feeling from that accident that every time I went climbing, I had a lot of fear. Now what do people say to me all the time, even now, they'll be like, you're not afraid, like you must never, you must have no fear. Oh, man, I have tons of fear. I just choose not to listen to it. And with experience simply continuing to climb, I know how to manage it better than other people. And that's like one of the benefits of climbing is I also apply that to my life. So oh, I'm afraid of doing something like a podcast. But I have this, my brain is used to me managing fear and like walking through it, or in this case, climb through it looks like exposure. I said to my friend, she's a licensed mental health counselor. And she's also certified in EMDR. And I know you were as well, right? She was a baby clinician at this time. And so I was like, Can I be your guinea pig just like my husband while he was learning to tattoo that I will say, guinea pig that he tattooed on a lot. I was like, Can I be your guinea pig. And I know that our friendship is like probably inappropriate to do therapy. But I trust you and I have this relationship with you. And I want to do this, this spraining of ankle fall through EMDR. And she was like, Okay, well, she expected that when she did EMDR or got certified in gr that she would be you know, handling people's sexual assaults. And you know, what you what most people use EMDR for she didn't expect it to be on a climbing accident. And what was crazy was that I will these subconscious levels of fear of my mortality or like not being good enough. And all these like weird emotions under the surface. From this accident. We completed this session, I went climbing and I just felt like, it was like my brain just reset. And I was like, Oh, I'm okay. And it works. It's not easy.

Steve Bisson: 39:07

And I wanted to just add something. It's never good to not have an emotion. So having no fear, having no anger, not having happiness. Not that those things don't exist. It's having a healthy level that we're looking for. Yeah, I need to be fearful that I hope it works out with Rachel, I hope this interview is going to be pretty good. Yeah, do it was I fearful to the point where like, oh my god, oh my god. I don't know, because I've done it enough. And I'm okay with that. It's learning to manage that fear and to make it so whether you're rock climbing, whether you're doing a podcast or whatever you're doing in life, it's having a healthy level of fear. When you're driving a vehicle no matter what vehicle you're driving, you should have a healthy level of fear. Because you have a lot of metal in front of you and it's a dangerous thing to do. You shouldn't be worried every single second that's not healthy and you should not be fearless because that's a problem too. It's getting to that middle ground. Right? I want to go to something because they'd kind of nice transition to something we've talked about again beforehand. I'm not a risk taker per se, but like climbing and mental health. Sounds perfect for me. How do we get to the point where we go like, Oh, this climbing thing is a good mental health thing for me? How do we get there?

Rachel Fletcher: 40:17

So cool. So it's becoming more normalized. And I'm seeing actually more documents online and blogs about it. Because climbing got way more popular. And through the pandemic, the amount of people I started climbing, like a year in disarray, so like four years ago, so the amount of people are still at my local gym, it like doubled after the pandemic, because people were just what they were trying to do stuff. So climbing is becoming cooler. And then also, I think mental health is like taking care of our mental health is becoming cooler, right? It's definitely more talked about now than it ever was. And so I'm seeing blogs about it and the benefits, but I've actually experienced it. The first time I climbed, what attracted me to it was I was a year sober. I had all those little problems. The cat has flees, or whatever, you know, I mean, and I went climbing, and I remember that for that hour or two, those timing, all those problems, like went away, right. And I didn't realize it right then. But it felt good. It was like almost like a break. It was like a break. And I was totally in the moment of what I was doing. There's, when you're climbing, you're thinking, how am I going to get to the next hole. Like there, you're not thinking about your stressful job or your relationship, or whatever's going on in your life, you're thinking about climbing. So you're totally in the moment. I call it what I call like the itis. And I pursued it for students to

Steve Bisson: 41:55

send you my card afterwards. But anyway.

