The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – YOU’RE NOT GOD: That Job Is Taken by SCOTT H. SILVERMAN

Episode Date: September 26, 2026

YOU’RE NOT GOD: That Job Is Taken by SCOTT H. SILVERMAN https://www.amazon.com/YOURE-NOT-GOD-That-Taken/dp/B0FNKG3TPW Yourcrisiscoach.com We all want to help. We want to protect the people we love, solve their problems, and keep life running smoothly. But in trying to “fix” everything, we sometimes make things harder—for them and for ourselves. That’s where You’re Not God (That Job Is Taken) steps in. In this heartfelt, relatable, and often gently humorous guide, Scott H. Silverman—addiction recovery expert, crisis coach, and CNN Hero—shows why letting go of control can be one of the most loving choices we make. Drawing from his own journey from addiction and rock bottom to over three decades of sobriety, Scott offers a refreshing truth: you are not the answer to everyone’s problems, but you can be part of the healing. Through inspiring stories, practical insights, and simple tools, You’re Not God (That Job Is Taken) teaches you how to: Support without controlling Lead with empathy instead of perfectionism Listen more deeply to those who need you Release the pressure of trying to “do it all” Whether you’re a worried parent, a burnt-out leader, or someone feeling overwhelmed by the demands of life, this book will give you hope, perspective, and a clear path forward. It’s not about saving everyone—it’s about showing up, making space for growth, and choosing progress over perfection. Real love listens. Real change happens when we stop trying to be God—and start being fully present. About the author Scott H. Silverman is the author of “tell Me No, I Dare You!” and is an in demand leadership speaker. Scott is both locally and nationally recognized as a leader in the field of workforce development. He has received numerous awards and honors including recently being named “CNN Hero of the Week” and the City of San Diego honored him by selecting February 19th as ” Scott Silverman Day” for his contributions to the community. He is the Executive Director and Founder of Second Chance, a human services agency that is committed to breaking the cycle of unemployment, poverty, and homelessness by offering job readiness training, employment placement assistance, mental health counseling, case management, and affordable housing referrals to people who desire to change their lives. Over the past 15 years Second Chance has assisted more than 24,000 economically disadvantaged and homeless persons in San Diego gain employment and leave poverty, gang affiliations, and crime.

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Today's featured author comes to us from Books to Lifemarketing.co.uk. With expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book's success. We're going to do it with a wonderful gentleman here today. His book is entitled, You're Not God. That job is taken by Scott H. Silverman. We're going to be talking to him about his insights and some of the things he can help you with and some of the things he does in his coaching business as well. Scott Silverman helps people and families face addiction, crisis, and the quiet chaos that follows both. He's been doing this for over 40 years.

His turning point came after he reached a breaking point and chose to ask for help the next day. He has been sober ever since. His message is steady and direct. You don't have to fix it all. You can just block those people on Facebook. No, I made that. I added in that last part. He's the founder of confidential recovery, an outpatient program that supports people and their loved ones through practical steps and real accountability.

He brings a coach's mindset and a counselor's page. He speaks across the country, leads interventions, and sits with families who feel overwhelmed. He leads with his heart, honesty, and a little humor, and he wants to help people set down what isn't theirs to carry and hold on to what matters most. Welcome to the show, sir. How are you? I am great, Chris. Really nice to be here with you. Wonderful to have you as well, sir. Give us your dot com's websites, wherever you want people to get to know you better. The easiest thing is just Google me, Scott H. Silverman. My direct website is your, crisiscoach.com. And you can always call me. 6199-99-29-29-29-29-273738. I dare people to call me.

Yeah. Now, just a one-off for me to lead off with the show, I have a friend who's getting married in five days, and this will be his fourth marriage, and the last two went really bad. Can I hire you to intervene and be the guy who sits in the wedding audience that says, no, these people shouldn't get married? My intervention would be to suggest that he don't walk down that path again. Or secondarily, that what he does is don't do what you've always done because you're going to get what you've always gotten. So it's time to pivot. Oh, you're shooting some science and knowledge from the hip there, my friend? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyway, I wish him luck. I wish him luck, too. And I'd like to hear how it goes. And if not, he can always bring me in afterwards and we'll talk about the next one. This pace will know in a year and a half. That seems to be the pattern. Anyway, I love him, but I care about him. But I care about it. I love him, but I care about it. That sounds weird. Anyway, this show's gone totally off the rails now. So we'll get back on track, Scott. Tell us a 30,000 overview of your book.

The book's title, it's been in my heart for almost 10 years now, and I just launched it about a year ago. And the concept is, you're not God. That job is taken is too full. There's two normal organic audiences I'd like to say they'd go for. one, I'm going to go soft, is family members. Family members who have loved ones who they're struggling to try to find ways to help, constantly are trying to love their sick one, if you will, to wellness. And they don't have to be God. And when you think about this, Chris, if your, car broke down, more than likely, you wouldn't go on YouTube and then try to rebuild your engine. You would take it to an expert. Just like with diabetes, if somebody has diabetes, Everybody knows you go to the doctor and some blood work done.

