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Finding Your Way Through Therapy
Join Steve Bisson, LMHC as he unravels the complexities of therapy and counseling. Engage in straightforward dialogues, enriched with insights from special guests sharing a like-minded perspective. Each episode presents valuable, easy-to-digest information designed to help you perceive therapy, and those who partake in it, in a grounding, relatable manner.
Finding Your Way Through Therapy
E.168 The Rise of Overdoses and the Path Forward With Adrienne Tichy
How has the pandemic reshaped the landscape of addiction and mental health? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Adrienne Tichy, a recovery coach, advocate, international bestseller, and public speaker, who shares her compelling personal journey and professional insights from over a decade in addiction recovery. This episode uncovers the crucial challenges in addiction and mental health today, spotlighting a 40% rise in overdose cases. Listen as Adrienne discusses the transformative work at the Lodge at Delray Beach, the recovery residence community she founded, and her comprehensive recovery programs, both virtual and in-person.
Discover the profound societal impact of addiction, particularly how the pandemic has altered its dynamics. Adrienne and I delve into the staggering increase in alcohol consumption and other addictive behaviors that became prevalent during lockdowns. This episode highlights the considerable stigma surrounding addiction and mental health, the hurdles of achieving normalcy post-pandemic, and the alarming rates of relapse due to unresolved trauma and grief. Adrienne passionately emphasizes the need for open dialogue and understanding that recovery is a lifelong journey, marked by continuous efforts and support.
As we gear up for Adrienne's upcoming summit on September 21st in celebration of Recovery Month, we explore the critical role of mental health in addiction recovery. From therapy’s role in rebuilding self-esteem and addressing trauma to the present-focused approach of recovery coaching, this episode offers invaluable insights into the intricate world of addiction and recovery. Don't miss out as we also touch upon the evolving nature of addiction, the misconceptions that persist, and the vital importance of regular mental health check-ins. Tune in and be inspired by Adrienne’s dedication to making a difference.
To join the summit on September 21st, 2024 (it is free for general admission), go to the link here
Freed AI converts conversations into SOAP note.Use code Steve50 for $50 off the 1st month!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. A proud member of the PsychCraft Network, the goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Speaker 2:Alors bienvenue à la rentrée de l'automne 2024. Welcome to the premiere episode of Fall 2024,. Finding your Way Through Therapy had a great summer, took eight weeks off. You heard Gina last week and she has now. Her paperback is just coming out, so I hope you enjoyed that interview.
Speaker 2:I played all favorites, the ones I liked in some of them who are the most popular. So you got anything from Brad, who talked about humor and mental health, to the mental men, and I hope you enjoyed all those episodes. But today I have Adrienne Tiki. I know how to pronounce her name, which is great. She is a recovery coach and advocate and international bestseller and public speaker. She has been since 2008 in the front lines of addiction and has seen a 40% increase in overdose, addiction and mental health issues. She has her own recovery residence community called the Lodge at Delray Beach and also does a recovery comes home virtual and in-person recovery program. She's passionate about connecting with families, connecting with individuals who need the help, and we'll be having a summit on September 21st, this being the month. September being recovery month, I think it was important to have someone substance use. I haven't had a chance to have someone substance use in a while my forgotten part of my career that I still practice, frankly, but I tend to forget about it. But she was a great guest.
Speaker 2:I record this post, but I hope you enjoy the interview. And here it is Getfreeai. Yes, you've heard me talk about it previously in other episodes, but I'm going to talk about it again because getfreeai is just a great service. Imagine being able to pay attention to your clients all the time, instead of writing notes and making sure that the note's going to sound good and how you're going to write that note and things like that. Getfreeai liberates you from making sure that you're writing what the client is saying, because it is keeping track of what you're saying and will create, after the end of every session, a progress note. But it goes above and beyond that. Not only does it create a progress note, it also gives you suggestions for goals, gives you even a mental status if you've asked questions around that, as well as being able to write a letter for your client to know what you talked about. So that's the great, great thing. It saves me time, it saves me a lot of aggravation and it just speeds up the progress note process so well.
