Podcast Transcript
my name is Rachel Honda I’m a LCSW um and Clinical Director of some
treatment centers as well and this is my co-host my name is Jeff Conroy I own
dual diagnosis treatment centers and we’re from the street jacket podcast where we dive into mental health and
Recovery sorry okay today we had our first episode with
P um he is an interventionist a recovery coach and he owns sober livings he Al
has a huge um social media presence with Tik Tok and uh Instagram and all others
what do you think that you got most out of today’s podcast um I guess just like the correlation between mental health
and substance abuse I think he did a good job also of seeing how he could use his story to help other people and his
hot take on mat programs so enjoy this episode of the straight jacket podcast
and this is our guest PE hello everybody my name is p I’m an interventionist and
I do a lot of other things that are recovery related work with um addicts alcoholics um and people with mental
health and trying to help them find their path awesome so if you could just tell us a little bit more about um what
exactly that entails well I mean I myself have been in recovery for 16 and
a half years and um I used everything under the sun I never really got
diagnosed with mental health however I did a lot of things that should have been you know I should have
been diagnosed um so um I was intervened on by it was a family Intervention when
I was not well um and so once I got into the field of working with people that
are afflicted and addicted um I God put some people on my path that were like
just Angels they they taught me um the ins and outs of helping others and that
came with intervention and also working on the front lines in addiction treatment I’ve worked in lots of
treatment centers with Co people with cooccurring dis disorders with um you know dual diagnosis mental health
addiction alcoholism all of it so I help a lot of people I I
actually um besides doing interventions because a lot of families will call me or or loved ones like friends of of a
loved one that wants me to um help I I have some homes they are sober livings
they’re structured they are um 12-step homes but also we have all different types of people from all walks of life
that have mental health alcoholism addiction and they come from I mean from
incarceration from the streets from well-to-do families from uh mediocre
families you know like middle class families um but really like we like to get them get their lives going so
there’s a lot of work that goes into it there’s never a dull moment in my life yeah so with the interventions I’m
curious is it um like the typical intervention that you would see
on TV or do you do it differently yeah actually I was talking to Jee about it earlier so there’s many different types
of interventions lots of modalities like what you see on TV a lot of times traditionally you’ll see um they’ll go
into a room and the family has all written letters and yeah that’s called the Johnson Model so that’s like a a
certain type of intervention um there are many different types of interventions you can do a motivational
you can do an Invitational um and so depending on the case whatever I’m hired
for to do I will choose usually what I think would best fit the situation
example like if there’s a person that’s homeless on the streets for a number of years or whatever it’s really hard to
get together with a bunch of family members to come read a letter there’s no ultimatum like the person’s already on
the streets um but if the person like lives at home he’s shocked up in his parents bedroom example or I mean in his
own bedroom like doing fentanyl well that’s a whole different like conversation then like we get to come in
uh we get the families coached in advance to um come in and actually sit down with the individual and do an
allout intervention with letters the Johnson Model okay and then Invitational is sometimes um uh if if we want to do
an intervention the family will then let the individual know um hey we’ve been
talking to a professional about your issue or your problem and we’d like to actually have that person meet with us
um we’d like to openly invite you to come and sit and we can uh talk with this individual and see what we can do
for your life and your future so then the person doesn’t feel like they’re ambushed right cuz that’s what um I was
curious of like the success rate and all of that with the interventions and I know it’s controversial of like what
exactly this accessory is but it could be just certain models sure yeah I mean there’s a lot of people that think
interventions are useless like a person has to be ready when they’re ready right and and that’s usually like a lot of
12-step people think that stuff too but sometimes people need a push absolutely well another thing is is if they’re
being enabled if they’re um if somebody’s harboring an active person
with substance abuse in within their home well then sometimes it’s the family that needs to be intervened on First and
be educated and taught like the dos and the don’ts and the mistakes that they’re making and why really it’s a family
Dynamic it’s a family disease and um if we don’t fix things within the family
system then that person doesn’t have a standing chance because they’re being enabled yeah and I’ve had clients like
they come in from an intervention they didn’t want to be there initially but
then you know somewhere in the middle of treatment like it makes sense for them and then they start wanting it yeah so
um I’ve definitely seen it personally I don’t know the statistics behind behind it but um but that is the cool part I
think that’s like the most rewarding thing for me working in treatment is like seeing how quickly they change sure
and like and that can happen within days and weeks yeah yeah so for the um sober
livings what do you think is like the most challenging part for you you know the sober livings aren’t that
challenging for me I’ve been doing this for such a long time I myself got um sober in a in a recovery home that was
very very structured okay um some would view it as somewhat militant where I
went okay uh depending on you know I mean we don’t want to confuse structure
with with something that like that’s highly strict and can be seen as militant as being a bad thing for
someone when people have no life skills and when people have no structure within their own lives uh and they go down
these dark paths and they become homeless or they become incarcerated like repeat repetitively um it’s good to
have structure I think a lot of people want that so with our sober livings um
what we have is that we have people that the people that run our homes were are former residents that went through the
