The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Michael Brier, CEO of Recovery Connection Center

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

Michael Brier, CEO of Recovery Connection Center Drughelp.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvosshow.com. Hey, I heard that Disney or Knott's Berry Farm is putting in a roller coaster for your brain,

whatever the hell that announcer said there. But I have to sue them because they can't have that. Ready to go on a roller coaster, what was it with your brain, something, whatever that guy says at the beginning of the Kiss intro. Anyway, guys, welcome to the Chris Foss Show, thechrissfossshow.com. It's another one of those episodes that we do. We've done thousands. We're just going to do thousands more, but not today.

We're just taking our time. A few a day is what we do. Be sure to further show your family, friends, relatives, dogs, cats. Let everybody listen to the show. Don't discriminate. Let everybody listen to the show. Refer them to iTunes. Go to YouTube.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, the big LinkedIn group, 120,000 people there, LinkedIn newsletter.

And we're playing with LinkedIn audio chat. We're also posting about stuff on TikTok. We're trying to get cool with the new generation of TikTok people. We want those millennia, those gen, what is it now? Gen Zers? Listen to Chris Voss show or not. Anyway, guys, be sure to check all that stuff out. We certainly appreciate you guys. Today we have an amazing CEO on the show with us today. Michael Breyer is on the show with us.

He is the CEO and spokesman for Recovery Connection Centers of America. He works with health and medical professionals, healthcare agencies, and insurance companies to provide treatment to those who need it. We're going to be talking to him about addiction and some of the different struggles that people go through because people go through them. We've all kind of, we all kind of go through our issues in life and maybe this can help you if you are out there going through issues or if you know somebody who's having issues as well. He is also the author of a book that came out July 30th, 2021, The Silent Pandemic. I'm sorry.

The Silent Pandemic, Stories and Solutions, Firsthand Accounts of Life with Opioid Addiction and How to Find the Way Out. Welcome to the show, Michael. How are you? Thank you very much for a Monday. That's a lot of energy you need to have there. It's to the show, Michael. How are you? Thank you very much for a Monday. That's a lot of energy you need to have there. It's all the caffeine, man. It's all the caffeine.

Normally, I'd make some corrupt jokes. I think they say more caffeine keeps you living longer now. They do. I read that, I think, on the New York Times or Washington Post. Well, they would never lie to you. They would never lie. Yeah. Well, I mean, these studies sometimes are paid for by the people who benefit the most from them,

but I don't know. I'm going with it. So you think Starbucks and Maxwell House is sabotaging the world here? So anyway, let's get into addiction because this is definitely a problem for people. First, let's get your.com so people can find out more about you on the interwebs and what you do. So we're at drughelp.com. Simple enough. D R U G H E L P. There you go. And, uh, what do you guys do? Give means that we actually run medical offices that provide medical assistance along with counseling, treatment for people who are suffering from substance use disorder,

which is anybody with drug or alcohol use problems that they are looking for some help with. So we are, I like to think of it as like a psychiatrist's office on steroids a little bit, which is we do a lot of things similar in style, but unfortunately we're stigmatized because we only treat one type of client out there. And that's the client that actually needs us the most. Definitely. Definitely. I've seen addiction firsthand. Uh, I had a girlfriend who was addicted to alcohol and just about anything else for that matter, but mostly alcohol. Uh, and it ravaged her. It was destructive. It eventually killed her. She died of a, uh, uh, she died of, uh, Oh, what's the thing that alcohol drains from your system that,

uh, you need in your system? Liver disease or something. It wasn't liver disease, but it was potassium deficiency. She fell over, hit her head in the tub, and literally died in the tub. It was very sad. And that's the sad part of these addictions. They usually, not only are they destructive throughout their lives, but they lead to not fun ends and stuff.

So you guys have multiple locations around an area. What area do you serve? Do you serve nationwide? Do you serve the – So right now we're in the New England area. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, we have offices all across. So, I mean, the funny thing is when you tell that story, it normally that would be a story that would make a headline in the, you know, the news or we called our book The Silent Pandemic is because everybody wanted to talk about, you know, the loud pandemic, which was COVID. And at the same time, overdose deaths rose to the highest of all time. Over 109,000 people died last year.

