Recovering from Addiction | Dana Golden and David Marion

David Marion and Dana Golden are certified interventionists and recovery coaches, authors, public speakers, and advocates for all suffering from substance use. They were once married.  But when David was hit with opioid and gambling addiction, which landed him in prison, Dana filed for divorce.  Since then, then have reunited to help others recover from addiction.  You can follow David and Dana at TheLifeRecoveryCoach.com, and purchase their book entitled, Addiction Rescue: the No BS Guide to Recovery.

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Transcript

Ep 71 - Dana Golden and David Marion

Greg: [00:00:00] Hello, my friends. Welcome to the great credo show.

Welcome everyone to the great Kronos show, where we talk to experts and people with unique experiences so we can learn and have some fun in the process. Now, before we begin, there are some things I need you to do to help me grow our audience. Number one, go to your podcast app, scroll to the bottom, give me a five-star rating.

Also a friendly comment would help next to go to Greg dot com and subscribe to the newsletter. Pretty soon. I'll have those coming out about once a month. Next email your friends, tell them to do the same and finally share the show on social media. So great comment, subscribe, email, and share. If you can do one of those.

Awesome. You do all five, even more. Awesome. So thank you very much for doing that. Finally, if you have ideas for the show or you just have some [00:01:00] comments, you can contact me@greatcorinoshowatgmail.com. All right. In today's episode, we're talking a pretty heavy topic here, alcohol and drugs. So every year there are about 200,000 deaths due to alcohol and drugs in the United States, about half and half, half alcohol, half of those are drug deaths.

And about half of the drug deaths are opioids. Also we have about 20 million folks with substance use disorder of some kind about 14 million of those are alcohol in the United States and only about 10% receive treatment. So it's a big problem. Not a whole lot of people are receiving treatment. Also we have about 2 million people with gambling addiction.

So it's a really important issue. It destroys careers. Marriages and families. My next guests have been through all of this Dana and golden and David Marion, Dana and David have a very unique story. They were once married, but sadly, because of opioid and gambling addiction, David went to prison and they got divorced years later through lots of hard work and therapy.

There are no longer [00:02:00] married, but have teamed up to help others fight addiction. Dana and David are now certified interventionists and recovery coaches, and they have authored the book entitled addiction rescue the no BS guide to recovery. You can follow them@theliferecoverycoach.com. And with that here they are Dana golden and David Marion, Dana golden, and David Marion.

You guys are the authors of addiction rescue the no BS guide to recovery, and we can reach it@theliferecoverycoach.com. So you two have a really interesting. Background, I mean, former spouses, both what you dealt with addiction and now have been able to find your way out of that and then help other people get through it as well.

So you're both addiction, interventionists and recovery specialists and coach, uh, David, I think you've dealt with opioid addiction was the big one. I was that, [00:03:00] yeah. Okay. And then, uh, yeah, Dana, you had also had to deal with that firsthand as well through your spouse. And then, uh, you also had some family, uh, you said you came from a family of addiction as well.

So a lot of firsthand experience here. It's a hugely important issue. It's something that hits people of all races and classes and people of all education levels. It could be the doctor upstanding citizens. Right next door, or it could be somebody who's a career criminal, it just hits everybody. And so there's no, it's an equal 

David: opportunity to destroy it, right?

Yeah. 

Greg: .And I think we all sort of have different levels of problems and we don't, we're not really sure if we rise the level of quote unquote addict. And I think we all just kind of have like demons that we're dealing with and we're not sure how to talk about it.

And you guys are just out there full front, so that's why I wanted to have you on can you kind of just go through, I guess, I don't know which one of you wants to go first, but talk about your, just your personal [00:04:00] story. Just a few minutes about that. And when you first noticed that there was something wrong.

Dana: Absolutely the first thing I want to say, though, just to address what you said a moment ago about we all have our demons to be human is to be addicted to something.

Uh, in our book, we talk about our definition of addiction and that's something that's causing an imbalance in your life causing consequences in your life. And we also say, if everybody's telling you there's a problem, you might want to take a look at that. There's a problem. So really anything that's really causing you, consequences and an imbalance in your.

When your head gets obsessed with something, you can't let go of it. We can be addicted to work or working out or, uh, meditating, some of those things aren't causing severe consequences. We're talking about the ones that cause severe consequences.

So in my case, I grew up with a father that was a gambling addict and a sex addict. And so, uh, growing up in a home like that, I learned a lot of codependent and enabling behaviors to keep the peace in the family. I was kind of daddy's little girl. My mom was dealing with [00:05:00] raising kids and this husband that was into all his addiction.

So I was kind of left to be the keeper of my dad's emotions and make sure he was okay. And so I just learned to shut down my feelings and placate somebody else and be there for somebody else and want to fix somebody else. So I grew up. Finding relationships that I could fix. Right. I was looking for a project, not a partner.

And so, my first, uh, diagnosis as somebody that might need some help too, was when I had a boyfriend that went to treatment. And when I dropped him off, I told his counselor everything that was wrong with him, that she needed to fix. And she just handed me a pamphlet to, uh, Alanon and said, go to Alanon.

And I said no, you don't understand. I don't have the problem. He has the problem. And she just stayed steadfast, go to Alanon. And so I thought I'd be the dutiful girlfriend as we enabled her to do. And I would go for him. And of course it was there that I started on my journey of recovery, realizing that I had a place and a part in those roles that I took on.[00:06:00] 

And so when I met David, David was a recovering addict and he had three years of sobriety and I thought, oh, I got a good one. I've got one that's evolved. And he's been through and he's done his personal development. And so, I've recovered and he's in recovery. And so we jumped into marriage and had two kids.

And then unfortunately, and I'll let you hit tell his story, but he relapsed when he had knee surgery and was prescribed prescription opioids. 

