Episode 93

hello everybody and welcome to another fabulous episode of Finding Peaks your host president founder company cheerleader Christopher Michael Burns grateful to be here happy Sunday um beautiful day to have a finding Peak show and even more beautiful day to bring on an exceptional professional but an even better human Nicholas Dara welcome to the show buddy yeah thank you so much I’m really happy to be here absolutely love to have you Nick is not only in long-term recovery from his mental health but he also works in the field what is your current position that you work with in the field yeah absolutely so I’m the IOP program manager and I supervise a case management team as well cool yeah yeah and why that is so cool um is I want to introduce Nick is our first first ever graduate of what was and is now Peaks recovery centers and what was Triple peak’s recovery and he graduated from an Extended Care young adult program that was a minimum commitment six months followed by another six months of sober living alumni housing transition and so I think we used to joke at Peaks recovery the hours of group that you would be in by the time you got out of the six months was near 400 hours of group therapy uh-huh absolutely it was 100 therapy every day yeah yeah I love it and I was talking with him before the show on how I used to believe like you needed every bit of those 400 hours in order to get the message across in order for to entrench those behaviors but right we’ve actually been talking about something that’s a really a breath of fresh air which is where we’re at today in our recovery and where where we see the field moving certainly where Peaks is going in its effort to disrupt the industry um and Nix works for a great program here in town of which he’s doing the same thing but before we get to that I just want to I want to go back down memory lane a little bit and chat a little bit about um you know when Nick and I met um and I met Nick at uh Parker Valley Hope nearly nine years ago he reminded me this morning that he’s got eight years in the field working as a professional now it’s just amazing but maybe take me back to you know where you were on that day when we met coming coming into Parker Valley Hope for maybe a second or third time but yeah actually take us back there kind of where you’re at and what was going on for you at the time yeah absolutely so I had gone to two treatment centers prior to Parker Valley Hope um and I used a methamphetamines and heroin mostly but anything really that you’d get at me right um and I lived this way for so long with no consequences to my actions right like I could just do whatever I wanted and I thought the world really owed me something in a sense um so I never really had any follow-through and all of that changed when I went to jail right I got arrested for some drug charges and I spent uh like six months in jail and I really learned that there are real life consequences to my actions and I needed to change my behavior and at that point I was so ready to get sober I was knew that that was what I wanted to do right then I get out of jail I go back home and I stay hidden for a month right immediately relapse right I hang out with one person and I’m right back in it um and I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t understand where that was coming from because I wanted it so bad right so I decided to go to Parker Valley Hope and I told my mom um who is uh rightfully upset at the time right I had done a lot of harm and damage in that relationship and for me to have relapsed after everything that just happened was so impactful for her and so difficult and I completely understand why um so I went to park Valley Hope for a little bit and there I was like I’m on it I got it I’m gonna stay sober this time right and I get there I’m about 25 days in and we got in a car with someone who had discharged and she started passing out her medication like candy and no thought in my mind I just take it right and it was in that moment well actually probably like an hour later when I was like what am I doing like why can’t I do this um so I talked with a therapist there and he recommended a brand new program in the spring so I was coming out here and gave me Chris’s number um or your number I guess I should say and it I don’t know what it was right like I talked to you about it and I was so scared and I was like Colorado Springs I don’t know about that yeah um and I was like a year that’s wild but I really had no other options right it’s been a resident for eight years now yeah yeah I’ve lived here for eight years yeah um and it was just this feeling of that you understood where I came from right you’d been there before and you’re able to do it that really pushed me to do that kind of stuff so I agreed to do it I moved into that uh down into a sober living until Peaks opened and immediately enrolled yeah yeah I love that and I love going down memory lane and I was even talking with Nick earlier you know the way that we approached um recovery or sobriety at the time was much different than we approach mental health now and for really really good reason um but you actually thrived in the program yeah you ended up thriving there was a moment in there I remember there was a moment in there when I was going into Circle and I was talking to your mom and I’m like he’s probably gonna make me kick him out you know and this was back when we actually kicked people out of treatment you know yeah now we would never do that ever um I go in there and and I check in with you and I just remember very clearly the message that you got across to me was Chris I want this so bad yep I’m struggling with finding a path in which to get there yeah but I want you to know