What happens when a life coach cannot take his own advice?
In July 2021, I spoke with three of the people behind Two Cents From a Pariah: the writer and director Chris Carson Emmons, the lead actor Jeffrey Grover, and the lead actress Cortney Palm. Jeffrey plays Donovan, a famous life coach and author with a past he has kept hidden. Cortney plays Evelyn.
This is an archive episode, recorded when the show covered addiction and recovery broadly. Much of it is about filmmaking. Yet the story of a man who hides his past with substance use kept bringing us back to stigma, honesty, and what recovery looks like.
How did the idea for the film begin?
At 1:40, Chris said the story started on a drive home from a question and answer session for an earlier film. He had felt nervous in front of the crowd, while Jeffrey engaged the audience fearlessly and even challenged it. Watching that, Chris began to imagine Jeffrey as a character who is comfortable in front of large groups.
By the end of the drive, the idea was a life coach who cannot take his own advice, with a long-lost daughter in the story. In his telling, none of it was planned.
Where did the actors find their characters?
At 4:01, Jeffrey said he did not have to research far. He had spent years at a packaging company that often brought in motivational speakers, and he remembered several of them clearly. Still, the real question for him was whether Donovan takes the advice he gives.
Cortney, at 7:31, said she holds a master’s degree in psychology, and that the desire to help others often grows out of something lacking in our own lives. So, for this role, she drew mostly on her own years as a struggling actress with no money and no connections.
How much of a script belongs to the actor?
At 9:39, I asked Cortney whether she had contributed to her lines. She said there were moments of ad lib, but most of it was Chris’s writing and she did not want to change it.
From 11:07, Chris explained that he wrote the parts with these actors in mind, so he was not painting in the dark. Interestingly, he said he had almost no control over what Cortney’s character said. Her lines would arrive while he was in the shower, and he would rush to write them down.
Why tell a riches to rags story?
At 13:43, I wondered how I would feel if a real life coach or author were revealed to have had a serious drug problem in the past. I did not think it would change my opinion of them, since they had helped people and given good advice.
At 14:59, Chris said he set out to tell the quintessential riches to rags story, the reverse of what audiences expect. Donovan had struggled with addiction. Christianity gave him purpose and lifted him out of where he had been, which is what made him famous as a coach. However, in Chris’s view, the dogmas he embraced also became a prison of walls and defenses that kept him from actually healing. As those walls come down, he said, we are watching a man learn how to love.
Is a person taking medication for opioid dependence in recovery?
At 17:07, I told the story of a well-known blogger who announced that she was being treated with methadone and planned to come off it eventually. People attacked her as a fraud. I explained that Narcotics Anonymous does not count time in recovery for people taking medications such as Suboxone or methadone.
From my point of view, if she was taking the methadone as directed and not using other drugs, she was in recovery and well suited to write about it. A person who takes Suboxone usually functions perfectly well, thinks clearly, and does not have the compulsive urges of active use. In fact, I said, she was no more obligated to disclose it than Donovan was obligated to reveal his past.
Does every coach need a coach?
At 19:41, Jeffrey said it is not wrong for someone who has built a career helping people to keep parts of their past private. People are entitled to a second, third, and fourth chance, he said, and the reasons a person leaves something out can be deeply personal.
He then made the point he related to most. Every coach needs a coach, and therapists need therapists. In his view, Donovan’s isolation keeps growing, so that from the outside he seems to have it all together while behind a closed door he has nothing.
Why do people hide their history with alcohol or drugs?
At 22:49, I said that there will always be a stigma attached to addiction, and I could understand why Donovan might write around his past. I described a former coworker who spoke openly about her recovery from alcohol dependence to motivate others. Unfortunately, it had a different effect. Whenever anything went wrong at work, people whispered that she might be drinking again.
At 23:53, Cortney took it further. In her view, trauma passes from parent to child across generations, and many adults never learn how to heal or how to love themselves. She saw the same root in alcohol and drugs and in shopping, gambling, and overeating. In her view, people call out someone like Donovan because it makes him appear no better than they are.
Are there other paths besides the 12 steps?
At 27:18, I noted that the film talks about a 12-step program, and that some people believe the 12 steps are the only solution. I said there are alternatives, including groups built around spirituality and one based on the psychological principles of cognitive behavioral therapy. Of course, medical options exist now too, with more coming in the future. So, if Donovan were seeking help today, I said, he would have far more options than a single kind of meeting.
Who are Jeffrey Grover, Cortney Palm, and Chris Carson Emmons?
