EP:041 The Soberverse: A Deep Dive into Technology-Enabled Recovery Tools

You'll be amazed at the innovative ways technology and addiction recovery can intersect. Join me and my esteemed guest, Dr. Jay from the Soberverse, as we traverse the complex terrain of contingency management in addiction recovery and how Sobercoin, a groundbreaking cryptocurrency, is transforming the recovery journey by rewarding sobriety.

Have you ever considered how radically different international approaches to drug use and addiction are? We take a deep-dive into the revolutionary measures adopted by Portugal and the new schemes being implemented stateside. Stay tuned as we tackle the controversial debate surrounding drug use and its impact on clean time and spiritual growth. Drawing from the experiences of Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, we shed light on the exploration of psychedelic substances in the pursuit of sobriety.

We wrap up the discussion by evaluating the current state of treatment centers, drug courts, and the criminal justice system. Together with Dr. Jay, we reflect on how these avenues can better serve those battling addiction. The show emphasizes the power of connection, cementing its role as the cornerstone of recovery. This episode is an enlightening conversation that seamlessly merges the worlds of technology and addiction recovery, redefining conventional notions and approaches. Tune in and bolster your knowledge about the intricacies of the recovery journey.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:21

Hey guys, are you looking for a backstage pass? How about a behind the scenes look at this podcast? Well, I have exciting news for you. Starting October 1st, we will be opening the doors to the Drunken Worm Podcast and letting our listeners join in the fun and conversation. Check out the different ways that you can support this show and gain access to exclusive content, such as free Drunken Worm Podcast merchandise for one full year. Join an exclusive community where you can talk to other members, vote on upcoming show topics, hear exclusive audio footage from interviews each month, receive a personal shout out on an upcoming episode and stay up to date with the Drunken Worm Podcast monthly newsletter so that you can stay informed about upcoming guests, show topics and community news. With four different pledge options to fit any budget, you can flex your power and become a super fan today. Hi guys, and welcome to this episode of the Drunken Worm Podcast.

Speaker 1: 2:19

My name is Carl, the host of the show, and you are listening to episode number 41, and we are deep into season two now, and I want to thank everybody for listening to the show and subscribing. If you're new to the show and you haven't hit that subscription button yet, go ahead and go into your podcast streaming app and click on the little subscribe button, or maybe it looks like a bell. What that's going to do is it's going to allow you to get updates every time. We publish a new episode every month, so it's going to benefit you. It will help with our ratings, and on Apple Podcasts they do have a rating function, so if you would like to give us a rating, let us know how we're doing, and that's also going to allow other people to find the show Giving us a rating. They have a comment area down there where you can leave a comment and tell us if you're enjoying the content that we're bringing you, or if you would like to see maybe different type of content coming out or different topics. That's a great area to do so. You can also email us at info at thedrunkenwormpodcastcom. I check my emails daily, so if you would like to reach us on that format as well, please feel free to, and you can also visit our website at thedrunkenwormpodcastcom.

Speaker 1: 3:42

We have show information, information about the hosts, information about other projects that I'm working on in the recovery community, so please visit the website, check it out, and we can also reach out to us on Facebook and also LinkedIn, so we have a lot of platforms for you guys to feel a connection with the show. We post on a semi-regular basis on the social media platforms. My truth is that I probably need to work on doing that more, but I'm a one-man band when it comes to the show, so there's a lot of things that go on for each episode that I work on, and sometimes I forget to do the postings on social media, but I do appreciate all the people that are following us on social media. We do have a very good, small, strong following on our social media platforms. So this week we have a wonderful guest lined up. His name is Dr Jonas we call him Dr Jay for short and we're going to be talking a little bit about some new upcoming hot topics in the recovery community when it comes to helping approach the addiction of disease and how we're kind of looking at it now, and so I'm going to let him talk to you guys about his program and all of the different facets that his program has to offer as well. So, without any further ado, let's get started with this week's episode.

