John Patrick Hart: Journey to a Good Place

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:09] Welcome to The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I am Dr. Mark Leeds and I will be your host. Join me in exploring the world of addiction treatment. How can we improve the ways that we help individuals to overcome addiction? The goal of treatment is to save lives and help people to get back on track to a path towards success and happiness in life. Welcome to the Rehab Podcast. My guest today is Pat Hart. And Pat, welcome to the program.

John Patrick Hart [00:48] Well, thank you very much for inviting me to your program, Mark, and to be able to share my journey in learning about user disorders and how I myself fell victim, not from drugs and alcohol, but from total misunderstanding of what addiction is as a disease. And I hope that we can, with all the growing numbers suffering on both sides of this disease, we can give them some help.

Dr. Mark Leeds [01:14] Pat, you have a story of two sons that have gone through, struggled with addiction and alcoholism, and it’s incredibly difficult to be a parent and have that issue in your family to deal with. And, you know, could you please just, you know, just tell us the story and tell us what you’ve gone through and what you’ve learned and how you can maybe help other people that are listening now that don’t know what to do, you know, and they’re just now starting to go through this issue.

John Patrick Hart [01:44] I certainly can. I’m a father of four sons, three from a first marriage, and the youngest son is, of course, from a second marriage. Two of the four fell victims to drugs and alcohol. The middle one are the older boys and the youngest. The older of the two succumbed to the disease in 2006 after many years of use and treatment. It was unsuccessful. All the turmoil in the family as arrest, jail time, and a host of other problems created so much bitterness and anger in me that I carried for years. We met with counselors and therapists repeatedly, and they told us they believed he was depressed and bipolar. For me, this was pretty difficult to understand, as he seemed so carefree and seemed blind to any damage he was doing to himself and all those around him. And now, after researching and becoming more involved almost daily with so many aspects of the disease, I see clearly I suffered from my own behavior disorder. I mean, if you take addiction in as simple as terms, it’s activity that becomes a major focus of a person’s life, and that’s what I was doing. My addiction was obvious to everyone except for myself. It was anger. And usually anger results from fear. And I would imagine most people that are first getting into the business of addiction and dealing with, you know, children or parents or spouses, there’s a great deal of fear. I wasn’t a Cincinnati myself and did as much damage to my own life through misunderstanding of the disease. It was unfortunate during this time that there weren’t more resources available to help or at least I had no idea of how to reach out. We did attend a few of the Al-Anon meetings but they didn’t really provide a lot of help to us. I mean, it’s a sad thing to live with myself and realize how much life I wasted on my part when the older son and his pain and soul searching is gone forever. But I continue to live with mine because I was blind to what suffering was and what my youngest at this moment, and as long as he lives, is going to go through. I think my biggest fear is to leave this earth not knowing or believe that he’s okay and recovered from the disease. It’s thoughts like this that keep my life on a holding pattern. And I continue to go through my own recovery. So I guess after a few years of the death of the older son, we discovered the younger one was using marijuana and later various types of pills and alcohol. It wasn’t long before he was using heroin. And he also was diagnosed with ADD and depression from the time he was in grade school. And they treated him with drugs such as Adderall and Concerta throughout grade school and high school. And he had just finished graduating from high school and had a job. I don’t believe he was using very long before we decided, after he had two arrest charges, and they weren’t major infractions, but they were going to require a court appearance at some point, we took him to a detox den in Tennessee. He was 19 years old. The idea of taking him to a strange place that neither he or ourselves knew very little about or nothing about was so scary. And the whole time we took him down there, he said he was intent on making it through the first time and so showed so much strength and willingness to follow the steps and processes that were going to be needed for recovery. But not only that, he seemed to understand not only my own issues, but those of where my older son was involved, and it kind of became a three-way journey. After we took him to the detox, we joined a Nar-Anon group, which is for parents and spouses and family members that are dealing with user disorders. And as I said, I had my own views of addiction, but decided to attend the meetings with his mom. And after the first meeting, which we went to, it was filled with horrible stories, and I decided I should continue to attend them for her support. I should mention at this time this was the second marriage, and although she was aware of the older son’s addiction and his death, this was her own son. It was at these meetings we started to change our whole thinking and understanding, especially me. I think the major benefit with this group was that they like to cross-talk and provide a much deeper insight to the suffering that’s involved. And I pledged myself after leaving the younger son in Tennessee that I’d not stand by and watch another son die from using. Through strong suggestions from those people that attended meetings and had a lot of history of what was going on, we contacted the detox facility and told them that he couldn’t come home and they would have to find a rehab facility for him. Our original plan was to have him return home after he finished detox, thinking, why wouldn’t he come home? So in fact, as I said, after going to the meetings and hearing all the stories, we contacted at the Detox Center in Tennessee, and they found a place for him down in West Palm Beach, and it was the week before Christmas, so the entire event was pretty stressful for all of us. But the people at Nar-Anon assured us that they did a lot of things over the holidays to keep the clients busy and keep their minds off of all the suffering that was going on. I should mention he was three years clean last November, and he has a roommate who’s also been clean for more than three years. And then we’ve kind of taken him under our wings. Both are doing very well. They both have jobs, good jobs, in the detox and rehab facilities in West Palm. And the journey to date has been learning love and support for all of us. I kept a daily journal for two years of my own transition from bitterness and anger and how to relate to each son. We finally did, after five or six months, bring him up for a court date, and they gave him PBJ and unsupervised probation. So after the court dates, the following day, my son and I drove back to Florida, and it was going to be the first time I was going to be able to see where he was living and the location for his recovery. It was amazing that his first day back was so enlightening to me because I met some of the nicest, good-looking, and polite young people that I’ve ever met. It’s hard to believe that their lives have been so impacted by drugs and I have to think about the families that are involved. And our son went from place to place and each person he met walked in the back and hugged him and how much they missed him. And others didn’t even know they were gone but they did miss him at the meetings. It’s like he went away for a long vacation somewhere. He had been gone only three days. And the following day we went to other places that once again I met a lot of young people that were in recovery. And again, it was the same thing. You know, they seemed happy. They’re kind of a society of recovering drug users, and they band together. And if one of them is missing, they start to worry and fear the worst. They are so close. I don’t even believe a family could be that close from what I’ve seen. They’re covered with tattoos and piercings that have meaning to each of them. Words, pictures, or thoughts that they’ve decided to inscribe in their bodies. And I understand relapse and how high the chances are, but with the support of people like these that I met on the first couple of days, I have to feel that he’s in a good place and that