S2E10 Rich Jones on Connection and Options in Recovery

A note before you listen...

This episode includes frank discussion of substance use, overdose, and family loss, and contains explicit language.

We often think the opposite of addiction is sobriety. Rich Jones makes the case that it's connection.

Rich grew up in Ligonier, about an hour east of Pittsburgh. A car accident in 1999 sent him home from an emergency room with 120 Darvocet, and within eighteen months he was in a rehab. He's been in recovery ever since; twenty-six years, and he built a career out of what he learned there.

Today he's co-founder and chief clinical officer of Youturn Health and founder of BuildWell Health, where the people answering the phone aren't strangers. They're people who've been there.

In this conversation, Rich talks about the enormous group of people who fall between doing nothing and going to treatment, and why the system consistently misses them. He explains why "wait for them to hit bottom" was never sound advice. He walks us through what peer support is, how families get trained as recovery coaches, and why he thinks boundary setting and stress management are the two things family recovery actually comes down to.

We also get into the parts that hit close to home for us; the phone calls that go nowhere, the treatment windows that close before you can reach them, and what watching someone you love in active addiction does to your own body.

This one is heavy. It's also, we think, one of the most hopeful conversations we've had.

About Rich Jones

Rich Jones is a licensed clinical substance use specialist with more than 40,000 coaching hours. He holds an undergraduate degree in business management from Saint Vincent College, a graduate degree in sociology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA. He began his career at UPMC Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, later spent twelve years in Greenville, South Carolina building peer support and recovery coaching programs, and was one of the earliest founders of a recovery community organization in the United States. He serves on the board of Sage's Army.

Connect with Rich

Email: rjones@buildwellhealth.com — the address Rich gave on air. He offered it to anyone who wants more information about peer support certification, particularly listeners outside Pennsylvania.

Youturn Health: youturnhealth.com Co-founded by Rich Jones (Chief Clinical Officer)and Hamilton Baiden, who serves as Chief Executive Officer. Peer-based behavioral health and substance use support delivered primarily through telehealth, with flexible scheduling built around the person rather than the program. Youturn serves individuals and family members, with dedicated family coaches and a weekly family group.

BuildWell Health: buildwellhealth.com Founded by Rich to reach construction and blue-collar workers, who historically have not accessed traditional behavioral health services. BuildWell operates mental health clinics on site at job sites.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Sage's Army: sagesarmy.com A 501(c)(3) recovery community organization based in Westmoreland County, with locations in Greensburg and Irwin. Founded in 2012 by Carmen Capozzi after the overdose death of his twenty-year-old son, Sage. Sage's Army provides education, advocacy, and direct services including outreach, and employs Certified Recovery Specialists and Certified Family Recovery Specialists.

Pennsylvania Certification Board: pacertboard.org Where to start if you're in Pennsylvania and want to become a Certified Recovery Specialist. Rich describes the pathway accurately: a course, supervised hours, certification, and recertification every two years. If you're outside Pennsylvania, Rich has offered to help point you in the right direction — his email is above.

Resolve Crisis Services (Allegheny County): 1-888-796-8226 Free, 24/7 crisis support for Allegheny County residents, including mobile teams that come to you.

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988 Available 24/7 nationwide.

SMART Recovery:  smartrecovery.org One of several alternatives to twelve-step programs mentioned as a pathway worth trying.

AA, NA, and Al-Anon We want to be clear about something we said on air: those rooms save lives. If a twelve-step program is working for you, stay in it. Our point in this episode is that it shouldn't be the only door anybody ever shows you.

Here's where a few things in this episode come from, and where we'd add a caveat.

Rat Park. The experiments Rich refers to were conducted by Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander and colleagues at Simon Fraser University in the late 1970s. The study used a morphine solution, not cocaine, and found that rats in an enriched, social environment consumed less than isolated rats. Worth knowing: the original study has never been successfully replicated, and researchers have raised methodological questions about it. A substantial body of later research on environmental enrichment has found that animals in fuller environments self-administer drugs at lower rates.

Vietnam and heroin. The research Rich points to comes from Lee Robins' longitudinal studies of returning US servicemen, published in the mid-1970s. Robins found that heroin use was widespread in country, and that the large majority of men who had been dependent overseas did not relapse after returning home, and most without any treatment at all. It remains one of the most striking findings in the addiction literature about the role of environment.

Los Angeles County Jail. Rich's framing reflects a widely reported reality: the Los Angeles County jail system, along with Cook County and Rikers Island, functions as one of the largest de facto mental health facilities in the United States.

Synanon.  Founded in California in 1958, Synanon was among the most prominent narcotics treatment programs of the 1960s and 70s before deteriorating into a cult.

Naloxone (Narcan). Naloxone displaces opioids from receptors and reverses an overdose. It is not enabling; it's a basic emergency medical response. One thing worth adding that we didn't cover on air: xylazine is not an opioid, so naloxone will not reverse it. Give naloxone anyway, since fentanyl is almost always present too, but the person may not fully wake up. Call 911, stay with them, and keep them on their side.

The 6% figure. Rich cites a statistic that only about six percent of people with a substance use disorder ever receive help. That figure reflects federal survey data from a few years back. The survey definitions have since changed, and more recent federal estimates put the share of people classified as needing substance use treatment who receive it closer to one in five. The underlying point, that most people who need help never get it, holds either way.

Positive psychology. Mentioned in passing as a source of stress management tools. We covered this ground more fully with Dr. Leslie B. Newman earlier this season.

Johann Hari. Rich mentions Hari's talk on connection and addiction, which is where a lot of people first encounter Rat Park. 

Also mentioned

• Darvocet (propoxyphene) — a prescription opioid painkiller, withdrawn from the US market in 2010
• IOP — intensive outpatient program
• Recovery community organization (RCO) — an independent 501(c)(3) governed by people in recovery and their family members
• Peer support / recovery coaching — support delivered by people with lived experience rather than clinical credentials alone

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This podcast is meant to be informational and inspirational, but it is not a substitute for professional advice. We are not licensed therapists or medical professionals, and what we share here comes from personal experience only. If you or someone you love is struggling, please reach out to someone trained to help. If you're in crisis, call or text 988.

Transcript

Connection As The Real Antidote

rich 0:00

I believe in our world today, we gotta find some professional connectors.

Sherry 0:04

That's Rich Jones, and he just handed us the whole point of this episode. We often think the opposite of addiction is sobriety. I think it's connection. Keep that in your back pocket for the next hour because everything he tells us about veterans, about people coming home from prison, about all the families white-knuckling it alone, it comes back to that one thing. We need each other. Today's guest grew up right here in Western PA, and his story is proof that connection isn't a soft skill. It's a lifeline. Rich Jones is a person in long-term recovery, and he turned that experience into a life's work. He walked alongside families facing substance use disorder. Today he's the co-founder and chief clinical officer of You Turn Health, and founder of BuildWell Health where the people answering the phone aren't strangers. They're people who've been there. He's a licensed clinical substance use specialist with over forty thousand coaching hours. But honestly, the credential that matters most today is this: He knows what it means to need someone and what it means to be that person for somebody else. Rich, welcome to This Is It.

rich 1:28

Thanks for having me.

