Overcoming Opiate Addiction I Cheree Ashley DSH #399

a lot of different ways to perform an intervention depending on what the situation is.

The intervention's for the family, not just the addict.

Are they going to change?

Nobody's going to change.

We have to feel the repercussions.

We have to feel the consequences, make their addiction more uncomfortable.

It's more likely that they're going to want change.

Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe.

It helps a lot with the algorithm it helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team truly means a lot thank you guys for supporting and here's the episode all right guys we got chari ashley here from california thanks for coming on today thanks for having me of course what a powerful message and story i'd love to dive into it with the drug addiction and all that so what age did you get involved with that kind of stuff uh my addiction hit pretty hard at about 1920.

So college?

Except I wasn't going to college.

Oh, you weren't going to college.

No, I wasn't going.

I mean, I was going to college, but I wouldn't show up.

You know, it was just, yeah, just was not capable.

School just wasn't my thing.

It's funny because, like, now if I study, if I'm interested in it, I love it.

But then,

yeah, just my priorities were not straight, you know?

So I had a pretty bad breakup and that's where the opiate addiction started.

And it just went downhill super quickly for me.

And was it first alcohol into opiates or did it just start off with opioids right off the start?

Yeah, I definitely smoked a lot of like in high school, out of high school,

drank occasionally.

I wouldn't say like I drank a lot, definitely more

for sure.

And so the opiates was just more so like that numbing, like, sure, I'll try it.

I was going through a hard time and then just getting addicted to numbing those emotions, you know?

People say weed isn't a gateway drug.

What do you think about that?

I think it definitely is a gateway drug.

I mean, and that's, I mean, we can have a full discussion on what that actually means, but for

any mind-altering substance, right?

If you are, regardless if it's legal, I mean, look at alcohol, it's legal, and that's the most dangerous one we see too.

In my facilities, that I just feel if you are already chasing after something that's mind-altering, it's just opening up the door to trying other substances that are mind-altering.

Agreed.

Yeah, because people say it isn't, but I mean, I was on weed and I feel like it's that first step and it just gets worse.

Yeah, 100%.

And especially for kids, it's like your mind isn't developed completely, you know?

And so you're, you're...

putting a stop to what you're able to take in educational wise.

Like you can't grasp everything if you're sitting there and you're high, you know?

And so for people to say that it's not and it's okay, I mean, that's where it starts.

And now these kids are putting it in vape pens.

And now, you know, before it was just like weed and putting it in a bowl,

you know, and you smell like it, you look like it.

Like, there's so many obvious signs where now they're able to just to carry it around in their vape pens and you have no idea.

It doesn't smell like anything.

You don't smell like anything.

So we just feel like it's just getting worse.

And who even knows what's in the actual pen?

I mean, exactly.

Probably nothing healthy.

Yeah, exactly.

And your brains are developing until 26, right?

So when you're smoking weed, who knows the long-term effects of that?

Right, exactly.

Yeah.

And nowadays with schools, too, we're just seeing a lot of overdoses.

And, you know, there's fentanyl being put into weed.

There's pills that are, you know, pressed and laced with fentanyl.

So it's just not what times used to be when kids were recreationally using and messing around with stuff.

Yeah, before you, if someone offered you it, no questions asked, you could just take it.

Now it's like, I might die if I take this without testing it.

Yeah, exactly.

It's pretty scary.

It's very scary.

It's very scary.

And I think we could just, all we can do is really talk about it and be open.

I feel when I was younger, you know, there wasn't social media platforms.

There wasn't things to look on YouTube to learn about it.

Or, you know what I mean?

It's one of those things where you're using drugs and you're trying to hide it as best you can.

You weren't really informed too much.

You had the DARE programs, but

yeah, nobody wanted to listen to them, you know?

I actually won my dare speech in fifth grade.

Did you?

Yeah.

Do you remember writing those?

Yep.

Yeah, my class voted me, and I was so nervous to give the speech in front of the whole school.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

That was a joke.

It didn't work.

No, it doesn't.

Well, I mean, it's like a kind of a scare tactic, too, right?

