Life After Dating Alley Cats, Marrying & Divorcing a Cheater, and 14 Years Married to an Autistic Cop

Lori (00:00:00):
He started saying goodbyes to people. And then he woke up on a Friday morning, ate breakfast, laid down and died. Literally like that. The nurse's aide brought him breakfast. And then when they came back to get the tray, he was out.

Matt (00:00:16):
Really?

Lori (00:00:17):
And so it sat with me. I'm like, I want to know what that hospice nurse knew. I've gone through this lifetime with this dad that wasn't there. He was in prison. He comes back into my life and then he's just gone for good. And I'm like, I want to know what she knew because she saw things.

Matt (00:00:42):
I'm Matt Handy and you're listening to My Last Relapse. Okay. So tell me about you.

Lori (00:00:48):
Well, I'm Lori Bell. I'm originally from Kansas City.

Matt (00:00:51):
Oh, wow.

Lori (00:00:52):
Yeah. I grew up in Kansas City and also on the West Coast.

Matt (00:00:56):
What part?

Lori (00:00:57):
Sacramento. My dad was from Sacramento.

Matt (00:01:01):
What part of Sac?

Lori (00:01:03):
That I don't know. Okay. But I have a very interesting story as to why I'm here and I exist in the world.

Matt (00:01:12):
Okay.

Lori (00:01:12):
So my dad was third generation Italian. So came over-

Matt (00:01:17):
The Italian.

Lori (00:01:17):
Yeah. Came over from Sicily, that area. That's what we were told, is that we were Sicilian. We were not. And so that's really interesting because I think when people migrated, they would say that. And I've heard that from other third generation Italians. Oh yeah, we though we were Sicilian. Turns out we're not.

Matt (00:01:42):
How did you find out you weren't?

Lori (00:01:44):
Because I started doing my ancestry and figured out that they actually came from Northern Italy around Venice.

Matt (00:01:51):
Okay.

Lori (00:01:51):
And so that opened up this whole can of worms of like, okay, what the heck? And so when you do research, you start realizing they were still under a king at that time. And many of them didn't have education. And so they saw it as this is my way of becoming something outside of that type of government. And so that's why there's the big Italian migration that obviously led to the mob in the United States. And so what is normal in Italy is not normal, obviously, in the United States, the way that you run business and do those kinds of things. And so they brought over all these tradespeople to help build up the United States. So that's why many of them landed in New York, LA. And then Kansas City was just on that trade route over to the West Coast. So you have a lot of Italians also in the Midwest and Kansas City. So the mob was really big there too.

Matt (00:02:53):
Yeah, for sure.

Lori (00:02:54):
So anyways, my family landed in LA and my father went off to Vietnam. He was drafted into Vietnam.

Matt (00:03:04):
How old is your dad?

Lori (00:03:05):
Well, he passed, but he was, I think, 76.

Matt (00:03:10):
How old are you?

Lori (00:03:11):
I'm 45.

Matt (00:03:12):
Okay.

Lori (00:03:13):
Yeah. So he went to Vietnam, came back and then couldn't find a job. He had eighth grade education, could not find a job. So he joins a traveling circus.

Matt (00:03:30):
No way.

Lori (00:03:31):
Yeah. And he's in charge of the petting zoo. So the animals of this traveling circus that go from California across the United States. He's an alcoholic, so he's drinking a lot.

Matt (00:03:45):
He was a Carnie.

Lori (00:03:46):
Yes, he was a Carnie. And drinking. I mean, that's the lifestyle. So he's obviously drinking heavily. And I guess one night he just decided he was going to wrestle some of the animals and specifically a ant eater. That's what we've been told by him. I was like, " Yeah, I just wanted to wrestle this ant eater. "And so I did. And they fired me for it. And they said," We're dropping you off in the next city. "And that just so happened to be Kansas City. And he found his way to the unemployment office where my mother worked. Oh, wow. So my mom sees him come in. She's like, " Oh my gosh, he's tall, dark, handsome, Italian. My mom's Midwest farm girl. Love Story of Ages. Yeah. Love story of ages.

Matt (00:04:38):
Wasn't there a movie like this? Big Fish?

Lori (00:04:41):
Yes, similarly. Yeah. Yeah. But this is my life. This is how my parents met.

Matt (00:04:47):
Wait, this is a lot like that movie.

Lori (00:04:51):
I know. I know. I actually saw that movie and there's a couple other movies where I'm like, that's how I exist in the world. It's traveling circus.

Matt (00:05:00):
That was a really good movie, actually.

Lori (00:05:01):
Yeah. So that's how I came to exist. And so I grew up, my parents, you look back at pictures and you see the love there. You see that love. And then I come into the world and they had unhealed trauma. My dad had PTSD. My mom had abandonment issues from her mother. And so you see this play out in their relationship. It was very dysfunctional, very chaotic. My father didn't work, couldn't find regular job that drove my mom insane. So she's just frustrated, irritable all the time. So you see this, that's what I grew up in, was this chaotic environment of a lot of fighting, a lot of arguing, walls getting kicked in. My dad decides he's going to leave. He goes back to California. He gets into trouble and he ends up going to prison. And so I grew up basically with my father in prison.

Matt (00:06:00):
So was this like in the '70s?

Lori (00:06:02):
This was in the 80s.

Matt (00:06:03):
Okay. Oh, the 80s. Yeah,

Lori (00:06:04):
I was born in 1980. So he's in prison. He's doing his time. My mom's raising me as a single parent. She's working two jobs and I have no brothers or sisters. So I'm at home by myself, essentially. I've raised myself. And then she's kind of in that time of life. I talk a lot about hormones in my job.That's fine. She's going through menopause. I'm going through puberty. It is two women just fighting, fighting, fighting. And so I actually was in civil air patrol. I was learning to fly for fun. And so I was going to join the Air Force essentially to get away from her. So I fully admit I was running away from my mother. I was like, Get me away from this. So I joined the Air Force and I lived in Guam and I met my son's dad then. And we got married, had my son. And then he was in the Navy and that did not work out. So I ended up coming back to Kansas City and raising my son there.

Matt (00:07:14):
What did you do for the Air Force?

Lori (00:07:16):
I did airfield management. So I worked with air traffic controllers. So they would handle airplanes while they're in the sky. And then once they land, I did all the coordination for them. And then I

Matt (00:07:25):
So you're doing this stuff?

Lori (00:07:27):
No, I was actually in an office. So the pilots would come in and file their flight plans with me so that would all get entered and people would know where the plane's going next. So yeah. But I tell everybody, my service was really running pigs off of the airfield so that planes could land.

Matt (00:07:46):
Really?

Lori (00:07:47):
Yeah. We had a lot of wild boars in Guam, so they would send me out there to get them off the airfield.

Matt (00:07:53):
That is so funny.

Lori (00:07:54):
Yeah. I've had a very comical life. And that's like trauma response is to look back at your life and just kind of laugh at it. Yeah, because you have to.

Matt (00:08:03):
So what years were you in the service?

Lori (00:08:05):
I was in from basically 97 to about 99, so only a couple of years. I had my son.

Matt (00:08:13):
Okay. Nothing really too hot going on at the time.

Lori (00:08:16):
No, it was actually after Gulf War and before Afghanistan. Yeah.

Matt (00:08:20):
My dad was in actually on the ground at Desert Storm.

Lori (00:08:24):
Yeah. So

Matt (00:08:25):
Yeah, that was a pretty calm time. It's actually a really good time for the country too.

Lori (00:08:29):
It was.

Matt (00:08:29):
Yeah.

Lori (00:08:30):
Yeah. So I kind of slid in and slid out of the military life in a good time.

Matt (00:08:36):
Yeah.

Lori (00:08:37):
Yep.

Matt (00:08:37):
So when women have children in the service, how long was your contract?

Lori (00:08:43):
It's a four-year contract.

Matt (00:08:44):
Yeah. So do you get let go?

Lori (00:08:47):
It was my choice. Okay. It was my choice to leave. Actually, that kind of goes into a little bit more of my story, which is because I didn't have the family that I wanted growing up, I was like, well, I'll create my family. And unfortunately it was with somebody that wasn't on the same page.

Matt (00:09:07):
In what way?

Lori (00:09:09):
He's in the Navy, so he was-

Matt (00:09:12):
Gone?

Lori (00:09:12):
Gone, cheating everywhere, would show up and then expect to just ...

Matt (00:09:19):
Was he on a ship or was he stationed somewhere?

Lori (00:09:22):
Not really sure. I know he was a Seabee, Naval Seabee, so I'm not really sure. I know he went on ships, but then he would be at a place for a while. Is

Matt (00:09:31):
That in San Diego a lot?

Lori (00:09:34):
Very much so.

Matt (00:09:36):
Yep. And so you're in recovery?

Lori (00:09:40):
So I am not, but here's what I tell everybody is I'm in recovery from relationships because when you look back, and this is actually why I became a trauma therapist, is because when you see that you didn't get the love and what you needed in childhood, you're going to seek that out in adulthood. And that put me into a lot of relationships where I was emotionally abused, sometimes physically abused. And even though I'm this strong person that work-wise, I can do really cool things. And I was actually in banking for 20 years after I got out of the military and before I became a therapist. So I have this awesome work history, but then on the interpersonal side, I'm just suffering. And so that creates this, well, that's just love is just suffering all the time. I'll never get my needs met. I'm always supposed to be neglected. And that is ultimately what leads people to substance use because those are the coping skills. My coping skill was work. I poured myself into work. It was my outlet.

Matt (00:11:01):
Abandonment issues are an interesting one to me because how do you reenact abandonment?

Lori (00:11:06):
You abandon yourself.

Matt (00:11:07):
Right. Yeah.

Lori (00:11:08):
Yeah. And it's hard for people to understand that because outwardly it looks like, oh, I'm going to work, I'm showing up, I'm taking care of myself. But ultimately you're abandoning the person within you because of what other people have told you about yourself or what they have done. So as kids, we do witness our parents. We are paying attention. They say this, but then they do this. Oh, okay, that must be normal. As opposed to they say this and then they do the thing that they're actually wanting to do. That teaches you to listen to yourself and follow through on that, as opposed to listen to yourself and then do the opposite.

Matt (00:11:50):
Right. Right. Yeah. It's like the disconnect between action and words. And it's funny because for some reason ... So I've been talking about this a little bit where it's like the hardest shit in life is always the stuff that will yield good results and then the easy stuff for some reason. And it's across the board true where it's like all the good stuff is hard to do. Anything. There's emotional maturity, work, being healthy, all that stuff's hard to do, but then the easy stuff is like, yeah, you can fuck life off and be neglectful or just not do anything. And it's so easy.