Sherry 1:29

Glad you're here, and you're here because you built something that really reaches people that much of the system often misses, and we're gonna get into all that. But first, I thought it would be great to talk about who you were before this existed and what you were carrying

From Small Town Drinking To Pills

Sherry 1:47

at that time.

rich 1:47

I'm the oldest of three boys. I come from just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a small town called Ligonier, PA. It was kinda like your, your typical middle class town and stuff, and my growing up wasn't much different than what was going on around me. Now, it was a different world in the 1980s. It was a much rougher world. Parenting was a lot different. There was a lot of underage drinking. It was wild, to, to be honest with you.

Sherry 2:14

You were the feral generation.

rich 2:15

It was a feral generation. And let me tell you, man, I was a red-blooded American boy who was 100% in the feral generation, and I was doing it all. Anything that came down the pike in terms of, like, messing around with substances, I was down for that. I never thought twice about it, to be honest with you. I just thought that was how you rolled. And nobody ever talked to us. There was never anything ever said to us in school. And I'm not saying this to, to blame anybody. That's not my vibe. It's just a reality of what life was like. It wasn't... like today when there's a bunch of mental health awareness, and a bunch of D.A.R.E. programs, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. It was not like that. So, I muddled my way through high school, muddled my way through college, and I, I, I'm classic kinda, like, background where I'm not sure what I wanna do with my life. What happened was... And I wanna go on the record and say I probably had a problem with alcohol before this happened. I, I definitely did. I, I loved to party. But it, it never really got to a point where I was thinking about quitting. I, I was just... I was normal as far as I was concerned. I was sitting at a red light here in Western PA and a, and a, and a person drove right into the back of me, and I wind up walking out of an emergency room with 120 Darvocet. Darvocet are narcotic, painkillers. And that was in 1999, and by 2002 I was in recovery. And, and guys, that period of time in my life is a blur. These things took over. And I was the type of person who prided myself. I was very disciplined. I was an athlete. I thought I had my shit together. Excuse me if I use bad language. I tend to do that. I'll apologize upfront.

Jodi 3:58

Safe space.

rich 3:59

These things grabbing a hold of me, that was uncharted territory for me. And I will tell you, uh, within three days to seven days, I was physically dependent on these pills. Within 30 days, it was all I could think about, and within 18 months I'm in a rehab. And, and I've been in recovery ever since. And you know what? I thank God for that every day. And then what happened, Sherry and Jodi, is I, I quickly realized I, I couldn't do, like, the jobs I thought I was gonna do. I couldn't do, like, sales. I couldn't be around drinking. I couldn't be out there networking. And so I needed a new profession, and I got a job at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, uh, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. They didn't know this, but my really, uh, only qualification was I was sober, like, 30 days. And I started working in the field with 30 days sober and an undergraduate degree from St. Vincent College in business management. Now, I went back to school to IUP then and got my graduate degree in sociology and became a counselor. Then I went back and got my MBA and got into healthcare management, and wound up where I am now running companies in this industry. And it's been a 26-year journey. I'm summarizing a whole lot of stuff there.

Sherry 5:15

Well, and you went to IUP, sober.

rich 5:18

I went to IUP sober. Now, I will tell you, I was already, like, older, right? I wasn't, like, a college student.

Sherry 5:23

I see.

rich 5:24

I went there as an adult student, and you know what? It was great. I had great mentors there. I would say that IUP shaped a lot of my decisions of going into this field and doing this work, because this was not the type of thing I ever thought I would be doing. If you talk to my friends growing up and, and you tell them, I've had this conversation with them, that I'm a therapist now, they think it's hilarious. They're like, "Your poor patients, whoever you wind up talking to." It's crazy.

Sherry 5:52

It's great. I think you have a great voice that really connects with, with people.

rich 5:57

Absolutely.

Sherry 5:58

Listened to you and follow your work, and I'm a believer in, little synchronicities, but that sounds like,

rich 6:04

Yeah.

Sherry 6:05

one.

rich 6:06

Well, and then, uh,

Sherry 6:07

You somehow end up where you're supposed to be.

rich 6:09

And then what happens is I start doing this work and I had a very unique experience. Keep in mind, I wasn't the type of person who knew he wanted to be a therapist. I didn't know a lot about behavioral health. I was an outsider coming into the industry. And I also come from a very entrepreneurial family. I come from a family of risk-takers. We all start businesses, all that kind of stuff, right?

Why The System Misses Most People

rich 6:34

And so I go into this behavioral health industry, and I quickly see that it's broken, as broken can be. And the way that they're helping people doesn't make any sense. But you gotta have a job, and you gotta feed the family, so you're doing what you need to do. But what happened was about eight years into my journey, shortly after IUP, I basically rejected a lot of the traditional system, went off to Greenville, South Carolina for 12 years to start this new type of service, peer support, recovery coaching, based more on lived experience. And, and I don't wanna discount rehabs and psych units. All that stuff's important, but it only scratches the surface of the problem. Here's the reality, guys, here's the deal. Only 6% of people with a substance use disorder ever get help. And I wanted to start something different. That's what took me to Greenville, and I've continued that up into these most recent companies at You-Turn and at BuildWell Health.

Jodi 7:37

You found a missing piece.

rich 7:39

Missing piece would be a good way of saying it.

Sherry 7:41

Yeah, and it's that gap between the people who are doing nothing and going to treatment, and it's a lot bigger than I even realized.

rich 7:48

It's huge.

Sherry 7:49

Somehow fumbling along and making it through.

rich 7:53

Well, and if you think about it, getting a therapist is not easy. It's not an easy thing for people to do. It's not easy to get labeled with a diagnosis and again, that, that is very important part of the equation, but there's a whole lot of other people that need some level of support, but it's not quite that intense, and they really get left out. I wanna tell you something. That group, they're the people just trying to suffer through it, for lack of a better term, suck it up.

Sherry 8:21

Because you think, "I should be okay.

rich 8:23

Yep.

Sherry 8:24

I'm not over here."

rich 8:25

That's exactly right.

Sherry 8:26

We label ourselves, we put ourselves in boxes, and then we stay stuck.

rich 8:31

We've been conditioned to think we're either normal or crazy. And I, I say this all the time, like, you're fooling yourself if you think you're not crazy. Like, crazy is normal. And it, you know, that's the truth. But we've gotten really weird messages from the media, and you know what it's like. We don't talk about this stuff, so everybody has this weird, weird thing in their head where, like, "If I gotta get help, something's wrong with me." In the meantime, we're all walking around like, "I need help." That's my take.

Sherry 9:00

Yep. You know what? Whenever, you know, I was following some of your work, what really stopped me was when I looked at the specific populations that you serve.

rich 9:09

Yeah.

Sherry 9:10

Because the things that you just talked about, I think are even more in those populations. So you do provide behavior health and substance misuse support?

rich 9:20

We had to,

Sherry 9:21

support

rich 9:22

we had to get... The truth is, I believe that the system needs to be addressed on a societal level. But if you really get honest, when you dig down into certain groups, it gets, it gets, I don't, I don't know what word to use other than despicably disgusting. I can't believe our society has neglected veterans the way that they've neglected veterans. I can't believe our society has systematically essentially ignored and not created special services for first responders. Now, I should say there are some special, but it's not the norm. There are people doing good work, but it's not the norm.