Chris Carson Emmons is the writer and director of Two Cents From a Pariah. Jeffrey Grover plays Donovan, and his films include Dark Waters, Take Shelter, I Feel Pretty, and Miles Ahead. Cortney Palm is best known for the horror comedy Zombeavers and has also appeared in Sushi Girl and Death House.
What can listeners take away from this conversation?
Two Cents From a Pariah asks whether a person who has helped others owes the world every detail of his past. Jeffrey, Cortney, and I each answered with some version of compassion. Stigma pushes people to hide, and isolation makes the hiding heavier. In the case I described, I judged recovery by how the person was living, not by whether she took a medication.
How do I approach this today?
My thinking has kept developing since this conversation was recorded. Today my practice is built on one idea that runs through all of it: when the body has adapted to a substance, the safest way off is usually gradual, with the smallest steps the person’s nervous system can tolerate. Physical dependence is not addiction.
For opioid dependence I prescribe buprenorphine, which steadies the body so a person can rebuild their life without the cycle of withdrawal. Visits are monthly, or weekly when needed. Some people stay on it for a long time, and that is a legitimate choice. Others later taper slowly, using the same gradual approach I use for every other medication.
I believe medication for opioid dependence should be available wherever people need it. I prescribe in Florida only.
This page is educational. It is not medical advice, and listening to the episode or reading this page does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Decisions about starting, continuing, or tapering any medication should be made with your own physician.
Full transcript
A note from Dr. Leeds: my guests speak from their own experience and expertise, and the terminology they use is their own. Whatever the topic, this show holds to one distinction: physical dependence on a prescribed medication is not addiction. This transcript is educational content, not medical advice, and nothing here creates a doctor-patient relationship.
Read the full transcript (29 minutes)
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:00] Today, we have a special episode of the Rehab Podcast, where I discuss the film Two Cents from a Pariah, with the lead actor Jeffrey Grover and lead actress Cortney Palm, as well as Chris Carson Emmons, the writer and director of the film. Jeffrey Grover can be seen in such films as Dark Waters, Take Shelter, I Feel Pretty, Miles Ahead, and more. Cortney Palm is best known for her role in the horror comedy Zombeavers, having also appeared in Sushi Girl and Death House, among many others. The film we discuss together here deals with many important and difficult topics, including addiction. I had a chance to view the film and I very much enjoyed it was intriguing and thought-provoking. I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. And I am looking forward to watching it again with friends […] so we can talk about it and share our thoughts on what finally happened to the main character. I’ve posted the link to watch the film in the description. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Embarks on a long journey of redemption, beginning with the search to find his long-lost daughter. Chris, Jeffrey, and Cortney, welcome to the podcast.
Cortney Palm [01:33] Hello, thanks for having us.
Dr. Mark Leeds [01:35] So, Chris, tell us a little bit about the movie. Tell us about, you know, how did this come about?
Chris Carson Emmons [01:40] It was kind of a strange thing. Jeff and I had worked together previously and had kind of floated the idea of doing something else. We were at a Q&A for the film that we had done. And there were a lot of people in the room and we were asked questions and stuff. I felt cagey, you know, like kind of nervous to engage the crowd. And then they asked Jeff a question and he was like fearlessly engaging and even challenging the audience, which I found completely alien to my own mode of being. I think, you know, at that time, crowds were a little spooky. He didn’t even seem to really care if he was judged. He was just very directly answering questions and just cutting through. And anyway, so on the drive home from this Q&A where I felt a little ridiculous, I was kind of inspired by that. And started to think about seeing Jeff play a character that was comfortable in large groups like that. And then it just kind of became clear to me that he should play a life coach that can’t take his own advice. And then I kept driving and the story kept coming to me more and more. I thought of a long lost daughter that would be a character in it. And then I started thinking of people, you know, that could play it. And Cortney came to mind. I just started writing this thing out of the blue, just being inspired by these actors. And luckily they said yes. So it wasn’t really a constructed thing where I sat down and I was like thinking, oh, I’m going to write this story about a guy that’s a life coach. And it just wasn’t really planned. The whole thing was kind of just kind of flowed out of me.
Dr. Mark Leeds [03:38] Jeff, as far as researching, when you were researching this role to be this life coach, motivational speaker, and author, were you already aware of these kind of people? Because they’re kind of all over the place if you’re tuned into that. They’re all over social media and the internet. These life coaches and coaches in general, were you already aware of people like that? Or did you research by looking up anybody in particular?
