Life After Having 2 Kids by 17, Losing My Brother to a Xanax OD, and Living In My Car

Matt Handy (00:00:03):
I am Matt Handy, and you're listening to My Last Relapse. So you guys both work at the same place, right?

 

Jill Smith (00:00:09):
Yes.

 

Matt Handy (00:00:10):
Okay. And what do you do there?

 

Jill Smith (00:00:12):
Well, they call me BD business Development, but I call myself clinically outreach, community outreach.

 

Matt Handy (00:00:21):
And why do you do it?

 

Jill Smith (00:00:23):
Why do I do it? That is a very big open question. So I'm actually in recovery, been in recovery for 12 years. And so I remember when I was trying to find a treatment center, actually, when I was trying to find help, I went to doctor's, lawyers, I was involved in the criminal system,

 

Matt Handy (00:00:45):
Cool.

 

Jill Smith (00:00:47):
CPS,

 

Matt Handy (00:00:49):
The whole shebang,

 

Jill Smith (00:00:50):
And no one could direct me where to go. And it took me over a year of actively looking myself to find something. And in the meantime, while I was looking, I lost my insurance.

 

Matt Handy (00:01:02):
Oh, perfect.

 

Jill Smith (00:01:03):
Yeah. So I finally found a state funded place, and someone told me about 'em on a Friday, and I called them and bugged them over and over and over again, and they finally, no. They finally said, if you'll stop calling, we'll let you come in on Monday.

 

Matt Handy (00:01:20):
Awesome.

 

Jill Smith (00:01:21):
So I never want anyone else to have to do that.

 

Matt Handy (00:01:26):
Yeah. What was the place you ended up going?

 

Jill Smith (00:01:29):
It shut down. It was in Marshall, Texas. It was called

 

Karen Wolfe (00:01:34):
Oak Haven.

 

Jill Smith (00:01:35):
Oak Haven. And I was one of the last ones to go through it before it shut down.

 

Matt Handy (00:01:39):
Wow. Why did it shut down?

 

Jill Smith (00:01:40):
State funds.

 

Matt Handy (00:01:41):
Yeah. Okay.

 

Jill Smith (00:01:43):
State funds.

 

Matt Handy (00:01:43):
Yeah. Did you guys see what Trump just did?

 

Jill Smith (00:01:46):
No.

 

Matt Handy (00:01:47):
So federally, it is now legal to involuntarily admit people, homeless people into treatment.

 

Karen Wolfe (00:01:53):
Oh, wow.

 

Matt Handy (00:01:54):
Yeah. So California did this, I think five years ago. And ultimately what happened was they packed the jails, right? They packed the jails, they packed the treatment centers, and then slowly you had people waiting in jail to go to treatment. So they would release these people. And what ended up happening is they all just left. They all went to where they weren't doing this. So just different parts of California. And have you guys seen this 24 billion scandal that's going on in California?

 

Jill Smith (00:02:24):
No.

 

Matt Handy (00:02:25):
So in 2019, they created this package. They were going to fight homelessness and all this stuff. And there was, I think 32,000 homeless people in California at the time. So five years later, 24 billion later, and now there's 162,000 homeless people there. What happened? It's like, how do you put that much money into solving an issue like this where, first of all, how do you think that putting that much money is going to solve into this? But now the government's investigating, they're like, what happened? There's this one company. So they created a bunch of NGOs to distribute the money. So one of these companies, it was a $20 million contract. They were supposed to build a facility that housed 130 people. They got the money over. So it was 5 million a year. Over four years, they got all the money and never even built the place.

 

Karen Wolfe (00:03:17):
Wow.

 

Matt Handy (00:03:19):
And this is the one that I like to talk about, but this happened all over the state. It happened everywhere. And they did a bunch of feasibility studies and they tried to figure out what is the best way to attack this? And one of the initial questions that was asked to kind of figure out these metrics was, well, what if we just housed them for a year and gave 'em money? How much would that cost? And they were like, they did all the study and the math ended up being 1.4 billion to give 'em an apartment and a thousand bucks a month for every homeless person in California. And they were like 1.4 billion to just completely take everybody off the streets. And they might be doing drugs in there now, but they're not doing it on the streets. So then they were like, no, we can't have people incentivize to do drugs and all this other stuff. And they were like, okay. So then they got them to up the budget to 24 billion and then just made the problem worse. So it's like, obviously you can't treat an individual problem socially. I think a perfect case study of that, a bunch of people are going to end up going to jail. A bunch of people are going to lose their jobs. The government is now going to crack down on funding. And 24 billion is a lot of money. A lot. We think when we see it, it's like two four B. And it's very hard to imagine what that even is, because a billion dollars is a thousand millions. So when you think of 24 billion, that's a shit load of money.

 

Jill Smith (00:04:54):
That's a lot of pennies.

 

Matt Handy (00:04:55):
It Have you seen what a million dollars in ones looks like Uhuh. So they did this thing where it was a million dollars in ones stacked up against the Empire State Building. It goes to, I don't remember, but it's not very much of it. It's like the 17th floor, but a million dollars goes four Empire State buildings.

 

Karen Wolfe (00:05:17):
Oh, wow.

 

Matt Handy (00:05:19):
So it's like, no, a billion dollars goes four Empire State buildings. A million dollars goes, I think it was either seven or 17th floors.

 

Jill Smith (00:05:28):
Oh yeah. That's short.

 

Matt Handy (00:05:30):
That's like a lot of money.

 

Jill Smith (00:05:31):
Yeah, that's a lot.

 

Matt Handy (00:05:32):
24 billion would be hundreds of Empire State buildings high. That's a shitload of money.

 

Jill Smith (00:05:39):
That's a lot.

 

Matt Handy (00:05:40):
Especially when you think 1.4 billion. You could have housed every single homeless person in California, every single one of 'em for a year and giving 'em a thousand bucks a month.

 

Jill Smith (00:05:53):
Right. Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:05:54):
It's crazy.

 

Jill Smith (00:05:55):
And kept them safe.

 

Matt Handy (00:05:57):
I mean, relatively, they've got all these, so homelessness in Texas is very different than it's in California. So in San Diego, I was homeless. I was living under a bridge five years ago. Right.

 

Jill Smith (00:06:09):
Wow. I had a car, so I was fancy.

 

Matt Handy (00:06:14):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. That was the spot. Yeah. Everybody chilling in there, but did you tent up and stuff at night?

 

Jill Smith (00:06:23):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:06:26):
So first of all, the weather here is terrible. I don't know. Were you homeless here

 

Jill Smith (00:06:31):
In East Texas?

 

Matt Handy (00:06:32):
That's crazy.

 

Jill Smith (00:06:33):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:06:34):
So the humidity and the heat and all nine, right?

 

Jill Smith (00:06:36):
My curly hair was Ooh.

 

Matt Handy (00:06:38):
Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (00:06:39):
Yeah, it did do things very well. Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:06:44):
So homelessness in San Diego is like paradise. Even when it rains, it's like, oh, this is great. We can all just stay in the tent today and get high. So when you think about homelessness in America, there's destinations where I know people that go on homeless tours, they'll go all over the country, just homeless. And it's like, okay, yeah, if you're not anchored down by drugs or anything like that, and that's a very doable thing. And then the border's right there, and you can walk across, an American citizen can get in New Mexico for like 50 bucks. If you just bribe the people at the border, they don't even care. And then on the way back, it's like you just need an id. And I know people get across without an id very obviously, this person is American, so they just let him back. And so the drug trade down there is insane here. It's illegal to do drugs in San Diego. It's not in California. It's really not. You have to be selling drugs to get in trouble for it. So you can get caught with, I've been drugs. I don't know how many times I've been arrested, 40 something times. Oh,

 

Jill Smith (00:07:52):
Wow.

 

Matt Handy (00:07:56):
But yeah.

 

Karen Wolfe (00:07:58):
Well, you've come a long way. Five years. That's amazing. Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:08:02):
Well, I had to, for a lot of reasons. They were trying to give me 33 years in prison. So that's a really good reason. And then the podcast is called My Last Relapse because it was the most pivotal moment of all of the things that I've gone through. It was probably the most pivotal thing that I've gone through. It was 18 months ago, so I had years clean, and then I relapsed, and then it kind of pointed me in a direction. And so that's what I'm doing here. Right.

 

Jill Smith (00:08:33):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:08:35):
So how long have you been clean?

 

Jill Smith (00:08:36):
12 years.

 

Matt Handy (00:08:37):
12 years. And you're not in sobriety, right? No. So why do you do this?

 

Karen Wolfe (00:08:41):
So when I was 17, my brother was 19, he would've been 20 in two weeks. He actually overdosed on Xanax and alcohol. In my family, of course, it was like an elephant in the room. This was 21 years ago. So they really didn't know what to do or where to find help or anything. So I always made it my passion to always help somebody. No matter if we can get 'em at our facility or what facility we get 'em to, we're going to get 'em somewhere or not turn 'em away. Because a lot of people, when they finally make it to us, they're hopeless, called so many places, been denied so many places, and they don't know what to do. They don't know where to turn or what to do. Exhausted. Exhausted from calling so many places and trying to get help.

 

Matt Handy (00:09:24):
Yeah, it's like a secret society trying to get into treatment. For sure. And if you don't know the language, it's a very specific lingo trying to get somebody into treatment.

 

Jill Smith (00:09:33):
I know.

 

Matt Handy (00:09:34):
And so for people, especially in early recovery, I feel like once you've gone to treatment a few times, you kind of understand what's going on. It's a lot easier, but especially for families. Families don't know what the hell is going on. But yeah, that's a very tough part of what we do. You guys have, you tell me what you think about this, right? Okay. I'll give you a hypothetical. A 19-year-old never been to treatments doing fentanyl. His parents find out and they force him to go to treatment. But this kid doesn't want to be clean. He doesn't want to be in treatment. He's just doing it because he has to. How do you guys feel about knowing that he's going to go out there and use again? Fentanyl?

 

Karen Wolfe (00:10:15):
I would think that even because I started at a safe P, so a substance abuse, felony punishment prison. So it was a prison for all males, and they were court ordered of course, to come there for six months. Most of them had zero motivation. And they would even tell you like, Hey, I'm going to go out and use as soon as I leave here.

 

(00:10:34):
And I'm like, well, hey, even if you don't think you're going to get anything out of this program, you will at least get something. If you listen long enough, it's eventually going to hopefully change some of your cognitive thinking and everything like that. You would at least get something out of it. And then maybe the next time you'll get something else out of it, and then maybe the next time you'll still be alive and still find hope again and go somewhere else. But I would think I would definitely get him in and then just tell him to fake it till he makes it. If he don't feel like you need to be there, don't be a behavioral problem. Let everybody else do their thing. And you may not learn something. You might realize you want to be sober.

 

Matt Handy (00:11:15):
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, when it was heroin, that might've worked, right? But we're talking about people that we're going to lower their, their tolerance for a month. This kid's going to go out there and use and he's going to die. How do you guys feel about that? He is. This is the leading cause of death for people under 40, right? This kid does not want to be clean. He's only there because of consequences. There's no ands if or butts about it. This kid's going to go out there and use,

 

Karen Wolfe (00:11:44):
Well, we also do mat programming too, the medication assisted therapy. So if that was an issue, there was counter relapse or something like that, we could always put 'em on Suboxone, Subutex, and then eventually wing 'em off of that.