It's like you have the police come in and like speak on it, where I feel now like if you can actually have stories of people who've gone through it or struggled with addiction and can just get on a real level with these kids like they have you know a little bit more

insight to wanting to learn about it like they want to hear about it they might be able to relate to it so i just feel like now it's like we have to be able to talk more on it publicly and

let kids know that they can ask those questions yeah and it should be in school curriculum it shocks me that it's not like they still do sex ed and that's still part of you know the curriculum you have to pass this but why aren't we doing drug education?

We're seeing more overdoses and teen pregnancies nowadays.

Wow.

That is scary.

Yeah, that would be way more relatable if they took a former drug addict, brought them in the class once a year, twice a year.

Exactly.

And shared their story.

Absolutely.

Like what the reality of it is.

Yeah.

I think that would work way more than a cop that doesn't give a comes in, talks about this.

And you could tell they don't care.

I mean, well, and it's kind of like going to treatment.

You know, if I remember going to treatment when my addiction, you know, got so bad, it ended up leading to

and then IV user, and it just downhill spiraled really fast.

But the ones who I could relate to who are like, I've sat in your shoes, I'm, you know, a year sober, I'm five years sober, even those who were a day longer than me, I was inspired by them, you know, because you're just trying to get through it versus somebody who goes to school and gets a PhD and has all this schooling, has zero experience, instantly it's like a shutoff.

You don't even want to hear what they have to say.

It's like one of those things, like, unless you've been through it, I don't want you to try to tell me what I need to do to overcome this.

You know, that's how I felt about my business professors in college because I'm like, why are you teaching this if you have no business that you started?

Right.

Like, I can't take you serious.

Right.

It's the same with everything, right?

Exactly.

It's very true.

Yeah.

And especially with business, too.

I mean, I learned as I went, you know, I did.

didn't have anybody really even teaching me.

It's like it's through all the trials and errors and, you know, fails

someone becomes successful in my opinion absolutely so with your addiction did it start right away or was it a gradual kind of incline um

well I went to treatment when I was almost 23

so it was pretty short-lived is the way I would say now now that I you know I'm a counselor and have a couple treatment facilities like I see people that come in and they've been doing it for 10 years or they've been to numerous programs

I feel like it hit hard for me and that that's what I needed because it probably I would have been one to overdose and it would have taken me.

And so just all the consequences that you could have, I feel happened, you know, getting arrested.

Back then, drug charges were felonies.

And honestly, I'm thankful for that because I feel

nowadays it's a slap on the wrist.

Therefore, there's no consequences.

Oh, I didn't know that.

It's a misdemeanor.

To have drugs on you?

Mm-hmm.

What?

Yeah, even if you're selling it, it's not like back then, just having enough for yourself where clearly it wasn't for sale.

That was a felony charge.

Even just having paraphernalia was a felony.

Really?

Yeah, I remember in Jersey, if you got a certain amount of weed, it was a felony.

Right.

Well, now it's legal.

So now it's, you know,

times have changed.

And so for me, it was.

Towards the end of it, you know, I had gotten arrested.

My mom had actually called the cops on me and I was at a baby shower and I was like, okay, she's going to be at this location.

If there's an officer's number that I can text or call when she leaves, have them pull her over for a traffic stop, whatever.

Her mom snitched on you and you didn't know?

Wow.

No, she was terrified to tell me about that.

She didn't want to confront you.

No, she didn't want and she didn't want me to be upset with her, but I thank her every single day for making that phone call because she saved my life.

If it wasn't for that, that day, who knows where I would be.

And that was 12 years ago, you know?

And so it was terrifying, but I had already had previous charges for having drugs on me.

And it was, okay, there's no bail.

Like you're on a probation hold and you're going to you're going to sit there.

And it was treatment or prison, two years in prison.

Wow.

So of course, no-brainer.

I'm like, I'll go to treatment, like whatever that looks like, wherever it is.

I don't care.

Take me.

And then, you know, my program was seven months long.

Nowadays, I mean, we're, we're pulling pulling teeth just to get somebody to get authorization from insurance for three weeks in residential.

And their mind is barely, barely clearing up.

