Diana Dubbs joins us from Dreamlife Recovery to share her recovery story and talk about the evolving stigmas around mental health and substance abuse. She talks about “selling” recovery, finding her fit in the industry, establishing and protecting personal boundaries, and having mentor peers in your life. 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.
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diana dubs joins us from dream life recovery to share her recovery story and talk about the evolving stigmas around mental health and substance abuse she talks about selling recovery finding her fit in the industry establishing and protecting personal boundaries and having mentor peers in her life 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 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 on our podcast we have diana dubs and kurt and i are super excited to talk with diana she has a recovery story of her own as well to share she's the director of business development at the eastern region at dream life recovery and dream life recovery offers a variety of options which allow us to find a method of therapy that works best for each of us um we all know that every person is different and so we individualize our dream recovery dream life uh individualizes the program to find the right fit for you so you can find success in recovery diana has been with dream life for several years and is making a difference in the treatment world diana thanks for being on thank you thanks for having me it's kind of fun we were we were just chit-chatting before you know before we started the recording and you were sharing some really fun things um and one thing that we say this often but it's kind of it's kind of funny i mean i giggle almost every time is i don't know of anybody i have yet to to check with anybody that said yeah when i was little i said i want to be in substance abuse treatment like that's what i want to do for my living right like nobody says that and so it's kind of fun to find out how you know people's history and how they ended up here in in the treatment world which is an incredible industry it's it's different than any industry i've ever been in so maybe just share a little bit of your story when you were explaining that i'm cutting you off first when you're explaining that this time i thought maybe it's because when we were kids the like emotional intelligence wasn't there and now with like the number of adults that are going through recovery it could be that this upcoming generation is the generation who sees their parents in recovery and is like that's what i want to do and they do this from the beginning instead of being sober and then getting into the industry like the rest of us you know maybe maybe we're part of the change it's also so funny too sometimes you get the opposite effect like when people ask me what i do for a living like on the soccer fields when i'm hanging out with my kids and they're like what do you do and i'm like i'm in sales [Laughter] i work for a substance abuse treatment program my product is treatment and they're like uh who do you sell to i'm like everyone and like their their immediate response is like oh oh oh oh and like you can see their body language change um but it's really funny you know to to make that intro to people who don't know and this isn't normal to them like it's not normal to work with drug addicts all day you know um but it is in my world yeah right well and you what kurt what kurt said kind of lends to the idea that we didn't even know as kids that such thing existed right so of course we didn't say we wanted to be in substance abuse right because that you know we might have been in the world where we had parents or people we knew that had addiction but we didn't understand that you could recover from that so and it's a trick question it's TRUE yeah i mean i um listen i i did what everybody else did i came out of treatment um freshly sober and i wanted to save the world right so like i wanted to cure everyone of this awful disease because i figured out what was wrong with me and i needed everybody else to figure out what was wrong with them so i knew that i wanted to do something in treatment i did not want to be a therapist no offense i didn't really care why people did what they did you know that never occurred to me that i wanted to sit and listen to people's problems all day um you know but i didn't know what else there was i didn't deal with a treatment rep i didn't you know i went to a facility that my doctor referred me to um so i didn't really know you know i had reached out to a friend of mine a friend of our family who was a clinician at that time and i said what can i do like i don't i don't want to be a therapist i don't know what else there is but i know i want to work in treatment and i think i have i have something that i can offer she said well she goes if you really think that you belong in this industry my suggestion to you is to go volunteer for a year and if you can stay in an organization and volunteer for a year without getting paid and stick with the same organization then you deserve to be in this industry you know so i was like all right and i didn't really have anything else to do to be honest with you you know i was i was just getting married i was already pregnant i had a job um nobody was really requiring me to do you know provide for anything yet you know um so i was like all right i'm gonna do that so i found an organization and i i volunteered with them and i ended up joining their board of directors um and then i started working with them pretty intensely and they offered me a job working in their office and i did and i took the job working in their office and it was supposed to be super light like three days a week it ended up being five days a week and um you know they started teaching me the the medicaid process and i live in new jersey and at that time it was now we're going back six years ago the process in new