14: How Covid Will Affect Mental Health with Darren Hobbs

Welcome to my podcast called you'd Must Be out of youf Mind. My name is Dr. Don Wood. Everyone has experienced some trauma at times during their life. These traumatic events and experiences create a significant impact on how your mind works on a day to day basis. At the same time creates long term effects on your emotional and physical health. It will interfere with your ability to stay present and in the moment. After years of research, I used my knowledge of neuroscience to create what I call a memory reset. This memory reset reduces and eliminates the impact of the trauma and allows you to experience peace and clarity. My podcast will share many stories of people experiencing similar symptoms to you and how their lives have been positively impacted by our TIP program. I can't wait to share with you how the impossible is possible and why you must be out of your mind. And there it is. Well, welcome to another episode of youf Must Be out of youf Mind. I. I'm your host, Dr. Don Wood. And as you know, I always bring on guests that have relevance to what we're doing. And today is no exception. We have Darren Hobbs. And Darren is the president of Music City Interventions, which is a national leader in addiction and intervention. And he's going to come here and share his experience and what he's been doing. Very successful in that area. So I'm excited to welcome Darren. Darren, welcome to you Must Be out of youf mind.

Thank you, Dr. Wood. And I'm. I'm definitely out of my mind on my best day.

This is a great way. I've been up since 4, let my add and OCD kind of go out. Go go out and do their thing with some coffee and some. And some weight work. So it's really cool to be centered and get on with you. And you know, from the jump, when we're starting to talk about treating clients holistically as a whole human being, I think we're speaking the same language. So I'm honored to be a guest. Thank you for having me on.

Well, I'm excited about, you know, dealing with people and talking to people who are helping people in addiction because I think it's a major epidemic that we're doing and I think it's going to get worse, especially after Covid. And I don't think we really know the statistics yet from COVID A lot of this stuff has not come out yet. So I think what you're doing is so instrumental and it's going to be a key. And I love. We were talking a little offline beforehand about the holistic approach which is so true. So tell me what you're sort of seeing and what your approach is to it.

Well, so you just made a point around the COVID and I think that the potential spinoff from COVID I don't think we're going to see until the children affected by mom and dad's mortgages and losses of income and the stressors that came with the whole pandemic. I don't think we see that whole fallout. I mean I think that's, you know, trauma follows a family for five generations, right? So a clean family before a trauma free, healthy family pre Covid, you know, we're talking about five generations from now that might still be affecting these guys, right. Coping skills that are passed on from mom, dad to three year old who is in the house listening and, and, and watching mom and dad struggle or mom and dad pick up drinking habit, Valium hat, whatever the deal, whatever the medicator is, the fallout I don't, I think is immeasurable. And you know, my, my dad always told me to find a business where I would never run out of customers. And.

Unfortunately I think we have. Right, like there is never going to be a shortage of people who need guidance around emotional health and mental health. And in my corner, addiction treatment.

And the thing that we talked about beforehand, which I love to hear what you were talking about because it's what I say as well. Addiction is a symptom. It's not the problem. The problem is something else that created the addiction. And so everybody treats the symptom. It's the same thing with anxiety. Somebody will come into me and they'll say I have really bad anxiety. And I go, well you don't have anxiety, that's a symptom.

Right.

What is the cause of the anxiety? Let's get to the root of the issue.

Totally agree. So yeah, I've got anxiety. So doc, can you give me some Ativan? Right? And you're sitting there saying, well, why don't we get to the root of the anxiety? And, and you know, maybe, maybe we treat with a medication that can lower, can bring down symptoms of anxiety. But if we're not doing the work here and here, then all we're doing, right? It's like, it's like, it's like going to the hospital and just getting a cast for a broken leg, right? And then walking on the broken leg, it's never going to get better. Right.

It's the same thing with depression. One of the things that I've been saying for a long Time People say, well, you know, depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. And I say, no, that's not the problem. The problem is, is why is the mind going into a depressed state? Right? It's actually trying to protect you. So what happens is. And this is a major part of what our program is all about is I say every time you have an emotion, an emotion is a call for an action. The purpose of fear is to escape a threat. The purpose of anger is to attack a threat. So now if you have trauma that you experienced at an earlier time in your lifetime, even as a child, and your mind, your subconscious mind, which is your survival brain, is in charge of about 95% of everything. And it's fully present in the moment. So if your fully present subconscious mind is in the present and it accesses trauma from when you were 5 or 10, when does it think the trauma is happening? Now, right? So it creates an emotion.

Right? Trauma response to something that happened. You know, it's like we say, I call it emotional taxes. You just paid emotional taxes by acting out on something that is. Has been a truth for you since you were 6, when dad yelled at you too much or you didn't get picked at kickball, or you thought your teeth were too big or didn't like how you felt in your clothes. Big T, little T. Trauma, death by a thousand cuts, or, you know, surviving a huge accident. It's still trauma, right? It's. It's like beauty. It's in the eye of the beholder and. And we drag those. Those false truths around almost like we build our own jail cell and then have to, like, you know, kind of just shuffle it around.

As we move through life and traumas. To me, and. And I'm. I'm not a doc. I'm. I am just a. I'm a practical application of recovery guy. That's. That's my gig. Right? But what I see is when we can arrest the addiction, we can. When we can get someone abstinent and we can get their mind stable and we get them doing the heart. Heart work and I mean, like emotional healing, right? And get the clinical work. Sometimes we do some brain spotting or get some TMs involved and try to titrate medications. I'm always a fan of let's get to a baseline and. And then see what the brain needs to function properly. And then as we get healthier, have responsible providers try to titrate medications down.

And then let's work on sleep hygiene. Let's work on real nutrition. Let's work on getting on a legit schedule and living an esteemable life goes a heck of a long way in defeating depression symptoms.

Right?