 

Jill Smith (00:11:58):
Also, another thing is I think one of the things that we do not utilize enough, and I mean we as in the recovery community, is our peers

 

Matt Handy (00:12:10):
For sure.

 

Jill Smith (00:12:11):
Peer recovery coaches, peer, that sort of thing. And a lot of times peers can walk the process with the individual from not wanting it all the way until wanting a change. And they walk through that process with that person. And that's what I used to do. And so through motivational interviewing, but just being there and them understanding that you've been through this too. This is also something I tell people. I entered treatment not because I wanted to stop, but because I was tired of losing. And so I was tired of losing relationships. I was tired of losing my kids. I was tired of losing everything around my house. I was tired of losing. It's not that I wanted to quit, it's because that I was tired of the consequences and that sort of thing. Now with this gentleman being 19, he's so young. It is. He will go back out and use the same amount that he was using and die. So I think we could also utilize, Hey, let's pair you with a peer. You check in with them. Unfortunately, in Texas, we have nowhere to safely use

 

Matt Handy (00:13:42):
For sure.

 

Jill Smith (00:13:42):
We do have the number where you can call and

 

Matt Handy (00:13:47):
The angel lines or whatever,

 

Jill Smith (00:13:49):
And they can monitor you that way. But people, not everybody knows about it.

 

Matt Handy (00:13:55):
Well, and it's a scary thing. It's

 

Jill Smith (00:13:56):
A scary thing.

 

Matt Handy (00:13:57):
You're already, first of all, Texas is so crazy about drugs. I met somebody that said that they got caught with a quarter gram and did five years in prison. I was like five years in prison. It's really hard for me to believe that sometimes, because you get caught with a quarter gram in California, they let you keep it.

 

Jill Smith (00:14:18):
Okay.

 

Matt Handy (00:14:19):
If you get caught with less than an ounce, they will let you keep it right? It's like a totally different world. The politics are different. The way that the communities address it is different. It's just so crazy. So yeah, Texas is super hard on the situation, but it's created a situation where nobody wants to utilize services that are out there because

 

Jill Smith (00:14:44):
They're afraid

 

Matt Handy (00:14:45):
They're going to get told they're going to be tracked. People are going to know where they're at. Wouldn't in Texas, I would never call that number ever. I don't care. And a lot of this kid that's 19, he doesn't know better. Even if he goes and learns some things, it's like a hundred percent of what you learn in treatment if you don't want to be there, means absolutely nothing. It might mean something if you survive it way down the line, but that stuff gets pushed out so fast. Well, because you don't care. So this kid, he's 19. So how do you address the family?

 

Jill Smith (00:15:29):
Oh, the family.

 

Matt Handy (00:15:30):
Yeah. So telling the kid you're going to go to treatment. When you are forcing a kid to go to treatment, how do you handle that family?

 

Jill Smith (00:15:40):
I'm not very good with families. I'll just be quite honest because the family is usually,

 

Matt Handy (00:15:45):
I think the industry's terrible with families.

 

Jill Smith (00:15:48):
And usually the family is sicker than the

 

Matt Handy (00:15:52):
For sure

 

Jill Smith (00:15:53):
Than the person.

 

Matt Handy (00:15:54):
Well, yeah, that's a baked in family role. You're the addict. So then they're all worried about this guy right now. Even if he gets well, they're just mad at him.

 

Jill Smith (00:16:05):
Yeah,

 

Matt Handy (00:16:05):
You fucked up.

 

Jill Smith (00:16:06):
You

 

Matt Handy (00:16:07):
Burned all these bridges. You robbed me. You did this. Whatever you got with my wife. All these things are now the consequences that he's been avoiding. So you send a healing person into a sick situation, they're going to stay sick. But before they even get to treatment, everybody's like, you need to go to, and nobody even says treatment. You need to go to rehab.

 

Jill Smith (00:16:28):
Rehab,

 

Matt Handy (00:16:29):
Right? Rehab. And it's like they have this idea about what treatment is, right? You're going to go into treatment for even a 19-year-old, let's say they've only been using for a few months, all the damage that has been accumulated. You think you're going to go into treatment for 28 days and come out a different person. That's what they think the family thinks that they have an unrealistic expectation of themself, that even if they don't want to get clean, it's like this place should change me. And that's just not how it works.

 

Jill Smith (00:17:01):
Right.

 

Matt Handy (00:17:02):
How do you address the family dynamic before they come in? This is what I'm dealing with right now is how do I tell the family You're going to kill your kid?

 

Jill Smith (00:17:11):
Oh, I say it. You're going to love them to death. You love them to death.

 

Matt Handy (00:17:15):
You're gonna be seeing their headstone. We have to do, that's all.

 

Jill Smith (00:17:18):
We're pretty blunt about that.

 

Matt Handy (00:17:19):
You can set boundaries or you can killing your child.

 

(00:17:25):
For sure. So I do talk about it, or it's like codependency, enabling, and then identifying those things in yourself and admitting that you've contributed to your child's problem is nearly impossible because it means that you have to take accountability for some shit. But when your kid's crying on the phone and it rains here, it doesn't just rain.

 

Jill Smith (00:17:49):
I know it

 

Matt Handy (00:17:49):
Really rains here, right? It's like, I just want to come in for tonight.

 

Jill Smith (00:17:54):
Yeah,

 

Matt Handy (00:17:55):
They're going to do it nine times out of 10, they're going to let 'em come inside. Unless you've got that extreme case where it's like they have robbed everything that they could possibly rob from you. They're naturally just drawing these lines to protect themselves because they've been damaged so many times by this person. But until you get to that, absolutely burn your bridge down with your family point. Typically, they'll love with their money or their time. And when they're at that point where they're loving with their time and not giving them money anymore, at least there's some headway and to realizing you're contributing. Or there's the other extreme where it's like they can't afford to give them money. So it's like I knew this guy, he lived under the bridge next to my bridge, but he would get a hundred bucks from his mom at Christmas, a hundred bucks. That was it. And all year long. And he'd been doing this for years, supposedly I'd known him for a few years, and he did it every year. But he said that he'd been getting a hundred bucks from his mom since he got out of the military. This dude was like 45 or something.

 

Jill Smith (00:18:59):
Oh, wow.

 

Matt Handy (00:19:00):
And he would use that a hundred bucks to justify everything else all year long. It'd be like July. And he'd be like, yeah, but I get that a hundred bucks from my mom at Christmas. And that is a very extreme example of what codependency can turn into. But when you take responsibility for somebody, you take it from them. And then you never know when that time is where it's like, if you would've told 'em no, they might've came in for good. You never know. I tell people that they get robbed of the benefit of their suffering. It's like nobody ever thinks about that. The family just wants to love their person, and they just want see them not in pain and suffering. And it's like we are all the culmination of all the suffering that we've ever done. We're forged in the fire of our suffering. But if you keep robbing them of their suffering, how are they going to learn these lessons?

 

Jill Smith (00:19:57):
Right?

 

Matt Handy (00:19:58):
It's so all this family work has to get done. And then afterwards, there's even more intense family work now they just want to hate on this kid. I mean, at least that's been my experience.

 

Jill Smith (00:20:08):
Oh, yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:20:09):
Because the family dynamic says we got to have that person to point to. And very rarely, especially today, where there's no family values that are honored anymore, it's very rare to find the situation where the family is in a healthy place to help them. So a lot of family work beforehand, a lot of family work after. And it's like, are they willing to do it? Do they even recognize they need to do it? Are they going to Al-Anon? That's a whole other thing where it's like Al-Anon will fuck you up just as much as it might save you. So the solutions are so individualized, very much so. You cannot not paint with broad brushes in this industry, which everybody does. I feel like everybody's like, this is what works. If you don't do this. That's what happened to me. I got into recovery the first time in 2012, and I was on Suboxone, and they told me, you, I would go into the rooms and they'd be like, you're not in recovery. You can't even share.

 

Jill Smith (00:21:08):
Right? Right.

 

Matt Handy (00:21:09):
And it's like, eventually I heard that enough. And I was like, I believed them. And so what I did is I rejected the rooms, which meant I rejected recovery. What recovery was as far as I knew,

 

Jill Smith (00:21:20):
As far as you knew.

 

Matt Handy (00:21:22):
So I went out for another 10 years. Right? And it's like coming back into this situation and really learning a lot of crazy lessons for myself. It's like I know that that's not true. I do. But how many people can come to that conclusion where it's like, I mean, the book says it, right? They don't have a monopoly on recovery. Well, what are the other answers?

 

Jill Smith (00:21:46):
Oh, there's a ton.

 

Matt Handy (00:21:47):
But do they know? Right? No, they don't know. And so it's like we offer a multiple pathway approach here. And so that is becoming more of a thing. But you have treatment centers. I mean, we just looked this up. I think there's Do how many treatment centers there are in America?

 

Jill Smith (00:22:04):
Oh,

 

Matt Handy (00:22:06):
Residentials, registered residentials.

 

Jill Smith (00:22:08):
They're becoming Baptist churches on every corner. You know what I mean?

 

Matt Handy (00:22:12):
Yeah,

 

Jill Smith (00:22:12):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:22:13):
I think there's 4,000.

 

Jill Smith (00:22:14):
Oh, wow.

 

Matt Handy (00:22:15):
4,000 residentials in the United States. And the assumption is at least 85% of them are 12 step based. So it's like a large contingency of recovery is married to that philosophy.

 

Jill Smith (00:22:32):
We are not.

 

Matt Handy (00:22:33):
Well, we are not either. I'm not

 

Jill Smith (00:22:36):
Either. My pathway was quite different

 

Matt Handy (00:22:38):
As well. So what do you do

 

Jill Smith (00:22:41):
For my recovery?

 

Matt Handy (00:22:41):
Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (00:22:42):
So one of the things that I learned right off the bat was I did work the steps. I worked the steps. AA in a smart recovery. What is the church one? Celebrate, celebrate. Celebrate. Recovery. Recovery. Yeah. I did all those. And they're wonderful. They're wonderful. The best steps that I ever worked was na, because I couldn't manipulate 'em as much.

 

Matt Handy (00:23:06):
Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (00:23:06):
You know what I mean?

 

Matt Handy (00:23:07):
Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (00:23:07):
It got a lot of stuff out. But again, that's just the beginning. So one, I have a tribe. I still meet with them every single month, A group of very strong ladies. Not only that, I check in with them and they check in with me every week. And in that tribe, it's made up of different people. Not everybody's in recovery. So I chose to have someone who never had an issue with drugs or drinking or anything like that, substances. And she had a hard, hard life, but she did something different. And I was like, I want you on my team. I want you to know how. And she's actually healthy, a healthy person. So that makes a difference too.

 

Matt Handy (00:23:55):
For sure.

 

Jill Smith (00:23:55):
And so I did that. I did latch on to meetings early in the beginning because that was what I was taught. But then after that, I may go to an AA meeting maybe once every two months to see the people. I know, maybe three months. But that's what I do. I know a lot of people say, well, you're going to relapse. You're going to, it's okay. I'm good. I'm good. You can't tell me what I'm going to do. I know what I need.

