Spiritual Leader Harry Derbitsky And Attorney Mark Astor On Integrative Addiction Care

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.

Harry Derbitsky [00:53] Hi, how are you? Hi, good to see you. Oh, good to see you. Yeah. It’s nice and early here.

Dr. Mark Leeds [01:03] Oh, yeah. Is it six o’clock there?

Harry Derbitsky [01:06] Yeah. Oh, well. But it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s just taking me a few minutes to relate to the reality. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, good, good. And the other guy his name is also mark

Dr. Mark Leeds [01:29] Yeah mark m-a-r-k mark astor right and yeah he’s at his website is drug and alcohol attorneys.com the way I always find him is instead of remembering the whole url I just google for mark astor marchman because marchman is the name of the act in florida that makes it possible to put somebody in treatment when they’re not thinking clearly and they don’t want to go in treatment. And so if the family or the loved ones are trying to help them out, they can use the Marchman Act to, it’s three months at a time, but they can get up to six months of treatment, you know, mandatory treatment.

Harry Derbitsky [02:11] Who decides the mandatory treatment?

Dr. Mark Leeds [02:16] They go before a judge so okay judge makes a decision and yeah I mean I don’t know a lot of the details of the process but it’s I think it’s a florida specific thing so it’s interesting that a lot of people end up in florida for you know for addiction treatment kind of accidentally you know they find these ads online you know on the beach and the palm trees and you know come here you get a free gym membership and you can have your girlfriend and your dog in the same room and everything. And then they come down here and find out that there are all these little corrupt places and bad neighborhoods. But the good thing is that even if the family is out of town in another state, they can still work with Mark Astor and they can work out of the process and have their child put into mandatory treatment for up to six months, which could be the best thing for them, especially if they get them into a really good place. You know so it turns out that ending up in Florida could save some people’s lives because of that

Harry Derbitsky [03:15] Right absolutely now now how do you spell that word Marchman

Dr. Mark Leeds [03:20] Oh Marchman M-A-R-C-H-M-A-N

Harry Derbitsky [03:24] Okay okay yeah okay good there’s also the does someone like contact him and then he gets involved?

Dr. Mark Leeds [03:38] Yeah, I’m pretty sure that the family, the husband or the wife, mother, father, siblings, somebody who’s connected with that person would contact him. I mean, it’s possible that anybody could start that process, but I would imagine most likely it’s a family member. And I think he does other things too. I think there’s also some kind of a power of attorney type thing like where, you know, if a person needs even longer term care, you know, or having somebody else handle their affairs for them, you know, until they’re ready for it. So.

Harry Derbitsky [04:13] Oh, interesting. Very interesting. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Blends well with what you’re doing as well.

Dr. Mark Leeds [04:23] Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was really happy to, I was happy to find out about it because it comes up sometimes, you know, where, where someone just isn’t following the plan, you know, of the treatment isn’t working out for them and the family’s involved and they’re concerned and they don’t, they don’t know what to do next. And this definitely gives them a really good next step.

Harry Derbitsky [04:41] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what you’re doing, what is the word that they, we use when you put medication to stop the urge, what is that word that we use to describe that?

Dr. Mark Leeds [04:54] Oh yeah. The official term is MAT, which is medication assisted treatment. And yeah. And they have it for, alcoholism. It’s not a different kind of a thing. They have naltrexone, which can reduce cravings for alcohol, and antabuse, which will make a person sick if they try to drink while they’re taking it. Then they have suboxone, which is buprenorphine, and that’s the one for opioid addiction.

Harry Derbitsky [05:25] Okay. I’m just looking for a piece of paper. Sorry, I’m a few minutes late. Oh, that’s okay. How are you?

Mark Astor [05:33] Good, how are you? Nice to see you.

Harry Derbitsky [05:35] Oh, good to see you. We’ve never met before, Mark, but really a pleasure.

Mark Astor [05:41] Pleasure’s mine. Thank you for inviting me to join you guys.

Harry Derbitsky [05:45] I think this is quite interesting, to be honest. Three specialists in different areas. I love it. And that’s what I think has to happen more in addiction, is that people like ourselves come together and learn from each other. Right. 100%. If you have an open mind. If you don’t have an open mind, of course, there’s no good.

Dr. Mark Leeds [06:12] Oh, yeah. Definitely. Integrative. You know, that’s the word they like to use, integrative. Integrative care, where everybody comes together and works together. And, you know, it’s never good when people in the same field but different parts of the same field are all fighting against each other. 100%. So yeah, definitely good when everybody gets along and works together.

Harry Derbitsky [06:33] And researches or investigates new opportunities or new ways that we can help our clients. Right. 100%. That’s what interests me the most. Yeah. When I got together with – go ahead.