Let's get some sun and some exercise and. And learn how to communicate and ask for what we need. These are all tools. These are all tools that are teachable. But most of the people that I see don't arrive with no.

And the problem is, is that if you try to fix those things before you get to the root cause, it's like painting over rust, right? It looks good for a little while, and then the rust bubbles up through the paint. You go, oh, it's back. The key is to sand it down, right? Prime it, and then paint it, and then it sticks. And that's what I was saying about depression. Depression is actually a call for an action. Your mind has been trying to get you to do something about this pain for a long time. But it's actually. For example, if you had a lot of, you know, trauma as a child, maybe you were abused as a child, your mind's not okay with it, and it wants it to change, but you can't change that period of your life. But your mind keeps calling for the action. So if your mind keeps getting you angry to try to create a change in something that isn't possible, how does your mind protect you when you can't do it? It shuts down. It stops emotions. Depression is the absence of emotion. So the emotion hasn't gotten the action done. So to protect you, it shuts down to. To say, let's not use emotion. Emotion is not working. So once you get to the root of what the mind's been asking for and you resolve it, there's no depression. Depression was actually not a dysfunction, but a function of the brain. I look at it completely different. Everything, the reason why your mind does everything, and it's always to protect you and keep you alive. And even with addiction, when I meet with people who are in addiction, the very first thing I say to them is that there's nothing wrong with you and there's nothing wrong with your mind. Right? You had pain, and you found a resource to stop the pain.

Exactly.

That says nothing about your character, morals, or willpower. It's all about how the brain works. Because your subconscious is always in the present, right? Always dealing with now. When does it want the pain to stop? Now. Right? And you take that drug, or you take that drink and you stop the pain. Now you solve the problem.

Amen.

Now, the problem is, is that we have a second memory system, repetitive associative memory. And what happens is, is we learn through repetition and associations. So your mind, after you repeat this particular resource, builds a code. I say addiction is a code. And it's a code that got built without you even realizing you were building it. Because your subconscious mind solved the problem by getting you to go and do something. It calls for an action. The action could be sticking a needle in your arm, it could be taking a drink. It solved the problem. It can't see consequences because it has no connection to time. It's only this conscious, logical, intellectual part of our brain that can see things in time and see consequences. But it's not in charge of survival. It's a glitch. Addiction is just a glitch.

Addiction is a. Yeah, I, I totally agree. There's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of work out there in, in the drug treatment world. I'm not a fan of the drug treatment industry at all.

I think there are very good treatment centers and there are a lot of very ethical, professional, competent people. But the industry as a whole looks at it in a different direction than what you and I are talking about, right?

Absolutely.

They have and a lot of it's governed by how they can get paid because they've got to keep the lights on. So the insurance companies demand a certain curriculum if you want to have an in network contract to guarantee get your money.

What we've seen is, you know, there's so for chronic relapsers are, are in, in our family of programs with NRC and brc. In our family of programs we typically deal most with chronic relapsers. And the, the programs there were started and it was just, it was big book peer on peer heavy that with, with sophisticated clinical on top psychiatry when needed and really a social model of learning how to coexist. Right. Isolation drives addictive behaviors. When I have to come clean and I have to use my voice and I have to learn how to coexist with others. Now I'm starting to, to grow some life skills. Right. So we go from protective bubble of detox plus a 90 day and then we step them down into a little bit more freedom. You know, in a, in a sober living type environment where they're free to work and hit meetings, come home with, with accountability and drug screens and you know, for some guys and girls and for a great number of them it works really well. Staying engaged long term can really work. And then for some, the moment they gain their absolute freedom, there's no more checks and Balances, they're high immediately. And to those guys and girls, you just ask the question, like, what have we not covered? What is still in there, that's unprocessed, that's driving this person to go medicate right now. Because yesterday he was great, right?

It's, it's. I think glitch is a great term for it. Why is, why is this person's brain glitching? You know, what, what's yet to be uncovered? What do we need to dig out so that this person can get freedom?

Well, from my experience, and you can tell me from your experience, but my experience is that it's all coming from trauma and pain. And so the mind is not okay with pain. It's not okay with trauma. It moves away from pain right before we'll move towards reward. So pain is the biggest motivator. So if somebody has had trauma, right? A lot of times when people come in. So we had one lady, you see her whole story on testimonial on our site, Michelle. She had 17 years of addiction. And so when she came in, she lost her daughter. Her family basically disowned her. I mean, she was really in batch. It OD'd twice. And she came in to see me, beautiful young lady. So she started when she was 16. She came in to see me, 33. And I said, michelle, there's nothing wrong with you. You've had a lot of trauma in your life. She goes, well, yeah, you have no idea. I says, well, I have a pretty good idea because you wouldn't be doing this if you didn't have trauma, right? People don't wake up in the morning, say, you know, how do I ruin my life? Right? It's. They're trying to escape what they. They're looping through this trauma on an ongoing basis, and they have no other way to stop it. So they find a way to stop it. And, you know, people will use different methods. It doesn't always have to be drugs or alcohol. It can be food, it could be sex. It could be a numerous number of things that you could find. But all of it does the same thing. It numbs the pain, right? And that's what they're looking for. And if they can find it in whatever substance they use, right, then they've solved the problem.

I totally agree. Trauma is the gateway drug. That to me, right? So about. I guess it was about. It was about 10 years ago, I went to.

I went to a workshop that had 50 clients. And it's here locally in Tennessee. They're they're internationally known to do really deep, deep dive emotional work, family of origin type trauma work. This program I was attending was called Living Centered. And in a room of 50 participants to eventually be broken up into five groups of 10, there were just some entry level, like, kind of get to know everybody. So the facilitator gets up and he's like, all right, if you're from above the Mason Dixon line, please go to the left. And you know, some people go to the left, some go to the right. If you're a child of a split household, go to the left, go to the right. And you see, like, you know, you're about 60, 40 there.

