Recovery Unfiltered
Taking recovery discussion to a different level. Bringing comedy and the lighter side of sober living along with educating non-alcoholics and alcoholics. Hear real stories unfiltered.
Recovery Unfiltered
Breaking Through: Mental Health Insights from Both Sides of Addiction
What happens when our emotional development gets frozen by addiction? How do we learn to process feelings we've been numbing for decades? This powerful episode brings together voices of lived experience and professional expertise to explore the profound connection between mental health and recovery.
The conversation begins with a fascinating examination of perspective in sobriety. Rob shares his belief that he's never had "bad days" in recovery, only "hard days" – a cognitive reframe that Dr. Rachel identifies as precisely the kind of thought pattern adjustment that helps people heal from depression. This opens up a deeper discussion about how addiction arrests emotional development, with Larry vulnerably sharing how he "didn't learn how to love until getting sober" and how recovery has awakened both beautiful connections and painful sensitivities he never experienced in active addiction.
Mental health professionals Paul and Dr. Rachel offer invaluable insights throughout, explaining depression's hereditary components, warning signs, and treatment approaches. They illuminate the crucial distinction between chemical interventions like medication and psychological work through therapy, while emphasizing that many people need both. The panel explores how depression manifests differently – some withdraw while others overcompensate with activity – helping listeners identify concerning patterns in themselves or loved ones.
Perhaps most powerfully, the group examines emotional intimacy as the heart of both addiction and recovery. Dr. Rachel defines it as shared experience and genuine connection, explaining how many use substances to either facilitate or avoid this vulnerability. Recovery communities provide a framework for developing authentic connections through honesty, sponsorship, and service – creating the emotional foundation that sustains long-term sobriety and mental well-being.
Whether you're struggling with addiction, mental health challenges, or supporting someone who is, this episode offers compassionate understanding and practical wisdom for integrating treatment approaches and building the connections that heal. Listen now to discover how addressing both conditions simultaneously creates the strongest foundation for lasting recovery.
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pray. Yet I'm going to pray right now. Fool, shut up. Let's go to the Lord and then we'll go. Heavenly Father, we thank you for Paul. We thank you for Rachel. Father, we thank you for this time that you give us together. Father, we ask that you use these moments and you save souls. Father, you open ears for those that need to hear it. Father, bring these souls to you and bring them to recovery. Father, we ask this in your name, amen, amen. Let's go to work. I came in a little hot, rob, a little hot. Why don't you just wait until the music stops and take a big fucking drink, you idiot.
Speaker 2:God, dude, that's what I was going to do, but You're such an ass. No, I was just looking at Paul talking on the side going to have a drink and said watch this, paul. Hi Rob, how you doing, larry, I am well. Did you have a good week, brother Busy?
Speaker 1:Busy Phoenix, yuma Imperial. Back to Yuma, back to Phoenix. I can hear your voice, I was beat.
Speaker 2:We have Dr Rachel here. When you sponsor a man Paul knows this you get to know that person. You just look at him and know that that's a long week. So I brought you some methamphetamines if you need it.
Speaker 1:Can I? Let's chop that shit up. I'm going to tell you right now, but come friday I was like huh, no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, it's just they're long drawn out, right, I mean, and it's 114, 114 degrees and it's the, the humidity. And oh my gosh, I did not realize that phoenix had humidity like it did I didn't know that it did.
Speaker 2:I thought it was all dry.
Speaker 1:No, I thought the same thing, but I'm gonna tell you right now. And yuma got super humid and and then when I went into Imperial, it wasn't so bad. And then when I got back up to Phoenix the night before I flew home, brutal, brutal. I went out to dinner with a couple, with one of my suppliers, and it was just brutal. What'd you have? I had some kind of pasta. It was an Italian restaurant. Why are you asking me to remember something? I enjoy food.
Speaker 2:I agree, I was so tired. I was lucky to be eaten. Okay, I'll tell you why I love food. One. Two when I went through cancer the last half 2020, it took me about a good two, three years for I could really eat and swallow, so I enjoy food. Now that I can eat anything I want, so I enjoy him.
Speaker 1:I do enjoy food I I we had. It was a spicy vodka pasta. I had vodka. I had vodka in my pasta.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Do I need? Do I need to start my clock over again?
Speaker 2:No, Did you eat the pasta to get the to get?
Speaker 1:drunk, or did you, buddy? I'd had to eat a lot of pasta. Good, we got Paul back. Welcome, paul. Good to be here. And we got doctor I can honestly say Dr Rachel now Congratulations.
Speaker 4:Does your dad call you doctor? Yet my family has been really excited to call me that for a while and you know, before I graduated it was like funny and fun and now it's like oh no, it's real, this is weird.
Speaker 1:It was funny when I asked you about your social media the other day, cause I wanted to start promoting you and you was like you're like, well, I don't have a professional one, I'm like you need to get that one girl you do, because I mean there's so much I mean especially with this stuff right, when we're starting to promote you, you're starting to build your career right. There is certain things that people I mean I don't know, paul, you got an opinion on that for like somebody doing, do you have a professional one or do you just have a personal like on your Facebook or do you not follow that? Are you not on any kind of social media?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I am, I'm on LinkedIn, okay, linkedin yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you do have a professional one, yeah, yeah. And Rachel see, do you need to get on LinkedIn?
Speaker 4:I do have a LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:You do. So yeah, I have a LinkedIn that is extremely professional.
Speaker 5:I've never even put our podcast on that one, so I just you know, with social media and when working in mental health.
Speaker 1:I try to be very careful. I don't know my last name is not even on my name tag Afraid they're going to hunt you down.
Speaker 5:Yeah, absolutely. My home address is listed on the nursing board as my work address. I don't want anybody finding me.
Speaker 4:I'm Gen Z, so I've had social media since I was in sixth grade, so I really don't want my patients to find me, you had MySpace. Well, so I mainly had Facebook, but I used MySpace if I wanted to post cuss words without my mom seeing it. That's how young I was when I got social media.
Speaker 1:My daughter had a MySpace. She posted herself in a bikini when she was like 14 years old and I slapped her, turned right out of her and made her rip it down. So what's MySpace? It was before Facebook. It was something that was before Facebook. Basically the same thing. Yeah, it was that 2008, 2005 era with the kids, when they social media really got started on MySpace. And then, yeah, that's where it really got started at.
Speaker 2:Rob you should remember that you were probably drinking. Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure it's where you, it's where they went to find dates and everything else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, that's right at the end of my the highlights. That is funny. So we got a couple professionals in here and we're going to talk about some topics, and I've been trying to. I went out to our listeners to try and get some topics and honestly, honestly, I was very shocked. We didn't get anything back. Maybe our listeners are too wrapped up in their own mental health. They didn't know what question to ask, or maybe they're all perfect. We've gotten them perfect over the years.
Speaker 1:All that step work is all that step work we've been doing so, but I do have a few questions that I wanted to bring up and talk about some stuff. I mean Laurel, who was she's obviously staying with me and cause that's my cousin and she was on the and I'm going to throw Rob under the bus here in a minute but she stayed with uh, she was staying with me during um Thanksgiving and she battled with with mental health as as I have, and I mean her story's very well on um episode. I want to say it's around 25, right around there, um 20, something like that, and rob we recorded her and it was probably it's one of rob's favorite ones because we had never done anything except, uh, sober stuff and this was the first one that we got that wasn't a sober one and rob was a little taken back by it uh well, she had her father was, it's on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Her father was alcoholic. So in high school at 17 years old, she did a paper and went and studied and on alcoholism to figure more out, more about it. I was impressed with that and then took off yeah, the whole part part about her writing.
Speaker 1:I was just trying to find it on what. It doesn't matter. But yeah, I want to say she was right around 11, 12, something like that. Anyways, go listen to all of them. You'll find her sooner or later. But she brought up and she hears Rob say this quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is under the bus I go.
Speaker 1:This is under the bus Rob goes, because I asked her when she was here. I'm sure enough. I'm going to just under the bus rob goes is she? Because I asked her when she was here there, you can't, you'll never be touched. Yeah and uh, she says you know what, larry, I got a question. Rob always says he never has a bad day and he just has hard days. She, he just has hard days and some days and she goes, she goes.
Speaker 1:Maybe he doesn't suffer from the depression that we do right. Maybe he doesn't have that he doesn't suffer from the depression that we do right. Maybe he doesn't have that. He doesn't understand what having a bad day is. So I got a lady by the name of Natasha. She works at the, she is with the World Health Organization, she's actually in Yemen and she texts, she messages me every once in a while on Facebook, back and forth, and I sent that question to her and you know, because I wanted her to get her part of it as well and she was saying that, basically, rob doesn't suffer from depression. He has some sad days, but he's never suffered from depression and you know what?
