His Mom’s Hard Boundary Drove His Recovery, with Darren Hobbs

[00:00:00] I’ve been a professional child since age two, robbing my mother for my needs and having my mom sacrifice her relationship with my father, and scared to go to the grocery store in her neighborhood because she didn’t want to run into anybody that might ask how I’m doing. My grandmother was told I was working offshore on the oil rigs, and, “
Oh, that’s so great.”
In reality, I’d been in and out of jail for five years
Welcome to Hope Stream, the podcast for parents of teens and young adults struggling with substance use and mental health. I’m Brenda Zane. I’ve walked this path with my own child’s addiction and high-risk lifestyle. Each week, we help you gain clarity, learn new skills, and most importantly, find real hope in what might feel helpless.
You’re not helpless, and you’re not alone anymore. 
[00:01:00] 
Find more resources at hopestreamcommunity.org.
Hi, friend. Well, it is September again, the seventh September of the Hope Stream podcast. And as you might know, September is recognized as National Recovery Month. You are going to get to hear four weeks of incredible recovery stories from people who have been right where your kiddo might be now and have gone on to do amazing, amazing things with their lives While I am telling you about our first recovery month guest, please slow down, close your eyes, maybe even press pause on your little podcast machine for a minute or two, and take some very, very deep breaths and exhale as deeply as possible. I need this 
[00:02:00] as much as you do. And if I know anything about you, I am almost positive that you are multitasking, listening to this podcast while doing a minimum of two other things at the same time, which means it would be a great time to close a few of the tabs in your brain and just single focus on the enlightening conversation ahead.
I tapped into Darren Hobbs for today’s episode. Darren is a nationally recognized interventionist, addiction consultant, and family recovery strategist with more than 17 years in long-term recovery and nearly two decades of experience helping families navigate addiction, mental health challenges, and high-conflict family dynamics.
Coming up, you’re going to hear Darren’s story, which starts at 14 when he was prescribed Vicodin for recovery from a surgery, to five years later when he discovered the magic
 [00:03:00] of cocaine, and then onto 10 additional years of escalating addiction, crime, and an overall life of chaos. That Vicodin was the beginning of Darren’s finding that with substances, he could leave his skin, which felt very uncomfortable.
He could increase his social likability and confidence, and that in general, alcohol and cocaine helped him stay on top of what was a very low self-esteem. Darren’s life of crime and drugs continued until one day he found himself selling drugs to undercover agents and being laid out on the floor of the bar where he was working and selling cocaine.
You will have to listen to the entire episode to hear how Darren went from looking at a 20-year prison sentence to eventually running his own addiction consulting firm and being a cast member of A&E’s show Intervention. You will also hear, or see if you’re watching us on YouTube, the 
[00:04:00] goosebumps Darren and I both got when he told me the most miraculous story of divine intervention I have ever heard.
Ever Darren has worked across nearly every level of the behavioral health continuum as an interventionist, case manager, treatment executive, and owner/operator of an addiction treatment facility. As founder of the firm Addiction Consulting, Darren has guided hundreds of families through interventions, treatment placement, and long-term recovery planning.
His approach extends beyond getting a loved one into treatment by teaching parents how to stop enabling, establish healthy boundaries, rebuild influence with their child, and create the conditions where lasting change becomes possible. Clearly, we have a common goal. My friend, you are going to want to be fully present for this, and I know you wanna dive in, so please enjoy this incredibly insightful, hopeful, and inspiring conversation 
[00:05:00] with Darren Hobbs. Enjoy Hey, Darren. We I had to finally hit record because we’ve been talking and missed- I don’t wanna miss all the good stuff. But thanks for hanging out with me today. I really appreciate it. I know you’re a- Hey … busy guy. 
Hey, yeah, I have a lot of basketball to shoot later on today. Um- Yes, you do. I love it …  my son spends summer break in the office with me when he’s not at ed camp, so it’s gonna be a little bit to do. Yeah. But thank you for having me on. I really appreciate you allowing me to come and meet your community, so thank you. 
Well, we are, I think, very like-minded, although you’ve done some really cool stuff that I wanna talk about that I have not done. But, and I think the whole family dynamic in this situation with kids who are struggling with substances and mental health, I feel like there’s a lot of, like, judgment about, “It should be done this way, 
[00:06:00] and it should be done that way.” Mm-hmm. And I think the reality of it is, having lived through it, and you’ve lived through it, and we’re gonna get to that, is there is not one way to do it. There is the way that works for your family. That’s my belief. 
It’s, it’s gotta be nuanced. There is no one-size-fits-all. I think there are certain principles that must be followed for overall success.
There’s gotta be alignment on principle, but implementation can have a lot of nuance considering- Yes … family dynamics, and- Yeah …  there can be some, sometimes making a slight tweak with family dynamic can have an exponential effect. 
Absolutely. I mean, you’ve heard stories. I’ve heard stories. I have heard the craziest stories where it’s like, “Oh, you know, my kid got a bird, and all of a sudden wanted to, like, keep the house clean ’cause the bird was get…” Uh, and you’re 
[00:07:00] like, “What?” Right. How does this happen, right? But there are the craziest stories of how people start getting healthier. I would love to, just as a starting point with you, hear a little bit about your story. Every time I ask somebody in long-term recovery their story, I know it could be a 12-hour conversation- and its own Netflix series. However, I think it’s really helpful for people to hear your story because, as we know, our kids really, the thing that we hear a lot is, “You don’t get it, Mom. You don’t get it, Dad.” If we have not had lived experience with being beholden to a substance- Yeah … whatever that might be, we don’t get it. And so- Mm … I think for people like you who are working in the field, you hold a huge amount of credibility, and, like, you have the street cred that you have lived it. So tell us a little bit about the Darren Hobbs story. 
[00:08:00]  Well, the real story is that I am definitely a child of privilege. My mom loved me to pieces. I was her baby. I was her only child. She tried before and after me to have, for me to have siblings, and I asked for a baby brother every year, and at some point she just, she couldn’t handle it. She, four or five miscarriages.  Mm.  But my mom and I were tight. Three, four, five years old, you gotta have something to do.
She wouldn’t leave me alone. I was definitely a mama’s boy, and my dad wasn’t an evil dude by any means, but he was a stressed out business guy in the ’80s- Mm … that sold construction equipment. So when money was cheap, he’d go get as much as he could and get equipment and try to lease it and sell it and service it.
And I remember he’d come home in the afternoons and he would just watch TV with the sound off and just pick his eyebrows out of stress. Oh,  wow.  And I think that installed some of my anxiety, was like, 
[00:09:00] “Well, I better, like, play pretty quiet over here.” And that’s not me blaming my dad.  Yeah.  But I definitely enjoyed me being tight with my mom. I had good buddies in our neighborhood, but allergies and sleep were always an issue for me.  Mm. 
And at age six, to me, at the time, was pretty traumatic. We moved from Knoxville to Nashville, where I was the new kid, so I lost all my buddies. Mm.  Go to a new school, and I can only describe it as panic attacks, having to read in front of new people and having to introduce myself.
Like, I could feel myself just wanting to… I could feel myself, like, leave my skin. And I also learned, right during that move, I remember that I needed this thing, and it was the thing, the item in question was a Mr. T Gold Chain Rope set at the grocery 
[00:10:00] store, but I loved Mr. T, and I was telling my mom, like, “This would make me happy for being new.” I’m manipulating already. I’m eight, eight-six. Yes. “But Mom, I’m new. Nobody… I gotta have it.” I’m throwing a fit, and she gave in. Bingo. Like, I remember that moment. I remember that moment. And I throw a big enough fit, Mom gets tired. Mm. Here comes the proverbial gold chain. Yep. And I truly did have, I guess, retroactively I can’t diagnose myself, but I had anxiety issues.
