The Zac Clark Show - Expert Interventionist Shares Secrets Behind 1,000+ Successful Interventions | Jonathan Rauch

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

When you hear the word “intervention,” you might picture the chaotic scenes from TV shows like Intervention. But as Certified Intervention Expert Jonathan Rauch explains, interventions aren’t about chaos—they’re about connection, preparation, and healing. In this episode of The Zac Clark Show, Zac sits down with Jonathan, who has led over 1,000 successful interventions, to discuss how reframing interventions as family meetings can reduce stress and create a path toward recovery. They dive into the critical role of family support, preparation, and education in addressing substance use disorders (SUD), alcohol use disorders (AUD), and mental health challenges. Jonathan shares his personal experience with intervention, provides valuable advice for families on how to care for themselves while supporting a loved one, and emphasizes the importance of long-term treatment plans. He also sheds light on the increasing number of interventions stemming from marijuana psychosis and mental health disorders, which create unique and challenging dynamics. This powerful conversation is a must-listen for families and individuals navigating the complexities of substance use disorder and mental health. Listen or watch to discover how interventions can be transformative tools for hope and healing—for both individuals and families. Learn more about Jonathan Rauch and his work. Connect with Zac https://www.instagram.com/zwclark/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-c-746b96254/ https://www.tiktok.com/@zacwclark https://www.strava.com/athletes/55697553 https://twitter.com/zacwclark If you or anyone you know is struggling, please do not hesitate to contact Release: [phone] releaserecovery.com @releaserecovery

All right, welcome back to the Zach Clark Show. I'm fired up. I'm fired up for a lot of reasons, but we have my good friend, Jonathan Rauschenly. Jonathan is a certified intervention professional. He's got a master's, or he's a licensed social worker. And most importantly, or the number that stuck out to me is he's done over a thousand successful. We were just talking about interventions, right? I mean, what's up, dude?

So, hi, everyone. So actually, I just have to start by saying, like, the word intervention. I loo that word. you hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it people think interventions they think cameras lights chaos people hiding in a closet you know coming out and lies and stuff like that and so I like to tell families hey let's call it family meeting

and actually always 100% of the folks I work with always invite them to a family meeting you're just inviting them before I never I never surprised it actually takes the angst and the chaos out of the system because when you know families call it us, they're in total chaos, 100% chaos. And it's just really hard to add more chaos into a system. So I try to take out the chaos.

And so I love that. You hopped right into that because I thought the word like, yeah, it's families when I am talking to them at the stage that you often talk to families will say kind of like this word intervention, it just seems, it feels like a lot. And for me, I'm kind of with you. I don't love the word. So I love this idea of calling it a family meeting. Has the show intervention and kind of society made your job harder?

Absolutely. But in a negative way, but also in a positive way, because actually it's brought in the word intervention and people are more open to getting the help because they actually have a solution. So it's sort of like a push in a pool, right? Yeah. So it's a positive and a negative.

So you don't just find yourself waking up one day and saying, I'm going to do interventions for a living, right? I mean, so how do we get to where you are today? So, to make a long story interesting. You know I'm going to ask for a couple crazy stories. Like, I need one or two, like, because you've seen it all. So I also, about 21 years ago, I am a product of an intervention. For some reason, my family thought I had a drug and alcohol problem.

I was like, you know, what do you mean? I don't have a problem. And they did. Isn't it the best we're the last ones to figure it out? like yeah well i kind of knew but i didn't know like i kind of knew something like i probably should like slow down but like i just didn't i didn't it didn't even like it was sort of there but it wasn't there like i just was i was definitely back here i wasn't up here so i was 27 years old and um my family did a little family intervention no professional and um how they do well i'm

sober but did they like they they made it so it was like i'll tell you the quick story So I was walking out of, I was probably about 140 pounds, you know, drugs, alcohol, and walking out of East Fort Laude out of a friend's house, my brother grabbed me and said, we're going to my dad's. And so the first thing I said to my brother was, like, you can't kidnap me. But what I felt was the relief. That was the first time I felt relief in years. I was like, okay, like I got it.

But of course, my insides did not match my outsides at all. So I went. willingly. I walked in and I always said it was like NORAD. It was like my sisters were on the computer calling people looking at different treatment programs. It was so disorganized. And then I came in, made it even worse. They tried to talk to me. And it took a little bit. Were you high? Were you Oh yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I was definitely intoxicated and walked in and they, you know, they narrowed it down to two programs specifically one out in California, which I thought, oh okay I can go to California and then it took a little convincing and then I ended up going and

it was the best thing that ever happened and literally that was the hard reset that I feel like you know 20 year olds need sometimes even 30 year olds you know well that's the thing is crazy and I love that story and I love that your family like so it's like this willingness to have the hard conversation yeah right and for me a lot of times it's amazing to me when you start to talk to families and you say well have you kind of like tried to Have you asked them? Have you asked them? Yeah.