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Speaker 2:Well, hi everyone, and welcome to the premiere fall episode of finding your way through therapy. I'm so excited to have adrian tickey because now we're friends that's what I hear. She's a recovery coach and she's someone who really helped me out today. There's a backstory that I may share later on, but I'm just going to leave it at that. So, adrienne, welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate it, Steve you know, I saw your note and you talked about recovery and I'm like, oh my God, I think it's been like four months since I talked about recovery. And you know, as people have heard me say on this podcast before, I have about 25 years of experience with recovery in my job, in my professional life, and then I have another 49 or so years with my own family because it's a family disease. So I always realized that I neglect my recovery, my substance use folks, a little too late. So I'm trying to get back on the saddle. So I do appreciate it, but I feel like I know you because now we're family. But how about you tell our audience a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Speaker 3:Okay, sounds great. Well, this is really a love story. I met my husband in church in 2006. And he introduced himself to me as a recovered alcoholic. I had absolutely no idea what that meant. My experience with alcoholism with my two grandfathers were alcoholics Not that this matters, we'll get into this later but they were the kind of alcoholics that went to work and were functioning and whatnot, and so it wasn't a real dramatic situation. It was just. This is what those guys did, right, and then fast forward to my mom's from Key West, florida, fourth generation.
Speaker 3:So I knew as an adult I wanted to move to Key West, but not to Key West. I mean to Florida but not to Key West. So I settled in Delray Beach. Unbeknownst to me, delray Beach is has a name as the recovery capital of the world, because treatment centers and detoxes open up in places where it's nice to look at, where the weather's nice, where you have different sports activities that don't involve alcohol or drugs. There's a lot of good reasons why recovery ended up in California and Florida. Now it's branched out a little bit, but that's where it got its start 45 years ago.
Speaker 3:I live in a town where 20% of the population is in recovery and thousands more are in active addiction. 70,000 people is our population and we've got probably 20,000 people in recovery and then more that are still using. But that forced us to find solutions. This is a coastal town, it's a village by the sea where people come to vacation and that's a real dichotomy where you have a lot of addiction and recovery in a town and then they're also our main export is tourism, right? So we had a lot of not in our backyard signs and you know there were. There were struggles, but we decided the state of recovery residences, which is a group home that you go to after treatment to continue your recovery, hopefully to get to that magic year mark, because if you can get to a year sober, you have an 85% chance of staying in recovery long term. If you don't make it to that year, your chances drop to less than 15% and you end up being in that recovery merry-go-round for most of your life.
Speaker 3:So we wanted to raise the bar on recovery residences because they were really flop houses. Sometimes they'd turn on the electricity, sometimes they wouldn't. You know, if you relapsed, give us $500 and we'll let you back in. Not an environment conducive to getting better long-term Absolutely not. So we started with one house in 2008. We really learned a lot along the way.
Speaker 3:The first five years were tough because Jim thought everybody knew him in recovery so they were just going to run to our business. Right, that I don't know. I'm sure nobody else has thought of that, right? Oh, my friends know me, they're just going to run and buy from me, and it doesn't happen that way. So we spent the first five years really building our reputation.
Speaker 3:We wouldn't take people just for rent. We would only take people that were serious about recovery and in the lodge we're so strict that it becomes very obvious readily that it's not a good fit, and then we just make alternate arrangements. There's plenty of houses that are not as strict as us, so we don't hold anybody's feet to the fire, right? Like? I mean, people can leave whenever they want to. It's not in their best interest, but that's the deal. We've been doing that for 15 years. We quickly grew, we added women's houses and at our height for seven years, we had 10 houses, one of them being a triplex. So we were in charge of 72 souls that someone had sent to us their mother, sister, brother, uncle, friend, husband and they were expecting. I think a lot of people expect that they send their loved ones to a place like ours and we just give them a magic bullet and fix them yes, the magic bullet we you've been.
Speaker 2:I hide mine. I only pull it out once in a while, that's right it only works every other thursday but you know it's not a magic bullet for me, for the record. It's a magic wand. Oh, magic wand. Okay, I have a wand. You have a magic bullet. For me, for the record. It's a magic wand. Oh, magic wand. Okay, I have a wand, you have a bullet, you know. So maybe because the Northeast thing, we're a little less gun going.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't know if you've ever been to Florida, but it's a little crazy down here.
Speaker 2:It can be. Yes, I've been Wild West. Yes, it was like that for the recovery homes for a long time too.
Speaker 3:Oh, for a long time. Delray Beach, the town I live in, took the initiative. Our police officers were the first to carry Narcan in every squad car. We have a. What do you call those people?
Speaker 2:Sorry, use paramedic.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no. Mentalensed mental health counselor on staff for the police department as a liaison. That has helped tremendously.
Speaker 2:We originally called it diversion jail, diversion program. Now there's another name for it, but we've had those here in Massachusetts since about 2006.