I was very comfortable being either with my mother or chilling by myself watching TV or anything with social anything. Mm. And so if I was in a team, I felt accepted. It was me just amongst my peers and I had to… and it was just talking, I would 
[00:11:00] st- uh, uh, I didn’t have a classical stutter, but I would stammer. I would mix my words a bit-  Mm …  especially if I was impressed with somebody else around.  Yeah. 
So you kind of play that out, very competitive kid at whatever we’re playing. Somehow I got talked into swimming as a kid, and I hated it so much that I decided that I would win every race and that I would get out of the pool to show my parents how mad I was that I was winning. Wow.  Just straight up hatred, and that is nothing but pure alcoholism. You’re gonna make me wear these tiny shorts and swim backstroke? I’m gonna murder everybody, and I’m gonna get out. And just general discomfort, you know? And if there wasn’t a scoreboard to prove it, then I assumed I was just not good enough.
I did not fit in. You were taller than me. You were better than me. Your hair was cooler than me. Your toys were better than mine. Whatever. Yeah. That was my stock belief in myself, and that goes on 
[00:12:00] eighth grade year, have a horrible knee injury- And then comes an unfettered supply of Vicodin. Mm. And this is in early 1991, ’91. Mm.  And there wasn’t any data that said, “Hey, this is really addictive.” And  lucky for me- Well, for a teenager, that’s great. Just throw a bottle of pills at him. 
Yeah, and- Oh, gosh … and, and I came to find out shortly after I ran out of that first bottle very prematurely in the prescription cycle, that if I looked in the medicine cabinet, well, my dad had elbow surgery, he’s had shoulder surgery. There was a lot of those bottles.  Yeah. 
And when I would run completely out, my parents, I was right there at 14, where as a parent you’d go, “Well, is he just being a teenager- Right … today?” Well, in, in my case, I was in withdrawal, but we just didn’t know it.  Do you remember what it was like the, when you first started taking those? Did you feel an 
[00:13:00] immediate relief? Was it like, “Oh, this is the answer,” or was it sort of a gradual like, “This is pretty good”?  Well, that surgery was on the day before our last day before Christmas break. So I woke up, and I felt like a trillion dollars because I was still-  Yeah …  high as a kite on anesthesia. Yeah. 
And I was like, “Dad, can I,” you know, “Dad, can I go to school?” And he was like, “Well, sure, buddy, if you want to go, yeah, we’ll go.” And by the time pick-up was, it was a half day, all that jazz had left. Right, right. Like, the high was gone, the thrill was gone, and but I do remember taking that medicine. My Sega, I’m old, 48, my Sega was more fun.
My Pepsi tasted better. Picking up the phone to call my homeboy was easier. If there was a young lady that I was interested to call, I didn’t have to practice like 95 times, like pump 
[00:14:00] faking and finally hitting the last number. That’s right.  I got  the confidence that I never, it was exogenous confidence-  Yep good enough that I never had. And there was a magical day, I think some point in my freshman year, where I took my, my meds, and I decided I would drink one of my dad’s beers from- Oh, boy …  from Liz. And-  I know where this is going.  Yeah. And if you ever read a big book about some, that was written about 85, 90 years ago, it says, “The next day found me drinking both gin and sedative that fit.”
And from that day until I found cocaine in the spring of 1996, the only question I wanted answered was, “How do I stay in supply of these things?”  Yeah. 
And then once I found cocaine, my life became in servitude of, “Where do I get more? What does it cost? Time, emotion, 
[00:15:00] whatever.” Yeah. “That’s what I want. I gotta have that.” And-  Oof. Wow. What was going on- That, that’s what I chased 
Yeah. What was going on with your parents when you were… Because you’re smack all the way through high school, I assume- Mm-hmm … that this is going on. Did they know that you were doing this or what was going on with your family dynamic? 
I had a few highlight events where I’d black out drunk and not come home, and then my mom was one of the investigators. Yeah. We’re so good at that.  Oh, yeah.  We’re like FBI level. 
Oh, sh- yeah, pre-internet, I mean, pre-internet, doesn’t matter. Yeah. My mom would… She’d get the school directory out, three calls later- … done, you know? Yes.  Field team six. And I went to a small school where the parents liked to talk. But news was interesting at our place-  Yeah here in Nashville, and so 
[00:16:00] couple of highlight events, a few dings on the car I couldn’t quite explain. But nothing atrocious really. Hmm. Nothing really atrocious. Leave high school, go to college at the University of Tennessee. It used to be y- y- if you got your name right on the SAT, they would let you in, and now it’s actually, like, a real academic institution. There’s no way I could get in there now.  Right.  But I went, and I did the, the whole fraternity thing, and at fall break my bowling class ended, and I had a B. I don’t know how you get a B in bowling, only ’cause all you gotta do is show up. Right.  But you show up, you know, roll a ball 10:00 on Wednesdays. One hour a week, and that was the last time I went to class that semester.
And I remember trying, it was the first time I tried to tell my dad. Like, I was in a scary place in my head. I was homesick. My girlfriend went to the University of Georgia. There was nothing comfortable for me. I’d already got in trouble 
[00:17:00] with my fraternity. I knew I was about to get whacked, and I just, man, I just didn’t fit in. I knew my grades were like… My grades were up. There was no way to salvage my, my semester. And I was uncomfortable, and my solution was to drink. And once I started, like, there’s no telling- Yeah … where the story ends.  Yeah.  One, one morning I wake up and there’s just mud all over my pants except from where I knew I was to where I ended up back at my dorm, there was no available mud. So, like, how does one- Hmm.  Scary … and like, you know, I live… It’s scary, and I lived 15 years on auto- like, autopilot with, like, goodwill and grace.  Yeah. Not Will and Grace, but goodwill and grace. Yes. Like, keeping me safe, and I’m extremely lucky is all, all I know. You know, so to- 
[00:18:00] Sounds like  it …  I was trying to tell my dad, “Hey, there’s nothing good for me here. I need to come home.” And what I really wanted to say was, “I can’t stop drinking, and I’m making my life worse, and I’m scared when I wake up.” And I didn’t have those words. I couldn’t articulate that. And my dad’s 70, will be 76 soon, so his dad, World War II guy, born during World War I, so generationally, my dad’s answer was, “Hey man, you just need to work harder.” Right. “
You need to have more to do. You need to get busier.” And okay, that’s what I’ll do, and I got busier drinking more. And- Yeah … when I arrived home for Christmas, it was completely obvious to my mom and dad that something was amiss, and when my grades came, that confirmed that. And went to Cumberland 
[00:19:00] Heights, great program here in Nashville, Tennessee. Was having a pretty hard time, like, saying out loud that I’m an alcoholic and, like, really understanding what that meant because I couldn’t imagine, like, so I can’t ever drink again? Like, that’s the only relief I got.  Right.  But you’re not giving me any, like you’re not, like, Indiana Jones-ing me any solution. You’re just telling me, “Read page 417. Good luck.” Mm.  Luckily for me, well, everything that happened on my journey has ultimately led to this conversation today, so it was- Yeah … perfect. Right.  Yeah.  But my dad didn’t think it was convenient to come to family week, so they yanked me out of treatment. I didn’t even have a patch.
I didn’t, wasn’t even doing AMA, I just got told I was paying myself. So they bring me home. My brother was responsible, so they put me with my brother and said, “Hey, good luck. Take care of the, the bomb.” 
[00:20:00] And his patience at some point ran out. And struggle over struggle, I would get a new opportunity to go to college. I would get a new apartment and maybe get… They’d help me get a car. I would screw all of it up, and then I’d go to rehab, and then same thing. And so car wreck, finally go to real good treatment. I went to Hazelden, and I loved it. I fell in love with recovery. Mm. I did a fifth step. It meant something to me, and I was like, “Hey, this, like this recovery’s cool.”
