Breaking Free: Layne LoMaglio From Struggles to Strength

Layne LoMaglio's journey from addiction to recovery is as inspiring as it is cautionary, and his story begins with a box of wine at age 12. This episode promises to unravel the complexities of mental health struggles and the winding path to sobriety. Join us as Layne shares his personal battle with clinical depression and self-harm, alongside his early experiences with alcohol. Host Matt Brown adds a heartfelt dimension by recounting his daughter's struggles with anxiety, underscoring the necessity of compassion and understanding when supporting young people. Through these shared experiences, we explore the vital role of family and therapy in healing.

Layne's story takes us through the challenges of relapse, the impact of a rigid recovery mindset, and the ultimate redemption found in flexibility and community support. From the initial failure of a sober apartment plan in Austin to success in Kerrville, Layne's narrative is one of resilience and adaptability. His evolution from operations to founding Helm Recovery highlights the importance of lived experience in intervention and coaching roles. Together, Lane and Matt discuss the intertwined nature of substance use and mental health, offering insights into how thoughtful interventions can pave the way for lasting change.

Contact Layne at Helm Recovery or book a private coaching session with him at Intervention on Call.

Chapters

• 0:00 Addiction Intervention Podcast With Matt Brown
• 11:00 Recovery, Relapse, and Redemption
• 20:05 Mental Health and Recovery Discussion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Party Wreckers podcast, hosted by seasoned addiction interventionist, Matt Brown. This is a podcast for families or individuals with loved ones who are struggling with addiction or alcoholism. Perhaps they are reluctant to get the help that they need. We are here to educate and entertain you while removing the fear from the conversation. Stick with us and we will get you through it. Welcome the original party wrecker, Matt Brown party wrecker Matt Brown.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to 2025. This is our first episode of the podcast here in 2025. I hope everybody had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I have a guest in studio today, or I guess it's a virtual studio. He's in Austin, texas, and I'm here in Bend, oregon. But I have a guest today that's joining me. His name is Lane Lamalio. He is one of the providers with me on Intervention On Call and, during the course of our time together coaching families on Intervention On Call, I have gotten to know him. I consider him a friend. Ladies and gentlemen, lane Lamalio, how are you, lane?

Speaker 3: 1:20

Thank you man, I'm doing well, doing great and, uh, really excited to be on here and to talk about whatever we're going to talk about.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Um, sounds good. Yeah, I, you know there's a few things that I want to get into. Obviously I want everybody listening to kind of get to know who you are and you know we'll dig into kind of the deep, deep, dark past that most of us as interventionists share in terms of our own addiction and recovery, and then we can talk a little bit about how you got into this line of work. But tell me a little bit about where you come from, kind of a little bit about your background, how you got into your life as far as you know an active drug addiction or alcoholism, wherever you want to start.

Speaker 3: 2:00

Yeah, well, I was. I'm one of the few remaining born and raised in Austin, texas people. So I was born here, went to school here and started my addiction with a box wine my mom's box wine in the fridge when I was about 12 years old. You know you remember the Boda boxes oh yeah, old um. You know you remember the like boda boxes? Oh yeah, yeah, you have the bag. Yeah yeah, uh, we so I would. I would drink a little bit of that and, uh, never really had, you know, any kind of feeling before that. You know people talk about, you know they, they had that drink and it was a moment for me it wasn't so much, it wasn't so much that, as much as it was, oh, this, this feels, this feels pretty cool. You know, this feels a little bit different than what I was feeling. It wasn't this dying inside yet.

Speaker 2: 3:00

At 12 years old, it's. It's hard to make that connection. It's just, yeah, it makes sense that it was like oh, this is nice.

Speaker 3: 3:06

It didn't take long, though it did not take long From there. Just a couple years after that, my mental health took a dive and started suffering from clinical depression and self-harming. So it wasn't so much the substances, it wasn't just that, it was a lot of other things.

Speaker 2: 3:28

Can I ask a little bit about that? Yeah, so you're probably somewhere at this point, 12, 13, 14 years old.

Speaker 3: 3:35

Yeah, about 14.

Speaker 2: 3:37

Okay, so at 14 years old, you start displaying signs or feelings of depression. Displaying signs or feelings of of depression how, how did you make that that move into? Oh, if I, if I hurt myself like what I think a lot of young people I guess what I'm getting at a lot of young people go through this and parents that might be listening to this right now may may make that connection. Like I see my young teen struggling. I was just going through this during the holidays with my 16 year struggling.