full program of our homes right and so like um we expect our residents to be up
in the morning beds made downstairs cooking together being together making sure that their chores get done before
9:00 a.m. and then they sit at a table and they do they pull out the recovery literature and start doing the work
whether they’re sponsors from a 12-step Community has given them work to do or they sit together and they read together
but really like they’re just engulfed in recovery from 9:00 a.m. till 12:00 p.m. and then they have lunch and then they
go um to the gym or they go and do activities or and in the evenings they go to meetings some of them go to early
morning meetings and then they do all of that but um most people that come into our homes pretty much after reading the
contract and seeing how the culture of the House Runs yeah they know what they’re walking into they fall in line
they immediately I mean they’re and some of them are repeat offenders they’ve been to countless treatment centers
countless sober livings but they come to our house and they’re like oh like we actually have to follow rules here yeah
oh like the manager not getting high in their room oh people aren’t secretly getting high and so we can see where
people are in the recovery process um along the way just based off of the type
of recovery that they are bringing into their lifestyle right yeah and so do you
have ones that are specifically for mental health or do you do mixed for all
so it’s a very good question because we are in uh in an area where lots of
people will call us from treatment centers because they have a step down client yeah um sometimes we have gotten
calls from people from primary mental health facilities MH and in the past you
know bringing somebody into our population amongst our people um I
wanted them to be involved in some like having a support group so I know that some people that have primary mental health have their own individual support
groups right but really like to bring somebody in that never really had any addiction or alcoholism problem but just
mental health into our environment it wasn’t a good mix always however um I
had so many parents that would call me and say you know our a kid like we can’t find any place to go and they they can’t
they can’t come back to our house so I started to open my doors to people that let’s say they were skitso effective
that were um medicated and actually taking their medication responsi
responsibly I started bringing them in and making special exceptions and and I asked them to keep an open mind and to
go to some of our 12ep meetings but to also do their meetings too whatever meeting they they would go for their
mental health and you know we had some major successes like PE people that um
went on to actually live a life to get their own apartment to get their own
place to get a job to uh to be active in the mainstream of life so I am more open
to it a lot of people won’t let it however we also do have people that are dual diagnosis when our within our home
right which is most very common I mean again as long as they’re medicated
whether it be for whatever bipolar or things like that then um they do just
fine in our homes there’s a guy that for the first year that he lived at our
house would pretty much we have a very large backyard would just walk the yard constantly and just yell at the sky like
yell at himself and I’d go out and talk to him be like what are you doing like who are you talking to he’s like well I mean they’re talking to me I’m like
who’s they right and he’d tell me like you know the aliens and and so I
realized and I would like work very closely with his mom to get him back to the doctor to see if he they needed to
like uh stabilize his medications and make sure that and now he’s more normal now he’s actually like going to college
wow it’s amazing it’s like he’s he’s not doing that all the time he used to actually start punching himself in the
head oh no yeah it was scary sometimes it’s just you know a different medication that they need or or they’re
not taking their medications and what think the big change was um when he kind
of went from you know talking to the sky to nor what we consider normal well the
big change was this that he’d been in our house years before and he had this
really bad habit of once he would get his car keys he would then take off and get a little bit of money from a job and
then go shoot methamphetamines which then do it it would it would intensify
his his mental health yeah drug induced psychosis is not a joke and this guy was
like entertaining The psychosis he loved it like he but but the problem is is
that he would hit a bottom pretty fast so like within two 3 4 months he’s shooting dope out of his car and he
can’t even function in everyday life at all like not mentally not emotionally not physically not in no sense so when
he came to us like I had it was me and the managers we had to constantly remind him like listen like if you don’t do
what we do here you’re going to end up back to where you’re where you were before and you know how ugly that gets
and what there’s no future in that so I think he just had like lots of reality checks lots of um you know realizations
of you know what what am I doing now he still doesn’t have his car after a year it’s almost a year he does make music on
his computer and it’s like really fascinating music I’m talking like some like uh like what kind uh electronic
yeah EDM some some hip-hop some hip-hop really good stuff he even wanted to go
to Rave recently and I told him listen we have a whole movement of sober people that go to Raves but you have to have one year sober for and I’ll go with you
personally the Consciousness tent that’s it we created that with with P them so
so um I you know he works at a sandwich shop he pays half of his rent his mom
helps him too he’s normalizing somewhat and I and we had there was a couple
times where he had to be hospitalized because he was losing his stuff we’ve had a few different residents that went
through similar stuff so he had to go be hospitalized for like 5 10 days be be
put under observation and then given medication to stabilize him and I think that’s what what really helped a lot so
would oh mind you he also worked all 12 steps that’s the ticket and I always get on him and I’m like so who’s your spon
he’s like I don’t know I’m like well they’re not going to just come to you like why don’t we go to meetings and I’ll introduce you to people I told him
why don’t you find people that also have mental health that you can relate to and
them in their process of getting better so with this particular patient what do you think comes first the mental health
or the substance abuse Mr a great question I mean the end of the day you have to depending on what type of mental