Sherry 9:58

Right.

rich 9:59

Another group, how about people coming out of prison? People who need... we can't arrest our way out of this. Do you know that the, the country's largest mental health facility is Los Angeles County Jail? More, more people receive mental health services at Los Angeles County Jail than anywhere else in our country. You can't expect these guys just to come out and be okay. And then the other one that we focus on are construction workers and blue-collar workers, because that's another group that doesn't access traditional services. So what we did when we created our programs, what we said was, "How do we get to those folks?" And that's where we came up with this idea of let's focus more on what's called peer support, the "I've been there done that" model, versus Rich has certain degrees. Does that make sense?

Sherry 10:50

Yeah.

Jodi 10:51

100%.

Sherry 10:52

Yeah, because there's so many who, you know, aren't talking about what they're carrying because you're, you're made to feel like you can't talk about it. And then as you said, for, for far too long, not enough of us were listening

rich 11:06

Right

Sherry 11:06

when they do try to talk about it.

rich 11:08

And you have a guy, you have a

Sherry 11:10

and it gets kicked, shoved aside,

rich 11:12

Or, or you have...

Sherry 11:13

work, go do the thing.

rich 11:14

And you, and you have these like what I would say are, again, not trying to be disrespectful to anything about the system, but these are these cookie cutter solutions, and I'll use people coming out of prison, for example. Here's the reality for people coming out of prison. Let's pretend you went into prison because you did a crime to support your habit, which happens all the time. And it's not bad people, guys. It's truly a brain disorder. And, and so you go in prison, you sober up for two years. When you come out, you got, you got certain options. You can enroll in what's called an IOP program, where you gotta go to group three times a week. Now, at that point, you have to make a choice between treatment and a job. And then what happens is, is the system blames the person. You didn't do what you were supposed to do. You did not, uh, come to our group that we scheduled three times a week from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM or 12 noon to 3:00 or whatever. This is the stuff that drives me nuts. And I have a coach, I literally have a coach trying to teach me how to talk in, about this in a calmer way, 'cause I get so frustrated.

Sherry 12:19

Yeah.

rich 12:20

And that's why we came in with this other angle where we're like, "We'll call you on the phone if we have to. We'll go out and meet you if we have to. We'll come in the house if we have to." And then here's what happened, and this really blew people's mind. It got picked up by the federal government and studied. They looked at it. It got published. Our model has been published in 13 journals as what's called an evidence-based... Yeah. So we're onto something. We're onto something, for sure.

Sherry 12:47

I know you're onto something because, you know, one of the main drivers for why we called you in the first place was, you know, this podcast was birthed because of our own paths that we've walked with our families and our loved ones and, and such, but specifically my sister who passed, um,

rich 13:02

I'm so sorry.

Sherry 13:03

end of December 2024.

rich 13:03

Yeah

Sherry 13:04

Thank you. but what we went through with her over and over again, she battled for more than 20 years,

rich 13:12

Yes

Sherry 13:12

She went to treatment so many times, and we lost count, but that was always the piece was the, the aftercare. you know, we tried to be there as much as possible for the supporting back into... it was just like, "Do the program, it was over and over again, the same cycle.

rich 13:30

Don't you think it's kind of odd? Don't you think it's kind of odd that we invented a system that essentially just does the same thing over and over and over again to people? Like rinse and repeat.

Sherry 13:40

The definition of insanity.

rich 13:42

And, and this is the stuff I can't tolerate. This is why I don't get invited to the addiction treatment conferences. I will get invited to speak in Harrisburg one time, and then they hear my message and I'll never get invited back 'cause I don't play that shit, man. I'm not down with saying it's okay.

Sherry 13:59

Right. Well, I don't wanna say that 12 steps don't work or anything like that.

rich 14:03

No.

Sherry 14:04

You know, there are so many people who have come through the program and, and it worked. Um,

rich 14:09

I don't say that at all.

Sherry 14:10

But what, what I think people struggle with, and what you're speaking to, is that we are not aware of all of these other pathways, and it doesn't have to be this one pathway that we're rinse and repeat, you know, that doesn't work for everybody. And, you know, I had no idea that what you were doing even existed until I started down this road of trying to, you know, make something out of our pain.

rich 14:34

Yeah.

Sherry 14:35

You know, find a different way forward. So that's what it's really all about, so I get your frustration and I, I, and I hope that more doors open the more you talk about it and the more that people get the, the message that you're trying to bring.

rich 14:47

Yeah. Yep.

Jodi 14:49

What you're doing, we know it works too because just you saying you'll meet people where they're at, I've had experiences with having to call Resolve Crisis Center. It was so much more effective than anything else I had ever experienced. And I thought, "Why isn't this more widely available? Why aren't there more people doing this?" I have a friend who is a a psychiatric nurse in the UK, and in the UK, psychiatric nurse actually go to the homes of the people. They don't wait for someone to make an appointment and come in. They go to them. They get the list. They have the people.

rich 15:26

Yeah

Jodi 15:26

They go to them. It makes a huge difference.

rich 15:28

It's curious. It's very curious.

Jodi 15:31

So, I love that you're doing this.

rich 15:32

Yeah. Here, here's what's wild. If you look at the system, they will do it in certain cases for mental health, but not for addiction. So

Jodi 15:42

not for addiction.

rich 15:43

When I first started working in the field, one of the first jobs I had was doing outreach into the homes, but it was strictly for things like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. You couldn't do it for a person... Let's pretend a person kept relapsing on opioids. You could not do it for that person, which I don't get that at all.

Jodi 16:03

No, it's mind-blowing 'cause it's all the same.

rich 16:05

It's the same thing.

Jodi 16:07

Substance use disorder is a mental health disorder. It's all the same. And if you've been through it with a loved one and you've seen what can happen, there's really no difference between watching someone have a psychiatric break and watching somebody having a, an issue because they're on a substance that's making them lose their mind even more.

rich 16:29

Yes. And it's equally dangerous, right? Actually, if you wanted to get real about it, it's probably more dangerous to be using opioids, if you wanna get real. But you can't call. So for your sister, Sherry, if, and if you and your mom are going through that and you wanna do something about it and so on and so forth, there's no option to get... Don't you think it, d- isn't this a logical option? You call, you get a professional social worker and a drug and alcohol counselor that comes into the house. There's no way that could cost as much as rehab. There's no way that would cost the system as much as rehab.

Sherry 17:01

There was something similar that was there for some of it, but it wasn't the norm.

rich 17:07

Oh, now do you recall how it happened that you got that?

Sherry 17:10

It started through Resolve. The crisis line for Allegheny County. It's sort of similar to 988, the national number, but it's for local. They do bring people to you. Yeah, they do.

rich 17:22

Wow.

Sherry 17:23

But The

Jodi 17:24

problem is that there's not enough of them, and Sometimes you can call and they're, they're there within 15 minutes. Sometimes you call them and

rich 17:30

Oh. Oh

Jodi 17:31

wait, three-hour wait. And if you're in crisis,

rich 17:34

Ah, I get it. I see. I see.

Sherry 17:38

you know,

rich 17:38

So they're trying though. That wasn't a thing even

Jodi 17:42

Yeah

rich 17:44

Yeah

Sherry 17:44

They're trying. Um, but you know, the system is overloaded now and,

rich 17:49

And it's not the providers, guys, it's the payers. It's the people who pay for the services. If they paid differently, all the providers would do different things.