Speaker 2: 4:04

I was just going through this during the holidays with my 16 year old. She was really struggling with anxiety and and I remember even having this conversation with her and she was like dad, I just if, if I could hurt on the outside, it would make the hurt on the inside not feel so bad. And for a 16 year old to really kind of have that moment where she could articulate that I was like, oh my gosh, you don't understand how profound that is. It's amazing. I made that pain go away with drugs and alcohol and I want you to know, as father to daughter here, I know what that pain feels like and I'm so grateful that you're able to talk to me about this right now. So at 14 years old, what was that like for you?

Speaker 3: 4:51

Well, I can tell you that your daughter is very, very fortunate to have a father like you that's meeting her where she's at, like that, and for anybody, any parents that are listening, that are experiencing that. That's how you do it Curiosity and compassion and care, Because that's exactly what it is. It is that pain I got. I got two kids. I have a four-year-old and 11-year-old, and just you telling me about you, just saying that about your daughter and thinking about my son and my daughter and my daughter, and if that ever happens like it's just, it makes me cry.

Speaker 2: 5:33

And listen. I don't want to take any credit for that conversation. She's a pretty amazing kid. I'm just lucky to have a daughter that can talk and like understand. She's been in therapy for a little while now and I think she's a lot more comfortable than I was at that age having those conversations. So I don't want to take a lot of credit for that. She's just a pretty, pretty good, cool kid.

Speaker 3: 5:55

Well, okay, we'll let people decide where the where the credit goes on that one Um, but for me, what it was like was like. It was that feeling. It was like, you know, if I can just feel, distract myself essentially, you know, distract my mind from feeling the pain and suffering that's happening inside, and I was not met with the care and compassion that you're talking about. I was met more with punitive action, and that was not met with the care and compassion that you're talking about. I was met more with punitive action, and that was actually the start. That wasn't the start. I was 14.

Speaker 3: 6:33

A lot of traumas happened before that. And another thing for any parents that are listening anytime we mention traumas or anything like that, it doesn't. How do I say this Trauma? You need to. I like to replace the word blame with responsibility and where that lies. My parents did the best they could with what they had, with what they knew to do. Um, I don't blame them at all for anything in any of what I've gone through, but I was punished for having those feelings not necessarily having those feelings, but that's the way it was internalized.

Speaker 3: 7:15

The music that I was listening to was this metal band from Finland that talks about death. All the time I read Anne Rice books, I thought I was a vampire. I was, I was a weird kid, um, and all that was taken away. Uh, and not once was the question asked what's going on, how are you doing? You know, what do you, what do you feel, what do you feel the need for for? And when I say, meet it with compassion and curiosity. That's what I mean, it's just anybody who's got kids, just be curious, be curious about everything. And so the self-harming. I quickly realized that while I only have so much skin that I can cut before, uh, you know, people are going to really notice. And so, uh, that's when I got more into cocaine and Xanax and alcohol. Those were my, my three, my three big ones.

Speaker 2: 8:18

How old were you? I know you started drinking at 12, but when did you start getting into other substances?

Speaker 3: 8:23

Uh, other substances was about probably say 15 15, because I remember my dad used to drive me the first time I got in trouble. So I, I, my addiction was progressive, my recovery was progressive, and so the first time I got in trouble, uh, my dad started driving me to uh 101, the old Club 101 here in Austin, and I remember he would drop me off and I would leave in the middle when I passed the basket and go do some coke and then go back inside and so I gradually progressed into IOPs and then inpatient and all of that. But about 14, 15, 14 was the self-harming and 15 kind of got into. You know it's hard to really put a solid timeline on it but I can say by the time I was a senior in high school I was real heavy into Xanax, drinking and doing. Cocaine trashed.

Speaker 3: 9:32

An Audi TT that was my friend's car who was too messed up to go get the Coke. So here's the keys and I didn't know how to drive stick, so that ended up in the middle of that big intersection in Steiner Ranch Anybody knows where that is and that was an embarrassing moment. And then kind of just it was all a big Xanax blur. Anybody who's done. Xanax like that knows that you just don't remember a whole lot. I do remember waking up. My parents divorced when I was two, and so my mom and stepdad were living out in Marble Falls and I remember waking up there with all my stuff there and just thinking, well, I guess I, I guess I live here now and just continue doing my thing out there and ended up getting a DWI, and that's when I made the decision to go to inpatient treatment for the first time. So I was 18 when I got sober.

Speaker 2: 10:37

So let me ask you, as you're a teenager and getting dropped off at the club, where they're doing 12-step meetings and obviously if you're leaving and getting high during the meetings, you weren't necessarily engaged but at what point did any of that, if at all, start rubbing off on you and and how did that impact your decision to go get treatment?