And then I went to aftercare out in Phoenix, and I stayed with it and I loved it. And then I did what we do. My mom was ready for me to come home and live at home. My dad was ready for me to stay there until I had my stuff together.
Hey, friend. If you’ve ever finished an episode of Hope Stream and thought, “Hmm, but what do I actually do when they come home tonight?” That is what the Stream was built 
[00:21:00] for. The Stream is a private online membership for moms who are navigating all the same difficult things you are. Like those nights when your kiddo comes home at 2:00 AM and you don’t know what to do, and things are escalating. It’s where knowing about things like CRAFT and the Invitation to Change become real and you start actually using it. And right now, you can try it free for two weeks. No credit card required and no long-term commitment. There’s nothing to cancel if you decide it isn’t for you. What you will have is full access to our special community and the women who have been or are in your exact kitchen situation.
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[00:22:00] in the way that feels best for you. Go to hopestreamcommunity.org/try to get that free two-week offer, and I will see you inside. Okay, let’s get back to the show
And so I played my wedge. Well, I’ll come home if I can have an apartment and a car. And professional me now, I help families avoid that mistake. Yeah. Honestly, my dad would’ve been one of the best interventionists of all time. The CEO is my mom, and my dad was the COO.  Right, right.  But I knew, I installed the program.
If I went to Mom long enough, good enough, strong enough, she’d finally say, she’d finally give him enough where he’d say fine. Yeah.  Right.  Right. 
Wasn’t it you that told me that I was talking about they know how to push all of our buttons, and you… I think it was you that said, “Oh, no, we installed the buttons in you.” Oh, yeah, yeah. We install them. Yeah.  We install them and reinforce them. 
[00:23:00] Yeah. Yeah. So, and then we wonder like, “Hmm, this is so interesting. How does he know how, or she, how do they know where all of my buttons are?” I thought that was so fascinating. Mm-hmm. So how old were you at this point then? When you went to Hazelden, then you moved back because you got what you wanted, the car and the apartment. And then I actually- How old were you at this point? I actually behaved. I was 20. It was 2000, so I was 21, 22. Okay. 21, 22. And then I worked, like, I did the real deal. Like, I paid my parents rent to live in their home. I worked doubles working at a nice restaurant six days a week, saved my money, and went to college, like, 100 miles away, and I was gonna make a real deal.
Like, there’s a lot, I had a lot of shame around being 21, 22 and having very little college success while most of my friends are, you know- Mm … starting to intern and go take jobs and, and move forward. But I figured this was a 
[00:24:00] small enough place, and it was kind of anonymous, and it was close enough if I needed support, but also far enough away if I got to doing drugs again And, um, yeah.
And then I had this wonderful thing happen where a friend of a friend was into bookmaking and offered me, “Oh, well, you could… D- how many kids they got in that college? Do you think… Do you wanna book some ball games?” And I was like, “Sure.” And so at the end of the year, I had a lump sum, and I wondered, “Well, what should I do with this cash?”
And I thought, “I should go back to my guy and bring back cocaine.” And so that’s what I did. I mean, it was obvious. This is where every parent’s, every parent’s heart that’s listening to this is just like, “No.” Like, yeah, like, “No, don’t, don’t do that.” The sabotage. The sabotage. “Don’t  do that.” But I believed it. I was like, “I could be the sober cocaine dealer in this small town, and it would be great. “Of course you could. And 
[00:25:00] so I called the same number that I could still dial it right now. I still know it. I know four phone numbers, and my old drug dealer’s is one of them.  Is one of them. Of course. Yeah. 
I was like, “Hey, man, what’s happening?” He’s like, he’s like, “Hey, welcome back.” I said, “Hey, I’m gonna come the whole way, okay?” He said, “All right.” And me coming the whole way meant certain amount. And I got my package, and I’m backing out of the driveway, and right as I’m, like, I’m looking at my, in my mirror- I put it back in park, and then I began to open the package Now I’m not the silver cocaine dealer. Mm-mm. 
Now I’m on what became a two-year run of daily use, and I had some criminal charges in there that interrupted that a little bit, and then ultimately those criminal charges ran me back to Nashville. My parents … I 
[00:26:00] wrecked cars and told lies, stole money, done the whole thing, and so my parents didn’t know what else to do with me besides, and I would, again, I wouldn’t advise this, but my mom talked my dad into bringing me home so they could at least watch me.
Like, let’s just- To watch you self-destruct. So they could, yeah, either watch me self-destruct or, like, I don’t know, somehow, like, monitor the whole thing. But somehow I was able to … Of course, my mom, my mom was in the wedding mafia, so there’s, she hooked me up with a … I got a job working for a friend of hers, and then their flowers, boutique flowers, like, for weddings, like, like, really expensive.
And I asked one of the guys in there, and I had bartended a lot while I was in Cookeville, and I always thought, like, I had this idea, like, this girl I worked with, she always made more money than I did because a- all of the men went to her end of the bar. And the men were usually trying to impress the women, 
[00:27:00] so they would buy, be buying the women drinks. Right. So I was like, “Well, how can I make this math work for me?” And so I asked my man Kenny, I said, “Kenny, where do you go drinking every day?” And he told me, and I was like, “You mind taking me in there and see if I can get a job?” And so I went to the main men’s bar in downtown Nashville called Tribe, and stroke of luck or bad luck, they had their token straight dude was leaving for a job in Chicago, and I started immediately.
And so the worst thing that could happen to me, bankroll and access. Yes. Like, that’s … So I self-destruct. I had just met a really nice girl at that point. She didn’t understand how … She thought I was just a little bit crazy and funny. Yeah. But I talked her into marrying me. Like, I came out of a blackout at the Nashville Zoo, and I’m telling the guy who introduced us that we’re getting married, 
[00:28:00] and would he like to attend? Wow. They… Yeah. Yeah. It’s shocking how even in the midst of this, like, heavy use and addiction and dysfunction, that there is still function going on. That’s, I think, something that’s very confusing, confusing to parents. But I would love to just rewind. I just have to go back to this moment where you’ve been to treatment, you’ve been in pretty solid recovery, you’re getting support, and then you decide, “I am going to be a cocaine dealer.” Like A sober one, but a sober one A sober one. But is that… Are you… I’m just so curious because we see this all the time with our kids, like this period of self-sabotage where it’s like, do you know that this is a bad idea and you’re just not listening to that little voice? Or are you genuinely thinking, “I can do 
[00:29:00] this. This makes a ton of sense”? I’ve sold myself a lot of bad ideas historically, and that one was probably one of the worst. But that was like, I just looked at it like, “I’ve got this cash sitting here I’ve been working in the bar sober. I’ve been working in this bar and I’ve been hearing prices and I’m like, man, y’all are, you guys are getting whacked. 
Yeah.  And I did some quick conversion math. I’m like, so I’ll drive an hour that way and an hour this way That just made sense It made sense And it made sense. And so for parents, for context, I went to treatment, went to aftercare, worked steps, meetings, sponsor, did the work. Yeah, you were like- And then I moved- … gold star recovery kid, 
[00:30:00] right?  Yeah. Rookie of the Year, right? Yeah. Right up, I got– I went and picked up that year chip when I was in this small college town, and I realized, “Hmm, this is the first time I’ve been to this meeting. This feels weird to pick up a chip at a meeting where I don’t know anybody Because I hadn’t been programming Right You know, my big book hadn’t been opened. Had dust on it. So, right. So I had done– The reason that my life had improved, I was enjoying my life, was because I was involved in my program, and I was connected to my guys, enjoying seeing their lives come up.