Speaker 1: 5:16

Welcome to the Drunken Worm Podcast. Each week, I will be bringing you dynamic content that will educate and inspire. This podcast was created to talk to mental health professionals about addiction recovery and their own personal stories that can help inspire us to become better people and live healthier lives. Welcome to the Drunken Worm Podcast. My name is Carl, the host and creator of this show, and I hope all of you are having a wonderful morning today. Maybe you're out on the treadmill working out at the gym, maybe you're driving to work or maybe you're already at work listening to this episode or at home, but I really appreciate all of you guys taking the time to support the show and listen. On this week's episode, episode 41, we have Dr Jay from the soberverse and we're going to be talking about one of his projects called Sobercoin, and we're going to be discussing contingency management in the recovery community and how the professional community of recovery is approaching this to help people with the disease of addiction. Dr Jay, welcome to the Drunken Worm Podcast, sir.

Speaker 2: 6:21

Thank you, carl. Thank you, and it's so great to be here and be able to discuss something so important with everyone. I look forward to having this get mess and doubt, so thanks again.

Speaker 1: 6:32

Absolutely Well. It's such a pleasure to be on the show with you. You and I have gotten a chance to work a little bit together through your podcast, that is, through the soberverse, so I have a pretty good understanding of all the different facets of what the soberverse is, and there's a lot of areas within that community that you have helped to develop and help build to support the recovery community, and one of those is called Sobercoin. So let's talk a little bit about what Sobercoin is and how it relates to a process called contingency management when we approach helping people with the disease of addiction.

Speaker 2: 7:20

Fantastic. Thanks for that great introduction. So Sobercoin is a cryptocurrency that we are now minting using the Binance Network, and there's some history here. To get everybody caught up, I've been working with the cryptocurrency space since 2016, when it was still some blip on everybody's radar, so you needed a million bitcoins to buy a pizza and subsequently, over the course of the last five years, now you need you know. So that's how our system shifts.

Speaker 2: 8:00

So Sobercoin came out of my idea of where we would be able to use the whole. I'm trying to think of the word that. I'm trying to remember what it is. How do we use the cryptocurrency space to better the attack on the disease of addiction and the scourge on society, and how much it's killing us as a society and how it's determining and ruining families and people that are part of it? So my idea back in 2018, when we first launched, was to reward people for staying sober. I mean, in a nutshell, that was a business model. That was the elevator pitch and I've been, you know, on the cutting edge and often hanging off the cliff of that edge for most of my projects.

Speaker 2: 8:52

So we launched and we made a big splash for a lot of PR, a lot of podcasts, which again, they were also in their agency, and it didn't take off like we had hoped.

Speaker 2: 9:04

The idea when we introduced using a mobile app called Silver Systems as an accountability component, which is what we agreed and research has indicated addicts really benefit from.

Speaker 2: 9:18

Thus the whole idea with the sponsor and home groups etc is accountability. So we created an app where people check in, and then we decided to introduce the crypto as the methodology to reward them for checking in on a consistent basis to report their recovery and their sobriety, and they would get paid, and it can't get really much simpler than that. So then, what they do with the money is really up to them. But as part of the big project, it's created another ancillary project so people can spend their cryptocurrency on other wellness related products and services. So it was really a closed economy, deliberately designed so, and that's the evolution of it, and the orange started way back in 2018 for us and has now evolved to where the state of California had passed a law back in 2021. That contingency management was going to be the new intervention of choice to help people start to address their in-fetamine based use disorder initially, and, of course, it was spread out to other diagnoses as well as across the country.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Well, you know that is so. So I find it really fascinating and actually I really find it invigorating to learn about this new approach. And you know, I have a history of meth use and I was trying to think to myself, like how would I approach this if this system was in place when I got clean? And you know what would it mean to me if somebody said, hey, we're going to pay you to stay sober basically is what they're doing. So right now, the state of California is entering into a pilot program with drug MediCal and they're going to be with 13 counties. They're going to be starting this new program and getting it up and running and over the next, you know, six months to a year, hopefully all the pieces will be in place and all the counties will have started their pilot programs. But what does it mean to pay somebody to stay sober? And how is that different from more traditional approaches with evidence-based practices and those type of things that we currently see in our treatment programs?

