Resilience Development in Action: First Responder Mental Health

E.237 Best of 2025: How A Police Sergeant Faced Trauma And Found A Path Back

• Steve Bisson, Michael Sugrue • Season 12 • Episode 237

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The most downloaded conversation of the year returns for a reason: it’s the raw, practical guide first responders and their families keep asking for. We sit with Sgt. Michael Sugrue—Air Force security forces veteran, Walnut Creek Police sergeant, and author of Relentless Courage—to talk about the weight of hundreds of traumatic calls, how a 2012 shooting upended his life, and the exact steps that pulled him back from the edge.

Michael breaks down why suicide remains the top threat for police, fire, EMS, and dispatch: a culture that prizes invincibility, training that skips mental readiness, and an identity so fused to the job that retirement can feel like free fall. He explains how “silent” suicides hide in line‑of‑duty risks, why official counts underreport the crisis, and what leadership must do to turn the tide. We go deep on solutions: culturally competent therapy, confidential peer lines, retreats like West Coast Post‑Trauma Retreat and Save A Warrior, and daily practices—meditation, gratitude, strength work, honest conversations—that sustain real resilience.

We also challenge common myths. Therapy doesn’t take your gun; it gives you your life back. EMDR helps many but not all; the real power is a personalized toolkit. Early intervention keeps stress acute and treatable; waiting turns injuries into entrenched patterns that cost careers and families. Michael’s book, co‑authored with Dr. Shauna Springer, bridges the gap between gut‑level storytelling and clear psychology, giving responders and loved ones a shared language to start hard conversations and map a path forward.

If you serve—or love someone who does—this is a roadmap to stay in the fight without losing yourself. Hit play, share it with a partner or teammate, and let’s normalize help as a standard of care. If the episode resonates, subscribe, leave a quick review, and pass it to one person who needs to hear it today.