You have an assessment and the doctor will give you some tools so you can live a normal life. But when it comes to mental health issues, when it comes to underlying trauma that goes untreated, when it comes to people that are self-medicating or like your friend who keeps doing the same thing over and over again, they're not seeking help or they're hesitant about seeking help or they have a disease of denial and realize that they don't really need help. everyone else does. So this is, part of this is to give the family permission that it's okay for someone you love not to be okay. And let's get them to the highest and best level of care. The other audience that I hope we can get this to one day is a good example would be the leadership of our country. There are people who sit in that big, beautiful White House,

telling everybody what they need to do, how to breathe, which way to go and even argue what day of the week it is. It's not a political statement as much as it, we have got people that have taken over in our society and they believe they're not only the thought leaders, but they think they're God. And everything they say can and should be listened to by everyone. And there's not a consequence for them unless they really get in trouble. But for most of us, if we did the same thing they did because we're not politically insulated, we're going to get some consequences. So that's what the book's about. And through the book, it talks about mechanistic. on how one can do that and to find those secrets out, you have to get the book.

Ah, you got to buy the book, folks. We just tease it out on the show. Now, you're also a, and probably in addition to some of the bioread, an addiction recovery expert, and that's going to be quite a challenging work to do because I've lived in Vegas for 20, 25, 30 years, maybe. I don't know what it is now, probably 30 plus. We do a lot of addicts in Vegas, as you probably know. You probably are very familiar. How does that work play into your book? As somebody who has a little over, right now it's 41 and a half years of sobriety,

I have a lot of lived experience. And I don't say that to brag. I say that to simply mean that I've been at this every day for 41 and a half years. So the fact that I'm still here talking about, it means that I've listened to others. Yeah. I've accepted coaching. I get feedback.

Sometimes I don't like it. And I also understand that. as a human being, I have a disease. It's not a moral failing. It's a disease. Addiction in my mind is in my mind. It's a disease that I can't control, but I can manage. Meaning, I didn't wake up one day and look at my mom and dad and say, hey, can I

have something special to take into my adulthood that's going to wreck my life every day? I asked for help as soon as I could, but I was ready to end my own life. So what happens is I've spent most of my adult years now trying to find ways to be. be a resource to others. And my big theme this year is I call it funeral avoids. I am tired of going to funerals. I am tired of having to listen to families grieve in such a way because the way that people are taken from us when they're under the influence or they make a mistake or they have an accidental overdose, not only is horrible, but it's avoidable. And we can do something about it. And there are mechanisms out there on our planet that if we utilize them, we can save a lot of

Yeah, that's very true. It's very scary now. If you're a person who I've seen addicts and drug users talk about this, I think some rock and rollers are usually on a show. The scary thing is now, and I believe there was some gal who died of a fentanyl overdose. The problem with a lot of the drugs now is they can be laced with fentanyl and just a tiny amount can kill you. You may not even get killed by your own addiction, I guess, in some. When you hear the stories about, I heard this term about 12 years ago, accidental overdose. and I was one of those drug consumers, and I actually, to be totally honest with you, Chris, I'm a retired unlicensed pharmacist. So I understand the modality of what it takes to be a distributor. And when somebody says, oh, it was an accidental overdose, I kind of questioned, is it, who does that? Fentanyl is a poison. It's not even a drug.

And fentanyl, according, and I'm in San Diego, California, and according to our criminal justice system, 95% of people who are either discovered through the medical examiner's office or arrested and drug tested, 95% of those individuals have, if they have fentanyl in their body, the fentanyl has been laced in some other chemical, or it's in there with methamphetamine, crack cocaine, cocaine itself. And now we're seeing marijuana showing up with fentanyl in it because people who are drug-seeking, and people don't like it when I say that, but there are people who are drug seekers. the drug seeker. They don't want to hear that there's a poison in their drug because when they do, it's maybe that'll get me higher. I'm going to try that. Yeah. I used to be a woman seeker,

and boy, that addiction was ruined my life. I'm just kidding, folks jokes. Many a truth set in chest, my friend. Yeah, I think I'm, I'm mixing my friend who's getting married a fourth time with my experiences. I tease them. So, Scott, you talk about how to support people. people without controlling. What does that mean exactly? And does that mean you have to let them out of the cage or something? It's basically, most people who suffer from self-medication or individuals who are anesthetized themselves, don't think they have a problem. And generally, if growing up, I'm sure you experienced it, Chris, from what little I've heard from you, that your parents probably said, you shouldn't do that. Don't go out or do this. And if you're going to go out, be sure you get home early,

and don't get behind the wheel. And when someone, someone is either under the weather or doesn't like the weather and they want to find a way to avoid it, they may find themselves drinking too much or taking too many drugs. And I'm oversimplifying it. And when you tell them, look, you've got a drinking problem. No one initially will raise their hand and say, hey, God bless you. Thank you for sharing that with me. I will seek help this afternoon.