Sherry 17:58

It's definitely difficult.

rich 17:59

It's good for the insurance bottom line when your sister doesn't show up at the IOP group, because when she doesn't show up at group, they don't have to pay for it. So there's no incentive to change the system.

Sherry 18:12

Right.

rich 18:13

That's why you have Resolve doing cool things, but I might get them in 15 minutes, I might get them in two hours. It shouldn't be that way, man. It should not be that way.

Jodi 18:22

No, no

Sherry 18:24

and the other piece that gets handed out over and over again is waiting for them to hit bottom.

rich 18:30

Oh my goodness. Yeah.

Sherry 18:31

And, You know, we did not follow that for most of the 20 years,

rich 18:35

Yeah

Sherry 18:36

20 or so years, we were caught in that cycle of repeating those same treatments so many times. We did, get to a point where, well, things got, things got, um, dangerous and scary, and

rich 18:52

Yeah

Sherry 18:53

you know, for protection, some boundaries needed to be in place.

rich 18:57

Yep.

Sherry 18:58

And that didn't change the outcome or the fact that we felt like we were out of options.

rich 19:03

Right.

Sherry 19:04

The just wait for them to hit bottom thing,

rich 19:07

It's, it's,

Sherry 19:08

know,

rich 19:08

it's

Sherry 19:08

some people don't come back from a bottom.

rich 19:11

It's so wild. It was never... The thing that's tragic about the hit bottom thing is it was just a slogan that started to get used at, like, 12 step meetings primarily that was sort of co-opted by even treatment centers and treatment professionals, and it became this sort of default for the way the system handled it, and it doesn't even pass the common sense test.

Families Need Boundaries And Stress Skills

rich 19:34

But Sherry, I did wanna say this 'cause I, I experienced a lot of this. When I went to Greenville, so I wound up in Greenville running a nonprofit, and we had a vibrant family group. We served around 10,000 families when it was all said and done, and we specialized in these type of conversations. And, um, what I can tell you is you absolutely reach a point in the relationship. So here's the rules. It's not about trying to wait for a person to hit bottom. But you do need to set boundaries, and you have to protect yourself, your property, your mental health, and your physical health. And, and so you get worn out, it's absolutely appropriate to say you cannot... But it's not about hitting bottom. It's more about boundaries. Does that make sense?

Sherry 20:18

Right. It absolutely makes I'm far enough into my healing and understanding of everything that we've gone through that I, I understand that, Now.

rich 20:26

Yeah

Sherry 20:27

it, you don't, because you're like, "Am, am I enabling? Am I letting him, you know,

rich 20:32

Yeah, you don't know what to do.

Sherry 20:34

What is my role here?" That's why this episode was important to us because there's so many people living in that space.

rich 20:38

Well, just so y'all know, I went through it with my kids. I went through...

Sherry 20:42

Ahh.

rich 20:42

I thought my adult daughter, she's good now, she's 27, I thought she was gonna die of an overdose. She got hooked on Xanax and, uh, wound up buying it from the street and stuff. And I... Think about what I do for a profession. I was just...

Sherry 20:57

Yeah

rich 20:57

guys know what I'm talking about when I say, like, you live in terror, right?

Sherry 21:01

Yeah, I do.

rich 21:02

Yeah. Well, think about this, guys. People might say this is ex- is extreme, but tell me if you can relate to this. The only thing I could compare it to would be if you had a kid off at war. 'Cause when you have somebody in active addiction, you literally are legitimately thinking you're gonna get a phone call saying they're dead, and that's a weird way to live.

Jodi 21:23

It

rich 21:24

That's just...

Jodi 21:24

it is a war.

rich 21:25

Yeah. Yeah. It is war. It's, and it's so traumatic. It's, it's like a constant trauma.

Sherry 21:33

Well, it becomes in your body. It's becomes, you get to the point where you can't literally catch your breath. families carrying this get sick. I'm one of them.

rich 21:42

Yeah.

Jodi 21:43

Yeah.

rich 21:43

It's the stress. Your body can only take so much stress.

Sherry 21:47

Yeah.

Jodi 21:47

I was in the hospital getting a heart catheter before I was 50, so

rich 21:51

Yep

Jodi 21:52

I was dumbfounded. And everybody kind of said the same thing, "Well,

rich 21:55

Yeah.

Jodi 21:55

no kidding.

rich 21:57

What we wound up doing was we wound up intervening a lot in supporting the family. What we did was we kind of flipped the script on it. We had services for the individuals who wanted the services, and we had a bunch of families that we just really helped the family. And eventually, that also helped the individual, which was curious. That brought the individual along. But we would focus more on mom and dad or husband and wife. That was the only thing that we could come up with because, you know, you do get into a situation. Like, people always say, "Why is it so hard for Americans to understand that addiction is a disease?" And, and I'm saying this as a person in recovery, one of the reasons is, is 'cause we're such assholes when we're in addiction, right? Like, it's so out of control, and it's so ridiculous. It's hard to have sympathy.

Sherry 22:46

Right, you're judging the behaviors and not, not what's going on with the person.

rich 22:51

And people do crazy stuff.

Jodi 22:54

Yeah.

rich 22:55

I mean, I did crazy stuff, like just absolutely unacceptable, like what am I thinking stuff. And, uh, I understand where the frustration comes from, and I also, and I can wrap my mind around where this concept or idea of wait till a person hits bottom comes from. It's self-preservation. You know what I mean?

Sherry 23:16

Yep.

rich 23:18

I gotta keep him at a distance. I can't deal with this. I can't watch it. I totally get it.

Sherry 23:25

Yeah. And the drugs have changed.

rich 23:28

My goodness. Everything

Sherry 23:30

meth, then the fentanyl and the xylazine and people are losing touch with reality in a, in a matter of weeks, months, not years.

rich 23:39

Yeah.

Sherry 23:40

And, sometimes it doesn't all come back.

rich 23:40

It's super dangerous, and it's so dangerous. Yeah

Sherry 23:44

So that's where we found ourselves and, and so, a lot of families aren't just watching addiction anymore, they're really watching psychiatric emergencies.

rich 23:55

Yes.

Sherry 23:56

And not having a clue what to do with it. Because they're disqualified for one treatment because of the, the drugs, and then

rich 24:06

Yep. You have to learn how to... It's weird. You have to learn how to work the system

Sherry 24:10

Well, yeah, and you're doing that dance while someone is

rich 24:13

You have to learn what to say, who to call. I even working in the system ha- yeah.

Sherry 24:19

I've spent days on the phone.

rich 24:21

Yep

Sherry 24:21

"Sorry, we can't help you, but call this number." And we call the next number,

Jodi 24:24

Yeah

Sherry 24:24

down down, down the line, and then by the time we get through to where we thought we had a way forward, then,

rich 24:32

Yep

Sherry 24:32

wasn't gonna happen because the window was closed for her at that point in time.

rich 24:36

Hey, here's something, here's something interesting. The services in our neck of the woods, like actually Allegheny County, compared to other parts of the country, they do a pretty good job, believe it or not. My daughter was going through some of this stuff out in Arizona. Holy cow. I had to fly out there and walk into a facility and say, "I'm gonna sue you personally, doctor. You..." And I had to point to people and say, "I work in the field. I understand how this works. You guys, you know you're mistreating my daughter." And, uh, and they did change their tune, but I literally had to go out there and do that. And I, I wouldn't have known to do that if I didn't work in the field. I would've just kept blaming her.