Now, I think COVID took out half a million, but 100,000, that's a big number out there. There were a lot of people that did with COVID go into depression. I mean, I probably went into some depression. I actually stopped drinking, so that was good, and went to coffee. But, you know, I've seen what addiction looks like. I've had friends that, you know, they begin to shake. They go through a whole different experience than what I had with, with, uh, with drinking and stuff. I was never really addicted to it. I abused it. Um, but, uh, a little too much fun

sometimes, but, uh, you know, what, what, uh, what made you want to write the book and, uh, give us a tips on what's inside of it. Well, maybe we want to write the book and give us tips on what's inside of it? What made me want to write the book is just to kind of get the word out because the problem when I go out and I talk to people about what we do, the problem is that the word addiction is stigmatized and people have this preconceived notion that people who are, this is the incorrect term nowadays, but people who are quote unquote addicts are homeless, degenerate, poor people who make a mess, who cause havoc around their neighborhoods and, you know, they pretty much the most demeaning things that you can think of in mankind when they think of that. And the truth is that as you're telling this story and, you know,

you appear to be a, I'll say, quote, unquote, normal guy. I mean, you probably have friends or family who have been afflicted with, you know, some type of substances, whether it's drugs, whether it's alcohol. I mean, many of us have partaken. And that doesn't mean that you're necessarily, you know, the degenerate of the world just because you've done that. And so often that people, they speak out of both ends of their mouth, which is, oh, yeah, this is a problem. I'd love to help. You know, it's important that we do something about it. But on the other hand, in the back of their mind, they're really thinking, yeah, I want to help, but not really, not in my neighborhood. Like, keep it out of my place.

Like, I don't want to even see it. And, you know, it's just a matter of educating people that really this, there's a likelihood in most families that if you really look in your family tree, aunts, uncles, cousins, somebody, somebody is probably afflicted with this problem. And you might have no clue. And they could be a lawyer, a doctor, accountant, a CEO. They could be anybody out there. And you're just not aware of it. So you kind of assume, and as the odd couple used to say, never assume

anything, which is you can only make a ass out of you and me, which is literally what a lot of people do when they start to talk about this subject and not being educated about truly who the people are out there that have this problem. And really, I just wanted to get the word out there to say, hey, it's a problem. Let's face it. Let's deal with it. Let's get educated about it. There's treatment out there. A lot of times people don't know where to go for treatment.

A lot of people don't know what the difference is between a rehab place or, you know, an outpatient facility like our own. They don't know the difference between what methadone is. They don't know the difference between what methadone is. They don't know the difference between what suboxone is or what AA offers. There's so much out there, and it's kind of like, I don't know, a silent conversation because nobody really wants to talk about it out loud. Like somehow they talk about it, it's going to like, I don't know, give them some type of cooties or something. Yeah. Do you find that, what would you say is the biggest problem? Is it family members and people around someone who's a functioning addict who has a

problem that don't recognize the problem or don't recognize that it rises to the level of needing help from a facility like yours? Or is it the individual addict who doesn't recognize that he needs help and he's addicted? Well, the truth of the matter is that even if you as a family member recognize that whoever, your child, your spouse, your family member could use some help, if they're not going to, you know, actually raise their hand and say, actually, I want some help, it's not going to be productive anyways. I mean, what's the expression can lead a house to water, but you can't make them drink? Well, it's the same thing here, which is, unfortunately, as I like to tell people, it's not one of those one and done type of deals. It's not like, okay, I raise my hand. I want some help.

I go into a place like ours. I get some help. And all of a sudden, I'm magically cured like 10 minutes later. It doesn't work like that. That's not reality. The reality is I'll probably hit a really bad patch in life. I'll say, yeah, I want some help. They'll come into our office and we'll say, hey, you've got to do A, B, and C. And they might say, yeah, I like A, but B and C doesn't really rock my boat right now.