Speaker 2: 11:49

Well, the dilemma is that the what we would call traditional treatment interventions, the 12 step facilitation models, has been an abysmal failure and it's been carried on for 30 plus years. In the beginning, when it was originally created, it was the only game in town, and we're talking the 70s and, of course, the heyday in the 80s, before managed care stepped in. You know, the late 80s, early 90s, when I got into recovery, when I got into the industry, when I got into the professional helping game was that, you know, the Minnesota model was it, and anything other than that was heretics and heresy. It was horrible. Anything that did with, you know, treatment centers being therapeutic communities. So you know back then, hey, if you didn't die, that was enough incentives to get clean. Nowadays, that's not enough. That's the scary part about it. Not dying is the bar for people to go to treatment, not to get better but to not die. So paying people is basically a tool. I think last resource for all of us is that we want to incentivize people and pay them to change. Now this particular model has been proven effective in a lot of different controlled settings, way before being adopted by the drug treatment industry. It's been going on with clinical research for smoking cessation, for instance. Now the challenge with paying people to behavioral change is that when we take away that reward, they've regressed to their norm. So this proven effective as well.

Speaker 2: 13:31

So the whole idea and the dilemma that I think the state of California does not foresee and does not yet, is that they have limited funds to work with, and, no matter how much that limited funds is that big a pull, it's still finite and, whoever is coming from, there's only so much around, and so it's going to make a big splash. I think they're going to get a lot of positive results. There'll be a lot of public relations regarding it, a lot of success stories. Then there'll be a lot of abysmal failures of people that are going to continue to regress and return to their drug use. The problem is there's not enough money to be able to distribute Thus the endless supply of cryptocurrency. So that is what's going to set my model apart from everybody else Is that when we want more coins, we can submit them, like going to the Federal Reserve and paying more dollars. They can't do that with Medicaid dollars, they can't do that with public and government funds, whereas I can as a private entrepreneur. So we can keep that supply going, because we need people.

Speaker 2: 14:36

Addicts need at least a year before they get that implemented in trench. Change that, yes. In fact I can live, and I can live a quality life without a drug system. This is new for most everybody. They can't even fathom going out of the house without getting high, let alone sustaining an extended period of time of life and responsibility and growing up without drugs. That's like it's a born. I'm like why would I want to do that when I could just be, you know, addicted to drugs and have other people take care of me? We're asking people to not just give up drugs, but to give up a lifestyle and to let go of immaturity and their responsibility, which is pretty attractive. They do not have to do anything. It's pretty good to not have to pay rent and just get high all day. You know, the fact that they're under potentialized really means nothing to them, because they're so beaten down already. The norm is this is it? This is as good as it gets, sure, so they believe it. They believe that lie.

Speaker 1: 15:40

And I hear everything that you're saying and I agree with you. But there are people out there that are going to say well, you know what, dr J, we're just putting a bandaid on it. We're not really helping these people and we're giving them money to go get more drugs. Right, but correct me if I'm wrong. But if they continue to use, I think the idea is that they're no longer going to be available for services.

Speaker 2: 16:07

Well, that's true. They're not going to check into their systems, See if we use real dollars. There's some argument that, yes, in fact we're giving them money to get high, but we're trying to help them restore the freedom of choice, whether they want to use or not, by attracting them to change, Not mandating change, which never works. So we have to attract that change and it looks good. The grass is really greener on the other side With the crypto component and silver coin. We can continue to sustain that reward mechanism longer and they can actually get entrenched into that new lifestyle for a longer period of time and really get a good handle on it. And they can't just go buy drugs with it, because drug dealers don't take crypto. They have to go through a lot of work in their brain to convert that crypto into real dollars, to get money, and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2: 16:55

We want to create that. You have crypto. Now you can buy a coach. Now you can buy training. Now you can do something to improve the quality of your life. We want halfway houses to take crypto. Now you can get stable housing, which is the most critical component for people to get better, is a freaking address in a shower. They can't do that from a tent and they can't do that from a rest area, they can't do it from Cracker Barrel, Winnebago. They need to have an address. So when we get those systems in place and other providers on board, then we have a chance to make a dent on a large scale, which is what my goal is is to really move the needle, so to speak, not just to get in the game, but move that needle because we can, and it's shame on us for not doing it sooner.