that I want this just as much as I want the next piece of air to breathe absolutely and it was it was so intense I remember a conversation we had uh in the early parts of my treatment and I was upset at a therapist and was yelling at them and I was in your office and I was like I want this and I was like crying hysterically and that everything in me was like leave leave you can’t do this you can’t do this but there was this voice in my head that was like you need this you need to be here um so I don’t know if it was ever necessarily I want it was more of a need like my body craving this yeah in a sense what would you say was the turning point for you like what time was it at was it at picks was it when you left where you were like I know I’m I think I’m gonna be able to do this yeah I have hope and I’m starting to scratch the surface of like this quality of life happiness thing what was what was the shift for you in that setting yeah you know I actually know exactly what it was right and it’s you if we’re really honest you and Tammy were really the two people in there that showed me I could do this right and it was not easy ever 100 of the time and it was in your face style of treatment where you were gonna do it or you weren’t gonna do it but on everything and everything in every aspect I always knew that you cared about me as a person and it wasn’t just a name I wasn’t just a number I that you saw something in me that I could do it and I think the care and compassion that I received in that made all of the other stuff worth it like it I knew where that stuff was coming from and it wasn’t out of like a hurtful way it was a way to get me to see what I needed to do and so when I learned that I can have value in a different way that even if I’m reacting strongly in emotion and I can’t control what’s happening that somebody loved and cared about me no matter what no matter how I showed up and they would remain consistent in that messaging to me um was really the change I really appreciate you saying that too and it is too it’s it’s interesting it doesn’t take hundreds of people it literally takes and my recovery is the same example of like they wrap three to five really really great people around me and I became the multitude of their experiences yeah and so even though at the time you know the information the sentence setting was far more intense I think peak’s recovery has kind of always hit on that Theodore Roosevelt quote that says nobody cares what you know until they know that you care absolutely um and at the time man we were all kind of eating that uh that uh that scrambled sandwich you know but it worked yeah and it it I think it provides such a cool opportunity to think about recovery in a different way right because recovery doesn’t always look like perfect right but you can be there and you can get through it yeah if you have the right people around you in the community it’s such a valuable point I’ll talk to people in the early stages of recovery sometimes and let’s see what’s what’s the biggest thing you would do like I’m transitioning out an inpatient like I got my therapy set up I got the IOP I got my meetings I got this what’s the biggest thing you can do and I say have a coffee with three or four of these guys every single week have it in your phone be intentional about it and never miss it and they’re like that really that easy and like all the other stuff is great yeah but what satiates is healing and Community absolutely and we can heal in community it’s one thing and I say it all the time it’s one thing to be seen valued and heard in our family’s origin yeah right absolutely you know and your family biggest fans but to go into Community which is where I feel the most [ __ ] which is why I’m isolated disconnected all alone in this very dark place right to go into community and not only be seen valued and heard but praised affirmed yeah it’s pretty special it’s insane and I even think a big thing for me right is I have always been really comfortable with who I am as a person right I’ve never really tried to change that or hide who I am sure um but I think subconsciously I always have this idea that especially straight males wouldn’t accept me or be there for me and I needed to fear them in a sense right and to have a role model who is a straight male be so loving and caring and supportive in a different way really opened my eyes on what people really are and who they can really be yeah and these uh prejudices or preconceived notions really serve a purpose to keep us stuck in the mode we’re in yeah and it makes a lot of sense too why you came to that conclusion right that’s just not safe yeah um and that’s what recovery was for me and maybe for you as well in a lot of ways a lot of it the presenting information that was unsafe yeah because it’s authentic and it’s vulnerable and I just saying that gives me chills I know I’m like yeah you know it’s like we’re gonna have to work into this right um and that’s something I loved love love love loved about your processes I gave you every opportunity to give up I would say Nick I’ll walk with you as far as you’re willing to walk but if you’re going to stop today there it is and you would say I’m not going anywhere man yeah and I just really really was drawn to that energy um and it’s been really cool um not only in the early stages of Peaks watching you flourish and Thrive and be one of our first graduates I remember sitting up at Northfield man it’s like when I look back at um my professional career man it might be one of the proudest days just the it’s special it’s really really special because what we have on the front end is we have family system that’s tattered and torn and debilitated um and at the end we have this