Speaker 3: 10:57

it wasn't. It wasn't until I was actually in treatment. Okay, um, because in treatment I had this grand plan, me and these two other clients, and they had a grand plan of we were going to get an apartment in Austin. Uh, it was going to be a sober apartment but a little bit of Xanax was allowed and, um, you know, we have some parameters around it, right, and um, I started going through the steps with my counselor, who is Christine Calvert. Anybody knows her.

Speaker 2: 11:31

Are you kidding me? I used to work with Christine at the Arbor.

Speaker 3: 11:33

She's fantastic.

Speaker 2: 11:35

She lives up here in Oregon now.

Speaker 3: 11:37

Yeah, she was my counselor when I was 18, when she was first starting out. That's awesome. So she actually took me through the steps the first time while I was in, while I was in there. And so those other two clients left that we had this whole plan with, and naturally the plan fell apart because none of us had anything, any money or any any way to make that happen. And um, and she said, uh, what about? What about Kerrville? What about going to do sober, living in Kerrville? I said I'm going back to Austin, I'm from Austin, I'm an Austin guy, I was this little hippie, hipster, kid, musician and all that. So Kerrville had nothing to offer me and she said why don't we work on it a little bit, stay a little bit longer? And so I stayed 39 days in treatment, nine days extra than I was supposed to, Because at that point she had me working on my fourth step.

Speaker 3: 12:37

And the fourth step blew my mind. Anybody who doesn't know what the fourth step is it's when you take a personal inventory. You look at all your resentments, your fears, your relationships, stuff like that. But I didn't know what the word resentment meant. And I wasn't an angry person, Of course not.

Speaker 2: 12:56

Yeah, I wasn't angry, but when- I just listened to Finish Death Metal and cut myself. I'm not angry.

Speaker 3: 13:04

Oh, it's sad. It's sad. It was the pain. You know it turns into. It manifests in different ways. Sure, a lot of people it comes out as anger, but Christine actually told me. She said if you're not angry, that's okay. Let's look at the word resentment. You know where does it come from, what's the etymology around it. You know it comes from the word reason, toray, which is to refill in Latin. And so she asked me are you, are you still feeling anything from from your past? And I just broke down. I was like I'm feeling everything.

Speaker 3: 14:05

No-transcript, I'm still in Kerrville and I had found, I guess I was 18. You know, I didn't really have a life back here in Austin. I mean, my life was, uh, the guy. I was the guy in Cedar park who, uh, who you could get some stuff from. That was it Um. And so I'd found my tribe. You know we hear that all the time and and and uh program. I found my people and that's really what happened is, uh, I found people that I could relate with and relate to Um. And you know, I found uh, I found a group and a calling and started working in treatment, started working at the treatment center that I went to as soon as I won't say any names as soon as they turned a blind eye and didn't wait the two years to hire me and went ahead and started as the overnight PhD and I was the cool tech back then. I was the one that all the clients loved because I didn't follow all the rules, being 19 at that point, yeah. But yeah, I started. I started working in treatment at 19 and in operations and so I did that treatment center, another one, one that you've worked at, uh, you know all the way up to uh, to when I came back to Austin after that after those three years and was sober for five and a half years total at that stint, um, and there's a. So I have nine years now and the big difference and I like to really emphasize this when I talk with families and coaching clients is there's nothing wrong with any way that anybody does the steps or works the program or anything like that. What can be dangerous is when you say it's the only way that it can be done.

Speaker 3: 16:15

And the way that I was raised in recovery in Kerrville was that this is the way. At least, that was my perception. I'm not going to say that that's the way it actually was. But my perception was, you know, I got sober when my space was around in 07. And I was so afraid to post my status because I had a little drop down where you had to put how you feel and if you weren't happy, joyous and free all the time, you were doing something wrong. Pray about it. You write some inventory. You need to go help somebody. Like you couldn't just sit in your sadness, like you couldn't just be sad, you couldn't be angry. Um and again, that was just my perception of it. That was the way that I internalized it. And so when I moved back to Austin, there was a big exodus from Kerrville. A bunch of us, you know, came back home here to Austin and I believe that it was that rigorous it has to be this way type of recovery that brought me back out.

Speaker 3: 17:34

I ended up drinking again at five and a half years sober, and that's a whole. The whole relapse was about two years, got some extra charges, caught a couple of felonies, uh, one stint at another treatment center, homelessness and uh. And then prison. Prison was my, my first year of sobriety this time and uh, it was for uh, like unauthorized use of a credit card and uh possession, okay. But during that relapse was when I found IV methamphetamine use and that's a whole different monster. That took me down. In about nine months I got picked up by Curve LPD and you know, whenever people in meetings would talk about you know, using a needle is different than getting sober from the needle is different than other things.