So the bottom line is just trying to encourage people to understand when they're ready to talk about it, that if what they're doing is working, don't change a thing. And when I hear people say, I lost my business, I lost my wife, I have half a million dollars in gambling debts. But I said, what do you think is attributable to that? He goes, I don't know. Just because I get drunk and I get DUIs and get arrested, that shouldn't be an example of why I'm losing all those things. And I said, if that's working for you, don't change your things. But if you want to change something and you want to talk about it, let's talk about it.

And that's when you introduce the suggestions about maybe raising your hand and asking for help. Yeah. It's do you find that I used to watch, what was that one show used to watch? Intervention, I think it was called, right? The one TV show? Right. That was fascinating to watch. It was.

Just fascinating. People's. I'm a people watcher. I used to get really depressed sometimes. And I would sit and watch cops for two. hours. And then I'd feel really great. It was like, it was like a therapy for me. Because I'd be like, here I am booming about my life and how bad it is and how rough I got it with success and money. And these guys are, these guys, they got the cops rolling up on them. They're going to jail for

fighting cops or drug use or just being obnoxious with police officers. And so I can just get done. I just be like, I'm not, I haven't been to jail ever. So I'm doing pretty during good. This is what I got to cry about? And I used to watch the intervention. That was interesting to watch. And then do you find that a lot of addicts have to have an intervention most of the time to come to grips with their thing? Or do most people kind of find their bottom and crawl out?

No, most don't. That's why we see the morbidity rate continue to grow because most, first of all, The disease of addiction is a couple things. One of them is a disease of denial. So it's automatic or organic for people who have a problem to say they don't have a problem. And the second part of it is the inability to feel feelings. So if you're numb or seeking to be numb, that's why I like the term anesthetizing oneself, you don't see the problem.

And if you're a functional alcoholic we use, for example, meaning you still have your job, you still have your significant other, your kids. are still living at home and you're maintaining your mortgage and you're still going to work, you may not think you have a problem. But over time, the more you drink, the more you're under the influence, things in your body, mind, and soul start to break down. And that's when it starts to accelerate. And when it starts to accelerate, that's when the blaming comes in. You know, if my family just listened to me differently, if my kids would do what they're told to do, If my boss would just stay out of my face, I would be okay.

And it becomes everybody else's fault. Nine and a half out of ten phone calls I get are from family members who have a loved one. It's not the person who actually they're calling about as it calls me. It's a family member. It's pretty, unless they're sitting in a gurney handcuffed at a hospital and they saw me on your show and said, Chris told me I should call you if I really got in trouble. And I'm facing three to five years right now because they're crying. through a window at an auditorium and I may have heard a few people and I really need your help.

We need the show pumped into more hospital systems, I think. It might be a little too late in the hospital systems, but anything that we can do to prevent and educate I'm all about. And I've learned that over the years. I'd like to be in a business that I can put myself out of business by people getting it and getting the message. We have 400 people plus a day dying in this country still behind overdosing with opioids. And recently, the CDC, the federal government that we all love and respect,

what? Yeah. You said we can be funny on this show. Yeah, you did. I'm sorry, I misread your joke. Okay. Yeah, it's my tone and tenor. I'm trying not to be critical. And at the end of the day, they just announced CDC that 24% of overdoses are now down in our country. Now, up until a year ago, it took three years to get data about what was going on three years before. But all of a sudden, this administration comes up with information that looks glaringly positive. But here's the realistic part of that. Yes, it might be down 24. I'll give them that.

But that means 80,000 people are still dying. 80,000. So to be able to patch yourself on the back and beat yourself on the chest and go, look how good we're doing. And then this morning that the president is talking about, we've closed the borders. The cartel is not bringing in any drugs anymore. Are you kidding me? They have a $50 billion business. They don't give a shit about your tariffs.

And they don't give a hell about the borders. They have 200,000 people working for them, just putting together opioids that they can get into our marketplace. So they're not given up. And our society, you're pill-oriented, if you think, about it. So we're a very easy market. A big example. People ask me over the years, why would somebody sell a product that kills their consumer? And I said, every time, and I heard this, I'm in the rooms of recovery, so I hear the stories real time, every time an overdose years ago used to hit the news, their sales would spike. So they would lose a customer, but they would get a hundred more.