Greg: Okay. And then, uh, David, you want to kind of pick it up with your, uh, end of the story there as well. 

David: Talking about backing up again, what you were talking about, addiction and things like that.

I have my own definition really of alcoholism, it's not okay to be me drunk or sober. And can you imagine going and growing, going up, trying to live life like that? I knew somewhere along the line at an early age that I say I came out of the manufacturer's plant just a little bit. The fact of, I couldn't connect [00:07:00] with other people, same way.

Most people can. My mom tells a story. In kindergarten six or seven years old. And we had the school pictures that day and she told me that the school bus was sitting outside and I must have walked in and out three or four different times changing my outfit at six or seven years old. So unsure, uncertain.

So not okay with who I was at such a young age. I was a guy that loved chocolate growing up, right. Any type of chocolate and marshmallows peanuts, peanut butter. Anytime I love chocolate. I don't remember the first piece of chocolate I ever had, but I do remember the first drink of alcohol. Alcohol gave me a profound personality change that chocolate didn't.

And I knew at an early age that alcohol did something to me that I didn't have. It gave me something, it gave me that feeling the sense that it's okay to be. [00:08:00] 'cause I somewhere I had this limited self belief that told me that I wasn't okay to be me. I wanted to act like them dress like them, everything else on the outside.

And it was tough connecting on the inside. And I started using in gambling at a very young age. I started gambling it probably nine, 10 years old. My friends used to come over and we'd play cards. And I remember that was the first escape that we had. And then I, eventually started drinking, get turned on to, smoking pot.

And back in my day, it was . And ended up going to school and coming back and got a job on wall street as a stockbroker in the early eighties. And this is when they were having liquid lunches and cocaine dinners. And I was doing very well. I ended up becoming a sales manager of a brokerage firm.

Finally, there was an intervention done on may September 1st, 1989. And they said you're drinking too much. My response was you guys aren't drinking enough, you don't get it. And they sent me on a one-way ticket out to a sunny St. Paul, Minnesota, [00:09:00] where the journey began. I ended up going out there for 30 days and stayed for 30 years.

Oh, wow. Until I finally got out. , 

Greg: did you have people earlier in your life saying that you were drinking too much or was it more when you hit later in your professional career, even in your marriage? Like when was your first indication that, Hey, I think I have something wrong or I think there is something wrong.

David: I was misdiagnosed as a child. My mom sent me to a psychiatrist and therapist and, I had a, probably a learning disability when I look back now. Yeah. Definitely had attention deficit. It was kind of back in those days, they would, snap out of it. What's wrong with you? My brother became a doctor, my sister's a lawyer and they can't figure out where the disconnect is coming from here because they really didn't understand the dynamics of addiction.

Yeah. Now I knew I was using more and made me feel better. And I knew I was an excitement junkie. I was addicted to anything that made me feel good, on the outside [00:10:00] because the inside was dying. Yeah. 

Greg: And did they ever go to a therapy? Do they ever like unpack that for you? Or did they eventually say, Hey, look, this is just a kind of a chemical thing, and this is the way you are, or are they ever able to pinpoint it to something in your childhood?

I mean, I've been just full disclosure. I've been to a counselor in my life where we kind of unpacked a, why are you so sad what's going on? And they, they go through your whole child and how your up your upbringing. And it doesn't mean that there's something defective about your upbringing, but it could just be, there was something conditional about the scenario that kind of makes you who you are and that's okay.

But with that comes certain costs where they able to kind of do that with you as well. 

David: They really couldn't figure out what was going on. My mom would tell me that they did a bunch of IQ tests and everything was fine. And he's right in line of where he is right in the medium. Uh, the therapist said he's just got some hyper, uh, activities, right.

Anxiety. It didn't know it was anxiety. They didn't know what exactly it was until many [00:11:00] years later. So the diagnosis came 

Greg: out. Yeah. Now Dana, D how about you as, was it something that you just kind of discovered on your own or did somebody come out and tell you, Hey, this is something, here's the reason why, or you kind of went through it with your family.

Was that kind of your first indication that, oh, wow, this is something, I mean, when did you kind of realize it and agree with it? Was it just that counselor that had brought it to your attention? Yes. 

Dana: It really was because up to that point, I'd never really heard of addiction. I didn't understand addiction.

I didn't know my dad wasn't addict. I, it was just my family. It was just the way it was. I didn't realize it was so different from what other people experienced growing up. And it was really in the room of Alanon and then I got into therapy as we all do, and really worked on myself to overcome those behaviors and be in a relationship where I didn't have to take care of someone and fix everything.

Greg: I think what's interesting about your end of it is that you're not the one who's necessarily addicted to a substance, [00:12:00] but there was some sort of behavior, or I guess, worldview that was contributing to your situation. You didn't have the addiction yourself, but it was, dealing with other people the white, uh, night, I guess, scenario, was it kind of a, it was a kind of a shock to you to hear that.

And then B how do you reconcile being nice to people because we want to help people, how do you say, well, I'm helping to. 

Dana: Right. Right. So I do say along with what you were saying, that the addict is addicted to the substance, but, uh, enablers and codependency we're D we're addicted to the addict.

So yes, I definitely had that problem. Staying in your lane, it's learning what behaviors you're responsible for and what behaviors someone else is responsible for. And it's setting boundaries and clearly defining whose responsibility is what if you're trying to protect someone from hitting the consequences that they would naturally hit because of their addictions.

And you're getting in the way of those, and you're not in your lane. Right. And [00:13:00] that's what we want to do. We want to protect our loved ones from feeling bad, feeling hurt, having consequences, falling to the bottom. So we're there to bulldoze and helicopter and control and make sure that doesn't happen, but it's not healthy.