If we had a problem, then we all kind of rapped about it, and we rallied around each other. And then I go do this thing where now I can hide. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  That’s– I wanted to ask about that because it’s so common to see that,
[00:31:00] the up and down, and those decisions that from the outside looking at somebody making that decision, you just can’t even wrap your head around, like, how could that possibly look like a good idea?
Yeah. And so I just wanted to get a little bit of your insight on that to help parents understand when they see their kids making some of these whacked decisions, what might be going on up there. 
I can say for me, and this may be a b- if you paint me as an avatar At, at this point, I’m an untraditional college student, really.
My classmates were much younger. I didn’t fit the metric with my true peers. Mm-hmm. 
And so to me, attention bartending, like, it had a place, like- Yeah … that was needed. It was like breath. I got to be needed. I got to be wanted. Like, I was invited to interact 
[00:32:00] with you. My self-belief set was I’m lower than dog crap on somebody’s shoe.
I don’t know why anybody would talk to me. That was my own view of myself. So that view of myself was represented by its exact opposite. I’m a lion tamer, circus ringmaster. 
Right. Right. I think I made up the art of selling drugs, and, you know, egomaniac inferiority complex. I’m not the tallest guy, so, like, you get the picture.
I was just a miserable guy. It’s funny, the, the relief that I found when I finally made it to recovery was better than what I… the relief I was looking for in every bag of blow. Mm. And I remember thinking- Say that again. Will you please say that again? That’s so powerful. When I finally got to recovery, the relief that I found there and 
[00:33:00] feeling the belonging that I found there- I realized that was what I had been looking for. Mm. That’s what I’d always wanted. Yeah. Yep.  My learning curve is my learning curve. I wish I could have cut some pain out of it for my parents, but I’m so grateful for it now. Yeah. Because when I realized like, oh my God, this is what they’re talking about. This is it. 
This is it. Like, I thought that 12-step community that I was belonging to was old, miserable white dudes at a crappy table, cigarette butts everywhere, one light bulb, crappy coffee ’cause their wives wouldn’t let them go home And when I arrived with fresh eyes in the really second true attempt to get sober, this is after I’d got- talked that sweet girl into marrying me, I saw, like, happy people, and they were high-fiving and hugging, and they’d 
[00:34:00] go in the room. It’s like they just won the Super Bowl. Mm-hmm. And it’s just Saturday. It’s just Saturday, 9:00. It’s for a book study. I thought, what my preconceived notion was, bunch of dirty old weirdos hanging out under the bridge, walking into a church, and what I found were people that I really admired and seemed to be happy and joyful, and judging by the cars, they didn’t do too poorly for themselves.
Right. I was one of the very few people who didn’t drive themselves there. And it was just, it was the coolest, and I was like, “Man, this is, like, this is it,” but, like- Wow … I’m home. Yeah. What, what was your tipping- And I still screwed it, I still screwed it up from there. And that’s why I, like, I tell parents all the time, like, “Relapse doesn’t mean you lose the knowledge or that you lose the total.”
It might just mean a pause in the growth. But muscle memory counts. Yeah. Because the relationships that I was able to 
[00:35:00] make during that run of sobriety there is ultimately why I’m in your own phone. There’s so many things I want to get into, but what was your final tipping point? Like, what got you into that room for the last time?
The final tipping point was April 29th, 2010. I was running a bar and selling a lot of drugs, and these nice couple, this nice couple that said they were from St. Louis, had a Coke and a cigar. Right as I opened, they came in, and some other people came in, and I made a few legal sales and a few illegal sales, and I made an illegal sale down the stairwell on Broadway.
If you’ve ever been to Nashville, you know- Mm-hmm … Broadway is a… We were right across the street from Tootsies at what is now AJ’s Good Times Bar. So I go down the stairs to be off camera because this guy wasn’t friend. The owners didn’t like this guy, so I had to go down the stairs to 
[00:36:00] be off camera to do business with him. And as I come back up, I hear these people say, “Metro detectives, put your hands in the air.” And I look around like, “Who’s getting arrested in here?” And I got tackled. It was me. Oh, you. You know? Oh, it’s me. Oh, it’s me. For the drugs that I’ve been selling to people. Mm. The poison I’ve been selling to people.
Mm. Oh. And I get kind of tackled and dumped on my back, and then this third face comes over, and he looks real familiar, and he goes, “We’ve been listening to you. We’ve been watching you.” And sure enough, I recognize this guy. He’d been… I worked five nights a week. He’d been there all, all 15 nights that I worked in the previous three weeks. Mm. And then I started thinking, “Well, they haven’t been listening to my phone, because they would’ve waited two or three more hours, and I’d still be sitting 
[00:37:00] in federal prison.” Wow. So that, again- It’s a God thing … a God thing. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So, well, like I said, we could do another 12 hours on that story. But I always like to just… I think it’s so important for parents to hear what’s going on in the mind of somebody, because we don’t understand it often if we haven’t been through it. So how do you go from you’re tackled on the floor of the bar where you’ve been dealing drugs to now you are on the show Intervention on A&E?
Like- How does… I just, I’m- That’s- I know that’s probably another- Natural sh- natural… So that’s multi-generary, you know? Yeah. And I know- Um- … that wasn’t overnight, but something obviously changed. Something changed. The thing that changed for me, and again, going back to having a, I can’t say loving, I had a very beneficial relationship with my 
[00:38:00] mother. Certainly I cared about her, but I was also willing to rob her. Yeah, yeah. You know? I was also willing to lie and cheat her. Yeah. I’d put her through the ringer for years, and I’m probably a week or two deep. I mean, I was probably a week deep in this after those, the cops got me. My bond was sky-high. My parents, they were together on this. They weren’t, they weren’t budging, and I was blowing their phone up and, like a terrorist, every four seconds. 
Yeah. And finally my mom answers and she says, “Hey, I’ll always love you for being my son.” And I don’t like you. I don’t wanna know you. You’re dead to me, and that’s it. Don’t call me here anymore. Mm. Done. And the 20 years I was looking at- That, hearing that from my mom, that was what 
[00:39:00] made me go, “Okay.” ‘Cause like before I heard that, I’m still delusional enough thinking, “Man, everybody’s so sad that I got put in jail. We’re gonna have a party when I get out.” Yeah. Like, it’s gonna be like Goodfellas. 
Yeah.  And then I hear that from the person that loved me the most and had done everything for me And it was like shot through the heart in close camera TV.
Here I am, 32 years old, I’ve been a professional child since age two, robbing my mother for my needs and having my mom sacrifice her relationship with my father. Mm-hmm. And scared to go to the grocery store in our neighborhood ’cause she didn’t wanna run into anybody- 
Yep … that might ask how I’m doing. My grandma, she actually lived right back here behind my office. My grandmother was told I was working offshore on the oil rigs, and she go, “Oh, 
[00:40:00] that’s so great.” In reality, I’d been in and out of jail for five years, and here I sit looking at 20 more. And to hear that from my mother That was it. I had a little bit of delusion left, and maybe a day or two later I asked one of the guards, like, “Hey, man,” like, “where’s all my mail?
What? I’m not getting any mail. Y’all holding all of my mail or something?” He looked at me, he goes Nobody even knows who you are, man. And then I realized He’s right. Nobody, nobody cares. Mm. I’ve, my bridges are burnt. Yeah.  And so from the front of that pod to the back of that pod, and this is where, like, lightning from above hit me.