Speaker 3: 18:39

I'd always call them out because I'd never used a needle and I'm like, ah, it's all the same. It's all the same, call them out because I'd never used a needle on my eye. It's all the same, it's all the same. It's really. You know, you look at the way that and with what we do like. That's why it's so important for for us to really understand and get a full, full picture, detailed picture of what's really going on, what the person is really using, how, how they're using it, what, what their whole I can't think of the word what their whole kind of ritual, their whole thing is.

Speaker 2: 19:13

Have you ever seen that movie, the Salton Sea, with Val Kilmer and Vincent D'Onofrio?

Speaker 3: 19:19

No.

Speaker 2: 19:20

Man. I have never seen a movie that depicts as accurately as that one does what it's like to be an IV methamphetamine user and be in that world. It's so incredibly accurate and graphic. Now don't get me wrong, it's a Hollywood movie and there's some sensationalism there. But if anybody wants to kind of get a snapshot into what methamphetamine-induced psychosis looks like, go watch that movie. The Salton Sea and and uh, trust me, it's uh, you know I didn't see it until after I got sober, but but man, is it accurate?

Speaker 3: 19:56

Yeah, I haven't seen the movie, but I mean I trust you it is. It is a very scary, scary time. I guess it's a good opportunity to kind of talk about that, because that is a big thing with a lot of the families that I work with and that I know you work with too. Is that? Is there mental health involved in this? Because not only does meth cause psychosis, but Delta-8, Delta-9 can cause psychosis.

Speaker 2: 20:30

THC. I see a lot of THC and do psychosis right now.

Speaker 3: 20:33

Yeah, Just weed drinking when you drink over a prolonged period of time, anything that keeps you up or brings you down and keeps you out of equilibrium for any period of time, anything that keeps you up or brings you down and keeps you out of equilibrium for any period of time can cause psychosis, and I think that's probably so. I also do mental health interventions. So people with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorders, thought disorders, I do that as well and I think that's probably why, because I I relate with being out of this reality that much to the point where the house that I was squatting and was you know how, to how to empty the lot behind it, and I would, I would look out there and there'd be all of these people, just shadows of people, and they were there. I mean, they were there, man, they weren't just like, oh yeah, like they were there and, uh, they would chase me, they.

Speaker 3: 21:37

It's scary stuff. It is, um, very, very scary. And which is another reason why it's really helpful, important because there was a mental health aspect. Uh, the lead interventionist on it uh allowed the family to execute it that day. Uh, shouldn't have been done that day. Uh, I ended up chasing this kid up like seven flights of stairs and tackling him to the ground as he was going over the railing, and so, yeah, bad things can happen if, uh, that's not done thoughtfully and, you know, carefully and just in an educated way. You.

Speaker 2: 22:42

Well, I know you. You had started kind of talking about your relapse and getting introduced into, you know the the world of IV meth use and having had some time in prison. But how long after you got out of prison and at what point did you decide? You know what I want to get into intervention work and what was your path into this kind of into this field?

Speaker 3: 23:03

So when I got out because I had been in recovery for for five years before and so it's all I really knew, it's all the people that I knew. And so when I got out that those are the people that I went back to, and uh, one of my buddies uh was like hey, why don't you come to recovery in the Park? I'll introduce you to my boss. I just started working at this cool new treatment center. I immediately got back into treatment. Having felonies and a really dark past really helps when you're trying to get a job at a treatment center.

Speaker 2: 23:42

It's almost a prerequisite.

Speaker 3: 23:44

It definitely is. We don't want any of those clean-cut people. We need people that have done some time.

Speaker 2: 23:51

When the interview question is how badly did you burn your life to the ground and have you done?

Speaker 3: 23:54

it badly enough.

Speaker 2: 23:57

You know you're in good company.

Speaker 3: 23:58

yeah, yeah, yeah. So I started working at a treatment center here in Austin. I worked at several when I moved back to Austin before relapsing. Then when I got out of prison, my buddy who actually funny story I used to sponsor him. Then after I relapsed he sponsored me. So we had a little switcheroo there. Okay, he sponsored me, and so they had a little little switcheroo there.

Speaker 3: 24:24

Okay, um and uh, so I started working in treatment again back in operations.

Speaker 3: 24:29

That's all I really knew, um, and I started getting started getting a little bit more educated on the clinical side of things, on the uh, the um, uh, regulation side of things, uh, kind of looking at the whole picture of a treatment center and worked at several different places, up to, you know, director of marketing, director of operations, executive director, and the higher I hire, the more positions I change, the further away I got from, you know, the actual clients.