Speaker 3:I was involved with the first program I think they work as a liaison, you know, because the let's be honest, a lot of people don't have a good relationship with the police if if they have been in the addiction cycle, right. So this position functions as a bridge between the two. So so you know, it's really difficult for the police department in Delray Beach to keep Narcanning the same people. It's only a town of 70,000. So we're not that big, you know. I mean, people get in the system and they get known. But there are a few of us, like we belong to the Drug Task Force. We were the president and the secretary for the South County Recovery Residents Association. That was an association that we created as recovery residence operators to police ourselves.
Speaker 3:This was way before there was any hint of legislation or systemization of our field. It still is not really like if you're a therapist, you're a therapist, if you are a psychiatric PA, you're a psychiatric PA, and all those people work in a treatment facility. But then, once you come after, there's no training program that I can go to a college and say I want to open a recovery residence and how do I do that? So it was a lot of learning along the way. My husband went through a recovery residence, so that helped. It is darn hard to get through the lodge. So if you get to be an alumni, you always get get to come home, no matter what happens, and we just tried to, you know, make ourselves visible in the community, be a resource. We're a resource for a bunch of churches because they were giving all their money away till they talked to us. You know somebody coming in down on their luck and working the system and the church is not having any clue that their money was.
Speaker 2:It was throwing good money after bad yeah, well, you know the, the industry of, you know recovery homes was the wild west also for us up in the, the new england area, the northeast in general, frankly, until they started putting some regs. I know there's a few places where they put in their own regs, such as yourself, but you know what would you say? It's hard to get through the lodge and I applaud that personally. But for what if someone says to you well, if you make it too hard, no one's going to recover?
Speaker 3:I would argue that there are so many people who need recovery today. Addiction, overdose, mental health and suicide are up 40% since 2019. We are not dealing well, we are not coping. So unless you make it tough, because that's what the situation calls for I mean, I'm on the front lines, first responder, we Narcan people that are blue in our backyards, we pull people out of trap houses. I live in a world that most people will never even see, let alone be able to imagine, and I think we need to raise the awareness. Everyone's heard of fentanyl, right, it's on the TV almost every night. But if addiction came knocking at your door, would you know what to do, who to trust, who to call, how to cope? No, there's no clearinghouse. We just got a 988 suicide and crisis hotline. I still think we need a dedicated addiction clearinghouse. If I have a child in trouble, where do I go? And right now it's Google.
Speaker 2:Right and children is also a big part of it. The adolescents and people have also. You talked about a little bit of the addiction and mental health since 2019 getting worse, you know. Can you describe more about that situation as to how it's been lately? Because up here and I think Florida is pretty similar I've always mentioned that addiction comes with mental health. Couldn't agree more. You know people will say well, you said 100%. I'm like I don't know. My experience is I've met one straight drunk in my life, just liked his alcohol. No mental health, no trauma, no, nothing, just like there's booze. Otherwise and I've dealt with a lot of people it's usually mental health and substance use, and sometimes substance use leads to mental health issues, absolutely. How about you describe a little more about the current situation as you see it since probably a little bit pre-pandemic, but really like since the pre like I say, pre-pandemic the year before when fentanyl really raged on from again Mexico, and I'm not trying to blame anyone, I'm just pointing out that it comes mostly from there, that's the truth.
Speaker 2:And what's the current situation? How do you describe it for you, especially, like in general?
Speaker 3:So prior to the pandemic, we were full with the waiting list. So, look, addiction is as old as time itself. So addiction didn't start in the pandemic, but what happened was pre-pandemic. We saw primary addiction, secondary mental health, meaning their main diagnosis was addiction and they were having mental health symptoms as a result of using drugs. After 2019, when you know before you would go out with the guys for a couple of nights, have a few beers. That turned into getting liquor delivered to your house every day and people started going back to work and 20% of the population couldn't because they had become addicted. It is what I like to think of accidental addiction, because I think they were trying to cope the best that they could and alcohol is seen as a as an acceptable escape in our society 100 so so that I mean I'm sure it.
Speaker 3:It was not even a a blip on the radar screen as far as a thought to go gosh. If I drink this every day at the end of two years, when I need to go back into work and I'm I'm the CEO, my board of directors is like look, uh, it's going to cost $450,000 to replace you. You're going to Florida for a two week vacation detox. None of your direct reports will know you're. You know they'll think you're going on vacation. You come back that third Monday and you better perform because we've put a lot of money into you, yeah, cause that's going to work, that's going to work.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that really is going to work, right. I mean, there's no chance of survival. They go back on that third Monday. They have to lie because all of their employees are like, oh, where's your pictures? Let's see your vacation. And they were in a detox, right, sweating it out, you know. So you start with a lie. That that's, that's problematic. But uh, we are where we are in our society, so I have to take that at value and and do what we can, you know, to help people understand. We can't work with everybody. There's too much addiction now. We have to work with the ones who want to get better, right.