And they're like, well, no. He's going to run away or he's going to, you know, he's going to, they always go to and I get it, right? Like you're living such a chaos. But I also get some families that have and that's why they call because they sort of hit that wall. Right. I would say the majority are sort of like you, you know, what you're saying is that they

haven't asked, they're afraid to. They don't know how to. So. Yeah, I mean, and it's always amazing to me, it's, you know, having done, and I'm sure you know this, I always talk to the families about kind of taking the air out of room, right? It's very easy for me to act like a child and kick and scream and have a temper tantrum if it's my mom and dad and brother. I don't give a shit what they think about me. But now there's like you or me walking into the room and they're like, you know, all the representative is up and that can be helpful because they're actually able to kind of like listen. Yeah. So

the whole intervention process is really about redirecting, right? It's redirecting not just the person that needs to help your loved one, but it's also redirecting the family. Right. So I always look at families as two sides of a coin. There's the head, which is usually the substance user, and then there is the family, the tail. And it's very much a parallel process. And we'll get into a little bit about how I see families and how if they're all just looking at Johnny and saying Johnny needs help and no one's doing the same work, we're running into an issue. So it's a parallel process. And the healthiest families I see is what everybody is focused on themselves. And they're willing to do it and not willing and doing it yeah and doing it those are the healthiest families

i see i probably say that sentence a hundred times a day you know it's the families that i work with and and and so it's so important that realizing it's not just about johnny going to treatment it's about the whole family yeah i mean it's like i i was telling you i mean i i get all these messages right all these direct messages and inquiries and a lot of these folks don't have resources for an intervention or don't know where to start and they always kind of ask me and the first thing i kind of go to is are you taking care of yourself yeah what do you mean I'm not I'm not asking about myself I'm asking about my brother I was well so what you what we see probably is a lot of parents angst and anxiety and also parents probably realizing that they

parented from guilt or shame whatever was going on in that system that's got to the point of though it's not just Johnny being stuck with the whole system stock right and so this is why I always say whether their loved one goes to treatment or not doesn't matter what matters is that you guys start shifting and pivoting a little bit the parents, the families, the husbands, the husbands, the spouses, and just start pivoting. And if you start making those small changes, eventually Johnny will go to treatment because the old behavior, the old dance isn't going to work. Right? So Johnny won't change necessarily right now, but the parents will. And just everyone knows, Johnny is like the, you know, phantom

patient here. Correct. Yeah, the IP, yes, thank you. Thanks for that clear. I mean, this is gold. I mean, this is, I mean, already in 15 minutes of this conversation or 10 minutes of this conversation, families are walking away with something that's really tangible and probably a lot of times what they don't want to hear which is like hey you want to turn the mirror back on you and and look at yourself yeah i also will say that i'm getting a lot of calls where people have gone to treatment and they've gone to detoxes several times they've gone to residential once two three four times and it hasn't worked so i always ask is like what is the longest point your loved one has gotten sober and say it's over right and it's like a month or maybe a week after treatment a couple

weeks up to treat, maybe even a year. But typically what I always say is that you've got to look at nine to 12 months of treatment. If you could do nine to 12 months of detox, residential and transitional, it's a good recipe for someone to stay sober for long-term, you know, long-term recovery. Yeah. And the problem, I mean, like, I hear you. And that's one of the gaping holes I feel like in our system is we baked in this idea that the 28-day treatment model was, was, or last under managed care. I mean, people were going away and getting 14 days under insurance. And then being set out into the world. And obviously nine to 12 months is the dream,

but how are payers reimbursing for that so people can actually do the care? Yeah, so folks that have limited resources, it's patch work, you gotta patch up the work and do the best you can as far as using the insurance and patching up that work. But to go back to the word intervention is scary for people, right?

Because that means change, you know, and parents don't always want to change. Right, you know, they just want, They just want their loved one better. And also another introduction to this is mental health. Yeah. So now we're dealing with now mental health. I feel like I'm seeing more mental health cases than just straight substance use disorder that I saw, you know, 15, 20 years ago.

But like the opiate use, man, back, those days were so much easier facilitating interventions. We get no heroin calls. Zero. We get no heroin calls anymore. It's marijuana. It's marijuana-induced psychosis. It's mental health, you know, and it's, I don't know what you're seeing, but for us, you know, it's like the chicken or the, right?

Like, it's like, okay, we need to get them somewhere and get the drugs out of their system so we can really tell, like, is this a mental health issue or did they just fry their brain? And now they're presenting as someone who's manic or bipolar because their drug use was so out of control. Perfect. So the co-occurring piece is huge. And I think a lot of that is the legalization of marijuana, of cannabis. And I think that's, I think it's hurting, you know, 18, 19, 20-year-olds and younger. and yeah the folks that are predisposed to mental health yeah you know and they're smoking the oils and

the pens and the the bait pens you know also what I'm seeing and switch up a little bit is I'm seeing a huge uptake in 35 to 55 year old alcohol use disorder like I'm seeing a lot more alcoholics these days which is you know sort of great it's amazing you know for the work that I do in the sense that it's it's less a little bit about drugs and it's more like the alcohol use disorder is huge. People are just going back to drinking. And I don't know if that was coming out of the pandemic, but it's just, and maybe the federal government, you know, squeezing down on the pills and stuff like that. But the alcohol use disorder is, is just increased. I mean, dude, the alcohol shit is crazy to me because, and look, if you can go out and have a

couple cocktails, God bless you. I can't, right? So I'm not, I never come from this, you know, holier than now place around booze. But what I will say is that when booze, when booze, get to hold of someone, it's more aggressive, I think, than any other. We've had, I think, three or four cases where we've gone, done an intervention, gotten the person to treatment, they get out, oh, no, the person's had a liver transplant. Oh, yeah. They go to treatment, they get out, and they start drinking again. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's crazy. Also, what you're seeing with the SUD, with alcohol use disorder, also a lot of anxiety. society that's coming with it, too. And we're seeing a lot of, like, men and women, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, just that increase of that alcohol use. It's just, it's just crazy. All right, so I want to go back to the person, because I feel like our personal experience. And just so everyone knows, Jonathan and I have known each other probably 10 years now.

I mean, we've shared cases. We've seen people get well. I remember the first kind of case we shared. I think that guy's like eight years sober now, and it was someone from my hometown's cousin or something. But it's just, it's beautiful to sit here with you. So 21 years ago, you get this intervention, do you go to treatment? I went to treatment.

