Thriving Mentally in Dentistry: Addiction and suicide prevention in the dental community

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Hello, everybody, and welcome to de business lab. I'm Dr. Pam Miragliano Muniz, chief editor for Dental Economics. I'm here with Gary Katie, the CEO and founder of Next Level Practice, and Ashley Newton, COO of Complete Health Airway Group. Today we're going to talk about two important topics that I know affect the many of us in the dental community. Living in silent suffering, addiction, and suicide prevention within the dental community. Gary, I know these two subjects are not easy to speak about, and I know they're very near and dear to your heart. Tell us what brings you here.

Yeah, thanks, Pam. Thanks for being so generous with your time. You're not being paid for this. None of us are being paid for this. I also want to bring forth a disclaimer that we're not experts. So you should seek experts, should that be appropriate for you? But I'll say, Ashley, thank you also for being here, donating, donating your time and sharing your wisdom. You know, we're. Let's call ourselves accidental experts. I personally have suffered with addiction to alcohol. I'm now 14 years sober. So I'm going to share my story for people. And really we're here for strength and hope and sharing our experience. Ashley's going to be here, and we work together because she's an accidental expert in the space of suicide prevention, and so she'll tell her story as well. And really, the primary purpose of our session today is to really open up a dialogue in dentistry that's really had a stigma to. It really has been hidden, and there's a lot of pain and suffering. Because when I've shared my story over the years on all the stages from ADA to AGD to aacd, on and on, when I share about my addiction, Pam, I can't tell you how many times I get people coming to me to say, hey, I have a problem. Where do I start? Or my spouse has a problem or my child has a problem? Or they're like, hey, I too have one day sober, one week sober, one year sober. And so, you know, the thing I want to bring about is, you know, in dentistry, we're, we're. It's not like, because we're in dentistry, we're not susceptible to these things. In fact, it's the opposite, Pam. You know, in an AGD article in 2012, 2010, the average public is right around, you know, 9 or 10% of people have addictions. And in dentistry, it's almost double that. And, you know, why is that? Well, you know, I believe my experience dentists were not trained to do the work that they're really responsible for. You didn't leave there going managing a business, managing people, managing money like you are, you know, given these beautiful hands and this great knowledge to heal, you know, a certain area of the body. But, like, there's so much more pressure as a dentist to be great at what you do. Because it's not just the clinical side.

Right.

You can attest to that, right?

Oh, absolutely. It's one of those things that I wanted to have my own practice so I could treat my patients the way I felt they deserved to be treated. There's so many other sources of pressure that come from so many different angles, unfortunately, sometimes at the same time. And it can be extraordinarily stressful and spirit breaking. And I can see very easily how somebody could, you know, reach for a bottle or reach for a glass of something or a drug, you know, to compensate.

Yeah. In our industry, in that same article, they talked about four things. 37% of people were like me. Their drug of choice was alcohol. Then, you know, others have dealt with, you know, the use of prescription drugs, which is like another about 30%. And then you have mainly opiates there. And then, you know, 10% street drugs, and then. And then the use of nitrous, you know. And, you know, I also want to say, you know, I believe we all have some form of addiction that numbs us out to the pain we've experienced in the past, they're experiencing in the present. And the one thing we all do is we go and isolate and that really stops. It does. That's the exact opposite of what's needed here. So I really appreciate the courage of people who are watching, listening, clicked, even had the courage to just go, maybe I should consider this. Like, you know, there's some people that know they have a problem or they know a loved one has a problem or a coworker, but to. To address it yourself, it takes courage to step into that. And I admire everybody who's willing to be here tonight. Also, you know, I want to go over to Ashley because Ashley is my. My cohort, my partner on this, because what I learned was addictions are slow suicide. Right here we are good people, good human beings, and everything we do, we can't stop. And then what happens is it goes down a path where you don't want to live like you're living anymore. And so I just started chatting. We worked together, Ashley and I, and she told me her story, and we said, let's do something. So we put together this amazing group for suicide prevention dedicated to the dental industry. So I'll turn it over to Ashley and introduce her so she can really lay the groundwork for the suicide part of our silent suffering today.