Speaker 3: 25:07

I did schedule time in my calendar to go walk around the facility to to meet with people and talk with people, um, and through some some decisions that were not mine, uh, you know, I I was allowed to take a step back and look at what do I really want to do? Is this the road that I want to stay on, or do I want to seek out something else? And so I had a couple of friends who had been doing coaching for a little bit recovery coaching and so I said you know what? That's actually exactly why I started working in treatment. You know, because everybody starts out as a tech, right? You know the guy, the person that's driving the van to the meetings.

Speaker 2: 25:58

That's where I started, yeah.

Speaker 3: 26:00

Yeah, and you're, you're there with the clients, you're talking with them and you know they're asking you questions about recovery or not recovery. And you're there with the clients, You're talking with them and they're asking you questions about recovery or not recovery and you're just building rapport and talking with them. I was like that's what I'm going to do. So I started my company, Helm Recovery, and I'm on IOC and we're all individual providers on there and we're all individual providers on there.

Speaker 3: 26:25

I started home recovery back in 2020 during COVID I think it was right after the height of COVID and started out with coaching. And then I started looking at my experience in the treatment industry and it's all coaching, it's all AMA blocking and and working with the families and talking with you. Know, it all kind of comes into this, what we do here, Um, and so I got certified as a uh, I'm a nationally certified recovery coach and nationally certified intervention professional, and so what brought me into this is all of that, yeah, All of that and then some. And since then, I've worked with families all over the country and a lot of families here, local in Austin, With IOC. We have people all over the country and so it's really cool to have a really wide network. A really wide net, Um, but yeah, that's uh kind of how I got where I'm at now.

Speaker 2: 27:39

Well, it's been my pleasure to work with you at intervention on call and to to you know, we do these every Thursday night. We do a free friends and family session where anybody who's got a loved one in crisis in active addiction can come and and get some live coaching from one of us or many of us, depending on how many of the interventionists are on the call that night. But you've been on many of the same coaching sessions that I've been on and it's just been really good to hear you give families feedback and we're so aligned in many of the things that we are doing with families. But I can honestly say that I've learned a lot by hearing you talk to families and I think you're a real asset to the families that we get on that platform. And I do just want to say thank you for the influence that you bring to the group and to those Thursday night calls, and anybody in the Austin area or elsewhere in the country who you know feels like Lane might be able to help them with their loved one. I want to encourage you to reach out to him. I'll put your contact information for Helm Recovery. I'll put your page on intervention on call in the show notes. So so people know how to get ahold of you and I just think that you're a phenomenal interventionist but just a really good human being.

Speaker 2: 28:53

You and I have had opportunities to speak about other things besides business along the way, and just you know you're a mountain of a man.

Speaker 2: 29:03

You know. You know you're a mountain of a man, you know in a physical way, but you're also just a very you bring a sensitivity that I don't think a lot of people expect from a man that looks like you. Uh, that has kind of the background that you have. You know, not not many men who have gone to prison feel very comfortable sitting down and talking about their feelings or letting other people talk about their feelings. And you know you, you just you possess a lot of qualities that just make you a good interventionist and a good human being, and I'm I'm lucky to count you as a friend and I hope that anybody listening to this today can can really, if they feel like Lane is a good fit, to help their son or their daughter or their loved one. I wouldn't, I would never hesitate to to encourage someone to to reach out to you and ask for your help, and so I just want to thank you for being on here with me today and thank you for being my friend.

Speaker 3: 29:53

Thank you. Thank you, man. Those are a lot of kind words and you're going to make me cry here now. Well, well well deserved.

Speaker 2: 29:59

Well deserved, every one of them. And yeah, is there anything you know before we sign off today? Is there anything that you want to want to share with families, or any any final words here?

Speaker 3: 30:10

Yeah, I think. I think it's usually what kind of what we say on the Thursday night meetings is if you feel that there's a need for reaching out to one of us, don't wait for something bad to happen to do it. Reach out now, even if it's just for coaching or just a conversation, just kind of see where you stand. If you wait for something bad to happen, then that bad thing will have happened and then you'll take action. So those are my closing statements, but I really appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 2: 30:43

Absolutely, and thank you to everybody who stuck with us for the last half hour listening to us and until next time everybody stays over.

Speaker 1: 30:54

Thanks again for listening to the Party Wreckers. If you liked what you heard, please leave us a rating and a review. This helps us get the word out to more people, to learn more or to ask us a question we can answer in a future episode. Please visit us at partywreckerscom and remember don't enable addiction ever.