Angie Manson, Elevate Addiction Services: Addiction recovery, empowerment, and replacing bad habits with healthy ones

foreign podcast we have NG Mason Manson that is with us I was near um nice to have you on I was about to make a joke about Charles Manson but you don't make those nowadays um no you can and because I always have to say I am not related because nobody likes that last name and everybody mispronounces my last name because nobody likes it yeah there you

go uh okay so that's out the way and yeah just another parenthesis that Charles Manson's pretty obvious because my name is Charles and yours is Mansion so my brain is like unites both um but yeah that side Angie is a pretty fascinating uh person we're gonna talk about Fitness uh recovery addiction and yeah Elevate Addiction Services which is Angie's company this podcast about to buy pot buyer.com

if you want to start scale be invited to a pod or even find sponsors podcasts are amazing really glad I have NG in front of me today and that's because of one reason podcasts pot com Angie can you give us a bit uh more information about yourself and about Elevate Addiction Services so the shortened version is I own and operate a residential treatment program drug and alcohol

treatment program in Northern California I have a couple different locations in Santa Cruz and South Lake Tahoe we also have a virtual outpatient and it is a completely different kind of program that focuses on Health Nutrition accountability mindfulness we are not aarn a we're about empowerment and overcoming your addiction not having a disease for the rest your life that you are chained to so we are all

about giving the person lots of tools to handle their traumas which put them on their path but then also tools to overcome so that they can go on and leave normal productive lives after addiction really love the cause and any human on this planet Earth can relate to addiction we're all very much susceptible or all of our brains operates on pretty much the same biochemistry cocktail endorphins

serotonin especially and oxytocin and so forth so we're all susceptible to those in my case I was first addicted to video games and it was born um I had my phase of partying in life I wouldn't call myself an alcoholic but I definitely have that in my Irish family and I could have fallen into that and yeah it's like trying to alleviate your pain right and trying

to find a meaning in your life nowadays my addictions entrepreneurship um and having these fun conversations so tell me about yourself how about how did you get into that and why did you decided to specifically start a company in that area so I um was getting in trouble at a very young age I started drinking and smoking at like 11 and so by the time I was

21 I got myself in a lot of trouble and I was facing 10 years in prison and I was fortunate enough to have a judge who gave me drug diversion so I was able to go to a program which I was sentenced to for a year which is difficult to find most programs are not that long so after staying there for a few months I started working there I started being the right hand man of the executive director and I learned every position within that organization and after a year the judge was like this is awesome but you still have two more years of Probation and you still have fourteen thousand dollars of restitution you owe so I stayed put and I kept doing what I was doing and at the end of the three

years the judge was so pleased with finally seeing a success in his courtroom because he doesn't get to see that very often but also to see me grow and change as a person and become like a very responsible knowledgeable adult that was giving back and so he at the end of it took away the felonies the restitutions he completely cleaned my sleigh let me have a new

lease on life and I just continued to stay there and I ran I ended up taking over that company and ran it as a non-profit for 20 years and then about eight years ago we transitioned away from that program created my own program which is called Elevate Addiction Services and I've been ceoing that for the last eight years so all in all this is all I've not

all I've ever known but I've been doing this for about 29 years now very inspiring story and I had my dealings with the legal system as well so been there and done that and understand that part of yours and made me a bit sad to hear that you were one of probably if we would have to spot statistics there it's probably three percent of the success case

uh that they have in the legal system like doesn't that ring a bell in society of how we should deal with folks me um I just consider folks that break the law folks that need more attention or energy um more love kind of I think that's how we would fix it not necessarily by punishing people that the equation is quite simple right if you watch Parent educate

their children's some of them get terrible appearance that spend zero time with them then some of them get raped some of them get bullied and as a result there's a hole left in their heart so then they try to fill it with something thing um me with crime it was very thrilling crime you know steal stuff um enter buildings that I shouldn't enter vandalism I've done it

all you know and not sit and my parents were terrible they were really good parents actually and that's me it was mostly jeans I think um more on that later but I think we should just give these folks more of our time energy resources I mean I'm 100 willing to do that as well to give back to society what do you think about that I agree uh but I also think they got to meet you you know halfway some people don't necessarily want to change they just look at it as like damn I got busted I can't wait to get back to it and there's also a conditioning where it becomes a lifestyle but if somebody wants a change and they're willing to change absolutely I think that should be the path that we give

