Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - They Thought It Was Just Xanax—Now They’re Dead | Richard Taite

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

What if the drug killing an entire generation is hiding in plain sight? 💊I sit down with Richard Taite — world-renowned addiction recovery expert and founder of Carrara Wellness & Spa in Los Angeles — to unpack the fentanyl epidemic, the rise of ketamine therapy, and what President Trump is doing to fight back against this growing crisis.We discuss why fentanyl is now the #1 killer of young adults, how celebrities and veterans are getting caught in addiction, and what actually helps when someone you love is spiraling — and why there’s still hope, even in the darkest moments.Thank you to our sponsors!GEVITI: Use code "ALEX" to get 20% off of your first purchaseCOWBOY COLOSTRUM: Use code “ALEX” for 25% OFFJOOVV: Get an exclusive discount on your first red light therapy orderPALEOVALLEY: Use code ALEX for 15% off your first orderCOZY EARTH: Use code "ALEX” for 40% offUTZY: Use code "ALEX" to save on their 'Mangositol' drink mixOur Guest:Richard TaiteRichard's Links:IGWebsiteCarrara Treatment and Wellness Spa👗 Get Alex’s freshest fashion picks and exclusive guest recommendations—delivered straight to your inbox!Sign up for the newsletter HERE:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠WEEKLY NEWSLETTER SIGNUP⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW ALEX:Instagram |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @realalexclark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @cultureapothecary⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @realalexclark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @yoalexrapz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @RealAlexClark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcast |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join the Cuteservatives Facebook group to connect with likeminded friends who love America and all things health and wellness!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the CUTEservative Facebook Group!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to ‘Culture Apothecary’ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. New episodes drop 6pm PST/ 9pm EST every Monday and Thursday.

If you're on pain medication for longer than five to seven days, it's got you. You don't have it. Doctors have one week of addiction, treatment, education, and medical school. Every fifth or sixth pill has a lethal dose of fentanyl in it. So it really is Russian roulette. What do you say to the mom who knows that her child is using but doesn't know how to help them? If you don't know how to help your child and you know he's using, then you're going to his funeral. You better call for help.

Fentanyl is now the number one killer of Americans aged 18 to 45. Not cancer, not car crashes, not taking your own life. One pill can take your child, your friend, your partner, and they might not even know what they took. Today we're tackling the growing popularity of ketamine therapy, the fentanyl crisis, celebrity addiction, luxury rehab facilities, why veterans are falling through the cracks and what President Trump is doing about all of this. Plus, what really works when someone you love is spiraling with addiction. My guest is Richard Tate, a nationally recognized addiction recovery expert, founder of the world-renowned, Cliffside Malibu, and now Carrara Treatment Wellness and Spa. He's helped celebrities, veterans, and everyday families navigate the darkest corners of addiction and find real recovery. This conversation is life-saving and fascinating. And if you're a parent or you know someone who is struggling, you need to hear this. I'd love if you could first pause this episode, leave a five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It takes literally five seconds or less and greatly impacts the show. And my amazing team who works so hard behind the scenes on it.

Every episode is available to watch on YouTube by subscribing to real Alex Clark or on the Culture Apothecary Spotify, which offers video. Please welcome addiction specialist, Richard Tate, to Culture Apothecary. CDC data found that between April of 2019 and April of 2021 fentanyl poisoning was the leading cause of death for Americans 18 to 45. It was not cancer. It was not car accidents. It was fentanyl. But you've said that people who are overdosing and dying from fentanyl are typically just unlucky. They're not even addicted. So what does that even mean? fentanyl is killing people that don't typically use fentanyl because the fentanyl users that use fentanyl have a tolerance for it. Right. And,

And so what's really happening is you'll go to the rave, you'll go to the party, you'll go to the bar, and you'll be given something from a friend. You take half a pill and you die. And the reason you die is because you don't have any tolerance for it. Okay. So the A students are dying on the weekend, the high school students, the college students. This is who's really dying. And what we're seeing is kids are dying from one pill.

It could be the first time that they've ever taken anything is just one pill that they're popping and then they're dying. Is there any way to tell what is real and what isn't real? I mean, kids that are taking drugs, like, how do they know, how is it that they're accidentally taking fentanyl? First of all, you never take fentanyl. Fentanyl is to be given if you're giving birth. It's fast acting and not long lasting. Okay. This is why you use fentanyl under the supervision of a physician.

it's not for end users. The way you know it's fake is if you don't get it from a doctor, from a pharmacy, and not an online pharmacy. The online pharmacies are killing everybody. Any drugs that you get on the street and any drugs you get from an online pharmacy, you can assume are laced with fentanyl. And it is about 70% of the time. What are online pharmacies?

How are they killing people? Well, online pharmacies are a breeding ground for the cartels. So they're selling on online pharmacies, fake pills. So people think that they're getting what, for example? People think they're getting a percocet, a percadan, a Vicodin, whatever they think they're getting. And it could be fentanyl? Yes. And is this not regulated at all?

Well, it is now with the Halt Act that the president just put in. What is the Halt Act that the president just put in? It's genius. Let me tell you what the fentanyl president did. And I call him the fentanyl president. okay what he did was he signed into law an act that basically changes first thing it did was it made it a schedule one uh drug which is the highest you can get the second thing it did was the precursor chemicals every time you change one little ingredient to a pill the law no longer applies so what he did was he enveloped this law

so that when the dealers change one little ingredient, but it's basically the same drug, it's you're still, you're still going to jail. The, I think it was 10 years that it's now mandatory. If you're selling fentanyl and you kill somebody. Okay.