Speaker 2:Could it be just semantics?
Speaker 1:Um I, I don't think so, that's why I choose to, I don't know. Because, honestly, the way you say it, and no disrespect because she loves you.
Speaker 2:Which is funny because I used this on one Friday a gentleman I sponsor Right Lost his job Right, and I'm not going to give all the circumstances anyway, he lost it, so he lost his job.
Speaker 2:He's like Rob, rob, that's a, it's a bad day. And I was like, well, you know, and he knows how, I said, no, let me tell you what. I know it's a hard day, you know. But and here's, here's my thinking I've never had, I've never had a bad day in sobriety. But I'll tell you, I've had some hard days, like and I was telling this this gentleman just try to put things in perspective in life, because he's not been through a lot Younger man I said you'll sit down for getting eight hours of chemotherapy with a, with a son in sophomore in high school and a daughter senior in high school. You don't know if you're going to live and you're just trying, you're fighting for it. That's a hard day, not a bad day. I know people have had, you know that in, you know more spots. But that's a hard day. That's how I keep things into perspective and don't get down myself and don't get into a dark spot. That's how I have to tell myself that's a hard day.
Speaker 1:That's just my opinion and I think what laurel is, and I think we're laurel, but I've never suffered from what you got.
Speaker 2:I mean, I would know, I would believe I'd know if I had right.
Speaker 1:Depression I've had anxiety a lot right, and I think that's where laurel is going is she's saying and I and I want to go. Obviously I want to open this up to the professionals, but she is basically saying you, you know that that's. It's almost like you're downplaying. You know people with depression when you say I am no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:I, because what she's saying is we have, we have hard days. I mean, there's some days where I'm going to tell her right now, I still struggle. Right, I struggle, and do I call it a hard day? I don't know if I'd call it a hard day, but I struggle. I struggle to keep my my face to me, right, because I literally just want to crawl back in bed and shut the world off.
Speaker 2:right, that's, those are hard days, but thank god, I have tools right to work through that and thank god the sun got up, that you got that day to fight.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, so what say you, paul?
Speaker 5:well, I think there definitely is a difference between not everybody suffers depression. I mean, there there's, there are statistics around that that tell you about you know, you gave them to us too, though yeah, about less than five percent serious mental illness.
Speaker 5:Less than five percent. But they say that one by one in four, one in five people has some sort of mental health issue. Right, and I would say most of that and this is what we see in the field is anxiety and depression. Some of that, you know, there are disorders that are listed in what's called the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and there's criteria and you can read the criteria to see whether or not you suffer from it.
Speaker 5:I never knew this until I was in school and I was going. You know, I always knew I wanted to work in mental health and when I cracked that book and started looking at it and looking at the criteria, okay, I was alarmed. I was like this has been most of my life, I've had these things happen, okay. And then we got into personality disorders and the teacher said everybody's got a little bit of everything of that, but don't worry about that. But the point being is that, yeah, if you want to know it's just like if you have diabetes there's diagnostic criteria to let you know, kind of, in what stages they are. There are many different forms of depression can manifest in many different ways, but there are even many. Even within the DSM. There are subcategories of depression there. There's a lot of them, okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, what. What I'm kind of hearing is um, I don't know as a psychologist, basically.
Speaker 1:Not basically, not basically, you are girl.
Speaker 4:You know, coming from like we have all these different therapies that we do, based on different theories, and coming from like a cognitive, behavioral therapy perspective, perspective when you're working with somebody from that perspective. It's all about changing your perspective to change your feelings and your behavior.
Speaker 2:So what I'm hearing is Isn't that what I'm doing?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So what I'm hearing from you is you're really like cognitive reframing that perspective in a way that makes it so that you don't feel depressed. You say these are hard days versus bad days and given your experience with cancer and the like existential stuff that comes with that, it totally makes sense to me that for you, um, the days probably feel precious and it's hard to call them and sobriety and sobriety in the steps did, really did that, more than more than the cancer.
Speaker 2:That was just, I was just, I said that, that, uh, just for to help, to help somebody, because that's all. That's a hard day and people can realize, even if they haven't gone through cancer. Right, no, that's a hard day because, because the cancer has touched everybody, which some, you know, alcoholism and drug addiction has touched a lot of families too. But what might it really changed? Getting sober, going through the steps and realizing, man, I'm just lucky to be here. I should not be here after you know, but praise God, I am and I, and I do that reframe it because I don't want to let myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it helps me be in a state of gratitude. Yeah, because I can easily go to why. Because there's two, two words I never want to say Rachel, why me, never, yeah, and that helps me not to say why me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it sounds like that reframing really helps you. But reframing, you know, coming from the cognitive, behavioral kind of theoretical orientation, reframing is kind of the challenge that pops up for folks with depression.
Speaker 4:They're having this self-talk and these thoughts in their head that contribute to the depression, and so then when they would enter therapy if they were doing CBT, it would help them reframe things and perhaps for some people saying it's a hard day that maybe wouldn't make them feel better, but it sounds like for you it it does. And cbt would kind of work with the person who's depressed and help them come up with ways to reframe their thoughts that are more realistic and more helpful.
Speaker 1:I got cbt. What is that?
Speaker 5:cognitive behavioral therapy okay okay, you know the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous is a form right of that. Okay, there are different components that you'll not get in therapy that are in the 12 steps, but at the end of it I mean when you work through the steps it does change. Your whole outlook on life, will change, right, the promises tell us that and that is something that's very important that a lot of folks that get into recovery that suffer depression or just, you know, even severe substance use disorder, they don't really know what to do to change. You know, to find that answer, that solution and that's why this hits home so well for so many people in recovery is because we're talking to them on their level. We're not, you know, a therapist or a counselor. I want to just bring some data into this real quick. I love it. We're not a, you know, a therapist or a counselor. I want to. I want to just bring some, some, some data into this real quick. But, um, I love it. We're getting professional.
Speaker 5:Before coming to AA, 59% of the members, uh, received some type of of of counseling or therapy. 74% said it played an important part in directing them to AA. So 74% of those 59%, and after 58% of the members received. They continued to seek that I myself sought professional help. After I got. Actually, I was court-ordered initially to seek help.
Speaker 4:You know what happens when that happens. It was not a good situation.
Speaker 5:But afterwards I sought out that professional help because I came to realize and it was probably through going to school and realizing that I did meet those criteria. But I want to point out one more thing and there are two different I don't want to say different schools of thought, but there are different schools of thought on mental illness, mental health. One is called the social model and one is the medical model.
Speaker 5:The medical model talks about brain chemistry and it talks about neurotransmitters, things like that. And what's funny about this is there's no hard science that those neurotransmitters, you know the medications, all they know is the, they know the mechanisms of action for those neurotransmitters in your brain and they also know that if they target those things with medications that either you know, change the levels and this or that, that, that, the, that the mood changes. And I'm telling you, I'm one of those people that need that, need that, that, that help with the neurotransmitters, cause if I don't, if I don't take the medication that I'm supposed to take, I die. Yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, is that something Same as me? So they know what it does. They don't know exactly how it does it, but they know that it does it.
Speaker 5:They have a theory of how it does it and it's probably correct is what I'm saying. But you can't go in there and they're getting there. You can't go in there and really study it like you can other parts of medicine. You, I mean you can't go in there and say, because I mean live human subjects, you're not going to go with their brain right, start looking, start looking at the.
Speaker 4:You know yeah, the brain is honestly just such a mystery to us, still like we have bits and pieces here but we have completely yet to put the puzzle so rob the, the theory of when you drink too much, right and then you do cocaine and you kind of level out.
Speaker 1:That's what Paul's trying to tell you. That's what they're trying to find.
Speaker 2:Without the cocaine, and it was until someone took away one leg of my stool I lost all balance. I'd still be well balanced, I think you know it's Well. Rachel said something before in comments. You said I love those patients, the court-ordered ones. Why do you love the court-ordered patients?
Speaker 4:uh, because they are usually very grumpy to be there.
Speaker 2:You like that you like that. Oh, she likes a challenge, you love him.
Speaker 4:I love a challenge. I feel like I'm a very uh, obnoxious, extroverted person, and usually the court ordered one, especially because I work with veterans, so a lot of them are like these grumpy tough guys.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that on your podcast before, so you enjoy that. We talk quite a bit about that which I appreciate.
