The Zac Clark Show - Self-Help Doesn’t Work (But This Does): The Alexis Haines Recovery Story

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Alexis Haines joins The Zac Clark Show for a conversation about transformation, service, and what long-term recovery really looks like. At just 18, Alexis became a public figure through her involvement in what the media dubbed The Bling Ring—a moment that could have defined her life. Instead, it became the catalyst for change.Now, with 14 years of sobriety, Alexis works in the behavioral healthcare field, helping individuals and families navigate the complex realities of addiction and mental health. In this episode, we talk about trauma, healing, internal family systems therapy, the importance of service work, and the nuances of recovery in a world that often looks for easy fixes.This is an honest and layered conversation with someone who truly walks the walk.Connect with Zachttps://www.instagram.com/zwclark/https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-c-746b96254/https://www.tiktok.com/@zacwclarkhttps://www.strava.com/athletes/55697553https://twitter.com/zacwclarkIf you or anyone you know is struggling, please do not hesitate to contact Release:[phone]releaserecovery.com@releaserecovery

All right. So our next guest, Alexis Haynes, who you might also know as Alexis Nyers, is back here with another incredibly inspiring interview. Some of you might know Alexis from her time in the spotlight as a member of the infamous blingering. I know Alexis as a woman who is rooted in her recovery and is spending her time now helping thousands of other women recover. She shares her story very openly and authentically. And I'm just grateful for her. for this conversation with Alexis, and I'm sure you will be too. So we're back here on the Zach Clark show. We're really excited to have Alexis Haynes with us. Alexis is a fellow behavioral health care colleague. She currently works for crisis case management. Shout out Mike Appel, right? Shout out to Mike.

Love him and the work that they do. We've worked with them over the years. And I just, like, I was grateful to have you here because I was just looking up some of your stuff and your story and you've obviously inspired a lot of people so thanks for being here thank you for having me i think uh we need each other you're coming up on 14 right yeah wow you did your research quit a little bit march march 8th i saw yeah it'll be uh 14 years of of sobriety under my belt which is crazy the fun i got asked to speak i get asked to speak at a lot of meetings i still go to meetings me too shocker and um and i got to

asked to speak at this meeting and whenever I get asked I say yes I have no idea the format I just show up they tell me I give a 45 minute pitch and that's it right and this meeting I show up and the guys like you've got 15 years right and I'm like no he goes this is an old timer meeting you have to have 15 years to share and I go well do you want me to sit down or do you what do you what do you want me to do and he's like no no okay we'll let it pass and I made a joke at the beginning that my ego is a little bit hurt because I thought after 10 years I was officially an old timer but I guess not not. So I'm still a youngster in the program, I guess. I feel that. I'm 13.5. Don't let me catch

you. That would be bad news. And a half. Yeah, yeah. Well, the half is important to acknowledge because you're like 13.9. And the day that I catch you, that means something bad is going on in your world. Okay. 13 and a half. Love it. Where are the mics? Where is that? Where do you work? Yeah, so we actually serve globally. We do, we've had some fun ones. in this last year. We've gone to Austria, the Dominican Republic, several spots in Mexico, but our headquarters are split between Miami and Los Angeles, and I'm with the team here in Los Angeles. Okay. Here, we're in Vegas right now, but West Coast. Right, yeah. Is that where you're from? Yeah, born and raised, Southern California. Wow. Are you, you like the work? Are you

live in your dream? Like is this? Yeah. You know, it's interesting because when I went into treatment, I had already done so much work. And I think that's why I love the 12 steps so much is because I really had tried everything. I'd gone and lived at ashrams. I'd, you know, been in therapy on and off for years. And nothing could keep me sober. And so I remember being in treatment and my therapist was like you should go to school to become a therapist and I was like and I'm always for the easier softer path and I was like no I think there's a way for me to make as much money if not more as a therapist but without going to school right and so I figured out how to to hone my skills enough to be able to do that but I did go to school for my KDAC and then with my ex-husband

Oro House was born and then we got divorced and I moved over to CCM I love I love working in the space. Yeah, I love helping people. I got a call from a dad over December, over that holiday, who gave me a call to say, you know, this is the first time our daughter will be coming home in four years

because of the work that you guys have done. And there's really nothing like that. That's not to say that I don't get, like, exhausted and go fuck this. I should just, you know, do something else. But, yeah, I'm grateful every day that I get to pick up the fly. phone for families in crisis and, you know, present them with an option of our services and how we

could potentially help their family. Yeah. No, it's important work. And that's the call that I think for me and my career I've worked so hard to get, right? Like that family, that that call that comes in, that's unattached, they know nothing about what they're doing, who they're talking to, and they just they need help. They need you. They need me. They need that, like, safe, safe voice, the people that have been through it. Yeah. Absolutely. I just jump in I did I want to you know I know you've told your story you know a lot you've had you know and but like what in in knowing you and reading about you even further like what I find so can we just go back and and just talk a little about like where you came from to like now be like I got 14 year almost 14 years sober like sobriety saved my life I've given it to recovery because like that transformation. is amazing. Oh, thank you.