Speaker 1: 17:41

Right and I always feel that we're kind of behind the ball a little bit when it comes to just being in front of the curve, as you put it, because we are always behind the curve, it feels like when it comes to approaching addiction treatment. A lot of the states years ago said, well, we're not going to treat the disease, we're just going to lock everyone up. So that put a huge strain on our criminal justice system and nothing got better. People were filling up the prisons, costing the taxpayers billions of dollars every year, and they still weren't addressing the idea of how do we treat this disease that some people say there's no known cure for. But we do have the ability to develop coping mechanisms. We have the ability to learn different ways to manage the disease and keep it arrested in our lives. So earlier you said the 12 step programs were a well, the 12 step approach. Do you consider that to be a viable resource that can go along with contingency management as a tool for people to use in a support group, in a network?

Speaker 2: 19:07

12 step facilitation and 12 step models have their place, but they had been identified as the panacea and every treatment center was using, basically introducing clients to something that's free in the community. So when we look at the history of 12 step model, it was all free, there was no cost involved, and then the treatment centers adopted that and the insurance companies colluded with that and made it real. And the success rate however you measure success, which at that point was a year's abstinence with success, was like what? 9%? I mean it's like you can't do that with cancer, you can't do that with any other disease and stay in business. So it's just been this one clusterfuck of collusion with the insurance companies and Medicare and it's all driven by the dollar and not really by people's well-being. So I mean that's a tangent. I probably don't want to get on too deep my attitude towards the treatment center industry and how they have perpetuated this nonsense that if you come here you're going to get better. No, you're going to come here and not die for 30 days or 90 days and then we're going to help you maybe, but once you leave you are not a revenue stream for us. So we're really going to tell you we care, but we really don't, and I only know this because having been a part of it for 30 years and watching this horrible thing occur day after day after day. So we all know when people want to get better, it doesn't matter whether it's the most luxurious place in the world or a tent on the side of the road. When they're ready to give up the high cost of low living, they'll do anything. And whether it's a 12 step model and then a meeting where it's just that one person, because that's what's missing. Addiction leads to social isolation yes, absolutely. And when they don't have that person other than another using body which is not a using body but just another way to get more, they have no way out. There's no guide, there's no stopgap for them. So that's that.

Speaker 2: 21:15

So again back to the coin. When we incentivize people and give them an opportunity to be their best self for an extended period of time and they find themselves with their feet under them for the first time and both of us are our own success stories to tell, we know that. We know what worked and what wasn't that worked. It wasn't that we ran out of drugs because we could always get more. When we ran out of money because we could always figure out ways to get more. It was about that person.

Speaker 2: 21:42

Somewhere along the line whatever it is that we believe in presented that one person that we latched onto and drank their Kool-Aid and drank that Kool-Aid whatever they had to offer, and that's what did it. And then we may have outgrown that person or not, or they could still be in our lives, but that was a hook that somebody believed in us when we didn't believe in ourselves anymore. And no matter how many creative interventions we come up with, that's the linchpin of it all is linking that person with that addict, with somebody, and whoever that person is, whether we call them a coach, a counselor, a therapist, a case manager, a parole officer. My method on counselor was my person. Yeah, because I said to her I said look, I got this letter in the mail, I got an opportunity to get on a plane and go to Florida and save my life. And she said let me give you cab fare to the airport right now. I said, well, I can't, I got to this. I got to that. Shut the fuck up and get in the car.

Speaker 1: 22:47

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 22:49

That's how it went and, yeah, I dicked around for the rest of the day chasing cocaine, right, but I did get on the plane that night.

Speaker 1: 22:56

And I never.

Speaker 2: 22:57

I never looked back and I'm glad to say it'll be 35 years November 1st that I'd landed in Palm Beach County and haven't picked up since because I became teachable. That was the other key ingredient being teachable and letting go of this grandiose ego craziness in my brain that you know I'm a sober liberty.

Speaker 1: 23:22

Sober liberty oh my gosh. How many I you know? That just makes me laugh, because I'm I'm thinking about.

Speaker 2: 23:32

That's my new word. That's my new word.

Speaker 1: 23:34

That's going to be the word of the day. Okay, so everybody out there, if you felt that you were a sober liberty, please email the show and let us know how that's changed your perspective now that you're in recovery.

Speaker 2: 23:47

We want to talk to you. We want to talk to you because we want to hear that story of how you became a sober liberty, because everybody wants to be Ben Affleck who can freaking use whenever he wants and go to treatment whenever he wants and still maintain a multimillion dollar income.