Speaker 2:And I think that there's a few things that you bring up when you're saying that you know one of my biggest pet peeves during the pandemic it was it's wine o'clock or alcohol?
Speaker 3:How about joints for jabs? Right, you got a joint if you showed your vaccine card.
Speaker 2:Well, you know Texas gave out guns, so but the point is is, you know, what I've always found is that you know it was so acceptable to get hammered, and even while during your work day. That you're right. They went back to work and they couldn't handle it. And then, because of shame, because of how we hide addiction nowadays, it's still a big problem in my opinion, because to me, being addicted mentally ill is as bad as breaking a foot, but to me they're all equivalent. But I know that people will disagree with me, I don't care if they do.
Speaker 3:No, because what we're seeing now is is primary mental health, that they're trying to assuage their symptoms right, by using substances or behaviors. Right, they're trying to get it out of their mental health crisis right?
Speaker 2:well, they're dealing with depression with alcohol. They're dealing with their anxiety with alcohol or drugs. Yeah, and I'm saying alcohol and I think that that's what happened and problem behaviors now gaming, shopping, sex gambling and it's a it can all go to a pathological level right and I think it's because we don't have a limit, because no one wants to talk about it yeah you know, and that's why I can't stay silent.
Speaker 3:I won't. I've had people tell me to stop talking about this why Nobody wants to hear about it.
Speaker 2:No, I don't care. If people want to hear about it, I don't care.
Speaker 3:I see too many people dying. We have lost beautiful boys, I mean just in 23, 24, one took psych meds, all of his psych meds, rather than go back to treatment.
Speaker 2:And, believe me, I've dealt with my own loads of overdoses in my career and it's just sad because the shame that comes from it because we don't open up and have the conversation is really just keeping them from getting the help they truly need.
Speaker 3:And I do want to back up for a minute here, steve, and say you know the regular people of the world that aren't addicted? I think they know that it exists. We are all. We have all been through a global PTSD event and there was no closure, we had no day of remembrance for people that died for COVID, so everybody was trying to return back to normal. Well, you can't do that. You have to move forward and create a new normal.
Speaker 2:The trauma and the grief that the pandemic caused is still underwhelmingly recognized.
Speaker 3:Yes, and we see it firsthand People are not coping well and we see it firsthand there.
Speaker 2:People are not coping well, and I see it regularly in my practice too, and you know I would say that the relapse level since covid is higher than I've ever seen. And I call them lapses if it only happens once. Yeah, if it happens three or four times, I call them relapses because I don't want to shame anyone Well, and it's not a straight line.
Speaker 3:That's the other thing too. I think that a lot of people listening don't really understand the addiction recovery continuum Treatment is not an end-all be-all. 28 days is hardly enough to even scratch the surface of what's going on, let alone get any real lasting help. It's a start, get any real lasting help. It's a start. It's a good start. But you know, only 11% of the people who need treatment ever find a treatment center. It is not. The majority of the country does not have access to treatment.
Speaker 2:No, they don't have access to treatment or they don't want to reach out for treatment.
Speaker 3:Or they don't want to reach out.
Speaker 2:That's fair and we have a low. You know, I get a call pretty much every day for someone looking for therapy and we don't have the treatment for not only mental health but substance use. You know, and you know what I like to also recall, because you're talking about 28 days is a good start, absolutely is a good start. But if you've been using any type of substances alcohol or drugs for over a year, your brain is still fairly mush for the first six months and people like, oh, that's an excuse. No, that is correct, right, thank you for saying that, because they that's the excuse. And, for the record, there's no such thing as a person who doesn't have addiction. We all have addictions we.
Speaker 3:It's a sliding scale. I'll continue.
Speaker 2:If people are going to work out every day, twice a day for four hours, that's an addiction. If you work a lot, that's an addiction. So for me, when I hear the not everyone understands addiction I'm like, okay, so what's your favorite thing in the world? And again, the addiction that I give to anyone is this You're not addicted, so give me your phone for about a week. You can't have access to it or nothing. Give it to me. How many people do you think have ever, ever, ever let me take their phone for a week?
Speaker 3:They wouldn't even dream of it. We tell people to put it in the fridge for an hour while they're on the call with us. Right and I think that that's the truth. And how many times do you think I got to check my phone? Got to check my phone? Right and it's also and it's on purpose that it was designed that way- Well, yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2:I mean Steve Jobs would let his own kid have a iPhone. So just for the record, that's what I remind people about our addictions to phones. But anyway, I want to get back a little bit to our group because I could talk along with the people.