Lori (00:12:32):
Because that's all you've ever known.

Matt (00:12:34):
No, I mean, it's just a lot easier to not do anything than it is to do. Well, of

Lori (00:12:37):
Course, right? I mean, by nature, we should just be relaxing in the woods.

Matt (00:12:42):
Yeah.

Lori (00:12:44):
We shouldn't have to go and-

Matt (00:12:45):
Well, I don't know about relaxing, but women maybe.

Lori (00:12:48):
Yeah. Yeah. But for men, it's, I got to go hunt. I got to go do this thing. That's what you're designed to do, not sit down and actually process your trauma and look at all the dark things that have gone on and work through that and sit with it.

Matt (00:13:05):
Yeah. I think evolutionarily, we were too worried about surviving to deal with trauma.

Lori (00:13:12):
Oh, a hundred percent. But even now, people are in survival mode.

Matt (00:13:19):
Yeah. Well, I mean, now you've heard the term, the epidemic of silent suffering, right? Yeah. Okay. And what I think where a lot of this really is centered is our lack of coming of age rituals for boys. Well, it starts a lot farther back than that where it's like we've destroyed the family unit. There is no, I shouldn't say no, but there is very little examples of healthy masculinity for boys. The other thing is fighting, boys fighting is not okay anymore. Also, spanking is not okay anymore. I think a lot of kids need to get spanked. I did.

Lori (00:14:04):
Yeah. The thing is there's a fine line there between spanking and abuse. And that's where even as a therapist, when you talk to parents, I'm like, look, let's try other things. Let's try some setting disciplinary boundaries with your kids.

Matt (00:14:24):
Okay. Let me ask you something.

Lori (00:14:25):
Without physically hitting them.

Matt (00:14:26):
Let me ask you something. Do you think it's because that line is so thin that we should just avoid it? Or do you think it's not good for kids to be spanked?

Lori (00:14:36):
I don't think it's actually good for kids to be spanked. And the reason why is because there's other things that you can do. Really what you're trying to do is control the nervous system and regulate the nervous system. So when a kid is acting out, when they're upset, instead of hitting them, you really should grab their shoulders and help them regulate themselves.

Matt (00:15:00):
Okay. So what if they're just being a bad kid? What if they just ... So I threw a rock through a window and it was like this ... So we lived in this old church. It was like a four-story church. The middle floor was an old basketball gymnasium, and so it was two floors tall. And so effectively the building was four stories. This glass window was over these double doors and I broke this window, got in trouble for breaking the window. And then when I said why I ended up breaking the window, I got in even more trouble. And I was trying to throw a rock at a bird. And so I got spanked. And I was being a bad kid. Ultimately, I was trying to kill this bird and I ended up breaking this window. And so I was just being a bad kid. And that was on the mellow end of a lot of this.

Lori (00:15:51):
Yeah. My question is, why are you trying to kill a bird?

Matt (00:15:53):
Well, I wasn't being a good kid and I wasn't just dysregulated. I was being a bad kid. And so what about then?

Lori (00:16:02):
So I mean, kids have the ability to have conversations, but if your parents were yelled at and screamed at and hit for acting like a kid, there's a level of what kids are just kind of kids. They act out, they do stupid stuff. I mean, heck, I've done stupid stuff as a kid, but we're looking at patterns. So is this kid continuously trying to kill birds? Why? Why are you so mad that you want to go kill animals? Now we're talking about psychopathy, sociopathic behavior.

Matt (00:16:39):
Well, no, it wasn't like a repeated thing. I don't really know why, but-

Lori (00:16:44):
Because you're a kid.

Matt (00:16:45):
Yeah. I just thought, okay, I think I could probably hit that bird. And I didn't. I hit the window. But also-

Lori (00:16:51):
You also didn't have a fully developed prefrontal cortex to.

Matt (00:16:54):
For sure.

Lori (00:16:55):
Say, "Oh, there's a window in the place. Maybe I shouldn't throw-"

Matt (00:16:58):
For sure. Yeah. Definitely should have put that together that I'm not going to hit this bird and there's this giant window. And the reason why I got in so much trouble, it was a pain in the ass to fix it. It wasn't like a normal...This building was built in the 20s.

Lori (00:17:15):
Oh, so it's a one of a kind window.

Matt (00:17:17):
Yeah, for sure. It was a whole thing and it took forever to fix it. We couldn't find anybody to fix it.

Lori (00:17:23):
Right.

Matt (00:17:24):
But then, okay, so how about this? When I was 16, my parents went to Hawaii for a couple weeks or something. I'm the oldest of 10 kids and my grandma was like terrible decision, first of all, to put her in charge, but put my grandmother in charge. My grandma is like ... So she has multiple master's degrees, multiple graduate degrees, writes training curriculum for the state of California around health and safety codes and goes into hospitals and inspects them and then wrote curriculum on how to pass these inspections and stuff. Really smart person, right? Sure. Totally ignorant to the world though, just has no social skills at all and love her, but she's not like ... And so we're having full-blown parties, broke out their giant bay window and was like built a skate ramp out of it, just doing dumb ... And I'm 16 or 15 or 16. I'm 16. And this is just the pattern that I had lived my entire life of just doing the craziest shit. And I was spanked borderline, actually by today's standard, we were abused.

Lori (00:18:50):
The other question is, have you ever been diagnosed with ADHD?

Matt (00:18:53):
No.

Lori (00:18:54):
Do you think you have it?

Matt (00:18:55):
No.

Lori (00:18:56):
Okay.

Matt (00:18:57):
Not in any way.

Lori (00:18:59):
You never know.

Matt (00:19:00):
No, I definitely don't.

Lori (00:19:02):
Okay.

Matt (00:19:03):
Yeah. I've spent years in a cell focused and I have no ...

Lori (00:19:09):
It doesn't have to be hyperactive kind.

Matt (00:19:11):
Yeah. Well, what is the other kind?

Lori (00:19:13):
It used to be called attention deficit disorder.

Matt (00:19:15):
No, I've got attention.

Lori (00:19:16):
Which is the hyper focus.

Matt (00:19:19):
Okay.

Lori (00:19:19):
The ability to hyper focus.

Matt (00:19:21):
Okay. So wait, say it again.

Lori (00:19:25):
Attention deficit disorder is actually the ability to hyper focus.

Matt (00:19:29):
Okay.

Lori (00:19:30):
On the things that you enjoy, that motivate you, that you like, you will hyper focus on it.

Matt (00:19:34):
Why do they call it a deficit then? Attention deficit.

Lori (00:19:37):
Because what happens is the things that we don't enjoy, why do we want to put energy and effort into that? Hey, I like this thing. It gives me that dopamine hit. I feel really good when I do this thing. I want to do more of that thing. That's the hyper focus. So for me, this is also part of my story. I almost did not graduate high school. K through 12, I couldn't focus. I was traumatized at home. I didn't want to be at home. I didn't want to be at school. I didn't want to do anything. My thing was just being social and having fun. And it wasn't until I had my son that I was like, "I need to give this kid some sort of a life."

Matt (00:20:19):
How old were you?

Lori (00:20:20):
I was 19 when I had him. Oh,

Matt (00:20:21):
Wow.

Lori (00:20:21):
So I'm like, if I'm going to give this kid any sort of a resemblance of a life, I should probably try to go to school, to college. So I was like, let me take one class just to see how I do, because I literally almost didn't graduate high school. And I take one college class and the teacher sat down with me and she's like, look, this is what you did and here's an example of what I'm looking for. And it was like that something clicked in my head. When I know what the teacher wants, I can do that. And so guess what? I ended up with four degrees because now I know the game.

Matt (00:21:00):
Okay. What degrees do you have?

Lori (00:21:01):
I have an associates of arts. I have a bachelor's in management. I have an MBA in finance and I have a master's in social work. So it became the game for me, which is once I know what the teacher wants, I can do exactly that and then I can win. I win the game of life. I have all these degrees. I can go get jobs. I can get money. That was my motivation. I can give this kid a life.

Matt (00:21:28):
How old's your son now?

Lori (00:21:29):
He's 25. Oh,

Matt (00:21:30):
Wow. I would never guess you had a 25 year old.

Lori (00:21:33):
I know. I hear that all the time. But yeah, it was that focus. And that's where the work became my coping mechanism. School became my coping mechanism.

Matt (00:21:44):
Did you ever have problematic substance use?

Lori (00:21:48):
No.

Matt (00:21:48):
Okay.

Lori (00:21:49):
Thank goodness. Now, here's what I will say. I did drink in high school and got suspended. So I was on that road very easily. And I think going into the military helped, but I would get blackout drunk while I was in the military. So I was certainly on the path.

Matt (00:22:13):
Yeah.

Lori (00:22:13):
Yes.

Matt (00:22:14):
Yeah. Well, yeah.

Lori (00:22:16):
Because you could drink at 18 in Guam, and then I come back to the United States and I can't drink because the age is 21.

Matt (00:22:22):
Isn't that crazy? We can send kids off to die, but they can't legally drink.

Lori (00:22:27):
They can't drink. Yeah.

Matt (00:22:29):
I don't know. I think it's crazy that we can drink anyway, but whatever.

Lori (00:22:35):
But I had seen my dad drinking growing up. And so I just thought, oh, I have all these emotions. That's what I'm supposed to do.

Matt (00:22:42):
And so no problematic substance use, but definitely problematic relationship.

Lori (00:22:48):
Big time.

Matt (00:22:49):
Okay. So in Kansas City, was it in the city or were you like ...

Lori (00:22:58):
So I grew up on the Missouri side. If anybody knows Kansas City, there's the Missouri side and there's Kansas, which is made up of other cities, Overland Park, Oletha, cities like that. So I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. And then when I got married, I moved to the Kansas side and I lived in Olathe for 10 years.

Matt (00:23:19):
Okay. So how many kids were in your high school?

Lori (00:23:22):
I want to say we had like, I don't know, maybe a thousand.

Matt (00:23:26):
Oh, okay. So it took a small high school.

Lori (00:23:28):
Yeah.

Matt (00:23:28):
Okay. So did you know everybody?

Lori (00:23:32):
For the most part, yeah. You kind of knew everybody in your grade.

Matt (00:23:35):
Yeah. So that's like 250 people a grade. Oh yeah, you knew everybody.

Lori (00:23:40):
Yeah.

Matt (00:23:40):
Yeah. There was like- Or

Lori (00:23:41):
Knew of them, right?

Matt (00:23:42):
Yeah. Well, I think there was 3,600 kids at my high school.

