Revealing the Dynamics of Addiction and Criminal Behavior

Okay, let's try that again. So in today's session, we're going to talk about the dynamics of addiction and criminal behavior. Over the next hour, we're going to examine the parallels between addiction and criminal behavior, discuss the benefits of both, identify the drawbacks to both, and describe what an effective comprehensive reintegration model would look like. Before I left the agency that I worked for in Florida, we had gotten a SAMHSA grant and we called it the no Wrong Door Initiative. But basically, people were released from jail or prison 30 to 90 days prior to their actual ending date. They came into treatment with us, and they were with us for three months to six months, during which time we helped address any underlying mental health issues, addiction issues, life skills issues. We helped them work with job coaches. They had to get a job in order to successfully complete the program. So there were a lot of things that helped them reintegrate into society in an attempt to try to reduce recidivism. And we're going to talk about one theory, not necessarily all comprehensive, but one theory about why recidivism is so high. Before we do, I do want to point out that 16.6 million adults, about 1 in every 12, suffer from alcohol abuse, independence, and 6.9 million are addicted to drugs. So that's roughly 23 million people. Of that 23 million each year, right around 1.6 million are arrested for drug law violations. Okay, so that's a big disparity there. Even if you think, okay, let's, you know, my math isn't all that wonderful. So let's say one out of every five people committing a crime actually gets caught. So 1.5 times five is nowhere near 23 million. So we know that not all people who use drugs or use alcohol are committing other crimes. Now, obviously, if you're using an illegal drug, technically it's a crime, so the number may be a little bit higher. But I really want to focus on those people who are doing more than personal use and they're experiencing multiple negative effects from it and why the recidivism level is so high. Before we, you know, go into this too much, I want to define a couple of terms. Drug defined offenses are those offenses that people go to jail for directly relating to a substance. Possession of cocaine, possession of marijuana, manufacture of methamphetamine, something like that. The crime itself has to do with the illicit drug. Drug related offenses are offenses which the drugs were involved somehow. Either the person was under the influence when they committed the drug, committed the under the influence when they committed the offense or they were trying to get the drug and something happened, they got beat up. You know, I don't can't possibly hypothesize all the things. Or they were distributing or buying drugs and they got involved in violence or something like that happened. So there are drug related offenses and drug defined offenses. Both of these we really want to consider when we're looking at recidivism because drugs are involved. I mean, people are using the drugs and their involvement with these drugs causing them problems in one or more areas of life. Now this drug using lifestyle, the definition sort of is that the likelihood and frequency of involvement in illegal activity is increased. It's not a one to one correlation, but it's increased because users, people who use illicit substances and or alcohol may have increased to peers, environments and situations that encourage crime. So if you have someone who is steeped in addictive behaviors, they may be doing multiple different types of crimes in order to get enough money to get the drugs. They may be impoverished, they may be having difficulty maintaining a job because of the drug use. Now remember, the vast majority of people who are alcoholics are actually employed full time. So we're talking again about a minority. I want to not lump everybody together. Drug using lifestyle is characterized by an emphasis on short term goals. And when we think about addiction, we think addiction. People in their addiction are very impulsive, they want whatever they want. Now they're not looking at good, orderly direction or the long term. So drug using lifestyle is characterized by short term goals, peers who are involved in illegal activity and a culture of criminality. And when we talk about addiction, we're talking about peers who are involved in addiction and a culture of addiction where the people you hang out with and the things that you do are underscored or are enmeshed with the addictive behaviors. So you can kind of see that there's a parallel. Okay, so when we talk about drug defined offenses, one of the things I want you to ask, if you're working with someone in probation and parole or you're just working with a client who has a history of possession, ask yourself and ask them why were they using? What was it that you got out of using? My guess is that it was some sort of relief, some sort of escape distribution. Okay, now this is getting away from what we typically think of as our typical addiction, where they're self medicating. So what was the benefit to distribution? And most people's first reaction