Dr. Mark Leeds [06:51] Oh, sorry. I was just going to introduce you. Yeah. So Harry Derbitsky of ACTraining.biz, right? And then

Harry Derbitsky [06:58] ACT training, yeah.

Dr. Mark Leeds [07:00] ACTtraining.biz. And your new book, The Evolution of Addiction.

Harry Derbitsky [07:06] Evolution of Addiction Recovery.

Dr. Mark Leeds [07:09] Yeah, excellent book. It’s on Amazon. I read it. I loved it. I highly recommend it. And it’s based on the three principles discovered by Sydney Banks. And, you know, you told an incredible story. I’ve listened back to it a few times, you know, the last time we talked. And, you know, really interesting. And we also have attorney Mark Astor of drugandalcoholattorneys.com. So, yeah, hi, Mark. Welcome. Welcome also.

Mark Astor [07:36] Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to join you guys. It’s good to be in such esteemed company.

Dr. Mark Leeds [07:41] Thank you. And you’re a specialist in things like the Marchman Act, the Baker Act. I was trying to remember that one. And also other things, ways to help people and help family members to help someone who’s kind of lost control of their life. And really needs help. And it’s really incredible. I don’t think there’s anybody else that I know of even doing what you’re doing. And it’s really interesting.

Mark Astor [08:04] Yeah, we’re really the first law firm in the country just to really focus on people who are dealing with issues of substance use, mental illness, eating disorders, any other type of disorder like gambling. The new thing is addiction to these things, you know, technology. So anything where someone’s life is basically, you know, out of control, you know, we’re here to help. And, you know, what we do is a small piece of the puzzle. Always important but obviously having the assistance of other professionals like you two I mean you can’t I can’t do my job without you know without what you do so it’s like you said it takes a village

Dr. Mark Leeds [08:36] Yeah and one yeah one thing that the thing that we were talking when we were talking last time I was talking to harry and I brought you up in the conversation because I was telling him how you’re able to get people help and get them into a treatment program but I would imagine that what kind of treatment program, it’s not going to be the same program for everybody, I would imagine. And a lot of the programs are traditionally 12-step based. And I know that not every place is 12 steps. And Harry works with the three principles, which is an alternative to the 12 steps. And they’re actually in Florida, there is a treatment program. I forgot the name of it, but there is actually an inpatient or a residential place that is based on the three principles rather than the 12 steps. So, you know, we just thought it would be interesting for us all to get together and talk about all these different things?

Mark Astor [09:23] Yeah, no, I love it. Look, I’m not a clinician, so I really defer to people who have a clinical background to give me some guidance as to what is an appropriate facility. At the end of the day, I’m not tied to any one facility. My goal is to get the person into recovery and use the best resources that are available. And whatever that is, I look to the clinicians and the experts to give me guidance on that so that I can tell a court, listen, judge, this is where we want to send this person because this is the best fit for them.

Dr. Mark Leeds [09:53] Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, that’s great. Yeah. I know some people are really resistant to, you know, different spiritual things, which is kind of crazy. You know, like when you’re, you know, on the verge of death or going to prison, you know, using drugs and on the streets and completely out of control. And then to say, you know, I don’t want to go to that place because, you know, they talk about God there. I mean, you know, who cares at that point? What, you know, whether it’s, you know, what religion or what they’re talking about, if it’s something that works and it’s going to help.

Mark Astor [10:22] Yeah, you know, and I, you know, I mean, look, I was brought up in an Orthodox Jewish home. I don’t necessarily think that it’s about being quite religious. I think it’s really about, you know, I mean, look, I think it’s about believing there’s something out there that’s greater than us. You don’t have to know what it is. You don’t even have to believe in it. But if it’s what can help you to get through every single day, then I think it’s something worth taking a serious look at. And it seems to me like the people who are in recovery certainly respect the fact that there’s something greater out there than them.

Dr. Mark Leeds [10:54] Yeah. So, yeah, Harry, tell us about the three principles and, you know, the evolution of addiction and recovery.

Harry Derbitsky [11:06] Well to put it to put to put it simply as Sydney Banks uncovered the three spiritual principles of psychology so how the mind works is what it’s about and Mark 2 I’m going to call you Mark 2 and you Mark 1 because it’s confusing for my head

Mark Astor [11:33] Call him Dr. Mark. Listen, when I was in college, there was five of us in a house and three of us were called Mark. It was very confusing. And I have a cousin called Mark, so I’m used to this. It’s good.