Think about that. Imagine having a problem. Imagine having a product or a service that when things went south, it got better for you. Wait, doesn't that define our president? Anyway, my point is, our leadership, gubernatorial, whether it's local, state, or federal, is not going to solve this problem. Another point, my last book, The Opioid Epidemic, I sent a copy to every governor in this country. This was about six years ago when people were dying everywhere, and everyone was talking about it. four of them sent me a thank you note and one of them sent the book back i think it was pennsylvania i said we don't accept gifts and all it was about i spent three years putting that book together

giving people anecdotes options alternatives information phone numbers to call to try to avoid losing a loved one and it was moving so quickly it was amazing to me so i don't trust the government's going to solve this problem because there's too much money around it so it's really a really going to be up to me and you and the families. And that's why I keep doing this. And I just know that at the end of the day, it creates systemic change. We're going to have to make this a conversation at the dinner table just like we did with COVID and get the federal government to step in like they did with COVID, where real-time data came out, real information was there. And anybody who wants treatment should be able to access it within 24 hours.

if they're putting their hand up and they're saying, I need help. Because right now, if you don't have insurance, you've got to wait in line. If you do have insurance, you get a certain amount of time they're going to pay for. And if you've had a drug problem for 15 years and you go into a 30-day program, if you leave that program and do nothing else, the stats show that you have a 95% chance of relapsing. That's not effective services that we're delivering to our people. And I work with veterans, and we see what's happening with them. You hear every day in the news about the wait list for veterans to get help.

So it's a tough one. It really is. I was watching years ago, the other show that I really enjoyed watching as a people study, because I study people, it's a past time I have, I guess. But I learned so much. And maybe they learn from me.

They're just like, why is that guy staring us over there? Oh, I just got a note from our producer, we did used to be broadcast into hospitals, but too many people were trying to self-harm over my bad comedy. So they kicked us out. Self-harmed jokes. Didn't know we could pull that one off.

No, I was watching, there was a, it was the, it was the, Dr. Drew, I think used to have this show about on rehab. And in La Crescena, I think where I grew up or Pasadena, maybe it was Pasadena, he, he, he would take in these movie stars, rock stars, people that had addiction problems and try and help them in rehab. And it was amazing to me, how many of the people had some sort of sexual, sexual childhood trauma. or some sort of other trauma, but usually sexual trauma. And what they were doing with their addiction was they were trying to anesthesize it, or I think you use a better word, they were trying to cope with their thing. And of course, it's not a good way to cope with a problem because you're not solving the problem. You're just sticking a band-aid over it, and I'm not going to feel for a few hours,

wouldn't drink this bottle of vodka. But I'm going to still have the same problem when I wake up. Do you find that's a lot of issues that people are dealing with that need interventions? I would say the majority of people, and by the way, only 15% of our country actually has, have been diagnosed with or will be diagnosed with an addiction issue over the next, and maybe act out over the next 12 months. So 85% don't, but I'll tell you something in a minute that's interesting about the other 85%. But to answer your question, most people who are anesthetizing themselves or self-medicating, if you will, are and have experience, some sort of trancey, trauma in their young life. It might be domestic violence, watching what happened with their parents. It might have been a loss of a parent, some sort of catastrophic event, an auto accident or losing a

sibling. And many times that is something that comes out of that is that goes on in families, unfortunately. And the idea of how does that get treated, one needs to remove the anesthesia first to be able to treat the underlying mental health issues. And untreated trauma, is significant. We see it a lot in veterans. We hear it all the time, PTSD. Most of them will come back with that and then transitioning back to society without a lot of tools. It's not easy, considering you've been trained to take lives and to believe that you're invincible. So I want to go back to the other 85%, just as a close on that point. Of the 85% that are not addicted, if you will.

And by the way, not everybody who drinks or drugs is addicted. They may be maybe a journey of fun and you live in Vegas. So I don't have to call you out. I've seen that movie. I've seen that movie. You don't have to call me. I saw you walking around the blackjack table a couple of years ago. But 85%, eight people roughly every day will negatively be impacted by that 15%. So if you're significant other as a drinking problem,

you're going to be impacted by it. If you have two kids, they're going to be impacted by it. And if your significant other goes to a job with other coworkers, they're going to be impacted by it because they're impaired or their judgments off or cognitively they can't focus. So this is a major issue. And I just read a piece this morning that 41% of our country's major health issues are attributed to alcohol and drugs.

So it's basically the number one, health crisis right now in our country. And we've got a lot of obesity is another one. Domestic violence is there. And we still have cancer and heart disease and other diseases, if you will, and mental health. So when you think about it, though, but mental health addiction, there's treatments for it. There are resources for it. The fact that you and I are sitting here talking about it today, we wouldn't have been doing 10 years ago. It just wouldn't have been something that your producers would want on the show. Yeah. Back then, they just drink for fun. It was like, I don't know, you can drink and drive. You have 20 beers.