Speaker 3:I know this is a great conversation.
Speaker 2:If you think that you don't know addiction, the easy stat is this One out of four people have had some sort of addiction issue at some point in time in their lives, and if you don't know four people, I'd be shocked. So therefore you know about addiction. So if you don't believe that we're all addicted to something, then buy into one out of four, which is a stat that's from SAMHSA, it's a WHO stat, from the World Health Organization. So it's not me making it up. So you know about addiction. But let's get back to addiction a little bit, because you know I'm a therapist and I had to learn, in a good way, from I worked with people who are addiction coaches and a little bit of the differences between the two and the similarities too frankly, but there's a difference.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's a good time for us to talk about those similarities and differences between the two.
Speaker 3:Sure, I think mental health is a non-negotiable in recovery. Everyone who comes to us has trauma and anger. Gosh, a lot of angry people, no, you mean emotional management.
Speaker 3:Right, and they still, because they're in addiction or right off of the cusp of it, want things fast, you know, instant gratification, and so we need to use recovery and therapy as a pause. Thought, then pause, then action. Right, rather than thought action, which is what you mostly see. But I think therapy is important because most people, when they get to our house, we're the last house on the last block and they have very low self-esteem. All of these mental health issues are feeding into their inability to live life on its own terms Right, and they need someone who can work through that with them, whether that's frequently it's a psychiatrist and a therapist, whether that's a psychologist, a licensed mental health counselor. But there are very strict guidelines for therapists, very strict guidelines for therapists. You have boards that you have to take and competencies that you have to show that you can do. There's a huge place for therapy. I don't think it ever can be divorced from recovery.
Speaker 2:I also think that coaching is important recovery.
Speaker 3:I also think that coaching is important and coaching is important. Coaching is totally different in that you know a lot of mental health talks about your past. Recovery coaching is focusing on just like a coach would be in football, right? The coach in football is not asking you how many times your dad tossed the football around with you when you were six, right? He just wants you to stand on the 50 yard line and catch the thing, right? That's exactly right. So recovery coaches mostly put their hand out and intertwine it with the person that's in recovery and walks along so that they can make a path forward. They've forgotten how to do that. Sometimes they never knew how to do that and sometimes they never knew how to do it, and I think that that's.
Speaker 3:We come from our families of origin right and we all have difficult paths.
Speaker 2:If you ask me, most of the stuff that I talk about as a therapist is family of origin stuff.
Speaker 3:Because our parents didn't get a manual either. They just did the best they could, right.
Speaker 2:They didn't come out with the placenta or the umbilical cord as I understand it.
Speaker 3:No, I checked when I had kids, by the way.
Speaker 3:Who do you ask? And it used to be. Our culture is different. Now we're more individualized. It used to be more about the family. So you know, the women wouldn't just create the meal together. They would be talking about really serious topics while they were doing daily activities, so that when they got to adulthood they were prepared. You know, back in the olden days it was hard to make it to adulthood. They wanted to try everything that they possibly could. Now it seems like our young people want to escape at all costs.
Speaker 2:Well, we give them magical boxes for them to escape.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's called the cell phone give them magical boxes for them to escape. Yes, it's called the cell phone. And they can, our addicts, the things they can do with the cell phone. I I just I'm not in recovery and so and my mind doesn't work like that. My husband's mind and my mind are very different. He thinks everything looks like pot. My bc powder, which is aspirin that I used to take, told me it looks like cocaine. I'm like what do you all only see? Drugs, you know. But like he says, he can walk into a bar and immediately point out the guy that deals the cocaine yeah like that kind of stuff would never enter my consciousness.
Speaker 3:Not that I'm not, I'm no know, I just this is just how I'm wired.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think that that's exactly right. It's like how we're wired also plays a factor as how we see the world yes, you know, and the choices we make. I think I was a little better at pointing out the the uh, cocaine dealer before, but I haven't worked in the field like directly in about 10 years with police officers and stuff, so it might be a little harder, but I certainly have known how to point that out. But I think it becomes a little bit of what we you know, because I worked in the addiction field for so long and stuff like that. You start recognizing all these little things. But I I also think that coaching brings it again. You can correct me if I'm wrong, because it's a here and now approach. It really addresses the current issues of how you know okay, and I tell people, like how I see it is as a therapist I go okay, what brought you to addiction? And if I was a coach I would say all right, how are we going to keep you sober right now?
