Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Well, hello there and welcome back to Just say Something's weekly podcast. My name is Philip Clark, and I'm the CEO here at Just say Something.
And before we get started, I want to make sure to remind you to, like, share and subscribe to. To our podcast. And remember that you can find our podcast wherever you find your other favorite podcast. We are there.
So today I want to welcome David McNeese to our podcast. And David is with Greenville Transitions Discovery Center.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Recovery Center.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Recovery center. Oh, my bad.
And so tell us about the recovery.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Center, where to start, and thanks for having me on.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: So Greenville Transitions is. What we started doing was a transitional living program for young men, young adult men ages 17 to, like, 26 or 28.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Substance use disorder program, but also, like a failure to launch component of it.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Okay.
So how long have. How long has the center been in existence?
[00:01:26] Speaker B: We just hit eight years.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So eight years with the living portion of it. And then.
Well, when we opened the transitional living, we were outsourcing all of our clinical work, all of our therapy, psychiatry, all of that. And four years ago, we opened our own recovery center. So the. The clinical psychiatric side of it.
[00:01:48] Speaker C: Right.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: So eight years on the transitional living, four years on the recovery center.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: So this is your. Your organization.
And so what happened or what didn't happen that made you say, you know, I need to do this.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah. To get me there. And I'm. I'm just one of three.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: I'm a co founder.
So, you know, I struggled as a teenager. Around 13 years old, I started struggling with substances and alcohol, and I ran that race for about 10 years, till 23 is when I got sober.
And I had people help me as a young adult through that process, through all of the changes that needed to take take place to get through to the other side.
[00:02:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: And I knew pretty early on in my personal recovery journey that this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to, like, figure out a way to give back. And in a similar way, like, very targeted audience, like, I wanted to help young adult men. Failure to launch adhd.
[00:02:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Very similar case to me.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Okay. Because I know I've been in a lot of conversations with those in the recovery community, and it's not a one size fits all for recovery.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: It's not.
Yeah.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: It's almost like every recovery is like a snowflake. It's unique to that individual person.
So I guess the days of everybody thinking, we'll just go to AA or na, you know, that doesn't work for some people.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And we really tried to, you know, take the approach of that target audience target, like the younger man.
Just because we think that it's good to, you know, find your people.
[00:03:42] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: You know, and, and your community.
So it's good to see if I'm an 18 year old young man struggling with substance use disorder, it's good for me to be around other 18 year old men who are struggling with the same thing.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Because it's easy to fall into this category of we think that we're terminally unique.
No one will understand or no one will get me.
[00:04:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Because I have these just serious struggles and traumas and depression and anxiety, whatever the case may be.
I think it's so helpful to see other people that are around a similar path as you, like same age, same demographic.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: To help you see, hey, it's not just you.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: You're not just.
[00:04:24] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: And we do that a lot for our parenting classes. You know, it gives the parents the opportunity to sit there and, oh, I'm not the only one going through this problem with my child.
And most parents, when they come in here, they're like, I don't know why I'm here, because my kid's the one with the problem.
But by the time they're able to go through one of our programs, usually sometimes on week one, they'll come to our facilitator and say, I'm the problem, not my child. I'm the reason my child is who they are today.
I know dealing with families is a difficult, can be a difficult thing sometimes, especially with a young guy.
What's some of the advice that, that you might give if there's a parent or caregiver that is listening to this podcast regarding their teenage son? Or maybe they like, oh, well, it's just marijuana.
Oh, well, it's just alcohol. What's some advice that you might be willing to give them at this point?
Knowing what could be down the road?
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Yeah, for me, unmanageability is a key word there. You know, when parents call me and they're like, oh, is my son just doing teenager things or is this worse? Is there a problem on our hands?
My question back to them is, is their life unmanageable? So look across their life at their relationships, their school, their hobbies, their sports. If they're working, look at their work. Are they managing their life to, does that look healthy? Does it look good? Or are things falling off?
And if substances, if they know substances are in the picture and their life is falling apart and Things are becoming unmanageable, I would say. I don't think it's just teenager things anymore.
[00:06:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: But I think you unpacked. Another really important thing is just family work in general, which is something we're really big on. Like we won't work with a guy if their families won't come in and work with us too. We require it. We require weekly therapy, we require every other week groups where they can be with other families and get their experience.