Yeah. I mean, I would say that, you know, the gist of it is this. And I think we are having debates within our space right now of like, was it trauma, was it this, was it that? I had a little bit of it all, right? So I grew up in a really dysfunctional household. my mom was a model she was a hippie she was checked out of reality and my dad was a really bad alcoholic when it comes to abuse there was everything under the sun I'll spare people the horror stories

but there was a lot of sexual abuse that started when I was four and that lasted for many years there was physical violence there was emotional abuse that happened in my household my parents divorce like I don't are you guys familiar with ace study adverse childhood experience study yeah I got a nine out of ten okay so I'm lucky to be alive and for anyone who wants to check their ace score what is that what is that it's so I believe it was Kaiser Permanente with a group of physicians basically they looked at health outcomes after adverse childhood experiences so obviously we go okay if you've had this much trauma you're more prone to having addiction like you think oh yeah okay that makes sense or mental

health conditions but actually looks at your risk of cancer of obesity of diabetes of like all of the the health outcomes and it gauges okay so if you've had a four or more you're this much more likely to experience this right and what's interesting because a lot of people hear my story and then they they say to me oh my god you're so resilient right how are you so resilient and I'll talk a little bit more about why I I hate that and oh down the line but so initially they just came out with this ACE study and you can take your test ACE is too high I think it's dot com or dot org but down the line they realized okay so but why do some people not have all of those negative health outcomes and they

did a counter study that looks at your resilience score right so what is if you had a childhood best friend if you had a coach in your life that was there to support you if you have you know what would offset some of that trauma and then improve the health outcome but back to the gist of the story so much trauma so much addiction so much chaos um I was flunking out of school in third grade I could not show up I was diagnosed with ADHD later on on meds yes yeah and later on down you know on my journey um I got to interview Dr. Gabor Mantis and he said, I want to present you with something. You don't have ADHD, or maybe you have a mild version of it,

but how can a kid who's living in an environment like you were living in pay attention in school when they don't know what they're coming home to? And I was like, how many kids in America are being diagnosed with ADD or ADHD that are just living in traumatic environments at home? So that kind of clicked for me. But drug addiction started real young. My mom was smoking pot. I was, you know, 12, 13 years old, in the house with us.

And is that when you got curious? Like, is that when you started? Yeah, I mean, it was even before that. It was, I was always trying to check out of my reality, you know. You have siblings? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Older or younger?

One older, one younger. And my younger's a normie sister. But yeah, we drank, we used, we partied, sex drugs. rock and roll. I graduated high school by basically my mom paying some homeschool to graduate me when I was 16 and I started partying in Hollywood and um so you're homeschooled yeah for those last couple of years I was and did you know that like was that confusing did you know that your mom was kind of like just pushing you along in whatever way that she knew how or were you like sweet I was like sweet at that point I was already like addicted to opiates like I

I was already using heroin all the time, you know, so... Was this in the, like, roxy-oxy days or what, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, where you could still take off the coating off of 80s. Yeah, the O-C-80s. And I remember I would, you know, I could smoke a whole pill in one hit. Yeah. It was, I was... I don't meet too many people that smokes pills.

I smoked pills. I love smoking pills. Yeah, I love to smoke pills. And then they weren't enough, right? And then it started with my journey into dope and, um, and really I was just like a trash can, right? Like whatever I could get my hands on, the two things that were pretty consistent were weed and opiates. And were your relationships just wild? Like did you have people in your life that you were just running around with? Do you have any friends from those

days still? Yeah, I actually do. Okay. I had several friends from those days and most of us are sober. Shocker. Or dead. So, yeah. But my mom kind of, like my only value was being beautiful. in my household so my mom started me in modeling real young and um i became an la party girl and i funded my addiction by um doing working as a music video girl so i started doing that 16 17 and i ended up finding or some producers found me and were like you would be perfect for your own reality show and i was like you're so right i've always thought that that you know and just like the that level of kind of delusion um they're like would you like to shoot a sizzle reel and I'm like yeah sure okay yeah and so we did and the show got picked up

um that happened to be kind of like the darkest part of my addiction or stemming into like that dark part like it was fun fun with problems now it's just problems and I'm like panhandling on the street for drug money and is their cameras following you not yet okay so that we had There's time between, you know, now these networks are fighting over the show, the wanting to take the show, and we're going to get a producer, which ended up being Chelsea Handler. And then the show gets picked up by E, and that was in, like, June, and we didn't start filming until October.

And your family's all in on this when you come back and say, listen, guys, we're bringing in some cameras. This is my mom's dream. I did everything that she asked of me. I went out there, and I got it. to this thing that she always wanted. And you were aware of that? That you were... I don't think that I realized

what a pawn I was. I don't even think she really realized it. I think that she was always... She had the same messaging growing up. She was not good in school. And she grew up in a much more conservative household. My grandpa actually just passed away like a month ago.

So rest in peace, George. George was really conservative. Finance guy. you know came from nothing built an empire donated all of that money to Habitat for Humanity nothing to the kids or the grandkids like just assault of the earth human but with no emotions you know just like a good moral compass

maybe the only person in my family with a good moral compass and now that I think of it we're all a lot better now but basically what ended up happening was one night I was out partying with some friends and they asked me if I wanted to rob a house and I said yeah and I did and that house ended up being Orlando Bloom's house

Did you know that going into it? No, not going into it I found out after the fact. Did they know that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had been doing these heists. I didn't know, I only knew Nick Prugo out of the group. I kind of knew Rachel Lee

through my high school partying days. like when I was in ninth grade, so years prior to that. How old are you at this time? I'm 17, 18, about to be 18. Okay. Or I was just 18, actually. I just turned 18 when the Orlando Bloom robbery happened. And so what ended up happening was they kept robbing houses.

They ended up getting caught. And on the second day of filming my reality show, the SWAT team showed up at my house and arrested me. And what ended up transpiring was I became the face. of this thing because sex sells right it's kind of it's not a real juicy story if just some kids from calabasas are robbing all these houses and it became a phenomenon um but before you i want to still i it's i just have to say sweet um what was her name oh my god i'm going to blink right now one of the other fellow convention attendees just walked out to me and was like i was such a big fan of your show yeah i'm like how how does this like you know we're

almost 15 years later. It's why? I mean, like, I don't know if you know. I mean, I was on a reality tell, but it was four years ago, right? The Bachelorette. And, and, like, I still, like, you forget, right? Like, because you're, like, you've moved on. You're living your life and people will come up and be like, I'm such a big fan.