Thank you. Thank you guys both so much for including me in this today. Very honored to be here and always appreciate being able to share my story and be able to share what we're doing for mental health awareness within the dental industry. Um, in 2012, my life changed forever when I became a suicide loss survivor. I lost my dad. And, you know, I believe that had I known the right tools and resources for prevention and know the signs that this is something that it wouldn't be my story today. Um, you know, since then, I've really become an advocate in the mental health arena for suicide prevention and really just want to help bring awareness of the science and the prevention methods that are available to people so that others don't have to have the same story that I do. I've been in the dental field for over 10 years and within that I really started to recognize that there's this undeniable need for suicide prevention tools specific really to our industry. So like Gary was saying, together we came up with, in May of 2021 last year we launched what's called Unstoppable Dental Heroes. And that's our zero suicide initiative for the dental industry. And really there's no industry specific guidelines that currently exist. So we're dedicated and well on our way to creating those specific resources, tools and procedures for the industry. With that being said, our first step really was to do research and identify where the greatest needs lie within the industry with the needs and strengths assessment. And so we did that. We launched it in January this year. And through that survey, we found that an alarming 56% of our peers experience mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, they have thoughts of suicide or they survived a suicide attempt. That's actually doubling the national average of other industries. Typically other industries, when looking at this, they lie around 25% or below and we're at 56%. That just goes to show that we really need to join together to stop suicide because it is preventable when we have the right tools and resources to be able to utilize that. So thank you guys so much for again including me in this so that we can talk about, you know, really talk about suicide and talk about prevention and talk about awareness and provide the resources to be able to do the research and find out, you know, how we can have a zero suicide initiative in Our dental industry.

Yeah. It's insane, the work that Ashley's doing everybody, because like she said, there was no standard around this. And the problem with suicide is you don't wake up to it until somebody close to you passes. And it's like, that's too late. You know, when it always touches me. The story about your dad and how you speak of this might not be your story. You might not even be here today. And, you know, we don't know we can't control other people, but what we can do is notice if there's something going awry. And I want to bring my story into it because that's. This is. This is the experience of someone that has mental health issues and addiction issues. So to give you a little background, this is what it might look like for you. You wouldn't. People did not know I was an alcoholic. Well, I shouldn't say that. Maybe there's a few that I said the wrong things when I wasn't straight. But from my reality, when I said that I am an alcoholic, people go, really? You had a problem? I couldn't tell. And see, we mask stuff. We live in silent suffering. That's why we named it Pam. Silent suffering. Because what happens is, if you would have looked at my life, stage presence, national recognition for making a difference in the dental industry, beautiful wife, beautiful son, you know, living in penthouses, like living a dreamed life. Drive. Driving a Porsche. But I set my life up because what was happening was I was hoping you would see what was going on out here because what was going on down here was sadness, fear, unwillingness to continue feeling broken, not wanting to wake up and face the day. Like if one little thing happened, I would make an impending doom and I was going to die and my family was going to starve. And that was really real for me. So, you know, for years I was, you know, functional. I would ne. I had this definition. I would never miss a day of work and I would Never drink before 5 o'. Clock. Those two definitions kept the boundaries in to say I wasn't an alcoholic.

Right.

It was my justification. That's what we do as addicts. We justify and tell stories to ourself to keep it in. Because here's what happens for an addiction that we'd rather be with the devil and pain we know than not have that survival mechanism to live in the world. Does that make some sense, Pam?

It sounds. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense, but it also seems hard to understand. Especially I'm thinking about my friends and my colleagues that you know, all seem great. And it makes me think, my goodness, you know, there's probably a high percentage of us that are suffering silently, like you mentioned.

