#16 Darren Hobbs — Jailhouse Surrender, Family Boundaries & The Power of Intervention

Darren Hobbs’ story is a powerful journey through addiction, incarceration, surrender, recovery, intervention work, and helping families find hope in the middle of chaos.

For years, Darren lived a double life—bartender by day, drug dealer by night—while cocaine and alcohol controlled nearly every decision he made. After a 2010 arrest left him facing decades in prison, Darren found himself alone in a jail cell, broken, desperate, and finally willing to ask God to change him instead of his circumstances.

What followed was a series of unlikely events, second chances, mentors, recovery, and a calling to help others. Today, Darren is a board-certified interventionist, founder of The Firm Nashville, and one of the leading voices helping families navigate addiction and recovery.

You’ll Hear:
• What Darren would say to himself during his darkest moment in Davidson County Jail
• The prayer that changed the course of his life
• How cocaine, alcohol, and entitlement fueled 15 years of addiction
• The arrest that left him facing up to 20 years in prison
• Why his parents’ toughest act of love ultimately saved his life
• The incredible recovery coincidences that convinced him something bigger was at work
• How he found recovery while incarcerated
• What inspired him to become a board-certified interventionist
• Behind-the-scenes insights from working on the TV show Intervention
• Why families should stop waiting for “rock bottom”
• The biggest misconceptions families have about interventions
• How addiction impacts entire family systems—not just the person using substances
• What Darren believes is broken in today’s addiction treatment system
• Why individualized care and long-term recovery support are the future of treatment

Why Listen:
• To hear a remarkable story of redemption and second chances
• To better understand addiction from both the addict’s and family’s perspective
• To learn why firm boundaries can be one of the greatest acts of love
• To gain insight into interventions and recovery from one of Nashville’s leading interventionists
• To be reminded that hope can appear even in the darkest moments
• To understand why recovery is about much more than simply stopping substance use

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, help is available.

To learn more about National Addiction Specialists and the Breaking Down Addiction podcast, visit:
https://www.nationaladdictionspecialists.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Riding home from court that day. It happened to be a beautiful day in late October. You know, you're in a you're in a bus with a bunch of other people who are had either great days at court or bad days at court. And it was it was 80 degrees. We're driving from downtown Nashville out to the Harding Place jail. It was and for some reason it was just like it was the most peaceful. It was the most peaceful. I'd be like, okay, you're gonna get another shot at life.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Hey, and welcome to a new episode of Breaking Down Addiction, a podcast by National Addiction Specialists. I'm your host, Johnny Phillip. Glad to be here today. We have a very special guest, Mr. Darren Hobbs. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me on.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

We uh we've gotten to know each other loosely over the years, and I can't even remember where we met, which that's not important at all. But um, I'm so excited to hear about all the things you have going on because we were talking in the lobby. You and I, we could talk for hours, it seems. We probably probably and you have you have a lot going on, and you're doing so much to serve the recovery community here and beyond, it sounds like. So I'm I'm excited to get into all that and some of your background and sure any of your story that you'd like to share. But I always like to start these off with the same question, and that is if you were sitting across from yourself in active addiction, let's call it your your darkest, deepest bottom that you're at. And if you can talk to yourself during that period, what would you say?

SPEAKER_04 1:34

Man, when you said your deepest, darkest bottom, I just got a snapshot of me laying across a bunk, APOD bunk 63, Davidson County Jail. There's a small window that I could look outside and I could see the planes either coming or going for BA. But at this point, I was looking at 20 years in prison due to due to drug charges.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Holy shit.

SPEAKER_04 2:02

And I'm laying there crying, and I have this thought, like, I'm acting like I'm praying. Um, but I'm really just I've got my shirt up over my over my head crying. Um, you know, crying in jail is not popular, you know, uh might make you look weak. Um so as I sit there and I had I just have this thought. Like, I don't I think I'm out of tears. And like I know I'm I'm at that perfect point that that some of us are so lucky to get to of just complete despair and surrender. Like all of my treatment experiences prior to that, I had had every opportunity to get sober and sane and healthy, and they've been just red carpeted at my feet, and I never took advantage of them. So it was like you said that, and I'm I'm watching myself like have this moment where I go, Well, I'm down here, maybe I should just pray while I'm down here. And that was the first honest prayer that I ever said. And instead of saying, like, hey God, if you get me out of this one, I'll promise, you know, dot dot dot.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

I'll do, you know, you meant it this time.

SPEAKER_04 3:10

I meant it. And and what I said was, God, I know you can't change these walls, I know you can't change the noise, I know you can't change my outfit, but please change me. Please come, please come into my life and change me so that whenever they let me out, I'm not the same sorry bastard that that walked in. And I meant it. And from that day to even today, the number of miracles that have happened in my life, because I've made that submission, I submitted to the process in my own goofy way. That's that's the moment that I go back to.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Like I'm I'm actually imagining you two in that scenario.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

Yeah, and I don't even think I answered your question correctly because I think I ADD squirreled into it. But like when you said, What would I say to myself in my lowest moment? From here to there, I would say you had no idea how create like how creative God can be. Like, I had to like dude, just stay, stay a student like you are right now in this humble position and keep asking God to come into your life. That's if I could give that guy that message, that's what I'd tell him.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

No, thanks for sharing that. And do you think that you were a shitty student before that arrest?

SPEAKER_04 4:38

Absolutely. I was an entitled, snotty, me first, world spins, you know, on the axis of my finger.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

You're the center of the universe.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

I'm the center of the universe. I I need what I need, and if you get in my way, I cut you out. I will lie, I will steal, I will threaten, I'll manipulate, I'll do whatever as long as I'm entitled to, as long as I'm able to get what I need. And what I needed in particular in in for the life for the previous 15 years uh was cocaine and alcohol.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

So that was a 15-year run you were on it, but leading up to 2010 arrest?

SPEAKER_04 5:14

Leading up to 2010, yeah. Uh the only the only times of sobriety were jail time or or in treatment.

unknown 5:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

What uh if you don't mind me asking, what led to that arrest in 2010?

SPEAKER_04 5:29

So I was I was just minding my business, selling drugs on Broadway, uh, running a little bar.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Minding your business.

SPEAKER_04 5:37

Minding my own business, man. And my thought was my criminal, my criminal genius was the bar that I'm running is so close to the police precinct downtown, like right next to Bridgestone. The bar I'm running is so close they would never think to look for me here.

unknown 5:54

Right?