jersey was very difficult to get somebody into treatment um it didn't look like it did today it looked like you had to call every day you had to wait to get a bed you had to get up in the morning make start making the phone calls you you had to know somebody to get in and um well they basically said like if you can learn the medicaid process with your eyes closed we will teach you how to do interventions and work with people who have private insurance i said okay and um so i learned how to do the medicaid process and i started building contacts like i would call anybody and anyone in the industry in the nonprofit world that had any sort of merit and say can you help me can you teach me and they did and some of those contacts are literally near and dear to my heart today um we still work together and and we do some amazing stuff together um but i started calling people and asking for help and asking people to teach me how to do things and then i started working with with patients who had private insurance and i started doing interventions and i started helping get people to treatment and i started learning different treatment centers um you know it just became this process of just learning right and um then i got pregnant with my second son and unfortunately non-profit world does not pay for two kids and a husband and bills in new jersey um so i just i decided that i wanted to go work for profit and at that point i had been introduced to marketing um i knew what that looked like i knew what the different roles were and i got a job working as a rep for a treatment center you know um and i was good at it and the beautiful part about that was that i was i was able to still do all the things that i loved which was the advocacy work but help people get to treatment and all those contacts that i built with medicaid and no insurance like they were still there and they were still helping me and i could still help all the people that were calling that didn't have the resources but now i could help the people that had the resources too and i started building this and i hate the term brand um you know but that's really what it was was this like ability to like there was nothing that you could throw at me that i wasn't gonna i wasn't gonna figure it out you know um and still to this day my treatment center laughs at me because i will throw at them some crazy cases and they're just like ugh like what are we supposed to do with this like this is impossible and my response is always like some somebody deserves a chance at recovery like let's give it to them you know um and nine times out of ten they always figure out a way to help help the people that i'm sending over but they're just they're not easy they're not easy cases to to to work with you know um but i truly believe that everybody who calls me there's there's an option for them somewhere we just it's our job to figure out where that is there's a challenge too because like a lot of times when somebody's truly ready it involves having to hit rock bottom and in order to get to rock bottom you kind of have to exhaust a lot of options right so it's kind of this balance of like i mean nobody's ever going to show up to recovery with everything together it's kind of the point you know like we need help i think sometimes though because everybody's rock bottom is different sometimes we need a little help identifying what rock bottom actually is you know um and you know i don't know it's just i i like i've had some people that are like i have a job i have all my bills paid for you know i make a lot of money so what if i i snort coke on the weekends you know what i mean um even though like they don't have custody of their children they're about to lose their job like all these all these terrible things are happening to them you know but because they still have their things they they haven't gotten there yet you know what i mean uh you know so it's that part gets the tricky part is being able to have that conversation and say all right yeah you're not there yet but you are going to be there and sometimes you're going to get to treatment and then you're going to hit rock bottom while you're here you know um so that's kind of the what i've learned along the way is how to have those conversations well and i love your enthusiasm right that you're you're not outside you think outside the box right it's not like everybody fits into one pigeonhole it's like look everybody's a little different if we can't figure out how to help them and find a solution for them then really why are we in this industry right why are we doing this there's got to be a way to help these people exactly and i think that the problem is my treatment center is not always going to be the option for everyone you know um we're not a fit for everybody and i don't claim to be a fit for everybody and i don't want people to send me every single person because it is impossible for us to be perfect for every person out there you know um there's 805 treatment centers in the state of pennsylvania and some of them are wonderful wonderful facilities that have amazing things to offer other patients you know um it's our job to put that person in the in the right hands you know what i mean um and it doesn't always mean that that's in our admissions team's hands you know what i mean and i think that's what sets us apart from other people is that if if we're not the right fit we will certainly get you to the right place but we're not going to we're not going to pretend that we are the right fit for you if that makes sense well and you have to take that approach right it's the ones that's the facilities that don't take that approach and try and help everybody that they're they're not doing anybody a favor because you're exactly right and and and what you say is it it kind of shares the idea that you have a lot of wisdom and you've create you know you've developed a lot of wisdom and picked it up along the way maybe talk a little bit about your