health they have you want to address that clinically and therapeutically right like you they need to see a
psychiatrist they need to be put on certain medications to stabilize I mean a person that has meth psychosis that
hears voices for weeks and months after their sober that’s it h it’s real like
that’s what’s really happening and it’s happening more and more so mental health needs to be addressed first and then we
start to get into the spiritual aspect in hey time to get a sponsor time to work the steps um just because you have
mental health it doesn’t mean that you’re immune from your past addiction problems and now why don’t we address the addiction too right because if
they’re hearing voices and they can’t even sit in a group or a meeting right
they can’t you know work on the steps in the middle of all that ex I mean they can it would just be really really
difficult really difficult and we may not get very far yeah exactly I think my next question would
would be uh how do you think the 12 Steps correlate with mental health well
I mean it says in the big book there are those to who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders but if they get
honest with themselves then they too can see this way of life so I think the 12 steps can help any
Human Being Human I mean it’s 12 steps is nothing original it’s basically
fundamental ideas that come from way back like thousands of years ago it’s
about being a better human being so we get people with mental health that then go down this path of addiction too and
they do a lot of bad things and they behave bad and they they act bad and they hurt people and they harm people
well you come into you get your mental health stabilized and then come and work the steps and go clean up the wreckage
just like any other person and majority of the people that are in our homes have some kind of mental health whether it’s
manic depressive disorder whether it’s high anxiety whether it’s um borderline
personality disorder I mean there’s a lot of I I believe there’s a lot of men that are around us the women we see a
lot of women that will openly tell you they have been diagnosed with BPD right straight up I’m actually having Gina
teresy on my show tomorrow and we’re going to be talking about that extensiv yeah but um but I think that there’s a
lot of men that are undiagnosed or have not been diagnosed for borderline personality disorder and and so that’s a
hard one to work through there’s a lot of I’ve work in in addiction treatment so there’s a lot of people that I’ve
seen over the years that are clinicians that think BPD is not curable they think
like yeah yeah I’ve heard that too and I truly believe I believe yeah I believe
I’ve known people with BPD that when they
really accept what their diagnosis is and they understand it and they can wrap
their head around it when they start to work the steps they clean up the wreckage of their past and they grow up
in you know they become older people with you might even be able to overcome your BPD like at least the symptoms that
that like hold you back in life and make you really act out and do things that that are unhealthy for you and DBT is
actually the most you know beneficial for that and it is you know the module
that Marshall inan the one who even created it is the one she is diagnosed
with BP BPD right that’s and that’s like incredible so it’s like I love DB she’s showing it you know I love DBT CBT and
um EMDR I’m a fan of it for sure I myself did a Psycho Drama when I got
sober um and that just was a GameChanger that’s what kept me sober it wasn’t even
the steps it was the Psycho Drama and you’ve have you tried EMDR I haven’t but
you know I more recently was talking to somebody in our house that found an EMDR
therapist um through a friend of mine and I’m always open to it I wouldn’t
mind it you know I think it’s I’ll take any kind of therapy I was actually like I was thinking for the last I’m 16 and a
half years sober up until 15 years I didn’t think I needed any more therapy but I started going to couples therapy
last year with my girlfriend you know and then um and then I asked that man to be my private therapist too and it
really helped and I realized like I don’t think it’s bad for a person of
what I like because I deal with a lot of people’s emotions y as an interventionist and a recovery coach
therapists need therapists yep interventionists need a therapist I think all humans can use therapy in some
capacity yeah for sure like I know when your LCS W I’m l csw so I know like and
I I thought the same thing I was like oh I don’t need to do any therapy but like during school they require you to like
get one just so you can see and then afterwards I like continued on and and
it’s true cuz you’re constantly taking on other people’s um emotions issues all
of it and so it’s like sure I am and I’m in usually the caretaker role which is
why you know I need someone to able to talk to I mean I’ve been deemed an empath throughout my life and you know
what I thought I thought I had shed my empath
wings but boy alls it takes I can just take on somebody’s emotions right away and just connect to their alcoholism
connect to their addiction connect to their sorrow their sadness whatever and then I feel like I I’ve got to be there
for them well your high emotional intelligence I mean that probably contributes to your success so that is
you know I do my best just try to do God’s work yeah daily so with your story
like how have you used your experiences and your story to help other people well
I mean I’m Persian and I was born in Germany and raised in Salt Lake City Utah for the first portion of my life so
I always felt uncomfortable with my skin because I grew up in Middle America amongst lots of white Mormon blond hair
blue-eyed people and I’m a dark skinned most Persians are like Olive skinned
right for some reason I was struck dark growing up there I got bullied I got
made fun of for my nationality for my skin color um and then on top of that my
dad was pretty violent uh I in being in that type of environment I I always was
in fight or flight and then on top of that we moved to California and when I was 17 I had this car accident um I was
Stone Cold Sober this morning okay night before I was trash drunk first like the
next day I was in the car piled all my friends into the car and I got into this gruesome car accident where I hit
somebody that was on his bicycle he was 14 I was 17 car car loaded people this kid lost his life and when he lost his
life um it was like four days later his mom took him off of life support but that was that
just made me go in circles to it it was an ultimate I was already using it drinking but this like just made an