By the way, speaking of drinking and driving, I did a mini intervention on a doctor once that told me, I've done a few of them, but they said, I don't, there's something wrong with my significant other. He doesn't understand what I only drink when I drive home after my 14-hour shift. I don't think I have a drinking problem. Wow. I said, okay. How would you like to proceed? And they just hung up. Sometimes you can't help people, even if you want to. I think people just really have to be ready for that, right? Yeah. And then the question I wanted to bring up to you, one of the things you mentioned on your website and in the book is help funeral avoidance. Is that one of the points you talk to people about who were interested in intervening on a loved one? I do. And you just really hit them with the awakening of, oh, you want funeral avoidance. And they're like, what? And you're like, yeah, this person is going to die if you don't do something. Yeah, I frame it a little bit different, but sometimes they go right there.

And the idea you're talking to a family, they go, when will they get better? I said, just talked to a mom last week. She goes, I'm really having trouble with my son. He just doesn't want to listen to me. And he keeps doing drugs and he keeps stealing from me. I said, how old's your son? She says 55. I said, how long has this been going on?

She says about 30 years. I said, look, the way it's going, my sense would be you're either going to go to his funeral very soon and or he's going to need to get some help or if you let him keep driving one of your cars, he is going to hurt himself or somebody else. And he's going to go jail for a long time. And I said, an attorney is a lot more expensive than rehab. And, of course, a funeral is permanent. So most of what I try to do is help the family.

And that's where the intervention comes in is help them understand. You're not God. You cannot fix this. I cannot fix this. And I'm good at it. What I can do is help them navigate to get to the people who are smarter than I am, who are clinically savvy, who do this for their career every day. And they're out there.

They're out there. And they're waiting to help. So what I try to do is intervene on the behavior that's going on within the So I use the word intervention a little differently. The old school way is get everybody in circle, everybody reads something talking about how they love that person in the circle. And nine out of ten times, a person in the circle is so embarrassed and so angry, they get up and leave.

And then getting them back to a circle is really hard. So sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But what's important is I'm present. I answer my own phone. I can do that. I hope to, after your show, I'll have to have somebody else. else help me with it. But at the end of the day, if I can, that's why I give out my phone number.

Family calls me and their kids a hair is on fire. If I can do something to help guide them, give them a nugget, make a suggestion. And I do that part of what I do for free. You want to hire me long term ongoing. We can talk about it. But at the end of the day, I want to see people not die. And that's how direct sometimes I have to be. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of denial, I think in people that are the loved ones, right? Sometimes they make excuses for the addictive person. We had a bad childhood and we could have done better. Sometimes a lot of the times they've just,

they've created their own denial network in their brain. No, I broke a kid's leg when I was in second grade. Accidentally, I was identified as a problem child when I was like six years old. Yeah. I did that, but the guy out of me money. No, I'm just kidding. I didn't do that. You live in Vegas.

That can happen, right? Yeah, yeah. You got to pay the Vig, man. You don't pay the boys when they come by. They're going to come back with gasoline and in Massachusetts. And a bodyback. Vegas from the 90s back when they were still there. I kind of miss them, actually, because the corporation seems to be worse than mobsters.

If they don't kill you in hotel fees, they kill you in parking costs. So I kind of miss the mob. Anyway, there's one thing I want to talk about that it's on your website. to give people awareness of. You have an opioid edemic one sheet on there that people can, I believe, download the first chapter. I think this is from another book of yours. Correct.

The opioid epidemic, that was my second book that's on the website. And if you go on my website, your crisiscoach.com, I do a podcast, and there's a myriad of experts that we've spoken to. And if things go, well, you're going to end up hanging on the website as well, Chris, talking about what we're talking about. I'm sure all my friends in Vegas are going to look you up and go, I want to meet this guy. So there's pieces of, I call them nuggets.

They're incentives. They're like an hors d'oeuvre. Go on there, take a look, download some of them, watch some of the podcast and see answers of information there. And we've talked to people from politicians to district attorneys to addiction specialists, medical doctors, other interventionists and other treatment providers. and the goal is to have enough data, so something will resonate with you.

And then once you've seen it, set together some questions, then reach out and we'll talk about it. And that's what the website will do. Your crisiscoach.com. And if you're in San Diego, confidential recovery.com is our treatment center. And I got on the treatment business

because I was tired of watching people die. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. So let's talk about some of the operations. offerings you have on your website and if someone's listening in the audience, whether they're someone who has an addiction problem, abuse problem of whatever chemicals they're utilizing, or they're a family member who needs help with a loved one who has these problems. Tell us how they can

reach out to you and work with you. Is there anything they need to have? Do they have to have insurance for this sort of thing? Or how does, tell us how that whole thing works? Working backwards, insurance doesn't pay for what I do, unfortunately. And I get paid by the hour. And you can call me 6199-933-2738 or text me. And I'll generally respond within 24 hours, depending upon how many. I heard you have 265 million viewers, which is incredible, Chris. I've never heard of that kind of number, but that's great. That is a lot.

Yeah. Joe Rogan's going to be pissed when he finds out about that. I don't know about that figure. Anyways, or they go on my website. Just Google me, Scott A. Silverman. And again, feel free to peruse there. We're not selling anything on the website, except there's information there, and it's free. And freeze my second favorite F word.