Like, it happened to us on the strip the other day. Yeah. But it was cool because that person was like, I'm a case manager. I work in recovery. So I was like, that's kind of cool. Yeah, that's very cool. But I'm, but I'm, like, keying in on something. And I, I want to ask, and I want to ask in the right way.

because I don't know of men really like this idea that your mother wants you to look a certain way or like is is using your looks to get something yeah like what and that happens to women like I've met other women where that's their story and I just I'm curious about that yeah I think um it it has affected me in many many ways um and it's given me a complex now that I'm getting older it's made me overcompensate and trying to prove my intelligence and my worth in front of other people and I have a daughter now who is could be a super model she's so stunning she's 11 years old and I have to be so careful and I have a little daughter right who looks nothing like my oldest daughter and when we go out in public my oldest daughter gets all of the attention I mean it's like

outrageous and I have to correct people in a gentle way right they'll say oh my god you are just so beautiful and I'll say to I'll say in front of them she's so smart too she's getting straight A's in school she's in gate she reads well above her great average she's you know it's like you have to counteract that it's a real generational thing yeah and then I think too like it's affected my relationship with other people because people I deal like and fantasize about this version of you, but then when you show up authentically and you have your life shit,

it's like, oh, that's not what I signed up for. It's always been a challenge for me in like dating and things like that too because it's like, oh, you're a real person under this like idealized fantasy that I have of you and that sucks. Which is that like you have this whole story behind you and this like...

Just life. Yeah. You know, just life. Like I struggle, you know, I struggle a lot fucking less than I ever did in the past but life shows up you know and like there's the hard stuff that comes with it um I'm connecting with it I'm connecting with it because I feel you know like I've talked about it openly like I have I have a little bit of like even like shame and I don't know that

you'll relate to this around like going on reality television show and also being in this field then wanting to be respected and like you know naturally other guys you don't know me or be like that's the guy that was, I'm not going to use the word, but like on the bachelor's, like, he's probably a dork or like, whatever it is. And like, so then I'm working over time to try and prove to people that I'm just a guy. I'm just a guy. And I'm just, yeah. What's wrong with being a dork, though, man? Well, you're right. I shouldn't say dork. I should say, I wanted to say douchebag, but like, yeah. So we'll just say the word and then we'll, we'll figure that out afterwards. Did growing up in L.A. or Hollywood, do you think, did that impact, like,

were you or your, or vis-a-vis your mom, like, aware of, like, being a star, you know, like? I mean, my mom came, so my mom ended up in California. She was a Midwestern girl who got discovered when she was 13. She became a supermodel and was flown to Tokyo at 16 with one of the major modeling agencies. She fell in love and met the bass guitar. from Pink Floyd, who brought her to California. And my dad was one of the top DPs in Hollywood. So he was, you know, the DP, had DP on Friends and the Nanny and Spin City

and all these 90s sitcoms met my mom, fell in love, like a true kind of... What was his name? Michael Nyer's. Michael Niers? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's unreal. You were in it. We were really... I grew up on the set of friends, you know?

And so I think that that always, you know, like, and I just think it was chaos. Like my parents had no business having children, like literally had no business having kids. And I think it was just like they'll adapt and we'll just keep doing whatever we're doing and we didn't adapt. You know, we were just left with like a ton of trauma and fucked up belief systems and a lack of um you know i had no skills like when i got sober um i didn't know how to open a bank account you know the women in and 12 step recovery showed me how to be an adult i had no idea um but that's the humility right like that's oh yeah that's the thing like that that like and i had none like okay so getting to getting sober because i just wanted yeah yeah yeah yeah over this and then we

can talk about the the industry and whatever else wherever else you guys want to go but But with the blingering, though, then I'm going to lead into that. Did you feel like, because you weren't, you're saying you weren't really a part of that. You just were in a moment, you got caught up in something, you weren't in the best state of mind, and then you sort of got attached to this like cultural phenomenon, yeah, event that, you know, and how did you respond to that? You know, like, did you shut down? Did you, were you trying to, like, rewrite your name?

Yeah, I spent, like, the entire time. So the entire time I was fighting my case, and up until very recent history, well, I wouldn't say that. The entire time that I was fighting my case, I denied my involvement because I was becoming the face of it, and it was a fire that I couldn't put out. And then when I got sober, I just kind of like tried to move away from that. And then probably by year, like, six of my sobriety, I was like, this is actually my superpower. So talking about, like, resilience, right? And I used to hate that because people would be like, oh my God, you've overcome early childhood, sexual abuse,

all of this violence. How did, you know, and my history is so violent. I mean, getting held up at gunshot, having boyfriends clock me in the head with guns and knock me out. Like, sexual violence from the age of four to eight. That was so extreme and brutal. And what it, what I don't like resilience is because it kept me in this victim. mentality what I've spent the last 10 years of my sobriety doing is I've really learned how to

alchemize that pain and to turn it into something beautiful and about year six I started owning my story and it was hard for me because there was victims that were harmed as a result of my actions not just in Orlando Bloom but other people as well because I was a fucking asshole, violent person when I was drunk and loaded, right? And so I say this and I want people to hear it, but there's so much nuance around it. That robbery ended up being the thing that not only saved my life, but it has now helped and benefited. I don't even know how many people as a result. And so it's so complex. And I think we trend towards still while this stigma of addiction is somewhat becoming less and less.

It's also not. People are still such black and white thinkers. And the nuance here, right, is that it's both and. Right. It was a horrible thing that I did. And it ended up being the thing that saved my life. And as a result, I've had a platform to be able to help others because of that infamy that happened.

Yeah. But being an 18-year-old fighting, you know, an 18-year-old heroin addict fighting for my life, basically, on national television where I'm being... Could you leave your house? Could you leave your house? Oh, yeah. I was so... I was so disconnected from reality.

And even in my early sobriety, you know, there was no humility there. Like, I opened my talk by saying I was sentenced to a year in treatment instead of six years of prison, because that's where I was going to go. I mean, it was one way or another. And I was so desperate, but I was completely unwilling. Completely unwilling. I was a milieu disruptive asshole my first three months in treatment. I fought everybody left right and center. I had this Eskimo.