ultimate excuse to to use heavily like heavily to the point
where I got into enough trouble as an adolescent that I found my way into the
juvenile system and then there I was in the psych portion of their there was a
an area where I went for 60 some odd days that was um I there’s things I saw that I could never erase from my mind
lots of um trauma was was in encountered
in in those happenings on top of that the trauma within the home with my father his uh abusiveness both
physically mentally verbally um so all of that is my trauma right so and I
didn’t know that and when the kid lost his life like I didn’t know how to process that and so I just used in
excess and then when I got locked up in there I became this rebellious young man that I thought I remember thinking as a
17-year-old if they think they can lock me up in here like an animal and they’re going to discipline me they got another
thing coming like I can basically Buck the system like and really what I was
doing as My Own Worst Enemy and I went throughout life with this Rebel type of
mentality became a drug user a drug dealer um parents split up didn’t want
that to happen you know as as dysfunctional as our family was I didn’t want them to split up but they split up
so I was between homes and then I wasn’t even living with any of them all my young adulthood was in my 20s was um it
just revolved around drug using drug dealing going to Raves going to clubs going to strip clubs the people I
surrounded myself with from the outside it looked really extravagant it looked
like wow P got going on but like deep within the pit of my soul there was always this sense of impending doom like
a certain sadness that I mean I knew deep down inside like I use like this to numb out so I don’t have to feel what
has happened on top of that like there was times people would come up to me and say you’re the guy that killed the kid
on the bicycle so like even that would really mess with my head and that made me angry with them and then violent with
people and um the violence that my dad incurred upon me growing up became my
character too so um if there was people that double crossed me or at least I thought they did some actually did and
some probably didn’t but even for a second like if I felt like they double cross me I would they’re my enemy like
now we it’s on and popping like we’re going to fight like straight up and if I don’t care if it has to be with my with
my Knuckles or with a gun like I’m going to go after you so I had this certain Persona and I was very lost you know and
and so even by the time I was 30 and there was more uh police interaction and
more getting incarcerated I wasn’t getting well yeah I was introduced and reintroduced to the 12-step World a
bunch of times never interested in working the 12 steps I was in sober
living at 30 I didn’t stay sober I was on probation by the time I was 35 years
old I was a homeless man and being a homeless man you know I never thought that being
a Persian man growing up in America that my parents like they didn’t think that I
would become a jailbird or this uh homeless guy like living on the streets
so the way people relate to my story is all that that I just talked about the
trauma um the loss of life um grief addiction alcoholism homelessness
incarceration how can people that I meet in recovery not relate to that yeah at
least some portion of that some portion of I’ve spoken in everything from adolescent treatment facilities to
detoxes I’ve spoken for a room full of therapists where once they hear like my story their jaws drop I’ve spoken an AA
meetings I’ve spoken in 12ep meetings and and there like people would just nod because they like understand it right
like oh yeah we did that so in doing that like I I realized that
I think everybody that’s an act of addiction or alcoholism thinks they’re unique and that nobody will understand
them because of what’s happened to them I never realized I mean I’ve never been molested myself um or been raped or or
or raped anybody yeah but like you come into recovery and like you if you stick around long enough you’ll start meeting
people that they’ll tell you some [ __ ] that you’re just like oh my God like really like I would have used over that
too yeah if somebody molested me at such a young age where I was helpless so I
hear this stuff all the time and I I just want to be a voice of reason I want to be somebody that can guide them just
like I was Guided by by spiritual like giants right people that were
professionals and people that were like in the recovery space that just they showed me the ropes of recovery and they
were devoted and dedicated to what they did and so they taught me how to become that too that’s amazing yeah I mean I’m
sure every single person can relate to some part of your story maybe not everything there’s a lot of times people
come up to me afterwards they like I relate to your story I’m like really you’re a Persian like born in Germany
raised you don’t but no but I think they they relate to the emotions yes that’s
what I mean and like I mean at the end of the day everyone wants connection and you know I think that um that has made
you resilient and that made you you know be able to connect with any kind of person absolutely so with like your
expertise I guess um and you know your experiences which one would you say are
you the most passionate about right
now I’m a recovery coachh when I do an
intervention before I even start if let’s say there’s a family that is at
their wits end with their loved one yeah I find myself coaching them in a
pre-intervention sometimes they even want more information I love talking to
families and guiding them through the process of doing what’s right
yeah so that their loved one can hopefully come on the right path but even if their loved one doesn’t at least
they can take care of themselves so they don’t have to um have those sleepless nights I I love coaching them then if I
actually help their loved one and help them get the help that they need however that may be whether I put them in
treatment or whether they go to treatment and then come to our sober living or whether they go to treatment
and go back to the respective homes in another state or town sometimes times the individual or their family
will hire me as a recovery coach okay the rewarding parts of my job as an
interventionist is when somebody gets help it’s nice that they get help that’s great it’s it’s not rewarding yet it
becomes rewarding to watch the recovery process if if that individual stays the
course and does the work and really gets on the other end of
their addiction or alcoholism and and knows the magnit of what they were causing for themselves and then through