And I think I'm just going to go back to what I was doing. And they're just going to wind up relapsing into the way they were living previously. And they might do that repeatedly. I mean, we have infinite stories of people who have come and gone and come and gone and come and gone. In fact, I was just going through a list of just people who have come, supposedly new people who have come into our offices this year, and a good percentage of them are really not new people. They're actually just the same old people that had been to us a year, two years, three years, four years, five years ago, who are just coming back again to try it one more time,

because there will get to be a point in their life that they're going to say, yeah, no, I'm serious this time. I really know what A, B, and C is, and I'm ready to do all three of those things if that's what it takes. And the problem with recovery is it's not something that you can say, like, if you get to a certain line in your drug of choice was were probably because you wanted to numb the pain of whatever anxiety, depression, trauma that you had gone through in the past. And if, God forbid, those things come back again, the natural inclination is to go back to what's going to make it go away as quickly as possible. And that's the part that we try so hard to teach our clients how to deal with.

Because while we offer medication, the medication is really, you know, the carrot to attract people to come in to help them, you know, with the recovery process. But it's not the solution to the problem. The solution is really working on their issues, what makes them want to go to the bar and drink all night, or what is it that they want to go hang out with their family, you know, with their friends and, and start, you and start shooting fentanyl or snorting cocaine or whatever it is that they like to do. It's those things that we need to talk about so we can get them out of that environment and realize how to deal with what's going on in their life so they can actually avoid those same conflicts. What's the best way to know if you're addicted or if you're a family or watching someone who's addicted or a friend, what's the best way to kind of identify different factors that are going on?

Oh, there's so many of them. I mean, a lot of times when people are seriously addicted and they haven't been able to use or drink in a period of time, they start getting tremors, eyes. There's so many clues that give it away eventually

when it becomes serious. Initially, it's pretty easy to mask it. I mean, if somebody's, God forbid, you know, shooting fentanyl, you're going to see the marks in their arm because they're not likely to necessarily cover it up in the beginning. They're more paranoid about people discovering what their issues are as they get more and more involved than they are initially. But, you know, recognizing it, I mean, I don't know. If you have kids, you know, you see your kid doing something that you used to do when you were the same age, and you can say to them,

hey, don't do this because, you know, dad did this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I forbid you, God forbid, to do this. And you know, dad did this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I forbid you, God forbid, to do this. And you know what's going to happen. They're just going to go ahead and do it because you're not so smart. So you telling somebody that this is the wrong thing, I mean, rarely does that ever succeed. It's not to say that it never succeeds, but I think it's few and far between that people are actually going to seek help. Usually people who are suffering from substance use disorder, they know when they have a problem.

I mean, they wake up and the first thing they're thinking about is, how do I cop a bag? You know, when does the bar open? When can I, you know, when can I just like, get out of my existing situation and just like, blow off the rest of the day in my head? And it's pretty obvious they wake up and they just need to move as quickly as possible to start getting back into that same feeling stories of people paying ungodly amounts of money to send somebody to 30-day rehab. I mean, look at some of the celebrities that many of us are familiar with who have gone to rehab after rehab after rehab after rehab. We're not talking the insurance rehabs. We're talking about the cash rehabs where you pay, you know, $100,000 so you can have a country club setting to get your treatment. But just because the movie studio is making them do it doesn't mean that they're actually ready to seek the treatment.

And it doesn't matter how much money you say, by the way, you're going to lose this million-dollar acting job because of it. That's not going to convince them that all of a sudden they need the million dollars because that's not worth the feeling that they have when they're actually using substances. They feel better than a million dollars. They feel like a trillionaire in their mind because the world is great while they're high. But when they come down, you know, life looks a little cloudy there and they're kind of saying, you know, I'd rather go back to the other way of life. So I think it's just a matter of being patient more than anything, being supportive, being letting your loved one know I'm there for you. I'm not, you know, it's so you hear so many stories of people kicking family members out of the house and trying to cut them off and hoping that that's going to make a difference. And honestly, I think the success rate's probably pretty low. I'm not

going to vouch for it one way or the other, but I think if you were to say to me, get the hell out, I'd probably say, okay, I'll get the hell out. I'll sleep on the street. I'll, you know, I'll go beg on the corner if I need to, so I can get some more substances. I'll figure it out. But F you that I'm actually going to listen to what you tell me to do to actually go get treatment because I don't think I have a problem yet. It's definitely, it's definitely a challenge. I went through it with my girlfriend. Uh, I even was like, look, I'll go to AA with you. Uh, and it was probably good that I went, uh, she didn't want to go. And, you know, I was like, okay, I'll go with you. And when I went, it was eyeopening. Um, you know, I heard the, the heartbreaking stories of some of these people, you know, and