And, and just so you know, these aren't overdoses. These people are being murdered. This is poison. Okay. When you give something to someone that they're not bargaining for,

you're being poisoned. If you die, you're being murdered. So let's call it what it is. Do you think addiction is a disease, a choice? So I just wrote a book that's coming out in a couple weeks called Transcendence. And it's going to redefine what drug addiction really is. See, drug addiction right now is a sentence. They call it a disease.

It really isn't. Okay. You can go ahead and thrive in the world after drug. drug addiction. Okay. You can. And when you talk about a disease, what you're really doing is you're asking God all day long to help you stay sober. Now, I've got a great relationship with God. People laugh at me about the pipeline. Okay. But I don't ask God all day long to help me stay sober. That's not an issue. I've completely transcended that. Okay. So I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. It's just if I have a glass of wine and I start to feel a little bit,

I don't have the, oh, if a little is good, more is better. I don't have that thing anymore. So I'll push the wine aside and go, oh, that feels nice, right? At the very beginning, that is transcendence. It's the polar opposite of the disease model. And it's, again, It's like we were talking about earlier before the show. It's all about common sense. Where are kids buying pills online? I mean, are kids under 18 getting access to pills online? They're getting it from Snapchat.

That's where this thing is happening. TikTok. They're praying on our children. It's not just human trafficking. It's not just that. Okay. It's all of it. When you have children, you have to be really on it and watch with these kids

are involved in. You've spoken to so many families who have lost children to fentanyl. What's one of the most heartbreaking stories you've heard? The most heartbreaking story I've heard is the story that got me back to work after a five-year non-compete. I treated an entire family.

And my favorite had seven years sober. He got into a car accident. A doctor put him on pain medication for two months. By the way, if you're on pain medication for longer than five to seven days, it's got you.

You don't have it. And doctors have one week of addiction, treatment, education, and medical school. They know less than nothing, which is why when people say, well, I got it from the doctor, no, you have to be your own advocate

for health now. This is the world we're living in. And now the kid gets cut off by the doctor. and back in my day, you could doctor shop. You could go and go to this doctor and that doctor and all this other stuff, okay? Today you can't because all the systems talk to each other.

So he's cut off and now he's detoxing. He's sick and he needs to get well. He went and got one pill, one. He's on the street. He takes one pill. He slumped over in less than a minute over his steering wheel and dead. And I went.

I went insane. I went insane. And that coupled with the fact that I'm a father and I'm scared to death about my children. So I felt like I was going to be punished. Like something bad would happen to my children. Like happened to my boy. Okay? And that was too much for me.

That's why I came back to work and started the We're Out of Time podcast to raise awareness of fentanyl. is nothing more unnatural in the world than bearing your child. It's not something anybody gets through. It's not something that anybody gets over. It will destroy your entire family forever, forever. So get on it. Why is the border so critical in this crisis?

What is not being said to the media? You know, look, again, the fentanyl president's doing it all right. Okay, and listen, he is the fentanyl president. He's mentioned fentanyl more times in his first hundred days than the last two presidents combined. The border is so important. And the reason the border is so important is because China, who is the most buttoned down country, the most surveilled country in the world, they knowingly are letting fentanyl precursors go to Mexico, where you've got an Hispanic in a hazmat suit.

I'm not being hyperbolic with an ore, right, in a vat, and they're doing this, and then they pour it in the pill mills. So every fifth or sixth pill, I think, has a lethal dose of fentanyl in it. So it really is Russian roulette. Yeah, I was just going to say that's Russian roulette. That is exactly correct. Every time you take it, I mean, you could die. It's not if, it's when. Yeah.

It's when you're going to die. And I want to tell you something about the kids. people ask me all the time, how do I talk to my children? And I tell them, if you have to ask how to talk to your children about this, you're not the one to talk to your children about this. Because when you become a parent for the first time, you want to get down on your child's level. Put your phone away and connect, right?

If you don't start with that foundation and then at the very least now, if you haven't, put your phone down and connect with your smart. children, okay, then you're not going to build that trust. They're not going to listen to you. My children listen to me. They listen to their mother. We've been attuned to their needs before they knew they even had a need as a child. And that builds trust. So if you have to ask and I'm not talking about asking for the know-how of doing it. But even if you're, even if you have to ask, it's like, why would you have to ask? how to have a conversation with your children about something that's messy.

I mean, what age do you think you should start talking about drugs? Oh, I started talking to my kids about it at six. So how does that conversation sound like? How do you bring a conversation like that up? I'll tell you exactly what I said to my children and what I always say to my children. I tell them that I'm absolutely in love with them and not to co-sign somebody's bad behavior. I'll tell you what I told my kid last year when I was taking them at school.

as I'm letting him out of the car, I said, hey, buddy, I need to tell you something real quick. And he said, what is it, Daddy? And I said, you can never take a pill from anybody. He said, Daddy, we've talked about this a hundred times. I said, I know, pal. But you're going into sixth grade today for the first time. You're going to middle school.

And I want to tell you how it's going to happen. Someone's going to offer you a pill. or a powder or a vape because it's in the vapes. And they're going to do that. And the reason they're going to do it is because they need somebody to co-sign their bad behavior to make them less wrong. But you know it's wrong.