If you've. If you're a college graduate, go to the left or go to the right. And you see, you see that? And. And so this whole exercise just shows you that, hey, I've got some commonalities with these people that I'm just meeting. And, you know, the paint. At this point, it was still paperwork. The paperwork to get. To get a spot was about that deep. So they know who they've got in the room. Right, right. And. And these groups were put together just perfectly, but they get to the. They get to one of the last questions, and it's. I figured everybody in there was a drug addict because that was my experience. And, like, if your life sucks and hurts, it's because you're on. You did drugs. Right. And. And this was where the. The grenade went off for me to like, holy crap. Other people medicate with. With other means. Just like I did cocaine, Crown Royal and vodka.

And.

And not to advertise, but for Coors Light as well.

Right, Right.

So they split the room. The last question is, if you've ever attended an inpatient treatment or think you've had an alcohol or drug problem, please step to the left. And I'm thinking, well, this is a shoe in. Right. So in a room of 50, me and three other people walk to that side of the room. So everyone else, 47 people, right? Yep. Other 94%. I think that's right. Math. The other 90 plus percent were there because they had issues driven by trauma that they were medicating with either shopping, relationships, sex and love, workaholism, codependency.

Any number of things. But it blew my mind, and it really opened the door for me to think, wow, I. You know, number one, I'm. I'm not terminally unique. And number two, I didn't know. I didn't know that normal wasn't normal. You know, like, it because like, when we grow up, we see what our family of origins like and we think, well, well, this is what happens in my house. So it's normal, right? Yeah. And it just, it takes getting to know others experience to realize that normal at your house doesn't necessarily mean it's healthier. What we want to repeat in our relationships going forward.

Well, it's interesting because I grew up in this idyllic childhood, so I never had any trauma, you know, pumped a little bit here and there, you know, with friends and coaches and stuff, but nothing major. And. And my mom and dad were never argued, never fought, never raised their voice. So I'm living in this very nurturing environment. I thought that everybody had my parents, I thought everybody lived in that world. I didn't realize I couldn't understand why my friends were getting into drugs and alcohol and doing different things because I like, you know, why is that happening? That made no sense to me. And so what I. And so I've never had a drink in my life. Darren never touched a drug once in my life. But I grew up with no pain, right? And what I say to people when they come in and they'll say, well, wow, that's unbelievable. And I said, it's not really unbelievable. If you lived in my world and I lived in your world, we'd be the same, right? I would be dealing with what you're dealing with and has nothing to do with my character or my willpowers. It was my environment and I was adopted. So we didn't know my family history up until a year ago.

All I knew was that our family doctor was my grandfather. That was the only information I'd had up until a year ago. And then what I found out is that I had six siblings. Three that were born before me and three that were born after me. The three that were born before me, it was a very violent, alcohol addicted home, right. With constant beatings. And so my mother just walked out and left them. She just couldn't deal with it. So she left the three children with him. They had no idea where she ever went.

Of those three children that were born before, they all had addiction issues, right? And so she then had me, I got adopted, luckily, right? And then she ended up getting married again a couple of years later, got into the same kind of a household with an addiction issue and everything else. Those three sisters all had addiction issues and all health issues. So what it validated for me was exactly what I've been saying. Environment is the bigger factor, not genetic, because a lot of people will want to go and say, well, I've just got a genetic predisposition to alcohol. No, you have a genetic predisposition to not wanting to be in pain.

Right?

That's what it is. Right? You don't have to have a problem, you know, genetically, in order to get addicted. It's mostly environment. You've had experience something, your mind's not okay with it. It keeps looping through the trauma, calling for actions that are not possible. So how do you stop the calls for the actions? You numb it. Right? That's as simple as it is. Because I didn't have it, I didn't understand why people needed it. Right?

So you numb it, and he continued to numb it. And then it turns out there's a physical dependence. So now I really got to numb it. And now my tolerance is escalating. And now I'm typically doing things that are bringing me shame and embarrassment while I'm in the process of acquiring. While I've acquired and using. So I wake up in the shame process that snowballs rolled a little bit longer, further down the hill, right? And a little bit bigger and a little bit faster. And so you start racking up real consequences in life. And you go from most, Most families that engage me for intervention and family guidance, um, they've already tried to pay for treatment a couple of times, and for some reason, well, I gave him my kid and they gave him back, and he's not fixed, you know, and it's because he's come home to the same family that got him. He's his. This. In most cases.

In most cases, a young person with an addiction issue or a substance use issue, mental health issue, they are a symptom. Their actions are a symptom of a sick family system. Right? And I don't. I'm. I. I don't think I could. Any doc across from me could argue otherwise. And I think I could. I think I could go toe to toe, right? Like, and I'm with you, though. There may be a genetic predisposition that, that there's some studies out there that show. I totally agree. It's environment, right? It's environment. Take. Take a household, and I'm sure you've seen this too. Take a household with multiple siblings. Three are. Are normal By. By society's standards. One's got a drug issue, right? But normal. The, let's say, oldest sister, she's never had. She's never been without a relationship.

Second sister, maybe she's. She's the perfect one who's Never gotten anything under an A plus. Right. Then we've got, we've got problem child Jones who can't stay out of the cocaine. Right. For some reason. And then we've got the youngest who's the angel and everybody's favorite. Right. Well, they got the same family. How did they all. How did, why are, did, did the family do right by three and just neglect one? I don't think so.

Right.

The same family created all of them. And, and though, though the family system may have changed a little bit over time, probably isn't the healthiest system around. Right. Because the one that's the angel. Right. Is going to walk into life as she, as he or she gets older and expect to be treated like the red carpet's about to roll out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And if they're growing up, and if they're growing up in a world and sometimes even with the best of intentions. So you see like maybe a very successful family. Right. And they're doing really well. Well, the kids are sometimes intimidated. They don't know that, but they're looking at that and seeing the success their father's having or their mother and father are having and it almost seems insurmountable. I can't get to that level. That's impossible. Right.