he might just make it. If he’d been here at home, he would have been with his friends that would have offered help in the word with drugs. It would probably be of little meaning to others. They know at the rehabs and the sober living environments, they know each person wants to be successful, and they do everything humanly possible to keep their fellow users from relapse. Yes. That first week that I was down there, I went to the beach, I went to the restaurants, and met many of the roommates, and they’re all eager to explain how happy the security they have there. They come from all parts of the country, and at this moment they have little interest in coming home. Not that they don’t miss their loved ones, only to say that they’re just not ready to come home. And it seems like if they went home too early, then they relapse and they come back. This being safe seems to be foremost in their minds it’s like they I described it as a huge thumb sucking blanket like kids had when they were little and each one holds on to it like life itself and any attempt to take it away and wash it clean of all the headaches and misery that resides on it will only hurt those that have dumped all their tears and days of darkness on them It’s a collection of life and relapse and death all over and they will not choose to erase memories of success and failure. If one loses the grip, the others rush to help. This whole thing is indescribable and I’ve learned so much so fast. I’ll not leave here without thinking of every young person that I’ve met. The community here resides as a perfect example of solidarity, and they practice it day to day. And it’s so sad to think of the heartaches that wait home for their recovery. Those who love and care for them, most of their lives stay behind trying to assemble their own lives at the same time. They have that Nar-Anon phrase about loving at a distance, flags them each and every day. Why not? They’ve invested so much of love in their attic can have to hang on to the hope they too will be successful. I was very fortunate that they accepted me down there and let me hear small fractions of what my son, the youngest son’s life is now. Nar-Anon is important to me as NA is to the young one. I’m glad I was able to visit it, and it adds even more to my understanding for me. I told his mom the night before I headed back that this was the most horrible, wonderful place. I’ve never had so many ups and downs in such a short time. You walk from happy street to sad street with each passing moment. And I kept a journal for almost two and a half years of my own transformation from bitterness and anger and how it related to each son. And I created a blog, the idea of a blog called Regeneration After Addiction, which was the ability of the human body to repair itself spiritually and emotionally and physically and mentally. It was not so much the idea of healing the scars remaining after the damage is what I was interested in. I felt like I was in a good place with both my sons because those 18 months of conversations conversations and working with my youngest taught me so much and the people around, as well as Nar-Anon. It was a learning session for two and a half years for me. As I said, I felt like I was in a good place with those sons now. And now that I understood how the oldest son that has come, what he went through, and the inability for him to do anything about what was going on. As my son often tells me, fear complacency. I know when he got his one-year pen, we were so excited about the whole thing, but he said that he wasn’t excited at all. It was a dangerous time because they start to sit down and realize that they can never use drugs or alcohol ever again the rest of their life. So in a way, he’s right about complacency, I think I got a little lax myself. I recently attended two services for a young man and a woman who died from drugs and I realized I’m not completely removed to the scars. These were two members of the Nar-Anon group and immediately seeing and holding the parents, I realized I needed to reach for tools to return me to a good place, basically recharge my batteries. I mean, suddenly you have that fear returns and I remember you either inactive addiction or active recovery and you can’t forget that. The journals and the blogs that I posted have been a great tool for me to bring back assurance that my son and I are in active recovery. I no doubt spend as much time with families of those suffering from addiction by their loved ones as I have with active users. Most recently, I’ve concentrated on those associated with active recovery on both sides. I’ve seen family members step aside. In some measure, the user becomes more resourceful and able to take care of the challenges that they’re about to face. Sometimes I find myself reexamining my whole thinking process, and it takes these periods where life slows down a little bit that I can stop and think. It took almost a year’s journey with my son for me to understand what my relationship between my deceased son and myself was and how my misunderstanding was slowly but surely destroying my own happiness and life itself. This part of the journey brought the three of us together, the deceased, recovering son, and myself, who was major in terms of healing and understanding. I think, too, it introduced me to a more open view of what love and understanding truly are. I think I had a set of rules that I used as a guide to judge whether or not someone really deserved the love that I had to give. With all the faults that I had myself, I have rules to decide how I would look at my own flesh and blood to see if they measure up to what I expect. I don’t know who puts these veils over your eyes to seeing a gift that was given from the spiritual being or God, whatever you believe in. So anyways, I hope to continue my journey for understanding addiction and the challenges associated. And we have an opportunity to help someone. Our son will continue his own challenges, which are far more arduous. And he knows and understands firsthand what addiction is. And what it does to the body and spirit. And he knows it will be a struggle for the rest of his life and accepts that, but feels strongly he has the tools to remain clean and sober and enjoy life once more. He has a sponsor. He has home groups. He goes to his meetings. He does basically everything that you’d want him to do to stay in sobriety. As I was retired, I was fortunate that I could make several trips to Florida over the 18-month period that he was in rehab. That gave me an opportunity to meet so many of the clients and his roommates and the therapists and counselors and just a multitude of people that connected with user disorders. And the one trip that we went down, my wife and I went down and went over to the actual rehab facility, we sat down and talked with the program director, and we wanted to thank him for everything he had done. And after my son left the facility, I sent a letter of thanks to him and his staff for all the things that they had done and how much help they were. And he sent a letter back to me, and he had some remarks in there that I felt captured kind of my own realizations of where I was after 18 months. He said that journey not only heals the person suffering from addiction, but all of us who accompany them. The paradox of recovery is that in healing others, we are healed. And that we cannot do this work in isolation, but have to learn to ask for help. Which is what I needed to do was reach out and ask. We are both wounded and healed in relationships. And we see that each of us, as lovel as are, the good and also the not-so-good parts of us that makes us human. Being a parent is such a profound gift and at the same time such an incredible risk. We learn to be vulnerable to the risk we take in loving each other. And I thought those words have stuck in my mind for some time, And I think that’s truthfully where I am today. I’m at peace with myself. Mostly I’m at peace with my son that died because I had such bitterness and anger. And the three of us making the journey, I feel like he was part of the journey because each time I would have doubts, then the younger son would explain to me that it was okay for me to have the doubts. And he understood why I had it. But then he would go in and explain to me what the older son had gone through and what emotions and problems he was having. So it’s still a journey, and everything’s fine, and I feel like I’m in a good place. But I guess once again, if I go into another service or visit another graveyard, it will come back. I don’t think it’s total regeneration on my part. That’s kind of where I’m at.

Dr. Mark Leeds [20:41] Your son who died, was his drug of choice heroin?