So don't co-sign anybody's bad behavior, okay, buddy? Because it's not something I can get over. I love you. You're the only son I have. And he said, okay, Daddy, I love you. That's how you talk to your child. It's just an ongoing conversation. It's bringing this up frequently.

It's not one and done. It's throughout their life reminding them. Early and often, these kids don't even have a front, their frontal cortex developed yet until they're like, what, 23, 25 years old. So you're basically walking around with brain damage and you think you're indestructible. Okay? And that's a bad combination now.

You don't trust your doctor. Tell me something. that will actually shock me. Let me introduce you to Jevity, the only health company that doesn't suck. They show up at your house, at your house with a real live phlebotomist. That's somebody that takes your blood like a biohacker hitman. And then you get a full workup. They'll look at over 90 biomarkers. They'll give you supplements custom made for your jacked up cortisol levels and anti-aging protocol so good you're going to look like your own illegitimate child. You get access to real hormone therapies, advanced gut tests, peptides, all the good stuff without having to sneak around

a CrossFit gym and buy it from a guy named Kyle with a neck vein that never relaxes. And here's the kicker. The $129 a month, for that price, you're getting what a celebrity wellness guru gets, but you didn't have to join a Colton Malibu. Go to gogevity.com, use code Alex. That's gogevity.com with code Alex for 20% off your first month and skip the wait list. Most snack bars on the market are basically candy bars wearing a Patagonia vest. They say gluten-free, non-GMO, plant-based, and then they hit you with 32-gris. grams of sugar and a gutache that feels like an exorcism. You need to try paleo Valley's superfoods. These are actual functional snacks loaded with over eight superfoods and grass-fed bone broth protein

so your bones don't snap like cheap chopsticks when you stand up too fast. They're nutrient dense, not nutrient adjacent. This isn't a bar pretending to help your body. It is showing up with receipts, minerals, antioxidants, and bioavailable protein that your muscles actually recognize as food. That's very important. And the red velvet flavor? Oh my gosh. It tastes like dessert in heaven. Your skin is going to be better. Your brain sharper, your mood. Well, still unhinged. I mean, look at me, but now unhinged with stable blood sugar. Go to paleovalley.com slash Alex. Use code Alex for 15% off. That's paleovalley.com slash Alex code Alex. What is going on with our veterans? Why are so many veterans falling through

the cracks? You know, right now we're taking veterans right off the street and we're putting into treatment. I've been treating the veterans for 17 years without a contract. Three people at all times for free. And we just got a contract. So now I'm really on it. And now I can afford to treat more veterans. We hired a CEO to scale to a thousand beds because I want to treat a thousand veterans a month. That's what I want. And then put them through outpatient. Who's mostly on the street right now? Is it, is it Afghanistan veterans, Iraq veterans, or older? That's a great question. I never ask. Oh, you don't ask. I don't ask. If you're a veteran, I love you. Yeah. Okay. I don't need to know which war you fought it. Okay. But I will tell you this. It's a national security issue because you can't have people on

sidewalks in encampments and then have people sign up for a voluntary military. Oh, because people are like, this is my future if I do this. That's exactly right. And even though, even though right now the president has got a big campaign to increase our military, our voluntary and military, doing great. Okay. But over time, this is going to become a problem. But I'll tell you what the biggest problem is right now with the military.

I also treat the active military and 40% of the active military is coming in on fentanyl and half of these people swear on a stack of Bibles that they've never used it. Where's it coming from? It's coming from China and Mexico.

But how's it getting into them? Well, up until just recently it's been crossing the border. You mean because they're taking some other drug? They don't think it's fentanyl. That's why they're saying I've never taken this. Okay. 40% of them say they've never taken fentanyl

but they're on like a percocet or a Xanax or whatever they are and they're laced with fentanyl. Okay. There is a problem with getting your military fighting force, the best fighting force in the history of the world, loaded on fentanyl. Right? That's a China thing, man. Okay? That's how they want it. Because they're getting their drugs through these online places instead of through a doctor or what?

Because through the street, through dealers, through online, doesn't matter where they're getting it. The part that bothers me is the readiness of our military when they're infiltrating our military with fentanyl. I think that is one of the biggest dangers to natural security that we have today. Is there a special way to go about treating a veteran who's struggling with addiction as opposed to like somebody else? On our website, on the One Method Center website, in the navigation bar, we have a whole protocol for actually treating the veterans

and it's comprehensive and it's soup to nuts. So that's the type of thing that will completely eradicate the fentanyl use in our military, for sure. Are there signs that parents should be looking out for

in their kids before it's too late? Yeah. If you look at your kid and he looks faded, or not normal, right, then start drug testing him immediately. And then he needs a therapist immediately, immediately. And really, you know, it's even almost past that. It depends on your kid.

You know, these are things that no one's growing out of anymore. Okay. Because they're dying. So you really have to get your kid into a top-notch treatment facility right away, right away, or at least consult the facility to see where your child is in that arc, right? The kid took one pill, okay, but the problem is you never know what they're taking because kids always defend their right to drink and use. That's just the way it works. Any person who's using drugs or alcohol excessively will defend their right.

their right to drink and use. Okay, so let's say you've got a kid, you're talking about one pill, for example, or like they get busted sneaking out and going to one party. I mean, is that kid, are you putting your kid in rehab? My kid?