Jeffrey Grover [04:01] Was I aware of people? Yes. Did I look up anyone in particular? I used to be in a business packaging company for a number of years prior to reconnecting with dramatic roots from college, which I just sort of abandoned shortly after getting married until 1997. So I had a number of years, Mark, working for a company that oftentimes would bring in motivational speakers and people that would come in and tell us how to improve. And I remember, you know, it’s funny you asked if I researched. I didn’t have to go too far because I remembered clearly several of them. They would come in and or I heard at national meetings that through the years would talk about how to sell and how to overcome Stephen Covey and people like that and Harvey Mackay. Now I’m bringing up people I do remember. But I think I had an amalgam. I knew kind of what those folks were about. And they’re all terrific. But the question really was finding a connection with Donovan and what he did. I think what I realized with a lot of those folks, they’re sort of a little bit of an apparition. And, you know, I realized we have sort of this idea that these people are larger than life. And the idea is, are they connected to themselves first? And if they are, then frankly, it’s much easier for me to relate to them on a human level and then try to relate it to my own needs that I might have in an audience with maybe a thousand other people. And I think for Donovan, to me, it was like, yeah, I could totally buy into the idea of him being able to give advice. As Chris said at the front end of this, did he take it? And that’s really where the starting off point came. And frankly, there’s no way I could research that externally. That’s where I had to start to play with how would I address this worry in that situation. But it seemed very authentic right from the start, the concept.
Dr. Mark Leeds [06:01] Yeah, definitely the film is tuned into elements of modern life. And some of these things seem to be just currently out there online the idea of a life coach these things have been around for a long time there were these motivational speakers and authors going back to the 80s and 90s when I was growing up I think there was an earlier movement, the New Thought movement in the early 20th century, around the early 1900s there were a lot of books that came out and speakers, there was Wallace Wattles who wrote The Science of Getting Rich, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, which was still as popular today, and more recently The Secret, which I think was based on Wallace Wattles’s book, and then built up around that all kinds of coaches and speakers and writers, people saying, if you just believe great things are going to happen. And besides that, the film covers just the idea of the rich and famous you know people are it seems like americans especially are you know focused on the idea of like one day they’re going to be rich and famous or at least rich you know that everything is kind of leading up to that and you know and then there’s also people that get to an age where they realize like you know it’s kind of all been a lie or you know not not real you know maybe it’s not going to happen ever so yeah courtney what do you how did you prepare for this part I mean what kind of research did you do to prepare for playing the role that you did.
Cortney Palm [07:31] Yeah, well, just going back to what you guys were saying about life coaches and everyone’s desire to help others stems from some sort of lack within their own lives that I think we all face. You know, I have my master’s in psychology. And I think where that stemmed from was just a desire to figure out who I am. And then when you start to figure out who you are, you feel the need to share that with others as if it’s some way going to help them with what you’ve experienced. And so I sought out people like Tony Robbins and Abraham Hicks and Gangaji and Sadhguru. And, you know, I’m listening to these people and then I get frustrated with people like Tony Robbins who are making millions of dollars in their seminars and in their workshops. And, you know, Tony Robbins will tell stories of women who were struggling and they literally sold everything they owned just to afford one of his seminars. So I just drew upon my personal life because when I was first starting out as an actress, I had no connections. I had no money. I’m living below the poverty level. I was just like nannying and, you know, that’s what you do when you’re struggling. You’re a struggling, starving artist. You’re just like, you know, doing what you can. But yeah, so I just, you know, a lot of the times your life provides an ample opportunity to pull from for real life experience to place into your role. And in this particular film again it was mostly just drawing from personal experiences and feelings that you know you can make real the Stanislavski method is all about that like how can you make something real in artificial circumstances this role in particular I think Chris just knew me
Dr. Mark Leeds [09:39] I had heard somewhere recently that Quentin Tarantino is known for that when he writes a script you know the script is a script you know there’s no going off of it you basically learn it word for word and perform it as it’s written. But I know that there’s some other directors that kind of let people go off script and improvise or contribute. Did you contribute at all, Cortney, to your lines? Because it almost seems like from, you know, how you’re describing things in your past that you might have actually improvised some of those parts or maybe contributed at least to the writing of those lines.