Dr. Mark Leeds [11:41] Oh, yeah. […]

Harry Derbitsky [11:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when Sid uncovered what the three principles are and how they work, and the field of psychology talks about what you do with these principles. So these principles are core to who you are, Mark 2. And when you uncover them, it’s like you understand the tools that made you create your unnecessary addiction. See, everybody’s talking about the addiction, which is what you do with it. But they’re not talking about what the core, the first cause of what the addiction is. And what it basically is, and this is where the contradiction comes in with AA, is that it’s a misuse of thought. So when a person has thought, which pours through everybody, one of the concepts of life is that if you are alive, you’re thinking. That’s just you can’t be alive without thinking it’s impossible it’s one of the measures so how you use thought becomes becomes the tool whether you use it wisely or unwisely now that’s quite contrary to aa which says it’s a disease for the rest of your life so ours is a as a health model, Mark, you’re already healthy. You already have those feelings. And here’s the joke. Mark, too, whenever he gets into a lower state of consciousness, he knows somewhere back there what the answer is. And that’s why you’re resilient. You wouldn’t be resilient if you were just totally caught in a hopeless mire. And you see people who are in addiction and they’ve been in addiction for 20, 30, 40 years and you hear their stories and you go, how come they look so young? Not all of them, but how could they be? Like they’ve had, they hate their life. They’re discouraged by everything they’re doing and yet they look so young and that’s because they know something. And as when I first went into a recovery center in Vancouver which is where I’m from Mark 2 and Mark 1 is one of the most heavily addicted areas it’s a west coast town like you know San Francisco and so on it’s the San Francisco of Canada and there’s homeless people and drug-addicted people all over the place. And when I first met them, I was surprised. They’re so spiritual. They’ve been in altered states of reality, lots of them. And they had lots of understanding, but they didn’t have the understanding of how to break free of the habit. And the reason they didn’t have the understanding of how to break free of the habit is they didn’t understand the role of thought. So if you use your thoughts to think about something you’re going to create and so if you have a heavy heavy feeling which I think both marks will agree most people who are in addiction have a fairly heavy feeling would you agree

Mark Astor [15:32] Oh yeah definitely yeah I would and but one of the other things I noticed is the emotional component that goes along with it we I’m not a clinician, but one of the things that we have to deal with is the emotional crisis that the family seems to be in because the person who’s, you know, for lack of a word of the addict, and I hate to use that word, it’s got a lot of stigma to it, but the person who’s in the middle of this thing, for them, their life is status quo, right? They don’t understand why everybody else around them in the family is sort of losing it’s because they objectively can’t see what’s going on in their own life. That’s right. They can’t get close to the tree. So, and

Harry Derbitsky [16:05] Very similar Mark to someone dying, someone who’s dying has actually come to grips with the fact that they’re moving on, but everybody around them has this grief around them. The problem with the family is that they’re looking at it from a problem oriented perspective and it’s, And here’s the connection. A thought creates a feeling. And if I’m worried about you, guess what feeling I’m creating? Worried? I’m creating a worried feeling. When I had a lady who has two sons, heavily alcoholic, one who’s in the emergency center every three months, and the other one in prison, she felt tremendous guilt being associated with this. And she felt it was her own fault. When she came and talked to me and suddenly realized the best thing for her son was to be in prison, all of a sudden this was a place where he was brought for his healing. The best, what happened to her is she suddenly realized it wasn’t her fault. And when she saw that she was free to help her people her husband and her two sons and that’s what she did she wasn’t attached to the problem you see we’re taught in the Jewish faith we’re taught to worry as you know right Mark?

Mark Astor [18:03] I still get the Jewish guilt. It’s all right.

Harry Derbitsky [18:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that’s the problem, is that there’s this heavy idol. And it goes into stuff, and they start talking about nothing. But it all becomes a reality. And everybody has an opinion. Everybody. Most of which is unwanted, unneeded, etc. Yet, it becomes a roar. And Jewish people, Mark, I am also Jewish, so I’m privileged to be able to talk about, but they have a very high idol up here. And when it expresses itself in a negative way, which they are almost taught from day one to talk about this, what happens is situations get very emotionally charged. What do I do when that happens? Mark 2 and Mark 1? I go downstairs and read a book. I used to get involved in it. Like talk. Oh, they have an opinion, so I have an opinion. And we all gave our opinion. And before you knew it, there was this great big artificial illusion. The Jewish people are fantastic at creating a situation. Then it blows over and they forget about it. Just a cultural trait. But the problem with it is that it’s mired in negative emotion. They love it. They talk about it. And the family is doing that. They’re talking about it, charging about it. And if the client or the center person of this problem that they’re talking about happens to have something positive to say, none of them are going to be able to see it. Would you agree, Mark, that one of the problems for both of you is that the people who are associated with this, even if the person had a positive feeling, they would not be able to see it?

Mark Astor [20:20] Yes, you know, that’s the resistance. I mean, the denial, you know, there’s nothing wrong with me. You know, why is, why are my parents doing this to me? Why are they forcing me to go to treatment? There’s nothing wrong with me.

Harry Derbitsky [20:31] Yeah. I got this. But the parents also are probably, like, they’re emotional. You’ve said it perfectly, Mark. The parents are emotionally charged. They’re distraught.