Speaker 1: 24:03

I want to be that guy, right, right.

Speaker 2: 24:06

I want to be that guy who the insurance companies are so banked on.

Speaker 1: 24:10

I want to be that guy Right, but he's he looks.

Speaker 2: 24:14

He doesn't look happy, I don't care, he doesn't look happy in his eyes, he just doesn't look happy.

Speaker 1: 24:19

Well, I mean even look at. Oh gosh, who's the other actor that was recently in all the press with the court case from Pirates of the Caribbean? Oh, what was his name?

Speaker 2: 24:31

Johnny Depp, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:34

Yeah, oh my gosh, that's a mess yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:38

Characters in action. Yeah, he's an unmanageable mess. But then you read about Eminem, who, what we read about, he's a 12 step in full. He's a 12 step anybody. I mean. He is so drenched in recovery now it's just amazing. And and he, his art only got better. It did only got better. Yeah, he only got more insightful and more articulate in terms of his commentary on society. No, he didn't take a hit at all. And that's the biggest struggle with every artist I work with and its own drugs is that they think the arts going to go. I said it's only going to get better and I could say trust me all day, but that's like he used car salesman. Yeah, so that doesn't work, yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:16

No, and so and it's, it's so amazing. So let me ask you this so we're talking about contingency management and the other thing that pops into my head is, you know, the idea that we're putting a bandaid on something. So here in California we have an, and Canada is really doing this, and I read an article in counselor magazine through one of our providers out here, a C cap, who manages the licensing and licensures of counselors here in California for the addiction professionals, and there was an article in there and it was talking about how Canada would have these using centers where they were actually dosing people with heroin and they were giving them, you know, a good quality heroin versus a street quality, because they knew where it came from, what was in it, it wasn't filled with fentanyl and it wasn't going to fucking kill people out there, right. And so that harm reduction approach is that also considered to be a harm reduction approach, the way that we're looking at using contingency management to help people manage their addiction and hopefully gain some skills to stay sober?

Speaker 2: 26:39

Yes, yes, you can classify every intervention now into a harm reduction philosophy, because total abstinence is not going to be an effective model for most especially this younger generation. If there's such a thing, I don't even know where that cut off is anymore, because they started using it like 10 or 11 and they're already introduced to excess in the porn and the addiction. You know that pathway for rewards starts so young. So regardless of that, so we're talking about, you know, management. We're always going to be a harm reduction management model where we're not going to look at, you know, the only measure of success and it wasn't until Natap redefined recovery, after however many decades of me which, in my opinion, wherever it went where it was really about improving the quality of your life, there's so many people that can actually use it safely and you know I'm not one of them, I don't even want to risk trying to be one of them, but they can manage their lives long as they don't do certain things Right. Yes, there's a professor at a Columbia University who is a big proponent of weekend heroin injection and he travels around the country saying he uses and he's a big crack addict. He just doesn't use crack anymore because he can't, but he shoots heroin and talks about it on talk shows and he's a big proponent of people who can actually use because abstinence is a realistic goal. So the dilemma is the 12 step facilitation model. Set it up. Then, if you use, you lose and you give up your clean time and you no longer grow and you no longer are spiritual. And that's just not true. That's a myth that's been created Because when people really study the history of Bill Wilson, they see that he was so smart.

Speaker 2: 28:28

He was looking at ayahuasca before they called it, that he was looking at psilocybin and LSD. Way back then he was doing Xanax. Well, it wasn't Xanax, yeah, it was the value, yeah, and it was Milltown, it was all the other things, because this is a bipolar guy and it's like running around trying to keep this shit together and not use alcohol. So he was great, grasping at any straw he could to not drink and anything that would work, work. And he didn't say, well, I'm not a recovering alcohol again anymore because I use all these other chemicals.

Speaker 1: 29:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:01

You know, you know, and the people that really really are purists know this about that history and and have an open mind, because that's what it's supposed to be. You're supposed to be open-minded to whatever works for the individual. It doesn't mean it generalizes to everybody, sure.