beautiful synchronization of the family system coming together not fully healed but willing to grow together right and it’s just uh that’s magical absolutely and I think it’s so interesting because I’ve always had a very supportive family and my mother um has been my biggest fan ever forever and always my sister’s great um the new parts of my extended family are also great too and they’ve always been very supportive of me um but it was so different from what the world was telling me it should look like right from what society and teachers and things like that told me I was going to be because of the attitude I had right or because I use drugs or because I classes right that I was a failure and I was going to be a failure and to see a community know all of the things that I had done all of this stuff and how I’ve shown up and moments that I’m really not proud of but still love me and be there for me and it just really changed my whole belief around what community is and what it can be for you okay that counter balancing is is I say it a lot the counterbalancing thing it’s just it’s tremendous yeah and absolutely right away too like when even when you got out of Peaks man you started living right away I’m actually just came top of mind like you start traveling yeah I mean you’re going to New York City you’ve been abroad yeah I’m going talking about City yeah absolutely and those are things I never thought I would be able to do right I remember the first trip I took actually after I graduated from Peaks and it was to do on a men’s trip with a friend of mine um to Pennsylvania and just to be there in that environment and to to be able to like get it go to an airport and go through New York City and hang out and have no thought in my mind of I need to get high to do this uh it was just so eye-opening to me and just something I really think about today right of this why do I need to cope through each of these situations and do I have the ability now to have these beautiful opportunities because of the hard work that I’ve been through right um and something I actually talk about a lot in treatment is like our we didn’t get sober for our lives to be boring yeah right why would we get sober yeah you know so it’s how do you build that stuff in your life that you like to do that makes it worth it that makes all of the hard work worth it yeah you know and I’d love that too because you get to allow you know it’s one thing to go into treatment and then to get out and start working in treatment yeah and then share that experience strength and hope and then you sit here today and you sit with clients that you get to serve and you get to share the experience strength and hope that you’ve had over the last eight years yeah and folks can begin to see themselves within your recovery story because it’s so open-minded and it’s so broad everybody’s welcome inside right it doesn’t have all these hard edges and like quick Jabs it’s just like if you want if you truly want what we have just come walk with us yeah you know and we’re here for you yeah always which is really really cool and it’s not one of those like yeah and if you’re not an alcoholic go get drunk figure it out yeah you know which isn’t good the greatest information in 2023. right absolutely and I think even if we just think about what builds sobriety right like I always used to when I was new in the field to think that sobriety came from the actions you took right and that you had to have consequences for these actions to get sober and what I found recently in the last couple of years is that’s not always the case right like you can get sobriety through trauma therapy right you can get sobriety through medications for certain people and I think I’ve been so inspired by how open the recovery has become right it’s become this multi-pathway approach that really meets you where you’re at and I think that is really the answer right because every day we can pretend that this thing’s working and this thing’s working and it’s going to work this way but until we find what really works for us it doesn’t matter yeah and I think that what works for us isn’t going to work for everybody right and it’s okay to say that yeah and there may be some things that work for me that work for you that work for him as well but I love the way today in 2023 we can zoom out and we can really find what serves us right and I think the question it begs itself and I’m sure you do this with clients and we’ll get into kind of your professional experience now but you know sitting down with clients and becoming more Curious around like was so we use math when did you first use it what did it do for you yeah and then they’ll go on this story and if you ask someone new in recovery what the math did for them then we can begin to maybe solidify some resources that we can plug into that need Box by way of healthy coping mechanisms right we have to understand for a moment what drugs did for people yeah absolutely and I think really the the simple answer simplest answer for that is they provided our ability to cope with the world around us right they numb every emotion we’re feeling so that way the big scary stuff doesn’t matter right because if I’m high now then I don’t need to think about what happened to me as a child I don’t need to think about what happened in the spite I had with my significant other or whoever the K says I love that you say that too because it’s not for the viewers I know there’s some viewers that are thinking like I never think about my trauma when I’m getting high it’s not like that no no it’s like I want to not be present yeah I want to get the hell out of whatever I’m sitting in right now and I’m going to get out of that yeah but generally speaking if we were to