I mean, they're physically barely even starting to feel better from withdrawals, you know, so it's just, it's crazy the times we live in with how bad everything is getting and the lack of support that people have when they want to get help.

Yeah, it's sad to see in the insurance stuff.

Most of them don't even cover it to a certain degree, right?

No.

No, if somebody has been to treatment 15 times, the way I look at it is they need help.

You know, there's something going on that the last handful of programs are not working.

And insurance is saying they've been to treatment too many times.

We're not even going to authorize it.

Damn.

You know, and it's like, no, you guys got it backwards.

If you would stop just giving two weeks and actually authorize.

Good amount of time for them to get under their belt and mandate it.

It would be a different situation.

Yeah, because to clear a 10-year cycle,

you need more than two weeks.

Absolutely.

You're going to need months.

Yeah, I mean, it was months.

I mean, five months, six months for it to, you know, where the thought would come and then it would go without sticking there.

You know, for you.

Wow.

It took a long time.

So when people sit there and be like, I'm great.

I'm better.

I'm detoxed.

I'm like, you know?

Yeah, you see a lot of them return, right?

It's like almost jail kind of once they get out, a big percent come back to a treatment center.

It becomes a vicious cycle yeah definitely a lot of them relapse in there and I heard some of them even they're taking the drugs inside the centers because security is not that good while what's hard is we can only search so much right so like what we train our team is being able to recognize the signs if you know we can't cavity search people so we can search all their belongings we can search their person um we can say you can't bring cigarettes in unless it's unopened however we can't cavity search so if they're smart, they're going to put it in places we can't search, but there's signs that we can look for.

You know, if an opiate addict is coming in and

they're refusing to take their subs, which is Suboxin, which is what helps with the opiate withdrawals, that's a big red flag.

You know, and so if people and the team is not up to par with what to look for, then yeah, it's easy to sneak it by.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So the staff have to be a step ahead of everybody that comes through the door.

Yeah.

What do you you think about interventions?

Because you see them on movies and stuff.

Do those actually work?

They do.

I've been doing interventions for over 10 years.

I'm a certified intervention professional.

I've done hundreds across the country.

And,

you know, there's a lot of different ways to perform an intervention depending on what the situation is.

A lot of times, you know, when somebody is in their active addiction, and a lot of times I would say the family is the intervention's for the family, not just the addict, addict, right?

It's a broken system within the family.

There's a lot of enabling, codependency, denial.

There's a lot that's going on with the loved ones and support system that they don't even realize.

It's one of those things, well, they're the ones on drugs, fix them, right?

Well, if you're 22 years old and you're using drugs in mom and dad's house and they're paying for your car and paying for your phone and letting you do whatever the heck you want, are they going to change?

Nobody's going to change.

We have to feel the repercussions.

We have to feel the consequences to say like, okay, this is no longer fun.

This is becoming uncomfortable.

So assisting families with setting those boundaries and putting new systems in place that can kind of make their addiction more uncomfortable, it's more likely that they're going to want change.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're interesting to me because I feel like if I got sat down and like people were just attacking me, I don't know if it would work on me.

Yeah.

Because you're reacting not logically, right?

Right.

Because I had a Xanax, a little Xanax phase two months of my life, and I don't think I would have listened to anyone on that.

Right.

What, what made you change?

Near-death experience.

So that, that for me was like, because I ran out of my prescription and I started having withdrawal, had a seizure.

Yep.

I was like, wow, I almost died at 21.

Like,

this needs to change.

And, but see, that's a consequence.

So that's like a, some people have their own, what is intervention, right?

It could be being in a hospital because you had a seizure and now you're in the ICU and you're on life support.

That is intervening on

that.

Now it's becoming between your health.

Some, it's for me, my intervention was

legal.

Getting arrested, it terrified me.

I'm like five days too long in jail.

I never want to go back.

You know, that worked for me where some people can go to jail and be like, oh, this is no problem.

It's easy.

It's cake.

It's a break.

You know, so it just depends on.

that individual.

And if it comes to an intervention with a professional entering your home,

it's finding those things.

Like, I've seen it work with a cat, like, we're going to take your cat away.