Yeah. My kid's going to rehab the next day. Even just one time being at a party drinking underage? Absolutely. Really? Absolutely. Because if you go to my rehab, if you go to Carrera or one method,

that's three years of therapy in 30 days. So in what universe, are you not a different person once you've had three years of therapy thrown into 30 days. Right, but I'm just, and I'm just playing devil's advocate for some parents listening of teenagers is like, okay, who of us didn't go to like a house party and just have like a couple beers or whatever? Oh, my mom found out.

I guess like, how do they know the severity with their child? Like, do I really have to spend the money to put them in a treatment center just for being a teenager and doing that? That's different, I think, than like, oh, my kids, you know, recreationally like pop and Xanax bars. Okay. Well, there's no, there is no money involved. Okay. You can, you can have an HMO insurance policy.

And for $250 to $500 deductible, you're going to get 30 days of free treatment. Okay. So the money thing is just, thanks for bringing that up because the viewers don't know that. But there is no waiting anymore. That's the thing. Look, if you love your children, then you don't risk it. There's nothing bad that's going to happen. if you put your child into a treatment facility where they're going to get scared straight,

listen, the best medically assisted treatment that you can possibly get is top-notch treatment. Top-notch, because what it does is it ruins you're using. You can't unring a bell. Yeah. Right? So now what happens is if you relapse, the duration is a much shorter and less violent, which saves your life. As a nationally recognized addiction expert

and founder of Carrara Treatment Center in Beverly Hills, what is your opinion on ketamine therapy? Personally, I don't like it. Okay? But it works for some small population. But it only works for a population. And I know you're going to ask me which population.

The population that believes it. Okay? So you don't believe it. I don't believe in it. Why? Because I think it's worse. that's why. Explain.

Because it's not necessary. Okay. I don't see the value in it at all. I don't. The people that have done it, I don't see any long lasting benefit. Some people I see a short lasting benefit, but there's all sorts of ways to do that

and get you into your long sobriety arc. There is no reason to do this when you have so many different intervention and it's dangerous. Even with a physician, depending on the physician you get, it can be dangerous. I feel like what I hear

is that ketamine recreational use, not as treatment, is exploding amongst college kids. And I know that it kind, I feel like the first time I started hearing about college kids using ketamine parties was like 2016, 2017.

I feel like it's gotten even more popular now that we've had like, you know, eight, nine, 10 years. are you seeing this rise in popularity? Yeah, I see it, I see it along with the other drugs like 2C, which is pink cocaine and the whippets and all this nonsense. What's 2C? Two C, that's what they call it. That's the street name for pink cocaine.

I think this is important because this is like parents need to know. So pink cocaine is just cute. No, I love that. It's great marketing, right? It's not defund the police. Right, right. It's great marketing. Okay.

It's just food dyes. That's right. It's poison. First of all, pink cocaine sounds fun, but there's very rarely cocaine in it. It's ketamine, it's fentanyl, it's MDMA, and sometimes cocaine. It could have some speed in it. It's different. It reminds me of the farm parties, P-H-A-R-M parties, where kids would just go into their mother's cabinets and their grandmother's medicine cabinets. grab a handful of pills, they'd walk into a party, there'd be a big bowl, you know, the bowls that you have of candy on Halloween, they'd throw these into the bowl, and then when everybody got there, they'd all take a handful of pills and throw them down,

and that's why everybody ended up in the ER room back then. That's pink cocaine. It is the single most dangerous thing you can do right now, because you don't know what's in it, and it's different all the time. Okay, I've never heard of that. I'm glad that you brought that up. No, it's horrific.

You want to hear something else? Yes. you're gonna just absolutely hate. What? Fentanol mixed with xylazine. They call it trank, okay? You put it, you take a shot, you put it in your arm, and it creates a hole this big where you can see your bone in it.

Ew! I know. And then you slump over like a zombie where your knuckles are hitting the ground, and it's coming to a suburb near you. It is the single most dangerous thing, and you can't take, Marcin to save yourself on it. You can't.

Oh, and you know what xylazine is? You're going to die. Do you know what it's meant for? No. Putting down large livestock. Killing large livestock. And kids are taking this? Yes.

Is this popular in Los Angeles? Downtown it is, but everything moves. It starts downtown. Skid Row. That's right. And then it does this. How do drugs in Los Angeles get from Skid Row? into like, into, I don't know, Brentwood.

Well, it's just like what we were talking about earlier, right? Word of mouth. And then it, this is the one that gets you so high, man. Do you think Matthew Perry's death was a wake-up call on the risks of ketamine? Matthew Perry's death was an indictment on doctors. Okay? It's the same thing that just happened, I believe. make certain you get that I believe in

because nobody wants to be sued. Same thing happened with Jim Mersey and he was the owner of the Colts in Indianapolis where you're from. Mm-hmm. Who was a wonderful man. Okay?

And he was, I believe, uh, let down by his doctor. And they were doing ketamine as a therapy for these people? He was doing ketamine and everything else. I believe. I don't remember the exact,

drug. Okay. But it doesn't matter. What matters is, is that it's an indictment. The Perry thing was about people around him that owed him a duty to take care of him. The same thing is happening all the time. The doctors of celebrity. Okay, think about it this way. You're a doctor, which means you went to school for your entire life. Okay. You missed the parties. You missed everything. You missed everything. And now you get to talk to all your friends about treating Matthew Perry and other celebrities. Come on now. This is just common sense. How do you convince somebody who doesn't think they have a problem to get help?