They're so successful and there's, there's a couple. I think what I see in my work anyway is there's a, there's a few levels to that.

Number one is so let's say you got like a first generation wealthy family. So dad and mom have just, they've gone from, you know, working two jobs a piece to dads or mom's business taking off and they've gone from scrapping to now they're living really comfortably and the kids have everything that they, that they need. Right. And one.

So the, the children who typically are really entitled, by the time I get involved, they're really entitled. Those, those children didn't see mom and dad hustling and sleeping four hour nights and skipping meals and you know, going cheap on, on date nights and all that stuff. All they see are the new cars and that we're going to Destin for, for vacation. They just see the winnings. Right. Because they're too young to remember the struggle. So that for me, the, the further back that the generational wealth goes, typically the sicker the, the family truly is. Yep. And you know, I've dealt with some, with some, some very lovely people.

With incredibly high net worths and, but, but the truth is more often than not the higher the net worth of an individual family, the higher percentage usually of maladjusted people in the family. Because that kind of opportunity and entitlement rarely breeds healthy people.

And again, sometimes with no ill intent. It's just they think everything is good, Right? And like you said, it's not in every case. There's obviously the exceptions to it, but at the same time is if it's. Managing a family is a very complicated thing. You're dealing with children with no life experience, interpreting a world that they have no idea how it works. And they've got to attach some meanings to all of this. What does this mean about why this is happening to me? And most of the time. Remember the game we used to play as kids where you'd whisper in someone's ear and then they had to pass it on, right? So the message that the parents trying to get in is that kind of a game, right? And so the children are passing it down through the. The siblings about what the parents are trying to communicate. And by the time it gets to the end, it's not the same message, right?

When he gets to the third person, a red car stopped and turned, right? It turns into a blue van, had ice cream cones, and it did three donuts and spun out, you know, like.

Yeah, the story changes so quick, right?

And again, with no ill intent. It's just miscommunication, not clearly understanding the instructions or what the message was. And so with the best of intentions, because I. I always feel bad when, you know, when we blame parents for something that went wrong with their kids, it's so. It's not really fair. They just not sure of how to handle it. If you go out looking for advice, unless they find someone like you or find someone like me, they may get a lot of really bad advice and then end up. And not that we have all the answers, but at the same time, you can see how they can get in the wrong direction so quickly.

Right? And I think the thing that I ask for early on, even. Even before I'm truly engaged with the family, I'm. I come from the seat of, hey, guys, I'm grateful that we're even having this conversation, to be invited into this corner, this very sensitive corner of your family's family's lifetime. And I really value your trust, you know, And. And I want to build that trust and foster that trust. By the way, I can be responsive and respectful and. And I. I'm very direct, but I try to be very direct with love and kindness. I think if I, you Know, if we dance around with the truth, I'm, I am, I'm not doing my family's a service. Right. Yeah. You know, the, the, the, the sensitivity and especially given today's overdose rate with fentanyl and everything, you know, when I started doing intervention work 9ish years ago, you know, fentanyl was something that, you know, it's been around since 1959, but nobody knew where to get it. Fentanyl is now in every pressed pill. It's in every snortable or injectable drug. And it's not a matter of, of if it's when it will happen. Right. And we've got kids now who aren't even, they're not even addict kids or substance abuse kids. They're just trying to go have a little extra fun at the prom and, and they're not going, they're not waking up the next day.

Yep.

You know, so where in, in my world where I used to have, well, if we're not driving under the influence and no kids are in danger, we've got time to really form a plan and be really, you know, let's get really dialed in and take a week or two to get everybody's temperature and get everybody on the same page to, hey, you know, today might be this guy's last day if we don't act now.

Yeah, yeah. The urgency that, that's what you've seen really change. Right. Since you, you've been doing this for a while. How long have you been in the addiction?

I've been in the addiction world total for 10 and I've been doing intervention work for nine. So, you know, my.

Over those nine years, alcohol, like alcoholics still and they don't, alcohol doesn't get the press that the fentanyl and the opioids do. But if you looked at total detox admissions across the country, Right. Alcohol is still king, 7 to 7 out of 10 against all other substances. Yep. But it's just socially acceptable. Well, yeah, it's socially acceptable and it's a slower, it's a slower death. Right.

You know, you see guys who drink social mostly socially, maybe they have a few too many too often. But these guys are all, you know, early 50s and they've got massive health problems. Right.

Where now these, these, these kids today, these younger, younger guys and girls, there's, they're starting to get pressed pills off the Internet.

You know, they might get, they might want to have, they might want to get two Xanax bars just so they can watch a Pixar movie over the weekend, right. One of them's got two specks of fentanyl in them and they're dead done. Right.

The, the, the, the reality around fatal overdose is it just demands a different set of actions today than when I started, you know, nine, 10 years ago.

And we're seeing it on the news all the time. They're talking about these colored fentanyl pills coming in that look like candy, right. Are you seeing a lot of that hitting the streets now?