is they made money. For those of us who grew up watching Miami Vice and those types of shows. We think of it as a lucrative activity when it's not the average drug dealer. Now we're not talking the big cartels, but we're talking the average drug dealer makes 20 to 30 thousand dollars a year. And I put the link in there to a very, very nice article that was done trying to look at, you know, what are the financial gains for people who are involved in drug trafficking. So there are not a lot of financial benefits to it. So what are the other benefits to distribution? You know, if you are the person holding the stuff, then you gain a certain amount of importance within this particular community. You gain a certain amount of. You're revered in a certain sort of way because people know they've got to come to you. You're the big man on campus. Manufacture, same thing we're talking about manufacturing isn't as. Not lucrative. Well, whatever. I'm trying to say, you make a little bit more money manufacturing because obviously you're cutting out the middleman. You're cutting out the secondary distributors before the street level dealers. But by the same token, they're still not making, you know, a whole lot of money. We're talking maybe the difference between 30,000 and $40,000 a year because you're cutting out the middleman and you're able to have multiple dealers, you know, sort of a pyramid sort of thing. And you're able to control the quality of your stuff and cut it to a greater or lesser degree. So manufacture does give you a little bit more liquidity, if you will, but it's still not fulfilling a whole bunch of needs, probably because there's a lot more risk that goes along with manufacture. So all that being said, we're looking at the reasons why people use. Why would they manufacture? Well, to get money. It may be a step up after distribution that you may decide, well, Jim Bob's making it so I can make it too. Bear in the back of your mind, every action is done because its rewards are greater than the alternative. So when we look at addiction, and we're going to look at the parallels here, tolerance and, or withdrawal. So we have psychological and physiological withdrawal. When we talk about substances, People will tend to need more in order to get the same high. And even certain addictions that tend to produce an adrenaline rush. Think of gambling. People don't stay at the nickel slots for too long. They move up and they start gambling more money. They need to have a bigger win. They need to take a bigger risk to get the same rush. Same things are going on inside their brain as Inside the brain of somebody who's using cocaine or something else, where the neurotransmitters are trying to balance out. And every time they think they're balanced, they get flooded again. And they're like, oh, we've got to shut down another gateway. So there's physiological tolerance that develops, which means when you remove the addiction, when you remove whatever it is, the substance or activity, the person doesn't feel normal because their brain has gotten used to being flooded all the time. And now if it's not flooded, they feel like crap because the doors don't automatically open back up and go, okay, we're not going to be flooded anymore, so we can open our doors again. So physiological tolerance and withdrawal can happen. With chemical or behavioral addictions, psychological tolerance or withdrawal, there is a benefit. It sometimes it numbs people, sometimes it makes them happy, Sometimes it makes them feel like they're their uber selves. Sometimes it gets rid of the anxiety. We have to ask what is underpinning, what is causing those feelings and address those things in order to address the reasons for use and then continued user engagement in the behavior despite negative consequences. Why do you keep banging your head in the wall? Why do you keep doing something that you can clearly see as harmful? Because it's better than the alternative in addiction. Often it's numbing pain, self hatred, emptiness, guilt, and it's the one thing the person can control and keep from leaving. The bottle of Jack Daniels is not going to get up and walk away. It's there and it's going to numb the pain. You may have to drink a little bit more, but it's going to do its job. Whereas your friend Bubba may or may not answer the phone when you need him, Spending more time or money planning, using or recovering from the use of the substance or engagement in the behavior as tolerance develops, more is needed. You know, and this is really easy to kind of envision when we're talking about substances, people needing more substances, thinking about it more, and then having a longer time to recover from using so much cocaine or so much methamphetamine. But think about gambling. If you're going to increase your bets and if you're going to increase your risk in gambling, there's an anticipation that builds up for when you're going to go. You're thinking about it, then you've got to figure out how you're going to get enough money to buy into the game. So figuring out where that money is going to come from, getting that money and then getting to the game and making those bets, or whatever the case may be, that's