Cortney Palm [10:11] Well, I think, first of all, Chris is just phenomenal at what he does. And it’s almost as if I didn’t need to do that. There are moments where Chris would allow us to feel the moment and feel the scene, you know, an ad lib here and there. And that’s when, you know, true magic happens. But most of it was just brilliance on Chris’s part. So I didn’t want to change anything. I have worked with directors in the past that have been really welcoming towards the idea of you know you adding lines or changing lines here and there which I’ve done or you know you approach the director and ask them the director writer if they’re the same person or if they’re separate people you just you know you have a little meaning you say hey can I change this here I feel like this is more geared towards the theme or to who what I’m feeling right now but again I just trust Chris so much that his his work is what we keep
Chris Carson Emmons [11:07] Yeah there’s there’s a lot of stuff that we figure out before we film, but there were times like there’s a big conversation between Jeff’s and Cortney’s characters that we had meetings about. A lot of the things that they say are, I guess I would just say that in the hands of a lesser actor would not have read on screen ever. I definitely did write these parts very specifically with them in mind, which kind of, you’re not painting in the dark when you’re kind of creating these characters when there’s already a face to it. They were just able to bring themselves on top of what was already on the page. And it was also kind of weird because I knew what the characters were, but then, especially Cortney’s character, I just had zero control of what she said. I would get in the shower or different places that were more meditative and her lines would just be in my head. And then I’d jump out of the shower and try to write them down before I forgot them. And that’s how much of the film was written. I would tune into a certain frequency on purpose or an accident and stuff would just flow out. But I think a lot of that stemmed from being inspired by these particular performers.
Jeffrey Grover [12:35] In my acting studio, I go in here in New York, Freeman. Scott often says, when you get a character opportunity, you can relate to it on a one, two, three, or four basis. One is, I could play this in a heartbeat. Two is, I can relate to it’s going to take some work, but I really like it. Three is, wow, this is an extraordinarily challenging opportunity. I don’t know if I can pull this off, but I’m going to find it. And four is, I have no idea how in the heck I could do this. And to me what Chris created kind of yes anding what he said and what Courtney said was he knew us he knew our cadences he knew what he wanted to communicate and he gave us the material that enabled us to inhabit it let it inhabit us and I want to say what Cortney said as well just to reiterate the writing is so strong and the collaboration was good enough we could talk about something in advance like hey could we try this or think about this that when we were shooting it, we were freed up to be able to just be in the moment. And that’s magic, man. That is, it doesn’t happen all the time, but that’s really what happened a lot. And it was really specifically because of the chemistry with Chris and with Cortney.
Dr. Mark Leeds [13:43] As far as when Donovan meets with his clients, you know, obviously they’re rich and famous. And there’s real coaches and therapists and psychologists, psychiatrists that work with, I’m actually thinking of a specific psychiatrist. She works in Manhattan. She works with very wealthy people. And, you know, in fact, she wrote a book, and I think she even mentions how it kind of stood out to her that she’ll go meet with these people that kind of sit around their fancy mansion-like New York apartments and kind of squabble between each other. And, you know, people kind of imagine how great it would be to be wealthy beyond belief, and it’s not always necessarily that great. I kind of felt about Donovan, if it were to be revealed to me, say he was a real-life person, say that any of these big life coaches, authors, motivational speakers, it was revealed that they had a serious drug addiction problem in their past. There was something in the past that we didn’t know about that made people see them differently. I don’t know that it would have changed my opinion of them. I might think, well, they’ve helped people. They were giving good advice. Their past, I mean, maybe that was just something that they didn’t want to reveal.
Chris Carson Emmons [14:59] What I’d set out to do was kind of tell the quintessential riches to rags story, because it’s kind of backwards from what we’re used to seeing and what could be revealed in doing that. So, you know, I don’t think that Donovan was somebody that was, you know, he’s somebody that had a rough life and became famous later. Or what was interesting to me is the idea that he really struggled with addiction and things like this and had to find a way to find purpose and surrender to something higher. And then what he found, you know, through finding God in Christianity was something that sort of worked for him. It was certainly powerful and it gave him a direction and lifted him up out of where he was. But then he kind of created for himself a prison surrounded by the dogmas of the particular belief system that he embraced, where it made him unable to actually heal. And it was more of a, you know, putting up walls and defense mechanisms to be able to navigate the world and not go back into the patterns that he had been engaging in before. So I think what we’re actually seeing is somebody that gets famous on, you know, maybe a false premise as he rises up as a life coach using what helped him to try to help others. And I think to some extent, maybe he did help some people. But internally I don’t think he’s solved his issues much at all. He’s just not progressing as a person and it’s interesting to see that as he kind of gets shredded apart some of those walls come down and in the process we kind of are watching a man learn how to love.