Greg: . I mean, can you kind of give a, an example of when you felt that. Done enough, like at what point were you at your bottom? Or like, Hey, I'm helping everything I can give. And now I've just kind of have to like, let this person go. And it sucks because you don't want them to die. You don't want them to go to jail.

You don't want them to lose all their money, but you know, how do you do that? I've got some, I've got it. I can think of one friend right now who , not cut them off, but I just don't really associate any more because every time I do, it's just a disaster.

I'm like, I'm gonna end up beat up or in jail trying to help this person. And now I just kinda have to accept the fact that he might not be with me in a few years. 

Dana: Right. Right. And all you can do is be there [00:14:00] as far as empathy, sympathy, love 'em up, but you've got to let them suffer the consequences.

And if that means having to walk away cause you can't watch, that's what you have to do. And I'll tell you the hardest people that's on his parents. Yeah. We work with a lot of families and when, if it's a spouse, if it's a friend, if it's a coworker, it's a totally different animal than when it's your child.

That is the hardest thing to deal with because instinctively, I don't want to walk away. And and we don't always say you have to walk away, but you do have to let them suffer the consequences because you're just prolonging the inevitable by trying to be there, to pick them up at every stage and block those consequences from happening.

So there is a fine line and there is a method to it. And that's what we, that's what we help people navigate through. As family members of loving an addict. So we're family, I'm in a family addiction coach, David focuses more on the addicts in coaching the addicts, and I work with the families to help them 

Greg: navigate.

Can you think of an example of a parent child relationship where the parents finally had to cut them off and like, how did they do that? Was more like just kicking them out of the house. [00:15:00] Was it not bailing them out of jail? Like what was, uh, like what were those severe steps that 

Dana: all of the unknown you can't bail them out of jail.

If they end up in jail, you have to kick them out of your house. If they're stealing from you and you don't try. I mean, safety first, you, unfortunately you have to think of yourself first and if it means kicking your S your child out and they have to sleep on the street. I mean, obviously if you can get them to a friend, if you can have, uh, we're very connected to different treatment centers and facilities around the country.

So that's what we help people do is get them in the right place rather than having to put them on the street. But yeah, I mean, we deal with families where the kids are in there and they're just causing chaos and they're breaking doors and they're stealing money and. People can't live like that. And sometimes they think, I'm just going to move, literally, this is what their answer is.

And it's like, that's not the answer, because they're just going to follow you. Your problems are just going to follow you if you do a geographic. So it's re it's hard role to navigate. 

David: I think really where the parents, uh, have [00:16:00] a lot of confusion because there's a lot of terms out there, tough love, right?

They don't understand truly what is tough love, trying to separate themselves and trying to think that they're making the right decisions. Tough love. Throw them out of the house. I don't have to deal with them. Really tough love is no more than setting healthy boundaries in the relationship.

It could be a financial consequence attached, they've been using the dad's credit card for so long. And is the dad willing to change and say, I'm no longer going to allow you to financially do what you're doing. Okay. Because inevitably we know that they are basically funding their addiction, that the addict is going to find every excuse to keep manipulating the situation.

It could be social situations, we're not going to have you around Easter time. If you're going to be drinking around, everybody refused to let that happen. It's things like that have to be adhered to, but when you're so attached to a family member, because your care and your thought process is [00:17:00] based off of them surviving, then it really becomes convoluted on how you're approaching it.

And that's why they bring us in basically as an objective person, persons, to make the decisions and help them through the processing of these decisions. 

Greg: So if say somebody has a teenager and they can't just let them go out in the street, if somebody who's 15, 16 years old, technically there's still the responsibility of the parent, but they.

They're very mobile. They might have a Cartwheel. I don't know. Yeah. I guess they have a drivers license. I don't know. I guess the parent can take away the license. I'm not even sure how that works. Can they, can it take with a car? Sure. But either way, uh, teenagers, very mobile. What sort of a half measure that a parent can take, where they are going to sort of prevent the child from doing any more destruction to the family, but they're not going to kick them out on the street.

Is it just a matter of, Hey, let's contact the, these folks say you and we're going to contact David and Dana, would that be kind of a good measure? [00:18:00] Like, let's go find somebody to help us first. Like there, I don't want to, I want to find out what we can do before we just cut them off. 

Dana: Yeah. Yeah. And really it's getting the addict or the person causing the chaos.

Some help. David always says they're silently begging to be. Right. They, there, especially a teenager, they don't know what they're doing. They're out of control. They don't like it. David says I didn't go to the guidance counselor and say, when I grow up, I want to be an addict, so let's get them the help they need, whether it's psychiatric, whether it's therapeutic, whether it's coaching, whether they need to be in a facility, whether it's more a mental facility or an addiction facility with there's lots of places to go and lots of paths to recovery. So yeah, we would be that intermittent 

Greg: stuff.

Oh, okay. Okay. That's good. So I like that they need to be led. So instead of just cutting them off and saying, Hey, don't do this, don't do that. You can also be a sort of a guide and say, Hey, well, let's do this. Let's do that. Let's go talk to these people. 

Dana: Okay. Parents, camp kids, don't listen to parents. They're tired of the parents mouthing.

Right. But [00:19:00] an objective person coming in has a little more authority. Okay. 

Greg: That's another, I think 

David: they get to us. They have basically gone through every minute. So we're not usually the first call. We usually one of the last calls, they've tried everything it's not working and it's kind of like the throne, the lifeline on here and asking us to do something that, has been going on for so long.

And you're going to hear stories from people, Greg, that are just beyond anything. Yeah. And we also have a duty to warn if there is self destructive behavior, if they're looking to harm themselves, looking to harm others, I've had young adolescents talk to me about, I want to take a hammer to my mom's house.