get quiet and safe and have a therapist there we would walk that back right to a spot initially where substances weren’t around and a simple need wasn’t met right absolutely and that need wasn’t met we form what’s called adaptive behaviors that quickly with substances at least they’re maladaptive pretty quickly so quickly so very quickly right because um Gabor mate says this best I say it all the time on the show it’s hard to get enough of something that almost works yeah right absolutely it is because it worked so well yeah it worked for everything yep um almost too well because then it starts to numb all of the good things that you have in your lack right and then it just becomes this whole part of your identity and I really think that if you can really roll back the need there right like why do I need to numb right right what is that behind it that’s what’s going to help you stay sober and can I get in there and repair some of that connective tissue because yeah you know we struggled with mental health far before we ever found a drink or a drug right absolutely I had the add thing going I couldn’t sit still my right leg tap something fierce I say it every week on this show and then when I smoked and I drank it went my lab went and it stopped uh-huh and I was like that’s kind of cool yeah now I can talk to you guys so yeah you know absolutely and so it’s hard to let that go especially when it becomes a coping mechanism for people it’s such a crucially developmental part of their life absolutely and really really entrenched there yeah it becomes your whole identity in a way and I think my thing was anxiety right I was so afraid of what other people thought of me or how I was going to show up in this situation or if somebody was going to think I was stupid because I said this right and so if I the second I did those things all of that was gone and I could be this competent person that I really wanted to be on the outside yeah yeah and then at the end it’s like I can’t do anything right it’s just it turns on me but again we’re trying to get back to that homeostasis that the Adaptive Behavior initially provided us right absolutely so um professionally man it’s been cool because Nick has also worked for Peaks yeah he was our residential director he was a what is now called the client care Aid house manager um it was our residential director um has moved on to kind of bigger and better things but maybe let’s just talk a little bit about like what you’re doing professionally for people in the community I know you work for a place up the road about 20 minutes north of us I think we do some cross referring and things like that which is amazing but talk to me a little bit about being a professional and how your
I think your authentic approach to recovery today is able to meet people where they’re at and maybe differently than how we used to do it in the past yeah you’re able to see maybe clients settle right better as a result of that yeah absolutely you know I think so I started working in the field right after graduating out of alumni right and I had the only experience I had in my toolbox at this point was AA and you’re gonna do this the style right Hammer baby yeah absolutely and it works just for a minute um for some people yeah right and so I went in there and I was that same person and I was like this is what we’re doing you got to do it this way and you have to do these things and you have to pray and you have to XYZ right um and slowly over time I’ve been able to build this more trauma informed approach right of taking into account the whole person and like why they’re doing these things and so I worked there for a while I’ve done so many different things I’ve had such a beautiful opportunity in my life to try out so many different areas and treatment um I’ve done Admissions and marketing I’ve done direct client care with like house managing and client Care Advocates and uh texts right and I’ve done um non-profit yeah I’ve worked at a non-profit where I worked with a homeless youth population in a different way in a harm reduction approach way right which it’s called the place it’s in Colorado Springs they’re beautiful wonderful amazing organization um and there I learned that recovery and what it means to be in recovery doesn’t always need to look like full abstinence for someone right because not everybody is going to be able or willing or even love that in their life right and so how do you make your life measurably better and be what you want it to be and I think that was so eye-opening for me and I really am so grateful to have that opportunity to have worked there and and see that in a different way um that’s really cool because what they essentially do we do it similarly now but maybe a bit different is we have someone come in in the front end and Define a quality life score right and the goal is by the time you come in with a zero quality of life we just want you to get up to like a seven yeah or an eight and that quality of life might be worth living right so I love that approach and the way that you approach that yeah especially and it was far far before my time of seeing it that clearly oh yeah absolutely you know I think it’s it all comes from these experiences right in this like open willingness to like look at life in a different way that I really learned through all of the treatment I went to right um how long were you at the non-profit I worked there for about two and a half years okay there and I did um case management through their housing program for a while and then I did some data stuff on the back end as well there um but my real passion as addiction treatment really you know and it um it was great and I love it and I would go back probably actually but um