And they're like, no, you're not my cat, you know?

And then they go to treatment.

So it just depends on the situation.

Cause, yeah, sometimes I've had people run and throw drinks in my face.

And, you know, I mean, of course, nobody wants to go to treatment, especially when you're in active addiction and you want to get angry and upset.

But if the family sticks to those healthy boundaries more times than not, it is very successful.

Right.

Because deep down inside, we're hurting, right?

It's just so deep we can barely admit it to ourselves, let alone admit that to our loved ones.

Like, I need help.

It's very rare that somebody raises their hand and says, I have a problem.

I need to go to treatment.

Usually it takes some sort of consequence or situation, life, death experience to say, whoa, this is scary.

This is a problem.

And I need help.

How packed are these treatment centers right now?

Because it seems like this is a major problem.

It is a major problem.

I mean,

it just depends.

I mean, I feel like it goes in ebbs and flows, ups and downs.

I see holidays, for example,

where it's really busy and people don't want to be alone and they go to treatment.

And I also see where it's really slow because everybody wants to wait for their New Year's resolution to get better.

You know, so I mean, it just, it depends.

But what's bothersome to me is that there's so many people out there who are struggling who want help who don't have the resources.

Right.

Because insurance won't cover it or they can't afford it because it is pretty expensive very expensive yeah treatment's not cheap you know i mean the staff you're paying for doctors nurses counselors 24 7 you know technicians around the clock so it's it's not cheap to go to a private program and then ones that are state funded have extensive waiting lists and then you have the government who's over there supporting addiction providing housing food stamps yeah burner phones now they're paying people now they're paying to stay stuck in their addiction Crazy.

It's absolutely crazy.

So what do you think the fix is then?

Well, I think that the government needs to wake up and realize if they're going to spend $14 million

to shut down an old hotel in San Francisco and turn it into a housing unit for the homeless.

Yeah, I saw that.

Use that money to put them into treatment.

Make it mandated.

I know in the state of Florida, you can, you know, the Marchman Act is a mandated program where you can't leave treatment.

Like, why are we not doing that?

But you can't leave once you start?

Right.

Wow.

That is interesting.

Where California, it's an at-will state.

You can leave whenever.

Exactly.

And that probably doesn't work as effectively.

No, because if you're having a bad day and you're craving, see ya.

There's nothing holding over your head.

You know, I wanted to leave treatment on a daily basis, but it was either suck it up or get arrested and go to prison.

So it's like that kept me in it.

But what if I didn't have that hanging over my head?

I probably would have walked too.

Yeah.

You know, I would have been one of those vicious cycles in and out of treatment constantly.

Then you have the ones who have insurance and now they're utilizing their insurance to are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest?

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Keep a roof over their head.

So in and out, in and out, take a break, go to treatment, go back out, go on a sick run, go back in, you know?

So it's just trying to break the cycle.

It's hard, but it's going to take a lot of us speaking up and talking about it and saying like, this is not helping.

It's making it worse.

Yeah.

I think another part of it is the accessibility of these drugs is so easy.

There should be another fix there because you probably just hit up your friends and got whatever you needed.

Well, yeah, they're selling it on Snapchat now.

Like, that's crazy, you know, where you can just get drugs on Snapchat.

Like, what?

I didn't even know that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm learning that.

I'm learning that with these kids now.

I mean, it was so easy in college.

Yeah.

So imagine now with social media.

Yeah.

Times 10.

Yeah.

In college, I could get whatever I wanted.

Right.

Well, now, because Snapchat, I don't use it, but they,

I mean, the story erases.

Oh.

Right.

So you're able to post it, send it to somebody.

Yeah.

And then once you open it, now it's gone.

You can't reopen it.

So they're communicating this way versus having it in a text message or a phone call where you can track it.

Right.

Well, they could probably track those too.

I'm sure they have to be onto something with that, but it's like now it's just becoming easier and easier.

Alcoholics.

I mean, it's worse now that there's Instacart,

DoorDash, that's delivering alcohol.

So now people are like, okay, well, I don't have to drive to get it.