Jesus. I hate the way she is. I wanted, things like this that are beyond a normal conversation that you're going to have. It's how they are acting out. All right. That's gotta be true. Are 

Greg: there any tried and true mechanisms , I always thought getting outside, doing [00:20:00] exercise, being part of some team kind of helps giving you some higher purpose, whether it's, Hey, let's go to this charity, let's go help some homeless people. Let's go do something. Are there any techniques where that have been able to kind of get the addict out of their own head and out into the world that you found to be effective?

David: Well, part of the greatest solution is the more you make your life about other people, the better you get to feel when you're using you're a selfish self-centered person who all they think about is the next hit, the next drink, the next snort or whatever. And once you begin to work with other people and do things out of your element I've taken guys and gals bowling just to have laughs.

They haven't had laughs like this before or do fun things differently, uh, go to different events with other people that are in recovery. Because if you can't show them that you're having more fun and recovery, it's just a matter of time till they go back to you. 

Greg: Yeah. Yeah. [00:21:00] I would like to get into the opioids themselves because that's another thing you personally.

No, I won't. Thanks. I do have an aching. It is funny. Like I do have like a back problem and I've gone to the doctor for it and my wife's like, just don't take those pills. Just don't I'm like, I'm, like I said, cause we, we watched the Netflix documentaries and we've seen, seeing how bad things can get and like, Hey, don't worry about it.

But no, I do know people who have taken them and they're doing okay. I think, I don't know, but I know it can very easily go bad. David? I know you had a, I think you had an injury than you were getting on some opioids and then it just, it went bad.

Can you kind of walk us through that? 

David: Yeah, I would say I say a first-generation opioid guy, right? When the opioids were coming out, the oxytocin. I had a bunch of knee surgeries and first knee surgery, the doctor prescribed the 180 pills to me and I took two of them and I said, wow. And I had that immediate recall that euphoria from [00:22:00] doing queloz years again.

And I felt so good. I called the doctor up immediately and said, doc, and I've got to believe it. I opened up the pee bottle out of the pill bottle of going to the bathroom. They all spilled down. He says, David, all right. The prescription, it was that fast, 

Greg: just no checks and balances, 

David: no back then.

And even today, there's still a lot of doctors that are prescribing really for this acute pain rather than chronic pain, which is another issue. But there's gotta be limits on the acute pain as well. Three days, they were doing 30 days with two refills, so they really change on how they prescribe.

But I just knew right away that this made me feel better. And, uh, like 

Greg: I've seen the Netflix documentary, which I tend to take some of those with a grain of salt, because I know that the producers can kind of have some sort of agenda, but I've heard the, they started out with like 10 and 20 milligrams.

And then you hear people taking hundreds of milligrams a day. I mean, the range is so wide. [00:23:00] I mean, how much can an average adult take and be okay, and how much should they be? Like, Hey, now your addiction land. I mean, what's the range. 

David: They started making the higher milligrams. Yeah. They started with the tens.

They went to the twenties and they made thirties, forties. Then they made 80. And the eighties were, so powerful and, the people used to say, God, each, you're chewing those eighties. Like tic-tacs, and I was probably doing six, 700 milligrams a day. Oh my God. Which is just, an incredible amount. 

Greg: So then you get to the point where you can't get enough of them. How bad did you get where you were, were you committing crimes for it or were you thinking about doing it?

Like how, when did you kind of bottom out? How did that look? 

David: Well, I had people buying them from me, I was making a lot of money at the time. And I had nurses that were. Stealing them from hospitals and buying them from them. I had people out in Vegas that were wow, probably stealing from pharmacies and I'm [00:24:00] selling them on the black market.

So, eventually I ran out one day and I couldn't get any more. My body was in so much pain and a guy came over to, uh, I had been separated at the time, came over to my condo and he laid out a line. He said, don't ask any questions now I'm hooked on heroin. Oh my God. 

Greg: So you just go right up to the next thing. 

David: Really an opioid is a synthetic heroin. Yeah. Right. Made in a laboratory. Yeah. So the next thing is to move to the real heroin. 

Greg: Wow. And Dana, so you were around for all this observed. Yeah, 

Dana: I actually wasn't around for the heroin part of it and find out what he was doing here until years later.

Yes, I was around for the the opioids that he was abusing and buying on the black market. And for me, it just got to the point, and I w I just want to throw in there what really took David down financially and landed him in prison, which we haven't gotten to yet is gambling. [00:25:00] So we had a very uh, very successful brokerage firm that we owned.

And then when I couldn't get David to stop because was, we've talked about, I don't have that power to fix him. And I kept asking him to stop and the gambling was just costing us more and more money. And so, when he couldn't stop, I asked him to move out and to try to, he had six months, right.

To get his act together. And if in six months he could stop everything, he could come back and forth. He couldn't. And so I ended up filing for divorce, uh, but it came for me. It came down to protecting my children. So, I grew up in this house right where my mom was dealing with all my dad's crap. And she waited till I, the youngest was 18 before she divorced him.

Right. She wasn't going to break up the family. And in my philosophy, in my house, I was not going to do that to my children. I wasn't going to show them that a woman had to put up with whatever man was doing for the sake of the marriage. It was, there was other more important things and keeping the family together.

And so it was important to me to show my two girls that I don't have to stay married. I don't, they don't, we can have two happy homes, but [00:26:00] I'm not going to deal with this anymore. And I'm going to try to protect them as best I could from it. So that's why I filed for divorce. And then David had this condo, it wasn't just condo.

It was like a penthouse suite, great place where he ended up and, uh, ended up on heroin. And eventually the gambling became too much, uh, bankrupted the company and David was indicted for mail and wire fraud. So cause he was gambling company funds is what it came down to. And then he ended up in prison and he did get clean and sober before he went to prison.