Mark Astor [20:47] Yeah, well, they are. There’s also the issue of sometimes they just, the battle for us sometimes is getting the family on board because, and it’s typically the mother that calls me. And what she says is, I don’t want my child to hate me if I do this. And my response is, if your child dies, you’ll hate yourself. But ultimately, I, you know, we give the families options and they decide what they want to do. I mean, it’s a bit like going to the doctor and the doctor says, you know, you’ve got cancer and here’s your options, chemo, radiation, or some type of alternative treatment, or, you know, you could just wait to die. And sometimes some people just, okay, they make their decision to me you know so it’s not sometimes I used to say to myself how can this how can this mother not make the decision but I started to realize that it’s not it’s not black and white it’s not you know cut and dry it’s not an easy decision to make to get your child to treatment it’s a very difficult decision it’s a brave decision and it’s not for everybody so I really I appreciate the fact you’ve talked about the emotional component because It’s just not black and white. Like, you know.

Harry Derbitsky [21:52] It never, it can’t. And the problem is when, like with this woman, this mother, when she was in that emotional negative guilt feeling, that’s all she could feel. When that, when she saw that the core of that was coming from, the negative feeling that she’s feeling is not coming from the situation. It’s her thinking about the situation example you’re in traffic everything florida is famous for it having you know especially miami it’s just like crazy and you have all you’re in traffic some people have road rage and other people put on some music and relax or put the top down in they’re convertible and just enjoy the sun or whatever it is. What’s the difference? The difference is how you reacted to the situation. And the source of all reaction is you, not the situation. You can say and pretend it’s the situation. Now, here’s how it works, Mark. The lower your mood, the more the outside seems to be the cause of the problem. The higher your mood, the more you’re able to see the truth. The truth is you’re stuck in traffic can’t do anything about it so let’s see what let’s see what a good what’s good for my mental health what’s bad for my mental health is to get crazy in my head what’s good for my mental health is to calm down right yeah yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [23:56] I think it’s interesting that we, you know, we’re talking about family. It’s been kind of a running theme through multiple episodes on my podcast, as far as that addiction is in a sense, a family problem. And sometimes, sometimes a big part of the problem is what’s going on with the family. You know, we talked about in one episode, narcissistic parental abuse, you know, and sometimes, you know, a parent might be the one that saves the child’s life, getting them into treatment, you know, mandatory treatment, but that same parent might be a huge contributor to the child’s addiction problem in the first place. And there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be sorted out. I mean, family therapy is probably a really important part of treatment and recovery. I don’t know how many people actually end up in family therapy together. A lot of times families are separated by a lot of distance by the time the, you know, the child or the family member gets into treatment. You know, a lot of our patients, the mothers or the families, and Mark, I’m sure you deal with this too. You know, the mother calls you from another state thousand miles away. You know, and I always wonder, why are you so far away? If you care so much and you want to call us all the time, but they ask us to be like the, you know, their parent, you know, and can you make sure that they’re okay? Can you make sure they’re getting their medication or staying clean? And of course, you know, we’re going to do our job, but we’re not their parent. You know, we’re not the husband or wife.

Harry Derbitsky [25:20] But they are correct. One of the things with Mark, too, being the lawyer, he says, I’m not a therapist, but he actually is, whether he likes it or not. He’s not a trained clinical therapist, but he knows that if he can calm the mind of the people, that’s step one to having a reasonable observation and decision. Around the person. If that person is always going to be emotionally charged, he’s not doing his job because he’s fueling it. He’s adding to it. And the reason they’re coming to you, Mark, one is because even though you have a positive contribution to the situation, because you’re a doctor they’re also leaning on you for emotional support especially since they know they themselves can’t provide it somewhere inside their wisdom is saying I don’t understand this what the heck is happening I like a nice easy normal life and this is not within my realm of understanding so they come to both you guys because they need somebody who can lead them in some form of positive direction. And the other thing I want to emphasize, something I don’t totally agree with you, Mark, one, is although child and family therapy is a good thing, if the therapist is lost in an old psychology, they’re going to do more harm than good to the situation. They’re going to look at the problem. They’re not going to look at the fact that people have their own ability to see things once that clutter, chatter, that creates emotional explosion, quiets down. Until that happens, you’re not going to have it. But some psychologists are going to fuel that and they’re going to say that’s the problem and it isn’t. The problem is everybody in the universe has the ability to calm down, go into a saner state of mental health. But when you’re in that low mood or that turmoil, you can’t see anything and yet when that calms down that same person can see with common sense and that’s never explained to people that’s why mark too when you have someone and you calm them down or they feel confidence in what you’re saying which is the same thing of course you understand that when they have confidence in you they calm down there’s hope