guidance whether I’m their coach or they have another coach um or just somebody that that’s showing them like a sponsor
in AA or na or whatever um to see them really become people in recovery that
that have embraced this way of life yeah that’s what it’s all about for me that’s what it’s all about it’s
like at that point I know like that’s the real Buzz for me more than any drug
or alcohol that I have ever ever done I get I see it in our homes too like when
I see people that they’ve fallen down and bruised their legs so many times because they just couldn’t stay sober
they’ve been to countless treatment centers they’ve been locked up they’ve been homeless for years we have a guy in our house right now that was homeless
for 9 years wow nine years I ask him how were you taking a bath he’s like you
know like those gas stations where they have a little spout with water and air like I would ask the guy late at night
if I could just go do a bird bath I’m like whoa must be nice to be in a house where you can take a shower and like
sleep in a comfortable bed but like I see Miracles every single day and when I see these guys come and completely
transform their lives guys and girls and you know I it’s like it’s what I live
for and so I hope that answered your question because it’s very rewarding and with the recovery coach um you’re
teaching them like the life skills and how to get everything back too right sure with recovery coaching uh let’s
just be clear recovery coaching is not a paid sponsor not working the steps with
some some guy or girl yeah and charging him they have that separately sponsor I
actually what I do is try to help them find someone in their community that can
be a sponsor with a working knowledge of whatever book They’re reading whether it’s smart recovery or refug Refuge
recovery or 12ep recovery I’m a a guide for them to and then an accountability
coach a person that’s like oh you haven’t been going to your meetings that’s not even what we’re supposed to
be doing here yeah you’re supposed to be going to your meetings and how about this you go to those meetings and you get a commitment have you talked to the
Secretary of the meeting how about showing up early and talking to people how about going and talking to a person at the meeting that looks like they’re
dying inside and they’re really alone and go up and introduce yourself to them so you get out of your self and make
that person feel wanted or needed or cared about that’s the type of stuff that’s going to help you and along the
way sometimes people that I coach will relapse and they think I’m going to like come and scold them no like right here
to here help let’s yeah let’s get you the help again do you think you need to go back to treatment no you want to do
it on your own no problem let’s get you back to becoming accountable and then also affirmations things like that a lot
of people think that they’re just worthless they’ve been told so many things throughout their lives that they
believe like they’re they’ll never amount to anything I’m all about positivity I want to fill people’s
hearts up and let them know that not only are they important and I want to empower you to know that you are an
amazing human being but we need you we need you to continue being more and more amazing so down the line when we have
other people that feel like they’re not that amazing you be there for them and we do this thing like a butterfly effect
and we connect through suffering through suffering absolutely yeah that’s beautiful like the more clinical aspect
of everything what do you how do you feel about uh like Matt
programs a very uh I know that’s a that’s it’s controversial I mean listen I’m
controversial I’m GNA tell you this right now I’m not a fan like I’m not down for methadone clinics that keep
people on methadone for long periods of time I feel like they’re lifeless they’re not able to live their lives to
their fullest extent I understand that it’s preventing them from going back to doing harder drugs and I’m not a I’m not
really a fan of long-term M uh maintenance like ma like subox I I am
a supporter of sublate I love sublate people can come to my
house on sublate if they’ve got a doctor with a doctor’s plan to get off of the suade and guess what in most cases from
what I understand when someone’s on sublate once their dosage is taken down per month they don’t even withdraw yeah
they they don’t even kick this is amazing right so there’s your golden opportunity for all the people that I
mean listen I’ve had pissing matches with people because I have a really large Tik Tok following and the harm
reduction Community loves to come after me and guess what I go right back after them because if you want me to
understand your movement I would I would and respect it I would hope that you would respect my movement right for me
personally I do not think that God put human beings on Earth I’m a God guy and
I didn’t used to be a god guy I was like an anti-god guy but I don’t think that he put people on Earth to become
addicted to a drug and then overcome their addiction with another drug that’s just me that’s what I think so like in
our homes we do not support Suboxone maintenance we don’t want people to be on Subs we want people to actually um
overcome that most people that I know that have had an extensive history with
Matt that were on mat for years get to a point in their life where they’re either a ticking time bomb that once they
actually decide I don’t want to be on Matt anymore they’ll either go do heroin or fentanyl again or
opiates taking time bomb because they really haven’t addressed the core issue within or they get to a point where
they’re like I want to get off subs and I don’t want to be dependent on them anymore I just don’t and that’s where I
believe the Real Recovery begins now people in the harm reduction Community will ostracize me for saying this stuff
like what there’s you need to respect all Paths of recovery I do I do you know what if you smoke weed and you don’t do
Heron anymore and that’s your harm reduction for your own personal development and your own whatever you’re
doing for your recovery more power to you smoke the weed like do it if you want to you want to stay on subs for 10
years if that’s your get down and that’s your recovery and you call yourself sober great that’s your sobriety as a
recovery coach when we do get trained we have been taught to respect people’s
version of their recovery so if I’m a recovery coach for
somebody um I’m going to if they they’re sober but they still are on mat I will
respect that however over a period of time I will introduce my ideology of what I believe
in not what I think they have to do for themselves but what where I stand with it for my own recovery and if that’s