Knowing that wouldn't be fun. And uh, he did go to a treatment center here and detoxed and did 30 days and 

Greg: So if somebody does. From day one, they're now taking the seven to 800 milligrams a day and they're at that point, if they decide to now stop, like I've had enough now I want to start recovery.

How does that go? And how long does that go? What's that process like? 

David: Well, first of all, not to mention the pain that you're [00:27:00] in. Yeah. I'm trying to describe the pain. It's almost as if somebody is inside of you cutting themselves out with a knife, a butter knife, but that's the way it feels.

When you take a shower, the water hurts. There is just the most ridiculous pain trying to come off this. And I remember I sat in the hospital trying to detox from this, and after three days I was just completely out of it. Uh, the nurse came in and said, well, I started screaming.

Where's the nurse came in and she said, so you'd been balled up in the. Making farm animal noises for three days, I've been bringing the food and you're eating the food and I was lying on the floor and it was the worst detoxification album. They wanted to put me on Suboxone and Subutex and some of the things and that wasn't strong enough.

They put me on that to try to help with the cravings. Then they ended up putting me on methadone while I was in there. And the other way I do the methadone as well. I would wean off it by the time I left the hospital, which I ended up doing. But [00:28:00] yeah, it was, this is something that you don't recover in 30 days, take six months, nine months for the cobwebs, really, to dissipate from what you've been going through.

Yeah. It's not like you had a bad weekend of using at bad decades here. So the layers and layers of stuff so 

Greg: if you're in the hospital and they prescribe you some medication to kind of calm the effects, a little. Uh, that's just a couple of days. And then do they check you out at that point?

And then you're going into like some outpatient care where you go through therapy. Like how what is that process like? 

David: Well, the hospital had a treatment program in there and it was a medically induced facility. So I was watched over, 24 7, uh, there was great care. And usually though, if you do a detoxification, it could be anywhere from five to seven, eight days, and then they're going to move you to an inpatient facility, which is the first phase towards the level of care treatment.[00:29:00] 

After 30 days, they'll do a step down, they'll bring it to what's considered IOP, intensive outpatient treatment sober living, it keeps stepping down the levels of care until they acclimate you back into society. 

Greg: Okay. And then what about costs during all of this? Because I imagine that's expensive.

Do you get family to help you out or you Dick dip into thick dip into savings? I mean, what if somebody doesn't have the funds to do all this? What do they do? 

David: Well, that's the problem. If you don't have insurance, it makes it really tough. Yeah. I mean, 23 million people struggling here with addiction trying to get sober and only 10% of the people receive treatment.

So it's just, you know what, at these numbers. Yeah. And so many people need this, but can't afford it. Yeah. 

Dana: I was going to say, one of the things that David works really hard on is legislation to hold big pharma accountable, and it have to pay X amount of pennies per pill [00:30:00] that they sell that goes back into helping people with treatment.

So David was on the board that got the first legislation passed in Minnesota. Uh, the stewardship build a whole big pharma accountable, and then other states are following suit. So, there's people on the front lines working to get big pharma to help pay these expenses and get people the treatment that they need because they caused the mess in the first place, 

David: which inevitably that should be affordable treatment for all.

It's not something, it's not a privilege, right. It's to put, unfortunately it becomes a privilege in this country to go to treatment and yeah. 

Greg: Do you know what the legislation is like? Most of the states. So Minnesota, they have the requirement to, if you're going to do business there, you have to set aside so much toward addiction treatment.

Can you kind of, do you know, with other state where we are sort of with other states? 

David: Well, they raised the registration for pharmaceutical companies to sell pills in your state. And it used to be $250 to sell [00:31:00] billions of pills. So the, raise it to 250,000 cap that at about 21 million money being used with scholarshipping for prevention, education, Narcan, things like that, that are really going to strengthen community events, things that are going to bring awareness to this.

Yeah. But at the same time, there should be so much more money for scholarshipping of people that truly need this. I can't get it. 

Greg: I, I tend to think about unintended consequences to, of legislation. Yeah. I have again, friends who have gone through the opioid addiction as well. And then there was some, I guess, some requirement where you can only now prescribe so many and only a certain amount of time.

And then it's like, well, if the person needs this much and they can only get this much, then they might go off and do the heroin or something that's even worse. What are your thoughts on sort of the unintended consequences of like totally capping opioids? , how does 

David: that work?[00:32:00] 

They had to do something now. And I think what you're talking about more so is acute pain and chronic. Okay. There was a big pushback for people in the legislation who were proposing or op or opposing the bill because of the chronic pain that truly patients had complete. Chronic pain for years and years and needed their pills.

And they were so worried that we were going to cut them off. And I think that what they did is they changed the limits on pills. It was a three-day limit that you're going to get from acute pain. You go in the hospital, you have a knee surgery done. They're going to give you three days, not 30 days, with two or three refills on there as they did years ago.

Greg: I think we need to kind of build a little bit of a understanding or a culture that not all suffering is bad. And I don't want to sound like a jerk there, but it's like, if you're going to go through something, we need to understand that there's going to be some pain.

Like if you get a surgery, okay, we'll help you with the [00:33:00] really severe stuff by prescribing some of these pills. But we really got to dig down and try to not, erase all the pain completely with these pills. Cause that's going to. Things worse down the road. And I think, I don't know, maybe it's an American thing.

And maybe back in the nineties, probably just prior to the opioid epidemic, we have this idea that we can just take a pill and everything's just gonna be just fine. And, know, you can just cover it up and it's like, it's going to manifest itself down the road and we need to get this through our heads that, a little bit of pain, a little bit of suffering on the front end is kind of okay.