You can reach Michael on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgtmichaelsugrue?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Resilience Development in Action with Steve Biesel. This is the podcast dedicated to first responder mental health, helping police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and paramedics create better growth environments for themselves and their teams. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, hi everyone, and welcome to episode 237. If you haven't listened to episode 236, please go ahead and listen to it. It's about a bunch of guests that were on, and we talk about their episodes, and hopefully, you can go and listen to that. But for episode 237, I want to give you, as my end-of-year type of information, the most popular episode, the most downloaded. I don't know how to measure it other than most downloaded. I've had a few episodes that have come up for people who have really enjoyed it, but this one is the one that was the most downloaded, according to my Buzz Sprout people. This was where for episode 201, Michael Sugru. Michael Sugru began his law enforcement career in the United States Air Force as a security farms officer. He then served in different capacities. He went into the Walnut Creek Police Department and did the FTO thing, did the PIO thing, did the Contra Costa County Narcotics Task Force. He did a lot. And then he ultimately retired in 2018. And he's now a peer volunteer at the West Coast Post-Trauma Retreat Center. And he was his interview was amazing. He has a book called Relentless Courage: Winning the Battle Against Frontline Trauma. Read that book, written with a PhD, which was really good. And it does tackle a lot of his traumas. I personally read it, so I really can recommend it. But as the new year ends, I wanted to give you the most popular episode. I think I've done that pretty much every single year. So please go and and please go back and listen to other episodes. But for this one, episode 201 by Michael Sugru, this is how it went, and here is the interview.ai, yes, you've heard me talk about it previously in other episodes, but I'm going to talk about it again because getfree.ai 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 gonna sound good and how you're gonna write that note and things like that. Getfree.ai 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. And for$99 a month, I know that that's nothing. That's worth my time, that's worth my money. You know, the best part of it too is that uh if you want to go and put in the code Steve50 when you get the service, uh the checkout code Steve, you get$50 off the first month. And if you get a whole year, you save a whole 10% for the whole year. So again, Steve50 at checkout for getfree.ai will give you$50 off for the first month, and like I said, get a full year, get 10% off, get free from writing notes, get freed from always scribbling while you're talking to a client and just paying attention to your client so they win out, you win out, everybody wins. And I think that this is the greatest thing. And if you're up to a point where you gotta change a treatment plan, well, the goals are generated for you. So get free.ai code Steve50 to say$50 on your first month. Well, welcome to episode 201 of Resilience Development in Action. I'm so happy to have Michael Sugaru here. Michael has a great story. I've listened to podcasts that he's been on. I looked at his well, I didn't buy his book yet, just being honest, Mike. And but I'm gonna get his book. I've also looked at a lot of his experience between the military, being a police, and then uh having a post-traumatic stress injury and working on the stigma. I mean, I thought he was perfect for this podcast. So, Michael, welcome to Resilience Development in Action.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, like I like I said, I looked it up a little bit, obviously, and you send me your notes. We've talked a little bit before the interview, but how about you introduce yourself to my audience?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I'm originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, which is where I live now. Right after college, I went straight into the Air Force, was commissioned an officer in security forces, which is basically law enforcement, anti-terrorism, force protection, air base ground defense. I served six and a half years all over the world, South America, the Middle East, Europe. Got out in 2004 as a captain, and I went straight into civilian law enforcement here in the San Francisco Bay Area for the Walnut Creek Police Department. There I served 14 years, a variety of assignments from patrol officer, field training officer, detective. I was undercover on a California state drug task force, was a sergeant and also a public information officer. I actually medically retired in 2018 due to post-traumatic stress injury. And now that I'm retired, I speak all over the country on suicide awareness and prevention, trauma exposure, resiliency. Um, basically teaching those to you know ask for help when they need it and to not let the stigma prevent them from doing so. Part of my story that I talk about is I almost became one of the suicide statistics, which is the number one killer for all first responders. So law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, dispatchers. And so now I'm on a mission to smash the stigma, as I say, and show the human side behind the badge and the uniform.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I saw the stats. I know this is going to come out in about mid-April. I saw the stats I think you put out recently about how we already have like 13 suicides among police officers already this year, and we're at the end of March when we're recording this. It's really fascinating to me how we don't pay attention to this tragedy because of the stress either from post-traumatic uh stress injury or other stressors that come with the job because there's so many. Why do you think the numbers are so high in general with the suicide rate? Not only the effectiveness of we usually use a firearm, but what else is the reason why we have so many high suicide rates among police officers?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, part of it's the culture from day one in the police academy. We're taught to, you know, not express feelings, not show emotion, that we have to be invincible. We have to be the ones to run towards danger when everybody else is running away from it. And, you know, it's just not what we're taught. We're taught firearms, defensive tactics, use of force, emergency vehicle operations, criminal law, report writing, all these things that we spend nearly almost a thousand hours on just in the academy. And then if we talk about once we start our career, I mean thousands and thousands of training hours, but we spend little to no time talking about the number one threat, which is ourselves. You know, the other factor, which this applies to firefighters and paramedics and dispatchers as well, is just the level of trauma that we're exposed to. If you look at an average person, you know, they may have one or two traumatic incidents in an entire lifetime. But for law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, dispatchers, we're talking hundreds and hundreds of traumatic incidents. I mean, there's different estimates, but I would say on a conservative side, well over 500 traumatic incidents in a career. And you can take that number up to well over a thousand, especially now when you start talking about here in