 

Matt Handy (00:24:36):
Well, and here's the thing. We have a hundred years of statistical data around aa. It's almost a hundred percent failure rate. Everybody relapses. So it's like, how are you going to try to tell me that this works when nobody stays clean the first time? So there's that. And then have you seen the statistics on people leaving treatment and relapsing the day they get out,

 

Jill Smith (00:25:00):
It's high,

 

Matt Handy (00:25:00):
It's crazy,

 

Jill Smith (00:25:01):
It's high.

 

Matt Handy (00:25:02):
And then if they're relapsing the day they get out, it's typically within the first hour. So there's a disconnect between what we're being told about the efficacy of treatment and what's actually going on. And I don't know if it's, well, I've got a bunch of theories about why that is. And here's the thing I've done. I did a three year program. I did a nine month program, a seven month program, and a bunch of one month programs. I've done a Synanon based program, work therapy programs, faith-based programs, 12 step programs, and then a state funded program. So I've done a wide variety of treatment,

 

(00:25:38):
And there are consistencies amongst all of 'em. And then there are the things that make them unique, but the things that make them unique weren't effective. And the things that's baseline that you learn at any treatment that you go into, that shit didn't work for me either. So it's like we think that treatment is a solution, which I think it's a good bandaid, but when we're talking about what is addiction? What is addiction? What is the root of addiction? Why is it so pervasive? Why do people, well, first of all, drugs are really good at what they do. If they weren't, nobody would do it.

 

(00:26:15):
They feel great. They make you forget all your problems. It's a really good bandaid. And so you're taking one bandaid off, putting another one on. Right? But do you guys know Dr. Shah? Okay. He's our medical director.

 

Jill Smith (00:26:29):
Oh, yes. Okay. Okay. Yes.

 

Matt Handy (00:26:32):
Yeah. So he has a biological answer for what addiction is, right? We're always taught that it's centered in the mind and that there's the spiritual component and the mental component. Well, he's like, look, I have a biological thing that I can point to that says, this is where it is. And he says, I don't care how you get these three things. You got to get 'em. And as long as you get 'em, I don't care how you do it. You can go to church, you can go to meetings, you can go to yoga, you can go join a sports team. You could do it however you want, but you've got to bond with people. You got to get oxytocin. You have to have a community. And if you can do those things, then you're good. Because what he's saying, the theory is that there's scarring of the amygdala, right? There is a physical manifestation of the trauma. And they found this in war veterans. They did a bunch of studies on, well, they're military lab rats, right? It's like, you are government property. You are going to be this. So they did a bunch of studies on people with PTSD, and they found, you know what three Tesla MRIs are.

 

(00:27:42):
So they did a bunch of three Tesla MRIs on thousands of vets, and they found that people with PTSD have not smooth. It's a nonoo surface on their amygdala that looks like actual physical scarring. And they think that what it is is the trauma inflames the amygdala, and where it is, it's like in the very center of your brain. It can't go anywhere. So it folds in on itself. So now you have signal crossing.

 

(00:28:10):
You have this fold here, it's supposed to go straight, and it's trying to do this, and you have signal crossing, and you have all this stuff going on, which causes these radiating energies where it starts to radiate outwards. You spike, you do all this crazy stuff, and he's got this whole thing worked out where he's like, there is a biological answer. There is something that AA does specifically, they didn't know that they were doing it, but it does something very specific, and it addresses something biological. And it's like, okay, well, what does this mean? You're like, well, I can predict and prevent relapse. What? That sounds crazy. How do you predict and prevent a relapse? They could do a CT scan. They could prove that everybody that has trauma has this scarring,

 

(00:28:59):
But they don't have to because they have enough data saying that trauma causes scarring. Different types of trauma can cause the same scarring. So if that's the working theory that addicts, anybody actually, sexual trauma, family trauma, relationship trauma, all that stuff can cause scarring on the amygdala. If you have scarring on this amygdala, it means that your fight or flight is constantly elevated. If that's true, then we can do this, this, and this. The things that he does, specifically, you track your mood. He came up with a, so he piggybacked off a bunch of studies that were done, and he actually came up with his own diagnosis called imia. It's a cycling mood disorder for people who cannot regulate their moods because of the scarring. It's like, okay. So anyway, I say all that to say this is that treatment's a good bandaid, but when you don't, it's 28 days. What can you really do in 28 days? How effective do you think 28 days? I mean, stabilization, great. You put them in a safe place. A lot of people that go to treatment feel safe enough where if they didn't have to leave after 28 days, they would stay.

 

(00:30:20):
But then you put them right back in these situations, even if they're not going back to the scene of the crime, you put them in a sober living, or you take them out of their comfort zone and immediately they get elevated again. So it's like, how do you prevent this stuff from happening? And how do people really think that 28 days is going to solve anything? And that's the thing about AA, is it is a good bandaid. I participated in AA too extensively, and I was going into meetings miserable and coming out even more miserable than when I went in. And then I found my solution. And it's like, I've been to treatment. You've been to treatment. You haven't, but you probably heard this, is that everybody says, when you're, I was told, I don't know how many times, they're like, oh, well, now you're clean. You should work out and eat better.

 

Jill Smith (00:31:11):
Oh,

 

Matt Handy (00:31:12):
Right. How many times have you heard that?

 

Jill Smith (00:31:14):
Oh, all the time.

 

Matt Handy (00:31:14):
All the time. But they never show you why. They just say, you should do this. It's a lot easier to sell people on why to do things instead of should have. But I think we do a terrible job on why a terrible job. And so that's what I did. I found my mentor, and he's got a crazy story. He is also an ex Fentanyl addict, but he is an ex Navy seal. He's like the only Navy seal in the history of the world that after he left the Navy Seal, he had to join the French Foreign Legion. Do you guys know what that is? The French Foreign Legion did it for five years. And because he went from the seals to there, they were having him scrub toilets with toothbrushes and stuff like that.

 

Jill Smith (00:31:58):
Oh,

 

Matt Handy (00:31:59):
Yeah. They were like, oh, yeah. Oh yeah, Navy Seal. Go scrub this toilet. Right? It's like, okay. He calls it his baptism and humility.

 

Jill Smith (00:32:06):
Oh, yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:32:08):
Gets out of the military or gets out of the service and then picks up the craziest tab. You should hear a story. Started stacking. I think he started with Adderall and then benzos and then fentanyl, and then he was drinking, and it just got steadily worse. And this guy was super successful after the military was pitching decks on multimillion dollar sales deals and really was doing it, but completely fell apart. Completely fell apart, was thinking about jumping in a volcano at the end. And it was like he didn't want to shoot himself. That'd be a mess for his mom to clean up. So he was like, oh, I'm just going to jump into this volcano. Because the company where it's like, we need to get this dude out of people's faces, they're going to see him and think shit's fucked up. So they sent him to Hawaii to work on a deal that they knew wasn't going to happen, and they just kind of put him there and just let it kind of fizzle out. And he was like, fuck, what do I do? And he found himself in the national park where that big volcano is with no money, no gas, no nothing, all his debt now,

 

(00:33:18):
Right? He's like, I am going to shoot myself. And he is like, no, I'm going to jump in this volcano. And just through self searching, realized that he could do something about it. And so he did something about it, and then he came out of the French Foreign Legion, and that's all he does is help men. So I find this guy, and he immediately tells me, stop going to meetings. So he says, stop going to meetings, start doing these things. So I start doing these things, and it completely changed. I mean, this came out of moving in that direction.

 

Karen Wolfe (00:33:52):
So what did he tell you to do?

 

Matt Handy (00:33:53):
Start working out, start eating better. Call me no matter what, and no matter what happens. So we speak from a man's per, this is our experience, we're men. It's like you can wallow in your pity or you can do something about it. And it's like what I was being told in the rooms was you've lost your ability to make your own decisions to, I had a sponsor tell me, when you want to tie your shoes in the morning, call me and ask me which one first. Yeah.

 

Karen Wolfe (00:34:28):
Wow.

 

Matt Handy (00:34:28):
And it's like, I need a self-directed life. In order for me to be successful. I cannot be, I've done nine years in prison. It's really hard for me to be underneath somebody that's driving me into nowhere, right? It's like, yes, you can get people to quit drinking, but how many people do you actually get to stay sober? And I'm looking at directionally, where am I going and how long am I going to be going this direction? So I have a brother who, he's got 14 years sober, something like that. He used for a little while. And all of his friends, they start going to YPO meetings. All of his friends built this massive network of people. And then their friends kept dying, kept dying, kept dying, kept dying. And now there's a core group of maybe 10 of them. And he said that they all looked at each other one day, and they were like, all of our lives are stuck here. What the fuck are we doing? They all left. And now they're all successful. They have careers, they have kids, they're getting married. It's like, my brother's constantly going to Bachelor. party They completely gave their life to this program.

 

(00:35:42):
But what that means is that is a hundred percent where you end up. And they looked at it, they were like, do we want to be these old timers 30 years from now, miserable in the back of the room talking shit to everybody, or do we want to have success in our lives? And they all left. And so it's just one thing after another. Another. I was like, A is a bandaid. And I think everybody should utilize that bandaid to get into early recovery. But after that, it's like you have to make a choice at some point. Is this going to be your lifestyle or are you going to progress in your life? And it's like, I've met plenty of people that somebody told me the other day that I was going to kill people saying this stuff. I was like, okay, that could be a hundred percent what you think, but this is what saved my life. And you guys all rejected me.

 

(00:36:36):
I don't know how many times I went into those rooms and was told that I didn't belong there. I tried aa, na. The only one that I really had success in was, and the meetings that I was going to did not want people on Suboxone, but it's like, how do you expect us to do this? Yeah, we could suffer through our recovery, but it's like, why would you want somebody to suffer? Makes no sense. No. And then it's like you get people sober, and it's a program of attraction, which I totally get, but the problem is, it's attraction at the expense of the truth where it's like, you're going to tell this person that you're going to get all your stuff back, and your family's going to love you, and you get sober and your life gets better. And it's like, no, almost a hundred percent of the time, your life gets fucking worse. Almost a hundred percent of the time. All those consequences catch up with you. All those bridges that you burned, you can no longer utilize anymore. You lose your kids. This is when the IRS comes After you lose your house, you get divorced. It's like, no, when you get sober, typically it gets worse. Just tell 'em that.

 

Jill Smith (00:37:47):
Yeah, yeah. Let's don't lie about. Yeah, exactly. I agree.

 

Matt Handy (00:37:52):
So it's like there's a large percentage of people that are probably going to hear this and be like, what the fuck is this guy even talking about? But the reality is there's a core component of people that I'm worried about that are already rejecting recovery because they've been rejecting the rooms. So it's like, that's what this podcast is about. It's about those

 

Jill Smith (00:38:13):
People. Okay. Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:38:16):
So there's two things that I like to do here. We don't tell any war stories. I want to talk about your recovery, your struggles in recovery. How do you deal with them? What do you do? How do you move forward in your recovery without using all that, but then also, let's talk about the disenfranchised, because they're there. They're all dying.