You don't have to. You don't have to. There's only two types of people that come into treatment, only two. One to get well and one to get the heat off. There's not one statement that's killed more people other than he has to get better for himself. We don't have that luxury anymore. We're out of time. We can't do that.

This is ridiculous. If it was true that you could not get sober unless you did it for yourself, then 50% of the people that we have, okay, that are coming to treatment to get the heat off, 50% of those people wouldn't get sober. And about 50% of the people that don't even want to get sober get sober with us. That's just the way, that's just the way the numbers work out. how do you get them in there? It's called an intervention. Okay. But remember, the people that don't want to come in are coming in to get the heat off, right? So it's either a health problem or their kids won't speak to them or their wife is leaving them or they got a problem with the job or they got a problem with the law or they've created records with lawsuits, whatever it is. Okay? They don't want to

come in. They have to come in. That's most of them. If you ever wake up and crave something that claims to be colostrum and tastes like drywall mixed with your ex-boyfriend's ashes. For me, that's every Tuesday. But every other day of the week, I just want cowboy colostrum and vanilla or chocolate. A lot of these colostrum powders that you see influencers promoting, by the way, are basically skim milk pretending to be the main event. But cowboy colostrum, it's the real deal. First milking colostrum, okay? Four to six hours post-birth, grass-fed American cows. We're talking pure whole milk colostrum baby, not this watered down, stripped, lab-flavored non-es. sense. Cowboy Cholostrum is rich, it's creamy, and it's yellow. This is important because nature

made it that way, not a lab. It's got all the good stuff. Fats, immunoglobulins, natural growth factors, actual bioactives. And before you panic, yes, the calves eat first. They're not monsters, okay? Cowboy Cholostrum doesn't rob baby cows in the middle of the night. They only take the surplus after they're done. Froth cowboy colostrum into water, throw it in your smoothie or upgrade your coffee like a cowboy who gives a dang flab about gut health, immunity, and looking like you haven't cried in your car this week, even though you and I both totally have. Go to cowboy colostrum.com with code Alex for 25% off and saddle up. That's cowboy colostrum.com code Alex for 25% off. Red light therapy isn't a gimmick. It's one of the most studied, proven tools that you can add to

your health stack, and Juve makes the best version of it, period. I use my Juve panel every single night after workouts every morning. The red and near infrared light hits my joints, my muscles, my skin. It helps my body actually repair itself faster. No soreness, better recovery, less inflammation. We're talking clinically proven wavelengths, true medical grade light panels and independent safety certifications, which most companies don't even bother with. Kink in the neck, joint pain, swollen painful knees, hair loss, Juve is about giving yourselves exactly what they need to repair. Light energy. That energy gets turned into ATP. ATP fuels every single thing your body does from building muscle to boosting skin regeneration.

Treatments take just 10 minutes. You stand there, you sit there, you let the light hit you, you can read your Bible, you can read a book, you can scroll on your phone, your cells will do the rest. Go to juve.com slash Alex and the discount will automatically apply if you shop in that link. Juve, J-O-O-V-V-com slash Alex. Support your body from the inside out with light. Can somebody actually recover if they're just doing it to please a parent, a spouse, or court? First of all, to please the parents is really a good thing because kids are hardwired to love their parents. Unless their parents have been completely absentee landlords, okay? That's the general rule.

And so, like, so for example, my kids will not take a pill, God willing, okay, because they know it would destroy me. That's good enough. But also because my kids are emotionally healthy and have self-respect and self-love and self-esteem, they won't do it because they don't want to die because they've got a future that we talk about all the time. Because my children are going to have a different lot in life. My children have to understand that there's a responsibility with what their life is going to be about. How can families avoid enabling while still loving their person through addiction? Yeah, you can't enable your children.

Those days are over. Okay. It's time to get back to parents being parents and children being children. Okay. That's the best answer I can give you. You know, this whole podcast is just about common sense. That's my whole thing. Okay.

I have a different outlook on substance use disorder than most people in the addiction industry. But the people in the addiction industry have done things one way the entire time. And I believe better is better. Well, what is different about your take on addiction compared to the rest of the industry? Okay, well, I'm all about transcendence. What do you want to be? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go?

Okay. Let's get this thing. Let's get this speed bump over there. and let's get to thriving in the world. The other more prevalent idea in this industry is you're saddled with a disease forever. Right. I'm not about the labels. I'm about, let's blow this off, let's get past that, and let's get on to living and thriving

and building a family and getting a career. If somebody keeps relapsing, when do you stop trying to save them? Never. because I've had more sobriety dates than there are dates on the calendar, and I've given 10,000 people back to their loved ones. We don't ever throw anybody away, not ever. Not ever. What are most people getting wrong when it comes to helping somebody recover from substance abuse or addiction?

Well, they don't know. They don't know. Most people get it wrong because they give advice that they don't know about, right? So you need to seek treatment. if you have a problem with a loved one that's drinking or using themselves to death and I say drinking too because drinking affects your decision making right

you take a drink all of a sudden a pill sounds good to you right if you've got that going on in your life you need to seek treatment right away because we're out of time that's why I call my podcast we're out of time because we are out of time I'm a father when you have children as late in life as I did you don't just love your children you love all children

So what are like quick steps? Like what are people getting wrong when it comes to addiction? What can they do to help their loved ones? You call for treatment immediately. You call for treatment immediately. You can ask your doctor. You can look online. It's not that hard.