Speaker 1: 29:18

Sure. Well, this is. This is so exciting to have you on the show today and it's very exciting to learn about this, this new program that is starting to Roll out in a lot of different states throughout the US and they have seen success. I believe up in Canada and correct me if I'm wrong, if you know, but I think Canada has seen a lot of success with this and I'm sure other countries have as well. It wouldn't be surprised me at all if you know Norway or maybe the Netherlands or one of those countries over there, because they are very kind of cutting edge with the way that they approach health care and for the community. So let's talk a little bit about One aspect of sure. Go ahead, dr.

Speaker 2: 30:04

Let me just interrupt you for a sec. So the other countries? Obviously you know they grow up. Their introduction to substances is a whole different attitude. Right from the beginning, portugal, as we know, set the tone and legalized everything. Right. They just legalized everything and their drug problem decreased. They actually took money that they were spending to criminalize and lent it to drug dealers. They would let drug dealers come to the bank and borrow money because they know how entrepreneurial they are.

Speaker 2: 30:33

Yeah right yeah, of course they're good at making money right, and so they would lend them money to make things better. And the prisons are emptying out because you're not aggravating themselves with stupid stuff, because these are nonviolent people, you just they're just lost in terms of their own journey in life and and so that's. And so now Portland, oregon, as our model city, has done similar things and it's working in the sense of the data they collect, which, again, let me just Premises that data that they're collecting my research and governments is always skewed to say what they wanted to say, right, usually, and if they put out the truth then probably everybody would kill themselves, so you know. So we want to buy into whatever we think is going to make us feel better and and basically Sooth us so we can function and and keep our denial and check, because otherwise, without that, we would all be in trouble, sure, so so Portland's working.

Speaker 2: 31:30

They're using psilocybin and there's no contingency management, because the laws of attraction are what's working and what's operating, and the attraction is to change in growth and growth and contribution, contribution to the community, not to be an outlier and to be a stone thrower, but let's see what we, we as a collective, can fix together to make it better. We and that includes the less fortunate and includes the wealth you know. So there's those two extremes that people can coexist, you know, that's the whole idea. Whether whatever religion would ever release Whatever gender, whatever sexual present, it doesn't matter, because everybody's in the same boat Calls humanity right. That's the idea.

Speaker 1: 32:13

Yeah, well, you know it's. It's so interesting to see this progression of New approaches to treating addiction. One of the ways that you guys are approaching it with sober coin and you made mention of this earlier is that with the cryptocurrency, now the person that is receiving the currency can reinvest in their own recovery so they can go and pay for coaching, they can go and pay for therapy, they can go and and return the money into a sober living house or a sober living environment where they're staying. So this isn't just putting money into their pocket. We're actually creating a whole system, network where now the attic is being able to support their own recovery with other tools.

Speaker 2: 33:04

So that's the idea, is that people have to know responsible for themselves, right? It says right in all the 12-step stuff.

Speaker 2: 33:11

Yeah you are responsible for your recovery. You're not responsible for your disease, but you are responsible for your recovery. Therefore, you need to reinvest in getting better. We gave them tools with our model. With sober network, we have a coaching school for people to train. We have a coaching program for people who are trained to be coaches. We had a house that we were using an accepting crypto because I had to do a small-scale model to show that the idea worked.

Speaker 2: 33:38

You know one of those and again, attracting somebody with an envision like me, or buying into the vision and seeing it is painstaking because it's very, very Expensive on every level. Right, because I had to be consumed with it in order to make that sale of people to buy into it and to listen. So when you're coming from left field, they just keep you out there if they can, because they don't want to rock the world. When I created the mobile app sober systems in 2011 and was recognized by Samhsa with with a medication management grand prize award Of for Suboxone, oops. And if they relapse, where do they need to go Back to the same center? So the center needs to connect. Right, they need to connect with that client when they discharge, but that's not what happens. They send them across the country to an halfway house and that's it Done. Next, next, next, fill the bed. And that doesn't serve the client, it doesn't serve the family and it's a sabotage. They set up the fail, but the treatment center gets paid right. That's the bottom line. So I got very disillusioned because I beat my head against the wall and my pocketbook, banging on the doors of the treatment centers to implement the change.