I could just have it delivered to my door.

Right.

And then show a fake ID.

And then if I'm not getting it from this store, let's say you get banned, you can just get it from

other places.

i didn't even think about that but yeah that's so easy you could just show a fake idea at the door and no one's gonna question it because they're not scanning those right exactly

yeah yeah getting alcohol is way too easy way too easy i mean there was always that debate of the drinking age 21 was too high but what do you think is 18 because other countries it's 18.

i think you're still a baby at 18.

yeah canada it's 18 i believe yeah i mean that's crazy i mean they like they say that you're an adult at 18 but kids can't go be on their own at 18 nowadays you know my son's 10 in eight years I'm like no way you know they're just trying to figure life out yeah let alone okay here you you need to be kicked you know kicked out of your parents house or put on your own whatever however parents look at it and you can go ahead and drink yeah legally at that age you know that I don't see that being very successful for a lot of kids

so you got three kids at what age do you think parents should start talking their kids about this type of stuff

I get asked that question a lot and And I feel when you feel your kid is mature enough to have that conversation.

All kids have different maturity levels.

My son, who's 10, is very mature.

And I feel like if they start asking questions, that's the time to start talking about it.

Because if they're asking questions already and you're not being open and honest with them, they're going to ask that question to a friend and they may not get the right answer that they should be getting.

Right.

So, you know, my son has known about what drugs are at a fairly young age.

I mean, he's been raised around my facility since he was a baby, but, you know, he's over there telling his friends at school, make sure your mom's checking your candy because you make sure there's not fentanyl in it, you know?

But and some may be like, oh my gosh, it's too young.

I don't care.

He's very well aware.

You know, he's going to think a little bit, he's going to think twice before trying something than if he had no idea what drugs were.

Yeah.

And they're exposed to it in public school.

Of course.

I remember in middle school, people were smoking weed where I'm from.

Well, and all the songs.

Now, songs are talking about how cool it is.

And, you know, drugs are different colors.

And it's, so it's promoted to be a good thing, not a bad thing.

Yeah.

And so if these kids are listening to this music and it's their favorite rapper that they look up to and they're rapping about, you know, sex and drugs, I mean, of course, the kids are going to be like, oh, that sounds fun.

I'm curious about that.

You know, if they don't have any knowledge and education about what it is, then they're going to be tempted.

I had to stop listening to rap music.

I used to love it in high school and college, but I cut it off.

It's different.

It's different now.

Now I feel like there's too much programming.

Oh, yeah.

100%.

It's not clean music.

Like, it's like I hear music from, you know, the 80s, 90s.

I'm like, this was good music.

That's all I play now, 90s, 2000s music.

Totally.

It was actually like music with substance, no messaging.

Right.

People were just singing about whatever they wanted to.

Now it's like, what am I going to subconsciously influence with this song?

Right.

Right.

Crazy.

It's crazy.

Yeah, I don't know.

Or bashing other people through their songs and it's becoming

promotes drama.

Yeah.

Social media is, yeah, I'm glad we grew up without it.

Yeah.

School was a lot better, I think.

Yeah, I agree.

I agree.

I just feel like we, you know, should be educating.

our kids, our youth, I mean, in so many different ways.

I really wish that they would incorporate

meditation.

You know, maybe we won't use the words anxiety and depression, but when you're feeling anxious or sad, you know, how do you cope with that?

How do you get through those types of things to set our kids up for success?

And of course, you know, academic and all those things are important to learn, but setting them up for how to save money, how to write a check, those types of things I feel should be incorporated in our schools.

Absolutely.

Do you send your kids to a public school right now?

They're in private.

Nice.

Yeah.

I mean, it's sad.

I mean, I grew up in a really small small town and the amount of gang violence now and guns, it's crazy.

In Cali?

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

You can't even own a gun there, I thought.

You can.

You can own a gun.

Oh, you can?

Yeah.

It just don't.

We don't.

I don't know if we have.

Yeah, we have concealed carry.

Oh, concealed, yeah.

I just meant like out here, you could just buy it in Vegas, walk in, and

the first week I moved there.

I was like, are you going to run a background check or anything?