And you can call us. You can call a number called one call placement. The number one call placement. You know, we can only take one and four people that call us. That's it. The other three out of four, we refer out. And the reason we refer it out is because, I don't ever want anyone ever to think that we don't care about them because they can't come to one of our

treatment centers. So we're referring out 75% of possible treatment every day. You say that people can find complete freedom from addiction and trauma, not just manage it. How? The way I have, okay, you go to, you go to therapy. You know, listen, and you can go to A.A. too, but A.A. is not treatment. It's a support group. I love A.A. Okay. A.A. gave me a life. It was my foundation, but I needed more. Okay. So I went to therapy once a week. Then I realized that wasn't enough. And then I ended up going five times a week. Okay. Now, I needed that because I'm slow. And I needed to get this thing. And I was a really, really bad addict. So that's what I needed. You know, I've got people in treatment that go through the three years of treatment

in 30 days, right? And then they walk out and it's like, oh, no, I'm good. No, dude. Yale law school's good. You're in rehab. Let me tell you what you need. You just had 40 hours of treatment a week. 40 hours.

Okay? You can't do three hours a week on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or a Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. You can't go to a therapist three times a week. I mean, look, at Carrero, we're marketing to like, what, 250,000 people in the country. okay they can afford therapy three times a week because Carrera is like top one percent that are struggling with addiction top two-tenths of one percent yeah okay that can afford it it's

$195,000 a month like the most elite politicians and celebrities or who's going to that but you have another treatment center for for people like me I have another treatment center for people that if they want to spend $250 to $500 one time only for their deductible they can come treatment at my affordable facility. And 80% of my staff goes from both centers. Carreira is one of one. Okay, there's nothing like it. If you go somewhere other than Carrera and you add the ability to afford Carrera, you're pissed. Are there any celebrities who they've openly talked about going to Carrera? Do you know what's funny? I don't let them. Oh. I don't want anybody saying it. And here's the reason why. If you take your will back and you leave before you're ready to, which a

lot of people do, okay, and you relapse, it makes me look like I'm not effective. Yeah. We are effective. So do you make them sign something like you're not allowed to say you came? I asked them not to. I ask them not to. That makes sense. I mean, I get it from a business perspective. I wouldn't want that either. But some of them have been in the public, right? Some of them have been in the in the public. And the ones that have been in the public haven't relapsed. So I'm really encouraged by that. But, you know, that's usually leaked by the management or the agents because a celebrity has gotten in trouble. And now they're being rehabilitated by Carrera, right? Because of our reputation.

Why do you think so many treatment programs fail? Oh, I can tell you exactly why they fail. When I left my last place after I sold it seven years ago, there were 18,000 treatment centers. Today, there's just under 10,000. So how do you lose almost half the treatment centers in the country in less than seven years during the worst opioid epidemic we've ever had? The reason is because insurance companies, when I left the last time we're paying 67 cents on the dollar for every dollar we build. Today they're paying 25 cents on the dollar for every dollar you build. Also, the length of stay used to be about 30 days.

Now it's on average about 23 days. It's a profit motive. That's all it is. Insurance companies are meant to take money in, not to let money out. I mean, that's not news. Do you think that most luxury rehab centers are money grabs? A lot of them are, okay, but they're all going out of business now anyway. Why?

Because they don't have the ability to get cash business. They've got the ability to get good insurance business and an occasional cash client. Okay? That's not what we do. Now, of course, we've got a revenue cycle management company that will take insurance to offset the high cost. I mean, obviously, we want to do that. Do agents and managers enable addiction because they need their client back on set? Absolutely.

And it's the biggest impediment to treating celebrities because agents and managers only get paid when their clients working. And they're so short-sighted. If I had a nickel for every time I've had this conversation, be living in lower Bel Air. Okay. Hey, dude, listen to me. Okay. This guy needs another 30 or 45 days. Then you have zero problems and you can go on thriving in the world making money off this guy for the rest of your life. How about that? They're seeing this as 30 days of this person not working. I'm losing money instead of like a lifetime of this person being alive because they've beat their addiction and then they can keep working for longer. And they're going to lose a potential job opportunity.

which they're not going to lose because now when this guy's well, the production isn't going to require a huge insurance policy to ensure that this guy doesn't get inebriated and lose his way during the shoot. Have you ever had to confront a celebrities team, their manager or their lawyer because you felt like they were enabling them and have like a come-to-Jesus moment? All the time. And it's never gone well because these people don't like being screamed at. So give an example without naming names.

What is like one of the most egregious things that you've seen as far as teams enabling a celebrity to use? Somebody wanting a celebrity out the second they're detoxed, even before they're fully detoxed. That happens all the time. How insane is that? And so what do you say? I don't know if I can say that on your show. Okay. Yeah.

But it's firm. And it's meant to shame people. and shut them up. And it usually works. What doesn't the public see about how fame can fuel addiction? Look, fame is lonely. Okay? I enjoy my privacy.

I do. And I'm becoming a public figure. Celebrity is always forced to be on. And it's got to be exhausting. And so you can never have a moment to yourself out in the world. You just can't. Only behind closed doors. Only behind closed doors.

I always think about this when it comes to Taylor Swift. God, I love her. She's the best. This is why we get along. No, you and I are the same person. I'm a diehard Swifty. But I always think about that with her because that's, I mean, she has now reached a level of fame.