Sherry 25:17

Right.

rich 25:17

I don't know if you guys experienced with your family members, but what the system will do is they'll try to discharge people as fast as possible

Sherry 25:26

To make room because there's a, a long line of people trying to get help.

rich 25:30

Yes, and

Sherry 25:31

I,

rich 25:31

I get it why that happens, but that's dangerous and that's not gonna work, and like she meets criteria to be here, guys. You know? So do the right thing.

Jodi 25:42

There's alot of dangerous parts of it. At first when I heard it, I thought it was wrong, and then I, I talked to a few more parents who had the same experience, that if a kid decides they wanna go to rehab, and they show up at the rehab to be admitted and they don't actually have anything in their system at the time, boom, forget it. And I have talked to moms who lost their children because they went and did the drug to get into the rehab.

rich 26:11

I've, I've absolutely heard that story.

Jodi 26:13

If you're not in active... You have to actually have shit in your system.

rich 26:18

I have absolutely...

Jodi 26:19

to even be admitted, if you're willing.

rich 26:20

Yes, especially

Jodi 26:22

so insane to me.

rich 26:23

Yeah, it's terrible. Terrible

Sherry 26:28

So what you're doing, you were saying earlier about meeting people where they are, how does your

Low-Barrier Support That Meets You

Sherry 26:33

model?

rich 26:33

Well, first, the first thing is, it's you gotta change your philosophy. So, A lot of what goes on with the behavioral health, it depends on what your particular treatment philosophy is. So let's just use addiction, for example. The treatment philosophy in most addiction programs, for better or for worse, is Rich has to experience enough pain to come into my facility, do what I tell him to do, follow all the directions, and he'll get better. And you know what? That guy's right. If I do that, I probably will get better. But the problem is nobody does that, so it's all the other people that are left out. So I'm talking about what do you do with them. It's how do you focus on them? So we start with understanding that they're part of the equation, and we have to figure out how to help them, not them figure out how for us to help them. Does that make sense what I just said? It's our job as, it's our job as professionals to figure out what they need because they're the ones that are hurting, if you've ever seen a brain scan of somebody in the middle of this stuff, like, they're, it's not rational thinking. And I'm not saying that we get to tell them how to run their life. That's not what I mean at all. I just mean things like meeting them where they're at. I'll meet you...

Sherry 27:43

Yeah

rich 27:43

So in our case, how it plays out a lot, guys, is telehealth. Very flexible scheduling is part of it. The philosophy is called, low threshold of engagement, low barriers to engagement. You wanna talk at 7:30 at night? Boom, we're gonna talk at 7:30 at night. You wanna talk on Saturday? You know what I mean? We're gonna talk. So incredible flexibility delivered primarily through a telehealth model. That's not the only way we do it. Another example is on the BuildWell Health side, we actually run mental health clinics on site at the job sites where these construction workers are working. And so they come into our trailer while we're on the job site, and they meet with us right there. That's another example. And so the details, what's really cool about the way that we think about it, Sherry and Jodi, is there's millions of ways to figure out how to do it if you just change your vision, and you go from instead of blaming the patient and saying it's the patient's job to figure out, we say nope. I went to school for eight years to figure this shit out. I've been sober for 26 years. I'm gonna figure out how to make them want recovery.

Sherry 28:54

Yeah

rich 28:56

I gotta tell you, what I just said right there, if I said that at the addiction treatment conference, I would get kicked out. You are not allowed to think that way in addiction treatment. And I'm not saying nobody thinks that way. I would make an argument that most people working in that system, they probably agree with me, but it's just not, especially private rehabs.

Sherry 29:18

Why do you think that is?

rich 29:20

There's a couple different ways of looking at it. Cynical folks would say it works from a business model standpoint. We want repeat customers. What a less cynical person would say, it's just more this is what they believe works. And I will tell you, because I know people who work in the field and they're good people, I tend to err on the side of the second one. You guys have been through this with your families. I'm not making this up.

Sherry 29:44

No, no, I know you're not making it up.

rich 29:46

Here's the other thing. One of the reasons why it's the way it is, and I think there's great hope for the future because I think the world is changing. But one of the main reasons to why it is, is because nobody ever paid attention to it because of the stigma. You could treat and you could do whatever you wanted with an alcoholic, right? Like who the hell cares? He's an alcoholic. I could tell you stories of the history of addiction treatment that would blow your mind. Well-documented stories, like a program called Synanon in California that was essentially a cult, and was the main narcotics treatment program i- in the '60s and '70s. So it's getting better, and I think it's gonna get a lot better moving forward. You wanna know why I think it's gonna get better? I don't think Gen Z's gonna put up with it.

Jodi 30:34

Uh-uh. I think you're right.

rich 30:35

Yeah. They don't play this mental health stuff, man. They, they don't play around. Like, they want their mental health rights. They want their mental health days. I'm not saying it'll change quick, but, like, the people in charge are gonna have to reconcile themselves to these... this isn't rich from the 1980s when you could... this is true. When I went to school, they could paddle me. I got paddled in school. That's how different it was.

Sherry 31:02

Yeah, so did my husband.

rich 31:04

That's how different the world was, right? Yeah.

Jodi 31:07

Yep, I've been paddled.

rich 31:08

If you did that today, that teacher would be arrested, right? Immediately. And so that generation is not gonna tolerate this type of institutional answer.

Sherry 31:21

Right.

rich 31:21

I don't know what it'll look like. Who knows what it'll look like?

Sherry 31:24

I think we have a lot to learn from each other.

rich 31:26

Yeah.

Sherry 31:26

As far as the generations go.

rich 31:28

I agree.

Jodi 31:30

I think we should dig a little deeper on the family role.

rich 31:35

Yeah, I can tell you more about that.

Sherry 31:37

Okay

rich 31:39

Family stuff was always kind of included in treatment, but it was more like if, if Sherry's sister wound up in treatment, Sherry would get sent to Al-Anon, or she would get invited to a family workshop at the rehab. And obviously that's better than nothing, but in our opinion, that's incredibly inadequate. So what we did was this peer support model had been around for about 25 years. This is when a person is in recovery from addiction or a mental health issue, they get specially trained, and then they can help other people with those issues. We did the same thing with family members. So if you two would've been at my nonprofit, I would've been like, "You guys look like you understand how this stuff works. It seems like you've been through this, and you've kind of worked through your own process." You would then get a special training, and we still do this, a special certification, and then we would assign family members to the coaches the same way we did people in recovery to the coaches. And

Sherry 32:39

still do that?

rich 32:40

we still do that. Yeah, that's a core value. We have people who work for us. Everybody who works for me in any capacity has some type of recovery story, whether it's from substance use disorder or a family member's substance use disorder or mental health, and we're all open about it. Even the salespeople, everybody. The culture is recovery all over the place. And we have certain folks that only work with family members. So these are people that went through it, they got certified, and believe it or not, guys, there's even some national certifications we've been able to get our people, uh, for the family stuff. And then they work with the family. So how our program works is you come in, you enroll, you get a family coach, and then you come to our family group, which is once a week. And, You know how Al-Anon has a certain way of talking? And we have a certain way of talking. We promote more of stress management. Here's what I think about family. Family recovery comes down to two things: boundary setting and stress management. And so we just basically talk in those terms.