Speaker 2:Being a veteran right that and I've been to some that I don't I could go to the va but and I went once to you know decide they tried, but I no, I can't do this because I have my own doctor. It's depressing, heartbreaking, that men and women who have served get so I'm grateful for you to go.
Speaker 5:What did you say? It's what, it's what Heartbreaking? No, you said depressing.
Speaker 1:I heard it.
Speaker 2:Oh, depressing, what a scene. It's pretty depressing. I heard it. Oh, what a seat.
Speaker 1:So that's where it's coming from Right. So why I want to hear more detail, why you like working with the V the, why you like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just the contrast in personality, like, um, I don't see myself as a very, like, tough person. Um, I think I'm like pretty warm and fuzzy, so I really enjoy, like I don't know, cracking the egg, so to say, and like teaching you see progress. You see progress quicker yeah, and I like to teach these tough men like it's. It's okay to cry, you know don't, don't, I'll start crying.
Speaker 4:Don't take much for me there's something really fun about like pulling up a feelings wheel and being like which of these emotions do you feel and you find that we only have I don't know we can only probably name two and express one right, right. So I think I'm a pretty, like emotional, sensitive person, and so that's kind of where my strength is. So I like working with the people that I think benefit from getting more in touch with their emotions.
Speaker 2:Well, you're in the right field.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So okay, that is one subject that I wanted to go on. The other one is I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I'm going to let I forgive my mom.
Speaker 6:I don't have a relationship with either one, but I a lot lately and I'm going to let her give my mom. I don't have a relationship with either one, but I forgive her. I am older than she was when this was happening and so I struggled to take care of my dog, so I can't imagine what it was like for her being an uneducated woman, born to a poor family, out in the world trying to compete and be a normal person while you have a mobster as a husband. So I don't hold any resentment or anger towards her. I'm hurt and that's about it. But with my dad it's a struggle because I feel like if I ever saw him in public, I don't know how I would hold back, because I'm a man now and I carry myself and I'm very scared. It's a feeling I'm very afraid of. You know that little boy, yeah, but that boy is stuck inside and I see him to people. I'm the thing that came up to protect him, but I grew up into boy.
Speaker 1:So what he said, I'm sorry, I don't know why they didn't come through. Come through, but I wasn't going to stop it one of the things that I've always we've talked about in the rooms, um, and I think is and he said it a little bit, I'm not that little boy inside, right, cause they always say that our maturity level stops at the age that we start drinking, and that's always, you know. It hit home for me the first time I heard it, because I'm like, hmm, you know, and it really did when I start taking back on my thought processes and how I act and how I work our maturity level Right and I start winding that on my thought processes and how I act and how I work, our maturity level, our maturity level right.
Speaker 1:And I start winding that stuff back and I realized that I didn't. You know, and I've said this a few times and I've said it to my wife and I've said it, she knows that and I've had to explain it to her a little bit that I didn't learn how to love until I got sober, damn it.
Speaker 2:I didn't know how to to react. Do you love your wife, oh?
Speaker 1:shut up, you're a dick. I can't even look at him. I didn't learn how to love until.
Speaker 6:I got much.
Speaker 1:until I got sober, I didn't learn certain things and and the further out of my sobriety that I go, the more intense that I get in fall in love with her, the more intense I feel. The more intense I fall in love with her, the more intense I feel, the more intense I fall in love with my friends, and that how much closer I feel what your wife said, that she we were talking. Motherfucker, I swear to god, I'm gonna stab you right in the neck she said but he does love you bro, I know, but paul, this is what she said.
Speaker 2:She was sitting right here. She said one of the greatest things she saw with him. You know what we did for him. She's never heard him tell so many men and mean it, that he loves him. Yeah, the group of men that we have reformed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's just.
Speaker 4:It's different, it's just completely different emotions, no, yeah, emotions help you recover is that just no, but you're so right, it is but we bury him, we drink him, because we were told all our lives that men behave this way In my generation.
Speaker 2:My dad was born in the 40s or 1940. You don't cry, A man carries himself this way. That's what a man is. And I had four rules that my dad had to be a man. And here they were Paul, A man is only as good as his word. If a man's word is no good, a man is no good, son. Two if you want to have good friends, be one. Rule Number three never raise your hand to a female. And rule number four use the. Learn how to use these. If you want to make your money with your mind, like you are, he goes, that's great. But if you know how to use these, son, you'll never go hungry. Right, and that's it. And don't cry and don't show emotion. Why does?
Speaker 1:the alcohol and drugs and everything stop the flow of the learning process and stop that maturity level. Why does it do that?
Speaker 5:This is my opinion. This is not anything professional. Is that growing up in?
Speaker 5:whatever environment, there's nature and nurture right, nurture is what Rob just described, as you know what he was taught. Okay, there's a reason why we gravitate toward those things, partly because we love how it feels. We love how it makes us feel. And if we're not accustomed to feeling good in the environment that we've grown up in and you, all of a sudden can find a very quick, magical silver bullet fix and feel great, well, you stop. You stop engaging in things that like there are different stages of development in life. Ok, those stages of development.
Speaker 5:I watched my friends graduate high school, go to college Not me. I pursued a life of crime, right, you know. I school. Go to college, not me, I pursued a life of crime, right, you know, I mean and to me, and then you don't learn the coping skills. You never really develop into learning how to be a responsible person, a responsible adult. Everything is centered around me, me, me. What can I do to gratify myself, to make myself feel better? And it's a pursuit of things that are just really empty. Right, I mean, they feel good at the moment, but you go on doing that long enough and, just like you know, our tolerance builds to everything, you just never learn the coping skills that it takes to become an adult.
Speaker 4:Right. And then, on top of that, when you're under the influence, obviously your brain is being impacted. When you're drunk or when you're high, you don't remember things, and it's still developing Absolutely. And so when you can't remember things, memory is learning. We learn with our memory, so you're not taking things in in the same way.
Speaker 2:Right and I can identify with Paul not living life on life's terms, hiding from the hard parts and just staying in the soft, comfortable areas.
Speaker 1:But we develop. So I think the part that I had such a hard time with that is I developed a very. I think the part that I had such a hard time with that is I developed a very. I feel, in my opinion, as I was a very professional, making money, functioning, you know, at a very high level, educationally wise, mental wise, I mean, I was running a very large company at that level.
Speaker 2:What was our big books?
Speaker 1:I don't know. That's what we're talking about. I mean it talks about willpower, right, right, large company at that level. What is our big books?
Speaker 2:I don't know that's what we're talking about. I mean, it talks about willpower, right, right, and our will is strong.
Speaker 5:Almost every other area of our lives highly successful, highly driven, except for the and when alcohol comes in, you know where our have absolutely none whatsoever we're behaving in a way that we think society expects us to behave, and I'm not saying understand that when we talk about the, the theory of, of progression, emotional and and uh, progression stopping at the time, you, it doesn't. It's not a hard and fast line, right. There are very their degrees and they are very wide, okay. I have seen people that have gone to school, and my sponsor, for example, was going to school and pursuing a PhD while drinking. He was very functional, right, okay, and all of that. So there are certain things that we can do. I don't want to say mimic to a mimic adulthood, but at the same time….
Speaker 5:That's a good word though, but at the same time, you know the fact that we continue to do those self-destructive things. It's just counterproductive.
Speaker 1:You know, it's like… yeah, yeah and I, I think where I, I, I I don't know if I really got to the the question right, but so, but the love why?
Speaker 2:that to me, is what's been the weirdest thing to to understand well in my this is my opinion uh what jay had told me when I first got to you know you hear it in the rooms of a. He said I will that's what he's told me, rachel, because you're in the rooms of AA and I'll love you till you learn to love yourself. He didn't tell me that, cause I'll never tell you that he goes. I'll love you, rob, till you learn to love another human being, cause all you ever did was love yourself. It may have been a self-destructive you know self-defeating love, but you put yourself before. I was on the pedestal. Then, once I took myself off the steps and got there and then I could see my family rightly, and then their place in my life and where I should have been in my life. And once I did that, my family just blossomed up around me. The relationships blossomed. Then I could finally love someone other than myself properly.
Speaker 1:I just once again, I don't know Page 62.
Speaker 1:And I go back to this Once again I, my parents, were amazing. People still are, but I did not. Anyways, I'm gonna beat that horse to death trying to find the answer because I don't know how to get to it, because I, like I said, I the the difference between how I approach people now compared to how I approach people prior to I'm going to say, I don't know, probably June of 2022, when I finished my steps is just night and day difference. I don't know if people see it as much on the outside as I feel it on the inside. People that think that old Larry still comes out because that old Larry and when I say old Larry, egotistical, arrogant, prick that you couldn't there's not enough names in the dictionary to describe what I was like and I lived for me and me alone, and I didn't care about my wife. I didn't care about that sounds horrible.