SPEAKER_04 5:55

You're you're hidden in plain view. Hidden in plain sight. Like I'm like a I'm like a sniper in a ghillie suit.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

You know, like they'd never they're never gonna know I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Um kind of liked that theory. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:06

I mean it it worked until it didn't, you know. And uh my uh my branding was so I so I had I I had one side of the street, I had another guy that worked kind of the other, the far the Tootsie side of the road, and you know, certain weights went into bags with bulldogs on them, and then the the bigger ones were Batmen. And so the Batmen were more popular, the Batmen little one-by-one baggies. And so I go to, I'm just it's it's a it's a regular Thursday afternoon. It's five o'clock. There's this nice man and lady having a coke and a cigar, telling me they're from St. Louis. And then there's two ladies come in and I'm doing some you know bartender tricks, thinking I'm, you know, Tom Cruise and cocktail, um, you know, make making the making the glasses all pretty. And uh I get a text, I go, I walk outside my bar and I go do a do a quick handoff drug deal. And as I come back, I hear Metro detectives, put your hands in the air. And I look around like, I wonder who's getting arrested in here. It was me. And so next thing I know, I'm on my back. Oh my gosh. And so this nice man and lady now had badges um out from under their shirts. Whoa, they were the metro detectives who had made that announcement. And then you know, I'm on my back, and then I see this third face kind of bend over. We've been listening to you, we've been watching you. And I look at this dude, and sure enough, this guy had been in my bar clocking me for about three weeks. He he looked very familiar.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

Um, and so they got me, man. I was uh they had a bunch of sale and delivery charges, possession with intent, all kinds of stuff. And they had they charged me in uh a school zone. I was with I was close enough to be charged in a school zone, even though it was, you know, after school hours, whatever. But that was uh I was looking at a murder charge pretty much because I had already I had already been in trouble with the law prior to that.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

And they had the sting on you going for quite some time. So it sounds like to me they wanted to pin what they like to they really could make a point. Yeah, they said I heard him saying off the street.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

I heard him, they said, We've got him, we've got Batman.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Thank you for sharing that. I mean, I was actually uh imagining you bartending at Tootsie's and going to do this drug handoff. And so, like, once all this goes down and you go to jail and you're you're facing these big charges, how long are you in jail at this point? So we get out and what happened there?

SPEAKER_04 8:44

So I asked the police officer that was kind enough to give me a ride to jail. I was like, what's bond usually like on something like this? And he's like, ah man, a couple thousand, three thousand bucks. I'm like, all right, cool.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

I can handle that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:56

I can handle that. Great. I'll be I'll be back at work in an hour. This is great. And then in the time, in the time between him telling me that and me actually seeing the magistrate, they tell me that my bond is $187,000.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

It's quite different than a couple grand.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

Yeah, and uh, I did not, and and that came comes along with a source hearing. So you got to show like tax returns. Um, number one, I was I I was a very bad bankroll manager while selling drugs. So I didn't have $18,000 anyway. Um, but there's there's no way I could have made it. So there's no way I could have made that bond.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

So you knew you were sitting.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

I knew I was sitting, and I knew my parents weren't gonna go for it. Well, I guess they weren't gonna go for it, but they they had enabled me. I I had manipulated them a long time.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Were they tired of being your behavior leading up to this point too?

SPEAKER_04 9:51

Or they they were I think they were so removed, like I think they were relieved that they didn't know how bad I had gotten. Uh I did a really good job of you know telling stories and sallowing off the the truth about how ugly my life really was.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Yeah, yeah, you were selling them a different version of yourself.

SPEAKER_04 10:12

Yeah. I was, you know, I had the I had the image that I'm that everything's great. I'm work, I'm I'm working as a a waiter in a bar, you know, in a sports bar downtown, everything's okay. You know, I'm living in a property that they own, rent-free. I'm you know, I've got a you know, I've I've carved out a really sweet existence, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah, at that point it sounds like it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

And um my mom and dad did something for me that that saved my life. They told me my mom, who was my chief enabler, my best friend, like I enmeshed all the way. I think it is is the only way to say it. Um, I was her only child, and she was attached to me being okay. She needed to know that I was okay, you know. And I taught her by manipulating her that if I didn't get what I needed, I wouldn't be okay. You know, I held her hostage. And she did the thing for me that saved my life. She said, uh, she said, I'll always love you, but I don't like you. And I can't take your drama anymore. You're dead to me. Don't call me. Wow. And then she hung up the phone and I kept calling and calling and calling.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

What did you feel like at that point? Because I'm really close to my mom, and I I fucked up a lot to you, and I did get myself into some things. What did you feel when she hung up and told you that? And this is your your biggest champion and true leader at this point.

SPEAKER_04 11:37

I well, I to hear her say that hurt hurt. And it really I realized, started to realize how hurt I may have made her. That that that took a while to really like really land and saturate, you know, my my my heart. But when I as I kept calling, and the phone, this is you know, back in the day they got phones, you could take it off the hook. I kept getting the off the hook noise. Like she meant it. There was no way for me to call. And so I she saved my life by by, you know, my plan was you guys bond me out, I'll go back to ten and bars and doing the same shit. Doing the same shit, and uh, you know, I'll get probation and that'll be okay. That was that was the preferred outcome that I had come up with. Um But they told me no. They told me no and they stuck with it. And my dad, um, my dad at one point, right before my mom had told me that, my dad had told me that I could I could call him in a month. Just call me and call me on a on a Sunday, give me a month, and I'll talk to you for as long as you're positive. But I can't handle your bullshit. And so I did. I waited after, you know, I I called and I called and nobody picked up. And sure enough, I waited a month later and my dad answered, just like he said he would. And um, and I went negative on the call. And he hung up. He said, Let's try again, let's try again next month. Be positive. He hung up on me. And I was like, Holy shit. This this dude means business.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

They're holding a hard line.

SPEAKER_04 13:19

Holding a hard line. Yeah. And uh I got I got the the night I was just telling you about where I was praying sometime between my parents telling me that in the first couple weeks that I was there, first week or so I was there, and like I had this delusion that there all of my friends must be so concerned for me. And I must be, there must be so much mail. Like, where like where's all my where's all the concern for me? You know?

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:49

And so mail call comes. This is what led to me hitting my knees. Mail call comes, you know, what one one more time, and the CEO doesn't call my name because I have no mail. And um, I was like, hey man, I think something's wrong with my mail. I'm not getting any. Yeah. And you just kind of giggled at me. He's like, man, nobody gives a fuck about you. And I was like, whoa.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

He's right. That realization hates a ton of bricks.

SPEAKER_04 14:21

That realization, like, I'm alone. I'm alone by my own making. I'd burnt my bridges, you know? And um, so I go back and I say the prayer that I just told you about, right? Magically. A couple days later, I get a letter. It's from my dad. And it's really short, it's written in his like old school draft, you know, engineer handwriting, like real blocked out. We've tried to help you for 15 fucking years. Maybe God can help you now. And that's the only time my father has ever mentioned the G word. The G word. Exactly. That was exactly the G word to me. Never once. He's not a church guy. Never never seen him say a prayer in his life. Um, but that's what he said. And I was like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Like this is He was thinking that you're such a lost cause. Like maybe, maybe, maybe.