exhausting. It's draining. And most of the time, this is happening at night, so you're not getting any sleep either. But that's an aside. So when all of it is over, it takes people quite a while to recover. Even if they won, their dopamine has just been completely depleted because it's been excreted and reabsorbed and excreted and reabsorbed so many times. And there's very little left in the brain to do that. So it's going to take them a while. They're going to be pretty exhausted. There are other reasons that cravings may increase with behavioral addictions. Obviously, tolerance. Like I said, when you have those neurotransmitters and the receptor starts closing down the doorways so it can't overload the system, it takes a while for the system to realize, oh, we're not going to get artificially flooded anymore, so we have the neurochemical tolerance. There's also increasing cravings due to increased pain in life when people come out of their addictive behavior. And I don't say sober up, because sobriety is a lifestyle. It's not just not using. So when people withdraw, when people are clean, if you will, and they look around and they see all the destruction that's caused because they have neglected to pay bills, they've neglected to go to work, they have, you know, hocked everything in sight, Whatever the case may be, they may want to crawl right back into that addiction, Whether it's the bottle or the pills or the gambling table, Forget about it. So there's cravings in order to forget, in order to distract from whatever's going on. And there's also an increase in the number of triggers as people use. More and more things become associated with using. Maybe it was just gambling on Fridays at the poker game, and then it became gambling on Fridays and Saturdays at the poker game. Then it became gambling on Fridays and Saturdays at the poker game and gambling online on Sunday nights as well. You know, you. So you see how now it's not just the poker game. Now it's the computer. The computer says, you want to gamble, you want to gamble. And it serves as a trigger. The more triggers there are, the more frequently the person is going to be reminded of the pleasure from the addictive behavior and go, ooh, I want that. I mean, kind of think of somebody putting up, you know, think of your favorite food, whatever it is. For me, it's brownies. And everywhere you go, you either smell them or you see them, or you see something that reminds you of them, like a grocery store. And it can be something as obtuse as a grocery store reminding you of brownies. It can be something as obtuse as a grocery store reminding you of gambling. Because what can you get in the grocery store? Lottery tickets? Unsuccessful efforts to quit or cut down. Neurotransmitters are wonky. And yes, I'm getting to the point of the criminal behavior in a minute. Neurotransmitters are wonky. When you first stop using because it's gotten so. Your brain's gotten so used to being flooded and protecting itself from that flood. Think about if you live in a place where there's a lot of rain, and every time there's a lot of rain, it floods, you put up the sandbags. And if you know the rainy season is coming, you leave those sandbags up to keep your house from getting flooded instead of having to shut them down and undo it, and shut it down and undo it. Same basic thing goes on in your brain. Those sandbags are going to stay up for a while until the body goes, okay, you know, maybe it's actually, maybe we need to rebalance a little bit on our own because we're not going to get that artificial influx. The chaos created by use has made sober life unpleasant. You know, you're trying to do the next right thing, but, oh, wow, you know, the guilt, the shame, the depression, the anger, the sense of helplessness. And a lot of the friends that you made during your addiction are not as supportive of sober fun. If most of your friends are your gambling buddies, they may not. You may not have anything in common outside of gambling. So if you don't have a lot of friends who have other activities and other interests, if life around you is kind of difficult to deal with and you're starting 20 yards back because you're already depleted of your happy chemicals, it's going to be hard to stay clean and sober. So there's a risk for relapse. And there's also a loss of other interests because people start chasing that high. The feeling they got the first time they had the big win, the first time they used whatever the drug was. It's just. It's not the same rush anymore. And using friends don't share their similar interests. So if you're using friends don't share those interests, but you want to use and you want to hang out with them, then all those other interests like hiking and, you know, football or Whatever, go to the wayside. So that bearing and bearing all that in mind, let's look at drug offenses. Most people that I've worked with and most of my career, I've had at least two or three drug court programs escalating sale, use, or involvement in drug related activities. Very few people stay at the same offense where you see they were arrested for possession of a dimebag, they were arrested for possession of a dimebag, they were arrested