Mark Astor [28:36] Yeah so I mean I think that in addition to the fact that we specialize in this kind of work, the average client that we have works with us for six months. So when clients call me, they say, well, I just need you to file the papers or I just need you to go to a court hearing. I say, then you don’t need me at all because you can file the papers on your own or you can call Ms. So-and-so or Mr. So-and-so down the street. He’ll charge you a third of what I’m charging. He’ll file the papers, go to one court hearing. But you know in you know in a week’s time or two weeks time or a month’s time your child relapses or runs out of treatment on a saturday night at nine o’clock I’m the guy that’s answering the phone because that’s the level of service that we offer and for me it’s about going on the journey with the family because if you don’t go on the journey with them then I don’t think that you get the results I mean filing the papers and going to a hearing that’s that’s the tip of the iceberg you know it’s my goal is to is to keep somebody in recovery for one year and I just know that from experience that we can keep them clean for one year, there’s a good chance they’ll stay clean. Obviously, you know, it’s not set in stone, but that’s our goal. So if I can get a family to work with me for six months, I’m already halfway there. Then I rely on the professionals and the clinicians to really put in place a solid aftercare program and a support system for the person who’s in recovery and also for the family. And we have found we’ve gotten great results with that. So you’re right. While I’m not a clinician, I’m being a little bit of a clinician. So I appreciate you clarifying me on that. I never sort of looked at myself as a clinician. I was sort of looked at other people, you know, with the training as clinicians, but it’s an emotional situation. And the family has to know that, you know, the people they’re working with have their back and that we’re the safety net so that when things go south because recovery is never a straight line, that we’re there for them. And that’s really an important part of what we do. So I appreciate that.

Harry Derbitsky [30:24] And for Mark 1, even though Mark 1 is doing injection that helps people with the urge, they’re also getting from you, Mark 1, what Mark 2 was talking about. They feel a confidence with the fact that you, they feel you know something. They feel you can help them in some direction. And it’s the same for why people come to me. Anybody can repeat three words, mind, thought, and consciousness. Any puppet can do that. But to have a caring understanding of what you’re expressing and a compassion for the situation makes it all different. And the reason I emphasize the role of thought so much, Mark, too, is you’re right. Anybody who is off whatever their addiction is for a year all the chemical dependencies and the body thing those are all cleaned out type of thing but they still have their thought and if they don’t understand the role of thought what happens is they start talking about the same things that they talked about before they were addicted or they were before they were put in this year rehab program and the moment you start talking about the same old things guess what you create? The same old urges. That’s the way it works. It’s just the right use of thought or the wrong use of thought and the wrong use of thought is going into the past and regurgitating those old memories because that’s all that’s happened. If you left the past alone I’ll give you an example there was one time this was told to me a little while ago one time when the whole world there was no war do you remember when that was Mark 2

Mark Astor [32:26] Go ahead and enlighten me

Harry Derbitsky [32:29] I’m going to tell you a surprise it was when the World Cup soccer final was on a few years ago everybody stopped fighting. The whole world. And there was absolute peace because everybody was watching or talking about this game. And when the game went over, guess what happened? They went back to war. And here’s the joke. They didn’t have to. You see? It was their thought. They went back. Oh, now I’m back in the old trend. And I’m getting upset again. They were having a great time in that beautiful feeling. And when they have that feeling, and they experience that they’re part of that feeling, that’s just Jewish wisdom. That’s all it is. Just old-fashioned common sense. If you can associate yourself with a good feeling, Not a pretend I should be having a good feeling. Or I couldn’t have a good feeling. That one. Willpower is useless, Mark. Hopeless. You cannot willpower you to a healthy state of mind. It’s impossible. You can feel it. You can experience it. And then that’s why it’s in the spiritual realm. Because you have associated yourself with this experience. And that’s what happens. So when Mark I administers his medically aided drug that helps, tremendously helps to eliminate or to experience this urge, it disappears it gives them an opportunity because what are they hearing you’re lousy you’re a fool you’re a hopeless thing can’t you see and they’re feeling what are they feeling every time I go back into that addiction I get broke I got no money I’m on the street again I’ve recreated that same situation. All of that is just thought. It’s crazy. It’s just thought. And the moment they experience that they’re the thinker, imagine, everyone’s walking around. It’s the outside thing that’s causing me the problem. I’m not the thinker. Oh, no, I don’t think my own thoughts. No, I don’t even have a personal opinion about anything. I’m just, but of course they do. See, so they’re just not seeing the truth that they with their thoughts are creating this bad habit. Now here comes the core of it, Mark. The reason Mark one stuff works is because it’s not a bad habit. It’s not a disease. Excuse me. It’s a bad habit. Got it mixed up. And when it’s, you’d see it that it’s just a bad habit. Like Jewish people, they like to eat. And boom. But at a certain point, you notice you get a stomachache. They can’t sleep at night. Your stomach is all churning. And then sooner or later, some of the smart ones, not too many, but some of them, they go, oh, I don’t want to have a stomachache every time I go to sleep. So they start to eat more sensibly. It’s the same with thought. Oh, if I think this thought and it takes me in this direction every time, maybe I won’t use that thought. And that’s when they get free of the addiction. And that’s what you want more. The best feeling you have is someone stops addiction. But you know one person I worked with addiction was very wise and she says I don’t want to get off addiction I want to be happy and get off addiction you see the difference yeah yeah and that’s the answer that’s the evolution of addiction recovery when you take when the person experiences the source of their happiness. And guess who it is? I hate to say it, but it’s you. It’s you guys and me. But you can see how much easier, Mark, it is for me to say to Mark 1, it’s you, but this is the hard one. And it’s me. You see how difficult that is?