Lori (00:23:47):
Ooh, that's a lot.

Matt (00:23:48):
It was huge. But it was so crazy. My high school was so crazy. I was the first person to get expelled from my high school.

Lori (00:23:57):
Congrats.

Matt (00:23:57):
Thank you. Thank

Lori (00:23:59):
You. Yeah. I too was expelled for drinking. I was making what I thought were fuzzy navels. Turns out they weren't. It was just crap. Orange juice and whiskey in my locker.

Matt (00:24:10):
So funny. What's a fuzzy navel?

Lori (00:24:12):
Well, I think it's champagne or something. I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea what I was doing.

Matt (00:24:19):
Okay.

Lori (00:24:19):
I just knew I was supposed to drink crying because that's what you do when you're emotional like I saw my father do.

Matt (00:24:26):
Yeah. High school was a trip for me at least. I'm allergic, actually allergic to alcohol. So we had that too, where we thought we were something forever. And then, I don't know if you know this, but the Mormon church has the biggest database of ancestral data anywhere in the world.

Lori (00:24:47):
Yes. And that's actually where I got a lot of my- I'm sure

Matt (00:24:49):
You did. ...

Lori (00:24:50):
Families' information from.

Matt (00:24:51):
Yeah. And so we were always told, yeah, we're this and this and this and here's some family stories about it. And that's what it was. We thought we were Cheyenne Indian and that we were Portuguese and all this stuff. And then my grandma's from ... So my grandpa stabbed a cop, got sent to Vietnam and got somebody pregnant and that baby is my mom. So it was very obvious what her nationality and her ancestry was like. But my grandpa's, it was like, okay, we're related to this Portuguese royal family somewhere back in 600 or something like that. They had dates and names and crazy. And then so we thought we were Cheyenne Indian. I even have a sister named Cheyenne. And I don't remember how we found out, but we're like, none of that was true. And then 23andMe came about and everybody's doing their ... It's like, oh yeah, we were nothing what we were told.

Lori (00:26:03):
See, that's what I'm saying. Isn't it interesting that these Italians came over and I genuinely think it was because the mob originated out of Sicily. And so now the mob is here in the United States and you don't want to be obviously known as one of the other groups that came from Italy. So everybody- What do you mean other groups? Northern Italian. Okay. So you just said we were Sicilian as a protective thing, right?

Matt (00:26:32):
Did your dad have mob ties?

Lori (00:26:34):
No, but it's similar stories, which is they came over, they started their own businesses. So my uncle, so my dad's one of nine too. And so my uncle had his own cement business, and it's a lot of under the table payments type stuff. So the government obviously doesn't take its taxes out of that. So I mean, that's just how they ran business. But I mean, as far as mob goes, I mean, they weren't involved in anything.

Matt (00:27:03):
They weren't in protection rackets or- No, exactly. Extorting the people.

Lori (00:27:06):
Right.

Matt (00:27:08):
My wife saw the godfather for the first time a couple years ago. She'd never seen it. And I was like, "What? How do you go your entire life and never

Lori (00:27:18):
It's actually kind of weird because I can't watch a lot of those movies either because that's how my family was. Really? Just very loud Italian, very emotionally charged. Just everybody's mad at each other all the time for God knows what.

Matt (00:27:39):
Did you ever watch Ozark?

Lori (00:27:42):
A little bit.

Matt (00:27:42):
Do you watch shows?

Lori (00:27:44):
Depends. Okay. It's kind of weird. It's almost like if it's too close to home, I can't watch it.

Matt (00:27:51):
Okay. So

Lori (00:27:52):
Being from Missouri, I'm like ... Yeah, it's just too close.

Matt (00:27:57):
You ever been to Branson?

Lori (00:27:59):
Many a times.

Matt (00:28:00):
Okay. Do you like it?

Lori (00:28:01):
Yeah, it's kind of fun.

Matt (00:28:02):
Okay. Yeah. It's so funny. It's funny. My grandpa is like ... I went with him to the last George Stones concert ever. That's where the grand old Opry is, right?

Lori (00:28:20):
Isn't that in Nashville?

Matt (00:28:23):
Is it? I

Lori (00:28:24):
Think so.

Matt (00:28:24):
I don't know.

Lori (00:28:26):
But hold on. So step back for a second because you're talking about extortion and money laundering and all that. So funny story, my uncle, one of my dad's brothers in the 80s, big time bodybuilder, which was really popular in California. And so steroids were a big deal back then. And he went to prison for money laundering because he was selling steroids through his tanning salon. And it had been raided a couple times by the feds. And finally they found it under the floorboards of his tanning salon.

Matt (00:28:59):
So an Italian bodybuilder owned a tanning salon, got busted for money laundry for saline steroids.

Lori (00:29:07):
Yeah.

Matt (00:29:08):
Yeah, that's a pretty cookie cutter story for it.

Lori (00:29:11):
Yep. So that's one of the reasons I went into banking because I went into anti-money laundering. I was in compliance and risk. So it was like

Matt (00:29:19):
I wanted to do the opposite.

Lori (00:29:20):
Why do people do what?

Matt (00:29:21):
Why do people have family experiences and then do the complete opposite?

Lori (00:29:25):
Because you see them get in trouble. You see them go to jail and prison and I'm like, well, I'm not going to do that.

Matt (00:29:32):
Yeah, but now you're a part of the machine that put them in jail.

Lori (00:29:35):
Well, I think that that's what's really interesting is yes, I wanted to be on the right side of history, in my opinion. I wanted to do the right thing. And so I did exactly what ... So my mom also said, "You should go to work for the government." And I was like, "Oh my God, no, because I don't like you people. I don't want to be anything like you. " So my idea was, well, I'll go into bank which is not the government, but it works on behalf of the government. And so literally I have these two sides of my upbringing and I'm like, "You all suck. I don't want to do anything like what you do. " So I go over here and I do anti-money laundering in a bank system, which is similar to what they did.

Matt (00:30:19):
Did you work for a big bank?

Lori (00:30:20):
I worked for several big banks.

Matt (00:30:21):
Okay.

Lori (00:30:21):
Yep. I ended up becoming an auditor and traveling and doing all of that. But yeah, I mean, you take these two with what they're doing and I'm like, "Well, I'm going to go do this. " And in reality, I did that based on upbringing, but ultimately I got to a place where I was like, "I don't enjoy any of this. " And burnout was happening. And I was like, "I have to figure something else out. I've had all these experiences in my life." This all had to be for something. We don't go through this stuff for nothing. And that's when I was contemplating going back to school to become a therapist.

Matt (00:31:01):
What was the bridge that got you to therapy? Banking, why therapy?

Lori (00:31:07):
So at the time, I was taking care of my father. He was dying from COPD and he was having these experiences where when you watch somebody go through the dying process, you see them. You see them talking to people like they're standing in the room. You see them doing that internal, looking at their life and what they've done. And the hospice nurse says to me, "You need to start planning the funeral." And I said, "What are you talking about? " He's literally sitting up talking to everybody. And she's like, "I've seen this enough times that you just kind of know these things." And she goes, "Go in there and see what you see and then come back and talk to me. And so I walk into the room and my dad was blind in his right eye. So he's sitting looking out the window and I said, "Hey, dad." And he just turns and he goes, "Are you here to take me home?" And it was like that, oh, because that's where he lived. I was like, "This is your home." And it was the ultimate home. And then just over the next couple days, he started saying goodbyes to people. And then he woke up on a Friday morning, ate breakfast, laid down and died, literally like that. The nurse's aide brought him breakfast and then when they came back to get the tray, he was out. He's gone.

Matt (00:32:33):
Really?

Lori (00:32:34):
And so it sat with me. I'm like, I want to know what that hospice nurse knew. I've gone through this lifetime with this dad that wasn't there. He was in prison. He comes back into my life and then he's just gone for good. And I'm like, I want to know what she knew because she saw things.

Matt (00:32:54):
Yeah, for sure.

Lori (00:32:56):
And so it just kept sitting with me for another year or two before I decided ultimately I was going to go back to school because I wanted to learn about mental health because I'd been in therapies from my 20s on because of the relationship stuff. So that's why I went to school to become a therapist. And in that process, I've really learned to listen to people's subconscious thinking because you're not even aware of the things that you're saying. And when we talk from a subconscious place, which is really the soul level, the prefrontal is trying to make sense of that stuff. And that's what trauma does is it rewires the brain to not work together. So it's like your brain is working against itself. So when you go through trauma work and you actually clear out all that old programming, all that old conditioning, like what you were raised in, and you listen to yourself and your soul, you get closer to yourself. This is why people in substance use recovery have spiritual sort of awakenings. They get closer to God. What you're doing is you're getting closer to your God sense, your soul, to where you can hear it and become that thing, right? Become that walking, breathing embodiment. And that's fascinating to me.

Matt (00:34:19):
Yeah.

Lori (00:34:19):
And I love seeing people do that. That to me is just like that feeds my little ego to see people just do that 180.

Matt (00:34:30):
Yeah, for sure. So have you worked extensively in SUD or just kind of ...

Lori (00:34:37):
So I've worked with different capacities. So I started off in juvenile detention, a lot of kids with substance use history and then in outpatient settings and then also in physical rehab settings. So after somebody's come out of- Surgeries and- Surgeries and things like that. It's

Matt (00:35:00):
Like occupational therapy type stuff?

Lori (00:35:02):
So yeah, the physical rehab facilities will be occupational, physical rehab, and also speech therapy, which is fascinating in and of itself. You have somebody come in that just suffered a stroke that can't talk, and within a couple of weeks, they're back to talking like normal. So it's fascinating. The human body, the psyche, all of that to me is just amazing.

Matt (00:35:28):
So what was your degree actually in?

Lori (00:35:31):
Master's of social work, And my license is licensed clinical social worker. So I did a clinical track, which is you have to be able to diagnose, you have to be able to go through all of that. The only thing is I can't prescribe.

Matt (00:35:46):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Would you want to?

Lori (00:35:51):
No.

Matt (00:35:51):
Yeah.

Lori (00:35:52):
And the reason why is because what I've seen is the majority of people may or may not need medication. Maybe they need it to get through something, but ultimately if they do the processing and they do the work and do the therapy, they can get better on their own. I actually believe we can heal ourselves. You probably need guidance along the way, but we can ultimately heal ourselves.

Matt (00:36:21):
Yeah. The medication thing is always ... So from what I've seen, and from what I've read, and the medication part of the SUD world is a super slippery slope.

Lori (00:36:37):
It is.

Matt (00:36:38):
Super slippery slope.

Lori (00:36:41):
Well, right. You are walking a fine line there.