for possession of a dimebag. No, it gets, it goes up from there, either with different drugs or different offenses related to drugs. Why? Because they need more kick to get the same escape. Whether it's more risk because they're getting involved in sale, or it's more risk because they are using more illicit drugs, or it's more kick because they're becoming more powerful, more popular and richer. A lot of our clients with addictions talk about how lonely they are because when they stop using and they have to sit with themselves, there's just this big void. They don't know who they are. They need that external validation constantly. We see sort of the same thing when we're working with a lot of the offenders who have drug offenses. There are a lot of bravado, there are a lot of facade, but once you get down under it, they're just kind of a big pile of I don't know what I am. So we need to look at that engagement in riskier behavior to increase the rush of getting away with the offense. Some people do it for the adrenaline. Like other behavioral addictions, it activates reward pathways in the brain. Whether it's because you're the big man on campus and everybody wants to be your friend and that makes you feel important, or because you're getting away with something, you're getting it over on the system, if you will, where you may have some animosity. There are a lot of different reasons people get into this particular lifestyle and a lot of different reasons people find it rewarding. So we have to ask our offenders, our clients, whatever you want to call them, what was it that you liked doing that? And most of the time they'll give you this very confused look when you start talking to them about, you know, what did you like about this lifestyle? Some of the answers that you will get pretty much consistently are, I didn't have to answer to anybody else and I could set my own schedule, I could do what I want when I wanted it, yada yada. The person defines themselves based on their drug involved Persona. A lot of our clients really Take on that Persona as being a dealer, the enforcer, the distributor, or even the addict. So asking them to give that up is asking them to give away or get rid of or, you know, if you will kill a part of their own personality. What are they if they are not a dealer? Tell me about who you are. Not related to drugs. A lot of times people will just look at you, go, I don't understand what you're asking, because that is who I am. It also provides a sense of power for people who felt powerless, useless, or disenfranchised if they were growing up in an environment. Most of our offenders are not going to come say, yeah, I had a great mom, I had a great dad, I had everything in life and it was just wonderful. And ducky, I just decided I wanted to manufacture meth. There was a reason for it. Some things said. This illicit behavior is more rewarding than what you've got. So we want to say what was going on. Is it giving them a sense of power? Is it making them feel successful? Did they have difficulty in school? Did they always get picked on? Did they feel useless? Were they told by their parents they were useless? And it can provide a sense of self esteem, being smarter than the cops or the big man on campus. A lot of times addiction and criminal behavior run in the family. One of the things we fail to consider with a lot of our drug court programs, and we're going to talk about this more later, is the fact that sending people to jail a lot of times is really not that much of a punishment for some of our, for some of our clients, because that's where their friends are, that's where their Uncle Bob is. Yeah, I had a client who told me one time, you know, I don't, I don't mind going back to jail because that's where my uncle so and so is. I'm like, okay, that made me think for a second because to me, going to jail would just be like, oh my gosh. And to him, that was just part of life. I mean, it was kind of like going to the doctor and getting your annual checkup or something. Understanding the behavioral components of this, what's rewarding and what's punishing and making sure it's punishing for them and making sure that sobriety is rewarding. Drug offenses still continued use or engagement in the behavior despite negative consequences. Okay, so you go to jail so you can't get a normal job. What are the benefits to this behavior if it's going to close some doors for you? Money Power, control, status, recognition, and being somewhere that, you know, a lot of the people that I work with had been to jail so many times. You know, they knew the corrections officers by name, they knew the people that were in there, they had a social circle there, they knew how to behave, they knew what to expect. And they had become institutionalized, if you will, because growing up, so much of their life they spent in jail. They didn't know the different types of behaviors, they didn't know the different types of attitudes that were expected on the outside. Spending more time or money planning or using or recovering from engagement in the behavior and loss of other interests. So I glumped those two together here. Dealers will try to make bigger deals, they'll want more