Yeah. And, you know, people would ask me how I am and I would say, I'm fine. When you hear somebody say I'm fine, you know what? I define that as fouled up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. Because that's who I was when I said I was fine. Right. And, you know, because I really wasn't. But I didn't know how to get out of the vicious cycle that I was in until what happens is I believe that our universe gives us circumstances. And my circumstances got so bad where my wife wanted to leave me, my son was diagnosed with autism. So I had autism. I had, oh, by the way, workaholism. So what I had was to numb myself out during the day. I would till 5 o'. Clock. I would be a hard working guy, workaholism. And then I would have alcoholism from 5:01 till I passed out at night. Then I would wake up with a hangover and be angry at myself and say, why did I do that to myself? I'd have a minute of glimpse and. And then I would be like, I need to do it again because I'm not going to be able to get through the, you know, the evening again. So it's just a vicious cycle. And what happens is we get shameful. We get shameful. And when you're living in shame and guilt, because guilt is inflicting poo poo on others and shame is inflicting crap on me, I also became depressed and lived in panic attacks. So what happens with depression? And this is my own experience and all the work I've done with therapists and the programs I've been in, I would take a good thought and turn it into a negative thought. It could be like, I love you. Yeah, right. It could be, here's millions of dollars. Yeah, I don't deserve that. So what happens is I never got into reality because my thinking that I allowed twisted and just kept bringing me down, no matter how much goodness was coming into my life. And in fact, I couldn't even see the goodness. I only saw the things that weren't working. And what I learned was I would want the gasoline of pain so that I could drink. And it was this vicious cycle that went on for years until my wife came to me and said, gary, you don't have to quit drinking, but you can stay here. By the way, if you do have a spouse that works really? Well, telling them to quit, won't have them quit. But if you say I'm no longer going to be putting up with this, I need to move forward, I love you, I'm here for you and it's time for you to get some help because I can't help you. I'm the wrong person. I don't have the expertise to do that. There are people that. But I'm letting you know I'm not going to live like this anymore. And I can't tell you how many doctors I've worked with for their spouse or spouses that have come up with me to work with their doctor husbands. And when you can put that over there, now all of a sudden they start looking for solutions. When circumstances are great, that's when changes will be made if you enable the process. And usually this is what happens when you partner with somebody. You usually connect with them because you know you can get away with what you got going on and it's when and until somebody interrupts that or if you see you're going to lose your practice, which we've had doctors, you know, lose their license or you know, when you see circumstances or you're not making money, by the way, this is directly related to a poor performing practice. Directly. If you're in an addiction or you're in shame or guilt, when you're a chair side, you can't present a case, you can't receive money, you can't receive an a player team. And this is a blind spot for a lot of doctors because they don't, they think it's systems people, pandemics, et cetera, et cetera. So I want to end here and say that if you're living the opposite of addiction is connection and the in 2022 post pandemic, raising your hand is a strength, not a weakness. Those two things are so vital here because this is your way out and you don't have to live like this anymore. And this is a possibility for you to step into something brand new and we'll, we'll give you like if you want to speak to me personally, I'm happy to do it. And by the way, Pam, thank you for this because this is how I stay sober for 14 years. Because what happens is once you get the simple break from the physical addiction, the next part of the solution is being of service to human beings. And that's what you're giving us a platform to, to provide today. So thank you for helping me to continue to stay sober and share this story. So we can help other people.

No, I thank you both for sharing your experiences and your time. I mean, I can't. It's heartbreaking. You go on social media, you're just sort of scrolling on Facebook trying to kill some time, and you see somebody who is way too young to have been lost. And nowadays it's like, is it Covid or suicide? Like what's wrong? Or people are disappearing or there's all of these things happening. And I think that the conditions in which we're all living right now is extraordinarily stressful. So you mentioned being functional, that I think people maybe were pretty functional, but then all of a sudden throw in a pandemic and some of these economic stresses that we're undergoing right now, staff stresses, all of these things. It really can send people over the edge. So I just can't thank you enough and applaud you both for sharing your stories and reaching out a hand to help people. Because we need help right now.