So take advantage of it. And know that there's always hope and help. And if you have a love one, you're concerned about and don't know what to do, get informed before you have the conversation. There are some things that you can do. There's things you can say. And I'm a firm believer that God gave me two ears in one mouth. And sometimes it's really good. and I give this advice to people is just shut up.

Listen and listen, especially with young people, because when you start talking, their integrator shuts off and so to their ears. So it's good to ask your kids, I heard something on this podcast, and I'm curious, what do you know about this fentanyl stuff? Is it really a synthetic? Tell me about the dark web. You bring it up to your kids and they're going to look at you like, oh, my, you've gone into the fourth dimension.

The dark web is where people get their precursor. and supplies to me. Oh, yeah. I think we just freed some people that were running the original one back in the day. Interesting. We sure have pardoned a lot of drug dealers lately. I'm not sure we yeah. And look, and we're legalizing marijuana as fast as we can. And right now, marijuana is becoming one of the fastest growing drugs that people are overdosing on. And it's like, oh, because of fentanyl. It's laced on with fentanyl, but it's 95 percent. laced the THC when my was smoking, it was

6%, 7%, so it was so strong, and if they mix it, or if somebody laces fentanyl with it, and they take an edible, well, that wasn't enough, I'm going to take another one, and then all of a sudden, and they're mixing it with Xanax, or they're taking their adderol, and

their malt polydrug, and they've got other drugs in their system, what happens is that gets triggered. Going back to Dr. Drew, you remember when Whitney Houston, and overdosed and drowned in her tub. I don't know exactly which came at what order. He was so upset.

I remember him for three days. He was all over the news. He was crying. He said musicians and entertainers and ballplayers and professionals have been using heroin forever. And we've never seen what's happening happening now. And he said he blamed it on the combination of drugs. And I think she was on some sort of a mental health antidepressant.

and some other drugs and then whatever, when the cocktail came together, maybe with alcohol, it killed her. And I think the same thing happened to her daughter. And Cindy Crawford's son, we haven't heard exactly what happened there yet. And you mentioned the 37-year-old. It was just in the paper today that the toxicology came back and she died of an accidental overdose. And it's called an accidental overdose.

But who knows? Maybe she just wasn't dealing with what was happening. with her life or her life was dealing with her and she couldn't manage it anymore. When we hear about young people who take their own life, it's a horrible thing. And then it's not just the person who dies. It's everyone in their family, their friends, the cohorts, and their future and their past that's impacted by it as well. Yeah.

And then Prince, he died of a fentanyl overdose, Tom Petty. We lost a lot of great people and a lot of normal people, too, that everyone's got a shot of the title and it's valuable. Excuse me. So they can reach out to you on the website. They can hire you. I think you do speaking as well. Oh,

you mentioned you have a podcast. What's the name of the podcast? We can get a plug in for that. Your crisis coach. Your crisis coach podcast. You can just Google it, come find us. And if you have somebody you think we should talk to, we bring them on. We do it every week.

We don't do as much as you do, but we have a small little audience. We're building it. And I just had some. somebody on yesterday who's a professional philosopher who got sober in 87, three years after I did, and we'll have that public in about a week or two, and we're all on the platforms. And she's talking about recovery and how and what she's heard from others, and she teaches it. And it was just incredible listening to, and in my age, to be totally taken back by somebody who's fully immersed in this industry, but from a whole different perspective, was really

exciting. And we're going to, we keep doing more of that. We're talking to a, we have a psychic coming on in a couple of weeks. That may give us a different perspective on how we can help people. And you never know. You never know. And there's a lot of way people with addiction can die, too. I had a girlfriend for many years.

We were engaged for a while, but she couldn't stop drinking. And I'm like, we're not getting married to wing in the center of control. And there reached a point where I had to finally, I went to A with her a couple times. And A, you kind of woke me up more than it woke her up, the stories that were there. and I went, oh, this is something I'm going to have to live with all my life if I marry this person. And there just comes a time where you have to walk away and go, this isn't going to be the rest of my life. And years later, she died of potassium, lack of potassium. And alcohol drains the potassium and vitamins from your system.

And if you don't replenish them, you're going to have some real problems. And she died. I didn't know you could die of potassium, lack of potassium. I didn't know that was the thing. But it is. And so there's a lot of ways to die if you've gotten an addiction problem. Sure. Massive weight loss, sleep, acting out inappropriately, getting different things happening, gambling.

Gambling's an addiction. I mean, I don't have to tell you. And since gaming opened up on the reservations in the last 20 years, it's so accessible. And we don't, one thing I heard I want to share with you that I heard yesterday, that part of the major, one of the major contributors to people moving forward with their disease of addiction is lack of self-respect. And I thought, that was, it was, I don't know, I had, I didn't sleep last night thinking about this in a good way.