John Patrick Hart [20:45] No. He used mostly pills and cocaine and alcohol. Heroin wasn’t as prevalent as it is today. This would have been, he was using drugs for almost 18 years. So it was mostly it was mostly pills and a lot of alcohol with it I think it the time when he died they said he had taken like 21 Percocet and drank a half a gallon of alcohol

Dr. Mark Leeds [21:19] So it was a combination of the alcohol and too many pills

John Patrick Hart [21:23] Right I mean you know there are horrible war stories with all these addictions and he got on Percocet. He was using drugs and I guess during his addiction and that he would sleep in the woods and a lot of things happened and he got an infection in his leg and eventually, you know, first they took off his foot and then they took off his leg and he was taking Percocet, quite a bit of Percocet, but he was still a drug user at the same time and it just got worse and worse. But he never hit that point where he hit rock bottom. He was never there. But I tell everybody at the Nar-Anon group or anybody I talk to, never stop telling them that you love them. I never end a conversation with my son that I don’t tell him I love him, and he never ends his conversation without saying that to me. Because I think the thing that I carry through life is the fact that there was so much turmoil and anger in the family with the oldest son. And we had basically cut him off, you know, the last few weeks of his life and didn’t talk to him or want anything to do with him. And the thought of him dying that nobody really cared. It was like we just didn’t care about him. And that will probably haunt me the rest of my life.

Dr. Mark Leeds [23:04] The son, the one you just visited, he’s three years clean now?

John Patrick Hart [23:11] Yeah, he was three years clean last November.

Dr. Mark Leeds [23:14] So more than three years clean. He’s working on his fourth year now. And he has a sponsor. I mean, I don’t want to go too much into his personal business, but I mean, as part of the program of Narcotics Anonymous, the ideal, well, they say that the program is the steps and the traditions and everything else is a fellowship. And the proper thing to do is, you know, if you want to stay clean and recover, is to get a sponsor. And the job of a sponsor is to work the steps with the sponsee and help them through the steps. And then hopefully when they get to the 12th step and complete the steps, the 12th step is, it includes carrying the message to others, which would include, hopefully, at that point, the person will be ready to have sponsees of their own.

John Patrick Hart [24:06] That’s correct. The youngest one has sponsees. As a matter of fact, one of his friends from here at home is down there with him now, and he’s a sponsee for him.

Dr. Mark Leeds [24:20] Oh, that’s great. So his support network, the new friends that he has includes not only his own sponsor, but he has a group of sponsees of his own that he’s helping through the steps and helping in recovery.

John Patrick Hart [24:34] Yes, both of them. And his roommate as well. And I’ve met both of their sponsors several times too. Not to discuss what’s going on with my son or his roommate, but just we have a relationship. I try to go out to dinner with them and meet them each time I go down. Just basically to thank them. They’re the lifelines, truthfully. As a parent, I don’t believe we have the tools to deal with this. If my son was to relapse now, first off, he knows what he should do. I mean, he has enough recovery time to know what he has to do. But I myself know that his sponsor has saved him through I don’t know how many bumps in the road, triggers that came up. And so we’re very dependent I mean the sponsor is like a third member of the family here

Dr. Mark Leeds [25:32] Yeah and anything can happen I’ve heard stories that even a sponsor can relapse and you can’t let that drag you down either you just have to have your own program and keep going and God is also a part of the program or a higher power and I mean they say even though the sponsor is important to not put any one person on a pedestal. And the principles come before the people. I mean, I’m no expert. These are just things I’ve talked about with other people in my experience in treating addiction. I try to listen to what people tell me about what it’s like to work the program. And most of what I do, what I do in my practice is medical treatment. Specifically, the majority of it is for opioid use disorder and the use of medication like Suboxone or naltrexone to help people hopefully prevent them from relapsing and having cravings that might lead to relapse. And I know in Narcotics Anonymous, they don’t especially approve of what they call replacement medication, but it does have a high success rate in difficult cases if a person can’t make it. I mean, is that something that you’ve seen?

John Patrick Hart [26:51] Oh, yes, several times. I know several young people that are on Suboxone. It’s a regular thing. My son was on Suboxone when he went to detox for two weeks, and then they weaned him off of it before he went down into rehab. Some of them, at the detox facility he’s at, they use Subutex and Suboxone, and it’s fairly successful but again they’re there for a short time most of these short time rehabs I’m not sure that they do a whole lot they weren’t very successful with my older son I know that it’s hard work yeah they don’t I mean they’re strong wrong. And actually, to me, I sometimes wonder whether it’s a good idea that I send people and suggest that they call either my son or roommate because, to me, they’re very hard. If they sense at all with their sponsees that they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do and they’re not following the steps and they’re not working like they should, they drop them. Yeah even though they have that thing in the back of their mind they don’t care how old you are they always try to save you but if they’re a sponsee and they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do then they don’t they don’t work with them

Dr. Mark Leeds [28:25] Yeah yeah and it makes sense I mean I’ve heard different levels of you know there was a guy that I just recently had on the show and interviewed and he was telling me that when he sponsors people, in the beginning he’ll have them keep a gratitude list. And if after a period of three weeks, if they haven’t been able to come up with a single thing, he’ll say, make a list of a certain number of things and then if they can’t do it, he’ll say, okay, just give me three things at least. And if after three weeks they can’t even make a list of three things they’re grateful for, at that point he’ll drop them, which is pretty, I mean, that’s a lot of leeway if you can’t do anything after three weeks and the person’s probably not really ready to do any step work at that point.

John Patrick Hart [29:12] Well, there’s a couple things like that. My son has a large recovery, or not a thankful, jar of all the things he’s grateful for. And it’s filled with little slips of paper of all the different things that he’s grateful for. And one of the things that I was curious about is his roommate, I spoke with him one evening, and he had been through five or six rehabs, and he explained to me that, you know, if you’re not ready, you’re not ready. He talked about how great they were going to movies and to the beaches and all this stuff, and it was basically just keeping him alive, each one of those rehabs, for those short periods of time. He said, if you’re not ready, you’re not ready to go out and, you know, preach the Word, which is where he is. He also has sponsees.

Dr. Mark Leeds [30:04] Yeah, and I can see that everything that happens that keeps a person from using for one day or a period of days, it’s that many less chances that the person had to have an overdose episode. So even if a rehab kept a person clean for only 30 days and they went out relapsed and then tried again, that’s 30 days that they didn’t have a chance to go out and overdose. So every bit of good helps, even if it’s not permanent. And like you say, relapse is part of the disease. It’s going to happen for most people.

John Patrick Hart [30:37] I think it’s 93% of the people relapse. So that’s a hard thing to look at when you’re trying to save somebody or hope that they make it. And he has made it the first time through. So that’s amazing. That’s a story in itself, the fact that he made it the first time through. Because rarely do they. When I go to the meetings, there are always four or five relapses again and again. And I went to both open and closed meetings down there, and that was very informative. It’s like there’s a – when you go to Nar-Anon, it’s about the family to, you know, do things for yourself. It’s not about the addict. It’s about you and what are you doing to help yourself. And there’s a feeling that they think if you get well, the addict or the user gets better. That’s their theory. And then when you go to the NA meetings, I’ve been to both closed and open meetings, it’s all about the addict. But it’s like you need a link. And I was very fortunate, as I said, because I was retired and I could make a lot of trips down there that I could really get into both sides of this thing. It’s like you need an intervention of some type, you know, where you can get a better understanding of what both sides are going through. I don’t know what it is or what it is.