Jodi 33:41

That stress management piece is big.

rich 33:44

Yeah

Sherry 33:45

I think that's the, the piece that

rich 33:46

Well, it's the missing piece in a lot of cases.

Sherry 33:50

It is. I, I didn't learn about boundaries or any of it until I, I, I had, well, I had a stroke at 45 years old.

rich 33:58

Okay

Sherry 33:59

And then I had to,

rich 34:00

Yeah. Yeah.

Sherry 34:02

I could not do it anymore, and that's when I started learning about all of this mindfulness and

rich 34:07

Yep

Sherry 34:08

and boundaries and all the things. And oh boy, I just know there's just so many family members just white-knuckling it through,

rich 34:16

Yeah

Sherry 34:16

until, until they themselves crash and burn.

rich 34:19

So what we would do is we would bring the person in, and we would help them figure out where they're at in the process. Like, Do you understand how to set boundaries? Like, sometimes some of the fa- some... Yeah, so some families would come in and wouldn't know anything about it, and one of the problems that we have, with some of the ways we approach these issues, think about it. We just say things to people, like, as if it's easy, and, like, they understand what we're saying. "So Jodi, you know, hey, tough love, man. Just practice some tough love, and you know what? Kick his ass out. Just kick his ass out, man." And, Everybody acts like it's easy, and, like, and it's bullshit, guys, because the same people that are telling you to kick him out are in my office saying, "I can't kick my son out." So we come in, and we say, "Nope." We think all that, like, standard advice, if it's working for you, keep doing it. You know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But let's start with do you even understand what I mean when I say boundary? Do you understand what, what we're trying to get done? And we have all kinds of courses on that. We have all kinds of, like, video courses and group courses. And then we move to the second part of the equation is you have to learn how to manage your own stress, and it's all the stuff Sherry just talked about. It's mindfulness. Here's something. If you guys haven't checked this out, check out a, a thing called positive psychology.

Sherry 35:42

Just had a psychologist on two guests ago. She's a positive psychologist.

rich 35:47

Oh, well then you already heard about this. That's all stress management type stuff, in my opinion

Sherry 35:51

and it's helpful.

rich 35:52

Yep.

Sherry 35:53

helpful. So

rich 35:54

My wife went to Al-Anon when I got into recovery. And my mom went to Al-Anon, and I've gone to Al-Anon, and I'm not trying to criticize anything, but most people need some instructions.

Jodi 36:04

Yes, you're training people... Al-Anon is a great, is a great formula for what it is for those who need it. If you, if

rich 36:11

Yes

Jodi 36:12

something good in it, but you're also, there's no requirement to be trained, right? So I've been to Al-Anon meetings, and I've had well-intended meeting leaders say things to me that were actually really damaging, and it took me

rich 36:28

Yes

Jodi 36:28

stepping out of it and kind of looking backwards when I was like, "Geez, no wonder I didn't stay going to those meetings."

rich 36:33

Yeah. Yeah

Jodi 36:34

Alot of things were said that shouldn't have been said in those meetings, but there's no trained facilitator. There is

rich 36:40

No, in

Jodi 36:41

in the room. There's no therapist in the room.

Sherry 36:43

You know, I have to say this though, those rooms do save lives. AA, NA, Al-Anon, people we love are alive because of them. If that's your program, stay in it. What we're saying is it shouldn't be the only door anybody ever shows you, and we just want to bring awareness to other paths forward.

rich 37:04

I used to have people come into my office and they would be kinda sitting there and they'd have their heads down and they'd be slumped over, and they would describe themselves in the following way, "I'm the world's worst enabler." And they would then talk disparagingly about themselves, "I don't know how to s- And I would be like, "Stop, man. Like, what is going on? Why are you saying that? And then inevitably they heard that. And here's the real tragic part. They also heard it from professionals. Professionals sometimes say that type of stuff. And when you have somebody who's a licensed counselor, that's not cool, man. And, there's like a school of thought in therapy where there, there are people who like high-five each other because they're confrontational and they're not taking no shit, and like, I don't think they should be working in the profession, to be honest with you. I think that one of the problems we have in behavioral health is that there are way too many people practicing that shouldn't be practicing. And there are way too many programs operating that probably shouldn't be operating. And, Even saying that out loud is hard for me. Do you know what I mean? Because I know that, that there are good people, but we gotta call it like it is. That behavior, when you call a patient a name, that's... I don't... Even if you think that. Do you follow me? Even if I think that about you, Jodi, like, like what a sideways thing to say. And the only explanation I can have is it comes from that, you know, that tough love kind of vibe, right? And that stuff has been proven to be ineffective, guys. It's, it's not even really a thing.

Sherry 38:39

Yeah Yep.

Jodi 38:40

If there was one thing that you wanna really get across to listeners, to people out there that are sort of in that middle

rich 38:46

Yeah

Jodi 38:48

I, I, I... The fact that there's so many people in that middle space that, that aren't really sure to do or even if they, if they do need to reach out, what would you want

rich 38:58

So here's the thing,

Jodi 39:00

there?

rich 39:00

Whether you're a family member or whether you're an individual struggling with substances, whether it's mental health or substances, it doesn't matter. Here's the deal. If you start to pursue a recovery lifestyle, whatever that looks like for you, okay? And I'm gonna talk in a second about all the different ways that can look. Picture, like, a pathway. Picture, like, a road to recovery. Just step out onto that road and stay on that road as long as you can. And if you screw up, come right back to the road. And, and if you're a family member, that road for you might be groups, like I was just describing, right? If you're an individual who needs recovery, maybe that's you trying AA meeting one week. You don't like it, then maybe you try Smart Recovery. Maybe you try medication-assisted treat... You don't stop trying, whatever that looks like. Even if you're seeing an individual therapist and that's all you're doing. Even if you're talking to a coach. Here's the reality of it. If you... And, and also, let me make sure I clarify what I'm saying. You're going to get better. You're going to stay alive. I'm not saying you're gonna be stone-cold sober at the end of that year. Do you follow me? But you're gonna be healthier, you're gonna be better, and if you stay on it for another year, you know what I mean? You're more likely to get to that real space of recovery where I feel like I'm completely freed up or whatever. Is this making sense? The message has to be start... It has to be start somewhere and don't quit. And, and then here's where...

Sherry 40:31

and stay connected.

rich 40:32

And Sherry, that's what I was just gonna say. And the missing piece from the world's end and from the healthcare end is if we call ourselves a civilized society. Now, if we don't wanna take care of people, and we don't give a shit about people, and we just think it's okay for people with a brain disease to die, if that's the type of world that we wanna live in, let's first of all just say that out loud, right? And let's just all understand. That's not what we say, though. All of our government officials say they wanna help. All of the healthcare providers say they wanna help. Hell, even the legal system now says they wanna help Figure out a way to keep pulling people back on the pathway. Does that make sense? Whatever it looks like.