Rachel Fletcher: 41:58

So I took it, I definitely went to the extreme, I pursued it, I wanted to know everything about it, I nearly booked a trip to Yosemite because that's like the father load of clients, it's the place to go right, I hired a guy climbed a big mountain out there, really cool. Just fell in love with it. Since now being like four years into my climbing journey, I am with my experience in the treatment industry in the mental health industry. Like I can see its benefits. So like you're in the moment, it is a break from whatever's going on in your life, but also like, incredibly builds your self esteem and confidence. So you start your climbing like a five, five, which for people that don't know climbing, that's like one of the lowest grades, you're you're climbing the ladder. And then as you continue to climb, over the next six months, you'll see the numbers start to go up and you start climbing harder and harder things. And I think with that like progress, it builds your confidence, you start to feel strong, you have goals. And also climbing is kind of I always say it's like a dance. And if you watch actually we have we have climbing in the Olympics. Yes, this past year, I remember that. Which is also part of why it's like becoming more popular. Like that was the first time we've ever had climbing in the Olympics. If you saw the bouldering competition, did you watch them

Steve Bisson: 43:27

can say watch a whole lot of Olympics, okay?

Rachel Fletcher: 43:30

The Boulder bouldering is climbing where you have mats under you, you're not wearing a harness, you're not using ropes. It's under 15 feet. And they're almost like mathematical puzzle problems. So it's not like just climbing up. It's usually like weird weight distribution. And it's like a puzzle. And I think that that Promil that like problem solving. I don't know the science behind it. But I just know it's good for your brain.

Steve Bisson: 44:00

But I could give you a little bit of the science because I do not claim. Yeah, not that I'm opposed to it. I just my own stuff, not your thing, right even your thing or it's not your thing. But what I do a lot is walk with my clients, some of my clients are the most blocked and like let's go for a walk. And we're walking just like exercising of any kind releases to the most important things. dopamine and serotonin. And with that there's an openness and a creative freedom that really makes us feel like more accomplished. Most of my clients who have done just walking with me, have said to me why I feel so much better. It's better to button like yeah, because your brain was busy like trying to get you know your body's kind of like developing the serotonin, the dopamine Goodfield feel drugs, so to speak, that are normal in our body. And so you talked about your mental health, you feel better about your mental health and then the serotonin and dopamine said let's reinforce that. So that's a little bit of what's going on here and where we reinforcing that behavior when we're doing any type of exercise. So for me, I think it's a question of time. Not if that we're gonna have climbing therapy, we're gonna have all these types of therapy. Oh, yeah.

Rachel Fletcher: 45:11

Do you ever feel like people open up more when they're outside too?

Steve Bisson: 45:15

Well, I'm gonna be very gender bias here. And I'm okay with that. Because I there is a difference between men and women. Men walking side, the side open up significantly more.

Unknown: 45:26

Yeah, and women

Steve Bisson: 45:29

and women will open up to and I have women who have had, you know, barriers because of their trauma because of whatever they have in their lives. So we go for a walk, and now suddenly, the judgmental eyes of a therapist is not there. So therefore they're able to talk more. So I'm not Yeah, I'm not saying that. It's only men. I say women have that too. But men tend to do significantly better. And it really because now they opened up, you give him a small solution. You're not I'm not solving the world with them there. But then they start going, Oh, I feel better. Oh, I felt better talking about this. And then you've reinforced on a hormonal level, and on a physical level and on a mental health level something. So for me, it's just a question of when not if, when we're going to look at this client claiming therapy should be like you're talking about those every 10 feet. Yeah, imagine if you could not stop at the 100 foot level and just have that conversation with them.

Rachel Fletcher: 46:19

Oh, my gosh. So that's another thing. So like I started in Florida, I was indoor climbing. And then because I got the itis I of course just started booking trips all over. There was one point when some Florida Florida like it's so flat, or like highest point it's like the dump the closest claimable rocks was in is in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is a 10 hour drive from where I was, I was getting off work, driving to Tennessee climbing for Saturday, I've been driving home Sunday, that's how obsessed I was. So climbing outside isn't in a totally different experience. And I always tell people what, on a spiritual level for me, it's like a spiritual thing. Like I when I climb, I like to climb a mountain. And then I sit back in my furnace, and I turn around, and they look at what I just did. And it's it's usually the most gorgeous view you've ever seen. I always say that's when I feel God the most is when I'm sitting in my harness at the top. And then there's also that sense of accomplishment of I just I just climbed that. And then just being out in nature, in general is just, it's so good.