Dr. Mark Leeds [32:09] Yeah, and you live in Maryland right now, […] So, you know, I know it’s like a couple days, what is it, like a two-day car trip?

John Patrick Hart [32:26] It’s usually two days, but my son was so anxious to get back after the court dates that he drove through. And it was a horrible night, raining and tractor trailers that we could hardly see. And he was bound and determined he wanted to go home, what he calls home.

Dr. Mark Leeds [32:46] Okay, so he considers Palm Beach his home now?

John Patrick Hart [32:50] Oh, it is. He is a resident, and he has his license there, and he’s a West Palm Beach resident.

Dr. Mark Leeds [33:01] Have you considered… He’s not going to come back. Have you considered moving down here, or do you have most of your family still up there in Maryland?

John Patrick Hart [33:10] Most of my family is here in Maryland, and my wife’s is in San Diego, in California, and her mother and father live in Colorado. So we do a lot of traveling. And then we have a place in West Virginia. My son has come home with his roommate, and they don’t want to be around here in Maryland. So usually what we do is when they come and fly up or something like that, we go to West Virginia. And there’s nobody to bother them up there, and they can kayak and fish and do whatever they want.

Dr. Mark Leeds [33:45] Yeah, and certain areas of Maryland I know are known for having a significant heroin epidemic. I mean, I’ve heard around Baltimore.

John Patrick Hart [33:58] Baltimore is horrible. I mean, we would go up to Baltimore sometimes to take him to the airport at BWI, and he would say, do you know how many times I came up here to Security Boulevard? I think that was one of the places, how many nights that we didn’t know that he was driving up there to get drugs. And our area right here, we live in Frederick County and Washington County. There are drugs everywhere. They’re horrible, even in West Virginia.

Dr. Mark Leeds [34:29] Yeah. I mean, even here, obviously here in South Florida, somehow we became the drug addiction treatment center of the country. Everybody comes down here, and there’s probably as many drugs here as anywhere.

John Patrick Hart [34:45] Absolutely. The first day that he was there, he went up to a grocery store there, and somebody approached him.

Dr. Mark Leeds [34:57] Yeah, and I’ve seen where some of these sober homes are, like in Pompano Beach, which is south of where he is and a little bit north of where I am. But I’ve seen what some of these sober living homes look like, and they’re literally right in the middle of drug neighborhoods.

John Patrick Hart [35:11] Right. He was down in Lake Worth in a sober living. And actually, he wasn’t in a real bad area. It was closer over to Lake Avenue going out to the ocean there. But the place was well guarded and all that. As soon as you pulled in the parking lot, one of those techs would come out and ask you what you wanted and what you were doing there. So he was in a safe place. I got a lot of reassurance by going down there and seeing where he was and what was going on. And he would have, myself, I was just, as I said, I just came back and I always show my wife every time we go down there’s this gas station and the same car sitting underneath there and the cars come there and they get drugs and then they ride across the street on a bicycle and they pay over there and it’s like, I mean, where are the police on this? We were in Walmart there by the airport and came out and we were getting in the car and there was a drug deal going on with the carbisitis. So it’s like they’ve got to be really strong, that’s for sure.

Dr. Mark Leeds [36:29] Now one thing I found interesting when you mentioned that, I think you said that your son, sober living, that they’re, the residents is the people that live with him, that they’re involved in narcotics anonymous. And a lot of people that I’ve talked to in sober living, they, for whatever reason, prefer alcoholics anonymous, which never really made sense to me. Alcoholics anonymous does make some sense for a person who’s on suboxone because suboxone is not acceptable by a lot of people in NA. And it’s somewhat more acceptable by a lot of people in AA. At least AA doesn’t have an official policy against it where NA does. But it never really made sense to me that Alcoholics Anonymous is not the ideal place for treating all-around addiction where NA is perfectly suited for that.

John Patrick Hart [37:20] It is, and at one time it was, I don’t know, several months, maybe close to a year, that both my son and his roommate started to go to AA meetings because they got so tired of the war stories at the NA meetings night after night. So they went to the AA meetings just to get a different view of what was going on. But no matter what meetings they go to, they walk away with stuff that they’ve learned. And we have AA members in our Nar-Anon group that have been clean for more than 20-some years. And so you get their flavor, too, of how they feel about AA versus NA and the difference between the two.

Dr. Mark Leeds [38:12] Yeah, one interesting thing is that the founder of AA, Bill W., had actually met with Dr. Vincent Dole, the founder of the Methadone Maintenance Program, the original Methadone Maintenance Program in New York. And so Bill W. Actually asked Dr. Dole, he said, is there some way that you could develop a drug similar to methadone that would work for alcoholics so the alcoholics can stop thinking about drinking and they can get to work doing their step work and going to meetings? And that would be unthinkable in the NA program, a drug to help you work your program. You know, which is actually an issue now. You know, people on medication-assisted treatment versus Narcotics Anonymous, which says that you’re not clean if you take replacement medication. And NA does come from AA. In fact, the intellectual property of NA actually is licensed from AA. It’s kind of interesting sometimes to go to read the legal stuff of how they deal with their taxes and how they manage their intellectual property and that kind of thing. But, yeah, NAAs definitely came from AA, and they actually thanked them in the beginning of their basic text, and they licensed some of their material from them.

John Patrick Hart [39:33] Well, also, in the NA groups, they have home groups where they do have a secretary and things like that. It’s very similar to AA with the home group. I don’t know if you’re ever in it.

Dr. Mark Leeds [39:44] Yeah, the home group is a great idea. I mean, you know, where you pick a home group and you identify with it, and you make sure that for all the meetings you go to, you’re always in the home group. You always make sure you go to that meeting. You’re there for the business meeting once a month or whenever they have it. You get involved in service with your home group. So, yeah, the concept of a home group, you know, if anybody is contemplating going to meetings, they should find a home group right away.

John Patrick Hart [40:09] Absolutely.

Dr. Mark Leeds [40:10] And preferably one where they don’t tell all the war stories.

John Patrick Hart [40:14] Yeah. Both of these young men have home groups. And I was going to say, when you were talking about Suboxone and the other drugs, we have members that have their sons or daughters on Vivitrol, which is good for monthly usage. Are you familiar with that?

Dr. Mark Leeds [40:39] Yeah, Vivitrol is great. There’s actually three drugs used for treatment of opioid use disorder. There’s methadone is the first, which interestingly, I learned recently, methadone is considered to be the gold standard, has a very high success rate, 75%, but it’s very dangerous. It has to be highly regulated. You have to go to a clinic every day. And then you have the other two, buprenorphine, which is suboxone, and then you have naltrexone, which Vivitrol is a form of naltrexone. And the two of them actually have about the same success rate, about 50%, which happens to be much higher than doing therapy and meetings, but no medical treatment. But then naltrexone or Vivitrol is consistent with NA because it’s not an opioid. It’s not controlled. And the problem with Vivitrol is it’s expensive, and you have to go through that whole process of getting insurance to approve it, getting it shipped to a doctor, going for the monthly shot. They also have the tablet form, which is cheap, and it does work. The thing with the tablet is, of course, you have to maybe have someone to oversee and make sure that the person takes it every day.