Yesterday was Yom Kipper, so it was my holy day of the year and I was taking care of atoning for all my sins because I knew I'd be here with you today and I wanted to have a fresh slate. I came in clean, brother. I came in clean. Cool. Sounds good then. That's what, we did drug check you before you showed up. No, no, and I appreciate that. I really do.

Because we do that at our treatment center. People go, well, why would you want to do that? I don't want to know. I said, sure you do it, because you know what? If you've abstained and you're getting off of your mood-altering substances, you should patch yourself in the back. You should tell yourself, you know what? I did this.

And you did. And people should be acknowledged because we certainly punish people for being out of control. It's hard, though, because families can get pretty berated. by that person and their family, especially during holiday time coming up that, you know, oh, Johnny's, Johnny's coming this year again. What are we going to do with Johnny? I get a lot of calls just before Thanksgiving. You're really wrong.

What do I do? I said, just maybe invite him not to come this year. Invite him not to come. We have a special invitation for you, Bob. Yeah. Yeah, don't come. Don't come. Not listening.

Yeah, I'm just not listening. The door is locked. Yeah. We've changed the locks. Change the locks. probably changed the locks last year based on what I heard that happened with Johnny. In Vegas, it's really hard to make friends. Like you, I swear to God, they only say 15% of the population of Vegas is addicted. I swear that's a lie.

It's more like 30%. Yeah. When you make friends in Vegas, the first thing you have to do is start keeping us side eye on them and make sure that they don't have a gambling problem or a drug problem. And it doesn't matter. Whatever they're addicted personality is, they'll find it. in Vegas is the worst place to move if you have addiction problems. It's a 24-hour city.

Cocktails are everywhere. Oh, yeah, party town. Yeah, and drug dealers know that. So they come to town as well. Oh, yeah. We got everything you want. Sex, booze, drugs, alcohol. Yeah, and it's all legal, right?

Pretty much, yeah. You have to go out of Clark County to do the prostitution thing. I made that point. I was talking about alcohol, but thank you. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, I just made that point because I've talked to so many idiots. who called me from downtown.

They're like, I'm like, ah, I just hired a prostitute, Chris. And I'm like, and she just stole from me. And I'm like, yeah, and you're going to call the cops? Yeah, it's not legal except if you go outside Clark County. So it's kind of a public awareness thing I want to get. I actually did have a friend call me. And he trusted the hooker just to take out what he owed her,

but she took all the cash. well, he was in the bathroom, and she ran out the door. And, of course, they know where to hide in those hotels. And he seriously wanted to call the cops because she ripped him off. And I'm like, she ripped you off while you were doing a crime yourself. So what are you going to do? You can't call the cops, he idiot. But I thought prostitution was legal in Vegas.

It is outside of Vegas. And since you brought this up, we should probably point out that sex is an addiction as well. Oh, yeah. We haven't talked about that. so is what the new term is called screen addiction. Kids that are screen addiction. Green. Oh, yeah. iPhone, iPad, computer. Screen addiction. That's a name for it. And kids are being influenced more so than ever before, especially during COVID, when they were all at home. You know, the average kid was on their screen two, three hours a day and during COVID, it went up to 10 or 12.

That's a lot of time of people influencing you that you probably would normally welcome into your core group of home. but COVID created that. And we're seeing some fallout right now. And I think long term, young people that were isolated during COVID are, they're starting to act out now. And we're going to see more and more of it around the mental health issue. And teenage suicide is on the rise. And of course, veterans, their suicide rates higher than it's ever been before. And look, you look around. People are sad or upset or don't know what to do or anxious or trying to figure things out. And it's hard to find a quiet corner sometimes. It's a situation. down and be with yourself and go, I love me today. I love me today. And to do things you need to do for you and practice self-care. It's hard. Yeah. I do that at Spirmer Rhino. No, I'm just kidding. Let's see. No, it's, what was the other thing I had on that? Oh, I really think after COVID, we need a nationwide freaking therapy for everybody after COVID. I think we all need some help. Even me. And even as brilliant, smart, good looking, just one of the most extraordinary human beings of the planet, Brad Pitt and George Clooney call me for tips. I still need help.

But to me, that screen thing, to me, we really need dopamine freaking addiction clinics. We seriously do. I hate to throw women at this, but women, seriously, that phone is attached to them 24-7. It is, you see them walking around, and there's lots of other people to do it too. But the only time a gal that I'm meeting on says, oh, I didn't respond for a day. or two because I was without my phone. I'm like, yeah, that's not possible, unless you were in maybe jail. But we need a dopamine addiction outlets opened. We really do. It's, it's, even I'm, I do'm, I doom scroll and then do all the things. But yeah, some of these people are so addicted for the need attention and validation. You can't function without it.