Dr. Mark Leeds [37:44] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, there is a, I heard a guy giving a talk once and he was talking about how in recovery, they talk about when a person uses a drug, you know, they’re picking up. You know, you hear someone say, you know, did you pick up today or whatever. And the guy made a comment that, you know, picking up a drug, you’re literally picking it up. You’re putting the drug in your hand or the food in your hand or the poker chip or, you know, whatever you’re addicted to. And he said you know if you don’t if you don’t put the drug in your hand you know once it’s there you’re pretty much it’s too late you’re almost certainly going to use it so yeah so if you don’t if you don’t have that drug in your hand you know there’s hope there’s hope for recovery there’s hope to you know you may have that bad thought in your head and that thought that you’ve relapsed you’ve already gone too far or it’s too late or I might as well do it one more day but like you said those are just thoughts you know they’re kind of broken thoughts but you know as long as you don’t put that thing in your hand, you know, there’s still hope, you’re still in recovery, you’re still clean. So I think, you know, one thing that we’re all talking about here is that, you know, a person needs that time and space to have these conversations and to be able to contemplate these things, you know, and to put some barriers between, you know, them and the drug, you know, to, and that’s what I tell people, you know, first thing, make sure you have no drug in your home, make sure you start deleting the contacts of people you use with or your dealers, go on social media. Cause I mean, if you’re following them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, you know, Snapchat, you know, if you have any way of that person contacting you know, you know, put as many things between you and the drug as possible. And then for some people that’s, you know, like what Mark does, that’s mandatory treatment, you know, to, you just really need that time. You know, like you said, a year, I think if a person did nothing for a year, but sit in a room a year later, there’s going to be a much lower chance that they’re going to go out and relapse because the brain needs time to heal. Of course, to doing therapy and getting the kind of coaching that you do and that spiritual contemplation of realizing you’re not your thoughts. That’s important also. Mark, would you consider what you do to be family law? When I think family law, I think divorce attorneys, but it sounds like what you do is dealing a lot with family.

Mark Astor [40:03] It is. I don’t really think it’s an aspect of family law. I don’t know what you’d call it because I guess because it’s really the first time it’s been done where there’s a law firm just focusing entirely on this. I think even though we’re not technically from a legal set, we’re in the probate division of the court system, but from a sort of, I guess, emotional view, it’s very much family law. And sometimes, you know, those family aspects, you know, the family aspects are sort of part of the puzzle because we get, well, most of the clients are moms and dads that call us. A lot of time we get We don’t just get spouses. We get like ex-spouses calling us. So dad will call me and say, you know, I’m divorced from my wife. In fact, I don’t even like her. I try to avoid her as much as possible. But, you know, we have a child. And, you know, my son needs his mother. And he needs his mother sober. And so I’m going to do what I can do to get her into recovery. And she’ll probably hate me for the rest of her life. But I don’t care because my son needs his mother. And so we get a lot of those calls too. So there’s always sort of that family dynamic that’s involved in it. And sometimes they could be involved in the middle of a divorce. I’ve had parents call me. They’re actually in the middle of a divorce, and the dad’s like, look, I’m going to march back there. She’s going to drive me back into court. This is going to become an issue of the divorce, but I don’t care because my children need their mother. They need their mom. So sometimes we get involved in that too. I mean, I will refer that to a family law practitioner, but, I mean, sometimes the emotional dynamics can really go far and wide.