He since passed away. His name was Cadillac Ron. That was his rap name. His name was Robert. And one day I was sitting in. I was just mouthing off in his like 12 steps. group and he looks at me and he goes you know what alexus normal people would never put a needle in their arm and something about that like that was a light bulb moment for me and you never know when

that's going to happen for somebody but all of the sudden a series of events took place in a very short period of time in my life where I was like oh my god wait the drugs aren't the problem like I'm the problem here right and the only thing that's going to alleviate this problem is is having a spiritual experience. Like, I became really clear on that, that, like, all of the things that I had tried, all of the ashrams, all of the self-help books, all of the therapy, all of the rehab,

all of the this, that, and the other, my family changing, the belief that if they would just change, then I would get better, all went out the window, and I was like, if I don't come to terms with who I am, and start becoming conscious

of the way that I'm living, and shift the way that I show up in people's lives and move out of my inherent selfishness and self-centeredness, I will continue, I will die. Like, I was just so clear on that at that point. I mean, you know, this has come up in other conversations we've had people talking about spirituality, spiritual experience, and the thing that keeps coming up for me is like, you know,

we spoke to Amanda Kluz, and she was talking about her relationship with God and how, when it got really dark with, Nick Cordero, she felt closest, right? And someone said this to me once about spirituality, how it's a process of subtraction, right? And you're out there, the self-help book, the ashram, all this stuff, how am I going to find Nirvana?

Yeah. And it's like, no, when it all falls away, it's like the line in the book, like only in the last analysis, you know, may he be found. You know, and like, I don't know what gives someone just that sliver of willingness to hear that, there's so many people who just they never hear that yeah and you heard it yeah i mean you heard it no i mean i'm i'm i'm i'm just you know like your your moment i have my moment like there's this

whole story about a bank teller i was trying to cash his check and she called my dad and said the police and it's just like i don't know i mean but that to me is is is god i mean like i was not powerful enough to get sober if i if i was like i probably maybe would have done it right because my family was okay. And I tried. I tried the Suboxin. I tried the this, that, the other. I tried it all. None of it worked. And so you got like you, so you went through this whole public thing and then at the end of this fiasco they said to you, Alexis, you can go to jail for six years or? I went to jail. So that I kind of skipped over that. I was initially, I was sentenced initially to 180 days, six months in Linwood Correctional Facility with a six year, three to six year suspension over my head.

So if you violate, if you get out and you violate, then you automatically have to go do the full term. And so I went into Linwood Correctional Facility on June 24th, which happens to be my daughter's birthday, who just keeps trying to FaceTime me right now over and over and over again. And I went in, actually, is that okay? Can I just make sure she's okay real quick? Yeah. Honey, I'm working right now. Are you okay?

I did that. Yeah, I did. For all day. Like 20 minutes ago. I love you. I know you have. Okay. I love you, dude.

I got to go. Bye. Wow. She's eight. She's so cute. Eight? Yeah. She FaceTime me eight times to try to get more Robox time.

because I have, like, strict iPad time limits on their iPads. And, but my mom's there. So I'm, like, just have the whole day. And I had already done it. But, um, we'll get back there because you're, like, like, that's the causal thing. Like, that's the thing. Like, my mom's there. That's recovery.

Like, you can spend all this time. And there's so much complexity to get that, too. So, but just real quick, going back to the jail thing. So I kick in jail for the first time ever. You kicked open jail. Yeah. It was awful. I ended up getting a double kidney infection.

I was in then. no drugs no like they don't think just cold turkey me and the floor and um and it was so volatile yeah i mean that i'd never kicked before so that was really really a horrendous experience and i was in protective custody so i was in with people who were there for murder and you know whatever else i was by myself in a jail cell for 23 out of 24 hours a day i got out for one hour by myself to shower use the phone and whatnot and so So I did that first sentence, and I had an epiphany that I probably shouldn't use heroin anymore.

Everything else was fine, but like the heroin, like I shouldn't use. That night I got out, I got blackout drunk, and I was back to using heroin within two weeks. And I was on the run, you know, and that's what ended up doing the end. I never showed up to probation. I show up, I think, one time. I never pissed dirty because it was in that first two weeks and I didn't really understand the repercussions of this whole thing right I was just kind of checked out on my own path I'm doing what I want to do

and then I was back to panhandling I'd know where to live I'd blown all of the money that I made off of the show and did you ever think about taking your own life or did you ever yeah I wanted to die that's exactly what I was about to say I just wanted to die And I remember the last day that I used was in the bathroom. I had 0.08 grams of heroin on me when they picked me up. So for anyone who's listening who doesn't know how little that is, it's like the tip of a pen. Like it's such a little amount.

And that was what I was going to use to get well. And I remember taking like my last baby hit to just try to go to bed. And I looked up in the mirror and I was at my mom's house. So I wasn't even at, I had this like rundown apartment, no gas, no electricity. It was a fucking, you know, studio apartment in Burbank. I hadn't paid my rent in two months. And I was at my mom's house because it was a cold winter. I knew she had heat.

I'm using in the downstairs bathroom. And I look up at myself and you can see the progression of how bad I got in my mugshots. Like they just get worse and worse and worse and worse. And I was just like, if there is a God, you need to save me because I'm going to die. Like I'm either going to kill myself or someone's going to. to kill me and or something and the next morning the swat team showed back up at my house the following morning and they had their guns drawn and they found the heroin on me and they took me back to jail I kicked again cold turkey and um this amazing judge judge peter espinoza I will

always say his name because the DA wanted to just lock me up and throw away the key and he said I'm going to go against the DA and I'm going to sentence you to a year in treatment and that was like the beginning of the rest of history for me. So that's your sober date, March? No, I relapsed. So part of this, I talked about the first three months of hell.