 

(00:38:36):
And I've had people tell me that it's like, it can work for anybody. It's like, okay, in theory and on paper, this is true, but let's talk about reality. What about the people that it's not working for? What about them? Oh, well, it's like you said, eventually they'll get it. But it's like the introduction of fentanyl to the drug supply, almost a hundred percent dictates that they'll die before they get in here. Well, what about them? It's like, this is a fucked up issue. And there is no answer for them right now other than go to aa. But it's like I found another, there's hundreds of people. There's thousands, probably tens of thousands of people who've achieved long-term sobriety without going into their rooms,

 

(00:39:21):
But they're doing it on their own. So it's like they'll never interact with these people. They don't know. And one of the things that, there's two things that the room program got. I think it just got perfect, absolutely perfect. The sponsor sponsee relationship, the accountability, the responsibility, all that. It gives you a group of people that can calibrate you. It's a social calibration of your moral compass, is what I say. I've done things and I'm willing to do things, and I can do things that the majority of the world would never even think about doing. So it's like we're coming to the solution from the problem, whereas the rest of the world tries to just stay in the problem and never even approach the problem.

 

(00:40:11):
So the perspective, and my whole mission, I guess in this, is to just stay sober,

 

Jill Smith (00:40:22):
Right? Yes.

 

Matt Handy (00:40:23):
Really at the core of it, it's like, I got to do whatever I got to do to save my life on a daily basis. And there are answers out there. And I love talking to people who found solutions that are not traditional, like, well, how did you do it? What is it that you do that they couldn't do? But I think especially with, we have a hundred years of scientific advances, we have probably billions and billions of dollars that have been dumped into this research. Specifically. There's addiction medicine specialists out there now, doctors, that this is what they do. And then you have a hundred years of social acceptance and social awareness, and just in general, a better landscape for people in addiction today, probably better than ever. It's probably going to keep getting better. And oh, man, you talk about psychedelic studies and stuff like that too, where it's like we have some serious things on the table that are

 

Jill Smith (00:41:24):
Ketamine?

 

Matt Handy (00:41:26):
I mean, ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA, but you've got anecdotally stories and individuals where it's like they went to treatment one time and their clinical depression disappeared forever. You go down to Mexico, you get these treatments, and it's like my opiate addiction was completely solved. And I am very hard pressed to say that there's a magic pill out there. There's still work that has to be done. And I dunno, maybe there is a magic pill out there. I don't know. But they always say it in the rooms where it's like, well, I would want to. It's like, maybe you wouldn't. Maybe you wouldn't. Right? Maybe it really does heal you. I don't know. But we're in a situation today where it's like shit is really fucked up for people.

 

Jill Smith (00:42:06):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:42:07):
The landscape of addiction has dramatically changed in the last five years in a very serious way. It's more dangerous today than it's ever been. It might be more dangerous tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that, I talk about this constantly where it's like, shit is getting more fucked up by the day.

 

Jill Smith (00:42:23):
It is.

 

Matt Handy (00:42:24):
And when you've got blinders on to your recovery, it's like this is a very rigid, dogmatic belief system. And it's 2025. You got people rejecting religious structures more and more today than ever. You've got accepting and running to religious structures. But in mass, people are rejecting religious structures. And so when you're like, the answer to your problem is a religious structure, all of 'em are like,

 

Jill Smith (00:42:51):
Right? Yeah. They're probably doing a little bit something different than that. But

 

Matt Handy (00:42:56):
Yeah, no, totally. I understand. But it's like, well, how do we,

 

Jill Smith (00:43:03):
Because a lot of people, especially in Texas, especially where we're from, east Texas, they've been hurt by the church.

 

Matt Handy (00:43:09):
Oh, yeah,

 

Jill Smith (00:43:10):
They've been hurt by the church. They do not want to hear that. That's where I need to go. And again, you also have to be careful when you walk in the rooms, because a lot of these rooms have turned in to now there's some good healthy ones, but have turned into the rules and regulations instead of the relationships with the person. That does not keep me sober.

 

Matt Handy (00:43:37):
I mean, look, bill and Bob appeared today and try to go to as many meetings as they could. They wouldn't recognize the program for what it is. They were going into hospitals doing six steps with people, and in 15 minutes they were going to the next room to help someone else. That was it. And then also they were fucking around with LSD and doing a bunch of other crazy shit. But that's besides the point, I guess. But they just wouldn't recognize it for what it is. And I don't think AA is the problem. I think the people are, and it's like AA is not culty. The rooms are, and the rooms are just comprised of people. And there's currency in those rooms, some very serious currency. And it's like it gets you influence and sex and money, and you can start accumulating a lot of things with this currency. It's like how honest is the currency? I've seen it where it's like there's that guy that's got five years sober, he's got 12 sponsees, but all of them are relapsing constantly. None of them are actually doing the work.

 

(00:44:42):
This guy is pissed off constantly and beats his wife or whatever. And then it's like he has all of this currency in the rooms. He's been sober for five years, and he's got 12 sponsees. And then there's the guy that's got two years sober with three sponsees that's found peace does the darn thing. But he's only got three sponsees, but all three of 'em have worked an honest program. It's like, but that guy has way less currency than this guy just because of the accumulation of the currency. And it's like, how honest is that? How dependable is that kind of currency? So because of my prison experience, I've come to understand power structures a little bit differently, and it's like I am not willing to be underneath somebody that has no fucking clue what they're doing. Right? It's like,

 

Jill Smith (00:45:32):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:45:33):
I mean, the requirements for sponsorship are very minimal, and it's like this person is not healed, and there're out there blind leading the blind. And then there are those powerhouses in the program where it's like, this person is saving. Have you guys ever met Danny Trejo?

 

Jill Smith (00:45:52):
Yes.

 

Matt Handy (00:45:52):
Yeah, you met him.

 

Jill Smith (00:45:53):
Well, he came to San Antonio and did the big Texas recovery rallies.

 

Matt Handy (00:45:57):
Okay.

 

Jill Smith (00:45:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:45:58):
So I met him fucking 2015 in his hometown.

 

Jill Smith (00:46:04):
Oh,

 

Matt Handy (00:46:04):
Yeah. I was living in San Bernardino, and we all went to this pop-up meeting. Basically it was in a dungeon somewhere. We showed up and we're like, what the, there's gang bangers everywhere. It was crazy. So we go in there and this dude talked for an hour, and there were people crying all over the place and is like, this is an example of somebody. Well, also his whole, I don't know, whatever. He's got a very interesting story to say the least. His ties with certain organizations is super crazy. When you hear the whole background of it, it's like, this guy is, well, anyway, so there are powerhouses, but it's so few and far between. It's the rest of, and I hope people don't take this wrong. If it's working for you, keep doing it.

 

Jill Smith (00:47:01):
Keep doing it. Yeah,

 

Matt Handy (00:47:02):
For sure. Keep doing it. It's like, but if it's not working for you, there are other answers. So you guys are not, the program that you guys work at is not married to the 12 step model. So what do you guys do?

 

Jill Smith (00:47:18):
I mean, there is that option. They can choose that. But there's also smart recovery. There's equine therapy with a therapist. They can go that route. It doesn't have to be traditional, what you say. We do suboxone as well. There's a psychiatrist on staff. So if someone had wanted to take a look at their mental health, I know for me, that was my revolving, that is something growing up, I was taught that if you took mental health meds, you weren't relying on Jesus enough to help you. And so it took me a long time to say yes to that.

 

Matt Handy (00:48:06):
Yeah, massive stigma. It's like mental health is so when you actually talk about the chemical imbalance. So I am thoroughly convinced that I'll never hear God's voice, right? I'll never see this guy. I'll never, nobody looks like, or, and for the people that, yeah, I'll say this, 99% of the Bible, biblical prophets, if they were alive today, they would've been on meds, right? So it's like how many people are out there suffering because of stigma?

 

Jill Smith (00:48:38):
A lot,

 

Matt Handy (00:48:39):
Everybody out there suffering because of stigma in some way or another. But mental health specifically, specifically for men, an epidemic of mentally ill men who are now just disenfranchised by society. I don't know where you guys' politics are, but we could probably get lost down that rabbit hole for a while.

 

Jill Smith (00:48:58):
Oh yeah, probably.

 

Matt Handy (00:48:59):
But I had a long conversation with somebody last night where that's his passion is men's health. And he does it in such a sneaky way. He works with fathers, and he always says this, he never asked them about their mental health. He says, what if I told you there is a way to be a better father? Do you want to be a better father? Do you think you can be a better father? And it's like openness, honesty, and willingness right there. Do you want it? Do you think you can be? Are you willing to do it? And then he says, well, let's look at your mental health. And when you package it like that, it's like, what father wouldn't want to be a better father?

 

Jill Smith (00:49:41):
Who would say no?

 

Matt Handy (00:49:42):
Right? It's such a sneaky way around it. But he addresses it that way. And it's like, okay, that makes sense. But how many people do that? It's like, no, no, no. You're bipolar. You are clinically depressed, or you have anxiety, or whatever it is. It's like, okay, yeah, I might have all those, but at the core of it, what do I really want? What would move the needle for me? I want to be a better dad. And we both agreed last night where it was, A lot of men have hard time becoming men until they have kids. Then you're forced to emotionally connect with something that you have to do it. And today, it's the epidemic of children that are victims of fatherless homes. And there's a whole other third wave feminism and second wave feminism. And the whole progression into where we're at today, where it's like men are in a situation today where if they are masculine, they're typically labeled as toxic, right?

 

Jill Smith (00:50:55):
Well, bring me that masculine man anytime.

 

Matt Handy (00:50:58):
Right? But how many people today look at masculinity as a positive thing?

 

Jill Smith (00:51:03):
I do, but I guess people,

 

Matt Handy (00:51:10):
But I would say that you are a healthy woman.

 

Jill Smith (00:51:12):
Oh, okay. Thank you.

 

Matt Handy (00:51:14):
Right? Yeah. I mean,

 

Karen Wolfe (00:51:15):
He doesn't know you very well. Well,

 

Matt Handy (00:51:19):
Let's say it this way. On a baseline level, you're not emotionally dragging other people down,

 

Jill Smith (00:51:27):
Right? No.

 

Matt Handy (00:51:28):
Or abusing people because of your emotions,

 

Jill Smith (00:51:31):
Right?

 

Matt Handy (00:51:32):
Whereas the majority of society today are so emotionally out of touch. It's very easy for people to fall into loops of abuse, whether they realize it or not. And that's the hardest part, is the awareness where it's toxic relationships, and it's like toxic. The victimhood. Everybody's a victim of one thing or another. You got racial victimhood, you've got societal, victimhood, political victimhood. Everybody's like, and victimhood is a badge of honor. It's like, well, I'm more victimized than you, so respect me. And you got protected classes. You got all this stuff that's going on societally. And it's like the thing, when you look at nature, there's only one form of government that's natural. It's the family unit. It's the only thing that has ever occurred in nature. That was a natural government form. And we destroyed that, completely destroyed that. So how do you fix something that's family centered when there's no family anymore? It's a really rough thing to do. It's a hard thing to approach, to say, well, we got to convince our kids to get married and have healthy relationships. Well, how do you do that when you're not setting the example? It's impossible. But there is this generation of kids, the alpha generation, have you seen this whole movement that's going on with them?

 

Jill Smith (00:53:00):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:53:01):
They're putting phones down and talking about staying sober. And it's like, these are really little kids. And it's like, oh, I know how they did it. They're looking at my generation. How old are you guys? How old are you?