Matt (00:36:43):
Yeah.

Lori (00:36:44):
I need you to be on these meds to regulate your system, but then I got to get you off these meds.

Matt (00:36:48):
Yeah. For how long?

Lori (00:36:49):
Exactly.

Matt (00:36:52):
From what I've read, it's like a lot of these SSRIs are not supposed to be long-term solutions.

Lori (00:36:56):
They're really not.

Matt (00:36:57):
And ultimately the long-term effects of ... People talk about side effects of chemicals, drugs and medications. And what I have realized is that there is no side effect. These are the effects of these drugs. And one of the things that blows my mind is how many people go to treatment and they come out with a depression, anxiety diagnosis, and everybody that's coming off of drugs or alcohol is depressed and anxious.

Lori (00:37:27):
Everybody has it. That's the thing. It doesn't matter. Everybody has anxiety and depression.

Matt (00:37:33):
Yeah. I think that anxiety specifically ... So I don't think I'll ever hear God's voice. I'll never hear whatever God is. I'll never hear that person or thing's voice tell me, okay, go over here and pick up this rock or whatever. But I think that anxiety is one of the things that we were created with as warnings. It does. And so yeah, I think everybody experiences anxiety. I think that not everybody will meet the criteria to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, but I think that a lot of people that go into treatment, especially when you're coming off drugs or alcohol, you have a higher level of this stuff. Your body is dysregulated. It has been regulated with chemicals for so long that you take that away, it's going to need time to regulate.

Lori (00:38:28):
Exactly.

Matt (00:38:28):
And so the average person that leaves treatment leaves with multiple prescriptions for anxiety meds, depression meds, mood stabilizers, whatever, all of these medications. And what I think, and I'm not a doctor, I'm none of that, but I've just had a lot of experience with this. Most of that is drug-induced and most of it will subside and your brain will heal.

Lori (00:38:54):
It will. It's up to the severity of use. So what I mean by that is, for instance, one of my uncles on my mom's side, lifetime user of alcohol. Eventually, that prefrontal will not come back online. There is synapses that happen and that over time, and I'm talking severe habitual use from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed, you're drinking for every single day of the week, that prefrontal stops coming on. And because now it won't come on, they're living back here in the cerebellum, which is where the emotions are. And so this is why when we drink, we're more emotional. It's because it's turning that prefrontal off.

Matt (00:39:40):
Do you think that it's a permanent shutdown?

Lori (00:39:43):
It is at a point, yes.

Matt (00:39:45):
Okay.

Lori (00:39:45):
Which is why you're saying people in their 80s, they have to have some alcohol. They have to have that because if you take that thing away, essentially what happens is it's suicide, but it's not in suicide in the way that we think of suicide. It's not like I'm going to go off myself. It's a slow automatic decline.

Matt (00:40:07):
Okay. So the way that I've been explained this is that neuroplasticity happens regardless of ... Because I slammed heroin for 17 years. I shot meth for 10 and smoked meth and did everything else too, everything under the sun. I know that alcohol is a whole different thing as far as the effects on the brain. And so I'm not really ... Even with alcohol though, the brain's ability to heal after X amount of time, and it's different for everybody, but that it can heal and that ... Okay, neuroplasticity, when you talk about neuroplasticity, what is it? And I heard that every time you have a new thought, you are now creating a new neurological pathway.

Lori (00:41:06):
Correct.

Matt (00:41:06):
Okay. So if it is a permanent shutdown, then is there still neuroplasticity, neurogenesis and ...

Lori (00:41:16):
So the answer is there's still some. The question is how much? They can still take in some information, but what they're doing is they're living in the emotional state, meaning you can take in information, whereas you and I, if we take in information, we might make a different decision. "Hey, I now know this. Okay, I'm going to go do this instead of continuing to do the same thing." They can take in that information, but they're going to continue to do the same thing. They can't make that decision to change.

Matt (00:41:55):
Okay. So how long is long-term? What is the severity or what is the level of use that you're talking about for a permanent shutdown? Because the reality of recovery and all this, right? So the idea is regardless of how long you've used, you can reverse that. I mean, obviously, what is it called? There's a scientific term for it now, but it used to just be called wet brain. There is levels to this where there is permanent brain damage. And what pointed you to believe that there's permanent shutdown of the brain's ability to process and regrow and all that?

Lori (00:42:39):
Yeah. It's so complicated and it's by person.That's the hard thing because take an 83-year-old woman versus a 60-year-old man, we're looking at different biology there. And so that's why it's so difficult because you're looking at, can this physical body and brain actually fix itself or do we have to keep them on something to keep them alive essentially? So for instance, my uncle, I knew that if you took that alcohol away, he's going to die right then and there. I mean, it's literally probably his only nutritional intake.

Matt (00:43:24):
That's so funny.

Lori (00:43:25):
So if you take that one thing that his body's relying on getting away from him, he's just going to basically drop dead. But I knew that he was suicidal in the sense that he wasn't going to stop drinking. He would drink himself until he didn't wake up. And that's ultimately what he did. So because he was so stuck in the emotional state that it's that double-edged sword of if we take the alcohol away, there's a chance, but he's still going to need it because the body is relying on that source.

Matt (00:44:01):
Okay. So are there medications that could allow somebody like that to get off the alcohol and function?

Lori (00:44:08):
I mean, I believe so, but again, I'm not on the medication side. So

Matt (00:44:13):
So what would you do if you had a 45-year-old that drank for 25 years?

Lori (00:44:18):
Well, if they're coming to me directly, again, I'm outpatient, so we would be talking about going to a substance use recovery program. I'm not going to treat you in a one hour a week type setting.

Matt (00:44:31):
Have you had people that come off of alcohol? So alcohol is an interesting drug in general because it is the most damaging one.

Lori (00:44:40):
Here's why. Your body is now relying on that sugar source. So it is a carb, right? It doesn't matter what kind of alcohol it is, it is a carb. So you actually have physiological things that are happening within the body. So for women who drink, that gets into our fat cells. And so because women have more fat on their body, it's going to take longer to process that out of their body. So it's not just healing the brain, it's healing the body as well, because it has to process out fully. So then you have to go through two parts here, which is the trauma, what led to you drinking in the first place, right? Process out all of that stuff while managing the body aspect of this. And that's what's difficult to bridge from substance use recovery program or crisis intervention to ongoing maintenance. Because let's say somebody goes into substance use recovery program, the idea is that you're going to be getting both of those.

(00:45:49):
You're going to be learning about mental health, learning about processing while being monitored physically. So when they come out, here's the issue. You've now been in this environment for so long, so it was easy, but now we're going to go put you back in your normal environment where all those stressors are And say, don't drink.

Matt (00:46:11):
Yeah. The bubble that is 28-day stabilization that passes off is treatment. Yeah, it's a crazy situation.

Lori (00:46:21):
Exactly. It's the bell curve. So think about the bell curve, right? So if you have a hundred people, are they all the same age? Are they all the same gender? Are they all the same amount of drinking or drug use? The answer's no. So that's where when we look at evidence-based, you're going to have outliers to this, but they're looking at, okay, out of a hundred, 60 did well based on substance use programming. That other 40 either dropped out too soon or they went through the program and then they reverted back.

Matt (00:47:01):
So do you know what evidence-based actually means?

Lori (00:47:03):
Yeah, it's basically researched.

Matt (00:47:05):
Yeah. And that is it. That's it. It has nothing to do with outcomes.

Lori (00:47:09):
Exactly.

Matt (00:47:10):
One of the craziest things that ... So over the last year, I've just been reading about statistics on outcomes and outcome-driven care versus just what is typically going on. And one of the things that ... So basically what it comes down to is 98.5% of people need to go to treatment seven times before they stay clean for one year.

Lori (00:47:34):
Exactly.

Matt (00:47:35):
That is not evidence of efficacy or efficiency.

Lori (00:47:42):
So what you're asking for is you're asking for a macro level response to substance use recovery. So when we look at individual, that's micro level, but at a macro level, people are less likely to use substances that are raised in a healthy household in a country that people have healthcare, that they feel taken care of, they feel supported, they have jobs, that we have a certain level of living-

Matt (00:48:14):
So not here.

Lori (00:48:16):
I didn't say it, but you did.

Matt (00:48:17):
Yeah.

Lori (00:48:18):
Correct.

Matt (00:48:19):
Yeah.

Lori (00:48:19):
Yeah. And again, so that's politics. If we bring things back here and we start investing in our people, and I am a big proponent of that, investing in people and making sure that they have jobs. Go back to my mom. She worked for the unemployment office. I at least got that from her, which is people need to have jobs. When we have people working and bringing in income and feeling good about themselves, they're less likely to come home and abuse their children.

Matt (00:48:47):
Yeah. Yeah.

Lori (00:48:49):
And resort to coping skills.

Matt (00:48:50):
Have you heard about this $24 billion scandal that's going on in California? California has spent more than $24 billion in the past five years to address homelessness. So when this bill was introduced, they asked ... There was 32,000 homeless people in California and they said," We're going to solve the homeless problem. "Okay. And they asked a bunch of questions and they were like, " We're going to do this, so we need to figure out what the measurements are and the goals, and we need to have measurable outcomes and deliverables and all this stuff. "So one of the questions that they asked was, " How much money would it actually take to take every homeless person, house them, and give them X amount of money? "And it was $1.6 billion was what they came up with. So they were like, " No, but we can't do that. We can't incentivize using. There's going to be people overdosing and dying and we're going to can't do that. "So $24 billion package was made five years later, guess what the outcome was?

Lori (00:49:51):
We have no outcomes.

Matt (00:49:52):
No, there was definitely outcomes. Let me show you. There's probably something like ... Okay. Confronted about the missing $24 billion, right?

Lori (00:50:08):
Where did we lose it?

Matt (00:50:09):
Yeah. Well, let me see if it talks about it.

Lori (00:50:12):
So it's interesting because a lot of cities did this. So post COVID, a lot of cities came out with these housing programs, but you're not fixing the root issue.

Matt (00:50:27):
Which is?

Lori (00:50:27):
Which is, it's an individual basis.

Matt (00:50:31):
Yeah.

Lori (00:50:32):
Right? This is where macro doesn't meet micro.

Matt (00:50:37):
Yeah. I mean, yeah. So this is what happened. It started off with 32,000 homeless people when they did their census. Five years later, guess how many there are?

Lori (00:50:47):
Probably more.

Matt (00:50:48):
168,000.

Lori (00:50:49):
Yeah.

Matt (00:50:49):
So they quadrupled it.

Lori (00:50:50):
Right.