Speaker 1:I didn't care what she wanted right, I didn't care what she wanted, I didn't. I mean, that's what I was getting, you know. And when my alcoholism took off to a level to where I left all that behind, but even before my alcoholism got a complete, total control of my brain when my children were little, when you know, I just I, I feel like I wasn't, I didn't have what I have now, right, and I've lost all that opportunity. But I get to have it with my grandkids. But even last night, when my grandkids were here, I still don't seize that opportunity because I'm still learning how to seize that opportunity yeah, I, I really think that what happens when people get sober the defenses come down.
Speaker 1:Oh boy does it Well, especially if they're doing it.
Speaker 4:You know, we all know that there's people out there who are dry drunks and the defenses stay up, but I think that you know working the program, especially going through AA and these like more group-based treatment models. One thing you really learn is how to be more vulnerable, how to give and receive feedback and how to show up as a member of a community and how to open yourself up to emotional intimacy and emotional vulnerability, and I think that that's often what a lot of people are lacking or craving or scared of when they're using substances. I think that we live in a very individualistic society. You know, way back at the foraging days, everybody was in tribes Hundreds of others.
Speaker 4:Right Nowadays, we're split up from our family and we don't see our friends. All the time our schedules conflict and it can be really complicated, um, and especially when you grow up in a generation of men who are told to shut off your feelings, you know, don't communicate, don't feel anything like. What's happening is people are getting shut off from emotional intimacy and I genuinely think that this lack of connection is what drives people to use substances a lot of times there's.
Speaker 2:What are they?
Speaker 4:because they're searching for something absolutely, but I also think it goes beyond using substances. I think, like most, most people that end up with mental health conditions are, and those of us who don't, like I think most people in society are just craving and missing that connection and that may show up in the way of people using substances. I mean, I'm sure you know so many people who maybe started using or drinking in these social party situations, especially young men who found that I did these are the ways I can be vulnerable this
Speaker 4:is the way, I'm allowed to show up and, you know, connect with others and so it, and then it becomes a pattern, and so I think that that's why I really find the approach of like helping people really tap into those emotions and figure out how to have genuine emotional intimacy to be a way to to help with recovery.
Speaker 1:Is that emotional intimacy always the crying and the hugging? And when you define that a little bit, yeah.
Speaker 4:So I think of emotional intimacy as shared experience. It's like, um you know, if I'm like Rob, look at that painting over there, isn't that cool and he's like, oh my gosh, you're right, that's so cool and we're both you know, connecting over that, that's that. But if he goes, oh yeah, very cool, and he just texts on his phone, right Ouch, that's right, that was a bid for connection we, we, we didn't connect.
Speaker 4:And that can be the anger, that can be the sadness, that can be all these things. And if you're somebody who grew up with trauma and you, um, were a lonely a lot, you may be have not had these experiences, and then, when people don't get them, they crave them, but then they're scared of them and push them away.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I need to sit down with you for a couple hours, craving community.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Look at what we have done.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, look at what God's done with our group on Monday, right, because?
Speaker 2:and with emotional intimacy. You and I, how many men that we know over there can just look at one another, which we've done a time and again. They don't have to say nothing.
Speaker 4:He doesn't have to, I know exactly what he's saying, it's that feeling, it's that spiritual feeling, and not only does he know what I'm feeling, right, we can.
Speaker 2:He loves me enough to call me on my show. What's going on? No, I'm good.
Speaker 4:No, you're not. No, and it's why in AA you have those speaker meetings and people hear other people share their stories and they can relate. But it's also why in AA, like service is such a big part of it.
Speaker 2:Huge Right. It's giving back to the community, giving feedback, because we never gave to anybody unless I was getting something in return. Right, and I thought that's all I wanted, you know. Once my needs were met, okay, then I'll help you. That's where, where you know for me, because page 62 sums up for my, in my opinion, the alcoholic and the addict perfectly, your opinion but paul knows you can pull the page right out of the book dude that book has been well used.
Speaker 2:That thing's a disaster selfishness and self-centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles. That's the root driven by 100 forms of fear self-delusion, self-se, self-pity. We step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some point in the past we have made decisions based on self which have later placed us in a position to be hurt. So we think our troubles are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will-run riot. Self, self, self, Me, me, me, Childish.
Speaker 5:You can't see this on the podcast, but I just got a comment on this. Rob's pages of his big book are detached and he could pull a page completely out.
Speaker 4:They're colorful, they're underlined. That book is very well loved.
Speaker 5:He doesn't have to flip through or look at the book, he just pulls the page.
Speaker 2:Well, Rachel, you know what they say. I'm going to tell you what they say. A big book that's falling apart usually belongs to somebody who isn't.
Speaker 4:Oh, I love that. That's great.
Speaker 1:I got to start ripping pages out of my book. I guess I don't know my early sobriety well, you do. You don't buy because let me hold on you want to talk about emotional intimacy. When you talk about that, it breaks my heart, right, because I know there's other men going through it. I know that you had to suffer through it, right as my dear friend, and I know there's other people that suffer through that and I try so hard to.
Speaker 1:You know, I got one of the things I've learned in my sobriety that I enjoy, but it also it sucks sometimes is I feel other people's pain intensely and intensely and it gets me right and it gets me when I see another person cut their finger. I can feel it and I never felt that before. You know, when I see somebody else cry, I want to cry with them, those, that shit is. It's intense, right, and it's like why did I have to learn that part? Why did that part of my brain have to mature when I got sober? Right, I love the fact that it matured for my wife and my kids and my grandkids and it keeps maturing to be more and more closer that way. But you know, a year and a half ago, when I'd hear Rob say that it didn't hurt me as much as it does today. Now, when I hear him say it, it just it breaks me.
Speaker 2:I can't stand it. So I'd go to this book a lot, paul. That's why it's like that and I I don't have a photographic memory, I just use so well, kind of. Anyway. So in the middle, because I know in the middle of the night when I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna call anybody in one o'clock and the night terrors would come on. This would be my defense, I I could quote how it works. There's a solution that you know. Whatever I needed at that moment, just to keep my sanity and keep a gun out of my hand.
Speaker 5:That's cognitive behavioral therapy.
Speaker 2:That was my battle. You know that. So that's why it looks like that and why I sponsor the way I do. I'm very open. I mean, I welcome calls at 12, one, two. In the morning we can have a 15 minute conversation and we go both go back to sleep, instead of letting someone suffer through the night when they don't have to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the other thing to that is I never, I never had that Right. I never had that. So to hear somebody explain it, it just breaks me Right. I mean, I think where, where Rob was at, I was luckily I was in Maynards when that happened, right, I went through a very short period of time to where I, when you know, my, my moment of clarity. Well, my moment of clarity happened here, but when that obsession left my body, I I never had an ounce of what Rob went through. It was gone, gone, and what I wanted was that sobriety and that serenity injected into my veins and I wanted more of it. When I felt that peace come over me, I was chasing it.
Speaker 2:But you came out of the gates running Once you got that you got the meters and got to me.
Speaker 1:I chased it.
Speaker 2:You were chasing, God and chasing. But I want to ask. I know Paul's opinion on that gates running.
Speaker 1:Once you got that, oh, I made hers and got to me. I chased it.
Speaker 2:He was yeah like a drug and chasing so but I want to ask uh, I know paul's opinion on that, I'm pretty sure I do well what I just read about the alcoholic addict self, selfishness and self-centeredness, self-pity self-self. The word self is on there 13 times and the bottom is the best part. It says most good ideas are simple. As far as the god idea this is what it says are simple and the concept. It was a keystone of our new and triumphal arch which we are building no one else is building it for us which we pass to freedom, and that freedom is from self, from me. What do you think of that? So when you're sitting across from a grumpy uh, you know, old marine, yeah, who's one of us alcoholic addict, he's very selfish what do you, you see? I mean, does that description?
Speaker 4:as you find out. Yeah, it depends. It can go both ways. There are definitely people who come in, and I think that selfishness is majorly there. I also, though, have met a lot of people who there. I also, though, have met a lot of people who, it's like they are so self-sacrificing that it's almost like drinking and using becomes the one way they give themselves permission to let loose and do something for themselves, and in those cases, it's like in therapy. What we have to work on is helping them set boundaries and find ways to have more of a balance in their lives where they're not, you know, self-sacrificing so much that they don't feel the need to go out and get drunk and get high to, you know, give themselves that freedom.