them um because and I think this has lightened up since like I I first went you know like I said almost 30 years ago I think there's been a lot of decriminalization of drugs and alcohol which I think is really good but I don't think in its place that they've offered a whole lot of Alternatives like for example like my programs not funded by the government or

the state or anything else even though there's tons of money there but to be able to um apply for that or get the money for that there's just so many strict standards and you have to take everything and you got you know medicate everybody like that's like the new Norm is just put everybody on a bunch of medications take them off whatever they're on and put them

on like all these prescription drugs now we call them sober now we call them uh you know rehabilitated but in reality they're just switching addictions and and that is their solution for people who need and want help which kind of sucks because it's just more of the same yeah better zombies I would call it that way do you think we should legal legalize Coke because here in

Mexico there's still this uh no cold war going on at the border and I think it would almost instantly fix it obviously it's way more complex than that but would you be uh for that for cocaine yeah I don't know that one you know it can really you know alter alter your mind and create aggression and it's so addictive you know you could do a line and then two seconds later you want another one and I think that's where the crime starts to come from is like people trying to support that kind of addiction so that's one of the drugs that I don't know that it would solve a lot of problems I get it would handle the crime aspect and all that but then they'll just come up with a new one like you

know we have fentanyl in place right now or all these other ones that they're they're sliding in there so it's like we could legalize it but then there'll be five behind it that aren't but people do do Coke not to get aggressive they do it to you know chill and feel very powerful I guess is the main effect maybe the aggression even comes from all the [

__ ] that they put in it um yeah anyway I think yeah I think it and I'd rather see angry people than you know like people dying on a daily basis and just uh Trump investing in building walls you know and stuff like that um but it's it's a very complex one indeed I want to talk about uh addiction itself like what type of clients are you seeing because if it's not government sponsors I'm guessing you're not seeing too much crackheads or junkies because they just don't have the money or the Consciousness to go to you so like no I do I mean there's still families that want to help them they're still um you know insurance that we take Blue Cross different things like that if they have insurance which was mandated many years

ago so we still do get you know your your junkies and your your crack addicts but I would say like the biggest thing that we've seen has been especially since the pandemic is alcohol has made the biggest rise so 69 percent of our our demographic right now is there because of alcohol so that's pretty big when you consider everything else combined is only 31 and that includes

like prescriptions and cocaine and wheat and all that other stuff combined only 31 and alcohol being the big uh big one at 69 it's really dangerous and people are drinking to such extremes uh the physical mental uh damage that is doing you know medically induced Comas just to get people you know detox safely like it's pretty bad but it's the silent killer that nobody's talking about because

it was considered essential and um a lot of people that were stuck at home and started drinking as a means of coping they were unable to just stop when the pandemic ended it's like now they have that addiction to alcohol I mean you can literally just sit at home and and doordash yourself alcohol you don't even have to leave the house anymore so they've made it so

accessible that that that's for sure our biggest kill or our biggest demographic yeah that's a sad sad Vision right there if someone solo drinking I watched a movie was it Revenant and he comes back from the army with PTSD and you guys have a lot of that in the US and yeah he just drinks himself and falls on the floor of his garage he has a garage business and he wakes up the next you know um and I guess that has happened to a lot of folks me personally I started drinking I think at 13 or 14 and I blacked out probably it's like 150 times before the age of 18 so it was pretty bad that I wasn't addicted to it but it was like a competition and talking about aggression well a lot

of people get quite aggressive on alcohol I certainly did uh it's like this overconfidence right like a testosterone um yeah so yeah very pernicious also the Irish in you right like that aren't they known for drinking and fighting that's just kind of part of the culture yeah very Conor mcgregory um yeah but yeah it's also like fun and fun and loving people and that's yeah and it's

funny right because I think that the human is is made to consume quote-unquote drugs you and I talk about coffee before this uh this interview and yeah that's the drug that's my drug of choice nowadays caffeine you know and it's the drug of choice of probably 50 of folks that are on this rotating planet is like okay the the the point now this is not to have