California, you know, the retirement age is now 57. So if you have somebody starting out at 21 years old and they work till they're 57, you know, simply do the math of the, you know, just call after call. And in some days in a single shift, you can be exposed to multiple traumatic incidents. And so literally one day on shift is more than most people experience in their entire lifetime. And, you know, we're taught to brush everything off, to um not internalize it. And and basically, you know, we tell ourselves that, hey, we don't know these people, there's no attachment here, we don't get involved, it's our job. And that only works for so long. But the reality is that, you know, the humanity of what we have to see and deal with, it takes a toll. And what I'm advocating for is to normalize having these conversations after these traumatic incidents and not waiting to the point where it's too late and it was almost too late, you know, for me. But the other thing that I want to bring up too, and you mentioned this in the beginning on the suicide numbers, even the best numbers that we have, they're way underreported. First Help is really the only group I know about. It's a nonprofit that's tracking these numbers for it. Used to be only law enforcement. And a couple years ago, they started with firefighters, dispatchers, and paramedics. And since 2016, when they've been tracking these numbers, we're already over 2,000 law enforcement suicide alone. And on average, we're talking about anywhere from 120 to over 200 a year that we know about. So take that number, maybe times that by three or four, we might get a real number. And we're not even talking about those that retired. You know, those numbers that are tracked are for the ones that are still active duty or the ones that are still working. And as we know, a lot of these suicides happen when we hang up that badge and that uniform, and we're no longer operational. We no longer have this identity as a firefighter or a police officer, dispatcher, or paramedic.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I I talk about that when all my retirees who are going to retire have a that you, you know, you lose that role and oh no, I'll be fine, I'll be fine. But there's something about that role that really you carry throughout your life, whether it's off duty or even in retirement. And sometimes that's very heavy for them to carry. I don't know what your experience has been, but you know, I've seen so many people die either from quote natural causes or suicide or something like that after they retire because they just lost themselves. And I don't know if that's your experience, but certainly I've seen that in my career.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. I've seen it in my career, I see in my work with the West Coast Post-Trauma Retreat Center. You know, I speak all over the country, I hear about these incidents, I talk to other people. But, you know, the other thing too is how many on duty accidents, and I'll give you an example, like a patrol car where the officer is not wearing their seatbelt into a tree or into a sound wall. Or how many firefighters, you know, run into a building or go on a roof, which they know is going to collapse, hoping that they die in the line of duty. And again, I'm not saying that it's one or the other, but sometimes it can be both. And in my case, those are the things that I thought about where I never had an active plan to kill myself, but I was trying to get killed in the line of duty. And for me, that reason was because I knew if that happened, you know, my family was going to be taken care of. My young daughter would always remember who her father was. And my brothers and sisters would step up and make sure she knew who her father was because I'd be remembered, I'd be honored. And and that's a thing that we have to think about as well is that sometimes these suicides aren't obvious.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I you know, I've had someone confess to me that going into a Met Lab area without the proper gear and hopefully you inhale the right things at the right time. I've heard the whole carbon monoxide going into a building where you know carbon monoxide poisoning is enough just so that you look accidentally that you died. So these are not like fake stories, these are all real stories. When I hear your story, I'm always fascinated by that. What kept you alive essentially? Because that's always kind of like difficult for most people to say, you know, most suicidal thoughts last for about 15 minutes. That's my training. And I'm not saying that they're all 15 minutes because someone's like they're they're not all that yeah, I know that, I'm not stupid, but on average it's about 15 minutes. How did you get out from those thought processes?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I talked about this in great detail in my book, but what it comes down to is in 2012, at this point, I was a brand new sergeant. I'd been on with the civilian law enforcement for about eight years. I was happily married. I had a beautiful daughter. I was involved in an officer shooting. And unfortunately, I had to take a life to not only save our lives, but the lives of a couple that were barricaded inside their bedroom. And for me, this is my tipping point. You know, up to that point, I had hundreds and hundreds of traumatic incidents, but I never talked about them. I didn't have that healthy communication at home where I was able to, you know, talk to my wife at the time and share these things that I was going through and I was feeling. And so at this point, for four years after that shooting, I suffered in silence. I went through a federal lawsuit. I lost my marriage. I was fighting for custody of my daughter. I was starting to have major health issues. Um, a lot of other personal things were starting to happen, and literally my life was falling apart. In 2016, the federal trial ended. So the trial was four years after my shooting. And that's when I really started putting myself in harm's way trying to get killed in the line of duty. And it was a week after Thanksgiving, that same year, 2016. So a couple months after my trial ended, my best friend, who was a Vietnam veteran, he was a 35-year reserve officer with my department. He actually tried to kill himself when I was on duty. And I was able to see him just as the ambulance brought him into the trauma center. And I remember waiting for hours in the hospital when he was in emergency surgery, not knowing if he was going to make it or not. And all I could think about was my young daughter. And I started feeling this overwhelming sense of guilt. You know, if she ever found out what happened to me, what would be the effects on her and on her future children? So a month after that is when I finally got the strength and courage to ask for help. But that's literally after suffering in silence for over four years.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I can't, I'm gonna read your book because this is such fascinating stuff. Obviously, I think the mental health side, obviously, I hope you understand. What you you talked about the tipping point of getting help? One of the biggest misconceptions is you go to therapy, you go there four to six weeks, you're all good, and you go back on your merry way, which obviously takes a lot longer and it's a lot more difficult. How was your experience reaching out for help? Did you reach out through a peer support? Did you reach out through any other way, or did you just go get a therapist? How did that work for you?