Speaker 1:But that's where, as soon as I found my serenity, I didn't want anything to well, where, as soon as I found my serenity, I didn't want anything to well, that's what I was chasing with my drinking. Was that that piece? Right, I wanted that piece and that's what I was chasing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely so, but I do think it comes down to. I think that addiction is very relational. I really see things through a very relational framework and I do think that it comes down to like people needing to find that balance, um, between being there for their community and having a community, having emotional intimacy. But having emotional intimacy also comes with having knowing your own needs and being able to advocate for your own needs in a way. That's healthy. But what we see sometimes is people don't know how to advocate for their needs in a healthy way, and so they do it in this maladaptive way which is drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 5:I'm going to. This is funny In healthcare. Oftentimes you know when asked what do we do in this situation? Sometimes it's a case-by-case basis. It's kind of like when you talk to an attorney about something and their answer is it depends.
Speaker 4:In psychology it's always.
Speaker 5:It depends. But here's the thing what you've been talking about got me thinking is that you talk about confronting an alcoholic's mindset and their selfishness. There are times when you've got to peel back a lot of layers of that onion before they're even willing to hear that, and I distinctly recall early on that, when we got to this part, when my brain finally cracked open and I was willing to do the third and consider the fourth step, you gave me the answer my problem is selfish, self-centeredness. So what else do I need to know what else? And it's like I'm done. You're giving me the answer to the test, so I don't have to study anymore, and I found that to be totally untrue Is depression hereditary.
Speaker 5:I believe it can be.
Speaker 2:Is it a learned behavior, not a learned behavior?
Speaker 5:No, like I said it's both chemical and it's nature and nurture.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean when you see how your parents cope with something. That's kind of how you Totally With anger or with.
Speaker 4:Totally. But you also can get depression, having like Parkinson's or multiple sclerosis.
Speaker 2:So so what do we do for the chemical part of that?
Speaker 4:Can it be chemically? Can be treated with medication. But even um it, like cbt, cognitive behavioral therapy and other kinds of therapy can help, even if it is like the more chemical have you done more?
Speaker 1:have you done more research? Because I brought up the uh civil cyan and in what was the other one that I brought up, psilocybin psilocybin. Have you done any more research?
Speaker 4:on that research myself have you done much of that the research on that treating with hallucinogens I haven't treated anybody with hallucinogens because it's not legal to do so yet. But my dissertation was on that, so I think I already kind of told you guys you did talk about it a little bit, not really anything new.
Speaker 1:What about in the in your, in your line, paul? Are you seeing any of that coming in?
Speaker 5:ketamine for is the big one right now that it is legal?
Speaker 5:I think it's still. Um, is it still an off-label use for suicidality? I think it can. It can be used for depression, but it it the? The studies show that it is exceedingly helpful and I've actually listened to a patient. I was at a NAMI conference a couple of years ago and there was an open session. There was a psychiatrist that was talking to the group and taking questions and one of the audience had said you know, he had been taking ketamine for a while. The thing with ketamine is it's not intended for long-term use and so when somebody has a very chronic and this gentleman apparently had very chronic depression, like psychotic depression, I mean he got so bad that he would become psychotic and he was asking about it and you know whatever. But the point being is there are medications. You really have to be working with a physician or psychiatrist that really knows what they're doing, because dosage is key, as important as and some of the side effects for the life of me.
Speaker 1:I can't remember it. I talked about it, it was on Joe Rogan, blah, blah blah. But some of them have some serious side effects, Like the one I was talking about. Has Ibogaine Ibogaine, thank you. Ibogaine, thank you. Ibogaine is the one that has a serious heart condition that comes along with it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, ketamine is kidneys.
Speaker 2:Everything's got side effect generally, hey, but I am trying, by the way, for the listeners at home. Earlier in the podcast, when I interrupted Larry three times, I did. However, I am trying something for brain, for cognitive. It's supposed to help with gut health. I don't know if I can talk about it. You ever heard of methylene blue?
Speaker 1:You know what? I've been seeing a lot of it. I've been seeing a lot of it talked about. For a couple of weeks. Now You're kind of turning blue. I was going to tell you Great.
Speaker 5:But from what I have noticed, for me, if I'm going to go sit, it works yeah, do you know what I mean if you research, do you know what the, what it is and, yeah, what effects it could have?
Speaker 1:the side effects yeah, okay did you take any before the podcast? Yes, you should have. That's why that's why my questions are so much better than yours so I want to move on to another question that I kind of been pondering around will will chemical recovery ever be possible?
Speaker 5:I, I don't believe. So Okay, it says, you know, science hasn't been done.
Speaker 2:Science may want to accomplish this but yeah. You're talking about turning the pickle back into a cucumber Right.
Speaker 4:What do you mean by chemical recovery?
Speaker 1:So you see a lot of advertisement I do right, because I spend a lot of time on social media for the podcast and you know, and kind of promoting, so I, I watch a lot of so what do they call it? When you're um, your algorithms right On my. So I have two. I have my recovery unfiltered one, and then I have my other one that I, that my algorithms completely different, but on my recovery, I didn't say nothing I was about to say, Because Dr Epstein was this us and Paul I was going to say it.
Speaker 1:You ain't, far from it, I can just tell you that. But the algorithm is completely different. So I get a lot of the ones that are saying that they have pills that you can take and when they put you under the psychosis or the um hypnosis hypnosis and that kind of stuff for the chemical, for the recovery.
Speaker 2:And I, I'm just in my mind, I wouldn't know what he's asking is they're gonna be. Will they be able to come up with a pill to take a alcoholic and make him a normal drinker again, or take an addict? Here's a pill. Take this and you are, you know let's not even say a normal right.
Speaker 1:Right, let's just say to take, they don't even you know yeah. Like for me, rob and I. We talk about this all the time If we could spray somebody with some kind of a perfume or something and take that obsession away from them. Well, there is that. Have they figured out in our minds? What creates that obsession? To where we have to continue.
Speaker 5:Yeah, to continue, yes and I've got it right here, the genomic studies, which is fascinating by the way, 50 to 60 percent, it's been determined, can be hereditary. There are alcohol metabolism genes that they have identified, some help and some hinder. And the ones that hinder, I mean you stop and think about this the gene itself. Until they learn how to alter the genetic code. No, it's not going to happen. Is there a day coming when that's possible?
Speaker 4:Maybe I'm not an expert in epigenetics, but if you have a parent who's like an alcoholic, they can actually pass it down. Their genes can change and pass down to their child.
Speaker 4:So even if their parent didn't have genes like our. Genes are shaped by our environment. But in terms of getting people to drink normally, I mean, at this point I don't know. Some people might argue that they've had that experience with psychedelics. Some people I know people who use what is it like? The naloxone or no gosh, what am I thinking of? The one that makes you sick when you drink? I don't know, antabuse, antabuse, yes, yes, yes, antabuse.
Speaker 2:But is that really a cure? No, no, that's just a deterrent which some people drink anyway.
Speaker 4:But I think then that gets into the question of, like, what does it mean to be cured?
Speaker 2:Well, as far as the big book is concerned, it says when we're restored to sanity, soundness of mind, relieved of the obsession to drink, that's what a spiritual awakening is. That's the definition Restored to sanity, soundness of mind, relieved of the obsession to drink, and for an alcoholic, they know what. And that is what's called being recovered.
Speaker 1:I want to ask Paulul this question being having all the education you have, could you walk away from aa and never drink again and never have with with your education being as educated as you are? Could you just say you know what self-knowledge, I'm educated enough now, I don't need a anymore? Could I yeah, yes you think so, I know, so I I've so.
Speaker 5:I've seen people. I've seen people um walk away from. I have always maintained that that Alcoholics Anonymous is not the only way to stay sober. There are a lot of people out there that do that, but. But the bottom line is, if you don't replace it with something a lot of people use. You know they they use and how successful it is. I don't know the the know, the independent variables that go into how you can walk away and do it. I don't ever want to take the chance. This works extremely well.
Speaker 5:You're not going to experiment. I never want to take the chance, because one of the things that I know is that even if I get away, I mean I get really busy. I travel sometimes and it's not always possible for me to go to meetings, but if I go through a week without making at least one or two meetings, this has happened.
Speaker 1:My thinking starts reversing.
Speaker 5:This sounds trite. The ISM in alcoholism incredibly short memory I have that, and there's no science to back that up. Ism and alcoholism incredibly short memory I have that, Okay, and there's no science to back that up. But what I'm saying is that this has taught me a way of life and that continual reinforcement that I get through my AA family is what I feel like I need.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I think you need to reframe your question.
Speaker 5:Well, go need right right, yeah, and I think you need to reframe your question.