recovery story and and and some of those pivotal moments for you so i um have been sober about seven and a half years my sobriety date is october 21st 2013. um i got sober at a facility well i went to treatment at a facility called karen foundation which is one of the best resources here in the area and at the time that i got sober you know there were there just weren't a whole lot of options you know um there wasn't as many places to go and to be honest with you i didn't really know what was wrong with me you know i had spent so much time of my life probably a good 16 years of just ripping and running but i had always surrounded myself with people who did things like i did until people couldn't do things like i did them anymore do you know what i mean like people started getting married and having kids and like living their life and i was still like buying percocets on the corner in north philly you know what i mean um and it just wasn't fun anymore like it got for me like i couldn't get high anymore so i was just trying to not be sick and i was trying to feel better mentally spiritually physically and i could never feel better i just always felt worse you know and i come from a really good family like i don't have i don't have any kind of abuse in my family no addiction you know in my immediate family nobody was traumatic to me like there was nothing textbook that should have made me how i am it was just in me it was i i never felt good enough i never felt a part of i was just always searching to be something more than i was i just had no idea what it was you know and i did that my entire adolescent my entire adulthood um you know with every bad relationship with every bad friendship like i was always searching to fill that hole you know um in 2014 i and i shared with you guys before we we actually started recording like i was always a big drinker i would always you know take what was in front of me as long as it was going to make me feel better like that was the first question i asked you is this going to make me feel better not is this going to kill me is this going to hurt me because i just always wanted to feel good you know um alcohol was a constant but in in i would say 2010 i got hooked on opiate and it was like a quick takeout you know within three years it just wiped me out you know um i kind of picture it like that big tidal wave that comes over like that's what that did to me it leveled me you know um and it wasn't that long that like all the things that happened with the ditchman you know the stealing the lying the heating you know all those terrible things like they all happen to everybody who falls into this one way or another um and that was you know i was like 115 pounds soaking wet hated who i was my skin was gray i i hadn't probably slept in three years um because we don't sleep when we're using percocets like it's just like this constant like your body's asleep that your mind's a when you you know um and i would be born and that that family that loves me so much like they realized that something was wrong with me but they didn't know what was wrong with me because i'm first generation italian we don't talk about stuff like that nor are we really educated on stuff like that you know so it was like are you bipolar are you gambling what like what's going on with you you know and i tried i had spent my entire life learning that like i could negotiate my way out of things you know but like that night i couldn't negotiate out of this they weren't gonna let me leave until i told them what was wrong with me and i finally waved the white flag like i said i'm a drug addict and i can't do this anymore you know and the minute that i said that it was like a thousand pounds off of my boulders you know now the days following were horrendous you know um but you know in that moment it was like my deepest darkest secret was out and i didn't have to lie anymore and somebody was gonna help me get better you know but like even in that process i didn't know what treatment was gonna do like i spent three days picking in my mom's kitchen because i didn't have insurance and again like nobody knows what to do in new jersey when we don't have insurance you know so we i ended up at a state-run detox in north jersey that my parents paid for um and now that i know that they overpaid for me to go there you know what i mean um because i was already three days over at the time that i got there and um i spent five days there and i ended up at karen foundation after that and i didn't know like i just i thought that treatment was get the drugs out of your system right i didn't know that it was we're going to teach you how to live your life because you don't know how to live your life you know and and i did and i learned i learned how to live my life like i was petrified i was petrified to come home and and spend a saturday sober i had no idea how to do that because i had never done it in 16 years i had never been sober on a saturday you know um i was petrified to have a conversation with people i was petrified to make friends like everything in my life was scary because i just didn't know how to do it and i didn't remember like i didn't realize that the minute that i stopped doing drugs and drinking that even though all those things were scary like life was a whole lot easier do you know what i mean because it was more manageable my life was completely unmanageable before i got here you know and um sometimes i laugh and i talk about how much i miss those early days of early sobriety like you know the the time in your first 90 days where everything is so messy um and and just so tangled up and like everything's destroyed but it's there's a reason for it you were a drug addict right like you were a drug addict or you were an alcoholic and you did all these things and now you got to clean it up like today when things get messy or tangly it's because we're living life on life's terms and like there's no other reason for it and you're just