No, background check.

No, they did run one.

Okay.

It was so easy.

Wow.

I literally walked in the store and bought a Glock and had it a week later.

Yeah, see, no, can't do that.

I went to buy a gun not too long ago, and

my husband gets a notification that his gun's ready to get picked up, and I get denied.

I'm like, what?

Because of my felony charges back in the day.

I was like, wow.

Oh, wow.

Those never got cleared.

Yeah, not for a gun.

Damn.

So that's interesting.

Uh-huh.

Wow.

Well, at least they're doing their job running background checks.

Yeah, I mean, for sure.

But then at the same time, gangsters and, you know, people who are going to go use it for to kill somebody, they're not going and getting a legal gun.

You know what I mean?

They're just going and picking one up in an alley.

For real.

So it's like at the same time.

Yeah, banning it doesn't fix it.

No, I don't feel it does.

Yeah, there's always that debate, but it just never made sense logically because if you ban something, people are going to sell it in the black market.

You saw it with alcohol back in the day.

Yeah.

Well, now they have the black market for pills too, which is crazy.

So people are able just to order prescription pills and have it delivered to their house.

And, you know, they're not labeled.

So it's just, it's, yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun.

Yeah, you could buy that shit from India and stuff, I heard for super cheap.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

We've had people come in, teachers even come in and they're ordering it because they're scared to buy it from a dealer.

So they feel like it's safer.

to, you know, be in the comfort of their own home, go on the internet and have it delivered to them.

You mentioned you had ADD earlier, right?

Yeah.

So they tried telling me I had that in first grade and they wanted to put me on all these meds.

Did they do that to you too?

No.

No, that's a good topic because I, I, I don't know if I'm so much joking about it or I've, I mean, I've always had it, right?

And so, but my mom was like, I'm not taking her to go get assessed by a doctor to get put on a ton of different medications.

So I definitely have that in me where it's like constant, hard to sit still, hard to focus, but I've learned the tools to be able to cope with it versus medicate it.

Right.

So, did you ever take medications at that?

No, so my mom, my dad wanted me to get on them.

My mom didn't.

She wanted me to be kind of natural.

So, I never got put on.

But I feel like they just try to do that to a lot of kids just because they're active in class.

Of course, jittery or whatever.

Yeah.

I mean, my kids are the same way, especially my boys.

They're all over the place jumping around.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

But

when it comes to medications,

there definitely are people qualified to to be on medications.

I don't want to say like no meds across the board.

However, I feel like

on a professional level, we have to be doing more thorough assessments

than a five-minute conversation.

Oh, you can't sit still in class.

Okay, here's a prescription, right?

Oh, you have anxiety.

Here's a prescription.

Like, we need to be assessing that a little bit more.

Luckily, I went to a program that was a non-medication program.

Like, they didn't believe in psych meds.

And I feel fortunate that I was able to overcome an opiate addiction without having a crutch of a long-term maintenance program of Suboxone or methadone.

Not saying that that's for everybody, but I could have easily just been thrown on this and said, hey, this is better than the alternative of injecting

10 times a day.

And sure, in the looks of it, it would have been.

But then now I'm getting put on something that I'm being told I need to be on long term

when clearly, you know, fast forward to now, I never took anything.

I never needed to be on anything.

Right.

So how are we determining who is appropriate and who's not appropriate for long-term medication treatment?

Wow.

I didn't know they put you on another drug to get off of a drug.

It's like a never-ending cycle then.

Exactly.

Wow.

Yeah, that's the thing with all these commercials with the side effects.

It lasts like 30 seconds.

Yeah.

And it's like, then you got to take another thing for those side effects.

And it's like by the time you're 60, you're taking 20%.

The whole commercial is just all the side effects if you take this drug.

And they fund all the TV networks, so they're half their ads.

And it's like, wow.

They control the narrative pretty much.

Right, exactly.

When I make certain posts on social media, it'll be like fact check.

Right.

Like, what?

Yeah.

It's like crazy, man.

Yeah.

It's a scary time.

It is.

It is scary.

And so the medications, I feel like we definitely need to,

because look at how many kids could be just screwed up and put on meds.