You know, I haven't seen, I haven't heard of anything like disguised like it. But to me as a former cocaine, I'm a card carrying former cocaine addiction. I wanted to be like a lion tamer with the music in the party, you know, doing my thing. And you know, fentanyl is, Fentanyl is an opioid and it, and it puts you down, right? It depresses the entire, the entire state. It's offensive to me that people, and I mean it's, it's getting made by the cartel. Like street level dealers aren't sprinkling fentanyl in, in a bag of coke. That's not what's happening. It's being put in because it's more addictive. It's being put in where it's being processed. So I mean there's, there's just nothing safe. Recently a colleague of mine, there was a, we had a conference for, for a independent interventionist that was actually hosted here in Nashville. So I got to see some of, some of our very best in the field. And a colleague from Birmingham was telling me that she had a, she had a, she's a clinician, so a clinic. A client of hers had come up to Nashville to take part in a bachelor party with some normal guys. They party, but they're pretty well balanced. One of them decided he was going to bring an eight ball of cocaine and that's an eight ball cocaine for a bachelor party in. You know, that's enough to get everybody running pretty good. Yep. There were four fatal overdoses and three other overdoses. One of the fatal overdoses was the groom to be. No. So like these guys are, I mean these are, these were not, you know, rock star, acting junkie drug addicts. These were just guys that were going to celebrate a little bit with a, a party substance, which, it's illegal and it's, it's. People can have their opinion about it, but they didn't die like dogs in the street. Right. They weren't out committing crimes to get what they wanted. They just wanted to Have a little fun. And it just goes to show you like drugs are just, there's nothing, there's nothing safe anymore. No.

And it's changed so much. Even, even marijuana, you know, has changed a lot. And one of the things that, that I say that is really going unnoticed is the amount of psychosis that is being, that is occurring from just marijuana. And there's a high percentage of these kids going into psychosis and schizophrenia from just pot. And then they keep on saying, oh, it's safe, you know, it's legalized, you know, it's almost going to go the same route that alcohol did.

Right.

Because it's legal, it's okay.

I, and what I'm seeing is my business has spiked. I'd have to look at, I'd have to go, go do some math to really look at it. But the number of adolescent clients, of families with adolescents that engage me now is up in multiples in, in over five years because of the strength and the availability of the marijuana that's here in Tennessee now. And I'm sure it's, it's everywhere. But you know, here in 10 Tennessee, the law is, it's, it's, it's, it's a weight by volume. So much like if you looked at a budweiser beer, it's 3% alcohol by volume. Right. So, so in a 12 ounce can you get X amount, you get 0.3% alcohol or 3% alcohol. Well, in Tennessee, the way they do the THC products, it says nothing about the potency of the thc, but if I sell you a cookie and it's, I don't know, however many grams, it's, as long as the THC weight by volume is under.03%, it's legal. Right. So we're, what we're seeing is long term psychiatric care is needed. These kids are, they're either eating gummies or they're smoking some. There's the Delta 8, 9 and 10 that are coming out that it's manufactured.

Nobody knows what goes into it.

Right.

It's all lab made stuff. And I mean these kids are being, or I mean from what I've seen, they're permanently altered or they're. The kids that I've worked with, they are altered to a point that, you know, neuroplasticity and getting back to executive function and impulse control even for a 15, 16 year old kid takes two to three years. You know, we know the brain, the brain's not going to stop growing until 25, 26.

Yep.

So there's you know, they're hitting a roadblock, a big roadblock and going back at age 14, 15. And we wonder why these guys are having problems becoming adults and, and you know, leaving the safety net and doing well as they, as their age progresses.

And just seeing so much of it. You know, the synthetic marijuana, that stuff, you know, that they were putting out there, they were actually selling that at seven Elevens and regular stores and kids were absolutely losing their minds. They were going into this deep psychosis, right? Getting angry, getting violent. I mean, that's not what typical THC is doing. But everybody, because I remember my youngest son was saying that his friends were doing this and they're saying, oh, it's all really good. You know, it's better than marijuana. It's out of your system in three days. You know, they can't, three hours, sorry, you can't even trace it. So that's why they got hooked on it because they're like, oh, okay. So my parents, you know, do a drug test on me, right? I'm going to be already home and, and out of it before they even find it. But at the same time is a friend of my son's literally lost his mind. He, his whole family couldn't deal with them. He was downtown with a, naked, with a sign preaching the end of the world. And this is a kid that was saying, oh, it's all safe. Trying to convince my son that it's, it's really cool stuff and it's not like traditional marijuana, right?

Sounds really cool to be naked talking about the end of the world.

Yeah, but that and so many of them. Another, a friend of mine has her son started getting into that and she drug test him and couldn't find it, right? And so I said, this is what he's probably on. And so when she started to look into it, sure enough, that's what it was. But he would, he would fight with her. He would, you know, threaten her, threaten the other siblings. This is a kid that had no problem homes, right, and went to becoming a violent person in their home that they were all petrified of.

I've seen this very same thing happen. And you know, I, I love your take on this too.

I, I, I absolutely abhor adolescents being diagnosed with, you know, big titles like bipolar 1, bipolar 2, schizophrenia.

Major depressive Disorder. To me, that, that is putting a title on a kid that is a shackle, right? Like, you know, we could send, I could send. Not you, but we can pick a doc, A doc in a box. Yeah, send. We could send Five, five identical people in there, back to back to back appointments, present with the same symptoms, the exact same history, the exact same. Every bit of collateral. And they would walk out, could walk out with literally each of them could have a dozen different diagnoses. And none of them, none of them cross over. Just from the dsm. Right. Yeah. And so, yes, then we're going to guess what farmer. We're going to put them on and hope they get better. Yeah, right.

Like we, they're throwing darts. They're throwing darts because we truly don't understand what's actually happening to the brain. So they're, they're smart people, they're highly educated and they're just going based on. So if they've presented, got, presented a ton of kids with certain kind of symptoms and they got some success with some of them, and then somebody comes in, it looks identical to that, they go, well, I'm going to put them on this because that worked for the last guy that I did it with. So they're trying to fix the problem, but they're guessing. And because they're wearing a white coat, everybody's saying, well, they must know. Right. Well, they know a lot. We're not questioning their knowledge and their, you know, and their care. We're just questioning that we don't truly understand how, how severely the brain is being affected by all these even legal prescribed drugs.