From the front of that, from where that guy told me that, God bless him, to walking back, my bunk is at the far back in the right corner, and there’s a window, you can watch the planes take off from 
[00:41:00] DNA. And I thought, “Okay, we gotta keep it cool.” We had 100 feet to walk. No tears, but it was tough, and I was gonna make it to my bed, I was gonna act like I was praying. And accepted practice, you could put your shirt up for privacy while you pray. And so I did that, and I cried every tear out of my eyes that I probably should’ve been crying for years. And I just grieved. Started to grieve the fact that I’d been given every chance and every opportunity to have a gorgeous life and a fun, beautiful…
Every opportunity a kid could have, every connection a kid could have, and I’d absolutely just thrown in the trash. Mm. Instead of doing the work, I chose low-laying fruit and the easy way out every time. Yeah.  And I said a version of what I think is kinda like the third step prayer. I said, “God…” And the first prayer I’d ever said, Brenda, it, it wasn’t a deal.Like, “Hey, 
[00:42:00] if you do this, I’ll-” A negotiation, yes. Right. Yeah. “Hey, if you do this, I’ll do this, or I’ll make sure I don’t do this again.” I said, “God, I know you can’t change the noise. I know you can’t change the walls. I know you can’t change these dominoes that get slammed all night. I know you can’t change how long I might be here, but please come into my life and change me so I’m not the same sorry SOB as, as I am now.”
Whenever they let me out. And from that moment until today, the number of miracles that have happened that I do not deserve, grace that has been given me, it’s only from above. Yeah. Amazing. 
Yeah. So shortly thereafter, like the highlight timeline, this whole time I’d figured if there was one guy who cared, that it would be a former… The last time I’d gone to treatment, it would’ve been my former guide at this place, spiritual men’s retreat right outside of Nashville, and I just couldn’t remember his phone number, 
[00:43:00] and you need a phone number to be able to book ’em for a visit. And so a couple of days after I have my tearful confession and cry-a-thon in jail, this guy gets his number called and he’s going home, and he says, “Hey, who wants this, who wants this blue book?” And throws a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Mm-hmm. 
And I ran over there, I ran over there and grabbed it, and it gives me chills every time. Can’t see him, but the- You can’t see ’cause of the tattoos, but Can’t see him, but so I open this book, hardcover, one page over right here, Larkin L., 615, bang bang bang, bang bang, bang bang. That was the guy’s number that I needed for the visit. 
Stop it That’s not m- like the n- the- Okay, you can see the goosebumps on my arms. For real. If you’re watching on YouTube, you gotta watch this on YouTube ’cause you gotta, 
[00:44:00] you gotta see it. And so, and so, like, oh my gosh, for real, that just happened. And then a couple days later, I get a letter from him. He had somehow found out, and he wanted to come visit me. And in the letter, “Hey man, I put money on the phone, call me.” And I could, ’cause I had his number. So I called him and I was like, “Hey man, will you sponsor me?” He, he, I said, “I won’t just sponsor you. I’ll promise you that if you do five or if you do a nickel or if you do 20, you’re gonna have friends, you’re gonna have fellowship, and you’re gonna have a community.”
Mm. And we don’t have to wait until your sentence to do that. And we started working the steps. And I experienced some relief- Mm … just knowing I had, like, I mean, if nothing else, I would, I’ll have a friend. Right. That, that cared. And I had one other buddy get in contact with me after 
[00:45:00] that, who actually recently sent me some letters that we sent back and forth. I was still pretty delusional even sober, but I remember at one point in one of those letters that we read, I read, I wrote it in May, so I was arrested in April, but at some point in May, delusional, drug addict, I think I’m spending 20 years in prison or up to, I said, “When I get out, I’m gonna try to help people.”
And I think I’d said that a few, like, cocaine-driven nights, like, when the sun came up, like, “Oh, I think I’m tired of this. Hmm, I’m gonna help other people. Figure out a way out of doing this.” But from that day, from starting to work steps with Larkin and he, my attorney is a childhood buddy of mine. He’s like, “Hey, you gotta fire me.
This DA wants you hammered. This DA says if you don’t take this 12, he’s gonna make sure you get 20 at trial.” Oh, man. 
And so I had to sit through, it’s perfect. I mean, I hated it then, but it’s perfect ’cause I need, every bit of delusion that I had that I, like, it’s gonna work out for 
[00:46:00] me ’cause it always does. Like, I’m gonna s- reel through. Had to sit for four months while it went through the grand jury, and every day I had to… Were they gonna put more charges on me? Did they get more stuff on me? What about that time I traded drugs for guns for those four Campbell boys or whatever. I mean, every possible thing I could remember.
It was just another ghost coming from me. And then we get through the grand jury process and lo and behold, this DA that was gonna try to whack me has been replaced by a more reasonable DA, and I’d beaten the school zone proximity deal. So my charges went from pretty much like a murder charge to a reasonable drug charge. And not to excuse me, I was selling people poison and I was okay with that. Yeah. 
My rationale was they’re gonna buy it from somebody, and they may as well be me. And I got off easy, but the offers start coming where you, you get three kind of offer 
[00:47:00] days. And I told my lawyer, I said, “Joey, you give them as much, as much on the back end as they want, as they’ll take. Just get me another shot at life. I’ll do all the paper, all the parole, ’cause if I use drugs again, I don’t wanna be alive.” 
Yeah.  And he was like, “Dude, that’s terrible legal advice for me to be able to give you. You sure you understand what you’re saying?” And I said, “Yeah.” And so he… We had to come back one more time, but I got a 12-year sentence with one year to serve with the caveat, one, one violation, you start at zero- Mm and you do it back through completion. Wow. And so I had the gift, I had the gift of accountability. 
Yeah.  And also the gift of desperation. I’d never had to be responsible for a nickel in my life. Now I get out of jail and my lawyer had been kind enough to leave me with the last $1,000 that I had. He let me keep it and run a tab with him. And 
[00:48:00] so me knowing myself, I defensively gave all but grocery money to the sober living that I went to, and because I didn’t wanna spend it. Yeah. I didn’t wanna g- like the dopamine rush and, you know. You don’t wanna have another good business idea and then… Yeah. Or just, I mean, buy too many chips or whatever. Yeah, yeah. 
So I give the guy my money and like literally two hours later there’s lines of drugs on the dresser and I raise my hand and say, “Hey, dude offered me drugs. He’s gotta go,” or whatever y’all do. H- However you do. I’m not going back to jail. And so I don’t know what they did with him, but they moved me. They moved me to another property. Mm. And I get over there and there’s guys nodding out- Oh, geez … 
and holes in the furniture. So I told them, and this is the same company, so I tell them, “Hey, you guys are going through it.” So they told me I could leave. And I was like, “Great. Give me my bread and we’re good.” And they told me that was ad- administrative fees. And I’m talking about like, we’re talking like four nights. I paid them 
[00:49:00] for like two months. And so I had to ask for help. I had to ask my friends for help instead of like, I no longer could lay it in my parents’ lap. So I got to ask my buddy, Jason, “Hey, man, can you come get me?
This is what’s happened.” And we worked it out. He let me stay for a couple days and I got back into a halfway house, and I had to try out for this halfway house. It was not a cool one. It was turn- I mean, they had … There might be bugs in the fridge. AC might work, might not. Oh, boy. But, but again, the whole thing’s led by the man upstairs.
I’m now 100 yards away from this mixed-use development that my sponsor’s wife’s family owns, and they need a handyman. I’m not very handy at all. I stop at light bulbs. But they needed a laborer, somebody to take the trash out. Great. 
Great. So I got a two-minute walk to work. I got a job, 
[00:50:00] and I’ve never been so grateful in my life. Like, this, I mean, life can’t get better.  Yeah.  And then out of nowhere, I was laid back. Friday night, I’m, I’m hearing gunshots go off and I’m … Friday night, 10:00, my phone rings. My Cricket, convict credit Cricket special rings, and it’s my mother’s phone number And before I can even hit the green button and say anything, I’m crying “
Hello, Mama?”