I actually went for nine months. Nice. I did the residential and then the sober living. Is the program so around? It's still around. Yeah, it's still around. Who is it? Can we say?

Or you don't want to say? Okay, we're good. We'll move on. But I will say it was the right place, the right time. Yep. Okay. And what I will say, it was the willingness that I had to get better. Yep.

And I do believe that for the folks that can't afford, you know, treatment, that if someone's willing to get better, honestly, I think my parents could have taken me to the Salvation Army where there's no counseling, it's all work, I think I would have gotten better. I also went to a lot of 12-set meetings, and I got a sponsor, I got well in, you know, in AA. And you know, I did some private therapy as well.

And I, by the way, still do private therapy, right? I think that's important too. And so that's sort of how that happened. The owner of the treatment program said to me, you know, I think you'd be a good interventionist. I was like, great, what is that? You know, I was like, what is it? What is an intervention do?

know, interventionists do. Because you were convincing all the other patients to do what you wanted. I don't know. He must have saw, I'll tell you, he must have saw something in me that, you know, he was right. Yeah. So he was right. So I started doing interventions, and that's sort of how I sort of figured that out, belong to AIS and organization.

And then I also realized is that I wanted to go back to school and level up with an education too. So I went back and got my master's in social work and so you're like 18 months or a year into this and you're just being sober and decide I'm going to do this work. Yeah. About a year, about a year into it. Yeah. Maybe even a little bit less I was doing it.

I don't recommend it per se. Dude, I was four months. Yeah. I was like, no, I wasn't fine. Look, I was like one of those that I was like, I'm sober, everyone else should be sober. Like, like, it's like, we got this. This is an amazing thing. Like, I was the best salesperson for like, you know, selling, you know, recovery because I loved it.

It was working for me, you know, and it is working. That's the part of this whole thing that's been crazy to me is like, you know, a lot of this is like you you turn your will over and you give your power away. But like, a lot of this shit's been like in my suburb. probably has been taking my power back because there was a lot of people earlier on like don't work in behavioral health care don't do work in recovery I was like fuck you like I didn't get sober to be told what to do like this is filling me up yeah and so I did it and I'm we're both still here so so so the best advice I got when I was really newly sober from my sponsor he said he said

what you do is you work in recovery but your programs in the rooms and he's like I'm you got to be really clear on that and I was like oh okay that makes sense and I think I'm still am clear on that. And dude, there's people that are not clear on that. And I've seen people die. I've seen people. It just never, it never, it never ends well. Look, when, as a professional, walking into a family system, you know, I like to say, hey, look, I've leveled up. I've gotten the education. When men and women call me and say, hey, can I meet with you? I want to do what you do. I say, great. Come meet with me. We meet. We're in my office. And the first thing I say is, well, they say is I want to do what you do.

It's like, great, go to school, get that education. It's not necessary that they want to be a therapist or whatever. It's about walking in, and I feel like I'm good at my craft, and I've done everything possible to sort of upgrade myself in the craft that I do. And also, it's really helped with, you know, the mental health interventions that we do now, which is, you know, less a little bit about substance or no substance, and now doing a lot of mental health. And this is really since coming out of the pandemic, since about 2021, 2021,

2021, 2022, and moving forward, it's been increased mental health interventions. And that's a little bit of a different approach to how I work. I usually work with teams. I like to grab other professionals and depending on where and the places. And, you know, we're working with, you know, stabilization, hospital stabilizations. It's a little bit of different than just getting in the car and going, you know, get in the van and go. It's a little bit, it's a little bit of a different process. And did you cut your teeth in New York?

Is that? Yeah. That's how it worked. Which is the best. I started doing intervention. in California. I worked for a couple of folks that we probably know back in early day, early day. Can I say their name? I don't know. Hey, so Ken See Lee. Yeah, yeah. I've worked for Ken Sealy. He's all over. He's like social media. Like I see Ken on social media. Yeah. So I work for him

and it was a great experience. You know, and then I worked. Is he still doing it? Is he? I don't know. Actually, I don't know. I think he's in Hawaii. And I think I don't, I don't really know what he's doing. But I started that. I started my company in 2005, you know, CD interventions. And it was called Chemical Dependency Interventions, and I just... Great name, dude. Yeah, and short for CDI, and I've just been sort of plugging away and doing the work. And, you know, so then when I moved to New York, I worked for Brad Lamb for about four years, and that was such a great experience.

I learned so much. And he's kind of started his own treatments, right? Yeah, he's out west. Yeah, he's out west. Yeah, he's out west. I saw Brad probably two years ago. I was out. So we're colleagues, we're friends, and we also belong to the same association of AIS.

so um which is a great which is a bunch of interventionists together trying to set the standards so so so because i get a ton and i feel like people are going to want to listen to this because a lot of my following ends up being family members particularly women so sisters and moms who wives wives there you go the three yeah who have someone in their life and they just they just don't know what to do so you know what's what is the role of an interventionist like what like what does that first call look like

if someone's listening to this and they're like yeah it sounds like what I need like what do you yeah so what I always do first is you know you get on the phone spend about five or ten minutes and schedule a call for about an hour an hour and a half with a family it's a free call I do a free call where I want to know a call still free for you

it's free totally free and I want that I want I always say it's like you know if if aunts and uncle your phone's going to play you you're not going to do that anymore. I might regret that. If aunt and uncle are on, like bring them all along, I have a Zoom, I want them to tell me the story, and then I want to see if it's a good fit.