Right. And, and that's on my side of the street when I get someone who's got a substance abuse issue. Well, I'm, you know, and so let's say I'm making up a person here. Let's say her name is Sally Jones. Sally Jones has been seeing the same doctor since she was, she became an adult. The doc has upped her Adderall dose and her Xanax dose.

In my mind, if you don't need one, you probably don't need. If, if you don't have to go fast, you probably don't have to tell your brain to go slow.

I always love both of those. It's just like trying to speed up or slow down.

Yeah, it makes total sense to me. But, you know, so Sally's developed a pretty sick, a sick alcohol problem over the years. Right. And so for, for when I come in, a lot of times I've got to play ball with, okay, I know this is what my doctor prescribed me this, so I need it. And I'm, and, and so the first thing we've really got to go through is say, hey, what we've got to do first is get you to realize that, hey, we need to get your brain to, we need to get your brain to, to a baseline. Right. And we need to see what you need. And I'm not saying your Adderall might not be helpful or Xanax might not be helpful, but for our purposes, for us to be helpful to you, we've got to pull you off all that stuff. And you know, jumping behind the dock is like, I mean that's, that's the greatest, that's the greatest camouflage a substance abuse patient could ever have.

Right.

My doctor said I need it. And you're not a doctor. Where'd you go to medical school? And I'm like, I didn't, you know.

Yeah, but it's, it's a challenge because, you know, some of those medications, some of those medications can be really helpful for the right patient and unfortunately, even well intentioned doctors who go through, I mean, and I'm not, I'm not down on the, on the, the psych or the medical field at all.

I just think that, you know, it in my mind, the best way to treat a mental health or a substance abuse patient, I think you got to do brain scans, I think you got to do personality tests. I think you got to get a real360 on what this person's really been through. Family collateral to compare like, I mean, patient reporting versus family collateral, you know, and, and maybe friend collateral to get a real 360 to really be able to be effective for somebody.

And that's the problem is, is they don't have enough time, the way the system's working to spend to get that kind of information. So they're trying to do a diagnosis on a bumper sticker from a car going past them at 80 miles an hour. Right, right. And it's not their ability and intelligence and care. It's about the other opportunity to really have time. The system doesn't give them the time. They come and see you, you can then spend the time to come up with some answers. Right. That's the real solution to the problem, is to take a whole comprehensive look. Because I'll have somebody come in and they'll say I have really bad anxiety. And I'll say, okay. I said, are you on any anti anxiety medications? Oh yeah, I'm on anti anxiety medications. And your anxiety is really bad? Oh yeah, it's terrible. So how's the medication working? Oh, I, I couldn't stop the medication. Be way worse if I stopped the medication because they got stuck in that. They told me I needed it, I'm taking it. But it's not working. And then if you go in and say it's not working, they're just going to switch the, the brand and try. Well, let's try this one. Right. And so what I say is, why is your mind anxious? Let's look at the root cause. Yeah, right. Your mind's trying to get something done, right. And you're trying. It's the same thing we do with everything. We get a cold, right? What's the first thing we do? We want to suppress it. We want to suppress the cough, we want to suppress the runny nose, we want to suppress the fever. The body's doing something for you, it's trying to treat it. Right. But we want to suppress all of that because we don't want to be in pain. Right. And so that's the first thing we go to, is to get out of pain when in actual fact the body temperature has a purpose. It's trying to kill everything. Right. And then, well, let's knock that down because you know, we'd rather live with it a little longer but not know we have it.

Right, Right.

And that's all they're going to do, suppress the symptoms. Right. You still have the problem, you just don't feel it.

Right. And you know, my, my process for, you know, I, it's. I wish I could, I wish I could and I'm, I think I'm in the process of being able to stamp my process and make it more available to families. I think that's what, it's what I'm really aiming at doing. But to, to be able that comprehensive look that you're, that you're talking about, if I have my say, and this is with a mental health and or substance abuse driven patient, I need family collateral. I get, I send out an extensive and exhaustive amount questionnaire. I need, I need 360. Some of it, you know, some of it is, goes in one ear and out the other, but it's, but I need it, right. So I get a 360 on experience from those closest to this person. And then, you know, once I get them into treatment, the first thing I want done, I want brain scans, I want personality testing, I want gene site testing. I don't know how you feel about medication testing to see what's actually could be effective for someone.

I totally believe in that. That's, that's a really big thing because you can give them the wrong medications that genetically they're not gonna absorb. Right.

And it's just like putting a band aid on something that won't stick, right? Like if you can't take, if you can't take the medication, well, no wonder you're still having symptoms. So the, the, the answer can't be just, well, let's just add some seracle on top of it so it'll go to bed, you know, now, now the guy can't wake up in the morning because he's over medicated at night, so he's not going to treatment. Now he's a behavior issue. So it's like if we can get a real look at the total person on the front end, then we can really inform what a real treatment plan that can be effective can be. Right?

Well, it's interesting because we, that's what we do. And I want to talk a little bit about how you do it, but I'll tell you real quickly. How we do it is, for example, we just had a family that came in and the, the one son created tremendous chaos in their family. He got into drugs, he had a whole bunch of issues even as a child. He was a very, very disruptive child. And so they got to the point where they actually had to send him away to another school, right. Because they couldn't deal with it in the family. But then it created stress amongst the parents, right? Then they were now at battle then with the kids, and then the kids, he's the older brother and he just all of a sudden disappears, right? So now what are the younger kids learning is like, wow, you better get in shape or they just ship you out.

All of this drama around the family and good people, really, really nice people, they just didn't know what the problem was. So we brought all the family in, we did brain mapping on them. And what we showed, which actually correlated to something that had happened when he was born. He had a problem during birth. So he had a frontal lobe injury, right? In birth, Right. And so when we showed them the brain map and actually what's happening, right? Then they said, well, that's all the symptoms that were coming along with that showed up.

Yeah, now we're connecting the dots, right?