Speaker 2:Well, go you know, paul, could you walk away with all your education and and not drink again? Yeah, drinking wasn't our problem anyway. Now, paul, could you step away from? Do you believe you could step away from a for the rest of your life and still have the the emotional, spiritual and mental sobriety and peace that you get from it? Not without?
Speaker 5:without replacing it with constant with therapy sessions.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 5:And I'll point this out too, because even professionals, mental health professionals they tell you when you're going to school you need to be, you need to get in therapy yourself because of the the, the drain, the psychological drain that it has working with, especially with veterans. If you're not doing something to maintain your own mental health, you could get in trouble.
Speaker 2:Rachel. What do you think? Dr Berry, as you start getting deeper in down the rabbit hole, you got to get some therapy on the side.
Speaker 4:Yeah, one of the nice things about working for the VA is, as employees, we have access to what's it called. The name isn't important, but basically we have access to a certain amount of sessions.
Speaker 1:Okay, employee assistance yeah, yeah, yeah, have you started any?
Speaker 4:No, I haven't yet.
Speaker 1:Haven't taken your own advice.
Speaker 5:No, I just went through because we have the same thing with a company called Lyra. Okay, the access is amazing. I mean, I got in touch with them. They had me lined up. I had an appointment scheduled within a few days. I approached them because I was going through some things at work and I was getting very overwhelmed and it was taking its toll on my mental health to the point where, like you, Larry, I didn't feel like getting out of bed. I was like I do too much already. I'm not going to do anything today, I'm not going to do anything tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I'm not even going to open my emails.
Speaker 5:That is a very dangerous place and I got in touch with a therapist and I got that. I got that 10 free sessions.
Speaker 3:It helped it pulled me up and out of it. I mean she.
Speaker 5:She gave me things to to to work on that, otherwise I would not have thought about myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah I know that I've started putting back into place. You know, I was sober what? Two and a half years when I started talking about going back and getting on. Yeah, I've gotten back on the well, well butrin.
Speaker 1:Um, I, I went over the top on it because I went over to the other side. I went to 300 and it literally numbed me out to where I couldn't even I I would have to slice my arm off to feel anything. Oh boy, yeah, I mean it was bad, right, I mean I was just numb and I hated it and I backed back off to we're back on 150. But my point is I I started building stuff back up because I was seeing a therapist and taking Wellbutrin and doing all that stuff while I was drinking and it wasn't doing it a damn thing for me. And now I know I have recognized that the that my antidepressant is absolutely doing its job. When I can sit across from my wife and enjoy a good laugh between the two of us over something that we've looked at, I know that it's working because I couldn't have done that prior to this.
Speaker 2:But you had to get clear get the alcohol and get some real help.
Speaker 1:I had to start slipping back into that rabbit hole of a depression, right To where, before I got sober, I didn't recognize it. I just went sliding down that slippery slope and I went down in there and I started medicating with alcohol to where, this time, I recognized it. I didn't like the direction I was going. I didn't like the direction I was feeling and I'm like, nope, I got to get help Right and I did. But now I think I need to go and start seeing. I need to actually start seeing somebody.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, but I need to actually start seeing somebody Beautiful. But another great thing when we sit, rachel, you'll probably hopefully you Besides, rob. Yeah, when, all the times, dr Rob, when we would sit in front of our doctor, right, we weren't honest, nope, so how could we get the help that we needed?
Speaker 4:That's what I love about Amy, yeah, rigorous honesty. If any of my patients are listening, rig Regulus honesty starts from the inside job.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It's an inside job.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:Once we're honest with ourselves and we need that then you're honest like you are now Right, they can give us the help that we need.
Speaker 4:Right and therapy is like. I mean, if you're not being honest in there, then you're not actually doing the work.
Speaker 1:I feel bad for the therapists that try to help me. I do. I do. I mean I sat across from him with probably a 12-pack in me saying no, I haven't had anything to drink today and trying to work through. You know him trying to help me and I had no desire for his help.
Speaker 4:Right? None, and we don't know as therapists.
Speaker 2:That's where Paul comes in. He's been on both sides of the map. You ain't got bullshit in me, but I've been there.
Speaker 4:And it's like either I'm gonna sit here and try and figure out if you're lying to me and, you know, make you feel backed into a corner, or I'm just gonna believe what you're giving me. And if I just believe what you're giving me and therapy doesn't work, that's on you you know, that's how.
Speaker 2:That's how I sponsor, that's. I have four rules. Yeah, imagine that my dad had four rules and I got four. Anyway, which are? They're different. But you don't lie to me and I don't lie to you I have. Now you're going to take them at face value, because if they're lying on their step, worker, they're lying to me. They're only hurting themselves, right, I'm going to go home sober, right?
Speaker 1:that's on you, so I'm going to go down another one. Um, I, I, once again, I, I. We didn't have a lot of you know, I talked to rob yesterday. I'm like dude, we got to get some topics together because I didn't get it from the listeners like I thought I did.
Speaker 2:But you guys keep bringing that stuff for me before we leave.
Speaker 1:Rachel, if you have any questions for paul, yeah, I mean that because this is a resource here right um the other one is if we, if, if our listeners are us let's just say my wife what are some of the good signs? I mean? I mean we've all obviously talked about some of them, but if I'm living with a person, what's? What is the first signs of depression that they need to be looking for those?
Speaker 6:first signs.
Speaker 1:Yes, our children, yes, great one that we need to be looking for ahead of it, because I do know corrective behavior before it goes off the rails. Right, because if you look at you know these enormous ships that have those little bitty rudders on the back right. Our kids and our families, our lives, are those huge ships and we have small rudders and once we get deep into something it's hard to get us to turn back around, right? But so, if we can get in front of a behavior, what are the initial signs prior to them? Not wanting to get out of bed prior to them, not wanting to be in functioning situations prior to it? Is there early signs of depression, that kind of stuff that they can be looking for?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, it's going to look different for everyone and I don't work with children so I don't know. But you know what I hear a lot from my patients. We always ask people like what are your warning signs? How will we know if things are going off track? Typically, people tend to say isolation, like when they start isolating, that's 100% me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, when they start isolating. When they start isolating, that's 100% me. Yeah, when they start isolating, when they stop doing things that they want to enjoy doing um more like negative self-talk, those kinds of things. But I also know plenty of people where it might be the opposite. Like they just start spiraling, they, they start trying to do all these fun things they overcompensate they overcompensate exactly so it's different for everyone, but I would definitely say like the more traditional characteristic is like that isolation, that well, changes.
Speaker 5:I've got seven kids, okay, some of them. Some of them do um have inherited you know the genes, I guess, for both alcoholism and depression, and changes in behavior, just changes in behavior. You know your own kid, you know him well, and when you start sensing and sometimes it's just a gut feeling you start sensing that something's going wrong and the important thing is figuring out a way to either get them to sit down and talk to you or talk to somebody else talk to somebody and there there are, especially with adolescents.
Speaker 5:There are a lot of good resources today, um, uh, apps and things that you that they can go on, they can talk to peers that you know. I mean there's just a lot of great, great space for them to go.
Speaker 5:And the other, the other thing I would talk to chat but the other thing I want to point out is is that is that, um, I, I did work with adolescents for about four years and and one of the things I'll tell you is that there's a huge difference between someone you know, a kid because oftentimes it's the family, it's not the kid and and and they, they don't always need to be hospitalized, um, they're. They probably need respite care, they need to be in a safe environment, but, but putting them in a, in a psychiatric facility, just for because it is absolutely not uncommon for an adolescent to say I'm going to commit suicide or I'm, you know, I can't tell you how many times my kids are oh, so-and-so, isn't responding to my text, and the last thing they said was and it's attention-seeking, right, a lot of it. Right, trying to tease that out. I mean, because you never want to err on the side, I mean you never want to just underreact to something like that. You want to find out, you want to find out, you want to find out.
Speaker 5:But if it's your own kid, changes in behavior, um, them, them getting closed off and certainly the isolation, right, my boys, um, they wanted, they wanted to stay in their rooms. They wanted, they wanted the room absolutely dark. They wanted, they didn't want to do anything but play video games, was that? Was that a sign? Not necessarily. You know that's what teenagers do. It's when they don't ever come out of their room and they don't socialize and you can tell that their attitude is changing. They're getting more irritable. Things like that.
Speaker 4:I mean and thinking about just the diagnostic criteria of depression. You know, sleeping a lot, or staying up super late um gaining or losing a lot of weight eating more, eating less.