You know, and I always tell the folks that work with me on these cases, and sometimes it's better to say no, you know, then yes, we don't have to take every case, either because we're not the right fit or we don't have the time or whatever it is. It's just, it's okay to say no, too, and pass it off to other colleagues that are also work in the field. I was strongly believing that, you know, we can't save everybody. So I do the first phone call, start building the case in my head, and then talk about the process. Now, I have a framework of how I work, right?

It's, you know, I can go through A through Z of how it works, but sometimes it's different, you know, and so the one thing I realize about facilitating family meetings or interventions, it's really about, you can't be so rigid. It can't be like, no, we have to fit it in this box here. We have to think out of the box. And so sometimes the invite is in the morning. Sometimes the invite is a week before. It just depends on the case.

And then I don't write letters. It's all asking questions. And you do you spend a lot of time. Sorry, I'm jumping in, but you spent a lot of time with like coaching the family on how they're going to make that invitation. I always say like my work at the beginning, there's two parts of my work. The first part is facilitating the intervention and helping the family. And the second part is supporting them when when the loved one is hopefully getting help.

But the first part is really about 70% is prepping family. The other 25, 30% is actually facilitating the family meeting. Right? So it's really about prepping the family walking you to a family and they're prepped. They know how to answer. They know how to respond. They look at me. They know that I'm sort of facilitating this meeting. We're good. No matter what he or she says, no matter what the resistance is or what they're protecting, we're good. We are good. And I always talk to families, like I use the word pivoting and shifting how they respond, what they do. And that's really the most important thing. And that's really a big bulk of my work at the beginning. I speak to everyone individually and then we prep the families we have Zoom and then and then we do the invite part of that part of that prep is also assessing the situation what treatment center looking at insurance looking at all those things past insurance you know past treatment programs what what's worked what hasn't worked I want to hear it all and so I mean I always say the best money you can spend I really and I'm not just saying this because you hear the best money because none of this shit's cheap like I hope someday that interventions are covered by insurance maybe they will be I don't know but like you know low end and an intervention can cost you know there's people out there probably doing them two three four thousand dollars and it can cost 20,000 30 I mean like to really do this and do it well but I always say the best money you can spend is on the event because of what you just said they're going to tell you where to use your insurance they're going to be able to call in favors

they're going to save you that money in the long 10 times over yeah for sure I think you're absolutely right and it's really about so long good guiding the family into the process right because you know a lot of they either they don't know or they've been misguided in the past yeah And, you know, just like my family, you know, when I walked into that to my intervention, my dad's house, you know, my sisters were on it. It was like, it really was. I say NORAD. It really was. They didn't know what they were doing.

They were just making calls and asking questions and trying to figure it all out, you know, and it was hard for them because they just didn't know. It was uncharted territory. So we can't take ourselves too seriously. Yes. And you've done a bunch of these. Was it getting too serious? What? Was I getting too serious?

No, no. But I'm just trying to say, like, you've done a thing. thousand of these things successfully obviously you're not a hundred percent like the unexpected like when you're bringing these fans like what what is some of the craziest shit i don't want names obviously i'll go through like the pg to more like the rated the rated ones like you know it's it's always great when you know you invite someone to a meeting and they're like okay sure i'll go and that just recently happened and that was really nice sweet yeah i'm like all right do you still get a little high like a little all the time yeah all the time it's that dopamine rush that that definitely hits

I was working with a colleague of ours that we know, and I brought her along, and we were doing this medical doctor out in Pennsylvania, and we took her a nice long drive, and she got, the medical doctor got invited, and the colleague said to me, as we're in the car, she said, well, what are you going to say first? I'm like, I don't know. Hi. You know, how are you? And she's like, huh? I'm like, yeah, we're just going to go with the flow. And that's what I like to do. It's like, I'm not rigid in like, okay, you have to sit here or sit there.

It's like, just have a conversation. the person the person that's in there feels like this already so my best like you know my best is just try to lower it down to have them drop their shoulders come in you know say a few jokes some people think I'm funny some people don't I think I'm funny and then and then just and then start working with them and just treat them like a human being and that's the part that you know we're not treating them like they're you know they're bad they're just not well you know I always say like they're good we feel bad enough yeah you're walking into an intervention me you know how shitty I feel you know I'm shame and guilt like my my anger is coming out because I'm scared yeah yeah

and they're protecting what are they protecting right right and that's also what was helpful getting a master's and really looking at the whole system and looking at the inside of that person but I say not just the substances or whatever it's lifting at the floorboards and doing that you know and looking at their pain underneath what's underneath the floorboards is so important you know and so yeah so so that that's nice to have though sort of have those, I'm trying to think of some good interventions. I mean, I've had some serious ones where we walked in and the guy was like overdosing and we had to call 911,

took him to the hospital, you know, and then he got a little bit better and 12 hours did the intervention in the hospital, gone to treatment. So that sort of, that stuff has happened. You know, I've done family meetings where the person who's not well, we'll go around the room and talk about what's wrong with you, you and you know,

I love those, I love the resistance. It's just fun and, and I, You know, the thing is it's really just about resistance. Have you ever felt threatened? Like your safety? Oh, I've been threatened for sure, you know, but, you know, I could walk fast out of a room, you know, and, but no, I mean, I've been, I've threatened, people are threatened, but nothing physical.

So, well, actually, that's not true. I had, I also facilitate eating disorder interventions. And to me, that's, it's a really cunning disorder. And so it was a young girl, not, she didn't weigh much. and she just was so frustrated and I turned my back and she just kind of hit me on my back and nothing happened and it was fine

but that was the only physical but other than that it's you know people say things and then I just de-escalate de-escalate de-escalate I don't try to escalate things at all that's not really my style I remember I had one where I picked them up at LaGuardia or JFK

and I had I forget how I forget how it got to this point but the kid was in the back seat, and somehow we didn't get his cigarettes or lighter. So, like, he, like, lit up cigarettes, and I'm driving. He's trying to, like, burn my neck. Oh.