She didn’t say anything. And I was like, “Oh, she m- my dad must have given her the number and she just, like, didn’t mean to call.” And then she said, “Hi, honey Maybe me and Stephie. Stephie was my best friend who took- started taking care of my mom while, while I was gone. “Maybe me and Stephie can 
[00:51:00] come and we can go to lunch sometime.” “Yeah, I’d love to. Whatever you wanna do. You just tell me what day. I’ll ask my boss. I, I’ll get off work. You just tell me what works.” She said, “Okay, honey. Be sweet. I’ll see you soon.” Oh my gosh. And so that, that was like, I was not invited to Mother’s Day for a good reason. My dad had engineered for my sister-in-law, who I’m really tight with, and my nieces and my nephew to me at some point, and my nephew’s like the baby brother I always wanted.
And he ran over to me and he said, “I’m not supposed to love you anymore, Roon, but I do. But don’t worry, I still do.” And so to hear that, man, like gosh, “I’m not supposed to love you, but I do.” And then now my mom is saying, “Hey, will you come to lunch? We can go to lunch.” And it’s like, man, how I don’t deserve the grace I’ve been given.
I did so, so much wrong for so long. Like, what would I do to someone who harmed my family the 
[00:52:00] way I harmed my family? Mm. Yeah. And that’s a question I use in interventions a lot. Yeah. But I’ve just been so fortunate that my family has allowed me back in their lives, and everything that’s good in my life today comes from recovery, and that hard boundary that my mom had to draw and dunk with two hands was because she had never had any with me before. Right. 
So I hate to see it when parents have to do that. It’s not comfortable. But that’s what it took to get my attention. And had she said it any other way… ‘Cause they tried to, to pat me on the butt while I was in jail. They were sending me $100 a week for honey buns several times in jail. Mm-hmm. That’s not how dudes like me learn.
Now, had they been aware and had, like, a guided, principled thing to follow My mom probably would’ve been coachable, but- Mm-hmm … she probably would’ve taken some artistic license 
[00:53:00] with it. Yes. You know? As many do. As, you know. As we do. You don’t know my son like I do. Right. But I think she could have found some relief had, had there been
There was a lot of stigma back then about, around Al-Anon, and Al-Anon was really the only thing around Nashville that was known. But th- I think there’s a lot more now that’s out and available, and I’m, one of the things that, that I love is seeing just how many different groups there are. As, just as, like, an advocate in general, I kinda see, like, it’s kinda like the Presbyterians, Baptists, Church of Christ.
Like, we’re, like, we gotta fight about something. Right. Yeah. But we, we all love the same thing. Yeah. We just wanna see people suffer less. But it’s cool to be, I’m coming in, kinda into, like, the advocacy space around awareness, and, like, the teen THC stuff really got me going, and the abuse that I received from adults who couldn’t 
[00:54:00] separate the message that high-concentrated synthesized THC products are permanently altering children’s lives. Yeah. I’m not attacking your sacred m- medicine, your sacred plant. Do, do what you do, man. Yeah. Don’t care. I’m just saying let’s, hey, parents, be aware. This stuff’s out there. And, like, true vitriol, real threats. I got Facebook pictures of … And probably dumb of me, I had filmed one of these videos in front of my home. I got a picture of my house in a message. Oh, gosh.  Dude, like, that was, that was a little freaky, but I’m here for it. Like- 
Yeah. Well, your feet are in the fire with families every day, and one of the things that I would love to get your thoughts on is, like me, you work with families today, and you see the dynamics, and you see where young people end up. If 
[00:55:00] you had to call out, and I think you just did as far as boundaries, some of the most common, let’s call it the top two or three most common things that you see parents doing that are, let’s just say not helping their kids get healthier. And of course, this is, everybody’s doing the best that they can with the information they have.
This is not to say anybody’s intentionally- Mm … doing anything wrong. But what are some of those mistakes that you help parents get visibility to when you start working with them? Well, usually when I come in, it’s not… We’re already at crisis level. 
Yeah, yeah. So where I like to go is, “Hey, we’re…” F- so first off, you guys are a problem.
Most of the families, they haven’t had much to do with our suffering loved one, or they’ve had it entirely just enmeshed, helicopter disaster. Yeah. Because 
[00:56:00] the young person has taught that they need managed, they can’t be trusted, and then that creates an overreaction that creates a push-pull that gets worse and worse and worse.
This is where I wanna spend the rest of my career, is in, “Hey, if you don’t wanna meet somebody like Brenda Zane or me, let’s learn how to connect with our kids instead of…” Yeah. Not every moment is a teach you moment If we connect, the teaching will come because they’re gonna soak up what we, what we know and what we show.
And I think there’s a big difference. Like love and connection are two totally different things. I was doing some, some just calling old, old alumni families of mine as I just got it’s a practice of mine just to say hi, how you doing? And I had made a statement a few weeks ago, and I’ve 
[00:57:00] repeated it several times. I made a statement that I can’t remember the last time I was hired by a family, by a mom and dad who were both aligned and under the same roof.  Right. 
I can’t remember. When they were both present, both caring, and I called this, this one client family, and I was like, “Oh, you guys are the exception to the rule I’ve been talking about.”
And it’s true. Mm. Usually, people that end up calling me to hiring me are… They’re talking about being the sole caregiver or main caregiver, regardless of marital status or where they live. But most of the time, I am speaking to maternal caregivers who are single or no longer married to- Right … the young adult’s father. I left social media for a long time when I 
[00:58:00] got– started with the show because I’d gotten out of shape, and I was no longer comfortable. And- … by the time they showed our stuff on the show, I’d gotten out of shape, and my face was huge. And I didn’t want any more proof of that than necessary. But it hit me one day back in March like, “Man, you’ve always…”
Like it’s me talking to myself. “You’ve always said you wish there was somebody that could’ve cut your mom’s pain and called your BS out.” And so I just turned the camera on, and I started talking, and I said, “Hey, Mom.” Like I was really ta- I’m really talking to my mother.  Right. I know there’s like this like international like spiritual like mom club that y’all belong to. So it feels like she would have me like, “Hey, go, go tell those girls not to listen to that crap.” Right. “Don’t fall for that. Go tell the rest of these mamas the truth.” Yeah. 
I’m talking… Yeah. So it’s everything like when I get to talk to my mom group, it’s like it feels 
[00:59:00] like I get to do something good. I’ve always had a heart for me getting on a plane and going to Philly or wherever. Not everybody in the world can afford that. But I think everybody should be able to have access to the information 
And yeah, you’re doing the work that is so important because it does tend to be the moms, and I know we have a lot of dads that listen to Hope Stream, and this is by no means disrespect for dads at all. But what we see is it tends to be the moms driving the process and going to the mat, and they tend to be the gatekeepers and then distribute information through the family, whether that’s to a spouse, an ex, other siblings, other kids in the house.
They just tend to be that conduit that, which is why, at least for us, and maybe this is for you, too, we have limited 
[01:01:00] resources. We’re a nonprofit. We don’t have a billion dollars, so we have to focus somewhere. And so we feel like the focus should be on the moms because they are going to disseminate that information.
And I know that, I was gonna look this up, I was gonna look up the data, but it seems that there are disproportionately more young men who struggle with substance use than female young people. However, I think there’s also some nuances there as far as, like, eating disorders and self-harm. Do you find that, too? Do you tend to more, have more moms of young men? 
I do, and I think if you look at I’m not sure whose number, numbers we’d trust, but if you look at like big box, if you look at like Acadia and when they’ve got more beds than anybody, and got male to female ratio for primary psych and mental health and dual 
[01:02:00] diagnosis and straight up SUD, I bet it would be somewhere close to two-thirds male. Yeah. And- That’s heartbreaking … and I think part of that is because
Young ladies I think it’s easier for young men to be noticed, where young ladies do it… Y’all are smarter. Young ladies just do a better job of fitting in. We try not to be noticed.  Right. Like, we got our hair on fire. Young ladies, I think, are just a little bit more smooth. That’s just my opinion. And then when young ladies become adults, if they are sick, there’s always gonna be a guy who, no, no matter the circumstance, there’s always gonna be some man that wants to be with her. Right.  Right? So being attractive, wealthy, or 
[01:03:00] Being an attractive, wealthy, or happening to be a f- female, and either of those, you got a lot of cushion Mm-hmm People with cushion don’t learn well. They don’t have to.  Yeah. It is problematic. What we see in our community, the moms of girls, is that they suffer, I think, in silence a lot longer.