Sherry 41:14

Complete sense.

rich 41:15

Figure out a way to create a new type of job or a new type of profession or a new... And you know what? If you're an insurance company, pay for that shit. And let's get real about it, because if we keep dragging Rich on the path, eventually Rich is gonna get it. I believe it. Yeah. Yeah. Right,

Jodi 41:36

Yeah

Sherry 41:36

We're, slapping the Band-Aid on and it's a revolving door.

rich 41:39

Stop slapping a Band-Aid on it is a good way of saying... That's actually a better way to say it, much easier than what I said. Stop slapping a Band-Aid on it because a Band-Aid, you know what? A Band-Aid might work for a couple people here and there, right?

Sherry 41:53

Yeah.

rich 41:53

And just 'cause it worked for me, that doesn't mean it's, it's gonna work for everybody.

Sherry 41:58

Right. And I, I know from that whole journey that, you know, anyone that I know who has, um, been through this will say that when I start to isolate, you know that I'm, I'm not on a good path.

rich 42:13

Yeah, and stick,

Sherry 42:14

Coming from the person,

rich 42:15

stay, stay... And, and even like with the family members, and you think about stress management and stuff, I always talk about can you pick one thing that you're gonna do for yourself? One thing. You know what I mean? You might not be able to go to the spa, but like what can you do? Is it going for a walk? Is it going to yoga? And really, really focus on, on, and being intentional about your stress levels.

Sherry 42:36

That might sound small when you're in the middle of it, and I can tell you it isn't. That one thing can be the thing that keeps you upright long enough to keep showing up. You have to take care of yourself. I really wanted to talk about how important that connection

Rat Park And The Power Of Community

Sherry 42:49

piece was.

rich 42:49

Well, you know the stuff around connection too. Johann Hari and his YouTube video on the opposite of addiction is connection? Check it out. He talks about this famous experiment called Rat Park, and here's how Rat Park goes down. They take rats and they get them addicted to cocaine, and they isolate these rats. And when they isolate these rats, they choose to do cocaine over eating and sleeping and reproducing. Then they do the same thing. They get these rats addicted, and they put them around other rats, and the ones that were isolated literally used cocaine instead of drinking water and eating. Isn't that wild?

Sherry 43:31

One quick note. The original rat park experiments referred to were conducted by Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander and colleagues at Simon Fraser University in the late '70s. Their work used a morphine solution, not cocaine, and helped shift the conversation from what do drugs do to the brain to also asking what role does environment and connection play in addiction? And that's what this episode is about. And even though this exact study hasn't been repeated, a lot of later studies found the same basic thing. Give an animal a full life and it reaches for the drug less. But we aren't rats. Here's what happens with actual people, and it says the same thing. Connection matters. And I wanna be careful here because that's not a job for one exhausted family. That's what Rich means by professional connectors, the line we opened this episode with.

rich 44:27

And, there's all kinds of examples of that even in the world. One of the best examples is Vietnam and heroin. When they came back, nearly all of them just quit. They just straight up quit, which is not supposed to happen. They didn't go to treatment. They didn't do anything.

Sherry 44:45

Connection.

rich 44:46

Well, it has to do with community and it's, the world you're in and the people around. And, and I believe, again, guys, in our world today, we gotta find some professional connectors.

Sherry 44:58

Yeah.

Jodi 44:59

And the right ones.

rich 45:00

Right ones. It's gotta be the right type of people. I believe you start with this thing called peer support because they have their own lived experience, and they literally have been in the shoes of the people that they're trying to help. But it, it could be other, other folks, yeah. Anybody who's willing to do some unorthodox type of work. You know what I mean? Do some outreach.

Sage’s Army And Community-Led Recovery

rich 45:20

There's a program close to Allegheny County in Westmoreland County called Sage's Army. Do you know that program?

Sherry 45:26

I do.

rich 45:27

I'm on the board. I knew Sage. He was in the rehab that I was running. He completed our rehab, and he aged out into the adult system. And here's what I can tell you. Sage's story is very indicative of what this is all about, guys. He was with us in a program called Outside In, which is here in Westmoreland County, that dealt with anybody under the age of 18. Our program was very creative. We used wilderness therapy to help kids, and Sage excelled with us. We had a level system, and he attained the highest level with us, meaning he did as well as anybody could in treatment. He turned 18, had to leave the kids system. He relapsed at some point because he wasn't getting the same type of help, right? You can't access wilderness treatment as an adult. And he wound up...

Jodi 46:17

18 is not an adult.

rich 46:19

Great point. So he's, like, 20 years old at this point. I remember I had off-and-on contact with him. He might have been 19, but he was in a rehab and wound up getting booted out of the rehab, and a couple days later was found dead in a hotel. And his dad started Sage's Army, and, it's a great program. I would encourage your listeners to check it out. It's unreal. I'm on the board there,

Sherry 46:41

you...

rich 46:42

so I, I will be fully transparent.

Jodi 46:44

Do we have time for you to tell us a little bit more about what they're doing at Sage's Army?

rich 46:48

So Sage's Army is technically what's called a recovery community organization. A recovery community organization is a very specific thing. Now, a lot of people are kind of running ripoffs of recovery community organizations, but I'll give you the real definition. It has to be a 501[c][3] nonprofit, and it has to be governed by people by.. And meaning the board has to be people in recovery or family members of people in recovery. What's going on is a lot of these counties are doing it under a clinical license, and that's not really a recovery community organization. By definition, an RCO is a nonprofit board, 100% recovering people and their families. And what it does, it does three things, Jodi. One is education, so just speaking events about addiction, speaking events about the impact on the family, awareness events, that type of stuff. Education. Advocacy, like going to the state capital to try to get a new law passed, uh, the advocating for the distribution of Narcan. And then services, like running a, a center where people come in and you do groups. Or like what we do, go out and do homeless outreach to people. That's what an RCO does. I was a pioneer in this world. I was literally one of the first people to start an RCO 18 years ago. An RCO is, 100% independent of any other entity. It's not sponsored by a treatment center. It's not sponsored by the state government. Now, there are grants that you might get from the government, but you're not run by the government. That's where I learned how to be an advocate and talk like I talk about this. Because when I did an RCO, we didn't get state money. We raised private money so that we could help people for free. It was unbelievable. The people in the community of Greenville, South Carolina need to be, like, on a poster or something, or on a documentary about how a community can help with addiction. Now what's happened is the state governments have started to pay for this, and it's not the same. When wealthy individuals were paying for it, I could say whatever I want 'cause nobody could pull my money. Does that make sense?

Sherry 49:07

Yeah. Yeah.

Jodi 49:07

Yes

rich 49:08

They hated it. That's where I got a lot of this, like, fire that I have, and I don't know what to do with it, to be honest with you. I'll talk...

Jodi 49:15

You just keep doing what you're doing.

rich 49:17

It just drives me crazy. It seems it's so much injustice involved. And,

Sherry 49:22

Yeah

rich 49:22

Again, Sherry, I feel bad 'cause I, I know I'm preaching to the choir with you, but, like, these are real people that are passing away. And these are things that we can do something about. This isn't mysterious. Do you know what I mean? This isn't trying to find a vaccine for COVID-19 or something. I could tell you exactly how it works, guys. Anybody like me could tell you how it works. Just start paying for it a little bit differently and allow, you know, people to go out into the world and, I don't know, how about this? Empower regular people to be part of the solution!