She's up there with the Beatles, Beatlemania, Michael Jackson, Prince. I mean, this is like she's one of the biggest, you know, of all time now at this point. And so she cannot. go anywhere or do anything without somebody talking to her pictures, videos, like there's no privacy. I mean, she had a little vacation on some, like, deserted private island with Travis Kelsey paparazzi still found them and got grainy photos. Like, that feeling of always no matter what

being watched would be so freaky. Yeah. And it's a lonely existence, right? Because you're forced to be alone a lot of the times. So I think that causes a lot of stress. And can't trust anybody. Celebrity has it tough. Now, the average layperson says, weh, right? You're so rich and everything else. But everybody has their cross to bear. What is one of the darkest things

that you have heard a celebrity reveal about their Hollywood experience behind closed doors? Being drugged and raped. As children, as adults, both. Both. And, you know, as the father of a daughter, that's, you know, one of my greatest fears. You know what pushed me over the edge?

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I like to mix it into a lemon lime alipop with tartary juice and stare at a wall while it kicks in. Makes the wall feel safer. If you want to feel like a human again, just go toutsi.com, UTZY.com. Use code Alex to save on your first order of Magnusatol. That's UTZY.com code Alex for Magnetadol. Don't wait. Your nervous system is begging you, I asked. What actually happens after detox and rehab?

Like, what are treatments that really work? When you get done with your detox, right? Your head is still cloudy. And it's going to be cloudy throughout that first month because you don't get to come in, okay, abusing yourself to such a high degree, right? and then your head clears up in the first 30 days, which is why I don't like people to leave in 30 days. What's the ideal time to spend in rehab? It depends on where you are in your arc, right?

So insurance companies believe it's 30 days or less, right? There was even a movie about it, 28 days with Sandra Bullock, right? And they got that because that's all that insurance company wanted to pay. The government says it's 90 days is ideal. And the truth is a lot more nuanced. There's six stages of how human beings actually change their behaviors. And depending on where you are on that arc determines what interventions to use to gently move someone through to the next arc, to the next stage, and then you're recovered,

right? So for example, the first stage is pre-contemplation. What does that mean? Just a fancy word for denial. You're in denial. and then it goes all the way up to maintenance and then transcendence which is where I am the problem with talking about transcendence is it's a goal to achieve but not a lot of people achieve it okay but that's the goal and that's where you want to be but to answer your question about what works CBT DBT neurofeedback

TMS you know all of it all of it. And we've got a list on the website of everything that we do. What role does trauma playing addiction that people don't talk about? Trauma's most of it. Sometimes it doesn't rise to the level of trauma, but we put it under the umbrella of trauma, and that's okay. Not everybody has to suffer trauma, but it's a problem for them because it's so real to them and so painful for them.

That's how you treat addiction. You treat the trauma, you treat the pain, okay? Because think about it, medication doesn't treat illness. It's symptoms maintenance. This is the type of thing where you actually get your life back, but not the life that you had before you were derailed by the drugs and alcohol, a better life. Because if you can't replace your drug in using life with something of equal or greater value,

You can't stay sober, and I don't care what anybody says. If somebody's listening to this and they are currently secretly struggling with addiction and no one in their life knows, how do you gain the courage to admit that you need help? When you're done taking the beatings. Okay. If you yourself don't have the esteem, the self-esteem, right, to go ahead and get well in light of everything we've talked about and how dangerous this climate is

and how you can die in any minute, then you have to take your beatings. And the second you've had enough, that's when you start getting well. The problem is that we're out of time. We don't have that kind of time anymore. So by the time, a lot of people have had enough, they're already gone, way gone.

What are non-negotiable things somebody in recovery must do once they leave rehab to have continued success. Aftercare. It's just like working out. If you don't work your muscle, you lose your muscle, right? And so aftercare is really important, right? So what I do is I create this pizza.

Think of a pizza with eight slices. And in each slice, you have a different area of your life that you're working on. So your love relationships, your family relationships, your career, your philanthropy, your joy of living. whatever is in your health and fitness, all of this stuff, self-care, all of this stuff is in your little thing. And we identify what the client's goals are. And then we develop plans for aftercare, okay, to support these things. Right. And typically what I tell people is, we're going to work on the weak stuff. You're going to default. I can prove it to you.

In a game, any professional will tell you this. You practice your weaknesses before the games in practice always. Because when you're in the game, you're going to default to your strengths because you want to win. Right. So the key is to build up your weaknesses so that you're strong and you have a holistic life. You've got everything. That's thriving. That applies to a lot of different things, I think.

Everything. What if somebody says, Richard, I don't have a joy of living. I can't imagine having a joy of living. and so I just don't even know that going to rehab is worth it because I don't know that I want to live. Everybody says that. Every addict walks in not believing that they can have a joy of living.

This isn't news. This is the way it works. Nobody walks into treatment on a winning streak. The reason I started Carrera this time, okay, I started it with a world-class spa, actually in the center. I hired the person from the Ohio Valley in a top 100 spa in the country,

to recreate my spot within the center. Now, everybody thought that was a vanity play. Nothing could be further from the truth. I needed to work on self-care. I needed to work on self-love. And so what I started doing is I started really diving into that, and I started feeling better. And what I realized was self-care turns in to self-esteem,

which turns into self-love. And I've never met anyone ever, and neither of you who tried to kill themselves with drugs and alcohol who truly love themselves. Right? And that's why I put that in there.

What do you say to the mom who knows that her child is using but doesn't know how to help them? If you don't know how to help your child and you know he's using then you're going to his funeral. You better call for help. Call one, call placement.