David: The funny thing is when I had my knee surgery, I had a knee replacement eventually. Yeah. I remember I was sitting in the hospital and they had me on the pills and I had to get up to use the restroom and I got up and I actually hit my knee on the side of the bed. And I remember the pain and it's almost like that moment of clarity.

It's saying that, wow, these pills really don't take away the pain, [00:34:00] but it's how you view the pain. It puts you into a state of euphoria. That you're not thinking about your pain, it's moved you away from that thought. So as the pain pills really taking the pain away from you or viewing how you see the pain.

Greg: Yeah. Good point. Good point. It's true. Now Dana when David was going through a recovery and in the hospital and you were filing for, or thinking about filing for divorce how did your family react and kind of, how did you pick up the pieces? Like what were the, some things that you had to think about from the family point of view either financially or personally, how did you kind of move on?

Dana: Yeah. So for a while after I left him, the company was intact and everything was fine. So keep in mind, that was like 2005 and 2011. Is when David was investigated and indicted. Okay. So, during those years, uh, we co-parented there were times I didn't want the girls to go with him because I knew he [00:35:00] was using, so I just kinda monitored it if they were comfortable.

Great. If they weren't, they stayed with me. And we did that. Okay. So then fast forward to like 2011, when the investigation came down and he knew he had to get clean I was fully supportive, I've always been a fan of David's. I just didn't like some of the behaviors at the time.

So when he was going to treatment, I mean, I was a hundred percent there. I took the kids to visit him and in treatment, I, uh, whatever I could do while he was there for the 30 days. And then the, the kids 100%. The kids came through all of this. Okay. Because we were so transparent with them.

Right. What really messes kids up is when you're telling them one thing, but they're seeing another thing, and then they're having that conversation in their head that they just don't get it. And then it really messes them up. Right. So we were always transparent. Hey look, your dad's got a problem.

He was prescribed these pills. He's you know, I did tell him I had the, I offered the kids, Ella taught and Alateen when they were appropriate ages. One kid liked it, one kid didn't, but we were always honest and transparent and not to mention. Uh, they were in like junior high school [00:36:00] when all that indictment stuff was coming down, it's in the paper, they're dealing with that amongst their friends, oh, did you know? And it wasn't the friends, it was the parents of the friends saying, oh, did you see what Sophie's dad did? Or, whatever it was. And so the kids are coming to school going, oh my gosh. So, so they had to deal with all of that, but we were always honest and open and transparent.

These are your dad's consequences. He made mistakes. You have to take responsibility for the mistakes you make in life. And as long as we kept that open dialogue with them and it wasn't confusing in their head, they really came through it. Okay. Then when David went to prison, that was a whole different story because now we had no money coming in because the business was bankrupted and David was away.

And I hadn't worked because the business supported, both of us was a very lucrative business. So, so I quick, uh, I had worked in the business for a long time before we were divorced. And so David and I put together. Separate business that I opened under my name doing the same thing. We hired the guys and we got it all set up before he went to prison.

So that got me through, but I was always doing whatever side hustles I had to do, [00:37:00] to keep the kids in the same kind of a lifestyle. It wasn't the same, but you know, I wasn't going to make a horrible form either. So I just did what I had to do. I was going to rise to the occasion. I told my kids, we don't need a guy.

Well, a, man's not a plan and we're going to make this work as three girls and we're going to be just fine. And we were, we just had that attitude and we came through it and the girls both went to college. They both graduated college. They both have great jobs. They're 26 and 24 now. And it just, it's just keeping that positive attitude and being transparent and just knowing everything's going to work out.

Okay. 

Greg: are they like constantly on guard about setting boundaries and the types of relationships that they're in? I mean, are they, they kind of take it in stride. 

Dana: They've had a lot of great therapies. They both have their own therapist that they went to.

Uh, they both, uh, have heard, uh, words from David on the addiction side words for me as a family of, uh, an addictive person. So they've gotten a lot of good messages. I mean, uh, they, their predisposition for addiction, right? So we've always been transparent. You gotta be [00:38:00] careful if you're gonna drink drugs, whatever it is.

We know you're going to be confronted with stuff that these are the constant, he got to know about this stuff going into it. And they're, they're pretty level headed. And I want, I do want to say that their relationship with David is just phenomenal now. I mean, they're just all they're as tight as ever.

And and it's just a beautiful thing to see after, it wasn't so great there for a few years. So it's just all worked itself out really 

David: nicely. My younger daughter lives in Florida. Uh she's and I'm in Florida also. And I was lucky enough today to go meet her at Nordstrom rack to buy her some workloads.

So that was just, yeah, no, we do a lot of stuff together. I'm glad to be able to do that today and be there for them in ways. And, listen, Greg, everyone has a path, right? Everyone has adversity in their life. Everybody goes through something and if they say they don't, I just don't buy it where it hasn't happened yet.

Right. It's not about us success, successes, an accomplishment, but moving through [00:39:00] adversity and showing others, how do we transition from the adversity? Not let it's come to our whole world. When I work with clients, I tell them we have this big, beautiful world and you have this one piece of negativity, and it's just amazing how you suck your beautiful world into this one little negative hole.

Why can't we transition that little negative piece and bring it into our big, wonderful world. Because we focus on the things that we can't control the fears. Oh, it's true. 

Greg: Yeah. It's I know, and I'm still working on that. I think a lot of us are, especially with the last couple of years, it's easy to focus on the negative and it can just, you can get wrapped up in it.

Now with too, I'm sure you've heard this many times, but it's so unique to see a married couple. Well, it's not unique to see a married couples get divorced for addiction reasons, but it is unique to see them come together in a different way and have a different type of [00:40:00] relationship. So how did you decide to do that?