Harry Derbitsky [41:35] Not sometimes Mark always

Mark Astor [41:38] Yeah and so I think one of the things I’ve tried to do just from my own perspective is to put just put some more barriers around myself because there are times where I need to sort of decompress because we’re absorbing a lot of energy from people who really need help and I get it so I try at least on the weekends now to only take calls that are either brand new clients or emergency so if somebody calls my office at nine o’clock on a saturday night and god forbid there’s been a relapse or someone’s left treatment I mean my system will automatically shoot me an email so I’m alerted but I try not to take a lot of calls on the weekends because it’s just my time to regroup so when I come in on monday I can start helping people again with 100 of energy so yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [42:24] Well you know I read your I read mark I read your ebook you know if you go someone goes to your website and signs up for the email list, you get that e-book. And it’s really –

Mark Astor [42:34] I think now they can actually download it. My web guys make sure they can actually download it. And if they shoot me an email, I’ll always send it to them. In fact, I try to send the book out as much as I can because I tell people that they should have access to the information about how the legal system can help them. And if they decide they want to engage us, they can. But I mean I give away probably more information on the internet about management, guardianship, of criminal than I think anybody else does because yeah

Dr. Mark Leeds [43:01] And one thing I thought was really interesting and almost honestly was even a little bit scary but I think it’s a great thing you have this guy that works with you that almost sounds like I was imagining like a bounty hunter but you probably wouldn’t call him that you know this guy that if someone does try to break you know they break out of treatment or they go off and they relapse or they disappear in the family because I saw this happen in a movie there’s a movie on Netflix where the son leaves treatment the father’s worried about him and he said he calls the counselor and he says what do we do now she said well there’s nothing we can do he left treatment he’s gone that’s on him you know but that you know with when someone’s working with you there is something more you can do you can actually get that person brought back to treatment you can track them down

Mark Astor [43:41] Yeah I’ve got a retired cop on staff dan reamer who’s you can read about him on my website he’s a former deputy sheriff and in fact he goes on a lot of the pickup so while while law enforcement will do the pickup I use I use dan for a couple reasons number one it turns what would be sort of a 24 to 48 hour you know lag time between a court order and a pickup into four to six hours but more importantly if that person is not located at the address we’ve been given and sometimes we don’t even have an address and I gotta actually physically go find somebody I mean he just makes everything he just makes it all happen so I mean having that resource I mean it’s quite amazing. And a lot of the time, you know, I mean, it used to be when I first started filing these, if I didn’t have a location because mom and dad are saying, look, my kids living under a bridge and here’s the rough area or they’re living outside of Walgreens, you know, the judges were reluctant. They wouldn’t even take my pleadings. They were like, no, no, when you get an address, call us. And I say, listen, I’m going to go find this person. I just need you to give me the court order. And so I’ve been, so they’ve sort of understood that how I will, how I do things. That’s a little sort of outside of the norm. So, I mean, I’ve had Dan go, chasing, you know, go looking for somebody for four or five days before we found somebody on the street and picked them up and got them into treatment. So, I mean, I feel like it’s my mission to try and save as many of these kids as possible. And I use the word generally kid. You guys will understand I’m 53 and my mother still thinks I’m a little boy who can’t feed himself with his own laundry. And what I, what I realized is that for every parent, how, however old or young their child is they’ll always be their kid so I feel like it’s my mission to try and save as many of those individuals as I possibly can so you know that’s why we’re on this call right now is all three of us feel that

Harry Derbitsky [45:23] Yeah that’s what I like about the three of us mark one that’s why he’s doing what he’s doing he’s socially committed to making a contribution in an area which is hopelessly lost, hopelessly lost. You’re committed in your way of doing the ultimate service instead of the person staying on the street and living like a rat. I walk down in Vancouver, when I go to the recovery center, I look inside the alleys and they stink. They stink. No human being no rat would even want to be there and there are human beings living there in that squalor and you go oh man and these are beautiful people you’ve got to understand they’ve lost but they’re beautiful people so you’re doing your part to take the person back to some form of self-respect and self-esteem. And you can rest assured, and I can tell you both, as a person who works directly with the people, they want that. They need it. And you can help them. But the point is, you have to be doing a good service. And a lot of doctors are lost or they’re caught in AA paradigm. Now, AA has helped more people than anybody else in addiction, but it’s getting older and older and drier and more and more tired and more and more systematic. If you fit into this, you’ll be healed. Except my co-host of my show, Addiction, Alcoholism, and the Three Principles Marks, which has now over a million minutes of views on it. My co-host was in AA, and he had a spiritual insight. Boom. 100% cured. Boom, how can that happen? That doesn’t make sense. And he’s in AA and he starts telling people, I’ve lost my urge for all of that stuff. And not only that, I see my connection to who I am. And they said, well, you can’t have had a spiritual experience because you haven’t gone through the 12 steps. And he says, what, I need permission to have a spiritual experience by you guys? And so they fought him but the problem is they’re still caught up in the in the addiction paradigm and he’s free not kind of free totally free and now he coaches sometimes with me sometimes not with me he’s in Ohio Mark I’m in Vancouver you know we’ve never met physically we just work through the internet with Zoom and stuff like that. But the answer is, he’s a breath of fresh air. He’s been in that world, but he’s escaped it. Not with 12 steps, not with religion, not with smart recovery or whatever techniques they have out there. You know, cognitive therapy that makes everything cold and spiritualist, but makes sense. Not that way. He experienced something inside himself. And that’s what the two of you are giving people an opportunity for in your own little way, an opportunity for them to be free of this stuff. And I know listening to Mark 1 and now listening to you Mark 2 nothing makes the reason you’re doing what you do is for that moment when you say I made a contribution