Yeah. I relapsed on whippets in treatment. And I remember coming, I never done a whipit in my life. And I remember coming out of that whip it and I had, like it was Robert's talk. to me it was you know being sick and tired of being sick and tired it was like I'm not really changing I'm just going through the motions and I'm fucking miserable and like that itch of like not

recovered sobriety I don't even call it I call it abstinence it's not really sobriety and I did whippets and I came out of that and I was like Jesus like this is here I am I can't even do a year you know how do you get the whip I mean that's like my friend so I my my friend so I my friend who is in sober living was working at Starbucks and they have all the canister. I had a job when I was still active. It was amazing and horrible. But I was a I was like I worked at one of these 50s kind of ice cream shops, but we made our own whipped cream. So I was volunteering every morning to go in because we had the tank in the back. And like I would just huff gas for an hour before anyone else showed up and i think i'm still paying paying the paying the price for that one

like i'll have these moments of like just blankness and i'm just like thank you tory's ice cream shop in ocean city for you know that's funny so that was really it and i you know i was at i had this inflection point in my life where i was like am i going to keep doing this or am i going to get well and I just decided man I got to get well like I've got to get well but that voice I just got to get well like was that always there like when you like when you were like you know 14 13 12 you're like in the back of my mind there's a part of me it's like I know I shouldn't be living this way because I had that yeah just wasn't but like some people don't they're just they're so I mean I would say up until those later years I thought that I had a generally good moral compass

And then when it started to get really bad And I was like coming in terms with who I was I didn't like it But it was intermittent Like my sister overdosed in my arms And I'd be like, I'm never doing this again Like this is my fault You know

And then I would be back to doing it again You know, I just I didn't have the necessary power To relieve me of my addiction What would you, if you caught your case today And you were the case What would you have told your parents Assuming that you know

They were willing to support you or how would you have navigated the care for Alexis. Well, case management immediately, right? Like, the family system needs to change. And that's, that's, like, the brilliance. Like, I think treatment is great. I tell every single client who's called me, whether they've gone to treatment one time or eight times or 30 times.

I just get a call from a parent who's like, she's been in treatment 30 times in the last two years. I'm like, something else is needed here. Something else was needed a long time ago. That's the beauty of case management. is like identifying what is the missing puzzle pieces here that we've we've not been able to address but and it's the family right most of the time my family needed to change as much as I needed to change and certainly yeah treatment would have been recommended but yeah I mean and I have no regrets

Right? Yeah, no. If it was all transpiring, if it was, I don't even want to say my kid, but if I was out there in the same circumstance, I, you know, reaching out to a crisis team and doing the type of intensive work that we do, plus treatment for that containment and stabilization, that's what I tell every family. I'm like, this is not a golden ticket solution. It is for containment and stabilization.

the bigger picture is changing the system around this individual and giving them that design for a living that's going to get them to that next phase. Yeah, I mean, I think that's where our field has failed us at times. Like, it was explained to me at some point in my, I was a, like, I went to treatment 30 days, thought I was the king of rehab, was shooting heroin a week after, and then went back, you know, eight months later and got sober. The second time around, someone explained to me, my counselor said, you know, this is ICU. I know you're talking, you're moving, but this is just the period of time where we need to kind of, to your point, stabilize and get everyone on the same page, and then the real work is going to start.

The real work is, you know, 60 day and 90 days, a year, two years. I mean, it's the next, it's the rest of your life. Like, I think that, yeah, people still see it as this golden ticket. thing and it's like nope this is just containment and stabilization did your family ever do the work yeah and it's interesting because i i'm really big into i fs work i've been for like the last two and a half years internal family systems for everyone who doesn't know what that is there's an amazing book on it called no bad parts by dr richard schwartz and um my family's narrative like every christmas would be like and we're so grateful to alexis because

without her we would have never gotten on the path that we're at now I have a very happy loving lovely family now I love my dad I love my mom I love my sibling I love my life I love my nieces and nephews we are closer than ever your mom's taking care of your daughter yeah she's taking care of my kids right now while I'm here with you guys and and I used to hate it like it would send I would be like fuck you guys like on the back of me on all of the suffering that I went through right I was the the identified patient, the black sheep in the family that had to like light the path for you motherfuckers.

Like that was, and I had done so much step work and so much work around that. But it wasn't until later in my sobriety. And like the pressure of that had gotten less and less and I'd been able to set some boundaries about it with my family, although the narrative still kept going just because they were conditioned to that. And like, that is their lived experience. And I think that that's great. but I just still, like, I would hear it, and I'd have this, like, physical, like, visceral reaction to it, and I didn't want to carry that anymore.

What is the gist of internal family systems just for? Yeah. So the concept, and I've always done, like, a lot of inner child work, but this is very different. It gives you a process that I found actually works, and it's pretty somatic in nature, too. The concept is that, you know, we're not a monolithic being. We're some of parts. and some of the parts are protector parts and they're protecting like the younger

harmed injured parts right there's firefighter there's all these different parts and basically throughout our lives when we go through traumatic experiences and we know this to be true that experience gets stored in the body it's detached from the nervous system right and so through the part

so give me an example of something that's really challenging for you that still comes up to this day. What's that? Flying? Oh, I don't, I've, as of the last few years, I've, I don't like flying. Okay. Like, it's, I don't know why. It's very strange. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so what we would do is we'd start with that, and we'd go deep into this kind of meditative state, and we would scan the body and identify, okay, so when you think about flying, where do you feel it in your body?

and let's just say you felt it in your gut, right? And so we would bring our resource self. So the concept is that we have these fragmented parts, but we always have a witnesser. Just like in mindfulness meditation, you are actually not your thoughts. You are the one that is witnessing the thought. When you're able to make that distinction,

that's your resource self, or someone say higher self, or God's self, whatever you want to call it. So that part sits, right, with your body. And so an example for what we're talking about with my family and the visceral reaction I was having. So I'm in this meditation and I feel it in my gut when I think about my family telling me that, you know, because of me, they all got better. And I sit there and I'm just witnessing this space and I start to get really curious. And I see a protector part that comes out.