something that they want to do eventually great if they want to stay on mat let them um I just know I’ve a lot
of people say p but the data like if you really like study the data and see like the way
um more people are staying off of the heavy opiates because they’re on mat I
tell them that’s nice you can go ahead and come at me with all the data that you have but how about this
evidence-based from P’s eyes and P’s experience from what I’ve seen the majority of the people that remain on
mat or on are depending on mat for me I believe it’s a Band-Aid they don’t want to actually go through the pain of
coming off of it or they think they can’t actually get abstinence based recovery because they want to remain on
that and not experience what many of us are experiencing but again to each their own whoever wants to do it can do it so
that’s why it can become controversial it’s a controversial one honestly yeah I think with uh I mean I’ve seen the worst
withdrawals from Methadone I don’t bad listen to the point where I’ve seen
people coming like that are getting detox off of methodone it looks like they need an exorcism it’s
ugly the demons are coming out still open honestly the methodone not going
away no and I mean yeah makes too much money for that right I mean it kind of pisses me off to see people in methodone
clinics that are being taken to the highest dosage like 120 or something like that but then later on when they
come to deto they’re a 240 milligrams come on yeah come on like what’s going
on there doesn’t make sense but I love that you’re a God
guy 12 steps for that yes it does um I mean that does help and
you’re showing that in different ways well thanks as far as with like people
that you’ve helped um are there is there any like individual that um really
sticks in your mind or story or situation there’s so many um
I I’ve again I’ve seen Miracles I have seen people that have been home for
countless years that um you would never expect to see them normalize and get
better I have seen people that uh that have gone on to write books uh
seen people that were living like mutants on the streets of skidrow um
where you would never think this person’s going to be able to put words together go back and like to a PhD
program and become like a therapist a psychologist a doctor like this is
amazing like I have seen um I’m just you know I I’ve seen people
that have it’s been impossible at least it seemed for them to be able to put
together any substantial amount of sobriety time that have then not
only finally gotten sober and embraced sobriety as a way of life but go back
and help countless people men women transgender so many different types of
people that I’ve seen that have really really taken this thing by the horns and
completely transformed it’s what it’s all about I believe when people do that
I mean if you want me to get spiritual like really deep I believe we’re all Mystics um I believe that within every
one of us there’s a soul and obviously there’s an ego and the ego can take you in many different directions that is more um third dimensional but
when we actually tap into the fourth dimension within our soul um that love that’s within then we can go out and we
can do amazing things and that means ego deflation reduction of ego ego has so many different layers um
but that’s why I became a god guy because I realized that for me um I came
into recovery looking for a God that was never really lost so like I was the one that was lost and all those times that I
was in very tight situations throughout my life um I would only seek any kind of
power to save me when I was desperate why not just seek the power in all
situations right and that’s that’s what happened for me so I believe that um
believe we all have this ability to be able to help and so I see so many miracles and and that’s what I I try to
do my girlfriend and I have two different approaches you know my girlfriend so she is able to talk to
people in a different way than what I I was kind of brought up in more of a rigid fashion I’ve calmed it down a lot
like I I must say in the last few years especially with her help and and just watching how she is with people she
doesn’t upset them I would sometimes upset people because I was in environment where um people would bruise
my ego right so but now I realize like um it’s not what I’m saying it’s how I’m
saying it right so I’ve I I believe that um when I really come from a place of
love and try to empower and let people know that some of their behaviors are unacceptable I could say calmly without
like going at them um but to show them like how they’re setting their themselves up for disaster why don’t we
try this and if they really if they absolutely don’t want to and they’re fully in their their disease or their
alcoholism or their addiction then I just kindly tell them yeah they’re not listening anyways you got to go like
it’s just time why don’t you go I mean I don’t want you to go test the waters of fentanyl some more but it looks like you’re already in relapse mode mhm and
what does your girlfriend do exactly she helps with so my girlfriend she actually helps me run my women’s house oh okay
she’s also sober on March 7th will be six years and she helps countless people
she herself uh was caught up in the CPS system her kid was taken away from her
for a while because she was an active addiction before she actually got sober when she got sober it took a lot for her
to be she didn’t think she was going to be able to have her kid back in her life she has all of her kids back in her life so the really good thing is that that
she helps countless women that are going through CPS cases by relating to them by
letting them know by giving them Hope by being a voice of reason by being support
so she sponsors lots of them she she’s just amazing you got to have herun a yeah I love that yeah is there is there
anything just just along the lines of kids and stuff is there anything uh that advice that you would give parents for
the youth H I give a lot of advice to parents for the Youth how about this I don’t know if
you know like my Tik Tok blew up during pandemic so I’ve got lots of kids and
parents that find me and ask me lots of questions kids are curious curious
because they’re a lot of them are in experimental phase some of them are full-blown addicts and then I got
parents who’ve got kids that are young that they’re really concerned about and I’ve got parents who have
children but they’re not really children anymore that are older but are acting like kids yeah right um because they
never really developed because they’ve been stuck and stunted in their spiritual mental emotional development
because of the drugs um I always I watch my girlfriend and
how she raises her kids it’s polar opposite style of what my parents raised