addiction treatment really gives me the need right like and I just feel like I’m in my own when I’m in there and talking about it you know you don’t have to think about it much right it’s your experience yeah absolutely and I can sit in a group of people and get people who are so opposed to doing group therapy to be at the end of group like I really appreciate you that was great I really learned a lot and this this and this yeah and I think it really comes from this authentic approach and just really meeting people where they’re at right um I think that a lot of times we have these Notions of what things have to look like in order for it to be okay but we’re successful or whatever yeah to be successful to be masculine to be feminine to be a person to be an American right and I think when we really look at it like who made those rules who decides that that’s what it is yeah you know yeah it really goes back to that is like instead of people coming in you know maybe nine years ago and trying to change who they are it’s really showing them that they’re as I said on the front end valuable and perfect just how they came into this world right and there’s been something and I’ll go back to the quote it’s the unalignment of the true genuine authentic self right is the trauma and the healing is the realignment yeah so when folks when we can find folks coming back into their um their real self and align with that it’s inspiring not only for me but the person that’s walking through it absolutely and I think that really is the thing is how do you live your most authentic self and what is your identity right and I I struggled with that question for such a long time and I I even we were talking about it earlier right and uh recovery my whole identity was being a sober person right and that was all I tried to be but I’m really missing huge parts of my life right like I’m a college student I’m an artist I’m a son I’m a friend I’m a brother right I’m a significant other whatever the case is into to Define myself so solely in one aspect of my life made me cut off other parts of me right and then I’m still spinning anxiety and I’m still doing all of these things because it was the same thing I tried to do when I was using drugs my whole identity became a drug addict right yeah and even in the identification the identity that rolls along with it like you said it’s so hard to get up and up and off of that right uh I had this really cool opportunity um last week in group um to check in in women’s group on Thursday and um this female checked in with me she’s like I don’t know what it is right now but I’m getting um it’s a good feeling of having you in group I’ve just been to a lot of treatment programs that you can tell they really don’t care and the way that she introduced herself she said my name’s so-and-so now she said I’m an addict and my name is so and so and by the end of the group we’re able to Circle back around and say that like you’re so many more things than that yeah having just sat with you an hour I can see your kind compassionate beautiful caring insightful and you’re not a good mother you’re a great mother because good Mothers stay out there and it’s that beautiful thing I love that we get to kind of share this energy together Nick because we used to share the more intense energy yeah people come to me sometimes they’re like how could you be Mr not just Mr 12 step but Mr intensity and recovery and shift over to this side don’t you feel like a fraud and I say absolutely not it was the book that I had to read at the time I will stop at nothing to let people know that like they matter right mental health matters right and we can really do this together in a really powerful way yeah absolutely and I actually would say to you that you’ve always been that way in my eyes right because it was intense and it was in your face but it was always that I mattered and that I was valuable and I was important regardless of the style of treatment that we went through right and I think that something I was actually talking to recently with my Clinical Director about some different things we’re trying to work on is our toolbox right and we have this toolbox and eventually when we run out of tools right we start to just be like well I can’t do it what am I going to do yeah yeah and I think that that really reminds me of the style of this like in your face treatment right it’s the only thing that we have in our toolbox is a change in behavior and it really life has evolved so much from this yeah and that is part of it right like we need to change behavior and we need to be able to do those things but how do we do that and why we do that is different though yeah yeah it’s really really cool now it’s such a fresh perspective and as we talked about on the front end of the show it’s just the people that we get to serve the ability for young people mature adults you name it to come into the presence of a stranger and receive information today from a compassionate approach is so much more directed I mean the ability for people just to settle and get safe is so cool when you meet them where they’re at yeah you know instead of a place that they have bad yeah 100 and I think even meeting people where they’re at has changed so differently right because in my mind when I used to think of that I was like okay I’m meeting you where you’re at as a new person in treatment or in whatever meeting or thing we’re in right but in reality when I think of meeting someone where they’re at it’s more than that it’s more than I’m just here with you now it’s way how can you get the information I’m providing you how have the traumatic events in your life dictated how you show up in this moment right now right it’s almost how friezma Jason