Steve Bisson: 47:28

I think that being closer to God or any type of spiritual belief system, for me is also very important to the mental health, healing, and sobriety. And that's why like when you thought you said that I know Okay, all I can think of, and this is from watching TV, not personally knowing how often have you been to Idaho to the client? I've never been to Idaho. I've never been I hear good stuff. I hear good stuff.

Rachel Fletcher: 47:53

It's good. I've been to Yosemite a couple of times I go to Red Rock I've been Redbox in Las Vegas a bunch because the airline's make the tickets real cheap because they think I'm going to the casino but Red Rock national will I think at the State Park. I don't know if it's national or not. It's has a I think there's they say you could climb there your entire lifetime and not touch everything. 15 minutes from the Vegas Strip though. If you ever go I hate gambling i For me, I just like when I chose to get sober. I chose to like Abstain from all things bad. So when I went to casino to get food, though, like a restaurant within one, and I was they were like, Oh, what are you doing here? And I was oh, I'm climbing and climbing. But no, it's like climbing a breadbox. And they were like what I was like this is 15 minutes from you. It's gorgeous. And you like don't know it exists. It's so wild climbing Tennessee law. And then of course now I live in North Jersey as well. And I have the shawanna gunks is the full term but there it's called the gunks. And it's one of the most iconic climbing destinations in the country. It just doesn't have the same tourism level as you've samedi because it doesn't have like waterfalls, it's still beautiful, but the like they call it like an OG climbing destination. Like most of the routes that were established there were established in the last like maybe 50 years ago. So every now and then I'll be climbing and I'll see. They're called P tongs but they're really old rusted metal, they look like bolts that the first climbers hit a hammer into the rock, which is kind of cool because you're like, wow, someone depended their life on this 50 years ago I live in today, but

Steve Bisson: 49:39

well, you know, the Red Rocks was something my my kids actually went to recently. And then they went to Windsor Zion National Park.

Unknown: 49:48

I haven't been there yet.

Steve Bisson: 49:50

And I remember all the pictures she they took and they sent to me crazy. And I think about what you just said and I'm like, oh, like See, that's where you gotta go.

Rachel Fletcher: 49:58

I know. And then that's Look, another thing. When you are before recovery, most people that I meet who are in treatment, they have not lived, they have not traveled most of them in a long time, they've been doing the same thing. And I think that like, I didn't get sober to just be sober. That actually that idea is really, that just sounds so boring. I want to live my life to the fullest. Not only getting declined, but getting see all these cool places it's filling.

Steve Bisson: 50:32

One of the things that I remind also my clients based on what you just said, it's like when you get sober. I know how much you spend on substances. And I always tell him, I don't really care about that. Yeah, but save half every day of what you would have used. Right? And they're like, Oh, I've got $1,000. After three weeks, I said, Guess what, that's your trip to blink. That's your new tattoo, when we're talking, whatever, are getting tattoos, right? That's why I'm saying 1000 is better than a buck 50. Right. And if the client who hears this knows who I'm talking about a sorry, just saying. But I think that that's what I mean is that when we get sober, we need to think about how we are also saving our lives, how we are getting closer to our spiritual life, whatever that is, I mean, God or whatever I'm not. I'm a practicing Buddhist. So I'm a big fan of any type of spiritual life. And then more importantly, like think about all the money you're saving, and how you could use that money for other things instead of the substance. And, you know, I'm just thinking Zion National Park, Red Rocks, just in domine places. And if you want to look up Idaho, I mean, I've been told that there's a lot of great places to go in Idaho. But the point is that I think that that's what sobriety is not just being sober. It's so many other things. Which kind of brings me to where I'm going. I looked at the time, we're about an hour in already. I know. I was thinking about a little bit about, you know, moving mountains recovering. So I want to hear more about it. Can you tell me more about