Or, I mean, how do you look at it now?

Are you thankful that you didn't get put on medicine?

I'm so thankful.

Because who knows?

I mean, I would have had no emotion because I was also on Accutane for seven months.

Have you heard of that one?

I was just a zombie.

Yep.

That thing fed me up, man.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I'm trying to live as natural as possible.

For sure.

Yeah, because it fogs up your mind.

You know what I mean?

So it's like if there's other remedies to be able to take, to fix things without having to be on a prescription is better.

You know, but there, of course, there's people that need to be on those medications.

Yeah.

But in general, I think they're definitely just giving them out like candy.

When I went to get my Xanax, all I said was, and I probably needed at the time, but I just said I had anxiety.

He gave it to me within five minutes.

I was out the door with Xanax.

Exactly.

Without any

education on if you take too much or take too long, what could happen?

You know what I mean?

Like you said you had a seizure.

And he never mentioned any of that.

Exactly.

If the doctor would have said, okay, I'm going to give you a prescription, but let me let you know that if you take this consistently every single day for the next 30 days and then you decide to stop taking it cold turkey, you're at risk of having a seizure.

You probably would have thought twice about taking that prescription or asked for an alternative.

For sure.

Right.

And so, and then it's easy for an addict to be able to justify now, well, you know, I want to get off alcohol, but I want to stay on my Xanax or I want to stay on this because my doctor prescribed it to me.

And we hear that all the time.

My doctor prescribed it to me.

Well, your doctor's just a legal drug dealer.

Yeah.

That's all they're doing is just, you know, handing it out to you and not letting you know that this is harmful.

Yep.

And a big, I think a big problem is we're taught growing up that doctors are to be trusted.

Right.

And you should go to them for health advice.

And that's really not the case with a lot of them.

They're not there to prevent anything.

Right.

They're there to just put a band-aid on the problem.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And that's where then we're having to clean it up and we're having to fix these issues.

And now we're dealing with the internal anger and trauma and anxiety and trying to counsel them through these emotions

when for years they've just been going to the same doctor who's putting them on all this crap.

Yep.

And it's making our jobs much harder to be able to work with them and get them through that because now they're going through all these different types of consequences or they've had a seizure or they've, you know, their kidneys are failing.

You know, they have cirrhosis or whatever it might be that nobody told, educated them on this prior.

Yeah, it's such a shame.

And you probably get a ton of veterans.

Those guys are put on all sorts of medications when they get out.

Yes, tons.

And same lack of resources, too.

Yeah, the VA probably won't pay for treatment centers, right?

Right.

I mean, and we're seeing that with a lot of, you know, different insurance carriers, like the process to say, okay,

we're going to cover treatment, but first you need to do our outpatient virtually, bail that numerous times, and then we'll give you the referral.

That doesn't make sense.

No, not at all, but because they don't want to pay for the residential part of treatment.

So it's making it really difficult.

And by that time, you know, they're either really, really bad off and they probably would have had a better chance of getting sober if they would have done it a lot sooner than failing the outpatient part of it and then coming in.

Yeah.

I want to end off with a quote from your website that I thought was interesting.

Balance, it's not what you think.

So, with balance, the book that I wrote, I wrote that about six years ago.

I was pregnant with my youngest.

I have a lot of moms in particular that come to me and say, How do you do it all?

How do you balance everything?

You know, I'm pretty hands-on with my kids, like, even being out here today, I'll be home for dinner.

Wow.

You know, it's like I juggle it and do the best that I can thanks to my ADD.

But, you know, being able, able, you don't have to just be a mom and not fulfill your goals and your dreams.

And you also don't have to just be somebody who works and decides that they don't have time to have children.

You could balance and have it all.

You can do both.

It's just trying to figure out what's a good system for yourself.

Yeah, I love that.

Where can people find out more about you and the treatment centers?

So you can go best ways probably social media, Cherie underscore Ashley, and there I will have links to the facilities.

Perfect.

We'll link it below.

Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, thanks for watching, guys.

As always, such an impactful episode, and I will see you guys tomorrow.