SPEAKER_04 15:17

Yeah, like you're like you're beyond human, you're beyond human help. And at that point I was. And um another funny thing happens early on in this succession. So I so I I say a prayer. I'm I'm firmly submitted to this deal. The prayer I said retrospectively kind of sounds a lot like the third step prayer that I didn't know at the time. But like interesting, you know. If I go back line for line for what I remember I said and then put it against page 63 in uh in a certain blue book um that I read sometimes, it they don't they don't line up too too off.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

There's like a divine experience happening here, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

And so I figured through this whole time, I figured there's there might be one dude from the AA side of things. I figured I had one one one normal buddy who would eventually figure out and and care. Um his name's it, and he did, uh, my buddy Murphy. But I figured there's one guy in recovery that would that would find out, and he would also care. Uh, and I knew that he would possibly like share his his recovery with me. And um, he'd been a counselor of mine when I was a guest at Discovery Place. Um I knew this guy might visit me. I was I was gonna try to write him a write him a letter, get him a note, get a get a number, but I couldn't couldn't figure out his number. I couldn't remember his number. And so the funniest thing happens is as in these these events happen like back to back to back, pretty close together. If I remember, um guy's getting out of jail, and he's like, hey, who wants this alcoholic book? And I go over and I swoop it up, and then I open the first page. I run back to my bed. I'm gonna devour this book.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:12

Open it up the first page. Larkin L 615-613, blank, blank, blank, blank. The number that I needed, the man, the guy, the buddy that I thought might care that might help me. The man who became my sponsor in jail, his number was right where I needed. Before, so now I can try to schedule a visit with this guy, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

But before I could get my request out, I get a letter from him. Hey man, I heard what happened to you.

unknown 17:40

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_04 17:40

I don't care if you're down for for five years or or 20, you'll have you'll have my support and my friendship. And so he we were able to schedule a visit and we began working steps that day. Dude, that is insane. It's insane. Like the like the if you do the math on like the likelihood of those those events.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

One in a million.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

Yeah, forget it.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

Right? And so I started, okay, okay, big God.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Like, I'm listening now.

SPEAKER_04 18:10

Uh you got my full attention, man. Like, my hand, I'm I'm holding hands with you on this adventure. And so, right now, like what my attorney's telling me, and my attorney is not only good, but he's a high school buddy. My attorney visits me late one night and he's like, hey man, you gotta fire me because this this DA wants to kill you. He's saying if you don't take this 12 years, he's gonna get you 20 at trial. Man, no way. This is like on a Saturday night. Saturday, late night, isn't it past 10 o'clock. He's still out lawyering around, still dressed. So, dude, you gotta fire me. This guy, this this DA wants to wants to hammer you, wants to make an example out of you. You should fire me. And I was like, Joey, no way. His name's Joey Fuson, greatest human being in the world, um, here in Nashville. Um I was like, Joey, no way. You you gotta fire me. You can fire me, you can walk away, that's cool, but I can't fire you. No way. I'm not going. And uh, and he's doing this like I owe him money, you know? And like he and he allowed me to work up, but dad, and then and then not knowing how long I was gonna be gone. He took it on faith. Um but he did. He he he clocked in, man, and he went to work, and and the the first deal went from the for we go to the first court date, and it's uh eight years at 30 percent. So we go we've we've already come down from the 12 to 20. Eight years at 30. So you know it goes 12 to 20, and we say no thank you, and you get you get two more, you know, kind of negotiation dates, and they're three or four weeks apart. And so we come back and it's eight years at 30, and Joey says no thanks. I mean, to me, eight years at 30 means my life's over my life to me. That sounds like my life's over. Um, so we go back the next time and we've got we've got a new DA. We don't have this guy who wants to kill me anymore. Now we've got a lady that he's actually has a working relationship with. And she settled on one year day for day and the rest on uh uh super secret probation. Um meaning if I if I screwed up at all during the probation period, then I actually had to serve 12 years, you know, day for day. And I told him, like, hey man, like if I like you give me as much paper as you want. If I if I can't stay sober, I'm better off dead anyway.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 20:37

And um, and he was like, Man, that's that's really bad legal advice. Are you sure? And I said, Yes. Give me the whatever paper they want, I'll do it. And um that was that was about halfway down the the plea deal that that I set for a year was about halfway in.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

So I already had halfway done at that.

SPEAKER_04 20:58

I'd already, yeah, I had sat there for like six months almost from late April to that was October at some point. And so that that part felt like a win, right? Like I've already done half of what they want from me.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Totally. Do another six months.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

I will get another shot at life. I may not have like in my like my my sweetest dreams at that point were like, maybe I can work at Wendy's during the morning and McDonald's at night. Maybe I can get a scooter. Nobody's gonna rent me anything. Like, maybe I can live in a halfway house for a while, and then if everything goes right, maybe I can get a scooter and a garage apartment, and I'll be, you know, 35, 36. Because all of the time leading up to that, I'm looking at, I'm thinking, this guy could really give me 20.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

And at that time I'm 32, and I'm counting like the birthdays, the Christmases, my mom's hair going from gray to white, and maybe she doesn't live that long. Um, my nephew, who is, you know, I love so much, my nieces going from being children to full-blown adults.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

And you're not seeing a bright future for yourself.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

No. So like I'm looking at like in like the monotony of these days locked up in the baloney sand, the whole I mean the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

And um it was just it was just riding home from court that day. It happened to be a beautiful day in late October. You know, you're in a you're in a bus with a bunch of other people who are had either great days at court or bad days at court. And it was it was 80 degrees. We're driving from downtown Nashville out to the Harding Place jail. It was and for some reason it was just like it was the most peaceful. It was the most peaceful. Like, okay, you're gonna get another shot at life. And just as a bonus, you get to ride with the windows down and smell the air, smell freedom, and know that hey, you you got you don't have much of a chance, but you got a chance. Yeah. And um, I just it's a god thing, man. I got a chance.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

It's beautiful. Did you do any form of treatment after jail?

SPEAKER_04 23:14

I'd actually gotten to be, I'd been to treatment several times before I went to jail. Um before I went to jail that time. Um and I did, I did enjoy a little bit um of the freedoms that being in treatment had given me. Um, but I begged my way into the treatment pod in jail um while I was before I was sentenced. And I loved it there. I I mean I lit I was rookie of the year. I lapped up, I took notes. You know, I was I was grateful. And and I guess it was kind of a cruel twist, but needed for me. One of the men who brought, there was there were several men who who would bring recovery meetings into that into that pod as part of their, you know, out of their outreach. One of them I used to go to the 12 o'clock at at O'Brien Street with, and he looked at me, he was like, What are you doing here? I was like, man, I'm I'm here for a minute, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:15

And uh, like I used to go to meetings and then go to lunch with him, you know, down the street. And now here he was, he'd come in every Tuesday. That's wild. And uh it was just like like, dude, he did the program. I left the program and here I sit.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:31

It's what happens.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

It's exact you saw exactly what I think. Like I could have I could have done what he did.

SPEAKER_04 24:38

I could have done what he I could have done exactly what he did and been free.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Well, I mean, like, so that question, I was I was just curious as to what a little bit happened after you got out, but it sounds like you were in some form of treatment, like the treatment pod in jail. So you were you're doing months of recovery.

SPEAKER_04 24:56

I got to do it, and it's funny, the the dovetail of like it was a 45-day program, and the dovetail of my sentencing date. So I I got to the I I got to I was approaching the finished date of the program where I was gonna have to move to another area of the jail, and I got sentenced. They allowed me to finish the like the last two or three days of the deal, and then they sent me across the street to prison to finish my time. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

When you got out, how long did it take you to start working in treatment? Do you think?