Matt (00:50:51):
And yeah, they tried to systemically- Exactly. ... systematically and socially fix individual problems with money. And so there's this funny ... Well, it's not funny at all, but there was a situation. So they created all these NGOs and they created this plan to distribute the money and it looked cool, whatever. We're going to fix the homeless problem. Well, one of the examples that they're talking about around this missing 24 billion, there's this company that was created, they got awarded a $20 million contract. They were supposed to build a 132 bed facility, and so they got five million upfront and then five million every year after that until the 20 million was distributed to them. They never broke ground and they got all $20 million.

Lori (00:51:43):
Right. I mean, you want to fix the system, you get people into therapy in their early twenties And it should be almost like going to the doctor.

Matt (00:52:00):
Yeah. Yeah. So-

Lori (00:52:02):
You got to get them young and you got to get them fixed after childhood, right? That's how we start to change generationally.

Matt (00:52:10):
Yeah. So do you know what? Have you ever heard of this book? It's a cult feminism. I'll bring it up. Cult feminism. Have you ever heard of this?

Lori (00:52:26):
I haven't.

Matt (00:52:27):
Okay. So basically what it talks about is first wave feminism, second wave feminism, third wave feminism, the effects of all of the different things that happen. One of the things that this author claims, and I tend to believe it, is that one of the downstream effects of second wave feminism was the destruction of the family unit. And this started a long time before that. This is just what this book talks about. And one of the most interesting things to me is that people think that when you look at outcomes for children, you know the government has huge databases on this stuff, right? The biggest database on outcomes for children, the government owns it. And one of the data points that they collected was outcomes for kids in abusive homes where both parents are biological versus outcomes for kids who are raised by a single mother.

(00:53:21):
And outcomes for kids with both biological parents in the home who are abusive are magnitudes better than a single parent home. And that is the norm today.

Lori (00:53:33):
So I'm going to take this a step further for you, okay? Think back to cavemen.

Matt (00:53:38):
Okay.

Lori (00:53:39):
Okay. Women would work together. Men would go out and hunt.

Matt (00:53:46):
Okay.

Lori (00:53:46):
Right? You need both.

Matt (00:53:48):
Oh yeah.

Lori (00:53:49):
Okay. The men go out and hunt. None of them come back. How are we going to feed those kids? The women have to step up and move into their masculine and go out and hunt.

Matt (00:54:00):
Do you think this happened a lot?

Lori (00:54:02):
Yes.

Matt (00:54:03):
Okay.

Lori (00:54:03):
Yes. So because we all have both, that's the key. You have emotions, you have a logical brain. I have emotions. I have a logical brain. Gender doesn't matter. But biologically, because women do tend to live more in their emotional brain versus logical brain, that is raising kids to feel good within themselves. We create secure kids. As those kids grow up, they go off to hunt with dad and especially boys. You want those boys because they're the future hunters. They have the most testosterone. They should be able to fight the bear if they need to and then come back. So you're teaching boys to go off and do that. Now, if you have women that have been forced into their masculine to go off and hunt, you're going to create more masculine type women. That's the single mother. I was a single mom. So this is why I say kids really only need one good parent. And the reason why, it doesn't matter if it's mom or dad. If you have one good parent that can teach a child, here's how you go off and hunt, but also here's how you regulate emotions, you're going to have a secure kid.

Matt (00:55:25):
Okay.

Lori (00:55:25):
Right? How many of those exist in the world?

Matt (00:55:29):
None.

Lori (00:55:29):
You're looking at one.

Matt (00:55:31):
Okay. A couple.

Lori (00:55:32):
Okay. It can be done, right?

Matt (00:55:35):
Okay.

Lori (00:55:36):
I raised my son to, you have to go off and you have to find work and you have to be able to support yourself, but you also need to understand your emotions. And on that interpersonal side, right? When he got his heart broken for the first time, how do you handle that? Do you hurt yourself or do you work through those emotions and learn from them?

Matt (00:55:59):
The honest question. Honest answer. You just find another girl.

Lori (00:56:03):
Right. Well, women do the same thing. We'll go find another man.

Matt (00:56:06):
Yeah.

Lori (00:56:06):
Right? You're dead, so I got to go find somebody to go hunt for me. I can't do both. So do you see why I'm saying? We all have both. It's a matter of which one we're forced into for survivability. Because if a man is out hunting, he better not be thinking about his wife and kids at home. He better not be in that emotional state when a bear is standing in front of him. You should be able to, I need to kill this thing or I'm going to get killed. I shouldn't be thinking about, oh, I love my wife. Right.

Matt (00:56:39):
Let me ask you a question. You randomly spawn in the middle of a forest. Okay. Would you rather be in this forest with a bear or just a random man?

Lori (00:56:53):
I want the one that's not going to hurt me. So I'm going to go into my feminine and be cute and cuddly so that you maybe leave me alone. That's what I want to be left alone.

Matt (00:57:02):
So which one though? The bear or the guy?

Lori (00:57:04):
I would go for the man and here's why, because at least I know I can fix him.

Matt (00:57:11):
Random guy.

Lori (00:57:12):
Random guy.

Matt (00:57:13):
Random guy, like spawns. We don't have the option who this guy is. It could be homeless Joe under the bridge or it could be Steve Jobs.

Lori (00:57:23):
Yeah. I think that's the part for women is that because we've had to learn to self-protect, we know that we can, right? But should we have had to learn to self-protect?

Matt (00:57:37):
I don't know. I think so.

Lori (00:57:40):
I mean, but inherently human beings are self-protective.

Matt (00:57:45):
Well, I mean, first law of nature, right?

Lori (00:57:46):
Exactly. So obviously we want that person in our life that we don't have to necessarily self-protect from.

Matt (00:57:55):
For sure. I think that's the goal. Okay. So you're saying that all it takes is one good parent, right?

Lori (00:58:04):
There's great dads out there too that can do both.

Matt (00:58:07):
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. I know somebody that raised four girls, like a single father that raised four girls And they're great. But do you think that when you talk about outcomes, that they would be the same of ... The outcomes of a single parent household would be the same as a two-parent household.

Lori (00:58:29):
I think if you have two healthy parents, you're winning. You're winning life.

Matt (00:58:32):
Yeah, that's not happening.

Lori (00:58:34):
Right.

Matt (00:58:34):
I'm talking about, okay, let's hypothetically, let's say one healthy mother versus one healthy parent and one unhealthy parent, but they're both in the home. Biological.

Lori (00:58:45):
So the question was, if you have one healthy parent and one unhealthy parent, right?

Matt (00:58:52):
One unhealthy biological, one healthy biological. They're both in the home.

Lori (00:58:56):
Okay.

Matt (00:58:56):
Do you think that a single parent home can have a better outcome?

Lori (00:59:01):
Yes.

Matt (00:59:02):
Statistically.

Lori (00:59:03):
Yes. And the reason why is if dad's coming home and getting drunk every night, right? Okay, what is that teaching a kid that, oh, men do that? If you have one parent that comes home and doesn't yell and scream at you and doesn't use coping mechanisms, they're actually excited to see you and spend time with you and teach you things about life. Hey, not all men are this way, not all women are this way. Find the people that you align with. You're going to have a better outcome.

Matt (00:59:39):
So did you ever remarry or you were married, right? So did you ever-

Lori (00:59:43):
I did remarry. I was married for 14 years and what I realized-

Matt (00:59:49):
First time or second time?

Lori (00:59:49):
The second time. Okay. This is a little deep. Okay. When we were dating Everything was great.

Matt (01:00:03):
Oh yeah.

Lori (01:00:03):
Perfect for a year. And me, I was like, why can't I find anything wrong with this person? That should have been a red flag because he was masking for the entire time. We get married, mask comes off. It was like a totally different person. And here I'd brought my kid into this relationship.

Matt (01:00:26):
Yeah, for sure.

Lori (01:00:26):
And I'm like, who the hell is this? And okay, he was a police officer, so I knew that he had gone through a lot of trauma and stuff like that. And I was like, okay, I mean, I understand that. We can work with that. For all intents and purposes, great marriage. But I also started to realize he wasn't showing up for me emotionally. If I was upset, he would almost be pushing me away. And I'm like, what the hell? That's not really normal either. But I just kind of thought, again, maybe it's trauma responses. As time goes on, I started to realize he's autistic. How do you now work with somebody that is actually incapable of handling emotions that struggles socially with certain things? And so that for me was like, is this what I want for the rest of my life?

Matt (01:01:25):
Yeah.

Lori (01:01:26):
Do I want to be with the person that's going to push me away every time I show emotion?

Matt (01:01:31):
Yeah.

Lori (01:01:31):
And ultimately the answer was no, I couldn't do that.

Matt (01:01:34):
How old was he when you realized he was autistic?

Lori (01:01:36):
Oh, this was just in the last couple of years after I became a therapist because I started putting all the pieces together.

Matt (01:01:42):
Okay. Did he ever go and get diagnosed with autism?

Lori (01:01:44):
He was diagnosed as a kid with ADHD, but again, I don't know that they were necessarily testing for autism back then.

Matt (01:01:51):
I seriously doubt it because it's a very new thing.

Lori (01:01:54):
And there's really two key differentiators between ADHD and autism. It's the social anxiety and the emotional reciprocity, the ability to understand other people's emotions. And then you add in that trauma response. So it just was flat, I'm not going to get what I'm needing and I'm being threatened now because his trauma response was to threaten me.

Matt (01:02:18):
Really?

Lori (01:02:19):
So I'm like, why am I even here?

Matt (01:02:21):
Yeah.

Lori (01:02:22):
Right?

Matt (01:02:23):
Yeah. Yeah. So a year of acting and then 14 years of marriage. Okay. So where in the marriage did you realize this wasn't going to work?

Lori (01:02:37):
Really in year two.

Matt (01:02:39):
Really?

Lori (01:02:40):
But I was like, I went to counseling, I went to therapy, and my therapist at the time was like ... We didn't know he was autistic at the time. It was just, Hey, we're-

Matt (01:02:50):
That wasn't even a thing.

Lori (01:02:51):
Right.

Matt (01:02:51):
I don't think autism was-

Lori (01:02:53):
It's not as prevalent as it is today, right?

Matt (01:02:55):
Well, was it even a thing?

Lori (01:02:57):
It's a thing.

Matt (01:02:58):
I know. You absolutely

Lori (01:02:58):
Have it. It's genetic.

Matt (01:02:59):
Okay. I know it was a thing, but was it defined yet? Because I know it was in the DSM-4.