John Patrick Hart [41:54] Right. I think one of the individuals that we talk about at the meeting is on Vivitrol for like six months, and they’re concerned about, well, what happens after six months? And I had mentioned the pills, and they weren’t sure whether they were really a good substitute or not. But if you’re on Vivitrol, say, for six months and you’re not using heroin, that may be enough to get you clear-headed.

Dr. Mark Leeds [42:23] Yes, six months is actually the recommended minimum time if you’re on Vivitrol to stick with it for a minimum of six months. And there’s no reason not to take the pills. If a person is at the point where they are working a program, they’re in Narcotics Anonymous with a home group and a sponsor working steps, very likely they can manage the pills on their own. Or if there is somebody close to them who’s willing to, they could kind of be there to make sure that they take their medication. But yeah, there’s nothing wrong with, if it’s an option of not taking the naltrexone pills or taking them, they’re very cheap. You know, any doctor can prescribe them, so there’s almost no reason not to take them.

John Patrick Hart [43:07] That’s a good point. I might bring that up at the next meeting because I’ve mentioned that before about the pill because there’s concern about, you know, when six months is up, what’s going to happen.

Dr. Mark Leeds [43:21] Yeah, if the Vivitrol is no longer an option, the naltrexone pills are a perfectly good substitute. It’s just a matter that you don’t have that security of knowing that it’s in the person’s system for a month, but then it’s accessible. And accessibility is important because if you can’t get the shot, it doesn’t do any good not to have it.

John Patrick Hart [43:44] Correct. And I’m not sure that all of them are following up necessarily with meetings and sponsors and that. They’re using the shot right now just to stay away from heroin.

Dr. Mark Leeds [43:55] Yeah, and the shot shouldn’t be considered to be like a program in and of itself.

John Patrick Hart [44:01] Right. That’s a good point.

Dr. Mark Leeds [44:03] Yeah, and I’ve heard stories of people getting the shot and then they go out drinking. Naltrexone and Vivitrol are also indicated for the use of treating alcohol use disorder, which is alcoholism. And supposedly it takes away a lot of the pleasure, enjoyment of drinking, suppresses cravings. But a person can still drink and get drunk if they’re taking Vivitrol, which I’ve heard of happening. But Vivitrol by itself is definitely not a program. It can give you some peace of mind knowing that your family member is on it, but by itself, they should be working a full program, hopefully.

John Patrick Hart [44:50] Absolutely. I mean, I’m sure they keep pointing that out. But I know there is a case where they’re just using the Vivitrol. The meetings aren’t there, and there’s really no interest in following a program. So hopefully it’ll all work out, though.

Dr. Mark Leeds [45:12] Now I can see why your son is happy where he is. He’s got a program, he’s got a support group, he’s a community, he’s built a community around himself, he’s a leader in that community. Now for someone who’s, say, on Vivitrol, but is not involved in recovery, they’re kind of on their own. Maybe they have some friends, say someone’s here in South Florida and their family’s somewhere up north. It almost seems like there wouldn’t be any reason not to go back home at that point. I mean, why stay here when you have no real ties to the area here?

John Patrick Hart [45:49] Right. The sponsee my son has right now, which is a good friend of his, he grew up with him here in Maryland, really wants to go home. And he’s in a rehab facility for, I think he’s got 45 days. Or something like that. But my son will spend those 45 days convincing me there’s really no reason to come back here, not right now. And it’s usually, in this case here, it may be a girlfriend or something like that’s what he’s going to have to work with.

Dr. Mark Leeds [46:23] What do you think of harm reduction? Things that are categorized as harm reduction, the idea of people having Narcan pretty much everywhere, family members. They say that anyone who has any connection to a person who’s using opioids for any reason has a reason to have Narcan with them to possibly reverse an overdose and save someone’s life.

John Patrick Hart [46:45] Well, there’s a lot of cases of Narcan. Many of the members of the Nar-Anon group that we have have Narcan. They’ve been trained on how to use it and that. And it’s an interesting thing. I was down in Florida taking a class that my son had suggested I take in gratitude. And I was talking with his sponsor one night afterwards, and he said, he was talking about three strikes and you’re out. And I thought, I can’t see that has ever happened. That there would be a point that, you know, where so many people were coming in, and they would get the shot and they’d go right back out and get into drugs again and turn around, sometimes as many as two or three times a night. And I just thought that just doesn’t make any sense at all. But he said they’re thinking about passing a law with three strikes and you’re out. Well, I can’t see that ever happening, that somebody’s going to walk away and let somebody die.

Dr. Mark Leeds [47:50] Yeah, yeah, it’s hard to believe that people would even suggest that. And what do you think of, you know, in some places in the country, in some cities, they have these safe areas where people can go use heroin and get clean needles and have a health care worker nearby to hopefully encourage them to maybe educate them on what treatments are available if they’re ready for treatment. And, you know, they even test their heroin to make sure that it’s safe and that it’s actually heroin.

John Patrick Hart [48:22] They just started one of those clean needle places down in Montgomery County, just down the road from here, and they’re talking about doing it here in Frederick County. I guess it was the Swedish government that has the clean needles. Actually you can go and get heroin shots. I don’t know if you’ve ever read some of the studies. They had that program for 10 years and it’s very successful and they have a real high percentage of rehab and clean time.

Dr. Mark Leeds [48:53] It makes sense to do anything possible to keep people alive. There’s some thinking that the more things that you offer to help, if you offer Narcan, that the person who’s addicted is going to be more risky, knowing that there’s a lifeline there. But I don’t know if that’s true. I mean, they’re going to do what they’re going to do. And I think that protecting them from diseases and making sure that they’re not using deadly fentanyl or carfentanil, helping to check their drugs, and especially having a health care worker on site who can be there as a transition into getting help, to say, when you’re ready, I can tell you what to do and where to go to get help.

John Patrick Hart [49:36] Yeah, they just had a program on last weekend, I think, about what it did to the heart from the dirty needles.

Dr. Mark Leeds [49:44] Yeah yeah they can get endocarditis a bacterial infection on the heart valve which right you know can can either be deadly or cause permanent damage you know requiring surgery and lifelong monitoring of a heart valve surgery

John Patrick Hart [50:00] And that’s why I think they’re considering I they as I said they did it in montgomery county and I think they’re thinking about doing it here in frederick county as well as a clean needles

Dr. Mark Leeds [50:08] Yeah yeah and like they say as long as you keep a person alive, there’s still hope.

John Patrick Hart [50:15] Well, one of the trips that I went down there to the sober living place where my son was, we went out to lunch one day, and he wanted to bring one of his friends with him, and he was very quiet and very polite and quiet, but he didn’t say hardly anything. So we went out to lunch, and after we returned to sober living to the facility, I asked him why he was like that, and he had been Narcan three times. And there was a fourth time he was Narcan, and he was with his best friend. But the Narcan didn’t work, and so his best friend died, and that’s why he finally decided he would go into rehab. Up to that point, he had never been into rehab, but he’d been Narcan three times.

Dr. Mark Leeds [51:07] Yeah, it’s hard with this new issue with the heroin that basically is poisoned with fentanyl and things that are even stronger that we almost can’t afford to let people find their bottom. You know, the old days, you know, they said tough love and, you know, let someone go out and find their bottom and be ready to ask for help and ready to find recovery. But, you know, these days, you know, the risk of death with each use is just so high. And, you know, at least these harm reduction steps can help to keep a person alive and healthy. And, you know, until they’re ready, you know, until maybe they reach a bottom in some other way. You know, they run out of money and they get sick and they realize, you know, what’s happening with their life.

John Patrick Hart [51:53] Yeah, my son says that really it’s not heroin, it’s fentanyl in Florida is the main drug. Most of the people that come in as clients are on fentanyl.

Dr. Mark Leeds [52:05] Yeah, and it’s many times the strength of, I know it’s 80 to 100 times or 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. I guess that would be, I know heroin is four times the strength of morphine, so fentanyl is many times stronger than heroin. And then on top of that, they have carfentanil, which is, I believe, coming in from China, maybe Mexico. And that’s up to a thousand times stronger than morphine.

John Patrick Hart [52:32] This is like the tranquilizer for large animals or something?

Dr. Mark Leeds [52:36] Yeah, the elephant tranquilizer. Right. And that’s the one that the police are now having to wear gloves. Not even the latex gloves. It’s so potent it can go through latex. Right. So, yeah, it’s just, I mean, I don’t know how often that’s happening, but, you know, anything we can do to keep people away from that stuff or at least, I mean, that’s a good, one good thing about these safe using areas is the fact that they can test the drugs for them. I mean, it seems crazy that you’re going to do that for someone who’s using heroin, but to make sure that they already have heroin, they went and bought it from a dealer, and at least you can give them a clean needle and do a test and make sure that there’s not carfentanil in it.

John Patrick Hart [53:22] Well, there was, as I said, the Swedish study that’s been going on for 10 years is really amazing. I’ve given it to several people at the meetings. That, I mean, even my son and his sponsor as well felt that the best cure was to legalize it and it would be regulated by the government and, you know, it would be given by doctors and nurses or whatever, nurse practitioners, but it would be controlled that way rather than what’s going on right now. Yeah. That will never fly. I can’t stand up for the public and say we need to legalize heroin.

Dr. Mark Leeds [54:06] I could maybe see it like in the context of a methadone clinic where you go for your, I mean, you’d probably have to go more than once a day. You’d have to go several times a day because heroin wears off a lot faster. And apparently at one point in the history of this country, and there’s a book by actually one of my other podcast guests, So Dr. Adam Bisaga has written a book about the treatment of opioid use disorder, and he talks about the history of treatment. And actually, the book is written for family members. It’s written for the person who’s addicted and for the doctors who are treating, just to kind of get everybody on board on the same page with what works and what doesn’t work. But in the beginning of the book, he actually goes into the history of medical treatment. And apparently there was a time when doctors were treating opioid addiction or opioid addiction with morphine. And they were, you know, giving them, I guess they were giving them shots throughout the day because it doesn’t last that long. And, you know, so it was kind of like today’s methadone clinics, but they were giving morphine. And, you know, then the federal government outlawed it. And in no time they went out and arrested 5,000 doctors for, you know, running these morphine treatment clinics. And, you know, then it went underground. And so, yeah, I mean, so apparently the opioid crisis has been something that’s been coming and going for, you know, for centuries.

John Patrick Hart [55:32] Yeah, there was a lot of things. He was my son, and I guess he was in really a good rehab facility because they drug tested him three times a week. But the expense of, you know, that was like unbelievable. And then they would not only test them at the facility you was at, but then they would verify it and they would send it out to Texas for verification. And it was like it was running maybe $5,000 to $6,000 a week.

Dr. Mark Leeds [56:05] So you were probably getting the insurance bills and seeing what the insurance was paying?

John Patrick Hart [56:10] Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, we sat down with Kevin and we kept an Excel spreadsheet on that whole thing and I don’t even know how somebody that has a user disorder could follow all the bills and things that are explanations of benefits that go on with the insurance, trying to keep up with it’s so expensive and people have spent so much money. I think the total after that 18 months was close to $400,000. But a good portion of that was the drug testing. And I had talked to congressmen and senators here in Maryland, and they said basically it was a train without an engineer. There was no limit to what they could charge. And the ones when I talked to them out in Texas, they would run like 70 platelets, and they could tell you almost anything. And I don’t know why. They test for everything.

Dr. Mark Leeds [57:04] Yeah, unfortunately that’s part of the whole problem with addiction treatment is that a lot of people were making a lot of money apparently off of these urine tests which are testing for things that a lot of people never used and had no intention of using. Where they might have done just as well to do just a dip test, which costs the cost for the facility would be anywhere from maybe $3 to $5 per cup. And they can get ones that test for fentanyl and all the opioids separately. Because fentanyl may not come up on a standard panel that would test for heroin and then buprenorphine has to have its own separate test. But you can get these tests for just a few dollars and even if they mark up the test for insurance, it’s not going to come anywhere close to these special tests that were being shipped out.

John Patrick Hart [57:53] It was like $50, I think, it cost to do drug testing here in Maryland. You know, you could get those little boxes for the urine sample and it would cost you $50. It was nothing like what was going on down there. And I couldn’t justify that in my mind and that’s why I went and talked to congressmen and senators about this. But in fact, my son sat down at that time and I don’t know how long he’d been in recovery, but he said part of the problem was that there was so much stuff floating around out in the streets that they couldn’t test. That drugs were being manufactured, synthetics, spices, and all these other things that they didn’t have a test for. So all that research was running the cost up. And you could go, like down in Lake Worth, I believe, they had like a coffee shop where you had, is it Kratom? There’s a hallucinating coffee-like or tea.

Dr. Mark Leeds [58:52] Yeah, Kratom. There’s actually, when I drive to work, there’s still a coffee shop. They still have in the window, I don’t know if they’re actually serving it, where it says on the window, Kratom tea.

John Patrick Hart [59:03] My son said, you can’t touch that stuff. He said, any mind-altering drink or whatever.