SPEAKER_02:

No, at the point that I asked for help, I was literally at rock bottom. And I knew that I needed to devote a hundred percent of my time and effort into getting better. So I actually called the on-duty watch commander from my agency and literally asked for help. And, you know, they initially kind of tried to talk me out of going through the official routes and maybe just taking a few days off or going to see the department contracted therapist, but I knew I needed much more than that. And so I let them know that I can't work right now, like I cannot be on the streets. And so immediately they're extremely helpful. I was able to find a culturally competent therapist, clinician, who's worked with hundreds and hundreds of first responders over her career. So she truly got it. And that set in a chain of events from you know, peer meetings that I didn't know about to the West Coast post-trauma retreat that I eventually went to. You know, at that point, I was going to therapy literally twice a week. And, you know, the recovery process for me was well over a year and a half. And, you know, also to be honest, there's things now that I have to do every single day to maintain my mental wellness, my physical wellness. And so, you know, I still go to therapy, but instead of twice a week, I go once a month. You know, I do meditation every single day. I practice gratitude. I go to the gym two hours every single day with one of my buddies who's either a veteran or one who's still in law enforcement, where I'm able to talk to either one of them and share, you know, things that are going on and really have, you know, heart-to-heart conversations. And so I don't want anyone to think that recovery from post-traumatic stress is you walk into a therapist's office one day and then you walk right out and things are better. That's not how it works. And usually it's a combination of a lot of different things that it takes to get better. And, you know, I talk about this in great detail with Dr. Shauna Springer, who is a psychologist. She's culturally competent. She worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs. She's worked with hundreds and hundreds of combat veterans and first responders. And we show a pathway to healing. I mean, you know, and I personally talk about what worked for me, but we also talk about what we've seen work for other people as well. And the key is you have to have an open mind when it comes to this. You can't put all your eggs in one basket and think that one thing's gonna work. And I'll give you one simple example. EMDR, which is very popular, a lot of therapists and clinicians use it. You know, I got exposed to that at the West Coast post-trauma retreat, and I've had it done on me a couple times. And it didn't work, I'll be honest with you. But as a volunteer peer, I've gone back to West Coast post-trauma retreat and I've seen it work on people time and time again. And that's just one little example of how, hey, that didn't work for me, but how I've seen it work for a lot of other people. And that's where you have to have that open mind and realize that okay, if something doesn't work, that's okay. It's not the end of the world. You know, there's literally hundreds of other things that you can try and explore to get better from post-traumatic stress injury.

SPEAKER_01:

Practicing EMDR myself, I absolutely say that the same thing. It may not work for you. And people say, why? Well, I don't know. Some doesn't not everything, that's so not a one size fits all for everything. And you gotta be very open-minded. You talk about open mindedness. One of the hardest things, I started with law enforcement through a crisis team in mental health in the early 2000s and I evolved to where I'm at now today. You talked about open mind in 2004 and 2006, I was part of the Hug of Thug. program because I would help people in the community. And slowly but surely I've seen the evolution and we're in 2025 now. And people are like open to mental health. However, I would say that there's still a third at least that are still like, why would I go get mental health support? So how do we tell law enforcement in general that this is not a punishment, this is not a judgment on their part, but rather make them feel better in the long term so they can survive this job, which is already crazy as it is. No pun intended, by the way.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, there's two approaches here, but for the ones that are just coming into the profession, we have to have them build relationships with therapists and clinicians early on before these big incidents happen. That way there's trust built there, there's understanding and it becomes routine or becomes normal that hey, you know, twice a year or once a quarter I'm going to go see you know the department therapist or I'm going to have my own who is culturally competent who I can call up when I need to and be able to talk with them. This also includes having agencies or departments, having some of these contracted therapists have them do ride-alongs with police officers. Have them be exposed to the profession and truly what we see and deal with. But not only that, when you have an officer and a therapist riding together in a patrol car, that's where the magic's going to happen. That's where you're going to build this relationship and this trust and this comfort zone where you can really talk about anything and everything. And you know for the ones that have been doing this job for decades and don't believe in it, it's a little bit more difficult. But that's where we need people who have gone to therapy or gone through programs like West Coast Post-Trauma Retreat or Save a Warrior, all these other different programs and have them speak openly about it to their counterparts so they can see that yeah, these things actually work, that there's a lot of great resources out there. And it honestly starts with leadership. I talk about this all the time, but you know leadership is at all levels, whether it's a fire department, a police department, we've always got new officers or new firefighters coming in. There's lots of turnover. And if you've been on the job six months or a year and there's a brand new rookie starting, you know, you have leadership and you've been doing this job longer than them. And what we need is people to model this behavior and to lead by example. And so I always tell people that if you want someone that you supervise to come to you when they need help and to open up, you have to first be willing to do the same because no one is going to trust you and no one's going to open up to you if they don't know that you actually understand it and you get it and that you've been there yourself. And I'm telling you right now that if you've been doing this job more than five years, you have been there in some form or capacity and this job has affected you. It's affected your physical health your mental health it's affected your relationships whether it's a dating relationship a marriage a partnership your children it does affect you. It does change you. And so again, you know let's have the chiefs of these agencies let's start with them. Let's have them open up and be honest and vulnerable in a department wide setting you know during a quarterly training where they're talking about mental health and they're talking about resources who better to lead by example and be honest and real and tear down this perfect image that we want to portray because it's not real and it's only going to last so long until it comes crashing down. But again if you want someone to be open honest and vulnerable you have to first be willing to do the same and I tell people this time and time again.