always defines empathy is like instead of defining the shitty hole you’re in you get down in the hole and explore it with them yeah yeah absolutely Jason always sound like dude that’s it’s beautiful yeah I want to end with this you have a name on your arm yeah I want to talk about that for a second yeah um Ryan was a your best friend he was absolutely and it was so we went to Parker Valley help him out there um and then we were both coming to Peaks and so we went to sober living together until the house opened uh through treatment we were in the same groups every day we actually worked at the same restaurant together whatever we’re in treatment yeah Jimmy John’s um which was the first job I actually ever had so really all people over there and I always tell people like you want to get a job at Fascination yeah and you’re like I don’t want that I’m like Nick come on man not right now and you’re like and you ended up getting a Java Jimmy John yeah and then I got the Java Jimmy John yeah absolutely and got other people jobs at Jimmy John’s yeah absolutely and so we were so close we were together all of the time and he ended up relapsing um and passing away on Thanksgiving actually of 20 what was in the play 15 oh my gosh I can’t believe it’s been so long since then um and that was really the first death that I experienced in a different way right like I the unfortunate part of working in treatment is there is people that pass around you and it’s really difficult um but I was so close to this person in a different way and to lose him and especially this person who I really thought of as like doing everything they could for their sobriety right they were in the rooms they were doing the things they were showing up from my perspective um and to lose that person was so impactful for me in a different way and I really think that opened my eyes up to recovery and what it really means because I always thought it was you had to do XYZ you had to check the boxes to be in recovery and you would be okay if you did that but that’s not always the case and like yeah it’s so person-centered about what’s going on with them yeah bring his name up there’s just nobody who fought for recovery whatever it was if we had a lapse or something happen you know he he’d be in there fighting again he was really good at the rebound I don’t know that anybody wanted it as bad as he did right but it’s not necessarily about that and I I bring that up today that I just think he would have thrived with this type of model right you know and he would have moved into it but now we get to share his name and carry on his energy yeah um in a really really cool recovery fashion with each and every person that we get to sit with but that was the first death I’d experienced on the peak side yeah since we’ve been out here so it was really really impactful for all of us right and scary and it really shakes the foundation of the early recovery stages of which you’ve built on top of that um but I tend to believe that like you’re living you know with that tattoo there in his memory and doing it in such a tremendous way man I bet he’s just looking down being like yeah my guy right there absolutely absolutely and that’s really what it is is I try to keep those memories in mind right of like this is why I do this yeah this is why I show up every day and I handle that and I am the person I am today it’s beautiful man because if we if we really zoom out we got to spend a year with somebody and maybe the best part of his life yeah absolutely you got to watch someone come in and that’s why I’m so gifted I people are always like hey oh you do that for work I’m like are you kidding me I get to watch people come in Hopeless and experience hope it’s not tremendous oh my God yeah yeah absolutely I feel the same way yeah so um I’m grateful for the time that we got to spend because it was really great quality time absolutely I was I mean it’s an experience I’ll probably never hopefully never have again right of this so close so vulnerable so honest talking about these things going through this difficult experience together and really being able to bond in a different way um and I would never change that for the world right I have I’ll tell stories about what it was like for me in treatment and people are like wow but you stayed there what I could have never done that and I would never change that experience for the world right because I gained so much from it I was able to get through it and I was able to do it and I loved being there honestly like there are times in my life where I’m like God what it would be right to just be back up here it’s chill I’m just taking me to my appointment yeah yeah let me hop in the van we’ll go to the grocery store yeah we’re the signs it doesn’t matter we were talking about that the other day holy smoke yeah oh man it’s been just absolute pleasure having you on the on the show Nick and I’m just Overjoyed not only with your recovery but the impact that you’re making in the community I years ago when I got into recovery and I knew that God had put me on this Earth to help other people find recovery I thought to myself if I could help one person and you’ve helped hundreds so thank you thank you absolutely really really appreciate it me too well all right everybody that is it for another amazing episode of Finding Peaks make sure you tune in to get us watched um podcast Instagram Tick Tock what else we got finding Peaks we got Apple music Spotify to say Spotify yeah um so check us out on all of those Outlets um you can also re-watch these episodes on our website peaksrecovery.com go on about the about us page and you’ll find all of those videos so until next time where we bring on great professionals and even better humans