SPEAKER_04 25:33

So I uh I had a really bad experience with uh a sober living company as soon as I got out of jail. I got robbed pretty much. Um this guy's still in business today. I'm sorry. But uh I'm I made I made a deal with like the moon and the stars, like I'm gonna put this dude out of business. And um my sponsor's wife at the time had uh had an existing women's sober living business called Connections, and so I I became a student of hers. Like, hey, how do I do this? How do I do that? How do I start a business? How do I build the guidelines? And she was like, hey, if you'll just be sober, if you'll work on yourself for another year, I'll help you. I'll help you open one. Um I'll open one and like I'll open a men's program and you can have a job there. I was like, okay. So she gave me the rules. I was to I was to work on myself exclusively for a year. I was to remain single. I was to learn how to be friends with women. Um I was to work no more than 45 to 50 hours. Like there was no like you can't you can't rebuild life overnight. Right. Her name's Katie. Uh she was a therapist with her own recovery. So like she had like she had the whole view, you know. And so without knowing it, I was really getting, I was getting sponsored by a really good dude in in AA, but his his wife was informing the rest of my life, you know. Um it's really amazing. It's amazing. And and fortunately for me, like I had gotten really chubby in while I was locked up. And so that remaining remaining single, like that wasn't an issue for me because no wow, because I I had the self-confidence of, you know, dog shit on my shoe, you know. Um, I mean, as soon as I got out, I had to go buy like 10-inch bigger pants, you know.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

That's wild.

SPEAKER_04 27:32

Yeah. And so uh that part wasn't an issue. Um, so I got to like for real, I got lucky and got a great job working for uh a property management company um after bouncing around a couple crappy sober livings, but it but as it happened, um I landed right up the street from this multi-use, multi-use, like kind of retail, some living, some some retail, some restaurant space in it called Ezio Village. And uh I landed in a in an Oxford house right up the street. And shortly after working for this property, um, they they had a caretaker who who had also lived close by. He retired, so they were like, hey Hobbes, do you want to live in one of these lofts and uh be the caretaker? And I'm like, Okay, cool, you know. Um I got, I mean, I own nothing, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:24

And you had a free place to live.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

And I had a free place to live. So I've got like 200 bucks to my name, and I need a bed, right? And so I go, like, where am I gonna find a bed? So I'm like, I'm like walk trying to walk to find a bed at a at a hopefully at a like a um you know, a garage sale. So I go out on the first Saturday and I'm and I'm totally cool sleeping on a bedroll. Like I'm a bed sounds like a luxury to me, you know, at this point. Um but I uh I I have my I have my cash and I'm ready to buy a bed and I find find the garage sale, but then they've got this they've got this basketball goal, and it's about the same money. And I chose the basketball goal. So instead of buying a bed, I bought a basketball goal and I hung it from the rafters.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

And at the Oxford house?

SPEAKER_04 29:13

No, no, at the this is in in my new loft apartment that I was just gotcha that I was just given. Um so I uh my end of the deal was I had to turn all the fire alarms. They had a real shaky electrical system in this building, uh, in this set of buildings. So whenever the alarm went off uh or a sprinkler went off or whatever, like I was the guy. I was to keep management and ownership out of the building, you know, after hours. Um and I earned my money. Like I got out of bed a lot. Um, but that was the first thing I did. I instead of buying a bed, I bought a basketball hoop.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

And um to work on your fitness?

SPEAKER_04 29:48

No, just to I've I've always been a basketball junkie, and um it just felt like just felt like the thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

And who is who is your key player growing up that you that you worshipped? Mike. Me too. Yeah. I I got a chance to see Jordan play a couple times in my in my youth because I I was grew up in Milwaukee and I was a huge Bucks fan. So Chicago would come up and play occasionally. My dad would take me. Yeah, it was fucking insane, dude.

SPEAKER_04 30:16

Mike to me is I mean, he's he's hands down the most dominant, prodigious, dom I mean, he's he's the guy.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

He's the quintessential, all-around, I think, legendary athlete to ever have walked this earth to me. I I agree. Seriously.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

I agree, and I don't think there's any other team sport. There's no there's no other team sport athlete that comes close to his dominance.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

I agree. Um I I was just curious about that since you said you're a basketball junkie. Um let's let's shift gears just a little bit. Um how did so you you know, 2010, you get introduced to recovery, and then you become a board certified interventionist. What made you make that or what what caused that jump to you helping families get out of chaos?

SPEAKER_04 31:08

It was it was uh I can look back and go and connect the dots now, you know. Um, but it at the time it was slow. So at two and a half-ish years sober, I began working in the recovery business, right? And um and running a men's kind of higher high standard accountability driven, schedule driven. Um very early on in that process, uh a prominent female interventionist needed somebody to look scary in a young men's intervention. Like just be there as like the voice of, hey, let's just, you know, a non-speaking role, just be there, be friendly, but make sure nothing goes crazy. And um what I saw that day uh was a young man whose mother had died in the house and he had been so so sick on opius that he was stealing her end-of-life comfort medications.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

And so that's an intense first intervention to be part of, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:16

And and fast forward a year, this kid hadn't left his room but to buy drugs, right? And so, dad, two brothers interventionist, and I we we approached this kid's room, and as we all get in there, this kid looks up from his video game and he goes, He broke, and he said, Daddy, what took you so long? Like it just hit me in the heart, and I was like, Man, I want to learn how to do this. Like the interventionist hadn't said a word other than introduced while we're there, you know? Like, if I can do the if I can keep my lights on by a penny, this is all I ever want to do with my life again is see this moment. Now, I when I'm when I made that when I made that statement, I didn't know what all went into that. All the lead up work and and all the marketing and all the all the you know all the behind the scenes, you know, that that make that day possible. Um but I took that experience and I took it to my good friend Jamie Vance, who passed away, uh, passed away six, eight months ago. Um I take my idea and he was like, he was like, Yeah, you should. You absolutely should. So what's stopping you? And I was like, Well, I don't know this, and I don't know this, and I don't know this. And he was he just said, burn the boats. And I was like, burn the boats. And and I didn't I didn't know the story about Cortez and all that, but he explained it to me and I was like, okay, we're burning the boats. We're gonna burn the boats.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:51

Um, and so I so he he set me out on a path. He told me what to read, who to train with, set me up with a mentorship with a with a local interventionist, um, who I studied under for a good bit, and um set off on my own.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

That's absolutely incredible. And it's it's also good to hear Jamie Vance's name again. Um it's the the second time he's been brought up on our podcast. You know, we're early in the recorded episodes, and uh Tyler from Brooks Healing Center. Yeah, uh Brooks basically was started from Jamie Vance helping him along with it. Yeah. Um, but God, what a what a great mentor to have. Yeah, man. Um, so you you've been chasing this feeling of that first intervention of you being part of this amazing intervention happen. Um what do you think is the most difficult intervention that you've ever been a part of?