Speaker 1:I, I know for me the when I get deep, I want the lights off the curtains, I want my headphones on with extremely loud, hard music. That's the only thing that'll call me. It's literally the only thing that will call me back down and get me back into the right spot. And to your point about being preemptive as a parent, especially for me, paul.
Speaker 2:You know Gary Z, mm-hmm. Yeah. So when I was maybe one year at the big meeting in Oakdale Friday night meeting and I can swear he was even shorter than me he got that.
Speaker 3:Jesus, but I can swear night meeting and I could swear short.
Speaker 2:It's even shorter than me. You got that, however, jesus, but I could swear paul, he was looking right at me. I guess you know early somebody again. You know the ones that look at you when you're sharing rachel. He says if you don't want your kids to grow up to be like you, quit being like you. And for me it hit me like so easy, but but but what that did to me? Because I didn't. I didn't when I got to a, I didn't know how to be a husband. I was one, didn't know how to be a good father. I was a father. So I would listen and look to the men and Jim, jim F, who's moved away, the way he would adore his wife, and it really helped me to. And we were, as Paul knows, we were spiritual nemesis. That's what Jim would call me.
Speaker 2:He's the one but when Gary said that, to me it meant this is more than just not drinking, rob. I mean. It's going to be easier to raise strong men than it is to. It's easier to raise strong children than it is to fix broken men. Invest in my kids and my kids, amy. Now that's funny. I was having a talk with my wife in the kitchen. Talk with my wife in the kitchen. My daughter comes from the bathroom in a towel, she's in the shower, going in her room. She stops in the hallway. This is like a month ago, dad, I don't. Yeah, baby, she's 23. It was, uh, what was your part? Then walked in the room and I was like mother, she just, but she was right, I wasn't. I was looking at my part, you know, I was looking at everything else and once I focused on mine, then I could. Then there'd be a problem resolved. But and I love that, I love that she uses that with her friends because I've brought this into the
Speaker 1:home she's grown up with it. Yeah, I mean she was 10, 11 when she used brought that book into the room or brought that book into the house. Right, I mean she's, she doesn't know any different. You know, and your son absolutely doesn't know any difference and and it's easier to raise and if you got off that damn soapbox inside the house and stopped yelling and preaching at him inside the house and poor kids talk about depression. Anyways, paul, you got any advice for for rachel and her, her new career enjoy.
Speaker 5:Yeah, take care of yourself, really take care of yourself, because it it, uh, it it can, it can take its toll. I mean it it takes special people to work in in behavioral health and mental health, and and you certainly sound like you've got what it takes to do it. Thank you, the fact, the fact that you enjoy what you're doing is I absolutely love what I do. Yeah, and, and, and, and. You have to have that. This is not. This is not a job to collect a paycheck. This is a vocation.
Speaker 5:A vocation is something you do because that's where your heart is, is there less and less people coming into this field. No, not really.
Speaker 1:No, not really Huh.
Speaker 5:Here's the thing People talk about the shortage of providers. Right, we don't have a shortage of providers. We have a shortage of providers that won't work for anything other than cash. There's plenty of providers out there that you can pay out of pocket and you can find services the networks of providers that take insurance and things like that, and even you know, even the ones that work for county or government agencies, I don't know. I mean, yeah, there's probably a shortage there.
Speaker 4:We all got student loans to pay off.
Speaker 1:Grief those poor things. Uh, you got 20 years to pay that off.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, and I start in a few months, you got any questions for Paul you want to bring up? Um, I guess just whatever advice, but you gave me some, so yeah.
Speaker 2:And get a therapist get your own.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:Do you plan on staying with the VA for a while?
Speaker 4:That's the hope. I really, really love working for the VA. I'm really excited about the position that I'm entering.
Speaker 1:When we talked to you earlier. You were with. You weren't in the hospital of the va you're working in, or did I mistake that? Because I asked you, if you're, if you felt the impact of trump coming into the office and any kind of cutbacks, or if you saw any difference in it or any.
Speaker 5:Any influx of money coming in is the va better no, our health system's in danger is it's, it's real bad.
Speaker 4:I actually, so I got hired. So I was an intern for the last year. I got hired for my position in October. They were basically like you know, once you graduate, you'll move over Brand new position. It's a specially funded position that they advocated for to serve unhoused veterans. They've never had a psychologist in this position before, so it's brand new, I guess. Two days after the election I got an email saying sorry, your job's been cut.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 4:You're out.
Speaker 1:That's what we talked about, yeah.
Speaker 4:So, but luckily it was sorted out. Thank goodness that this all happened. You know, I had all this time before graduation to get things sorted out. So positions back on.
Speaker 2:I started in a week. So what is the position? What will you be doing?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I'll be a staff psychologist within the larger VA, but I'll specifically be working in the HUD-VASH program, which is like the Housing, urban Development for Veterans program, where they're working on getting veterans housed, getting them employment, getting them health care, that kind of thing. And yeah, they've never had a psychologist on the team before, so I'll be the one.
Speaker 2:Why? Well, who knows?
Speaker 4:Right, it's true.
Speaker 1:They've been waiting for Rachel.
Speaker 4:Good. Well, not a lot of psychologists work with this population. You know, in preparing for the population I've been doing a lot of research and there's not a lot out there on this population. I mean, I worked previously at a domiciliary so it's for veterans who either have an addictive disorder and or are without housing across the VAs but they don't have like outpatient programs where these folks can get more therapy and group work and help them maintain their housing when they're actually in it from like a more psychological and therapeutic perspective.
Speaker 4:So I'm going to be doing a lot of assessments and cognitive assessments, especially in Reno we have a so you're bringing them off the street yeah, yeah, yeah and supporting them and maintaining their subsidized housing, basically Working with folks in transitional living, helping them transition from being on the streets to being in independent living. We have a large geriatric population in Reno so I'll be doing a lot of cognitive evaluations with some of the older folks who may be losing some cognitive decline or losing some cognitive skill and that kind of thing geriatric like rob just so you must be doing a lot of vietnam vets um, yeah, yeah, I feel like I saw more vietnam vets in in palo alto, to be honest, but there's a few.
Speaker 2:I've got three that I cause I'm as I'm, as Navy. So I was on a ship during the Gulf war, safe, a hundred percent safe. But some of the men that sponsor one army, two Marines, same same war, you know, but but a lot of they still have a lot of PTSD. There's a lot, you know. We wanted to I'm going to say his name, obviously, but you know my little short friend, she was short of me again One of his things on his step work was he never wanted to kill anybody again. He didn't want to have to kill another human being. That was something we had to work through. So it's not just I mean there's PTSD with all the you know, but there's a lot.
Speaker 2:So not only do they have the alcohol, but they have the alcohol and the drug addiction. There's also going to have you know what service men or what soldiers have, but think of what they come home with or they don't come home with, or they leave there, and then well, and imagine trying to get sober while you're living on the street, you know there's people out there who are like I'm trying not to get attacked in the middle of the night.
Speaker 4:So the reason I'm taking meth is so I don't all asleep and get attacked and it's like wow, that's what a different motivation than when we did it.
Speaker 2:You know we're oh yeah and then we crossed that invisible line. But some people try to be who are have that, uh, chemical imbalance and who are like paul talked about, trying to self-medicate, trying to make it get that balance and I think it was paul.
Speaker 1:We asked you, and I don't know maybe was this come up, but how many people living on the street are really suffering from mental health and how some of them are just happy to be there.
Speaker 5:This is interesting because estimates 30% or so. I absolutely don't believe that and I'll give you a case example. There's a program up in Spokane, washington, and it's a partnership between Providence Health, the Catholic Social Services in that area, and what they have developed is absolutely amazing. They have an 85% retention rate bringing people in off the street. Wow, again, that's incredible, amazing, what are they doing right, Paul? They're doing it right from the beginning. They're starting with a low barrier shelter.
Speaker 5:Okay, they bring them in, they introduce them, they start working with them. They don't ask anything. They provide them a place to live, they give them their own apartment and it's pretty nice and they're able to take care of themselves.
Speaker 5:They have security, they have counseling All the wraparound services that you absolutely need they provide them with and they also have the ability to step them up to higher levels of housing. And the great thing about it is these guys they don't pay anything, and this is ingenious the way that they work this. They find people with a lot of money that want to get a huge tax write-off by investing, and that's how they pay for this. They do use HUD money and some government money to help finance these things, but it's a very successful program. One of the things that because I started asking the director a bunch of questions and I said so you know through your experience how many of these people are coming through your doors.
Speaker 4:We're like 60 to 70 percent of mental health issues, yeah, and substance use disorder well, and I do think it's important to consider that all of us are like I don't know, a big crisis away from being oh, for sure, you know, oh, absolutely so one of my biggest fears yeah, and like in reno, like I said, so many are geriatric.