Who did somebody approach the other one say, Hey, how about we do this together? I mean, how did that. 

Dana: Well, we knew we had a story to tell and we knew we could help others. And David's always been in the community, helping others. I mean, there was a period where he got re addicted, so to speak, he relapsed, but there was a time where he was very involved in the community and he sponsored a lot of guys and he did a lot of interventions and he was taking care of people.

So we knew he had that in him when he went to prison and we decided we had a story to tell I've kind of been a writer of things all my life. So I said, you gotta write your story down. And then we got to turn it into a book to help other people. So that's how we started on that path. So when he got out of prison, he gave me all his notes that he'd been writing for three years.

And and we put this book together, addiction rescue the no BS guide to recovery, and it's really a comprehensive. Yeah. Tell all, uh, really having a fine, like you were saying, how do you find, are you in a, an addictive mode, right? Is this something you need to take a look at? So you know how to help yourself figure that out and then how [00:41:00] to get in recovery and stay there.

We have a five step process and then how to heal the body, mind and spirit, right? Cause it's an ongoing recovery. It's not a 30 day treatment and then you're cured. Right? So, and not that there is a cure, but it's a mindful practice every day for the rest of your life. Just like if you do yoga or if you journal or can meditate, it's a practice that you got to take care of.

So the book is very comprehensive and explaining all of that. So then we wrote the book and David came out of prison. He knew he wanted to help other people. So he was certified as a national intervention professional and a recovery coach. And then I was doing his contracts and his travel arrangements.

And so it just kind of evolved into this business. And then I'm on the phone talking to. People that are hiring him to do an intervention and I'm talking to them off the ledge, right. Because they've got this family member that they're freaking out about. So I'm like, listen, this is going to go this way.

You're going to be fine. And I said, I really should be certified as a family addiction coach. Cause this is what I'm doing anyway. So I got my recovery coach, uh, certificate certification and my family addiction coach. And so together we're out [00:42:00] there helping families and supporting people and giving like David says hope to the hopeless that are feeling in a place that they don't know where to turn or what to do.

And we give them that path. 

Greg: Do you ever feel like you're never really out like D is there ever a fear that being around people who are so troubled all the time, that it might cause you guys to relapse that how do you maintain the strength to keep going? So I would think that if you're always around this, it could, that could be draining as well.

Like, are there ways that you keep your strength up or do you view it as something that gives you strength? 

David: I hear that a lot from people in this industry who say that burned. Right. They have tremendous burnout. I would use the term. There's a spiritual shield view put up when you're doing this work that can't be pierced.

Emotionally, I hear stories, Greg, that are just beyond anything you can imagine in life. And intervention is extremely emotional, extremely [00:43:00] authentic. I've often had people say, I've never told anybody this in all my years. Right. And you have to know that, yes, I am involved in this, but at the same time, if I can't be the one who is the professional overseeing the process of this, we don't have a chance.

Now, is there a times when I've gotten a little emotional, I heard some stuff short, quick story. I was doing an intervention in new Haven, Connecticut. 31 year old heroin addict, big family from the east coast, halfway through the intervention. The young man gets up. And this is when we were in a hotel conference room.

He gets up and leaves the room. His little mom starts screaming, sit down. I said, mom, I'll take care of it. This young man, can't talk. He's incest. You see it. He's just fuming mad right now. And he walks out into the lobby, goes out into the [00:44:00] parking lot. And I walked with him. He goes into his car, grabs a cigarette, the front door or the front seat of the car, lights it up.

Now he opens up the trunk of his vehicle. Obviously my first thought is, okay, three ion baseball bat, right? What's it going to be today? He's going to come after me and this young man still can't talk. He pulls out a pad and paper and I'll call him Bobby. I said, Bobby, right, Bobby, get it out. And Bobby begins to write and write.

And I say, keep riding Bobby, get it out. Finally, he rips it out and hands it to me. And what it was his story of being physically and sexually abused as a child that not one of his family members knew about in that room. 

The secret that he had been keeping for so long, and I say that there's a blockage in the passage towards everyone's recovery, right?

How are we going to go in there and cleanse it and [00:45:00] navigate, how are we going to make this thing feel better and more open for them to release this? We can't take little leaves off the tree and expect people to recover. This stuff is embedded in the roots. And when you're dealing with addiction, so men and at the roots, you usually going to find trauma abuse.

Financial verbal sexual, physical abuse is cemented. And people with addiction always have trauma. Now people that are traumatized are necessarily addicted. And so we're dealing with this, we know that there's something going to be preventing them from moving forward. And if you're willing to expense the time and energy to get to know that person a lot comes out.

Yeah. We ended up, uh, reading his letter. We lit it up and I gave him a hug. He finished a cigarette, went back downstairs and finished the intervention. 

Greg: Yeah. How to, [00:46:00] most of those go most interventions. Do they, did the person take well, what's the percentage of people who take it well and people who don't 

David: 95% of the people go to.

Right after, I did one Lara that they thought the FA this, uh, their son or brother was using meth, and he's screaming, I'm not using for he yet some real mental health issues. And he didn't go to treatment dad, although he did go two years later and he just recently got out of treatment and I'm still in contact with them.

Yeah. It's interesting how that plays. 

Greg: But do you find that the it's the use that causes the addiction or there's some other underlying psychological reason, like a trauma?

You said that most people, you said everybody who's addicted was traumatized in some way. What about the kid who just likes to party? He has no real trauma in his past and likes to have fun and he just finds out that he likes it. Like how many addicts are just that guy. He's [00:47:00] just the party guy that just eventually realizes that now he's chemically addicted just because he enjoys having fun.

I mean, do you find those? 