SPEAKER_04 34:49

Anytime there's minor anytime I know that there's minor, like small children being affected by addiction, that hit that hits home for me. That's tough. And unfortunately, we see quite a bit of that.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Um, you got, and then you're you were saying uh before we started recording that you got involved in doing the show intervention. Um how did that come about and how was that experience overall? And how many episodes do you think that you got to sit in on?

SPEAKER_04 35:18

You know, the the the call that I got, um, you know, when when I when I when I got board certified and did all that, I thought, man, and I'd seen the show, Intervention. Thought, man, that'd be cool one day. Like, I don't know if I don't know if I'm brave enough to make that a goal. Yeah, but what a cool experience that would be.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

It was in the back of your mind.

SPEAKER_04 35:41

To be on like the like the show that does the thing that you claim to do for a living. And then one day uh my phone rings, and uh I'm actually about to return. I was I was in Austin, Texas. I was returning a rental car, and it was uh I picked up a it was a it was a 303, it's an LA number. And uh I I'm in his name is Jay. He's like, hey, hey, my name is Jay Octavius. I work for Blue Sky Productions, Blue Cat, Blue Sky Casting. Um, your name's been forwarded to us uh to interview for a show for the show intervention. Are you interested? And I'm like, like, I'm getting scammed here. Like, who's who's who's fucking with it? Of course I want to, man. And I'm trying to try to play cool. I'm like, well, yeah, I think I could be. I, you know, I try to I'll try whatever. And uh and so we set a zoom up, and I'm on with the producer Amira, who I'm still cool with. Um she's she's awesome. Um, and so we're we're like we're like two hours deep on an hour-long Zoom. What was scheduled to be an hour-long Zoom, and I was like, man, like I I think this is going really good, you know? And um this I just moved and you know, I had had a for some reason this wasp had like started stalking me. He'd been in my house for like three days, I couldn't whack him. And so Amir's asked me, like, she's like, All right, final question. And I was like, I'm sorry, I'm a little bit distracted. There's a wasp that keeps like looking like he wants to attack me. And so she asked the question, and then I get like I can see in my periphery, I get dive bombed, and I just like karate kids smacked this wasp and like kept my answer coming. And she was like, Did you just? And I was like, Yeah, I just I just did that. She was like, Yeah, I think we're good here. And so I had a good I had a good feeling that I that I that I made the cut. Um, but then being on the show, uh, what was I mean, the the stories that we got to cover were, I mean, deep, they were heartbreaking. And I'll tell you, like, you know a lot about the treatment industry at this point. I'll say this about I I was, you know, you don't know what to expect because it's it's a television show. I'd never done it, bit of television. Um, but what I found were those the production assistants that do the homework around getting the getting the families and the addicts ready, they are so much more professional admission people than the admissions people that work in our field. And they care more than the people that actually work in our field.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

That makes total sense to me.

SPEAKER_04 38:11

It's yeah, I was a I was blown away.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

I was blown away. Good to know. Good to know, yeah. I mean, that's a detail I've always been curious about. Every every intervention episode, whether if it's just a single person or if it's a double episode where they keep going back and forth to guests. Um I've never watched an episode where I'm like, this isn't heartfelt and amazing and moving.

SPEAKER_04 38:35

Yeah, and they like I'm still I still don't know like how they they don't know. But like none of the in in none of the episodes that I was involved in did I mean the families certainly because they have to they have to agree, you know. Um, but at no point like do these guys ever figure figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

It's it's amazing to me. I I asked Todd Mulligan on our podcast if if there was any inclination. He said no, not until we were doing the full-blown intervention. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

So they they must do an insanely amazing job. They do. Um just to step off of that, thank you for sharing. Sure. I mean, it's it's really amazing that you're involved in that. It's it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_04 39:20

It was a really, really cool experience.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Um, speaking more to interventions, just in general, so you're helping these families in these desperate moments. What do you think is the the biggest misconception about a family coming to you for an intervention about their loved one having addiction issues?

SPEAKER_04 39:38

I think the biggest misconception is the fear around, like I the fear around most like lots of moms and dads or spouses will have like I just don't want him to feel betrayed. I don't want her to feel like am I I hear betrayed or ambushed. Yeah, right. Like I'm duping them right now. Right. Yeah. Um, and and my my thing is I I think it's the most loving and kind thing to do to firmly and with love and kindness confront addiction. If I really love you, I'll get uncomfortable with you, right? I will no longer placate your bullshit. I'm like I love you enough to stop placating your bullshit. You know, I'm not gonna sit here and act anymore like it's okay that I know you're killing yourself a little bit every day. Let's call a spade a spade. Let's talk about it. And it's like that a lot of parents have that it's like a self-preservation fear. Like, well, it it'll get better, you know. It's a phase. And you and me know, you and me know that addiction doesn't alcoholism doesn't get better. We we we we never go up.

SPEAKER_03 40:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:56

Very rarely, you know, and and certainly um people with a lot of letters behind their name would would argue with me that addiction uh, you know, uh is you know lives on a spectrum and certain entry points and exit points. Um and that's that's all true.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

At this point, there's been a lot of research. There's a lot of research.

SPEAKER_04 41:14

But but there is once you hit, once you are in full-blown addiction, um it, you know, you've got to, I like to say bring bring rock bottom to their feet.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:27

You know, because we know now with the fentanyl epidemic, if we allow someone to well, what they gotta hit rock bottom before they're gonna accept help. Well, why don't we just meet just meet them at the funeral home? Write them off and then meet them at the funeral home. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Um yeah, where do you want to have this funeral? That's that's our that's where we're going from here.

SPEAKER_04 41:43

Yeah, pick the flowers. Yeah, you know, and my thing is like, hey, like, why don't we try to influence them to become ready? If because in one sense, that the they're not gonna change until they're ready. Yes, that's that's absolutely true. So let's influence them to become ready. Let's get uncomfortable instead of sitting here going, like, well, I just I guess I'll just watch.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

I'm I love everything that you just said there.

SPEAKER_04 42:08

Like in this in the very same way that if how old you're your little one was two and a half. If you're you're unloading the dishwasher, you turn your back for a minute, and you're two and a your two and a half year olds running around with a butcher knife, what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 42:22

I'm gonna grab that knife out of her hand. Right.

SPEAKER_04 42:25

You're gonna defend yell. You're gonna defend a defenseless person. Right. And it I think that's that's emotionally what what we have to understand around a lot of drug addicts, most and most alcoholics. We uh to step in, we we are truly defending a defenseless person. They've lost the power of choice, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:45

Right, you know, and um I I couldn't agree more. It's a that's a great take.

SPEAKER_04 42:51

And that uh that butcher knife, that was actually my son. As soon as he learned to walk, I'm unloading the dishwasher, I look over, and he's got the big blue ceramic butcher knife. And it was the most athletic thing that I've probably ever done to get so so my immediate thought was if I yell, he might get scared and fall. Right, right. If I if I don't, if I try to go all the way over the open dishwasher door, I might tumble into him. So I did like a choo-choo, quick, quick, and then do I grab his hand or do I grab the knife? Um, but that's that's what we're doing when we when we step into an addict's timeline. You know, I mean we're we we don't want to play chicken with a person who doesn't value their own life.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Yeah. So we've got to never thought about that kind of metaphor with it. That's exactly what it is, right?