Speaker 4:It's a lot of folks who's like their wife died and they couldn't take care of themselves, or that they don't know how to manage the house on their own because somebody else has done it all their life things like that.
Speaker 4:And so there are a lot of folks living on the streets who maybe didn't start out with substance use problems or didn't start out with mental health challenges, but inevitably like being on the street, kind of going back to that emotional intimacy piece we were talking about. You become socially excluded. You know people look at you funny.
Speaker 2:Or they don't make eye contact.
Speaker 4:They don't make eye contact they, they, we kind of they're scared of them. Often the way that folks who are unhoused or treated produces things like paranoia and anger and fear, and they get so not used to connecting with other humans that then we see that kind of push-pull dynamic of I'm scared of you, but I'm also craving intimacy and maybe now I'm going to start using substances to get that fix of intimacy Right, that makes total sense.
Speaker 4:So that's just my spiel is that all of these things come down to. As humans, we all need to connect more.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's a shame what we've, what we've allowed to happen to veterans that serve our country, go put their life on the line and because they likely joined when they were at a high school or something like that the only trade that they that they have, they have really cultivated, is not something they can bring back, the shit that we celebrate in this country, but yet we can't, we can't, we can't fix.
Speaker 1:That is disgusting. No, we can, we can well, we won't there was enough finances to do it.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, we just won't to help the ones that want help the ones, the ones, because there's a lot of them that will take, because there's some out there who are not just victims, they are victimizers, and there's that part of it Right. But there's enough resources to help the ones who want help, oh for sure, for sure, and it's just disgusting and that's where Dr Rachel is going to come in and get the.
Speaker 2:Because like we come into, like Paul talks about the low-level housing, get them properly diagnosed. Is this mental health? Is this just drug addiction? You know, that kind of that goes a long way, am I correct? And getting them the right in the right avenues of health.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the thing that's tricky is it's like Nothing's cookie cutter, I'm sure. Well, the thing that's tricky is, you know, substance use, mental health, but a lot of these things are also societal and systemic and that's where you know part of I think helping people recover, in my opinion, is also advocating for, like, greater social conditions that support people maintaining sobriety and not being pushed into situations where they find that substance use is uh, you use is their only option.
Speaker 4:And I think AA does a great job with the service piece and how important it is for all of us to be of service to each other.
Speaker 1:Do you get AA HNI coming in to the VA?
Speaker 4:What did you say? Hni? Hni, it's Hospitals and.
Speaker 1:Institutions. It is a group off of A and A off A and A off AA. Because I do a lot of H and I. I go into the jails, I go in the hospitals, I go into some institutions and I talk to the groups right and share with them our stories. You don't have that coming into your VA.
Speaker 4:They may.
Speaker 1:If they have.
Speaker 4:I've never been part of that piece of it. It's very possible that because, like the programs that I've worked for, specifically the addiction programs, they have so many different branches and arms. My therapy is just like one little piece, so it's highly possible.
Speaker 1:I love going into the hospitals and the institutions.
Speaker 2:Because we can leave. Yeah, going to the jails, I can leave this time.
Speaker 1:Well that, and they're all secluded and locked in there and they can't run away from me.
Speaker 2:They can't run away from Larry and he gets to. You have to listen.
Speaker 1:Anyways, thank you, Paul. I appreciate you coming back. Don't leave anything. Anybody want to bring anything else up.
Speaker 5:Thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you Absolutely. I really do want to do this again in a couple months. Yeah, I do like this panel. I love the fact that Rachel's a doctor and we have a professional. I love the fact. Hey, you know what? I'm tired of saying that, paul, are you an actual RN?
Speaker 5:I'm a clinical nurse specialist in psych, mental health.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 5:I'm an advanced practice nurse.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I love having the two professionals here.
Speaker 2:Something's got to be great is as rachel gets that life and work experience right, she'll be able. She'll come back with more to right share with us.
Speaker 1:But I don't know, man she's.
Speaker 5:You're pretty mature on your, your conversations now no, no but they got to put in a lot of hours to get to where they're going right I still, when I started off to go to school, I, I was, I was, I was going in that direction. I wanted to become an msw first, and then a phd psychologist, and and when I found out how many years it took, how long have you been going to school?
Speaker 4:well, I didn't take any breaks. So since kindergarten, what is that? 22 years? You went all the way back to there, my, my, phd declared her major yeah, my phd was five years and then my bachelor's was four, but I decided I wanted to be a psychologist I think I mentioned before when I was like 12, so in high school I started that's still.
Speaker 1:That still baffles me that you decided to do that at 12 years old and you still got a lot of hours.
Speaker 5:You still have hours you're gonna, you gotta complete I do?
Speaker 4:yeah, I think in nevada 1700. So if I.
Speaker 2:So once you do that, what do you complete for?
Speaker 4:um, my licensure okay so. So I have the degree, um, but then you have to get okay.
Speaker 2:So that means they're saying, okay, you have the knowledge, so here's the jury.
Speaker 5:Now you've got to go get yeah and she can, she can practice, but she, but she's considered an associate or something like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I have to practice under somebody else's license. So I have a clinical supervisor who basically we meet once a week to talk about what I'm doing and make sure that I'm doing a good job. Talk about what I'm doing and make sure that I'm doing a good job, you know, and then once I complete that license, then I could go out and practice independently under my own and I did supervise California.
Speaker 1:Do you know how many hours California requires? I don't.
Speaker 4:I actually think I looked it up the other day in Nevada might require more, which is kind of shocked me but California requires you to do some extra coursework that I think Nevada doesn't. But Nevada also requires you to take this is like nerdy psychology stuff but you have to take the EPPP, which is like your final licensing test, and Nevada decided to adopt a part two, so extra studying.
Speaker 1:Well, move your eyes your husband over there. He's in Nevada.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he is in Nevada. But once you get that, can you go to any state, or do you have to?
Speaker 4:is there a certain no, no, but they're starting to do certain things specifically in rural states where the need is higher, where you can kind of get like I guess the best way I can put it is cross license. So if you're like, registered for the certain thing, you can practice under state lines. But the reason is every state has different laws and how to practice. Like in California, like it's a 5150 if somebody is in crisis, whereas in Nevada it's called an L2K and they have different standards for each. So you have to be,
Speaker 4:apt to each state's different laws to make sure you're practicing ethically.
Speaker 1:All right, well, thank you. I don't know if that helped anybody today, but it sure the hell helped me. I need this. Every Sunday at one o'clock. I need this therapy group.
Speaker 4:Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1:Not going to get it. Thank you so very much If you want to reach out to us. It's recovery on filter podcast at gmailcom. You know I was let me talk about this real fast. Probably 90% of the people just stopped listening because I went to that but we got a new logo right. I got a new social media girl that's going to start working on it, and it both came out of last week's podcast with Sean and Mary and I'm so excited that both those stepped up.
Speaker 1:Sean is a web designer and he did our new um, our new logo, and he's got a ton more stuff he's working on. So we got some exciting stuff coming coming up with Sean and Mary and they just they. Once they were done with the podcast, they got excited about it. Sean reached out with the new logo. I didn't even ask for it. Excited about it. Sean reached out with the new logo. I didn't even ask for it, he just sent it to me in a text. I'm like holy shit, this is badass. And then he's I said something about a web, uh, website and social media and he goes mary can do all that for you.
Speaker 2:So yeah, they just didn't want to bring it up, they were gonna they. She wanted to bring it up over here and said I'll, but felt kind of awkward. You said no I didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't even like I said, because you said it on the podcast. I did yes, okay, well, I didn't she was going to say something, but she. I didn't even realize. I said it, but the logos came out of nowhere.
Speaker 2:Or you said it while we were sitting here with her, but I didn't say anything about the logos. No you said something to him about the logos After the podcast we were just sitting here talking.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know what I did? Sorry, I did beg.
Speaker 2:I did beg. No, not beg A little beg, but you bought it.
Speaker 1:All right, it's recoveryunfilteredpodcastgmailcom. Recoveryunfilteredpodcast. God bless it.
Speaker 2:Hey, play that. That's the best one, Thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 1:We hope you Come back next week and we'll try again, If you like what we heard.
Speaker 2:Give us a five-star review. If you don't like what you heard, kiss my ass. I can't say that, can you? Anyway, if you don't like what you heard, go ahead and tell us that too. We'll see what we can improve. We probably won't change nothing, but do it anyway.
Speaker 1:Hey, thanks, rob. Come back next week and hopefully something will be different and something will sink in you.