Like you said, the boys have the hair on fire or whatever. They’re very… It’s pretty obvious that something’s going on. Not always, but mostly. But the girls tend to be a little more stealth, and then it’s like, “Oh my gosh, her hair is on fire, and her feet are on fire, and her elbows are…” Like, everything is on fire once the moms figure it out.
So I think that’s just super interesting. But when you… I struggle with the word intervention, because I think it has a very bad connotation. Everybody knows that at Hope Stream we preach and teach and believe in CRAFT, and I know that you are a fan of that 
[01:04:00] approach as well. And I know there are CRAFT practitioners who would never endorse a, quote-unquote, “intervention.”
I think I would love to have you share what that looks like for you and your team. What I see, and I’ve gotten a lot of flak for sending my kid to wilderness therapy and having him transported there, woken up at 2:00 in the morning by transporters, which I consider to be an intervention. He had no choice.
Maybe that’s even worse than when they do have a choice, right? But there was no other option other than to leave him roaming the streets, wreaking havoc in his life, and even today he will say, “Mama, you saved my life. I would not be alive if you hadn’t done that when I was 16 years old.” And so this is why I, like we started with, there is no one size fits all. It’s very easy to sit in some location disconnected from a family and say, “Well, you should never do that, because 
[01:05:00] da da da da da.” And when you are living it day to day, and especially what you just said about single moms, oh, I mean, there are times where you have tried everything that you know how to do. And maybe you don’t know everything, ’cause obviously none of us know everything. Right. 
And you see the danger that your child is in, and you make a call to someone like you to say, “I need help I have exhausted, and this is where I was with my ex-husband, I have exhausted my capabilities. Maybe if I had six more months to learn all the things, I could do this on my own and motivate him to accept help, and I don’t have six months because I’m watching this person, and they’re not gonna be here in six months.
Yeah. So I think it can be a tricky topic, and I believe that there is not one way to do everything. But what does a, 
[01:06:00] quote-unquote, intervention look like in your organization? And I know there’s- So for me- … probably multiple.  Well, the guiding principles with me is, and I was taught, I was very fortunate. I got to apprentice with Earl Hightower, who is now retired as the Michael Jordan.
He was the guy. Earl believed in, like, real apprenticeship. So training with Earl, you don’t get notes, you don’t get handouts, you don’t get email. You watch, you learn, and you listen. And when I’m presenting him case problems, I am led through the thinking process instead of handed an answer. And my buddy Pej, who’s the only professional that I know in California, he also did some training with Earl. But- My thing is, if it’s, if we are aligned in 
[01:07:00] we’ve gotta be kind, we’ve gotta be curious, and we’ve gotta be compassionate, shame is not driving this thing. And I think that’s where intervention gets a bad rap. Yes. Yeah. Intervention, intervention to me can be the most kind and loving thing a family can do.
I’ve had exactly, and it was in Kansas, I think one, one absolute war, and that’s it. We’ve gone through plenty of boxes of Kleenexes, but interventions are led, like, the, if the spirit is right with the family, even when I have to ask them to speak off script, they’re gonna come the right way. We avoid… I like to use terms like instead of, “You need help,” “Man, I wish you’d accept the help you deserve.”
Mm. “What can I do to help you accept help?” We wanna cut a wide-open door to just make it easy for you to say, “Hey.” Like, that’s kinda my style, if you wanna call it motivational interviewing. 
[01:08:00] The family has gotten to say their piece. We’ve made the ask, “Will you let us help you today?” And then if he’s… Most alcoholics are gonna tell me why they can’t, even if they don’t, like, they can’t even spell calendar. Uh- But there’s a phone … “I saw a red balloon.”  Yep.  Yeah. “I saw a red balloon, I’m gonna adopt a cat. I’m gonna do this,” or whatever, and we’ve forecasted all that, and each family member’s got a reasonable response measured with love. And we go through those, and, “Hey, man, looks like these people love you to death.
Do you trust them?” “Yeah, but I just don’t know if I can go today,” or whatever that looks like. And if it breaks down, I like to try to go one-on-one with him or her, or if it’s her, when I have a female clinician with me, and just try to ask the questions like- Clearly, hey, you don’t have to have a title today, but wouldn’t a fresh start feel 
[01:09:00] better than this or where you arrived from?
I prefer intervention. I prefer the conversation to happen outside of that person’s home, just so they’re… Like, we’re all equally guests, and it leads to a lot less, like, power dynamic.  Yeah. Yeah.  Um, it’s funny where publicly, if I’ve got eight of my family members in the room, I can’t cop to anything, but when another alcoholic can level…
Like, when I can get with another guy and be like, “Hey, man, I’ve been in your chair, and I’m sorry th- this is how we’re meeting.” But I think the, the truth is for all of us, like, intervention is going to happen. When you get to, like, end of, like, hope to die alcoholism or drug addiction, intervention is gonna happen, and it’s up to the family to decide, do you wanna control how that happens, or do you wanna leave 
[01:10:00] that to, do you wanna roll dice on it? Right. 
And I mean, a few years ago, fentanyl changed the game, where- Yeah … you, like, you get casual user dead, or you get… Or the ramp from casual sometimes user gets really shortened, and now I’m- I go from casual user to now I am an addict, full-blown. Uh-huh.  Yeah. 
And everything that comes with that. So I think immediacy, we started getting contacted early on in the process because the physical changes, they were so easily seen, and the behavior changes. And now I think alcohol still is gonna kill more people this year than drugs, and- A thousand times more. The way, when you… Yeah. Yeah, and you can look at detox entry numbers, and alcohol’s still doing a pretty good job. 
Number one. Yep. Yeah. But also, hey, I mean, high-speed THC, this 90% concentrate stuff 
[01:11:00] is turning, irretrievably turning people’s lives around. Like, I would treat that, if my phone rang as soon as we got off and a mom told me that that’s what her son’s been doing, I’d say, “Okay, here’s what I think you should do. I think you should make it extremely impossible, like, as quickly as you can to secure him into treatment.” Because here’s what’s out there.
Back when I was in high school, the wild tale was if you take acid, you might think you’re orange juice for a year, or you might think you’re stuck- Right … in some place. Right. And like, that’s, like, stuff like that has really happened to these guys. Like they’re- Oh, yeah … perfectly well-adjusted, D1 athlete type guys are ruining their lives.
We don’t know for life, but we know that several committed suicide under cannabis induced psychosis. We know that, that we’ve seen never before pronounced symptomology turn into 
[01:12:00] straight up schizo diagnosis- Yeah … effective or bipolar. It’s dangerous. And like, I sit in the place where I go like, “Hey, I’m never gonna be guilty of selling a family urgency.” If you are urgent, I will tell you how to execute. Right. 
But I’m not the guy who shows up with a hoodie on and throws anybody in a van. I’ll bring, if it’s, especially if it’s a young man, we’re bringing Gatorades or Starbucks or, like, donuts. Like, “Hey, man, really sorry. Sorry we’re meeting this way.” Young guys, I think they look at me like I’m either military or cops, and then they might notice that I got some tattoos, and they’re like, “Well, maybe, maybe he’s not, maybe he’s not terrible.”