me as I believe that parents should be very loving parents should not be
secretive and parents should be open-minded and understanding and not um
come with punitive uh reactions to their kids understand that kids are going to
go down certain paths and do certain things um but I believe that parents should
really not stigmatize addiction not stigmatize their kids for even being curious because it’s out there and kids
are going to be exposed to many different things I think that if parents are more you know
open with their kids and not secretive and not trying to brush things under the under the rug then they’re going to get
farther with their kids than if they constantly punish them or make them feel
small that’s true that’s one thing that I’ve kind of noticed like as far as the youth goes these days is like mental
health has been very normalized I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing really you know I
think it probably both a little bit of both well here’s another thing
a lot of people that get diagnosed with certain type of mental health disorders that becomes their identity because they
think that’s who they are that’s the truth some people are misdiagnosed some people need to be rediagnosis
mental health facility in South County I sent a lot of people to them their therapist will uh meet with
the client and actually see if that individual really has that disorder and
then sometimes if they don’t then they if they if they deem that they don’t then they will change their medications
and try to address it from they do narrative therapy there which is amazing to me like I and it lives up to its name
right changing the narrative what of what your ideology is of yourself and your life and your family system and all
that stuff um there’s a lot of people that have mental health that when it becomes their
identity so they think seen that then they we the individual will weaponize their mental health and come at you with
you can’t do that to me because this is what I’ve got and really like um it’s
become more popular like I know 20 30 years ago a lot of the mental health
disorders that have been named a certain something right now were they didn’t even have a name for it back then or it
was called something completely different like bipolar you know was it’s
it’s taken form and become many different things um I I believe that
mental health is there I also sometimes believe that
um some people have made up more than what it really is within themselves and I know I’ll probably get ostracized for
saying that too but I’ll say this you know I I think that um I because I went to the place where I
went I often see when a kid is completely spoiled and growing up in a
certain type of family system where they’ve gotten everything given to them once it’s not given to them anymore
then they go into this depressive mode and my old counselor used to say doesn’t
sound like you have this mental health disorder it sounds like you’re suffering from spoiled rotten brism right because
you’re not getting what you want so now suddenly you’re depressed because you’re used to getting what you want and so we
we want to make sure like um we can distinguish between what’s real mental health because I know what real mental
health is when somebody’s medications are off or they’re in a full manic State
um I’ve seen I’m sure you’ve seen I’m sure you’ve seen that too um that as
opposed to person that’s just sad on certain days because they’re not getting what they want like they
experienced a breakup or job loss or or um somebody’s like looking at them in a
meeting but then they can’t get their number so they go into this deep depression because they’ve already imagined what their kids are going to
look like I’m depressed now yeah now I’m depressed and that’s just like difficulty dealing with emotions sure so
that can that’s insecurities that’s you know that’s inadequacies everything that all humans go through or majority yeah
it seems like something that we kind of like will put the blame on sure in the society sure the whole thing it’s
interesting the way the whole thing ties together with like medications and like mental health and like kids and then you
see like statistics and it’s like you know they say that America has more they struggle with more mental health right I
mean let’s be real here how many how many people that go to treatment um because of what they say when they first go in they get medicated right and then
overmedicated oh yeah it’s it’s it’s not a myth like and then they didn’t even have that diagnosis they didn’t have the
diagnosis or they’re just like how many people do you see that get put on the cakil or uh many different types of
medications that suddenly make their weight go up or um a lot of them for
depressive disorder they’re put on certain medications and then they don’t want to be on the meds after a while
they don’t like the fact that they have this um diagnosis or um their meds are
off or they take themselves off the meds and then they really lose their stuff why is that because they’ve now
developed a dependency for the medication that’s supposed to stabilize them and so when they suddenly take
themselves off then they lose their [ __ ] and we’ve seen it I mean I’ve seen it a lot right I’ve literally worked in
centers where um you would see somebody that had high acuy mental health that
knew the termin ology I’m talking to the point where 911
was called and when they came this person’s punching themselves in the face saying I need a higher level of care
they knew to say they need a higher level of care as if this was something that’s been repetitive in their in their
style of they’ve been to lots of different facilities and and institutions and things like that they
know what to say they know the terminology and they also know what not to say there’s people that straight
up probably need to be 51 50 because they’re acting out a certain way or 50250 but the second the cat team gets
there or the second exactly how to talk their way out of it they they can normalize in the
moment because they don’t want to go they don’t want to go to the psy W this time some people want to go to the psych W some people make new friends in the
psych W right so what would you say would be like your message that you want
to give to people who are um either you know have mental health issues or with
substance use so help is
available as an interventionist I’ve been trained to help people with mental health too I have to meet people where
they’re at a lot of times um depending on certain substances too
if somebody’s an alcoholic it’s going to be a different intervention than a fentanyl intervention yeah meth
interventions are the most interesting my meth interventions can take up to months especially if they’re