It's a company I set up just to refer people out to people that I can't take. If you don't have insurance, or you've got state insurance, right, or federal insurance. Just call that number. We'll send you somewhere. If luxury rehab isn't financially possible for someone, which most, I mean, most people is not going to be,

what types of things should they be looking for in a treatment center to know, okay, this is in my budget, but it's definitely going to be a good one. The best way to go about that is called an in-network treatment center. So you would go to the website of your car. just pull out your insurance card. Okay, let's say it's Cigna, right? You go to the Cigna website and you look in your area for the centers. Those centers are called in-network centers.

And you can go for $250,500, depending on what your deductible is, those are the most common that I've seen. And for 250 to 500 bucks for an entire stay, whether it's 23 days or 25 days, everybody's a little different. You'll get that. here's the important thing to know. In centers like that, you're going to have to go back three or four times. Why do you say that? The insurance companies cut you off too early. Oh, okay, like because you need that more probably like 60 days or 90 days.

At least. Yeah. At least. Look, if you're doing drugs for two decades, if you've lost two decades to drug addiction, okay, if you think you're going to rehab for under 90 days, you're fooling yourself. That's delusion. Okay. I mean, look, I do a great job.

Okay, and some people think I'm the best in the world at this, but I don't walk on water. Okay? I can't do that. And anybody who tells you differently is lying to you. What is your encouragement for somebody who is currently in recovery listening to this? You're about ready to have the best life you've ever had, ever. We are the most talented people there are. We really are.

I used to say this in a talk in AA all the time. I used to say that we are the most talented people alive. We're the only people that I've ever seen that you can find one of us in a trash dumpster. And seven years later, we're the district attorney. That's so true. So true. So many people that are like, I was a crack addict on a mattress. Now I own a billion dollar company.

I mean, I've heard that so many times. Well, it's not a billion dollars yet. but it will be. If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture and it could be physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would it be? I would say get off social media and get closer to God. Okay. I'm not religious. I don't really like religion. But I love God with every fiber in my body. And, you know, I don't do business plans. I do the pull. I feel the pull and I go that way. And you can't explain that to anybody. I can explain it to my buddy Kelly,

but I can't explain it to anybody else. They look at you like you're on glue, but that's the way it works for me. Tell us about your book and your podcast. Transcendence. The book is called Transcendence, and really all it's about is hope for living with this thing that we've got, okay,

and that it's truly a gift. it's not a curse man it isn't okay we go on to thriving and have big lives that help so many people it's such a gift um the podcast is a little different i've never heard a podcast i've never watched a podcast it's crazy to me that you started a podcast and you've never heard one well i mean i used to watch har Howard stern years ago oh yeah and i know he doesn't like being referred to as a podcast, but he was actually the first podcast. Yeah. Right?

If you think about it. His movie, like, absolute fun fact, derailment, his movie private parts, which he starred in and it's all about his life. Fantastic. Coming in radio is like one of my most favorite movies of all time. No, he's the best. In the 80s, 90s, he was the best. Yeah.

Well, I haven't heard him in 20 years. Yeah. Well, there you go. So you heard it's prime. He's awful now. He's a totally different person. It's sad, but he used to be the greatest. The podcast is something.

that I had to do because I'm a father, right? And I've got young children. And like I said, I was afraid. I was afraid. Look, in every small town, you have a guy that puts the dogs down. Every small town in America, there's one guy that puts the dogs down. Do you know why? Why? Because he can. So I didn't have a choice. I had to do it, even though I didn't want to do it. and now we're the number one mental health podcast in the country. And what's it called again? We're out of time with Richard Tate. And you can listen to that anywhere you get your podcast.

Anywhere you get your podcast, but you should watch it. This is a good show. Perfect. And then remind everybody your two clinics. Carrera, treatment, wellness, and spa. That's the really expensive, nice one. One of one. If somebody is very lucky to be able to go there.

And the other one is also one of one. It is the nicest in-network treatment facility in the country with top-notch care. 20% of our staff at Carrera goes back and forth to one method. So you're getting the fine. They're both one of one. Yeah. They're built for no competition at each place. And one method is located where?

Cheviot Hills. Is that California? It's Cheviot Hills, California. It's a nine iron from Chevy Hills Country Club. Said no in-network treatment facility ever. Thank you, Richard, for sharing your wisdom, your story, and I think, life-saving advice. So that was super important for me to do this episode. Well, thank you for having me.

Okay, your video in front of Congress and the standing ovation you got was beyond inspiring. So thank you for what you're doing. Oh, can I say one last thing? Sure. That bums me out more than anything. If you're not giving the president credit for anything, and I mean anything, then you don't matter. Because even a busted clock is right twice a day. Right?

So if you don't give him credit for anything, you don't matter. And more importantly than that, it's un-American. Because as he does well, we all do well. Let's freaking go. That's a wrap. If you are a loved one are struggling with addiction, please find resources in the description of this podcast. Leave a five-star review for us.

Tell others why this is one of the most important podcasts that they could possibly listen to. We're on a mission to heal a sick culture twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, a brand new guest, a brand new, unique remedy to heal that sick culture. Subscribe to Real Alex Clark on YouTube. Follow me on Instagram at Real Alex Clark. The show's also there at Culture Apothecary. You can find merch for the show, TPSAmerch.com.

Code Alex Clark. That'll get you 10% off. I'm Alex Clark, and this is Culture Apothecary.