Dr. Mark Leeds [17:07] There’s an addiction blogger from a few years ago. I won’t say who it is, but he was kind of known as being one of the best addiction bloggers and writing some really great things that people could connect with and identify with. And in my field of medication-assisted treatment for addiction, there is some controversy where some people will say if a person takes medication for addiction, which is actually an official position of Narcotics Anonymous, which is a 12-step program that derived from Alcoholics Anonymous, founded in 1952, 1953 actually. But NA, they say that if you take medication for addiction, you’re not clean. You can go to meetings and sit and listen to the meeting, but they don’t consider a person to be counting clean time if they take a medication like suboxone or methadone. And there’s a lot of people out there that’ll attack people and say, you’re not clean yet you need to come off with these medications. And that’s not really their place to say that. You know, there’s something called harm reduction, which is making the world safer for a person. And a person that takes Suboxone usually functions perfectly fine. They don’t have the obsessive compulsive urges that they have when they’re in active addiction. They can think clearly. They basically are living in a kind of recovery that, you know, some people call it the new recovery, where they’re functioning normally, They’re not acting addictively. They’re recovering. Their brain is healing. And this particular blogger went through something similar to Donovan where she announced at one point that she was being treated with methadone and her intention was to finally come off of it. And people immediately came out and attacked her and said, you’re a fraud. Who are you to be telling us about how to live in recovery through your blog when you were on methadone this whole time? You were never clean in the beginning. And the question is, was she clean or not? From my point of view I’d say well if she was taking the methadone as directed and living a you know a life of recovery otherwise you know not using other drugs and following her program from my point of view she was in recovery she was perfectly suited to be writing her blog and talking about recovery I mean maybe it would have been nice that she mentioned by the way I’m a methadone and that’s part of my recovery but I don’t think that she was obligated to do that just like I don’t feel like Donovan really was obligated to reveal all this past I mean it’s Maybe if you wrote his book and wrote a different past than what really happened, people might say, well, you lied in your book, but that’s a different issue. Jeffrey, what do you think about that as far as was Donovan really a fraud? Was it fair that what happened to him?
Jeffrey Grover [19:41] Did I think it was fair or do I think it was fair hypothetically if somebody who had built a career and was doing good and making a difference for people, his clients, without being judgmental about those clients who they are, but maybe making a difference in his writing and who knows who read what and who was motivated on hearing a speech that might’ve changed their life. Is it something that’s wrong for that individual to not have fully disclosed every nuance, everything that happened in their life, every specific thing? Absolutely not. I don’t think it’s wrong at all. And I would say that people are entitled to a second, third, fourth chance. I think that’s part of the, you know, the doctrine about trying to give people a chance to grow. I mean, we’re all evolving. So, no, in that regard, I think that he had every right or would have a person in that situation, every right to bring themselves forward and pick themselves up. However they did. You know, we talked about the addiction at 12-step. And the question that you’re asking, Mark, is if he were revealed and if it turned out that something was true, that may be indicated he might have said things in writing or orally that were not accurate as a way to build his persona. That’s a great question. In part, it would depend upon the pain that person’s in. Maybe they had some things happen to them in their life that they don’t want to allude to. There may be very personal reasons. So I would have to leave it open to the person, each situation being different. And also in the film, you’d have to make judgment because we’re providing some circumstances that may be similar to what you said or may not be. But I also want to make a last comment because I’ve been listening intently to each of your comments, and it’s quite illuminating. I appreciate them. You know it’s funny every coach needs a coach most people who do the work I know therapists need therapists we have to have somebody to check in on and in some ways I feel that Donovan’s character in many ways he just this may be the part that I could really really truly relate to in some ways his feeling of isolation and being alone can become greater and greater and greater. And externally, it may appear as if you got it all together, but when you close the door, professionally or personally, you got nothing. And without having somebody there to shake it up and say, hey, it’s okay, cry it out. Let me give you a hug. Be human. Be thankful. Until you have a moment, it gets worse and worse and worse to the point where you just don’t even want to continue. And I guess in this case Donovan quite frankly if he had had somebody to do what hit for others what he did for them he might not have been in this situation but then we wouldn’t have had a film
Dr. Mark Leeds [22:49] I can imagine that Donovan writing his book you know that I mean there’s always going to be a stigma associated with addiction you know I don’t know if we’ll ever get past that and I can see why he would you know maybe want to leave that out or write around it or maybe even you know you can almost understand why he would want to make up an alternate past and make up something different that had happened to him. It does seem like as soon as a person… I used to work with someone that she used to brag about being a recovering alcoholic and how great it was. And I think she was trying to motivate people by talking about her success in recovery, that if anybody else might need that kind of motivation, that it would motivate them to themselves go into recovery. But it had a different effect. Like whenever anything went wrong at work, I would hear people kind of off to the sides of them. Well, you know, maybe she’s drinking again or she has an anger problem. She has psychological issues due to her alcoholism. And, I mean, there is a stigma where I can understand someone not admitting to it publicly or wanting anyone to know about it.