Because you have to, you have to look at the family as a whole.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Oh, 100%.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Your teenage son in here. Fix it and fix this.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:06:51] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's in for some families, that's all that they can fathom. They don't know what to do.
And so part of that is what we do here, just say something is help families communicate better.
Even one of our programs is called Strengthening Families and it's for families that have a child from 7 to 17.
It's 11 weeks and we start out with a family meal every week. And so most families I know, when I grew up, we waited until our dad got home every night for the whole family to sit down and eat a meal together with so many fast food restaurants. And families don't do that anymore. And so that connection is missing, especially with the little cell phone things that is really driving a lot of kids to not communicate.
And so it's helping those parents to get out there and to find what they can do.
I know we focus a lot on the prevention side here at Just say something with our partners.
How do you see the relationship between recovery and the prevention side working in our community?
[00:08:18] Speaker B: What do you mean?
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Like, so the relationship between prevention and recovery.
What, what can we do more on the prevention side that would help on the recovery side? You know, we hear a lot about, well, we just need more treatment. We need more treatment. We need more treatment.
Well, we need a lot of prevention.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: And so the ROI on prevention is a lot better than it is on treatment.
So the importance of, of prevention and getting the community to see.
No, we can prevent a lot of this.
That's one of the reasons we're doing a middle summit for middle school kids.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Because you mentioned you started at 13.
That's when something's missing in a kid and they start self medicating.
And so the more we know about ACEs, Adverse Childhood Experiences in brain science, we can stop it just like we can start stop heart disease in those kind of things.
So just with the relationship between the prevention and recovery world, one Is.
I know a lot of times when we're invited to youth group or something like that, when we're talking about prevention, they see people in their lives that could probably use recovery.
And so it's mixing that message of. Between the two, of prevention and recovery.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think I love what you're doing here, and I love the name. Just say something. Because that's such a powerful thing, is just start talking about it.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: I mean, that's the biggest thing is that so many families that I've come into contact with, they want to sweep things under the rug. They don't want the other families in their neighborhoods here. They don't want the families in their church to hear. They want the families to. That they're worth to hear.
[00:10:27] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: And we have to get over that.
[00:10:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: First and foremost, we have to get.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Over that and just say, say something.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Reduce that stigma, Start talking about it with others.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: So I think that. And then starting to look at the bigger picture of, you know, the problem's not what's in the bottle, whether it's a pill bottle or an alcohol bottle. The problem is because something was missing me as a child, and I had to go back and address that, figure it out. And then instead of numbing out, Right. Drugs and alcohol and running from my emotions, I had to run through it and face it and then figure out healthier outlets.
[00:11:08] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: Today I still have. It's very much an addictive personality. It just comes out in much healthier ways with. With work, with pickleball, with. Working out with. I get a little obsessive about diets at times, and so I just make sure I'm channeling that Right. Toward a healthier goal.
[00:11:28] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: And that. That. That's great advice for everybody.
Yeah. I find, you know, I always say I was the. The best shape of my life when I was 50.
I'm not 50 anymore, and I'm not in very good shape. But I've. I realized, you know, we all make choices. And so there's some choices that I could make not to eat that bag of popcorn or, you know, just things that I shouldn't do.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: We all have those things, but at least it's not.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: That is. It used to be for me today.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: And that's great. That's great. And we celebrate that for you and with you.
So for someone who is listening and they may be struggling themselves, what advice would you have for them.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: To give up the fight, start talking about it? I mean, I think, you know, you have that gut feeling that something's off, that you're struggling.
And I think it's easy to feel like you're going to be judged, that people may not look at you the same.
And that may be true in some cases. I don't want to discount that. Like, but what I learned is that if, you know, the people don't accept me for who I am and what I'm trying to do to better my life, better myself, then I probably don't need them in my life anyway.
So, you know, when I chose to change my life and get sober, I didn't go back and hang out with the same friends that I used to hang out with, and I had them kick me to the curb. And, you know, I had to learn to accept that.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: That. Yeah, that's okay.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: It is. That is totally okay.
[00:13:12] Speaker C: Right, Right.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: I had a mentor tell me one time as I was like, just crossing that bridge from, from life of drugs and alcohol to getting sober. He said, david, you're a sick man and you're attracting a lot of sick people into your life. And he said, let's get you healthy.