It's, it's become a real new dependent tool. And I don't know if it's quite, it's mood altering in some ways because obviously if you get bad information or don't hear from somebody and if you don't get instant gratification, your frustration level can crank up immediately. In dating, there's people that flip out if you don't respond to them within five minutes and when they think that you're just, I guess you're just sitting around all day, just waiting to reply to them and you have a job or anything or family or whatever you're doing. I'll give you an interesting anecdote because both my wife and I are, she won't admit to it, but I do. I have diminished hearing that, you know, exactly.

That's our favorite word now is what. And sometimes if I really want her attention, I text her and I get it quicker than if I were to try to say something because I'd have to repeat it twice or three times. Or she's distracted and I don't get her attention. We joke about it because when our oldest comes, oh, she lives in town, our youngest come together. We set our phones down.

And I really ask them, I said, look, take 30 minutes with us. Because to me, that's the solid time families don't take for themselves anymore. Set it down for 30 minutes. Let's look each other in the eye. Turn off the TV. And you can see them start to sweat. But after a couple minutes, they go, okay, and they get involved with conversations. Tell us how you're doing.

What's new in your life? What are you enjoying more? What aren't you? Tell us what's happening. And most people want to talk about themselves, given the opportunity to do it. And a buddy of mine is a psychiatrist. And he said, he traveled the world as a UN ambassador. trying to find commonalities and what standard treatment would look like.

And it's different because of cult, cultures, and ethnic groups around the world. And he said his findings over the year has been three nights of sitting down to dinner as a family does more for the family than anything else one can do throughout the week. And you think about it. When I grew up, that's the way it was. Even though I had, oh, yeah, you and me. My family dinner was like a committee meeting because I worked for my family. My dad was a CEO.

My mom was a CFO. And we were all like little worker bees at the table. But when we had them at the table, they put everything down. They put their notes down and they weren't thinking about business. They were thinking about it, but they didn't let us know. And we had their attention because I used to get it other ways like breaking a kid's leg in school. My folks knew local law enforcement and the principals better than most did. To know people and influence and power.

Yeah, I really think we need a dopamine addiction thing. I think there, I have a rule that when I go to. lunch or even on a date or whatever the case is, I always leave my phone in my pocket or I turn on silence and I set it down and I really make sure I don't pick that thing up. But the only time I'll pick it up is if they've gone to the bathroom or something, then I might check my messages. I run a business 24-7 internationally with consulting and everything I do. Sometimes I have to be on something or it's important. But when I'm face-to-face with them, we do that. And even my guy friends, we do that. To me, it's just real important. And it speaks volumes to how much

what you value the other person too, I believe. You're saying, hey, there's a lot of bullshit that's on this phone and crap that's coming inward, but I'm sitting here spending time with you, and this is the present moment that we need to be somewhat intimate with each other as a human being and share friendship or romantic relationship, whatever the case is. You pick up that phone and that thing is such a deal killer if you're in that moment. And it's just a real F you to people, I think. That's my opinion. I agree with you completely. What were you saying? I was looking at my phone.

As we phase out, give people a final pitch out to pick up your book and check for your podcasts and order up your services. The easiest way is just Google me. Scott H. Soverman, call me, text me, email me any way you want to communicate. Your crisiscoach.com. And again, if you're in Southern California, San Diego, confidential recovery.com. and the Veterans Navigation Center, that's our nonprofit that we serve veterans here in San Diego. We're very proud of that. So if there's anything that I can do for you, I just, I helped a woman today who called me,

she said, I saw your thing on Facebook, and I have a problem I'm sure you can't solve. And I love a challenge. And she says, I haven't slept well in four months. And I said, okay, so we went through the list. She's seen a specialist tried medication, warm milk. So I gave her a couple of, I talked about. I flipped it on her. So, you know what if I was your best friend?

What would you tell me to do? And she had some ideas. And I said, obviously, you've learned that along the way. Maybe you just didn't listen. And then she got upset with me. But I said, look, sleep deprivation can contribute to all kinds of things. So no matter what somebody call me about, I'll do what I can to help you. But my specialty is helping families help their loved ones navigate and go to next steps.

And the book's called, You're not God. That job is taken. You can get it on Amazon. and I hope you'll pick it up and read it and more importantly call me let's talk about it and I promise you if I can't help you I will help guide you to get some help okay sounds a good deal call them up folks take care of your loved ones don't put off in the day anything can happen as we've talked about within 24 hours and this might be someone's last day don't make excuses for them don't be in denial they're in their own denial so they don't need to

more help and call for help. Thank you very much for coming the show. We really appreciate it, Scott. Thank you, Chris. And thanks for us for tuning in. Order up his book, wherever fine books are sold. You're not God. That job is taken by Scott Silverman. That's also what all my girlfriends say to me when I break up with him. You're not God. That job is taken. Not Scott Skilverman. They don't say that to me when I'm breaking up. I just want to make that clear. Thanks a month for tuning in. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, dot com. Fortune S. Chris Voss. YouTube.com, Fortunes Christfuss.

Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed.