Timmy Brooks joins us from Synergy Houses to talk about sobriety, finding structure while transitioning out of treatment, and learning how to have fun in recovery. He talks about keeping personal recovery and work as a recovery professional separate and intentional. Enjoy.
The Illuminate Recovery Podcast is about Mental Health, Mental Illness, and Addiction Recovery. Shining light on ways to cope, manage, and inspire. Beyond the self care we discuss, you may need the help of a licensed professional. Curt Neider and Shelley Mangum are a part of Illuminate Billing Advocates (illuminatebilling.com). They are committed to helping better the industry and adding value to the lives of listeners by sharing tools, insights, and success stories of those who are working on their mental health.
Transcript (no grammar): timmy burks joins us from synergy houses to talk about sobriety finding structure while transitioning out of treatment and learning how to have fun in recovery he talks about keeping personal recovery and work as a recovery professional separate and intentional enjoy welcome to the illuminate recovery podcast we shed light on mental health issues mental illness and addiction recovery ways to cope manage and inspire beyond the self-care we will discuss you may need the help of a licensed professional my name is kurt neider i'm a husband father entrepreneur a handyman and a student of life i avoid conflict i deflect with humor and i'm fascinated by the human experience and i'm shelley mangum i am a clinical mental health counselor and my favorite role of all times is grandma i am a seeker of truth and i feel like life should be approached with tremendous curiosity i ask the dumb questions i fill in the gaps the illuminate recovery podcast is brought to you by illuminate billing advocates make billing and collection simple with leader in substance abuse and mental health billing services verification and analysis of benefits pre-authorizations utilization management accurate claim submission and management denial and appeal management and industry leading reporting improve your practice's cash flow and your ability to help your clients with eliminate billing advocates today we are kurt and i are privileged and excited to talk with tim brooks tim is the executive director and owner of synergy houses in the greater philadelphia area synergy houses provide safe sober living environments for people seeking a path to recovery i know that tim has also been um you know really active in the prevention area nationally you know going around talking to universities and young adults as well as others to try and you know prevent some of these issues that are happening tim we're super excited to have you today thank you yeah thanks for having me looking forward to it um it's kind of fun everybody has a little bit different story and and i i love the stories maybe everybody doesn't love the stories but i love the stories and so tim maybe give us just some information as to how you ended up with sober living homes and how you ended up in the recovery community and maybe some background as to you know where you came from yeah sure you know i our treatment industry is like is so it's so wide and dynamic and there's so many different avenues and i think um i think sober living is you know the best analogy for it is like the wild wild west it's a lot of asking for forgiveness rather than permission it doesn't require the certifications or the licensures or qualified folks that have experience or wisdom in the industry to get involved and so the industry of sober living in general i think is like it's very cottaged i think sadly you get a lot of players that are not people who do what they say and say what they do um and me personally like i'm i'm a um i'm a person long-term recovery i found like a lot of us that work in treatment i found uh the sober pathway when i was 18. i made enough mistakes to to be put myself in a place where i was willing to look at the reality of who i was as a person and fortunate enough to have a lot of great people and great resources to to encourage me and enlighten me on a process that worked which was uh nothing special nothing special other than um just people you know being put in the community and environment where it was clear that i was around people that thought the way i thought that talked about living life the way i knew i lived life and seemed to have to be in a much happier spot and talked about the things that they did and offered their perspective and and uh i was able to buckle through the hard days and get to the other end of it um you know the details of that were some legal consequences and and a sentient hearing with 11 months of sobriety and 100 people from 12-step recovery showing up to support me and a judge sending me away for seven months rather than four years and a lot of the the challenges of just early recovery that everybody goes through that were just details of me but in the end got out the other side and got in life where i i was lucky enough to go back to college and was trying to figure out like what the hell do i want to do with my life and for me like always looked at movies like the wolf of wall street and thought like that was going to be my destiny and you know the writing was pretty clear on the wall when i was in treatment and in jail that that wasn't going to be my destiny but um was lucky enough to kind of recircle with folks that have become prevalent in my life and providing guidance and and learned that like you know i i do i do things well that i really care about and today the things i care about are recovery family sports friendships and in this world of recovery there's a lot of different avenues and something that i was able to put my finger on is that within within structured silver living um i think too many times folks are exactly where i was i was a young adult i was an inpatient treatment and a counselor was passing a couple brochures across the table i was getting a couple minute a couple 30-minute phone calls with guys like me and the therapists are saying this is a great program when in the back of their mind i think most of the people that work in treatment are willing to acknowledge that most people think i think it's a good program because they're not sure they're not sure if it's the same as as it was they're not sure if outcomes are consistent they're not sure what it is so at a at a 30 000 foot level i just wanted to be about trying to solve that problem so i'm curious about that so i think you're right i think that most you know the programs are fairly um robust and there's probably there's probably plenty that are pretty connected to outcome measures but there's probably a lot of therapists out there doing work and hoping that what they're doing makes a difference where it's not as smooth and transitional as it should be right it's not connected as it should be what are you doing to make a difference in that you know i think it's really simple it's it's nothing more than like um you know committing to some values putting having the right resources setting things up in a position where you know decisions are made for people and not and not for businesses uh you know being really clear about the services the services that are provided and then actually following through on providing those services and and so at a at a high level that's what it is right and then internally it's like shaping a culture um to maximize the output of people feeling empathy and love and support it's holding lines of accountability so that through our experiences we learn that when we when we choose our way instead of the way that's best for the group it doesn't it doesn't go well and it's aligning with collaborative partners that can be really good at things that we're not really good at like clinical care medical services uh family family counseling it's creating processes within so that when we have you know we get as as sober living you know we get we get 20 to 22 hours a day with our guys right like that's a lot of time people are doing a lot of a lot of stuff a lot of things in that time they're having a lot of conversations they're experiencing life and and that's a really keen opportunity for us to like sponge up what's going on with our guys in that time how are they responding to conversations what are they doing with that time and and creating systematic processes to communicate that with clinical providers so that we can allow clinicians to like really uh expedite and understand what's happening in the lives of the guys we care for and do continued work i like it i mean and just the structure in and of itself and the follow-through which is what i hear is that follow-through let me um let me back up just a little bit and as i'm listening to your story and i'm sure you share your your recovery story a lot um but there's some some pivotal moments as i listen to most people's recovery stories there's always these pivotal moments where they could have gone either way i heard you share one where you know you stood in front of a judge and he gave you i think you said four months instead of years worth of of you know prison time or jail time um did you have talk about that a little bit and any other pivotal moments like that that that shifted you to the direction that was you know more towards recovery than you know towards um addiction yeah i mean i you know i have a i love my life today and that's 100 attributed to the people that helped me in recovery and continue to help me in recovery and when when i got to a place where recovery became part of my my day i wanted i wanted zero part of it like i didn't want to do the right thing i didn't want to get sober i didn't i didn't want a spiritual experience i didn't want to go to treatment i just didn't want to go to jail and and it was really it was really intuitive to me that in order to try to find a pathway to not go to jail i had to i had to embrace i had to embrace some of these principles and at least give it a try right and then and in our in our structured silver living program like i talked to a lot of young guys about that i think as young people we always fall somewhere along the spectrum of from like you know i just want my parents to f off all the way to i'm willing to do whatever it takes to find a happy life at any cost and and i think i also think on any given day we might be somewhere different along that pendulum and for whatever reason through the support of family great great resources other people in recovery like i was i was coached into a place of just recognizing that not for not forever but for right now i had to give this thing a really good chance and if i come out the other end of giving it a really good chance and i don't like who i am or i don't like what's happened or i get through the legal consequences then then i'm i'm at liberty to try another way um but i didn't really i didn't really look at it as a choice and i was i wasn't like i wasn't humble about it either like i went into treatment and i heard a therapist say like you know statistically two of the 20 of you are going to stay sober and and the rest are going to struggle and and i like looked around the room i said all right boys who's coming with me like and you know and i've i've got i've got a long lineage of recovery in my family i've got a father that's been in recovery for 30 years i've got a grandfather that's got 60 years and and i've got this family heirloom that you never want to have which is just a big book that's an aaa book that's signed signed down from my grandfather to my dad from my dad to me and you know there was a uh there was a uh a tradition in the treatment center i went to where people would leave notes in your big book and the other day i was sitting with a guy going through it through the book and i kind of opened the first page and saw a note that somebody said which was kind of pointing back to that conversation where they were like yeah man like i hope you're the other guy i hope i'm the other guy that makes it with you right and i and that's you know that's a dig on myself right like i had i lacked humility in the greatest aspect and in many in many aspects today like still still want more of that and and and being on the other side and and feeling so grateful and lucky to like not have the struggles in my own recovery the way i've that others do it was no factor of of you know telling the world that i was gonna make it and and grinding through it it was just i think it was about you know what the world tries to teach us which is like there's a there's a teachable and repeatable playbook out there it sucks it's really really hard and and there's going to become moments that are extremely difficult to get through and the details within those moments are potentially going to make or break you know my ability to live right like like life or death um and uh so i've been you know to an extent i've been lucky i've been and but more than anything like grateful that i uh i was in a position and had enough motivation to do a lot of the uncomfortable things that led to a life that i really love i think the the uh heirloom can be a really cool family heirloom right the challenge just becomes how do you pass it on before it's needed right because that's kind of one of the challenges with recovery is there's this two sides of the coin where you know we're here for people who need help and need coaching we'd all be better off if we could figure out how to teach that lesson without someone needing to go through addiction right and that's the challenges as a parent when you go to pass that heirloom on you know someday how do you use that as a tool to say you know here's here's what's runs in the family here's who who i am use that as a light and a reason to not get started in the first place right yeah it's a great point um along that same lines you talked about the importance of coaching yeah um you know for you obviously as you got into recovery but um i think it's an interesting road that a family or an individual has to go down as they're not just getting into treatment but also coming out of treatment right and where to go through that most of these people you know either haven't been there before or haven't done it successfully yet right so as you're seeing those individuals come through what is it that you're coaching them on as far as the importance of you know transitional care or a sober living or lifestyle where i mean for it seems like a lot of families would just make the assumption no no they're safer at home right whoever it is we want them at home but from our side we know you know in a lot of circumstances that's much worse you know can be challenging because of family of origin and some of those dynamics how do you coach a family or an individual through that process and knowing what to look for um yeah that's a great question there are um i think you know there's two pieces to it right there's the individual and there's the family so you know with the individual like the young adult male and our circumstance which is who we serve young adult males 18 to 35 um you know the you know a guy somebody that comes into our program and has all the fire in the world to grab resources and 12-step principles and clinical care like he's he's the dream case right and but the reality is that's far and few in between and you know the the people that have come and embraced it and are the great outcomes that have those lives that we all want for everybody like at some point in time they earned their way into a position where they had their arms around most of those things most of the days and so you know the term coaching i think within our program is about teaching guys uh either through experience or through discussion or through treatment like how to how to embrace that persona and be that guy and like as it relates to families like what i tell families is like is that when i was in high school i i copied other people's homeworks i showed up late i did i sat in the back row i did not have a relationship with my teachers but i manipulated my way into it into getting a good grade because i i knew how to work people and but in that same classroom there was a person who sat in the front row they showed up on time they were ready to ask questions because they wanted to learn something they had a good relationship with the teacher and that person got sometimes the same grade i did but when you take me and my family and that guy and his family and you put us in the same room nobody in the world is wondering why in the same environment we had two completely different outcomes and i often invite families to to you know look and understand treatment with the same respect that on you know and with a caveat saying that you know success and recovery demands us to be that person in the front of the room that shows up ready to ask questions that has the relationship with the professor that cares and is invested in the process and you know synergy houses in our program in many ways is about teaching people how to migrate from the back of the room to the front of the room to be that guy and it's it's very subtle things right i think it's like it's the fact that you know when when somebody walks into a 12-step meeting it's a bunch of strangers and you know if if we're not willing to make an effort to connect with like-minded people and stimulate relationships it's not going to happen right and so there's you know part of entering a community-based program is there's gonna be some resources to help people create those bridges right like i'm i'm sitting in my car outside of a golf course about to go play golf with three of our residents who are new that showed up in the last 30 days with another guy that's in long-term recovery to show them what fun looks like without a beer in your hand when you're walking around a golf course like those those things make a big difference where people can get a taste and and have a mild perspective of like wow like this is this can be different and you know being around other people that that feel like you look like you you know sound like you all of those things can make a big difference in the paradigm of of the willingness for somebody to you know maybe the next time they go to the meeting they do sit in that front row and raise their hand maybe maybe they do call that phone number maybe they they do offer feedback in in a group led by therapy um all of those things yeah sitting in the front row gets a bad rap it does my my mom always taught me as a kid to sit in the front row and i think she did it because i think if you're in the front row even on those days when you don't feel like doing it or you're tired or whatever you just get more out of it right and so i think it's kind of one of those it's a physical example of being putting yourself in the right place in the same way that in recovery you're kind of just constantly trying to figure out how to get your head in the right place right so kudos to you on on spending spending the day golfing i wish i was a little closer i would tag along but um that that ability to change that mindset and know that there are other fun things to do is really a challenge so that's that's interesting that that's the process that you guys are going through well i think i think um that it's important what you talked about of of this dynamic i heard you say that you know sober living is kind of a the wild wild west where the you know the regulating bodies there's not as much regulations and and guidance as to how to run a sober living and and how to you know have the clinical pieces there it's a it's kind of an outlier in in those senses like you talked about how do you mitigate for that piece because i mean we all know well maybe a lot of us maybe some of us don't know the challenges that come into sober living when somebody's there that's not maybe not quite as engaged or is not quite ready to be there and you know ends up relapsing and taking you know several people with them how does how do you mitigate that or think about that yeah i mean i think from an organizational perspective it's really simple you just take you take the the components of uh mainstream treatment that that formulize organization and you intentionally integrate them into structured sober living right so uh examples being uh good financial backing right we go out and find partners that are committed financially so when a pandemic happens we're not making decisions that are going to have an impact on our residents you can weather the storm right which is how it works in mainstream treatment you go out and you intentionally look for governing bodies that are willing to give supervision and feedback to you and and audit you if you're ever you know unintentionally out of line right which is exactly what happens in mainstream treatment you you uh you don't cut corners and you don't just you know rely on forgive asking for forgiveness and you get caught you actually go out and you get zoning and you check with the ordinances and you and you go through the borough and you develop a reputation with the people in your neighborhood and let them know that you're this p this group here that's trying to provide a purpose and and you deal with it you deal with the couple people that that might not like that and rather than hiding in front of them and you come out and you just do it right and so i think that's that's us saying hey we're here we want to be here for a while and we want to do this right and then you know internally like we have we have some core values and some principles that we stick to related to people struggling like not not everyone is a fit for synergy and not every fit for synergy is going to come to synergy but and the other thing that's true is not everybody that comes to synergy is going to is going to find success and and people do fail and that's the reality of our industry but what what's going to happen when you know how are we going to respond and what is our culture like and you know what we subscribe to is just this notion that like you know no one individual is more important than the community as a whole right which to us means that if somebody is making decisions or providing such an impact on the community that's making it more challenging for others to find a life they're looking for then they're no longer a fit for our program and we owe it to our staff the culture the existing guys to help steer guys into uh different programs if that's the position they put them in right there's you know i didn't come up with this line but another great program did and they they often say like you know nobody gets kicked out of our program they just put themselves in a position where they're no longer welcome to stay right and and that statement i think runs really true with all things related to mental health and substance use is you know it's it's never you know i don't i don't in my own life like i don't internalize and feel guilty for the challenges i have in mental health and substance use but knowing what i know now i sure as hell feel responsible to actively work on a solution for them and that's that's the same um perspective that we implore our guys to subscribe to as well well which is super powerful because what you're doing and i can tell just by just by the words you're using is that you expect um them to be honorable you expect them to have the highest integrity and honesty and we're going to show up and we're going to do you know more than what's expected and and all those kinds of concepts and so what you're saying is accountability you can choose to do what you want but there are consequences that come with those actions and you chose it right you can choose you can choose this consequence which may be positive and you want it or you choose the one where you got to go live somewhere else and you chose that and and we're okay with that too right we love you and we care about you and it's okay for you to choose those things i think that's one of the most powerful teaching models that's out there that you know that even parents today are trying to you know struggling to learn how to do that that that you know comes back to the family dynamic of where we start to have problems is we think we're helping people when we when we enable them and and we don't even realize that's what we're doing so our program internally is a structured face system which is like a lot of programs however the catch with us is that progression through our phases has nothing to do with time i think too many times especially as young people in recovery we put ourselves on these clocks right we go in i'm going to sit in this bucket for 30 days i'm going to sit in that bucket for 90 days and we equate success to spending time in a in a continuum when the reality is time doesn't mean much it's just about what are we doing in that time so we break it we break our progression down into like achievable measurable goals within three aspects of life recovery structure community and and through that you know conceptually we are putting the ball in the hands of our guys and and they get to drive that bus right guys get to earn privileges and flexibility in in you know weeks and short months if they choose to be that guy in the front of the room or if they're willing to work for it and folks that are having a harder time migrating uh tend to take a longer period within our program in order to migrate into those roles of flexibility and responsibility so important and i and i love the structure right just the structure itself is something that that some some in recovery are not used to that structure or a healthy structure and so they need that guideline and when you lay out the rules very clearly it makes it so much easier to follow that and to stay within the lines so that that you keep yourself safe um so so i think it's so important and i love the detail in which you talk about um that structure and how you do it and even in a sober living where you know you're not i'm assuming you're not getting paid by insurance companies so you don't have that regulating body over you you really get to decide what your program is going to look like and what your support system is going to look like and so when you make it the very best it's got to be all the difference in the world right it makes all the difference to that recovery person 100 yeah we're we're you nailed it we're outside the world of insurance pay so it's all cash pay and we get to hire great staff and and have a great house and and um and and really kind of dictate how we want to shape things and create culture and all the above so let me ask you this um as you have gone through your recovery obviously you've learned a lot of the things that i don't know maybe they were missing in your recovery and you know things that you discovered that could have been helpful or that were beneficial and you made sure that you incorporated that um what are some of the the main tools that you use to stay in recovery yourself like what's that what's that look like today for you yeah so so i'm uh i'm a member of of a 12-step program which is really the center of it all for me and so i think specifically as a person that works in treatment differentiating what i'm doing as it relates to my own self-care in recovery from serving a community that's in a program uh i support are two totally different things and recognizing how separate those are and consciously making an effort to nurture you know my own recovery is arguably the most important thing um like a lot of guys attending meetings um having a routine uh recognizing that i don't go every day being the person i want to be and when i make those mistakes writing them in the honorable integr in an honorable way with integrity um which is not always intuitive me i have intuitive to me i have a lot of great people that are willing to support me and talk to me and and and help you know figure out how i can get to a good place um and then other things like you know i thrive in in discipline and routine um so it's exercise prayer meditation uh having balance um and uh those things are all you know really relevant in my life and when when i love where i am and when i'm when i'm treating people really well it's usually because those things are really really sharp in my life yeah super important pieces um and i love the way you you know the way you talk about it is you're not perfect and you're not doing it perfectly and you do make mistakes and sometimes you engage in behaviors that you're not even aware of but you've created this network of people that that are there to help you go hey timmy this might not be the way you you meant to show up and and you may not have recognized this but this happened so that you can correct things that you may not even be aware of 100 what's um so those mentors that you have do they change do you have a solid group of mentors has that shifted over the years talk about that a little bit it's it's shifted a little bit you know it's um it's um it's it's shifted here and there i think for the most part it's a it's a core a core group um but you know new people come behind and and people move and and try new things see new things um but i think you know they're having a couple people in my cabinet that understand what's going on in my life know what the big problems are know what my my gears are grinding over and have that i have a relationship with where i'm willing to hear embrace and put into action or feedback is um it's it's the difference maker and attending meetings and helping newcomers and and and you know trying to nurture healthy relationships and being that person that's honest and capable are all um you know supporting aspects to having those people stay strong in the way that i have relationships with them yeah i love that um talk about you you said one of the other things that's really important to you in life now you know maybe different than before but those value pieces was you talked about your family and and i've heard you say you know you've got this the big book that's been handed down from you know several generations and so it's in your family how do you what do you do with that and i'm i guess i'm making an assumption that you have children because you said you had family um so correct me if i'm wrong but what do you do in that situation how do you how do you change those patterns or break those chains uh i don't have kids yet probably soon but no kids yet uh you know what do you i'm not really sure you know i think i i look at myself and my family my meaning you know my dad and my grandfather and the other people my great uncle all people my my uncle all these people that are in recovery and i you know i was incredibly lucky and you know for a lot of reasons right but related to recovery you know i i've got a really great relationship with my dad and growing up i admired him respected him respect him and you know looked at his life and always thought like if i had what he had i'd be pretty happy and i'd be good with it and i i talked to a lot of people that are in early recovery especially young people and they're they're unsure if like if they find the magic that recovery has to offer are they even going to be satisfied with what that is and and i didn't have that experience like i had i had living proof with a guy that i respected that if i if i earned what he earned i i had a pretty good confidence level that i'd be okay with that and and in many ways like having that not be a part of my journey made the experience way less challenging to overcome and there's a lot of little things like that that i think made my journey in early recovery not as challenging as others and as it relates to my own family and kids and what that looks like you know i talk to enough parents that are in turmoil and i've sat in on enough like those zoom webinars where it's you know if if my children have to deal with that then so be it there's not a chance in hell i'm going to be able to cure it it's probably it's hopefully not my fault and uh and and i don't and i'm not gonna co-sign it i can promise you that but i do um i do feel you know pretty grateful to like hopefully be in a position whenever that is um if it is to to offer resources and and and be a living example of like the alternative that's possible out there not just for you know kids to be or for for anyone really well which which what you said is so profound right is that you're showing up and you've seen your dad show up and go through recovery and and you know really um appreciate the life that he's provided in the relationship that you have with him which you know as you said recovery maybe was a little bit i don't want to say easier but maybe not as challenging for you as some or maybe not as long as for some as it was for you and i think that family dynamic that family support and that you know that example that you exhibit to others of what recovery is and what being honorable looks like that's different than being perfect and not making mistakes is huge it's huge relationship is everything and that modeling is so much more valuable and important than the words we say sometimes yep totally um so i'm wondering timmy other than your pending golf game that i know you're you're um waiting to tee off for what else is in the future for for you and synergy houses um what's in the future a lot of awesome stuff you know in in two months we're opening 15 beds of collegiate recovery um which is going to be its own its own property with with uh its own crew of staff to help um to really serve as an experience for guys to have a successful college experience while in recovery um there's 20 colleges within a 15-mile radius of westchester pennsylvania and we're hoping to position ourselves is really this amazing national option for folks that are in a recovery that want to come to us and get grounded and then transition either into college or transfer from an existing school so we have a ton of resources case managers support staff a lot of collaborating clinical partners to really set up the quality quality experience