Mark Astor [49:41] Yeah that is everything I mean I’ve been a lawyer 25 years now and I’ll tell you for many years I tried not to practice because I was so miserable doing it I went through my own sort of personal crisis and awakening and what I realized was the missing piece from being a lawyer was I didn’t have a business where I was helping a lot of people I actually didn’t feel like I was helping anybody. So while I feel like I’m helping people, I’m almost also helping myself. You get back. You give, you receive.

Harry Derbitsky [50:09] That’s right. That’s the way love works, Mark. No one calls you a love sharer, but that’s what you’re doing. And that’s the same. When I first met Mark and why I like talking to Mark 1, he’s expressed the same thing. Identical. I’m healthy. I’m making a difference. Maybe I don’t understand the whole picture, but I’m making a difference. And that’s why we need each other, Marks, is because I can’t do it all myself. But we start to see this is a very big puzzle, except the opiate crisis and the addiction crisis is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. As stress goes up in the world, of course, as the status quo gain control and don’t allow people who are creative. Because one thing for sure I’ll tell you, these people are not dumbbells. In many cases, they’re far smarter than the rich people in our society, far smarter, but they don’t fit into this thing. And they’re not, you know, they wanted to experience some of life, not just money. So they want to, you know, if you’re that type of feeling person, you’re going to be hurt in the world. The world is not conducive to anybody except worshiping money. But what if you worship helping people or you worship sharing feelings or you worship creativity? Those things can be stifled. And when you work with kids, I go to my daughter’s grade one class once a week to help her. And I like it because it’s a nice balance to what I’m doing. They’re struggling with the same thing. I think different. Than the system thinks. And guess what happens? If you have a teacher or someone like myself come in, they start to have a good time. And the moment they start having a good time, they forget about their worries. That’s great.

Dr. Mark Leeds [52:27] So, yeah, thank you. I want to thank you guys for joining me today in this incredible conversation. Mark Astor, drugandalcoholattorneys.com. I highly recommend people go visit that website and, you know, get that ebook and learn about what you do. It’s really incredible. And there’s even a section in there about food addiction. […] You know, I mean, addiction is a, you know, terrible thing. But I definitely recommend people visit your website, learn about what you do, get the information. And it’s all about saving people’s lives, reuniting families. There’s a lot of love behind all of it. Harry Derbitsky, thank you. ACTtraining.biz, I highly recommend people go visit your website, look at your books, get your book, read it, especially the new one. Thank you both for joining me today.

Mark Astor [53:23] Thank you for having us. For what it’s worth, I posted on Facebook the links to both your websites because I love what you guys are doing, and anybody that’s trying to help other people dealing with this issue, to me, deserves at a minimum some recognition because we’re all trying to – I think we’re all rowing in the same direction and trying to get as many people help. And there’s no one-size-fits-all, you know, and it really takes lots of different disciplines to help people. So thank you both for what you do.

Harry Derbitsky [53:55] I’ll send you a free copy of my book, Mark II. Yeah, you send me a friend request and I’ll send you some information and I’ll send you some resources as well that I’ve created in our group and so on. And you’ll find that some of it will help people. And you have hit the nail on the head. What works for one person doesn’t work for the next person. And so that’s interesting. I love what I do. And I actually love what I see. Some people need to go to Mark 1 rather than Harry Derbitsky. Some people need to go to Mark 2 rather than Harry Derbitsky. Just the way it works. It’s just amazing. Thank you.

Dr. Mark Leeds [54:44] Or all three could work together also. Yeah, there’s a bonus model for you want to have a conversation.

Harry Derbitsky [54:52] Yeah. And that is something possible where the three of us could work together to help somebody. And because the problem is with what you’re both doing, especially Mark II, is that a lot of these recovery centers, they’re money machines. Lots of money, lots of profit. And what they like is people keep coming back.

Mark Astor [55:20] Yeah, my business model is to not have people coming back. If they keep coming back, it means I failed someone all the time.

Harry Derbitsky [55:27] Yeah, yeah. Well, we all look to that. But you have found something else, Mark, too. If you give up your own mental health for the situation, you’re not helping anyone. Right. Thank you. The number one thing to be a helper is physician, heal thyself first. And then you have something to offer. Because you’re right. If you’re firing blinds, you’re not going to help anybody. About 100%. Great.

Dr. Mark Leeds [55:56] Thank you. Yeah, thank you, guys. Thanks. It’s been great. Thank you, and we’ll definitely speak again soon. Okay. 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.