Speaker 2: 35:03

Some did, most didn't. Probation said we can't use this because it will displace people's employment and get replaced by a machine. I said well, you better buckle up, because that's what's happening with AI. You know the drug courts, the most important component over the community and the criminal justice. I said here's a tool. You could do this electronically. You don't need bodies. And they're like this is great, but we can't do this. We don't have any money. I said make the defendant pay for it. Well, that's too cumbersome. And I'm like are you kidding me? You just don't want to do change. Just tell me that. Don't tell me you're going to do this. And then I gave them look, I'll give you a way to pay for it and they can get better out of your courtroom. We don't want that, then we want to have jobs.

Speaker 1: 35:51

Yeah, it's always. It's going uphill without a paddle man.

Speaker 2: 35:57

Oh man, it's so much fun to watch this happen and to continue to tip it with those because we know I know from my experience now that everything that I saw, however many years, is happening, and that's the reward Everything management was passed by law. I was so excited I almost I couldn't stop dancing for like months because this was going to happen. And then I realized that the county administrators had no idea what they were doing and no idea what this meant, and it was a learning curve. And now, a year later, they're going to try to put a trial in place without the proper software and the proper reward by mechanism. But I'm going to take what I can get and bang on the doors until they're listened and hear that this is the way to do it. And I'm not that smart that I'm the only one.

Speaker 2: 36:44

There's other people that have seen this and are also poised and ready, I think, to make the dent and move that needle, because contingency management has been going on in the prison system since they started it Right. The guards are like if you do this right, you'll get more exercise time and you clean this hallway, you'll get to see your partner, and that's how they evolve the conjugal visits, and that's how they evolve to a parole and to halfway houses, and that's where all this comes from is criminal justice. So there's nothing new. It's the adoption of things that have been in place and affected for many, many years. It's just finally waking up that what they've been doing is not really working like they want people to believe it as Exactly.

Speaker 1: 37:28

Exactly. Well, man, this is such a great topic, and what I would like to suggest to you, dr J, is I'd like to revisit this topic in six months and talk about the progression of the sober coin and kind of get an update on where you guys are at with it. If we've seen any data coming out of California, I'm sure it's probably going to take some time before they start releasing numbers.

Speaker 1: 37:56

But I think it would be very interesting to touch base again and kind of see where the industry is going with all of this.

Speaker 2: 38:03

Right, and remember they went from a 30 day model to a 90 day extended care with halfway houses. I mean this was all fragmented until it became one continuous continuum of care. And now it's IOP and PHP that came out of Florida. We call it the Florida model and I know the guy that originated this extended care model and it was an amazingly effective model. It was better than any residential treatment I'd ever been in where every minute of your day was accounted for. Yes, and when you do that, you are setting yourself up to fail and eventually use again. So if you had to toe the line and it was really critical and he was really really good at it and a pioneer, a pioneer beyond others in. You know that's what it takes. It takes, you know, the first one through the wall is using the bloodiest one.

Speaker 1: 38:54

That's what I've learned.

Speaker 2: 38:55

Yes, yeah. Well, all right, six months. It is coming in sometime in March.

Speaker 1: 39:00

Yes.

Speaker 2: 39:00

So all right.

Speaker 1: 39:02

That'll be on the calendar. That'll be fantastic and I'm really looking forward to having you back on the show. I want to thank you very much for taking the time today. I know you're on your lunch break. It's 12 o'clock in Florida and nine o'clock here in California, so I appreciate you taking the time with us. You're welcome.

Speaker 2: 39:19

Thank you for giving me a voice, because this is I'm seeking here from the intensity. I'm really passionate about this and we can we can make it happen. It's not a, it's not a one man job. This is just as a collective that we can move that needle and see a lot of people get better and be their best selves.

Speaker 1: 39:35

All right. So if if anybody would like to get information about the show, we're going to list all the information in the show notes. But, Dr J, can you tell them how to find more information about sober coin and the silver verse?

Speaker 2: 39:47

Well, I have a number of websites, but most importantly the soberversecom www. Soberversecom. Everything is there because that's the direction it's headed. I think we grabbed that as fast as we could because we want to be a collective. We have recoverycoachescom, sobercom for Leaves and Jen to find information. We, you know, we have sober systems, your mobile app free download and, of course, my email is Jonas at sobernetworkcom and I'm pretty responsive, so have at it.

Speaker 1: 40:17

All right, dr J, thank you very much for coming on the show today.