You know, and I'm just like, dude. And I'm like, I'm like, like, like, like, trying to drive the car. But, you know, the kid got there, and it's just, it's, you can't, you can't make this shit up. No, I mean, if I really thought about all the families and all those things that I've worked with and all those incidences, you know, I remember flying with a girl from West Palm Beach to, to Houston. in for treatment and she took a couple this is probably going back 15 years yeah and she took a handful of Xanax a benzodiazepines and she was just wicked out of her she was just you know halfway through she was trying to get out on the plane of the emergency exit when we're midair you know

so you know that was a hard one the ambulance met us at the uh the fire rescue met us at the gate and and she have a funny story about that so so she so she took you know she took you know she took a ride to the to the hospital she's lucky she didn't get arrested and then um i think that was before that was before covid and all the all these like you know incidences and so um so that she went the treatment after that i just stayed with her so there's you know there's there's stuff like that and i'll tell you my favorite interventions or family meetings is when everyone there's not a dry eye in the room including mine and we're able to just really get really real with that person and that's what I love, right? And this happened a lot. There was a woman who I was doing and she worked in

our field, behavior health. Her husband was dying of cancer. There was 35 people in the room in a room of the size. And we were all just all in there. And there wasn't a dry eye about him, about her. She ended up going to treatment, but it was one of the most moving interventions I've been part of, family meetings that I've been part of. So I just, I love when we can get really quiet and real and just connected so I think we've lost I think our country has our world I'll say has lost that that ability to have just real authentic conversations and a lot of times like I said earlier I'll be outreach I'm sure you've experienced this it's just like these basic conversations that we're just too scared to have because the identified patient has so much power

because we don't know what they're going to do and they could jump in front of it they could do some things that are pretty tragic and they'll threaten that and it's our job to kind of decipher between what's real and what's not or hope that we are yeah it's tricky and it's layered you know and that's also like the difference between mental health straight mental health interventions yeah I want to get into the mental health stuff because yeah and then and then the substance use disorder so these calls and these I think yes a lot of people are reaching out and listening around the substance abuse piece but there's this whole other world of of mental health And a lot of times maybe there isn't even any substance involved or, you know, so can you talk a little bit about what makes those cases different or like if you have someone that, you know, is clearly in a psychotic break or manic, how do you, how do you, how do you, because physical restraint is never the answer until maybe it has to be. I don't know, yeah.

So even like how substance use disorder is not really one way, you got to be less rigid. You have to be even like lesser than that when it comes to the straight mental health interventions, whether we're dealing with like psychosis, psychotic disorders. you know polarity spectrum stuff thought disorder stuff maybe a mix of both so it's really it's really you have to really think about how you know you're going to move forward with this and it's slow process it doesn't happen overnight now if there's a crisis that's a 911 call there's certain things that we can do sometimes I pick up you know families and the kids in the hospital so that gives us a little time a little like in the psych ward that gives us a little time to work on work on what we need to do for the next step but it's it's difficult and it's It's not about like taking the cell phone away and taking the car keys away because a lot

of these kids already don't have that. You have to look at it in a totally different lens and slower. And I always try to bring in other professionals in our community that could help part of the process as well. I don't want to always do them by myself. I want to make, or with my own team, I want to bring in other professionals that can help and support not just the IP, but the family as well. So it's really important.

The mental health is different. I think I know Florida, right, you go down there. they have pretty good laws in place for us, Marchman Act, Baker Act, to get people. Florida is one of the, like, for whatever your feelings are in Florida. And I'm from there, by the way. They have one of the best, I think, laws. A lot of it is because red states, which is true, you know, tend not to have a very, like, liberal, like, you know, taking rights away.

It's a little bit easier when someone's in a mental health crisis. So they have the Marchant Act, which is the substance. use and mental health, you know, that has to have substance use. Then there's a Baker Act, and then they have a guardianship. And, you know, I've worked in many cases, actively working one right now where we're trying to get the person down to Florida and so on and so forth. Yeah, you actually try to get them there and then you do it, right? Yeah, tee up, like, psychologists and psychiatrists and a lawyer and support the family

in that way. You know, in New York, Jersey, you know, there's, you know, Pennsylvania has that 301, but it's still, it's not a guarantee. that the person is going to go to treatment or even be mandated to treatment. So it's really the criteria is tighter here in blue states than it is in red states. So I wish it was all uniformed. It would be great. And that's something maybe on a macro level you could work on.

So it's really about like unifying the mental health, you know, rules and laws for throughout the states. That's also, because families are so desperate and they need the help. And sometimes the local governments aren't there or the state laws are just too hard, where it's tying the families. Yeah, it's scary. And that's the thing that I always try to tell families, too, which I'm sure you do as well, is that there's no playbook.

There's absolutely no playbook for how to be a parent or a loved one of someone who is struggling. It's the hardest job in the world. Yeah, I say, you can't turn to page 32 and say, okay, here's how we run this. We can't. It's not linear.