it's a lifelong battle. You know, I have friends that, you know, they're on 10 years or 20 years of, you know, they've got their AA coin, but it's a lifelong battle. And every day, it's a battle for them sometimes, you know, to deal with what they're doing in life, the pressures of life and everything else. Yeah, trying to get somebody to cross that threshold where they go, look, enough already, you know, and, you know, I've seen the jonesing that my friends have. And, you know, they're like, well, you know, you drink Chris at night, you have some vodka, you know, back in the day for, you know, at the vodka at night. And I'm like, dude, but I don't start shaking if I don't get to vodka. And I can, you know, if I run out of vodka for the night, I'm like, dude, but I, I don't start shaking if I don't get to vodka and I can,

you know, if I run a vodka for the night, I just go, well, whatever, I'll get some tomorrow, whatever, you know, I don't, I'll start shaking and going, I gotta, I gotta have it. And sadly, I, I didn't know what was going on with her, uh, until about a few months in. I didn't, cause a lot of people aren't trained on addiction and stuff. And so they don't really know what to look for. They're just kind of like, I don't know why this person is weird on the weekends. So are you guys an inpatient or an outpatient treatment center? So we're strictly outpatient.

So this would be just like a doctor's office. You call up, you make an appointment, you come in, you see a doctor. A doctor will prescribe you medication. In our case, we prescribe a medication called Suboxone for drug use, and we prescribe something called Vivitrol or Naltrexone for alcohol use disorder. And then the more important part of the work we do is really sitting down with a counselor to spend some time talking about, initially, it's really how we got to this point here that you're actually in the office.

But then eventually it is, you know, how is life going and coping mechanisms to deal with the stresses that are going on. And a lot of times people are also going through, you know, the thing about substance use disorder, it's not usually just substance use disorder. It's usually a lot of co-occurring disorders at the same time. So, you know, you're not just using drugs to use drugs, but usually you're suffering from depression or you're suffering from some type of PTSD or you're suffering from anxiety or whatever else you're suffering from. And those also need to be dealt with at the same time as you're dealing with the substances that you might be using at the same time. And that's,

and it's difficult. It's not like a, it's not like a one trick pony for everybody. Everyone's different. So both of us could be actually using fentanyl every day. We could be using, you know, taking five bags a day and everything seems the same about us.

But my history and your history are different. And my, you know, my exact, you know, situation right now is different than yours. And I might need to be treated differently than you. And we try to customize and individualize our treatment to the person where they're at at the moment they come in, because it's not going to always be the same. And it's going to evolve over time. So it might be, you know, it could be that you're homeless at this particular moment. And six months from now, you could actually have an apartment and starting a job.

And that's bringing new stresses in your life. And six months later, it could be that you have a girlfriend or you have a child now that you're dealing with. And that's another stress bringing it on. And life is not so simple that we can just say, okay, here's an on off switch and we're going to go from on to off, and you never have to worry about the switch being flipped back the other way. We're human beings. I don't know about you, but Mondays I can be a lot moodier than I can be on Saturdays type of thing. And I might say to myself, gee, I would really like to, you know, go out and drink myself silly, you know, one day.

Whereas another day I'd be like, all right, it was a crappy day. Deal with it. Go on and take a walk. And that's how I'll make it through. And I'll cope with those, you know, those feelings that I might have. And we're all about addressing the feelings and at least being able to discuss those feelings with somebody else. And that's not an easy process. I don't know if you've ever gone to counseling yourself, but most people don't walk into a counselor's office or a psychiatrist's

office and say, oh, gee, I'd love to tell you all about myself and how flawed a human being I am. But if you told me I had to go to a psychiatrist, I'd be like looking at my watch. Oh, it's 529. It's 530. It's like, when can I get out of here exactly? And it takes time to build a rapport with somebody that they actually have a trust level that they feel like they can actually open up to you and discuss what's going on in their life. And once you do that breakthrough moment with somebody, that's when you can actually start making some real headway on recovery itself. But until then, it's just kind of like trying to tread water for a while until we can get to that point. The medication helps you to tread the water, but it's the opening up to your history and your current situation and being able to feel comfortable enough to talk to somebody that

really will make the difference in the long run. And a lot of times you don't know who the heck you can trust, quite honestly, because you say that word addiction, and it just brings all the negative thoughts out there. I'll share with you, you know, one of the things that we've managed to accomplish in the past year and a half is opening up offices in towns that didn't want us to open. Oh, really? And inevitably, the politicians always come back and say, yeah, you know what, Mike? You're right. We've got a problem. People are dying on the streets.