SPEAKER_04 43:44

We're because they are truly defenseless, totally, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Um and that knife could be a loaded gun, whatever whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_04 43:52

Um it's someone who's deep into meth, deep into fentanyl, deep into I mean, at this point, fentanyl's everywhere. Um Keep into drugs of abuse. A lot of times there's family members that I there's usually one in each family member who doesn't quite want to buy into the disease model. Like they just made some shitty choices and they can unsittty those choices. Right. Or they can unmake those choices or make better ones. And uh it's not that easy. It's I mean, if there's that if it was that easy, there wouldn't be 18,000 treatment centers in the country, you know.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

Right. There wouldn't be a show intervention.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

There, yeah, there wouldn't there. Yeah, there wouldn't be a show called Intervention. Uh dudes like me wouldn't exist. Podcasts like yours wouldn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Exactly. Um, you know, I'd be out of a job.

SPEAKER_04 44:39

Right. Right. Um, rooms of uh 12-step recovery rooms wouldn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Um just to add on to um, because we're we're talking about doing interventions, and I know that you've helped a lot of young men in your day since starting this. Where do you think that the system has failed them?

SPEAKER_04 45:02

Oh man, the treatment system?

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:05

I think that the treatment system, the treatment system at large. I think that standard standards of care um I think are are being improved due to some research that's being done right now. But I think like you know, legit standard of care has got to, we are we are we are well below the floor of where standard of care should start. Um neuropsych testing. Um a lot more clinical up front than than behind. Um you've got to have collaboration between psychiatric, medical, tech. Um lots of new tech coming in to to really help to really help.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

The world is changing.

SPEAKER_04 45:59

The world's changing and treatment modality's got to change.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

Change with those changes.

SPEAKER_04 46:03

Yeah, I mean uh all all the interdisciplinary pieces of a treatment team have got to communicate about a patient daily, or I think it's shit treatment.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 46:14

And that that doesn't that happens in a handful of places across the country.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Which brings me to my my next question, too. So you're a big proponent of the the full continuum of care, down from detox, going to RTC, going to PHP, Iop, sober living. Why do you think that's so important?

SPEAKER_04 46:34

I think it's important. Um, well, I I thought it was so important that I built one, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

Um yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

So I I think continuity of care, length of length of time, and and observed behavior over time are the is the biggest predictor of someone's success, you know, long-term support, long-term accountability. Um especially when we can keep like one set of records and one like when we talk about continuum of care, like the same set of professionals who have passed on, you know, like even as roles change and and levels of care decre increase or decrease, we've got one story to work with, you know. And so, because you know, patient reporting is uh flimsy at best, you know.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Um agreed.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

You know, I don't know how many times admissions you've you did for yourself at treatment. Um, I did five, I think, and and every every five, each one of those admissions, I sounded like a complete different person. It was just it was just my story that day. Right, right. You know, because we're we're shithouse crazy when we get there. And so being able to take a person and surround them with continuity through nine months to a year, I think, you know, just obviously goes a long way to improve their success rate.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

I agree. And you know, if you if you look at if somebody does, let's say, seven days in detox, they get itchy and they want to AMA.

SPEAKER_04 48:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

Um, without doing any residential, doing group. Because if you're let's face it, if you're in a treatment center, you're hardcore detoxing, you're not really going to group, you're not seeing your therapist at that point, you're just trying to feel better. You're trying to survive. Yeah. So that's seven days, that's a it's a wash of you trying to feel better.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

And then if you do residential, it's like you're doing group, you're meeting with your therapist, you're talking with other people in your community, you're hanging out with them, you're getting to know their story. It's so it's like linking up with parts of your life, which it's really important to be part of that community. And then if they were to go home right after residential, that could be very dangerous. Because then they're just set a treatment center for let's, you know, 21 to 30 days, somewhere around there.

unknown 48:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

And then if they're just going straight home back to everything that they knew and everything that they were doing, right? Really dangerous.

SPEAKER_04 49:01

Extremely dangerous, man. And like I uh like I work, our families that we bring on for intervention, we typically go on board for chunks of 90 days. So not to say that every patient goes to treatment in the States for 90 days, but if I get my way about it, we are in serve, they're in services for a lot longer than 90 days. I look at like the the the model that that put together that for the pilots and docs and attorneys use for licensure. Why do they have such great success rates? It's because they have long-term, they got a big carrot at the end of the road, but they got long-term supports and accountability to get there. Exactly. You know, and so the the the framework that we operate with is very similar. Um, we try to help our families imagine a life in recovery where we're not we're not going to the to the ER for a broken leg that's going to be fixed in 30 days or 60 days or 90 days. We've got to give everybody a new understanding of what addiction truly is and how do we support recovery. Right, right. In our own lanes.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

What um well, you know, we're speaking about treatment centers now, we're speaking about families. Um what's the uncomfortable truth that families, treatment centers, people in recovery that they are facing?

SPEAKER_04 50:20

I think the uh the most uncomfortable truth that that most they don't want to face, sorry. They don't want to face, I think, from the treatment center side is that most treatment centers have data, have post data uh for marketing purposes, it's just a flat out lie. Like success rates.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

That's a very good point. I've I've heard people from other treatment centers, you know, they like I have an 81% success rate.

SPEAKER_04 50:52

It's like full of shit, too.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Yeah, it's like why why is your alumni program like booming?

SPEAKER_04 50:58

Yeah. Yeah, man. I think uh there's a lot of uncomfortable truths about the treatment industry, and and and and one of those is that there are just some bad actors in our space.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

Why not be honest about their success rate and try to improve that?

SPEAKER_04 51:14

Yeah, well, well, that's that's true too. Yeah. I think um I think you know the the the worst of the worst are the uh are like the tragic, you know, patient brokering type operations that were got real popular in Florida and California.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

Um which has gotten a bit better these days.

SPEAKER_04 51:33

Yeah, I think Florida's almost the safest place to go now because they've they've kicked so many doors in.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

That's good to know.

SPEAKER_04 51:38

Um but I I I still get leery about Florida. Um I actually just extracted a young man that got marketed uh into a place in in Southern California.

unknown 51:50

Really?

SPEAKER_01 51:50

So it's it's still happening there.

SPEAKER_04 51:52

It's yeah, it's still happening.

SPEAKER_01 51:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 51:54

Yeah. Ukrainian mob um flew this kid. The kid had gotten kicked out of a of a treatment center. Um, he's in a motel room. Um, probably afraid of what mom and dad were gonna do. So he gets on Google, you know, gets Google marketed into, calls the admission line, gives him his insurance thing. Next thing you know, he's got he's got a little bit of cash sent his way. He's got um he's got a flight hooked up. And uh, you know, they looked at his insurance policy and said, This kid's a gold mine. We'll take him. Send a companion.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

It's heartbreaking that that stuff's still going on. This is a light, this is a human life we're talking about here. It's no different to me than sex trafficking.