Lori (01:03:07):
It was defined, but it was like Asperger's. So

Matt (01:03:11):
Now- So it wasn't a thing though, right? Right. It was something different.

Lori (01:03:14):
Yeah.

Matt (01:03:15):
And then the spectrum swallowed up a bunch of other diagnosis, right?

Lori (01:03:18):
Correct. Correct. I mean, everything's on a spectrum. And so he would essentially be high functioning. He could hold a job. He could hold conversations. He's a cop. He's a cop. Right. And so for me, again, go back to my history. I was like, okay, he's on the good side of history. Yeah. So you see my patterns here.

Matt (01:03:42):
But he worked for the government.

Lori (01:03:43):
He did work for the government. But he ultimately, when I met him, I was like, wait a second, why are you a cop? He had a bachelor's in IT and I could just see how his brain worked. And I was like, so this doesn't really add up in my opinion. And ultimately he went back to school, became a nurse and became a nurse practitioner because his dad was a psychiatrist. So I was like, you have the ability to learn medicine if you want to. You've been around it. You probably have the brain for it.

Matt (01:04:12):
So you saw him through schooling again?

Lori (01:04:14):
I supported him emotionally, financially. Yeah.

Matt (01:04:20):
What was the ultimate, the straw that broke the camel's back where you were like, I can't do this?

Lori (01:04:26):
When he threatened divorce multiple times.

Matt (01:04:28):
Oh, for sure then. Yeah.

Lori (01:04:29):
Yeah. I was like, okay, I'm trying to work with you and that's all you're giving me. Why am I continuing to put myself in this situation? Oh, because it felt safe. Comparative to what I grew up in, it felt safe, safer. It really wasn't.

Matt (01:04:51):
So 14 years, that is-

Lori (01:04:53):
It's a long time.

Matt (01:04:54):
Yeah. No, it's not a short time. But what I was going to say is that is a long process to come up with ... So year two, you realized it. What was the-

Lori (01:05:09):
I went to therapy and the therapist is like, okay, this ... Because I had never seen a healthy marriage.

Matt (01:05:14):
Oh, okay.

Lori (01:05:16):
Right? Hadn't experienced

Matt (01:05:17):
Makes sense.

Lori (01:05:18):
So I go to therapy for me to learn what does a healthy relationship look like. And so I get that information and I'm applying it to the relationship. But at some point I realized every time I bring up my emotional needs, I'm almost shamed for it, made to feel like crap. So there was another point where I went back to therapy and I was like, "Yeah, I'm trying to communicate." And the therapist is like, "Can you do these things?" And I was like, "I can't."

Matt (01:05:50):
So this is pre you being-

Lori (01:05:52):
Becoming a therapist. ...

(01:05:52):
Becoming a therapist as well. Yes. Okay. And I was like, I've tried those things and they're not working. And so then it would be like, okay, let's go to couple's therapy. That was interesting.

Matt (01:06:03):
Probably completely pointless.

Lori (01:06:05):
Yes. Because what he did was he sat there and went, "Well, these are all of her issues." And I was like, "Where did all of this come from? You've never brought any of this up. And so now I have to go fix myself. Meanwhile, I'm still not getting what I need out of the relationship. You don't think you need to fix anything." And now I'm feeling like I'm this piece of crap that has to go fix all these things.

Matt (01:06:30):
Was he aware of his deficiencies at all?

Lori (01:06:33):
I don't think so.

Matt (01:06:34):
Okay. Autism is an interesting thing to me. I have 32, no, no, 30 nieces and nephews, and the percentage of them that have autism is mind blowing to me. It is like everybody is getting diagnosed with autism. So okay, I get it. Not everybody, but a large percentage of people today, and then it's like adults. Adults are like, "Oh, I have autism." And it's like, maybe you do. You're definitely socially inept, but I used to just think you were stupid, but hey, that makes sense. But it's like the spectrum is so broad.

Lori (01:07:16):
It is. And everybody's so nuanced with it too.

Matt (01:07:19):
Right.

Lori (01:07:20):
Yeah.

Matt (01:07:21):
And it gets to the point where it's meaningless to say, "Oh, I have autism." And this is one of the things that when people talk about ... It's like a badge of honor today to have a mental illness.

Lori (01:07:35):
I think it helps with understanding, right? Because let's say you meet somebody and you really like them and they say, "Hey, I have autism." You would like to know that going into that relationship with them.

Matt (01:07:46):
For sure. But what I'm saying is it's almost pointless now because everybody can say they have autism and we can always find something to point to to be like, "Oh yeah, this dude's autistic." What I'm trying to say though is we live in a time, especially ... Is that your boyfriend. Okay. So we live in a time where the dating market, anybody that's ever broken up with a guy has broken up with a narcissist and anybody that's broken up with a girl has broken up with a liar and a cheater.

Lori (01:08:18):
Well, think. Think hard here. Okay.

Matt (01:08:20):
Okay.

Lori (01:08:21):
We all have ego. Ego is my needs and my wants, right? So let's just start there. As kids, as a baby.

Matt (01:08:28):
Wait, ego is my needs and my wants.

Lori (01:08:30):
Yeah. As a kid, right? Baby. I cry. I'm hungry. I have a need. I'm hungry. That's ego. Okay. As we develop, we have needs and we have wants. Let's say you didn't get your needs and your wants met as a child and then taught how to meet your own needs and wants to an extent because we should all be sufficient on our own. Yeah.

Matt (01:09:01):
In a perfect world, we would be.

Lori (01:09:02):
We would, right? You should be able to go off and live on your own for a little while and really learn how to meet your own needs. That's healthy. But let's say people don't do that. We cohabitate.

Matt (01:09:15):
They don't do that. Yeah.

Lori (01:09:16):
We immediately cohabitate. We come out of family unit and we find a relationship and we cohabitate. So now I've just replaced my parents with you and now I expect you to be my parent and meet all my needs and wants. Okay. We're still in that ego base.

Matt (01:09:33):
I think that is a pretty normal thing.

Lori (01:09:35):
It typically is.

Matt (01:09:36):
And it's- It's

Lori (01:09:37):
Not healthy.

Matt (01:09:38):
Right. Inappropriate too.

Lori (01:09:39):
Correct.

Matt (01:09:39):
Okay.

Lori (01:09:40):
But that's what happens. And again, that's why people need to go to therapy in their 20s to process out childhood and to learn to meet their own needs before they go into a romantic relationship.

Matt (01:09:50):
Dr. Shah says nobody escapes their childhood unscathed.

Lori (01:09:54):
Not at all. Yeah. Not at all. So let's say you go to therapy in your 20s, because I did. So I had my one marriage that broke down and I started dating and I just kept dating loser after loser after loser after loser. And finally I'm like, okay, I'm going to therapy. And I remember this, my first therapist, this little old man, he's like, "Honey, you keep dating alley cats." And I was like, "I'm the problem. It's me. " And then it's like, well, where did this problem start? Oh, that's right. My parents, my dad, my mom. Okay. How do I choose differently? Again, teaching people to use that prefrontal to make different decisions, right? "Hey, I keep seeing this pattern. Why do I keep doing the same thing over and over and over again? So now I have to make a different decision. So that's ultimately ... And what my decision was was I'm done dating. I said," You know what? I don't need the man or the bear. "

Matt (01:10:51):
I have a personal question.

Lori (01:10:53):
Yeah.

Matt (01:10:53):
Do you have sexual trauma in your past?

Lori (01:10:56):
Slight. Not to a certain extent as many, but the cousin. the cousin kind of situation.

Matt (01:11:04):
The worst thing that ever happened to you is the worst thing that ever happened to you. And there is no, because this guy experienced this, then mine is less. I don't think that that's the situation.

Lori (01:11:16):
Correct.

Matt (01:11:17):
The reason why I ask is, so I heard very recently from a really trusted source that he was like, " Look, men and women who have tattoos on the left side of their body have been sexually traumatized. "

Lori (01:11:30):
Are you looking at my tattoos?

Matt (01:11:32):
Yeah. I was like-

Lori (01:11:33):
This is actually all my family. So it's my mom, my son, and my dad and me.

Matt (01:11:37):
Yeah. I mean, I started getting tattooed at 15, but my first tattoo is on the left side of my body too. And he was like ... So after I remember-

Lori (01:11:48):
It's actually the feminine side of the body.

Matt (01:11:50):
Is it?

Lori (01:11:51):
Yeah.

Matt (01:11:52):
That's interesting too. Is that scientifically mapped or something?

Lori (01:11:56):
We're talking spirituality here, right? The emotional side, the masculine side, that kind of thing.

Matt (01:12:01):
Okay.

Lori (01:12:02):
The more dominant side is your masculine side.

Matt (01:12:05):
Which is funny because a lot of people are right-handed. Is there a correlation to that?

Lori (01:12:09):
Yeah. I mean, think about, we've got DNA coming in from mom and dad and that creates this baby and that baby is made up of both of you.

Matt (01:12:20):
Yeah. So yeah, he was like, people who are sexually traumatized, they get tattoos on the left side of their body and it has something to do with reenacting trauma through a pain response. So now whenever I see ... I'll just be walking down the street. I'm never walking down the street anymore, but wherever I'm at, if I see people that have tattoos and it's only on the left side of their body-

Lori (01:12:43):
Well, all mine started on the right side, which is my masculine side. So I have an F16 from the Air Force tattooed on my ankle. I have one back here that-

Matt (01:12:52):
You have a jet tattoo.

Lori (01:12:53):
I have a jet on my ankle. Yes.

Matt (01:12:55):
F16. What are they up to F24s now? Have you seen these new raptors?

Lori (01:13:01):
Uh-uh.

Matt (01:13:02):
God, they're so ... These jets are so crazy.

Lori (01:13:06):
When you look at a person, I see a universe.

Matt (01:13:10):
Yeah, for sure.

Lori (01:13:11):
I see everything. This is why I love therapy because I love getting into your universe and I want to experience what you've experienced. And that shows me why you make the decisions that you make, why you've done the patterns that you've done. And when I see those things about a person and I can point them out and we move you to the right journey for your life, that's when amazing things happen for people.

Matt (01:13:38):
Okay. Okay. I have a really good therapist. If it wasn't for this therapist, I don't think I would be able to cope with life the way that I do, but I know-

Lori (01:13:55):
Don't be relying on your therapist though.

Matt (01:13:57):
No. So now a lot of our therapy sessions are just as bullshitting, but I just make sure that I check in a couple times a month.

Lori (01:14:05):
That's good.

Matt (01:14:06):
It's just gotten to that point where it's like, okay. And then I think if anything, if I ever needed to process anything, I would just go to this person.