 

Karen Wolfe (00:53:14):
38.

 

Matt Handy (00:53:15):
How old are you?

 

Karen Wolfe (00:53:15):
Oh, I'm 51.

 

Matt Handy (00:53:16):
Okay,

 

Karen Wolfe (00:53:16):
I'll be 39 this month.

 

Matt Handy (00:53:17):
Your generation is a little bit more healthy than ours, but my generation is so fucked. The millennials are so fucked. They're looking at us going, we don't want to do that on average, did you see that Supreme Court justice? That wouldn't answer what a woman is in Congress? That's the norm today. That's socially acceptable. It's like, and all this comes back to addiction. It's like these are the people that society can point out, and this is the problem child, but they try to fix it with, they try to fix an individual problem societally. That doesn't even logically make sense to me.

 

Jill Smith (00:54:05):
You're exactly right. Right? Yeah. And they are looking for that. Let's do this, this, and this, and my child will be fixed.

 

Matt Handy (00:54:15):
Who? Parents.

 

Jill Smith (00:54:16):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:54:16):
Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (00:54:17):
And me, when I first got into early recovery, I thought, I'm going to do this, this, and this, and I'm going to be fixed, Because that's what I thought happened. You work the steps and then you're just, yeah, life is great. Because I was told that,

 

Matt Handy (00:54:35):
Yeah, it is painted that way. And it's like, so for people who are like Eric, probably the most in recovery, he doesn't even smoke cigars. Most in recovery person I've ever met, that is not an addict. So there's the people that are surrounding the industry, and then the addicts in general, where it's like we understand on a different level what it takes to fix these problems. So for homelessness specifically, right forward facing, community facing every homeless person. So I was homeless in San Diego for a couple years by choice, because I don't want to pay rent. I want to buy more drugs. I've done, they say that there's 2,500 homeless people in San Diego, and I've probably done drugs and hung out with every single one of them.

 

(00:55:26):
So out of that 2,500, I think there's maybe a hundred of them that are actually mentally ill that this is their lot in life. This is where it fell to. But forward facing, every single one of those homeless people would say, I need a job. I need the opportunities. I don't have access to healthcare. And it's like, but behind the scenes, we're all having these conversations where it's like, I don't want to do anything different. This is what I want to do. It's like there's a level of freedom and a level. First of all, it's a community in itself. Everybody really, the homeless community have, so society in general, there's the social contract. We all agree that certain things are bad. We all agree that certain things are good. Drinking is acceptable. This isn't acceptable, this is acceptable, this isn't. And it's like, okay. So when they look at homelessness, they say they have no,

 

(00:56:24):
Because they're doing drugs on the street. But what they don't realize is that they have morals. They're just different than yours. And when they look at drug addicts or criminals, even criminal societies have probably more morals and core values than society at large. You talk about people that hurt kids, and everybody's like, well, they only got two years. And everybody goes, yeah, but they have to go to prison. So baked into that, there's an understanding that there is a code and a moral structure. And just because it isn't the socially acceptable one doesn't mean they don't got one.

 

(00:57:04):
So when you think about homelessness and addiction, a lot of people, even though we've come really far in the social acceptance and the social awareness, there's still a lot of people that think that they're just bad people. It's like the family member that does drugs. When they come to the family reunion, everybody's hiding their kids. It's like, what? I'm not going to pull a crack pipe out at Thanksgiving dinner. What are you hiding your kids for? It's because of the assumption of the lack of morality, and it's like, it's just different than yours. So when you try to address these things, and you've got a system in place that says, we can help you. Here's some money, but you can't have it. We're going to give it to these people and they're going to help you.

 

(00:57:55):
It's like, where's the solution actually, in that? It's such a hard thing to approach. Anyway, I've been ranting

 

Jill Smith (00:58:05):
Very interesting though.

 

Matt Handy (00:58:06):
Yeah,

 

Jill Smith (00:58:06):
Very interesting. Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:58:08):
Well, what do you guys think about it? What do you really think about what the solution for addiction?

 

Jill Smith (00:58:17):
I mean, that question would take years to discuss, I guess.

 

Matt Handy (00:58:21):
Okay, well, we got time.

 

Jill Smith (00:58:22):
The solution for addiction one, I know that when,

 

Matt Handy (00:58:33):
Look, I get, this is a tough question, that's why I asked it, right? I'm not asking for something that people could take home and put it in the bank. I'm just saying

 

Jill Smith (00:58:42):
There's not

 

Matt Handy (00:58:42):
What you think. What is a prescription that we can give to people to solve an immediate problem?

 

Jill Smith (00:58:50):
Well, one, if we would stop judging people.

 

Matt Handy (00:58:52):
Okay. Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (00:58:55):
Honestly, stop judging people because a lot of people do not voice that they need help. Because, and I'll tell you this, the stigma and all of that, the political correct word, stigma, it's gotten a lot better. But we still have such a long way to go when someone walks into an ER and the nurses are going, there's that person again, instead of us trying to get what they truly need.

 

Matt Handy (00:59:23):
Yeah. Well, and we've also set up that system, right? It's like I have a cousin who married a nurse, and she was like a training nurse in the er. And my cousin says she completely changed. She had to get out of the emergency room. She had to get out of the emergency room in order to come back to normal. But we set up the system where that is the immediate solution for a lot of people. I'm going to go to the emergency. I've done it.

 

Jill Smith (00:59:50):
Oh, yeah, right. Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (00:59:52):
Where I was, towards the end of my addiction, I had no veins left, and so I was muscling every shot.

 

Jill Smith (01:00:02):
Did you go get an IV and leave?

 

Matt Handy (01:00:03):
No, no, no. It was crazier than that. I had such crazy abscesses. My girlfriend at the time thought I was dying, and it was like a month or two before this, we were hanging out with somebody who had a bunch of abscesses. We were at the store with her and she just disappeared. And we were like, what happened? And we were looking for her. We couldn't find her. Well, she had gone into the store next door and passed out and the ambulance came and got her, and she died in the hospital that night. And I was like, weeks later. And we found out what happened, and we were like, what? That's crazy. So she thought I was going to die. I went to the emergency room and passed out for days. I woke up days later, and it was like, what happened? They had to do surgery on a couple abscesses, and it was crazy. And it's like, this is the options that it's been left down to. It's like they have no other options for access to care. Parity laws are a joke, even though there's legally supposed to be access to care. It's like we've got out of pocket expenses. And it's like these people have not a dollar in their name. How do you expect them to access care when they don't have money?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:01:14):
Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:01:15):
Right. It's like, what do you do? How do you address that situation? Because health insurance is incentivized, right? There's money. That's big money. And you've got this stuff going on with Luigi Mangione, right? You know about that?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:01:29):
No.

 

Matt Handy (01:01:30):
The guy that shot the executive for United Healthcare.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:01:33):
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

 

Matt Handy (01:01:34):
So this is going to be maybe one of the first times where they'll have to expose, they'll have to open their books and we'll have a look at their denial process and their denial policies and what's actually going on here. Because his whole thing was, well, you know what happened, right?

 

Jill Smith (01:01:51):
Yes.

 

Matt Handy (01:01:52):
Denied, denied, denied. And then his mom and then his surgeries, and it was like, I'm not saying that what he did was good. I'm just saying that it made sense.

 

Jill Smith (01:02:02):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (01:02:03):
Right. And

 

Jill Smith (01:02:05):
That's another the scary thing is I could follow his logic

 

Matt Handy (01:02:07):
For sure.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:02:08):
Absolutely. Yeah. We talked to him about that. Yes, we did.

 

Matt Handy (01:02:10):
For sure.

 

Jill Smith (01:02:11):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:02:13):
Right. I have a friend of mine, this guy has open treatment centers in every, he's a consultant And he's open treatment centers in every state. I think he's working on one in Israel right now.

 

(01:02:24):
This guy was like, this is going to start happening. He was thoroughly convinced executives for health insurance companies were just going to start getting shot, especially because this guy was kind of toted as a hero. And there's like, have you heard about all the mail that he gets?

 

Jill Smith (01:02:39):
No.

 

Matt Handy (01:02:39):
Dude, he's getting thousands of letters a month of women telling him to marry him.

 

Jill Smith (01:02:44):
Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure.

 

Matt Handy (01:02:46):
And it's like people telling him that he's their hero, and it's like, this is a modern day Robin Hood situation, but this is the extreme that it's gone to. He's not just robbing from the rich and stealing this dude killed somebody in cold blood on the streets, a father. It's like crazy. But this is the kind of things that, I mean, people talk about this kind of stuff all the time where, man, I would do this to that person to do this. Well, this person did it. How many other people are driven to that edge? How often? Probably a lot more often than we think. It's just how many people have the balls to do that? Not many.

 

Jill Smith (01:03:26):
No.

 

Matt Handy (01:03:27):
Right. But this is a very typical thing to hear where it's like somebody needs access to care. They cannot access the care that they need, and they're suffering because of it. And it's like you look at other countries where they have universal healthcare, that is not the solution either. It's a massive burden on everybody. Everybody. And it's still terrible healthcare. It's crazy.

 

Jill Smith (01:03:53):
Well, and my point is this, is that if people would be treated with respect when they went in there, people would go in there and ask for help, maybe at least it would give another option.

 

Matt Handy (01:04:08):
No, I think you're right.

 

Jill Smith (01:04:11):
If it was a safe place,

 

Matt Handy (01:04:13):
Yeah. I mean, you talk to the average addict who's used, so I'll use this guy as an example without saying his name. You guys might have actually worked with him before. He's been to treatment all over Texas. There are emergency rooms that know him by name, and he's done treatment. He's from Plano. He says he's exhausted all of his options in Dallas. And then he started going to Austin, and then he's done some treatment in Houston. And I mean, this guy's been to treatment 20 plus times. And I mean, very smart guy was a behavioral tech at one point. Really smart kid. Can't stop using. But the stigma, and also it's behavioral where it's like he's done something so many times, his family just has had it up to here with him. But the community knows him for this specifically. I mean, EMTs, all kinds of people in the community see this kid and automatically assume a lot of shit about him. The reality is these are the options that he has. So he's going to emergency rooms to utilize their healthcare. He's giving them false names, he's doing that whole name. So for a person like that, it's like the options are very limited anyway.

 

(01:05:37):
But what would happen if the stigma was lowered or at least brought down to a point where people can deal with whatever they have to deal with in a healthy way. But respect is a massive part of the problem. For sure. And I think it really all does come down to awareness too. The education around the situation is terrible. Oh yeah. And I think it's our fault too. Oh, it is. We fuck up a lot of people In our addiction. We fuck up a lot of people. So it is, it's just a massive problem, and it's nearly impossible to solve. How do you solve it? You could get rid of the cartels. I guess

 

Jill Smith (01:06:16):
We would figure out another way,

 

Matt Handy (01:06:18):
But there's still other stuff that we could do.

 

Jill Smith (01:06:20):
We would just keep figuring it out mean, honestly. And also, it's so important, I know for me is to belong

 

Matt Handy (01:06:30):
Massive.

 

Jill Smith (01:06:31):
And so once people realize that there are other options to belonging that are healthy, that helps so much

 

Matt Handy (01:06:41):
For sure.