SPEAKER_01:

You know there's so many things you said you you mentioned cultural competency like twice. And I think that's part of the biggest problem is that you know I find that around here I still look for resources myself. I am one of the resources but I can't take on every client I got to find other therapists. And sometimes it's hard to find those resources. I mean it it's nice to have peer support groups that sometimes do have that information but where do we find that information in general because it's not easy like you talk about going to the command officer or whatever but some people sometimes struggle. They don't want to go to command officer because for the record leadership like you said I'll I'll paraphrase a friend of mine who is a police officer who said you don't need to wear bars to be a good leader in this field. And so if let's say you don't want to go to your sergeant your lieutenant your captain whatever it doesn't matter like barred people how do we find resources I know it's particularly hard for my guys out here in the Northeast and I don't know how it is in the West Coast.

SPEAKER_02:

Well first off I'll tell you that in my book here Relentless Courage Winning the Battle against frontline trauma a couple things. The first thing is in the back of the book we have an entire resource section which is vetted it has hotlines, text lines, which are 100% confidential they're free. They don't cost any money and they're answered by other first responders. They're answered by people who are specially trained who have been there who have done it. And you can call or text these numbers 247 in the privacy of your home of your patrol car no one has to know about it. You don't have to notify anybody in your chain of command and there's also tons of different programs that are free you know weeklong retreats for military veterans for first responders. They have these all over the country the ones I've been to are West Coast Post-Trauma Retreat and Save a Warrior. But there's Mighty Oaks Foundation I mean there's tons of them and I we list these in the book but there's also organizations that have links to culturally competent clinicians and therapists that have links to these peer meetings that I was telling you about where literally they're discussion meetings. They're not associated with any agency they're run by volunteers they're only open to first responders. Every member is vetted and you can go and literally be around other people who are going through exactly what you're going through. But what I tell people is that with our book Relentless Courage you can read it in the privacy of your home. We have it on Audible we recorded it in our own voices. And I'm going to tell you right now I relived every single incident when I recorded this and so it's like literally watching a movie it is intense it's gripping it's gut wrenching. But this is where first responders are going to see that they're not alone because I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought I was the only one I thought there was nobody who would get what I was going through. And when you read this book or listen to it, I'm going to tell you right now no matter if you're a paramedic, a dispatcher, a firefighter, a police officer, you're going to say me too. And you're going to be saying that through the entire book and the beautiful thing about this is this lays the foundation for you to realize A, you're not alone, B, that there is nothing wrong with you, that everything that you're experiencing going through is actually normal considering all the abnormal things that you've had to see and deal with. And you're also going to see that it's possible to overcome this it's possible to get better. I mean I'm living proof that no matter how dark it gets and I was there I was on the edge literally trying to kill myself and now I'm living a phenomenal whole new life. I mean I'm a better father now than I was I'm a better partner than I was. I'm a better person than I was I look at the world differently. And and the other thing about this is and this is the coolest thing about this is I get messages almost daily from a lot of times first responder spouses or partners who read or listen to this book. And then they have their husband or wife or partner read it. And for the very first time in their relationship they have a conversation about this because it lays the foundation on both sides to show that what are the odds that this random guy in California is telling you know my husband or wife story here in you know Florida or New York or Wyoming. It doesn't matter because it's the same story and we're all going through the same stuff. And so when I tell you that this book is saving lives I mean it's saving relationships it's saving careers but it's saving lives all over the world and there's no other book like it. And that's why honestly when you read it you're going to want another episode because you're going to have a thousand things to talk about. I mean it's going to blow your socks off.