Lori (01:14:16):
I want my people to be able to process on their own.

Matt (01:14:21):
I have antisocial personality disorder and I need a sounding board to tell me if I'm wrong because I cannot critique myself.

Lori (01:14:30):
That's good. That's good reason to go to a therapist for sure.

Matt (01:14:32):
Yeah. There is no, am I responding in an emotionally healthy way? Because my emotional health level is stunted for sure.

Lori (01:14:41):
Well, think about most of your responses were programmed into you by mom, by dad, by society. Oh, I think I should respond this way. Bring that cognitive into it. Why am I responding this way?

Matt (01:14:55):
Yeah, I still have warped responses. Either way, I could have had perfect parents and if I ended up with this thing, it still would've been different.

Lori (01:15:07):
So with complex PTSD, which is what essentially I have from my childhood, thanks, mom and dad.

Matt (01:15:12):
Complex PT. Okay. What's the differentiator between regular PTSD and complex?

Lori (01:15:17):
Yeah. So PTSD would be like, "Hey, I experienced a traumatic event," which is more an acute type thing. Chronic is consistent over time. That creates complexity.

Matt (01:15:30):
Okay. Okay.

Lori (01:15:31):
Now it wasn't just mom, it was mom, dad, and additional family members. And now society ... So I basically came out of childhood, went into the Air Force, and then I went into banking, and I quickly realized I'm not like everybody else. Everybody here seems to just be regulated. They don't have these emotional outbursts. They don't have all of these things. Okay, why do I act like this?

Matt (01:15:58):
Do you think that everybody thinks that though?

Lori (01:16:01):
To some extent. But mine was just, it was so volatile that I was like, why do I go from zero to a hundred? Oh, that's right. I saw my parents do that. And so is it learned behavior over time? Absolutely it is. It's normal to have anger. Anger is a primal emotion that we all have, but it's what you do with it.

Matt (01:16:26):
Do you think it's a reaction or if it's an ... Okay, do you think it's a secondary emotion, anger?

Lori (01:16:33):
It's a primary emotion, but you have to go deeper into it. What is it that's making you angry? Yeah. I feel unheard. I feel neglected.

Matt (01:16:42):
Okay. So it's a response.

Lori (01:16:44):
It's a response. And that's where children ... Funny enough, my mom's awesome as a grandparent, terrible as a mother.

Matt (01:16:54):
Oh yeah, that's a very common thing.

Lori (01:16:55):
Very common. So when my son was little and he'd come in and he'd be like, no. And she'd say, okay, we don't say no. We say what we want. What is it that you need? Do you need a nap? Do you need to eat?

Matt (01:17:09):
You're like, where the fuck was this person when I was a kid?

Lori (01:17:11):
Seriously.

Matt (01:17:12):
Yeah.

Lori (01:17:13):
My mom was like, "Backhand, go to your room." Yeah, I didn't get this one. And he would say, "I'm hungry. Okay, you can have this or this. That teaches kids autonomy. I just said what I need and I got offered these things. I want to choose that.

Matt (01:17:29):
Yeah.

Lori (01:17:30):
Okay. Problem solved. It just taught that kid to speak up for his needs and wants and then be able to make choices.

Matt (01:17:37):
Yeah.

Lori (01:17:38):
Isn't that crazy? Secure child.

Matt (01:17:42):
Yeah. You just talked about two things that are just super crazy to me. These phenomenons of terrible parents that turn into great grandparents. Yeah. I don't know how that happens. And a lot of the time I'm like, are you trying to make up for what you didn't do? I just don't get it. It's like, how did this person grow out of that person?

Lori (01:18:02):
They were in survival mode when they had kids. You're trying to create a life. You're trying to get your career in place. You're trying to meet children's needs. It's stress. Yeah.

Matt (01:18:14):
Yeah.

Lori (01:18:15):
And then as the kids get older, the stress lessons. So now you don't have kids around you all the time. And when the kids do come around, you can manage them a little bit better.

Matt (01:18:24):
Yeah. And they have to go home. And

Lori (01:18:25):
They have to go home.

Matt (01:18:26):
Right. It's like-

Lori (01:18:27):
You don't have them twenty four seven.

Matt (01:18:29):
Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't talk to my family for 10 years. There was literally not a word exchange between me and any of my siblings or my parents for over a decade. And I came back and I was like, who the fuck are these people?

Lori (01:18:43):
Yeah, you got a different version. Yeah.

Matt (01:18:45):
And it's like, yeah, totally different. I mean, I watched it though as I was a kid watching the different eras that my parents went through because it was like by the time they had their fifth kid, their disciplinary model changed. And then by the time they had all their kids, it was like there was no discipline anymore.

Lori (01:19:09):
Because they just give up.

Matt (01:19:11):
Dude, I imagine that would've been a nightmare trying to stay on top of all that. But at the same time- Well,

Lori (01:19:16):
Because you can choose to continue to be stressed or you can just accept the fact that now you have all these kids and what are we going to do?

Matt (01:19:23):
Yeah.

Lori (01:19:24):
Because there does become a point where you realize I'm the one creating the feeling within me, so how do I change the feeling within me?

Matt (01:19:32):
Yeah. Stop giving a fuck. Yeah. Parenting is ... I'm about to have another daughter in-

Lori (01:19:39):
Congratulations.

Matt (01:19:45):
Nine days is the C-section.

Lori (01:19:48):
Oh.

Matt (01:19:49):
Yeah.

Lori (01:19:49):
Soon.

Matt (01:19:50):
Yeah, real soon. And the next 13 years are going to be great. I have a four-year-old daughter, so the next 11 years with her will be great. The next 13 with the new one will be great. But I am like, this is what I get for all that fucked up shit that I did as a kid.

Lori (01:20:09):
It's your karma.

Matt (01:20:10):
Yeah, for sure. No, I'm excited for it, but at the same time, I don't know what's about to happen. It's really scary to me sometimes, but ...

Lori (01:20:21):
You'll do great.

Matt (01:20:22):
I hope so.

Lori (01:20:23):
Yeah.

Matt (01:20:23):
I really do.

Lori (01:20:24):
Just realize girls are obviously more of the emotional beings. So when puberty hits, there's lots of emotions that come out that they can't even explain. And it drives me nuts when parents are like, "Well, if they would just tell me ... " And I'm like, the kids don't understand because it's hormonal. I'm sad. I'm excited. It's just these feelings that you can't necessarily tie to a thing. So it's like, are you stressed about school? Is it your friends? And it's probably none of that.

Matt (01:20:54):
Yeah.

Lori (01:20:55):
It's just hormones going nuts.

Matt (01:20:58):
So you kind of touched on this, but you were a hormonal puberty case, right? What was that like?

Lori (01:21:06):
When I went through puberty, I mean, I was more like, I guess you could say boy crazy, but just more like having fun. But again, I always wanted the family. Ultimately, I was after a family. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. And then when you don't get that, the way you think you're going to get that, kind of messes with you.

Matt (01:21:36):
Yeah. When I think about my formative years, I was really out of control, but when I look at it, I'm like, "Was it a hormone thing?" I don't know.

Lori (01:21:49):
Totally.

Matt (01:21:51):
Was a very reckless teenager, very reckless teenager.

Lori (01:21:55):
Most are. Yeah. Unless you have parents that are sort of hovering around

Matt (01:22:01):
You. No, I did. You did? I definitely did. Yeah. It was very religious, very strict, very structured, waking up. I went to seminary for four years before high school and had religious expectations around what I was going to do and then school expectations. And I have a really, really smart dad, and so there was those expectations. And it was like I was not into high school at all. As a matter of fact, I got expelled from school, and if I didn't get expelled from school, I would've had terrible grades. But because I went to the juvenile court correctional system and it's self-paced, and so ultimately I was like, "You mean I can finish this as fast as I want? " And so I finished my junior year and senior year in a couple months.

Lori (01:22:59):
I'm telling you, you have ADD.

Matt (01:23:02):
I just didn't want to do it anymore.

Lori (01:23:04):
Right. You weren't motivated.

Matt (01:23:06):
No, I just didn't want to do it. So I did it as fast as I could. And I'm a very lazy person, very lazy.

Lori (01:23:14):
Another reason why I think you have ADD. Because it's not laziness, it's more you need rest.

Matt (01:23:22):
No, no. I don't like doing things. So this is what it was. I will do things right the first time so that I don't have to do it a second time.

Lori (01:23:30):
Oh, that's smart.

Matt (01:23:31):
Yeah, because I really don't want to redo this stuff. And then it's like there are things that I do in my life where I work out every day, right?

Lori (01:23:39):
Which is good.

Matt (01:23:40):
It is. That actually was how I stabilized my recovery. Before that, I was like, I was fucking miserable. And then I started working out and I was like, that's another thing that you hear that all the time when people enter recovery. They're told, "Well, now you should work out and eat better." But it's like, okay, well, why?

Lori (01:24:01):
Well, it's the dopamine hit.

Matt (01:24:03):
Yeah. Yeah, there's that too. My thing around it is I'm not the wake-up at 4:15. I don't have a rigid schedule. I just have things that I have to do every day. And so when I was just kind of doing whatever I was doing without a physical outlet for anything, I was spiraling in my recovery. And then I met my mentor and he was like, "Dude, what the fuck are you doing? Go to the gym."

Lori (01:24:37):
Yeah.

Matt (01:24:38):
Well, then what I found out was I hate going to the gym, but I like working out. So I built the gym in my garage.

Lori (01:24:43):
Nice.

Matt (01:24:44):
Now it's solved all of those problems.

Lori (01:24:46):
Good.

Matt (01:24:47):
And so what I'm saying is there are things that I like to do, there are things that I don't like to do, and the things that I don't like to do, I don't want to do it twice, that's for sure. So I'll just-

Lori (01:24:58):
I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You don't want to spend that energy doing things over and over again.

Matt (01:25:03):
Yeah.

Lori (01:25:04):
Nothing wrong with that. Can I ask, what was your motivation for recovery?

Matt (01:25:09):
17 years of slamming heroin will do that to anybody, I'm pretty sure. My last arrest, I robbed a bank and I was looking at 33 years in prison and I was like, "Okay, this is probably a good time." Plus I was 31. It was perfect timing where I was like, okay, this is either going to ... So my last prison term before that, I was like, "I'm going to do whatever I can to not end up here again, because if I end up here again, I'm going to end up here for the rest of my life." And so it was just cumulatively all of the experiences and lessons in my life had pointed in direction of, okay, now is definitely the time. So the last couple years of my addiction, I was having a conversation with myself. And really ultimately what I believe it is now is that I was talking to God and I was telling myself, if I ever get the chance to get out of this, I'll never look back. And I just couldn't get myself out of it. I had to have an intervention. I had to get rescued, basically.