Sherry 49:54

It used to be that nobody would talk about these things because, you know, it was like the, the family secret or whatever. But

rich 50:01

True.

Sherry 50:02

I don't think I know anybody who doesn't have some sort of, been affected by substance use,

rich 50:08

I agree. Everybody.

Sherry 50:10

in some way, at this point.

rich 50:10

Yep

Sherry 50:11

Like, we, we have to try different things, and so that's why we're happy that we're able to have you here today to be able to talk about something different. And, you know, like I said earlier, we're not knocking any sort of other treatment. Whatever works for one, you know, may not work for another.

rich 50:26

And if you're doing something for your recovery, just keep doing it. Like, you know what I mean? Like, if it's working, keep doing it, right? Like, that's not what we're saying. But if you're looking for other things, have an open mind.

Jodi 50:38

Well, Rich, you said something that really resonated with me too, and, and that's not counting the number of days, because I know my son did much better when he stopped holding himself to this standard.

rich 50:52

Yeah

Jodi 50:53

you relapsed, you're back to day zero. You know, one relapse is like e- every-- your whole world blows up.

rich 50:59

Right

Jodi 51:00

when he stopped thinking of it that way and was like, "You know what? There was a blip. Tomorrow I get to try again," let's just keep moving forward. And I, I think that for a lot of people, that, that's important, man.

rich 51:12

Oh my goodness. Think about it this way. Let's pretend I'm sober for 18 months. Let's just throw a scenario out. I'm sober for 18 months, or eight months, whatever it might be, and my buddy comes into town and I wind up drinking some beers and maybe even doing a little bit of cocaine, but on Monday I get right back on track, right? That means over the last 18 months, I've used two times. It doesn't mean I now have zero days. If you look at it from a big picture standpoint, you can frame it up in a much more positive way. And when you frame it up positively, that makes it much more likely the person will continue.

Jodi 51:51

100%.

rich 51:52

That's basic human nature.

Narcan Myths And Fentanyl Reality

Sherry 51:54

And another question, maybe it's a framing question about Narcan, and people get upset whenever somebody starts talking about Narcan and making all these comparisons and things like that. Can you talk to us, about what we should know about Narcan? This is an important question.

rich 52:13

Narcan, so there are some myths and things that you'll hear people say, and unfortunately, this stuff is starting to crop back up a little bit. People will say Narcan is enabling. That's one of the things you'll hear people say. Um, Narcan is a life-saving medicine, the same as insulin, uh, or any of those. It's the same as an EpiPen, and it should be, uh, readily available for free everywhere in the middle of an epidemic. Now, you could argue, what does that look like down the road? I don't know. But, Narcan should be massively distributed. What it does is, is it comes on board, so a person is overdosing. It comes on board and it knocks the opioid off the receptor and it, and the person is revived. It's an amazing, unbelievable life-saving drug. And, uh, it gets criticized because people say things like, "Well, we're just, you know, giving it over and over again, and it's just..." People who say that don't understand the fundamentals of addiction. Do you know what I mean? When people are using at that level, they don't... The threat of death isn't gonna keep them. So saving them isn't enabling, it's, it's just a basic healthcare response.

Sherry 53:28

And the place that we are now is you may not even be a, quote unquote, "substance use," you know, substance abuser.

rich 53:36

No, that's the truth too

Sherry 53:38

And especially, I've got kids in college now and just kind of getting out on their own and, it's, it's scary.

rich 53:44

So they need to know, everybody needs to know that there's no safe street drug, like period. Anything. But anything that you're buying off the street, cocaine, methamphetamine, counterfeit pills, uh, you name it, that has fentanyl in it, guys. It's widely known. And cocaine being cut with fentanyl is probably a threat to, like, college-aged students more than anything. Um, 'cause cocaine is a party drug, right? We gotta educate people on that. People need to know that. 'Cause it's not about addiction, it's just about public health.

Sherry 54:20

It's weighing on me a bit here, so I'm sorta like shutting down.

rich 54:24

It is heavy stuff. Like, you're, you got... We're talking about real deal issues and, and there's a lot of it that does feel like what's gonna happen and how do we help people? And there's been many things in the world that had to change. It just is what it is. I don't, I'm not trying to say people are good or bad, I'm just saying like, it's clear we gotta do something different, man. Radically different. So let's do it.

Peer Specialist Training And Next Steps

Sherry 54:45

Before we let you go, Rich, one thing I didn't ask about, peer support specialists, are they all over? How does somebody become one?

rich 54:52

Yep, so peer support specialist, if you're in Pennsylvania, if you went to what's called the Pennsylvania Certification Board, you can find information there. You could reach out to me at rjones@buildwellhealth.com if you're in another part of the world, or even if you want more information, I could definitely help fill in the blanks on that. But you have to enroll in a course. It's usually a week-long kinda deal. You get trained up, and then you gotta, you have to have a little bit of supervision where people are checking in with you and seeing how you're doing. But then you get certified, and then every two years you have to get recertified. But it's a legit professional certification, and people are making a living with it. It's really part of the hopeful messaging. Because that is a workforce that can be deployed to try to fill in some of the gaps. You know what I mean?

Sherry 55:44

I'm very intrigued.

rich 55:45

Yeah, check it out and check out sagesarmy.com too, because that's a peer support organization as well.

Sherry 55:51

We definitely will. Where else can people find you, Rich?

rich 55:56

Buildwellhealth.com or youturnhealth.com. Those are our companies. Check those out. And then if you wanted to reach out, my contact info is on there as well.

Sherry 56:07

Okay.

Jodi 56:08

And then of course, we'll put the links in the show notes.

rich 56:10

Awesome.

Sherry 56:10

Rich, thank you for your time tonight and for saying the things that many people in your field won't say out loud.

rich 56:17

Thanks guys.

Sherry 56:18

Thank you. We can't hand people answers, but we can hand them a maybe.

rich 56:24

And we can hand them hope.

Sherry 56:25

Yep that's what it's all about. to our listeners, if you're the one in the middle right now- Kind of white-knuckling it and hoping it passes, this episode was for you. Rich said it plain, "Start somewhere and don't quit. If something doesn't work, try the next thing." And if you're the one loving somebody through it, hear the other half of what he said, boundaries and stress management, not because you're failing at either one of those, but these things don't come with instructions. Everything Rich mentioned tonight is in the show notes. YouTurn, Build Well, Sage's Army, the Pennsylvania Certification Board, and the crisis numbers for our area and the National Crisis Lifeline 988. If one of those is the maybe somebody in your life needs, send it to them. If this episode found you at the right moment, pass it on. That's how we grow. Until next time, this is it! We recently opened our Amazon storefront, and If you access Amazon through our link, it really helps us keep going. You'll find our link in the show notes, on our website, and on our socials, and you can check the TY Toolkit which is also in the show notes and on our website at thrivingyinzers.com. This podcast is meant to be informational and inspirational, but it is not a substitute for professional advice. We are not licensed therapists or medical professionals, and what we share here comes from personal experience only. If you or someone you love is struggling, please reach out to someone trained to help. And if you're in crisis, you can call or text 988 The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. It is available 24-7.