for guys to have that experience here you know in the in the next couple months we're hoping to finalize the organization of a women's program which would look like a mirror image of what we currently have for synergy for men which would be a really a really awesome program for me for women with you know four or five full-time dedicated staff members uh program of structure routine um that's gonna be all about helping people exit residential treatment and taking those tools integrating them into life and when they launch from us be you know have the support of the world to be independent successful and happy and in the way that those want to be you know where it goes from there i i don't really know i really don't but it's um it's been it's been a lot of fun so far i can tell you that well it's pretty impressive and i love that model right so instead of being in a frat house there you know there's a sober place that's going to support their subraid sobriety and their choices and um because you know college is kind of a difficult place to stay sober depending on who you hang out with so i think i mean i'm just thinking about that scenario as you talk about what you're offering and it's pretty profound i love to you know just the idea of these guys that are supporting each other and have those case managers and all of those resources wrapped around them and then allow them to transition into school with that continued support um i love that model that's pretty cool i'm wondering are you just is your sober livings how far spread are they in what areas um are are they just in one locale are you you know going national with that so we're just in in westchester pennsylvania which is about 30 miles west of philadelphia right now we have no plans to exit that immediate environment um will we in the future maybe i i don't really know but for right now it's it's really just about making an impact in this local community that's fantastic i love it um one last question that i have for you i always like to you know occasionally like to ask this question maybe because i just need to add to my reading list but what are some of your your your baseline uh books to read that that just you know you know you have to come back to them every so often well that is a good question i mean you know i read a lot of a lot of uh just boring informational google like hey what's this what's that you know have you heard of you know cbt or dharma recovery or whatever it is and then i'm just ripping through facts and research and all that crap which isn't really you know the most attractive reading in the world but it's just information um when i was behind bars i read some danielle steele and some some some books like i'm broken and tweak and that kind of stuff but i am i am not the most the biggest uh reading for pleasure guy in the world a lot of it's just knowledge around the space we occupy um and we work in and and trying to figure it out but probably be better for me to ask you that question so i could i could uh dip my toes in that world that's a good question i uh i seem to like you know i seem to take a year and wrap my head around a specific book um and you know over the last there's several like i i reread um man search for meaning this year and by viktor frankl so kind of reread that one and it's it's interesting how different things come up as i reread a book and kind of wrap my head into it i know the eighth habit by um by stephen r covey he did seven habits of highly effective people that was just a you know a huge seller but one i hadn't heard of was the eighth habit that he wrote after that um tons and tons of really fantastic information there um kind of you know beyond the 7 habits and incorporating the seven habits that that one was super super incredible um will definitely be a handbook for me in the future and another one that that's um as old as the heels that i love to come back to and i'm constantly thinking about the stories that were shared is a book by maxwell maltz called cyber cybernet psycho cybernetics it's it was really old but he talks about the power of the imagination he was a plastic surgeon you know trying to dive into why do some people who i do plastic surgery on think that their life has now been changed miraculously and others go yeah really didn't help at all and and kind of diving into that piece and and the power of the imagination so i could go on but those are some of my some that i really love to read and have read most recently so good question love that uh i love that we've been able to talk today um tim timmy i've seen um i've heard you talk about a lot of really cool things and and it's got me thinking about other possibilities out there and other ways to help the recovery community be successful not just on the short term for residential treatment you know or some of the lower levels but long term which is what i hear you talking about so thanks for your efforts super um commendable thank you now i appreciate it and thanks for being on the show and sharing some of these this information i think there's going to be people that would really like to connect i know we had somebody on that was in sober livings before or at least was ranking sober livings as to whether they were were you know really good places for you to get recovery and and were not um and so i'm sure people are going to want to get a hold of you because you really do run a reputable program what's the best way for them to do that um probably by email my email is timmy p-i-m-m-y at synergyhouses.com awesome excellent well i appreciate that timmy and thanks for your time today and uh i hope you have a fabulous golf game absolutely thanks guys thanks to me