a human being and like it's just life like that's what happens but like in those early days it's very clear do you you know what i mean um and sometimes i miss that feeling of just knowing exactly how to fix the problem you know and today you know i have all these other things that i have to do you know because i follow a program of recovery and they tell me you know if if god's not in it then i have to find him first and all those things i have a hard time with stuff like that you know because i like to fix manage and control and and i still deal with those things you know um i met my husband very early in friday um you know i did everything they told you not to do so in my first year i was well in my first 90 days i met my husband in our first six months we were engaged and moved in together and uh we were married at just over a year of sobriety um and that same year i had my first friend who is my now six-year-old um and just like two good drug addicts we had our second son immediately following i found out i was pregnant with him on my oldest son's first birthday um you know and like there's a reason why we tell people not to do that it's because you don't know how to love yourself and now you're expected to take care of a family unit right like you're now the matriarch of the family but like i didn't even know where to drop our taxes off to you know what i mean um you know and and by the grace of god you know my kids have never known me as anything other than sober um which is a beautiful thing you know they know i'm sober they know that they might have an allergy to alcohol so they should be careful because mommy and daddy have an allergy to alcohol that's how we explain it to them you know um my kids are kind you know we 12 steps all day long and um you know but it was hard early on and there were times that i stepped away from my recovery and there were times that i had to start over in my recovery and there were times that i've had to you know ask for help again and and feel like i did in that moment where i said i'm a drug addict and i need help but i didn't pick up again and that's even worse that's even worse of a feeling you know um you know in eight years i have my husband relapsed very early on in our marriage he's okay now he's sober and healthy and happy and i learned from that experience that you know we all have different pathways to recovery and what he chooses to stay sober today is not what i choose and that's okay because we still have the same end result which is to live sober and teach our kids to be good people and that's okay for me today you know and that may not have been okay for me eight years ago you know um and it's just through through life that i've learned you know that you know all these things that have happened through my sobriety and through my addiction and all all these crazy things it's put me here in this place because i'm i'm supposed to teach other people how to get through these things you know i'm supposed to teach people you know how to be there for their kids and how to be there for their husband and you know and how we try to work through these things and you know when when enough is enough and and things like that you know what i mean and and i think that because i put that stuff first and i put my my work stuff second it has allowed me to to be this person that has never suffered when it comes to work like i've just never i've never found i've been stressed out i've had times that i've been worried but like it always passes and it's it's never something that has made me suffer well and i imagine too diana i'm going to pause just for a second and kurt you're going to want to catch this and edit it out but we're getting a little bit of feedback from you kurt if you'll if you'll yeah just a little bit um so i love that i love the way you tell the story and you kind of address diana the the idea that like like here you are in a relationship early on the very thing that they say don't do that and and then you you know you get married and you have kids and those are super challenging transitions for someone who's not dealing with addiction but someone who's recovering from addiction and still trying to figure it all out that's that's got to be really difficult and challenging what were some of the hardest parts for you and and how do you how do you so two parts to that question what was it like for you and then how do you talk to people because that's a common thing right that's a common thing we tell them don't get into a relationship because you're not ready for that but it's the first thing we want to do right is find some companionship and connection so my husband is my person um you know he's the only person in this world besides my sponsor that knows everything about me you know and good bad and different sometimes he hates me for it sometimes he loves me for it you know but you know he was put in my life for a reason and although our story is not conventional and i don't suggest it to many people like everybody's journey is different you know um what i tell other people is that when you are getting into a relationship here's why we tell people not to do these things and here's why i'm telling you why we tell people not to do these things because i lived it you know what i mean um and i know from experience that it is incredibly hard to learn to love yourself and to love another human being the way that they deserve to be loved and to ask them to love you the way that you deserve to be loved when you don't know what that looks like you know um i can't tell somebody you know i go to a a you know for sake of anonymity and you know we could talk about traditions all day i'm like the total i think that they're outdated youknow but you know the big book of alcoholics anonymous does not tell us that we can't date anybody in the first year the big book of alcoholics anonymous does not tell us that you have to go to 90 meetings in 90 days it doesn't tell us that you have to call