(01:26:13):
And so everything just kind of lined up and I got the deal of the century where I didn't have to go to prison. And I went to a three-year residential program and I was like, okay, this is probably all pointed. And the judge told me, he was like, "If you fuck this ... " He didn't say fuck this up, but he was like, "If you manage to save your own life and escape the consequences of your decisions, then good for you. But if you don't and you mess this up, I'll lock you up for the rest of your life." Because the deal that I took, they structured it so that I was going to take a bunch of time. If I messed this up, I was going to take a bunch of time. But in California, you know what the three strikes laws are? So I took two strikes that were completely different and they hung a strike over my head and said, "If you mess this up, you're getting that third strike and you're going to get all this time, but we're going to try to strike you out too." And so it was all like, okay, For sure this is a really good time to get my life together.

Lori (01:27:13):
Yeah, but that puts you on the path.

Matt (01:27:15):
It did. It did. Ultimately, the podcast is called My Last Relapse. Isn't that cool?

Lori (01:27:21):
It's really cool.

Matt (01:27:23):
Yeah.

Lori (01:27:24):
Yeah, that's awesome.

Matt (01:27:25):
Yeah.

Lori (01:27:26):
Who did that for you?

Matt (01:27:27):
I have a friend in your ... He's a super famous graffiti. So this brand, they're from San Diego. It's like a big graffiti streetwear brand. He did all of their artwork. And so I had met him a couple times, and so I was trying to do it by myself. It wasn't coming out right. And I was like, "You know what? I know really good graffiti artists." So I reached out to a couple of them and he ended up doing this for me.

Lori (01:27:52):
Yeah, looks awesome.

Matt (01:27:53):
Yeah. So a lot of the people that I've interviewed so far are in recovery, but a bunch of them aren't too. Have you seen the one about the ... He does equide therapy, so he's not in recovery, but he has a story where he's adjacent to recovery, and that dude had a bunch of crazy information, just stuff that I'd never heard, like a perspective. And I think when you expand your exposure to perspectives in recovery, you get a lot more information, obviously more information, better outcomes.

Lori (01:28:31):
It's interesting because equine therapy is great and it really should be used for teenage boys.

Matt (01:28:41):
Yeah. When he explained to me what it actually is, I was like, "What?" I always thought equine therapy, you ride the horse or something like that.

Lori (01:28:50):
No, it's facing something bigger than you.

Matt (01:28:52):
Yeah. And they are hyper, that animal is hyper-emotional.

Lori (01:28:58):
They connect to us.

Matt (01:28:59):
It's crazy.

Lori (01:29:00):
Yeah.

Matt (01:29:01):
He was talking about how they sink their heart. There could be five horses in a giant field and their heart rates sync up to each other. They're that in tune with other bodies. And so he was like, yeah, when you are hurt and you approach a horse with fear, it senses that and it will reject you. And so you have to get comfortable with it. It has to get comfortable with you. There's a real connection that has to be made. And he was like, the best part is they aren't judging you. They can't judge you. They will never judge you. They just know to fear you or not. And so being able to emotionally connect with an animal like that, you have now gotten to the point where you can emotionally connect without words.

Lori (01:29:44):
Yeah.

Matt (01:29:45):
I was like, "What?"

Lori (01:29:46):
Because I used to ride

Matt (01:29:48):
Horses.

Lori (01:29:48):
So yeah, I grew up in Girl Scouts and sort of on a farm.

Matt (01:29:52):
Wait, Girl Scouts ride horses?

Lori (01:29:54):
Yeah, there was a Girl Scout horse camp up in Dearborn, Missouri that I would go to. It was the same thing. So me and this horse, Tess, we just connected and I would go out and write her almost daily and it was the same thing. And it is, it's facing something bigger than you, this beast of an animal that regulates to you.

Matt (01:30:18):
Yeah.

Lori (01:30:19):
And then it connects and it's like, okay, you can get on.

Matt (01:30:24):
Yeah. You always hear about treatment centers that offer equine therapy. And it's funny because there is no way to quantify the evidence around this. So it'll never get paid for. And it's a big expense for a lot of these treatment centers that offer it. But anecdotally, everybody's like, "This is the most effective thing I've ever done."

Lori (01:30:48):
Yeah. I had a kid and so I started in Vegas with my residency and I had this kid that I was like, "Man, if that kid was on ... "

Matt (01:30:57):
Residency for what?

Lori (01:30:58):
Clinical internship.

Matt (01:30:59):
Oh, okay.

Lori (01:31:00):
Yeah. I was like, "If this kid, big, tall kid." And mom's living in a one bedroom apartment with him. And I'm like, "This kid needs to be on a farm with some freaking animals." And I was like, "If I could get him out there, you would see a totally different kid."

Matt (01:31:15):
For sure.

Lori (01:31:16):
Because he just did not fit the environment. I was like, "He needs land with animals."

Matt (01:31:23):
The most effective treatment I ever did, it was on a ranch. It was a working ranch and next door was, it was a 10,000 acre ranch with cattle. And there was real cowboys. I have pictures of us branding and doing the roundups and stuff. And the most effective treatment I ever did, they didn't talk to us about anything clinical, but it was long-term, which was massive. It was a work therapy program. So there was no state funding because it was faith-based. And so we worked and read the Bible. And so it was actually established back in the day, this program was established by bikers, and then a bunch of them converted to Christianity, and then they started a Christian motorcycle club, and they opened a treatment center called Set Free Ministries. And a bunch of legal stuff happened. So anyway, the bikers sold it to other people who were also bikers, and then they changed the name.

(01:32:29):
But I ended up there and it was the most effective treatment for two reasons. I was out of the city. We were up there, not surviving, but not in the city. So long-term, out of the city, and I just had time to stabilize. And it was huge. It was huge for me.

Lori (01:32:55):
It's a beautiful thing. Coming out of my marriage, I did a year and a half of just sitting. I'd work and then I'd sit. And what I was doing was healing. I was going through, okay, every thought, every negative thought that came into my mind, is that my mom? Is that my dad? Is that my ex? Where did that thought come from? Do I agree with that thought?

Matt (01:33:16):
So you were deconstructing your thought process?

Lori (01:33:19):
Everything. Yes. Very Buddhist, right? Very zen. Sit with meditation and notice the thought patterns that would come up and process those and go, okay, do I agree with that? Is that what I believe about myself? Or a behavior that would come out? Why did I do that? Literally a year and a half of just reflection and looking at all of these relationships that I've had, every single one of them to go, okay, who am I and what is important to me?

Matt (01:33:55):
So this sounds super effective. I wonder why people don't talk about that.

Lori (01:34:00):
Because we're a Western culture, which is productivity, get your butt back to work. We don't have time to sit and think.

Matt (01:34:05):
Yeah. Yeah. That sounds actually really effective. I wonder why, again, it's the evidence-based and the payers and they're really-

Lori (01:34:17):
But there's no evidence to say sit for a year and a half and deconstruct your entire brain and it works.

Matt (01:34:23):
I think there is evidence for it. Look at people who commit themselves to a monastic lifestyle.

Lori (01:34:29):
Exactly. That's exactly it. What it does is it gets you closer to that spiritual side of you.

Matt (01:34:35):
I mean, vows of silence and vows of celibacy. And so he works for me, but very quickly becoming ... All we talk about is theology. And anyway, he goes and visits monasteries all the time. And the more he talks about the monastic lifestyle, he knows a monk that he's completely tattooed. And just the visual of this hard life lived guy that completely changed his life around. And now he dies to himself every day, but you can see him in his whole get up, but his fingers are tattooed. And that visual to me is super appealing.

Lori (01:35:22):
It is. It's hard.

Matt (01:35:24):
Very hard.

Lori (01:35:25):
It's hard to sit with yourself and look at yourself

Matt (01:35:29):
And get- And your thoughts.

Lori (01:35:30):
And your thoughts and then get up and go to work and do those things and then go back home and sit and think about the day and think about what you did and why did you say that? And where'd that come from? And I'm working with clients trying to help them do the same thing.

Matt (01:35:45):
Is that hard to get them to even comprehend what you're trying to do?

Lori (01:35:50):
Sometimes. Sometimes. But I always have to start with where they're at and then we'll get there eventually. But yeah, I mean, it's the idea of ... It's not just reframing, it's breaking everything down.

Matt (01:36:01):
Oh yeah. You have to deconstruct a lot of that stuff. Yeah.

Lori (01:36:03):
It's called ego death.

Matt (01:36:06):
Do you take insurance?

Lori (01:36:07):
I do. Yeah, several.

Matt (01:36:11):
Is that a typical payer route or do you take a lot of private pay?

Lori (01:36:14):
No, I take a lot of insurance clients.

Matt (01:36:17):
Dude, you're like a unicorn.

Lori (01:36:20):
I do that because I believe in people getting into therapy and I want it to be accessible for people.

Matt (01:36:27):
How hard is it to get reimbursed for you?

Lori (01:36:29):
Not hard at all.

Matt (01:36:30):
Really?

Lori (01:36:31):
No.

Matt (01:36:32):
I always hear that from private practice therapists. They're like, "Oh yeah, I just do this because it's such a pain in the ass to get reimbursed."

Lori (01:36:40):
I mean, you have to do paperwork, but whatever.

Matt (01:36:42):
Yeah.

Lori (01:36:43):
That doesn't bother me.

Matt (01:36:44):
Yeah.

Lori (01:36:45):
This is a calling. It's a calling.

Matt (01:36:47):
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. People don't get into therapy to get rich.

Lori (01:36:51):
No.

Matt (01:36:52):
And they definitely don't get into therapy because it's fun.

Lori (01:36:56):
Right.

Matt (01:36:57):
Okay. Well, I appreciate your time. Thank you for coming.

Lori (01:36:59):
This was fun. Yeah. Appreciate it.

Matt (01:37:04):
Thanks for listening to My Last Relapse. I'm Matt Handy, the founder of Harmony Grove Behavioral Health, Houston, Texas, where our mission is to provide compassionate, evidence-based care for anyone facing addiction, mental health challenges, and co-occurring disorders. Find out more at harmonygrovebh.com. Follow and subscribe to My Last Relapse on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you like to stream podcasts. Got a question for us? Leave a message or voicemail at mylastrelapse.com. If you're feeling overwhelmed or struggling, you don't have to face it alone. Reaching out for support is a sign of strength and help is always available. If you or anyone you know needs help, give us a call 24 hours a day at 888-691-8295.