 

Jill Smith (01:06:42):
That's what helps me stay clean and sober today, honestly.

 

Matt Handy (01:06:46):
Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (01:06:46):
It's just one of the pieces of the puzzle for me is

 

Matt Handy (01:06:50):
You said finding the tribe, right? Yeah. And that's a massive talking point that my mentor talks about constantly, but then also what he imparts in everybody else, right? Find your tribe. It doesn't matter what it looks like. And so church becomes a very viable option for a lot of people. You get sober and all of a sudden people want to find God. And that's a very logical thing, and it's a very easy thing to point to because in general church, maybe not the institutions, but are filled with a lot of good people. I was raised Mormon or LDS, and one of the things that I'll definitely, I have a lot of gripes, but one of the things that I will say is if you buy into that dogmatic structure, you'll have a good life. I don't know very many Mormons that are bought into it that are miserable.

 

(01:07:48):
I don't know any, actually, they're really happy people. And then they raise healthy kids and core values. There's family is still at the core of their value system. And it's like, oh man, when you look at this problems at the forties compared to the problems of today,

 

Jill Smith (01:08:07):
Oh yeah.

 

Matt Handy (01:08:09):
I mean, there were problems, right? For sure. But the family was still intact, and it seemed like a lot of the social issues were more easily dealt with because of the family structures. It's crazy to see what happened with the dissolution of the family and all of the ramifications.

 

Jill Smith (01:08:28):
And now it's like, I don't know. For me, I had to walk away from my parents and separate myself.

 

Matt Handy (01:08:40):
And why is that?

 

Jill Smith (01:08:43):
Because it just wasn't healthy. My mom was my number one trigger, and so we tried to work it out and that sort of thing, but she's very religious, and so she was sticking to her rules and what she believed, and that's fine. But I knew for my health and for me to move forward, I had to break away. It's like a grieving process when you lose your family like that, and even when you're choosing it. But then the great thing about it is I get to choose my own family. Now. It's a different concept because people don't look at it like that. But I do have my people that we celebrate Christmas, we celebrate birthdays, we celebrate, and that's my new family. It's not the same family structure, but at the same time, I'm grateful.

 

Matt Handy (01:09:52):
Yeah. I mean, you hear that saying, right? That blood is thicker than water.

 

Jill Smith (01:09:56):
Yes.

 

Matt Handy (01:09:56):
I have found that to be a lot less true than people think. And when we talk about religion and the part that it plays in addiction, when we talk about religious trauma specifically, imagine trying to go to somebody who has a completely different belief structure than you and try to say, I found a different solution when they believe, if you don't believe what they believe in, you're going to hell. It's

 

Jill Smith (01:10:25):
Like

 

Matt Handy (01:10:26):
It's talking to a brick wall, right?

 

Jill Smith (01:10:29):
Yes.

 

Matt Handy (01:10:29):
It's impossible to get through to them. And it's like, no, I need something other than your God to fix my problems right here. And they're like, totally. First of all, they reject that

 

Jill Smith (01:10:42):
Wholesale

 

Matt Handy (01:10:44):
Because their God is the solution.

 

Jill Smith (01:10:45):
Yes. And then they reject you because they're, they're rejecting what you Yeah,

 

Matt Handy (01:10:51):
For sure. And it's like, so the religious structure that I was born into was very rigid in their belief. And then their doctrine is very specific around the family, and they have beliefs about the eternal family. And it's like one thing kind of builds on the other, where it's like, if you're not baptized in this church, then you can't go to heaven. Okay, well, if you don't do this, then you can't go to the next highest level. And if you don't do this, then you can't go to the next highest level. And it's like, well, if you've got part of your family that's achieved the highest possible rung, they're all like, well, if you don't get up here, you are going to be separated from us for eternity. And it's like, this doesn't make any sense to me, guys. So God says that if I don't do all this crazy stuff here, that I'm going to be separated from him for forever, even though I was a good person. And I mean, I was historically a bad person, but I mean, let's say I turn my shit around. It's like, so your God says that even though I'm a good person and I help people for a living, I'm still not worthy of that. And it's like, yeah, you got to do this. And it's like, I need to find a different religion.

 

Jill Smith (01:12:17):
Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:12:20):
Yeah. What about all the people that they find Eastern philosophy? I'm talking about monks that have never done a single thing wrong to anybody. They don't even kill flies. They're like, oh yeah, they're going to hell. Okay, some serious, you don't see the detachment and what you're saying here, it's like, wow. The level of delusion.

 

Jill Smith (01:12:49):
Yeah, absolutely.

 

Matt Handy (01:12:51):
Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (01:12:52):
If only it were that easy. You know what I

 

Matt Handy (01:12:55):
Mean? I tell people, so I'm an Aries and I'm like a true Aries, and I tell people all the time, look, I'm not always right, but I'm hardly ever wrong. And if everybody just listened to me, the world would be a better place. But the reality is nobody gets along about shit anymore. Everybody fights about everything. There's no common ground anymore. Look at what happened with Charlie Kirk.

 

Jill Smith (01:13:28):
Oh yeah,

 

Matt Handy (01:13:29):
Dude, that guy was a completely nonviolent person, and he did something that nobody else has the balls to do. He platformed anybody and everybody, and he'll go to you and platform you. And because he did that, look what happened to him. It's like that is the level of crazy that we're living in today. It's so crazy.

 

Jill Smith (01:13:55):
It's sad.

 

Matt Handy (01:13:56):
It is sad. And it's like, have you seen all the people praising this person?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:14:01):
It's crazy.

 

Jill Smith (01:14:02):
Yeah, I have. I have. And it's sickening. It makes me sad for the person who's saying it.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:14:14):
Yes, exactly.

 

Jill Smith (01:14:15):
Because it just that saying, I know this is cliche, but hurt people hurt people.

 

Matt Handy (01:14:22):
Absolutely. No, it's a hundred percent true.

 

Jill Smith (01:14:24):
And it is. So I just want to go hug that person who's saying these things about because they've experienced something horrible. They have been hurt really, really bad,

 

Matt Handy (01:14:37):
But we live in a crazy time, and it's a crazy time for people in addiction, right? It's like you got all this other stuff going on. You got politics going. You have politics kind of dictating that you are a let subhuman homeless people at least. But then you got these things called protected class. You know what that is?

 

Jill Smith (01:15:03):
No.

 

Matt Handy (01:15:04):
So there's a protected class. One of 'em is anybody in the L-G-B-T-Q, they're like a protected class where it's like if you speak out against them, you can be canceled. Oh, it doesn't matter if this person's talking out the side of their neck about some crazy shit. If you talk out against them, you are subject to being canceled.

 

(01:15:27):
And then there's politically protected classes too, where it's like the whole trans movement, they're all politically protected, where if you speak out against any of that stuff, you're like, I mean, they're locking people up all over the world around that stuff.

 

Jill Smith (01:15:45):
I should turn on the news more often, huh?

 

Matt Handy (01:15:47):
No,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:15:48):
No. It's sad. It's don't follow news. It's depressing.

 

Jill Smith (01:15:51):
I'll just ask you,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:15:52):
I think I live in my own little bubble. I've tried to live in my own little bubble. That's why when you asked me that while ago, I didn't know that guy's name because I was living without social media, So I didn't even, that didn't click.

 

Matt Handy (01:16:02):
So check this out. Social media has fucked a lot of shit up

 

Karen Wolfe (01:16:05):
Too. Oh yeah, it has.

 

Matt Handy (01:16:06):
I just got an Instagram for the first time a couple months ago around this podcast. Before that, my last social media profile was a MySpace.

 

Jill Smith (01:16:15):
MySpace. Oh, well, yes.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:16:17):
That's so crazy.

 

Matt Handy (01:16:18):
But there are curated news sites out there where they put everything on there from a non-biased point of view, and they'll compare everything. And it's like, this is the common thread. This is what they're saying, this is what they're saying, this is what they're saying, this is what they're saying. And then it tries to help you understand the lens that they're looking through.

 

Jill Smith (01:16:38):
Really?

 

Matt Handy (01:16:39):
Yeah. And so it's a non-biased news source where they still expose you to everything, but they help you understand the lens that they're looking through. So it's a good source of information. But even still, one of the things that I've adopted for myself is when I wake up, I will not turn on any electronics or immediately turn on news for hours because you start absorbing that shit really fast. And people in recovery are super sensitive to that shit for some reason.

 

(01:17:17):
It's like you start welcoming that stuff into your mind. I think they did a study where they're like, people that watch an average, I don't remember the numbers, but arbitrarily, we'll say an hour of the news a week, they're 50% more miserable.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:17:33):
Yeah. It's very depressing.

 

Matt Handy (01:17:35):
And it sells. Perfectly. Makes sense why the news is what it is. And then you can go into the whole conspiracy around it. Who owns the news, the news conglomerates and shit like that.

 

Jill Smith (01:17:47):
Yeah. We'll be here for hours.

 

Matt Handy (01:17:49):
Yeah, for sure. Also, these podcasts would probably never get any traction. They do shadow ban 'em and stuff.

 

Jill Smith (01:17:57):
Oh my goodness. That's crazy.

 

Matt Handy (01:18:00):
Yeah, it's interesting. So I guess in closing,

 

Jill Smith (01:18:04):
Okay,

 

Matt Handy (01:18:05):
Do you have anything you want to say?

 

Jill Smith (01:18:06):
You're so smart.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:18:07):
Yes, you are.

 

Matt Handy (01:18:08):
Really?

 

Jill Smith (01:18:08):
You're very, very intelligent.

 

Matt Handy (01:18:10):
Thank you. Thank you.

 

Jill Smith (01:18:11):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (01:18:13):
Okay. So anything that you want to talk about specifically?

 

Jill Smith (01:18:18):
I mean, I talk about stuff every day.

 

Matt Handy (01:18:21):
Okay. Tell me your soapbox issue.

 

Jill Smith (01:18:25):
Laziness.

 

Matt Handy (01:18:26):
Okay. What about laziness?

 

Jill Smith (01:18:29):
Laziness. Laziness. Especially early in recovery. You're all gun co and all of this. And then when you have to start looking at the hard stuff and you have to start adulting, it gets hard. It gets very, very hard. And we can get lazy and we can start making excuses for not doing what we need to do. And I am including this in myself, and I'm not just talking about our recovery. I'm talking about, well, everything's part of your recovery. I'm talking about with your family, with your kids, with your job, with

 

Karen Wolfe (01:19:15):
Complacency,

 

Jill Smith (01:19:16):
Everything. And so when you become lazy, your thought process is affected, your positivity goes out the window. And I think when we lose that, we lose traction and we lose ground. I am not saying we don't have ups and downs. We all do. And so I'm just saying, we just have to keep going and not be lazy. Keep going.

 

Matt Handy (01:19:54):
Let me ask you something. Motivation is a terrible thing to try to base anything off of because that shit's so fleeting,

 

Jill Smith (01:20:01):
Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:20:02):
So people get this motivation, and it's typically pretty powerful when you buy into recovery. You get a lot of motivation early on. So this is one of the things that I've had to really find for myself. This isn't talked about enough in recovery, but what I boiled it down to is discipline and dedication, and you can be dedicated enough until you are disciplined or you can be disciplined until you are dedicated, but you need those two things. So for people that are out there trying to make it off, motivation alone, what do you suggest to them?