Dr. Mark Leeds [59:11] Yeah, I’ve actually had patients who have relapsed because they went and used Kratom and then that stimulated cravings and they ended up back on heroin again. And then the problem is on these social media groups, you’ll see people talking about how Kratom can be used to treat addiction and I mean I don’t want to say there’s no truth to it but it’s not an approved treatment you know the fda has not evaluated it in fact I think they’ve outlawed it and the stories I’ve heard from real people from real patients is that when they use kratom it leads them back to their drug of choice

John Patrick Hart [59:45] Right that’s the story that I’ve heard as well and I don’t know I guess we’re just going to keep searching but I do believe you know the clean needle business and some of that is a good step or start anyways

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:00:01] Yeah yeah

John Patrick Hart [1:00:03] If you ever get a chance maybe if you if you look into that Swedish study that’s been going on for ten years it’s almost like they’re saying you know make it legal

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:00:14] Yeah yeah it makes sense I mean it’s you know the only concern I have with anytime they make something legal is it you know maybe there’s an issue where kids growing up, you know, like I’m concerned about that with legal marijuana that the kids might start thinking, well, if it’s legal, it can’t be that bad. You know, they might equate legality with morality and safety. You know, but besides that, you know, I don’t know.

John Patrick Hart [1:00:40] Of course, when I go into some condos down there, but when I go in there, I can smell the marijuana. I can smell it up on the beach. I mean, it’s so strong, it’s everywhere.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:00:50] Yeah, I mean…

John Patrick Hart [1:00:51] This isn’t medical marijuana either.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:00:53] Yeah, and that’s one point. I mean, if a person’s really working a program of recovery, if they’re, for example, in Narcotics Anonymous, if they’re using marijuana, they’re not clean. On the other hand, marijuana’s never really killed anybody, so it’s not the best and safest thing in the world. It’s not good for your lungs. It’s not good for the brain. There’s reasons not to use it, definitely, but it’s not in any way. When a patient needs treatment for opioid use disorder, you don’t want to deny them treatment just because they’re using marijuana because the marijuana is not going to kill them, but the opioids will if you don’t offer them treatment.

John Patrick Hart [1:01:34] Right. We have family members, you know, that may have alcohol around or drugs around, and they’re always very careful that if my son is visiting or something like that to, first off, put it away or ask him if he’s sensitive to the idea of the stuff being around or something that, you know. There are young people that are involved, and they may have those bongs or whatever, you know, or the smell of marijuana. So they’re very careful when he’s here but it really doesn’t bother him he seems I think if they’re really set on you know being an active recovery that type of stuff doesn’t bother him

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:02:19] Yeah I mean it’s different for everybody it might be you know for it could be that the marijuana and alcohol doesn’t do anything but you know seeing a bottle of Percocet in the medicine cabinet might be the thing that triggers someone so

John Patrick Hart [1:02:32] Absolutely yeah I mean it I don’t think you can let up on it as I said I there’s too many stories of people that have been off drugs for years and years and years and then they go back and especially they go back to the level that they were at which usually is what kills them

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:02:48] Yeah and again especially with the opioids when a person has been clean for any period of time their tolerance goes down and if they try going back to the level that they were using before, it’s going to be deadly right away. I mean, you know, a person, when their tolerance goes down, they don’t realize that they can’t handle anywhere close to what they were able to handle when they had a tolerance.

John Patrick Hart [1:03:11] That’s interesting, too. But I have heard stories of that. I mean, you know, that they were off of it for years, and then they went back, and they just did it one time, and that was it.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:03:22] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, people build incredible tolerances. I mean, you know, There’s people that might use, I don’t know, you hear 10, 20, 30 bags of heroin a day, which isn’t crazy, but there’s people using that much, and that would kill a person who had no tolerance. So if one of these people is clean for any period of time, and then they go back to that, and they just out of habit start back where they left off, it will be a deadly overdose at that point.

John Patrick Hart [1:03:53] Right. I mean, the story of relapses is pretty common. They have a large bulletin board, I guess, as you go down one of the main streets here in Frederick, and it has the number of relapses and the number of deaths. They mark it up every day. It’s really something that you can’t drive by and not see it and how much it’s growing. It’s kind of a shock to go by and say that so far this year, we’ve lost 51 who have died and 200 and some have overdosed.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:04:33] Wow. And I would imagine that’s a good thing for people to see who are using, to see that kind of thing. That might be the thing that wakes somebody up to realize that I could be the next number up there.

John Patrick Hart [1:04:48] Right, yeah. It’s pretty shocking to see it. Hopefully, well, you know, your stories are going to help somebody.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:04:59] Yeah, yeah, that’s, you know, the hope is to get the message out and to talk about it from different points of view and, you know, from the medical treatment point of view, from the point of view of people who have recovered who are recovering, and in your case, family members, that you’ve been through many years of Nar-Anon. Just one last thing I was going to ask. You said you’d also been to Al-Anon. Is there a difference between how those programs run?

John Patrick Hart [1:05:27] Oh, quite a bit. But actually, I’ve been to a lot of meetings in Florida as well, Nar-Anon meetings down there, and the NA meetings, both closed and open. But they don’t cross talk it’s a you know it’s pretty much a regulated meeting one hour that’s it where we cross talk and the people reaching out I have some post on other sites and I don’t understand why they don’t do more cross talk these people all coming and asking for help and it’s like

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:06:03] So cross talk being like where someone can talk for as much time as they want and no one else is allowed to interrupt them.

John Patrick Hart [1:06:09] Right. And if they have a burning desire or something’s going on, they may spend an hour talking about it. You know, you’re welcome to leave these meetings at any time. It’s not a, you have to be there. And I’ve been to meetings, they start at 7.30, they may not end until 11 o’clock to give everybody a chance to talk. And you can see, you know, how much it helps. And they come back. I think it’s like what we were talking about earlier about war stories. These people are coming back because they’re hearing things that they need to hear. They came and asked for help, and they’re only suggestions. They’re not telling you to do this. Everything’s a suggestion. That’s the first thing they tell you. But they’re talking from experience.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:06:51] Yeah, one interesting thing, I mean, there’s nothing like going to a live meeting, but you can also, in various places online, find recordings of great speakers and convention speakers, There’s people who have definitely not gone on to tell their war story, but they went to talk about the steps and the spiritual principles of the steps. So that’s something that if somebody really wants to get the message, there’s recordings that you can find for free online. We hear actual NA convention speakers giving really great talks. I think there’s a website, xaspeakers.org. Where it says on the top of the page, we’ll leave the light on, or something. And they’ve got speakers of every different anonymous group, like AA, NA, and some other ones. And, you know, it’s interesting to go in there and hear some of the great classic convention speakers.