your sponsor every day like those are all things that we have created because we like to fix manage and patrol do you know what i mean and you know what the big book of alcoholics anonymous tells us is stop drinking work the steps and help another alcoholic you know and as long as you're doing those things and being honest and and you're not hurting anybody who am i to tell you that you can't engage and you can't you know like it that's your story you're gonna have to learn for yourself too and i'll be here to help you along the way yeah it's incredible and i agree everybody has their different path and it it cannot be the same for any one person um but i'm wondering as you you know i mean i i've talked to lots of moms you know and they talk about their you know being pregnant and giving birth and you know and if there's one thing that i know that children will test us and and make us stretch more than anything else that i've ever experienced right and so how did you manage through all of those experiences that are new and unfamiliar you know i still manage through them right i have two kids that are couldn't be them couldn't be more opposite of each other my oldest son is you know like a sweet angel baby from heaven and my second son is like the devil reincarnated some days um you know but i love them both dearly and they're both my babies and they both have these beautiful pieces of their personality you know um but it you know there is no perfect way to mother and i think that just because i'm an addict in recovery it doesn't make me weaker than another mom do you know what i mean i i think that like you know a lot of times you know if we're getting into like mommy wine culture because that's kind of like where we are these days is that like mommy had a tough day so mommy needs to have a glass of wine because the kids were acting up well like no kids act up because that's how they communicate you know and it's not always easy and like sometimes i communicate by stopping my feet and slamming doors and screaming and cursing like that's just who i am so like they do that too like we all have bad days you know um we have a role in my house that we get to start over so whenever my kids are throwing a tantrum or they're just really really nasty for some reason like i'll ask them do you want to start over and nine times out of ten they'll say yeah and they'll go in their room they'll compose themselves or they'll give me a hug or they'll cry a little bit and then we just start over you know and it's like a reset button you know um i try to do that as much as i can and we all get to start over you know what i mean doesn't always work you know but we just get through it you know i just i tell people all the time like you know schedules and and potty training and like you know we all we all do it you know babies cry babies freak out you need a babysitter i'll be here you know like you just ask for help you know it's it's kind of like getting into the business of recovery like if i had never asked for help in the beginning i wouldn't know half the people that i know today right so like if i don't ask for help when i'm parenting or when with my husband or with my friends or in recovery like i'm not gonna be where i am today well i totally agree and and i think that's the part of the story that that might be a little bit harder to tell is that you didn't get through all of that stuff on your own you got through that stuff because i can tell i'm hearing you talk about these awesome parenting skills that i know you didn't start with right we just don't start with those like we have to ask like how in the world did you get through this right and we talked to people and we asked them questions and and they tell us how they failed so that we can all do it a little bit better right [Laughter] but we do it together right you just don't do that alone you don't figure that out alone and so i love you talking about that piece yeah i mean listen i have an amazing family that is like this safety net around me um and they have been rallying for me since the day i stopped drinking and drugging you know and they had one rule in my house and that was always do the right thing and we will be here to help you and they did not lie you know the minute that i started doing the right thing it didn't matter what else i did and it didn't matter how badly i've screwed up in recovery because i have like i've made some really bad mistakes in recovery you know but i haven't drank or drugged in almost eight years and they have been here to help me through everything you know i live in a town on the same street as my brother who drove me to detox and treatment eight years ago we live five houses down from each other and my mom lives my mom and dad live on the opposite end of the street you know um and it's a village and it's a it's beautiful you know what i mean and i i honestly wouldn't on most days wouldn't be able to do things in my life without them you know yeah and that's the beauty of it is that we get to build these amazing support networks around us and sometimes it's family and and often it's other people too right that a whole bunch of people become that kind of family connection and support so i have um i have some amazing friends um not a lot but a few that are just and i say not a lot because today i'm just i'm choosy about who's in my life today right because eight years ago i would just surround myself with anybody you know um and today it's just when i bring somebody into my life i'm not only bringing them into my life i'm bringing them into my husband's life and my kids life and you know my my world and it that's important to me that's my safe space you know and um i just i have some beautiful women who who are just there for me you know and who have been there to carry me through some really tough times um and you know it's that process of like when you ask me how i got through things it's because somebody else got through them first and