Connecting the dots. And so what I said to them is, you know, because especially moms, right? They beat themselves up, you know, I'm a bad mom, I didn't do it. I said, you didn't even know what the problem was. You couldn't have fixed it because you were taking them for behavioral issues. And it wasn't a behavioral issue. It was a functional issue. Right. They created the behavioral issues, which then created all the trauma for your family. Right. And. And so we actually just. On the call, right before this call, we were on the call with. With them and the family, and they're all doing fab. I have a four hour process that they take them all through individually.

Okay.

Right. So we spend a lot of time and. And the mom, you know, started to cry. She goes, I can't tell you the relief I feel now. She says that I've been blaming myself this whole time about my motherhood and what a terrible mother I am. And I said, you were dealing with a problem that you didn't even know existed.

Right.

And the doctors didn't pick it up because it was in birth. Right. But when you see that frontal lobe, you saw the damage, and you could see the behaviors that came from that damage.

Yeah.

And then he's in pain. How does he stop his pain? He goes into addiction.

Right, Right. And it's. It makes so much sense. I'm uncomfortable. I need to be comfortable. Cocaine, heroin, pills, booze, whatever, sex, whatever will make me comfortable.

Yep.

Chaos ensues. We roll downhill. More chaos ensues. Mom doubts her motherhood even more. She's fighting dad because now one of them is. One of them is taking his side. One of them saying, whoa, let's hold up. Let's. Let's cut our losses and let him learn. The other kids in the house are like, man, Jimmy is screwed. We don't want to end up like him. Like, yeah, that's. That is the story that I see.

The fallout is the. It's not just the. The lie that. And as. As a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, the lie that we tell ourselves, part of one of them is that this is only going to affect me. Right. I'm not affecting anybody else. Yeah, right.

You know, meanwhile, you know, we're. We're incurring debt on the family behalf or we're, you know, defrauding family trust or whatever we're doing to keep our. To keep our habit alive.

There's always a justification available to someone with a. With a reward. Sensory issue. Right. Like my reward. My.

My.

The sensors in my brain that. That receive rewards are hijacked. So I'm just gonna keep jumping that bridge to go get the reward, whatever the bridge is, if there's alligators underneath it or I got to break a law or whatever the deal. That's what a hijacked brain does. And, you know, in. In my work and prepping families for intervention, I. I try to do a about 45 minutes to an hour is really all a family can really take of me. At least trying to explain an addicted brain, right? And you know, I think the, the, the deeper part is, you know, I can explain the addicted brain, whereas someone with your expertise can, can help explain how we got to addiction, right? And then, and then, and then kind of reverse engineer the dominoes back even further, right. To get everybody back to, to level.

What I hear all the time is when I give the science behind it, all right, why this is actually happening, right. Though the thing I get every time is this is making so much sense now, Now I understand it, right? Where nobody ever told them. It was just like there's something wrong with your child, your child's this, your child's that, or he's got ADHD or he's got, you know, whatever it is, whatever label we slap on them and we're going to treat that, never understanding that there's a, a reason behind it and we just need to get to the reason. And once you do that, like I said, I take them through a four hour process, each individual right through that whole four. And it's continuous, It's a four hour and one session and then they listen to a series of audios. But it's resetting the brain and resetting the memory, which is what's creating the trauma, right? Which is looping the trauma. So after we, we did, we're doing brain scans now and showing the difference. And what we're seeing is from a post session before they work with me, and then 30 plus days afterwards, a, or a post, after a pre and a post, there's a 45 change in brain plasticity. And they never take any medication.

Touchdown. Right? Yeah, that's like, that's like brain scan alcoholic. Day zero, walking into, walking into detox. And then day 110, 122 totally different brains, right?

Totally different brains. We're designed to heal. Our minds and bodies are designed to heal, right? I'll throw out an interesting thing and tell me what you think of this concept because I say this to people all the time. What I say is the issue is the brain, not the body. It's not the body craving the substance, it's the brain. The brain creates physical pain to create the demand to go get it. So it's going to make you so uncomfortable, right, physically that you're gonna go get it. But it's the brain that's making that happen, not the body craving it. Because I said if the body could crave anything what would the body crave? Water. We're all dehydrated. Right. But we don't have, have you ever treated anybody for water hall Waterholics or anybody ever built a water rehab?

Never had a water hollow or an.

Air waterholic or water rehab center. You can go build it. You won't get anybody there.

Right, right.

It's not the, the body, it's the brain saying, we're going to die if we don't get this. It sees everything in life and death situations.

Well, for the very same reason, even someone who's dead set on suicide can't do it this way.

No.

Right. The body won't let it happen.

No.

The fight or flight kicks in.

Yep.

Yep.

So it's, it's. The brain wants it. It fears death if it doesn't get it because it sees everything in life and death situations. And so it's going to make you uncomfortable. So the way I sort of equate it is think about the sensation of hunger. Right? The sensation of hunger is a call for an action. The sensation is created by the mind because it knows we need to eat. So it creates a sensation. If you don't eat right away, the sensation gets stronger. You may even get lightheaded. You get a little shaky, right? Because the mind's putting more and more pressure on you to go eat. Because a thousand years ago you could die if you didn't eat. So it's going to push you into an action to get something done. Right? So that's the same thing with addiction. If you don't answer the call for the substance, it's going to make you painful. It's going to make it really painful because it sees we will die if we don't get this. And so because I've talked, and I'm sure you have, you had a lot more experience in that addiction world. But I've talked to addicts who will tell me that as soon as their drug dealer tells them they're on their way, the withdrawal stops. They don't feel the pain. Right. Because the mind says we're going to be okay. The drugs.

Right. And, and opiate addicts are, they are, they're, they're special in that.

There'S, there's this thing that they have going on where they are sure they're gonna die. They're, they're, they, they become very fearful of the withdrawal symptoms.