Speaker 3:Well, that's the thing, right, Is it that we want to do the trajectory from here on out and make your life as good as it can possibly be? A lot of people that are in our houses suffer with intrinsic motivation. They're not self-starters. They wait until they're going to get in trouble to do it. Oh, I'm not, I'm threatened. So now, all of a sudden, I can get off my rear and and go make it happen I also think that it comes back to a little bit of what you talked earlier about.
Speaker 2:Is, uh, immediate gratification, recovery sloppy, it's dirty, it takes time. Uh, me getting high takes about two and a half seconds. So you talk about an intrinsic motivation. Well, I know what's going to make me feel good right now.
Speaker 3:And that is a hard thing to go up against.
Speaker 2:It is absolutely.
Speaker 3:The problem is, for most of the people that we deal with, that feeling that they got was 20 years ago now. If they don't get it, they're sick, they're not well, they don't get a high, they can't function and I I tell people all the time too, about addiction, like people say, well, that's a choice.
Speaker 2:I'm like, yeah, maybe the first drink, the first use, maybe the first three. I'll give them to you that they're choices.
Speaker 2:But after three or four, they're no longer choices. They're an obligation for the person to survive and not, you know, as I call it, jonesing from old school thought process. But you know, I know that it's fiending for it. I've heard other words used for it, but it's like, yeah, it's needed to survive. People don't take opioids the seventh time just to have fun. The seventh time they take them is because now you're missing it, your body's reacting to it and that's a whole.
Speaker 3:And you have totally usurped your own natural dopamine system. It's turned off by the sixth time you use right, because you're getting it from an external source and your body's like well, we have enough opiates, right so don't shut down the production, because we, you know we have enough and why would I need it?
Speaker 2:anyway? Because I have the other stuff helping me really really good too, and so your body really becomes a. You know, I tell people that once you get to, I say seven, you say six, I can say five too, but we'll say five, six, seven, doesn't really matter. Your brain is no longer works on a cerebral cortex level or the higher thought process which is up here. It comes from the middle of your brain. But you've been hijacked. Yeah, you've been hijacked because your midbrain is going feel good now.
Speaker 3:Feel good now. Feel good now, and that's all that matters.
Speaker 3:That's why people can ask why doesn't somebody love me enough to stop? Why doesn't it? Nothing matters, but where you're getting the next thing to feel good. Correct. And one other thing that I wanted to point out. You know, a lot of people have this image in their mind of what an addict or an alcoholic looks like, and that is just blown out of the water. Today it looks like you and me. You know, you give a priest a case of beer that he's ordering to his house every day and he can't go back to work either right this is not about socioeconomic level race, creed, religion it is.
Speaker 2:It cuts through them all and realizing that this is a human issue particularly human issue right. It's not a poor issue. It's not a rich issue. It's not a female issue. It's not a male issue. It's not a gay issue. It's not a rich issue. It's not a female issue. It's not a male issue. It's not a gay issue. It's not a monkey issue. Right.
Speaker 3:You don't see monkeys in the jungle like, because they're psycho, addictive substances. In the forest Right, we are the only ones Right.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a lot we can say about humans being self-destructive, but I think that's going to be a little past our scope of substance use. Well, one thing.
Speaker 3:You know a study that was really interesting that I want to bring up. It was done a long time ago. They put mice in a room where one water dispenser had water, the other one had cocaine water. They hit the cocaine water till they died, right. But when they did the second part of the experiment and it was cocaine water, water and over here was a habit trail, something for them to do a purpose yeah, they didn't even go near the cocaine water, wasn't on their radar right, and I think that there's something to be said about having other activities that you enjoy being part of the recovery process yeah, and that's why you know, down here in south florida we can, we can really really utilize that.
Speaker 3:We've got parasailing, we've got sober fishing. You know there's lots of stuff you can jump out of an airplane down here, because a lot of times people in addiction are adrenaline junkies.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know another type of high another type of high right.
Speaker 3:So and and listen we all need escape. I I'm not under no illusion that we just stoically need to go through life. We all need escape. I'm not under no illusion that we just stoically need to go through life. We all need a way to decompress, but not in ways that are self-deprecating.
Speaker 2:Right. I think that it's important to realize that. You know, there's a whole book that I read recently about a guy who got over his addiction by walking. He went into the Alaskan mountains and then went into the Arizona desert and then spent time elsewhere just to be in nature and he said the nature gave me a better high than any drug I've ever taken. And it's really about reconnecting with our true loves, we say outside.