taught me how to get through them you know um and i have literally somebody in my network that has been through almost everything in my life that i've been through that i can go to at any moment in time and say hey i need your help and if they haven't been through it they'll tell me who to call and i can call that person whether i know them or not and they'll walk me through that problem well and i think that's your biggest gift right one of your biggest gift is you're not afraid to get on the phone and say teach me how to do this right go find the person and go teach me how to do this whatever it is right life or work or whatever no i've never i mean you know i've been super blessed in the past however long that i've been doing this job um i i don't know the the answer i don't know let me find the answer for you goes so much further than just lying you know um and i wish more people got that and understood that just a simple i don't know i don't want to tell you the wrong thing let me find out what that answer is has gotten me so much further and so much more ahead than anything else i could say in a conversation you know um it's been it's been good yeah well because your answer says it says i don't have to have all the answers but i want to get you the best answer right and for for a lot of us though when you know before we get to a better place it's it means something's wrong with us if we don't know the answer or that we're flawed or you know we get that shame around it and and that drives so many mistakes and errors right well and that's we work in a business where there's not a whole lot of room for error right um because your product your product is treatment and your your consumer is a person do you know what i mean like you're and you're putting your person through your your sales product like i mean it's it's mind-boggling to me sometimes when we talk about what this looks like you don't have a whole lot of room for error with this process you know because that person leaves your treatment center and here's the tricky part right we have no real way to say if this is gonna work for you or not you know and that person leaves your treatment center and if you haven't given them a hundred percent and they haven't bought in right and they haven't given their a hundred percent they leave that treatment center and they could die you know um you don't you might not get a second shot at helping them again and i think that's the piece that we forget sometimes is that we're so focused on outselling our competition why does this person have this account why is this person you know on facebook selling this and this seo and like all this crazy mind-boggling stuff to me when at the end of the day you might get one opportunity to help somebody because your second opportunity might never come because that person could leave and die um you know and i think that's that's the part that has never lost me even with you know we get a little bit desensitized in this business it gets hard to say that every everything that happens truly affects me the way that it did six years ago you know um but i can honestly tell you that i have an invested interest in in really wanting to help every single person that crosses my plate you know um that's where i am yeah and it's a tough it's a tough balance it is a tough balance to love people but also have healthy boundaries which we talked about that before we started recording the episode too right those healthy boundaries talk um let's talk a little bit about dream life recovery and and what dream life offers and um and you know and what what it's doing to help people so dream life recovery center is a dual diagnosis inpatient treatment center located in western pa so it's located in a town called donegal which is a very very small town on the outskirts of pittsburgh you know when i took the job at dream life and it's important that you should know this because it's it's this is how i feel about the facility right um i was in a position where i was super frustrated with treatment in general and i didn't know if i wanted to stay working in treatment um and somebody that i had worked for had said you need to go find the facility where if your husband were to relapse you would feel comfortable placing him there you know so i started i started interviewing other people you know like i started going to inpatient centers and asking them you know you know do you have a job open for me and i had a couple offers on the table and then somebody approached me and said why don't you come work for dream life and i said well why should i work there because it was open like six months it was all out of network um and they said well we're physician owned and operated um and we just we believe in truly individualizing treatment you know and then i met the staff and that's where we are today is that we are primarily in network at this point um and we created a truly individualized treatment product for every person that comes in the door because we believe that treatment is not one size fits all and that every person has a different need and a different reaction to different clinical practices different medications um you know and we can't treat everybody the same way we are dual diagnosis and the residential track is trauma-informed care because trauma starts off everything you know um so we really do treat the patient that has a lot of co-occurring disorders with substance use disorder as a primary excuse me as a primary focus but we have some phenomenal therapists in our building that are master level licensed clinicians that all have secondary specialties like you know anxiety and depression lgbtqia we have a primary spanish speaking track we have somebody who focuses on male sexual shame you know all these different things that as a person comes in and we start to remove the toxins from their body and their secondary issues start to pop up now we have therapists there that are really treating not only the substance