It's up and down. Yeah, it's messy. It's definitely messy. So you've been doing this work for over 20 years now, and you've seen it all, behavior health care, substance abuse treatment. What's the current landscape? Like, where is this thing going? What do you,

I mean, because I know you do a really good job of getting out there and seeing programs and talking to people because you give a shit, right? Like you want to make sure that you're sending people to the right places. What is, where are we going with this whole thing? Well, you know, I don't know exactly where we're going, but I know what's happening now is that there are a lot of programs out there that say that they handled the dual piece. And I just, I don't quite. Do you just break down dual diagnosis? So, yeah, so substance use and some kind of mental health. And sometimes the mental health is anxiety, you know, like a mood disorder, depression, sort of the run-in-the-mill stuff versus more the heavier thought disorder or the personality

stuff, which is, you know, which is hard. And so finding a program that actually has the doctor on staff, not just on paper, but on staff and that is showing up two, three, four, five days a week is really important. You know, trauma is, I think trauma, and again, I think everything is sort of based upon attachment, how we got attached to our loved ones. and you know that's a part of the pie of helping people and and so I think attachment and really working through that attachment pieces you know the work that I do on myself personally is I still do all that I did IFS for a couple of years and internal family systems work on my own

self so I could work on my own part work you know on my own my own trauma and repairing repairing all that stuff myself so it's important that families know that there's different treatment programs and you know there's that there's also like neurodivergent programs now popping up which is great which is helpful so you know there's a lot of really great programs out there and there's some that are okay and so it's really based upon you know what's out there and really vetting these programs to make sure that they could help and so do you think so like when I think of like Sloan Kettering for cancer right do you think someday we will live in a world where there is a X, Y, Z for behavior health care, like a true?

I think so. I mean, leader. Yeah, I think so. I think there's a, there's a couple leaders depending on like what, like if it's like OCD or if it's, you know, trauma or if it's, you know, specific stuff, but not like one unified program. Yeah. But depending on the case and what the particulars are of the case, it depends on the

treatment program. So, yeah, it'd be nice to have one place, right? I mean, I was just thinking in New York City. I mean, like, you know, we've been operating in this city for many years, you and I, and who are these families calling? They know nothing about this thing, right? Like, who, they're not, like, there's not a Sloan. I mean, I guess there's, like, Bellevue and some places where people end up, but.

It's hard. It's hard. It's hard for, like, primary mental health treatment. If we're going to stay in that sort of realm right now, it's hard for New York, for New York City. Again, it's really about if they don't have their resources, which not every family does, Then you've got to do the patch work, figure out, assess the family, assess their needs, assess their needs of the IP, and then start patching up some work.

Okay, we can go here first, there, second, and continue sort of that work. Yeah, so it's hard, and it's not linear. And it's going to be like, you know, a lot of these mental health disorders, the IPs do not want to be on medication. They feel like they're doing the best that they can. They're having the best year, you know,

and they're totally manic or, you know, they're psychotic. And they think that they're having the best year of their life. Yeah. So can I offer a profile because I'm curious about this profile? And I feel like we see it from time to time in New York. It's the identified patient that has more money than they know what to do with. They have absolutely no reason to get sober other than it's killing them. But they have all the leverage because they're not relying on their family.

They're not like, how do you, like the person that really just needs it because they're going to die. Yeah. And they don't see it because they have all this kind of outside success around them and people bowing down to them because they're worth all this money. So those are always the tougher ones because they are right. Yeah. So I always say like interventions are like, you know, what is an intervention really? It's really about building out that external motivation to eventually hopefully that person gets some intrinsic motivation. You know, when I first got sober in Laguna Beach, I went to a lot of AA meetings. And there was a woman named Mary, and I really hated Mary.

She went to a Saturday morning meeting. Every Saturday she always was there. And she was a tennis player. She probably was in a 65 years old. And you just knew she just came back or was going to go play tennis. And she used to share that. And she was like 20 years sober back then. So she was probably 40 years sober.

She's a lie, right? And she's probably 85 now. And she used to share that. Hey, you know, I drank too much of, I think it was like Chardonnay or whatever it was one night. And the next day she had a bad tennis game. And she told her husband that night that she was going to go to AA. and she'd never had a drink. She went to AA and went once a week and never had another drink.

And I used to think, hearing her story, I was like, oh, she's not really an alcoholic. Like, what's wrong with her? Like, you know, that's not an alcoholic. But what I missed, and it took me a while to actually get it, is that she was motivated. She was intrinsically motivated to get better. You know, her life and things in her life that were important to her were more important than the alcohol. And so that, you know, she waited out and that was it. I don't know. I think that's great. I just, I couldn't relate to Mary. You know, I used to

roll my eyes every time Mary raised her hand to share. I was like, I was a total judgment of her. But, but interventions is really about for, for loved ones, is how do you create that external motivation? So sometimes we don't have an opportunity to say, hey, Zach, you know, we're going to cut you off. We're taking your car keys away. We're taking, you know, we're taking everything we possibly can because we don't have that power. But I think there's a way that you can do it. And it's more of an emotional and connection because like what is connection? Connection to me is recovery and connecting with people, you know, not connecting with people, darkness, isolating. That's disease. So how do we connect with that profile that you just said in different ways? See,

when I facilitate my family meetings, I never believe in saying, hey, if you don't go to treatment, we're cutting you off. In fact, I always tell the families as part of my prep work is do the opposite. I'm going to only talk to you about going away to treatment. I'm going to send you a text every day when I'm taking, when I'm walking to the train station and say, hey, you know, it's Jonathan. Now you're ready to get help yet. I love you. You know? And yes, you can have a normal conversation with them, but say, hey, have you given it more

thought about going to that program? To me, that is motivation. Me cutting you off and not talking to you because you're not going. What does that really do? That breeds resentments and that isolates and you're really good at that anyways. You know, that person's really good at that anyway. Yeah. So, so with that kind of profile, you know, can't come in hard.

You got to come in sort of a side door. backdoor and who's in his life or her life that they're connected with that we could help sort of use those relationships in a loving way right because you just can't come in slamming the door you just can't guns blazing that's not going to work with that person what doesn't work with most people right i mean true too but no i mean that's that's someone that always kind of jams me up because there's no real reason that they're not they haven't lost anything they're not you know bankrupt up. They're not doing anything. They may have a really high level of functionality.