John Patrick Hart [1:07:48] My son was a young one, well, actually both of them were raised Catholics. But it wasn’t very long before he was in, The young one was into Buddhism and Hinduism and study of Mexican philosophers, and he just threw me, he went into four concepts, and besides the traditions and the steps, he just got into all types of spiritual reading and had just a collection of books. But I never interfered with that, you know, it’s whatever it takes.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:08:25] Yeah yeah and that’s stuff you may pick up maybe he picked up from you know people you may be a sponsor and other people he talked to that you know everyone can pick their own higher power and you know and it doesn’t even have to be any anything supernatural it can you know like they say it can be a doorknob or can be the group you know or it could be you know it could be new way I think a lot of new age religion has kind of found its way into you know the recovery talk

John Patrick Hart [1:08:51] The founder of the Nar-Anon group her husband had been a user for years and his spiritual being was a tree she often talks about that so you’re right it can be almost anything

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:09:13] Whatever yeah if it works it’s the most important thing

John Patrick Hart [1:09:18] Yeah Yeah, and he still studies all the different religions. And he’ll, you know, call up sometimes and suggest I might read this book or do this or do whatever. And I usually do follow through to see it. But some of the things like the four concepts and that, or there’s something he’s doing right now. But I would have had to start from the day I was born because it’s like your whole life is guided by what you’ve been told. And but it’s an interesting philosophy but a little late for me

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:09:53] Yeah but you know everybody follows their own path and you know whatever works for a person you know that so that’s that’s good I mean that’s you know and they do it for people that you know I’ve had patients who weren’t comfortable with the idea of picking your own higher power and they do have fellowships of you know programs that are that are specifically Christian. For example, they’ve got Celebrate Recovery, which is a Christian-based program. So there’s something for everyone, but at least NA is consistent with whatever you come from. If someone wants to stick with the higher power that they grew up with God from whatever religion, that works also. It’s consistent with that.

John Patrick Hart [1:10:39] I believe my wife has a girlfriend that went through that religious program. And she’s been successful, seven years clean.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:10:50] Yeah, I’ve had some patients who were really happy with Celebrate Recovery. And there’s one called Smart Recovery, which I have not learned a lot about yet, which I’m going to be looking into and learning about. But I’ve had some patients that went to that and they were happy with it. And I think that was not in any way spiritual. I don’t want to say anything about it because I don’t know enough about it. But there’s other options and there’s even a new group coming up that I’ve heard about but I don’t think they have many meetings that specifically for people on medication that want to be accepted that they can continue with their medication as long as they’re not doing anything else they would be considered clean in that group

John Patrick Hart [1:11:30] I think it’s great that there’s more and more exposure to all this and so it doesn’t well unfortunately it doesn’t appear like with everything that you see and hear about, that the numbers are still going up. And that’s what’s scary, I think. I mean, if I had a kid going to high school or junior high school now, I guess even younger than that in some cases, because I hear of 10- and 12-year-olds that are using drugs, it just scares you to death. And I don’t know what you can do about it.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:12:08] Yeah, and they’re getting started with things like nicotine, these vaporizers or e-cigarettes. And there’s one that the kids are using. It came up on another podcast we were talking about it, the Juul, I think the J-U-L. I think they call it Juuling when they use it. And it looks like a USB flash drive, but it’s actually a device to smoke nicotine. And they’ll have it in their computer and the teachers think it’s a USB flash drive in their computer. And then they sneak off to the bathroom and smoke it.

John Patrick Hart [1:12:41] I’m sure my son knows about it. Yeah, yeah. That’s the other thing. When they’re in real active recovery, they keep up with everything. They’re like a walking book. I mean, if you get into medical terms and into some of that business, I mean, he’s like a walking dictionary. He can tell you anything about whether it’s the medical marijuana or whatever drugs are out on the street, the synthetics, anything.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:13:05] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, especially, you know, if you work in treatment, you have to keep up with that because, you know, people that aren’t ready to get clean, they’ll find a loophole anywhere. You know, they’ll find some way to get high.

John Patrick Hart [1:13:16] And I think, too, of course, he’s in, as I said, a detox center, and the other one’s in a rehab center, so they’re exposed to that all the time. The only thing that scares me about that is that they’ll burn out because, I’ve had several conversations with him which is probably wrong on my part because I find the less I talk to him or lecture him, it seems like a lecture. But he, you know, they’ll have clients that have been in there four or five times and just unwilling to really get better. And it stresses them out to the point that they’re almost like burned out. I don’t know how long you’re going to be in that job, but you continue trying to help people and they don’t want it.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:14:07] Yeah, and I’ve seen that also. People who work in the field of addiction treatment just start getting angry at the people that just keep cycling through. And really the only thing you can do is just to keep offering help and just keep being there for them when they come back again.

John Patrick Hart [1:14:24] That’s what I frequently have told him when he comes home and he’s really stressed and upset. Remember, you went through this yourself. And if it wasn’t for somebody stepping up and helping you’d be in the same shape. I really appreciate the fact that you let me tell my story. I hope that we can help somebody. And next time I get down to West Palm, I’ll try and get up to Fort Lauderdale.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:14:57] Yeah, that would be great. Yeah, it’d be great to see you in person. And again, what was your website? Because I’d like to, and I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. I’d like to have people come visit your site and read. Your work is definitely very accessible, very readable and engaging. And I enjoyed reading the blog post on your website.

John Patrick Hart [1:15:17] It’s called Regeneration After Addiction.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:15:20] All one word, regenerationafteraddiction.com. Small letters. Okay great

John Patrick Hart [1:15:26] Yeah I as I said that might be a misnomer as I’m learning more and more but that was the thought originally is that I was I was in a good place because I thought I was in a good place because I was at peace with the son that I had lost and that made me think about total regeneration in other words I was I was back to where I should be kind of a total regrowth spiritually and everything.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:15:52] And there’s definitely stages of physical regeneration. The longer a person can stay clean. In fact, whether they’re working a program or not, or whatever they’re doing, if a person doesn’t use drugs, you know, at six months, there’s a level of physical regeneration in the brain. And, you know, five years is a milestone where a lot of people have very minimal cravings at that point. And I mean, relapse is always possible at any point in a person’s life, but it definitely gets easier the longer they can stick with it.

John Patrick Hart [1:16:22] Yeah, one of the publishers from a site that I went and said, you’re either in active addiction or you’re in active recovery. It has to be monitored all the time.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:16:33] So, yeah, again, Pat, thank you for joining me, and I look forward to talking to you again in the future and keeping you in touch. And everyone listening, please go visit the website, and thank you.

John Patrick Hart [1:16:46] Well, thank you. Have a good night. Oh, you too. Good night.

Dr. Mark Leeds [1:16:54] Thank you for joining us today on The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I hope that you have found this show to be interesting and useful. If so, please subscribe to The Rehab Podcast and share on social media. I appreciate your taking the time to listen to The Rehab. Thank you.