It's a rebellious teenager, and she's like, fuck you, fuck you guys, like double fingers up. Like she's screaming, she's yelling, she's full of rage and anger and whatever, right? This is like really deep work. And so I meet with her first, and I'm like, tell me about yourself. Like when were you, when did you come into, and she was 14, maybe 16 years old, and she's there to protect this younger version of me. and then from there I get hurt to trust me enough to like show me what's the younger version and then I see the younger version but what was so interesting about this actual experience is before after the younger version and you go through the process of reworking them into the nervous system understanding what they need processing with them in a very therapeutic way I mean this took 45 minutes and then removing her from the situation that she was in where she felt so vulnerable and putting her in a place where she felt super safe and what's so interesting about this work too is that you can literally feel like your nervous system click like it returns like

a beautiful mosaic painting like what maybe was like there and so loud it just calms and settles back into place but what I was shown was an image of my mother um when she was pregnant with me crying in her bedroom praying that I would be the thing that got my dad to fall in line and just saying maybe he'll change once i have this baby please change for alexis right and i called my mom after this is an image that came up yeah it just came to me so clear and she was in her bedroom and she was weeping and she was in so much distress because he was such a violent alcoholic and she was so afraid of bringing me is he sober now he's much better he's not fully sober but he's a lot better than he was um and uh the image came up the image came and i

went to my mom and i called her after and i said i got to ask you did this ever happen and she goes i remember the day exactly wow and it was like a sole contract like she was literally calling me in to try to rescue her and him and so i got to cut i got to go back in once i confirmed and like cut that cord and ever since I have no reaction they slip up from time to time I don't even feel it I'm just like oh okay but it used to you know I used to sit there and like fester in it because I would ask I would set the boundary and they would disrespect my boundary and blah blah you know yeah I mean that's what we want from the family right is like this whole idea that you're gonna be okay

whether or not your loved one or the identified patient or whoever it is is okay and you tell that to a family member that's impossible yeah like this is my child this is my husband no it is possible it doesn't mean you love them any less yeah no i i it wasn't it wasn't about them it was about how i was feeling i'm only responsible for me and my feelings and my goal again going back to like the resilience versus alchemy thing my goal is to be sovereign to be able to be okay despite any circumstance in my life and that has been my lived experience as a result work that I've done. And it's not just IFS and 12 step. And it's a combination of things that has really worked for me. But, you know, my ex-husband just up and left pretty much. After 10

years of marriage, left me with two girls. I was served papers. He had already got an apartment, had, like, what I consider to be a little midlife crisis. We're great friends now. I'm happy to report. But, you know, how do you walk through the fire and not contribute to it? And by doing this work, a combination of all of these things, yeah, I've been able to be really free despite the way that other people show up in my life. Do you, do you, what is your relationship between doing this for fun and for free and doing it in the way that you and I also do it because I've been like very rigid around that and I'm always curious how other how other people navigate it and for those listening like what I mean is like there's a service element for me to

stay sober and I assume for you and that means bringing other people through the work and there's no money exchange and it's like that's kind of AA and then there is you know you're you get paid to help families yeah um there there's in times in my sobriety where I've considered the work that I do to be enough and how'd that work out to misery yeah and what I will say is like when I really have a heart of service in every area of my life not just with other alcoholics and addicts but in every when I show up with what can I give rather than what can I get my life just goes easy everything falls into place I'm always taken care of. I'm divinely guided to that next right step. It just happens. When I lead a life

of service, and it's so counterintuitive because we're living in a time right now where it really feels like we're all against each other. You know, we're more separate, it feels like we're more separate than ever. I mean, we've always, as a human condition. Yeah, yeah, but it's just And it's historically, and, you know, we can get so wrapped up and, oh, my God, this time is so crazy. It's always been crazy. It's always been crazy. But. Well, the speed of craziness now is. It feels like a lot of crazy.

In a way. Yeah. Well, it's because of technology and all that other shit. Yeah, we have access to it now more than we ever have. But what I would say is that, you know. Do you think people bristle at that word, service? Because part of like, and it's always the bridge to walk across when you come into, well, whether it's AA or recovery, it sounds like you really did have a deep and effective spiritual experience. You know, like these words, there's all these, at least I always had all these associations with, you know, whether it was God, you know, church, temple, I'm Jewish, you know, service.

we like we know I know that when I'm not thinking about myself like I am in the flow of life and I feel better yeah you know and like that's all we're saying with service you know like to give up yourself to be helpful to someone else and that's when I've met God like 100% of the time when my sponsorsies call me in crisis right and something just flows through me and then I'm like damn I needed to hear that today you know and that's God that that's God right there speaking through you to another individual and giving you the little thing that you needed and not only that it just keeps my brain quiet you know when I wake up and I'm like oh I get to make my kids food right and I get to make them lunch and I get to take them to school and now I get to go to work

and now I get to serve these families oh and my sponsec called and now I get to give her some of my time My days go by, it's easy peasy, you know, and my mind is quiet and I rest my head and I do my 11th step at night. I still review the big book. I go back to, you know, the 80s and we go through the day. And my life is easy. It really, it's really rinse and repeat at this point. Like, it's just, yeah.

But you seem to have that other piece of that piece because we live in a world now today where self-help and self-awareness and talking about these issues is sort of like the trend, you know, self-optimization, but there's a risk of that because you're still just with yourself here. You're just looking at yourself. It doesn't work. I mean, it's a multi-billion dollar industry that grows every single year. And I can tell you from personal experience, and listen, I love Brene Brown. I fucking love Brene Brown. That bitch is so fucking. rad? I love her. I love

Brunea Brown. I love Gabor Mate. I love Joe Dispenza. I take little nuggets from all of those people and I think that they're great. But none of that clicks for me if I'm not doing it in relation to another human being. It just doesn't work for me.