fun and party anymore is just to have this caffeine hopefully get a bit of Serotonin from it and also and be caffeine depth so they can be more productive that's the shifts that I that happen in my life I think I replaced alcohol with with caffeine but coming back to covid yeah very sad lots of isolation and what is sadder than drinking yourself to to sleep you

know um okay so alcohol we have a crack in there and crack cocaine and uh yeah weed is also another one we could talk about but one that is really product buying to me well I I want to talk about two of them uh and they're to they're interrelated the first one is video games uh it's kind of very light and not so harming but in my opinion can condition the brain to to go from that to porn usually and then from porn it can get to like higher stuff both both things you seem harmless but what are your thoughts on these two addictions I I agree I mean I think when you when they start becoming like a crutch or an escapism that's when it's a problem and I think both of them are

creating an alter reality that real reality can't compare to and so like to have a normal relationship after you've been addicted to porn learn like that partner might not stack up because they've gotten to such an extreme of what the person needs or wants to see just to get that excitement and so I think for those reasons for sure they can be harmful obviously developing Minds with

kids with the video games it's not good you know I used to my son loved him and I would call him gamehead he would just be like there for so many hours and you try to have a conversation it was like I could just get like grunts out of him like like there was no interaction it made it very okay for him to just sort of be there and be by himself and I think it just ruins like human connection where we get so much out of because it becomes like a solo World much like you said with addiction with alcohol and drugs it just becomes like a very cut off from reality in everybody else kind of situation that's difficult to get out of so here goes the moment where I asked parenting tips

because I'm about to have mine in less than two years with wifey um what do you do you know like should I put a screen in front of his face should it be like a quiz a Sudoku should it be like a chaji PT in which they learn something and ask questions like what should I do there I don't know it's a whole different world than when my kids were young I mean I would definitely limit screen time I know like what I've seen especially in recent times I did not I worked so much that I allowed the screen to sort of be the babysitter for me um but I know what I've seen in my opinion what a successful parenting is limiting screen time and being aware like the kids like like let's just

say with the iPad like it is so intuitive that kids can get on YouTube they can get into trouble with you know pulling up videos or Snapchats or things like that like we highly aware of what your kid is being exposed to because if you're not educating them then that's where they're getting the majority of their information which could be really you know who knows what's feeding

those brains so I would be like overly um into whatever if you are allowing them to have screen time what it is and then have it be a benefit and if their grade slip or they're you know not doing their tours or they're not doing uh school I would limit that or cut that out and after to earn it back and then you know it's moderation again all right thank you for that gonna be mindful of our time here gonna invite you for round two also to discuss about health and all that but I want to ask a question that has to do directly with uh addiction and Recovery I often picture the Batman black hole do you know about the the prison that's underground and Batman trying to get out of it but obviously

Batman had the will to get out of this prison and try to jump even that if that meant risking his life a lot of people we started this podcast they don't have the desire to change um my question to you is when does a person reach that black hole and do not have escape velocity anymore and is it possible to help them out of that black hole absolutely like for me it took being you know when I was young I was 21.

I was like dude I'm just starting but I was threatened with 10 10 years in prison that was enough for me to say I will you're right this is a much better choice for me so a lot of times it takes you know an ultimatum from a family member cut off from seeing people finances losing their job you know there's usually some Catalyst that that precipitates the

need and want for change you know we utilize intervention a lot when the family's ready but the person is not we'll utilize interventionists to sort of get that person there so that they at least walk in the door and then once you know they're there and they start going through the steps we if they can meet us halfway we will help them all the way across the

finish line and sometimes it takes a while for them to see that there is another way out and they want that and do you think that I'm a huge believer in mindset hacks I think it's somewhat easy but it's easy for me because I can almost create brain cells on command I've conditioned my brain to be super adaptable and create these mindsets blogs just like Lego blocks

on demand I think it's harder for people but do you think it would help them to think in terms of experimentations instead of you tried you fail your failure because that's the the mindset that this educational system teaches us is like oh you got a bad grade you're you're not worth any love or so do you think that just teaching them that oh if they come in