Speaker 2:I think that the point for me is is that get some light. Lumen is very important, but, more importantly, find an activity that you enjoy. Um, that is not destructive, and that's the hardest part. Like I can, people laugh at me and even my neighbors laugh at me once in a while. Not still, it's still cause it's still uh, I know it's September when this comes out, but go outside and play in my garden.
Speaker 2:They pull out the rocks and I count a hundred rocks Every time. I pull out a hundred rocks and people. Why do that? Because I enjoy it. It's not hurting anyone. Having had my own addiction issues at one point in time in my life, it's a good way to stay sober and it's a good way not to think about it twice. But when people find these activities that they can enjoy without the substances. Fishing is another big one that my clients really enjoy. It really changes how your brain communicates because now it gets this dopamine, gets the serotonin, gets you all those feel good drugs, as I call them, but they're natural and within you that you don't need to go and get them from anywhere else.
Speaker 3:And I wonder you know I mean I don't know the answer to this but the drugs dopamine hit has to get monotonous or old at some point, right and and when we can do something new and exciting and and particularly when we can connect, like something in our spirit jumps up. I don't think you get that. You know that's the high you're chasing with drugs is to feel that all the time. But nobody feels up all the time. It's not normal. It's not natural.
Speaker 2:Well, we seek happiness constantly, Like it's going to always happen At the end of the day. You got to have some tough days in order to enjoy the good days and that doesn't mean you got to have addiction in order to have a tough day. But I tell people like, how will you be happy in life if you never face adversity? How are you going to be happy in life without feeling a little grief, a little anger, a little frustration here and there? I think it's so important for us to kind of like get that in order to really appreciate our happiness. But when you have addiction, you don't think about that. You're thinking about my next high, my next opportunity to use. So that's just-.
Speaker 3:Well, and because the things have changed since 2019, we started talking about the changing face of addiction. It looks like you and me.
Speaker 2:And I would argue that I've worked in the addiction field since 99. And it's always been non socioeconomic, non gender, not race, Absolutely. You know just now it's more prevalent in mental because of the mental health component.
Speaker 2:I always liked the the fact that you know we talked about the Fenton yeah, we're talking about the fentanyl crisis when I started working with a heroin addiction crisis in the late 2000s. You know, I think that what one of the senators in the area that I'm gonna remain nameless, but I always like to take on it because it's the truth he's like, once it started affecting the white male middle class a little more, then suddenly it was a fucking problem. So I'm sorry, right, I swear, but I don't give a crap.
Speaker 2:So I think, that's, that's the other part where we're like, wait a minute, it's not just you know the downtrodden blankety-blank, because I don't want to make anyone pissed off about if I choose one race or one gender no, no, but that's what's in people's mind, that's the image that's been burned in people's mind.
Speaker 3:It's the wino in the gutter, it's not the pilot. Well, you know what? The guy from jet blue blew three times the legal limit to drive the plane that morning. It was going from idaho to fort lauderdale, correct, and the police had to take him off. That morning it was going from Idaho to Fort Lauderdale, correct, and the police had to take him off that plane because he said don't worry, the co-pilot's driving, it was from the night before, so, right. He said, you can't tell me I can't drink the night before. Well, yeah, they can because there's the FAA has a bottle to throttle rule right because alcohol has a very uh, distinct way of getting out of your system.
Speaker 3:It's measurable, so you can't. Coffee doesn't hurry it up um, cold showers doesn't help you shower water.
Speaker 2:I can't remember all the bullshit that people talk about, but you know, I just looked at the time. We already went for about 40 minutes already. We're going really fast. We didn't get to all the questions, but the one thing I definitely want to talk about this September is recovery month. Yes, very near and dear to me personally.
Speaker 1:Me too.
Speaker 2:This comes out about. Five days ago it was Overdose Awareness Day, August 31st. Yeah, I would like you to talk more about maybe you know, I know you're talking you're doing some sort of a summit and I think that it might be important, especially in the month of September, for people to kind of reach out. I know it's a virtual summit, so you don't need to be in Florida for this.
Speaker 3:That's right, you can, and the tickets are free. The only exception is if you want the recordings, it will be 49 to get all the recordings and, um, and the free gifts that come along with that, the vip, the. We do have gifts for the people that are live there. Um, I've got, in fact I'll show you a sneak peek. This is an addiction recovery journal planner. This one's really cool.
Speaker 2:It says sober, badass yeah, oh yeah, here we go, yes, and it's in morse code, it's a.