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey you will be reinvited and I will read the book and I love to talk about it in more depth number one. Number two this is a serious subject and I always enjoy being serious around this because it's important. But you know I'm a little looser usually but I get the seriousness of this and I'd love to read your book and I will be getting it out of here we'll let we'll we'll also link it in the show notes so that people can go buy it. But for me you know the other part too about resources you know you talked about a few things one of the things I say to younger I'll always remember I shared this before on the podcast I'll share it with you I had a guy who just started as a police officer call me up and he didn't say hi I said hey you know Steve speaking that's usually how I answer he goes are you going to take away my gun like do I have to take away your gun I have no clue who you are why would I do that he's like well I'm seeing a therapist I'm like that's not a disqualifying reason to hold a to not hold a gun it's like okay and then he opened up and we ended up having you know he comes in every at this point every two months he's a young guy but he's like I want someone I can go to that I can trust and one of the things that became clear to me as a therapist is that he addresses it like sometimes he'll call me up hey can you just give me a quick 30 minutes blah blah blah he's local so he comes over if he can and what I've realized is that when people address it right away it becomes acute stress disorder which is a lot more manageable than post-traumatic stress injuries. And I kind of remind people that that's why you got to have those resources start young and get those people you can trust. And when you talk about resources I really think that the young kids we're getting I think at the state level it's almost 40 hours a week now when you do the training at the Mass State Trooper Academy which is better than when I started which was four to eight hours of mental help. But I think that we got to continue just increasing those resources and availability in a book like yours will just open more eyes for those younger people to look at and know that it's okay to reach out for help.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely and you you bring up a great point because I tell people all the time that you know I waited four years to get help. And I honestly know that if I would have sought help sooner I'd still be working right now. Post-traumatic stress is not a career ender and it doesn't mean that you have to stop doing this profession, this calling that you love to do I mean to your point the sooner that you seek help, the sooner that you're going to get better. And I tell people this all the time you know I don't ever encourage you know retirement or leaving the career field. I I miss it. I miss it tremendously the only issue is that I had so much damage that was done in those four years that it took a lot longer for me to get better. And like you said, you know it's never too late to ask for help but on the flip side of that the sooner you do the sooner you get better. And you know the the thing is now and to talk about talking and therapy and all these things, you know, honestly when I talk to my therapist now it could be about anything. It could be about relationship issues. It could be about finances it could be about issues with my daughter or with my dog. I mean just you know we all have stress we all have things that we go through and that's part of life there's always going to be ups and downs and so just having that trusted person that isn't going to judge you that's not going to hold anything against you that you can reach out to and just literally talk about anything and everything I mean the power in that is it's so freeing it's so healing. And I can't encourage enough. And like you said, man build those relationships early on because when my shooting happened I didn't believe in peer support. I didn't have any resources that I used. I mean my agency had all these great resources on paper but back then no one was using them including myself you know but nowadays things have changed and you truly do have culturally competent clinicians. And that's why I say that word so much and so often because you know if you go to a regular therapist just a random marriage family therapist they might honestly do more harm than good. And I've heard time and time again of first responders that they went through their EAP program. They got assigned some random therapist who has never worked with first responders they go into the first meeting they end up traumatizing that EAP therapist then you know the first responder leaves pissed off vowing to never ever go to therapy again. I mean a horrible horrible experience and so again I mean something's better than nothing but I'll I'll tell anybody watching this or listening to this do your research interview the therapist but not only that you know like people we don't always get along or mesh with people with different personalities. So you know you may go to a great first responded therapist but for whatever reason you don't feel a connection you don't feel a bond. That's okay. Find a different one that you feel comfortable with because you literally have to trust this person with your life and you've got to feel comfortable with them.