the program but that's that's a trick here we don't we want them to go all in but if they fail if they relapse uh they can try again and again and again until they succeed do you think that will help I think it definitely helps but I think you're right A lot of people don't necessarily want it because they think there's one way you know it's like this specific thing like I I brought up A and N A so a lot of people don't want help because they fail multiple times with that methodology not realizing there's other Alternatives out there so you know the fact that they keep trying over and over again tells you that they want help maybe they just haven't found the right help for them and that's why they're sort of

hopeless and have given up I had frustrations uh today and yesterday about an employee and not being able to change that person and it's to me I've gave up on the feeling of of trying to think that I'm a hero that I'm being able to change people how do you detach yourself from that while caring enough and having enough empathy for the person for them to succeed

oh that's that's a tricky one because you have to care enough to want to help them even though they don't want the help but you can't care more than they do because then you're it's like trying to save a drowning man right you're going to end up drowning trying to save somebody who doesn't want to be saved so it's a very tricky uh situation to be in

but again you know if you love and care about this person if you see an inkling of them wanting to change or wanting help you know some as long as someone's wanting help I'll keep trying to help them but um not at the at the sake of myself or my business think success stories may help right like if someone goes to your program and is like yo this changed my life and you bring that person on board on the team to to deal with folks that and especially if the wound is really fresh there's also always the risk that they might relapse and so that's like the dichotomy right but do you do some of that yeah so and I have almost 100 employees and I would say 95 of them have all been through

the program um we have a training program so after they graduate and they think they want to join staff we have a 90-day sort of training period to see if they're good for fit for us if we're a good fit for them we give them tools and things like that so um but you're right like that is what our clients respond to is like oh you've been there you understand you're like me it's not somebody who got their education and degree in school and has zero understanding of how it actually works from having been there themselves so that's kind of like my secret sauce is that the majority of my staff have all been through the program and overcome their own addictions so I switched to caffeine as a drug I switched to endorphins with

sports just like you I switched entrepreneurship I switched to mindfulness as uh drugs of choice for my brain do you feel that some of these folks could switch to that I we often hear about cigarettes and coffee for folks in real life but do you think that can be a viable switch a scalable switch absolutely that's that's my whole goal so you know replace the old habits

with healthy good habits so the day they enter our program they start doing mindfulness they do it every day they're there as soon as they come in the door we have them walking and then as soon as they're done with detox they're doing CrossFit you know my goal there too is to replace you know the old habit of using and learn how exercise can create those same

sort of endorphins and feel good like I would much rather somebody was addicted to exercise um than drugs so I absolutely think there's benefit and when you take something away you've got to kind of fill that vacuum where else nature and life will naturally fill it with something maybe not as good so I'm all about refilling all those old habits with healthy new habits okay last question

for you and we're going to do a round two because yeah I have a bunch still but how do you deal with the drama which drama from the client yeah I mean that answers the question it's like yo that's not even drama anymore I've dealt with so much of it but to me and an outsider you must have a lot of drama in that business of people doing crazy [ __ ] on while on the program we do I mean for example yesterday one of our our clients had gotten an altercation with another client and um it was severe enough that one of them we had to suspend and the other one we did what we call a work project where it's like you pull them off of their program now let's do some like

is this going to benefit you in life let's do some study let's do some amends because your actions kind of hurt the group so we're going to give you an ability to sort of make that up to the group and you know I don't want to say like you're in a Timeout but you're going to think about your actions before we allow you to continue on your program so that when you get hit with this stuff out in life you don't completely derail like you learn tools of how to better handle those situations so we have all kinds of tools of how we handle the clients how we handle our staff how we handle our trainees when those situations come up because it's just life it's going to happen you know but also like you

said mindfulness were you being mindful in that moment or were you being reactionary let's think about that did you find your breath did you get through the trigger or did you just respond to that person and so sometimes I think it's a blessing when that stuff comes up when they're in the program because then they're better equipped when they go out into the world for when the

world hits them in the face if someone ran a perfectly good program with no hiccups and no problems and everything was great they're kind of liking this beautiful little bubble and Community they're not as prepared for life and the real world when they leave let's keep it to that uh thank you so much for these insights and you work and people find out more about you uh

so you can find me on my Instagram it's Angie going rogue and if you need help our well our website is elevatorehab.org there's 24 7 help there with the chat assistant 800 number all about my program how to reach us how to reach me very responsive if you need help this is the place even if we're not the right fit for you we will find the