And so, and maybe it does for other people, but I would argue with the people who have hundreds of self-help books in their house or on their audible. Is that working for you? Actually, one of the most profound things for even my Normie friends. My friend Michaelaus wrote this great book.

It's basically an alternative to the 12 steps. Not an alternative. It uses the framework of the 12 steps for normal people. It's called the spiritual revolution. You can get it on Amazon, but it's meant to be worked with another person. And what you will find in doing that over and over and over again is you become a better person.

Right. It's really that simple. The more that I go through this type of text, the more that I focus on selflessness, I get everything that I want and more, right, by design. Like the universe, it just happens. You know, I remember, so post-divorce, I'm sitting in fetal position, crying, going, and I had been dry for a while before my divorce happened. And I'm sitting in fetal position, or laying in fetal position on my floor going,

God, why have you done this to me? Like, I've been good. I've stayed sober. I continue to like run the rehab, you know, do the podcast and what, like, why are you doing this to me? And I heard a very clear voice saying, I'm doing this for you, not to you. And, um, and I went back to basics. And I threw myself into service work just, I, that's what got me through the pain of that

divorce is just serving others, serving others. And my sponsorsies will call me and go, how can I possibly serve others? I have this happening and this happening, this happening. I go, dude, I've had all of those things happening and more. and I still served others. And what I thought, you know, I owed like 70, I thought I owed like 70 grand in taxes. I had no money, right?

I was going to have to sell my house, get my kids moved all on my own, sell all of my furniture. I was literally like, how am I going to do this? And I just was like service, and it all worked out. Well, that tax bill, they ended up owing me $700. And that house sold for $500,000 more than I expected it to. and I was able to get my kids into like a beautiful safe home and I was able to navigate my divorce with ease and my ex-husband actually was wonderful through that whole process and it just happened I didn't have to force manage control any of it and that and that's just people are like oh my god you know that that sounds unfathomable but that's like literally I'm like oh I need a job and guess what I called some sober women who I've helped in the past

And one led me to another, and another led me to Michael Burba. And then it's like, great, here's a beautiful job for you where you make more money than you could have ever dreamed of making, and you get to do what you love. And that's literally how my life has worked. Yeah, and that, like, to me is so clear, right? Because we speak the same language. I think to the common folk, it's like, okay, whatever.

But that's my question. But like, you detach from the results. Like detaching from the results, like not having expectations of other people and other circumstances. And it's just an easier way. Control is an illusion. That's the thing. Everyone thinks that they have control. That's why we're all manipulating each other and lying to each other and doing what we have to do to like get.

Did you lie? Were you a lie? Like if you lied in your, like how. In my life. No, I mean, yeah. Like, oh my God, my character defects definitely come up. And I clock myself, like, pretty quick because I do that nightly 11th step, and I'm like, do I owe someone amends right now?

Have I been dishonest, self-seeking, afraid, right? Do I owe someone an amends? Do I have to check in with my sponsor? Do I need to do a 10th? I keep my shit clean, and life just rolls, you know? And even when it doesn't, I have a design for living that works. But you had a question. Well, I just, you know, you haven't, you're like running on,

on high you know full cylinder like an operating system that that we all understand through the 12 steps and thing and and then the other work that you've done how does that play into your life today outside of like do you have a lot of friends who aren't in recovery and and so when you're they all come to me for advice they all come to you for advice right yeah and my advice is grow your spiritual foundation and start with selflessness I I I I know No, it sounds crazy. And I really think everyone, so I align with Buddhism. That's my primary source of my spiritual experience.

And the 12 steps actually align perfectly with Buddhist philosophy, right? The idea that there's a self and ego that drives us towards things that create suffering, and as a result of that suffering, we are miserable. And the way to detach from that is to detach from the things that are causing our suffering. It's really that simple. A plus B equals C for everyone listening. I mean, that's really what it is. But, you know, there's just part of the big book in Chapter 5

where it talks about the director. We all think, we have the illusion that we are directing the show, that we are managing and controlling and enjoying our lives. My question for everybody listening is, are you? Are you really? Like when you actually think about it, all of your suffering, all of your pressure, all of you're manipulating,

And people don't even understand what manipulation is. That's for like another time. But like trying to fix, manage, and control all the time is fucking exhausting. And it gets you're stuck on the hamster wheel of suffering. The alternative to that is a spiritual solution that recognizes very simply that we're all just actors. That there is something, whatever it is, whether you're a Buddhist or you believe in love or the universe or God. or Allah, I don't care, right? That is guiding and directing your life.

And when you can set aside those defects of character of managing, controlling, manipulating, lying, being deceitful, whatever it might be for you, living in fear, on automatic pilot, not having a practice of mindfulness, when you set all of those things aside, your life just becomes better. Because you have a guidance that's like taking you where you need to go. and the next step that you make will be the right one

because you're clear enough to get there. I mean, that was my prayer early in recovery was like, God, please make my next step so clear that I can't deny it. Like, that's it. Just show me the way. And when I really live that way, but I've been plenty of times in the past 13 years

where it's like wound so tight and, you know, I'm going to tell all these people how to do it because I know the answer and I know what's right. And like, I don't. Dude, I can still do that. Well, I mean, yeah, I probably did it today. You're going to do it in 20 minutes.