They're going to work. They're doing, they're meeting all their markers, you know, but, but what is it, what is it, you know, trying to understand the case and trying to understand what is the underneath part, the floorboards that you could really get them to. What is it? Because obviously, when you have a maladaptive relationship with substances, there's a reason why, you know, there's a reason why. What's going on? I mean, I was functioning with a needle my arm.

Yeah. Like, truly. Like, I was going to work. I was shooting dope in the bathroom, like, whatever, like, you know, like, I remember this one so I was at the very end I was working for my father and he'd kill me and he heard this story but like you know we had offices and I remember it got to a point probably like a month out from when the wheels really came off from here I hit my bottom whatever you want to call it where I I was in my office and I kind of knew everyone was gone for the day and I remember

taking it was like wintertime and I put my jacket under the door so like the air wouldn't get out and I started smoking crack in my office yeah like in and in a corporate office, like, with no awareness that, like, this might be strange. And so, like, you know, my dumb ass, I sit in there and I smoke crack for probably what felt like an hour, but it was probably three minutes because that shit's just crazy. And I, like, I waited probably another five minutes and opened the door. And I remember, like, still high on crack turning a corner and realizing, like, Cindy from accounting was still there.

And I was like, you know, I freaked out. I ran back to my office and I closed the door. I'm opening, you know, like, just freaking the hell out. But, like, you know, we can, like, I just tell that story to say, like, we can function up until the very end. Yeah. Until maybe the last wheel falls off. Yes. Yes.

Sometimes it takes that. So it's a hard, you know, your profile that you just, that you just, it's hard. That's a hard one. Yeah. Those are hard cases. It's a lot easier when, when they're losing things and their functionality is a lot less, you know, you know, but yeah. But it's, it's, I still think it's worth having that family meeting and inviting that person into change. So for you.

without fail what I'm hearing today because I really want our listeners like I want I want you to give because we're getting close on what do we have? What time is it anybody? What time we got? One-on-one. Yeah, we got a couple of minutes. Good. I want to kind of cue in like part of what I think

part of the battle I think we fight is there's a lot of people now talking on the internet about this shit but there's no real solutions. Right? So I try to focus at least for a couple minutes on something we you can really give to our listeners. So what I'm hearing just in talking to you and someone who's an expert and has

thousands and thousands of hours is the importance of family. What are three other kind of, and if I'm putting it on this spot, feel free to take a minute, like three other really tangible things that a family member can do regardless of resources. So I don't care if they have all the money in the world or no money at all. Like these are three things that you can do. or practice now? I think it's so important for family members to get their own support.

So whether it's straight mental health, it's starting to attend some NAMI, right? They can Google that and look up some, and there's online meetings that they could do for free, absolutely free. And it's always good if someone, you know, private message you on Zoom, get their name, get their number, and talk to other parents, talk to the other moms, talk to the other sons, wives, whatever it is. Get that information is so important. Al-Anon. Al-Anon is for loved ones whose family members, you know, are addicted to drugs or alcohol, whatever. Again, free. Or if you attend, sometimes it costs a dollar and go to meetings. Start attending. Also, therapy, even, you know, if you have health insurance, can get it covered. You know, therapy is really important. But the right therapist that's familiar with substance use disorder or mental health or both is really important. Families, I always say this. It starts and ends with the families. If you want your son or daughter or your loved

one help. It starts with them first, making the changes, and then their loved one will come. They will come. It may take a year. It may take three days. It may take three hours, but they will come if they make that shift. And it's really about getting the education and it's important. You know what I do, which is really important. And I work with family. So the second part of what I do is besides facilitating the family meeting, assessing, coming up with the treatment plan, facilitating the actual family meeting, getting the person in treatment, is then I get to work with the families while the loved one hopefully is in treatment whether it's inpatient outpatient php whatever and it's important that I actually work with families and I do

what we call a relapse plan like how many how many treatment programs are working with their families and the families have their own relapse plan I don't mean the families using substances I mean their relapse in their own behaviors if if their loved one starts using again or not so I work I work I've come up with a discharge excuse me a a relapse plan for the family because typically in a good substance use program their loved one is getting a relapse plan like if I feel like using or if I use here's who I call first, et cetera, et cetera. So I do one with the family. I think it's so important that families get that

education. So when I work with the families, I usually do a one hour a week. We update them on their treatment and then I do a lot, probably spend about five minutes talking about their loved one and then the other 50 minutes, 55 minutes is about them and what are they doing. It's really important for them to start getting that education. And I always say that really, recovery is a language. And if their loved one is going to learn a language and then comes back to the system and nobody's speaking the language, guess who's going to lose the language? So it's incumbent upon us. It's part of the healing of going to learn what unmanageability is, going to look like, you know, what the third step prayer is. It's going to learn about unmanageability

and how to talk about it. How to talk about it. Alcohol in the house, like all these questions we get. Exactly. And I always tell the dads and moms is go tell your son or your daughter, what did you hear in Alon on today? Don't ask him if he's going to a meeting and say, hey, do you not heard an Alon on today? This topic, isn't that crazy? And I can guarantee that if your son is in or your loved one is in recovery, they're going to share, well, this is what I heard today. Right. And that's the change in the shift in the system that I just beat it into this family, is that this is the work that they have to do.

If they think they're just going to focus and project manager their son or daughter into treatment, it's not going to work. Right. It's not going to work. Whether it's mental health, substance use, or it may. that co-occurring is also important to, you know, making sure that they're getting help for their mental health and the substance use disorder. Yeah, I mean, newsflash, if you are working to get someone help and into treatment and you are a family member, that means the work is probably starting for you too. Oh, yeah. Like that's for sure.