SPEAKER_04 52:35

It's it's you know, it's a human life being misdirected.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:39

That's and that's a lot of um, I really, you know, my my path is my path, and the the the amount of time and the depth that I had to struggle, I'm ultimately at this point, I'm I'm at peace with and I'm grateful for because it took all of that stuff to get me to be able to just be here and have this day that we're having today. Like without all of that, I'm not here. I do wish somebody could have like said scene, you know, and tapped my parents on the shoulder and said, Hey, you guys can just relax. He's got a lot of stuff to learn and he's gonna live through it. So just go on about your like going about your business and just you know, watch the watch the Braves game and just chill out. Um you know, but but I I do wish that someone had been able there, you know, this is all pre pre-internet, really, when they were searching for treatment for me. So um that there was no real way to suss out, you know, what what's needed for a guy like me.

SPEAKER_02 53:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 53:39

Um, and to speaking to that, I want to marry my last my or not my last question, but my next question to this. So you you've mentioned your son, your father to a son, and on the topic that we're talking about right now, how does being a father to a kid um change your perspective and dealing with these young men that you're giving interventions for and these families that you're helping?

SPEAKER_04 54:01

Oh man, you know, I I uh it's like having your your work with a couple monitors at once at your desk.

SPEAKER_02 54:12

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:12

It's it's like that almost, right? So, like in you know, in part of my monitor, I'm always part of my monitor, I'm I've got my professional lens going, even when I'm you know, I'm watching my kid play basketball or get frustrated or some test of his resiliency and how he's gonna respond, you know. And um when I'm when I am with a family and I notice, you know, friction in the dynamics, um, I always I always I I ask for a lot of collateral before we start an intervention. Um, because it can tell me so much about like the family dynamics and mom, I want to know about how mom and dad grew up because that that pretty much tells me the story about how or can help me understand why XYZ may be true for the way their young person has experienced life and why we're here, you know, um, just by them giving me the history. Like nobody's got to be the bad guy. Um, but I like to understand family of origin for for the main players.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Yeah, I'm sure there's an element in there too where you're helping this family with their son, and you're almost putting yourself in your shoes with your son, and you want to do the best possible job that you can for this outcome for this young man.

SPEAKER_04 55:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Because you're, you know, in the back of your mind, you're like, I also have a son.

SPEAKER_04 55:35

Yeah, at some point, I mean, it's 50-50, man. At some point, I might have to hire a me because I I will be my heart will be too close. You know, if my son should struggle, I'm gonna go hire the best guy I can. Hey, tell me, tell me how to be dad. Like, I don't know shit. I just want to love my kid. You you you make all the calls. That's I mean, that I would want, I would just want to, if my son has an issue, I would want to be a great client to whomever I hire. Yeah, you know? Um, and I'm outcome driven, man. Like, I don't care that, you know, there's there's numbers out there that say uh 90% or of interventions result in a treatment entry. That that might be true. But are we delivering a hostage to treatment or are we delivering a human being whose family now has a new framework of how to deal with them?

SPEAKER_01 56:31

Well said, and you're also a family, and not just the person you're doing an intervention on, but you're also helping all these other key players.

SPEAKER_04 56:40

And the family doesn't call me because they want to understand themselves better. The family calls me because Jimmy is in the other room, knotted out after Thanksgiving. Right, right. They have no idea that their family dynamic has influenced him in any way. He is a symptom of a sick family system, more than likely.

SPEAKER_02 57:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:00

Right. Um and what makes and I lose I lose customers. I'm a bad salesman, man. I lose clients before their clients because I typically explain, you know, hey, this is what the process go down.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:17

I explain my process.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

And it's good to have your boundaries for what works for you and what's going to work best for this this young man and their family. Right. You're the professional here.

SPEAKER_04 57:28

Right. Yeah. It I I was talking to uh to a um a real estate person the other day, and we're talking about um we have a we have a mutual friend who's an attorney who's who's told us both. We were kind of giggling about it. The attorney said sometimes the best cases are the ones you don't take. And so this this woman I'm talking to, she's a real estate agent. And she's like, she's like, you know, I tell my I tell prospects all the time, if you want to overprice your house, I'm not your girl. Like if you want you want to sit on the market for six months, I'm not your girl.

SPEAKER_01 58:01

Um if you want to sell this house.

SPEAKER_04 58:03

If you want to sell this house, here's what you need to do. And and from me, I I'm I'm very upfront with my families, and I say, you know, I given what you've told me, here's what I can do for you, and here's what I'm gonna need you to do to make that possible. So you gotta ask yourself, can you take my advice? You know, and and if so, let's now we have something to work with, you know. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

What what do you think makes an effection an effective interventionist and not just somebody that knows the process of an intervention?

SPEAKER_04 58:36

I think an effective interventionist doesn't necessarily have to have a personal recovery, um, though I can't name one who doesn't.

SPEAKER_02 58:48

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 58:48

Um, I think to be the most effective, you've got to own an addicted brain. You've got to have some training, you've got to have some legit experience working under someone else. Um, and I just mean in the room, like to be effective with a drug addict and and a family that's struggling. To be effective in the room, um, I think those are the minimums, right? And I think it gets nuanced from there. Um, you know, how many we can always plan for a beautiful intervention where six family members arrive on time. We march through the front door, we tell Timmy, hey, we're really concerned for you. By the way, my name is Darren. I'm talking with your family, I don't know you, but your family loves you, and we're here to read you some letters.

SPEAKER_01 59:37

And Timmy says, I'll go to treatment.

SPEAKER_04 59:39

And Timmy's like, great, you already packed a bag, it's right over here, right? Like one in a million, right? Right. It'd be awesome if it worked that way. Um, but there's no school. There's no school for when the the person of concern um doesn't want to show up or storms out of the room or threatens to kill themselves or is in psychosis or you know, makes a threat, gets found, whatever. Like there's there's so many curveballs that could happen, you know. Um, you just you can't count them.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

So somebody has to know how to roll with the punches. Gotta be great intuition, intuition.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:18

Yeah. And I would never uh yeah, and I I would think that you know, you've got to have a plan, but you can't be so married to that plan that you can't be fluid, you know. And I tell my families all the time, like, hey, I'm you you're choosing to trust a complete stranger with with the the life of someone you love, and I'm gonna give you my very, very best. I'm gonna and I'm gonna I'm gonna prepare you for the way I think this is gonna unfold, and I could be totally off. Like we might yeah, we might have a totally different situation. Um, but I promise you I'm ready, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

Man, I I mean I know what goes into doing an intervention, but you getting into the like not even just the meat and potatoes, but the fat of it, like there's just so much that could go wrong. There's been there's so much that can go right.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