At th- this point in my life, I’m a little bit older than they’re … usually a little bit older than, like, a 20-year-old’s parents. Right.  So, so, like, “Wait, this is kinda weird.” Like, “He’s telling my parents what to do.” Right. And for a lot of young guys, I think it’s beneficial for them to see that 
[01:13:00] mom and dad are part of, like the- Mom and Dad are gonna have to do some work, too, because I- Oh, yes. Oh, yes … so Mom and Dad are already thinking, “Hey, my kid’s on fire. I want him in treatment. Why are you sending me this big bill that you want me to sign?” And I’m saying, “Well, I’m not coming for a conversation. I’m coming to change what you guys understand and can implement for three or six months.”
Right. You know, because, like, learning and then implementing, taking … going from theory to practice on how to support recovery is like learning, I don’t know, pick up a Chinese phone book and try to figure it out. Yes. Right? Yes. 
We just got dropped off in the middle of nowhere. We don’t know the language, we don’t have the money. We don’t have any weapons. We’re victims. Yeah. We’re fucking like victims. Vulnerable. 
Vulnerable, and that’s why I, like … I really, I love this is an industry guarded 
[01:14:00] secret that I’ll share with you and all of your families. If communication is tough, create a family workspace on Slack or whatever, Notion if you like Notion, and then go in and just do a little bit of formatting. Put family agreements, this is what we’re doing, and that way we just take, we take guesswork out. Like you say, you mentioned Mom’s gotta disseminate. Mm-hmm. Slack. Nice. Slack. I never think about that. Really, you’re using Slack? Yeah. 
I use … I came up with that because we, I had a really big family. It was in the last couple years, and somebody couldn’t make our family meetings and needed a, “Can you replay it? Can we meet again? I can’t get in the room with them,” or that. And so I was like, “Hey, guys, here’s the deal. I’m gonna park all of our assets in one place.” Love it  And you guys can, like, you guys wanna be supportive 
[01:15:00] your loved one, make it a priority. Yeah. Love that. That’s a great- Yeah … great tip. Well, I would love to we could talk for days.
I would love to know, ’cause I know I need to let you go, if you have a word of wisdom for that mom or the dad. There’s a lot of single dads too, actually, that I have met along this journey, and that’s a rough road as well. They have a kiddos, call it 23, doing all the things, getting in all the trouble, refusing help. “I got it. I got it. I’m gonna turn it around.” What words of wisdom or advice or support would you give to them? 
Again, nuance because nobody’s the same. I think I would tell anyone who wanted to influence their loved one Cons- be consistent with your messaging 
[01:16:00] Figure out what your limits are, and then stick to them. And make sure, like, if you get to the point where you’ve gotta detach, cool, detach, but then you lay the net out. If it’s financially possible to contribute, let’s find a, a decent treatment center. Let’s have an admission chart started. Let’s keep health insurance. Let’s help him keep health insurance. Yeah.
I think the tough love intervention, like, kind of cloud that follows dudes like us around really isn’t real. Like, we wanna help our families connect, but connect properly, and a lot of times we just gotta, we gotta park the helicopter and then go, “We can get close enough to touch,” but also I can also walk, I’ll walk away if my limits are crossed. Right. Right. Which is so hard. And I would never- Yeah.  Yeah. And I would never want, I would never wanna coach any family into a limit or ba- my Aussie moms say standard. I would never want anyone to, to set a 
[01:17:00] standard that they didn’t wanna hold.  Yeah. Or that they- Didn’t  feel was authentic for them.  Yeah. Or that they aren’t ready to.
I think that’s the other thing is we ultimately know, right? I don’t wanna make it easier for my kid to use. I don’t wanna in any way do something that would remove barriers so that they could continue using. And somehow we assume that we can just start doing that day one. Like, that takes a lot of internal stamina.
You need to have a team around you- Mm-hmm … which is why you do what you do, so you’ve got a team. Our parents, our moms in our community have a team. Like, you need that community around you to support you to say, “I know it’s so hard to hold that boundary. I know it’s so hard to say you can’t come here for dinner.”
Whatever it is that you’re saying, you know- Right … “No, we’re not gonna bail you out of jail. No, we’re not gonna fix your car. No, we’re not gonna pay your rent next month.” Like, that is so hard to 
[01:18:00] say, and I just wanna make sure that people understand that what we’re not saying is that that’s just an easy thing to do, and you should just be able to do it. You need- Yeah … support to be able to do that. 
Yeah. You know, to stay in line with standard, I have clinical supervisor who I report to, and she always, like, I get urgent, and I know I always look like, I’ll take these off soon. I know I look like I’m planning a murder, and I’m just, I’m not having a great day.
So imagine if I’m, like, direct, I might look angry, and I sound like I’m, like, a drill sergeant. It’s not that. I just, I just have seen this movie so many times. Right. Right. The mom falls for the, “Well, he just wants to go- We’ve got this family vacation we’ve already paid for.” 
Yes. Yes. Or, or- “Well, we already paid for the first half of the semester of college.” Yeah. I got that right now. Mm. Right now. Oh, right now it’s, we’re 
[01:19:00] recording this in August- Like- So that’s why this is so relevant.  Right, right now. My advice yesterday, “Hey, call the registrar’s office, get your money back right now.” Yeah. Because you’re, you’re not gonna need to spend the second half of it. Nope. Nope. Um- Yeah. Oh, goodness. Well, thank you for, A, sharing your story. I think it’s incredibly insightful for parents to hear what’s going on in the mind of somebody who’s in this. And then also thank you for the work that you’re doing. I know there’s few of us doing this. And somehow we got connected because I think we both care so much about families, and moms in particular.
There’s links in the show notes so you can find Darren and his organization, The Firm Addiction Consulting, right? That’s right.  The Firm Addiction Consulting. Yeah. Thank you. In Nashville, but I assume you work nationwide. And yeah, just thank you for doing that work. It’s hard, and I know you get in there to 
[01:20:00] the level that some organizations don’t, like going and getting kids out of very difficult situations, and really connecting families with teams and treatment programs, and kind of wrapping a family in that. So much appreciated, and we’ll look forward to staying in touch. 
Yeah. Thank you so much for letting me come on. I’m a huge fan of yours and the work that y’all are doing. I hope that after today your listeners know that not all intervention-type people are the old grumpy dude from the show. Yes.  We actually think, Zach’s right behind me, but we actually think what we do, we just have to do in reverse order as the Craft method. I’d love to work– I wanna go one step beyond, or one step behind Craft, and be the first filter and, and see if we can dent the need for people like us. I think that’d be- Right … really cool.  Right. I always 
[01:21:00] say, I wish nobody– I run the club that nobody wants to join, and I wish that nobody needed to join. Yeah. 
There were never– That’s a whole nother conversation that we’ll have about the supply and demand of this, the economics of addiction. But I agree, I wish that we could circumvent that, and at the same time, not always possible. So thank you so, so, so much. I appreciate your time.  Thank you.
Okay, my friend, I am so glad that you are here with me today. Do you want the resources from this episode? If you do, head to hopestreamcommunity.org, click Podcast, and you will find this episode, along with 300 or so others, and every link that we mention. And if you haven’t tried it yet, we offer a free two-week trial of our online community for moms, The Stream. No credit card needed, no commitment, just go to 
[01:22:00] hopestreamcommunity.org/try, and we can get you set up with a free two-week membership. And if this is your first time here or if this whole approach feels new and uncomfortable, that is normal. You can grab a free e-book I wrote called Worried Sick. It will help you start seeing new ways to respond to your child and find new ways to approach this whole situation that feels very confusing.
You can find that at hopestreamcommunity.org/worried. You, my friend, are an elite-level parent. You are doing an incredible job. You do things most parents never have to do, and I am so honored to be walking this path with you. Take ridiculously good care of yourself, and I will meet you right back here next week