territory to defend, and life revolves around maintaining an image. Now again, this is more for your drug related offenses. But people don't usually just stay at low level user and get arrested. If they're using consistently and to that extent, then they start losing their job, then they may start getting involved in other riskier activities and becoming inculturated in this culture of criminality and addiction. Unsuccessful efforts to quit or cut down sale use, there's no rush if they like it. You know, the only thing I can kind of make a parallel to is taking a cop who's used to having those rushes all the time. And once they retire, a lot of cops really have a hard time adjusting because they don't know how to deal without having the rush, without being the one that's important, without being the one that's in control. Same sort of thing, if you will, for the dealer within his or her community. And there's no external validation again for cops, they're seen, you know, sometimes it's negatively, sometimes it's positively, but the positive is very positive. They're seen and revered by some. Same thing for dealers. Some people see them negatively, some people see them positively. But those that see them positively tend to put them up on a pedestal. So what can we do about this? I mean, addiction we've talked at length about and the fact that people are doing this as a method to survive. But I really want you to look at recidivism and criminal behavior and think about it in terms of do our clients who have offended have any tools other than what they had when they went in that will help them survive, you know, once they get out of prison or out of jail? And the answer is no, generally they don't. Prison and jail are defined, not defined, are characterized by what we would consider in the addiction Recovery arena as stinkin thinkin'. There's a lot of impulsivity, There's a lot of need for external validation. There's a lot of jockeying for power minimization, rationalization, denial. All those things that we talk with our clients about in addiction treatment are just rampant in jails and prisons. And why is this? Because they're jockeying for position. They may not be able to have their drugs. So they've got to find a way, feel important. They've got to find a way to feel okay, whatever okay means for them. So physically, we want to educate them first that when you stop using or getting involved in this behavior, it may seem pretty dull for a while because your brain chemicals are kind of wonky and it's getting pleasure from legal activities may be a little bit harder because it's not meeting quite the same need. Which is why we need to ask them what need was it meeting and really drill down to figure out whether it was power, self esteem, validation, what was it for them? We need to ensure they have access to safe housing and employment away from negative peer influences. There's a phenomenon when people get out of jail and when people get out of treatment. We've seen the same thing in residential treatment. And they are determined they are going to do the next right thing. And for whatever reason, you know, however they got to that point, they're like, I'm not doing that again. I'm going to do the next right thing. I'm going to make my family proud, whatever. Within three to six months, they're back doing the same old thing because they go out and they are exposed to the triggers. They don't have any new friends yet, so they fall back into hanging with the old people. They have difficulty getting employment. And for somebody, whether it's because of an addiction or, you know, because of criminal behavior in the past, they may have difficulty getting a job and getting a job that is what they consider worthy of them. And a lot of this bravado comes out because they define themselves externally. They define themselves by what they do. They define themselves by how important they are. So flipping burgers at McDonald's is not going to do. Getting paid minimum wage is an assault to their general attitude. We want to ensure that they can have pro social places that they can go. We do need to educate about basic life skills. Why is sleep important? Why is it important to keep your circadian rhythms kind of in check and not stay up all night for three days? Why is nutrition important to helping your body rebuild itself? And then time management, especially for people who haven't had to go to work because they've been either involved in sale or dealing, or they've just been using so much time hasn't really been an issue for them. So helping them learn that if you're going to maintain a job and, you know, do what needs to be done, get to your meetings, etc. You have to have some level of time management. These are the three basic things, aside from coping skills that we really honed in on in the first part of the recovery process for the no Wrong Door program. Emotionally, you need to start talking with them about issues like resentment. Who do they resent? And it can be people, it can be agencies, it can be institutions generally. With both people with addictions, you know, that have not been arrested, and people with criminal behavior who also have addictions, we're