Yeah. So I put together a way for people to have an anonymous, and I promise an anonymous conversation with you. If you just click this jump on, do a direct message to me and my private social media, you'll be able to get with me and I'm happy to donate my time so that you can get access to, you know, a direction. I have multiple resources that I've used. I'll share what I used and you have an opportunity to do that. And. Yeah. And also Ashley has access to putting a structure in place in your practice for suicide prevention, which is just amazing tool. So, Ash, do you want to share that?

So we have a. Like Gary was saying, you know, connection is really important and ways to be able to connect. You know, I'm also available for conversation if anyone needs resources or tools. You know, if. If you're suffering or you're thinking of thoughts of suicide or you know, someone that is. I'm. Please use me as a resource, reach out to me. I'm always happy to connect with people and help get you in the right direction of resources and tools to be able to move you past that, whether it's somebody in your practice or a friend or family member yourself. We also a great way that you can help really towards our initiative for the Zero suicide is a strengths and needs assessment that is completely confidential. This assessment is for anybody in the dental industry. I encourage everyone to take it and then share it with five others that you know within the industry to. To help us really get a good foundation of information and knowledge to be able to create A great resources and tools specific to the dental industry because there isn't anything right now that's really specific just to us and that's what we're trying to create. So it'd be great if you could take scan the QR code, take the assessment, share it with others and be able to, you know, help us get in that direction.

Yeah. And I wanted to highlight Ashley's work because she donates. This is a completely not for profit. We sought out some of the best experts if any of you have been on. We did Certainty in the Face of Uncertainty weekly webinar during the pandemic for we had like 2,000 people on every week, every Tuesday. And we saw the need for mental health and I sought out the best that I could find. And this woman has done industry specific stuff and it's important that it's industry specific because then it's like nuanced. It has certain nuances to it. Like she's done the construction industry and she's done, I think the medical industry and three or four others. And when we came to her, she gave us her materials to adapt to dentistry and Ashley has been customizing them and refining them. So we believe, Pam, this is going to be the standard for which our own industry will have its own tools and they're at no cost. And it's really just a total volunteered spirit. And if you could take that survey, it really helps us. Ashley, do you need those, do they come back to you, those surveys?

They do.

So I get the information back and again, it's completely confidential so there's no information on there unless at the end you can kind of opt in and put your information. If you want to continue to help with the efforts, you are able to do that at the end of it. But I do get all that. The surveys back that are confidential or if you opt in.

Yeah. And we're raising money too for the group. I personally do an annual 200 mile bike ride for Unstoppable and personally donate to it so we can use resources that allow us to bring it out to more people. And dental economics, your generosity for this, allowing us to get access to people and bring this message out is extraordinary. So I really want to thank and highlight you, Pam, personally and for allowing us to bring this work out to the world because we believe it's really needed.

It's most definitely needed. It seems like our industry in particular is crying out for help and I just think it's just so admirable that you both are doing that and really doing something about it. It's one thing to read these stats and sit and look around and be like, well, that's unfortunate for the people around me. But it's like, well, you know, the people around me are the people who need it the most. And probably even I need it the most. We all do. So I just. I can't thank you enough for your time. And, you know, and this offering, it's really, really special. And I would say for, you know, those who are thinking about suicide, I mean, obviously, none of us are specialists in this arena, so there's always the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the hotline that you can reach out to. And I. You know, we have such a special industry where the initial reason to get into it is to care for people, and we have to also care for ourselves so we can do just that. And I just think it's so special that, you know, you're offering something for us to do that. You bet.

And in the words of Margaret Mead, never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. So we believe that when you come together as people who care, we can make. I always say, let's take the dent out of dentistry and put a dent in the world. And this is how we're going to. This is one of the ways that we're doing that. So thank you.

I love that. Any final thoughts before we wrap up?

Just thank you so much for giving us the platform to be able to share, and we're excited to work with everyone and make this, you know, come to life and be able to help others in our industry.

I love that. Well, everybody, this was a great one. Gary, Ashley, thank you so much for joining me. And I just kind of, like, want to reach in and hug. Hug you guys. And hug everybody out there, because, you know, we do have such a special industry. So for de business lab, I'm Dr. Pam Maragliano Muniz, and I will see you guys again soon.

Sam.