But you know what, Mike, you're right. We've got a problem. People are dying on the streets. But you know what? We would rather you actually treat them in the town over there. And I'm like, why would I go over there? I'll talk to them when I'm ready to go talk to them. I'm talking to you about your problem. You know, and they don't want to face that reality. They want to just say, hey, we don't want this. And again, it goes back to what I said in the beginning of this conversation, which is people just are poorly educated about what treatment is and who the actual, what does a person suffering from substance use disorder look like? I am a person who suffers from substance use disorder. Okay. So if you think they all look like me, well, then there are a whole bunch of old balding men

out there who should be your typical, you know, profile of the clients. But inevitably, they don't think of me. They think of somebody else who's actually not dressed nicely and doesn't have a dollar in their pocket. And it's just sad, to be honest with you. It's so stereotypical. I think they watch too many crappy old movies and think that the whole world is the same because of what a movie or somebody tells them addiction is all about. But the reality is they just don't want to face it. It could be their spouse is actually somebody who's suffering from substance use disorder, but they would never, God forbid, admit that. And they just don't want that in their town.

And truth of the matter is, I mean, the cases that we've had so far, both towns that we fought against, they voted against us. Wow. We lost the case. Wow. against us. We don't know the case. But inevitably, people who are suffering from substance use disorder are actually protected under the federal government guidelines for the ADA, which is the American Disabilities Act, which says if you have an addiction problem, you are actually a protected person. And therefore, you cannot discriminate against them. And inevitably, we've told the towns, you want to vote against us? Go for it. I mean, unfortunately, I'll spend, though, every

dollar I have to go to federal court, and I'll win, and you'll pay me for it. But inevitably, the problem with that whole mantra is, great, I win. But in the meantime, how many people died on their streets because they wouldn't allow treatment? That's true. And the sad part of it is, if you looked at any of our offices, and you can go onto our website and take a look at what an office looks like, you'd be like, I don't know, looks like an office. I mean, it doesn't, you know, it looks like any doctor's, counselor's office that I could see anywhere else. Like, what's the big deal? It's not like there's any, you know, voodoo magic going on behind the doors that, you know, God forbid, it would infect society.

There's no COVID virus that we're spreading around that people are going to get infected because of it. But people just really, I don't know. It seems like a crazy thing. Well, I guess is the way I would phrase it. How's that? Yeah. I mean, the fact that we're in denial about it, our cities are in denial about it, or sometimes people are in denial about it.

You know, I remember at one point getting into an argument with my girlfriend's mother who knew what problem her daughter had had. Her husband, my girlfriend's daughter, my girlfriend's father had an alcohol problem. So I guess it was genetic. And she blamed me for the reason her daughter had a problem. And I'm like, your daughter's had this issue for a lot of years. I just met her. But it's interesting the denial people go through.

And the sooner I was able to identify what was going on and i i mentioned earlier uh that i i i shook my head when i said i hadn't gone through counseling i had gone through counseling back in the day uh from adhd i was having um high anxiety attacks almost like daily and i was running two companies at the same time and i was just it was the anxiety was going through the roof i had had adhd since i was a child and never really recognized it or treated or anything and it just finally reached a peak and it's hard when you reach that moment where you have to sit in front of you know a person a psychologist and they go you have a problem and you're just like i feel pretty fine other than, you know, the panic attack. Yeah. I mean,

the one thing you kind of don't want to say to somebody is you have a problem and you are the problem. And, and because inevitably it's kind of like, if you have brothers and sisters, it's, it's, it's not my fault. It's, it's Billy's fault. It's somebody else who did it. It's not me. My ex-wife caused my problem. My mother was my problem. You know, there's always somebody else to blame. So it's rare and it takes a while before we can actually admit, oh yeah, I'm the problem. It's not, those are other external factors. It might not be conducive for my problem, but they didn't force me to chug a pint of vodka down my throat and they didn't ask me to shoot up arm. It's inevitably my choice that I make. And I just need to admit that I made a mistake and move on.