David: Oh, okay. Okay. And then we begin to self-medicate some of the pain of being ourselves, right? Some of the pain of having to be in social situations and having to deal with life on life's terms. So even, I've had family members say to me, uh, Marijuana is a gateway drug to harder drugs.

I said, no, I don't. I think trauma's a gateway drug, when that pain gets so insurmountable that you want something else to take away that pain because smoking pot is not doing it anymore. Yeah. And they don't see a lot of people move from smoking pot to doing heroin. Right. It's usually the step-up level of transitioning.

Yeah. I always thought 

Greg: that gateway drug, uh, uh, argument was not very good because it's like, well, [00:48:00] wait, just start before marijuana. It was probably alcohol before that is probably eating candy before that it was, eating too much cereal. I dunno. You could. How far down the line do you want to go?

I mean, the bottom line is that just certain people end up going way too far or most of us don't and so the, yeah, you got to get down to the reason the reason for the trauma, 

David: The family members all try to say, well, I'm trying to figure out where his trauma came. And I said, you don't have a chance.

It could have been a third grade teacher raising their voice intonation at about a seven or eight. They put their defenses up and shut down. And anytime someone raises their voice at a higher level, they have completely disconnected and shut down. Right. A child doesn't get traumatized because they're hurt.

They get traumatized because they live alone with that hurt and bring that into adulthood. And they've learned to shut down at such a young age. Yeah. 

Greg: I, uh, I have a few, again, a few friends that have been through this and it seems like the common thread is there's just some form of self, self hatred, I guess.

Like they've [00:49:00] got something that they don't like about themselves. And I guess that could be because they went through a trauma and they didn't deal with it the way they wanted to, like, maybe they were abused, they felt like they didn't speak up enough or maybe they were assaulted. And they felt like they put themselves in that situation.

And there could be some partial truth to that, but. It's it's hard to escape when it's when it's, you're the one that doesn't like yourself and so you medicate and then that helps you feel comfortable in social situations. And then you can get out there more then you're like, well, now I need this to keep going.

I feel like I'm a better person when I'm on this drug and you don't know how to stop. And so you got to address the reason for the self anxiety and self-loathing or however you want to get to it. And yeah, maybe it was some somebody else that did that to you, but the solution is going to be through yourself.

So, now how about, uh, just how has the whole shopping the book around and how has it going around? Like how often are you guys out there talking to people and doing podcasts? I mean, it seems like this is a pretty compelling story where you guys could be very busy doing this for a while.[00:50:00] 

Dana: Uh, yeah, we do quite a bit of podcasts. We, uh, promote the book at different speaking events that David does a COVID kind of shut that down though. He was doing a lot more public speaking and I'm sure that's going to pick up again. And it's really a lot of word of mouth. We are, uh, connected to a lot of treatment centers.

Like I said, David's a preferred provider, so, uh, we, uh, help families that way. Uh, and we're just out there doing our 

Greg: thing. Any last messages to folks or any direction you want to point them to, if they're having trouble 

David: I think the most important thing is to be willing to ask for help, right?

As many people are going to be listening to this and wondering how do we fix this thing? It all starts with admitting. That I have a problem and I need help. And the stigma attached to this has got to change, right? That people are looked at as a bad person for having this disease because they're addicted to drugs and [00:51:00] alcohol, or they're addicted to gambling or sex or food or gaming or whatever it is.

You're not a pet person that we say there's a great person there with a bad disease. And it takes it. The first step is by asking help and reaching out Dana and I, our website is, uh, the life recovery coach.com. Uh, we can book a consultation for free and we'll talk with you, I'm always willing and Dana's always willing to have that conversation.

Even though we say it's an hour consultation, I've had 10 hour consultations, because when you've lived it and live through it, you have a passion to help other people. Our book is addiction rescue. The no BS guide to recovery, you can get it on Amazon, a book, baby. And it's really got some insightful tools in there.

People are always looking for some type of solution, some way they could relate with someone going through this addiction is a disease of isolation and [00:52:00] loneliness, but the antidote is commitment to connection, commitment to community, commitment to others going through this, and we're here to help others go through this.

Good. 

Greg: Yeah. Good. Thank you. I've always said that as long as the person is willing to make that commitment themselves and willing to take that first step, I think there's a huge community. That's going to be out there to help you. So, but the individual's got to be the one to actually grab the rope, and I've had friends who did not grab the rope and they're not with us anymore.

And I've had friends that have, and they. So there's a huge community out there to help you. You just have to be the one that actually takes that first step. So, but, uh, Dana, anything else to add as well? 

Dana: No, I think David did a great job. It's just our mission to show families. There's another way to live.

We say if you're tired of living the way you're living, there is another way tired of feeling, the way you feeling there is another way. And we there's many paths to recovery. Uh, obviously 12 steps is the [00:53:00] most prominent path alcoholics anonymous or, uh, an Alanon on the family side, but there's so many paths to recovery and so many different ways to get there.

And that's our mission is to help those families find the right path for them so they can feel good about what they're doing and have a happier life and a fulfilled life, living out their passion and purpose without being encumbered and burdened by addiction. 

Greg: Great. Fantastic. Well, David Maryanne and Dana golden.

Uh, thanks so much for coming on, uh, your book addiction rescue, the no BS guide to recovery. You can get it anywhere, and then you can also go to the websites of the life recovery coach.com. Thanks so much for sharing your story. It's it is truly unique to see you guys go through all this hell together and then bring it back in a different way.

And. And then help the world the way you're doing it. So I really appreciate it. So thank you so much. 

Dana: Thank you so much for allowing us to share our story and hopefully we can help some of your 

David: listeners. Yeah, definitely. Thank you, Greg. [00:54:00] Greg was a great man on the podcast, right? Thank 

Greg: you. That is it. My friends.

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