in psychosis in psychosis for sure it’s never a Sure Shot when it comes to meth but I’ve seen a lot
of Miracles happened just with meth cases people that were so shot out screaming at the sky uh you would think
they they’ll never get better actually get to a point in their life where once
you have their surroundings under control then they will come into the path I’ve seen that too the messages is
that everyone can get well yeah everybody can get well I don’t care if
they’ve been homeless for years I’m not the one that’s going to be able to always do it I’m not a miracle
worker okay sounds like it I’ll do my very best yeah but I think that people
can get well in their own time and sometimes they never get well but I think everyone can right so I don’t want
people to ever give up hope like never give up hope seek professional help you know it
doesn’t necessarily have to be me I have my own YouTube channel know I talk about this stuff all the time I don’t expect people to my phone rings constantly it’s
already rang like six times while this podcast but
um seek professional help but make sure that you’re finding people that really it’s their expertise and they they know
how to deal with certain populations you do not want someone to try to help someone with mental health that has no
compassion with somebody for somebody with mental health yes you don’t like you just don’t you you don’t want
somebody that’s going to harm someone um by saying certain things um that are
derogatory or uh might sound like they’re talking down to them now when it
comes to people that are in psychosis they’re already going to think everyone’s against them anyway right so
compassion find people that can help people that really really I think most people lots of
people can be a good judge of character by sitting down or just talking like even after this today I’m going to be
getting on a zoom conversation with the family that that they don’t have a lot of money but they want to help their
loved one I’m going to sit and talk to them and usually when I have these conversations they they get a feeling
like they’re talking to somebody that they can trust right because they can because I I’m not here with any kind of
U motive agenda yeah agenda I I want to be able to help your kid and you know what if I don’t think I’m the one that
can help your kid I’ll tell you that right but I’ll also tell you what you can do to help yourself too I think um
people get so caught up in uh becoming codependent for the one who is suffering that they don’t realize how
bad they’re suffering and how bad it’s like ruining them and I think there’s a certain Freedom that comes with
overcoming your own codependency and just accepting things for what they are you know sometimes just because your kid
happens to be example we had a lady who her son
is schizo effective morning noon and night highly depressive and she she
constantly was in hopes of him being fixed and he just it wasn’t his time yet I do think that that guy eventually will
get to a point where he will be able to get the help that he needs and hopefully transform and change his life but I
would tell her how about this stop focusing on him you’ve got a plethora of other people over here that you could be
of service to that could be like your son because there’s other guys in the house that are more normal and like and
she’s like I’ll bring them Persian food she was a Persian lady I’ll bring them Persian food in this and that I’m like they would love it MH look at them as
your other Sons try to see if is the glass half full or half empty like just because your blood and flesh is not
doing well right now there’s other people that God is putting in your path try to help them out and within time God
will hopefully put your son in a position where he can get the H that he needs that’s a good way to look at it
because yeah I mean otherwise she’s going to deteriorate her own mental health in the
process so that is very difficult yeah what would be like I don’t know your
biggest Legacy you want to [Music] leave I mean I you know
what my greatest Mentor his name was cak afar he was a man that I met when I was
30 and wanted nothing to do with because I ended up at his house and I did not stay at his house he was all about
recovery mysteriously Spirit of the universe at the age of 35 almost 36 I
ended up a doorstep of another house that he had which was his recovery home that man taught me the ins and outs
of recovery he showed me how to be a man of recovery how to have integrity how to do what’s right he was a pure human
being former heroin addict former bank robber that never got busted that was kind of amazing to me wow but but he was
my hero one of my heroes one of my greatest mentors teachers and I got the honor and privilege to work alongside
him and run groups in his house and all that he passed away he was on his
deathbed um last year I watched him take like gasping for his last
breaths and everybody in the room was crying and I was crying but I went and I I was like kind of scared to hold his
hand I but I did it was very frail it was he was a shell of human in those last moments right in one instance I
heard it like his voice in my head say h no matter what and he used to always say this and I hear a lot of people in
recovery says we die when we die we die
sober continue to keep doing what you’re doing and helping people with no
expectation with no recognition with no validation you don’t need to show this
stuff off just go out there and do God’s work and if I continue to
keep doing this there will be a few there are a few now and a few more that
might continue to keep doing that so that we help the next one I don’t want my name attached to it I’m not into like
the legacy of my uh Lifeline or or you know what I mean like my lineage or
anything like that I don’t care about that stuff if anything I just if I’m a memory in anybody’s mind it would be
that I could be somebody that tried to help them at some point even if they HED my guts because I have got a lot of enemies but that’s okay too I I just
want to keep helping and I hope that others that come after me will keep helping too because there’s a lot of
people that need a lot of help right so we just need to be there for them yeah that’s why I was like I don’t know how to word this Legacy but I mean
it’s true it’s whatever you’re leaving behind do the recovery Legacy yeah exactly
yeah Jeff you have anything uh no nothing I really appreciate you coming on the show thank you for having me on
here thank you it’s a honor and a privilege to be on your very first episode I
know thank you so much thank you guys very very much
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