use disorder but also the secondary issues that are properly popping up it is not unheard of for a patient to see a therapist up to two times a week with us um which in other facilities they might see a therapist once every other week you know um and we offer a really great mix of traditional and holistic treatment so we do your regular cbt dbt but then we mix in holistic treatment reiki yoga nature therapy adventure therapy but we actually process after we do these things so we're not just taking them for a walk and then coming back and saying all right guys go to your rooms you know we're actually processing and attaching the traditional therapy to it you know we believe that you know treatment we have to heal the whole body mind body and soul you know if we don't attack all of it you're not gonna leave here healed you know and it's our job it's our job to get you ready for your next level of care who's going to continue the work that we've done you know and that's that's the basis for dream life recovery very cool and i love that how you incorporate all of those different aspects and and obviously with your experience in treatment if if you love this facility there's a reason why and that they offer something that you didn't see somewhere else um i noticed that some of the things that you offer at least wise on the website is some biofeedback what are you guys what are you guys seeing what results are you seeing with the biofeedback you know i wish i had accurate data for you but that would be information i'd have to get from the facility yeah oh but i can i can get that for you you know it's it's interesting it's interesting to see i don't know answers yes no and that's okay because you're not the one doing it i get that um but yeah there's there's new you know there's sensory rooms and there's biofeedback and there's we have i mean we have um it's actually pretty cool we have a sauna room an aqua massage chair and um the starter room is like infrared saunas and then we have like a reiki yoga room and all of those things to the patients are amenities right like they're all things that they can go access while they're in treatment we use them as de-escalation processes right so like when somebody's feeling anxious or um they might want to leave ama we'll be like all right once you go take 10 minutes in the sauna and then we'll come back and get you you know they think that they're just going to sit in a sauna for 10 minutes but in reality they're just they're de-escalating during that process you know they're calming down their moods are coming down it's also involved some chromotherapy so we might have the lavender lights on next thing you know they're feeling better they don't want an ama you know what i mean um the aqua massage chair is like being in a hot tub on a massage chair so you have somebody who's detoxing from heroin and their legs are kicking we put them on the chair you know um and it feels like they're in a hot tub you know um and these are all really cool things that we have learned to do you know as through a process of you know i this term seems really cliche but like we have people who come in our building that that feels so unloved when they come in our building and it's just we make them love themselves like we love them until they're ready to love themselves which is so important because that's really that's really at the core of the healing is feeling loved feeling connected and then being able to love yourself i love it i love it um i'm wondering i i i've really enjoyed your story i've i've enjoyed learning about dream life and all of the aspects that they bring to the table and and and i i kind of did laugh you said it they you know it's located in this really little town outside of pittsburgh and in my head i'm like i don't think there's any little towns outside of pittsburgh it's like a population of like 144 people like it's really yeah so it's it's like exit 91 off the turnpike um if you're heading towards seven springs ski resort re the ski resort the town of donegal is just really really small we're blessed because they're really receptive to the treatment center um it is kind of tucked away and it's very difficult for anybody to leave the facility which is always a benefit to most people um but it's just in an area that's just kind of remote you know it's about two hours from harrisburg an hour from pittsburgh it's just it's not as far west as most people think very cool yeah and i love what you guys are incorporating um let me ask you this so so now i asked this question it's a little selfish right and i ask it every now and then but are you a reader and are you reading any books i am i'm actually reading it's actually funny that you bring that up i'm reading right now quit like a woman [Laughter] and and what what is uh what's the premise of the story it's quit like a woman the radical choice to not drink in a culture obsessed with alcohol so it is about a woman's journey um into recovery about 10 years prior and how she stayed sober um you know kind of battling like the patriarchy of aaa and and all these different things and and what does that look like today very cool thank you for sharing that um you know we all we all like to connect in different ways and i'm sure that there's going to be people that just have loved your story and loved love the the approach that you take and they're going to want to connect with you and with dream life recovery what's the best way for them to connect with you they can give me a call 609-851-2499 that's my personal sell it has always been my personal sell and anybody can call me at any time you know you're serious when you're willing to give out your cell number right [Laughter] that's awesome um well thanks for being on thanks for sharing we'll have to catch up with you here you know in a while and see where things are at with you but what a rich story and a rich life that you're living thank you thank you so much i will talk to you guys soon