I want to be mindful of your time because you've been so gracious. But the last thing I just want to get your 30 seconds or two minutes on the whole more of a behavior health care field question is, you know, around the psilocybin and the ketamine and the. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just give me, give me the real, real. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, within our human condition, the pendulum just tends to swing from one opposite end to the other, you know, and we become fanatics about the next new thing. And listen, we're all here because we want to help people. And so, you know, whether it's Matt or ketamine or whatever, there is no one solution for everybody.

and what I'll say is I do a lot of consciousness work like that I really am big on the idea that we are born with a base level of consciousness some people have more connection to that than others and in my lived experience and I've done a lot of hallucinogens prior to getting sober is that you know and when I would do those I would reach these peaks of consciousness

that were so profound and I would feel God, right? And then I would come back to my human condition and I had no ability to integrate that information to implement it to really foster change. And what I've realized is by having this kind of design for living that keeps me mindful and conscious, what's happened is slowly but surely over time, I've achieved higher and higher levels of consciousness, right?

life on life terms is our greatest teacher. We learn about ourselves when we have the ability to process information, reflect on who we are, and do something with that. So my fear is that there's now this magic bullet. And what happens to a lot of people is that they reach these peaks of, oh my God, there is a God, and there are consequences, psychosis. severe depression narcissism some people will swing into full-blown narcissism um it's a direct pipeline to uh spiritual cults you know or to the wellness industry that's X Y and Z I mean

there are real dangers to this thing and so it's nuanced what I will tell you is that everybody wants an easy quick fix that's not how It works, though. It's about learning how to go into the fire. And I will tell you, in my suffering, in sobriety, I have verged on points in my life where I thought I was going to have a psychotic break, my suffering was so great, and I didn't know how to deal with it. I was learning slowly but surely over the course of a decade plus of what to do with all

of my pain that would come up in increments in my life, and I had to learn how to face that and navigate it. My real concern, yeah, is that we're really, we're bypassing. We're still bypassing the work, which is like, how are you going to show up as a human and live your life? And I'm not saying that it's a no for everybody. I'm just saying that it's probably a no for most. And we are attaching ourselves to ketamine now.

Like, it is this magic thing. And the reality is in my experience and in the client, and the patient population that I work with, it's not. Most of those people get little to no relief, and a lot of them end up worse. I mean, that's the one thing that you didn't mention is going out and using drugs at a more accelerated rate than I ever did. I mean, that's my fear with doing ketamine. I mean, I don't love the word relapse, but call it what it is, like the relapse, you know,

like using ketamine and that turning into, you know, more misery. That's nuanced, so I think there's a higher risk when you have the mindset of this is the thing that's going to cure me. I've had to take opiates in recovery and never once have I been like, I'm afraid that I'm going to become a heroin addict. Why? Because I've had a spiritual experience that's been sufficient enough that keeps me from the hot flame, period. But when you're miserable and depressed and anxious and you really have not gone through, I mean, part of, life too is just going to be suffering and I think that so many people are adverse to that that's why I love my partner Chris's program ethos because it's like really about that like we're all going

to fucking suffer what do you do with that turn that pain into purpose yeah learn how to work with that alchemize that turn that into something beautiful sit in the discomfort of your suffering it will go away it is not going to harm you or kill you but so many people are are not willing to go through the physical and mental anguish that is your trauma and your pain. So again, I've had people who have gone and done ayahuasca and have had wonderful experiences and have been ready and primed for that and have already done like years and years in work and are ready for that. But it's a special kind of fuck no for me for the person who's got two months sober.

Well, I know someone who swears with double-digit sobriety who will repeatedly throughout the year go on these ayahuasca trips and doesn't consider it you know of breaking a sobriety I don't really care to be honest you know like whatever if you're not harming people if you're not you know

that's up to you you're not representing you know AA you're not representing any sort of overall treatment. Well and it's about intention too like what is my intention with this experience and I think it can be done in safe ways

but again I had a friend who had eight years sober and started working for one of these facilities that does this that's a recovery facility and ended up he was doing it 25 times a year and it fully sent him into this like hypomanic state and he was out and gone yeah and so my question is once you've met listen i've met that thing on a hero dose of shrooms okay he ate the shrooms right and i've met that i don't need to meet that thing again until i die that's my experience and once you know know that it exists sitting in deep levels of meditation and doing this work with yourself

and really just learning how to like be with your suffering is the greatest teacher i don't i don't need to go back for more yeah what do you think about nicotine yeah i mean because i i got my own relationship to nicotine i've been vaping since my divorce and here's the thing were you smoking cigarettes before that no no so this is it does nothing for you i i wish i never had done it i'm i just am finishing Alan Carr's book. Easy way to quit smoking. Work for me the first time I did it. Yep. And everything that they say is true, right? This actually, what I thought was giving me less anxiety gives me more anxiety, right? It flips at 180. Yeah, and I'm constantly thinking about where's the vape, where's the next thing, where, you know, and, and I'm fully in,

I'm fully aware of it and, and it is causing me suffering and that's why I'm listening to that book someone recommended that book because i've tried to quit um a few times now and i just have been unsuccessful but the reframing of all of that is really helping so far so i'm hoping by the end of the book you'll get there i'll be done you'll get there and i'm gentle with myself too you guys like that's the thing it's fucking hard we have to just recognize that we are um you know fallible humans that are, you know, and I'm okay with that. Yeah, it's like that perfectly imperfect, right? It's just like whatever, as long as I'm willing to be honest about whatever it is, right?

Absolutely. But listen, I, you know, before even opening your mouth, your story has helped obviously so many people, and I can't imagine the hordes of women that you've helped. But then when you get rolling, I mean, the knowledge and experience you bring to this world is special. And I'm glad we did this. I mean, Crisis Case Management is lucky to have you. We are lucky to have you as an overall field. And it sounds like you're just getting started.

So we appreciate you coming on. Is there a way that people find you with their family in crisis? They need help. How do they? Yeah. So our website is CrisisCM for Case Management.com. You can email me at Alexis at CrisisCM.com. You can also follow me on social media.

I'm not very active, but it's just at it's Alexis Haynes. and yeah thank you guys for having i'm glad we were able to do this yeah it's great thank you so much