Rachel Fletcher: 52:05

right. So, right as we were signing our lease and our operating agreement for the tattoo shop, funny timing. It was around Christmas time two years ago, and we were up in my husband's hometown of Randolph, New Jersey, which is in Morris County, it's North Jersey, 45 minutes west of Manhattan. He grew up here. He his experience was his dad's a doctor came from like a wealthy family where you think there would be no problems, but he literally spent from 13 to 18. Being in pretty much every therapeutic community. If you don't know what a therapeutic community is, it's one of those programs that you probably think only exists in movies, but they usually take adolescents and they believe in breaking you down before building you up. But they typically never really build you up. I think he would do like nine month dance and these adolescent programs they like make you clean with a toothbrush, shave your head, and it's for like, quote unquote,

Steve Bisson: 53:06

shame base. Shame base and negative reinforcement doesn't work. Just want to say that if you need proof care price book, don't shoot the dog. Anyway, go ahead.

Rachel Fletcher: 53:16

Yes, so that was an experience of from 13 to 18. He he didn't get sober until he went to South Florida and went to a great treatment center down there, changed his life. It's always been his dream of his to create a place in New Jersey that he think would have saved his life sooner if it existed. One of his childhood best friends, we were at this Christmas party, he was like, Hey, we should open a treatment center together. Like my dad is willing to, like invest in it. Oh, blah. Jeff was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, that. Sounds like a pipe dream, you know. And then after the party, I think like a couple days later, it was real proposals going on and like Apple talk of this business happening. And then when it finally was like approved, and we were just opening the tattoo shop, we were kind of like, oh crap, now we have to do this. And it took two years. New Jersey is extremely regulated, which I think is awesome. I think it keeps people that aren't serious about the treatment industry out. It took us about two years to get a license, which gave us enough time to really properly built the program. And the program we made is an adventure therapy program. So me and Jeff being avid climbers, and then his childhood best friend miles he runs the Adventure Program. He is a tandem skydive instructor, and he also beast jumps in his free time if you've ever heard. Are you familiar?

Steve Bisson: 54:50

Oh, I know what BASE jumping is tell people what it is basically.

Rachel Fletcher: 54:53

Okay, so BASE jumping is similar to skydiving. Except for the fact that when you BASE jump you only have one In parachute, and you're jumping off a fixed object. So

Steve Bisson: 55:03

going off of that off a plane when people first jumping, think about not a plane,

Rachel Fletcher: 55:09

not a plane buildings, antennas bridges off of like like the right type of Cliff has to be certain height. And because you're like usually when you skydive, you're jumping from like 10,000 to 14 14,000 feet high. So there's a lot of time and you have that extra chute that is folded by like the FFA. It's extremely safe. Actually, the statistics for tandem Skydiving is one out of 100,000 fatality, which is actually incredible odds. It's like a point 006 chance, don't look up what your chances are for driving, okay, skydiving in the grand scheme. If you're talking statistics, it's extremely safe. Because there's so much time basically, if you do ever have to cut away a parachute, there's so much time for that reserve to come out. BASE jumping, you're talking like eight seconds. So there's not a lot of room for error. There's only about there's less than 4000 base jumpers in the world. And they all they have a database and they have so they document everything and you'll see there's probably there's multiple fatalities. Usually a month. Yeah, it's it's an it's it's crazy. And he loves it. I've seen him BASE jump one time. And I understood it when I saw it. I understood why.

Steve Bisson: 56:30

And that's not in your program just for the record. No, no,

Rachel Fletcher: 56:33

he's jumping. Not the BASE jumping. Hell no. He has over I think he has over 1000 skydives. Yeah. But that's great under his belt. So he's very experienced you don't do that until you're at that level. He He's the reason why he beach jumps as he says that the moment before he jumps, the world becomes completely silent. He becomes completely content with who he is his life, everything. It's like the most serene moment and I've seen it, I watched him do it once. And it was it was like the air tasted different. It was the craziest. It's a spiritual thing.