And they don't realize that. No. I tell this story all the time, and I know we're getting tight on time. But so I stepped in, whatever, we had staffing changes probably like a year, 18 months ago. So I stepped in and ran our family our Wednesday, 9th. family, like release recovery, family group every Wednesday night for like, I don't know, six months. And I was like, I was in it and I was so inspired by these parents and I couldn't believe that

they kept showing up. And as I kept leading it every week, I was like, these parents are having a really good, like, we're really good at this. Like, this is a really positive experience that they're all having. Like, I'm really proud of our team. And then it's not mandatory. So then one night I went home and I was like, I need to check something. And of course, I pulled out our list of clients or patients,

and I pulled out our list of families that were attending. And all the parents and families that were showing up had clients that were doing well. Their family, because they were doing the work together. And the parents that were not showing up, sure enough, their kid or their daughter, or husband were acting out. They weren't buying into the program. It was one of the more eye-opening moments I had in my career. Such a parallel process.

with the family, you know, the family and their loved one, you know, and also in mental health, too. It's the same thing, too. It's getting the education, understanding that, hey, my son or daughter is experience a mental health crisis and what is it that needs to change. How do I change? How do I, you know, what's my part in this is so important for the healing process. There's people that will listen to this episode, hear everything we say, and will still be convinced that they're a special snowflake and they can do it kind of their way. Like, they're just going to get their loved one into treatment and then they don't have to do the work. Yeah. Tell them to call.

them to call me. But I will say this, I want to say this, that whether it's mental health or co-occurring, meaning mental health and substance use, or just straight substance use, it's really important that they do a continuum of care. It's really important that this isn't just about getting them through detox and maybe a month at residential. This is about doing those two things, plus a transitional where they can learn some life skills, and I don't care if you're 55 or 35 or 25. It's so important to make that connection with people. I'll tell you one of the reasons, not the reason, but one of the reasons why I feel like I haven't used is because I have the connection with the folks that I got sober with. Yeah. You know, and today still, yeah,

it's all about connection. And a transitional like release will help do that and maintain that sort of, you know, also the evidence shows that the more time someone's in treatment, the better chances of them recovering. I'll tell that the families. What are we paying for? Another day. Yeah. This day is so valuable, you know, in a safe environment. That's part of what you're paying for here. And we forget that shit. And by the way, works yeah it works i know so that's an important piece of it so what i heard just to wrap put a nice little bonus is i heard there are free resources available like there is nami there is alin on there are resources for families that are available um an intervention is actually kind of a family meeting

that's how we like to frame it and for me for zach and this is my on-air kind of statement it's the best money that you can spend if you can afford an interventionist do it because you now have someone to guide you through the process. Three, that the family needs to do the work. If they're willing to kind of hire someone like you or work with a program like release, what they're saying is that hopefully they're willing to do what we ask them to do and take professional guidance. And four is once the person is in care, like we like to see them in care for nine to

12 months. Because that's really where the magic starts to happen. That's the key right there. How do people find you? C-D-I-Inventions.com? Yeah, c-D-interventions.com. So, C-D-I-N-T-E-R, V-N-T-I-O-N-S, dot com. And that's, that's it.

So here's the thing I'll tell you about Jonathan, if you're listening. One of the kindest folks I've met in the field, he's going to answer the calls. He's going to respond to the emails. He's got a fantastic team of people who work for him. I know some of the people that he works with Jenna and Neil and whoever else. Like, I mean, it's just a good group of people. I can attest to that. And I would trust him and have trust.

trusted him with people that I care very much about on this planet. So I am excited for people to hear this episode because I think it was an hour of really good information and you're funny, but like in this, I think like you were serious today. Yeah, today was a little serious. Yeah, it was good. A little serious. No, it was great. I will say I love this work.

You know, it's like coming into a family system and helping them organize. And, you know, interventions aren't meant to be easy. They're not going to be like solving the problems. What we're doing is, as you said, we're having those tough. conversations and sometimes it's kicking up dust. And some people are uncomfortable the fact that you didn't help my family or you didn't do this. But interventions aren't supposed to be easy. It's tough conversations. One last question. Gooning. Yeah. So I don't do them. So people that don't know what gooning is, gooning is like this practice that... You got me. Go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, it's just like ripping adolescents out of their bed and throwing them into treatment. I don't house to say yeah it's kind of like you know some kids call it getting burritoed you know you're rolling up the sheets and the kids in the middle and they just you know so so essentially this is that sometimes there's cases that are needed you know that are needed because the kid is in danger and it's just you know it's just it's just it's needed i actually prefer to do more of a hybrid model where we're coming in and explaining what's going to happen rather than at three or four in the morning. And we do some of those hybrid models where we use some really good transport companies that transport adolescents, but yet we come in first and sort of

make everything smooth, have some good easy conversations or hard conversations, and then invite the guys to come in and take them rather than just, you know, mom and dad walking into the room at three or four in the morning. However, I will say sometimes that's needed, you know, and it's hard. Life and death or just like it's... Behavioral issues and it could be life and it could be life and death and it's hard when it's hard with adolescents. You know, and also with parents making that decision, like, oh, no, am I going to cause more trauma? Yeah.

It's a hard decision for families. So I prefer to do it more of a hybrid model where, like, we come in first and set the tone and, you know, maybe do a little joking with it with the person and just kind of like, okay, here's what's going to happen. I feel like sort of eases, you know, it doesn't hopefully cause all that trauma. Sweet. Well, Jonathan, thank you. I love you. I love that you do this work. And that's it for today's show.

That's a wrap.