looking at some significant resentment somewhere. Grief. If they are recovering, if they are giving up this Persona, there's a certain amount of grief. Letting go that old lifestyle. There's even think about going from being single or, you know, single and childless to being married with children. That single, childless lifestyle, it ceases to exist. You're not going to be doing that anymore, most likely because you have other responsibilities now. You're taking on a new Persona. So there's a grief process. And you know, if it's something you're doing willingly and you have support for, goes pretty smoothly. In the case of criminal behavior, if everybody in your social circle really engages in that, then you're actually having to lose family and friends or kind of push them to the wayside. In addition to losing a part of your identity, if you will. Anger. Remember, anger is part of that fight or flight. So that means somebody perceives a threat to themselves, to their identity or to their family. People don't like to be told what to do, especially people with addictions. And in most cases, people who commit crimes have similar control issues. They don't like being told what to do. So anger comes out because they feel disempowered when they are forced, if you will, to act or behave in a certain way. And shame, I mean, shame is there. It takes a while to get down to it and have somebody actually talk about shame in most cases. But there is shame about what they did, what they haven't done, who they let down. One of the greatest motivators, especially in early recovery, is identifying some of the people that have been hurt by the addiction or the criminal behavior who they want to do better for. Taps a little Bit into that shame. I try to stay away from some of these really charged topics and emotions in early, early recovery until they've got some stronger coping skills and a pro social support network under their belt before we really start poking the bear. But in the meantime, we can help them identify things that make them happy. If being around your kids makes you happy, then let's figure out what you can do to be around your kids. Because most likely you're not going to be using or committing criminal offenses while you're playing on the playground with your kids. So solves both of our goals and help them identify reasons for staying clean. This is again, early recovery. It's sort of a superficial band aid, but it starts giving people hope and direction cognitively. We need to address cognitive patterns such as entitlement. I deserved this or I didn't deserve that. Nothing is. Life isn't fair. And as soon as they wrap their heads around that, it'll be a little bit easier going. But helping them deal with a sense of entitlement is one of the first steps because a lot of times that will rear its ugly head when they start feeling vulnerable. All or nothing thinking, everything is bad, everything is good. A lot of times it's focusing on everything is bad. Anytime you have that dichotomous thinking can become really stressful. The impulsivity, they gotta have it now. Well, that's not in line really with recovery. We need to look at good, orderly direction. We need to look at where you want to be six months from now. Yes, right now you may want to escape and it may be right there, but is it going to hinder you from reaching the goals that you want to? Three months from now you may see something that it would be so easy to make this drug deal or to do this right here, but is that going to get you closer or drag you back into where you don't want to be? Need for external validation. This is one of the first places I start with cognitive interventions. Because until somebody starts to like themselves, until they start to realize that they are more than their job, until they start to realize they are more than somebody's dealer or somebody's, you know, client, they're going to have a hard time staying clean and sober on their own. So helping them figure out who they are and why they're good and why they deserve better than what they're getting for themselves right now. Personalization, taking everything personally. Thinking that anytime someone says something to you, they're insulting you. In many cases, it comes back on people and makes Them want to regress to their old way of thinking and their old way of behaving because they're using. Friends are not accepting of their current new behaviors and we want to help them develop problem solving skills. When this happens, when you encounter somebody from your past, how do you handle it? What is it that you need to do to get you toward your goals? When you feel disempowered or disenfranchised, how do you cope with it? All of these things can be rehearsed and you can talk about examples of when it happens in group and have people brainstorm or share how they've dealt with similar situations. In order to help your clients figure out how they're going to navigate the non criminal world interpersonally improving communication skills, including listening and empathy. Now, this is true for everybody, but especially in the cases of criminal behavior that involved offenses against other people. They weren't just drug offenses. Many