Yeah, exactly. There's so much that can go right. Yeah. And um, you know, they're fentanyl and meth, man. Meth, meth more so than fentanyl. Um, but you've really got to get somebody who's who's really sick on meth to be effective on on the first attempt with somebody in meth. Um, you'd you'd really want them to be fresh off, like up for five, six days, however long they they jam, and then let them sleep and then catch them soft. And that's that's really hard to do. Um, so a lot of times you just know going in day one, man, like I'm dealing with a person who's in meth psychosis. They're gonna be aggressive, they're gonna be paranoid, they're gonna be sure that they that that whatever they've already made their mind up. You know what I mean? Like they're in the impenetrable. Um, but I think it's part of like being professionally responsible is painting a legitimate expectation picture for the for the client family. Like, hey, here's what I expect. Given what, given everything you've told me and what we know about his or her drug use, here's here's a reasonable outcome for today.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

On average, how how long do you think that you're meeting with a family to come up with this plan and to tell them that A, B, C, well, actually A to Z can go wrong or different?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:32

Yeah. Uh prep day is prep day is typically three to six hours, depending on the the number of people in the in the group and the how many people want to play the what if game. Yeah, you know, yeah. Um and there are there are some dynamics that that just kind of demand a little bit more attention, like you know, when there's when there's kids in the house, um, you know, we got a that that that's its own section. You know, who's what preparations have we made? Um are there are there legal pieces that need to be moved and um put in place beforehand? You know, if we got we got like a mom, we got a mom and a dad that are both using um you know what what pieces do we have in place to take care of these kids, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

Man, that's a whole nother thing I didn't think of. You know, Matt, what if this legal piece is this guy can't leave the state? Right. And you need to go somewhere else with him. There's a lot of variables I I totally did not think of.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:37

Yeah, the and the variables, honestly, the variables are kind of what keeps it. It's always it's I love chat. I love fixing stuff. I love I really like fixing stuff between 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. I don't always get my like the other night we had a we had a long day. Uh I think Destiny told you about.

unknown 1:03:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:58

Um really long. It took me 20 minutes. After I after I woke up, it took me 20 minutes to read the scroll of the of the text thread of all the the drama that had happened while in the three hours that I was asleep. Oh my gosh, man. But yeah, man, we um we're it's I wouldn't I wouldn't choose to do anything else with my with my time.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:21

Um it sounds like you're you're right where you need to be right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:24

Yeah, it's a it's it is very it's very enjoyable work. Um and I'm grateful. It's like I it's it's an honor to be chosen to be pulled into like a that scary corner of a family's life, you know. Um like they they gotta trust somebody and they're you know they're looking around and go, well, I guess it's I guess it's you. We trust you. We got you know, we got no other choice. I'm I'm really and you either give them your best, you either give them your best or you give them your best, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:53

Yeah. I'm I'm just so glad that you're doing what you're doing with the firm.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:57

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:58

Um and I I hope our listeners out there, any families, friends, loved ones that are struggling, if they need to get to you. I know it's the Darren Hobbs on Instagram.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:09

Yep, the Darren Hobbs on Instagram and TikTok.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:11

Easy to get. Yeah, so please reach out to Darren. And I I mean, I don't want this to end at all because I can talk to you for like another three hours.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:18

But we have we already have we already clocked out?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

Uh it's it's over an hour, so I I got one last question for you. I know. The time is such a non-existent thing in this room. Yeah, and I I really appreciate it for everything that you've shared and you've given such good insight and you're an inspiration, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:40

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

Yeah. I mean so you've you've been working in treatment for 14 years, been sober since 2010. If you could redesign the addiction treatment system from scratch, what would you change first, do you think?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:54

Everything. I'd change everything. Um yeah, and why? I think that the the current treatment model is based on what insurance will pay for. I would love to get room full of the brightest minds. The brightest addiction minds. Let's get let's get medical, let's get clinical, let's get addiction specialists, let's get let's get a room room full of people together. Interventionists, interventionist case management, let's get the brightest of the brightest in the room and go, hey, forget the model that we've got, let's build perfect. And then and then let's do that instead.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:38

That would be fun to go through at some point and be like, what could we do to make all of this better and more effective?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:46

And how do we and how do we build out enough enough individuality? Because right now we got, hey, if you if you go to this place, you get treated this way.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:58

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:59

Right. So how how do we suss out the different needs that each individual requires?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

Yeah, so if you got 36 beds, those 36 people are pretty much the same program.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:12

Right. Yeah. And um I think that that with the research being done, um, research being done right now, um, led by the Reach United guys, I think they're gonna have enough data to come forward and go, hey, wait, we're missing the boat, A, B, C, D, E. Like we need to be able to, given this person's markers, this is how we should treat them.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:36

Yeah, and this is this individual treatment plan, and they are gonna do all of that themselves. And then the next person is gonna have a different one tailored for them. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:44

I I think I think the the I think that I think the this next wave of improvements in treatment will allow for much more individualized care uh and a lot more effective outcomes and a lot less pain.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:00

I couldn't agree more. And I'm excited to wear getting, you know, you're talking about technology too before. I'm excited to see the technology change with the treatment world. I'm excited to see where everything goes in the next five, 10 years. Yeah. Because I don't see myself not working in treatment in five to ten years. So I'm I'm really excited, and we're gonna be in this together.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:20

Yeah, and I think I think there's there's there's a lot of wearable tech coming that will be available and and affordable that can like that can really inform how someone's doing. Um I don't get to, you know, I don't get to say, hey, hey, you doing today? How you doing today, John? And you go, I'm fine. And I'm and since we, you know, we're connected on we're connected on your on your wristband, I'll go, really, you're fine? Because it looks like you're fucked. Right? Like the smile's great, man, but tell me what's really going on. Yeah, you know, yeah. Um like wearables like that are are are on the way. And I I can't wait for that. I just think I think we're we're within a couple years of some real cutting edge stuff being available to everybody. I'm stoked about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:04

And I like the way treatment is going right now. You know, if if you just look at our clinic, for instance, um, we do virtual Suboxone, and that wasn't a thing, you know, pre-2019. Right. Uh we were doing this before COVID, but I'm excited that we we can offer this to somebody in Tennessee, Virginia, Texas that doesn't have a car, that can't drive an hour and a half to their Suboxone clinic and wait and then drive all the way home. Working moms, working dads, people in school, uh like whatever it it may be, we're all trying to break down all these barriers that people have to treatment. And it's it's an honor to be in this world with you and it's an honor to be in this room with you today.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:48

Likewise, man, it's been a pleasure. I can't believe we've I can't believe we've just done an hour and 13 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:53

Isn't that wild? Crazy. Uh dude, I I just can't thank you enough. And let's check back in in you know, nine months, two years. Let's do another episode and and catch up where we are in life and what's going on and and how treatment world has changed.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:08

Dude, let's do that a year from now. Let's see what's different in treatment.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:11

Let's see. That sounds great. Awesome, dude. Much love to you, brother, and and thank you so much for everything. Be sure to check out the firm Nashville, uh, the Darren Hobbs, uh, suss him out, and please check out other episodes of Breaking Down Addiction by NAS. Uh, like, subscribe, um, follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, wherever it may be. And you can always message us if you have any questions. And um if you have a loved one that is experiencing mental health or substance use disorder and they have issues, please reach out to us. We can help and give you the best guidance possible moving forward. Thank you. Thanks, Darren. Appreciate you. Much love, brother.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:53

Much love, man. Thank you.