Yep.

Opiate withdrawals cannot kill you right now. Benzodiazepines or alcohol, those, those detoxes, those withdrawal symptoms can absolutely Kill somebody like deader than their doornail. But opiate addicts would assure you they're gonna die, right? Yet they get turned away if they don't, if they don't know the right thing to say, they get turned away at a hospital for detox. Right now, they could probably get treated for some GI symptoms. If they're in, in a couple days, they might get treated for some, maybe some, some, some. Some headaches or maybe some double vision every now and then.

Or some anxiety. But for straight up opiate use, they're gonna say, hey, go get some Gatorade, try to sleep, you know, and they're gonna try to crawl out of their skin. And, you know, I think it's. That's a, that's a social issue I think we could do better with. But, but that's here nor there. I'm, I'm really interested to do a little bit more learning than.

Kind of. I would love to learn more about your process and be able to hook my families up to do some of that work with you. If you do it virtually, we can.

Do it in zoom. We have a online program, so we can work with you on that as well. Because here's what I think happens. If we get that trauma resolved and we can do that very quickly, everything you're doing is going to be more effective, right? Because that's the painting over rust, right. So as long, what we're going to do is sand it down and prime it, and then when you start doing all these other interventions, all these other treatment protocols, it's going to land easier because they don't have the survival brain going, no, no, no, no. This is dangerous. We know what keeps us safe, right? So I'd love to, you know, again, we'll talk more offline about this as well, but definitely, I think I, we really want to help the people doing what you're doing, because I think we can really provide a service to help you do the, the great work that you're doing as well.

Well, I, I'm, I'm just, I'm. I'm a treatment nerd. I love learning new. I love learning new things. And I'm really grateful to learn that there are other people out there who want to help the. I, I say my people. Drug addicts, man. Like, I think I'm a lucky one because once upon a time, my parents paid for treatment, and I was also lucky enough for them to finally tell me the word no. I got in. I, I made them miserable enough where they had to walk away and that, that ultimately saved my life. And so that's that learning piece for me is, is the, is the gift I try to give the families I work with. And as I have gained experience and get to know people like you, where I can really back into some science and say, hey, let me help you understand the, the course of action and why you might feel the way you do. And let me, let me take this yoke off of you over of this responsibility that you, that you face, feel and you're living with, right? And, and let's just, let's put this in scientific terms. And it's almost like a mat, it's almost an equation at that point, right? Because take, we can take the behaviors that they've witnessed over years and make it make sense with, with science, right? That's backed up with like pictures and, and graphs and numbers that you can actually see. And all of a sudden like, oh my gosh, this thing happened when he was 13. Here's where, here's where we started seeing it, right? Boom.

And, and, and that's what, like what we have to do. I'm a member of the Genius Network with Joe Polish. I don't know if you know Joe, but he, he's a big guy into addiction as well. And so the, the Genius Network is just made up of different people that come in, business owners and things like that. But Joe had an addiction issue. He's very vocal and open about it and he. What we've been talking about is we have to change the dialogue of the way we're treating these addicts. We have to stop the shame and guilt, right? And because that just makes it worse and it keeps them in that addictive world. And so if we can change the, the way we're treating them and make them to understand that they actually can heal, right? They're not broken, they're not defeated. All they need to do is understand the signs of how they got into it, right? And then follow the process to get out of it. They absolutely can get out of it. They don't have to live with it for the rest of their life and, and take away all this guilt and shame that we, that everybody throws at them. What's wrong with you? Look at what you're doing to your family. Look at what you're doing to yourself, right?

Well, you mentioned it earlier. There's not a six year old kid right now that's looking in his mirror going, I can't wait to have a crippling drug addiction and sell my body to keep My habit alive. Yeah, right. That six year old kid's going, man, I want to be a soldier. I want to be a fireman, I want to be a doctor. Right? Yeah. But it dreams up. I want to have this crippling problem that's going to make every corner of my life more painful.

Right. That's not what we wake up.

It's, it's got to be compassion. It's got to be driven with. There's got to be love, compassion, kindness. A lot of times, boundaries delivered with love and kindness are what kind of steers a person struggling to, to help them make, you know, a, a, a decision to join their family in health. But you know, as long as it's delivered in love and kindness, I'm on board and.

Understanding. We get it now. I understand why you're here. Right, Right.

And when our families, when the families have trouble with the boundaries, my guidance usually is like, hey, you're giving that, you're giving your son, you're giving your, your daughter the, the gift of freedom. Like, hey, we want to build you a new doorway and we just want you to walk through it, you know. No, no, no shame. No, no, no. No shame to be assigned. Only solution to get into. No blame to pass around. Let's just all go in solution down this way. Right? We're going to move forward together and you know, family, family, family issue, family solution. Right. Yep.

Well, I, I love it. I mean I knew we would go well over our time lot that we thought anyway because yeah, we did. But I know you and I could probably talk about this for hours, so, so we'll continue the conversation anyway. But people need to get a hold of you and they, they need the help that you're providing. I highly suggest if you're, if you've got a family member, a loved one that's dealing with this, someone like Darren, you know what they're doing can really be helpful. So how do people get a hold of you?

I'm easy to find. My, my direct line is 24 7. We've got a, we've got a link line. So 615-210-6703 and all my social media, musiccityinterventions.com they can find me.

Awesome. So like I said, if, if you're, you're not alone. Right. A lot of parents are out there, a lot of family members dealing with this. Reach out and get some help and, and I think Darren can be a big, big help to you guys. So thank you so much, Darren for being a a part of you must be out of your mind. You must feel like you're out of your mind now, right?

I. I woke up out of my mind. I'm gonna stay out of my mind. And I really appreciate you having me on. Thank you.

All right. And thank you, everybody, for listening to another podcast of you must be out of your mind. And there it is.