And listen, whether we're talking about substances like this or whether we're just talking about mistakes in life that people make, people hate to admit that they screwed up and did something wrong. I mean, just think of the obvious. I mean, you know, you know that, you know, your kids stole five bucks out of your drawer and you know it. And you can tell them that you know that they did it and they're going to deny it till hell have high heaven instead of you know saying yeah dad i stole the five bucks out of your drawer because i really needed the money because i wanted to buy a present for my whatever you know it's a lot easier to deal with somebody who admits a mistake than it is fighting with somebody who will never admit it because don't isn't that our political world today which is nobody wants to admit that they're wrong.

I mean, this is not a Democrat or Republican thing, but quite honestly, everybody's wrong. We've all screwed up. Now, if you want to say one side screwed up 21 times and the other side screwed up 20 times. Big whoop you do. I mean, the point is, you know, until you're ready to admit what your weaknesses are and what you need help with, you're never going to make your weakness into some type of a strength in your life. And that's really what the education is all about, to say, hey, we try to tell people,

listen, we're not going to look down on you if you just admit that you have a weakness. That's fine. Just raise your hand, say, you know, I'm not the perfect individual that I try to pretend that I am. I'd love some help. Can you help me? And we would just treat them with empathy and respect as anybody else and say, okay, let's work on it and see how we can make the situation better for your life. Yeah. I mean, there's always, you always want to look at your life and say, how can I improve? It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to fall down. It's okay to, you know, be depressed, but you know, what you want to do is you want to say,

how can I improve with the situation, make my life better? And tuning things out usually just is like a delay to problems. What's the biggest sort of issues you're seeing right now in addiction markets? I know you treat a lot of different addictions. What's the biggest one? Is it opioids these days still? Yeah, opioids. Well, the number one is actually alcohol. Alcohol is the number one substance use disorder out there.

But the problem with alcohol is I talked about this carrot and stick approach, which is, you know, medications. The medications for alcohol use disorder are not. They're not as effective as the ones for opioids. So there are some treatments out there that will help. But truthfully, when it comes to alcohol, it's really a lot more behavioral health stuff than it is actual medication. Whereas for opioids, and when we talk about opioids, I mean, I've talked about fentanyl, but don't forget, you know, Purdue Farmer and, you know, some of these big boys who are pumping out the oxys and the vikes all day, and especially people who are older in age, you actually are just as likely to be an opioid user as some 25-year-old kid shooting up fentanyl

nowadays because you've been getting high off of that even though it was a legally prescribed medication. And now you've got to go on the streets and find the illegally, you know, illegal medication that you can take so you can replace that one for the other. And those, the medications are a lot more effective. I mean, when you're talking about, I mean, Suboxone is considered, the buprenorphine is considered the gold standard for treatment for opioid use. But the one most people are more commonly familiar with is methadone, which is usually a medication that's given out daily, requires you to, you know, go to a clinic, line up early in the morning and go there every day to get your medication.

That's, unfortunately, that's the one that's created more of the bad feelings in communities because of the way that has to be administered. What we do, you would never know what was going on inside the doors. People come in, they have an appointment, they sit down, you know, they're in and they're out in less than an hour and they're not coming every day. They're coming at the most, they're coming once a week. A lot of times they're eventually just coming once a month. It's a lot easier on their life. And I would have to say probably 85%, 90% of all our clients have jobs of one form or fashion. They work jobs and maybe they're working as a laborer from seven to three. I've had people who are doctors and nurses and even one attorney who I

know was making himself at least a million bucks a year, who told me literally he was shooting fentanyl before every day and before every deposition he was doing. And he was a personal injury guy. Because I knew exactly would tell the truth because I knew exactly his practice and I knew what was walking in and out of his door. So I knew he wasn't BSing me as far as that. He was literally a heroin addict,

you know, and making himself quite a nice buck. But I think he also realized that's not going to last for a long time. And Fendel's gotten really out of control, hasn't it? I mean, you see all these busts they have of fentanyl. Well, nowadays they have fentanyl in little gummy beers. They have them in color-coded sparkles and stuff like that.