SPEAKER_01:

You read my mind that's exactly I was going to say too I'm not everyone's cup of tea and I'm fine with that. And I know other people who are culturally competent that I can refer you to and that's that's an option that exists you know and you talked about building the relationship I I've said to some of my first responders sometimes they like come in and they sorry we're in the northeast so we talk about football baseball hockey and they start talking about it like oh I feel like I spent 30 minutes on that I said do you trust me or you can feel you can talk to me about anything yeah kind of yeah that's building the relationship that counts as therapy and I kind of remind people I don't want to talk about baseball every time no offense or hockey but I also want to build the relationship and there's got to be an ability to do so.

SPEAKER_02:

So you know as we wrap up here when I have you back and I will have you back by the way as long as you want to come back I will read your book is there anything else that you want to share about the book that people should know about so they can go and get it and really encourage them because resources your story is already very important to me but what else would you say that would be a great reason to get that book well the book Relentless Courage Winning the Battle against frontline trauma it's available online at Walmart, Barnes and Noble but Amazon you can get it on paperback, hardcover Kindle or my favorites Audible I mean I'm not much of a reader these days people live busy lives but an Audible you can listen to in the car whether you're commuting to work or you're actually at work you can listen to it in the bathroom when you're getting ready. You can listen to it at the gym. So there's really no excuse not to listen to it. I get not reading not everybody's a reader but I will tell you and I promise this that if you do read or listen to it I guarantee it will change your life and if you do I want to hear from you I want you to personally reach out to me. I'm on every social media platform you can imagine I check my messages daily I respond to everybody and I make myself available and I truly want to hear your thoughts I want to hear the impact that it had on you on your relationships on your career on your life and so I'm on LinkedIn I'm on Facebook Instagram TikTok X Parlor Truth I mean you name it I'm on it just type in sergeant you got to put the sergeant SGT space Michael Sugarw and they'll come up and like I said I promise I'll get back to you I check my messages every single day but like I said this book is so unique because usually you have to either pick you know a gut-wrenching true life story of a firefighter or police officer a veteran and that's all you get right or you have to go get a psychology textbook but in this case you get everything wrapped up in a one and we haven't talked about childhood trauma that's going to be in our next interview and I talk about this in the book because this is huge and first responders don't want to talk about this here this I was one of them but we're going to talk about this the next episode but the second half Doc Springer like I said she comes in she explains everything breaks it down but very easy to understand terms. I mean literally anyone on the street that's never met a first responder before you're going to truly see the human side behind the badge and the uniform I mean it's just I'm excited about this because it's going to blow your mind guaranteed.

SPEAKER_01:

Right I mean we can talk about adverse child child childhood events a long time I I do that in my training when I do CIT trainings out here and I do it for the community but every police officer taking the trainings doing the count I said oh how many of you get over four they always look at me like you shouldn't have said that but the point is is that that plays a factor and for the record everyone who could use you go on YouTube I displayed that I bought the audible I wanted to show that it's available very affordable I will put it all the show notes number two more importantly I work with you Michael just for a short amount of time when you we contacted each other I think through LinkedIn if I remember correctly then I was following you on social media through Facebook through Instagram you've responded to everything you respond to my email so what he's saying is no BS it is absolutely true so I wanted to put it out there because sometimes people like oh I'm not good at being nice to people just to be nice but this is the truth he responded to everything we wrote today twice it took less than 15 minutes to get everything done for what we needed for this interview we set up the interview a long time ago but Michael I will have you back on it's on my audible now I will be listening to it and I'd love to have you back on thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely I look forward to it thank you and thank you thank you for great 2025 thank you so much guys leave a message and comment about what you want to hear in 2026 just click in the go in the the notes and just click on it would love to hear from you but otherwise I hope you have a safe beginning of 2026 and I will see you on the other side for the next episode 238 thank you 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 the perfect page if you are in a mental health races this number is available in the United States and

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Steve Bisson

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