 

Jill Smith (01:20:41):
Well, I'm a very big scheduled person,

 

Matt Handy (01:20:44):
So discipline.

 

Jill Smith (01:20:45):
I have schedule, schedule schedules. I usually stay on the schedule.

 

Matt Handy (01:20:49):
But you're typically late?

 

Jill Smith (01:20:50):
Yes. Okay. No, actually, I'm typically early.

 

Matt Handy (01:20:54):
Okay.

 

Jill Smith (01:20:55):
This was rare. Am I not typically early?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:20:59):
No. We're usually either right on time or late.

 

Jill Smith (01:21:03):
Okay. Well, I want to live in my

 

Matt Handy (01:21:06):
Scheduling does not mean you're early, but scheduling is a schedule,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:21:10):
But having stuff on your schedule,

 

Jill Smith (01:21:12):
Having stuff on my schedule, having a plan when I don't want to do anything, I know I need to do it, and here it is.

 

Matt Handy (01:21:21):
But how do you get yourself to do it when you don't want to?

 

Jill Smith (01:21:25):
I don't give myself a choice.

 

Matt Handy (01:21:26):
Okay.

 

Jill Smith (01:21:27):
Yeah. I don't give, I mean, yes, I acknowledge that I don't want to do this. I don't. And also, I have to be careful that it's not because I'm burnt out.

 

Matt Handy (01:21:42):
Okay. But for people early in recovery, that's not early in recovery typically a problem.

 

Jill Smith (01:21:46):
And I just do it. I mean, I will moan and groan, but once you get going and doing it, you feel so much better because you're not looking at, oh, I missed whatever. And I may have to call somebody and say, I don't want to do this. And they're like, okay, listen, Jill, you got to do it. You got to do it. If you're not going to do it, what's going to happen?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:22:12):
Put on your big girl panties and just do it.

 

Jill Smith (01:22:14):
Yes. Yeah. And so again, I can't do it by myself. I cannot do it by myself. But yeah, that's what,

 

Matt Handy (01:22:27):
Yeah. So making a plan, sticking to it. Accountability, all core parts of recovery. So the laziness when it comes to the laziness, what is your solution for that? Other than planning? Because sometimes planning still can't get you out of bed. So in those times where you don't want to get out of bed, you use accountability.

 

Jill Smith (01:22:56):
I use accountability every time. Every time. But I had to train myself to do that. I had to train myself to do that. It's not easy. I like to be independent and do everything by myself and blah, blah, blah. Well, with her, and it's not easy.

 

Matt Handy (01:23:13):
And you guys are together a lot, right? You got to spend all your time

 

Karen Wolfe (01:23:17):
Here. We're having our 10 year anniversary coming up.

 

Jill Smith (01:23:18):
We are.

 

Matt Handy (01:23:19):
Wow.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:23:20):
She just mentioned

 

Matt Handy (01:23:21):
That. Are you guys going to have a party?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:23:22):
We should. We were

 

Jill Smith (01:23:23):
Talking about that

 

Karen Wolfe (01:23:25):
10 year of being friends.

 

Jill Smith (01:23:26):
Yeah. Yeah. And we've been working in this field for 10 years. Oh yeah. Together.

 

Matt Handy (01:23:30):
Really?

 

Jill Smith (01:23:31):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (01:23:32):
That's interesting. So how long do you have sober again?

 

Jill Smith (01:23:34):
12. 12 years.

 

Matt Handy (01:23:36):
Okay. Was this your first job in the field?

 

Jill Smith (01:23:37):
This one?

 

Matt Handy (01:23:38):
Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (01:23:38):
No, I was a peer recovery coach. At Acada, or you don't know where Acada is? It's in East Texas, and so yes, that's what I started after two years started doing that, and that's how I met her. She is an LCDC, and so I was doing this side. She was doing that side and

 

Karen Wolfe (01:24:02):
Had mutual clients.

 

Jill Smith (01:24:03):
Yes, we did.

 

Matt Handy (01:24:04):
That is so interesting that you're an LCDC, because I think you might be one of the only non persons in recovery. That's an LCDC that I know.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:24:13):
Really?

 

Matt Handy (01:24:14):
Yeah. I feel like,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:24:15):
Well, I have cancer, and so you don't like my doctor? My oncologist, she hasn't had a cancer before, but she still has to treat the disease. So that's the way I look at it as just because I haven't walked in your shoes. She hasn't walked in my shoes, but she's still going to treat me for cancer.

 

Matt Handy (01:24:30):
Yeah, for sure. That makes sense when you say it like that. For sure.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:24:34):
I had somebody say that to me three years ago, and I was like, oh, okay.

 

Matt Handy (01:24:37):
Yeah. So how long have you been doing that?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:24:40):
How long have I been

 

Matt Handy (01:24:41):
Working in the field? Been DC

 

Karen Wolfe (01:24:43):
Since I was 20, so I'm 38 or 39. How old? Crazy. I'm 38. Crazy. Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (01:24:50):
Wow. Okay. So the experience with your brother really kicked you into high gear to do this?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:24:55):
It did. See, I had a kid at 15, and so I was already,

 

Matt Handy (01:24:57):
You had a kid at 15?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:24:59):
15 and 17. So I was already out of the house.

 

Matt Handy (01:25:01):
15 and 17.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:25:02):
Yes. They're like 16 months apart. I had just turned 17, had

 

Matt Handy (01:25:05):
She's like full grown kids almost.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:25:06):
Yeah. I have 23 and 20, almost 22-year-old.

 

Matt Handy (01:25:08):
Wow.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:25:09):
They're full grown. One has a social worker and two babies. I'm a grown. I'm a glam. She's a glam. That's crazy. 30. Yeah. I've been a glam since 36. I'm not old enough to be a grandma or Memaw or gmaw or mamaw.

 

Matt Handy (01:25:20):
What is glam?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:25:22):
It's just another word for

 

Matt Handy (01:25:24):
A glam, ma?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:25:24):
No, just a glam. Just glam. Don't give me the maw. I'm not that old. Don't. Don't put the mall on there.

 

Jill Smith (01:25:29):
We might put maw at 50.

 

Matt Handy (01:25:29):
So it's like its own. It's like its own name. A young grandma.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:25:33):
Yeah. I mean, I just came up with it,

 

Matt Handy (01:25:35):
So it's like a young person. I

 

Karen Wolfe (01:25:36):
Had never heard of it.

 

Matt Handy (01:25:36):
That has kids. That has kids, so it's not a grandma. Okay, that's cool. My grandma is, I think, turning 27 for the 50th time this year.

 

Jill Smith (01:25:46):
Oh yeah, usually. Yeah. That's me. Yeah. I'm a Gigi though. I'm a Gigi.

 

Matt Handy (01:25:51):
Really?

 

Jill Smith (01:25:51):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (01:25:52):
How old are you?

 

Jill Smith (01:25:53):
51.

 

Matt Handy (01:25:54):
That's impressive. Let's see.

 

Jill Smith (01:25:57):
I have three grand babies.

 

Matt Handy (01:26:00):
My second kid is about to be born. I'm 36 Yeah,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:26:05):
You're a late bloomer. Yeah. I tried to get all mine out early, but didn't happen.

 

Matt Handy (01:26:11):
That makes sense for women. It does, but I was also very busy doing nothing for a long time, but I don't regret it. Okay. So anyway, LCDC at 20.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:26:26):
Yeah, I was very motivated to do something different. I was not going to live with my parents. I had two kids. I was out at 16 and married.

 

Matt Handy (01:26:34):
I was too. I was kicked out though.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:26:36):
Yeah,

 

Matt Handy (01:26:38):
I got caught. Well, don't even get into that. I was expelled from school for some really dumb shit, and then was sent to an accelerated program. Well, it was a self-paced program, which also means you could do it as fast as you want. And I finished my junior and senior year in two months. So then I was just sitting at home doing drugs. My parents were like, I'm the oldest of 10.

 

Jill Smith (01:27:01):
It's not funny, but it's funny.

 

Matt Handy (01:27:02):
Yeah. Well, I'm the oldest of 10 kids.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:27:04):
10,

 

Matt Handy (01:27:04):
Yeah. And they were like, you got to get the fuck out of here. And I was like, I tell people, I think they were trying to scare me straight. Did the complete opposite thing. No, I was very independent pretty quick, and yeah, that did not work. So anyway, 20 years old, they have that whole 10,000 hours qualifies you as an expert. Right? You guys heard that 10,000 hours.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:27:33):
I'm definitely not an expert on anything.

 

Matt Handy (01:27:35):
No. 10,000 hours speaks to a lot. Literally. I think that there is entire master apprentice. That whole structure journeyman is all based on hours, right? So it's like the highest level of pay in any given field after 10,000 hours.

 

Jill Smith (01:27:53):
Oh, you have way more than 10,000.

 

Matt Handy (01:27:54):
That is way more than 10,000.

 

Jill Smith (01:27:55):
Well, you had to have your 5,000 just to get your LCDC.

 

Matt Handy (01:27:58):
That is what, yeah.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:28:00):
Yeah. For

 

Matt Handy (01:28:01):
The Texas 5,000 hours. That's years

 

Karen Wolfe (01:28:04):
Wait, isn't it? Yeah. They give you five years to do it.

 

Matt Handy (01:28:07):
Five, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. That is a lot of, so what do you do? You're not an LCDC. How do you get your hours?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:28:15):
Well, you can basically do what they do. It just has to be signed off on.

 

Matt Handy (01:28:19):
Oh, you got to have a supervisor,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:28:20):
Like an intern? Yes.

 

Matt Handy (01:28:21):
So they do an

 

Karen Wolfe (01:28:22):
Intern. Intern. Well, yes, but you can't pay for it, your

 

Matt Handy (01:28:25):
Intern for that. Okay.

 

Jill Smith (01:28:27):
Some get paid, some don't. Yeah.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:28:29):
Some people have to do volunteer.

 

Matt Handy (01:28:31):
Talk about motivation to be in this field. That is crazy. Okay. So what's your soapbox issue?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:28:39):
I don't know. I was trying to think of that when you were talking.

 

Matt Handy (01:28:43):
You guys probably have a lot more than just laziness, right?

 

Jill Smith (01:28:46):
Oh yeah. We do. We do. Yeah. And

 

Matt Handy (01:28:51):
Is this, I was trying to think, you guys remember the birds from Kermit the frog is a Muppet. You guys remember the old birds?

 

Jill Smith (01:29:00):
Yes.

 

Matt Handy (01:29:00):
They sit in the, okay. Is that what this is?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:29:03):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (01:29:03):
Yeah. You guys just joke about people.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:29:06):
Oh yeah. Well, not about people. I mean, sometimes it is, we have individual names for people. We're usually joking about ourselves.

 

Matt Handy (01:29:12):
For anybody that works with them, they're not joking about people.

 

Jill Smith (01:29:15):
Yeah. We're usually joking about ourselves. Really? Definitely. You know what? We make ourselves

 

Matt Handy (01:29:20):
Laugh though, right? The birds, they joke about themselves,

 

Jill Smith (01:29:23):
Right? Yeah. We're always joking and laughing. Definitely keeps, we have to do that in this field. Yeah, you do.