times the offenders had to learn how to cut off that empathy so they could offend against somebody else. That also goes with the entitlement. If you're taking money from someone, if you're forcibly extracting something from someone because you believe you deserve it, but you also have to cut off the empathy when you're doing that. So bringing them back to empathizing with others and listening, hearing what other people have to say, not jumping to conclusions, not getting defensive, we'll get down to defensiveness in a minute. Improve self esteem to reduce the need for approval and defensiveness at perceived slights. If you take someone who has low self esteem, think about one of the clients you've worked with who every time something happened they would bow up. And I think we've all worked with, if you've worked in addictions especially, but I think anytime you've worked in mental health or addictions, you've worked with clients who just, I mean, they seem to want to fight all the time and they would bow up the moment you pointed something out. Why is this? They felt vulnerable. Okay, so they felt vulnerable. Why is that so bad? Some people, when they feel vulnerable, feel weak. They feel like they need to protect themselves. So working on this self esteem so they feel like they're strong, feel like they're resilient, feel like they are good enough and can accept the fact that they make mistakes. Because we all make mistakes. We need to help them identify clean and sober friends. And they may not have any. They may have to figure out where they're going to find them. Whether it be at meetings, at church, at work, figuring out where they can find people to hang with that have similar interests that are not using or at least not engaging in criminal behavior and exploring pro social recreation. I can't tell you how many times people, when we ask people what they do for fun, they're like, I don't know, I used to go fishing or something. Okay, what do you do for fun now? Nothing. Alright, so a lot of times people have been involved in this lifestyle, whether it's criminal behavior or addiction, for so long and you know, I really, I think you see where I'm bringing them both together. They're pretty much one and the same in many cases. They need to figure out what they enjoy doing. Occupationally. This is one of the biggest bugaboos. Using a decisional balance exercises to improve motivation for mainstream employment. So often I've worked with people, and I said earlier, who have been like, I'm not working for minimum wage, I'm not going to flip burgers, I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to do that. When in reality, because of their criminal history or their employment history or their educational history or because of something that's the best they're going to do for right now, helping them understand it's a foot in the door. You don't have to stay flipping burgers forever. You just need to kind of prove that you'll show up for work and you'll do a good job and that you have some longevity. You're not going to, you know, stop showing up after three months. This is where a job coach comes in really, really handy. Because when people feel like they're working in a position that's below them or beneath them, sometimes their attitude can suffer a little bit. Having a job coach help them focus on the positives, do the next right thing, see the light at the end of the tunnel, if you will, where they will soon be able to get out and do their own, not their own thing, but get into a job that they like better. These are important. The job coach will help maintain that motivation for going to a job, even if it's one that they aren't really crazy about right now. It will also help employers to keep that person employed and understand different ways they may help work with that person. A lot of times it's by providing that positive reinforcement, by making them feel important, making them feel noticed. You know, things we should do with employees, period. But for people who really are unhappy about the job that they've got, you know, that can go a long way to help making it tolerable. Another thing we would do is conduct a job analysis identifying all their skills of mastery. And I use this term loosely because many of my clients are extremely resourceful, amazing salespeople, great marketers. They were just doing it for cocaine. So we need to take those skills and say, okay, how can we translate this to something that you can use in your new life? They have a lot of skills. They dealt with adversity. There's a lot of stuff that they actually did learn, and we just want to use it for good instead of evil. Now, helping them see what skills that they do have is great. Now the caveat I will put out there, you know, I've worked with some great salespeople, and they could sell water to a fish in the sea. I mean, they're that good, but they're also that good at convincing you that they're fine when they're really not fine and they're relapsing all over the place. So while understanding your skills and using them in, you know, this new life is great, we also have to make sure it's not. Those skills aren't also used to cover up or minimize, rationalize or justify