And the quality of people are going to change that come around you. You're going to attract healthier people.
And it was hard to wrap my head around that in the beginning.
You know, I just had to trust other people, that they were directing me in a good, good place.
That rang so true. Like, I'm so glad that I chose to stick it out and follow that advice.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: That's great. That's great. And I think it's great that you and your partners took this on to say, this is what we need to provide to the community so we can prevent others from falling into the same traps that we did and to provide that opportunity for them, for their recovery, as unique as that is. So if someone needed to get in touch with you, where would they. How would they do that?
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Greenville transitions.com or greenville transitionsrecoverycenter.com they could find me on either of those websites or any social media platform.
Greenville Transitions.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: All right, is there anything else? Is there one thing that I didn't ask you or one thing that you would really, really like our listening audience to know about, about Greenville Transitions?
[00:14:50] Speaker B: You know, I just think that one thing I'm seeing a lot of right now with the young people that come through our program is a lack of pride and a lack of self esteem when they were beaten down, broken, whether it's depression, anxiety, panic attacks, trauma, whatever's got them to that place.
And you Know, at Greenville Transitions, we try to focus on a longer term recovery plan because it doesn't happen in 30 days. Days. It doesn't happen in 60 days. Especially for the younger man whose brain doesn't even fully develop until 25 years old on average. And that's without drugs and alcohol.
[00:15:31] Speaker C: Right, Right.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Throw that in the mix. Now what are we talking about?
And how long does it take for the brain to rewire its pathways and heal itself?
So where we're trying to like jump outside of the box is look at the problem as a whole. It's not just substance use disorder. Let's focus on not just the individual, but the family. Let's focus on not just the drugs, but the sleep and their diet and their exercise and their community, their friend group.
And then the time frame, because it takes time. And I'm circling back to the lack of pride and self esteem, but it takes time.
I call it a pride tank.
It takes time to fill that back up.
[00:16:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: To experience some wins within your recovery journey, whether it's getting back in some healthier relationships, getting a good job and getting your first paycheck and making your first rent payment. You know, those types of things, as dreadful as they may sound at times, like, I have to pay rent.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: But it makes you, it gives you a sense of pride, a sense of accomplishment. And that's what we have to build back up in these young men to, to create success. You know, you have to get them to a place in life where they feel so good about their recovery journey and the wins that they've had within that journey that the thought of turning back to drugs and alcohol is like blasphemous. Like.
[00:16:50] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Why on earth would I want to go back to that?
And that's a longer term game. Yeah, it's not going to be that 30 or 60 day mark.
[00:16:59] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: There's just, there's so much to unpack with that and with what you're doing.
And I guess one of the things that I'll say in closing is it's also a community problem that the community, that community isn't wanting to address.
And we could go so much deeper into that that. That would be a completely different podcast. But it's a community conversation that needs to happen.
And so I want to thank you for being here with us today, sharing about your organization's Greenville Transitions.
How are you funded? Or what does that, what does that look like if people want to come to check you out?
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah, we're a for profit business, so private pay or we work with insurance. However, we are out of network.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: Network.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: But we can bill out of network insurance.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:07] Speaker C: All right.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: But unfortunately to get that longer term care, you know, we weren't able to do an in network.
[00:18:13] Speaker C: Right, right.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: That like seven to nine month care.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Knowing that that's what a lot of, a lot of individuals need. But providing that aftercare, I guess of providing that additional support is very, very important. And again, it's a community issue that I wish this community would, would face.
And then.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Oh, one more thing. Okay, so I have a podcast called Clean Breakthrough.
[00:18:41] Speaker C: Oh great.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Like all social media platforms, YouTube, tick tock. And that's like just a free educational resource. A lot of it is myself the other owners.
One is a clinician, licensed addiction counselor. So it's us talking about our personal journeys not only with recovery, but working in the field that a lot of families find helpful.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Okay, that's a great resource. So thank you for adding that. And we'll add that when on our social media when we release this particular podcast to help drive more people to that. So our families need more resources. They need to know that there, there is help out there for them and they're not alone.
So David, I want to thank you, David McNeese from Greenville Transitions Recovery center with being with us today.
And we appreciate it. And so this is again, Philip Clark with Just say Something podcast. Remember to like subscribe and share and we will see you next week. Sat.