I mean, you wouldn't even know. And there's almost no heroin on the streets nowadays anyways. I mean, anything that calls themselves heroin is really fentanyl anyways. There's people dying of overdose deaths because they're thinking that they're snorting cocaine, but in reality, they're actually snorting fentanyl. And that's pretty much, that's not a good one. So, I mean, you can, your drug dealer who you're buying even your marijuana from is not necessarily sitting there and saying, oh, let me make sure that the marijuana I sell this kid is really clean and I don't mix it with the fentanyl

I have sitting on the other side of the room here. I mean, it's not like he's washing his hands and making sure that he's in a laboratory setting here. I throw a little fentanyl in there. I'll give you a little bit better buzz. It might get you addicted. And now I'm going to sell you even more drugs than I was selling you before because there's no money in the marijuana. I can make a heck of a lot more money from the fentanyl.

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, we had authors that did books on how Walmart and other big drug pharmacies were involved in the big opioid crisis. You know, Prince died of fentanyl overdose. I think there's been a number of high-profile people that have died that way. And it's very sad. I mean, it's very sad to lose these great talents, to lose people, human beings that are out there. And,

and you know, they, they, everybody has potential. And to see people saddle with this is, is definitely heartbreaking. Oh, I mean,

Hollywood's full of story. I mean, I just was, Matthew Perry just came out with a new book. And he was, you know, what he was using at that time. I mean, Hollywood's full of stories. I mean, I just was watching – Matthew Perry just came out with a new book. Yeah, we're trying to get him on the show. And he was admitting, you know, what he was using at that time. I mean, I think Heath Ledger, River Phoenix. I mean, a lot of these guys.

What's Iron Man's name? I can't remember Iron Man's name, but he definitely was using heroin. Yeah, he had, like, an issue for a long time. But he's a great example of someone who has gotten clean and stays clean as far as we know and cleaned up his life and stuff. Anything we want to message out in parting as we go out? No, I think it's just a matter of just really like having people being open-minded, learning what they can about this particular, you know, pandemic that's going on in our society. I think once we solve COVID, I think,

which I'm not sure we're going to do that either, but I think, you know, we've gone five years. I think we've doubled the overdose death rates at this rate. Wow. And that's not even including all the Narcans out there. So people are getting resuscitated all the time, God, thankfully. But I think this is not a problem that's going away anytime soon. I think 10 years from now, it will still be just as large of a problem.

There's so much more need of resources and access and education out there. I mean, it's sad, but unfortunately, it's a society we live in. Yeah, it definitely is. So what's the best way for people to reach out for you, get more information, get more help? Go to our website, drughelp.com. You can look for us on LinkedIn. You can look for us on Instagram. You can message us. Happy to answer any and all questions, even'll go find somebody for you and say, hey, here's a resource to call. Listen, the more we can do to educate people and to provide resources for people, we're all for that. So please, feel free. Yeah.

If you know someone who needs help, please reach out. And if you think you need help, uh, you know, you're, you're out of control with your life and you can't control your addiction, you know, reach out and get help. It doesn't hurt to, to ask for help or get information. You know, my girlfriend, uh, she suffered alcoholism for years. Uh, it kept getting worse. Uh, finally, uh, she, she died alone in the bathtub from a potassium deficiency. She had been calling her daughter all weekend long. I don't know if she was calling from the bathtub, but she'd been calling her on the weekend.

Her daughter was blowing her off, her teenage daughter. She didn't hear from her mom for a day or two and went by the apartment. Sadly, she had to be the one who discovered her mom in the bathtub. It was a horrible, horrible way to go and a decline of life. At one point, she'd almost killed a driving. She'd almost killed a bicyclist. You know, it's just horror story after horror story. And in the end is the worst.

So please avoid the ending and get help now i guess that's my message anyway thanks to everyone for tuning in thank you very much for being on the show michael we really appreciate it man hopefully we helped some people thank you very much there you go uh anyway guys thanks for tuning in be sure to go to all our places on the internet uh thanks for being here be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you next time that should have us out michael