the onset of a relapse. So the benefits to criminal behavior and or drug use outweigh the drawbacks of jail or other sanctions. So people are doing this for a reason. And generally it's a reason to make themselves feel better. It's not just something they, you know, they don't wake up one morning and go, hey, I think I'm going to be a drug dealer, or, hey, I think I'm going to, you know, do whatever. There's a reason for it. And they've weighed the risks. You know, whether it's really quick or whether they've actually sat down and weighed the risks is irrelevant. They're doing fulfills a need, and it's better than the alternative, which is legal, sober living. So like an addiction, criminal behavior is rewarding to an extreme for some, not for all. You know, not everybody reoffends. We need to look at what are the rewards they're getting and how can we replace those to reduce recidivism. Reducing recidivism and. Or relapse, because I mean, really, recidivism is relapse into criminal behavior. Understand and eliminate what motivates that behavior, what are the benefits to it, and make those go away and, and make them go away in a way that is meaningful to the client. You know, like I said before, if I were to go to jail, that would be huge. That would be a huge punishment for me and I would probably change my behavior. Making other people go to jail, especially if it's just for like a weekend, which is what a lot of drug courts do, they can send people back to jail for a weekend or even a month, may not be all that punishing. Understanding and improving. So in addition to taking away the motivation for the criminal behavior, we need to understand and improve what is unmotivating about pro social activities. Why is this other lifestyle so bad? Why do you not like going to a job and how can we fix that? Why do you not like obeying the law and how can we fix that? Oftentimes the specific offenses will give you a better idea and will help the person explain to you and give you a better idea about why they do it and why it is, why they're likely to relapse. So we need to make sober living, not using and engaging in this pro social lifestyle. We need to make this really rock out and be motivating. If the criminal behaviors or substance use are serving to help the person escape or avoid pain and continue to be done despite negative consequences and produces physiological or psychological withdrawal if they feel uneasy, if they get depressed, if there's a lot of anxiety, then it would qualify as an addiction. So we're looking at another potential behavioral addiction. Just like some people can gamble and not have problems, some people can commit crimes and not become addicted, others it provides enough of a rush for whatever reason or fulfills enough of a need for whatever reason that they will continue to do it despite negative consequences. We need to evaluate our clients for an underlying mood disorder, whether it's caused because of addictive substances they were using or it pre existed or whatever the case. Evaluate it. It's going to be hard enough to do all of the things that are required when you're on papers, if you're happy, let alone if you have underlying anxiety, ptsd, depression, yada yada. And especially evaluate for bipolar because a manic episode is, you know, just one step closer to going back to jail and doing something that you probably wouldn't have done normally. Address cognitive distortions. Start easy. You know, we're not talking about talking about all of the traumas and all that stuff. We're talking about how they perceive the world today and how they interpret it. Let's look at your cognitions. Improve self esteem. Help them figure out why they are all that in a bag of chips. Ensure that their work and home environment is free from negative influences. I talked earlier about reintegrative shaming. When people come out of jail and they start trying to do the next right thing, the system, the dysfunctional system that they came from, pulls them back into the fold. They shame them back into returning to their old behaviors. What? You're too good to hang out with me anymore? Tell me more about that. So there are a couple studies on reintegrative shaming, but it is important to recognize that if we want someone to integrate into totally new environment and social circle than they've ever been a part of before, we're going to have to do a lot more than just suggest that they make new friends. There's going to have to be a lot of active case management, linkages, etc. Provide frequent rewards and validation for doing the next right thing, even small things, and remove the benefits of criminal behavior. A lot of it is very similar to straight up addictions treatment. But it is important to remember that you're asking people to develop a whole new lifestyle that they've never had before, which means they're probably going to need skills that I haven't even begun to cover here. Talk with them. Have them explain to you what they need, what they do and don't have. And sometimes they won't know, which is why having them come to treatment on a regular basis helps because then we can intervene as soon as they identify a skill deficit. Are there any questions?