Steve Bisson: 57:07

If people look up some YouTube videos, a base jumping right after

Rachel Fletcher: 57:12

moving now in Instagram, we really videos of him. Yeah, I'll send you after this. But it'd be like, Oh, wow.

Steve Bisson: 57:18

But maybe you can blog a little bit here. How do we reach you? How do we choose? Yeah, yeah, I'd like to hear that.

Rachel Fletcher: 57:24

Oh, you can reach me. My email is Rachel at moving mountains. recovery.com. You could go to our website, which is WW dot moving mountains recovery.com. I don't want to confuse people. We're not taking people face jumping. We do take people skydiving. So basically, it's a 30 day and climbing and climbing. Yeah, it's just 30 days substance use program, you can have secondary mental health. Pretty much everybody in our program usually has some sort of mental health. You go to groups Monday through Saturday, we focused on Emotionally Focused Therapy. So like we're huge on Attachment styles. Our whole idea was that there's like those wilderness programs, but they don't have a strong clinical backbone. So we have this strong clinical backbone of like working through your traumas, with the clinician groups, CBT DBT therapy or the whole nine. And then every Sunday, we do something cool. So we climb outside, we go river rafting, we go hiking, we take them to this indoor snowboarding place. And most of our clients have never done these things before. So it's all instructed. They're having a blast, but they're also gaining these like really cool lessons and then they process them through the week. And then if you complete the program, you get to skydive with miles. Oh, wow. You'll see it on our website.

Steve Bisson: 58:47

Um, I'm gonna relapse just to go there.

Rachel Fletcher: 58:52

They love it. I'm kidding. Anyway, listen, people that have not partaken in a skydive because they're scared. Well, you don't push anybody. Oh, I

Steve Bisson: 59:03

love I did one of the few things that I haven't done that I really want to do. So

Rachel Fletcher: 59:07

you have to, it's so cool. It's like a it's so it's so safe. And it's so controlled, but it does make you it makes you think that you're gonna die. And so you you do have this weird serene moment where you jump on a plane, I've done it like five times. I don't love it. I get nervous thinking about it.

Steve Bisson: 59:25

Well, we'll have to work on your anxiety at some

Rachel Fletcher: 59:29

thinking about it. They're always trying to get me to be certified and I am resisting. Okay, well,

Steve Bisson: 59:37

we'll work through that. And the other thing too, that I want to share with everyone to make it very, very clear. South Jersey, very different than North Jersey. Yeah. And I want to make sure that people understand how different it is. It's like saying New York City is like New York State. It is not the same. So for everyone to know that about New Jersey is the same is very important to me because it's such a beautiful city. Getting in is such a beautiful place. So I want to make sure I said that I will put this all on your on my, your your website, I'm going to put in your Instagram. Yeah and wasted reach you but I want to thank you, because oh my gosh, I could talk about recovery for hours because there's so many things that you've said. You said mental health being secondary. Yeah, I don't like I think I met one person that didn't have a mental health diagnosis and doesn't have to be severe. It's just some mental health issues that come with that. But it's so nice to see someone who's enthused five years into recovery, wanting to help others. And to me, that's just the amazing like, to me think about climbing, thinking about going jumping out of a plane with a parachute for the record right up. Just in case we gotta remember, it's also a mental health of this podcast, but also being truthful about your therapy and hard work that you've done. So I want to personally thank you. This was an amazing conversation truly enjoyed it. So thank you so much.

Rachel Fletcher: 1:01:09

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. Thank you.

Steve Bisson: 1:01:14

Well, this concludes episode 62 of finding your way through therapy and it also concludes season five interviews. Episode 63 will be a review of all the conversations I've had. So I hope you join me. Please like, subscribe or follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful. And as a reminder, this podcast is for information, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor or therapist for consultation.