Speaker 3:It's a bracelet. I have a nice medallion that's a phoenix out of the ashes. It's got the serenity prayer on one side and then um a key chain that says one day at a time, I believe in you and that's what I. We're going to give away prizes, but the main goal really, steve, is to educate the population. I mean, this is more an informational summit. There will be some action items and things that loved ones and and and friends and family and even the individuals themselves can do to help themselves through this process. Yeah, but I really want people to understand this is a tsunami that's coming in our country and we are not prepared a tsunami is a nice way of putting it.
Speaker 2:I think it's going to be bigger than that, because that's how people deal with shit now.
Speaker 3:Well, and you know us is we're not proactive, we're we're a very reactive country right, well, I'm gonna go.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna get too off track here, but I'll tell you. I think that in the us, what what we do is like the firefighters used to put out fires, but we got so good at preventing fires now, now they do the medical calls more often than they put out fires. But we got so good at preventing fires now Now they do the medical calls more often than they put out fires, because we've done so well in prevention, and now the same thing happens with recovery is that we, if we can get into prevention, we can also help.
Speaker 2:So you don't, you know this summit I'm sure there's going to help also people who are not quote in despair or in addiction, but rather be able to prevent some of the stuff that may occur, and that's, you know, like I'm a, I'm my. My point of my podcast is always been everyone should go to therapy at least once a year. You don't need to be sick, you don't need to be anything else, you just go to therapy. Everything's going good, no, okay, yes, okay, great, see you in a year.
Speaker 3:You check in with your doctor, don't you?
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I mean. To me, that's the same thing. It's the exact same thing.
Speaker 3:You got to check your head, just like you got to check your body.
Speaker 2:And addiction is the same thing. I got to pay attention to what may be my new addiction at any time and talking to my friends and looking at their behavior and families and being there for them. Look for those things. So I don't think an addiction issue. You don't need to have addiction issues or family addiction issues. Again, I'd be shocked if you don't, if you know four people. But at the at the end of the day, I think attending to that summit is going to be very important. Can you give me the details of the summit a little more?
Speaker 3:uh, you can. You can register it for uh on eventite. Okay, and it's the Changing Face of Addiction.
Speaker 2:Changing Face of Addiction. All right, and I'll put the link in the show notes.
Speaker 3:That'd be great. I'll shoot the link over to you and you can put that in the show notes. You know, one thing I did want to point out. It is for people who are caught in the grip themselves, individuals or people who have been in recovery for some time. But it's also, you know, everybody's heard of fentanyl, but nobody knows what to do when addiction comes calling at their door. They have no idea of their addiction recovery continuum. So we go over that. We tell them, like this is what you can expect If you have a heart attack, it's already known. Right, oh my gosh, I need to call 911. I need to go to the doctor. There's no recovery clearinghouse. There's no national number to call. 988 is a suicide prevention line, not an addiction hotline. Right, you know it's just got to change and I think it is slowly. You know how society is. It takes decades to change things and we're?
Speaker 2:we're in a country who's divided on idea, ideology instead of trying to take action and I'm not taking one side or another, I'm just sick of ideology. Where's the action?
Speaker 3:um, yeah, because it's going to obliterate both of them. Addiction is going to matter if you're Democrat, republican or independent.
Speaker 2:That's what I mean. So for me, like we get so attached to these labels, I personally don't care. I tell people the immigration issue is not letting everyone in and it's not blocking everyone from coming in. It's immigration reform that's the solution and making that logic and again, I don't want to get into politics With substance use. It's not the addict that's the problem. It's not the people ignoring him that's the problem. It's that we don't have any action plans in order to deal with it in an effective, respectful way. So I think that stop looking at the ideology. Look at what the solution is. I'm done with ideology. So, uh, while I I'm gonna get off my hard horse here, I want to thank you. I'm gonna put the show notes. Thank you for having me. This was awesome and thank you for coming in, especially, uh, for september, which is recovery month, and I thank you more than you know. I thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I really appreciate you having me on. I love talking about this. I think that you know we can turn this around. I believe that where there's breath, there's hope and I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 2:That's a great word to finish on. Thank you very much. Well, that concludes episode 168. Adrienne Tiki, thank you so much. Looking forward to the summit in a couple of weeks, I hope people go and join. You'll see the link in the show notes. So I hope you go and see that. But episode 169 is right around the corner and that will be on the 23rd anniversary of 9-11. And I will be talking to someone Ann Diamond, I believe I have that right and we'll be talking in the next show.
Speaker 1:So I hope you join us, then Please like, subscribe and follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful and, as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, call 988 for assistance. This number is available in the United States and Canada.