 

Matt Handy (01:29:29):
No, for sure.

 

Jill Smith (01:29:30):
Yeah.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:29:31):
Her sanity pretty quickly,

 

Jill Smith (01:29:32):
If not, and I'll tell you this, I love her so much. When I came on with Texas Recovery Centers, I was talking to Adam or whatever, and I wanted her. I wanted her. So there is what I

 

Matt Handy (01:29:47):
You brought her on there?

 

Jill Smith (01:29:48):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (01:29:49):
Well, or she followed you.

 

Jill Smith (01:29:51):
She graciously came. She was not working, and she was looking anyway, so she came and so

 

Matt Handy (01:30:00):
It was a twofer.

 

Jill Smith (01:30:00):
Yeah. And so one of the great things about, and while we joke a lot, is so there is no admissions line. We are admissions. There's no 800 number for people to call. We answer our phones twenty four seven. So anybody who calls looking for help, they will get one of us. So we could be, so if we're not joking all day long, we know that something is not right with us and we need to

 

Matt Handy (01:30:29):
Recalibrate. Okay. So you guys have your actual personal phone number out there somewhere?

 

Jill Smith (01:30:34):
Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:30:35):
That's everywhere. Everywhere.

 

Matt Handy (01:30:36):
Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (01:30:37):
So that's crazy, right? Like most industries, people protect their phone numbers. Do you guys get the midnight phone calls?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:30:45):
Oh yeah. Yes.

 

Matt Handy (01:30:46):
How often?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:30:48):
Oh, I don't near as often because I put my phone on sleep and I had to start doing that for myself because if not, I would start, I answer two or three o'clock in the morning and I was like, I'm not going to do that anymore. But they'll leave a message and I'll call him back.

 

Matt Handy (01:31:00):
Have you guys found that this working in this industry is hard on your marriage?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:31:03):
Oh, it is. I've been through a divorce recently because of that. He said, you quit working or we're done. So yeah, it does. It definitely takes that toll on your marriage.

 

Jill Smith (01:31:12):
Yeah. I'm not married.

 

Matt Handy (01:31:13):
How do you Well, I am, so I'm not going to say what I was going to say, but you're dodging a bullet, right? I'm once divorced

 

Jill Smith (01:31:24):
Well, I've been married, I've been divorced twice,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:31:28):
And it's hard to have a healthy relationship in this field, but it is possible for, you just have to set boundaries and be able to totally devote your time to your family. They're the ones going to be there no matter what. Yeah. And so once you lose that, I mean, you choose work over that, or you have to have a balance.

 

Matt Handy (01:31:45):
So I'm a man. You guys are women, right? So the dynamics in the relationship are different. My wife and I, we've been together for eight years. We've been married, I don't know, three something, two or three. Wait,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:31:57):
She's going to be mad that you don't.

 

Matt Handy (01:32:00):
She doesn't remember either.

 

Jill Smith (01:32:01):
Okay.

 

Matt Handy (01:32:02):
So we've been married for a while now, but we were living under that bridge together. Oh, wow. Right.

 

Jill Smith (01:32:09):
Oh, that's amazing.

 

Matt Handy (01:32:10):
Yeah. Yeah. And we have, our relationship is unique where it's like we've seen each other, each other's very worst. So now it's very easy to deal with either we don't fight at all and we just joke and have fun. But for people who are in the industry who have a relationship that's suffering because of it, what would you suggest to them?

 

Karen Wolfe (01:32:38):
That's exactly what I would do is set boundaries and learn that you have to devote certain amount of time to your kids and your family, because at the end of the day, you might lose your job, but you're not going to lose your family, and they're still going to be there for you. And any employee employer can replace you. But

 

Matt Handy (01:32:53):
What's hard

 

Karen Wolfe (01:32:53):
And will the next day,

 

Matt Handy (01:32:54):
A lot of people identify as their job,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:32:56):
And we do. We lose our identification for our job. I feel like a lot of times,

 

Matt Handy (01:33:02):
I think that's systemic. That is very typical. I think when you ask a lawyer, oh, who are you? They will say, I'm a lawyer. Right? A doctor. They are a doctor. Dr. Shaw says it all the time where it's like, I am Dr. Shaw. And I think for us, it's very hard to divorce ourself from, I'm an addict. So when we get something on the other side of it, it's like, oh, well, I'm in healthy CDC, or I'm a owner of a treatment center. It's like, but really what am I? It's like, that's not who I'm, who I, that's what I do.

 

Jill Smith (01:33:39):
That's what you do. Yes, yes,

 

Matt Handy (01:33:41):
Yes.

 

Jill Smith (01:33:43):
Well, but I am divorced. I am single. I have almost an empty nest. I have grown kids who live with me.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:33:50):
She's looking for Jack

 

Jill Smith (01:33:51):
Woo-hoo,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:33:53):
Jack and Jill. Jack and Jill.

 

Jill Smith (01:33:59):
So I have the luxury of answering my phone, and whoever is going to join me in my life needs to know. Yes, I do sometimes get lost in my identity on my job, but I am a grandmother. I am a, but also, I remember that I was calling somebody in the middle of the knot trying to get help. I don't know, in our industry, people are dying so quickly. Me not answering that phone might make a difference.

 

Matt Handy (01:34:40):
One of the conversations that we had in my organization was exactly that, and it was like the decision that we came to was 24 hour phones. And the reason why is because my executive director's in recovery, my admissions director's in recovery, I'm in recovery. And then we have people like Eric who have just, he's in recovery, and then all of us are in recovery. But we've all been in those situations where the phone call that was answered could have been the difference between us staying, I mean, can really change a lot of things.

 

(01:35:18):
And so my admissions director, I say he's our monk, right? Because he is very devoted to his religion, and he spends a lot of time at monasteries. But super intelligent guy, when you hear his story, you would never marry those two things together where it's like, this was a hardcore heroin addict from Massachusetts, and now he's just a completely different person. But because of that, we all understand how important that phone call could be. And it's like I was looking for, so when I relapsed a year and a half ago, I got out of treatment and I was looking for, before I went to treatment, I was calling treatment centers. I'm still barely getting phone calls back. A year and a half later, I got about a week ago, somebody emailed me and said, Hey, we just want to see if you ever got help a year and a half later. And I emailed him and said, you guys are fucking terrible.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:36:18):
And our voicemails are set up too. If Jill doesn't answer and she's busy, I have numbers on her phone and then her number's in mine. So they can always call Jill. If one of us don't answer, they'll call the other version.

 

Matt Handy (01:36:29):
You have it set up where there's backup. If one doesn't get answered, then they'll change to the next one. And everybody has assigned weekends and shit like that. So we're all very on top of that. But it's like how many treatment I've called? I dunno how many treatment centers. I've actually called myself a lot though. How many of 'em just go to voicemail?

 

(01:36:55):
And I get it that maybe the individual make or break the bank if that one person slips through the cracks. But it's like, what if that one person died? You might never know it. I might never know it. You guys might never know it, but

 

Jill Smith (01:37:10):
Their family does.

 

Matt Handy (01:37:11):
Is that our fault? Is that our fault for not answering the phone?

 

Jill Smith (01:37:16):
Well, no, we can't take that on, but we do need to do our part to make sure that

 

Matt Handy (01:37:22):
You individually

 

Jill Smith (01:37:23):
Oh, okay.

 

Matt Handy (01:37:23):
I mean, is that the industry's fault for being lazy? Right?

 

Jill Smith (01:37:27):
It is.

 

Matt Handy (01:37:28):
I know a lot of people that don't want to answer the phone in the middle of the night. They don't want to answer the phone anyway. It's like, this is your job. You don't want to do it. Right. It's very easy to, and burnout is a big problem in this industry. And I think that is a, organizationally, you have to fight against that. I love my executive director. He is on top of that. He'll ask people this whole thing that Eric's going through, I don't know if you know, but it was like, he was like, well, I'll do work at the hospital. It's like, no, no, you won't. Just

 

Jill Smith (01:38:05):
Family

 

Matt Handy (01:38:06):
Take the time off. And it's like, especially for people that aren't getting paid by the hour, it's like, dude, just take time off. Go handle your shit.

 

Jill Smith (01:38:15):
Yeah.

 

Matt Handy (01:38:16):
It's crazy.

 

Jill Smith (01:38:17):
Yeah. Our boss is, I wouldn't, I mean, he's like that too. He's

 

Karen Wolfe (01:38:25):
Super friendly.

 

Jill Smith (01:38:25):
Yeah. He's like, go be with your family. I had a family crisis a couple of weeks ago, and he was like, Jill, I know you try to be strong, but there are times you're going to have to turn your phone off and take some time off. I mean, for your boss to tell you this, you say, yes, sir. And it's a very healthy thing that he did.

 

Matt Handy (01:38:50):
Yeah. So I don't think that happens enough. Yeah,

 

Karen Wolfe (01:38:54):
It doesn't. It doesn't.

 

Matt Handy (01:38:56):
So treatment industries, like the Italian restaurant industry where you guys know what I mean? Okay, so there'll be a good Italian restaurant, right? It'll be like their cousins from Italy are being flown in and they've got this amazing product and their grandma works the front of the house, and then that person in the back says, Hey, we could save money if we start ordering for the United States. Or we can cut money here, or we could save money here. And then the product suffers. You see it in the ye Yelp reviews where it's like, five years ago, this was the best food ever. And now we just don't know what happened. It's like this happens in the treatment industry so much, and it gets to the point where they just try to milk every bit of work out of you guys that they can possibly fucking get.

 

Jill Smith (01:39:46):
Yeah. Ours doesn't.

 

Matt Handy (01:39:48):
Yeah.

 

Jill Smith (01:39:49):
Our boss boss stands in the gap and he advocates for us. He is absolutely amazing.

 

Matt Handy (01:39:57):
And then that's why you end up with employees that are there for 10 plus years. What's her name? She's got her daughter there and her dad, and she gave us the tour.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:40:07):
Tracy.

 

Jill Smith (01:40:07):
Tracy. Tracy, yes. Oh yeah. That's

 

Matt Handy (01:40:09):
How you end up with employees like that,

 

Jill Smith (01:40:10):
Right?

 

Matt Handy (01:40:11):
Take care of them. They'll stay, but that's not the norm you hear about. So there's a, well, maybe I shouldn't say that. Treatment centers often have turnover.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:40:23):
Oh yeah. Huge turnover. Huge. All other therapists, the ones that are more involved, like the clinical staff? Yes, definitely. But we're more outreach, so we don't have that.

 

Matt Handy (01:40:33):
Yeah.

 

Karen Wolfe (01:40:34):
Our Clinical Staff, they turn well. Any treatment facility I've been too. There

 

Matt Handy (01:40:38):
Is a treatment center that I know of. I'll say that within two months of them opening, they had had a hundred percent turnover. It was like every single person they hired quit. Okay. Guys, thank you for coming. Thank you for having us. I really appreciate your time, and let's do it again.

 

Jill Smith (01:40:58):
Yes.

 

Matt Handy (01:41:01):
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 Podcast, 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 needs help, give us a call 24 hours a day at 8 8 8 - 6 9 1 - 8 2 9 5.