Cortney Palm [23:53] Yeah, I think to dive deeper into that, you can kind of take a look back at how trauma has been in everyone’s lives throughout history. Because as you grow into an adult, most of the time people don’t know how to heal. And you become just this wounded individual and this like almost genetically has been passed on from your ancestors you know from parent to child from parent to child from parent to child and until you can actually heal that you know you get another you get a child and now you’re that child in an adult body trying to raise a child you know I think that there’s a lot of family issues that we see because no one ever really understands how to love themselves and then to truly then showcase that love. I think there’s just so much confusion and fear because no one’s ever really been taught how to become an adult, you know, with well-being. And society is so strange and almost alienating to everybody, even though we feel like we’re all working individuals making it by, I think everyone is still like this little child that’s lost in some way. And then you see that maybe with Donovan, he’s not the dad that he needs to be. And where does that come from? Was he not treated the way he needed to be, you know, as a child? And that’s why he couldn’t keep a relationship together. And that’s why he turned to things like alcohol or drugs. But I’m just saying when you turn to alcohol or drugs, or even shopping or gambling or binge watching TV, you know, like these are all addictive behaviors or overeating, you know, like you’re stimulating some process in the brain and you’re getting this high and it feels good. So how can you maintain that without, you know, grabbing that beer or, you know, reaching for the pipe? And it’s just, it’s weird because I’ve lost three friends to addiction and you know it’s to the point where when do you give up I mean there are so much there’s so much wounded energy that is affecting us as a whole that we really need to start creating a new narrative that is rooted on the foundations of love and compassion for every single earthling and a lot of us don’t have that and a lot of us have the fear that we don’t have that so we’re going to call somebody out on something that makes them appear less than us. And I think that’s why people call out Donovan, because then suddenly he’s no better than me. And what I love about like, you know, our movie is Donovan ties, we’re tying in Christianity a little bit like he’s finding God. But then Evelyn, man, she doesn’t believe in God. And me as a person too, I don’t believe in this like religious aspect of seeing a creator with you know a white face and a man’s body and I think that we really have lost our connection to the vibration and the energetic frequencies that are all around us we really have to tune in and we’ve gotten so far removed from that because we’re living in cities we’re wearing tennis shoes we’re driving cars we’re breathing polluted air and I just feel like a lot of us in order to heal need to step outside of all of this
Dr. Mark Leeds [27:18] In the film I mean you know there’s a 12-step program it is talked about and you know as far as there’s people that believe that’s the only solution to treating addiction the 12 steps you know there’s people that will say if you don’t do the 12 steps of AA or NA you’re not doing the best recovery program but there are alternatives and AA Alcoholics Anonymous is rooted in Christianity even though it’s technically not a Christian program there are other programs. There’s something called the Three Principles, which is kind of a return to spirituality. There’s the one called LifeRing. There’s SMART Recovery. You know, there’s other programs. SMART Recovery is based on psychological, scientific principles of using cognitive behavioral therapy. But there are definitely a lot of alternatives and these up and coming medical treatments. You know, there’s things that we have now that can medically help people and things coming up in the future and these natural treatments. So yeah, I mean, Donovan going through 12 steps. I mean, if Donovan were here today and had to go back in recovery, he’d have a lot more options than just going to an AA meeting. So Chris, where can people find this film? You know, when is it available and where can people watch it?
Chris Carson Emmons [28:32] It’ll be on Amazon, available to rent on July 7th.
Dr. Mark Leeds [28:36] I highly recommend it. I saw it and I wish I could tell everybody exactly what happens, but you’re going to be on the edge of your seat. I loved it had a really great ending. And I highly recommend everybody listening on July 7th, go rent the movie and watch it yourself, and you’re going to really enjoy it, and there’s a lot to talk about afterwards and something you’re going to be thinking about for a long time. So Jeffrey Grover, Cortney Palm, Chris Emmons, thank you for joining me on the podcast today.
Cortney Palm [29:04] Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thank you.
